Mood Altering Substances

This is pure speculation, but I hope you will recognise it is unlikely to be fantasy.

Western Alchemists almost certainly experimented with substances that alter subjective experience. This might have been accidental — mercury is absorbed via the skin and can be inhaled as a vapour. Its toxicity causes very long periods of mental illness, including psychosis.

Spagyric, or spagyria, is a method developed by Paracelsus and his followers, which was thought to improve the efficacy of existing medicines by separating them into their primordial elements (the tria prima: sulphur, mercury, and salt) and then recombining them. Paracelsian physicians believed that through this method the medically beneficial ingredients of a compound were separated from the harmful ones, turning even some poisons into medicines.

Medieval monks were also master brewers who perfected the distillation of strong alcoholic drinks.

Addicts become addicts because they inadvertently almost realise the first two fetters — leaving only the last, which is faith in a path out of conditional existence. These are personality-view — which the addict realises through episodes of amnesia and altered states of being: how can there be a consistent self when behaviour is so fragmented?

Furthermore, the addict loses faith in the rites and rituals that make somebody a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ person. Can you see how they tend to break the first two fetters?

Addicts in Buddhism are seen as Hungry Ghosts — half living, half dead.

The Ritual Use of Psychoactives

Using these substances as part of ritual is a way of utilising the powerful effects to ‘open the mind’ to different experiences. One might experience a form of jhana — but this is not ideal. Still, for skeptical disbelievers such experiences might be useful — although there is always the risk of addiction.

Addiction must be addressed before full enlightenment. Arahants cannot be addicts. One can be either an addict or arahant, but not both. Bodhisattvas could theoretically make addiction part of the path — which ultimately would clear it.

I personally believe the ‘mechanism’ of addiction is the experience of jhana — mental tranquillity, that is generally poorly achieved (compared to meditation) but still better than the wretched mindset of the addict.

I hope that was interesting. ❤️🙏

“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.”
— Ephesians 5:18