Robert Forte, The Softer Side of CIA Psychedelic Mind Control |407|

Yes and no here. If you refer to what we now commonly call 'shamanic journeying' (I don't want a debate about whether this is real or just an artefact of contemporary drug tourism - that's another matter entirely) the experience is, or should be, out of body - and hence more like a NDE - but under entirely different conditions. That means that the experience is also different.

For a variety of reasons the 'trips' we take are very much in body. For example LSD has additives that maintain body awareness - and a good thing to. Going out of body in a social or unsecured setting would be immensely dangerous.

But then I have had out of body experiences at the tail end of a very nice 'clean' acid trip. By 'clean' I mean that there were not too many additives. And I was in a safe place.

NDEs are essentially Out of Body experiences induced at a time of physical crisis, and with a focused theme. Going out of body is not always a monumental experience in the way that NDEs are.

Drug induced OBEs are ideally associated with highly managed experiences conducted by competent operators - and for properly noble purposes rather than entertainment and curiosity.

LSD does not have additives. That' an old urban myth. One of the features of LSD is that is causes you to be wide awake. Teeth or jaw clenching is also a side effect for some people of pure LSD. At some point a number of years ago a study was done of LSD purchased on the street. 99% was LSD, nothing more/nothing less - though the doses varied and lots of the doses were on the low side.
 
you guys are raising a lot of issues. im not sure where to jump in. the drugs are powerful, that's why they are effective to control populations. a very good book on all this is by John Potash, Drugs As Weapons Against Us. i fault it only because he doesn't acknowledge that psychedelics also can have healing, curative properties. the first thing wasson learned about psychoactive mushrooms was that they have opposite effects: cause debauchery and madness, and they can be used for healing.... i'm just mainly wanting to call attention to how much of this current renaissance is an op which exploits the positive and powerful to benefit the power structure.

Robert,
I think the current cannabis legalization movement is part of a brave new world plan - keep them stoned and/or welfare dependent and they won't be trouble. I think cannabis is just fine, but there is this other element to it. Ditto welfare and ditto social media and psychiatric pharmaceuticals.

I don't really see how psychedelics can be used for societal control, but maybe I'm missing big. I mean the 60s were a flop in terms of managing society with drugs. The drug users turned on the govt and the mores of normal society.

Wasson; was he really lying to you? Maybe the story of the banker who had an interest and pursued it is true enough. That's what he was doing in his mind. The govt gave him some money and probably asked for a report when he got back. That aspect of the story seems almost irrelevant to me. Then Wasson got to tell his story in the famous Life magazine piece. What researcher wouldn't like that? I'm sure Alex would like an equivalent opportunity to summarize all that he has learned about the paranormal.

There is a splendid 20th century author, Peter Matthiessen - he's won several high awards for both his fiction and non-fiction. So many good books, like "The Snow Leopard" and "At Play in the Fields of the Lord". In the 1950s he, an American, was a running a book club in a book store in Paris. The store was actually rather successful and Peter, just a young aspiring writer at the time (and Ivy Leaguer,of course), was able to meet accomplished writers from all over the world via his store and club. He loved this job and was proud of the writers' society that he had developed. However, the whole time he was working for the CIA. The CIA had actually established the store and the club with Peter (and Peter was 100% aware of this - a willing participant). The idea was to keep an eye and ear on the socialists and communists of Europe via writers. Peter would report back to the CIA on a regular basis. Report on individuals and report on the general pulse of society as influential writers felt it.

This scheme only worked because Peter loved the cover role. It's what he really wanted to do. The spook stuff was secondary. After a few years the spy project was dropped, but Peter went on to become a world acclaimed author and member of literary societies. He only revealed the CIA role much later in life.

I think you're being too hard on Wasson
 
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This is all different from the Buddhist that decides to sit in a cave chanting OM for the rest of his life trying to escape off the wheel.
I don't think I'd even want to escape the wheel - at least not before a good few more incarnations. If I had to live another life somewhat similar to this one, I'd certainly say yes!

David
 
It is a synthetic chemical, and if it is produced in backstreet laboratories, I would be seriously concerned that it might be impure.

David
It is difficult to synthesize. It is not made in back street labs like methamphetamine. It is made in real lab by knowledgeable people who tend to be believers in the cause at least as much as profit motivated. Real labs have equipment to check purity. Typical impurities are non-psychoactive forms of the drug. Remember, LSD is taken in microgram dose levels. There really aren't adulterants that would be active at that level. Again, there was a nation wide test done by the FBI (I think, but maybe a different agency) of samples of LSD confiscated in arrests, and it all turned out to be LSD and nothing more or less.
 
NDE's are not like drug trips.
How true.

I have had several LSD trips in my lifetime (though I would never go for another shot now). Most of those trips were mediocre and worth no special mention, crap acid I suppose. However, two of those trips, widely separated in years, were where, as best as I could tell, the quality and dose of LSD was very good.

During the first of those two trips I was hallucinating very heavily. At one point, near the beginning of that trip when the hallucinations started to kick in, I was standing in the middle of a small public bar where there was someone wildly playing an accordion with most of the rest of the occupants of the pub singing along with gusto the words to the music -- it was loud and to my tripping mind close to total chaos. But I was standing in the pub watching this with my lower jaw (metaphorically speaking) dropped right down to the floor because what I was seeing (quite literally as part of the hallucination) was musical notes (just like you would see on a music score) issuing out of the accordion and out of the mouths of the singers mixing in the air and then swirling around the pub popping like bubbles to make room for the new notes entering the air. I couldn't believe it, this was my first ever trip and had no previous experience of anything like this, but I sure could see it. That was a good part of the trip, from there it started to go badly downwards and I ended up on a very bad trip (I would never want to go through that again). Hallucinations were very, very heavy and, while they were happening, I utterly believed in them as real and was reacting to them as such -- I'm talking about quite literally demons appearing out of thin air and shit like that. So I'm seeing and feeling things that had no basis in normal reality. So, in effect, I was finding myself in a state of sheer psychosis, totally absorbed by and lost in the hallucinations. The really heavy hallucinations would come in waves -- I'd be in it for a while and believing it, and then they would subside for while. When they subsided for a while I had enough senses to realise that they were hallucinations and was mentally fervently praying to God that they didn't return (they did) -- I was so terrified of them and I knew them to be hallucinations, at least for the periods of time during the trip when I had some semblance of lucidity. This went on, back and forth from periods of psychosis and fully believing the hallucinations to be real to periods of relative lucidity, for several hours and then the trip gradually subsided completely away. At the end of it all I got home and my hands were in a state of tremor with just how frightened I was of what I had just been through with that trip and the hallucinations. I went to bed, eventually slept and when I woke in the morning I still had the tremor in my hands, it was a Sunday, so didn't matter I didn't have to go to work. On Monday the tremor was gone but my mind was still in ribbons from it. The important thing for me that I got out of this as the years went on was that I knew what it was like to be psychotic, I knew what it was like to hallucinate very heavily over a prolonged period, 6-8 hours, and it sure ain't any nice place to be. But it was important for my learning.

The second of those two trips happened years later in very different circumstances -- out in the countryside and not the oppression of city night-life (which is what I find city night-life to be). That trip was really good, lovely mild hallucinations, things more colourful taking on new malleable shapes and so on, but all based on things that did exist in normal reality, in no way frightening, and at all times I was completely aware that I was hallucinating, not getting lost in it and mistaking it for reality. Along with that there was a very, very pronounced felt sense of expansion of self -- rather like would happen to one through a very, very successful meditation (which I also have one experience of) -- so much so that a huge chunk of your normal egoic self just vanishes. Beautiful sensation but in my experience with a caveat, that there was in the background to that a kind of 'frenetic energy' to it, I would assume caused by the acid.

The kicker for me was that a couple of years after having the bad trip I had an NDE -- it was really good and things that were happening in it could in no way be said to part of normal human existence. In fact they are so out of 'normal human experience' that lots of people start to slap the 'hallucination' label on everything that is happening in NDEs. When they do that they are totally missing reality. There was nothing in my NDE that in any way, shape or form corresponded to even a suggestion of a hallucination (quite the reverse, the NDE was more real than our normal reality) -- and I would think myself in a better position to know that than most of the armchair pseudo-scientific 'sceptics', none of whom to my knowledge have any experience of what it feels like to be psychotic and what it feels like to have an NDE. The two are completely separate things.

Going back to the second of those two trips I would note of the NDE and expansion of self in it, or loss of ego if you want to look at it from that direction, that that state in the NDE (and also in my meditation experience) in no way matches with the similar sensation when this happens in a trip. Again (in my experience) the two are distinctly different. In the NDE and the meditation experience of this kind of thing the 'frenetic energy' is entirely absent, the condition feels markedly 'purer' than in a drug induced trip -- so much so that you really can't compare the two as equivalents, slight similarity yes, but not direct equivalents.

So in all, yes, in my experience, drug trips and NDEs are totally different beasts. And certainly NDEs are no hallucinations.

P.S. For anyone trying tripping for the first time: choose who you do it with, the location, the time and the activities you will be engaged in while tripping very, very carefully. LSD is putting a loaded gun to your skull if you don't show it respect before you pop the tab. You have no idea what's going to happen, treat it with great respect. I think that was grossly missing in the naïve innocence of my first trip. I sure wised-up after that. What a lesson!
 
I don't think I'd even want to escape the wheel - at least not before a good few more incarnations. If I had to live another life somewhat similar to this one, I'd certainly say yes!
What if it was a life or two in the gutter choking on your own alcohol-stained vomit, David?

If 'the wheel' is the way it is best find a way out as fast as possible I think. Jesus, who wants to live in material existence, it's the pits. Well, at least I think it is.
 
How true.

I have had several LSD trips in my lifetime (though I would never go for another shot now). Most of those trips were mediocre and worth no special mention, crap acid I suppose. However, two of those trips, widely separated in years, were where, as best as I could tell, the quality and dose of LSD was very good.

During the first of those two trips I was hallucinating very heavily. At one point, near the beginning of that trip when the hallucinations started to kick in, I was standing in the middle of a small public bar where there was someone wildly playing an accordion with most of the rest of the occupants of the pub singing along with gusto the words to the music -- it was loud and to my tripping mind close to total chaos. But I was standing in the pub watching this with my lower jaw (metaphorically speaking) dropped right down to the floor because what I was seeing (quite literally as part of the hallucination) was musical notes (just like you would see on a music score) issuing out of the accordion and out of the mouths of the singers mixing in the air and then swirling around the pub popping like bubbles to make room for the new notes entering the air. I couldn't believe it, this was my first ever trip and had no previous experience of anything like this, but I sure could see it. That was a good part of the trip, from there it started to go badly downwards and I ended up on a very bad trip (I would never want to go through that again). Hallucinations were very, very heavy and, while they were happening, I utterly believed in them as real and was reacting to them as such -- I'm talking about quite literally demons appearing out of thin air and shit like that. So I'm seeing and feeling things that had no basis in normal reality. So, in effect, I was finding myself in a state of sheer psychosis, totally absorbed by and lost in the hallucinations. The really heavy hallucinations would come in waves -- I'd be in it for a while and believing it, and then they would subside for while. When they subsided for a while I had enough senses to realise that they were hallucinations and was mentally fervently praying to God that they didn't return (they did) -- I was so terrified of them and I knew them to be hallucinations, at least for the periods of time during the trip when I had some semblance of lucidity. This went on, back and forth from periods of psychosis and fully believing the hallucinations to be real to periods of relative lucidity, for several hours and then the trip gradually subsided completely away. At the end of it all I got home and my hands were in a state of tremor with just how frightened I was of what I had just been through with that trip and the hallucinations. I went to bed, eventually slept and when I woke in the morning I still had the tremor in my hands, it was a Sunday, so didn't matter I didn't have to go to work. On Monday the tremor was gone but my mind was still in ribbons from it. The important thing for me that I got out of this as the years went on was that I knew what it was like to be psychotic, I knew what it was like to hallucinate very heavily over a prolonged period, 6-8 hours, and it sure ain't any nice place to be. But it was important for my learning.

The second of those two trips happened years later in very different circumstances -- out in the countryside and not the oppression of city night-life (which is what I find city night-life to be). That trip was really good, lovely mild hallucinations, things more colourful taking on new malleable shapes and so on, but all based on things that did exist in normal reality, in no way frightening, and at all times I was completely aware that I was hallucinating, not getting lost in it and mistaking it for reality. Along with that there was a very, very pronounced felt sense of expansion of self -- rather like would happen to one through a very, very successful meditation (which I also have one experience of) -- so much so that a huge chunk of your normal egoic self just vanishes. Beautiful sensation but in my experience with a caveat, that there was in the background to that a kind of 'frenetic energy' to it, I would assume caused by the acid.

The kicker for me was that a couple of years after having the bad trip I had an NDE -- it was really good and things that were happening in it could in no way be said to part of normal human existence. In fact they are so out of 'normal human experience' that lots of people start to slap the 'hallucination' label on everything that is happening in NDEs. When they do that they are totally missing reality. There was nothing in my NDE that in any way, shape or form corresponded to even a suggestion of a hallucination (quite the reverse, the NDE was more real than our normal reality) -- and I would think myself in a better position to know that than most of the armchair pseudo-scientific 'sceptics', none of whom to my knowledge have any experience of what it feels like to be psychotic and what it feels like to have an NDE. The two are completely separate things.

Going back to the second of those two trips I would note of the NDE and expansion of self in it, or loss of ego if you want to look at it from that direction, that that state in the NDE (and also in my meditation experience) in no way matches with the similar sensation when this happens in a trip. Again (in my experience) the two are distinctly different. In the NDE and the meditation experience of this kind of thing the 'frenetic energy' is entirely absent, the condition feels markedly 'purer' than in a drug induced trip -- so much so that you really can't compare the two as equivalents, slight similarity yes, but not direct equivalents.

So in all, yes, in my experience, drug trips and NDEs are totally different beasts. And certainly NDEs are no hallucinations.

P.S. For anyone trying tripping for the first time: choose who you do it with, the location, the time and the activities you will be engaged in while tripping very, very carefully. LSD is putting a loaded gun to your skull if you don't show it respect before you pop the tab. You have no idea what's going to happen, treat it with great respect. I think that was grossly missing in the naïve innocence of my first trip. I sure wised-up after that. What a lesson!

Radish,

Thanks for sharing!

Synesthesia is common on psychedelics (seeing sounds as colors, scents becoming colors, etc). I think it is a cool effect. It's not why I use psychedelics, but when it happens I feel like I'm in a good groove. It's the language of the heart. It feels to me like my mind is harmonizing its experience. I have never seen demons (or angels) come out of thin air; or anything like that. Occasionally one hears such a report. It is extremely rare. Are you positive you took LSD and not some weird designer drug?

Psychedelics do tend to impart a high energy level on the user. I wouldn't describe it as frenetic though. Again, are you sure it was LSD? Or perhaps you are a rare individual that experiences full blown hallucinations and hyper energy when tripping.

I have had OBEs (in total sobriety) I used to be able to induce them with various techniques. One time I went flying and was following the sun as it set. Just floating Westward and watching incredible sunsets. Sometimes going into cloud banks that were reflecting all of the colors. It was truly a peak experience and, yes, markedly different than tripping. Sometimes the OBEs were very mundane and very earth bound with a blurry quality to them, though did produce verifiable information about distant events.

So I hesitate to say tripping is different from these other forms of experiences because the other forms seem highly variable to me and tripping is highly variable too depending on various factors. I am not sure it makes sense to hold up an example of a category (say NDE) of experience as some kind of gold standard (not saying you did that, Radish). These are all highly subjective experiences and are probably as varied in quality as there are experiencers of them. They even vary from experience to experience for the same experiencer.

Totally agree that mindset and setting are critical for having a good trip and obtaining some benefit. Also, that these things should not be trifled with.

I am more interested in what you were feeling and thinking about on your psychedelic experience as opposed to the noise you might have experienced. Could you share your thoughts while tipping? It sounds like the second experience was truly mind expanding. Do you see value in it?
 
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I am getting very bogged down by this long video.

1) So far it seems to be gossip about people, many of whose names are new to me.

2) How established is it that Timothy Leary was co-opted by the CIA? Also, what exactly does that mean - did he just give them the information he had learned from doing psychedelics, or did he help them design abusive studies?

IMHO this was inside baseball for hard core addicts.

Can anyone tell me where, if anywhere I should go in the video to find something more interesting?

David
Hi David,

I'm a bit late to this discussion but it does seem there is a wide range of knowledge and opinions on the topic. For anyone looking for more background info there are several documentaries. There is one called "The Net: LSD, The Unibomber, and the Internet" I saw about a decade ago and my initial reaction was "no way" this could have happened and it was the first time I ever heard of MKULTRA. It's German with English Subtitles. I can't speak for the accuracy of the material, I though I suspect Robert can.

I think it is free on Youtube but I didn't test the link:
https://doorofperception.com/2015/11/the-net-the-unabomber-lsd-and-the-internet/

A more recent one is a Mini-Series on Netflix called "Wormwood", and it's about the incident involving Frank Olson, the CIA, LSD and what eventually led to the disclosure of MKULTRA via the Church Commission in the 1970's. I think Allen Dulles has his fingerprints on this as well.

https://www.fredericknewspost.com/n...cle_dc92b9a5-96c5-518c-9bd8-cb39905e3402.html

Finally regarding the chemists and source materials, there is another film called "Orange Sunshine" that addresses that topic. That stuff isn't easy to synthesize, so it's not coming out of a bathtub. I forget if it's covered in this movie or somewhere else, but the sources were very few, and The Grateful Dead Tours were like the Amway Distribution Channel.
On Amazon Prime:


There's plenty of evidence out there that points back to the government, mind control, social engineering, etc. What varies even greatly are the theories around why, such as simply discrediting the Hippy/Anti Vietnam Movement, to many darker and broader theories around social engineering and profiteering.

I agree with Robert's follow up statements, follow the money and consider the power the Drug Laws provided the government for selective enforcement moving forward.
 
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Hi David,

I'm a bit late to this discussion but it does seem there is a wide range of knowledge and opinions on the topic. For anyone looking for more background info there are several documentaries. There is one called "The Net: LSD, The Unibomber, and the Internet" I saw about a decade ago and my initial reaction was "no way" this could have happened and it was the first time I ever heard of MKULTRA. It's German with English Subtitles. I can speak for the accuracy of the material, I though I suspect Robert can.

I think it is free on Youtube but I didn't test the link:
https://doorofperception.com/2015/11/the-net-the-unabomber-lsd-and-the-internet/

A more recent one is a Mini-Series on Netflix called "Wormwood", and it's about the incident involving Frank Olson, the CIA, LSD and what eventually led to the disclosure of MKULTRA via the Church Commission in the 1970's. I think Allen Dulles has his fingerprints on this as well.

https://www.fredericknewspost.com/n...cle_dc92b9a5-96c5-518c-9bd8-cb39905e3402.html

Finally regarding the chemists and source materials, there is another film called "Orange Sunshine" that addresses that topic. That stuff isn't easy to synthesize, so it's not coming out of a bathtub. I forget if it's covered in this movie or somewhere else, but the sources were very few, and The Grateful Dead Tours were like the Amway Distribution Channel.
On Amazon Prime:


There's plenty of evidence out there that points back to the government, mind control, social engineering, etc. What varies even greatly are the theories around why, such as simply discrediting the Hippy/Anti Vietnam Movement, to many darker and broader theories around social engineering and profiteering.

I agree with Robert's follow up statements, follow the money and consider the power the Drug Laws provided the government for selective enforcement moving forward.

Think about this for a minute - if it's all about mind control, then the "CIA" really sucks at their job. They dish out a bunch of LSD and an entire generation takes it and LSD teaches them to hate the CIA, the war, the military industrial complex and authority in general. I mean they knew what LSD was like before the 1960s. What would have caused them to believe that a drug that promotes introspection and a sense of spirituality and freedom could be used to control a populace? Of course I dispute that the CIA was trying to mind control the populace, but let's assume for a minute I'm wrong.....what? How could they have come away with such a misplaced idea about the effects of LSD? Wouldn't Leary have told them otherwise? Wouldn't he have served as a good example of why it would do that - I mean just look at the guy?

I think the mass media is BS, but, seriously, if the CIA is behind CNN, then why on earth did they choose a gay effete albino (Anderson Cooper) and a black gay counterpart (Don Lemon) that no one can relate to? Worse these freaks are shitting out fake news and everyone knows it (these outlets have been caught in several embarrassing lies recently and had to make retractions). Fox New's Tucker Carlson show is more watched than all of the CNN headliners put together. Recent polls show only 13% of the public trusts the news and increasingly more people are getting their updates on youtube and blogs.

John Brennan now works for CNN - oooh scary. Dots connected! It's true! - (sarcasm alert). He makes an utter ass of himself and he is on the verge of being arrested for his role in the attempt to depose Trump when he was Dir CIA (seriously. It's coming). He's been yacking about "collusion" and "treason" for over a year. Why, any day now Mueller is going to put Trump in irons. Except it didn't happen. Quite the opposite (something some of us with a little more knowledge have been stating would happen since the beginning of the witch hunt). Bumbling incompetence and stupidity of the first order (if you accept the CIA as conspiratorial Masters of the Dark Universe meme).

If that's the big bad scary CIA, then I say let them continue. That clown show can't get it right and is a threat to no one but themselves. Some conspiracy.

MkUltra was a set of dirty methods (not just LSD) that were tested to see if individuals could be made to tell the truth, become Manchurian candidates and that sort of thing - or to see if enemy military units could be made passive or elsewise rendered unable or unwilling to fight. It got busted. It was never about impacting the American societal structure. IMO, there are a lot of people telling stories to make themselves appear more interesting in history or important...or just to spin a good yarn.
 
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[/QUOTE]
Agreed. Post death is not an ultimate state. We retain who we were for some 'time' because what we think of as ego is a cluster of psychological processes in action - and they are not negated by death of the physical body.

Supposedly ego is refined through experience on this or the metaphysical level of our reality until it has attained a harmony with deeper truths. That is unless you consider the ego to be the persona we create while we are incarnate in the physical body - in which case it ceases to be relevant when being in the physical body ceases to be relevant. But a sense of self remains - with a different sense of context.

Yea the ADC data tells us this and so does the reporting of those who practice astral travel. They generally report encountering deceased friends and family who are usually in human form and living lives with the same personality intact from when they lived on Earth, but with a different perspective. It seems that death doesn’t fully relieve us of our problems. Buhlman, Ziewe, Nichols etc all say this.
 
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Think about this for a minute - if it's all about mind control, then the "CIA" really sucks at their job. They dish out a bunch of LSD and an entire generation takes it and LSD teaches them to hate the CIA, the war, the military industrial complex and authority in general. I mean they knew what LSD was like before the 1960s. What would have caused them to believe that a drug that promotes introspection and a sense of spirituality and freedom could be used to control a populace? Of course I dispute that the CIA was trying to mind control the populace, but let's assume for a minute I'm wrong.....what? How could they have come away with such a misplaced idea about the effects of LSD? Wouldn't Leary have told them otherwise? Wouldn't he have served as a good example of why it would do that - I mean just look at the guy?

I think the mass media is BS, but, seriously, if the CIA is behind CNN, then why on earth did they choose a gay effete albino (Anderson Cooper) and a black gay counterpart (Don Lemon) that no one can relate to? Worse these freaks are shitting out fake news and everyone knows it (these outlets have been caught in several embarrassing lies recently and had to make retractions). Fox New's Tucker Carlson show is more watched than all of the CNN headliners put together. Recent polls show only 13% of the public trusts the news and increasingly more people are getting their updates on youtube and blogs.

John Brennan now works for CNN - oooh scary. Dots connected! It's true! - (sarcasm alert). He makes an utter ass of himself and he is on the verge of being arrested for his role in the attempt to depose Trump when he was Dir CIA (seriously. It's coming). He's been yacking about "collusion" and "treason" for over a year. Why, any day now Mueller is going to put Trump in irons. Except it didn't happen. Quite the opposite (something some of us with a little more knowledge have been stating would happen since the beginning of the witch hunt). Bumbling incompetence and stupidity of the first order (if you accept the CIA as conspiratorial Masters of the Dark Universe meme).
I totally agree with that - though you add some more details.
If that's the big bad scary CIA, then I say let them continue. That clown show can't get it right and is a threat to no one but themselves. Some conspiracy.
By exactly the same logic I am pretty sure that the Russian state was not behind the novichok attacks in Salisbury(UK). To believe they were means that you believe the Russian security apparatus is equally bumbling.

However, I do think 'deep state' characters do exist, and we have seen some of them surface - such as Brennan - and clearly they are rather deluded, obsessional individuals.
MkUltra was a set of dirty methods (not just LSD) that were tested to see if individuals could be made to tell the truth, become Manchurian candidates and that sort of thing - or to see if enemy military units could be made passive or elsewise rendered unable or unwilling to fight. It got busted. It was never about impacting the American societal structure. IMO, there are a lot of people telling stories to make themselves appear more interesting in history or important...or just to spin a good yarn.

From what I have read of DMT, that might be more suited to such abuse.

David
 
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I totally agree with that - though you add some more details.
By exactly the same logic I am pretty sure that the Russian state was not behind the novichok attacks in Salisbury(UK). To believe they were means that you believe the Russian security apparatus is equally bumbling.
David


David, totally agree.

Whatever happened to throwing people off high rise balconies or simply shooting them in the ear wit a Makarov? Why would the Russians resort to such bizarre methods to kill someone with a virus that can be traced right back to them? Answer, they didn't. MI6 wanted to make it look like the Russians did it, but MI6 overplayed its hand. There are other problems with the story. This goes for the White Helmets in Syria (who are Muslim Brotherhood affiliates) who report fake poison gas attacks to the Brits, who in turn hype the reports to us. These people worked with ISIS/Al Qaeda - and the sad truth is that the US was supporting Al Qaeda groups in Syria too under the Obama admin. Trump eased us out of that. He had to make a symbolic gesture a couple times and harmlessly toss some missiles at nothing targets after coordinating with the Russians, but we are now extricated from that ugliness. BTW, all US military activity in Syria was coordinated with the Russians. Called "deconfliction". We violated it once and killed some Russians when they threatened some of our pet jihadi groups. Otherwise, military commanders on both sides worked hard to ensure that the US and Russia didn't get into a hot war. The risk for that with McCain and Clinton was intense. Obama actually took some heat, but did the right thing in that regard.This Syria bit is not speculation on my part, but the Novichok bit is.

And...before you say it....I do not think that the Syria stuff is a conspiracy. It's right there in the open and plenty of people, from the military boots on the ground to members of the intelligence community (IC) know all about it and talk about it. It's just that our news media doesn't report it (or distorts the reporting if they do cover it). The Novichok thing would be a conspiracy of sorts if our speculation is correct. Point to David on that one.

Yes. There will always be deep state actors (or at least attempts) That's people, especially in a democracy and in bureaucracies. I can tell you that the attitude is "We are here to stay and we have developed long term plans, but every four years there is a risk that a new POTUS will turn it all upside down. We need to work to make sure that doesn't happen". Some of it is well intentioned and some of it is for personal power purposes.

I don't know anything about DMT other than what I've read. It sounds a little crazy.
 
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This goes for the White Helmets in Syria (who are Muslim Brotherhood affiliates) who report fake poison gas attacks to the Brits, who in turn hype the reports to us. These people worked with ISIS/Al Qaeda - and the sad truth is that the US was supporting Al Qaeda groups in Syria too under the Obama admin. Trump eased us out of that. He had to make a symbolic gesture a couple times and harmlessly toss some missiles at nothing targets after coordinating with the Russians, but we are now extricated from that ugliness.
Yes, I think a lot of people realised that - but the BBC almost avoided any mention of it.

Each time we spent a sweaty couple of weeks, expecting an uncontrollable war that might go nuclear, and each time after it happened, nobody wanted to complain that he hadn't really done anything. I remember when I realised that Trump had pulled the same stunt twice over, and burst out laughing! After that the Russians started reporting in advance when they spotted preparations being made for yet another gas attack, and that seemed to scare enough of the plotters that the idea was shelved - hopefully for ever.

David
 
Ah - we both totally agree with each other - we should get married.....once you have had the necessary sex change procedures :D

David

OK. I will also have some plastic surgery and bleaching done so I come out looking like Anderson Cooper. Would that do it for you? You're going to have to pay for the ongoing hormone treatments. I have a hairy chest, so razor stubble might be a problem.

I am of Armenian descent. My paternal grandparents lived near us and when my grandmother died, my grandfather moved in with us. I spent my childhood through high school years with him. They barely survived the genocide of 1915. I heard all the horrible stories and was admonished, repeatedly, to "never forget". When ISIS was running around killing Christians in Syria, many of whom were also descendants of survivors, my blood was boiling. A Christian's life under Muslim rule is not pleasant and is always at risk. I wanted to go fight, but alas, I am too old now. Combat is a young man's activity. My son was already disabled from a wound received in Afghanistan, but my daughter and son in law, both members of the IC, were doing their part. I despise jihadis and have little trust for any Muslim. That the US was supporting these people was the last straw for me. Drain the swamp! Trump in 2020!
 
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David,
Again with the conspiracy stuff. What is this fascination with "conspiracies"?

You know what is a conspiracy? Every human interaction involving two or more people. Two guys decide to make a run to the store for a six pack of beer before the football game starts. They conspired to get beer. Have more than five or six guys at the party and conspiracies really proliferate. Bob and Joe like lite beer, but the others like IPA. Secret discussions ensue regarding what type of beer to buy and how much...should we have sausage or pepperoni on the pizza...someone will be left out of that discussion...CONSPIRACY!!!....The people putting on the football game conspired with the concessions vendors at the stadium and the tv network. The tv network conspired with the companies that make televisions. Everything. Sending money to Mother Teresa's orphan program is a conspiracy. Sending your children to school is participating in a conspiracy to educate the young.

You want a democracy? Well that means you have a govt run by people; not AI robots. People put their heads together and come up with all kinds of plans. That's conspiring. Some of the plans they act out on. Sometimes some of those actions are against the law of the land. That then becomes a criminal conspiracy. Sometimes the plans violate someone else's code of ethics. Sometimes people get trapped into group think and don't even realize they are conspiring to create a shared view of reality that might not even have any objective truth. Even if we had AI robots running things, it would be a conspiracy because someone had to program the robots and they had an agenda of some kind. This podcast/blog is a conspiracy in which we are participating. We are against materialistic science. We are conspirators.

The word really has no meaning outside a court of law where a specific illegal action is being looked at. The court and all of its judges and lawyers are involved in a conspiracy known as the "legal system". Then they all have their own sub-agendas and social cliques. Those are also conspiracies.

So the govt funded Wasson? So what? Why wouldn't it?

The first time I ingested a psychedelic - it was LSD.... 200 micrograms - a healthy enough dose to get a full psychedelic spectrum experience, but not an insane dose level. It was in liquid form (a diluted solution) that came in brown glass vials. I won't speak to the source...this was a long time ago...The dosage could be measured accurately from a pipet (sp?) type dispenser. I had read about it and was told about it by the people that obtained it for me. But nothing prepared me for the actual experience. There I was a couple hours later....wide awake and feeling more intensely intellectually and psychically aware than ever before...my thoughts, my awareness, my very essence expanding up and up through levels of consciousness ...All was Mind..... WOW! THIS IS IT! ....was a thought that crossed my mind.....but who was the mind that just had the thought?......that question led to an unfolding of new layers of reality and realization....and there was a certain funny aspect to the question....it was ridiculous and it made me laugh....a deep belly laugh....because in the midst of all of this direct connection with all of this MIND, it was a indeed a silly question and it was an amusing artifact of an outmoded thought habit that I once had......when was it that I used to think in such a narrow silly and misguided way?........Holly Cow!....It was just a minute ago!.....I just experienced universes of consciousness and went on incredible mental and spiritual journeys and, by outmoded thinking land measures, it all happened in a like a minute....There is no time. It's another silly construct...this makes me laugh even harder. The puny idea that is my day to day ego is kind of a sad limited little thing....yet I start to feel a sense of compassion and love for that sad fragile little thing....this propels me through a river of archetypical concepts....and I am off on another journey through layers of Mind.....on and on and on....except there is no on and on and on because it's all happening now and there is not time....when you get to the bottom you get back to the top.......now I'm talking to a spiritual force that seems to exist independent of me and is wise and kind......yet it isn't independent of me because All is One....WOW! This isn't a dream or hallucination....it is real! Realer than what the outmoded used to experience day to day....on and on and on....but not on and on...NOW. HERE......EVERYWHERE...

None of that which occurred was (or is) intellectual musings. Rather a direct experience of these things. Let that soak in - Direct Experience. That is what psychedelics do for me.

Back to the CIA and "conspiracies" for a moment....

....The CIA (using CIA as a generic term for many govt agencies since that is what all the conspiracy nuts like to do) had discovered LSD in the 1950s. They apparently thought it might be good for interrogating people and getting the truth out of them. They were looking for substances that would do that for them. That research, despite offending the more sanctimonious delicate flowers amongst us, is a legitimate thing for a national security agency to do in a world where nuclear armed enemies could destroy humanity any day. However, the reports of the drug's effects were different and rather interesting. Since it was deemed physically harmless, CIA guys decided to try it themselves. They experienced amazing states of mind like I did.

Breaking news...CIA guys are people too. Usually pretty smart people at that. They were as impressed with the state of mind induced by LSD as I was. Being people with interests and dreams and concerns and everything else that everyone feels and thinks, they naturally thought that maybe these substances could bring about some good in society. Like, what if everyone had a taste of the True Nature of Awareness? Maybe it could make for a better world? Hippies certainly thought (and said) that same thing after using the drug. CIA guys aren't allowed to? Hippies hold a copywrite on those thoughts?

So you get a Wasson funded to explore a related drug that is found in certain mushroom species. You get the cover of LIFE magazine. ....Hey, let's legitimize this stuff a little and see what happens if more people, a wider swath of society starts using it. It just might make a positive difference in the world, what with nuclear weapons proliferating and the horror of WW2 recently behind us it's worth a shot.

Why a banker? Because CIA guys were almost exclusively recruited from the Ivy League. They needed to have what used to be referred to as "Background". A banker was someone they could trust and relate to because he too had background. That's old school WASP ...I realize that the prols and hippies hate it. Tough. Besides, the banker already had a great interest in mushrooms. Why this needs to be twisted into some kind of fuel for paranoid fantasies escapes me entirely.

I think I mentioned that in a democracy you get a govt of people....so ...some people are bad guys. Straight up sociopaths. Others become misguided and cold hearted for various reasons; sometimes because they are distracted and not paying attention....people like that (and sociopaths )are everywhere - even in guru-land and hippy communes ....anyhow, yes, when you're dealing with people, some of them are going to get out of hand and do bad things, like some of the more infamous examples of MK Ultra activities.....I refer back to my example and question in a previous comment (up thread) about airline crashes. When a plane crashes it needs to be investigated and we need to do all we can to ensure that the issue is remedied......but we still fly and we still know that some day another plane is going to crash........why do we apply a totally different standard to the CIA?

I think all of this conspiracy theory stuff is, on the one hand, a pathetic admission - almost a desperate cry - that says "I am weak and powerless and people are messing with me". . ...on the other hand, it is an attempt to cover up that weakness by appearing to be "in the know" , and thus somewhat in control, regarding big forces in society and life in general.

It seems to me that when most people use the word "conspiracy" it is emotionally loaded and has sinister connotations + a specific meaning beyond the face value. What they are really saying is "People with more *power* than I are making decisions that might impact me in a negative way and I am not even aware of what those decisions are or who is making them and that scares me".

But, because of that strong subjective element as to what is a "conspiracy" then we get into all kinds of disagreements based on personal values, intelligence and levels of understanding. So I don't like the term outside of legal definitions. Sam hired Big Pete to murder his business partner. Here's the evidence. Ok. That is a criminal conspiracy to commit murder. No problem. The CIA helped Wasson go study mushrooms? Not a conspiracy. Just people being people. The fact that some of the players are associated with the government is immaterial.

Like I said, if you don't want to be mind controlled, then don't be. It's that simple. No one is forcing you to believe facebook memes, or the "news" or to put LSD on your tongue. No one can rob you of your honor or integrity or your essential soul....unless you let them.
The CIA invented the term "conspiracy theory" in order to throw people off the truth. Just sayin'.
 
The CIA invented the term "conspiracy theory" in order to throw people off the truth. Just sayin'.

LOL.

What is The Truth? These things are usually multidimensional. There are often several different, perhaps conflicting, truths.

One of my issues with all the conspiracy theory crap that flies around these days is that a lot it serves as building a "boy who cried wolf" scenario. When a real conspiracy, like the attempted coup d'état against President Trump occurs, people are preconditioned to dismiss it as just another "conspiracy theory".

I suppose a conspiratorial agency would, theoretically, like to have lots of people crying wolf all of the time for some purposes. However, I'm just going to say again that these agencies aren't that clever, well organized or capable. So the conspiracy theory that the agencies cook up conspiracy theories to be released to the public culture is just another conspiracy theory.

Also, this would ultimately represent another total backfire if true. A populace mired in conspiracy theories is hard to govern and lacks the stability and coherence necessary to survive, let alone accomplish important societal goals.

People like Mr Forte think the government (or at least the "CIA") are a bunch of fascists. Ok. How does dosing people on LSD and spreading anti-government conspiracy theories get people to slip on their jack boots and go marching off to world domination in lock step?

Because, you know, it's not very fun to be a fascist dictator unless you have Armies of jack booted thugs willing to be sent out on incendiary missions all over the world.

If anyone were deliberately propagating these conspiracy theories, I'd say it would be enemies of the country and/or the system, like leftists, Russia, China, Muslims.
 
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Synesthesia is common on psychedelics (seeing sounds as colors, scents becoming colors, etc).
Yes, I found that out years later. Should have mentioned that at some points during the psychotic phases I was occasionally experiencing auditory hallucinations. for example, small groups of small 'things' (demons, though some of the demons were large, bigger than a human) laughing at me in a very malignant way, very occasional tactile hallucinations, for example the sensation of being touched or poked, and very, very occasional olfactory hallucinations, for example, the sense of smelling burning flesh.


Are you positive you took LSD and not some weird designer drug?
As sure as I possibly can be. This happened (I didn't keep an exact date) during 1970-1971, I would have been 16-17 years old at the time. To the best of my knowledge designer drugs didn't exist in those days, they came much later (I have never tried any of them and never will, I'm totally out of the drug 'scene' anyway, and have been for a long time, and no desire to pursue). Also, initially, I was with two other people, I got separated from them later because of the way I was reacting to the first outright frighting psychotic phase -- trying to run away from things so I got lost, separated, from the people I was with; not that they would have been of much help anyway, really they were pretty well untrustworthy individuals (the folly of teenage years choosing the wrong kind of 'friends'). In any case, they too were tripping on the same acid though at a lower dose than I took, they took a half-tab each, I took the full tab. They both reported standard type trips and were quite fine with what they they were experiencing, until my trip started to go bad, they said, when I spoke with them days later, that they found that scary and confusing but that, once I got separated from them they reverted back to being fine. Also, days and weeks after the event I did speak with other people who had used the same acid they were all reporting standard tripping experiences, all commented on the really good quality of the acid.


Psychedelics do tend to impart a high energy level on the user. I wouldn't describe it as frenetic though.
Fair point. What's in a word? This 'frenetic' was particularly prominent during the bad trip, both in psychotic and lucid phases, even in the lucid phase before the trip started to go bad (in the pub for example). Afterwards I kept trying to work out what was going on with that. Eventually I decided that again, as a recurring point of reference in my life, that it was to do with attachment to ego. If you are really scared out of your wits (and I surely was) then that, as best as I can see, has a 'compressive' or 'consolidating' effect on your sense of ego. You are under threat! I am under threat! Compresses you right into your ego, it becomes highly consolidated. At that point the 'frenetic energy' is very high -- through the ceiling actually. With the second trip, even though I was experiencing quite marked loss of ego, there was still some attachment to it so the frenetic energy was there to some extent. Sometimes the energy would attenuate a bit, at those points where I was experiencing a very strong expansion of self (reduction of ego), during those phases the energy would just be like a kind of background hum to the experience. However, it was still there, and again I would have to say that this wasn't comparable to that kind of effect, lose of ego, expansion of self, in my meditation experience and definitely not comparable with expansion of self, loss of ego, that I experienced in the NDE.


I have had OBEs (in total sobriety) I used to be able to induce them with various techniques. . . It was truly a peak experience and, yes, markedly different than tripping.
Yes, could you describe in what way they are markedly different from tripping? You're very lucky to be able to generate them consciously.


I am not sure it makes sense to hold up an example of a category (say NDE) of experience as some kind of gold standard (not saying you did that, Radish)
I don't think that do hold NDEs as a gold standard. That said, I can't abandon my own experience. If I'm to look at my own NDE as a 'peak experience' then, yes, I blows my other notionally comparable experiences totally out of the water. I think I just hold my own NDE as being a touchstone for my, so far, understanding of what can be regard as real or not. As you say NDEs are very variable (though more often than not they do have recurring components to them) and I do keep that in mind when thinking about/around my own NDE and considering the NDEs of others. I'm pretty certain that what I experienced was only scratching the surface of the possibilities that can come to be 'there' (wherever 'there' is) -- I'm as sure as I can be that 'there' is very malleable environment, though with anchors to make it stable for whatever individual is actually having the NDE. I think I'm trying to say that malleable though the environment may be it is possible to have stability there too. I think that whatever you find yourself in initially in that environment will, perhaps after some flux, stabilise to an environment that is conducive with what you are in your essence -- where 'you are at' as a total being. (With the caveat that what your essence is may not, probably will not, be known to you in this material existence -- so you can never be sure what you are going to hit when you arrive 'there', at least initially.) Not to misrepresent what I think I know and what I believe -- I don't know that, but it do believe it to be very likely.


For the validity of OBEs, yes, I think they are very valid. Though I have never had a full-blown OBE myself I did in 1999/2000 have the beginnings of one spontaneously. It would take a long essay in itself to describe the circumstances surrounding that and what happened but suffice to say I was going to sleep so in a hypnagogic state. Suddenly I started to wake up somewhat and found that my whole body was in a state of total paralysis and vibrating with energy but I was also experiencing my legs as being in air, at an angle that would be totally impossible for my physical body to accomplish. I also experienced my bed as rocking and swaying quite violently. (I would later understand this to be a confusion on my part between having sensory data input on what I was doing getting crossed over between what my physical body was doing, lying on a bed vibrating and entirely paralysed, and what my astral body was doing, legs starting to sway in the air. I didn't realise what was going on at the time so had no rational means to distinguish between the two sensory inputs, so sensation-wise I was flipping wildly between the sensory of the astral and the sensory of my physical body without understanding what was actually going on -- very, very confusing.) Suffice to say I got a fright, the paralysis was very scary, and jerked out of the projection and that was that. Lying in bed thinking "What the f*** was that?") The following day I had the notion that it might have been the start of an OBE, went to the library, got a hold of Robert Monroe's books and, yup, that was it! I was really glad to have that experience as I had on some occasions wondered if OBEs were valid -- now I had personal experience that they were. (Have never managed to generate conscious OBE though. Frustrating.)

So for this reason I just hold my NDE, and NDEs in general, as a personal touchstone but not the sole Holy Grail of peak experiences. OBEs are valid too. But never having managed to generate one and visit astral realms I have no way of trying to directly compare the two as to which of either them, if at all, generates the most comprehensive peak experience.

I am more interested in what you were feeling and thinking about on your psychedelic experience as opposed to the noise you might have experienced. Could you share your thoughts while tipping? It sounds like the second experience was truly mind expanding. Do you see value in it?
The bad trip, once it got underway, was utter fear all the way, no other content of any other concern. Prior to the 'bad' stepping in my thoughts were of being totally gobsmacked that I had never seen the world before in the way that I was seeing it now; colours vibrant in a way that I had never experienced before; objects seeming to quite literally have a consciousness all of their own (in a panpsychic sort of way, though I wouldn't have known to call it that at that point in time) -- I was very excited about these things, I thought it astonishing and beautiful until it started to spiral out of control. In the second experience that I referred to my thoughts were entirely positive, and my ego self considerably attenuated -- though nowhere near as markedly as during the NDE or the meditation experience ('frenetic' or background hum thing getting in the way). Again in that experience there was a panpsychic component -- it's very nice when it is positive (when things spiral out of control that component of the trip can be very frightening, threatening, malignant even). I should add that several years before the second trip I mentioned I already had had my NDE and was, I think, because of that correctly able to see the attenuation of ego in the trip as being wholly positive. My meditation experience came some time after that trip but confirmed again that the attenuation of ego (or expansion of self, if you want to look at it that way) was critical to producing a good expansive, peak experience trip. So for that trip 'feeling part of the whole' was foremost in my thinking. It was a really beautiful sunny day and being in the countryside with no other people around except my then girlfriend helped a lot.


Did I see value in the second experience as being mind expanding? Yes, it reminded me very strongly of something I forget in normal day to day life -- we are certainly more than we ordinarily think we are and our state of normal being is a constrained state (though maybe a necessary one while are here having to deal with ordinary life as we do). I also did, ultimately, see real value in the bad trip too -- that just took years of thinking to sort that out for myself.
 
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Yes, I found that out years later. Should have mentioned that at some points during the psychotic phases I was occasionally experiencing auditory hallucinations. for example, small groups of small 'things' (demons, though some of the demons were large, bigger than a human) laughing at me in a very malignant way, very occasional tactile hallucinations, for example the sensation of being touched or poked, and very, very occasional olfactory hallucinations, for example, the sense of smelling burning flesh.


As sure as I possibly can be. This happened (I didn't keep an exact date) during 1970-1971, I would have been 16-17 years old at the time. To the best of my knowledge designer drugs didn't exist in those days, they came much later (I have never tried any of them and never will, I'm totally out of the drug 'scene' anyway, and have been for a long time, and no desire to pursue). Also, initially, I was with two other people, I got separated from them later because of the way I was reacting to the first outright frighting psychotic phase -- trying to run away from things so I got lost, separated, from the people I was with; not that they would have been of much help anyway, really they were pretty well untrustworthy individuals (the folly of teenage years choosing the wrong kind of 'friends'). In any case, they too were tripping on the same acid though at a lower dose than I took, they took a half-tab each, I took the full tab. They both reported standard type trips and were quite fine with what they they were experiencing, until my trip started to go bad, they said, when I spoke with them days later, that they found that scary and confusing but that, once I got separated from them they reverted back to being fine. Also, days and weeks after the event I did speak with other people who had used the same acid they were all reporting standard tripping experiences, all commented on the really good quality of the acid.


Fair point. What's in a word? This 'frenetic' was particularly prominent during the bad trip, both in psychotic and lucid phases, even in the lucid phase before the trip started to go bad (in the pub for example). Afterwards I kept trying to work out what was going on with that. Eventually I decided that again, as a recurring point of reference in my life, that it was to do with attachment to ego. If you are really scared out of your wits (and I surely was) then that, as best as I can see, has a 'compressive' or 'consolidating' effect on your sense of ego. You are under threat! I am under threat! Compresses you right into your ego, it becomes highly consolidated. At that point the 'frenetic energy' is very high -- through the ceiling actually. With the second trip, even though I was experiencing quite marked loss of ego, there was still some attachment to it so the frenetic energy was there to some extent. Sometimes the energy would attenuate a bit, at those points where I was experiencing a very strong expansion of self (reduction of ego), during those phases the energy would just be like a kind of background hum to the experience. However, it was still there, and again I would have to say that this wasn't comparable to that kind of effect, lose of ego, expansion of self, in my meditation experience and definitely not comparable with expansion of self, loss of ego, that I experienced in the NDE.

Radish,
Thank again for sharing. It sounds like you had a full fledged panic reaction, which led to a form of temporary psychosis. Like I said, I have heard about that sort of thing happening, but never experienced it nor personally know anyone who has. It really does serve as a warning as to the potential downside of psychedelic use. That said, it is not a typical psychedelic trip and shouldn't be construed to be representative of the experience.

I think your analysis of what happened is very thoughtful.

I wonder though if the terrible and frightening hallucinations were, indeed 100% hallucinations.

I went to grad school when I was a little older and I had a family to support, healthcare insurance needs, etc. But I was attending school full time during the day. So I landed a night job in a county psychiatric hospital. This was a locked down unit where the craziest of crazies were brought in by police to be kept safe and have others be kept safe from them. Most of the guys working on the floor there were tough guys, former military, moonlighting or retired police officers and that sort because we'd get in wrestling matches with the crazies all of the time. Anyhow, one night I needed to take a nap for a half-hour. I had never napped on the job before. There was an empty patients' room with a clean bed. I closed the door, laid down on the bed and closed my eyes. I fell asleep instantly. A short time later I experienced a dream so lucid that I thought I was wide awake. It was clearer than clear; very unusual. And it was terrifying. Several grotesque little demon heads had sprouted out of my chest and they were leering and chattering at me, saying awful things. I ran out of that room sweating and never slept on the unit again. I have often wondered if there was something more to that than just a very lucid nightmare. I mean those are exactly the sort of problem that the psychotics say happen to them and that they insist is real.

Re, OBE vs tripping - I can no longer induce OBEs. It has been a number of years. I seem to have lost that ability. It's probably a lack of maintaining practice and that my job is mentally taxing and I'm usually tired and just want to sleep at night. I used to practice some techniques that worked very well at bring about OBEs. So not so much luck as working at it (though the first time I had an OBE it was spontaneous, I didn't know what it was and it scared the living daylights out of me. I thought I had a heart attack or something, died and was stuck in some low level existence. - My idea of the afterlife was based on the Christian heaven/hell/pearly gates at that time).....how are they different from tripping? I know how they are quite different, but describing the qualitative difference doesn't seem easy to me. One of my points was that OBE experiences that I've had differ from each other too. It's not a consistent category of experience qualitatively.

The first OBE, the spontaneous one, was exactly as you described. The paralysis, the vibrating, violent rocking. Except that I came out of body 100%. That actually happened a second time a week or so later. Only slightly less scary because I had survived the first one. Then I looked into these things and learned what they were. After I got some control over them, I thought they were very interesting and set about inducing them and discovering whether or not they were "real". I was able to set up some tests and verify that I was able to obtain real information about non-physically proximate events and objects.
 
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