How A Skilled Alchemist Would Use Cannabis

Now that cannabis is replacing alcohol among several demographics, many people are experimenting with how it is best used. Unfortunately, because of a century of prohibition, much of the common knowledge about how to best use cannabis has been lost. But it’s possible to reconstruct some of that lost knowledge, and in this essay I attempt to do so.

The best way, in my estimation, of asking how to best use cannabis is to ask: how would a skilled alchemist use it? This is to say: how would a master of the human psyche use it? Here we can learn from past masters.

Timothy Leary’s phrase “set and setting” is as relevant to cannabis use today as it was to psychedelic use 50 years ago, combining the mental and the physical considerations of psychonautics into one catchphrase.

The first part of this is the mindset, i.e. the mindset of the user. A skilled alchemist will make sure that they are in the right headspace before using cannabis. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to be happy. It means to be mentally prepared for a radical change in perceptions. Don’t use it while mentally preoccupied with something else.

Also, be positive. Don’t use it fearing instant schizophrenia forever – this is how people become paranoid. People use cannabis primarily to feel joy. That’s what it’s about. Cannabis is best used to bring colour and flavour to what would otherwise be greyness and dullness. Use it knowing that it has been used all over the world, for thousands of years, to bring happiness.

A great mindset is to use cannabis understanding it’s a medicine: partly a physiological one, partly a spiritual one. Therefore, focus on its healing aspects rather than potential destructive aspects. If you are already primed to relax because of a positive mindset, you are much more likely to have a good time than someone primed to anxiety.

The second part of Leary’s advice refers to the setting in which cannabis is used. This is primarily a matter of social environment and not physical.

Regarding the social environment, the most important thing is to not use it around dickheads. Cannabis will make you more sensitive to other people’s frequencies and vibrations, unlike alcohol, which makes you less sensitive. Therefore, on cannabis, it’s more important to be choosy about your companions. Don’t use it around anyone who is liable to send bad energy your way, because you will be extra sensitive to that energy.

Regarding the physical environment, the goal is to use it somewhere you won’t be disturbed. It’s best not to be in a crowded place where people will bump into you or trip over you. Possibly the best place to use cannabis is somewhere you can lie back and relax, but not fall asleep: a couch, a day bed, a bean bag etc. Possibly the worst is in public, at night, when drunks and law enforcement are everywhere.

Skilfully combining set and setting, the master alchemist can achieve several mental transformations using cannabis.

One of the most common is, as mentioned above, joy. Through using cannabis it’s possible to transmute all kinds of low-frequency (e.g. angry, sad, bored) emotional states into something higher, something appreciative. The power of cannabis to have this effect is well-known today: Kamala Harris said of it “It gives a lot of people joy, and we need more joy”.

A lesser-known transformation is increased creativity. As Bill Hicks liked to point out, an enormous proportion of the world’s creative output has been fuelled by drugs. Cannabis, in particular, is known for breaking the thought loops and preoccupations that hinder creative expression. The author of this article is, in fact, stoned right now!

Related to this is the use of cannabis as an aphrodisiac. Many of the common reasons for failure to perform sexually – excessive stress or tension, deficient desire – are psychosomatic in origin and can be alleviated with cannabis. It can also serve to empower the creativity that can transform mere sex-having into lovemaking. Magically speaking, it can help make the user more receptive to the casting of glamours, which intensifies the romantic experience.

The most incredible transformation achievable on cannabis, as well as the least understood, is enlightenment. Cannabis truly is a spiritual sacrament, and its use can lead to spiritual insights unattainable by Normies. Countless millions have, over the millennia, come to believe in reincarnation and karma thanks to spiritual receptivity granted by cannabis use.

The simple act of smoking some weed and staring at the Moon or the stars, and listening to the wind (or even the traffic), can be enough to transmute a lower frequency of consciousness into something touched by divinity.

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10 Months Of Taking Cannabis Tea For C-PTSD: A Review

I began taking medicinal cannabis in the form of tea about ten months ago, to deal with complications resulting from C-PTSD. This medicinal cannabis I received in the form of 35g bags of Shishkaberry buds, after getting a prescription from a cannabis clinic with an office in my city. I was prescribed this Shishkaberry to use in the form of medicinal tea. I found instructions for its preparation on WikiHow.

In my case of C-PTSD, hyperarousal is the primary symptom. This manifests in four major ways: as insomnia, nausea, anxiety and depression. Of these manifestations, the first two are mostly somatic and the last two are mostly psychological.

Because of these complications, sleep is the foremost problem. It doesn’t take much stress before the hyperarousal gets to the point where sleep duration and/or quality are affected. On account of the C-PTSD itself, relatively minor levels of sleep deprivation can have major effects in terms of emotional dysregulation, as well as suicidal and homicidal ideation. The distress of intense suicidal and homicidal ideation is sufficient that ordinary life is impossible. Therefore, getting enough restful sleep is a significant part of the battle.

Up until recently, I had managed this condition with a combination of pharmaceuticals (which I didn’t want more of) and cannabis (which I did want more of). This combination, in conjunction with a conscious choice to live a low-stress lifestyle, has generally succeeded in keeping the hyperarousal under control.

The pharmaceuticals consisted of anti-depressants and anti-psychotics. I have been prescribed five different types of each over the course of my 29 years as a psychiatric patient. Some pharmaceuticals became ineffective after years of use. Others had side-effects that were intolerable.

Pharmaceutical side-effects have included lethargy, sedation, mental fogginess, drowsiness, impotence, weight gain and digestive problems. The side-effects of the anti-psychotics are generally much worse than those of the anti-depressants. If the total effect of the C-PTSD is to make a normal life impossible, the total effect of the pharmaceuticals is not to make a normal life possible but to make the abnormal life tolerable. They do help with the hyperarousal, and therefore prevent the likely consequences of the hyperarousal getting out of control (i.e. suicide/homicide). But the side-effects are abominable.

Because of the severity of the pharmaceutical side-effects, I have often stopped taking prescribed medication. This is the reason for having tried five different anti-depressants and five different anti-psychotics over 29 years. Unfortunately, the problems with C-PTSD have proven extremely stubborn, such that life was impossible without the pills. Thus, it hasn’t been possible to escape the pharmaceuticals and their side-effects.

For these reasons, I have been excited about the possibility of being able to access medicinal cannabis, which seemed to have promise in treating hyperarousal without excruciating side-effects. Securing this access has been a 15-year battle from hell, but one that was won ten months ago. Since then I have been taking cannabis tea every night, starting with about 0.2 grams of ground cannabis buds in a tea strainer and working up to 0.45 grams.

The primary advantage to cannabis in tea form is that it provides most of the same benefits as taking it in joint form, but does not have the same side effects. Most of my medicinal cannabis consumption over the past 15 years has been in joint form. This has been great fun, but is far from ideal from a medicinal point of view.

The typical pattern when smoking a joint is to firstly experience a 30 minutes or so high of intense positive emotion, followed by a low lasting several hours, unless another joint is smoked, whereupon another high begins. Even while experiencing a low, being affected by cannabis is still good because it alleviates the nausea, headaches, suicidal ideation and homicidal ideation that is otherwise endemic to my C-PTSD experience. Thus, smoking joints, although far from ideal, is still much nicer than only having pharmaceuticals.

The great advantage that I have found with the Shishkaberry tea is that it alleviates the hyperarousal of C-PTSD without either the side-effects of pharmaceuticals or of smoked cannabis.

Drinking cannabis tea is a much smoother experience than smoking joints. The tea takes away the nausea and the psychosomatic pain, without the powerful psychoactive effects of inhalation (as fun as those are, they make it harder to get things done). As a result, when I am on the tea I don’t feel a strong desire to smoke cannabis.

Because the cannabis tea has alleviated the hyperarousal to some extent, it has been possible to halve the dose of the currently prescribed anti-depressant. This has led to benefits resulting from fewer pharmaceutical side-effects, such as some of my ordinary concentration ability returning, and some weight loss.

Currently I am enjoying the best sleep of my life thanks to the Shishkaberry tea. I therefore intend to keep taking it for the medium-long term future. The next step is to taper off the anti-depressants completely, which is made more realistic by the cannabis tea. If this is achievable then the cannabis tea would have had a massively positive impact on my life. So I recommend it to all with hyperarousal from a traumatic stress disorder.

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The Mithraic Ladder Of Drugs

Mithraic Ladders can be found everywhere in both natural and artificial worlds, because they are forms of the Great Masculine Axis. The drug world is no exception. This is to say that the various drugs in common use correspond to various levels of the Mithraic Ladder. This essay explains.

At the bottom of the Mithraic Ladder is lead. Lead is the dark element representing our basic fears for survival. It also represents Saturn, otherwise known as The Grim Reaper. Decay, deterioration, destruction and decrepitude are all energies of the level of lead. A person at this level will be merely surviving and nothing else.

The drug of lead is heroin. This is the drug often used by the survivors of the worst abuses and crimes. If a person has given up on life, heroin is often what they turn to. Appropriate to the level of Saturn, heroin (and the drugs like it) kills people the most easily. Heroin users are of the lowest frequency of any drug users.

The next step up the Mithraic Ladder is tin. Tin represents Jupiter, the jovial god of greatness and irresponsible good times. The characteristic emotion is joy – joy being what arises when the fear of the lead stage dissipates. People at the level of tin are looking to have a good time ahead of any other consideration. There is a high time preference.

Alcohol is the drug equivalent of the level of tin. On alcohol it’s possible to have a fantastic time in a very irresponsible manner. Much like Zeus, there are millions of drunkards out there who have children they conceived in a drunken frenzy, and then didn’t look after. If a story was written about Zeus today, he’d kill someone drunk driving.

The third step of the Mithraic Ladder is iron. This is analogous to Mars, the god of war. The emotion emblematic of this step is rage. Once you start having a good time, you quickly learn that there are people who want you to suffer and be enslaved instead. Thus, a person has to learn rage in order to live free.

The characteristic drug of this third stage is methamphetamine. Not only does meth use make people prone to violently attack others (even more so than alcohol), it’s also beloved of actual warfighters, most famously the German Army in France in 1940. Meth is an outstanding war drug because if your enemy needs to sleep and you don’t, then you win.

The fourth step of the Ladder is copper, analogous to Aphrodite, Venus and Freya, the goddesses of love. Copper is the stage one reaches after all the fighting. After all, men mostly fight to win women. So once a man has a woman his attention naturally shifts, from fighting to lovemaking.

The fourth level is represented in the drug world by MDMA, the love drug. MDMA is famous for increasing the release of oxytocin, the neurotransmitter that makes people bond with each other. If Aphrodite would cast a spell to infatuate someone today, she’d probably involve MDMA.

The fifth step of the Mithraic Ladder is silver. The brilliance of silver is analogous to the knowledge that is beloved of people at this level. Silver is more precious than copper, because this is the stage at which someone moves away from simple pleasures, and starts to become attracted to the truth. At this level a person starts to think of suprapersonal concerns.

Silver is analogous to tobacco, the drug of industry. This is not to say that tobacco is a particularly great drug – it’s not more fun than taking MDMA. But it’s possible to achieve awesome things with the diligence associated with tobacco use. Many of the engineers behind the great engineering projects of the 19th and 20th Centuries would have been habitual tobacco smokers.

The sixth step of the Mithraic Ladder is mercury. If silver is brilliance, mercury is genius. The quicksilver nature of mercury reminds of the quicksilver nature of the extremely intellectually gifted. A person at this level cannot easily be judged by the masses, who, being unable to distinguish genius from madness, cannot make sense of this level.

The characteristic drug of this sixth stage is cannabis. This is the drug used by most of the creative people today; the writers and musicians, artists and filmakers. People use cannabis for a variety of reasons, not all associated with the relatively high frequency of mercury. But those who do use it for creativity readily find a bottomless well of inspiration in the herb.

The top level of the Mithraic Ladder is gold. This represents a person who has transcended mere egoic concerns, and who has fully integrated their will with the Will of God. A person at the top of the Mithraic Ladder is beyond genius: they are a divine spark. They want for nothing, having returned to the natural state of bliss that is the province of pure consciousness.

The drugs representing the top stage of the Mithraic Ladder are psychedelics. These are the substances that can induce a person to see beyond the material illusions and to rediscover their own soul. Psychedelics also have the quality of being all but impossible to become addicted to. It’s common for people who take a strong dose of a psychedelic to not want to use them again for a while, in stark contrast to heroin and tobacco.

The Mithraic Ladder can be found everywhere in reality. In the world of drugs, it manifests as a spectrum with opiates and depressants at the bottom, and spiritual sacraments at the top.

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Ambassadors Of Weed

The cannabis referendum in 2020 may have failed (even if non-Chinese voters voted in favour of it), but it was close enough that no-one has really complained about the liberal medicinal cannabis regime that the Sixth Labour Government introduced.

It’s now very, very easy to get hold of a medicinal cannabis prescription. There are now numerous outfits that will give you a prescription after a teleconsultation. Some of these might demand that you go through a multi-stage process of first trying CBD oil, then THC oil, before you can first get a prescription for THC flowers. But it’s not a difficult process.

Despite this ease, cannabis is not fully accepted in New Zealand. Decades of Drug War programming has brainwashed hordes of idiots into thinking that cannabis fries brains, causes violence and sexual assaults, and is a gateway to criminality. The truth about cannabis doesn’t matter. The perceptions are what lead to the opposition.

In almost every case where cannabis has become legal (excepting Thailand and a few other places) it only became so after a long struggle. The masses have been brainwashed for so many decades to see cannabis as something evil that changing mass perception is something that can only happen slowly.

Millions of conversations must be had before widespread acceptance of cannabis can exist. This must consist of millions of people hearing from multiple other people each how cannabis helped them, whether medicinally, recreationally or spiritually. And then millions of slow realisations that the government lied about it.

Not only must cannasceptics hear the arguments for cannabis law reform, they must hear them from people they respect if they are to change their opinions.

Whether people accept it or not, human society is status-based. This is how we have evolved for hundreds of thousands of years: in tribes where the higher your status, the higher your chance of surviving and reproducing. Status-seeking and status-judging are as hard-wired into us as sleeping.

Thus, people are more likely to become accepting of something if they see high-status people engaging in it. Status can be hard to judge, but most people realise that polite, happy, pro-social people are higher status than bitter, angry and resentful people.

This essay is an encouragement to all the new legal cannabis users to consider themselves ambassadors of weed.

Many people will not have met a medicinal cannabis user before. So if you can create a polite, happy, pro-social impression on such people, it will normalise in the public consciousness the idea that cannabis users are good people. Let’s not forget, most people who voted no in the cannabis referendum did so because they hated cannabis users.

Some political ambassadors end up representing civilisation among the savages. If you are a cannabis user, this is essentially what you are, among all the pissheads, screen zombies and painkiller addicts. So don’t forget it! Act like you are surrounded by ferals, because you are. Modern drug culture, with its belief in the harmlessness of alcohol and the absolute harm of everything else, is a mass psychosis.

This essay, then, is an encouragement for those with medicinal cannabis prescriptions to act as if they were early traders with cannibal tribes. Try not to shock the natives of Boozelandia too much. They’re superstitious and poorly educated. Try to act in a friendly and understanding manner.

This especially relates to doctors and other medical staff.

If you get a prescription for e.g. Tilray 10:10 oil, such that you are directed to take 1mg every day from a 40mg bottle, then take 1mg every day. Don’t drink half the bottle on the first day and then start hassling the doctor for refills. Holding to the prescribed dose will convince people that it’s possible to use cannabis responsibly without ending up like Trainspotting.

None of this is to say that anyone should use less cannabis or not enjoy it.

Modern Rockefeller medicine has been slow to realise it, but one of the main psychiatric benefits of cannabis is precisely that it gets you high. Being high is the opposite of being low, and being low for too long (so that you get stuck there) is commonly known as depression. Therefore, cannabis is a cure for depression.

I have personally found that cannabis can stop dead all manner of suicidal and/or homicidal ideation, and this is primarily achieved by making you feel good when you would otherwise have felt bad. This sounds straightforward to most people, but it’s still a shock to those who believe that people need to suffer for various reasons of character building/anti-degeneracy/religion/sadism.

Anyone who implies that cannabis is bad because it makes people happy is the sort of authoritarian who ought to be kept far from any decision-making. So, please, enjoy it to the max. As with so many other things, an intelligent balance is necessary.

If New Zealand is ever to step fully into the 21st Century and legalise cannabis, it will first require acceptance of cannabis users by the herd. This will require ambassadors of weed to create that acceptance through positive interactions.

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For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms!
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