On killing the ego

[HeartCore]

How exactly do you distinguish between a 'profound altered state' and a 'mystical state'? - The 'profound alteration of consciousness' just IS the mystical state. The recent study by Roland Griffiths confirmed this: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/bin/s/m/ ... ocybin.pdf psilocybin typically causes fully mystical experiences

There is a big difference between a profound altered state and a mystical experience. Just remember all those train wreck stories on Erowid. You cannot dose someone and expect them to have a mystical experience on command, that's the point I wanted to make.

Maybe I should have said that without somekind of framework for the experience to happen in, it's merely a profound enhancement of perception (instead of alteration of consciousness, it's semantics but anyway ) most of the time. Surely some people that take psychedelics casually are presented with a full blown mystical experience but it's not guaranteed. I've talked to people that have had six hour episodes of full blown paranoia, trying to stop one of their friends killing himself by jumping in front of a train. No one died that night and all the ego's survived as well

My point about the knowledge of the shamen from the Amazon is that (as you said) they have indeed knowledge of these altered states and usually are trained in them. It's not unheard of that these people live solitary for a year in the jungle with the only contact they have, with their trainer. It's also not for nothing that these people often spend over a month drinking Ayahuasca daily to learn.

I don't know if deep states are available via yoga or meditation but I know for sure, that you don't either. I suspect it's very well possible under the right circumstances but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

 

[Lazarus]

Well said HeartCore.You said it exactly right.Max doesnt know what hes talking about.

@ max.Some questions.
What drugs have you taken?
How much in quantity each time did you take?
How many times have you taken each drug?
Was every experience a mystical experience?If you had any mystical experiences what happened?
In what set and setting did you take those drugs?
When are you speaking at the conference?

There is a diference between what a psychiatrist would call and ego death in a mental patient and a mystical experience/ego death.The fact that you dont know that shows you know nothing.By reading your posts i see that you have never had a true mystical ego death and that you are a very egoistic person.I would advise you not to take drugs because you,an ignorant person with a swollen ego,are a bad trip candidate.If you want to heal yourself i would recomend getting some advice and information from HeartCore about traditional ceremonys..........But you will need many to have a chance of being healed.One,two or three wont do it.You will need at least several dozen.

 

[EndlessEntity]

now now... just cuz hes very very wrong doesnt mean he has a swollen ego.
besides Anyone who has ever read Ayn Rand should know what an EGOTIST really is rather than use the socially accepted definition.

 

[tryptonaut]

sometimes when people trip too hard, they have the experience of dying then being reborn when the trip ends, THAT is what 'ego death' is, it is an experience frequently undergone by psychonauts, it isnt something you can 'do', rather it is something that just 'happens to you' when you take drugs

+1
That is exactly what I experienced once when I took an heroic dose of 10g dried shrooms (never had had any more than 4g before that...).
I never again had the balls to have that experience because it was a freaking horror trip for a real-time 2 hours and it felt like a lifetime. Essentially my life was gone, I was floating in an endless universe of nothing and everything at the same time and I just knew it was all over, all gone, I would never be able to make up for everything I had done wrong. At the peak of it I was lying on the floor crying like a baby, repenting all my sins.
I had never really understood the meaning of "ego-death" until this. Then, when I slowly came back and realized I was gonna live my life again, I knew...

Ego-death doesn't mean you will kill your ego forever. It just means you will realize how much your life is worth, and how shitty you are treating it day in and out. Once you experience the so-called ego death, you'll know how much you actually love your life, including all the shitty things that usually piss you off.

It's only called ego "death" I think because no other word than "death" can describe the feeling that goes along with it. Losing your ego temporarily is what it actually is. If your ego was dead forever, you wouldn't be able to live. But that's just the point of the experience, I think...

 

[trick]

@Lazarus

theres many ways to voice your opinion without a personal attack man.
were all one big happy family here, dontchaknow? :mrgreen:

anyways, im quite looking forward to the day i experience ego death. ive felt the feeling of being "reborn", especally on my last mushroom trip, but i diddnt experience "death", the trip was just so amazing that its opened my eyes to the world around me. moreso than ive experienced in the past.

 

[EndlessEntity]

yes ego death "just happens" to people with no experience
but people with experience can make it happen.

 

[Lazarus]

I did not attack anyone.

While we wait for max to explain himself and answer the questions i asked i will explain what i said because you obviously don`t understand.I had thought that the people who post on this site would have at least a little bit of experience with life,drugs and also with mysticism .

When i read this topic i was deeply shocked that max could write such utter rubish.Max has dismissed all the mystical traditions and practices on the planet throughout history from gnosis to zen.That is egoistic in the extreme.He has also equated mystical experiences and drug use with mental illness.The only other times that i have read such unqualified and unfounded rubbish was on scientology,christian fundamentalist and government anti drugs sites.

To get a better picture of max and why he says what he says i read every single post that he has posted here and all the replys to those posts.Thats how i came to the conclusions that i have come to.To get a clear picture of why i said it and what max is like you should all do the same.Untill you do that you should not critisise me or what i have said.

What i said about ayahuasca was based on many personal ayahuasca experience and personal experience of many western drug tourists.Very many tourists go and have a few ayahuasca sessions with fake shamen and then think that they know it all.They dont.The sessions that they have are not healing sessions and those people return with the same swollen egos and social and personal problems that they went with.When western people have real healing sessions with real shamen it often takes many sessions to crack their mental armor and help them.So my comments about that were not an attack they were well founded and helpful.

Another point.You all seem to me to have never had a full ego death and only to have had partial ego deaths.I say that because non of you understand what a real full ego death is.All you talk about is the separation that happens with the most trips.That is not a full ego death.Trick put it very well.

To find out what ego death is you should at least read the books by T.Leary and the people who wrote the tibetan book of the dead.

To find out about non drug induced ego death you should at least read the works of Ram Dass.

Those are not the only sources of expert knowledge there are many others.

Until you have done those things you are not qualified to describe or define these things with any credibility .Things you only know about through hearsay.

HeartCore i also took the time to read many of your posts.You have my respect.You are one of the few people here that have obviously really done the things you talk about.

Max the academic qualifications that you say you have do not qualify you to make any medical diagnosis or to say anything credible about mysticism.You are not a psychologist.psychiatrist or ethnologist.

"yes ego death "just happens" to people with no experience"

Can happen.

Sorry if that comes across as hard it is not meant to be.It is meant to bring a little reason and foundation to the discussion.

I have nothing more to say on the subject at least until max answers all of the questions i asked.Please don`t ask me for information about how to contact real shamen or ayahuasca sessions or myself.If you want to know find out for yourselves.Knowledge can not be given it has to be earned and learnt for oneself.

 

[ophiuchus]

max:
" ""you can disconnect on command, or produce OEV's. you just have to practice and concentrate.""

you certainly can do that if you have HPPD, but for the vast majority of people, tripping on demand without drugs is practically impossible"

i try not to do this often, but max i can tell you from personal experience (and the experience of others that i've met) that you are very wrong in this regard. i have "mystical experiences" or "ego-deaths" (not what i would call them) on a day to day basis, each of which, creates the sense that i need to relinquish my attemptive tight grip on my ego. it's like degaussing the screen on your computer. it needs to be done on a regular basis, or else one has a "traffic jam" in their brain, (aka a schizophrenic episode, be it large, or tiny) causing a "panic attack", "anxiety", etc. keep in mind that these are not my terms, personally, i dont think that they even require terms, because in doing so, you miss the concept, which is, that these things happen to you all the time. whether it be on a large scale, or a small scale, whether it be drugs, yoga, meditation, or simple activities, like taking a "break", scale does not matter, our world is fractal aka scale-invariant. (what is it that you are taking a "break" from? it's more ambiguous and pervasive than just the task at hand, it's taking a break from your mind) inducing it can be as simple as taking a few deep breathes and a break from what you are doing (that is the cause of the feelings) be it stressing over, work, money, etc, etc. formulating an idea of something is to literally separate it from every other aspect of reality... that sounds more like a definition of schizophrenia, than a day to day feeling that you are not separate from the universe.. does it not...?

see, when you define something, you divide(notice the similarity in sounds? define comes from the same root as divide...) things into (imaginary) boxes. you put the thing your "trying" to define in one box, and everything else you wish to exclude in the other. YOU CREATE A DUALITY. (something that can only exist in the mental realm. but, we can all agree now, that without forcing these concepts onto what is nature, natural, there exists no formal duality. that is to say without a human to say "this is this, and it's apart from that", then we SEE, firsthand, (not think) that everything is non-dual. literally and metaphorically connected. max you are locking youself into the world of systems, dualities, which are merely fabrications, and i think you need to SEE reality. maybe try a few more yoga classes. but this is not to say that you NEED some kind of structured activity, you can do it on your own, you can meditate more often, you can take more little "breaks" when you get super involved at work. we all need these short breaks in the consitance in the ego, or else how is one to judge oneself? how is one to reviews oneself? you must step outside of the box to see that it is a box that you are standing in. how does one contrast the foreground, without a background? tell what's white without black to contrast it?

 

[IJesusChrist]

This thread is trying to give very subjective ideas objective meaning... I mean the whole thread...

 

[maxfreakout]

There is a big difference between a profound altered state and a mystical experience.

That ^ is a muddled and incoherent statement, a mystical experience is a profound altered state experience, but the term 'profound altered state experience' is a superficial and vague way to describe the type of experience, you would need to clarify what you mean by 'profound' and 'altered'. The mystical altered state of consciousness results from the loosening of cognitive associations, it is experienced as 'profound' because it has the power to dissolve belief-structures which are a central underlying structure of the mind.

Just remember all those train wreck stories on Erowid.

A shaman once said to me: "there is no such thing as a bad trip, it's just that there are some trips which teach you more"

You cannot dose someone and expect them to have a mystical experience on command

This ^ is another muddled and incoherent statement, you can dose someone on demand and expect them to trip on command, ie they will automatically enter the 'loosened' cognitive mode, which is the mystical/religious state of consciousness. But this state of consciousness varies in intensity according to dose, set and setting, and the full blown transformative mystical experiences happen at the more intense levels.

Maybe I should have said that without somekind of framework for the experience to happen in, it's merely a profound enhancement of perception (instead of alteration of consciousness, it's semantics but anyway ) most of the time.

The alteration of perception is merely the most superficial/surface level phenomenon encountered in the altered states, the more interesting stuff happens at the underlying level of cognition, - the way the mind processes information is profoundly altered in the psychedelic state. The 'frameworks' are highly important, they need to be learned alongside the altered state experiences, religions and mythology have always played this role, they reflect the mystical state phenomenology.

Surely some people that take psychedelics casually are presented with a full blown mystical experience but it's not guaranteed.

Yes the fullblown experiences do not happen automatically, they normally need to be 'coaxed' out of it, but in general, anyone who commits themselves to tripping hard over a period of time would eventually encounter the fully transformative mystical dynamics

I don't know if deep states are available via yoga or meditation but I know for sure, that you don't either. I suspect it's very well possible under the right circumstances but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

As i have said before, deep states ARE available to experience via alternative methods, and via psychotic experiences, but none of these drug-alternatives are ergonomic tools for everybody to controllably trigger intense mystical states on demand.

 

[maxfreakout]

max.Some questions.
What drugs have you taken?
How much in quantity each time did you take?
How many times have you taken each drug?
Was every experience a mystical experience?If you had any mystical experiences what happened?
In what set and setting did you take those drugs?

i take the entheogens and that is what im talking about here, the drugs that induce the religious/mystical altered state, im very thoroughly acquianted with that state having tripped hundreds of times, however only a small number of trips are required to trigger the full range of psychedelic phenomena, and ego death is the 'peak' culmination of psychedelic experience, once ego death has happened there is nothing 'more suprising' to discover

When are you speaking at the conference?

i dont know the exact time, i will record my presentation

There is a diference between what a psychiatrist would call and ego death in a mental patient and a mystical experience/ego death.

The term 'ego death' is not used in psychiatric terminology, it refers to the experience of mentally 'dying' in the intense altered state

 

[maxfreakout]

Max has dismissed all the mystical traditions and practices on the planet throughout history from gnosis to zen.

you misquote me, that ^ is meaningless

He has also equated mystical experiences and drug use with mental illness.

it is a fairly common experience to go temporarily crazy when you trip hard, that is why LSD was at first labelled a 'psychotomimetic' drug, psychosis and tripping both share the common feature of loosening cognitive association matrices

Another point.You all seem to me to have never had a full ego death and only to have had partial ego deaths.I say that because non of you understand what a real full ego death is.All you talk about is the separation that happens with the most trips.That is not a full ego death.Trick put it very well.

it is very easy to define exactly what qualifies as an 'ego death' experience, it's when you trip hard and think (mistakenly) that you have permanently left the ordinary state of consciousness

To find out what ego death is you should at least read the books by T.Leary and the people who wrote the tibetan book of the dead.

To find out about non drug induced ego death you should at least read the works of Ram Dass.

Those are not the only sources of expert knowledge there are many others.

Until you have done those things you are not qualified to describe or define these things with any credibility .Things you only know about through hearsay.

The highest authority on the topic of mystical ego death (by far) is Michael Hoffman, author of the cybernetic theory of ego death at egodeath.com, everything i say is based on my understanding of his theory. So dont think of me as a person, instead think of me as a robot programmed to explain that theory to anyone who will listen. Anyone who has experienced ego death will resonate with what im saying (and with what other ego death initiates say) and with ego death theory.

Max the academic qualifications that you say you have do not qualify you to make any medical diagnosis or to say anything credible about mysticism.You are not a psychologist.psychiatrist or ethnologist.

I am a mystic philosopher (I know that nothing is true), i do not claim to be anything else, I am studying the connection between mysticism and mental illness.

 

[maxfreakout]

tryptonaut this is an excellent post thankyou

sometimes when people trip too hard, they have the experience of dying then being reborn when the trip ends, THAT is what 'ego death' is, it is an experience frequently undergone by psychonauts, it isnt something you can 'do', rather it is something that just 'happens to you' when you take drugs

+1
That is exactly what I experienced once when I took an heroic dose of 10g dried shrooms (never had had any more than 4g before that...).
I never again had the balls to have that experience because it was a freaking horror trip for a real-time 2 hours and it felt like a lifetime. Essentially my life was gone, I was floating in an endless universe of nothing and everything at the same time and I just knew it was all over, all gone, I would never be able to make up for everything I had done wrong. At the peak of it I was lying on the floor crying like a baby, repenting all my sins.
I had never really understood the meaning of "ego-death" until this. Then, when I slowly came back and realized I was gonna live my life again, I knew...

This is a typical, precise report of an ego death trip, you trip too hard and slip into the perpetual insanity vortex which permanently reconfigures the mind

Every religion and every myth is based around this experience, it is the most astonishing/suprising/shocking/intense/profound/transformative mental dynamic. - Jesus died for your sins in horrific agony and was then reborn in transcendent glory, in ego death you experience Christ's suffering and rebirth on the mythic plane

Sin is 'cleansed' by the revelation/realisation that the morally culpable ego is an illusion

Ego-death doesn't mean you will kill your ego forever. It just means you will realize how much your life is worth, and how shitty you are treating it day in and out. Once you experience the so-called ego death, you'll know how much you actually love your life, including all the shitty things that usually piss you off.

Yes exactly, ego death is a temporary suspension of the mental construct labelled the 'separate self/ego', the separate self is merged into the ultimate oneness, then compassionately re-constituted into the sense of separateness with a new, higher level of consciousness/perspective (given by the vivid memory of the death-trip which remains even though the trip ends)

You realise how incredibly attached to existence you are, when your existence is pulled away from you, existence (ie the power to effectively control oneself) is the ego's most cherished gift. The enlightened Buddha realises that the 'self' just IS its own attachment to existence.

 

[ararat]

max, the things you write are pretty cool, but I can't help but perceive you as hopelessly attached to and lost in your fancy maps of this is this and that is that.

 

[maxfreakout]

I can't help but perceive you as hopelessly attached to and lost in your fancy maps of this is this and that is that.

i think this ^ is a fair assessment of me :lol:

I am very obsessive about this whole psychedelic thing

 

[EndlessEntity]

As i have said before, deep states ARE available to experience via alternative methods, and via psychotic experiences, but none of these drug-alternatives are ergonomic tools for everybody to controllably trigger intense mystical states on demand.

so your saying that "drugs" ARE an ERGONIMIC tool? wouldnt that specifically include synthetics? and rule out naturals?

has anyone read anything by Ayn Rand? Mark Booth? Tim leary? Timothy Freke?

max you say that Ego death is a "temporary suspension of the mental construct labelled the 'separate self/ego'"
we walk a tightrope between objective and subjective worlds, between equality and individuality, between life and death
life it about homeostasis, its about balance between all things, from the closed off recesses of our subjective minds, to the open vast expanse of the objective universe.

so Is Awareness by definition different from anything besides that which it is aware of?
on this fine tightrope between ego and id between light and dark we struggle to maintain balance that a dualistic, polaric consciousness needs to expand its awareness or to "become more consciouss" of everything around us.

the specific argument of ego death is like IJC said giving "very subjective ideas objective meaning..."
but isnt it also vice versa?

 

[IJesusChrist]

i've read that schizophrenics have more DMT 5-meo-dmt, and bufotenin in their blood perhaps this has something to do with it?

back that up please.

 

[EndlessEntity]

back up that i've read it?

im not gunna search for it, could have been in The Spirit Molecule, could have been in some other statistic i've read.
but i READ it doesnt mean i can back it up because i being the reader did not make it up.

 

[IJesusChrist]

back up that i've read it?

im not gunna search for it, could have been in The Spirit Molecule, could have been in some other statistic i've read.
but i READ it doesnt mean i can back it up because i being the reader did not make it up.

sorry, didn't mean to come off as if I don't believe you, I would just like to read where it came from...

I've heard the same but I don't think that it is true, and its just a rumor.

 

[EndlessEntity]

wasnt trying to be an ass sorry

im pretty sure i heard that the blood tests done on schizofrenics had higher psychedelic counts while the patients suffered episodes. pretty sure its more than a rumor