Hello

[xlcor]

Writing an essay about me is hard. I haven't got the gift of brevity. Sometimes I don't feel like a person, just a collection of thoughts bound by a particularly odd primate. That's fine, but it makes self-essaying hard; there's not many stories about xlcor, and very few of my thoughts are so well-developed as to warrant communication, so there isn't much to write in the first place. There's no ennui to this, only humor. I've probably typed five pages, all told, just to get this one paragraph. That makes me laugh.

My interest in hallucinogens started with my pubescent interest in Buddhism. Through my participation in the local temple, I found my way to The Tibetan Book of the Dead. I've been practicing tantra and dream yoga since then. My first experience was with marijuana; it was fun and heady, but I didn't learn nearly as much as I could have. Learning wasn't even on the radar. I was in full party mode. I left the scene for about two years to be with a girl. She found intoxicants distasteful. She left me. It was fun when I started smoking again, but it wasn't satisfying anymore. I could feel that a lot of the experience was being left on the table. This led to a very volatile time in my life where I was self-medicating my stress and anxiety away, instead of dealing with it. I was crazed and horribly socialized; my self-image had never been worse. Then my friend texted me one night and said he found a line on some acid. I took a double dose and it was the most beautiful, freeing experience of my life. The acid helped me realize that I wasn't doing what I wanted to do. I had allowed my life to be defined for me. I had heard all sorts of malarkey about the inevitability of bad trips, the horrors of never-coming-back, the acid casualties- of which my cousin is supposed to have been one. I was hoping the acid would give me some sort of legitimacy in the suicide I longed for. It made me laugh instead. I've had another two acid trips after that. I smoke weed very irregularly. I miss the partying; I can handle it now.

I still consider myself a Buddhist, but I also consider myself a Shaman. I intend to embark on a three-year shamanic initiation. Therefore, for the next three years, I've vowed to only take substances which I know intimately. Only that which I've invested my time, effort, and love into. This is why I am particularly interested in DMT, shrooms, marijuana cultivation, and various other ethnobotanicals. I've already joined a mushrooming community, and they are some lovely people. The Nexus has much of the same energy. I've already learned much from The Nexus. Now I hope to be able to give some knowledge back, and hopefully learn more about the enthoegenic Scene. My only experience thus far has been reading The Entheogen Review.

To you that read this,
I love you.

 

[AiL762]

Welcome! I'm still relatively new myself, and we for sure have very different backgrounds but I feel I'm somewhat on the same path as you are and would love to bounce ideas, sources and information off each other.

I love the vow you gave yourself. I just prefer to be self reliant and lucky enough where I decided to relocate to a few years back is almost perfect for the cultivation of most of these plants and this was prior to getting into psychedelics. Its almost like the universe unfolds itself perfectly to way things were meant to be Anyways, I agree completely. Definitely something special about doing these medicinal substances from something you helped create and nurture. Still a lot on the learning process, but I'm sure you'll love it here as I've found incredible help from some of the members.

Much love.

 

[AwearyGhost]

To you that read this,
I love you.

Welcome home.​

 

[CatFractals]

welcome friend! :lol:

DMT Nexus has a lovely collective of minds so feel free to ask for help.

 

[PsillyPsimon]

Hi xlcor I am also new. Just a quick heads up. Don't bother filling out the questionnaire. It appears to do nothing to help your chances for membership, and going by my own experience, you will not even get an acknowledgement.

 

[Achilles]

Hi xlcor I am also new. Just a quick heads up. Don't bother filling out the questionnaire. It appears to do nothing to help your chances for membership, and going by my own experience, you will not even get an acknowledgement.

Not true.. Psillypsimon pls don’t discourage others from using the questionnaire. I just read yours and you did a good job, there’s your acknowledgment... the rest will come with full membership. Xlcor. Welcome to the nexus and pls do the questionnaire at least some. It not only shows your willing to do your research but it keeps this forum at a good quality and you maybe could learn something from it. Anyways that’s all I wanted to say. Welcome again and enjoy

 

[xlcor]

Hello all! Thank you for your warm responses. I typically maintain low forum posts because I don't like posting unless I have something substantive to add to the conversation. Psimon, I appreciate your words of concern, and Achilles I appreciate your encouragement.

I've done a few of the questions already. I'm currently researching one of them. I understand the function of the questionnaire, but even that function is just icing on the cake; as a newcomer to the psychedelic hobby, I struggle with finding good information. A large part of that struggle is that I simply don't know which questions to ask yet. The questionnaire is extremely helpful in that regard, so it's beneficial both to me and the community.

 

[PsillyPsimon]

Hi xlcor I am also new. Just a quick heads up. Don't bother filling out the questionnaire. It appears to do nothing to help your chances for membership, and going by my own experience, you will not even get an acknowledgement.

Not true.. Psillypsimon pls don’t discourage others from using the questionnaire. I just read yours and you did a good job, there’s your acknowledgment... the rest will come with full membership. Xlcor. Welcome to the nexus and pls do the questionnaire at least some. It not only shows your willing to do your research but it keeps this forum at a good quality and you maybe could learn something from it. Anyways that’s all I wanted to say. Welcome again and enjoy

An acknowledgement six months after the fact and only because I had a whinge. Looking at the view to response ratio clearly evident in the introduction section of the forum, it's clear that new members are generally not welcome here. I understand that you want to have only suitable contributors. It's my experience that when such a forum is hostile to new members it rarely lasts long, and when it does, it tends to be extremely cliquey and toxic.

You say that new members are welcome, yet your actions belie your words. My account was suspended for a week with no explanation and for no reason I could see. If that is your idea of welcome, then it is a strange one indeed.

 

[Sausages]

I've never seen a suspension for no reason, I'm used to seeing them occur fairly, and with an explanation from the relevant mod/admin. I'm guessing they assumed you had broken the rules intentionally and needed no explanation. Well, you know what they say about assumptions.

Rather than there being systematic hostility and toxicity against new members here (in fact I have never seen a single instance of a new member being bullied just for being new), it looks like you were given a short suspension for breaking one of the rules. Maybe you should re-examine the logic you have used to arrive at your conclusions about this forum.

How would other groups you are a part of, look upon a visitor who:
1. Impatiently demands membership which is not a matter of their choosing;
2. Breaks a rule by recruiting members to another order;
3. Vocally rationalizes away the consequences from #2 as hostility against all visitors, and
4. Directs that negativity at other visitors?

Whether or not you stick around, I hope you can reflect on your situation in a constructive manner. You're not among enemies here any more than you choose to be. It's clear you have knowledge in and experience with a wide range of relevant topics, it would be a damn shame if your ego acted as an insurmountable obstacle to the contributions you could make to this community.

 

[PsillyPsimon]

@Sausages

As for my suspension, let mine set a precedent. No explanation, and I am left guessing as to why.

If you think I am demanding membership, then you are clearly mistaken. I am just disappointed that I wasted all the time and effort I put into the questionnaire and introduction essays. I feel I was somewhat misled, whether intentionally or otherwise.

I don't know how you got the idea that I was recruiting anyone. If you are alluding to Freemasonry - we do not recruit. To become a Mason, one must petition for membership. I simply suggested people consider it.

You noted well that I have a good body of knowledge. That much is true. As for making contributions - why would I bother when all my input here thus far has been met with such apathy? Just take a look at the introduction essays page. Note the ratio between the views versus replies. I am not the only visitor to the group whose introduction essay has been largely or completely ignored.

Telling visitors that they are welcome is rather pointless if actions indicate otherwise. Maybe you can take what I say constructively?

 

[Sausages]

I'm not at all religious but Matthew 10:14 comes to mind.

 

[VibeSurfer]

Hi xlcor I am also new. Just a quick heads up. Don't bother filling out the questionnaire. It appears to do nothing to help your chances for membership, and going by my own experience, you will not even get an acknowledgement.

Not true.. Psillypsimon pls don’t discourage others from using the questionnaire. I just read yours and you did a good job, there’s your acknowledgment... the rest will come with full membership. Xlcor. Welcome to the nexus and pls do the questionnaire at least some. It not only shows your willing to do your research but it keeps this forum at a good quality and you maybe could learn something from it. Anyways that’s all I wanted to say. Welcome again and enjoy

An acknowledgement six months after the fact and only because I had a whinge. Looking at the view to response ratio clearly evident in the introduction section of the forum, it's clear that new members are generally not welcome here. I understand that you want to have only suitable contributors. It's my experience that when such a forum is hostile to new members it rarely lasts long, and when it does, it tends to be extremely cliquey and toxic.

You say that new members are welcome, yet your actions belie your words. My account was suspended for a week with no explanation and for no reason I could see. If that is your idea of welcome, then it is a strange one indeed.

Well how do you think we got here. DMT is an inherently Socratic drug. It is complicated. If people even get here, it's usually because they ask the right questions in the right places. Given that I can see your first post says you've been extracting for a few years, I think I know that you know how to ask questions about how things work in places that will lend you that information.

In regards to your suspension, I imagine people who are not a member of the moderator team cannot answer that for you and we certainly don't make a habit of demanding things from them. If you were to become a member of this community I think you might find that discussions on the forums and casual conversations in the chat between moderators and regular members is not typically different between that of regular members amongst themselves. Moderators are the same as us but they do more work. We are all here for conversations, discussions, research, and community of a higher quality than can be experienced with an entirely open system. You cannot protect the quality we have here without restrictions. What I can tell you is that if a mistake was made this was not the correct way to inquire about it. That would be to post a question in a correct forum because that his how you would get their attention, and even if they were in the wrong, you should do so with respect because this is not your house yet. I don't consider this to be my house, but a place I have a privilege to be a part of. It has changed my life. If you were to generally ask the moderator team if you think this place belongs to them, I doubt they would say so. If you were to ask the Traveler himself (sole administrator of the Nexus) if he thinks this entire thing just even belongs to him alone, I can assure you he would not say such a thing. The Nexus, and specifically the Attitude Section (Attitude Page - DMT-Nexus Wiki) is a higher power around here that transcends ALL of us and you need to understand that in order to be a member. It is an integral piece that makes this whole thing work. You need to show you have an ability to not take things personally, which leads me to my next point:

If you think that for some reason people read your questionnaire for any kind of reason other than general musing interest, I would ask you to literally do the entire thing again and see if maybe you get the point this time. Do you imagine every single person who ever achieved membership on this forum read your questionnaire and collectively decided we didn't like the name of a new color you came up with? That questionnaire is for you, and the point of asking questions is to lead to more and better questions, and to get more perspective. There are lots of questions on the questionnaire which should draw your attention to things besides just DMT that members of this community enjoy having discussions about. It gives you starting points to see what we care about talking about in this place aside from just general talk of DMT.

Lastly, not sure how you missed this as you speak of membership with the Freemasons... Do you know nothing of ritual then? If you want to become a part of a social or fraternal order, act like someone they want to initiate. If you want to go on a date with somebody, act like someone they want to go on a date with. If you want to be friends with a person, act like someone they want to be friends with. If you want a job, act like someone who people want to hire. The system of election to membership is open information on this forum. If you really want to get people to vote for you, there is a chat where you can pop in and say hello. It might behoove you to start a conversation there about interesting topics of discussion, or at least show that you are great to have around for conversation. I would say that your biggest problem is how you behaved in this thread. A great Nexian once told me, "I think it's telling that there is a highway to hell but only a stairway to heaven." Think about it if you really want to grow here.

FYI, it took me 7 months and 7 days to achieve membership here, and that made sense to me because around that time was when I was really starting to get to know people here and that came from both posting experience reports, interacting with lots of other new members especially in the chat, and then getting to start having great conversations with members that made me feel to connected to this place even more. Sometimes I see people getting membership in like 5 days but if I look at what they are doing with their efforts it seems clear to me why they got it. I honestly cannot say I've come across a newly accepted member of this community that stuck out as if they did not belong here in any way.

 

[VibeSurfer]

Writing an essay about me is hard. I haven't got the gift of brevity. Sometimes I don't feel like a person, just a collection of thoughts bound by a particularly odd primate. That's fine, but it makes self-essaying hard; there's not many stories about xlcor, and very few of my thoughts are so well-developed as to warrant communication, so there isn't much to write in the first place. There's no ennui to this, only humor. I've probably typed five pages, all told, just to get this one paragraph. That makes me laugh.

My interest in hallucinogens started with my pubescent interest in Buddhism. Through my participation in the local temple, I found my way to The Tibetan Book of the Dead. I've been practicing tantra and dream yoga since then. My first experience was with marijuana; it was fun and heady, but I didn't learn nearly as much as I could have. Learning wasn't even on the radar. I was in full party mode. I left the scene for about two years to be with a girl. She found intoxicants distasteful. She left me. It was fun when I started smoking again, but it wasn't satisfying anymore. I could feel that a lot of the experience was being left on the table. This led to a very volatile time in my life where I was self-medicating my stress and anxiety away, instead of dealing with it. I was crazed and horribly socialized; my self-image had never been worse. Then my friend texted me one night and said he found a line on some acid. I took a double dose and it was the most beautiful, freeing experience of my life. The acid helped me realize that I wasn't doing what I wanted to do. I had allowed my life to be defined for me. I had heard all sorts of malarkey about the inevitability of bad trips, the horrors of never-coming-back, the acid casualties- of which my cousin is supposed to have been one. I was hoping the acid would give me some sort of legitimacy in the suicide I longed for. It made me laugh instead. I've had another two acid trips after that. I smoke weed very irregularly. I miss the partying; I can handle it now.

I still consider myself a Buddhist, but I also consider myself a Shaman. I intend to embark on a three-year shamanic initiation. Therefore, for the next three years, I've vowed to only take substances which I know intimately. Only that which I've invested my time, effort, and love into. This is why I am particularly interested in DMT, shrooms, marijuana cultivation, and various other ethnobotanicals. I've already joined a mushrooming community, and they are some lovely people. The Nexus has much of the same energy. I've already learned much from The Nexus. Now I hope to be able to give some knowledge back, and hopefully learn more about the enthoegenic Scene. My only experience thus far has been reading The Entheogen Review.

To you that read this,
I love you.

Thank you for writing, and I would ask you to loosen up with your critiques of yourself in your opening as you did craft a wonderful post here, and I doubt you do not have stories. I doubt you do not have more stories to come. We always have more canvas. Throwing paint on it is the fun part! It seems like you have plenty of experience with the trials of life, and I admire your interest in shamanism. Can I ask why you consider yourself a shaman already? I have come to understand that one who holds such a title in a community has usually already integrated extensive personal experiences and perspectives with objective and subjective knowledge of entheogens for the purpose of guiding others and has been doing so for quite some time with a remarkable reputation. I have also come to realize that they would typically never call themselves that, rather, the title seems to stem from opinions of those they have helped, particularly when hearing of a shaman from a third party. When I hear people calling themselves a shaman, in the context of the person saying it I can usually tell that what they are really saying is "other people call me a shaman." I am not attacking you here, just curious

I love you too.

 

[xlcor]

Thank you for writing, and I would ask you to loosen up with your critiques of yourself in your opening as you did craft a wonderful post here, and I doubt you do not have stories. I doubt you do not have more stories to come. We always have more canvas. Throwing paint on it is the fun part! It seems like you have plenty of experience with the trials of life, and I admire your interest in shamanism. Can I ask why you consider yourself a shaman already? I have come to understand that one who holds such a title in a community has usually already integrated extensive personal experiences and perspectives with objective and subjective knowledge of entheogens for the purpose of guiding others and has been doing so for quite some time with a remarkable reputation. I have also come to realize that they would typically never call themselves that, rather, the title seems to stem from opinions of those they have helped, particularly when hearing of a shaman from a third party. When I hear people calling themselves a shaman, in the context of the person saying it I can usually tell that what they are really saying is "other people call me a shaman." I am not attacking you here, just curious

I love you too.

Hello VibeSurfer!

TL;DR: I call myself a shaman because I am self-critical. It is a necessary first-step to embody my shamanic ideal. Nothing leads to that ideal. Everything follows therefrom.

To start at the end, I call myself a shaman because it's helpful to me. Inherent to the practice of using SWIM, I acknowledge that I am a fiction. Moreover, I am a fiction written by a fictional author. Within this fiction, there's a wide corpus of details and only a couple decades' worth of emergent leirieolas. There is nothing in that fiction to suggest a shamanic identity, and left to continue apace there never would be; taking it upon myself, however, at least changes the leirieolas. That is comforting.

My notion of shamanism is something I can only hope to someday show. I can see it clearly, yet its description eludes me. I am not the shaman I wish to be, and in all honesty I still feel silly even using it as a description. That silly feeling comes from two places: the abnormality of such a descriptor, and my failure to embody it. To feel silly about being abnormal is silliness, I feel. I use the term to find and remedy those little plagues. This is a microcosm of my failures-to-embody. A macrocosm, in any resolution, also eludes me, precisely because the notion eludes description, and vice-versa.

I do enjoy commas.

PS: I consider neologizing to be a necessity when it comes to understand the self. "Emergent leirieolas" is an ore from that vein. I can best define it thus: the emergent knowledge of how to interpret a phenomenon based off nothing more than its characteristics. From the Irish 'leiriu' (interpret) and 'eolas' (knowledge), as given by Google Translate.

 

[Almondmilk Man]

You can see how love plays a role in everything about ourselves...........

I hope that you aren't feeling unloved here because of the turn of events PsillyPsimmon ... I really don't want to let you experience the tragedy of being alone or isolated; please take care and hear out a lesson of understanding.

Please take this at heart at minimum: avoid the four horseman of the relationship apocalypse: Criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and (most important of all) contempt.

When things go afoul we show the four horseman and they come to destroy. Criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt speak up about the hidden emotional state and your feelings (and if you can look past the surface and give a persons communication more observation and attend to it a little better from other angles; then you'll have more results and better! sometimes it might not help the situation if your technique actually uses indirect information... it might confuse people so...)

Remind! Remind! Remind! the best thing is to remember. Remember! Remember! Remember! and remember.

Don't forget that you're human that we're human. Give more too, it'll help out volumes.. Maybe too, PsillyPsimmon just felt that emotional about joining the community and well the place fills in well a void with a connected group of people which is so much better living with than an emptiness.... I can really testify....

[and also, I do wanna point out logically its just solely a reasonable explanation: the forum is run by people, people are trying to do the best they can every day since no one here lives in a perfect world and we know it - please don't take it so personally its clear PsillyPsimmon that you felt hurt and maybe felt like there wasn't a reason for the time it took to get membership and it may not help to hurt about something that very well is a misunderstanding and complicated matter. We are all here to protect and build and serve and create and explain and on the side we can go beyond just the work and build a personal relationship with each other here, the building of any relationship will take a little time]

 

[PsillyPsimon]

Hi again Almondmilk Man, and thank you for your kind words of encouragement. I was teetering on the edge of just forgetting about the forum, but you are largely responsible for my change of heart.

While I have been guilty of criticism, my intentions were to be constructive. It is hard to not see the value in this forum, so I was all the more disappointed when my questionnaire and subsequent posts drew little to no response. I cannot help but to wonder if and how many other potential excellent contributors have been lost simply because they posted here and got little response.

Thanks also to you, VibeSurfer, for your wise words of encouragement. I was starting to get the impression that this forum was elitist and snobby. However I am pleased to report that you and some others have helped to reform my views.

I am still not quite sure what to make of my suspension, especially since nothing has been said on that. For sure I respect the rules, and I chose my words very carefully in writing the post which apparently lead to that. My intent was to warn other members so that they didn't find themselves in the sad and sorry situation of having been ripped off. I just think that the suspension was applied a little hastily. Thanks again for your input and I look forward to further interactions with you.