lysergify said:
Great thread.
Rising Spirit said:
Yes, there is definitely a mushroom universe awaiting our visitation. The same thing is true for Mescal-cacti, LSD, DMT and Salvia Divinorum. Each operating by the laws of their own character. I do sincerely believe that the lessons they each teach us, are all tailored for our specific soul's immediate needs. To a very significant degree, our personal interactions are received, interpreted and flavored by our own individual minds. That being said, each of these Medicines does indeed, have it's own distinct characteristics and an entire universe of it's own. Fundamentally, they all shake us out of our habitual surface fixations and take us to alternate realities. Mushies are very kind and loving.
Hmm, do you think that each of these actually has its own space? I wonder if what you're visiting could be the same "space", merely viewed through different lenses, as you describe in your post. Mushroom "space" is the same as DMT "hyperspace", just viewed through the lens of the mushroom. Can you describe what Mescal-cacti or LSD space are like?
Hey Now... Lysergify,
Well, any time an individual attempts to describe such experiences that occur on levels far beyond the normal range of awareness, the words fall so short it can be quite frustrating. That being said, it is one of the most important things I can think of, to try and assimilate such levels (frequencies) of expanded consciousness. This process can take many forms but sometimes
contemplation is the appropriate tool at hand. Which, is like saying that a small pebble is the appropriate projectile to toss at the sun, with the expectation of actually hitting it! Obviously, when speaking of alternate "spaces", we do tend to mythologize and/or parable-ize the experience, to provide a readily accessible medium, so as to more easily find common ground and mutually relate to. In light of this fact, I would say that there are distinct differences in these chemically induced spaces. Yet, as you wisely infer, they all do take us to that spiritual place, far beyond the boundaries of our ordinary conditioned selves, which leads to merging with the Void of the Clear Light (as Timothy Leary used to put it).
In light of this similarity, there are subtle and
not-so-subtle differences between Shroom-space, Cacti-space, LSD 25-space, DMT-space and especially... Salvia Divinorum-space.
Without going into a book and a novel, I would have to say that my previous reference is still the best way I know how to describe those differences. We all know that is is far more complex than differentiating between a beer buzz, a wine buzz, whiskey buzz and a vodka buzz. While they each have their characteristics and flavors, they are all chemically alcohol, period. Psychedelic Medicines, however, do create their own completely unique realms or "spaces". So, as there are fundamentally separate frequencies of consciousness, each is residing within their own alternate universe, so to speak. We've all been there and seen that, so I think it can be more of a game of semantics, sometimes, however sincere we are to communicate. In a nut-shell, I would say that for me, before and after the self-shattering of ego-death, I witness these states almost as if they were various lenses to view the cosmos and oneself. There are, however, distinct realities which each commands and we react to them as individuals, at various stages of awakening and ultimately... we dissolve into the highest frequency, which is God. Each of these medicines helps us to understand tiny fragments of the whole. The goal of the lessons may be more mirror-like than directly instructive but it's wisdom is received according to the receptivity of it's witness. Enough of philosophy, though... all i can offer are my experiences and how I translate them into my individual cosmology.
I have had two extremely powerful examples of these differentiations, both of them were many years ago. I will try to be brief and move through the general storyline of the first journey and save the other one for another reply to this thread. OK?
The first time I really got the profound realization that tripping isn't just tripping and that there are separate "spaces" for each of these medicines, I was still in my early twenties and it was the late seventies. We had taken Mescaline 3 or 4 hours before sunset and then hiked to a wonderful vantage-point to watch the colorful show and set up our camp site. Of course, along the way we burned plenty of reefer (that's what we called Ganja in those days). We ascended to a gorgeous mountainside ledge with a long stip of clearing, which overlooked the foothills and valley bellow. By now, we were tripping pretty hard and it was such a beautiful sunset I was in tears. It was my very first Mescaline experience and I loved it! I felt like I was invigorated by the force of nature and united with a Sacred Geometry of sorts. I was seeing all kinds of turning geometric patterns and mind-blowing intricate designs, superimposed over everything and also a transparent luminosity, meticulously encoded within
EVERYRTHING, with eyes open or closed.
I experienced intense synthesia, as I had before on LSD-25, and could taste the colors in the sky and all around us. I could smell the sounds of the birds and our beating drums, hear the silence between the layers of sounds and in-between my heartbeats. I drank the clean, fresh mountain air in gulping mouthfuls! Cacti or it's derivatives, always make me somewhat euphoric and feel almost child-like. Even the simple act of taking footsteps, becomes a magical journey through the enchanted woods! It was a very mythological and other-worldly state/space. My ego had gradually been shaved away and I couldn't really distinguish where my boundaries began or ended... and where the rest of the Universe began or ended. Everything was melding into a cohesive whole. A balanced totality on unified mind. I had the sudden panic that the lines that separated these levels would dissipate forever and the "I" that was home, was to be lost to me. This mood was replaced with a giddy apathy and a profound surrender. I was laid bare before the God of the Living Cactus, of the living, intelligent Universe and that vast unknown silence of the Void.
I had read the Carlos Castaneda trilogy and was eager to embrace Mescalito. Really, I was approaching this Deity with great expectations and excitement. As I settled into the rhythmic trance-state we had woven with our drumming, drinking in the sweet breeze. There was something so timelessly organic and... Shamanic about Mescalito, that I was rocking back and forth in a blissful whirl of drunken ecstasy. I had transformed into the living embodiment of the luminescence of the fantastic sunset. I had become transfixed by an intelligent,
ancient flame, who lived within the blazing power of the stars. This was the first time that I felt a connection to an inter-galactic web of eternal shamanic forces at play. It felt almost like an
ancient initiation into a great tribe of illumined wisdom-seekers and inter-dimensional travelers.
The interconnected family of the One Light. More than that, even, it was as if we were part of a great pattern of radiant, spiralling energy, all centered around the setting sun's magnificent radiance! All three of us had joined with a specific frequency of cosmic mind, which would equate to "Cactus-space".
I completely concur with Lysergify. One truly does feel like the cactus or the mushroom one imbibes in. This is especially true for organic Medicines! Just the smell of them tunes me to the innate nature of the plant. It's definitely an instinctual feeling thing. An enchanted level of harmony and deep understanding about what is universal and what is mere illusion, dawned on us. Sort of like reading spiritual truths, written in the language of nature and the mother galaxy that we are birthed by? Our drums became our souls voices and our voices were the voices of all that had lived before us, all who live and all of those who would live, when our present physical forms were no more. 8)
We drummed as we watched the sinking sun staining the summer sky with the most vivid sunset I have ever witnessed (and I seen some doozies). As we were approaching our Mescaline peak, we injested some very clean purple microdots of LSD-25. I believe we each had 3? Yes, that's right. Previously, 2 weeks earlier, I had had 2 of these purple micro-dots and they were plenty strong enough to get off on just one... but we knew that we had been tripping on the Mescaline for hours and wanted to be sure we'd feel the acid. Well... we sure did!!! As the LSD entered our psyches, it was if everything became a cool, oozing rainbow of liquid. The heat I had felt from the Mescalito, changed into what we used to call, "chilly laughter". Yeah, sort of impersonal and metallic, in some ways? Super electric, billowingly expansive and sort of... has an alien quality? which make s all things appear new and mysterious, at the same time.
There is always such a power pulling sensation I get from LSD. I am usually drawn deep within and propelled into the fire of an infinitely-expanding awareness of mind. I wouldn't go as far as some of my friends, that LSD is an agnostic chemical. I see it as the ultimate Zen state, so to speak. Nothing can retain finite form under the experience. I guess it's the tryptamine element that makes it so transcendental? I have been to similar "spaces" on psilocybin mushrooms many, many times and DMT, the one time I was blessed to journey with it. My crown chakra is fully activated and I project into subtler and far subtler frequencies of consciousness.
I am drawn to that light of Light, like a moth to the flame. In fact, as darkness approached, we started our campfire and became transfixed by the blazing fire. After a few hours of burning wood, a nice bed of brilliant coals was cradled by the burning sticks. Out of nowhere, a large Luna Moth flapped. It flew directly into the center of the campfire and as it was instantly incinerated... it's wing flapped with blinding speed, as it hovered stationary. We could all still see the fading energy form of the moth, as it was absorbed into the heat and light of the flames. This seemed quite profound to me, at the time. I occurred to me, that we were like the moth, equally drawn the the light. It seems as if the tribal awakening we had previously gone through was still active and the acid only intensified this primal rhythm (which beat in our hearts and flowed like quicksilver within our veins).As the peak gradually came on... I had begun to merge with a self which was both familiar and also completely unrecognizable.
Who am I?
The spiralling whirl of fractal hallucinations, that had been dancing before my eyes for hours and hours, were bleached-out into an overall blinding luminosity, that washed-out (and essentially, devoured) all the parameters of the witness and that which is witnessed. The cosmic force of the entire universe seemed to rush up my earthly, sentient spinal column. This reminded me that I had a physical form and I felt more alive than I had ever before. That being said, I cannot really put it into the right words, as they are so limiting for connecting the experience to a storyline. To me, LSD is practically equivalent to
The Light. the pure and unbound light of Infinity. It washes away all the lines that separate one thing from another and dissolves the preconceived differences from one point in time & space, to another. From one form of consciousness to another, as All is One.
It has often made me feel an affinity with the situation of the Biblical Moses, as he fell helpless before the Omnipotence of the Burning Bush and trembled at the sheer power and indivisibility of God. And yet... who is God and who am I? What is God and what is not God? If all is God and nothing is truly separate from anything else, nor apart form the same building block of energy... what is not God? So, I guess for me, this is LSD-space. Been there a whole lot of times, although not for 19 years now. Where I could palpably sense the feminine Mother Deity of Mushroom-space and the masculine Father Deity of Cactus-space (Mescalito), I find LSD-space to be both, androgynous and ungraspabley transcendent. I don't think this is necessarily a clinically sterile frequency of consciousness, rather, it seems like a blinding rainbow-hued radiance which can retain no form whatsoever. yeah, completely void of any discernible characteristics, at the peaking level. always drew me away from myself and into the emptiness of the absolute Oneness of being. I had this same Immortal sensation on my voyage with DMT, 30 years later, but waaaaaaaay faster and so joltingly sudden! admittedly, ego death is quite terrifying while it is
de-birthing the subjective observer. "Super-explosively powerful"... I would emphatically proclaim!!! :shock:
Overall, the central truths we had embraced, were but the
One Truth and it was the essence of purest love. The flavors of the lenses/windows we perceived them through, may have been variations of this
Message of Oneness but they were also quite distinct in some very, very specific ways. There many paths to the summit but only one summit to reach, at the end of the journey. So, I can say I have experienced these views into the various states of reality and/or mergings with the indivisible consciousness of God, which are very high levels that devour the witness into the unfathomable emptiness of the
Soul of All Being. Are these actually different "spaces" and not just alternate windows to view the dance of Divine Mind? I would say... both, "yes and no".
Like William James used to say,
"There are no differences. Only degrees of difference, between differences of degree... and no difference."
Peace, Love and Light,
Rising Spirit
