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Notes on Psychedelic Nihilism (Ed Prideaux)
- Thread starter CommonConduit
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One step at a time. Psychedelics may reveal a larger picture to the seeker. It's ultimately up to the person and how they wish to use their experience. I think if we focus on using our experiences to bring about real change in our life than the experience itself can be said to be worth it.
I do think however that many people have tripped and labeled it a weird or odd experience but did not tie it into there life in any way.
I do think however that many people have tripped and labeled it a weird or odd experience but did not tie it into there life in any way.
CommonConduit
🎨 ‘Yab Yum’ by Burgandy Viscosi
Doors leading to doors leading to doors leading to ...
Caroline Polachek - Door
Caroline Polachek - Door
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hypertestudo
Esteemed member
I went to read the article, but the link no longer exists or works
CommonConduit
🎨 ‘Yab Yum’ by Burgandy Viscosi
Woops, don’t know what happened.
Try this:
open.substack.com
Try this:
Notes on Psychedelic Nihilism
When everything is a game, it's possible you might get played
open.substack.com
I think that without integration psychedelic experiences soon become memories and their transformative potential gets lost. IMO the people mentioned in the article are left with just that - memories - and I don't think their reported current use of psychedelic is true but just something to say to attract people's attention.
So they're left with some insights that they use to reinforce their own goals, maybe even new ideas, more creativity and imagination, but nothing remains about the core of the psychedelic experience.
It's even possible that they never experienced those effects, not even during their trips. I used to know people that regularly took psychedelics but for them they were nothing more than party drugs (even DMT). So maybe for some people they don't have any effect that goes deeper than visuals and strange thoughts, or maybe they forget them very soon.
The part about psychedelics and other worldviews and philosophies being the framework of techno-capitalism seems far-fetched to me. I think psychedelics are mentioned just for aesthetic purposes by those people, just like Steve Jobs years ago did with LSD and Zen.
So they're left with some insights that they use to reinforce their own goals, maybe even new ideas, more creativity and imagination, but nothing remains about the core of the psychedelic experience.
It's even possible that they never experienced those effects, not even during their trips. I used to know people that regularly took psychedelics but for them they were nothing more than party drugs (even DMT). So maybe for some people they don't have any effect that goes deeper than visuals and strange thoughts, or maybe they forget them very soon.
The part about psychedelics and other worldviews and philosophies being the framework of techno-capitalism seems far-fetched to me. I think psychedelics are mentioned just for aesthetic purposes by those people, just like Steve Jobs years ago did with LSD and Zen.
The main function of the psychedelic experience is to make us question ourself and the reality we subscribe to. For the vast majority of humans once should be enough.
Extended use certainly makes a subject question a lot more than just itself. I'd suggest that the true danger lies in overuse and then over complication and wild tangent.
The very thing happening in the sober world that we may find so distasteful can just as easily happen in the psychedelic world.
The advantage we hold currently is that the psychedelic world is a small minority. That makes our study rare and thus appearing to have more value.
I'd also suggest that a world comprised entirely of people as spaced out as us would be far worse. Not every soul would necessarily have the same outlook of peace and understanding as we do after we scramble our brains.
There could be a perfect balance and it may even be now
Extended use certainly makes a subject question a lot more than just itself. I'd suggest that the true danger lies in overuse and then over complication and wild tangent.
The very thing happening in the sober world that we may find so distasteful can just as easily happen in the psychedelic world.
The advantage we hold currently is that the psychedelic world is a small minority. That makes our study rare and thus appearing to have more value.
I'd also suggest that a world comprised entirely of people as spaced out as us would be far worse. Not every soul would necessarily have the same outlook of peace and understanding as we do after we scramble our brains.
There could be a perfect balance and it may even be now
couldn't work out the edit function but as an after thought..
What does it mean when I say our study is rare and thus appears to have more value?
The current rarity of the psychedelic experience generally creates a sense of reverence and respect. This could mean that we generally become more reverent and respectful lifeforms. It seems to be that way, to me.
However if the psychedelic experience was a common place thing for every human, there would not be the same reverence and respect at all. The average behavioural change in all subjects combined would be much less impactful.
If everyone on earth publicly hit some DMT tomorrow it would be very hard for any of us to maintain quite the same reverence for it. We might be able to fight against it for a while but in the end we would forget how special and mystical it used to seem.
Humanity walks around in a 3D halucination talking to genuine separate entities all day long without thinking it strange or mystical at all
The balance is crucial to keep psychedelics as a positively transformative experience.
What does it mean when I say our study is rare and thus appears to have more value?
The current rarity of the psychedelic experience generally creates a sense of reverence and respect. This could mean that we generally become more reverent and respectful lifeforms. It seems to be that way, to me.
However if the psychedelic experience was a common place thing for every human, there would not be the same reverence and respect at all. The average behavioural change in all subjects combined would be much less impactful.
If everyone on earth publicly hit some DMT tomorrow it would be very hard for any of us to maintain quite the same reverence for it. We might be able to fight against it for a while but in the end we would forget how special and mystical it used to seem.
Humanity walks around in a 3D halucination talking to genuine separate entities all day long without thinking it strange or mystical at all
The balance is crucial to keep psychedelics as a positively transformative experience.
This type of orientation may be a cognitive bias or a fallacy on a consensus scale.
As things currently stand, I agree, but what if we chase this hypothetical down a little bit. What would it look like over time for every person to come to a point to be able to consider doing DMT? What would it look like for every person from that point to do DMT? In that journey, is it possible that there is a thread of reverence that is sewn throughout so that it becomes a globally excepted idea to have reverence for this molecule? An unlikely possibility, but extant nonetheless.
This is something that I noticed the potential of a while ago and have taken steps to mitigate such impacts for myself. My use of the molecule has nothing to do with anyone else really. It's intimate and personal. I don't align with many individuals' approaches and attitudes relative to this molecule (such as the lack of respect and reverence that requires humility to be able to embody).
All the same, many of us who have worked deeply with this entheogen are aware that the experience can morph and change and become work over time. That being said, I doubt many would stick with it at this point as they're often not trying to do "work."
Then there's the "nope" phenomenon where people are directed away from the space by the space. I wonder how many people the world over would receive this message.
One love
All fine points to consider. I think the important bit on this for me was at the end of my previous self obsessed finger noises.
Humans walk around all day in a three dimensional hallucination, communicating with the most unarguably genuine entities we know of. Each other.
But because it is so common place, we mostly miss the mystical implications of that situation.
Would everybody doing DMT not create the same familiarity thereby reducing the mystical impact of the experience?
I mean, come on humanity, we are flying through space on a lump of coalesced dust. This is just as weird as hyper space. I believe it is only the opposite levels of familiarity between those two equally incredible experiences that makes one normal and the other so profound.
Humans walk around all day in a three dimensional hallucination, communicating with the most unarguably genuine entities we know of. Each other.
But because it is so common place, we mostly miss the mystical implications of that situation.
Would everybody doing DMT not create the same familiarity thereby reducing the mystical impact of the experience?
I mean, come on humanity, we are flying through space on a lump of coalesced dust. This is just as weird as hyper space. I believe it is only the opposite levels of familiarity between those two equally incredible experiences that makes one normal and the other so profound.
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This part of what you wrote is my favourite and will give me the most food for thought:
As things currently stand, I agree, but what if we chase this hypothetical down a little bit. What would it look like over time for every person to come to a point to be able to consider doing DMT? What would it look like for every person from that point to do DMT? In that journey, is it possible that there is a thread of reverence that is sewn throughout so that it becomes a globally excepted idea to have reverence for this molecule? An unlikely possibility, but extant nonetheless.
As ever your answers challenge me which I appreciate a lot, thank you for taking the time.
I won't cut and paste to continue on each point here right now. Only because I've learned that forum back and forth can get in the way of me taking the proper time to really think about your ideas.
As things currently stand, I agree, but what if we chase this hypothetical down a little bit. What would it look like over time for every person to come to a point to be able to consider doing DMT? What would it look like for every person from that point to do DMT? In that journey, is it possible that there is a thread of reverence that is sewn throughout so that it becomes a globally excepted idea to have reverence for this molecule? An unlikely possibility, but extant nonetheless.
As ever your answers challenge me which I appreciate a lot, thank you for taking the time.
I won't cut and paste to continue on each point here right now. Only because I've learned that forum back and forth can get in the way of me taking the proper time to really think about your ideas.
According to us (humans) it's a wonder that anything exists at all, let alone ourselves.
One love
newusername1
Esteemed member
When it comes to weirdness, in the materialism against religious or panpsychic worldviews debate, materialism has to be the absolute winner.
For me personally that is a great bonus though.
It can truly be a euphoric experience to let the weirdness of live wash over you and to become one with it.
For me personally that is a great bonus though.
It can truly be a euphoric experience to let the weirdness of live wash over you and to become one with it.
Ruffles
Established member
I think that there is some generational shift in the way psychedelia is seen. Yuppienized evangelical boomers gave up on it by the 70s and since the 80s show their true fascist nature, therefore most children of boomers are the opposite of counterculture revolutionaries. Psychedelics are being opted by big and alternative pharma (the renaissance) as medicine and this type of appropriation by (post)modern cultures was desired but not predicted. Entheogenic is a word that is meaningful only in closed doors and small groups, as it stands it can't be institutional or corporative.
That rich dummies tried it and liked it is not surprising, the chemicals work. What's astounding is that their opinion on this matter at all.
Therefore I am not and never was optimistic on the political and social reaches of the psychedelics. For the individuals in their autonomous zones growing and experimenting with the variations of entheogens I see lots of benefits, so their inner expression rises from the unconscious and fill their lives. But in the physical shared world of society psychedelia is tourism and if you are engaged in it deeply it is mostly a solitary endeavour. The family and social part of it is still online and virtual (this, right here) and hardly reaches out.
That rich dummies tried it and liked it is not surprising, the chemicals work. What's astounding is that their opinion on this matter at all.
Therefore I am not and never was optimistic on the political and social reaches of the psychedelics. For the individuals in their autonomous zones growing and experimenting with the variations of entheogens I see lots of benefits, so their inner expression rises from the unconscious and fill their lives. But in the physical shared world of society psychedelia is tourism and if you are engaged in it deeply it is mostly a solitary endeavour. The family and social part of it is still online and virtual (this, right here) and hardly reaches out.