transformation

[Pita]

After some years of inner exploration and experimentation with kundalini and drugs, I began to have some very unusual experiences. It began when I tried 5-meo dmt for the first time. I would experience dimensional shifts in perception as I went about my daily life. Then as I was driving home from work one day I began to fall into a trance. I felt a change in my perception of the light surrounding me. Everything was sharp and clear, an endorphin rush flooded my brain. It was as if I had just snorted a gram of coke. Time and space began to melt and then I was at my destination. I looked in the rearview mirror to see two glassy dilated eyes staring back at me. My endocrine system had just been triggered in a way I had not previously experienced. Very similar to dmt yet more pure and clear.

This must be a result of my kundalini trance work, I thought to myself, If I can trigger my glandular hormone production imagine the possibilities. Serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, adrenaline, growth, metabolism, strength are all of these things really under my conscious control?

So with that I began my experiments. At first I focused my energy on specific glands. It seemed to work, but had unwanted consequences. I could speed up and slow down my perception of time yet it would lead to severe muscle spasms and tics as well as pains in my organs. I realized this was throwing my body out of balance. If I was going to master this I would need to seriously elevate my whole being. As I realized this it began to manifest.
Trances began to occur spontaneously multiple times a day. Not in any way were they debilitating, rather they provided a profound sense of focus and drive. My body was becoming the tool of my consciousness it was always meant to be. The energy would rise up my spine into my upper chakras, then hover in my cranium dissolving the blockages between my crown and frontal lobe. My skull felt as if it was actually transforming, elongating, much like the pictures of the ancient maya. Sights, smells and sounds became much more pronounced. Other people's thoughts began to slip into my consciousness when I least expected it. I would pass someone at the store and their whole life would flash before me. It scared my wife at first, she thought it was epilepsy. Yet I was always in exquisite control of my body and remembered more than when in my usual state.

As this has progressed over the last six months or so, I have gained more control over it as well as a much deeper perception of my surroundings. The energy flow is nearly continuous now and I regularly have pulsating sensations in my third eye area.

I have come to consider this to be connected to the dimensional shift and am curious if anyone else is having similar experiences.

[daniel]

Pita,

That is a fabulous tale, and very well told - thank you!

I have been collecting such stories from people - and yes, I think it is absolutely part of the "shift" that is now underway. What is great about your story is your openness to the experiences and your ability to allow the transmission to take place without being overwhelmed by fear. I think fear is what usually makes people jump back to the ordinary state. I would like to know more about your kundalini yoga practice and if that was what allowed you to maintain such "exquisite control" of your body? Had you had premonitory experiences before this, suggesting such states were possible?

[Eirias]

I agree with Daniel,fear certainly is the primary obstacle in practices and conscious adaptations such as these. I have personally witnessed fears induce the cessation of many people's 'work' in this realm who were beginning to encounter similiar experiential states. I'd imagine that we all can think of someone who ingested a psychedelic substance, and the lack of appropriate 'set-and-setting' resulted in a trip that was so terrifying and xenomorphic (possibly due to the release of previously supressed traumatic 'imprints' exhumed by the drug from the subconscious), that they swear off psychedelic experimentation permanently and often judge others who utilize the "poison path". Occasionally they also adamantly blame the ills of their terror-trip on the specific drug itself. Sometimes this even results in a bizaare basis of preference for one drug over another--"Man 'shrooms are mellow and cool, but LSD puts people on 'bad trips'-- ummm it's cause one's natural and the other man-made)! In fact it could even be speculated that such experiences, on a collective societal level particularly in the "Western" world, are the primary cause for the stigma of demonization that entheogens bear in our contemporary mass culture.
As far as your story is concerned, I can see severtal parallels with many traditions of both Shamanic and Ritual Magick initiations worldwide. A good American perspective on this phenomenom is R.A. Wilson's "Cosmic Trigger I", in which the author recounts his adventures into the realms of increasing synchronicities and spontaneous states of transcendent awareness-- that eventually lead to his expansion and rectification of Leary's "8-circuit" model of consciousness.
One of the more suiting analogies I have heard for those who begin to experience spontaneous trance-like states is "being bitten by the snake". The reference implies that when one is initiated on the "path" and has been "bitten" as such, that others around her/him can see that they have touched the "power" by simply looking into her/his eyes. Perhaps some of us have shared this telepathic perception of others in enviroments where many others are in "heightened" states of awareness ;) ; a sort of 'knowing' sensation that permits one to recognize others whom are on the same experiential "level".
Admittedly I am skeptical as to how soon the "masses" per se will become adapted to this level of consciousness functioning. I have a good degree of hope in the expansion of "novelty" toward a "zero point" of overwhelming collective trancendence, ala Wilson and Terence McKenna's 2012 theories, and it also is clear that more and more people are "turning on" (so to speak), and that at least a margin of our society appears to be drifting toward a tranformation of this nature. I suppose that I can only watch and hope and do my part to be a positive influence toward such a pivotal transcendence. tongue.gif
As you may have discovered, Pita, the Chakra system is largely based on the location and function of specific endocrine-producing glands within the human body, and as such any practices involving these areas can more-or-less act interchangeably. The fact that you are even targeting this type of work indicates (in my opinion) that you are EXTREMELY intuitive and possess a keen awareness in your psycho-sensory observations!! smile.gif
5-Methoxy-DMT is a endogeneous neurotransmitter that, like DMT, is produced solely in the Pineal gland in the brain (correlated with the 3rd eye chakra). Subjectively I find that 5MeO produces incredible (to put it mildly) amounts of Kundalini-esque energies that have no other parallels in the psychedelic world. VERY intense stuff, with sooo much potential for being harnessed as a tool of consciousness exploration!! :eek:
Although the experience of spontaneous trance states is undoubtedly intensely connected to the progression of Shamanic/Majickal awareness and becoming an adept therein, from a concrete, materialist viewpoint it is interesting and difficult to explain scientifically how this process works. Possibly it is a type of inverted "PTSD" or "HPPD", where one is having "flashbacks" of the "8th-circuit" imprinting of such an ineffable thing as a 5MeO launch, or maybe even an actual release of neurochemicals is taking place, like when 'drugabuseologists' ignorantly proclaimed that LSD flashbacks occurred due to a release of the drug that had been stored in the brain or spine for however long, and for some reason decided to enter the bloodstream again. Forget that this "theory" utterly ignores the nature of LSD's metabolic qualities :rolleyes: , but nonetheless the latter concept introduces a compelling idea that Pita has also touched upon-- the stimulation and manipulation of hormones, neurotransmitters, etc. through meditation, or "focused will", or other non-drug techniques.
It has been scientifically documented that monks of the Himalayan region can control their circulatory system as well as their pulse via a meditation referred to as "Tumo", which enables them to travel across bitterly cold high mountain passes with little more than a robe to wear! :eek: I am vaguely aware of other meditations or "yogas" along these lines which exhibit control in the practitioners' 'autonomic' physiological functions, and one could further argue that the whole practice of meditation and/or yoga is based in controlling neurotransmitter release to such a degree that a myriad of conscious states can be had, some of them that would be classically described as "mystical" or even "psychedelic".
Perhaps beyond the concept of psychedelics as a chemical means to transcendent awareness, is an idea that they can act as a type of long-term meditative catalyst-- even well past the point of their subjective inebriating effects! If we think of the drug as the proverbial "snake" that bites us into transcendence, and the mentally imprinted trauma (OR ecstacy) associated with the bite-experience as the spontaneous (or will-induced) emergence of trance-awareness, we begin to create a crude model of how this phenomenom works. I am reminded of individuals whom I meet at Rainbow Gatherings and other such events who claim that entheogens "cut the foliage" out of the way-- to show them the path of transcendence and such, and further state that they no longer utilize psychedelics in such a means of gaining said awareness-- since the "path" has been shown to them and they no longer need a chemical "psychic machete" to engage themselves in trance-work.
Jesus, I'm sorry I went off on this shit like this, but the questions surfaced through the ideas and experiences described in this thread are both fascinating and numerous!! :D
Let me know if any of this post exhibits specific relevance to any of your experiences!!!

Luz y Amor, Eirias

[Pita]

Originally posted by daniel:
Pita,

That is a fabulous tale, and very well told - thank you!

I have been collecting such stories from people - and yes, I think it is absolutely part of the "shift" that is now underway. This is a very important undertaking. It can be very difficult to undergo such experiences without a peer network to help you get through the repercussions.

I would like to know more about your kundalini yoga practice and if that was what allowed you to maintain such "exquisite control" of your body? Had you had premonitory experiences before this, suggesting such states were possible?I began practacing kundalini in college as a way to experience the positive aspects of psychedelics without the substance and difficulties of the black market. I think my prior experience made it easier for me to awaken shakti. Little did I know then how unusual and dangerous it could be! Luckily I have always had a strong relationship with my ancestors and higher beings who I feel guided me through tough spots. The kundalini definately opened new doors for me spiritually, nad I think my recent experiences are a continuation of that. It has been however beyond anything I previously imagined.

Originally posted by Eirias:
One of the more suiting analogies I have heard for those who begin to experience spontaneous trance-like states is "being bitten by the snake". Amazing analogy that is! When I took a trip to serpent mound with my girlfriend (now my wife) a few years ago we found a very special spot in the woods and performed a spontaneous ritual in which I awakened her shakti and opened helped her open her chakras. When we reached her heart chakra I felt a sting on my forearm; I ingnored it and we continued on to leave our bodies together. After we returned she said "We went up in the sky didn't we."
"Yes," I replied.
"Did you see the serpent?" she asked, "It came out of my back here."

She then pointed to the place where my hand was when I felt the sting.

Her serpent actually bit me! I became ill a few days later. Felt almost like I had been poisoned. I was able to heal myself through prayer, meditation, and cleansing rituals.

I very much agree that psychedelics help cut the foliage, it is still important that we do not attempt to follow this path without assistance from our fellow explorers. RAW has been a wonderful guide for me as well. I highly recommend Cosmic Trigger 1-3.

[daniel]

Eirias and Pita,

Thanks for these fantastic posts - this is the kind of interchange I had hoped for when I started this discussion board!

My question for both of you is what kind of advice you would give people pursuing the path of self-transcendence? Pita mentioned that you need to have fellow explorers to help - well, what if you don't? I've been getting e-mails from people who feel totally isolated in their journeys. What should they do?

Also, if psychedelics are such useful catalysts, why are they so completely frowned upon in esoteric practices such as Buddhism? I have some friends who feel that their trips have seriously damaged their ability to make real spiritual progress - either by "blowing a hole in their astral body," or by messing with their "subtle nerve channels." I tend to be suspicious of this attitude (it seems weak-willed to me somehow), but I encounter it frequently.

[Pita]

Originally posted by daniel:

My question for both of you is what kind of advice you would give people pursuing the path of self-transcendence? Fear is the greatest enemy on this path, it will lead to serious problems if not overcome.


Pita mentioned that you need to have fellow explorers to help - well, what if you don't? I've been getting e-mails from people who feel totally isolated in their journeys. What should they do?That is one of the greatest blockages our society presents to anyone seeking beyond the reality fed to us by the mainstream media. It is very important that those of us who are able to venture down this road share our experiences with others to help them realize they are not alone. I have been blessed with guides, but I think part of this may be that I have been open to guidance from unlikely sources that many people may overlook. The creator will guide anyone who asks for guidance.

Also, if psychedelics are such useful catalysts, why are they so completely frowned upon in esoteric practices such as Buddhism?I am of the mindset that there are infinite paths which lead to the same mountain peak. Anyone who would say that one path is wrong and another is right is making a judgement which I would never claim authority to make. Each soul is on a unique point in their journey and has unique lessons they must learn. While psychedelics may not be the correct tool for everyone, they certainly do have beneficial uses. There is quite a bit of eveidence that they are the source of religion and the consciousness that has led to our social structure and creativity. (ever heard of the tree of knowledge?)

[mikez]

I would like to ask about the "Snake". After not taking any psychedelics in over 20 years, I recently took mushrooms. In my youth it was to get high and for fun. This time I was searching for something more. Early in the morning, long after the "trippy" part of the journey was over. I was trying to sleep. When I would close my eyes I would see a snake. I saw it crawling through trees and the jungle. At times it seemed I was the snake, I could see what it was seeing as it crawled along. I feel this is what I was after but I still do not understand it.
Daniel has a chapter called Meet the Snake. In this forum we have "bitten by the snake". What is it about the snake?

Mike Z

[daniel]

In Yoga, the snake is a symbolic representation of the kundalini, the subtle life force which can be channelled through meditation to rise up the spine, through the chakras, finally causing enlightenment as it pops out of the top of the head. This force is scientifically unverified but anecdotally very real. Many people, on psychedelics or not, have kundalini-type experiences.

The snake also figures as the oroborus which circles the earth - a kind of magnetic manifestation of earth energies that girds the planet and holds thing together.

Ayahuasca, the Amazon potion, is often linked to snake visions and snake manifestations - in Jeremy Narby's book The Cosmic Serpent, he links the twined serpents he and others see on ayahuasca with the paired DNA strand. He thinks the DNA may hold our collective memory and project it in the form of photons we are able to see when hallucinating.

While Christianity demonized the serpent as Satan, other traditions revere it.

[whitewave]

I am 34 years old according to my parents who were there at my physical birth,but I know that I was really born a year ago when I first entered the spirit world through mushrooms. My guide left me, and the subsequent pain at being abandoned had me running in circles, drinking mostly so I would not hear the voice which came out of him, a voice that spoke of our connection thousands of years ago. I never for a moment doubted its veracity. I live on an island and know the land intimately,but had never explored the subaqueous realm all around me until I started spearfishing. The experiences I had under the water entering the spirit of the striped bass as I hunted it among the rocks, swam more than half-blind through clouds of seaweed, struggled in the surf to bring my kill in, opened my eyes to abilities I did not know I possessed-the ability to enter the mind of another creature. I free-dive, hold my breath under the water and dive down to the bottom to wait for a fish. Because I was willing to enter their world as one of them, they opened me up to initiation. That fall I started taking mushrooms a lot, sitting at the base of the bluffs, feeling my head break open, everything I'd been taught washed away like a dose of nepenthe. I have always been terrified of a vision that comes into my mind often--I take an axe to my head and split it in two. I have always interpreted this as a mark of self-hatred, but the title of Daniel's book makes me think that it is perhaps a sign of what I must do. Many animals have come to me over the past year because I am open to receiving them. My brother is worried about me because he thinks I have blown my mind, and truly, I'm having a hard time functioning in the day to day world, having seen a world of far greater depth, of wealth of spirit instead of the poverty-stricken world we see reflected all around us by the mass hallucination we call normal society. I am writing a book about the past year if anyone is interested. It's called Bluebell: the Apocalypse Diary. The bluebell is the tolling of our planet, for death is coming--I know we are in the middle of something far beyond the capability of rational thought to comprehend--so I turn to the world apocalypse itself. Derived from the sea nymph Calypso, the etymological journey leads to the word veil. Do we want to lift it ourselves or have it torn away once we have no choice? Glad to connect with this group, for I am very alone.

[daniel]

whitewave,

Thanks for your beautiful and traumatic missive.

Please, please don't take an axe to your head on my account! I am assuming you meant metaphorically, yes?

It sounds to me like you have gone as far "out" as you should for a while. Rather than continuing to dose with anything stronger than seawater, I would recommend returning for a time to "society" in whatever form is available to you. If you are too alone where you are, perhaps go somewhere else.

Some form of "Apocalypse" may be happening to the planet, as it does to each of us when we die. Perhaps we chose to incarnate at this point to be witnesses to this process, and to pick up the pieces when the
"party is over" and it is time to put things back together again. You might check out Chogyam Trungpa's book "Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior," it is a great manual for the post-modern pre-apocalypse spiritual lifestyle.

[chi]

After reading about Pita's experiences, as well as the others, I am downright jealous and wish I could have such an experience myself. I feel like I live in an empty, dead world and yearn to see the lights! However, after having some terrifying experiences with LSD in my teen-age years, I am too scared to enter into this through any drug (natural or man-made). I am tempted but afraid of "losing my soul," as Daniel described in his book. I have tried the slow versions, meditating, yoga, etc., and I was very involved with a Gurdjieff school for a few years, but none of this really "broke open my head." Instead, it was all just intellectual masturbation, in my opinion. Any advice? :confused:

[chi]

After reading about Pita's experiences, as well as the others, I am downright jealous and wish I could have such an experience myself. I feel like I live in an empty, dead world and yearn to see the lights! However, after having some terrifying experiences with LSD in my teen-age years, I am too scared to enter into this through any drug (natural or man-made). I am tempted but afraid of "losing my soul," as Daniel described in his book. I have tried the slow versions, meditating, yoga, etc., and I was very involved with a Gurdjieff school for a few years, but none of this really "broke open my head." Instead, it was all just intellectual masturbation, in my opinion. Any advice? :confused:

[Argon Steele]

there is a frog in south america...

[hummingbird]

Greetings:

I got Daniel's book last week and am starting reading through it the second time last night.

Eleven years ago this coming February I experienced a "breakthrough in consciousness" that changed my life. It was a group experience, involving four other people during which I experienced myself inhabited by a another being.

This experience was not consciously invited, lasted for several hours, and enveloped several of us. It "broke open my head" and changed my life forever. I have long considered it a mystical experience because of 1)the nature of the experience itself, 2) the ripples it sent through the succeeding years of my life, and 3) the way in which it put me on a path and catalyzed further unfolding in my life.

It was a big experience of altered state and all the more strange and difficult to fathom because it was a group experience.

One aspect of it which I have not discussed until now is that three of us had ingested x the night before.

It would take a lengthly post to describe the many dimensions of this initial experience, not to mention its many outflows, but in midst of the the experience I clearly felt as if I were being re-wired or tuned to a different frequency via an opening that had been created by the substance.

I have never had a context for understanding this experience but I have privately characterized it as definitely psychic, initiatory, permenantly transformative, shamanic. It set me on a path of exploration that has taken me amazing places--to the doorstep of Elizabeth Kubler Ross, the Monroe Institute, studies with Michael Harner & Felicitas Goodman, Breathwork, and also through depression.

My life has changed entirely and my worldview is far from where I was then.

However I have gotten here, I find my self very much in the same place as Daniel in his grief over the ecological cataclysm now underway because of our species and his alarm a the materialist, consumer spell which emanating from this culture and now entrancing the rest of our species around the globe.

I am glad to have a forum in which to come out.

[Argon Steele]

welcome, hummingbird. yeah, this is a very nice forum.

I'm interested in more details of your transformation. If you're willing to share.

What was the nature, presence of this being? Why have you chosen to personify it rather than saying you all entered an emotional/ phycic space together. Did it inhabit all of you simultainously? How long after the XTC did this happen and were other drugs involved. Finally, most importantly, what were the actual lessons involved.

I'm just curious because it seems such an unusual type of trip.

thanks for sharring.

[Woodpecker]

Note to Whitewave,

There's a story I like a lot, and come back to thinking a lot about, in a book by Ursula K. LeGuin called Always Coming Home. In the story, a woman undergoes an unbelievably powerful series of visions. This happens to her for very personal, psychological reasons related to her own life, but also opens her out into the infinite hugeness of existence.

After she comes to what had been her senses, she begins the process of figuring out what happened to her. And for the next five years, a lot of what she does is work on bringing her experience out of her memory and into the public space of her community. She does this mainly by writing, but also drumming and chanting. And it takes a lot of time, and a lot of support from those around her.

It's always been a tremendous challenge for mystics to put their experiences into words. Or into any form at all. Other people paint or sculpt.

I'm saying all this simply to wish you luck with your task. We're all on here because we feel that it's valuable to know that a man can merge his psyche with that of a fish, and be initiated by the ocean. I bet we'd be interested to know more about that, in more detail, with the clearest possible language.

It's hard to balance that with the modern world and all its banal demands. With time and patience, though, those banal demands can also be seen as a zen practice.

I wish you luck in going as far as you wish and can into the myriad realms of the nonhuman, and also in returning safely to tell the tale.

[Proteus]

Wow! These stories are so incredibly rich and the sense of community & compassion that i received from reading this thread from top to bottom has been positively invigorating.

While i have many friends and acquaintances, it would be difficult to talk to any of them about the yearnings and string of events (something i used to call coincidences) that has lead me to Daniel's book & this amazing discussion space. It's really terrific to step, as it were, into a room full of people with similar yearnings and who have followed strings of their own to such similar conclusions. So thanks!

To spill a bit of my own word-hoard with new-found friends, i'd like to add an additional layer to the serpent connection. A few years back, i was flipping through an on-line horoscope that described some folks with my sign (Scorpio) as serpents because they were inclined, metaphorically speaking, to shedding their skins. That is, they worked toward intensity & achieving mystical union, building up a "skin" of patterns, ideas, relationships, and experiences and then--poof!--they shed that skin and break in a new one.

i wasn't then, and am not now, familiar enough with serious astrology to form an informed opion about its merits. But this image clarified some patterns in my own history that i hadn't the insight to notice until then. May as well tell all: i have enjoyed a chequered spiritual career. i have been a very devout charismatic christian (about 11 years), an adult convert and bar mitzvah to conservative Judaism (about 8 years), and have been pursuing a zen practice for about the last 4.5 years. Each of these religious phases has been associated with a different wife (yes, i'm a fool). And so, i have shed my "skin" three distinct times in my 44 years. Four times if you count the more or less universal experience of shedding childhood for the more self-directed experience of adulthhood.

Anyhow, i finished reading BOTH about 2 weeks ago & know that i'm about to "moult" again. (Thankfully, this time my mate desires to take the journey with me.) In the first two instances the transformation was from one faith-based (and closely related) religion to another. The shift to zen was radically away from this sort of tradition into an experiential tradition--one that demands that you encounter reality--as it is--with no headful of ideas about it. This fourth moulting--inhabiting the skin of the psychonaut--seems to be a deepening of the latter, experiential path and is not so much a new skin as it is a natural part of the growth of the current zen-skin.

i'm about to conduct my first-ever experiment with psyilocybe and the "just-sitting" style of meditation that i've become so intimate with. My hope is that much like Pita's experience, whatever stability of mind, whatever concentration, & "hereness" i've cultivated so far will constitute the ideal set-and-setting for the psychedelic experience. It sounds like Pita is firmly on the shaman's path--achieving a certain degree of mastery of the mind-body and perhaps about to receive information about healing and useful technologies that he can share "with the tribe." We'll see how it goes with me, but to be useful in this way is my deepest wish.

So, here's my pact with the participants on this thread. As soon as my first batch of 'shrooms is ready for consumption -- and assuming that there's anything worthwhile to report-- i'll log back in and let you know what happened.

In the meantime, let's here more about these matters.

[hummingbird]

Wanted to respond (finally, to Argon's questions.)

What was the nature, presence of this being?
From the first moment, the "being' identified himself as Hazarat Inyat Kahn, a Sufi Master and musician who is credited with bringing Sufism to the west. In the first flash I saw this presence as "directly connected to the source" or on the same level as Jesus and the Buddha. I experienced him as pure, strong, gentle energy coming into the top of my head and filling my body flowing out through my arms and fingers. This prompted repetetative gestures (such as Daniel and others have described as shamanic passes.) to send the energy out of my body.

Why have you chosen to personify it rather than saying you all entered an emotional/ phycic space together.

I personified this because from the first instance he announced himself as an entity who had been this person. (I must add, I came to this with NO ACQUAINTANCE with things estoeric. Chakras, Kundalini, Channeling, Sufism, these are all things that I was unfamiliar with until sometime after this event.) Nevertheless the "information" I got about these things while it was happening were clear.

Did it inhabit all of you simultainously?

No, I think I was the only one "inhabited." But the energy in the room changed for everyone. It was clear to all that we were in the midst of something. Each of the four others seemed enveloped and remained seated in their position at the table for almost four hours. At one point, we all "sensed" at the same time that my room-mate, who had left earlier that afternoon was about to return. Together we seemed to sense that he was on his way back and that we would need to "integrate" him into what was happening and that he would then be along for the ride. And that is what happened. I remember the air in the room being tingly and sparkly if that makes any sense. In other words, it was like there was an electricity and the only way to percieve it was visually as sparkles and tactily as tingly.

How long after the XTC did this happen and were other drugs involved.

It happened on the late afternoon of the following day. In other words, about 18 hours after ingestion and several hours after the more recognized effects of XTC had worn off. I should add that one of our group had not taken XTC at all.

Finally, most importantly, what were the actual lessons involved.

Well, the event broke open my head. I feel as if I left one small room of Catholic oriented spirituality and moved into the much much larger space of the world of spiritual traditions and practices. The event itself seemed to be focused on healing and guardianship for a friend of mine who was not present (and who it turns out had a prior broken connection with Hazarat Inayat Kahn) and her life got better and our relationship improved. Most importantly my life deepened and I guess I would say I woke up from the trance of modern society. I began to question most of what was commonly held as true and see truth. On a real world level I had three years of marvelous bouancy and well-being and intense spiritual questing.

And in the end, my life is more committed to social justice than ever before. I am actively involved, professionally and avocationly in land preservation, raising a child adopted from South America, creating housing for low-income people, helping low-income women plan, finance and run childcare centers in underserved communities.

What else can I tell you?

[Argon Steele]

hey hummingbird,

very wild post, sounds like a real experience, have you done much research on this Sufi? Looking around the web I see alot of stuff, seems he's an interesting cat.

I've never personaly had a "channelling" type expeirence and have largely written them off in my own mind, but this makes me open up to the possibilities a little more.

thanks for sharing this personal stuff

[Alasdair]

Daniel,
Quote
I have some friends who feel that their trips have seriously damaged their ability to make real spiritual progress - either by "blowing a hole in their astral body," or by messing with their "subtle nerve channels." I tend to be suspicious of this attitude (it seems weak-willed to me somehow), but I encounter it frequently.Unquote Daniel Transfromations Oct 31 2002


I would like to respond to the quote above in a while, after I tell the story of my experience of a Mushroom trip quite a long time ago. The story is a bit ho-hum as trips go but it is the coming down and events in the following years that are relevant and pertinent to the quote above.
Friends and I had been messing around with LSD and mushroom for about 6 months, we were second-hand hippies at the time (born in the 60s wishing we had been born in the 50s) Anyway into the peace and love thing, the Beatles the whole bit .Also my friend had got hold of Timothy Leary's book connecting the psychedelic experience to the bardos of the Book of the Dead We had been trying to emulate the experiences laid out in the book, but had not really got that far.
The mushrooms grew locally under a local radio mast (hmm, perhaps that's what did it). Probably scoffed about 200 each (they were small pscilosyben mushrooms ) . After that we went down to the pub, I didn't feel like drinking anything, the trip was just coming on .By now it was dark.

First of all nothing out of the ordinary happened walls bending in the usual stuff. After persuading my friend that "No, it wasn't a good idea to drive to the Dug Out club in Bristol", we zoomed off to a friends place to watch a video, Yellow Submarine . The journey was a bit scary, the Somerset Levels covered in winter mist are trippy enough with out the help of a good dose of psychedelics, survived the journey, just . Settled down at our friends place, just chatting, some visual distortion a few fits of giggling. The I noticed that some of the stages as described Mr Leary's little manual began to kick in, the one that I remember the most clearly was the appearance of psychedelic colours everywhere. Nothing remarkable really, then I started having all these thoughts about the unification of Mankind, combined with the thought that every one is an individual consciousness at the same time. Not that mind blowing, in retrospect, although at the time I remember feeling elated at experiencing that concept, and maybe experiencing was the key word. As this was going on I experienced a distinct sensation of rising.

By this time we were sitting watching Yellow Submarine, which was great fun, suddenly I discovered that I could read people's thoughts, or at that time I thought I could, this was then confirmed to me when a friend said to me that he was going out to do something, in my typical forthright manner I said "No you're not your going out to think about X"
He looked so shocked, because it was something that there was no way under ordinary circumstances that I could have had any idea what was going on in his head. This went on for a while looking into peoples heads and spinning them out . Suddenly I was struck with the thought 'What if I am stuck like this for the rest of my life?' The reading of peoples thoughts by now wasn't really voluntary, I would look at someone and get a volley of their thoughts in my head that started the downward spiral, I was thinking what I could do about, and somehow I came to the conclusion that I would have to kill myself, by this time the room seemed so dark and my feelings were darker, luckily from somewhere in my mind the thought popped up that it was not a good idea to do away with myself, but this did not lighten my mood, I seemed to be trapped in a dark space that was getting smaller, then suddenly I experienced something that felt like a blow on the back of the neck , and then I seemed, momentarily to pass out and came to with the room spinning and a high pitched whine in my ears . All this must have been momentary because no-one in the room noticed anything was a-miss . I came back to my surroundings quite slowly, picture this room I had come into the house tripping off my box, Yellow Submarine was on the video , also I had never been to the house before. I was totally dis-oriented. The end of Yellow Submarine which a scene with the real Beatles talking as opposed to the trippy cartoon images of the rest of the film, brought some comfort . However I was still in big trouble at this time not knowing quite what was going on . It took a whole night of talking with a friend to really bring myself back to reality. Also what helped was the walk back home through that same foggy landscape somehow the naturalness of it was really reassuring, even though I was still tripping heavily . I was quite shaky for a day or two, then I did some more mushrooms, I had the same rising feeling but I managed to stop it happening and to keep the trip on a fun type level. I did mushrooms a few more times and a bit of acid . Then left it alone . All that I noted as a hangover from that trip was, I really sensitive to energies, especially human energies, I could pick up the atmosphere in a room really quickly if someone was upset I knew it if a fight was about to start in a pub I knew about it long before it happened.
Fast forward to 7 years later a new country, a new life . I became enrolled in a parapsychology course the aim of which was to was to develop psychic awareness. This was a 2 year course for some reason I was allowed to enroll in the 2nd year without completing the 1st. Anyway the second session we were doing some psychic reading exercises and bang I just started reading people like a book, with no previous attempt at doing anything like this before, except as described above. The class ended for the day and we closed down (our energy fields) and protected ourselves, I went home.

Part of the course was daily meditation, the next day I meditated as usual and could not shut myself down (re-seal my energy field). I rang the teacher, and she said to come over straight away. About half-an-hour by bus.That journey was really horrifying, my energy field was wide open, I was receiving all the psychic vibes you can think of, but the most scary was the way most people looked when you looked in their eyes, dead closed off, every now and again you would see someone who would 'recognize you, young kids were great they 'recognised' me straight away, it is a bit of a difficult thing to describe, I think that Erias mentioned a sort of 'knowing ness' in an earlier post in this string I imagine that may be similar. Subsequently I got to the teacher's place she closed me down, and then looked at me and said that I had a rip in my etheric field (like a protective layer on the aura that stops sensory overload) from head to toe - Maybe that bump on the back of the neck I felt during that trip ?- She gave me some meditation and colour healing exercises to do and sent me off to see a guy with more experience in these matters, he said that he was surprised that I wasn't a drug addict in an attempt to dull the constant flow of energy intrusion. He had,had previous clients who were drug addicts as a result of similar situations. He did some work on me which for some reason I can't remember . However I felt much better as a result of the work and the exercises . Also I found that energies didn't intrude on me, I could tune in if I wanted to but it was now a choice.

Back to your quote, I would dispute, as you seem to, that psychedelic substances can retard someone's spiritual progress, however there is no doubt that you can damage your subtle energy fields . In my case I feel that it really helped me in a brutal way, and for some lucky reason I survived without losing the plot,' There but for the grace of God go I' . I think the case is more that some types of psychedelics can rip the doors of perception open with such force that the untrained mind is overwhelmed as mine so nearly was . This I guess is why shamans apprentice people to them, and why indeed there are shamans at all, the guides, the ones with the intimate knowledge of what lies beyond those doors to guide the un-initiated through the mazes the traps and the dead ends. In the West we eat these things like candy with no aim in mind and no training is it any surprise that some people go away on a trip and never come back. Now I realise the true power and purpose of these substances, I shudder to think about the risk that I took. Despite my experiences, I would recommend psychedelics to the right person, and with a few tips and advice
I have some friends who feel that their trips have seriously damaged their ability to make real spiritual progress - either by "blowing a hole in their astral body," or by messing with their "subtle nerve channels." I tend to be suspicious of this attitude (it seems weak-willed to me somehow), but I encounter it frequently.-------------------

Daniel,
I would like to respond to the quote above in a while, after I tell the story of my experience of a Mushroom trip quite a long time ago. The story is a bit ho-hum as trips go but it is the coming down and events in the following years that are relevant and pertinent to the quote above.
Friends and I had been messing around with LSD and mushroom for about 6 months, we were second-hand hippies at the time (born in the 60s wishing we had been born in the 50s) Anyway into the peace and love thing, the Beatles the whole bit .Also my friend had got hold of Timothy Leary's book connecting the psychedelic experience to the bardos of the Book of the Dead We had been trying to emulate the experiences laid out in the book, but had not really got that far.
The mushrooms grew locally under a local radio mast (hmm, perhaps that's what did it). Probably scoffed about 200 each (they were small pscilosyben mushrooms ) . After that we went down to the pub, I didn't feel like drinking anything, the trip was just coming on .By now it was dark.

First of all nothing out of the ordinary happened walls bending in the usual stuff. After persuading my friend that "No, it wasn't a good idea to drive to the Dug Out club in Bristol", we zoomed off to a friends place to watch a video, Yellow Submarine . The journey was a bit scary, the Somerset Levels covered in winter mist are trippy enough with out the help of a good dose of psychedelics, survived the journey, just . Settled down at our friends place, just chatting, some visual distortion a few fits of giggling. The I noticed that some of the stages as described Mr Leary's little manual began to kick in, the one that I remember the most clearly was the appearance of psychedelic colours everywhere. Nothing remarkable really, then I started having all these thoughts about the unification of Mankind, combined with the thought that every one is an individual consciousness at the same time. Not that mind blowing, in retrospect, although at the time I remember feeling elated at experiencing that concept, and maybe experiencing was the key word. As this was going on I experienced a distinct sensation of rising.

By this time we were sitting watching Yellow Submarine, which was great fun, suddenly I discovered that I could read people's thoughts, or at that time I thought I could, this was then confirmed to me when a friend said to me that he was going out to do something, in my typical forthright manner I said "No you're not your going out to think about X"
He looked so shocked, because it was something that there was no way under ordinary circumstances that I could have had any idea what was going on in his head. This went on for a while looking into peoples heads and spinning them out . Suddenly I was struck with the thought 'What if I am stuck like this for the rest of my life?' The reading of peoples thoughts by now wasn't really voluntary, I would look at someone and get a volley of their thoughts in my head that started the downward spiral, I was thinking what I could do about, and somehow I came to the conclusion that I would have to kill myself, by this time the room seemed so dark and my feelings were darker, luckily from somewhere in my mind the thought popped up that it was not a good idea to do away with myself, but this did not lighten my mood, I seemed to be trapped in a dark space that was getting smaller, then suddenly I experienced something that felt like a blow on the back of the neck , and then I seemed, momentarily to pass out and came to with the room spinning and a high pitched whine in my ears . All this must have been momentary because no-one in the room noticed anything was a-miss . I came back to my surroundings quite slowly, picture this room I had come into the house tripping off my box, Yellow Submarine was on the video , also I had never been to the house before. I was totally dis-oriented. The end of Yellow Submarine which a scene with the real Beatles talking as opposed to the trippy cartoon images of the rest of the film, brought some comfort . However I was still in big trouble at this time not knowing quite what was going on . It took a whole night of talking with a friend to really bring myself back to reality. Also what helped was the walk back home through that same foggy landscape somehow the naturalness of it was really reassuring, even though I was still tripping heavily . I was quite shaky for a day or two, then I did some more mushrooms, I had the same rising feeling but I managed to stop it happening and to keep the trip on a fun type level. I did mushrooms a few more times and a bit of acid . Then left it alone . All that I noted as a hangover from that trip was, I really sensitive to energies, especially human energies, I could pick up the atmosphere in a room really quickly if someone was upset I knew it if a fight was about to start in a pub I knew about it long before it happened.
Fast forward to 7 years later a new country, a new life . I became enrolled in a parapsychology course the aim of which was to was to develop psychic awareness. This was a 2 year course for some reason I was allowed to enroll in the 2nd year without completing the 1st. Anyway the second session we were doing some psychic reading exercises and bang I just started reading people like a book, with no previous attempt at doing anything like this before, except as described above. The class ended for the day and we closed down (our energy fields) and protected ourselves, I went home.

Part of the course was daily meditation, the next day I meditated as usual and could not shut myself down (re-seal my energy field). I rang the teacher, and she said to come over straight away. About half-an-hour by bus.That journey was really horrifying, my energy field was wide open, I was receiving all the psychic vibes you can think of, but the most scary was the way most people looked when you looked in their eyes, dead closed off, every now and again you would see someone who would 'recognize you, young kids were great they 'recognised' me straight away, it is a bit of a difficult thing to describe, I think that Erias mentioned a sort of 'knowing ness' in an earlier post in this string I imagine that may be similar. Subsequently I got to the teacher's place she closed me down, and then looked at me and said that I had a rip in my etheric field (like a protective layer on the aura that stops sensory overload) from head to toe - Maybe that bump on the back of the neck I felt during that trip ?- She gave me some meditation and colour healing exercises to do and sent me off to see a guy with more experience in these matters, he said that he was surprised that I wasn't a drug addict in an attempt to dull the constant flow of energy intrusion. He had,had previous clients who were drug addicts as a result of similar situations. He did some work on me which for some reason I can't remember . However I felt much better as a result of the work and the exercises . Also I found that energies didn't intrude on me, I could tune in if I wanted to but it was now a choice.

Back to your quote, I would dispute, as you seem to, that psychedelic substances can retard someone's spiritual progress, however there is no doubt that you can damage your subtle energy fields . In my case I feel that it really helped me in a brutal way, and for some lucky reason I survived without losing the plot,' There but for the grace of God go I' . I think the case is more that some types of psychedelics can rip the doors of perception open with such force that the untrained mind is overwhelmed as mine so nearly was . This I guess is why shamans apprentice people to them, and why indeed there are shamans at all, the guides, the ones with the intimate knowledge of what lies beyond those doors to guide the un-initiated through the mazes the traps and the dead ends. In the West we eat these things like candy with no aim in mind and no training is it any surprise that some people go away on a trip and never come back. Now I realise the true power and purpose of these substances, I shudder to think about the risk that I took. Despite my experiences, I would recommend psychedelics to the right person, and with a few tips and advice
I have some friends who feel that their trips have seriously damaged their ability to make real spiritual progress - either by "blowing a hole in their astral body," or by messing with their "subtle nerve channels." I tend to be suspicious of this attitude (it seems weak-willed to me somehow), but I encounter it frequently.-------------------

Daniel,
I would like to respond to the quote above in a while, after I tell the story of my experience of a Mushroom trip quite a long time ago. The story is a bit ho-hum as trips go but it is the coming down and events in the following years that are relevant and pertinent to the quote above.
Friends and I had been messing around with LSD and mushroom for about 6 months, we were second-hand hippies at the time (born in the 60s wishing we had been born in the 50s) Anyway into the peace and love thing, the Beatles the whole bit .Also my friend had got hold of Timothy Leary's book connecting the psychedelic experience to the bardos of the Book of the Dead We had been trying to emulate the experiences laid out in the book, but had not really got that far.
The mushrooms grew locally under a local radio mast (hmm, perhaps that's what did it). Probably scoffed about 200 each (they were small pscilosyben mushrooms ) . After that we went down to the pub, I didn't feel like drinking anything, the trip was just coming on .By now it was dark.

First of all nothing out of the ordinary happened walls bending in the usual stuff. After persuading my friend that "No, it wasn't a good idea to drive to the Dug Out club in Bristol", we zoomed off to a friends place to watch a video, Yellow Submarine . The journey was a bit scary, the Somerset Levels covered in winter mist are trippy enough with out the help of a good dose of psychedelics, survived the journey, just . Settled down at our friends place, just chatting, some visual distortion a few fits of giggling. The I noticed that some of the stages as described Mr Leary's little manual began to kick in, the one that I remember the most clearly was the appearance of psychedelic colours everywhere. Nothing remarkable really, then I started having all these thoughts about the unification of Mankind, combined with the thought that every one is an individual consciousness at the same time. Not that mind blowing, in retrospect, although at the time I remember feeling elated at experiencing that concept, and maybe experiencing was the key word. As this was going on I experienced a distinct sensation of rising.

By this time we were sitting watching Yellow Submarine, which was great fun, suddenly I discovered that I could read people's thoughts, or at that time I thought I could, this was then confirmed to me when a friend said to me that he was going out to do something, in my typical forthright manner I said "No you're not your going out to think about X"
He looked so shocked, because it was something that there was no way under ordinary circumstances that I could have had any idea what was going on in his head. This went on for a while looking into peoples heads and spinning them out . Suddenly I was struck with the thought 'What if I am stuck like this for the rest of my life?' The reading of peoples thoughts by now wasn't really voluntary, I would look at someone and get a volley of their thoughts in my head that started the downward spiral, I was thinking what I could do about, and somehow I came to the conclusion that I would have to kill myself, by this time the room seemed so dark and my feelings were darker, luckily from somewhere in my mind the thought popped up that it was not a good idea to do away with myself, but this did not lighten my mood, I seemed to be trapped in a dark space that was getting smaller, then suddenly I experienced something that felt like a blow on the back of the neck , and then I seemed, momentarily to pass out and came to with the room spinning and a high pitched whine in my ears . All this must have been momentary because no-one in the room noticed anything was a-miss . I came back to my surroundings quite slowly, picture this room I had come into the house tripping off my box, Yellow Submarine was on the video , also I had never been to the house before. I was totally dis-oriented. The end of Yellow Submarine which a scene with the real Beatles talking as opposed to the trippy cartoon images of the rest of the film, brought some comfort . However I was still in big trouble at this time not knowing quite what was going on . It took a whole night of talking with a friend to really bring myself back to reality. Also what helped was the walk back home through that same foggy landscape somehow the naturalness of it was really reassuring, even though I was still tripping heavily . I was quite shaky for a day or two, then I did some more mushrooms, I had the same rising feeling but I managed to stop it happening and to keep the trip on a fun type level. I did mushrooms a few more times and a bit of acid . Then left it alone . All that I noted as a hangover from that trip was, I really sensitive to energies, especially human energies, I could pick up the atmosphere in a room really quickly if someone was upset I knew it if a fight was about to start in a pub I knew about it long before it happened.
Fast forward to 7 years later a new country, a new life . I became enrolled in a parapsychology course the aim of which was to was to develop psychic awareness. This was a 2 year course for some reason I was allowed to enroll in the 2nd year without completing the 1st. Anyway the second session we were doing some psychic reading exercises and bang I just started reading people like a book, with no previous attempt at doing anything like this before, except as described above. The class ended for the day and we closed down (our energy fields) and protected ourselves, I went home.

Part of the course was daily meditation, the next day I meditated as usual and could not shut myself down (re-seal my energy field). I rang the teacher, and she said to come over straight away. About half-an-hour by bus.That journey was really horrifying, my energy field was wide open, I was receiving all the psychic vibes you can think of, but the most scary was the way most people looked when you looked in their eyes, dead closed off, every now and again you would see someone who would 'recognize you, young kids were great they 'recognised' me straight away, it is a bit of a difficult thing to describe, I think that Erias mentioned a sort of 'knowing ness' in an earlier post in this string I imagine that may be similar. Subsequently I got to the teacher's place she closed me down, and then looked at me and said that I had a rip in my etheric field (like a protective layer on the aura that stops sensory overload) from head to toe - Maybe that bump on the back of the neck I felt during that trip ?- She gave me some meditation and colour healing exercises to do and sent me off to see a guy with more experience in these matters, he said that he was surprised that I wasn't a drug addict in an attempt to dull the constant flow of energy intrusion. He had,had previous clients who were drug addicts as a result of similar situations. He did some work on me which for some reason I can't remember . However I felt much better as a result of the work and the exercises . Also I found that energies didn't intrude on me, I could tune in if I wanted to but it was now a choice.

Back to your quote, I would dispute, as you seem to, that psychedelic substances can retard someone's spiritual progress, however there is no doubt that you can damage your subtle energy fields . In my case I feel that it really helped me in a brutal way, and for some lucky reason I survived without losing the plot,' There but for the grace of God go I' . I think the case is more that some types of psychedelics can rip the doors of perception open with such force that the untrained mind is overwhelmed as mine so nearly was . This I guess is why shamans apprentice people to them, and why indeed there are shamans at all, the guides, the ones with the intimate knowledge of what lies beyond those doors to guide the un-initiated through the mazes the traps and the dead ends. In the West we eat these things like candy with no aim in mind and no training is it any surprise that some people go away on a trip and never come back. Now I realise the true power and purpose of these substances, I shudder to think about the risk that I took. Despite my experiences, I would recommend psychedelics to the right person, and with a few tips and advice

[daniel]

Thanks for the great message, though it somehow got caught in its own information loop.

"I would dispute, as you seem to, that psychedelic substances can retard someone's spiritual progress, however there is no doubt that you can damage your subtle energy fields . In my case I feel that it really helped me in a brutal way, and for some lucky reason I survived without losing the plot,'"

I don't dispute it, I am sure it is true from one perspective. However, from another perspective, such episodes are part of one's evolution, and our current situation requires developing balance and wisdom as the world's insanity increases on every level - psychic, social, biophysical, electromagnetic, etc.

You might check out Jose Arguelles' Time and the Technosphere.' He thinks humanity is going to become telepathic, noospheric, post-2012 - imagine if you had that leakage power but the thoughts you were receiving were harmonious and affirmative rather than deadbeat. I don't know if I "believe" it but I am entertaining the possibility.

[Alasdair]

Daniel,
Maybe I didn't express myself clearly , "caught in my own information loop" as you put it . On the whole I don't believe that my experiences were negative , just that I was untrained. Possibly I took your comments from the wrong angle . Whatever it gave me the excuse to get my story out,the idea is not to frighten people just to make them aware, so they can transform their experiences in to the positive.
I can quite imagine a world where we are telepathic, in many ways the internet may be some sort of pre-cursor to this . How much of a leap is it for some one who was born with the internet as part of their every day life,where you can communicate with people using images, sound and words globally to make the leap,or believe in the possibility, as children often do Hey ! I can do this without the computer, I'll just think it. Reality only exists in it's present form because we all agree at some level about the nature and boundries of reality .
Thanks for critique, I will check out Jose Arguelles' Time and the Technosphere and let you know.

[K.J]

I too can envision our communication style evolving towards telepathy. Or maybe we would be regaining an ability we have lost? Who knows?

Reality is definitely what we have created it to be. I also feel that the internet is a pre-cursor to higher forms of communication. Obviously, the emergence of the internet itself was a communications paradigm shift.

Jeremy

[Alasdair]

I think there may be distinct bands of consciousness which allow you to have more influence over events and manifestations. I have had access to these states but only 'by accident' and only very briefly the most memorable was the band where one could manifest any material object, as I said the experience for me was very brief . However the feeling was very real . I did not seem to be a state as such, although I was meditating at the time, it was more like accessing a band or area of conciousness. The experince was enough to convince me that these yogis that manifest solid objects are not pulling it out of their sleeves, at least some of them are not .
Has anyone found any writings on this sort of thing
specifically on the bands or states of consciousness, not on the actual production of objects .

[daniel]

I have had a few minor telepathic experiences and found it fascinating but disconcerting. I imagine, if that happens in a widespread manner, it would cause a very accelerated progress in human evolution - a bit like Arthur Clarke's Childhood's End, though hopefully not quite so drastic or apocalyptic.

Arguelles thinks that getting past this current evolutionary barricade will allow us to enter the "community of galactic intelligence." His book Earth Ascending is, I think, a tremendous work. He argues that history was designed to accelerate and alter DNA - and also change the biogeochemical nature of the planet for the next phase of planetary development. DNA is a crystal structure, and the notion is that this crystal acts as a transmitter - like a radio transmitter - taking in signals from the "noosphere," the mental envelope of the Earth, which Arguelles associates with the radiation belts and electromagnetic fields around the planet. Hence the evolution in consciousness and DNA is also synched to the transformations currently taking place in the sun, which has been sending out increasing radiation - massive coronal ejections and so on.

Tell me if this makes any sense...

[Halfglass]

Twisting the topic slightly, I have a sense that evolution of the human is probably peaking and crashing all at once. There are no free rides in nature. In all this vastness I think it still ego-centered to think the Earth important because humans have reached a point where "Others" are being taken seriously by Westerners. If its not an asteroid like the one that did in the dinosaurs, its something else--in this case technology taking a huge leap past tribal us-and-themism. If "Others" in different dimensions want a snack, they've got billions of planets or even gallaxies to prune life experiences from. And if they've got a hankerin' for Earth grub they'll just nibble on rat and cockroach awareness 'till something more tasteful/self-aware claws its way up the food chain. In Brad Steiger's "Indian Medicine Power" the modern day Chippewa medicine man Sun Bear said, "I think that if the whites went back to the type of religion that was first given to them and really practiced it, they would be happier. Indian traditions and non-Indian traditions are not incompatible; but at the present time, I don't think they can really come together." And "...(whites) sould invent their own religion." And "...(our beliefs) demand an intense participation that becomes life itself, a total thing." Sun Bear is saying "whites" meaning white/black/asian Western ideals I'm sure. (Whites understandably stand out for Indians when they think of Western thought.) Anyway I believe survival of our awareness after death is at an every-man-for-himself zenith. And sadly, hope for turning around the Great Machine of Greed might be a waste of precious time.

[Alasdair]

Daniel,

Those ideas could make sense, especially when you consider that some religious and philosophical systems say that the sun is the physical representation of the Godhead .God's radio messages if you will !

[julonred]

quick note about channeling. this happened after simply smoking a joint with a friend. i remember driving home and suddenly looking at my surroundings through anothers eyes, an "alien" being, alien because nothing that was being seen was familiar. the "i" that was left was thinking, "my god, this thing will be with me always, i'm not sure i want to share this body", but the "alien" was equally terrified, like having woken in my body and not liking the circumstances. another thought that our joint mind was thinking was that the time had come, that humanity was getting ready for a wake up call, and that this being was one of many that would come. that they were making way for a shift in consciousness, though i cant tell you if that shift was for the positive or not. i remember looking at my hands, the street, my car, taking it all in like it was the first time i had ever seen any of it. this was in the early 80's, never felt an "alien" (unfamiliar) presence since, have never forgotten it.

[julonred]

note to whitewave, its as if your life has become a waking dream. beautiful and terrifying. look to the earth, take root in the soil. dont live always in the sea. balance the elements. advice i would give myself.

[Halfglass]

RE: Julonred; Wow, thats amazing. Sounds like The Foreign Installation popped through there. Do you suppose the weed was the catalysis?

[julonred]

halfglass, you'll have to enlighten me about the Foreign Installation, as i have not a clue what that means. unless meaning, yes it was a foreign entity somehow installed into myself, but i dont think thats what youre aiming at. (or is it??) and a note about telepathy (forgive my lack of punctuation, its pure laziness) i have had instances, years ago, and only with one particular friend of mine, when we would communicate telepathically after dropping lsd. we wouldnt realize we were doing it until much later, after coming down, or the next day, and we would talk about our conversations, the ones that were never spoken aloud. i could remember her voice, very distinct and loud, though not overbearingly so, in my head, commenting on this and that, answering a question i had thought, etc. she had the same experiences with my voice. the thoughts given and received were ones meant to be communicated to each other, not random thoughts or secret thoughts, but ones aimed towards the other. we did this without trying, it was completely natural, and used to piss off the people around us completely (as there were always many around us, living in a communal atmosphere). although we could not read others thoughts at the time, we could read the hidden meaning behind their words, resulting in "oh, you really meant to say such and such,right?" resulting in more pissed-off-ness, but great fun for us.

[Halfglass]

Julonred; The Foreign Installation was what don Juan was talking about-- our mind's being unaware that it (the mind) is not all "ours". Called "Flyers" or simply predators, inorganic beings have given us THEIR minds which becomes our mind! "Their mind is contradictory and morose, filled with the fear of being discovered any minute now. By playing on our self-reflection, which is the only point of awareness left to us, the predators creat flares of awareness that they proceed to consume. They give us inane problems that force those flares of awareness to rise, and in this manner they keep us alive in order for them to be fed with the energetic flare of our pseudoconcerns. Sorcerers say that disipline makes the glowing coat of awareness unpalatable to the Flyer." (don Juan in "The Active Side of Infinity".) I find it interesting that this idea of us (our awareness) being food for "Others" has been put forth by different writers. The sense of being a baby in a market/crib during DMT flashes or alien contact seems to jibe with this notion as well.

[julonred]

halfglass, i've been a skeptic for way too long. i think part of the skepticism comes from the years i spent living in santa fe, around the time of the harmonic convergence, etc. i was very much into the whole scene, living in a commune, partaking in lsd, etc, almost daily, surrounded (because this is new mexico) by those who believed that jesus was an alien, etc. everyone i knew out there had been abducted or had been chased or had some sort of contact but me! i was jealous, i think, having grew up in the desert with the glorious, clear sky at night, being able to see the milky way with the naked eye, and i had never seen a ufo no matter how hard i looked. guess that jealousy turned to skepticism. plus moving away from that area and to the midwest pushed me farther away from those sort of things anyway. excuse the alien tangent, because i'm not sure you meant an alien presence in that respect anyway, and it wasnt the "little green man" at all. otherworldly, yes. anyway, have you had an experience of sharing your mind with another being at anytime? i admit, when it happened, it scared the shit out of me. i couldnt blame it on a 'bad trip", i was only stoned which was a daily occurence at that time. i think that had it not been for the extreme fear i might have been able to experience that contact again. and maybe again i will, in the right circumstances. i havent tripped in years, and i'm slowly working up the nerve again. at 37, after 10 years of being almost substance free, its unsettling. but i needed the break, needed to stengthen myself in many ways. i am ready to venture out again, slowly. and you? thanks for the reference to the don juan, i'll find and read soon.

[Halfglass]

Julonred; I know what you mean. I'm 39 and I've been staring at a bag of psilocybin 'shrooms for a month now--I had to wait for my valium connection to come in first! I too took many years off from psychedelic investigation. I had had great success with lucid dreams and full-blown out-of-body experiences for about five years. It seems though that some mechanism in my brain patched up my escape route because I haven't been able to project in over a year. Now I'm ready to explore psychedelics once more. I have salvia I've been dabbling with (I call the effect from this plant The Introduction to The Self.) I posted my findings on DXM on this sight under the Psychedelic Experiences. I encountered a traveling "other" during that trip. I purchased some plant material recently and am in the middle of an extraction. My brother says he'll sit for me in a field where he has a campsite when I go for it and--yes--smoke DMT. By the way, in my OBEs I encountered nothing but entities--though most were very human (and I believe that they were dead or dreaming people)--many were demon-like or animals. I also encountered on several occasions "Plasma Balls", what I called these electric blue/puple/red "knowing" things which still raise the hair on my neck when I visualize them.

[Buzz]

Hello All,
A couple of related stories. Though these are stories that were told to me, I did here them directly from the "horse's mouth".

20 years ago, when I was an art student I was invited to a graduate seminar w/guest speaker Bernard Lowy from the Botany Dept. at LSU. Bernard is/was a self-proclaimed Ethnomycologist. the second in this field, following Robert Gordon Wasson. Despite any other claims, Lowy is the first westerner to discover Psilocybe mushrooms in the highlands of Guatemala. On a note of interest he knew Robert Wasson but did not hate hippies as RGW did. Lowy attended the famous session w/Maria Sabina that was attended by the Life magazine photographer. Indeed, it was his introduction to ingesting the magic mushroom. At the seminar I persuaded him to talk about his experience. The session took place on the top floor of Ms. Sabina's three story house, a small house probably consisting of one small room per floor. As Maria did not do sessions without a purpose, they or she was to look for a lost child. Upon ingestion Lowy spoke of the bodily sensations and geometric trance patterns which are usual at coming on to this substance. As best I can recall Lowy suddenly found himself lost in the cosmos. All about him were stars and galaxies. He was literally drifting, lost in space and became terrified. He panicked. He stated that he had never felt so lonely. He called for help. Eventually Maria Sabina's face appeared in the space around him, superimposed on the heavens. She seemed concerned. He spoke to her in English, but she could not understand the problem. He spoke to her in Spanish, but still no comprehension. Then Lowy spoke to her in his native Hungarian language and she understood him, and guided him back to the "safety" of the compound. He was astonished that she had understood him and grateful for the return ticket. To my knowledge and the best of my recollection Dona Sabina had no formal western education and spoke only Mazatec.

During that same year, 20 years ago, Eric, a friend of mine showed up at the house. He had grown up in Mexico and was just back from an extended visit in Oaxaca. He had a pile of photographs. I came upon one of a compound of structures across a ravine from where he was staying. I swear it was Maria Sabina's house. I asked him about her but he stated that he had never heard of her. One night a friend of his and himself ingested "delumbra". If I'm not mistaken this is the Mazatec name for the mushrooms he ate. As he started coming on he went out for a stroll but was warned by his companion to not leave the road, because he would be lost in the jungle forever. He took that advise and stayed on the road and came upon a bridge. Standing on the bridge overlooking a river below he witnessed 3 geometric violet colored UFO's coming down the river channel in single file. As he stood on the bridge they whissed by underneath him in total silence.

[julonred]

halfglass, i mean to read your post about salvia (i think thats what you mentioned) as i believe that will probably be my first, welcome back experience (its legal and i cant seem to get my hands on any mushrooms without a cross country drive involved). the sagewisdom.org site has some useful info about salvia. just a few years ago i wouldnt have considered trying anything harder than smoking a joint, but i've been getting some gently urgent nudges from the universe to get out there again. last year i went through a year of "trying" experiences, and as i see it, shed a skin, leaving behind the self of my last 37 years. i would like to go deeper, maybe rid myself of any lingering bullshit, and like you say, be "introduced", once again, to myself.

julie

[Halfglass]

Julonred: The report I mentioned is the one on DXM. Salvia is weird stuff. I don't know yet whether I like it. It certainly has things to show. But it can be a merciless remover of the ego and though the trip is brief it can feel like a life sentence when you're in it. What other persuits of the mind expanding nature have you investigated or have a mind to? Oh by the way I spent two years on the Kirkland Air Force base (in Albuquerque) from age 4 to 6--kicking around the desert chasing lizards. I still sometimes have dreams that I'm there walking in the sands--it's always some skewed version of the scene and I wake feeling strange.

[ February 11, 2003, 11:32 AM: Message edited by: Halfglass ]

[Tickle]

Hello from the deep south.

I feel a bit nervous as I write this, and perhaps that is why I feel it is necessary to. Daniel's book helped me to see that I needed to join in the community for the sake of my own development.

When I was about five years old I had a very peculiar dream. Not since then (I am now 29) have I had so lucid and intensely vivid a dream. I was with my parents at a dinnerparty. Seated at the table and listening to the adults converse I put a mushroom (part of the meal) into my mouth. It began to wiggle and dance around on my tounge, definitely wanting out. I ran out into the front yard, and watched myself spit the little guy into the grass. After that, the mushroom spoke to me in words that I did not understand, and I think, thanked me for sparing it's life. Odd, and only the first in a string of "real" signs of the path I feel I am supposed to be on.

I grew up in typical American suburbia, slipping through until my 16th year without so much as a puff on a cigarette. One languid summer night that came to an end. A friend of a friend, a thug looking sort of kid, unwrapped a small wad of aluminum foil and tore off a small strip of paper from inside. I proceeded to eat what was about 6 and a half "hits" of some pretty terrific acid, and needless to say my head was broken wide open that night. It was, well it was beyond words, wonderful, magic, I never stopped laughing. ;) Lsd continues to be a trusted friend.

Then about 5 years ago I stumbled across Terence McKenna. I sought out mushrooms and was "shown" some sort of truth. How else do I put it? I continue to be brought to tears by it's beauty. To know and perceive the spirit that pervades EVERYTHING. I have a hard time not hugging everyone that I meet and saying, "Wow! Isn't it amazing!" But I can't. I have the job, bills, taxes. There is family. There is prison. It is killing me not to share, to commune with others about all this truly wonderful beauty, but one has to be careful - there are a lot of nuts out there.

All this to say, I need some advice on how to achieve community. How do I network? I know there is work that I need to do but I'm not sure how. :confused:

[daniel]

Tickle asks a very good question: "I need some advice on how to achieve community. How do I network?"

This seems to be one of the deepest problems in the US today - not only in regard to shamanism. If we still had real communities and networks, we would have been better able to protect ourselves from the current takeover of the government.

However, in regard to shamanism, I think you will really have to use your own intelligence and discrimination. Is there any type of nearby New Age center where they might have seminars/ workshops in related areas? Is there, perhaps, a local Native American community which you could meet and see if there are any "Roadmen" or medicine men willing to work with whites? Do you have some friends who are at least conceivably open to talking about this subject?

I would be interested to hear ideas from others on this subject.

[julonred]

halfglass, you know theres something about new mexico, having grown up there i know. it sticks with you, its mystical, its sort of brutal, and its beautiful. though i've met many who have disagreed about its beauty. i have experimented with lsd, mushrooms, opium, hash, weed of course, cause it is that "gateway drug", isnt it?, all sorts of legal prescrip drugs, meth, coke, X, hmm... cant think of anymore at the moment. i'm not interested in the "party" drugs anymore, i guess eventually i'd like to make my way back to lsd, but want to do, what i consider a milder experience, mushrooms first. i've read various accounts of salvia, ranging from horrible to enlightening, so i guess i'm a little hesitant. i've considered growing my own plant, so as to develop a relationship with it, nurture it, let it know silently my purposes. i guess i suppose that it will be a little kinder to me, but then again, maybe i need a cruel awakening.
so have you done the mushrooms yet, and were you planning on the valium simultaneously? did you grow your own mushrooms, by the way?

[Halfglass]

First: Daniel; I'm stupid! For the past two summers I've gone to a Native American day about twenty miles from my house and hardly anyone shows and the Indians (Lenape) are very friendly and put up with all of my silly questions--but I never thought about asking one of 'em if they'd be interested in teaching further on some other day. Good idea...Thanks. Also Julonred: I still haven't done the mushrooms. The valium I use to ease the come-down. So far I've always been able to handle the most anomalous and bizarre states of altered awareness, but I dread the come-down! I don't even drink booze anymore because besides the fact that it isn't what I need on my journey anymore--50% of the reason is hangovers... Yeah the desert....I'm thinking of doing a road trip across the lower half of the country, maybe this year, and spend some time in the West. I'd like to see that Anasazi ruin at Chaco canyon or the Canyon de Chelly in Arizona--did ya ever see a picture of that? Under the cliffs? Wow that is grand. I wonder if you'd be left alone to explore (and trip) in those places--or do they close the desert there after dark? Either way I figure I'll stash some secrets under my carseat and find a campsite or a cheap motel with half the neon burnt out, that backs on to the desert, and pay for two days and climb a mesa and drink ayahuasca all night. ;) Why not E-mail me sometime...halfglass911@aol.com

[ February 13, 2003, 12:58 AM: Message edited by: Halfglass ]

[Proteus]

Hi Tickle! It's not the same thing as a flesh-and-blood community, but this discussion forum is a pretty good one. i completely sympathize with your sense of joy--and extreme caution about who you share it with. i'm fortunate that my wife is a fellow traveler. But we're basically going to have to build a community from scratch if we're ever to have one here.

At this point in my life, i'm completely comfortable with solitude--in part for reasons that you've articulated. We are connected in a very real way to everything and everyone else. We may well be isolated and alone at one level, but at another your joy and growing wisdom benefit all of us.

It's not a very concrete answer to Daniel's request for practical suggestions, but as i read these stories from so many of us here about how it's now becoming clearer and clearer that we've been "led" to the realizations and experiences that broughtus to BOTH, to this discussion forum, to a frame of mind where we can contemplate seriously all sorts of things off the well-beaten path. If that can happen, then certainly we can be "led" do community. A little patience, a conscious intention to draw like-minded others to you, and i think it'll come to you.

My own practical plan is to talk to my most trusted friends about these things in slow careful degrees, looking for signs of curiosity and willingness to find out more for themselves. Like i said, gotta build a community from scratch.

[paul]

tickle-
if its like minded cohorts yr after, you might like to check the internet for a rainbow tribe gathering nr you this summer...people working w telepathy,13 moon calendar,energy,etc,etc...these things happen rather irregularly, so im sorry i cant give u anything specific

[Jon Hanson]

Regarding Julonred and halfglass,
I'm currently living an hour away from Chaco and
formerly lived near Canyon De Chelly.
Canyon De Chelly is amazing, but limited access
went you first show up. There is only one trail that
you can enter into without a Navajo guide.
That's an amazing trail, but watched and restricted
to daylight. If you hook up with a navajo guide or
a tour you can go up and down the canyon.
If you find the right person they can show you a lot
and moreso through their family you can hang out
and hike on your own. Bob the ranger offered the
chance to do that the first time I chanced into him.
There are lots of fairly untouched ruins in the canyon,
one spot even had complete pots full of the ceremonial corn. There are reasons why the navajo don't distrurb
them and a lot of strange things do go on there.
There are also amazing spots near the canyon that
few but the local know about.

As far as Chaco goes: lots of daytime trails. You can
camp in designated grounds and slip up on the cliffs
at night but be careful. The ancients still walk the old
highways through the canyon and if your sensitive you
don't need any aid at all. I almost lost my life out there
to the "forces that be." If that wasn't enough, the rangers
are diligent and while the park employees are wonderful to be around the Navajo cops are a force
to be reconed with. If one of those guys caught an adventurious soul out at night there probably would be
a serious beat down. If you end up drinking something
that makes you retch up on the cliffs, you'll be heard for miles.

Also, in the southwest has a serious streak of witchcraft going on and if you are vulnerable there are things out
there that will eat you alive. Lots of death live in those
valleys. That ain't no ooga-booga. If demons are thought to live half in a human mind and half in the world "out there" then they do make their presence known through the people who have not recovered from their very ill treatments via foreign peoples.

Not to discourage the visit, it can be amazingly wonderful and nothing of this warning may apply.
If you would like more info, we could talk in person
after direct emails.

[Jon Hanson]

Regarding Julonred and halfglass,
I'm currently living an hour away from Chaco and
formerly lived near Canyon De Chelly.
Canyon De Chelly is amazing, but limited access
went you first show up. There is only one trail that
you can enter into without a Navajo guide.
That's an amazing trail, but watched and restricted
to daylight. If you hook up with a navajo guide or
a tour you can go up and down the canyon.
If you find the right person they can show you a lot
and moreso through their family you can hang out
and hike on your own. Bob the ranger offered the
chance to do that the first time I chanced into him.
There are lots of fairly untouched ruins in the canyon,
one spot even had complete pots full of the ceremonial corn. There are reasons why the navajo don't distrurb
them and a lot of strange things do go on there.
There are also amazing spots near the canyon that
few but the local know about.

As far as Chaco goes: lots of daytime trails. You can
camp in designated grounds and slip up on the cliffs
at night but be careful. The ancients still walk the old
highways through the canyon and if your sensitive you
don't need any aid at all. I almost lost my life out there
to the "forces that be." If that wasn't enough, the rangers
are diligent and while the park employees are wonderful to be around the Navajo cops are a force
to be reconed with. If one of those guys caught an adventurious soul out at night there probably would be
a serious beat down. If you end up drinking something
that makes you retch up on the cliffs, you'll be heard for miles.

Also, in the southwest has a serious streak of witchcraft going on and if you are vulnerable there are things out
there that will eat you alive. Lots of death live in those
valleys. That ain't no ooga-booga. If demons are thought to live half in a human mind and half in the world "out there" then they do make their presence known through the people who have not recovered from their very ill treatments via foreign peoples.

Not to discourage the visit, it can be amazingly wonderful and nothing of this warning may apply.
If you would like more info, we could talk in person
after direct emails.

[Halfglass]

Re; Jon Hanson; Wow. Scary sounding (an Indian finding you out there and giving you a beating). I certainly imagine those places to be power spots and not to be tread lightly. Your discription reminds me of something out of a Castaneda book. So you're saying any noise at night would bring trouble. Maybe I'll go to the painted desert in Arizon for the desert tripping and do the canyons at day. (I guess guns are of no use against an inorganic being!)

[nathan]

hi, i wrote a series of sayings or ramblings during marathon weed smoking.smoking for 10 years does change your perspective of the universe especially when you have a glich in your brain to begin with.here i goes:

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO NATHAN

put the ark on the three-nine to the planet menalik.
how ya doin folks i'm such a mess i feel like the crotch of brittney spears' panties.
digimon are my spirit animals.if you don't like it
i morph yo ass back to innocense.
shave that bush he really stinks.
ally mcbell needs a court-ordered hysterectomy.
short haired girls are underrated.
how many teeth can you find in a wal mart?
10 teeth when there are a hundred customers in the store.
i'll take vonnegut as my prophet over st.paul any day.
roll chloe on the floor.
may you be blessed by fields of choco-thai in the afterlife.
nathan paul smith

[julonred]

jon, i wouldnt have the guts to trip at chaco, canyon de chelly or bandelier. i've been to chaco and bandelier, having lived in santa fe for some years. went in during the daylight, did'nt partake in any substances before or during, the presences felt there are obvious without. at the end of the day i thought "i definitely dont want to be here after dark". i think growing up in the desert taught me to feel the land, so to speak. spent many hours wandering the desert growing up, picking up skulls and bones, chanting, dancing. but like you, am aware of the strong darker magic there. stronger than anything i've felt anywhere. ancient magic, nothing i would ever dare. have you been to bandelier? it was built by the anasazi in the 13th century, who dwelled there until the 15th. can see the jemez peaks from the canyon, which was at some point an active volcano. spent quite a bit of time in jemez also, they have wonderful natural hot springs.

[El Eternauta]

My own transformation story, were to beguine? Perhaps first a little background of my self.
Like most of you here (I Imagine) since very young I had a strong feeling that the world was not they way they were telling me it was, I new this because of strange experiences I was having at a very early age, which my parents could not explain me what they were.
I was astral projecting, at random, as I grew up they stop but the memories were burned into my very being, just to let me know that there is something more out there, that we were lead to believe.
This is how my personal search begun, I put all my attention in the Catholic Church, then in eastern Philosophies, finally I ended up in a so called esoteric school for 12 years, needless to say they all ended in dissolutions.
Also by this time I was being caught up, in the rat race of daily life living in NY city, with credit card debts, my marriage was going to hell, well you can fill the rest, all time low.
And then, I had the opportunity, to have the experience of a mushroom trip….
I will not go into detail, but it reconnected me, with my self, it reminded me again that there is something more and amazing out there.
I began to receive subtle messages, they could come from the most unusual places, persons or I will open a book at random and there will be a phrase etc.
The message was always the same, fallow your dreams nothing is stopping you, only your self ( I know it sound corky but it happened).
It took two years since that encounter with the shrooms and messages that I was getting, that I decided to fallow my dream which I had for many years; To live in a log cabin in the woods, to grow my own food and to have time to gaze at the stars with my telescope.
Needless to say every one around me, family friends even my own wife had serious doubts that I can do it, what are u going to do there? How you going to work? You always had been a city boy etc.
Well is been 3 years that I have moved from the city, I have my log cabin paid, money in the bank, no debts I work from home my relation with my wife has change so much we feel like we use to be when we first meet, and yes I grow my own food and have time to gaze at the stars.
Can I say that psychedelics did this, no but they were the catalysts that open the door for me at that moment or perhaps to remind me that there is a door and the only thing I have to do is to open it and go through?
I don’t pretend to be a wise man, in fact I know I am for from being one, but I do believe that our spirit is trying to reach out to us, and guide us, and that if we don’t fallow its advice we will live in sadness.
Were do I stand now, well I felt that I pass one door, that lead me in to a room that has infinite doors for me to explore…… he who travels through eternity is called Eternauta.

PS: Sorry for my grammar, English is my second language.

[nathan]

hi guys,
there is nothing junior about my member!at least that's what the old lady told me.i have been trying to get feedback from you guys and no offense,i think you guys can be less snobby.i think mr.pinchbeck has good ideas but it doesn't i'm going to be yes man and agree with all of them for example the the panel on the show taken was example on how you guys ignored me.what in god's name is the problem!?!? nathan

[nathan]

oh another thing, if you give me a chance maybe you'll learn something.i may not have a college degree or big book that's out but i'm damn smart!
and i'm knowlegable about hte subjects here!i'm continuing my gospels soon!

[daniel]

ok nathan, what is it you want to chat about?

[nathan]

thank you mr.pinchbeck,
that lady from arden said i would be appreciated here.look on the taken panel in crop circle section for a reference.i was mad because in that section i put a lot of thought in my messages and i was ignored.when you are diagnosed with a mental disability you feel detached from society especially in a conservative environment such as delaware.i have a high functioning form of autism called asperger's syndrome.i'm more sensitive to outer aspects of my environment such as sound,light,and any information coming in my brain.i have realized by my weed smoking for years
i can detect people's energies but i feel them so intensely it becomes overwhelming where it causes my nerves to act up or give me headaches.through experimentation with lsd,opium,and weed i feel i have become aware of a world beyond physical.one time i smoked up before a channeling and the channeler brought the virgin mary to us.strangely i felt a womb shot into me.it scared the shit out of me.i fucked with my thoughts about my sexuality too.i kept wondering what this meant.then 6 months later i found out my brother's girlfriend was with child and my mother was keeping it a secret from the rest of the family.it definitely blew my my mind.it bothers me due to that fact that i have a disability to begin with and i have credibility to be questioned by society.especially in delaware where there isn't much in a way of a liberal culture.i'm coming to terms with it but sometimes i wish i never got the prediction due to the fact it came with a lot of b.s. namely the relationship my brother was in.i have more thoughts on my brain quirk and the use of psychedelics but i touch on that later.

[Pita]

shamans and medicine people across the globe have always behaved in manners which seem to directly oppose the behavior of the rest of society, this is the root of the trickster archetype. Nathan, bear in mind that most who embark upon this path are in some way outcasts from the mainstream. While I cannot directly relate to your experience, I do know what it feels like to have very awkward unusual abilities and experiences. Do not fear these happenings for it is the unfoldment of your natural powers, the initial awkwardness is similar to the growing pains felt in adolesence.

[daniel]

You are in what for me is unknown territory, in having ausperger's syndrome and using psychoactives.

It seems very daring, as you already feel so sensitive, to take LSD, which increases sensitivity to stimuli to such an extraordinary extent. Do you find the substances to be helpful to you in dealing with your life?

[nathan]

sometimes yes.i had to cut back on my weed smoking so i can function on a daily basis.i only triped about twice.i wanna do it again with a passion.in my youth i wasn't very cordinated for being so big and i was very overweight.then i had a dramatic weight loss while doing weed and other substances.sometimes weed does calm me down in moderation.i gained physical and mental strength.
sometimes it feels more than what i can keep in this physical form.i even hung with bikers after life changing moments in a place in delaware called minquadale.think of it as 40 days in the dessert with weed and fast women.i felt energies of death and sadness but i strangely got off on them.that definitely changed my physche.that's why i left there.i went there due to the fact i didn't like the hypocrisy of the liberal population here.those guys in minquadale i didn't i agree with their views but i respected their honesty about who they are.i never felt human at all that's why i went there i feared even liberal and so called tolerant people would not accept me.
i found political correctness especially amaong that crowd in the '90's as anohter form of oppression.an example of that even in arden during a poetry reading i showed a anime book to a crowd of mostly adults that had sexual content let's say of a pg-13 or r-rated movie and i had a woman probably of the old school femminism give me crap.i feel due to attitudes like that we are having htis backlash of conservatism right now.after studying books on aliens,genetic engineering,anthropology and watching anime i feel i and others are results of this new world of genetic engineering of humans since the '40's and '50's.i feel the substances mr.pinchbeck talked about in moderation and with an open mind can help people like myself and others deal with the trials of human kind right now get in touch with energies in the brain to be used for things such as space travel and so on.actually speaking of taken one of the very few things i like.i emphasize very few.was the plot line about the boy being put in special schools for his protection.i still say for the most part that series sucked big time!

[sidecross]

Self-medicating with psychedelics would be no more risky than living an experience where you are labeled and stamped as person with ausperger's syndrome would.

I am sure the Internet is populated with others who have been labeled by society with all sorts of syndromes. I do not see the case where nathan has been treated any different than anyone else with respect to the content of his messages.

His feeling about his treatment may lie somewhere else than his posting and reaction or lack of reaction that appears on this board.

[Woodpecker]

Eh, Nathan, if the doctors managed to trick you into thinking you were weirder than they are, that's your problem, man. Get over it.

[ March 08, 2003, 04:08 AM: Message edited by: Woodpecker ]

[Pita]

An update on my original post here, I have recently become aware of a connection between kundalini chakras and dna. By focusing on my dna while doing my exercises I have been able to open up further chakras beyond my body. A bit of research into this turns up a few places which contain information regarding these chakras. The way of five bodies as presented by Robert Masters and his Sekhmet line of work refers to these out of body energy centers. Also much of the Pleidian material presented in Bringers of the Dawn by Barbara Marciniak has to do with the connection between dna and the chakra system including these outer chakras.

I was wondering if perhaps anyone here has encountered these chakras in any of their experiences. These areas do seem to coincide with psi abilities, I am not sure if the chakras are opening the psi or if the psi is opening the chakras though.

[paul]

pita

you might like to try some dna music in conjunction with meditation/exercises for opening the dna/chakras..either straight or embedded in more traditional compositions

ive only been trying this a week n so a bit early for conclusions yet

ive posted one source on the escoteric philosophy forum(bob marley link) and am currently working my way thru the links for sources listed in the last 3 days or so,on the tortuga general discussion board smile.gif smile.gif smile.gif

[sire_012]

in regards to transformations/preparations i've become increasingly interested in how different compounds may act as a convecticle or perhaps as a dog whistle for different groups or tribes of people. my thoughts on this have stemmed from my personal experiences mainly so it may not apply beyond that arena but here's what's forcing me to consider this....

when i was 14 i had my first 'mystical' experience. lying back in the passenger car seat with a friend, stoned, listening to that susan vega track --"doo da dooda doo doo dooda" and slowly consensu reality magnetized to show that it was made of endless amounts of featureless creatures deeply involved in all sorts of ornate sexual pleasure of one another. it was like a curtain of tiny featureless creatures having wonderful tantric sex with each other. that developed and disappeared and behind this veil i saw the 'entire' human race in plastic tubes, in what appeared to be suspended animation. this was intuitively telling me that this was the state we were in presently and upon death we were released back into a reality where our beings woul be free to interact on a more 'real' or authentic level.

about 5 years later i was living in iowa city and reading a book called urban shamanism. one night slipped into one of those dream states that does not feel like a dream state at all but is as readily validated as any experience in consensus reality. looking out of my parents window i saw a black GTO come into my culdesac doing flat spins in circles throughout the culdesac. i then became aware that i was in the garage of my parents house, lying ontop of a car these large pink tendans were coming out of my flesh and attaching to different parts of the garage and acted as harnasses to keep me pinned to the car. there was a man and a woman in lab coats walking around me, studying me and taking notes. my skin began to tear, and emerging from my body was a black praying mantis type creature, of what i felt was aligned with my being, if not perhaps some element of me in the future(?). next thing i know i'm standing on my driveway, next to me was a very tall man in a domed hood and cape covered in very ornately cut diamonds. i understood intuitively that this was my 'real' father. he pointed to the garage door upon which were cyrrlic or sanskrit words being projected at an increasing rate of frequency. from behind the words being projected arose a sphere of what seemed the clearest kaleidescope of light i had ever seen in my life. the light increased in brilliance and size until it all washed out in a flash of white light that startled me back to waking in consensus reality. the interesting thing about this, is 6 months later i read PK Dick's 'Valis' in which he describes the latter part of this dream to a T.

fast forward a few more years and i'm doing astral work iwth a friend of mine while living in austin and he in portland. he had been working with a circle of friends smoking 5-meo-DMT and we had been communicating about this quite a bit. during this time i kept having dreams of them doing their circle in the front part of my apartment, i could tell him how many people he had worked with and the ratio of male to female. one night in my dream he noticed me watching them and stood up and walked toward me. he handed me a white envelope and as i reached to take it i had my first dmt experience... before ever actually doing the stuff!

fast forward another six months and i'm at burningman. by shear accident i run into a person and begin talking to them.. that person turns out to be one of the people my friend in portland had been working with. that day would be my first 5-meo experience, also my first day to use a sound and light machine... and the thursday when the green cigar shaped thing took its flight over the playa!!!! holy crowely, right? yow.

now... fast forward 4 more years and i've recently received a bit of 5-Meo. when i opened it up and looked in the package, the static free package was sitting inside.. yes, the white envelope that was handed to me in a dream over 4 years ago.

recent experiments have really felt like i'm being 'collected' by a very gentle yet highly intelligent group that unbeknownst to me, i have been with for the entirety of my life and most likely the entirety of existence as a player in this universe.

more to come...

peace!

[nathan]

hello again,
look i did post what i posted as a cheap ploy for attention.here's a proposition for you guys if anyone has access to an isolation tank in the delaware,philly,new york,baltimore/d.c area i am willing to provide info on my disorder and be test subject with the tank and psychedelic drugs.
e-mail me at prophetbanzai@yahoo.com.you are right mr.sidecross thanks for your honesty.

[nathan]

thank you for your honesty too mr.pecker.huh-huh i said pecker.but seriously i dorespect your honesty too.

[Woodpecker]

I figured that, if you'd hung out with bikers, you'd heard worse.... Cheers.

[Woodpecker]

I wonder if anyone here caught the recent news item about "Asperger's Syndrome," which Nathan from Delaware (above) was diagnosed with. Some researchers were looking at Einstein's and Newton's personalities and saying that they probably had the same thing. One of its hallmarks is an impatience with small talk.

[Halfglass]

No I've never really heard of it (but I think I used to have it before I learned that everyone is me). Nathan; if you're still around there's the Monroe Institute in Afton, Virginia.

[nathan]

what is monroe institute?and you are not far from me.do you know anyone with isolation tanks?is that the monroe institute.and woody where was that article from?

[Woodpecker]

http://in.news.yahoo.com/030501/139/23y1d.html

Thursday May 1, 2:36 PM

Did Einstein, Newton have autism? Yes, say researchers

London, May 1 (ANI): A surprising aspect of history's two biggest genuises has come to light. Researchers now believe that Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton may have suffered from some kind of autism.

Researchers at Cambridge and Oxford universities believe both scientists displayed classic signs of Asperger's syndrome, which include eccentricity, lack of social skills, obsession with complex topics and communication problems.

It is also suggested that Einstein, who discovered the theory of relativity, and Newton, who discovered the laws of gravity, had these traits in varying degrees.

According to the researchers, Einstein showed signs of Asperger's from a young age. As a child, he was a loner and often repeated sentences obsessively until he was seven years old. He was also a notoriously confusing lecturer, reports BBC.

Later in life, the German-born scientist made intimate friends, had numerous affairs and spoke out on political issues. However, the researchers insist that he continued to show signs of having Asperger's.

"Passion, falling in love and standing up for justice are all perfectly compatible with Asperger's syndrome," Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge, one of those involved in the study said, reports BBC quoting New Scientist magazine.

"What most people with Asperger's Syndrome find difficult is casual chatting - they can't do small talk."

The researchers believe that Newton too displayed classic signs of the condition. He hardly spoke, was so engrossed in his work that he often forgot to eat and was lukewarm or bad-tempered with the few friends he had.

If no one turned up at his lectures, he delivered them anyway -- talking to an empty room. At the age of 50, he had a nervous breakdown brought on by depression and paranoia.

However, others believe that these traits can be attributed to the high intelligence of both men.

"One can imagine geniuses who are socially inept and yet not remotely autistic," said Dr Glen Elliott, a psychiatrist at the University of California at San Francisco.

"Impatience with the intellectual slowness of others, narcissism and passion for one's mission in life might combine to make such an individuals isolative and difficult." (ANI)

[daniel]

This sounds silly to me - part of the relentless "syndromization" of modern humanity.

[PuristLove]

Much earlier in this thread, there was talk about networks. I wanted to give my take on that.

Basically, I form them with all kinds of people, and communicate with them using language/conventions/metaphors that are appropriate to the milleiu while at the same time, learning and teaching.

I have highly conservative, Christian friends, so I've made myself thoroughly familiar with the Bible, and can talk about important subjects couched in biblical terms. (I even quote scripture).

With agnostic/athiest/materialistic folks, I can talk in terms of politics, science, etc.

I seldom debate people head-on, as such conflict is basically counter-productive. Instead, I hone in on the really important topics, like compassion, unity, etc and put it into an acceptable presentation for the audience.

I also push on boundaries, in a slow, steady fashion. For instance, I've spent the past three years building a good reputation at my place of work. I work hard, I'm friendly, get along with everybody, a "teamplayer", etc. I recently had an article published in Heads magazine, and I casually mentioned it a few times, then folks read the article. Got some weird reactions at first, but I have now planted the seed in several minds that it is quite possible to smoke cannabis and not be the lazy and stupid pothead beavis and butthead have made the world believe we are.

I believe that networking is all about finding what the people already in your life have to offer, and what you can offer them. In fact, I'd propose we can do the most good this way, rather than isolating ourselves in clusters of like-minded individuals.

[nathan]

mr.pinchbeck that nice to hear your view about the syndromnation of humanity views.i know this is a little off topic.i had quite a disasterous encounter with another person with aspergers.aspergers is a complicated thing.no symptoms are quite the same.i went to an anime con with a friend who is about 21 and being well meaning he invited this person with my condition he's about nineteen.what was erie in one aspect was he looked like me when iwas younger and heavier.and well when i had bad fashion sense and had facial hair.some of his symptoms matched mine like fidgetness and yelling things at random.well since this about psychedellic drugs this sort of in subject he farted and screamed every five minutes on a seven hour trip and well when we got there i was smoking up with friends and for his grand finale he pulled his pants down stuck his ass to the window and farted to the point where i was going to puke.then he wiped his ass on the window curtains standing on my luggage and i flipped out threatening to kill him.he did not like my pot smoking and the next day he called the police on me for threatening to kill him and the pot.but,the curtains was the card in hand that kept me out of jail.we both got fined and banned from the hotel and convention.it was to me like cain slaying abel. a version of my younger self.except i never did anything that fucked up.i guess you can think of this story as dragonball meets hunter thompson.i even wonder if he and i are part of a line of gov't experiments.we talked about that subject especially in the taken forum.
he was actually taller than me and well i'm about six foot.he younger model in line of test subjects.the syndromnation of humanity could be a reason to make people test subjects for new medical technology.i guess in a way i faced myself that caused an inner transformation.

[nathan]

damn i guess i dumbfonded people with a really fucked up story huh.worthy if r.crumb comic huh?

[nathan]

oh on the way home fr