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All 34 posts | Subject: From Agony to Ecstasy | Please login to post | Thread expires | Down | |
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KiZaDm (Hive Addict) 07-08-04 01:50 No 518075 
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From Agony to Ecstasy | ||||||
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From Agony to Ecstacy: -1- The Transformative Spirit of Yaje By Jimmy Weiskopf For centuries, the indigenous people of the Amazon River basin have used a magical healing sacrament known as yaje-or ayahuasca, as it is called in the Quechua tongue--in order to see into the spirit world. Yaje is a vision-inducing drink made from a psychoactive jungle vine (Banisteriopsis sp.) mixed with various other psychoactive plants. (1) Yaje' has been used shamanically by Native practitioners to find lost objects, seek out game and fish, wage psychic warfare, influence the weather, and foresee the future. Yaje' has also been used by Native shamans and curanderos (healers) to identify the hidden spiritual causes of illnesses and to treat the source of illness through direct intervention. Western explorers and ethnologists have written about the ceremonial use of yaje' since early in the 19th century, and there are hundreds of scholarly and popular accounts on the subject. However, for several reasons, most literature on the shamanic use of yaje' is filled with exaggerations and inaccuracies. First, traditional shamans--the only real experts on the use of yaje--have often been reluctant to reveal its true depths to outsiders. Second, even when shamans have been willing and able to talk about their use of the vine, they have had to communicate their esoteric knowledge to outsiders--mostly non-users--across almost insurmountable language and cultural barriers. In recent decades, there has been a renaissance in the experiential use of yaje' among outsiders. On the one hand, an army of anthropologists, ethnobotanists, intrepid intellectuals, and spiritual explorers have been trotting off into remote jungles in search of traditional healing knowledge. On the other hand, some traditional shamans and healers have responded to the growing interest by moving to the cities, where they now conduct regular yaje' sessions for the principal benefit of non-Natives. (2) By now, thousands of outsiders have participated in a few yaje ceremonies. Many have written articles and books about their experiences, but few accounts have offered any substantive insights into how yaje works. Most outsiders have assumed their yaje' visions were due solely to psychedelic alkaloids in the plants, and they have looked no further. I believe the lack of understanding is due to the fact that anthropologists are bound by scientific ethics to discard supernatural expla- nations, and most other aficionados, like myself, are too deeply conditioned by their materialistic Occidental upbringing to believe in spiritual realms. Also, relatively few of the non-professionals who experienced yaje' have undergone long-term yage apprenticeships, a process which may be essential to understanding yage's full visionary and healing powers. As an American journalist who has lived in Colombia since 1977, I have made five extended field trips to the lower Putumayo River region to study yaje' practices under the tutelage of the respected Siona shaman, Don Pacho Piaguaje. During these visits, which each lasted a month or longer, I took yaje' regularly once or twice each week, and it was only after many yaje sessions that I was finally able to make sense of what I was seeing. At the same time, the yaje' itself has made me keenly aware of the limits of my understanding. Therefore, I must caution readers that what I am about to say about the nature of yaje' is based largely on my highly subjective experiences, supplemented with insights and observations gleaned from Don Pacho and other yaje' shamans I have met. With this caveat in mind, I will start by saying that yaje' is a truly remarkable psychoactive vine. After taking the drink many times, I fully agree with those Natives who say yaje' is a living presence with a remarkably strong and vivid personality. It is not unusual for the spirit of the vine to appear in one's visions and announce that ii is a direct channel to a superior being-- God, Nature, Spirit. Yaje' is probably best known among Westerners for its gift of extraordinary, multicolored visions. (3)According to various accounts, yaje' pin tas (visions) can range from vividly detailed scenes recreated from one's memories to otherworldly panoramas filled with exotic Plants and animals, mythical creatures, and spirit beings. Some writers have compared the yaje' experience to LSD or psychedelic mushroom trips. However, the visionary voyages I have experienced on yaje' have few parallels to those I've experienced on other psychedelics-- the so-called "mind revealing" drugs. At the most basic psycho-physiological level, yaje' visions are distinguished by bright multicolored geometrical patterns that repeat and merge into one another, creating a kaleidoscopic montage that rushes by the viewer. It is as though one is being propelled at high speed through a fantastic landscape decorated with mythical animals and religious symbols. The visual experience is comparable to watching a well-made animated film--like The Yellow Submarine--while one is completely stoned on strong marijuana. Although the visual aspects of a yaje' voyage can be truly extraordinary, it is unlikely that yaje will ever become a popular psychedelic. Yaje' involves entirely too much physical suffering and soul searching for it to become a drug of choice for recreational trippers. While a few contemporary psychologists have shown interest in yaje's ability to reveal and transform deep-seated emotional problems, its emetic side effects may limit its use in conventional counseling. For those seeking a viable spiritual alternative to Western materialism, yaje's s greatest potential and appeal is its ability to open the door into highly tangible spirit realms. Unfortunately, first-time yaje' users seldom get to enjoy or even experience the full range of yaje' visions, primarily because their visions are often obscured or even obliterated by the nausea, fear, and mental confusion that accompanies the intoxication. Beginners may feel mild exaltation and may catch glimpses of vague, fleeting images, but they are rarely able to consume enough yaje' to achieve full-scale visions. A few lucky practitioners may have extraordinary visual experiences during their first few sessions--possibly because these persons are exceptionally pure in body and spirit. (4)However, most foreigners and acculturated Natives find their initial experiences with yaje' disappointing. In my own case, I did not have any breakthrough visions until after I had been thoroughly purified by the vine. Working with yaje' can involve a long-- and at times extremely traumatic--purification process. It took me several months of drinking yaje' before I was pure enough to be able to consume enough yaje to experience visions without suffering too much. Incidentally, the physical purging did not lessen as I went on. In fact, as I managed to drink more and more yaje, the purgings went progressively deeper. However, be cause the agony is caused not by the evacuation process itself but by one's resistance to being purged, the process become! gradually less painful. The more yaje' could tolerate, the easier I could void, and the more visions I could see. Don Pacho sometimes compares yaje' to a wild animal which must be approached with great caution--it will not allow you te make full contact until it knows you very well. According to Don Pacho, it can take months, or even years, of drinking yaje on a weekly basis before one experiences its full benefits. Almost all of the yaje' shamans know agree that a novice must drink a lot of yaje' for a considerable time in order to become a visionary, and that it can take many decades before one fully masters the spirit of yaje'. The Purification Process While yaje may resemble some psychedelics in inducing dramatic visual patterns and dreamlike images, I have come to the conclusion that the most significant yaje visions are not solely biochemically induced. Instead, I suggest that yaje' removes the physical and emotional blocks which keep us from seeing the spirit world around us. In fact, once or twice-during those half-conscious, hypnagogic states that precede sleep-I have had brief yaje-like visions that were not yaje' induced. These spontaneous experiences--and the fact that some disciplined yogis and gifted psychics seem to have regular access to the spirit world--suggest to me that it may be possible to see visions without yaje'. Many religions preach that one must purify one's body and surrender one's ego in order to reach the divine--that one must die in order to be reborn. In the West, Christianity--with its other-worldly approach to salvation--has taught that the path to enlightenment is through purifying the soul by denying the body. In the East, yogic and tantric disciplines have taught that there is no such separation between matter and spirit, and that it is only by purifying our minds and bodies that we can open up to the spiritual. While yaje shamans seldom philosophize about their practices, I speculate that yaje' may induce ecstatic states of consciousness through a combination of physical purification and therapeutic ego-death. The great virtue of the yaje' ritual is that it is a relatively autonomous and self-regulating path to spiritual ecstasy and enlightenment. While yogic and tantric practitioners seek ecstatic states by purifying the body through the use of physical exercises, meditations, and mental disciplines, few people today have the patience to spend decades struggling to master such rigorous disciplines in order to achieve ecstatic visions. By working with plant medicines like yaje, it may be possible to effectively purge the body through vomiting and defecating, and to achieve ecstatic visions in relatively few years. Unlike yogic and tantric practices, yaje' doesn't require great discipline and incredible willpower to stay with the process. All you have to do is imbibe the brew, and you are irrevocably committed to an intensive transformative process. Once you have the guts to drink enough yaje, it will not only purify your body and psyche from the inside out, it will also send you hurtling through the doors of perception. The question is, how does purifying the body help us attain ecstatic states? Over the years, I have noticed that the people who have the most difficulty achieving ecstatic states usually suffer from hyperactive minds. Based on my experiences with yaje, I am convinced that much of their mental restlessness is a direct by-product of physical pollution due to chemical additives, too much food, and environmental contaminants. Once our bodies are purged of this excess garbage--through fasting, meditation, or purgatives-our hyperactive minds become calmer and clearer, al- lowing us to see, or at least sense, the spirit energy behind physical forms. The Therapeutic Process In some parts of the Amazon, yaje' is still used to purge the body of intestinal parasites, and 1 do not doubt that part of the vine' s mysterious healing power may stem from its ability to thoroughly clean out the intestinal tract. Vomiting and defecating are classical mechanisms for expelling illness from the body, and yaje' is certainly the quintessential purgative medicine. However, I don't want to leave the impression that yaje' is merely a physical purgative. I have seen yaje' work some of its most purgative magic and dramatic cures on people who were dealing primarily with psychological or emotional problems. While working with Don Pacho in the Putumayo, I saw yaje' work some brutal purges on strong young farm workers who were addicted to alcohol or bazuco (crack). During the process of repeatedly spilling out their guts, these young macho men would often reveal their innermost anxieties. As they progressively faced and re- leased the personal fears and emotional problems that had led them to their vices, they would often break down and show a softer, more sensitive' side of their personalities. The simultaneous purges of the body and mind seem to happen, in a milder way, to everyone who takes yaje'. One interesting characteristic of yaje' is that it can make you expel much more than should fit into your intestinal tract. It can make you vomit and defecate until you think it's impossible to expel any more, and then more still comes out. When I first started taking yaje, I foolishly sought to minimize the purgative effects by fasting beforehand. To my consternation, I soon discovered that I vomited and defecated as violently as the other participants in the session. Because 1 was already weak from the fasting, I almost didn't have enough physical energy to cope with the yaje's assault on my digestive system, and I sincerely felt that I was close to dying at times. I have seen similar extraordinary purges happen to others. I remember one old man whose principal reason for taking yaje' was that he had lost his appetite. Although he had hardly eaten anything for two days before drinking the potion, he proceeded to vomit continuously all night long. LYFizBUTaDREAM http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/life_is_but_a_dream.html |
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KiZaDm (Hive Addict) 07-08-04 01:51 No 518076
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Based on several such experiences, I have concluded that yaje' functions as a kind of transcendental purgative. During my extended visits--when I was taking yaje' several times a week and the purges were progressively emptying and cleansing my intestinal tract--I not only began to experience a much-improved state of health, but I also noticed that I was better able to sustain and work with my visions. While I am not sure exactly how it works, I believe that yaje' somehow breaks down the bioenergetic blocks, or tensions, that may be at the root of illness and releases them in the form of vomit or shit. In my experience, as the yaje' slowly winds its way through my intestines (it takes at least half an hour to feel the first effects), I am thrust into an entirely new kind of sensibility. I become aware of my vital center, my essential being--what Japanese mystics call the "hara"--lodged in the pit of my stomach. The yaje' makes me aware, at a gut level, that human beings are the descendants of unicellular creatures and that--no matter how complex our subsequent development--we are still a tube or gut through which food flows. As the yaje' works its way through your system, it not only cleans out the excessive foods, stimulants, and poisons clogging your body, but it seems to dredge up the old repressed emotions and traumas stored literally within your guts. Thus, in addition to suffering from intense pain, dizziness, nausea, and horrifying visions, most beginners must suddenly confront a lifetime's accumulation of emotional blocks and wounds. I can recall many moments during my early sessions when I was overcome by what is called in Spanish "la palida" (pallidness). White as a sheet, nauseated, asphyxiated, and unable to move, I would experience an acute physical and moral desperation which bordered on madness. Not only was I unable to act, but I couldn't even conceive of how to release the pain and fear. Of the many counsels given to me by Don Pacho, the wisest and most useful was that at these moments the yaje' apprentice (man or woman) must be macho. (5)The apprentice has to summon the willpower to get up out of the hammock--even if it means crawling on all fours--and do his business in the bushes. Once I learned to overcome my paralysis and to get up and defecate, I realized it wasn't my ego or self which defecates, but my body that does it. Based on my own limited experience, I have noticed certain temporal correspondences between my visionary content and my physiological state. For example, I have noticed that many of my most intense yaje visions have occurred during my moments of greatest intestinal anguish, when I was on the verge of defecating or vomiting. Interestingly, the most prevalent figures in these early visions are inevitably serpents-- mirroring the form of both the vine and our intestines. Moreover, once I was through evacuating and I went back to the hammock, the visions of serpents often receded. At times, I had the very real sensation of being grasped around the chest and head by these figures, as though they were trying to drag me away into a devil's realm. Interestingly, these visions and feelings were often accompanied by the sensation of an intense heat moving through my body, which tended to grow more intense as I went out to shit. Time after time, I have realized that the weird serpents or devils in my visions were wounded spirits, rising up in my intestines and crying out in protest against years of repression and abuse. Often when I was on the verge of voiding, I would see the most malign spirits jeering at my discomfort or threatening to pull me into the ground. As I became more lucid over time, I began to recognize these monsters were my alter egos--the shadow side of the ego masks we all learn to wear in normal social intercourse. As I learned to face each of them and recognize them as parts of myself, they began to melt away. Eventually, I learned that the only way out of the intestinal agony was to abandon my false ego and to surrender to the circumstances. Each time I managed to face the metaphorical shit responsible for my agony, I would release my physical shit, transcend my personal limitations, and achieve ecstatic visions. Could it be that enlightenment may be merely a matter of voiding--not avoiding--our old emotional shit? Ironically, it was when I was literally forced to my knees--completely helpless, with vomit flowing from one end of my body and shit from the other--that the first rung of the ladder to heaven appeared. I am convinced that the principal reason most beginners don't have the courage to take enough yaje' is that they fear having to face the loss of self-control involved in spilling out their guts. The realization that our intestines have a life (and nearly a mind) of their own can be highly disturbing because it reminds us how much our egos are controlled by the conditioning of others. (6) This recognition can provoke tears, curses, hysterical laughter, catatonic states, convulsions and even outright physical aggression. Based on the prevalence of such emotional releases, some observers have suggested that yaje' is essentially a powerful truth serum which prompts people to relive and release intense childhood frights, interpersonal conflicts, and societal repression. The yaje' ritual is certainly one of the few places outside of psychotherapeutic institutions where regressive madness is encouraged, and some of yajes power as a therapeutic force may come from its ability to catalyze traumatic memories. Some Western observers have suggested that the yaje' healing rituals are little more than folk-therapy--a sort of primitive precursor to contemporary psychotherapies. In certain respects, the yaje' experience does share similarities with the work of encounter groups and some contemporary schools of "anti-psychology." Like the work of R. D. Laing and Arthur Janov, yaje' rituals often seem to utilize a type of shock therapy based on a combination of painful bioenergetic release and interpersonal confrontation. (7) It is quite possible that cathartic psycho-visions may contribute to the vine's healing and therapeutic powers. However, any attempts to explain yaje' sessions solely in terms of biochemical responses or as psychotherapies are inevitably doomed to failure because they overlook one essential ingredient--the role of the spirits in the shamanic healing process. Shamanic Healing Spirits Although novices are often oblivious to the subtler shamanic aspects of yaje' rituals, it is difficult to participate in a yaje' session without seeing the shaman conduct a number of shamanic healings. Don Pacho often uses a combination of psychic manipulations and physical massage to treat his patients during the yaje' sessions. While chanting for spirit aid to the accompaniment of the swishing of a leaf-fan, Don Pacho physically kneads points along the torso until he finds "the imprint of sickness." Then, in alternate or imaginary reality, he extracts the illness, using a flick of the hand and a sharp exhalation of breath to blow the evil spirits away. In classical shamanic fashion, Don Pacho may also suck at a particular point, fill his cheeks with the evil intrusion, and then blow it away. Some observers have hypothesized that such shamanic healings may serve as placebo treatments, helping only those people who believe in religious and supernatural powers. However, it is hard to ignore the hundreds of casual testimonials and some documented healings suggesting that Don Pacho and other yaje' shamans have effected miraculous cures of real physical illnesses, based on information obtained from spirits in yaje visions. Don Pacho attributes his successes to spirits who visit him in his visions, explain the roots of problems, and point out ways of treating them. "When I am drunk with yaje," he explains with conviction and sincerity, "I fly up to the Milky Way and converse with the spirits, and they tell me how to cure. Sometimes, in these visions, they show me a certain plant and the next day I go into the forest to find that plant and with it I heal the sick person." I do not know whether Don Pacho believes he is actually flying around in spiritual form, or whether he is journeying in his imagination. However, Don Pacho has repeatedly said that the spirit images which surround one during a yaje' session do not really come from another "imaginary" world. He believes the spirit world reflects the deeper, fundamental essence of things, while the so-called "real world" is just an illusion. Moreover, Don Pacho firmly believes that the spirits and energies that he works with are real, transpersonal powers. The Visionary Sequence All of the yaje' shamans I know say that apprentices go through a kind of visionary ascension before they become real seers or visionaries. One shaman explained to me that first you see the boa, whose appearance is always fearsome. The boa wraps you in its coils and strangles you so that you go into an agony of vomiting; then, after your guts are emptied, you are able to watch it dispassionately. When those unpleasant sensations disappear--although they can recur in any session--it means that you are through the first stage of purification and are ready for the higher levels. Next, you see the dragon, which is the spirit of fire. Finally, the crowning level--reached only by a few--comes when you see and can transform yourself into a tiger. Since Indians often delight in playing up to the exotic expectations of outsiders, some of the stories about shamans changing into tigers and boas should be taken with a grain of salt. However, the basic idea of a sequential progression of images may not be that far-fetched. Certainly, further study and research needs to be con- ducted in this area. If the sequencing is consistent cross-culturally-and different people at different times do share the same basic sequence of visions--it could suggest that the visions may be more than random hallucinations, and they may correspond to some "objective" reality--whether internal or external. Once again, it may take numerous sessions before one experiences this progression. I know my own ability to see has certainly evolved over time. During my initial encounters with yaje-often just before I began to engage in serious defecating and vomiting--I tended to see vague images of stick figures and geometric patterns that sometimes formed into insect like animals but usually faded into vague outlines. My mind screen might be dense with these images, but their colors weren't very bright and the overall background was obscure. These patterns usually came and went (interspersed with periods of no visuals at all) until the first intestinal convulsions grabbed my undivided attention. Then, the figures usually became clearer and often transformed into various kinds of monsters--snakes, predatory animals, and devils--that reached out to attack me. This sequence of images and feelings might repeat itself several times--with visions preceding each bout of vomiting and defecating. However, I don't want to leave the impression that all that happens in a yaje' session is suffering, seeing visions, voiding, and returning to your hammock to fall into a swoon. This is far from the case in most sessions. One is usually surrounded by fifteen to twenty people who are going through similar processes, each in his or her own way. People bump into your hammock, the shaman may chant and rattle as he conducts healings, and participants engage in sporadic conversations. One's visions are constantly being interrupted, influenced, and modified by all the surrounding activity. Once I survived these initial stages of rigorous purgation--and if I managed to drink another cup of yaje-then I would begin to see calmer, clearer visions in my mind's eye. This secondary stage was often heralded by a journey through a long tunnel, or by a rush of figurative, geometrical patterns similar to those experienced earlier. However, the patterns would now kaleidoscope into complementary shapes without losing their essential nature. Gradually, the figures would slow down, become more defined, and take on brighter hues. During this secondary stage, I found it much easier to hold images in my mind. In time, I learned how to focus selectively on particular images by shifting my inner eye's field of vision. Occasionally, my inner visions seemed to be variations on recent experiences. For example, in one session--after I had spent the afternoon walking through the forest-- I saw highly intensified surrealistic jungle landscapes. At other times, the visions contained strictly imaginary motifs, but most frequently they contained certain conventional religious images. I occasionally saw Buddhas and mandalas, but most of- ten I saw motifs that had to do with Amazonian Indian mythology. (8) One of my recurrent visions involved an ancient maloca (a type of large, communal thatched hut). (9) This particular maloca was an enormously tall structure with a roof that extended beyond sight, reaching up to the heavens. In the upper spaces, poised upon the wooden beams and crosspieces, thousands of Indians dressed in loincloths were watching and pointing at me. In other visions, I encountered more bucolic variations on the same theme: groups of Natives lazing in hammocks, doing craftwork, or bathing in the river. These visions felt as though they might be happening in present reality but their content was definitely situated in some ideal past. The exact content of my visions varied greatly from session to session, but I noticed there was a general progression from fear to calmness, from vagueness to precision, from dark to light. Based on the fact that the intensity, clarity, duration, color, etc., of my visions appeared to improve in accordance with the purity of my body, I believe that yaje' may cleanse and heal the spiritual fibers of our being and allow us to see alternate realities. For a long time, I assumed that when Don Pacho spoke of spirits he was referring to inner visions. It wasn't until after I had been taking yaje' for some time that I began to experience spirits in waking visions. During most yaje' sessions, the moments of inner visions are interspersed with moments when you are fully awake--with your eyes open. As I continued working with yaje, I began to sense--without necessarily directly seeing--many spirits surrounding me even when I was awake. My ability to perceive the spirits during waking states changed considerably over time, depending upon a number of factors: the amount of yaje' I had taken, my emotional or psychological purity, and my experience working with yaje. In time, I began to see restless configurations of energy moving through the atmosphere which betrayed the spirit presence. Then I began to see the energy fields manifest into something more substantial--zones or currents of energy charged with flashing points of light. Eventually, I could see the spirits manifest as faint, dreamlike images, and then as very vivid and substantial images. At this point, I am unable to prove the existence of these spirits. However, when I am inebriated on yaje, I have the undeniable sense that the spirits are very real, and that I am experiencing a realm which is beyond ordinary existence. Unlike inner visions, these spirit energies felt uncannily real, as if they were independent entities. In contrast to the spirit of yaje, which feels like a benevolent master, some of these other spirits felt sublime, and some truly evil. Interestingly, whenever these energies appeared, the yaje itself would instruct me to keep vigil over them by chanting or invoking my animal totems for protective purposes, as I have seen Don Pacho and other shamans do. Paranormal Abilities While several recent books have discounted reports regarding the telepathic nature of yaje visions, there are some tantalizing indications that yaje' may, in fact, eventually open up a sixth sense and allow us to see into shamanic realities. (10)There is considerable cross-cultural evidence that Native practitioners have relied on yaje' visions to guide their shamanic hunting abilities. Numerous anecdotal reports in anthropological literature also suggest that some yaje' visions--like some common dreams--may contain precognitive infermation. Moreover, I have noticed that after working with yaje' for extended periods, I am often propelled into a world of uncanny intuitions and extraordinary synchronicities, a condition that lasts long after the session is over and I have returned to "normal" life. LYFizBUTaDREAM http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/life_is_but_a_dream.html |
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KiZaDm (Hive Addict) 07-08-04 01:52 No 518077
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Of course, yaje' novices should be cautious about placing too much faith in their initial visions as blueprints for real-life ac- tion. While yaje' visions--like some dreams--may contain genuine insights and clues regarding the present and future, they may contain elements of wishfulness mixed in with elements of truth. It can take considerable experience and maturity to distinguish between the two. Don Pacho says that, when the apprentice and master are under the influence of yaje, the master can teach the apprentice directly through a process that we might call "mental transmission." According to Don Pacho, the telepathic transference of knowledge and power from master to apprentice is not a metaphor but a strictly empirical process that occurs in conjunction with the use of the magical chants. While in some cases the words of songs may assist in this process by invoking certain images through the power of suggestion, Don Pacho says that the most vital shamanic information cannot be conveyed directly in words. 11 For outsiders, the existence of yaje' spirits and the efficacy of yaje' visions may exist only in the eyes of the beholders and believers. However, based on what I have seen so far, I cannot dismiss yaje' visions as mere hallucinations or primitive superstition. It took several sessions for yaje' to cleanse my psychic windows before I could experience the spirit of yaje as a living presence. It took even more sessions before I began to see the spirit energies surrounding us, but the effort has been worth it. Despite the emphasis in this article on defecating, vomiting, and suffering, the yaje' rituals are seldom negative experiences. Once you have survived your personal purgatory, the experience can be highly pleasant and positive. In contrast to the post-trip depression, hangover, and uncontrollable mental restlessness I have experienced with other psychedelics, yaje' has always left me feeling light, clean, calm, and filled with great optimism. If nothing else, yaje' has enabled me to taste the wellsprings of bliss and enter into a genuine religious ecstasy, in a completely down-to-earth and unpretentious way. This may be its great paradox and great mystery. On one level, a yaje' session is a profound cathartic spiritual experience that results in the purging of pity and fear. On another level, it is a grand, rowdy party where you stay up all night in the midst of drunkenness, merrymaking, and traumatic revelations, get scared stiff and shed your worries, make friends with complete strangers, sing and curse, call on your deities--and then miraculously enter the morning without a hangover. The yaje' ritual may start with a near-death experience, but it ultimately ends in rebirth. The sense of renewal and well being that comes as the day dawns is definitely not a delusion. It can be seen in the relaxed faces and bodies of other participants as they wake to the new day. Their radiant faces express the unpretentious, vulnerable look of young children and the illumination of those who have experienced enlightenment. Having drawn close to agony, madness, and death, the participants have come to terms with their suffering and have become better persons for it. NOTES 1. Although sometimes chewed and sometimes extracted cold, yaje is generally "cooked"; that is, the bark is stripped off, the vine is pounded into a pulp, and the mashed vines are boiled in water for up to a day. The vine is almost always cooked with a complementary plant, of which there are at least eighty varieties. In the community where I was initiated, the dark green leaf of another vine which Don Pacho calls el companero ("the companion") is added to the mixture, for the stated purpose of "cooling" the potion. According to Don Pacho, yaje itself is a very "hot" substance, which can "burn" internal organs if it is not balanced by this leaf. 2. In Colombia, the urbanization of yaje rituals has only occurred in an occasional and informal way. However, in Brazil, yaje visionaries have established several urban yaje' cults with many thousands of followers. 3. Throughout this essay, I have deliberately used the term "visions" rather than "hallucinations." Both may be products of the "imagination," but a hallucination implies the creation of unreal images that are the work of a diseased or malfunctioning mind. In contrast, visions carry real truths and come from a healthy and inspired mind. 4. In some Amazonian cultures, boys are initiated into the use of yaje at the age of seven or eight. According to Don Pacho, the reason is that prepubescent boys-- who are emotionally innocent, psychically clean, and sexually pure--can enter into the yaje world more easily than adults. I also acknowledge that I have seen some urbanized Colombians reach the visionary stages with remarkable speed and ease. Since most Colombians have a measure of Indian blood, I speculate that there may be a mystical genetic factor at work. 5. Of course, mastering yaje has nothing to do with being a brutish macho, or he-man. I have observed that women taking yaje generally suffer much less than men, probably because the ability to void is primarily a matter of bodily awareness, and women are often more in touch with their bodies than men. In contrast, White urban males, especially intellectuals who are out of tune with their bodies, often seem to suffer the most. Their whole ego formation is based on instinctual repression and the idea that they are smarter than everyone else--something that goes against the spirit of yaje. 6. Although the release of bodily waste is fundamentally an involuntary, organic process, our parents and society have taught us that bodily functions are dirty and disgusting. Society later uses the internalized anxieties surrounding bodily functions to teach children to deny and repress other instinctual drives. While it may be useful up to a point for children to conform to the expectations of others, most of us become slaves to a set of unconscious conditioned reflexes which not only hold us back but cause us a lot of grief and even harm. Under the influence of yaje, it is suddenly easy to understand Wilhelm Reich's concept of "body armoring." Reich argued that our neuroses stem from internalizing psychic shocks experienced in early childhood. Whenever we are punished--through words or blows--for expressing our instinctive natures, our body instinctively protects itself by forming body armoring. Moreover, because this armoring inhibits the natural functioning of internal muscles, organs, and autonomous functions, it can lead to serious physical and psychological problems later in life. 7. See R. D. Laing, Politics of Experience (Fantheon, 1983); and Arthur lanov, The Primal Scream (Putnam Publishing Group, 1981). 8. It is worth noting that, although it is customary for participants to discuss and analyze their visions with the shaman after the session, this is usually done in a highly confidential manner. I have been told by some Native participants that it is unwise or even dangerous to reveal one's visions to anyone but the shaman. 9. The appearance of malocas in my visions was an anomaly because, while they are common in many Amazonian cultures, they are not used in the Siona community where I did my apprenticeship. 10. According to many indigenous myths and traditions, all beings were originally endowed with paranormal abilities, but humans have lost these abilities due to "contamination." It is easy to see how these visionary capacities, which were once vital to the survival of hunter-gatherers, might be forgotten and lost in urban cultures that depend upon nourishing other kinds of talents and sensibilities. 11. The memorization of myths or chants--which play such an important role in some Amazonian coca cultures-are secondary in the yaje traditions. The spontaneous yaje songs which the potion inspires in the master are not meant to be copied by the apprentice. The goal in the yaje' ritual is for the apprentice to reach a certain level of enlightenment so he can receive his own songs directly from the vine. Jimmy Weiskopf is an American-born jour- nalist who graduated from Columbia University, New York, and Cambridge University, En- gland. Having lived full-time in Colombia since 1977, Weiskopf is a member of the Colombia Foreign Press Association, writing for the Wall Streellournal, Time, Americas, and other publications. He also writes regularly for the Colombian Post and La Prensa, a Bogota daily. He may be reached at Apartado Aereo 55820, Bogota, Colombia. This Article is from the Fall 1995 Issue of Shaman's Drum A journal of experiential shamanism LYFizBUTaDREAM http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/life_is_but_a_dream.html |
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jemma_jamerson (Hive Addict) 07-08-04 01:56 No 518078 |
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culture and plants | ||||||
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yes great diamond, another reason why nature is legit, outlawing plants is not acceptable..only because it is socially un desiurable for an industrial society... and the industrial society is unsustainable, what has more value to humankind... this is a great read fro those that are contempating doing this from my thread here Post 515498 (jemma_jamerson: "Ayahuasca the deepest realm", General Discourse) are native amercian indians still not allowed to use peyote for their rituals? FEAR MY GEAR epistemologicide http://www.holology.com http://www.counterorder.com |
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chameyotch (Hive Bee) 07-08-04 06:34 No 518121 |
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They are.. | ||||||
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..in some states, as long as they are doing certain ceremonies, and in others as long as they are recognized members of the NAC. Utah, I believe, is the first state to allow non natives to ingest it, provided they are members of the NAC. I'll get all the sleep I need when i'm dead. |
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aztec (exotic beauty) 07-10-04 03:23 No 518481 
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the yanomamo indians | ||||||
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i think i would worry about the properties found in yaje-or ayahuasca. btw, it is also administered via the intranasal route after it has been grinded into a fine powder. not a pretty sight. because the compound plays such an integral role in the life of the yanomamo, i find it interesting that the most primitively intact peoples in the entire world also devote their entire lives to violence. the yanomamo are extremely warlike in nature and almost always ingest yaje-or ayahuasca before attacking or raiding another village. the attacks are almost always more vicious than necessary. i can't help but think that perhaps yaje plays a role in that. btw, kizadm, many thanks for clearing a cobweb in my brain and taking me down memory lane. a very interesting tribe that, like many in the wild, have been diminishing in number at an alarming pace. Free Speech Free Choice |
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KiZaDm (Hive Addict) 07-10-04 03:41 No 518484
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non-violence: | ||||||
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SANTO DAIME by Steven Mizrach Abstract In this paper, the reader will be introduced to the sect of Santo Daime, a Brazilian religion which combines Christianity with the indigenous practice of using ayahuasca, a native entheogenic plant. This group should be of interest to ethnobotany because they represent a clear case where indigenous religious uses of a psychotropic plant were transferred wholesale to another (mestizo) culture through contact and exchange. The author will use Santo Daime as a case to explore the critical role human-plant relationships may have played in the formation of religious awareness. Introduction: the sect of Santo Daime Although the Brazilian religious sect Santo Daime has been called a "new religion," it was actually founded back in the 1920s. A seven foot tall black rubber tapper living in the state of Acre named Raimundo Irineu Serra came into contact with indigenous groups (probably Tukano Indians) who used the ayahuasca vine for healing and for contacting the spirit world. Serra was probably influenced both by Catholicism and also the Spiritism which was prevalent in Brazil at the time. While using the visionary vine, Serra met with a personage he called the Queen of the Forest, a white woman clad in blue whom he identified with the Virgin Mary. (MacRae, 1992.) The Queen of the Forest told Master Irineu (as many of the members of the sect know him today) to found a new religion with the ayahuasca tea as its main sacrament. He wrote (or "channeled," as some might put it) many of the hymns which make up the liturgy of the new religion. "Daime" in Portuguese is not actually the name of a saint, as some people have thought. Instead, it means the imperative "give me," and this appeal for divine illumination appears so much in Serra's liturgy that it has become synonymous with the sect and the plant itself, which is sometimes simply called daime . "Santo Daime" literally means "the holy give me herb." The tenets of Santo Daime include ideas of reincarnation, salvation, and protection of the rainforest. The Queen of the Forest is worshipped as a teacher. But primarily its hymns and rituals are focused on the use of the daime for enlightenment and healing. By the 30s, Santo Daime was gaining many adherents among Serra's fellow rubber-tappers and other (primarily poor and black) rural Brazilians, and it spread to the town of Rio Branco. Eventually it even reached many of the major urban areas in Acre. The Catholic authorities looked askance at some of the aspects of the sect, and they often harassed its adherents, charging them with apostasy. As a result, Serra's successor, a man named Sebastiao, moved the headquarters of the church in 1981 to a village named Ceu do Mapia ("the heaven of Mapia,") where 700 followers lived a communal existence centered around the daime, and sans many of the trappings of urban life. This move had the paradoxical effect of attracting the interest of many starry-eyed Brazilian celebrities and metropolitan sophisticates, and these people, often to the consternation of the mostly poor and illiterate members living in Mapia, founded churches in major metropolitan centers, including this time Brazil's capital. This in turn provoked the concern of the Brazilian federal government, who began investigating claims that the sect was duping people and swiping their money. (Saunders, 1996.) The Brazilian Federal Drug Council investigated the group, and to the surprise of many Brazilians, released a report claiming that the use of ayahuasca by the group posed no danger, and in fact had "positive beneficial" impacts on the community and on social integration. The government explicitly permitted the use of the plant by the religious sect, much in the same way that the U.S. authorized the use of the peyote cactus by the Native American Church. What followed next in the late 80s was a dramatic expansion of the Santo Daime sect overseas, with churches opening in Europe (especially Holland and Portugal), the United States, and Japan, often being started initially by Brazilians travelling and living in those countries, but being joined by local New Agers and others. This has caused some problems, again, because so far no other country besides Brazil has officially permitted the use of the ayahuasca vine for religious purposes, and in the U.S. and elsewhere harmine and harmaline (derivatives of the vine) are still controlled substances. Because it is a tropical woody liana, it's fairly difficult to grow in non-equatorial climates, except in climate-controlled greenhouses, so many of the international churches have to continue "importing" their sacrament from the mother country, which also runs into some thorny issues as well. Still, many countries like Holland have basically adopted a de facto policy of non-harassment of the sect, whose members often do a variety of good works for the surrounding community, and display little signs of violence or other anti-social behavior. In Europe, the churches also attract the occasional celebrity, who either observes or participates in their ceremonies, and professes that they are "harmless." The Santo Daime sect got another boost in international recognition during the 1992 Earth Summit. In 1992, Mapia was made the center of a million acre ecological preserve, through the help of the international group Friends of the Amazon, and there are also efforts underway to create an international center there which will offer workshops in traditional healing, ecology, and consciousness studies. (Beyran, 1995.) During the Summit, Santo Daime members joined an inter-faith religious pavilion area, and set up their own tent where 600 people (observers and faithful alike) took part in their all-night ceremonies of tea drinking, rhythmic dancing, and singing hymns for the protection of the rainforest. One of those participants was Domingo Bernardo de Silva, head of CONFEN (the Brazilian Drug Council), who used the occasion to pronounce that "altered states of perception do not necessarily signify a harmful situation." Santo Daime is not the only ayahuasca-using sect in Brazil. There is actually another well-organized group known as the UDV or Uniao de Vegetal. This group calls ayahuasca simply "Hoasca" or "the Vegetable." They were founded by a mestizo named Jose Gabriel Costa in 1961, and use a mythology based on both the Old Testament and ancient Andean civilization. UDV is considerably more low-key than Santo Daime, and prefers to work with researchers and government agencies behind the scenes. Beginning in 1993, they began quietly working with ethnobotanists on studies of their sacred plant, which they called the Hoasca Project. In 1995, they held their first annual Hoasca Studies Conference, inviting researchers from all over the world to discuss new insights about the pharmacology and botany of their sacred plant. Between the UDV and Santo Daime, there are now probably anywhere between 10 and 20,000 Brazilians participating in ayahuasca-based religions. No one is certain of the number of adherents abroad. LYFizBUTaDREAM http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/life_is_but_a_dream.html |
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CharlieBigpotato 07-10-04 04:58 |
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violence is the exit plan
(Rated as: no wanking in this forum) |
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doktor_alternate (Newbee) 08-22-04 03:16 No 526704 |
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apprenticeship | ||||||
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It has been my Life Descision to leave my traditional life here in vancouver, BC and become a shaman's apprentice. Understandably a few logistical problems exist: i am a starving 3rd year Chemistry student with a terminal brain cancer and currently undergoing chemotherapy up here in Canada... but I believe that whatever I do in this dream of life is up to me, provided that I can train my willpower under the guidance of a master to overcome all my personal obstacles. I am also fully completely disallusioned with modern cancer-fighting techniques. I believe that this is a spiritual matter that has more to do with one's way of life and self-concept than it does with zapping your whole body with some fucking brutal killer-chemicals to skim the fastest growing cells off from the lot. So then, to my question to all of you: what advice do you have for me, in going to mexico and finding myself a benevolent shaman/sorcerer to be my benefactor? I am fully prepared to drop my life here and spend 10-15 years in an apprenticeship if that is what is in store for me. I asked the DMT this morning if this was the best path for me, and it said that all paths were just as good as eachother, but that if this path would make me happy then i should take it. This life seems so absolutely fucking fascinating to me! so much more so than living with my head jammed in a fume hood slaving away day in and day out as a pawn for the almighty dollar. I would like to leave as soon as i have a clear vision of what to do and how to go about it, so any advice would be grand. tx, N |
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paranoid (Quick-witted Quibbler) 08-22-04 03:28 No 526713 
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"what advice do you have for me, in going | ||||||
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"what advice do you have for me, in going to mexico and finding myself a benevolent shaman/sorcerer to be my benefactor?" Perhaps you should consider finding a mentor closer to home. Many great spiritual avenues exist in the indigenous people of the area. The Haida were/are well known for their vast spiritual beliefs. Or head north to the arctic. You will learn what the most important things in life are when you're trying to live off the land up there. Anyone can try it in the year-round warmth of southern climes. In the arctic, survival is your only concern. Whatever your choice, you have my sincere hope all works well for you. With your positive attitude and open mind, you'll certainly find the success you seek. Good luck! Paranoid My ideal vacation - Juxtaposed along the precipice intersecting reality and fantasy (i.e. wanking). |
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CharlieBigpotato 08-22-04 14:51 |
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the year round warmth?
(Rated as: wanking) |
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doktor_alternate (Newbee) 08-23-04 01:06 No 526866 |
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first nations peoples | ||||||
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that is an excellent idea mr.paranoid, although the first nations people around here have been so fucked over by the white settlers and their government sponsored programs of assimilation and genocide that few if any authentic first nations people survive in their original way of life. all those who remain are saturated with crime and addiction. it is so sad how their way of life was stamped out, but that is the way it goes. In downtown vancouver, some 50% of the addicts on the streets are first nations, yet they represent 1.87% of the total population of vancouver. officially, 12% of males and 17% of females in federal prisons are first nations (1stN). this statistic is deflated, however, as many 1stN do not identify themselves as such in such a context. of course this is just what i see walking around downtown, but it is a very good indication of how dead their culture is, and in light of that, i would expect the practice of shamanism as in its original context to be either similarily dead, or very much hostile to white people such as myself (first nations people are very vocally racist towards white people). http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/demo27x.htm http://www.ccja-acjp.ca/en/abori2.html |
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yei (Stranger) 08-24-04 02:24 No 527012 |
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when a people's culture is most threatened is... | ||||||
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when a people's culture is most threatened is when they most wish to preserve it. I imagine there are shamans who are getting old, with no one of their tribe to teach the old ways to. Reverence for and desire to save their paths to truth are more important than petty racism for many, I imagine. Good luck on your quest. There is a saying "when the student is ready, the teacher appears". Just keep searching, keep an open mind, and a teacher will appear. 
It's good to bee back! Don't trust your computer!! |
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TrypNballZium (Hive Bee) 08-24-04 03:08 No 527019 
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hey dok | ||||||
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why dont you get your feet wet bee4 you jump in the water?: http://www.ayahuasca-shamanism.co.uk/ Will Pimp 4 Food! |
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Trenchcoat (Hive Bee) 08-24-04 03:22 No 527022 
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free fall flow river flow | ||||||
Ever hear of taking colloidial silver and sitting by the ocean for a year while fasting and doing yoga?
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Nicodem (Hive Bee) 08-24-04 08:19 No 527066 
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Finding a shaman teacher for Dr. Alternate | ||||||
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Reverence for and desire to save their paths to truth are more important than petty racism for many, I imagine. Most ethnic groups that still endorse shamanism are premodern people who don’t have such a modernistic mentality like the above statement implies. For example I interviewed a 96 years old shaman women from an Asian ethnic group numbering ~2000 persons. At that time she was already retired for 3 years and had no special wish to teach any of her relatives what she knew about how to fall in a trans-like state. For her that is simply a gift that their great spirit gave her by birth and he obviously did not do the same with a successor for some unknown reason. So why teach strangers? For premodern people it still holds: “Who is not from our breed is our foe.” Usually this is only applied to their neighbors and not to the white men who are by most premodern people considered too stupid to be considered a foe – more like someone to deal with some care and beguile. Luckily for such people (and their visitors) they have strict protocols and hospitality rules which protect a visitor – even if he is an enemy! Anyway, these Siberian shamans are markedly premodern and think you have to be born shaman, while in south America it is not necessarily so. There you might even find a (semi)modernistic shaman who would be characterized by the wish to spread his knowledge/truth but you will need a lot of patience (and money). Keep also in mind that in reality you will meet a lot of false shamans who will only want to earn some money in exchange of providing you a trip with the local hallucinogens. In some area this became quite a business. Like in Huautla de Jimenez, Oaxaca, a town which became popular trough the writings of Wasson, Schultes and Hofmann (where Maria Sabina first allowed westerners to partake a mushroom ritual). I think that in reality there are only two trained shamans there but a lot of people will offer you a “mushroom ceremony”. If you want to find a good modernistic shaman (a currandero) try Peru and Ecuador where they use mostly San Pedro, but you might also find ayahuasceros there. I personally could never attain a full mescaline trip with the San Pedro cactus (not nearly as good as with peyote) but I’m convinced that with a good guidance and some patience you can get excellent experiences. However, if I had a brain tumor I would try curing it by ingesting harmala alkaloids as often as possible in huge amounts. If you want to attain “supernatural powers” (I would rather call that for what it is – knowledge of your soul – but that does not sound so fancy) than harmala alkaloids or ayahuasca is the way to go. With ayahuasca you don’t need that much religious indoctrination and help from a shaman. Moreover, pharmacological investigation of harmala alkaloids showed a reasonably good cytotoxic activity*, so you would have two cures, chemotherapy and psychotherapy in one. PS: Stay away from postmodern religions (New age). They are life haters and as such might be excellent in providing you beautiful stories to put you to sleep even before your body dies. No need for that, morphine can also do the same job even more effectively, but that might not be what you are after. * I had a nice paper about the cytotoxic effects of the Peganum harmala alkaloids but I can’t find it at the moment. I will post it as soon as I remember where it is in this mess of papers and files. “The real drug-problem is that we need more and better drugs.” – J. Ott |
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jsorex (Hive Addict) 08-24-04 17:46 No 527107 
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Call it Neo-shamanism. | ||||||
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That post by Nicodem is really a good piece such as most of his other posts are too. In order to become a Siberian shaman, you'd need to learn a Siberian language for staters, and if you haven't noticed, these languages are really old and some near extinct (1990 concensus shows 30 fluents livonian [not exactly siberian, I know] speakers in the world, now there might be three or less). Some of these languages don't know the concepts of Time, Money, Text Book. Some don't know writing! How are you gonna learn that, white boy? I have lived in Ecuador and Perú and I can tell you that you will find an ayahuasca man in every town that will give you a ceremony, and after that they go to the internet café to look at porn and eat a burger or whatever. The real guys also still exist, I mean the people that take care of illnesses for poor people that would like to go to an American/European hospital, but cannot afford it. But to get to know these people you would have to learn fluent spanish and quichua, and become a farmer or fieldworker in the remote coutryside. That would mean no internet, no tv, no mobile phone, no films, no warm water, no grocery store, no technomedicine. That there are so many people wanting to be something as exotic as a shaman is a sign of the feeling emptimeness and meaningless that western petit bourgeoise lifestyle causes all around. Similar to the "adventures" that white people have when they "travel" to a foreign land go to Holiday Inn there with 10 000 other white tourists for 4 days and fly back to work in the office for 361. Go to Goa, everybody there now is 1)white, 2)rich 3)speaks english 4) wants to be (or thinks that he is) a shaman. As technology and western science and biomedicine come to those remote places, these shamanistic practices will go extinct, and only turn into superficial facades for tourist dollars. Edit: Considering your situation - I only bothered to read it now - perhaps you are motivated enough to do something like that. Keep in mind that in some indidgenous thought "saving you" might mean killing you or something else totally illogical to the white man. 
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Urupeh (Newbee) 08-24-04 19:19 No 527115 |
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Tecno-shamanism | ||||||
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Hi bees that is rely a thought's treath, where i live it is easy to take the sacret tea..., but a remarkable thing is that some people dont fell bad and dont purgue, the tipe of the plant, the soil, the age of the plant, the method of making the tea, if it is fermented or not the experience of the shaman and of the people that drink the tea... and of course the amount of the plants and the amount of sacrement that people drink all of these are important in getting the "sick-felling" and nausea ,... I personaly thing that the nausea effect and the purgue effect is becouse the body feel that something is wrong and the first thing that our body do is trying to put it out by vomiting and defecating, these effect i thing are becouse tanins, resins and other hard-digerible things that are water soluble comes in the tea, when I ingest extracts that are wasched whith nonpolars, or teas that where fermented the efects are going to zero...no doubt that the amount of harmala alcaloids play an importand role in the nausea felling, when washed extracts are ingested but the amount of harmala alcaloids are to great the nausea felling appears again. I thing that the vomiting effect isn't necessary, for some people here(in my country) it is the center of the whole thing, they claim that your problems go out whith the vomit...perhaps it realy happens wo nows? I only thing that educated people that have acess of cience can use it for divine and religios purpouses, how many of you get nausea and the sick felling when ingest the pure alcaloids (DMT+harmala's)? We are all shamans why not?, nature choose us to seek and experiment these things, the divine entities that speak trough nature can be a cientific paper or other guy or researcher in the internet, all the people that study psycodelics are shamans in some level, if you study some compound (not necessary psycadelic)that will cure people than you are a shaman too, perhapps nature give other and more posibillities for us, that we dont explore whery well, if a shaman in a small village whitout electricity, internet, phone, advanced machines, and aceptic bottles have such a power can you imagine what power nature gave to us? Cience and tecnology are our weapons to fight for a better world, and why not they are there to prove that religion has sometning to tell us and that god exists? paX & luX cience will prove that religion was right |
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7is (Hive Bee) 08-24-04 21:34 No 527131 
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Peganum harmala for cancer? | ||||||
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doktor_alternate (Newbee) 08-25-04 09:23 No 527241 |
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power and sorcery | ||||||
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let me clarify one or two things. my interest in becoming a shaman's apprentice stemmed from my readings of Carlos Castaneda. Now, these works have been written off by many scholarly types as fiction. true. But what i want is not to go pay one of these "online shamans" to teach me the ways via "weekly 30 min phone calls, and the additional emergency fone call not exceeding 15 minutes" but to apply my knowledge of phychedellic states of mind to causing changes in our 'real world' by harnessing some 'powers or whatever' through taking drugs. Alot of the ceremonial activity that shamanry is associated with is no doubt just primitive methods of isolating phychoactive elements from plants and using them to trip. The interesting things are what these people do with their trips, or learn to do through their trips. Yeah, I am aware of the vast multitude of pseudo shamans out there who are just out to get my money, to promote their best-selling novel series and yada yada yada. Perhaps Carlos Castaneda is just a fiction writer, and you cant really transform your self into a crow by inhaling powdered Psilocybe mexicana with the proper guidance, but his book sure suckered me in. Now with that being said, i'm sure i could find a 'shaman' down there in the south somewhere, or even right where i am here who will take my money in exchange for services rendered in showing me how to prepare mixtures or how to dance around a fire... but that is not really what i am after. I want to learn how to apply tripping out to performing sorcery. Maybe my dreams are unrealistic. MAybe everyone out there IS just out to get my money and nothing exists beyond that. what is the big fucking deal about money anyway... but i digress. back to sorcery: as fun as tripping out is, seeing things and feeling wierd and all that... it is just a tool (i would like to believe) and if used correctly can enable one to perform feats of 'sorcery' and THAT is what i am truly fascinated with. Because that is real power. Just imagine... taking vials of different shaped crystals and things from your clandestine lab setup and then consuming certain quantities thereof to go flying around above the city or performing superhuman feats or curing oneself of disease or taking on the body of some kind of animal or whatever. Fascinating thought material though eh? That is the kind of art i want to perfect, and the only way to do that is by learning the ways from some qualified individual, if one exists out there and would be willing to teach me the ways. Or maybe i sould just write my own book about it... |
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Nicodem (Hive Bee) 08-25-04 11:56 No 527257
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Hold down your horses and listen to the wind | ||||||
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Dear doktor, you just made my hidden thoughts about your situation a reality. I was afraid you were a religious person just like you described it. That is not really a good starting point for becoming a shaman apprentice. Yes, it’s true that having a life crisis is a prerequisite to be “called” and that you have to go trough the process of hysterization before you truly became a shaman. But have you the slightest idea how hard it will be for you to establish a sincere transfer with a shaman with all your prejudices about what a shaman should be and do. And also how difficult it will be for a shaman to clear all your religious beliefs from your head before even starting with the real work – that is refilling your head with his own beliefs, which are, BTW, the beliefs of his own people and not of the people you will be living with later. His view of the universe might be completely inadequate for your life in Vancouver. Anyway, if you decide to go, I can give you a few advices from my own experiences and it is up to you to decide how relevant they are for you. It is always better to start as a tabula rasa and leave your neurotic symptoms (obsessions, phobias, hysterical attitude, parents…) at home before leaving for such a voyage. I can tell you that when you pack your neuroses in your suitcase you won’t reach your destination. If you leave them at home you will have the power to accomplish incredible voyages in the real world as well as in the unknown territories of your soul. It might also be worth asking yourself why you would want to become a shaman’s apprentice anyway. If you have already been Castaneda’s “apprentice” and already adopted his religion, why do it again? You seam to have completely refused the religion of your own people. After all you hate their god. If you just recently refused to worship the Almighty Dollar to worship the Power of Sorcery instead, why would you want to change the cult once more? Are you perhaps saying that the new beliefs don’t satisfy you? Or perhaps you took religious beliefs to seriously? These are all questions to which you will have to answer to yourself before leaving home. Not because the answers would be important but because you have to know the real reasons and origin of your desire. You have to know your goal otherwise you will become lost in the thick jungle of your own subconscious desires. One more thing is that you have to love life in order to beat death. That sounds so easy but in reality loving life is the most difficult part of life. Just imagine how damn difficult it is to love something so cruel, nasty, dirty, powerful, contagious, blood thirsty and merciless like life is. It is so easy and comfortable to be a nihilist, but to refuse nihilism (life hating) is so very, very difficult for any westerner. It is like asking someone locked in a cage with a snake to stop panicking and save his ass instead. So don’t feel bad if it sounds too difficult to accomplish (but, it is possible!). Also as Jsorex already told you, you just have to learn at least Spanish (Castellano). Don’t even dream of any good experience in South America without speaking the local language. Basic Spanish is understood even in the most remote villages by at least someone and it is so easy to learn. It took me two months of travel to learn more than enough for a conversation and if you already speak French or other Roman language you won’t need more than that. I hope science is not in contrast to your beliefs, because I would like to advise you to read and study the papers 7is kindly provided and consider the possibility of a harmala alkaloids therapy (if sombee can upload the missing full papers please do). Urupeh already told you about the nausea ayahuasca or harmala tea causes. The vomiting can be really nasty especially with the crude harmala tea, I can tell you that. But it is also so easy to isolate the alkaloids as hydrochlorides (the procedure is somewhere on the net) and when isolated you can ingest up to 1000mg before the nausea turns to vomiting. Yes, I know, fasting all the time and doing harmala every few days is not really an easy life. But given that you have cancer you might have enough willpower to succeed. After all, chemotherapy is not much better and you should also consult your medic how this could be incorporated in the therapy (unless he is a real asshole he should be able to at least calmly discuss about it). Because of the MAOI properties of harmala you should not do chemotherapy for at least 24h after the ingestion! I doubt it would save you from the planed death but I can assure you that you will be surprised by what you can learn from ayahuasca in any of its numerous forms. It is my belief that life is appreciated by the knowledge it gives you and not by its duration. I sincerely wish you all the best in your endeavor whatever it will be, Nicodem “The real drug-problem is that we need more and better drugs.” – J. Ott |
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CharlieBigpotato (Bizarre pHomme de Terra) 08-26-04 01:23 No 527386 
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i'm not wanking | ||||||
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unlikely as it is that my opinions on this will bee met fairly, i'm compelled to add a few cents more: first; any fans of castanada that didn't hang in there for all his books have missed the good stuff. second; shamanism has almost nothing, to nothing whatsoever to do with ingesting mind altering substances. third; the spirit of shamanism is the spirit of generosity and helpfullness...the exact opposite of obtaining anything at all for one's self. not very sexy at all. various rituals are preformed mostly as a vehicle to off-set the normal thinking patterns that have entrapped the person for whom the shaman has decided to assist. the money concerns are moot. no shaman will accept your money. although they may very well need to see that you are willing to let go of all you hold onto...if only beecause it is these holdings that have caused the malaise in the first place. drugs, beelieve it or not, are an obstacle to the mental fluidity and control that is the hallmark of power. power is nothing at all. nothing. and the ability to endure it's onslaughts. |
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doktor_alternate (Newbee) 08-26-04 10:07 No 527463 |
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Some very very very very... | ||||||
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good points, in light of which i abase myself before the assembled company for my hasty daydreaming and for totally getting off track and missing the real point. The source of my motivation is NOT a desire to be able to jump super high. After all, in castaneda language, power is the third enemy of the brujo's apprentice. so indulging in ones own powers is only limiting one's own spiritual development. - - i really need to be more discerning in what i post in the future to keep my childish daydreamings at home. my most sincere appoligies for having stained my otherwise very serious thread with that little overexcited outburst. i did read those harmala papers. some of those guystook solid chunks of harmala and implanted them inside tumors and watched the action. harmala acts in just the same way as any other chemotherapudic drug out there. It is cytotoxic, so the technique is to blast the affected region with killing drugs and watch the faster-deviding cells die off first. Harmala therapy seems like a very crude way of going about it though, with all the side effects. All that modern chemotherapudic drugs have that make them special is that they haveless side effects, or rather, they differentiate more in their cytotoxicity between various cells based on those cell's rate of dividing. (cancerous cells divide like crazy, normal cells divide at a more relaxed rate). so basically in those harmalla papers i didnt really see anything surprising. X-ray radiation therapy even works under the same principles as chemo: zap the affected area with killer rays and watch the faster dividing (more delicate) cells die off first. This is THE principle upon which modern anticancer technologies function. |
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Nicodem (Hive Bee) 08-26-04 16:21 No 527520
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Shamans and healing | ||||||
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first; any fans of castanada that didn't hang in there for all his books have missed the good stuff. second; shamanism has almost nothing, to nothing whatsoever to do with ingesting mind altering substances. third; the spirit of shamanism is the spirit of generosity and helpfullness...the exact opposite of obtaining anything at all for one's self. Charlie, I can't reply on your first point as I have not read any of Castaneda's books, but I can comment on the other points. Shamanism as an animistic religious practice is not about ingesting mind altering substances, true, but many shamanic techniques are directly about ingesting such substances. The point is that these substances are considered as a helping tool to attain the visionary or trance state. If a shaman can do without them then it can only mean that his technique is a really good one. But even here you have different traditions. In Mongolia I was told that the less vodka a shaman needs the better he is. A good one would only drink ~0.5dl of vodka at the start of the healing ritual, smoke some tobacco, dance dressed in a heavy coat, beat the drum, sing and fall into trance several times for the whole night without even looking tired for a moment. In my opinion that is quite light on the drugs, isn’t it? But compare that with the training of a Mazatec currandero who is supposed to take huge doses of mushrooms several times a week for the period of many years, sometimes even twenty years, before he attains a full status. Asian shamanism is quite different also in the fact that you pay the services directly to the shaman. His work is by his community considered as a full time job and he can and often does interfere with the secular life of his people. Many Siberian shamans were known for their political carriers as chieftains and engaged in the warfare and trading. On the other hand, Mazatec curranderos or many South American shamans are not allowed even to accept payment or have anything to do with money at all. All the payments or presents must be given to his assistant or relatives. In this case your third point about generosity might hold true, but you have to consider that a shaman becomes one for his own reason. He is “called” because that is the only possible solution for a serious life crisis, and certainly not to help others. This only becomes his mission later, once he fulfilled his own, fully individual mission. It’s more like: “Now that I have healed myself, I also know how to heal others who need help. I’m a good person, so why not?”(unless he is bad and becomes an evil sorcerer) I recommend this as further reading on the subject: Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy Mircea Eliade http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/490.html BTW, WTF does “wanking” means? I couldn’t find it in any dictionary. harmala acts in just the same way as any other chemotherapudic drug out there. Yes Doktor, harmala alkaloids are known to form complexes with DNA so it’s very much like the chemotherapy compounds. Obviously, I don’t think harmala would be superior in this - much more probably inferior to the contemporary chemotherapy medicines. But my intuition tells me that it does much more than just trims the proliferating cancer cells. I can tell you a story instead of trying to explain something that I don’t know how to explain. Once I had a virus called Herpes zoster that causes the inflammation of the nerves in the back and painful red spots. Almost all adults carry this virus in the body since it also causes chickenpox and it is anecdotally said that it activates due to psychosomatical reasons. So I thought if this holds true, maybe it can be also deactivated by the same mechanism. I ingested some 800mg of harmala alkaloids, had a good contemplative trip and the next day the infection disappeared and left only dry blisters. So I had the viral infection only for four or five days instead of the normal 2 to 3 weeks. I’m not saying that harmala has antiviral properties. It might have been for unrelated reasons that the infection disappeared. But I sure did have the impression that I had the full control over my body again after that session. Now, isn’t cancer a rebellious part of your own body trying to kill you? But beware! Don’t start daydreaming again. That might only be my own religious belief. 
“The real drug-problem is that we need more and better drugs.” – J. Ott |
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CharlieBigpotato (Bizarre pHomme de Terra) 08-26-04 19:29 No 527540
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sorcery | ||||||
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nicodem, a sorcerer falls into timelessness and then re-writes history. he or she does this to help the spirit of humanity. this is conjuring. i am allowed to do this, occasionly, by the willingness of the intent of others. i am authorized to change the definitions of things, as the spirit dictates. hopefully, you will see that my description of what a shaman is, is an improvement. in a real sense, evolution is an act of will. that is much closer to a wank. i bend over now to accept negative karmic units. |
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doktor_alternate (Newbee) 08-27-04 00:49 No 527629 |
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cancer vs. viral infections. | ||||||
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There is a fundamental difference between viral infections and a cencerous breakout. In line with the currently accepted practices i am going to recount my knowledge (which may be somewhat inacurrate, please correct me bees...) in the form of a story or sorts, rather than just post links to some research papers that spout a bunch of "interlukinase 3b inhibition at the A site on chromosome yada yada yada". All human (or animal) cells live in harmony with one another as the body of an organism. These cells talk to eachother using chemicals (be they neurotransmitters like serotonin or be they other very rare and very special chemichals that we as humans have rarely seen and probably overlook due to their vanishingly small concentration in the blood...) in the same way that we humans talk to eachother using hive forums (to draw a clumsy analogue). These cells tell eachother (under the direction of various hormonal glands and other controlling entities withing the body) things like: "hey you, split like this to form a phagocyte... or a skin cell... or whatever". and they also tell eachother things like: "hey you, you arent supposed to split now, turn yourself off". Now, what a cancerous cell is is one that no longer listens to the "turn your self off" messages, and thus divides and divides and divides with no regard for what the controlling glands want the organism to look like. this, essentially is what cancer is. What research does is try to find out why cells stop listening, or how to kill those cells that dont listen and multiply 'like rabbits'. (bad example, i know...). What those harmala papers were talking about was the cytotoxic fx of harmala to cells and how that has a place in anticancer curations. Viral infections are of another nature entirely as they involve the interferance of cellular action by the insertion of a viral string of nucleic acid (be it RNA or DNA, with some enzymes sometimes too) to make an addition of foreign information to the cell's genetic makeup . Cancer, on the other hand involves no addition to, but mereley a change in the use of that cell's existing genetic makeup. Now it may happen that some viruses can, in addition to replicating themselves within a cell can cause cancerous symptoms of unregulated cell division, but that is not the point. The point is, that with your use of harmala (witch happens to be psychoactive), you used that substance to achieve a change in your consciousness and therein cured yourself on a spiritual level. THe curative action of harmala as discussed in those papers that you posted has no relation to the curation of viral infections, and the curation of those in white medicine circles in taken by a completely different approach than the curation of cancer, as discussed in your linx. um... i sense that we are totally on the same page here... so my pont i guess is that curation of the self at a spiritual level currently has no biochemical explanations, and any biochemical curative fx of harmala will be purely coincidental in light of its spiritualy catalysing curative fx. now, i have spent 3 years in university studying various biochemical curatives stuff and 2 years working in various biochemical curatives research and I have arrived at the conclusion that biochemical curatives are vastly inferior to spiritual curatives, and only serve to propagate a massive pharmaceuticals industry that inself strives to convince people that drugs in themselves are the answer, and that curation will be achieved by spending vast sums of MONEY (always back to money) on expensive motherfucking drugs, drugs and more drugs. (my chemotherapudic drug bill, including my antinausiants and anticonvulsants runs in the neighbourhood of $35000 CAD ($45500 USD) per year). I however believe that the answer lies in using drugs of a slightly different bent to assist you in achieving a state of mind wherein you can cure yourself by thought alone. Now, even in that, drugs are not the only way (as has been discussed at length here and elsewhere) in that some people of knowledge and experience greater than that of us common folks can sing and dance their way into a state condusive to curation. I digress. What I want to do is, using my knowledge of mindstate altering chemicals, learn how to take that to the next level and hone the techniques of curation on the spiritual plane, just like how you used harmala to help you rid your body of a viral infection (how fascinating!). While i dont think i have really said anything new here, perhaps i have clarified my intentions somewhat. BTW Nicoderm, did you mention that you had any direction (some mentorship under a shamanistic-type) in learning how to cure yourself in an altered state, or was that a spontaneous act? myself, because of my 7cm tumor in my left frontal lobe am afflicted with a somewhat socially embarrasing stutter. After a good trip using DMT (my favorite) i notice that my stutter goes away completely and that i feel totally in control of myself and my surroundings. This feeling seems to last for a few days to a few weeks depending on my other life circumstances and specifically depending on how fast my responsibilities and stresses can make me forget the confidence i had realised. (these symptoms of confidence are not attained soley through the use of DMT of course, (for example, i race J24 sailboats every wednesday and on most weekends too, and winning or placing in an event will do a similar thing for me) simply that as a drug, it is the most effective (as i have observed) in terms of dose-response and length of trip time required to put me in a 'place' where i become flooded with these wonderful feelings of self love, self confience ane self control) (how about that for an excercise in nesting brackets eh? I feel like I am back in calculus. hahaha) Perhaps your experience is a similar phenomenon? and if so (here i go daydreaming again...) Perhaps it is these feeling of, as you described "I had the full control over my body again after that session.", that are the real healing action. Perhaps a little self-confidence is all we as people need to stay healthy and full of love? (then of course, following this assumtion through, honing this art of being totally self-confindent in the fullest sense of the word is what it takes to achieve the ability to perform these legendary feats that shamans have been said to be capable of: transformation into animals or clouds, feats of strength, projection of the consciousness over vast regions to name a few neat-o examples. Perhaps this is The Secret to life? it certainly rings true with many many many things that i have seen an heard in my lifetime.) How does one attain a total self-confidence, then. AS far as i see it, self confidence is opposed by self doubt. I for one, notice that my self-doubt seems to creep into my thought processes if i let it, and that it seems to grow stronger the more i neglect to 'keep it down' by using 'interior positive reinforcement' and such. I guess that recognition of certain demons as these is the first step, but 'keeping them down' obviously fails in the same way that the war on drugs fails. In the DMT dreamings though, the doubt is overcome by another mechanism. (here i launch into a bIt of religious nonense) that mechanism is rather a projection of the consciousness such that it becomes one with all things, inside and outside the body until is all "just me" and in that instant of realisation, the entire universe becomes a playground, because all life and matter and everything is all just "my imajination" and i can do anything I want to. In the DMT trip, i let my subconscious mind let go (because my conscious mind is not strong enough to 'keep up with the pace'), and all that i see around me dissolves into a 'roller coaster ride' of worlds of colour and pattern and such. The trip in returning to baseline is accompanied by a realisation that, well, no matter what i could possibly shape the world as, it would all get really boring out there as "just me" forever, and thus i 'let go' of shaping everyting and let my total, eternal, all encompassing conscousness fall back into its original fragmented view to seek the company of others yet with the understanding that nothing has changed and that it really is just all "just me" and that i can do anything that i want to... and i retain the feeling of 'that knowledge that i can do anything that i want to' however... sadly i am not experienced enough to be able to really excercise my will and really DO anything that i want to in this 'plane of ordinary reality'... so i guess that it is in overcoming this step that i seek guidance in. yeah yeah, me me me, i know. anyways... |
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CharlieBigpotato (Bizarre pHomme de Terra) 08-27-04 02:13 No 527647
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good god almighty! | ||||||
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dok, you have revealed much here. i want you to feel my appreciation, if possible. this is the good and rare substance of the hive. as you are dying, it might beecome obvious that all who are living have suddenly beecome shamans. as you get closer to death, all those shamans might suddenly beecome nimcompoops. you will bee the shaman, du jour. beecause you know more about life. it is true that the exotic alkaloids are merely a vehicle for letting go of contradictory logic programs in our dumb-ass meta-bio-computor. i'd let you die here, on my funny farm, if you could dig your own grave. do you think you could handle that? |
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Nicodem (Hive Bee) 08-28-04 08:51 No 527931
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What is spirituality anyway? | ||||||
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The point is, that with your use of harmala (witch happens to be psychoactive), you used that substance to achieve a change in your consciousness and therein cured yourself on a spiritual level. I don't know anything about spirituality. To be honest I can't even stand people talking about things I can't or don't have any first hand experience on. I can observe and analyze my mental processes but is there anything like a spiritual process and how do you analyze that? Nevertheless, I think many illnesses originate from psychological causes, even some illnesses that apparently don’t have any connection whatsoever with the nervous system. We all know from experience how intimately the immune system is connected with our mental wellbeing. But I also know from experience that a person’s mind is anything but homogenous. You can never wish only one thing without wishing its opposite at the same time. A lot of “demons” are hidden in our minds. And I found out that deep there behind all the neuroses, in the core of the most perverse phantasms, there is a desire common to most people. It is the desire to escape life, to disappear, to get back into the uterus, to die. Where do you think all the most incredible and bizarre nihilisms of the modern humans come from? Isn’t it a little bit strange that people thrust much more to fetishes like money, obey to strangers who want to run their lives, or believe in supernatural beings that they never saw, while at the same time they can’t thrust or believe their own experience? If you deny your own experience you satisfy the desire to disappear because outside the own experience there is nothing that is truly yours. The pain is yours, but you don’t want to experience the pain so you let it be managed by the powerful ones. The parents, gods, ideologies, corporations, politicians, doctors and so many others are always there to help you when you can’t handle the life experience anymore. It’s so easy to sell the soul just to fulfill that primordial desire, but why when it would surely be fulfilled to each one of us at the point of death? Maybe we are so much in hurry just because we were seeded with the story of the immortality which when faced with life can only generate such terrible sorrow. There is no wish for immortality or heavens without also the wish to die now and here. Maybe now you understand that my use of harmala has nothing whatsoever to do with spirituality. I wanted my soul back and harmala was just one of the most effective tools that helped me claim it back. But what I call soul is nothing immortal, it is just an illusion or the feeling of knowing what I’m, who created me and the knowledge that the only thing that is mine is what I experience while alive and that death is a sure thing to come sooner or later. When you know and live all this, you can’t be afraid of death anymore. You simply trust yourself that you are not going to play any dirty tricks on your body anymore. Shamans can perform highly dangerous acts simply because they become “friends” with death by loving life. They postponed their deaths by removing the death wish. Isn’t death just part of the life anyway or are we too blinded to see something so simple? But for you it is somewhat different. You are already speeding on the road and would have to turn 180° where it is forbidden to drive in the opposite direction. If you want me to be honest, I’m convinced no shaman can help you more than medicine can. All I was hopping harmala can do for you, is to give you the strength to fight and my referencing to its cytotoxic properties was only a scientific excuse. Sorry for that, but that is also the only thing a shaman could do, though in a different way, but he could not stop the cancer growing like chemotherapy does. Judging from your reply you probably already understood what I wanted to say even though you interpreted in your own spiritual way. After all Charlie already told you that what a Shaman would do is “to off-set the normal thinking patterns that have entrapped” you. BTW Nicoderm, did you mention that you had any direction (some mentorship under a shamanistic-type) in learning how to cure yourself in an altered state, or was that a spontaneous act? No, I can’t cure myself. I still rely on drugs like antibiotics (and I thanks science for them). My interest in shamanism is only the side effect of my hobby which is about researching humans. Things like sociology, psychoanalysis and anthropology comes with it. That is why I do research whenever I have the opportunity to travel (when money and time are in alignment), but in my travels I only met two shamans and a currandera, participated in a curing ritual only once and only witnessed another ritual. I actually don’t have much experience on shamanism, not as much as I would like at least, but have read a few research books on it. I also remembered one more thing. A friend of mine partook a shaman’s curing session when we were traveling somewhere in northeast central Asia because she had pains around the bladder (it’s the ritual that I only witnessed). The shaman explained what she did wrong and what to avoid in the future. The curing session helped by almost completely removing the pain and other symptoms for the rest of the travel on horseback but she was also very seriously warned by the shaman that she must go to a doctor immediately as she gets home and insisted she must not skip this by any reason. When she came home she indeed got appointed to a medical specialist but it was not to be before two months later. Two days before the date the pain repapered and she was diagnosed with a dangerous bladder infection. Like I said, thanks science for the antibiotics (again). Actually we were very lucky since in the country we were there are said to be only six or seven shamans and we visited two of them, one out of necessity and the other out of curiosity. “The real drug-problem is that we need more and better drugs.” – J. Ott |
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CharlieBigpotato (Bizarre pHomme de Terra) 08-28-04 15:08 No 527963
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what it is and isn't: | ||||||
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mental stillness. that's what its all about. our internal chatter is the source of our misery. it is pointless to merely change the voice. all 'spiritual' diciplines invlove the death of our internal chatting. that's all there is to it. intense experiences will quiet our yacker and give us a brief respite from it. that's the significant part of these experiences, imho. falling out of a canoe in a class 5 rapid will do it, briefly. there is no time for reflection when that happens. you'll find that your body simply acts...without reflection. i've noticed that a certain level of volume will even do it; like a very loud rock concert...it's simply to noisy to hear (or register) the constant nagging of our mental chatter. there is simply no way to talk yourself into mental stillness. an oxy-moron. a person that has the dicipline to acheive mental stillness can have a powerful affect on others. it has a way of overloading their reflectiveness; like too many mirrors reflecting too much imagery to enable the neophyte to focus on any of it. that's when the shaman preforms the "magic" (as i occasionly understand it) |
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TrypNballZium (Hive Bee) 08-29-04 18:03 No 528132
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"tapping" silence | ||||||
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i've noticed that a certain level of volume will even do it lemme guess...11? interesting thought tater. i agree with you too. especially regarding the "chatty cathy" factor. i find psychedelics, especially in heroic doses, can shut the little man in my head up for quite a while. i imagine it works for much the same reason as falling into the class 5 rapids.. FEAR! nothing brings about intense focus like fear. it instantaniously forces you to disregard absolutly every thought that is not vital to your own preservation. very cathartic to say the least. as far as the volume thing goes though i dont think it would work in every case however..no matter how loud you played any song by "Flock of Seagulls", the little voice in my head would still bee thinking, "Damn this shit really SUCKS!" 
Will Pimp 4 Food! |
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jsorex (Hive Addict) 08-29-04 19:41 No 528143
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Nicodem, you must realize that "spiritual | ||||||
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Nicodem, you must realize that "spiritual" is used in many different contexts that give it entirely different meanings. Some ideas involve the notion of experiencing the world as it is, thus analyzing would be worst possible action in an attempt to experience this. I mean you understand what "vibe" means, right? Somebody says that "there is a good vibe here at this party" or whatever, and you cannot analyze the vibeness, you just experience it. But perhaps you don't understand "spiritual" because you are afraid of the religious connotations that it carries. Every one has met somebody that calls himself spiritual and is totally irrational.
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doktor_alternate (Newbee) 08-30-04 05:33 No 528217 |
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whoops | ||||||
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nicoderm, i feel we misunderstood eachother onone point. please allow me to clarify: wheni said "The point is, that with your use of harmala (witch happens to be psychoactive), you used that substance to achieve a change in your consciousness and therein cured yourself on a spiritual level." i am not referring to 'spiritual' in term of some airy-fairy 'hot-rock' massage and incense spirituality (as i 'enjoyed' it the other day. "i am placing this rock here on your back to bring your inner spirituality into focus").naw fuck that hokey shit. i meant spiritual in term of psychological, or "in your mind" but not really like focussing your conscious mind to wish the problem away... more like a 'opening your mind and guiding it a little bit by having the problem area 'on your mind' and then letting your infinitely powerful mind do its thing and heal you' kind of spirituality. thus in my words, spiritualality encopasses all mental processes, both conscious and subconscious, therefore using it to 'give me the strength to fight' is totally inline with what i was talking about. not about what somebody said up there... a shaman won't help me do anything... yeah man, i think you might be right on the money there. its not like being able to transform in to i crow is my lifelong dream (pun intended). so... maybe ill just try to enjoy myself maximally instead. thanks for the advice bees. |
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Nicodem (Hive Bee) 08-30-04 17:44 No 528287
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OK, I (now) know what spirituality is | ||||||
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Dok, I’m glad you did not use that word in the way most people use it, but that is something I already suspected. My question about “what spirituality is?” was actually more a rhetorical one. The reason why I dislike words like spirituality, energy, love and even vibe (like Jsorex reminded me) is because they are usually used in discourses that constitute certain communities based on ideologies/religions. I don’t know the English version of the linguistic term used for this group of words, but if I would translate it from my language it would sound something like “master markers” (maybe some linguistic-bee can correct me). Jsorex said that I’m “afraid of the religious connotations that it carries” and he almost got it. I avoid these religious/ideological communities exactly because they are based on hidden discourses where the mere question like “what spirituality is anyway?” causes an aggressive attitude. The coherence of the community members is based on the dogmatic believes like “You can’t be with us if you don’t know the meaning of the The Word.” But at the same time you also realize that nobody actually knows exactly what that mystery is and nobody can describe it with any other words. They usually say “It can’t be explained, you can only fell it”. It has therefore a mere function of keeping the members together in a herd where any questioning of dogmas is considered evil. Now, I know that in certain countries, like the US and many others, communication in a certain discourse is a necessity and that there are certain words and phrases that have a dogmatic meaning which must not be questioned. But I’m not used to it (yet) since I live in a country where you don’t get marginalized too much if you practice an open discourse. And I also don’t watch TV or read magazines so I never know exactly which discourse is “obligatory” at a given moment. Anyway, please forgive me for being so intolerant and bugging with the meaning of a single and insignificant word. P.S. I liked the explanation Charlie gave, though.
“The real drug-problem is that we need more and better drugs.” – J. Ott |
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CharlieBigpotato (Bizarre pHomme de Terra) 08-31-04 01:07 No 528352
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church of questioning dogma: | ||||||
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nicodem, you sound like a devout agnostic/ border line fundamental atheist. what you wrote was very cool. should you ever decide to start a church, i would honor you by not showing up; religiously. please take that as the compliment it is. |
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