So, first off, I'll make a disclaimer, this isn't intended to be a trip report....sort of...

I mostly just feel like blasting out there what my mind has been chewing on today. So, here goes!


So I had planned on doing a shroom trip today. I cleared my schedule, mentally prepared, and was ready. I wanted some freshies, and it's that time of year! So, I went to one of my good pickin patches I've yet to go to this year. Man, was I in luck. I really don't even need any mushrooms, I have plenty of dried ones, but there's just something about it. It's like they ask me, "Please! Please pick us!"

So, I comply.

I am very happy to see those bad boys (psilocybe cyanescens) are spreading far and wide. I first found them a few years ago in just one area, and now they are all over the place! I filled up my coffee cup in a matter of minutes. I took that as a good sign of my trip to come.

So, the very best way I have found to have mushrooms is fresh, with rue. I took about 6.5 g of mushrooms, and 2.5 g of rue. The trip was so profound. I don't even know where to begin.

I suppose, I got to thinking about the nature of beauty, and goodness. I quote from Einstein floated around my head. Well, it was more of a story. As a child, Einstein had a teacher who was claiming this and that about evil, but (in different words) Einstein contended that evil was merely the absence of good. He did this by relating it to the properties of heat, and how there is no "cold" but merely the absence of heat.

I remember talking about good, and beauty in my philosophy class a few years back. It all clicked! Beauty and good are fundamental properties of the universe, in the same way that heat is. There is no ugliness, and there is no badness, just as there cannot be absolute zero (a state where there is no thermal energy). This is the nature of the universe! What a profound and wonderful idea.

Another thought I've had quite a bit recently is the mechanical view of life, and humanity. The current view science has of life is that it is made of atoms, and molecules, which act like machines. They all have a clearly defined set of mechanics that nature decides, and thus, life in general is very complex machinery. I suppose I agree with this to a point, but I've had an issue with it.

The machine view of life by default states that I have no free will. I am merely a product of the interactions of the atoms that make me up, and cannot decide anything. That would mean, consciousness is an illusion to me. But then, if there is an illusion, that implies someone to be fooled. Which leads back to the self, the conscious mind. One of the inherent qualities of consciousness is to be aware. But how can I be aware when I am merely a product of the mechanics of my atoms?

As you can see, it's quite a mess! In short, I have decided that something must be added to the machine view, and its an age old concept. The only way to have free will is for there to be an overall force, a decider. That's the soul, consciousness, life force. To me, they are all one. They are that which makes me capable of deciding. So, my mind is not a product of the atoms that make me, the atoms in me are beholden to my mind. To a point, of course.

This all implies that I really do have free will. I just think a universe with aware beings, without free will would be horrifically stupid, so I don't accept it.

I suppose that means I'm done with that issue. I feel pretty good about that, now!

My final thought of profundity has to do with the nature of God. I find is fascinating to logically deduce what, or who, or how God is. I am agnostic, but I do believe there must be a god, I just don't know God's motives.

So my thought today was that God is the cracks in the universe. God is the thing that allows for the transition, the change. Without God, there was no change, without change there is no universe. Change from one state, one instant, to the next is one of the fundamental properties of the universe. God is the change.

Stephen Hawking said that God doesn't exist, because the universe would be created by a cause (God) and effect (God lighting the fuse). This implies time, which is one of the fundamental properties of the universe, and time doesn't exist outside of it. Thus, the cause/effect cycle of God could not exist.

But I think, that the universe is a perfect circle. A circle, when properly drawn, stands alone. It forms a relation to itself, and is self sustaining, it is self-contained. The universe is much the same way, but on a much higher dimensional scale than a 2D circle. So, I think God must like blowing bubbles. These bubbles are of infinite dimensions, and self-contained.

Our universe exists because something, conscious or not, created the ability for change.

If you have read this far, thank you. You have great stamina!

This is really just a taste of what my mind went through today. I had thoughts like these whizzing about all over the place, like a bee hive. I wish I could keep better track! Couple that with breakthrough visuals on a level I have not seen in my, not-too-long-but-still-pretty-seasoned, years of tripping, and you have a pretty good idea of my day.

It was exactly what I set out to find, it was exactly what I needed, and I am eternally grateful.

Thank you, other human brain for receiving this message on the other end of these complex set of ridiculous electronics.

yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

i am very much in agreement with what you said and it deeply resonates within me

thanks for sharing

much love

Fabulous! Thanks for this, it made my day. You are a clear and interesting thinker my friend. I have written some odd paragraphs here and there that resemble these, but your few sentences have given me more to mull over. The thing I love about all these substances is their ability to incite ideas and creativity in open and receptive minds. Ideas often concerning existence, reality, consciousness, the self, the soul, god and the nature of the universe - really the only things worthy of serious contemplation!

Cheers,

JBArk

Great thoughts. I never really liked the machineview we get presented from science these days. Especially for the simple fact that you can break a machine apart, put all its parts back together and it will still work. This does not apply to a living organism.

So yes I agree with you to reject this idea. What I have come to believe is that consciousness is not something constructed by the brain, but rather the other way around. That we come out of consciousness, that is the force that drives the universe and we are merely one manifestation of it.

Thanks for the kind words. I am glad you folks found my ramblings interesting! Though I shall likely never meet any of you in person, I just love the fact that I was able to express my thoughts to you.

It's truly magic we work here, isn't it?

"Another thought I've had quite a bit recently is the mechanical view of life, and humanity. The current view science has of life is that it is made of atoms, and molecules, which act like machines. They all have a clearly defined set of mechanics that nature decides, and thus, life in general is very complex machinery. I suppose I agree with this to a point, but I've had an issue with it.

The machine view of life by default states that I have no free will. I am merely a product of the interactions of the atoms that make me up, and cannot decide anything. That would mean, consciousness is an illusion to me. But then, if there is an illusion, that implies someone to be fooled. Which leads back to the self, the conscious mind. One of the inherent qualities of consciousness is to be aware. But how can I be aware when I am merely a product of the mechanics of my atoms?"

I have thought about this many many times on mushrooms as well, and it has brought me to the point where I outright reject modern science as a way to objectively view reality because it dismisses using the most advanced perceptual tool(our own consciousness) that we know of. Science is useful and has brought us many things, but I don't feel it has truly been objective.

I just cannot for the life of me believe that you can have a truly objective model of the cosmos that removes consciousness from the equation. When describing nature for instance, how can you describe it without seriously concidering our own conscious emotions toward nature. The scientific method is such a sterile approach that it ignores this aspect of reality..and it most definatly is an aspect of reality. I am not sure simply machanizing a thing like an emotion, simply because it is too abstract to properly measure is an objective approach. It is simply a rational and minimalist approach, and the cosmos seems to be neither.

People can tend to get mad when you say things like this, and claim your just too stupid to understand science or to quacked out on new age ideas. I say to these people to prove the world is the way they say it is. The odds of the commonly accepted understanding of the cosmos being even close to the mark is likely to be very very very very very very low.

This is what led me to the mindset I now hold, that of a sort of neo animist with hints of pantheism and even soft polytheism at times. After many mushroom experiences and one very deep lucid dream I had after passing out after an ayahuasca experience I ended up a devout subscriber of the gaia hypothesis. Consciousness cannot be divorced from reality..nature is alive and she might as well be a deity. I cant think of many things that would fit that term better.

Two weeks ago I took a cubensis tincture with some rue extract and had the realization that nature must make these things just so that higher mammals can come along, eat them and then sit in awe of nature.

Yes, jamie, I agree with you on most things. I think science is a great tool, and I am a firm proponent of it, but it is certainly lacking in some ways.

Newtonian physics is incredibly good at predicting the motions of the planets, and is still the model used to guide space craft through the solar system. It is also wrong. It was replaced with Einstein's relativity, which will likely be replaced with something else in the future.

I believe this parallels the machine view of nature. It makes some wonderfully accurate predictions, but in other ways it is simply lacking.

I suppose my overall request for the sake of science, is to give it time. Ideally, it should work better by being more flexible, but it is run by imperfect humans. Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that it is a fairly new system of thought. Indigenous cultures have had a huge jump start ahead of science in terms of the time they have been around. Because of this, they obviously have much to offer.

All in all, science has not even really begun to probe the mysteries of consciousness. It may turn out to be a problem that is incapable of being solved with the objective view of science, and something else must be devised to unravel it. I wonder if that's what we are actually doing here....

I completely agree!

I think Peter Russel's lecture: The Primacy of Consciousness really explains why science is looking at things in a wrong way. i advise everyone interested in this subject to watch it.

Nice report, Peabody.

"What better way for God to know himself than to divide his awareness so that he can observe objectively as creator and subjectively as creation?"

(The Cracking Tower, Jim DeKorne)