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Jul 27, 2007

In this episode of Psychonautica, entheo-pundit Max Freakout recaps on the last two episodes, dealing with the issues that arose from them, and brings to a close the trip report competition started in episode 10, everyone's a winner! Max clarifies some points from the ego-death/freewill podcast (episode 11), such as his use of the word 'religion' and the concept of affirming and then then transcending 'no free-will' in the dissociative cognitive state. Max talks about the controversial debate between psychedelics and meditation/yoga as effective spiritual practises, trying to be as even-handed as possible, then discusses the concept of synergy, and corrects an error he previously made concerning average LSD dosages. The psychedelic properties of cannabis are discussed, then finally Max recommends some psychedelic web-links including a video documenting the Hungarian psychonaut scene, to finish off there's a public service announcement about medical marijuana from fellow podcaster Zandor and a song about picking mushrooms in the wild. Email Maxfreakout@dopefiend.co.uk leave comments, Skype us, and join the ever-growing Psychedelic community hanging out at the forum at http://forum.thegrowreport.com/


Playlist: Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit; Veba - Don't want to lose you; Circulus - To the fields


Links:
www.ethnoring.com - ethnoring, source of the competition prizes
www.realitysandwich.com - Reality sandwich
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=8808124350716031869&hl=en
-Pszichonautak (Hungarian psychonaut video with English subtitles)
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3701092/Psychedelic_Torrent - massive
psychedelic torrent


Fake Diploma
over sixteen years ago

Nice one Max. I have to admit I\'ve practiced meditation a few years ago, during my yoga classes. It was a soothing experience and I was able to connect to a more \"softer\" side of my, so to speak. I haven\'t practiced for a few years thou but I started again after listening to your podcast. Cheers, mate!

Simon Jackson
almost fifteen years ago

I\'m sorry this is a cut and paste, but it may help answer some of the questions raised:

Why cannabis and meditation?

Why do some cannabis users seem to get shifts in awareness, or find themselves growing more \'spiritually-minded\' as time goes by? And how can a drug that seems to induce soporific states have any place in meditation? Doesn\'t Buddhism in particular warn against the use of any intoxicant as being detrimental to meditation?

Well, actually what the Buddha warned against was the use of intoxicants that may result in you losing proper awareness of reality, \'mindfulness\'. But, using cannabis, depending on type, dosage and personal circumstances at the time of ingestion, doesn\'t always result in us becoming vegged-out and half-asleep. On the contrary, the states it can bring on are sometimes anything but vegged out, and it can actually create a far more balanced and lucid state of mind than just about any other recreational drug. Although it does have other useful effects, the ability of cannabis to get you to this state is one of the main reasons why it\'s of so much use when combined with traditional focussing (\'shamatha\') meditation styles.

One of the aims of many supporting techniques in all traditional meditation schools is to get you to a point where you can turn on, or remain permanently in, a state where you feel happy, totally relaxed and very mindful (aware) of the here and now. At a basic level, meditation itself is designed to initially take you to that very state, so, if we have a drug that allows us, with practise, to get there, then it can reduce the time that you would normally spend on preparing your mind for deeper meditation methods quite substantially. Being at the just right level of high can provide a good basis for us to meditate effectively within, by adding deep relaxation, and a sense of well-being that we would otherwise have to spend time creating in ourselves. A relaxed and happy mind is clearer and more able to sense the subtle changes in awareness that

#8#
sixteen and a half years ago

I just finished this one. I\'m sure you\'ve already fielded plenty of commentary on the forums -- just wanted to chime in myself. I\'ve been on both sides of this coin. The two things you gain through forcing yourself to sit on the cushion and meditate, if nothing else, are discipline and the chance to work on patience, and those are skills you can take with you after you\'re done. It\'s not easy because it\'s not supposed to be easy.

I think a better meditation/entheogen analogy would actually be looking at mediation as a kind of martial art (something else I\'m experienced with). One thing that sometimes occurs during competition/performance, after many years of intense training, is a kind of peak experience, where time seems to slow and you seem to be able to predict your opponents moves before they think of them, and then easily overpower or out-perform your opponent. It\'s almost as if you\'re leaving your skin and watching yourself from behind. Many athletes describe such peak experiences. The breakthrough in meditation, for lack of a better way to put it, is something like this (at least from my experience), but far better. One thing I discovered when experiencing something like a meditative peak is that was when I focused on the blissed-out feelings, they slipped away. When I let them sit there, they intensified. The euphoria was quite focused; it had a specific structure and tenor.

I didn\'t meditate until after I\'d had some psychedelic experiences, and when I had those experiences, they were done on my own, sometimes with one friend, in very controlled settings, for the sole purpose of consciousness exploration. Those were fantastic experiences that disclosed, for me, ways of pattern-recognition and connection. I feel like those experiences may have primed me for what I experienced in my meditation practice. The peak I experience in meditation is similar to the peaks I\'ve experienced with mushrooms, but are much more introspective, internally expansive, and just cleaner in a wayâ€