OneIsEros
Rising Star
From Nick Sand’s article “Moving Into the Sacred World of DMT”:
“Look at it as though consciousness were a set of stairs. Each stair represents a higher level of health, integration, and preparedness. At the bottom one can use the psychedelics with beer, opium, and cocaine to have a wilder party. One can use them to lose one’s self, have great sex, etc. Fine and good; nothing really wrong, if that’s what you want to do—it beats shooting people and raping the environment! This is, however, a low level of consciousness. Then you go up a few levels and you think that you can do some good with these compounds. Let’s use them for studying madness or curing addiction. Still a pretty low level of consciousness and no real commitment to personal development. This use is directed outward, not inward. Change comes from within—it can never be imposed from the outside. The next step up it occurs that maybe you could use psychedelics for finding answers to questions in your life, perhaps even for vision questing. Now we’re beginning to start on a more consciousness-oriented trip. But how are we doing it? Are we really arranging it so that we are creating an environment that unequivocally sets the stage for a leap into consciousness, or are we programming the trip with interruptions (telephone calls, visitors)? The purer our intention, the greater the possible results become. It can be quite subtle. You cannot plan it all out beyond a certain point or it becomes a control trip. You cannot program out spontaneity, but you can be intelligent and sensitive, and remember not to make the same mistake too many times in a row. Then you can use the psychedelics as an adjunct to tantra, meditation and/or yoga, devoting your entire trip to learning to go deep in these disciplines while continuing these practices on a long-term basis. This is the highest, most visionary, and most productive level. From whatever level you begin, the psychedelics will enhance, intensify, deepen, or broaden your experience, but they are working with the level of consciousness you provide them.”
psychedelicfrontier.com
Nick Sand was one of the luminaries at the beginning of the Western civilization’s mass introduction to psychedelics. He saw that access to psychedelics was something the world needed, so, he devoted his life to making and distributing psychedelics. He succeeded in that mission, aided by his many bretheren in underground psychedelic chemistry, and those who helped spread the arts of psychedelic botany.
He makes an interesting point for us now. Moving past hedonism, we move to medicalization: we can cure mental illness or drug addiction! But he notes that this is still quite a low level. So you had your MDMA therapy session and your PTSD is gone? Or your ibogaine trip, and you are no longer hooked on heroin? All that this leads to is back to life as usual.
For transformation, for meaningful engagement, he points us to yoga and meditation. I think his point here is just that the best and highest use of psychedelics is to encounter God or comparable realities. And it leads me to wonder: at this time in our history, is the mission to attain access a phase that has been successfully completed? Anyone can grow shrooms, or cacti, or order ayahuasca ingredients online, or do DMT extractions, and acid isn’t too difficult to find...
And the medicalization thing is coming to a head... MDMA’s going to be legal. Ibogaine will probably be brought into the spotlight with this opioid epidemic, too... psychotherapy? Drug rehab? The two major medical uses: check, and check.
Perhaps the next big phase in service to the psychedelic culture will not be underground chemistry or medicine (though these will always be necessary, at least the underground chemistry will be until it’s all legalized)... but in teaching people how to trip?
Sand mentions yoga and meditation. I think teaching psychedelic yoga and meditation is a great idea. I’ve had success with it. I’d just like to add one thing: indigenous practices. Yes, indigenous practices are not yogic/meditative, and their aims aren’t “transcendental”... BUT... they are the only truly traditional practices with psychedelics that exist. Everything else is experimental, not even a hundred years old yet.
In short: the next great service will not be providing the drugs (the last big mission), or bringing them into medicine (the current big mission), but teaching people how to use them, using yogic, meditative, and shamanic techniques.
“Look at it as though consciousness were a set of stairs. Each stair represents a higher level of health, integration, and preparedness. At the bottom one can use the psychedelics with beer, opium, and cocaine to have a wilder party. One can use them to lose one’s self, have great sex, etc. Fine and good; nothing really wrong, if that’s what you want to do—it beats shooting people and raping the environment! This is, however, a low level of consciousness. Then you go up a few levels and you think that you can do some good with these compounds. Let’s use them for studying madness or curing addiction. Still a pretty low level of consciousness and no real commitment to personal development. This use is directed outward, not inward. Change comes from within—it can never be imposed from the outside. The next step up it occurs that maybe you could use psychedelics for finding answers to questions in your life, perhaps even for vision questing. Now we’re beginning to start on a more consciousness-oriented trip. But how are we doing it? Are we really arranging it so that we are creating an environment that unequivocally sets the stage for a leap into consciousness, or are we programming the trip with interruptions (telephone calls, visitors)? The purer our intention, the greater the possible results become. It can be quite subtle. You cannot plan it all out beyond a certain point or it becomes a control trip. You cannot program out spontaneity, but you can be intelligent and sensitive, and remember not to make the same mistake too many times in a row. Then you can use the psychedelics as an adjunct to tantra, meditation and/or yoga, devoting your entire trip to learning to go deep in these disciplines while continuing these practices on a long-term basis. This is the highest, most visionary, and most productive level. From whatever level you begin, the psychedelics will enhance, intensify, deepen, or broaden your experience, but they are working with the level of consciousness you provide them.”
Moving Into the Sacred World of DMT, by Nick Sand - Psychedelic Frontier
"Moving Into the Sacred World of DMT," by one of the most prolific underground chemists in history, is essential reading for anyone interested in DMT.
Nick Sand was one of the luminaries at the beginning of the Western civilization’s mass introduction to psychedelics. He saw that access to psychedelics was something the world needed, so, he devoted his life to making and distributing psychedelics. He succeeded in that mission, aided by his many bretheren in underground psychedelic chemistry, and those who helped spread the arts of psychedelic botany.
He makes an interesting point for us now. Moving past hedonism, we move to medicalization: we can cure mental illness or drug addiction! But he notes that this is still quite a low level. So you had your MDMA therapy session and your PTSD is gone? Or your ibogaine trip, and you are no longer hooked on heroin? All that this leads to is back to life as usual.
For transformation, for meaningful engagement, he points us to yoga and meditation. I think his point here is just that the best and highest use of psychedelics is to encounter God or comparable realities. And it leads me to wonder: at this time in our history, is the mission to attain access a phase that has been successfully completed? Anyone can grow shrooms, or cacti, or order ayahuasca ingredients online, or do DMT extractions, and acid isn’t too difficult to find...
And the medicalization thing is coming to a head... MDMA’s going to be legal. Ibogaine will probably be brought into the spotlight with this opioid epidemic, too... psychotherapy? Drug rehab? The two major medical uses: check, and check.
Perhaps the next big phase in service to the psychedelic culture will not be underground chemistry or medicine (though these will always be necessary, at least the underground chemistry will be until it’s all legalized)... but in teaching people how to trip?
Sand mentions yoga and meditation. I think teaching psychedelic yoga and meditation is a great idea. I’ve had success with it. I’d just like to add one thing: indigenous practices. Yes, indigenous practices are not yogic/meditative, and their aims aren’t “transcendental”... BUT... they are the only truly traditional practices with psychedelics that exist. Everything else is experimental, not even a hundred years old yet.
In short: the next great service will not be providing the drugs (the last big mission), or bringing them into medicine (the current big mission), but teaching people how to use them, using yogic, meditative, and shamanic techniques.
. You just have to try to veiw things from a more modern veiw rather than the old terms like “shaman” .. anyways hopefully this helps clarify what the nexus really does for ya. 
