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Necromunda

[HOPKINS SCIENTISTS SHOW HALLUCINOGEN IN MUSHROOMS CREATES UNIVERSAL "MYSTICAL" EXPERIENCE]

Dunno if this has been posted..

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press_releases/2006/07_11_06.html

HOPKINS SCIENTISTS SHOW HALLUCINOGEN IN MUSHROOMS CREATES UNIVERSAL "MYSTICAL" EXPERIENCE

...

Using unusually rigorous scientific conditions and measures, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that the active agent in "sacred mushrooms" can induce mystical/spiritual experiences descriptively identical to spontaneous ones people have reported for centuries.

The resulting experiences apparently prompt positive changes in behavior and attitude that last several months, at least.

Saw a presentation on this at Entheogenesis Australia last year, a great conference / gathering that some aussie posters might be interested in.

http://www.entheo.net/

I don't think E and meth are even in the same ballpark.

No, they aren't.  E will either kill you or it won't.  Meth will drag you through hell, then kill you.  For certain.

Yeah it will either kill you or it won't, in the sense that lightning will either strike you or it won't.

I think I regret posting in this thread as I seem to have engaged in conversation with someone who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Not reading thread first is fail.

http://thedea.org/statistics.html

The death rate for MDMA, assuming that there really were about 60 deaths directly caused by MDMA in 2000, would be roughly 2 in 100,000 users. The death rate from smoking, by contrast, is on the order of 400 per 100,000 users.

Well, whattaya know.  You learn something new every day.

In this case, I learned two things:

1.  The danger of E is highly overstated, and

2.  Tucson has the worst drug labs in the world.

Thanks, AS.  The first graph at the site is better, though.

Cool, no worries.
Sorry if I seemed hostile there.

It should be noted that pill form ecstacy is not to be trusted as not only is it often poorly synthesised MDMA but can contain other drugs that people add to it to make it 'better'. Amphetamines, pcp, even plain caffeine in large amounts. Anyone serious about MDMA use should track down a source of pure crystaline MDMA as it's apparently much safer.

I don't think E and meth are even in the same ballpark.

No, they aren't.  E will either kill you or it won't.  Meth will drag you through hell, then kill you.  For certain.

Yeah it will either kill you or it won't, in the sense that lightning will either strike you or it won't.

I think I regret posting in this thread as I seem to have engaged in conversation with someone who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Not reading thread first is fail.

http://thedea.org/statistics.html

The death rate for MDMA, assuming that there really were about 60 deaths directly caused by MDMA in 2000, would be roughly 2 in 100,000 users. The death rate from smoking, by contrast, is on the order of 400 per 100,000 users.

I DO have a gripe with people who insist that substance abuse connects you to a higher plane, or makes you telepathic, or more creative.

Do you make any differentation between use and abuse? Or is any ingestion of a psychoactive chemical simply "bad, m'kay".

I have a hard time equating the use of a drugs like LSD, psilocybn, DMT, etc with "getting fucked up". Sure, it changes how your brain works and it might make it do things that it wasn't designed for (so to speak).. but I don't think there's much in the sentiment that 'normal' brain activity is inherently more useful to the individual than that of a 'malfunctioning' brain. Our brains are adapted for pretty specific purposes (to do with guiding bipedal apes in grassland environments, etc), but the world we now live in has very non-specific opportunities which a 'malfunctioning' brain might actually be better adapted for.

The way I see it.. Brain activity, no matter how divorced from the 'normal' human brain state is no more or less valid than any other brain activity. To place the bar of 'good' brain activity simply at the point where the human organism has happened to evolve it too seems an incredibly vain assumption. Some people seem to believe that unaltered human consciousness is the only angle from which reality can be viewed in truth, making perspectives acheived through use of drugs or influenced by a 'mental illness' or other things somehow shady, incorrect, not to be trusted, etc.. I just can't understand this sentiment and I think in the context of technology's profound influence on human perspective and the kurzweilian expansion of that technology, it's an old fashioned, inflexible and prejudicial view to think that we're born with the faculties for a 'perfect' consciousness and those people are going to be left behind if they're not careful.

I often use drugs to look at the world from different angles and I believe I've gained much from it, and from my interactions with the psychedelic community in general.

The brain is a chemical engine in which the consciousness rides. You can stick to endogenous chemical fuels, the ones which natural selection has given us by default.. or you can choose to branch out and experiment. I don't think the effects you get from experimenting can be summed up as 'getting fucked up', some are undoubtedly beneficial and useful.

edit - All this said, I don't smoke pot except occasionally and think it's a lame drug, in the realm of alcohol or benzos.

Wolves in the Throne Room

Seeing them later this month

Oh, and plants grown from seeds are genetically different from the parent tree, so chances are your fruit will be of variable quality. But I like the idea. Guerrilla gardening ftw.

I'm no botanist, but I've read that the seedlings from polyembryonic mango seeds will be clones of the parent.. Perhaps what I read was simply that the multiple plants from one seed will be clones of each other, I don't know.

^^^ Yup, a non-grafted tree will take 8 years or so before it bears fruit, but that's alright.. There's plenty of mango trees already bearing fruit around me.

There are quite a few mango trees in my city (brisbane, australia), on public land, in parks, and in peoples yards overhanging the sidewalks.. This year most of them had a particularly bountiful crop - mangoes fucking everywhere! I love mangoes.
I'm taking it upon my self to select the most delicious mangoes from the most prosperous trees and plant the seeds, raise them to seedlings and then covertly place them around the city. Median strips, unused scraps of land, parks, waterways, etc. I think I can singlehandedly double or triple the mango population, at least within my suburb.
Is anyone interested in starting a sect somewhere else?

When I read the thread title, I thought it was going to be about ways of expanding consciousness, and I was going to mention that I'm going to try learning a language to expand my thought processes. I'm not sure which one, yet, but I'm thinking it'll be an Asian one, because I want to learn one of completely different origins from English.
Good idea y/n?

Great idea. Languages are known to impart their particular structural flavour to the thinking of the individuals who speak them. Adding more languages will add more flavours to your brain.

Carl Sagan ft Stephen Hawking - A Glorious Dawn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

http://nevergetoutoftheboat.blogspot.com/2007/09/necks.html

Lovely, progressive, trance-like jazz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vazBxk_avxc