profitism

My contribution to a thread on the entheogen.com forum - linked here. Maybe bothered with just as much to convince myself as to try convince the sceptic? Although in this particular case I don't think the source made a very solid case against the ability of entheogens to teach, at the end of the day I think more and more people are starting to point out they do not feel the same way about them as some of us do, which I guess could be construed as a bit airy-fairy. I think these opinions are a bit self serving, as in it does not make the user feel obliged to use them in any more of an honourable context other than to "party it on down dude". Perhaps this is preferable to a more noble reason because it would require time, effort and energy. And it would. Because ideally I think it would involve needing to commit to things that might encroach on an otherwise undisciplined lifestyle, needing you to commit to things like meditation, energy work, dream work, and a whole lot of reading/ learning. It might even interfere more with things like your diet, and what other substances you involve yourself with - and I would venture a guess that anyone with a use entheogens to party on down mentality are quite familiar with other non-entheogenic mind altering substances that do more harm than good. To start subscribing to a more noble approach to entheogen use would probably mean having to sacrifice these other things, and some people might not want to do that. Anyway, moving on, here is a copy of my post, #168.

Wow. Fascinating thread - thanks to all! Apologies to drag it out a bit, I just feel obliged to add my 1.98c worth!

Personally I am not very comfortable with the idea of using the teacher plants recreationally and if that was what the intention of protecting them or legalising them I think you could count me out - I would much rather be interested in making them available only for much more noble intentions. In fact I can only guess that this attitude is a pain in the ass to anyone going to the effort of trying to make them legally available. It's a sad situation that those with the least motivation stand to benefit from the efforts of someone whose life was touched by these substances enough so as to spur them into action.

As to whether its possible to gain insight into the nature of reality by using them you might instead ask if something that can provide insight into the nature of reality can also just provide an escape from reality? If you understand just how illusory reality is then perhaps an escape from it is exactly what equals exposure to the truth of it, or at least, an increased chance of an encounter with it. If you understand even just a little bit of how these things work then you must know that entheogens do not teach, so much as help you understand something you are trying to learn. In this sense where you are in your life and what you surround yourself with makes a big difference in what your experience of them might be.

If you *ask for* an escape from reality and you are inclined to just party all the time and you are just young and happy and free the odds are your experience of the teacher plants will emphasise these kinds of things. However, if you are looking at a complex situation and are putting effort into gaining an insight the odds are this might be what you manage to achieve. You do need to challenge yourself and you do need to try harder. Sitting back and just being critical of the efforts of those around you might not work. Not putting effort into it and waiting for someone to give you all the answers might not work. Expecting a teacher plant to teach you something when there is nothing you are willing to learn might not work.

Returning to the concept of reality; having to deal with death is a very real thing - just like you sitting at your computer and staring at the screen. Whether it is your own death or that of a close relative it is something that can be real. Perhaps if you found yourself at the mercy of a chemical induced addiction wanting to overcome it that is also a real thing. Another very real situation is needing to come to grips with yourself in some or other psychologically complex fashion, in fact, perhaps psychology is another language you are very interested in learning. It is intangible yet it does exist, the implications of it are that obvious. Just like we are aware that something like psychology exists is not so much from its tangibility as much as from the effects it has on reality, so too the principle might extend to spirituality. The point is, in all of these areas the effects of entheogens has been one of a very effective "teacher".

Whenever I come across a comment being made that doubts the deep impact an entheogen can make the first thing I wonder about is what that persons experience of them has been? The second thing I wonder about is what effort that person is making to help put them to some kind of constructive use? I'm not saying I have all the answers (and I hope my tone is not self-righteous or that intimidating), but I am trying to learn. Learning takes time and effort and I am prepared to make that sacrifice. My experiences so far might be as superficial and meaningless as yours, but at this stage I am quite prepared to abstain for a while from doubting or criticising their abilities, and the profound insights, the life changing experiences they have supplied to a countless number of people.

I guess at the end of the day, you get out what you put in.

In this light, some comments made on the posts in this thread:::

(post#3 by AloneNotLonely0...When using an entheogen and lets say you see an ancient woman explaining how small robots control humans and now only that you have used this plant can you be free and fully understand life. This was not an actual experience I just made it up to explain my views. Many people talk of such experiences and believe them. I can not to me it is crazy and loads of fun, but nothing more it can not be real. It is completely ridiculous to me. I have a question for those who do believe their experiences like this. How can you go on living in reality if you really believe some of your outlandish experiences and learning's as fact?)

Language can be quite a barrier sometimes. I would try interpret something like this from a personal perspective and the subconscious. The experience could make a lot of sense if you thought maybe there were impersonal things (machines) that affected how humans behave. In a sense this is what astrology is all about. If you mean on a molecular level it makes sense too - your body is full of systems and mechanisms that affect your behaviour - sometimes something *as simple as* hormones have a much bigger say in how you react to a situation, as opposed to where the intellect fits in. Coming to realise something like this whilst under the influence seems totally possible to me. The question is what are you prepared to hear? What are you prepared to believe? Is it wise to always take people so literally when they are trying to explain something?

(post#6 by Burning_Copal...but by either tilting the glass , or changing what the light is filtered through further, we can understand it differently, see it differently...)

This post reminded me of the idea of how set in a way a person can get when it comes to how they are willing to experience something. Over time it is so easy for this willingness to be restricted to some degree, depending on the effect of past experience, your upbringing and mental conditioning. These things can and do act as the stained glass that we see things through, turn an object on the other side of the glass into something that it is not. Whilst being under the influence might not necessarily help you see the candle as it truly appears (or maybe it will), it can help you to experience something differently to how you are used to. Depending on how set in your ways you were before, this flexibility could be quite refreshing - and significant enough to be construed as a valuable "lesson".

(post#9 by scyhop:per… This would support the claim that the big-bang created 4 dimensions, 3 of which we can readily observe with the naked eye, the 4th being time or gravity, I dunno, and the other six 'folded up', whatever the hell that means)

Its easy to get caught up in the idea of multiple dimensions, without really getting a handle on what that means. I found the following way of trying to understand it quite helpful, I just wish I could remember where I came across it::: 1 dimension - a point on a screen can only experience itself - it could not experience what a line does. 2 dimension - a line can experience the length of itself from end to end - two points at the same time - but it could not experience what a square does. 3 dimension - a square can experience all points at each end of the length of itself, plus each of the points at its breadth. Now consider that the experience of the square was invisible to that of the line, and that the experience of the line was invisible to that of the point, what does that mean to the square? That the experience of it is conceivable in dimension 4, but that dimension 4 is invisible to it. Would it really have been wise for the point to write off the possibility of the experience of a line, just because it could not experience it directly itself? Well, that’s what we appear to be doing where it concerns dimension 4+ in dimension 3.

(Bleh. That sounds awful I know).

(post#28 by Anima...If I had a nickel for every time I listened to some burned out hippie spew absolutely nothing whilst mentioning energy, spirits, and good vibes a dozen times in the course of some crap manifesto he came up with while tripping)

My experience with teacher plants has kind of fell short of convincing me that anything exists on this level as well. I put it down to what I was prepared to believe, and that I had a paradigm or two to shift before I could have luck with it. Lucky for me it's not just burnt out hippies into tripping that talk about energy though. Energy forms the premise of both yoga and tai-chi disciplines. Proponents of astral projection count energy as key to facilitating this practice too. Various mystic faiths all suggest a practice that increases your level and sensitivity to energy. The point is that you can subscribe to the idea of it without being considered delusional or misinformed from overexposure to entheogens. I think that most of us neglect this aspect of ourselves and write it off as beyond our control or scope of comprehension. The rest of us are just too lazy to bother with it. Are these really such good reasons to be critical of the idea of it?

(A number of posts by a number of people, on the whole plant consciousness and science thing.)

Hmmm, tricky. I think it's quite amazing that we struggle to give the rest of what constitutes life on this planet even an iota of respect considering it would not be possible for us to exist in the first place without it. To add insult to injury we are willing to draw conclusions about the rest of life around us about it's mind, body and spirit - even though we are quite prepared to admit that the tools that we measure these things with are really quite limited. The most we can say at this point is yes, physically there is a difference between us, and them. We use this difference to gather that well, in that case, it is inferior, or not capable of anything other than taking up space. Consider this, it is possible that other dimensions exists that we are inherently blind of. That life in this dimension is quite possibly merely a consequential manifestation of the workings in those other dimensions. That in those dimensions the necessary may exist for what produces the rest of life here to be considered our equal, or even better, superior to us. Now if this was the case, might not our conclusions be a tad hastily produced? I mentioned before some very real subjects that the contribution of entheogens might be considered teachers in. I think our disrespect of life around us and the environment is another good example - the adjustment of this attitude of those / some that use teacher plants could be another tangible lesson learnt that does indeed have an impact on reality.

(A number of posts by a number of people as well, on how valuable science is. Or is not.)

Science is quite valuable, and you certainly can use it to a very large degree to measure why something is the way it is or works this way because of that reason or whether the why of something is this or that because hard evidence exists to say it is so. On the other hand is it fair to deprive or limit or discredit or doubt your understanding of something that everyone is still busy trying to get to grips with, at least from a westernised mind perspective. I think the general pattern usually in these circumstances is to for this thing to be got to grips with first - let it exist first then we dissect it. Once we are much more literate in this area is when it will exist, and then might be a better time to explain it from a scientifically measurable perspective. In this sense perhaps the entheogen community are pioneers of something they can eventually help science begin to understand - one day. Lets just hope it doesn’t involve incarceration and a scalpel.

I don’t really have anything to say about the last bits involving love, except that whether it is measurable or not, I really really hope it does exist. I also really hope that in some small way, I have helped to persuade AloneNotLonely0 even just a little bit, that entheogens can and do help people to see things differently and change how they react to those things back out here in reality. In that sense that they are worthy of being deemed teacher plants.