Experience is real. This moment is real. How much of your own experience on this planet is tainted and perverted by different ideologies, looping thoughts, and enshrined beliefs?
Terence McKenna urges you to trust yourself. Question everything, and embrace the chaos of the world.
Claim your identity, your vision, your being, your intuition, and then act from that without regret.
Take responsibility for what you think and what you do.
Empower Experience…
What do YOU think when YOU face the waterfall?
What do YOU think when YOU have sex?
What do YOU think when YOU take psilocybin?
It’s a wonderful thing to learn to be able to stand up and yell “Bull Shit!”. I did it when I was about 18 years old and it was the meme of the hour and it did blow their minds. It was uncivil. It was rude and crude and correct. – Terence Mckenna
Meditation is a state of mind, body and spirit where you are calm, focused, aware, and connected with your true essence. For most, getting to this state of meditation is a bit of a journey. That is why there are so many different mediation techniques to choose from including three for stoners.
The benefits of working towards a state of meditation are numerous, here are some that shape your life on a daily basis.
It Will Give You Better Body Awareness
When you take the time each day to slow down and notice your body, you will start to become more aware of how your body feels after you eat certain foods, after you do certain activities, after you spend time with different people.
This awareness is absolutely invaluable to your long-term health and one of the first and most noticeable benefits of a daily meditation practice. Your body is constantly sending you valuable information – you just need to slow down long enough to hear what it is saying.
It Will Improve Your Relationships
The practice of meditation will help you to become more connected with yourself – with how you are feeling, what you are thinking and how your life is affecting you. The more you take the time to slow down and tune into yourself, the more you are going to become aware of the role you are playing in the relationships you have.
From this place of awareness you will be better able to feel what relationship habits you have that are not beneficial for you, and which ones are. This knowledge will empower you to make any changes needed, so that you can have more harmonious relationships with everyone you interact with.
It Will Help You Communicate Better
All your new found self awareness will help you to more effectively communicate what you are thinking and feeling to those around you.
The more you are aware of yourself, the more you are going to be able to help others become aware of what is going on with you. This will improve your communication skills with everyone from your partner, to your boss to the stranger who bumps into you on the street.
It Will Sharpen Your Ability To Focus
Meditation is essentially a practice in focus. It is really the art of drawing your mind to the present moment and being with what is, right now.
Mediation is the fastest road to self-love. By setting aside time each day where you are going to sit and be with yourself, there is a good chance that all of your ‘stuff’ is going to come up. All of your insecurities, all of your doubts, all of your fears, everything that is sitting below the surface will rise to the top.
Then, if you are able to continue your practice of sitting and being with yourself and all of your emotions, eventually you will break through. You will begin to see yourself in a new light – in a true light. You will begin to see that you are not your issues, you are not your emotions, you are not your job – you will start to connect with your true essence.
Psychedelic agents, when properly understood, are probably one of the most valuable, useful, and powerful tools available to humanity. Yet, their use is extremely complex, which means that they are widely misunderstood and often abused.
It is not psychedelics that are complex. In their most useful application, they play a rather straightforward role. In my observation one of the outstanding actions of psychedelics is permitting the dissolving of minds sets. One of the most powerful mind set humans employ is the hiding of undesirable material from consciousness. Thus, a very important function of psychedelic substances is to permit access to the unconscious mind.
The unconscious mind is enormously complex and possesses an extremely wide range of attributes, from repressed, painful material to the sublime realization of universal love. With such variance in experience, learning more about psychedelics is essential for safe, sustained benefit.
These 4 books about psychedelics are an amazing foundational base for Psychedelic Knowledge.
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern. – William Blake from the poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Beyond essential reading, Huxley’s recount of his afternoon trip with mescaline tops many psychonauts list for psychedelic themed reading. Aldous is well known for his love of psychedelics, and his narrative ability is undeniable.
To pierce the veil and gain insight into reality and ourselves, yet still bring back a semblance of those insights once rigid mind sets again solidify is the hope of many psychedelic users.
That within sameness there is difference, although that difference is not different from sameness. – Aldous Huxley
What do you mean, blindly? That baby is a very sentient creature… That baby sees the world with a completeness that you and I will never know again. His doors of perception have not yet been closed. He still experiences the moment he lives in. – Tom Wolfe
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is known as the quintessential book that first documented the rise and growth of the burgeoning hippie movement.
Wolfe’s account of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters brought psychedelic use to the mainstream. This was a time before it was perverted by hedonistic tendencies, but more importantly, before both sides of the coin knew the other even existed.
The world was simply and sheerly divided into ‘the aware’, those who had the experience of being vessels of the divine, and a great mass of ‘the unaware’, ‘the unmusical’, the unattuned. – Tom Wolfe
A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll.
On the surface Hofstadter’s book may seem like it is about mathematics, art, and music, but it is actually about how cognition, thinking, and meaning itself arise from well-hidden neurological mechanisms.
Through analogies between mathematics (Godel), art (Escher), and music (Bach), Hofstadter explains how self-referential loops – ‘strange loops‘ – are the foundation for all meaning. Basically how meaning actually comes about from complex interactions between parts which when taken individually, possess none.
It is a wonderful book that will have you reevaluating the way you perceive and interact with your reality.
Meaning lies as much in the mind of the reader as in the Haiku.
– Douglas R. Hofstadter
How long will this last, this delicious feeling of being alive, of having penetrated the veil which hides beauty and the wonders of celestial vistas? It doesn’t matter, as there can be nothing but gratitude for even a glimpse of what exists for those who can become open to it. – Alexander Shulgin
PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story is a book by Dr. Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin. The main title is an acronym that stands for Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved.
Arranged in two parts, the book is considered the Bible of Phenethylamines (a class of chemicals known for their psychoactive and stimulant effects):
1st Part: A fictionalized autobiography of the couple.
2nd Part: Detailed synthesis instructions for 179 different psychedelic compounds, including bioassays, dosages, and commentary.
How he could be a good user of LSD,” I asked, “And know about the spiritual dimension – all that sort of thing – and still be a crook? I don’t understand.” “Then it’s time you did. Psychedelic drugs don’t change you – they don’t change you character – unless you want to be changed. They enable change; they can’t impose it… – Alexander Shulgin
Ann and Sasha Shulgin – PiHKAL and TiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story
What other psychedelic books have you enjoyed reading?
In The Buddhist Guide to a Happy Life, The Noble Eightfold Path is described as a journey of becoming detached from desired outcomes. Letting go of the need to control sets you on the noble path.
This simple cheat sheet to Buddhism will help you stay on your path and mindful of The Four Noble Truths, Buddha’s first sermon after he reached the stage of Nirvana.
The tiny, pea sized pineal gland located in the center of the human brain has for ages been thought to be the seat of the soul. Prone to calcification from fluoridated water and other toxins in our food supply, many people are actively interested indetoxifyingand de-calcifying their pineal gland. The rush of cosmic energy that is available when the mind’s eye is wide open, there is no other spiritual experience that compares to it.
What happens to a person who loses this gland to disease or some kind of accident?
Shawn Thorton, who, while studying art in school developed an illuminated painting style that baffles the rational mind. Experiencing severe illness, and often having manic and visionary episodes which revealed the contents of his extraordinary paintings, Shawn was learning to paint while, yet unbeknownst to him, he was suffering from brain cancer and had a tumor forming right where his pineal gland sits.
The over-arching style is reminiscent of an alien technology, laden with intricacies, schematics, and winding connections, a sort of motherboard of madness. Much like the human brain, his paintings show a complexity that is not easily understood.
Was his pineal gland releasing DMT, the spirit molecule in elevated levels while battling cancer?
I suffered from a slow growing cancer in my pineal gland while I attended art school and during subsequent years while my paintings developed with an underlined mythology that alluded directly to the pineal years before I even know of its existence.
I think I’d work myself into a frenzy for a while and yes, when I would fall lie down in bed I’d have something like a manic episode that was very lucid and visionary. That still applies to this day, but I try to control it better so I don’t get sick again.
I’ve had a lot of truly mystical and otherworldly experiences as a result of my history and battle with brain cancer and I’m really drawn to things that resonate with a certain powerful energy, and I’m always honing in on that more and more. whether consciously or subconsciously.
I treat depression with mushrooms. Haven’t done DMT ‘intentionally’. Man made chemicals are a thing of the past for me, as I’m really sensitive. –Reddit
Painting, for me, is largely an attempt to decrypt the mechanisms of illness through a disciplined medium. I feel, on some deep internal level, that through my painting practice I’m engaged in a psychic process to illuminate the intricate vessels and cogs of an insidious physic current that stems, in part, from having had a serious illness, and all the subtle and profound ways I was altered by this experience.
All throughout my early adulthood, I struggled from the mental and physical effects of a slow growing tumor in my brain, the symptoms of which were repeatedly misdiagnosed by my doctors as purely psychological in origin, and it ultimately took over half a decade to get a proper diagnosis and treatment to shrink the tumor. I suffered immeasurably during this period from having repeatedly undergone a host of treatments meant to treat the symptoms of mental illness, and paradoxically, from a mental illness that ultimately could not be contained. The tumor was in the very center of my brain, in a small, mysterious organ at the top of the spinal column, the pineal gland. I didn’t have any prior reason to consider the actual material existence of the pineal before this.
As for its spiritually ominous and physically precarious location at epicenter of my being, my ability to conceptualize these facts seemed utterly unreal, ethereal, like nothing short of a sordid space exploration, as it had been making its presence known to me for so long and now there were surgeons probing into my head – into my consciousness. As I further researched my illness directly after being released from the hospital, and after having had undergone emergency brain surgery a few days earlier, I quickly became very quizzical by what I was finding. What had been developing in my art, half unconsciously, over the previous several years in which I had been very ill and labored to keep painting, all of a sudden became very clear. Elements in the paintings seemed to correlate directly to the pineal gland and to many of its mystical and biological functions that have puzzled humankind for centuries.
All throughout the history of human sciences, religions, and philosophies, of different civilizations and cultures all over the world, people have contemplated and researched the pineal because of its mysterious location at the center of our brain. For me, most notable, was its purposed role in the production of endogenous DMT in humans, and its proximity in our brains to the Ajna chakra, or third eye. I also found it intriguing that the pineal gland regulates biorhythms in humans through the production of the hormone melatonin. This brought to mind images of medical charts; of archetypal schematics and universal symbols.-Shawn Thornton
Before incorporating the knowledge of advanced plant medicines, properly attuning one’s body and mind through diet and exercise is essential.
What goes into the body determines what the body will be composed of physically, mentally, and spiritually. The vessel must be adequately equipped to handle whatever may occur while in the spiritual realms. Body and mind exist in a symbiotic relationship, where the effects on one reflects on the other. Depending on which plant medicine you use, the intensity and length of body preparation varies accordingly.
Many traditional diets share common similarities, but each initiate will know what they need to abstain from to gain the greatest knowledge possible from the experience.
Common themes include abstinence from alcohol, sugar, salt, oils, meat and certain spices. Consumption of raw foods is also highly recommended as processing diminishes the nutritional content of the food. It is also common in some locales for initiates of ayahuasca to stop sexual thoughts and activities during the course of the diet and experience. There are reasons for this abstinence that are highlighted in greater detail here. For plant teachers such as Peyote and Psilocybin, a similar diet should be applied.
Exercises Before Consumption
A short fast before engaging in any plant medicine is recommended, aim for anywhere from 8-24 hours. Attempting to digest a plant teacher with other foods in the stomach can cause the initiate to undergo physical stress.
It is recommended that initiates disengage from the integration of meat and animal products into their bodies for weeks before, during and after the spiritual journey. It is also recommended that initiates let go of whatever it is they may be struggling with in their lives.
Temporary separation from those attachments which we feel we cannot live without will serve to enlighten us. If one struggles with addictive behavior, one should surrender that behavior before encountering the plant medicine if they wish to maximize their knowledge from the plant.
Anything one can do to purify and cleanse both thoughts and action – before and after the experience – will serve to increase penetration and understanding.
Psychedelic Spirituality Podcast – Proper Diet and Exercise for Spiritual Experience
Aldous Huxley interviewed for The Paris Review (1960), reprinted in Moksha: Aldous Huxley’s Classic Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience, edited by Michael Horowitz and Cynthia Palmer (Park Street Press, 1999)
Interviewers: Do you see any relation between the creative process and the use of such drugs as lysergic acid [diethylamide]?
Huxley: I don’t think there is any generalization one can make on this. Experience has shown that there’s an enormous variation in the way people respond to lysergic acid. Some people probably could get direct aesthetic inspiration for painting or poetry out of it. Others I don’t think could. For most people it’s an extremely significant experience, and I suppose in an indirect way it could help the creative process. But I don’t think one can sit down and say, “I want to write a magnificent poem, and so I’m going to take lysergic acid [diethylamide].” I don’t think it’s by any means certain that you would get the result you wanted — you might get almost any result.
Interviewers: Would the drug give more help to the lyric poet than the novelist?
Huxley: Well, the poet would certainly get an extraordinary view of life which he wouldn’t have had in any other way, and this might help him a great deal. But you see (and this is the most significant thing about the experience), during the experience you’re really not interested in doing anything practical — even writing lyric poetry. If you were having a love affair with a woman, would you be interested in writing about it? Of course not. And during the experience you’re not particularly in words, because the experience transcends words and is quite inexpressible in terms of words. So the whole notion of conceptualizing what is happening seems very silly. After the event, it seems to me quite possible that it might be of great assistance: people would see the universe around them in a very different way and would be inspired, possibly, to write about it.
Interviewers: But is there much carry-over from the experience?
Huxley: Well, there’s always a complete memory of the experience. You remember something extraordinary having happened. And to some extent you can relive the experience, particularly the transformation of the outside world. You get hints of this, you see the world in this transfigured way now and then — not to the same pitch of intensity, but something of the kind. It does help you to look at the world in a new way. And you come to understand very clearly the way that certain specially gifted people have seen the world. You are actually introduced into the kind of world that Van Gogh lived in, or the kind of world that Blake lived in. You begin to have a direct experience of this kind of world while you’re under the drug, and afterwards you can remember and to some slight extent recapture this kind of world, which certain privileged people have moved in and out of, as Blake obviously did all the time.
Interviewers: But the artist’s talents won’t be any different from what they were before he took the drug?
Huxley: I don’t see why they should be different. Some experiments have been made to see what painters can do under the influence of the drug, but most of the examples I have seen are very uninteresting. You could never hope to reproduce to the full extent the quite incredible intensity of color that you get under the influence of the drug. Most of the things I have seen are just rather tiresome bits of expressionism, which correspond hardly at all, I would think, to the actual experience. Maybe an immensely gifted artist — someone like Odilon Redon (who probably saw the world like this all the time anyhow) — maybe such a man could profit by the lysergic acid [diethylamide] experience, could use his visions as models, could reproduce on canvas the external world as it is transfigured by the drug.
Interviewers: Here this afternoon, as in your book, The Doors of Perception, you’ve been talking chiefly about the visual experience under the drug, and about painting. Is there any similar gain in psychological insight?
Huxley: Yes, I think there is. While one is under the drug one has penetrating insights into the people around one, and also into one’s own life. Many people get tremendous recalls of buried material. A process which may take six years of psychoanalysis happens in an hour — and considerably cheaper! And the experience can be very liberating and widening in other ways. It shows that the world one habitually lives in is merely a creation of this conventional, closely conditioned being which one is, and that there are quite other kinds of worlds outside. It’s a very salutary thing to realize that the rather dull universe in which most of us spend most of our time is not the only universe there is. I think it’s healthy that people should have this experience.
Vinchen’sstreet art offers simple insights into supposed complex social issues. It causes us to question the notion of their complexity altogether, leaving you to wonder why we are plagued by social inequities at all.
Asking questions incidently leads to answers, and Vinchen’s street art places the onus back on those looking back.
Though noise is defined as a random signal, it is often classified into areas: environmental noise, industrial noise, occupational noise, etc. It is also further classified into colors.
Engineers originally developed colored noises to use as guides for electric, acoustic, and audio equipment experiments. Each noise was named after the color it most closely resembled in frequency. Different colors vibrate at a different frequencies, which is how the human eye distinguishes them. Interestingly. in the early 1970s, colored noises were used to test for extrasensory perception.
Dr. Charles Honorton, among other parapsychologists, believed white and pink noise played through headphones could mute out the senses and make a person more amenable to subconscious thought. In Ganzfeld Anomalous Information Transfer experiments, extended exposure to white or pink noise was often successful in inducing in subjects hypnagogic and other altered states of consciousness. At a minimum, a few minutes of white or pink noise placed people into a deep state of meditation.
Rak Razam is an Australian journalist whose gonzo-style coverage of ayahuasca tourism explores how the ancient Amazonian spiritual healing tradition is impacting the lives of more and more Westerners—and vice versa.
Q: What are the healing benefits of psychedelics, and ayahuasca in particular?
Rak Razam: This is the thing, which has been missing on a core level: trying to look at the root causes of issues, not just the symptoms. The entire world is, at the moment, out of balance.
Our relationship with the planet is out of balance. The ecology is out of balance. The politics are out of balance. The monetary system is out of balance. You name it. It seems to be unsustainable “isms” that we’re living in that are not in right relationship with the planet.…
It’s very strategic and very serendipitous, really, that many, many tribal peoples all across the world still are caretakers for, and have the knowledge and the heritage of, ayahuasca and this entheogenic revival of looking at what the planet gives us with these plants and their substances.
They have held the flame, while, basically western culture—the dominating culture, which has subjugated so many of these cultures—is now getting ready again to come back into balance. Ayahuasca is going out into the world.
Q: What makes it important to you to educate people about these substances? What drives you to talk about and to share what you’ve experienced with other people?
Rak Razam: I’m a writer and I’m a journalist and I’m communicating and documenting what used to be called the counter culture and I call the alter culture now: this multiplicity of communities which are engaging in archaic practices or ways of being which bring them closer back to the planet and its rhythms—whether that’s altered states or counter culture or sovereignty movements or using technology.
I guess ultimately I’m more of a mystic, or as much a mystic as I am a writer. … Things like ayahuasca or psychedelics, they’re only the tip of the iceberg. They’re the finger which points at the moon; they’re not the moon itself. What these things have revealed to me is that there’s a deeper pattern and a deeper game afoot, I guess. I really feel that in the planetary organism of the Earth itself, and then the larger, deeper cosmic ecology, there are rhythms within rhythms. We’re one species among many on the planet and we’ve thrown the world out of balance.
I feel with these psychoactives or these entheogens, which the planet itself secretes—which basically only the higher mammals get high off—there’s a reason. There’s a synergy between the planet and these creations and there’s a larger pattern unfolding, despite all the war and heartache and seeming evil in the world. … Things are changing. There’s a new cycle beginning and I can really feel that. I think many people around the world feel that. I’m hoping to help give language to that and give perspective to that. It’s deeper than ayahuasca. It’s deeper than the psychedelics. It’s a return to I guess what Terrence McKenna called this archaic revival….
It’s like John Lennon [said]. Peace is there if you want it. Utopia is there if we want it, but it’s all about consciousness. I’m not pushing my agenda here, or saying that we should all elevate our consciousness.
What I’m saying is I think the Earth is in cahoots with with our subconscious here. It’s bringing us back into the garden, into this sustainable frequency of being with it, and that is elevating our consciousness.
