Holotropic Breathwork Work Shop:January 28 Palo Alto, California

by frankiespeakin 23 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Incense_and_Peppermints

  Just punch in your Google " Amanita muscaria " and a ton of sites come up that's the cheapest one I found so far. http://salviaspace.com/amanitao.htm

  soma, eh? i think i read about that in "brave new world". i want some...

  wow, you know what? i have felt that "synesthesia" phenomenon occasionally, but i just thought it was because i have a vivid imagination. this is all really interesting! Psychoactive Amanitas Effects by Erowid DURATION # Caution : Reactions and experiences may vary dramatically from person to person. [see below] EFFECTS LIST # POSITIVE

  • euphoria: feelings of peace and well being
  • marked analgesia (pain relief)
  • physical relaxation / dream state: (during the sedative effects) can be highly detailed, colorful, and have a great sense of clarity and lucidity. Some people describe these as being similar to Lucid Dreaming. Some describe them as Out of Body Experiences (OOBEs). As with normal dreams, the Amanita Dream State can consist of a wide variety of experiences.
  • internal dialogue: some people report a strong sense of an internal discussion, a feeling of being able to think through personal issues. Others report a significant reduction of internal dialogue, sense of peacefulness, and internal quiet.
  • synesthesia: is somewhat common, smelling words, tasting colors, etc.
  • clarity: Often no interference with memory or logic: many report strong "clarity of thought" and "stillness of mind". Others report mild to strong confusion.
  • internal focus: Difficulty in focusing concentration on external tasks. Increased focus on internal imagination, imagery, day dreams.
  • sociability: Group interaction can become incoherent: "conversational weirdness", frequent changes in topic, "non-linear conversations"
  • sexual feelings: Some people report increased sexual feelings, others report very unsexual emotional and sensual distance / coldness.

  NEUTRAL

  • sedative or sleepy effects. others report excitation and extreme energy bursts.
  • changes in body perception: effects may include dramatic shifts in body perception and motor skills including perceived changes in size of body parts, increased strength, dizziness, clumsiness, change in proprioception.
  • slightly blurred vision, watery eyes, runny nose.
  • loss of Equilibrium
  • pupil dilation, glassy eyed stare

  NEGATIVE

  • Mild to moderate to extreme nausea or stomach discomfort/cramps, increases with dosage.
  • muscle twitching and trembling (not convulsions)
  • increased salivation and perspiration.

  Stages: Some people describe three stages of effects: first the nausea / body effects stage, the second sedated / dreamy state, and the third stage during which the active psychedelic effects predominate. DESCRIPTION # It should be noted that there is a significant difference in quality, potency, and effects between mushrooms found in different seasons and different areas, as well as different varieties of psychoactive amanitas (ie different ratio of nausea/body effects to mental / entheogenic effects).
  
  As with other entheogens, everyone reacts individually to Amanita muscaria intoxication. Amanitas may be more variable based on the way one's body metabolizes ibotenic acid into muscimol. Many people do not enjoy the effects of A. muscaria or pantherina. Warning: their are deadly poisonous species of Amanitas. If you don't know what you are doing, don't ingest Amanitas.
  
  Precautions

  • As with other entheogens, eating lightly beforehand may reduce nausea and gastrointestinal discomfort.
  • Starting low with dosage and work up as you become familiar with the potency of the mushrooms and your individual reaction may help reduce the chance of unpleasant effects/overdose.
  • Some people recommend using cannabis to offset possible nausea.
  • Many people recommend planning to lie back and relax during the Onset and Early phases of Amanita muscaria intoxication to reduce nausea.
  • A. muscaria should be dried completely before ingestion, many people recommend heating / toasting the mushroom to dry it. The drying/heating process probably reduces or converts (decarboxylates) the ibotenic acid in the mushroom into muscimol, making it less toxic-feeling and more psychoactive (consider lowering your dosage if you heat the A. muscaria first).
  • Many recommend using only the skin and the thin yellow layer under the skin and avoiding the majority of the body, gills, and stalk.
  • Many people like to take milk thistle with the Amanita muscaria because of the fact that other species of Amanitas contain liver toxins...though we have seen no evidence that A. muscaria is toxic to the liver. (one person recommends milk thistle because of the possibility that its mycelial networks might intermingle with that of nearby toxic amanitas.)
• 

  frankiespeakin

  I&P,

  The Milk Thistle seed are a good idea.. And any body who drinks regularly or has a problem with alcohol should take these because they are very good for the liver. They are e remedy for mushroom posioning from certain types of amanitas the destroy the liver.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  A discription of Holotropic breathwork and its effects:http://primal-page.com/stan1.htm

  From Primal Therapy
  To Holotropic Breathwork

  by John A. Speyrer

  ---

  I must admit to feelings of cockiness as I entered the ornate Queen Anne's ballroom of the Monteleone Hotel in New Orleans last November. I had come to participate in a workshop whose brochure announced a "Holotropic Breathwork Experience With Stanislav Grof, M.D." and promised an "Adventure of Self-Discovery" in "non-ordinary states of consciousness." Since I had been feeling my primal pain, in such states of consciousness, for the past twenty years, I felt that I was obviously light-years ahead of those dilettantes who were attending the workshop.

  My curiosity had been piqued by the enthusiasm Mickel Adzema showed in a letter he sent to the Primal Feelings Newsletter about the holotropic breathwork (TM) sessions he had led at the 1994 International Primal Association convention. I wrote Mickel that I was interested in learning more about holotropics so he sent me the name of a facilitator who was only thirty minutes away from my home. I called her, but she suggested that if I wanted to learn more about holotropic breathwork, I could get the information directly from the discoverer of the technique himself, since the Czech-American psychiatrist, Stanislav Grof, would be leading a workshop in New Orleans the following month.

  Holotropic breathwork is different from primal therapy in that the material elicited in the primal state is usually biographical, that is, the experiences usually relate exclusively to the individual's personal life history. When Dr. Grof began his work with LSD in the late 1940s, he found that the ``depth'' and type of experiences elicited by the psychedelic was partially determined by the amount of the drug ingested. Larger doses evoked experiences that transcended biographical history. Grof believes that many symptoms have their actual origins in transpersonal history. Thus, a male homosexual may have had unmet need for his father's love in his early childhood, but the source of his behavior may actually have originated in an incident in a previous life a thousand years earlier.

  The type of material elicited during holotropic breathworkTM sessions seemingly have no limitations. Besides encompassing material usually re-lived in primal therapy, one may re-live prior lives, such as, being a soldier in a Roman army, or a builder of an Egyptian pyramid. Holotropic breathworkTM even allows a person to experience the evolution of an animal species, a cellular consciousness experience, being an inanimate object, or becoming a mythological figure, such as, Hercules, Ishtar, or Apollo. Interactions with the entities of cultural myths and archetypes are very common in transpersonal work. On an intellectual level, I do not believe this is possible; yet, you will see that I've had such experiences. Transpersonal experiences do not seem to have the qualities of feeling repressed early infantile and childhood traumas, of which I have had much experience. So holotropic breathworkTM encompasses primal, but it is more than primal. It can also be much more bizarre.

  Stanislav Grof M.D., 62, is non-pulsed and very charismatic. He conducted all of the sessions personally and gave lectures, slide presentations and answered questions in sessions that lasted up to three hours at a time. The sessions were so interesting that everyone was on the edge of his chair during his presentations. Grof, earlier did research and psychotherapy with LSD, but when the drug was made illegal in the late 1960s, he discovered this technique for eliciting the same therapeutic results without psychedelics. He says that the ability to have these experiences is nothing new. They are the same experiences and encounters which shamans, witch-doctors, and mystics have been having since recorded time. He claims the potential to have transpersonal experiences is part of the human condition.

  The workshop, with about eighty-five participants, opened Thursday night with a three-hour talk given by Dr. Grof on ``The Healing Potential of Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness.'' He gave a short history of psychotherapy since Freud, during which he mentioned primal therapy. I spoke with several participants, but very few had heard of primal. The talk was supplemented by questions and answers and by a slide presentation of birth symbols and by an explanation of his well-known division of the traumatic stages of human birth that relate to specific psychopathological syndromes.

  The preparation for the holotropic breathworkTM experience was the theme of Friday morning's session and Dr. Grof discussed the techniques we would use to enter these un-ordinary consciousness states. Grof said these would be simple: We would be lying on our backs, on mats or sleeping bags; the room lights would be lowered, and we would begin breathing at a more rapid pace than usual. These techniques, combined with loud, spacy, new-age electronic music, were intended to transport us into non-ordinary states of consciousness. We had been divided into groups of sitters and participants. It was suggested to the participants, who were to have the experience that afternoon, that they only eat a light lunch. The actual session began immediately after lunch.

  The scene was reminiscent of group primal work, except that each participant had a sitter, whose job, other than just being there for the participant, was quite limited. The sitter was also to accompany the participant during trips to the bathroom and to be of any other possible assistance. A quantity of ordinary facial tissue and a plastic bag were given to each participant. After years of primaling I knew the purpose of those two items. The plastic bags were obviously barf bags and the tissues were to wipe away the tears triggered by deep feelings. Obviously, we were being prepared for any eventuality which might arise during the holotropic breathwork session.

  After the participants were on their backs, with their arms and legs in an open position, the lights were lowered, and Dr. Grof led us through relaxation exercises for a few minutes. Then the music began. A person walked through the group breathing loudly into a microphone at a rate at which we were to follow.

  During the first few minutes of faster than normal breathing nothing at all happened, except that I was beginning to feel spacy from the rapid breathing. I continued to breathe as instructed. Soon the breathing, and the loudly played new-age type music, evoked in me the following:

     * * *

  AN AGE 5 SURGERY EXPERIENCE

  I raised my hands in a pushing away manner and felt and said ``Go Away'' and ``Leave Me Alone.'' In the past I have had this feeling in primals directed toward hospital personnel while I re-lived being on an operating table before surgery. I had made the trip to New Orleans with my mother fifty-seven years earlier for a tonsillectomy at age five! Then I opened my mouth widely and placed the fingers of my right hand together and pushed them into my mouth. I was attempting to re-live the insertion of a tube into my mouth while I lay on the operating table. Using my fingers in such a way was the only technique I could use to intensity the connected feeling. Curling my fingers to the approximate shape of a tube and inserting them into my mouth was spontaneous and out of volitional control as the need to re-enact this incident felt imperative. I had re-lived this incident before in primals relating to the same surgery. These feelings had, in the past, been accompanied with much fear; so much so, that I could not continue with the feeling at home when I was alone. However, these two primal feelings in New Orleans were without any deep fear. I thought to myself, ``Well, holotropic breathwork is like primaling, but less intense, so, -- so far -- nothing new!''

  

  AS GOD THE CREATOR

  Then, suddenly, I was viewing the earth from many miles above its surface and could clearly see its well-defined curvature. I felt very beneficent and content. I could see the blueness of the oceans and a scattered cloud-cover. I felt that I had just created this planet and was looking down favorably as I nodded my head with approval towards my new creation.

  On a second track of consciousness, I realized that I was nodding my head while sitting on the floor at a holotropic workshop. My head movements were synchronicized with the head movements of "God" in the vision. I felt joyful and expansive. I blessed the earth, making a sign of the cross with my right hand in the center of my field of vision. I then made a sign of the cross to the right and then to the left. As with my head nodding, my "blessing" of the earth was physically enacted on the other track of consciousness and became visiblly superimposed over my view of the earth.

  Since I never experience spiritual feelings, I was hoping the workshop might make me more spiritual, but I had not expected to become God the Creator during my first session!
• 

  Incense_and_Peppermints

  7 more days (tick...tick...tick...)

  good luck!
• 

  new light

  Wow, I missed this thread the first time through. I wanna go, too. Waaaahh.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Yeah,, I haven't heard back from them yet I gave them a deposit. I have taken about 3 good solid trips in the last 10 days or so. I've been thru some pretty heavy emotions and seem to be a little raw as feelings for the whole human race sometimes seem to be very powerful in me right now,,feelings of compassion bombards me regularly,,especially when I smoke mj or just listen too shamanic music. I've probably had my Kundalini awakened about 3 or 4 years ago I can't say for sure. This will probably help me dive deep into my unconscious (if I'm brave enough) and be very theraputic mentally and physically.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  The Tripping Monastery Monk:

  http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v11n2/11236and.html

  The last twenty years of the last millennium I've lived largely in Catholic monasteries secretly using the sacred psychedelic, LSD-25, as part of my private spiritual practice. One could also say that as part of my sacred psychedelic practice, I used the monastic spiritual traditions. Either way, the fact is, the combination brings to light the best in both, and in truth, that best is the same in each one.

  Now, as I look at that picture of the interior of the church that the monks themselves built at the monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit, and I reflect on some of the more than one hundred-fifty beautiful, planned, sacred, psychedelic sessions that I enjoyed in and around that church and the monk mind-field, I'd like to order up a whole googlplex of sacred "flashbacks". I arrived at the monastery in 1980, at the end of a two week fast, no food and minimal water. Before eating, I took some of the sacred psychedelic and surveyed the situation. Among other things, I realized that Trappist monasticism warranted some in-depth spiritual exploration and psychedelic evaluation, giving it the acid test. I wanted to see and hear everything so I got high for everything except work. As I worked primarily in the stained glass studio, I think that was prudent.

  Chanting in choir is a duty that is remarkably elevating, to say the least, and would leave me wishing it would go on for hours. I usually timed my psychedelic sessions to start in the evening, so that I would still be high, but not too high, when I got to my choir stall at 4:00 AM. Lectio Divina, a type of solitary reading aimed at inspiration that we did from 5:30 AM to 6:30 AM, is a practice peculiar to Benedictine monasticism. Applying this in sacred psychedelic practice, during the early central phase of a session, is a matter of focusing one's eyes and consciousness on sacred scripture and reading aloud or to oneself. This will definitely broaden one's scope as one penetrates the hidden mystical meaning of "The Word". This technique is one of the greatest gifts of the Benedictine tradition. Praying the rosary, a discursive type of meditation that was optional and took place at various times, is kind of a tight discipline for a psychedelic mind, especially when done with a group of monks and visitors, but staying with it paid off in mind-blowing revelations into the mysteries. There is all this and so much more, up to and including the beauty of participation in the liturgical ritual of the Mass, which at a monastery proceeds at a pace which is slow and punctuated with meditative pauses, and is rather attuned to reflection.

  Of course, some of my sessions were not all that smooth and easy - especially at the beginning of the early eighties when I was trying to get a handle on preparation and timing. Sometimes things would get awkward and occasionally somewhat difficult.

  I remember one time especially. It was Christmas Eve, 1983. I always got "high" on the High Holidays, so I prepared for Midnight Mass by cleaning up and going to confession (very helpful) and fasting for the day, etc. About two hours before midnight, I took two hundred fifty micrograms. Well, when I walked into the church at midnight I was feeling very awkward indeed. I was thinking that I had taken too much, or too much too late, or something. It was intense, and an extra large crowd of visitors
• 

  Satanus

  Michael Hollingshead, one of the lsd pioneers, went as far as he could w lsd, then he became a monk, benedictine, i believe. Read his book @ http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/hollings.htm

  S
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Thanks Satan for the link.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Well I just got back from the Holotropic breathwork workshop,,and would like to say it was well worth the money.

  Stan Grof gave a lecture and Q&A both friday and sunday. We had the actual breathwork sessions on saturday, two session both about 3+hrs long each,,you did one session as a sitter and one as a breather.

  Both session were good even when you were a sitter. I was befriended by a nice man of about 42 yr old who had been to about 6 of these things he was working through some issues of being a forcepts born baby. He was a real thraser when it was his turn breathing,,and so I think he choose me because he thought I could deal with it. It worked out fine and I had a lot of help from the staff in dealing with his very energetic thrashing we used pillows to keep him from going all over the place. You release a lot of pent up energy that the body has stored up from trama. And being a forcept delivery has a lot stored up energy. He had visions of being trapped and some one torturing him and that he was just ready to give up and all of a sudden he gets this tremendeous flow of energy to fight back,,(and that's when he starts thrashing),,so I'm glad for him that he got some of that out of him and resolved. That type of emotion got to be unhealthy if left unresolved.