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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly


Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,685
Loc: On the Border
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Enlightenment through the power of chemistry 3
#26725120 - 06/06/20 09:52 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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A couple of months ago I made a post that was commented on and I deleted it. I discouraged those people who thought they could find enlightenment through psychedelics. I underwent a lot of things that induced a lot of fear in me prior to this. Loss of friends, personal injury that was catastrophic for a periof of time. A bunch of crap happened all at once. It induced one moment of doubt. I was an asshole for ever doubting. The central thought has been the core of my life for over 40 years. And I've actually had a lot of success in my life.
I don't regret much and I don't regret making the post because it gave me an opening for this one. Look guys give it hell. Give it as much hell as you can give and when you can't take anymore give some more. I don't know if you become spiritually enlightened, but it's always helped me quite a bit. Just so you know I've been thinking about this for quite a while and it has actually bothered me. I'm an old man but I'm not quite ready to be an old man yet.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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zZZz
jesus



Registered: 12/28/07
Posts: 33,478
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
#26725128 - 06/06/20 10:01 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Cujllickduo



Registered: 06/13/15
Posts: 19,552
Loc: England
Last seen: 3 years, 6 months
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: zZZz]
#26725545 - 06/07/20 03:18 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,531
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
#26725851 - 06/07/20 07:55 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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buncha crap chem trail leads to one's soul
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Forrester
aspiring sociopath


Registered: 02/05/13
Posts: 9,351
Loc: Northeast USA
Last seen: 24 days, 15 hours
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: redgreenvines]
#26725994 - 06/07/20 09:09 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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I found a lot of value in psychedelics in my youth, but to me they never gave me the answers I sought. They were essential however, in breaking down false belief systems, ie; showing me what wasn't the answer. Finding what is the answer, for me is best done without the use of any drugs.
But that's just for me, everyone has their own path.
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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Kickle
Wanderer


Registered: 12/16/06
Posts: 17,852
Last seen: 26 seconds
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: Huehuecoyotl] 1
#26726070 - 06/07/20 09:39 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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The neurologist Oliver Sacks was one of the most humanitarian scientists I have seen and for him psychedelics were important for the human psyche. Not only for the insights they give into the inner workings but also for their ability to help us to alter our world. For him it didn't matter whether the alterations were mere illusion or something akin to breaking free of illusion. That was a moot point. What was important was that regardless of what it is, it is valuable for a human.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly


Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,685
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: Forrester]
#26726093 - 06/07/20 09:47 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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They never gave me those answers either,,,but hints were left on the trail....following them has made all the difference.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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The Blind Ass
Bodhi



Registered: 08/16/16
Posts: 26,657
Loc: The Primordial Mind
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: Kickle]
#26726097 - 06/07/20 09:48 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said: it didn't matter whether the alterations were mere illusion or something akin to breaking free of illusion. That was a moot point..
Absolutely.
Also, His book “ Hallucinations “ is damn good.
-------------------- Give me Liberty caps -or- give me Death caps
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Kickle
Wanderer


Registered: 12/16/06
Posts: 17,852
Last seen: 26 seconds
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: The Blind Ass]
#26726103 - 06/07/20 09:51 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Totally a great book. His ability to frame what would easily qualify as a horrifying experience into something both educational and palatable is amazing. And his ability to do that for those experiencing it first hand was even more amazing IMO.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
#26727758 - 06/07/20 10:46 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Greetings Hue! Long time no see. I feel ya about the old man identity. I am but I'm not feeling it or wearing the identity even though it is undeniably true. I'll be 67 next month. The pic below is of a guy who was 67 when it was taken. I have it as a fridge magnet for inspiration and I have gotten more serious about working out since the pandemic began. I am a Meso-Ectomorph so it is not in my constitution to get ripped but I have dilated my muscles somewhat and I maintain a 31". Of course I have physical maladies developing despite my best efforts with supplements but I'm not posting here to hold and old guy comparison conversation. I have no kids partly because my first wife was crazy and had a tubal ligation without discussion in our third year of marriage. (She died, went quite mad in March 2019 from advanced alcoholic dementia and irreversible malnutrition). I have no family but for a permanently estranged male sibling. My high school peers have been dying at an increasing rate. I have painfully few friends and no venues at my age for making new ones. No, I do not want to see pictures of your gradbabies. I am not a parent or a grandparent; I can be cordial but I can't relate, and frankly all babies are the same to me. I don't do sports and since Trump I despise politics. My intellectual passions have all cooled, and this includes psychedelics. I haven't had a real trip in 2-3 years.
Almost always isolated socially, the majority of my trips during my heyday were done alone. From age 40 til now I shared trips with one post-divorce former girlfriend and with my current wife. Psychedelics have been an important aspect of supplementation for health and well-being, but no, psychedelics do not result in a state of spiritual Enlightenment because Enlightenment is not a static condition that one enters into and remains in as I naively believed in my early 20s. Stoked on all manner of stories with the first powerful one being found in the first section of the book BE HERE NOW with regard to the Hindu Sat Guru Neem Karolie Baba ostensibly living in the exalted condition of Sat Chit Ananda.
Later, following college, I tried to find an equivalence to Enlightenment in my own Western culture and began to study Christian spirituality (no small thing for a Jewish guy, even a Jewish guy with a very undeveloped Jewish identity). I never read anything as preternatural (or supernatural) in Christian literature but was inspired by the anonymous Russian Orthodox pilgrim in the book The Way of a Pilgrim. Contrary to the pioneers of our generation, whether Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert/AKA Ram Dass, The Brotherhood of Eternal Light, or the Purple People from 1970s NYC's Central Park, Acid was not a panacea that was going to transform/save/enlighten the world. The world is mostly darkness existentially speaking, just as it may well be that Dark Energy and Dark Matter form the bigger part of creation. Novelty of tripping in different settings and with different mind-sets was bound to fade after 49 years of use!
I cannot say whether I am experiencing any Enlightenment or is it merely ennui. I have been retired (against my desire) since 2013 and with the pandemic I have turned away private paying therapy inquiries. I just seem to do chores repairing the house and yard from the constant entropic rot of über-humid Miami. Nothing really turns me on anymore, so I can say that in a conventional sense I have become fairly desireless - not for my next breath of air of course, but sex, food, travel, amusement, entertainment. I do not 'look forward' to weekend since everyday is like a weekend and even if I desired to travel I'm not flying during this pandemic. Something tells me that being called Enlightened has to be attributed by anyone but oneself. It's like the honorary 33° in Freemasonry, not something that's earned but a title attributed by others who see something that one who DOES evidence Enlightenment would not see in him/herself or he wouldn't embody the quality that people are attributing to him/her in the first place. One cannot be self-identified as Enlightened, that would be nothing but ego. Buddha just said that he was "awake," relative to others. While psychedelics can give one a higher perspective from one's ordinary perspective (along with all kinds of fireworks like auras, visions, occasional siddhis and synchronicities), and I am 'more Enlightened' than I was in earlier years, it is not valid to compare oneself to others using this title. 
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
Edited by MarkostheGnostic (06/08/20 01:04 AM)
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The Blind Ass
Bodhi



Registered: 08/16/16
Posts: 26,657
Loc: The Primordial Mind
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#26727802 - 06/07/20 11:28 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Run for President Markos
-------------------- Give me Liberty caps -or- give me Death caps
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nooneman


Registered: 04/24/09
Posts: 14,555
Loc: Utah
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
#26727817 - 06/07/20 11:40 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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I think you were right to discourage people from seeking enlightenment in psychedelics, but I think you're also right to not discourage it now. Striving to make ourselves better, even if we fail, is a worthwhile goal and any effort we take towards that goal is good.
I've gotten a lot out of psychedelics over the years. Not always consistently, a lot of times I got nothing, but there were other times that were like revelations, like something almost magic. Sometimes I've been inspired or found answers to questions I had been stuck on for years or decades. Even though those moments were rare, they were so profound as to make up for all the other times when there was nothing.
And even when there was nothing, it was still a good experience. There's something to be said just for good experiences in life. Our lives are so short, and often filled with work, boredom, pain. To have something different for a while is a gift.
The ability to change the mind at the deepest levels is one of the most incredible powers that have ever been discovered, and I don't know anything else that does it like psychedelics do it. You ever feel different, better, for weeks or months after using psychedelics? I don't know anything else that can do that, not like psychedelics do.
I don't know if enlightenment exists. If it does, I suspect it's a temporary and transient state, often very brief. How do we even define enlightenment? I more often see it used as a point of egotistical pride by people claiming to have it than a serious discussion about it. What would being enlightened even entail? I think many people would have wildly different definitions of enlightenment. The only thing that makes me take it seriously is some of the stuff I've experienced on psychedelics.
There are so many things that happen on psychedelics that we don't have a good language to describe. There's stuff I'd like to talk about even in this post that I don't know how to. Like seeing clearly through confusion, like blinds being removed from your eyes, but it's your mind not your eyes. Perceiving something clearly for the first time. Or seeing past tradition and society. Or transient moments of greatly heightened intelligence and clarity. Or creativity that seems to be beyond your own ability. Or perceiving clearly your own faults, limitations, and biases.
I think enlightenment probably doesn't exist, but its pursuit is still a good one.
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The Blind Ass
Bodhi



Registered: 08/16/16
Posts: 26,657
Loc: The Primordial Mind
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: nooneman]
#26727830 - 06/07/20 11:58 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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I enjoyed that, thank you buddy
-------------------- Give me Liberty caps -or- give me Death caps
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: The Blind Ass]
#26727949 - 06/08/20 01:30 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
The Blind Ass said: Run for President Markos 
While completely unqualified to do so, I would have to go on a psycho-stimulant regime to stay awake for 4 years to systematically undo everything I possibly could independently of the GOP dominated Senate that God damned Trump has ruined. While endeavoring to be as benevolent as possible I think the entire Trump crime family would have to be permanently disappeared by a Black Ops team and his assets distributed to all Black Lives Matter organizations, the NAACP (for restitution from Fred Trump's evil), and I'd have to implement a theme myself, like the Ladybird Johnson 'Make America Beautiful,' and unlike the Nancy Reagan 'Just Say No.' It would be Beatle-esque like 'All You Need Is Love.' I am deficient in a dominant 3rd chakra energy and therefore I am singularly unsuited to be Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, but thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm content to be remembered as a lover of kindness and one who contends that compassion is the highest wisdom in the universe.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Pinkerton
Ultrasentient

Registered: 02/26/19
Posts: 3,127
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#26728161 - 06/08/20 05:49 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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You're an interesting man for sure, Markos. 
I just know you and Diploid would get along if your ego's didn't crash. Both Floridians. An "advanced" rationalist contra an "advanced" believer. The perfect yin/yang yang/yin friendship. A trip together would have been a good beginning.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,531
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#26728403 - 06/08/20 08:28 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Where it falls apart is in absolutes. Absolutes are degenerate forms of thought that self-complete without linking cohesively into totality. (but, you may ask, isn't "totality" an absolute - and I say, no, not in the sense of a continuum, framework, web, or medium)
Also, "enlightenment", as (heavy hearted*) Markos declaims above is relative at best, and not absolute nor fixed.
Glad you are doing some pushups, little brother, it helps immensely - we have to push back the sky or fall into the earth one way or another we do both.
My take is that the word breaks down very nicely and resolves as getting "lighter" it is about taking a way that is light-hearted, in the face of discomforts, disease, death, darknesses and damages of all kinds. Things gradually may become clearer and brighter, while nothing resolves as permanent or absolute. One makes space in one's mind for how things are at each moment of awareness.
I think one can use chemistry, but it takes a strong mind to keep to one's path, and not descend into the vortex of dose uppage, obsession, drug monoculture, and comparing one's results with others for confidence and assurance.
(*as for the heavy heart, courage, my friend, let it out by all means, but do not take yourself so seriously that it hurts each time you look, lighten up, see it as it is, know you are not alone, and keep pushing back the sky!)
--------------------
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Forrester
aspiring sociopath


Registered: 02/05/13
Posts: 9,351
Loc: Northeast USA
Last seen: 24 days, 15 hours
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: redgreenvines]
#26728791 - 06/08/20 11:58 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: Also, "enlightenment", as (heavy hearted*) Markos declaims above is relative at best, and not absolute nor fixed.
How do we know this?
I mean we can call a law-abiding Canadian of today more enlightened than say, a conquistador of the 16th century who raped and pillaged the natives, and that's easy enough for most of us to agree on... but who's to say there's not an absolute somewhere at the top, where one figures out the illusory nature of 'reality' and how to operate outside of it? (Jesus/Buddha etc)
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,531
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: Forrester]
#26728879 - 06/08/20 12:52 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Not unless you are a time traveler, and even then it will be what you think or what they say.
As far as Buddhist enlightenment is concerned, if you think you have achieved it - then you have not, and on top of that they say that we are all already enlightened, and those two ideas seem like an outright contradiction.
Also, if you desire enlightenment you cannot have enlightenment - very slippery meanings here, but they are tied to the minutae of craving and illusion.
However, being open and lightly connecting with each issue are features of enlightenment, being broadly aware, and not self-involved, and behaving compassionately are also recognizable aspects enlightenment, and some people cultivate these abilities and practically radiate understanding and lightness.
How do we know? Partly from reading, but more comes from our contact with living buddhas and bodhisattvas whom you can find if you search, although the hunt could take time because they are not rated by Yelp (yet).
In any case, you will experience your own enlightenment your own way at your own pace if you are interested in that sort of thing. Nothing will be different from how it is now but all will be infused with more awareness and honest compassion - as a consequence of observation of nature.
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Forrester
aspiring sociopath


Registered: 02/05/13
Posts: 9,351
Loc: Northeast USA
Last seen: 24 days, 15 hours
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: redgreenvines]
#26729146 - 06/08/20 03:03 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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I think I agree with you for the most part.
Quote:
redgreenvines said: As far as Buddhist enlightenment is concerned, if you think you have achieved it - then you have not, and on top of that they say that we are all already enlightened, and those two ideas seem like an outright contradiction.
This I think is difficult to understand and even more difficult to explain, but I don't think there has to be a contradiction there. If you take the idea that we are all still one with (creator/nature/god), but dreaming otherwise (human experience), enlightenment becomes simply a matter of remembering who we are. It never changed.
Quote:
redgreenvines said: Also, if you desire enlightenment you cannot have enlightenment - very slippery meanings here, but they are tied to the minutae of craving and illusion.
I think this is just trying to tell us that we must simply remember what we are, by means of getting rid of all our beliefs about ourselves (the ego). So what we are doing here is getting rid of baggage, not desiring anything more.
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: Enlightenment through the power of chemistry [Re: Pinkerton]
#26729277 - 06/08/20 04:07 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Diploid made an enemy of me based on his inability to grok the notion of Synchronicity. So no, we would NOT have become friends. He challenged me to come to my home to prove to him that I could perform magick! He had no comprehension of the "non-causal connective principle" as Jung called it and could not stand to be corrected when I attempted to explain the post I had made about using my dad's ancient Polaroid-Land camera to shoot B&W photos of my home lab and LASER holography set-up (which worked) but which failed to work on multiple attempts to shoot a magick circle with the Instruments of the Art inside. I was posting this as an interesting coincidence, not a claim to be able to perform magick. Had he lived, he would not have grokked the ibis-synchronicity that occurred on my wedding day either in an alchemical-Qabalistic ritual with a statue of Thoth present, and might well have called me a liar. He went after me for playful expressions (the last one to Icelander about sucking on too many lemons).
Now, Icelander and I had phone chats as well as PMs. We were the same age and had similar spiritual beginnings. At the end of his life Ice PMed me repeatedly for material on Gnostic religion and seemed to find some comfort there. He left me a farewell message. Diploid was looking for anything he could find to ban me repeatedly with the obvious intention of a perma-ban. He could not tolerate anyone causing him to question his own certitude about Reality, and apparently I was able to do that quite unintentionally. The last time was a 42 day ban which administrator WiccanSeeker reviewed and kindly intervened in, removing the ban before its full duration. I'm not tripping with someone who has declared war on me.
Proximity isn't everything. Jokeshopbeard visited us for almost a week (JSB visited a number of other Shroomerites including the late Icelander and my friend the late CosmicJoke), and he left from Australia! Before he stopped flying private jets, FlyGuy would call me spontaneously if he had landed at a local airport and I'd pick him up. He and his co-pilot did that once on Thanksgiving. Before he moved away TacticalBongRip lived in Miami and we'd get together with him and his former wife. I've socialized with Universaleyeni at his place and mine and enter was a regular around here for a couple of years. Anominis visited before heading off to Korea (I think), and we've been host to Lion. There have been phone calls with others, but I have no interest in entertaining hostility thankyouverymuch.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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