I'm an experienced psychonaut, but I have never tried mescaline or any cacti. Naturally, I'm extremely interested. I have acquired 25g dried/powdered p. torch from the FV vendor, who I hear has good product. My issue is that I cannot decide on what dosage to take for an introduction to the experience. I have searched a lot, and I'm thinking anywhere between 6g and 20g.

I specifically mentioned 69ron because you posted in (http://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=5127) this thread and said:

"If it’s from fv, it could have up to 5% mescaline! One batch SWIM got had that much. Usually about 0.8-2% though. Remember that it's green flesh only, so that's much more potent than the rest of the cactus is."

I am preparing to have a day later this week with no other obligations than this experience. Because days like this are few and far between, I want to be sure I don't under do it. I do want a full experience. However, I don't want to blow myself out of the water this first time. I will not have a trip sitter and intend to spend the experience alone at the beach .

So, any recommendations would be very appreciated. I would have just gone with 20g or 25g, but I'm glad I continued to research as I'm beginning to believe that this source may carry rather unusually potent material.

The Torch varies a lot more than the other cacti in terms of potency. 25 grams could do nothing or be an overdose.

SWIM doesn’t like taking cactus without knowing how potent it is ahead of time, that’s why he always does extractions. That way there’s no guessing about the potency. With cacti pieces or powder or fresh flesh, there’s no way to know how potent it is without first trying it.

Fortunately, tolerance to mescaline doesn’t build easily. You can redose and redose many times, and it still works very well. This means you can start with a really low dose, then double it or triple it 2 hours later if you find it wasn’t enough.

It’s not like acid or shrooms. With those, redosing doesn’t work very well and is a waste. With mescaline, redosing works very well, about 90% as well.

I recommend doing a test run for the first two hours using a small amount. I recommend 5 grams. At most 5 grams would contain 250 mg of mescaline, if its very potent 5% material. 250 mg is a very decent full blown trip for most people. Some people find 250 mg to be on the heavy side. If it’s average 1% material, 5 grams would contain 50 mg of mescaline and only produce a very light effect (mostly just stimulation). If 5 grams does very little after 2 hours, then it’s safe to try 20 grams.

Again, re-dosing works very well with mescaline. It’s one of the unique characteristics of it. You can re-dose many times throughout the day, and it works nearly as good as the first dose does.

would 5 grams of bridgesii be a good starter dose for SWIM from the same place?

wow I actually just picked up some of the same material you speak of. I was planning on brewing a tea of about 125 grams for about 3 or 4. So about 30g a person

Now I'm wondering if that would be too much... I'm pleased that the FV material is well reviewed but we shall see how it lives up to its reputation I guess

well about two weeks ago SWIM and some friends each dosed 30g of dried material(taken in two doses about one hour apart with the effects of the first being felt before the second was even consumed) with very good effect...full of stimulation, good feelings all day, and quite a lot of color with nice visual effects. Very good overall at 30g, although SWIM and his friends would agree that 1.5-2 times could have been consumed to achieve full blown psychedelia without too much fear to taking TOO much. Good luck and I'd like to hear how 30g from FV treats you all.

What is the planned method of ingestion for swim? eating straight powder, making a tea, iso extraction, a/b extraction?

If it's tea I'm thinking it would be reasonable to make tea for your maximum dosage.. And then just drink it very slowly over the course of an hour to two hours... If everything feels fine by the 1 hour point then maybe drink the rest?

I'm not experienced, so it would help if others chimed in.. What I wrote is pretty much the route I'll be investigating..

Mill: Was a tea used or was the powder consumed?

For that experiment 30g of powder was pulverized and put into capsules and as mentioned with good results...however making a tea would work fine as well although it will but much harder to consume due to the extremely bitter taste...also some believe excessive heat can negatively affect potency so if a tea is made then perhaps keep heat somewhat low or at least well below the boiling point of water to be safe. SWIM has had success with both routes...they each have slight advantages/disadvantages. Consuming capsules is relatively easy and with 30g it isn't a problem, however, if much more than that is taken then the number of capsules becomes quite high and will be a little hard for the body to process all that dry powder once it is freed up in the stomach.

If making a tea, SWIM thinks your plan of action is good...prepare tea for a maximum dosage(whatever one has choosen that to be), drink some and wait 1-2 hours, and see how you feel. Realize that full effects aren't noticed until usually two hours post consumption but one should still notice plenty of activity within the first hour. SWIM would recommend 30g as a good trial experiment...one can always increase for later experiments.

well I always hate to leave people hanging in old threads..

so I'll update with what happened with my experiment

125 grams of dried peruvian torch were mixed with about 2 quarts of water and then simmered on the lowest setting for about 3 hours. Not nearly enough water was present and the mixture eventually became a snot like consistency. But I figured there would be a small amount of watery tea that I could strain out of the sludge. I was wrong. I tried to strain the brew threw cheesecloth to no avail. Tried to strain it through an old t-shirt. Didn't work. So I added another 3 or 4 cups of water to the mix, put it back in the pot on the stove, and started up the simmer again for about another hour. After this, I attempted to strain again through the t-shirt and this time I succeeded and collected about 16 oz of syrupy cacti tea. It was certainly less viscous than the thick cacti sludge, but was not nearly a tea-like liquid.

At this point my question to others is: How much water should I have added for that amount of dried material? And also what is the consistency of the tea that you all have come out with? Is it syrupy or very liquidy?

The cacti tea I collected was consumed the next day on a camping trip. Ate little to nothing in the morning and drank my portion (the 16 oz was split between 3) from about 12:30 to 1:30. Not really any nausea possibly because we munched on a little bit of fresh ginger while consuming the brew. By about 5, I was feeling quite relaxed and it felt extraordinarily good to plop down in a camp chair after being on my feet and walking around the camp site for a bit. My mood was great but then again it was my day off. Not really anything much in the way of visuals. By about 7ish I felt pretty normal and began to drink some beers.

I wasn't really satisfied with the level of the experience, but it was a pleasant time.

When I returned home, I figured I would try an acid/base extraction on the sludge that I had saved which was still very snotlike and had been stored in the refridgerator.

I collected about 200 mgs of tannish crystally powder. Not much else.. Possibly weak cactus, probably inexperience on my part with cacti material more likely.

A couple of days later I dissolved the collection into some pineapple juice and it literally shimmered a magical shimmer on its way into dissolving.

The drink was consumed over 20 minutes around noon. There was about 1-1.5 hours of light nausea that started oddly about 20 minutes after I finished drinking. Then, again a very pleasant body high slowly increased in strength but never reached any sort of level I would describe as intense or overwhelming. Present, yes.. but not overpowering at all. Being outside in the sun wandering around my yard and checking out the details of different plants was quite nice and provided me with lots of time to ponder. Pondering was relatively lucid and not really at all perceived as garbled or loopy like with mushrooms or acid. Conversation with the roomates was easy and clear but at times I would just get tired of talking and want to just sit and enjoy the relaxed state and zone out. Once or twice, while sitting on a chair out on the porch gazing up at the quickly changing clouds I remembering laying back and closing my eyes and feeling completely amazing. With eyes closed there wasn't really anything going on behind my eyelids, but it definitely was not like what it is doing the same thing on a normal day. A smooth pine tree brushed me once while walking by and I turned to look what felt so good, and the next thing I knew I had been petting the pine needles for about 20 minutes in that pondering state again. Clear but somewhere else.

By about 6, I was feeling close to normal again and went down to a river to do some fishing with a friend. He drove and we stopped by a shop to get flies and it was a little odd being back in reality again and I definitely felt kind of spacy in the shop. We fished for a couple hours and I relaxed into some fly fishing while all the effects of the mescaline wore off completely. We returned about 8:30 and by that point I was definitely completely back to baseline.

Overall the experience was very pleasant but nothing intense..

I'm looking to work with the cactus spirit more in the future. Next time I'm going to not rush things so much and possibly try the acetic/limonene tek. And definitely get a couple of these wonderous secretive cacti growing in my home

SWIM is in a similiar situation. He has 25g of san pedro and 25g of achuma from FV, and has never experienced cactus. In the d-limonene tek thread Mill suggested that SWIM cap or make a tea instead of bothering with combining the 2 to extract or extracting 25g at a time.

So SWIM's question is, should he start out with 5g of either species as well? SWIM would rather not bother with a tea, so does he simply cap 5g and swallow on an empty stomach?