The Mantis

[Chadaev]

So amigos, this is my first posting, and right off I want to say that this site has a great feel. I can see that the spice has really helped the creators and sustainers metabolise their own psychic tough stuff (shadow material). This by itself is already a good indication of the potential maturational impact of these plant sacraments on modern human culture.

Ok, so I have a couple of years experience in these realms and I've not felt the need to join any forums or make any postings, until...

Until the mantises just got me really curious. Who are you my friends? If you be friends at all??

I've no doubt this general topic has come up plenty of times, and I look forward to trawling through the Nexus looking for insights. However, I wonder a few things:

a) Is there anyone working systematically to understand these entities better? (I know the published work of Strassman, Hancock, Luke... but no doubt I've missed a lot.)

b) Where on the Nexus is the best place to go looking for detailed discussion of this topic?

c) Is there a place on this site where ALL trip reports (regardless of content) can be accessed at once so that some content analysis can be undertaken? Or has someone done this? (I note that a fair number of links on the site are down, including the trip reports hyperlink mentioned in the Intro).

Enough questions.

Blessings,

Chadaev

 

[Global]

b) Where on the Nexus is the best place to go looking for detailed discussion of this topic?

c) Is there a place on this site where ALL trip reports (regardless of content) can be accessed at once so that some content analysis can be undertaken? Or has someone done this? (I note that a fair number of links on the site are down, including the trip reports hyperlink mentioned in the Intro).

You might wanna consider using the search function in the upper right hand part of the page where you can search for posts that include words like "mantis", "insect", "insectoid", etc...

Not all trip reports are in one place, but there are subfora with lots of them. "DMT Experiences" is loaded to the brim with trip reports; "First Steps in Hyperspace" is a section mainly of trip reports; there's the "Quality Reports" section (I forget the exact name) and you can also find trip reports a bit heavily scattered especially throughout the subfora on other entheogens like "Mushrooms", "Salvia", "5-MeO/Bufotenine", etc...None of these reports have been rearranged or systematically analyzed but you can certainly see what others had to post in regards to the report, and you can feel free to ressucitate any thread that you'd like to comment on or for which you might have a question. Welcome to the Nexus, and if you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

 

[nen888]

..there was this thread..the bee - DMT Discussion - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

i don't think anyone except shamans and maybe the odd anthropologist have systematically studied such entities..
the medical/psychiatric world, including Strassman, can't really handle such concepts..

Peter Meyer wrote in the early 90s:

Several questions can be distinguished. Firstly, there is the question of the independent reality of the entities. Subjects report experiences of contact with communicating beings whose independent existence at the time seems self-evident. These experiences are not described as dream-like. If the entities have an existence independent of the DMT- influenced subject, then a realm of existence has been discovered which is quite other than the consensus reality which most of us assume is the only real world.

Such a discovery of "a separate reality" would directly challenge the foundations of the modern Western view of the world. I was tempted to say that it would be the most revolutionary change in our nderstanding of reality since the fish crawled out on land, but this would be overlooking the fact that the world view of the modern West is a comparatively recent invention, stemming mainly from the rise of materialist science in recent centuries. Earlier cultures had, and non- Western cultures still have, more expansive views of the extent of reality.

from "Apparent Communication with Discarnate Entities Induced by Dimethyltryptamine (DMT)" Psychedelic Monographs and Essays #5

 

[Chadaev]

Thanks for that heads up, Global. As I get the time I'll try and go through all the reports I can find. On the other hand, I don't like to overload on others' experiences, so I take them bit by bit.

Nen888, Meyer seems to be spot on here. And I agree that it is difficult to have the range of competencies to think informatively about these entities. To the competencies of shaman and anthropologist I would add the need for familiarity with western and non-western ontologies, the mystical tradition and its exploration of the mundus imaginalis in particular, and or course phenomenological sensitivity.

I came across this worthy effort, which nonetheless, I think, falls down because it takes categories like 'subjective', 'objective', 'biological' and so forth for granted. By contrast, there is a kind of hermeneutic circle which needs to be recognised for the investigation of these realms: we necessarily make preliminary judgements about the ontological status of various phenomena as we go, but those phenomena must themselves be allowed to force changes in our ontological categories. These refined categories can then get taken into the phenomenological breach again where they will hopefully illuminate the entified worlds a little more; but will come up short in important ways and will need rethinking; etc, etc. Otherwise we just have incomprehension masquerading as sober science.

http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_21_1_rodriguez.pdf

People here have probably heard this, but if not it is very worthwhile:

http://www.sheldrake.org/Trialogues/Entities1.mp3

 

[Chadaev]

And this is the continuation of the same trialogue on disincarnate entities by Sheldrake, Abrams and McKenna.

 

[Chadaev]

Err...

http://www.sheldrake.org/Trialogues/Entities2.mp3

 

[nen888]

..on the Mantis, it is of course sacred to Islam and the bedouin, said to pray to Allah..old islam had some great 'hyperspace' art..see Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

 

[gilga_mesh]

Somewhere I once read that apparently there even exists an alien race that looks like mantis, there are people who claim they've been in contact with them, others again say that the mantis run the show
not only on earth but on a great part of this corner of the universe, ie. the masters of the greys and the reptilians.

I'm really curious too about these guys as I noticed that sometimes people meet them on their spice journeys.

 

[Chadaev]

This stuff about Islam is interesting, especially when put together with the importance of the mantis in a number of other cultures. Perhaps the assumption that, when it comes to the ontological status of these DMT entities, we must either choose between the subjective projection idea or the autonomously existing non-physical entity idea is misplaced. There might be, instead, a kind of feedback loop between cultural objectifications of these creatures and their own, for want of a better phrase, 'spiritual presence'. The same would go for many other historically highly culturally elaborated animals (doves, dogs, lions, snakes, etc, etc). This might help to explain why, comparatively speaking, the vast majority of physically existing animals and insects never get much of a look in as far as the inner spaces of the spice taker are concerned. That is, to appear within the DMT trip, an animal spirit presence might need the booster power of centuries of human cultural symbolisation.

Of course, this doesn't help much with the elves. That is, where do THEY get their initial spritual presence from?

To throw light on this problem it would be interesting to see if there is any difference between the experiential qualities of DMT elves and DMT insects.

 

[Global]

This stuff about Islam is interesting, especially when put together with the importance of the mantis in a number of other cultures. Perhaps the assumption that, when it comes to the ontological status of these DMT entities, we must either choose between the subjective projection idea or the autonomously existing non-physical entity idea is misplaced. There might be, instead, a kind of feedback loop between cultural objectifications of these creatures and their own, for want of a better phrase, 'spiritual presence'. The same would go for many other historically highly culturally elaborated animals (doves, dogs, lions, snakes, etc, etc). This might help to explain why, comparatively speaking, the vast majority of physically existing animals and insects never get much of a look in as far as the inner spaces of the spice taker are concerned. That is, to appear within the DMT trip, an animal spirit presence might need the booster power of centuries of human cultural symbolisation.

Of course, this doesn't help much with the elves. That is, where do THEY get their initial spritual presence from?

To throw light on this problem it would be interesting to see if there is any difference between the experiential qualities of DMT elves and DMT insects.

In addition to subjective projection and autonomously existing non-physical entities is the combination of those two concepts as the projection of autonomously existing non-physical entities such that they are autonomous somewhere "out there" being filtered internally and externally projected.

Also, perhaps the reason why lions and snakes for example appear rather frequently in DMT experiences as opposed to other animals is more the reason that these animals have become symbolic in the first place. In other words, instead of these animals having been symbolized and revered for so long, that they pop up in DMT experiences, I think it is perhaps more likely that these animals have been archetypal symbols in hyperspace long before humans realized a symbolic significance, but because of their observation of them in altered states, they began to realize the inherent symbolism in certain animals.

 

[Chadaev]

In addition to subjective projection and autonomously existing non-physical entities is the combination of those two concepts as the projection of autonomously existing non-physical entities such that they are autonomous somewhere "out there" being filtered internally and externally projected.

If I understand this, then I think I agree. But I as I read it, the appearance of the mantises is adaptable to setting, at least to some extent, suggesting that when they "show up" in our experience their visual form is partly influenced by our imaginations.

Another variable is the frequency of types of entities. Elves and mantises are common on smoked DMT but rare on aya; while snakes are, according to my experience and also to Shanon's book, the most common aya entity by far. As far as I know snakes are not that common on smoked DMT.

Taking a guess, do you think it would be correct to say that mantises are the single most common entity experienced on spice?

 

[divineyes]

"Also, perhaps the reason why lions and snakes for example appear rather frequently in DMT experiences as opposed to other animals is more the reason that these animals have become symbolic in the first place. In other words, instead of these animals having been symbolized and revered for so long, that they pop up in DMT experiences, I think it is perhaps more likely that these animals have been archetypal symbols in hyperspace long before humans realized a symbolic significance, but because of their observation of them in altered states, they began to realize the inherent symbolism in certain animals."

Lions and Snakes? Lion-headed snakes? Oh, that how the Gnostics Philosophers have described Yaldabaoth, or Demiurge,- the False Cretor God, also known as the Chief Archon. Have a peek:

"He is Demiurge and maker of man, but as a ray of light from above enters the body of man and gives him a soul, Yaldabaoth is filled with envy; he tries to limit man's knowledge by forbidding him the fruit of knowledge in paradise. The Demiurge, fearing lest Jesus, whom he had intended as his Messiah, should spread the knowledge of the Supreme God, had him crucified by the Romans. At the consummation of all things all light will return to the Pleroma. But Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, with the material world, will be cast into the lower depths. In Pistis Sophia Yaldabaoth has already sunk from his high estate and resides in Chaos, where, with his forty-nine demons, he tortures wicked souls in boiling rivers of pitch, and with other punishments (pp. 257, 382). He is an archon with the face of a lion, half flame and half darkness. Yaldabaoth is frequently called "the Lion-faced", leontoeides, with the body of a serpent. We are told also,[24] that the Demiurge is of a fiery nature, the words of Moses being applied to him, “the Lord our God is a burning and consuming fire,” a text used also by Simon.[25]"

Demiurge - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What think ye, fellow Nexians?

 

[Global]

In addition to subjective projection and autonomously existing non-physical entities is the combination of those two concepts as the projection of autonomously existing non-physical entities such that they are autonomous somewhere "out there" being filtered internally and externally projected.

If I understand this, then I think I agree. But I as I read it, the appearance of the mantises is adaptable to setting, at least to some extent, suggesting that when they "show up" in our experience their visual form is partly influenced by our imaginations.

That's why it's a combination of being filtered internally and projected externally. Yes they can be influenced by the mind, and that is because of the way it's filtered internally. Let's take a more simplistic example with consensual reality to try and make more sense of this. As you stare at your computer, you are taking an external local stimulus, internalizing and filtering it and then projecting it back out into the world. You are not seeing your computer as it actually exists. With DMT, we may have a similar process except the external stimulus may be non-local and because of its nonlocality being somewhat paradoxically locally projected, it may seem to be more suceptible to those filters. I might note as well that in my personal experience, my "imagination" seems to have quite little to do or little effect on hyperspace.

Another variable is the frequency of types of entities. Elves and mantises are common on smoked DMT but rare on aya; while snakes are, according to my experience and also to Shanon's book, the most common aya entity by far. As far as I know snakes are not that common on smoked DMT.

Taking a guess, do you think it would be correct to say that mantises are the single most common entity experienced on spice?

I've had hundreds of smoked DMT experiences and I've encountered snakes a number of times. Entities that match the description of elves seem to be more auditory than visual for me (I can often hear elf chatter, but I never see anything that looks quite like the way elves are described to me - perhaps I am seeing them, but if so they present themselves as significantly more abstract than I would think). Furthermore I don't ever recall seeing any mantises. It would be wise to stay away from generalizations such as these as much as possible.

 

[Chadaev]

Fascinating as these Gnostic tales are, they come across to me as highly fantasmagoric. That is, as unrestrained by any reference to the empirical-sensuous realm and human pragmatic dealings with it. For this reason these tales have a take them or leave them quality and seem immune to rational evaluation. Should one, for instance, "believe" in this serpent-lion Demiurge, or "believe" instead in Quetzalcoatl, the serpent-eagle god of the Mexicas? What really interests me about the DMT mantises in particular is the possibility that they might readily and repeatedly make themselves available for encounter, communication and study.

This is why, despite Global's warning about generalisations, I would be keen to know whether we can learn anything about dose, set and setting that might contribute to particular entities showing up. It seems, for instance, that snakes appear to Global on DMT but not to me (whereas they do for me on aya); meanwhile I see mantises on DMT but not on aya and Global doesn't see them. So could people learn from each other so as to open up dimensions for each other which they currently have differential access to? I think there are a lot of imponderables here, but throwing around some speculations might illuminate matters.

For instance, my sense from very powerful aya journeys is that the insect realm is a relatively superficial guardian realm, and that when I go deeper (or what may be the same thing, when some of the extreme sense of sharp "otherness" dissipates), snakes sometimes appear. The Caapi seems to facilitate this overcoming of the sense of extreme otherness - which for me is a mark of the pure DMT experience. So, I wonder, then, whether snakes showed up at the beginning of his acquaintance with DMT for Global, or whether they only appeared after familiarity with the experience had softened its experiential alienness. And what else can be said about when and under what conditions particular entities show up?

That's why it's a combination of being filtered internally and projected externally. Yes they can be influenced by the mind, and that is because of the way it's filtered internally. Let's take a more simplistic example with consensual reality to try and make more sense of this. As you stare at your computer, you are taking an external local stimulus, internalizing and filtering it and then projecting it back out into the world. You are not seeing your computer as it actually exists. With DMT, we may have a similar process except the external stimulus may be non-local and because of its nonlocality being somewhat paradoxically locally projected, it may seem to be more suceptible to those filters. I might note as well that in my personal experience, my "imagination" seems to have quite little to do or little effect on hyperspace.

Can you say more about non-local? Are you thinking that these entities live somewhere else? Or are being observed by us from across some vast distance?

It would also be interesting to know whether anything like an ecology or environmental niche has been observed. As I experience the mantises they come out of a kind of energetic flux, and so far I've had no sign of them interacting with their surroundings or otherwise showing me what home is for them or otherwise giving me any clues as to how they have come to evolve.

 

[Global]

This is why, despite Global's warning about generalisations, I would be keen to know whether we can learn anything about dose, set and setting that might contribute to particular entities showing up.

Some people get entities; some people don't. Some people get the same entity every time; some people get a wide variety of entities. You can take the same dose in the same place at the same time of day on the same day of the week for a year and you can easily get radically different experiences every time. The mechanism for what type of experience with or without entities and of what kind seem to be at this time beyond our capacity to know.

For instance, my sense from very powerful aya journeys is that the insect realm is a relatively superficial guardian realm, and that when I go deeper (or what may be the same thing, when some of the extreme sense of sharp "otherness" dissipates), snakes sometimes appear. The Caapi seems to facilitate this overcoming of the sense of extreme otherness - which for me is a mark of the pure DMT experience. So, I wonder, then, whether snakes showed up at the beginning of his acquaintance with DMT for Global, or whether they only appeared after familiarity with the experience had softened its experiential alienness. And what else can be said about when and under what conditions particular entities show up?

Joseph Campbell talks at length about the universal mythological symbolism of certain animals. It has been my experience that the world's mythologies and their symbols are highly congruent with the DMT realm. Snakes are a symbol of death and rebirth - snakes shed their skin. In religion and mythology, the snake fairly reliably acts as this symbol. Because of which, if you start seeing snakes, you might ask yourself what their presence in itself is trying to tell you. I've read a number of reports where the experiencer is devoured by snakes and then spit out somewhere else entirely (death-rebirth).

Likewise a couple months ago, I found myself face to face with the Egyptian Bennu Bird. Now I had no idea what it was at the time, and didn't recognize it other than just based on the aesthetics, it was obvious it was Egyptian. The interesting thing was that I saw it on the winter solstice. Afterward, I was curious to see if there was a connection between my experience and the solstice, so I went to google and tried looking up "Egyptian solstice symbols" figuring that the Egyptians were into astrology and the solstice is like the biggest astrological event of the year. Well my search turned up null, so I decided to google "egyptian bird symbols" since the bird was the only part of the experience that I could actually recall and put into some kind of words. Surely enough the exact bird I saw pops up in the image search. After doing some short research, all sources had pretty much the same things to say about the bird and that it was a "bird of the sun" (the celestial body of interest in the solstice is the sun), a symbol of death-rebirth, the "original" Phoenix (the Greeks got the idea for the Phoenix after visiting Egypt), synonymous with Osiris (who was killed and resurrected) not to mention the fact that the major theme of all solstice festivals (of which there are a lot) is death-rebirth. So there seemed to be a rather clear connection between this Bennu Bird and the winter solstice on which I encountered it. But then I also started thinking if it was trying to signal some death-rebirth in my life, and I wasn't quite sure what that may be. Surely enough, two days later after smoking DMT, I had a full blown white light encounter with the godhead which is most likely the single most transformative kind of experience most people can ever have the hopes of having. So perhaps the mantis will become more meaningful to you if you can try to contextualize these experiences symbolically.

That's why it's a combination of being filtered internally and projected externally. Yes they can be influenced by the mind, and that is because of the way it's filtered internally. Let's take a more simplistic example with consensual reality to try and make more sense of this. As you stare at your computer, you are taking an external local stimulus, internalizing and filtering it and then projecting it back out into the world. You are not seeing your computer as it actually exists. With DMT, we may have a similar process except the external stimulus may be non-local and because of its nonlocality being somewhat paradoxically locally projected, it may seem to be more suceptible to those filters. I might note as well that in my personal experience, my "imagination" seems to have quite little to do or little effect on hyperspace.

Can you say more about non-local? Are you thinking that these entities live somewhere else? Or are being observed by us from across some vast distance?

I'm not trying to imply that they're some incredibly vast distance away. Rather I think it's non-local in the sense that it's in a higher dimension(s) that doesn't necessarily coincide with our "nexus" in space-time.

 

[Chadaev]

Your encounter with the Bennu bird, Global, is fascinating. I googled it, but there are many versions around. Would you care to post the picture that comes closest to what you experienced?

Surely enough, two days later after smoking DMT, I had a full blown white light encounter with the godhead which is most likely the single most transformative kind of experience most people can ever have the hopes of having. So perhaps the mantis will become more meaningful to you if you can try to contextualize these experiences symbolically.

Yes, I think this is good advice and I've definitely been trying to do so. This is basic to the Jungian technique of active imagination, which I've practiced sometimes, and which clearly led Jung into some incredibly rich imagistic and symbolic territory (see the Red Book especially). One curious association which crops up here and there, and which is congruent with my own spice travels, is the Mantis-surgeon one. I will have to see if any more material turns up on this.

I'm a little wary of quickly translating phenomena into symbols, however. Good phenomenology tarries for as long as possible with the presences themselves, treating them with a curious artistic eye, asking about their how and their where, their purposes, their habits, their relationships, etc, etc, before conclusively deciding "what" they are. James Hillman gives excellent reasons for this in relation to dream analysis (see A Blue Fire). Ultimately I think the phenomena can and should be symbolised, and Hillman's approach won't hold water philosophically (since it underplays the extent to which phenomena are organied categorically, which is to say, symbolically), but it is good methodology.

As one example of a need for caution, take your bird. You understand it in relation to your own life as a death-rebirth symbol. But you also view snakes as symbols with the same content. So we might ask why you, who have seen snakes many times, were treated to this rather more exotic and culturally specific apparition if indeed the "message" was the same. The solar-samadhi dimension of your experience might be a clue.

Meanwhile, my experiences of snakes and my reading of them as symbols suggests that they are polyvalent. In ouroboric form they may entail eternity but also absurdity or sterility (cf. the dragon biting its own tail). When the mouth is prominent they may express the oral-incorporative dimension of the ego in all its primitive blindness. When their wave like motion is accented they may embody the reconciliation of opposites in an ongoing energetic dialectic. When they rise up in your spine, as they sometimes do on aya, they literalise the kundalini vision of the bisexual energetic phallus.

The point is that at any given time only attention to the specificity of the phenomenon will point in the direction of the richest and most adequate intution as to what it "means".

 

[Global]

Funny that I mentioned how the snake is symbolic of death-rebirth, the Bennu Bird is symbolic of death rebirth, and now in the preying mantis thread in the Hyperspace Tavern sub-forum, Aegle wrote this:

The praying mantis is the oldest symbol of God: the African Bushman’s manifestation of God come to Earth, “the voice of the infinite in the small,”* a divine messenger. When one is seen, diviners try to determine the current message. In this culture they are also associated with restoring life into the dead. “Mantis” is the Greek word for “prophet” or “seer,” a being with spiritual or mystical powers.

Death-rebirth may well be one of the overarching grand themes of the psychedelic experience.

 

[Chadaev]

Yeah, the mantis is way deep down the rabbit hole! It was when I learned the etymology of "mantis" as Greek for prophet or seer that I thought: this just has to be pursued!

The San Bushmen stuff is incredible too, though the the idea that they are the first image of god seems fairly speculative. More frequently the San mantis seems to be a Trickster figure. Promethean culture hero themes are evident too:

The Mantis and the San | Stories from Namibia

Mantis stories with a moral from the San people in Southern Africa

www.gateway-africa.com

This association with stealing fire reminds me of the phoenix death-rebirth idea. Perhaps there is a mythic connection, since culture heroes generally have to go through death and rebirth.