Alcohol has its uses, and it can also be dangerous. This should be obvious. Also obvious should be that psychedelics have different uses, and may be ultimately more beneficial long term if used wisely. And that getting high and drunk at the same time is likely to make it harder to benefit from...

I'm a scientist. Our knowledge is not objective. And the world would be a better place if more people learned scientific methods. Nothing you're describing is incompatible with science.

Depends on where you are. The plants in India haven't changed much; the plants in Toronto (my city) certainly have. The overall alkaloid count has risen, the THC/CBD ratio has drastically swung towards THC, and the price has sky-rocketed. Note that CBD is responsible for many of the...

Transformations in consciousness are a pretty good start. Beyond that it largely depends where you live. Where I live (in a major Canadian city), the most basic important thing is food security. Learn how to grow food, and plant some vegetables. If you want to get really wild, do guerilla...

Chemicals like 2C-I do not cause brain damage, but they can activate processes that need to be channelled and responded to wisely or else problems can ensue. It sounds to me like the conditions in which your trip happened (in particular, how late at night it was: you wanted to go to sleep far...

Exactly. You pick the relevant level of abstraction for the particular kind of work you're doing, and pursue it without reifying it as absolute or somehow "more real" than any other level. It's not more real... it's just more relevant to the particular problem you're considering.

Here's a theoretical anthropology essay I wrote recently to explore the relationship between consciousness alteration and self concept. http://michaelvipperman.wordpress.com/2 ... henticity/

I like Grof's description of them as "non-specific amplifiers of latent and manifest psychological processes." Because we contain both beauty and terror, so too does the experience. They show you what's beneath the surface, for good for for ill. Giving a breadth of perspectives is useful too...

For the record, my lack of participation in this thread has not been out of discouragement, animosity or even disagreement with any of the comments made, I've just been super busy. Apparently I might be winning an award for a rap song I wrote to count as an essay in an upper year anthropology...

I'm taking this to PM

Is this directed towards me? Because scientific reductionism is what I've been pointing out has been rejected by scientists, so to say that you've "had enough" of it is to agree with me and the other posters here, so I really don't know what you're on about. And to say something like "you don't...

Sorry, wasn't trying to be so negative (was I even? What comment of mine was more negative than "bitch... fuck off... we don't need that shit... your own ignorance... 's the worst form of ignorance"? Could you please quote the thing I said you found to be so negative and judgemental?). I merely...

Yeah, some people definitely think that way, but it's untenable, and unscientific.

I don't know how strong your pot is, but half an ounce for three people sounds like a hell of a lot (with the pot I'm used to, I wouldn't go over 1 gram/person... you're talking about 4.6 grams/person)! Be aware that people used to taking cannabis in another way often get way higher than they...

When I mentioned "science" I was referring to the usage by darkwolfunseen. That is, science as arguing everything to have causes, be explainable, etc. Chaos theory threw that right out the window, and over the past couple decades scientists have been increasingly getting into complexity...