psychedelia and children

[xxx]

In Breaking Open the Head, Pinchbeck makes mention of the stigma attached to psychedelics - essentially they are seen as childish, an infantile experience or fascination.

Are there parents, caregivers, or teachers who have found psychedelics to open them to new and better relationships to children?

In terms of one of the most transformative psychedelic experiences I've had in the last few years was a rather scary mushroom journey following a week long lay off and a few days of binge drinking.

I'd been to an art opening, got drunker, was the last to leave other than the folks who ran the gallery. I was plastered, asking them for more beer, wanting to "borrow" porn materials that the folks used in their paintings, and pledging to buy a painting which I could not afford, but have since acquired as a gift.

Eventually I returned home, felt fucked up and worthless, and downed a bunch of magic mushrooms in coffee. I listened to a tape of Eminem on one side and Charlie Parker on the other on an endless loop. I lost identity, the walls breathed, my housemate taking a piss at 4am acknowledged my state as furniture. I went somewhere very strange.

In the morning I kept drinking. Inside and on the street - I lived near a rather chaotic Chinatown - bought lucky charms and went to a book signing/launch for a freind's mother, the sister of a well known Canadian artist. Comletely pissed. Pissed off people I knew.

Made soup. The next day was International Women's Day and I had some responsibility for something. The soup was a boied onion or two which I managed to spill all over two of my dearest friends.

I was fucking ruined.

However somehow in the process, I realized I'd been denying myself the opportunity to be working with and giving care to small children whom I adore. I resolved myself to do something for young people and children. It took a while. I ended up volunteering at a drop in center for teen mothers.

The children were wonderful for my sense of priority - food, hugs, jokes, clean bum, warmth, love, sensation. Who needs an SUV when you can have these other things?

The day care I most enjoyed being at did play psychedelic music - late Beatles, dub reggae, Grateful Dead, gamelan music. They also served the kids spicey, savoury, and otherwise delicious foods. One day sauteed mushrooms, the next day curried lentils. The (k)ids were down with it. They liked garlic!

How do we go beyond the stigmatization of drugged, psychotic, spiritual, irrational experience to actually incorporate these alternative ways of knowing to support children?

[Scylla]

Blake writes:
How do we go beyond the stigmatization of drugged, psychotic, spiritual, irrational experience to actually incorporate these alternative ways of knowing to support children?

Well, first, we exercise enough self-discipline
to avoid public drunkeness. Then we approach any
spiritual practice, psychedelic or Not, with
humility and respect for the Spirit.

I don't know if you are aware that there is a
powerful knee-jerk reaction in our culture con-
cerning small children and their caretakers.
Small children are warned to report any "inappropriate touching" from Anyone. All you
need is to be helping a child in the bathroom
and have them report that you "touched" them.
Doesn't matter that you didn't. The parents
will go ballistic, call the police and with
so many people who can testify to your public
drunkeness and those you've mentioned psychedelics
to, you're on your way to disaster. I suggest
until you have more control over your behavior,
and for your own protection, that you stay away
from children. Period.

[gone]

This extract from a thread in another place about some guy’s experience with his child is some food for thought. It takes all sorts.

http://www.shaman-australis.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=0019 76 (http://www.shaman-australis.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=001976)

I just had to write this, something happened to my "gnome" today that has totally changed his outlook and metaphysics. You know often substances keep pretty much to themselves, in your own head, that is to say that they can change you on the inside, but afterwards the world is the same. But listen to this:

PS all uses of the word "I" "me" "myself" and "mine" are taken to refer to the gnome's experiences, not Thelema's.

T-2hours: 150mg Moclobemide

T-1/2 hour: 150mg Moclobemide

T 0: 450mg DMT dissloved in water ingested.
*****WARNING: this amount of DMT should only be attempted by seasoned veterans. My gnome in no way recommends such high doseages for normal folk, even normal DMT folk**********

T 20mins: Geometry starts

T 30mins: Propulsion into DMT universe. There's little I can say about the next 3.5 hours, unless youve been silly enough to try such a high dose. Comparisons to "normal" doses at 75mg-150mg pale in comparison. For anyone who HAS done ayahuasca, let me just say that 450mg seems about 10 times stronger in speed, intensity and in ego loss.

T 2.5 hours: Try to remember the half life of moclobemide, and the average time of an ayahuasca trip. Can't think, cant locate myself as a person in a bed. Cant locate myself as even a PERSON who has ingested anything.

T 3.5 hours: During this whole time my gnomes partner has come back with baby son gnome, who is about 2 1/2 years old. Vaguely recall that during my trip, partner yelling a lot at son and son throwing objects at partner's head and being violent. This alone is VERY disturbing, as usually both are placid and well behaved. Partner NEVER yells at son, and son NEVER behaves in such a way. I remember contacting son telepathically during the trip, realizing that I was affecting him. But these things afterwards can be given to the imagination....

BUT HERE"S THE CRUNCH:
T 3.5 hours: Walk out of room still nuts, and see partner losing it with anger at son, flinging him onto time-out couch. Cant deal with the emotions of anger at the moment: I tell my partner to take a walk and pick up my bawling son and take him outside, explaining that Mom still loves him etc...but he REALLY starts freaking out...Im outside in the dirt with him, and visual traces are everywhere, about 30cm long on every moving object. He starts crying, crying, saying "bee's, bee's bee's" which is his generic name for bee's, flys and objects like that moving in his visual field.
I explain to him there are no bee's or flies. But he insists and is still freaking. he picks up a short stick and waves it in front of him. "Bee's!" he yells frightenedly, and I see that his EYES are following the trail of the stick. he waves his hands and looks curiously at them and yells "bee's" and his EYES are following EXACTLY what I myself can see as visual tracers.
With a sudden teror I realize that HE is seeing visual tracers too!!!!

I WAS right that he was picking up on my trip, and I suspect that the household discordance was also a result of emotional/psychic confusion.

As a postnote, I have noted that at nights when I have had extremely strong trips that have gone wrong (mostly due to my mixing things with SSRI's and other things) my son has woken in terror, and mom has had to calm him: all the while he is calling for me: "Dad, DAD!" He NEVER does this at any other time. EVER.

So thats it for me. I can control myself and have remarkable stamina for mind fucks, but now it is plainly obvious that it is also affecting my 2 1/2 yo son. i dont know how or why, I'm pretty much a materialist/anti-transcendental gnostic, and can't find a way to explain this that FITS into my overall universal picture which has been ultra-tuned with a degree in philosophy.

But never again will I take such substances in the same house or in the close vicinity of my son.

[ December 21, 2003, 07:43 PM: Message edited by: gelfer ]

[forteanajones]

I believe it. Sharing dreams and waking thoughts is common for my 7-yr-old and myself. Even without the meta-agents my thoughts alone and how they might impact her alarm me. Just today we were sitting around talking about robots and aliens and I flashed on the creature in '82 remake of The Thing. In particular I imagined the scene where one of the scientists' head fell off of an examination table while no one was looking and the creature sprouted out of the upside-down human head and walked away. One second later my kid described an alien she imagined that had three upside-down heads which hung down behind it and were not visible to one facing the creature.

Of course there have been many, many more positive expressions of this phenonemon but I'm sad to say it took me longer than it should have to connect this sort of thing to my after-hours personal experimentation. Fortunately my exploits have been limited to THC and imagination and I have yet to take the big plunge as I'm trying to build up courage and find the right setting. Gelfer, your story put a very tangible price tag on the idea of doing this while in the same household as my daughter, and I will give very serious consideration to avoiding it altogether.

[gone]

Mmm, what was surprising is that the people who responded to this guy’s story in the rest of the thread seemed to be more interested in the fact that the child tapped into the trip than the fact that he was exposed to the situation at all. I don’t see any mindfulness or transformation in a situation like that.

[forteanajones]

Just read the full Corroboree post and now I see what you mean and how the story relates to this thread, Gelfer. Sorry for misunderstanding the true message (and teller!).

One reply to the original poster even says "I would love to have the resources to do a study on that phenomenon.. so much could be learnt about people through a series of small experiments this way." (*Shudder*).

Still, at least some of us may get something positive in the form of its cautionary resonance.

[gone]

I was just about to point that out – epic quantities of DMT isn’t really my style smile.gif

I guess this is going away from Blake’s point though. No doubt if someone felt transformed their relationships with all people would improve.

Blake, there’s another thread about children if you didn’t stumble across it:

http://www.breakingopenthehead.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000029

[ December 21, 2003, 07:56 PM: Message edited by: gelfer ]

[xxx]

Scylla wrote:

"Well, first, we exercise enough self-discipline
to avoid public drunkeness. Then we approach any
spiritual practice, psychedelic or Not, with
humility and respect for the Spirit.
I don't know if you are aware that there is a
powerful knee-jerk reaction in our culture con-
cerning small children and their caretakers.
Small children are warned to report any "inappropriate touching" from Anyone. All you
need is to be helping a child in the bathroom
and have them report that you "touched" them.
Doesn't matter that you didn't. The parents
will go ballistic, call the police and with
so many people who can testify to your public
drunkeness and those you've mentioned psychedelics
to, you're on your way to disaster. I suggest
until you have more control over your behavior,
and for your own protection, that you stay away
from children. Period."

Thanks for the fuck off. I'm sorry I had an emotional crisis two years ago.

That's it for me on the board!

[daniel]

hey blake,

The board is open to people to say what they want. I wouldn't think it is worthwhile getting so upset over someone's comment that you pack it up, but that is your choice.

In Brazil, where I just visited centers of the Santo Daime religion which uses ayahuasca as a sacrament, even little children are part of the ceremony and drink (smaller) amounts of ayahuasca. What was unbelievable to me was that the children sit through the entire ceremonies without making any disturbance - even the babies on their mother's laps were silent throughout the work. The kids are able to completely attune themselves to the ritual space, as nobody expects anything different.