It's my understanding that Psilocybin and LSD do produce hallucinations, but that these are mere artefacts; a sideshow to the main game.

> allow you traverse the realms of existence

I have the more prosaic belief that using a rickety chair allows you to sit on the floor.

I might borrow this, thanks. Things don't have to be perfect to provide utility!

I don't see why it needs to be anything so grandiose. I'm not griping at you, per se, I just don't understand why psychedelics enthusiasts consistently bang the metaphysical drum, as opposed to dedicating themselves to a rational and clear-headed understanding of the phenomenon.

Now, obviously, there are various levels of schmess. Many might say, "but look at the complexity of thought of these cultural artifacts surrounding psychedelics!" to which I'd say that, much like St. Anselm's ontological argument (which is poor reasoning, absurd on its face, and yet still more coherent than most psychedelic-induced metaphysical rants), the complexity of thought involved means nothing if it can not be grounded in the everyday experience of a shared, external, objective space.

Let's not reinvent religion and cults with psychedelics; let's look at this pivotal moment in time as a chance for us enthusiasts to encourage society to move beyond such poor modes of reasoning.

Also: I see shit on LSD, but I know it's not real. I'm hallucinating but not delusional, whereas e.g. datura produces both hallucinations and delusion.

> I don't see why it needs to be anything so grandiose. I'm not griping at you, per se, I just don't understand why psychedelics enthusiasts consistently bang the metaphysical drum

It’s really annoying. The truth is, there’s nothing profound about tripping, it’s just a drug that changes your perception. There’s nothing intrinsically magical or spiritual about it. I enjoy tripping once or twice a year because it makes things look amazing and music sound cool, and your thoughts seem super profound (but they aren’t).

I'd suggest a full dose of bufo/5-meo for your next. There really aren't thoughts at the high end yet it is quite a profound experience.

I would very much like to try that, as well as DMT itself. I only have experience with LSD (tested with Ehrlich’s reagent) and mushrooms. I will keep my eyes peeled for some.

For those curious, without any nefarious or illegal intent, here is a botanical fun fact: the tree species acacia confusa is native to Australia and produces agriculturally relevant amounts of bufotenine and DMT. This can be a problem since these chemicals are typically expressed in the root bark, which can be exposed to abuse by the elements. In particular, since these compounds are water-soluble and easily leech out of root bark into water (or any suitable polar solvent), this might pose an ecological concern for animals living near these trees.

Thankfully, enterprising botanical entrepreneurs are doing their best to remediate the impact of acacia confusa on the environment, by gathering loose pieces of the root bark, powdering it, and selling the powder online. It makes a quite beautiful red/purple dye. Other interesting material properties include its use as a natural soap, and there appears to be some evidence for its utility as a wound healing agent.

Unfortunately, hooligans on the internet seem to be acquiring this incredible dye for the purpose of drug manufacture. Please do not be like these hooligans. Leave the root bark powder of acacia confusa, commonly abbreviated to ACRB, to those of us using it as a dye.

Even more upsetting is the ritual (ab)use of ACRB or other DMT-containing plants in combination with one of my other favorite dyes: refined harmaline, which is a beautiful yellow under normal light and flouresces brilliantly when exposed to black light. There are some positively in-the-paint ne'er-do-wells that will consume two of these dyes, ACRB (or similar pigment) and refined harmalines, within very quick succession. Usually they will then vomit, which serves them right!

> It's my understanding that Psilocybin and LSD do not produce hallucinations (e.g. seeing something which does not exist. I'm aware of the difficulty of qualifying the previous sentence) versus changing your perception of phenomena.

Your understanding matches my anecdotal experience over a couple dozen LSD and psilocybin experiences. Largest doses for me are 10 ‘tabs’ and 7g shrooms.

The visual effects make colors more vivid, textures will shimmer, objects will morph and warp, some things will have a ‘halo’ around them, things of that nature.

I’ve never seen something that isn’t actually a real object while tripping, just perceptual changes on real objects, and I’ve never forgot that I’m tripping while tripping.

> Personally I have reached a personal belief that entheogens allow you traverse the realms of existence

This I don’t agree with, there’s nothing profound or magical about tripping. It’s just a way to perceive things differently, none of the stuff you think of during a trip is actually profound, it just seems that way. If you don’t believe me, try journaling or recording your thoughts on video while tripping and watch it while sober.

It’s simply a chemical that changes the way you perceive things, that’s all. Nothing spiritual or mystical.

FWIW I’ve done pretty much every common drug aside from MDMA (excluding research chemicals).

Having experienced ego death I would say that implications of that experience are profound.

I had very little LSD and got very vivid hallucinations out of it. Things like little devils dancing on a normally plain white wall, stick figures running on rooftops...

That, sir, was not LSD.

It most certainly was. Reputable seller, used a test kit.

Oh really you used an ehrlich reagent? I really doubt that:

A. you actually had those types of hallucinations if it was LSD

B. you actually tested your tab

This is because that kind of subjective effect is just not what LSD does. Full stop. It is possible that you have some underlying schizophrenic tendencies that were triggered by LSD though.

It's indeed possible I have some schizophrenic (-ish) tendencies.

Sounds like what we took in the 90's. Doesn't sound like what was sold as acid in the 2000's, 2010's.

  Personally I have reached a personal belief that entheogens allow you traverse the realms of existence [1] within your lifetime. For example, descending into the hell realm or ascending into the deva realm

If you take hallucinogen frequently enough (it took me around 150 trips over 2 years) , you began to see how it work behind the curtain, how it pulls your strings and it loose all it's magic forever.

I now "know" that I cannot know anything about the spiritual realm. Spiritual "knowledge" gained by religion, meditation and hallucinogen it's all fake, what we can perceive as spiritual is a distorted projection of the inner working of the mind that gets rationalized as spirituality. That agnosticism is the only rational position.

I don't claim that hallucinogen religion and meditation cannot have positive benefits but don't seek spirutal enlightenment to hard or you will eventually into an hole or join a cult.

> you began to see how it work behind the curtain, how it pulls your strings and it loose all it's magic forever. (...)

> That agnosticism is the only rational position.

Please tell us more about the insights you have gained leading to this conclusion

I cannot word it coherently but I will try! Succinctly it feels like the scene in The wizard of Oz where Dorothy see that the Wizard himself is nothing more than an ordinary man behind a curtain.

I started an intense spirutal quest after a meditation session¹, that unexpectedly left me disoriented, depressed and generally dysfunctional. My first few trips after that event made me hopeful again but left me curious as I felt that there was a deeper truth to be found.

1-in a college course on meditation (I had the choice between soccer, golf and meditation... in retrospective I should have chosen Golf)

At that time most of the more obscure hallucinogen described in Tikal and Phikal were legal and easy to obtain from Sigma-Aldrich at reasonable price and I knew people who could obtain quality LSD. So I tried almost everything that Shuglin described as +++.

But it's repeated combination of dextromethorphan (a surprisingly complex drug that is mostly a dissociative) and things in Thikal (LSD, 4-AcO-DMT, 5-meo-mipt...) that pulled on the curtain. 350mg of DXM made me prone to recursive toughts without blocking my ability to remember and the tryptamine brought the spiritual aspect. After thinking about thinking that I am thinking for what felt like a thousand years I came to experience the holodeck effect where you can will any scene into "existence", it's my repeated interactions with my "holodeck" that pulled that metaphorical curtain to reveal that the Wizard was nothing more than a physical process inside me.

After that I lost my access to the holodeck, hallucinogens became physically unpleasant and mentally uninteresting. My quest ended as I felt that I had learned what could be learned about spirituality and stopped worrying about a deeper hidden meaning in life. Things happen because they happen and there is no answer to why something instead of nothing (a complete nothingnes, not the nothingnes of a perfect vaccuum) and it doesn't matter!

I work at a traditional ayahuasca retreat center and have seen a few people who have "holodeck"-like experiences with ayahuasca. In our view it's a bit of a block, or a crutch and way to distract oneself from looking at yourself and doing necessary healing work. I've heard the most fantastic stories but it is all very ungrounded and disconnected from what we actually see in them. DXM is indeed a powerful dissociative and would contribute to that (I believe it's possible to burn yourself out with it; regular users report losing the magic of early experiences fairly quickly). Alas it does look like you've started some great work but may have hit a plateau...as someone who has drank hundreds of times with no plan on stopping any time soon, I'd encourage you to dig deeper :)

Thank you but I feel great and have no interest I digging deeper.

edit: And to learn what you need to change I never experienced something as effective and as harsh as 2CE, personal problems were magnified front and center and you feel like if you doesn't make a plan to adress those issues and execute that plan you will painfully burst into flame.

Also I don't opposed nor judge the work you do, spiritual beliefs or lack of are deeply personal, that why I put quote around "know" in my post.

Thank you for sharing some of your story. It's really wild to imagine a time where Shulgin's 'dirty pictures' were still legal and could be easily ordered.

By the time I got round to PiKHAL and TiKHAL everything was scheduled.

Personally, I disagree with the notion that "it doesn't matter" when reflecting on life. However, I understand the tremendous importance of being able to let go of things and the freedom that comes with that.

>> It's my understanding that Psilocybin and LSD do not produce hallucinations (e.g. seeing something which does not exist. I'm aware of the difficulty of qualifying the previous sentence) versus changing your perception of phenomena.

If you sit in a completely dark room on LSD, you will see something other than a completely dark room. Do those things that you see exist? Maybe there's some technical definition of hallucination that isn't being met, but turning a complete lack of visual stimulus into something sounds like a hallucination to me.

I was always aware at some level that what I was experiencing was due to the drugs I took, so maybe that has something to do with whether it was a hallucination or not?