Psychedelic drugs

[Mr. Tea]

Psilocybin is psilocybin (he said, predictably).

 

[luka]

View attachment 653

its actually not words its sensations but nice meme work anyway

 

[droid]

Psilocybin is psilocybin (he said, predictably).

Well the cubes are supposed to be all more or less the same, but the Hawaiian is generally regarded to be considerably stronger than the rest.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Well the cubes are supposed to be all more or less the same, but the Hawaiian is generally regarded to be considerably stronger than the rest.

Oh well sure, they vary a lot in strength. Our very own liberty caps are meant to be one of the strongest species weight for weight, although obviously you need loads of them because they're so tiny.

I was thinking more of back before the government closed the loophole that exempted fresh mushrooms from the Misuse of Drugs Act and you could buy them in Camden Lock Market from a very earnest white guy with long dreads and Om tattoos who would tell you that this kind produces a very cerebral trip, those are very spiritual and this other type are very visual, etc. etc., which no doubt became true for many people who took them, purely on the power of suggestion. Whereas I think most strains/species only contain psiloc(yb)in at significant levels, although some kinds also contain baeocystin, which is chemically and probably also pharmacologically very similar.

 

[Woebot]

perhaps because I'd like a sort of silver bullet for my brain

i suppose if one's really after a silver bullet for one's brain - then, in the absence of an actual revolver and some silver bullets, LSD would do the trick!

 

[Woebot]

 

[luka]

there's certainly a macho element to it in the same way as insisting on the literalism of actually climbing to the top of a very tall mountain is macho, or crossing a desert or polar waste.

 

[droid]

I guess its horses for courses, but TBH I think the opposite is true, certainly with people who arent just after a buzz. A willingness to destroy your ego, to embark on a process that could fundamentally rewire the brain suggests to me a significant level of openness, of vulnerability.

 

[Mr. Tea]

It still takes a certain bravery (or perhaps foolhardiness, in some cases) to be prepared to do that.

Acid is not for every brain .... Only the healthy, happy, wholesome, handsome, hopeful, humorous, high-velocity should seek these experiences. This elitism is totally self-determined. Unless you are self-confident, self-directed, self-selected, please abstain.

 

[Woebot]

there's certainly a macho element to it in the same way as insisting on the literalism of actually climbing to the top of a very tall mountain is macho, or crossing a desert or polar waste.

it's dreary and pious to point out but psychedelics are a little like nepalese sherpas who carry western tourists to the top of mount everest. ayahuasca tourism - i mean, it's a bit unfair to be critical of it but... there's this assumption that just because psychedelics existed in primitive cultures that that, de facto, makes them a good thing.

those spaces definitely exist. i'm really glad that "explorers" have been there and can vouch for it. but to try and piece that stuff back into your understanding is more than a lifetime's work. and people do do that work successfully (not me i should add) - but it's a fool's errand in many ways. like walking the wrong way down an escalator in the tube.

 

[Woebot]

It still takes a certain bravery (or perhaps foolhardiness, in some cases) to be prepared to do that.

leary is a case study for psychedelics' action on a person.

 

[luka]

i'ts not so much that it's dreary and pious it's more that it is true for you but not for others.

One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression.

 

[luka]

but i certainly do appreciate that you were profoundly damaged by these substances and feel you have yet to recover from your exposure and that consequently this thread is distressing for you.

 

[droid]

Its not something to be taken lightly I agree, and the real problem is how prohibition has lumped them in with the 'fun' drugs.

I think they played a significant role in human history though, perhaps a key role. I find the psychedelic theory of evolution highly plausible. Something monumental happened to our brains which brought us down from the trees onto land, and then later, onto the plains.

On the plus side, despite the damage they can cause, numerous studies have shown users of psychedelics to be more emphatic and more caring, with better social cognition.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I think William Burroughs considered psychedelics more dangerous than opiates, and if anyone had plenty of experience with both, it was him.

 

[luka]

they were key to me shaking off addiction and addictive behaviour more generally.
also key to escaping morbid self-consciousness. also key to recognising and working
through various psychological and emotional knots. but they certainly dont work that
way for everybody.

it makes it a difficult issue to discuss without hysteria on the one hand and starry-eyed evangelising
on the other.

 

[luka]

I think William Burroughs considered psychedelics more dangerous than opiates, and if anyone had plenty of experience with both, it was him.

yes but this always struck me as a self-serving position to some degree. they work against addiction so are threatening to anyone invested in that addiction.

6. Burroughs disdains the hallucinatory drugs as providing mere “content,” the fantasies, dreams that money can buy. Junk (heroin) is needed to turn the human body itself into an environment that includes the universe. The central theme of Naked Lunch is the strategy of bypassing the new electric environment by becoming an environment oneself. The moment one achieves this environmental state all things and people are submitted to you to be processed. Whether a man takes the road of junk or the road of art, the entire world must submit to his processing. The world becomes his “content.” He programs the sensory order.

http://realitystudio.org/criticism/notes-on-burroughs/

 

[Mr. Tea]

On the plus side, despite the damage they can cause, numerous studies have shown users of psychedelics to be more emphatic and more caring, with better social cognition.

I can believe that, but is the implication here that taking psychs 'makes you a better person', or that some personality types are predisposed both towards empathy, altruism and so on, and towards seeking psychedelic experiences?

 

[luka]

I can believe that, but is the implication here that taking psychs 'makes you a better person', or that some personality types are predisposed both towards empathy, altruism and so on, and towards seeking psychedelic experiences?

the former.

 

[droid]

I'd say there's probably a bit of both in there, but the studies have mostly been based on emotional empathy responses on people who've never used psychedelics before, so the data supports the former.