Hi, I’m 17 and have a lot to ask, hopefully this isn’t a waste and can help others if not just myself.
(preface: This is not meant to distract from the purpose of this community. do not let my ramblings distract from the power of this group)
I’ve had numerous experiences, and got introduced to the mystical after my trips when I was 15. Did DXM, nitrous, shrooms, and weed. and I only mention because I think they have led to me being lost.
The mushrooms were my outlet for these experiences, and everytime I smoke weed now, it leads to insanely blissful experiences. I feel that I am communication with interdimensional intelligences, I’m having so many incomprehensible inputs of sensory data, and having quite a bit of revelation. My most recent experience, I was dancing and shaking to my music and… the music matched my internal experience. synchronistically. (a bit obsessed with synchronicity) all the colors and sounds and feelings merge into this one rapturous experience.
I’m saying all this because I don’t want to be trapped here. I want to do real magic, and I want to do whatever it takes. I have a window cover to set up my darkroom. I’ve been everywhere lately, and I just need a bit of a boost from experienced sorcerers.
I was planning to trip again with my father to try and heal our relationship and to re-enliven my life with heightened perception, but should I just call it off and focus on sobriety? Should I drop the drugs all together? they help, but they’re never reliable and I forget everything I experience on them. The main thing is my depression and narrow mindedness when i haven’t used in a while… I just need to know that this magic is going to “heal” me. I’ve heard them called power plants but… that they can also damage you and… i’m just lost.
thank you for your patience with my chaos. Any help is greatly appreciated.
31 Comments
Weed is fun but you'd be mistaken if you think you can use it to give you a boost for sorcery doings. I had similar mystical "deep" experiences when I was in my teens exploring weed but here's the problem with that and psychedelic use in general: you go back to regular consensus reality with no ability to free your perception without using those substances. Not to mention, excessive use of psychedelics can also permanently mess up your ability to move your assemblage point naturally.
Also, pay attention to your internal dialog when you're high. Those "profound" thoughts most people (including me) have while stoned are simply the result of weed transforming that internal chatterbox into what I call "4D Internal Dialog". Truly useless for sorcery since you cannot go far along the J-curve without inner silence anyway. Although it is fun to be able to easily perceive puffs and the clear ephemeral representations of IOBs while in a happy stoned stupor. I just view that as "junk food" since it does squat for sorcery progress. Well I suppose psychedelics could be of some benefit for those with rigidly stuck, excessively rational worldviews as a means to show what it's like when the AP shifts a bit.
thank you. this helps so much.
Could I ask: what kind of damage can be done from substance use? I couldn’t find much information on it, and I still feel that they have a role in my life.
Hello. I am new user in this sub, so I can’t tell much to you but only my experience.
I am curious also about same questions.
I used a lot of different substances at the age of twenty-something. I think the damage was done by going too fast to things that should had careful preparation, physical and spiritual.
I think I got what is called ”kundalini-psychosis” or it was just normal psychosis, cant really tell.
My ”normal” life soon became a mess, and the need to know and see magical things got so big, that I started to forget to take care of myself, heal myself and my body from those experiences. And I forgot my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend also, so that thirst for magic was too much. I didn’t need drugs at some point, I was hungry for dreams and how to learn dreaming. Doing chaotic things resulted in chaotic manifestations.
If I could now go back, I would remind myself to take my time, respect the magic and the spirits, and respect natural hallucinogens by preparing myself more by taking care of myself more.
Before that time it was kinda same substances that you listed, dxm being the best/worst, because it threw me way of this world, and I didn’t have much knowledge what I was dealing with.
After that I read my first book from C.C and it was a almost a romance.
You are young, so I would advice to take your time with psychotropics, its easy to get lost in drugs and the world within. And weed is scary strong nowadays, I don’t understand that thing… The respect for the plant is kinda missing IMO.
My too-fast-experience then took it’s toll in time, by need for healing for more than ten years. I didn’t have internet like this then, here is a lot of good info to read and learn.
I am telling all this because your post ringed some bell, and I got urge to write. My advice would be to try things without drugs first. It’s possible to experience more later when you do the work sober. And you remember also more.
Castaneda is FICTION.
I’ve spent half my life searching to see if the world that Don Juan describes is real. And it’s not.
There is magic in the world but these books are valuable as a philosophical blueprint and not as a practical guide.
Your brain has the potential to grow until you are 25 (maybe beyond). This means that every time you use mind-altering substances you are likely preventing neural connections, abnormally altering neural pathways, and disrupting your risk-reward systems. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
You are far too young to be fucking with anything “synthetic” and you don’t have the basis of experience to engage in any plant medicines at this time.
Shrooms work with what’s in the mind already.
If you haven’t studied: philosophy, psychology, & physics. Then you haven’t formed a basis of knowledge that is beneficial for the psychedelic experience.
In the books, Castaneda was portrayed as a “rigid and studious academic” and the only reason that Don Juan used psychedelics with Carlos was to loosen him up a bit so he could be less stuck in what “Carlos thought he knew”.
You are a child and you still know very little about the world and reality in which you live.
It is commendable that you’ve found these books but if you think that the plant medicine parts have a central component then you are mistaken.
The general idea is that the psychedelic is a tool to use extremely sparingly.
A warrior does not want to become dependent upon or enslaved by substances - and even with long years of training many still get lost in the illusions substances create in their lives.
The whole point of the Castaneda philosophy is to “become a man of knowledge”.
One becomes a man of knowledge by living like a warrior.
One becomes a warrior by living an impeccable life.
An impeccable life is hard enough to achieve without forming needless dependencies upon substances.
Do yourself a favor and read all the books again - all 14 of them. Plant medicines are hardly mentioned past book 4 - tales of power.
Many of the parables within Castaneda’s books can be useful in one’s life - especially the warrior/man of knowledge philosophies. But the books should not be takes as literal — especially by a teenager.
So what are you doing in here with 3 of his private students, and dozens who know for a fact that it's NOT fiction and have duplicated nearly everything from the books, including the impossible stuff.
Maybe you should go to subreddit based on your idiot con artist philosophers?
Ram Dass: Attention seeking child who gave the worst advice you could possibly give anyone who wants to seek the truth: "Be here now".
It's a death trap!
Alan Watts: Who misrepresented Asian philosophy as something it's not, thereby lending legitimacy to something as silly as Daoism, which isn't taken seriously in Chinese countries because they know Daoists are alcoholics and child molestors, who beat their heads bloody with nails on boards, to get a few coins donated into their "spirit chest".
Not to mention, Lao Tzu never existed.
And Jiddu Krishnamurti, who used the oldest trick in the self-flattery book, to con the naive into thinking he was wise.
It was just his own form of "Daoism", where "you can't understand this, but if you did, you'd be great!"
A total fool with nothing useful to say about anything.
You're really lost.
I like philosophy and I enjoyed the books. And I’m free to have my own thoughts. It’s fine if you don’t agree.
I can’t confirm what anyone else experiences, only what I have and I’m late 40s and have genuine tried to duplicate things in the books and found only illusions.
Your aggressive tone indicates a profound immaturity.
If you’re encouraging a child to engage in drug use to “follow these books” then you’re not being responsible or impeccable, now are you?
You have no idea what these people here are actually experiencing. The mind is really good at finding confirmation in the external world for whatever beliefs people have.
I’ve tried to reproduce Castaneda and found mostly illusion. That’s my experience bro.
I won’t disagree with your assessment of the philosophers I mentioned. In fact, I agree to an extent. But for a young child who doesn’t know about them, he should be able to examine them and make his own assessments.
They may have not been perfect people, but you’d be a fool to deny that some of what they shared was valuable.
I can be anywhere I like and I am free to share my own experiences. Your hostility is extremely telling - are you sure that you’re evolving and growing by shunning every other major philosophy?
I see clearly who you are Mr. Lawton, but you are unable to see me - and that doesn’t perturb me in the slightest.
The OP is a child and should have a chance to explore every aspect of reality without being locked into a single persons view of the world.
After reading your profile and comments for 15 minutes I take it back. You’re right. There’s nothing I will ever have to discuss with you. Best wishes and good luck.
that picture and "4D internal dialog" resonates with me. I was trying to get a CBD soda at a bar, the bar had stopped carrying those and offered a synthetic THC soda. I tried it and was not ready for it, it had been a while since I'd done any weed, chatter went into overdrive.
For a couple hours I thought I might have had some "super power" of thought, but on reflection I didn't get any smarter or more productive than I normally would be.
I recommend you look at why you think you need to use drugs. You describe them as very positive experiences and you also mention a damaged close relationship. I think many people think they're running to drugs (or skydiving, or whatever) when they're running away from something.
"they help, but they’re never reliable and I forget everything I experience on them. The main thing is my depression and narrow mindedness when i haven’t used in a while…" does not sound like they are a net benefit for you.
Have you tried the practices, sober? Darkroom, gazing, recapitulation. Regardless of what you do with your drug habit, I think you've got to start.
I like the wording on that. I'll have to borrow it from now on.
Super well explained - thank you for putting this into words
"4D internal dialogue" I like that!
can you explain to me the exact science behind why and how psychedelics can permanently impare your sorcery practices?
does it “damage” the AP, or is it more like a general lifestyle tip to stray away from psychedelics? i think i read something about it “burning a flat spot in the j curve” or something?
i’m asking because psychedelics offer a lot to me, and i just don’t know where to draw the line when it comes to this. is this like a serious facet of sorcery is sobriety?
any and all help is appreciated.
I found a pretty good quote for it from the lecture notes:
Hallucinogens, therefore, are only used in the first phase of initiation. Castaneda is explicit and strict about this point: once the daily perception of reality breaks down—once the vision of the other reality ceases to offend our senses and our reason—the drugs are left out.
Is your worldview still too "rigidly stuck, excessively rational" that you need the drugs? If it is, continue, if it is not, stop.
what will happen if i continue to use them anyway? will they damage my AP or something? or my ability to finish my practices?
Over time, with enough continued use, they change the shape of the luminous shell, making it more bell-shaped. This is the direct result of spending too much time in the shift-below, the "red zone" at the bottom portion of the J-Curve.
What the possibly negative affects of this are, we really don't know. But Carlos and the other women trained by the lineage certainly did not consider it to be in any way an asset.
Another result, is that the movement of the assemblage point is delayed as it passes through those regions making it more difficult to both reach full-on silent knowledge (which is in the front) and to perform the rapid "burn from within" maneuver at the very end in order to successfully complete the lineage's method of reaching the lineage's third attention.
But honestly, since we here are dregs without much at all in the way of support in our efforts at this...I don't now if these considerations are as dire as they may have been for past members of this sorcery lineage.
So, the better way to look at it is likely that drugs can make you terminally lazy, refusing to put in real effort when you can just cheat.
And unstable.
you mean they didn’t consider psychedelics an asset? meaning that they aren’t valuable to us? and implying that you get stuck from them?
i didn’t fully understand your wording.
They're useful if you were raised in a rigid social environment, ex. an ultra-religious/orthodox one, and were/are unable to shake that off enough for the assemblage point to move.
Which is something it wants to do! If we let it.
do you think microdosing and low doses would be okay? or would they damage my ap.
i’m not worried about laziness Im definitely going to put in the work.
should I restrict myself from all psychedelics just to be able to burn from within?
I mostly just use them for personal enjoyment. they bring so much to my life and I don’t want to sacrifice them for sorcery but i will if i have to. even if just lowering the dose.
>microdosing and lower doses
From what I read of the research that has been done, microdosing results are akin to the placebo response.
You can always choose to pioneer that optimal amount through experimentation.
I have read accounts of individuals who say that their "brain just works better" on certain psychoactive compounds, meaning they correct some deficiency or imbalance.
But don't disregard the FACT that intent, as a force of change, subsumes absolutely everything in the multiverse and is a trillion time stronger than any psychedelic. So the mastery of that can enact transformations/metamorphosis that nothing else can even dare approach.
And relying on psychedelics does not set you up to directly establish a learning relationship with that.
i just want to know if I can do both. which you’re saying to experiment with and find the optimal dosage. right ?
Much of being human is about mitigating personal challenges; and we don't all have the exact same challenges. Do what YOU feel you must, and avoid stagnation at all costs.
Then why ask about it? It’s clear, and if you want to risk your chances that’s for you to do.
I have tremendous experiences and I am sober so I would suggest that, but if you don’t want to do it, then what else are you expecting?
Your assemblage point just got pushed around a lot by the drugs, and created a "flat spot". On the J curve, down in the red zone.
There's a map you can refer to but reddit isn't working much this morning and won't show it to me.
So it's easy for your assemblage to move to there, once it's loosened a bit.
Perhaps marijuana is enough for it to move to those old "shroom" spots at the bottom of your back.
This creates a problem for you doing darkroom, but the problem may not be so much those "flat spots", as laziness.
That's techno's theory on why drugs are bad.
Because when it takes a lot of effort, you're more likely to go back to the drugs thinking you can get the same effect.
But you can only get so far with those, and it's not even 1/3rd of the way. Maybe not even 1/10th.
Imagine a luminous egg the size of your hands outstretched, like Leonardo's famous picture of a man.
Drugs move your assemblage point from a point on the surface of that egg near your shoulder blades, to a point projected out from your lower back. That's the furthest drugs can move it.
We need it go all the way down below the floor a foot or two under, back up the front, up to the level of the belly button, and then all the way across to the right.
That map shows what you might perceive at each location.
So maybe drugs get you a very small fraction of that distance.
The problem is, if people are looking for self-flattery, which dominates the entire world of "spirituality" (especially in eastern stuff like Yoga and Buddhism where they hand out endorsements to those who make the best slaves), you won't realize that the drug trip is pretty much nothing.
You'll confuse that with what you see in the posts, since it's all "weird stuff".
Self-flattering weird stuff experiences drive the world of spirituality.
But drug damage can be fixed with "discipline".
Meaning, daily practice using specific techniques, where you never deviate and only increased the magic the technique produces.
But you have to use a technique which does indeed produce real magic, while you are fully sober.
All in all, I'd say your actual biggest problem is being 17.
We've never seen anyone that age get serious.
You're biology is programmed to prevent that, so that the adults around you don't turn you into a slave worker.
Surely it must go away by 22, since our first big successes with darkroom were two people of that age.
I think what I have to do is get serious, then. I was going to ask if it would be in any way beneficial to trip again in the near future for purposes other than loosening my already loosened assemblage point, but I realize most of the effects substances have ever had on me are a lingering bliss. then comes the damage and the reliance.
I’m with you on the magical systems and “spirituality” outside of this one—dead ends. Although, I do have some intellectual questions regarding concepts that are seldom discussed in this group, like interdimensional alien contact (different from IOB’s, I think… I mean seeing lights in the sky and telepathic communication.) if those ideas are relevant enough.
Any advice with getting serious is greatly appreciatiated, apart from sheer will.
We're up to our ears in interdimensional alien contact, nightly!
Maybe you just need to get over to the advanced subreddit.
As for getting high, there's "ravers" who have you beat hands down, and none became sorcerers.
Many are so dysfunctional that they can't get by without support from someone else.
Hey, looking back on this post, It's remarkable how much attention-seeking and self-pity is imbedded within. (despite my inquiries being sincere) But just in these last few days, having done my best to intentionally make progress with this systematic practice, I've noticed huge shifts in my perception. I feel as though a few of my experiences have been *gifts from intent*, but some have manifested as products of intending to force silence, and doing my best to "reprogram" my remaining internal dialogue/internal state to a more intentional, focused one.
I haven't started formal darkroom yet, but have practiced forcing silence/intending with near darkness, squinting, and various lit environments.
I was wondering If I should post my experiences? and for future reference, If I should continue to do so? I have an extraordinarily long way to go, but feel confident in my intuition and assisted awareness to make posts that assist this community in some way or another. I feel like my recent experiences would do well to encourage new practitioners by showing just how drastic of a change these practices make, specifically when you are doing as little as cleanly intending--and to demonstrate the authenticity behind the magic and the practices. I've also got quite a few questions.
You should definitely post your experiences but if you are referring to 'experiences' as in how practicing the techniques of this tradition has changed/enhanced your day-to-day life in the blue zone, well, that has been done for 50+ years and nobody really benefitted from that (from a magical/ perception expanding perspective).
But if you are referring to how practicing silence has opened the doors to perceiving previously unseen things as you gaze at the sky for example, post away.
The big advantage of youth is that you most likely have much less in the way of traumatic experiences and general life events to recapitulate. Meaning you may very well have much more energy to work with for sorcery doings than the rest of us geezers.
The big disadvantage of youth is that younger people are often excessively and obsessively concerned with social validation and issues related to identification. So they would be more concerned with what practicing sorcery and perceiving magic means to their developing sense of self and their place in the world. This is an unfortunate side effect our childhood social conditioning which rewards "correct" perceptions, behaviors, thought patterns, etc. The result of which completely eliminated our natural ability to perceive that which is not of this world.
So the question here is can you resist the compulsion to attention seeking behaviors, excessive social validation and useless (energy wasting) philosophical ponderings on "meaning"? Can you resist the impulse to identify with the magical perceptions and novel sorcery experiences that come up in your practice? If so, then you will likely go quite far, so long as your intent is squarely set on magic and freedom of perception.
That's a Buddhist and Yogi delusion used to steal money from people by making them feel they are making progress, when they're merely focused on themselves even more than ever.
It's poison to learning actual magic.
We REMOVE the internal dialogue entirely, which allows us to fall asleep while remaining alert with our eyes open, and able to move around.
We're sleepwalkers!
So don't refocus. Remove.
Which specific techniques do you recommend, I’m trying to build up my discipline.
Tensegrity?
Carlos said, if you only do one pass, do life saver pass.
But CORRECTLY. Cleargreen doesn't do it at all, they just do a lame Asian morning exercise you see done at companies to foster "group spirit". And all renditions of it on Youtube, other than Jadey's, are horribly wrong.
Beyond that, I can't really recommend passes. There's 400+ of them. We need to do our best, to get as many as possible practiced.
Stellar Hatch as the most magic in it.