The "God Molecule," 5-MeO-DMT, points to divinity residing in the physical brain

My wife is an avid reader of Apple News. Today she sent me a link to a story in New York Magazine that she correctly realized I'd be interested in, "Who will own the 'God Molecule'?" Subtitle: Psychedelic devotees are racing biotech entrepreneurs to turn 5-MeO-DMT into a pharmaceutical. 

It isn't possible for me to share the entire lengthy story, so I'll just talk about some things that struck me in the piece, along with some excerpts. 

I experimented with psychedelics (LSD and mescaline, primarily) while in college during the 1960s. They were a big part of the flower power counterculture in the San Francisco Bay Area, along with many other parts of the world. 

It wasn't a coincidence that when the Beatles sang about "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," the key words in the song started with LSD. My motivation for using psychedelics was a mixture of curiosity, pleasure-seeking, and a search for an alternative reality beyond the confines of everyday life.

At that time I wasn't at all religious, so I didn't give much thought to the undeniable fact that a small amount of a certain chemical substance could produce effects that were similar, if not identical, to mystical experiences -- which typically are viewed as pointing to a supernatural realm.

But there's no persuasive evidence that any domain beyond the physical actually exists. When it comes to psychedelics, all we can be sure of is that a physical substance produces physical effects in the brain. True, many users of psychedelics find those effects deeply meaningful, sometimes calling them one of the most profound experiences they've ever had, life-affirming and life-changing. 

Here's some descriptions from the story of what ingesting 5-MeO-DMT can be like.

The new company’s target was not LSD but a far more obscure substance: 5-MeO-DMT, also known as “the God molecule.” It was one of the most formidable drugs in the world. The Feildings believed it might also be one of the most salable.

Psychedelic adventurers first became interested in the drug — full name 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine — in the 1960s, when it was identified in entheogenic snuffs used in the Amazon thousands of years ago, derived from plants such as the tall flowering yopo tree. It’s found in even greater concentrations in the defensive toxins secreted by a toad species from the Sonoran Desert.

Contrary to a popular misconception — and a sequence in the new movie Friendship, starring Tim Robinson — licking the toads has no psychoactive effect and can lead to a painful death. Instead, one must express the poison from glands on the animal’s limbs and neck and allow this to dry into brittle flakes. Smoking a piece the size of a matchstick head is sufficient for a full-blown trip, which comes on within seconds and typically lasts less than half an hour.

Like other psychedelics, it can be profoundly mystical. But the drug is singular in its intensity — “ego death” is common — and its relative lack of visual illusions. “If most hallucinogens … merely distort reality, however bizarrely,” a user attempted to explain in the 1980s, “5-MeO-DMT completely dissolves reality as we know it, leaving neither hallucinations nor anyone to watch them.” One early adopter, Dr. Andrew Weil, an alternative-medicine guru popular in the ’90s, described the trip as “a rocket ship into the void.”

...Within just a few years, the popularity of toad smoking exploded, thanks largely to an evangelizing Mexican doctor named Octavio Rettig, who claimed that the practice was a lost Indigenous tradition (a widely discredited idea). Soon, a host of public figures — Mike Tyson, Hunter Biden, a Spanish porn star named Nacho Vidal — were promoting the drug for such diverse afflictions as depression and crack-cocaine addiction.

With the hype came the attention of mainstream researchers, and in 2018 the first studies showed the potential of 5-MeO-DMT for treating depression, PTSD, and drug dependency. For clinicians, the brevity of the psychedelic trip was especially compelling: a half-hour on 5-MeO-DMT had the potential to be far more convenient than six-hour voyages on psilocybin or even longer spans on LSD.

But the drug had significant risks. Ralph Metzner estimated that one in ten 5-MeO-DMT sessions he oversaw during his three decades of research involved “dissociative, psychotic, or fear-panic reactions.” “It’s a fully developed hell,” he wrote, recalling early experiences of his own, “with demons torturing me, reminiscent of concentration camp accounts or the torture chambers of the Inquisition.” Some users have reported thinking during their time on the drug that they’d accidentally killed themselves. Flashbacks, which are common, are sometimes agonizing and lasting.

The molecule in its purest form is low in toxicity, but some users vomit; some tense up as if in rigor mortis. High doses can flood the body with excess serotonin, which can be fatal. Of the few reported deaths during and shortly after trips, some seem to be due to unsafe facilitation practices. (Between 2013 and 2018, at least three people died during toad-medicine ceremonies with Rettig, who habitually blew tobacco snuff up his clients’ noses and poured water down their throats, believing this prompted them to relax and surrender to the experience.)

In the past few years, at least three people who took part in underground sessions have committed suicide after their trips; a handful are known to have been admitted to psychiatric wards.

So 5-MeO-DMT possesses both promise and peril. The story describes how two companies, Beckley Psytech and GH Research, are trying to develop the molecule into a safe and effective pharmaceutical product. I wish them luck, as it never hurts to explore new ways of enhancing the human experience.

The philosophical implications of 5-MeO-DMT, as with psychedelics in general, fascinate me. A key question is whether these sorts of drugs (1) demonstrate that mystical experiences are inherently brain-based even though they may seem other-worldly, or (2) demonstrate that certain chemicals can mimic mystical experiences that are inherently windows into a supernatural realm.

I strongly lean toward (1) being more likely to be true. However, there's a non-zero probability that (2) is true.

My problem is that (2) reminds me of another spurious argument from believers in the supernatural: the human brain doesn't generate consciousness, but is a conduit for a non-physical consciousness that uses the brain as a receiver in the same way a radio receives and decodes electromagnetic waves.

This also seems highly unlikely to me, though it isn't outside of the realm of possibility (in science, nothing is 100% certain, as there's always a chance that a current view of reality is mistaken).

Comments

[October]

@This also seems highly unlikely to me, though it isn't outside of the realm of possibility (in science, nothing is 100% certain, as there's always a chance that a current view of reality is mistaken).

You are Right. It appears no one knows reality any more.Correct thing is to adapt to changing realities and be early bird to the new emerging reality shaped also by things happening in the world.

Perhaps, we need more souls seeking their true purpose.

[Spence Tepper]

It may be that love, truth, beauty, mercy, courage, submission to a higher power and basic goodness and kindness are all mere biochemical qualities.

But the journey to discover the source of all these within ourselves, free from the negative influences; meeting remarkable people who help smooth the path; who are there for us helping us awaken our connection to reality is itself the poetry of life. There are priceless treasures of living.

If taking drugs is part of someone's treasured life experiences, let them treasure those.

But to me, to be entirely awake and free from any influence, truly free, this puts the past in perspective, but not as the active source of life and happiness. That is living free and awake is this moment.

Meditation research,, BTW, proves that the neurological mechanisms triggered by deep meditation are entirely disrinct, and completely different from those of any hallucinognic drug researched to date.

And while the evidence for brain damage from repeated use of hallucinognics is well documented, the hard evidence for long term meditation results are improved neurological health and functioning.

Because drug users report experiences in theological terms is not the same as actual spiritual experience. For that you would need to reproduce the experiences of long term meditators biochemically. Verbal reports from drug users is not adequate to make claims in the absence of hard evidence. And all the evidence we have about the neurological results of long term meditation are entirely contradictory to the claims in this post.

[manjit]

Spence's level of arrogant and ignorant preachiness is in inverse relationship to his experience, knowledge and wisdom.

It you full for his schtick, you deserve it.

The blind and clueless Zionist leading the blind.

[manjit]

How can you tell when a Zionist is lying? When they open their mouth.

Spence's post above is riddled with lies.

Caveat emptor.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Manjit
As I've mentioned several times I'm not a zionist nor have I ever been. I was raised with an entirely different way of thinking which I adhere to.

The true Israel is within everyone, anyone who wishes to go there is chosen, and we can get there by not engaging in any acts of violence at all.

For some reason I have become a symbol of your anger and hatred, and so your arrows are aimed at some other imaginary target.

They will never produce peace, Manjit. Find that peace within yourself and protect it. Then you have a basis to understand actual peace on earth.

You might not be able to bring peace to others. But you can certainly bring peace on earth within yourself. Then you do no harm to yourself or others. You actually help the world find their way to peace by not interrupting any sincere effort with a misdirection of attention to false imaginings.

This is how wars are created and persist, Manjit, on falsehoods we tell ourselves and others. But truth finds a way if we let it.

That usually begins with the four most difficult words in the life of any adult:
"Oops,, I was mistaken".

I know how painful those words are for you, only because I must say them daily. It is the cost of pursuing truth.

Not something any hallucinogenic drug will give you. You have to find it within yourself, this most precious treasure hunt within.

[um]

@ Spence

>> I know how painful those words are for you, only because I must say them daily. It is the cost of pursuing truth.<<

MUST say ...hahaha
Apart from that Spence, I wonder if you do as I can't remember that you ever did here.
Why?
Because, every-time you write here I am reminded of what you wrote in the past about debating at the family table.

Anyway ..the reason that I react is your insistence that people can change for the better by effort...

it is my personal experience of live that tells me the "opposite" and it is in correspondence with how I came to understand the late MCS when he used examples like the cream coming on the milk of you let it rest and especially the often repeated warning NOT to fight the evil ..evil being everything you do not like of yourself and others and in particular when he spoke of suppressing natural drives comparing with the poisonous fume if one throws water on fire

The world is not makable, neither are you

[Appreciative Reader]

"I strongly lean toward (1) being more likely to be true. However, there's a non-zero probability that (2) is true."

Ehh, while #2 carries a "non-zero probability", sure, if one wants to be scrupulously accurate: but that's like saying that there's a non-zero probability that I'm God, I myself, me sitting here sipping a mug of strong black and typing this, and that everyone and everything are merely manifestations of my thoughts; or that there's a non-zero probability that dragons and leprechauns and faeries and the Loch Ness Monster all exist. For all practical purposes it is silly to give any credence to #2, absent evidence --- and no, to say that is not to preclude looking, either for these supernatural realms, or for evidence that I'm God, I myself, or for evidence for faeries and dragons et cetera.

But absolutely, even shorn completely of this nonsense, DMT is nevertheless a fascinating subject for further study. The sheer recreational value of it; its aid in psychiatric disorders, as well as depression; plus its potential to maybe tune us humans' brains along saner, less destructive lines. (And absolutely, the point of the discussion on the horrible outcomes it sometimes delivers is also well taken.)

I'm curious, though, why developing this molecule is being spoken of in the future tense. Sure, a great deal of research still needs to be done, but I was under the impression that DMT is available already on the market. Is my impression mistaken, then? (It might well be, in which case I'm happy to update my understanding.)

[Appreciative Reader]

Ah no, that wasn't very well informed, my comment above. Just looked up the Wiki entry for 5-MeO-DMT. It's a very different animal than DMT, apparently. This isn't psilocybin we're talking about, apparently --- unlike what I'd imagined. Nope, this 5-Meo-whatsis is a whole different thing, it seems.

And no, while the Wiki article doesn't directly say that the 5-Meo-DMT is *not* available in pill form, but on the other hand, nor does it say it is available (as one would imagine it would, had it indeed been so available, along with brand name). So I'm guessing, no, it hasn't actually been isolated and boxed up in pills yet.

(Like I said, that's just conjecture basis a quick glance at Wiki, is all. Should anyone have definite info to the contrary, then I"m happy to take that onboard.)

[um]

>> My problem is that (2) reminds me of another spurious argument from believers in the supernatural: the human brain doesn't generate consciousness, but is a conduit for a non-physical consciousness that uses the brain as a receiver in the same way a radio receives and decodes electromagnetic waves.https://besharamagazine.org/science-technology/consciousness-as-the-ground-of-being/

https://besharamagazine.org/metaphysics-spirituality/federico-faggin-irreducible-consciousness-life-computers-human-nature/#:~:text=After%20many%20years%20of%20work,impressively%20eloquent%20and%20understandable%20terms.

[um]

@ Spence

Please do reas the dinal conclusion on the book of Faggin.

https://besharamagazine.org/metaphysics-spirituality/federico-faggin-irreducible-consciousness-life-computers-human-nature/#:~:text=After%20many%20years%20of%20work,impressively%20eloquent%20and%20understandable%20terms.

Why?
Well, again about effort.
HE, ..... l'onorevole gentiluomo Dottore Faggin ....had FIRST an spiritual experience ...AFTER ...a personal trauma of a kind, for which he needed and answer dearly but was not able to finf himself, not withstanding his enormous mental capacities and academical education in physics etc ...like abraham and many, many other mystics ... their cry for help was answered by .. let us call it the universe ...a GIFT so to say

My point there is no practice by which this can be established, nor any drug can do it

[um]

Spence .. the final thought in the article is enough

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
Yes several times here I've erred Both Appreciative and Brian could probably recount them, though I prefer to smile and look forward.

Now as to encouraging effort at personal progress the founder whom our Master regarded as a saint said

"The essence of the path is first to withdraw, then raise the consciousness their the inner sky, then listen to the melody of Shabd within..."
Swami Ji Sar Bachan Poetry.

That's a practice, Um. Those are instructions for the practitioner.

He further writes
" Apply yourself to the practice of Surat Shabd, discarding all other methods... "

So that is a presumption of progress and a demand for effort on our part. Progress is presumed, and effort is fully expected, within the grasp of any initiate.

He says later
" Put complete faith in this practice.
I have revealed the essence."

So, if you believe this there is no getting away from the presumption that there is a destination and your progress, of one kind or another, is baked in, given you do your part.

Believers generally have hope in better things, given their own effort and the love, guidance and support of a good friend. But I understand how others have lost hope.

I would just say there is good reason for both. First, for doubt. We are blind and we may not fit in well here on earth. And going within is a complete reversal of our normal attention tendencies.

But I would say there are good reasons for hope. Of course, that's what I believe.

[Donald]

This is why saints are born and not made in a test tube. But to sell it to the Restless Consumer it has to be sold in the guise of a science .

[um]

@ Spence

Naturally it is as you point at and it works too I suppose ..... the question is only for WHOM?

Be assured that I know what there is to be known about the inns and outs of the teachings given the pleasure I always had listening to his discourses and especially the Q&A and the correspondence I had with him.

Given this "positive" background and the absence of doubt I had to address the fact that there was no attainment, no progress, no change for the better. That process has taken many years and I have gone, to use his words, through many fases of understanding.

If a person has to face what I had, both finding fault with the teachings, the teacher or even to organisation ..OR ...with myself as practitioner ... is not a good strategy as it the subjective involvement makes it impossible to see better.

Let me as conclusion just repeat what I wrote a couple of days ago ... if a person wants to be a classic danser there are many parameters related to the outcome ... many of which are said by him NOT to be in the hands of the student .. all things that are GIVEN ..be it as grace, be it as karma or whatever.

Over time I came to realize that I was not a seeker and never had been ..and ...as I wrote yesterday, I have come to understand what it was all about. In short, from childhood on I do mis the ambitions that drive people forward .... I am just not interested.

Like a crow does not have to do anything beyond being a crow in order to be a crow, so it is with humans alike ..THAT ..is what I found ... it is a psychological understanding and therapeutic result.

Strange enough this is the result of digesting the many things he wrote me and helped me to understand humans in general and myself in particular.

So this path does work but not for everybody and that can and should not be blamed upon anybody or anything.... crows wull have a difficult time in the artics ...hahaha

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
I think it depends upon what you are after. The entire inner reality includes the joy and insight of simple mindfulness. The idea of withdrawing within opens a door to all sorts of sights and sounds, including a better understanding of what 'now' and 'here' really are.

Any effort at introspection including your own review of works and history, yields a wonderfully conditioned and unique perspective, one that changes in days with a deeper re- consideration. And such second and third looks around us frees us of one more very thin layer of thinking, and brings us one step closer to direct perception, to capture the whole, like a holograph, from a deeper understanding of the fragment.

Your coffee today isn't even the same as it was five minutes ago. How miraculous to see it!

There is a lot to enjoy as we pass through here, and no reason not to practice, as that merely sharpens and opens our vision.

So, rather than expect anything, just look carefully and enjoy the changes in your own viewpoint.

We are all on a starship rushing through immense distances we can hardly understand in a candy shop of evolutionary creations.

There is every reason for hope and continued mystery, and insight.

And. Practice is the method to sharpen our tools and gently pull back curtains.

[um]

@ Spence

in your opening sentence it says:
"It depends upon what you are after"

I have tried, in my words and in my way, to explain what I was after ever since my birth .. NOTHING.

There has never been any ambition to be or become whatsoever.

What did exist was the necessity to take part in life in the public domain in order to survive.
So I focused on becoming ... "a normal person like everybody else"
The problem was that "being normal" is different for anybody else.

As I wrote I have been done many things but did not manage to make any of them my own.
I also wrote a few words on the process and how I finally gave up the whole idea of becoming a normal person, becoming somebody else.

That process has not left me empty handed ... i came to learn much about what it is to be human ... so much so that I even one day could not stop myself from saying from pure joy that he was such an brilliant psychologist.... in waking up in the cinema, much later, that whole idea of becoming a normal human being like everybody else, just collapsed and did i refined my old self .. ....without ambition

It is alright for you to be as you are but not for others ... and ....thinking otherwise easily invites the evil of wealth to come in.

Humans are alone in this world he told me one day and in order to overcome the pain that goes or can go with it, they go into the streets of the world and enjoy the lights of the public domain. Not all are aware of that pain and those that do have the slightest idea how it was generated ...and will go again and again to their "neighbors" in order to try to get rid of that pain but as a result to come home even more miserable than before [ going to neighbors = stepping in the public domain].

Why not remain at home, he said, sit in your own room, in your own chair and enjoy your own company?

That is what I finaly came to do...decluttering myself from the conditioning of a normal person

[Ron E.]

I’m of the opinion that whether it’s drugs, meditation or just plain life experiences, whatever apparent mystical or spiritual happenings occur to a human being it is fully down to chemical responses in the brain – occurring naturally or administered.

We all, in our various ways are habitually searching for something. Essentially, it can all be summed up with our being dissatisfied and expecting something more from life, from reality than it actually is. And by reality, I mean the world as it appears to us via our senses and consequent brain-based interpretations.

This dissatisfaction manifests in many ways; desiring to get the top job, a certain car, house or standard of living; or, where we realise or imagine that the material things of life can never really satisfy our needs, we transfer our desires to achieving some projected spiritual state or experience that we believe or hope will give us what we want.

Unless we are embarked in a scientific quest for the reality of quantum physics or exploring consciousness etc., generally we like to believe there is some other sort of reality; a reality that will promise we are something other than mere flesh and blood.

Of course, the driving force behind such thinking is the survival of the me, the self or ego. Given the chance, when the time is imminent, the body will naturally drift into the state of death – except that the self, the ego having invested totally to maintain its illusory existence will vigorously resist such impending annihilation.

[Appreciative Reader]

This is intriguing. And, heh, a bit galling, my conflating DMT with its 5-MeO cousin earlier on. So, I've just now looked up some stuff about this thing. Nothing very involved, just a quick twenty minutes or so of perusing stuff found online, but here's some cool links that came up, that others also might, maybe, find interesting:

1. https://psychedelic.support/resources/breaking-down-the-god-molecule-exciting-developments-in-5-meo-dmt/

2. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/god-particle-5-meo-dmt-drug-pharmaceutical-market.html (the NY Mag article)

3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10302259/

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DDLo_QqpRc (a YT thing that, interestingly, has a brief portion where a shaman/guide/facilitator shows you how to imbibe the thing)

----------

All of this is very cool, and I actually found this whole exposure to ayahusca et al literature, over the years, percolating down now to my current view about mediation. To wit, this:

This is all very cool, and all great grist for valuable research. But it's silly to jump into this expecting to get some earthshattering revelation, first-hand, about the world, or about oneself. The mistake people make is what some say in the YT vid linked: they confuse "I felt like there's a unity behind it all" with "I understood there's a unity behind it all". That difference? Between feeling something, and the unwarranted belief that what one's felt is indicative of outer reality? That's key, to a sane reasonable worldview.

So that valid reasons for trying the thing would be, (a) Recreation, (b) Therapy, (c) Research, and (d) As an aid to general wellness. And most emphatically not looking for transformative knowledge --- because the transformation, if any, is entirely inside the headspace of the guy or gal doing this thing.

And, it occurs to me, the exact same thing can be said, not just about DMT and DMT-adjacent drugs, but about mediation as well. And I say this as someone that's already invested a significant number of hours of my life in meditation. We meditators need to guard against the sunk cost fallacy of imagining that there's necessarily some big reveal that meditation can make known to us. I mean, what I said about DMT etc, the difference between feeling something, and imagining that that feeling is indicative of something tangible out there as opposed to merely our brain cells and neurons doing their thing?

[manjit]

Dear Spence, your stated beliefs are very clearly those of a Zionist, and an extreme one at that. I have no interest in if you accept the label or not.

In regards your suggestion to me of saying ""Oops,, I was mistaken". - have you considered it is you who should do that with your WILDLY colonial views of psychedelics, the implicit violence towards indigenous cultures and the various lies in your post above?:

"Meditation research,, BTW, proves that the neurological mechanisms triggered by deep meditation are entirely disrinct, and completely different from those of any hallucinognic drug researched to date.
And while the evidence for brain damage from repeated use of hallucinognics is well documented, the hard evidence for long term meditation results are improved neurological health and functioning.
Because drug users report experiences in theological terms is not the same as actual spiritual experience. For that you would need to reproduce the experiences of long term meditators biochemically. Verbal reports from drug users is not adequate to make claims in the absence of hard evidence. And all the evidence we have about the neurological results of long term meditation are entirely contradictory to the claims in this post."

Over the past 10 or so years, I have provided links to I would imagine HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of various scientific research, anecdotal research, research involving long term meditators etc etc etc that COMPLETELY contradict just about everything you wrote above.

Do you care to support any of the 3 or 4 distinct claims you make above with even a single link of any sort? Or shall we just ignore that MOUNTAIN OF OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE, ANECDOTAL, HISTORICAL AND SCIENTIFIC on your say so?

It course goes without saying that "psychedelics" have and continue to be used by indigenous societies for thousands of years and they have served as incredibly POSITIVE technologies in their societies.

There is something profoundly salient in observing a person who apparently earns their livelihood in the US pharmaceutical sector, damning both the "spirituality" and physical brain (damage) of these ancient peoples and paths of mysticism and spirituality which literally birthed the meditation traditions, and spewing their abject ignorance, on multiple levels, experiential, scientific, cultural or philosophical, as if it were wisdom of the ages!

There's a very, very simply truth here folks; all these fucking fakes and frauds would get absolutely kicked on their ass if they took just 1 cup of tea, Ayahuasca tea, but tea nonetheless. They'd be shitting and pissing themselves, begging for their mummy or their "Satguru", but it will be of no use as mirages are of no help in raw reality.

They want their "spirituality" and "inner experiences" to never be tested, lest they be revealed as the ego-centric fakes and frauds that they are who've never had to face a single fact about their own ego and it's lies ever even once before, imagining their milquetoast "inner experiences" or lucid dream fantasies to be "spirituality" and "mysticism". Victorious mystics on paper only.

[manjit]

In regards the actual article - well, yes. I've discussed this chemical many time before, and in a great deal more depth, information or insight than this article here (though I strongly recommend reading AR's very wise comments, based on his obvious extreme experience, knowledge and understanding of the subject!).

As mentioned many times previously, it is worth UNDERSTANDING both DMT and 5-MEO-DMT are ENDOGENOUS chemicals present in the body, ie. they may be "drugs", but "drugs" which make up part of our natural biology. So, it looks like we're all doomed to "brain damage" :)

Anyway, again, reflecting to comments I think I first made here probably 10 odd years ago. Lots of hot air and nonsense gets spouted here. Paper warriors I call them. The challenge is simple, put up or shut up.

https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2015/03/christof-kochs-brain-talk-both-inspires-and-deflates.html?cid=6a00d83451c0aa69e202e860fa54fe200d#comment-6a00d83451c0aa69e202e860fa54fe200d

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V-5t0ZPY7E

Koch, who was once one of Brian's high priests of materialism DID put up.

He's now shut up.

Of course, I'm merely "appealing to authority" here, blah, blah, cowards.

;)

[manjit]

Koch now sees the undeniable intellectual power and persuasiveness of Bernardo Kastrup's philosophy.

I first mentioned him here many years ago - you will note those materialists without a hint of integrity have ever engaged with his works or arguments (or indeed any of the other overwhelming body of evidence and philosophy which plainly destroys their ideology which I have provided here over the years!). They cannot get a handle on these arguments because their realities are TOO SMALL to contain these bigger ideas!

Anyways, again, philosophising aside, it was the mushrooms the instructed Bernardo to present his DEVASTATING critique of materialism to the world as he has shared in several podcasts, and touches on here:

"But who am I to know, right? The only thing I do know is my personal experiences: I have cultivated psychedelic-containing organisms at home, legally, safely and very easily. The experiences they provided me with years ago have been of tremendous learning value and considerably helped my personal development. I paid very little to achieve all that, basically acquiring spores (also legally) and some basic tools. I had no professional supervision for my experiences and neither did I require any (although I do recognize that others may indeed need it, depending on their psychological health). I simply had a sober person (my partner) in the house during my experience, just in case something went wrong; which fortunately never happened. Beyond that, the only professional help I ever got was from my doctor, to ensure that everything was okay with my heart and liver before I first took the substance. If I were offered free psychiatric supervision for a trip today, I would politely decline (as, in fact, I have), for I consider the experience the most personal activity one could possibly engage in. These are my humble personal views, for what they are worth. I fail to see any need for any big-money commercial infrastructure around psychedelic usage."

Hehe, yes, ties in nicely with this profoundly protestant, colonial and reductionist view of psychedelics Brian shares above.

These folks will spend thousands getting check ups from a doctor, then for somebody to give them ONE gram of a mushrooms, and then experiencing nothing, gaining nothing.........when if they actually tried to listen to the folks outside of their colonial gate-keepers of reality and spirituality, he could have an ounce of powerful mushrooms GRATIS (from folks who care :), and an experience that would almost certainly have revolutionised and improved his remaining years.

Instead, they chose to listen to the gate keepers, and rattle around perpetually in their fear of mortality instead....ironically it is fear that mushrooms will cause some physical or mental damage to these folks who are in their 80s, and still they think they're spiritual explorers!!

Just too funny :)

[Jimmy]

Imagination is your God Molecule.
Here is the way to deploy it as spelled out by Neville Goddard.
As you go to sleep choose your goal. For many here it may be visits to the infinite inner worlds.
Then feel yourself shaking the hand of a friend or hugging your loved one at your accomplishment.
Feeling is the secret so make it a explosion of happiness.
Sleep in this feeling. Repeat this every night so give it a try it costs you nothing.