Official Discussion Forum for the works of Stephen R. Donaldson
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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.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.
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. Exactly. And if there was and you ever did, you wouldn't be you anymore.Syl wrote:...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."
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...Paul via Menolly wrote: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.
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.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.
(Oh, I see...you're supposed to go off the deep end...)Uh, okay...(backs away slowly while scanning for the nearest exit)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.
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.Avatar wrote: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.
I, otoh, am going to be a upset if I die, and my individual self still exists.Matrixman wrote: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 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.Matrixman wrote: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 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.Matrixman wrote: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.
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.Eknath Easwaran wrote: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.
Are you sure about that?Avatar wrote:As I've said before, I have a strong mistrust of certainty.
Yeah, that would ruin your day...Fist and Faith wrote:I, otoh, am going to be a upset if I die, and my individual self still exists.Matrixman wrote: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 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.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.Matrixman wrote: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 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. 
Drugs should never be taken casually MM. Unfortunately, people often don't realise that until long after they've stopped taking them. )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."
interesting.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...Syl wrote: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.
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.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.
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.Matrixman wrote:Yeah, that would ruin your day...Fist and Faith wrote:I, otoh, am going to be a upset if I die, and my individual self still exists.Matrixman wrote: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.
)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.Matrixman wrote: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)
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.Matrixman wrote: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.
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.Matrixman wrote: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.
Heh. You and I can drink mineral water, and discuss Trinity's fighting prowess.Matrixman wrote:I think I'm both amused and appalled by the casual drug use seemingly advocated in this thread.
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* But again, we don't advocate using anything casually. 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.