DMT, Shamanism, and Death

[Eschaton]

Hey, good to see a recent thread about this topic. Ive been a 'past life' BL member! lol (back when I was at university before working 65+ hours a week)
I have now finished my work for a few weeks and am taking some 'time out' to find myself again.

I have not tried DMT, but have done a plethora of reading on the subject from watching 'the spirit molecule' through to reading many DMTNEXUS almost front to back.

The thing that hinges for me is that 'the most simple explination is usually the right one'.

Soo... I am going to take a big leap. here, and do the worst thing possible which is to "assume"
So. lets 'assume' that DMT is produced through the Pinelal gland, and that that gland does indeed have 'optic nerves' in it such as a '3rd eye'..

Well... The most simple answer would be that of course it is obvious that you will hallucinate vividly if you release a large ammount of DMT into the brain that directly affects a gland which has optic nerves attached to it..

Now.. Im not trying to suck the 'fun' (to put it very lightly) out of DMT, I am just trying to bring up an idea from someone who has never before been to the 'other side'..

Could someone please shed some light on this thought pattern?

Trust me, there isn't a reductionist model in the world that can explain DMT. To call the experiences had on DMT mere hallucinations is to completely underestimate the sheer magnitude of their psychic importance. When you break-through on DMT, you will become acutely aware that it cannot be merely a hallucination, because it is far too incredible and psychically relative to be a mere phantasm. Often DMT users come back from their trips reporting that what they had experienced was "more real in real," in fact, they often say in the same breath that it was the most incredible psychic experience of their lives. A spirit molecule indeed.

DMT must be experienced in order to be known; it is a proverbial black hole of human consciousness. Only those who have crossed the threshold truly understand the sheer cosmic importance and utter sanctity of DMT.

Keep reading and let go!

Nice man! I really like the site!

I'm loving the ideas in this thread too, I haven't done DMT either, but have done quite a bit of reading on it as it interests me a lot.

I'm currently too stoned to contribute more or even fully comprehend all of these ideas, I shall attempt to digest more

Thank you very much for your kind words. Check back with the thread when you are finished digesting.

This is your site? oh wow.. i wish to say thank-you personally.

I came across it a while back, when the background was yellow and the image was an Alex Grey painting of the 'eye of consciousness'. I thoroughly enjoyed the reading and reached very much the same conclusion's myself through several breakthrough experience's on DMT. It was a pleasure to read through and find that someone was able to portray so well in words what i could only understand on a mental level.

Once again, thank you very much for your kind words. It is people such as yourself that make writing worth the while. It is a great hobby, don't get me wrong, but when I hear people say the things you have, it makes my little ego happy knowing that I am possibly facilitating others understanding of themselves. That is my true goal. Thanks! %)

I suppose the problem with all the claims of religious or holy men is - are they lying? My guess is that a good 99.9% of them are. I remember when the Beatles went to see the Maharishi he claimed he knew "masters" who could levitate that lived "just over in the next village". Of course everytime the Beatles asked to see this silly fucker from the next village floating in the air he couldn't be found.

Most definitely, hence why I focused on corruption of the human mind, as we are all tempted by materiality. Only those of us who have been made to have a pure heart and poor spirit are able to truly resist and therefore make union with the Universe. That is the true marriage of existence; to be One with your Creator, whom is ultimately your Self. The job of all religious teachers is essentially to awaken you to your inner divinity; not some divinity dependent upon idol worship and a sheep-herding mentality. Corruption of the human mind results in the idea that deliverance is something achieved externally, by another person or Deity. True enlightenment is the realization that deliverance comes from within, hence Christ's teaching.

Thank you for your post.

Thanks for posting that man, I enjoyed reading immensely. I spend a great deal of time contemplating such issue as consciousness, 'life after death', the nature of free will etc, and haven't really come to many conclusions.

The conclusions I have come to however, is that the Dualist notion of the separated ego, or mind, that is distinct from the body, seems to be much closer to the money than any other theory put forward. From this view the only plausible, to me, view with regards to existence after death is that the mind 'lives on' somehow, or is reborn into an alternate form of life.

I'm very intrigued to read more of your thoughts - I've actually bookmarked your site for later reading.

[OFFTOPIC]
If you want your site to be more viewable (i.e. without Yahoo site builder leaving it's odd coding style all over it) I recommend http://www.w3schools.com/ for learning HTML - you'll only need to know a few tags (html, head, title, body, center, p, a, img, b, u, i) for your site to look exactly the same[/OFFTOPIC]

Thanks again!

Thank you!

As I said above, it is people such as yourself that make writing worth while.

If you are into the Dualist notion; check out Carl Jung. The man was obsessed with it and alchemy was his forte. The reconciliation of opposites is what alchemy is all about and his brand of psychology is absolutely perfect for helping facilitate such a reconciliation within your very being.

Thank you for your suggestion; I will be checking that out today. Does my site look f-ed up?

Yahoo sitebuilder is a joke, I know, but I am also a wee-bit lazy. However, I am always open to evolving and this seems like a good idea.

Thanks again!

 

[CaliFortunate]

I really don't understand the human obsession with consciousness. Perhaps because we see the world through the lens of our own consciousness we can't imagine a world without it, but look at the facts.

you spend a third of your life asleep. that means almost 30 years of your life are without a controlled or even noticed sense of being conscious. i know people are going to want to argue for the 'psychic' property of dreams but the bottom line is that there is no falsifiable evidence to discuss, so a debate would be meaningless.

what happens when you get hid too hard in the head? bam- consciousness vanishes. get too scared, too hot, even hold your breath for too long and the first thing to go is the thing you seem to worship and probe so vigorously. if you look at it from the perspective of our health and fight to survive, consciousness doesn't always seem to be the best ally does it?

i will admit this has been the path of western spirituality and introspection for about the last 200 years. an effort to so deeply explore every thought and notion of existence with the hope that ultimately you can crack into it's source- into something like the 'collective unconscious'.

this is appealing, especially to people who take drugs, but it's essentially traditional eastern thought turned on its head. zen for example, becomes a passive observer of thoughts, gently feeling at their content and nature, then allowing them to run their course unchallenged.

it's because of this, i'd recommend you do more research before you assume every religion on the planet has some sort of 'esoteric code' that relates back to something you can find in a Jung book.

happy growing!

 

[psychoblast]

Cali:

Do YOU really spend any time unconscious? If you are not conscious at a particular moment, in what way are YOU experiencing that moment? Your body is there, but you are not. Whether your consciousness is on pause, or taking a vacation to dreamland, or whatever, it seems fallacious to claim that consciousness is less important simply because the physical human body can exist without consciousness.

I mean, without consciousness, you have no sense of self. Without any sense of self, you don't really exist, do you? And by "you," I mean the person who THINKS he is you, not the body that the thinking mind inhabits.

There was a Douglas Adam's book where a scientist invented a machine that could show a picture of the entire universe. The science behind it was that, since everything in the universe affects everything else to some degree, you can extrapolate the entire universe from, say, a small piece of cake. So the scientist built his machine, hooked it up to a piece of cake, and blammo, the whole universe was extrapolated and displayed.

Though fictional and comedic, there is some truth to the notion that all things are interrelated, and that just about anything can be used to extrapolate truth about anything else. Some new age people say stuff like, "As is the macro, so is the micro." The point is, there is not a fundamental flaw with the idea that you can learn universal truth from a bout of psychedelical introspection. Because what's going on in you, and in your brain, is to some degree a product of and a reflection of the whole universe.

I think the original poster's website illustrates this to some degree with the image of a pre-historical shell that spirals with the exact same proportions as our galaxy. This shows that there is something in common between both macro and micro forces, that they shape matter in almost identical geometric ways at both the stellar and cellular level.

~psychoblast~

p.s. And this thread should still be moved to the Philosophy and Spirituality forum.

 

[Seventeen]

Thank you!

As I said above, it is people such as yourself that make writing worth while.

If you are into the Dualist notion; check out Carl Jung. The man was obsessed with it and alchemy was his forte. The reconciliation of opposites is what alchemy is all about and his brand of psychology is absolutely perfect for helping facilitate such a reconciliation within your very being.

Thank you for your suggestion; I will be checking that out today. Does my site look f-ed up?

Yahoo sitebuilder is a joke, I know, but I am also a wee-bit lazy. However, I am always open to evolving and this seems like a good idea.

Thanks again!

The site looks fine, just it will work on (almost) ANY browser of ANY (within reason) screen size if you implement it in plain HTML, as it doesn't really require any fancy formatting, just a <center> tag.

I've been meaning to check out Carl Jung for a while, ever since I read PiHKAL actually. I've got a few of his books on my to-buy list so this summer, after my exams are over, I'll get reading.

I was actually revising for my philosophy exams today with a few friends; 5 hours of debating such fascinating concepts as philosophy of mind and religion. I managed to bring in some of the stuff from your website about the infinite regress of the universe and Nietzsche quote about the daemon (so thanks!).

Anyway, I'll leave another comment when I've had the free time to fully read your site, I haven't gotten much further than the prelude yet.

Thanks again.

 

[CaliFortunate]

Cali:

Do YOU really spend any time unconscious? If you are not conscious at a particular moment, in what way are YOU experiencing that moment? Your body is there, but you are not. Whether your consciousness is on pause, or taking a vacation to dreamland, or whatever, it seems fallacious to claim that consciousness is less important simply because the physical human body can exist without consciousness.

I mean, without consciousness, you have no sense of self. Without any sense of self, you don't really exist, do you? And by "you," I mean the person who THINKS he is you, not the body that the thinking mind inhabits.

so you really believe the discerning, conscious mind is the only thing that defines YOU? tell me, do YOU tell yourself to breathe? do YOU consciously make your heart beat? considering the conscious mind can enter a dream state where it can convince itself of literally ANYTHING, i'd say involuntary physical processes are about the only thing that YOU do.

do you think it's just a coincidence that nearly every meditational, yogic, and tantric exercise is fundamentally tied to the observation of one's breathing?

you said, "without consciousness, you have no sense of self. Without any sense of self, you don't really exist, do you?", and it's here that i'll relate back to my original point. the OP discussed 'enlightened individuals' who have lost their ego and now operate from a 'universal frame of reference'.

he then goes on to say that the same archetypal "enlightenment" has occurred despite cases being isolated by geography and thousands of years of time. unless he means to exclude all eastern self-reflective traditions (which i'm positive he does not) I simply have to point out this "fact" as being an enormous historical inaccuracy.

if you're aiming at ego-death through the use of psychedelics you have to realize that the only insight comes in realizing the nature of your trip, not the content. if you can say, "wow, my thoughts are so insane right now that there simply can't be anything to them", then you are making progress. but if you sit there confounding your mind in an attempt to uncover some deeper message, your steadily drifting away from the goal.

so you're right, there is no fundamental flaw in assuming you can experience some universal truth from a psychedelic trip, but it is flawed if you believe that universal truth comes in the form of some sort of knowledge to be garnered and reasoned in your conscious mind.

"I gained nothing at all from supreme enlightenment, and for that very reason it is called supreme enlightenment"
-the Buddha

 

[Eschaton]

so you really believe the discerning, conscious mind is the only thing that defines YOU? tell me, do YOU tell yourself to breathe? do YOU consciously make your heart beat? considering the conscious mind can enter a dream state where it can convince itself of literally ANYTHING, i'd say involuntary physical processes are about the only thing that YOU do.

do you think it's just a coincidence that nearly every meditational, yogic, and tantric exercise is fundamentally tied to the observation of one's breathing?

you said, "without consciousness, you have no sense of self. Without any sense of self, you don't really exist, do you?", and it's here that i'll relate back to my original point. the OP discussed 'enlightened individuals' who have lost their ego and now operate from a 'universal frame of reference'.

he then goes on to say that the same archetypal "enlightenment" has occurred despite cases being isolated by geography and thousands of years of time. unless he means to exclude all eastern self-reflective traditions (which i'm positive he does not) I simply have to point out this "fact" as being an enormous historical inaccuracy.

if you're aiming at ego-death through the use of psychedelics you have to realize that the only insight comes in realizing the nature of your trip, not the content. if you can say, "wow, my thoughts are so insane right now that there simply can't be anything to them", then you are making progress. but if you sit there confounding your mind in an attempt to uncover some deeper message, your steadily drifting away from the goal.

so you're right, there is no fundamental flaw in assuming you can experience some universal truth from a psychedelic trip, but it is flawed if you believe that universal truth comes in the form of some sort of knowledge to be garnered and reasoned in your conscious mind.

"I gained nothing at all from supreme enlightenment, and for that very reason it is called supreme enlightenment"
-the Buddha

I find it funny just how antithetical you are.

You fail to realize that all truth is subjective and you sound just as sure of yourself as the people whom you are projecting upon.

You have your own dharma; that's fine.

But for you to act like you know the way, is well, ridiculous.

I will dissect this in a later post when I have the time.

I don't know where you get off being so absolute; it serves only to amuse me.

%)

 

[CaliFortunate]

I find it funny just how antithetical you are.

You fail to realize that all truth is subjective and you sound just as sure of yourself as the people whom you are projecting upon.

You have your own dharma; that's fine.

But for you to act like you know the way, is well, ridiculous.

I will dissect this in a later post when I have the time.

I don't know where you get off being so absolute; it serves only to amuse me.

%)

I should have prefaced better.

I don't have a dharma. The information I wrote was simply a pretty accurate description of some eastern contemplative practices, namely buddhism in a zen kind of way. I don't intend to say it is the way because I wouldn't even necessarily say that it's my way.

that being said, i still do disagree with the historical accuracy of your statement. what i described is the way according to a number of buddhist traditions, and despite how you may want it to appear, there really is no way to reconcile Jungian theories with this particular branch of spirituality, and trying to say otherwise is simply not looking at, or knowing, the facts.

if this point is what you intend to dissect, i suggest you save yourself the time...

 

[Eschaton]

I really don't understand the human obsession with consciousness. Perhaps because we see the world through the lens of our own consciousness we can't imagine a world without it, but look at the facts.

Perhaps you are confused; consciousness is essentially what we are; to not be focused upon it as a species is antithetical to our evolution. Mankind is essentially evolution becoming conscious of itself. To say that it is pointless to investigate our consciousness is quite pointless in and itself; it is merely your opinion and only that. To say that you have facts is quite laughable, but I'll get to that.

you spend a third of your life asleep. that means almost 30 years of your life are without a controlled or even noticed sense of being conscious. i know people are going to want to argue for the 'psychic' property of dreams but the bottom line is that there is no falsifiable evidence to discuss, so a debate would be meaningless.

Once again, this is purely your opinion. Carl Jung is by far and away one of the most important thinkers of our time; not to mention Freud. Both found an incredible amount of information regarding the unconscious via the analysis of dreams; Jung moreso than Freud. There most definitely is falsifiable "evidence" to discuss; here is where your stature as a charlatan shines through. Do you really think that you can discredit both of their careers (not to mention thousands of others) with your bull-headed opinion? You clearly haven't read the literature and you are merely letting your subjective opinion speak as objective truth. If you actually read any of the literature regarding Jung, you would know that the man analyzed thousands upon thousands of dreams and visions of the mentally ill, of which he found a startling amount of mythological motifs that absolutely could not have been the result of the person's respective catalog of experience. They simply could not have been aware of the myths that they were experiencing. You seem to be trying to say that since it is psychology, it cannot be "scientifically" verified; well congratulations, Captain Obvious. There is one little problem however; did Carl Jung lie for his entire career?

what happens when you get hid too hard in the head? bam- consciousness vanishes. get too scared, too hot, even hold your breath for too long and the first thing to go is the thing you seem to worship and probe so vigorously. if you look at it from the perspective of our health and fight to survive, consciousness doesn't always seem to be the best ally does it?


This point is entirely moot and gets me back to the fact that consciousness is all that we are. We cannot delineate ourselves from it; that is, of course, unless it is perturbed. Consciousness is not an "ally." I don't know where you are coming from with that. All I am trying to do is build a model - which I first and foremost know to be subjective - of the experience of death. Bottom line. I actually have vasovagal syncope and have lost consciousness several times; every time I have had a near-death experience and they have been some of the most profound experiences of my life. (I definitely don't "worship" consciousness though; this is where your projection upon me shines most clearly; you clearly worship your own subjective opinion and tout is as objective "truth.") Not to mention the vast consensus of Near-Death-Experience research, of which people have been clinically dead for hours, just to come back and report that they experienced the Divine. How do you explain that? Especially when these individuals had no prior religious beliefs. What does your reductionalist opinion say of such things?

i will admit this has been the path of western spirituality and introspection for about the last 200 years. an effort to so deeply explore every thought and notion of existence with the hope that ultimately you can crack into it's source- into something like the 'collective unconscious'.

this is appealing, especially to people who take drugs, but it's essentially traditional eastern thought turned on its head. zen for example, becomes a passive observer of thoughts, gently feeling at their content and nature, then allowing them to run their course unchallenged.

it's because of this, i'd recommend you do more research before you assume every religion on the planet has some sort of 'esoteric code' that relates back to something you can find in a Jung book.

happy growing!

I am not assuming anything. I would recommend that you do a little more reading yourself and stop stroking your ego. Once again, how antithetical of you. If you are so in touch with Zen and Eastern tradition, then you should be acutely aware that even raising such "points" is ultimately futile. Necessary? Yes. But, futile? Most certainly. You are essentially most guilty of what you are accusing me of, hence my "diagnosis" of your projection upon me.

I am not saying that every religion on the planet has an esoteric code "that relates back to something you can find in a Jung book." That statement alone keeps me from taking you seriously at all.

%)

 

[Sub_Jester]

Did you see any entities?

Did you check out the site?

Let me know what you think and I am especially interested to hear if you have seen the entities yet.

a while back i got the chance to go do a aya ritual with a few people and at the peak of the second cup i could hear a women talking from above me i couldn make out the words whe was saying but i could feel the emotion in her words and from cornors of my eyes i could see the outlines of beings and i could feel there presense there and they gave off a familiar feeling like i had met them befor or known them in this life or another.

 

[Ismene]

Most definitely, hence why I focused on corruption of the human mind, as we are all tempted by materiality. Only those of us who have been made to have a pure heart and poor spirit are able to truly resist and therefore make union with the Universe. That is the true marriage of existence; to be One with your Creator, whom is ultimately your Self. The job of all religious teachers is essentially to awaken you to your inner divinity; not some divinity dependent upon idol worship and a sheep-herding mentality. Corruption of the human mind results in the idea that deliverance is something achieved externally, by another person or Deity. True enlightenment is the realization that deliverance comes from within, hence Christ's teaching.

I like your thinking Eschaton!

 

[CaliFortunate]

@eschaton

believing jung and freud provide a succinct map of human consciousness is like believing galileo represents the pinnacle of space exploration. yes they were some of the first to apply a scientific method to studying unconscious processes, but they have no place in modern psychology. if you can't contextualize their place in history, you're not really doing enough research.

we can make this debate short and sweet-

first, go and learn the definition of 'falsifiable evidence', then go and try to find me some in jung's dream research (good luck with that!)

second, explain how jungian concepts could possibly relate back to zen.

 

[Psychodelirium]

Cali, I have a regular meditation practice and study Buddhism and I also read and find much of value in Jung. I do not experience any grinding incogruence between the approaches. I find that despite the superficial differences, Jungian individuation and Buddhist enlightenment are actually very similar concepts as both essentially suggest a method of deconditioning and an ideal deconditioned state.

Also, fwiw, I find that in many ways Jungian psychology predicts both cognitivism and evolutionary psychology, and saying that Jungian ideas have had their day and that's that sounds overly dismissive and naive. Frankly, saying that you understand the historical context of something, and then saying that it has no contemporary relevance is saying two opposite things.

 

[Ismene]

Hmm, though you could be right. It could be just an hallucination, but it definitely has or had more purpose than I could ever fathom in an entire lifetime. I could devote my entire lifes work to clarifying the message I received the first time I broke through but no words could possibly describe the profoundness, the certainty, the sheer scope and context, the pure clarity, beauty, liveliness, magnificence and ... what can you call it, fusion of being transcending all boundaries...

As if this message were not only part machine, but Pure machine, Pure human, Pure energy, Pure love, Pure feeling, Pure Mother Nature, Pure intent, Pure coincidence, Pure Everything and everything 100% and more, combined, and spiraled together all as one hypercomplex living vortex with nothing to say, as you yourself and all you know naturally falls into place hundreds of thousands, infinity worth of understanding left unknown of which a switch is simply flipped to "on" and "it" comes and you finally "see"

People are prone to having these kinds of experiences all the time tho - everyone who'se had a baby talks about pure love and pure nature, some people who enter cults and find "leaders" that inspire pure love, some people get it at sports events. There seems to be a lot of things that trigger these kinds of human feelings - and presumably there's nothing particularly mystical about having a baby or your team winning the Ryder cup.

DMT triggers experiences beyond comprehension and I think trying to relate them to old religious concepts like enlightenment is a dead end.

 

[Eschaton]

@eschaton

believing jung and freud provide a succinct map of human consciousness is like believing galileo represents the pinnacle of space exploration. yes they were some of the first to apply a scientific method to studying unconscious processes, but they have no place in modern psychology. if you can't contextualize their place in history, you're not really doing enough research.

we can make this debate short and sweet-

first, go and learn the definition of 'falsifiable evidence', then go and try to find me some in jung's dream research (good luck with that!)

second, explain how jungian concepts could possibly relate back to zen.

Your ignorance is quite humorous.

Once again, these are your opinions and only that. Quite frankly, I believe that you are a bit of an egomaniac hell-bent on proving other people wrong, when in fact, no one is truly "right." (That is pure Zen.) These are subjective viewpoints and for you to think that you have an absolute "point" is not only erroneous, but utterly pointless in the context of this thread. You are essentially trying to claim victory with each of your posts and it is blatantly misguided. I believe that you need a good lesson in humility and most of all, you need to touch up your mature discourse skills, of which you are clearly lacking. It is my personal belief that Carl Jung has provided the best map that we have for the human psyche and its antipodes. I am not saying that everything comes back to him; all I am saying is that I appreciate his model for its sheer universality. You are so preoccupied with proving me wrong that you fail to realize that you are being entirely anathema to your supposed purpose; that which was supposedly presenting an inverse idea in an open-ended discourse. However, your bull-headedness kept you from realizing that your opinion is merely subjective. You think that you have facts to back you up; that's too funny.

"On account of its somewhat unusual content, my little book requires a short preface. I beg of you, dear reader, not to overlook it. For, in what follows, I shall speak of the venerable objects of religious belief. Whoever talks of such matters inevitably runs the risk of being torn to pieces by the two parties who are in mortal conflict about these very things. This conflict is due to the strange supposition that a thing is only true if it presents itself as a physical fact. Thus some people believe it to be physically true that Christ was born as the son of a virgin, while others deny this as a physical impossibility. Everyone can see that there is no logical solution to this conflict and that one would do better not to get involved in such sterile disputes. Both are right and both are wrong. Yet they could easily reach agreement if only they dropped the word "physical." "Physical" is not the only criterion of truth: there are also psychic truths which can neither be explained no proved nor contested in any physical way." Carl Jung, 'Answer to Job'

"we can make this debate short and sweet"

You are totally in love with yourself and you wear your insecurities like a gaudy dress.

I don't need falsifiable evidence as you see fit, because frankly, I could give two shits about "proving" anything to someone who is as bigoted as yourself. So don't get too excited over there. By the way, keep claiming victory in your posts, it amuses me greatly.

Your last statement is very telling as far as your status as an ignoramus.

As mentioned below, the process of Jungian individuation and Zen enlightenment are very, very similar. Both involve the reconciliation of the opposites that exist within the human psyche; this is where Zen and alchemy meet. Both also involve deep introspection to achieve wholeness. The Yin and Yang are a representation of the reciprocal nature of the Universe; opposites combine to form what we call reality. Yin is feminine - the Jungian anima; Yang is masculine - the Jungian animus. Our split psyche - our feminine and masculine qualities - must be united within the human mind in order to achieve wholeness, hence many Tantric beliefs. This is the hieros gamos of the human mind.

To the alchemists, the opposites united to form a triad; that which is red/action. The Hindu's represented this triad as the gunas; sattvas, rajas, and tamas. These are colors which have their roots in cave paintings that date back some 50,000 years. Black, white, and red were the first colors used by humans in these paintings and they were often done under a religious context. Arguably, it is because we identify so deeply with the black and white dichotomy; the clash between them is red; passion, blood, experience. As I point out on my website, almost all religions recognize this reciprocity and it is evident in their teachings. Zen can be delineated using the Jungian model and similar archetypes show up that are evident in religions across the world. I fail to understand how you cannot see this. My primary argument is that all forms of mysticism are linked by the collective consciousness of man; once again, have you even read what I have written? I wouldn't be surprised if you are merely shooting from the hip.

Your ignorance needs to be checked methinks.

%)

Cali, I have a regular meditation practice and study Buddhism and I also read and find much of value in Jung. I do not experience any grinding incogruence between the approaches. I find that despite the superficial differences, Jungian individuation and Buddhist enlightenment are actually very similar concepts as both essentially suggest a method of deconditioning and an ideal deconditioned state.

Also, fwiw, I find that in many ways Jungian psychology predicts both cognitivism and evolutionary psychology, and saying that Jungian ideas have had their day and that's that sounds overly dismissive and naive. Frankly, saying that you understand the historical context of something, and then saying that it has no contemporary relevance is saying two opposite things.

Excellent post. Thank you.

 

[B9]

DMT triggers experiences beyond comprehension and I think trying to relate them to old religious concepts like enlightenment is a dead end.

I kind of agree, but I would say psychedelics ( DMT included but not exclusively so) can lead to moments of awareness, if this awareness was used as a reason to significantly & permanently alter the actual way a person lived their life then perhaps they might call that enlightenment.
Personally I'd suggest psychedelics can sometimes provide personal insight - what you do with that is up to you.

 

[malakaix]

Personally I'd suggest psychedelics can sometimes provide personal insight - what you do with that is up to you.

Agree, i think this is something a lot of people forget.. that the experience is entirely subjective and how that person wish's to interpret it is upto them, there's no right or wrong.. if the person felt 'enlightened' and it improved there quality of life, well awesome!

That's the beauty of these experience's, your the decision maker.. life's too short to look to others for answers.

 

[Ismene]

I kind of agree, but I would say psychedelics ( DMT included but not exclusively so) can lead to moments of awareness, if this awareness was used as a reason to significantly & permanently alter the actual way a person lived their life then perhaps they might call that enlightenment.
Personally I'd suggest psychedelics can sometimes provide personal insight - what you do with that is up to you.

True, true. The term enlightenment often gets hijacked by the religious tho and I always think psychedelics are too pure and beautiful to be contaminated by man-made religions.

 

[Eschaton]

True, true. The term enlightenment often gets hijacked by the religious tho and I always think psychedelics are too pure and beautiful to be contaminated by man-made religions.

I started out as an atheist and then came to realize what had truly occurred with organized religion:

Mystics acquire self knowledge - through means I have already discussed - which they know to be collectively shared and they attempted to share it with as many people as possible as they were obliged to by their experiences. This is the basis of religion. A precious few experience the Divine and do their best to share it with their fellow human beings.

Since this knowledge is collectively shared (innately), it has great potential to change people's minds about reality. This is where the troubles start.

The governing, controlling minds of our people determined that they had to curb such outside influences, otherwise they couldn't keep up the hierarchies which sustain their power. And so they systematically stamped out mystics, yet they kept their teachings for the purpose of controlling their believers.

That is a really simplistic way of looking at it, but if you start thinking about it, it truly makes a lot of sense.

Do you think Jesus would approve of the church today?

Do you think that any mystic would approve of our spirituality?

Of course not. Why?

Because of governmental corruption.

Bottom line. Religion is supposed to be about dissolving the boundaries that separate us. Government is about sustaining these boundaries and building them ever higher.

Materiality is the true temptation and we as human beings have been led down a path to slaughter due to unfortunate "leaders."

Religion isn't evil.

Human beings have the potential to be evil and our spirituality has been corrupted by this potential.

So in short, these "man-made religions" aren't to be shunned, as they are actually the product of "psychedelic" - that is elevated - states of consciousness.

Don't hate on organized religion; seek to understand them and find the gems that are hidden within them.

Just because other people tainted them doesn't mean that they don't have great potential to do good.

For the record, I don't follow any organized religion, but I can see the hidden beauty within them.

%)

 

[JackARoe]

Do you think Jesus would approve of the church today?

Do you think that any mystic would approve of our spirituality?

If I recall my Bible knowledge even back then Jesus went into churches, turned over the market tables and called people hipcrates. Any thing that can be termed spiritual knowledge gets very diluted when a religion takes over. Even from the source it seems. I get ripped for my beliefs sometimes, but I do believe a man can be fully realized and mastered enough to turn water into wine through manipulation of matter.

As far as the entities, I don't know Eschaton. I couldn't even pretend to have a solid idea on the subject. Parts of out own psyche? External life forces? Both? It is a mystery to all and as you can see there are many different ideas, all interesting. A materialist will say the entities are diluted light rays coming through our cornea as we hallucinate. A spiritualist will say they are external (but really internal) life forces that communicate with us. A psychologist will say they are part of our own thought process, etc...... Who knows. The conversation is interesting though and anyone thinks any of this is an open and shut case doesn't even like to formulate ideas. What really tears me up are people with open and shut opinions who have never even had a DMT flash.

 

[CaliFortunate]

Eschaton, if I had a nickel for every unnecessary word you clutter your posts with, I'd buy you a tape recorder, just so you can hear how stupid you sound haha. But no seriously, I'm done with you. If I want to hear baseless non-sense I can just go to Venice beach.


Psychodelirium, you're absolutely right about that observation. That's why in a earlier post I described this western type of introspection as "traditional eastern thought turned on its head". Because although their motives are similar, their means are fundamentally opposite.

Jungian philosophy aims to end suffering through individuation, which is essentially identifying the multifaceted and multidimensional archetypal qualities that your 'true self' contains. The idea of self is comprised of several different components

Eastern philosophy, zen specifically, aims to end suffering through mindfulness, in other words an underlying qualification of the nature of one's reality as being impermanent, and without form. The idea of self is an illusion

Of course we could go on debating the merits of each of these views, but that's not what I'm here to discuss. My original (and only) point is that any experience of connecting with "pure consciousness" or "divine" should not be mentioned in the same breath as 'enlightenment' in an eastern sense, because realistically those two schools are preaching two very different methods. This is why I say to the OP that you should not go looking to DMT visuals for insight into every form of enlightenment.