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Comment by peteradio | Hacker News Reader

I would love to read some fiction where a study such as this leads to discovery that people are encountering the same concrete entity(ies).

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The Phillip K Dick Novel, "The Unteleported Man" explores a similar theme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unteleported_Man Been a very long time since I read it, but I believe the gist was that two people experiencing the same hallucinations somehow confirms the hallucinations.

Catholics identify the 'machine elves' as demons

Anyone who’s adequately informed about spiritual matters is able to identify “machine elves” as demons who still seek to rule humans as in times past and desperately try to hide their identity. I’ve heard they get extremely angry and transform into malicious monsters if you interrogate them about the truth of Jesus Christ. Doing that will guarantee a bad experience. People shouldn’t be doing drugs anyways.

From personal experience (which I am by no means alone in) you can absolutely have a 'good trip' while contemplating Jesus Christ or other aspects of Christianity, and believing fully in it all. I am quite certain both good and bad drug experiences have driven people to that religion, and many others.

To be honest, this sounds like some b.s. my mother picked up from 'Christian' radio (i.e. GOP propaganda meets X-files) and terrorized the kids with. There was a book called the beautiful side of evil that informed a lot of the kind of thinking you describe, and it is 100% purely anecdotal assertions from one person with extreme views. If you look across the spectrum at more individuals, those assertions fall apart pretty quick.

The precondition is full sincerity and desire to know the truth. It’s a deeply personal commitment that can’t be argued in the hypothetical/abstract. Either you go all in or you don’t, and nobody else will know but you. I’m just the messenger.

> The precondition is full sincerity and desire to know the truth.

Believe me when I say I had both of these, and applied them earnestly in fervent & frequent prayer, study and self-denial for years. What did it get me? A whole lot of disappointment and confusion. The scientific world view has not brought me anywhere near the false happiness of believing I could become a blissful immortal, but it has at least given me firm ground to stand on, and to have rock-solid reasons for what I can still appreciate.

I'm glad for anyone who can experience a happy daily life in a religious worldview, but having the prideful audacity to claim that it is equally available to everyone (and by implication, that anyone who doesn't have the same response is a liar) is either dangerously ignorant or outright evil. I have known your kind before, because I was one. Think about it.

Thanks for sharing. One thing I differ from a lot of people on is the idea that faith cannot be evidence-based. Many people of “faith” fake it because they so desire what they do not have. On the contrary, evidence is required for faith. If a lack of correct evidence has led you to a different worldview I won’t argue with that. Surely I’ve been slammed with ugly disappointments as well. But consider what a God worth knowing would do. Among the many things we can come up with, at least one is that he would do what we could not do. Certainly evidence is not out of scope for a God worth knowing, but it may not come in the form we expect. So I don’t argue for you to accept what you can’t see, just that when you see it to keep pulling the thread and don’t dismiss it. In my opinion that is a true walk of faith. Once again, thanks for sharing :)

This sounds super interesting and is exactly what I'm interested to hear more about. Where can I read more on this?

The experiences come from testimonies I’ve heard from drug users and those who practice various forms of meditation. The historical context, which is partially reliable, comes from Dead Sea Scrolls (which have not all been released and translated) such as the book of Enoch. The Bible has a lot of hints throughout, such as in Genesis 6 and Jude. The Dead Sea scrolls also explain the origins of pagan religions and there’s a striking number of prophecies in them have have come true over the course of thousands of years. There are a few brilliant scholars who are working very hard to research these things

I was reminded to think I found "the solution" in the past, "After the lost of 'the feeling for an I' -to clarify my thoughts- a phase of a conditioned ego -also selfishness- began.. Wasn't jesus eating fish ?", -'thoughts'-(crossed out) stimulus came overwhelming, not ? P-:

For some reason this brings to mind the visions that Jesuit founder Ignatius Loyola had at some point:

"Ignatius also began experiencing a series of visions in full daylight while in hospital. These repetitive visions appeared as "a form in the air near him and this form gave him much consolation because it was exceedingly beautiful ... it somehow seemed to have the shape of a serpent and had many things that shone like eyes, but were not eyes. He received much delight and consolation from gazing upon this object"

Doesn't sound very holy. Then again he was quite the ambitious military officer before his post-injury convalescence.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137697/ : meditation probably contributes to mental states that arent unlike DMT induced ones.

we are chemical soups sloshing around within our meat sacs.

i am interested though.. in the imaginary friends children make...could it be that when we are children, the brain releases 'DMT like' chemicals or signals that make them hallucinate our imaginary friends. children lose this ability when they grow up.

same with ghosts and alien sightings. i think ..on a more diluted level..people with synesthetic proclivities. many religious and spiritual experiences can also trigger meeting 'other entities' not from our plane. angels and such. fairies etc.

finally, could be seizures. certain kinds of epileptic episodes can trigger hallucinations and visualizations.

Do kids really think their imaginary friend is real? When I did it as a kid, I knew there was no one there, but pretended and in a way role played situations. Normally this was only in between long gaps where I didnt get to hang out with other kids. I've never known any kids who truly think their imaginary friend is real or see them. I thought it was just a lame movie trope.

People dealing with Lewy Body Dementia often have very vivid hallucinations.

It's a while since I've listened to much Terence McKenna, but I have a vague memory of him talking about this, possibly related to Psilocybin instead of DMT, about how there's a recording of a woman in South America speaking in Spanish while tripping and yet "being told" the same content by the psychadelic entity. Another part of the world, another language, same message. Anyone know the details of that story?

Right now it feels a lot like how UFO sightings have barely changed in the last twenty years despite over 2 billion smartphone cameras being pumped into the world, and countless millions more standalone digital cameras, tablet cameras, webcams, etc. A 1960s or 1970s recording from the "dawn" of tapes, a crackly recording of a woman in a mental hospital speaking in a distant place in a foreign language is extremely evocative, a far better story than a study at a dowdy chemical research lab in a flyover town.

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