Drugs

Putting together ones life with the modern world.
Fomalhaut
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Drugs

Post by Fomalhaut »

What is your approach to use of drugs? If it is positive, are you using any? Can drugs be beneficial in Occult Work?
"I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become."
— C.G. Jung
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Insanus
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Re: Drugs

Post by Insanus »

My drug use so far has been a couple of joints or spacecakes containing cannabis in some parties. Personally, I hate that stuff even though I've tried to find some sort of positive side in it's effects.
Nope, it's just terrible. Maybe the "blurry" relaxing offers some people who are completely neurotic with everyday business find a moment of peace there, but yuck, it's hell.

I'm pretty neutral towards drugs feeling they're like a way to force dreams to occur.
Wouldn't use them in Occult Work.
I think there is more value in studying one's attitude towards drugs than in actual drug use. For example an intense fear, disgust, or lust towards heavy drugs (or in my present case, loathing cannabis) might be very telling & useful hint in what sort of direction one wants to go, but you can create so crazy & intense states of mind by even meditation alone that I don't think drugs are needed. Perhaps if someone really, really wants to use drugs in his/her practice, then maybe a couple of tries are acceptable to get familiar with the energies involved. But even in that case, I think that it's more important to understand why want drugs. If it's more for the kicks than the actual benefit for work, then do drugs for kicks by all means if you absolutely need to, but do not confuse your use with the occult work.
The reasons are always more important than the results, if we are truly idealists.
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Heith
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Re: Drugs

Post by Heith »

There's a few problematics with working and drugs. I would think that if a person uses in order to get results easier, this is not good. Absolutely it is easier to see things when using any kind of drugs (or alcohol), but if this is always the key that opens the gate the individual never truly develops. Another thing is, it becomes easy to dismiss even real results after one has sobered up, or the opposite- to separate junk from actual valid points- one may begin to see everything as a sign of this or that.

Another point I would like to make is the holiness of certain substances. In shamanic traditions it sometimes took years before the apprentice was granted access to holy plants. It seems to me that many of the people I have conversed about the subject of substance use and occult working are a bit too relaxed for my taste; often the occult work is a thin disguise for hedonism. When such persons get terribly traumatising hallucination trips for using witch plants just to get their head mixed up, I admit, I do feel a certain glee- in my opinion the plant undoubtedly knows this and works accordingly.

As we undoubtedly know, the occult can be dangerous. Therefore, I would advise caution with all substance use. With that said, I have used plants to aid my runic meditation once or twice, and I might do so sometime in the future as well, with perhaps other plants as well. But this way of working is very tiring for me, as for example cannabis opens spirit activity (and with it, astral junk) and I begin to see things vividly and solidly near me. So I guess for me it works a little like a psychoactive, the experience can be very strong and often connected to my lower, more primitive self or spirit guide, unsure how to describe that. I don't like the feeling cannabis use gives me, and I never use this for "fun" anymore. The experience has changed completely after I began occult work, and it can be frightening now and if not that, extremely draining. Well, lately I noticed I don't use anything for fun anymore. I have begun to find even drinking alcohol tiring and dull as well, and I only consume small portions of vodka during ritual work, and this very rarely as well.

As to chemical drugs or hard drugs, I would never take these, for occult reason or another.
Fomalhaut
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Re: Drugs

Post by Fomalhaut »

As we undoubtedly know, the occult can be dangerous.
Occult is dangerous without any doubt.

I smoked lots of joints in my past. But never used them for the Work and would not. I have never used any chemicals or heavier drugs neither and am not intending to. Nowadays if a friend hands out a joint, I do not say no - once or twice a year.

I heard that some shamans eat mushrooms. If that is true, what might be the reason behind that?
"I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become."
— C.G. Jung
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Heith
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Re: Drugs

Post by Heith »

Fomalhaut wrote: I heard that some shamans eat mushrooms. If that is true, what might be the reason behind that?
Well, I guess they use what is found on each of their respective areas in order to quieten the every day conscience and fall into a trance. In the north, there's amanita muscaria mushrooms, as well as some others, but definitely a smaller variety of plants or mushrooms that could work for shamanic means than, for example, in the tropic where there's a lot more different kinds. Sometimes amanita is referred to as the spirit of the forest, or the "little red man of the woods" but whether or not this is a old word or a modern invention I do not know.

Amanita use has very long traditions, and it certainly seems to have its place in the northern magic as well. How it started, we can only guess, and I think that as the world and knowledge of a shaman was largely not open to the public, they kept their secrets of their trade and perhaps not even the community knew exactly what, how and when the shamans used and what they used. A shaman works for the community, but never really seems to belong in it. As they converse and work with the spirit world, so it seems that they are residing partially in the spirit world and can not fully belong in the world of men.

But please, don't believe if someone tells you that berserkers would eat amanita muscaria in order to berserk. It seems that amanita slows a person down and helps gain trance states, and warriors can't be sleeping on the battle field :D
Kenazis
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Re: Drugs

Post by Kenazis »

Insanus wrote:My drug use so far has been a couple of joints or spacecakes containing cannabis in some parties. Personally, I hate that stuff even though I've tried to find some sort of positive side in it's effects.
Nope, it's just terrible. Maybe the "blurry" relaxing offers some people who are completely neurotic with everyday business find a moment of peace there, but yuck, it's hell.
Hah! Finally someone who got similar effects on cannabis!
Insanus wrote:I think there is more value in studying one's attitude towards drugs than in actual drug use. For example an intense fear, disgust, or lust towards heavy drugs (or in my present case, loathing cannabis) might be very telling & useful hint in what sort of direction one wants to go, but you can create so crazy & intense states of mind by even meditation alone that I don't think drugs are needed.
I agree with that studying your attitude against drugs and their use give valuable information. However the effects of meditation (like the effects of drugs) are not identical between two different person because someone are so much more “down to earth” than others that are far more “up high”. I know people that just being couple of minutes silently can enter into deep trance-like states with almost no training. I am the opposite kind person/mind that after years of meditation just get more relaxed and peaceful (no strong altered states of mind). As I have said on finnish forum, the drugs (or entheogens as I like to say the useful ones) have been great helpers in the past. I see right substances used for right purposes as great psychological and philosophical keys that open the locks in the mind. But of course this kind of activity demands study and when seen as The Way itself…then downward you go! Dynamite can help in constructing and it can cause great destruction.

Heith wrote:But please, don't believe if someone tells you that berserkers would eat amanita muscaria in order to berserk. It seems that amanita slows a person down and helps gain trance states, and warriors can't be sleeping on the battle field :D
I agree with that berserkers didn't use the amanita on battles, but I think that there's also a second reason. Amanita depending on the doses act as relaxant (you feel like you are made of lead) or energizer. However the energizing effects (comes on higher doses, in my experience) and with the higher doses comes also the deliriant effects. Warrior who has energy, but has no clue where he is, who he is or why he is there (or exist at all) ain’t very good warrior I think. I have read that amanita was used by northern shamans, but was replaced by alcohol that was introduced by them (don’t remember exactly who…Russians? I blame Russians for that one).
"We live for the woods and the moon and the night"
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Heith
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Re: Drugs

Post by Heith »

vajrasramana wrote: I have read that amanita was used by northern shamans, but was replaced by alcohol that was introduced by them (don’t remember exactly who…Russians? I blame Russians for that one).
This seems a little sketchy, but I have not read anything of this so don't know. Depends a little on what we mean by "northern"- scandinavians for once were well versed in the use of alcohol (and it seems old habits die hard, heh), although perhaps the Russians knew how to brew stronger spirits :)
Kenazis
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Re: Drugs

Post by Kenazis »

Heith wrote:
vajrasramana wrote: I have read that amanita was used by northern shamans, but was replaced by alcohol that was introduced by them (don’t remember exactly who…Russians? I blame Russians for that one).
This seems a little sketchy, but I have not read anything of this so don't know. Depends a little on what we mean by "northern"- scandinavians for once were well versed in the use of alcohol (and it seems old habits die hard, heh), although perhaps the Russians knew how to brew stronger spirits :)
Yeah, maybe it's just one variation of the "new bad corrupts the old and beautiful"- story. Russian spirits are indeed strong ones!
"We live for the woods and the moon and the night"
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Benemal
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Re: Drugs

Post by Benemal »

There have been periods, when I've been high for a month, smoking a hundred joints. It gets a bit numbing when It's that much, but it certainly is relaxing. That much relaxing is great vacation, especially in the summer, because in the winter, if it's minus 25, I'd rather stay indoors watching movies. That gets boring soon.
Some scary and illuminating psychical experiences have happened under the influence, but using THC has been 95% recreational. There was period, when i would smoke a joint and start with an empty canvas or paper and expect great things to happen. That's an illusion. THC can get some gears turning, but never expect it to be some kind of "miracle cure". It's better to drink coffee or green tea, when doing art.
I tried amanita a few times and it did almost nothing for me. Though maybe I didn't eat enough, because the taste made me gag.
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Nefastos
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Re: Drugs

Post by Nefastos »

Personally I don't do drugs. Unless you want to count coffee. We had a long topic in our Finnish forum about the subject, where many pros & cons were given.

Like many other things, this is a hugely personal thing. To some it suits, to many it doesn't - at all. In occultism, one's responsibility is magnified & so is how intensely (and subtly!) things affect you, so I think one should think this through very deeply & soberly. If we think that drugs are "magic", we should treat them with similar respect, like sor Heith said.

In the later years, when the outer stress in my life has become pressing, I've started to think anew the possible good effects of cannabis & trying that out, but if I can go without still, I will. The same really as with any medications, pain killers & antibiotics included. They always affect one's energetical stability and because of that, soul. (Or actually, channels of that soul to act in our world.) But to take an absolute stance against something can break one up as easily as the one that is too indulgent. I think one should listen to one's intuition, but listen it very closely indeed.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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