LSD Trip and Ego Death
This changed my life.
Existence can be overwhelming, don't you think?
You're born into this world with no instruction manual, and you're expected to just figure it all out. And, weirdly enough, other animals seem to act on their instincts while humans have to constantly second-guess themselves.
You can blame your "ego” for all this!
The ego actually gets in the way of your true self-interest by convincing you that what's best for you is to maintain the status quo. The ego is a mask you show society, and it is mainly concerned with your spot in the social hierarchy.
The ego is ravenous and unquenchable, and as long as it's in control, you will never be satisfied or at peace. Your ego isn't you!
So, what if there were a way to kill the ego? To put it out of its misery and free yourself from its never-ending torment? Well, there is, it's called ego death and I think everyone should experience it at least once.
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” ― Dr. Johnson
My LSD Experience
I tried LSD for the first time at 20.
I had a 150ug tab, and after about 30 minutes I started to feel it come on.
Nothing interesting or important happened. I poured some sand all over myself at the beach and saw the sky as a Led Zeppelin album cover. Acid was fun but it wasn't the sort of enlightenment I had sought.
I didn't trip again until years later after I heard American philosopher Sam Harris say something along the lines of "If my daughter doesn't try LSD, I'll believe she missed one of the most important experiences a human can have."
I decided he was right, and I took two 150ug tabs.
This time, things changed. I realized acid puts you into an intense state of mind where all your normal defenses are down, and if you're not careful, it can be a very scary experience. It gives you perspective. It's like a mental reset button. I felt like this small little tab could change the minds of entire nations if more people took it. The president should take it before he swears in. It should be given to those suffering from PTSD.
The possibilities were endless.
I wasn't disillusioned thinking that LSD would instantly change the world if legalized. But, I don't know, I did come away thinking that Sam Harris was right.
If you didn't try psychedelics you were missing out on something profound.
Ego Death
It's 2022.
We don't have any of the things we were promised.
Science has become a religion, as Friedrich Nietzsche and many others warned.
How many of you would go to Mars if you could, just as everyone did to North America in the 16th-19th centuries? They were also destitute back then, but they had somewhere to go and we don't. All we have left is the mind, and we are struggling to conquer it.
I never got the ego death I wanted from taking LSD. Just new perspectives and a sense of childlike wonderment. But I did get close enough by taking edible marijuana.
This article is beginning to sound like a Joe Rogan podcast. But if you want to know how to die without dying, then this is it:
When you take a break from marijuana it can have profound psychedelic effects. The issue is that many people who smoke weed do it too often to realize this. Pharmacognosist and researcher Dennis McKenna pointed this out to Joe Rogan on his podcast, ironically enough.
Edible marijuana is especially stronger due to the fact that it is metabolized in the liver, which turns THC into a more potent form called 11-hydroxy-THC.
Marijuana, McKenna says, could be used to treat mental illness and maybe even reach a state of ego death. But it is, unfortunately, still illegal in most of the world or abused by potheads. If taken properly, marijuana, especially edible marijuana, can have some profound effects.
The Future of Psychedelics
Maybe we shouldn't be chasing ego death.
Maybe it happens naturally—if it's supposed to happen at all. What I wanted in taking psychedelics was a change in my perspective, and that's what I got.
It changed me. And maybe this is why psychedelics have always been deemed "harmful" by society. Maybe critically thinking is always frowned upon by the elites.
There's a great book I want to read called "The Immortality Key" where the author talks about how even the Ancient Greek philosophers would take psychedelics behind the scenes to change their perspectives and come up with new ideas.
I'll leave you with this: More than 1 billion people are affected by stress-related mental illnesses like anxiety, depression, addiction, and PTSD. Science shows that anti-depressants don’t work. They have a 50% failure rate. That’s an F. On the other hand, psychedelic drugs are much more effective.
A 2016 study on the use of psychedelic drugs by terminally ill patients showed that 80% experienced reduced depression and anxiety.
Another 2016 study on “treatment-resistant depression” reported that two-thirds of patients were in remission one week after their first psilocybin therapy session.
LSD isn't a panacea, but it's worth considering if you're feeling stuck in life or suffer from daily anxiety. It might just change your perspective.
Thanks for reading!
Great article, I was an Acid house DJ in the UK and gradually fell in to a normal grown up life, after a few unforeseen dramas and my 50th birthday approaching I thought, like you, it might be time for a reset. I went to a underground Ayahuasca retreat in the UK and it was everything you could imagine it to be, scary but probably the most insightful thing I have done. I witnessed a couple of very damaged people completely change for the better over the course of three days, it was remarkable to see that in real time. Apologies for the waffle but I always feel the need to preach slightly. The "The Immortality Key" is also great on Audible and read by the author I think . Kind regards
At risk of preaching, let me put this to you.
The ego death, a change of perspective, dying to yourself, so to speak, without actually dying is the core of the Gospel and has those effect through the experience of revelation and the subsequent life lived by those who believe it in a measurable way.
Read this carefully:
“This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: that ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
Ephesians 4:17-24 KJV
Respectfully, a trip does not result in an ego death, or putting off your old man and putting on the new, because it is the path of least resistance. Ego death is not contained in an experience to be had, over which you have little or no control, but in a disciplined life to be lived, wearing not the old man, or ego, but but the new man in the the likeness of Christ. I think you’re familiar with J.B Peterson’s work, so i’m sure the conceptualization of Christ as an ideal won’t be lost on you.
That, in politics, ended slavary, improved working conditions, produced equality before the law and institutions to maintain them all within the understanding that all men bear the divine image, where a ‘trip’ or the pseudo-religious meditative practices of Harris could not have possibly done so.
It’s also a well documented fact that church goers report much lower levels of depression and anxiety, recover from both much more quickly, commit suicide at much lower rates and report much greater levels of overall happiness or otherwise greater perseverance in suffering. That’s not nothing.
Sometimes when fishing for answers and coming up short, one must cast their net to the other side.
I hope this comment wasn’t an overstep.