120 Ton
e: …”how unable you are to come to terms with it?”
yes elena, you are unable to come to terms with it.
e: “…you ban me!!”
i banned no one… this is part of your problem, i suppose it’s your years and years of cult indoctrination that obscures your judgement and causes you to lump everyone into a single group or category… it’s also reflected in your obsession with the “we are one” slogan…
121 Elena
Do you realize how weak your argumentation is Ton?
You’re like soap slipping away but have nothing solid enough to back up your statements.
We use to call such mechanisms, buffers.
Isn’t this what you would call the examined life?
Why don’t you examine how human you were in these posts and take a look at everything you disregard and disregarded about what I am actually saying.
Your mechanisms are so fascinatingly precise I will be sure to study them but why don’t you look at them so that you can at least put a hand in with your examined life?
77. Elena – April 9, 2010
Hi Ton and All,
At least I am not negating your premises as you have done with me rejecting whatever I say as not good enough. You just seem to be turning around trying to get the upper-hand over me but really saying the same things that I am saying only the technique is, negating them, saying I better go and research more and when I did and offered them to you, you said I was on the right track but still not good enough.
Good enough for what? Not complete enough for whom? Is a dialogue supposed to be enough, the totality? Why would you expect the mind to grasp more than is allotted to it? Why do you expect the intellect to supply what you yourself must provide? The love and the meaning and the wish to communicate healthily?
About those substances they are children’s play compared to the real thing. I’ll extend on the real thing in a different post if you wish. They have traditionally been used only for initiation rites for they are only a glimpse of their reality and not one we should have gotten lost in en masse as generations are doing today. No one should take these substances more than a handful of times. Have you seen how passive people who have taken marihuana for decades become? Passive and self-conscious and paranoid? And how people in cocaine can’t stop talking? Or in the cow dung mushroom, stop laughing? Or the horrors of “crack”?
The amanitas muscaria or Flykiller is the sacred mushroom in the Rig Veda. That is another story and still they themselves let you know not to mess around with them. And then there is the cacao sabanero. You can take it if you want to know what hell is like- many never come back from it. I’ve seen wonderfully smart people become like vegetables. There are official places here where you can take ayahuasca for twenty five dollars and the guidance of a shaman. Many people are profiting not only from connecting to ayahuasca but from connecting to the native cultures and shamans who have wide knowledge of this practices. All these substances when abused depress the I because they become active in the I’s realm and have to shun it. When the individual is not ready for the experience (and they are never ready if they are having to have it induced, which is why it is only an initiation rite), the drug lives itself out on the individual himself and while it gains power over him he loses power over his own self as we have clearly seen not only in every drug addiction but in every cult addiction, including the regular forms of “falling in love” that are so humanly practiced. That “ love intoxication” is in reality enough for us to deal with, without having to indulge in the abuse of substances.
I did not extend myself on this in the last post because I didn’t want to repeat myself. I have already spoken about these things somewhere on this blog before and thought you were aware of them.
I would ask you kindly to make an effort to keep our conversation to the realm of ideas without treading negatively on each other’s very personal realm. This is very difficult indeed and I have probably been the one who most strongly does it which is why I am asking you to help me. Being able to have a profitable conversation is an expression of the “being” of a community and in this blog-community it is clear that we go from people who agree with everything and cannot have a dialogue to people who disagree in everything and cannot have dialogue. People who cannot go beyond the personal attacks to the realm of ideas or people who are in the realm of ideas and cannot extend them to their personal sphere. All these “disconnectednesses” are aspects of our state of development as a community or “group” if you would rather, for yes, we are far from being a community even of human beings.
Recovering our selves from the cult’s destructiveness, rigidity and expressionless will certainly mean recovering the capacity to participate socially from our own self and not again from an imaginary made up mask that is buffering the possibility of being that self. It is very difficult for any one of us to expose our selves when we are afraid of being shunned, ridiculed or made sarcasm of, when not directly insulted, instead of simply being heard even if there is no agreement. We are not here to agree but to be and help, (if that is ever possible), members inside the Fellowship cult, be. They are not being right now, they are sacrificing themselves in a self-destructive cult.
When people are very vulnerable as many of us are and by vulnerable I mean, people who are not comfortable in themselves, they are desperately needing self affirmation but precisely because we are not comfortable with our selves, we come out as confronting and opposing the other person, which is what we can clearly see in Ton’s and my recent interaction and almost every interaction I had particularly previous to being banned.
Surely we will continue to live this out (if we give ourselves the chance) for quite a while still but if we take a look at the history of the blog, and see ourselves, all of us have become a lot less aggressive than we were when we started. Bruce doesn’t just FUCK everything and everyone all the time, (no matter how accurate those fucks seemed to be), those that only insulted all the time have mostly left and while I was out, few were left that talk but barely dialogue with the blog promising to disappear. Can we “be” and communicate? Disappearing is of course a possibility and being identified with the life a blog is not the cult we are in now, but I am personally much happier in a blog where we have already tried our selves than looking for other people to start again and still think this one can be a viable reference for those still under the grip of the Fellowship cult.
I give you my word that I will try to make my posts much shorter in the future or at least twice as effective if I cannot avoid the length. I am definitely here because I appreciate our background not only in this blog but what we share in common about the System as much as about the Fellowship cult and LIFE, always LIFE.
Hi Ton and All,
At least I am not negating your premises as you have done with me rejecting whatever I say as not good enough. You just seem to be turning around trying to get the upper-hand over me but really saying the same things that I am saying only the technique is, negating them, saying I better go and research more and when I did and offered them to you, you said I was on the right track but still not good enough.
Good enough for what? Not complete enough for whom? Is a dialogue supposed to be enough, the totality? Why would you expect the mind to grasp more than is allotted to it? Why do you expect the intellect to supply what you yourself must provide? The love and the meaning and the wish to communicate healthily?
About those substances they are children’s play compared to the real thing. I’ll extend on the real thing in a different post if you wish. They have traditionally been used only for initiation rites for they are only a glimpse of their reality and not one we should have gotten lost in en masse as generations are doing today. No one should take these substances more than a handful of times. Have you seen how passive people who have taken marihuana for decades become? Passive and self-conscious and paranoid? And how people in cocaine can’t stop talking? Or in the cow dung mushroom, stop laughing? Or the horrors of “crack”?
The amanitas muscaria or Flykiller is the sacred mushroom in the Rig Veda. That is another story and still they themselves let you know not to mess around with them. And then there is the cacao sabanero. You can take it if you want to know what hell is like- many never come back from it. I’ve seen wonderfully smart people become like vegetables. There are official places here where you can take ayahuasca for twenty five dollars and the guidance of a shaman. Many people are profiting not only from connecting to ayahuasca but from connecting to the native cultures and shamans who have wide knowledge of this practices. All these substances when abused depress the I because they become active in the I’s realm and have to shun it. When the individual is not ready for the experience (and they are never ready if they are having to have it induced, which is why it is only an initiation rite), the drug lives itself out on the individual himself and while it gains power over him he loses power over his own self as we have clearly seen not only in every drug addiction but in every cult addiction, including the regular forms of “falling in love” that are so humanly practiced. That “ love intoxication” is in reality enough for us to deal with, without having to indulge in the abuse of substances.
I did not extend myself on this in the last post because I didn’t want to repeat myself. I have already spoken about these things somewhere on this blog before and thought you were aware of them.
I would ask you kindly to make an effort to keep our conversation to the realm of ideas without treading negatively on each other’s very personal realm. This is very difficult indeed and I have probably been the one who most strongly does it which is why I am asking you to help me. Being able to have a profitable conversation is an expression of the “being” of a community and in this blog-community it is clear that we go from people who agree with everything and cannot have a dialogue to people who disagree in everything and cannot have dialogue. People who cannot go beyond the personal attacks to the realm of ideas or people who are in the realm of ideas and cannot extend them to their personal sphere. All these “disconnectednesses” are aspects of our state of development as a community or “group” if you would rather, for yes, we are far from being a community even of human beings.
Recovering our selves from the cult’s destructiveness, rigidity and expressionless will certainly mean recovering the capacity to participate socially from our own self and not again from an imaginary made up mask that is buffering the possibility of being that self. It is very difficult for any one of us to expose our selves when we are afraid of being shunned, ridiculed or made sarcasm of, when not directly insulted, instead of simply being heard even if there is no agreement. We are not here to agree but to be and help, (if that is ever possible), members inside the Fellowship cult, be. They are not being right now, they are sacrificing themselves in a self-destructive cult.
When people are very vulnerable as many of us are and by vulnerable I mean, people who are not comfortable in themselves, they are desperately needing self affirmation but precisely because we are not comfortable with our selves, we come out as confronting and opposing the other person, which is what we can clearly see in Ton’s and my recent interaction and almost every interaction I had particularly previous to being banned.
Surely we will continue to live this out (if we give ourselves the chance) for quite a while still but if we take a look at the history of the blog, and see ourselves, all of us have become a lot less aggressive than we were when we started. Bruce doesn’t just FUCK everything and everyone all the time, (no matter how accurate those fucks seemed to be), those that only insulted all the time have mostly left and while I was out, few were left that talk but barely dialogue with the blog promising to disappear. Can we “be” and communicate? Disappearing is of course a possibility and being identified with the life a blog is not the cult we are in now, but I am personally much happier in a blog where we have already tried our selves than looking for other people to start again and still think this one can be a viable reference for those still under the grip of the Fellowship cult.
I give you my word that I will try to make my posts much shorter in the future or at least twice as effective if I cannot avoid the length. I am definitely here because I appreciate our background not only in this blog but what we share in common about the System as much as about the Fellowship cult and LIFE, always LIFE.
78. ton – April 9, 2010
“I did not extend myself on this in the last post because I didn’t want to repeat myself. I have already spoken about these things somewhere on this blog before and thought you were aware of them. I would ask you kindly to make an effort to keep our conversation to the realm of ideas without treading negatively on each other’s very personal realm.”
elena,
well thank you for extending yourself, what you’ve written is revealing something… and by the way, when have you ever balked at repeating yourself? although it sounds like you’re wanting to change the subject, (and i realize that this may be a little bit of a sidetrack), please indulge me just a bit more as i follow a thread in the hope of getting at the truth, because i believe that an important part of being able to have a “profitable conversation” (as you put it), requires an implicit integrity and honesty.
it feels to me like you’re wanting to change the subject here because you’re backed into a corner, it sounds like you have no actual first-hand, personal experience with these “substances,” and no, living in columbia is not what i mean by an actual experiential encounter… it sounds like you may know something about the subject from an outside perspective but that you really don’t know it intimately, that is. from the inside out… and that’s ok, i’m not going to “judge” you because you’ve never eaten one of these compounds, and i’m certainly not here to convince you to do so… but, what i would suggest is, that you don’t have to dissemble and give vicarious, second and third hand accounts and expect it to be a substitute for the experiential. it’s better just to admit – at least to yourself – when your knowledge is limited to a certain extent… it’s more honest that way and with honesty we be able to proceed with a more “profitable conversation.”
you see elena, you may be fooling yourself but you’re not fooling me when you mix-up and group all these “compounds and substances” into a single category as you do, to me that’s a telltale sign… it shows that from an experiential perspective you don’t really know what you’re talking about. if you’d had an actual personal encounter with ANY so-called “entheogen” then you would know better than to lump it in with drug abuse or any so-called “recreational drugs.”
“I did not extend myself on this in the last post because I didn’t want to repeat myself. I have already spoken about these things somewhere on this blog before and thought you were aware of them. I would ask you kindly to make an effort to keep our conversation to the realm of ideas without treading negatively on each other’s very personal realm.”
elena,
well thank you for extending yourself, what you’ve written is revealing something… and by the way, when have you ever balked at repeating yourself? although it sounds like you’re wanting to change the subject, (and i realize that this may be a little bit of a sidetrack), please indulge me just a bit more as i follow a thread in the hope of getting at the truth, because i believe that an important part of being able to have a “profitable conversation” (as you put it), requires an implicit integrity and honesty.
it feels to me like you’re wanting to change the subject here because you’re backed into a corner, it sounds like you have no actual first-hand, personal experience with these “substances,” and no, living in columbia is not what i mean by an actual experiential encounter… it sounds like you may know something about the subject from an outside perspective but that you really don’t know it intimately, that is. from the inside out… and that’s ok, i’m not going to “judge” you because you’ve never eaten one of these compounds, and i’m certainly not here to convince you to do so… but, what i would suggest is, that you don’t have to dissemble and give vicarious, second and third hand accounts and expect it to be a substitute for the experiential. it’s better just to admit – at least to yourself – when your knowledge is limited to a certain extent… it’s more honest that way and with honesty we be able to proceed with a more “profitable conversation.”
you see elena, you may be fooling yourself but you’re not fooling me when you mix-up and group all these “compounds and substances” into a single category as you do, to me that’s a telltale sign… it shows that from an experiential perspective you don’t really know what you’re talking about. if you’d had an actual personal encounter with ANY so-called “entheogen” then you would know better than to lump it in with drug abuse or any so-called “recreational drugs.”
79. 2010 – April 9, 2010
Elena-
You talk too much.
Elena-
You talk too much.
80. Elena – April 9, 2010
Ton: elena, well thank you for extending yourself, what you’ve written is revealing something… and by the way, when have you ever balked at repeating yourself?
Elena: Thank you for thinking that a dialogue is worth between us and asking me to extend myself. I am balking now at repeating myself because I will no longer give too much time to something we’ve already tread on. Repeating our selves viciously is another way of recurring and destiny evades us.
Ton: although it sounds like you’re wanting to change the subject,
Elena: I am not only wanting to change the subject but wanting to not over-impose my own views in this forum by sheer quantity. And I am also not interested in proving my self RIGHT to you. I understand I may be wrong and can still be here and that is enough for me. People who agree to everything that is happening as we did in the Fellowship cult are as dangerous to life and freedom as people who are unable to agree on anything and must look for something to prove the other person out. Rightness is not the same as righteousness and every time we are right to each other we strengthen each other’s being. The capacity of “resilience” is not only possible in individuals, it is just as necessary in communities.
Ton: (and i realize that this may be a little bit of a sidetrack), please indulge me just a bit more as i follow a thread in the hope of getting at the truth, because i believe that an important part of being able to have a “profitable conversation” (as you put it), requires an implicit integrity and honesty.
Elena: I tell you right away that you will only get as far as what is true for you and not truth and that will already be plenty. Your tone and words and persistence in trying to prove me out shows a pathological ingredient in you for you do not converse or in any way share your own experiences about the subject and enrich me or anyone else with them, you are here simply to prove that I am not being honest or that everything I say is not enough or that as you have tried before, that I am not in a condition to speak and should be banned. Let me tell you right away that my freedom to speak here does not come from you but from my love for Freedom of Speech.
Ton: it feels to me like you’re wanting to change the subject here because you’re backed into a corner,
Elena: backed into a corner by your ridiculously aggresive behavior, convinced that you are the only truth here? Don’t give yourself so much credit.
Ton: it sounds like you have no actual first-hand, personal experience with these “substances,”
Elena: Do you? When you can’t even relate to the very specific ones I’ve mentioned?
Ton: and no, living in columbia is not what i mean by an actual experiential encounter… it sounds like you may know something about the subject from an outside perspective but that you really don’t know it intimately, that is. from the inside out… and that’s ok, i’m not going to “judge” you because you’ve never eaten one of these compounds, and i’m certainly not here to convince you to do so… but, what i would suggest is, that you don’t have to dissemble and give vicarious, second and third hand accounts and expect it to be a substitute for the experiential. it’s better just to admit – at least to yourself – when your knowledge is limited to a certain extent… it’s more honest that way and with honesty we be able to proceed with a more “profitable conversation.”
Elena: No Ton, I do not have to prove anything to you or tell you of my personal experiences with these substances to convey to you that I know what I am talking about.
Ton: you see elena, you may be fooling yourself but you’re not fooling me when you mix-up and group all these “compounds and substances” into a single category as you do,
Elena: If you cared to read carefully enough you would realize that amanitas muscaria, the sacred mushroom of the rig Vedas, was clearly differentiated from the other substances I talked about.
Ton: to me that’s a telltale sign… it shows that from an experiential perspective you don’t really know what you’re talking about. if you’d had an actual personal encounter with ANY so-called “entheogen” then you would know better than to lump it in with drug abuse or any so-called “recreational drugs.”
Elena: a “telltale” sign Ton? So are you now going to go and tell on me so that you can shame me publicly? Wouldn’t you be delighted if you could do that here again where shaming people is the very essence of what we’ve been feeding on when we have exposed the abuses so common in the Fellowship of Friends. I am so good at it myself Ton, why do you think I would fail to recognize it in you? Shaming people for their actions is what people in anger do and I was so very angry with the Fellowship and so vulnerable but I am no longer in that state and going beyond angering and shaming people is what is necessary to understand the beauty beyond the tragedy. If we are to heal as a community who suffered together, we would do good in taking that step.
I understand this is a forum where people can have a conversation and not a court where people are being tried for crime so I will kindly ask you to stop acting as if you had any right to ask of me things that I do not owe you. If what I am offering you is not good enough for you that is your problem and not mine, that does not give you the right to call me dishonest, thank you. If we had moderation here you would be called on for the absurd attitude that you are unkindly expressing. With all due respect fofblogmoderator, with all due respect and gratitude, the role of a moderator is to protect the participants and help them understand each other, I ask you to do so by intervening when people label someone as being dishonest when there is nothing dishonest about their participation.
Now let’s look at entheogens not for the sake of proving to you that I know what we are talking about but for the sake of the subject itself which is beautiful.
From wikipedia: An entheogen (“creates god within,” en εν- “in, within,” theo θεος- “god, divine,” -gen γενος “creates, generates”),[1] in the strict sense, is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic or spiritual context. Historically, entheogens were mostly derived from plant sources and have been used in a variety of traditional religious contexts. Most entheogens do not produce drug dependency.[2] With the advent of organic chemistry, there now exist many synthetic substances with similar psychoactive properties. Entheogens are tools to supplement various practices for healing and transcendence, including in meditation, psychonautics, art projects, and psychedelic therapy.
I personally do not agree with the definition of entheogens as substances that “create god within” I would define them more as substances that reveal the God within. And would insist that these are initiatory substances and NOT substances to be abused as we’ve seen in our present societies. They are certainly different in quality, marihuana and cow dung mushrooms are not as “godrevealing” as amanitas muscaria but they nevertheless enter realms beyond our habitual consciousness and expand our perceptions beyond the “known” senses. I have no “scientific” knowledge of these substances, what I am telling you is from personal experience. I would still affirm that amanitas muscaria and ayahuasca are not substances to be taken for anything other than “ritualistic” purposes and that the God within that they reveal can be reached without them. The experience of Godliness when experienced through these substances does not imply that the person will connect to his own self for a prolonged period or that they will know how to reach it again without it. Any one of these experiences when induced with a substance are a before and after event in anyone’s life and yet they are child’s play when compared to the real thing. The “real thing” only has to speak to you once for you to never stop hearing it… or talking about it… perhaps that is why I am so insistent in the need of connectedness.
This is my last post to you Ton. You and I are only two of the many voices here, it will be very good to hear others on many other subjects. I will not indulge in further conversation with you until I hear a more sympathetic tone in your posts and a willingness to give rather than demand. You have no right to demand here- that is not a healthy attitude. We are not forced to be here, we are here willingly. You have a right to share in a conversation but not to position yourself as the judge of whoever is speaking. A blog can be an art-form of love between people or a school forum of immature teenagers to lynch those who the group marginalizes. That is exactly what is happening in society where the poor blokes just take up a gun and shoot everyone around them as protest. If that is what you choose for yourselves it would be no surprise, after all, that is what was widely practiced in the Fellowship cult and people were thrown out like rotten food when they protested. I will leave this one as joyfully and willingly as I left that one and you can carry on with your dictators of how you like things to be. No wonder this blog is dying like the Fellowship, such places don’t carry any life. If we are willing to take a different direction we might one day reach the Golden Age of the Fellowship and be remembered for our amazing ability for resilience or regeneration and not for the repeated failures to act as human beings.
Ton: elena, well thank you for extending yourself, what you’ve written is revealing something… and by the way, when have you ever balked at repeating yourself?
Elena: Thank you for thinking that a dialogue is worth between us and asking me to extend myself. I am balking now at repeating myself because I will no longer give too much time to something we’ve already tread on. Repeating our selves viciously is another way of recurring and destiny evades us.
Ton: although it sounds like you’re wanting to change the subject,
Elena: I am not only wanting to change the subject but wanting to not over-impose my own views in this forum by sheer quantity. And I am also not interested in proving my self RIGHT to you. I understand I may be wrong and can still be here and that is enough for me. People who agree to everything that is happening as we did in the Fellowship cult are as dangerous to life and freedom as people who are unable to agree on anything and must look for something to prove the other person out. Rightness is not the same as righteousness and every time we are right to each other we strengthen each other’s being. The capacity of “resilience” is not only possible in individuals, it is just as necessary in communities.
Ton: (and i realize that this may be a little bit of a sidetrack), please indulge me just a bit more as i follow a thread in the hope of getting at the truth, because i believe that an important part of being able to have a “profitable conversation” (as you put it), requires an implicit integrity and honesty.
Elena: I tell you right away that you will only get as far as what is true for you and not truth and that will already be plenty. Your tone and words and persistence in trying to prove me out shows a pathological ingredient in you for you do not converse or in any way share your own experiences about the subject and enrich me or anyone else with them, you are here simply to prove that I am not being honest or that everything I say is not enough or that as you have tried before, that I am not in a condition to speak and should be banned. Let me tell you right away that my freedom to speak here does not come from you but from my love for Freedom of Speech.
Ton: it feels to me like you’re wanting to change the subject here because you’re backed into a corner,
Elena: backed into a corner by your ridiculously aggresive behavior, convinced that you are the only truth here? Don’t give yourself so much credit.
Ton: it sounds like you have no actual first-hand, personal experience with these “substances,”
Elena: Do you? When you can’t even relate to the very specific ones I’ve mentioned?
Ton: and no, living in columbia is not what i mean by an actual experiential encounter… it sounds like you may know something about the subject from an outside perspective but that you really don’t know it intimately, that is. from the inside out… and that’s ok, i’m not going to “judge” you because you’ve never eaten one of these compounds, and i’m certainly not here to convince you to do so… but, what i would suggest is, that you don’t have to dissemble and give vicarious, second and third hand accounts and expect it to be a substitute for the experiential. it’s better just to admit – at least to yourself – when your knowledge is limited to a certain extent… it’s more honest that way and with honesty we be able to proceed with a more “profitable conversation.”
Elena: No Ton, I do not have to prove anything to you or tell you of my personal experiences with these substances to convey to you that I know what I am talking about.
Ton: you see elena, you may be fooling yourself but you’re not fooling me when you mix-up and group all these “compounds and substances” into a single category as you do,
Elena: If you cared to read carefully enough you would realize that amanitas muscaria, the sacred mushroom of the rig Vedas, was clearly differentiated from the other substances I talked about.
Ton: to me that’s a telltale sign… it shows that from an experiential perspective you don’t really know what you’re talking about. if you’d had an actual personal encounter with ANY so-called “entheogen” then you would know better than to lump it in with drug abuse or any so-called “recreational drugs.”
Elena: a “telltale” sign Ton? So are you now going to go and tell on me so that you can shame me publicly? Wouldn’t you be delighted if you could do that here again where shaming people is the very essence of what we’ve been feeding on when we have exposed the abuses so common in the Fellowship of Friends. I am so good at it myself Ton, why do you think I would fail to recognize it in you? Shaming people for their actions is what people in anger do and I was so very angry with the Fellowship and so vulnerable but I am no longer in that state and going beyond angering and shaming people is what is necessary to understand the beauty beyond the tragedy. If we are to heal as a community who suffered together, we would do good in taking that step.
I understand this is a forum where people can have a conversation and not a court where people are being tried for crime so I will kindly ask you to stop acting as if you had any right to ask of me things that I do not owe you. If what I am offering you is not good enough for you that is your problem and not mine, that does not give you the right to call me dishonest, thank you. If we had moderation here you would be called on for the absurd attitude that you are unkindly expressing. With all due respect fofblogmoderator, with all due respect and gratitude, the role of a moderator is to protect the participants and help them understand each other, I ask you to do so by intervening when people label someone as being dishonest when there is nothing dishonest about their participation.
Now let’s look at entheogens not for the sake of proving to you that I know what we are talking about but for the sake of the subject itself which is beautiful.
From wikipedia: An entheogen (“creates god within,” en εν- “in, within,” theo θεος- “god, divine,” -gen γενος “creates, generates”),[1] in the strict sense, is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic or spiritual context. Historically, entheogens were mostly derived from plant sources and have been used in a variety of traditional religious contexts. Most entheogens do not produce drug dependency.[2] With the advent of organic chemistry, there now exist many synthetic substances with similar psychoactive properties. Entheogens are tools to supplement various practices for healing and transcendence, including in meditation, psychonautics, art projects, and psychedelic therapy.
I personally do not agree with the definition of entheogens as substances that “create god within” I would define them more as substances that reveal the God within. And would insist that these are initiatory substances and NOT substances to be abused as we’ve seen in our present societies. They are certainly different in quality, marihuana and cow dung mushrooms are not as “godrevealing” as amanitas muscaria but they nevertheless enter realms beyond our habitual consciousness and expand our perceptions beyond the “known” senses. I have no “scientific” knowledge of these substances, what I am telling you is from personal experience. I would still affirm that amanitas muscaria and ayahuasca are not substances to be taken for anything other than “ritualistic” purposes and that the God within that they reveal can be reached without them. The experience of Godliness when experienced through these substances does not imply that the person will connect to his own self for a prolonged period or that they will know how to reach it again without it. Any one of these experiences when induced with a substance are a before and after event in anyone’s life and yet they are child’s play when compared to the real thing. The “real thing” only has to speak to you once for you to never stop hearing it… or talking about it… perhaps that is why I am so insistent in the need of connectedness.
This is my last post to you Ton. You and I are only two of the many voices here, it will be very good to hear others on many other subjects. I will not indulge in further conversation with you until I hear a more sympathetic tone in your posts and a willingness to give rather than demand. You have no right to demand here- that is not a healthy attitude. We are not forced to be here, we are here willingly. You have a right to share in a conversation but not to position yourself as the judge of whoever is speaking. A blog can be an art-form of love between people or a school forum of immature teenagers to lynch those who the group marginalizes. That is exactly what is happening in society where the poor blokes just take up a gun and shoot everyone around them as protest. If that is what you choose for yourselves it would be no surprise, after all, that is what was widely practiced in the Fellowship cult and people were thrown out like rotten food when they protested. I will leave this one as joyfully and willingly as I left that one and you can carry on with your dictators of how you like things to be. No wonder this blog is dying like the Fellowship, such places don’t carry any life. If we are willing to take a different direction we might one day reach the Golden Age of the Fellowship and be remembered for our amazing ability for resilience or regeneration and not for the repeated failures to act as human beings.
81. Elena – April 9, 2010
Thank you 2010, you on the contrary, talk too little.
Thank you 2010, you on the contrary, talk too little.
82. ton – April 9, 2010
elena, why so defensive? i’ve “demanded” nothing of you… and of course you don’t have anything to prove to me…. a point i’m trying to make has to do with honesty…. because i consider it to be important. let’s briefly review… this thread started when i suggested that there are limits to the anthropocentricism of a doctrine you’ve been espousing which we’ve identified as “humanism.” i did not suggest there was anything wrong with the doctrine or that there is anything wrong with you for supporting it… i merely indicated my opinion of the limitations of said doctrine and in the process suggested avenues of research that have influenced my own perspectives. after your “in depth” research (apparently you perused something by mckenna), you came back with your “informed” conclusions regarding the “REAL magic” — that it’s “in the human being” and etc… i pointed out that this sort of ego-centric species-bias was in fact at the root of the problem and at that point i questioned whether you had ever actually ingested one of these compounds that you so blithely dismiss, because from what i could gather in what you wrote, you didn’t really grok the experience nor the wider implications. i questioned a type of arrogant and blind anthropocentricism which IS the problem… i suggested that you consider the relational aspect in nature which the human species ignores at it’s own peril and destruction….
now back to the point, which is honesty… and i am not accusing you of anything, i am not trying to “shame” you, (i will say that shame implies one has something to hide), and i am certainly not “angry” as you say, i am simply trying to understand where you are coming from…. yes i did read carefully enough to see that you mentioned amanita in the context of the vedas…. now is that supposed to imply that you’ve actually ingested amanita? because that’s not what i took from your history lesson. is there a further point to this little tidbit from the annals of time ? you don’t seem to me like the type of person who would be ashamed of admitting to experimentation…. so i wonder what are you ashamed of? i’m curious to know…
and i really do hope this is not offending you…. that’s truly not my intention… look, i’m not ashamed of my experiences with these things… by the way, i think i’ve related the story here about the night of my 21st birthday, but here it is again briefly: i did ingest one of these substances, i left the party and spent the rest of that balmy july night nestled in the arms of a great elm tree overlooking the lake illumined by a nearly full moon…. as the sun rose, i came down from the tree, and i resolved to search for a “natural” way to experience the profound state of merging – what maurice bucke termed “cosmic consciousness.” soon thereafter i found a “workbook” with one of those insidious bookmarks in it… i telephoned the number, and the rest, as they say, “is history…”
all the besthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Maurice_Bucke
83. Mariposa – April 10, 2010
No Kid,
Hey Hon, good work posting. Hugs. A.
elena, why so defensive? i’ve “demanded” nothing of you… and of course you don’t have anything to prove to me…. a point i’m trying to make has to do with honesty…. because i consider it to be important. let’s briefly review… this thread started when i suggested that there are limits to the anthropocentricism of a doctrine you’ve been espousing which we’ve identified as “humanism.” i did not suggest there was anything wrong with the doctrine or that there is anything wrong with you for supporting it… i merely indicated my opinion of the limitations of said doctrine and in the process suggested avenues of research that have influenced my own perspectives. after your “in depth” research (apparently you perused something by mckenna), you came back with your “informed” conclusions regarding the “REAL magic” — that it’s “in the human being” and etc… i pointed out that this sort of ego-centric species-bias was in fact at the root of the problem and at that point i questioned whether you had ever actually ingested one of these compounds that you so blithely dismiss, because from what i could gather in what you wrote, you didn’t really grok the experience nor the wider implications. i questioned a type of arrogant and blind anthropocentricism which IS the problem… i suggested that you consider the relational aspect in nature which the human species ignores at it’s own peril and destruction….
now back to the point, which is honesty… and i am not accusing you of anything, i am not trying to “shame” you, (i will say that shame implies one has something to hide), and i am certainly not “angry” as you say, i am simply trying to understand where you are coming from…. yes i did read carefully enough to see that you mentioned amanita in the context of the vedas…. now is that supposed to imply that you’ve actually ingested amanita? because that’s not what i took from your history lesson. is there a further point to this little tidbit from the annals of time ? you don’t seem to me like the type of person who would be ashamed of admitting to experimentation…. so i wonder what are you ashamed of? i’m curious to know…
and i really do hope this is not offending you…. that’s truly not my intention… look, i’m not ashamed of my experiences with these things… by the way, i think i’ve related the story here about the night of my 21st birthday, but here it is again briefly: i did ingest one of these substances, i left the party and spent the rest of that balmy july night nestled in the arms of a great elm tree overlooking the lake illumined by a nearly full moon…. as the sun rose, i came down from the tree, and i resolved to search for a “natural” way to experience the profound state of merging – what maurice bucke termed “cosmic consciousness.” soon thereafter i found a “workbook” with one of those insidious bookmarks in it… i telephoned the number, and the rest, as they say, “is history…”
all the besthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Maurice_Bucke
83. Mariposa – April 10, 2010
No Kid,
Hey Hon, good work posting. Hugs. A.
84. Mariposa – April 10, 2010
Thot Plickens #200
I simply wished to express a gratefulness to nature for bringing Spring to the area ( after a historical winter of snow) and wish fellow ex-members to look forward to a future with positive prospects with my post. I guess you felt a need to devalue this wish, and why? Maybe we all now need to write under an artificial name and surrender our whole life stories in the FOF as “suffering ” to receive a notice in your mind as an authentic memory , and perhaps as well to many other posters . As you may now know, I have been on the GF site for 2 years. I already know your questions and have lived them for 40 yrs. We do have work to do. But, for a moment, for a day, check yourself and study the gifts we have. An appreciation of spring flowers. For Yourself.
Sorry, for the neg. explosion to you today. I’ve got a lot of current problems to work on here on the farm which keep me up all hours and am a bit “ruffled”. Also, No Kid gives me reminders of my youth. .A.
85. Elena – April 10, 2010
Thank you Ton, that is a much more workable tone. I am glad you’ve gotten a grip on yourself and realized that we’re just trying to have a conversation here.
If I remember correctly my account of those experiences is already here somewhere in this blog. To satisfy your curiosity, the first time I took a little of amanitas I realized it was very powerful and it wanted me to clean up so I prepared for two weeks before taking it again, then I went back to that marvelous place for they only grow in particularly beautiful forests, usually pine forests in my country. It wanted to teach me how to breathe! So this army of mosquitoes started walking around my face and the idea was that they could only walk through the bridge of my nose if I breathed properly!!! It took a long time before one of them actually crossed the bridge and I was ecstatic of course and Godlike but it made me very exited so I began to breathe too fast and they again couldn’t cross the bridge so we started again each time with more intense Godliness!!! It’s very funny now but I must admit, my first gurus were mosquitoes!! I was lying on a bed while this massage was going on and a friend who was also up at the farm walked by and saw all these mosquitoes on my face and got the fright of his life thinking I’d died and the mosquitoes were already getting at me! Oh it’s so good to laugh!! So he started moving me and getting the mosquitoes out and I was so disappointed but I knew he wouldn’t understand if I told him to leave my gurus alone!! I was much surprised though when looking at a book years later, saw that they were called, amanitas muscaria or amanitas matamoscas which means mosquitoe killers.
It invited me into the sacred but what it conveyed to me very clearly was that everything I had experienced belonged to it and that my job was to get there without it. In another occasion I not only took a little more but gave my beautiful golden retriever two petals which was very little and after a while he sat there and looked at me for a long time. THAT was difficult. Dogs do not hold their site to humans for too long but Arrow just stared at me and what he told me or rather asked me was, why did you give me this, what do you want me to do with this, I am a dog, as if he were literally saying, you want me to be conscious of the fact that I am a dog? It was very “painful” not because there was anything wrong with being a dog but because he couldn’t do much with it anyway. I very much regretted having given him any. Fortunately it eventually wore off and we went back to being a dog and a seventeen year old on her way to study in Belgium and away from the all too intense highs of Colombia.
This is why I love writing and sharing because this story made me realize that when I experienced the real thing there was also suffering like for Arrow. That suffering. That very particular kind of suffering in which one knows that one might just die in the experience and that it is alright to do so, that one wouldn’t stop it for a second. I was thinking after that post that after you connect with the real, it wishes to penetrate everything like water, burn like fire, give life like Earth and breathe like air. It is like the power of love: life.
Compared to the experience with amanitas, think of the real as a thousand times more powerful than “substances” then you’ll understand when I tell you that they are difficult to bare and live through. I was only totally paralysed for two days the first time about three weeks after I joined the Fellowship but they say Ezequiel would spend years in bed. I guess those are the states the masts live in. I haven’t actually experienced such states for years. Shortly after I started living with Girard and working, working, working for the sake of working, working, working on being Fellowship “efficient”, they stopped happening and I soon became another conformist automaton.
So good to be out! Cheers!
Thot Plickens #200
I simply wished to express a gratefulness to nature for bringing Spring to the area ( after a historical winter of snow) and wish fellow ex-members to look forward to a future with positive prospects with my post. I guess you felt a need to devalue this wish, and why? Maybe we all now need to write under an artificial name and surrender our whole life stories in the FOF as “suffering ” to receive a notice in your mind as an authentic memory , and perhaps as well to many other posters . As you may now know, I have been on the GF site for 2 years. I already know your questions and have lived them for 40 yrs. We do have work to do. But, for a moment, for a day, check yourself and study the gifts we have. An appreciation of spring flowers. For Yourself.
Sorry, for the neg. explosion to you today. I’ve got a lot of current problems to work on here on the farm which keep me up all hours and am a bit “ruffled”. Also, No Kid gives me reminders of my youth. .A.
85. Elena – April 10, 2010
Thank you Ton, that is a much more workable tone. I am glad you’ve gotten a grip on yourself and realized that we’re just trying to have a conversation here.
If I remember correctly my account of those experiences is already here somewhere in this blog. To satisfy your curiosity, the first time I took a little of amanitas I realized it was very powerful and it wanted me to clean up so I prepared for two weeks before taking it again, then I went back to that marvelous place for they only grow in particularly beautiful forests, usually pine forests in my country. It wanted to teach me how to breathe! So this army of mosquitoes started walking around my face and the idea was that they could only walk through the bridge of my nose if I breathed properly!!! It took a long time before one of them actually crossed the bridge and I was ecstatic of course and Godlike but it made me very exited so I began to breathe too fast and they again couldn’t cross the bridge so we started again each time with more intense Godliness!!! It’s very funny now but I must admit, my first gurus were mosquitoes!! I was lying on a bed while this massage was going on and a friend who was also up at the farm walked by and saw all these mosquitoes on my face and got the fright of his life thinking I’d died and the mosquitoes were already getting at me! Oh it’s so good to laugh!! So he started moving me and getting the mosquitoes out and I was so disappointed but I knew he wouldn’t understand if I told him to leave my gurus alone!! I was much surprised though when looking at a book years later, saw that they were called, amanitas muscaria or amanitas matamoscas which means mosquitoe killers.
It invited me into the sacred but what it conveyed to me very clearly was that everything I had experienced belonged to it and that my job was to get there without it. In another occasion I not only took a little more but gave my beautiful golden retriever two petals which was very little and after a while he sat there and looked at me for a long time. THAT was difficult. Dogs do not hold their site to humans for too long but Arrow just stared at me and what he told me or rather asked me was, why did you give me this, what do you want me to do with this, I am a dog, as if he were literally saying, you want me to be conscious of the fact that I am a dog? It was very “painful” not because there was anything wrong with being a dog but because he couldn’t do much with it anyway. I very much regretted having given him any. Fortunately it eventually wore off and we went back to being a dog and a seventeen year old on her way to study in Belgium and away from the all too intense highs of Colombia.
This is why I love writing and sharing because this story made me realize that when I experienced the real thing there was also suffering like for Arrow. That suffering. That very particular kind of suffering in which one knows that one might just die in the experience and that it is alright to do so, that one wouldn’t stop it for a second. I was thinking after that post that after you connect with the real, it wishes to penetrate everything like water, burn like fire, give life like Earth and breathe like air. It is like the power of love: life.
Compared to the experience with amanitas, think of the real as a thousand times more powerful than “substances” then you’ll understand when I tell you that they are difficult to bare and live through. I was only totally paralysed for two days the first time about three weeks after I joined the Fellowship but they say Ezequiel would spend years in bed. I guess those are the states the masts live in. I haven’t actually experienced such states for years. Shortly after I started living with Girard and working, working, working for the sake of working, working, working on being Fellowship “efficient”, they stopped happening and I soon became another conformist automaton.
So good to be out! Cheers!
86. ton – April 10, 2010
“Thank you Ton, that is a much more workable tone. I am glad you’ve gotten a grip on yourself and realized that we’re just trying to have a conversation here.”
elena,
you’re confused, it was you who lost your grip, not i….(“This is my last post to you Ton”).
you’ll have to forgive me if the “conversation” here is not to your liking, but i feel compelled to respond to you as honestly as i can… and i don’t need to point out that this format does not conform to the norms of conventional “face-to-face” conversation and social interaction… there is a certain freedom that the relative anonymity of the situation provides… one CAN ’speak’ in a different way here, responding more freely and expressing feelings that might not be spoken of in a ‘normal’ formal face-to-face encounter. so i’ll ‘warn’ you now, i will continue to convey my honest responses based how i feel after reading your posts and if it rubs you the wrong way, then so be it.
speaking of ‘tone’ — there is a general impression i often get when reading your posts… you’re dismissive of another who happens to challenge or disagree with you, you attempt to marginalize and diminish the other, seemingly in order to feel in control and “superior” to… you feel the need to be in control… we all do to some extent, but some more than others… i think that the need to control can be an over-compensation based on the fear of a loss of control… what do you think? i think leaving the cult behind represents a tremendous loss of control… the structure that formerly helped give a sense of self are suddenly gone… it’s a difficult adjustment, it takes time.
even though you’re not revealing much, here’s an example of a situation in which it sounds like you lost control and it scared you:
“Compared to the experience with amanitas, think of the real as a thousand times more powerful than “substances” then you’ll understand when I tell you that they are difficult to bare and live through.”
maybe it’s just me but, another impression i often get when reading your posts is one of condescension…. when i read the above, to me it suggests or implies that the reader does not understand or has no experience with “the real” as you put it… that “the real” is something that you are specially privy to, that “the real” is something the reader will understand only by you telling him about it… maybe you wanted to explain or say more about it? maybe it’s a language thing…? but i don’t think so, your command of english seems better than mine and i’m a “native speaker” — so if it’s not an issue with the language then what i’m sensing is an attitudinal thing… an inferiority/superiority complex…. but which is it, inferiority or superiority?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_complex
“Thank you Ton, that is a much more workable tone. I am glad you’ve gotten a grip on yourself and realized that we’re just trying to have a conversation here.”
elena,
you’re confused, it was you who lost your grip, not i….(“This is my last post to you Ton”).
you’ll have to forgive me if the “conversation” here is not to your liking, but i feel compelled to respond to you as honestly as i can… and i don’t need to point out that this format does not conform to the norms of conventional “face-to-face” conversation and social interaction… there is a certain freedom that the relative anonymity of the situation provides… one CAN ’speak’ in a different way here, responding more freely and expressing feelings that might not be spoken of in a ‘normal’ formal face-to-face encounter. so i’ll ‘warn’ you now, i will continue to convey my honest responses based how i feel after reading your posts and if it rubs you the wrong way, then so be it.
speaking of ‘tone’ — there is a general impression i often get when reading your posts… you’re dismissive of another who happens to challenge or disagree with you, you attempt to marginalize and diminish the other, seemingly in order to feel in control and “superior” to… you feel the need to be in control… we all do to some extent, but some more than others… i think that the need to control can be an over-compensation based on the fear of a loss of control… what do you think? i think leaving the cult behind represents a tremendous loss of control… the structure that formerly helped give a sense of self are suddenly gone… it’s a difficult adjustment, it takes time.
even though you’re not revealing much, here’s an example of a situation in which it sounds like you lost control and it scared you:
“Compared to the experience with amanitas, think of the real as a thousand times more powerful than “substances” then you’ll understand when I tell you that they are difficult to bare and live through.”
maybe it’s just me but, another impression i often get when reading your posts is one of condescension…. when i read the above, to me it suggests or implies that the reader does not understand or has no experience with “the real” as you put it… that “the real” is something that you are specially privy to, that “the real” is something the reader will understand only by you telling him about it… maybe you wanted to explain or say more about it? maybe it’s a language thing…? but i don’t think so, your command of english seems better than mine and i’m a “native speaker” — so if it’s not an issue with the language then what i’m sensing is an attitudinal thing… an inferiority/superiority complex…. but which is it, inferiority or superiority?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_complex
87. Elena – April 10, 2010
Hi Ton and All,
Thanks Ton for the ongoing analysis, I also believe it’s a worthwhile one. So let’s see.
In this last post and the one before you are engaging with me, not demanding of me as you were in the previous ones. In the one before this one you still had a demeanouring attitude but it was already much softer than in the ones before so I complied as generously as I could.
If you take a look at our whole conversation maybe you’ll notice that we actually stand for the same things but the antagonism comes in how I or you are doing it. We should have already learnt this in the Fellowship: that standing for the same ideals does not mean that in our daily life we actually practice them: Robert is just another human being trying to live out his life but ended up enslaving thousands who shared similar ideals. I think he had the talent for it and we helped him a great deal. As if immature “essences” in adults in idealistic cults lead to criminal pathologic relationships.
The healthy attitude that I think would have been possible for you or is possible for you and us in the future is that when one looks at a post and thinks one can enhance it with one’s understanding then one enhances it as you are in fact doing in this one without ridiculous little personal attacks or ridiculing the other person which is what I mean by getting out of grip about what is actually happening. If we don’t assume that the other person is participating in “good faith” we are already failing to grant them a “human” condition.
It’s good that we are clear about the fact that even if posts are not of our liking, we can still share in the conversation as equals.
Ton: speaking of ‘tone’ — there is a general impression i often get when reading your posts… you’re dismissive of another who happens to challenge or disagree with you, you attempt to marginalize and diminish the other, seemingly in order to feel in control and “superior” to… you feel the need to be in control… we all do to some extent, but some more than others…
E. Sure, I’ve probably done that plenty and the more I look at it the more it seems to be an aspect of having been very weak and vulnerable after leaving the FOF and the lack of a strong family and social environment but if we look deeper we can see that the tapestry of our conversation is in fact much deeper than the tapestry of our convictions. I don’t quite know how to put it but I’ll get there. We clearly struggle with each other even if we substantially agree about the principles and where that “struggle” happens is where the real thing is. We are all think we are human but when we confront each other our inconsistencies clearly appear.
Ton: even though you’re not revealing much, here’s an example of a situation in which it sounds like you lost control and it scared you:
“Compared to the experience with amanitas, think of the real as a thousand times more powerful than “substances” then you’ll understand when I tell you that they are difficult to bare and live through.”
Oh yes, one definitely loses control in those states, like with entheogens, only that entheogens were in my case mild enough to not create suffering. Definitely scary no matter how wonderful, like winning a huge lottery and knowing everything about life will change.
Ton: maybe it’s just me but, another impression i often get when reading your posts is one of condescension…. when i read the above, to me it suggests or implies that the reader does not understand or has no experience with “the real” as you put it… that “the real” is something that you are specially privy to, that “the real” is something the reader will understand only by you telling him about it… maybe you wanted to explain or say more about it? maybe it’s a language thing…?
E. No, I can see where and why you would feel that and yes, that is probably the other side of not feeling strong within myself and at the same time in the context of how you presented the conversation in which what I was understanding was that for you entheogens are the culminating wonder of creation (being a little sarcastic about it), I was trying to convey the difference.
Ton: but i don’t think so, your command of english seems better than mine and i’m a “native speaker” — so if it’s not an issue with the language then what i’m sensing is an attitudinal thing… an inferiority/superiority complex…. but which is it, inferiority or superiority?
Elena: This is important because what I’ve noticed is that we all give each other these acts of superiority/inferiority roles. We are all competing for credibility, space, acknowledgement, love, friendship even if we all agree about the basic tenets. We are talking in a definite context Ton and the things we’ve gone through here are extremely complex. Let me round this off quickly here so that we have an ongoing analysis and I don’t try to pack it in all in one post.
I think we each have a strength, a life and a direction and we are each powerful in that area. I have, like every one of you, a few and what has traditionally happened here is that they are dismissed and instead of us taking on an analysis of what is being said, we’ve ended up violently attacking each other. The downside of those attacks is that we are all pretty hurt but the up side of them is that, imho, we’ve shed a great deal of unnecessary luggage. We’ve almost skinned our selves clean. What we’ve shed and will continue to shed is a lot of the imaginary picture we had about what it means to be American or Colombian, this or that class, education, etc. All that should have happened in the Fellowship had it been a real School because the opportunity we have now is to deal with each other as human beings and live out that ideal in our interchanges. If we limit ourselves to being friendly to each other because we share the same programming and essence, then we can leave this Forum and each go and join our nation and feel good about our selves in it but the times are dry for that crop. I believe we live in a time in which our particular strengths and conditionings need to come up to what is human in them and we can share even while disagreeing. The subjects we are dealing with are not easy, they are extremely painful, or at least those are the ones I am not willing to avoid. I believe we have learnt something crucial about inhumanity in the Fellowship cult and can put our grain of sand in the current of a more human world. Were I to think that you are not the best recipients of my understandings around it, I would not be participating here. Were I not to value your strengths and understandings, I would not attempt to work with you.
88. Elena – April 10, 2010
P.S. Another nicer way of putting the inferiority/superiority roles complex is that we are each struggling for space in each other’s being. When that love is denied to us by hierarchic justifications and acted out in concrete manifestations of inequality, we legitimately struggle. That is what life is about!
Big hug!!!
Hi Ton and All,
Thanks Ton for the ongoing analysis, I also believe it’s a worthwhile one. So let’s see.
In this last post and the one before you are engaging with me, not demanding of me as you were in the previous ones. In the one before this one you still had a demeanouring attitude but it was already much softer than in the ones before so I complied as generously as I could.
If you take a look at our whole conversation maybe you’ll notice that we actually stand for the same things but the antagonism comes in how I or you are doing it. We should have already learnt this in the Fellowship: that standing for the same ideals does not mean that in our daily life we actually practice them: Robert is just another human being trying to live out his life but ended up enslaving thousands who shared similar ideals. I think he had the talent for it and we helped him a great deal. As if immature “essences” in adults in idealistic cults lead to criminal pathologic relationships.
The healthy attitude that I think would have been possible for you or is possible for you and us in the future is that when one looks at a post and thinks one can enhance it with one’s understanding then one enhances it as you are in fact doing in this one without ridiculous little personal attacks or ridiculing the other person which is what I mean by getting out of grip about what is actually happening. If we don’t assume that the other person is participating in “good faith” we are already failing to grant them a “human” condition.
It’s good that we are clear about the fact that even if posts are not of our liking, we can still share in the conversation as equals.
Ton: speaking of ‘tone’ — there is a general impression i often get when reading your posts… you’re dismissive of another who happens to challenge or disagree with you, you attempt to marginalize and diminish the other, seemingly in order to feel in control and “superior” to… you feel the need to be in control… we all do to some extent, but some more than others…
E. Sure, I’ve probably done that plenty and the more I look at it the more it seems to be an aspect of having been very weak and vulnerable after leaving the FOF and the lack of a strong family and social environment but if we look deeper we can see that the tapestry of our conversation is in fact much deeper than the tapestry of our convictions. I don’t quite know how to put it but I’ll get there. We clearly struggle with each other even if we substantially agree about the principles and where that “struggle” happens is where the real thing is. We are all think we are human but when we confront each other our inconsistencies clearly appear.
Ton: even though you’re not revealing much, here’s an example of a situation in which it sounds like you lost control and it scared you:
“Compared to the experience with amanitas, think of the real as a thousand times more powerful than “substances” then you’ll understand when I tell you that they are difficult to bare and live through.”
Oh yes, one definitely loses control in those states, like with entheogens, only that entheogens were in my case mild enough to not create suffering. Definitely scary no matter how wonderful, like winning a huge lottery and knowing everything about life will change.
Ton: maybe it’s just me but, another impression i often get when reading your posts is one of condescension…. when i read the above, to me it suggests or implies that the reader does not understand or has no experience with “the real” as you put it… that “the real” is something that you are specially privy to, that “the real” is something the reader will understand only by you telling him about it… maybe you wanted to explain or say more about it? maybe it’s a language thing…?
E. No, I can see where and why you would feel that and yes, that is probably the other side of not feeling strong within myself and at the same time in the context of how you presented the conversation in which what I was understanding was that for you entheogens are the culminating wonder of creation (being a little sarcastic about it), I was trying to convey the difference.
Ton: but i don’t think so, your command of english seems better than mine and i’m a “native speaker” — so if it’s not an issue with the language then what i’m sensing is an attitudinal thing… an inferiority/superiority complex…. but which is it, inferiority or superiority?
Elena: This is important because what I’ve noticed is that we all give each other these acts of superiority/inferiority roles. We are all competing for credibility, space, acknowledgement, love, friendship even if we all agree about the basic tenets. We are talking in a definite context Ton and the things we’ve gone through here are extremely complex. Let me round this off quickly here so that we have an ongoing analysis and I don’t try to pack it in all in one post.
I think we each have a strength, a life and a direction and we are each powerful in that area. I have, like every one of you, a few and what has traditionally happened here is that they are dismissed and instead of us taking on an analysis of what is being said, we’ve ended up violently attacking each other. The downside of those attacks is that we are all pretty hurt but the up side of them is that, imho, we’ve shed a great deal of unnecessary luggage. We’ve almost skinned our selves clean. What we’ve shed and will continue to shed is a lot of the imaginary picture we had about what it means to be American or Colombian, this or that class, education, etc. All that should have happened in the Fellowship had it been a real School because the opportunity we have now is to deal with each other as human beings and live out that ideal in our interchanges. If we limit ourselves to being friendly to each other because we share the same programming and essence, then we can leave this Forum and each go and join our nation and feel good about our selves in it but the times are dry for that crop. I believe we live in a time in which our particular strengths and conditionings need to come up to what is human in them and we can share even while disagreeing. The subjects we are dealing with are not easy, they are extremely painful, or at least those are the ones I am not willing to avoid. I believe we have learnt something crucial about inhumanity in the Fellowship cult and can put our grain of sand in the current of a more human world. Were I to think that you are not the best recipients of my understandings around it, I would not be participating here. Were I not to value your strengths and understandings, I would not attempt to work with you.
88. Elena – April 10, 2010
P.S. Another nicer way of putting the inferiority/superiority roles complex is that we are each struggling for space in each other’s being. When that love is denied to us by hierarchic justifications and acted out in concrete manifestations of inequality, we legitimately struggle. That is what life is about!
Big hug!!!
89. ton – April 10, 2010
elena,
“in the context of how you presented the conversation in which what I was understanding was that for you entheogens are the culminating wonder of creation…”
you see, here is where we run into problems over and over again. it has to do with the fact that you’re reading things into what is being conveyed… this is not just a problem with you, it can be a general problem in communication…. there is a message but the interpretation distorts it.
so let’s be clear, if you go back and review what i have written here, i’ve never said or even implied that “entheogens are the culminating wonder etc.” in fact if you follow this thread back to around 71, you’ll find that it was YOU who first brought up the subject of ingesting these substances, so in the interest of keeping our facts straight let’s go over this again…. how did we get to this point?
from the beginning, i suggested that ‘humanism’ has it’s limitations, not that it is entirely bad, but that there are certainly biases connected to the doctrine… i suggested alternatives in the form of authors, who imo take a broader perspective than the one you are espousing and representing… (is that possible elena? is it possible that someone may have a broader perspective?). i mentioned a number of philosophers but you latched onto something you picked up in a superficial reading of mckenna… and yes he is well known for openly talking about “entheogens” and yes that tends to get a lot of attention because it’s still a “taboo” subject in many respects…. but taking “enteogens” is not the point i was trying to make… so you missed the point, do you see? we got sidetracked here because i questioned your experiences when you seemed to present yourself as expert enough on the subject to casually dismiss the “entheogenic” experience as inconsequential compared to what YOU consider to be “real.”
now i’ll suggest maybe you should go back and really do a little more research on some of the other authors… spinoza, whitehead, thomas berry or wendell berry for example, in their own ways they come to similar types of “conclusions” as mckenna but with absolutely no mention of “entheogens” — see you miss the point when you latched onto the “entheogens” and i still question whether you really understand the deeper implications… (when one has a fearful or unpleasant experience, the natural / “easy” thing to do is to somehow try to bury it or dismiss it).
i will say that if you really took the time to get past the surface and give a more in-depth look at the work of mckenna, you might have discovered that it’s not all about taking “entheogens,” that’s really “the tip of the ice-burg” and such a small part of his philosophical discourse. you see elena, it’s about changing your perspective and thereby changing behavior…. but when you are so convinced that you are “right” in your convictions then changing your perspective will be the last thing on your mind.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death
elena,
“in the context of how you presented the conversation in which what I was understanding was that for you entheogens are the culminating wonder of creation…”
you see, here is where we run into problems over and over again. it has to do with the fact that you’re reading things into what is being conveyed… this is not just a problem with you, it can be a general problem in communication…. there is a message but the interpretation distorts it.
so let’s be clear, if you go back and review what i have written here, i’ve never said or even implied that “entheogens are the culminating wonder etc.” in fact if you follow this thread back to around 71, you’ll find that it was YOU who first brought up the subject of ingesting these substances, so in the interest of keeping our facts straight let’s go over this again…. how did we get to this point?
from the beginning, i suggested that ‘humanism’ has it’s limitations, not that it is entirely bad, but that there are certainly biases connected to the doctrine… i suggested alternatives in the form of authors, who imo take a broader perspective than the one you are espousing and representing… (is that possible elena? is it possible that someone may have a broader perspective?). i mentioned a number of philosophers but you latched onto something you picked up in a superficial reading of mckenna… and yes he is well known for openly talking about “entheogens” and yes that tends to get a lot of attention because it’s still a “taboo” subject in many respects…. but taking “enteogens” is not the point i was trying to make… so you missed the point, do you see? we got sidetracked here because i questioned your experiences when you seemed to present yourself as expert enough on the subject to casually dismiss the “entheogenic” experience as inconsequential compared to what YOU consider to be “real.”
now i’ll suggest maybe you should go back and really do a little more research on some of the other authors… spinoza, whitehead, thomas berry or wendell berry for example, in their own ways they come to similar types of “conclusions” as mckenna but with absolutely no mention of “entheogens” — see you miss the point when you latched onto the “entheogens” and i still question whether you really understand the deeper implications… (when one has a fearful or unpleasant experience, the natural / “easy” thing to do is to somehow try to bury it or dismiss it).
i will say that if you really took the time to get past the surface and give a more in-depth look at the work of mckenna, you might have discovered that it’s not all about taking “entheogens,” that’s really “the tip of the ice-burg” and such a small part of his philosophical discourse. you see elena, it’s about changing your perspective and thereby changing behavior…. but when you are so convinced that you are “right” in your convictions then changing your perspective will be the last thing on your mind.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death
90. Elena – April 10, 2010
It is interesting how you think that I don’t acknowledge the whole of what you are saying but here again all you are saying is that I fail and fail and fail and that I have to research and research and research to come to something that you understand but are unwilling to tell us about. I think I would rather fail if you think that I have to go and read all the authors you’ve read to be able to have a conversation with you.
Thank you very much for your time.
It is interesting how you think that I don’t acknowledge the whole of what you are saying but here again all you are saying is that I fail and fail and fail and that I have to research and research and research to come to something that you understand but are unwilling to tell us about. I think I would rather fail if you think that I have to go and read all the authors you’ve read to be able to have a conversation with you.
Thank you very much for your time.
91. ton – April 10, 2010
dismissed… again.
dismissed… again.
92. nige – April 10, 2010
How does REB give a submarine a blow-job?
He creeps up behind it and sucks all the seamen out. n.
and by the way folks – elena not allowing ton to support and nourish…..
truth stands,as the soul (activating higher emotion) thrusting supportively the spirit (higher intellect activated) of itself and knows that when the present unticks the tock of the clock and times of experiencing the present are so knit together that one can no longer not be, really and individually, not according to syetem or dogma there is no need for attack or defence…..Nigel.
How does REB give a submarine a blow-job?
He creeps up behind it and sucks all the seamen out. n.
and by the way folks – elena not allowing ton to support and nourish…..
truth stands,as the soul (activating higher emotion) thrusting supportively the spirit (higher intellect activated) of itself and knows that when the present unticks the tock of the clock and times of experiencing the present are so knit together that one can no longer not be, really and individually, not according to syetem or dogma there is no need for attack or defence…..Nigel.
93. Elena – April 10, 2010
Yes Ton, the difference is that I dismiss you after I hear you and you dismiss me before we even start.
There are already in the little we’ve talked so many new things that you are missing that what is the point of going on? And then you treat my offering a perception as if it were a finished theory when from the beginning of arriving here I said, I would like to present these ideas so that they can be looked at and destroyed if necessary but instead you say they are not good enough and that I have to work and work and research because I might be wrong but you don’t even look at them in detail, you don’t even consider them seriously. If you really understood what you read, you would be able to share it without evading the question repeatedly.
That is fine. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to hear. One day someone who wishes to understand will take it home.
Nige, “elena not allowing ton to support and nourish”, if you think someone manipulating you like Robert did with the idea that you can’t know anything, that you’re not good enough until you do everything he says is nourish and support, no wonder you jump back and forth without knowing where to stand. Trust your self Nigel, trust yourself so that you are not swept away by each wave.
Yes Ton, the difference is that I dismiss you after I hear you and you dismiss me before we even start.
There are already in the little we’ve talked so many new things that you are missing that what is the point of going on? And then you treat my offering a perception as if it were a finished theory when from the beginning of arriving here I said, I would like to present these ideas so that they can be looked at and destroyed if necessary but instead you say they are not good enough and that I have to work and work and research because I might be wrong but you don’t even look at them in detail, you don’t even consider them seriously. If you really understood what you read, you would be able to share it without evading the question repeatedly.
That is fine. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to hear. One day someone who wishes to understand will take it home.
Nige, “elena not allowing ton to support and nourish”, if you think someone manipulating you like Robert did with the idea that you can’t know anything, that you’re not good enough until you do everything he says is nourish and support, no wonder you jump back and forth without knowing where to stand. Trust your self Nigel, trust yourself so that you are not swept away by each wave.
94. We Were There – April 10, 2010
2. Elena –
“I would like to apologize… for the obnoxious behavior I managed to get to in my frustration with this whole issue that led to my banning and ask to join this conversation again.”
Elena, can you clarify what you meant by ‘this whole issue?’
2. Elena –
“I would like to apologize… for the obnoxious behavior I managed to get to in my frustration with this whole issue that led to my banning and ask to join this conversation again.”
Elena, can you clarify what you meant by ‘this whole issue?’
95. nige – April 10, 2010
Sorry Elena
But I have no difficulty in bruising the ‘id’ so that the ferment of getting to grips with one’s blaming others for what cannot get to grips with in oneself. The log in one’s own eye…..if you remember the Christian Book?
In pleasant ICT terminology, you are in ‘a loop’. In a personal bruto-description of my Immortal Reality Making…..
Your head is up your rectal orifice.
Does that answer your request for being a holder of the flame of truth. and by the way I was already doing what you wanted me to do
Engage brain before hitting keyboard
Don’t, woman, wear the petty cloak of masculine bad ideas for bullying people out of there basic ‘Vita Brevis de Veritas’.
Sorry Elena
But I have no difficulty in bruising the ‘id’ so that the ferment of getting to grips with one’s blaming others for what cannot get to grips with in oneself. The log in one’s own eye…..if you remember the Christian Book?
In pleasant ICT terminology, you are in ‘a loop’. In a personal bruto-description of my Immortal Reality Making…..
Your head is up your rectal orifice.
Does that answer your request for being a holder of the flame of truth. and by the way I was already doing what you wanted me to do
Engage brain before hitting keyboard
Don’t, woman, wear the petty cloak of masculine bad ideas for bullying people out of there basic ‘Vita Brevis de Veritas’.
96. Elena – April 10, 2010
We Were There, your name says it clearly, we were there! That issue.
Not finding mechanisms that would lead us to a clear action to stop the Fellowship from hurting more people was very frustrating. I do wonder why others sit and watch people sacrifice themselves and don’t try to understand what happens but try to stop those who do. We are each marked in our lives in such a way that our compromise cannot avoid some issues and on the contrary, find in them a road to our self.
Nigel, deep thanks. We flower more fully each day. Keep trusting yourself no matter what anyone says.
We Were There, your name says it clearly, we were there! That issue.
Not finding mechanisms that would lead us to a clear action to stop the Fellowship from hurting more people was very frustrating. I do wonder why others sit and watch people sacrifice themselves and don’t try to understand what happens but try to stop those who do. We are each marked in our lives in such a way that our compromise cannot avoid some issues and on the contrary, find in them a road to our self.
Nigel, deep thanks. We flower more fully each day. Keep trusting yourself no matter what anyone says.
97. ton – April 11, 2010
look elena, it may seem that i’m picking on you but i’m going to continue to respond because, although the same old familiar patterns are emerging (why do you suppose that is?), nevertheless i hold out some hope for you.
this IS a “conversation” elena, even though it is not to your liking… when the “conversation” here is not to your liking, that is, when your sense of authority is questioned or challenged, you become defensive and accusatory which prevents you from “hearing” what is being “said” — so we end up going ’round and ’round and ’round… but i’ll keep at it for a while.
you say i “treat your perception as if etc…” but i NEVER treated your perception as if it were “a finished theory,” that’s just plainly absurd when quite the opposite is true. you say that you “would like to present ideas so they can be looked at… etc.” well, you have done so, and i have responded to your ideas… and i never said the ideas you’re so “identified” with “are not good enough” — what i did was to offer sources for some alternative perspectives…. and yes i have looked at your precious ideas “in detail” and i have considered them “seriously” — seriously enough to respond, but you don’t like the responses you’re getting and that’s ok with me because i’m not here to please you.
as for my understanding of what i read, you have no idea, but here’s another clue that will help you more than trying to know what i understand: you would do well to be more concerned about YOUR OWN understanding, or rather the lack thereof. what you should understant is that i’m not here to spoon feed you, i’ve tried to encourage you to grow up and do your own homework… but that annoys you, so you lash out. maybe it comes from walking so long in lock-step with your fellow cultists, but i really think that what you want is nothing more than someone who will agree with you, someone who will support your fragile, inflated ego. as long as the other person agrees with you or doesn’t challenge you, then everything is love and kisses, but when your sense of authority is called into question, the daggers come out… this little spat with nigel is the latest case in point.
i’m NOT here to massage your ego elena… why do you think i posted that link on “ego-death” ? that was intended for you my dear, did you study the topic in any depth, or did you simply ignore it? elena, here’s a bit of tough love for you — your problem is that you’re on a major ego-trip… it’s past time to get over yourself, but it’s not too late.
98. nige – April 11, 2010
Now elena robust happiness on the blog has been at this juncture achieved i have a dream that requires your financial commitment and my commitment to your enlightment because of your 9th lifetime role. The bishop blaize pub on exeter quayside has an example of our ‘city of robust love’ walt whitman, the complete poems penguin edition page 164 . gay pride had a massive coming out of the woodwork this friday gone and i flirted with the radical babes in the pub – you don’t need to have sex in bed to really have sex in its full, nourishing capacity – i would be so happy to introduce you to my ‘nighest’ friends. The cutain of doubt will be lifted…..trust…..trust…..trust.
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99. fofblogmoderator – April 11, 2010
Sorry, but I have no time for diplomacy. The Elena experiment is over. If people don’t like it, someone can volunteer to take over the blog.
100. nige – April 11, 2010
fofbm
And I am gritting my cross-bite malocclusion mouth on the end of the rope. Steve,,,,,my email address is nhprice@gmail.com if you can buzz me operating method/conduct/requirements. I have medium haul psychological patience.
“Leaders approach chaos and order with the authority of personal magnetism legitimized with a commitment to their own destiny”
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