Ego-Death

From:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/2744

Ken wrote:
>>There are no other ways, other than taking [entheogens] "some eight times"
and studying "perennial philosophy", or at least no other ways which aren't
inferior? If so, how did you conclude that?


Taking entheogens some 8 times in conjunction with studying perennial
philosophy is much more effective, in terms of percentages and distribution
curves, time required, convenience, and other ergonomic factors and measures
of efficacy, for attaining a repeated series of deep experiences of timeless
determinism, which eventuates in a deep transformation from initial
enculturated freewillist thinking to a new worldmodel (of time, control,
agency, and self) premised on the axiom of no-free-will.

No other method of inducing the mystic state and bringing about satori or
mystic regeneration of the will even *claims* to be so effective and directly
efficacious as the Hellenistic mystery religions, and related religious
initiation systems, which had routinized such initiation from freewillist
"child" thinking to no-free-will "adult" thinking. What are the contenders?
I am talking about all *known* ways of bringing about the classic nonordinary
experiential state of cognition or consciousness.

Known ways of inducing the mystic state include entheogens, epilepsy,
schizophrenia, meditation/contemplation, starvation and flagellation, and
hyperventilation -- note that all of them work by causing, one way or another,
a change in brain chemistry. What is the most ergonomic, direct, fast,
reliable, immediate, and clean way to change brain chemistry? Ingesting
external chemicals, as were used in Hellenistic-era sacred meals.

The only seemingly serious contender for as effective a method of inducing the
mystic altered state of consciousness as entheogens is meditation. Today's
spiritual Establishment, a reaction after and against the psychedelic religion
of the 1960s, claims that meditation is much better than entheogens, or that
entheogens can only asymptotically approach and perhaps reach the wonderful
efficacy of meditation.

A large part of how this false consensus was achieved was by censorship;
selective publishing and reward of authors. Authors who belittled and
diminished the efficacy of entheogens were rewarded by being published and
reprinted, so that at best, entheogen advocates were cowed into a defensive
position of saying merely that entheogens were a fair approximation of the
supposedly real, original, and powerful approach of meditation.

To such cowed and defensive entheogenists I say "don't be so feeble! grow
some muscles! put up a more assertive fight in the debate, and aright this
upside-down situation!" There is a proven reliable efficacy of entheogens at
inducing religious experiencing and an experience of determinism, and a proven
relative low efficiency and ergonomics of other techniques, as measured the
only reasonable way: efficacy distribution curves.

Run two experiments: a year of meditation accompanied by any studies, and a
year of entheogen sessions integrated with study of esoteric philosophy,
determinism, and related fields. After a year, chart the degree of
determinism-experiencing each person has had. The distribution curve for
entheogens will blow away that for meditation.

The evidence lies in the claims and reports of entheogen users, mystery
religion initiates, and 20th Century meditationists, which clearly report that
entheogens have a far higher incidence of inducing religious including
determinism experiences -- so much higher than for meditation, that the
entheogen-diminishing meditation advocates have had to make up excuses for the
lack of mental effect, and have had to spin like crazy to deny the relevance
of the mystic state to spirituality; in defending their position, they have
quickly and inevitably had to remove the mystic state from mystic practice,
resulting in a grotesque and pathetic travesty of spirituality or religious
practice: mysticism that has no mystic state.

For evidence, read trip reports online and in books, and read meditation
magazines and spirituality books: the immediately clear conclusion from such
abundant evidence is that entheogens are much more efficacious in triggering
the mystic altered state than is meditation, to the point that meditation
advocates themselves concede this, and criticize entheogens as providing *too
much* mystic-state experiencing, defending and excusing the inefficacy of
meditation as "necessary mildness required for true spirituality".

The ancient initiates would respond "We don't know you and your supposed
'spirituality'! It is certainly not what we are about: sacred food and drink
to have an immediate mystic-state experience. Don't call yourself spiritual,
when you are no initiate; you are but inexperienced children putting on the
robe of an initiate and playing make-believe. As proof, you still believe in
the Historical Jesus and freewill moral agency."

Meditation has an implied success rate of some 5% after the commonly cited
10-20 years of practice, and even then the result is hazy and shows little
experience of determinism. I would peg its success rate at more like 1% after
30 years of practice, which is practically completely ineffective, so that
meditation is a way of actually *avoiding* the experience of no-free-will,
falsely attired as a religious practice.


-- Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com

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