I am in agreement with Anne. Also a legal loophole via a religious institution would exclude those that want to do these drugs just to get high. We should have the right to do them no matter what are intentions happen to be.

And to continue with the car mechanic analogy. There are plenty of really BAD mechanics
out there. I would rather just try and fix it myself.

id always like to think anything not carved on a rock is suspect and negotiable.
also, " who says",

i comment on stuff indeed,
but really , im about the teks and letting peeps do the rest themselves.
i have confidence in peoples free range tripping.

i have confidence with the nexus community to make its own choices all around.
i even have confidence in noobs, as long as they know
"its a long way to the top if ya wanna rock and roll............"

The percentage of people willing to do all the work in isolation is very small. But the number of seekers interested in exploring their own consciousness is much higher. Similarly, no matter how many legal avenues you give a populace, a percentage will still go on to break the law and do whatever they want. It's the way of our species. We always have outliers.

@hug46 This isn't a loophole. It is a right. If you believe in this as your thing, your way of life, than it is your right. We just need to find the terms to define it all in a way that is in accordance with the law. It's not a loophole if you believe in it.




I hold their work in high accord, but all legal avenues they are pushing are clinical/therapeutic in application, and only apply to one area of law. I am intimately familiar with Rick's work. What I am proposing does not conflict with the work of MAPS, it complements it.

Two things:
1) Buddhism comes with all kinds of dogma, just like every other faith system. Reincarnation, karma, the existence of other worlds (the Narakas spring to mind), etc. I don't know much about Shakyamuni's writings, but I don't think I can go check on some of this stuff.

2) You're misunderstanding why science works. It's not about labs or academic journals (those are just cultural trappings associated with the algorithm). Science is based on the idea that, if you are accurately describing the universe, you should be able to make a prediction, and see if it's true. This is how we learn: when you were a baby, you used a very crude form of the scientific method to learn things like "walls are solid" and "fire hurts." Philosophers hate induction, but the fact of the matter is, so far, it's worked really, really well.

If your spiritual belief hinging on the idea that a fact about the universe can never be verified, then it's, in my opinion, a pointless heuristic. If it makes you happy or gives you meaning, that's awesome, but that doesn't make it accurate.

I'm a working scientist, believe me when I say that I am intimately familiar with the philosophy of science (which tells us why it works, something a lot of people seem to have missed in high school), as well as it's limitations.

Blessings
~ND

I agree that here at the nexus, and in psychedelic culture at large, there's certainly a lot of self-righteous behavior and dogmatism and it gets old fast. I often wonder how guilty I am of this myself. But if I can be real blunt I think this forum holds a lot of double standards when it comes to engagement that is actually valued by the community here.

I think there is something to be said about meeting people where they are at. We talk all day about how we have life-changing experiences with these drugs that are often spiritual in nature, and we fantasize about what it might look like to have legitimate outlets for psychedelic exploration. But when someone actually feels motivated to take steps towards implementing something that relates to their own experiences and interpretations, they get shot down. We whine incessantly about how messed up the world is, and how we feel empowered by psychedelic experiences to do something about it, but we can't talk about politics here because that's dogmatic and pushy. We can critique the work of other institutions like MAPS or ICEERS all we want, but don't even think about suggesting tangible alternatives because that's just redundant and the work is already being done.

This forum offers a lot for people who are scientifically-minded, and who have the knowledge, time, and resources to contribute to things like substance analysis/testing, extraction teks, etc...which is great for those people, and for the community at large (we all benefit from this information). This is cool, it's not a bad thing.

But not all of our members are scientists, professional researchers, doctors, chem-wiz's, etc...It seems like their contributions are continuously shot down here because they don't fit certain molds. Absolutely, I will agree that a of people present their ideas in arrogant and/or misinformed ways and some of the stuff that pops up around the forums is pretty far out there...but instead of just passively shitting on those people why not make an effort to meet them where they are at and offer support in the form of constructive criticism? Yes, nobody should go door-to-door telling other people they are taking drugs the "wrong way"--but if a group of people feel that their unique approach to psychedelic exploration is most useful for them, for whatever reasons that may be, then so long as they aren't hurting anyone why shouldn't they get together to make it a reality? And if they want to let other people know about they are doing, more power to them so long as they aren't intruding into other people's spaces to do so.

What I see here is someone passionate who wants to act on an idea they have, and so they brought it here for feedback. And they received feedback. Sure, I think it's silly and problematic to assume "most Westerners" wouldn't know how to use psychedelic drugs--but if someone else wants to get together with their own group of friends to trip, then just go do that.

Sometimes I feel like this forum is one giant circle-jerk of self-gratifying intellectualism, and every now and then someone breaks the cycle by posting some research project or presentation they gave somewhere. But otherwise I can't help but feel that I see a lot of talk about how nobody is doing anything right, followed by criticisms and dismissals of the people who are trying to do something but apparently not well enough.

My advice for the OP is if you want to do something then do it. Consider people's push-back and suggestions, set some goals for yourself, and report back once you've tackled some of the basic first steps. If anyone else thinks they can do it better but doesn't feel compelled to help you out or offer real suggestions, then they can put in the work on their own time.

well said

all forums do, so what?,
ya publish something you risk peer review?
and.........



^nexus is better than most forums on this topic.
much, much, better than other forums
.......take it from ANNE HALONIUM.....been there done THAT, thats why im here.
ive taken more anti aircraft fire on other forums than a allied berlin bomb raid in WW2,
if your stuff is solid ( ahem) ya keep flying anyway.

peer review is sometimes rough, psychonaut is not a thin skinned game.
and it shouldnt be.........



^lol, westerners rule the hallucinogenic scene like silicon valley rules the digital realm.
outside of advanced psychonaut circles of "western urbana", its aborigines.


most of us love autonomy when we trip, wether alone or in groups.
those that dont, join something, but, the rest of us are just fine.

@Praxis

The OP isn't facing resistance. We're merely sharing our views on this matter. That's the point of a discussion. It allows the exploration of all possible avenues. If the OP implemented a poorly thought idea or did it too hastily, it might be catastrophic. But clearly s/he didn't. It's always good to discuss things with others, because there may very well be a better way that eludes us. We get so wrapped up in an idea, we limit ourselves to think within the box. We are all guilty of it, it's a human thing.

My main gripe with this whole institution thing is the institution itself, particularly the religion part. That is what will split crowds.



And the percentage of people willing to step out of their comfort zone is even smaller. People can be very sceptical of anything that either belongs to another religion or is religious in the first place.
The only institution I can support is one that one offers people a retreat to explore their consciousness, without affiliating itself with anything. It is merely a place to feel safe. I understand that the point of adding "religious" to the institutions label is to bypass the current laws. I'm not a fan of shortcuts. That's why I am putting all my eggs in the MAPS and ICEERS baskets. Only cold hard evidence can remove the negative stigma of psychedelics in the eyes of the public. Even then, scepticism is one of humanity's defining traits. There will be many who don't see the point in psychs, even if all the negativity has been removed. Cold hard evidence and removing the negative stigma will pave the way for legalisation (or at least decriminalisation).

In the meantime, I think we should all be doing the job of the OP's hypothetical institution, but as individuals. Every time I meet someone who is interested in psychs, I give them as much information as I can. If they really want to do it, then I'm willing to share the substance with them, but only one time. I act as their trip sitter, offering advice and creating a safe place for them. After that, if they want to experience it regularly, then they must do everything themselves. All I do is point the way. People must walk their own paths.

I've got the feeling there is a lot of misunderstanding here... I'm not against experts sharing their knowledge. I'm against the paternalist approach where the recurring mantra is "do not do this at home kids".

In communist countries, whenever you wrote a scientific thesis, you had to write a "red tail" about how this thesis supports the political paradigm of communism. In our current age of prohibition, anyone dealing scientifically or in popular culture with matters of self-healing, self-medication or recreational drugs feels the need to add a "red tail" to their writings, the message always being "do not do this at home kids".

Even PIKHAL and TIKHAL had their "red tail". I'm very much against the red tail.

Why can't we admit that we're ALL self-taught, we all managed to pull through and learn, we all managed to become "experts". We're not in any inherent way better, more aware or more capable than "the average Joe".

None of us have learned this at school, maybe except Shipibo shamans, but I personally do not recognize Shipibo shamans as automatically more knowledgeable on my psychedelic realm as I am - they might be highly experienced in the effects of the substances in their own cultural context, but probably know little to nothing about my cultural context.

As I said, this institution is a great idea, as long as it says "hey, we found out all this cool stuff and want to share it", and not "don't do this at home kids without our expert supervision"...

I mean, even the name is already laden with opinion. Institution of plant medicines? Not that I have anything against Aya, shrooms, the sacred Cannabis, or any other living teacher, but what of Acid, of 2C-B, of MDMA? They are in no way inferior in my opinion and approach - I am not saying that shamanic approaches that do not work with synthetics are invalid, but why should we even hint at their superiority or exclusive correctness?

well, in my case its a basic disclaimer.
we cant have people running around knee deep in halluciongenic plants,
extracting power drugs, and risking mayhem.

^ just trying to keep my "poster girl for responsible hallucinogens" image squeaky clean.

Praxis: I find your perspective on this really interesting, mostly because I feel the opposite way. I find that the Nexus to be really limited in terms of discussions about science. There are the chemists who have fun building and developing extractions, but beyond that, there's very little. The science forum (which isn't even restricted to psychedelic science) is easily one of the more innactive subforums.

The discussions as I see them are either:

1) Technical discussions about smoking/brewing/ingesting DMT and related drugs or
2) Philosophical/spiritual (occasional psychological) discussions about hyperspace which, for all the fun they may be, are decidedly unscientific. That's not to say that they are BAD in any way, just that, I generally feel like science is not what we do here. Far from it, and I'd like to see more.

Part of it (and I responded to dreamer042 with this point) is that I feel like a lot of folks here don't understand why science works. They see it as an 'institution' comprised of beakers and journals and labs, without a strong grasp of the philosophical underpinnings, and that compromises the quality of discussions.

Often, whenever I try and bring up the scientific perspective, someone invariably shows up to tell me that I'm being a 'reductive materialist' and missing some kind cosmic point (which is always conveniently unprovable, untestable, and, on some occasions, nonsensical).

Blessings
~ND

If decriminalizing the use of psychedelics for those who are using them for personal, medical and spiritual explorations is the goal then data points are necessary if we are talking about convincing the legal community to support that cause. Most data points they have to go on are media hysteria, not real data. MAPS has been working really hard to rescue research from the death Leary handed the scientific community.

Who is anyone to tell a group of people they cannot form a religion if they are sharing like principles and practices whatever our personal beef with organized religions may be. I can imagine the amalgam of things people would create if given the entheogen loophole. Scary lol.

For me personally I actually go to a church because their practice attracted me. It was never and is never promoted in the way churches usually are. We have organic gardens, keep bees, have a community bike shop, you can be gay and get married there. It's very left of the norm and very example driven without the preachy crap or coercion of faith by fear of burning in hell. I am def not a bible thumper by any stretch I just dig the asset they are to my community so I choose to fellowship with them and participate.

BUT the entheogenic side of my spiritual practice is a compartmentalized part of my life when it comes to my community because of the obvious legal reasons. Here on the Nexus is the only place I feel safe to share and learn because of our relative anonymity. I wish I had the same kind of access to community IRL without those fears in place. Knowing people who get high and knowing intelligent people who will participate in entheogenic work with me are two very different things. It would be great to see the idea evolve beyond the probable poison of religion. Great topic and I have been loving the skepticism.

So to clarify my position a bit, in no way at all am I trying to suggest that push-back is unwarranted. You're right anne, the process of having your work reviewed by peers is not only inevitable but critical. And I actually agree with most of the criticisms that were initially laid out here. I don't think it's productive to assume that simply because we like to get high we are somehow qualified to dictate to others how they should engage with psychedelic drugs, as if we hold some kind of moral or spiritual high-ground.

But as soon as that was put out there, I feel like this thread quickly turned into a free-for-all of peoples personal feelings about organized religion, institutions, etc... Many of these opinions I don't even disagree with. But if someone who wants to build a church is asking for feedback on their proposal to build a church, I don't think it's useful to say, "Well, I'm not religious and I don't believe in churches so you should just do something entirely different." If you're not into organized forms of spirituality but you'd like to have a legal outlet for psychedelic exploration, then start doing the work necessary to meet your own needs. Don't tear down someone else's vision simply because it doesn't align with your own. If harm is occurring that is one thing, but if no harm is being done then I really don't see the point. Constructive criticism and dismissal are two different things, and I feel nearly every project that is proposed here that isn't solely about teks, harm reduction, chemistry, etc...is quickly shut down because people are so quick to dismiss something over some petty difference in approach/philosophy. You aren't about institutions? Cool, then go start a psychedelic collective and let us know how it goes. Don't like politics? Fine, but don't tell the person who is proposing a political project not to include politics in their work. Don't think psychedelics are inherently spiritual? That's dandy, but don't degrade the people who'd like to come together to explore their own interpretations of psychedelia.


As someone who doesn't have a formal training/education in hard sciences, I am very grateful that there are members such as yourself who challenge the new-age rhetoric that dominates the psychedelic scene. I've always been someone who needs to see hard evidence and who values the scientific method, and so having folks like you around to step in and offer a grounded perspective is extremely valuable. In the context of day-to-day interactions on the forum, I absolutely 100% agree with you. There is a LOT of over-zealous promotion of ideas that, while interesting, are shaky at best. So please believe me when I say that I see this too and I don't feel that you are wrong at all; I don't mean to suggest that the forum in general is dominated by "science-dogma" (whatever that means) because I mostly agree that it's actually the opposite.

But my frustration with the nexus is the tendency for people to be ignored or dismissed whenever they suggest actually doing something outside of the confines of this forum. People seem to find any excuse they can think of to either not participate, or to shut down the idea entirely. In some cases, yeah I think it's warranted. We get some loony ideas that float around sometimes, and every now and then some of those ideas might actually be harmful upon closer examination. I don't think what Warrior is suggesting fits this category though. Yeah, I think there's some ethical implications to consider eg ayahuasca and cactus--and I'd encourage the OP to think about that--but I don't understand why people here are so resistant to the idea of someone acting on their dreams. It might not be your dream, but surely we can actively support one another while also recognizing that we might personally have different visions? Or maybe not. I dunno where the nexus is at spiritually, politically, whatever...but I really hoped we'd have the common decency to uplift eachother's efforts when all we are really pushing for in the end is cognitive liberty. And that looks different for different people, just like a psychedelic trip.

I do have formal training in scientific research, I've done my time in academia. When I question scientific dogma, I do so as a researcher. I know full well the philosophy of science, in which everything in the universe can to be measured and falsified. It's a great tool for understanding the parts of this universe we can falsify and measure, but it does a poor job addressing the vast realms of experience beyond that.

Regarding buddhism, if you leave aside all the dogma and trappings that have built up over the years and stick to just what he actually taught, what the buddha proposed is a research hypothesis (the 4 noble truths) and a step-by-step experiment (the noble 8-fold path) to replicate his results (liberation). The buddha's approach I'd think should be appreciable to anyone versed in the scientific method.

@Warrior What I really was getting at is that MAPS ultimate goals are to create spaces very much like what you are proposing. they are just using the medical approach and research to get their foot in the legal door, and it's working pretty well so far. Supporting MAPS is probably the best bet we have for actually reforming the laws regarding psychedelics in the immediate future.

If you want to go the religious route I can respect that, I'd just suggest that it may be worth looking into the existing churches and models and seeing how you can support or collaborate or work off the foundation they've built. This applies in all the other arena's as well, and this is my big critique on most of these proposals I see people making here. Why reinvent the wheel? Why insist on fighting the incredibly difficult uphill battle of psychedelic recognition from the bottom of the mountain, when so many have worked so hard to get us to the point where we have established a base camp at the summit? Perhaps it makes more sense to seek out and support existing institutions that really need the help and resources and are already many steps ahead of us on the path toward our mutual goals?

This is exactly what I am doing. It's precisely this. That is, support existing lineages in the modern world. The intention is to facilitate the transmission of existing oral traditions to students within the United States. I'm not defining a new religion myself, but a center like this will bring everyone together under than name of entheogens.

Ayahuasca shamanism isn't for everyone, and neither is any ONE religion for everyone. Humans exist within a spectrum of experience, with some over here, and some over there... Yet, plants have the potential to unite all in ceremony of life. And I, among many others I have met along the way, like to learn from many traditions and lineages. There is no reason why you have to label yourself and identify as one branch. Most eastern traditions are a path that is later on let go of anyways. The graduate level of spiritual development is a total release of labels, and go back into the world naked and vulnerable all over again. For most, it is a life long project once it has begun.

What I am proposing is a direct solution to a very real dilemma: there does not currently exist what I am describing, yet there is no reason why it can't exist right now (besides making everyone uncomfortable). The current groups leave unmet demand because they don't represent a very wide gamut of human walks of life.

We don't currently have a space to go and develop the self in a spiritual context using plant medicines as tools on the spiritual path within the United States besides a few pocket groups that exclude most others from participating.

The hardest part of integrating these teachings is to fit in in the west. Going to the Amazon basin is not something everyone can do, and similar can be said about any place in the world. If you are born into the US, live and work in the US, why should you have to travel outside the US when all the intellectual loadings of this path can be learned about online, or close to home? And if you are fortunate enough to travel for this purpose, you most likely have to return to your born life in the US at some point anyways. We need a place of reference within the US. If we organized this as a community-centric project, we could build it from the ground up with our people, our teachers, our scientists and psychonautic explorers, and build relationships with all other traditions that are open to it, which there are many. I guarantee a place like this would grow very fast and would become an international destination in a few short years if it was run like a western institution with the mission of promoting and facilitating spiritual development work.

The only problem that I can see is that it is a huge undertaking.

personally , im always gonna be an indie.
dont need no religions when im stoned or straight.

if ya all want such a thing, fine.
IMO the demand is way overstated .

what happens 10 yrs down the road when some religious.org on drugs,
packed with noob and zealots , diverges from the indies on some dogma point?

um, does the mob of noobs suddenly rule the agenda?
havent we seen that very issue on other forums already?
do we need to add an ad hoc religion to it all?

fools have a strong track record, of banding together to railroad crackpot ideas mainstream.
my evidence of this absolute fact, is apparent in american politics.

i still suggest, the last thing we need is a pope of hallucinogens.
what we really need is education and discernment and caution.

and finally, based on the bell curve alone,
there is no way your gonna be able to trust the masses wholesale with hallucinogens.
especially combined with religion.

^

part of my open source tek crusade for cacti and fungi,
is to decentralize the whole experience and its supply.

a halluciongen based religion,
with a monopolistic supply line,
would be as bad as jim jones.

open sources supply, would really slow down the worst abuses of centralized dogma.

maybe i have too many white girl problems to think about while i lounge around,
but this topic is part of the big reasons why i opted to always be open source on supply teks.
i empower people first, never organizations.

we can never allow centralized supply from a religious or political group.
never.

I see plenty moar problems than that. Just who pays for your fancy retreat center initially? Who are the lawyers willing to fight the decades-long court battle to gain the recognition to legally engage in these practices in the US? How are the employees needed to run such a center going to be recruited, trained, and compensated? How are the experts/shamans/curers going to be recruited, trained, and compensated? Where is the medicine coming from? How do we ensure sustainable practices in obtaining that medicine? What systems or structures will be in place to prevent the horrible abuses of power we see so often in other psychedelic retreats around the world? Etc... etc... etc...

Sure, not everyone can afford to go retreat in Peru. Does this mean it makes moar sense to have them go retreat somewhere in the US? I would argue that this very model of retreat centers works to disempower people and and makes them reliant on these so called "experts" and centers as the only right and one true way to engage the medicine, when we all know that is not the case, and a great proportion of these centers enable people with less than noble intentions to take advantage of the fairly naive spirtual seekers that would choose to attend them.

IMO, the real work of the medicine is not to take 2 weeks vacation and drink ayahuasca with a Shipibo shaman 8 times, marking it off the bucket list, and pronouncing yourself an expert on the matter. The real work of the medicine is in cultivating a personal relationship with it amidst living your daily life, working your 9-5, raising your family, engaging in your community. If you can demonstrate with your actions that the medicine makes you a more kind, compassionate, and engaged human being in your day-to-day life, that speaks a whole lot louder than being able to proclaim you spent a large sum of money to go retreat with some "experts" somewhere for a holiday.


^^^ QFT