I was looking through the "what do you do for a living" thread, and it's so interesting reading what everyone does (or doesn't do) for a living here. Gosh, us psychonauts (those who explore consciousness and other dimensions) are hiding in the most normal kinds of jobs all over the world, huh? For instance, at work, would anyone you work with ever know you are really a psychonaut, exploring inner space with medicines and altered states of mind? So cool! We are everywhere, immersed in the "normal" so called society. There are lumberjacks, accountants, secretaries, clerks, carpenters, all kinds!

Question: If you were to think about all the people you work with or who are in your community, are there any people you would suspect might be psychonauts, but on the outside leading a regular normal life? Really, it's kind of mind boggling when you start looking around and wondering what everyone's SECRET life is really life, the life the outside world doesn't see. Are they at home journeying with medicines, thinking about how they can help to save humanity (the world is fine if humanity is saved), or do certain things that they don't tell anyone which is spiritually focused? How many of us are "hiding" so to speak, pretending to be just your regular every day person?

I just thought I"d put that out there, something fun to think about!

Again:



I think the time of bowing our heads and hiding out stash, and hiding our experiences should be over, we need to stop being afraid of being judged, stop being afraid of being put under suspicion or having the authorities punish you, we need to come out and say "I'm psychedelic, and there's nothing wrong with that" we truly are We are pillars of society...and we are being forced underground by the least amongst us...



When I look through the career paths that psychedelic people have chosen I'm not surprised to find botanists, chemists, computer programmers, teachers, philosophers, writers, engineers, researchers, inventors, artists, and so on...This does not surprise me in the least bit...look at the icons in psychedelia, all very intelligent people, from Albert hoffman, Alexander shulgin and David e. Nichols, to Leary, alpert, and metzner, to terence mckenna and Ralph Abraham, and so on...pillars of society.

-eg

I consider myself a freak, so i don't count but my fellow travellers are :
a pathologist, a smith, a geographer, two artists one performing one painting,
some students, a nurse and i'm sure i forgot some

schaaf

I have no trip friends in regular life. My wife tolerates my use of psychedelics, but doesn't approve. I don't like hiding it, but it's occurred to me that even if the drug laws regarding psychedelics are relaxed there will still be a significant stigma attached to psychedelic usage, as the masses long ago bought into the idea that psychedelics are incredibly dangerous and make you crazy. Seeing as that notion is partly true I don't expect psychs to gain really widespread acceptance soon.

Plus, if all the dumb kids start doing them it'll ruin it for the cool kids.

It's more about alteration of culture, we need to change the public perception that psychedelics are only for "freaks" and "long-hairs"...and when the computer programmers, doctors, researchers, chemists, psychologists, etc...when the pillars of society come out of the closet and say "we are psychedelic" perception will change...when we take back the narrative regarding these substances from those who are seeking to destroy them, we then can set the public perception and culture of use.

We need to separate the notion of psychedelic consumption from illegal drugs, this causes the most damaging errors in perception, even within the psychedelic communities because these compounds are represented as recreational illicit drugs it leads many people to misuse or flat out abuse these compounds.

For millennia psychedelics have been incorporated into functioning human societies, they were seen as sacred medicines and sacraments, dispensed by experienced experts who have devoted their life to these compounds (the shaman)...so why was there no abuse of psychedelic substances in the archaic? Is it because they were never culturally represented as recreational drugs of abuse? These substances were represented for being what the truly are until modern times.

It's not about getting these things to everybody (though I'm not opposed to that either) it's about forming a culture where the best amongst us can use them safely, productively, and without fear of punishment or judgement.

-eg

Nice thought, but who decides who the "best amongst us" are and who decides which way of use is "productive" (for whom).

Maybe I am just kinda hairsplitting there. All i want to say is that we have to be careful...

I live two lives. No one at work has the slightest clue... Not even my family except my wife. A handful of selected friends know.But just one person and my wife who sometimes join a mushroom ceremony ....

I feel very lonely in the world of psychedelics... If it wasn't for the nexus, I would have no one to learn from or share my experience or hear about other persons experience.

The fact that Steve Jobs said that LSD is one of the 3 best things that he has done in his life made someone I know who is totally against "illegal drugs" say that he wants to try it....

Wish I could dose him just right, but I don't feel I can sell myself out!

But that tells me that there is hope

I feel ya on that one. Alone or not I still feel its a journey, a path I must take, a calling of sorts.
Same here, only a few very close friends know what I dabble in, and they aren't in the slightest interested.

-eg

I agree.



No you're not. You've got my vote.

Nice Leary quote EG.
About sums it up, but I found the others essentially here on the nexus. Through mind and spirit (lacking the physical bodies, like the many voices in my head, )

Peace

I always thought that the Leary quote was less to do with hidden psychedelic users and more to do with human nature and the way that we communicate in general. In that, at least in Western society, most of us at one time or another feel like outsiders and that we could profit by being more open with each other. Whether we take drugs or not.

When Leary says "you are not like them" he is referring to non-psychedelic people, or even in a more broad sense, "those who are walking in their sleep", and Leary then continues by contrasting "normal people" to psychedelic people.

I feel it fit this thread and it's core topic quite nicely.

It reminds me of how alienating being awakened to certain aspects of existance which other are oblivious to can be...

There are many ways in which it could be interpreted, however in this context I was referencing the "find the others" interpration...


Here is a mckenna rap inspired by Leary's quote which was part of my last post:


-eg

Hi there, I have a pretty normal ICT job and lot of my colleagues know of my endeavors into the unknown, I've even taken a couple of them with me

Once you start talking about it, it turns out many people try or want to try altering their consciousness.

I think that if that is the case then Leary's (and Mckenna's) view on this is outdated. According to him we are differeent because "we know" even though we live like the "normal asleep" people and mimic their automated actions and responses to an "oppressive" society. A society i might add that had a major part in producing these icons of psychedelic culture. I would take a punt that most of the icons were quite well educated before they discovered drugs.

Who is really asleep if those that "know" feel that they are different but carry on watching shit tv? And what do we do when we "find the others" apart from discuss how different we are and how normal everyday people are sheeple. At best it seems like snobbery to me and encourages separatism. Us and them.....it happens in religion, race, sport etc. We should be getting over it if we are to move forward.

And the thing about alienation. Everyone feels alienated at times. It's an essential part of growing up and being human.

I wish respect to all here and am just having a rant.

It's not a stance of superiority, it's more of being open to aspects of human nature which culture would rather have you suppress, and which in turn most will suppress...

Again, Leary touched on many subjects in his single quote, and it can be interpreted in many ways, in this context, I was referencing the "find the others" interpretation as it fit the topic at hand, many of these people were saying "I'm alone in psychedelics"

...as a psychedelic person I do feel alienated in many ways from "normal people", and Leary described those ways perfectly...

rather than putting on a mask and spitting out preprogrammed responses would you not rather say something real to these people? you want to ask as Leary said "Tell me something that makes you cry” or “What do you think deja vu is for?” you want to obtain a lesson or an insight or something significant regarding consciousness or life, rather than waste the opportunity acting as robots and suppressing our actual feelings and desires...



I don't see the mckenna quote or the Leary quote as being out-dated, the Leary quote was from the 1960s, and the mckenna quote was from the 1990s, I would say both men were far ahead of their time...

-eg

According to mckenna we need to: "We all need to create affinity groups which are subsets of the much larger community that we’re part of. Then using this technology, which was designed to keep track of us, to pick our pockets and to sell us junk we don’t want, use this technology to produce art. We must produce massive amounts of subversive art.



It's not at all, it's a valid observation...



Now, jobs said "He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand."

There are many of these "things" which are only understandable to psychedelic individuals...

Crick is another example




-eg

I cant think of very many people I know who havent tried psychedelics, including my parents and all their friends (now in their 70's). Here in the uk, everyone seems to take magic mushrooms at some stage in their lives, mainly because they grow all over the countryside in autumn and are seen as a milder, more natural psychedelic than say acid. They were also legal until a few years ago.

Not many of these people would consider themselves 'psychonauts' however, and put their experiences down to youthful experimentation.

Another thing that strikes me is how middle class university educated people like Leary see themselves as being better qualified for psychedelic exploration than the average 'man in the street'. I work in a solidly working class industry, and many of the people I come across here have taken plenty of psychedelics. Some still do so on a regular basis. Most dont have the luxury to devote much time to these sort of experiences, though, as they are usually working long hours to make ends meet.

You seem to quote others a lot, which makes me think about what your own thoughts are.


Kind regards,

The Traveeer

I work as a nurse in a medical clinic and we rotate many residents through our clinic. There have been several cases where I would connect with an individual and learn different psychedelic things they were considering. I have met one psychiatrist that we discussed at great lengths the potential for ibogaine in therapy though he made note of its cardio toxicity, and we also discussed the possibly efficacy of auahaska to heal things like depression over longer term better than constantly treating with standard antidepressants. He was a great person to talk to on the subject, most psychiatrists that I've met are too sold on the "chemical imbalance" focus and were more geared to just throw drugs at people, while yes it's true that many disorders are related to a chemical imbalance there are other methods to "balance" than just here's a pill so you don't feel sad anymore. The by the book pharm pusher psychiatrists irritate me as they all sound the same, trying to modulate the human experience into binary modes of on and off, depression plus selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor equals not sad, onto the next patient. There are known better methods of treatment. Psychiatrists with little empathy are hard people for me to deal with. Doctors with low empathy in general are troublesome.

Either way I also met another doctor outside of clinic at a local music venue, he shared a joint with me so I knew he was cool, then he told me about how he can get good LSD and I showed him my DMT tattoo. It was a good time.