Esoteric, (Hidden,) Knowledge

Something else TM talked about which occurs to me in this context. When asked if meditation etc can take you to the same place as psychedelics he answered that he didn't think so.

I'd tend to agree with that.

When you take a large hit of acid, you know that there's no way your normal mind is going to be able to re-create the exp once you've come down. People quickly forget just what it's like for that reason.

You can get many insights into life in many different states of consciousness. But I think the psychedelics open up something unique which I can't see any evidence is available through any other route.

 

actually the psych experience is not necessary for meditation nor the for the ultimate lessons you can glean from meditaiton, but it is helpful to meditate while on psychedelics and this is a feature of the shamanic use of the drugs in they are not the primary intent but a catalyst for certain applications of mind. Now I concentrated on finding the seat of this psychedelic activity in the mind and began to learn how to extend the experience so that many qualities of the experience were extended into the post trip. In many respects i never stop tripping. In the area of visual accuity, in the area of being able to apprehend large concepts and see elemental connectons and being able to easily decipher the symbolic. There are other routes to get to the same place but none are as consitent in producing the desired effect. It's manner is to simply expose you to what is possible and then to extend that possiblitiy as a feature of your extended search. It gives you the light at the end of the rainbow to look forward to. Ultimately the actual acheivment of the fundamental must come from within

 

I'm finally reading Food of the Gods for the first time, and I'm actually pretty disappointed. His prose is wonderful of course, and there are many passages I would love to write down somewhere, but overall his writing style is kind of sloppy, and he jumps between assertions and predictions with very little evidence given for either, all the while lampooning the "sophistry of science", in his scientific book, using scientific principles for the most part. I can see why it never made it big sadly.

 

Yeah, there is a reason why meditation is referred to as a practice. Personally, I never got very far with meditation alone and I spent a good month or so attempting to learn, however I have noticed a synergistic effect when sitting lotus position on a psychedelic, when I had the ability to compose myself mentally. (Not always an attainable feat on strong trips lol)

When I was in school, I heard this concept developed by psychologist Abraham Maslow of peak experiences. The descriptions of this state always reminded me of the psychedelic experience. Here's the wiki description...

I'm pretty sure in school we discussed some transcendental peak experiences via spirituality as well but look at the examples given on wiki..

All of these require the structured development of the respective skills, this is not necessary with psychedelics. An open mind and perhaps substantial dose is all that is required.

 

You can still be big into Science as a subject and yet see how it is bloated in the modern day. This was McKenna. He's pointing to the leading Scientists, as it is Science that dominates the Western worldview, and it's this worldview that isn't open to anything that's dubbed 'pseudo-science', or anything that gets too close to sounding miraculous.

 

I don't know how far you are but I recall the latter half of the book being significantly better than the first half.

 

The only book i read of his is true hallucinations. i think the effect you are talking about is because his ideas were not yet mature. I find his latter speaking events to offer a much more lucid and organized program. I noticed the more practiced I am at writing the better I become at it. i have a huge first hand difficulty with academia beginning in grade school. Many have a disdain for people who didn't struggle in the same way they did, considering that the other hadn't earned their stripes so to speak. the outsider to the community being considered a cheat or charlitan if he dains to comment on their issues of expertise.

 

Psychedelics aren't meant to have you take the insights with you with the rational mind that didn't have the insight anyway. I tend to see it more as a 'scar' that's left imprinted into your being. I know I permanently have been altered in my perception because of psychedelics. However, I can't put this into some sort of rational concept.

 

Well to say it altered your percetion is a rational construct.

 

I understand what you're saying but I disagree. I do not think psychedelics would be so effective in psychotherapy and as healing medicines if this were so. The direct experience is primary but integration of the experience into the rational mind can be beneficial and is necessary if the cultural view of psychedelics is to change.

 

Maybe not, but it should be one of your tasks in life. To remember, and recreate the important parts in your normal state. Who cares about patterns and colors, and that jaw gaping stare into space shit. Once you open the door, you step through it, with sobriety. If you can't do that, all the tripping in the world is for naught.

 

I totally agree with that. Psychedelics are a time-saver indeed, or at least it can be. Sometimes an intense trip can make me take a step back, haha.

I'm curious as to what you think about the fact that sex has been relatively separated from propagation. I mean plenty of people decide never to even have kids.

Is having kids the big insight? Or is it the sex itself? Having sex is great, and sure, I've figured out what sex is because I've had it. But does it make me a better person, a more complete human? Have I really "played the game" just because I've had sex? I'd say perhaps love is part of the game.

You won't be able to re-create the experience fully, but I'd like to throw in something for you to think about.

Hallucinogens simply cause changes in our perception. I.e. they bind in the brain and affect our own information transmission systems. So, purely theoretically, you should be able to experience everything a psychedelic gives you through sobriety, although many people don't/never will.

Science being close-minded to anything sounding miraculous?

Does science not already sound pretty far out there sometimes? Try going back even one hundred years and having a look at what scientists knew about the world. I think you'll find that much of what we know/practice today would be considered miraculous.

Hell, try telling someone in the 1900's that we would be able to do open-heart surgery, replace someone's heart with a mechanical heart..

What scientists do not do is take anecdotal evidence of miraculous experiences to be the truth. But they can be studied.

For example, and I'll try to find the source on this if anyone is interested; faith healing. Many people claim that it works, and studies have shown certain neurochemical release associated with faith healing. I believe it was dopamine, but I am not sure.. anyway, the point is that even "miraculous" and "pseudo-science" events can be studied with scientific methods. But just saying that faith healing works for some people is not exactly scientific progress.

 

Culture is a lot like evolution in it's rate of change. The science of mind is miraculous in the way it can end around or short curcuit culture and make profound advances that would otherwise be culturally restrained. A miracle is a perception that substitutes for years of learning, the eureka moment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_%28word%29

 

Your failure to use the tools of rationality to describe something does not mean that something is outside rationality; it means you need more practice and education.

Why is it dubbed pseudoscience? Because after examining its claims and predictions, its found to have no validity and to not be scientific. People don't just flip a coin to decide whether to call something pseudoscience or science; they examine it. Upon examining many of the claims out there, some are genuinely pseudoscientific; they purport to be scientific, but fail significantly, often through deliberate deception. What is something miraculous that science won't investigate? Faith healing? Looked into it, it's bullshit. Prayer? Looked into it, it doesn't work. Mckenna in Food of Gods offhandedly talks about how science won't even investigate the magic of shamanism seriously, when he himself "has seen the red beams of light that shamans send against each other". Then next sentence he changes topic. Well, where did he see those red beams? Oh right, tripping balls on ayahuasca with a shaman talking to him about red beams. I wonder if there could be a more prosaic explanation for something miraculous like that?

 

Well I think we already went over that McKenna isn't officially a Scientist, didn't we?

And apparently, faith healing does work...if it is changing your chemistry then who's to say that it isn't working? A spiritual experience of any type of course will have its neurobiological counterpart.

And it's true, have Scientists investigated Shamanism and tripping on Ayahuasca? The drug is an integral part of Shamanistic experience.

 

I don't think it's a fact that sex has become separated from propagation. They are not limited to each other (partly what I was inferring when I said sex can be trivialized and on the flip side we can talk about test tube babies) but they are bound to each other.

I think sex in and of itself does make one realize their humaness, it can satisfy all kinds of psychological needs and desires but on a more significant level, you and I would not be having this conversation right now without it.

 

^This

 

guerrillabedlam I would agree with post 1250 but how does one even begin to consciously and rationally re-integrate it? That's all that I mean. Like, do you try to remember and recreate the experience in your head while sober? For me it's been just more of an unconscious/subconscious and intuitive re-integration. Something beyond my rational mind.

 

So Scientists apparently are seeing actual changes in chemistry from faith healing and yet claiming that it's not working? What about the Sam Harris video, and the changing paradigm that internal experience and reports are just as important as the external data? Well, with faith healing, we have the internal reports, and we have external data. Then we have the Scientists simply going..."well, I don't believe in God, so it's bullshit. I'm a Scientist".

 

I'm pretty sure anyone that has done "proper" psychedelics "properly" has reached that point , that fleeting moment where it all makes sense. "It's just all so simple, it's like child's play.... It's just.............. Fuck, it's gone. Dammit!"


Look for that space and it's meaning in everyday life... Fuck the "trip", yeah that's fun and all but it's the window dressing. That minuscule spark of reason is the important part. Find that!