[Debate] What is ego-death?

[Solipsis]

5-MeO-PCP is that supposed to be funny don't think that exists, since the phenylgroup that has the meo substitution is symmetrical it would be equal to 3-MeO-PCP and needs to be called that.

Also isn't that Alex Grey's visionary art? Not sure if that counts as an inflated ego, that is not usually what 'spiritual' and psychedelic meditative practice is associated with, although I guess some people become quite self-centered because the self is a frequent 'topic' for them, a bit paradoxical but yea.
Anyway that was not your point, I get that... please keep the personal attacks to a minimum though, it is not really very becoming either.

I just removed another post as well with personal attacks, so quit it.

 

[max_freakout]

So you either think that: a muslim's pilgimage to mecca is not a religious experience, or else it is equivalent to you tripping balls on DMT?

Neither of these ^ 2 options are true.

i think that a muslim's pilgrimage to mecca is neither a religious experience, nor an experience like tripping balls on dmt. It is just a visit to a holy site.

If a muslim smokes DMT whilst visiting mecca, then both options are true, because tripping balls on DMT is the same as religious/mystical/transcendent experience, as the Johns Hopkins study demonstrated

 

[phuckingnutz]

And having brought out the glowing sticks and whistle, Jesus spoke shaking, "These are my trance mix tapes I have prepared for you.", asking his disciples, "Who amongst you has a scale?"
Dividing the candy bracelets among them, Jesus had ample left over, and, leaning under the table a bit, consumed them. He proceeded to lay in the bushes and, giving everyone a weird vibe, spoke thus, "These are my robes I have shed for you bitches."
The following morning Jesus woke the disciples and everyone was getting very annoyed at this point. He was somehow still up from the previous night.
Police came then, with a complaint, "Thy neighbour Judas has to work. Keepeth low thy noise", and Jesus flipped the fuck out.

damn pman...that is some funny shit...is that passage in the bible?

 

[max_freakout]

I think Max's avatar reflects his super inflated self opinion ie his ego.

My avatar is a painting by Alex Grey called "glimpsing the empyrean" (ie "glimpsing heaven"). Alex Grey intended this painting to illustrate the phenomenology of extreme psychedelic experiencing

 

[perpetualdawn]

Your statement doesn't contradict mine:

You made these two statements:
A. A muslim's pilgrimage to mecca is not a religious experience.
B. A a muslim's pilgrimage to mecca is not like dmt.

I predicted that you either would say A, or the inverse of B (That a muslim's pilgrimage is like DMT).

You should go to mecca and tell the people there that their experience is not religious. And then you should brush up on logic.

 

[max_freakout]

You made these two statements:
A. A muslim's pilgrimage to mecca is not a religious experience.
B. A a muslim's pilgrimage to mecca is not like dmt.
I predicted that you either would say A, or the inverse of B (That a muslim's pilgrimage is like DMT).

Sorry i misread what you said. I am saying statement A, that when a muslim visits mecca, they would be very unlikely to have a religious experience, unless they take entheogens while they are there

 

[lovepsychadelics]

5-MeO-PCP is that supposed to be funny don't think that exists, since the phenylgroup that has the meo substitution is symmetrical it would be equal to 3-MeO-PCP and needs to be called that.

Also isn't that Alex Grey's visionary art? Not sure if that counts as an inflated ego, that is not usually what 'spiritual' and psychedelic meditative practice is associated with, although I guess some people become quite self-centered because the self is a frequent 'topic' for them, a bit paradoxical but yea.
Anyway that was not your point, I get that... please keep the personal attacks to a minimum though, it is not really very becoming either.

I just removed another post as well with personal attacks, so quit it.

Sorry mate we were fucking off tit's on 3 meo pcp. We had 150 mg's of it. We'd been on it for 2 days between 3 people. Add a crap load of PEA's and tryptamines. I was still twisted inside out when I made that post. Then We added the 4 aco dmt. I had 4 ho mipt handy as well. Also my mate indybreaker was speaking russian and had no concept of me even being there. He drew a series of squiggles on paper. Maybe I'll upload my artwork made under the influence. Ego death was left in the fucking dust and yeah I know it's Alex Greys art. I think it looks like a fucking hot air balloon... at least under the influence of 4 aco dmt, 4 ho mipt, 3 meo pcp, amphetamine sulfate, 2ce, 2cb... Iming 4aco dmt and 3 meo pcp... Ever been there solipsis?

 

[pmoseman]

ENTITY CONTACT, that is vague enough to describe what it is all about. EGO DEATH is not vague, at all, and nobody has the foggiest idea what EGO means or how DEATH relates to their experience.

Can we simply use words that define what is being experienced, instead of the other way around?

My experience was a SUPERNATURAL EPIPHANY ENSUING A FIGURATIVE SUICIDE. Not so complicated.

 

[Obsidius]

always thought ego-death is when you become ONE with the universe and be everything and everyone at once, which might sound logical, since the ego is your individual separation from the rest of the goo. it's what gives you a concept of self definition apart from the rest. absence of this separation might be a feeling of one-ness with the entire universe. try DMT if you want to experience ego-death, although there a lot of possibilities to achieve this state, DMT might be the shortest way.

 

[max_freakout]

It is a keyword there because surely people with a religious background (and there are of course tons of christians in the US) who participated in the John's Hopkins psilocybin study will have interpreted their experiences using that background

That isnt how the study worked. None of the test subjects "interpreted their experiences" explicitly as religious experiences. Rather the participants described their experiences according to what they actually experienced, and what they described matched up to the standard, textbook definition of what religious/mystical experience is (according to the Pahnke-Richards Mystical Experience Questionnaire). None of the test subjects claimed explicitly that they had a "religious experience", and none of the questions in the questionnaire asked anything like "was your experience religious?". Read the pdf link i posted carefully to learn more about this, it contains all the information.

and the psychedelic effects may fill the molds of those religious beliefs. But there are so many other sorts of 'molds' psychedelic effects can fill!! It does not have to be religious, some people have virtually no religious background at all, but they still have ideas, convictions, desires, passions, etc... and those can manifest via psychedelic effects.
Some psychedelic experiences may be religious to a certain individual, but not all of them in every individual, therefore you cannot consider them synonymous.

You are confusing the experience itself with the subsequent interpretation of the experience, these are two separate things. Psychedelics cause the full range of mystical/religious phenomena, their effects are indistinguishable from religious experience. This is why these drugs are labelled "entheogenic", that label picks out this particular property of the drugs - the fact that they trigger mystical/religious experience.

Ego death is the core religious experience. Every religious story and every myth depicts a person undergoing ego death.

 

[max_freakout]

always thought ego-death is when you become ONE with the universe and be everything and everyone at once, which might sound logical, since the ego is your individual separation from the rest of the goo. it's what gives you a concept of self definition apart from the rest. absence of this separation might be a feeling of one-ness with the entire universe. try DMT if you want to experience ego-death, although there a lot of possibilities to achieve this state, DMT might be the shortest way.

This ^ is a crucially important characterisation of the ego death experience, it is the temporary loss of the feeling of separate identity (personal separateness). In the throes of ego death the tripper merges with (or dissolves into) the cosmos. The tripper becomes one with the universe, one with God, one with everything etc. No longer perceiving oneself as a separate entity.

 

[max_freakout]

nobody has the foggiest idea what EGO means or how DEATH relates to their experience.

On the contrary, it is very simple and straightforward what "ego" means: - the Cartesian thinker, the sense of personal existence

Also it is very simple and straightforward how "death" relates to the ego death experience: - Ego death is felt to be the end of one's life (the end of personal existence), death = the end of life

This is why the experience is called "ego death"

Can we simply use words that define what is being experienced, instead of the other way around?

That is precisely what the term "ego death" does, it defines the character of the experience, the death of the ego, the cessation of personal existence.

My experience was a SUPERNATURAL EPIPHANY ENSUING A FIGURATIVE SUICIDE.

This ^ description sounds highly suggestive of ego death, it would be interesting to hear you describe exactly what you mean by "figurative suicide". Thinking to oneself the thought that "i am dead" is a kind of mental suicide (ie self-termination, thinking oneself out of existence).

 

[perpetualdawn]

Oh I see max_freakout ... psychedelics is the one true religion.

Anything seem familiar here?

 

[max_freakout]

Oh I see max_freakout ... psychedelics is the one true religion.

This ^ is a category error, psychedelics are physical drugs, they arent a religion

To be more accurate - ingesting psychedelics is the standard, ergonomic means to gain access to the intense mystical/religious altered state of consciousness. All religious stories describe the drug induced intense mystical/religious altered state of consciousness.

 

[perpetualdawn]

Yeah I know psychedelics isn't a religion.

My point is you're committing the same mistake that religionists make in thinking that your particular model of spirituality/religion/morals/meaningfullness is the only correct one.

 

[+polar//ities-]

Not sure I've ever experienced true ego death but one DXM trip I had an idea that my mind was actually a consensus of an infinite number of beings, all of these beings were every individual thought or emotion I had personified, like Legion in Mass Effect. I thought of myself as "we" rather than "I" for the duration of the trip.

 

[Ismene]

I don't think it is that bad. That it is a complex matter (and how many of those are there in say the field of philosophy? Does that render all sensible discussion on philosophy impossible?) cannot and does not prove that there no base or core to it...

But we can agree that people can have exactly the same experience but be affected by it in different ways? A sports fan can watch his team and be transported to the heights of ecstasy, I can watch the same game and not be affected in the same way. Same experience, different reaction to it.

I actually feel confident in saying that because there are some very sound arguments made and important clues given

But no-one has ever suggested a valid reason why we don't all experience the ego-death. Can you think of any other single experience in life that happens differently when you do the same thing? Why does it happen for certain people but not others? Is it because they are "special"? Or because they have chanted Krishna? Or is it simply that like a born again christian, they are experiencing something essentially mundane but conferring meaning on it to validate their life in some way?

just having experienced beings, which many people do on DMT and other psychedelics.

True but there again people interpret the entity contact in different ways. I don't believe it's genuine and yet there are some people convinced they are in contact with the Godhead. Perhaps we experience "ego-death" differently too.

If you are talking about never having experienced ego-death and that you probably never will, that does not somehow make it okay for you to equate with random other things you consider as unfit for your world of experiences.

But it's the same thing isn't it. A born again christian will tell me that one day I'll find God. I'm old enough and experienced in life enough to know I won't. Similarly my experience with psychedelics is vast and there are people advising me that one day I'll have an ego death. I know I won't. The only logical conclusion is to treat both positions the same.

then I don't understand why it is so hard to acknowledge that and just say that maybe you have a different name for it

I've certainly always been aware I was tripping on a drug. If that rules out ego-death then I cannot have had an ego-death. There's no way possible that I could take a psychedelic and not be aware I was tripping. Absolutely none. That would be as silly as saying I could walk down the streets with no trousers or underpants on with a pink ribbon tied round my johnson and be unaware of it.

 

[max_freakout]

Can you think of any other single experience in life that happens differently when you do the same thing?

There are many experiences like this ^

Eating marzipan for instance, some people eat marzipan and experience a delicious taste, some people eat marzipan and experience a disgusting taste. Same action (eating marzipan) yields two very different experiences.

 

[Ismene]

No max, I need you to concentrate. What I said was you do the same thing hundreds of times but one time it happens completely differently. So using your example, you would eat marzipam 100 times and think it tasted great, and then eat it one time and think it tasted awful.

Not likely is it.

 

[GreenMachine]

i have only experienced an extended period of "ego death" once. it was extremely disorienting and straight up scary. it was at a wild festival in the wee hours. the thoughts in my brain were indistinguishable from the things people around me were saying. through the music and psychedelic communion of a festival like that, you can get to a near-psuedo-telepathic state anyways, let alone with a headful of L. i was thinking things that i thought other people were thinking, or they were thinking things i was thinking. there was no way to really know. things i was saying felt like someone else was saying, and vice versa. there was no "I". if i really, really, tried, i could tell you my name, not that i really knew what that meant.

paranoia crept in as i slowly began to realize who/where i was. i did not feel safe. i fell asleep with a knife in my hand expecting to be murdered by a cabal of evil hippies! to my surprise, when i awoke, i felt completely reborn. a new person. the opposite of the feelings i was experiencing the crazy night before.

it really showed me how subjective the world is, even when people are on the same page. the line between sanity and insanity does not exist, and sometimes is transgressed without even knowing. the most important thing is that the concept of identity and self, is really just a construct of the human mind, a facility to triage the information that our senses continually experience.