Magic Mushrooms

original post is from march 2016

Here are my two posts on the Themajka forum. Below is an appendix - about entheogens in general.

It's been nine and a half months since my first experience with mushrooms. The second one happened last week, and now I will try to share my experiences from both trips.

A brief introduction first - I am 55 years old, and if I do not count a couple of puffs somewhere between the age of 16 – 17, I did not have any experience with opioids. On the other hand, I have had a pronounced interest in spirituality my whole life. That's how I came across an article about the ayahuasca- DMT molecule about 5-6 years ago, and then I was struck by psychedelics.

Again, despite this new knowledge, I would most likely never have taken up direct experience if my son had not got cancer at the beginning of last year (I touched on this story in another topic on the forum).
Namely, among the many pieces of information I have gathered in recent years was the research at Johns Hopkins University on the use of psilocybin in cancer patients' treatment. To make a long story short, I got 3 X 3g - for V (son), Z (wife) and me. I wanted to be me who would take the first, then Z, and to share our experiences with V and prepare him in some way and be his support during the session.

Preparations - first I had to decide where? Inside, in the room, or outside in nature? If outside, again - where? Košutnjak, where there may be a lot of people at the end of May, or go to Avala and go deep into the forest. I was also thinking about ​​setting sail and anchoring a sailboat on the Danube somewhere next to the forest.

And then, those days, I looked from the balcony at the yard and thought - Wait, why not here in the yard?
It was May, all blooming in flowers and greenery, and Z had just bought a comfortable garden deck chair a few days before. Just to see where to put it so that it would be in the shade by 10 o'clock.
I paid attention the following day and saw that the deck chair was already in the ideal place. So, everything was ready for the trip.

D-Day had come, a sunny Sunday. I got up a little before 5 to prepare everything by 5 and 30 when I wanted to drink mushroom tea (a little over 3 g). And it was like that. The effect should start around 6, and I should come down by 10.
I wandered around the house a bit more, and a little before 6, I went down to the garden and lay on the deck chair.

Questions and anticipation overwhelmed me - Will it be just hallucinations, or will there be an expansion of consciousness and deep insights? Can a person function normally and think rationally under the influence of psilocybin?

And then it started working :)

I saw energy, an aura around everything alive, around every leaf. I can't remember exactly now, but I think I heard leaves flickering like some music.
Wow! I was lying and staring in amazement at the surrounding tree branches. It lasted for a few minutes, and then a completely black, lifeless branch caught my eye at one point. Shaped like deer antlers but somehow upside down. The lack of life energy around that branch was simply striking.

- Oh, I seem to be hallucinating. It is impossible that there is such a branch in my yard, and I haven't noticed it so far. Is this perhaps the beginning of a bad trip?
I waved my hand dismissively and just thought - I will have to remember this to check back later when I come down. (yes, it was just like that – of an interesting shape, completely black, without leaves, only I had never noticed it before)

I continued to enjoy the view of that energy, and a tide of emotion set in. I looked at the balcony, and I knew that at some point, Z would appear there when she woke up, and I started thinking about how to convey to her all that I saw and felt. What should I tell her, what should I tell her?
And then a clear answer emerged - you just have to tell her you love her, nothing more. Tears.

I got up and went into the house, among other things to get a notebook and a pen, but I deliberately went to the basement towards the garage to, if I may say so, throw down the gauntlet to low emotions, to face the fear. Outside, the sun was still quite low (around 6:30), so it was pretty dark in the basement.
I didn't turn the light on and turned into the total darkness of the toilet... ... Nothing.

I entered the garage and ran into a children's bicycle that had had a flat tire since a week ago, but they still hadn't changed it. Aha, an idea was born - This was an opportunity to see if a person can think and function rationally. I decided to change the tire on the bike. I started looking for tools, spare tire, I did everything right according to the protocol, just in slow motion.
In the end, I just needed to inflate it. The pump was at the bottom of the trunk, and the trunk was full to the brim (since we got some things yesterday), so I gave up and left the wheel leaning against the car.

I went up to the apartment and entered the room. Z woke up. I looked around the room, looked down at the rug, and saw a leaf. I was thinking - where did the leaf come from, I must be dreaming. So I bent down and picked it up, and Z asked - why are you staring at that bill?
Fuck, I thought it was a leaf.
Z approached - wait, it's a leaf.
Ha, ha, no hallucinations after all :).

We talked for a while and went down to the garden. We sat at the garden table. Again I was overwhelmed with energy, beauty, associations - God's garden, paradise, I even had Eva next to me.
Everything was full of symbols, man, this was amazing.

One branch of our neighbor's walnut tree was hanging over our yard and descended to just above the table. On the branch, the fruit was at my fingertips (if only it was an apple :))

And then BOOM - I kept turning things around in my mind at lightning speed - I remember I had a bee in my bonnet about where to go, and in fact, I didn't need to go anywhere - right where you are, there is paradise! Everything was ideal, and the deck chair was in the ideal place, I didn't have to move it at all.
I was talking about it with Z. God had given us just about everything we needed. Look - I just needed to reach out and pick the fruit.

Damn, everything was so, so deep and ambiguous! Something kept telling me - everything is just as it should be, no need to worry.

We went to the deck chair together. Talking about our sons. Emotions were flooding, and the message got stuck in my head - everything is exactly as it should be ...
We talked a little more and then the effect seemed to peak.

I lay down, looking at the sky and everything, everything was clear to me. Insights, insights, insights...
I looked up and kept saying - yes, .. ..yes, .. ..yes, .. ..yes, ...
I was overwhelmed with insights.

Z entered the house as the neighbor was about to come, and I stayed there until I came down.
When I almost came down, sometime after 10, I got up and entered the house. I sent B a message that I just got back from a psilocybin trip (the man was probably in awe :))
I went to the garage. There was a mess, chaos.
I thought - Look, this is your life, not paradise as you thought in the garden two hours ago. It was as if someone had slapped me.
And then I said to myself - wait, you can acknowledge the situation, and then don't whine, but get yourself together and do something. Go tidy up. You have to start somewhere and finish this trip with what you started with - assemble that bike.

BOOM !!! – Fuck, I can't believe it, I really can't believe it !!! The one from above knows exactly when to show up and what message to send (bicycle trip, Albert Hofmann).

I grinned from ear to ear :D and started to assemble the bike and tidy up the garage.


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My second experience


I have been preparing for the second trip for a little more than nine months. V is completely recovered, and that part of our lives is already in the past.

That segment from the garden when I had insights (which I couldn't remember later) kept bothering me. So I decided on another trip, but in the way it was done in the Johns Hopkins University study - a mask over the eyes, classical music in headphones, and a stronger dose of psilocybin - 6g of mushrooms. This should be the journey to the inside without any external interference.

Sunday morning, I woke up around 3. V hadn't fallen asleep yet. As if he had stayed to wish me a nice trip :). I made tea and squeezed oranges like last time.
On the phone was a playlist of classical and meditation music I had prepared. There was also a tablet, as I intended to turn on recording and place it next to the bed so that I could say something that could later help me remember important things (it turned out there was no need for that).

I went to the bed, put on my headphones and mask even though it was night.
I listened to music and waited. I was not at all interested in the kaleidoscope that was about to come. This was important to me only as an indicator that the mushrooms have started to have an effect.
I repeated non-stop - I want insight, I'm only interested in insight.

And then, before I started to sink, I thought of an SF movie I watched as a kid, 40-something years ago.
By the way, SF movies and movies like The Lord of the Rings have never attracted me. I am entirely rational, I stand firm on the ground and I am only interested in concrete earthly things. But that movie impressed me back then. In it, the heroes walk around an island and what they think starts to happen. A man mentions WW2 and suddenly the planes from the war are flying over them. He remembers his wife and she appears in front of him ...

My thoughts moved in that direction, that this world is created by our minds only on a much deeper level and not so obviously. And that is my last memory from that level of consciousness.

And then the insights started. Consciousness was expanding, I would say fractally. I couldn't even theoretically remember so many pieces of information. But one moment (the most important) remains in the living memory - separation from the ego. Realizing who I am, the real me ..... Consciousness .... And in the next moment, the insight that this consciousness is also the consciousness of God !!! (I am aware that these few sentences above are just an attempt to describe in words something that cannot be described and I feel sorry about that)

The Vedic sages said - Aham Brahmasmi, which can be translated as "I am the universe" or "I am everything". When you understand that, it is clear that if you hate or attack someone, it comes down to hating or attacking yourself.

It later occurred to me that these two seemingly different things - such an expansion of consciousness and the merging of consciousness with cosmic intelligence/god were, in fact, something quite natural and connected

After I came down, at one point, I looked at the tablet, and I remembered last night's scene when I peeked under the mask and saw it glowing in the dark with minimal lighting. The timer counted down the recording time on the screen. I vaguely remember that at that moment, I understood technology and its role and the nature of time, I would say in a few seconds.

I almost came down completely. Z was awake. We chatted for a while, and she got up and went to the window.
- Come on, get up; the sun is already up.
I said - Impossible; they said overcast for today. And then I remembered the idea about that movie, and I said to myself - don't let anything outside impose an idea of ​​what awaits you.

I got up and actually saw the sun in the east :)
We started talking about anything and everything. Z asked the right questions, and I talked like crazy (those who know me know I'm saying little).
I was talking about one topic, and my thoughts were spreading fractally, and I would like to talk about five other topics at the same time.
I thought - man, you're almost completely down, what was your mind like 2-3 hours ago ??? I understand why those Silicon Valley engineers are constantly on microdosing.
Doors Of Perception, Aldous Huxsley and his words came to my mind that the brain is not a source of information at all, but a filter that prevents us from accessing it and that with the help of enthogen we can break that filter. And Nikola Tesla - "Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world."

I was talking about Allan Wats, Bill Hicks, ltzak Bentov, Max Planck, civilizations, shamanism, mind, schizophrenia.
Castaneda and his jump into the abyss came to mind. I had the impression that I experienced the same thing that night.
Then, the Picture of the Golden Gate Bridge and Facebook post, the words of one of the few survivors of the abyss: "I instantly realized that everything in my life that I'd thought was unfixable was totally fixable—except for having just jumped"

There was "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" melody in my head
Associations spread further, I spoke to the children while Z was taking pictures with a camera - That man jumped maybe because at one point he realized that he would never reach the goal he set for himself, or the society put a carrot on a stick that says "the American Dream"
V was twice in the USA through student exchange, and once he told me that he was the happiest in his life while he was in the USA. No wonder then that the USA is his dream and he only thinks about how to go there forever.

I turned to V (Z was filming with a camera), but the message also applied to D. First, I told him that he shouldn't chase after the carrot that says "the American Dream." We all have a carrot in front of us. Even the greatest creators were not completely satisfied with their works and always strived for greater perfection, and he should look at such a carrot, the carrot that will produce positive energy and creativity in him.
I told him that what was pulling him to the USA was not the USA itself, but the energy, the enthusiasm he had there, and that it had nothing to do with the circumstances he was in (because he worked there as a slave for 16 hours a day and lived in a small apartment with another 5 people).

But then I gathered my thoughts about that carrot – it's not about carrot and what it says. It can say anything.
A person must understand two things: First and foremost - the goal is not where the carrot is!! The goal is where you are at the moment. At every moment of your life you are already on the goal!

Carrot is just your projection of some future that will happen, or maybe it won't; it doesn't matter. Its only function is to raise the level of your enthusiasm at the moment, the only one that exists.
If you notice that your enthusiasm is beginning to sink, don't chase after it like a donkey, but choose another one that will "work".

Second, what Marcus Aurelius said 2,000 years ago is also very important: You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

In the end, just like at the beginning, there is an association to a film with a great message - Life is beautiful (La Vita e Bella)

So there's one carrot that can't fail, that always works. It says Love. And the message of this film is - wherever you are, in any situation, even in a concentration camp, you can work on your enthusiasm by lovingly boosting the enthusiasm of your loved ones.

That's what the mushrooms told me, it think, and I just passed it on.


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Here I would just like to emphasize the role of music during the use of entheogen.
I read somewhere that in those first studies by Dr. Timothy Leary half a century ago, as many as 30% of participants reported having unpleasant experiences. In the recent ones carried out by Dr. Roland Griffiths, the number was much, much lower.
They concluded that the role of music during the session is important, even much more important than the role of the guide. Carefully selected music can be a deciding factor in ensuring psychological security!
I think everyone should make their own playlist during the preparations. A playlist from Johns Hopkins University can be used as a basis. You listen to everything, remove what you don't like, and then supplement it.
I prepared two and a half hours of classical and meditation music and put it on repeat.
The experience is phenomenal. Music can really lift you up. And the voice.... The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (second part - Lento e Largo) simply melted me.


Entheogens / psychedelics

According to the meaning of the word, entheogens are substances that can help man can discover the divine in himself. It was not before I started writing this part about entheogens that I saw that its root is in the Greek word νθεος (entheos – the god within), and it is also the root for enthusiasm :)
If used in the right context, psychedelics can be entheogenic, effective agents for spiritual development and healing.
Psychedelics are not addictive and are not toxic (the lethal dose for psilocybin is 1000 times higher than the standard!).
Their effect comes down to expanding consciousness. At least two Nobel Prize winners have admitted to making their discoveries under the influence of LSD. Steve Jobs said the experience was one of the three most important in his life.

They have exceptional power to treat depression, addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder. Entheogens are said to be able to do ten years of psychotherapy in a single session.

Unfortunately, it has been half a century since they were blacklisted along with other opiates. However, things have started to change slowly in recent years, since the research at two American universities has begun.

Alan Watts gave a convenient comparison in one lecture.
According to him, psychedelics are an instrument just like a microscope, telescope and telephone, and they should be used so. No biologist will sit permanently glued to a microscope - he get up and work on what he saw. If you have received a message - hang up!

Although it is probably the fastest, using entheogen is not the only way to cognition. For example, one can reach the same goal during (years of) meditation or some more intense methods, such as holotropic breathwork.

And the trick is, according to MJK (Tool), to go there once with the help of psychedelics and then try to come to the same cognition using other methods (if necessary for years).

Entheogens are exceptionally potent in healing and making spiritual progress, but they need to be approached with great respect and adequate preparation.
Someone once compared them to a plane or a spaceship. The plane can easily transfer you to the other side of the planet, but a disastrous outcome is guaranteed if you entrust it to someone who does not know how to fly it.

Taking these substances recreationally in a nightclub, among the unknown world, is a good recipe for a bad trip.
People with heart problems and people suffering from neurosis and psychosis should not use them without professional supervision.
In short - set & setting: selection of appropriate substance and dose are crucial for a successful session.
Mindset - a calm mind and precise expectations - what you expect from the plant, what information it should give you and what it should help you with.
Setting - a pleasant environment, and I would definitely add carefully selected music.
If all the preparations are done right, the results can be fascinating. Just a single dose of Ibogaine is enough to get rid of severe heroin addiction (but it is more profitable to mutilate them on methadone for years, isn't it?)

And really, the question arises - if all this is true, if they are really so potent substances, why are they not used in medicine, why are they banned?
To cite Terence McKenna - Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third-story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.

In other words - a self-realized person, united with God, will see the same thing in everyone and everything. Such a person is no longer susceptible to the manipulation by concepts such as nation and national interest, nor will they chase the carrot on a long stick.
It all seems to me that McKenna was right.

You can find more information at: http://reset.me/ and. Maps.org


J Hopkins Play list: https://play.spotify.com/user/phillysblunt/playlist/5KWf8H2pM0tlVd7niMtqeU?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open