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  #1  
Old 04-12-2010, 09:58 AM
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Hallucinogens

Anybody read this piece today?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html?ref=todayspaper

It describes the benefits of the hallucinogen psilocybin. It induces a state similar to that experienced by religious mystics. The authors of the study argue for the evolutionary benefit of the experience of the lack of ego.
I'm intrigued by the study. Huston Smith, one of the original subjects in the LSD experiments with Leary argued for the use of drugs in religious experience in a book a few years ago.
However, I tend to see the situation in reverse when looking at the evolutionary benefits. Rather than seeing mysticism as beneficial, it seems to me that the development of a separate ego consciousness is far more beneficial to the species. Mysticism leads to passivity but ego consciousness produces drives of competition and success that have pushed humanity to invent, work, explore, and excel. A society of mystics would have been happy to sit around and meditate.
Any thoughts out there

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  #2  
Old 04-12-2010, 01:42 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kerry View Post
Any thoughts out there
Sure...

Every time I think of hallucinogens, I'm reminded of a handful of personal experiences from my youth.

One that has never left me - I stared intently at my hand, moving it about for hours once. Much as that seems like a punchline, it was one of the most educational experiences of my life.

It's an absolutely amazing instrument, that most people never give a second thought to in their daily life. The intricacy with which is reacts to mind control and stimuli, makes me positive nothing will ever equal it in robotics for generations, if ever.

So thank you, mushrooms.
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Old 04-12-2010, 02:04 PM
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You can still have drive, motivation, hopes, dreams etc. After all, you still have to fxn. in the world. But some realize that ego is not separate from from everything else. Maybe that's what these trips are helping some to have insight into.

There was something on cable about this not too long ago, Nat Geo or PBS?? Don't recall.

It's interesting that they are using it in drug/alcohol addiction. Bill W. (founder of AA) was into LSD later in his life. Maybe he was onto something.
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  #4  
Old 04-12-2010, 03:43 PM
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  #5  
Old 04-12-2010, 04:25 PM
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I heard this piece on NPR this past June.

Like it or not, the current war on drugs has done nothing but increase our police state powers.

I don't want to admit it, but I bet that most adults in this country have smoked pot before. Heck maybe even harder drugs.

I won't admit to my own experimentation with psychedelic mushrooms, but I'm grateful there is some research into the chemicals that effect our brains.. What we perceive is only a unique combination of chemicals. Our consciousness is an incredible gift. It's something I cherish very much.
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  #6  
Old 04-12-2010, 04:40 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kerry View Post
The authors of the study argue for the evolutionary benefit of the experience of the lack of ego.
Likely the opposite is true. No ego, no drive to succeed, no evolutionary success. Sounds like a bunch of old hippies trying to justify their crud.

Quote:
A society of mystics would have been happy to sit around and meditate.
Any thoughts out there
Correct. Evolutionarily a dead end.

- Peter.
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  #7  
Old 04-12-2010, 05:44 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kerry View Post
Any thoughts out there
Yeah, waaaaay out.

Man.

I'd hate to see a first timer at the end of their life go on a bad trip though. That's my only concern.
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  #8  
Old 04-13-2010, 12:06 AM
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Being part Native American and having participated in sweat-lodges while in Florida, I am well aware of the mystical experiances induced by shrooms and peyote,, and Mescal..LSD changes around the neuro -cepters in the brain...ie:unplugs them and re-plug them in other spots in the brain. This is why a person may "feel "a color. Astral-travelling can be acheived...but the conditions must be right..Ie: no toxic , negative people around the person who has dosed.Back in the 70's was my time for experimentation...L.S. 25 in the liquid from(had to be kept in the fridge)..was nothing to play with. 1/10,000 of a milligram (about the amount the eye of a needle would hold)..introduced thru the tearduct could make you a moveing blaackout for up to 48 hours. I recall 1 such time.that I found "myself" standing at the right foot of a sphinx..What did it all do/mean to me? I realise that the mind is very powerfull...and I dont like the feeling of a substance having more power over my mind than I have over it. Today I am stone cold sober...not even alchohol in over 10 years.. Drugs are here to keep our people stupid...ie: if they are high or drunk...they forget how the government is giving it to them...with no grease.
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Old 04-13-2010, 12:41 AM
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From their comments, it's difficult for me to believe that Kerry or pj67coll actually read the linked article.
Said article discusses the use of halucinogens to treat clinical depression where other modalities have failed. I did not read of any suggestion that halucinogens should become a part of every day life or become a sustitute for the current reliefs from reality such as alcohol or tobacco.
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  #10  
Old 04-13-2010, 09:52 AM
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Guess who in this thread has not tried shrooms ????
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  #11  
Old 04-13-2010, 10:33 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chas H View Post
From their comments, it's difficult for me to believe that Kerry or pj67coll actually read the linked article.
Said article discusses the use of halucinogens to treat clinical depression where other modalities have failed. I did not read of any suggestion that halucinogens should become a part of every day life or become a sustitute for the current reliefs from reality such as alcohol or tobacco.
I read the article. Drugs easing death are nothing new. The extrapolation that there is some evolutoinary advantage to a fuked up brain is invalid but the typical stuff that hipster have always pushed.

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  #12  
Old 04-13-2010, 10:37 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RichC View Post
Guess who in this thread has not tried shrooms ????
Kerry? The Swede? Come on, don't be such a tease.
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  #13  
Old 04-13-2010, 11:17 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chas H View Post
From their comments, it's difficult for me to believe that Kerry or pj67coll actually read the linked article.
I did not read of any suggestion that halucinogens should become a part of every day life or become a sustitute for the current reliefs from reality such as alcohol or tobacco.
Did either one of us suggest that it did????
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  #14  
Old 04-13-2010, 11:24 AM
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"reality is for people who can't handle drugs" "Leave no turn unstoned"......ah yes, the axioms of the days of my youth. marginally useful then, less so know....show me one country that has great success that advocates the use of drugs like LSD, or mushrooms..and I am not talking about an alternate reality there either, Carlos Casteneda...we need more clarity now days, not more drugs. too many people are medicated from childhood up instead of being to taught to cope with life and realize that sometimes, life just sucks: deal with and move on.....

Last edited by Txjake; 04-13-2010 at 03:19 PM.
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  #15  
Old 04-13-2010, 08:26 PM
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Kerry- thanks for the thread I saw the PBS special two weeks ago about the doc in Cali who was working with the end of life patients and it was enlightening to say the least. Several points come to mind regarding the use of physiadellics ( as we so fondly referred to them back in the 60's) and transcendentalism first, do we really need chemicals to transcend ourselves into an altered state of reality or can we change our own brain chemistry thru meditation? Why does religion almost always play a part in "becoming one with the universe" in an altered state? Once upon a time priests used to go out and wander in the wilderness or the deserts and starve themselves and have conversations with "god" and I believe the act of starvation was what got them very close to hallucinating, that combined with being in the heat will alter anyones state of consciousness. In addition there has to be something with the way our brains are hard wired for certain states of consciousness to provoke religious thought similar to an "aura" that precedes a seizure. Many people have intense religious experiences right before the seizure. Just a thought.

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