a little poem about magic and drugs

[beavis]

"So, how many trips to the fairy realm does it take to be able to "keep the gold?" Ten, one hundred, ten thousand? I say that if you've done it even 10 times, you've not only fried your brains to toast, but you've missed the whole point."

Depends how strong a drug it is. Some can fry your brain the first time, and others can be used thousands of times.

"If three or four tries don't give you enough magical instruction for you to ponder and apply to your life for years, then you have work to do HERE IN THE ORDINARY REALM before you should try again. Because the ordinary realm is where the REAL work is done. Not THERE, in acid-space or mushroom space. "There," it's so obvious. But "there" is not where the true test of your power will take place."

It is dogma to assume this realm is so useful that we should be here 10000+ times more often than other available realms. If what we're looking for is "so obvious" there but not here, it is logical to assume the more you stay there the more will be obvious to you, the more you will learn (faster than here).

[Tisha]

What is OBVIOUS in these trippy states is YOUR STATE.  As above, so below!  Wherever you go, there you are!  If it takes a person 100 trips to figure this out, well, I call those people SLOW LEARNERS. The weak and confused mind will NEVER get to keep the gold, even if he tries 1000 times. It does not matter if he imagines himself a magician.

A halluginogen can open the door for you, but it will only teach you what you already know. The Teaching Entities have a vicious sense of humor; they will take your weaknesses and shove them down your throat. If your mind is weak and confused, they will lead you in circles and down dead-end roads.  If you DON'T GET IT, and neglect to take time in the mundane world to work on your weaknesses and develop powerful intent, the next time you go back, the Teaching Entities will give you the same business.  This is how they demonstrate Universal Law to you. They will only work with what you give them.  

Fortunately for those fools out there, hallucinogens are not physically addictive. However, they CAN be emotionally addictive, causing people to believe they're more spiritual and wise than they actually are.  NOTE TO ALL: If you're only wise and powerful while tripping, you're not wise or powerful at all, you're DELUDED.  If you can't bring a Lesson back to the day-to-day and transform your life with it, you're wasting both the lesson AND the drug.

quote:It is dogma to assume this realm is so useful that we should be here 10000+ times more often than other available realms

That's either an overstatement or a lie, depending on your personal beliefs, so use your brain!  We spend, or ought to spend, at least 8 hours per day or night sleeping, where our souls travel all sorts of places. (It's not my problem if you're blacking all of it out.) ALSO, if you believe in an afterlife, we emerged from Eternity and will return to Eternity when we die, leaving us Eternity to go wherever we need to go. Which means, in terms of "ordinary life," we spend about TWICE as much time in the mundane world, not 10,000+ times. AND, taken our eternal souls into the equation, we spend much MORE time in other realms than in the mundane world.  Beav, your argument falls apart under scrutiny.

Mundane life is a blessed training ground where we can apply our magical Lessons in a relatively consistent and reliable environment.  DON'T WASTE TIME WHILE ON THIS EARTH.  When you die, you won't be able to ground yourself like you can here.

ONE MORE TIME:  Look around at your life.  It will tell you how powerful and wise you really are.

[eeb]

Normally I just skip large posts like these ones, but I got caught by a phrase of the first post. I press the back button of my browser again, and start to read the message.

I like your posts Tisha, such independent stories spread on this forum;-)

I like the phrase of the test we're doing now. Maybe it sounds cliche or all chewed up, but it's the reality. Well I think I'm a little off-topic, because I'm totally not familiar with any magic thing...

But I like to see at my life as how it gets shaped everyday by myself. All the choices I make, conscious or unconscious. Unconscious choices almost if not always made because of unconscious desires. Well, unconscious, but not unreachable. They seem unconscious in the first place, because of lack of attention paid. Watching myself during the day, spotting my emotions during social interactions has teached me alot about myself.

I see things appearing in my life because of me attracting them. Unconscious desires are the best ones, often the strongest. Imagination is allowed spontaniously and the rational mind with all its questions and doubts is almost not involved. Even this process I am not consciously aware of most of the time, but it happens naturally and spontaniously all of the time.

Then a few days, or a few weeks later, after I forgot about it, suddenly the thing or event appears in my life. This can be a variety of things: a concrete thing or an opportunity. It just appears.

That's magic for me.


Ebele

[Tisha]

Ebele, you don't need to be a magical practitioner to see the Universal Forces working in your life!  You've shown, by your message, that you understand Magic better than 95% of the people on this Forum.

Since your Work is largely unconscious, you a normal person. The magical practitioner is different in that he/she knows exactly what he/she is doing. Since most people cannot keep this level of Awareness 100% of the time, they are not 100% magician, they just have "magical moments."  Remember this the next time you meet someone who calls himself/herself a magician or a witch []

[beavis]

Tisha "That's either an overstatement or a lie, depending on your personal beliefs, so use your brain! We spend, or ought to spend, at least 8 hours per day or night sleeping, where our souls travel all sorts of places. (It's not my problem if you're blacking all of it out.)"

I forgot to include that, but the ratio of awake earth experience to drug experiences should be about 1:10000 in your opinion, and I think its too low to learn everything from the drug that you can. I am of course only talking about legal drugs. []

"ALSO, if you believe in an afterlife, we emerged from Eternity and will return to Eternity when we die, leaving us Eternity to go wherever we need to go. Which means, in terms of "ordinary life," we spend about TWICE as much time in the mundane world, not 10,000+ times. AND, taken our eternal souls into the equation, we spend much MORE time in other realms than in the mundane world. Beav, your argument falls apart under scrutiny."

Eternity is a long time from now. I was talking about the local ratio.

"Mundane life is a blessed training ground where we can apply our magical Lessons in a relatively consistent and reliable environment. DON'T WASTE TIME WHILE ON THIS EARTH. When you die, you won't be able to ground yourself like you can here."

I dont care about being grounded. I used to hate it when my parents grounded me to my room. Its the same thing, being grounded to earth, but for a different reason.

[Nick]

Thanks Tisha for this thread. Your statements make a great deal of sense and are quite helpful. I want to also comment on eeb's post as it relates to all of us as well.

Each day and every event in our life, try to reflect on the impact and significance of what we think and do. How it resounds within and without. Also, those unconscious desires that eeb mentioned, and what they attract.

Whenever I remind myself of the Universal Laws and karma, for example, it also serves to remind me of how important thoughts and actions are. A powerful little book, The Kybalion (see topic in this forum) has been very instructive to me in this regard, and I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't yet read it.


Very best,

[daem0n]

people don't want to change, they make these fairy trips so they can later say "i tried it and now i know that was too good to be real", they don't want to keep the gold, becouse they fear and resent unknown, and that for the first time they would have to search for the answers on their own, and work them out (i mean majority of unconcious ones here), how many seekers find anything ??, or, for that matter, search in themselves ??

[Moonburn33]

Hypothesis:

i think that are urge to do psychedelic drugs on a regular basis stems from our familiarity with taking medication or other pills on a regular basis.  we tend to lump anything that we put in our mouths for non nutritive reasons in this category.  we think that we aren't getting the benefit of the substance unless it's taken repeatedly.  

obviously, this isn't the case with most psychedelic plants/drugs.  in my opinion, our cultural distance from nature and the real world also disconnects from any viable practice of using psychedelics in magic.

[Aileron]

I only reply to any of this because I was at one point involved very very deeply in the subject discussed.
Almost ten years had I been using "LSD" and "Shrooms" and even "Exctasy," though many would not compare it to the first two as a hallucinagen.

I have uncounted amounts of lysthergic diathalimide(Excuse it if it is spelled incorrectly) coursing through my spine and cerebellum, along with the fungus shroom. This in no way makes me an expert on the subject discussed, but I felt I could contribute my own opinion to the topic.

First off I think there are numerous ways to approach this. First subjectively.
We as beings, namely the entity in who each of us are as individuals, do need experience in an arena that is undetermined. This means to me, that we all choose the paths we lead and that those paths can ultimately no matter what the choice, precede us toward an undefined conclusion.
I neither condemn nor condone the use of hallucinagens because each spirit gains what might be useful, even if through harmful manners. I don't like to walk around ugly streets seeing decayed souls purging and wasting their lives upon chemical dependance, but sometimes the deepest holes we fall into, are the brightest.

Personally, though I have lost much in the way of use, I have gained just as much and would not be the person I am today if I had taken the route my brother chose. Here is the contradiction. My brother, basically one of the most perfect people you will ever meet, ended up almost exactly as I have, without the use of any chemicals, "EVER!"
There has not been a more sober person, maybe besides Ghandi himself, than my brother. Not only that, he is one of the most liked and intelligent peoples I have ever known.
We contrast as well as compare in every way.

We each see the world differently, but live beautifully.
I have a perception on the world, that nobody else can touch and that I wouldnt even begin to attempt to express. Its mine.
Yet with all the "wrong" choices made in my life, I appreciate and take from it, everything.
I know more in the ways of awareness than most, but I am still learning.

Second, objectively. People might see someone on acid and say, "Poor guy, he's just wasting his brain," when in reality they can never even begin to contemplate the events taking place within that small node of tissue embraced by bone and cartilidge that is reacting to a chemical explosion. It could in fact be saving his life if you want to look at it as though chaos effect/butterfly effect. He may gain insight that no sober mind can fathom which would cause him to make a choice later leading to a longer life, even a better one, more learned and more experienced. On the other hand it could lead to a quicker demise. This is the biggest point I am making, one never knows.

You live your life inhaling pollutants and popping pills to get rid of headaches, drinking alcohol more than advised by the surgeon general. Driving cars that kill the ozone and tossing trash without concerning yourself with where it goes. You have impure thoughts and might have even shamed your moral sense of conviction by experimenting with what you were raised to believe as the wrong choice in sexual relations. You might have kicked an animal or screamed at a child. You might have had a friend who got in trouble for something, and you got off on that. You might have cheated on your spouse or significant other. The list goes on and on.

What I am getting at, is that no matter what you think, nobody has the right to tell someone that a choice they make is bad or good.
They dont know, nor will EVER know, what comes from that choice.
People seem to think a vast a majority of people even trying hallucinagens are just deluding themselves into thinking the answer is within a hit or an ounce. It has nothing to do with what they have done, it comes from everything before up to that point and everything else around you. It comes from your parents, your siblings, your friends, your enemies, your work, your school, your trees and your plants. Your animals and so on and on the list builds.
But only the being themself will find what comes from the choice.

There is no arguement here to anything posted because you all made your choices.

Who knows, spending so much time on the forum might have shortened my lifespan or lengthened it. It might have given me a more confused state of being or more aware. But that is none of anyones concern but my own. I try and gain help where I think it is needed and heed advice I believe to be relevant, intuitive and intelligent.

Nobody needs to be told that any choice they make is a bad choice.
People just need to choose.

Allow and be allowed. So above, so as below.

[Aileron]

Not in the slightest do I disagree. As I said the choices made are our own, but we must take responsibility for those choices, even if they lead to disasterous results.
It is difficult though. I have many friends who in fact have been committed for the very same thing which we discuss now.

I sometimes wonder why out of so many times I have taken LSD, I still retain even some if not most of my sanity. My clarity and awareness did change because of it, but my plain of reality shall never compare again to those who decide not to indulge their curiosities.

Though I thank you, runlola, I think you are just as aware as I, that there is no reason to congratulate someone because they have done what I have done.
My life is different now, but we all live different lives and drugs or not, our perceptions rely on our need to search. It has nothing to do with magick.

If there is anyone out there believing that they should turn to hallucinagens or a drug of any kind in order to learn those parts of themselves that lead to magick use, then they are deluding themself.
When I read this I was rather insulted because it seemed to have been taken so light-heartedly, almost fatously.

In my case specifically(and of course all cases differ), I tried it because i was young and willing.
Eventually it turned spiritual. Not because I thought I would find answers to the universe by taking drugs, but because as human beings we find ourselves surrounded not by the questions which have plaqued us all regarding our existence, but to the need itself.
That we as people "need" to search for god to fit a better realm of existence, or for so many other reasons. It was the "need" I questioned, and I felt that in order to search for my own answers, I would take a different route. One that our society believed a moral disfunction. Drug use. TO destroy the self. I felt if I split myself from who I was or was meant to be, perhaps the answer would stare me in the face all the same at the end.

Then I realized that society is just perception of the total, and that I didnt need to rebel against the conformed, nor gather with the masses either.
I could search for my self, and for my reasons alone without destroying nor inhabiting that which our world believed the necessity of ritual.
Along the path I took though I found many other answers.

I found that drugs specifically don't destroy the person less that person had predetermined their own course or manipulated their minds in order to seduce realities choice of perceptions.

For instance. The native american tribes of mexico and the southern americas ingested peyote to become one with both nature and the deer god. They found spiritual awakenings attributed to the visions they saw and became part of. Mushrooms too as well was used for this same reason though in more abundance it was not as sacred since the peyote cactus can take up to thirty years to mature.

The point is, is that once again our choices are driven by our needs and desires but they are our own and if we are meant to learn by them then so be it.There should be no hinderance by others telling us their views of what is bad and what is not.
There should just be a plain objective understanding of what possibilities there are in the choices we make.

[Aileron]

sorry, I meant when "I read this" as in the thread, not your reply runlola.

[Aileron]

runlola, I havent dosed for almost two years. When I was in high school though it would range.
During my junior year throughout the full year I would generally take a hit every other day literally.
I often did it during the evening so that I could deal with next day on a quasi-clear head, but as I said, it ranged depending on a few factors.
Usually the acid trips would last anywhere from 7 - 12 hours so that it would be almost a complete comedown just an hour or so after sunrise.
I have taken a hit once that lasted two days, and I have taken close to 10 hits within an evening period which only lasted the duration of the night as per usual one hit.
Shrooming would of course depend on how much I ate. For instance a good eighth would leave me to trip on a much more natural wavelength for as long as LSD might, but again it depends on the substance itself.
As I progressed into the use I became adaptive to the substance itself and as sad as it is to say, was able to handle myself around my parents during the peaks.

The depth I could go into on this topic scares me because almost my entire high school career was indulged through these drugs and even after I graduated (Yes, I was able to graduate regardless of the trouble I was in), for a few years afterwards.

[Tisha]

nice to see the discussion continuing.

[Tisha]

I've been pondering about this subject for 2 days.  Many people turn to mind-expanding chemicals for their magical instruction.  It's a fair option; drugs (I speak of the hallucenogenic variety) can be great teachers.  

Hallucinogens demonstrate Universal Law (esp. the first Law of Hermetics). They will do this in dramatic ways you never quite bargained for. They also ruthlessly reveal the fears lurking in your mind, magnified 1000 percent, in glorious technicolor, with the volume turned up to the max.  A serious student then learns about facing fears and projecting Intent. The serious student understands how magic works, and brings the lesson home to apply in his/her ordinary life.

Well, maybe.  I say "maybe" because for the ordinary seeker these lessons are like trips to the fairy realm.  You might find gold and grasp at it jealously, but upon your return you will find your gold has turned to dross. In a weird circular way, the knowledge you receive from a hallucinogenic experience is directly related to the magical power you possessed IN THE FIRST PLACE.  Which is by itself a Lesson in Universal Law.  Drugs will not make you powerful.  They will only demonstrate your level of knowledge at that moment.  As above, so below!

So, how many trips to the fairy realm does it take to be able to "keep the gold?"  Ten, one hundred, ten thousand?  I say that if you've done it even 10 times, you've not only fried your brains to toast, but you've missed the whole point. If three or four tries (not including errors in proper dosage, etc.) don't give you enough magical instruction for you to ponder and apply to your life for years, then you have work to do HERE IN THE ORDINARY REALM before you should try again.  Because the ordinary realm is where the REAL work is done. Not THERE, in acid-space or mushroom space.  "There," it's so obvious.  But "there" is not where the true test of your power will take place.  In fact, you should be able to recognize your true power as a magical practitioner just by looking at your life. As they say, "Ye shall be known by your fruits."

So, I wrote this little poem.  I hope you get it.


MAGIC AS APPLIED SCIENCE

THERE IS ONLY ONE QUESTION
foolish student
raises hand in class
I know the answer! I am so smart!
reads answer from the blackboard

THERE IS ONLY ONE LESSON  
foolish student
takes notes with invisible ink
takes class again, again
still can't remember

THERE IS ONLY ONE ASSIGNMENT
when class is done
glaring sun
dark night
face-to-face
ordinary space
one Life to shape

THERE IS ONLY ONE TEST
you're taking it now