Plant Shamanism: The one the Religion cant give you....

[orbsycli]

Originally Posted by neuroflux

when When Dr. Rick Strassman stoppped his DMT research on humans because his volunteer's kept coming back with fanstastic tales of alien contact, and he had no way of explaining it to them. That was a call for this molecule to be looked at again.
This isnt about being stoned. Have said anything about how cool it is to be stoned?

Considering I am open, honest, and blunt about my relationship with my plant-allies,
everybody just assumes that I'm high all the time and think that it's "cool"



Makes me giggle 'cause it's such a stupid notion, really.
There's more to it than that, folks

I mean . . look at neuroflux's posts!
DMT is a phenomenon that humans discovered long, long ago.

Things like DMT molded our consciousness.

It's no wonder why people are so fat, and pissed off all the time here in america . .

wonderful things have been outlawed,
and propoganda has been unleashed to make sure
nobody touches the spined thing in the ground,
or the psilocybe cubensis reaching out of cow dung
just around the corner.

and . .

Why is there DMT in our brains?

How did it get there?

There's also DMT in the venom of the colorado river toad.

[ughaibu]

What does shamanism amount to?
The only knowledge, mentioned on this thread so far, which is being made difficult to access, is the knowledge of how it feels to take certain drugs. This thread doesn't strike me as significantly different from any of the other 'legalise acid' threads.

[InfiniteNow]

First of all, watch your tone. You are a guest here, and shall abide by forum requests and rules. You are passionate about this topic, which is wonderful, exciting, and encouragable, but you still must present this passion in such a way as to be clear and informative, and preferably respond to criticisms with support instead of emotion. This is outlined in the rules.

Originally Posted by neuroflux

Is not this type of knowledge, looked apon as taboo within the scientific community?
A scientist can understand the molecule in its physical form, he can understand how the brain makes it, and uses it, but why when it comes to the experince itself do they change?

You speak of the scientific community as if it were a single entitity. This is why your claim is silly. Science is method, a way of discovering new things and understanding. Those who practice science are individuals, and will approach things in their own way. You make a blanket statement as if there is some god-head in the scientific community telling everyone what they should and should not believe. This is not accurate.

This isnt about being stoned. Have said anything about how cool it is to be stoned?

Beware the company you keep. I believe Boerseun's comment was inspired by experience with other users on this site.

when i mentioned being at the bottom of a electromagnetic ocean-Have you ever heard of the ionisphere?

Sure have. So basically you were trying to eloquently describe those who reside on the surface of the earth. Do you also mean to imply that electromagnetism is not a factor within the ocean itself? I just want to be sure I am clear on your meaning.

And when i mentioned the bible, it was an example of the history of a BAN on humanity consuming entheogens...Same as today, Why do humans rejects things that they dont understand?

Again, you are mistaken because you are generalizing. To assume that ALL HUMANS reject things they do not understand serves only to elevate your shamanistic claims in your perception of yourself (only reinforces your self-image), and is condescending when presented as such to a community of intelligent and thoughtful individuals.

Along these lines, it's important to know your audience before making a presentation and definitely before making accusations about what that audience does and does not know.

would it be too much for the Western collective Ego to accept the fact that maybe these Indian shaman have knowledge about life and the plants that we dont and could use?

Is the "man" keeping you down too? Why is it so important to you that otherwise unconcerned people accept a way of life you have chosen for yourself? If you believe what you believe, and practice these things, where's the problem? If it's the law, well, go into social sciences and discuss that in some of the government and democracy threads.

When i mention evolution, i'm referring to us using parts of our brain that we cannot conciously right now activate.

It is a rather bold claim to state that you know what others can and cannot do within their own minds. I personally take offense to this comment.

Im referring to refining and defining who am i and why im here-to understand how my head works, and how to use it for the best possible functioning capibilites, through a combination of science and Shamanism, a rebirth of knowledge that has been lost to the Industrial Materialistic Society that now covers the globe.

Pretty words. Can you be more specific?

neuroflux------------------

Inferiority complex reinforced by consistent lack of acceptance of your ideas by those around you? Again, watch your tone, and know your audience before going off on such rants.

[orbsycli]

Entheogens don't hand you knowledge,
they open doors in your mind (which is metaphorical, considering I have no idea what the mind is)
that simply allow you to see things more clearly and beautifully.

I can honestly say If I never encountered the mushrooms,
I wouldn't have the deep understanding of music that I have brought with me into this moment,
I wouldn't be as peaceful, as creative,

NOR as weird. And I like that.

InfiniteNow not to be rude, but why do you even bother with threads like this?
It's evident you don't really care about these allies that we are so passionate about.
And all you do is talk down to me, or anyone else that ingests these wonderful plants and fungi.

You should just leave us be, take your authority to another thread
and triumph in your infinite moments somewhere else.

I, as a member, get a huge kick out of neuroflux's words,
we havn't had somebody like him in these forums, yet.

Question:
Have you ever entangled yourself in a complex relationship with a psychedelic, infinitenow?

Just out of curiosity, I want to know where you are . . Coming from

[ughaibu]

Could somebody give a definition and etymology of "entheogen", please. As far as I can tell, this is a word created to dignify the religious claims associated with these drugs. If this is the case, use of the word would be artificial and meaningless.

[orbsycli]

Sure

www.dictionary.com says that entheogen:
any substance, such as a plant or drug, taken to bring on a spiritual experience.


It's just a word.
Like love, genetics, and cock.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by orbsycli

Question:
Have you ever entangled yourself in a complex relationship with a psychedelic, infinitenow?

In reality, this is none of your business, but since you seem to yourself talk down to those who have not, I will oblige and inform you that I have been down these paths, on multiple occasions. You name it, I've tried it, and this is particularly so with psychedelics on dozens of occasions. However, I have since grown up, and feel my point was not addressing the issue of psychedelics, but the issue of knowing one's audience and offering support of one's claims.

Is it possible that I've been misinterpreted? Please look again and point to specific comments if you feel it is otherwise.

[Racoon]

Its hard to find any "hard science" regarding Entheogens; But here is a relatively recent article I dug up about "Psychedelics"

Psychology Today, March-April 2005 v38 i2 p28(2)
Drugs in rehab. (Psychedelics) Steven Kotler.

BACK IN THE early sixties, Harvard psychologist Timothy Leafy snuck LSD out of campus laboratories and into the mainstream. Soon, tie-dyed hell broke loose in popular culture, and psychedelic drugs were quickly banned. By decade's end, they had all but vanished from the psychological research scene.

Now, for the first time in some 30 years, human studies of such contraband substances are on the upswing. Many researchers say it should have happened sooner.

"The banning of psychedelics has been an absolute disaster for consciousness and medical research," says Rick Doblin, head of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit pharmaceutical company funding much of this new work.


Many researchers say hallucinogens were kept out of research labs because of fear generated by drugs like methamphetamines and heroin and the "war on drugs." In fact, there's little evidence that psychedelics are either addictive or more dangerous than, say, alcohol or marijuana, researchers report. Doblin argues that in the intervening decades, advances in everything from disease treatment to consciousness studies to basic psychological research have suffered. "These new studies are just the first steps on a long road to recovery," he says.


The turnaround started in the early 1990s, when the Food and Drug Administration ran out of reasons, political and otherwise, to quash contraband drug research, Doblin says. Scientists hope hallucinogens can make inroads with tough-to-treat conditions, says Charles Grob, chief of adolescent and teen psychiatry at the University of California at Los Angeles. Grob is picking up where another researcher, Eric Kast, left off in the 1960s. Kast had promising results using LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) to relieve anxiety in terminally ill cancer patients. To follow up on those results, Grob is currently investigating psilocybin--the magic in "magic mushrooms"--as a treatment for anxiety in late-stage cancer patients.


Researchers hope this is only the beginning of a hallucinogenic data mine. As Grob also points out, "People forget, but psychedelics were the cutting edge of science in this country for 50 years." In fact, in the 1940s and '50s, so much money flowed in this direction that many top researchers got their start in this field. Many feel modern psychiatry owes its origins to the study of hallucinogens.

After all, it was the discovery of the neurotransmitter serotonin--thanks to LSD--that jump-started the brain chemistry revolution.

SIX PSYCHEDELIC DRUG STUDIES ARE UNDERWAY, ALL AIMED AT
SOME OF MEDICINE'S MORE INTRACTABLE PROBLEMS.

The Researchers The Studies

The Medical University of South MDMA (ecstasy) in conjunction with
Carolina: Michael Mithoefer cognitive behavioral therapy for
the treatment of post-traumatic
stress disorder triggered by
sexual abuse
University of Arizona: Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Francisco Moreno treatment with psilocybin
University of California at Late-stage cancer-related anxiety
Los Angeles: treated with psilocybin and
Charles Grob therapy
Harvard University: John Halpern Late-stage cancer-related anxiety
treated with MDMA and therapy
Harvard University: Andrew Sewell Treatment of cluster headaches
(not yet approved) with LSD and psilocybin

[neuroflux]

FROM THE wikipeda DICTIONARY online.
ENTHEOGEN:
The word "entheogen" was coined in 1979 by a group of ethnobotanists and scholars of mythology (Carl A. P. Ruck, Jeremy Bigwood, Danny Staples, Richard Evans Schultes, Jonathan Ott and R. Gordon Wasson). The literal meaning of the word is "that which causes God to be within an individual". The translation "creating the divine within" is sometimes given, but it should be noted that entheogen implies neither that something is created (as opposed to just perceiving something that is already there) nor that that which is experienced is within the user (as opposed to having independent existence).

The term was coined as a replacement for the terms "hallucinogen" (popularized by Aldous Huxley's experiences with mescaline, published as The Doors of Perception in 1953) and "psychedelic" (a Greek neologism for "soul-revealing", coined by psychiatrist Humphry Osmond, who was quite surprised when the well-known author, Aldous Huxley, volunteered to be a subject in experiments Osmond was running on mescaline). Ruck et al. argued that the term "hallucinogen" was inappropriate due to its etymological relationship to words relating to delirium and insanity. The term "psychedelic" was also seen as problematic, due to the similarity in sound to words pertaining to psychosis and also due to the fact that it had become irreversibly associated with various connotations of 1960s pop culture.

The meanings of the term "entheogen" were formally defined by Ruck et al.:

In a strict sense, only those vision-producing drugs that can be shown to have figured in shamanic or religious rites would be designated entheogens, but in a looser sense, the term could also be applied to other drugs, both natural and artificial, that induce alterations of consciousness similar to those documented for ritual ingestion of traditional entheogens.

Since 1979, when the term was proposed, its use has become widespread in certain circles. In particular, the word fills a vacuum for those users of entheogens who feel that the term "hallucinogen", which remains common in medical, chemical and anthropological literature, denigrates their experience and the world view in which it is integrated. Use of the strict sense of the word has therefore arisen amongst religious entheogen users, and also amongst others who wish to practice spiritual or religious tolerance.

The use of the word "entheogen" in its broad sense as a synonym for "hallucinogenic drug" has attracted criticism on three grounds. On pragmatic grounds, the objection has been raised that the meaning of the strict sense of "entheogen", which is of specific value in discussing traditional, historical and mythological uses of entheogens in religious settings, is likely to be diluted by widespread, casual use of the term in the broader sense. Secondly, some people object to the misuse of the root theos (god in ancient Greek) in the description of the use of hallucinogenic drugs in a non-religious context, and coupled with the climate of religious tolerance or pluralism that prevails in many present-day societies, the use of the root theos in a term describing non-religious drug use has also been criticised as a form of taboo deformation. Thirdly there are some substances that at least partially fulfil the definition of an entheogen that is given above, but are not hallucinogenic in the usual sense. One important example is the bread and wine of the Christian Eucharist.

Ideological objections to the broad use of the term often relate to the widespread existence of taboos surrounding psychoactive drugs, with both religious and secular justifications. The perception that the broad sense of the term "entheogen" is used as a euphemism by hallucinogenic drug-users bothers both critics and proponents of the secular use of hallucinogenic drugs. Critics frequently see the use of the term as an attempt to obscure what they perceive as illegitimate motivations and contexts of secular drug use. Some proponents also object to the term, arguing that the trend within their own subcultures and in the scientific literature towards the use of term "entheogen" as a synonym for "hallucinogen" devalues the positive uses of drugs in contexts that are secular but nevertheless, in their view, legitimate.

Beyond the use of the term itself, the validity of drug-induced, facilitated, or enhanced religious experience has been questioned. The claim that such experiences are less valid than religious experience without the use of any chemical catalysts faces the problem that the descriptions of religious experiences by those using entheogens are indistinguishable from many reports of religious experiences without drugs. In an attempt to empirically answer the question about whether drugs can actually facilitate religious experience, the Marsh Chapel Experiment was conducted by physician and theology doctoral candidate, Walter Pahnke, under the supervision of Timothy Leary and the Harvard Psilocybin Project. In the double-blind experiment, volunteer graduate school divinity students from the Boston area almost all claimed to have had profound religious experiences under the influence of psilocybin. (A brief video about the Marsh Chapel experiment can be viewed here.)
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Use of entheogens

Naturally occurring entheogens such as Datura were, for the most part, discovered and used by older cultures, as part of their spiritual and religious life, as plants and agents which were respected, or in some cases revered. By contrast, artificial and modern entheogens, such as MDMA, never had a tradition of religious use.

Currently entheogens are used in three principal ways: as part of established traditions and religions, secularly for personal spiritual development, and secularly in a manner similar to recreational drugs. A lesser use of entheogens for medical and therapeutic use is rarely pursued due to legislative and cultural objections.
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Entheogen-using cultures

The use of entheogens in human cultures is generally ubiquitous throughout recorded history. The number of entheogen-using cultures is therefore very large. Some of the instances better known to Western scholarship are discussed here.
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Africa

The best-known entheogen-using culture of Africa is the Bwitists, who used a preparation of the root bark of Iboga (Tabernanthe iboga).[1] A famous entheogen of ancient Egypt is the blue lotus (Nymphaea caerulea). There is evidence for the use of entheogenic mushrooms in Côte d'Ivoire (Samorini 1995). Numerous other examples of the use of plants in shamanic ritual in Africa are yet to be investigated by western science.
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Americas

Entheogens have played a pivotal role in the spiritual practices of most American cultures for millennia. The first American entheogen to be subject to scientific analysis was the peyote cactus (Lophophora williamsii). For his part, one of the founders of modern ethno-botany, the late Richard Evans Schultes of Harvard University documented the ritual use of peyote cactus among the Kiowa of Oklahoma. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_E._Schultes) Used traditionally by many cultures of what is now Mexico, its use spread to throughout North America in the 19th century, replacing the toxic entheogen Sophora secundiflora (mescal bean). Other well-known entheogens used by Mexican cultures include psilocybin mushrooms (known to the Aztecs under the Nahuatl name teonanacatl), the seeds of several morning glories (Nahuatl: tlitliltzin and ololiuhqui) and Salvia divinorum (Mazateco: Ska Pastora; Nahuatl: pipiltzintzintli).
Urarina shaman, 1988
Enlarge
Urarina shaman, 1988

Indigenous peoples of South America employ a wide variety of entheogens. Better-known examples include ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi plus admixtures) among indigenous peoples (such as the Urarina) of Peruvian Amazonia. Other well-known entheogens include: borrachero (Brugmansia spp); San Pedro Trichocereus spp); and various tryptamine-bearing snuffs, for example Epená (Virola spp), Vilca and Yopo (Anadananthera spp). The familiar tobacco plant, when used uncured in large doses in shamanic contexts, also serves as an entheogen in South America.

In addition to indigenous use of entheogens in the Americas, one should also note their important role in contemporary religions movements, such as the Rastafari movement and the Church of the Universe.
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Asia

The indigeneous peoples of Siberia (from whom the term shaman was appropriated) have used the fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) as an entheogen. The ancient inebriant Soma, mentioned often in the Vedas, may have been an entheogen. (In his 1967 book, Wasson argues that Soma was fly agaric. The active ingredient of Soma is now presumed to be ephedrine, an alkaloid with entheogenic properties derived from the soma plant, identified as Ephedra pachyclada.)
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Europe

The use of entheogens in Europe was all but eliminated with the rise of post-Roman Christianity and especially during the great witch hunts of Early Modernity. European witches used various entheogens, including deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) and henbane (Hyoscyamus niger). These plants were used, among other things, for the manufacture of "flying ointments". In Christian society, witches were commonly believed to fly through the air on broomsticks after coating them with the ointment and applying them to the skin. Consequently, any association with these plants could have proven extremely dangerous and lead to one's execution as a practitioner of witchcraft. The imposition of Roman Christianity also saw the end of the two-thousand-year-old tradition of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the initiation ceremony for the cult of Demeter and Persephone involving the use of a possibly entheogenic substance known as kykeon. Similarly, there is evidence that nitrous oxide or ethylene may have been in part resposible for the visions of the equally long-lived Delphic oracle.[citation needed]

In the Christian era the Eucharist plays a symbolic role in religious tradition that has occasionally attracted the label of "entheogen" or "placebo entheogen", even though it does not conform to the original definition involving the use of vision-inducing substances.
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Middle East

The entheogenic use of substances, particularly hashish, by ancient Sufis is well-documented. Its use by the "Hashshashin" to stupefy and recruit new initiates was widely reported during the Crusades. However, the drug used by the Hashshashin was likely wine, opium, henbane, or some combination of these, and, in any event, the use of this drug was for stupefaction rather than for entheogenic use. It has been suggested that the ritual use of small amounts of Syrian Rue is an artifact of its ancient use in higher doses as an entheogen. John Marco Allegro has argued in his book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross that early Jewish and Christian sects and cults were based on the use of Amanita muscaria,[2] though this hypothesis has not achieved widespread currency.
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Oceania

Indigenous Australians are generally supposed not to have used entheogens, although there is a strong barrier of secrecy surrounding Aboriginal shamanism, which has likely limited what has been told to outsiders. Natives of Papua New Guinea are known to use several species of entheogenic mushrooms (Psilocybe spp, Boletus manicus).[3] It has been suggested that the Māori of New Zealand used Māori Kava (Macropiper excelsum) as an entheogen (Bock 2000).
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"Entheogen" in Classical mythology and cult

Although entheogens are taboo in Christian and Islamic societies, their ubiquity and prominence in the spiritual traditions of other cultures is unquestioned. The entheogen, "the spirit, for example, need not be chemical, as is the case with the ivy and the olive: and yet the god was felt to be within them; nor need its possession be considered something detrimental, like drugged, hallucinatory, or delusionary: but possibly instead an invitation to knowledge or whatever good the god's spirit had to offer." (Ruck and Staples)

Most of the well-known modern examples, such as peyote, psilocybe and other psychoactive mushrooms and ololiuhqui, are from the native cultures of the Americas. However, it has also been suggested that entheogens played an important role in ancient Indo-European culture, for example by inclusion in the ritual preparations of the Soma, the "pressed juice" that is the subject of Book 9 of the Rig Veda. Soma was ritually prepared and drunk by priests and initiates and elicited a paean in the Rig Veda that embodies the nature of an entheogen:

"Splendid by Law! declaring Law, truth speaking, truthful in thy works, Enouncing faith, King Soma!... O [Soma] Pavāmana, place me in that deathless, undecaying world wherein the light of heaven is set, and everlasting lustre shines.... Make me immortal in that realm where happiness and transports, where joy and felicities combine..."

The Kykeon that preceded initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries is another entheogen, which was investigated (before the word was coined) by Carl Kerenyí, in Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter. Other entheogens in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean include the poppy, Datura, the unidentified "lotus" eaten by the Lotus-Eaters in the Odyssey and Narkissos.

According to Ruck, Eyan, and Staples, the familiar shamanic entheogen that the Indo-Europeans brought with them was knowledge of the wild Amanita mushroom. It could not be cultivated; thus it had to be found, which suited it to a nomadic lifestyle. When they reached the world of the Caucasus and the Aegean, the Indo-Europeans encountered wine, the entheogen of Dionysus, who brought it with him from his birthplace in the mythical Nysa, when he returned to claim his Olympian birthright. The Indo-European proto-Greeks "recognized it as the entheogen of Zeus, and their own traditions of shamanism, the Amanita and the 'pressed juice' of Soma — but better since no longer unpredictable and wild, the way it was found among the Hyperboreans: as befit their own assimilation of agrarian modes of life, the entheogen was now cultivable" (Ruck and Staples). Robert Graves, in his foreword to The Greek Myths, argues that the ambrosia of various pre-Hellenic tribes were amanita and possibly panaeolus mushrooms.

Amanita was divine food, according to Ruck and Staples, not something to be indulged in or sampled lightly, not something to be profaned. It was the food of the gods, their ambrosia, and it mediated between the two realms. It is said that Tantalus's crime was inviting commoners to share his ambrosia.

Even in cultures where they are acceptable, improper use of an entheogen, by the unauthorized or uninitiated, has led to disgrace, exile, and even death. The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden can be understood as such a parable of an entheogen misused, for the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge by its very nature is clearly part of what is denoted by "entheogen" a point made clearly by God:

"And the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:'
Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
So he drove out the man; and he placed at the East of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

Genesis 3:23-25.

Indeed the entheogen offers godlike powers in many Traditional tales, including immortality. The failure of Gilgamesh in retrieving the plant of immortality from beneath the waters teaches that the blissful state cannot be taken by force or guile: when Gilgamesh lay on the bank, exhausted from his heroic effort, the serpent came and ate the plant.

Another attempt at subverting the natural order is told in a (according to some) strangely metamorphosed myth, in which natural roles have been reversed to suit the Hellenic world-view. The Alexandrian Apollodorus relates how Gaia (spelled "Ge" in the following passage), Mother Earth herself, has supported the Titans in their battle with the Olympian intruders. The Giants have been defeated:

"When Ge learned of this, she sought a drug that would prevent their destruction even by mortal hands. But Zeus barred the appearance of Eos (the Dawn), Selene (the Moon), and Helios (the Sun), and chopped up the drug himself before Ge could find it."

—Apollodorus 1.34-38.

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[ughaibu]

Thanks for the definitions.