psilocybin's mystical properties scientifically confirmed

[dubbyah]

Every single anti-entheogen point posted in this thread has been covered in detail:


http://www.egodeath.com/#_Entheogen_Dim ... allacies_1

Meditation & Pop Spirituality Diminishing of Entheogens

Vagueness & Inefficacy of Pop Spirituality

'Ineffective' Fallacy - Diminishment by Claiming Meditation Works & Entheogens Don't

'Shortcut' Fallacy - Diminishment by Claiming Enlightenment Must Be Difficult

'Artificial' Fallacy - Diminishment by Labelling as a "Forced Method"

'Outmoded' Fallacy - Diminishment by Portraying only Ancients & Primitives as Using

'Deviance' Fallacy - Diminishment by Claim of Rareness and Deviance of Use

'Transience' Fallacy - Diminishment by Claim of Nonretainability

'Negative Experiences' Fallacy - Diminishment by Equating Unpleasant with Unmystical

'Drug Users Lame' Fallacy - Diminishment by Focus on Recreational Users under Prohibition

'Simulation of Traditional' Fallacy - Diminishment by Demoting Entheogens to Simulation

'Goal' Fallacy - Diminishment by Redefining Goal of Spiritual Practice

'Mystic State Irrelevant' Fallacy - Diminishment by Denying the Value of the Mystic State Itself

Daily Life and Enlightenment

Entheogen-Diminishing Attitudes: Christianity

Entheogen-Diminishing Attitudes: New Age

Entheogen-Diminishing Attitudes: Buddhism



http://www.egodeath.com/




Possible Positions for MEDITATION vs. ENTHEOGENS:

0. The clueless rationalist or rabid humanist position -- Neither drug-free meditation nor entheogens are legitimate, because no religious experiencing has any legitimacy; any mystic state is just psychosis or hallucinatory. Religion is demonic mixture of psychotic mental breakdown and an oppressive power game of the witch doctor in collaboration with Attila the Hun to manipulate and enslave people. This is the Ayn Rand or rabid humanist position. This actually forms an interesting pair with position 3, that any approach is fully legitimate. Most such people have never experienced the mystic state of cognition; this position usually rests on complete inexperience. This is throwing the baby out with the bathwater: religion is a bunch of mad lies harmful to humanity, therefore the mystic state of cognition is a bunch of man lies harmful to humanity.

1. The absolutist orthodox position -- Entheogenic religious experience is not legitimate at all. Only drug-free meditation is legitimate.

1.1 The extremist-orthodox position -- Drug-free meditation is fully religiously legitimate. Entheogenic religious experiencing is almost absolutely illegitimate. Nothing is impossible, so it is hypothetically possible to have a legitimate religious experiencing via entheogens, but such is so exceedingly rare, this is not how religious experiencing generally works. Entheogens could hypothetically work on rare occasion, but this rarity only proves the basic illegitimacy of entheogens.

2. The pseudo-progressive orthodox position -- Entheogenic religious experience is moderately legitimate, but less legitimate than drug-free meditation. The orthodox might consider this a progressive view, though they very grudgingly concede that entheogens have a little bit of legitimacy.

3. The pseudo-progressive spiritualist position -- Entheogenic religious experience is as legitimate as drug-free meditation; they are both fully legitimate, as is any combination of techniques. Many entheogen spiritualists believe this. They consider this the most open-minded and generous position.

4. The radical-progressive position -- Entheogenic religious experience is more legitimate than drug-free meditation; drug-free meditation is only moderately legitimate. I venture that it is held by very few scholars -- perhaps Ott, Arthur, and Heinrich. You have to be highly aware of the history of entheogenic religion to be able to even consider this position.

4.9 The extremist-progressive position -- Entheogenic religious experience is fully religiously legitimate, and drug-free meditation is practically entirely illegitimate, with the theoretical possibility of exceptions that are so exceedingly rare as to only prove the point. To say that drug-free meditation is illegitimate is not to say that it's an impossible technique of reaching enlightenment, but only to say it's all but impossible. Drug-free religious experiencing is almost absolutely illegitimate. Nothing is impossible, so it is hypothetically possible to have a legitimate religious experiencing via drug-free meditation, but such is so exceedingly rare, this is not how religious experiencing generally works. Drug-free meditation could hypothetically work on rare occasion, but this rarity only proves the basic illegitimacy of drug-free meditation.

5. The absolutist entheogenist position -- All drug-free religious experience is illegitimate, and the only legitimate religious experience is entheogenic. Anyone holding position 4 must often consider whether this is true. The other groups are unable to even consider it or conceive of it as a possible position. It is not clear if anyone has ever held this position, yet this position remains an important one to theoretically consider; it helps to define this entire spectrum of positions.

6. The rationalist computer-tripper position -- Loose cognition is valuable, and can be triggered by entheogens or meditation, but religious or mystic experiencing is not legitimate, it's just an irrational reaction of confused fantasy. This position was expressed by an entheogen-using technologist to me online -- that loose cognition is valuable, but religious experiencing is not legitimate. I dismiss this as inexperience. I maintain that if you are an entheogen-using technologist, you will sooner or later have an experience that you qualify as "religious" (or a synonym).

You can combine meditation with entheogens. The only question is the legitimacy of drug-free meditation as opposed to entheogenic-assisted meditation, or perhaps we should say meditation-assisted entheogen use if we hold entheogens rather than meditation to be the crucial component of attaining the mystic cognitive state.

Holders of position 2 are pulled by a gravitational force toward the simpler extremism of position 1. Why not just ditch all the complex qualifiers and simply reject any religious legitimacy of entheogens?

Holders of position 4 are pulled by a gravitational force toward the simpler extremism of position 5. Why not just ditch all the complex qualifiers and simply reject any religious legitimacy of drug-free meditation?

But rationality and evidence keeps us in the more complex middle ground, debating positions 2, 3, and 4 -- which is to say, debating whether meditation or entheogens is more religiously legitimate. All the thinkers that matter hold position 2, 3, or 4. Meditation certainly has some religious legitimacy.

Entheogens certainly have some religious legitimacy. Really I am most interested in the play between these positions. The most interesting thing is that most thinkers so far have adopted either position 2 or 3: that meditation is more legitimate than entheogens, or that they are equally legitimate.

It is relatively radical to adopt position 4, that entheogens are actually *more legitmate* than meditation. There is little to be gained in advancing all the way to the extreme position 5, that meditation has no legitimacy whatsoever -- however, position 4 inherently flirts with position 5, and anyone holding 4 must be open to considering why 5 could or could not be true.

In a debate exercise, anyone capable of holding 4 must also be capable of representing position 5; I could make a reasoned argument that meditation has no legitimacy and only entheogens have legitimacy.

When we talk of religious legitimacy, there are two senses of the term. A technique may be "legitimate" in that it can produce the mystic cognitive state, or "legitimate" in that it can bring the mystic cognitive state so fully and repeatedly and efficiently that a mind can construct full enlightenment.

My position sometimes is 4, sometimes 4.9, depending on what goal I'm assuming; to merely attain the mystic cognitive state, meditation does work but only on fairly rare occasion -- to attain full enlightenment, meditation almost never works. Meditation has a hypothetical legitimacy; one *could* become enlightened by it, but in practice, I don't see that happening in any significant degree; meditation is the wrong and basically ineffective way; that it works on such rare occasions proves it has no significant legitimacy; (drug-free) meditation is "illegitimate" in the sense of barely working, or working despite its overall ineffective methods.

Meditation has only incidental, haphazard, crude, indirect legitimacy -- it can work but only despite itself. We can talk of degrees within position 4: if you hold that entheogens are more religiously legitimate than drug-free meditation, the question is *how much more*?

I say that entheogens are a thousand times more efficient than drug-free meditation, and are thoroughly historically proven as traditional beyond antiquity, while drug-free meditation has no pedigree and is a relatively recent degenerated mock version of religious technique, a kind of cargo-cult religous technique that tries to attain the mystic state by sitting because the successful entheogen-based meditators are sitting.

When I say that meditation is illegitimate, I am not asserting that it's impossible that drug-free meditation could bring enlightenment -- I'm just saying that such a technique is the wrong way and works through haphazard accident and acts to impede enlightenment in practically all cases. So my position is 4 infinitessimally approaching 5 but never quite hitting 5 -- or my position is 5 qualified.

As a method of attaining enlightenment as defined by the ideas I'm pulling together, drug-free meditation is practically entirely illegitimate. Drug-free meditation in practice serves to prevent rather than enable enlightenment, and in that sense it is literally the wrong way to try to gain such enlightenment, as it prevents progress toward the goal.

Drug-free meditation is actually a way of *avoiding* enlightenment. The fact that enlightenment may arrive anyway says more about the profound power of enlightenment, or the integrity of the ideas constituting enlightenment, rather than the effectiveness of the technique. Plants may grow where you have spread salt, but that does not establish salt as a fertilizer.

Drug-free meditation is basically an ineffective way of seeking enlightenment. Entheogen use is basically the effective way of seeking enlightenment --however, rational cultivation of world-models -- a certain kind of metaphysical philosophizing or theory-construction -- is also required for attaining enlightenment, according to the ideas and theory I'm pulling together.



What are the main reasons meditation was elevated over entheogens after the 1960s? What are the actual motivations behind the totally false anti-entheogen attitude promoted by many meditation proponents?

o It's insulting to human pride that a plant is more effective than one's willed meditation technique.

o Intense mystic experiencing is inherently frightening because destabilizing of self-control and worldmodel

o Genuine mystic experiencing is inherently frightening, so there's a desire to redefine and invent a different kind of mystic technique that isn't frightening, even if it isn't effective either.

o Theoretically, the mind has the potential to produce intense mystic experiencing (loose cognition) without external ingestion of entheogens, so the idealists run ahead to seriously attempt this, and use the tenth of a percent success rate (after investing 30 years) to bolster their idealist point, ignoring that what really matters to be relevant is the needs of typical people with typical lifestyles.

o Entheogens are illegal, so are a closed path; out of wishful thinking, people try to maintain that the alternatives are satisfactory and even better.

o If the plant teacher works better than meditation leaders, to protect their livelihood, the meditation leaders demonize and delegitimize plant teachers as unwelcome professional competition.

dc postulated these factors causing late 1960s entheogenists to repudiate entheogens as inferior to meditation:

o Polypharmacy, excess, fame, and psychological insecurities placed them in a very hypersuggestible and confounded states, making them susceptible to gurus' desire for control over followers. Pop stars projected a wished-for omniscience onto the gurus.

Why did these Baby Boomers wish for gurus to be omniscient and spiritual authorities? - mh

o The social turmoil surrounding popcult stardom made entheogens hard to handle.

o Fear because of illegal status.

o Inability to deal with popcult stress made entheogens hard to handle.

o Pop stars were culturally influential in pop culture-cliques in the hippie community.

o Fears and half-baked understandings as people struggled to regain their ego.

o This generation of entheogen users got married and had dependent babies and work considerations.

o Some usage switched to other available psychoactives that supported or didn't threaten the ego.

o People suddenly converted to mainstream, anti-entheogen versions of religions, and assumed religion is set against entheogens.

o Classic Rock and popcult stars such as George Harrision, Donovan and Richard Alpert asserted that Indian gurus are superior to entheogen use. This occurred due to their own personal psychological issues and their state of mind when they went about to find their gurus. They were in hypersuggestible states and upon meeting the gurus, they projected upon them omniscience.

I'm unclear on the nature of these "hypersuggestible states". That expression isn't sufficient for clearly defining a top 10 reason for the rise of the fallacy that meditation is superior to entheogens. -mh

o The death or incarceration of a number of pop superstars made entheogens look unattractive and risky, both psychologically and legally.

o There were fear issues that had developed, possibly related to sexual issues, "devil," scares and other things that made them afraid of entheogens.

That's vague, "possibly related to sexual issues". I don't know what's being postulated here as a specific reason for falsely elevating meditation above entheogens in the late 1960s. Same with the devil/scares part -- if these are each significant reasons, they should each have a sentence defining the proposed hypothesis. We need a sublist of aspects of entheogens that are frightening.

Whatever method is effective is inherently also frightening; real mysticism is frightening, however triggered, so people hasten to try to invent the impossible: a kind of real mysticism that isn't frightening -- the result is what fills today's American Buddhism magazines: a neutered, defanged, docile, impotent, domesticated mysticism which lacks danger and necessarily lacks transformation potential at the same time. A form of mysticism that serves only to reassure and comfort the person is incapable of transforming the person, giving them plastic tokens of spirituality instead of anything genuine and threatening to the mental status quo.


www.egodeath.com

[Angstrom]

you are having a good old rant there - but I have no idea whose post you are replying to. I looked back through the posts and no-one seems to have posted anything that connects onto the front of a half page of bold text.

care to enlighten us what this is a response to ?

[dubbyah]

"It could be said that the mind under hallucinogens is not the true mind, but itself a delusion of the material energy of said chemicals, in this discussion, psilocybin."




"What exactly is an expanded mind? I have spent some time in psychiatric emergency wards and even if I'd just crawled back down from a tall building, ten minutes with someone on 'mind expanded drugs' was enough to make me feel like the sanest kid in the world.

And what the fuck is scientific about giving a bunch of people drugs and having them describe the experience as 'mystical'? That doesn't prove anything about the experience. It just proves that you can bend the mind out of shape and doing so makes you see the world in a different way. THERE IS NOTHING REVOLUTIONARY ABOUT THIS CONCLUSION (not in my book, anyways, but then my book is mostly Indian). The mind itself is a sensory organ, nothing more. You put a patch over your one eye, your perception of depth changes. You cover a camera lense with red plastic, you seemingly change the colours of the world... Big fucking deal. No amount of coloured plastic will give you a picture of God.

I have to agree with Conny. If you want to try something heavy, go for yoga (with a proper teacher). Or sleep deprivation (you can get great out of body experience on sleep dep). Or starvation/dehydration. You don't need much to bend your mind out of shape and have a laugh which is all well and good. But God is not inside your head even if eating mushrooms makes you think that. "



also, it's hardly a rant since I didn't write it.

[David]

To the person with the dosage question:

I am not familiar with "liberty caps" so i can't help you. Have a look at http://www.erowid.org/. There is probably information for you in there.



.lm.

thanks

[David]

Also try...

http://www.shroomery.org/

ta, looks good...

[err_fatale]

I have been practicing Yoga since 1996, not as much now, but @ 1998-2001 I was doing it up to 8 hours a day (no shit, obsessed????? I wouldn't call it that if it's a good thing, I was just into).

In my teenage years I was heavily into psychedelics and partying/dancing/raving throught the early 90's until the degeneration of that scene which i started to perceive in 1994-1995 that culminated into the disasterous state of 1997 with Special K and Meth and Bad LSD and E rampant. I got into yoga and became straight-edge, I have been vegan since I was about 12, and I was strictly celibate. I was most definitely able to acheive states through the intense regiment of varying combinations of running 10-20 miles daily (yes), broken in intervals with varying yoga techniques: Hatha, Kundalini, Pranayama breathing exercises, Karma Yoga (cooking and serving vegetarian food to homeless people, in NYC I did this 5 days a week) chanting mantras (the most important of my Yoga practice)as well as Bhakti, which is making music and dancing.

I was also taught very powerful ninjitsu ( i am not making this up, it is real) breathing exercises which along with chanting I experienced the most profound states from.

I eventually had a few experiences with hallucinogens, Psilocybin and MDMA later on which intensely inhanced my practice, used cautiously and with extreme discipline, beginning and ending each "trip" with intense meditation, breathing and chanting. This is the key to a postivive experience with these substances. The problem is often that most people do not respect the spirit and power of the Mushroom and abuse it, thus incurring the wrath of very powerful forces and also not guiding the energy it generates through the proper channels in their mind (due to lack of discipline/spiritual grounding/regular practice)
A steady daily "sadhana" is definitely required, I used to wake DAILY, 7 days a week at 5:00 am to meditate, only missing when absolutely necessary (yes I was also working).

I belive this is why I had a good experience with the substances. While tripping I would sometimes go for a run around the city and after that I would either go out dancing to some Techno, or if there was nothing going on i would work on music.

I never had a bad trip until I started slacking in my practice/sadhana, then I stopped. Sadly I really don't practice much at all, I started smoking a lot of weed and fell off, now I am trying to get back into it, but it will be a long hard journey to get anywhere close to where I was back in my youth.



In a nutshell, I believe that psychedelics should only be used as a sacrament, to enhance a steady practice, and only after one has acquired a reasonable amount of mental discipline and whose consciousness is firmly grounded in a sane steady practice of some sort. It is not to be eaten like candy.

also, doing various exercises before the trip seemed to purge me of a lot of negative energy that would have contaminated the trip and possibly cause damage to my psyche while in a vulnerable, impressionable state. Also, location is important, you need to avoid bad vibes, sketchy company, meat and other crappy food intake (best to have an empty stomach) and alcohol and cigarette smoke are no-no's!!!!!!


Interesting that this report comes out the day Syd Barrett died, who is probably the most famous acid casualty. In contrast, his bandmates, who seemed to have a more balanced relationship with hallucinogens, went on to have very successful musical careers, and they prospered.

[jamesp]

Tobacco plays a part in the peyote ritual, fyi. Just about the best part, imo. The smoke carries your thoughts to the Great Spirit. "Hooey," you say? Yah, me too.

Food poisoning, a high fever, anemia, advanced age - all can induce visual hallucinations. Is the Doctor trying to kill you? Can you fly? Is the baby Jeebus talking to you? Are YOU the baby Jeebus???

Kids, please don't do drugs.

[leonard]

Every single anti-entheogen point posted in this thread has been covered in detail:

It's interesting that you would equate my counter argument as an "anti-entheogen" standpoint. I didn't want to degenerate this into a "what did you take" type argument, but if it will help:

"Back in the day", I used to take lots and lots of mushrooms. During the winter, we'd go hunting maybe every fortnight, take them home, and trip. It was a beautiful ritual. My favorite times is when we'd stay in the bush, and journey together round a campfire till dawn, watch the sun come up over the hills, beautiful. We'd get surplus so we could dry them out and take them during spring and summer. This went on for some years. I used to take them with an assortment of wonderfull and not so wonderful amphetamines, sometimes in what could be considered as reckless and possibly even dangerous quantities. I used to choof lots of nitrous oxide while I was on these wierd and wonderful things to go to some wierd and sometimes no so wonderful (like when you literally lose your head, your eyes are in your chest, you have no rest of body, the world becomes a TV, and you no longer exist, lilterally), and sometimes wonderful (like travelling to the dawn of primordial time, where there is only plasma goo, and you get to witness the birth of amphibious life. etc. etc.

Long story short, took too much for too long, went wierd, stopped, now meditating, readding Zen Buddhist texts, yadda yadda. So my perception that the mind under mushrooms is a delusion of the chemical is founded in experience. I'm not anti-entheogen, and I'm not pro-entheogen. I used to think that mushrooms would be the saviour of humanity, that if everyone would just shroom on, then the world would be a better place. I now know that this is naive, and there is no saviour of humanity. Humanity fucking itself up will be the saviour of humanity.

It is also true that the mind under normal conditions (i.e. daily life) is also deluded. Perhaps mushrooms will help break down certain doors, but it will also block certain doors, at least while the psilocybin is chemically active.

Your perception that a counter argument to the percieved benefits of psychedelics is necessarily anti- smacks of your own naivety and nearsightedness.

[err_fatale]

Tobacco plays a part in the peyote ritual, fyi. Just about the best part, imo. The smoke carries your thoughts to the Great Spirit. "Hooey," you say? Yah, me too.

Food poisoning, a high fever, anemia, advanced age - all can induce visual hallucinations. Is the Doctor trying to kill you? Can you fly? Is the baby Jeebus talking to you? Are YOU the baby Jeebus???

Kids, please don't do drugs.

notice I said cigarettes not tobacco. The OCCASIONAL Ritualistic use of tobacco (like a COUPLE OF TIMES A YEAR) as opposed to all day every day are totally different, again, it is the will of the individual, like one person eats to live and another lives to eat. the mind will fool itself into thinking smoking a pack of chemical drenched cigarettes a day is a sacrament.....it is in the individuals hands to control their destiny within their limits and abilities, the problem is most people defer that responsibility/right to religion, addiction, significant others, even mushrooms. They will not save you or bring you to enlightenment. You have to bring yourself to a the desired state of consciousness by whatever means are available, be it meditation, work, music, psilocybin.

all I am saying is they opened some doors, I was the one who had to discern whether or not they were doors through which it would be beneficial for me to enter, and put one metaphorical foot before the other to get there. They are not to be toyed with, though, for sure. Remember, when you mess with brain chemistry, you alone are responsible for your actions and you alone are accountable and will have to bear any negative consequences/side-effects, no one will be able to help you if you push yourself over the edge.

Keeping in mind that one is their own true master and charge as well, one is free to explore any possibility life presents, using any available knowledge and resources to any desired effect, successfully or unsuccessfully.

know thyself, and also acknowledge and respect your own limitations.

[jamesp]

Bull Durham and papers were being passed around the teepee, as I recall. At the time I wondered why they wouldn't smoke something better, but that's what there was so we twisted 'em up. Some say prayer smoke, I called it a cig. Overall, a great experience in some ways, but the effect of the peyote reminded me of nothing so much as food poisoning.

So there ya go. Clean out your fridge, get woozy and meet the FSM. Three birds with one stoned.

[noisetonepause]

Sadly the mystical organisations the west has on offer range from the dubious to the rediculous with the little sense that does exist being drowned in a cacophony of hippy/new-age hokum.

Apparently, so true it's not even funny. I've luckily not been involved with anything that compares to this myself (cos I've been careful when taking classes, going to retreats, etc), but I've heard of everything from cultist abuse to people ruining their bodies with bad breathing practices taught by european 'yoga' teachers. I think a good rule of thumb is not to trust anyone who doesn't have his credentials in order, ie. has trained in the country of origin of the discipline in question in an institution that has an unbroken chain of transmission at least a few hundred years long. This goes for martial arts as well, I'd say.

[SubQ]

Here we have the Daime- Ayhuasca I guess for most people.
I'm keen to the "just say know" moto, so I tried every psychedelic available here a few times - except mescaline, unfortunately. Nothing is more spiritual than Daime, maybe because you have to take it in a kind of religious ceremony. Very intense, scary sometimes. Our drummer is part of the community, but I just had the guts to take it a few times, years ago. I should say that if you're looking for something "spiritual", try that. I was one of those agnostic persons you see all around, till Daime. It opens the mind to things we normally can't see - but only when you're under effect, as we all know. After that, it's your job to make the teaching valuable trough your life.

PS.: Conny, pehaps you should try some fine (not too strong) herb when at a beautiful sunny beach surrounded by almost naked chicks with a few beers and oisters, like we do around here sorry to be so nosy, but I couldn't keep myself out of this helpful thinking... maybe this would change your perspective and help the depression. after all, " the ambient is a process, not an enclosure". don't you think so?

best to your all

[err_fatale]

but I've heard of everything from cultist abuse to people ruining their bodies with bad breathing practices taught by european 'yoga' teachers. I think a good rule of thumb is not to trust anyone who doesn't have his credentials in order, ie. has trained in the country of origin of the discipline in question in an institution that has an unbroken chain of transmission at least a few hundred years long. This goes for martial arts as well, I'd say.

I'm no dummy, the teachers I have studied under are "bona-fide".
It is true there are plenty of bogus gurus but a wise person knows the difference...besides, I do my own thing, I aquire what I can from every possible source, from kids breakdancing to Taoist and Qi Gong teachers to Krishna devotees, they all have something to offer. I have spent a great deal of time traveling about in pursuit of knowledge and techniques to elevate my consciousness. I eventually came to the conclusion that nothing matters anyways, you are going to die and nobody knows for sure what happens.......

As far as messing up your body with breathing practices, it seems there can be an argument against any attempt to better one's self i.e. so we might as well just not try anything and just be happy sitting around eating McDonald's, smoking Marlboro's and drinking shitty beer......

[DeadlyKungFu]

As far as messing up your body with breathing practices, it seems there can be an argument against any attempt to better one's self i.e. so we might as well just not try anything and just be happy sitting around eating McDonald's, smoking Marlboro's and drinking shitty beer......

Coincidentally I just changed my signature to a line in Fight Club that goes along those lines. The basic philosophy that you live through dying, "near life experiences."

[debu]

I
I was also taught very powerful ninjitsu ( i am not making this up, it is real) breathing exercises which along with chanting I experienced the most profound states from.

I took ninjitsu for years at a very young age... They kept pairing me up with this mentally challenged girl who was much older than me. At ten years old flooring a retarded girl was probably more damaging on my psyche than a sheet of blotter.