I've taken magic mushrooms before though it was many years ago. I think it's hard for anyone to not feel that they are having a mystical experience while under the influence of them, but I don't know how much to ascribe to that afterwards. One interesting Theory I heard in an anthropology class, is that in pre-literate hunting and Gathering societies what we would refer to as hallucinations or visions are actually a different form of software for the brain a different way of accessing information. In that sense you could say that preliterate peoples lived in a world that seem to them much more magical than the world seems two people living in a technological Society and a literate way of accessing information. Related to this was the idea that hallucinogenic drugs could provide a more modern for lack of a better word mind with access to this form of perceptionat. I'm pretty sure that the original idea was articulated better than I have explained it here but I still think it's an interesting concept.

As one who came of age in the 70s and took a lot of stupid risks, let me assure you that hallucinogens are not the means to any sort of spiritual enlightenment.

Dropped a boatload of psychedelics like strawberry acid, LSD25, chocolate mesc, white microdot (bad trip), woodrose, window pane and psilocybin from '69 to '78 or so, and don't recall really coming away with any monumental self-realizations or epiphemies. No conversations with otherworldly beings or shape-shifting spirits...but had a ton of laughs and saw some fantastic colors! Trails from sparklers at night are still burned into my retina.

The organic mescalines, mushrooms and psilocybins were the nicest trips...always waking up with a sore face from laughing. The acids usually had strychnine laced in the mix and were tough on the gut when you first came on to them. There is nothing quite like having to take a dump when your guts are in a knot and the room is melting.

When we had three hits of something but there were 4 of us...we made electric beer. One intense trip I spent the evening sitting in a plastic chair with no legs, watching my buddy play air broom to James Brown's 'Get On The Good Foot'. We mis-dosed with orange sunshine one time. Saw the dealer guy at the park two days later after no sleep. He saw the shape we were in and said 'uh, you know those were four-way hits, right'? Um no...no we didn't. But we heard road signs speaking to us.

If I were to seek out a psychoactive drug to take at this stage of life, it would be MDMA because of the way it makes you feel about others. Plus you can dose yourself to where you don't have a 12+ hour comittment. Had a gas with it during the rave scene in San Fran in the 90's.

People testifying to something doesn't necessarily make it so. Certain drugs like LSD, mescaline, et al, that are considered hallucinogens alter mind chemistry, and our perception of the world around us, typically by intensification, and some distortion.

To read an interesting account, by a very articulate person, of a mind's workings while on mescaline, check out Aldous Huxley's DOORS OF PERCEPTION (it's the source from where the group THE DOORS got their name).

I think we're just scratching the surface of what's to be learned about the mind and consciousness. After reading "Waking Up" by Sam Harris, I would like to try. MDMA in the company of someone I trust. [samharris.org]

I don’t know, but there’s something to WEED !!

I don't believe it's a form of communication, but maybe a way to see the code or makeup and interconnection of all things.

I do believe everyone should try to alter their reality through psychedelics at least once in their lifetime.
If for no other reason than to understand how fragile their realities are.

Perspective guides us through all of our life's decisions and psychedelics let you take a step to the side and see things though a different lens.

it's dreaming while you're awake. a diabetic on a sugar crash has much the same happen [ when referring to a bad trip on acid]

I would say yes. But it would be communication with our own minds. If you are seeking communication with some entity, You may feel you have found it. It will likely fit your expectations of it. Its reality is in the experience and what you can walk away from it with, Not actual contact with anyone.

I am as lucid as a cuckoo, I say that because the cuckoo bird supposedly uses a lot more of its brain than other animals do. I can write some intense poems and I am drug free and have not touched alcohol in well over 7 years. So from personal experience, I think drug use is a pissy excuse and people just use it to escape normalcy because they fear living.

We don't use all of our brain and I believe drugs open up passageways in the mind. watch the film lucy.

It's Joe Rogan...

There is no evidence to support any entity communicates with us while we're high. He must have watched Sausage Party. (that's actually a great, skeptical, anti-religion comedy, btw)

I just remember laughing my ass off for several hours. It was like a mind enema for me. It cleaned out all the shit. Great times!

I've tried them. They seem the change a bunch of things in your head. Some parts of your personality become more intense. It gives you the opportunity to see yourself in a different light, assuming you are an introspective person. I don't think the insights you get are unobtainable by other means. But it can be a tool. It can be fun too. But people should be carful of course.

Shamanism, or the use of altered states for healing, visioning, and inspiration, is the oldest form of religious practice on earth. Shamanism includes, but is not limited to, the use of mind-altering substances to produce those altered states. Those substances, mostly plants, are the prototypes for what you are referring to as psychedelics.

Most shamans use religious or spiritual explanations for the experiences that they have. This is not too surprising; various researchers have concluded that in early human culture, spirituality was completely imbedded in human existence. It was literally not possible to stand outside of one's culture and declare that visits from ancestors, spirits, aliens or whatever were actually neurological phenomena with rational, non-spiritual explanations. Nowadays such explanations are possible, of course, and are put forth increasingly by brain researchers, anthropologists, and others, but the shamans themselves, who are naturally invested in their own world view, are as unlikely to accept these explanations as any other true believer would be likely to accept an alternative explanation for their rigidly held religious belief.

The Walter Pahnke experiment at Harvard Divinity School showed that if you give a psychedelic drug in a spiritual environment to spiritually-disposed individuals, the vast majority of them are going to have a spiritual experience that reinforces their most firmly held spiritual convictions.
Likewise, people who have near-death experience, and live to tell about it, report visions that are consistent with their own histories, beliefs and cultural backgrounds. Christians see Jesus and the angels waiting for them; Muslims see Mohammed or Allah, and many who mourn dead relatives see their loved ones with open arms. Researchers who studied the mental health of Brazilian Santo Diame practitioners (who drink ayahuasca once a month) reported that long term users have fewer visions over time, but continue to be affirmed in their beliefs and practices.

The altered states that psychedelics (I prefer the term entheogens) produce do have beneficial potential for some users. In a controlled environment, entheogens can help PTSD sufferers, for example, to move past their trauma, into a place of acceptance and healing. I believe that this happens because of neurological phenomena, as yet poorly understood, that allow the brain to review past histories and choices with a new set of perspectives. This new set of perspectives can sometimes lead to drastic changes in the person's life. I do NOT believe that altered states of conscious open doors to alien universes and alternate realities. But if you can believe that, maybe you can visit those places in your altered state.