Tripping............please read it's long but interesting...........

[The Real Special K]

Did anyone read the SMH Good Weekend this weekend? (Sorry non Aussies but there is a point).
Anyway there was an article titled Cereal Monogamy and there was a smaller side article about Bread & LSD.
It was all about a remote village in southern France where a lot of folk had visitations, around the Easter Celebrations. Many people saw the Virgin Mary and others claimed to hear voices etc etc. Otherwise psychologically stable individuals began to show signs of disorientation and other forms of illness, the priest claimed it to be a miracle.
The local doctor (a non religious man) began testing patients and contacted researchers. What the researchers found was the local baker had been using flour, which was very wet due to a bad winter, it had become moist and somewhat mouldy, the Rye had been contaminated with LSD.
So to cut a long story short all these sightings where put down to people tripping their chops off.
My question is……have you every wondered, does LSD make you see the truth (or something) maybe when we trip or take hallucinogenic drugs we see things how they are really meant to be seen??? Like are people in asylums really mad or do they see things others not so perceptive see ??
Your thoughts………….
Special K

 

[liquidocean]

Yeah, acid is lysergic acid diethylamide, i'm assuming lyergic is the same as ergot, which is the fungus that acid is derived from (as well as morning glory seeds, of course). It's supposedly responsible for countless poisonings and psychotic & religious episodes during the Dark Ages.
As for seeing truth, i do think that it removes veils and filters from the neuro/psychological interface allowing us to perceive pure perception untainted by any control mechanism/ego. Not that it's instant zen, but it is pure vision and insight for those that use the realizations productively.
According to Terrence McKenna, mushrooms caused the beginnings of language and spirituality, and that when the sources of mushrooms dried up, they left the dead husk of spirituality, religion. Without the fuel of psychedelics, the rituals contained in the religions became mostly symbolic and irrelevant. Take a look at the catholic church. Very powerful imagery, especially the cathedrals. But wouldn't taking the piece of unleavened bread (the eucharist?) have so much more significance if it was dosed wish some lsd?
It's possible to have religious experiences without psychedelics. But we realize it's much easier with them. There needs to be a sense of awe, and if you're living in late 20th century urban western civ, it's going to take something extraordinary to push you over the edge.
Legalize psychedelics, revive the churches! Sound systems in the cathedral!

 

[Housekid7]

i think hallucinigenics let you believe what you want and see what you want. The people were realigious and in this circumstance they believed they were hearing voices and seeing figures, and because they couldnt explain them they said they were the virgin mary, etc... its all subconscious, thoughts you dont know you have and feelings that are suppressed were realeased

 

[liquidocean]

Yeah, that sounds right, like psychedelics open some sort of subconscious trap door, and all this psychological phenomena start streaming out, unrepressed.
Wonder if there's anything out there that will accomplish the same effect without requiring ingestion?
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[Kasia]

Of course LSD - same as shrooms (and XTC and MJ in some extend) let's you see the TRUTH. It cleans your mind from what the society has taught you, would be the purpose of your life (like running after money and career).
BTW that's EXACTLY the reason why drugs are forbidden...
One Love -
K.

 

[Pillcat]

Liquidocean - LOVED your reply, I love it when people are thoughtful in that way, I would love to trip with you some day

I think also, tripping makes you battle with the truth in some ways. On one hand your mind is being so opened, and the barriers are being torn down, as previously mentioned. But at the same time, the human brain is so used to rationalising things, and is constantly relating every new bit of information it gets to the old, stored bits of information, in an effort to make sense of it; to categorise it and explain it.
That's why you are always controlling your trip to some extent. You will still see only what you want to see, or what you can rationalise and understand. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, cos if things go wrong, you can rationalise and talk yourself out of it.
Tripping, haven't done it for years, and am GREATLY looking forward to it at camp bluelight!

Cat

 

[Pyro]

I belive that psycadelics are a doorway of sorts. I think it's different for each psycadelic though. But you can kinda put them each into their own family of general ways in which they work.
I think LSD and the like (although I think LSD is very unique) are like temporary doors attached to the mind. A doorway into the subconscious... but YOU don't necessarily have the control. It's your subconscious that has the grip while under the influence. If you're more in tune with who YOU are as a person as a sentient being, then the trip will seem more focused and in tune. More clear and profound. A definate meaning. Things won't appear that could cause you to snap or go insaine. That is, the more you are at 'one'. repeate, 'one'

as for shrooms... I think mushrooms are a gift from a being, or beings or entity. I honestly believe that. It has been proved to me time and again from what I've heard about mushroom trips. I think shrooms actually 'tune in' your brain to recieve messages and images that you would not see on your own without proper training and meditation. I think mushrooms are the most sacred of 'drugs' avaliable. Perhaps... even the chemical acting as a 'active conduit' for communication in certain ways.
I think the ecstasy trip needs to be addressed as well. While it's not often hallucinogenic, I think it acts in much the same way as LSD. I think it is similar to a doorway attaching to the 'soul' and the subconsious... but a doorway with a locked screen. You can view and you can analyze, but nothing is going to come out that will possibly destory you. Nothing you can't handle mentally will be revealed.
Although, I must add this disclaimer that I believe strongly that none of this will be seen by the person who takes any of these drugs to get fucked up or out of their minds. Or as a means of escape (although ecstasy can come back and bite ya when you arne't looking). I think a lot of this is seen during a time of introspection or meditation. Dancing definatly counts as a time of introspection. One wouldn't even have to technically meditate, just sit calmly and 'chill'. Let things come as they may and to be observant.
That's what I say.
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[liquidocean]

Thanks, Cat, you sent a nice tingling down my spine

I know what you mean, we are never really free from that sort of internal dialogue, or if we are and we've advanced some, the two sort of fuse into one. Especially after positive e experiences. It's like we have two voices talking in our heads and hearts, and instead of them bumbling around, they actually communicate perfectly with each other, so much that it's hard to tell which voice is doing the talking at a certain time.
Example: you walk down the street after a good roll late in the night, pass a homeless guy, he asks for a smoke; your mind calculates how many cigarettes you have left, it wonders how much this guy wants a smoke, and you either feel enough compassion or you don't, and then in concert, you as a whole make a decision and carry it out. When a person is in harmony, there's still different voices, but their interaction is symphonic.
I'd like to believe we can hit a state of complete mental clearness, but it seems kinda unrealistic. Maybe for a couple hours, or maybe in a state of total focus, but we need to have our feet in the ground, we do live on the earth, and if anything, we have to make sure we aren't so clear we forget about reason and compassion.
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Yeah Pyro, i get the same feeling as well, that there is more of a direct divine message coming through the mushroom experience than other highs. First for me i have a greater physical self-connection on them than e, secondly pure spiritual messages and divine intelligence seem to come from high, wheras e seems more of a user-friendly do-it-yourself supercharge. I don't get into aliens, but i've felt a lot of echoes from native cultures from i'm in that sphere.
Getting back to the subject, kinda

, i wonder whether the motif of people's imagery has more to do with the stuff ingested, or the setting ingested in, or the mood of the person taking it, or their psychological background, or their cultural background, or their genetic makeup. If i take mushrooms at Joshua Tree and i see aztec patterns and i'm not mexican, well where do they come from? If i wasn't raised catholic, is there anything i can take that will make me conjure visions of Mary?
It's like how people postulate that the context or morphogenetic field around a drug/sacrament sort of forms an atmosphere that influences other people's experiences. Just like becoming a new member on this board, you sort of live with the continuation of what went before. And i don't totally agree with this, but the next leap of faith to make is that mushroom trips you take now are influenced by mushroom trips of shamans, seekers, and searchers in the past, who probably used it in a ritualized context. So lsd, by default, which was created in the 40's and predominantly used in the last 30 years, should give an experience that is reflective of the late twentieth century. And that did happen, at least with Ken Kesey, Tim Leary, the grateful dead. Day glow, electric acid, psychedelic art, intensely contrasted color.
Who would have known how it would have turned out if a whole cultural generation were exposed to mescaline, or mushrooms, instead?
Or mdma, what is the field that we're entering, who has gone before us, what is our cultural relevance, what is fundamental in this chemical? And that sort of matches up. It's an amphetamine that gives you a warm, content, emotional experience. We are a technological generation used to manipulating our sensory environments. We are globally headed to economic uncertainty and ecological collapse (some places more than others, of course). And we come from different backgrounds in a hybrid society, from parents whose generation, most likely, threw themselves out past their edge of human experience, they realized that there was something out there. Now we're realizing there's something in here, and the cycle keeps rolling. (Unlike the 80's which weren't even close to rolling

)
Yeah i talk like i was alive during the 60's, i'm just taking some shots in the dark. Thanks for reading.
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"take a point, and roll with it!"

 

[miss apple]

I'm sorry, I have nothing to add as I have never taken a psychedelic (shrooms, LSD, whatever) but I just wanted to say thanks for the insightful, interesting read.

liquidocean, pyro, pillcat you've raised some very interesting thoughts and ideas that I'd like to explore during my first trip in a couple of weeks. I'll let you know how I go

miss apple

 

[liquidocean]

-miss appllonia-
good luck on whatever forays you make into the psychedelic realm. understand that you control the setting you're gonna trip in and it's your choice as to what feel it's going to have. Try to understand that my tripping has changed drastically after taking e. The e experience is so overwhelmingly positive, and sensuous, and personable. I have really taken these aspects and applied them to mushroom and acid trips. It's hard not to trip and not to want to be in the ecstacy state. I guess there could be worse fates

.
In my pre-e psychedelic days, my trips had an ritual introspective meditative core to them, which totally contrasts the hyper-extroverted fun machine i become when the mdma starts kickin' in. More spiritually serious and unwavering, kinda more solemn and in respectful awe. Sort of tightening the belt on the party mindset. Good mellow hiking, sitting on a mountain sort of thing, friends take on the role of the Wizard of Oz characters, sunsets are supremely religious, the beat emanates from the earth.
I save them for nature still, and recommend you do as well. Try to change the context while you're at it, it's a fresh breath. Nature is so much better for mushrooms, especially as too many people can be kinda unsettling as it is. Plus it's hard to concentrate and to hear the wisdom and beauty of whatever entity pouring into you. Not nearly the people drug e is.
Then after a couple trips, that might be a good time to try it in the rave/club context. But of course you're gonna do what you're gonna do. Just take a lot less (1/3-1/2 an eigth max, definitely 1/2 of what you take in nature is a good rule). Indoor/outdoor events are MUCH better as you can really get claustrophobic indoors, especially when it's hot. I took some mushies to see Jimmy Page/Robert Plant at the Forum in LA a bunch of years back, and i was so claustrophobic and tripped out by the columns that i was seen outside for almost a good half-hour just holding on to one of the pathetic landscaped trees just for a little nature connection. Whoops! Wrong context.

Last couple trips: too mushrooms to see Thievery Corporation spin in SF, way too packed and hot to deal, but insane music. Took almost too much and the visuals from the lights were pretty intense. Was able to loosen my body up and was able to dance more bouncy.
Took mushrooms to see a great local dj (Dano, Red Melon records, Cafe Cocomo). 1/2 eigth really kind good vibe shrooms, these things must have been blessed by the Dalai Lama! The set was an awesome deep deep house, and i was able to dance with 140% of the proficiency i usally dance with. Complete music-mind-body connection, and good amount of space to feel comfortable. My friend was on 1/3 green triangle (some of us like them, esp. in small doses) and almost a gram of mushies. She usually takes e, and this was her first exposure to the fungus. She could not believe such a state could be experienced. She was actually feeling so good that she was dying to take off her clothes at the place, it just felt so right, and i had to tell her several times "that's not a good idea". Who am i to talk like that!
But that's after a good 20 or so trips in nature. Please take it first in that context. It's so much more than a "club drug". It really has the most potential for life-changing revitalization and shamanistic inquiry. Acid, blah, that stuff reacts terribly with my body, makes me burp, shit, and feel like ass. Mushrooms, however, chemically burrow themselves into the DNA, then rotate to 12,000 rpm, at which point an energy flash appears, and i become supercharged.

 

[liquidocean]

!!!pot eht ot kcab

 

[Belisarius]

I know this is an old thread, but when I saw that it had been "resurrected", I was so interested by the topic that I had to respond.
So some people like to think that psychedelics can give you a glimpse of reality, as if the "real world" were just a
smokescreen placed over our eyes, waiting to be pierced. I think I can prove that psychedelics do NOT improve one's picture of reality. At least, I can prove that it's impossible to prove that they do so.
Now, I'm a person who considers it possible that the entire world is an illusion. Doesn't mean I think it is, but I think it cannot be ruled out. So follow my line of reasoning in this example.
Three friends are in an apartment one night--Jack, Jim, and Jane. Jack is tripping on LSD. Jim and Jane watch him carefully, keeping him company and making sure he doesn't go mad.
Suddenly, Jack sees Jim turn into a canteloupe. Holy shit, Jack thinks to himself as he arises and approaches Jim. He tries to confirm his perception; yes, Jim looks like a canteloupe. He feels like a canteloupe. He smells like a canteloupe. He even tastes like a canteloupe. Yes, Jack thinks, Jim has definitely turned into a canteloupe. Is his view of Jim more "real" now that he's seen this? Give me a break.
Jane sees that Jim is NOT a canteloupe. Jim
knows and feels that he is not a canteloupe,
a feeling that is strengthened when he smacks the shit outta Jack for acting like a moron and pervert. If only Jim was there, he'd know that he wasn't a canteloupe. If ten, or a hundred, or a thousand other people were watching Jack trip, they would see that Jim didn't turn into a canteloupe.
The point of this little parable is that a major component of reality is that it can be independently confirmed. So even if the world is illusion, people in this illusion still perceive (or seem to perceive) that
some things are real and can be perceived by all, and some are not. A hallucination cannot be independently confirmed, no more than a dream can be independently confirmed.
If anything, psychedelics remove you *farther* from "reality" than regular perception because of this isolation.
Even if by some off-chance psychedelics really do give you a taste/glimpse of "reality", because it cannot be confirmed it doesn't exist--it's only a snapshot of reality, not the subject of the picture itself. So, you're going to be deluded one way or the other. If psychedelics are good for anything, they're only good for personal development.