Profoundest musical experience

[JRL]

I asked for topic starters and Cenacle came up with this:



how about profoundest experience with entheogens and music...live shows...albums...most joyful, most terrifying, most spiritual...best lay to music while you and your partner were tripping? eh?

[TroutMask]

Well, Danielson + LSD last Friday was quite cheery.

Edit: Imagine early Talking Heads + Syd Barrett + Daniel Johnston for high vocals and Christianity.

-TM

[neonaut]

WOW what can one say.  I have experienced so many, from just listening to headphones, kicking back in a bar, the desert, the beach, the polo fields, the dingy warehouse in the ghetto of Oakland, to a jam session in a garage in the suburbs.

The most recent experience was @Coachella this year.

When Daft Punk entered the sahara tent on Satuday night, all sense of time and responsibility was lost.  The entire group of 30,000 blissed out humanzee's were lifted to a higher plane.  Not a word was spoken, and there was not one frowing face in the crowd.  I felt as if I was abducted by robotic humanoid aliens that spoke french.

I did not stop dancing nor did anyone else, the feeling of pure ecstasy eminating from the grass beneath our feet, from the massive stacks surrounding us, as well as from our own souls created a T.A.Z. to remember.

[senorsalvia]

Most profound...  well, try this....  When I used to play live music (drums)  I'd once in a while, find myself slipping into this 'zone' where I flat out, literally could see the room, the audience, bandmates, everything; begin changing; begin taking on some kind of an 'otherworldly' glow....  Along with this, would be some sort of inner awareness, that I'd slipped into a type of parallel world, where there was all sorts of instant symbolism and answers going on....  Now, I know what 'yer thinking; but believe me...  Senor did not necessarily have to be on anything at all to find this happening ---  This 'zone' was timeless, beautiful and fulfilling...Hell, maybe it was a product of adrenaline and endorphin load from playing.  Maybe, just maybe, it was a gift from the cosmos...........................  sal

[lollipop guild]

The grateful dead were/are alchemists, the concert hall, their alembic. Every opportnuity to enter that sacred space and taste of the philosopher's stone has lead to a most profound musical experience.

guild rep #13

[lollipop guild]

Jungian psychologists have developed many theories concerning the alchemical process and human development. However, from the text of Nigel Hamiltons' work,"The Alchemical Process of Transformation," linked below, it appears that the Jungians really hit a brick wall when theorizing on the third stage of the alchemical process, the Citrinitas..........

http://www.sufismus.ch/omega_dream/alchemy_e.pdf

 
Stage Three: Citrinitas or "Yellowing".

Alchemists refer to Citrinitas as the stage of the sun, or the dawning of the "solar light" inherent in our Being. Now the light is no longer reflective as in the lunar or soul light.  Its nature is direct and it is all pervading (we do not experience it as having a source). This light is "great and strong, as of a calcining fire." It is sometimes referred to as the original Light or the Light that is pure, creative Intelligence. Some alchemical texts describe it as the Divine Intellect (as distinct from the human, mental intellect). It is said that the only true knowledge is revealed to us when this Light becomes conscious in us.

Now in describing the second stage, mention was made only of an alchemical marriage and a rebirth. Stage three begins with the "yellow death," i.e. there is a dying away of the "lunar light" to the point of complete darkness, which is in fact "black light," a light so bright we cannot see it as our inner sight is veiled and it appears as darkness. St. John of the Cross speaks of this in a personal account of his own "Dark Night of the Soul." This "death" is also described from a Buddhist point of view as a death of the sense of self as being a separate individual. It is a complete dying of the dualistic state of mind that perceives subject and object as separate.

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I believe the first set of a dead show corresponds to the "yellow death," mentioned above, or the "dying away of the lunar light." Musical content (often revolving around death/dying/hell/the devil) when coupled with strong psychedelic substances have the ability to gauge as well as facilitate a form of ego death necessary to proceed to the next level of awareness.
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(text cont.) It is hard to find the equivalent experience in the psychotherapeutic setting, but we do have a possible example when we consider the schizophrenic experience. Here the client can lose all sense of individuality and moves into a world that is almost totally subjective and there is little or no ability to be objective, i.e. for the client to separate him/herself from the experience.

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I find it interesting that the schizophrenic experience is the best example the author could muster for a comparison to this stage of the alchemical transformation. The psychedelic experience has been compared to the mental illness mentioned above on more than one occasion in professional circles.

In the alembic of a dead show, it is the sacrament of LSD coupled with the musical content which facilitates the participant to "lose all sense of individuality and moves into a world that is almost totally subjective and there is little or no ability to be objective, i.e. for the client to separate him/herself from the experience," imo...
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(cont. text)The "yellow death" signals the end of the influence of the "lunar light," as the consciousness is transformed into "solar light." This "solar light" awakens the sense of revelation and revelatory knowledge.  Inner knowing is not arrived at by study, reflection or deep thought; it is to be experienced as a direct revelation. Further descriptions of this stage become too metaphysical to be relevant and so we must proceed to the description of the third Alchemical Marriage.
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The second set of a dead show is the vehicle in which participants, "experience inner knowledge as a direct revelation." This knowledge is facilitated through the process of group consciousness, amplified by powerful psychedelic substances. Drums sound the cosmic birth contractions while space takes us through the birth and into the world of song and melody once again.
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(text cont.)Purification at this stage focuses on the removal of the "watery" elements. This alchemical marriage reveals the anima figure as corresponding to the Divine Virgin, or heavenly woman, the object of spiritual love. This love is devotional in nature. One example of this would be Dante's Beatrice, who leads the poet on to the spheres of paradise and the marvels of heavenly love. The corresponding animus figure appears as the spiritual guide - the professor, clergyman, guru, who is seen as "elevated and spiritualised." The Rebirth is in terms of the birth of the Solar consciousness, a revelatory light.

Since stage three has moved clearly into the mystical realms, it seems pointless to try to seek for examples from the psychotherapeutic setting that will give us a practical example of this experience - it is perhaps best left as it is, i.e. as a mystical experience. However, the intuitive
knowledge that we often receive in life, whether in a dream or in a flash of realisation, gives us at least a hint of the power of the "revelatory light" or "solar light." It is true that there is a stage in the therapeutic process in which a particular dream, insight, or image that comes to us, can act as a crucial turning point in the therapy or it may sum up the whole purpose of our therapeutic process. In this sense, we could say that our intuition is an expression of the eternal mystical knowledge, a level at which everything is already known. This was referred to earlier as Pure Intelligence. Of course we are not aware of where the intuition comes from or how "it knows" and neither are we likely to experience this "mystical illumination" whilst in therapy. In order to know something of this stage we must rely on the illuminations of those exceptional few human beings who have recorded their experiences.
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guild rep #9