WORD.

I would agree with that if I wasn't intimately informed about the forces that find Cannabis a threat... and who could care less about entheogens in general.

Entheogens can't replace fossil fuels. Entheogens can't make textiles. Entheogens can't threaten the timber industry. Entheogens can't make certain commercial pharmaceuticals obsolete. Entheogens can't provide people with all of the amino acids found in the human body.

Cannabis can. And, it is the fastest growing biomass on the planet... growing wild in all 50 states without human attention. The first internal combustion engine didn't run on DMT... The Benz engine ran on Hemp biofuel.

While the powers that be a thrilled to have so many people smoking weed, they will not let Industrial Hemp gain even a toehold.

So I feel you might have it reversed. It is quite possible for entheogens to succeed where cannabis has failed precisely because entheogen users are such a small and non-threatening community.

But they can make you think out of the box, which is what they don't want you to do, at least in the US. Just my 2 cents...

And it's funny, in europe you can grow hemp for business, but people do it rarely and don't use it to the full potential. Look at the hempcar.org website, that's the potential. I wonder why people don't use their laws for producing such awesome fuel?

Yea, but who in this small community has any real foothold in any political process? The cannabis lobby is huge...they've got sweeping public support. If you're not talking legalizing entheogens under some post-revolutionary society, that means you're talking about utilizing the current political framework. If you're utilizing the current political framework, cannabis has significantly more chance than entheogens.

One word: LSD

That is the end to the entheogen argument...as soon as people grasp entheogen = psychedelic, no matter what you say, all of the LSD propaganda will come into play. The USA had a major political scare when it realized that any kid with a basic chem degree could make enough doses to drench the nation many times over. As such, the propaganda mobilized against LSD is far worse than anything that was brought out against cannabis, imo. What's more is that people today generally don't believe much of the weed propaganda. Sadly, the same cannot be said for LSD.

I maintain that cannabis, as the lynchpin in the war on drugs, must be legalized/regulated before anyone will even entertain the notions of legal entheogens.Hell, even if they're not willing to entertain the idea of legal entheogens, the loss of funding for cannabis interdiction would not only strip the drug/police agencies of the requisite funding to bust small-time entheogenicists...it would also remove the pretext of "we smelled weed so we executed a search without warrant, etc."

With the changing global economy, the economics of cannabis will not be overlooked much longer. It's a simple fact that as states go bankrupt and realize they can produce and tax not only the drug, but the paper, clothes and raw materials created from cannabis, the political opinions will change. No corporate lobby is powerful enough to tell a state on the verge of bankruptcy that they can't legalize/tax weed/hemp products in order to remain fiscally viable...in fact, state bankruptcy (at least in certain cases) would be more detrimental to some anti-cannabis lobbies anyway...and in those cases it would be seen as the lesser of two evils. Some profit is better than no profit.

Look at Warren Buffet, for example. He makes billions of dollars, but he asks for tax loopholes and higher taxes on the "mega rich". Why? Because he makes the most money in a strong economy. He still makes a ton of money in a weak economy thanks to globalization. In fact, even in a trashed economy, he will still have plenty of revenue flowing in while millions of Americans starve. However, relatively, he stands to make the most when the American economy is moving in full force. This is the same of the anti-weed lobby...you need a functioning economy to profit and an optimally functioning economy to maximize your profit.

^ You are right about all you say. Still, I will have to agree to disagree.

I believe that the potential for people to provide their own fuel, paper, building materials, textiles, medicine and food for FREE is the reason it was illegalized in the first place. It is still as much a threat to gasoline, nylon, cotton, tobacco, tree-paper and all the rest as it was when the titans of industry banded together to get rid of it. It was 30 years later that they became worried about LSD.

This is not a black and white issue, but SWIM has a lot of experience in the pro-cannabis movement and can visualize entheogens riding on cannabis' coattails OR entheogens slipping in under the radar dispite the continued resistance to weed. It could go either way.

Entheogens need their own lobby IMO. And, the entheogen-philes need to pursue as many different strategies as possible rather than the "all eggs in one basket" strategy. IMHO anyway.

Yes, I agree with that.



I think entheogens would replace some pharmaceuticals. I would take a weekly ayahuasca dose over anti depressants any day. Of course, no typical tool of a health care worker would endorse entheogens as therapy for depression. They prefer the medicines that are in your system 24/7 as a mood stabilizer or something. The problem is, they don't really work. I've read that about half of anyone who takes antidepressants don't report any effect at all. There's also nasty side effects and withdrawal. The same will not be said for ayahuasca. But of course, ayahuasca is not meant to be taken as a supplement that is in action 24 hours a day.

True. Very true.

One of the nastiest "side effects" of anti-depression is... believe it or not... depression. In fact, a certain (relatively high) percentage of people seem to become markedly MORE suicidal after taking them.

Very little in our culture actually makes much sense... and when it comes to drugs, people are completely irrational.

Sad.

it is sad... and while I'm thinking about anti depressants, I will say that another advantage of ayahuasca is that it actually gets people thinking about their lives. Thinking very deeply and proactively about their life, and how they can change it for the better. Anti depressants don't do this. At best, heavy doses of anti depressants might stabilize a suicidal person, who is beyond the point of even thinking rationally. This is of good as an emergency life saving tool. But for typical, non crisis depression, which a hell of a lot of people are taking anti depressants for, ayahuasca beats ssri's or snri's or atypical anti psychotics by light years.

Oops?

lol. Yeah, I guess that can vary from person to person.

I'm still interested in this concept. If the OP or any of the OG Jurema Way people are not still active here, perhaps some of us who are interested can take up the mantle and move forward on our own.

If anyone knows the people who were part of this in the beginning, please direct them to this thread so we can open up a dialogue about this specific project. While I find the general debate on whether a new DMT centered religion will have any effect, policy wise, in the US, EU or other nation-states where DMT users are considered outlaws, I think that there are enough people out there who would be willing to give it a shot regardless.

Despite the permission that Santo Daime and UDV churches have achieved to use the ayahuasca sacrament in the US and Brazil, SWIM couldn't bring himself to join either group because he doesn't agree with their over-all philosophy. He finds the syncretic mixing of Christianity with Candomblé and its incongruous weldeding to Amazonian Shamanic practices to be off-putting. He has attended some Daime ceremonies, and always found them to be stifling and completely out of character with his own experience of the brew. The whole hierarchy and forced community thing is also odd for something that seems extremely personal and individual.

Anyhow, it seems to me that the wonder of the Spirit Molecule should not be tied to any existing dogmas or forced into the boxes of any existing religuous framework. Spice and Huasca ARE inherently religious, in the sense that they evoke unabashed awe & wonder. They take you by the balls and show you, in un-ignorable fashion, things that other religions can only hint at in vague and roundabout ways. If ever there was an authentic sacrament, it would be entheogens... with DMT and its various preparations topping the list in spades.

I don't like to tred in weighted terminology and make the common mistake of talking about spice revelations in old school religious terminology, but there are scant few words for these things... and we need to talk about them somehow. SWIM finds that while many people claim to journey in hyperspace and never have a truly spiritual experience or even an authentic encounter with "entities," the vast majority of people he knows DO have such experiences, and in a foolproof & repeatable way, no less. Furthermore, the information retrieved from Hyperspace is often uniquely verifiable.

While the scientific/chemistry geek conceptions and methodologies should not be discarded... on the contrary, they must be stepped up and intensified as much as possible... and the political, anti-prohibition wing of spice lovers should move forward in clear and focused legal avenues... there IS room in this tent for people who find spice to be a genuinely sacred and holy sacrament.

I, personally, have no problem with the word GOD. It doesn't offend me, and it is as good a word as any for the obviously intelligent and infinite consciousness of the Multiverse. I tend to use different terms for this concept depending on who I am talking to, but terms don't matter. People who can not see intelligence in nature perplex me.

The entities encountered in Hyperspace are not this intelligence directly, IMO... but rather beings that have progressed closer to, or emanated from, this original fountainhead of novelty. They can instruct you in how to flow with and move closer to this cosmic Tao or Great Spirit by virtue of being closer to it and not having as thick blinders on as most of us hominids seem to. Even without assistance, the force of creative and living manifestation is preceivable in every aspect of everything we see. Everywhere, this intelligence and majesty is exhibited. In the finest designs of Hyperspace, and equally well in the smallest seed or drop of water.

Spice experiences seem to be uniquely capable of increasing one's ability to perceive and connect with this. Everything we perceive begins to appear as the various sock puppets for the hand of primal creativity. Feel free to disagree, but nothing anyone can say will disuade me at this point. Not that I am closed minded. It would just be like trying to tell me that computers are impossible. I have owned and used them almost daily since I was a child. I would look pityingly on someone who was convinced that they don't exist.

I will wrap this up by saying that anyone who feels even remotely similar about this should chime in. We can start a new thread and discuss the logistics of possibly setting up a new religion. Why people have the idea that a religion must be X amount of years old (fill in the blank) in order to be authentic, puzzles me. All religions were new at some point. And I challenge any religion on the planet to come up with a more direct and effective means of demonstrating their spiritual beliefs than 25mg of spice or a good puff of changa.