Taking action part 2

[HeartCore]

Taking action part 2

Ok it's time I shed some light on what I had in mind when I wrote the first part of this post. Don't be mad please but I tried to provoke some reactions to find out the general thoughts about what I've been working on.

Two years ago, when I lived in France for two years, I met this great American guy via www.deoxy.org. We started to chat and found out we have a lot in common. David was at that time living in Poland with his wife. One year after that, we met in real life in Amsterdam (I moved back to Holland) and started to concretize this idea we had about founding a psilocybin church. We already agreed and tested legally, that what we had in mind, had a very good chance in succeeding (prescedent Santo Daime for example).

This was about a year ago. Back then I was drifting, living at a friends house, looking for a job, I just moved back to Holland with nothing so I had to establish my own base of operation first.

Currently the situation is as follows.

Yes, the church idea is going to happen, official founding and name choosing will be done in may/june. Ceremony and most other details, will be written down in the coming month. Hopefully making use of as much as input from people as we can get.

- I am in contact indireactly with the lawyer that helped Santo Daime
- My father inlaw, has actually founded a successfull church (non psychedelic, Easter type of community) and can advice on all aspects of that.
- My friend David's deep and colorful history, with both traditional shamanic as well as transpersonal/gestahlt, psychedelic use started way back at age 12. David contacted and began a treasured friendship and informal apprenticeship with Terrence McKenna who sent David his very own Amazonian spores for use (...in his 6th grade school science fair project!). The doorway that sacred psychedelic use opened for David inspired and fueled a multi-decade quest to integrate the lessons of the entheogenic journey into modalities of healing and self-discovery. David praises many "alive tribes" for having shared in and served his journey, not least of which was several extending periods of deep exploration-work and therapist training with Holland's own "Humaniversity"; inspiring the creation of a Hawaiian holistic healthcare center in Hawaii that David build and directed." helped found humaniversity in NL among other things.
- I am ready and willing to spend some time in prison in getting this rolling, should this be necessacy in reaching our goals.

Just to let you know that I'm not just pondering some wild idea. Sure, it's a pretty wild idea but we got most loose ends covered.

This church will give people the opportunity to have a profound psilocybin experience in a safe, controlled environment with experienced people with shamanic backgrounds guiding them (also accounted for).

Ceremony's have to be tought out, researching original mushroom cults like Maria Sabrina's in Mexico should help.

There's a lot to be done before we can actually go real but believe me, we will go FOR real

So here's a dfferent type of question than the first part of this mail:

Can you or, do you know anyone you feel is capable and willing to help us get this going?

For now, we are just looking for brainstom crowd, help us think, refine, rethink etc..

Besides a church, we will focus on information sharing, lectures, articles etc.. Also, we will be very closely related to an organization that is currently in it's birthprocess, http://www.equilife.org . Discussion with the creator of this org is ongoing with the ultimate goal of having a EquiEntheo division for international knowledge sharing/pushing.

So not sure IF we get it to work but you can count on it that we WILL try for sure

All comments welcome, I love to have all your input. Volunteers welcome as well although I will have more detailed wishlists for that later.


Hope this clears it up a little.

/me is going back to work

HC

 

[Cyproxicus]

Wow. You really take this seriously.

I still have my doubts about the religious aspect, but thats mainly prejuduceness on my part. For wich I am ashame and do apologize.

I will most certainly support the organisation/church in whatever way I can. I love the part of spreading information. I offer to help in that matter, as me being a graphic designer (i plan to graduate in june). I could help in the production of the printed matter and the visual representation of the organisation. Both redactional and visual.

And ofcourse I'll keep taking part in every discussion on the subject.

 

[Ilian]

sounds nice to me, and i will help as much as possible.
In the other thread i read you are not going to use LSD, i expected that.. but i think its right to say it has therapeutical value and therefor should be legalised and therefor should be somewhere on our agenda.. it might be an illegal chemical but in essence its still a psychedelic which has already cured 1000's of people in the 50-60s.
perhaps we could promote therapeutical use of LSD and such later on, when the church is established..

anyway its a great idea, i just wish we/i could help earlier.. perhaps its a good idea to make a forum for the church? so we can do brainstorming in a bit more organised way than posting in 1 thread in a week or 2 i can host it if its needed..

keep up the good work :thumbsup: rayer:

 

[HeartCore]

I still have my doubts about the religious aspect, but thats mainly prejuduceness on my part

Maybe this helps, I am extremely sceptical towards religion and the choice for a religious organisation is mainly to be able to use the human right 'freedom of religion'.

For me religion is always personal, never about judging others, never about telling other what to believe.

But I guess we western minds suffer from 2000 years of christian catastrophy and therefor link religion to some dogmatic, restrictive path.

To my mind, religion has no closure, can never fully be understood and keeps you humble.

Please don't apologize, your meaning is appreciated and is already helping in setting this thing off

I love the fact that you are a graphic designer. I am an IT guy with a hobby into graphic design and 3D animation. Would love to make use of your help

HC

 

[HeartCore]

I felt this quote needed a reply of it's own:

In the other thread i read you are not going to use LSD, i expected that.. but i think its right to say it has therapeutical value and therefor should be legalised and therefor should be somewhere on our agenda.. it might be an illegal chemical but in essence its still a psychedelic which has already cured 1000's of people in the 50-60s.

Let me first state that I have no problems at all with lsd, I think it's a marvellous compound that is very usefull in mentioned therapeutic settings. LSD was the first psychedelic, apart from cannabis, that I used in my life.

So please keep this in mind reading following argument against using LSD in the setting I am intending.

What I personally miss with LSD, and other I know report this as well, is the absence of an 'other'. Like this lady is associated with Salvia and the spirit of the rainforest with ayahuasca. I and other, also reckognize this quality in the psilocybin experience. It's not for nothing that this organism is often refered to as the ancient teacher. Many people seem to feel that with mushrooms, they really go into dialogue with some other being. Note that I don't make assumptions about the nature of this 'other'. As far as I'm concerned, this can be whatever you personally make from it. Some people see it as their higher self, others as the collective consiousness. Some others, but this is a minority and I guess it includes me (with a fat wink ), believe that the mushroom is a very advanced intelligent lifeform from outer space that has solved the 'traveling to the stars time/space paradox', by genetically re-engineering their race and stored their collective consiousness in an organic synaptic network, that has been spreading through the universe for God knows how long in material stuff that we refer to as mycelium or fungus.

Personally I don't really care how you call this being, this is mainly a matter of personal preference. I do care though, that this being is accessible for, as far as I know, ANYONE who seeks it out during a high dose, psilocybin experience.

This is one reason why I choose psilocybin as the sacrament to be used in the church.

Another reason is that LSD is just over half a century old and although research seems to tell us that it is pretty safe to use, we don't really have good long term investigations. But even if we had, thiese investigations come nowhere near the historical data we possess regarding use of psychedelic mushrooms. In other words, it's a sanctioned drug, you can be damn sure that it is safe for virtually everyone.

So I hope I made clear the decision about using psilocybin as the sacrament.

Now as for takiing action to inform people about LSD. I have no real problems with this. I think LSD is a great tool and discovery and people that are interested, should be able to experience this drug. The only thing that gives me second thoughts, is LSD's bad rep. You know what I mean, if one thing in the last century was completely killed by effective government propaganda, it's LSD. There is so much wrong information burned in people's minds and to inform people, you have to start by cleaning up the mess that's there in the first place.

I don't know. I have really nothing against LSD. It's just that I feel psilocybin is so much more interesting. Psilocybin also has some very far fetched stories attached to it that can very effectively be used to tell people about them. Mushrooms don't have a bad name at all, people in general feel they are weird. I just have a feeling I have a beautiful and interesting story to tell with psilocybin.

Compare this as an example: LSD was invented in a lab by accident. LSD is patented!!

Psilocybin: If you want to look for traces of visitors from outer space on a planet, you have to look very carefully to everything on that planet. Something from outer space, is likely to have characteristics that differ from the planet's own lifeforms.

Now ponder this for a few minutes please:

The psilocybin molecule has a structure that is nowhere else seen on earth. And I was told that this is quite remarkable. Add to that the fact that spores possess a shell with the molecular density of metal. Also, the best way to store spores is in conditions comparable to outer space. Also, under the right set of circumstances, spores can travel from one side of the universe to the other, in about 400.000 years. (studied by the Astrophysicists at the university of Leiden in de Netherlands in the late seventies).

See the adventure here? Cool. But do you also see the possibilities here? There are a number of very cool stories to tell about mushrooms that don't even tough the subject of tripping yet.

I intend to summarize some of these stories and put them up for discussion here.

More later, fingers hurt lol...

HC

PS THANKS A FUCKING LOT FOR THE OFFERED HELP!

 

[EntheoBhakta]

"...Two years ago, when I lived in France for two years, I met this great American guy via www.deoxy.org. We started to chat and found out we have a lot in common. David was at that time living in Poland with his wife. One year after that, we met in real life in Amsterdam (I moved back to Holland) and started to concretize this idea we had about founding a psilocybin church. We already agreed and tested legally, that what we had in mind, had a very good chance in succeeding (precedent Santo Daime for example)."

===> ....hmmm, sounds familiar....

"... My friend David's deep and colorful history, with both traditional shamanic as well as transpersonal/gestalt, psychedelic use started way back at age 12. David contacted and began a treasured friendship and informal apprenticeship with Terrence McKenna who sent David his very own Amazonian spores for use (...in his 6th grade school science fair project!). The doorway that sacred psychedelic use opened for David inspired and fueled a multi-decade quest to integrate the lessons of the entheogenic journey into modalities of healing and self-discovery. David praises many "alive tribes" for having shared in and served his journey, not least of which was several extending periods of deep exploration-work and therapist training with Holland's own "Humaniversity"; inspiring the creation of a Hawaiian holistic healthcare center in Hawaii that David build and directed."


===>.....yup, guess I'm busted! (or doesn't that apply here?!?)
)


Great to arrive and find the digital campfire already burning bright!

Thanks for the including me in your entheo graffiti here brother and double-thanks for finding the time to begin to put in a plug for the upcoming (non)/(churchless)CHURCH we've been pregnant with for over a year now.
.... wow.


Onward!
-me

 

[Forkbender]

I can help out with a lot of things. I don't really have like valuable legal knowledge or something like that, but I could help writing something like a manifesto or something. I do not have a very useful education (I still study philosophy), but I got heart, and I always wondered what it would be like to do time in prison. :wink:
By the way, do you want this church to have something like a 'holy scripture' (I'm thinking of the basic things you belief in)? Is this in some way required by law (I can think that a religion without dogma is suspect)?

 

[HeartCore]

Dutch articel about founding a church:

http://www.parool.nl/artikelen/NIE/1073895705084.html

 

[Forkbender]

I surely hope you do not want to start something like scientology :wink:

But what will you suggest as the common object of devotion ("gemeenschappelijke godsverering")? The shroom, the experience, the Other you experience? I would suggest the latter, because it comes closest to a 'normal/accepted' description of God.

For the board I guess you have to find likeminded people with the right intention for the church. (Count me in!) Problem is that you need to make sure what the intentions of the church are (I guess you answered that in your very first post), so that future changes within the structure and the board will not affect this, so there must be some kind of 'scripture'...

Do you have an idea about how to provide the shrooms. Will the church grow them itself? Do participants have to pay for this? I guess donations would always be welcome, but it's hard if everyone always has to pay a set amount, because then you got to pay taxes (if I read the article on the Scientologists correctly...), which is a real pain in the ass with the amount of paperwork you got to do. I do not know this for sure, though. I know the Santo Daime asks for about 30 euros per session, but I don't know anything about their taxes. I guess growing a lot of shrooms isn't a problem. It can be done for very little money, so that you can come by on donations and provide the experience to everyone with the right intention. (JUST THOUGHT ABOUT THIS: The church is a perfect way to filter people who just want to have a wild trip! These people usually are a bit frightened of a religious setting, so they will stay away from it as far as they can.)

 

[Ilian]

i think forkbender is getting a little bit into detail the price of the shrooms doesnt matter right now imo. but i am also wondering what would be the 'idea' of the church, frankly i hope its not "shrooms come from out of space and we must worship them". a religious-space-druggie is perhaps a bit too much for the people to handle
and HC, the long post about LSD, i agree with all of it. i didnt expect/want us to use it in the church, but promoting its therapeutical use and de-demonising it is nice

 

[HeartCore]

i think forkbender is getting a little bit into detail the price of the shrooms doesnt matter right now imo. but i am also wondering what would be the 'idea' of the church, frankly i hope its not "shrooms come from out of space and we must worship them". a religious-space-druggie is perhaps a bit too much for the people to handle

OMG let's clarify this

My take on psilocybin is that it is impossible for anyone to say:

'THIS is what IT is'

So basically we have this organism from nature that we have a relationship with. I have a relationship with it different than you. I don't want to lay my truth upon anyone else.

So in essence we don't teach how people should live (Balkenende logic) but we create a as perfect as possible circumstance for them, that enables them to meet with the mystery themselves.

Not sure yet how to incorporate this into official documents and such but thats not really an issue yet.

Agree with the lsd propaganda.

About the price of mushrooms, yes details but it doesnt hurt to talk a little about it. What I don't want to become, is some guy that has founded some shady organisation where no one can see what happens. Ideally, I want a complete transparent financial administration that is accessible to anyone interested. This way, everyone that has a trustissue towards the org, can see for themselves where the cashflow goes.

I expect to ask reasonable fee's for sessions and to let any profit flow into the organisation to be used for spreading the ideas. This fee should be reasonable, and should be calculated based upon the costprice of the shrooms, rental of the space where we operate from etc.. Hard to get into these details at this stage.

This weekend I will have an answer regarding housing.
HC

 

[Guest]

Man this is going fast.
I really like what I'm reading. I'm willing to help, I don't know how since I'm not much of use. But I fell in love with Psylocibine all over again.

On almost all shroom trips I was with people that just did it for fun.
And yeah it was fun, but some people get really anoying and that's not really the vibe you want to be in. So now I want to go beyond the stupidity and experience the real mushroom in it's full glory. So I'm really willing to support the organisation all the way :thumbsup:

 

[HeartCore]

Cool space

Newsflash: I got a new house and am going to move the coming weeks so the project may seem a bit frozen but sure as hell isn't

 

[Forkbender]

So basically we have this organism from nature that we have a relationship with. I have a relationship with it different than you. I don't want to lay my truth upon anyone else.

I expect to ask reasonable fee's for sessions and to let any profit flow into the organisation to be used for spreading the ideas.

Isn't there some sort of inner conflict in these couple of sentences? Which ideas need to be spread? That everyones experience is different? Or means spreading the ideas something like making as many people experience this organism as possible? Either way it seems to me that it is kind of dogmatic. In the first case you say: "we do not have any idea and you should find out for yourself", in the second case you say: "you can only have a relationship to something higher/have a better life through the use of these substances". I guess it is just me, but I think people want more than that. They need some sort of security. And security can only be brought about by dogma. In that sense, I do not truly believe in a church of mystics. However, I do believe in the possibility of a guru-disciple relationship in which knowledge is transferred by making the disciple directly experience the guru's mystical experience. This experience is of course not exactly the same, but there is some sort of overlap and some sort of general tendency. One could even think of the shroom as being the guru, but that's a wholly different story. There is a problem with this however. The guru-disciple relationship would, I guess, not fall under the legislation of religion, because it is not based on a shared believe put into practice. Anyway, there's a lot of brainstorming to be done and a lot of action to be taken. These are exciting times!

 

[Forkbender]

BTW congrats on the new house, HC, hope you'll feel at home soon!

 

[Forkbender]

Just thought of another advantage of an organized church of some form. Being some sort of member to this church and openly stating that you are, slowly people will start to feel more tolerant (just for the simple fact that they cannot ignore you). Religion or believe is still in very high respect among a lot of people, that's why they will not outban you as long as you do not harm others. For the first few it will be some sort of 'Rosa Parks' action, but if acceptance grows, so will support for the use of these holy substances and a more positive outlook on drugs in general.

 

[ProStoner]

I just read everything thing here
and I must say i`m deeply impressed
and support it all the way..
I also would like to help with this...
allthought I also think I cannot be of much value except then participating in sessions...
and also that i`m only 19 years old and don't live on my own
and that my mom would never accept something like shrooms... she doesnt even accept marihuana so
but anyways i`m going to start a study for the wellbeing of nature and forest
but that won't help either ;P
and I guess researching about the subject .. u've done allready more then me and u seem to know waaaaaaaay more about it then me
but if there is anything I can do to help out
I have the right mind


oh btw about the LSD part (which I have not yet done myself)
I agree that its something that has been demonized all the way
and that it would not be a good idea to use this in the church
just cause its a *harddrug* and cause of its bad reputation
I think also that what we can do is tell people if they want to know...
in lectures kept in the church or whatever
that LSD is not that bad at all
I mean some beliefs should be brought onto people just cause lsd has a bad reputation which it does not deserve...


I trust in you Heartcore and those who help u ... that u will make this work