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Mescaline - Semi-experienced - Universe Shattering Huxlian Mindfuck

just revisiting this some months after I gave up psychedelics... a couple months ago I started drinking a shit-load of coffee out of boredom and had a panic attack-- it reminded me so much of a psychedelic trip that I dare not touch anything mind altering from here on out. I nearly lost my mind from coffee, but felt like mescaline and mushrooms brought me closer to Truth; amazing!

I'm glad you all enjoyed the report :)
 
Coming back to the quote from Doors of Perception:
Reflecting on my experience, I find myself agreeing with the eminent Cambridge philosopher, Dr. C. D. Broad, "that we should do well to consider much more seriously than we have hitherto been inclined to do the type of theory which Bergson put forward in connection with memory and sense perception. The suggestion is that the function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main eliminative and not productive. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful." According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this Particular planet. To formulate and express the contents of this reduced awareness, man has invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit philosophies which we call languages. Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born--the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things. That which, in the language of religion, is called "this world" is the universe of reduced awareness, expressed, and, as it were, petrified by language. The various "other worlds," with which human beings erratically make contact are so many elements in the totality of the awareness belonging to Mind at Large. Most people, most of the time, know only what comes through the reducing valve and is consecrated as genuinely real by the local language. Certain persons, however, seem to be born with a kind of by-pass that circumvents the reducing valve. In others temporary by-passes may be acquired either spontaneously, or as the result of deliberate "spiritual exercises," or through hypnosis, or by means of drugs. Through these permanent or temporary by-passes there flows, not indeed the perception "of everything that is happening everywhere in the universe" (for the by-pass does not abolish the reducing valve, which still excludes the total content of Mind at Large), but something more than, and above all something different from, the carefully selected utilitarian material which our narrowed, individual minds regard as a complete, or at least sufficient, picture of reality.
Click to expand...

Although at the time of this trip I was having a hard time accepting Buddhism as a practice, I've come to the conclusion that what Huxley is saying here is applicable as much to meditation as it is to a psychedelic experience.

Although the psychedelic trip does--as I experienced first hand with this trip nearly a year ago--increase the flow of information, this information is useless in a practical sense. Sure, you gain a certain 'wisdom' of the universe and knowledge of a sort of collective consciousness, but who can say whether these feelings are simply a result of compositional changes in the brain? Yes, we probably hold onto these feelings for a lifetime and they can create a sort of 'bond' between users of psychedelic drugs (this community, for example), but the feeling can only be recalled by continued use of psychedelic drugs; though mescaline is relatively cheap and quite easy to produce, continued exposure to psychedelics cannot be described as healthy.

So how do we recall and apply this knowledge in a more fruitful way? I propose that by applying the ideas of Broad to everyday, sober life, in conjunction with meditative practice, we are capable of perceiving less useless information (news, television, advertisements, aural static, questing for money and power, etc...) and noticing more of the 'little things' that we typically overlook. In this way it is a reversal of Broad/Huxley's "grandiose unlocking of perception" in favor of a "mundane unlocking of perception." Let's look at the quote closely:

-Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe.

This fits perfectly with the Buddhist concept of the "present moment." We are advised to forget the past, disregard what may happen in the future, and simply be present in the current moment: 'it is all we have,' so it goes. If the present moment is indeed all we have, then our perception of the world at this moment seems to be all encompassing as well. We are capable of knowing everything about the universe in the present moment because we are indeed "the universe."


-The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful.

-Largely useless and irrelevant knowledge... Ever watch TV? Listen to the news on the radio about 76 people getting blown up by a suicide bomber in Pakistan? Have you seen those advertisements on the side of the road for Verizon, Budweiser, Burger King? How about that job that requires you to extrapolate the data for lasts month's receiving and project the income for the next quarter so as to determine the cost-benefit analysis of installing new water-fountains at the intersection of Main and Park? Is your job 'useless and irrelevant'?

Look at it this way: what information is 'relevant' and 'practically useful'? How about that warm patch of floor in your bedroom as you wake up from a nice night's sleep? Maybe that bird chirping outside your window as you have your cup of tea/coffee in the morning? That cool breeze and rustle of the leaves in October as you play with your kids in the back yard? Or, simply observing your breath-- being thankful for that breath that cannot be explained.

-To formulate and express the contents of this reduced awareness, man has invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit philosophies which we call languages. Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born--the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things.

This sounds just like the Zen 'mistrust' of words: "The truth itself is beyond all description"

And with that, I will stop attempting to grasp at the truth with words.
 
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