Have you had experiences you'd describe as sacred, mystical and/or religious?

[Whateverist]

Could it also be that our natural state is a diminished state of awareness and the ethenogens temporarily allow us to transcend our normal limitations?

I think our self-aware conscious minds are one of many adaptions consciousness has come up with in the service of enabling the species to survive under changing pressures. It is quite an extravagant investment of the available bandwidth but it has never been the whole of consciousness, nor should it be.

Our conscious minds evolved to allow us to live as we do in such structured and interdependent communities. It allows us to judge the intentions of the 'others' on our borders.

But our conscious minds are entirely dependent upon much more conscious activity going on below the surface. Without this division of labor within consciousness we would not be able to focus effectively and coherently on the all important social aspects of living. This is analogous to the way some aspects of human action are available for conscious choosing while others go on autonomically.

I was curious to explore how the experience of consciousness could be different and to understand how we accomplish consciousness. But at the end of the day, I think the arrangement we have in which we are most often aware of only a certain range of features and choices will do quite nicely. There is no need (and indeed no way) to take over all of consciousness with our conscious minds. And to do so strikes me as no more desirable than it would be to make the adjustments of blood pressure something requiring conscious intervention.