profitism

I’m not sure who deserves a bit more scorn, a bit more ridicule. I thought I would take a stand on an entry at another blog by fracas called “Have you heard about SallyD?“ that seemed pretty alarmist in its tone concerning Salvia Divinorum. As it is videos are being posted on the net of people floundering around whilst under the influence of SD. Some of these involve those of us more endowed with an infinite supply of wisdom – youngsters; teenagers; or in another word, freaking idiots. So how do you expect a parent to react when they stumble across something like this? Is it really such a big surprise that they want this stuff taken off the street? Exactly how do you defend the legal status of an entheogen, if this is what it does and this is what it is being used for?

My stand was you cant throw the baby out with the bath water - that you cant let irresponsible use by some mess it up for responsible use by others. Except, its complicated. First up, whether the use is responsible or not, is there anything anyone can hope to achieve with it that for all intents and purposes, is nothing more than a narcotic buzz? I mean, all you are doing with this stuff is messing up your body right, I mean, at least that’s all you can gather from what can be seen in these videos. So you reply that no it’s something you can use to access a mystical state, and throw in a big word like “spiritual”. Is it really surprising that this can prove to be quite a weak argument, in an age when “spiritual” is quite easily confused with “religious”. How spiritual is someone behaving when they use an entheogen to help them make America’s next funniest home video? Not very. Not to me.

The next big question is, compared to all the idiots competing for the prestigious asshole of the month award, how many people consider their involvement spiritual? It’s not rocket science to figure out on all the available forums more people seem to be using entheogens just for the hell of it. If this is the case, is fighting for legalization really worth it? It might very well be, but not for any noble cause that I might have thought of, it’s really just to get a bunch of what I would normally think of as idiots a get out of jail free. At this point I cant argue against pissed off parents, not to defend people that act like this.

On the blog I did take a stand. It was easy to point out that Salvia wasn’t really the enemy. That it isn’t fair to categorise it alongside other drugs like meth, speed and cocaine (or heroin). That for some an entheogen induced altered state seemed a more effective mystical experience than any that a bastardized religion could offer. But just as convincing is the extent of human stupidity, and the more you give them, the more stupid they get. The more I look for someone that I feel is on some kind of constructive path the more I find someone that’s involved with entheogens like it was some kind of toxic industrial cleaning agent that can make your eyes bleed and throw your body into convulsions, look mom, fried meat... As if to add insult to injury defenders of the cause that came after me on this particular entry made just as much sense as see-through coffee beans. As much as I might have been tempted to carry on trying to make sense I ran out of steam when I saw the direction it was going in. The contributions were appearing so ludicrous I was even tempted to point out they must have been fabricated as a way to validate what the author was saying, or maybe generate a bit of obvious controversy... bumping the thread etc.

At the end of the day it all seemed pretty pointless anyway. I feel like I need to put distance between this and me. I only feel obliged to put on record that no, I don’t think entheogens should be made legal. That I think people are too stupid to expect them to act responsible. That if you are under 18 or use drugs recklessly you are not welcome here. All I can do is hope that anyone that does use them ends up directing the relationship in some kind of constructive manner, one that affords entheogens the appropriate respect, one that doesn’t make the rest of us look like idiots (okay, I think I’ve used up my quota on use of that particular word). Another thing that comes into the equation is the whole spirituality thing. I got the idea from the entry and it’s comments that people can have very different ideas on what it is actually. I found it quite ironic that looking after your body is what was construed as spiritual, as opposed to messing it up with (drugs).

What people seem to forget is just because you eat something that doesn’t alter your state of consciousness – it does not mean it is good for your body. It is rich coming from someone that probably gorges themselves on fast food, that they are spiritual because they do not consume things that mess their heads up. I find that from my exposure to them, entheogens amplify my sensitivity to how much I eat and what it is I am eating. One thing is guaranteed and that is if I do eat crap before I alter my state, the resulting experience is all the more worse for it. But no, I don’t agree anyway that the emphasis in spirituality is about looking after your body, maybe just a little bit. To me it feels more like it’s about learning things that are beyond the physical, and maybe the integration of that knowledge back into day-to-day reality. Anyway, the point is that there is a lot more to it than what I think is the general perception. That it’s too easy to get caught up in the tangled web that is religion and mistake any progress with it as then being spiritual. More than this will have to be it’s own entry.

There was something on my last experience (psilocybin combined with an MAOi) that I forgot to mention and it sort of ties in with the whole what to use entheogens for argument. Being as normal as I think I am it’s not easy to start subscribing to things that are not quite all that normal, you know, all that warm and fuzzy over the top esoteric stuff. It wouldn’t be difficult for me to join in on the laughter and finger pointing of the general public at the new agey wannabe Buddhist types chanting Aum in their luxury accommodation at an exotic location. It would be easy to dismiss it all as a fad and unworthy of any further exploration. I would give it oh, say two weeks before I started to feel no benefit and too self-conscious to bother continuing. Even if I did manage to stick with it for a bit longer, how long before my practice started to feel bland and uninteresting, something I did without putting my heart into it? I put my practice together to create a framework within which I could explore entheogens. Now it feels like actually, I am using entheogens to explore that framework. My last experience left my practice feeling rejuvenated, something I was inspired to continue working with, even if on an every day basis. It was like if it was feeling a bit stale, entheogens introduced a breath of fresh air.

The rest of what I had forgotten to say involves my impression of using an MAOi with psilocybin, compared to using shrooms by themselves. Well, there could have been other factors that resulted in this, but I felt the Rue softened the experience somehow, took the edge off a bit. It made the altered state feel less erratic, none of this waves that come and go business, the state felt more consistent. Also, more visuals, intricate and colorful patterns, what felt like a more mature effect on the mind and on the eye. The dose was quite low though, or low for someone that does not seem to be all that sensitive, unless I wasn’t sensitive because I had eaten the day before. My next adventure should be this weekend, and I need to try eating less beforehand, or maybe upping the dose a bit.