Comment by mlang23 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mlang23 | Hacker News Reader

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> This terrain was fresh. I had never previously experienced a psychotic episode and have no history of mental illness besides occasional bouts of mild anxiety and depression. ... > Why did I start meditating? The short answer is that in 2009 I started a fist fight in a French Quarter bar over some jambalaya, a steamy kiss, and a stray comment I didn’t take fondly. The evening ended hours later after I broke a window with my fist, misplaced my shirt, and guzzled about 16 bottles of Miller High Life.

YYMMV, but I feel the author is having problems they dont want to really accept. That is what the contradiction in the two quotes above indicates.

Aside from that, I couldn't help but think about people having access to too many psychedelics. For a while, tripping can give you the most profound experiences ever. But after a while, it sort of becomes mondane, and this is when the bad trip probability suddenly skyrockets. Or, put another way, even Siddhartha didn't find awakening in the samana practices. They were only the first step (of three) to reach his goal. You can overdo everything, even the very very nice things.

My psychologist taught me that fear, anxiety, etc. destructive emotions are surface events, bubbling up from somewhere deeper. Mindfulness can be used as a resource for us to be with that fear; in the words of Thich Nhat Hanh "those painful emotions are like a child crying out. A child needs love and attention. Hold them with love, be with them."

Once we can be with it, then we can start to follow it down to its roots. Shining light into the darkness is how we heal.

Unfortunately the author seems to have gone astray down a false path that seems to be very common in western civilization called spiritual bypassing. Basically spiritual bypassing is when you use things like meditation and spirituality to get around your deep seated psychological wounds. Doing this is just a form of avoidance and repression which causes the wound to fester, which can eventually culminate in more severe symptoms like what the author describes.

"I couldn't help but think about people having access to too many psychedelics. For a while, tripping can give you the most profound experiences ever. But after a while, it sort of becomes mondane, and this is when the bad trip probability suddenly skyrockets."

I'm not sure about that. Psychedelics can bring to the surface all sorts of unconscious traumas, repressed memories, and/or issues people have trouble dealing with on a conscious level -- fear of death being a classic source of difficulty during "bad trips", but also other things such as physical or emotional pain, or making you face the way you've been treating others or been treated by others, etc.

Many people just can't handle that... especially if they've been running away from facing those things their whole lives, which many, many people are.

Suddenly - bam - you're face to face with your own death, say, living through it in excruciating detail.. and, yeah, that can be very tough to deal with, and many people react to a "bad" experience by trying to run way even further, but once you're on the psychedelic rollercoaster there's rarely any easy way out until the psychedelic wears off, and most psychedelic therapists these days suggest that instead of running away one should run towards the uncomfortable material, facing it squarely and surrendering to the experience, and this often results in cathartic relief and a "good" trip afterwards.

Of course doing this with a trained therapist who can help you before, during, and after the psychedelic session is better than trying to deal with it alone, which many people just aren't prepared to do.

Trust the trajectory.

Fear is only illusion.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TG2i_UoBEeg :-)

Sorry, not the most constructive reply ever, but I couldn't resist...

I’m sure the author would love to hear more about your diagnosis of his condition based solely on the content of an essay.

If someone puts a posting on the net, they likely have to accept that there will be reactions to it. That said, I am not looking forward to a fist-fight with a wanna-be-monk, so distance is probably the key. Dont you feel a fist-fighting drinker is a rather comical mindfulness practicioner? A bit like the gay nazi, or whatever stereotypical contradiction you wanna imagine.

He did clearly state that this was before he became a practicioner and this is (one of the things) that led him to it.

To be fair the diagnosis does align with the authors complaints.

Alan Watts used to say "When you've received the message, hang up the phone."

I think the biggest problem is that people who had an ego death experience are trying to experience it again by dosing up when it is largely a set and setting issue. Firstly, you can't have a life-changing, ecstatic experience of being connected to the universe every couple of weeks. Secondly, if you don't have some philosophical or religious framework to frame the experience, I imagine it can be really devastating.

Consumerism paired with sensationalism. Some people take psychedelics like others consume television... To amuse themselves. Remember what Tim Leary wrote in the psychedelic experience? If you have hallucinations, you're doing something wrong. But that is getting a bit off-topic regarding the original post.

A former student of Alan Watts, then a Taoist monk, found Orthodox Christianity after his searching, and has become a revered Priestmonk across the Orthodox world - he offers his own journey and offers the Eastern Orthodox Christian perspective of seeking God and His revelation. https://orthochristian.com/81732.html

https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/illuminedheart/father_... >The impersonal concept of deity was actually an experience of the non-being from which we have come [already], and that the true understanding of God - the highest, fullest understanding of God is God as person, as I AM - He has revealed Himself as I AM. Archimandrive Sophrony, from His Life is Mine

Small short booklet Fr Seraphim Rose wrote: https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Revelation-Human-Heart-Seraphim/...

In my own journey out of buddhism, taoism, stoicism, psychadelics, Fr Seraphims writings helped clarify why their was still a hole in my soul, and why western Christianity made no sense to me.

In the Orthodox Christian perspective, they are the Church that followed the Council of Jerusalem (the Book of Acts), the earliest writings of the Church (St Ignatius, the Didache, etc.) then all the councils which codified the canon of scripture, the Ecumenical Councils, etc. Every council must affirm previous dogma; believed everywhere, by all (Orthodox Christians), and at all times - so the below article on the Essence and Energy distinction of God, by St Gregory Palamas, affirms the early writings of St Basil and the Cappadocian Fathers of the Church who were fighting heretical notions of what God is - the Church defined what He is not. The Cappadocian Church fathers affirm the Apostles and scriptures, etc. http://orthodoxinfo.com/phronema/florov_palamas.aspx

This is a nice comparison video of Tabernacle and Jewish Temple worship, and its continuation in the Orthodox Christian temples. The western church in Rome was of the same One Mind of Christ in worship, Creed and sacrament until 1054, and then subsequently the Protestant revolted against their dogmatic innovations, and yet now are splintered into thousands on thousands of beliefs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkmh68urI6A

WHAT IS THE NOUS AND HOW IS IT DISTINCT FROM THE SOUL? https://orthochristian.com/79038.html

One of the major problems with American 'orthodox' are that they embrace only the easy parts of orthodoxy. Often I've heard that 'orthodox dont believe in original sin' and other such nonsense. These beliefs are widespread in westenized, modern orthodox but aren't true of much of orthodox practice in the east. St Gregory Palamas was a wonderful theologian, but we have tried , only in the last century to built a system of thought around him that his works simply dont and cant support. This is obviously due to an awareness of the more codified thought of the western church. Sometimes, I've even heard orthodox claim that the latin fathers are manifest heretics when they have been saints in the east for centuries! One of my American friends almost treats St AUGUSTINE as someone to be dismissed.

The consensus of the fathers includes all of the fathers, if you must cherry pick a subset or an individual to make a point its simply not in the apostolic tradition.

> The western church in Rome was of the same One Mind of Christ in worship, Creed and sacrament until 1054

The political/administrative disputes of 1053-1054 that directly produced the Great Schism didn't involve theological change on either side, so this (or the inverse, painting the Orthodox as the moving party, which I’ve also seen) position is simple factional-identity reinforcing revisionism.

> and then subsequently the Protestant revolted against their dogmatic innovations

Quite a few of the things Protestants objected to in the Roman Catholic Church were features it still shared with the Eastern Orthodox Churches (and many of them, both in the shared category and not, were not issues of dogma), so no, that’s not true in much the same way as the preceding claim about 1054 wasn't, even before any debates about which issues of dogma or other doctrine may or may nor have been innovations.

> why western Christianity made no sense to me.

What specifically? You haven't explained what made no sense to you and what finally made sense to you in Eastern Orthodoxy (I would also avoid lumping Protestantism in with Catholicism under the label "Western"). Could it be that you simply did not understand? Here, I would stick to traditional Catholic teaching as the point of reference as the veritable source for orthodox doctrine and tradition, not some Protestant innovation or corruption.

Mind you, the Catholic Church understands God as the Ipsum Esse Subsistens. Thomistic metaphysics uses this term. Thus God is understood as Existence itself, as Being, not a being (you might say that God does not exist, but rather is, or to abuse the terminology, is existence). God is the "to be". This is to be identified with the "I Am" of Exodus 3:14.

> This is a nice comparison video of Tabernacle and Jewish Temple worship, and its continuation in the Orthodox Christian temples.

The Catholic mass is liturgically, etc. the continuation, fulfillment, and perfection of the sacrifices made at the Temple of Jerusalem. The altar is where the perfect, unbloody sacrifice of Christ is offered at each and every mass. This sacrifice is the very purpose of the mass. (Following the destruction of the Temple, the Jews have no priesthood, no temple, and no sacrifices, only synanogues.) So that is no news from a Catholic POV (it may be for poorly catechized and Protestantized Catholics today, but that's a different story).

> The western church in Rome was of the same One Mind of Christ in worship, Creed and sacrament until 1054 and then subsequently the Protestant revolted against their dogmatic innovations, and yet now are splintered into thousands on thousands of beliefs.

I'm not sure you have an entirely accurate view [0].

[0] https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/eastern-schism

> Thus God is understood as Existence itself, as Being, not a being (you might say that God does not exist, but rather is, or to abuse the terminology, is existence). God is the "to be". This is to be identified with the "I Am" of Exodus 3:14.

That's very interesting, and brings it much closer to a kind of pantheistic or even Vedanta-ish conception of god. But it's also simply not true for the how the vast majority of Catholic priests teach the religion.

Thanks for sharing, lots of good references and well written.

I especially like the one from Florovsky. I'd just like to leave a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm for those who may be wondering what this is all about.

This just sent me down such a hole reading about Fr Seraphim Rose, thanks.

man, I love Alan Watts. We're so lucky to have so much of his actual speech recorded as the tone of his voice and the way he communicates ideas are really fascinating

Good point.

I agree with your conclusion.

I'd go a step further and state there is no such thing as a bad trip. There are just situations where loss go of control can result in the surfacing of things that are unresolved... and unpleasant. No one has a bad trip without the latter.

Another reason why psychedelics should come with clear warning labels that describe bad outcomes for specific situations.

A bad trip can tell people unthruths or falsehoods that they then believe. That is objectively bad.

In other words, a bad trip can manifest pathologies where none existed before.

How's that different from a "good" trip that make you believe you're in direct contact with god or even god himself though ?

It goes both ways, you can't say the "good" experience is the truth and the "bad" experience is false. They're both the same thing and are just a mirror of your internal state, your job is to analyse them and decide what value you want to put on them. There is no "objectively" good or bad

I think a looot of people are conditioned by what they read on internet about psychedelics, they spend hours watching videos and reading about experiences before trying it for themselves and are already fully trapped in some form of mental cage of what they experience will/should be.

Yes, much better to just casually drop 100 mcg on a Wednesday night in your friend’s basement at age 16 like I did, no preconceptions…

(To be fair, some of my friends still cite that night as a distinctly positive life-altering experience)

I'm not saying people should casually use psychedelics without any knowledge of them, especially not at 16 and especially not in a basement. I researched the safety of it and the general effects (during/after the trip) to make sure I'd be physically able to go through it. Once I learned there was virtually no risks for the dose I "knew" I was in a good mental state to have the experience.

It has to be something you want to try (not something your friends semi forced you to join), you have to be aware it can be unpleasant, and you have to do it in a safe place (both mentally and physically), given that not much can go seriously wrong.

My first time was 200ug of lsd in the middle of a desert at night by myself, I had the idea after reading 1/4th of a book from Alan Watts, the way he talked about psychedelics made me curious and I didn't want to be too influenced by his experiences/descriptions which made me decide to stop reading and try it out.

It was my best trip, I gave up and replicating the experience after 4 or 5 times (over 3 or 4 years) and I stopped thinking about psychedelics since then.

Since then I learned two things:

- I'm much prefer tripping alone than with people, especially if the people I trip with aren't very long term/close friends I 200% trust on everything.

- Tripping inside isn't particularly enjoyable, I can't imagine tripping in a basement. I vividly remember feeling claustrophobic during my first trip, and that was in the middle of a desert probably 50km away from any man made structure

The problem there is belief, not the psychedelics. It can happen with happy or blissful experiences as well.

> there is no such thing as a bad trip.

Terrors; visions of blood; intense paranoia; and the certainty that the experience is never going to end. That's not the surfacing of unresolved 'stuff'. That's being poisoned.

In my youth, I took a lot of acid, and I loved it. but I never thought it should be legalised; it's dangerous stuff.

I see your point, but I prefer to live in a free universe. We don't ban electricity or knives ... and both can do harm.

I prefer so too.

Let's not jump to conclusions. I wouldn't propose a ban on anything when a warning label or full disclosure would do just fine. I've edited my comment accordingly

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