dogen
01-24-2003, 09:30 AM
i notice that a number of people report having used marijuana with powerful entheogens ranging from Salvia to DMT. i'm a newbie--and not only to this discussion forum--so i can't speak with a great deal of experiential authority. However, it strikes me that smoking a phatty while ingesting powerful alkaloids is somewhere between self-defeating and fool-hardy. On at least one thread, some were declaring that weed was itself a psychedelic--others were skeptical or at least unconvinced of that claim.
So, how about it? Presuming the definitions of psychedelics as drugs that "open the mind" and entheogens as drugs that "reveal the divine," what would you call ganja?
Forgive the navel-gazing that follows, but a conversation/debate that includes the kinds of details about set, setting, usage patterns, and perceived results i include below would, i hope teach us all something valuable.
The navel-gazing part: i have come to regard pot as a low-impact and ambiguous BO (of) TH experience, at best. i smoked pot briefly when i was in high school in the 70s and not again until the late 90s. Set and setting? In high school it was sneaking out to the woods with my buddies before class. This wasn't about mental exploration or spiritual growth; it was about getting a buzz on & identifying with a peer group that made us feel cool. Grass enhanced my sense of hearing and, to a lesser degree, my sight.
Flash forward to about 5.5 years ago. Set & setting? Very typical mid-life crisis and i'm ready to off myself. In my despair, i renew my acquaintance with ganja--big-time. i start smoking daily. Early on the setting is much like high school; i'm sneaking a toke in the car, outside when the soon-to-be-ex-wife & the kid aren't looking, in restrooms at concerts. The reasons aren't all that different either. i'm giving the finger to all the middle-class suburban pressures to conform that have been crushing me for-effin-ever. i'm trying to distance myself from a life and a wife i can't stand anymore. But i'm also self-consciously looking for spiritual truth.
Big discovery: Even the lamest bag is 20 times more powerful than any dope i could score in my teens 20 years before. But, the same effects on my sensorium: i really hear music for the first time in over a decade. It's no longer something i turn on in the background to make sure the silence doesn't get too deafening; now i go deep into the sound. Occasionally there are eyes-closed visuals. i gradually become less stressed, more empathic, more open to new experiences and ideas. A sense of wonder and delight slowly begin to pervade my life. Sex while high is, on a few memorable occasions, ego-shattering--a revelation of how thoroughly one can lose oneself in intimacy with another. i mention this because stoney sex is the only dramatically transformative experience i've had with marijuana--and, even so, the gift has only revealed itself a handful of times.
Life moves on & the crisis has passed. Despite the divorce, the kid and i are close. My goddess/lover & i get married in response to 9/11. My professional life blossoms in ways i'd long given up on. Now the set & setting is very domestic. Smoking up signals the transition between my working life & down time. i'm usually alone, impatiently waiting for the goddess to get off work at 11 p.m. i put work aside, put on comfy clothes, smoke a bowl, step outside to let the dog pee while i have a cig or a pipe, snap on the t.v. and slowly fade to black--often while spooning WAY too many calories down my throat.
At this point, i've smoked nearly everyday for 5.5 years. i'm no longer really, really, REALLY getting into a new cd. i'm no longer self-consciously walking into an altered state of consciousness. i'm substituting pot for a couple of after dinner drinks. It's my way of chilling out, getting a buzz, and insuring that i sleep like a stone all night long.
At this writing, i've smoked maybe 3 or 4 times in the past 2 months--socially--& don't see me ever returning to the almost daily thing. i'd come to notice that i was simply using pot to anesthetize myself from physical and pychical pain and have made a conscious decision to stop doing that. To mangle Daniel's elegant phrase, i want to feel the razor blades of life. i'm 44. Life is short. The world's pretty fucked up & becoming more so every day. We seem on an almost certain course for system crash. Life hurts & we shouldn't always try to mediate this fact with something pleasant. This is no time to be vege-ing out, comfortably numb while reruns of Law & Order play over and over.
In all, i think i've gained some insights, written some poems, seen better as a painter, and become a more empathic person through regular marijuana use. (That & i've formed some kind of empathic bond with plants and have become an avid gardener as a result.) But i now see all this as leading up to the present moment when i've heard a call to take a giant step forward spiritually. The thing i hear over and over again about entheogens like Salvia and psyilicibin is that these substances reveal levels of reality that the everyday mind only gets hints and whispers of. i notice that you can more or less tell pot on what terms you are willing to receieve its effects. That's not how it is with more powerful entheogens.
Anyway, i hope to see what others have to say about marijuana as part of or hindrance to the entheogenic experience.
So, how about it? Presuming the definitions of psychedelics as drugs that "open the mind" and entheogens as drugs that "reveal the divine," what would you call ganja?
Forgive the navel-gazing that follows, but a conversation/debate that includes the kinds of details about set, setting, usage patterns, and perceived results i include below would, i hope teach us all something valuable.
The navel-gazing part: i have come to regard pot as a low-impact and ambiguous BO (of) TH experience, at best. i smoked pot briefly when i was in high school in the 70s and not again until the late 90s. Set and setting? In high school it was sneaking out to the woods with my buddies before class. This wasn't about mental exploration or spiritual growth; it was about getting a buzz on & identifying with a peer group that made us feel cool. Grass enhanced my sense of hearing and, to a lesser degree, my sight.
Flash forward to about 5.5 years ago. Set & setting? Very typical mid-life crisis and i'm ready to off myself. In my despair, i renew my acquaintance with ganja--big-time. i start smoking daily. Early on the setting is much like high school; i'm sneaking a toke in the car, outside when the soon-to-be-ex-wife & the kid aren't looking, in restrooms at concerts. The reasons aren't all that different either. i'm giving the finger to all the middle-class suburban pressures to conform that have been crushing me for-effin-ever. i'm trying to distance myself from a life and a wife i can't stand anymore. But i'm also self-consciously looking for spiritual truth.
Big discovery: Even the lamest bag is 20 times more powerful than any dope i could score in my teens 20 years before. But, the same effects on my sensorium: i really hear music for the first time in over a decade. It's no longer something i turn on in the background to make sure the silence doesn't get too deafening; now i go deep into the sound. Occasionally there are eyes-closed visuals. i gradually become less stressed, more empathic, more open to new experiences and ideas. A sense of wonder and delight slowly begin to pervade my life. Sex while high is, on a few memorable occasions, ego-shattering--a revelation of how thoroughly one can lose oneself in intimacy with another. i mention this because stoney sex is the only dramatically transformative experience i've had with marijuana--and, even so, the gift has only revealed itself a handful of times.
Life moves on & the crisis has passed. Despite the divorce, the kid and i are close. My goddess/lover & i get married in response to 9/11. My professional life blossoms in ways i'd long given up on. Now the set & setting is very domestic. Smoking up signals the transition between my working life & down time. i'm usually alone, impatiently waiting for the goddess to get off work at 11 p.m. i put work aside, put on comfy clothes, smoke a bowl, step outside to let the dog pee while i have a cig or a pipe, snap on the t.v. and slowly fade to black--often while spooning WAY too many calories down my throat.
At this point, i've smoked nearly everyday for 5.5 years. i'm no longer really, really, REALLY getting into a new cd. i'm no longer self-consciously walking into an altered state of consciousness. i'm substituting pot for a couple of after dinner drinks. It's my way of chilling out, getting a buzz, and insuring that i sleep like a stone all night long.
At this writing, i've smoked maybe 3 or 4 times in the past 2 months--socially--& don't see me ever returning to the almost daily thing. i'd come to notice that i was simply using pot to anesthetize myself from physical and pychical pain and have made a conscious decision to stop doing that. To mangle Daniel's elegant phrase, i want to feel the razor blades of life. i'm 44. Life is short. The world's pretty fucked up & becoming more so every day. We seem on an almost certain course for system crash. Life hurts & we shouldn't always try to mediate this fact with something pleasant. This is no time to be vege-ing out, comfortably numb while reruns of Law & Order play over and over.
In all, i think i've gained some insights, written some poems, seen better as a painter, and become a more empathic person through regular marijuana use. (That & i've formed some kind of empathic bond with plants and have become an avid gardener as a result.) But i now see all this as leading up to the present moment when i've heard a call to take a giant step forward spiritually. The thing i hear over and over again about entheogens like Salvia and psyilicibin is that these substances reveal levels of reality that the everyday mind only gets hints and whispers of. i notice that you can more or less tell pot on what terms you are willing to receieve its effects. That's not how it is with more powerful entheogens.
Anyway, i hope to see what others have to say about marijuana as part of or hindrance to the entheogenic experience.