The Big & Dandy Natural vs. Chemical / Synthetic Psychedelics Thread

[Solipsis]

Thanks for the inter-forum link nagin, but this is honestly no new discussion. Prepare to be merged, kind thread.

 

[demon66]

I have tried a good bit of natural and synthetic drugs. Have enjoyed both. The only synthetics I would be weary of are the RC's. I feel as if chemists are in a hurry to create as many RC's as possible. Some of these many emerging RC's can be more poisons than anything else.

Though LSD is an excellent synthetic chem.

 

[huolesoh]

i adore nature
i respect the role of synthetics
but there's 'something about the leaves and the trees'

it's kind of like a cheap sugar hit of cast white refined sugar in comparison to the more enriched deep flavours of honey

at times i feel kind of "trapped" by modern living. at heart, i just wanna live in a cave and eat mushrooms and farm for eternity!

 

[greenmeanies]

oh, a minecraft lover are we? :D

 

[huolesoh]

i tried to play minecraft once but it just crashed. im on a mac so i guess that makes me the opposite of a caveman

but it does look very pretty and magical from the pictures i've seen, and i use to play runescape, which i feel ashamed but nostalgic about now, so i can certainly understand the escape into pixelated magical lands...

 

[greenmeanies]

ah, minecraft does seem to run terribly on mac for no apparent reason. but it gets updated often and really shines in multiplayer when you can build enormous structures in a couple hours. but that's becoming OT now...

i will admit that i have never had a more immersive body feeling with mother earth than i did on a high dose of harmala + psilocybes... i could feel my skin diffuse, take on water, and turn into moist mushroom flesh... my neural network extended miles away to touch places far across the globe... my eyes became useless because there was so much more information present in the air, water, light, and sound bombarding my skin

but i will not say that 2c-i was mechanical or chemical. my best 2c-i trip was camping in the mountains, and i had a wonderful time playing with a sparkler, skywriting tracers while the clouds boiled above EDIT: actually, since i was really enjoying the sparkler, i guess my 2c-i trip WAS chemical or synthetic in essence potassium, iron, magnesium, sulfur! flashing fire and burning bright! but then again, who is to truly say what is natural and what is invented? heavy elements like gold and cobalt are 'unnatural' in the sense that they are simply not able to be produced by normal nuclear fusion (the process inside stars).. they must be formed inside an enormous supernova collapse event.

2c-t-7 felt very animal, savage, jungle-like. i communicated with my cats well on that one.

2c-e made every one of my friends truly appreciate the moss on the side of a tree with their entire souls

 

[Focus on Magic]

Splitz "Yes... a chemical is a chemical. If you were to synthesise a chemical that is found naturally, it would be the exact same thing. Maybe it's just a psychological thing, whereby you feel that eating soil is somehow better for your 'soul' than eating something out of a petri dish. >_>

I'm not really that cynical, btw. It's true though. "


I'm sorry but i disagree here... for emample.. if you take the cactas.. and eat it, make a stew and drink it or whatever method as long as you ingest the cactas.. you will get a completely different trip then you would if someone synthesized mescaline in a lab.

because the cactas contains other alkaloids and compounds that contribute to the true nature of the trip.

Thats why we can only learn the truth about Ourselfs, about life from the true organics grown in nature.

What we learn from a man made substance can be full of misleading falsehoods.. be careful of the devils potion and the false Love.

Only through the earth can we learn the truth about ourselfs

 

[greenmeanies]

ah, but the VALUE of the synthetic compound-- that's where we have to agree to disagree.

I agree that YES, psilocybe cubensis can be a qualitatively different trip than laboratory 4-hydroxy-DMT.

I agree that YES, san pedro cactus can be a qualitatively different trip than laboratory 3,4,5-trimethoxy-PEA.

I however DISAGREE that there is any spiritual or divine component of cactus tea that makes it somehow "more full of truth" than mescaline made in a lab. I firmly believe that the God and Devil are not contained in the drink, but in the man. Your own heart and soul are the vessel doing the tripping, and the origin of the chemical key is of no importance.

If anything, as a chemist I would say that ingesting man-made compounds that explore our human consciousness is indeed one of the deepest of profound cosmic jokes. Imagine a conversation between Shulgin and the "Cactus spirit god"...

S: Hello there Cactus God, how are you today? Pleasant trans-dimensional journey I hope.
C: Good afternoon doctor. How has mankind been all these centuries?
S: War, peace, war again, you know the drill. But there is some new development on the spiritual front!
C: Is that so? New doorways into our realm!
S: Indeed! With careful study of our own physiology, we have crafted new tools that give us a more complete understanding of the relationship that You and the Mushroom God have given us to the spiritual world within!
C: I had become worried about the sudden thirst of mankind for enlightenment, as my cactus brethren do not grow quickly or plentiful enough to satisfy his hunger for Truth.
S: Yes, with studious use of these new tools, a new generation of young explorers has been able to commune in the Light to their own tastes. Some of the drugs are quick, some are delayed, some are mild and others downright nasty. It has given us all new perspective on where to seek for Truth.
C: How marvelous! My green flesh was only able to create a few dozen related compounds for your enjoyment, and here you are with hundreds of new structures! I must go tell Mushroom God, he will be thrilled to hear of your work!

(btw i'm a little high)

 

[Seattle_Stranger]

Mind over matter, ladies. That is the number one factor here. With something like psychedelics, where experiences can vary across the entire spectrum, your set and setting can drive the effects of the drug.

If you have a belief that by taking something that came directly from nature makes you more at one with it, like it's healthier, more complete, etc., then you will most likely get much more positive effects from natural sources.

If you believe that synthetics are 'perfect' versions of nature, cleaner, more potent, better, etc., then guess what? Synths will probably have better effects for you.

Having said that, of course there is science behind it. I feel like naturals are 'better' (define better) because they include tons of other alkaloids, analogues and similar chemicals to the one you are after, which provides the 'complete' experience. Synthetics are all but one isolated chemical, which can give the experience you're looking for, but not the entire experience intended by nature.

It's not a psychedelic, but the absolute best example I can make for this is synthetic opioids vs raw poppy pods. When you take oxycodone for example, its one single man-made alkaloid and it feels like it too. With a crushed up poppy pod made into tea, you're getting thousands of opiates, all doing different but similar things. The difference in experiences is night and day, including duration of effects. ~20mg of oxy will get me going for ~4 hours. A glass of poppy pod tea will keep me high for 24+ hours, and glowing well into the next day. Also, with oxy, it leaves as fast as it comes, dropping you like an ugly baby, leaving you fiending for more. Pods will wear off slowlllyyyyy and gently leaving you glowing and happy about the nearly 2 day long euphoria experience you just got for ~$5. Try getting a similar experience using synthetic opioids and let me know how much it costs you and how you feel after you run out.

Even further into the opiate thing (sorry, not trying to de-rail, I know this is a psych discussion), I've had many poor opiate experiences with synthetics like oxy and vicodin, where I'll eat a bunch of pills and get no effects, or get disappointing effects, etc.. Then along comes kratom, not only a natural substance but a LEGAL one too, and every single time I get the effects I expect, they last long, they satisfy me, it's very cost effective, and when it wears off I don't find myself scrambling for more. I also never got a distinguishable effect from benzos and I've been prescribed nearly all of them. while Kava Kava, I get effects from.

Let's not even talk about cannabis vs JWH-XXX.

You decide.

 

[Focus on Magic]

greenmeanies- i see where your coming from and from a certain point of view you made some interesting points.

But i have to agree with seattle stranger.. he even backed up what i said and its proven science.. the the other alkaloids in the cactas will give you a totally different experience then the labratory made needle point mescalne shards.

My point is not that God or the devil are in the cactas.. but the truth is because its been growing on the earth long before we were here as people.

My refferance to the devils potion is usually twards MDMA because it creates a false Love,,its man made and therefore could very well be the Evil ones recipe. Allowing us to believe we are at peace.. allowing us to believe we are in Love..when iin reality when it wears off we are not.. not to mention the addiction to can bring and ruining peoples lifes because they "love " it so much.

Don't get me wrong.. about 10 years ago i got puddled with a super heave dose of clean(well as clean as you can get) Silver Liquid L.. and i did have a religious trip.. the first 4 hours were wonderful.. then the battle began.. the battle of good and evil within.. so i understand what your saying about the truth being in us already..but we do have to unlock it with a key.. And what i'm really trying to say is.. the " man made key" could lead us through a false door while we're thinking we are walking into the light when in fact we're blinded by the darkness.

so yes we can learn from the man made and i'm gonna limit that only to LSD.. a heavy enough dose is like taking a bite of an apple of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.

So in a sence..we are both right from a certain point of view.

Also..too many people are weak minded and therfore will be decieved by the devils potions

where as if they ate the cactas they would learn something..wheter its something going on in thier lives.. or an ego death.. yes you can have both from the cactas and L but the truth and nothing but the truth is in the cactas..where as in the man made L.. false truths can deceive even the biggest ego on earth

the wicked one is so powerfull and tricky he even tricked a 1/3 of Gods angels to follow him,, so who can tell me they cant be decieved my a man made chemical.. the devils potions

 

[Seattle_Stranger]

greenmeanies- i see where your coming from and from a certain point of view you made some interesting points.

But i have to agree with seattle stranger.. he even backed up what i said and its proven science.. the the other alkaloids in the cactas will give you a totally different experience then the labratory made needle point mescalne shards.

My point is not that God or the devil are in the cactas.. but the truth is because its been growing on the earth long before we were here as people.

My refferance to the devils potion is usually twards MDMA because it creates a false Love,,its man made and therefore could very well be the Evil ones recipe. Allowing us to believe we are at peace.. allowing us to believe we are in Love..when iin reality when it wears off we are not.. not to mention the addiction to can bring and ruining peoples lifes because they "love " it so much.

Don't get me wrong.. about 10 years ago i got puddled with a super heave dose of clean(well as clean as you can get) Silver Liquid L.. and i did have a religious trip.. the first 4 hours were wonderful.. then the battle began.. the battle of good and evil within.. so i understand what your saying about the truth being in us already..but we do have to unlock it with a key.. And what i'm really trying to say is.. the " man made key" could lead us through a false door while we're thinking we are walking into the light when in fact we're blinded by the darkness.

so yes we can learn from the man made and i'm gonna limit that only to LSD.. a heavy enough dose is like taking a bite of an apple of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.

So in a sence..we are both right from a certain point of view.

Also..too many people are weak minded and therfore will be decieved by the devils potions

where as if they ate the cactas they would learn something..wheter its something going on in thier lives.. or an ego death.. yes you can have both from the cactas and L but the truth and nothing but the truth is in the cactas..where as in the man made L.. false truths can deceive even the biggest ego on earth

the wicked one is so powerfull and tricky he even tricked a 1/3 of Gods angels to follow him,, so who can tell me they cant be decieved my a man made chemical.. the devils potions

You have very interesting points. The scientists will argue with you, however I see it like this:

Science is also man made, and it's nothing but a "best guess that most people agree on". Science is not equal to fact. We don't know everything about everything, we don't know much about how the human brain really works and any scientific data we have is, again, a "best guess". We also don't know much about these substances, whether they be synthetic or natural.

However, on that same token, nature itself is more advanced than us humans are in the sense that it is all encompassing, and all together within itself. It heals itself, it creates and destroys itself, it changes and evolves itself and manifests itself in ways beyond human understanding. There is a harmonic balance surrounded by nature and everything really is the way it is for a reason, and I don't mean that in a religious way AT ALL.

Having said that, I trust nature, not humans. It knows what it's doing. This is why when you are on an organic substance, you feel so at one with nature because essentially....you are. I also think this is why natural substances like mushrooms and opium actually feel natural, because they actually are natural processes occurring within nature itself. Once you start mucking with that, and trying to recreate what we feel is our "closest representation of a natural alkaloid" like synthetic mescaline and oxycodone, and then even synthesizing what we see as "better than the natural version" or "better than anything available in nature" (amphetamines anyone?), now you're treading in uncharted, unintended territory. When drugs are giving you ungodly amounts of energy, euphoria, and other effects that simply just feel unnatural, it's just not the way it was meant to be and nature will let you know.

Humans have fucked things up on Earth enough by doing things that just were never meant to happen.

Yeah I'm a hippy.

 

[huolesoh]

yes im with the above, seattle, on trusting nature more then mankind

i liked the sparkler analogy!

i can relate to the idea put forward much earlier in thread of "it doesn't matter how you get there, be it with synthetic or natural, but that you arrive" kind of thing, although i'd also agree there are different feels due to a complex mix of chemicals in a mushroom/cactus compared to a single refined chemical

here's another perspective: a cactus is a living organism, similar to us, so consuming something that is actually *alive* is different to consuming powders

i'd like to know if sassafras; the precursor to MDMA, is particularly active before it's refinement?
i read a couple reports on erowid of people consuming it claiming it was, but there were literally only 2
maybe it could create a sense of "loved up" without as much of an artificial feel to it

 

[Seattle_Stranger]

yes im with the above, seattle, on trusting nature more then mankind

i liked the sparkler analogy!

i can relate to the idea put forward much earlier in thread of "it doesn't matter how you get there, be it with synthetic or natural, but that you arrive" kind of thing, although i'd also agree there are different feels due to a complex mix of chemicals in a mushroom/cactus compared to a single refined chemical

here's another perspective: a cactus is a living organism, similar to us, so consuming something that is actually *alive* is different to consuming powders

i'd like to know if sassafras; the precursor to MDMA, is particularly active before it's refinement?
i read a couple reports on erowid of people consuming it claiming it was, but there were literally only 2
maybe it could create a sense of "loved up" without as much of an artificial feel to it

I've experimented with sassafras root quite a bit as of recently, and never got much more than a (placebo?) warming body feeling. Butterflies in the stomach if you will, but definitely nothing like an MDMA high. No euphoria to speak of, maybe a slight, slight relaxing feeling. For comparison, I find kratom to feel like a weak dose of MDMA, and sass compared to kratom is like comparing Starbucks to Adderall.

It's definitely not unpleasant, especially if the nice warmth, mild tummy-glow happens consistently, but still, don't expect anything resembling a roll.

 

[Survived Abortion]

My point is not that God or the devil are in the cactas.. but the truth is because its been growing on the earth long before we were here as people...

My refferance to the devils potion is usually twards MDMA because it creates a false Love,,its man made and therefore could very well be the Evil ones recipe. Allowing us to believe we are at peace.. allowing us to believe we are in Love..when iin reality when it wears off we are not.. not to mention the addiction to can bring and ruining peoples lifes because they "love " it so much...

Also..too many people are weak minded and therfore will be decieved by the devils potions...

the wicked one is so powerfull and tricky he even tricked a 1/3 of Gods angels to follow him,, so who can tell me they cant be decieved my a man made chemical.. the devils potions

Surely you have to be trolling man, or else you are tragically deluded. I'm not going to detail right now the ins and outs of why this is the case, but most of what you are believing is based on a terrible delusion perpetuated by belief systems propped up by ambitions of greed and political domination.

If you can understand the wholistic nature of spirituality without the poisonous hogwash of the belief systems which hijacked it a couple of millenia ago then you will be able to evaluate these things thoroughly.

Please don't tell me that man-made things are the "devil's potion". Human beings are nature. And we are not seperate from our environment. We have just been programmed and brainwashed in to believing that we are helpless little sinners, wretched beings separated from all that is. Which is of course nonsense.

The worst problem in the spiritual communities is that most people get their spiritual ideas from the next person, rather than themselves. Look inside yourself and forget everything you've been told about good and evil, right and wrong. Just experience what it is to exist in this divine symphony.

 

[Focus on Magic]

Honestly i can think less of who thinks i'm a troll or this or that.. wtf is a troll anyway? and who the hell are you to judge me? who do you think you are? some superior being? get the fuck out of here.

you think i'm gonna listen to some punk from england whos ancesters came to america and slaughter the native americans to steal thier land and gold.and thier PEYOTE..lol get the fuck out of here.. you have no clue my friend.

what makes you a judge to judge me like that?

you think i'm nobody who dosn't know anything? if i were to judge you i'd say you dont know your ass from your elbow but i'm not and i won't

keep hating just like the others ... i know what's up.. i know i'm real..and so do others..so stfu and leave me alone

peace Mr magic.. yea thats right .. i show love to everyone who shows me it.. the exposer..thats right ..i expose the shadyness cuz the love comes the heart and shines from the soul

 

[adrian89987]

greenmeanies- i see where your coming from and from a certain point of view you made some interesting points.

But i have to agree with seattle stranger.. he even backed up what i said and its proven science.. the the other alkaloids in the cactas will give you a totally different experience then the labratory made needle point mescalne shards.

So what if you took those same chemicals found in cacti, synthesized them (in a lab) and ate in a similar ratio as found in nature? Of course its going to be different when there are other chemicals involved...but this does not devalue the experience elicited by chemicals that are only found when synthesized by man. It is still interaction with a human nervous system creating an experience.

 

[Focus on Magic]

i guess you dont understand... its still proccessed by man...its not the same as the naturally growing substance

 

[Humboldt]

Maybe you also don't understand: even if man processes and gives the right circumstances, the substance is naturally grown anyways as man is part of the nature, too.
Which does not have to mean the experiences will be always the same... especially if you focus on plant spirits and stuff you might recognize them during your trips. If they are there you might just be more sensitive than others or otherwise it's placebo, who knows? Even trips on the chemically same psychedelic can be soo different... And even trips on synthetic compounds as DPT can be so in touch with nature...

 

[Focus on Magic]

i'm not gonna argue about this anymore... thisis the last time i'm gonna say it..

the man made chemicals can and will allow you to believe falsehoods.. thats why thier called the devils potion because thier meant to allow you to be decieved.

 

[adrian89987]

Lol sorry dude I am a chemist, I view all things as molecule no matter what created them. A plant is simply a complex synthetic machine.

Cocaine grows in plants but makes a lot of people believe they are the SHIT when they really are not... if that's not a falsehood then I don't know what is. Who calls man-made chemicals devils potions? Where is proof that solely man-made chemicals can allow you to believe falsehood whereas this can not happen with plants? What respected authority has been making these claims?! Really.... they are meant to allow to you to be decieved? Who made them with that purpose?

Man is an aspect of nature, components of man (the hands and mind) work to produce these chemicals. Plants are also an aspect of nature and components of certain plants (enzymes etc.) work to produce their chemicals. This is a false dichotomy to separate the two.

Until we can measure some difference between a molecule made by a plant and the same molecule produced synthetically, I will believe that the only difference is due to placebo. As for our current theories and instrumentation they are physically and chemically exactly the same