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Well, moderator, you made me laugh, so I have to do justice to this one last time:

Actually, he was arrested and charged for public intoxication, carrying an unliscensed firearm, brandishing it in public, and making death threats. They found the stash of SD on both of them, and he admitted to having been under the influence of SD when he pulled his gun on me; so did his girlfriend, who I thank for jerking him aside and laughing to distract him.

Cops around here know about SD, and this wasn't the first time they've had to deal with public disturbances related to public SD-smoking. It happened back when Blade: Trinity was in theaters, and they'd known about it then for quite some time. Despite my puny size, this kid thought I was Triple-H's character in the movie. I don't look anything like Triple-H; I don't even have the same hair color. I'm insulted that he didn't think I was Deacon Frost; he's my favorite character in the Blade series *LOL*

One of the cops told me that he'd arrested a kid once for breaking in a car window with a skateboard while on it, because he thought he was a knight slaying a dragon. Laughable as it may seem, that's a serious problem, especially since he wasn't known for that sort of behavior prior to his SD habit.

As for Brett's suicide note, you're still bickering over finer points of a note that you don't have in your hand. I just know what they claimed it said on the news, and despite any speculations I might have about his inner process, I don't claim to know any more or less than that. Drugs negatively influence the decision-making process in imbalanced individuals, and that much has been scientifically proven, regardless of whether SD was the specific influence in Brett's case.

Because of what he wrote in his journal entry, and the words he used to frame his experience, I still think it was; apparently, whatever experts were called in to determine the facts of this case think so too. You may not be okay with that, but I am.

That's all the government and law enforcement agencies care about, and it's all I care about, after what I've experienced. Since there are so many imbalanced people out there attracted to drug use out of a desire to self-medicate, it makes unregulated drug use a potential threat to public safety. You may not agree with that sort of criteria being used for legislative decisions, but having been on the wrong end of a gun, I do. Prohibition in Delaware may not agree with my politics, but at least something is being done there that will make other people sit up and ask the hard questions. Being the evil monster that I am, I can sleep with that.

I didn't say I was a vampire; those are your words. Whether or not I actually am one is still completely irrelevant to the facts of this discussion. We agree on some things and disagree on others, and I'm okay with that. We've hashed this out past the point of antiquity, so you should let it go.

Jupe: I don't recall insulting the moderator anywhere in this particular thread. If you're referring to the NPR Story thread, I argued his position, tried to make some agreeable concessions after apologizing for being argumentative, and then he insulted me. It's his own fault if he felt insulted by anything I said in my closing post.

As for what I said in my last post to this thread, yeah, that's an intuitive insight based partially in some science I've read concerning how some people are compelled to certain actions by genetic mutations, how others by lack of those mutations don't do well in particular outlets (Tantricism is the specific example, if you want to look it up), and partially from my own personal experiences and observations, but I never claimed it to be anything more than that. Like I said, THERE IS NO PERFECT ANSWER. Sometimes intuition and observation go where science can't or won't take us. Sometimes you have to make a few generalizations to get through to the point.

If you want references, there's a thing called Google, and another thing called Yahoo! I'm not going to cite everything I've ever read on behavioral science and "alternative" religion when you can just as easily educate yourself.

Anyone who uses entheogens in the first place is acting on some instinctive compulsion anyways, so saying that science is the only valid map is rediculous. That's like saying you can break artistic inspiration down to a binary code. I'm sure there's plenty of times in your lifetime that you've made intuitive leaps to make an important decision about something, so don't go jumping my case. Hypothesis is 10% data, 90% intuitive speculation. If there were no hypothesizing, there would be no science, no culture, no anything but a bunch of cowardly, naked primates eating raw meat left behind by bigger predators. You can be such a person if you want; I prefer to trust my intuition in the face of dilemma.

In regards to mr. lollipop, I'm a law abiding citizen (with the exception of some past drug use), and a college educate professional. Unlike some people, I deal with my problems proactively, which according to every psychologist I've ever been to, gives me a clean slate of mental health. I may have some eccentric beliefs, but I'm not out putting a gun in anyone's face or starting rediculous flame wars. Sure, I argued with the moderator about Brett's suicide in another thread, but I'm nowhere near your level of obssessive behavior. You need to deal with your own problems before presuming that you know what mine are.

I came here and made a few helpful suggestions to greyreq, and then you two started jumping my case; if my advice to him doesn't concern you, it's none of your fucking business. I don't care what either of you think; ankle-biters can kiss my ass. As for the moderator, he can cancel my membership to this discussion group.

Greyresq, have fun figuring out how SD fits into your life; no ill will towards you. Hyakitaki, I intended no offense by using you as an example in two of my posts; I actually think you're a cool dude.

Mor ko bezdrugasa, jyzn ko drugasa (Death to the unfriendly, life to the friendly)

I'll ignore that, and give some further insights:

Shamanism = death + entheogens + ecstatic trance used to heal.

Sorcery = death + narcotics and stimulants ("poisons") + spiritual predation to effect social change.

Tantra = death + sexual/procreative energy to attain personal wholeness and find satisfaction with one's place in the life collective.

All three Paths evolved around the same time, right after animism and totemism. Unlike the basic perceptions and coping mechanisms of animism and totemism, the 3 Paths are tools used by people who are compelled by a genetic mutation to seek tools for putting their animalistic impulses to use outside of the purely mundane arena. To a certain degree, this has been confirmed by genetic science. Shamans are the mutants who are best suited to entheogen use, Sorcerers to narcotic and stimulant use, and Tantrics to the use of sexual fetishism (complex world there; study psychology and Tantra before arguing with me on that point). All three untuitively acknowledge death (the principle of entropy) as the bottom line; death rules and facilitates all things. All three use simulation of death as a form of awakening and initiation, via totemism and the aforementioned tools as gateways for experiencing transformative death. Even Tantra has totemic correspondences, in the form of the serpent, the tiger, the owl, the ram, the bull, the stag, the bat, etc.

The interesting thing is that all three are sensitive to entheogens, but only one is suited to their use as a tool. Case in point, Salvia divinorum: in 50% of all documented cases of use, the user feels nothing when taking SD. That makes it an almost perfect tool in determining whether or not a person has this mutation that compels people to one of the 3 Paths, as normal humans are immune to the effects of salvinorin A.

In the case of the shamanically inclined, they feel no ill will towards their fellow man, and have a problem understanding why some other users report angry or homicidal thoughts (or even suicidal thoughts), or generally bad trips. At the very least, they gain a compassionate understanding of humanity and an idea of what they can do to nurture its qualities in themselves and others. Hyakitaki is a good example, from what I understand of his breakthrough account. Although he hasn't reached the spiritual ideal because of his preconceptions and lack of knowledge, he has still managed to make good use of a tool he is genetically suited to.

In the case of predatory mutants, it throws them off; they experience rage and homicidal thoughts, and generally get the disconnected, "bad trip" feeling. That explains the gun toting psycho I refer to in another thread, and to my own experiences (angry and homicidal when smoking it, feeling like a pompous devil when drinking it, getting the "drifting center" sensation, etc.). Other people report feeling agitated when socially interacting on SD. I now believe that the incident with the gun-toting youth was part of my learning process; something I had to go through to get to the bottom of the SD question.

A third group reports a stimulation of the libido. No notes on how those types react in the larger scope, but my guess is a wide array of sexual fetishisms resulting in improved or disrupted relationships.

In all three cases, the user loses their socially programmed sense of self (the ego diminishing effects of salvinorin A), and experience a stimulative awakening of their "inner animal". Whether one characterizes this as an actual animal spirit or not, it has an explanation in modern psychology: the potential shaman experiences the sense of obligation and nurturing (the superego/subconscious mind), whereas the potential sorcerer or Tantric experiences the predatory or procreative urge (the id/unconscious mind).

My own "kind" is what makes it dangerous: people who haven't figured out their true calling in life, who experience the predatory compulsions that drive people to become sorcerers as a way of coping. No tools means no way to spiritually vent, means isolative paranoia and fear at the least, or destructive social behaviors at the worst. Diminished ego + overstimulated predatory urge of the id + no cultural lense or tools for coping = self-isolating or destructive behavior caused by regression into an "animalistic" state. This is precisely what makes ANY entheogen potentially dangerous when readily available to the general public.

As for my mention of mugwort to dispell bad trip flashbacks, it contains thujone: a mild narcotic (it's been hyped to be a hallucinogen, but there's no evidence that thujone has ever made anyone hallucinate; Absinthe hallucinations come from the alcohol content rather than thujone, and from disruption of liver function caused by toxic buildup up thujone). Narcotics soothe the savage beast, and stimulants (tobacco, nicotene, etc.) increase awareness and focus. In my traditional use of them, entheogens awakened the rage in me, but I had a cultural context in which to experience it. I also knew what tools I could use to bring it under my control after awakening it. Most people like me who dabble with entheogens don't have that sort of background, ergo the potential social danger entheogens pose.

As for the suicide case, I think that came from his own denial of his inner potential; his environment and upbringing told him that predatory urges are "bad" and to be supressed at all costs, and under the ego-diminishing effects of the drug, he turned those impulses inwards out of self-hate. From pictures I've seen, I could see that he was into the gothic/heavy metal subculture; he wore band swag indicating this, so I'm pretty sure that was an attempt to express what his environment and upbringing wouldn't let him vent through spiritual means. The drug may not have made him kill himself, but the lack of information and choices that lead to his drug use did, ergo, by proximity, lack of drug regulation caused his death.

I'll say it once again: everything has it's consequences; as every dark cloud has a silver lining, so does every silver cloud have a dark lining. There is no perfect drug, and no perfect answer. Take care of yourselves before trying to take care of each other.

greyresq: I've never heard about anyone using tincture or quid actually needing a sitter, but if you're smoking it, you should definitely have one around if you're using strong stuff. I didn't really need a sitter the first time I smoked it, but I smoked it with a friend, and I did act innebriated and mildly reckless.

In my strongest smoke trips {no sitter present}, I came pretty close to blacking out; the paranoia of that possibility made me find a comfy chair to sit it out, because I've done some pretty fucked up things in a blacked out state before {trust me, you don't want to have to live something like that down}. I quit smoking it for that reason, and turned to tincture; to me, anything that requires having a sitter is a waste of my time. I don't even use that method any more because it was affecting my equilibrium too much after coming down, and slowing me down in some other ways for up to a week after using it. If you have some vacation time to get over the residual effects it's okay, but from personal experience, I find that it tends to compromise some of my work performance for a week after I hit the tincture.

Smoking it is definitely something you don't want to do walking around in public, although I've walked around in public after drinking tincture and had no difficulty interacting with people {I wouldn't drive on it, though}. I agree with what you've heard about the differences between salvinorin A and LSD. LSD tends to stimulate the whole brain slowly as you're coming into the trip, but as Daniel Siebert himself has warned, smoking Salvia divinorum puts the brain on automatic and blurrs the lines between fantasy and reality, because it hits you all at once and shuts down your ego {despite what all the new age quacks say about ego-surrender, that's a bad thing; ego is what gives you self-control, which you don't want to relinquish on ANY type of drug}. Despite what some people think, it can be dangerous if you're not careful with it.

Here's something I've found to be helpful in the event that you have a bad smoke trip and start having flashbacks: drink skullcap tea for a few days. For whatever reason, it restores the equilibrium and evens out the brain chemistry. Mugwort tea is also good for neutralizing flashbacks. In Europe, people used to smoke mugwort or drink mugwort tea to ease vertigo, nausea, and emotional upsets; it works great for restoring the brain after any type of harsh entheogen use, and in itself can be mildly mind-expanding. If that's were you end up, you should read up on it a little first; both skullcap and mugwort can be hepatotoxic if used daily for a long period of time {i.e., more than two weeks straight}. A cup a day of either using 2 level tablespoons is a pretty hefty dose; 3 days of that won't hurt you if you have a healthy liver.

Just be careful, and don't listen to the hype. Everything has its consequences, no matter how harmless it might look. ESPECIALLY divinorum....

Actually, I was walking into an Office Depot store, and he had followed me into the parking lot when I got out of the car. The head shop in my town is nowhere near Office Depot.

I didn't say I was a vampire; in his fucked up perception, he did. Nothing you think or say could possibly excuse his actions, so you need to calm the fuck down. He had just watched a vampire flick in a theater 3 blocks away from the Depot, and he happened to be smoking an SD joint in the theater parking lot with his girfriend when he looked up and saw me pulling out of a parking lot across the street. Just because he saw me wearing sunglasses and got all paranoid doesn't give him, you, or anyone else the right to stalk me for three blocks on foot and threaten my life with a gun.

On the influence of SD, gun-totin' wigger-boy's movie-fantasy got the best of him--not some prior belief in vampires or mystical insight, neither of which he had. He was fucked up on an hallucinogenic chemical, and that was his only excuse. The fact that he couldn't come to his senses in that 3 block walk tells me that salvinorin A was doing something to inhibit his judgement. I've read accounts of people believing that Sesame Street characters were alive and living on their ceiling after smoking SD, so it's not a stretch to say that SD had a similar effect on him.

I don't hang around head shops; I purchased my herb online. In fact, the only time I go into town is to do business or get food. I don't know about you, hippie, but some people do have lives.

Here's what I know about that head shop that sold him his herb: by selling SD as a drug when it hasn't been recognized or approved as one by the FDA, they were violating state and federal law. They were also violating a state law that prohibits the sale of any non-scheduled item being passed off as having the same or similar affects as a controlled substance, and another state law that says it's a crime to sell any inebriant or substance being passed off as an inebriant to minors, regardless of whether or not it's a controlled substance. I don't feel comfortable with that, under ANY circumstances. You don't either from what I gather from your posts, but here you are, arguing with me.

In concerns to the case with Brett, neither one of us has all the facts, so it's a moot point. I stick with Occam's Razor logic, because in matters of business and public safety, it works. Unlike you, I don't care whether or not Big Brother is trying to take away my personal stash of wacky weed; I just care whether or not someone under the influence of hallucinogens is putting a gun in my face. I don't even care that this kid committed suicide, and I'm guessing that the Delaware state legislators don't really care much either. They have a whole shitload of legal and business issues to worry about that you haven't even taken the time to consider; Brett's suicide was just a political excuse to shelter the general public from the consequences of a few kids' irresponsible use.

From what I've seen, a lot of new users are smoking it in public, and I'm pretty sure that was a bigger issue for them than one person sniffing barbecue fumes in the privacy of his garage after smoking SD in his dark closet. It may not be fair, but until it's challenged in court by opposing legislators and business interests, it's the only barrier Delaware citizens have against reckless SD-smokers doing to them what one tried to do to me. If they criminalized it in my state, I'd be happy with it for the time being, because I don't really need to use SD to take me to some special place in my head, and neither does anybody else. People all over the world have been doing it for thousands of years without the aid of entheogens, and that isn't going to change if one more of them is outlawed. If people are too lazy to seek out a method that doesn't involve drugs, or are too cowardly to go shroom picking, that's none of my concern. Shamanism and Sorcery are hard Paths; no one ever said it was going to be easy.

I don't see a viable business competition paradigm in the Delaware scenario, so I'm guessing there was a history of abuse and law enforement involvement that led up to legislators hyping a suicide case to justify criminalization. I don't know that for sure, but knowing what I do about political science and economics, I'm thinking it's a safe bet. If this were really a moral issue, don't you think the government would have federally scheduled SD a long time ago? The people in the DEA still can't make up their mind how to handle this, and it's been available in our country for nearly half a century.

The law is going to do what it wants, people are still going to do what they want, so I don't see why you care whether or not SD can be proven to be a destructive influence in some people's lives. For the most part I don't care, but I'm still not going to hand a stranger a gun that he doesn't know is loaded, and invite him to point it at me or himself. At the end of the day, people still need to know the potential consequences of their actions, and be informed of any legitemate concerns; people facilitating those actions with products have a social obligation to make sure of that, and to exercise some caution if they think a customer's use of the product is going to pose a potential threat to the safety and well-being of others. All the optimism and idealism in the world isn't going to make SD or anything remotely like it safe for everyone under all circumstances.

I don't believe in total prohibition, but I believe in regulating anything that could make people act erratic in a diminished mental state, whether it's alcohol, or some other sort of mind-altering chemical. I haven't seen any proof that salvia divinorum DOESN'T diminish one's mental faculties, and plenty of proof that it DOES, so I'm sticking to my opinion on this matter. You can believe whatever you want, but I'm going to stick to the facts. I may not have all the facts about the Brett case, but I have enough facts from a variety of sources and experiences to know better than to think your arguments are even remotely valid.

I've made some agreeable, fact-based concessions, but you're still arguing, which leaves me to believe that you don't know exactly what it is you're arguing about, mr. rebel without a cause. I'm a businessman, and this is beginning to waste my valuable time, so I'm going to leave you to your inner struggle about what's "fair", while I stick to worrying about what's pragmatic and practical in real world scenarios. I've said all I have to say on this matter, and I won't be reading any more of your posts. Once again and for the last time, I leave by saying, "you ARE too stoned too type"....

That's the most retarded challenge I've ever heard. Life isn't that easy for you, me, or anyone else, Chris. There are many other players in this game; I don't always have control over who dies based on how angry I'm feeling on any particular day towards a single person. Things don't even work that way for you, in your omnipotent ubiquitousness. Even a chess game could tell you that much. You may not die today, but you definitely will pay in the long run; whether or not I cast a curse on you has nothing to do with it, because you're already in a self-destructive tailspin, and that's what has me laughing the most. The mysterious words in an obscure language could be totally meaningless, but you're still going to suffer in your isolated little shell of a self. You brought the problems in your life on yourself, Chris; you don't need any help from me to crawl into your grave.

Despite all that, you can still change, become productive and live a long life. A curse is only a test that the target either fails by remaining worthless, or passes by making a life-affirming change that immunizes them from the "poison". I can't predict who will die, or when; I can only testify to what has happened as a result of my work, as an example of what IS possible. Either way I still win, because whether you live or die, I had a hand in manipulating your objective life circumstances to my benefit. Regardless of all your posturing, the reality is that I drew you here by setting the stage, and you provided others with amusement as you tortured yourself with your own inner struggle to comprehend the subject matter. No matter how moralistic anyone might be, everyone loves to watch a self-important asshole fall apart in public.

You've even admitted that you're a troll, which makes it all the more amusing, because it further supports the fact that you stupidly played into our game. Most people reading and contributing to this group are themselves magicians of some sort, who cast spells to gain information and knowledge concerning their choices in life {at the very least, they call out for it as a petition to higher forces while on SD}. That ultimately makes you the pawn in our information process, because by providing a hostile antithesis, you allowed me to share information that others can hash out in their own thoughts. If they come to a different reality model than I have, great! Regardless of the outcome, my work is done.

Knowing that, why are you still here? Do you enjoy being a mindless little meat-puppet for twisted fucks like myself? There isn't a single thing you can say or do to shake me or make me doubt myself, so if you have so much power over your own life, why bother? After all, that is what this comes down to, Chris; whether or not you have power over your OWN life....

There's plenty of people in the entheogen-taking community that feel similarly to how I do {i.e., have totemic beliefs, are animists, practice shamanism or sorcery, or are apprentices}, and like me, they're laughing at you for trying to argue something that really isn't that important, and laughing at how stupid your words come across. You still haven't said one thing that shows you have any understanding whatsoever about what I'm talking about, and half of what you've said actually supports my reality model. I read the books you're talking about years ago, and many more since then that go way beyond them. These days, that's the first level of training: learning what other people think, learning the science that can explain what we do, and learning to distinguish between the lies of mainstream religion/spirituality/philosophy and the cold, hard reality of sapient evolution.

I really wish things were as simple as you think they are, but regardless of any abstract concepts of spirituality we might possess, or how many vague, all-encompassing notions of physics we might understand, we're still individual flesh bags fighting to maintain our individuality in the face of society trying to tell us that there are no lines between the individual and the state collective. I started at 13, when I was mature enough to begin distinguishing fact from fiction; if what you say is really true about beginning at 7, then it fully explains why you've held on to unrealistic paradigms for so long. If you can't prove the validity of your knowledge and experiences to yourself by observing objective manfestations, what good are you to yourself? Your beliefs are nothing more than a straight-jacket, assuming that anything you've written about yourself here is true.

I don't believe that anything I know is valid until I can see objective results; THAT'S why I didn't believe that I could literally leave my body until my early 20's, despite myriad experiences that might have been OBE's before then. If other people can't see it or at least intuit it to be true, it isn't real. Without the contrast of others, we have no standard by which to measure the validity of our knowledge; no way to distinguish fantasy from reality.

Whether or not I attacked your beliefs in defense of my own is irrelevant; anyone who reads your first post can see that you're a fake fuck trying to start an argument, so you got what you deserved. I believe your sentiments went something like, "I can fly through buildings at high speeds! Look at me, puny mortal, I'm Superman!" I'm sure everyone else here picked up on that sentiment.

If you want to continue to look like a dumbass, feel free; I'm not going to waste any more of my valuable time playing your silly game with you. Having the last word isn't going to impress anyone here that you know anything about life, so get over yourself. No one is going to think you're dead and that I'm right if you don't respond, because no one here really cares. Hell, I don't even care. You should just leave it at that, and get on with your pathetic life.

Whatever, Chris; get over yourself. You still have to eat, breath and shit, and at the end of the day, you still have to answer to a higher balance and order, just like me and everyone else on this ball of dirt. No one here cares about your little dick war. You've tried to twist everything I've said, and you've done nothing but make an ass out of yourself, along with insulting a variety of ethnic groups.

I've read Seth books--it was a bunch of charlatan New Age hype gleaned from books by the channeler prior to the appearance of "Seth", or to the publishing advances she got to write such garbage. I've read the Holographic Universe--one man's simplistic model, but way too ubiquitous, vague and isolated from intuitive knowing to be of any use in actual practice. I still can't walk on water after reading it, and neither can you. I don't know anyone who's read it that can do anything particularly magical or noteworthy, other than philosophize in coffee shops about how divine and enlightened they are, despite their lack of financial and social success.

If you don't think a shaman can heal multitudes of people in a variety of unseen ways by projecting healing directives into the entire human collective, then you know nothing about magic, spirituality, or any of this quantum physics stuff you rant about. It's all just a big pretense you use to argue with people about things you apparently know nothing about.

As for your comment about the word "sorcerer", it comes from the Latin root sors, meaning "fate". Fate is the way in which one will ultimately die, unlike destiny, which is the potential manner in which a person might live. A sorcerer is a fate-weaver; i.e., one who makes others die by means of magic or poisons, as an occupational practice. Modern science still uses Latin as a technical language, so I guess words like "sorcerer" aren't as outdated and antiquated as you like to believe. It works in a circumstance where other words fall short of defining what I am and do, and it has a depth of traditional meaning that gives it weight; that's all that counts.

I don't believe you can astrally project, I don't believe that you're as old as you say you are, and I'm not even going to bother to point out how many times you've contradicted yourself while trying to one-up me. You can go on believing that you're some omnipotent, ubiquitous being that knows no limitations of space or time, but as for me and everyone else that has a brain, we'll continue to acknowledge the objective reality of life, despite any differences we might have in defining and manipulating its complexities. If people believe differently than me, fine; they'll continue to do what they do, and I'll continue to do what I do. In the end, it doesn't make a shit's bit of difference.

Others can read the thread and decide for themselves who started what, but I have nothing more to say to you. Morvesruk bas pojyras vam dyna, posle yeg delas vam ko dopuskas to tugedej.

These are some cool responses! Dergheist, I totally agree with you on all points. Too stoned to type, I apologize for coming across so harsh; I wasn't trying to start an argument or knock your idealism, just trying to move things to a middle ground. As for protection of children, I think that's valid, but I think lawmakers are looking out more for the interests of responsible adults who might end up on the wrong end of a gun, knife or car. I read what you wrote about the sitch in Colorado, and I think that's totally awesome; I hope it happens everywhere, as a matter of federal law.

As for the diary and note, on TV they read an excerpt from the note that mentions the truth he learned from salvia, and questioning how he could go on living knowing that truth {the pointlessness of life mentioned in his diary, but not directly mentioned in the note, if I remember correctly}. He even mentions that he can't go into detail about what he learned because it would bring chaos into other's lives; he apparently wasn't expecting anyone to read his diary entries. As for the note, it's longer in its entirety than the sound bytes would have us believe; I've heard one reading mentioning salvia's "truth" and the resolve to end his life, and another that only mentions his taking 17 years to learn the secret of life. The print versions are equally compartmentalized, leaving out important details.

Just from what I've seen from an array of TV and in print articles, I'd have to sadly agree that it's a clear-cut case. Even if it's blurred hype and they could somehow prove that it had nothing to do with his decision to end his life, I still think it needs regulation just because of my own experiences with reckless users; I haven't seen anything on the news about those types of incidents, but knowing the state of things, I'm pretty sure it goes on a lot more than we know. Like the lawmakers, I'm more concerned about the social impact than whether or not it influences someone to discreetly end their own life.

The woman who introduced the bill even made that point about the need to regulate anything that could influence a person to jump out a window, drive recklessly or commit acts of assault or murder. I don't agree with her sweeping solution, but I can at least agree with her on her reasons. I was getting stoned with some people in a third story apartment once, and one of them was on acid and thought aliens were invading the building. He jumped off the balcony and ran off. We found him and he came down okay, but having no way of knowing his state of mind, we couldn't foresee his actions in time to prevent him from jumping. He's very fortunate that he didn't hurt himself, and others are fortunate that he didn't try to kill anyone while under his drug-induced delusion of alien invaders. Anything that can do that to the mind needs careful consideration.

Senorsalvia, I'll agree with you that not all people react to it like PCP, but there are many who do, myself included when I smoke it. I don't get the same type of ambience I get on PCP, but I definitely get the paranoia, feeling like a robot, everything looking like plastic and bulging to an insane degree, and feeling more homicidal than fantasy usually allows for. I think that has more to do with a person's biochemistry and resulting psychological temperament than anything. I've read other people's testimonies of feeling agitated when around other people on SD, and I understand that it could turn into a bad thing if used by a person who for whatever reason lacks self-control.

The funny thing is that I smoked some SD a few weeks after that kid threatened my life while on it. My thoughts went directly to him, and I became bent on destroying him any way I could the next time I saw him in public. Of course that never happened, and I calmed down that reactive thought process over several weeks, but it goes to show how it can affect some people who normally wouldn't even follow a thought process to such depths. I think I definitely would have lost my self-control if I'd chosen to continue smoking it.

This has been an interesting and challenging discussion.

Zedrov y bogat ko vesa om vam {health and wealth to all of you}

You made the mistake of admitting that everything is connected, so now I'm going to tear down everything you've said. In the most primitive beliefs, people believed in duality of the soul--that we are born into the world with an "animal twin". We all have two spirits {one good, one bad}, and are born exchanging spirits with an animal that keeps us accountable to the balance of nature. Take for instance, me: I was born with my "bad" human spirit, and the "good" spirit of a bat, which keeps my "bad" spirit in check. Likewise, a bat was born whose good spirit dwells in me, and my good "human" spirit dwells in the bat, to keep its bad spirit in check.

That's the oldest recognizable totemic belief, found in Asia and all it's outlying Islands, dating back longer than 60,000 years, before the Australoids migrated to Australia. They brought that belief to Australia with them, and paid heavy consequences for letting go of the old ways; a large part of the Australian ecosystem collapsed because some of the tribes started eating fox bats, resulting in vast desertification. Many fruit bearing trees in Australia are dependent on fruit bats for their propagation. They even have myths to commemorate this cycle in their history. Many of the tribes couldn't stop eating the bats, and farmers were killing them to prevent crop damage, so the modern Australian government stepped in to regulate what are now becoming endangered species there.

Every culture in the world has gone through this cycle of ecological destruction, famine, etc. by adopting mythological/symbolic beliefs and sterile, isolative notions of spirituality that allowed them to justify reckless abandon. Look where it's taken us--to the verge of global annihliation, as we have polluted and overpopulated the planet. That's not balance or truth; that's isolative denial and disease. What you speak of is part of the problem, not the solution. Animism is an instinctive observation of the nature of reality; not some conjecture made up by religionists to keep people isolated in fantasy.

As for deriding shamans for giving up drugs to seek a higher reality, curanderos are not true shamans, which is why they hang onto their drug culture. Drugs only take you within to find the animal spirit that is your soul {i.e., the descent into the Underworld}, which is the first step in shamanism and sorcery; if they don't do that, they're worthless, and have no use in either Path. If the drug makes you leave your body without a soul {like smoked SD does} it's worthless, because it takes you away from yourself.

True shamanism and sorcery are devoted to healing vital humanity{shamanism} and destroying worthless, isolated, destructive people who are wasting space and resources {sorcery}. To put it in Judeo-Christian terms, we're the angels and demons who oversee the process of human life and death. If you don't submit to healing, that only leaves one of two choices in this day and age: be destroyed, or become a pawn in global healing and destruction. It's not a matter of belief; it's a matter of nature cleaning up the mess. Why do you think the last six years have seen massive death tolls worldwide? Do you think that pattern is going to end any time soon? Do you honestly believe that it's all just the tyranny of men and random natural occurences? All around the world, members of both Paths entered into a pact at the beginning of the new millenium to concentrate their efforts globally. No more piecemeal healings or curses; we hit everyone equally, as a collective entity. Our goals are to bring the human population down to a manageable, non-threatening level, and reestablish the values of totemic tribalism. Not because it's a religious belief, but because it's what Mankind must do to survive nature's backlash.

You're a puppet whether you like it or not, because your beliefs don't put you above the herd; if you haven't been plagued by sorcerers and their ilk, it's only because you serve a purpose to one side or the other by remaining healthy. Everything you say or do contributes to some domino effect leading to order or chaos, and either way, you're just as easy to manipulate as all the other rubes. Some people will read this thread, realize that I have the upper hand, investigate the facts for themselves, and make responsible choices that will immunize themselves from manipulation by higher forces. Other people will take your side in denial, and themselves remain pawns. Either way, we still win, because you're still a pawn in our game, inciting others to action. If you weren't a pawn, you wouldn't have bothered to start this argument with me in the first place.

And to make a correction, you tried to tell me that I was wrong first; I never would have brought any of this up if you hadn't opened your big mouth. It still comes down to objective experience; I'm only recognized as a sorcerer by others in my tradition because of objective manifestations of my power--not because I believe in things that can't be confirmed by the observations of others. As for when I started my training, that was at age 13, when I became a man in my tribe. If your mother really taught you stuff at age 7, it only goes to show how irresponsible and fictitious modern society has become. All this stuff is tied in with rites of adult passage; no 7 year old has the physical maturity or cognitive ability to be a man or woman, or do manly or womanly things.

Just because some book tells you you can get out of your body with some hokey visualization doesn't make it so. Whether you got it from a book or your mother got it from a book is irrelevant; it's still just a bunch of bullshit that people write to make money, and to keep people preoccupied with their fantasies. Sorry, but you've been flim-flammed, and you're still talking out your ass without first researching the origins of modern spirituality. Do that before making any more objections, and you'll find out that life doesn't work the way you think it does. That, or you can stick to your guns and remain a pawn; either way, I win, because no one really cares who's right or wrong in an argument that YOU started.

Not everyone has self control like you and I; that's why there's laws regulating who can buy alcohol, tobacco, etc., and laws about disclosure of health risks. Besides, you don't know that he would have committed suicide if he hadn't taken SD; My mother has bipolar disorder and suicidal thoughts, but instead of self-medicating with drugs that could exacerbate her low self-esteem, she got help and is still alive and functional today.

Everything indicates that yes, SD played a factor in his decision. If you can't see that, then you have some serious denial issues. Additionally, I haven't seen any indication anywhere that he had a verifiable history of suicidal thought prior to his use of SD, so unless you can show me a news report of some shrink saying he had suicidal thoughts prior to any drug use, we can never really know that for sure. The only thing we have is his journal entry and his suicide note, which was merely an extension of the thoughts he expressed in his journal; ergo, from the available evidence, we can only conclude that SD drove him to his death. Going by what he wrote, his conclusion came rather suddenly, after discovering some "universal truth" while under the influence of SD; one that he claims took his whole life to arrive at, because prior to his 17th year, he didn't have this wonderful, truth-telling plant in his life. Even with proof of prior suicidal thoughts, it still doesn't prove that potent, mind altering drugs weren't a factor in his final decision.

The fact is, he shouldn't have had access to something that powerful without full disclosure of the psychological and medical risks, nor should he have had access to it before the age of 21. At the very least, this sort of thing demands commercial regulation. Sure, it's illegal to suck down a bottle of robitussin to get high, but at least people daring enough to do so know the health risks.

I don't care what it does to YOU, or how YOU handle things; some people can't. Thats why prohibitive laws exist: to protect people like you and me from ignorant, arrogant kids who like to walk around stoned on potentially dangerous substances with guns in their pockets. What don't you understand about that? If you had a choice, would you sell a gun to someone with a history of crime, instability and criminal intent, or allow the government to be lax on regulating who gets guns? Would you hand a known enemy a knife, and trust him to do the right thing? Would you give a bottle of poison to your young child without informing him of the danger, and trust that he won't drink down the whole bottle the minute you turn your back? How about tobacco--did you know that cigarettes were once sold as a cough and congestion remedy? Aren't you glad that today's laws prohibit the tobacco industry from filling our heads wih those sorts of pipe-dreams?

Putting all idealistic notions aside, there's a thing called social and economic responsibility. Did you know that if I'm a landlord and I knowingly rent a property to someone who intentionally ingests chemicals that could make him black out and do rash things {i.e., someone who has to have 4 or 5 sitters around because he smokes way too much SD}, that person becomes an insurance liability to me, because I had foreknowledge of his destructive behavior? It doesn't matter that it's legal; if the insurance company finds out I knew and encouraged his use of mind-altering chemicals that made him trash my place in a blacked-out state, I lose my insurance claim, just like if I invited a known drunk with a criminal history to live in my property. Do you really think that there are no legal ramifications to this? Why do you think hotels ask for huge security deposits from rock bands? Generally speaking, insurance doesn't cover consent to reckless behavior.

Even Siebert claims that smoking SD puts the brain on "automatic", and that people see things within their own subconscious that they often misinterpret as objective, external experiences because their conscious mind {the ego} is not fully functioning under the influence of salvinorin A. In other words, it puts you in a waking dream, in which you may not be capable of distinguishing reality from fantasy, just like PCP. Despite the sense of heightened consciousness, the reality is that it puts people in a drunken stupor. Just like with alcohol or PCP, it can make you black out and do or say crazy shit that other people end up having to pay for; ergo, it should be handled with the same regulatory kid-gloves.

Even if it's outlawed in all 50 states, it would insure some sort of responsibility, because the availability factor kicks in. Who is going to buy something rare {and therefore way too expensive} if they can get the same effects eating shrooms or dropping acid, with a longer lasting trip? Only serious individuals with a traditional context would bother to use it, and only because they're growing it themselves. That's better than some kid with suicidal or homicidal tendencies smoking it because it was made readily available to every Tom, Dick and Harry...

The blame isn't on the drug, it's on the culture that is popularizing its irresponsible use, and on the perpetuation of the false notion that it's harmless for everyone who might use it. You can't make that culture go away, nor can you force your idealized culture of responsibility on everyone, due to a little thing called diversity of the species. People who act like lesser animals must be treated like lesser animals, lest they steal away your life. That's just the basic law of survival. I didn't write the Book of Life, bro, it's just the way things are. For ALL of us...

Chris W: Maybe that's true in your Judeo-Christian influenced understanding of spirituality, but not in traditional shamanism and sorcery.

Before modern Christianity grafted it's own false meaning onto it, soul literally meant "body" or "containment"; either a literal, flesh body or a spirit body, which in most animist cultures is an animal spirit one is born with. In the spiritual definition, the soul is an image which the human spirit utilizes as a tool for individuating from material forms when it leaves the body. People who leave their body and find themselves in a wall or a couch or another person have been separated from their soul; i.e, they go into an external form because it's the only way they can maintain individuated consciousness.

What you refer to is your imagination, based on your preconceived notion of what a soul is. If you don't first know what animal your soul is, then there is no real way to leave your body voluntarily; you have to be on some drug that can force your human spirit {your ego, or conscious will} out of your flesh by overwhelming your brain with sensory overload. That's why people see what they do on SD; a person finds themselves out of their body sans a soul, so they drift around trying to find another embodiment, and are confused by all the images they see as they pop in and out of other people's bodies, experiencing the phantasmagoric, unconscious images residing within their brains. I don't believe you've ever left your body voluntarily. That would require first knowing what animal spirit is your soul, then knowing whether or not that animal is a trickster {i.e, capable of appearing as other animals; traditionally, that would be the bat}.

As for your notion of what is "astral", astral means "of the stars"; i.e, a light image or apparition. The soul is the etheric double: the body of transmission. What other people see when you project is an apparition created by the etheric double after interacting with a living person: a projected image of either your human memories of fleshly existence, the memories of the fleshly existence of the animal spirit that is your soul, or some combination thereof. If no one saw you out of body, then you didn't really astrally project. But don't believe me; study etymology, and the basis for Western Elemental symbolism in Greek philosophy. There you will learn that essence is a quality discerned from experience, not a preexisting "energy". Matter {existence} follows form {potential}, and essence {conscious discernment of forms} follows material interaction; that concept is based on earlier animist concepts of reality, along with the idea that spirits must be fed {i.e. interact with living matter} to maintain a "disembodied" existence. The belief in OBE consciousness is an extension of animist/totemic belief, and I don't see anything in your beliefs that would allow you to objectively experience an authentic OBE of the willful variety.

REAL shamans and sorcerers always have a reputation that precedes them; people see them when they're out of their bodies, interacting with living people in various stages of apparition, and doing things which have an objective effect of healing or destroying. What you've described to me doesn't sound like something a person would see while voluntarily projecting; it sounds like some video-game fantasy notion of what you would expect to see and experience. I don't know ANYONE who actually projects out of body that conceptualizes it in terms of accelerating or deccelerating within a time/space continuum, because travel is instantaneous. One sees oneself in animal spirit form, then one sees an environment unfolding around them. There is no "travel" in the material sense you're describing.

Drugs can't get you there, and neither can simply imagining it to be true. There's a process that 7 year old children certainly don't have privy to, because they haven't reached the levels of mental and emotional maturity that are prerequisite; they haven't fully individuated yet. These are things that can only be learned after one has become an adult; i.e, one has reached the age of procreation {if going by tribal standards}, and has a fully formed ego. Even then, it takes years of preparation before one can learn to voluntarily project out of one's flesh body, because one must attain what people into Transcendental Meditation call the 4th state of consciousness, which is beyond normal waking consciousness. Ecstatic trance is not something that can be achieved on drugs; it's a heightened state of consciousness, whereas drus produce a diminished, dreamlike state. Drugs only show you what's in your head, or by extension via the collective unconscious, what's in other people's heads. That's a rudimentary type of OBE, but it's not astral projection. That's why Hyakytaki can't move past agnosticism and psychologcial rationalizations--he hasn't had any experience outside of drug stupor that would indicate a tangible existence of spiritual concepts.

I know these things because I was raised in an environment of traditional sorcery. Anywhere you go in the world, regardless of the language, it's the same belief. As for age, I'm 35. That single year may not make me more informed than you, but my lifetime of training certainly does.

For an example from my own experience, one night, I left my body and found myself in the room of an old woman with buzzed hair, wearing blue and white striped pajamas, in a hospital-style bed, with some sort of oxygen equipment on her face {a breathing tube from an oxygen tank attached to the nose, as one would wear if one had serious lung disease or a collapsed lung}. Being the type of sorcerer I am, I proceeded to attack her, as it's my job to strike the final blow of death to people who are unnaturally hanging on. She freaked and tried to push me away; I left and returned to my body, knowing that my work there was done.

Three days later, I saw the same pajama-suited woman on the news, in her railed-bed with her breathing tube, claiming that a person with my description had entered her room at night while she was sleeping, mounted her and tried to strangle her. She literally believed that a living, flesh person had entered her room, that she had fought him off, and that he had jumped out her window while knocking over some vases. The police reported that there was no evidence of entry, no physical disturbance, and no exit through the window. The intact window had an undisturbed internal lock on it, the vases and other allegedly-disturbed items were unmoved and intact, and everything had cobwebs and dust on it because her caretaker hadn't hired anyone to clean the place in months. Imagine that; a woman whom I had never physically seen or met claiming that she had actually seen me in her room the same night that I had been there in my etheric double. A few weeks after that incident, I found out that she had died a few days after the TV interview.

REAL OBE has social consequences, whether malevolent or benign. Anything else is just a fantasy, exacerbated by false belief. Until people started seeing me out of body in my early 20's, I made no presumption that any of what I was seeing was real or valid; neither should you.

Right on! A lot of people are into the quick hit to the head, but coming from 20 years of experience with entheogens, I can say that it's definitely not the way to go if one really wants to learn anything of lasting permanence. Trauma kills the present; one only learns from trauma in hindsight, and only what one needs to do to avoid trauma.

I agree on the shapeshifting part. Once a person knows their soul, they can shift into that awareness as a matter of will. I'm in that state in 90% of my waking consciousness {mirrors throw me off, and socializing with some people for work purposes makes me ground in a human body-image, but that's about it}.

Zedrov y bogat ko vam {health and wealth to you}

I get that feeling on the first hit, then it really kicks in on the second hit. I don't like smoking it at all, because it reminds me too much of PCP. It's way too mindbending and traumatic to the psyche. Drinking it is great, but smoking it is like getting punched in the head a bunch of times by an invisible fist, and it makes me feel so puffed up I could explode. I also hear this high pitched sound that reminds me of a cartoon train whistle, and I feel like if I smile, my grin is going to split back so far it rips my head off. Personally, I don't see how anyone can stand that feeling; to me, it's just way too jeuvenile. If I wanted to come down and see the world the way normal people do, I'd go get a lobotomy.

Maybe it makes you feel different, but smoking it makes me see things the way I did before I got initiated into sorcery--like a normal human. I hear people talk about getting a stretched-out feeling and everything looking 2D in-your-face or reverse-3D {spirit vision}, but that's my normal state of mind, so I can only come down from that.

Drugs are the first step; after you've passed through the door and become a Dweller in the Threshold, there isn't much in the way of drugs that can augment that perception; most stuff just brings you down. I'm at a point now where even drinking tincture throws me out of wack. I had to give up LSD and pot because I'd reached that point with those drugs.

Nowadays, I drink coffee or tea to wake up/stay level, red wine to relax, and if I want to focus on spirit communication and guidance, I smoke pipe tobacco. For visions/dreams, I drink mugwort tea. That's all I really need at this point, and most of the time, I can do without. I think I've come to the realization that it's pointless for me to even drink SD tincture any more.

Best wishes to all of you in finding what you're looking for with SD.

Oh, really? They read his suicide note on TV, and he made it perfectly clear that SD showed him the reality that we're all just specks, life is pointless, and that he would be happy committing suicide. That's pretty clear-cut. You can't argue with the boy...

Smoked SD causes a dissociative state, and it can make you black out and do irrational, dangerous things. PCP does the exact same thing. It doesn't matter if Salvinorin A is chemically different than PCP and stimulates different receptors; the variety of outcomes is the same. I can handle smoking PCP because I'm a sane, rational individual with a healthy ego, and because I've had 20 years of experience with hallucinogens; I don't choose to, but I have the life-experiences and state of mind to get through something like that. That doesn't apply to everyone else that might smoke PCP, nor does it apply to everyone else who might smoke SD, which is just as harsh on the psyche. We live in an isolative culture that is a breeding ground for dissociative disorders; SD used by a wide variety of people in the general public is going to have the same impact as PCP, whether you like it or not. I've already seen proof of that in the youth subcultures of my own town, where it's readily available at local head shops. Despite all the hype about it not being addictive or habitual, kids around here are smoking it like pot, and it's influencing their behavior in a lot of negative ways.

Some wigger asshole almost shot me under the influence of SD because he had some paranoid delusion that I was a vampire and that he was a vampire hunter. Don't tell me that this shit isn't dangerous; it's already become a concern for law enforcement.

You're right; you ARE too stoned to type. Just because something is good for a you and a small group of similar-minded people doesn't mean it's good or safe for everyone.

I agree with Siebert: it should be regulated like alcohol and tobacco. I also think it should be illegal to promote it as a smoke-product without full disclosure of the psychological effects--mainly dissociation, potential for blackouts, and possible harmful behavior when in a blacked out state. The fact that it can make you black out and engage in erratic behavior is reason for concern; any time a drug's advocates recommend having a sitter present for a particular type of use, it's going to send up a red flag. The feds aren't going to distinguish between oral consumption and smoking, because there's no way to police the culture that promotes the latter. Despite the differences in how it effects brain chemistry, any drug that causes a dissociative state and blackouts is going to remind the government of PCP.

Despite what people think, smoking it is traumatic, otherwise it wouldn't cause a dissociative state. Anything that diminishes ego function to that extent is dangerous; the more popular it becomes, the more damaged or ignorant individuals will use it to reinforce negative behavior patterns. We have a headshop that sells it locally, and I've already had run-ins with violent types who were smoking it while walking around looking for trouble. I don't particularly like the thought of some wigger fuckup beating me to death with his skateboard while in a blacked out state, or because the egoless OBE he's having is threatening his machismo. People buying it headshops smoke this stuff like it's pot, and most of them don't know that it can cause blackouts.

This kid already had suicidal notions, and made apparent by his suicide notes, his SD experience reinforced his conclusions that led him to suicide. I don't think anyone should try to play that down, because it gives us excuses to continue promoting its irresponsible use. I fully agree with the curanderos--smoking it is disrespectful to the power of the plant, and ultimately a self-destructive path. I don't know if the kid smoked it, but if he didn't, it just goes to show that it can still be dangerous when used by someone who has problems and no cultural context.