a question to all out there

[swilow]

Individualism?

Collectivism ?

Competition ?

Communism ?

Capitalism ?

All boils down to ismy dinner ready yet !

Very well put, and solistus, that is a great post up there. Exactly what I would love to say, yet have not the words.

This much I will say; that one can be in the system, but not of it; from small things big things grow. Activisim is meaningful to the sentient beings it saves from early death, but doesn't ultimately bring down the structure. Which is essentially what needs to, and will I believe happen. I hope it doesn't involve mass dying or nuclear destruction, but I do fear that. One could argue that the current syetm of Capatalism is not even an actual structure, in that it doesn't alllow for any forethought, only hindsight wherein everything is seen differently; if it is ctructured, why are we living on the verge of collapse. A structured civilisation would be one in which an acknowledgmnet of balance is paramount- thats why I suggest tribal cultrure as an example; one which information could be extrapolated from, and applied in some way to the whole wide world. There is a reason that some of these cultures stayed static for so long. The desire for endless expansion either wasn't there or was held in check.

Thats probably a dream; perhaps the only true way to change anything is to erase and start over. I soon believe that we will have very little choice in anything involving our fate.

 

[monstanoodle]

i'm sorry to say this and mean no offense but i really cannot stand this way of thinking that one can reach "another level" other than the one we exist on. nevermind with the help of drugs...
to me it comes across as the individual being better or more advanced than the rest of the human population, which no one is.

 

[Bercilak]

i'm sorry to say this and mean no offense but i really cannot stand this way of thinking that one can reach "another level" other than the one we exist on. nevermind with the help of drugs...
to me it comes across as the individual being better or more advanced than the rest of the human population, which no one is.

It's not a question of individuals being better or worse than others, but their actions being being better or worse than others. Whether those can be separated is another can of worms, of course.

Going further, it's also a question of the necessity of value judgements. It's great to say that nobodies actions are better or more advanced, but realize that that's incompatible with endorsing a view of the future. Inevitably, certain actions are conducive to that future while others are not, and hence one must make a value judgement of actions. willow11 and others in this thread view current behavior of the majority of humans as ecologically unsustainable (and I agree), and hence more sustainable behavior is, yes, better in view of that. There are of course a lot of unstated assumptions about values here, but feel free to challenge those.

To go one step further, I'd actually say that the long term thinking necessary for sustainable practices is "another level". There's a wonderful book on this topic called Invisible Walls by Peter Seidel, and it goes into detail about exactly why human cognitive limitations and biases threaten sustainability. These limitations can be overcome, but it requires us as individuals to think carefully about almost every action that we undertake, or to plan our living situation so that we can pursue everyday life with less environmental impact. I'd say that that's "another level".

 

[demons]

hey the experiencer, i feel you man. salvia is very useful for your purposes. keep it up.

i didn't realize so many people here were so cynical and hopeless and dumb. if the majority of posters on a forum about psychedelics can't understand the concept of using psychedelics for growth and evolution what hope does our species have?

*reminds self that we are very early on in our evolution and a lot of change has yet to happen*

 

[demons]

maybe i can steer things in a more interesting and productive direction by responding to some specific points in the original post.

i'm completely with you on programming. that's a scientific fact. we are 99% monkey and we still have all the instincts and pre-programmed responses that we evolved to survive in the wild before we developed language and culture. transcending this is very important because it's the instinctual drive to control resources, women, and shiny things, and to be high on the social hierarchy and control a lot of territory, that is responsible for all the suffering in the world.

i don't really believe we can escape life and death. i think life is a one-time thing. each of us is a unique combination of A, C, G, and T nucleotides, arranged in a long string of "Words" about equal in information content to a skyscraper full of bookshelves. this is what I believe each animal and human's true identity is. so i don't believe in an afterlife, because without a body you are nothing, and i don't believe in reincarnation, because the odds against the exact same combination of nucleotides showing up in two people's DNA are astronomical (except twins). and that doesn't even take into account the memes and emotional input each person gets from their environment as they develop . but it sounds like you believe in the buddhist concept of the reincarnation cycle and the escape from it called nirvana, and that seems to help you, so more power to you.

i also use martial arts and meditation. they are very useful for self-control and transcending your instinctual programming, and eschewing negative emotions and unhelpful desires and tendencies. physical exercise is good because the body and mind are one, physical control and strength=mental control and strength. meditation is good for cultivating the thought patterns you want and eliminating the ones you don't. nothing has helped me so much for achieving my goal of a happy life with which i contribute to the happiness of the planet as salvia!

i guess i shouldn't be surprised at all the crap responses you got. there's a reason the vast majority of people don't see the point of salvia: she/it/whatever doesn't show you the truth unless you fit its stringent criteria. the sad truth of the world is most people just don't care. don't care about others or even about themselves. people only care about their allegiance to whatever ideas or social groups they have chosen to identify with. if people cared about the planet or really cared about their health and happiness things would be very different. one day they will be. salvia won't help you unless you actually care and are willing to put forth the effort to change and evolve. that's why most people miss the point of salvia and miss the point of psychedelics in general. accuse me of being an elitist if you must, i tell you i don't like people who use one way of using psychedelics as an ego crutch to put themselves above others. these are incredibly powerful tools and there are more and less effective ways to use them. that's my honest opinion.

 

[Arzi]

hey the experiencer, i feel you man. salvia is very useful for your purposes. keep it up.

i didn't realize so many people here were so cynical and hopeless and dumb. if the majority of posters on a forum about psychedelics can't understand the concept of using psychedelics for growth and evolution what hope does our species have?

*reminds self that we are very early on in our evolution and a lot of change has yet to happen*

I am sorry but I am very skeptical that a chemical would cause evolution in human beings.

 

[demons]

I respect your opinion Arzi. Let me try to explain what I mean about evolution. I don't think just taking the chemical does anything by itself. A lot of people use Salvia and don't have anything but confusion. Some people have a good time and then don't do anything with it. I agree with the majority opinion here that the most basic and essential ingredient for evolution is human will. But--to my surprise--I seem to be in disagreement with the majority of opinion when I think that psychedelics are invaluable tools that can be used in conjunction with will, self-discipline, exercise, meditation, reading, etc. to achieve great things. But some people don't even believe in human evolution at all, so who knows? To quote the great Bill Hicks, "evolution did not end with opposable thumbs."

 

[Arzi]

And suppose you are right....what would happen when humans do evolve?

i am confused about all this really

 

[demons]

Since you asked I'll share my views and speculations about this.

Are you familiar with the theory called "memetics"? It's the idea suggested by the great biologist Richard Dawkins that ideas, called memes, evolve in the same way genes do. I believe the reason things are bad on the world right now, people starving and wars and rape and stuff, is because of bad ideas. Human evolution is the evolution of our ideas. One example of memetic evolution is the idea of rights; in ancient Sumeria we believed the gods made us out of clay to serve them, so we accepted awful living conditions, but now we feel like we are entitled to decent lives, so the government and corporations have to trick us into believing we are free before we'll spend our lives serving them.

Allegiance to a certain group or meme makes people think others not like them are less important. Like, we have nations, religions, genders, ethnicities, gay or straight, vegetarians or meat eaters, people who use psychedelics this way or that way--all these separations that give us fake identities and stop us from realizing our real identity, which is everything. conscientious use of psychedelics fosters holism, the idea that all is one. that helps to transcend the separation-based fake identities provided by society, and helps us evolve towards a world where humans don't have to suffer.

 

[FreedomOfTheMind]

Very interesting thread. We all have different views on life and how to live and that is okay and we can all learn from each other through understanding. We are all here on earth, concious and hopefully more or less aware, and we are all doing the same thing (living) but we are all doing it in different ways. As long as you cause no harm to others or the earth, its A-Okay with me (although many lifestyles harm the earth such as enviro destructive lifestyles). One can believe whatever he or she wants and nobody is right nor wrong; it only matters what is right for you. Just be who you are and remember our common humanity. That is the biggest problem with the human race today IMO. We dont realize our common humanity and how connected we are to each other. Global warming is the result of this. "Oh, releasing millions of tons of CO2 and other greenhouse gases wont affect other people, thats impossible!"
Welcome to our universe of interconnections and relations. Every action is connected to another action and it affects everything. Anyways, back to the point of this thread, use whatever aid helps you in your meditations, let us know how salvia works.

 

[Arzi]

makes perfect sense really

 

[Xorkoth]

Fantastic responses overnight!

I'd like to add here that "evolution" used in this context does not necessarily mean physical/genetic evolution. It just means an advancement in the way one lives their life, thinks their thoughts, and so forth. This happens to us all the time throughout our lives whether or not we use drugs. Drugs, then, affect this personal evolution as well. I am sure that someone could come to the same realizations without drugs - in fact, many have. But we do seem to have a handy tool available to us, so why not use it appropriately?

 

[solistus]

A few more thoughts:

Bercilak: I think monstanoodle was responding more to the transcendental idea that by taking psychedelics we can literally escape to some higher plane of being. The idea of using psychedelics to inspire real action in the here and now to make our material lives better seems in line with his view, although I could be wrong. He's against the idea that we can all ride the Ego Dragon to heaven if we just smoke enough of X chemical, not that we can use drug experiences to convince us to, say, be more ecologically sound. I could be wrong, though.

demons: Your posts are interesting and largely in line with what a lot of other people are saying. What's with the hostility to this thread in general? There have been a lot of great and productive replies.

Demons' discussion of memetics is what I would call ideology, but the idea is the same: human beings have managed to get some truly awful ideas in our collective heads about how to live our lives and run our societies, and we need to fix that. I don't agree with his call to 'transcend' our biological 'programming.' As I've articulated previously, I think the goal is immanence, not transcendence. We will ALWAYS be monkeys with big heads; rather than disavowing our 'monkey instincts,' we should learn to live productively with them. The problem today, as I see it, is this unconscious butting of heads between humans as animals and humans as Cartesian subjects; we have all these grandiose ideological ideas about ourselves as these a priori rational subjects who just 'happen' to inhabit a messy and imperfect body. This dualism is highly problematic; our capacity for reason is not some transcendental Thing that is separate from our biology, but a result of that biology.

This brings us back to ideology. Joe Schmoe on the street, who considers himself a rational subject, doesn't see himself as being entrenched in any ideology. The things he does, the ways he interacts with others, the way he lives his life... All based on rational egoism. This could not be more false; it is not 6 billion individual rational decisions that lead to a system of production dominated by Capital. Most people don't even view it as a 'necessary evil,' a bad system that must be accepted because one cannot individually create an alternative; no, the logic of the economy is seen as "just the way things are," outside the realm of good and bad. The logic of the system tells us that we are rational, but the types of behaviours we consider indicative of rationality in the first place are fundamentally irrational.

I'd go into more depth here, but (ironically) I'm at work so I can't. More Lacanian goodness to come later. Probably.

 

[feelgoodhit]

I completely agree with you, unequivocally in fact!

indeed, capitalism definitely doesn't cater to grass-roots activism too well. it's interesting, (i should look up the source for this, i beleive it was in "the weather underground") in the 60's, in places where lsd use was rising, so was membership in socialist/communist groups.

 

[the experiencer]

I think he's being silly... a lot of teenagers in the US have been recording videos of themselves and their friends smoking salvia and then posting them all over the Internet... people seem to think they're funny. I think they should all be stopped because it just draws more and more attention to salvia smoking amongst kids, and it makes the drug look evil and harmful to the frightened parents who happen upon them.

i agree 100% my friend.

 

[the experiencer]

experiencer

hey the experiencer, i feel you man. salvia is very useful for your purposes. keep it up.

i didn't realize so many people here were so cynical and hopeless and dumb. if the majority of posters on a forum about psychedelics can't understand the concept of using psychedelics for growth and evolution what hope does our species have?

*reminds self that we are very early on in our evolution and a lot of change has yet to happen*

well said friend ....in simple terms salvia is a natural way of devloping the human conciousness .....and as i have said before it is an aid to help with such differnet types of meditation.if you know how to use it properly.....peace and love

 

[swilow]

i guess i shouldn't be surprised at all the crap responses you got. there's a reason the vast majority of people don't see the point of salvia: she/it/whatever doesn't show you the truth unless you fit its stringent criteria. the sad truth of the world is most people just don't care. don't care about others or even about themselves. people only care about their allegiance to whatever ideas or social groups they have chosen to identify with. if people cared about the planet or really cared about their health and happiness things would be very different. one day they will be. salvia won't help you unless you actually care and are willing to put forth the effort to change and evolve. that's why most people miss the point of salvia and miss the point of psychedelics in general. accuse me of being an elitist if you must, i tell you i don't like people who use one way of using psychedelics as an ego crutch to put themselves above others. these are incredibly powerful tools and there are more and less effective ways to use them. that's my honest opinion.

Calling peoples opinions crap is just furthering the ideas you seem to dislike. How have you not yourself urged a particualr use for psychedelics? It saddens me a bit to think that you've perceived comments here, including mine, as uncaring- I think you may have overlooked some pertinent between-the-lines ideas here- what may be called cynisism in regrds to the potential of psychedelcis is really being realistic IMO. So many people hate the effects of salvia, for so many different reasons- not just because they don't like what they see. Thats you generalising. I don't like salvia very much, but I still use it fairly often.....I like exercising, but I don't do it much.

there's a reason the vast majority of people don't see the point of salvia: she/it/whatever doesn't show you the truth unless you fit its stringent criteria

So, in your opinion what is the point and back it up for me please? What is this criteria- that sounds horribly eltitist and unworkable. The criteria is not determined by the plant but the ingester. nThats why, to feel the effects of salvia, we HAVE to choose to take the plant, it doesn't just waft molecules up our noses. We are the substrate upon which salvia blooms, not the other way. The only requirement/criterion that I could see for using any substance for change is an open mind. Without that, your doomed. Or not, I wouldn't know....

I believe people in the wordl, humans are generally good, but as said, trapped in an unworable social structure. Burn it I say.

 

[the experiencer]

very interesting and inspiring disscusion my friends .. another question of mine is , how are we, as a group of like minded people going to change or even affect the way the world is today ?............personally i beleive a good way to do this is to lead by example. i have been trying for many years to get people to understand my simple points of veiw ...for example breathing techiques , flexabilty exercises , focusing the mind , even just smiling . but most of the time people respond by calling me a nutta, loony , space cadet and so on. ok ... i admitt most of the time i am a nutta, and it feels quite good ,when i compare myself to the rest of society ...haa haaa.....so anyway, i normally end banging my head against a brick wall. feeling sorry about the state of the human race .especially the way we treat the earth and each other . i do find that folks who live there life in such a way are entiteld to do so, but unfortunately for them they will not see the LIGHT OF LOVE until they are willing and ready. now after 30 or more years of studying different forms of martial arts and spirtuality/meditation . i know that certain drugs particularly SAVIA helped me to get on track , and allowed me to align my mind body and spirit with the forces of nature. ie ,gravity and universal cosmic concoiusness.............peace and love

 

[the experiencer]

makes perfect sense really

good man arzi ...i always knew that you were undertsanding and a wise human being....peace and love

 

[solistus]

I believe people in the world, humans are generally good, but as said, trapped in an unworkable social structure. Burn it I say.

(Edited a couple things for ya ; )

Couldn't agree more. It's not that everyone is evil or even uncaring, but that the system we are active in is and does not provide us any means of being truly good and caring.

As for salvia, I've never really taken much from it. I have never managed to break through despite repeated attempts. From those I've talked to who have, however, the lessons learned tend to be similar to those learned by conscious users of other, more 'traditional' (serotonergic) psychedelics. In a general sense, I think psychedelics are of tremendous use in recognising the reality of one's situation, but they also provide a danger of hiding from that reality. It's up to us to interpret them for real change rather than succumbing to escapism.