lsd like trip through meditation?

[swilow]

It was later revealed the monk had palmed the LSD and conned Ram Dass into seeing him as some kind of fucking superhero (a lot of these monks/holy men are adept at sleight of hand - it's an effective way of convincing some people of your "holy powers". If you took David Copperfield to some village in India he'd be worshipped as a God)

Do I detect a hint of racism there? To say that Indian villagers would assume David Copperfield would be a "god" is a bit of an indictment on Indian people themselves. Once again, you need to avoid generalising. The spiritualty of Hinduism is probably the closest drug-free access to the Divine. Its not bound to the cosmology of a people or geography; the avatars are what Jung would call archetypes, and many psychedelic substances closely tie into these shared-memories. In my experience at least....

Psychedelics are their own path - trying to say mediation is the same thing is disrespectful to psychedelics. It's usually people who have some kind of anti-drug stick up their ass. "Psychedelics arn't as good as doing it naturally with Buddhism". I think psychedelics are far, far more spiritual than man-made ideas like Buddhism.

Now you've switched religions; Ram Daas ascribed to Hindu beliefs. The two systems; Hinduism and Buddhism only share a spacial compnonent. They are as disimilar as Islam is to christianity.

The thing with Buddhism is that its not neccesarily something constructed for the western mindset- we are so used to being attached to our ego's, and therefore sufferring, that we may need a psychedelic material to actualise the peace we may crave for. Buddhism and its beliefs are pretty strange to many people; how does one cease attachment to things/people? I can't shed my love for Miss Willow simply to remove potential sufferring; well, its not "I can't" but "I won't".

That said, to think that psychedelics are less spiritual is to demean the truth of them. They are a direct route to the spirit-centres; but these spirit-centres are the same as the place that meditative practise accesses. Both practises, tripping or plain old trance, take different directions to get to the same place.

On topic- the closest experiences I have had to psychedelics, which did not involve them, has been what could be called ceremonial magik. One particular practise stands out; the repetitive, complex Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. Sounds corny, yes- and there is an element of embarassment in it (what the fuck am I doing, chanting in broken eneochian "script", whilst circulating an "altar"???? :D), but the effects of what is essentially a directed meditation and the willing summoning of spirits/daemons/archetypes actually does effect the mind strongly- I have been present, and taken part in, such ceremonies, and the world basically vanishes. Whats left is the holographic thought patterns closesly resembling DMT- everything is everywhere, and these "spirits" are also everywhere and always everywhere.

Though this ritual (which is similar to chanting the rosary or mantra) I have seen a humble bedroom change into a massive, grey arena of sorts with a definte, alien prescence. That, and other odd happenings, has lead me to draw back from ritualistic 'magik', and learn a bit more about what I am seeing and feeling. I am a lucid dreamer, and have been really diving into what might very well be the Truth. Astral projection; whilst pretty different to what I thought it would be like, is defintely a form of "entheogenic" meditation; entheogenic in that you can touch the inner divinity and all senses are immersed in a very real experiece.

Plain pryanyama meditation and gentle yoga as a daily practise is incredibly potent in the mental alterations that come; the calmness, centredness, fullness lasts longer then any psychedelic drug. The neural changes (whatever they are) stick, as opposed to psychedelic changes; which fade or diminsh.

 

[willkell420]

I am curious about the setting in which you performed these events.

Were these people friends of yours? or clients?

Was this in a professional setting, or just chillin out at the house?

These were friends of mine, and the hypnosis was performed at my place, their place, party's, and even work. I've never had a paying client request a "drug experience", this is something I've only done with friends and friends of friends at parties etc. But it does definitely work, and at times much more powerfully than the actual drug would of....

 

[phew]

Great post Solipsis. I learn a lot from your writings.

If I had plenty of experience meditating and learned a wide variety of skills, would I be able to handle extremely intense doses (4th plat DXM, K hole) easier than before? Would this be a great change or a minor boost in ability to handle the experience?

How would meditation help? Is a +++ possible with meditation or can meditation turn a ++ into a +++?

I'm predicting the following:

• 
  * Improved recall of the trip
  * Lucidity throughout the trip, even through confusing experiences
  * More "control" over the effects of the drug
  * Enhancement of all effects; music enhancement, OEV, euphoria become more pronounced.
  * Ability to make sense of the trip on a higher level... or to discover how little it means.
  * Bad trips become essentially negated by having such a powerful mental tool to deal with such negative experiences/thoughts.

Are my predictions correct?



EDIT:
Wait. I'd love an answer to this question: Even if meditation can't provide psychedelic experiences... how would it compare if we thought of meditation experiences as effects brought on by a drug. How would that drug compare and how intense would/could it be? How would we describe it terms of other drugs (for example: 2-ce being more visual than LSD, Salvia being as strong as DMT but with more dysphoria, 4-aco-dmt similar to shrooms, LSD having a "speedy" aspect, etc. )

I get the impression that Ego Death is possible through meditation. Also, I've read (and partially experienced) that profound relaxation is possible. Another thing I've heard from (ugh....) neurosoup is that if there was a scale of 1 - 10 for drugs, meditation would be like a 5 - 6 while other drugs go up to 8 or 9. That suggests that no matter what meditation will never be as intense as ketamine. But she's unreliable so I will not take her words at face value, just putting it out there... it makes you think.

I wonder if someone could k-hole while meditating.

 

[Psychodelirium]

Related reading ...

You know, the more I read of this kind of thing, the less sense it makes to me.

It is clear that "spiritual teachers" of all sorts are largely concerned with demonstrating that any attempt to transcend the mind (or "ego", "personality") by means of the mind (ego/personality) involves one in vicious circularity and paradoxes of self-reference. The message is that the more you try to change, the more you stay the same, because it is the "trying to change" that is itself the problem. The story about the Buddha's students coming to him and saying, "you've told us to be free of desire, but we are still desiring not to desire" (and many similar stories) is intended to demonstrate this point. This is the nature of the thought loop of selfhood, of becoming, and enlightenment is the breaking out of this loop.

I am not going to pretend that I completely grok this, but it makes a lot of intuitive sense to me, and I feel that there is a real and profound insight in it.

Now what these people go on to say, and what does not make very much sense to me at all, is that drugs won't work either. Actually, a priori, it would seem that if anything could work, it would be drugs. Why? Because the influence of the drug comes from without. One does not control it, the way one "controls" one's own mind (and for which reason one cannot change it). One is rather subject to it. To take the drug and be thrown into that state is like being thrown at the mercy of nature. One goes through transformations that are unpredictable, surprising, unexpected, and often not at all desirable from the point of view of the personality.

This is precisely why people call these drugs "plant teachers". The relationship that one gets into with the drug is similar to the relationship that one is supposed to get into with a guru, or sufi sheikh or zen master, or any comparable figure. You come to such a person because you want to be deconditioned, and you can only be deconditioned if you yield some of your autonomy over your mind. You have to be willing to see things that you don't want to see and put yourself into situations that you would rather avoid, not for any practical reason, but precisely because you don't want to see them and would rather avoid them. The point is that both the "plant teacher" and the human teacher fulfill the role of novel, uncontrollable and unpredictable experience. They challenge you from without because you are (deeply, structurally) incapable of challenging yourself from within.

Now why do these people say that drugs won't work? I don't know, but I feel that in this case I am owed a substantive argument and not just the usual rhetoric. Personally, I feel a lot of "spritually" minded people are uncomfortable with drugs because they are uncomfortable with physicalism, with the notion that the mind has a physical, neurological substrate that can modified at that level without jumping through the usual hoops. This is a new and heterodox idea because brain science is new. Most of the mystical and spiritual traditions that are concerned with these issues are thousands of years old. The scientific image of the human mind is extremely new. It is not surprising that it should ruffle feathers.

 

[ControlDenied]

you guys are complicating the fuck out of an extremely- in fact, can we say transcendentally? - simple issue.
its not a bunch of professors squabbling over different philosophies.
its simply an effort to quiet stress and mind so that human survival and potential is made easier.
i think buddhim and such are meant for people in crises, which, in poor countries they constantly are...not for those who are "bored" from lack of affect.

just as LSD is deadly to bored teenagers

who can raise their hand to that? dont be shy now...

 

[Psychodelirium]

those who are "bored" from lack of affect

I think this is a more serious malady than it seems to be.

By the way, it's worth pointing out that according to tradition, the historical Buddha was not a stressed out peasant, but a sheltered prince living in affluence.

 

[madswagga]

ive meditated on dxm several times, makes it HELLA fun. you have such control over your mind. if youve seen the movie inception last i cued up all these scenes on top of each other kinda how they layer the dreams. was fairly entertaining to say the least. will try it next time i dose

 

[TheAppleCore]

i dont know a single LSD user who is now normal. they either go into a life-long drugs binge thinking drugs are "the answer", because of the intensity of the LSD experience, or they simply turn to religion of any kind to calm the demons that LSD awoke. these are the lucky ones. then there are a few who just forget the experience and get on with their lives as well.

Hm. You don't know people like me, then.

 

[Ismene]

Do I detect a hint of racism there? To say that Indian villagers would assume David Copperfield would be a "god" is a bit of an indictment on Indian people themselves.

No, you fundamentally misunderstand. It's an indictment that indian villagers may not have seen as many illusionists on television. John Lennon said he once saw a Hindu mystic called "babaji" who was "a phoney "miracle worker" who seemed to spend most of his time pulling cheap watches "from nowhere".


The spiritualty of Hinduism is probably the closest drug-free access to the Divine

No it isn't. Hindu's believe in the caste system - and you can't get any more barbaric and furthur away from the divine that that.

Do you detect a hint of racism in the Hindu caste system I wonder?


Buddhism and its beliefs are pretty strange to many people; how does one cease attachment to things/people?

Why would anyone would want to. Certainly the Tibetan monks who spend their lives devoted to buddhism don't. They're notorious for being savagely cruel slavemasters to the poor Tibetans they keep as slaves. I believe the punishment they favour for slaves who pinch anything from them is to cut the poor fuckers hand off. You'd think if they didn't have any "attachment to things" they wouldn't mind someone else taking it.


Plain pryanyama meditation and gentle yoga as a daily practise is incredibly potent in the mental alterations that come; the calmness, centredness, fullness lasts longer then any psychedelic drug. The neural changes (whatever they are) stick, as opposed to psychedelic changes; which fade or diminsh.

I don't find meditation "sticks" any longer than psychedelics. It's far, far weaker than psychedelics too.

 

[phew]

Ismene, how long have you been meditating and how much have you read on the subject. What's the highest level you've reached through the meditating?

 

[SKL]

Hm. You don't know people like me, then.

I'm in general agreement with CD but Id structure the categories a bit different

People who dose acid generally are not psychologically healthy.

There are at least 3 scenarios that can come about:

(a) You could use LSD in a way that benefits you psychologically. But this comes with an expiration date. Doing too much L will get you confuzzled, at best, it will get you to be a very nice person who has a bit of a loopy thought process and an over-concentration on LSD. but more likely it'll make you unable to relate to others in a meaningful way outside of drug contexts and unable to manage your daily affairs.

ever notice how LSD is a bit of a self-perpetuating meme? people who take it want to spread it to others ... sort of like a pharmacological virus ... very very very interesting. how many people have you known to get on the acid messiah trip, and want to spread the psychedelic gospel to the masses? Lord knows I was there for a minute.

(b) you could use LSD in a way that fucks you up psychologically. needs no more explanation, really. we've all met people who are just fucking basket cases who dose a lot of L. some of them might be bigger basket cases if they didn't, some might be less basket cases than before, some might be more or less the same. but the L ain't really much of a solution (see the expiration date above)

or

(c) You could do L a few times, maybe get something out of it, then walk the fuck away; or alternatively you could do ti very very very very sparingly. this is probably the option for the more psychologically healthy of our LSD usign cohort. and these people tend not to take L quite as seriously as (a) or (b). because i tink when you start taking your drugs too seriously is when the true true true madness begins.

 

[TheAppleCore]

ever notice how LSD is a bit of a self-perpetuating meme? people who take it want to spread it to others ... sort of like a pharmacological virus ... very very very interesting.

Indeed. But I don't perceive LSD as maliciously manipulating its users into spreading itself, as a virus reproduces at the expense of the health of its host. It's a natural and healthy reaction to want to share something that is perceived to be beneficial in some way.

i tink when you start taking your drugs too seriously is when the true true true madness begins.

Isn't it up to the user to decide how serious psychedelics are, with respect to their own lives? They're fairly subjective. Some stand less to gain than others.

 

[Psychodelirium]

(c) You could do L a few times, maybe get something out of it, then walk the fuck away; or alternatively you could do ti very very very very sparingly. this is probably the option for the more psychologically healthy of our LSD usign cohort. and these people tend not to take L quite as seriously as (a) or (b). because i tink when you start taking your drugs too seriously is when the true true true madness begins.

In my experience, the more seriously you take your drugs, the less inclined you are not only to take them but also to proselytize about them. The point at which it hits you that "oh shit, this is serious business maybe" is also the point when you lose the cavalier thrill-seeking attitude. I don't think the basket cases you have in mind really qualify as "serious".

 

[SKL]

Point taken.

"Taking it too serious" might not be the best term.

I'm trying to describe a state of inordinate preoccupation with the drug state to the exclusion of the realities of the reality-state in which we actually have to operate.

Also, people tend to focus too much on the content of drug experiences. Most of the content is delusional bullshit. The really interesting things about drug experiences, IMO, are the changes that they bring about in your state of mind and your perceptions, not what is actually in your mind or what is being percieved. The lens ,not what is seen through it, and more importantly, how the lens relates to your ordinary one, and what that can teach you in terms of operating your mind/lens.

 

[Ismene]

Ismene, how long have you been meditating and how much have you read on the subject. What's the highest level you've reached through the meditating?

Why does that matter tho? Presumably the Tibetan monks have been meditating constantly for decades and they still gouge out their slaves eyes as punishment. Do I need to meditate for 50 years to reach "their level"?

My attachment to things is so low that if someone steals from me I don't go and cut their hand off. That's a lot higher level than the Tibetan monks ever reached over the last thousand years.

 

[Ismene]

(c) You could do L a few times, maybe get something out of it, then walk the fuck away; or alternatively you could do ti very very very very sparingly. this is probably the option for the more psychologically healthy of our LSD usign cohort. and these people tend not to take L quite as seriously as (a) or (b). because i tink when you start taking your drugs too seriously is when the true true true madness begins.

Isn't this the old Alan Watts argument "When you get the message hang up the phone?". I always thought it was tragic that Alan believed that. He "hung up the phone" on acid and then drank a bottle of whisky every day until he dropped dead. If he'd picked up the phone on acid and put the bottle down he would have lived a lot longer.

Perhaps you could take acid regularly whenever you feel the need for a cathartic emotional experience or you simply wish to enjoy a pleasant day out in nature?

 

[phew]

Why does that matter tho? Presumably the Tibetan monks have been meditating constantly for decades and they still gouge out their slaves eyes as punishment. Do I need to meditate for 50 years to reach "their level"?

My attachment to things is so low that if someone steals from me I don't go and cut their hand off. That's a lot higher level than the Tibetan monks ever reached over the last thousand years.

We're not talking about Tibetan monks and their culture. We're talking about meditation in the practical sense.

 

[Ismene]

We're not talking about Tibetan monks and their culture. We're talking about meditation in the practical sense.

But no matter how much meditation I do it's never going to be anywhere near the amount a Buddhist monk does. I'm guessing the question about "How much meditation do you do" was designed to suggest that if only I meditated more than I would believe in it more - like the Buddhist monks.

I suppose the flip argument applies too - the longer someone spends meditating the more reluctant they become to consider the fact that it's of less importance than they think it is.

Doesn't Buddhism trascend culture? I think most people understand "enlightenment" to be a state that would automatically preclude you from keeping slaves, never mind gouging their eyes out and cutting their hands off.

 

[TheAppleCore]

Isn't this the old Alan Watts argument "When you get the message hang up the phone?".

That one never made much sense to me. At least, it doesn't apply to my own usage of psychedelics. I'm an artist, and I look at psychedelics the same way I do music or poetry or film. The psychedelic experience, as the appreciation of the arts, is an inexplicable phenomenon that seems to have significance while it lasts. It is not a direct source of knowledge or revelation, but it can lead to introspection and deep thought.

When it's over, I am fundamentally the same person, but I carry with me a little crystallization of the experience in my memory. Sometimes that memory is an inspiration for a drastic change in lifestyle (this has actually only really happened once), sometimes it is no more than a memory.

Just as I will continue to immerse myself in the arts for my entire life, I will continue to explore psychedelics, unless something fundamentally changes in my perspective.

 

[demon66]

There can be some similiarities but they are not the same

When I heard Ram Dass talk about that whole "LSD and the monk thing" Ram Dass lost a bit of credability with me.