This spawned from the Fly Agaric thread where people are talking a lot about preferring to 'get there' without the use of entheogens, and an undercurrent of 'entheogens create a spiritual experience' and 'I can /do it/ without entheogens' or whatever...

But what is the 'it' we're doing? Why meditate? Why take entheogens? Why dance in circles to trance music for four hours? What is this 'spiritual experience' it gives us?

From an animist perspective, everything is a spiritual experience. An acid trip is no more nor less spiritually valid than watching the sun set, it's just different. The act of being alive, of being born, of dying - all the greatest validation of spiritual, as well as physical, existence.

Chogyam Trungpa (Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism) would strongly warn against the idolisation of these 'higher states', chemical or otherwise. So what it it we're looking up to/for?

Is a spiritual experience having something we don't feel we already have? Peace, inner calm, visions, a slightly floaty feeling, seeing ghosts?

Is a spiritual experience (Fly Agaric post - Tas' essay) about touching something we can't control, or about feeling more in control?

What is a spiritual experience?

What is a Spiritual Experience? I can only truly answer for myself!
To me it could be many things, as you said, an uplifting experience, watching something in awe, some good sex, lots of things! As you say as Spritual Beings everything is a Spiritual Experience.
But for me personally, I define them as a merging of the Spirit World and the Mundane World, examples would be doing a meditation in which I vivited a Wood I knew well, and encountering a Stag there, then seeing its skull on the ground; then going there the next day and collecting the skull.
Or having a vision of a new Power Animal and then being presented out of the blue with a skin or something from that Animal.
Or a disembodied voice from outside of me telling me something important is going to happen and then it does.
An Out of Body Experience that saves your life, in my case twice.
Things like that, a nice Meditatation is also a Spiritual Experience, but it is generally more of an internal experience and remains that way.
So as I said, for me it needs to be born in the Spirit Realms, Perceived by Me and then Manifested in the Physical Realm.

I must be honest, this is most commonly without any form of Drug being involved. On the odd occassion I do use Hallucinagenic Drugs, it is usually more as a Spiritual Experiment, than as a part of my usual Practices.

Everything. At least for me. Spirituality, and the spiritual world permeates through everything. Even the most mundane experience can have associated spiritual lessons. Even the most mundane task can give you a spiritual awakening of sorts.

Even if its just that random thought you had whilst mowing the lawn.

Being Alive

Exactly!

Thats the lowest common denominator, right?

For me spiritual is the perception and understanding of what is around us on a tangible level to a certain extent but more on an untangible level, from the why of a bit of rock to experiencing the higher being and all the stuff in the middle. It is understanding what i am part of and how i am part of it and connecting with the unseen part. But it is a feeling and not something that can be expressed very easily. This will sound very presumptuous but I had three of the deepest possible (for me) unsought and unexpected spiritual experiences. The word that best describes it is 'touched' (maybe that includes the negative connotations too ). Nothing i have learned, heard, read or experienced since has changed that in the slightest. It may be false or manufactured in my mind or real but it matters not, I have no doubts or even really any desire to expand on what i know on a spiritual level. It fulfills all my needs and though it is not always foremost in my mind it wraps me in a warm embrace. I don't though feel that the spiritual is anything different frmo the natural just perhaps on a higher plane and i can't separate the two.
Spiritual is like my mother. I know my mother exists but i don't need to get to see her atoms or know how she interacts with her environment or what she thinks to know and belive she exists.
Questions come from the manifiestation of the spiritual, something i am curious about (hence my presence on this forum) but not overly concerned with.
MNot a perfrect explanation and unfinished but the babay has just woken up.

Spirituality? I think spirituality is the idea that you have gotten in touch or an understanding with those things that are not automatically seen with conscious thought. The higher self. For most people to do this requires some sort of intense focus, whether it is in a ritual, dancing yourself into a trance or simply taking a long walk in the wood and get lost (mentally). Practiced long enough, and you will soon reach your higher self with a greater understanding of yourself. It's a lot like dreaming. Dreams IMHO, are messages and once you open yourself up to the divine within us or our higher selves, there is an automatic calmness, at least in my experience.

I don't like the use of drugs, except maybe reefer as you can't tell whether the experience is natual or drug induced.

I pour a combination of campher, eucaliptus, melissa and lavender into a hot bath surrounded by tea lights and just completly relax and meditate for a short while. The elixor also relaxes the muscles.

Of course, need to watch myself as I nearly fell asleep the last time I did this.

Gitche-Manitou.

Being alive... hmm, yeah... disingenuous, I'd say.

In Buddhist meditation, you meditate to clear your mind of external influences. In Pagan meditation, it's the other way. You meditate to observe the external influences. It's hard work. Drugs don't help.

hmm.....the living thing within us all and the living things that are around us, spiritual is about knowing it in the mundane things that we do. Existing is spiritual, existing is practical so spiritual is practical too...(sorry If I am rambling but I am on some very strong painkillers atm and they are making me a bit wappy).

i don't think its about ritual or spells or stuff like that like you see on buffy and stuff like that, cos i think thats a load of bunk. or really anything to do with gods and stuff (although that might not be the case for others).

its more than just a state of being,its a state of doing too, cos we're alive and we survive (or not). it threads thru everything. sometimes i don't think there really is a division between mundane and magical, and that its all one all wrapped up together interconnected and twined round each other to make a whole thing, a living thing eg me or you or a fish or a lump of rock or anything.

wooooo...am I trippy today.

fizz

Couldn't put it better myself. It's what brings most joy to my life. I don't use any drugs that aren't prescribed by a doctor (and then I have to be dragged kicking and screaming) including alcohol, nicotine and caffeine. I just felt it made me not myself if that makes any sense. I find the most spiritual of experiences are when I have brought a positive change in some way - making a beautiful piece of needlework from cloth and threads, cleaning and ordering an untidy room, cooking a big meal for my family from raw ingredients, making music. That kind of thing.

I think there is definitely something in that-some of the most mundane tasks can lead to that meditative state where things suddenly seem clearer. I did a very boring temp jobs once where I had to input car number plates into a database all day, every day for 3 weeks. It was boring but also gave me time to contemplate and gain insights.

I often get communication when I'm staring out the window on the train or sitting at my computer.

Too many things, in too many different circumstances, for too many different people to answer.

Everything - from our first breath to our last, and beyond. The assurance there is a "beyond" - both in this life, and outwith it, during our lifespan, and after pasing.

A butterfly, a baby's breath, an eyelash.
Even the supposedly revolting things - corruption has a certain beauty, if one is willing to see it.

And ever the wheel turns.

Yes, Tas, that reminds me of a story about Rudoph Steiner, the mystic I used to follow. He was out and about with some followers, when they found the rotting corpse of a dog. His friends, understandably, went 'Eurggh!', and he, just to show them, said, 'Look what beautiful teeth the animal has!'

Everything has a beauty - even if it isn't necessarily the aesthetic beauty and we don't always see it.

Julai - look! What beatiful creatures are emerging from its putrefaction!


The colours on a bluebottle's wing are truly octarine.
I rest my case.


PS to Julai:

THINAIR: GREAT question! I wouldn't have a clue.

For me it's about understanding (or trying to understand) the deeper realities that exist and the connections between things. It's about walking the worlds and walking between the worlds.

GYPSIMOON: Your's is very close to my sense of "spirituality" - "higher self, the divine within us".

The last "spiritual experience" I had was touring through Frank Lloyd Wright's "Fallingwater". Awestruck! And I'd previously seen other homes he'd designed and built.

PPP I envy you! That place isn't just close to a spiritual creation - it borders on the sublime. I watched a programme years ago which showed it throughout the changing seasons - incredible.

And for anyone who hasn't yet seen this truly awe inspiring design,

http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=...F-8&sa=N&tab=wi

enjoy!

I saw this house on a programme once. Have to admit it didn't do a thing for me.

TAS: "Fallingwater" has been in my home for decades, in posters and books. But we toured it for the first time late last year. I've never been gobsmacked for 4-5 straight hours. As a result of the tour, I'll have a second architect in the extended family. So I guess it struck him even more deeply.

W: Sorry, but no poster, book, or programme has ever done Fallingwater justice. First, one needs to apppreciate the miles of surrounding hills/mountains, then the arduous approach, then the woods, steep terrain, and the upper & lower stream. The home exterior is a mere one step of human design beyond Nature. Every square foot of the interior surfaces are 100% unique, complimentary, and pointing one's eyes OUTdoors! I wouldn't even attempt to describe the millions of details, again all original. Anyhow, to each his own! But we just ordered a lamp a la FLR's Mission style.

"FLW's", of course.

That no poster or programme can do justice to a place is very true. However generally I don't connect to buildings in any deep or spiritual way. It's nature, specially wild places, that float my boat.

Couldn't put it better than this. That's how I see it exactly.

WULFRIC: I'm with you! Wild nature - I've spent much of my life walking the hills and mountains. To me, that's the primary thing about Fallingwater - the home was designed as a minimum intrusion upon Nature, a maximal complement to the immediate surroundings, and a practical co-existence with Nature (uses of the stream water, etc.). The interior was designed to fit the natures of the individual family members. The interior also includes several natural rock outcroppings even with flowing springs - just included in the design rather than dynamited away.