Having an absolute "Enlightened" Colonizer Moment over "Peyote Gatekeeping"
Having an absolute "Enlightened" Colonizer Moment over "Peyote Gatekeeping"
https://teddit.zaggy.nl/r/Psychonaut/comments/18mth6c/peyote_is_the_darling_of_the_psychedelics/
Honestly this whole thread is a cesspool, pure psychic damage. There are literally functional alternatives, but still these self-enlightened egolords can't keep their fucking hands off an endangered plant. The prevailing attitude looks to be "Its there, so I i am entitled to plunder it"
No offence to any psychedelics users here, but every person who claims that they made them more enlightened, empathetic or understanding in my experience was always a worse human being afterwards, because they behaved exactly like this redditor. "I'm an enlightened empath because of my psychedelics, and that makes me better than you, so shut up and quit complaining, some of us have real problems, like I haven't gotten high in 20 minutes!"
That isn't my experience, though there are definitely some of those people too.
Permanently Deleted
"The fact that you would even suggest that just shows your own insecurities."
Meh, it's a mixed bag. Assholes tend stay assholes with drugs and cool people tend to be cool. I definitely met the worst kind quite a few times though
Yeah, I agree. They just get used by assholes to justify being an even bigger asshole.
There's a certain type of spiritual person, especially ones who embrace westernised forms of Buddhist or Taoist thought, who think that because they've discovered the illusion of the self and achieved "stream entry" or whatever, that they're now above ethical concerns. It's not wrong after all if you're the enlightened one, and you can't cause suffering if there's no you to cause it.
(this is, incidentally, why most deep meditation traditions, eastern and western and in other cultures, force strict moral codes and even permanent isolation from society before you're allowed to touch the cool mind bindy shit.)
idk the classic tale of the libertarian who did MDMA turned out to be a better person because of it.
every person who claims that they made them more enlightened, empathetic or understanding in my experience was always a worse human being afterwards, because they behaved exactly like this redditor.
The hard part of psychedelics is not the revelation, but taking that revelation back to the sober mind. Psychs just break down the barrier and give you a heavy boost. If you can't carry it back then you're just using them a substitute for cultivating that behavior you want.
Yeah, they aren't magic, they just make your brain all fucky for a bit. They're a tool, not a cure-all.
In my experience, the person at the rave most likely to commit a SA, is the person talking nonstop about the spiritual aspects and healing powers of psychedelics.
Mine too. We've probably met the same sort of person.
Isn't this the exact same case with Westerners who get really into Zen Buddhism
Yep. They get all excited at the mystical Orientals teaching them to eat, pray, love and don't actually bother to understand why people meditate, just using it as a cudgel to beat people over the head with how much better they are than them.
They definitely opened my mind, but I think that had more to do with my denial of my gender identity, as it was still part of the trip that I had to willingly accept washing over me.
I see it kinda like caffeine. Sure, it can stimulate you and "wake you up," but it isn't going to do anything to someone who is intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally comatose. You need to want to change something in yourself, to be willing to do what needs to be done for your own and others' good, whether or not it hurts.
People like this make is horribly difficult to get anyone to even try meditation, as they go around convincing everybody it's solely a practice in clearing your mind, when in actuality it should be an exercise of mindfulness, in which you raise your awareness of your mental state. Generally, this means people are quite surprised when I tell them about how things they do are functionally equivalent, like taking a walk while thinking introspectively.
Sorry for the rant.
No, it's very much appreciated, I agree with the meditation thing, I'm hippie adjacent-adjacent (Friends of friends sort of thing) and some of the nonsense that comes out of their mouths about meditiation unlocking your "secret potential" and other bullshit, when it's like...brushing your teeth, for your mind. It's a good way to keep your brain healthy, it's not magic.
Typical white pig doesn't understand why he can't eat all of a sacred endangered plant that takes 30 years to grow.
OINK OINK MUST CONSUME.
THE TREATS MUST FLOW
the treats must flow as easily as this badly photoshopped image of microcars I made where the cars are 5x smaller in order to give the illusion that expanding car lanes would increase transit productivity
Although Anderson sympathized with the landowners, who wished to make their land productive and protect themselves from litigation by anyone who was injured on their ranch while collecting peyote, the closure of peyote harvesting grounds produced “serious tensions” between indigenous people and the ranchers. According to Salvador Johnson, the largest peyote distributor in Texas, 100 percent of the land in Texas where peyote grows is privately owned, which means that if peyoteros are going to harvest peyote, they need permission from landowners.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/zmdzbw/the-decline-of-american-peyote-v24n5
I don't think it's a matter of gate keeping the drug do much as it is of keeping the plant from going extinct due to over harvesting. Grow your own peyote (most won't bc they lack the necessary skills and patience, even if they have an appropriate climate) or just use other psychedelics.
also if you use magic mushrooms you have a moral duty to know what happened to María Sabina
aww what the hell, fuckin kkkrackers
Tbh whites should not use magic mushrooms at all.
Tbh whites should not use magic mushrooms at all.
How deep does this argument go? Should white people also not use synthetic psilocybin as a migraine prophylactic? Psilocybin or derivatives shouldn't be used to treat depression?
I agree that the dominant psychedelic culture (especially in amerikkka) fucking sucks, is riddled with abuse
I guess I'm just having trouble following the argument that because the CIA and associated colonizers committed atrocious acts to Sabina and her family and community every other imperial subject should cease using a compound (or derivatives) that humanity has historically used in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
i read somewhere i cant find it now, that it didnt matter if outsiders use the drug because the magic has already been killed
but if the indigenous people thats use it say otherwise or change their mind yes 100% no question. anyone using peyote outside of the church approval is i giant piece of shit.
There are psilocybin mushrooms that are native to Europe that have been used by"white people" for millennia.Gate keeping who is allowed to use psychedelics based on their race is fuckling stupid. Should African Americans be barred from smoking weed if they aren't practicing Hinduism?
Watched some Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t about “growing cactus from seed” and it’s about indigenous people growing peyote (and other cacti).
They’re already overharvested and dying out in the wild. Fuck off white psychonauts.
Love this channel
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
As someone who loved drugs back in the day, I always told people that they should grow their own San Pedro's or another common mescaline cactus and not peyote. I know a guy whose entire house is filled with different species of peyote, literally every inch of his floor covered in pots. He had trichoceruses he kept for tripping. If it didn't keep him busy and happy with himself, I'd say it was a hoard. But he was growing for repopulation and regularly planted around town, so it's healthy-ish for him. Got himself off heroin by growing peyote for repopulation, not by taking it. He was the only white guy I've ever met that taking peyote would be perfectly ethical, but still didn't do it
It's not hard to be respectful. Especially when San Pedros are legal and extremely easy to get.
tacit attempts at virtue-blackmailing
this redditor has no concept of shame leftTBF, I've abandoned shame in myself as well, I see it as a form of social control I don't need or want in myself. The main problem is that they didn't decide not to feel shame, they just became immune due to an over-abundance. That was their only moral check, was not looking bad to others. Once they lost it they have nothing holding back their appetites.
sounds good and healthy tbh - and yet you still know the word shame. What I felt was so funny about the part I quoted is, that it seemed like the guy struggled to verbalize the very concept of shaming and as such defaulted to construct something with a virtue-component (that's what the libs have right) and ended up with this hilariously over-complex-yet-primitive turn of phrase. Virtue-blackmailing alone just kinda sent me
Not saying shame is a good thing to cultivate or w/e
The prevailing attitude looks to be “Its there, so I i am entitled to plunder it”
Isn't that just the cracker ethos writ large?
yep most white leftist feel the same way on this too, if you try to tell them they cant do something they will scream and cry and call you a racist. i was just thinking yesterday that its only a matter of time before white leftist demand to use racial slurs in the name of equality. wait i just remembered zizek exist and is popular.
I read the original article and the only thing I have against it is the anti-synthetic peyote stance they have. I get it's a sacred plant but if the option is people foraging it to extinction or letting them have a lab grown version then just let them make it in the lab. As much as I support indigenous folks in their anti-crakkker stance they don't have the right to the molecule itself especially if it isn't derived from peyote.
I assume that's the point of the first comment. Not "Let me forage this plant to extinction" but "If you say I can't have a synthetic version and I can't forage then what do you want me to do?" Just let them have the lab-grown stuff and keep the plants yourself. Less foraging, psych folks get their trips, everyone's happy.
Yeah i re-read the article a few times and came to a similar conclusion. At the same time - if they have an issue with white colonizers using synthetic
Peyotemescaline, is that not also worth consideration and empathy? It subverts the supply issue, but it feels to me (as a white colonizer) like approptiation of someone's culture, against the protest of the people who's culture is being appropriated.Should we really be forcing onto any indigenous peoples our views of whats "fair"? There exist many alternatives to mescaline, and I think their desire to not have it commodified and shared should be respected.
if they have an issue with white colonizers using synthetic Peyote mescaline, is that not also worth consideration and empathy?
They don't have a right to the chemical structure of mescaline though. It's like saying Chinese tea growers have the right to bar western people from drinking energy drinks because they both contain caffeine.
it feels to me (as a white colonizer) like approptiation of someone's culture, against the protest of the people who's culture is being appropriated.
Would you stop taking Aspirin if Egyptian people said that you were appropriating their use of willow bark? Even if modern aspirin doesn't use willow bark anymore in its creation? The idea that you can copyright a chemical contained in a plant, which is not even exclusive to peyote, is ridiculous. They have a right to the rituals, images, and other unique elements of culture involving peyote. They do not have a right to the chemical structure itself.
we absolutely should be respecting indigenous people. if they say we shouldnt use it then we shouldn't use it its that fucking simple. its not some random people either the church is the one saying it. if you cant do that you are a settler and an asshole. youre not entitled to treats! its not a necessity, recreational drugs have the be the most treat like treats.
I think some context is lost here, is the plant the culture, or the ritual surrounding the plant?
Catholicism uses wine in a ritual form in a very integral part of the religion, but wine itself is naturally occurring when you forget about your berries in the jar.
If these people were going around performing the entire native ritual in some commodified way, it'd be 1000x more horrifying than tech bros wanting to get loopy.
if they have an issue with white colonizers using synthetic Peyote mescaline, is that not also worth consideration and empathy
Edited because I think I misunderstood the argument you're making. Apologies for being a big dummy.
I can absolutely see why commodifying mescaline or rituals associated with constitutes harmful appropriation of indigenous culture against their expressed desires, but I don't see why synthesizing (or growing and extracting at home) a substance outside of the context of its traditional use, and using it privately is harmful. Obviously it's done against the expressed preferences of a culture that has used the chemical for centuries+ but I'm encountering some trouble accepting the notion that a being colonized necessarily prioritizes one people's spiritual belief over private drug use.
If this also completely misses the argument you're making, I apologize.
Who says it's open land, mother fucker, who?I mean they have a point.
I'm Australian aboriginal and if we decided tomorrow its bad for anyone to have pandanas trees for themselves because culturally we used them for medicine and crafts it would be a shit show.
Plants are a renewable resource, if you farm your own power to you
Edit:
I was unaware this plant is endangered.
That being the case no one should be harming it and people should be protecting it instead.
Sure, but Peyote takes 10-30 years to grow in a very specific climate, and is endangered due to overharvesting. Growing your own is one thing, but exploiting an endangered plant and telling the groups that use it to "Grow it on their own land" is blatant colonizer behavior.
This isn't something I'm super knowledgeable about, but I think Peyote cactus is mostly wild, relatively rare, and black market access to it cuts into the supply available for native religious groups:
Dawn Davis, 43, an expert in peyote conservation and a member of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes of Fort Hall, Idaho, worries that decriminalization efforts will renew the kind of fascination with psychedelic experiences that moved a generation of seekers to buy peyote from black market sources in the 1960s.
Edit: apparently I'm 20 minutes late and 4 other people said the same stuff. Oh well.
I think there is more going on than just "it's ours, you shouldn't have it" though. Peyote in the US is designated legal for religious use by indigenous people as part of traditional practices only. It's also extremely slow growing and requires very careful harvesting to keep the plant alive, it's listed as an endangered species in the wild, explicitly due to over-harvesting.
Basically people using it as a recreational drug can have a very real impact on the legality and availability of the plant for indigenous people.
The people in the OP are not engaging with any of this stuff and treating it simply as culture war, with an attitude of extreme contempt and hostility to the people who they see as potentially stopping them from getting high, which I find pretty gross - regardless of whether you think it's fair to gatekeep the plant.
Ah see i didn't know it was endangered, that's an entirely different thing.
If it's endangered no one should be harvesting it if it kills it etc.
Basically people using it as a recreational drug can have a very real impact on the legality and availability of the plant for indigenous people.
they shouldn't need a legal exemption but democrats support the war on drugs i guess.
Ok, if you want to have the cultural experience, then fucking do so like many Western defectors to First Nations did.
Go through all the rituals that a person of that actual culture would, learn the language, immerse yourself for decades, and then, maybe, you can have the treat plant.
How hard is it to just take acid
Acid is kind of a trash drug. Try some coke or some H
Want this guy to get so high his one brain cell pops, bizarre way to talk about things
Treat piggy wants the peyote!
I don't think people should be fucking with these psychedelic alkaloids for recreational purposes, many of them result in dangerously high blood pressures.
Say no to drugs, Hexbear. This is your brain on stolen peyote.
VIRTUE BLACKMAILING
whitemaling
Sweet, now I have a leftist justification for my aversion to psychedelics! (I don't want my brain chemistry fucked with anymore than it already is)
the
is going wild in this threadThis should apply to magic mushrooms as well. That was NEVER white culture, taking them is a form of expropriation of the exterminated Aztecs and other indigenous cultures.
Basically, if you’re not native, why are you doing the chemical equivalent of putting on a native headdress for fun?
There are psychedelic mushrooms native to other parts of the world, ie England and northern Europe have local varieties.
That and you can grow them with basically clean dirt, water, attention, and an unoccupied shelf.
A lot of psychonauts don't really respect the mushroom though and treat it as a high rather than an experience. I don't think we should gate keep the positive effects they have on brain elasticity though.
can we get this as a site tagline?
Quick aside, why don't conservationists take some of the plant into a greenhouse and grow a fuck ton of it so it's no longer endangered?
i actually looked into this and there is a way to harvest peyote sustainably (cutting precisely above the root and leaving some green with a clean and sanitized knife each time) but white techbro psychonauts are fucking idiots and just start whacking at it with a machete haphazardly, there are a lot of researchers that have them in a greenhouse but the key issue is root rot and too much watering, the greenhouse also has to get very hot so setting up a microclimate just for the cacti is expensive (re: capitalists prefer the cheap method of going out and ripping everything out of the ground for free)
imo i dont think there is anything wrong with doing peyote or magic mushrooms or whatever, especially when it serves a medical purpose (like ptsd research), but you should be growing it sustainably so that the people that have rituals about going out in the wild and getting them and maintaining them arent screwed over (which afaik is the main complaint from indigenous groups). the plus side to growing at home is that you are helping preserve biodiversity, esp if you partake in guerilla planting of excess seeds. guerilla planting is the mvp and you ostensibly need to grow it at home to do that.
i guerilla plant all sorts of endangered species in microclimates where they will outcompete invasive ones, its a very important thing to do and getting the seeds isnt actually that hard. whats hard is conservation societies dont have a complex understanding of local microclimates like a local does. ive been able to successfully purge non native grasses from huge swathes of local meadows over the past 10 years. when you do that it leads to a flourishing of native plants and wildlife, the grasses really are a keystone species that bring all the native stuff back in so many areas.
Some people do it, some grow it in more appropriate areas. But reintroducing it requires the actual land, and an effort to clean it of invasives and anything else that caused it's status previously.
For human use, see https://youtu.be/CpM5-xJZKbQ . Guy grows it for NAC use. Fair warning that channel is NSFW and the guy can be a bit abrasive but he does some good work putting out high quality footage of a diverse range of plants. And in this case, shows off someone trying to stem the harm of humans on their environment.
Also, from what I gather, most of the damage is from white people misusing peyote, and the US government punishing anyone who isn't NAC related who tries to grow it.
Edit: Also I see the other comments, that channel is Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't. Look around for his intro to botany and guerilla gardening videos. Importantly, you'll want to look for other content specific to your local area! I think one of his guerilla gardening was in California so its pretty specific. The USDA has some ok resources, lots of universities have good guides on planting native (search your area, state, city, etc, plus native or sustainable gardening), and https://www.prairiemoon.com/ has some good search tools to show seed local to your area. They can be a bit pricey, but it can be a good start.
Also its important to just have fun! I don't worry about planting entirely local or native. Even if you plant just a few plants, it can be a good start! Gardeners tend to be pretty good people, so don't be afraid to ask around either.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Is going out and foraging for natural payote part of the whole deal? I know nothing about any of this
A Reddit link was detected in your post. Here are links to the same location on Teddit and Libreddit, which are Reddit frontends that protect your privacy.
