what's happened to Michael Hoffman from egodeath?

[maxfreakout]

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:

the phenomenology of a classic good trip is also fully mapped out by the theory

'bad' and 'good' or 'negative' and 'positive' are misleading words in this context, it should instead be 'difficult' and 'easy'

The theory comprehensively maps out the entire range of mystical state phenomenology including all kinds of trip experiences (good and bad), it misses the point to say that the theory is 'biased towards negative experience', the difficult experiences tend to be far more psychologically transformative than the easy ones, and because ego death theory is all about psychological transformation, it therefore makes sense that the predominant focus would be on the more transformative kinds of experiences

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.

it is the other way round, the theory is written from the point of view of highly experienced psychedelic explorers who are fully acquainted with the deeper aspects of psychedelic experiencing, not beginners with little or no trip experience. Control loss is the deepest, most profound aspect of the mystical state, you cant avoid it by 'learning that resistance is futile' that is just naive. As it explains in the 'mystical climax' article, it is precisely this kind of relaxation of mental resistance that causes the control loss experience in the first place

 

[zezt]

One of the reasons I started this thread was---I find his termonology rigid, mechanistic, and I have even said brutal---which I don't find helpful. Ok, I admit he is unique, fine, but just because something is unique doesn't mean I think it is helpful. But I was very curious as to where he is now.

Apparently he never discusses his own psychedelic experiences, why? That seems very odd indeed, and closed off. I would never trust anyone who wrote reems of supposedly 'cutting edge' stuff about the real meaning of 'ego death' etc and was shy about describing their OWN trip So what is that all about?

As much as I love Alan Watts, for it was his book, Cloudhidden Whereabouts Unknown, which deeply helped me integrate my experiences inspired with LSD which I had when a very young 15 year old kid (discovered his book in my early 20s). However, I cannot be blind to the fact that Alan was a serious alcoholic which says a lot for Hoffman picking him as a role model for 'self-control cybernetics'...? I have had people VERY close to me who I have seen go through alcoholism, and have real self-control to stop the destructive habit, and I have seen others not do and watch them deteriorate. So it is very important to see discrepancies between what people say and what they do. I don't just trust words! I still love Alan, and he had the most amazing insights, and I still watch videos of him etc, but I wonder what it was that allowed that huge contradiction in his life. I am only mentioning it here briefly because that question is extremely complex and for another thread. But I am mentioning it because Hoffman more or less was inspired by Watts book about 'self-control'.

 

[maxfreakout]

Hoffman has talked a lot about Watts' alcoholism, it is likely that Watts' deep insight into the problem of self control was down to his alcoholism in the first place. Drug addiction is a perfect example of why self-control is deeply problematic, Watts is bound to have been intimately aware of this because of his own addiction, so there is nothing 'contradictory' about it, it makes perfect sense that Watts would have had profound insights about the problem of self control, given that he was a victim of the problem of self-control because of alcohol

drug-addicts typically deal with issues of life-threatening self-control problems just as psychedelic ego death is essentially caused by a life-threatening self control problem.

Apparently he never discusses his own psychedelic experiences, why? That seems very odd indeed, and closed off. I would never trust anyone who wrote reems of supposedly 'cutting edge' stuff about the real meaning of 'ego death' etc and was shy about describing their OWN trip So what is that all about?

im sure he would discuss it in a private conversation, but ego death theory isnt about one or another person's trip experience, rather it is about what everybody, everywhere, throughout history experiences when they trip, it would confuse the issue to only focus on one person's experiences

 

[Eldritch]

Control loss is the deepest, most profound aspect of the mystical state, you cant avoid it by 'learning that resistance is futile' that is just naive. As it explains in the 'mystical climax' article, it is precisely this kind of relaxation of mental resistance that causes the control loss experience in the first place

Are you able to explain "control loss" in your own words rather than Michael's because you just seem to parrot him? If people can't come away from reading and supposingly understanding the theory without using his terminology then something is wrong I think. I know I'm not the first to say this.

 

[maxfreakout]

Are you able to explain "control loss" in your own words

control loss just means losing control it doesnt add anything to that explanation to change the wording ( you could say loss of free will, loss of autonomy, loss of causal efficacy etc but these all amount to exactly the same thing, it's an experience where the sense of self-control is suspended)

ordinarily you experience yourself as being in control over your thoughts and bodily actions the immediate future and this creates the impression of being morally responsible for those thoughts and actions. When you trip hard that sense of self-control can be lost. This loss of control can feel like you are dying or going insane because you identify yourself so strongly with the self-controller (it constitutes the very core of your sense of self-identity, the self-steering ego-agent). This can lead to contemplating dramatic acts of self-violation, such as commiting suicide, self-mutilating or violent destructive behaviour, when the ordinary shackles of moral self-restraint are suddenly seen to be purely illusory

when you drink lots of alcohol you can lose control in a shallow, vulgar way, but the psychedelic kind of control loss by contrast is deep and profound (paradigm-shattering), because it actually amounts to a total, systematic re-indexing of all your most deeply held assumptions about who/what you are. You dont merely lose control in ego death, you actually discover that you never really had control in the first place, you dont merely 'die', you realise that you were never really alive in the first place

 

[zezt]

well I think that sets up a duality between 'ordinary life' which can include people who have never had psychedelic experience, and people who have had psychedelic experience but have not had an 'ego death', and those like Hoffman who claim that they or those they presume have had psychedelically inspired 'ego death' are somehow superior.

It is very disrespectful and insensitive and unintelligent to presume that because an individual has not had a psychedelic 'ego death' that thee were never really alive or in control.
How would you see someone who had gone through the self-control to give up a very destructive habit, and had never had psychedelic experience?

 

[maxfreakout]

well I think that sets up a duality between 'ordinary life' which can include people who have never had psychedelic experience, and people who have had psychedelic experience but have not had an 'ego death', and those like Hoffman who claim that they or those they presume have had psychedelically inspired 'ego death' are somehow superior.

yes that's moreorless right, but you should be careful with the word 'superior', it's a very strange kind of superiority, does realising that you dont exist make you superior to someone who thinks they do exist?

It is very disrespectful and insensitive and unintelligent to presume that because an individual has not had a psychedelic 'ego death' that thee were never really alive or in control.

nobody is making this presumption so this ^ doesnt apply to anybody

the 'never having been in control' is what the initiate discovers about himself in the peak of the ego death experince

How would you see someone who had gone through the self-control to give up a very destructive habit, and had never had psychedelic experience?

i dont understand this question, what do you mean 'how would you see someone'? By looking at them? :?

 

[ophiuchus]

zezt quit being ignorant. you're essentially asking him to respond that way, by (and incorrectly) over-simplifying, refusing to see his point, all he is doing is explaining what the theory says, not that it is true, OR EVEN HIS BELIEF... im not so sure i believe it either.. but my point is, you're essentially refusing to look at it, by labeling and canning all of his statements; i would assume, because you dont really understand the implications of his words, OR you dont WANT to. one or the other. but whether you want to or not, the point is there. your thinking black or white. NO theory will explain anything without flaw, that is the thing keeping it from being fact. no theory is "true" as a whole. think of it like bondo in a dent of a car, it will fill the hole just nicely, but it cannot be substituted as the body of the car.
now dont get me wrong, i dont think either of you are wrong, but neither of will are gonna get any farther if you dont FUCKING LISTEN to each others words for what they are really intended to be. no personal skewing. max i think your doing somewhat better than zest, but your not adressing his statements either, even though they are off the topic of "michael hoffman"; i noticed that you've done that before in the past as well(is why i say something)..zezt, were not in elementary school anymore...

 

[Eldritch]

ordinarily you experience yourself as being in control over your thoughts and bodily actions the immediate future and this creates the impression of being morally responsible for those thoughts and actions. When you trip hard that sense of self-control can be lost.

This sounds like what I was referring to before - letting go. On anything more than a mild trip thoughts and visions appear as if out of nowhere. You have no control over these, you learn to sit back and watch as a spectator. The harder you trip the more these tend to be about what I would call your core essence.

This can lead to contemplating dramatic acts of self-violation, such as commiting suicide, self-mutilating or violent destructive behaviour, when the ordinary shackles of moral self-restraint are suddenly seen to be purely illusory

This is where I really start to lose you because I always feel a strong sense of consciensciousness, even on my deepest journeys there is still this core of me there, it feels purer in a way. While I have contemplated self-harm, killing another would still feel wrong.

 

[zezt]

... should be careful with the word 'superior', it's a very strange kind of superiority, does realising that you dont exist make you superior to someone who thinks they do exist?

Do you not exist? or have you ever remembered yourself not existing to compare with someone existing?



It is very disrespectful and insensitive and unintelligent to presume that because an individual has not had a psychedelic 'ego death' that they were never really alive or in control.

nobody is making this presumption so this ^ doesnt apply to anybody

Get real. Hoffman always makes out that psychedelic experience, and especially 'ego death' is superior to other forms of knowing!

the 'never having been in control' is what the initiate discovers about himself in the peak of the ego death experince

But we ARE in control. I am in control now. I can discuss with you or I wont. It is up to me, so I am in control now, as is someone who has never had psychedelic experience and/or 'ego death'


How would you see someone who had gone through the self-control to give up a very destructive habit, and had never had psychedelic experience?

i dont understand this question, what do you mean 'how would you see someone'? By looking at them? :?

Well you seem to suggest that Hoffman is saying that there is a vast difference between ordinary experience of self-control and post 'egoic death' experience of self-control, and I am asking you how do you compare say Alan Watts-- who Hoffamn built his theory inspired by him--who was an alcoholic and had no self control to quit with someone who hasn't ever had 'ego death' let along psychedelic experience and yet finds self control to stop drinking alcohol? Is not that self-control...?

 

[maxfreakout]

This sounds like what I was referring to before - letting go. On anything more than a mild trip thoughts and visions appear as if out of nowhere. You have no control over these, you learn to sit back and watch as a spectator. The harder you trip the more these tend to be about what I would call your core essence.

yes this is a very important point, the 'ego' is the steersman behind the flow of thoughts, it is right at the core of the sense of self-identity (it is the principle: "i am the controller of my thoughts") which is so familiar to you in the ordinary everyday state of consciousness that you take it completely for granted. In the psychedelic state that sense of simple, unproblematic thought-control starts to disintegrate. the ego death experience is the ultimate state of cognitive disintegration

This is where I really start to lose you because I always feel a strong sense of consciensciousness, even on my deepest journeys there is still this core of me there, it feels purer in a way. While I have contemplated self-harm, killing another would still feel wrong.

i dont remember ever hearing about someone harming/killing another person during a psychotic trip, rather the suspension of moral self-restraint always seems to be focused on the subject himself, either self harm, suicide, or violent/destructive/chaotic acts like ritually wrecking your room, smashing things etc

 

[strangeloop]

... should be careful with the word 'superior', it's a very strange kind of superiority, does realising that you dont exist make you superior to someone who thinks they do exist?

Do you not exist? or have you ever remembered yourself not existing to compare with someone existing?
Come on Zezt... This is basic philosophy dating back to Plato. You might not agree with it's tenants but you can't just shrug your shoulders and chalk it up to foolishness. Zen? Tantric Buddhism? Advaita Vedanta? Ever heard of them?


It is very disrespectful and insensitive and unintelligent to presume that because an individual has not had a psychedelic 'ego death' that they were never really alive or in control.

What? I thought you had something for awhile but you are obviously lost. The theory of 'no-freewill' is that 'no freewill' is a given, whether you have had the experience of understanding that fact or not.

nobody is making this presumption so this ^ doesnt apply to anybody

Get real. Hoffman always makes out that psychedelic experience, and especially 'ego death' is superior to other forms of knowing!

Again, you are missing the point and taking things out of context...

the 'never having been in control' is what the initiate discovers about himself in the peak of the ego death experince

But we ARE in control. I am in control now. I can discuss with you or I wont. It is up to me, so I am in control now, as is someone who has never had psychedelic experience and/or 'ego death'

We are all aware of the age-old debate between Determinism Vs. Freewill, it is infact, the basic rift of Ontological Philosopy, your childish outburst of "I am in control now, blah, blah, blah" -end of story -just shows your incompetence to successfully continue this discussion.

How would you see someone who had gone through the self-control to give up a very destructive habit, and had never had psychedelic experience?

Somebody who has dicipline, help from friends perhaps, a desire to do so etc, etc. What's your point?

i dont understand this question, what do you mean 'how would you see someone'? By looking at them? :?

Well you seem to suggest that Hoffman is saying that there is a vast difference between ordinary experience of self-control and post 'egoic death' experience of self-control, and I am asking you how do you compare say Alan Watts-- who Hoffamn built his theory inspired by him--who was an alcoholic and had no self control to quit with someone who hasn't ever had 'ego death' let along psychedelic experience and yet finds self control to stop drinking alcohol? Is not that self-control...?

I suggest you read Timothy Freke's description of No Freewill found on the EgoDeath website under the Entheogens and Religion heading.

 

[maxfreakout]

Do you not exist? or have you ever remembered yourself not existing to compare with someone existing?

It is crucial to understand that there is a distinction between what seems to be the case, and what actually is the case, the distinction between appearances and reality, seeming and being. Reality is ontologically primary, appearance is secondary

I certainly seem to exist (where the word 'I' refers to the self-controller), but my psychedelic experiencing has shown me that I dont actually exist, ie self-control is just a very convincing, realistic-looking illusion. I used to believe in the illusion (so rather than being an illusion, it was actually a delusion), but the essence of the psychological transformation that ego death causes is that I no longer believe in it, i recognise that it is merely illusory

nobody is making this presumption so this ^ doesnt apply to anybody

Get real. Hoffman always makes out that psychedelic experience, and especially 'ego death' is superior to other forms of knowing!

Hoffman never says anything even remotely similar to this ^, anywhere

it doesnt even make sense, psychedelic experiencing isnt a 'form of knowing', rather it is a form of experiencing

But we ARE in control. I am in control now. I can discuss with you or I wont. It is up to me, so I am in control now, as is someone who has never had psychedelic experience and/or 'ego death'

There is no doubt that you *appear* to be in control, it *feels as if* you are in control, very convincingly. This appearance/feeling of causally efficacious self-control power is so convincing that you have no reason to doubt it. But the ego death experience powerfully disproves your belief in your own self-control, by unravelling its logical basis. Self control is actually logically impossible because it involves being a first mover, an uncaused cause of action. the egoic self-controller is a living, breathing, walking talking paradox

Egoic self-control specifically involves being in control over the immediate future (the next 30 seconds or so), in the ego death experience it feels as if you arrive at the end of time/end of the world/end of history so the near future suddenly disappears, and therefore there is no longer anything for the ego to be in control of. This is exactly what is meant by 'losing control' in the peak religious experience. From this point of view, all your past actions (your entire life) is seen to be eternally frozen in place, because you can never go back in time and change anything you did in the past, that is what is meant by 'never having been in control in the first place'

So in other words, the illusion of being a self controller remains perfectly convincing, up until the point when you experience ego death. Even after the experience ends (ie it turns out it was 'just a trip' and not really the end of the world), it becomes impossible to ever again believe in literal self-control, that is what is meant by 'not existing', you dont exist as a self-controller, because that would be logically impossible, your whole existence is a miraculous logical conundrum

Well you seem to suggest that Hoffman is saying that there is a vast difference between ordinary experience of self-control and post 'egoic death' experience of self-control

no the experience of self control remains exactly the same before and after ego death, what changes is the way that this experience is conceptualised. Before ego death self-control is taken literally, the pre-initiate fully believes in, and identifies with, the egoic self controller. After ego death the religiously matured initiate sees that the ego is merely a convenient illusion for exploring physical reality

Another way to understand the transformation - before ego death, the person believes that the future is open, doesnt yet exist, consists of multiple undetermined possibilities. after ego death, the person knows that there is only one future, which exists timelessly

and I am asking you how do you compare say Alan Watts-- who Hoffamn built his theory inspired by him--who was an alcoholic and had no self control to quit with someone who hasn't ever had 'ego death' let along psychedelic experience and yet finds self control to stop drinking alcohol? Is not that self-control...?

so if i have understood you correctly, you are asking how i compare an alcoholic who never succeeds in quitting alcohol, with an alcoholic who eventually overcomes his addiction?

Self control never escapes from the lower level of appearances, as opposed to the higher level of reality, the self controller can never control his own fate/destiny. So the comparison here ^ is between a person like Watts who was eternally predestined never to quit drinking, with someone else who was eternally predestined to eventually overcome their alcoholism

The AA system for quitting alcohol is very clearly based around the ego death model, it asks you to acknowledge the presence of a higher level of control (destiny/fatedness/God's omnipotence) which entirely transcends your own egoic control

 

[Eldritch]

This is where I really start to lose you because I always feel a strong sense of consciensciousness, even on my deepest journeys there is still this core of me there, it feels purer in a way. While I have contemplated self-harm, killing another would still feel wrong.

i dont remember ever hearing about someone harming/killing another person during a psychotic trip, rather the suspension of moral self-restraint always seems to be focused on the subject himself, either self harm, suicide, or violent/destructive/chaotic acts like ritually wrecking your room, smashing things etc

I'm not talking about in reality but rather in your mental trip. What do you do when you discover you're god or a god? What do you do with ultimate power? Do you choose to destroy or create? Intent seems very key to me on high doses.

 

[zezt]

Do you not exist? or have you ever remembered yourself not existing to compare with someone existing?

It is crucial to understand that there is a distinction between what seems to be the case, and what actually is the case, the distinction between appearances and reality, seeming and being. Reality is ontologically primary, appearance is secondary

I certainly seem to exist (where the word 'I' refers to the self-controller), but my psychedelic experiencing has shown me that I dont actually exist, ie self-control is just a very convincing, realistic-looking illusion. I used to believe in the illusion (so rather than being an illusion, it was actually a delusion), but the essence of the psychological transformation that ego death causes is that I no longer believe in it, i recognise that it is merely illusory

Well, no, that is how you interpret your psychedelic experience (or how you claim Hoffman is doing, or both), I have had psychedelic experience and I don't interpret things like that. For me what you and Hoffman are doing is making an abstraction about what reality is suppsed to be. But I sense this creates a duality which I am not comfortable with.

But we ARE in control. I am in control now. I can discuss with you or I wont. It is up to me, so I am in control now, as is someone who has never had psychedelic experience and/or 'ego death'

There is no doubt that you *appear* to be in control, it *feels as if* you are in control, very convincingly. This appearance/feeling of causally efficacious self-control power is so convincing that you have no reason to doubt it. But the ego death experience powerfully disproves your belief in your own self-control, by unravelling its logical basis. Self control is actually logically impossible because it involves being a first mover, an uncaused cause of action. the egoic self-controller is a living, breathing, walking talking paradox

Egoic self-control specifically involves being in control over the immediate future (the next 30 seconds or so), in the ego death experience it feels as if you arrive at the end of time/end of the world/end of history so the near future suddenly disappears, and therefore there is no longer anything for the ego to be in control of. This is exactly what is meant by 'losing control' in the peak religious experience. From this point of view, all your past actions (your entire life) is seen to be eternally frozen in place, because you can never go back in time and change anything you did in the past, that is what is meant by 'never having been in control in the first place'

So in other words, the illusion of being a self controller remains perfectly convincing, up until the point when you experience ego death. Even after the experience ends (ie it turns out it was 'just a trip' and not really the end of the world), it becomes impossible to ever again believe in literal self-control, that is what is meant by 'not existing', you dont exist as a self-controller, because that would be logically impossible, your whole existence is a miraculous logical conundrum

haha this is scientific materialism, dogma. I can just imagine the sermon before having a psychedelic trip by someone reading from the Hoffman bible all this stuff. Then my trip will supposed to follow those precepts...riiight? What if I 'get it wrong'....? What if I don't dig his interpretation? Does that make my interpretation of MY psychedelic experience 'wrong'? Does it mean I have failed? Am a worhless tripper, etc etc.
All what you said I dont agree with. I mean I have even read Watts, many books of his, and even he said that the very idea of an 'ego' was false anyhow. So the whole idea of 'ego' death to begin with is a fallacy according to Watts. I have read a really beautiful bookof Watts' titled The Joyous Cosmology, about his psychedelic experiences --INFINITELY more poetic than Hoffman's 'computer manual for mysical ego death'--and nowhere does he talk like that.
Ok, he talks about this, for example, though this isn't a direct quote--I'm paraphrasing: That in psychedelic experience there can come about a very profound sense that things happen spontaneously and there is no cause, they just happen

Now I can dig that. I am sure most of us can, but it is not forever. It is true a deepening of experience as to the magical nature of reality, but if you start making out that you have had an ego death and so are somehow superior to another person who hasn't that is duality. That causes elites, people who feel like 'gods' and better than other people. Inflation. Imagining that they dont see things like the others. But you dont KNOW what other people experience!!

Well you seem to suggest that Hoffman is saying that there is a vast difference between ordinary experience of self-control and post 'egoic death' experience of self-control

no the experience of self control remains exactly the same before and after ego death, what changes is the way that this experience is conceptualised. Before ego death self-control is taken literally, the pre-initiate fully believes in, and identifies with, the egoic self controller. After ego death the religiously matured initiate sees that the ego is merely a convenient illusion for exploring physical reality

See what I mean? You take on the inflated role of the 'initiate'--one who can see deeper than me. HOW do you know? It is a very static way of understanding insight. Insight is never static. You learn and unlearn and forget and fuckup and ting. we are HUMAN

Another way to understand the transformation - before ego death, the person believes that the future is open, doesnt yet exist, consists of multiple undetermined possibilities. after ego death, the person knows that there is only one future, which exists timelessly

again i see one dude lookin down on another dude thinking that he 'knows' and the other dont. This kinda shit breeds the guru system

and I am asking you how do you compare say Alan Watts-- who Hoffamn built his theory inspired by him--who was an alcoholic and had no self control to quit with someone who hasn't ever had 'ego death' let along psychedelic experience and yet finds self control to stop drinking alcohol? Is not that self-control...?

so if i have understood you correctly, you are asking how i compare an alcoholic who never succeeds in quitting alcohol, with an alcoholic who eventually overcomes his addiction?

Self control never escapes from the lower level of appearances, as opposed to the higher level of reality, the self controller can never control his own fate/destiny. So the comparison here ^ is between a person like Watts who was eternally predestined never to quit drinking, with someone else who was eternally predestined to eventually overcome their alcoholism

The AA system for quitting alcohol is very clearly based around the ego death model, it asks you to acknowledge the presence of a higher level of control (destiny/fatedness/God's omnipotence) which entirely transcends your own egoic control

"predestined never to quit drinking"? Now you beginning to sound like Calvin with his predestination dogma
yeah your right about AA. It is when the person kind of releases all the energies to a higher self. But the person still have to have the control to do that. And other people may do it another way without using that conceptualization.
I read this interesting report about this guy in the 1960s who was an alcoholic and had LSD psychotherapeutic help. He only had a few sessions, but the healing help came when he simple remembered something that happened years back. Somehow remembering it dramtically made him come off the drink. But he wouldn't share what it was he remembered, not even with his wife. But my point is that that ws HIS experience. You cant put experience into some formulated box that fits everyone, of even yourself all the time.

 

[maxfreakout]

I'm not talking about in reality but rather in your mental trip. What do you do when you discover you're god or a god? What do you do with ultimate power? Do you choose to destroy or create? Intent seems very key to me on high doses.

Right yes how you act physically is really just a reflection of what is going on inside your mind, and Hoffman says that it is actually uneccesary and counterproductive to channel the internal mental conflict of ego death into external psychotic acting-out, what is really important is what happens mentally

when you discover in a trip that you are actually god you are then faced with the ultimate dilemma, concerning whether you are a compassionate god who really cares about the ongoing stability and wellbeing of the lower ego/person, or a destructive heartless impersonal god who has no reason to maintain the egoic stability of the person

 

[maxfreakout]

Well, no, that is how you interpret your psychedelic experience (or how you claim Hoffman is doing, or both), I have had psychedelic experience and I don't interpret things like that.

No this isnt an interpretation of 'psychedelic experience', because that is too broad. This is an interpretation of the ego death experience in particular, which is not broad, it is one specific kind of experience - namely the experience of taking drugs and then experiencing dying or going permanently crazy, the main part of ego death theory specifically explains this experience

haha this is scientific materialism, dogma.

No materialism is the view that reality is grounded in physical matter, ego death theory is very different from that, because it takes the 'ground of reality' to be that which is revealed in the intense mystical experience, which is non-material

I can just imagine the sermon before having a psychedelic trip by someone reading from the Hoffman bible all this stuff. Then my trip will supposed to follow those precepts...riiight? What if I 'get it wrong'....? What if I don't dig his interpretation? Does that make my interpretation of MY psychedelic experience 'wrong'? Does it mean I have failed? Am a worhless tripper, etc etc.

again you say 'psychedelic experience' but that is not what Hoffman's theory is mainly addressing, it is a theory about the ego death experience, where you feel like you have died during the trip

Hoffman's theory, and all mythology and religion, is a description of this peak religious experience (Jesus' crucifixion, Mohammed's revelation, Buddha's enlightenment etc etc). Since you do not have an alternative explanation of this experience, what you say here ^ is irrelevant

All what you said I dont agree with.

You dont seem to have understood it, wait until you do before you make your mind up

I mean I have even read Watts, many books of his, and even he said that the very idea of an 'ego' was false anyhow.
So the whole idea of 'ego' death to begin with is a fallacy according to Watts

yes exactly, it is a fallacy based on paradoxical logic, this insight is certainly not unique to Watts, this is the core insight of all mysticism, spirituality and religion, ego is ultimately unreal

I have read a really beautiful bookof Watts' titled The Joyous Cosmology, about his psychedelic experiences --INFINITELY more poetic than Hoffman's 'computer manual for mysical ego death'--and nowhere does he talk like that.

as i explained at the start of this thread, it is a central aim of Hoffman to elimnate ambiguous poetic aphorism and to instead rely solely on systematic, theoretical explanation

Ok, he talks about this, for example, though this isn't a direct quote--I'm paraphrasing: That in psychedelic experience there can come about a very profound sense that things happen spontaneously and there is no cause, they just happen

Yes precisely, the unenlightened ego takes itself to be the cause/author of the stream of thoughts, the ego death experience disproves this, actually the thoughts just arise spontaneously (crucially, this includes the thought that "i am in control of these thoughts")

Now I can dig that. I am sure most of us can, but it is not forever. It is true a deepening of experience as to the magical nature of reality, but if you start making out that you have had an ego death and so are somehow superior to another person who hasn't that is duality. That causes elites, people who feel like 'gods' and better than other people. Inflation. Imagining that they dont see things like the others. But you dont KNOW what other people experience!!

I already explained why the word 'superior' is strange and inappropriate in this context. There is obviously something that people who have never experienced psychedelia are lacking compared to experienced trippers, what Hoffman's theory is sayng, is that this thing which most people lack, is true understanding of their own nature as control agents, specifically their own causal impotence to influence the ground of being from which their control emanates. in some sense, this realisation caused by psychedelics turns a person into an 'elite', because they know something which other people do not know. but this is a very strange kind of elitism, because that secret knowledge is about egoic powerlessness. God's chosen race of religiously matured initiates are those people who have had the experiential revelation of their own nonexistence

See what I mean? You take on the inflated role of the 'initiate'--one who can see deeper than me. HOW do you know? It is a very static way of understanding insight. Insight is never static. You learn and unlearn and forget and fuckup and ting. we are HUMAN

once you have experienced the peak mystical insight, you can never forget it, it totally transforms the psychology of the person who experiences it. It isnt really about gaining some extra ability, like being able to 'see deeper', it is about having had an experience which other people have not had

again i see one dude lookin down on another dude thinking that he 'knows' and the other dont. This kinda shit breeds the guru system

the only 'gurus' are the entheogens themselves, they are the only genuine teachers of deep religious insight

 

[zezt]

This is where I really start to lose you because I always feel a strong sense of consciensciousness, even on my deepest journeys there is still this core of me there, it feels purer in a way. While I have contemplated self-harm, killing another would still feel wrong.

I would like to explore this question. In anceint meaning of 'being possessed by god', THE most profound mythic god you need to research is Dionysos. This 'god' has always fascinated me. He is ambiguous of gender, is known as the 'god of many names', and these include 'Liber' --origin of our term 'liberation', also god of nature, god of dance, of theatre/MASKS, etc etc etc

Dionysos is the entheogen! Hence when you eat it Dionysos is 'born again' as in now s/he is possessing you. Now, the term 'possession' comes from the Greek enthusiasm. because when you are enthused, then you forget yourself right? So it is meaning that in very deep ecstatic way!

Now, there is a usual telling of the Dionysian Mysteries where it claimed that his Celebrants of Dionysos wyhen they were possessed would attack a tethered animal with their bare teeth and savage it! Also that the Maenads--his female followers--would, when possessed roam through the forests and tear apart anyone unfortunate they came across. Do I believe this? No! Even though some supposedly good scholars repeat this theory, I never felt it was right. And then some time back I was reading this online book and in the notes this other scholar said what I thought. That he feels this is an added propaganda to demonize ecstatic possession. So do I!! because not many people feel like DOING that! As you said you have felt like self harm but not killing another.

Ecstatic participation is not usually encouraged in the west. If you look at the psychotherapeutic design of consciousness researchers like Stan Groff, for example, he rather wanted people to be still and lying on their backs reclining, kind of cut off wearing eyeshades and earphones--Certainly not dancing about wildly in the wilderness, or a room even. His model is the psychoanalytical model which requires we go into ourselves. But that doesn't HAVE to be the only way to experience ecstasy!

 

[zezt]

Well, no, that is how you interpret your psychedelic experience (or how you claim Hoffman is doing, or both), I have had psychedelic experience and I don't interpret things like that.

No this isnt an interpretation of 'psychedelic experience', because that is too broad. This is an interpretation of the ego death experience in particular, which is not broad, it is one specific kind of experience - namely the experience of taking drugs and then experiencing dying or going permanently crazy, the main part of ego death theory specifically explains this experience

Forget semantics--I will try to be more clear for you: Ego death then, rather than 'psychedelic experience. But I am questioning Hoffman's assertions ABOUT an 'ego death'--as though so-called ego-death is only possible in a dramatic psychedelic cybernetic formula. basically Hoffman would claim I haven't tripped deep enough because I don't agree with his theory. THAT is what I am saying

haha this is scientific materialism, dogma.

No materialism is the view that reality is grounded in physical matter, ego death theory is very different from that, because it takes the 'ground of reality' to be that which is revealed in the intense mystical experience, which is non-material

sorry, meant to say spiritual materialism And I said it because his theory is so formulaic--dogmatic. Ie., "this is what ego death is!"

I can just imagine the sermon before having a psychedelic trip by someone reading from the Hoffman bible all this stuff. Then my trip will supposed to follow those precepts...riiight? What if I 'get it wrong'....? What if I don't dig his interpretation? Does that make my interpretation of MY psychedelic experience 'wrong'? Does it mean I have failed? Am a worhless tripper, etc etc.

again you say 'psychedelic experience' but that is not what Hoffman's theory is mainly addressing, it is a theory about the ego death experience, where you feel like you have died during the trip

Hoffman's theory, and all mythology and religion, is a description of this peak religious experience (Jesus' crucifixion, Mohammed's revelation, Buddha's enlightenment etc etc). Since you do not have an alternative explanation of this experience, what you say here ^ is irrelevant

Nothing is irrelevant. That is one thing I have personally learnt from psychedelic experience! We go through these 'ego death' through life don't we? A love affiar that went wrong. Losing someone. The Blues etc etc, or some GOOD event. It is all about that. There is no definative psychedelic event that can then make you think yourself superior than the next person. Yes you can be deeply healed, but you are not superior. You still gonna have to deal with shit, and others will too

All what you said I dont agree with.

You dont seem to have understood it, wait until you do before you make your mind up

don't patronize. If I dont agree it doesn't mean I don't understand/ How do YOU know I don't?

I mean I have even read Watts, many books of his, and even he said that the very idea of an 'ego' was false anyhow.
So the whole idea of 'ego' death to begin with is a fallacy according to Watts

yes exactly, it is a fallacy based on paradoxical logic, this insight is certainly not unique to Watts, this is the core insight of all mysticism, spirituality and religion, ego is ultimately unreal

But I dont think I mean it like you think you think I mean it.
Look----there is a great danger of inlfation when someone thinks they have no ego. For a start 'ego' is just a term---it is a word. Whats it mean? Well Freud meant just 'I', and then he created this mechanical idea of this I being caught in the middle between an 'Id' and 'superego'. But what is that all about. Forget Freud though. I am me right now. I am in control. Sometimes I dont feel like that. I think things control me. Other times i feel freer, The poor person is maybe gonna feel even less freer. But often people who are living rough are FAR more alive than others with money, or who feel they are liberated.
There are ex-Buddhists who were all involved with this 'ego' thing who come away from the cult feeling abused!

I have read a really beautiful bookof Watts' titled The Joyous Cosmology, about his psychedelic experiences --INFINITELY more poetic than Hoffman's 'computer manual for mysical ego death'--and nowhere does he talk like that.

as i explained at the start of this thread, it is a central aim of Hoffman to elimnate ambiguous poetic aphorism and to instead rely solely on systematic, theoretical explanation

Yeah, he's trying to write a computer manual. His trip seems very mechanical--thats what i have said from the beginning also.

Ok, he talks about this, for example, though this isn't a direct quote--I'm paraphrasing: That in psychedelic experience there can come about a very profound sense that things happen spontaneously and there is no cause, they just happen

Yes precisely, the unenlightened ego takes itself to be the cause/author of the stream of thoughts, the ego death experience disproves this, actually the thoughts just arise spontaneously (crucially, this includes the thought that "i am in control of these thoughts")

How can there be an 'unelightened ego' if you said before that the ego is fictitious?
When I listen to me thoughts I just think them. Somethimes I act on them sometimes I dont. We all do that. So why is someone Unenlightened. How can someone say to another they are unenlightened because they aint thinking the right way? That is wrong, and like I said is dangerous because it causes inflation in the one swanning around thinking themselves enlightened.

Now I can dig that. I am sure most of us can, but it is not forever. It is true a deepening of experience as to the magical nature of reality, but if you start making out that you have had an ego death and so are somehow superior to another person who hasn't that is duality. That causes elites, people who feel like 'gods' and better than other people. Inflation. Imagining that they dont see things like the others. But you dont KNOW what other people experience!!

I already explained why the word 'superior' is strange and inappropriate in this context. There is obviously something that people who have never experienced psychedelia are lacking compared to experienced trippers, what Hoffman's theory is sayng, is that this thing which most people lack, is true understanding of their own nature as control agents, specifically their own causal impotence to influence the ground of being from which their control emanates. in some sense, this realisation caused by psychedelics turns a person into an 'elite', because they know something which other people do not know. but this is a very strange kind of elitism, because that secret knowledge is about egoic powerlessness. God's chosen race of religiously matured initiates are those people who have had the experiential revelation of their own nonexistence

No no, that IS elitism. Listen all a person needs to know is this---that destroying the land, the waters, the animals etc is wrong. Now it doesn't take someone who is 'ego-deathed the Hoffman or Maxfreakout way' to know that. But knowing that deeply IS sacred. All that other stuff mystical stuff, and this has formed brotherhoods in the past which think themselves aloof from the rest of us. That is why I am calling it out!
MY great insight from psychedelics from my very first trips was SEEING nature in all its beauty and wonder. Remember though you called that seeing 'secondary'? To you, not me.

See what I mean? You take on the inflated role of the 'initiate'--one who can see deeper than me. HOW do you know? It is a very static way of understanding insight. Insight is never static. You learn and unlearn and forget and fuckup and ting. we are HUMAN

once you have experienced the peak mystical insight, you can never forget it, it totally transforms the psychology of the person who experiences it. It isnt really about gaining some extra ability, like being able to 'see deeper', it is about having had an experience which other people have not had

OK so say they HAVE had 'it' and I dont like what they say--and how they interpret 'it'--I Am going to question them. :axe: Because I see it as a static thing.

again i see one dude lookin down on another dude thinking that he 'knows' and the other dont. This kinda shit breeds the guru system

the only 'gurus' are the entheogens themselves, they are the only genuine teachers of deep religious insight

I still dont call them 'gurus'. Again this is complex. I see my and the plant/fungi/substance kind of meeting. If I got a dodgy message that didn't fit with me I would question it. ALWAYS question is what I think is important, and then dogma doesn't concretize

 

[maxfreakout]

But I am questioning Hoffman's assertions ABOUT an 'ego death'--as though so-called ego-death is only possible in a dramatic psychedelic cybernetic formula.

This ^ doesnt make any sense, ego death is an experience, it is 'only possible' when you experience it

basically Hoffman would claim I haven't tripped deep enough because I don't agree with his theory.

the theory doesnt require that you agree or disagree with it, because all it is doing is explaining the ego death experience

We go through these 'ego death' through life don't we? A love affiar that went wrong. Losing someone. The Blues etc etc, or some GOOD event. It is all about that.

This is an important point, there are all kinds of crisis events that people go through in life such as the examples you mention here. What makes the psychospiritual crisis different from all of these, is the fact that it involves the religious dimension, it is a religious crisis

There is no definative psychedelic event that can then make you think yourself superior than the next person. Yes you can be deeply healed, but you are not superior. You still gonna have to deal with shit, and others will too

as i have said several times, the word 'superior' is strange and misleading in this context, so i dont know why you insist on using it. the ego death experience certainly makes you think that you have learned something incredibly profound about life which other people have no idea about

Plato's 'cave allegory' explains it perfectly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave), when the metaphysically enlightened initiate returns to the cave and confronts the other people who have not seen the light of truth, it is impossible for him to communicate his insight to them about the true, hidden nature of reality. He understands something about the structure of ordinary experience which his fellow human beings are completely ignorant of. This is exactly the position that the ego death initiate finds himself after he has returned to the world

If I dont agree it doesn't mean I don't understand/ How do YOU know I don't?

Because i am continually having to correct your basic misunderstandings of what the theory says

But I dont think I mean it like you think you think I mean it.

Im talking about the way Watts and Hoffman mean it

Look----there is a great danger of inlfation when someone thinks they have no ego.

it makes no sense to say 'i have no ego', that is a blatant self-contradiction

For a start 'ego' is just a term---it is a word. Whats it mean? Well Freud meant just 'I', and then he created this mechanical idea of this I being caught in the middle between an 'Id' and 'superego'.

The Freudian concept of 'ego' has nothing to do with the concept of ego as in 'ego death', these are 2 entirely different concepts

the concept of 'ego' relevant to this discussion means the same thing as 'self' or 'person', it is what the name 'zezt' refers to, it is the self-controlling agent, who wields power as you move forwards in time

How can there be an 'unelightened ego' if you said before that the ego is fictitious?

unenlightened ego thinks that it is simply, literally real. Enlightened ego knows that it is merely a convenient fiction

When I listen to me thoughts I just think them. Somethimes I act on them sometimes I dont. We all do that. So why is someone Unenlightened. How can someone say to another they are unenlightened because they aint thinking the right way? That is wrong, and like I said is dangerous because it causes inflation in the one swanning around thinking themselves enlightened.

there are 2 worldmodels being contrasted here, egoic (or unenlightened) and transcendent (enlightened). the unenlightened ego believes/assumes that it is real, in the sense that it has the power to control the immediate future, the ego death experience drastically corrects this mistaken belief, so the enlightened person acknowledges the unreality of this power of control, and bows his head humbly in the face of the transcendental ground of being from which its control ultimately emanates

No no, that IS elitism. Listen all a person needs to know is this---that destroying the land, the waters, the animals etc is wrong. Now it doesn't take someone who is 'ego-deathed the Hoffman or Maxfreakout way' to know that. But knowing that deeply IS sacred. All that other stuff mystical stuff, and this has formed brotherhoods in the past which think themselves aloof from the rest of us. That is why I am calling it out!

there is a certain kind of elitism associated with psychedelic use, we are elite in some strange way, because we know about the psychedelic experience. most people do not know about this experience, so therefore most people are less aware (about transcendental cognitive dynamics) than we are

MY great insight from psychedelics from my very first trips was SEEING nature in all its beauty and wonder. Remember though you called that seeing 'secondary'? To you, not me.

i did not call seeing secondary, that doesnt make any sense, seeing is seeing