Psychedelic Doubt
posted by 
OutThisLife 1 year ago
OutThisLife 1 year ago A huge issue in psychedelics is doubt -- doubt of the experience itself. Doubting your experiences can lead to delusionality, self-esteem issues and more. There are some things you should doubt and some that you shouldn't. This article goes over a few of them.
8 Comments
that's a great post, thanks
that's a great post, thanks :)
Interesting
I have listened to a LOT of podcast interviews on psycedlic research on GNOSTIC MEDIA. Really great podcast. He is now posting stuff from the MAPS conference.
There is a group called "DRUG FREE SHAMANISM".
I have no beef with folks who choose not to imbibe substances on their spiritual journey. However, the tone of many of these people is VERY biased against ANY "drug use" in spirituality. As though it is all a false experience and ONLY sober meditational practices can lead you to insight and healing etc.
Again.. it is a choice.
However, many of these substances have been around for a very long time. VERY LONG.. Some could possible argue that they have brought more misery.. some could argue that they are the impetus for many of the great ideas in spirituality and humanism. Love your neighbor as yourself, insights that have brought more compassion etc.. I suppose one would have to examine more thoroughly history and the role such substances have had on civilization.
I think that some humans are afraid to put too much power into these substances as they are afraid that their human experience was not brought about via natural evolution but rather coevolved with use of such substances...and that would perhaps lessen the quality of the HUMAN experience and what really DEFINES US as being human. who is to say.. again.. more research.
Yet we have great hypocrisy in our culture today when SOME folks poo poo the use of psychedelics as a legitimate path and perhaps are not commenting on the other "LEGAL" "drugs" such as caffiene, tobacco, and all the LEGAL pharmaceuticals being prescribed to us today.
it is good to be skeptical.. good to have reason.. My stepfather who is a skeptic dismisses all of it as MERE "Hallucination".. unreal .. but is it?
I guess it depends on HOW one is transformed by the experience....
"DRUG FREE SHAMANISM" Is
"DRUG FREE SHAMANISM"
Is this an oxymoron? Seems like it. Even if you're all into yoga and take part in entrainment programs of dance. Are you not altering your state of consciousness whereby you alter your own chemistry? Which is just a more arbitrarily accepted form of drug use?
Sober meditation is great and all but can see anybody having a vision anything like what I've seen after smoking DMT. The whole reason I think modern meditation exists is that it's a left over practice originally used to prepare and cope with a deep entheogenic experience. Seriously, which one is most likely to have given rise to the other? From my own personal anecdotes most of the time someone has a bad experience they brought some kind of baggage they were not prepared to depart with. While a heroic dose of any psychedelic has no room or patience for your personal baggage. But, what could one do to prepare for such psychonautical drifts? Meditation perhaps?
Doing one without the other seems strange to me now.
"Seek not abroad, turn back into thyself, for in the inner man dwells the truth..."
The illusions are real
There are no halucinations, the experience in not contained in the substance. It is the result of the substance defeating the filtering normally done for survival. What is seen are the same realms & experiences that can be accessed thru ritual & magick, this alone validates almost all experinces with substances. Just like "contact -high' proves the existance of telepathy !
" A rising tide - drowns those without boats " - Cee Are
A few thoughts
It is sad that shamans who choose not to use entheogens often look down on those who do. And vice-versa. Psychedelic experience is psychedelic experience, regardless of which route you take up the mountain. I think we're all better off if we refrain from judging the validity of someone else's experience.
Regarding psychoactive substances, I think that the closer to nature, the better. Western man (and it is mostly the male here) has a tendency to refine and isolate chemicals from natural substances, thereby changing their nature. For example, coca is a nutritious, valuable food and stimulant that has been used safely by Peruvians for millenia. Westerners refined it into cocaine, which became a scourge for millions of addicts. Beware white powders from white men.
Personally, I have found that my journeys on drumming alone are often so vivid and spectacular that I SO don't need to take entheogens. :)
Peace to all, LH.
mind manifesting means illusion affriming
duh
not neccesarily true. acid can be good for anyone who
is able to let go. Like love it has nothing to do with looks. I'm a good looking guy and have eaten acid in public more times than I'd like to remember, but thinking people are looking at you because they want you creates its own kind of paranoia which is to say that people not looking at you for any reason or just to be judgmental is more benign experientially because it gives the tripper a better sense of whats really going on with the other person at the time or gives them the option to detach, which in the case of the ugly person can be highly therapudic. The elitist mindset did not come from acid, it came from culture.