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drugs and magick

To: alt.magick,rec.drugs.cannabis,alt.satanism,talk.politics.drugs
From: gruxby@telerama.lm.com (Gruxby)
Subject: Re: Drugs and Magick
Date: 10 Nov 1996 18:49:45 -0500

> > > > >        Drugs DO NOT get you "Willed Manifestation" (Magick).

Neither does a candle, or a sword.  The props and trappings are to aid 
thy focus.  Read LaVey concerning 'the intellectual decompression chamber.'
By the same token, a microscope does not cure polio...but Salk would not 
have been able to devise the vaccine without a microscope and other 
scientific tools.  

> > > > >Drugs may get you high, but YOU are not in control, the drug is.

So when you eat a potato, or listen to Beethoven, I suppose YOU are not 
in control, but the potato or Beethoven is?

> > > > >Pharmacology is not Magick. Drugs can't , don't and won't teach you
> > > > >anything that you can USE in the REAL WORLD.
> > > > >Furthermore, drugs can and probably will damage your ability to do 
> > > > >Magick.

Much of Magick is the ability to acheive different states of 
consciousness.  Try telling a mainstream mental health professional that 
you can leave your body (dissociative state), see astral objects 
(hallucination), or communicate with discorporate beings (delusional 
schizophrenia).  As easily as you can argue that drugs *ARE NOT* magick, 
I can argue that magick *IS NOT* sanity.  (note the conceptual problems 
created by the Aristotelian 'is' of identity.)

> > > Your body is a miracle.  Drugs only harm it.

Marijuana:  The only harmful effects are associated with the tar and 
particles in the smoke, which is why it is harmful to inhale *ANY* smoke, 
including incense, bonfire, etc.  Marijuana can also be eaten in which 
case it has no harmful physical effects.

LSD: The only harmful effects are associated with strichnine contained in 
street acid, not the LSD itself.  Mostly what is available on the street 
these days is speed anyway, so most people who started later than the 
early 70's probably never had real LSD.  It is also arguable that LSD can 
aggrivate or hasten psychotic breaks in unstable individuals... these are 
the same people who mess themselves up psychologically with magick.  
Unstable individuals should not do drugs OR magick.

Psilocybe mushrooms:  Never saw a study on their physical effects.  Most 
anti-drug literature completely ignores them.  The only bad physical 
effects I've ever heard anyone mention in connection with mushrooms 
(commonly called "Magic Mushrooms") are flatulence and occasional 
vomiting, which are symptoms, not damage.

Cocaine: No verifyable physical harm from moderate use that I can find 
documented, except the occasional heart attack.  It is extremely 
psychologically addictive, however, and consequently has detrimental 
effect on your financial situation.  I've never heard of anyone (except 
maybe Crowley or Freud) calling cocaine a 'magickal' drug.

Heroin, barbiturates, sedatives, etc...  does anyone propose that we 
include these in the class of "magickal drugs?"   Most people seem to be 
talking only about the psychedelics, LSD, Psilocybin, and Marijuana.


As I have stated before, drugs are a tool, not a path.  If you can't do 
magick without them, you have as much of a problem as if you can't do 
magick without an altar, or your special athame.  The persian Magi would 
go out on a hilltop with nothing, and call to the elements.  Any adept 
worthy of calling themself a magician could do the same.
-- 
*  Gruxby@telerama.lm.com                http://www.lm.com/~gruxby
*  "Everything we see is inside our own heads."  -R. Buckminster Fuller

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