Nuit came to me during my last DMT trip
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Oh, and I must counter you argument that all hallucinogens are the same:
The main-line "real" hallucinogens that make one vastly and visually aware of electromagnetic lines of power in the Earth and space, and give you the same with others' auras, even animals, are all 5-HT2, (serotonin), receptor agonists. This compels one to believe that they are for the purpose of awareness and sensory.
All alkaloids from the Datura family are in a completely different class. They are competitive antagonists for the muscarinic acetylcholine receptor. This is why Datura must be consumed in large amounts for hallucinogenic effect, and is why they give delirium when would-be initiates attempt to do this.
Some situations are terribly intense with this stuff if not used right.
I will also counter the idea that all hallucinogens are the same, by stating that LSD, Mushrooms, DMT and Mescaline have never killed a single human being by overdose, which can happen very easily with tropane alkaloids.
I don't think they've really killed anyone, when one looks at the facts: The people who "jumped out of windows trying to fly" were all in buildings owned by the CIA. It's a pretty good trick actually. Give an unsuspecting human a drug with VAST applications in awareness and Magic, wait until they have no idea what's going on, then throw them out of the window into the street.
This is WELL-documented, and makes my stomach turn when I read and hear of it.
Do a search for MK-ultra. The people who headed this $hit up actually admitted to all this and made the statement that they were untouchable. They still are!
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@Faus said
"Just something about DMT and biochemistry. It is not drug that is hallucinogenic, it is the receptor in the brain. Almost all neurotransmitters are potential hallucinogenic, there is nothing special about DMT."
The human brain is a powerful thing, man.
After experimenting with various drugs, I feel the statement "there is nothing special about DMT" to be a little inaccurate. Sure, some people put WAAAY more stock into it than necessary. However, no other drug I've experienced truly takes control over your conscious and wrangles you in such a way that DMT does. It is a very common chemical in nature. I think because its natural applications are somewhat undocumented and uncertain we like to make up wild answers about why it really exists, calling it a "spirit molecule" or some such. I do think that DMT allows for one to have a much much more meaningful journey than any others that I've tried.
I feel like it's an easy cure for a spiritual "writer's block." Though, I wouldn't depend on it but once every few years to act as a cleansing tool and a reboot for your mind. It helps you see what's already there, but in a way that you just couldn't put your finger on beforehand.
You don't need DMT to do this, but it sure does make it easy.
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See, my opinion is not about the different mechanisms or experiences but the final valuable for a magician, Astral Travel. You need to get out and explore the other side.
In this context the drug use loses very much of its meaning, for me, since someone can actually be trained to attain it without drugs. In other words my experience makes me believe that they are not the Philosophers Stone but a beginners tool.
About the receptor, height affinity for a receptor is not a signal that it is something more useful or evolved, on the contrary, promiscuous molecules generally are much more useful to keep a healthy feedback in the brain. And there are many different kinds of 5-HT receptors, DMT only has affinity with a couple of them (or it would be anxiogenic).
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Oh, and something that has been scientifically proven. (I will try to find the article, but it's been years and my bookmarks have been changed several times, but this was an actual finding.):
Shamans that use ayahuasca in South Americas have a higher amount of DMT in their bodies and brains than the rest of the population, even weeks and months after they have not used it. This lasts for years and probably the rest of their lives.
As a magician, knowing that DMT causes higher awareness, I think this is very important in that it will leave you more prone to astral travel and the art of "dreaming awake", as Crowley puts it. I mean, that last phrase is pretty much what DMT does.
So, bottom line, DMT users teach their bodies and brains to produce much more of it endogenously on their own. This is the definition of evolution itself. This might categorize as "Magical" evolution. Might? For sure it does!
Some humans, and magicians make the mistake of doing this because we are hard-core trained to do things on our own, forget that they need to imbibe many parts of nature just to live, even more so to evolve. Food, if one is not aware, has many chemicals in it that actually help evolve animals and humans into their next state of being, not just their habitat, but the foods themselves.
Food is just another drug that must be mastered and used for one's own betterment and for the betterment of mankind. Crowley himself stated, even about Heroin, that humans should learn to utilize it for their own good, strength, and evolution.
"Our ancestors learned to make use of the lightning. Shall we run from a packet of powder?"
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@Faus said
"See, my opinion is not about the different mechanisms or experiences but the final valuable for a magician, Astral Travel. You need to get out and explore the other side.
In this context the drug use loses very much of its meaning, for me, since someone can actually be trained to attain it without drugs. In other words my experience makes me believe that they are not the Philosophers Stone but a beginners tool.
About the receptor, height affinity for a receptor is not a signal that it is something more useful or evolved, on the contrary, promiscuous molecules generally are much more useful to keep a healthy feedback in the brain. And there are many different kinds of 5-HT receptors, DMT only has affinity with a couple of them (or it would be anxiogenic)."
If anyone comes upon this thread, I hope they read the bolded part of this quote. Very very true.
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Crowley states that when one has mastered their astral self, (the part of the sub/consciousness that is always there, always awake,) then the lower physical self is no more of a matter than the dust of the floor.
Liber Samekh, probably the most important instructions for ceremony of attainment of the HGA beside the Abramelin work, has all the most important parts of the work the astral.
From what I can gather from Crowley's work, mastering this part of yourself is one of the most, if not most important keys to being a successful magician. For when you do work in the physical, even pentagram rituals, your astral self is right there, moving along with everything you do. (Unless you are focusing your astral self somewhere else whilst, but that doesn't even sound like a good idea.) Attainment of this connection is paramount.
I will agree with Potater as well though, (with my Satanic side coming out a bit
, and say that the lower self is brought higher and higher as the astral self "evolves" and/or is mastered. Just because we might be of the perfect aetherial form many aeons from now and be able to travel into the Sun, and from there to other intense points of singularity in the Universe(s), doesn't mean we will just leave behind the Earth. For the dust of the ground is indeed of the sacred Earth, and is line for the evolution of the Universes. -
@Frater Potater said
"Valuable experience, yes... but I don't know if I would say it's the most important part of the Great Work."
As far as I know, astral travel is a key factor to allow someone to rise towards yetsirah, so I believe it to be important.
But the experience with drugs is something believe to be unnecessary. -
@Faus said
"As far as I know, astral travel is a key factor to allow someone to rise towards yetsirah, so I believe it to be important."
Astral travel IS functioning in Yetzirah.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
@Faus said
"As far as I know, astral travel is a key factor to allow someone to rise towards yetsirah, so I believe it to be important."Astral travel IS functioning in Yetzirah."
Sorry, silly mistake. When I wrote that I was thinking about the practive to achieve Astral Travel.
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Interesting turn in this discussion, I hope no one minds I join in. Peruvian 'Vegatalismo' is actually a current exploration for me (and has been for almost 4 years). I've been fortunate enough to be exposed to a true lineage and tradition through a pretty well respected Shipibo curandero (doctor). I like to explore stuff purely for the adventure of understanding, but I'm not an apprentice or anything nor am I interested in that component.
I've been pretty blown away by the tradition, mainly because it's similarities to western esoteric traditions, with the exception that the amazonian traditions seem one step closer to the source, the 'wisdom' of nature herself. Ayahuasca is an aspect of this practice, and can be a central one, however there are many different plants that are relevant and none of them are psychoactive. There are said to be around 47 'master plant' teachers in the amazon - and through a natural alchemy (that it is said is taught directly from these plant teachers) individuals can learn to 'heal' (curanderos) or 'harm' (sorcerers). Sorcerers are I would guess sort of like a more simplified version of our 'black brothers', the use of the knowledge of nature for selfish purposes, seeking attention, sex, or community power. It's also considered an easy path of power to acquire, while learning to heal can take 8 to 15 years - much of which is spent in isolation in nature (not unsimilar to sacred magic of abramelin the mage). In terms of connecting directly to planetary, gaian, or natural intelligence, the path of vegatalismo is packed with juice.
Terence Mckenna, who also took a stab at the western traditions, noted the distinctions between the amazonian traditions and the european traditions. the western traditions are summarized in the 'search for the philosopher's stone' while in the amazon, they found the stone.
@ThelemicMage said
"
If DMT is looked at under a microscope, and how it fits exactly into 5-HT2 receptors, it contains everything about every other endogenous serotonic neurotransmitter, but combined and evolved into a completely stand-alone, no-need to mess with serotonin, molecule.
Just FYI. "
i think with these traditions, when a molecule is found to have a certain property, is not to get hung up on the molecule, the material component, without understanding the spiritual component - that's what is so fascinating with this amazonian practice, the complete integration and balance of material/spiritual in a way where they are virtually un separable. The material body needs to alter and change in relationship to spirit, and the 'deita' is the union with the practioner,nature, and the spirit teacher.
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Have you ever noticed how some shamans say that the "elves", or the spirits of the ayahuasca are not inherently "good", and that they need to be compelled to be good?"
like in the western traditions, there are spirits that are of light and spirits of dark - angels and demons. Just as a thelemic mage must have his 'foot in the hells and his crown in the heavens' so it is with vegatalismo. It's a power path (just like western magick) and with a power path both harm and healing can occur, and this depends upon the practitioner, just like in western systems. The 'spirit' of ayahausca plays a unique role, it's more like an HGA in the sense that it is the go between the user or shaman and the world of the plant teachers. The plant spirits, including ayahausca and just like any sentient being, have light and dark sides.
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Some sing to them, the songs of the rainforest and the land. Some go through elaborate rituals including fasting and purging themselves so the spirits don't get "binded" up in the body/mind during the experience. Kind of sounds unneeded for spirits that will eventually jump in and out of your chest to wake you up, but I only eat plants anyways and don't drink that much. No lust of killing in me, save for my own survival intuition, and I wouldn't call that "Lust". Maybe it's different for meat-eaters?
Sexual abstinence is part of the fasting process, which I do not agree with, unless a certain situation or needed experience asks for it."
The practices are simple. they are taught by the master teachers on dieatas. On dietas, one breaks down one's body and mind, no salts, sugars, spices, meats,alchohol or sex. Isolation in nature, very little food. One then drinks a master plant, which could be any number of plants, none of which are hallucinagenic, yet visions come none the less. A dieta can be as short as 10 days or as long as years.
The icaros or songs you mention are taught by the plants themselves, and the shipibo language, say the shipibo, is also the language of the plants. These songs and chants, often hauntingly beautiful, are magical weapons used to focus and concentrate the curanderos 'will' to heal the patient.
"For instance, I understand that sexual abstinence increases energy for astral projection."
I understand, being a thelemite, why we would be skeptical of a practice that suggests the opposite of what we understand using sexual magicks. to me this makes it all the more interesting and the alchemy of the amazon works, especially because you begin to learn it directly from the school of nature herself. Curanderos and shamans are not the teachers and they will say this, the teachers of the practice are the plant spirits.
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I understand your view of obtaining a spiritual view of a plant or chemical instead of focusing on the "smallness" of the actual chemical itself.
For instance, I was smoking dmt when I first was able to extract it, and it was very intense, and blew me away for only 5 to 8 minutes, and as such made it difficult for me to really relish in and integrate the experience.
I had a little difficulty cracking my head open for oral doses of it. For instance, I would visit the elves while smoking, but eating up to 200mg was not hitting me at all.
So, focusing on the non-spiritual/chemical aspects of the substance, I foolishly took a thousand miligrams, after imbibing a very large dose of the needed maoi for oral activation.
Within a very short time, while standing up, I saw higher versions of myself and my "secret/spiritual brothers and sisters", as the future spirits themselves, and they said very plainly and in the perfect, cute, buzzing elf voice,
"We've got your mind."They were trying to assure me of my safety, and at that moment I knew I had eaten probably twenty times what have been a normal mind-blowing dose. I rode it out, clutching my bed and waiting for the corners of the walls to come back together in a 3d fashion.
But I later started eating the pants themselves, mainly syrian rue and mimosa, without extracting, and I was able to flow with, and even ground myself a bit with the actual plant teachers being in my guts. It is difficult to do this without purging, (even though this sort of purging is extremely healthy,) so I eventually went back to the pure chemicals.
I was then able to connect solidly to the plant teachers with the chemicals because of my introduction to the plant materials themselves.
Pentagram and Hexagram rituals on DMT are profound. They, and the circle, sit there burning into star-diamond material that I can see just past the realm of them burning in regular white-blue, or white-blue-yellow fire. (Yellow is kind of in the lower realms of the burning, and blue-yellow is of the higher burning "frequency", but what I see is even beyond that as forming/being some kind of divine machinery of the Universe.