I dont know..I have given salvia to many many people that were not familiar with the literature..they knew nothing of the whole lady salvia thing and many of them experiences the same damn phenomenon either way..I dont think this stuff is 100% placebo..some of it is yes..

I am not saying there are real plant spirits but the experience of things like the salvia entity seem to be common across the board.it's just part of the experience for many people..weather they are expecting it or not.

I also think I could tell the difference between say, psilocybin and mescaline..if someone gave me mescaline and said it was psilocybin I think I would begin to think I was dosed with something else eventually once it started..

If you know the two very well then that’s a different story. But if you've never had mescaline and only psilocybin a few times, and someone gave you psilocybin and said it was mescaline, I bet you would think it was mescaline and that knowledge although false would have an impact on the trip.

^yeah I agree with that..at first all these things do feel similar..

I respect and treasure anything that comes from the earth, plants and ethnogens are precious gifts. I feel that ethnogens are doorways which connect us with specific knowledge.

In my experience each ethnogen has its own presence, depending on what you need to learn in this life determines which ethnogens you will be drawn to and choose to work with in your journey.

Each and every persons journey is in a different stage of the cycle...we all have our own personal paths to travel. This is my own truth, it my not be anybody elses truth...

Much Peace and Sunshine

I didn't mean to associate you with an organized group. Most people in the world are ID'ers and don't even realize it. I was actually just asking if you really believed the universe was designed by an intelligence so I could formulate a response without misinterpreting your previous response. I knew you weren't a creationist and most creationists made up term intelligent design as political ploy but it actually describes the beliefs of most people rather well without calling it 'god'. Anyway my apologies if it was said in the wrong way.



Yea I was joking about that one but I didn't make it clear that I was but anyway...Next is what I really want to discuss



This is perhaps the central confusion people have with Darwinian evolution / natural selection.

But first information..

Every single piece of matter is a form of information. If we take it as low as we can now go (subatomic particles) they have information in them. A quantum state (like spin) is a bit of information. Therefore all inanimate forces have information contained within them.

I'll get back to the rock question.



Yes and this is exactly why an intelligence cannot design a universe or life without having first evolved by a darwinian / natural selection process. To just claim a designer is to forget to ask what designed the designer?



Creating information does not require intelligence because as I said information is just a bit. At the edge of what we know it takes the form of quantum states. In computers information is binary.

The highly advanced technology communicated via highly intelligent beings manipulating genetic material is why I asked if you were an Id'er. This is 100% contradictory to everything that evolution has taught us and is thus a denial of evolution. Complexity can always arise from simpler building blocks via a kind of evolutionary process. This can be done with living and even non living things. It can even be observed with simple computer programs (although thats not proof its just proof of concept) the real proof is everywhere.

Lets take a non living example. Stars. Most stars started as balls of individual hydrogen atoms that eventually gathered together via gravity and reached enough pressure to start a nuclear fusion furnace. This creates helium which is something different then hydrogen so we therefore have increasing complexity because technically there is now more information in that system because we've created something new. There are obviously more technical details that would take a long time to type out so I hope you can see the point (if not lets discuss further). After the star runs out of enough fuel and collapses it can explode into a supernova which creates from the previous atoms even more complex atoms and molecules which again is an overall increase in complexity within that system.

In a sense its an evolution of information and information that is not stable changes into information that is capable of continuing until it changes again from the unavoidable laws of nature. Just think of the hydrogen atom it changed once it became a helium atom because it could not stay a hydrogen atom under the pressure and temperature, that helium atom could not sustain the supernova so it became another atom and on and on and on everything over time works like this.

Life if afflicted by this same kind of process except it has genetic material that is not perfect so it changes and thus can evolve into new more complex life. Life has qualities that non life has too but I won't go over them all (unless we really need too?). Where many people get confused is the inanimate to animate part. But this is all a construct of the human mind. Where does life begin and where does it end? Nature doesn't need such fine boundries and things such as virus's, prion's, and catalytic RNA are proof of that. They have some life like qualities but they don't have enough of them to be considered alive.

Concerning the origin of life. Personally I think one day someone will observe something like catalytic RNA form from a random soup of nucleotides (which we already know can form spontaneously from simpler building blocks) under the right conditions. Something like RNA that could catalyze chemical reactions was very likely the first thing to have life like qualities. This is all life needs to evolve into all the complex forms we see today. There's no question of the evolution of life after something like like starts. To say that just because no one has observed something like this refutes evolution and thus requires intelligent beings doing all the real work is a terrible argument because your facing a weight of evidence that is overwhelming and presenting a theory with no evidence at all.

My main point is that I think it's disrespectful to the plant to cut off pieces of it in the first place. I am sure the plant does not appreciate it and if the plant could talk it would probably scream in pain as you cut off pieces of it to put into your brew.

I know I would scream in pain if you cut off part of me to make tea out of me.

I think this whole "plant spirit" idea is misplaced. I do believe they have a spirit, but I don't believe you are in contact with that spirit when you ingest their hallucinogenic alkaloids whether in pure form or not because you've killed the plant, and it's spirit is long gone after that.

What you're experiencing is contact with another "reality" that has all sorts of possibilities and your mind set can alter what you see in that "reality".

Who's to say that these psychedelic molecules themselves do not have a spirit? Maybe they do. SWIM cannot tell the difference between completely synthetic mescaline and natural mescaline, nor can he feel the absence of any "spirit". He can feel the absence of plant matter, a few other alkaloids, and that's it. The rest is all in your mind.

I think the moment you've cut your cactus you've caused it great pain. It's hurting and would scream in agony if you could hear it. People being as self centered as they are, want to believe that somehow cutting the plant is OK. Making peyote go extinct to experience it's "spirit" is somehow ok. It doesn't make sense to me. When you cut the plant you are hurting it. There's no respect in hurting another life form.

I see so many contradictions here. People are not making sense. At one end it's disrespectful to extract a plant, and at the other end it's ok to kill the plant and make tea out of it. That makes no sense at all.

Peyote is becoming extinct. It's far better if you DO NOT INGEST PEYOTE. Leave it alone. I'm sure if it has a spirit that its spirit does not want to become extinct. Get your mescaline from something else.

It's funny how in peyote visions no one ever experiences the spirit complaining that it's going extinct. That really makes me wonder just how real this idea of a plant spirit actually is (in conjunction with hallucinogens anyway). It seems to me the plant spirit would be begging man kind to leave it alone so that it won't go extinct at the cost of humans experience visions from it.

^ I actaully fully agree..and becasue of this I have chosen to not take any fresh leaves from my salvia plants..I only collect the leaves that they drop..and I easily get enough to have a supply to smoke since I dont use it that often..I dont like the idea of chopping half my salvia plants up just to get 20 leaves to quid..I would rather just save up dry leaves that fall off to quid or just smoke a dired leaf..they arent as nice and green, more brown but still strong and my plants arent being sliced up..

The only time I cut them is for cuttings..but if I didnt do that they would be root bound and grow all wierd and die anyway..

This is also why I like vilca and mushrooms..the seeds will drop anyway and the tree is not suffering and the mushrooms can be picked without damage to the mycelium..

When I grow caapi I will do the same thing as with the salvia..just use the leaves that it drops..

Life like ours can't exist without consuming other life. Eating a plant cannot be considered immoral unless you have no desire to live. How is it disrespectful then? Disrespect in this context to me is just a human construct. No other animal cares about the feelings of what its eating. Maybe some feel bad (who knows right?) but they won't exist for very long in nature.

However I agree with what you say about cutting a plant apart to experience its spirit is absurd if you are almost making it go extinct. Especially when there are better cheaper and more environmentally sustainable sources.

But hurting it? No. Plants don't feel pain. They cannot perceive pain. You need a nervous system to experience pain in the way that makes animals scream and remember and perceive. Everything else in all other organisms is just chemical responses. The difference is clear from a biological standpoint down to the molecular level.

You do not know that to be a fact. Just because they do not work the way we do, doesn't mean they can't feel pain. Some plants, when under attack from insects send out chemical messages to other plants to warn them. THAT IS A FACT. So I think you are wrong here. They can feel pain. Otherwise how would they know they are under attack?

I would be comfortable allowing for defense mechanisms that are able to react to certain stimuli, without an accompanying sense of extreme displeasure that animals experience as pain.

Even a jellyfish lacks the centralized nervous system to experience its environment in a way that would be meaningful to a person.

Can't plants also have similar to heart attack effects from having their roots shocked?

We do know that at least plants get stressed..I dont like being stressed..by the very nature of the word it is a negative thing..if I dont like it why should a plant like it?..

Plants grow for a reason..when things are good and there is no stress they grow much better than when stressed..it's not that hard to understand..really, it's not.

Plants have a good of their own just like humans..a comfort zone..this is PROVEN since they grwo best under those circumstances..their objective is to grow..

So things liek stressing your cactus to make it prodoce more mescaline..yes I can see that being counterproductive to what the cactus is trying to achieve..makes perfect sense..makes me wonder why some people cant accpet that its possible mescaline is produced as a toxin against pests..otherwise why produce it when stressed?

Sure I eat plants and even animals but I dont pretend they like it and I like to keep suffering to a minimum..

I have even heard people over at aya.com talking about how they are fruititarians and dont hurt any plant life..yet they drink aya!

Yes, but the question is whether the plant can know or care whether it is growing optimally or not. Is my yogurt cup unhappy because being stored in the refrigerator is inhibiting the growth of bacteria?

I think that, more interesting than the idea that other life forms are just organic machines with stimulus-response programming of varying complexity, is the idea that we are not so special ourselves and are indeed simply more complex renditions of a similar machine refined by evolution.

"Yes, but the question is whether the plant can know or care whether it is growing optimally or not."

I understand that but to me that doesnt change the fact that when stressed they respond a certain way and stop growing and sometimes even die...what more is there to say?..something about the plant doesnt like it or it would just keep growing..weather or not it is concious of it in the same way as we are we dont know becasue we are not plants.

I don't think "like" has anything to do with it. If I pull the engine out of a car, it will stop working, but nobody will say that the car doesn't like being without an engine. Similarly, if I harvest a potato plant then yes it will cease to function, and when organisms cease to function they usually die. However, if I can just grow more potatoes in a sustainable fashion, what is the harm?

I choose not to eat meat because I feel that we ought not to cause unnecessary pain. But I don't feel that anything in my salad has the capacity to feel pain, miss its family, fear death, etc.

^yes that all makes sense..but with that logic I could say that it doesnt matter if I eat a cow either because it does not like or dislike it..it simply thinks it does becasue of the complexity of its biological system..which may be true..

a plant BTW is quite differnt from a car..that example is not as valid as it seems..
A plant strives to attain and maintain it nich ON ITS OWN..it photosynthesizes on it's own..
A car requires a person to put gas into it and start it up..the car is not self maintaining like the plant is..one is alive and one is not..

Not saying technoloy cannot be alive..just that in that example there is a variable..which is the self maintaining nature of the plant..

We can look at a cow's brain with an fMRI though, and see that it undergoes what we would experience as pain. Animals can feel fear, discomfort, and displeasure in ways that plants can not. I think this makes it more morally significant to torture an animal than a plant.

yes I agree that it is MORE morally significant..but not 100% more..that is my main point.

The thing is these plants aren't being eaten for survival. They are being chopped and brewed or smoked for a high. I think the whole spirit of the plan thing is a very simplistic view we westerners have latched on to because in our own lands we are spiritually dead and have no remembered history of ritual psychedelic use so we cut and paste pieces of other cultures beliefs.

In some ways it might be seen as arrogant to think that our stress(or any animals) is more important becasue we have a nervous system, compared to what a plant has..like our stress is morally more valid becasue of the complexity of our system..from our point of view of course it is..but relative to the situation is it?? a plants "range of experience" (dunno what else to call it) is more limited than ours..so stress to a plant even with out a nervous system to resond to it the way we do still in the end can possibly make it as shocking to them as stress is to us..when you view it in a relative sense..

It's like saying that a childs ups and downs are not as profound to them persoanlly as an adults are becasue their world is much simpler..but relativily that makes no sense and is an arrogant thing to say..becasue the way we respond to a givin situation depends on the range of experience we have..so to a simple being something simple can be a huge let down to them..whereas to a more complex being it requires more complex things to have the same impact..

Also showing respect for a plant that you eat doesn't mean you think that the plant somehow now thinks its okay to eat it..but showing respect for the plant itself shows that you realize and acknowledge that that things you are going to eat IS alive..and that life is being sacrificed so that YOU can live another day..suer it's simplistic..but it's also realistic..to not see that would make one truely spiritually dead IMO...someone who respects the circle of life and what is given up in order for them to go on is in the end going to leave this place better off than someone who doesn't..