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Set, Setting, and Skillset

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OneIsEros

OneIsEros

Rising Star
It strikes me that the old formula of set and setting is too passively receptive - there should be an active component in tripping.

All the indigenous traditional uses of psychedelics involve active skilled behavior which deepen the experiences. I would love to hear if anybody had some methodical means of producing deep visionary experiences.

What skills do you bring to psychedelic experiences?

Dancing? Playing music? Singing? Drumming? Chanting?
Drawing? Painting? Sculpting?
Martial arts?
Yoga? Meditation?

Any others?

The first five are all done in various indigenous traditions with psychedelics.

Many visionary artists make art while they trip (Alex Grey and his wife tripped at the Sistine Chapel and spent the day drawing there!)

There’s a guy named Kilindi Iyi that takes massive doses of shrooms and practices martial arts with his hallucinated entities.

I’ve used meditation and yoga with great success. Yoga is more accessible than meditation. Meditation takes more practice to successfully work with psychedelics. You can more or less just jump into yoga. Nick Sand’s primary practices were yoga and meditation while tripping - he considered psychedelic skill-based tripping the deepest use of psychedelics.

If you are doing yoga at a studio, I recommend mushrooms or LSD - all of the other psychedelics in the natural world cause too much nausea. Dose as high as you think you can go in a public setting if you’re doing it at the studio, and sign up for 3 hours of classes. If you are not in a public studio yoga is fine on something like ayahuasca, just make sure you have a place to puke if it comes up :)

If you are meditating, I’d say 3 hours of eyes closed anapanasati is the best. All of the natural serotonergic psychedelics seem to work great. I’ve had difficulty with LSD and anapanasati though, difficult to focus. Unlike yoga, it takes considerable sober practice to meditate successfully on psychedelics.
 
At this moment, over 45 views and not a single response.

I’m not surprised, but I am troubled. This is an issue. If the psychedelic community is not developing skills with the chemicals that we so often label “tools”, I would humbly suggest there is a certain level of cognitive dissonance going on.

We spend so much time learning to extract DMT, brew ayahuasca, grow mushrooms and cactus... but where is the skill in using these things?

(Mind)set and (environmental) setting is such a passive idea! It’s not wrong, but it is passive, and therefore unskilled! Be happy and comfortable and swallow/smoke, hoping for the best! This formula was born from an ignorant perspective. If you are not approaching these things on the basis of skill, I will not say that you are “doing it wrong”, but you may want to consider elevating your engagement somehow.
 
There’s a guy named Kilindi Iyi that takes massive doses of shrooms and practices martial arts with his hallucinated entities.
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Lol what a load of balloney. Some people get a real kick out of playing out pyschological scripts, in this case "the mystical kung fu master" archetype.

I like to play guitar on shrooms, but not a maaasive dose, as it then would just be plain stupid to do so. I do singing/dancing/music, but of course yoga and meditation is where its at. I mean, there's not much you can do when your deep in ethereal realms, and as Jerry Garcia put it "it dont take much to get me on the ground."

In my humble oppinion you need 8 skills if you want to trip like a pro:

Right view
Right intention
Right speech
Right action
Right livelihood
Right effort
Right mindfulness
Right concentration

What I mean by this is that the skills you need are of the Mind (which also could be called Heart), and are not based on particular skills, but on hollistic knowledge; knowledge of the totality.

A flower for you, buddah to be 🌷
 
FranLover said:
Lol what a load of balloney. Some people get a real kick out of playing out pyschological scripts, in this case "the mystical kung fu master" archetype.
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Could be, but I did spontaneously perform Tae Kwon Do forms on ayahuasca that I had learned in childhood and completely forgotten. The energy that moves through the limbs loves expression in martial arts and yoga on every psychedelic I've done. That fellow might be playing out a script, but I would say that martial arts activity, like yoga, is enhanced by psychedelics and, conversely, its performance enhances psychedelic experience.

To your point about the noble eightfold path: while I agree this is the way to live as a Buddhist, what I'm talking about isn't really an ethical point. I'm just talking about deepening experience with these things generally. Some ayahuasca shamans will use these same techniques to weaponize the results. This would be an example of "negative skill" - a skillful behavior that is spiritually detrimental, and therefore, ethically unskillful.

My hope is that with competent use, people abide by ethical codes of conduct, such as that laid out by the Buddha. But right now I'm just talking about engaging psychedelics skillfully, not ethics skillfully, the same way I would discuss skilled painting or skilled guitar playing or skilled yoga routines. The guiding assumption is that ethical conduct is adhered to. But a doctor's art goes beyond good or bad intentions - it's only that the merit of that art depends on intentions, not its status qua skilled, except in a qualified sense qua ethical.
 
Thats so cool, I wonder what form you did ! I love taekwondo forms, the ITF blackbelt one is my favorite because of the rise of the sun done with the hands like this: 🙌

After one of my first changa trips I got up and shadow boxed at a speed level which was beyond belief--totally insane and impossible. It was so cool! So even though I know the power that comes with psychedelics and feats of athleticism, I dont believe someone could be in the peak of a +20 dry gram shroom trip, as we know he takes massive doses, and shadow box a hyperspace entity. Its not how psychedelics work in my experience. And if for some odd reason it did work for him like that, I think figthing entities is a rather unskilled way to behave in hyperspace--and this indeed is our topic of discussion, skillfulness in taking psychedelics.

Which leads directly to this knowledge I want to express to you, Eros. Its not buddhist; I'm sorry I used buddhist terminology, but a knowledge that is timeless belongs to no sect or country, I hope you can see this.

I think a pure heart will let you become a master at anything in half the time and with half the pain and mistakes along the way. Speaking strictly at a practical skill level like what you are saying, the greatest intention you can have is to achieve purity of heart and mind, which can be achieved through those eight things listed or something similar.

Once the mind achieves a state of perfection, and one has the knowledge and understands things, including how to achieve that state of creative brilliance known as Mastery, then the path to Mastery is 10 times easier and better and you by default also become a master at this life, as well as realms beyond--which is why purity of heart is also the best way to become skilled in hyperspace and realms beyond and in between. This is sword and shield for all arenas of life. And if an afterlife exists, it will be your sword and shield there too, by result of logical metaphysical deduction.

Gain purity of heart and mind and talent will increase ten fold in all arenas of life and with no suffering and no pain, unlike many struggling artists and pioneers, who go through discontent exactly because of their lack of mastery over themselves, and their creation suffers for it, but more importantly they suffer. And that is unecessary.

This is the way of nature; naturality and simplicity, and with minimum effort the greatest creations come into being.

I have seen it with my own eyes; the most talented at anything, and I mean any skill you can imagine, are masters over themselves and they glow with power because of their purity of heart--their purity is what made them love their craft enough to practice enough in order to reach such insanley high levels of mastery. And yes, they believe in god many times. That is in part why their talent is so out there; we are talking MASTERS. True masters. I have people in mind but they are not famous. Of course Albert Einstein and particularly Michael Faraday are good examples. But maybe a good example could be Akianne Kramrick who paints because of visions she had as a child; she is a master of the craft. Her journey to mastery is a wholesome one, and she achieved great success, all this based on her purity of heart.

Effort? Its a must, thats why its listed in the eightfold path; right effort. All the qualities of mind one needs to achieve perfection in life and in mastery lie in these virtues. Call them by any word or any languages but they are universal laws, not buddhist. Right intention will make practicing a skill ten times more efficient. Right effort as well. Etc.

There are many so called geniuses who have changed the world with their inventions, artistic or scientific, but when you look at their inner lives they are in bankrupcy. Their knowledge is aimed at specific things, but they lack understanding of the totality.

Purity of heart and mind, achieving something similar to the eightfold path, is what will produce pure, wholesome art that can change the world, or at the very least affect many people's lives positivley. This is what must be done. There is enough stuff being created for the wrong reasons, art and otherwise. Thus the art of being a Master is based on ethics. Good ethics are rewarded in all areas of life and in Mastery more than in any other maybe. Please dont think I am speaking that purity of heart is just ethics in the very simplistic sense of Good people, Bad people. No. Right effort or Right Concentration or Right mindfulness, for example, wouldn't make a good or bad person, just a more or less skillfuled one--which is what we are talking about. How to be a true genious at doing all things.

This is Wu Wei also, its doing through not doing--instead of crazily persuing success in the world you persue success in the mind; and because of this you succeed totally in the world as well. Two birds one stone.

If the bad guys knew what good buisness it is to be good, they would be good, even if just for buisness.
 
FranLover said:
I like to play guitar on shrooms, but not a maaasive dose, as it then would just be plain stupid to do so.
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In a conventional sense, perhaps it would be. However, the music that tends to be used in indigenous settings is simple, and repeated for long periods of time. It is methodically designed to induce a deepening of experience, and is usually meant for high doses. I'm not musical, but maybe if you did some research you could find music that would be appropriate to play in order to deepen the experience. Something simple, and repetitive, for prolonged periods of time. Almost painfully repetitive, painfully long. It's not being played for normal reasons. It's not quite for the pleasure we usually play music for, it might be frustrating at first. But done properly, it can make you start entering the “other side” from an oral-dose experience. Hamilton Souther has discussed in interviews.
 
The thing is they do that because they dont have recorded music. Its the music that deepens the field of deep visions, not the activity of playing music. And 15 instruments played by talented musicians will be much more efficient than 1 guitar playing a simple melody. For those in the jungle I understand, I would do the same. But to miss out on these great recordings we have here would be a shame, particularly because brass instruments like trumpets, or electronic instrument like a synthethizers, sound so amazingly good in the hyperspace echo chamber/electric dome. Keep in mind those people in the jungle probably dont know more complex kinds of music, and dont know how much more efficient 20 chords on 10 instruments and with two professional voices in a song are, compared to three chords on one instrument and one voice. The difference is profound; its Mozart to Nirvana.

Sorry to disagree, I just actually think these things and have thought about them a lot and play repetetive, hour long guitar while on shrooms--but not on high doses. I think that when the deep visions and trip comes, its time to put everything down and DIE. Die to everything you know. And then you play a jazz standard recording to guide you and as an offering to entities and all that beautiful magical stuff--its a priviledge to posses recorded music, very beautiful technology.

A very happy new years to you, Eros, master to be ⚘ I'm spending it alone so please forgive me if I write too long and too much, I'm just kinda booored a bit.
 
Well, I’ll put it to you this way: if you were with a surgeon and they decided to lay down and “just die” in the middle of a procedure - how would you feel? The case is similar with shamans. It does not seem typical behavior for them to do that. They seem to be very much in control, and while on much higher doses than others.

Another thing I will note: these are not techniques exclusive to drug-states. They can be performed sober with similar success - it just takes longer. Shamanism exists across all hunter-gatherer societies, but psychedelics do not. These techniques seem distinct from performing a symphony - and indeed, when music is approached this way, it is distinct from other music forms in these cultures. Hamilton Souther talks about it in interviews.

My general point when I write these posts is that the models we’ve been approaching these things with ever since the 1960’s have, in my experience, been erroneous. I am not a shaman, but I did force myself to be methodical after the first ten years of non-methodical use - and it got deeper - and much more in control. Doses that would once wipe me out on the floor, now I actually can unify into an energetic continuum, and laughing I’ll just go deeper, and deeper, and deeper - until I’m seeing things comparable to DMT breakthroughs, all the while just sitting, and breathing - totally lucid. It does not lessen the experience, it deepens it.

The notion of skill-based psychedelic use is the traditional one. Passive use is a new model that developed out of a society that (on a large social scale) both discovered and banned these substances in less than ten years. Active skill-based use is the traditional model.

I just want to get these ideas out there in cyber space: the models we have are wrong. And the alternative model does not need to be the exclusive domain of shamans, any more than meditation needs to be the exclusive domain of Buddhist monks or yoga asanas need to be the exclusive domain of Hindu ascetics! We can do it too, with effort, to an extent.

The effort part is the key. I want to hear more stories like mine, where people developed some methodical use (not necessarily the same as mine - just the same qua methodical), because I really do feel it is something we are missing - I actually think it is the most important part.
 
The thing is that shamans are not surgeons nor are their practices similar. One thing must be done in waking consciousness, while that the other is all about transcending the normal three states of consciousness (waking, deep sleep, dreaming.) Psychedelics are like going to sleep😊 or restful meditation--its a death. An exploration into unity consciousness where there is no I, no body--only everyone and everything. Absolute abstraction and emptiness.

So what I'm proposing is that meditation is the skill to practice in visionary states :) since the mind is the vehicle of consciousness, and psychedelics expand consciousness.

Psychedelics are a tecnology that activate deeper states of consciousness, right? The body has to stay behind on this journey because consciousness is not the body. Identifying with the body is a cause of suffering. The consciousness is also not the memories nor the senses nor thought constructs. Its too much baggage on a journey for consciousness, which is why meditators sit still and go into the emptiness. There's all those nasty tales about the great meditators who would hurt their legs because of how long they sat in the lotus position because they didnt want to come out of that state of consciousness. This points towards the knowledge that concentration, preseverence, efficiency, is rewarded in nature. Thats an active skill; one is purposefuly withdrawing the mind from the automatic responses to sense-impressions.

In physiological terms its that using the parts of the brain that hold onto waking consciousness takes away energy from the part of the brain (5HT-2A receptors, frontal lobe) which is consciousness trancending time and space and so many other impossible things which become possible in the realm of consciousness. Consciousness meaning: bliss. Eternal bliss. The unknown or unmanifest. An experience in the realm of abstraction; of the impossible.
 
The one thing I've stuck with in terms of depth is acoustical/rhythmic driving. A consistent, bass heavy, repetitive, (maybe even melodic) piece. Primarily the first 3 of the 4 things there.

Vocals within the piece can work, but ime they have to be specific, or it can throw off the repetitive, driving force of the whole thing. Female vocals work wonders. Highly preferable.

I know some folk are not into the music/dmt thing and prefer silence. Totally understandable, and in no way am I talking against that method. Both can end you in the same place at the end of the day ime, so take what I say as what you will.

The repetitive driving sound of the music has helped anchor me down during.

If you've ever seen the old 90s movie Twister (a very cheesy movie), about the tornado, there's one scene where the two main characters go to run from the tornado near the end of the movie, they end up running to this old ground cellar, fastening themselves to this stationary metal pipe. The tornado comes right over head, rips open the cellar doors, the doors go flying, the wood, the cellar contents - all go flying. But they stay right there, holding on for dear life, trying to stay focused, all the while everything is being ripped to pieces.

That's really the only analogy I can put to it. At least that's how it's been for me more/less over all these years of taking dmt/changa.

I think there's good reason for the rattles, flutes, the icaros, and percussion that can be used in these indigenous circles who use these plants/substances. These things can be used to take you out've a bad place, they can be used to take you out've a good place, they can be used to repurpose you, they can be used to anchor your attention so that you don't become lost in the lunacy and chaos of it all - if those two things were to show themselves during.

This is just what I'd experimented with over the years, personal experience/opinion.
 
FranLover said:
The thing is that shamans are not surgeons nor are their practices similar. One thing must be done in waking consciousness, while that the other is all about transcending the normal three states of consciousness (waking, deep sleep, dreaming.) Psychedelics are like going to sleep😊 or restful meditation--its a death. An exploration into unity consciousness where there is no I, no body--only everyone and everything. Absolute abstraction and emptiness.
Click to expand...

This is an interview with Hamilton Souther, who was trained as an ayahuasquero. If you do some research, you will find that what he is discussing checks out with what is generally reported about shamanism.

At 1 hour, 20 minutes in this interview, he discusses Icaros. Not quite absolute abstraction, as you assert. What you are talking about seems more similar to Martin Ball's ideas, which he (Martin Ball) very explicitly and consciously distinguishes from shamanic practices. That sort of thing is more like Advaita Vedanta.

I don’t want to say you’re wrong about everything you say: I don’t think shamanism is the only methodical approach to these things. I’m trying to promote methodological use generally, of which shamanism is just one particular variety. But, shamans definitely aren’t aiming at ultimate emptiness, they’re not monks. They’re doctors. They use songs, chanting, musical instruments, etc., to achieve certain effects. They’re trying to cure illness generally (or cause it, depending on what they are being paid to do). They’re even more amoral than Western doctors, to be honest. No hippocratic oath for shamans. Whether they decide to hurt or heal really just comes down to the individual shaman’s inclination.

This is very different from what you are describing. I want to be clear: you’re describing real existent practices that can go with psychedelics... they’re just not shamanic. Shamans aren’t monks, in Spanish they’re just “curanderos”, people who heal you, usually of boring normal shit Western doctors heal people of too. It’s not as ambitious as what you’re describing. Shamans can be (and frequently are) stay-at-home Moms or playboy machismo dudes who go have beer and hit on girls at local bars after the ceremony. There have actually been instances of Americans at ayahuasca retreats calling shamans charlatans when they saw them out having a beer, to the shamans’ complete bafflement. They’re doctors, occasionally mercenaries - not monks. It’s a practical medical vocation, not a soteriological one.

 
tatt said:
The one thing I've stuck with in terms of depth is acoustical/rhythmic driving. A consistent, bass heavy, repetitive, (maybe even melodic) piece. Primarily the first 3 of the 4 things there.

Vocals within the piece can work, but ime they have to be specific, or it can throw off the repetitive, driving force of the whole thing. Female vocals work wonders. Highly preferable.

I know some folk are not into the music/dmt thing and prefer silence. Totally understandable, and in no way am I talking against that method. Both can end you in the same place at the end of the day ime, so take what I say as what you will.

The repetitive driving sound of the music has helped anchor me down during.

If you've ever seen the old 90s movie Twister (a very cheesy movie), about the tornado, there's one scene where the two main characters go to run from the tornado near the end of the movie, they end up running to this old ground cellar, fastening themselves to this stationary metal pipe. The tornado comes right over head, rips open the cellar doors, the doors go flying, the wood, the cellar contents - all go flying. But they stay right there, holding on for dear life, trying to stay focused, all the while everything is being ripped to pieces.

That's really the only analogy I can put to it. At least that's how it's been for me more/less over all these years of taking dmt/changa.

I think there's good reason for the rattles, flutes, the icaros, and percussion that can be used in these indigenous circles who use these plants/substances. These things can be used to take you out've a bad place, they can be used to take you out've a good place, they can be used to repurpose you, they can be used to anchor your attention so that you don't become lost in the lunacy and chaos of it all - if those two things were to show themselves during.

This is just what I'd experimented with over the years, personal experience/opinion.
Click to expand...

I like the metaphor. Is this music that you play yourself, or that you listen to, or both?

I’ve definitely had the anchor in a hurricane experience, but I’ve also had something more akin to a “paradigm shift” occur, where the repetitive simple focus actually resulted in entire new worlds to form where before I was “just tripping”.
 
FranLover said:
They’re doctors. They use songs, chanting, musical instruments, etc., to achieve certain effects
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That sounds familiar !

[YOUTUBE]
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Yup, very easily could just be faith healing. But that’s the tradition. A shaman isn’t a monk.

I’m pointing it out so you can be more precise in your language, not trying to convince you shamanism is real. Shamanism is the only living tradition associated with serotonergic psychedelics, and it is a medical tradition, and it is practical and methodological.

Whether you think it’s fake or not is for you to decide. Now that I see what you think of it, I am happy to see your opinion reflects more detailed information. This is a good thing. You know the difference now. A shaman isn’t a monk. They’re a doctor, and their work is mostly concerned with mundane medical things - not apotheosis, henosis, nirvana, moksha, or similar categories.

I’m not trying to promote shamanism itself: just technique, inferring from the only living tradition with serotonergic psychedelics (shamanism) that technique is central. Other (non-traditional) methodological techniques, such as yoga or meditation, in my experience deepen the psychedelic experience (and conversely, the psychedelic experience deepens meditation and yoga). It seems to reflect what shamans report, that technique deepens things.

So, I want it to get into the collective consciousness: set and setting is only 2/3. Skillset completes the formula from the 1960’s, and is the more traditional view.
 
Indeed, skill is of utmost importance. Thank you for the conversation and knowledge ! 🙂🌺🌹🌹
 
OneIsEros said:
It strikes me that the old formula of set and setting is too passively receptive - there should be an active component in tripping.

All the indigenous traditional uses of psychedelics involve active skilled behavior which deepen the experiences. I would love to hear if anybody had some methodical means of producing deep visionary experiences.

What skills do you bring to psychedelic experiences?

Dancing? Playing music? Singing? Drumming? Chanting?
Drawing? Painting? Sculpting?
Martial arts?
Yoga? Meditation?

Any others?

The first five are all done in various indigenous traditions with psychedelics.

Many visionary artists make art while they trip (Alex Grey and his wife tripped at the Sistine Chapel and spent the day drawing there!)

There’s a guy named Kilindi Iyi that takes massive doses of shrooms and practices martial arts with his hallucinated entities.

I’ve used meditation and yoga with great success. Yoga is more accessible than meditation. Meditation takes more practice to successfully work with psychedelics. You can more or less just jump into yoga. Nick Sand’s primary practices were yoga and meditation while tripping - he considered psychedelic skill-based tripping the deepest use of psychedelics.

If you are doing yoga at a studio, I recommend mushrooms or LSD - all of the other psychedelics in the natural world cause too much nausea. Dose as high as you think you can go in a public setting if you’re doing it at the studio, and sign up for 3 hours of classes. If you are not in a public studio yoga is fine on something like ayahuasca, just make sure you have a place to puke if it comes up :)

If you are meditating, I’d say 3 hours of eyes closed anapanasati is the best. All of the natural serotonergic psychedelics seem to work great. I’ve had difficulty with LSD and anapanasati though, difficult to focus. Unlike yoga, it takes considerable sober practice to meditate successfully on psychedelics.
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Deep OMs while laying on my back in darkness is my vibe. It’s a sort of meditation I suppose, but I suck at meditating in normal conditions.
 
That would go under “chanting”. Nice. How have your experiences with that been? Do you do it the whole
time?

In my experience these practices work best when you do them for so long that the “monkey mind” just tires itself out and
drops away.
 
Sometimes it feels like I am levitating, especially with shroomies. I still want to learn circular breathing and see what happens, there is definitely something there when you get your internal vibration roiling I believe!
 
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