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"When you get the message, hang up the phone." And then pick it up again?

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Quantum Perception

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"When you get the message, hang up the phone."

This classic Alan Watts quote is used by many to bring up the idea of ending one's tripping career/activities.
Although there are inherent contradictions, (one being that Watts was a non stop drinker who used LSD recreationally multiple times, still love the guy though!), I don't want to discuss them.

Rather: Maybe its true we should hang up the phone when we get the message.
But does that mean we only get one message?
Is there's a limit of messages one can get?

Well I want to know what you think: Do we only get one message? Or multiple messages?

Perhaps we can get many messages from psychedelics. Or not?
 
Simply use psychedelics when it feels like having such an intense amplification of your mind is what feels right at the time and if tolerance allows.

If you don't think that your mind should have such an experience, abstain until the desire returns. It's hard to get carried away with psychedelics except for the occasional gram of 2C-B that comes around!
 
i think you can only get so much from a substance. once you have dosed it for the umpteenth time is it still worth it? the more doses you take the lesser the rewards and higher the risks / harms. i guess it boils down to balance, like most things in life.

i think its like a metaphor or some hippy shit =D :\
 
I believe there is no exact message, seeing as there an infinite amount of constantly fluctuating variables going into any experience at a given time. Still, if I had to interpret the quote, I would say it's more of a, flogging a dead horse kinda vibe.

Meaning that the messages you should get from tripping are things like...be open, be kind, never be afraid to reinvent, reality is subjective...these kinds of things. So if you keep tripping on some pseudo guru internal mission, you probably won't get anywhere. Also, if you eat a ten strip every weekend in front of the same band, nothings gonna change. It could go either way.

So in my opinion, this means as far as messages, there are both many, and none. Go with the flow. You could have an epiphany sober. You could have a "++++" on pot. You could get nowhere. Who knows.
 
laugh said:
i think you can only get so much from a substance. once you have dosed it for the umpteenth time is it still worth it? the more doses you take the lesser the rewards and higher the risks / harms. i guess it boils down to balance, like most things in life.

i think its like a metaphor or some hippy shit =D :\
Click to expand...

=;)
 
Hmmm, LSD is so rare for me that I am still on the phone saying "Hello?, Hello?.
But there are different phones, like the DXM phone of which I am hanging up for awhile, may talk to DXM again sometime.
Haven't talked to shrooms in a while since my brothers death trip.

I am just starting to talk to 5-meo-mipt and 25i nbome and the phone is far from the hook.
Trying to get in touch with some of their friends too, I wanna talk to them.

My phone is still off the hook.

What it boils down to is that a guy sometimes wants more than just Beer and Weed, but I'll never hang up on those two.
 
Saying hang up the phone when you get the message is as silly as saying it in real life. If you stopped answering your mobile phone when you'd had one message - what sense would that make? What about the thousand other messages you might recieve throughout the course of your life?

The phone is an essential part of life - never hang it up.
 
Quantum Perception said:
Well I want to know what you think: Do we only get one message? Or multiple messages?

Perhaps we can get many messages from psychedelics. Or not?
Click to expand...


you can get hundreds of messages. but: once you´ve had a "real" trip you can "use" the experience for the rest of your life.
 
--
stimutant said:
you can get hundreds of messages. but: once you´ve had a "real" trip you can "use" the experience for the rest of your life.
Click to expand...

Sure, but you can also have as many other trips as you like too.

In what other area of life would you say "Well, I did it once so I won't do it again. I got the message that once". Would you only have sex once then hang up the phone? Only walk in nature once? etc
 
The quote has some sort of validity to it i think. Just keeping tripping heavily you're whole life and one day it could really turn on you and possibly fuck you up mentally. But like others have said there's an infinite amount of messages to get, it just depends on the individual and the time. Will you handle the message? There have been times where I've wanted to hang up the psychedelic phone. But as of now I think I'll wear some space faces to figure some shit out.
 
I don't think he said "If you get the message, light the phone on fire and rip the cord out of the wall".

The full quote is thus:

"Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen..."

He is emphasizing the importance of sober meditation and introspection.
 
Last edited:
atara said:
I don't think he said "If you get the message, light the phone on fire and rip the cord out of the wall".

The full quote is thus:

"Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen..."

He is emphasizing the importance of sober meditation and introspection.
Click to expand...

This makes a lot more sense. People use this quote as if to say there is some danger when using psychedelics after you feel you have gained insight from them, but I definitely agree with the quote in this context. Sometimes you need to take time away from them and think about your experiences. The amount of time may vary for everyone, and only you can know when and if you're ready to trip again.
 
PowerFarts said:
What it boils down to is that a guy sometimes wants more than just Beer and Weed, but I'll never hang up on those two.
Click to expand...

you get yourself a sick liver I'm pretty sure you'll eat those words. i honestly hope that never happens though
 
Ismene said:
If you stopped answering your mobile phone when you'd had one message - what sense would that make? What about the thousand other messages you might recieve throughout the course of your life?

The phone is an essential part of life - never hang it up.
Click to expand...

Thanks Ismene. I couldn't have said it better. There is no limit to consciousness. Can ANYTHING get boring if done too much and too close together? You bet. But take some time off and check in now and again. My first trip was 1978. Then thousands for sure. I still try and get at least one or two in a year. Some of those are very fruitful and some aren't. But that's life. A tool is a tool. And as Ismene stated the meaning can be taken in many different ways. If a person looks through a telescope and discovers a big universe, the message has just begun and the tool can be helpful throughout life. No one stops looking through a telescope once the universe is discovered.
 
Hang it up, pick it up, leave the message on your voice mail for later or just jump rope with the phone cord for awhile. The whole idea of "a message" is nonsense. Use drugs for as long as they're good to you, or not if that's better.

I've posted this story about a monk smoking DMT with Timothy Leary before, and I'll probably do it again:
Immediately after my first DMT voyage the drug was administered to the Hindu monk. This dedicated man had spent fourteen years in meditation and renunciation. He was a sannyasin, entitled to wear the sacred saffron robe. He has participated in several psychedelic drug sessions with extremely positive results and was convinced that the biochemical road to samadhi was not only valid but perhaps the most natural method for people living in a technological civilization.

His reaction to DMT was, however, confusing and unpleasant. Catapulted into a sudden ego-loss, he struggled to rationalize his experience in terms of classic Hindu techniques. He kept looking up at the group in puzzled helplessness. Promptly at twenty-five minutes he sat up, laughed, and said, "What a trip that was. I really got trapped in karmic hallucinations!"

The lesson was clear. DMT, like the other psychedelic keys, could open an infinity of possibilities. Set, setting, suggestibility, temperamental background were always there as filters through which the ecstatic experience could be distorted.
Click to expand...
There are places you can go with drugs that you can never go with sober meditation, and the reverse is true as well. Drugs are tools, sobriety is a tool, dreams are tools. What's the job? Using a toothpick for copper mining or a jackhammer for brain surgery ain't gonna get you promoted so choose wisely. The possibilities of subjective awareness are infinite, or if not, they effectively are as far as our glorified monkey minds are concerned. There's no final enlightenment or ultimate perspective, there's just comprehending from different vantages and detecting further horizons in endlessness -- some vistas more desirable than others. Use a magnifying glass, a telescope, a kaleidoscope, peer into a hyperprism, bio-jack into the trinocular 12 color receptor eye of the Mantis shrimp, or rip out your eyes and clog dance on them, there's never not something new to see.
 
Well, I must say the phone for me is a tool, not a plaything.
I hate chatting, when I use the phone it's "Yeah, hi, I'll meet'cha at the _____, bye.

Mind altering substance are a tool, and a plaything.

Therefore
Drugs>phones
 
atara said:
"Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen..."

He is emphasizing the importance of sober meditation and introspection.
Click to expand...

I think I disagree even more with the full statement. It's an idea that was popular in the 60s - "Psychedelics can only give you a glimpse, to get the real experience you have to become a hindu or a buddhist" - the whole essence of Ram Dass's argument. I've never liked the comparison of psychedelics and man-made religions like Hinduism. I don't think they give you the same thing - particularly if you're non-religious and don't want to follow a bloke with a beard.

Psychedelics are their own path and they deserve their own dignity. They arn't just some "shortcut" or "glimpse" of some bullshit man-made religion. For many of us, they're the only true spirituality we'll ever experience.
 
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