What is the difference between:

"I was trippin' ballz"

and

"I had a very intense entheogenic experience"

?

The first sentence means: I was "fucked up", this DRUG made me crazy, The psychedelic I took was a commodity for me, Entertainment was it's main purpose

The second sentence means: I'm responsible for my use of psychoactive substances and I associate spiritual growth with it.

How should we talk to help remove the social stigma? Do you think it'S a good idea to use a certain type of language in ELF publications? Or maybe even as a guideline for it's members?
What words do you deem inappropriate for the entheogenic experience? IS for instance, every psychedelic experience necessary entheogenic? Do we "trip"?

OI personally think that this is a huge, huge thing. Almost on par with "living the dream".

I also think this is very important....
there's a reason why I type the way that I do ;]
I think the way people choose and use words is a direct reflection of their psyche.
You can learn this directly from the medicines and observing our race. (especially the wonderful nexus!)

This is why for the experience reports not every one can be elected. I so agree with this sentiment.

Agreed. We need to be very careful articulating here and especially in the trip reports that are added if we're going to get any credibility and be taken seriously.

People may do nothing more than roll their eyes after reading something like "then i was blown through this fucking crazy wall and it was soooo intense man.. but i knew the entities would take care of me so i didn't panic"

Diminishes the significance of the DMT journey.

language is very important - calling it 'deemster' makes it sound like a street drug. Lumps it in conceptually with legal highs like methedrone, BZP.

The words we use reflect our intention.

while I see what you're saying here, I will definitely use the term "tripping balls" around my friends who are acquainted with psychedelics/drugs but do not use entheogens in the same manner as I, in order to communicate the level of intensity of my experience...I will NEVER say the phrase around the uninitiated because it definitely sends the wrong message.

That being said, I only use the term for times when I'm completely gone, or pretty close to it. That is, I will NEVER say I was "trippin ballz" off a half gram of mushrooms, because it simply isn't true. However, there are individuals I know who use the term "trippin balls" to indicate they have ingested a hallucinogenic substance and it seems to have very little to do with the intensity of the experience.

Does not the word tripping stem from a government agency?
This is enough to make me never use the word ever again.

I'd rather say I'm working with entheogens, or I'm in it deep, or I'm traveling, etc...

i agree most of the time...
Language does create reality..

That said i also get sick of having to speak to please other people..not everything should be so "politically correct"..

Why not? If you agree with the agenda in question?

I don't like to be "politically correct" when it comes to obeying laws I did not create or I feel to be stupid.

I think its funny that you all consider yourselfs responsible simply because you use the drug as spiritual enhancement, what if there is no god and no life after death...no spirit. Then your using a drug to chase an illusion, you using a drug to make you believe things that aren't real. I'm not saying its not real, i'm saying if. And in that case, your basically using a drug to promote crazyness.


What you use a drug for dosen't dictate weather your being responsible, so i think its a very poor angle to say because someone does it for fun its irresponsible, that is comepletely not true. Irresponsible is letting a drug mess up your life, not knowing when to use the drug, how much use is abuse and so on.

Everything breaks down in significance if you track it back far enough. You can say "oh, that word is derived from these two latin roots of this and that", but if you wanna keep going back you're gonna be saying things like those roots were derived from this language construct that was developed by a group of grunting apes trying to symbolize their sensory input with sound. You can say that this or that formulation of vibrations rubs you the wrong way, but what you're really saying is you don't think the sounds appropriately symbolize the experience. When you get to that point, I always find it hard to argue over language, it's quite insignificant what sounds we choose for what, because they all point to a mental space in which we can clearly understand intention - language is more about social agreement than anything else.

"I was trippin' ballz"

and

"I had a very intense entheogenic experience"

are just two different examples of a social agreement. Depends on who you're talking to; if you're talking to someone who is older than you, someone who you are fishing for respect from, or an authority figure, you'd probably choose the second one. If however, you're talking to someone who grew up with the social agreement that Trippin Ballz' points to that mental space which you are describing, then you'd probably use the first one, and most likely because it is more commonly used, and will elicit a more direct connection to the experience you had for that person you are speaking to.

I'm on par with what house is saying.

Using the term "tripping balls!" or "faced!" or what have you just doesn't seem all that corrrect when describing something that can be soo beautiful yet an intense life changing experience.

In my eyes it earns a little more respect when you talk about such experiences.

But SWIM understands. When he was much younger and tried mushrooms for the first time he used similar terms to the above when talking about such things. But after SWIM had started working with the plants and learned from them what he has..his whole direction has changed in terms of respect and the language to convey such meaningful experiences.

Entheogens have changed my thought and speech tremendously. Think alot more before i speak. Just flow...flow with the words.. It's art in it's purest form. Your not even on the same level of being afterwards. Always glowing, always observing, always LIVING,
always a smile.

This puts a tremendous change on your language or in other words "sound to convey the self".

@cheeto
Responsible means, to respect the power of the substance (for me)

Some terms bear certain connotations..they disrespect the substance...

That's why:



...this explanation is not deep enough.

Irrelevant.

I don't care if what I'm seeing is real or not, but it has certainly taught me many lessons and given me a different headspace in which to more efficently analyze myself and point me in the direction of who I really want to be.

That's what strengthens my spirit and that is very much real

Not deep enough for what? What depth should we be shooting for? My point is that, if everyone feels they need to structure the way they communicate about psychedelics in a given situation or environment (as with this ELF deal), that's good, we already do that, but to demonize what you see as "disrespectful" in your singular context is kinda shortsighted. There is an infinite number of possible ways to express yourself given a certain situation, environment or social context. What is disrespectful to you is not at all disrespectful to certain others and in certain other contexts, and could at times be more effective at communicating a given experience or idea. I think it's a great step forward to think about the way we use language for these purposes, but to be so quick to judge, I believe, is a step backwards.

I agree with narmz and the rest of you. I think we should analyze the way in which we speak and think about what we say alot more, especially with the advent of ELF. Yet to say certain terms in certain contexts are wrong is to jump the gun. Though I do feel some terms have very negative connotations and should be avoided such as to say "I was fucked up" or the term "deemster" (theres a topic for that discussion so please refrain). In those cases I think we should avoid using them whenever possible to avoid the connotaion that comes with them. It will help us to be taken more seriously.

As for the discussion of spirtuality, I was under the impression that the goal of ELF was to be recognized as some form of religous practice so as to gain a foothold over the laws. I may be mistaken and it may only be a certain sect of ELF doing this.

I'm not a huge fan of the word, "trip," either, but I believe it originated with a radio DJ in the 60's that stayed awake on the air for an extended amount of time for some charitable fund-raiser and eventually started hallucinating. His last name was Tripp, I believe, but I can't remember his first name. I used to think it originated with the term, "tryptamine," until I had heard that story.