Flames of Purification - Many Polarities

Two aspects, a never-ending cycle, cycles within cycles, aeons and aeons of time with Creator aspect in power, in majority, then, when the predestined limit of the exhalation of the universe, the consuming destrucction with the inhalation of the great dreamer, the creator of our universe known by many names: Shiva, Allah, Brahman, Vishnu, Yehowah, Azathoth; even the constant harmony of the universe has been prophesised to halt, everflowing as it is, and our dream existence shall be naught but memory.

 

 

What new dream shall our Creator place us in? Or shall we merely observe and influence, as mitochondria in a deity's body?

Perhaps the next universe shall again be created according to the image(s) and data the Grand Intelligence manifested, or perhaps a new, hitherto undreamt universe shall arise into existence, bringing with it previously unknown marvels and horrors that have yet to be dreamt into reality by our mind.

 

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I wrote these words after observing a ceremony. Billowing smoke plumed out of a building in front of me to the left as I walked. Peering into the building, various fires were lit on six inch stone...pagodas? While a main one, fuellled by leaves released most of the smoke.

Only men could be seen in the temple, and while my eyes stung from watching them, they fanned the smoke with a sash as they stood nearby, barefoot and robed. It occured to me, as I was no longer distracted by the sweat dripping off my face, that the ash and smoke would seal the pores somewhat from the humidity. I shall, as thousands of generations of people in India have done, and smear ash over my body, both for the above reason and as a reminder of keeping within one's body, whatever spirit still lingers in my depleting self, meditating on how to adjust the personal mistake of letting unwanted people and their suggestions into one side of one's being, and the seemingly unavoidable consequences of over-reliance on friends and family in the mind.

I let words affect both body and mind, before, and the physical and mental highs shall be countered with lows, as I understand it, once again in a cycle of a waveform, shouts and screams of agony and ecstasy, sobs and sighs, shocks and sleeps, strains and snugs, all experienced combinations of ingredients stored in Akashic Records to be reused, refined as chosen by one another's choosers with/against one.

As far as choosers have choice, everything emanating and absorbing? Introculating? In a cosmic, nay, universal breath of life...and death.

If Eliade, Nietzsche, et al. are correct, then the above current belief I have means that when we finitely (mote it be) relive this life again, there is potential for it to be both better and worse, to have different causes; to have many different effects to the current life's recieved ones. For if it were otherwise, be it good or evil, what possible things could an old soul learn as it revolves with the wheel, between states of the multpile polarities and associations formed like wires between nodes? If a life can not be perfected according to one's satisfaction, then what use are mistakes whose lessons are to be forgotten and repeated ceaselessly?

We must imagine Sisyphus as we imagine each other: Happy, sad, and in various other states. I speak from regret that I have not thought of my loved ones enough, that I have a great and terrible twilight ahead of me. My friends and family, toiled Sisyphus-like, more than I have, and I would wish them to be happier, while toiling and while not. Yet then the double edge of the blade of wishful prayer shows it's sharpness: If they become happier, it would seem that I am cursing them to be evetually brought sadder, or lower. It is tempting to conclude that through wishing my loved ones despair, trials, anguish, then they are granted eventual equal, if not greater awe and fascination, comfort and relaxation, and a joyful pleasure that would riva that which those who joined the Hashshashin 'endured'.

I believe everything that has happened to me is due to differing types of contributions from others, and I believe that this is true for everyone else as well. Even believing I and they are repaid in kind, I sit hesitant to perform the mental, physical and spiritual work to make that wish come true. I hasten to add, that I have not yet the courage to wish those negatives on my family and friends, certainly consciously, for if I am wrong the consequences would be untenable for continuation.

Worse still, I sit paralysed from uncertainty, yet while I am still on the path of learning, Lam and Lama both, I am worried my very words written down are those of dissolution, I will continue to try and do good for others, while my negativity should be limited to that which my ideal self would do, not that of peers, or the mob mentality.

I must put my physical form to more use, as of late my arms and back have ached while sat. Shooting, stabbing pains through my feet, and both my hands have been cramping,  like I have a case of the deadly boneitis. Looking for a manual project could be worthwhile.

Mentally I should be saying and doing what is Right, having been more of a Sinister persuasion then is good for others in the short term, and myself in the long term. Though it seems those I have wronged would be thanking me during my later suffering for such...mistakes.

Spiritually I will continue to learn and attain my perfect self - be it as it has struck me, how my dream dream-self is, compatibly with the true self Atman, simultaneously the no-self of all, the Anatman.

May 2023, Kochi, Kerala, India

Edit: Perhaps an end to toil for all would be a safer wish to bring for All of us.

Philip K. Dick On Predicting Selective Emotion and a Cautionary Warning of Ignoring Negativity

 In one of Philip K. Dick's most popular novellas, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", people dialled a number on an electronic device, a "mood organ", and would feel whatever they wanted: Erotic love, crippling depression, contentment, severe argument with spouse for two hours, any emotional state was immediately granted them once the correct code was entered.

Whether it was good for the person who was with the dialler was a different thing.

'So I left the TV sound off and I sat down at my mood organ and I experimented. And I finally found a setting for despair… So I put it on my schedule for twice a month; I think that's a reasonable amount of time to feel hopeless about everything...' How much time do you set aside each month for specific moods?" - Philip K. Dick

It isn't a huge leap of the imagination to see how by selecting a social media group(s) on Facebook, reddit et al. that people are immediately directed to a screen showing a Web page where people have posted content full of whatever anyone could choose, sorted by an AI algorithm  according to their likes and dislikes, judged by time spent viewing and no doubt other factors, shaped by society yet some content is more beneficial to some than others.

From cute animals, to footage of executions, with in-betweens such as road rage videos, pranks, cosplays of anyone and/or anything and so on, the explosion of memes and memetics is shaping society faster than ever before, thanks to the volume of data transferred worldwide on a daily basis.

As PKD noted, people would choose both positivity and negativity for themselves. After an hour of anime, someone may want to watch a documentary, then watch insects feasting upon a corpse, then cars crashing while people bungee jump between them.

The point is, that people choose what they want and the chemical response in the body and brain, combined with the emotional and informational stimuli received to mind and body is fed at a faster and faster pace on a newsfeed or equivalent. A social media user finding themselves with some free time, if they aren't careful (as I haven't been), scrolling through post after post, thoughts and stimuli become short-circuited by contrasting and conflicting inputs to the senses.

The number of times I've been reading a post and feeling empathic with the content of someone's eulogy, or the sweet nostalgia from a childhood item, only to be disrupted by a video of an obnoxious influencer selling stock market information with loud attention-grabbing music and my thoughts and feelings are disturbed. To watch a video of a kitten playing with a puppy, then switching to the latest Redband video trailer can cause unexpected results upon a person.

Worse yet, there is only the option to hide content, which would mean missing out on the topic altogether. Yes, I can keep scrolling or turn my phone off and contemplate what I have just received.

If not deliberately thought to do so, the mind would start to become conditioned to expect disturbance from another video or post, and in a dystopian Pavolovian response, cease to respond for more than a few seconds after receiving compatible appropriate responses to positive or negative information, both online and IRL.

People require an amount of time to fulfill their desires of various types and contrary to the above, if someone receives too much of a repeated  stimuli (Desire-response? Thoughtform? Answers on a postcard) the sense become bloated and deafened, or an addiction is formed via repeated feeling and chemical reaction. 

This could be ingrained into software the same as gambling software does: "You've watched this cat paw it's owner for five hours now, are you sure you don't want to watch/do something else?"

Facebook is worse than several other sites as it tries to remove negativity as a legitimate response.

When it was first released to the public after a brief stint in University, the only available reaction was a "like". A symbolic thumbs up. People posting their family had been murdered by rabid mongoose would receive 800+ thumbs-up 👍 responses from everyone else they knew. The effect on those in mourning was unprecedented. "My best friend said to me it's good and positive that happened! So did 799 other people! I can't be right for feeling 'like' this, I'm subconsciously changing....waaagĝhhh...." could be a viable thought process in the past, to varying degrees, despite the adaption of ironic likes that perpetuate still I.T.Y.O.O.Like. 2023.

After large public rebuttal, Facebook added love ❤️,  care, sad 😔, haha 😄 and angry 😡 to their list of acceptable reactions - hardly the gamut of human emotion and years behind the likes of WhatsApp, despite being owned by the same company and yet used by many millions (including me at the moment).

Still, it remains unacceptable to give a thumbs down to your mate who was mugged for a choc ice to feed a crack-addicted toddler.

In writing this, I hope we are soon at the time once more before corporate censorship, or government firewalls (as is in place in India, to a business extent the U.K., Morocco, and many other countries as reported by other users) where every type of conceivable data is accessible and integrated, rather than the failed approach of banning, country or Internet wide, data deemed unhealthy or in breach of ideals, leading to an underground of gore and rape fantasies for curious adolescents. 

Not that any of that damaged the 90's kids I write, pocketing the bloodstained lock of her hair, the only thing that still gives feeling to the blackened husk that is my soul as I prepare the next runaway child to be sacrificed to Moloch.

I mean, wasn't the free Internet of the 90's cooler, jaded and scarred as we may be now?

Immanentise the eschaton! Release full reality VR full haptic body sensors to respond authentically to every perceivable situation!

 Let the death waivers be signed and may the next Aeon be more glorious and terrible as is desired by the All!

The Mystery of Talos or Probing the Reality of the Aboriginal Dreamtime

The Mystery of Talos

or

Probing the Reality of the Aboriginal Dreamtime

There is a belief that dreams change our waking life. It has been reflected upon, that these dreams not only a/effect the self, but everyone else in this state of shared consciousness. Many have claimed to have mastered the art of lucid dreaming, that is, the ability to shape one's dreams according to one's true will, and that this shapes our future.

The aborigines took this one step further, and saw their dreams while on walkabout, accepting what they termed sprits guiding their actions in a variety of animals and the natural and 'supernatural' (marks to delinify that more natural than natural would still be natural), and this was accepted by their tribe as being no more unusual than walking past trees on a country road.

Western thought has long since moved away from their collection of beliefs, that anyone who sees visions, or hears voices is labelled as psychotic and the current (as of 2019) belief is to medicate away the voices or visions, as some of these can be (with reason) negative.

Eastern thought, particularly the Buddhist perspective, is to let all external stimuli that a/effects the internal is reacted to for what it is, and then moved on from, like a stone in a river causing the water to flow around it, while feeling the force of the water, while every droplet would be a part of a thought that changes the internal state of the rock.

Back to the dreamtime. It has been labelled different things by different people of various professions, be it the Ideosphere, the subconcious, the Id, and no doubt others, yet it still holds to the belief that there are forms of everything that ever was, is, and will be yet to be discovered and passed on to man.

The title of this work refers to the Greek mythological Talos, a creature made from bronze with blood of ichor, that could move and act as a flesh and blood human. This concept was created over a thousand years ago, and yet now we are ever more closer to developing a automaton which would behave in the exact same manner as it's creators, as our Abrahamic God created us in his image, to be like us.

How would the ancient Greeks have formulated the concept of a automaton, specifically to the point of using a metal and oil for blood, which would resound throughout the ages in various science fiction novels be resounding around our consciousness (sub or not) without some alternate sphere of reality? Where these...thoughts (an arguable word, often taken glibly) are passed on to the people in the correct frame of mind to be able to make sense of such things, in a time when (to continue with the Talos example) people were still using stone and winches to create their buildings.

Take for example, the invention of the telephone. It was simultaneously invented by people who had no overt communication with each other, on different continents of the planet and released to the public within a very short space of time of each other – there seems to be an area where these people are studying and reflecting upon possibilities for the future, with the future seemingly pre-determined, with things taken from this mind space becoming the 'real'.

I believe that we think with others in what can only be described as a telepathic manner, and we each respond to the others thoughts and actions according to our own stored experiential information that is learned and stored in our Mindspace, so that we may cause emotion and action in others and vis a vis, ourselves, then we can take that further, when two people are thinking toget certain information in various states of emotion, then they can be greater than their individual selves, and come to mindful solutions to whatever may be hindering their mind and body at any given time, with the correct actions and reactions.

To extrapolate from this, every condition that is physical is caused by other mind stimuli. The body is reacting to inputs that cause vast differences in bodily actions. I supposit that people with various syndromes, alzheimer's, parkinson's and the like are only being partially cured by Western standards due to the typical Western methods only causing a partial response in the patient – as the medications effects cause an increase in certain chemicals which is only a temporary solution.

To look at someone with restless leg syndrome, for example, if they were trying to nullify and/or ignore their emotions of anger, then this is typically shown with the right leg ascending and descending rapidly, while the sufferer focuses elsewhere, or does not think while the body and thoughts in the Mindspace suggest violence or aggressive action, while the sufferer could be a pacifist, or merely believe that such a response would be incorrect, hence the gap between the individual, the individual's brain then mind, and the wider Mindspace.

One possible solution to the above syndrome, which has not been tested is to encourage someone to start doing aggressive, harmless actions, like punching and kicking a punching bag when the leg starts it's erratic movements, even if the sufferer has no urge to do such thing, and see if the leg jittering goes away.

From a similar viewpoint, every condition should be treated with a combination of retraining the mind to react to something causing negativity in the correct way, even if that negativity is required due to circumstances such as bereavement, in which case in should be embraced, and touched upon when felt to be appropriate by an individual.

On a more personal note, beliefs like these have labelled myself and others as delusional under Western psychiatric diagnoses (as above) and stygmies the acceptance of any of these beliefs in an attempt to define sane within very strict boundaries and keep the general population at a set level of understanding of reality, and that nothing beyond the immediate sensory is real.

It is time for the Western world to reconcile with the Eastern, and the Tribal, and the Realm of the Mythological, and believe that even those things that seem impossible, can be possible, and at some point, be it in the distant future or the distant past, will come to be, if they have not already in some form or other, no matter how miraculous it may seem.

Cornucopia, an Imagining

Cornucopia

I recently returned to my hometown. Again. Once again however, I hear the voices whispering:

"You're a coward. You've ran away from Amsterdam. And now you're running to hide in your parents house. You can't hide forever."

I shut them up by reminding myself that I chose to come here for a reason.

I went on a walk today. Not far, in `normal' terms, but far enough to clear my mind. After a while I realised I was walking across fields, following the map in my memory's mind. I started to ask myself that eternal question all adventurers ask in this day and age - "What am I searching for?"

The Holy Grail? The Lost Ark of the Covenant? The Spear of Destiny? Atlantis? The Philosopher's Stone? All of the above! Although after a while each knight must face his own doubt within him, the shadow companion who dances round his psyche while he walks, gibbering and laughing.

To seek these items in a literal sense is futile. They are symbols, representations of knowledge we once had, and has been lost, or more correctly, corrupted over the centuries. These relics are symbols of potential cures to our mental ailments - whatever is currently making us unhappy in the world.

Everyone is asking the same questions in the same way, and losing faith when they do not receive the answers they seek.

"How do we cure cancer?" ,"Is Abortion Right or Wrong?" ,"Did God create the world in seven days?"

Cancer is merely something that eats away at us. Something we have let fester inside too long, and without the correct treatment, we are consumed. Yet we fail to appreciate the beauty in cancer, the natural way of controlling our population. People have argued for millenia what this cancer is within us, as a society. Is the cancer crime, like the good people at OCP thought? Partially, crime is a symptom, once again of a larger illness. A society is judged by the way it treats it's prisoners. We only need to look to our apparently benevolent leaders in areas of the U.S. to see how more "advanced" they truly are.

Under the hypothesis that we share a global consciousness, each man serving 23 hours of solitary confinement is suffering. Each man, woman and child are sharing his suffering. Does the man enduring this hardship learn anything new about the crime he may or may not have committed during that time?

Rarely, even more rare that if he did he would be given the chance to prove to his peers that he has been reformed. Economically, the same system drains funds by providing slave labour (ala The Shawshank Redemption). Honest businessmen cannot compete with greedy corporations. Nothing is learned. History repeats itself.

We can learn a lot from how to act from our elders. People who lived in simpler times. In certain tribes, when a man stole from one of his neighbours, the rest of the village would go around to the offender's house, and instead of lynching him with pitchforks, give him gifts of food, and other luxuries.

They would apologise, "Please, we are so sorry for ignoring your needs so much that you felt you needed to take without being able to ask permission. What can we do to help you?" Perhaps we need to end the failed “tough on crime” stance.

Walking today I saw a church group advertising for Street Angels, to patrol the streets keeping towns safe. The towns are safe. It's the violent vigilantes, inflicting their beliefs with the stick upon whomever they feel is intolerable. The idea of these people being giving taciturn approval by a scared populace feeds my own fears.

Is abortion Right or Wrong? The answer is always both. It can be the right decision for the time, yet the effects of the action will be felt for a long time afterwards, and correctly so – not in an ethical sense, but in a psychological one – I have rarely met a woman who has had more than one. Once bitten, twice shy? The terms pro-life and pro-choice seem once again a false dichotomy. Alarmingly, if I'm wrong, the arguments we have presented are between “Living and choosing, or dying oppressed. Kind of tempers the fire.

God created the world in seven days in an allegorical sense (as in IT created it for us to live and respect different aspects of the world in different days: a day of Sun, of Moon etc.) so Creationists have a point, yet try and read the phrase in a literal sense and confusion is bred.

So if we are all asking the wrong questions, what are the right ones?

I have been trying to study the answer to that question for a long time, with little success. The same problem plagued Douglas Adams (or did it...42?), but when I started to open my channels somewhat, as in to listen to more, shall we say, alternative suggestions from branches of science, I found much more that seemed to crossover successfully with religion.

I think it was the fact that I approached most `new' science with a spiritual bent that I developed my...strange way of seeing the world. One of my mantras of late has been “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

For example, I mentioned earlier I was walking with no sense of direction. Aimless in more than ways than one in the world, I decided to just to go wherever I felt like, wandering across verdant fields and gorse-covered hills, near the Great North Yorkshire Moors, between Scarborough and Whitby.

Dante may have had to pass a leopard, a lion and a she -wolf on his trip through the dark woods, I only had to contend with some cows, a horse, a skittish deer and a worm.

I say only. Every animal is intelligent, whether we can sense it or not.

I felt the cows fear of me as I approached them nervously, practically courting their friendship. Eventually they approached me after I lowered myself before them. After staring at the Sun for a moment, I looked back at the cows, who had all lowered their heads and were staring at me. Their coal black skin and eyes was only offset by a yellow barcode branded in their ear. I gazed about me at their `prison'. Yes, they had no freedom, but as I walked away from them, the mad thought that many women pierce their ears ran through my head and I giggled maniacally for a moment, and then stepped over a toppled iron gate, and looked back at the cows. They were still watching me intently, but had stopped following me a little distance from the exit to the field. They were happy. Everyone in the farm was happy, except you (me?). I shivered and walked away, trying not to glance behind me.

I came across a red circle in a hay field. Curiously there was some hay in the centre that looked a perfect place for a lay down and a smoke. My mind was filled with pride. Of how I should write of a new Utopia, a Utopia achievable in my lifetime. It is to be called Cornucopia. There is enough resources for everyone. I just need to collect enough data to prove how it can be done to others. Writing gets easier...

The horse was enclosed near the entrance to the Hayburn Wyke public house. I climbed through the barbed wire fence, and approached the horse with even more trepidation. I had been wishing for a horse of my own, as a companion with me on my travels. Maddeningly, I reasoned I was here for a reason, and with a gesture of peace approached the Shire Mare.

She stood her ground as I approached, sniffing me curiously. Not surprised with some of the stuff I had been smoking. I gently tried to stroke her mane, and she pulled back as if stung.

Wounded, I returned my hands to their sides and let her paw the ground slightly before she advanced to me one more time. I closed my eyes, and lowered my head. I listened to her breath, and was surprised by her rubbing the side of her muzzle to my hair. In return I stroked hers for a second, before she suddenly came to and moved away again. I watched her, partly in anger (why can't I touch her?), and partly in sorrow (I'm not worthy to touch her, to ride her).

She ground her teeth, I started to think how she has learned to distrust humans, even though she does not fear them. The wave of distrust swept over me, and I start to cry. I whirl around and walk away from the animal again, my pride sufficiently lowered.

I head to the pub down the long winding wooded slope, all the while amazed at the coincidence – I had been to the same pub with my father, mother, and sister's dog the previous weekend, yet I had arrived here from a completely different direction, with no intention of visiting here until I saw the sign (beer!) and the horse.

I enter the bar and order a pint of Black Sheep. Always was my favourite ale. I start to drink and can hear nothing but incessant titters and giggles from a group of 50 year old men sitting to my right. A man, his wife and dog sit at the table in front of me. I try to drink to take my mind away from them. The beer was perfectly poured, and well settled. Yet I cannot drink more than a few gulps, before I angrily snatch my bag and walk away, leaving the pint practically untouched.

I do this like I'm acting out a script that I read the day before. Yet at the same time it is all completely ad libbed.

Walking in weariness once more, feverishly trying to rewrite my own script, I see a earthworm on the ground. It is on the path of the Cinder Tracks, a disused railway line that links the two towns. I watch it for a minute, seeing the way it flexes and contracts to move, it's proboscis snuffling the dry, rocky gravel path. I am seized by a dilemma once more. Should I move the Earthworm from it's difficult path onto the damp soil of the adjacent field? Is the Earthworm suffering unnecessarily? I try to shut out the cacophany of questions and pick up the worm, and place it gently in the grass by the field. Was I right to attempt to save the worm? I decide that as long as I thought I was helping. How hypocritical of me. It is only now thinking back that I consider both the hermaphroditic aspects of the worm, and that a worm under certain circumstances can be cut in two, and two worms will survive.

Rather than mention the skittish deer, whose representation of temptation I trust is obvious, I encounter as I type the final animal encounter of the night. I'm distracted by my typing by a movement in the shadows to the right. I flick my gaze right and see a large house spider crawling quickly towards the mattress on the floor that I sleep on. I look on, nearly paralysed as it moves on it's razor spindles towards me. The rational part of my brain that normally tells me “This is a house spider. It is harmless.” has vanished. Instead I can only think of Ariadne, spinning gloom and cocooning her victims. The spider dances on, moving along edge of the mattress behind me. I glance down and see the spider walk under the overhanging edge of my pillow. The paralysis breaks, I breathe, and lift up my pillow.

The spider, feeling my fear, my mind dying, absorbs this dreadful energy and moves towards my naked leg. “Jesus.” I close my eyes and look again. The spider trundles away towards my father's laptop, and disappears in the shadows.

An exercise in futility, I try to put it out of my mind. Already I feel tingling goose-bumps on my flesh. “There's a spider crawling on you...it only has a small bite. Barely a pin prick. You won't feel it.” I banish the voice by reminding myself that scaring myself has stood the hairs of my legs on end, and it is only them rubbing on the hastily-wrapped-round duvet that I feel. I hear a snicker.

It's healthy to remember the power animals have over us, they were here a lot longer before we were, and we are the usurpers. Respect nature in all it's aspects and in turn you shall gain the respect of Gaea.

Or so I hope. Dear God in Heaven, I hope. Gone 3am. Forget the day. You've wrote something down. You're getting better. You're still free to leave anytime you want. The sticky coating of concern that draws tighter and tighter around your throat is for your own good. The phosphorescent netting that bites into your ribs is a healing balm. Don't struggle. It makes it so much more difficult. It's the circle of life you know...we all need to feed...

Salvia Divinorum : The Shaman's Secret

I feel like trying Salvia again in a couple of days, and I guess I want to share my experiences with this powerful mental, physical and spiritual plant.

So what is Salvia? Where is it from? Who used it originally?

Courtesy of salvia.net :

"

Salvia is endemic to the Sierra Madre Mountains in Oaxaca, Mexico. In this region it is used by Mazatec curanderos and curanderas in different rituals. The plant is mostly used when these shamans felt they needed to discover the cause of a patient’s illness in the supernatural world. The shaman entered a visionary trance that allowed him to see what steps have to be taken to cure the patient. This is still a common usage of salvia under the present generation of Mazatec Indians. The plant is also used for prediction, meditation and the search for the divine.

Little is known about the usage of Salvia divinorum before its Western “discovery” in the 20th century. It's probably been in usage for hundreds of years, but it was only when R. Gordon Wasson, the famous botanist who also introduced psilocybe mushrooms to the Western world, brought back a specimen in the 1960’s that the plant became an object of scientific research. However, it remained an obscure plant until the 1990’s, when Daniel Siebert began his research on the plant. Nowadays, salvia is widely known and sold in many (web)shops. But, there is still a lot of research to be done into the chemistry and effects of salvia.

Modern research into Salvia divinorum started in the 1930’s. Salvia divinorum was first recorded in Western literature in 1939 by Jean Basset Johnson, who did research on the use of hallucinogenic mushroom in Mexico. He saw that the Mazatec Indians used the leaves of “Hierba Maria” to induce visions. R. Gordon Wasson continued research in the 1950’s and confirmed the psychoactivity of salvia. Together with Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, and Roberto G. Weitlaner, he was the first to bring back live specimens back to the west. They sent one of those specimens to Harvard University in 1962, where it was analyzed by Carl Epling.

It remains unclear how long salvia use dates back among the native inhabitants of Mexico. It is suggested that the plant was introduced after the conquest of the new world. The evidence to support this is that the Mazatecs do not have an indigenous name for the plantl: they use names referring to Mary or sheep herding(“Hierba Maria” or “ska Maria Pastora”), while both christianity and sheep were introduced by the Spanish. Moreover, the Mazatecs have a method of consumption that is quite inefficient, which suggests that they are not aware of the enormous psychoactive potency.

However, R. Gordon Wasson, and others after him, suggested that Salvia divinorum could possibly be the same plant the Aztecs called "Pipiltzintzintli" (literally "the purest little prince"), , which was described by a Spanish author in the 17th century. In the 1980’s researcher J. Valdés III continued to investigate the history of salvia prior to Wasson’s "discovery". He suggests that "Pipiltzintzintli" is most likely cannabis, not salvia."

OK, so now we know that it has been used since time immemorial, by Mexican Indian shamans to enter the spirit world, where they could identify illness in a person by looking inside them.

It was used in religious service as well, for meditation, and exploring the inner conscience that usually remains quiet within us.

Salvia is nothing like weed, save the easiest way to ingest it is to smoke it. If you eat anything on Salvia, you will likely vomit. I tried to give an Italian friend some water while he was tripping, and he poured it down his shirt. I held to his lips and he took small, frightened sips, his eyes rapidly blinking as he no-doubt reacted with madness to the feelings of the water trickling down his body.

So how long does it last? What does it feel like? Am I breaking the law taking it?

The effects of Salvia typically come on very fast, reaching their peak between 5 - 25 minutes after inhalation. The effects also subside quickly, leaving you (relatively) normal in a couple of hours.

However I cannot stress enough that Salvia is not a party drug. You will not be looking and acting your best while tripping. It is true that it can be hilarious to watch people tripping ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7dDGJo_qkc ), and it is always a good idea to find a trusted friend who is sober to sit with you while you explore another dimension.

I'm going to be quoting salvia.net a lot, and I reccomend that if you plan on taking Salvia, check their website - read trip reports, thoughts, opinions, and share your own afterwards!

"A number of people report that the effects of salvia became stronger after having used it a couple of times. Some people appear to become more sensitive and will reach a higher level of effects after a couple of times. On the other hand, quite a large percentage of people (around 10%) are fairly insensitive to salvinorin. Many of them will reach effects at a higher dose, but a minority will still feel nothing, even at higher doses.

If you are a first time user, it is advised to use only a small dose to test your sensitivity, because the effects can sometimes be overwhelming. Always make sure a sitter is present."

"Salvia is often grouped with other hallucinogenic psychoactives, but in fact its effects are unique. Salvia is sometimes marketed as a legal cannabis substitute, although the effects are in no way similar. During the trip several states can occur: 2-dimensional hallucinations, out of body experiences, becoming an object, traveling back in time, being in more places at once and uncontrolled laughing. On his website www.egodeath.com Michael Hoffman discusses what he considers the religious effects of Salvia Divinorum. Erowid mentions the following reported effects in their Salvia FAQ:

• Loss of physical coordination
• Uncontrollable laughter
• Visual alterations or visions
• Experiencing multiple realities
• A contemplative sense of peace
• Sense of profound understanding
• Dream-like veneer over the world
• Sense of total confusion or madness
• Seeing or becoming part of a tunnel
• Loss of sense of awareness as an individual
• Experiencing a “non-Euclidean” geometry
• Sense of flying, floating, twisting, or turning
• Feeling of being immersed in an energy field
• Feeling of being connected to a larger “whole”
• Feeling of being underground or underwater
• Appearing to travel to other places and/or times
• Becoming inanimate objects (a wall, stairs, a couch, etc.)
• Viewing patterns or shapes that are tube-like, snake-like, or worm-like

The famous salvia-researcher Daniel Siebert made up a scale for the strength of a salvia experience. His S-A-L-V-I-A trip scale shows 6 trip stages:

• S - SUBTLE effects, Relaxation and increased sensual appreciation may be noted. This mild level is useful for meditation and may facilitate sexual pleasure.
• A - ALTERED perception, colors and textures are paid attention to. Thinking becomes less logical, and more playful.
• L - LIGHT visionary state. Closed eye visuals (clear imagery with eyes closed).
• V - VIVID visionary state. Complex three dimensional realistic appearing scenes occur. With eyes closed you experience fantasies. So long as your eyes are closed you may believe they are really occurring.
• I - IMMATERIAL existence. Individuality may be lost; one experiences merging with the Divine.
• A - AMNESIC effects. Loss of consciousness. The individual may fall, or remain immobile or thrash around. Dangerous!

When smoking or chewing salvia leaves or extract, many people will be able to reach level 5. For them it is not necessary to experiment with stronger ways of taking salvia. We advise you to try smoking or chewing (or a combination of both) a couple of times and to gradually increase the dose, if you are experiencing little or no effects. Stronger forms of salvia should only be used if you have some experience and know how sensitive you are."

Music is extremely synthetic to a Salvia trip, but not in the way you'd suspect. In fact, it's nearly impossible to predict how you'll interpret music during a trip. Most people listen to relaxing music that doesn't have much in the way of vocals, so you should probably go with that until you really figure out what a Salvia trip is like. I also strongly advise against listening to any “scary” music until you have plenty of experience.

So there you have it. The best news about this drug is that it's (as of May 2011) legal to buy this amazing plant.