what's happened to Michael Hoffman from egodeath?

[maxfreakout]

Maxfreakout 8) Don't presume to be my teacher teaching me how I should think about 'egodeath' and 'what Michael Hofmann means'. OK?

I am telling you what I mean in relation to what you think he means.

Stop assuming my links are 'irrelevant to the conversation', which is trying to undermine my views.

as i said, i assume that you want to know about Hoffman's theory, otherwise i dont know why you would post in this thread. Therefore when you post something which indicates that you havent understood the theory, I can only respond to it and clarify your misunderstanding to you. Every link you have posted has been completely irrelevant to the conversation, and you havent once actually commented on the content of any of those links, or attempted to explain what relevance they have to the thread. In the last link you posted, you said that perennial philosophy is "also known as the 'monomyth'" - this is false, they are 2 different things, and that made the link irrelevant to a conversation about perennial philosophy. That is one example of a misunderstanding you had which i clarified for you, it is up to you whether you want to learn something from that, i assume that you would want to

Let me ask you something maxfreakout. You seem to think you know an awful lot about 'egodeath'. I am therefore assuming you have HAD egodeath? Is this a correct assumptiion?

it is an experience which psychonauts undergo fairly typically, i have experienced it and i know many other people who have also. The theory models and explains the experience

 

[BrainEater]

ok next step: is ego death a philosophy or is it a (mathematical, computanional) model for describing the realities of experience, that as you said many people experienced and many are yet to experience.
next step could be for example: what realities does the model describe and how does it "attempt to" describe them??
then: is this way of describing accurate, good, descriptive enough to display the point??

just some ideas...

peace :weedman:

 

[zezt]

Maxfreakout 8) Don't presume to be my teacher teaching me how I should think about 'egodeath' and 'what Michael Hofmann means'. OK?

I am telling you what I mean in relation to what you think he means.

Stop assuming my links are 'irrelevant to the conversation', which is trying to undermine my views.

as i said, i assume that you want to know about Hoffman's theory, otherwise i dont know why you would post in this thread. Therefore when you post something which indicates that you havent understood the theory, I can only respond to it and clarify your misunderstanding to you. Every link you have posted has been completely irrelevant to the conversation, and you havent once actually commented on the content of any of those links, or attempted to explain what relevance they have to the thread. In the last link you posted, you said that perennial philosophy is "also known as the 'monomyth'" - this is false, they are 2 different things, and that made the link irrelevant to a conversation about perennial philosophy. That is one example of a misunderstanding you had which i clarified for you, it is up to you whether you want to learn something from that, i assume that you would want to

Let me ask you something maxfreakout. You seem to think you know an awful lot about 'egodeath'. I am therefore assuming you have HAD egodeath? Is this a correct assumptiion?

it is an experience which psychonauts undergo fairly typically, i have experienced it and i know many other people who have also. The theory models and explains the experience

I initiated the thread cause I said I was curious about Hofmann's whereabouts, and added I didn't really dig his terminology etc and then you came in sayting i MUST know that I am a computer, and the mind is a computer, etc.....?

Every link I have posted I obviously have posted because I find them relevant, but in your dogmatic 'computer universe' of categorical precisenessness as you seem to experience it your failure to understand their significance projects out as 'irrelevent'. Little knowing that every part of reality contains all other parts of reality so really everying is significant. This is the trouble I HAVE with you and your glorified Hofmann religion.

I AM saying that the perennial philosophy IS commensurate with the monomyth. I can see the connection via the patriarchal pattern of ideas that connect this idea of 'oneness' and of the pursuit of a 'male hero'--as Keller describes it. Both are violent. Imposing the goal of 'oneness' on one and all, and of being a 'hero' "Keller demonstrates that the tradition of separating the masculine from the feminine as well as mind from body is at the root of the separated self and its correlate, the soluble self." As you know the perennial philosophy is very connected with the concept of the great chain of being which also is patriarchal. I see these as MONO-myths. Imposing mythology on people in an oppressive way, like you want to with this goddamn 'egodeath' theory. I don't see any benefit to it from your attitude quite frankly. it seems pretty tight. I see it in your demands on me to fall into line with your dogma of how i SHOULD see reality. Don't pretend your just trying to protect Michael Hofmann or whatever. I would have more slack from a fundamentalist bible thumper :nod:

I dont pretend to have no ego. I question the established paradigm 'we' are in, you revel in it and push it on others. I distrust that and like said, you are the worst advert for so-called 'egodeath' even if it were true.

You HAVE to be right. Swish swish

 

[Ganesha]

have fun, guys.

 

[maxfreakout]

zest since you wont actually answer my posts it is impossible to communicate with you, if you want to continue this conversation send me a pm

 

[zezt]

zest since you wont actually answer my posts it is impossible to communicate with you, if you want to continue this conversation send me a pm

so your ignoring Braineaters questions too?

 

[Eldritch]

One of the troubles I have with the theory is that simple, concrete examples are never given by MH so it makes it extremely hard to say whether I've had similar experiences or not because I never really know what he's talking about.

I've had a few religious experiences like being Doubting Thomas or felt an ecstatic, celebratory union with god - this one truly felt like it was the basis of religion but I was raised Catholic so it's impossible for me to say whether that has impacted on these experiences for me or not. Strong statements like "Claim your Birthright" often appear in my head when indulging in sacraments and it's not unknown for me to to find myself doing certain gestures like putting my hand on my heart or folding my hands in graceful peace.

I can't really identify with loss of self-control and feeling controlled by another, greater presence but I will add MH appears to be talking very high doses - 500-800mcgs was mentioned in one part. He mentions being a somewhat neurotic individual who had problems with not feeling in charge of himself (my words, not his) when younger. I sometimes feel trapped by the confines of my personality, feeling like a bad computer programme stuck on replay, being destined to endlessly play out my faulty, limited programming but it's doesn't appear to be quite the same thing as MH's issues with ego/self-control. I can't help but wonder if his own particular personal issues are infused into his trips and therefore his theory. How can they not be? We are all limited by our own particular perceptions and outlooks on life.

 

[zezt]

One of the troubles I have with the theory is that simple, concrete examples are never given by MH so it makes it extremely hard to say whether I've had similar experiences or not because I never really know what he's talking about.

Yes I know what you mean 8)

I've had a few religious experiences like being Doubting Thomas or felt an ecstatic, celebratory union with god - this one truly felt like it was the basis of religion but I was raised Catholic so it's impossible for me to say whether that has impacted on these experiences for me or not. Strong statements like "Claim your Birthright" often appear in my head when indulging in sacraments and it's not unknown for me to to find myself doing certain gestures like putting my hand on my heart or folding my hands in graceful peace.

Do you ever take a psychedelic trip outside in nature? Do you find it differerent from taking one inside?

I can't really identify with loss of self-control and feeling controlled by another, greater presence but I will add MH appears to be talking very high doses - 500-800mcgs was mentioned in one part.

I can understand the sense of 'possession'--a term somehow translated from Greek term for 'enthusiasm'. So the story goes that the Celebrants of the Dionysian Mysteries who would partake of the Dionysos entheogen would feel possessed by the 'god of nature'. Now I think many of us feel this to some extent---you feel ecstatic don't you. And I feel VERY VERYYYYY in spotaneous control. It is like a sense that the inside and outside are synchronistic.

He mentions being a somewhat neurotic individual who had problems with not feeling in charge of himself (my words, not his) when younger. I sometimes feel trapped by the confines of my personality, feeling like a bad computer programme stuck on replay, being destined to endlessly play out my faulty, limited programming but it's doesn't appear to be quite the same thing as MH's issues with ego/self-control. I can't help but wonder if his own particular personal issues are infused into his trips and therefore his theory. How can they not be? We are all limited by our own particular perceptions and outlooks on life.

Do you think that the computationalist paradigm we are supposed to be in has influence on your feeling like a computer?
In Gk the 'persona' actually means 'mask' --Dionysos was the 'god of many names', and one of his names WAS the god of masks, because it was he who inspired Theatre, and the actors wore masks.
But what this says to me on a deeper level is that Dionysos AS ecstatic expression is the FREEDOM to explore masks/personas, because we are not actually ONE limited persona, we include many masks, and creatively create unique ones. But this anti entheogenic, anti ecstaic culture seeks to impose a set mask on us for the purposes of productivity and consumerism, etc.

 

[Eldritch]

The computer reference was really just an easy modern analogy. I don't feel like a computer, only in the sense that personality is repetitive and predictable. I feel a fuller sense of self on sacraments, like the shackles have been lifted, more ME and more in control sometimes - the usual body/mind split disappears, fluid bodily movement becomes much easier, like dancing for example. Sex can be better as well, not as awkward, more spontanious, not so much about the orgasm, just enjoying the exchange of energies.

Trips outside are obviously more nature orientated, inside ones tend to be more reflective but so many factors come into play - mindset, substance, dose. Sometimes I've had a totally self-absorbed headtrip outside and not noticed nature at all.

BTW - I briefly skimmed over the feminist critic you linked zezt. It's interesting, I wonder if there's much difference between the male vs female psychedelic experience once you get deeper into it on heavier doses? Many more males seem attracted to it, maybe their psychology is more complicated and they get more out of it? Who knows.

 

[maxfreakout]

ok next step: is ego death a philosophy or is it a (mathematical, computanional) model for describing the realities of experience, that as you said many people experienced and many are yet to experience.
next step could be for example: what realities does the model describe and how does it "attempt to" describe them??
then: is this way of describing accurate, good, descriptive enough to display the point??

ego death is an experience where you take drugs and think you are dying

ego death theory is a phenomenological model of that experience and the psychological re-structuring that it causes

 

[zezt]

The computer reference was really just an easy modern analogy. I don't feel like a computer, only in the sense that personality is repetitive and predictable. I feel a fuller sense of self on sacraments, like the shackles have been lifted, more ME and more in control sometimes - the usual body/mind split disappears, fluid bodily movement becomes much easier, like dancing for example. Sex can be better as well, not as awkward, more spontanious, not so much about the orgasm, just enjoying the exchange of energies.

Trips outside are obviously more nature orientated, inside ones tend to be more reflective but so many factors come into play - mindset, substance, dose. Sometimes I've had a totally self-absorbed headtrip outside and not noticed nature at all.

BTW - I briefly skimmed over the feminist critic you linked zezt. It's interesting, I wonder if there's much difference between the male vs female psychedelic experience once you get deeper into it on heavier doses? Many more males seem attracted to it, maybe their psychology is more complicated and they get more out of it? Who knows.

I just feel the paradigm/myth we are in definately must affect how we think of ourselves and others.

I think males have been driiven intoa corner of what being male HAS to be like. There is so much conformity. Not allowed to cry---thats a BIG emotional abuse.
Femininity has been put down for a long time. Look what you said about making love, you dont feel that need to make it an orgasm goal, so what that is showing you is how cultural conditioning imposes that on our bodyminds. Whereas many women already feel that spontaneity and many are left frustrated sexually because of males who have lost it. So psychedelics help us re-member

 

[Eldritch]

I think mens obsession with orgasm stems from biological imperative, it's nothing to do with cultural conditioning.

Can't recall if MH mentions tantra but I've definately found myself in that psychic zone when tantric sex and withholding semen makes the utmost sense. Wouldn't surprise me if that originates from altered states as well.

 

[Eldritch]

ego death is an experience where you take drugs and think you are dying

ego death theory is a phenomenological model of that experience and the psychological re-structuring that it causes

That's interesting. I had a mate years ago that when we started messing around with psychedelics ultimately gave it away because he said he always felt like he was dying. He was a fairly strong ego based character though, they're the ones that often have the hardest time letting go.

 

[zezt]

I think mens obsession with orgasm stems from biological imperative, it's nothing to do with cultural conditioning.

Can't recall if MH mentions tantra but I've definately found myself in that psychic zone when tantric sex and withholding semen makes the utmost sense. Wouldn't surprise me if that originates from altered states as well.

Depends what you mean by 'orgasm'. As you know when on psychedelics you can feel orgasm just touching someone's hand, or looking in their eyes, etc etc So there is that, and it makes the rumble desperate booze tumble for a cum pale hopelessly in comparison. So don't begin thinking it is a biological thing---that is really the fix of this mechanical paradigm we are in. It tries to push biological determinism on us, hence we have the mental illness myth still going on.
This means that for many even after psychedelic insight, when they 'come down' and all the BS conditioning surrounds them again they can tend to not integrate the deeper sensual awarenesses...it becomes lost, dis-membered instead of re-membered

 

[BrainEater]

the root cause of dis-ease ???

 

[Eldritch]

Depends what you mean by 'orgasm'. As you know when on psychedelics you can feel orgasm just touching someone's hand, or looking in their eyes, etc etc So there is that, and it makes the rumble desperate booze tumble for a cum pale hopelessly in comparison. So don't begin thinking it is a biological thing---that is really the fix of this mechanical paradigm we are in. It tries to push biological determinism on us, hence we have the mental illness myth still going on.
This means that for many even after psychedelic insight, when they 'come down' and all the BS conditioning surrounds them again they can tend to not integrate the deeper sensual awarenesses...it becomes lost, dis-membered instead of re-membered

Sad isn't it, that the world seems to revolve around the drunken tumble when it's the lowest, most blind form of love-making there is. I don't know about paradigm's but it certainly shows humanity is lost and out of touch in oh so many ways.

Actually I've found some of that deeper sensual sexual awareness the easiest thing to bring back and keep with me, maybe the only thing, I seem to be able to enter back into that mindstate a little. Sexual arousal is somewhat of an altered state anyway, I think that's why.

 

[maxfreakout]

One of the troubles I have with the theory is that simple, concrete examples are never given by MH so it makes it extremely hard to say whether I've had similar experiences or not because I never really know what he's talking about.

what do you mean by this, examples of what? The theory comprehensively lists every example of altered-state phenomena you see in trip reports, and also gives hundreds of examples of the way mythology describes these phenomena. What else do you want examples of?

So for example he gives the example which every psychonaut can relate to, of seeing warping and rippling patterns over the surface of solid objects. This standard altered-state phenomenon is described allegorically by the story of Jesus walking on water, and Moses crossing the Red Sea

I can't really identify with loss of self-control and feeling controlled by another, greater presence but I will add MH appears to be talking very high doses - 500-800mcgs was mentioned in one part.

he specifically advises against such high doses, he says the most effective way to trip is to take moderate doses, not too high, and intersperse the trips with study of perennial philosophy

 

[Eldritch]

I would like to see some personal examples of mystical experiences he has had that I can relate to, his connections with the perennial philospophy, of the type I gave even, not blanket theoretical descriptions, stuff like this - this sounds like the bad trip I never had. :lol:

http://www.egodeath.com/cybernetics.htm

The cocky cyberpunk finds that his sense of autonomous self-direction fails him utterly and is forced to pray for a personal compassionate supercontroller entity, the puppetmaster, so that the cognitive cyberpunk's future actions and decisions are safe and harmless. All your power of self-control fails you, through a logical realization that your power is always partly illusory. Coming face to face with this realization is an ego-death experience that throws you into a tailspin. Your model of your control over your thoughts and actions deconstructs itself. 'Deconstruction' means turning the internal logic of a text against itself, in an explosive amplification.

You experience your train of thought as a runaway train: if you are going to think an awful thought and have a dreadful realization in 2 minutes, you realize, trembling, that there is logically nothing you can do to avoid this predetermined fate -- you discover the plausibility that your every act of will, of choice, of thought, is already lurking in the future, ready to hunt you down.

Under "rules for tripping" -

The middle long part is about the philosophical discoveries available from the high doses such as 500-800 micrograms. (Any more than this amount tends to waste precious doses due to diminishing returns.) You might want to skip the long middle part, particularly any mention of trembling prayer due to cybernetic principles of self-control cancellation -- the self-deconstruction of self-control.

 

[maxfreakout]

I would like to see some personal examples of mystical experiences he has had that I can relate to, his connections with the perennial philospophy, of the type I gave even, not blanket theoretical descriptions, stuff like this - this sounds like the bad trip I never had. :lol:

http://www.egodeath.com/cybernetics.htm

The cocky cyberpunk finds that his sense of autonomous self-direction fails him utterly and is forced to pray for a personal compassionate supercontroller entity, the puppetmaster, so that the cognitive cyberpunk's future actions and decisions are safe and harmless. All your power of self-control fails you, through a logical realization that your power is always partly illusory. Coming face to face with this realization is an ego-death experience that throws you into a tailspin. Your model of your control over your thoughts and actions deconstructs itself. 'Deconstruction' means turning the internal logic of a text against itself, in an explosive amplification.

You experience your train of thought as a runaway train: if you are going to think an awful thought and have a dreadful realization in 2 minutes, you realize, trembling, that there is logically nothing you can do to avoid this predetermined fate -- you discover the plausibility that your every act of will, of choice, of thought, is already lurking in the future, ready to hunt you down.

he never mentions his own experiences of tripping, not once, i tried asking him about that when i interviewed him and he just avoided the question

it is a theory about tripping in general, not one or another person's experiences of tripping. The theory is full of examples of the kinds of themes that people in general encounter in trips, in particular in bad trips, in many ways the theory is just the phenomenology of a classic bad trip - the core element of a bad trip is control-loss

Under "rules for tripping" -

The middle long part is about the philosophical discoveries available from the high doses such as 500-800 micrograms. (Any more than this amount tends to waste precious doses due to diminishing returns.) You might want to skip the long middle part, particularly any mention of trembling prayer due to cybernetic principles of self-control cancellation -- the self-deconstruction of self-control.

yes 500 micrograms is an incredibly high dose, but he generally advises against such high doses, eg where he says:
"With the systematic explanation of ego death in hand, there is no need for heroic doses of psychoactives; moderate dosage is most effective" from http://www.egodeath.com/mobile1.htm

 

[Eldritch]

in many ways the theory is just the phenomenology of a classic bad trip - the core element of a bad trip is control-loss

Ah see, even you can admit that the theory is a little biased towards the negative experience. What about the phenomenology of a classic good trip? :wink:

I think I am trying to make too much out of his theory. If I read it from the perspective of a totally straight, rigidly defined person who has never even smoked a joint before and suddenly got dosed, then all the talk about control/loss of control makes sense but most people have little trouble in letting go and going with the flow after a couple of experiences. You soon learn that resistance is futile.