Tagged with Entheogens

When I first encountered the mushrooms, I had been taking antidepressants for years. The mushrooms told me I was an addict and that the pills were toxic to me. After being hospitalized due to my reaction to Paxil at age 19, I decided the mushrooms were right. Eventually, I met a Mazatec grandmother who holds a Niños Santos lineage of curandisimo.  (more)

The psychedelic philosopher and mushroom advocate Terence McKenna sometimes seriously and sometimes playfully predicted that a transformative event for planetary consciousness would happen on December 21, 2012. In Spring 1999, not long before his untimely passing, McKenna discussed his pathbreaking ideas with Erik Davis for this now-legendary article for Wired. (more)

Growing up in the evangelical church and studying ayahuasca the past six years, I've seen how religious doctrines can turn into roadblocks in our relationship to God and each other. The new age movement is a young, innovative religious development on the planet, and we can avoid the trap of fundamentalism if we carefully study its implied doctrines. (more)

I wasn't thinking about mandalas when the trip began. But it's only through the interplay of the outer and inner mandala – microcosm and macrocosm interconnected – expressed as self and family, community and world, that I can make any sense of the chaos that unfurled that night. (more)

In his new book, Kent takes the first steps toward a refined and quantifieable theory and terminology of psychedelic action, touching on topics like shamanic technique, multi-stable strange attractors, and psychedelic agents as nonlinear feedback amplifiers. (more)

In this interview, the founder of the Fatimiya Sufi Order,  N. Wahid Azal, discusses the history and uses of plant medicines in Islamic and pre-Islamic mystery schools. (more)

I've been hesitant to share details regarding the NAC. It was only the approval of Native spiritual elder Kanucas that gave me the feeling it was appropriate to share this information with a wider audience. This church is a refuge of sanity in a disturbed world. It's a sacred treasure to be protected and nurtured with the utmost respect and sensitivity.  (more)

The realization of a utopian paradise will come when the general populace starts to embrace the psychedelic experience, which many of the researchers at the Horizons Conference in New York help to promote and legitimize. They have found a great proponent in the conference organizer and psychologist Neal Goldsmith, who points the way forward to a neo-tribal society, where we will return to our underlying wholeness and unity with nature and the kosmos. (more)

One of the greatest breakthroughs in 20th century medical science came from a preparation used to shoot monkeys down from the tops of trees. Naked "primitives" turned out to be master chemists whose muscle relaxant revolutionized the practice of surgery. Many experts claim the rainforests continues to promise cures. Have we exhausted Nature's cornucopia? Or are we wearing blinders that prevent us from seeing them? (more)

Recently, I published an article criticizing Terence McKenna's lectures on DMT.  The article generated a great deal of backlash and some serious questions. Now I'd like to follow up on the issue of human liberation from self-generated illusions. (more)

In June, Dr. Martin W. Ball published an article on Reality Sandwich entitled "Terence on DMT: An Entheological Analysis of McKenna’s Experiences in the Tryptamine Mirror of the Self." The present article is a reply to it. (more)

[The Ayahuasca Monologues] • I started running down this hill, full speed ahead. Actually, I wasn't running; my legs were doing their own thing. I was having an uncontrollable, semi-out-of-body experience while awake and alive. (more)

Mushrooms taught me that karma is real. DMT taught me that there is life after death. How could I fight a war? I was supposed to get on a plane and fly up to the base for duty. No doubt that's when they would serve me my deployment papers. I decide to miss my flight and go AWOL. (more)

It's a not-so-dirty little secret that most of today's leading meditation teachers were interested in drugs. By "drugs," of course, I don't mean alcohol or Oxycontin, but rather that subset of chemicals which our society has deemed unfit for human consumption, including cannabis, psilocybin, MDMA, and others. (more)

I cupped my hands over my ears and saw myself curled into the fetal position, disoriented and trying to escape. But escape from what, exactly? Not the effects of the ayahuasca or the visions, but something deeper, something residing at my core: the malignant feeling of being insignificant and alone in a universe far too vast and viscious for me to make headway. 

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[The Ayahuasca Monologues] • The ayahuasca journey deconstructed my reality and identity and sent new light into my being. The world had become fluid and malleable. I had embarked on the path of realizing my power to manifest reality, heal, and move through the interdimensional shamanic worlds. (more)

Thanks to movies like Inception and Avatar, there have been more news articles about dream research in the last two months than I've seen in the last two years, with journalists asking: Is dream control possible? Will technology let us share dreams? What kind of pill can we take to wake up in our dreams? (more)

If anyone ever wanted to get to know me, the first thing I would tell them is, "Read Terence McKenna." A few weeks ago my friend Michelle suggested I write a "Terence for Dummies" piece. So, since "For Dummies" is under copyright, here's my bent on the McKenna legacy. (more)

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Having drunk in nearly 25 Ayahuasca ceremonies with four different shamans from three different countries on two different continents, I still do not feel capable of defining what makes an Ayahuasca ceremony "medicinal" or "authentic." [An RS Encore Presentation] (more)

[The Ayahuasca Monologues] • During the ceremony, after some time had passed, a figure began to appear, recognizable but as flimsy as the ether. It was my mother. (more)

It came as a real delight when I realized the good folks in the Native American Church seriously loved their children. During my first teepee, in the early morning hours, bleary eyed from intense dreams and the long vigil at the sacred fire, I beheld a handful of big guys, accompanied by a water drum, vigorously chanting: "Daddy loves his little one. She's his morning star. Daddy loves his little one. May she live in joy with every day..." (more)