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Gnostic & Psychedelic Conversations
Just wanted to point out two conversations on other websites that have been going on related to this one.
Making Chutney has posted a summary with some questions for further discussion regarding my recent three part posts (I, II, III) on a grand unified conspiracy theory. Chutney focuses on hammering my thoughts into a neo-gnostic framework, which is interesting, but not strictly what I had in mind when I wrote it.
Jeff Wells also has a cool post about “Snakes on a Brain” about ayahuasca in which an apparently mutual reader of our sites named “Gary” posts the following comment:
this is not intended as an insult in anyway but it is a thought that struck me about you (and Tim Boucher) but how much longer (if ever) until you cross the line from objective Academic Investigator to experiencer where entheogens are concerned?
I realize this is more than a bit personal and I don’t truly anticpate a reply but I am curious because a wise man once said, “Cowardice in the name of objectivity is a characteristic of most Academics”.
Jeff’s response is I think a good one:
I won’t call it by any other name: it’s simple cowardice. As best as I can know myself, I don’t think it would be wise for me to invite such a shattering experience. Believe me, I appreciate the disconnect, but since shamanism’s not for mere dabbling it’s not something for which I feel sufficiently prepared.
This is the kind of comment that would have really gotten me up in arms about a year ago when I was more into “battling” people online. But I like to think I’ve simmered down a lot since then. And I’ve been thinking about what my response would be to Gary, and I’m really not sure. Cowardice? I guess. I don’t know. In some sense, I see that as being sort of irrelevant, since I spend virtually every waking moment (and often in sleep as well) with these issues, sharing them with others, starting discussions and putting myself on the line for people to pick apart. That to me is a lot more challenging than taking a chemical and hoping something spooky happens.
In any event, I more or less agree with Jeff: that these things aren’t to be stumbled into blindly on an experiential level. Nor do I believe that the end all be all of shamanism or other spiritual pursuits is taking entheogens. It’s certainly valuable for a lot of people, but if I never do it, I can’t say as I will be terribly disappointed either. I’d certainly like to, but when the right time and opportunity comes, I will know. It hasn’t come yet. Maybe it never will…
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- Next: Nothing’s Shocking
June 18th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
no shamanic experience is to be taken lightly, whether it be at your own hand or by circumstance. such experiences are paradigm shifting and can never be rolled back. the hesitation we feel in contemplating ethogens is natural. it can be compared to standing on top of a 75 foot cliff looking down into a small patch of water below and actually thinking about jumping. i wouldn`t call these contemplations cowardice. an attachment to consensus reality………..?
June 18th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
I agree with alistair. Their is a difference between cowardice and arrogance. Besides that, like you’ve said, you’ve pretty much dedicated your life to dealing with this suff. I think you’ve definitely made a difference in the way many people think about life. That’s pretty impressive.
June 18th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
whoa! whoa!! whoa!!! you have never ever tried peyote to have visions of the spirit world? The thing with peyote is there is really no earth shattering & sustained change in consciousness, just an increased love for gnomes. At least that’s what I feel ora. Just maintain an attitude of playfulness because I haven’t eaten or slept for 27 hours- which is tons of fun- hallucinating that is. And as much as I’d love to advocate liberal drug use I’d say meditation is really the best route to go to gain a lovely non-cowardly relationship with life. Well, please excuse me while I draw only demonic bodies with George Bush heads in my tee pee pee tee type type yype
June 18th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Long ago I did took the comparatively sedate route via psylocibin mushrooms. Great stuff, lots of warm fuzzies with my college friend, some interesting visions (the most profound of which was seeing the face of Jesus in a poster that depicted a post-apocalyptic wasteland), and a really fucked-up stomach ache. But nothing ego-dissolving.
I think one needs to be really ready and confident before one jumps ahead into serious paradigm-altering (and life-altering) shamanic experiences. I don’t think it’s cowardly, just prudent.
June 19th, 2006 at 5:42 am
Not all entheogenic experiences lead to life shattering profundity, but they should be used with respect and with a willingness to examine your life and beliefs. Dosage can be a tricky problem, too little and you get what slomo called the “warm fuzzies” a body high and lots of giggling. Too much and those issues you have been repressing for years come alive and turn inward upon you, and an otherwise uneventful trip becomes a nightmare. Stick with organic entheogens mushrooms and peyote, ayahuasca is not an appropriate choice for a beginning psychonaut. Treat the experience as the sacrament that it is, purification, set and setting and any ritual that helps you and makes you feel comfortable. You’ll know when you are ready and the opportunity to take the next step will be synchronous.
June 19th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
my 2 cents: i strongly recommend the ayahuasca experience. for me, it tremendously hammers home the difference between learning about gnosticism and gnosis proper. i’ve been reading about gnostic and occult issues for quite some time now, and have tried to keep an open mind about all the various claims in the literature. and while that method of learning is certainly valuable, it’s “agnostic” in a literal sense. until such an experience, i could never legitimately claim to really even partly understand what the mystics and gnostics through the ages have been talking about. not that i claim to understand it fully now, by any means, but what i call the transformative experience of utter trascendence of ego (for lack of a better term) feels so truly *known*, real and immediate…it’s frustratingly difficult to put into words. almost as if all the clothing of space, time, personality and division just falls off and reveals a joyful experience of oneself as the all-pervading Pleroma, and in the presense in pure Benevolence. like laughter and death and joy and dissolution in sacred time.
someone once compared practicing magic as opposed to studying it to having sex as opposed to reading about it. to me it’s kind of the same way with (what i perceived as an instance of) pure gnosis.
June 19th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Please forgive if I came across as arrogant or assumptive - I didn’t mean to imply you were a coward in any way. How could I? I don’t know you (or Jeff) beyond a virtual experience and from what I do know of the two you I admire and respect you both.
I am sorry that I raised your old internet battle hackles - that was not my intention. I tried to couch the quote you referenced with a little story that I hope illustrated my take on the situation.
My take is not that you and Jeff are cowards but that it just struck me as odd that the both you often write about the subject of the mystical and it’s relation to entheogens yet haven’t tread those waters.
I say odd because I sense it is important to you both but the reason for the reluctance seems unclear. The story of the academic I mentioned probably was more close to my feelings than the quote I quoted.
All that being said let me offer that you are right to have some hesitation as the other readers here have mentioned - not taking it lightly, the need of preparation etc. All of those things are true and I couldn’t agree more. The price of admission to the “circus” is steep and the show on the cave wall should not be taken lightly and is certainly not for everyone.
However.
It upsets to no end that such a tool as entheogens is used most (far and away in our culture) often as a “party” drug by the foolish and foolhardy. It seems the wrong people show too little caution and respect and perhaps the right people show too much.
I guess that was my point and perhaps why my post may have been considered “arrogant” by some. I was actually feeling/displaying a different emotion (knowing frustration, maybe) but it could be misconstrued as arrogant.
The above, coupled with my own experience (life being too short and all), motivated me to post such an easily misconstrued message over at RI.
I once had a friend who fell hopelessly in love with a really great guy. For two years they were the “ideal” couple. They had found something I had always hoped to find. As they planned their wedding and their new home they had put alot else on hold. They always used to burn candles and do the complete hippy thing but when they started planning their future they wouldn’t burn any good candles anymore because they were “saving them”. The newly minted husband died shortly after the wedding but before the house was built and those lovely candles remain unused to this day, 12 years later.
A few years after he died I became an ER nurse and the point of that story became hammered home time and again as I experienced how tragically short life can be. I always wanted to experience the shamanistic realm. While working on my second degree (English Lit) as a nurse I took a class called Literature of the Occult. I actually thought it was about Horror in fiction. Turns out it was a class a lot like this website run by a very interesting fellow. At any rate, as I learned about the rich history humans have with ethenogens it give me the gumption to try it out. I had known for some time that such history existed but I never knew it did to the extent we covered in that class. It seemed fundamental, to me, anyway.
I had already meditated almost everday since I was 15 so by now I felt mostly ready (as ready as you can be, anyway, which is never fully ready) so I grew my own mushrooms. That in itself seemed a shamanic experience. I remember growing them and thinking, (before I had experimented with them), “I didn’t grow these fungi - they allowed themselves to grow here.” That thought alone gave me confidence that I was on the right track.
I was.
Ooooo, I just realized something - this post was for me and not Tim or his readers. Wanna know why? Ask me.
June 20th, 2006 at 11:40 am
Maybe it’s too late to indulge now. I think the right age to get into direct psychedelic experiences is in the college years: 18 to 24. Your mind is at a certain peak, your body is in its prime, and psychologically you can recuperate faster.
However, I took mescaline about a month ago and it totally put to shame all other experiences I’ve had, with LSD or mushrooms or whatever. So I guess it’s not too late. But then again, I had many points of reference from past trips.