Well this post might sound kinda looney, so if it does skip it. Otherwise read on
It is undisputable that almost every mushroom trip will expand your consciousness, give you more insight into your own being, the nature of the external world, and the relationship between you and the external world.
But there?s another thing which isn?t mentioned too often, not even here at the shroomery. Let?s admit it, most if not all of our trips boil down to traversing our own mental pathways and having better connection with nature and people. Having fun. However, does any extrasensory kind of perception occur in the process? (Now I'm not thinking about the vibrations of trees in nature, non-verbal communication with animals etc. I'm talking about concrete encounters with other intelligences higher than ours). As far as this is concerned, I think in most cases the answer is - no. At least not in my case. Almost everything I?ve experienced so far could be explained away with that which had already been present in my brain, in my memories. But is real extrasensory perception and communication with other intelligent beings possible at all?
Some would say it?s just not possible, because even during psychedelic trips one cannot communicate with anybody except one's own self and the immediate surroundings, so don't bother. Everything that seems that's coming outside your mind is just a hallucination. Well, is it?
While reading Gordon Wasson?s reports of his experiences with Maria Sabina and her veladas (night vigils), it occurred to me that most of us shroom trippers are perhaps missing out the most important asset a mushroom trip can offer, i.e. the ability to establish communication with intelligence(s) other than our own. To acquire so-called helping spirits. To gain knowledge that we haven't acquired through our five senses through ordinary methods. Isn?t that the primary goal of every shaman? To be able to know things that are obscure and probably can't be known by normal means.
Maria Sabina said that the mushrooms were connected with certain beings/spirits that used to 'speak' in her native language and that now, when westerners had discovered the mushrooms and intended to use them only for fun or to find God, the mushroom deities wouldn't cooperate any more, because they had used to pass information only when somebody needed to be cured of an illness, or some stolen property had to be traced.
She also said that she mastered her full shamanic powers only when her sister got ill. On that occasion she ate a lot of mushrooms, much more than ever before, and then a certain higher being showed her "a book" where everything was written. Though she couldn?t read, she gained all knowledge she needed for being a successful shamaness.
There?s also her warning that the mushrooms won?t reveal their inmost secrets to everyone. It appears one has to have the right kind of commitment and determination (or predisposition?) to get their full ?blessing?:
Quote:
"The mushroom is similar to your soul. And not all souls are the same. Marcial [her second husband, a violent and drunken man] had taken the teo-nan?catl [sacred mushrooms], had had visions, but the visions served no purpose. Many people of the sierra have taken it and are taking it, but not everyone enters into the world where everything is known.
"Also Ana Mar?a, my sister, began taking them together with me, had the same visions, talked to the mushrooms, but the mushrooms did not reveal all their secrets. The secrets that they revealed to me are enclosed in a big Book that they showed me and that is found in a region very far away from their world, a great Book. They gave it to me when Ana Mar?a fell ill ? and seemed almost near death.?
"So I decided to return again to the teo-nan?catl. I took many, many more than I had ever taken before: thirty plus thirty. I loved my sister and was ready to do anything, even to make a very long trip, just to save her. I was sitting in front of her with my body, but my soul was entering the world of the teo-nan?catl and was seeing the same landscape that it had seen many other times, then landscapes that it had never seen because the great number of mushrooms had taken me into the deepest of the depths of that world.
"I was going ahead until, at one point, a duende, a spirit, came toward me. He asked a strange question: 'But what do you wish to become, you, Mar?a Sabina?'
'I answered him, without knowing, that I wished to become a saint. Then the spirit smiled, and immediately he had in his hands something that he did not have before, and it was a big Book with many written pages.
"'Here,' he said. 'I am giving you this Book so that you can do your work better and help people who need help and know the secrets of the world where everything is known.'
More about Maria Sabina at: http://www.wf.net/~aardvark/ee/essays/maria_sabina.htm
(the original Time Magazine article link is at the bottom of the page)
My question is: Are there any shroomerites out there who have tried to communicate with higher beings (i.e. to gain spirit helpers and enter the world 'where everything is known') while under the influence of mushrooms? If so, how is it done? Are there some rituals, meditations, specific settings etc. if one wishes to achieve that?
I would like to do it in order to gain the ability to cure physical and mental diseases (to the extent it is possible).
I know that John C. Lilly had similar encounters with some incorporeal beings while on LSD in his floatation tank.
Maybe we could start some kind of a workshop as an experiment, to try to summon up those spirits and see 1) if they exist 2) if they are willing to communicate with us 3) what we can learn from them.
Well, who knows... Perhaps that's the will of the mushroom?
Edited by alphaone (10/24/04 06:36 PM)
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