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 Moses_Davidson
Non-Prophet
 
Registered: 05/21/20
Posts: 613
Last seen: 6 months, 14 days
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 Re: visionary vs. mundane experience - anything to follow here?  [Re: Moses_Davidson]
#26691383 - 05/23/20 10:30 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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So, there are academics, and practitioners, and everything in between?
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"In finance, everything that is agreeable is unsound and everything that is sound is disagreeable." --Sir Winston Churchill
"The world may not only be stranger than we suppose, it may be stranger than we can suppose."
J.B.S. Haldane
"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't."
Mark Twain
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 redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,173
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Re: visionary vs. mundane experience - anything to follow here? [Re: Moses_Davidson]
#26691941 - 05/24/20 06:54 AM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Moses_Davidson said:
... If the visionary state is induced by prayer, meditation, cacti, or golden teachers... maybe that visionary state is the academia which provides teaching to be applied in the practitioner's world.
inspiration, or personal lessons; academia is more about the clan's acceptance, and about order, conformity, and obedience.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida 
Last seen: 3 years, 2 months
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I think Mother Nature attempts to keep us grounded as you say. There are all these hierarchical systems in psychology and esoteric religion. The more earthbound levels embody all manner of struggle from the Maslowian Hierarchy of Needs, as soon as we receive the wake-up call to be born a titanic struggle for a first breath of air ensues. I am thinking of all the trials and tribulations of learning and of social acceptance and rejection I experienced up through late adolescence. And that was just the beginning. I had to find some way to survive, to make money in our society. Getting a protracted education was not merely in the service of survival but drew down higher motives for meaning and purpose. For my psychological type merely making a living or having social status was not sufficient. Survival, sex, and power did not rule me. I needed a meta-motive which for me dovetailed on the experiences I had sought for meaning, like my early psychedelic exploration and the subsequent pursuit of intellectual understanding of those awe-inspiring and sometimes terrifying ordeals.
Some of my townie high school friends were not troubled by existential crises of meaning. By way of comparison, one fellow I've known since age 6 worked for a dry cleaner during high school. Forgoing college he worked for Kay-Bee Toys at entry level, then manager, then a regional manager for a few states. By the time I finished college and was again living with my folks attending a nearby seminary for God-knows what purpose, he had two houses, one at the Jersey shore, a fishing boat, and a Corvette Stingray. I had nothing but some books, some music, a stereo, and my meager mostly denim wardrobe (like today). He went on to marry, had two kids, and is now a grandfather and still working at age 65. The Protestant work ethic is his guiding star. Marijuana/hashish intoxication frightened him in high school and he never took another substance other than alcohol. I moved away from NJ and we've had only rare contact. His NJ wife unfriended and blocked me from her Facebook page when I began posting anti-Trump material and now there is no going back.
Some might call this former childhood friend a "salt of the Earth" kind of fellow, and alchemically Salt is the dense, earthbound element of our nature. But he never indicated any Psychic Sulphur or Pneumatic Mercury. Never in all the years I knew him did he show a Jonathan Livingston Seagull urge to soar. The very idea of dissolving his staid world-view must've been abhorrent to him. My former friend has expanded on the earth-plane so-to-speak, he has done his due diligence biologically. He was always very sensate and probably hasn't read a book since high school. Also, he inherited racism from his father and no doubt passed it to his son if not his daughter (who married a cop). Grounded individuals it would seem sometimes (often times?) fail to draw down consciousness from the higher realms of human existence, from the soul and spirt as alchemy would say, leaving this basic hylic being (from hyle, matter) existing very materialistically. This can occur on all socio-economic levels.
Trump shat on a golden 'throne,' his home a gaudy Rococo palace, yet the man is a Philistine, a vulgar, low-class, con-man with no taste for the finer artistic, musical, intellectual achievements of the human race. My former middle-class friend remains a provincial, opinionated and even racist, unsophisticated man uninterested in art, music, philosophy, literature or in a word - ideas! Yet he has proliferated. I on the other hand did nothing to contribute to my tribe's decimation in the Holocaust and beyond that, for failing to obey the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply," Orthodox Judaism says I will have to transmigrate, return to fulfill what I have failed to do this time.I also disappointed my parents, but the thought of being a parent never really crossed my mind growing up. I have one house and a 17 year old car, but I counseled troubled, damaged, and traumatized adolescents for almost 3 decades for an educator's salary. I have never felt grounded or comfortable in my own body except on some psychedelic trips. My natal chart is very 'airy,' my Mercury (intellect) is in Leo (a Fire sign) says my wife. I seem to have defied Mother Nature for Father God, if the metaphor of being grounded is juxtaposed by being more of the 'sky.' I've always been a 'space-cadet' and after a lifetime of fighting against the gravitational pull of earthbound forces I am now free in retirement to float fairly effortlessly until my time here is up. 
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
Edited by MarkostheGnostic (05/26/20 01:21 AM)
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head
Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,859
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Excellent.
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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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pineninja
Dream Weaver
Registered: 08/17/14
Posts: 12,468
Loc: South 
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Yep.
All I will say is that I'm lucky enough to have a good friend who lifts me as regularly as I ground him.
Together through acceptance we both progress towards better selfs.
Like you though Markos the older I get the lighter I seem to be.
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Just a fool on the hill.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 months
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DQ
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 months
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Re: visionary vs. mundane experience [Re: pineninja]
#26698418 - 05/27/20 02:05 AM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
pineninja said:
Yep.
All I will say is that I'm lucky enough to have a good friend who lifts me as regularly as I ground him.
Together through acceptance we both progress towards better selfs.
Like you though Markos the older I get the lighter I seem to be.
pineninja
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,173
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I am trying not to get more whiter as I age
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 months
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Re: visionary vs. mundane experience [Re: redgreenvines]
#26699266 - 05/27/20 11:33 AM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said:
I am trying not to get more whiter as I age
"We skipped the light fandango
Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor..."
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,173
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then ok! whiter shade of pale:
Quote:
And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale
not sure why that sounded so so good to me, it replayed in technicolor in my mind all night - (my first purple microdot.)
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 months
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 Re: visionary vs. mundane experience [Re: redgreenvines]
#26699665 - 05/27/20 02:33 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Vomited on my 2nd acid trip, a 1/8" squared smear of brown gook on wax paper. Then, a year later after insufflating 2 hits of Orange Sunshine, one up each nostril. Overload on Light. VOMMMMMit. I heard A Lighter Shade of Pale after my certification dives in Key Largo. On the Saturday dive I became horribly sick and asked my partner to shoot me (he always carried). I made a father barf on his son!  The next day on Dramamine I was fine. On the way home, this song was the first to come on the car's radio. Hmmm, that was 1986. Already an old song (and I'm older still).
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,173
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nausea and holiness go hand in hand
you have been close to god a lot
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Ancient Mariner
Friend
Registered: 05/17/20
Posts: 76
Last seen: 2 years, 9 months
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said:
Do you feel that altered states are superior to normal consensus awareness? Can one exist without the other? Would it not be reasonable to suppose that evolution did not design us to be high all the time -- if, indeed, we are not naturally high all the time?
More goes through the lenses in psychedelic states. That's one reason why I love em. Opiates and alcohol, for me at least and especially over time, did the opposite. That's why I no longer do them.
Objective and subjective realities seem hinged to each other and cannot be cleanly divided, or at least be knowable. One could observe the physical reality of dreams with the right instruments and a more than human level of knowledge of neuroscience; just as a subjective experience is required to see the physical realities. I don't hold either to be superior, although for most of us on here including myself, I'll guess we generally prefer the imagination over the sciences.
I like the question of whether we are naturally high all the time or not. I think we are in a way and that these highs, which are inexpressible in scientific terminology, are very much adapted towards survival and reproduction in a chaotic world. I think Aldous Huxley in The Doors of Perception writes about this; that the reason we do not see the entire picture that mescalin and other psychedelics show us, is because it would less likely ensure survival as a species. I can't remember the details of his argument.
In some ways this would make sense. For instance, having that type of awareness expends a lot of mental energy for sure. I feel drained after psychedelics and that is only for 6 hours. Couldn't imagine being like that for weeks on end. In other ways, though, psychedelics have helped survival. This awareness allowed me and others to quit bad habits that would have shortened life.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,173
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I contrive to have the visionary mix with the mundane as frequently as manageable to better activate and appreciate my world, especially during COVID lockdown while I do not have to be anywhere at any time.
Since big doses are harder to recover from, and while they engage epic experiences, those experiences are kind of hard to recall and weave back into a meaningful texture of life in mundanity; therefore I have drifted into smaller samplings of the infinite, samplings that are easily interspersed with ordinary life. This makes for a charmed existence if you can get away with it. (it's a bit sneaky.)
I like to be able to access visionary forms, yet if I go too far, the forms become less compatible with mundane mentality (loss for content and loss of connection). Mild visionary content, however, creates a living channel to the depths and that is pretty good; I am connecting but not trying to breathe under water.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 months
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Re: visionary vs. mundane experience [Re: redgreenvines]
#26702412 - 05/28/20 06:29 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said:
nausea and holiness go hand in hand
you have been close to god a lot
I never heard/read THAT before! If you're serious, care to elaborate? I remember an article Andrew Weil wrote about mushrooms entitled Throwing Up in Mexico. When I was pretty young, 4 or 5, vomiting used to evoke real terror. I think the spasms/contractions of my abdominal muscles and the gush of hot fluid up my throat flashed me back to the birth trauma and its "titanic struggle with life and death" in the birth canal with amniotic fluid being crushed out of my lungs.
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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pineninja
Dream Weaver
Registered: 08/17/14
Posts: 12,468
Loc: South
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I've sworn to almost all incarnations at some point that id stop drinking if they made the hangover go away.
It's never worked....maybe because id never have kept the promise.
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Just a fool on the hill.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 months
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 Re: visionary vs. mundane experience [Re: pineninja]
#26702987 - 05/28/20 11:30 PM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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....annnd it's a fly ball way out into left field...
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,173
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said:
Quote:
redgreenvines said:
nausea and holiness go hand in hand
you have been close to god a lot
I never heard/read THAT before! If you're serious, care to elaborate? I remember an article Andrew Weil wrote about mushrooms entitled Throwing Up in Mexico. When I was pretty young, 4 or 5, vomiting used to evoke real terror. I think the spasms/contractions of my abdominal muscles and the gush of hot fluid up my throat flashed me back to the birth trauma and its "titanic struggle with life and death" in the birth canal with amniotic fluid being crushed out of my lungs.
It may be due to ht5 receptors in the gut, but my holiest moments have been while stoned, and usually during some recovery from the most nauseous stage of a psychedelic trip.
I begin to get nauseous around holy people too. it brings it all back, and up.
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Ferdinando
Registered: 11/15/09
Posts: 3,748
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Re: visionary vs. mundane experience [Re: redgreenvines]
#26703664 - 05/29/20 07:14 AM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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you're a great genius
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with our love with our love we could save the world
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Ferdinando
Registered: 11/15/09
Posts: 3,748
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Re: visionary vs. mundane experience [Re: Ferdinando]
#26703665 - 05/29/20 07:15 AM (3 years, 10 months ago) |
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that's someone that gets it
him and zohan
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with our love with our love we could save the world
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