I think it is possible to exist all the time on higher circuits. However, I don't know if that would necessarily be a good thing...
Have you ever met anyone
permanently operating on a "higher" circuit? I just think about people like Alan Watts.. definitely enlightened
in some sense. Still a miserable alchoholic.
I think that "unlocking" the higher circuits represents an increased "capacity", but doesn't necessarily mean you stay there forever. I think that consciousness which includes those "higher circuits" is only possible in certain moments.
I see the 8 circuits as evolution toward more love.
That's one possible model.
My personal thinking is that they represent an evolution towards more
consciousness. That doesn't necessarily lead to more love, but for a lot of people it does.
Because a lot of people live in a selfish, ego-based world.. and psychedellics give some people the potential to taste other modes of being, like being more aware of other people's emotional experiences. This can lead to increased capacity for compassion and empathy. I think that [sensitivity towards others] is an "ahah" moment for many people because we're all conditioned to focus on other things. Maybe that says more about our alienating society than it does about psychedelic drugs.
I always think about that Tim Leary study that RAW cited -- about how people
expectations about the psychedelic experience have a
huge impact on how it actually works for them. Set and Setting, all that. People who expect to meet god on LSD often do meet god on LSD. People who expect to giggle for 8 hours have exactly that experience. And psychedelics are positioned in our culture as "mind expanding" substances, they are enjoyed by heady people, so maybe this mentally primes us to have these inner experiences.
I am reluctant to attribute any magical powers to the class of drugs itself. I've met a lot of people who think the world would fix itself if everybody just had a mushroom trip together. I disagree strongly; a lot of people are only barely hanging on to this merry-go-round, and all it takes is a little push for them to spin out into space. And as much as psychedelics can dissolve, they also have the potential to calcify and reenforce existing beliefs, deepen identification, and bring the shadow to the surface.