Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 174 posts

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#51

Post by Kroniker »

steauengeglase wrote: post #36

While I don't doubt the psychological benefits of ayahuasca (or any hallucinogenic), the language of many of those advocating in the article set off red flags. "Format your harddrive", reminds of Arch Oboler's "Society of the Cosmos", something dreamed up by Evangelical hucksters who didn't see a future in peddling Jesus so they turned to techno speak to wring out the marks. "We manifest abundance wherever we go," so…

One of my favorite Terrence McKenna quotes:

"Once you've gotten the message, hang up the phone."

Hallucinogens may deliver you the message, but you need to know to take it once you have it, and not go crazy taking more and more. I have a friend who fell down that rabbit hole. Doesn't seem to end well.

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#52

Post by fragola »

oldmanjay wrote: post #44
steauengeglase wrote: post #36

While I don't doubt the psychological benefits of ayahuasca (or any hallucinogenic), the language of many of those advocating in the article set off red flags. "Format your harddrive", reminds of Arch Oboler's "Society of the Cosmos", something dreamed up by Evangelical hucksters who didn't see a future in peddling Jesus so they turned to techno speak to wring out the marks. "We manifest abundance wherever we go," so…

I feel like the sheer amount of bullshit surrounding these drugs leaves me with a duty to take heavy doses of psychedelics and proudly learn nothing but "boy that was fun"

Agreed on the bullshit. I think this might have something to do with me growing up in a certain hippy town on the California coast, but I couldn't get through this article without a lot of eye-rolling. OK, let's just put the whole drug thing aside and call it a hobby. You can have a hobby without having a pseudospiritual and vaguely appropriative justification for it.

Bodybuilders have a term that they use to describe the mythos that has evolved in their subculture regarding steroids and supplements: Broscience. This is the yuppie drug-dabbler equivalent.

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#53

Post by Kroniker »

yolesaber wrote: post #29

I run an ayahuasca clinic in Upstate NY. I make all my own preparations and tend to the ritual aspects as well as guide people on trips. I've been doing this as my profession for several years now, feel free to ask any questions

Wow! That must be an insane profession. I have a few questions for you: Firstly, how do you deal with the legal aspect of things? (If you can answer that, if not, I understand)

Secondly, why take the potion instead of pure DMT? If that is the active ingredient (along with an MAOI), I'd imagine just taking the pure compound to be more efficacious. (And the trips last only 20 minutes or something- under an hour)

Thirdly, say you have a chronic illness that requires constant management, like type 1 diabetes or something. I've heard the potion takes 12 hours, or in some extreme cases days, to work itself out of your system. Would that person still be a candidate for the ritual, or would they need to go through it with a medical professional on-site or something?

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#54

Post by zizzles »

In my eyes the VERY FACT that psychedelics like N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) even exist in the FIRST place (and take you on the experiences that they take you) can NOT be some sort of coincidence. I am not suggesting that they are some special all-knowing tool, but the sheer potency of DMT and the other-worldly-dimension-changing-states-of-mind that it yields when consumed can not be shrugged off as just another recreational drug or "you're just high bro", at least not to me.

We have consciousness. We see. We feel... but existence remains a mystery. No one on Earth can properly put into words what THIS is. It's unexplainable, at least to me. You can perhaps say "we are in the Milky Way" or "we are located in the Universe" or "we are existing" but these are just vague primitive monkey explanations.

Substances like DMT can shed light on these questions from a different vantage point.

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#55

Post by Analemma_ »

yolesaber wrote: post #29

I run an ayahuasca clinic in Upstate NY. I make all my own preparations and tend to the ritual aspects as well as guide people on trips. I've been doing this as my profession for several years now, feel free to ask any questions

Is there any way to safely take ayahuasca if I'm taking an SSRI?

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#56

Post by abrkn »

yolesaber wrote: post #29

I run an ayahuasca clinic in Upstate NY. I make all my own preparations and tend to the ritual aspects as well as guide people on trips. I've been doing this as my profession for several years now, feel free to ask any questions

Please add your email or other contact info to your HN profile

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#57

Post by unfunco »

vernie wrote: post #30
unfunco wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have, not in Peru but at home. I've tried DMT roughly 300 times, pharmahuasca (N,N-DMT in an enteric capsule, inside a larger capsule of synthetic monoamine oxidase inhibitor) and ayahuasca, and the usual others (I've tried everything I could find from Pihkal and Tihkal). I eventually became too afraid of DMT (I had mistakenly bought 5-MeO-DMT and was using the same dosage and that wasn't pleasant, and now I'm too…

You still think of it as "trying" after 300 doses?

I was lucky enough to breakthrough on my first dose, and the only times I haven't broken through have been down to choice (to feel what lower doses felt like) – I invested in better equipment (http://imgur.com/vjvKzQB – from one of my posts in the /r/DMT channel in reddit) after the first few breakthroughs, it was the most interesting, terrifying, and beautiful thing that has ever happened to me, and I wanted to keep doing it to try and work out just what it was, there have been moments where I have lay in awe completely convinced I am witnessing everything happening everywhere in the universe, there have been times where I've been convinced I am solely responsible for the destruction of the universe, that my consciousness was the last thing left, there have been so many other strange experiences, I could never control them, I had to just sit back and feel everything, so it was always trying, I doubt that it's possible to master the effects, and most I know from various communities on the subject tend to ease off at around the same number of times that I did, as a chemical, it's absolutely non-addictive, all psychedelics I tend to find as self-regulating.

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#58

Post by Kroniker »

jomamaxx wrote: post #37
ktRolster wrote: post #31

Be careful. These quotes from the article are kind of worrying: “Do you have doctors or anyone on hand who understands what’s happening on a pharmacological level if something goes wrong?” There was a tense silence, and then Little Owl replied, “We are healing on a vibrational level.” And: I asked how she could tell it wasn’t something requiring immediate medical intervention, and the [mediator] replied, “Intuition.”

Indeed. This is not a toy drug. This is heavy-duty. I wonder if there is maybe something simple, medically, that can be done by a 'non pro' - like - if there are specific and identifiable symptoms - 'take this pill' which has a neutralizing or softening effect or something. Hopefully something safe and natural. Maybe even something like 'drink caffeine and eat something fatty' - or whatever might work that's easy and…

As far as I know, you can get "chill pills", I think maybe benzodiazepines will calm you down, but even in an ER they just make sure you're safe and let your ride it out. Once that roller coaster starts it needs to run it's course.

Source: Burnout friend.

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#59

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

oldmanjay wrote: post #44
steauengeglase wrote: post #36

While I don't doubt the psychological benefits of ayahuasca (or any hallucinogenic), the language of many of those advocating in the article set off red flags. "Format your harddrive", reminds of Arch Oboler's "Society of the Cosmos", something dreamed up by Evangelical hucksters who didn't see a future in peddling Jesus so they turned to techno speak to wring out the marks. "We manifest abundance wherever we go," so…

I feel like the sheer amount of bullshit surrounding these drugs leaves me with a duty to take heavy doses of psychedelics and proudly learn nothing but "boy that was fun"

Exactly. We don't need to take psychedelics with the intention to get smarter or enlightened.

We can take psychedelics just to enjoy psychedelics. This is a good enough reason.

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#60

Post by centicosm »

ap22213 wrote: post #45

Why does the plant produce DMT? Is it a poison? Are there other plants that produce it? I wonder about the evolutionary reasons for its emergence. Does the plant influence the Human so that the Human protects and nurtures the plant? When did Humans begin altering South America? 15,000 years ago? More than enough time for the plant to adapt. It's a strange feeling to ingest a hallucination producing organism. I rememb…

Interestingly, there are hundreds of plants that produce it. Even more interesting, the human body also produces it. There was some human studies that took place in New Mexico. Check out: DMT: The Spirit Molecule for some interesting reading if such studies are of interest.
Post reply on HN