Taikyoku
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- Posted: Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:07:44 +0000
Koalemos
Taikyoku
You want to know something? I've had my core pro-entheogenic beliefs go over actually really well, not just when I go to class, but also when I head back home and discuss this stuff with my friends and family. How many people can say that they were actually congratulated by their mom for taking LSD? Of course, before that happened I had to explain to her how it opened the door for me to understand and love my friends, family, self, and world in general in ways I never understood before, but that's what happens when you use psychoactive substances responsibly. Also the part about understanding my mostly-absent (but not in a mean way, he tries his best) dad WAY more.
As for work, it's a non-issue I suppose. I don't think many workplaces would really smile on, ohh, what's something that I could plausibly want to try once? Let's say I want to take a Friday off so I can have a three-day weekend in order to go camp out in the forest (we have some gorgeous forests and mountains around. Gotta love the Cascades!) and take a nice big dose of psilocybin mushrooms in between meditating on life. I don't know if my workplace would really smile on that if I was to explain it in those terms, which is why I don't really talk about whether or not I would personally do any of that stuff. However, with any luck my work may eventually actually be nothing but the study of psychoactive chemicals in the first place, so I guess maybe someday that'll be par for the course! Probably not, because that's a bad idea to take psychedelics too regularly (it's like taking a really incredible vacation every weekend, it stops being so special and it starts to lose impact, and then you're not using them, you're abusing them), but you get the gist.
As for work, it's a non-issue I suppose. I don't think many workplaces would really smile on, ohh, what's something that I could plausibly want to try once? Let's say I want to take a Friday off so I can have a three-day weekend in order to go camp out in the forest (we have some gorgeous forests and mountains around. Gotta love the Cascades!) and take a nice big dose of psilocybin mushrooms in between meditating on life. I don't know if my workplace would really smile on that if I was to explain it in those terms, which is why I don't really talk about whether or not I would personally do any of that stuff. However, with any luck my work may eventually actually be nothing but the study of psychoactive chemicals in the first place, so I guess maybe someday that'll be par for the course! Probably not, because that's a bad idea to take psychedelics too regularly (it's like taking a really incredible vacation every weekend, it stops being so special and it starts to lose impact, and then you're not using them, you're abusing them), but you get the gist.
I really do understand what you're saying about your father because mine is similar. As a kid I always felt like we weren't close but now I realize he does love me but dads just show it different. I read a poem the other day about fathers and acts of service, really hit the nail on the head.
As for the use of psychoactives, have you head of the book "Food of the Gods"? Just came out not too long ago. The author postulates that magic mushrooms are what caused the brain mutations that pushed the evolution into Homo sapiens. I only read a small article but it did seem interesting. As for going overboard, here's an excellent article from a Mexican Shaman on the abuse of marijuana over the years: http://www.getbackyourdream.com/Article2.html
Have I heard of Food of the Gods? Terence McKenna, the writer of that book, has had an incredibly profound impact on my own spiritual understanding. I'm extremely pleased that you've read the book, it really is a fascinating read. I'm not entirely sure how much I will fully invest belief in his "stoned ape" theory, but I suppose that's how I feel about a lot of his theories: They're very interesting, I mean really fascinating stuff. Sometimes a bit hard to believe, sometimes a bit far-fetched, but goodness, he just was able to open his mouth and pull out of his own entheogen-fueled head some of the most profound s**t I've heard in a long time. Try listening to some of his lectures, Alan Watts would be another good one to listen to. I didn't even know that Watts was aware of the psychedelic mindset until recently, but listening to him now, I realize it was there the whole time.
As for my dad, he was one of those "every other weekend, go up to see him" types, lived a few hours away, etc etc. He always used to try to cram as much fathering into those sessions as he possibly could, and now that I've delved a little bit into my own mind, with a little bit of pharmacological help, of course, I guess I can see now that he must have had a period of his life just like this one I'm having now. The alternate explanation, I suppose, is that I internalized his messages but didn't entirely act on them, and the psychedelics gave me the right mindset to really use them, but based on what my dad used to tell me about mushrooms, I'm pretty sure he got a lot of his deeper lessons about life from a plant teacher. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. After all, so much about the human experience can be brought up out of simply a single session with a proper entheogen.
