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.
Instead of expanding the present page, I started a fresh new page, planned title: How Control-Loss Got Omitted from the Challenging Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ)
Where did the control-related questions go? What happened to them? How did they get dropped along the way?
The CEQ questions are definitely flawed right at the most central key point:
The CEQ questions omit any “control” phrases, which are found elsewhere in the article.
Instead of words about control loss threat, the CEQ has duplicated, indistinguishable, redundant questions about:
fear/frightened 2x
death/dead 2x
isolation 2x
shake/shaky 2x.
The previous questionnaires and the body of the article have such phrasing. I list those exact “control” phrases from the CEQ article. I’m re-checking that list now.
At the bottom of this webpage, I’m doing a focused examination of the control-related wording in the CEQ questions, and comparing them to the control phrases elsewhere in the CEQ article.
Why are four or more questions exactly duplicated (fear, death), instead of having any questions about control?
Maturation of the Articles
Griffiths’ “Guidelines for Safety” article is 2008. Doesn’t mention heart palpitation/ uneven heartbeat.
Griffiths’ CEQ article is 2016. Mentions heart palpitation/ uneven heartbeat.
Where the action’s at: the last 2 pages of the article; section: Appendix 2: Initial Item Pool for CEQ Development – top priority.
List these control-related questions from the previous questionnaires, along with which questionnaire they are from.
Map them to the CEQ’s questions to determine what became of the vanishing control-related words/phrases.
Then assess body of article, section by section, looking for discussion of why those control-related phrases got dropped when copying questions from previous questionnaires into the CEQ.
My Initial Assessment
Apparently, according to Roland Griffiths, the threat of loss of control isn’t a challenging experience with psilocybin mushrooms, even though his article mentions ‘control’ 19 times and quotes other questionnaires, including their entire category of questions, “Impaired cognition/control”.
So far, I’ve found 3 documents that misrepresent bad trips, due to Roland Griffiths’ cover-up of the main bad trip effect – the threat of loss of control:
The Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) article and its resulting CEQ questionnaire.
Griffiths’ 2008 article “Human Hallucinogen Research: Guidelines for Safety”.
I have informed the Oregon Advisory Board about the threat of loss of control and its folk solution, “surrender/ submit/ accept the loss of control”, as well as linking them to my Requirements for Guides webpage, along with informing them that Psilocybin is at the heart of Christian historical religious practice.
Challenging Experience Questionnaire (CEQ)
The Challenging Experience Questionnaire: Characterization of challenging experiences with psilocybin mushrooms
felt like my control-thoughts already exist in the future, unavoidably [my formulation/ phrase]
Article: “Human Hallucinogen Research: Guidelines for Safety”
Similarly, Griffiths’ article “Human Hallucinogen Research: Guidelines for Safety” is missing (almost entirely) the effect, Threat of Loss of Control; Fear of Loss of Control.
Panic about/ Apprehension of/ Fear of loss of control – yet that comes with an attraction element too, per the mytheme {sirens luring steersman/ sailors to their death on the rocks}.
Griffiths’ articles are also missing, or entirely short on, the solution, which is: {submit to/ give honor to/ pay obeisance to/ surrender to/ pacify/ mollify/ sacrifice to} the eternalism no-free-will {dragon/ planetary archon fate-ruler}.
CEQ Surprisingly Omits Entire Category of “Control Loss”
Griffiths has created a negative survey, that’s about 75% good, but has amazing huge gaps – surprised but not surprised.
I’m surprised at which omissions and blind spots are in the survey vs. what known negative experiences are mentioned in the course of creating the CEQ.
Here are phrases throughout the article that – astoundingly – didn’t make it into the 1-page questionnaire of 26 questions. Some are from other questionnaires.
volition
new thoughts [eg of control transgression]
dread of ego dissolution
loss of ego/control
impaired control and cognition
Question 21 Experience of confusion, disorientation and/or chaos [control instability]
Question 28 Sense of being trapped and helpless
Question 37 Visions of demons, devils or other wrathful deities [omitted b/c culture-specific myth omitted]
Question 40 Feeling that people were plotting against you [I’d say “thoughts conspiring to pull into vortex”, not “people”]
Question 44 Thoughts and ideas flashing by very rapidly [2112 lyrics, Lessons song]
Question 57 Feeling of being rejected or unwanted [repudiating/ sacrificing childish possibilism-thinking, have to jettison]
Question 75 Convincing feeling of contact with people who have died
Question 76 Sense of being separated from the normal world, as though you were enclosed in a thick, silent glass chamber [says “isolated and lonely” instead]
The subjective experience of one’s own death and loss of control of the mind
Question 66 Frustrating attempt to control the experience
Question 84 Feeling of disintegration, falling apart
5. I felt like a marionette. [Little Dolls song by Bob Daisley, Twilight Zone by Rush or Peart]
16. I had difficulty making even the smallest decision.
33. I felt as though I were paralyzed.
44. I felt isolated from everything and everyone.
45. I was not able to complete a thought, my thought repeatedly became disconnected.
53. I had the feeling that I no longer had a will of my own.
29. I was afraid without being able to say exactly why.
38. I felt threatened.
The grading guide arranges the questions by group – there is no “loss of control” category or questions!! Inconceivable. Even though they list such questions from other, previous questionnaires.
CEQ’s Questions Grouped into Categories
Threat of Loss of Control (missing category)
marionette [helpless puppet – my formulation/ phrase]
felt like my control-thoughts already exist in the future, unavoidably [my formulation/ phrase]
Fear
I had the feeling something horrible would happen
Experience of fear
Anxiousness
Panic
I felt frightened
Grief
Sadness
Feelings of grief
I felt like crying
Feelings of despair
Despair
Emotional and/or physical suffering
Physical Distress
Feeling my heart beating
Feeling my body shake/tremble
I felt shaky inside [Michael Williams book: The Unshakeable Race (gnostics)]
I felt my heart beating irregularly or skipping beats
Pressure or weight in my chest or abdomen
Insanity
Fear that I might lose my mind or go insane
I was afraid that the state I was in would last forever
I experienced a decreased sense of sanity
Isolation
Isolation and loneliness
Feeling of isolation from people and things
I felt isolated from everything and everyone
Death
I had the profound experience of my own death
I felt as if I was dead or dying
Paranoia
I had the feeling that people were plotting against me
Experience of antagonism toward people around me
Zero Thought of Discussing “How Did You Solve/ Resolve the Problem?”
Not Solution-Oriented At All, only “Try to Predict & Avoid the Experiences”
The article says understanding challenging experiences helps predict and prevent them during therapy – yet has zero concept of “Hey, we should discuss how people solved these problems when they did come up.”
It merely mentions “responds to reassurance” (which assumes there’s a Guide to do the “reassuring”).
The mind is made to submit and surrender to the higher-level control source and jettison (repudiate, sacrifice, outgrow) the egoic claim to autonomous power of steering in a branching tree of possibilities.
Relying on left leg = unstable, branching-possibilities model, gives control failure/ cybernetic control death.
Relying on right leg = stable, non-branching model, gives viable control and ability to be in the psilocybin state with suitable, useful, appropriate, durable control mode.
More content below, including the actual questionnaire.
Flawed CEQ that Omits the Entire Category of “Loss of Control” – DOH!
The word “control” doesn’t even appear in the questionnaire, The Challenging Experiences Questionnaire!! The word ‘control’ appears 19 times in the article.
Even though the 5DASC questionnaire which this article quotes has an entire category of questions, called “Impaired cognition/control subscale”.
HOW IN THE … CAN YOU MAKE A BAD TRIP QUESTIONNAIRE AND FAIL TO EVEN MENTION CONTROL??!! mega fail!!
🌳🍄🐍😵🪨🐉🚪💨💥💎🏆
Appendix 1: The Challenging Experience Questionnaire
Instructions: Looking back on the entirety of your session, please rate the degree to which at any time during that session you experienced the following phenomena. Answer each question according to your feelings, thoughts, and experiences at the time aof the session. In making each of your ratings, use the following scale:
0 – none; not at all
1 – so slight cannot decide
2 – slight
3 – moderate
4 – strong
5 – extreme (more than ever before in my life)
______ 1. Isolation and loneliness
______ 2. Sadness
______ 3. Feeling my heart beating
______ 4. I had the feeling something horrible would happen
______ 5. Feeling my body shake/tremble
______ 6. Feelings of grief
______ 7. Experience of fear
______ 8. Fear that I might lose my mind or go insane
______ 9. I felt like crying
______ 10. Feeling of isolation from people and things
______ 11. Feelings of despair
______ 12. I had the feeling that people were plotting against me
______ 13. I was afraid that the state I was in would last forever
______ 14. Anxiousness
______ 15. I felt shaky inside
______ 16. I had the profound experience of my own death
______ 17. I felt my heart beating irregularly or skipping beats
______ 18. Pressure or weight in my chest or abdomen
______ 19. I experienced a decreased sense of sanity
______ 20. I felt as if I was dead or dying
______ 21. Panic
______ 22. Experience of antagonism toward people around me
______ 23. Despair
______ 24. I felt isolated from everything and everyone
______ 25. Emotional and/or physical suffering
______ 26. I felt frightened
Free for non-commerical[sic] use.
Control Transformation Art Imagery
Rescued by no-free-will from outside the local control agent system by the higher control level, pulled from the jaws of hell of control disproof/ transgression, and purified/ perfected/ enlightened/ transformed from (immature, temporary, contingent, perishable) possibilism-thinking to (mature) eternalism-thinking.
Childish branching-thinking (naive possibilism-thinking) is carried off, affirming non-branching possibilities, per branching-message mushroom trees.
Book: John Lash: Not In His Image, page 220, annotation by Cybermonk, July 4, 2022
One of my announcements of my full decoding of the major medieval mythic art trope {branching-message mushroom tree}.
That was drawn a few months after Brown sent me the 2019 version of the highlighted passage from the art scholar’s book about “youths in trees cutting branches” around March 2022, which has stronger highlighting than the 2016 book’s text.
The color plate in the 2016 book is fairly faint and faded, so I didn’t catch the “youths cutting branches” art mytheme motif when the book first shipped, but only 5-6 years later.
Photo credit above: Julie M. Brown, crop & processing by Cybermonk.
Photo credit above: Julie M. Brown, crop by Cybermonk.
Brown fails to mention or note this curved pruning knife (held in right hand, cutting the branches held by left hand) in the 2016 book or 2019 article. (Please prove me wrong.)
if the artists had labored under the delusion that the model before him was meant to be a mushroom rather than a schematized tree he would have omitted the branches altogether.
Erwin Panofsky, secret 2nd letter to Wasson
WHOOSH the whole message and purpose of the branching mushroom tree imagery went completely over the head of the most influential art historian, who, in the case of mushroom imagery, presents infantile, flimsy argumentation not worthy of a grade schooler.
The mental world model of {control and time and possibilities branching} is conformed to {worldline in block universe} per eternalism.
Steersman Helios controlled by Mithras, reconciled operating in harmony/ unison as the two levels of your mind.
= cosmos level 8 (heimarmene / eternalism) & 9/10 (the ennead & the decans; the Empyrean where dwells God and the elect).
In the psilocybin eternalism state, rely on non-branching thinking (right leg), not branching-possibilities/ freewill thinking (left leg).
The branching vs. non-branching mental worldmodel of control, time, & possibilities.
Cista mystica lid-covered snake-basket mechanism veiled in the mind’s control-system at the fountainhead source of control-thoughts.
Helios & Mithras banqueting at the symposium party on the hide of the sacrificed egoic-thinking possibilism-thinking bull, psilocybin mixed wine in drinking horn.
Control stability restored from outside the egoic control system, jettisoning relying on naive possibilism-thinking.
“In Mark 9:14-29, Jesus exorcises the ego-demon from a youth supported by his father; these four figures are aspects of the psyche.”
Uploading an Image
Photo credit above: Julie M. Brown. Full wide image including knife in upper right, but I need more on the right that’s cut off.
Dec. 20, 2022 Reassessment of Whether Control Questions Are Discussed
Moved to or superseded by a separate webpage, planned title: “How Control Loss Got Omitted from the Challenging Experiences Questionnaire CEQ”
There, I’m doing a fresh assessment of the CEQ article.
Where are all the places that the CEQ article mentions the threat of loss of control; control-related questions?
Ignore the word ‘control’ in the unrelated sense of controlling a scientific procedure.
Final CEQ questions: Where Did ‘Control’ Go??
Copied to a separate webpage.
Here are the final literal CEQ questions, with bold on words that are like threat of loss of control:
______ 1. Isolation and loneliness
______ 2. Sadness
______ 3. Feeling my heart beating
______ 4. I had the feeling something horrible would happen
______ 5. Feeling my body shake/tremble
______ 6. Feelings of grief
______ 7. Experience of fear
______ 8. Fear that I might lose my mind or go insane
______ 9. I felt like crying
______ 10. Feeling of isolation from people and things
______ 11. Feelings of despair
______ 12. I had the feeling that people were plotting against me
______ 13. I was afraid that the state I was in would last forever
______ 14. Anxiousness
______ 15. I felt shaky inside
______ 16. I had the profound experience of my own death
______ 17. I felt my heart beating irregularly or skipping beats
______ 18. Pressure or weight in my chest or abdomen
______ 19. I experienced a decreased sense of sanity
______ 20. I felt as if I was dead or dying [dup of 16 – did this replace ‘control’?]
______ 21. Panic
______ 22. Experience of antagonism toward people around me
______ 23. Despair
______ 24. I felt isolated from everything and everyone
______ 25. Emotional and/or physical suffering
______ 26. I felt frightened [dup of 7 – did this replace ‘control’?]
Phrases from other pages about control that got omitted from the CEQ questions
This is from my initial pass. Below, in the TOC-based headings, I plan to list all of the quotes from each section of the CEQ article, with enough context to track what happened to control-phrasing such that it was omitted from the CEQ questions.
Actually I think these might be extracted only from the previous questinnaires (SOCQ, HRS, 5DASC); Appendix 2.
That’s a good strategy; do this first; so now re-do this first (copy entire questions this time, from previous q’aires (Apx2)), before extracting phases from body of article.
To do first: for each item below, confirm that it’s lifted from “Initial Item Pool” section: result: half the items in this list were from the questions in Appendix 2 (previous questionnaires), half were from body of article.
Therefore, work backwards:
First, in Appendix 2’s subheadings (SOCQ, HRS, 5DASC), list all the questions (verbatim w/ number & any question-category that’s indicated). Status: about to start.
Then, for each section of article body, extract phrases, with special attention of which q’air it came from and how Griffiths managed to omit that phrase from his CEQ questions. Status: not started.
Finally: Describe assessment: How do the earlier q’airs have their control-related questions, and the body of the article contains control-related phrases, and yet how then did the CEQ end up lacking any control-related phrases? Status: not started.
marionette5DASC
sense of being trapped and helplessSOCQ
volition not a question. 2 hits: page 2 & 4.
new thoughtspage 2, not a question
dread of ego dissolutionpage 2, not a question. no q’aires mention “dissolution”. 8 hits in article.
loss of ego/control. not a question. 3 hits on “loss of ego”, all on page 2.
impaired control and cognition – not question. “impaired control” is 1 hit, in this whole phrase, page 2.
confusion, disorientation and/or chaos– SOCQ. ‘disorientation’ also p. 4: “disorientation, ego loss, loss of perception of time“
impaired control, disintegration of sense of control [not phrasing from pdf]
impaired control and cognition- not a question. 1 hit on “impaired control”: p. 2, in “impaired control and cognition”
no longer had a will of my own5DASC
paralyzed5DASC
unable to make decisions5DASC, actual wording: “difficulty making even the smallest decision.”
felt threatened5DASC
frustrating attempt to controlSOCQ
loss of control of my [the] mindNot a question. 1 hit on complete phrase “loss of control”: “experience of one’s own death and loss of control of the mind”, page 14.
Does the body text anywhere explain WHY these phrases got omitted from CEQ?
“Control” Wording in Each Section of the CEQ Article
Superseded by a separate webpage.
Start with the end: Appendix 2’s questions from previous questionnaires (SOC, HRS, 5DASC). Because the control-related phrases are there, and the format is comparable to the explanandum, which is the CEQ list of questions.
How come Griffiths started from the good questions he picked from SOC, HRS, 5DASC, and ended up removing/ omitting/ censoring/ whitewashing/ covering up all control-related wording from the CEQ’s version of those questions?
That Harvard page lists all the Center for the Study of World Religion dept. videos, with the “Psychedelics and the Future of Religion” series of 8 videos for the first academic year (Sep 2020-May 2021) mixed in, unmarked.
Generally, my copied passages are condensed excerpts; see link for exact original passage.
If I were publishing formally, though, I would not lie and misquote Wm James like all the posers (Ken Wilber) do; I would start: “On nitrous, it occurred to me…”
Motivation for Post
Had to make my own webpage to gather the list of the 8 episodes of the academic year 2020-2021 “Psychedelics and the Future of Religion” video series.
At Harvard’s page & YouTube channel, the episodes are jumbled in with others, not marked.
The 8 episodes are listed below with some of my excepts and comments.
The 8 Season 1 videos are buried mixed in at YouTube channel. Academic year 2020-2021.
Self-Suppression of Psychedelics Content
Harvard is trying to hide their psychedelics content.
Proof that there’s a cover-up: Newberg ‘s video’s description brags frankly and directly about the two authors being experts in psychedelics – and yet the book itself does not advertise as psychedelics, and keeps that buried and hidden, and they try to downplay that and whitewash and cover up psychedelics hidden in the “altered states” chapter at the end.
I found the same pattern in a Wouter Hanegraaff video, where the description of the video was no-nonsense, no BS baloney; it said that entheogens are plants, period – no BS affectation posturing dancing-about with “entheogens in the wide sense”.
Academics are really low IQ and stupid because they allow themselves to be handcuffed/ censored in 18 different ways, and so of course they can’t write anything of any interest or relevance; it’s all double-talk/ cover-up.
“In the first event of the [Psychedelics and the Future of Religion] series, Charles M. Stang, CSWR Director and Professor of Early Christian Thought, hosted Dr. Roland Griffiths of John Hopkins University, perhaps the leading researcher into the healing possibilities of psilocybin.
“Stang pushed Griffiths on how his studies seem to sanitize mystical experiences by defining them as profoundly moving encounters with a loving, transcendent source, and sidelining harrowing experiences of the divine as abysmal, dark, and even terrifying.
“Stang remarks: “This is where the history of religion is important, because it is shot through with the full archive of experiences.
inches away from being shot through by psilocybernetics
“Religions know how to deal with harrowing experiences of God as an abyss because, guess what, people regularly have experiences of God as an abyss.
“And communities have to hold that, have to help people work with those experiences.” 👏
“The [8] webinars [at YouTube] explored a range of topics, including:
bold claims made by psychedelic researchers about religion, spirituality, and mysticism;
limitations inherent in the scientific study of psychedelics (and the need for the humanities, especially the study of religion to take more of a lead); [give it up, loser academics, you forfeited to Park St Press, caved in to the boot-heel of Prohibitionism]
the possibility of training spiritual guides for psychedelic experiences, sometimes called “psychedelic chaplaincy”;
the evidence for psychedelic use in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, from the Eleusinian Mysteries to early Christianity; [not medieval] and
how to honor and include indigenous voices that are often sidelined in popular discourse.”
Harvard Divinity School
Charles Stang
Video Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion
Video 8 (May 2021): Between Sacred & Profane: Psychedelic Culture, Drug Spiritualities, and Contemporary America (Charles Stang, Erik Davis, Gary Laderman, Christian Greer)
The final chapter is on “Consciousness and Altered States”.
The intro pulls the same shiite as the first sentence in Ken Wilber’s first book: Censors “[On nitrous oxide], it occurs to me…” – Wm James wrote lowercase “it”; this censored version falsely starts their whitewashed misquote with “It”.
I found the Andrew Newberg school of writers disappointing, boring, straight, denatured, unmystical, OSC squares, maybe they were ordinary-state only, or meditation pushers, like CSR lameness: the (ordinary-state) Cog Sci of Religion. <– don’t care! irrel, reductionist, off-base, nothing of dionysus in it
religionless religion
exoteric esotericism
ordinary-state mystic experiencing
Video: The Varieties of Spiritual Experience (David Yaden)
Nov 2022 (not part of “Psychedelics and the Future of Religion” series)
“It always strikes me as strange why should we think that depriving oneself of something like food would induce a– could induce a legitimate spiritual experience but if we ingest something that is somehow illegitimate?
“And I’ve wondered whether the worry about ingesting something is troublesome precisely because of the Eucharist?“
“There’s a sense in which only one thing [the Eucharist] that you can ingest should transform you.
“You can do all kinds of other bodily exercises, but if you’re going to put something in your– if you’re going to eat or drink something that would transform you, it should be the Eucharist.
“And so anything [else] that might do that is kind of rendered illegitimate by virtue of its stepping into the space of the Eucharist.“
Who is going to break it to Stang that the Eucharist is Psilocybin?
“I’m wondering if you find that even remotely compelling as an explanation for Christian worries about psychedelics?”
Michael Ferguson:
“One is to look within Christendom and to correlate the degree to which a particular faith tradition has a high veneration for the Eucharist.
“And then to see if there is an association with an increased or decreased anxiety surrounding psychedelics.
“Because with this working hypothesis you would predict that the higher that the reverence is given to the Eucharist sacramentally, that the higher the anxiety around psychedelics would be for some kind of authenticity of mystical experience induction.
“And then a second dimension of analysis would be to look across different traditions, Islamic traditions, Jewish traditions, et cetera to see if there is comparable anxiety, or if there is really something uniquely elevated about Christian anxiety.
“But if we were to run that experiment, my wager is that perhaps there would be some correlation there.
“But that there would be perhaps a larger explanatory value to the anxieties about intoxicated states generally.
“I think that already with spiritual rapture there is such a patently intoxicating effect about it.
“That this delicate dance between ecstatic transformation versus delusion is so difficult to really finely walk and to discern.
“And so my speculation is that it’s more generally an anxiety about any type of intoxicant that would compromise the ability for discernment.”
Stang:
“Are people as anxious about that as a technique for inducing altered states as they are about techniques that involve of ingesting something, and if so why?”
Video: Transcendence and Transformation [initiative, Oct 2021]
The Transcendence and Transformation kick-off event took place Sept. 23. [2021]
Charles M. Stang, Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR), discussed the Center’s new initiative, “Transcendence and Transformation,” and introduced its first cohort.
“The new initiative will study religious and spiritual traditions and practices—ancient and modern, global in reach—that aim for the transcendence of our normal states of being, consciousness, and embodiment, and the consequent transformation of individual, community, and society.”
The webpage has a transcript.
Video: Transcendence and Transformation [initiative, Nov 2022]
“we’re continuing our very popular series on Psychedelics and the Future of Religion,
“the start of that series … Spring [2023] semester.
[season 2 is acad yr 2022-2023 but only 2023]
“lining up an array of great guests who will cover an array of topics, such as
the central Dahomey tradition,
other Indigenous religious movements using plant medicine sacraments;
debates over how to interpret and integrate “bad trips”
a panel discussion on Psychedelics and Hinduism.”
“the launch of a podcast called Pop Apocalypse, led by another of our postdoctoral fellows, Matthew Dillon. Pop Apocalypse will offer an examination of myth and mysticism in popular culture, and will be aimed at audiences inside and outside the academy.
“So please be on the lookout for an announcement of the podcast release sometime later in the Fall semester.” [eg Dec 15 2022]
search: “Pop Apocalypse” podcast
“reading groups, open to members of the Harvard community, one on Mircea Eliade, and another on Plant Consciousness.
[ie are plants conscious? 😞 🍄 <– this one is ]
“the initiative also supports research associates and postdoctoral fellows who are pursuing private research projects, projects which will someday be public facing.
“it will be published in whatever form is most appropriate, an article, a book, a website, or a public lecture.”
“T&T, this Initiative in its second year is devoted to the study of
religious and spiritual traditions and practices, ancient and modern, global in reach, that aim for the transcendence of our normal states of being, consciousness, and embodiment, and the transformation of individual community and society.
“T&T affirms the existence of the sacred, different levels of reality, seen and unseen, and different modes of access to them.
“It investigates metaphysics and mysticism – the traditions across time, people, and places that have cultivated practices of transcendence and transformation and have articulated worldviews to make sense of those practices.
“we launched two new speaker series and continued a third.
“We launched Gnoseologies, led by my colleague Giovanna Parmigiani, a series which explored
ways of knowing that are often labeled nonrational.
[I like his handling there; “non-rational” is a false word that actually means rationality in the altered state. -cm]
Giovanna is continuing that series this year. Her next event will be on Wednesday, October 19 [2022], a Conversation with [? Marcelit Faella. ?]”
Video: TechGnosis Today (April 13, 2022, Erik Davis)
“Those of us who study of mysticism typically do so because we have an ecstatic origin story. We pursue this knowledge as a vision quest.
“Graduate school and early career research, on the other hand, is about preparing us for the field of religious studies as it currently operates.
“We learn grammars and syntax of dead languages;
become proficient in cognitive psychology, critical theory, and sociology;
analyze discursive formations, exploitive practices, and power.
“But the pendulum has swung so far in this direction, that I fear the discipline is in danger of losing what makes it distinctive, even transformative.
“We take accounts of mystical events seriously.
These are the events that spur individuals to join religious communities (or even found them!).
Groups and societies have been founded to trigger and explore such experiences.
“No serious study of religion can ignore them.
“By moving the mystical back to the heart of religious studies, we are NOT circling back to the pre-critical period of mystical studies.
“We are envisioning how to spiral up in a way that incorporates critical insights into the study of transcendence.”
“[my] podcast that centers on myth and mysticism in popular culture.
“the scholars one meets in the study of mysticism, gnosticism, or esotericism found their weird way through popular media, not traditional religion.
“introduced to the occult by heavy metal,
“Pop culture/ occulture is a resource for, and expression of, this new spiritual endeavor.
“intersection of mysticism and culture.
“descriptive, interpretive, and theoretical scholarship on religion and popular culture in real-time.”
Video (Nov 2021): Archaeology and Ecstasy
Nov 2021, maybe not in Psychedelics series, though relevant
The most tiresome thing in the world is so-called “critical”, “criticism”, which just means: destroy everything to death by exclusively complaining and criticizing and destroying everything, and then pretending you deserve a medal (or obeisance as you lord over your moral inferiors) for being everyone’s savior.
But they get some things right, per my excerpts below, and we ally.
“This series focuses on ways of knowing that are often labeled as “non-rational.”
“Traditionally referred to as gnosis in Western philosophical and religious traditions, and often understood in contraposition to science (episteme), these ways of knowing are becoming more and more influential in contemporary societies, popular culture, and academic research.
“What is the place of spirit possession, divination, and experiences perceived as “out-of-the ordinary” in our lives?
“How can we study and approach these types of phenomena?
“Going beyond dichotomies such as body and mind, ordinary and extraordinary, reason and experience, and matter and spirit,
this series hosts scholars of different disciplines and practitioners interested in exploring and expanding the boundaries of what counts as “knowledge” today.”
Book: Developing Magical Consciousness
My mind is closed on this matter: all important is psilocybin:
Developing Magical Consciousness: a theoretical and practical guide for the expansion of perception (Routledge 2020)
A 2-seconds skim suggests it’s just another typical beat-around-the-bush, substitution/ avoidance replacement ersatz inauthentic coverage, a for-profit cover-up, run of the mill witches shamanism book with near-zero mention of psychedelics, mentioning them just barely enough to be able to say that you mentioned them – in order for you to make 500 pages of not mentioning them – to “plaster over” the topic to prevent engaging the elephant-in-room topic.
It’s an old formula in the Prohibition era, is mentioning psychedelics (one time) in order to not cover them, rather than mentioning them for the purpose of actually covering them, engaging them.
Kindle Previews
by searching for book title is working on mobile. To view TOC / Intro.
Video 7 (March 22, 2021): Reasonably Irrational: Theurgy and the Pathologization of Entheogenic Experience (Wouter Hanegraaff)
“The next, last event in the series will take place on April 21st: Between Sacred and Profane, Psychedelic Culture, Drugs, Spirituality in Contemporary America.” [Erik Davis]
“the relevance of entheogens to liturgy and ritual invocation in Roman Egypt,
“the story of Thessalos , the Mithras Liturgy, and the neoplatonic practice of Iamblichus.
“Professor Hanegraaff will be arguing that if we deny or marginalize the clear evidence for entheogenic practice in this concept while acknowledging the spectacular visions and experiences that are claimed in the text, it is hard to avoid traditional pathologization interpretations of spiritual practices that, in fact, can be rationally accounted for.”
Video 6 (March 8, 2021): Honoring the Indigenous Roots of the Psychedelic Movement
“what psychedelic therapists and scientists can learn from ayahuasca shamanism, as well as critique some common misunderstandings around the notions of set, setting, and integration.”
transcript
Video 5 (Feb. 22, 2021): What is Psychedelic Chaplaincy?
“This panel brought together Daan Keiman, spiritual caregiver and facilitator at a psilocybin retreat in the Netherlands, with Jamie Beachy, a MAPS MDMA Therapist and director of the Center for Contemplative Chaplaincy at Naropa University, in dialogue with Trace Haythorn of ACPE to explore their visions for psychedelic chaplaincy.
“What is the potential role of spiritual caregivers in providing support for people preparing for, undergoing, or integrating psychedelic experiences?
“What are the challenges in creating psychedelic education and training opportunities for chaplains and clergy?
“To what extent does the continually increasing access to psychedelics call on us to rethink, reshape, or expand conceptions of chaplaincy writ large?”
Video 4: Psychedelics: The Ancient Religion with No Name? (Brian Muraresku)
Video 1 (Sep 2020): Psilocybin and Mystical Experience: Implications for Healthy Psychological Functioning, Spirituality, and Religion (Roland Griffiths, Charles Stang)
2019 is earlier than the 2020-2021 Psychedelics series.
part of series: “Rachel’s exhibition and lecture falls into one of the center’s ongoing series entitled, Matter and Spirit: Ecology and the Non-human Turn.”
Barrett FS, Bradstreet MP, Leoutsakos JS, Johnson MW, Griffiths RR. The Challenging Experience Questionnaire: Characterization of challenging experiences with psilocybin mushrooms. J Psychopharmacol. 2016 Dec;30(12):1279-1295.
Abstract
excerpts
“Acute adverse psychological reactions to classic hallucinogens (“bad trips” or “challenging experiences”), while usually benign with proper screening, preparation, and support in controlled settings, remain a safety concern in uncontrolled settings (such as illicit use contexts).
“Anecdotal and case reports suggest potential adverse acute symptoms including affective (panic, depressed mood), cognitive (confusion, feelings of losing sanity), and somatic (nausea, heart palpitation) symptoms.
“Responses to items from several hallucinogen-sensitive questionnaires (Hallucinogen Rating Scale, the States of Consciousness Questionnaire, and the Five-Dimensional Altered States of Consciousness questionnaire) in an Internet survey of challenging experiences with the classic hallucinogen psilocybin were used to construct and validate a Challenging Experience Questionnaire.
“The stand-alone Challenging Experience Questionnaire was then validated in a separate sample.
“Seven Challenging Experience Questionnaire factors (grief, fear, death, insanity, isolation, physical distress, and paranoia) provide a phenomenological profile of challenging aspects of experiences with psilocybin.
The Challenging Experience Questionnaire provides a basis for future investigation of predictors and outcomes of challenging experiences with classic hallucinogens.
Laderman is working on a book, has a course: “To create a space for people to explore drugs and religion and consider their value and significance in the American spiritual landscape.”
Wrote books about death, including Psychedelics focus. Video content. Articles.
A video discussion with Charles Stang, Christian Greer, & Erik Davis.
The familiar categories that are employed when discussing why people use drugs—“medicinal,” “recreational,” and “spiritual”—are not unhelpful when sorting out some of what drives people to seek out mind-altering substances.
But they are also somewhat conceptually limiting, as they deny the messier reality: that these categories are not mutually exclusive and allow for overlap and combinations.
The overlaps can be found in, for example, … the activities from the symposia in ancient Greece, or … in the ecstatic experiences of participants at your typical EDM festival.
The end of that article is like my recent {spear} mytheme post yesterday:
… potentially poisonous but also potentially life-altering, with powers that might even be understood by some as sacred.
Although it is alluring and seems domesticated, the psychedelic renaissance is really only the tip of the psychoactive spear, and the deeper it penetrates culture, the more we will realize how revolutionary this “rebirth” is for the futures of medicine, psychology, and religion.
GL
End of sentence skipped “recreation”.
I’m against dismissively (& self-servingly) labelling other people’s use as “recreational”, and also against omitting a recreational approach to the sacred altered state.
Psychedelia: An Ancient Culture, A Modern Way of Life (Lundborg)
Why/where did Lundborg come up re: Laderman?
It’s surprising how little I cite this book.
I received hardcover – HUGE – 2024/12/31.
There’s a book on ancient Dionysian religion and electric music festival culture, I posted at the Egodeath Yahoo Group in 2014: https://www.amazon.com/dp/9197652326/ –
“Interview with Patrick Lundborg: 60’s psych & garage guru, psychedelic culture scholar and author of brilliant „Psychedelia” and „Acid Archives” books”
There is too little recognition of pop sike cult during 1970-1990.
Religious Electric Music Festivals
Study of 1,225 festival-goers pinpoints positive effects of trippy drugs (Pattillo, Jan. 2020)
Psychedelic study shows why people love taking psychedelics at music festivals.
“Public perceptions of psychedelics, and the people who use them, are becoming more accurate.”
The {shadow} is specifically identified by the Egodeath theory as the threat of loss of control in the loose cognitive association binding state from Psilocybin.
from Eadwine’s image in the Great Mushroom Psalter: fear & mastery of non-branching; eternalism-thinking
The shadow is the non-branching serpent dragon monster threat of catastrophic loss of control, and of non-viable control instability.
The shadow threat is resolved and accommodated by the mind being made to consciously put trust in the transpersonal uncontrollable source of control thoughts.
The mind is made tranquil, transformed, and harmonious by being made to adopt a 2-level control model, instead of the egoic model of control, which is experienced as autonomous monolithic control agency steering in a tree of branching possibilities into an open future.
‘The unconscious’ doesn’t mean personal autobiography details per the ordinary-state limited Psychology view.
‘The unconscious’ means the altered-state mind’s standard experience of psilocybin eternalism including the attractive threat of the control vortex climax transformation {gateway} (Grof’s {birth canal passage}) to eternalism-thinking.
Why ‘Psilocybin’
In my writings, “Amanita” 🍄 is the billboard for Psilocybin, and “Psilocybin” means chemicals that produce classic psychedelic effects, such as eternalism experiencing, such as Mescaline, Ergot, & 4-ACE.
I employ the term ‘Psilocybin’ strategically in order to force people to not be able to avoid & replace & substitute BS that doesn’t work, or that hasn’t been proved to produce the exact same effect as Psilocybin, such as non-drug cave meditation imagination exercises.
And to highlight that our own religious religious history uses Psilocybin, so fully repeal Psilocybin prohibition.
And because redosing psilocybin is an efficient intensity curve.
“the double has a negative shade. Carl Jung notes that when contact is first made with the unconscious, it is often in the form of a stranger breaking into the house, and is seen as a threat to the individual.
“If the seeker is not searching for the divine and is simply fated to meet their double, would not the first contact [with the double, aka the unconscious] be felt as a threat?
It is after all a serious challenge to the ego, and like Near-Death Experiences will utterly change everything the individual knows about themselves.”
Clark Aitkins comment:
“the modern notion of a dark double. … Jung’s notion of the shadow.”
It’s funny & telling that bands 9 & 10 are blank in this diagram at top of page.
It shows how artificial they are, and less important within the psilocybin mental-model transformation sequence than passing through the ego death & rebirth gate from Saturn turmoil to reconciled eternalism in the fixed stars level (contains the zodiac constellations).
Unveiled Mental Construct Processing
Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast
vs.
Egodeath Mystery Show
See episode pages/articles.
IMO, the important line in the Earth-centered cosmos model as mystically used, is the line between Saturn & fixed stars (the zodiac belt & the other star-constellations).
That’s why I instantly knew Hanegraaff’s book Hermetic Spirituality 2022 book had a major malformation:
There are no fixed stars in Hanegraaff’s misrepresentation of the Earth-centered cosmos model used mystically.
Hanegraaff’s system of assertions (ie. “the 8th level, outside heimarmene”) collapses into rubble when you try to add stars (heimarmene; eternalism) to it.
Hanegraaff rightly fixes the ego death and rebirth gate at the top of level 7 (Saturn), but he tries to covertly move and sneak the stars to below (= before) the mental-model transformation gate.
The password to get through the serpent-guarded death-angel guarded gateway filter is:
repudiate and jettison the freewill premise
ie:
no-free-will / non-branching possibilities
Mapping the Mystic Cosmos Model to the Scientific Model of Psilocybin Mental Development
To interpret the cosmos model, map to my 3-phase model of psilocybin mental model development in terms of experiential states and the mental models they produce.
3. The possibilism state of consciousness retains eternalism-thinking (mental model) including qualified possibilism-thinking.
= cosmos level 9 & 10, the Empyrean.
No death-and-rebirth is involved to get from the fixed stars (level 8) to the Ennead or Decad Empyrean (level 9 & 10);
Ego death is into eternalism, NOT into possibilism/ “freedom”.
Completion of maturation (perfection, enlightenment, satori, purification, gnosis, becoming immortal) is not a revelation of personally empowering, egoic possibilism, but is about reconciling the mental model with the experience of eternalism.
The return to the possibilism ordinary-state experience that’s shaped in the form of “autonomous agent freely steering in a branching-possibilities world” is merely minor.
The essential transformation, the actual transformation, is from possibilism to eternalism – not the reverse, as Hanegraaff egoically naturally assumes, in his overeager receptivity to the “I Hate Fate” theme that’s sold by the Hermetic writers/ priests/ hierophants.
“Escape from fate” is the main theme of Late Antiquity.
J. Z. Smith
Episode 40: Wheels Within Wheels: Toward Western Esoteric Cosmology
Episode 40: Wheels Within Wheels: Toward Western Esoteric Cosmology
Aug. 2, 2018
Peter Adamson writes about cosmos model, see episode webpage – “Peter Adamson’s History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps podcast, of which we are big fans here at the SHWEP, takes astrology seriously in discussing ideas about fate, free-will, and related ideas in the history of western thought.”
“the cosmos which ended up winning the debate and becoming the standard scientific model from antiquity until the early modern period was the geocentric model developed by, among others, Plato, Eudoxus, and Aristotle.
“It was a refined and sifted version of this model which Ptolemy would bequeath to the middle ages.
“The west, and western esotericism, was, for the majority of its history, living on an immobile earth at the centre of a rather small universe made up of nested, concentric spheres.
“Questions arise from this model of the cosmos, such as:
“What’s outside the spheres, and how can I get there?
“What are the spheres made of?
“How do the spheres influence us?
“These are questions which we find played out in the history both of occult sciences like astrology and alchemy, and of western religious movements from the Hellenistic period onward.”
Episode 41: Fate and Foreknowledge: Toward Hellenistic Astrology
“the modern debate between Plato specialists over his supposed esotericism.
“Along the way we define ‘esoteric’ and ‘Platonism’, both very important terms … which are, rather surprisingly, rarely defined in the scholarly literature which treats them. We also have a look at my idea of ‘esoteric reading’.”
– Earl Fountainelle
Episode 23-1/2 : The Greek Iatromanteis: Katabasis, Metempsychosis, Soul-Flight, and the Question of ‘Shamanism’
“The ancient Mysteries have long attracted the interest of scholars, an interest that goes back at least to the time of the Reformation.
“After a period of interest around the turn of the twentieth century, recent decades have seen an important study of Walter Burkert (1987).
“Yet his thematic approach makes it hard to see how the actual initiation into the Mysteries took place.
“To do precisely that is the aim of this book.
“It gives a ‘thick description’ of the major Mysteries, not only of the famous Eleusinian Mysteries, but also those located at the interface of Greece and Anatolia: the Mysteries of Samothrace, Imbros and Lemnos as well as those of the Corybants.
“It then proceeds to look at the Orphic-Bacchic Mysteries, which have become increasingly better understood due to the many discoveries of new texts in the recent times.
“Having looked at classical Greece we move on to the Roman Empire, where we study not only the lesser Mysteries, which we know especially from Pausanias, but also the new ones of Isis and Mithras.
“We conclude our book with a discussion of the possible influence of the Mysteries on emerging Christianity.
“Its detailed references and up-to-date bibliography will make this book indispensable for any scholar interested in the Mysteries and ancient religion, but also for those scholars who work on initiation or esoteric rituals, which were often inspired by the ancient Mysteries.”
/ end blurb
Back Cover
“This book explores ancient mystery cults with emphasis on the question how the actual initiation into the Mysteries took place.
“Discussed are not only the famous Eleusinian Mysteries, but also smaller and lesser-known Greek and Roman Mysteries as those of Samothrace and Thebes, the Orphic-Bacchic Mysteries, and the new Mysteries of Isis and Mithras.
“Concluding with the influence on emerging Christianity, the author offers an indispensable in-depth analysis of this fascinating phenomenon.”
Official reviews
🤖 –
“Jan Bremmer has managed to write an interesting book on a topic about which there are almost no information, because because of the arcane discipline, the reconstruction of mystery processes is extremely tedious.
“This honesty is a strength of the book, as it does not transcend into conjectures, but explains what can be said in a honest way about the mystery cults.
“Since Bremmer receives all the arguments from modern literature on the way to a balanced judgment and discusses them extremely critically, despite the difficulties that have to face when dealing with the mystery cults, he succeeds in a publication rich in information.”
“In his lectures, Jan Bremmer has not only developed a brief summary of state-of-the-art research and worked through all linguistic, literary, epigraphic, pictorial and archaeological sources, far beyond the questions and phenomena discussed so far in the field of mystery research, but also created a foundation with his sharp but clear evaluations of previous research theses and reconstructions,
“The ripe fruit of a master of research on ancient religious history, presented with a dash of humor and (sometimes daring) comparisons to contemporary religious behaviors.”
– Christoph Auffarth in: Gnomon 89 (2017) No.6: 485
etc and 60 ratings/reviews:
DAJ wrote:
“Jan Bremmer is better than Bowden at clearly describing what we know did happen. Bremmer’s book is also available for free, in PDF form, from the publisher.”
the Eleusinian Mysteries, the oldest mystery rites;
the mysteries of Samothrace and groups of deities related to them,
the Kabeiroi and Korybantes;
the ecstatic Orphic and Bacchic mysteries;
a variety of lesser, local mysteries in Greece in Roman times;
the mysteries of Isis and Mithras; and
the relationship of the mystery cults to Christianity.
He also has two appendices:
One examines the cult of Demeter in Megara and its relationship to the Eleusinian Mysteries and
the other one discusses the underworld portrayed in Virgil’s Aeneid (an important source for understanding the afterlife beliefs that were circulating at the start of the Roman Empire).
Unlike Alvar and Bowden, Bremmer devotes only a passing mention to one of the best-known “oriental” mystery cults, that of Cybele.”
Mytheme of {spear}: how is a pointed non-branching blade the thing that causes cybernetic control-death fatal transgression/ violation/ failure in the eternalism state of consciousness?
exposed to THE VISION OF ETERNALISM, shown the Mystery of Eternalism
The mind on psilocybin wine is transformatively exposed to perceive the mind in its loosecog state, seeing abnormal mental operation from an abnormal point of view, the God-mode meta control level.
Look under the lid to see the spear dragon blade threat climax ability sacrifice transformation.
cista mystica lidded snake basket
What’s Hidden in the Snake Basket that Kills Upon Seeing?
To see snake-shaped worldline in block universe = spear = climax potential transforming from possibilism to eternalism
A temp state but a permament transformation of the mind the moment light shines on the revealed altered state workings.
Because it’s a loosened mind that’s operating abnormally, you are able to observe the mind during its temporary abnormal functioning.
to be brought to see the snake and give over your youth
transformed instantly upon seeing the reavealed snake frozen in rock
repudiate and jettison the youth
marrying off your youth to the eternalism serpent god
giants lusted after the daughters of men
{wedding chamber}; cybernetic control climax transformation gate sacrifice – spear drives demonstration of 2-level control dynamics and self-transgressive chaotic unstable threatening self-cancelling potential that drives transformation turning the king steering in tree to king statue frozen in rock.
The youth/ maiden is vulnerable to being changed, taken into cybernetic control information climax.
Ripe and near-mature and ready to transform into adult form, Eros draws the almost-bearded youth into adulthood transformation.
Key = poison = spear = ego death = wedding chamber = take the youth
My mind’s, been eternalismized
He was made to climax and perceive the control vortex transformation from psilocybin experience of eternalism.
The key, spearing with poision tip
Egoic control is fatally subject to as the mind is brought up to demonstrate and test and judge and put to trial and probe the dynamics of the control loss vortex climax gate to Psilocybin Eternalismland.
pass through the no-free-will gate = poison-speared, bladed, harvested
the mind’s ability to be made to undergo that experience of seeing and experiencing eternalism and its control dynamics seizure transgressive climactic capability into adulthood mature form
Now the mind has been transformed and made able to go in and out through the serpent-guarded gate via password key form-conformant shape shifter, to eat of the fruit of immortality from the tree and snake.
Mind reshaped by seeing the dragon serpent monster to reconcile to.
The dragon demands/extracts the ruler maiden, for the king to have a non-vexed kingdom.
The pregnant people of the kingdom harassed by the heimarmene dragon demanding honor sacrifice to make the mind conform to eternalism in the adult form.
Poisoned arrow, arrow = poison = dagger = cybernetic control death, non-viable, plus side: climax ability, treasure, enlightenment about eternalism consciousness control dynamics possibilism-thinking is non-viable.
eternalism-thinking dependent control is the viable model that can withstand or enjoy cyberclimax vortex in the psilocybin loosecog state
the destination: the wedding chamber of the immortals ambrosia
🍄 means Psilocybin.
Psilocybin means ergot classic effects eg 4-HO-DiPT
The mind is transformed from possibilism-thinking & -experiencing to eternalism-thinking & -experiencing, and then is returned to the possibilism experiential state always, but allowed through the gate of control seizure threat climax into Psilocybin Eternalismland.
The key to the lock, the blade is the key that fits the egodeath violation climax transformation potential.
meant image with key and torchno-free-will death angel guarding gate to garden with tree of fruit of immortal life. John Rush’s lifted garment and mushroom hem. Angel’s weight supported by right leg = eternalism-thinking.Photo: Julie M. Brown, crop & processing by Cybermonk. Right arm: A spear aimed at Jesus’ side, not Browns’ “slightly curved sword”.discussing sword of control loss failure threatGod’s blade of control-instability test and demonstration self-threatening psalter image viewer with arrowhead inches from headEadwine’s image with bladesMithras’ daggerRock-born Mithras born from the block-universe eternalism rock = sacrificial dagger + torch light to perceive the mind’s control-functioningRight arm: non-branching spear, Dionysus ‘ victory wedding procession mosaicDouris’ Jason Athena (with full-height, boundary-divider spear) Ladon fleece kylix for psilocybin mixed winephoto: Cybermonk, Nov 29, 2013 Eternalism-aware Abraham usually raises a knife over possibilism-thinking/ youth-thinking Isaac.
The Egodeath theory 