Esoteric [Ego-Death Subthread] Permanent / Irrecoverable Ego Loss

[OrphicTrench]

Well they did that stupid experiment where they all took massive doses of LSD every day for a fortnight and then claimed "it didn't work". But obviously any fucking idiot could have told them taking LSD every day isn't going to work.

I think the main reason it's impossible is that it's nothing to do with ego-death in the first place. It's far more accurate to call it being high on psychedelic drugs. Obviously you can't stay high on psychedelics 24 hours a day for the rest of your life.

And about Ram Dass - he also used to make the claim that some alleged mystic bloke in India took 1000mics of acid for the first time in his life and then just sat there as if nothing had happened to him. Someone who was there at the time said the mystic just palmed the LSD and never took it in order to convince Ram Dass he should follow him and give him all his money. Apparantly the mystic then put the LSD into the ashes of his fire and invited up another 3 followers to "eat his ashes" - because when you eat the ashes of a holy man you're supposed to blessed by the gods - obviously he made sure they each ate a tab of the acid. Presumably that resulted in 3 more wallets to fuck with.

I'd like to know what your source is because I tend to believe more what Ram Dass wrote on Be Here Now than some random guy on the internets. Your pejorative connotation of Ram Dass is just a little bit disturbing.

For the purpose of the thread, what Maharaj-ji (the Guru) tried to illustrate by swallowing 915ug is that once you're already "up there," drugs won't do any effect. Later, Ram Dass states that psychedelics represent a temporary shortcut but the only way to possibly stay "there" is by following the long and traditional spiritual apprenticeship.

It's funny but it makes me think of a guy telling me that smoking DMT while on acid will finish your acid trip once the DMT wares off. He used to say that once you see All, there's nothing left to see.

 

[!!4iV4HF9R34g]

There seems to be so much negative talk of ego-death.. I had understood that this was a principle goal of psychonautics.

In my experience, ego-softening ("-loss") induced by entheogens is likely to be forceful and can vary between bliss and discomfiture. The experience is subjective and differing, often influenced by the substance as well.

I have never experienced true ego-loss whilst sober, but Ego-Softening is apparent in my life, and I am proud and glad of the fact.

Being intelligently reactional entirely in the present is a feeling of being content, yet still self-actualizing. True ego-loss is not any sort of emotional experience. Ego-loss is no awareness whatsoever, and it is only recognized in hindsight. Ego-loss is the abolition of the perception model, and thus results in inexperience of Existence (the only means of experiencing the totality of Existence; as everything and nothingness are singular without distinction).

This may mean that lasting ego-death equates to physical death as well, since complete annihilation of the ability to perceive can really be achieved only through the incapability of the mechanisms of the model to function, i.e. death.
(This is, of course, based on the premise that cessation of neurological activity results in the end of perception; this premise may be flawed, as it does not account for the other realities composing Existence. Nonetheless, current knowledge is current ha, and I'm no time traveler.)



Also; the physiological effects of LSD have nothing to do with the states of mind induced by natural and sober psychonautic practices.

 

[Ismene]

I'd like to know what your source is because I tend to believe more what Ram Dass wrote on Be Here Now than some random guy on the internets. Your pejorative connotation of Ram Dass is just a little bit disturbing.

You'd rather believe that someone who has never taken LSD before can take a 1000mics for his first trip and it has no effect on him? Seriously? Not even any physical effects? The speedy effect of 1000 mics your first time would hit you like a truck, never mind the psychedelic effects.

that once you're already "up there,"

But this assumes that the state you acheive through regular meditating is exactly the same as the state you're in when peaking on 1000 mics of acid. Obviously that's bullshit. It's the kind of thing you could only get away back at the end of the 60's when your audience was acid-trippers who didn't know anything about "the mysterious ways of the east".

Later, Ram Dass states that psychedelics represent a temporary shortcut but the only way to possibly stay "there" is by following the long and traditional spiritual apprenticeship.

That's fine - that's his opinion. He was obviously very religious and into hinduism so he would say that. I don't think psychedelics are anything like man-made religions - they're a more fruitful and true path. It's yourself and your own relationship to the substance. To compare them to manmade religions drags psychedelics down. Remember hinduism has the caste system - where poor people are viewed as the worst fucking untouchable scum on earth. I hope that's not what anyone considers as being "enlightened".

And once again, I don't care how much of a hindu you are, 1000 mics on your first trip is going to blow you out of the water. End of story.

 

[OrphicTrench]

Thanks for the answer. I deduce that your source was yourself and your "logic(?)" thinking.

I'm not a Hindu and I find the caste system as disgusting as you, but for the record, it is supposed to drag people away from the karmanic game and compel them to adopt the spiritual realm. At least from what somebody told me. Whatever, I still agree with you on that little point.

Now, if I tend to believe Ram Dass, as well as a handful of psychedelic pioneers, it's because the insights and revelations you obtain from the psychedelic experience hold strangely a lot of Buddhist principles and philosophy. That being said, it happened various times that some people who knew nothing about Buddhism told me about their trips and their learning was purely Buddhist in theory. The spiritual awakening drawn from psychedelic drugs is probably the same than the one induced by meditation and Buddhist practice. Once again that's like, my opinion, man.

 

[Ismene]

You mean the source of the behaviour of the guy who palmed the 1000mics? That was a guy who was living in the camp. Do you still believe he took the 1000mics and just sat there as if nothing happened? Terence Mckenna always said the LSD was palmed - sleight of hand was something common to hindu "masters" - it was an effective way of conning people into believing you were "magic".

it's because the insights and revelations you obtain from the psychedelic experience hold strangely a lot of Buddhist principles and philosophy.

Well, Ram Dass was a hindu actually, not a buddhist...but ok, I accept that you can link aspects of any man-made religion to certain aspects of the psychedelic experience. Moses saw a burning bush which is kinda like tripping isn't it?

The spiritual awakening drawn from psychedelic drugs is probably the same than the one induced by meditation and Buddhist practice.

I fucking hope not Orphic. Tibetan buddhist monks operated a feudal slave system where they cut the hands off any tibetan slave that dared steal from them. Or gouged their eyes out. "No attachment to posssesions" indeed. If that's where we are heading with psychedelic use then god help us.

Once again that's like, my opinion, man.

Righteously mellow.

 

[Ismene]

Got the source for you if it makes any difference:

It's from the book STRANGE FRUIT: ALCHEMY AND RELIGION by Clark Heinrich:

"Many people are familiar with Ram Dass's book BE HERE NOW. Ram Dass is the former Richard Alpert, who was fired from the Harvard faculty in the sixties for experimenting with LSD. His cohort Timothy Leary left Harvard at the same time. Suddenly opened up to the spiritual side of life as a result of his experimentation, Alpert set off to India looking for spiritual adepts. In the book, which he wrote when he returned to the United States, we are informed that he had with him on his journey quite a few tablets of very pure LSD, which he was inviting various 'holy men' and wandering ascetics to sample.

"After meeting his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, in the Himalayan foothills, Alpert told him about LSD and his own spiritual experiences with it. The guru asked to see some, and was handed three tablets containing 305 micrograms each, which is about nine normal doses. Alpert describes his horror as he watched the guru pop the tablets into his mouth and swallow; then, thinking, 'This should be interesting,' he settled back to watch what would happen. Nothing happened. After an hour had gone by, plenty of time to be feeling the effects, he asked the guru how he was feeling and he replied, 'Same as always', or words similar to that effect. The guru's condition didn't change over the course of the day and Alpert was amazed, and convinced of his new guru's supernatural status.

"The man with whom I studied yoga was there too. At the time he was running and building the guru's five ashrams and serving as his right-hand man. The guru did little else but sit with people, accept the worship (and money) of his disciples, sing and eat. My teacher ran the details of the whole show and taught yoga. He gave me his account of what happened that day with the LSD.

"Simply put, the guru palmed the LSD tablets and didn't swallow anything but air. Many Indian gurus are adept at sleight of hand and small magic tricks, are not always above using a little subterfuge 'for the good of the disciple'. But the story doesn't end with palming the LSD. The guru later ground the tablets into powder and mixed it with a little of the fine white ash from his sacred fire. This he then gave to two unsuspecting disciples who had been visiting from a distant place and were now departing. Ash from a guru's fire is considered prasad and yes, it is eaten. I don't know anything of the men's journey home, but it was probably quite eventful, especially considering the Himalayan roads, and filled with wondrous exclamations about the guru's tremendous powers."

 

[FPU4eva]

Has there been individuals who have been in a catatonic state and come out to elucidate what that state was like? Most descriptions seem to be have been from 1950's psychiatrists sticking pins in individuals who were made to stand naked in front of students. If you go to a Buddhist groups on the net and follow the same discussions (albeit without the drug), The same problems of what is self and ego and our subjective (or in deed is that ever possible) experience of ego death are discussed. Stephen Gaskin a sixties hippie teacher had a neat saying "ego is for ensuring you cut the log not your arm" or some thing like that.

i was in a severe catonic state for 7+days in 2007 after withdrawling from a 2 gram a day Lyrica habbit and consuming a gram of tramadol and LSD(not a suicide attempt i swear just ignorance and being 17. It was like where I was in a paranoid state where everyone around me was my scitzophranic uncle(who would go into peoples bodies) and they were trying to trick me and doctors were trying to help me, i remember every second of the experience, and even remember certain things on television, wiping my dick out at nurses because the cathedere hurt, i would be in rigid positiuons for periods at a time and they thaught i was going to snap my own back, as soon as I left my local hospital and traveled to a university hospital I finally started to regain my self, I honestly thought around 6 months have passed when it was only 6-7 days for the longest time I thought I was dead after words(up to a year) but my rational mind eventually came back much stronger then ever and now im very erradicte but cant stop absorbing information, everything fascinates me ,

It was such a life changing experience and the whole tme during the catonic stage I thought I was dead. it was deff the most awful thing ever

 

[OrphicTrench]

Thanks for the source Ismene, I don't want to fall into an argument with you and I won't. It's great to stay heads up and critic when it comes to religion, but I'm sad that that is all you'll ever know about Buddhism. I really don't think of it as a religion and every Buddhist book I read went in that same direction.

 

[Ismene]

I used to be a big fan of Buddhism - then I read about the behaviour of the Tibetan buddhist monks for the last thousand years which was basically acting as brutal slavemasters and taking all the gold and leaving the Tibetan slaves impoverished. That put me off a bit. I can still read about it but I don't take it at face value. When you read about the ancient and holy Dali Lamas they never mention gouging their slaves eyes out for misbehaving. But it's an interesting subject - if you get something out of then that's ok. I do find psychedelics a bit purer and more truthful than the man-made stuff tho.

 

[pastelcircus]

schozophrenia shares many traits with autism
so, say, somebody were autistic before they shroomed, and the shrooms exacerbated many of the symptoms
unfamiliar situations or complex emotions trigger feelings of physical threat
a person would feel like they are dying in unfamiliar situations/not knowing what to do
permanent ego loss would probably be comparable to an autistic spectrum disorder or schizophrenia

 

[DwayneHoover]

Got the source for you if it makes any difference:

It's from the book STRANGE FRUIT: ALCHEMY AND RELIGION by Clark Heinrich

...

Thanks for that Ismene. Yea, I've read some shit about Ram Das as well, and while Be Here Now was kind of a nifty publication that really did help many peope "get" what they should strive for when tripping and/or meditating, and I think he did have positive intentions with that, he was really just some American dude who decided to "adopt" that invented persona in order to sell books etc. It was a decent piece of performance art, but you can't necessarily believe stuff he claimed.

The info about the guru's follower who was onto his palming of the acid is priceless, thanks again. I agree anyone who claims to NOT be affected whatsoever by that much LSD is a charlatan... physically impossible unless they have been taking it daily in order to create a tolerance and perform such a trick.

 

[Ismene]

Dwayne being friendly? Is this possible?

 

[DwayneHoover]

^ Haha... yes I can be... believe it or not I like you Ismene... I just find you annoying as I might a longtime spouse, but we both I am sure have alot more in common than different... people find me aggravating and obstinate, too, hehe... kiss kiss you big silly

 

[cj187]

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