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(Holiday History) From harvest to haunting: How Samhain (like ancient Japanese Buddhist Obon and seasonal Mexican/pan-Latin Dia de los Muertos or "Day of the Dead" celebrations) became Halloween for wandering spirits, fairies, elves, ghosts, ghouls, and goblins.
OBON (お盆) or just Bon (盆) is a fusion of the ancient Japanese belief in ancestral spirits and a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of the ancestors.
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| We'll be together again: samsara |
This syncretic Folk (like the Shinto "kitchen god") Buddhist custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday.
During it people return to visit ancestral family places and clean ancestors' graves because this is when the spirits of ancestors are revisiting household altars [like Mexican ofrendas prepared for the Day of the Dead].
- Buddha, how can the Living HELP the grateful Dead? Transferring merit to the dead
What Buddhists can do for the Dead
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| The Buddha's chief disciple declared "foremost in psychic powers" among the monks Ven. Maha Moggallāna (comparable to the Buddhist nun Ven. Uppalavanna) saves his Brahmin mother from hell by transferring merits to her after she has died: "Mulian Rescues His Mother" |
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| Folk Buddhists pray soul out of purgatory (Silver) |
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| Day of the Dead, Mexico, 1995, cemetery prep |
Such a "transfer" is a physically enacted deed with its sharing done mentally. The recipient (or another relative stuck in a purgatory such as the realm of hungry ghosts) can receive this merit when they rejoice (feel gratitude, literally becoming the "grateful dead") due to the meritorious acts being done and shared with them on their behalf.
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| Ah, they remember me! I'm grateful for their help! |
This is necessary because in the realm (plane of existence) in which the recipient(s) have been reborn, the opportunity to generate beneficial karma by any other means is extremely limited or altogether absent.
In any case, the person offering, sharing, transferring merit produces more and more merit (wholesome karma). In Buddhism, sharing merit is seen as a far better alternative to mourning. More
The Grateful Dead of the afterlife?
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| I'd be grateful for help when I pass away |
According to bassist Phil Lesh, singer Garcia: "In that silvery elf-voice, he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'" [27]
The definition found in the Britannica World Language Dictionary is "the soul of a dead person...showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial."
According to Director Alan Trist of Ice Nine, the Grateful Dead's music publishing company, Garcia found the name in the Funk & Wagnalls Folklore Dictionary, when his finger landed on it while playing a game of Fictionary [28].
In her Jerry Garcia biography Captain Trips, author Sandy Troy states that the band was smoking the entheogenic psychedelic DMT (also known as "The Spirit Molecule") at the time [29].
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| DMT: The Spirit Molecule |
Scholar Michael Kaler has written that the Dead's participation in those Acid Tests was crucial to the development of their improvisational vocabulary and to their bonding as a band, with the group having set out to foster an intra-band musical telepathy [34].
He says this coincided chronologically with adoption of the same goal by acid rockers Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, and the Velvet Underground [35]. More
DMT: the sacred spirit molecule
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| Free-base DMT powder and vape extracted from Mimosa tenuiflora root bark (wiki) |
- QUESTION: Does LSD ("acid") release DMT from the pineal gland (agni chakra, third eye, dibba cakhu), or how is it an entheogen (a substance that releases the divine from within) could lead to visions of reality beyond the normal human spectrum?
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| Logo used by proponents of Cantelmoism |
- One extraordinary thing about what we in the U.S. call "ayahuasca" is that not only does it have different names across cultures, it has different ingredients. DMT is in nearly everything, but it will quickly be broken down in the stomach, so additional ingredients are added to prevent that.
- The parts of a tree are traditionally used in northeastern Brazil in a psychoactive decoction also called jurema or yurema.
- Analogously, the traditional Western Amazonian sacrament ayahuasca is brewed from indigenous vines (with bark and leaves from other plants).
- Liana magic "vine of the soul" or "of the dead"
- Banisteriopsis caapi leaves are often used
- Mimosa tenuiflora root bark used in decoction
- That's a lot of trouble to go through to prepare a curandero's brew (healer's potion) because the human body makes it endogenously
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| Forest ayahuasca (natema): DMT from plants |
DMT is used in sacred ayahasuca (aka natema, yagé, caapi, nátema, pindê, patem, shori, mii, miiyagi, uni) ceremonies, abused as a psychedelic drug in urban settings, and prepared by various cultures for ritual shamanic healing purposes as an entheogen [14].
DMT has a rapid onset, intense psychedelic effects, and a relatively short duration of action. For those reasons, DMT was known as the "businessman's trip" during the 1960s in the USA, as a user could access the full depth of a psychedelic experience in considerably less time than with other substances such as LSD or magic (psilocybin) mushrooms [15]. More
Samhain: A History of Winter
DMT Movement: for medicinal and spiritual uses
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| DMT GOD: Prepare in 8 Days |
Mr. C had worked in the pharmaceutical industry for decades, including running multiple high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) companies [241].
He began his DMT campaign on Reddit and other social media websites after experiencing the "spirit molecule" in 2018 [241].
He rapidly spent his wealth in a fervent attempt to promote DMT and get as many people to try it as possible, forming a union in the process and becoming an online spectacle [241].
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| Chase Hughes marked for telling truth |
Mr. C, they say, had mental health issues, so he had to be put out of his misery by alleged "suicide" (taken out before others could start following him). He was put under pressure, losing his home in November 2019 [241],
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| Behavior Ops Manual (Chase Hughes) |
Black market availability
Vape pens or electronic cigarette cartridges filled with liquid DMT were being sold on the black market by 2018 [39, 38, 40] due to there being no licit market. Akasha Song previously manufactured and sold DMT on the Dark Web and is said to have been the largest DMT producer and seller in history [242].
DMT's legal status
International law
Internationally, DMT is illegal to possess without authorization, exemption, or license. However, natural ayahuasca and other DMT brews (natema, yage, etc.) and plant preparations are lawful. More
- Main article: Convention on Psychotropic Substances
Why Asians don't really do Halloween
It's a Mexican tradition, and I love it
Mexican Buddhist, why would the living celebrate the Day of the Dead?
| Ghost perceived in bedroom found in art: Spirit of the Dead Watching (Paul Gauguin, 1892) |
- Holiday History (video); Jimmy O. Yang; Through the Looking Glass; Crystal Q., Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edits

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