Spirit-WWW: NewsGateway Article <news:alt.magick.110433>


From density4@cts.com.org.net (Blue Resonant Human):
Newsgroups: alt.magick, alt.magick.chaos, alt.magick.tyagi, talk.religion.newage,

Subject: ::: Liber DXM -- The Rite of Robo :::

All Follow-Up: Re: ::: Liber DXM -- The Rite of Robo :::
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 1998 23:31:25 GMT

My Dear Magickal Brethren,

In that we quest ever onward to apprehend the very finest truths
the Universe can offer, it is with great pride that we now reveal
unto you a New and better Way of Enlightenment.  For, you see, the
attainment of Cosmic Consciousness doth not of necessity demand
the recitation of antiquated and arcane cryptic dark sayings, nor
doth it require an Abduction by clever little grey Space Aliens out
to Initiate us by way of ramming Strange Probes up our Behinds and
Pilfering the Rectums of Hapless Bovines.

Nay, True Enlightenment requireth little more than a trip down to
the Corner 7-11, as we shall soon discover with this paper-thin
slice of...........


                       L I B E R   D X M
                       =================
                             - or -
                   The Cough Syrup Hypothesis

               Wherein We Grok the Magickal Elixir
                            H     .N---------CH2
                              \  .           /
                          /-----\          /
                        /    H....\      /
                  /-----\         /----/\
                /         \-----/...CH2   \
                \         /     \         /
                  \-----/         \-----/
                 /
              CH3O  ========================
                    .:. Dextromethorphan .:.
                    ========================
              Over-The-Counter Gateway to the Gods
                            - via -
                 -=:::[ The Rite of Robo ]:::=-
                 
                            .:oOo:.

     Liber DxM, (c) 1998 by Rhd. Blue Resonant Human, Ph.D.
                 http://www.brotherblue.org/
                       density4@cts.com
                      All Rights Reserved
                               etc

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Note that due to the immensity and complexity of the Liber, only
 a microcosmic slice will be offered at this time; the Liber in 
 it's entirety will soon be available at the URL mentioned above.
 It is our steadfast committment to the betterment of (wo)mankind
 which driveth us to share NOW our findings with all our Brethren
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 
DXM Shamanic "Crossing of the Abyss" Experiences:
-------------------------------------------------
 A vivid trip involving multiple substances
 by Shostiru

 Well, I tripped this weekend and went too far even for me.
 Psychoactives included approximately 360-400mg DXM HBr, 
 150-200ug LSD, regular use of fluoxetine (dosage not recalled),
 cigarettes, and possibly a bit of leftover harmaline from a 
 previous night's experiment.  My body mass is 80kg.

 It started with dinner at Z. and B.'s; B. made black bean burritos
 and I ate two (mistake number one).  Then we all dropped; I took 
 three hits, at I'm guesstimating 150-200ug (these weren't 
 particularly strong hits of acid).  Then shortly after I drank 
 about one half of an 8oz bottle of RoboMax (yes, I know I should
 really be extracting the shit).  This was a combination I had done
 before, at lower levels, and I had been quite impressed with the
 results.  I also took a Coenzyme Q10 in an attempt to prevent any
 metabolic insult to my posterior cingulate and retrosplenial 
 cortex, a matter about which I have recently become somewhat 
 paranoid as a result of Olney's findings.

 The first 30 minutes were uneventful.  Alert came at maybe 35-40
 minutes into the experience.  I felt a slight stiffness in my 
 shoulders, or perhaps a need to move around.  Within 15 minutes
 I started feeling gastrointestinal distress.  I took 4mg 
 loperamide, thanking the chemistry gods that it doesn't cross 
 the blood-brain barrier.

 At about dose+1hour, I started feeling the DXM kick in.  I 
 remember sitting in the bathroom, looking at the wooden door.
 As I sat there without moving, the patterns in the wood 
 transformed into a fluid sculpture, then into a waterfall and 
 finally into an incredibly beautiful place, with a waterfall,
 small rapids, delicate ferns and plants, and life all around.
 At this moment I knew something different would happen tonight.

 For awhile after I honestly don't remember much (for reasons that
 will become clear later).  I started feeling a little uneasy in
 the tummy, and tried more than once (unsuccessfully) to go to the
 bathroom.  I finally ended up wandering outside ... and then I 
 saw the moon.

 The weather here occasionally takes on a particular form, in 
 which delicate, wispy, and probably low-lying clouds are blown 
 rapidly across the sky.  In the night, under the full moon, this
 took on the appearance of an Aurora Borealis.  Music was playing
 inside, and the rest of my companions were for the most part 
 inside playing with trip toys, but I had come face to face with
 such incredible beauty that I could do nothing but stare in 
 rapture, weeping.

 As I regained consciousness of my more ordinary surroundings, I
 tried to smoke a cigarette.  It tasted terrible and I could *feel*
 the natural world around me, almost as if it had a consciousness.
 It, or they, seemed puzzled that I would waste my time (and life)
 on such a boring and trivial drug, and I found myself having 
 visions of how tobacco was originally used (when fresh, it is a
 strong hallucinogen and far too powerful of an experience to become
 addictive).

 I began to look around me.  I felt suddenly shocked that with such
 incredible beauty and energy around us, we as humans choose to 
 spend our time in sterile and unnatural surroundings.  It felt as
 if a black veil were dropping from my soul, or perhaps as if an 
 evil spell were being banished.  I could sense the life and joy 
 around me in the trees, the clouds, the skies, and even the stars.
 There was life all around me, and I could suddenly see the pattern
 to it.

 I realize now that this sounds hopelessly new-agey, but unlike 
 some I have never had the belief that nature and the spiritual
 worlds are some safe, harmless playground and that all entities
 (physical or not) are basically here to love us.  I began to 
 realize that I as an individual, and we as humans, are just one 
 thread in a much larger fabric, and that Nature (either as a 
 collective or as her individual parts) wouldn't shed a tear if
 I were to vanish from life forever.  Yet somehow that made me 
 feel all the more important, to be a part of some greater 
 construct.

 I began to wonder about the nature of consciousness.  What if
 what we regard as consciousness (perhaps awareness of onesself
 and the ability to exert will to change onesself or ones 
 surroundings?) was a feature of many collective entities, such
 as insect colonies, weather patterns, or even the entire ecosystem?
 Or, perhaps what we *regard* as conscious behaviour is simply a
 result of a complex, chaotic system which encodes (and "decides"
 based on) a great amount of state information kept as a feature
 of the nonlinear dynamic algorithm?

 Perhaps we as humans were unique among animals in that we truly
 did control our *own* destiny as individuals.  Maybe that was 
 what the Fall of Man was all about -- we became conscious as 
 individuals, rather than our "consciousness" (or more complex
 decision-making behaviours) residing in collective myths (spirits
 and deities).  And perhaps, in these earlier times, our "higher"
 decision-making systems, those that are now essential for 
 consciousness, propagated complex decision algorithms via song,
 myth, and shared belief in gods.  But with a continuous interplay
 between the decision system and the observer system, consciousness
 became possible.  Perhaps with this constant interplay of awareness
 and observation, everyday life, common aches and pains, boredom,
 depression, and ennui are possible because we are constantly 
 *aware* of them, i.e., they have constant emotional (or generally,
 internal state state) significance.  A fall from paradise indeed!
 Then again, I had recently finished reading Jaynes, and was looking
 for potential explanations for the transition from bicameral to
 unicameral mind.

 Chronology becomes difficult at this point.  I remember looking at
 my surroundings, lifting my point of view above, and then seeing 
 the entire scene in three dimensions.  Three dimensions then 
 expanded into four, and the realm of history and future stretched
 into a complex, four-dimensional fabric.  Different possible 
 futures (and occasionally different possible pasts) superimposed
 themselves like ghost-images.  The entire thing morphed into a 
 tremendously complex weaved fabric in state-space, each thread 
 being a sliver of consciousness or spirit, but more fluid.  The
 "threads" were like rivulets of energy; they broke apart, combined,
 swirled around chaotically.  I felt as if I could reach down and
 pluck one of the energy ribbons, move it out of place, but I saw
 in my mind how shock waves would ripple out from the point of my
 contact, and potentially have unforseen consequences.

 I became aware that all four of us were in our own ways grasping
 this loom and changing the patterns around us.  I could hear Z. 
 playing his guitar, I think (or maybe I just imagined it).  It 
 seemed as if he were using this instrument to make changes, both
 in us (and our consciousness) and in his own reality (and, so it
 seemed, ours as well).

 Anyway, by this time I had started to feel a great deal of energy.
 The others came outside and Z. started to play his flute (I think
 I have the chronology correct here).  The faint lights that were
 in the trees (which I have seen before sober, although only out
 of the corner of my eyes) started to grow in intensity.  I noticed
 that the shadows were starting to move, and at first I suspected
 that a car was passing by (or a helicopter was flying overhead 
 from the hospital; it was a sufficiently windy night that I 
 thought someone might have run into a downed power line).  But I
 realized that the shadows were changing too fast and too 
 irregularly.  As I looked into the sky, I thought at first I saw
 meteors, and then for a moment had a vague and somewhat paranoid
 thought that bits and pieces of meteorite were falling from the
 sky.  Then I truly saw them, the dancing lights, some tiny and 
 sparkly, others like glowing, hazy balls of mist.  They seemed to
 fly in complex yet significant patterns, perhaps following the 
 contours of some imaginary clouds or field lines.

 Then as I watched I heard them sing.  They were singing to me, to
 us, and I heard them calling to me.  A door opened up ahead of me 
 -- not in realspace, but a spiritual door, one that I could not 
 assign an image to but was aware of nonetheless.  I reached 
 forward for it with my mind and the world was flooded with light.

 I became aware of other entities with me.  The world changed and
 took on form, although I felt it was more for my benefit than that
 of the entities with me.  Strangely enough I pictured myself in an
 ordinary-looking classroom, and the entities had become professors
 and were telling me that I was free to take the test if I liked, 
 but that the price would be dear if I failed.

 Awareness of my surroundings returned suddenly and I felt a 
 gradual but steady buildup of energy.  With it came a sudden 
 nausea, and I managed to make it to the sink before puking my 
 guts out.  In my mind came the thought that there was a *reason*
 people often puked on psychedelics (at least the natural ones), 
 and that somehow having food in one's system during this sort of
 experience was a bad idea.  I still felt bad for puking in B.'s
 sink though.

 After puking my guts out I sat and felt miserable for a few 
 minutes in a fit of self-loathing.  I felt terrible for having
 taken essentially my own trip rather than participating with my 
 friends and my wife, all of whom I love and care about deeply.  I
 felt selfish, and yet I remembered the dream I'd had the night 
 before where I was told I was to learn an important lesson and
 that all would be made clear to me.  I don't often put stock in
 this sort of thing, but I figured I'd be better to say, what the
 hell, I'll try, rather than ignore a potentially useful message 
 from my subconscious (or wherever).

 The energy buildup continued more quickly now.  I felt that the
 food had been holding me back somehow.  My entire body began to 
 vibrate in a new way, not necessarily in any of the three 
 dimensions we are accustomed to.  A part of it was time-vibration
 (I felt as if I were vibrating forward and back in time very 
 slightly, so that the net effect was alternating rapidly between
 sudden jumps forward in time and pauses).  And a part of it was 
 something entirely different.  The vibrational states seemed 
 quantized in that there were sudden jumps from one frequency and
 mode to another, rather than gradual transitions.

 Eventually I noticed that I was twitching and then starting to
 shake along with the music (didgeridoo).  The entire world was 
 turning into pure light and color, and everything was dissolving
 into increasing power.  I saw again the entity (or entities) I 
 had seen before.  They were gentle, like parents almost, and they
 seemed to be telling me something fairly complex.  As near as I 
 could tell, the message was that, if I truly wanted to be able to
 grasp the fabric of reality directly and learn how to shape it 
 without unexpected consequences, I must first learn how to let 
 the energy flow through me without it overloading me.

 The energy suddenly turned up and I felt like I had just plugged
 my spinal cord into a light socket.  Every experience became 
 excruciatingly painful, all sensory input was maximal in intensity.
 It was beautiful, profound, overwhelming, and terrifying.  I felt
 an increasing throbbing in my head and increasing intestinal pain,
 and my skin felt like it was being constantly shocked.  I 
 remembered then about the potential for serotonin syndrome from
 this particular combination (given the Prozac I was taking) and 
 started to become truly afraid.

 The entities returned.  I got another empathic message, that if I
 expected to be Awakened I'd have to risk my life to do it, and I 
 realized that perhaps I'd gotten myself into more than I'd 
 expected.  Normally I do not have a great fear of death, but 
 somehow I felt like the penalty for failure wouldn't be death per
 se, but something infinitely worse.  Brain damage sprang to mind.

 I decided at this point I was ready for the trip to stop.  I 
 couldn't take the amount of sensory input, my psyche was 
 overloaded, and while I felt I had come to some very important 
 point, I didn't think I was necessarily ready (or that the Prozac
 was a good mixer in this cocktail).  I took a clonazepam, dreading
 the thought but nonetheless definitely ready to finish the trip
 even if it meant slamming into a wall.  The entities told me that
 it wouldn't really help me anyway, that the duration of the test
 was unimportant, but by then I'd already taken it.

 The next hour or so (and it felt like twenty) was a constant 
 struggle to keep full control of my mind and soul.  I felt like
 I had to hold myself together by sheer force of will, and I came
 in contact with countless hidden parts of myself, little pieces
 of my character, soul, thoughts, and memories, that I'd never 
 faced before.  And suddenly I had to hold them all together.  I
 tried to make a very few simple changes to the overall pattern,
 strengthening my will in particular areas and perhaps hoping that
 out of this would come a new ability to shape my own behaviour,
 but I wasn't hoping for much.

 Gradually I regained control and the trip ended.  Like I'd 
 predicted, it was like slamming into a brick wall at lightspeed.
 My soul felt ripped out of my body and shoved into a hole, and 
 the glorious energy and life drained out of me.  Looking back on
 it I wish I hadn't taken the benzo, but I don't think I anyone 
 was sober enough to be my spirit guide at that moment and I wasn't
 very coherent either.  The rest of the night I struggled to stay
 awake, and began to get confused as a result of the benzo, but I
 managed to hold on to most of the bits and pieces.  I still regret
 not having been able to stay with my friends, though, and I think
 I'd have been better off to just drop acid and save the cocktail
 for some other time when I was ready.

 Looking back on it all, I have found that, if nothing else, 
 confronting death that directly has changed my outlook on life.
 Although it is not terribly powerful yet, I have a growing feeling
 that I can make changes in my life and in my behaviour that will
 last.  In some ways it's like a part of childhood is over.




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