Seeing the light or delusion?

The question refers to tripping. I think it will be interesting to hear everyone's view on this. Do hallucinagenics take us to a higher level of cosnciousness, opening parts of our brain that were intended to be explored? Or are we merely in delusional state, out of heads and thinking insane thougts?

My opinion matches the first choice. I think it is no coincidence that weed, shrooms and opium are natural drugs which expand the mind. It on Earth so we can use at our own convenience. The drugs that seriously mess you up are all man made. Whoever or whatever made the world wanted us to experiment and several ancient civilisations did, like the Native Americans, Egypt, Babylonia etc.

I don't think my opinion is biased because I use shrooms and weed, if I genuinely believed it puts you in an unnatural state I would have no problem saying so.

 

I've heard that drugs during the 60's were a lot cleaner, they didn't have filler and weren't laced. Now it's hard to find absolutly clean drugs. I agree that the drugs that come from nature are a lot better than synthetics.

 

i dont necesarily view psychedelics as spiritual (but then again, mayb that will change once i get a spiritual trip) but i definitly think they are useful in getting to know one's own mind and experiencing what it can do


could you elaborate on how opium expands the mind? I'm familiar with the psychedelics opening the mind, but i thought of opium as a feel-good deppressent, maybe im wrong

"The drugs that seriously mess you up are all man made"
shrooms and mescaline have just as much potential side affects as LSD, and mescaline has much added nausea
Datura is natural
poisons are usually natural
I find seperating natural and synthetic drugs is illusory... just because a drug was developed by evolution/survival of the fittest instead of laboratory testing and research doesn't mean it has less side affects
p.s. dont forget tobacco

 

I've never seen psycadelics being laced with anything... LSD is impossible to lace...

 

in response to psilnaut: X is often laced with speed, caffiene, (pseudo)ephedrine.

 

X is not what I would consider a psycadelic. It's fancy speed

 

on my first true psychedelic experience (heh march 8 2004) of some insanly good blotter.. thats when my life changed when reality collapsed around me and all my game routines became shows of plastic creation, so fake and false.. conversing with my true inner self in an exchange of knowledge & wisdom...

and it all started when I couldnt keep my eyes open at all and i found myself flying through a tunnel at the speed of light feeling my body being ripped apart and off of 'myself' when I was just a single point of awareness, just consciousness itself (incredible feeling.. like taking 10000tons of pressure off of you, quite remarkable) and i flew through this tunnel with some other forms of entities flying around me till I was engulfed in a white light that shined brighter then anything I could every describe.. i remeber the intense burning sensation, which was wierd cuase it was incredibly hot and bright, and burning.. but at the same time it was pure pleasure, like a cosmic orgasm... i became engulfed in this with a transfer of information as in being all and all was me.. i felt as if the buddha had lifted me up gave me liberation

and from that point on.. i was hooked on exploring this frontier


but i also find that its incredible that its illegal to explore this, that people are scared of it.. typical ego-actions

 

15 years ago I would've said tripping was enlightenment, but I've since become convinced that it's delusion:

http://www.cornerstonemag.com/pages/show_page.asp?188

 

thing is most of the doses you find now are more like club/rave acid

like i cant really picture people being on vintage doses of 250ug-400ug and being at a club..

but ive noticed that most of the stronger stuff I find.. is at festivals/concerts/etc... like the dead and also at old phish shows... plus some of the hippie festivals that they have here every summer.. but more with the big names like the dead...

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and as for enlightenment or delusion... that all depends on your mind.. if you dont believe its real and youve got that really set in your mind... the chances of having an enlightening experience drop dramatically..

sorta like astral projection (sober mind you) if you dont believe in it... dont expect to much to happen.. but if you really are open to the posibility, you might be surprised (heh or scared) of what you might find)

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and that webpage article talks about doses having strychnine and other lsd myths.. so i would exactly go by what that person says

lol plus this: "The phenomena of flashbacks are a bad side effect of LSD"

ok thats an opinion....

the majority of people I have talked to that have had flashbacks have enjoyed them... and like me.. miss them once they become far and few or stop all together...

the only people that didnt like them, were the ones that had no idea what they were doing.. didnt pay attn to set and setting, and just didnt understand anything to do with lsd.. oh they think its pretty colors and transformed objects.. and thats it.. they dont even know what 'psychedelic' means.. let alone the meaning of that meaning...

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jeez i just got to the end of it.. now i understand...another religious preacher trying to tell you how to think..to control your thoughts and your reality... to try and stop you from exploring yourself by telling you its a sin... that through jesus is the only way to reach god..

well any religion that says you are not god.. that everyone and everything is not god... is well... quite the rediculous religion in my *opinion*..

but if that religion is soooo correct.. how come the 1st known civilizations were all poly....
and nothing like mono... wouldnt they have been mono? wouldnt have the 1st people (supposidly adam and eve) have brought forth a single god and all that old testiment stuff.. who and where and when and why would they have decided nooo screw it.. were going to believe in many gods and/or religions nothing like the way the bible says it all started...

i just find that to be kinda wierd...

but for the most part.. all the major organized religions are messed up (once again opinion)

i find the best religion is your own religion

believe what you want

not what other people tell you to believe (and tell you that if you dont you will go to 'hell')

to goto heaven you must come to our church you must pray to what I say and you must say the prayers that I say, oh btw.. why dont you give us money.....

 

Is there any objective way to distinguish between enlightenment and delusion, or does it all depend on one's feelings? How would you define or describe enlightenment?

How much control you have over your setting when a flashback hits?

Have you considered the possibility that God has actually revealed himself to man in the person of Jesus Christ, rather than leaving us on our own with the impossible task of figuring him out?

If everything is God, is everything good? If this wretched world is somehow divine, then I think we're in a hopeless situation.

Read Eternity in Their Hearts by Don Richardson.

Read Romans 1:18-32.

If you believe that "all the major organized religions are messed up" then does that mean you believe that they are false? If so then how do you determine truth?

 

ty for replying.. i love the excercising.. doesnt matter whats really right or wrong.. its the whole being openminded (at least to an extent).. and discussing ideas and just getting them out into realities of others...comparing and contrasting.. working your mind

"philosophy is a team sport" - Dr. Timothy Leary, Ph.D.

i'm sure there are some basic agree'd apon principles of enlightenment... but I would say its depends more on one's feelings... like for example if you were somehow able to replicate every detail from an experience and give it to a bunch of people.. theres chances that some would consider it something related to enlightenment while others would view it as delusion.. it depends highly on the intrepretation by the different mind..

but I would say if it changes your behavior & your way of thinking, your actions, and if you really believe it then its true.. true for you.. not for everyone but if it makes you change then i wouldnt consider it a delusion.

i've recently been getting into a better understanding of Leary's concepts on creation of realities..

and i feel that what might be true in one persons reality.. doesnt neccesarily apply to realities of others.. but if in that one reality its true.. then who is anyone to tell them that they are wrong...

theres so many differences in individual minds that its really hard to grasp a concept of how large a field of knowledge this is, and on top of that being able to explain it.. theres just too much unknown to rest yourself on one certain answer i suppose...

control as in where I am when it takes place? or control as in once it takes place?

with flashbacks 95% of them have been in my room (where 95% of my experiences take place) but there are a couple of other things that tend to trigger them..

I see flashbacks as a reminder as too how much more there really is to everything... how many more possibilites there are... they intrigue my curiosity and my drive for knowledge and wisdon...they make me want to explore and understand whatever you want to call this field of information..

well i see that god reveals himself in all of us, just that the image is distorted (over time it has progressively gotten worse) the thoughts of the ego are overpowering.. but then again maybe this is all a game.. in which the basic goal is to discover ourselves.. to learn of ourselves.. hence discover god and to learn of god..... if you take a look at majority of people.. they put alot of pretty rediculous things before that...fears, desires, materialistic views.

now as with jesus, dont get me wrong i believe there had to have been some sort of contact between himself and 'god' (trying to keep it simple here..) but i think the thought of saying the only way to god is through him is a little.. i dont know. i just dont like that.. not really gonna get into details, mainly becuase I dont exactly know the vocabulary to explain all my thoughts...

I think god comes forth on many many people in an attempt to bring that into lives of others.

many people see psychedelic experiences as being 'on the cheap' i dont understand how they can see it that way.. 1st off.. its a pretty general idea that god created everything.. so therefor he created these chemicals.. the exact reason probably never really known but like I said up top.. if it cuases a change in the persons behavior then how can you say its on the cheap.. when it did the same as a sober meditative experience would have..

maybe we were givin these chemicals as sort of a portal to another dimension.. the keys.. like if your locked out of your house and your nieghbor asks you if you want the spare key.. is that getting in the house on the cheap?? it doesnt matter really how you got there.. its the fact that you actually got there.. like whether you study extremely hard and get an A on a test.. or if someone else studies only a little and gets an A.. they're both A's... you just gotta take your path... the path you want to take.. dont take a path just becuase thats what someone else says.. do it becuase you truly believe in it yourself... dont let the thoughts of others clutter you mind..

yeah this is an area that I confuse myself in a lot... idk but say god is the basic unit of everything (good ex/ is to use atoms, elements, paticles, all that stuff as a reference to the ideas sometimes).. its just that it gets cover'd up and distorted.. and over time the amount of distortion increases in some cases.. things get all twisted and turned around by ego-games+thoughts etc.....maybe its about the search for divinity.. you need a struggle to be able to appreciate the goal

I'll check that stuff out..

i wouldnt say they are false at all.. but their basic underlying concepts have for the most part been distorted (like look at the whole terrorist type of pov.. jihad or whatever.. I know some muslims and they've said many of times that there is nothing like that in the basis of the religion)

its when mankind gets involved that things get out of hand...

my belief system or whatever you want to call it.. has many of my own ideas and concepts.. but also many borrow'd from a wide range of different religions.. most of which share basic similarities themselves..... truth cant really be determined in a overall viewpoint.. I see truth is more of an individual perspective.. dependant on the mind of the individual...


damnit i had a phone call and lost my thought process.. there was more I wanted to say but I cant recall it now...but i think i typed plenty anyway... good luck trying to figure out what I said.. cuase i'm not entirely sure if I did it the way I wanted to...

but anyway.. thanks

 

the more indigenous view would be that plants have spirits, and rather than a hallucinogenic plant opening up parts of your brain, the plant is itself interacting with your brain. the world you are transported to is a spiritual realm as revealed by a plant entity, not a level of your consiousness. Their purpose, therefore would be to facilitate the communication between spirits and humans. of course spirits, in this model, are fully cabable of putting you in madness, or mystical states.