what's happened to Michael Hoffman from egodeath?

[maxfreakout]

And what about MH's crazy acid rock lyric stuff, huh? What's up with that? All hail Ozzy as the enlightened one?

When it comes to the Beatles catalogue most entheogen partakers would identify more with "Tomorrow Never Knows" rather than MH's wishful spiritual crisis in Help's lyrics.

But I'm with him on the wild electric guitar solo, don't think anything can quite match that for otherworldliness, except for maybe bagpipes. lol

references to the intense mystical state can be found EVERYWHERE, not just rock lyrics

it wasnt Ozzy who was enlightened in this case it was Bob Daisley

 

[maxfreakout]

the basic point here is that for the purposes of ego death theory, there are fundamentally TWO different states of consiousness being compared and contrasted, the ordinary non-tripping state, and the mystical intense-tripping state

Well like I said, like Hoffman, your belief system creates a dualisty between 'psychedelic experience/ego death' and 'ordinary experience'. YES I know what is meant by psychedelic experience because I have had many experiences, but I do not share you are Hoffman's conclusions.

the theory doesnt 'create' a duality, rather the duality already exists, prior to the theory, in nature. The duality/polarity/pair or whatever you want to call it is the undrugged state of consciousness and the entheogen-trip state. Ego death theory explains the difference between these 2 states of consciousness

Well obviously life is never static. It is always changing. Being in love is different than a toothache, etc. Like I keep saying, I understand this change as a continuum. I know that if you need energy to feel this change in a more vital way you need to eat good food, drink healthy substances, get excercise etc, have a sense of humour, know how to feel emotions, and so on, and psychedelic or sacred food is of course a very important part of life, but psychedelic experience and as this integrates, it is to integrate understanding of the sacredness of ALL life not just the ecstatic dynamic of the psychedelic experience and so-called 'ego death'. I can put myself into the role of someone who had never taken any psychedelics, and listening to you, and I am sure I would feel I was being put-down because I hadn't had not ONLY psychedelic experience, but yours and Hoffman's 'ego death'!

the word 'sacred', insofar as it refers to kinds of experience and insofar as it is relevant to ego death theory, is a reference to the entheogenic altered state of consciousness. This word loses its meaning and its explanatory relevance to the theory if you say "everything is sacred and therefore the ordinary state of consciousness is sacred" - ie sacred compared to what?

The point is that the altered state is DIFFERENT from the ordinary state, and the aim of the theory is to explain that difference, the duality 'sacred vs profane' is primarily a reference to this difference (ie it refers primarily to states of consciousness)

You CAn see those types of things AND have archetypal visions in certain states of consciousness without having taken psychedelics such as 'bi polar disorder' (and other so-called 'mental illnesses') for example

the narrator of that ^ video is wrong to say that people with bi polar experience hallucionations, this is not the case actually the diagnostic criteria for bi polar dont mention hallucinations

the states of consciousness to which the archetypal themes are primarily relevant are the entheogenic altered states, they have secondary relevance to other modes of cognition such as dreaming or schizophrenia

And you are making the 'mystical state of consciousness' into a fetish---cutting 'it' off from the continuum of feeling. Like I keeps saying.

the whole point of the theory is to explain the mystical altered state and how it fits together with the ordinary non-altered state, in order to do this it makes the explicit distinction:' 'tripping vs not-tripping'

Actually it does happen in everyday life. When you have your intense psychedelic experiences you are having it in time, albeit a different sense of time--the eternal--but it is still also in time. It has a duration, a climax, and a 'come down', just like how we experience emotional states in life.

i used the term 'everyday life' as a reference to the ordinary undrugged baseline state of consciousness. In that specific sense, tripping and ego death do not happen in everyday life, they are two alternative states of consciousness being compared and contrasted. One centrally important difference between the 2 states is the modes of temporal processing which you mention here ^, ordinary flowing time (temporal-stream embeddedness) and altered state eternity/frozen time

So in other words for any psychological transformation it has to have religious symbolism--in your book?

this ^ is the wrong way round, all religious symbolism primarily symbolises this particular psychological transformation, ego death and transcendent rebirth


[

ahaaa, fine. This is a good example of religious or spiritual experience. Sacred experience in a sacred forest at night. Yes this can be life changing alright, but this experience doesn't HAVE to include 'religious symbolism' to make it sacred. Agreed?

again this ^ is the wrong way round,the experiences dont 'include' religious symbolism, rather religious symbolism symbolises the cognitive features of entheogenic altered state experiences

Hmmm wonder from what the brothers based that story on--could it be the Platonic-influenced paradigm we are in? Also there is a link between Plato's philosophy and the Kabbalah, and the makers of that film were Jewish right? Influences.

the matrix and the cave allegory are both based (in different ways) on the timeless perennial hero myth, which is primarily a reference to the entheogenic altered state

Yes they are sacred, but so is life, is reality. That is really essential to understand in my opinion. If we are talking about plants, fungi, cacti, etc (though of course ALL substances originally come from the earth)--they ARE reality, are nature, and the eating and drinking of them should open our eyes and bodyminds to this deep insight, NOT have you putting down the natural world as a mere projection of a computer virtual reality.

the word 'sacred' loses its explanatory relevance in the context of theorising about altered states if you blankly assert that 'everything is sacred therefore the ordinary state of consciousness is sacred'. This is an issue about states of consciousness and levels of reality, ego death theory pertains to TWO states of consciousness and therefore two levels of reality, and the distinction between them

so hmmm you think the majority of people who haven't had yours and Hoffman's 'ego death' are 'demonic'? Have I got you right?

the 'demon' archetype refers to the logical paradox at the core of the cybernetic 'self-steering' homunculus which is perfectly disproved/excorsised by the revelation of transcendental logic in the mystical state

 

[Eldritch]

http://www.egodeath.com/MysticStateAllu ... aisley.htm

A dim memory seems to be returning -- you know, I think I was starting to recognize dissociative allusions in Heavy Rock as early as 1988, with this album -- and before that, in 1987, the album Van Halen. In fact I now remember hearing the Van Halen song "Hot for Teacher" as a mystic altered state song: much of Classic Rock is charged with altered-state double-entendres. That's why we need to speak of "High Classic Rock" as an entire genre and even a grand tradition.

Acid-influenced Rock is the authentic mystery religion of our time. The uninitiated might assume that such allusions in Greek poetry would only be a special case, or that such allusions in Classic Rock would only be a special case. But no, it is a grand tradition woven all throughout the genre, from the Beatles' Help! to Slayer's Divine Intervention.

Dim memories indeed. Hot for Teacher! Oh yeah that's right up with the bible. :roll:

"Oh wow, man !"
"Wait a second man. Whaddaya think the teacher's gonna look like this
year ?"
"My butt, man !"

T-T-Teacher stop that screaming, teacher don't you see ?
Don't wanna be no uptown fool.
Maybe I should go to hell, but I'm doin' well,
teacher needs to see me after school.

Chorus:
I think of all the education that I missed.
But then my homework was never quite like this.

Got it bad, got it bad, got it bad,
I'm hot for teacher.
I got it bad, so bad,
I'm hot for teacher.

spoken:
"Hey, I heard you missed us, we're back !"
"I brought my pencil"
"Gimme something to write on, man"

I heard about your lessons, but lessons are so cold.
I know about this school.
Little girl from cherry lane, how did you get so bold ?
How did you know that golden rule ?

chorus

(guitar solo)

"Oh man, I think the clock is slow"
"I don't feel tardy"
"Class dismissed"

 

[zezt]

the basic point here is that for the purposes of ego death theory, there are fundamentally TWO different states of consiousness being compared and contrasted, the ordinary non-tripping state, and the mystical intense-tripping state

Well like I said, like Hoffman, your belief system creates a dualisty between 'psychedelic experience/ego death' and 'ordinary experience'. YES I know what is meant by psychedelic experience because I have had many experiences, but I do not share you are Hoffman's conclusions.

the theory doesnt 'create' a duality, rather the duality already exists, prior to the theory, in nature. The duality/polarity/pair or whatever you want to call it is the undrugged state of consciousness and the entheogen-trip state. Ego death theory explains the difference between these 2 states of consciousness

Remember I mentioned that great interview you did with Christian Rätsch? He differentiated between 'duality' and polarity, so do I. It is unclear what you mean with what you have just said. I am being clear when I say that duality is the belief there is some kind of duel between so-called opposites like dark and light, life and death, and the insight into polarity shows that these supposed abstract entities are in reality dynamic whole. But in order to explore this--because it never is a state of 'now i know', is not particular to a so-called 'ego death' psychedelic experience. And my experience from a lot of what you have said over these pages is that YOU dont seem to dig it, because you keep being dualistic in your terminology and ideas. Ie., between people who haven't taken psychedelics and those who have, AND those who have taken psychedelics and those who have had and had an 'ego death'.

Well obviously life is never static. It is always changing. Being in love is different than a toothache, etc. Like I keep saying, I understand this change as a continuum. I know that if you need energy to feel this change in a more vital way you need to eat good food, drink healthy substances, get excercise etc, have a sense of humour, know how to feel emotions, and so on, and psychedelic or sacred food is of course a very important part of life, but psychedelic experience and as this integrates, it is to integrate understanding of the sacredness of ALL life not just the ecstatic dynamic of the psychedelic experience and so-called 'ego death'. I can put myself into the role of someone who had never taken any psychedelics, and listening to you, and I am sure I would feel I was being put-down because I hadn't had not ONLY psychedelic experience, but yours and Hoffman's 'ego death'!

the word 'sacred', insofar as it refers to kinds of experience and insofar as it is relevant to ego death theory, is a reference to the entheogenic altered state of consciousness. This word loses its meaning and its explanatory relevance to the theory if you say "everything is sacred and therefore the ordinary state of consciousness is sacred" - ie sacred compared to what?

The point is that the altered state is DIFFERENT from the ordinary state, and the aim of the theory is to explain that difference, the duality 'sacred vs profane' is primarily a reference to this difference (ie it refers primarily to states of consciousness)

You see maxfreakout, thwere you go again. Now I am being honest when I say that reading that is for me dualistic, and not understanding polarity. Because one of the biggest traps is creating a dualism between the so-called sacred and the so-called profane. I am dead against all that, and it is a very destructive ideolology. It is an ideology that has created the terrible Indian caste system! But not only that, all hierarchies where an elite looks down on what they consider to be the 'profane' though they may call 'it' other derogotary labels like the 'masses' the 'great unwashed' the 'useless eaters' the 'irrational' and so on. THAt attitude stems from what you are saying.
In your case it is the 'initiated' who are 'sacred versus the 'uninitiated' who are 'profane'. This is NOT the usual indigenous or Goddess oriented understanding of nature and reality which think and feels like that, it is the patriarchal mindset that thinks like that. That cuts reality up into bits.
When you see a bird do you say that bird is profane? No, that bird, that tree, river, cloud, the Earth IS sacred right from the beginning and so are you and me. It is not psychedelics that MAKES that so. The sacred fruit opens the eyes to see this already present sacredness.
To the child nature is not 'sacred' because there is not that big loaded word there that splits people up. Yes to the child nature is magical You cannot say to someone who hasn't experienced psychedelics they dont know what sacred is. They are living, and living is sacred!

You CAn see those types of things AND have archetypal visions in certain states of consciousness without having taken psychedelics such as 'bi polar disorder' (and other so-called 'mental illnesses') for example

the narrator of that ^ video is wrong to say that people with bi polar experience hallucionations, this is not the case actually the diagnostic criteria for bi polar dont mention hallucinations

the states of consciousness to which the archetypal themes are primarily relevant are the entheogenic altered states, they have secondary relevance to other modes of cognition such as dreaming or schizophrenia

Ohhh maxfreakout, I don't believe you even bothered to watch the video! The maker of that video has made many more specifically about this and which totally contradicts your unknowledgeable certainty. You justy wont admit your wrong even with evidence in your face. You cling to your 'ego'--in this case a worldview that wont accept other altered states of consciousness other than 'psychedelically' inspired.
I know the maker of that video and will gladly get him to personally tell you how wrong you are being.

Actually it does happen in everyday life. When you have your intense psychedelic experiences you are having it in time, albeit a different sense of time--the eternal--but it is still also in time. It has a duration, a climax, and a 'come down', just like how we experience emotional states in life.

i used the term 'everyday life' as a reference to the ordinary undrugged baseline state of consciousness. In that specific sense, tripping and ego death do not happen in everyday life, they are two alternative states of consciousness being compared and contrasted. One centrally important difference between the 2 states is the modes of temporal processing which you mention here ^, ordinary flowing time (temporal-stream embeddedness) and altered state eternity/frozen time

Actually foods are drugs, so I dont think we are ever in a totally 'undrugged' state. As Grof and others tell us, fasting, etc, can bring on same kinds of experiences as psychedelics.
When you trip you are BOTH aware of time--the clock hand moving, the contrasts in light as night turns to day or vice versa--that things do happen even though timespace is felt differently. Again we are experincing the PLAY of polarity rather than the dull duality of 'time' versus 'eternity' or "ordinary flowing time (temporal-stream embeddedness) vs altered state eternity/frozen time" which is even MORE awkward!






[

ahaaa, fine. This is a good example of religious or spiritual experience. Sacred experience in a sacred forest at night. Yes this can be life changing alright, but this experience doesn't HAVE to include 'religious symbolism' to make it sacred. Agreed?

again this ^ is the wrong way round,the experiences dont 'include' religious symbolism, rather religious symbolism symbolises the cognitive features of entheogenic altered state experiences

what I mean is that 'religious symbolism' is belonging to your religious conditioning. I believe Hoffman focussed on Christian mystical symbolism right? For an indigenous person the visions may be very unlike what YOU mean. But I ALSO mean that for me and other pagan types, just the wonder of Nature in its primal experience IS religious--meaning sacred.

Yes they are sacred, but so is life, is reality. That is really essential to understand in my opinion. If we are talking about plants, fungi, cacti, etc (though of course ALL substances originally come from the earth)--they ARE reality, are nature, and the eating and drinking of them should open our eyes and bodyminds to this deep insight, NOT have you putting down the natural world as a mere projection of a computer virtual reality.

the word 'sacred' loses its explanatory relevance in the context of theorising about altered states if you blankly assert that 'everything is sacred therefore the ordinary state of consciousness is sacred'. This is an issue about states of consciousness and levels of reality, ego death theory pertains to TWO states of consciousness and therefore two levels of reality, and the distinction between them

Yes I know, it is dualistic as I keep saying.

so hmmm you think the majority of people who haven't had yours and Hoffman's 'ego death' are 'demonic'? Have I got you right?

the 'demon' archetype refers to the logical paradox at the core of the cybernetic 'self-steering' homunculus which is perfectly disproved/excorsised by the revelation of transcendental logic in the mystical state

your previous comment about this went: "'satanic delusion' refers to the naive unenlightened belief in the causal power of ego, ie the belief that i can control my future thoughts. This belief is monstrously illogical, a demonic, beastly mistake which is thoroughly exorsised by the ego death experience"

What is 'monsrously illogical' is when your own self, believing you had had some 'sacred experience' then begins looking at others as functioning in a 'demonic' way
Ie., the 'demon archetype' arises when you create a dualism between a socalled 'sacred' and a socalled 'profane'!

Love is sacred, and to feel, and understand, love does not demand that we MUST have psychedelic experience with or without so-called 'ego death' to know what sacred or love means.

 

[ophiuchus]

you guys are the smartest idiots i've ever seen. when will you understand that you are both right if you'd quit exaggerating your own and each others positions

 

[maxfreakout]

I've always wanted to ask Michael what his opinions on such 'occult' phenomena as the I-Ching, Tarot and even Akashic Fields are.

Seeing that you are obviously of the same ilk.... What prey tell is your opinion of said phenomena?

Michael has said that 'prophecy' is merely irrational thinking, so the same applies to what you mention here ^ to the extent that these practises are about 'seeing the future' in a practical everyday sense

On the other hand, these practises like 'tarot' and 'i-ching' which 'see the future' can be understood as metaphors about entheogenic altered state time-perception/determinism, akashic fields is blatantly a system of metaphors about the entheogenic altered state

"The overall idea behind the concept of an Akashic Field is that behind the materialistic and mechanistic world there is in fact another realm of interaction"

this ^ is what the entheogens reveal, the distinction between levels of reality, virtual and ultimate

 

[maxfreakout]

Remember I mentioned that great interview you did with Christian Rätsch? He differentiated between 'duality' and polarity, so do I. It is unclear what you mean with what you have just said. I am being clear when I say that duality is the belief there is some kind of duel between so-called opposites like dark and light, life and death, and the insight into polarity shows that these supposed abstract entities are in reality dynamic whole. But in order to explore this--because it never is a state of 'now i know', is not particular to a so-called 'ego death' psychedelic experience. And my experience from a lot of what you have said over these pages is that YOU dont seem to dig it, because you keep being dualistic in your terminology and ideas. Ie., between people who haven't taken psychedelics and those who have, AND those who have taken psychedelics and those who have had and had an 'ego death'.

You see maxfreakout, thwere you go again. Now I am being honest when I say that reading that is for me dualistic, and not understanding polarity. Because one of the biggest traps is creating a dualism between the so-called sacred and the so-called profane. I am dead against all that, and it is a very destructive ideolology. It is an ideology that has created the terrible Indian caste system! But not only that, all hierarchies where an elite looks down on what they consider to be the 'profane' though they may call 'it' other derogotary labels like the 'masses' the 'great unwashed' the 'useless eaters' the 'irrational' and so on. THAt attitude stems from what you are saying.
In your case it is the 'initiated' who are 'sacred versus the 'uninitiated' who are 'profane'. This is NOT the usual indigenous or Goddess oriented understanding of nature and reality which think and feels like that, it is the patriarchal mindset that thinks like that. That cuts reality up into bits.
When you see a bird do you say that bird is profane? No, that bird, that tree, river, cloud, the Earth IS sacred right from the beginning and so are you and me. It is not psychedelics that MAKES that so. The sacred fruit opens the eyes to see this already present sacredness.
To the child nature is not 'sacred' because there is not that big loaded word there that splits people up. Yes to the child nature is magical You cannot say to someone who hasn't experienced psychedelics they dont know what sacred is. They are living, and living is sacred!

I cant explain this any clearer, if you cant count to 2 then you wont get this, - there are TWO situations being compared and contrasted here: Tripping and not tripping, taking entheogens and not taking entheogens. Whether you want to call that a 'polarity' or a 'duality' or a 'pair' or whatever, it doesnt matter, the fact is they are TWO different states of consciousness

Ohhh maxfreakout, I don't believe you even bothered to watch the video! The maker of that video has made many more specifically about this and which totally contradicts your unknowledgeable certainty. You justy wont admit your wrong even with evidence in your face. You cling to your 'ego'--in this case a worldview that wont accept other altered states of consciousness other than 'psychedelically' inspired.
I know the maker of that video and will gladly get him to personally tell you how wrong you are being.

the narrator of that video was wrong to say that people with bi-polar suffer from hallucinations, that is not actually the case, hallucinations are indicative of schizophrenia but not bi-polar.

Tell the maker of that video to do some basic research before he makes false assertions on his videos. Look here:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_di ... r_disorder


[

what I mean is that 'religious symbolism' is belonging to your religious conditioning. I believe Hoffman focussed on Christian mystical symbolism right? For an indigenous person the visions may be very unlike what YOU mean. But I ALSO mean that for me and other pagan types, just the wonder of Nature in its primal experience IS religious--meaning sacred.

everybody experiences the same thing when they trip, a human brain is a human brain. This is very clear when you look at visionary art. The whole point of visionary art is to bring a snapshot of the mystical state into the world

Hoffman focuses mostly on very specifically: 'Jesus nailed to a cross' because of the political importance of that image and its profound symbolism (ie the way it captures the metaphysical structure of the ego death experience in symbols), but he mentions examples of religious symbolism from across the world and across history, for example he mentions the Hindu goddess Kali which is also symbolic of the ego death experience, 2 myths from 2 different parts of the world, BOTH symbolising the same thing which is mystical ego death

Ego death theory takes that observation to an extreme limit: in fact ALL religious mythology, from across the world and across history, is metaphorical references to the intense psychedelic state. The 'monomyth' is essentially a cognitive model of what happens when you trip hard (using metaphor instead of direct reference).

 

[strangeloop]

Is consciousness an epiphenomenon of matter? Or, is matter an epiphenomenon of consciousness?
Or, is this analogous to asking what came first...
the chicken or the egg?
In which case, we can safely assume they are mutually inclusive.

(I am specifically asking maxfreakout, although all may enter a guess if you feel so inclined...)

 

[_Avatar_]

Is consciousness an epiphenomenon of matter? Or, is matter an epiphenomenon of consciousness?

In which category falls DNA?

Because DNA programs the creation of a nervous system or conscious being, which then becomes motivated to replicate DNA, resulting in another conscious being. If we say DNA is matter because it consists of material elements, then consciousness does seem to be arising from matter.

But because DNA has such a clear purpose and extremely complex functioning, it seems to be the result of conscious programming. Which would imply the existence of consciousness prior to the creation or formation of DNA.

In any case, we do not know when or how the first DNA molecule was created, and if it was created or formed at all. It is thus impossible to determine what came first.

We also don't know if consciousness arises out of the DNA replication in the mother's womb, or if it enters the body of that fetus as soon as it's ready to host a 'soul', or if the personality of such a soul could influence the exact nature of the DNA replication, or whether that soul's karma from a previous lifetime could influence the ups and downs of the pregnancy and delivery.

Mind-boggling, these matters.

 

[ophiuchus]

"'satanic delusion' refers to the naive unenlightened belief in the causal power of ego, ie the belief that i can control my future thoughts. This belief is monstrously illogical, a demonic, beastly mistake which is thoroughly exorsised by the ego death experience""

thoroughly exorcised? you have no evidence other than your own experience. quit making these bullshit ASSUMPTIONS. just cause you jumped from one side to the other after a trip, doesn't mean the other is invalid anymore. i've jumped back and forth from one side to the other enough times to know that it makes little difference which side you choose to stand on, as they are FAR more self-defeating than ONE defeating ANOTHER. this ties into this too:

Is consciousness an epiphenomenon of matter? Or, is matter an epiphenomenon of consciousness?
Or, is this analogous to asking what came first...
the chicken or the egg?
In which case, we can safely assume they are mutually inclusive.

one does not exist without the other, so to say that one or the other is invalid or "came second", is retarding the process of comprehending it. you cant create a tornado with cold air alone. and you can't have half a tornado either. to have cold without hot is meaningless, in that there's no point of reference to even label it such in a scenario like that, they are fundamental to each other, even though your man made concepts tell you to polarize the scenario, the fact that you cannot obtain HOT or COLD remains, the best you can do is measure, and come to a subjective conclusion, which is what you did, just dont FORGET what you did... this should be fairly easily grasped, if you can become unbiased for even a second

"I cant explain this any clearer, if you cant count to 2 then you wont get this, - there are TWO situations being compared and contrasted here: Tripping and not tripping, taking entheogens and not taking entheogens. Whether you want to call that a 'polarity' or a 'duality' or a 'pair' or whatever, it doesnt matter, the fact is they are TWO different states of consciousness"

they are two SUBJECTIVE situations, not two situations (you imply like perception is empirical, when it is actually impossible to accurately convey anything). THEORY, not fact. point of view, not truth. its ONE way of looking at things, if you create something one sided, then you've innately created the opposing view, whether you like it or not. so there is your duality, which is simply viewing THE SAME FUCKING THING , from debatable/opposing points of view. what's important is that they ARE DEBATABLE as you've very well proven here. you can keep kicking this dead dog over and over again, but all that you will prove is that this can be debated until the end of time. look in between

is what the entheogens reveal, the distinction between levels of reality, virtual and ultimate

that's ONE side as well... there's not only a distinction, but from that, a relation as well. but they are pretty much the same thing, except, you either feel like pointing out how they're different, or you feel like pointing out how they're they same.

Ego death theory takes that observation to an extreme limit: in fact ALL religious mythology, from across the world and across history, is metaphorical references to the intense psychedelic state. The 'monomyth' is essentially a cognitive model of what happens when you trip hard (using metaphor instead of direct reference).

i just dont see how you got to that bigger picture with the tactics you're using now...

 

[BrainEater]

thanks for that!! i started believing ego-death was a separate entity!!! lol!!!

 

[maxfreakout]

Is consciousness an epiphenomenon of matter? Or, is matter an epiphenomenon of consciousness?
Or, is this analogous to asking what came first...
the chicken or the egg?
In which case, we can safely assume they are mutually inclusive.

im very strongly inclined towards transcendental idealism/radical subjectivism, i think consciousness is absolutely primary, matter is secondary. Tripping has convinced me of this, psychedelic visuals and HPPD combined with basic reasoning can make a concrete philosophical case for a radical subjectivist philosophical position. The spontaneous visual pattern formation you experience during a trip effectively proves to the subject that the external environment of physical objects is a mental projection, we live inside a virtual world. This is explained very clearly and accessibly in Hoffman's 'bubble of simulation' article

 

[maxfreakout]

thoroughly exorcised? you have no evidence other than your own experience. quit making these bullshit ASSUMPTIONS. just cause you jumped from one side to the other after a trip, doesn't mean the other is invalid anymore. i've jumped back and forth from one side to the other enough times to know that it makes little difference which side you choose to stand on, as they are FAR more self-defeating than ONE defeating ANOTHER.

the point is, the concept of 'exorsism' is primarily intended as a metaphor for this 'jumping' from the ordinary state of consciousness to the entheogenic higher state, and from the naive egoic worldmodel to the entheogen-informed transcendent worldmodel

the 'exorsism' is a total, permanent transformation of thinking which occurs over the course of a small number of strong entheogen experiences

the lower, egoic way of thinking is a demonic monstrosity, based on insanely loopy paradoxical logic. The divine revelation encountered in the ego death experience is the perfect, beautiful unravelling of egoic logic

Is consciousness an epiphenomenon of matter? Or, is matter an epiphenomenon of consciousness?
Or, is this analogous to asking what came first...
the chicken or the egg?
In which case, we can safely assume they are mutually inclusive.

one does not exist without the other, so to say that one or the other is invalid or "came second", is retarding the process of comprehending it.

assuming that things have to originate from somewhere, it is fair to ask where the physical and mental worlds originate from, modern philosophy is based firmly on the axiomatic assumption that the fundamental ground of reality is physical matter. It is irrelevant that "one does not exist without the other" where the question being asked is about causal origin

to have cold without hot is meaningless

this ^ is a limited analogy to matter/consciousness but it still makes the same broad point, obviously you attribute a higher degree of reality to heat than you do to coldness, heat is a 'positive value', so cold is merely the absence of heat, that's why temperature starts at 'absolute zero'. Just as heat is more real than coldness, the question arises in philosophy of mind of the relation between physical stuff (like tables and chairs) and mental stuff (like the pain from being hit by a chair), which one is the 'positive value'? Does a chair fundamentally consist of its physical composition, or does it consist of its being perceived by human subjects?

they are two SUBJECTIVE situations, not two situations

yes exactly, they are 2 different subjective modes of experience

that's ONE side as well... there's not only a distinction, but from that, a relation as well. but they are pretty much the same thing, except, you either feel like pointing out how they're different, or you feel like pointing out how they're they same.

the distinction between levels of reality is precisely analagous to the distinction between states of consciousness, in the ordinary state perception is rigidly organised around physical objects in your environment, in the entheogenic state ultimate reality is revealed to some extent by the disintegration of ordinary perception, - ie when you trip, the physical world 'dissolves' to some extent, if you trip hard enough (and experience ego death) you can actually tear a hole in the time/space continuum and take a glimpse of the strange alien puppetmasters in the timeless transcendental realm beyond the manifest physical universe

i just dont see how you got to that bigger picture with the tactics you're using now...

the various myths and religions make perfect sense if they are interpreted as allegorical descriptions of the entheogenic altered state, you can list examples to demonstrate that myths are all essentially (but also loosely) equivalent. Joseph Campbell has done all the hard work for us here, his book explains everything you need to know about mythology and religion except the one crucial, centrally important point that myth is entheogen allegory. If you plug entheogens into Campbell's monomyth analysis you will understand mythology in a way which is tremendously intellectually satisfying

Myths and religions are all basically, big collections of stories about people having transformative religious experiences. The key concept is transformation, on the esoteric level of meaning, mythology is a map of the religious mental reconfiguration.

 

[ophiuchus]

Myths and religions are all basically, big collections of stories about people having transformative religious experiences. The key concept is transformation, on the esoteric level of meaning, mythology is a map of the religious mental reconfiguration."

i understand that, and it is rather intellectually satisfying, however, that is not my point at all. my point, and what im not sure of is, that you get the depth of the implications of what other things i postulated.

'exorsism' is primarily intended as a metaphor for this 'jumping' from the ordinary state of consciousness to the entheogenic higher state, and from the naive egoic worldmodel to the entheogen-informed transcendent worldmodel

who said that once you experience this jump, it becomes permanent? or who said that everyone believe that which they see during a trip? studies have proven time and time again, that human memory is largely fallible. so to say that in a small handful of experiences of this different world model, your life will be "exorcised" of this old world model, is to idealize the concept. im not saying you are wrong, but im saying alot of people will need more than just a few experiences of this jump in order for it to really stick in any meaningful way, not simply for integrating the information, but in order to convert it into long lasting long term memory, which is relatively the same i suppose, with technique like "elaborative rehearsal" for memorizing. but this is assuming that they decide to believe what they saw at all. furthermore, permanent long term memories CAN be forgotten. usually though, something with a gravity like paradigm change is not, but lets not make it a standard that YOU WILL NOT FORGET, because that is definitely erroneous..


one of my main points though, in a situation when dealing in subjectivity, is, you have to address everything that is about something, and then everything that contrasts it, in order to get any real idea of what it is you are speaking about; not merely one or the other:

Does a chair fundamentally consist of its physical composition, or does it consist of its being perceived by human subjects?

sooo, it MUST CONSIST OF BOTH. why either or? why one or the other? you can justify for days, months years, lifes one side. and then there can be another guy who does the same thing. are these two people in opposition? only if one ape doesn't like the others tone of voice. :roll: why can both not apply? i think is a relevant question coming from this, and i think you have shown me you recognize some aspect of this, simply by demonstrating this example for me. so how about avoiding the question some more?

one does not exist without the other, so to say that one or the other is invalid or "came second", is retarding the process of comprehending it."

assuming that things have to originate from somewhere, it is fair to ask where the physical and mental worlds originate from, modern philosophy is based firmly on the axiomatic assumption that the fundamental ground of reality is physical matter. It is irrelevant that "one does not exist without the other" where the question being asked is about causal origin"

sure, ill admit that one has a kneejerk response that is so desperately a desire to figure out EVERYTHING. to know what it all means, to know where it came from, etc. my paradigm is the fact that you can never deduce the answer (mostly due to fallacies of human constructs like language, not to mention the basic illogicalities here), so you are simply wasting brainpower trying to comprehend it in that way (i have tried for many many years). there are more than two ways of operating you know. also, how can you make a statement for your arguement about matter being "the fundamental", when you say your self this:

"im very strongly inclined towards transcendental idealism/radical subjectivism, i think consciousness is absolutely primary, matter is secondary"

a blatant contradiction?

one does not exist without the other is the answer to causal origin. please explain to me how this is irrelevant. please. it is impossible for this to not be relevant.

the only way to define something is by contrast
if you create a chicken, you've created everything that defines it as a chicken. you've created beak, talon, wings feathers, nests, and eggs. so you have a creature that flys, pecks, scratches, and lays eggs. because without any of these, you are not talking about chickens. a chicken is not a chicken if it does not lay eggs; just as an egg is not an egg by definition if it doesn't turn into anything...

if that is said to be irrelevant about humans, then what can you know about humans? you certainly cant begin to understand them this way.
we teach people not to judge other people based on their appearance, why do you think that this is? we generally refer to people by what they do. it's important to know what a human is made of, but only in discerning it from other things, not in knowing what a human truely is. it would be improper or irrelevant to say: john, the black guy with cornrows, you know he's about 6 foot tall. how many people do you think there are like that? this does almost nothing for the person trying to figure this out, (unless they've already met the guy, even so, horrible identification technique). so once the person cant figure out what your talking about from there, you'd say (or rather you'd say this before anything else): john, the accountant, he plays poker with jan on the weekends. point is you get a much better picture of who someone is by what they do not by what they are made of. these are BOTH relevant in talking about humans, but in understanding what a human really is, you must know what a human does, not just what it looks like, because it does not function without its surroundings, it's contrast.

by the same token, so, would you say "buildings are irrelevant in understanding humans" ? no, because you may have understood, the organs and systems that make a human, but you have not identified what a human is through time. what a human does is fundamental to what a human is.

so, using this logic in a situation where dealing with subjectivity, you have to address everything that is about something, and then everything that isn't, or rather everything that contrasts it, in order to get any real idea of what it is you are speaking about; never being exclusive to one or the other. (i know i sound liek a broken record here, but the difference is that i KNOW i do,but that is only because it is apparent to me that you [nor many others, to your credit] do not realize that you do as well.)
i dont believe that anybody has empirically stated with a majority in accordance, that the fundamental ground of reality is physical matter, i dont believe that one bit. may i see something alluding to that? maybe only all the philosophers that YOU think are credible, but certainly not all of them. lets be serious. in order to understand the universe being made of matter, you have to understand and know, that which contrasts it, or else it means nothing to have "matter". how can one discern matter from separate matter, with no space nearby to observe the matter through. you have to have nothing to contrast something (i can elaborate on this if you wish). so in your "axiomatic assumption" you did not mention at all how modern philosophers would have come to their conclusion if that was really the conclusion they came to, and that how, would be an equal weighing of things that are matter, and all the things that are not, like intangibles, ideas, and the notion of "space". to see them as separate and one having superiority (or alpha status, came first, what have you) is severely limiting your view of reality, and in that, creating a bias, which is easily read across all of your posts. do you disagree that you are being biased? :lol:

the hot and cold placeholders on my arguement are irrelevant, you're right, so stop focusing on them when the point is :

the fact that you cannot obtain HOT or COLD remains, the best you can do is measure, and come to a subjective conclusion, which is what you did, just dont FORGET what you did

they are fundamental to each other, even though your man made concepts tell you to polarize the scenario

the distinction between levels of reality is precisely analagous to the distinction between states of consciousness

i get that. i dont think you do (that is to say, i dont think you get the full spectrum of why) though because i said :

that's ONE side as well... there's not only a distinction, but from that, a relation as well. but they are pretty much the same thing, except, you either feel like pointing out how they're different, or you feel like pointing out how they're they same.

see? you draw no comparisons here, only distinctions, and therefore have created another bias, AND ignored the entire point of quoting me for a response, all at once.

 

[maxfreakout]

who said that once you experience this jump, it becomes permanent?

this is an important point, psychedelic trips typically don't have a permanent psychological effect, but rarely they do, and ego death theory is about those relatively rare times when they do. Ego death and subsequent ego transcendence is a permanent mental-model transformation, ego death is a 'life-changing' experience, the emphasis is on transformation, the theory precisely models this transformation.

You begin adult life with a fully developed ego, ie you 'believe' that you are an effective controller of your stream of thoughts, THEN you experience psychedelic ego death and realise that you cant possibly alter your future thoughts. The experience of ego death disproves the central principle of the egoic mental operating system, and therefore the mind is permanently transformed. It becomes impossible to continue naively believing in literal free will after ego death

or who said that everyone believe that which they see during a trip?

it isnt about 'believing something you see during a trip', rather it is about an overwhelmingly powerful experience (ego death) which profoundly disproves a belief which was held previously (the belief in the literal reality of ego). So it isnt about forming a new belief, rather it's about disproving an old belief.

Because the false belief which is disproved is foundational (ie it is a basic belief upon which large, complex systems of other beliefs are based), when it is disproved in ego death, the rest of the mental structure collapses like a house of cards. You take drugs intending to have a pleasant colourful trip, and you find yourself in deep shit when you think about the power of mental control and it makes you go insane

studies have proven time and time again, that human memory is largely fallible. so to say that in a small handful of experiences of this different world model, your life will be "exorcised" of this old world model, is to idealize the concept.

this is a very good point

(thought experiment) if you had been raised from a baby in a monochrome environment, you had NEVER seen any colours in your life except black and white (and grey) so you dont know what the word 'colour' means, then SUDDENLY someone puts you in Las Vegas for 12 hours, among all the bright colours, then you are put BACK into the monochrome environment for the rest of your life

you would certainly never ever forget the 6 hours you spent seeing colour in Las Vegas, your perception of reality was expanded by your visit to Las Vegas, because it showed you that colours exist, it showed you what the word 'colour' refers to

visiting Las Vegas in this story is precisely analagous to a life changing psychedelic trip

im not saying you are wrong, but im saying alot of people will need more than just a few experiences of this jump in order for it to really stick in any meaningful way, not simply for integrating the information, but in order to convert it into long lasting long term memory, which is relatively the same i suppose, with technique like "elaborative rehearsal" for memorizing. but this is assuming that they decide to believe what they saw at all. furthermore, permanent long term memories CAN be forgotten. usually though, something with a gravity like paradigm change is not, but lets not make it a standard that YOU WILL NOT FORGET, because that is definitely erroneous.

psychedelic insights are most often forgotten, but the ego death insight is permanent, it can never be forgotten because it isnt merely a memory, rather it is a central organising principle of the mind (ie mental worldmodel). The mind is radically restructured on a fundamental level by the ego death experience, when you glimpse the strange terrifying deadly beauty of the gorgon Medusa you are turned to stone, this is the perspective of 'frozen time/eternity', you take drugs and discover a perspective where the clock stops

Does a chair fundamentally consist of its physical composition, or does it consist of its being perceived by human subjects?

sooo, it MUST CONSIST OF BOTH. why either or? why one or the other? you can justify for days, months years, lifes one side. and then there can be another guy who does the same thing. are these two people in opposition? only if one ape doesn't like the others tone of voice. :roll: why can both not apply? i think is a relevant question coming from this, and i think you have shown me you recognize some aspect of this, simply by demonstrating this example for me. so how about avoiding the question some more?

if you insist that physical matter is real, you are going beyond the evidence, matter is forever invisible, hidden from you. I think it makes more sense to conceive of matter as purely conceptual, ie 'matter' is just a concept for mentally structuring our experience, nothing more than that

i dont believe that anybody has empirically stated with a majority in accordance, that the fundamental ground of reality is physical matter, i dont believe that one bit.

the modern worldview is axiomatically based on this ^ principle, matter is ultimately real. To put that another way, you wont be able to get a job in any serious university philosophy department doing metaphysics if you believe anything else, you have to be a materialist.

 

[ophiuchus]

i cant talk to you anymore, you dont hear me. this shouldn't be fucking nine pages of me trying to explain the ONE axiom of my arguement. it's all there, minus the language barrier.and it's not even that you're seeing it and disagreeing, you dont even comprehend what i've put there for you, so im done feeding your bullshit machine.

"and you find yourself in deep shit when you think about the power of mental control and it makes you go insane"

does it make you go insane? then what happens when you come down off a trip after seeing this? (where's my insanity label maker ) have you experienced this? im being quite genuine.. because i know i have, and it did scare me, almost to the point of killing myself. but you know what i did? i thought "fuck it, if i was about to just kill myself, then i cant possibly do any more harm to myself by simply peering into this rabbit hole a little deeper, just being a mindful observer, can i? i mean that's what human existence is all about right? going into the unknown (after hiding from it, and hating and teaching others to fear and hate it enough so that everyone knows, and you've made this huuuge deal out of it, so that everyone is watching and they know :roll: how scary it is for you.. THEN you do it. haha) humans are afraid of the unknown. humans are also afraid of "crazy" people, even though we have no common definition for it. another unknown. when are you going to stop being afraid?

 

[ophiuchus]

that is ego death

 

[maxfreakout]

"and you find yourself in deep shit when you think about the power of mental control and it makes you go insane"

does it make you go insane?

yes entheogens typically cause a kind of temporary psychosis, with sheer insanity at the extreme end. But 'insanity' probably isnt the most useful word to use, it would be more precise to say that entheogens cause some degree of disconnection from public/consensus reality, where insanity is 'total disconnection', a clean thorough break from the continuum of ordinary reality.

And it happens as a result of thinking about mental control during a trip, that is the pathway to insanity AND transcendence/enlightenment

then what happens when you come down off a trip after seeing this? (where's my insanity label maker )

normally when a trip ends the psychedelic insights are forgotten moreorless completely, so the trip ends and the tripper immediately 'escapes into reincarnation' - ie they resume the set of tacit metaphysical assumptions (concerning the nature of self, time, freedom and world) that charcterise the egoic worldmodel

But the ego death experience is different, ego death is the truly 'life-changing' experience, after the trip ends even though the ordinary state of consciousness is resumed the powerful vivid memory of this crazy death-trip experience is burned deeply into the mind. This memory forces a radical, total revision of the core, taken-for-granted assumptions of the egoic worldmodel. The reality of the ego-agent (yourself) and the physical world are no longer taken completely literally as they always were before the trip, the initiate now recognises that there is a higher level of reality which entirely transcends his own being (crucially, it transcends his power of control over the immediate future).

You are not insane afterwards, but now you know what it is like to be insane, and that knowledge serves as a constant corrective reminder to the ego that its existence is actually incredibly fragile and ghostly compared to that of the underlying ultimate reality - true dread is the realisation that you might go insane in the next minute, you are helplessly reliant on a divine source to give you your sense of ordinary sanity at every moment. This helpless reliance is not normally experienced as a 'problem', ie you normally simply assume that the ordinary sense of egoic stability will continue to persist, - but the core essence of a 'bad trip' is the problematisation of the ego's reliance on a higher power to maintain stability in its ongoing existence. It can become HIGHLY problematic, to a truly cosmic extent, assume that a transcendent God (with absolute control over your future) would continue to support your existence in a life-sustaining way and not instead choose to bring everything to a catastrophic end

All religion is centrally concerned with this problem of how to trust the divine source of egoic stability during the peak psychedelic experience, ego death is the agonising crucifixion of Jesus the false-claimant to kingship, nailed to the time-axis completely immobile

have you experienced this? im being quite genuine.. because i know i have, and it did scare me, almost to the point of killing myself. but you know what i did? i thought "fuck it, if i was about to just kill myself, then i cant possibly do any more harm to myself by simply peering into this rabbit hole a little deeper, just being a mindful observer, can i? i mean that's what human existence is all about right? going into the unknown (after hiding from it, and hating and teaching others to fear and hate it enough so that everyone knows, and you've made this huuuge deal out of it, so that everyone is watching and they know :roll: how scary it is for you.. THEN you do it. haha) humans are afraid of the unknown. humans are also afraid of "crazy" people, even though we have no common definition for it. another unknown. when are you going to stop being afraid?

ego death is the ultimate unknown, the ultimate fear. The most terrifying thing is the inability to control terror

 

[ophiuchus]

that's all fine and dandy, and wonderfully put, i might add. but i already know what ego death is...

for the record,
"but this is assuming that they decide to believe what they saw at all"

i was speaking specifically about somebody in denial, (which i believe tends to be the majority. dabblers of way-too low doses for way too long. afraid to get out of the kiddy pool..),"forgetting" and not forgetting, that is to say, attempting to forget, not, simply forgetting on accident, unconsciously, as you are right, something that profound cannot be, on accident, rather it can be masked by hiding from it and creating a mental block, but this tends to wear on the persons psyche and will show itself to the sufferer again and again, until there is radical change of some sort, whether it be a mental breakdown or breakthrough...

"if you insist that physical matter is real, you are going beyond the evidence, matter is forever invisible, hidden from you. I think it makes more sense to conceive of matter as purely conceptual, ie 'matter' is just a concept for mentally structuring our experience, nothing more than that"

"the modern worldview is axiomatically based on this ^ principle, matter is ultimately real. To put that another way, you wont be able to get a job in any serious university philosophy department doing metaphysics if you believe anything else, you have to be a materialist."

these two statements would appear to contradict each other in the area of what you define as "real". is the statement, 'that since you perceive only light waves/particles through your eyes, that seeing a true object of matter will forever be impossible' made relevant by that first sentence or the first paragraph ("hidden from you"), or do you perhaps imply something else? i feel like i might know what you're talking about, but still, i am too unsure to make an assumption.

i already know what ego death is.

 

[Brugmansia]

I have been this creature. Including its size and minor grade of intelligence, actual feelings in every nerve despite the defencelessness.