Jodistrict

Not surprisingly, this is a complicated issue. A recent research report recommended reconsidering legalization of EAS. "First, we would argue that wishes for death or suicide, even when clearly articulated by the patient to doctors or next-of-kin, and even if it represents the true will at that very moment, this desire or wish for death will likely change in many of these cases. As we have pointed out above, such an articulated death wish, can be a symptom of the disorder and may in reality convey several other possible messages, that have more to do with the patient feeling abandoned, disappointed or angry. It may also convey a wish for help to live rather than a wish for help to die. Second, we would claim that the notion of personality disorders as “untreatable” conditions and “without prospects of improvement” are based on outdated knowledge about the state of PD treatment. Today, a range of effective psychotherapeutic interventions are available for people with personality disorders in most of the countries that have so far legalized EAS. That this has seemingly escaped the attention of both legislators and expert medical communities is deeply disturbing. It may be that the current lack of effective psychotropic medication to treat personality disorders could have made many physicians and psychiatrists not specializing in PD treatment less optimistic about the prognosis in people with PDs and the prospects of receiving effective treatment in general. We urgently call for a revision of the current legislation and practice of EAS for people with personality disorders which we believe, is currently based on an inadequate understanding of these peoples’ needs and their potentials for having a life worth living." https://bpded.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40479-020-00131-9

She is going to kill herself because her shrink said that her condition will never get any better. What he is really saying is that he can’t do anything to help her get better. But, by that criteria we would all have to die because psychiatrists can’t help anyone get better. They are mostly useless for most conditions. But people are willing to put up with any inconvenience to save a dog. Civilization is going backwards.

It depends on your tolerance. For me 100 mg would be an intense trip. I am currently doing 50 mg. I buy a package of 50 mg. pills. I also don't do it more than 3 weeks apart to not develop tolerance. I don't like sugar so I dont bother with gummies. But if you don't know your tolerance you can start out with 10mg or 20 mg. Take a small dose and wait an hour and a half to see the effect before taking more. Try not to overdose. The "heroic dose" doesn't work with cannabis. It just gives you a bad headache.

Non duality dogma is just as fundamentalist as evangelical christianity. “Everything is one” Really? How do you know? People learn the dogma through hypnosis and then repeat it until they believe it. The purpose of the belief system is to provide the illusion of certainty in a world where our small brains know almost nothing. But we are afraid to say we don’t know. We cling to our beliefs through fear.

I think the idea of energies in the mind/body is legitimate. Awareness of energy seems to be totally absent from western psychology.

What’s interesting is how restrained the Iranian attack was in response to the deadly bombing of their embassy. It was not meant to kill but to demonstrate capability. The Israeli air defense spent billions of dollars to shoot down a few million dollars worth of drones. It also demonstrates that the Iranian leadership has considerable restraint and self control. They weren’t provoked into over reaction. This is in contrast to Israel which excessively overreacted killing thousands of innocent citizens and tilting the global south against them resulting is a strategic loss. It shows the Iranian leadership are not the fanatics they are portrayed in the propaganda of the Western media.

AI has always been overhyped. Google “AI winter”. The last wave was expert systems, which were the crowning achievement of symbolic processing. There was one problem – they couldn’t learn and update the rules. Hence the switch to neural networks which have the ability to learn from data. However, this new wave is powerful and shouldn’t be underestimated. A lot of jobs are going to be lost.

I still believe RFK would make the best president. The most important reason is that he would reform US foreign policy. He would kick out the warmongers and the neocons who are dedicated to forever wars. We could cooperate again with China and Russia. A divided world is going to stop economic progress and also make global climate change agreements impossible. RFK also respects everyone and hence is the best person to bring America together and heal the divisions. The two party system has become corrupt and serves the billionaire doners and not the people. Money rules. This is the root of Trump’s popularity, that he at least pretends to be interested in what the people think. RFK also taps into this sentiment. Fuck the establishment.

I microdose Bufo Alvarius with Meditation. But I think that an intensive retreat in an isolated environment with a skillful facilitator guiding the process could be powerful.

I have been investigating Iboga. Most of the places that do ceremonies are in Costa Rica. Mexico does Ibogaine in a clinical setting. Combining Iboga with Meditation in a retreat for the purpose of awakening sounds really interesting. Are there any of these retreats coming up that use Iboga?

The Taliban managed to defeat the United States as well as all of NATO using vastly inferiour weapons. I am personally impressed by their warrior abilities.

In a literalist religion like Islam, you have the belief in life after death. If you follow the dogma you are assured a pleasant eternity. This belief can make men brave. Thus, in history, these religions have offered a major advantage in war and conquest. The religion also gives comfort to the Palestinians in the face of enormous sacrifice and suffering. Without Islam, the resistance would not be possible, because their collective will would have been broken a long time ago. It makes me wonder that if literalist religions die, will the world end up in tyranny, because only a literalist religion can successfully lead a resistance. A modern population habituated to the material comforts of capitalism have little desire to fight oppression. Be careful about looking down on ancient systems. They have survived this long for a reason.

Keep asking the question and don't accept an answer too quickly.

Lately, I have been microdosing Bufo. I still go into a full trip, but it is for a shorter period of time. I also seem to be developing a reverse tolerance – less does more. I think that the heroic dose is overrated. I have been listening to spiritual teachers who say that unnaturally pushing your energy without it being ready can have bad consequences. Nobody likes to be pushed around. I focus on having a calm journey without fear.

You are lucky to not have STDs. Bad boys don't use condoms.

Hitler was not a conservative. He was a radical way outside the system. At the time he lived in Germany, the aristocracy were the conservatives. Hindenburg was personally opposed to Hitler. The aristocracy only submitted after Hitler took over Germany.

We know from the four noble truths that suffering exists and that there is an end to suffering. That an end to suffering is possible is all you need to know. Talk of “God” is mostly conceptual in nature. Focus on your practice.

It is a common argument of the neocons to make a reference to Japan and Germany and World War II. I have even heard this basic argument in an interview from Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The argument: we bombed Japan and Germany to rubble to get rid of the bad guys, but not to worry because in a few years it was all rebuilt. We can do the same here. I believe that this is a dangerous and distorted analogy and ignores important differences. Like that Israel is surrounded by a billion Muslims and they are rapidly improving their military and economic power while the US, Israel’s protector, is growing weaker in a multipolar world. Realistically, Israel’s slim hope of survival depends on making peace with its neighbors. Force alone simply won’t work.

You are reacting to the doctrine “desire is suffering” which is a poor translation into English of what the Buddha actually said. Of course we need desire. We can’t live without it. If you don’t desire food you will starve. You also need the wholesome desire to awaken. Much of the objections fade away when you look at Buddha’s actual teachings and not the poor translations of Western teachers. The Buddha also never said the ego is the enemy, which many Western teachers promote. Many hours are spent criticizing a strawman.

The real Buddhism is all you need. All the blah blah blah …. infinity, I am God, it’s all imagination .. is just words that increase the ego. Buddhism gives a balanced path for living in the world. One third of the path is dedicated to practicing morality and learning to live in harmony with the world. That part gets totally ignored by the Westernized spiritualities dedicated to speed and an easy path. Thanissaro Bhikkhu is a legitimate Buddhist teacher and all his materials are free. https://www.dhammatalks.org/

The teacher Maharishikaa says that enlightenment is an out of date practice of the past and a new way is needed to fit the current culture. She mentions enlightenment gurus in India like Ramana Maharashi could only survive because he had devotees who took care of him. She calls neo-advaitas space cadets. It’s good to hear another perspective that goes against the crowd.

It appears that neither Romania or the UK have sufficient evidence to convict, which adds credibility to Tate’s claim that the prosecutions were politically motivated. However, that doesn’t mean he didn’t do anything. I think the UK authorities really dropped by ball and were incompetent. Maybe the women could still bring a civil suit.

A shaman from Mexico has been teaching me to use mushrooms to equilibrate my energy. He says that everything in the trip is just our own energies and we can go on any level of journey by forming a calm center that coexists with and accepts the energies. The psychedelic journey is training the mind to be calm and in a state of equanimity. In my last journey spirits appeared to me saying “we are not energy, we are real” and they convinced me because the visions were so high fidelity, vivid, and as real as ordinary reality. But I just focused on my mantra and remained calm. In ordinary reality, we are constantly triggered by our environment. The triggers are activation of our energies. So we train the mind to be in a calm state, focused always on the present, letting the energies move without affecting our equilibrium. Our ordinary waking consciousness is also a form of imagination which convinces us it is real, just like the visions in an altered state. So it is not dissimilar.

I don’t think anyone knows, especially all the fake shamen running around, or pundits writing books. The scientific bureaucracy is now finally researching the issue, with studies at their institutions like John Hopkins, and believe that they can put psychedelics in a reliable box. Good luck.

The problem is that profound spiritual traditions are being taken out of context and transformed into commodities that can be sold to a materialistic culture. So you end up with the shallow nonsense of neo-Advaita and non duality. Or even meditation, which doesn’t work for most people because they aren’t going through the necessary preliminary purification needed to make it work. The one thing that I have found to be still useful even after translation is Yoga. Even when you reduce Yoga to a purely physical exercise, it is still enormously beneficial to the body.