Looking for doped-up ufologists

[Zebra or the Logos]

I'm sorry, Mr. State, but it's hard for me to proceed with your questioning when you characterize it in that way.

 

[Soupie]

This is not related to UFOs per se, but definitely communication with the other. Although even then, the conversation doesn't get into that in too much detail.

Botanical Beings - 05.14.15 at Expanding Mind

"A talk with ethnobotanist Kathleen McKenna about plant spirits, discernment, and the conflict between western and indigenous worldviews."

 

[smcder]

Podcast 262 – “Terence McKenna’s Last Interview” Part 1

its been a while since I listened to this, but if I remember he says some interesting things about his non-drug induced experiences during his last days, will listen again and post notes.

It may be more in part two, toward the end where he makes this "admission".

the idea that psychedelics is like taking the red-eye to Mecca (or, if you prefer "Mecca") - while certainly the point of pilgrimmage is getting to Mecca, the better part of it, I suspect, is getting to Mecca

 

[smcder]

In the interview it's a humbler or toned-down, offstage, McKenna - less performance, less bs, less blarney ... in fact, it takes nearly 35 minutes for him to wax

• philosophical
• teleological
• eschatological

alchemical

I think you realize somewhere in there too Davis' skill as an interviewer and the intelligence it takes, with McKenna, for Davis to keep himself out of the interview

 

[Cosmos007]

I am unaware of any ufologists advocating such things. If anything, there are the entheogenic explorers who then make connections back to the UFO as pyschadelic representative, or as with Strassman's experiments, there's some investigation with contact with aliens while flying on DMT.

I did run into this crossover space, but you've probably already been here:
Ayahuasca, DMT and UFOs

Although Graham Hancock is not an ufologist, his book SUPERNATURAL has some great insights into altered states of consciousness/reality.


Everything is connected...

 

[Last Laugh]

Wow! Thank you so much for this. There's so much here that I could respond to. You should definitely consider submitting a trip report to erowid, bluelight or the shroomery.

What were your doses like and do you know the strain? Were these two variables the same over your experiences or did you attain connection/contact with different dose/strain? What about set and setting and how were those maintained across sessions? How familiar are you with Mckenna and Lilly? Leary?

It has been years since I ingested any mushooms (became a parent and shifted gears), and I never was the type to catalog experiences and dosages/strains etc. I almost always would take a very intuitive relationship to dosing, but all in all I'd say the average dose was 2-3 grams of potent cubensis. I honestly don't think the clarity of 'contact' was particularly correlated to dose or strain (or set/setting). Looking back, it correlated more than anything else to very transformative times in my life, periods of upheaval and change.

I had read a few Mckenna books, was familiar with Leary mostly through Robert Anton Wilson and Ram Dass (Richard Alpert), and have never read Lilly.

I really like this. This is something important for us to think about. Could you expand?

(how the 'downoads' seemed different than imagination)

The usual discursive mind has a very average feel to it. The experiences came more as answers than the usual meandering questions. Maybe call it a sense of epiphany. However, I want to be careful to add that the edges between the self and other are never quite clear in these liminal spaces, so although there is a sense that this is different than imagination, it's also not clearly delineated.

I would also love it if you might expand on this:

Do you mean this literally like the Mckenna's stoned ape theory/panspermia type thing?

(regarding the mushrooms being themselves the aliens)


At first it seemed like the mushrooms were like a phone, and that whom I was talking with was a separate entity on the other end. At some point is started to seem like the entity was not actually separate from the mushrooms. I am not completely clear about this to be honest, that's the best I can put it. Perhaps they are both an entity and a channel to other entities at the same time.

When you say science and most of Ufology seems to attempt to rest on "hard" science, it does so, in my mind, to account for the ETH.

I'm not sure I agree here. I think that someone like Jacques Vallée is doing hard science without needing to support the ETH. I also at this point do not personally subscribe to the ETH for the majority of the cases. Even though the entities I felt in touch with appeared to be ET, I don't really think they are. At least not in the conventional sense.

I think we are in general agreement though, and I see what you mean about a potential place for entheogens in Ufology. My main issue is that I don't think we can simply take the experiences at face value, i.e, I don't think the stories I got in my downloads were literally true, nor do I think it's a viable way of obtaining objective data. I think it's safe to say that there is a physical reality to the UFO experience, something that can indeed be measured. But conversly, it is also a heavily subjective experience as well, and that is where understanding can possibly be expanded with entheogens.

I am reminded of the book Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson. Everyone reading this thread should read it.


Also, I thought I'd add that one of the things that came up a few times was that the quantum computer was coming, and that it represented some kind of a merging of dimensions. Interesting thought.

 

[Zebra or the Logos]

This is not related to UFOs per se, but definitely communication with the other. Although even then, the conversation doesn't get into that in too much detail.

I think it relates perfectly. It's an awareness of the presence of a constitutive other. The mushroom has this very specific set of qualities in this regard. I appreciate her restraint and focus and she serves as a potent antidote to Terence's bluster. She is a character too though; there's a story about her shooting laser beams out of her eyes during an ayahuasca session in the Amazon! I'll see if I can find it..

Podcast 271 – “Weaving Modern Ritual from Traditional Roots”

 

[boomerang]

I have only a passing acquaintance with McKenna's work. What I see as a 'takeaway' in the entheogen and UFO debate is that whatever the UFO may be, it cannot be relegated to a physical place outside of personal perception and conscious awareness. It is seemingly not possible to observe this phenomenon without to some degree becoming personally entangled in ways that may be even stranger than the event itself.

A better way of saying this might be that the phenomenon is not a construct of our imagination, but rather our imagination is sometimes a construct of the phenomenon.

 

[smcder]

I found the quote in p2 of McKennas last interview with Erik Davis - will try to post it soon.

 

[Burnt State]

I have only a passing acquaintance with McKenna's work. What I see as a 'takeaway' in the entheogen and UFO debate is that whatever the UFO may be, it cannot be relegated to a physical place outside of personal perception and conscious awareness. It is seemingly not possible to observe this phenomenon without to some degree becoming personally entangled in ways that may be even stranger than the event itself.

A better way of saying this might be that the phenomenon is not a construct of our imagination, but rather our imagination is sometimes a construct of the phenomenon.

That's a very interesting closing statement that I would love to have you expand.

Following witness events where the observer has been profoundly affected by the experience we see their own imagination go into an almost schizoidal overdrive, where contact with the "ship" or its occupants continues for example (Dale Spaur). So indeed the entanglement with a singular event can be representative of what can only be seen as one of the more significant, even life altering events, experienced by a person in the course of their life. The UFO appears as some kind of major bump in their road that may cause people to jump tracks, fall off the rails so to speak, and now they are in some kind of parllel directionless labyrinth, especially in the days and weeks following a major event. Now is this what you mean when you say our imagination is sometimes a construct of the phenomenon?

Or are you referring to that actual moment of witness contact where we are being acted upon, entangled with or perhaps engaged by the phenomenon. Would you/could you ascribe any degrees of passivity to this moment on behalf of either agent during such chance encounters (though they seem to be quite purposeful in their planning to encounter witnesses)? Or would you say that during the moment of witness we are being accessed in some way we can not quite name, like in Zebra or the Logos' personal discussion of his own entheogenic experience of UFO contact that resulted in a permanent stain on his visual field of a 50's B-movie classic ship?

 

[Zebra or the Logos]

It is seemingly not possible to observe this phenomenon without to some degree becoming personally entangled in ways that may be even stranger than the event itself.

A better way of saying this might be that the phenomenon is not a construct of our imagination, but rather our imagination is sometimes a construct of the phenomenon.

That's a very interesting closing statement that I would love to have you expand.

Yeah, seriously, that is close to brilliant. Please give us more!

 

[Zebra or the Logos]

In the interview it's a humbler or toned-down, offstage, McKenna - less performance, less bs, less blarney ... in fact, it takes nearly 35 minutes for him to wax

• philosophical
• teleological
• eschatological

alchemical

I think you realize somewhere in there too Davis' skill as an interviewer and the intelligence it takes, with McKenna, for Davis to keep himself out of the interview

It's a rare moment of actual pathos I think. If you listen to several of his talks/performances and then listen to this, there is a marked difference that, for me, is pretty disarming. I prefer not to think of the variety of reasons as to why I think this is the case and prefer to focus only on his reflection and sincerity of words. I don't know if he had an eidetic memory or if he was moving us through his own art of memory on his talks but it can take on an eerie, robotic almost rote quality that kind of starts to ask fairly serious questions of the man. Is anybody home-kind of questions, like his own sense of self and how all of this really plays out in one's life..

As for Davis, he's kind of hit or miss for me but he does a good job here..

 

[Constance]

The idea here seems to be that witnessing a ufo phenomenon so destabilizes the human mind that we should assume on the ufo's part an intention (and a paranormal power) to destabilize us. (Is it also speculated that mind-altering drugs either open the mind of a ufo witness to 'other' realities assumed to be the origin of ufos, or shut down the mind's capacities to protect itself by returning to one's established sense of 'reality'; or both?) It seems to me that many, perhaps most, people who witness ufos are not mentally destabilized as a result. It also seems to me that other phenomena encountered by humans that are wholly explicable in natural terms or human, cultural, terms (scenes of massive destruction in natural catastrophes or scenes of carnage produced on battlefields in human wars) have been at least as destabilizing for witnesses, sufficient to unbalance the mind permanently. I think these considerations ought to be recognized and made part of the basis on which hypotheses entertained in this and other threads are weighed.

 

[Zebra or the Logos]

Although Graham Hancock is not an ufologist, his book SUPERNATURAL has some great insights into altered states of consciousness/reality.


Everything is connected...

Hey @Cosmos007 I've heard a lot about Hancock but have yet to read him. What substances is he most familiar with? Ayahuasca? Can you give me a micro-book-report on Supernatural? It seems like I heard that he's looking into the link between psychedelics and UFOs, is that right?

Everything is connected.

 

[Zebra or the Logos]

It seems to me that many, perhaps most, people who witness ufos are not mentally destabilized as a result.

If I'm following you correctly, I would now ask you about the ufological concept of screen memories that seem to originate from the Freudian retrogressive screen memories. Isn't this a fairly common feature of sightings/contact and destabilizing of sorts?

http://www.psychoanalytischeperspectieven.be/file/2012/10/screen-memories.pdf

 

[Zebra or the Logos]

It also seems to me that other phenomena encountered by humans that are wholly explicable in natural terms or human, cultural, terms (scenes of massive destruction in natural catastrophes or scenes of carnage produced on battlefields in human wars) have been at least as destabilizing for witnesses, sufficient to unbalance the mind permanently.

Absolutely, yes, and I immediately thought of something Greg Bishop pointed-out in an episode of Radio Misterioso, where apparently there were/is a group of women, now living in California, who witnessed the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge first hand and have gone blind as a result.

Long Beach Journal - Eyes That Saw Horrors Now See Only Shadows - NYTimes.com

Cambodians' Vision Loss Linked to War Trauma - latimes

 

[Zebra or the Logos]

The idea here seems to be that witnessing a ufo phenomenon so destabilizes the human mind that we should assume on the ufo's part an intention (and a paranormal power) to destabilize us. (Is it also speculated that mind-altering drugs either open the mind of a ufo witness to 'other' realities assumed to be the origin of ufos, or shut down the mind's capacities to protect itself by returning to one's established sense of 'reality'; or both?) It seems to me that many, perhaps most, people who witness ufos are not mentally destabilized as a result.

From my own experience, that I have detailed in a different thread, I can tell you that my concept of reality was greatly compromised from my sighting/contact and I would imagine that anyone's would be. Again, I don't know if I'm really following you here but isn't that pretty destabilizing?

 

[Constance]

From my own experience, that I have detailed in a different thread, I can tell you that my concept of reality was greatly compromised from my sighting/contact and I would imagine that anyone's would be. Again, I don't know if I'm really following you here but isn't that pretty destabilizing?

I've had three sightings of ufos, all at close range, and none of them destabilized me or changed my concept of reality (which to begin with is fairly fluid, open-ended).

 

[Zebra or the Logos]

which to begin with is fairly fluid, open-ended).

I would say so!

 

[Constance]

If I'm following you correctly, I would now ask you about the ufological concept of screen memories that seem to originate from the Freudian retrogressive screen memories. Isn't this a fairly common feature of sightings/contact and destabilizing of sorts?

http://www.psychoanalytischeperspectieven.be/file/2012/10/screen-memories.pdf

I've started to read this paper and will finish it. I've learned something new already: that Freud's nanny was perhaps sexually inappropriate with him, and that he's attempted to understand both what actually happened and the meaning 'it' attained in his own subconscious life. From page one or two:

"It is important to notice that Freud distinguished the issue of the
veracity (or otherwise) of early memories from their meaning as associations to a dream."

While I read the paper on Freud's speculations, you might enjoy reading the following paper, which I linked last night in the Consciousness and the Paranormal thread:

What Affective Neuroscience Means for Science Of Consciousness