Susma Rio Sep said:
About Tantra, I seem to remember reading many years back in my college days something about Tantric enthusiasts who would squeeze their penis in orgasm to force the semen to return to where it comes from -- the testicles? And that exercise was supposed to procure mystical ecstacy or I can'r recall now what purpose. Perhaps it was some other guys doing that routine, not Tantric enthusiasts. Can't recall now exactly. My point here? Tell me more about this practice and also my errors of memory. No, I never tried that, and I don't have any curiosity to do so. I think it's pure stupidity.
About psychedelic substances, no, I have never ingested any that I know of. Once a friend doctor of the family told me when I was very young then that paregoric could stop loose bowel movement. Being a curious guy I went to the drugstore and asked for paregoric. The druggist told me they didn't have it. Now I know they have it but to save time and trouble he just gave me the most convenient answer; anyway I had to present a doc's prescription for that substance.
I have been under full general anaesthesia two times so far in my lifetime. I guess that does not qualify for psychedelic experience, for I did not experience anything. But I have the inkling that if anyone wants to know what is death, being under full general anaesthesia is death, a transient one though. For that matter, deep dreamless sleep is also transient death, and also being in a coma or in a fainting spell.
What is my impression of psychedelic and similar substances? They seem to be highly recommended by some people, awfully damned by others, specially the official guardians of society. What I do know for a fact is that people who do ingest such substances have not produced anything useful to mankind in the way of an economic or political theory, or a sure way to abolish wars among peoples and nations, or to arrive at the solutions of longstanding mathematical problems. Not one has ever invented any gadget that is useful in the office or at home. So my conclusion is that they are useless substances, and from people who got addicted and have become zombies, they are very baneful to the proper use of our mind and our liberty.
Susma Rio Sep
Once you've ejaculated, it's game over. The idea is to have such control that you won't ejaculate. I don't believe there's anything special or 'magical' about semen. It's the energy released when you ejaculate. Trying to push it back up will probably just cause damage.
Wrong thread anyway.
Psychedelics. Yes. Well.
As a matter of interest, there have been miraculous accounts of mental progress made while under the influence of psychedelics.
One such incident involved a man who attempted to learn German while under the influence of LSD. Within 1 or 2 weeks he had progressed far further than anyone might imagine. The story can be found amoungst others in an article on LSD and the effects on language functioning at
http://www.psychedelic-library.org.
The value in psychedelics, apart from the possibilities hinted in such stories, lie mainly in their ability to provide the individual with a unique view on life which they never had before.
The mystical experience, which can be entered with large doses or psychedelics (not stimulants like ectasy or analgesics like herion), is an entirely different discussion.
The benefits I am talking about, are to do with breaking down of inhibitive mental constructs which the individual places on themselves during the course of traumatic experiences, social conditioning and the like.
The reason they are unpopular with governments is because they allow the individual to think in an entirely different way to that which they have been conditioned to think.
My opinion on the school system is that it is heavily flawed in it's approach. We are taught to think like a parrot. The government requires it. Culture requires it. What would happen if everybody realised that DKNY was just a big sham. The entire illusion that Dork New York tries to place on the unassuming youth would be knocked off.
It's easy enough to see the illusion rationally, but to actually realise it and the implications of having the hood pulled over your eyes are enough to make one rebel.
Governments just want citizens to go along with there way of life. It takes something like a war to wake people up to the injustices that are being commited. Never mind the fact that American's consume far more resources than they need to at the expense of the rest of the world.
I was up in Durban, South Africa the other month, and I met an American in a youth hostel. He was eating some KFC and I was eyeing it eagerly. He didn't notice ofcourse. We were going to go to the beach in his car, so I went to my room thinking, 'I wonder what he'll do with his chicken?'. When I came back to the lounge, he had gone back to his room, and I looked around for the chicken.
Sure enough, just as I expected, he had chucked a whole perfectly good piece of chicken in the bin (in it's wrapping).
I grabbed the chicken and when he returned, we went to his car.
We got in, and only then did he notice that I was eating his thrown-away chicken. He was horrified, so I explained to him that in South Africa, we don't just through away food, especially KFC. People will kill for that food. No jokes.
It was ironic because he later talked to me about the differences between different religions' rules on food (vegetarian Hindus, kosher Jews). He explained that Christianity's effort was to avoid gluttony. I nearly fell over backward. After all that happened!
Anyway. One could see he had been emotionally scarred, so I didn't take him too seriously.
I don't expect anyone will make any decent inventions while tripping.
Psychedelics aren't about adding intellectual capacity, if anything, they reduce it (for the period of the trip).
They do, however, open a gate when it comes to aethetics: music, art, poetry.
Aldous Huxley didn't call it 'The Doors of Conception'.
