Carl-Richard

We evolved spoken language to increase our capacity to think and process information, cooperate with each other, create culture and survive across different environments and niches. We then invented writing as a technology to increase our capacity to edit our thinking, and then not long after that, we invented alphabetic writing to make that process even more effective. We then experienced the Axial revolution: the birth place of Western thought; ancient Greek philosophy and the new world religions. From there, we got various insights: the necessity of law and order (politics), of personal discipline, of a social duty to the larger society (ethics), of a transcendent purpose outside mere power and conquest (morality, aesthetics, spirituality; the Good, the Beautiful, the Sacred), etc. All this laid the groundwork for how our society functions today. Now, do we even have to ask why that was important? Do we even have to ask why it's still important? We're not the least bit over the challenges that God is throwing at us.

John Vervaeke, from either EP. 1 or 2 of Awakening From The Meaning Crisis: "the things that make you intelligent are also the things that make you prone to self-deception" (btw he is not using the Leonian "definition" of intelligence).

Is Chris Langan a genius? Then hell the fuck no to both of those

It's likely you're trying so hard to go meta, you accidentally hit delete on all the content that you're trying to go meta on.

Uh... so this thing just dropped? It's kinda semi- off-topic, but it's the big hands guy I mentioned earlier doing a very unlikely collab with one of the young and hip progressive bands "Polyphia". The sound is pretty... "New-Age" (the title too). I think the New-agey sound and especially the Asian guy is triggering me. It's like they're a particular manifestation of my shadow (some musical and artistic parts of myself that I used to have but that I've repressed): highly polished and neat, stylistically clean and hygenic, unapologetically creative and untraditional ?

Man, I wrote this topic late at night while having a bad cold, so I apologize for those who read it early on before I fixed the maybe 20 mistakes that were in there EDIT: Fixed the complete lack of flow as well

Nobody is doing that.

This is like conflating physical strength with physical health.

After my first awakening, I stabilized in a habit of 45 min - 1.5 hrs seated meditation (all in one sitting) every day for 3 years, amounting to around 1000 hours, until I had to quit because I started having fully spontaneous awakenings which scared the shit out of me. I've had spontaneous awakenings many times before that (for example while sitting on the bus, or while walking), but by fully spontaneous, I mean that I would be actively doing something which involves the mind (like engaging in an university lecture) and my mind would tell me that I'm dying. At that point, it feels like there is no escape, and it felt like that for 2 years even after quitting meditation. I know what psychedelics can offer. I was hammering home the point that psychedelics have a very different metabolic signature than your brain at rest. If your default state has truly integrated the psychedelic state, you should expect to experience things like visuals.

A microdose is still a very different metabolic signature than your brain at rest. I've had countless spontaneous awakenings which were like meditation awakenings but only eyes open and moving, but I've never even seen slight psychedelic visuals when sober. My sober awakening experiences blew my LSD experiences out of the water. You're assuming things here.

Well, as I've said, they are definitely a source of growth. If you want to be very precise, that is not really what I'm pointing at. I'm talking about a difference in intention: should you aim towards higher and higher states, or should you aim towards a deeper and more grounded integration of those states?

If you can't see the difference between mainly aiming at changing your default state vs. mainly aiming at experiencing the highest states possible, I can't help you.

Again, almost like nobody reads anything I wrote. Thank you! Any distinction is welcome. I know calling them mere "trips" or "experiences" desacralizes them in a way, so I understand that the psychonautic terminology is a bit unfair (I'm not denying that these are experiences of the divine).

It's almost like you haven't read anything I've written here.

Psychedelics can certainly help you grow, as I've said many times.

Leo. Psychonautics = states > growth Spirituality = growth > states

I was saying "states > growth" is anti-spiritual.

I'm saying that too, and I want to highlight that difference.

Meditation is an organic activity of the body and mind. It's like flexing a muscle. Psychedelics is like injecting anabolic steroids. When you stop injecting, your body will rapidly adjust itself, because it's a self-organizing system which tries to maintain a steady balance between inner and outer states. It's true that if you stop meditating, your body will also adjust itself. But exactly because meditation is "less efficient and less powerful", it's closer to the normal functioning of the brain, and the more you meditate, the more meditation actually becomes a part of your default state. The same is not true for psychedelics. It's such a metabolically different state. You can argue that psychedelics can make changes to your default state, but the default state never becomes equal to the psychedelic experience. If that was the case, Leo would probably had to stop taking psychedelics by now because he would have trouble functioning as a human being.

Well, it was kinda a tongue in cheek hypothetical. Still, nobody who says "I went to a seminar about spirituality" actually means "I went to an Ayahuasca retreat in Peru for 10 days" unless they were trying to hide something.

I think this is bullshit. If you research just a modicum of their work, you'll find these ideas ad nauseum. The only way you can conclude this is if your analysis is at the level of words rather than the level of meaning, but if you do that, then no teacher is talking about the same thing.

@Leo Gura I think if you were to set up a seminar for "spirituality, consciousness work, and awakening", and the first thing you say is "Welcome! Today I will teach you how to stick 5-MeO-DMT up your butt!", people would be like "Wut? I didn't sign up for this."

Then why are no other gurus awake? They're by definition not in your category. The commonality between all those gurus is that they do not endlessly do psychedelic trips. They're into spirituality, but they're not into psychonautics. I'm not saying they're perfectly isolated categories. I'm saying they're better treated as categories than not.

I was being metaphorical.

Why are people so afraid of society? All this talk of being an original, independent thinker, not brainwashed by the herd; when taken to this extreme, is just narcissism and autism. You can make a meaningful and tangible contribution to the human project, or you can hide out in your ivory tower of highfalutin masturbatory non-existence. What is really the most courageous, virtuous, conscious and loving option if you have the choice? The Bodhisattva chose to be a sheep.