Psychedelics question

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Joyce tied ol YHVH with being the god of blood and shit, so there ya go.

[Doktor Howl]

Joyce tied ol YHVH with being the god of blood and shit, so there ya go.

Joyce was a hack. 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Joyce tied ol YHVH with being the god of blood and shit, so there ya go.

Joyce was a hack. 

Aren't we all....

[Doktor Howl]

Joyce tied ol YHVH with being the god of blood and shit, so there ya go.

Joyce was a hack. 

Aren't we all....

Not on that level.

For example, I never dropped acid, wrote some useless tripe, and then inflicted it on generations of schoolchildren.

[AFK]

Wasn't that part of the NCLA program?  No Child Left Awake. 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Joyce tied ol YHVH with being the god of blood and shit, so there ya go.

Joyce was a hack. 

Aren't we all....

Not on that level.

For example, I never dropped acid, wrote some useless tripe, and then inflicted it on generations of schoolchildren.

Neither did Joyce...

[Cain]

No, instead Joyce inflicted it on Anglo-American literary theory, turning literature from understandable, if often deep and conflicted pieces of work, into near incomprehensible reference games and academic/literary in-jokes which took a lifetime of study to ever understand, and probably directly contributed to the decline of the novel as a medium of culture and learning.

Apart from that, Joyce is OK.

[Doktor Howl]

Joyce tied ol YHVH with being the god of blood and shit, so there ya go.

Joyce was a hack. 

Aren't we all....

Not on that level.

For example, I never dropped acid, wrote some useless tripe, and then inflicted it on generations of schoolchildren.

Neither did Joyce...

Can't tell from reading him.

Oh, wait.  I need elipses.

Can't tell from reading him...

[Doktor Howl]

No, instead Joyce inflicted it on Anglo-American literary theory, turning literature from understandable, if often deep and conflicted pieces of work, into near incomprehensible reference games and academic/literary in-jokes which took a lifetime of study to ever understand, and probably directly contributed to the decline of the novel as a medium of culture and learning.

Apart from that, Joyce is OK.

THIS.  FUCKING THIS.

And he totally ruined RAW.  What that fat old fart saw in Joyce was beyond me.

[Doktor Howl]

Also, Joyce gave loads of pretentious fuckwads something to look absorbed in at Starbucks, once they'd gone through all of Ayn Rand's garbage.

[AFK]

Preach it Dok!

[Doktor Howl]

Preach it Dok!

Reading Joyce is like actually paying attention to a drunk on a barstool.  Not the kind of drunk who's had a few and is ranting entertainingly, the kind of drunk who has pissed himself and is telling you all about "THA BASSARDS WHO FIRED ME FOR NO REASON!  NO REASON ATALLITELLYA BORB HURK PUKE!".

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Preach it Dok!

Reading Joyce is like actually paying attention to a drunk on a barstool.  Not the kind of drunk who's had a few and is ranting entertainingly, the kind of drunk who has pissed himself and is telling you all about "THA BASSARDS WHO FIRED ME FOR NO REASON!  NO REASON ATALLITELLYA BORB HURK PUKE!".

Very true. In fact, I'm convinced he was drunk when he did most of his writing.

[Kai]

Preach it Dok!

Reading Joyce is like actually paying attention to a drunk on a barstool.  Not the kind of drunk who's had a few and is ranting entertainingly, the kind of drunk who has pissed himself and is telling you all about "THA BASSARDS WHO FIRED ME FOR NO REASON!  NO REASON ATALLITELLYA BORB HURK PUKE!".

Isn't Finnegan's Wake exactly that?

[BabylonHoruv]

Ahem.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9522-magic-mushrooms-really-cause-spiritual-experiences.html

Yeah, the chemicals in your brain are the same.  That doesn't mean that they "really" cause spiritual experiences.  Like ECH said, he hasn't had a spiritual experience on them.  However he almost certainly did have the same chemicals in his brain as a saint or yogi undergoing a spiritual experience.

Well, to me there is no difference between what "really" is a spiritual experience and the chemicals in my brain.

I don't get it, you just called yourself an atheist and then you say there is a difference between a spiritual experience and a certain chemical configuration in your brain? Then what is the difference made of? Hypothetical invisible pink unicorns?

For me, I mean, there is no difference in some sense*. Cause you know those people, the rationalists that say "love" is just a chemical configuration in your brain? It's the same thing, they are right, in some sense, but IMO life becomes pretty boring if you only look at it that way. In fact, you could almost literally say, life loses some of its magic

Now, I'm not saying that if you consider "love" to be something more than just chemicals, you also should consider a spiritual experience more than just a hallucination or whatever. I'm perfectly alright with everybody having their own opinion on that.

(* sorry but here it means exactly what I want to say)

I'm not an Atheist, I can't understand atheists at all.  I was raised pagan, in a tradition that includes direct experiences of the divine.  I DO believe it has a spiritual quality when I have a spiritual experience and I don't believe that experience can be quantified, or measured.  I know that there are a ton of variables even in the chemical side of things, and obviously ones attitude toward the substance is going to induce chemicals in their brains that are different.  Perhaps it would be possible to measure those differences, but I still don't think that if you were able to change that chemical to the same as the one for someone who did believe it was a real spiritual experience that that would make it so.  Not without destroying the person's Atheism.

To Lysergic.  I would agree that using archetypes Aya has a feminine energy.  For me it was a bit like taking a tour of another dimension, with a tour guide.  Aya (the MAOI containing plant, in this case Yage vine) was there, telling me what was going on and keeping me safe from the things I encountered.  Guided felt more accurate than guiding, she didn't tell me what to do, where I could go, how to fix my problems, nothing like that, she just explained what I was seeing, the only directive she gave me was don't do DMT powder.  It definitely did take me to another world, for timeless periods, My friend who was trip sitting said they were about 20 minutes each, but he did not have a watch, then I would be back in the "real" world, but in a very altered state.  Interacting with the fire, or the crickets, or the stars (actually, the stars did not respond to me, the fire and crickets did, and my friend saw and heard that too, although admittedly fire will respond to anyone who puts wood on it or blows on it)

Aya is certainly more "expensive" in a physical sense, it induces puking and you have to be careful about your diet or the MAOI can kill you.  I also restricted my diet for spiritual reasons for about a month beforehand (not quite as tight as the Aya Shamans, but I tried to follow their guidelines) No idea if that is necessary or not, Aya didn't really say.

Well in that sense that Aya is the taking of a tour of another dimension with a guide, DMT kinda just throws you into another dimension and leaves you to figure it all out for yourself.

I'm a natural escapist, so that is very appealing.  That's about what I have heard from other people too.  It also sounds like something that would be very bad for me.  And not something I'd suggest for all, being tossed into another dimension could be traumatic in a bad way for a lot of people.

Well, the way I think about it, if you were to ever only do one "hard" drug in your life, it should be DMT.
It'll either scare you off all drugs for life or keep you content until your next life.
Sometimes, people need a traumatic experience to "wake up", so to speak.

And as far as I know, no one has walked away from a DMT experience and thought it to be a bad thing.
A very intense, very earth shattering thing, definitely, but negative, I've yet to hear of.

I know someone who used to have schizophrenia until he did DMT. It set him straight and he never did it (or any other hard drug) again...

I did that to someone with Dramamine.  Dramamine is a deleriant, same family of chemicals as Belladonna and Jimsonweed (well, there's also atropine in belladonna, which just kills you) He wanted to try the hardest drug out there, I told him that it was dramamine in my experience, and after that he was off drugs.  It damaged him though in ways that I didn't see the extent of becuase part of his change in life was cutting off contact with me.

I haven't heard of DMT doing anything bad to people, I have seen people get some really whacky ideas after Aya trips that they took quite seriously.  Some changed their diets in ways which were harmful to them.  One became a really obnoxious born again Christian. 

I think I remember hearing something about the born again christian thing.

I don't know how you can take Aya and walk away thinking you need to follow Jesus, something about that just sounds... so fucking wrong.
I suppose there is no cure for "stupid" though, no matter what drug you take.

I believe the person was an apostate Christian when he took the Aya, and so that was the form that the divine took for him.  He may have rejected that reality tunnel on a conscious level but he hadn't really shed it.