The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale • Hacker News Board

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#61

Post by k-mcgrady » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 7:28 PM UTC

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…

Is this the Hunter Thompson quote you're referring to?

“We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#62

Post by civilian » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 7:33 PM UTC

Kroniker wrote: post #51

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.

I agree. I got the message, and hung up the phone.

My friend is also have difficulty leaving the path. A couple of months ago my buddy & I got some urgent texts from him-- he had taken a really large dose of LSD and ended up spending the next 12 hours in a emergency room's psych ward.

I think that part of the reason that we have this B.S. propaganda around psychedelics (i.e. "They're the key to enlightenment!") is that it can be pretty hard to encourage people to try drugs. And while they aren't the key to enlightenment, they are just such a _different_ experience that it can be... interesting, or help personal growth, in some lesser but still substantial ways. But that's not a great soundbite.

Marketing is much harder than we give it credit for.

//edit although on further googling, I think the quote is from Alan Watts and it's about sober meditation after a trip.

> "Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen..."

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#63

Post by steauengeglase » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

k-mcgrady wrote: post #61

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…

Is this the Hunter Thompson quote you're referring to? “We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks…

Yep. It's been a while since I read that.

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#64

Post by elliotec » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #55

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?

This might help: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ayahuasca/comments/2k6e8m/how_long_...

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#65

Post by Nursie » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 7:57 PM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #42

Nursie wrote: post #4

So much pretension, so much bollocks... Just drop some acid like a normal person, or take a harmaline cap and some dmt later. No need for all this 'purging' and ceremony.

I don't know that it is bad for novices to have some framework in which to interpret and assimilate what is often a very intense experience. A reasonable degree of nuance might suggest that, while there's perhaps quite a lot of reason to blame people experienced enough to know better for making more (less?) of it than it merits, there's no reason to blame people who lack that experience for wanting, especially their…

Special? Fine, set and setting can be very important. But the nonsense about picking the vines at a certain time of day, and the idea that we don't need medical expertise on hand because we're special and....

It really winds me up. You're doing oral DMT, not magic...

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#66

Post by steauengeglase » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 7:57 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #59

oldmanjay wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a valid reason. So is "I wanna knock some of the BS in my head loose".

I may be close minded, but "To receive the essence of Grandmother's wisdom and understand the psychic vibrations, not within us, but beside us, as I'm guided by the Jaguar riding the Anaconda, who is really the glory beyond our lesser selves, being to us a more perfect realm as Grandmother wishes it through the greater understanding of our abundant vision..." doesn't really sound like a reason.

Not that I'd stop someone from doing it for that reason, but I fail to see how it's the least bit useful and it seems ripe for exploitation.

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#67

Post by mtalantikite » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 7:59 PM UTC

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

I've been a little wary of the set and setting of the ceremonies I've heard about here in Brooklyn. In your experience how much of an effect does it have? Taking it upstate would definitely be of more interest to me.

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#68

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 8:07 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#69

Post by j10sanders » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 8:13 PM UTC

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 tell more about this clinic! Or contact info :)

Re: The Drug of Choice for the Age of Kale

#70

Post by rconti » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 8:15 PM UTC

zizzles wrote: post #54

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 recr…

I'm confused. It cannot be a coincidence that substances exist on this earth that alter our consciousness? Why not? There are all kinds of substances found naturally that can change the way you feel, change the way your body acts, kill you, make you hallucinate, whatever.

Is it proof that there has to be a purpose behind them?

I forgot what the term is, but is this not like the fallacy of believing there must be a creator, because there is this wonderful planet for us to experience? But if we were not here to experience it, we would not know it was missing.