Sorry to the spiritualists, which is most of you on the forum. But you gotta get both points of view right?
You cannot know everything period.
I value science but that does not take one yota away from the life-altering mystical experiences I've had.
Nobody without experience with
shamanic use of psychoactives, is mentally equiped to make assumptions about shamanism and shove it together with paganism and what have you.
If something sounds to strange to be true, it probably is.
The simplest explanation, is often correct.
A lot of sense is made in 'Enteogens and the future of religion' in the chapter by Albert Hofmann 'Natural science and the Mystical World View'.
Here's a little personal anekdote:
Years ago I lived at a friends house and we went out drinking. On the way back we met a muslim guy and we engaged into conversation about religion. The next morning my friend could not find his keyring. 'Fucking guy', he says, 'stole my fucking keys'. A thought came to my mind: 'shamans can find back lost keys' and I closed my eyes and asked 'where are his keys'. The next moment I stand up, look my friend in the eye while walking up to the other side of the room, bent to reach under the closet to pick up his keys which where there out of sight.
He looked at me with complete disbelieve, 'how the fuck?' Out of nowhere I replied, 'well we where so drunk last night when we came home, you past out right away in that corner while I was still in conversation with our friend. I must have seen fall your keys out of your pocket and slip them under the closet, unconsiously.
He gave me a long lookg and said ' you are crazy'.
In any case, he had his keys back and an innocent guy didn't get beat up for something he didn't do. And that's what it is, a pragmatic view of life, not excluding science or rationality, but complementing it with something bigger which I bet 99% of visitors to this form know exists, and have experienced in some form or another.
If you say: it's all science, your just as much at a loss as someone who says it's all spirituality.
My 2 cents.