Do psychedelic substances lead to a lack of love and deception?

Hi James
I wouldn't call crack cocaine and heroin psychedelic substances! My experiences were with LSD back in the 60s and 70s and I had some very meaningful experiences and insights. I wasn't addicted and didn't take it a lot. Back then, a trip was treated as sacramental rather than recreational. I was horrified a decade or so ago to learn that young friends of mine were taking LSD to go clubbing.
There's always the question too as to which is the 'real' reality. Aldous Huxley called mescalin (or was it peyote?) the 'Doors of Perception'. It's widely acknowledged that psychotropic substances lead to altered states of consciousness or alternative realities. 'Normal' reality can be awfully grey and boring sometimes.
I've heard about ayahuasca from someone who went to Brazil to try it. It sounds very powerful and again, not to be treated lightly.

xxx

Hi James,
I too took LSD, and also mescaline in the 60's and 70's with a small group of friends. Like Sunandra's, my experiences were very meaningful. I would say most definately that those experiences (as with the whole group) during the 'trips' and afterwards, enhanced loving feelings towards other human beings and living things in general, and also wishes for honesty, compassion, and peace in the world, rather than the opposite effect you described. That group of people continue to be very caring human beings in lots of different ways.
You can't compare psychedelic substances with heroin and crack cocaine either, they're completely different.

"What i feel is that the substances take you to cloud cuckoo land, which you perceive as much better, more colour full, more bright, etc (or much worse in bad trips) then normal consensous reality. Normal, "boring" reality - loving, taking care of each orher, honesty - seem to fade as the substance takes more hold of the person."

While this may be what you feel yourself, this is not necessarily the case for others, by any means.

Elen

I'm definately not saying that people should take drugs by the way ..... much better to meditate!

Elen

Hi James
I wouldn't call crack cocaine and heroin psychedelic substances! My experiences were with LSD back in the 60s and 70s and I had some very meaningful experiences and insights. I wasn't addicted and didn't take it a lot. Back then, a trip was treated as sacramental rather than recreational. I was horrified a decade or so ago to learn that young friends of mine were taking LSD to go clubbing.

Hi sunanda,
cocaine is an alkaloid, from the coca plant; heroin is another alkaloid from opium poppies - both have been used for thousands of years. LSD is also an alkaloid, though synthetically created, i believe has effects on the body are similar to other mind altering alkaloids.

"psychedelic" is just a label, and the "banning" by Governments of certain drugs, and the associated social stigma manufactured by media and governments is just bureaucracy. Also, remember that lots of money is made by powerful people when substances are banned.

People the world over have been "tripping" for thousands of years. In fact, i believe that the origin of "man" is via such plants - which i've written in detail about elsewhere.

There's always the question too as to which is the 'real' reality. Aldous Huxley called mescalin (or was it peyote?) the 'Doors of Perception'. It's widely acknowledged that psychotropic substances lead to altered states of consciousness or alternative realities. 'Normal' reality can be awfully grey and boring sometimes.

Yes, this "grey" and "boring" feeling of "normal" reality is similar whether you take LSD, Ayahuasca, Heroin, Cocaine or Ecstasy.

I've heard about ayahuasca from someone who went to Brazil to try it. It sounds very powerful and again, not to be treated lightly.

Yes, it is - i can tell you from personal experience!!!!

cocaine is an alkaloid, from the coca plant; heroin is another alkaloid from opium poppies - both have been used for thousands of years. LSD is also an alkaloid, though synthetically created, i believe has effects on the body are similar to other mind altering alkaloids.

"psychedelic" is just a label, and the "banning" by Governments of certain drugs, and the associated social stigma manufactured by media and governments is just bureaucracy. Also, remember that lots of money is made by powerful people when substances are banned.

I'm sorry, James, but IMO cocaine and heroin do not produce anything like the effects which the psychotropics ie LSD, mescaline, peyote, magic mushrooms etc etc do. There is absolutely no comparison and bracketing them together is also IMO pointless.

Yes, it is - i can tell you from personal experience!!!!

So, if you're saying 'ayahuasca' is a psychedelic, are you therefore lacking in love and versed in the ways of deception?;)

xx

'Normal' reality can be awfully grey and boring sometimes.

The best personal pick me up
I know
is to ask for Love.

It is our choice to do grey or boring....
and yes reality can seem that way.
I know it, I sat and stared at the walls and know what it feels like to feel grey and boring.

For me it was this

lack of love

that made the reality seem so so bleak and cold.

But, Love, can add a rainbow within the very midst of our being.

Some may say I am stupid to post this here...
but for me the

deception?

is
that we try to live here
without Love.

Love is free
and personalised for each of us.

Each choice that we make
is because of free will.

Love is free
and it is our choice whether we will allow Love to be part of our everyday reality.

The best personal pick me up
I know
is to ask for Love.

It is our choice to do grey or boring....
and yes reality can seem that way.
I know it, I sat and stared at the walls and know what it feels like to feel grey and boring.

For me it was this that made the reality seem so so bleak and cold.

But, Love, can add a rainbow within the very midst of our being.

Some may say I am stupid to post this here...
but for me the is
that we try to live here
without Love.

Love is free
and personalised for each of us.

Each choice that we make
is because of free will.

Love is free
and it is our choice whether we will allow Love to be part of our everyday reality.

Hi Flit..........

If you keep those feelings of love, without the emotion. See the life in every single tree and stone........See every cloud, with a birdseye view and swim with the Dolphins...........then, I believe you are at the same level of consciousness as a Shaman...

Sometimes we need to be like the clouds and just watch the World about us pass by.

One lesson taught to some Shaman is to sit and just watch with unblinking eyes........and each day increase the length of time you don't blink.Until you can last an hour +, whilst still maintaining your alertness..........then you trully see nature at it's best.

This lesson, by the way.......is one of the easier ones.......:)..but then again.To love everyone at all times is quite a challenge.....:D

To answer the original question in a simple way i would say yes and no...alot depends on exactly what the individual has taken and in what context, for example if one takes highly artificial and un-balanced substances like crack/heroin one can expect these traits to manifest in oneself as a result....personally i see the two i mentioned which are essentially pain killers some sort of an attempt taken by the individual to help kill the pain of the society they live in....which is why 'war on drugs' and the like will never work as they dont address the underlying reasons why a person turns to these substances in the first place. i.e society is at fault not drugs.

Taking substances out of context can be very dangerous...for example ayahuasca was never meant to be taken in spain....it does not grow there and as far as i know will not grow there [under any natural conditions] so therefore its badly grounded in that locale...so one could would expect the same to occur in the individual who takes it there...., its a south american rainforest mix and thats where it works best.....the shamans of spain had/have their own local plants for teaching and healing etc. as do all the other shaman around the world.

On the question of reality and cuckoo land....well there are many levels of 'reality' my friend and as a collective i believe its high time we start dreaming a new dream and in due course become who we are really meant to be in a better more loving world and if a certain substance [one of many paths] taken in the right context helps us get there then who am i to argue.

if by psychedelic you mean LSD in my experience i come across people who took it in big amounts when they were young they now have flashbacks.some say it activates a part of your brain that we dont use anymore and that this can stimulate artistic veins.some bands have been influenced by LSD the one i have read about was the doors an american band from the 60,s there name is from a scripture by aristotle who was councller to alexander the great meaning the doors of perception.LSD has been used in war time or was a weapon that may have been used by any side on a battlefield has it is easy to deliver.
Im not so sure about opiats being classed has pyhychedelic drugs however morphine given to a casualty on a battlefield directly can be seen to be acting in that way.
to answer your thread i think and by no means am i saying i,m right is that any drug legal,illegal or prescribed if cained can alter or damage you permanently.
if a chemical is stong enough to influence which hormones your body or brain releases on a night out then the answer may be yes.thnx

Lsd

I agree that cocaine, crack cocaina and heroin(dia morphine} do not have the same affects as lsd.i am in my 40,s and was out in the early days of acid in the clubs i,m not proud of it but was in to the drug culture before i joined the army.i think the main differance is thatsynthesised drugs ie lsd,amphetamines(speed) stimulate the body differantly to natural drugs,.cocaine tells our body to release mainly dopamine where as speed stimulates the adreenal gland which in turn tells our brain to release ceretonin.heroin affects our central nervous system,i think crucially lsd stimulates our brain in areas that unless you are clauradant you may never use
much depends on as with me when i was younger depended on in clubs the music.i have taken acid in clubs but not as some people i know had it when they were avin a night in.i would not say they alter our perception of reality but heighten the euphoria felt.iwas quite a fan of that and mdma (ecstacy} so much so if you ever met me i have got the acid smiley face tattooed on theback of my neck.seemed like a good idea at the time.

BUT WAS IN TO THE DRUG CULTURE BEFORE I JOINED THE ARMY.

I guess it must lead to deception because to join the Armed forces a candidate must declare their previous drug usage, and LSD will exclude service.

Myarka.

any drug will exclude service but only if found on a urine test.a basic test is carried out nothing specific but youd know that having been in the forces yourself

any drug will exclude service but only if found on a urine test.a basic test is carried out nothing specific but youd know that having been in the forces yourself

That's not correct, a urine sample will not show previous usage if the person hasn't used drugs for some time. But all service personel must make a declaration on joining about previous drug usage and previous LSD will cause exclusion from joining.

However, rules may have changed since I left the forces nearly 20 years ago.

Myarka

i left about 10 years ago most of which from twelve years service was spent in the royal army medical corps as a class 1 combat medical tec . with equallity of the sexes being brought in i spent 3 years as a army nurser in the qa,s.
does it not stand to reason that if someone is concious of there drug usage before joining and going for the medical that they ensure any is out of there system the info is available from many sources as to how long drugs take to clear your body .if they go to these lenghs they are not going to declare drug usage at the medical if they know none will show be it in urine or blood samples the chances are if none show they wont be asked about it.
in retrospect i found your insinuation that i am capable of deception in the past as well as know a insult.which had initially no substance to it any crediblity was drawn from you being judgemental.
take a note from hummingbird medicine and dont judge others, if you do you will find the only one you will be judging is yourself.
i have just heard out of my window the cry of a owl which by the way some cultures consider owl medicine to be mainly to do with deception.
what a profound omen from nature for me.

Hello Jaybird,

You shoudn't be offended bacause I was answering the thread. The drugs policy concerning recruits may have changed over the years. There was no testing in my day at all, but it wasn't the problem that it is now. However, there were still members of the public who were applying to join up that had previously taken LSD, and it was made clear at recruitment that if you had a previous record of LSD, you would be excluded because of the potential of flash backs.

Therefore, if you had declared your LSD usage when you joined then I apologise. Perhaps it's different for non coms?

Myarka.

this thread has gone off the theme of shamanism

please keep to the topic of Shamanism

thanks

tigress
(forum moderator)

many thanks Tigress you was bang on there.I am honoured to have met a true seer

When I was younger I felt very alienated. The world was not only "grey" but seemed incomprehensibly pointless. For escape and a bit of excitement I took various drugs for recreation. One of which was magic mushrooms. The first few times I tried magic mushrooms i had a very easy time of things and much hilarity. One such time though I had an inkling that there was something else to be had from these mushrooms.

Cue what I believe to be the interest of a soul mate and boom something had started. I could think differently under the influence of mushrooms and a journey began where I tried to comprehend my world.

Then I tool lsd and instead of thinking that things just werent what they were cracked up to be when not under the influence, I feel the experience with this drug actually made life in the "real world" understandable and a lot more bearable. 3 years on and I honestly feel that because of this experience I can look inside and to spirit for meaning. I am more environmentally aware, compassionate and no longer scared of love. Everything now is an experience and I feel that they made a profound positive impact on "real life".

I grew up with recreational drug use and to look back on it I would say that acid although brilliant once never went down well with me (im not as spiritually aware as a lot of you may be but i have the sneaking suspicion that it either did some harm to the psyche or their are lessons to be learned from it that I cannot grasp yet). Magic mushrooms on the other hand have never posed any problem but it is still not something I would reccomend to anyone.

So I would say in all that i wouldnt agree with your statement but there was a time where i felt a strong urge to be in a psychedelic state but as I grew I realised that like all things there is a time when things feels right to be taken. But I would say the burning urge to be tripping goes when what you have experieced when tripping impacts your life. All in all I feel as if I have opened up a channel for self analysis, developed faith in a higher power, seen how everything fits yet at the same time is an illusion, i have come to terms with what it is to be a woman and am much more warm, emphatic and less quick to anger and doubt that this will ever leave me. these plants are teachers and when taken with respect can heal enormously but they can allow choose to be mean mutha's - sometimes we need that too though.

I, too, have had the exact opposite effects you have mentioned.
The urge to intoxicate oneself is the fourth strongest biological imperative we have. We cannot eliminate all intoxicants (my city has a mental hospital with an entire ward of water intoxicators). But it makes no sense to keep The Most Deadly intoxicant (alcohol, 125,000 deaths per year in US) legal while keeping all the illegal intoxicants illegal despite their relative safety (3,800 deaths per year). Keeping the expensive failed war on drugs running is not only stupid and harmful, but it eats away at our freedoms daily.

I, too, have had the exact opposite effects you have mentioned.
The urge to intoxicate oneself is the fourth strongest biological imperative we have. We cannot eliminate all intoxicants (my city has a mental hospital with an entire ward of water intoxicators). But it makes no sense to keep The Most Deadly intoxicant (alcohol, 125,000 deaths per year in US) legal while keeping all the illegal intoxicants illegal despite their relative safety (3,800 deaths per year). Keeping the expensive failed war on drugs running is not only stupid and harmful, but it eats away at our freedoms daily.

You might not get an answer here - the last post was 5 years ago.
(And I'm not clear on why it is in Shamanism!)

In the midst of another, and a serious subject here, like an astonishing bit of data from "QI" this leapt out at me:

my city has a mental hospital with an entire ward of water intoxicators

The strangenesses of human beings, huh?

And:

But it makes no sense to keep The Most Deadly intoxicant (alcohol, 125,000 deaths per year in US) legal while keeping all the illegal intoxicants illegal despite their relative safety (3,800 deaths per year).

Another huge subject. I've just deleted some thoughts on that in order not to go off the thread topic.... It's a subject in itself.

V

(And I'm not clear on why it is in Shamanism!)

My point here was that the use of psychedelic substances is part of some shamanic cultures. It is not part of others. But in any case, firstly these are natural substances (i.e. not LSD) and secondly the only point of taking them is to facilitate the shamanic journey.

In cultures that use them there is a long and deep relationship with the particular plant. I have yet to see that among those who take any such here. I've met many people who are more interested in the "trip" than in the "journey".

I guess it must lead to deception because to join the Armed forces a candidate must declare their previous drug usage, and LSD will exclude service.

Myarka.

Sadly the armed forces in the UJ are a hotbed of illegal drug use. ketamine in particular is widely used .

I am not sure if previous drug use would exclude people from joining the armed forces here in the UK....but then no-one is going to declare they have indulged in illegal activity - at least no sensible person is going to......

I have been holiday which is why I have only just seen tis thread...and as a pharmacist its interests me a lot!!!

I do not think any drug intrinsically leads to lack of love and deception. It seems more likely to me that the underlying reason for taking the drug may be the problem.

The shaman who takes a psychoactive substance to facilitate journeying has a specific purpose in mind, ....and probably a good reason for the journey.

The hippies who took LSD back in the 60's were probably doing so to escape from reality . I personally see a marked difference between the two...

I personally feel taking ANY psychoactive is something that should be done with caution....however good your motives for taking it