Are you a believer?

[mutant]

I thought it might be both funny and interesting to make such a poll

NOTE YOU CAN VOTE AS MANY CHOICES AS YOU WANT!!! ;)

Edited May 17, 2010 by mutant

[Distracted]

I don't think there is an easy answer.

I'm a devout athiest that has no answers, and as such I take psychs and come to places like this in order to try and slowly peice things together.

I've been known to a few friends of mine to say that LSD + NOS is the key to unlocking the universe though

[vual]

....Spirits,Ghosts,angels,demons,guides,dragons...... there all the same entity in a different form, REPTILIANS!

*vote 1 yes*

[incognito]

undeniably. yes.

[paradox]

i reckon the english word belief is shit. i don't understand why people need to 'believe' in something they experience? when observing an hyper-complex psycholgic experience it seems to me to be much more productive & natural to not interpret it in terms of your self in a psychoanylitic way but to the best of your ability remain objective & take what you see & feel at face value without harsh judgement. that way rather than getting tangled in crazy webs of thought, the subconscious/conscious link can work a more optimal level, which is when you can sometimes basically open new direct neural pathways to the subcoscious lol, which can later be very useful for meditation & the greater understanding of the totality through direct objective experience of the self... um, yeah

[bℓσωηG]

 

 

i reckon the english word belief is shit.

.....Also the word hallucination has no meaning in native american cultures , to them 'visions' were very important and very real , just not from this dimension....

[holymountain]

Robert Anton Wilson has a great abbreviation for Belief Systems: BS

no one can ever know anything for sure. to believe something just shrinks the possibilities around you. to believe that this world is the 'real' world is a belief in itself and a very limited one at that.

just keep exploring with an open mind.

[paradox]

Robert Anton Wilson has a great abbreviation for Belief Systems: BS

 

brilliant, haven't heard that

i think it's fair to say that certainly the experience of contacting & communicating with otherworldly beings & highly cohesive alien worlds is quite a common one with high doses of certain triptamines & certain other means (schizophrenic tendencies, shamanic practices, meditation etc). but i feel that kind of similarly we experience every other aspect of our lives (friends, work, art, everyday life) in pretty much the same way... at the edth degree what exists but our own personal experience. the only thing which exists but our experience, is our mental interpretation of our experience. the silly thing is, the truth can't be found in our interpretations, but only in the momentary judge-less eternity of our own experience.. i feel interpretations are tools for tweaking the world so you can more effectively operate in it, but their finite & basically random tendencies are completely unreliable if you are interested in something like a state of enlightenment(or some such goal of personal evelopement, check the thesaurus & insert the term you like best).

point is, we as a species have been operating in our everyday consciousness program long term, we have had alot of time to develop languages concerning a consensus reality, so now we can discuss many factors of our every day experience & we all basically understand what eachother are talking about. though consensus reality by it's very nature is extremely average..

modes of consciousness which involve ultra real experiences of extra-dimensional creatures & such things have simply not been experienced on a large enough scale for us to have developed any kind of remotely accurate language to discuss this kind of terrain. therefore these kinds of discussions usually are pointless & go nowhere. we have no reference points when it comes to these things so we usually try to do the seeming next best thing which is interpreting & trying to communicate the experience in the language of consensus reality & thats when you get all the people who sound like either nutcases, airy fairy new age, or simply make no sense at all (me?).

talking like idiots with no language in which to communicate accurately in is at best amusing but gets boring really quickly, so literally it seems all we've got to go off is our own direct experience. we've all just gotta crack to it & get familiar with the far out, the more people who become aquainted, the more chance we can move this show along a bit & start having some really interesting conversations..

[holymountain]

talking like idiots with no language in which to communicate accurately in is at best amusing but gets boring really quickly, so literally it seems all we've got to go off is our own direct experience. we've all just gotta crack to it & get familiar with the far out, the more people who become aquainted, the more chance we can move this show along a bit & start having some really interesting conversations..

fucking spot on! excellent post paradox. at the risk of getting another mutant bashing the things you are talking about relate a lot to mckenna's ideas about language. our world is made up of language and in order to evolve we will have to push our language further to incorporate the new experiences that we are encountering.

[Psiloman]

Hmmm Believe? I'd rather Seek but no hard feelings towards the people that want to believe, and in this specific case that want the security of something literally "bigger than life".

I think that the inherent rigidity of many belief systems provoke the bona fide provocateurs in a reaction especially in matters they take interest in ,in this case psychedelics: I have to admit that trends in forums and "in the subculture" if you wish -which i feel i cannot identify with- seem to provide a general picture which is not always "correct" as far as representing all people. One of those aspects is (one of the many) "belief systems" of (some) users of (some) psychoactives,which as any belief system seems to be taken many times at face value by many people. Having a good amount of wandering in online communities about psychedelics (especially in the english speaking part of the web and having been a regular in most "big forums"), i can see how some things seem to be almost archetypal and pretty much "set" in the "psycoactive community" , like a "Neo-Lore" that can act as a cohesion element,as a cultural/subcultural aggregator.

I can see this though having two effects, well at least the ones i focus on, first of it being newcomers (and sometimes old members) conforming to the archetypes -as in any culture of any short,psychedelics do not magicaly change structures of social webs and thought processes- and the second one being an almost hardwired rejection of them by people wanting to bring them into questioning. The effects of the first i think that they can generally be observed in internet fora, the permeating neolore around psychedelics , even in more "searchable" or if you will "solid,material" matters (example :see theories of DMT and Pineal and compare with what strassman said exactly, see advice on foods to avoid on MAOIS pertaining to harmala which contains reversible selective inhibitors) where i think they follow the rules of "Belong or Perish". This is not one sided though, there is still space ,as in the form of the opposite front in the same culture (different icecream taste from the same god-damned icecream shop), so the same culture can accomodate even the "non believers". The second observation is interesting : while the "constant questioning" is a rather full of potential path, the main pitfall i see is developing a knee jerk reaction on some issues, an overgeneralisation of a culture that this in itself might not sound so "dangerous" but its main effect i have observed is self-imposed limitation of access to information/methods/ideas/approaches. Simply put, by developing an automatic response "against" something that one feels might "plague" a community , one may forbid himself from reaping the full benefits not of believing in what he/she rejects but of adding to his/her arsenal more approches, thus flirting dangerously with rigidity himself/herself that so much tries to avoid/call into questioning.

Hence, i try to seek , not to Believe, but in the proccess of doing so not to calcify irreversibly any behaviours that will deny me the benefit of reaping new approaches*.

*An example to make it more understandable : If for example i notice the "religious reverence" of big parts of the "community" for ayahuasca or Salvia divinorum (there is a huuuuge neolore on them), and feel that its misplaced/mumbo jumbo/hurting the credibility of the powers of those substances to the eyes of more level-headed straight-edge individuals thus hurting furtherly the credibility of psychoactives and their users in the longterm, AND develop a rather hostile stance against them because i do not share/believe the neolore at face value then some behaviours might be calcified : I may not approach ayahuasca to see what it offers, or i may approach it trying to "go in" and if i finally find "entities" or whatever spent all my energy to nullify them ,to dissect them ,to fit them in my own preconceived calcified notion rather than see what benefits i can reap from the experience .At this point,one without knowing it has fit snugly into the culture he/she tries to avoid he/she just bought "just another taste from the SAME ice-cream shop"!If one follows this path he may still be a believer of...his own neolore of rejecting the neolore! But for me its not the content (angels,demons,entities,alternate dimensions) that can prove unfavorable/not-so-clever-in-the-longterm but the sheer form ,the belief itself.

[holymountain]

another great post thanks psiloman. really good points you have brought up. great quality posts allround i think.

mutant forgive me but i was listening to a lecture today whilst at work and came across this quote that i cant help but parrot as i think its very appropriate. from mr mckenna:

'belief makes it impossible to believe the opposite proposition and that means you've just truncated your freedom. no matter how noble the belif that you have taken on you have just rejected and limited your ability to believe other things'

maybe you could add another option to the poll:

'I have seen the spirits/aliens/angels/demons/ reptillians etc but I dont really know what to make of them and am open to all possibilities'

[mutant]

Why would you get a bashing?

I agree that our languages [english more so than, say, greek] are too limited to discuss much about the psychedelic experience, and this is not only about big doses, but about any psychedelic experience itself. The 'problem' easily arises when one tries to describe f.e. the feelings of psychedelic epiphany, apocalypsis [both greek words btw], not the thoughts themselves but the awe, the feelings, visions, impressions. But we still got some words we can use to try and use, even if we're not so familiar with them.

McKenna indeed tried or anounced that we should start to map those unmapped territories, but I think he failed. There's no new vocabulary he made. Instead of being creative in the language realm, he got into a web of interpretation of the visions and the different concepts he was becoming obsessed with: mechanical elves, aliens, outter space or hyperspace, all these are concepts older than modern tryptamine exploration, older than McKenna himself, concepts and words that have been linked with the unknown, the mystical, the other worlds, themes that have triggered peoples interest and enthusiasm.

So what's new? If we don't get anything fresh and solid from the 'pioneers' [read: McKenna], what can we expect from simple fans like HM? Nothing.

What's like to make up new words? You have a concept and then you make up the word, you coin the term and present it to the people that are most likely to understand it as they are the most familiar with similar and interlinked concepts.

Like me introducing the term 'psychedelic theism' {note that I fully realise the humoristic self-sarcastic tone of making up new words and concepts - but I actually like to spot notional gaps and make up new terms, first to test drive the notion or the very to-the-point tst's term 'tryptamine chauvinism'

So what do people who believe / have been in those places have to show us, apart from showing off a religious zealotry ? They can easily speak with like-minded theists, trying to make sense of those wonders they met there, looking forward to go into there again, quoting Thomson, "hoping that someone or something holds the light at the end of the tunnel", but I am not hearing anything in particular, something useful, something practical, something linked with our real lives.

Because, real life is no illusion you know, paradox. Reality is what when you stop believing in, doesn't stop to exist.

paradox>>>

i think it's fair to say that certainly the experience of contacting & communicating with otherworldly beings & highly cohesive alien worlds is quite a common one with high doses of certain triptamines & certain other means (schizophrenic tendencies, shamanic practices, meditation etc).

from those people who are not crazy or epileptic, what kind of peope are those who make such encounters? I mean, what's the sample? What percentage are McKennas fans/readers and generally people susceptible to suggestion and makle believe. Psychs are psychotomimic. Who tells me these visions of grandeur are not just a 100%drug induced reality? What percentage is atheist and what is theist/agnostic?

I have been paranoid on acid, so I have heard 'voices'. Who tells me that people on high dose of drugs [tryptamines or otherwise] can really differentiate this kind of experience as opposed to the visions, voices and whatever a psychotic has, because, you know a psychotic cannot understand the difference, for the psychotic the voices are indeed the real thing. Or you really think psychotics are in communication with the other, like normal people on high doses of tryptamine? Do other psychedelics like lsa, lsd, mescaline offer glances into the same realms, or it has to be a tryptamine?

PS: [HM] >>

maybe you could add another option to the poll:

'I have seen the spirits/aliens/angels/demons/ reptillians etc but I dont really know what to make of them and am open to all possibilities'

true... my bad

I added the option

Edited May 17, 2010 by mutant

[Whispering Leaves]

Some icky self loathing there Mutant. I don't hate you. I've never met you. What? Is this a forum injoke?

I find any attempt to define the wordless, timeless mystery and wonder of nature and human occurence by simply use of the things we call "words" - beware anything you cannot explain without using the thing itself - tends to dumb down the potentials.

I do not believe in God, yet I cannot help but observe the Divine. I do not believe in fairies, but too many moths look like angry or enigmatic minature beings to not wonder about what they have seen in the bush that I have not. I do not believe in heaven, though I have found it on earth and I do not want to leave. I do not believe in telepathy but I know how people are doing and I do not believe in magic although I often expect my whispered requests to be honoured - and they always are.

Psychedelics do not come into it for me. I find dosing on almost anything in my mispent youth turned a lot of the minds natural aptitude off at the wall. Though I admit I am not one for megadoses of reality destroyers.

I find Sceletium/Delosperma an ideal aid for quiet spotting of strange things in the bush. Perhaps I am easily pleased. A couple of wines, a nice day out with family, anything that frees up a little of the mind's magic seems sufficient. I know some people that abuse endlessly hoping to find wonder again. It never seems to end well.

[Chiral]

I've seen heaps of fairies for real, man you need to get down to Oxford street in Sydney there's fuggen heaps of em y'all.

[drugo]

we all generally find ourselves breathing, moving, alive, as particular perspectives and experiences of certain similar space-time continuums. In other words, general consensus enables diverse experiences of 'everyday life'. A whole lot of past creativity, both genetic and cultural, has negotiated its way into being today's general experiential frameworks of life. Perhaps it is helpful to label the fundamental machinery by which consciousness tends to operate in today's world as: bodies of organs.

Seeing, smelling, walking, thinking, imagining, loving, fearing, talking, and all other processes of being human depend on two things (1) organs (2) means of operating the organs. Legs are great but if I can run but don't know how to kick a ball then I'm bound to be hopeless at soccer.

...................

[parable]

Before the mountains and plains of earth were populated by animals there were many fish pondering and puzzling over what life was like above and beyond the iridescent sparkling water-line. Eventually a few courages organisms began evolutionary steps towards developing ways of living on dry land. A few fish simply threw themselves onto the bank, flapped around for a while then made their way back into the water. In order to really get-around outside the water, organs of movement and understanding that were suited to the new conditions were necessary. (Some fish who hadn't even been out of the water but had heard many a story about dry land would nonetheless preach and critsise the judgments of the actual courages fishes. These preachers were the silly fish). Eventually certain organisms developed organs to leave the water and walk, fly and the rest of it.

....................

There are countless traditions and orders that span the globe which prepare students with appropriate organs (of spiritual flight) and techniques of movement and understand to not "suffocate on the beach" of spiritual experience. Mysticism, from the myriad Buddhist orders, Yogi orders, the Vedantas, to Egyptians cults, Qabalistic traditions, Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, to Sufi orders, not to mention the plethora of shamanic traditions panning Africa, northern Europe, and the rest of earth!!!...... all talk about spirits, discarnate geniuses, plant-animal familiar helpers.

If you are generally interested in the ontological dynamics of spirits then take your science hat off, spend a year or two with an ancient mystical tradition, ie. develop organs and techniques for working with entheogens, and then put your science hat back on.

As J. Narby said, The university is only 700 years old. Western science is really only about 300 years old. North-west Amazonian shamanism has been working with ayahusca and related spiritual technologies for 5000 years. It is arrogant and clumsy to exhaustively apply the tenants of western science (as materialistic rationalism) to the occult. It is simply bad science. The western academies need to accept that there is an inverted power dynamic playing out in these fields. For entheogenic experiences, science is a baby learning how to crawl and mystic traditions are sophisticated ancient schools that teach traditions in cosmic dance.

Also, there is a difference between tripping on acid and seeing an amazingly crafted face in a cloud, or tree trunk, or a brick wall, compared to a embodied dialogue transmission with a spiritual entity, let alone a journey through different pockets of the cosmos.

Entheogens like psilocybin and DMT tend to evoke highly evolved spiritual organs. These new organs, like any new organs (fish out of water example), require radically new techniques and understandings to operate well. But alas, guess what western science! Humans have already been exploring these dimensions for a few thousand years. It's time for science to stop being the dero bully of the playground, accept the inverted power dynamic and return to being real scientists that are intelligently interested in studying life.

[paradox]

paradox>>>

from those people who are not crazy or epileptic, what kind of peope are those who make such encounters? I mean, what's the sample? What percentage are McKennas fans/readers and generally people susceptible to suggestion and makle believe. Psychs are psychotomimic. Who tells me these visions of grandeur are not just a 100%drug induced reality? What percentage is atheist and what is theist/agnostic?

 

i'm not saying that it's not 100% drug induced reality, just that there is very deep subtleties to this whole discussion. & i'm not saying everyday reality is an illusion, just that, as a break through dmt experience is a drug induced reality, so everyday reality is simply another neurologically induced reality based on neurotransmitters very similar to & including dmt. the only difference between dmt reality & 'this' reality is a matter of ratio's of various chemicals in your brain, so when we speak of the 'reality' of various psychological experiences it clearly gets confusing.. it's impossible to define.

Edited May 18, 2010 by paradox

[Foton]

ive felt the presence of spirits... just a feeling.

[mutant]

Whispering I also gave the option 'Mutant sucks' to give the opportunity to haters express themselves, yeah, it's an injoke perhaps...

Interesting comments.

Telepathogen, I have to note I don't operate in any scientific principles, in fact I despise what I call 'scientifism' [yes, this is also my own term], meaning making science god, a dogma to replace other systems of belief. Anyways, I use my own reasoning and logic as my method. I know science is too constricting and incapable for many types of research for knowledge, including and not limited to holistic approach / holistic knowledge paradigms.

I also liked the parable. For what it's worth, I am not so optimistic for the future of mankind as you seem to be.

In any case, I think you will agree it's probably better to learn to navigate through this space/life first, before deciding to go to another unknown and unexplored 'space'. Also, the info modern people bring from this space up to now is not convincing me there's something tangible/useful for me there, at least for now. Maybe when I am ready I will find some reasoning, causation to go.

[Psiloman]

On Reality : Because i have seen it mentioned in two threads well..the influence of psychedelics is real, meaning they are chemical substances exerting their effects on receptors. I think its more or less a "stereotype" a "notion" of distinguising some things as real and some things as not real.Now, i do not doubt that the wall opposite me "does not exist" or that a three-headed toad with an inverted anus farting out happy melodies for us all "exists", what i mean is that even the action of psychedelics is within the definition of "real". Its a continuum. I get though where Mutant is going: one of the things he propably wants to say is "Guys, dont get too lost in fairies and elves and start loosing a grip on *everyday* life adaptation and/or end up in a looney bin because you think you found some ultimate *truth*".

Telepathogen, I have to note I don't operate in any scientific principles, in fact I despise what I call 'scientifism' [yes, this is also my own term], meaning making science god, a dogma to replace other systems of belief. Anyways, I use my own reasoning and logic as my method. I know science is too constricting and incapable for many types of research for knowledge, including and not limited to holistic approach / holistic knowledge paradigms.

Bad dog Mutant, Bad dog, no Scooby snack for you tonight, Heheheh! Well, you dont have to call it "scientifism" what you define ,just call it "stuck minds" and you are in! They exist everywhere ,even in the movement of "unstuck minds"! What are scientific principles though? In a way you operate under them if ever you perform a hypothesis and try to check it out.Its not science of scientific principles you dislike (hehehe, "lemme tell you what you dislike" ) , its the upstuck people and propably you dislike the mannerisms of "organised science". I have to disagree of science ignoring holistic approach and holistic knowledge: I suggest approaching science more, in its core, not in examples of peoples and institutions carrying the "scientist" tag tha disappointed you. Science,after all, could not be "constricting" or "limited" : its people who are. If you want to study the immaterial and the uncountable, then yes its tools might lack: but in this case...your guess is as good as mine and as good as everyones : instict,feeling or premonition. If though you manage to have something quantifiable or even qualifiable (being able to describe its qualities and observe possible changes in them) then science offers a good platform of analysis. Oh and by they way : Noone will ever make you to pick "one tool from the toolbox" to use it forever as your sole means of "searching". You can use any tool, and if you can cross-verify your findings with other tools do so! If you start disliking any tool ,you kind of loose it from your arsenal. For physical data,my use of science so far works -well transubjectively if you dont like the word objectively-. For human relations i trust my instict, but then if i can verify something by testing in a "hypothesis-experiment-outcome" i do so. Also, in science i also take leads from my instict. So far the above combo has worked.

But i also tend to believe that "instict" is not something "mystical" although i am amazed by it ;) It might be unconscious weighing of the data im presented with...Who knows...

[mac]

I honestly couldn't answer this one, im curious about exploring more but also cautious & a little scared some way's

Edited May 18, 2010 by mac

[woof woof woof]

Are you a believer?I am a knower! Are psychs 'gateways'/'terminals' to/with/through spirit/otherwolds ? Indirectly yes!

Rate Topic: Poll: Are spirits and other worlds simply 'folklore' or are they real?

There is no unreality....(that is a double negative)....'"everything is real".They are hyper realities. But,"if it is a balanced perception?"....< that is the question you should be asking yourself. Should you be wasting time with them? is another good question. I think that seeing how things are unfolding in our times, exploring innerspace is a good idea. There in lies the key to healthy living. Again,.. I promote buddhism as a healthy way of learning to explore innerspace. However in these tough times... hehe... some serious meds are needed... so dose up extra on your trip.. (lol) that is a joke!.... big doses are counter productive if you have already realized a good spiritual basis.

peace

[mud]

Yeh, no need to 'believe' if you've directly experienced anything.

That's the true definition of science, as I understand, according to Buddhists-

'Expermienting within the confines of ones own nervous system'.

R.A.W rocks!

[mutant]

Hey cheers Psilo

********

Scientifisicm

***********

Psiloman doesn't like the word scientifism, more or less an analogy to people who don't like the term 'psychedelic theism'. Lol. No no, a joke, I know you have a rightful scientific mind. I know you're open minded in a way a science theist could [would?] never be.

So, onto you comments. You say why should I call psychedelic theists like that, I can call them plain theists or stuck minds. In the same vein you ask why should I determine a special word for scientific close mindedness? Because I believe it's useful for making my point, understanding what is happening around me. Because I am not talking about your average closemindedness, I am determined that specialising can be useful or catastrophic for knowledge, this I regard useful. Closemindedness comes in many colours. Even openminded people are prone ;)

I am trying to further invastigate the mechanisms of dogmatism. So, narrow-minded is very general of a concept. With the term scientifism I am talking f.e. about the problems scientific dogmatism creates for free thinkers and seekers.

And scientifism is critical not of the scientific method or archievements, as we have talked about elsewhere, scientifism is a term that criticises the tendency of people to idolise the scientific method/thought/consensus/whatever, in a way, replacing god. So yeah, it's about organised science, or dominant science.

Anyways, you say you have been doing fine so far, but lets see what you will do/say when you will actually be paid for being a scientist instead of studying, and that's in the future I think, no?

In my view, dominant science dislikes conjectures and hypothesis, dislikes weird ideas, logical jumps/gaps, dislikes instinct, dislikes the combination/bonding of many gnostic fields etc etc. But it sure loves to be paid from multinationals whatever the research or the gnostic field. So patronising scientific thought is a way of dominating people through scientific truth, scientific consensus, only I believe dominant science, or organised science is not serving people, it serves the multinationals.

And how could it be otherwise, since science is financed by them?

********************

www>

Are you a believer?I am a knower!

ok that's different!

Are psychs 'gateways'/'terminals' to/with/through spirit/otherwolds ? Indirectly yes!

indirectly, so what intevenes? another terminal? belief? expectations? our own minds?

Are spirits and other worlds simply 'folklore' or are they real?

There is no unreality....(that is a double negative)....'"everything is real".They are hyper realities.

that's what my friend used to believe before his psychotic break. That everything is real and that one can shift reality into what he wants... believeing and psych use was, as he thought, a good way to render desires and worldviews as reality.

But,"if it is a balanced perception?"....

Should you be wasting time with them? is another good question.

exactly, pretty good questions...

I think that seeing how things are unfolding in our times, exploring innerspace is a good idea. There in lies the key to healthy living. Again,.. I promote buddhism as a healthy way of learning to explore innerspace. However in these tough times... hehe... some serious meds are needed... so dose up extra on your trip.. (lol) that is a joke!....

lol

big doses are counter productive if you have already realized a good spiritual basis.

Interesting. Any exceptions?

peace

mud>>

Yeh, no need to 'believe' if you've directly experienced anything.

True, but aint the events experienced influenced from a strong hallucinogenic drug? When the drug fades, no presence is felt, no?

Edited May 19, 2010 by mutant

[mu!]

i was honestly expecting to see more votes for 'mutant sucks' ...

[incognito]

i think mutant should really shut his piehole until his tried some highdose tryptamines. is it just me or is it plain to see hes talking out of his ass, on somethin he knows nothing of?