Drugs are for depressed people, period.

[Humanicide]

One must be mindful of the wisdom that can be gained from observing or living with a tribe. High civilization is only as good as we are - as crow points out, it's shit because humanity believes and does shitty things.

Or, you soon pee out all the minerals your body requires for your nervous system to keep functioning. Say hello to irregular heartbeat, sleep apnea and psychosis - the real feverish source of inspiration for all the desert prophets. But long before any of that, you'd get the excruciating effects of hyperoxia. Sure, it's enlightening in that you would see what it is like to transcend life and enter the realm of the tortured deceased from self-neglect.

What psychedelics specifically are you referring to? What you've described sounds more like cocaine usage.

You could similarly drain your body of its essential minerals by drinking a lot of water. Does this mean water is to be avoided? People need to paint with smaller brushes here sometimes.

[Dinaric Leather]

ITT: people who haven't taken enough hallucinogens trying to make up reasons for not having taken enough hallucinogens.

That doesn't apply to me at all. I've done plenty of psychadelics. I'm more like a person who's spent too much time researching, using, and trying to acquire something which will do me zero good in the long run, and doesn't want to see other smart people fall into the same trap.

The way I see it is the pro-drug crowd are bored and slightly depressed people looking for excuses to change their brain chemistry. The most popular excuse being that you might have an epiphany in the form of something like "wow dude its like so crazy that this drug makes everything seem so profound".

What psychedelics specifically are you referring to? What you've described sounds more like cocaine usage.

I think scourge was refering to the comment crow made about fasting to attain enlightenment.

[WAAAAAAGH!]

Given the current state of what was once 'civilization', dropping out seems like a somewhat reasonable alternative.

Living among them for perspective and insight to bring back is one thing. Believing the primitive mud dwelling existence is the true path of humanity is another. What of the God-Kings who appeared during times of ignorance to sacrifice themselves for knowledge? Prometheus, Odhin, Horus? Perhaps these aren't singular men, but bands of them. The Noahs who carried on Gods commandments after the storm.

I'm being dramatic, I know, but I'm not one for throwing in the towel when there is so much work that can be done.

[Cargést]

That doesn't apply to me at all. I've done plenty of psychadelics. I'm more like a person who's spent too much time researching, using, and trying to acquire something which will do me zero good in the long run, and doesn't want to see other smart people fall into the same trap.

The way I see it is the pro-drug crowd are bored and slightly depressed people looking for excuses to change their brain chemistry. The most popular excuse being that you might have an epiphany in the form of something like "wow dude its like so crazy that this drug makes everything seem so profound".

How many different kinds of hallucinogen have you tried, in what sets/settings, for what purposes, to what effects?  Have you been initiated by anyone trained in the use of such things?

I'd agree with you about the "pro-drug" crowd, in that most of them don't know (or care) what they're doing; they do it because they enjoy doing it, not because they learn from it.  However, there are those who use these things appropriately, that is, by learning with/from them.  Why does the West produce so few people who recognise their own consciousness as territory to be mapped?  We seem to be under the mass-delusion that cold calculation is all our experience is good for.

[Humanicide]

What psychedelics specifically are you referring to? What you've described sounds more like cocaine usage.

I think scourge was refering to the comment crow made about fasting to attain enlightenment.

Ah ha, I think he was. My mistake.

[Tralfamadorian]

I took LSD a few times and had rather profound experiences contemplating 'otherness' and the warrrior spirit. Craving to push my mental boundaries to the limit, I decided one day to combine LSD with copious amounts of amphetamines. It was the most terrifying, horrific, macabre experience of my life. My mind wasn't straight for a long time. I haven't touched drugs outside of alcohol since.

[crow]

That reminded me of an experience in my 20s, when I overdosed on Amanita Muscara mushrooms.
Utterly bizarre, out of body, out of identity, horrible gone-ness for three entire days.
Puking, shaking, freezing and boiling, almost gone-for-good.
There was nothing entertaining about that. Leave Fly Agaric seriously alone!

Psilocybin, on the other hand...

[Cargést]

Why leave fly agaric alone?  Consumed appropriately (i.e. with correct dosages, in the correct settings), it's incredibly useful for inducing visions.

[indjaseemun]

Crow, that's interesting. I'm gonna share a translation of spanish texts(I wish I could stop saying text: but sometimes the text is not an article.) praising amanita.

--


The use of vegetable substance to the consummation of the Great Gnostic and Alchemic Work: the Liberation and Return of the Spirit.

It complements sexual alchemy.

The mushroom amanita muscaria, utilized for this end since thousands of years, is the most important of those substances.

In it are the two ways: dry (ingestion of the crude mushroom) and humid (ingestion of the mushroom boiled in water).

In it are the three colors of the work: black (the base of the mushroom), white (the body of the mushroom) and red (the head).

It is the apple that Eve gave Adam to eat, to wake him up and regain his wisdom.

It is the soma that the aryans of the north took to India.

It is the origin of the power of Odin - Wotan.

It is the origin of the power of the god Hanuman, under whose effect made his feats.

Under its effects the rabbis of Alexandria invented christianity.

Is what made Saint Paul fall from the horse and provided his conversion to the new religion.

Under its effects heaven and hell are known and closeness to God is produced.

Dante Alighieri had those experiences and put them in writing in The Divine Comedy.

Amanita is the Saviour of the World, that dies for us when we ingest it.

Under its effects Rasputín talked with the Virgin and helped the Zar.

Only in sexual abstinence must amanita be consumed.

Similarities with the Catholic Church

Santa claus, a perfect amanita

--

The hallucinogenic mushroom amanita muscaria lives in symbiosis with the pines. The amanita muscaria can't develop without the closeness of those coniferous. Since thousands of years lots of humans ingest those mushrooms to provoke in themselves visions and transcendent states of consciousness. To the people that have this habit, those mushrooms, the pines, and all that is related to them have a sacred connotation. That's why since centuries, in the winter solstice (25 December) its common to put a pine in the home, with amanita mushrooms added to its branches. Today, instead of amanitas are put several ornaments that represent them.

Santa Claus comes to this celebration and delivers presents. Those presents represent the visions and dis-coverings that are reached by the ingestion of the amanitas. Of what color are the amanitas muscaria? Red and white. Of what color are the clothes of Santa Claus? White and red, of course. The amanitas are fat and robust, just like Santa Claus.

--



Says the Bible that Paul, great persecutor of christians, on the way to the city of Damascus hd the following experiences: surrounded him a light, fell to earth and heard a voice that asked questions and gave him orders. Paul rose up from the ground and even though he had his eyes open he could see nothing. They took him by hand and made him enter the city. Spent three days without seeing, eating or drinking. On the third day gained his sight back, ate food and regained his strength.

Let's see what the investigator of the university of Harvard, Jonathan Ott, in his monumental work Pharmacotheon, as did renowned investigators (Gordon Wasson, Richard Schultes and Clark Heinrich) about the symptoms produced by the ingestion of amanita muscaria:

Mystical delusions, perceptions of shining white lights, great muscular weakness with danger of falling, auditory hallucinations (strange voices heard), difficulty in sight during two or tree days, lack of hunger or thirst.

Such similarities with Saint Paul's symptoms! Such coincidence!

--

Cargést seem to be a mind-superman immune to bad effects from all drugs. But continue this way and do not count on this super mind for so long.

[Cargést]

Cargést seem to be a mind-superman immune to bad effects from all drugs. But continue this way and do not count on this super mind for so long.

Hardly.  I give myself a lot of difficulty and pain in reaching such states as I do through these methods - however, these experiences are necessary, as they strip the ego of power over the self.  The "hell" response to a psychedelic is cleansing, cathartic.  The "heaven" response is bliss, peace in awareness.

That text may not be entirely accurate as to the constituents of soma - I should think it was much more likely to be a mixture of ephedrine and cannabis (bhang), though the references to soma being urinated by Indra might suggest amanita muscaria.  It could also have been ephedrine and opium, in places where cannabis was less prevalent.

[indjaseemun]

That's ok then. I was just going with the flow and giving warning messages as drugs can be dangerous.

[crow]

Well yes.
As I said, amanitas were nearly the end of me.
Did you know the key to other realms is the ability to say the alphabet backwards, as a single word?

[Cargést]

Which alphabet?

[username]

The enochian, ofcourse.

Besides, does there actually exist some well documented record of hallucigen use in shamanistic or esoteric rites?

Can you mention something more concrete than soma or the apparently dubious mescalin accounts about the indians?

[indjaseemun]

The enochian, ofcourse.

Besides, does there actually exist some well documented record of hallucigen use in shamanistic or esoteric rites?

Of course! Everywhere, greece, china (a tomb was found with marijuana), the mayas, tribes in america, and many many more.