Some time ago, I believe it was in the thread devoted to 4/20 celebrations, there arose a question of why do people ever use psychedelics, and what do they do it for. At that time I promised to start a thread concerning this question. After quite a long delay I finally compiled together some of the writings of the Volkhv, who teaches me and some of my personal views, and here it is. It is quite a long story, but I hope that some of you might find it interesting. The following also contains a few uncomplimentary comments about Christianity - well, it is because it was mainly written by a Priest of another religion.
Well, here we go:
The use of psychedelics dates back to the very beginning of human society. Every tradition-based society has its own director of ritual plants of power usage – it is a Shaman or a Priest. With the help of music, ritual singing, whistling and drumming he evokes characteristic visions that carry a specific cultural significance within the context of ritual sensations.
The sounds made by the drum during a state of altered consciousness create very specific and important visions. For example, the music can help you to encounter special supernatural beings, evoke visions that denote the source of sorcery, allow you to meet your departed ancestors, etc. During the ritual when you consume a large quantity of plants of power, physical activity is reduced to minimum, though all the five senses are active. The participants of the ritual at that moment tend to be calm and meditative.
Shamans, Volkhvs, Druids, Arbuis have always had a great command of the Mystical. With the help of the plants of power an Arbui, a Druid, a Volkhv or a Shaman was able to concentrate his energy on curing patients, predicting the future, casting spells upon enemies, getting the favor of a woman and, what is most important, on manipulating supernatural forces. Ethnographic literature abounds in such tales. This kind of specialists gave a definite preference to the plants of power in their gardens and collecting grounds. They collected them both to establish a connection with supernatural forces, and to replenish their own resources.
A Shaman is a specialist in ecstasy techniques. If we examine the most important behavioral traits of shamans all over the world, we will see that most of their manners are connected to the plants of power. In fact, we can enumerate several issues that must be influenced by psychedelics. These are the search for the source of a shaman’s power, the presence of helping spirits and allies (or the shaman’s transformation into such a being), the shaman’s celestial journey, the entrance into the lower world, and the often discussed magic flight.
The use of psychedelic substances in the modern industrial society is going to be a difficult field of research for future cultural historians. The influence of these substances is very wide and amazingly significant, however, it is often hard to define. By now millions of people from different social strata in Europe and the United States have had experience with psychedelics. Plants of power are not forbidden in England and Holland, till recently they were legal in Japan. These substances were used to get away from the usual waking unconscious mind and to wake up one’s awareness. People used them to enhance creativity, psychedelics also formed a foundation for metaphysical and magic systems, and for the creation of a whole range of rituals and symbols. They made people differ from the rest. Their use was treated and condemned as a political act or a heretical religious rite. But psychedelics continue to exert their subtle, practically indefinable influence.
The history of psychedelic use goes as far back as to the Aztecs, who took psilocybin and mescaline during religious rites. Certain native peoples of Southern America continue to use these substances with the same goal. Different researches have come to the conclusion that the feelings, evoked by the plants of power, include a set of interacting peculiarities, such as an individual’s position, expectations, motivation, mood, traits of character, and physical condition. One’s feelings under the influence of what is called the psychedelic substances are a complex phenomenon, during which this kind of interactions evoke the most subjective sensations that are the focus of study in psychology, sociology and anthology.
While under the influence of psychedelics a person can experience fear of losing control over the plant that has seized him, or, on the contrary, interpret his or her experience as getting in touch with the supernatural forces (especially so in case this way of thinking is inherent in his own culture). Visual perception undergoes significant changes. The visual deviations of one or another type are absolutely typical. In the everyday state of consciousness a person’s body and mind are totally discordant, but after the taking of a plant of power the contrary happens, and an individual experiences the feeling of unity with the nature and his or her Gods. The feeling of synesthesia – the struggle of different emotions – is a widely described effect, caused by psychedelic consumption.
The results of the latest anthropological studies of contemporary traditional societies, in which plants of power are used for religious and medical purposes, lead us to believe that cultural peculiarities play a decisive part in the shaping of the feelings that appear to be purely subjective, unmeasurable by any cultural criteria.
This aspect of plants of power usage will preserve its appeal for anthropologists, who study these societies. The people of these societies perceive themselves as a part of their culture on a very profound level that can only be accessed under the influence of plants of power. We can also say that in a traditional society psychedelics exert a radical influence upon an individual’s awareness. Summing all up, we can say that belonging to this kind of culture in traditional societies all over the world is defined and confirmed by the results of a person’s psychic activity during the process of psychedelic perception. An individual’s subconsciousness’ high receptivity to the society-generated information is made highly obvious. Now any attempt to pull a human psyche out of its cultural medium by severing the most complex connections, would be doomed to fail. Christianized peoples are an example of that.
Now we already know that health authorities and psychiatry (and later legislation, too) have become the enemies of psychedelic movement, similar to the Spanish inquisition that fought against the Medieval shamans and wizards. The leader that had come close to joining the two branches of the psychedelic movement was Timothy Leary. It was he who had developed the idea of “set&setting” as of the determinant of psychedelic experience.
Nowadays many conservative medical authorities and Christian spiritual leaders believe psychedelic use to be dangerous, and those, who do it – addicted. However, these people are suppressed and narrow-minded, afraid to encounter their true nature and to see the uselessness of their lives. In the same desperate way they are trying to keep others from gaining self-knowledge.
There is no doubt that its initiating element, its sacral and symbolic kernel is the psychedelic trip. The frequency of psychedelic use is very important. One or two times are enough for most people, whereas five times would not be enough for some others. The most important thing is that the sessions can always be stopped without any negative consequences. Having acquired a certain popularity, psychedelics have created a mass phenomenon with its solitary mystics, esoteric religions, unusual and eccentric cults and literary societies.
But those who have the power want the society to be a commercialized nightmare, in a word, just hoi polloi. They pretend to be profoundly religious, but if you ask them what is their religion, they wouldn’t even be able to answer that question. The history and the origin of their religion is a matter of no interest to them. Many are totally unable to grasp such concepts. These are the people who want the society to be hoi polloi, and who have declared the use of psychedelics to be illegal, but who approve of addictive alcohol and nicotine.
Mystic plants of power rituals that encompass self-actualization and freedom from suppression, the ecstasy of unity, expanded consciousness and purified perception are actually more important than the shallow and artificial Christian religion.
Those who have taken plants of power in the right way at least once will never loose the feeling of having their awareness expanded. Psychedelics have opened us the new parts of awareness that used to be accessible only to the few people, initiated to the world of the Mystical. Most of you who have come back from a trip with the memories of what you have seen may have difficulties understanding what is crucially important and how to interpret correctly what you have experienced and how to use it in everyday life. But you shouldn’t be fearful of that. Keep in mind that each trip will begin at exactly the same moment the previous one left off. And if you are careful and attentive in trips, you will definitely open your mind and learn and understand a lot of things. The main thing is not to hurry.
Psychedelic experience is a trip into new spheres of consciousness. The scope and content of this kind of experience are unlimited, but its characteristic traits surpass the limits of verbal conceptions of space, time and individuality. The result is the expanded awareness.
A psychedelic substance works as a “chemical key” – it opens one’s awareness, and frees the nervous system of its usual templates and structures. The nature of the experiment fully depends upon the set and setting. Set is a person’s qualification, including his personality structure and current mood.
The Tibetan model that we adhere to is meant to teach one to concentrate and control cognition in a way that leads one to the level of perception that different authors call “freedom”, “enlightenment”, “bliss”. If this manuscript will be perused several times before the trip, and also if you have found a worthy person to guide and direct you during the trip, your awareness will soon find freedom from the games that have shaped your EGO.
You should also remember that a trip is safe (the worst outcome for you would be to come back the person you were before the trip), and that all fears are the useless by-products of your unconscious mind. Whether your experience is positive or negative, remember that it is your brain that creates it. Avoid chasing some issues and hiding from others. Avoid being trapped into games during your trip.
Understanding might spread beyond the limits of your ego, of everything you’ve ever known before, it might go beyond the limits of your perception of time and space, beyond the limits that separate people from each other and from the world around them, and you should be ready to accept it. Remember that millions of people have been on this trip over the thousands of years of human history. Some, whom we now call mystics, or saints, or buddhas, were able to preserver the experience gained in the trip and to pass it on to others.
Try not to lose faith in yourself and the billion-year old life process. Don’t be afraid and cast away your ego, your brain can do no wrong.
Try to remember a loved person, or learn the names of several Pagan Gods, who will be your guides and protectors during your trip.
Trust yourself, trust your brain, and trust you worthy guides.
If you start to doubt, turn off your consciousness, relax and float down the stream. A person who had been made ready for the trip by reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead in the first moments of his trip will achieve the state of non-game ecstasy and profound revelations. The unprepared one will fall back into the games’ reality.
“Freedom in this sense is not necessarily the Freedom of the Nirvana, but mainly the freedom of your “life flow” from your ego in a way, that will allow you to expand the consciousness to the maximum. As for the enlightened people of highly effective awareness, the same esoteric process of TRANSFERENCE, according to the lamas, can be used to maintain the continuous stream of consciousness since the moment of ego loss to the moment of consciousness rebirth. An ancient Tibetan manuscript, translated by the late lama Kazi Dava-Samdul, that contains practical directions to achieve the loss of ego, says that the ability to maintain the non-game ecstasy during the whole session is accessible only to very experienced travelers. Only to those, who have practice in mental concentration, those, who are able to control their mental functions, which allows them to turn off the worries of the everyday world.
The Tibetan book of the dead consists of four parts. The first part is the introductory part. The second part contains step-by-step instructions, based upon the Book of the Dead. The third part contains practical advice on how to get ready and to control your psychedelic trip. The fourth part contains instruction, adapted from the Bardo Todol that can be read to the traveler during the session.
It is important to remember that the process of expanding your consciousness is contrary to that of the birth process. Birth is the process of acquitting consciousness, the beginning of the games’ reality, whereas the process of loosing one’s ego is its temporary cessation. In both cases it is a certain passage, a change in the state of one’s awareness. In the same way children wake up and learn the nature of things, a person who expands his awareness must begin to feel himself in the new world and learn the new realities after he comes back.
Well, here we go:
The use of psychedelics dates back to the very beginning of human society. Every tradition-based society has its own director of ritual plants of power usage – it is a Shaman or a Priest. With the help of music, ritual singing, whistling and drumming he evokes characteristic visions that carry a specific cultural significance within the context of ritual sensations.
The sounds made by the drum during a state of altered consciousness create very specific and important visions. For example, the music can help you to encounter special supernatural beings, evoke visions that denote the source of sorcery, allow you to meet your departed ancestors, etc. During the ritual when you consume a large quantity of plants of power, physical activity is reduced to minimum, though all the five senses are active. The participants of the ritual at that moment tend to be calm and meditative.
Shamans, Volkhvs, Druids, Arbuis have always had a great command of the Mystical. With the help of the plants of power an Arbui, a Druid, a Volkhv or a Shaman was able to concentrate his energy on curing patients, predicting the future, casting spells upon enemies, getting the favor of a woman and, what is most important, on manipulating supernatural forces. Ethnographic literature abounds in such tales. This kind of specialists gave a definite preference to the plants of power in their gardens and collecting grounds. They collected them both to establish a connection with supernatural forces, and to replenish their own resources.
A Shaman is a specialist in ecstasy techniques. If we examine the most important behavioral traits of shamans all over the world, we will see that most of their manners are connected to the plants of power. In fact, we can enumerate several issues that must be influenced by psychedelics. These are the search for the source of a shaman’s power, the presence of helping spirits and allies (or the shaman’s transformation into such a being), the shaman’s celestial journey, the entrance into the lower world, and the often discussed magic flight.
The use of psychedelic substances in the modern industrial society is going to be a difficult field of research for future cultural historians. The influence of these substances is very wide and amazingly significant, however, it is often hard to define. By now millions of people from different social strata in Europe and the United States have had experience with psychedelics. Plants of power are not forbidden in England and Holland, till recently they were legal in Japan. These substances were used to get away from the usual waking unconscious mind and to wake up one’s awareness. People used them to enhance creativity, psychedelics also formed a foundation for metaphysical and magic systems, and for the creation of a whole range of rituals and symbols. They made people differ from the rest. Their use was treated and condemned as a political act or a heretical religious rite. But psychedelics continue to exert their subtle, practically indefinable influence.
The history of psychedelic use goes as far back as to the Aztecs, who took psilocybin and mescaline during religious rites. Certain native peoples of Southern America continue to use these substances with the same goal. Different researches have come to the conclusion that the feelings, evoked by the plants of power, include a set of interacting peculiarities, such as an individual’s position, expectations, motivation, mood, traits of character, and physical condition. One’s feelings under the influence of what is called the psychedelic substances are a complex phenomenon, during which this kind of interactions evoke the most subjective sensations that are the focus of study in psychology, sociology and anthology.
While under the influence of psychedelics a person can experience fear of losing control over the plant that has seized him, or, on the contrary, interpret his or her experience as getting in touch with the supernatural forces (especially so in case this way of thinking is inherent in his own culture). Visual perception undergoes significant changes. The visual deviations of one or another type are absolutely typical. In the everyday state of consciousness a person’s body and mind are totally discordant, but after the taking of a plant of power the contrary happens, and an individual experiences the feeling of unity with the nature and his or her Gods. The feeling of synesthesia – the struggle of different emotions – is a widely described effect, caused by psychedelic consumption.
The results of the latest anthropological studies of contemporary traditional societies, in which plants of power are used for religious and medical purposes, lead us to believe that cultural peculiarities play a decisive part in the shaping of the feelings that appear to be purely subjective, unmeasurable by any cultural criteria.
This aspect of plants of power usage will preserve its appeal for anthropologists, who study these societies. The people of these societies perceive themselves as a part of their culture on a very profound level that can only be accessed under the influence of plants of power. We can also say that in a traditional society psychedelics exert a radical influence upon an individual’s awareness. Summing all up, we can say that belonging to this kind of culture in traditional societies all over the world is defined and confirmed by the results of a person’s psychic activity during the process of psychedelic perception. An individual’s subconsciousness’ high receptivity to the society-generated information is made highly obvious. Now any attempt to pull a human psyche out of its cultural medium by severing the most complex connections, would be doomed to fail. Christianized peoples are an example of that.
Now we already know that health authorities and psychiatry (and later legislation, too) have become the enemies of psychedelic movement, similar to the Spanish inquisition that fought against the Medieval shamans and wizards. The leader that had come close to joining the two branches of the psychedelic movement was Timothy Leary. It was he who had developed the idea of “set&setting” as of the determinant of psychedelic experience.
Nowadays many conservative medical authorities and Christian spiritual leaders believe psychedelic use to be dangerous, and those, who do it – addicted. However, these people are suppressed and narrow-minded, afraid to encounter their true nature and to see the uselessness of their lives. In the same desperate way they are trying to keep others from gaining self-knowledge.
There is no doubt that its initiating element, its sacral and symbolic kernel is the psychedelic trip. The frequency of psychedelic use is very important. One or two times are enough for most people, whereas five times would not be enough for some others. The most important thing is that the sessions can always be stopped without any negative consequences. Having acquired a certain popularity, psychedelics have created a mass phenomenon with its solitary mystics, esoteric religions, unusual and eccentric cults and literary societies.
But those who have the power want the society to be a commercialized nightmare, in a word, just hoi polloi. They pretend to be profoundly religious, but if you ask them what is their religion, they wouldn’t even be able to answer that question. The history and the origin of their religion is a matter of no interest to them. Many are totally unable to grasp such concepts. These are the people who want the society to be hoi polloi, and who have declared the use of psychedelics to be illegal, but who approve of addictive alcohol and nicotine.
Mystic plants of power rituals that encompass self-actualization and freedom from suppression, the ecstasy of unity, expanded consciousness and purified perception are actually more important than the shallow and artificial Christian religion.
Those who have taken plants of power in the right way at least once will never loose the feeling of having their awareness expanded. Psychedelics have opened us the new parts of awareness that used to be accessible only to the few people, initiated to the world of the Mystical. Most of you who have come back from a trip with the memories of what you have seen may have difficulties understanding what is crucially important and how to interpret correctly what you have experienced and how to use it in everyday life. But you shouldn’t be fearful of that. Keep in mind that each trip will begin at exactly the same moment the previous one left off. And if you are careful and attentive in trips, you will definitely open your mind and learn and understand a lot of things. The main thing is not to hurry.
Psychedelic experience is a trip into new spheres of consciousness. The scope and content of this kind of experience are unlimited, but its characteristic traits surpass the limits of verbal conceptions of space, time and individuality. The result is the expanded awareness.
A psychedelic substance works as a “chemical key” – it opens one’s awareness, and frees the nervous system of its usual templates and structures. The nature of the experiment fully depends upon the set and setting. Set is a person’s qualification, including his personality structure and current mood.
The Tibetan model that we adhere to is meant to teach one to concentrate and control cognition in a way that leads one to the level of perception that different authors call “freedom”, “enlightenment”, “bliss”. If this manuscript will be perused several times before the trip, and also if you have found a worthy person to guide and direct you during the trip, your awareness will soon find freedom from the games that have shaped your EGO.
You should also remember that a trip is safe (the worst outcome for you would be to come back the person you were before the trip), and that all fears are the useless by-products of your unconscious mind. Whether your experience is positive or negative, remember that it is your brain that creates it. Avoid chasing some issues and hiding from others. Avoid being trapped into games during your trip.
Understanding might spread beyond the limits of your ego, of everything you’ve ever known before, it might go beyond the limits of your perception of time and space, beyond the limits that separate people from each other and from the world around them, and you should be ready to accept it. Remember that millions of people have been on this trip over the thousands of years of human history. Some, whom we now call mystics, or saints, or buddhas, were able to preserver the experience gained in the trip and to pass it on to others.
Try not to lose faith in yourself and the billion-year old life process. Don’t be afraid and cast away your ego, your brain can do no wrong.
Try to remember a loved person, or learn the names of several Pagan Gods, who will be your guides and protectors during your trip.
Trust yourself, trust your brain, and trust you worthy guides.
If you start to doubt, turn off your consciousness, relax and float down the stream. A person who had been made ready for the trip by reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead in the first moments of his trip will achieve the state of non-game ecstasy and profound revelations. The unprepared one will fall back into the games’ reality.
“Freedom in this sense is not necessarily the Freedom of the Nirvana, but mainly the freedom of your “life flow” from your ego in a way, that will allow you to expand the consciousness to the maximum. As for the enlightened people of highly effective awareness, the same esoteric process of TRANSFERENCE, according to the lamas, can be used to maintain the continuous stream of consciousness since the moment of ego loss to the moment of consciousness rebirth. An ancient Tibetan manuscript, translated by the late lama Kazi Dava-Samdul, that contains practical directions to achieve the loss of ego, says that the ability to maintain the non-game ecstasy during the whole session is accessible only to very experienced travelers. Only to those, who have practice in mental concentration, those, who are able to control their mental functions, which allows them to turn off the worries of the everyday world.
The Tibetan book of the dead consists of four parts. The first part is the introductory part. The second part contains step-by-step instructions, based upon the Book of the Dead. The third part contains practical advice on how to get ready and to control your psychedelic trip. The fourth part contains instruction, adapted from the Bardo Todol that can be read to the traveler during the session.
It is important to remember that the process of expanding your consciousness is contrary to that of the birth process. Birth is the process of acquitting consciousness, the beginning of the games’ reality, whereas the process of loosing one’s ego is its temporary cessation. In both cases it is a certain passage, a change in the state of one’s awareness. In the same way children wake up and learn the nature of things, a person who expands his awareness must begin to feel himself in the new world and learn the new realities after he comes back.
