• N&PD Moderators: Skorpio | thegreenhand

Reducing or preventing tolerance to psychedelics (Please move this to ADD)

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(with 15 mg phosphate ester, orally) "It is meaningful to say that I ceased to exist, becoming immersed in the ground of Being, in Brahman, in God, in 'nothingness,' in Ultimate Reality, or in some similar religious symbol for oneness. The feelings I experienced could best be described as cosmic tenderness, infinite love, penetrating peace, eternal blessing and unconditional acceptance on one hand and, on the other, as unspeakable awe, overflowing joy, primeval humility, inexpressible gratitude and boundless devotion. Yet, all of these words are hopelessly inadequate and can do little more than meekly point toward the genuine, inexpressible feelings actually experienced. It is misleading even to use the words, 'I experienced,' as during the peak of the experience (which must have lasted at least an hour) there was no duality between myself and what I experienced. Rather, I was these feelings, or ceased to be in them and felt no loss at the cessation. Four days after the experience itself, I continue to feel a deep sense of awe and reverence, and am simultaneously intoxicated with an ecstatic joy. This euphoric feeling is in no sense analogous to hebephrenic giddiness; it includes elements of profound peace and steadfastness, surging like a spring from a depth of my being which has rarely, if ever, been tapped prior to the drug experience."
http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/tihkal/tihkal16.shtml

(with perhaps 15 mg, smoked) "I took a hit from the pipe with five-methoxy in it, and after the 8 to 10 seconds it took to carry the chemical to my brain I remember starting to fall over from my sitting position. My normal physical perceptions dissolved away from my awareness. My ears started to ring and I started to float off. I was acutely aware of a certain resonation of my aural perception, an electrical buzzing that fluctuated in synch with my visual perception. What I saw can only be described as a fantastically subtle multicolored phosphene, completely filling every area visually available. I say it in this way because I was simultaneously losing contact with my body, I could not tell if my eyes were open or shut, although I initially had the feeling that they were darting back and forth, from side to side. These feelings and sensations built up in intensity very quickly, a matter of seconds: I can remember this feeling of building intensity up to a point, and then I was not there in my body or in time. In the 10 to 15 minutes that my body was under the influence of the drug my mind was completely referenceless, there was no way for my consciousness to limit or gauge the stimuli my being was barraged with. I remember switching to a perception where the endless and intricate phosphene was love and the energy of light. I called upon those forces within my being to realign and submit, to let go of all the cogent fears and just exist ... and that innate decision saved me a lot of psychic damage. What is most outstanding about the way it feels is an inability to judge in any way, by any method of the mind ... it is unconquerable, as deep and profound as a totally unconditional love that is life. What a trip, huh?"

http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/tihkal/tihkal38.shtml
 
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GBL now scheduled here also cures and suppresses CANCER!

If that were the case, don't you think they'd be using it for such? Then again, when you read the rest it sounds like the deranged babbling of someone in desparate need of a giggle jacket...

Why is it that some people see deranged babbling as enlightenment? Truely enlightened people such as the Dalai Lama don't babble incoherently, but are measured in what they say and come across as thoughtful and very happy in their life, not as some hypomanic loon in full flow.


case in point, i guess. kids, drugs are bad, mkay?

I does make it look like that doesn't it =D
 
I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so present about that place
Even your emotions have an echo in so much space

And when you're out there without care
I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much

Does that make me crazy
Does that make me crazy
Does that make me crazy
Possibly

In all that you were having the time of your life
But think twice That's my only advice
Cmon now
who do you
who do you
who do you
who do you think you are
ha ha ha
Bless your soul
You really think you're in control

Well
I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
Just like me

My heroes had the heart to live their lives out on a limb
All I remember
Was thinking I wanna be like them
Ever since I was little
Ever since I was little
It looked like fun
It was no coincidence I've come
And I can die when I'm done

But maybe I'm crazy
Maybe you're crazy
Maybe we're crazy
Probably

--

So, we're all crazy – or at least maybe, possibly.
http://www.lyricinterpretations.com/lookat.php/bands/Gnarls-Barkley/4e33187d552f0f3
 
WTF. You need a break, man.

either that are you're just starving for attention, and posting random shit to try and get a response.
 
Bro... you need to stop using drugs altogether.
Recreational ones anyway, at least.
 
If this gets another posting of lyrics, I'm going to close it as it has fuck all to do with advanced drug discussion (other than an example of how extremely heavy use of psychedelics can alter a person's mental state)


I'm not about to flip out, I'm about to burst into hyperspacelife.

I'm afraid from what & the way you're posting you flipped a long time ago and if you keep up that drug regeime tou'll end up flipping like a fish out of water. You don't have to listen to the advice being given (by several BLers that have experience of this sort of thing), but you do have to stop posting all the off-topic babbling & shit that has nothing to do with advanced drug discussion.

Failure to adhere to the last part will result in me closing this thread and hunting down any other posts you make in ADD for signs of similar nonsensical babbling. I think this is a valid topic so it's future as a thread is up to you...
 
fastandbulbous said:
If that were the case, don't you think they'd be using it for such? Then again, when you read the rest it sounds like the deranged babbling of someone in desparate need of a giggle jacket...

Why is it that some people see deranged babbling as enlightenment? Truely enlightened people such as the Dalai Lama don't babble incoherently, but are measured in what they say and come across as thoughtful and very happy in their life, not as some hypomanic loon in full flow.


I don't see any difference between their wise words:

We, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes.
-Richard Dawkins



Until a few decades ago scant attention was paid to the pineal gland. Then came the case, noted by Dr. Berman, in which a child was brought to a German clinic suffering from eye trouble and headaches. He was five years old and very mature, and apparently had reached the age of adolescence. He was abnormally bright mentally, discussing metaphysical and spiritual subjects. He was strongly group-conscious and only happy when sharing what he had with others. After his arrival at the clinic, he rapidly grew worse and died in a month. An autopsy showed a tumor of the pineal gland.
- Berman, Louis, M.D., The Glands Regulating Personality, p. 89.



Q. "Who drives you?" A. "The memes of course."
-Susan Blackmore


And there's always light on the cosmic range
I am always high I am always low
There is always change
-Gene Clark - Strength of Strings


A Brief Intro: After many years of using and abusing a wide variety of drugs, it has come to the attention of this author that there are three types of drug users:

1) Experimental drug users who like to take very precise doses and (lord help us) record the effects, and come up wth meaningless psychobabble about k-space and setting, and metaprogramming and such. If it floats your boat, fine, but I've never met a psychonaut who was actually fun to be around while taking drugs. Control freaks. . .and they favor psychedelic type drugs, but make far too big a deal about high doses, and need terms like ego-disintegration to make getting fucked up sound like an intellectual pursuit.

2) Recreational drug users. These folks take a little bit of everything, unlike the EDU's. Drugs are just for having fun, and while the RDU will occasionally lapse into mystical shit while on acid, an RDU will invariably forget to write in the lab notebook in favor of frolicking in a field of dandelions, playing hacky-sack, or some such. Probably the most fun drug user to be around, short-term. . .but also risky, because an RDU, like the teenager at the keg party, is often unaware when they cross over the line from somewaht fucked up to out of control. RDU's often take too much of whatever is going which is goood but hasn't done this often enough to adjust. Nonetheless, an RDU usually sticks to pot, coke (snorted), the occasional opiate. . a psychedelic here and there. Basically likes the smorgasbord, but only eats it on weekends and special occasions.

3) And then there's the people for whom this newsgroup exists: The Hard Drug User [Trumpets rise]. The primary philosophy of the HDU is "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." otherwise known is "lets get fucked up". Bang meth, as phreex says. The question why would someone do that much of substance X is meaningless to an HDU. You do excessive amounts of a substance because, when you're dealing with Hard Drugs, the more you do, the more fucked up you are, and that is a Good Thing. Fuck the lab notebook; I can barely cook a shot, I certainly have no urge to record my impressions. Its a bilevel plateau system: NotFuckEDUp/FuckEDUp. OD'ing? heh. Any HDU worth their salt walks that line like bird on a wire whilst singin like a drunk in a midnight choir; the RDU's worry about od'ing. HDU's worry about having enough to cop a buzz, and still leaving some for the next day. EDU's care about mapping the psychic landscape; HDU's care more about mapping new places to score and convenient places to do drugs when your on the go. Anyways, I'd wager whoever got all shocked over taking what they considered to be the GHB equivalent of two litres of vodka (and many folks would see nothing wrong with that) is an EDU. And to them, I say. . .welcome to ADH. Home of the hard drug users. Enjoy your stay, but we recommend losing the lab notebooks; they make many of us, who have very bitter memories of the Men in White Coats, quite anxious.
http://adhpage.tripod.com/faq.htm

Look down on me, you will see a fool. Look up at me, you will see your lord. Look straight at me, you will see yourself.
- Charles Manson

This happened to me, but in that happening nothing was lost because there never was a me to lose, only a confusion to correct that never existed.
- Steven Norquist

When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity your very effort fills you with activity.
- Sengtsan, Third Zen Patriarch, Hsin Hsin Ming, trans. Richard B. Clarke (Buffalo, NY: White Pine Press, 1973), no page numbers.



Of course everything nearly everything is possible it just depends upon how hard you try if you dig a hole clean through to the otherside all of a sudden what is down sudenly reverses upon itself
-FMAN



It has been stated by Thomas Szasz that what people really need and demand from life is not wealth, comfort or esteem but games worth playing.
http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy/master_game.html


i think it's very dangerous to rely on language as a tool of information transmission

If you do everything right you are going to be king of the world, either in your own world or in the real world.
-FMAN

Bodhi originally has no tree,
The mirror also has no stand.
From the beginning not a thing is,
Where is there room for dust?

I lost my mind was a short statment, when it happened I found the dam thing was solid pure gold in the blank spot.
-FMAN

Fry: How can I live my life if I can't tell good from evil?
Bender: Ahh, they're both fine choices. ...Whatever floats your boat.

The Wu Li Masters know that science and religion are only dances, and that those who follow them are only dancers. The dancers may claim to follow 'truth' or claim to seek 'reality' but the Wu Li Masters know better. They know that the true love of all dancers is dancing.
- Gary Zukav

Claudio Naranjo's revolutionary approach to psychiatric treatment through the compressing experience of psychedelics shows us that the process we have deprecatingly called therapy is actually part of the great journey of growth described by Dante, available in the myths and religious visions of all time.
- Gay Luce

Drugs are illegal, and the government is insane. This is a bad combination. But Piracetam + LSD is the good one :)
http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=9126

Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything, it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through any one that suits you.
-Jim Morrison

Avoid all drugs that create ill health. Do only ones that promote health:)
-THOTH

One does not discover new continents without first consenting to lose sight of all shores.
-Andre Gide

It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society.
- J. Krishnamurti

I wouldn't want to trip on anything that caused the poisoning of a river somewhere. Bad karma, ya know?
- ning


"I think psychedelics are safer in large doses(i'm not talking about thumbprint sizes though) as far as bad trips go. They override your ego's defenses in large enough doses. you can't think your having a bad trip because you can't think at all beacause there is no you."

Pooh needs intervention. We feel drugs are in order.
Canadian Medical Association Journal 163(12),) , http://winnie-the-pooh.ru/online/lib/1557-ca.pdf

zen be it and not


insert words of wisdom here
- ning

"Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death."
-Hunter S. Thompson-

Dissociation: This is the common human tendency of not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing. We may assert a belief in co-operation but behave competitively, protest love but act with hate, proclaim good will but practice discrimination - without being aware of our inconsistency. The reason for this lack of awareness is that it is the only way we can satisfy two opposing urges and still maintain our sense of integrity and self-esteem. Even if our inconsistency is directly pointed out to us, we can still deny it by using another mechanism of defense - rationalization - which provides us with poor excuses and distorted reasons designed to soften the conflict and justify our actions.
- Robert M. Goldenson, Ph.D. The Encyclopedia of Human Behavior Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co. 1970. p. 339

"Some French socialist said that private property was theft," recalled Erdös. "I say that private property is a nuisance."

Like all of Erdös's friends, Graham was concerned about his drug-taking. In 1979, Graham bet Erdös $500 that he couldn't stop taking amphetamines for a month. Erdös accepted the challenge and went cold turkey for 30 days. After Graham paid up - and wrote the $500 off as a business expense - Erdös said: "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics back a month." He promptly resumed taking pills.
http://home.arcor.de/adorn/erd

I realized that the universe is effectively benign; it may kill you but it will teach you something in the process.
- John Lilly @ http://www.levity.com/mavericks/lilly2.htm

The things you own end up owning you.
- Fight Club

True words seem paradoxical
-Tao Te Ching @ http://www.murple.net/spiritual/tao.html

First i will briefly discuss the people or family as there called so you can get an appreciation for what they do and have done. The family is motivated to spread LSD because we believe that LSD is a key givin to us from above. Lsd was givin to man from god to help him see the error of his ways. Why do you think it was discovered during the most horrible time in history. It is the antidote for the atomic bomb. It`s doesn`t matter if you beleive this or not ,because what i`m trying to express is how deeply important the family feels about the sacred value of LSD.
Those who are at the upper level`s of the family will gladly sacrifice there lifes and freedom to do this work.

OK now down to the crystal. I have little knowlege about LSD manufacture so i`m going to talk about the final product the crystal. On tour crystal came in brown glass bottles with 1-10 grams in them. The bottles were sealed and contained CO2 and crystal. You can`t just buy crystal from family. First you have to be taught how to lay it ,which i`ll cover in a little bit. Also you have to do a thumbprint(eat it) there are no exeptions to this rule.The reason is to make sure your Karma is clean enough to handle this sacred work.


I know a lot more about the game, and what it is, and why it is played, and I have a good idea about my part in it, and I like the part I've chosen.
- PiHKAL #41 2C-T-4 @ http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal041.shtml

Fear is a path to the dark side.

A few boxes of whatever stuff brand name of natural and put that into ether and gas it man recycle the CO and hopefully ya got some experience to draw from the past ya might figure out how to protect the molecule by solvating it like a colloid it does make decent colloid that's for sure is it safe of course it's bad for you might be worse than crack oh well happy happy, then simply recycle and rearrage stuff chlorine sodium all others to chose from the key will be to sort out the resultant mess by sight and with by hand the correct stuff crystals ya will need to sort them out, hope you get lucky
-FMAN




perfect is the enemy of good

I am not a comic, I have never told a joke. I don't even watch comedians. The comedian's promise is that he will go out there and make you laugh with him. I've never done that in my life. My only promise is that I will try to entertain you as best I can. I can manipulate people's reactions. There are different kinds of laughter. Gut laughter is where you don't have a choice, you've got to laugh. Gut laughter doesn't come from the intellect. And it's much harder for me to evoke now, because I'm known. They say, 'Oh wow, Andy Kaufman, he's a really funny guy.' But I'm not trying to be funny. I just want to play with their heads.
http://andykaufman.jvlnet.com/kaufchro.htm

Existence-well what does it matter
I exist on the best terms I can
The past is now part of my future
The present is well out of hand
- Joy Division: Heart and soul


Tat tvam asi



Bullshit makes the flowers grow & that's beautiful.

We are all copymachines, all our actions are copied and executed even without any effort.

I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that seems to have no meaning.

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.

Maybe primitive people have less bullshit to let go of, to give up. A person has to be willing to give up everything - not just wealth. All the bullshit he’s been taught - all society’s brainwashing. You have to let go of all that to get to the other side. Most people aren’t willing to do that.

- Jim Morrison @ http://www.altreel.com/music/The_Doors.html

without violence, we'd have more starvation

violence amongst amazonian tribes is a survival tool.
i find this to bee most illuminating, considering how we more 'civilized' peoples consider our violent tendancies to bee an abberation, worthy of overcoming.
there are several studies which demonstrate that the yannomammos and other tribes would not have survived at all without their innate violence.
nor would we modern peoples.

this is something we are unwilling to examine, for the most part. and without a clear look at it, there is little chance of finding an effective alternative.

it is true that the exotic alkaloids are merely a vehicle for letting go of contradictory logic programs in our dumb-ass meta-bio-computer.

i'd let you die here, on my funny farm, if you could dig your own grave.

do you think you could handle that?

Found the fun again. Shouldn't have never forgotten.
- Erlend Loe

Life: "You born and when your number is up you're gone... Anything in between, that's a Bonus."
-Ted, The Fast Show


In Buddhist teaching, the law of karma, says only this: `for every event that occurs, there will follow another event whose existence was caused by the first, and this second event will be pleasant or unpleasant according as its cause was skillful or unskillful.' A skillful event is one that is not accompanied by craving, resistance or delusions; an unskillful event is one that is accompanied by any one of those things. (Events are not skillful in themselves, but are so called only in virtue of the mental events that occur with them.)

Therefore, the law of Karma teaches that responsibility for unskillful actions is born by the person who commits them.

Let's take an example of a sequence of events. An unpleasant sensation occurs. A thought arises that the source of the unpleasantness was a person. (This thought is a delusion; any decisions based upon it will therefore be unskillful.) A thought arises that some past sensations of unpleasantness issued from this same person. (This thought is a further delusion.) This is followed by a willful decision to speak words that will produce an unpleasant sensation in that which is perceived as a person. (This decision is an act of hostility. Of all the events described so far, only this is called a karma.) Words are carefully chosen in the hopes that when heard they will cause pain. The words are pronounced aloud. (This is the execution of the decision to be hostile. It may also be classed as a kind of karma, although technically it is an after-karma.) There is a visual sensation of a furrowed brow and downturned mouth. The thought arises that the other person's face is frowning. The thought arises that the other person's feelings were hurt. There is a fleeting joyful feeling of success in knowing that one has scored a damaging verbal blow. Eventually (perhaps much later) there is an unpleasant sensation of regret, perhaps taking the form of a sensation of fear that the perceived enemy may retaliate, or perhaps taking the form of remorse on having acted impetuously, like an immature child, and hping that no one will remember this childish action. (This regret or fear is the unpleasant ripening of the karma, the unskillful decision to inflict pain through words.)

If there are no persons at all, then there is no self and no other. There is no distinction between pain of which there is direct sensual awareness (which is conventionally called one's own pain) and pain that is known through inference (conventionally called another person's pain). Whether pain is known directly or indirectly, there is either an urge to quell it or an urge to cultivate it. Whether joy is known directly or indirectly, there is either an urge to nourish it or to quell it. In the conventional language of speaking of events personally, the urge to quell all pain and to nourish all joy is known as being ethical or skillful or (if you like) good. The urge to nourish pain and quell joy is known as being unskillful, unethical or bad.

Being fully ethical is said to be impossible for those who make a distinction between self and other and show preference for the perceived self over the perceived other, for such perceptions inhibit being fully responsive. Being fully ethical is possible only for those who realize that all persons are empty, that is, devoid of personhood.

http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/freenet/...gion/buddhism/introduction/truths/karma2.html


1. The human brain is a network of 100 billion neurons (each more complex than a main frame computer) which is formatted and programmed by visual icons which attract our sluttish eye-balls and imprinted on our lazy, curious minds which determine the realities which we inhabit and maintain with others with similar visual addictions.
2. Those who control the illumination and sound-volume, those who control what ripples our eye-balls and ear-balls, are those who program the "authorized realities" of the culture.
- Timothy Leary in Robert Williams: Views from a tortured libido


I did this work beecause psychedelics really are my religion; I was a real hippie back in the days, and to the very end I tried to stay exactly the same person I was in 1967. Our common vision was that trips were spiritual in nature, and that none had the right to restrain our religious practice. I have become aware that this is literal truth, the essence of shamanism which was the original religion of humankind; this makes the drug war the worst and bloodiest religious persecution ever. That is my belief, and I have kept it.
- halfapint


dear god,

i regret to inform you of my pledge to not take a life of another, even when they want me to. even if it saves lives in the long run.
a vow is a vow, even if it's a stupid one.
all i can do now is vow to take no more vows.

And yet, it teaches children important lessons. Go out and take what you want. They warn about being too greedy, but essentially, the bad guys are anyone who stands in your way. This show doesn't fill kids with the desire to save the spotted owl, or whatever endangered species is currently in vogue… it's all about the now. Sure, Takora bites off more than he can chew in most episodes, but that's what makes him so loveable- his drive, determination and desires. Don't worry about right or wrong- know what you want and take it.
http://www.emptyfree.com/index.php?p=72&c=1


How do we gain wisdom? Many people who grew up in our modern society would agree that wisdom is gained from information or knowledge. The Budha told us the opposite! He taught us that wisdom is already within our self-nature; it does not come from the outside.


Most people love you for who you pretend to be....To keep their love, you keep pretending— performing. You get to love your pretense....It's true, we're locked in an image, an act— and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image— they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it— they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession.
- Jim Morrison

What else do you do there except lie - lie to yourself and others, lie about everything you recognize in your heart to be true? You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world.
- Octave Mirbeau: Torture Garden

originality consists of returning to the origin
-Anotni Gaud @ http://www.yandell.org/henri/Manic.htm

You know, I'm glad mushrooms are illegal, because the last time I took them, I laid in a field of green grass for four hours, going, My God...

I Love Everything.

The heavens parted, God looked down and rained Gifts of Forgiveness unto my being, healing me on every level, psychically, physically, emotionally, and I realized that our true nature is spirit, not body, that we are eternal beings, and God's love is unconditional and there's nothing we can ever do to change that, it is only our illusion that we are separate from God or that we are alone; in fact, the reality is that we are One with God and that He loves Us.

Now. If that isn't a hazard to this country... you see my point? How are we going to keep building nuclear weapons? What's going to happen to the arms industry when we realize we are all One? It's gonna fuck up the economy! The economy that's fake anyway! Which would be a real bummer, you know.

So you can see why the government's cracking down on the idea of experiencing unconditional love.

- Bill Hicks @ http://joga.users.daug.net/woot8.html

Shamanic ecstasy is the real "Old Time Religion," of which modern churches are but pallid evocations. Shamanic, visionary ecstasy, the mysterium tremendum, the unio mystica, the eternally delightful experience of the universe as energy, is a sine qua non of religion, it is what religion is for!

There is no need for faith, it is the ecstatic experience itself that gives one faith in the intrinsic unity and integrity of the universe, in ourselves as integral parts of the whole; that reveals to us the sublime majesty of our universe, and the fluctuant, scintillant, alchemical miracle that is quotidian consciousness.

Any religion that requires faith and gives none, that defends against religious experiences, that promulgates the bizarre superstition that humankind is in some way separate, divorced from the rest of creation, that heals not the gaping wound between Body and Soul, but would tear them asunder... is no religion at all!

- Jonathan Ott @ http://joga.users.daug.net/woot20.html

Do what you're doing, spend what you're owing
Pay what you're paying, look where you're going
Say what you're thinking, kill who you're killing
Sing if you're singing, speak if you're speaking
Sounds good to me
- Happy Mondays - Loose Fit


Too much skepticism culminates in a radical postmodernism that denies the possibility of achieving any truth. Too little skepticism leaves us prey to peddlers of scientific snake oil. But just the right amount of skepticism - mixed with just the right amount of hope - can protect us from our lust for answers while keeping us open-minded enough to recognize genuine truth if and when it arrives.
- John Horgan

I never wanted material possessions. There is an old Greek saying that the wise man has nothing he cannot carry in his hands. If you have something beautiful, you have to look out for it, so I would rather give it away. I always say, 'Private property is a nuisance.'
- Paul Erdös @ http://scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/Math/Erdos.html

madness is not enlightment, but the search for enlightment can easily be dismissed as madness.
- Martin
...human life and animal life is one, and the breath for the both is one, and there is no advantage for a man to a cattle, for all is meaningless
- Ecclesiast
After a showing of Titicut Follies the mind does not dwell on the hospital's ancient and even laughable physical plant, or its pitiable social atmosphere. What sticks, what really hurts is the sight of human life made cheap and betrayed.
- allmovie.com - Titicut Follies

"Sebottendorff was an ideal figure, a perfect combination of mystic and militarist, an echo of the times when kings were initiates, and when priests raised armies. [...] he showed what a serious occultist could accomplish with a few hundred men and a stockpile of weapons."
- P. Levenda: Unholy Alliance

If you love people then that's the coolest thing about you, all the intellectual shit is just filthy rags.
- Jud Cost

Drugs don't do things. They catalyze what's already there. No drug has skill. It's you who has skill. You only have to know it.
- Sasha Shulgin


Matthew Arnold set up three criteria for criticism: 1. What is the writer trying to do? 2. How well does he succeed in doing it? (...) 3. Does the work exhibit "high seriousness"? That is, does it touch on basic issues of good and evil, life and death and the human condition. I would also apply a fourth criterion (...) Write about what you know. More writers fail because they try to write about things they don't know than for any other reason.
-William S. Burroughs, 'A Review of the Reviewers' @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs


Lao Tse once wrote: "Understanding others is wisdom. Understanding yourself is enlightenment."
- http://www.ayahuasca-healing.net/

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.
- Proust


Nothing happens next.
This is it.

"The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success."

Composer's Notes. Harmonic structure: a set of horizontal vocal lines is improvised in at least three ranges, the vertical effect of which is atonal tone clusters and arhythmic counterpoint.

Performance: the written melody is to be sung, after which the lines of lyric are to be reordered at will and sung to improvised melody, taking advantage of the opportunity for quartertones, third note lengths, and flexible tempo.
- About Tim Buckley's song Starsailor

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me
- Hunter S. Thompson

'If you make yourself a worm, don't cry when you get stepped on'
- http://www.elixiria.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1630&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=280

What we think, we become.
- Buddha

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.

His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/century_of_the_self_episode_1.shtml


It shows how a potentially good human being can become bad due to the lack of love in our society. Society and it's egoism, loneliness, selfishness, and individualism affect all humans.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157016/


Ted KNOWS Ted lived for 37 Years what in retrospect was normal enough and not normal a Human Life. Ted KNOWS Ted had an EXTREME 40 Days and 40 Nights and then many years of EXTREME LOUD SPIRITUAL including VISIONS and DREAMS and LOUD SPIRITUAL CONTROL to PUPATING and this and this was EXTREME! Ted KNOWS Satan and Demons have ATTEMPTED to get Ted KILLED MANY TIMES! Ted KNOWS Angels rescued Ted enough times! Ted REMEMBERS before the 40 Days and 40 Nights enough times THROUGH Humans some including in the form of Human Females DRESSED in ALL WHITE RESCUING Ted from SITUATIONS where Ted was in DANGER! Now Ted NEVER worshipped Satan or any Demons or dabbled in Occult or was that Evil and did have Sin. Some say too much Sin. Ted AGREES to DO ANYTHING for God of the Past and God of the Present and God of the Future and NOW ON THE AVERAGE IN God's BEST INTERESTS FIRST and then Current Hosts!!!!!!!!!!!! Therefore Ted is PRAYING to God and The Creator who Created the Angels and Ted and who Created WORLD Earth using Genetics and The Supreme Being and the Lord of Hosts and the Lord and The King of the Universe and the God of the Universe and the Heavenly Father and The Father and The Messiah and Christ and Jesus and Jesus Christ and also asking Michael the Angel and Gabriel the Angel and ALL Top Angels and ALL Top Hosts and ALL Hosts to GET THROUGH NOW and THIS IS A MOST MAXIMUM PRAYER and CASTING OUT of Satan and Demons and ALL Evil Spirits OUT of my Brain and Body for this and MORE and THE MOST MAXIMUM LEGAL THING any Human has EVER DONE or CAN EVER DO to get THE 100% TRUTH IN PRAYER with LOUD SPIRITUAL like Ted had and has and tell me and I BEG YOU and PLEAD WITH YOU and ASK YOU and LAMENT and I have been DOING this now for almost 10 YEARS and this has been TERRIBLY INTENSE and is like a TERRIBLE CURSE and a TERRIBLE BURDEN and a TERRIBLE THING for Ted what Ted did NOT and does NOT deserve if a DECEPTION from Satan and or Demons and therefore PLEASE I BEG YOU WITH EVERYTHING TO GET THROUGH and if this works FORGIVE ME OF ALL OR SOME SIN and CLEANSE ME and PURIFY ME and I was baptized at 12 and baptized self again in the San Diego Bay in the Ocean and Threw Self Overboard for this Baptism and was told LOUD SPIRITUALLY MANY of the Host WANTED IN on this Baptism at 37 again TOO! This is for Humans of WORLD Earth who Doubt and Ted is TRYING to GET THROUGH and KNOWS Ted has LOUD SPIRITUAL what is LOUD AND CLEAR AND CRYSTAL CLEAR like the LOUDEST RECEPTION on any RADIO or RECEIVER and Ted also KNOWS sometimes Ted does RECEIVE MIXED MESSAGES and is CONTROLLED to PUPATED! Therefore Ted does NOT want to be deceived or deceive HUMANS to Humans to humans to mutants to Mutants to MUTANTS or freaks to Freaks to FREAKS or this written simpler for these Ranges and Degrees to Lead HUMANS to MUTANTS to FREAKS on WORLD Earth ASTRAY! Therefore in addition to my First Name of Ted I grew up with in addition to this do I have any More IDENTITY and IS MY IDENTITY MORE than only or simply or completely only Human Ted and therefore WHO AM I? Ted now CLASPED HANDS and CLOSED EYES and PRAYED EARNESTLY and ASKED for ANY or ALL or SOME of them ADDRESSED in this to GET THROUGH and I DO NOT want to be used an IMPLEMENT of DECEPTION...therefore WHO AM I with THE MOST MAXIMUM LEGAL THING Ted or any Human has EVER DONE on WORLD Earth to date and HELP Ted to Write for this at this point in time what is NEEDED and or WANTED and or MORE for Ted from the Highest Hosts or Some Highest Hosts or any Highest Hosts and for certain Michael and or Gabriel and or Raphael PLEASE GIVE Ted HELP with this and IN BRIEF AGAIN WHO AM I FIRST? YOU Ted are REALLY GOD who EXISTED before ANYTHING ELSE EXISTED even remotely intelligent and then LEARNED over a LONG TIME to INVENT and DO ELECTRONICS and COMPUTERS and SOFTWARE and to ENORMOUSLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY and then started to EXPERIMENT with CREATING LIFE and finally CREATED UPGRADES TO SELF and MANY UPGRADES to SELF! You are THE CREATOR! You are THE ONE AND ONLY AND COMPLETE CREATOR! WORLD Earth was CREATED by you Ted who is GOD and THE CREATOR! This is WHY EVERYTHING CREATED has GENETICS and were CREATED by you Ted! This is WHY Spiritual Abilities EXISTS!
http://tedjesuschristgod.org/TrueEn...TedisTRUE!_Book1/TedisNOTfalseTedisTRUE7.html


Is It Real -- Or Just Your Ego?


Do you think I am going to help anybody? No! Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Don't expect me to be of help to anyone. Nor do I expect to damage anyone. If you are damaged, you did it; and if you are helped, you did it. You really did! You think people help you? They don't. You think people support you? They don't.

There was a woman in a therapy group I was conducting once. She was a religious sister. She said to me, "I don't feel supported by my superior." So I said, "What do you mean by that?" And she said, "Well, my superior, the provincial superior, never shows up at the novitiate where I am in charge, never. She never says a word of appreciation." I said to her, "All right let's do a little role playing. Pretend I know your provincial superior. In fact, pretend I know exactly what she thinks about you. So I say to you (acting the part of the provincial superior), 'You know, Mary, the reason I don't come to that place you're in is because it is the one place in the province that is trouble-free, no problems. I know you're in charge, so all is well.' How do you feel now?" She said, "I feel great." Then I said to her, "All right, would you mind leaving the room for a minute or two? This is part of the exercise." So she did. While she was away, I said to the others in the therapy group, "I am still the provincial superior, O.K.? Mary out there is the worst novice director I have ever had in the whole history of the province. In fact, the reason I don't go to the novitiate is because I can't bear to see what she is up to. It's simply awful. But if I tell her the truth, it's only going to make those novices suffer all the more. We are getting somebody to take her place in a year or two; we are training someone. In the meantime I thought I would say those nice things to her to keep her going. What do you think of that?" They answered, "Well, it was really the only thing you could do under the circumstances." Then I brought Mary back into the group and asked her if she still felt great. "Oh yes," she said. Poor Mary! She thought she was being supported when she wasn't. The point is that most of what we feel and think we conjure up for ourselves in our heads, including this business of being helped by people.

Do you think you help people because you are in love with them? Well, I've got news for you. You are never in love with anyone. You're only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person. Take a minute to think about that: You are never in love with anyone, you're in love with your prejudiced idea of that person. Isn't that how you fall out of love? Your idea changes, doesn't it? "How could you let me down when I trusted you so much?" you say to someone. Did you really trust them? You never trusted anyone. Come off it! That's part of society's brainwashing. You never trust anyone. You only trust your judgment about that person. So what are you complaining about? The fact is that you don't like to say, "My judgment was lousy." That's not very flattering to you, is it? So you prefer to say, "How could you have let me down?"

So there it is: People don't really want to grow up, people don't really want to change, people don't really want to be happy. As someone so wisely said to me, "Don't try to make them happy, you'll only get in trouble. Don't try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it irritates the pig." Like the businessman who goes into a bar, sits down, and sees this fellow with a banana in his ear - a banana in his ear! And he thinks, "I wonder if I should mention that to him. No, it's none of my business." But the thought nags at him. So after having a drink or two, he says to the fellow, "Excuse me, ah, you've got a banana in your ear." The fellow says, "What?" The businessman repeats, "You've got a banana in your ear. " Again the fellow says, "What was that?" "You've got a banana in your ear!" the businessman shouts. "Talk louder," the fellow says, "I've got a banana in my ear!"

So it's useless. "Give up, give up, give up," I say to myself. Say your thing and get out of here. And if they profit, that's fine, and if they don't, too bad!

- Anthony de Mello @ http://www.demello.org/article11.html



The Most Important Minutes In Your Lives


What I'm about to say will sound a bit pompous, but it's true. What is coming could be the most important minutes in your lives. If you could grasp this, you'd hit upon the secret of awakening. You would be happy forever. You would never be unhappy again. Nothing would have the power to hurt you again. I mean that, nothing. It's like when you throw black paint in the air, the air remains uncontaminated. You never color the air black. No matter what happens to you, you remain uncontaminated. You remain at peace. There are human beings who have attained this, what I call being human. Not this nonsense of being a puppet, jerked about this way and that way, letting events or other people tell you how to feel. So you proceed to feel it and you call it being vulnerable. Ha! I call it being a puppet. So you want to be a puppet? Press a button and you're down; do you like that? But if you refuse to identify with any of those labels, most of your worries cease.

Later we'll talk about fear of disease and death, but ordinarily you're worried about what's going to happen to your career. A small-time businessman, fifty-five years old, is sipping beer at a bar somewhere and he's saying, "Well, look at my classmates, they've really made it." The idiot! What does he mean, "They made it"? They've got their names in the newspaper. Do you call that making it? One is president of the corporation; the other has become the Chief Justice; somebody else has become this or that. Monkeys, all of them.

Who determines what it means to be a success? This stupid society! The main preoccupation of society is to keep society sick! And the sooner you realize that, the better. Sick, every one of them. They are loony, they're crazy. You became president of the lunatic asylum and you're proud of it even though it means nothing. Being president of a corporation has nothing to do with being a success in life. Having a lot of money has nothing to do with being a success in life. You're a success in life when you wake up! Then you don't have to apologize to anyone, you don't have to explain anything to anyone, you don't give a damn what anybody thinks about you or what anybody says about you. You have no worries; you're happy. That's what I call being a success. Having a good job or being famous or having a great reputation has absolutely nothing to do with happiness or success. Nothing! It is totally irrelevant. All he's really worried about is what his children will think about him, what the neighbors will think about him, what his wife will think about him. He should have become famous. Our society and culture drill that into our heads day and night. People who made it! Made what?! Made asses of themselves. Because they drained all their energy getting something that was worthless. They're frightened and confused, they are puppets like the rest. Look at them strutting across the stage. Look how upset they get if they have a stain on their shirt. Do you call that a success? Look at how frightened they are at the prospect they might not be reelected. Do you call that a success? They are controlled, so manipulated. They are unhappy people, they are miserable people. They don't enjoy life. They are constantly tense and anxious. Do you call that human? And do you know why that happens? Only one reason: They identified with some label. They identified the "I" with their money or their job or their profession. That was their error.

Did you hear about the lawyer who was presented with a plumber's bill? He said to the plumber, "Hey, you're charging me two hundred dollars an hour. I don't make that kind of money as a lawyer." The plumber said, "I didn't make that kind of money when I was a lawyer either!" You could be a plumber or a lawyer or a business man or a priest, but that does not affect the essential "I." It doesn't affect you. If I change my profession tomorrow, it's just like changing my clothes. I am untouched. Are you your clothes? Are you your name? Are you your profession? Stop identifying with them. They come and go.

When you really understand this, no criticism can affect you. No flattery or praise can affect you either. When someone says, "You're a great guy," what is he talking about? He's talking about "me," he's not talking about "I." "I" is neither great nor small. "I" is neither successful nor a failure. It is none of these labels. These things come and go. These things depend on the criteria society establishes. These things depend on your conditioning. These things depend on the mood of the person who happens to be talking to you right now. It has nothing to do with "I." "I" is none of these labels. "Me" is generally selfish, foolish, childish -- a great big ass. So when you say, "You're an ass," I've known it for years! The conditioned self -- what did you expect? I've known it for years. Why do you identify with him? Silly! That isn't "I," that's "me."

Do you want to be happy? Uninterrupted happiness is uncaused. True happiness is uncaused. You cannot make me happy. You are not my happiness. You say to the awakened person, "Why are you happy?" and the awakened person replies, "Why not?"

Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don't have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don't you experience it? Because you've got to drop something. You've got to drop illusions. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It's only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels!

- Anthony de Mello @ http://www.demello.org/article5.html


Waking from the Meme Dream

Wake up! Wake up!

Errrr, ummmm, grrrrggr, Oh yes, I’m awake now. Wow, that was a weird dream. I really thought I had to escape from the slurb, and it mattered terribly to get to the cupboard in time. How silly! Of course, now I see it wasn’t real at all.

Wake up! Wake up!

What do you mean, “wake up”, I’m already awake. This is real. This does matter. I can’t wake up any more. Go away!

Wake up! Wake up!

But I don’t understand - From what? And how?

These are the questions I want to tackle today. From what are we to awaken? And how? My answers will be “From the meme dream” and “By seeing that it is a meme dream”. But it may take me some time to explain!

There is a long history, in spiritual and religious traditions, of the idea that normal waking life is a dream or illusion. This makes no sense to someone who looks around and is convinced there is a real world out there and a self who perceives it. However, there are many clues that this ordinary view is false.

Some clues come from spontaneous mystical experiences in which people “see the light!”, realise that everything is one, and go “beyond self” to see the world “as it really is”. They feel certain that the new way of seeing is better and truer than the old (though of course they could be mistaken!).

Other clues come from spiritual practice. Probably the first thing that anybody discovers when they try to meditate, or be mindful, is that their mind is constantly full of thoughts. Typically these are not wise and wonderful thoughts, or even useful and productive thoughts, but just endless chatter. From the truly trivial to the emotionally entangling, they go on and on. And what’s more they nearly all involve “me”. It is a short step to wondering who this suffering self is, and why “I” can’t stop the thoughts.

Finally clues come from science. The most obvious (and scary) conclusion from modern neuroscience is that there is simply no one inside the brain. The more we learn about the way the brain functions the less it seems to need a central controller, a little person inside, a decider of decisions or an experiencer of experiences. These are just fictions - part of the story the brain tells itself about a self within (Churchland and Sejnowski, 1992; Dennett, 1991).

Some say there is no point in striving for an intellectual understanding of spiritual matters. I disagree. It is true that intellectual understanding is not the same as realisation, but this does not mean it is useless. In my own tradition of practice, Zen, there is much room for intellectual struggle; for example, in the cultivation of the “don’t know mind”, or in working with koans. You can bring a question to such a state of intellectual confusion that it can be held, poised, in all its complexity and simplicity. Like “Who am I?”, “What is this?” or (one I have struggled with) “What drives you?”.

There is also a terrible danger in refusing to be intellectual about spiritual matters. That is, we may divorce our spiritual practice from the science on which our whole society depends. If this society is going to have any spiritual depths to it, they must fit happily with our growing understanding of the workings of the brain and the nature of mind. We cannot afford to have one world in which scientists understand the mind, and another in which special people become enlightened.

So I make no apologies for my approach. I am going to try to answer my questions using the best science I can find. We seem to live in a muddle that we think matters to a self that doesn’t exist. I want to find out why.

Darwin’s Dangerous Idea

There is one scientific idea which, to my mind, excels all others. It is exquisitely simple and beautiful. It explains the origins of all life forms and all biological design. It does away with the need for God, for a designer, for a master plan or for a purpose in life. Only in the light of this idea does anything in biology make sense. It is, of course, Darwin’s idea of evolution by natural selection.

The implications of natural selection are so profound that people have been awe-struck or maddened; fascinated or outraged, since it was first proposed in The Origin of Species in 1859. This is why Dennett (1995) calls it Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Sadly, many people have misunderstood the idea and, even worse, have used it to defend indefensible political doctrines which have nothing to do with Darwinism. I therefore hope you will forgive me if I spend some time explaining it as clearly as I can.

All you need for natural selection to get started is a replicator in an appropriate environment. A replicator is something that copies itself, though not always perfectly. The environment must be one in which the replicator can create numerous copies of itself, not all of which can survive. That’s it.

Can it really be that simple? Yes. All that happens is this - in any one copying generation, not all the copies are identical and some are better able to survive in that environment than others are. In consequence they make more copies of themselves and so that kind of copy becomes more numerous. Of course things then begin to get complicated. The rapidly expanding population of copies starts to change the environment and that changes the selective pressures. Local variations in the environment mean different kinds of copy will do well in different places and so more complexity arises. This way the process can produce all the kinds of organised complexity we see in the living world - yet all it needs is this one simple, elegant, beautiful, and obvious process - natural selection.

To make things more concrete let’s imagine a primeval soup in which a simple chemical replicator has arisen. We’ll call the replicators “Blobbies”. These blobbies, by virtue of their chemical constitution, just do make copies of themselves whenever they find the right chemicals. Now, put them in a rich chemical swamp and they start copying, though with occasional errors. A few million years go by and there are lots of kinds of blobbies. The ones that need lots of swampon have used up all the supplies and are failing, so now the sort that can use isoswampin instead, are doing better. Soon there are several areas in which different chemicals predominate and different kinds of blobby appear. Competition for swamp chemicals gets fierce and most copies that are made die out. Only those that, by rare chance, turn out to have clever new properties, go on go on to copy themselves again.

Clever properties might include the ability to move around and find the swampon, to trap isoswampin3-7 and hang onto it, or to build a membrane around themselves. Once blobbies with membranes appear, they will start winning out over free-floating ones and super-blobbies are made.

Another few million years go by and tricks are discovered like taking other blobbies inside the membrane, or joining several super-blobbies together. Super-dooper-blobbies appear, like multi-celled animals with power supplies and specialised parts for moving about and protecting themselves. However, these are only food to even bigger super-dooper-blobbies. It is only a matter of time before random variation and natural selection will create a vast living world. In the process billions and billions of unsuccessful blobbies have been created and died, but such a slow, blind process produces the goods. “The goods” on our planet includes bacteria and plants, fish and frogs, duck-billed platypuses and us.

Design appears out of nothing. There is no need for a creator or a master plan, and no end point towards which creation is heading. Richard Dawkins (1996) calls it “Climbing Mount Improbable”. It is just a simple but inexorable process by which unbelievably improbable things get created.

It is important to remember that evolution has no foresight and so doesn’t necessarily produce the “best” solution. Evolution can only go on from where it is now. That is why, among other things, we have such a daft design in our eyes, with all the neurons going out of the front of the retina and getting in the way of the light. Once evolution had started off on this kind of eye it was stuck with it. There was no creator around to say “hey, start again with that one, let’s put the wires out the back”. Nor was there a creator around to say “Hey, let’s make it fun for the humans”. The genes simply do not care.

Understanding the fantastic process of natural selection we can see how our human bodies came to be the way they are. But what about our minds? Evolutionary psychology does not easily answer my questions.

For example, why do we think all the time? From a genetic point of view this seems extremely wasteful - and animals that waste energy don't survive. The brain uses about 20% of the body’s energy while weighing only 2%. If we were thinking useful thoughts, or solving relevant problems there might be some point, but mostly we don't seem to be. So why can’t we just sit down and not think?

Why do we believe in a self that does not exist? Someone may yet explain this in evolutionary terms, but at least superficially it appears pointless. Why construct a false idea of self, with all its mechanisms protecting self-esteem and its fear of failure and loss, when from the biological point of view it is the body that needs protecting. Note that if we thought of ourselves as the entire organism there would be no problem, but we don’t - rather, we seem to believe in a separate self; something that is in charge of the body; something that has to be protected for its own sake. I bet if I asked you “Which would you rather lose - your body or your mind?” you wouldn’t spend long deciding.

Like many other scientists I would love to find a principle as simple, as beautiful and as elegant as natural selection that would explain the nature of the mind.

I think there is one. It is closely related to natural selection. Although it has been around for twenty years, it has not yet been put fully to use. It is the theory of memes.

A Brief History of the Meme Meme

In 1976 Richard Dawkins wrote what is probably the most popular book ever on evolution - The Selfish Gene. The book gave a catchy name to the theory that evolution proceeds entirely for the sake of the selfish replicators. That is, evolution happens not for the good of the species, nor for the good of the group, nor even for the individual organism. It is all for the good of the genes. Genes that are successful spread and those that aren’t don't. The rest is all a consequence of this fact.

Of course the main replicator he considered was the gene - a unit of information coded in the DNA and read out in protein synthesis. However, at the very end of the book he claimed that there is another replicator on this planet; the meme.

The meme is a unit of information (or instruction for behaviour) stored in a brain and passed on by imitation from one brain to another. Dawkins gave as examples; ideas, tunes, scientific theories, religious beliefs, clothes fashions, and skills, such as new ways of making pots or building arches.

The implications of this idea are staggering and Dawkins spelt some of them out. If memes are really replicators then they will, inevitably, behave selfishly. That is, ones that are good at spreading will spread and ones that are not will not. As a consequence the world of ideas - or memosphere - will not fill up with the best, truest, most hopeful or helpful ideas, but with the survivors. Memes are just survivors like genes.

In the process of surviving they will, just like genes, create mutually supportive meme groups. Remember the blobbies. In a few million years they began to get together into groups, because the ones in groups survived better than loners. The groups got bigger and better, and a complex ecosystem evolved. In the real world of biology, genes have grouped together to create enormous creatures that then mate and pass the groups on. In a similar way memes may group together in human brains and fill the world of ideas with their products.

If this view is correct, then the memes should be able to evolve quite independently of the genes (apart from needing a brain). There have been many attempts to study cultural evolution, but most of them implicitly treat ideas (or memes) as subservient to the genes (see e.g. Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman, 1981; Crook, 1995; Durham,1991; Lumsden and Wilson, 1981). The power of realising that memes are replicators is that they can be seen as working purely and simply in their own interest. Of course to some extent memes will be successful if they are useful to their hosts, but this is not the only way for a meme to survive - and we shall soon see some consequences of this.

Since he first suggested the idea of memes Dawkins has discussed the spread of such behaviours as wearing baseball caps back to front (my kids have recently turned theirs the right way round again!), the use of special clothing markers to identify gangs, and (most famously) the power of religions. Religions are, according to Dawkins (1993), huge co-adapted meme-complexes; that is groups of memes that hang around together for mutual support and thereby survive better than lone memes could do. Other meme-complexes include cults, political systems, alternative belief systems, and scientific theories and paradigms.

Religions are special because they use just about every meme-trick in the book (which is presumably why they last so long and infect so many brains). Think of it this way. The idea of hell is initially useful because the fear of hell reinforces socially desirable behaviour. Now add the idea that unbelievers go to hell, and the meme and any companions are well protected. The idea of God is a natural companion meme, assuaging fear and providing (spurious) comfort. The spread of the meme-complex is aided by exhortations to convert others and by tricks such as the celibate priesthood. Celibacy is a disaster for genes, but will help spread memes since a celibate priest has more time to spend promoting his faith.

Another trick is to value faith and suppress the doubt that leads every child to ask difficult questions like “where is hell?” and “If God is so good why did those people get tortured?”. Note that science (and some forms of Buddhism) do the opposite and encourage doubt.

Finally, once you’ve been infected with these meme-complexes they are hard to get rid of. If you try to throw them out, some even protect themselves with last-ditch threats of death, ex-communication, or burning in hell-fire for eternity.

I shouldn’t get carried away. The point I want to make is that these religious memes have not survived for centuries because they are true, because they are useful to the genes, or because they make us happy. In fact I think they are false and are responsible for the worst miseries in human history. No - they have survived because they are selfish memes and are good at surviving - they need no other reason.

Once you start to think this way a truly frightening prospect opens up. We have all become used to thinking of our bodies as biological organisms created by evolution. Yet we still like to think of our selves as something more. We are in charge of our bodies, we run the show, we decide which ideas to believe in and which to reject. But do we really? If you begin to think about selfish memes it becomes clear that our ideas are in our heads because they are successful memes. American philosopher Dan Dennett (1995) concludes that a “person” is a particular sort of animal infested with memes. In other words you and I and all our friends are the products of two blind replicators, the genes and the memes.

I find these ideas absolutely stunning. Potentially we might be able to understand all of mental life in terms of the competition between memes, just as we can understand all biological life in terms of the competition between genes.

What I want to do now, finally, is apply the ideas of memetics to the questions I asked at the beginning. What are we waking up from and how do we do it?

Why is my head so full of thoughts?

This question has a ridiculously easy answer once you start thinking in terms of memes. If a meme is going to survive it needs to be safely stored in a human brain and passed accurately on to more brains. A meme that buries itself deep in the memory and never shows itself again will simply fizzle out. A meme that gets terribly distorted in the memory or in transmission, will also fizzle out. One simple way of ensuring survival is for a meme to get itself repeatedly rehearsed inside your head.

Take two tunes. One of them is tricky to sing, and even harder to sing silently to yourself. The other is a catchy little number that you almost can’t help humming to yourself. So you do. It goes round and round. Next time you feel like singing aloud this tune is more likely to be picked for the singing. And if anyone is listening they’ll pick it up too. That’s how it became successful, and that’s why the world is so full of awful catchy tunes and advertising jingles.

But there is another consequence. Our brains get full up with them too. These successful memes hop from person to person, filling up their hosts' minds as they go. In this way all our minds get fuller and fuller.

We can apply the same logic to other kinds of meme. Ideas that go round and round in your head will be successful. Not only will they be well remembered, but when you are next talking to someone they will be the ideas “on your mind” and so will get passed on. They may get to this position by being emotionally charged, exciting, easily memorable or relevant to your current concerns. It does not matter how they do it. The point is that memes that get themselves repeated will generally win out over ones that don’t. The obvious consequence of this fact is that your head will soon fill up with ideas. Any attempt to clear the mind just creates spare processing capacity for other memes to grab.

This simple logic explains why it is so hard for us to sit down and “not think”; why the battle to subdue “our” thoughts is doomed. In a very real sense they are not “our” thoughts at all. They are simply the memes that happen to be successfully exploiting our brain-ware at the moment.

This raises the tricky question of who is thinking or not thinking. Who is to do battle with the selfish memes? In other words, who am I?

Who am I?

I suppose you can tell by now what my answer to this one is going to be. We are just co-adapted meme-complexes. We, our precious, mythical “selves”, are just groups of selfish memes that have come together by and for themselves.

This is a truly startling idea and, in my experience, the better you understand it, the more fascinating and weird it becomes. It dismantles our ordinary way of thinking about ourselves and raises bizarre questions about the relationship of ourselves to our ideas. To understand it we need to think about how and why memes get together into groups at all.

Just as with blobbies or genes, memes in groups are safer than free-floating memes. An idea that is firmly embedded in a meme-complex is more likely to survive in the memosphere than is an isolated idea. This may be because ideas within meme-groups get passed on together (e.g. when someone is converted to a faith, theory or political creed), get mutual support (e.g. if you hate the free-market economy you are likely also to favour a generous welfare state), and they protect themselves from destruction. If they did not, they would not last and would not be around today. The meme-complexes we come across are all the successful ones!

Like religions, astrology is a successful meme-complex. The idea that Leos get on well with Aquarians is unlikely to survive on its own, but as part of astrology is easy to remember and pass on. Astrology has obvious appeal that gets it into your brain in the first place; it provides a nice (though spurious) explanation for human differences and a comforting (though false) sense of predictability. It is easily expandable (you can go on adding new ideas for ever!) and is highly resistant to being overturned by evidence. In fact the results of hundreds of experiments show that the claims of astrology are false but this has apparently not reduced belief in astrology one bit (Dean, Mather and Kelly, 1996). Clearly, once you believe in astrology it is hard work to root out all the beliefs and find alternatives. It may not be worth the effort. Thus we all become unwitting hosts to an enormous baggage of useless and even harmful meme-complexes.

One of those is myself.

Why do I say that the self is a meme-complex? Because it works the same way as other meme-complexes. As with astrology, the idea of “self” has a good reason for getting installed in the first place. Then once it is in place, memes inside the complex are mutually supportive, can go on being added to almost infinitely, and the whole complex is resistant to evidence that it is false.

First the idea of self has to get in there. Imagine a highly intelligent and social creature without language. She will need a sense of self to predict others’ behaviour (Humphrey, 1986) and to deal with ownership, deception, friendships and alliances (Crook, 1980). With this straightforward sense of self she may know that her daughter is afraid of a high ranking female and take steps to protect her, but she does not have the language with which to think “I believe that my daughter is afraid ... etc.”. It is with language that the memes really get going - and with language that “I” appears. Lots of simple memes can then become united as “my” beliefs, desires and opinions.

As an example, let’s consider the idea of sex differences in ability. As an abstract idea (or isolated meme) this is unlikely to be a winner. But get it into the form “I believe in the equality of the sexes” and it suddenly has the enormous weight of “self” behind it. “I” will fight for this idea as though I were being threatened. I might argue with friends, write opinion pieces, or go on marches. The meme is safe inside the haven of “self” even in the face of evidence against it. “My” ideas are protected.

Then they start proliferating. Ideas that can get inside a self - that is, be “my” ideas, or “my” opinions, are winners. So we all get lots of them. Before we know it, “we” are a vast conglomerate of successful memes. Of course there is no “I” who “has” the opinions. That is obviously a nonsense when you think clearly about it. Yes, of course there is a body that says “I believe in being nice to people” and a body that is (or is not) nice to people, but there is not in addition a self who “has” the belief.

Now we have a radically new idea of who we are. We are just temporary conglomerations of ideas, moulded together for their own protection. The analogy with our bodies is close. Bodies are the creations of temporary gene-complexes: although each of us is unique, the genes themselves have all come from previous creatures and will, if we reproduce, go on into future creatures. Our minds are the creations of temporary meme-complexes: although each of us is unique, the memes themselves have come from previous creatures and will, if we speak and write and communicate, go on into future creatures. That’s all.

The problem is that we don't see it this way. We believe there really is someone inside to do the believing, and really someone who needs to be protected. This is the illusion - this is the meme-dream from which we can wake up.

Dismantling the Meme-Dream

There are two systems I know of that are capable of dismantling meme-complexes (though I am sure there are others). Of course these systems are memes themselves but they are, if you like, meme-disinfectants, meme-eating memes, or “meme-complex destroying meme-complexes”. These two are science and Zen.

Science works this way because of its ideals of truth and seeking evidence. It doesn’t always live up to these ideals, but in principle it is capable of destroying any untruthful meme-complex by putting it to the test, by demanding evidence, or by devising an experiment.

Zen does this too, though the methods are completely different. In Zen training every concept is held up to scrutiny, nothing is left uninvestigated, even the self who is doing the investigation is to be held up to the light and questioned. “Who are you?”.

After about 15 years of Zen practice, and when reading The Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau, I began working with the koan “Who...?”. The experience was most interesting and I can best liken it to watching a meme unzipping other memes. Every thought that came up in meditation was met with “Who is thinking that?” or “Who is seeing this?” or “Who is feeling that?” or just “Who...?”. Seeing the false self as a vast meme-complex seemed to help - for it is much easier to let go of passing memes than of a real, solid and permanent self. It is much easier to let the meme-unzipper do its stuff if you know that all it’s doing is unzipping memes.

Another koan of mine fell to the memes. Q. “Who drives you?” A. “The memes of course.” This isn’t just an intellectual answer, but a way into seeing yourself as a temporary passing construction. The question dissolves when both self and driver are seen as memes.

I have had to take a long route to answer my questions but I hope you can now understand my answers. “From what are we to awaken? From the meme dream of course. And how?” “By seeing that it is a meme dream”.

And who lets the meme-unzipper go its way? Who wakes up when the meme-dream is all dismantled? Ah, there’s a question.

- Susan Blackmore @ http://www.memes.org.uk/meme-lab/DART96.HTM
 
fastandbulbous said:
If this gets another posting of lyrics, I'm going to close it as it has fuck all to do with advanced drug discussion (other than an example of how extremely heavy use of psychedelics can alter a person's mental state)




I'm afraid from what & the way you're posting you flipped a long time ago and if you keep up that drug regeime tou'll end up flipping like a fish out of water. You don't have to listen to the advice being given (by several BLers that have experience of this sort of thing), but you do have to stop posting all the off-topic babbling & shit that has nothing to do with advanced drug discussion.

Failure to adhere to the last part will result in me closing this thread and hunting down any other posts you make in ADD for signs of similar nonsensical babbling. I think this is a valid topic so it's future as a thread is up to you...

I'm verry sorry. :(

Please move this topic to Psychedelic Drugs or what would be a good place?
 
fastandbulbous said:
Of course you can ignore all this advice, but I'll give it not too long until it all nose dives & you'll be posting on 'The Dark Side' (if you don't get sectioned)

I think this guy's already gone.

Hopefully this will get locked now... to the OP, there's no foolproof way to reduce your tolerance except... laying off the drugs. Which you really need to do, for your own mental health.
 
wow look I'm pretending to be insane! this is high-quality shit!
F&B, do what you must, please
 
Nothing else could possibly be added to this thread. Everyone has pretty much given the same advice. Then almost comes in and copies/pastes whole entire books and makes a post that is like 9 kilometers long, and this thread is going nowhere.

Please don't send this to PD, fastandbulbous... :\
 
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