Onto the talk of Gaia, if I may contribute a little of my own spiritual perspective and the perspective of a geologist.. As for the totality of earth being alive and divine in nature, it sounds like the Gaia (mother earth) cult that began in ancient Greece , as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_(mythology) . Despite having ‘tripped’ on LSD, Psilo. mushrooms, and Sage (salvia divinorum) enough times in the past, it never truly entered my thinking, but I can remember once telling my friend, while tripping as a teen (I had first done acid at age 12), of a current belief I had that I was actually God, or maybe that ‘we’ are all God, or perhaps that everything was God. It is, I know now, a form of the belief called pantheism. When I became a geologist, geology of course not being a religious or spiritual discipline and we were taught that all matter is either animate or inanimate (plants, animals, fungii, etc. vs. compounds, minerals, and elements; rocks). From the geology point of view that’s what I accept. From a spiritual view, I acknowledge that no one has seen or proven God. That being the case, He being ineffable (defying expression or description) while this world and it’s parts are seen and felt as long as we are alive. No tripping substance changes this state of affairs for me, but I am aware that hallucinogenic substances create illusions and impressions of knowing the unknowable, or ineffable. For the record, I believe Jesus to be the Son of God, God in the form of a man (the Son of man) and that the power behind my faith affects my life in many good ways. While the use of hallucinogens may leave lasting impressions on our souls/minds, it is not the same for me.

Of course, there are nutty folks that claim to be Christians, and nutty folks who trip. The fruit of our lives, our legacies of you will, will yield that final answer as to what was true or false, and what was good or bad.

May God bring about whatever is good for you

That seems very unfair to the post-LSD generations - as if my generation had used up all the endless summer afternoons with perfect babbling brooks, or something, and no generation will ever get that feeling again./blockquote>
I am the post-LSD generation, and I am saddened that all the ‘real’ LSD-25 has seemed to vanish. I have listened to stories of spectacular spiritual events from the LSD generation, if that is what they should be called. I admit I may be ‘too young’ to use “drugs”, but I use entheogens to develop a deeper spiritual bond, with not only my self, but the world around me. Now that the availability of these sacraments gradually decreases, I feel ( and I think that I speak for others) that we have been robbed of an experience of a lifetime. I do hope that people come to their senses and take another look at the true effects of things like Peyote and LSD-25. Also, it is a shame that street acid is being tainted, and the amount of actually, real, LSD is declining.

I heard a story about some guy who had over 6.00 mg/l alcohol (the limit is 0.08), and he was conscious. A veteran alcoholic, the stuff did next to nothing to him.

I bet I couldn’t reach 1.00 without being seriously messed up (I’m small, skinny, and I never drink).

From Elkins:
“Another thing to consider: do you get enough good sleep, karpad? I only ask because the things you are seeing sound identical to something that troubled me a few years back, when I was having a very serious problem with insomnia (and its attendant sleep deprivation). When the sleep deprivation went away, the scary, shadowy ‘just-out-of-the-corner-of-my-eye’ figure thingumabobs went away with it.”

Who knows if they don’t really exist and that you need to be out-of-phase with reality (altered mind, which sleep deprivation can do) to perceive them.

Anyone read John Dies at The End?

I won’t spoil the whole thing, but there’s a drug in that novel that’s pretty special (that they call soy-sauce, cause it’s black), it alters your mind rather profoundly. You can see the unseen and read minds and other stuff that I won’t spoil, but it’s pretty far out there, and it’s a state that can’t be attained without the drug (or serious godly meditation, but in the book, only the drug).

I didn’t think the concept was all that farfetched, because I do think there is more to this world than the physical. If we were meant to just reproduce and become more proefficient as a society, we wouldn’t need free-thinking, and someone/something designing a world where free-thinking exists, no doubt has plans for the minds once death claims the bodies.

And they don’t go “in the sky” or “in the fiery pits of hell” (as if those were physical places). Who knows where spirits go, but perhaps they never go that far, we just aren’t equipped, when alive, to perceive them in normal circumstances.

drugs have links to organized crime, some people never come back from their trips, and doing drugs interferes with one’s ability to discern (as accurately as we usually do) reality

reality is rich enough as it is, instead of doing drugs why don’t we listen to good music, look at a lovely painting, contemplate the inherent beauty of the universe? there’s a lot of peace and happiness there that can’t be found with drugs

so screw you if you think the only ok opinion is that it’s great to do drugs
not everyone feels that way

Let me say, not to brag or condescend, but to assure you that I have a modicum of credibility when it comes to this subject, that I have a degree in psychology that included courses in behavior, drugs & behavior, perception, cognition, abnormal psychology, and social psychology.

I have also sampled a few psychedelics and can tell you both objectively and subjectively how they operate.

Chemically, LSD resembles serotonin, specifically 5-HT2A. When it bonds with 5-HT2A receptors, it causes them to multiply drastically. We end up with way more serotonin receptors than we need. This is important because 5-HT2A is a FILTER (inhibitor) for both mood and sensation/perception. Serotonergic neurons inhibit other neurotransmitters and extend to almost every organ system in the body.

When we have too much serotonin for our receptors, we get depressed (serotonin re-uptake). When we have an excess of receptors, we are more resistant to depression because our senses and mood are more “turned on.” The inhibitive or filtering effect of serotonin is neutralized by an excess of receptors. Remember, most psychedelics (including both LSD and psilocybin) increase 5-HT2A receptors and thereby reduce the inhibiting effect of serotonergic neurons on other transmitters. This effect is temporary but can also be LEARNED (which is where both “flashbacks” and “sober” trips come from). Mind over matter, anyone?

Our brains are normally tossing around images and constructs, assembling them as we go along and comparing them to experience for validity. Inside our brains there is a never-ending flow of data that we normally aren’t aware of. We commonly refer to this as subconscious or unconscious activity, and it includes everything from sensation to body control to memory to fantasy (”what if”).

When serotonin’s inhibitory effect is neutralized even partially, we are made aware on the conscious level of many of those hidden mental processes. Memories become more vivid; we become super-sensitive; we can feel our own bodies working, and yes even our brains; we may be forced to face fears that we have long subdued but never overcame; our emotions become much stronger; and yes, images from our imaginations can be superimposed on reality.

Translation: Psychedelics “open your mind,” i.e. deconstruct defense mechanisms and other barriers that have been acquired and reinforced socially. Most of the things we react to on psychedelics are things we have been conditioned to not react to, or even think about.

The powerful and hidden truth about all of this is that serotonin does not equal “self control.” We DO NOT LOSE CONTROL SIMPLY BY TAKING A PSYCHEDELIC. This is a product of our extremely powerful imaginations. When one or more of our fears (which we never learned to counteract properly) is the only thing we can think about, we FORGET THAT WE STILL HAVE CONTROL.

A huge fear for many people is simply losing control. When your mind can imagine the chance that you might lose control, you may hover on the edge or even push yourself over.

The remedy? SMILE. Genuinely. Chill out. Go with the flow. Change what you’re doing if it’s really bothering you. Surf the internet. Flip through the channels. Listen to the deepest and most positive music you have, or look for some. Talk to a close friend, not about how you are tripping out but about what is going through your mind. Above all, relax and remember that it’s YOUR BRAIN and you just took a little substance to unlock it for a while. You’ll still have the same tissues and organs you had before you started tripping when you’re done. What happens is YOUR CHOICE.

Everything I have explained here is supported by experiments in neuroscience and psychotherapy as well as statistical data and personal experience. I have seen people “start to wig out” and then suddenly become lucid and perfectly in control after I explained to them what was happening.

Over 80% of the LSD users questioned over the years have claimed that LSD gave them some sort of insight. This ranged from understanding how their brains worked to being connected to everything around them to having “communicated with God.” I do not name the last one lightly as I have experienced all three of those examples of “insight” and by “God” I do not mean a magic man in the sky.

My overall point here is that the dangers of LSD are not inherent to LSD. They are human fears and ignorance suppressed by lifetimes of socialization, unlocked by a chemical that removes some of the filters in our minds. Too much murder, madness and mystery has existed without LSD for me to blame a few freak-outs on the drug. LSD “casualties” (hospitalization or death) amount to something like 1 in 10,000 people who try it (these statistics vary). This is a pathetic number, which is also probably highly correlated with its legal status and the stigma associated with psychedelics (a product of propaganda more than anything else). The same cannot be said for other drugs. Alcohol, cocaine, speed, and opiates are reliably addictive. These drugs in large enough or frequent enough doses are also reliably lethal. Not true with LSD, which by dose is one of the safest drugs known to man.

And yes, Lucy is still around. Research in psychedelics is making a comeback. Check out MAPS.org, erowid.org, or even wikipedia for more info.

I hear of mushrooms sometimes available in many larger N. American cities.

Disclaimer: I do not encourage or advocate use of illegal drugs, but recognize laws cannot always prevent their use.

I wonder if people here who know people who were damaged by tripping know how much or how frequently that person was tripping. I’d be very interested to hear of a “I took half a hit (or a hit) once, and it messed me up badly” story, even second hand (or even a reliable third hand).

I

In 1968 at only age 12, I took a half tablet of ‘green berkley’ flats LSD, supplied by my older brother who I was close to. He introduced me to it, but I didn’t need to be talked into trying it, I was very much interested myself, I thought I might die of curiosity if I did not at least try it. Taking it, I found it to be a worthwhile and very interesting experience (understated), even though it did not end the mystery of the universe, it seemed to tease about that mystery with hints (yet today I am not sure whether it really carried any special spiritual meaning or not).

By age 14 I bought another hit of acid from a girl at school, but this time I took it in an unfortunate setting, with a friend that I was supposed to spend the night with, but whose mom nixed that idea. Thus I had to walk home on a cold black and moody October night, growing increasingly worried about facing my dad while tripping on LSD.

My dad was a good dad who loved me very much and we had always been best friends, but he was pure as the driven snow as to how he took care of his own body, and would have been gravely disappointed in me had he known that I was experimenting with drugs, let alone something like LSD. That guilt-laden encounter with my father while on LSD (I slept in the same room and in a bunk below him at that time) overpowered my mood and psyche, and threw me into a panic, sweating and with a racing heart (that I was sure he heard) while lying in bed at 11 PM. With guilt heavy as a building on my chest as I lay on that bunk below my dad, I was motionless and unable to sleep in a pool of sweat and hearing my heart beat loudly all night. Early on, my pop kept asking what was wrong, but I couldn’t answer for sheer mortification. Not able to sleep all night, I was dead sure I had ruined my physical frame and mind, and thus, my life. By morning I was like a different person; a major depression had solidly settled in that lasted a year, during which I hardly spoke to my friends at school. A year later I confessed my LSD use to my dad, and getting it off my chest seemed to cause that depression (the worst I’d known) to lift in only a few days. But then I immediately I rocketed into a state of high mania - because as I learned later I was now manic depressive (now commonly called bipolar disorder). I have manic depressive condition to this day. I don’t know if the LSD caused it or merely triggered something that would have shown up anyway at a later time (my mom also had this condition later in life).

Age 15 to 21 was a very intense period for me, in and out of the psychiatric floor of the local hospital no less than seven times, the first time for severe depression (catatonic with full blown auditory and visual hallucinations); the rest of the hospitalizations were for severe mania (the subsequent depressions were very bad but did not threaten the stability of the family as could a manic episode). Fortunately by my early 20’s lithium (a natural mineral salt mined from the ground) came into wide use and using it, my condition became manageable. Manic depression has impacted me very little since then, yet I know that I still have the condition.

One might think I’d be bitterly against hallucinogenic drug use because of all this. I’ve not taken LSD since that eventful time, but I have used psilocybin mushrooms on several trips to Amsterdam, tried LSA-containing seeds (like morning glory), and a powerful hallucinogenic sage plant, Salvia Divinorum (used by Indians in southern Mexico for Shamanistic purposes). And I still use pot on occasion, but very moderately (maybe less than 1/4 oz a year). Recently traveling in India I was able to sample some very powerful hashish.

My greatest enjoyment comes from adventure travel now (I’ve been to all the continents), not drugs, but I know life has risks and though I’ve had much trouble from drugs, I have escaped at least total ruination from them, for which I thank God. If we want to get near to the fire and have very great adventures, we may have to sometimes pay the price for it. Let everyone know of the dangers, which are definitely there, and let them (adults) make their own informed choice. It’s certainly not for everyone. In spite of my occasional (illegal) drug use I am sincerely a believer in Christ now for three decades, which may account for my earlier skepticism of spiritual value per se in hallucinogenic drugs. I guess I see them as just one more kind of (hopefully fun) adventure, like a roller coaster.