Hallucinations and religion

Debate Room
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Well, living in Korea, my chance of finding a dose is pretty damn slim. Recreational cannabis remains strictly forbidden by the law. A violation is punishable by up to five years in prison, or a fine of up to 50 million about $44,000. I can’t even imagine the penalty for a drug like DMT. There are idiot foreigners going to jail every day for treating Korean drug laws like foreign drug laws. Big mistake!

Anyway, seems we have come to a meeting of the minds with your last post. I fully get that it is hard to convince yourself of the fact that it is not “in your brain.” An OBE feels like a real body. An NDE - which I believe to be the same thing - feels completely real. Vivid Dreams are insanely intense and can be interpreted as real. There are testamonials all over the web to these affects. I am looking with interest into the study I posted earlier, the prolonged DMT trip. I think that will be really interesting.

Imagine spending 30 minutes or an hour… I would volunteer for the clinical trial were I available. (Hell, if it fucked me up, I would never know it. LOL)

My undergrad stuff was all in Sociology and I had a keen interest in dream cultures and altered states of consciousness throughout antiquity. That’s actually how I got to the position I am in today… my journey. My advanced degree is Psychology/Counseling. I have a curiosity as to why or how we make sense out of the world we live in. My personal epistomological foundations as well as those of others. Hence my interest in DMT and your personal story. Thank you for sharing. My opinions are obviously based on my own experiences and not intended to be dogma or the “correct” way to view things. They are only my response to my version of all I have experienced. I hope to some day try DMT. Perhaps when I get back to the states. Cheers.

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Just a question…

I understand the part natural releases of drugs and (additional - participating DMT). The brain is active during the Lucid dreams or acid trips.

With a NDE the brain is “inactive” (flatlined) for however long (eg. 35 seconds or whatever).

The “memory” of the NDE is formed after - NOTE not all or even many have a NDE.

Would this mean the “release” of drugs occurs just before the brain activity stops? Or after it “re-starts”??? It’s just fucking interesting :thinking:… some had it during their surgery (actually after-call hahahaha) when their “death/restart” happened. Under anesthesia. I separate the perception from the experience and understand they are explaining it - but why the brain :brain: would need to make this “memory” during surgery? What is it that is “traumatized”??? Our brain? :brain: It’s a fucking organ! Or “ego” (our personality) or mind (thinking)??? It’s fascinating.

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No. An inactive brain does nothing. The NDE “Near” death experience occurs as death is occuring or as the revival from death is occuring. The big secret to all of this is the state of consciousness known as “Sleep Paralysis” and its pairing with awaking consciousness.

The trick to experiencing this state is to limit all sensory input to the brain. This can be accomplished through meditative techniques. While maintaining focus on one thing, Concentrating only on one thing, a count, a mantra, a position on the body, and limiting all other sensory input, the brain can be tricked into thinking the body has gone to sleep. It will separate while you experience the separation and the astral projection will form.

The brain detaches from higher body functions, obviously breathing and heart beat are maintained. Try to move and you cannot. If you have never experienced this, it is really trippy. It freaks most people out when it happens. It happens naturally in about 8% of the population. It happens naturally during fainting spells and so I assert, during “near” death but not during death itslef. Death is the cecation of biological function. No functioning brain, no memory.

Yep fascinating.

Very similar and connected to this are studies in sensory deprevation: Sensory deprivation tank therapy is said to produce several effects on the brain, ranging from hallucinations to enhanced creativity. I have a hunch that a prolonged DMT trip will be something very similar to sensory deprevation. (Anyone besides me ever spent extended amount of time in flotation chambers?) The curse of being raised in Southern California with all its Woo woo craziness. It’s not the Bible Belt but there is still a lot of crazy shit going on. (Astrology, Witchcraft, Chakras, Crystal Magic, Magnitism, Hypnotherapies, EST, The Secret, auras, Satan Worship, Paganism, Wicca, and a whole bunch of other shit transendental meditation, zen, krishna consciousness, the bohemian gove and all the rest of the crazy shit you can imagine.

There is no more “Truth” to any of it than there is to theistic claims. They all share the same experiences. That sense of Christian awe and wonderment, being touched by the holy spirit, swept away into the unity of the universe etc etc etc… An entirely human trait that has nothing to do with religion or anything mentioned above and yet all of the things mentioned above have attempted to explaine the phenomena.

Sam Harris is doing a fairly good job at trying to bring some of this stuff out into the open and legitimize research.

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Exactly: And the time to believe a claim is when it can be demonstrated. It is not a matter of rejecting it, in the sense of disproving it. It is enough to merely admit that the claim is not proved, and lacking proof, there is no good reason to believe it.

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It’s like suggesting that the little old lady who lived in a shoe existed.

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Ummmm… You mean Mrs. Adida Sketcher?

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I really enjoy reading your posts. Thanks for your input into the community.

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No Problem: This stuff has been an interest of mine since Timothy Leary, Carlos Castaneda, and the Seth Material just to name a few. DAMN! We were really fucked up wayyyyy back when… Nothing that hours and hours and hours in a flotation tank could not cure though. He he he he … It has been and interesting path to Atheism and the very simple understanding that human beings really don’t know shit about shit… but we really like to make shit up.

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Yeah .Didn’t read Leary, but read the other two. At university, I was stunned to discover that Carlos Castaneda was a real anthropologist. That made him a real anthropologist full of shit. He wasn’t the first and won’t be the last***

I spent a lot of time reading crackpot fringe stuff in the early 70’s. EG: Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda as well as heaps of other stuff from the Theosophical Book shop, including fairies and the human aura. Even tried to read “The Secret Doctrine” by arch fraud Helena Blavatsky. Managed to wade through about 100 pages.

Also read about a dozen ‘God is an alien’ type crap.

Perhaps the most popular books for pleasure in my circle around that time were ‘Dune’ and "The Lord Of The Rings’.

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***infamous examples include “The Golden Bough” by nineteenth century armchair Anthropologist James Frazer and “Coming Of Age in Samoa”
by Margaret Mead. This book is still used as a cautionary tale to students as far as I’m aware

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I read the Seth materials…also waded through the “Convoluted Universe” books by Dolores Cannon.

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Can’t blame you, There was soooooo much of that shit around. Everyone wanted to be the next big Guru and everyone in the West was ripe for believeing in the next New Age Bullshit idea or Easter Mystical Horseshit. We were culturally isolated from the world and just didn’t have a clue. We fell for every thoursand year old con in the book.

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Have you guys read Tom Brown Jr.?

I’m in a state of cognitive dissonance with regards to his works.

This is because I feel a need to dismiss the mystical, new-agey teachings that he attaches to his work, but his teachings about survival and wilderness observation have actually saved my life (and the lives of my patients) when I was working as a paramedic.

As an example, people whom are drunk and/or under the influence of drugs (or a stroke, or a head injury) will often wander away from a car wreck when they have an accident.

On several occasions, I have used Brown’s tracking ideas to hunt down and find such individuals in the aftermath of a bad accident which–of course–saved lives. It also saved money, time, and resources when I tracked, as there was no need to call out helicopters and dog teams.

I also used his teachings when I was a relief worker with the Red Cross after Hurricane Andrew . . . so, how hypocritical am I when I want to dismiss the New Age bullshit, yet use his other teachings to save lives?

Or–to look at this question in another way–how much more proficient would I be as a paramedic (in such circumstances) if I actually embraced the other parts of his teachings, which would–according to Brown–take one to a “higher level of understanding?”

Also, am I a hypocritical asshole for taking free advantage of a part of his teachings for my (and my patients’) benefit, while totally ignoring the parts that I don’t like? Do I owe him an honest attempt at embracing the mystical side of his teachings in order to avoid making myself into a hypocrite?

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Here are some examples of his books:
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No. Just like the physicist who uses Newton’s laws, isn’t a hypocrite when they reject Newton’s ideas about alchemy, and religion.

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Huh :thinking:… sorry. My grandpa also a survivalist (not by choice lol) and tracker and hunter (dead now), was an atheist. He loved nature. Respected nature. Lived in nature. Taught me many a technique. There are different experiences in nature (one puts their mind in a different “state”)…

Why is it hypocritical to use the parts that work? Have you researched what he attributes to “mystical”? Didn’t know you had to accept all someone presents (sarcasm). I take and examine each individual claim.

EDIT - the origins of supernatural explanations came from ancestors who lived (and died early deaths) a more “natural” lifestyle.

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That is actually an excellent point, but alchemy was dismissed by such physicists after they experimented with it and found it to be bullshit.

I haven’t bothered to experiment with and/or try the more esoteric side of his teachings . . . and a part of me is concerned.

As for why I’m concerned, consider a rhyme that we paramedics use when we treat patients who have been bitten by a possibly venomous snake:

“Red touch yellow, kill a fellow . . . red touch black, venom lack.”

This doggerel helps us distinguish between a venomous coral snake and a harmless king snake, which are both native to Florida. I consider this doggerel to be very important, because coral snakes are elapids (not pit vipers) that are related to cobras, and their neurotoxic venom is subtle and quite deadly.

When I was a field training officer, I insisted on teaching my students this rhyme, as many people have a phobia of snakes, and both coral snakes and king snakes are native to my area of Florida. We don’t even have to go as far as a survival situation to understand this point. In almost every algebra class in high school and college, one hears “Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally” as the order of operations for algebraic calculations.

On the surface, this sentence seems nonsensical and stupid . . . with no relationship to mathematics . . . yet it’s useful when one is under stress during a test, with academic advancement and a scholarly degree on the line.

So, my point is to ask how much of the mystical prayers and chants may have an actual practical value when it comes to using different medicinal herbs . . . including some which may be beneficial in some circumstances, yet poisonous in others (just like any other medication). “Primitive” hunter-gatherer people didn’t have writing, so I imagine that the oral tradition with mysticism and chants had a place in preserving and utilizing life-saving information as a substitute for a guide book.

So, how much of this mysticism can be practical and relevant in an emergency situation when using the natural environment to survive in a crisis?

How much of my rejection of his mysticism is a form of chauvanism toward writing, with a refusal to recognize that there are other ways of utilizing and storing life-saving information?

I sometimes have problems communicating because I’m autistic, but can you guys see my points even if you don’t agree with me?

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Yes. I can. I spend a great deal of time around and in nature. I’m talking bears, moose, foxes, coyotes…rabbit, deer, birds of all sorts, prairie chickens. Also natural growth. I have trees that the berries are poisonous unless you know how to treat them - then they can be medicinal. Also recognizing the various would plants…

BUT there is an aspect to being in nature that is sense and intuitive. I follow my instincts when in the bush. My boys do too. And your instincts will be right (most often). My guys recently had a black bear encounter. They “knew” he was there ahead of time - a feeling …they slowed and started to take the precautions. Sure enough it appeared.

Trusting your intuition or instincts is trusting your senses to process information before you “analyze” it.

Nothing really mystical. Awesome- yes. Sometimes, unexplainable? Yes (but I can’t explain how my tv works in great detail).

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What is the mysticism? Give an example. I do weird shit when out in the bush - so did my grandpa- cause it works. Also, the guy may be exaggerating “things” that you are unconsciously paying attention to.

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An excellent example of what you’re asking for (if I understand your question) would be Brown’s concept of the mystical “concentric rings” in nature.

An animal (for example, but the concentric rings idea is also applied in other contexts) disturbs the environment in a predictable, specific way when it moves.

A grasshopper which may be disturbed by this animal flies away from it in a specific way, and disturbes a stem from a plant when it lands.

If the plant is one that grasshoppers don’t usually eat, then one can deduce that it’s there for another reason . . . and the direction that the grasshopper took can be logically deduced.

When one puts applies this reasoning to the grasshoppers, flying birds, and the context of the environment . . . then one can see spreading, concentric circles around the passage of an animal, so that one can determine if a deer, raccoon, feral cat, fox, etc. is moving in an area . . . without even seeing the animal or even facing the direction that the animal is moving in.

So, one seems psychic about knowing which animals are in an area, which is why I came up with the idea that Brown’s mysticism may be like doing the “cold reading” of a highly skilled psychic (like Sylvia Brown [no relation to Tom Brown Jr.] or Peter Popov), but applied to the natural environment as a survival tool . . . rather than as a way to part fools from their money.

So, we hear “An animal puts out it’s life-force energies as concentric circles–like a stone splashing in a pond–and the skilled survivor can perceive these circles, and determine the specie of animal, it’s direction, whether or not it’s wounded or sick, and if it has offspring with it.”

There are other examples, but I’m sure you get the gist.

As an aside, most people–because they are reckless and clumsy when tramping through nature–make very big disruptions of birds and animals that can be seen much easier than the disruptions of a wild animal, and I utilized these disruptions when tracking people whom were drunk or head-injured when they wandered away from accidents.

If I’m to be charitable, the 360° vectors of birds flying away from a stumbling person are concentric, so I wonder if I’m doing a crude version of what Tom Brown Jr. suggests through his mysticism.

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Excellent example and conclusion.

Animals respond to their environment. A broken spider web can tell you a story. But most don’t look for a broken web. Or know how to read a story.

I’d like to believe we have a somewhat natural instinct BUT I was taught and have taught myself, and it’s applicable to my environment. Other environments??? I’d be ignorant (to a large degree). I’m use to my local smells, sights, plants, behaviours and their patterns. I know how local animals interact. So I’d be magic here - (lol) …but horrible somewhere else.

An animal moves in its physical environment. It creates paths. Leaves droppings. Disturbs it’s space - marks its space. It eats and hunts. This is it putting out its “life force”.

My assumption is this guy is trained in one or two type environments. I’m familiar with Boreal forest habitats.

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