[sciborg2]

Wow, you must write it down if you are going to monitor, and share it with us if that is ok with him/her. I would love to try that myself sometime.

Definitely. I'm not sure if I'll be allowed to monitor, especially at the beginning b/c dude wants to focus on a personal sigil then take the DMT at the moment of orgasm. 

I don't think he'll mind sharing the experience anonymously with more people, as he plans to make a site about the various issues and experiences relating to varied drugs. All of it will be anecdotal, but I also know a woman who works with NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) who is gathering accounts about how weed helped people. I personally know of people who found weed assisted to a greater/lesser extent in managing eating disorders.

Also, here's an article with Rick Strassman about DMT. He actually contributed a chapter to Inner/Outer space about preparing for a psychedelic trip to get the most out of it.

[Royce]

In 1962 Alan Watts was asked to do the same thing as Aldous Huxley did with his "doors of perception" book, namely to write down his experience with psychedelics. He has a beautiful way with words(as does Huxley) and his book "The joyous cosmology" is deeply fascinating. I will share a little bit with you, enjoy the words

"Listen, there is something I must tell. I have never, never seen it so clearly. But it does not matter a bit if you do not understand, because each one of you is quite perfect as you are, even if you do not know it. Life is basically a gesture, but no one, no thing, is making it. There is no necessity for it to happen, and none for it to go on happening. For it is not being driven by anything; it just happens freely of itself. It is a gesture of motion, of sound, of color, and just as no one is making it, it is not happening to anyone. There is simply no problem of life; it is completely purposeless play- exuberance which is its own end. Basically there is the gesture. Time, space, and multiplicity are complications of it. There is no reason whatever to explain it, for explanations are just another form of complexity, a new manifestation of life on top of life, of gestures gesturing. Pain and suffering are simply extreme forms of play, and there is not anything in the whole universe to be afraid of because it does not happen to anyone! There is not any substantial ego at all. The ego is a kind of flip, a knowing of knowing, a fearing of fearing. It is a curlicue, an extra jazz to experience, a sort of double-take or reverberation, a dithering of consciousness which is the same as anxiety.

Sorry about the wall of text, but it is basically one long sentence.

[Madness]

I'm not one to really support Reality Sandwich anymore but...

Beyond the Machine Elves: On DMT Culture, Visionary Plants and Entheodelic Storytelling

[sciborg2]

I'm not one to really support Reality Sandwich anymore but...

Beyond the Machine Elves: On DMT Culture, Visionary Plants and Entheodelic Storytelling

Thanks for that Madness. Out of curiosity did you just drift away from Reality Sandwich or did it get too far out for you?

I like some of the articles, even the metaphysical ones, but sometimes it's all speculation without grounding. And while I enjoy the concept behind Gnosticism the conspiracy theory aspect of it gets a bit weird over there.

All that said, I'm reading The Second Psychedelic Revolution Part One: The End of Acid.

[Madness]

I'm not one to really support Reality Sandwich anymore but...

Beyond the Machine Elves: On DMT Culture, Visionary Plants and Entheodelic Storytelling

Thanks for that Madness. Out of curiosity did you just drift away from Reality Sandwich or did it get too far out for you?

I was involved with the Evolver Blogs for awhile. Apparently belonged to a group of dissenters. There was a rift in vision between Evolver and Reality Sandwich. I was eventually made a commentator moderator at RS (possibly still am) when I signed up to help clean up spam on Evolver... It got weird. Though, the people who volunteered for modding couldn't access Evolver and were tricked into cleaning RS, Pinchbeck and his team actively pruned blogs that didn't adhere to their particular vision of Evolver's "evolution."

So eventually I stopped partaking.

I like some of the articles, even the metaphysical ones, but sometimes it's all speculation without grounding.

I stop by every once in awhile and read if something tickles. But I don't actively promote the whole thing as I used to.

And to be clear, I think that Pinchbeck is fucking genius for having affected the Evolver spores. An invaluable tool of real-world dissemination.

[sciborg2]

I stop by every once in awhile and read if something tickles. But I don't actively promote the whole thing as I used to.

And to be clear, I think that Pinchbeck is fucking genius for having affected the Evolver spores. An invaluable tool of real-world dissemination.

Will have to check out the Evolver side of this. Reality Sandwich is great, but I think the mix of grounded concerns might be better separated from the spiritual stuff. Which is not to deny expression of the latter, but I think the piece on psychedelic fiction could've been written without insisting the deities residing in the hologram or whatever are real.

Sometimes the articles read like the person writing them was high while typing.

[Madness]

but I think the piece on psychedelic fiction could've been written without insisting the deities residing in the hologram or whatever are real.

This is my biggest turn-off with that area of "theorizing" (books, articles, research, whatever)... the primary sources don't do much to put on a legitimate front on their investigation.

This is just a metaphor for science, really though. Too many people are prone to editorialize.

[Royce]

but I think the piece on psychedelic fiction could've been written without insisting the deities residing in the hologram or whatever are real.

Dennis Mckenna said something interesting about this. When he was younger, more optimistic and full of life, DMT trips was incredibly intense, and propped with "meaning". I do not remember him mentioning deities, but probably he met them to. He had an experience with DMT, after not having done it in several years, and the experience was very different. It was more bleak, and the "carnival of life" that he experienced when he was younger, was almost absent. He said that it might be because he was old, and he did not view life in such an optimistic manner anymore.(He is rather pessimistic about the status quo changing for the better).

What this tells me is that your attitude going into a trip sort of shapes the experience, which means that "deities" might be real if you want them to be. It seems to me that trips are like clay which you can mold into whatever you want. So real, or not real, is really pretty irrelevant. It is real to the person experiencing it, but when that person says to someone else that it is real, he is falling into a trap IMO.

[Madness]

This could just as easily be explained by a great abundance of neurotransmitters that the "trips" have to work with in youth versus in aging?

[Royce]

Dont destroy my mold and clay metaphor please   You are most likely correct in your assumtion

[Madness]

[Royce]

Just thought I should share a story which IMO reflect maybe the most important aspect of the therapeutic value of psychedelics. I am talking about coping with fear. Not little fears or anxiety, but the fear with a capitol F, namely the fear of death.

My brother knows a guy who works in a team of psychologists/therapists who mainly work with terminally ill patients.
There was this guy who was terrified of dying, and my brother and his friend arranged for this guy to try out psilocybin mushrooms. There was medical personnel present, so it was safe to go through with it(either way, he was terminally ill, so nothing could really happen to make things worse).

So, it was(according to my brother) heartbreaking to see this frightening individual turn into a big smile . He did not say much, but he did not really have to. The fear was completely gone, and he had found peace with his situation.

All this is of course totally illegal, and everyone involved took a risk, but it was in the end totally worth it. The nurse who was present was totally shocked by this mental transformation that occurred.

It is a shame that the general public does not know of the value and difference these medicines can provide for a shattered human mind.

[Madness]

As Breathe - Pink Floyd comes on the radio, I must note the synchronicity.

But +1, Royce, and I feel that all euthanasia advocates should also support appropriate instances like the above.

[Royce]

As Breathe - Pink Floyd comes on the radio, I must note the synchronicity.

Oh yes, it does not get much better than that

Found this blog by Ben Cain to be very interesting

http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2012/12/the-psychedelic-basis-of-theism.html

[sciborg2]

Found this blog by Ben Cain to be very interesting

http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2012/12/the-psychedelic-basis-of-theism.html

Interesting rant - I'm glad he's honest about trying to sell us his particular, supposedly fact based opinion. It does come off as kinda preachy though.

That said I'm not sure Nagel or Hancock would agree with Cain about the nature of reality.