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Ayahuasca
educatedindian:
The person at the first link, Aurora Bahá—Truenos, has been accused of being a fraud. I'm starting a thread on him under Research.
The group at the last link has someone mentioned in here before, Stanislav Grof.
A.H.:
--- Quote from: educatedindian on March 13, 2008, 04:25:19 pm ---The person at the first link, Aurora Bahá—Truenos, has been accused of being a fraud. I'm starting a thread on him under Research.
The group at the last link has someone mentioned in here before, Stanislav Grof.
--- End quote ---
Yes - the first link is about fraud...
About Grof I don't know yet - I spotted him also (and mentioned him around here) and have mixed feelings... but he still has serious academic credentials in the field in which he works and still some reputation... I am alert though... but the research topics seem interesting and serious...
A.H.:
I must share this;
This medicine works... outside any cultural norm. Oh my God how it works!!! It is extreme and physically demanding and unpleasant so I can't understand how anyone could abuse this for simple pleasure or getting high. It is not possible.
I LITERALLY threw up my accumulated "existential angst" and those feelings haven't returned yet. I can contemplate the eternal questions without getting depressed every night and falling into the state of lack of meaning and will to live, now.
It feels like it switched off this mechanism... I can now recognize the pattern of thoughts that previously pushed me into extremely nihilist state of mind, but now it just stops at the rational level and those negative emotions don't occur.
So even though I only imagine this effect as a result of literally hearing "some(thing)(one)" commanding me to accumulate the existential angst through the whole night of incredible insights and physical pain and nausea and then throw it up violently (like throwing up my soul and dieing) in the early morning - it still worked. Calling it placebo is easy. I have now too much respect for it to reduce it to just this...
I think this medicine should be studied as a priority and incorporated into western (and any other) psychological treatment. It should probably also be synthesized so that increased demand does not cause any further ecological and cultural damage to indigenous people and the Amazon rainforest.
We are "plastic" civilization, so I think it is appropriate for us to use "plastic" medicine with the right knowledge if we continue to live in a "plastic" way.
"Return to nature" and going back to any "old ways" seems like utopia (and meaningless) at the moment and actually one of the insights that reassured this position to me was directly like that (spoken by "something" I percieved as outside my receptive tought process): "humans are part of "nature" - you are born/made out of the same substance as everything else, everything you do is therefore "natural" - you cannot do anything OUTSIDE the natural order. All your actions, everything you call artificial or human-made is already a part of this same system. You can't work outside it, because you are IT. Everything you use is IT, everything you do is IT, when your technology reaches nano-level, when you will be constructing molecules out of nano-elements your technology will be exactly the same as you are made - there is (will be) no difference. You are inside, you are part of it. The laregly subonsciously or even consciously percieved division of "human adventure" and the rest of nature/Universe is misconception. You are not OUTSIDE and some independant detached agent/observer. You are too an "active ingredient"..."
I am rational enough to give such substance-induced visions a reasonable doubt, but the psychological impact remains.
This medicine has definitely a potential of curing depression and suicidal tendencies... But a knowledgable and trained "therapist" should be present and mental/psychological/spiritual preparation should be made, so you enter the experience with the right mind-set and supportive surroundings.
Kevin:
- sort of reminds me of when I was a hippy and we'd go out to the garden eat a bunch of morning glory flower seeds and take a trip to the moon - we didn't attach much spiritual significance to getting high back in them days - we just wanted to take a trip to the moon and never leave the garden - no heavy duty mysticism was needed, we could fly, man!
A.H.:
You were Vietnam vet and hippy at the same time?
You can dismiss me with such "getting high" comparison, but don't insult the medicine.
It is a different substance from what you mention, it is more dangerous and physically unpleasant. So you're not exactly "high" when treated with it... But you do get this non-ordinary insight. The latter probably depends on your mental state and also on your surroundings, motivations and the persons with you or treating you.
Anyhow - if your experience made you a better man and you could apply any of it in your everyday life or it had any real and lasting psychological benefit for you (like curing some addiction, phobia or depression) - good for you.
Ayahuasca did that for me. And I am grateful and I see value in it.
This is not some substance for the entertainment of hippies, hehe. Don't try to reduce it to this - especially when you don't know it.
peace
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