The 'magic cactus' flower: sacred peyote

(Forgotten Crops) Why does this entheogenic cactus cause magical "hallucinations"?

Higher levels of consciousness

Ancient Egyptians took psychedelic blue lily

• Peyote
• Blue water lily/lotus (Nymphaea nouchali)
• Entheogen
• Carlos Castaneda
• Psychoactive drug
• Psychedelic experience
• Shamanic "sacrament"
• Banned by Spanish Empire
• Altered state of consciousness

DMT dangers, risks: Trickster elf entities

• Why 100% of scientists agree that DMT experiences and entities are NOT hallucinations 🤯

Did Carl Jung figure it out?

(OurTimelessWisdom) Jung theory explains DMT entities: Terence McKenna

(OurTimelessWisdom) DMT: Risk vs. Reward: the cost of seeing what we are not ready to see:

Illustrated Field Guide to DMT Entities: Machine Elves,
Tricksters, Teachers, Other Interdimensional Beings

• Animated Entities:) on Reddit: r/DMT

Rupert Sheldrake on elves, visions

(The Institute of Art and Ideas) Why do we see elves on DMT? | Rupert

Sheldrake (on morphic resonance, cultural collective memory)

DMT entity mystery breaks science: What are they? | Dr. Andrew Gallimore

The DMT entity mystery that breaks science: What are these beings?

(OurTimelessWisdom) The DMT Entity Mystery That Breaks Science: What Are These Beings? 👁️

DMT entity Machine Elf (Tricky Woo)

If these beings are real — science is over. Every time someone smokes DMT, that person meets the same thing: "machine elves," DMT entities. What are they? They are hyperdimensional beings who laugh, welcome you, trick you, and teach you. Who are they? And why do they act like they’ve known visitors forever?

🔍 This video rewires how we understand consciousness, intelligence, and the mind. In this rare, mind-bending interview, Dr. Andrew Gallimore — computational neurobiologist and the author of Alien Information Theory — breaks down the DMT entity mystery in full.

This is not fringe speculation. It is a direct challenge to neuroscience, physics, and the very Jungian idea of a "collective unconscious."

Andrew R Gallimore (Amazon)

🧩 DR. GALLIMORE EXPLORES:

🧠 Why the “just hallucinations” theory fails

📡 How the brain may be receiving data from “elsewhere”

👁️ Why everyone sees the same machine elves during DMT trips

📖 The earliest reports in DMT science, echoing Terence McKenna’s lectures

🃏 Their bizarre behavior -- part guide, part trickster

🔁 Why they say: “Welcome back! We’ve missed you!”

🧪 How to use DMT as a consciousness technology — not a drug

🌀 Why even Carl Jung’s archetypes might not go far enough to explain what’s happening

👇 To the question asked, “Why do we all see machine elves on DMT?” — this is the video that finally confronts it.

⏱️ CHAPTERS AND TIMESTAMPS

0:00 – The question Dr. Gallimore has wrestled with for 20 years

0:50 – Why hallucination theory collapses under scrutiny

1:36 – Brain as a receiver? A McKenna-style cosmic broadcast?

2:22 – Collective reports: same entities, same architecture

3:05 – First DMT entities documented (Szára, 1950s)

3:48 – Trickster intelligence and language-like behavior

4:33 – A lost home? The archetypal return motif

5:12 – “Welcome back…we’ve been watching.”

6:00 – DMT + technology = stable channel

6:49 – Dr. Gallimore’s plan echoes McKenna’s long-shot vision

7:35 – Beyond Jung, beyond hallucination: the unknown Other

💡 LEARN

• Why Dr. Gallimore's DMT interview challenges scientific materialism
• How these beings behave more like psycho-spiritual archetypes or alien intelligences
• How this experience echoes Jung’s individuation process — but in hyperspace
• Why this may be the beginning of a DMT technology consciousness study
• Where McKenna’s “language of the unconscious” meets 21st-century neuroscience

🧠 WHO IS DR. GALLIMORE?

Alien Information Theory

Dr. Andrew Gallimore is a computational neurobiologist, chemist, and author of Alien Information Theory. He has spent over 20 years studying how psychedelic (entheogenic) experiences — especially on DMT — interface with the structure of our reality, the unconscious mind, and the possible existence of non-human intelligences.

He is considered one of today’s leading experts on DMT, altered states, and the neuroscience of visionary experience.

It's plan A until Plan A works, until I die! #surreal

🎯 Subscribe for more videos unpacking the mind-bending intersection of Jung, McKenna, psychedelics, and deep consciousness science.

Forever Jung Carl Jung Inspirational Quote Kiss Cut Sticker Sheet - Multiple Sizes Available ourtimelesswisdom-shop.fourthwall.com/products... Forever Jung Carl Jung Inspirational Quote Coffee Mug - Available in 11oz and 15oz - Unique Psychology Gift ourtimelesswisdom-shop.fourthwall.com/products...

• OurTimelessWisdom, June 29, 2025 (✪ Members first on June 28, 2025); Rupert Sheldrake; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

How can 5-MeO-DMT delete our universe?

(Mr Existential) 5-MeO-DMT: The Mystery of the 10,000 toad bones

• Avenged Sevenfold "Nobody" on DMT (official video)

Toad Shaman – Guardian of the Swamp figurine free 3D print model (MakerWorld)

Soma and 5-MeO-DMT with Indian yogis

Did soma (elixir containing a secret psychedelic mushroom or plant) give rise to "Hinduism"?

(dakota 2 earth) I gave [Indian wandering ascetic shaman] Aghori Yogis sapo (bufo), 5-MeO-DMT. They laughed at it, not rejecting the mind-expanding experience but seemingly accustomed to it by their own sadhana or daily spiritual practices.

• Hinduism (aka Sanātana Dharma)

Hinduism's secret mushroom theory

(dakota of earth) July 10, 2025: INDIA: The information presented here is purely for historical and cultural exploration and should not be interpreted as encouragement or promotion of any substance use. Some content may be sensitive or challenging to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised!

DISCLAIMER: This educational documentary investigates a theory about the entheogenic origins of Hinduism [what the British dubbed Indus-ism to describe all the varied practices and belief around the Indus River Valley, melding them all under one rubric when they never saw themselves as "religions" or anything apart from regular life].

LINKS: dakotaofearth / dakotawint http://www.kick.com/earthie In this documentary, I travel across India exploring temple carvings, sacred rituals, and hidden clues that point toward a secret mushroom cult at the roots of Hinduism. Is it possible that psychedelic mushrooms were the true Soma of the Rig Veda? Join me as I uncover evidence, interview scholars, and search sacred sites to reveal a story that’s been hiding in plain sight. ➤ Subscribe for more documentaries on spirituality, ancient history, and hidden truths. Watch the full story and decide.

In search of ego death: psychedelics

Let me tell you what I saw and what I want now:

We have discovered the female Alex Grey, the cosmic entheogenic artist who is a self-proclaimed Vajrayana Buddhist. Her name is Juli Garces. (Juliana Garces Art) The most powerful psychedelic of all is... It is so powerful that after I came back to ordinary consciousness, I started emailing monasteries (viharas) to ordain as a Buddhist nun (bhikkhuni) to be able to become an adept meditator to reach this state free of ego (anatta), full of wisdom and compassion.

Bliss, the absorptions, and the base of boundless consciousness

Ven. Nyanatiloka, Dictionary of Buddhist Terms, edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Do Buddhist nuns meditate?

What is "Buddhist meditation" really? In fact, it is jhāna (meditation), which is referred to as "absorption" to distinguish it from later stages of developing insight (vipassana, satipatthana, anusati).

Meditative absorption refers eight states of super-consciousness or samadhi. First come the four (fine-) material absorptions. These correspond to exalted planes of the Fine-Material Sphere (Rūpa-Loka jhānas or rūpāvacara-jhānas).

• The only part of the "world" or universe most of us are aware of are our levels or planes of existence within the Sensual Sphere, where humans, lower-ET devas, subhumans (titans, ogres, garudas/kinnaras, nagas, gnomes, ghouls), animals, hungry ghosts, and hellions reside. Above the Sensual Sphere heavens, ET worlds, there are the Fine-Material Sphere worlds or planes of existence. And above these are the Immaterial Sphere worlds.

I get so absorbed in what I'm doing, I just flow.

These absorptions are achieved through the attainment of full (ecstatic-) concentration (appanā, see samādhi), during which there is a temporary but complete suspension of fivefold sense-activity and of the Five Hindrances (nīvarana).

The absorbed state of consciousness, however, is one of full alertness and lucidity.

If I were a nun, I'd meditate the jhanas.

This high degree of stillness, focus, single-pointedness (ekagata), laser-like concentration is generally developed or cultivated (bhāvanā) by the practice of one of the 40 subjects of tranquility meditation (samatha-kammatthāna).

The next four absorptions -- finer, more exalted, more refined, subtle, and sublime) are the four immaterial (arupa) absorptions. These (arūpāyatana) absorptions correspond to planes of the Immaterial Sphere (arūpa-jhāna or arūpāvacara-jhāna).

The text often met with in the sutras runs as follows:

Fine-material absorptions (rupa jhanas)

There was bliss, rapture, focus, lucidity...

(1) "Detached from sensual objects, O meditators, detached from unwholesome states of consciousness, connected with applied (vitakka) and sustained (vicāra) attention, born of detachment (vivekaja), and filled with rapture (pīti, joy, bliss) and happiness (sukha, satisfaction, contentment), one enters the first absorption.

(2) "With the subsiding of applied and sustained attention, and by gaining inner tranquility and unity (coherence, oneness, lucidity, cogency) of mind, one enters into a state free of applied and sustained attention, the second absorption, which is born of stillness (samādhi) and filled with rapture (pīti) and happiness (sukha).

(3) "With the fading of rapture, one dwells in equanimity, mindful, clearly conscious, and one experiences that feeling of which the noble ones say, 'Happy lives the person of equanimity and mindfully attentive mind'; thus, one enters the third absorption.

(4) "Transcending pleasure and pain, and through the disappearance of previous happiness and grief, one enters into a state beyond pleasure and pain, the fourth absorption, which is purified by equanimity (upekkhā) and mindfulness.

Immaterial absorptions (arupa jhanas)

Before and beyond form, there is consciousness.

(5) "Through the overcoming of perceptions of matter, however, and through the vanishing of sense-reactions and non-attention to perceptions of variety (papanca), with the notion, "Boundless is space," one reaches the sphere of boundless space (ākāsānañcāyatana) and abides therein.

• ["By 'perceptions of matter' (rūpa-saññā) are meant the absorptions of the fine-material sphere, as well as those objects themselves" (Vis.M. X.1). "By 'perceptions of sense-reactions' (patigha-saññā) are meant those perceptions that have arisen due to the impact of sense-organs (eye, etc.) and the sense-objects (visible objects, etc.). They are a name for the perception of visible objects, as it is said (Jhāna-Vibhanga): 'What are here the perceptions of sense-reactions? They are the perceptions of visible objects, sounds, etc.' Surely, they do no longer exist even for one who has entered the first absorption, etc., for at such a time the five-sense consciousness is no longer functioning. Nevertheless, this is to be understood as having been said in praise of this immaterial absorption, in order to incite the striving for it" (Vis.M. X.16). "Perceptions of variety (ñānatta-saññā) are the perceptions that arise in various fields, or the various perceptions" (ibid). Hereby, according to Vis.M. X.20, are meant the multiform perceptions outside the absorptions.]

(6) "Through the total overcoming of the sphere of boundless space, and with the notion, 'Boundless is consciousness,' one reaches the sphere of boundless consciousness (viññānañcāyatana) and abides therein. CONTINUED BELOW

ARTIST BIO

Shop - Juliana Garces Art

Juliana Garces, spiritual seeker and visionary artist, does artwork that reflects her deep commitment to raising the collective consciousness.

Her art journey is a continuous exploration of how visual forms can transcend language and open pathways to the infinite (boundless).

Grounded in her daily spiritual practices—meditation, yoga, mindfulness, and deep study of mysticism—her work reflects visions and experiences from realms that words cannot fully describe.

Juliana sees herself as simply a channel for cosmic creativity, doing her best to step aside and let the cosmic visions flow through her.

She doesn’t view the work as her own, but rather as something greater that she’s fortunate to be part of.

By tapping into the infinite space within all of us, she hopes to create pieces that serve as gentle reminders for others to reconnect with their own eternal nature. More

• (7) "Through the total overcoming of the sphere of boundless consciousness, with the notion, 'No-thing is there,' one reaches the sphere of nothingness (ākiñcaññāyatana) and abides therein.
• (8) "Through the total overcoming of the sphere of no-thingness, one reaches the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception (nevasaññā-n'asaññāyatana) and abides therein."

"Thus the first absorption is free of five things (the Five Hindrances), and five things are present (the Five Factors of Absorption or jhāna-anga).

Whenever the meditator enters the first absorption, the Five Hindrances vanish:

1. sensual craving
2. ill-will
3. sloth-torpor
4. restlessness-scruples
5. skeptical doubt.

And these [in their place] are present [the Five Factors of Absorption]:

1. applied attention (vitakka)
2. sustained attention (vicāra)
3. rapture (pīti)
4. happiness (sukha)
5. stillness/concentration (samādhi).

In the second absorption, there are present: rapture, happiness, and concentration. In the third: happiness and stillness/concentration. In the fourth: equanimity (upekkhā) and concentration" (The Path of Purification, Vis.M. IV).

Having felt bliss, point me to nirvana!

The four immaterial absorptions (jhanas 5-8) are said to still belong, technically speaking, to the fourth absorption because they possess the same two constituents.

The fourth fine-material absorption is also the base or starting point (pādaka-jhāna) for the attainment of the higher paranormal spiritual powers (abhiññās). More

• Juliana Garces (julianagarcesart.com)/YouTube; German Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk Ven. Nyanatiloka (born Anton Gueth); Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Ego Death by toad venom? (Bufo DMT)

Buddhist psychedelic artist Alex Grey (WQ) understands this altered state of consciousness!

.

This is more real than ordinary consciousness.

(VICE) Twenty times stronger than DMT: The Spirit Molecule, "Bufo" (5-MeO-DMT), is hiding in the venom of the Sonoran toad -- but it is also synthesized and harms no amphibian whatsoever. Mother Earth and Father Tech have provided it.

The ego is an illusion, so is Ego Death good?

I, the Homunculus, AM what I feel and what I think within MY body and mind.

.

Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity" [1]. The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. Psychologist William James, a 19th-century philosopher, uses the synonymous term "self-surrender."

• 

  Descartes on the body's pineal gland

  [This is the literal meaning of Islam and the Muslim follower's attitude towards the one God Allah, and it is the yogi's merging with "GOD," where or godhead/godhood is the Atman merging or uniting with Brahman, the "ultimate reality" in Hinduism and in different terms in Mahayana Buddhism. And it stands to reason that in Christianity of all kinds, it is the attitude of a soul to what Christians would regard as "God," to be "Christed" or "anointed with Chrism," not figuratively and symbolically in the reenactment of a ritual but in the sense of the pineal gland producing endogenous DMT that floods the system, which is the power of entheogenic substances like amrita, amata, ambrosia and perhaps soma.]

Wow, they hid the truth!

DMT: Toad of Awakening? Bufo Alvarius (Bufo)

Sacred Secret: It happens to pineal glands monthly

Is this why lunar cycles and calendars are important?

Peter goes to Meg's school to bust Bufo fad

Jungian psychology uses the synonymous term psychic death, referring to a fundamental transformation of the psyche ("soul") [2].

In death and rebirth mythology, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition [3][4][5][6], as described later by Joseph Campbell in his research on the mythology of the Hero's Journey [3].

It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary Western thinking [6]. More

• VICE; Wise Quotes Sacred Secret; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

American tries world's most intense DMT

Asking festivalgoers what their most terrifying drug experience is | Adam educates on safety

The most INTENSE psychedelic on earth...and he takes it at music fests | Connor full interview

The most intense psychedelic on earth...and Connor takes it at music festivals

(Psyched Substance) This video has been created for safety and harm reduction. We want to both show what the reality of modern music festivals is like and sprinkle as much safety advice throughout the conversations as we can. It is also nice to showcase the beautiful individuals who attend to make these festivals happen. Remember, set and setting are the most important considerations before experimenting, exploring, and journeying as a cybernaut.

Actors on acid? LSD an Apocalypse Now

Get hooded blanket: psychedsubstance.shop. Support on Patreon: goo.gl/EufkcZ. Get a testing kit: tinyurl.com/GetTestKit. Follow Instagram: adamispsyched. Follow on Twitter: psychedsubstan.

• Psyched Substance, April 16, 2025; Pat Macpherson, Xochitl, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Hamilton Morris: Tales from the Trip

Hamilton Morris made his own “pharmahuasca” and spoke in tongues: Tales from the Trip

(Animated) Oh, Hamilton Morris (Hamilton's Pharmacopeia), will you never learn? We are reminded of that hippie from Reality Sandwich and the blond gal from Neuro Soup. Hamilton Morris takes pharmahuasca and screams in tongues. Then someone animates it to bring it to life for sober viewers who envy his journey. Potential travelers, beware. Wyrd is no place to wander.

(Family Guy, Season 2, Episode 14) Seth MacFarlane writing team does it

You used to be such a nice, clean-cut boy, Hamilton! Now you're Lennon

• The toad venom pamphlet that changed psychedelia forever | Hamilton's Pharmacopeia (VICE TV) Haunted by his past mistakes, Hamilton embarks on a journey to correct an error in his reporting while identifying the origin of an international "toad venom" smoking phenomenon. In Season 3 of Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, the Ham Man continues his odyssey into the historical, chemical, and societal impacts of some of the world's most mind-blowing drugs. He learns more about LSD (acid), bufotenine (bufo or 5-MeO-DMT), DMT (the spirit molecule), and more. Why? It's because he wants to free his mind so his butt will follow.

Kids, listen to Lando: Avoid toad

(Family Guy) Brian the Dog is addicted to drugs

Love Tales from the Trip? Watch every episode here: • Tales from the Trip. (Paramount+ has a way to stream all favorite shows that are now on Paramount+. Try it FREE at bit.ly/3qyOeOf #TalesFromTheTrip #HamiltonMorris #HA. Tales from the Trip merch is now available. Head over to comedycentralstore.com or click this link to check it out: bit.ly/2QumT2E.

ABOUT: Tales from the Trip: Don’t have the time, money, or connections to take drugs (even entheogenic ones) with comedians? Tales from the Trip is here to help. Go on an animated psychedelic journey with funny people as they recount their hilarious, scary, and sometimes dangerous experiences with DMT, acid, shrooms (psilocybin or Amanita muscaria), salvia divinorum, molly (MDMA, ecstasy), and more.

Credits: Live Action, Video Directors: Greg Washburn, Nik Kazoura. Animation Director: Grant Lindahl. Editor: Nik Kazoura. Lead Animator: Ben Luce. Lead Animator: Jasmine Soompholphakdy.

What'd booze 'n drugs ever do for Homer Simpson?

ABOUT: Looking for funny cartoons? Comedy Central’s Animated channel is a one-stop shop for animated comedy that’s fun – but not always appropriate – for the whole family. Immerse in clips, livestreams, and compilations from new and legendary series alike. Check out brand-new episodes of Tales from the Trip and other originals, or catch up on old favorites like Dr. Katz and TripTank. Subscribe to Animated: @comedycentraloriginals.

More Comedy Central: comedycentral. Follow Comedy Central: Twitter: comedycentral. Facebook: comedycentral. Instagram: comedycentral.

• Reality Sandwiches, poetry by Allen Ginsburg
• Hamilton Morris, Animated, Comedy Central, Nov. 10, 2021; Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, Dec. 7, 2021; Family Guy; The Simpsons; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Ego Death [by DMT] with Alan Watts (A7x)

Alan Watts: Ego death will save the world

Whoa, look at all the colors and eyes of...Huh?

(Metamorphosis) Alan Watts -- the Westerner who made Eastern philosophy (Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Mahayana, Theravada, Zen, Confucianism) intelligible to Westerners -- was one of the most important thinkers of all time. He introduced Eastern philosophies to the Western world and helped the constantly occupied Western mind to slow down and understand. This speech discusses "ego death" (realizing by means of mindfulness and attention that what we take to be "self" is not self, not personal, not ours or under our control, etc.) and how it constitutes a fundamental element in the attempt to re-institute a connection with the real world around us. #alanwatts #egodeath #savetheworld

Seeing no danger in an illusory ego, want an ego?

Here's an ego to cling to and take a flying leap.

Scary looking aluminum cauldron of jungle potion: vine, bark, and plant matter: Ayahuasca

.

Ego death w/ M Shadows (Avenged Sevenfold)

Vocalist M Shadows (formerly Matt Sanders) talks about EGO death: Avenged Sevenfold's "Nobody"

i Was as God, All-Seeing One, alpha, omega

What does DMT (toad venom or 5-MeO-DMT, soma, LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, Syrian rue, harmaline, iboga, ibogaine, Special K, ergot, peyote, San Pedro cactus, etc.) have to do with anything?

There are powerful entheogens in the outside world that mimic things like DMT that our brains produce. A flood of them, particularly of the Spirit Molecule DMT, can for a moment give us a vision of reality.

If calm-and-insight meditation is the reliable way there, entheogens are the unreliable, irregular, "accidental tourist" way of traveling.

For the nonbeliever, they can make a believer out of one quite quickly. The path is just the same as it was, but now it becomes clearer to the one on the path that it is real and that this journey (to bliss, to the end of all suffering) is necessary without delay.

Drugs are not the Buddha's path

Colonic first then get to practicing, Krystle Cole

Drugs (somas, haomas, hallucinogens, psychedelics, etc.) are not the Buddha's path to enlightenment or nirvana, and one may wonder why. It is very easy to see why.

The problem is the ego, but the ego is only a construct and not actually real no matter how much we wish it were so that it could go on forever or be annihilated right now and release us from this interminable merry-go-round.

• It's crazy to think there's not a "self" since our whole experience of the world is through a self (personality, ego, POV, paradigm, set of memories, atman, soul). It is not correct to say there is NO self. There is a self in a conventional sense, of course. It is in the ultimate sense that there is no self. This is the distinction. So we may "find ourselves," "lose ourselves," store up karma (deeds), bear the result of our actions (deeds), and so on. What is there then? There are Five Aggregates (form, feeling, perception, formations, consciousness) clung to as a self. AHA! Who or what clings? Form forms, feeling feels, perception perceives, mental formations form, and consciousness is conscious. This is not a speculation but rather an observable fact to a mind purified by samadhi (stillness, coherence) that systematically practices the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (satipatthana). It is not a joke, noy a philosophy, not a belief, not a paradox, not a mystic experience. It is verifiably true. And to be free, the Truth must be seen. The Truth sets one free of wrong views, delusions, and ignorance.

What about MAPS and Awake Project?

Drugs are not the answer because they do not promote coherent calm and insight-practices. The real more immediate problems are greed, hatred/fear, and delusion. This last one, a manifestation of ignorance (avidya, avijjha) is the root of all problems. The solution is enlightenment/awakening (bodhi).

There is no need to take a substance, a red pill to snap out of The Matrix. It may temporarily work, and we may see a world of spirits (Dracos, Archons, devas, ogres, ghouls, reptilians, Pleiadeans, asuras), but it won't last.

It is far better to systematically relax and still the mind, collect its faculties, concentrate its powers to the point of samadhi (a coherent state of superconsciousness, stillness, clarity). Then we can begin.

The Buddha's contribution to the world was going from this point (samadhi) to enlightenment/awakening (bodhi). Samadhi is not awakening; it is far from it.

The Three Poisons of greed (clinging), hatred (aversion), and delusion (ignorance) still exist, though temporarily suppressed or attenuated and made so subtle as to not be noticed. But they remain in a latent state. They must be rooted out, cut off at the root. We need not cut them; wisdom cuts them. Knowing-and-seeing cuts them. This is why it is not enough to theoretically understand and "get it." Direct experience is necessary -- or a great deal of saddha (confidence, conviction, faith).

• It's hard to imagine that faith alone, the path of the great many of the world's inhabitants, could ever do anything, but it does seem to be able to do one thing -- to put us on the Path and impel us. With faith we can go forward and come see for ourselves rather than remaining lost in doubt and perplexity, skepticism and endless questioning.

The Three Poisons (greed, hatred, delusion) must be cut off at the roots. Then knowledge-and-vision of the Truth arises. The "ego" (self or soul construct, these functionally integrated Five Aggregates, which are all processes not enduring realities) will be seen for what it is and what it is not.

This is a lasting and durable solution to letting go of all things clung to as a "self" that lead to suffering. And what again is clung to that leads to so much suffering? They are the Five Aggregates, Skandhas, Heaps: form (physical elements); feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and [the process of] consciousness(es).

Taking these to be an eternal soul, a self, the property of a self, something separate from a self, the constituents of an actual self, all such wrong views lead to pain (dukkhata) and suffering (dukkha), rebirth and more ignorance (confusion, misunderstanding, not knowing, uncertainty, not-seeing, etc.).

Has one ever met a stable and enlightened shaman or drug dependent person? No because the way of shamanism and drug abuse leads to oddity and imbalance, seeing so much of the invisible and not being able to integrate it or let it go.

For all one's progress in seeing all there is, the fundamental problems have not been addressed or solved.

But a wandering ascetic, a Buddhist monastic living in accordance with the Monastic Code of Discipline (Vinaya), the Patimokkha, practicing in accordance with the Buddha's Dharma for calm and insight, that person realizes what is real and what is not and is thereby liberated here and now in this very life.

There's no comparison between lifestyles, the route (maze) of drugs or the Middle Path to enlightenment.

If drugs were needed, the Buddha and subsequent arhats would have revealed that. What is needed is "clear seeing" (vipassana) built atop a stabile foundation of samadhi (absorbed stillness and concentration).

• Alan Watts via Metamorphosis (YouTube), Jan. 4, 2021; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson, (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Dharma Buddhist Meditation (meetup.com)