Found right side of Saint Martin image: curved pruning knife. Entire guy, good view of arms, much more image than I expected to the right of Browns’ published photos.
We can only see the white garment left leg; we cannot see the right leg, and we can’t really say except by comparison to the cloak-spreading guys.
We can defensibly argue that the cloak-spreaders’ weight is on their right legs, and so therefore we can read the right-hand figure as, his weight is on his right leg, which we cannot see.
Regarding the non-branching portion of the spear-palm tree, it is relative: we compromise and compare relative amount of branching held by left hands versus relative amount of non-branching held by right hand.
Hold branching with left hand, cut/ prune branching with right hand.
Or hold non-branching branch with right hand, equivalently.
That branch held in right hand, spear aimed at Jesus’ right side, is Browns’ “slightly curved sword”.
Browns don’t mention the curved pruning knife. They are intend on making the point that the straight knife in the other painting, the tree tower scene, matches the knives on the last supper table, indicating that they are eating mushrooms.
Dizzying perspective, and hard to make out, but very clear view of white left arm and right arm holding knife.
I adhered to the Rush/ Brown policy of blurry internet images.
“The most powerful thing in the world is the symbol.
“Through symbols, we create stories and myths that bring people to action.
“Where did the original symbols regarding an afterlife come from?
“The spiritual world is a fascinating place even more so today in that it is in direct competition with the metaphysics of science, especially physics, with numerous theories surrounding the origin of the universe and life. “
“We read the universe came from nothing, we hear of singularities, multiverses, wormholes, string theory, metaphysics at its best.
“What do you think of as the spiritual world may be more than something that brings from our imaginings, of a world beyond that can be glimpsed, and perhaps manipulated if we perform the rituals correctly.
“As the reader will appreciate the spiritual world and quantum physics have a lot in common.”
“Join Dr. Rush as he takes you through the world of imagination, of magic, shamanism, and worlds beyond.”
Quantum freewill fog
Free will really exists when you’re in the ordinary state of consciousness.
The mechanical explanation of how that is so is because of quantum physics & manyworlds branching. 😑
– Cybermonk, Newage Physicist
Horse or donkey lifting left leg, relying on right leg. Rough copy from John Rush site by Cybermonk.
I recorded a podcast today that I could maybe upload without really needing to do time-consuming production work.
But after nicely recording and speaking about the ideas, it is pretty easy then to summarize them in text here.
Mobile device composition continues in this posting and my last many postings.
Presenting an innovative theory requires being a sociopath
The sociopath requirement: you have to be a sociopath in order to deliver a radical revolutionary new paradigm that turns the world upside down, transforms everyone and transforms the world, the universe, the cosmos itself.
Provided by Cyberdisciple Brinckmann plate from 1906 book double-recommended to Wasson by PanofskyPhoto: Julie M. Brown, Saint Martin’s chapel
The radical philosophy of science per Paul Feyerabend says that the new theory doesn’t even need to give the time of day or acknowledge or even mention the old theory.
Look at the failed attempt of Roland Griffiths’ CEQ article, which produced the garbage CEQ questionnaire, that silently omits all the questions related to control.
The would-be scientific article has no discussion at all of these control-challenging questions which he lists from previous questionnaires and then silently deletes them with no scientific discussion, or no any kind of discussion, just silent censorship: this is the opposite of science.
Despite the fact of his using the science-article apparatus, but he does so very inconsistently.
There is no need to cite previous similarly garbled articles, building a garbled house out of garbled bricks.
What exactly is the purpose of citations or of giving evidence in your new science article?
Especially if it’s a radical revolutionary new paradigm, a new, much clearer, much better organization of existing ideas, requiring the transformation of each of these building block old ideas in order to make them fit together in a far more coherent and useful arrangement.
The reason to cite evidence, books, articles, and discussions is to participate in an ongoing debate.
Look at the purpose for which Panofsky recommended Brinckmann’s book to Wasson: in order to make the case that mushroom imagery does not mean mushrooms, which we describe as looking like mushroom trees.
Citing an article does not mean that the article is 100% correct or 90% correct – it may be 100% wrong but you still might want to cite it to participate in the ongoing debate and treatment of the topic.
Roland Griffiths acts like he is citing all of these previous questionnaires in order to disregard them and silently ignore their wisdom, when these previous questionnaires include questions regarding the threat of loss of control, including the word ‘marionette’ and the word ‘helpless’, which he silently censored, failing to provide any scientific discussion, or any discussion at all, of why he is deleting all of the control-related questions.
Suggestogens: What’s in a Name?
Answer: A typically lopsided Irvin take.
I cite Jan Irvin’s article that falsely claims that psychedelics are most essentially “suggestogens”.
Roland Griffiths’ 2008 article “Guidelines for Safety” has a passage against Jan Irvin’s “psychedelics are actually suggestogens” claim.
The section “hallucinogen use by indigenous cultures” is relevant to Irvin’s writings in two ways.
Griffiths talks about that we can’t use indigenous use as a model because that use sometimes includes human sacrifice and cursing each other by using psychedelics.
Irvin’s new book covers this – what does his book say positively about the positive potentials of psilocybin?
Which of Irvin’s chapters present the positive potentials of psilocybin?
There’s a paragraph at the end of Griffith’s section debating the alleged mere suggestability basis of spiritual effects:
the association of hallucinogens with spiritual experience relates to the pharmacology of these agents rather than being based entirely on cultural suggestion.
Page 4, Roland Griffiths, 2008 article “human hallucinogen research: guidelines for safety”
Griffiths says that yes we admit that there was some spin that Huxley put spin to, and Wasson put spin to try to misrepresent mushrooms as spiritual in indigenous use.
We have evidence that psychedelics are inherently spiritual, and it’s not just an artificial claim, though they give some suggestibility, but there’s more to it than merely cultural suggestion – against Jan Irvin.
Roland Griffiths exactly makes the same point that I’ve been making a lot in some of my podcast recordings which I have not uploaded, and in my postings:
I have explained how Jan Irvin has reductionistically conflated the social abuse of psychedelics with their cognitive mechanism effects.
See Irvin’s article “Entheogens: what’s in a name?”, which is part of his article series “the secret history of magic mushrooms”, at logosmedia.com.
I cite Jan Irvin’s important articles in order to show what they contribute and what they get wrong.
That was the main point of my Allegro article, was trying to get people to treat both the contributions and limitations (ie harmful errors) of any writer, eg Allegro’s several topical views (secrecy, primitive Christians only, fertility totem, Amanita as the entheogen).
The Challenging Experiences* Questionnaire (CEQ)
*other than control-loss challenges
🏥 🍽 🐉
The CEQ article is a travesty of a scientific article.
The one-page CEQ questionnaire is bunk, because it is totally vulnerable to the dragon attack, because it refuses to have any questions regarding the threat of catastrophic loss of control.
The CEQ article fails to give the solution, which is to “surrender and submit and accept the lack of control”, as the folk psychologists tell – as Griffith recommends in the middle of his 2008 article “guidelines for safety”, and as presented throughout Michelle Janikian’s 2019 book your psilocybin mushroom companion.
The CEQ article fails to explain the jewels, 💎🏆 the treasure, transcendent knowledge; gnosis, of how to pass through the shadow 🦵🐉🚪🦵💎 to get to the other side and achieve successful completed passage transformation by grappling with and demonstrating 🗡 💨 the limits of control.
🦵🐉🚪🦵💎
Leg analysis (3:20 pm Dec 19, 2022 by Cybermonk)
Abraham’s right foot touches the ground, left foot doesn’t touch the ground. = Relying on eternalism-thinking.
Isaac’s left leg is extended, equivalent to relying on left leg, per my Mithraism legs analysis around April 2022. = Relying on possibilism-thinking.
Isaac’s right leg is bent, which means not relying on right leg.
The CEQ article fails to discuss in any way why there are questions about control-loss challenges in the earlier questionnaires.
The CEQ article fails to discuss why the control-challenging questions get deleted from the CEQ questionnaire.
The CEQ “scientific” (partly scientific, inconsistently scientific, and selectively scientific) article is a failure, it leaves a HUGE GAPING VULNERABILITY – and inability to complete the transformation game.
1/3 of the article is a gigantic gap the size of a barn door for the dragon to come in and wreak havoc on the king’s rulership of his kingdom.
Innovative theorists must be sociopaths ignoring people’s feelings
Steve Jobs does not go around asking stupid customers what their preconceptions and expectations are; he said instead here is a revolutionary computer, you should buy it, and you can decide whether to buy it or not, but I’m not here to ask you what’s your opinion of what you think that a good new computer would be.
Erik Davis’ Expanding Mind podcast uses the strategy of ignoring the stupid audience reaction of the thumb angle 👎👍
Davis just said here’s the episode: you should listen to it.
It’s up to you whether to listen to it or not, but Davis is not here to ask you what your presupposition and expectation is.
Davis is not concerned what your reaction is, because he doesn’t want to be influenced and limited by your reaction, the audience’s reaction.
It’s none of my business what your expectation for the Egodeath theory is, or your reaction to the Egodeath theory.
My role and concern is just to articulate what the theory is, that’s all; to make it available, that’s all.
Here is the Theory, here is the math formula, it is what it is, deal with it – or don’t deal with it; that’s not my problem.
If you want to know about the shadow, and if you want to enjoy going in and out of the garden of the psilocybin high-dose state, you would be well-advised to read the Egodeath theory.
Else if not, it’s your loss.
Otherwise, good luck having stable control without the Egodeath theory –
“When it’s your time, I wonder how you’ll do, you broke (the rules), you’ve been (a fool), the little doll is you, yeah” – the song “Little Dolls” by Bob Daisley, sung by Ozzy Osbourne.
Do you want victory over the dragon, or not?
Do you want to be able to touch the blade of ego death cybernetic self-transgression of control to transcend personal control, or not?
If so, the Egodeath theory provides the way on a silver platter, provides full summary clarification, efficient and usable.
This is the “genius, don’t give a damn, sociopathic” attitude required to put forth something, a radical new theory (new as far as an organized system articulated in a clear new way) that contradicts the entire world.
I do not steer the Egodeath theory based on people’s reception or expectations, although I do take advantage of all the many corroborations that are plentiful in art and in books and articles which agree with major elements of the Egodeath theory.
My job is not defined by other people, except is the Theory worded clearly so that other people are able to make sense out of it, if they desire to make sense out of it?
All of my effort, my push – I have to push hard to communicate and CLEARLY DEFINE what the theory is as clearly as possible – not to persuade people who don’t like it, or who wishfully wish that free will is the case.
I am not here for somebody’s wish fulfillment, except unless you wish for a theory of no-free-will in the peak state, and a comprehensible interpretation of religious mythology that actually makes sense – then your wish shall be fulfilled – as long as I can clearly articulate what the theory is.
I am not here to serve naysayers, I am here to serve people who positively want this no free will psilocybin eternalism theory and who wish for a clear articulation specifying what it is and relating this theory to previous art and articles and books and videos and music and podcast discussions and debates.
My job is to debate in order to specify the coherent explanatory model/ successful theory, for those who want this thing specified.
Madness of Heracles
The right attitude that I have to have is double down: I double down on the clarity of my assertions.
I am immune to someone saying “I don’t like what you’re saying”, I’m immune to that, but the failure I am subject to is:
You failed to clarify what your assertion is; you failed to clarify what the model is – that is the sense in which I could potentially fail.
But if everyone dislikes the theory, that is in no way a failure, because success and failure is not defined in terms of stupid people’s reception and infantile deluded egoic wishful thinking.
Success and failure in this project is measured by my coherence and clarity of defining what the explanatory model is.
Theory articulation is not a popularity-driven matter.
There is an overlap between how clearly a theory is articulated, how nicely it is presented, and how popular the reception of that presentation is.
I will be hurt if you say that my presentation is poor.
I will not be hurt if you say:
“I don’t like what your theory is, because I wish the world to be some different way and I wish for freewill ego power to be the case, and I expect enlightenment to amplify my egoic freedom power.”
“I am not willing to buy and agree to a no-free-will system; I am only willing to purchase and agree to a freewill personal power amplification, open future, freedom branching theory of what gnosis/ enlightenment/ revelation/ purification is.”
Enjoy your seizure in the psilocybin state, but anyway, whatever, that’s your problem, your choice, your free choice of what you expect and demand from a theory of revelation and enlightenment and ego transcendence.
It is childish immature egoic innate human nature to expect ego transcendence to be all about ego inflation and ego-power amplification.
Many philosophers and religious philosophers assert (more or less) no-free-will in full support and agreement with the Egodeath theory.
The problem which I have is not a problem of people disagreeing with the theory; there are more than enough people and evidence asserting various aspects of this theory.
Their writings are just not very organized, compared to my theory, and therefore their expressions of gnosis are not effective and useful in the peak psilocybin state to maintain – and especially to transgress and transcend – personal control.
Free will effectively is the case in our ordinary state experience/ praxis.
Our experience is shaped in the form of free will branching possibilities into an open future with monolithic autonomous control personal agency with the power of steering to create our future control thoughts.
You better be really good at free will and personal self control conduct, because 100% of our time is spent in that mode, except for the little blip, instantaneous momentary blip of altered-state peak psilocybin session where we ride the dragon, and touch the blade, and sacrifice child thinking, and demonstrate our ability to put personal control, effective comtrol power stability, on trial and transgress the lower way of thinking, producing a new, later, mature mental model of control levels and branching possibilities. 🐍🪨
The Egodeath theory doesn’t actually contradict the entire world (even though it might confound some peoples expectations and it’s astonishing).
The Egodeath theory is very well supported, and there is much agreement between previous garbled thinking and this new coherent, clear thinking.
My role is not to consult and ask you to tell me what the theory ought to be and what your preconceptions and presumptions and expectations are, because your expectations of the audiences expectations are garbled, inconsistent, partly wrong, and ignorant and incomplete, like Sam Harris’ book asserting no free will is incomplete and inconsistent, not mystic-state developed and mature to endure the trial test demon stration in the psilocybin peak state.
Sam Harris’ thinking remains still perishable, and not integrated, and not transformed into a viable durable stable control system for the peak psilocybin state.
The measure of inconsistency and consistency is if you are able to sacrifice the child thinking, have a wound hole of rebirth in the side, and pass through the dragon guarded gate, and ride the dragon, and transgress control transcendently, and demonstrate and put control vulnerability and stability on trial — then you are consistent, only then.
Ramesh Balsekar’s ordinary-state assertion that enlightenment is of no-free-will is incomplete: he is not able to touch the blade; he is not able to ride the dragon; he has not sacrificed child thinking and learned to rely on the non-branching possibilities model.
bottom: freewill power
These authors haven’t become completed, transformed, consistent in the peak state, accommodating a closed future where your control-thoughts already exist and you don’t get to change them, you don’t have the power to change them; you merely discover what they already were created to be.
Richard Double wrote a book asserting no-free-will, but he has not learned to consciously put trust in the uncontrollable source of his control thoughts while in the peak psilocybin state.
Roland Griffiths’ 2008 article “Human Hallucinogen Research: Guidelines for Safety” has relatively “fair” coverage of the threat of loss of control and its minor solution to stave off control seizure.
The article lacks the major solution to “the shadow problem”, which is, to gain Transcendent Knowledge, which the Egodeath theory provides.
The goal is not merely negative, “avoid non-control”; the goal is to positively and pointedly transcend personal control and be transformed so as to become immune to the shadow dragon battle problem, and become able to ride the dragon or touch the blade of death while having a new form of control stability.
The “Guidelines for Safety” article has a relatively “fair” degree of coverage of control-related challenges, compared to the whitewashed, sanitized Challenging Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ).
Which is to merely say that the Guidelines article contains the folk-level, sub-scientific advice, like “surrender to the loss of control”.
The CEQ article has weak coverage of control-loss problems and solutions, though it lists good control-loss questions from previous questionnaires – before silently, covertly deleting those questions from the CEQ, providing no scientific justification for doing so; no discussion at all of doing so; no discussion of the control-related questions as such.
The CEQ article has no discussion at all of the control-related questions, which it omits from the CEQ – despite showing glimmerings of awareness of control-related challenges in the article “Human Hallucinogen Research: Guidelines for Safety”, and some in the CEQ article.
Status:
I have marked up all remaining hardcopy passages that I want to add to this post, though all points are probably here already.
Scare Quoting Conventions 😱 😵 😇
My excerpts here are accurate quotes, except inaccurate by lifting phrases and words out of context (eg via ellipses & omitting qualifiers), per the paranoid dissociative-state word-isolation technique.
Because that is the actual realistic safety situation in the altered state.
We have to think, here, in that “hypervigilant paranoia vortex trap” manner, to grasp the type and nature of the danger – and attraction to the scent of treasure, perceiving that there is a highly desirable higher reordering of the mental model, past the dragon gate.
Trying to read in an alarming, control-vortex attraction provoking way.
Citation/Link
Human Hallucinogen Research: Guidelines for Safety Johnson M, Richards W, Griffiths R. 2008 Journal of Psychopharmacology, 22, 603-620. 22(6):603-20. doi: 10.1177/0269881108093587. Epub 2008 Jul 1. PMID: 18593734; PMCID: PMC3056407. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3056407/
Article: “Human Hallucinogen Research: Guidelines for Safety”
Below are key excerpts, with my commentary per the Egodeath theory.
– Cybermonk, December 18, 2022
Section: Abstract
Page 1:
“Risks… and safeguards for minimizing these risks.”
“unique psychological risks. The most likely risk is overwhelming distress … (“bad trip”), which could lead to potentially dangerous behavior”
Strangely, Griffiths did not explicitly gather the bits of good advice which are buried in the body of the article:
surrender; submit; accept; ask the threatening dragon monster what lesson it is teaching
The solutions to teach people should be the first thing to mention in the Abstract takeaway.
“Safeguards against these risks include… careful volunteer preparation”
“adverse reactions are rare when research is conducted along these guidelines.”
“Incautious research may jeopardize participant safety and future research.”
“carefully conducted research may inform the treatment of … disorders, and may lead to advances in basic science.”
Possibilism-thinking bedevils the control system, until that immature, undeveloped, disordered, animal-like thinking is replaced by eternalism-thinking.
The Abstract does not summarize what does so-called “carefully conducted research” amounts to; that is, the rough, sub-scientific folk-wisdom advice instruction of “surrender and submit and accept the lack of control, and approach the shadow monster and ask it what it is teaching you”.
Only if we switch from this rough, dirty, folk expression, to the Egodeath theory’s proper, well-articulated, well-formed and mapped-out explanation, only then do we have a proper level of safety, and the ability to do research with success.
Section: Introduction
“spiritual significance”
“disorders”
“ayahuasca protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act”
“ayahuasca use within this church setting may receive increased scientific investigation”
“The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance in the safe administration of high doses of hallucinogens.”
“the likelihood of potential adverse effects will be related to dose.”
The concept of “avoid adverse effects” is lopsided, or vague at best. It’s said without comprehending the goal and nature of the game.
That framing omits the goal of passage through such effects to pin the serpent, to win the prize, to complete mental transformation.
We actually need to manage the negative testing demonstration of control limits, to successfully drive transferring control-reliance from possibilism-thinking ({left leg}) to eternalism-thinking ({right leg}).
“First, so that the historical context in which current human hallucinogen studies are conducted will be clear, we will briefly discuss the history of sacramental hallucinogen use by indigenous cultures, and the history of human hallucinogen research before it became dormant in the 1970s.”
This is very biased, with gigantic blind spots. Can’t you at least mention Eleusis? Short-sighted, no sense of world use, no sense of long history. “History” = indigenous + 20th Century, only, according to this tiny narrowing view.
Griffiths writes in 2008 as if the field of entheogen scholarship, the history of Western religious history of psychedelics, didn’t exist.
Why not at mention Graves 1957 through Ruck 2008, who showed that Western religious history used entheogens?
“it [psychedelics research] became dormant in the 1970s“
False; that narrative/framing is biased in favor of Big Pharma.
Psychedelics research did not become “dormant” from 1970 to 1992; research was underground and active.
Similar to my 1985-1997 development of the Core Egodeath theory; the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence.
The point in this section is that previous research was done without regard to safety, so it was halted, and so we need to put safety first, so research won’t be halted (ie driven underground) again.
“researchers should appreciate the precarious position of current human hallucinogen research, and recognize that very high safety standards will help to ensure that human research continues into the decades to come.”
precarious position
precarious self-threatening psalter image viewer
“we will provide a detailed description of the unique risks of hallucinogen administration.”
The unique risk is the mind is attracted to control-transcendence.
“We will then present the proposed guidelines for conducting high-dose hallucinogen research”
The unique guideline for safety (and successful transformation) is to learn to rely on eternalism-thinking instead of possibilism-thinking. In crude, hardly adequate folk-psychology terms: “surrender and trust”.
That type of guidance is limited to “safety”; it gives only an unproductive dead end, because not placed in the context of “how to safely pass through the gate to completion of mental transformation”.
Such “safety guidelines” amounts to merely how to avoid the transformation process.
/ end of Introduction section
Section: Relevant History
Section: Relevant History: Use by indigenous cultures
This section falsely reduces the history of entheogen use to exclusively indigenous use, and otherwise, “history” shortsightedly exclusively means 20th Century, only.
Biased, ignorant, severely and harmfully self-defeating, counterproductive, misrepresentative, bunk framing. This narrative writes-out almost all of our history of use, even while saying psychedelics were used forever.
Read this section as “historical use of psychedelics”.
Read ‘indigenous’ as ‘ancient and medieval’ use of psychedelics – aim for a greedy, Maximal long history of psychedelics use in all religions, all eras, all regions.
This 2008 article reads like it was written in 1970, as if the entheogen scholarship field didn’t exist, for Western religious history.
“Hallucinogens have been used by indigenous cultures for millennia.”
What about by non-indigenous cultures? Where’s the section covering that?
“without exception, such cultures view hallucinogenic plants and fungi as being of divine origin.”
“rites of passage“
The goal is pass through the gate, by transforming, not merely to avoid challenging experiences.
You can’t really talk about safety until you recognize the objective and nature of the danger and goal. Safety during what process, toward what transformation? Safety while trying to accomplish what?
Directionless “safety” is pretty irrelevant and unproductive.
This is what “safety” looks like from the wrong side of the transformation gateway, from a beginner culture’s point of view.
The whole field of play is obscured, not visible, to the Griffiths perspective – aiming for abstract safety but with no real grasp of context and purpose; that’s all unknown.
“incorporate a high degree of structure and guidance into their ayahuasca use, which may minimize adverse reactions“
“indigenous cultures should not be regarded as absolute role models in the clinical use of hallucinogens … human sacrifice, … sacramental headhunting, ayahuasca may be used by the shaman in that society for malevolent intent (i.e., bewitching)”
“some of the safeguards developed for clinical hallucinogen research and expressed in the guidelines presented herein are similar to important aspects of hallucinogen use by indigenous cultures. These common themes are structured use (… ritual …), restrictions on use including the need for guidance, and appreciation of … powerful psychological effects (expressed as reverence … these commonalities are more than coincidence. The unique pharmacology of classical hallucinogens may have shaped convergent practices across independent cultures.”
“the guidelines expressed herein for human clinical research with hallucinogens … developed in reaction to these same aspects of hallucinogen pharmacology.”
“the unique effects and safety concerns for hallucinogens … related to their ability to [produce] spiritual experiences.”
Did Irvin’s “secret history of magic mushrooms” cite Novak? Novak SJ. LSD before Leary: Sidney Cohen’s critique of 1950s psychedelic drug research. Isis 1997;88:87–110
“Novak (1997) hypothesized that Western intellectuals in the mid 1950’s such as Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard merely redefined the subjective effects resulting from hallucinogen administration as a spiritual experience, thereby popularizing such an association in western culture. … [but the facts that] indigenous cultures that ingest classical hallucinogens almost invariably do so under sacramental contexts … under supportive conditions hallucinogens occasion mystical-type experiences with high frequency, suggests that the association of hallucinogens with spiritual experience relates to the pharmacology of these agents rather than being based entirely on cultural suggestion.”
Against Jan Irvin’s “suggestogens” claim.
Section: Early clinical research
“more preparation and interpersonal support … found fewer adverse psychological reactions, such as panic reactions and paranoid episodes“
This “preparation” is: teach relying on eternalism-thinking instead of possibilism-thinking.
“symptoms of psychosis“
“the psychosis observed in schizophrenia“
“findings that have supported hallucinogens as a model of at least certain aspects of acute psychosis“
Are we all crazy yet?!
Ozzy Osbourne, live concert, expressing the standard normal expectation that Rock concertgoers are tripping.
“recreational hallucinogen use, … advocacy of hallucinogen use by youth further undermined an objective scientific approach to studying these compounds.”
The psychedelic rite of passage is specifically for {youths} and {maidens}, meaning for untransformed, undeveloped, untransformed, immature, perishable, still animal-like minds.
Don’t label others’ use as simply, solely recreational – or, redefine to broaden the term to overlap with other uses.
Jan Irvin objects to that as self-contradictory scheming, the narrative of why psychedelics were prohibited, because of youth recreational use, supposedly.
Major Section: Unique risks
“Hallucinogen administration in humans results in a unique profile of effects and potential adverse reactions that need to be appropriately addressed in order to maximize safety.”
“Different risks are associated … address those particular risks.”
“its own unique risk profile.”
“the primary safety concerns with hallucinogens are largely psychological“
Psychedelics produce the threat of loss of control, to gain Transcendent Knowledge and become able to have stable control in the altered state.
Before a session, one must learn to rely on {right leg} rather than {left leg}.
Learn about relying on eternalism-thinking (right leg; non-branching), as opposed to possibilism-thinking (left leg; branching).
Section: Toxicity
“tremors”
“blurred vision”
Seaspray blurs my vision The waves roll by so fast Save my ship of freedom I’m lashed helpless to the mast
Rush/Peart, No One at the Bridge
No mention of heart palpitations (uneven heartbeat, slow then fast) toward the end of high-dose session, as heard at the end of Rush song Cygnus X1.
Prediction: with Psilocybin legal, and in Schedule35 product’s capsule’d form of Golden Teacher strain of cubensis, along with using redosing technique to sustain the peak level, people will have the same palpitations as ergot.
Section: Abuse and dependence
Section: Acute psychological distress
“pose other psychological risks. The most likely risk … is … a “bad trip” … characterized by anxiety, fear/panic, … and/or paranoia. Distressing effects … sensory … frightening … disturbing hyperawareness of … processes … metaphysical … troubling thoughts or feelings about ultimate evil forces.”
“emotional experience is often intensified … when under the influence of … uncontrolled situations any of these effects may potentially escalate to dangerous behavior. … fear and paranoid delusions … erratic … dangerous behavior, … hazardous … take seriously such risks and take steps to avoid their occurrence.”
Section: Prolonged psychosis
“when used under the proper guidelines, … an important tool for … research”
“observations suggest … psychological material may be activated … such material, if not properly worked through and psychologically integrated, may lead to psychological difficulties … lasting beyond the session.”
Section: Lasting perceptual abnormalities
Major Section: Guidelines for safety
“The guidelines that follow are intended to support the safe administration of high doses … while minimizing … adverse reactions.”
“The present paper … providing a … detailed discussion of safety concerns.”
“The present guidelines … for high-dose hallucinogen research.”
“the proposed criteria are substantially more extensive … because these domains … require even greater attention for hallucinogens than for other classes of psychoactive drugs.”
“Although particular aspects of the proposed guidelines may be debatable, it is hoped that this paper will encourage such discussion while conveying the general themes and major domains of concern in … research. The proposed guidelines may serve as a helpful starting point for investigators planning to conduct … research.”
Section: Selection of volunteers
🤔 🤷♂️
Pregnant women or those not practicing effective means of birth control are excluded.
“Guidelines for Safety”, p. 9
{pregnant woman harassed by dragon}, {gave birth}
Section: Study personnel
personnel = guides and helpers
“For studies that are intended to maximize the potential for mystical-type experience …, an additional valuable monitor characteristic may be her or his ability to interact with and relate to the participant concerning spiritual issues.”
“even more compelling given the powerful influence … providing additional attention … beyond what is customary”
Section: Physical environment
“ensuring safety … acute psychological distress“
“The Johns Hopkins hallucinogen research projects use a living room-like setting (see Figure 1). The furniture is comfortable and is atypical for a research laboratory or medical office setting.”
Includes Buddha statue – did they use theurgy to draw down a demonic god into it? See bottom of this webpage.
Section: Preparation of volunteers
volunteer = client, initiate, voyager, psychonaut
“volunteer [client, voyager] preparation … must include a thorough review … in plain language … the range of experiences … changes in perception, sense of time and space, and emotion (… anxiety, fear, panic, and paranoia).”
“difficult to describe to a naïve volunteer; … additional time may be necessary to fully discuss these … effects”
“the approximate timecourse of the drug”
[intensity curve; teach redosing curve plots: trapezoid or dual mountain]
“its status as … experimental”
“risk of adverse effects … (such as depression), psychotic disorders, and anxiety disorders. … psychoses”
“developed a trusting relationship”
[with the higher controller, since you don’t control the source of your control thoughts]
“develop rapport and trust, … minimize … fear or anxiety reactions”
“discussions of … the volunteer’s philosophical and/or spiritual beliefs.”
Trust-building topics
Example rapport-building topics recommended by Cybermonk:
Do you control the source of your control thoughts?
🤔 👑 ☸️ 🌳
Do you know the Egodeath theory?
Have you read Godel, Escher, Bach?
If God is omnipotent, how is a creature morally responsible?
Can the clay object to the potter’s inconsistency; how do you reconcile the book of Romans?
Can a puppetmaster hold the puppet morally responsible?
What did Paul (assuming he really existed) mean by “When I was a child, I thought as a child”?
Can quantum manyworlds be reconciled with block-universe Relativity, such as through non-local hidden variables?
Can the sun-centered cosmos model express rebirth through the Saturn gate into the heimarmene-controlled sphere of the fixed stars, equivalent to astral ascent mysticism?
Did Giorgio Samorini place the Dancing Man mushroom tree in the wrong column in his Figure 20?
Which psychoactives are represented in Eadwine’s “Creator of plants” image?
Do discussions of the volunteer’s philosophical and/or spiritual beliefs build trust, to reduce paranoia?
Page 14:
“this discussion helps establish … trust. … reducing … paranoia (e.g., feeling that the monitors are trying to control his or her mind, or have deceived the volunteers about the nature of the study)”
“continue without the volunteers’ volitional control.”
[add p. 14-15 phrases here]
“related … material may “emerge” … intense thoughts, feelings, and visions related to … personal … world-view.”
“the scientific questions under investigation … the nature of the experiment … the scenario should be thoroughly discussed”
“run through a preliminary research session“
“The preparation of the volunteer should involve a detailed discussion of the possible range of experiences that may be encountered”
“The major categories of potential psychological experiences during hallucinogen action should be discussed with the participant.”
“The range of subjective experience under hallucinogens can be remarkably broad.”
Page 15:
“perceptual changes”
“alterations of emotions”
“changes in the sense of time and space. … time and/or space … experienced as infinite or nonexistent.”
“highly symbolic experiences (e.g., involving religious symbols, animals, etc.), and experiences … of a mystical or spiritual nature.”
“observing internal and external events”
“a profound change in one’s sense of self, merging into the surrounding environment or the entire universe.”
“a complete loss of subjective self-identity, … “ego loss” or “ego death”.”
Loss of the sense of control agency is part of “loss of self-identity” and “a radical change in sense of self”.
The loss of the sense of being a control agent is “difficult thoughts and feelings”.
“a detailed discussion concerning the range of … effects will enhance safety … the primary concern must be … safety.”
“The volunteers should be given guidance on how to handle difficult hallucinogen experiences. … frightening … internal imagery, difficult thoughts and feelings … or anxiety related to a radical change in sense of self (e.g., temporary loss of self-identity), the volunteer is encouraged to mentally surrender to the experience, trusting that his or her usual state of consciousness will return when the drug effects resolve.”
The true “appropriate guidance on how to handle” is {stand on your right leg, not your left leg}. Rely on eternalism-thinking, not possibilism-thinking – to not merely stabilize control, but also to complete the game: to obtain Transcendent Knowledge; gnosis, completion of initiation & developmental transformation.
“For example, if the participant experiences disturbing internal imagery of a demon or monster, … approach the figure and interact with it (… asking the figure why it has appeared), rather than attempt to flee from the disturbing imagery.”
“The participant should be alerted that the best way to deal with all such situations is tosurrender to the experience, allowing oneself to dissolve, melt, or explode.”
“balancing … prepare the volunteer for the potentially powerful psychological effects … with the scientific concern not to bias the volunteer with respect to the dependent variables. … increase suggestibility”
The Egodeath theory actually articulately explains this dynamic per the Science and STEM manner of modeling and communication and teaching.
The Egodeath theory enables not merely avoiding control loss (negative), but rather, optimally completing the game and gaining the treasure.
Page 16:
“Adverse psychological reactions … minimized”
“be vigilant … psychological distress”
“suggestibility … of greatest concern as a confound when investigating the phenomenology … mystical-type experiences … of a spiritual variety … of interesting or valuable effects that might occur.”
“We have not encouraged participants to read … accounts of hallucinogenic effects as part of their preparation because this may introduce compelling … expectations.”
What do you do when your control-thoughts are perceived as being externally compelled and forced upon you? What do you do then? {stand on your right leg}.
“research … proceeded safely by delivering … preparatory information to participants … during pre-session meetings with monitors.”
What specifically is this “preparatory information”: is it no better than rough folk wisdom of “surrender, submit, and accept the lack of control; and approach the threatening monster asking it “What is the lesson you are teaching?”
Sub-scientific folk knowledge is barely adequate, vague, and thus is still needlessly dangerous and ineffective at bringing Transcendent Knowledge; adult completed development.
Incomprehension of eternalism-thinking staves off control instability, merely accomplishes safety at the moment, in the short term, but that’s all that it accomplishes.
Mere avoidance of control-seizure climax is a huge missed opportunity, and it is a tendency toward regressing and not progressing in mental development; just delivers frustration, from a longer-term point of view.
Inadequate, unscientific folk “surrender” guidance is not really helpful to complete the transformation, but merely holds transformation at bay, with unresolved risks and dangers remaining, both for the participants and risky for the ability to continue further scientific research in high-dose exploration.
“Researchers will need to design studies such that the maximum amount of preparation is provided for safety reasons while not confounding the particular hypotheses being studied.”
By definition, “maximum preparation, for safety” means teaching the initiate to rely on eternalism-thinking rather than possibilism-thinking.
Maximum preparation specifically means learning the Egodeath theory, per the Lesser Mysteries, and per Row 1 Left of the Eadwine image:
Before the altered state session, teach candidates to {rely on right leg, not left leg}.
/ end of section “Prep of volunteers”
Section: Conduct of Sessions
Page 17:
“Although many hallucinogen users maintain reasonable control, … panic“
Page 18:
“participants should be reminded to surrender to the experience.”
Section: Post-session procedures
“ensure psychological stability”
See {stability} themes in Eadwine’s image; right foot touching column base.
Section: Concluding remarks
Page 20:
“it is critical to implement appropriate and conservative safeguards.
“With such safeguards this class of compounds can be studied safely”
“Careless research that lacks attention to the unique risk profile of hallucinogens may … endanger the safety and well-being … also jeopardize future research with these scientifically fascinating compounds.”
“carefully conducted research that respects hallucinogens’ unique and often powerful psychological effects may … inform … disorders, as well as lead to significant advances in our understanding of perception, cognition, … psychology of religion, and … consciousness.”
“Respecting” these so-called “substance-appropriate safeguards” and their “unique risk profile” specifically means {standing on your right leg} (relying on eternalism-thinking), as the article vaguely, inadequately, and uncomprehendingly refers to when they use terms and advice that they don’t really understand, such as “surrender, submit, accept”.
Section: Acknowledgments
Section: References
Ott: Pharmacotheon
W Richards article: “Entheogens in the study of mystical and archetypal experiences”. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/9004126201/ Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 13, pp 143-155.
I purchased Sacred Knowledge on Oct. 29, 2015, though it wasn’t published until Dec. 8, 2015. It shipped to me on Dec. 8, 2015. I likely reviewed it; search the Egodeath Yahoo Group.
W Richards: Entheogens in the study of religious experiences: current status. 2005
Figure 1
Figure 1: The living room-like session room used in Johns Hopkins, just before it was eaten by the dragon.
🦵🐉🚪🦵💎🐍🪨🌳🍄😇👑🏆
Relying on left leg, can’t pass through the dragon-guarded no-free-will gate.
Rely on right leg to get treasure, snake worldline frozen in block universe rock.
Purified, now able go in and out through garden gate to eat fruit of immortality from tree of life.
Cog Sci is boring and sucks and is irrelevant. CSReligion is annoyingly empty of relevance.
I’m focused on enabling Cog Sci to not be boring and suck and be irrelevant.
The Egodeath theory is near Cog Sci, but very different in style and focus, as is effective and not reductionist to the wrong domain and approach/ style.
The Egodeath theory has its own domain and style of explanation, lexicon, has its uniquenesses, compared to Science, Religion, Cognitive Science.
What makes something a science is how much that field is like the paradigmatic model, which is set by the Egodeath theory – extract what Science is, from that.
The Egodeath theory is its own standard for judging the real nature of being scientific, for the Egodeath theory.
The ideal type of science for the Egodeath theory.
Explain the ego death and transformation climax.
Explain myth as analogies for that, per Douglas Hofstadter: Analogies are how the mind works.
I have an offsetting, arm’s length competitive stance against Neuroscience.
The worst is Cognitive Neuroreductionism.
Reductionism is like when you write a hyper detailed very impressive CEQ article and questionnaire, but get rid of any discussion or questions you gathered about the main challenging effect of control transformation, experiencing the threat of loss of control.
Roland Griffiths’ Sneaky Removal of ‘Control’ Questions
HERE BE DRAGONS 🐉 drop the science and run away
Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) except without the word ‘control’, which you silently omitted without any comment, sciencey or normal.
The CEQ covers manic depression, but doesn’t contain the word ‘control’.
The Griffiths articles have misinformed Oregon Health Authority.
He’s driven by PR posing as “science”, it’s a bluff, to hide deletion of loss of control.
Threat of loss of control wasn’t in your agenda to deal with, so you removed it, as a defect that you needed to ignore.
You didn’t even discuss, didn’t even mention, why you left out the most notorious challenging effect, the threat of loss of control.
There is a huge gap in the CEQ, it chooses not to include any questions about control at all, it CEQ stays well away from the dragon, much less focus pointedly on the experiencing threat of loss of control.
“We found reports of control dragons infesting the earlier questionnaires –
what should we say about our omitting these defective question topics as off-limits for scienticific discussion, sales, and marketing PR?”
“Just say nothing about the bad questions, about defective control, & fill in the empty gap with lots of numbers and formal detailed writeup.
“Throw in a lot of extra math noise and posturing of formality to hide our quiet corrective deletion of the control questions – we dont wanna go there.”
This is a very sciency paper – or would have been, had it discussed
THE UN ATTRACTIVE TRUTH
Griffiths, what’s your flimsy pseudo-science excuse cover story for omitting the control questions you gathered. CHICKEN??
🐥
Peterson Calls BS on Griffith
Roland Griffiths is really called out hard by Jordan Peterson, who instantly calls BS on Griffiths’ bunk vapid claim that meditation could/ can/ might/ may produce the same effects as psilocybin.
Jordan Peterson calls out self-contradiction by Griffiths.
Griffiths:
“Psilocybin is better than anything else.
“Professional meditators are blown away by Psilocybin.
“Meditation can/ could/ might/ may produce the same effects as Psilocybin.”
Peterson instantly called Griffiths on his contradictions about efficacy.
Stang Calls BS on Griffith
Roland Griffiths is really called out hard by Charles Stang in video 1 in the Harvard Psychedelics series.
Charles Stang reports to Griffiths:
Your sanitized, whitewashed pseudo “mystic experience” is made-up, lopsided, cherrypicked, New Age tripe.
What you are mis-calling “mystical experience” fails to match the reported data, of the shadow.
Are you afraid of loss of control? of the PR?
that people will be under intense threat of loss of control
you looking at psalter comic strip
that the dragon will eat your clinic
🏥 🐉
What fate awaits your clinic, lying ahead on the worldline? 🤔🤔
I see an ARMY OF DRAGON DEMONS beckoning on the non-branching path ahead.
Science Character Brought by the Egodeath Theory
Psychedelic Cognitive Science of Religion should be more like the Egodeath theory in character than like dullsville irrelevant ordinary-state CSR.
PCSR needs to take its cues from the Egodeath theory not from the sorry CSR approach.
Reductionism of one field to another is the most unscientific approach.
Reductionism of the field to a field which it is not, is the most unscientific approach.
My 1987 topic: Domain Dynamics
Fields affected by the Egodeath revolution
Psychedelic Cognitive Science
Psychedelic Cognitive Science of Religion
Psychedelic Philosophy
Psychedelic Psychology of Religion
Psychedelic Eternalism
Psychedelic Gnosis and Mysticism
Psychedelic Western Esotericism
Psychedelic Religion
Psychedelic Mythology
Cognitive Science of Religion
Psilocybin Eternalism
Cognitive Science
Book Titles
Ruck’s book title recommendation:
Secrets of Psychedelic Cognitive Science of Religion 🍄🍄
Article: Who’s in Charge of Psilocybin? (Beiner article 2021)
Fallacy: The group which I appoint myself the spokesman and savior for, exclusively owns psilocybin, because of our special unique historical use of Psilocybin.
Are Clinical Trials the Only Legitimate Path to Accessing Psilocybin?
“We’re in the middle of a psychedelic turf war.
“With psychedelic medicine on the cusp of going mainstream, an increasing number of players are vying for narrative control.
“From clinicians and investors to Indigenous groups and activists, debate is raging over whether psychedelics are spiritual tools, new psychiatric drugs, medicines for social change, or all of the above.
“the latest skirmish in this turf war.
“It came about on April 21 [2021], with the publication of a paper called Psilocybin: From Serendipity to Credibility in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry (available here).
“Written by James Rucker and Allan Young (psychiatrists working at Kings College and the Maudsley, respectively), the paper questions whether legal clinics should be offering psilocybin-assisted experiences before psilocybin has gone through the clinical trial process.
“While the paper raises some important arguments, it also points to underlying tensions around power and access in the psychedelic field that could, if left unresolved, become detrimental to the psychedelic renaissance.
“In this article, I will critique the paper with the aim of seeing where a resolution may lie between the competing epistemologies in the space.
“The Battle Lines
“Much of Rucker & Young’s argument centers around the idea that credibility and safety for psilocybin-assisted therapy relies on its journey through the clinical trial process.”
Safety – control stability – lies in knowing to rely on eternalism-thinking instead of possibilism-thinking.
– Cybermonk per Eadwine & other artists of handedness & branching-message mushroom trees
“The key argument the paper rests on is that clinical trials are the safest and most responsible method we have to bring new drugs to market.
“Many, myself included, would agree.
“But psilocybin is not a new drug.
“It is a pre-existing molecule with a rich history … as a spiritual sacrament or therapeutic tool.
“While the authors acknowledge this, they nevertheless go on to argue that we can’t know it’s therapeutically safe until it has gone through a clinical trial process.”
Bia Labate et al wrote:
“Alcohol and tobacco did not have to go through [clinical trials]. Statistically-sound clinical trials were introduced in the 1940s to ensure the safety and efficacy of new drugs and treatments. … Epidemiology, or the collective human experience of consumers of these substances, simply trumps clinical trials.”
“… they [Rucker & Young in article Psilocybin: From Serendipity to Credibility] are instead arguing that their profession should gatekeep therapeutic approaches using a molecule with thousands of years of existing human use.”
“there is little evidence to suggest that medics would be better qualified after a few decades than traditions with thousands of years of experience.”
“The clinical trials that Rucker and Young refer to in the paper use the very same molecule that [historical] cultures … hold sacred.”
“Who (if anyone) has the right to control access to psilocybin?
“Some believe that psychiatrists are best placed to be at the top of the hierarchy, and that these substances should enter the mainstream primarily as mental health tools.
“Many activists, and religious and indigenous groups for whom these are sacraments, vehemently disagree.”
“I don’t believe any existing institution should sit at the top of a hierarchy of access.
“Of the options we have, the medical establishment would not be my first choice.
“The very reason we’re looking for new mental health treatments is that psychiatry, and its reductionist biological model of mental health, has failed in preventing or adequately treating epidemic rates of depression and anxiety.”
[“the” reason? -cm]
“In addition to this, psychology is in the grips of a serious replication crisis.
“As The Atlanticreports, “Ironically enough, it seems that one of the most reliable findings in psychology is that only half of psychological studies can be successfully repeated.”
“Even if we were to ignore these alternative perspectives, we would still have to ask whether psychiatry and the medical establishment as a whole are best suited on their own merits to steward psychedelics. “
“The clinical trial process relies on reproducibility for its validity.
“However, it is very far from perfect, and the epistemological foundations it rests on are shakier than they appear.”
bedeviling naive possibilism-thinking – the freewill branching model of control collapses under the trial of psilocybin loosecog
“the paper asks us explicitly to trust this model without offering an internal critique.
“As a result, much of the argument relies on a logical fallacy known as “appeal to authority”—the authority here being Western psychiatry and the clinical trial model.
“while the clinical trial model is important, fitting psychedelic-assisted therapy into it can be trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
“legal retreats are often successfully held by facilitators and clinicians with extensive psychedelic experience, with participants carefully screened ahead of time.”
Rucker writes:
“We lead a research team investigating psilocybin.
“We are “representatives of the establishment”: established medics with all the motivations to maintain the current hegemony and power structures that were associated with the prohibition of classical psychedelics in the first place.”
Beiner’s article has a pull quote:
A more unbiased model might involve regulation from outside of the field; for example, by a multidisciplinary panel of stakeholders who also have a claim over access to psychedelic medicine; Indigenous practitioners, underground therapists, activists, countercultural critics, spiritual leaders, and more.
“Without a wider framing that takes into account other perspectives, the paper rests on a circular argument held up by an appeal to authority and little else.
“the battle for narrative control in the psychedelic field … the chance to create a truly unique, multidisciplinary, and ground-breaking model of healing.
“[Instead of] a binary choice between freedom and responsibility, … create new structures and reform our institutions so that they can encompass the complexity and multidisciplinary awareness that psychedelics require if they’re going to have any significant impact on the world.”
“the tone of Rucker & Young’s paper is inimical to this kind of synthesis.
“For the psychedelic renaissance to be accessible to as many people as possible, we are going to have to come from a place of epistemic humility.
“We do not have to choose between clinics and churches; we can have both.
“But we won’t get there by trying to defend our own turf.”
Fallacy: The group which I appoint myself the spokesman and savior for, exclusively owns psilocybin, because of our special unique historical use of Psilocybin.
There is sure a lot of bullsht cited in Oregon Health Authority’s CULTURAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL REVIEW OF RESOURCES arguing on the basis that a single group historically used psilocybin and therefore that group owns psilocybin.
I’ve seen someone else make the point that I’m making here:
Nobody, no one group, owns psilocybin.
Paul Stamets’ 1996 book Psilocybin Mushrooms of the world: an identification guide is garbled and incoherent and self-contradictory.
Stamets claims that psilocybin grows around the world, and that it grows on bovine, elephant, and horse dung, and he claims that psilocybin didn’t exist in England or Europe before 1976 – a nonsensical, irrational claim that’s repeated eagerly by Letcher Hatsis and countered by ample art evidence and by entheogen scholarship, to the TINY extent that they open their eyes – ie stop pressing their eyes tightly shut.
Like entheogen scholar Mark Hoffman proposed in his 2015 article about ancient entheogen use, someone oughtta do entheogen scholarship on psilocybin in Western religious history.
Try to look for Psilocybin instead of the damned obsession with Secret Amanita.
Ruck’s monofungal obsession blinds them to psilocybin in the art pieces which they force to represent Amanita because it has a speck of white and red paint.
I have contributed major research to Amanita in entheogen scholarship, so don’t frame me as trying to eliminate poor, poor Secret Amanita 😢 ; that would be a misrepresentation.
The last thing entheogen scholarship needs is more defending of Secret Amanita, a substance which is legal and which no one uses or wants to use, as Pendell points out.
Eleusis has become a part of the problem: it is abused in order to not see psilocybin or mystery relgionS or sacred mealS or branching-message mushroom trees – the lone exception being Plaincourault only; no others are allowed to be discussed.
The funtional de facto purpose of putting attention on Plaincourault is in order to prevent anybody seeing any of the thousands of other mushroom trees.
Secret Amanita is the problem, not the solution: it is abused to prevent seeing psilocybin in Western religion.
By always putting all 100 spotlights exclusively on Secret Amanita/ Plaincourault/ Allegro, we are putting zero spotlights on Psilocybin, squeezing our eyes tightly shut.
By always putting all 100 spotlights exclusively on Eleusis and the ergot kykeon hypothesis, we are putting zero spotlights on Psilocybin, squeezing our eyes tightly shut.
Same thing with meditation.
and Allegro.
and Plaincourault.
Psilocybin has been used by every nation, every group, every era, every region, every religion.
No one group owns Psilocybin – historically, religiously, medically, or otherwise.
Historically, Psilocybin religious usage is world-wide.
Stop this BS false, ignorance-based narrative that one people owns Psilocybin.
No thanks to lying cover-up agent Gordon Wasson for censoring Albert Brinckmann while namecalling mycologists for not submitting to the negative “conclusion” of biased, clueless art authority ignoramus Erwin Panofsky.
Lots of Psilocybin Evidence, Masked by Obsessive Monofocus on Secret Amanita
Correctly Redefining and Recognizing the Rules and Goal of the Game, the Basic Game-Layout Premise
The necessary reframing of “mitigating the risks” is not entirely new, but this corrected organization is far more organized than the existing clinic model, and Roland Griffiths does not understand the game.
The clinicians don’t understand what the game is, what the goal of the game is, and what the role is of the encounter with the shadow monster dragon.
It turns out that the shadow monster dragon is the very gate – and yes people say vague things along these lines, but the Egodeath theory is specific.
I explain exactly how the so-called “shadow” is precisely the gate which you have to go through.
And I explain how you go through the gate: by shifting weight from your {left leg} to your {right leg}, as our religious predecessors emphatically depict and communicate to us.
It is nonsensical to think in terms of “avoiding the shadow” and simply “avoiding” so-called “adverse reactions”; you don’t understand what the game is.
The game is to go through the dragon-guarded gate to reach the Gnosis treasure and gain the ability to routinely go into this state.
You certainly cannot win the game and gain the ability to be in the high-dose Psilocybin state if you think in terms of “avoiding the gate”; you have to go through the gate, not avoid the gate.
The “shadow” is the whole damn point of the whole thing: transformation through the encounter with the shadow monster dragon threat.
The “shadow” is precisely that which transforms you to make you immune to the shadow monster dragon, in your dragon-transformed, amenable form.
The Standard Solution to Control-Loss Enlightenment: Pray and Mentally Sacrifice
Life-saving, gnosis-delivering tip from & for those in the jaws of the attraction to the Control Vortex of probing control-loss to transcend it:
Pray that you will be made to put trust in the higher level of control and be given wisdom, Transcendent Knowledge.
That is the crucial important solution information, which the Griffiths group cannot deliver, because – insofar as their CEQ questionnaire represents – they refuse to even acknowledge the existence of the problem of the threat of loss of control:
Submit; surrender; repudiate and jettison the claim to monolithic, autonomous control power steering in a supposed tree of branching possibilities.
Jettison like mushroom Jonah, to stop shipwreck
From the Thomas Hatsis 🍄🧙♂️ gallery of evidence of Psilocybin in Christian art:
Rely on eternalism-thinking = {right leg}.
Repudiate habitual reliance on possibilism-thinking = {left leg}.
Repudiate Childish Possibilism-Thinking, Rely on Eternalism-thinking.
Snodfart’s Junior Academy: Too dumb to draw a tree 🤷♂️
Conflict of Interest: Griffiths Allows Questions About Depression, but Silently Censors Questions About Control Loss
Conflict of interest renders Roland Griffiths’ group’s CEQ questionnaire work lopsided, selectively scientific – rendering it unscientific.
No amount of impressive, science-styled posturing and phony put-on of fake math with gigantic gaps in it is going to save you from delivering an unscientific result, because of biased and selective inventorying of the challenging effects, omitting and opening up a gigantic barn-sized gap, a hole, a vulnerability in the side of the clinic.
🏥 🍽 🐉
Now the Oregon Health Authority Psilocybin board is being misled by Griffiths’ lopsided, mostly scientific research findings, which have silently censored out the loss of control as a challenging experience.
The Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board is depending too much on Roland Griffiths’ presentation/ research articles, which is lopsided and biased in favor of recognizing depression but not at all recognizing control loss as a challenging experience.
The Oregon board suffers the same biased blind spot: they expect and desire to find questions about depression effects, and they do not expect or desire to see questions regarding control effects, so they happily follow the Griffiths group mis-leading the field, because that’s the direction they wish to go, to invest in.
Relying on left leg, can’t pass through the dragon guarded no-free-will gate.
Rely on right leg to get treasure, snake worldline frozen in block universe rock.
Purified, now able go in and out through garden gate to eat fruit of immortality from tree of life.
Using Depression Effects to Cure Depression?
One has to wonder about the wisdom of prescribing Psilocybin, which causes depression effects, as a magic cure for depression.
Griffiths is OK with tackling this challenge to his narrative; at least the word ‘depression’ in the questionnaire doesn’t introduce a new, alien type of challenge (control loss effects) that’s beyond Griffiths’ ability to fathom and additionally take on and spin away in his marketing PR.
An irony is, within this phony posturing poser wannabe “scientific” style of writing, they talk about “control” all the time, constantly – but in the wrong sense.
The word ‘control’ appears many times within the Oregon board’s summary of research findings about risks and benefits, but they never use the word ‘control’ in the sense of effects, of the threat of loss of control.
Previous, general psychedelic experience questionnaires include questions about the word ‘control’.
What percentage of the previous questionnaires contain the word ‘control’, in the sense of the threat of loss of control, eg. the ‘marionette’ question that’s listed in the CEQ article from a previous questionnaire?
Hey Griffiths CEQ article: what is your scientific assessment of the challenging experience which people reported, about experiencing being “a helpless marionette” “unable to make even minor decisions”?
🦗 🦗 🦗
Song “Little Dolls” by Bob Daisley (psychedelic esotericist) & Ozzy
Song “Twilight Zone” by Peart/Rush (his first live performed song was “Ergot Forever”)
In all of the questionnaires which the CEQ article draws from: how many questionnaires have how many questions, or even entire question categories, that contain the word ‘control’?
Griffiths’ group chose to include the depression questions from previous questionnaires in their Challenging Experiences Questionnaire, but they chose to silently omit and censor and not mention the questions regarding control and the threat of loss of control, from their CEQ.
Griffiths’ CEQ questionnaire is designed to highlight depression, and censor and cover up control-loss problems.
For extra manic, play at 1.5x speed, which I accidentally did. 😵 🏎 💨💨
Griffiths’ Big Pharma Psychedelics Industrial Complex is financially invested in selling depression services – never mind the song “Manic Depression” by Hendrix – and is willing to openly admit and work with the fact that psychedelics cause depression, as a Terence McKenna experienced.
Good job regarding that one topic, depression, but it’s like the book by Freke & Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries, where the publisher dictated to them: you’re not allowed to cover more than one controversial topic in a given, single book.
You are not allowed to cover both the ahistoricity of religious founder figures and also cover psychedelics/ entheogens in our own religions’ history.
Griffiths is not allowed to let on both that psychedelics cause depression and that psychedelics cause control loss. So, control-loss questions had to go, silently and covertly.
Join our “burger with one eye open” group. Our Pop Sike Cult imagery proves that you can can put full trust in our Mystery Agenda.
The Big Pharma Psychedelics Industrial Complex needed to reduce the footprint of the challenging effects from Psilocybin, so the loss-of-control effect had to go, had to be written out of the narrative, omitted from Griffiths’ very impressive 😲😑 “scientific”, hyper-formalized, poseur posturing affectation, sciencey-styled CEQ article, and their “safety” article.
Deleting data is the opposite of science and is an abuse of science.
Roland Griffiths has been called out in person, on camera publicly, very prominently for deleting scientific data and omitting and suppressing it.
Griffiths silently ignored and left out the reports by mystics and by other psychedelics users.
Charles Stang accused Griffiths of this; so Griffiths pointed out his 2008 CEQ, claiming that that presents negative effects, which it does; however, Griffiths’ CEQ silently censors out the major effect, control loss.
Article: “Human Hallucinogen Research: Guidelines for Safety” (Roland Griffiths 2008)
I moved this major section out to be its own posting. See:
“Guidelines for Safety” has some coverage of what amounts to control-related challenges – unlike the 1-page CEQ, which omits them, silently.
The coverage is inadequate to meet their basic safety bar – or to deliver successful gnosis/ transformation.
– Cybermonk, December 19, 2022
Silently Omit the Non-Depression Challenge, of Being Drawn into the Threat of Loss of Control
Janikian’s 2019 book Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion focuses on the threat of loss of control.
But the CEQ silently omits control-related questions.
And the Oregon health board eagerly lapped up this reduced, narrowed artificial re-telling which, as Charles Stang scathingly pointed out, completely fails to match the data archive of mystic negative experiencing evidence.
Jan Irvin exposed Terence McKenna for stopping use of Psilocybin while still, fraudulently continuing to present himself for years as if he were using Psilocybin, but he had stopped because of depression.
Roland Griffiths admits in his questionnaire that psychedelics cause depression, and that that’s a challenging experience.
Roland Griffiths is trying to sell you his depression-curing services through Big Pharma; the Psychedelics Industrial Complex. Griffiths doesn’t want to also get involved in the control-loss challenge.
Loss of control and depression are both major challenges, but Griffiths only wants to take on the challenge of depression, and he does not want to get involved with the problem of control loss.
That’s why Griffiths silently and thus anti-scientifically, covertly deleted questions that contain the word ‘control’.
It was anti-scientific for Griffiths to be silent when he deleted the questions about control from his Challenging Experiences Questionnaire.
Griffiths’ silence about omitting those questions, which other previous questionnaires include, demonstrates a conflict of interest, and the opposite of science; a selective, lopsided, biased, inconsistent abuse of science, and the whole posturing and pretense with all this official formal apparatus used, in order to cover up his anti-scientific, silent and covert deletion of ‘control’-related questions.
The scientific approach does not mean something that you only use when it pleases you, when it gives you the results that you want (depression effects) and then you provide just a fancy, very impressive, very mathematical, very formal, lots and lots of citations bull shiite phony posturing.
Deception, a lie of omission to omit control-problem effects, is the opposite of science. Using science selectively, pick-and-choose, is abuse of science.
Jordan Peterson instantly and vigorously called out Griffiths’ bunk unscientific meditation claims, pointing out that there’s no data to support Griffiths’ exaggerated meditation claims, which Griffiths tried to slip-in as a confident aside on which to build an argument.
Charles Stang totally called out Griffiths hard, 100%, for his grotesque misrepresentation of the breadth of mystic experience, censoring negative mystic experience.
Peterson and Stang were not having it, not even for one second; they instantly called Griffiths out absolutely, in his face, point blank in public on camera.
Oregon Psilocybin Board Follows Griffiths’ Lopsided Censoring of Control-Loss Risks
In the “Scientific Literature Review” document from Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board Evidence Review and Recommendations:
There’s no mention of the experience of the threat of loss of control.
And there’s no mention of the solution to the problem: surrender/ submit/ accept the loss of control; approach the dragon monster and ask it “What is the lesson you are teaching me?”
– even though the body of Griffiths’ 2008 article “Guidelines for Safety” lists these safety instruction techniques (albeit at an barely adequate, sub-scientific, folk level of explanation).
The article vaguely mentions ‘fear’ 3 times.
This scientific literature review never mentions experiencing the threat and fear of loss of control – even though Roland Griffiths’ 2008 article Challenging Experiences Questionnaire quotes other questionnaires’ entire category of questions about sensing a threat of loss of control.
How come Michelle Janikian’s 2019 book Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion knows very clearly about the problem of fear of loss of control, and I know about it, and everybody knows about this problem, as Janikian shows, but Griffiths is trying to cover it up?
In the CEQ article, Roland Griffiths is openly caught red-handed covering it up, that the main shadow terror from Psilocybin is the experience of the fear of loss of control, of the threat of loss of control, but he hides this when crafting his CEQ questionnaire.
Griffiths’ CEQ article quotes other questionnaires and shows that they address the effect of the threatening fear of loss of control, and yet his own questionnaire omits any questions about loss of control.
As soon as I saw the massive math and hyper-formal styling in the CEQ article, I knew it was bunk.
The CEQ is bunk and the CEQ article is bunk, because they hide and silently omit the number one, well-known challenging effect of Psilocybin, which is covered in other questionnaires: the threat of loss of control.
And that threat is discussed in the body of the “Guidelines for Safety” 2008 Griffiths article – albeit in a sub-scientific, unclear, disorganized way, piecemeal and fragmented barely adequate for temporary safety and ineffective and even regressive as far as achieving the goal of completing transformation and initiation into gnosis. the adult form mental development.
The only way to reach safety, together with accomplishing scientific knowledge and enabling research of this domain, of this realm of experiencing (Psilocybin Mythemeland), is by coherently organizing this Transcendent Knowledge, as the Egodeath theory has done.
Griffiths doesn’t state the solution to that well-known #1 challenging problem: in folk-speak, “Surrender/ submit/ accept the loss of control.”
“the Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board reviewed available medical, psychological, and scientific studies, research, and other information related to the safety and efficacy of psilocybin in treating mental health conditions. This rapid evidence review was published in July 2021 “
“The Board also acknowledged cultural and anthropological information regarding centuries of psilocybin use that was not included in the scientific literature review. “
I partly informed the Oregon Board about Wasson/ Ruck’s Secret Amanita & Muraresku’s Eleusis harmfully blocking our view of Psilocybin centrally used within our own religious history:
in ALL mystery religions’ psilocybin sacred meals, NOT %#$& Eleusis! 🚫🌾, and
in psilocybin symposium mixed wine parties, and
in psilocybin branching-message mushroom trees all throughout & inside mainstream medieval Christianity.
Rare Proof that the Carl Ruck School has Heard of the Existence of a Mushroom Other than Secret Amanita 🤫🍄 😲
“A subsequent Cultural and Anthropological Review was published in November 2022, amplifying the cultural and anthropological information that scientific research may not address.”
Cites: Akers BP, Ruiz JF, Piper A, Ruck CAP. A Prehistoric Mural in Spain Depicting Neurotropic Psilocybe Mushrooms?. Economic Botany. 2011;65(2):121-128. doi:10.1007/s12231-011-9152-5
Good job there, Carl Ruck, finally acknowledging the existence of psilocybin in Western religion, instead of obsessing exclusively on your irrelevant Secret Amanita.
To a slight degree, this is a redemption arc for Carl Ruck – though too little too late.
It is extremely good news that this Oregon research summary article includes this tiny little acknowledgment, at least, of the existence of Psilocybin in western religious history tradition.
– despite the overall total failure of entheogen scholarship, for it to even occur to them to open their eyes (stop shutting your eyes, squeezed tightly shut in your Secret Amanita/ Kykeon Ergot monoplant blind frenzy) and actually try (for once) to find Psilocybin evidence in western religious history.
Article: Entheogens (Psychedelic Drugs) and the Ancient Mystery Religions (M. Hoffman 2015)
Mark Hoffman’s 2015 toxicology journal article on entheogens in mystery religions has an empty Psilocybin section that just states that someone oughta start looking to see if there’s any psilocybin in Western religious history – proving that entheogen scholarship has massively failed to do so, due to their single-plant monofocus on Secret Amanita and on Eleusis Ergot.
Psilocybin and Psilocin (Mushrooms) and DMT, 5Meo DMT: Spirit Molecules
“These closely related entheogenic compounds should be mentioned in a discussion of the Mystery Religions.
“While evidence for their use in this context has not been fully* explored, it is extremely unlikely that the chemical properties of psychoactive mushrooms** and the natural sources of DMT would have been overlooked by ancient herbalists and alchemists.”
*Translation: Under the mis-leading, bad leadership & harmful bad strategy of Carl Amanita Promoter Ruck and Mark Amanita Hoffman, the field of entheogen scholarship has failed to at all explore, investigate, or even think of investigating Psilocybin in Western religious history; the idea doesn’t even occur to them.
The exceptions are so rare, that they prove the rule.
The list is short: Giorgio Samorini, Michael Hoffman, Jerry & Julie Brown, and Fulvio Gosso.
**Poor writing; Mark Hoffman fell into a very specific trap in this specific field: he used the term ‘psychoactive mushrooms’ without acknowledging that due to the fault of his group with Carl Ruck, when you use the word ‘mushrooms’ in this field of entheogen scholarship, that means specifically and exclusively Secret Amanita, according to their bad usage and firm connotations which they have established.
An example of this forceful narrowing of the word ‘mushrooms’ in Western entheogen scholarship is Thomas Hatsis’ video, which he titles braggingly “Disproof of mushrooms in Christianity” – but then what he discusses in the video is exclusively Secret Amanita, and it never even occurs to him to think of psilocybin.
Thomas Hatsis tells me: “The shape of the liberty cap is anachronistic.”
Thus proving and clearly demonstrating how entirely unthinking and closed-minded entheogen scholarship has been, completely biased against and blind to psilocybin in western religious history.
Paul Stamets not excepted; he is part of the problem, spreading blindness of psilocybin in his 1996 book Psilocybin mushrooms of the world: an identification guide.
Contrast the long, well-crafted, and placed-first Secret Amanita section of Hoffman’s article – in contrast to his empty, short, last-placed Psilocybin entry in his article.
Article: Entheogens in Ancient Times: Wine and the Rituals of Dionysus (Ruck 2018)
“The civilized product resulting from the controlled recognizably fungal growth of the fermenting yeasts was contrastedwith the wild naturally occurring toxins, among which mushrooms, containing psychoactive psilocybin and muscimol, and ergot of grain containing Lysergic acid amide, played a fundamental role as similarly fungal.”
That sentence includes dubious 1880s-type, heavy anthropology dept. sky-castle theory, instead of Jerry & Julie Brown’s more grounded, down-to-earth coverage of the topic of mushrooms in Western religious history.
Ruck delivers Anthropology dept. theory heavily slathered over entheogen scholarship, as Cyberdisciple posted about.
That quintessentially representative sentence also includes Carl Ruck’s signature pet word that only he uses, ‘fungal’. As in: “fungal Secret Amanita alchemy”.
Lots of Psilocybin Evidence, Masked by Obsessive Monofocus on Secret Amanita
The extreme over-focus on Secret Amanita (and Brian Muraresku’s narrowing monofocus on Eleusis ergot) serves only to blind people to Psilocybin in our own relious history, thus supporting the Supreme Court putting people in cages for using Psilocybin, based on the completely bunk and totally ignorant argument that Western religious tradition (such as inside cathedrals, chapels, & illuminated manuscripts) lacks Psilocybin.
I don’t use Samorini’s category-labels “Plaincourault type” and “St. Sauvin type”.
Say “Psilocybin Mushroom Trees”, not “Mushroom Trees of the St. Sauvin Type” per Samorini, and also differentiate YO vs. YOO branching morphology.
Amanita vs. Psilocybin Is Minor, Branching Morphology Is Major
It would be possible and worthwhile to define Samorini’s Fig. 20 table as 4-columns instead of 2 columns.
Samorini’s two columns conflate (overly group together & fuse) two distinct points of interest: branching morphology, and Amanita vs. Psilocybin. Imagine art examples:
Here’s a Psilocybin mushroom tree that has multiple branches holding up a single main cap (YO). And some small caps each with a single stem. That would go in Samorini’s left column, which he calls “Plaincourault type”:
Here’s a Psilocybin mushroom tree that has a single branch holding up each cap (YOO). That would go in Samorini’s right column, which he calls “St. Sauvin type:
Here’s an Amanita mushroom tree that has multiple branches holding up a single main cap (YO). And some small caps each with a single stem. That would go in Samorini’s left column, which he calls “Plaincourault type”:
Here’s an Amanita mushroom tree that has a single branch holding up each cap (YOO). That would go in Samorini’s right column, which he calls “St. Sauvin type”.
“St. Sauvin type” is obscure instead of direct
Samorini’s Plaincourault-overemphasizing naming-pattern, “Saint Sauvin-type mushroom trees”, is not so much about Amanita vs. Psilocybin, nor the 4 traits he lists, but how many branches/stems hold up a cap or main cap.
That’s Samorini’s unhelpful, obscurantist code-speak, for which he ought to speak plainly and directly, as “psilocybin mushroom trees”.
actually in fact the main distinction between his left column and his right column is not anything to do with Amanita versus Psilocybin, or Plaincourault versus Saint Sauvin.
In terms of Morphology of branching-message mushroom trees, in fact in the fig. 20 table:
right column = multiple caps that each have one stem. Type YOO.
left column = a single cap that has multiple stems branching under it. Type YO for main cap, plus smaller YOO.
Regardless of whether amanita versus psilocybin.
Samorini
The fourth row is an error; the important distinction here is not between Amanita versus Psilocybin; it is between type YO {a single main cap, supported by multiple branches, with optional small stems/caps}, versus type YOO {multiple caps, supported by one branch each}.
The “dancing man” mushroom tree (row 3 left) cannot fit well into the Amanita column, because:
the cap is green with white donuts with blue centers (not white spots on red background).
the trunk stem is blue (not white).
the cap shape is semi-lance shaped, ie triangle (not a dome).
The dancing man mushroom tree better matches the diagonal cell: row 4 right, psilocybe semilanceata; liberty cap.
See my inventory of morphology in the Great Mushroom Psalter:
This branching-message mushroom tree has it all, for branching morphology: multiple caps, multiple branches holding up each cap, & cut off branches, including {cut right trunk}.
Defining Type YO vs. YOO Morphology of Branching-message mushroom trees
Finding: Dec. 17, 2022: Eadwine’s branching-message mushroom trees are of Samorini’s “St. Sauvin type”, which is type YOO, not type YO.
They happen to be almost all of them Psilocybin – maybe two of them or three have Amanita attributes – but I am looking at the major morphology that truly divides Samorini’s two columns.
The important difference between column one and column two is one trunk branching to two stems supporting a single cap, vs. on trunk branching to two stems, each supporting one cap.
Branch the trunk into two stems: then the question is, will the tree have a single cap (Y O), or will it have multiple caps (Y O O)?
Multiple branches under one cap is not emphasized as the morphology in the main Eadwine tree, but you could imagine if it had two or three branches supporting each cap:
“For today’s psychedelic scientists and clinicians, frameworks of concern are likely to resemble a loosely held eclectic collection of various beliefs drawn piecemeal from mystical traditions, Eastern religions, and indigenous cultures, perhaps best described by the term “new age,” although they could come from any religious or spiritual belief system.
“It is important to operate instead from a secular framework that is nonetheless open to working with patients or participant of any religious/spiritual background.”
“It has unfortunately become fashionable and commonplace for statues of Buddha to be present in psychedelic session treatment rooms. … the introduction of such religious icons into clinical practice unnecessarily alienates some people from psychedelic medicine, e.g., atheists, Christians, and Muslims.”
Do not include religious icons in treatment settings.
The article doesn’t say whether “surrender, submit, accept” is “empirical” or is “non-empirical religious/ spiritual/ metaphysical belief”.
The folk wisdom technique – or “non-empirical religious belief”? – of “surrender, submit, accept not having control” is cataloged in Michelle Janikian’s 2019 book Your Psilocybin Mushroom Companion. See my post:
Standard Hazy Trip Advice on Surrender to the Shadow, Trust, Submit, and Let Go of Control
The Matthew Johnson anti-statue article doesn’t say whether psilocybin eternalism is “non-empirical religious/ spiritual/ metaphysical belief”.
The Egodeath theory is scientific, organized, rational, coherent, empirically evidence-based.
It would be a crime to not teach language, math, or Transcendent Knowledge per the Egodeath theory.
The Egodeath theory is psilocybin-compatible gnosis, on a silver platter, made effortlessly available.
Everyone says “submit, surrender, accept your lack of control over the experience” – let us discard this garbled folk packaging of the truth, and replace it by a completed, orderly, well-formed, mature statement of the same thing, but far superior, more compact, efficient, elegant, effective. The Egodeath theory.
Not dirty, confused, inarticulate, low-grade, ineffective.
Meditate on: Avoid Ego Death from Psilocybin Eternalism
If Boomers rebelled against their parents’ Christianity, I rebel against the Boomers’ stupid Buddhism (orientalism fetish) and their stupid meditation baloney fake religion, which serves only the purpose of eliminating, avoidance of, and substituting for the real deal, which is psychedelics.
The irony is that the Egodeath theory originates from my 1987 intensive critical reading of Alan Watts’ 1957 book The Way of Zen because of his cybernetic self-control aspect.
Ken Wilber’s model of transcending a lower-level mental structure, which covertly equates spiritual development with 30+ years of Advaita meditation.
In January 1988, I disproved Ken Wilber’s model of Ego Transcendence and mental development, which is the the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology model.
Wilber’s description of healthy transcendence is helpful, but Integral Theory has no engine, just an empty slot “30+ years of Advaita meditation”, with a vague definition of Transcendent Knowledge, retreating into “it’s ineffable”.
Wilber lacks psychedelics, so he can only make excuses for the failure of transformation which meditation has produced.
Eternalism is explained instantly or not at all, in a given model.
Sam Harris and Ramesh Balsekar assert no-free-will, but the Egodeath theory asserts it fully.
re: book, A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real, by Glenn Wallis
Video and webpage about the video, March 2019 –
“Presented as a rational, scientific, and practical religion, modern Buddhism appears to have all the answers.
“Even the secular forms of mindfulness promise ever-increasing practitioners that Buddhist meditation will provide the solutions to all their mental, emotional, and spiritual issues.
“In his new book, A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real, scholar Glenn Wallis argues that there is, and that Buddhism as we know it “must be ruined.” “
The same webpage has a transcript of the video, below the video:
“Western Buddhism has been shaped by Enlightenment, Romantic, and Protestant thinking. It claims ancient legitimacy, while ignoring the irrational aspects of the early Buddhist scriptures, such as the stories of Buddha’s magical powers, his teachings on rebirth, and the prevalence of yakas, devas, and a host of other invisible beings.
“Today, the Buddha is depicted as an empirically minded scientist, and Buddhism has been praised as the most scientific of religions.
Because of these and other doctrinal alterations, especially those focusing on well-being, Wallis writes that Western Buddhism has become the perfect ideological supplement to rabid consumerist capitalism.
“Buddhism as we know it is inseparable from the neoliberal ideology in which it has flourished.
“In its packaging and marketing of itself, Buddhism negates the very teachings it aims to convey.
“the history of Western Buddhism is one of evading the consequences of its own thought.
“we don’t want to accept Buddhism’s most fundamental truths, such as there’s no such thing as self and that all of this is suffering.”
That sounds like critiques in Ken Wilber’s book the Atman project, about substitution projects.
Vague, low-grade expressions like “self is an illusion” are why the STEM-framed Egodeath theory is needed, with its superior lexicon and relevance for learning and acclimating to psilocybin eternalism. -cm
“such language of an unknowable x that the teacher nonetheless knows is a standard authoritarian move in an obscurantist mystical rhetoric.”
Well put. The Egodeath theory is the cure for exactly this specific problem, the inexcusable glorifying of incomprehension and poor expression and communication ability.
If gnosis can be put plainly and efficiently summarizable, then it should be – and it is, and now it has been so summarized as scientific knowledge, a laminated summary sheet, a Jack Chick festival pamphlet, a .pdf. -cm
Book: A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real (Wallis 2018)
Glenn Wallis argues that in aligning their tradition with the contemporary wellness industry, Western Buddhists evade the consequences of Buddhist thought.
This book shows that with concepts such as vanishing, nihility, extinction, contingency, and no-self, Buddhism, like all potent systems of thought, articulates a notion of the “real.”
Raw, unflinching acceptance of this real is held by Buddhism to be at the very core of human “awakening.”
Yet these preeminent human truths are universally shored up against in contemporary Buddhist practice, contravening the very heart of Buddhism.
The author’s critique of Western Buddhism is threefold.
It is immanent, in emerging out of Buddhist thought but taking it beyond what it itself publicly concedes;
negative, in employing the “democratizing” deconstructive methods of François Laruelle’s non-philosophy; and
re-descriptive, in applying Laruelle’s concept of philofiction.
Through applying resources of Continental philosophy to Western Buddhism, A Critique of Western Buddhism suggests a possible practice for our time, an “anthropotechnic”, or religion transposed from its seductive, but misguiding, idealist haven.”
Ancient Boomer Orientalism
Down With Boomer Orientalism – Stick with Our Own Greek Religion, not Egyptian Orientalism Fetish
I actually like U2, but I understand the sympathy:
People have asked of pop cult, “why do you simply expect me to like U2, and you simply assume (& presume) that I like them.
U2 is just shoved on us everywhere we go, as if it’s “our” music.
The band U2 is shoved in our face like you have to like them.
It’s a forced, fake astroturfed popularity, by dictate from above.
“We’ve taken care of everything, the words you read, the songs you sing, the pictures that give pleasure to your eye” – Peart
BOW DOWN TO THE GOD OF BOOMERS: The Almighty Meditation and Buddha Statues ☸️ 🙌
I definitely feel negative about Boomer Buddhism being shoved on us like we just have to like it – yet I feel merely neutral, apathetic about Christian elements given to me as if I’m automatically supposed to positively value Christianity.
Well I refuse to like your meditation & Buddha statue & Boomer orientalism fetish.
Just because you tell me that I’m supposed to like meditation & Buddhism, and I have to like it.
I resent that I’m simply expected to like Buddhism, by Boomers.
I refuse to like Buddhism, and your MEDITATION IS BUNK 👎👎 – except where it comes from Psilocybin.
Get your Meditation Religion Dogma and Buddhism out of my face.
Buddhism being shoved in our face by boomers.
Boomer Buddha: count me out; not a fan; reject 👎
It is simply assumed that you are a fan (of meditation, of Buddha statues, of U2, of Amanita theory).
BOW DOWN TO THE GOD OF WASSON/ ALLEGRO/ RUCK/ HEINRICH/ IRVIN/ RUTAJIT / JOHN RUSH: The almighty Secret Amanita 🤫🍄 🙌 😲
What’s in the lid-covered basket revealed by the hierophant? 🤔 ?
OMG NO FRIGGIN WAY, ITS A SECRET AMANITA!! 😲 🤯 😵
Your Secret Amanita you’re pushing is bunk too.
“Secret” and “Amanita” are used as a superficial billboard to sell books to a popular audience. Like titling my work:
The Secret Egodeath Theory 🍄🍄
jumbo kiddie mushrooms 🍄🍄 and the puerile marketing word ‘secret’
Too damn many Amanitas 🚫🍄
Carl Ruck gets paid by the number of times he writes the word ‘Amanita’ and the number of times that he shows infantile Secret Amanita pictures on the covers of his books on every one of his books: Eleusis 🍄🍄, Mithraism 🍄🍄, Consciousness 🍄🍄, etc.
Excerpts and commentary by Cybermonk. See link for exact quotes.
This is a pretty strict/ explicit condensing; not a free paraphrasing.
I should write up defining a couple degrees of condensing, and link to it, for definitions of how strict this quoting is – pretty strict/ faithful quoting in this case; not an aggressive condensing/ paraphrasing.
During the Psilocybin Eternalism experience, how to become immune to the threat of loss of control from perceiving eternalism/ no-free-will/ helpless puppet frozen in rock controlled by a higher-level, uncontrollable source of your control-thoughts?
To become immune to the threat of loss of control due to experiencing dread eternalism, stop fighting eternalism; surrender to eternalism.
Thus you gain victory over eternalism, and you are no longer subject to turmoil panic dread from the eternalism serpent monster – because you sacrificed your {maiden princess ruler child} in honor and in submissive surrender to the underlying force of eternalism; you are now riding and honoring and being carried by the dragon.
Standard Hazy Trip Advice on Surrender to the Shadow, Trust, Submit, and Let Go of Control
Wouter Hanegraaff in Hermetic Spirituality gets tripped up by the mytheme joke on page 97 vs. his confused baffled paraphrase of that Hermetic text passage on page 98 of Hermetic Spirituality.
Zosimos (a religion salesman for the Late Antiquity audience) is trying to confuse people by playing tricks with negative valuation of eternalism, while Zosimos simultaneously asserts the reality of eternalism in order to resolve cybernetic turmoil, which is control instability in the psilocybin state.
Zosimos says to the initiate that she needs to offer sacrifices to the daimons – a concept which Hanegraaff finds so unacceptable, that he does not mention that in his subsequent paraphrase.
Zosimos says that she needs to sacrifice to them not to nourish them or comfort them but to drive them away and make them disappear – ie, I honor you to get rid of you, with prejudice.
I honor eternalism to get rid of eternalism, with prejudice. Actually, to get rid of the turmoil that resulted from my fighting against eternalism; resulted from rejecting eternalism and fighting against it.
During the Psilocybin Eternalism panic frenzy threat experience, how do we destroy and get rid of the shadow, and make it go away?
To make the harrassing shadow monster go away, you must pay your ego-tax to the shadow monster
We sacrifice to the shadow in honor of the shadow; we surrender to the shadow, we submit to the shadow, we then ride the shadow, we are carried by the shadow, we pay obeisance to the shadow, we win victory over the dragon.
You tell the dragon threat:
“I sacrifice to you in honor of you, not to nourish you or comfort you, but to make you go the hell away, and make you disappear!!”
This is self-contradictory, mixed-message game playing with advanced, confusing, mystic poetry analogies.
p 96 : “Zosimos … and the children of Hermes [called for a move from] traditional cultic and communal worship controlled by the priesthood, to a universal path of “inner liberation” centered on the individual. Most people seemed spiritually blind to them, … sleepwalkers or zombies, dominated by powerful passions that they could not control, manipulated by daimons and priests like puppets on a string. Once having seen through the illusion, … work hard on cleaning it [one’s soul] from impurities and breaking the control of the bodily passions,”
Zosimos Against the Egodeath theory?
Mystic poetry ambiguity in Late Antiquity takes up the “I Hate Fate” theme, and affirms block-universe eternalism/ no-free-will/ eternalism, while also appearing to “drive it away and make it disappear”, make it go away, transcend it, reject it, get rid of it, and deny it, and claim that it is not the case – while also acknowledging that it is the case, by offering sacrifices to the daimons.
if you are vexed during psilocybin, it is because you are being attacked by eternalism.
To make eternalism go away and stop attacking you, you need to affirm and conform to eternalism, sacrifice your reliance on possibilism-thinking, and that way, you get rid of eternalism turmoil and make the turmoil that’s caused by battling against eternalism go away.
When being reborn to transform to eternalism, eternalism persecutes and teaches and corrects and reshapes you.
Apollo shot with a spear the {dragon that harassed} Leto {during her pregnancy}.
Christ rescues us from the infernal eternalism no-free-will which the Egodeath theory brought during Psilocybin Eternalism experiencing.
Early Antiquity: I Love Eternalism:
Late Antiquity: I Hate Eternalism:
Page 97: Hanegraaff’s translation of the text by Zosimos at the end of Final Account:
“taking control of yourself, call on the divine to come to you, … offer sacrifices to the daimons, not such that nourish and comfort them, but such that drive them away and make them disappear. … Do so until your soul has been healed. And then when you realize that you have reached completion … spit on matter [fate, heimarmene, eternalism] … baptized in the mixing bowl [psilocybin mixed-wine krater], hurry up to your own people.”
The {maiden} (initiate) sacrifices to the archon fate rulers in honor of them to “defeat them” – that is, to end punitive corrective turmoil.
The {turmoil from the fates} resulted from fighting against the higher controller in the two-level system of control that’s revealed by the Psilocybin eternalism experience.
p 97-98:
“Theosebeia must calm her passions, realizing that they have nothing to do with the true essence of who she really is but come from the astral powers residing in her body and working through her soul. The daimons she can drive away by offering sacrifices*, undoubtedly some kind of purifying incense or smoke.”
*Censored by Hanegraaff: offer sacrifices “TO THE DAIMONS“, per Hanegraaff’s own translation of Zosimos’ text Final Account, on the other side of the same sheet of paper, on the previous page.
These are advanced, confusing analogy tricks of religious mythology based on the late antiquity rebellious theme of “I Hate Fate”.
To sell our religion in the competitive Late Antiquity marketplace, we claim that fate is not part of you, but you are above it and independent from it, and you can make it go away by sacrificing to it.
How to get rid of and defeat eternalism/ no-free-will: sacrifice to it – not to nourish and pacify and comfort it and feed it, but to make it go away.
Hanegraaff says what is sacrificed is incense smoke, but actually, what she sacrifices is her naive possibilism-thinking, in honor of and submission to, eternalism-thinking.
Thinking is thus purified and given stability of control.
p99 “liberated from the daimonic powers of astral fate”
“You Christians refuse to sacrifice to honor Caesar, so you are causing turmoil. When Caesar forces you to surrender, then you will have peace and order and harmony.”
The oracle told the king that to bring order to his kingdom, he must sacrifice his daughter to the dragon that’s wreaking havoc on the land.
Be rescued from fate by surrendering to fate, by having the mind reconfigured to be amenable to fate and take eternalism into account, including the transpersonal source of control thoughts, consciously trusting in what is revealed to always have been the case.
Monolithic autonomous control, steering in a branching possibilities tree, seems to be the case, in the ordinary state, which is the possibilism state of consciousness.
Normally cloaked and veiled by appearances, the actual 2-level workings of the control system are now perceptible, in the Psilocybin state of loose cognitive association.
Dependent control; you don’t control the source of your control thoughts.
Acid Rock lyrics: Little Dolls, Twilight Zone:
You are a helpless puppet at the mercy of that which created your control thoughts, which already exist in the future, lying ahead on the worldline of your control-thiughts, your stream of experiencing, in the frozen, unchangeable block universe.
The mystic surrender theme used for political purpose: the analogy of armies resisting and then surrendering to gain peace and orderly rule.
The soul/ maiden initially resists the higher invader, and then is made by the possessing god to consent.
The mind is made to consciously trust in the higher source of control-thoughts, per 2-level control that’s revealed by Psilocybin loose cognition, instead of trying to rely on monolithic autonomous control that’s steering into an open future, a future that you create through your power of steering your thoughts.
As long as you persist in attempting to rely on your left leg (naive possibilism-thinking), turmoil, self-transgression, self-conflict, & control instability is the result.
To pass through the dragon-guarded gate, to reach the tree of the fruit of immortality, non-perishable life, the mind is made to rely on the right leg instead of the left leg; eternalism-thinking instead of possibilism-thinking; non-branching instead of branching.
🌳🗡👑👦🦵🐉🚪🦵🐍🪨🍄🏆
Cut possibilities-branching, sacrifice child thinking, stop relying on the left leg, pass through the dragon-guarded gate by relying on right leg, conform to worldline snake frozen in block-universe rock, become completed and perfected, and then eat from the tree of the fruit of immortality.
{king steering in tree, drinks wine, transformed to snake frozen in rock}
The dragon/ serpent monster to try with all your might to avoid seeing:
😱 😵 🙈 🐉 🪨
You don’t control the source of your control thoughts.
Earl Fountainelle SHWEP podcast: The Esoteric Iamblichus
Secret History of Secret Western Secret Esotericism Secret Podcast
46:45 Iamblichus’ use of the idea “immune to fate” is the theme/ motivation of the present post.
This theme I compared to Boomers’ anti-Christianity against their parents, and their running off to alien Buddhism:
“The barbarian and Hellenic strands of wisdom-tradition constructed by Iamblichus, and his own willingness to identify with the barbarian over the Greek,”
In classics, in Hellenisism scholarship, barbarian = Egypt, the ancient orient, ie anything east of downtown Athens.
“We discuss the rich strata of the esoteric in the work of the sage of Chalcis.
“Starting from the evidence for socially-esoteric teaching within Iamblichus’ school, we move on to discuss
his constructions of esoteric wisdom lineages – notably the tradition of ‘the theurgists’ –
his employment of tropes of hiding and revealing, and
the parameters of the Iamblichean ‘ineffable’.”
My paraphrase of podcast passage:
the theurgists who invoke and call down the gods for purification from evil-
the greater kinds
they are impassible
[independent, immune from pain or pleasure due to some external thing outside them]
they save the cosmos
they are immune to fate
[that is my main mytheme-decoding focus here]
they are superior: they are able to behold the gods directly when the gods choose to appear to the theurgists,
gods reveal themselves only to the theurgists
Immune to Fate/ Heimarmene/ Eternalism
These are all equivalent:
surrender to the dragon or to the planetary date-ruler archons: =
surrender to
submit to
worship
slay, kill, shoot with Apollo’s bow and poisoned arrow
pin the dragon
give honor to the dragon/ the fate-archons/ eternalism / heimarmene/ the no-free-will gate guards
pay obeisance to
defeat the dragon
pacify the dragon / pacify heimarmene
ride the dragon / ride heimarmene
sacrifice to the dragon / sacrifice to eternalism
be carried by the dragon / be carried by eternalism
make peace with
cease rebelling against
to receive faith to calm the storm and narrowly escape shipwreck
stop dishonoring the heimarmene gods, to make peace
Note the lack of steering reins in many equivalent images of {riding}.
False-appearance cloak under epiphany of higher controller relying on {right leg} = eternalism
need hi-resPhoto: Julie M. Brown, processing by Cybermonk
1:55 pm Dec 17 2022: additional detail – The left hand of the curved pruning-knife holder holds branching:
Photo: Julie M. Brown, crop & processing by Cybermonk.
I need Julie’s other, unpublished photograph that’s centered on the curved knife on the upper right.
2:09 pm Dec 17 2022 – I just realized why the Browns have censored and deleted and cropped and removed and failed to mention or note the Medusa-harpe/ curved knife: it doesn’t fit the narrative/ point/ argument that they’re trying to tell & highlight, that the straight long knife on the tower scene matches the straight long knives on the last supper scene, indicating eating the mushrooms.
Photo used in 2006 main article, see caption there. Kwan Yin carried by the Psilocybin eternalism dragon.
I have superior orientalism art, better than Buddha statues. 😑
Mithras + Helios: the mind’s two levels of control – transpersonal (the higher, uncontrollable source of control-thoughts) and personal (the local control-thought receiver)
Too-Neat Categories; the Dragon Will Still Eat Your Clinic
Are you using this Psilocybin session for therapy, or are you using this for recreation, or are you using this for religion, or are you using this for philosophy, or are you using this for psychonaut exploration, or are you using this as cognitive science research?
Johnson writes:
“my recommendations only relate to the administration of psychedelics in science and medicine; they do not relate to the use of psychedelics by religions“
Simply hermetically separate therapeutic vs. religious use of Psilocybin. 🤷♂️
Griffiths’ articles seem like dated affectation, a pose that seemed marketable for 2008, but entirely inadequate and out of touch with the problem. His CEQ:
Video Webpage Transcription – Excerpts About the Article
“here’s the article that some of you have been referring to.
“And here’s a quote that I think actually makes a really, really good case for psychedelic chaplaincy.
Matthew Johnson wrote:
“a little-discussed danger at play in psychedelic research, and one that will surely become apparent if psychedelics are approved as medicines.
“This danger is the scientists and clinicians will be imposing their personal religious or spiritual beliefs on the practice of psychedelic medicine.”
/ quote
Stang group’s discussion:
“the paper that you brought up was published recently, and I would encourage people in the audience to read it.
“It was written by Matthew Johnson, who’s a leading psychedelic researcher at Johns Hopkins, and it’s called “Consciousness, Religion, Gurus– the Pitfalls of Psychedelic Medicine.”
“the problem of the intersection of religion and psychedelics that Matt is doing, his proposed solution to that problem, and whether or not you agree with his proposed solution of how we can make–
“how we can make peace with the inherently spiritual nature of psychedelics.”
Cybermonk Comments
This is the ol’ great Buddha statue debate in the psychedelic clinic therapy room … related to the Great Question of Newage or Classical styling of music or framing.
You could falsely accuse the Egodeath theory of oppressing the voyager/ client by pushing a particular metaphysical frame, instead of … what, “being neutral”?
I turned that argument against the accuser; the argument is a functional self-contradiction and is malpractice, it turns out, and is actually inflicting harm, failing to do your basic job as a psychedelic clinic session guide.
More strongly than anyone could ever accuse me, I aggressively accuse other people of:
How dare you suggest to the client that they should “submit” and “surrender” and “give up their freedom to allow the experience to drive them” – you are supposed to empower 💪 the client and amplify their ego power empowerment freedom.
Stand on your left leg harder, no matter the fact that psychotic control seizure is thereby produced.
Never mind that the wrath of the gods is invoked by the client’s sitting on that ego-steering throne, and the client’s ship is sinking in a storm, thanks to your supportive empowerment of the client.
Never mind that; plow ahead! You’re supposed to empower 💪⚡️the client, no matter what, and reify their existing, untransformed expectations and preconceptions.
Your role as a psychedelic guide is to fulfill the client’s wishes, of how control and time and psychedelics and the mind works.
That is the proper, neutral, and ethically good thing to do, which is pure of any spiritual or religious belief.
You are a terrible person for suggesting that the poor client, who is a victim of you, … you should have delivered them just vague freewill fog, or just shrugged instead,
You should feebly and non-directively ask the client: “I am your psychedelic guide today – how would you like me to guide you?”
Stang Panel Con’t
“Do we start to associate those type of experiences with that religious symbolism [infamous infernal Buddha statue] and the traditions and all the connotations and ideas that come with that?
“And I think to his point, there is a problem here, especially because we also know that set and setting are so incredibly important.
“You might even call– and repeating Ido Hartogshon’s theory here, psychedelics placebo enhancers.
“So to what extent are the flight instructions not some sort of descriptive tool, but actually, they’re a primer for a particular experience?”
[while posing as if “neutral” and “pure” of any “religious or spiritual or metaphysical belief”]
“people in America tend to have more mystical experiences, … due to the fact that there’s an emphasis on mystical experiences.
“There’s the use of the mystical experience questionnaire [MEQ], which comes from a very particular way of gauging and assessing what a mystical experience is.
“It kind of primes people that are about to have a psychedelic experience to think about certain questions.”
“what Matthew Johnson is basically saying,
“even the more subtle aspects of our guidance as therapists could deeply influence someone.
“[Our panel advocates] existential positionality, this deep, spiritual reflection on your own nature being spirituality. [mystobabble -cm]
“But rather than going with this, he proposes a secular approach.
“And he then also goes on to continue to say,
“the secular is basically what we can empirically verify.
“I’m not sure … about this equation of the secular with that which can be verified empirically through science.
“But there is so much that we don’t know, that going by that, it’s a very meager definition, I think, of secularism.
“it doesn’t really address any of the concerns.
“it even naively suggests that if we just would wear a white coat and strip all– everything that kind of even smells remotely like meaning, we’ll be fine.
“it’s a naive idea of what– that secular would be a suitable approach to this.
“everything that we do is endowed with meaning, to a certain extent.
“it’s better to be honest about that and forthcoming about that, and reflect on the ontological assumptions in our psychotherapeutic approaches and models, and then have another conversation, but be transparent.
“We can then start to work with informed consent.
[to cater to the client/voyager’s spiritual desires -cm]
“We can start to do spiritual assessment which is client-centered, rather than based on someone’s personal background.
“he is using the word secular when the word interfaith might be more appropriate, if we include in interfaith, for example, a rationalist, empiricist view.
“That is arguably one commitment among many.
“it’s frustrating to see the medical model being positioned as the position of no position, and everyone else [as biased and pushing some arbitrary spiritual frame].
“I agree with you. It’s an important paper, and I would encourage everyone to read it.”
“That’s the other sense of presence for me, is being sort of connected to something, but being conscious of what that is
“not using vague terms that Matthew Johnson refers to that some therapists have been using that he calls New Age terms that are vague, and we assume everyone knows what it means to say that
I’m in a unitivestate, or
I’m having a mysticalexperience”
“to have really a well-cultivated sense of what that is, and to be skillful in knowing when the presence that I’m bringing into a room, maybe I’m becoming alienated from that.
“And so then I can bring myself back to a more spacious, compassionate, loving response for the person that I’m with, and knowing how to navigate spaces where we can easily be thrown off.
“psychedelic experiences are very powerful.
“people go away into the vast territories of human experience, and so to have a well-navigated landscape, and also a practice that orients us to distress and to joy and affection.”
[I like the “well-navigated landscape” image; I have mapped the central feature of Mythemeland: the control transformation gate, aka the shadow. -cm]
“some of that is developed in psychotherapeutic practice, but this dimension of it that is the spiritual and religious experience may not be always.
[… be developed, though some clients need it to be].
“Matthew Johnson– I would love to see a chaplain specialist on that team, a spiritual care professional to consult with that group to provide this kind of insight and wisdom to round out the [actually spiritual] experience that people are having with really very skilled and highly skilled clinicians.
[“alleged pure, neutral scientist therapists”]
Provide a pure, non-biased, neutral Psilocybin experience
“within human experience there’s the seduction of the pure– that somehow we can get to a pure experience, whether that’s purely objective, which is part of what I hear Matthew Johnson arguing for, which there’s no such thing.
“you want to give me a hard time about myth. That’s a myth.”
[By ‘accusation of myth’ & the above retort, I think that speaker is referring to the proposed, allegedly – but naively proposed – “pure”, “metaphysically neutral” ideal: that the clinic should not have any mythemes; no Buddha figures; no Christian music eg Bach. -cm]
“And so recognizing the very fact that we are in someone else’s space, that changes the experience that the person has, simply because we’re there.
[as a meddling, non-neutral, Guide/ biased interpretation-suggester imposing our own arbitrary metaphysical frame on the poor hapless Client/ victim -cm]
“So there’s a piece of self-awareness that’s really important for the person who enters that space as a care provider, as a caregiver, and a recognition that the very fact that you’re showing up is going to change things.
[care provider: psilocybin session Guide]
“So in light of that, where do you go from there?
“And knowing that within this work of psychedelic experience, just what can be opened up.
[eg arbitrary frames]
“that raises important questions for the training of people who would be in that space, not only for the self-awareness piece, but being able, then, to sit with people as you inadvertently open up things with them that you never intended to open up, but because you are there, that’s what’s happened.”
[one voyager got caught in a bad thought loop, and the Guide was losing it]
“[A psychedelic Guide needs] a profound and deep embodied sense of understanding the psychedelic landscape and experiences and all the different type of iterations of those experiences, and being able to be a very calm, reassuring presence.
“And then especially, not doing too much.”
Guides Should Teach; the Naive Myth of the Metaphysically Neutral Option & Unsustainability of the Exaggerated Principle/ Doctrine of “Don’t Be Too Directive”
It is objectively better to teach the Egodeath theory than for the guide to mutely & unhelpfully “reassure” the client who is being pulled into the control-transformation vortex.
A failure to help in giving birth prevents birth and causes trauma. That is malpractice and basic incompetence.
Goal: complete the innate transformation, efficiently. Maximize success and minimize trauma. Neutrality is a myth and unhelpful; harmful.
Are you going to claim that you are a midwife, but just sit there while the baby is struggling, and do nothing?!
And refuse to tell the client what’s going on and how to succeed in their passage?
I entertained the proposal that guides should not tell low-dose beginner clients the truth; about the mind’s built-in, designed-in, innate mental model transformation from possibilism to eternalism – and that position blew up!
Withholding Transcendent Knowledge turns out to be the most indefensible position in the world, and completely not actionable! Outright malpractice, in fact!
Make yourself useful!! Assert yourself, help out, for Christs sake!
“INAPPROPRIATE INTRODUCTION OF RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL BELIEFS OF INVESTIGATORS OR CLINICIANS
“spiritual” can mean different things. Here I am referring to supernatural belief systems or frameworks that are not empirically based,
[but see Ken Wilber’s essay Eye to Eye; define ’empirical observation’ -cm]
“[social mundane] qualities can and should be encourage by clinicians conducting psychedelic therapy.
“The concern surrounds the former category of supernatural or religious beliefs.
“For today’s psychedelic scientists and clinicians, frameworks of concern are likely to resemble a loosely held eclectic collection of various beliefs drawn piecemeal from
mystical traditions,
Eastern religions, and
indigenous cultures, perhaps best described by the term
“new age,” although they could come from any religious or spiritual belief system.
“It is important to operate instead from a secular framework that is nonetheless open to working with patients or participant of any religious/spiritual background.”
Cybermonk:
That’s like how the Egodeath theory stands on two distinct legs, integrated.
The Egodeath theory is based on non-metaphor direct speaking (the Core theory).
That clearly defined model then is able to separately explain analogies in religious myth (the Mytheme theory), by virtue of the two sub-theories being kept distinct.
Don’t make vague mystic myth the foundation for a scientific explanatory model.
Johnson:
“This is in alignment with the best practices of clinical psychology and other mental health professions that recognize the importance of strong rapport with patients, religious/ spiritual tolerance, and the importance to mental health of having meaning in life.
“Clinicians and scientists should not introduce their own nonempirically supported beliefs.
“It is inappropriate to introduce meta-religious beliefs such as perennialism.
“perennialism is the notion that the major religious traditions point toward a core truth.”
Psychedelic Cognitive Science and Developmental Psychology Is Not a Perennialist (Religious Myth) Foundation
Johnson’s above statement against holding a perennialism foundation isn’t how to frame the Egodeath theory.
The Egodeath theory is primarily framed as an explanation of how the mind works when exposed to the loose cognitive association binding state through psilocybin.
This developmental innate structure built into the mind then explains world religious myth.
Religious myth describes by analogy, psilocybin eternalism transformation.
Johnson:
“It is also not appropriate to present nonempirically supported descriptions of psychedelic effects as known truths for participants, e.g., instructing participants that a psychedelic session will inform them about the nature of the mind.”
Objection, hypocrites!
Every trip guidebook explains that “you need to let go, you need to give over control, you need to submit, you need to surrender, and that is how to restore control stability.”
It would be insane malpractice to not inform the tripper of this folk practical wisdom technique.
And explain clearly the scientific model, along with the now-decoded referent of religious myth.
I have thought it through and wow!, my position is extremely easy to defend, and the other, opposite position is completely impossible to defend for even a moment;
Arguing for witholding Transcendent Knowledge from a Psilocybin user fails catastrophically in 20 different ways.
I would feel sorry for anyone who tries to uphold the position that we should withhold gnosis and withhold transcendent knowledge from the poor client who is undergoing control seizure transformation turmoil.
When you know the answer and solution and explanation – articulate wisdom – it would be insane & unjustifiable to withhold Transcendent Knowledge from someone who needs it.
It would be malpractice not to teach the client the Egodeath theory, to recognize systematically and efficiently that this controlled turmoil is shaped and recognized as eternalism transformation.
Not beating around the bush, withholding explanation – that would be sinister and paranoia-inducing.
Johnson:
“Conveying such descriptions is concerning at a general level because patients may take such descriptions as scientific fact rather than opinion when coming from scientific or clinical authorities.
“They are also concerning because if participants do come away from sessions with their own such conclusions from the effects then it is more scientifically interesting if such notions were not directly fed to participants from the treatment team.
“In addition to being mindful about the scope of concepts introduced to participants, scientists and clinicians should not include religious icons in the session room or other clinical space.
“It has unfortunately become fashionable and commonplace for statues of Buddha to be present in psychedelic session treatment rooms.”
I am against Buddha statues, like people are against simply assuming “everyone loves U2”.
I am against non-drug meditation insifar as it’s employed as a strategy to get rid of Psilocybin and ego death.
Non-drug meditation is a recovery days activity.
Historically, meditation comes from Psilocybin.
Meditation is being abused, to perpetuate delusion, when meditation is used as a pretext to avoid and substitute for and eliminate and replace Psilocybin.
– Cybermonk
Johnson:
“In addition to other concerns about conflating religious beliefs with empirically based clinical practice, the introduction of such religious icons into clinical practice unnecessarily alienates some people from psychedelic medicine, e.g., atheists, Christians, and Muslims. “
Retort:
His view is biased against any particular groups.
That is not a sustainable argument that he makes: it is naïve neutrality, through deleting everything, as if religious freedom dictates deleting all religion. -Cybermonk
“It will ultimately interfere with the mainstream adoption of these treatments to help the greatest number of appropriate individuals if they are approved as treatments, e.g., coverage by insurance and government medical programs.
“scientists and clinicians can certainly have their own religious or nonempirically based beliefs.
“they should not bring up these personal beliefs and insert them into therapeutic practice.”
Retort:
On what basis do you declare and label certain professional practices as neutral and scientific but you assert other practice is a spiritual or religious then what do you do with Ken Wilber’s theory which is developmental psychology psychospiritual?
I don’t bring religious or spiritual beliefs, I bring a model of mental development in the Psilocybin altered state which converts from possibilism-thinking to eternalism-thinking.
Religious myth is analogies that describe this mental developmental innate process.
This is how the mind is designed, and religion describes how the mind is designed.
The well-formed, intelligent, scientific (= directly expressed), correct, true nature of religious beliefs is about cyber-space-time mental models and how they are transformed in the psychedelic state.
This is not about “religious beliefs” as Johnson misconceives the term; this is about cognitive science of mental development, which is explained by religious myth by analogy. -Cybermonk
Johnson:
“It also does not mean that participants should not bring their own belief systems to their therapy.”
“people having psychedelic sessions touch on the “big questions,” e.g., the nature of reality and the nature of self.
“Patient beliefs often play a large role in her or his meaning making from sessions.
“Just as with the practice of secular clinical psychology or psychiatry, a patient can certainly bring up religious beliefs and concepts …”
Printing and Debating the Article
Johnson’s article has other points too.
The article is not long, but it is dense with a lot of high-traction points that are worth engaging and debating and clarifying our thoughts.
The Egodeath theory 