drugo

That's cool. How do you we gain this clarity? Are there specific paths? or should be dabble in a heap of bins like a true postmodern cat?

Why no lyrics? ...Ineffable? Maybe the universal instruments offer lyrical-type expressions which can be transformed, or at least transmogrified, into, say, the English language.

Hey Michael, thanks for your thoughts and feelings:) Do you think that the 'gift' comes with any obligations? Anthropologists all agree that gifts embody obligations. Not that these obligtions is usually a bad thing, quite the opposite. They are a connecting thing, in many different senses. Whenever a gift is given, in both pre-modern and modern societies and cultures, the object or service (gift) embodies meaning indicating the relationship of the gift giver and gift receiver. This meaning essentially binds the transactors in one form or another. SUch as a wife cooking dinner for her husband (should) bind their loving relationship. Commodities offer an alternative to gifts in the way that they are alienated from the giver and receiver. They embody none, or only shallow meaning which unites the giver and receiver. For example, when buying food from Coles, the worker could get fired and the next day we would go back and get the same object (commodity), regardless of the relationship. The categories are not as simple as that but it's a good introduction. So if you except the premise that 'gifts' embody obligation. What do you think the divine requests of us? love, beauty, hard-work, prayer? Also, do we only find meaning, or do we also create meaning? I tend to think that there is a tension between the two thus birthing our personal identity into existence.

Nice perspective If it isn;t a thing, then what can we say about it? Do you mean that consciousness can't be discussed as an absolute thing? Such as, 'This Thing' is consciousness, therefore making all other equally valid descriptive attempts invalid. Maybe consciousness is existence, and humans are evolving hyper-sensitive self-reflecting beings oriented towards existence. Also, some are arguably a lot more sensitive than others, take, for example, a Qigong master compared to a consumer - football driven proletariat factory worker. Maybe this existence 'pod' known as my life is a self-reflexive angle to participate in and become existence, through myself? Become infinite through the finite. Attain the eternal through the temporal-ephemeral life we call human existence. Like buddha's Nirvana, or Plato's ascend from the cave into the ineffable absolute - which can only be experienced and not completely understood and transmitted in Concept, thought, and words. By not being a 'thing', are you suggesting that consciousness is ultimately ineffable -can't be reduced to this or that set of words? or possibly consciousness is everything?? Much love.

The title is loaded, i understand that it is not a case of either or, or in other words, it's not black and white, there seems to be a massive intertwining scale of grey between these two extremes. However, what i'm interested in discussing is where you prefer to sit on a scale of absolute hedonism to absolute spirituality in relation to entheogens, inc. Aya, LSD, alcohol, Nitros oxide etc.. I understand that these categories may never be experienced in their absoluteness, but that's not the point. Below is a general understanding of the two categories, for argument sake. Hedonism: Think of a hedonist as someones who's main desire is to pursue pleasures, or more specific, bodily pleasures such as food and sex. Dionysus is a popular Greek archetype of this, and some modern archetypes are all the rockstars such as Jim Morrison, John Bonham, Janis Joplin, and pretty much all the wonderful ego heads who love partying socially with drugs and having a good time in this way. Hedonism is much more complicated than this but this is the idea i want to use for the discussion. Spiritualism: It's pretty straight forward, think of the majority of indigenous practices surrounding the globe which entheogens, hallucinogens, or psycho-tropic sacraments have been used ritualistically for healing and divination. In the contemporary West, examples of the spiritual use of entheogens can be recognised as Leary's LSD meditations, new forms of Aya cirlces, and of course individual rituals for self exploration, healing, divination, etc. I hope the two categories are distinct, and as stated earlier, i understand that its not either or, i personally swim in both oceans, but for this thread I'm interested in whether you lean towards hedonism or spiritualism, and why?

Photos from there and here.

Low aperture, on a tripod, manual zoom out whilst shutter is open for 1 sec (or less). You gotta be really delicate when shifting zoom.

They are really cool man, nice work. I think they are perfect, complete in themselves. They are big prints hey, as educate said, they would look heaps different poster size, a lot of detail would emerge. It wasn;t till I honed in that I became aware of plant detail etc. How big are you printing them for HSC project?

Hey rog. I'm deeply sorry for cherry picking one of your ideas and trying to glue it to another tree, so to speak. I defiantly should have PM'd you first. I did make broad assumptions about why you use entheogens, assumptions based on one post you wrote from a different thread. Online forums are really new, and kinda' impersonal, for me at the moment. I honestly find it a bit weird but I'm trying to get use to it. Given the illicit nature of certain plants in our country, the entheogenic community is not easy to get to know with the more common forms of socialising that I'm familiar with, that's why I've been hanging here so much. I hope you take my apology seriously. I thought you would laugh and appreciate the sequence of photos above. But you didn't. I'm coming to learn that it is hard to judge peoples sentiments online when all I have are occasional words on a screen. And I'm coming to realise that I should be more sensitive whilst discussing things here. My deepest apologies. Alex.

I'm sure there are a lot of forums, institutions, intellectual circles, and people in all sorts of places discussing 'consciousness'. My question is geared towards this community. Thanks for the link though

Thanks.

This discussion has turned up much different than I expected. Sure, I fully apprecite your comment, torsten's influence is undoubtedly huge. I think I was getting a bit romantic trying to 'count' how many individuals there are in Aus "taking an abstinence from society, spending 'years in the hills' working with powerful medicines, techniques" etc. I do understand it's not quite like this. And yeah, its difficult 'boxing' people into specific identities, shaman, neo-shama, spiritual practitioner. I guess the drive of my question was simply to try and bring some clarity to the Aus scene, as I find, given the illicit nature of a lot of entheogens, there is probably a very mysterious number of people 'working' underground, or in the undergrowth as Rak tells. To re-phrase, hey tst, how many people do you think there are in Aus who are "heavily involved" ("centre of their lives") in the Aus entheogenic scene at the moment? including facilitators and practitioners? peace.

Hey. Sorry, 'cause of your post's slight aberration I didn't read all the way to the end and notice your question. Of course I don't restrict shamanic techniques to just plant use. I see plants, probably similar to you, as tools, in a sense. And, A tool without technique is not only pretty useless but can be extremely dangerous - like handing a child a sharp hunting knife, not much will be hunted besides their own misconduct. As i said, my question is trying to throw some ideas, or numbers, around for the amount of 'full-time' entheogenic practitioners are at work in Aus. None the less, thanks for your question. I hope my clarification is welcomed.

I'll be there - we need more of these Melbourne meets

I'm not talking about facilitators (as you call them). Some analogies: not those who manufacture medicine, rather, I'm talking about the doctors who practice or heal with the medicine. Or, not those who build a university, instead, those who teach at the uni. I'd be guessing that most 'serious/dedicated' entheogenic practitioners would be growing their own plants, no?

I wasn't referring to Australian entheogenic practitioners from these periods (above). Rather, I'm asking how many current 'serious' entheogenic practitioners are there in Aus? -those who practice any plant-based entheogenic techniques from pre-modern ... contemporary. Just a reminder, I'm only curious about those (for this discussion) who's primary energy, 'calling', vocation in life, is directed towards their entheogenic practice. Darpan can be the archetype for my question. I'm not talking about people occasionally taking aya to help understand themselves/their world better. I check my partners temperature when she's sick, and maybe give her some medicine, but I'm no doctor - if you know what I mean.

Wow, that's really impressive. Well done EGA.

Sure. Pre-modern, modern, postmodern, contemporary and the whole rigmarole of 'esoteric' shamanic techniques navigating the consciousness of the species. What I mean by 'ancient' is plants.

Sure, 'at the centre of their lives', means, in other words, individuals who focus the majority of their energy towards a specific practice. For example, an Olympic athlete may also be a loving parent, gardener, movie buff, however, their athletic sport is obviously at the centre of their life. The athlete's sport is what Weber labels as their 'calling' in life. I imagine there would be a lot of Australians who have incorporated small amounts of shamanic techniques into their lives, especially given how broad the term 'shamanism' is. But, I'm interested in trying to bring the Australian scene into focus by asking for all your opinions on how many people, do you think, practice entheogenic / shamanic techniques - to the extent an Olympic athlete practices their sport, or to the extent which a Yogi practices Yoga. I understand some entheogenic practitioners work harder than others, and I understand that it's difficult to 'box' an estimation of 'serious' practitioners (as you say tst), but I do think the question can fruit some valuable perspectives.

Ok, ok, settle down rogdog, I'm just a curious goose. So is it peace that you want? Well... I'm sorry too. Please bring the peace back

I was just kidding man. I like how William James discusses alcohol as providing the 'yes' funtion, it expands and unites. Getting drunk has played all sorts of positive roles throughout the course of my life, inc. getting close to friends and family. On another thought, I think the first probably 10+ times I had sex with a different person it was drunk post-party late night messiness Alcohol undoubtedly offered a helpful state of mind for two hormone overdosing teenagers. Towards a more spiritual note, I like how James states 'drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness' (1902:388). I've heard of various indigenous shamans including alcohol in different rituals.

Rogdog. I'm not goina' enter into your childish arrogant games. My intention wasn't to offend you when quoting your post about a DMT journey. Re-reading it, I'm thinking what 'rocked your boat' was then I used the term "getting off", which obviously expressive some of me feelings towards the 'hedonistic' indulgence of entheogens. But, this wasn't the only feelings I gave on the issue of hedonism. I feel that my overall message speaking through the thread isn't one which arrogantly criticises the more exclusively pleasurable approach to these things. The world is made up of different beliefs and values, these fundamentals are the currents for all the ideas swimming through this forum. It is only natural for people to, at some point, have different beliefs and values to you. I think the benefit from this forum is sharing each others perspectives which I think is done better when you drop the arrogant tone and simply offer your views. For example, why do you see yourself as leaning more towards the fulfillment of pleasure via DMT, rather then exploring it in a more spiritual way, the way which has dominated indigenous use? I'm genuinely interested in your feelings man, no ego games I'm sorry I didn't pose this question earlier, I'm busy at the moment and have been a bit selective with responses. I'm just trying to discuss and bring some ideas together for why this community uses entheogens. Your description exemplified the idea of hedonism I originally described, ie. "Think of a hedonist as someones who's main desire is to pursue pleasures, or more specific, bodily pleasures such as food and sex. Dionysus is a popular Greek archetype of this, and some modern archetypes are rockstars such as Jim Morrison, John Bonham, Janis Joplin, and pretty much all the wonderful ego heads who love partying socially with drugs and having a good time in this way. Hedonism is much more complicated than this but this is the idea i want to use for the discussion." Your post: "jeez reptyle, sounds like youve been drinking the stuff! I was looking for a hyperspace experience, and I got it in spades. I know some people try to bring back a spiritual meaning, but I am a bit more shallow than that, just looking for a buzz, and I like it". If you look at my description of hedonism I used words like 'wonderful ego heads who like having a good time in this way'. This is not sarcasm, sorry if it came across that way, I have many a wonderful ego head friends and have been inspired by many a wonderful ego heads throughout my life. My comment didn't seem to annoy you so much at first. But, it seems like it laid brewing in your guts to point of purging through a shallow attack on me. "I hear you, but I was brought into the discussion by mooksha, as an example of what not to do, or at least as someone travelling the low path. Mooksha's tactic has come to bite her on the ass, and this trainwreck is a monument to asswipes comeing here thinking they are smart. Happy travelling mooksha, I hope the plant gods are impressed with your psuedo-academic waffle talk, coz it didn't hold much weight around here!" I'm not after your merit rogdog. I'm hear to listen to peoples ideas and share my own.

But what is being re-created when we get wasted and roll around in our own vomitis egos?

For sure. I guess I see hedonism as the pursuit of pleasure not essentially oriented towards the spiritual. Whereas, spiritualism is the overarching essence which is the foundation for our complete being in the world, including the experience of any sort of pleasure. Rather than seeing hedonism and spiritualism as dualistic opposites maybe a different approach could work. What do you all think of 'seeing' hedonism as one part of spirituality rather than its opposite. Every human has a spirit / psyche / soul.. and from this 'centre' life is appreciated. One part of life which is appreciated is the experience of bodily and egoistic pleasures. Maybe, when we spend a large portion of time, energy, life.. in a more bodily, egoistic pleasure realm it can be labeled as 'hedonism'. However, as I suggested, hedonism as a label for one aspect of our spirituality rather than spiritualism's opposite. This would be an approach which 'sees' the universe as monistic rather than dualistic. What do y'all think?

Yeah that''s awesome Mutant. I guess I see the world, ultimately, as a unichotomy. Then from this monism, or interrelated nature of everything, we tend to divide parts up into smaller, or particular, connections, meanings, and so forth. The latter seems to be a powerful tool for understanding specific elements of a whole system, ie. the universe. Just like a song is made up of various verses, the universe is made up of various particularities. But, It's all the same song. This is where entheogens have snatched my attention as i feel that, used with a bit of education and respect, they elude to a deeper resonance of the universal song.