The case against the spirit world model of psychedelic action.

[ThunderIdeal]

"People with inclination for logical thinking, reason etc, might have more difficulties during a trip, especially a strong one, but they will propably not have any particular problem the next day, even if the experience came to be a bad trip for some reason - this of course implies the person in question has no mental issues to begin. On the other hand, people less inclined in logic, might have less difficulties during the experience, and especially a strong one, but one might argue that they are more propable to become obsessed/unstabilised [in the 'wrong' vein] with or because of particular notions/visions of their trip, especially in regards with any mental issues, assimilation of gained insight the following days etc etc etc."

"this of course implies the person in question has no mental issues to begin."

does it? if it is as simple as these two examples, then it implies to me that they can ignore what they've experienced and default to a previous perception, kinda like system restore in windows. maybe that in itself IS a mental problem.

all this talk of bad trips... i've never had one. i've gone through some personal difficult shit, had some severe body load in the past (bless chiropractors for all eternity), felt pretty strange around other people and felt pretty strange about everything really, but can somebody tell me what is a bad trip? please. is it an anxiety/panic attack? an unpleasant realisation about one's existence? psychosis?

[reptyle]

Whether the spirits are neural structures with which one may interact to restructure and understand the layers of the mind apprehending them (in a purely material sense) through various trance, psychedelic, meditational or deprivation techiniques or whether they are independently existing created aspects of reality with their own personalities, functions and attributions is immaterial and need not be proved or disproved...reality is not fully explained by earthly sciences as yet and so no true claims or assumptions may be made by it as an institution, people working with the mystery are aware of the paradox of belief and are interacting with a world of created interactive programming...

skeptic merely limit their own possible pathways...and also they are in a state of entropy which can only and inevitably end in confusion, it is a risk that such people may get lost in the creative processes of new lives and end upn in limited frames...

peace and blessings.

[Chiral]

all this talk of bad trips... i've never had one. i've gone through some personal difficult shit, had some severe body load in the past (bless chiropractors for all eternity), felt pretty strange around other people and felt pretty strange about everything really, but can somebody tell me what is a bad trip? please. is it an anxiety/panic attack? an unpleasant realisation about one's existence? psychosis?

maybe bad is the wrong word...moreover the ones called bad actually have the most emotional impact...call it emotional purging if you will, I've had my share of them particularly of late and it's healing in it's own unique way but is frightening to analyze yourself to point of almost having a mental break down...I'm only saying this because of late I have been having some serious issues with emotions after very experimental dosages and and am now taking a much needed break to reground myself and look at what I learned and place it into perspective....waking up day after day and not being able to stop crying and just feeling and understanding my own immortality and seeing myself from the other side can be an arduous and difficult process to deal with. Most of you are young and can take probably many more years of use of psychedelics at the right dose's but as I have said before in this thread it is not necessary to continue on an on for the sake of it or simply because you have a handful of something...go easy and you may never have to get to state I have recently pushed myself too or perhaps you will want to know what being close to hell everyday for weeks on end is...not bad trips...full on confrontational emotional diagnostic meltdown is how I'd like to put it.

H.

[drugo]

what the heck is psychedelic and non-psychedelic researchers ? like, pro psychedelic and against??

Kent's approach is unique and rare. He is actually speaking about real psychedelic use, and that's where people are offended. Because you know , that, in parts, he is speaking about some of you....

I am talking about thumbprint doses, or, a lot lower than that, but even than, enormous quantities, like 100 or 200 trips at once. even 10, 20 or 50 blotters seem too much for anything in my book... dunno

What I am talking about is psychedelics abuse, and psychedelic use dangers regardless the abuse.

I am not trying to separate the 'community' from the 'rest of the world'. I am trying to separate appropriate use from irresponsbile/stupid/abusive/pretension

Hey mutant,

Sorry for my aggression in the last post, i'm not exactly sure why it came out like that. I usually don't argue like that, i think for some reason i channeled some anger about the situation of psychedelics and the West. Sorry for dumping it on you.

Please try and read the following response with out my negative tone form before speaking through it.

Um... There is a large community of academics publishing about various aspects of the psychedelic experience. We could call it whatever we want but this label works. Some popular psychedelic researchers are Ralph Metzner, Stanslav Groff, Eduardo Luna, Michael Harner, Tom Robberts... These people can be recognised as psychedelic researchers because they are having a huge conversation through various journals and books about the use of psycho-active substances. MAPS is a good free to the public journal offering discussion from a lot of the leading names in psychedelic research. Alternatively you have more popular schools of thought, such as continental philosophy, US and UK Anthropology, psychology, the list goes on. All these more popular schools, which is what is taught at most universities around the world, discuss people and ideas that are not focusing on the application of plants and synthetic substances to humans in regards to fundamental intellectual questions such as the nature of consciousness. I wish all my philosophy, anthropology and sociology lecturers were experimenting with plants for their own personal lives and academic lives, however they are not to my knowledge.

Kent's approach is not unique and rare, i'v heard all of his ideas discussed in some form or another from other researchers. They are really cool ideas, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that there are a lot of hard working researchers who are approaching psychedelics both experientially and academically and coming up with many alternative ways of intellectually understanding these profound experiences. I like this quote from Benny Shannons book (2002) The Antipodes of the Mind:

There is a story, which i have read somewhere, to the effect that Mohammad once compared a scholar or philosopher who writes about mysticism without having had any mystical experience to a donkey carrying a load of books.

But as i said before:

At the end of the day does it really matter so much ... [about specific intellectual arguments] ..? I tend to think that more fundamentally, more importantly, the psychedelic experience is about the experience, YOUR experience. Regardless of holy shamans or holy PhD preachers trying to explain or define it to you.

Hey mutant, when reading your opinion, if people take great amount of psychedelic experiences, most of them will end up incompetent and unable to speak or what not, i guess because you didn;t state what a 'great amount' is, it left those reading to interpret it in what they think is a 'great amount'. My sister thinks 20 separate trips of acid, is too much for an individual, whereas i don't, i would argue that it probably takes at least 20+, depending on individual approaches, before really profound results start to occur.

"irresponsbile/stupid/abusive/pretension " use of psychedelics is dangerous, there is no doubt about it. However, it is like any great period of growth and development in an indiviuals life. For example, learning to walk as a baby is a dangerous time full of peril risk, you don't wanna to try and dance down a flight of stairs when you're used to crawling about in the world

I haven;t heard about these types of thumbprnt doses, i think they must be really rare, i'm not sure though. 200 trips i imagine would fry someones brain, maybe similar to how say 200 years of a narrow consumer, material and ego driven world view might melt the beauty of life down into a dosile, Orwellien nightmare.

I guess my argument is firstly to apologise for my arrogance before, and secondly to suggest being careful when defining the dangers of psychedelic drug use, try and be specific about your claims as the gaps you leave will be filled by your readers own views, and for the general public these views are generally really negative towards the use of psychedelic drugs. I hate the term 'drug' but it works well here to emphasis how the public view these really important ecstatic and spiritual practices emerging through the use of plants and their analogues.

Much love

Edited May 25, 2009 by mooksha

[ThunderIdeal]

nice post mooksha.

i'm curious how many micrograms these thumbprints would consist of. presumably hundreds of MILLIgrams. i wonder what that is like, and if a "ceiling" is reached with a much smaller dose hence an extravagant waste of lsd. sounds like something that would have been done decades ago when lsd was much more abundant.

[Chiral]

Thumbprints where used to initiate members into the Family back in the 60's ...it was a way of assuring they where the real deal and could be trusted as dealers and become part of the network that distributed Owsleys acid around the grateful dead concerts etc....there are many wonderful stories on the thumbprint initiation and types of LSD back then like needlepoint and white fluff etc...

H.

[t st tantra]

heres a good read if you can handle reading a book in pdf.......

http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online...e.shtml#sixties

'the brotherhood of eternal love'

t s t .

'storming heaven' is a great read too.....really helped me put perspective on my sid experiences and on the 60/70's wave of psychedelica........

Edited May 26, 2009 by t st tantra

[mutant]

Re: Mooksha

Mooksha, no problem mate, I think I deserved some agression and I like strong arguements, but I sure didnt deserve the 'I don't know what I am talking about' thing . No hard feelings though, really. I actually have tried to bring some fuel to those type of arguements in various forums but seldom have a received lots of feedback, I have seen rather a tendency to avoid these grey areas on 'dangers of psychedelics' and such - this as seen as an inside-discussion in the community, not a mainstream one.

I don't really think academia can really touch thoroughly or even thoroughly enough, a subect so complex like this, because it simply goes over way too many sciences to study - what we are missing , I mean the scientifical, academic approach is the uniting knowledge. Scientists don't dare to do that because they are limited by their own science. A psychiatrist can understand neurosciences, even be entitled to speak on such things, but he cannot go on about religion ethnobotany, anthropology, ethnology etc. His area of study is another... Actually, many of the scientists that really believe in the powers of psychedelics have many reasons to use/take advantage of the mystical/religious side of psychedelics, because religion and religious expression is supposed to be protected as a freedom of will and living, so it might help in against the war on drugs. So whether they really like the religious approach or not, they cannot dismiss [and neither can I] that a big percentage of people or experimenters do live through religious experiences which seem of very great importance to them. I insist that what kent [and I] are talking about is after that. It's the philosophical take on what's really about those mystical experiences and how real they are, or how valid they are. This, totally independent to the fact that such an approach might help/inspire some.

I mean 'false' love can inspire you, emotions can actually make your perception of reality pretty different, that doesn't really mean that reality does change, rather the point of view, the perception of it changes. So Kent's talking about reality reality. Kent is trying to attack the metaphysical aspect not as something it's not felt, but like I said previously, like something not necessarily as important after the experience as it is while you really live through it during the experience. It's more about assimilating the events and thoughs, insight, visions of the experience, rather than trying to speak pro or against those drugs.

Kent's approach is unique iMO because he is not about the science labs and controlled enviroments with controlled doses, he is talking about what is happening in the 'community' and heavy use. Sure, he seems a bit narrow minded, not living much place for many many responsible 'spirit world' users to like him, but still, I believe the most concious ans, may I say, sensible such users would find lots of Kent's article quite in place, generally logical and with good points, if he didn't seem so sublime.

I tend to think that more fundamentally, more importantly, the psychedelic experience is about the experience, YOUR experience.

THE experience and YOUR experience are surely two different things. I think the psychedelic experience is about YOU, and I think that's what Kent is suggesting. Not about some outside unseen world. This fabulous natural world we are talking about is near us right now ,every moment. And since we were 'initiated' we can see that more easily. That's the big mystery IMO. Now, if you take too much, I think this does discredit the validity of the claims a bit, but hey, it depends on the claims and it sure depends on the individual integrity.

I think your sister is right, 20 blotters are too much, it always depends on the individual and the blotter af course {20 low dose tabs can easily be the same as 5 strong ones}

And I believe that profound results can come from 10 seeds of HBWR or a low/mid sid dose such as half a tab. I cannot speak about anything else from experience, but I suspect that 3 gr of psiloshrooms can surely be profound, especially fro a first time taker ;)

I would further argue [but that's not a classic psych ] that low and mid doses of amanita are rather pleasant and euphoric, as opposed to larger doses of more than 12 gr, where things become more and more ... profound...

Here's a thread on thumbprints, it's pretty interesting I think!!!

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.p...64/fpart/1/vc/1

"irresponsbile/stupid/abusive/pretension " use of psychedelics is dangerous, there is no doubt about it. However, it is like any great period of growth and development in an indiviuals life. For example, learning to walk as a baby is a dangerous time full of peril risk, you don't wanna to try and dance down a flight of stairs when you're used to crawling about in the world

heh, nice arguement but still, you would like to minimise the dangers, f.e. you might want your child to learn that the cacti you got around the house is stingy and potentially dangerous if you fall on. Well, you would not want you child to put an eye out to learn this, you might just prefer it to have it's hand stung a couple of times ;)

Equally, we should encourage caution to beginers plus people who are obviously inclined to some sort of instability, especially in regards with doses as well as settings and sets. I know I sound conservative, maybe I am, but that's the way I feel. I am against prohibition of any substance, any drug synthetic or natural. The funny thing about the word drugs is that in my country, as an slang word, drugs ["ντράγκς"] mean narcotics. We actually use a single word to describe psychoactive substances and that's narkotika [ναρκωτικά] = narcotics , even if we got a wealth of words. If you mention the word psychoactive [psychoenergos, ψυχοενεργός] they will look at you like you're an alien or something. And you know even cannabis is 'narkotiko' even stims are 'narkotika' . Or they're generally called drugs

It always depends. On the individual, on the society he grew in. I cannot speak to you Mooksa [19 y.o.] in the same vein I would talk to tst - I do this in my real life too. And that's why I try to make it more personal in such discussions [f.e. ask ages] : we cannot really be open enough to make a nice conversation unless we realise where our fellow speakers come from [and it's really different paths of life, I am sure]. And this, when we are talking about psychoactives and psychedelics, becomes more and more important and focused on the individual, more and more about each one of us reading this thread these days... I hope you can relate with what I am saying here....

Re: ThunderIdeal

Bad trips is a trip you wish it would end, or you patiently wait for it to wear off. It's usually something that is induced by bad situations like set/setting or uncontrolled fear. Sure there might be ways to reverse it, but it's not always possible, especially when inexperienced and/or in a bad setting you can't get out of. There's also this thing hunab is saying

maybe bad is the wrong word...moreover the ones called bad actually have the most emotional impact...call it emotional purging if you will, I've had my share of them particularly of late and it's healing in it's own unique way but is frightening to analyze yourself to point of almost having a mental break down...I'm only saying this because of late I have been having some serious issues with emotions after very experimental dosages and and am now taking a much needed break to reground myself and look at what I learned and place it into perspective....waking up day after day and not being able to stop crying and just feeling and understanding my own immortality and seeing myself from the other side can be an arduous and difficult process to deal with. Most of you are young and can take probably many more years of use of psychedelics at the right dose's but as I have said before in this thread it is not necessary to continue on an on for the sake of it or simply because you have a handful of something...go easy and you may never have to get to state I have recently pushed myself too or perhaps you will want to know what being close to hell everyday for weeks on end is...not bad trips...full on confrontational emotional diagnostic meltdown is how I'd like to put it.

let me analyzze my thinking. I don't believe a psychedelic experience is supposed to necessarily bring joy to the taker. Not for me anyway. It's not a euphoric substance anyways, even if it can be. So a serious experience, even low /mid dose, can have it's darker moments, no bad trip in that. Especially if you are familiar with those drugs, and expect the darker side [its the darker side of reality or you, mind you ;)] , or regard it a high possibility, or even more, for the more psychoanalytical ones, if there are any out there except me, go for a psychanalytica experience you know it will be dark, because it is the very goal of the taker to go through some of the darker spots of his 'psych'.

IMO, Bad trip is not a 'wrong phrase', it's just a trip that went wrong for some reason, it's a result, not a special trip scheme. Many times the trip will be fantastic for the user up to a point and dowhill from then on.... Reasons? lack of experience, sensitivity of the individual, wrong set+setting whatever. A bad trip isnt necessarily a disaster. BUT, I feel that for those who are not mentally stabile, a bad trip, as any many-hour-intense-unpleasant-situation, might trigger further problems, fear, anxiety etc. maybe just maybe , to some. And, as the dose goes upward, the intensity of the experience goes up - so if it'a bad trip, it might be worse.

[some say bigger doses are harder to resist, so it's harder to have a bad trip, dunno about this myself, might be partly true - I have also read that an additional small dose might help the indivual to get off the negative loop and go on with the experience , overcoming a dark spot {Kent??} ]

To conclude, I think the whole thing can be seen also as a 'harm reduction' thread, even though, I am rather with G.carlin on this one, that we save too many lives, we dont leave nature do its thing... And a suggestion?

γνώθι σαυτόν [gnothi safton] = learn yourself

well, classic psychedelics are fucking great tools to do this, if used appropriately ;)

your greek philosopher

Self-awareness, self-knowledge, self-understanding

Edited May 26, 2009 by mutant

[ThunderIdeal]

his article definitely rubs some of us the wrong way, because of the overall message. i wouldn't call his style sublime, unless what you meant was hoity-toity. i would say he craps on as though the reader should believe him because he sounds educated, making some valid points along the way but striving at an overall message that has been well described already by my fellows.

bad trips.. i'm pretty much with you mutant. fair enough using the term to describe a strongly unpleasant experience, but if that has surprised anyone then it's the result of an erroneous belief that trips are good. i can understand why lots of people choose not to trip at all after trying it a few times. i can say this without condescension (i hope): for those people tripping doesn't offer anything they value, or it does but they perceive a high price.

tryptamines: i can barely notice health side effects, i tend to think of the body load you feel as increased attention on pre-existing health defects. i respect your position fully mutant but what harm do you aim to reduce? for that matter who is being saved from natural selection?

[Alchemica]

I think Ralph Metzner sums it all up quite nicely in "Hallucinogenic Drugs and Plants in Psychotherapy and Shamanism":

...The majority of Westerners who have developed an ongoing practice of working with entheogenic plant

substances seem to have expanded their belief systems beyond the boundaries of the conventional materialistic

paradigm of Western science and psychology. While accepting the validity of many Western psychological

insights, including those of Freud, C.G. Jung and Wilhelm Reich, they have come - like indigenous people and

devotees of Asian and Western esoteric traditions - to accept the reality of nonmaterial spirit beings and to recognize

that we live in multiple worlds of consciousness.

Western psychology may, through such explorations, be finally coming around to the views expressed by

William James, after his personal research with the psychedelic anesthetic nitrous oxide, almost 100 years ago:

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of

consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of

consciousness entirely different. . . . No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves

these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded (James 1901/1958: 228).

Hallucinogenic Drugs and Plants in Psychotherapy and Shamanism

http://www.scribd.com/mobile/documents/6558932

Edited May 27, 2009 by The Alchemist

[drugo]

I think Ralph Metzner sums it all up quite nicely in "Hallucinogenic Drugs and Plants in Psychotherapy and Shamanism":

Hallucinogenic Drugs and Plants in Psychotherapy and Shamanism

http://www.scribd.com/mobile/documents/6558932

That's great Alchemist,

By the way Mutant, Ralph Meztner is a scientist. Most scienticists, whether psychology, sociology, biology or physics, who focus on the psychedelic experience usually end up discussing their views in a mutli-disciplinary form. This seems to be so 'cause the psychedelic experience is so fundamental that it lurks below and emerges through different sciences. I think that if you want to intellectualise it, philosophical inquiry offer the deepest understaning. The sciences borrow from and feed to philosophical rigor, however scientific disciplines are encouraged by, or indebted to, their discursive nature. For example, anthropologists are more likely to talk about globalisation, psychologists are more likely to talk about depression. Philosophy is more likely to talk about the fundamentals, such as meaning, value, and belief.

As i said, most psychedelic researchers also practice psychedelics, and due to this, researhers from different sciences often find themselves borrowing from, and extending on, ideas from other disciplines and philosophical inquiry at Large.

Ol' Ralphy enjoy's deviating well from the rational confines or scientific discourse, as the Alchemist's post demonstrates.

I really like William's 1902 paper on mysicism. I can post if on the forum if anyone would like. The chapter is awsome for so many reasons, but i'll mention a brief brief amont of it cause Alchemist's post has encouraged me to

At the start William's introduces the ideas of: Ineffability - can't be expressed in words, and Noetic - "States of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect. He then offers heaps of different accounts of mystical experience, from plebs in pre-modern Europe, to Sufi accounts, buddhist, Catholic, and more.

I like this quote towards the end of the paper (Williams 1902):

"Who calls the absolute anything in particular, or says that it is [this], seems implicitly to shut it off from being that". pp.379

"Mystical [experience] merely adds a supersensuous meaning to the ordinary outward data of consiousness. They are excitements like the emotions of love or ambition, gifts to our spirit by means of which facts already objectively before us fall into a new expressiveness and make a new connection with out active life" pp.418

I wish James could have experienced some of magical tryptamines rather than just nitrous oxide.

[t st tantra]

"Mystical [experience] merely .........huh,what is there about mystical exp which is merely....... that one word pisses me off.....

t s t .

[drugo]

"Mystical [experience] merely .........huh,what is there about mystical exp which is merely....... that one word pisses me off.....

t s t .

You need to contextualise language, this was written over a hundred years ago.

Readying peoples philosophies is about trying to understand the world, as it's experienced and known through the philosopher. If you read the paper which the quote was derived from, or other relevant books from William's, you will get a good understanding on his feelings towards mystical experience which probably wont "piss you off".

[folias]

"Rationality" is the old way. In light of the depths and complexities of the psychedelic experience it is ordinarily shown to be primitive.

Benny Shannon is about the only one to believe what he believes regarding ayahuasca... sure, there may be a few others who have drunk 100 + times and think the same kind of things... but I don't know any!

In this case, I think its much braver to own this largely unmapped land, and the very limited lexicon we have, words like "spirit" may appear foolish to some, but the English language is not one in which any kind of direct interaction with other realms of consciousness is not traditionally accepted as being valid or real. Other cultures around the world are very different of course...

Also, people of the English speaking milieu often have a problem stepping out into the new, to look foolish, is a big no-no in that "dominator" culture...

But I have to say, the efforts of the white knucklers of the cliff dwellers like James Kent and Benny Shannon, look exceedingly foolish and futile to me. (someone's gotta do it?)

What we need, is more like "maps of hyperspace", rather than more nay sayers just towing the party line of dull, consensus, mainstream thinking. I mean, once you've seen the world is round, its literally impossible to take anyone seriously who still contends it is flat.

Julian.

[drugo]

"Rationality" is the old way. In light of the depths and complexities of the psychedelic experience it is ordinarily shown to be primitive.

Benny Shannon is about the only one to believe what he believes regarding ayahuasca... sure, there may be a few others who have drunk 100 + times and think the same kind of things... but I don't know any!

In this case, I think its much braver to own this largely unmapped land, and the very limited lexicon we have, words like "spirit" may appear foolish to some, but the English language is not one in which any kind of direct interaction with other realms of consciousness is not traditionally accepted as being valid or real. Other cultures around the world are very different of course...

Also, people of the English speaking milieu often have a problem stepping out into the new, to look foolish, is a big no-no in that "dominator" culture...

But I have to say, the efforts of the white knucklers of the cliff dwellers like James Kent and Benny Shannon, look exceedingly foolish and futile to me. (someone's gotta do it?)

What we need, is more like "maps of hyperspace", rather than more nay sayers just towing the party line of dull, consensus, mainstream thinking. I mean, once you've seen the world is round, its literally impossible to take anyone seriously who still contends it is flat.

Julian.

"Rationality" is the old way. In light of the depths and complexities of the psychedelic experience it is ordinarily shown to be primitive.

Benny Shannon is about the only one to believe what he believes regarding ayahuasca... sure, there may be a few others who have drunk 100 + times and think the same kind of things... but I don't know any!

In this case, I think its much braver to own this largely unmapped land, and the very limited lexicon we have, words like "spirit" may appear foolish to some, but the English language is not one in which any kind of direct interaction with other realms of consciousness is not traditionally accepted as being valid or real. Other cultures around the world are very different of course...

Also, people of the English speaking milieu often have a problem stepping out into the new, to look foolish, is a big no-no in that "dominator" culture...

But I have to say, the efforts of the white knucklers of the cliff dwellers like James Kent and Benny Shannon, look exceedingly foolish and futile to me. (someone's gotta do it?)

What we need, is more like "maps of hyperspace", rather than more nay sayers just towing the party line of dull, consensus, mainstream thinking. I mean, once you've seen the world is round, its literally impossible to take anyone seriously who still contends it is flat.

Julian.

Hey Juilian, Thanks for your opinion.

When you say "rationality" is the old way. What do you mean by rationality? Intellectualism? Empiricism? Positivism? Efficient means to an end? As a term used popularly to propose limits on what's possible, in a sense, reality. Or maybe something completely different?

I agree that applying English, and scientific discourse, to 'hyperspace' is a new endeavor and therefore quite unequipped. But do you think it's the symbols of representation we are lacking, or possible, more so, we are lacking an appropriate way of approaching the world and its mysteries emerging through other realms of consciousness. I mean we are raised in a culture with a paranoid fixation on matter. Western industrialised culture's values and beliefs have a primary relationship to the physical. Generally speaking, we like big cars, houses, breasts, clothing, and we belief in what can be perceived and measured in the confines of matter. Symbols and language support this reality however i tend to think that more importantly there is a general orientation which suffocates peoples capacities to think differently, value differently and want to curiously peak into alternative realms of consciousness. Are these tendencies the residue of a primitive imperialistic history with a fixation on controlling the material? Hopefully it is evaporating residue and not going to destroy itself including the heights of humanity.

I see people who are exploring themselves and their world through altered states of consciousness as being like the anti-venom of the snake bite, immersed in, and a part of the venom and its destructive nature, but also a cure to the ills of its destruction.

Maybe the appropriate ways of approaching altered states of consciousness is through better forms of apprehending the experiences by integrating them down into the world of words and language. I guess maybe we need appropriate language to convince people to explore and appreciate alternative realms of consiousness more. Or maybe it's not so much the symbols. Maybe more importantly in need are the right people advocating it. Imagine the majority of famous folk from politics and Hollywood, the archetypal mythological figures of the contemporary West, insisting people and governments focus their attention on entheogens. And then amongst a critical stage of global economic, disease, and environmental turmoil, public uproar starts, straight to the high courts, within months methods for appropriate use are being televised country wide, globally, chemists are stocking their shelves with the most effective sacraments of history.

I love the ramble.

peace.

[drugo]

[quote n

[dundee]

Good point but this has all been disproven in very simple ways many times. Even for a layman like me its a simple open and shut case. people who see ghosts, devils etc while totally straight are mad, perhaps always been or suddenly chemically inbalanced in the brain somehow.

There is no doubt meditation can produce dream like states, this has been known for thousands of years however is out of reach of the general populace as it takes time, patience and dedication, skills according to credit card dept as a general example, few people have. Of couse people swear balck and blue they saw stuff eg aliens as they did see it, in their head but of course nobody else did.

Mass UFO sightings- weather balloons, clouds, planes, lightning.

Clairvoyants- clever people with the gift of educated guessing.

Ouija- Wishful thinking and positive use of subliminal pushing and pulling.

Mary and Jesus- religious fanatics trying to push the cause.

Voodoo- A mixture of herbs given as a tonic

Witchcraft- Story telling

Faith Healing- Positive thinking

The only problem i have no matter how much i want to believe, is the fact whilst not even 1 percent of the population has been involved in 'mysteries of the unexplained' there is another 99% that have not and there is not a shred of hard evidence anywhere, not one thing that can prove beyond doubt, anything other than human imagination and scam is responsible.

 

LMAO

.............--"it is hard to wake someone who is pretending to sleep"------old indian proverb

too many personal experiences , some as groups, to go along with your story.......but maybe we were all crazy lol.....but its ok, everyone is allowed their opinion

[synchromesh]

LMAO

Ditto.

Feel free to explain Crop Circles to us anytime, santiago...

[santiago]

oh come on fellas, cut me a break...that quote is from may 2009............of course i still stand by my comments tho, unfortunately i will re-iterate that there is not one scientific bit of proof anywhere that anything paranormal, religious or similar, monsters, ghosts whatever exists. then again religion teaches us to keep the faith as this is the true measure of beliving the unbelievable.

unfortunatelly i dont believe in spooky stuff, its all david copperfield if you ask me........some clever deception, a few old wives tales and a little bit of storytelling and secrecy mixed in with the fragile ego of mankind who refuse to believe that we are just a bunch of co-joined cells living on a rock, in a vacuum called space. just like kids believe in santa claus we adults graduate onto psuedo religion in the false hope that when our life ends we magically live on in some kind of second chance saloon..........please thats called insecurity, fear of death and a moralistic belief of self worth and not being able to believe that this is it, once dead..........your fertilizer.

in regards to the crop circles...............sure they are very pretty and intricate but surely if mankind can build a pyramid it can accomplish some pictures in grass.

hey i dont pretend to have all the answers, as a matter of fact i dont................i just dont believe in santa claus.

and of course in times of need i always refer back to my bible.............www.skepdic.com

crop "circle"

A crop "circle" is a geometric pattern, often very intricate and complex, appearing in fields, usually wheat fields and usually in England. Most, if not all, crop circles are probably due to pranksters. For example, Doug Bower and David Chorley admit to hoaxing approximately 250 circles over many years.

Some believe that the crop designs are messages from alien spacecraft. Some maintain that the aliens are trying to communicate with us using ancient Sumerian symbols or symbolic representations of alien DNA. Those who engage in such serious study and theorizing about crop circles are known as cerealogists (after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture and fertility) or croppies.

Even scientifically minded people have been brought into this fray. They have wisely avoided the thesis that aliens have been carving out messages in crop fields. But they have stretched their imaginations to come up with theories of vortexes, ball lightning, plasma, and other less occult explanations involving natural forces such as wind, heat, or animals. Some think the designs are clearly the work of the U.S. Air Force and the RAF using a "military microwave cannon, piloted by computer," and a design book.* However, when looking for an explanation of weird things we should never omit from our checklist the possibility that the phenomenon we are studying is a hoax.

Had crop circles existed in the thirteenth century, they would have been attributed to Satan, who was said to have been responsible for many weird happenings as well as for many unweird things, such as the construction of Stonehenge and Hadrian's wall between England and Scotland. It was believed by many that the ancients could not possibly have accomplished such feats on their own. Today, Satan's power as an explanation for weird or wondrous things has been usurped by aliens.

source- http://www.skepdic.com/cropcirc.html

[synchromesh]

Most, if not all, crop circles are probably due to pranksters.

And the rest? ... Not a very good summary dude... It doesn't even begin to answer any of my questions regarding Crop Circles.

oh come on fellas, cut me a break...that quote is from may 2009............of course i still stand by my comments tho

What were we supposed to cut you a break for then?

[santiago]

yes probably is not really a scientific quantity is is....nor is a can of 473ml red bull, it says on the contents......about 2 servings, it seems the same scientists that created redbull created the crop circle theory.

hopefully this next connection helps to trace the crop circle origin.

source-http://www.skepdic.com/nazca.html

The Nazca lines are geoglyphs and geometric line clearings in the Peruvian desert. They were made by the Nazca people, who flourished between 200 BCE and 600 CE along rivers and streams that flow from the Andes. The desert itself runs for over 1,400 miles along the Pacific Ocean. The area of the Nazca art is called the Pampa Colorada (Red Plain). It is 15 miles wide and runs some 37 miles parallel to the Andes and the sea. Dark red surface stones and soil have been cleared away, exposing the lighter-colored subsoil, creating the "lines". There is no sand in this desert. From the air, the "lines" include not only lines and geometric shapes, but also depictions of animals and plants in stylized forms. Some of the forms, including images of humans, grace the steep hillsides at the edge of the desert.The Nazca lines are communal. Their creation took hundreds of years and required a large number of people working on the project. Their size and their purpose have led some to speculate that visitors from another planet either created or directed the project. Erich von Däniken thinks that the Nazca lines formed an airfield for alien spacecraft*, an idea first proposed by James W. Moseley in the October 1955 issue of Fate and made popular in the early sixties by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier in The Morning of the Magicians. If Nazca was an alien airfield, it must have been a very confusing airfield, consisting as it does of giant lizards, spiders, monkeys, llamas, dogs, hummingbirds, etc., not to mention the zigzagging and crisscrossing lines and geometric designs. It was very considerate of the aliens to depict plants and animals of interest to the locals, even though it must have meant that navigation would be more difficult than a straight runway or a large clearing. Also, the airport must have been a very busy place, needing 37 miles of runway to handle all the traffic. However, it is unlikely spacecraft could have landed in the area without disturbing some of the artwork or the soil. There is no evidence of such disturbance.

The alien theory is proposed mainly because some people find it difficult to believe that a race of "primitive Indians" could have had the intelligence to conceive of such a project, much less the technology to bring the concept to fruition. The evidence points elsewhere, however. The Aztecs, the Toltecs, the Inca, the Maya, etc., are proof enough that the Nazca did not need extraterrestrial help to create their art gallery in the desert.

In any case, one does not need a very sophisticated technology to create large figures, geometrical shapes, and straight lines, as has been shown by the creators of so-called crop circles. The Nazca probably used grids for their giant geoglyphs, as their weavers did for their elaborate designs and patterns. The most difficult part of the project would have been moving all the stones and earth to reveal the lighter subsoil. There really is nothing mysterious about how the Nazca created their lines and figures.

Some think it is mysterious that the figures have remained intact for so many hundreds of years. However, the geology of the area solves that mystery.

 

 

Stones (not sand) comprise the desert surface. Rusted by humidity, their darkened color increases heat absorption. The resulting cushion of warm surface air acts as a buffer against the wind; while minerals in the soil help to solidify the stones. On the "desert pavement" thus created in this dry, rainless environment, erosion is practically nil - making for remarkable preservation of the markings (

http://www.travelvan.../per_nazc.html;

this site is

now defunct

).

The mystery is why. Why did the Nazca engage in such a project involving so many people for so many years?

G. von Breunig thinks the lines were used for running footraces. He examined the curved pathways and determined that they were partially shaped by continuous running. Anthropologist Paul Kosok briefly maintained that the lines were part of an irrigation system, but soon rejected the notion as impossible. He then speculated that the lines formed a gigantic calendar. Maria Reiche, a German immigrant and apprentice archaeologist to Julio Tello of the University of San Marcos, developed Kosok's theory and spent most of her life collecting data to show that the lines represent the Nazca's astronomical knowledge. Reiche identified many interesting astronomical alignments, which had they been known to the Nazca might have been useful in planning their planting and harvesting. However, there are so many lines going in so many different directions that not finding many with interesting astronomical alignments would have been miraculous.

 

modern anthropology and the lines

 

 

The Nazca lines became of interest to anthropologists after they were seen from the air in the 1930s. It is unlikely that a project of this magnitude was not religious in purpose. To involve the entire community for many centuries indicates the supreme significance of the site. Like pyramids, giant statues, and other monumental art, the Nazca art speaks of permanence. It says: we are here and we are not moving. These are not nomads, nor are they hunters and gatherers. This is an agricultural society. It is, of course, a pre-scientific agricultural society, that turned to magic and superstition (i.e., religion) to assist them with their crops. The Nazca had the knowledge to irrigate, plant, harvest, collect, distribute, etc. But the weather is fickle. Things might go smoothly for years, or even centuries, and then, in a single generation entire communities are forced to leave because of extended drought or because of floods or tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, fires, or whatever else Mother Nature might hurl their way.

Was this a site for worship? Was this the Mecca of the Nazca? a place of pilgrimage? Were the images part of rituals aimed at appeasing the gods or asking for help with the fertility of the people and the crops, or with the weather or with a good supply of water? That the figures could not be seen as those in the heavens might see them would not be that important for religious or magical purposes. In any case, similar figures to the giants at Nazca decorate the pottery found in nearby burial sites and it is apparent from their cemeteries that the Nazca were preoccupied with death. Mummified remains litter the desert, discarded by grave robbers. Was this a place for rituals aimed at bringing immortality to the dead? We don't know, but if this mystery is ever to be cleared up it will be by serious scientists, not by alienated pseudoscientific speculators molding the data to fit their extraterrestrial musings.

Edited January 17, 2011 by santiago

[synchromesh]

And Skepdic is your bible you say?

Comparison of two leading crop circle formation theories

Arguments Against the Hoax Theory of Crop Circles

The Human Butterfly: The Biggest Crop Circle Ever!

[herbal_hindsight]

Santiago... you have really accomplished one main thing with your posts in this thread!!!

You have attempted to push an irrational explanation of rationality supposedly disproving ANY 'super-natural' phenomena that science [of the material world] cannot explain; ironically using science. :-p

You have also managed to toy with many of my emotions and that of other members. At first I was very angry from reading Kent's essay and your posts; however, after spending the last hour or so reading the entire thread I have come to the conclusion that I feel quite sad for you.

The one main thing the psychedelic experience has done to improve my existance in this crazy universe is REMOVE the boundaries put up through the conditioning I have been exposed to my entire life! The bullshit this society has fed me through schooling, religion, the media and marketing. [not to forget politics]

It seems to me that you have your own boundaries YET to be identified and removed; some of what Kent said was agreeable but to completely discredit ALL alien abductions/sightings, ghosts/spirits and ALL other 'super-natural' phenomena is complete ridicule on your behalf.

It find it disturbing you are so convinced of your arguments but can sit back and remind myself that this is the sort of thing WE [as a community] are up against.

You are pushing mis-information, you come across VERY narrow-minded and no better than a priest or cultist making the attempt to PUSH your own beleifs and world view onto the many. A fear monger if you will!!!

What is your desired outcome from this?

I actually feel offended at the fact you have claimed to describe an experience that cannot be described with our current language and labelled anyone who stands by these experiences as being real in any sense of the word as crazy.

What a massive insult. Define crazy? Someone who doesn't agree with your own personal opinions of the world and what is real and what is not which is in itself only based on your own life time of conditioning and therefore just an opinion?

Science CANNOT explain EVERYTHING.... even science admits this so why aren't you?

We know VERY VERY little about the nature of reality let alone anything else. Life is highly probably on other planets within our own solar system and just outside of it and to think that out of the entire universe we are the only forms of life, to me is literally insane. I personally don't beleive we were created on Earth. I beleive we arrived here from another planet; whether it be as single cell organisms or as the complex bacteria we are today.

The psychedelic experience has taught me sooooooo much about myself and the world and the way I have been conditioned to perceive it and through over a decade of experimenting using the toolbox of psychedelics I have gradually been re-building my own world view based on facts; A LOT of research; questioning everything, and experiences that YOU nor anyone else cannot discredit.

If I am crazy; I wouldn't know it. I wouldn't question it! I do, however know I am not!

Not one culture in the world can agree 100% on what Mental health actually means and what insanity is defined as.

By what you have said throughout this thread you have totally dis-credited people like nostradamus who has predicted many many events well after his time which have come true. DOES YOUR SCIENCE EXPLAIN THIS TOO?

If ghosts are not real then how can you explain sudden shifts in temperature when they are sighted or merely 'felt'? I personally have actually had the spirit of an old man walk straight through me on a hot summer's night at Waterfall gully. I felt unexplainably cold and the bloke didn't possess me but somehow attached himself to me and 'followed me home.' I was freezing the entire drive home and actually spotted a series of orbs floating in my car [yet another phenomeno that can't be explained] I managed to shake him off after my own methods were tried drumming and chanting mantras] and then did some research to discover there had been a big explosion at the very place I had been nearly 100 years earlier when it was used as a mine and many men were killed. I have also heard ghosts [children laughing and playing] in the same place in the middle of the night sitting there with a friend listening to a mp3 with just one earpiece in my ear. The song was Deadman Guitar solo by neil young.... an instrumental! I felt very cold had my eyes closed and wasn't aware my friend could also hear it and felt the cold until I felt panic and had to open my eyes to which the giggling stopped and my temperature went back to normal and we just looked at eachother in awe. In this same place we both FELT, SAW AND HEARD 'nature' communicate to us... we asked it to during a storm [we were protected in a valley at the bottom of a small waterfall from the rain] and all of a sudden a moment after we requested acknowledgement we received it and a huge gust of wind swept in and drenched us to then leave a second later and the protection from the storm was once more.

I have also seen objects picked up in the air when I was about 8 years old and moved to another place. Well before any experimenting with plants came about... Some experiences are never forgotten and they are usually the ones that cannot be explained but then I guess I am just crazy! Also a very strong memory I have from when I was 8 is of the first time that I astral travelled and left my physical body during sleep. I have since repeated this through psychedelics and meditation with great success.

My own personal opinion of OOBE is that our physical self is but a vessel and our soul can be trained to leave the body through certain methods of altering one's brain waves. Trance if you will. Now this has been scientifically proven but then I suppose I am still crazy.

What about our aura? I have seen them plenty of times around myself and on other people and I have also had telepathic experiences [communication through thought] using syrian rue with the other people in the group except for one guy who was in his own world and not being part of the group experience!

I also find what you said about shaman's very insulting and far from the truth and a vast number of people would back me up on that one... you have attempted to stereotype, label and describe all aspects of the spiritual aspects of culture and life in general into a single sentence as being mythological, brainwashing and lies. Shame on you.

As for BAD trips... I personally don't beleive in the concept. I have had some extremely difficult experiences and I was in a bad place at the time but the thing is I stopped and analysed myself even deeper as a result rather than blaming the substance and learnt so much more from the experience therefore making it a GOOD trip despite it being difficult.

There are surely instances of other people as previously discussed having bad experiences but these are usually people who are abusing the tool and have little or no experience. I have met such people and they swore to never do it again; sadly they didn't learn from the experience in my opinion as they just went back to drinking copious amounts of alcohol and continued to drown their sorrows rather than face their demons!

In summary... just because you have shut yourself off to the mysteries of life and feel you can explain anything even slightly strange as being delusions created by crazy people doesn't mean you have to aggresively narrow it all down and spread more lies about something more magnificent than anything science has ever discovered.

Just like I "beleive" psychedelic substances and plants are here for a purpose; so do I "beleive" that people like you are here too; to constantly challenge us on the journey and show us just where the world is at and what further work needs to be done.

The one mistake people who are scared away from psychedelics make is to not respect them for the powerful tools they are... NEVER under-estimate them... they will always be more powerful than you think... at times I find a small dose suffient and healing in itself but othertimes I need a hardcore reminder of just how insignificant everything is and where I stand in it all!

It isn't what happens during the experience that matters; it's what you do with it afterwards!

Thank you for starting this discussion Santiago; I hope at the very least you have learnt something from all of this! I know one thing is for sure that you have a poor understanding of shamanism and the psychedelic experience as a whole.

Peace!

[mutant]

It isn't what happens during the experience that matters; it's what you do with it afterwards!

i agree with this.

other than that, healthy scepticism is always a good thing in my book.

bad trips do exist, they're failed attempts, total or semi fuck-ups, happening mainly due to set & setting. the fact you don't accept the term is simply indicative of the wide range of approaches and point of views to psychedelic experience or was it just discussing semantics?

I think OOBE and lucid dreaming are a very interesting field of research. Who know what these trances can take you when mastered? Seeing it as a mind thing is not so contraining as some of you might think...

[botanika]

The one main thing the psychedelic experience has done to improve my existance in this crazy universe is REMOVE the boundaries put up through the conditioning I have been exposed to my entire life! The bullshit this society has fed me through schooling, religion, the media and marketing. [not to forget politics]

 

You can never remove those boundaries permanently, they are always changing and we are always adapting. The conditioning is what you make of it and much of that system was created by 'belief' or 'faith' in the first place. Psychedelics are not a reason to pull yourself into the supernatural faith of ghosts, UFO's and elves, they are a reason to think for yourself in enlightened rational wonder.

Try set up your own community and see how far you survive without similar systems. The beauty and elegance of living things is produced as a result of a thoroughly unpleasant, cruel process. A belief in the supernatural is perhaps the biggest 'boundary' of all in our current society because it bases belief ahead of truth. For example many lengthy and costly wars are fought over secular hatred.

It seems to me that you have your own boundaries YET to be identified and removed; some of what Kent said was agreeable but to completely discredit ALL alien abductions/sightings, ghosts/spirits and ALL other 'super-natural' phenomena is complete ridicule on your behalf.

It find it disturbing you are so convinced of your arguments but can sit back and remind myself that this is the sort of thing WE [as a community] are up against.

You are pushing mis-information, you come across VERY narrow-minded and no better than a priest or cultist making the attempt to PUSH your own beleifs and world view onto the many. A fear monger if you will!!!

what is not which is in itself only based on your own life time of conditioning and therefore just an opinion?

Science CANNOT explain EVERYTHING.... even science admits this so why aren't you?

If ghosts are not real then how can you explain sudden shifts in temperature when they are sighted or merely 'felt'? I personally have actually had the spirit of an old man walk straight through me on a hot summer's night at Waterfall gully.

No offense, but your sounding evangelistic.

Taken from James Oberg's 'The failure of the 'science' of UFOlogy'

'Ufology' allegedly refuses to play by the rules of scientific thought, demanding instead special exemptions from time-tested procedures of data verification, theory testing, and the burden of proof. Ufologists assert the existence of some extraordinary stimulus behind a small fraction of the tens of thousands of UFO reports on file. The cornerstone of the alleged proof is the undisputed observation that a small residue of such reports cannot at present be explained in terms of prosaic (if rare) phenomena. Yet this claim is invalid: it is clearly not logical to base the existence of a positive ("true UFOs exist") on the grounds of a hypothetical negative ("no matter what the effort, some UFO reports cannot be explained"). There will always be cases which remain unexplained because of lack of data, lack of repeatability, false reporting, wishful thinking, deluded observers, rumors, lies, and fraud. A residue of unexplained cases is not a justification for continuing an investigation after overwhelming evidence has disposed of hypotheses of supernormality, such as beings from outer space.... Unexplained cases are simply unexplained. They can never constitute evidence for any hypothesis.

Yet there are amazingly many obvious and subtle ways in which such perceptions can be understandably generated. And there is bound to be an artificial residue of unexplained cases, a residue created purely by bizarre coincidences, by limitations on human perception and memory, or by rare undocumented natural occurrences. Additional sources of unexplained sightings could be human activities which are never publicized due to military security, to the illegality of the activity, or to plain ignorance on the part of the human agents of the activity that they had caused such a fuss. That residue will never be solved, and no extraordinary stimulus need be referred to.

Most UFO's are IFO's (identified flying objects). Such a hazy line between IFOs (which provide only data about the limitations of the reliability of eyewitness testimony) and UFOs (which are alleged by ufologists to mark a potential breakthrough in human science) is an appallingly weak basis for the foundation of the new would-be science of 'ufology'. That weakness is accentuated by another highly suspicious and non- scientific feature of ufology (and spirituality for that matter), an extremely cavalier attitude towards verification of data.

Such a problem with the "disproof" of UFO evidence points to yet another major weakness of the philosophical foundations of ufology. The burden of proof, which customarily lies with the claimants of supernormality (or, in a criminal trial, of the guilt of the accused, who is "innocent until proven guilty"), has been shifted to the skeptics, who are in the case of UFOs required to disprove the eviden ce. In the Carter-UFO and the astronaut-UFOs, it was the skeptics who investigated and solved the cases -- while ufologists assumed the cases were authentic until proven otherwise (and most still believe so).

And yet the rules of science are clear: extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. The thesis of ufology is an indictment against the ability of contemporary science to explain the Universe, and it must prove such an indictment as every other such proponent must prove it: the need for a modification of our current model of reality must be established beyond reasonable doubt.'

There's Dawkins theory that 'our intellectual climate will be determined not simply by the evidence yielded by ongoing enquiry, but by which ideas win and lose the fight for survival; the ideas that are best equipped for this fight will survive, irrespective of whether they are true.' 'the triumph of hope over experience'. 'Dawkins applies this insight to religion, offering a memetic critique of Christianity: religious belief, particularly Christian belief, is widespread because it stresses faith over reason (making it resistant to refutation), threatens hell (giving it deep psychological impact), and commands its bearers to replicate it (through evangelism). The success of Christianity, on this view, has nothing to do with truth; it is all about the ability of the Christian meme to survive and reproduce.'

Pyschedelic memes.

Edited January 18, 2011 by botanika