Personally, I feel that LSM is a cult.

I have a general interest in cults. Personally, I feel that LSM is a cult. Obviously, it is not of the Jim Jones variety. But LSM-type cults are by far the norm, not the Jonestown and Heaven's Gate extremes.

I felt the accounts given by the survivors in this forum were very articulate and educational. Thank you for all the time you spent telling your stories. This is the best cult-survivor forum I have seen so far, among ones that are specific to a given cult.

I am not religious, but I am interested in the science behind religion. By that I mean what biologically goes on in the brains of people who experience religious experiences such as: being saved, getting enlightened etc. Aside from that, I am fascinated by cult psychology and group think that are innate to us all since I feel that understanding these is critical to growing as a civilization. It effects politics, war and even simply being a consumer in the marketplace.

I encourage people to look up studies on Psilocybin, LSD and other psychedelics and compare the user accounts with your own religious experiences. While integral to religion at large, cults especially exploit mystical experiences and are generally better at inducing them as well.

These can be obtained non-pharmaceutically by chanting (seems to be employed by Lee churches, but otherwise common in eastern religions), meditating, breath control etc; and while people don't assume supernatural causation when they deliberately attain it by chemical help, they strongly assume divine causation when it is incidental.