@Caldero I dont agree that Im focusing on the victory, rather than how it is played. If you struggle through a text, something external to you, and come to grips with its contents... How is this not the same as saying that you required the text? Could I not say then that "You didnt have what it takes to organically arrive at the information, or perhaps you did, but chose the shortcut"

You argue that it takes no skill to take a drug. I argue that navigating psychedelia is a skill in and of itself. Take mushrooms to the point where you are no longer blown away by the experience itself. Many are able to have some cute experiences their first times because everything is so new, bright, colourful and "woah trippy man" that people dont delve much deeper into the experience. Those that dont know how are going to become lost when their inner mental processes are personified before them. When the novelty wears off, many stop their psychedelic use because it gets too real, too scary for them.

The mushroom experience typically plays out like such for me: If I lay down and close my eyes I will begin to feel as though I am on a conveyor belt. I know what is to come and I must prepare myself. To resist in any way will make it all worse. The saws are going to begin tearing into my flesh. Strangely enough, the pain is equalled by ecstasy only if I can face the saws bravely. If I am afraid, If I resist what is to come... its pain, its madness. As I am carried further the teeth if the blades grow finer and finer until I am being dissected on a quantum level. Once I am atomized to my finest particulate state, If I am still brave in the face of this disintegration, I am rewarded with a glimpse of what I could only describe as pure consciousness. the within and the without flow seamlessly into one another.

I dont take psychedelics much anymore because its always the same. Im not sure what else I could get out of the experience. I know many who have stopped far short of acchieving the states that I have. I've read reports of those who claim to have gone further and many of them seem mad/insane to me.

@Caldero Not every idiot can simply do drugs. I found that out in my teenage years introducing friends to mushrooms. Anyone can take a dose of some psychedelic and, yes, they are gauranteed an experience. But we have to differentiate qualitatively between levels of experience. The same way that sitting through a class reading of shakespeare in highschool ranges from godawful, to legitimately engaging depending on the student you're hearing.

You have to put in the groundwork. I got into esotericism, occultism, meditation and eventually psychedelics. This progression took place from the ages of 9 to about 14. Im not going to make a case that my early psychedelic use was properly initiatory, but I am going to make the case that I, as a user, relative to the people I had introduced psychedelics to, was in a much better position to benefit from them because of my preparatory work