feeding the psychedelic database

Mon Jan 26 10:55:37 CST 2015

Of course the million-bazillion dollar question is are spiritual
experiences merely halucinations caused by brain chemical reactions, or do
some chemicals trigger access to a real spiritual dimension invisible to
most of humanity.

David Morris

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 10:52 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yep.
>
> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 10:50 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Isn't that what so called spiritual techniques are for?
>>
>>
>>
>> Www.innergroovemusic.com
>> Sent from Beyond the Zero
>>
>> On Jan 26, 2015, at 9:26 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> one of the things I respect the Navajo and such is for their peyote
>> rituals. You have to respect a culture that encourages looking beyond
>> itself.  Personally, I was a bit freaked by psychedelics and I knew
>> intuitively that it wasnt for me (talking mostly mescaline here) though I
>> dont regret taking it.
>>
>> I wonder if Pynchon's drug use has declined, he's become a bit more harsh
>> on the counter-culture for losing its way, thus more focused and clear in
>> later books on not getting lost via paranoia's labyrinths but more explicit
>> about power and its abuses
>>
>> rich
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 8:21 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Agreed, but it seems like there is a need for some guidance, as in
>>> cultures that have incorporated these substances as tools of
>>> transformation.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 6:41 PM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>> I wholeheartedly concur.
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 3:43 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Coming on, like a big wave, the mind and emotions suddenly drawn up
>>>>> into intense motion, the body strains in that strange stillness where
>>>>> incoming waters and outgoing waters raise a huge wild  form within that
>>>>> must, a swirl of energy that has to,  simply must break apart, take  its
>>>>> inevitable direction and move toward some now unimaginable shore.
>>>>>
>>>>>  1969 riding in Roger Ashodian's econoline with Benjy Burenstein
>>>>> headed to the Woodstock Music and Art Festival, first LSD trip,  first
>>>>> happy, then too happy, frighteningly happy, then Benjy starts shooting
>>>>> sparking  purple light out of his eyes which is clearly the most amazing
>>>>> trick ever performed and funny that he has kept this hidden talent to
>>>>> himself.  We come after a long crazy night to a sea of people swarming at
>>>>> the edge of a larger sea of people. I jump crazily off the roof of the van
>>>>> and dive in, soon impossibly lost from my friends. 2 days later, Sunday
>>>>> morning, I have parted company with a young woman and gone to stand in line
>>>>> for a portapotty. I  have an urge to turn around and so does Benjy at the
>>>>> same moment and we are face to face in a crowd of half a million.
>>>>>
>>>>> That same Sunday  night a smaller dose. I meet a woman next to where
>>>>> we are watching Country Joe.  Later that evening I ask her if I can wrap my
>>>>> blanket  around both of us and hold her and be warm in the chill air while
>>>>> we listen. She agrees and as the evening unfolds, my arms around her I am
>>>>> calmly, deeply happy just to be there drenched in music with someone to
>>>>> hold. I realize that love is not what I thought, not something you find, or
>>>>> get, or win or extort or seduce. That it must and can come from me. That I
>>>>> can love, and that this truth has entered my soul is what stuns.
>>>>> Everything I have ever learned is contained in that moment of amazement.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I am on the downside of a mescaline trip with a friendly, crazy guy I
>>>>> just met named Forest and we are headed for the Sierras and a place where
>>>>> the Stanislaus River carves a huge hole through part of a mountain side.  I
>>>>> begin to use similes to be able to say and think satisfying sentences,
>>>>> Before that moment this would have been limited to attempts at  fiction for
>>>>> school or to cliches. I begin to perceive in a revelation that will
>>>>> continue to unfold for years the metaphoric nature of language and the
>>>>> freedom that comes with using it playfully, of pondering its structures,
>>>>> its origins, its limits, versatility, nuance.I feel like flipper, doing
>>>>> double flips in a sea of words.  The world has been permanently changed,
>>>>> come more alive,  more ephemeral, more luminous, the language of the
>>>>> universe, once dense and impenetrable seems to glance warmly,at times lean
>>>>> close and kiss like an eager lover.
>>>>>
>>>>> Many trips. the face of the Buddah composed of stars, feeling in my
>>>>> own blood the poisons we emit on an industrial scale,  a california condor
>>>>> sunning himself in the morning light over the southern sierras, telepathy
>>>>> for weeks, possessed by Pan, pink light over jade mountains, filling the
>>>>> streets of SanFrancisco to say no to Vietnam, learning to play flutes and
>>>>> whistles.  And finally a couple years later a sense that the medicine has
>>>>> done what it can.
>>>>>
>>>>> 30 years pass with only coffee and the occasional sip of communion
>>>>> wine. Post education, post theology, I come to realize that my art, my
>>>>> sense of the divine, my relationship with language, my marriage have all
>>>>> been hugely shaped by etheogens.  I have realized that certain inner
>>>>> transformations take many years to unfold, and that the role of something
>>>>> that has been labeled dangerous, and unreal has been almost entirely
>>>>> enriching for me. I am thankful for these substances and for anything that
>>>>> leads humans to the terrifying and  transforming power of love.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  I believe making such substances illegal even for research was
>>>>> damaging to  science, medicine, psychology, law enforcement, and possibly
>>>>> even human evolution.  As far as I can see this has nothing to do with
>>>>> limiting  self destructive addiction but an attempt to limit the range of
>>>>> experience, exploration, and healing practices available to the human
>>>>> family. These are very different from addictive drugs. For many people once
>>>>> is enough whether it is a time of positive transformation of just freaky
>>>>> oddness or terror. But there is a kid of natural limit to using them
>>>>> lightly.  It also really creeps me out that all countries have criminalized
>>>>> what is clearly a  practice dating from the earliest human records.  -
>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> www.innergroovemusic.com
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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