The 'Other' - what LSD and Marijuana has shown

[Zarathustra]

So, I think it's entirely possible to experience that kind of moment without religious ecstacy, rigorous self-discipline, or entheogenic substances, even as someone with a strong solipsistic outlook. Unlikely... sure. But from what I understand, many people have done itThe poet Blake, for example.

Didn't Blake use drugs? Oh well, beside the point. You are right, I've read that these states are made available through a variety of techniques.

[Avatar]

Awesome post Syl. So much of that I can entirely relate to. Even that bit about thinking that you've achieved enlightenment, but it not lasting. And of course, the egocentrism goes without saying. In fact, it wasn't long before my own first trip that I had come through similar epiphany based on identity.

My own view of "enlightenment" or advancement has always been based on the idea of perspective. The more perspectives you can contain, I think, the closer you are to some sort of state that could be thought of as enlightened.

...to quote Ikkyu, "How many times can I tell you? Don't worry; there's no way not to be who you are and where."

Exactly. And if there was and you ever did, you wouldn't be you anymore.

--A

[matrixman]

Excellent essay, Syl! I identify with a lot of what you said. I just have never (yet) had the kind of momentous epiphany that you describe, so I remain someone just living their day-to-day life, groping in the dark with the rest of humanity...perhaps waiting for that great sneeze, as you put it.

But I'm not going to waste my energies envying others who've "seen the light" nor am I going to spend endless days seeking that one great epiphany which will "set me free."

There seems to be a dark side, which Paul addressed earlier - about how an acid trip to that "summit" can breed a sense of certainty that makes you feel arrogant and superior to everyone else. It's like: I have seen the Truth, and YOU haven't. I don't want to turn into that kind of person. I prefer doubt and a healthy pessimism, because I believe those things help to set me free - or at least free from being trapped in absolute or extremist points of view. The kind of spiritual epiphany that's being discussed here is the same kind that drives "holy" men to declare "holy" wars against infidels. A "vision" from the Almighty compels them, yes? Is this an accurate picture I'm drawing?

Matrixman: I disagree that screenwriters should not take acid before writing about it. Of course they should take acid. If it messes them up, they should write about that. As for fantasy writers, they should definitely have a fantasy before writing one for someone else; it is open to debate to what extent SRD visits the Land, in my view.

Well, I'll be hell-fired and bloody-damned-to-heck...you mean the Chronicles are just the fatuous scribblings of an old hippie on acid? Wait...wait...it's all clear to me now..the Land is just a glorified hippie commune! Nooooooo...

Don't worry about your first time, I went straight from Beer to Acid and have been much the better for it. You should definitely have a caring and experienced guide though.

I sincerely doubt that I will ever make the attempt, but if I do, I'll entrust jwaneeta to keep me from going completely off the deep end. (Oh, I see...you're supposed to go off the deep end...)

And who's to say that killing small game with your hands and eating it warm isn't fun? Its the weeks of starvation and suffering in between that bother me. I like dry socks and air conditioning more than raw flesh.

Uh, okay...(backs away slowly while scanning for the nearest exit)

Oh, and I also agree a lot with what you've said in this thread, Av. I think we mentioned before in some other thread how we both find disturbing the notion that our individual selves should dissolve - our identities wiped clean - when we arrive in "Heaven" or when we are re-incarnated. If Heaven means existing in an eternal amnesia, then God has a different definition of happiness from my own, and I think I prefer mine. And if you're re-incarnated but without your previous "soul" intact, then you really haven't come back, have you? All the lessons learned from your previous life are moot. For all intents and purposes, that which was uniquely you is still quite thoroughly dead. Sorry for going off topic, just wanted to summarize what we were saying in that other thread, whatever it was.

[Avatar]

I think that it's exactly the kind of experience that engenders a certainty that can prove dangerous. As I've said before, I have a strong mistrust of certainty.

And yes, I totally agree that if our selves, our ego if you like, dissolves, then whatever was you is dead. We did indeed discuss it somewhere, and I really am going to start a thread, because it's a topic close to my heart as it were.

--A

[jwaneeta]

I think that it's exactly the kind of experience that engenders a certainty that can prove dangerous. As I've said before, I have a strong mistrust of certainty.

No, really, it doesn't. It creates an abyss of humility. If a person feels he has attained anything, it's the certainty that he all he "knows" is nothing.

The people who start holy wars are firmly entrenched in Illusion -- they mistakenly think they've got a clue and, God forgive them, have a right to inflict this false truth on others. But they're deceived, blind and proud. That's why it's called False Mysticism. You can sniff it a mile off - it reeks of ego. These are fragile, cowardly people who can't endure not having existence sorted into little labled boxes, so they make boxes. It's just another self-feeding belief construct, and unfortunately one that's responsible for 90% of the misery in this world.

Teresa of Avila said: "In all the world there exists only God, and the soul." Which is a saint's way of saying "mind your own business." It means that a person who is actively trying to pierce the veil of Illusion has plenty on their plate without getting up in anyone else's affairs, beliefs, or lifestyle. It's the work of a lifetime, and completely absorbing - there's no energy left for pushing other people around.

There's no certainty. There's no spoon.

[Fist and Faith]

Oh, and I also agree a lot with what you've said in this thread, Av. I think we mentioned before in some other thread how we both find disturbing the notion that our individual selves should dissolve - our identities wiped clean - when we arrive in "Heaven" or when we are re-incarnated.

I, otoh, am going to be a upset if I die, and my individual self still exists.

If Heaven means existing in an eternal amnesia, then God has a different definition of happiness from my own, and I think I prefer mine.

I don't expect any form of existence whatsoever after death, so... However, some believe that it's not any sort of amnesia, but more a joining with the infinite. Maybe like the Vulcan mind meld, where the two minds become one. Or the Borg, where MANY become one. Or Odo's people when they are all in their natural, liquid form in that big ocean-thing.

And if you're re-incarnated but without your previous "soul" intact, then you really haven't come back, have you? All the lessons learned from your previous life are moot. For all intents and purposes, that which was uniquely you is still quite thoroughly dead.

I know what you mean. However, here's a different take on it. Again, I don't expect this is the case, but it's interesting.

If personality consists of several sheaths, the body being only the outermost, there is no reason why personality should die when the body is shed. The sages of the Upanishads saw personality as a field of forces. Packets of karma to them are forces that have to work themselves out; if the process is interrupted by death, those forces remain until conditions allow them to work again in a new context.

Reincarnation where something goes on, but not the same personality. But it's not a God-driven/directed thing that doesn't makes sense to you and me. It's just the natural way energy acts. Personality is more than the core, so the core can be part of different personalities when the other factors are different. Or something like that.

As I've said before, I have a strong mistrust of certainty.

Are you sure about that?

[matrixman]

Oh, and I also agree a lot with what you've said in this thread, Av. I think we mentioned before in some other thread how we both find disturbing the notion that our individual selves should dissolve - our identities wiped clean - when we arrive in "Heaven" or when we are re-incarnated.

I, otoh, am going to be a upset if I die, and my individual self still exists.

Yeah, that would ruin your day...

If Heaven means existing in an eternal amnesia, then God has a different definition of happiness from my own, and I think I prefer mine.

I don't expect any form of existence whatsoever after death, so... However, some believe that it's not any sort of amnesia, but more a joining with the infinite. Maybe like the Vulcan mind meld, where the two minds become one. Or the Borg, where MANY become one. Or Odo's people when they are all in their natural, liquid form in that big ocean-thing.

I don't expect anything after death either. I assumed the existence of Heaven (and God) as a given for the sake of the point I wanted to make. I guess I should've stated my belief(s) at the outset. I didn't because I had already done so in boring detail in the "What Do You Believe?" and other similar threads. (sigh) And I should've put in this disclaimer: my comments concerning God and Heaven are not intended as an assault on the Christian faith, and I apologize for any offense my words may have caused.

Your analogies are freaking me out, Fist. Vulcan mind meld? Borg merger? Liquid state? Creepy, man. I'd rather be utterly dead than be absorbed into a nebulous multitude. Or else be immortal, and give Death the finger.

jwaneeta, thanks for explaining the difference. Is it fair to say it depends on your basic personality whether you become more humble or more arrogant after a mind-altering experience (either through drugs or meditation)? In your case, you obviously - and thankfully - have not turned into a militant warrior taking up arms in the name of your faith. The difference is that you see a God of love and mercy, while an extremist sees a God of wrath and retribution, right? Do drugs/pot/ meditation just help to confirm/amplify feelings that are already there?

Anyway, all this talk of jihadist tunnel vision probably belongs in another discussion, but it was worth it to bring it up.

I think I'm both amused and appalled by the casual drug use seemingly advocated in this thread. I don't smoke pot or anything else, and I'm not into drugs or pills. Heck, I can't remember the last time I took an Aspirin. In other words, my drug-free life likely makes me an immense bore at parties.

[Avatar]

Drugs should never be taken casually MM. Unfortunately, people often don't realise that until long after they've stopped taking them.

Jwaneeta, I was talking about the potential for dangerous certainty that an apparent "vision" can hold for the unwary or already arrogant. If you're already humble, or are humbled by it, obviously it's not a danger.

(And I'm pretty sure Fist, but I'm open to being wrong. )

And yeah MM, I'd say that they only confirm/enhance what is already there. They work on the world you believe exists, so if, in your world, god is a wrathful one, that's the one you'll see.

--A

[[Syl]]

Mushroom Drug Produces Mystical Experience

NEW YORK — People who took an illegal drug made from mushrooms reported profound mystical experiences that led to behavior changes lasting for weeks — all part of an experiment that recalls the psychedelic '60s.

Many of the 36 volunteers rated their reaction to a single dose of the drug, called psilocybin, as one of the most meaningful or spiritually significant experiences of their lives. Some compared it to the birth of a child or the death of a parent.

Such comments "just seemed unbelievable," said Roland Griffiths of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, the study's lead author.

But don't try this at home, he warned. "Absolutely don't."

Almost a third of the research participants found the drug experience frightening even in the very controlled setting. That suggests people experimenting with the illicit drug on their own could be harmed, Griffiths said.

Viewed by some as a landmark, the study is one of the few rigorous looks in the past 40 years at a hallucinogen's effects. The researchers suggest the drug someday may help drug addicts kick their habit or aid terminally ill patients struggling with anxiety and depression.

It may also provide a way to study what happens in the brain during intense spiritual experiences, the scientists said.

Funded in part by the federal government, the research was published online Tuesday by the journal Psychopharmacology.

Psilocybin has been used for centuries in religious practices, and its ability to produce a mystical experience is no surprise. But the new work demonstrates it more clearly than before, Griffiths said.

Even two months after taking the drug, pronounced SILL-oh-SY-bin, most of the volunteers said the experience had changed them in beneficial ways, such as making them more compassionate, loving, optimistic and patient. Family members and friends said they noticed a difference, too.

Charles Schuster, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at Wayne State University and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called the work a landmark.

"I believe this is one of the most rigorously well-controlled studies ever done" to evaluate psilocybin or similar substances for their potential to increase self-awareness and a sense of spirituality, he said. He did not participate in the research.

Psilocybin, like LSD or mescaline, is one of a class of drugs called hallucinogens or psychedelics. While they have been studied by scientists in the past, research was largely shut down after widespread recreational abuse of the drugs during the 1960s, Griffiths said. Some work resumed in the 1990s.

"We've lost 40 years of (potential) research experience with this whole class of compounds," he said. Now, with modern-day scientific methods, "I think it's time to pick up this research field."

The study volunteers had an average age of 46, had never used hallucinogens, and participated to some degree in religious or spiritual activities like prayer, meditation, discussion groups or religious services. Each tried psilocybin during one visit to the lab and the stimulant methylphenidate (better known as Ritalin) on one or two other visits. Only six of the volunteers knew when they were getting psilocybin.

Each visit lasted eight hours. The volunteers lay on a couch in a living-room-like setting, wearing an eye mask and listening to classical music. They were encouraged to focus their attention inward.

Psilocybin's effects lasted for up to six hours, Griffiths said. Twenty-two of the 36 volunteers reported having a "complete" mystical experience, compared to four of those getting methylphenidate.

That experience included such things as a sense of pure awareness and a merging with ultimate reality, a transcendence of time and space, a feeling of sacredness or awe, and deeply felt positive mood like joy, peace and love. People say "they can't possibly put it into words," Griffiths said.

Two months later, 24 of the participants filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40 percent ranking it in the top five.

About 80 percent said that because of the psilocybin experience, they still had a sense of well-being or life satisfaction that was raised either "moderately" or "very much."

[lucimay]

wow...my husband just read that article to me last night!! interesting.

regarding your "experience" post Syl...

i had a similar experience that was not drug induced. it wasn't, however, spontaneous like yours, it was "evoked". it was at a midnight christmas mass at the Newman Center on the campus of University of Ky in 1988. i was 30.

Father Noll began singing this invocation...and then everybody would say "be here with us" and then he'd "invoke" again, requesting the presence of the "holy spirit" or at least thats what i assumed he was doing. i didn't join in because i am not catholic. i thought i wasn't supposed to so i didn't...for a while...but then, i don't know, i guess i just got caught up in it...we all had candles and when he started singing, Father Noll had lighted the candles of the people in the front and they in turn had lighted the candles of those behind them, and in this way, the light moved back toward where Ger and I were standing in the back of the church..and as the light moved toward me i began to chant "be here with us" with the rest of the room, and pretty soon it sounded like one voice, and just as the person in front of me lighted my candle...well...i had that same experience as you described...

It was an awakening. I just came to know my place in the universe, and how it relates to everyone and everything else in it.

i have always described it as "i disassembled and re-assembled in a franction of an instant, i understood everything and my part in everything", and then it was over...
my euphoria lasted for a few weeks and gradually faded but like you, i always KNOW it's there.

because i had no other words for what happened, i have always just said "i believe i experienced a moment of Grace."

you are the only other person who has ever described anything that even slightly resembled my experience.

i have never known what to make of it. i have never, in tripping on LSD or mushrooms or peyote, had an experience even remotely like it tho i've had some AWESOME and insightful trips. (seems like tripping for me was always just acruing "tools" for negotiating activities of daily living rather than any kind of transendental state - a state of hyper awareness wherein i LEARN, either about the world or myself)

and to answer your query Avatar, i had my first trip when i was 18, in December of 1976. Purple Microdot. i remember damn near every one of those 13 hours!!

[matrixman]

Even two months after taking the drug, pronounced SILL-oh-SY-bin, most of the volunteers said the experience had changed them in beneficial ways, such as making them more compassionate, loving, optimistic and patient. Family members and friends said they noticed a difference, too.

Wow! It's wonderful to hear that the experience affected these people in such a good way. I have to admit, I envy them...but I still wouldn't take the drug myself - not unless it was in a very controlled environment, like in the study.

Well, even then, I'm not sure I would...

[Avatar]

Mushrooms are great for that sort of thing, because they're much "softer" than chemical hallucinogenics.

Part of the problem that people have with negative experiences is because they're often not, (and can't be due the the legal status of hallucinogens), in controlled environments.

--A

[Zarathustra]

That article--while encouraging--is not news to people who have followed Timothy Leary's studies with psilocybin. He performed experiments with prison inmates, and achieved life-changing results. Follow-up studies with the participants revealed an 80% success rate in changing their behavior (i.e., they stopped committing crimes and stayed out of jail), while convential therapy only achieved a 50% success rate--nearly the same as doing nothing at all.

This drug IS a way to reprogram yourself. I think it can have positive effects in many more areas.

Check out Leary's FLASHBACKS, his autobiography. Very groovy read!

[Fist and Faith]

Oh, and I also agree a lot with what you've said in this thread, Av. I think we mentioned before in some other thread how we both find disturbing the notion that our individual selves should dissolve - our identities wiped clean - when we arrive in "Heaven" or when we are re-incarnated.

I, otoh, am going to be a upset if I die, and my individual self still exists.

Yeah, that would ruin your day...

Indeed, it would. If variety is as much the spice of eternity as it is of life, then being the same personality forever would be Hell. (At least my personality. I won't speak for you. )

I don't expect anything after death either. I assumed the existence of Heaven (and God) as a given for the sake of the point I wanted to make. I guess I should've stated my belief(s) at the outset. I didn't because I had already done so in boring detail in the "What Do You Believe?" and other similar threads. (sigh)

Yes, I understood that. And I quite agree with your feeling: "And if you're re-incarnated but without your previous "soul" intact, then you really haven't come back, have you? All the lessons learned from your previous life are moot." I just figured I'd mention beliefs about reincarnation or life-after-death that are different than those you mentioned.

And I should've put in this disclaimer: my comments concerning God and Heaven are not intended as an assault on the Christian faith, and I apologize for any offense my words may have caused.

I can't remember you ever attacking anybody's beliefs, and that post didn't either. Some people (not necessarily current Watchers) will always feel they've been attacked if they find out anyone believes differently than they do, but we can't worry about them every time we exchange thoughts.

Your analogies are freaking me out, Fist. Vulcan mind meld? Borg merger? Liquid state? Creepy, man. I'd rather be utterly dead than be absorbed into a nebulous multitude. Or else be immortal, and give Death the finger.

But if you're personality joins others in such ways, you do not exist any longer, and you wouldn't be any more upset about it than you would be by oblivion.

I think I'm both amused and appalled by the casual drug use seemingly advocated in this thread. I don't smoke pot or anything else, and I'm not into drugs or pills. Heck, I can't remember the last time I took an Aspirin. In other words, my drug-free life likely makes me an immense bore at parties.

Heh. You and I can drink mineral water, and discuss Trinity's fighting prowess. I've been drunk several times, though not in about 20 years, but I've never tried pot or anything else. I think every adult should have the right to do it if they want, but I have not the slightest desire. The talk on this thread reminds me that my feelings aren't nearly as common as I tend to think they are. I remember seeing Beatlemania years ago. When a joint flashed on the movie screen, the crowd cheered more than they did at any other point in this Beatles tribute. I think you and I are in the minority. It's just the way of the species. *shrug*

[Avatar]

Yeah, anything that humanity can tinker with, they will, including the consciousness. But again, we don't advocate using anything casually.

--A

[danlo]

Try this guy's writting on for size (no matter what you think it is addictive reading) Psychedelic Information Theory

[Avatar]

Some very interesting looking articles thanks danlo. I shall definitely be reading them at my leisure. Just scanned "On the validity of the psychadelic experience" and it looks like this is definitely a must-read.

--A

[danlo]

This subchapter in Part 3 could be very insightful to this thread: Making Contact with God, the Alien, or the Other I might try to find this book.

[Zarathustra]

Yeah, the Validity of Psychedelic Experience was the first one I clicked on. It reminds me of an "essay" I wrote long ago. I think I'll post it in a new thread. Or maybe this one. I'll reread it and see where it fits.

[Avatar]

I see you started a new thread for it, so I'll head off that way.

I take it that that sub-chapter is unavailable from the site huh danlo? Certainly sounds relevant. Hope LoreMaster is reading what there is...where is LoreMaster anyway? He started this interesting thread and abandoned it to the vagaries of drug-addled madmen...

--A