Through the Rabbit Hole with Krystle Cole

Urban Shamans Amber Larson, Xochitl, Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Bela, Wisdom Quarterly; Hamilton Pharmacopeia (VICE/HBO, 2012); Krystle A. Cole (NeuroSoup)

"You should get out more," people may say. Maybe people should get in more, like Alice.

TOPEKA, Kansas - Former goth stripper, author of Lysergic, and producer of numerous YouTube videos Krsytle A. Cole talks about her time spent living in an "Underground Acid Palace," a subterranean missile silo converted into a luxurious LSD-manufacturing facility.

She take Hamilton and VICE's cameras on a tour into the rabbit hole. We're not in Kansas any... well, apparently, we still are. And this time it's underground just like Alice in Wyrd (another word for Wonderland).
 
Krystle Cole spent three years of her life running from the DEA, being held partially against her will and used as a guinea pig for strange new psychedelic chemicals.
 

Lysergic, 2nd ed. (goodreads.com)

Eventually her friends-turned-captors were arrested, whereas Krystle herself barely escaped incarceration.

She now makes her living as a writer, sharing her experiences in books and on the Web in her firsthand and Erowid.org-style accounts of experimenting with entheogens and other forbidden substances on NeuroSoup.
 

I wonder, I wonder, I wonder what's down in there! (Alice at the gate of the Rabbit Hole)

 
We can't help but observe how much she looks like someone we knew, both in terms of her features and her mannerisms, who eventually became an expert Buddhist meditator and stream enterer. Of course, people do not believe anyone get enlightened nowadays. They do. How do we know? we'll be asked. That was courtesy of a strange set of circumstances too hard for others to believe. We believe it. We were there. We saw and understood.

DRUG DISCUSSION
Wisdom Quarterly (URBAN SHAMANISM)

The lights, the lights, painting with light (DigitalTurkey-Graph/flickr.com)

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The devas still descend from space.

Is there anything good to be said about any "drug"? Yes, the entheogens, the ones that bring out the "divine" (theos, deus, devas, the "godly") within. So, Xochitl, which drug? Native Americans have "plant helpers," not "drugs." To say that word tosses our minds to grim concrete ghettos and dreary suburbs painted neon. We're leaving that; we're back in nature; we're going to Wyrd or the Spirit World. An entheogen, a sacred plant, root, vine, mushroom, or combination -- whatever -- is all about getting to one thing: DMT (dimethyltryptamine).

(Gnosis) "DMT: The Spirit Molecule," which explores human consciousness, weaves an account of Dr. Rick Strassman's groundbreaking DMT research through a multifaceted approach to this intriguing entheogen/hallucinogen found in the body, brain, and hundreds of plants.

And this DMT is not out there. It's in here, in the center of our brains, behind the third eye, where the pineal gland is enclosed in gray matter with active rods and cones and its own inner-retina.
 
There are many ways to awaken it. "Drugs" are the worst way. People are not ready to see it. Amber, does Buddhism have anything good to say about drugs? I think we all agree with Dr. Gabor Mate that the problem of "drug use and abuse" is that almost no one in the U.S. who sets out to get high is actually trying to get high. They're just trying to get wasted.

 

Befriending Faeries

They are trying to obtund (dull) rather than enhance consciousness, trying to get blotto, blitzed, full of toxins or intoxicated. Right, Seven? That's right! We use the same word to mean exact opposite things -- doped up or wasted versus opened up and trying to see things as they really are.

Whatever there is of substances to get "high" on, that exists within for us to access. Crystal? There are Tibetan lamas who do dream yoga. But look at the yogis of olde, not the ganja-obtunded waste-cases sitting around growing great dreadlocks and clutching hash pipes. Maybe they would have taken or produce Soma and Amrita, the "nectar of the devas."

Yogis sometimes veer off the path (D. Earlotti)

What we call chocolate was something like that, Theobroma cacao, "cocoa the food of the devas." Which extraterrestrial-gods was it who pointed out the pits of that fruit was edible?

 

The subtle little fairies/devis in art (1909)

Serenity-meditation that leads to the absorptions leads to bliss in the first two jhanas, independent of the senses and sensuality. It comes from within. It makes possible the concentration and mental-collectedness needed for successful insight-practice called vipassana. Anyone smoking high-THC/low-CBD cannabis to get lost or wasted will get lost and waste her/his time.

Devas watch as liberator is born.

But if one pursues awakening the pineal gland, the third eye, the seat of consciousness, the "mind door" around the heart may get something else, awakening and liberation. But real liberation is not transient. It does not fall away. Drug experiences, absorptions (jhanas), hallucinations, and delusions do. The Five Precepts warn us away from intoxicants. This is very wise. Mere "knowledge" (ñāna), study (suta), and experience cannot substitute for actual wisdom (Sanskrit prajñā, Pali paññā).

Embodying DMT as "Soma"?

Stephen T. Naylor, Encyclopedia Mythica (pantheon.org)

The devas depicted in Western/Greco-Roman forms (Ilias Flaxman, Gestochen/Wiki)

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Where earthbound devas dwell, Plitvice

Soma is a very difficult deity [deva] for many outside of India to comprehend. He works on numerous levels, all of which are tied together rather strangely. Soma is firstly a plant. 

 

He is also an intoxicating drink which was brewed from that plant [which plant or mushroom, root or vine is disputed]....Though he is never depicted in human form, Soma obviously did not want for lovers [i.e., people who loved it]; poets rarely do.

In one episode, his desires caused a war. He had grown arrogant due to the glory that was offered him. Because of this, he let his lust overcome him; he kidnapped and carried off Tara, the wife of the [deva] Brihaspati. After refusing to give her up, the devas made war on him to force her release, and Soma called on the [titans] asuras to aid him.

Finally, Brahma interceded and compelled Soma to let Tara go. But she was with child, and it ended up that this child was Soma's. The child was born and named Budha (not to be confused with the Buddha). More

There is a "road" (path) to a weird "land" (place) somewhere outside of this illusion.

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Is it Amrita, the endogenous nectar of our divine nature?

Wisdom Quarterly edit of Wikipedia entry

Mohini, female-Vishnu with Amrita pot (W)

Amrita is repeatedly referred to as "the drink of the devas, the "gods," which grants them "immortality."

• Immortality? Perhaps that timeless vision or realization of who we really are, which does not end at death; our personality ends, and self falls away, but something, some whole, some connection to everything else, remains or is reborn, taking and clinging to a new form it immediately mistakes for "self" again. We are not so limited as any expression or manifestation would suggest.

Amrita features in the "ocean-churning" Samudra manthan legend, which describes how the devas, because of a curse from the sage Durvasa, begin to lose their immortality (divine vision of themselves?

 

Assisted by their mortal enemies, the asuras (Buddhist "titans"), they churn the ocean (cosmos, world-system, Milky Way, samsara) and create -- among other wonderful (Wyrd) things -- Amrita, the nectar of immortality.

 

In yogic philosophy (as it found its way from Hindu philosophy into its cognate Mahayana-Buddhism), Amrita is a fluid that can flow from the pituitary gland down the throat in deep states of meditation. It is considered quite a boon: Some yogic texts say that one drop is enough to conquer death and achieve immortality. More

Psychedlic medicine heals emotional injuries

Xochitl, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; KPCC Health Care Correspondent Stephanie O'Neill (SCPR.org)  URBAN SHAMANISM

Altar of the Buddha in Indonesia. Theravada style, flooded in green light. The statue looks similar to one in #Borobudur temple holding Dharmachakra mudra (teaching gesture). It differs from complicated and colorful altars of Mahayana and Tantrayana (Vajrayana) Buddhism because the Buddha is not a god but inspiration for our human potential. It consists of a brass periphery for incense and candles, flowers, oil lamps, water bowls, and sacred cremation relics. May 15, 2014 prior azimuth of Moon on Vesak (Dragono Halim/flickr).

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Psilocyben can treat cancer, anxiety

Research into the therapeutic potential of illegal "psychedelic" drugs to treat an assortment of mainstream mental health conditions is undergoing a modern-day renaissance.

A host of published studies in the field is showing promise for psychedelics, such as psilocybin -- the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms" -- to help treat alcoholism, depression, drug addiction, and severe anxiety caused by serious or terminal illness.

Other studies are finding that MDMA, also known as the party-drug "Ecstasy," may be valuable in treating PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

"These drugs...were researched extensively in the 1950s and the 1960s, through the early '70s," says Dr. George Greer, medical director for the nonprofit Heffter Research Institute, which raises donations for psilocybin studies worldwide. "There were hundreds of studies that were very promising."

Abuses in Medicare drug use

But the psychedelic '60s changed all that.

LSD and other hallucinogens, once confined to the lab, exploded into mainstream culture after the pied-piper of psychedelics, Timothy Leary, urged a generation to try LSD and other hallucinogens as a way to "turn on, tune in, drop out." Many followed his advice, some with bad results. And that triggered a backlash that led the federal government to criminalize psychedelic drugs in 1970.

A year later, U.S. President Nixon launched the "War on Drugs" [made famous by right wing sweethearts Pres. Ronald and First Lady Nancy Reagan].

Those measures helped to create a stigma that brought an end to the early phase of psychedelic research, says Rick Doblin, founder the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

Psilocybin treats alcoholism

"There is this tendency when drugs become criminalized for their non-medical use, their medical use then subsequently also becomes suppressed," says Doblin.

But since early 2000, a new willingness to look again at these drugs has shifted the research landscape. And thanks to the fundraising efforts of MAPS and the Heffter Research Institute, modern-day psychedelics studies are now happening at top academic research facilities, including Johns Hopkins University, New York University, the University of New Mexico, and UCLA.

"These agents have very broad applicability within psychiatry and can be used for mood disorders, eating disorders, personality disorders," says Dr. Stephen Ross, a psychiatrist and psychedelics researcher at NYU School of Medicine. "They can be used for so many things that our treatment have not improved in recent years."

But the drugs are powerful and must be used with caution, especially since it's believed they can exacerbate serious mental conditions, such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. However, used in a supervised setting with trained therapists, these drugs have the potential to offer properly-screened patients much-needed new treatment options.

Psychedelic Science: E for PTSD

"We are not at all referencing our work to the recreational drug-use world, which is rife with potential risks," says Dr. Charles Grob, director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and a pioneer in modern-day psychedelics research. "We are talking about developing a new model...to be used within medicine and psychiatry."

Grob says psychedelics offer a rather unusual paradigm in which many patients are reporting relief with as few as one or two supervised applications of the drugs, used in conjunction with limited psychotherapy.

"This is very different than conventional drug treatment, which, more often than not, administers a drug on a daily basis for weeks, months and even years," Grob says.

And research into these drugs is a bit less conventional as well. Because the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) classifies these illegal drugs as "Schedule One" substances -- considered risky with "no currently accepted medical use" -- scientists must adhere to strict protocols when researching them. Those include rules on how the drugs are used, handled, and stored.

But a greater challenge remains financing. So far, the government has yet to fund research into psychedelics. That leaves private donations as the sole source of funding.

Death by HIV "prevention" meds

Scientists in this field say they believe as more evidence into the varied uses for these drugs is collected and published the government will be more likely to grant research funding requests.

And as more time passes, Grob says, the stigma brought on by the excesses of 1960s counterculture will further fade.

"The '60s are long over. As the Moody Blues used to sing, 'Timothy Leary is dead'…and many of those with whom he fought have also exited," Grob says, "It's a new world and there is a greater need than ever for more effective treatment models for individuals for whom our conventional treatment models are often sorely lacking." LISTEN

• This is Part One of a Psychedelic Science series. See Part Two, Part Three, or Part Four
• AUDIO: Why and how reporting on scientific research warps findings The pressure to publish original research can mean scientists are neglecting to verify the work of others. In its current issue, the journal Social Psychology is trying a different approach... reporting on scientific research might actually warp the findings. Scientists face pressure to publish new discoveries, which in turn might influence what they study... There's work being published today that's part of an effort to fix this problem. NPR's Shankar Vendantam joined Steve Inskeep to talk about it.
  
• Conference examines medical uses of hallucinogens
• Study finds NO link between hallucinogens and mental problems
• Flooding in the Balkans kills dozens, more rain falls
• Thai lay meditation movement (DhammakayaPost)

Hitler survived WW II in Argentina (video)

Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Harry Cooper, Rense; C2C

(Mr. Show with Bob and David)

Hitler's son Jean Marie Loret (nationalpost.com)

"The Hitler Clones" is a hilarious sketch from the classic HBO comedy show asking, What if? (lol) But we will never be able to say it enough, Truth is stranger than fiction. Tragedy trumps comedy in this case: Like 9/11, the American/Russian/British wars on Afghanistan, the US-MIC's invasion of Iraq, the joint US/Israel threats of invading Iran, the Oklahoma Bombing, Sandy Hook, Boston Marathon... the world was deceived again.

Hitler and his food taster (boiseweekly.com)

The amazing and verified fact is that the Fuhrer, the infamous Wall Street-sponsored German dictator and mass murderer, Adolf Hitler, along with Eva Braun, did not commit suicide in a bunker. The twin suicides were a cover. In fact, Hitler and Braun were taken out of Germany along with top Nazi and Gestapo assets as documented in Hitler's Life in Argentina by Harry Cooper.

Longtime researcher and author Harry Cooper was interviewed by Jeff Rense on July 19, 2013. He was on the radio again with investigative newsman George Knapp on Coast to Coast on April 26, 2014 with even more confirmation.

(sharkhunters.com)

American clandestine forces knew it. World leaders spoke in public about it at the time. Argentina welcomed countless Nazi escapees (who likely also utilized neighboring Antarctica), who arrived by German U-Boat/submarine for two years following their "defeat" in WW II. Many therefore say the Nazis did not really lose the war. 

They won and continue to win, but this is not a neo-Nazi/White supremacist fantasy come true. 

Adolf Hitler (Hugo Jaeger/Getty Images)

At least 9,034 NAZI scientists were invited to live with impunity in the United States (Project Paperclip) that shielded them from war crimes charges associated with the Holocaust, help set up our public and secret space programs, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), our nuclear programs, our inter-ballistic missile programs, our empire, the end of civil liberties, and our attempted conquest of the world.

• What REALLY happened to Hitler when the war ended?
• Learn the true history backed by files from the CIA, FBI, OSS, and Dutch Intelligence plus files from the STASI
• Research, document search, and confirmation continues

• VIDEO: When the Catholic saints come marching in
• PHOTOS: Hitler and Nazis in Argentina (rense.com)

The CIA, NSC (National Security Council), NSA (National Security Association), DHS (Department of Homeland Security), FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), like the Stasi and England's MI5, Russia's KGB, and Israel's Mossad are saturated in Nazi research and activity.

Where's the evidence?

Christian leaders can never do wrong

(C2C) Cooper revealed to Knapp on Saturday (April 26, 2014) that he has encountered many eyewitnesses who saw Hitler and Braun alive and well after the war. This includes a man from Mar del Plata, Argentina, who admitted to seeing the former German dictator on three separate occasions.

Moreover, a former naval intelligence/NSA agent admitted to Cooper that the American intelligence community knew that Hitler did not die in Germany. The CIA and FBI, for example, knew that Hitler was living in Argentina from 1945 on, according to Cooper. 

It's easier to joke about heavy subjects

But the most compelling evidence confirming Hitler's escape to South American comes from an agent named Don Angel; he wrote a 114-page, single-spaced letter detailing his experiences in the infamous bunker with Hitler and Braun. He witnessed the couple being forcibly drugged under orders of Reich leader Martin Bormann, a double brought in (shown in photographs and immolated the way Osama bin Laden's alleged corpse was dumped into the deep blue sea), and the cover story deployed. Listen

(WQ) Hitler was taken by sub to Antarctica/New Swabia (Neuschwabenland, "New Schwaben Land"), according to the agent, although Cooper insists it Hitler arrived directly in Argentina, where he lived out his life dying in the 1960s and Braun into the 2000s. So what? Who cares? Hitler was a figurehead. What matters is what became of the Nazis. And that's why everyone should care. Their legacy continues, particularly in the US:

• VIDEO: Black Budget (Secret) CIA/MK-Ultra projects 
  (German "mind control"), Thomas Marshall, Neil Sanders, psychological warfare, gang stalking, community watch, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI, Black Ops, mind control, Phoenix Project, Monarch Program cults (nonlethal microwave and radio frequency attacks), false flag operations, purposeful childhood trauma, LSD research, Contra, MK-Ultra (and its 149 sub-projects that took place at 80 institutions including 44 American universities, 15 private companies, 12 hospitals, and three prisons -- according to former CIA Director Admiral. Stan Fields Turner in 1977 Senate hearings (Min. 15:01), Patriot Act, Agenda 21, microwave weapons, eavesdropping, organized crime, FEMA, New World Order, targeted individual, directed conversation, trauma-based mind control programming, Manchurian Candidate, triggered suicide, multiple personality disorder, mobbing, gaslighting, disinformation, CoIntelPro, trigger phrase conditioning, sex slavery, "Drug War," PsyOp "controller," hypnotism, population reduction, drones, future Earth, PSYCHOTRONICS, brainwashing, use of electromagnetic waves, remote control behavior, satellite, smart meters, non ionizing radiation, subconscious attacks... all had their origins in the U.S. based on inherited and continued Nazi activity.
  MK ULTRA, LSD, and the Hippie Movement (Neil Sanders)

Me, Myself, and Why: Science of Self (video)

Pat Macpherson, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; author Jennifer Ouellette (Scientific American's "Cocktail Party Physics"), host Sonali Kohlhatkar (UprisingRadio.org)

Eat cr*p! Do it for yourself! - Eat kindly. Do it for yourself and others.

 

The colors, look at all the colors

Scientists are celebrating the success of a new experiment to make precision changes to the DNA of scientifically-tortured mice to cure a human liver disease. 

The DNA “edits,” as they are calling them, are the latest in a series of genetic studies that are part of a scientific push stemming from the Human Genome Project and related gene sequencing surveys.

We are taught in high school biology that genes are inherited from parents and determine, to a limited extent, our physical, physiological, and even psychological traits. (Epigenetics would differ from this point of view but has yet to become widely known). Humans share an overwhelmingly large proportion of our genes with one another. 

What I do I do for science (JF).

What then creates the stunning diversity we observe among humans? Karma, which is a psychological basis of our subsequent physiology? Chance, which is how science used to explain everything, which is no explanation at all? Do our genes direct our behaviors and our disposition to diseases? What determinant wins in the age-old question, Is it nature or nurture?

 

Attempting to ask and answer these questions is Scientific American science writer and journalist Jennifer Ouellette, who does not drink much but dropped acid (the entheogen LSD) in her subjective quest for objective science. LISTEN

Radical radio host and future TV star Sonali Kolhatkar is a scientist or was. Last week she gave this TedX address at Moorpark College in the Valley: "My Journey from Astrophysicist to Radio Host, or How I Found Meaning in My Life"

Me, Myself, and Why

Me, Myself, and Why

Her new book is Me, Myself, and Why: Searching for the Science of Self. Her previous book is [a horror story] called The Calculus Diaries. She has written for the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Discover, Salon.com, and Nature. Her science and culture blog is "Cocktail Party Physics," an odd name since Ouellette like us is nearly a teetotaler, who explains: 

 

As diverse as people appear to be, all of our genes and brains are nearly identical. Me, Myself, and Why dives into the miniscule ranges of variation to understand just what sets us apart. Drawing on cutting-edge research in genetics, neuroscience, and psychology -- enlivened with a signature sense of humor -- the book explores the mysteries of human identity and behavior. 

Readers ride along on a surprising journey of self-discovery as Ouellette has her genome sequenced, her brain mapped, her personality typed, and even samples a popular 1960s hallucinogen, which more importantly is an entheogen, under very controlled and scientific conditions.

Bringing together everything from Mendel’s famous pea plant experiments and mutations in The X-Men to our taste for cilantro (coriander) and our relationships with virtual avatars, Ouellette takes us on an endlessly thrilling and illuminating trip into the science of ourselves. More

• VIDEO: The Revolution MAY be televised
• The Write Stuff (jenniferouellette-writes.com)
• How to hop a plane and not die: stowaway doesn't remember (NPR audio) A California teen ran away from home and "ran for the nearest plane," the FBI says. He ended up riding 5 1/2 hours to Hawaii and somehow survived the thin air and freezing temperatures. He was unconscious from anoxia most of the way so doesn't remember how he did it.

"Neurons to Nirvana" (video)

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Pacifica, Los Angeles (KPFK.org), Berkeley (KPFA.org)

NEURONS TO NIRVANA: UNDERSTANDING PSYCHEDELIC MEDICINES looks at ancient medicinals, new molecules, interviews with researchers in neurochemistry, neurotheology, shamanism, and psychotherapy. Ayahuasca (daime, natema), LSD (acid), cannabis (marijuana), psilocybin (magic mushrooms), MDMA (ecstasy) are all potent tools for getting to know who we are, who we can be, and for healing the trauma of a society that is addicted to greed and consumerism. This DVD is being offered for a $120 support pledge to Pacifica Radio, the last free speech station (network) on the dial. 

This is a look at "ancient medicines" from researchers at universities such as John Hopkins, UCLA, and NYU. In this new age such a film can be powered by the people. See how astounding plants, alkaloids, and molecules can transform us and help liberate us from ignorance and repression. As a collective civilization and as individual persons, we can no longer afford to lose the lessons plant spirits (bhumi-devas) can reveal. "Neurons 2 Nirvana" dares to break the taboo surrounding ENTHEOGENS, psychedelics, and plant examining and revealing their potential to alleviate suffering and heal on a global scale.

Nirvana?

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

The Buddha reclining into final nirvana on a pyramid pillow, Thailand (Hezbunch/flickr)

 

Happy Hotei (Ericmichel_def/flickr.com)

The Sanskrit term nirvana is used here in its non-technical sense of "the best thing," ultimate bliss or unending happiness.

In fact, actual nirvana ("the end of all rebirth and suffering") cannot be brought about by any chemical (even exogenous DMT, the Spirit Molecule) but only by liberating-insight. Its realization comes about from the wisdom-and-compassion of a penetrating vision of things as they truly are: radically impermanent, impersonal, and unsatisfactory.

Be kind to your brain/mind/heart

This quickening is brought about -- not by chance, random epiphany, or drug experiences -- but through systematic meditative contemplation of the 12 links of Dependent Origination to bring about insight assisted by the deep serenity and purification that follow the meditative absorptions (zens, samadhis, dhyanas, or jhanas). 

 

Nirvana is much more than a blissful "trip." It is the joyful solution to all problems. Neurons, of course, are the physical base of our conscious experience, brain cells found throughout the gut, heart, and the mass of grey batter matter between the ears.