Marijuana & Existence

Mountain Valley Wolf · Sep 23, 2013

Hikaru Zero said:

This place seems an appropriate place for this. =)

About a year ago, I tried weed (henceforth referred to as Herb =P) for the first time, and, like all of you, it opened my mind to huge possibilities.

A little afterward, I tried another herb (without the capital H) called Salvia divinorum.

After a shaky experience, I was out in the woods as the effects started to wear off. Then, like an information overload, I had a pretty detailed realization, which I want to share with you:

Imagine a tree; evergreen, whatever, it doesn't matter. One with a peak and a trunk. You start out on the bottom. There's grass and mud, and it's pretty dirty if you try to climb it. So, up we go, climbing the tree now, and we get onto our first branch. You're a little higher up than you used to be standing on the ground, so you can see a little farther into the distance. If you look up, you might be able to see part of the top of the tree.

Now imagine the tree as a symbolic figure. The peak of the tree represents Truth, and every branch represents a paradigm viewpoint.

My realization is this: As human beings born into a human society, we are somewhere out on a branch. We can move around the branch, just as our viewpoints tend to change with time, but there are few people who ever manage to climb up to the next branch. But regardless, your view of the top (Truth) is always obscured by other branches, because you are only on a low branch. So you only see a small side of Truth.

For me, smoking Herb for the first time was a paradigm shift; it marked the first point where I grabbed hold of another branch, and swung to that. From there, I could see a different side of Truth; it wasn't the complete opposite side, so there were similarities with the Truth that each one of us sees from a normal perspective. But there were also things that you couldn't see from the other branch.

When I tried Salvia, this is what I realized; psychoactives are like the branches on such a tree. Every branch represents a different mindset with a different point of view. A person who has been exposed to more than one mindset, begins to gain the ability to switch between the two at their own will. At first, they have to induce swinging to the other branch by using the psychoactive, but with enough exposure, their mindset changes, and they begin to see Truth from both perspectives.

On this Earth, composed of carbon and oxygen and nitrogen and many other materials, we evolved as a species that thinks on an oxygen- and nitrogen-based brain. As we develop from a baby, we begin to "get used to" the "high" of the real world, as we learn about it. Eventually, we can look up and see truth with a functional mind. However, when we expose ourselves to other chemicals; THC, salvinorin-A, theobromine, 4-acetyl-morphine, whatever ... when we expose ourselves to these things, our brains radically shift into a new mindset, and gains a new perspective on the nature of such things as ... perspective, Truth, and many other concepts.

Dr. Shullgin, reknowned psychoactive scientist, has shown that carbon dioxide and oxygen, when inhaled in different quantities than we are used to, can produce psychoactive effects that have been described as "LSD-like" and "morphine-like," respectively. It seems true that we are just "used to" the content of chemicals in the air, and we have become tolerant of the psychoactive effects low doses of such chemicals, much like one gains a tolerance to heroin.

By swinging from branch to branch and exposing our minds to these new perspectives, we start to see many more sides of Truth that were once obscured by the branches we couldn't grab onto. However, some branches are not worth swinging to (like crack in my opinion), because they are too weak to support your weight, or because they will snap off the tree. So you must always be conscious as to what branches you move to.

Regardless, now imagine if our world was filled with, instead of nitrogen, THC, or perhaps instead of carbon, silicon? Our brains would have evolved differently, to have a different viewpoint towards Truth. And then, perhaps, we might have different psychoactives that can give us even more different perspectives.

I view the world of psychoactives as branches on the tree of life. You should be careful what branches you use to climb to the top (where you will finally be able to see Truth in a mostly unobscured way), but in order to see more Truth than you are normally able, you must expose your mind to chemically forced paradigm shifts, and learn from those shifts.

Comments, thoughts, or flames? =P
Click to expand...

Very interesting take on the axis mundi archetype!

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Marijuana & Existence

Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

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Marijuana & Existence

Mountain Valley Wolf Senior Member

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