illegal drugs and magick
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"Leary was basically the Hugh Hefner of LSD."
You don't think that title would be better fitted to Kesey?
From what I see here, I doubt there more than one or two people who've taken decent LSD, much less studied its effects from a psychological perspective. A few words:
Leary's problem had to do with "Talk not overmuch." The proponents of LSD and other such drastic, life-transforming substances were so excited over their research, and so convinced that an "instant Samadhi" in a cute purple pill was the solution of the world's problems, they blew it out of proportion. The Pranksters and Kesey did away with any vestige of scientific research altogether, offending established society left and right. This shock treatment only led to demonization and political heat for the "hippies." 'Tis better to delegate LSD-search to the intelellectual elite--those prepared physically, mentally, and spiritually for the experience. Notice that trained psychologists had a much better time of it than, say, the average teenie-bopper.
This isn't to say that this society the LSD-volutionaries sought to reform wasn't in need of transformation, but the 60's counter-culture went about it in an entirely wrong way. The "tune in/drop out" strategy was a failure to begin with, as it provided no alternative to existing social systems--it's like starting a popular movement to eliminate obesity by getting rid of food altogether. The only successful faction of 60's counter-culture was the Grateful Dead. By creating an alternative culture, instead of doing away with traditional ideas altogether, the band effected an environment that was both self-sustaining and self-governing. The Dead are an amazing, and too-neglected anthropological study.
"Hippies!--proof that anarchy doesn't work!"
Yet the discovery of LSD and mescaline, and particularly Harvard tests did a great deal for culture in general, spawning some of the greatest artistic acheivments of the century. A good read for those who would like to become educated on the subject (and by the look of most posts here, there's a good deal of unrefined ignorance to dispel,) Aldous Huxley's book "The Doors of Perception" offers an excellent introduction to psychedelic research. Using a mescaline trip as the foundation for his story, he propounds excellent theories on the subject of psychedelic enlightenment, relating the experience to various forms of religious enlightenment.
Some furthur (
) studies: Leary: The Psychedelic Experience, Tom Wolfe: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Hoffman: LSD, My Problem Child. Ram Dass: Be Here Now. These are the basic titles one should assimilate before touching even a stick of reefer. Hunter S. Thompson's work in general is excellent, but be careful kids, he's a bad, bad influence. 
( I like his early letters especially.)On a more personal note:
After several years of intensive research, I've come to the same conclusion as Kesey: one must move beyond LSD. LSD offers nothing that cannot be attained by healthy eating, meditation, and ritual. Yet, at the same time, properly prepared subjects can attain intellectual freedom and inspiration in a very short period of time. I no longer take psychedelics, as it eventually becomes superflous. Why should I pay someone for paper soaked in refined fungus when I can experience the very same thing by setting certain portions of my brain into action?
((By the way, I'm digging the mating slugs avatar, Alrah.
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The final results of LSD can be attained by ritual this is true.
But I don't know of any ritual than produced trails so thick you can't tell where the actual object is from it's smeared after images. Or any that cause one to believe that colored lights each project different emotions to the point of taking on personalities and even voicing conversations. Rituals don't tend to cause intense anomalous motion illusions, or the extremes of ego instability, not the synthesia, or the pouring out of the imagination into the external perception beyond conscious control.
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I've gotten those extreme effects from ritual. I'll bet others have too.
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"But I don't know of any ritual than produced trails so thick you can't tell where the actual object is from it's smeared after images. Or any that cause one to believe that colored lights each project different emotions to the point of taking on personalities and even voicing conversations. Rituals don't tend to cause intense anomalous motion illusions, or the extremes of ego instability, not the synthesia, or the pouring out of the imagination into the external perception beyond conscious control."
See, those would be the effects of impure LSD, which is often cut with synthetic or "analog" psychedelic compounds in order to increase profit. Pure acid is characterized by extreme lucidity. It's actually quite hard to find pure anything, due to the lack of proper chemists and prohibition. This is one of the reasons I stopped taking drugs altogether--how can one tell that what one is putting in one's body is actually LSD, or mescaline, or whatever? I went a long time (perhaps 50 trips) before I took acid that was remotely pure--and the results were staggering. It was like that book you read that puts to rout your entire life's work, and you realize that someone has stated everything better than you, and then some.
" A while ago I read a book called spirit molecule which was about DMT, but the results didn't seem groundbreaking."
Yeah, that book was a load of mystic, quasi-scientific hooey. I much prefer Terence McKenna, who I forgot to add to my essential reading list. His entire work should be assimilated and studied by those who are serious about the subject. He approaches psychedelics from an anthropological perspective, and gives some interesting theories on the part psilocybin mushrooms played in the evolution of humanity. Unfortunately, a great deal of his lecture recordings were destroyed during the Big Sur fires some years ago. An acquaintance of mine has a number of his lectures on tape, however, which he was able to salvage. I hope to transfer the audio and post it one of these days.
"I feel that if you let it, the experience can show you a beneficial way of thinking that is transformative upon it's application, but you have to figure out how to implement it without chemical assistance. Maybe this is what you mean by becoming superfluous... Actually maintaining that state of mind can be done a variety of ways, and once you start working at it, the drug experience changes. You may even come to find that it had little to do with the drug itself. For people who don't use drugs, they have different catalysts. For those on this path though, they can't deny or forget just how they caught their first glimpse of something."
Good post, Aster; we've come to a lot of the same conclusions. It was the same for me: psychedelics unleashed a flood of psychic debris. While it was quite overwhelming at times, it drove me to investigate both myself and the world around me with different eyes. This inner objectivity hasn't left me even after my discontinuance of the substances themselves. It's the same with meditation. After a certain state, one transcendes the form and discovers the substance of the act, and can do away with what is essentially only a tool.
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lsd is an iffy drug to get hold of,because of how many bucketturners are tossing lord knows what together and selling it off with catchy names.this is the major reason i no longer trip (havnt done "acid" in at least 7 years,and i'm calling it acid for the reason it wasnt very good).if i found a source of decent quality purple mic,or even trustworthy blotter,i might be tempted,in a safe place with good people and away from my children,yes,i might indeed be tempted.
the "better trips" i've had on purple mic were beautifully introspective,at a time i desperately needed that depth and force to open my eyes to new concepts.i can only say that i'm more than grateful for those experiences,they were the beginning of the path this poor fool is still treading.
with "shrooms",i had total access,as they grew naturally everwhere in my hometown and the surrounding woods.we'ld fill garbage bags with them,sometimes having so many between our little crew that we'ld have to store them in my mums celler,waiting for most to dry,eating some fresh off the ground.never once did i have a bad experience during any of those days,only "sweetness and light" as we used to be fond of saying. it took my longer than most to figure out that this "trip" had a higher purpose when done correctly,but i always left with a feeling of connection to the world that i never got anywhere else.
everyone here seems to have first hand experience with all these things,and it isnt my place to try and swing opinion,though hearing your opinions helps me gain a bigger picture of where i want to go.
pot has always been a dear old chum of mine,but as everyone knows,a man can get lazy when he spends too much time with old friends lol.at this moment,i find it very usefull in helping my concentration,preparation,and focus. for some reason when i'm high my tinnitus (i cant spell it...makes my ears buzz like hell though....) doesnt seem to be as upfront,making it easier for me to relax.
i do hope that with time patience and practise i can move further away from the "beginners tool set" i'm using now.
but i dont want to completely remove the possibilty of bringing them back out down the line. -
I've kept pretty quiet on this subject as whilst i love me a smoke of weed, thats pretty much the only place i can talk from... i used this as a reason to stay quiet but after talking to Izzy realises that i can waffle all i want on the "benefits" of weed.
I didnt "do" drugs with my peers, i felt very comfortable saying no, and enjoying thier mood as opposed to "sharing" thier trip. None of my friends had a problem with it, even my bf at the time who got high. I didnt see the point i guess. Everybody was suddenly talking about things i thought about daily LOL and being quite "hyper" in those days people would tell me i was fun to be high around lol, even sober. I didnt seek out friendships with "druggies" but weed was definately available to my generation at early ages like 12 and 13 (i was totally seperate from this world lol) my mother told me constantly growing up that my dad left because of "drugs" (which turned out to be complete bollox)
After a few years of being around it, i felt like i wanted to try it and form my own opinions on it... well after the giggles the munchies and the relaxation i realised it wasnt that bad, but couldnt figure how anybody opperated on it. Here and there (months and months apart) i'd be in a circle one was going around and i'd partake and spend the rest of the night quite quiet, heavy limbed and just...content... I didnt crave or want it at other times (with the exception of some pretty bad flair ups at home)
I started smoking "every day" (ie when able to) after getting in with Izzy - i knew long before that he smoked weed every day and it just felt lovely sharing one with him, and i found it to be very different from experiences in the past.. i did have energy, i could function, and best of all i could play like a nutter with my daughter lol, something i'd seemed to have forgotton how to do.
Canada's Native Indians have quite a connection with weed and nature, they'll take some of thier portion and throw it into the woods "back to nature" as some form of tribute to nature..quite nice
Weed just seems to make you more intune with your random thoughts... it cuts out the "chatter" and you've just got one clear loud voice to think with. I've been quite surpised many a time connecting seemingly seperate thoughts... I've found that these will be the times Izzy will let me in on his head chatter or theories he's been working by for many years... and i can take them all in enthusiasticly (whilst still seeing and pointing out possible errors or slides) and "get it" with little effort.
I find that when conversing with deities (Generally voodoo) to sit down and smoke a joint, head clear of everything but what you are talking to... well i find i can concerntrate so much better... and anybody who could see me in there talking to "myself" with answers readilly popped into my mind too...
There is a certain relaxing quality to weed, and after the initial fun of it wears thin, it leaves open a lot of doors and possibilitys. I'm not saying that by smoking weed you dont need to meditate... but it certainly helps if life is too hectic to mediate... just give yourself a moment ...
We didnt start using weed with magick (offically) until our "~lovetoot~" came into the making... midway just stop and straddle and smoke one together,not moving...its beautiful... i beleive Izzy has traced our "lovetoot" back into a practise ill have to ask him to put it here...he told me only a few days ago that in that senario the weed changes somehow...i'd like to find out more on that now i come to think on it.
I know that weed isnt for everyone, and for the most part that is a good thing, but i do beleive that it helps ME... (and thats without the amount of medical issues this clears up for me)
(there is debate as to if i was previously "tripped" on acid at 16, at the time i thought it was "supernatural" especially as i was in my "pagan" days lmao....i knew even in the throws of it that i was processing whatever the hell was happening with my new found interest... I wont go into it here unless its asked because its very strange, and i cant explain it not even with all these years past...lol but izzy says i described an acid trip... dont think i'll ever know for sure but i would like to try acid and shrooms grins ... i may have had that salvia but at the end of the day i just had a shit friend i thought was looking out for me, but instead ...well yah nuff sed.)
However i did splurt "wisdom" i didnt know yet... tis hard to put a finger on.Weed though... i think is a great tool to bring ones thoughts up to speed
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I forgot to mention that in "practise" of Magick i dont really use it unless i'm already smoking it, however... the images i can draw whilst being a little high are far superior to those i draw sober.. i've tried my hand at letting "something" guide my hand before, and maybe its just me, but it doesnt seem to work without it... maybe due to my level of relaxation, i havnt put much thought into it, as i started with amazing results then just couldnt seem to get it back
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Technically the Magickal and alchemical use of drugs is as a "doping agent"
When you purify a metal from an ore, sometimes you dope the alloy with a chemical impurity, and that impurity will chemically react with related impurity in the ore or alloy, thus you can when the impure agent is removed it removes the original impurity along with it.
Thus is analogous to the use of drugs in magick, Julius Evola wrote a few pieces on the Alchemical use of drugs. This technique is what attracted Crowley and Bennett to the use of drugs in the first place, which Crowley writes in the psychology of Hashish that after trying agents such as cocaine and ether, he found the applicable agent he was looking for in Hashish.
So the effects of the drug are not what is traditionally taken as the purpose of them, rather the drug flushes out these impurities that arise in the mind as visions, feelings, distortions, or spirits of impure nature, and when the drug is eliminated it takes with it some of the impurities that it flushed out through it's duration of effect on the mind/soul.
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actually i can imagine that aiding a lot better, i havnt had hash in a long time....weed helps to highlight where my energy or stimulation is, and aids in me "laxing" the rest so as to not distract from it.... Hash tends to make girls quite horny (i've had friends in the past be picky on what was in what joint because of this and how it makes them a bit more suggestive) The high is quite different from weed, weed i find more of a "good time" drug as it affects the mind moreso than hash does, however there is nothing like the body-stone hash can put on you...
In my earlier days of smoking (weed hash and oil) i used to trace "the stone" whilst just sitting to myself...playing with it because whilst you cant control how deep the stone is (without ramming in another, or having what i call "growin weed" where the high gets stronger as it lingers) you CAN however direct the tingles grins (my opinion is them girls were just horny anyways LOL)
Now i'm itching to try drawing with Hash...the "bounce" is far stronger (as its a body high) so maybe the "signal" i'm picking up would be also...hmmmmm rubs chin now i have to see for myself what is better for it LOL
"So the effects of the drug are not what is traditionally taken as the purpose of them, rather the drug flushes out these impurities that arise in the mind as visions, feelings, distortions, or spirits of impure nature, and when the drug is eliminated it takes with it some of the impurities that it flushed out through it's duration of effect on the mind/soul."
Theres an old stoner saying ... what you learn high, you have to be high to remember ... maybe this applies.
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i simply have to say it at the risk of causing offence to everyone who's posted,but i'll assume everyone here has a well functioning sense of humour.
with all this time spent reading so many books on other peoples ideas,where do you folks ever have chance to formulate your own? cause frankly people,i aint really seen much spark from anyone.
it seems all anyone wants to do is quote directly from books they've read,take a very "adult and educated" approach to answering the question all the while side stepping and real involvement they may or may not have had.(to those who actually have come out with personal experience's as opposed to trying to create the pro-con arguement,disreguard this entire post)
now,i'm not asking for a swapping of "dude...this one time i was sooooo high..." stories,and i've heard these re-hashings of "studies" conducted by everyone from timmy leary to my friend hamish "the worlds last true hippie". none of it means squat if nobody actually can say "i used this and had this effect....it was (insert answer here)".
i realize we'ld all like to be taken VERY seriously as practisioners of the magickal arts,and we all love sharing our vast knowledge learned from things someone else has done, but lets be honest, there is no book written on any subject that can replace first hand experience on the matter.
i've been through timmy learys endless writings on lsd and its great spirtual and human meaning,and had enough "just say no" lectures from people with no actual first hand experience to last me pretty much right up untill my ears stop working in the final throes of death.
all this over-thinking and intellectualizing is a fast path to absolutely nowhere.
like a very insightfull bumper sticker says...words-action=crap,and i'll bet the guy who wrote that didnt sit around backing it up with 45 scientific sources lol -
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@Alrah said
"Old stoners also advise you to learn to love the notepad, and keep a pencil about your person at all times.
"There are whole periods of my life I would not remember, were it not for my devotion to the keeping of a journal.
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I think marijuana is good for anything.
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Woah, was raised a Jehovah's Witness myself... til I moved out at 15. Never really did believe that stuff except when I was very little. I credit that upbringing with my search for Truth (JWs will get that pun).
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@Froclown said
"Dissociative anesthetics DXM, Ketamine, PCP, these I do not think have any benefit to the magician, other than as agents of chrononzion."
I think DXM is quite good.",the use of mineral drugs was even mentioned and denounced in the magick of Abramelin."
What's mineral drug? Chemically produced? Sorry my englishEverybody must get s s ssss sstoooooooooooooooned
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@Vlad said
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@Froclown said
"Dissociative anesthetics DXM, Ketamine, PCP, these I do not think have any benefit to the magician, other than as agents of chrononzion."
I think DXM is quite good.",the use of mineral drugs was even mentioned and denounced in the magick of Abramelin."
What's mineral drug? Chemically produced? Sorry my englishEverybody must get s s ssss sstoooooooooooooooned"
Thank you for sharing.
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The stoned part was a joke. But me mentioning the DXM was in a way to point out that I think people are overanalyzing things here a bit. I haven't used it many times, but the times I've used it have been pleasant. Intelligently used it can help depression... I'm not speaking only of my own experience... Of course I may be missing something.
Drugs are not the ends, its the means. Its a means.