Actual Freedom ~ Commonly Raised Objections

RICHARD: (...) the four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE) in 1980, which initiated the remembrance of many such moments of perfection stretching way back into my childhood, and which set in train the entire process eventually resulting in an actual freedom from the human condition, was inadvertently precipitated by psylocibin (given to me by a well-meaning but somewhat misguided associate at the time who told me it was similar in effect to tetrahydrocannabinol only much stronger) ...

RESPONDENT: So, instead of any method or ANY thing you have been discussing on your website, Richard – A Chemical precipitated your 4hr PCE.

RICHARD: No, it was not ‘instead’ of (what has become known as) the actualism method – the only method on the web site – or any other thing discussed that psylocibin precipitated the four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE) in 1980, which initiated the remembrance of many such moments of perfection stretching way back into my childhood, and which set in train the entire process eventually resulting in an actual freedom from the human condition ... it was *because* it did that the actualism method, and all other things discussed, came into existence.

RESPONDENT: Great, that’s just great ...

RICHARD: It is indeed great, just great, that peace-on-earth, in this lifetime as this flesh and blood body, is now not only apparent but accessible by all and sundry because of a well-meaning, but somewhat misguided, associate at the time giving me some psylocibin (along with the misinformation it was similar in effect to tetrahydrocannabinol only much stronger) that inadvertently precipitated the four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE) in 1980, which initiated the remembrance of many such moments of perfection stretching way back into my childhood, and which set in train the entire process eventually resulting in an actual freedom from the human condition ... but I doubt that this is what you are being so effusive about.

And here is why:

• [Respondent]: ‘So far, the biggest occurrences of an actualist ‘getting it’ that I have heard of recently have been drug-induced. How is this not an ASC? I mean Vineeto’s refutation of Vipassana involved her recounting her drug-induced experience wherein she ‘got’ something about the actual world. If one needs to rely on drugs to ‘bring it to light’, where can experiential wisdom be permanently held? (Re: Infinitude!; Sat 6/11/2004 AEDST).

Somehow I am reminded of this exchange:

• [Respondent]: ‘As you have already cleared up this matter there is NOTHING of substance to discuss ...
• [Richard]: ‘If I may point out? There was nothing of substance to discuss in the first place ... other than why there is such a readiness on your part to find a flaw and/or a contradiction and/or an affective component and/or a whatever is prejudicial to what is being presented on The Actual Freedom Trust web site (...)’. (Re: Trust/Confidence; Friday 26/11/2004 AEDST).

So as to inject some substance into this exchange: it was not just the psylocibin, it was not just the PCE, it was not just the remembrance of many such moments of perfection stretching way back into my childhood, which set in train the entire process eventually resulting in an actual freedom from the human condition, it was the identity within who was the key to all which transpired.

In short: many, many peoples have ingested many, many chemicals over many, many centuries but only one of them, as far as I have been able to ascertain, has ever enabled the already always existing peace-on-earth into becoming apparent permanently.

RESPONDENT: You can not relate what is beyond the thought, verbalisation, Richard, for what is ‘there’, ‘where’ there is no thought, ‘where’ the mind has emptied its contents has never been before and it will never be again. Seeing with a totally still brain, with no thought whatsoever present in the mind, is a totally different dimension.

RICHARD: Yes, I know ... it is called the ‘True Reality’ among many other names. It cannot be maintained for the twenty four hours of the day, everyday. It is like ‘True Love’ ... it never lasts.

RESPONDENT: And ‘your’ actuality lasts 24 hours?

RICHARD: Yes, the entire twenty four hours of every day ... and this has been the case since 1992.

RESPONDENT: Did you take one many too acid trips and fail to come back?

RICHARD: No ... if it were that easy then hippies all over the world would be living in this ambrosial paradise that becomes apparent when malice and sorrow vanish forever.

RESPONDENT: Even Krishnamurti knew the effects of LSD and other hallucinogens; that they could catapult one into another dimension, but that would be a dependency on an artificial means.

RICHARD: I have not used any psylocibin (the only hallucinogenic I have ever used) for eighteen years now ... and then I only used it five times. Hardly a dependency, I would say. Try another tack ... as you seem to want to discredit me somehow or another.

RESPONDENT: I took a few trips myself, but they waned in a major way compared to ones experience of the true glimpse of creation. Nothing lasts.

RICHARD: This moment in time and this place in space lasts ... one is already always here now.

RESPONDENT: Anyway it was relief to me to find AF [few months ago] because it was proove, confirmation of my interest in this topic. As a matter of fact, I felt already relief when I found U.G. Krishnamurti and others with similar [the same?] experience of No-Self like Bernadette Roberts, John Lewis. Yet Roberts was tinged with spirituality and Krishnamurti was inconsistent and in some way biased. Your mode of expression appeals to me the most. However, I have problem, I am not sure whether I ever had PCE [here one question you said somewhere that the self in PCE is in suspension [or declutched], is your state different from PCE at all?], but you probably mentioned of possibility of evoking it by hallucinogens e.g. LSD [again I’m not sure]. Anyway I have taken several times LSD in my life and don’t know whether it is useful in ‘the path’ [maybe it was just ASC]. I feel still sometimes swayed by some feelings and emotions [I am 23] because of many years of using them [let say these positive], and it is hard to me to find balance between doing things emotionlessly and not getting bored. Anyway I am working on this. Please of some suggestion although I know you probably said everything already in those matters.

RICHARD: First and foremost: the actualism method is not about doing things emotionlessly ... the following link explains this in some detail (half-way down the page):

In regards hallucinogens: I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances (for obvious reasons). If, however, someone already has done so, and intends to do so again of their own accord and volition anyway, then I would counsel their very careful and considered use as it is all-too-easy for an altered state of consciousness (ASC) to emerge rather than a pure consciousness experience (PCE) ... there are many accounts available on the internet and 4 or 5 years ago I browsed through several web pages and never found any description that resembled a PCE.

The expression I use for what happens in a PCE is that identity is in abeyance – which means ‘a state of suspension or temporary disuse; a dormant condition liable to revival’ according to the Oxford Dictionary – and is the closest experience possible to what an actual freedom from the human condition itself is without actually becoming free ... and anybody I have been whilst they were having a PCE has indubitably been experiencing the same-same experience as is my on-going experiencing.

And it is neither the same nor similar to what the people you mention speak of.

*

RESPONDENT: I don’t know but the ‘inadvertent precipitation’ effect of psylocibin may be sometimes crucial. [Addendum]: Oops I meant ‘inadvertent precipitating’ effect.

RICHARD: First of all, the word ‘inadvertent’ conveys the sense of it being unintentional, unintended, not deliberate, involuntary, chance, not premeditated, unplanned, accidental, and so forth, and the word ‘precipitated’ (in this context) refers to it being brought on, caused, occasioned, given rise to, triggered, or in any other way set in motion, by.

As for the effect of psylocibin being ‘maybe sometimes crucial’ I need only to refer you to my original response ... to wit: I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances (for obvious reasons). If, however, someone already has done so, and intends to do so again of their own accord and volition anyway, then I would counsel their very careful and considered use as it is all-too-easy for an altered state of consciousness (ASC) to emerge rather than a pure consciousness experience (PCE) ... there are many accounts available on the internet and 5 or 6 years ago I browsed through several web pages and never found any description that resembled a PCE.

Put simply: there are far too many variables for substance-induced experiences to be a reliable guide ... for just one example, some years ago a person who had listened intently to all I had to say over several years, about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being, did take a psychotropic substance – unbeknownst to me and most certainly not because of any prompting or suggestion on my part – and indeed had a PCE (so much so that a friend of theirs drove them to where I was then living so as to be able to tell me, whilst it was still happening, that they finally, finally, understood what I was talking about).

However, and here comes the ‘but’, some months later they again ingested the same substance ... only to experience ‘Richard’ as being the devil incarnate (and a sex-fiend into the bargain).

‘Nuff said?

*

RESPONDENT: Two years ago I met friend with whom we are together investigating whole business. I can say that it goes much faster than when I did it alone. Two months ago I decided to test thoroughly influence of psylocibin. I had been taking for 2 weeks day after day (7-12 liberty caps/day which is not much but has effect tested is the same as double quantity). During first week my body purified itself which effect was that I felt (I still do) weightlessness of body (as if some burden was flushed out) and senses sensitivity increased. After two weeks I stopped intake than I took again once after month and did not notice as I mentioned much difference between psylocibin trip (trip is itself wrong word here) and my ordinary state.

RICHARD: Hmm ... all I will pick-up on, for now at least, in that explanation is your on-going feeling of ‘weightlessness’ as such a feeling generally indicates what is sometimes known as ‘a lightness of being’ and is usually an indication of an altered state of consciousness (ASC) rather than a pure consciousness experience (PCE).

Look, by and large, most substance-induced peak experiences are ASC’s, and not PCE’s (else an actual freedom from the human condition would surely have been discovered aeons ago), which is the main reason why I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances ... and I would be doing my fellow human being no favour were I to indiscriminately endorse what you have to say.

The bottom line, however, is that it is your life you are living and what you do with what I have to report/describe/explain is your business. For instance:

• [Richard]: ‘... there are far too many variables for substance-induced experiences to be a reliable guide ... for just one example, some years ago a person who had listened intently to all I had to say over several years, about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being, did take a psychotropic substance – unbeknownst to me and most certainly not because of any prompting or suggestion on my part – and indeed had a PCE (so much so that a friend of theirs drove them to where I was then living so as to be able to tell me, whilst it was still happening, that they finally, finally, understood what I was talking about). However, and here comes the ‘but’, some months later they again ingested the same substance ... only to experience ‘Richard’ as being the devil incarnate (and a sex-fiend into the bargain).
• [Respondent]: ‘Maybe after third time he will become free from human condition’. (‘Re: Some Past Issue’; Thursday 16/12/2004 AEDST).

That missing-the-point comment, when taken in conjunction with your [quote] ‘during first week [of daily ingesting psylocibin] my body purified itself’ [endquote] report further above, indicates that despite all what is presented on The Actual Freedom Trust web site, and The Actual Freedom Trust Mailing List, you are of the impression that substance-induced experiencing is, fundamentally, what will do the trick and thus deliver the goods ... à la Mr. John Lewis and his boiled sweet, perchance.

Perhaps if I were to put it this way for emphasis: it was just happenstance that it was psylocibin which inadvertently precipitated the four-hour PCE in 1980, which initiated the remembrance of many such moments of perfection stretching way back into my childhood, and which set in train the entire process eventually resulting in an actual freedom from the human condition ... it could have been some other thing, person, or event (such as total immersion in the act of artistic creation, for instance, or a complete let-go at the peak of a sexual orgasm, for another).

Besides which it was not just the psylocibin, it was not just the PCE, it was not just the remembrance of many such moments of perfection stretching way back into my childhood, which set in train the entire process eventually resulting in an actual freedom from the human condition, it was the identity within who was the key to all which transpired.

Which is why I have not made, do not ever and never will make, a big thing out of the historical fact that the four-hour PCE in 1980 was psylocibin-induced.

RESPONDENT: (...) sometimes I still use psylocibin though it is not much different from my usual state (slight senses and well-being increase).

RICHARD: (...) I am asking a very simple question: are you really saying that a psilocybin-induced trip is not much different to your normal state?

RESPONDENT: Yes, I maintain it.

RICHARD: In which case, and just for starters, you are maintaining that your normal state is not much different to actually being free of malice and sorrow and, thus, their antidotal pacifiers love and compassion ... (snip). Yet despite all this (and more) you could not distinguish earlier on this year the difference between what I have to report/ describe/ explain and what, for example, Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti, Ms. Bernadette Roberts, Mr. John Lewis, and Mr. Douglas Harding (inasmuch you had to ask me how I would classify him/his state when all takes is about three (3) minutes to locate the passages which are blatantly self-explanatory to one who is virtually free of the human condition) all have to say about life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being.

RESPONDENT: I suppose you refer to this: [Respondent]: ‘My first LSD trip was very akin to that aforementioned PCE of yours (and also lasted 4 hours) and was crucial breakthrough in my life forcing me to search (I somehow knew there was more to it than a just drug). Now, I am acquainted more to that experience ...’. [endquote].

RICHARD: No, I am responding to the fact that you ... (a) first referred me to your earliest post to this mailing list where you asked me of the possibility of evoking a pure consciousness experience (PCE) by the intake of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) ... and (b) then established that, according to both yourself and scientists, LSD is similar to psylocibin ... and (c) then made it clear your first LSD experience was very akin to the psylocibin-induced four-hour pure consciousness experience (PCE) of mine in 1980 ... and (d) then explained you are now more acquainted with that experience ... and (e) then provided the information that, even though it is not much different from your usual state, you sometimes still use psylocibin.

RESPONDENT: Foregoing statement of mine is however not precise cause it may suggest that PCE (as I reckoned it to be) is my ongoing experience.

RICHARD: No, it does not suggest that a PCE is your on-going experience ... it conveys, quite unequivocally, that a PCE is [quote] ‘not much different’ [endquote] from your on-going experience.

RESPONDENT: Here I have to make some digression. [snip digression]. I think though, my present ongoing experience is that of ‘Excellent experience’ or generally as you suggested above virtual freedom.

RICHARD: No, I never suggested (further above) that your present ongoing experience is, generally or otherwise, that of virtual freedom ... on the contrary, I clearly stated that, even though all it takes is about three (3) minutes to locate the passages regarding what Mr. Douglas Harding has to say, which passages are blatantly self-explanatory to one who is virtually free of the human condition, you still had to ask me how I would classify him/his state.

And neither would I suggest your normal state is an on-going excellence experience (the penultimate virtual freedom experience) either (...)

What I would suggest, however, is that your initial LSD trip was an altered state of consciousness (ASC) ... and here is another reason why (from the snipped digression):

• [Respondent]: ‘I saw (...) also beauty of the world around ...’.

Quite simply: beauty is an affective experience – the subjective ‘self’s pathetic imitation of the pristine purity of the actual – and, as you currently have a feeling of weightlessness (aka a lightness of being), I would also suggest your present on-going experience is an after-effect of feeling the same a couple of months ago whilst ingesting psilocybin on a daily basis over a two-week period ... a technique, by the way, almost guaranteed to reduce the effect.

As I have remarked before, by and large, most substance-induced peak experiences are ASC’s, and not PCE’s (else an actual freedom from the human condition would surely have been discovered aeons ago), which is the main reason why I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances. Here is another way I have put it (from my first e-mail to you):

• [Richard]: ‘(...) I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances (for obvious reasons). If, however, someone already has done so, and intends to do so again of their own accord and volition anyway, then I would counsel their very careful and considered use *as it is all-too-easy for an altered state of consciousness (ASC) to emerge rather than a pure consciousness experience (PCE)* ... there are many accounts available on the internet and 4 or 5 years ago I browsed through several web pages and never found any description that resembled a PCE. (...)’. [emphasis added]. (Thursday, 29 January 2004 AEDST).

I do not see how I could have put any more plainly than that.

RESPONDENT: TLE or any other temporal lobe affection not being included in DSM IV, they have missed taking into account a possible cause for your condition.

RICHARD: Golly ... psychiatrists (and psychologists for that matter) can, and do, have a mind of their own ... they are not necessarily ruled by a manual which is not at all scientific in its formulation (specific mental disorders get included/excluded from that manual by the vote of a select group).

RESPONDENT: Is it clear now?

RICHARD: It is about as clear as mud ... do you think there is some kind of demarcation dispute, as it were, between the psychiatric profession and the neurological profession (so much so that I ought to hot-foot it to a neurologist on the basis of your amateur diagnosis)?

RESPONDENT: Why were you taking that drug (psylocibin) for?

RICHARD: I was not ‘taking’ psylocibin ... I (mistakenly) took it on the advice of an (erstwhile) associate under the (misguided) impression it was similar in effect to tetrahydrocannabinol (only much stronger).

For your information: having personal acquaintance with a person who has suffered from epilepsy all their adult life I was sufficiently well-enough informed about such neurological conditions before both 1980-81 and 1994-97 to make my own appraisal ... even so it was a possibility I raised with the psychiatrist whose expertise you questioned in that other thread and had extensive and free-ranging discussions about same (just as I canvassed many other possibilities with them and they with me).

All-in-all it was a most informative and productive association for the entire three-year period ... for example, I subscribed to an on-line university-based ‘Consciousness Studies’ forum at their suggestion after they had initiated discussion into matters pertaining to consciousness in general and pure consciousness events (aka altered states of consciousness) in particular.

They were most bemused that various professors, and the ilk, on that forum were of the opinion that consciousness per se did not exist.

RICHARD: (...) A psychiatrist (who, unlike a psychologist, has a medical degree) once explained to me that my on-going day-to-day experience is because of an excess of dopamine in the post-synaptic receptors – similar to the effect cocaine or amphetamine or lysergic acid diethylamide produce – hence my understanding is that to ingest caffeine on top of this moment-to-moment experiencing is somewhat similar to overdosing on those substances ... primarily the main symptom is a saturated sensuosity of such brilliance and vividity (as in psychedelic), which satiation can be likened to a television set receiving 4 or 5 channels all at once (inasmuch thought, and thus speech, is unable to keep up with the resultant cacophonic ‘white noise’), that the brain cells themselves undergo a non-volitional (chemical) excitation of such a magnitude as to be almost impossible for awareness to sustain itself (as in too much to bear). (...)

RESPONDENT: It appears that Actual Freedom is akin to the effects of psychotropic drugs when not overdosed ...

RICHARD: That is how my condition appeared to the psychiatrist mentioned above ... when he was not likening it to Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s experience that is. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘... I am yet to meet an atheist who does not ponder, when questioned deeply, whether there may be something substantive post-mortem after all. For example, many years ago I went to see an accredited psychiatrist and established right from the beginning that he be an atheistic materialist – he said emphatically upon being questioned rather rigorously in this regard that everything was molecular (material) and modifications of same including consciousness itself – because another psychiatrist I had previously seen was exigently talking about guardian angels looking after me within the first five minutes of our discussion ... yet when regaling this second psychiatrist of my on-going experiencing of life in this actual world his eyes opened in awe as the full import (of what he heard) struck home and he said ‘you may very well be the next Buddha we have all been waiting for’.

RESPONDENT: ... and when one does not loose oneself in the imagination, but stays in the here & now ...

RICHARD: As the term [quote] ‘here & now’ [endquote] is extensively used in religio-spiritual/mystic-metaphysical texts to refer to a metaphysical dimension (a spaceless and timeless realm) the utilisation of that spatial and temporal terminology is disingenuous to say the least. For example:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘When I was in ASC under the influence of Ecstasy, I was confused trying to sort out what had been going on. Then my friend said ‘BE HERE’ and hit the floor just in front of me.
• [Richard]: ‘Then your friend has hopelessly misunderstood what the sages having been saying for millennia ... the ‘be here’ of the god-men and gurus (and their ‘now’) is a metaphysical ‘here and now’ (a timeless and spaceless void) that has nothing to do with literally being here – now – in actual space and time. Indeed, Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain oft-times used the metaphysical word ‘herenow’ to distinguish it from the (physical) spatial and temporal location ... and it is anywhere but here at this place in infinite space and anywhen but now at this moment in eternal time. When the mystics say: ‘I am Timeless and Spaceless; Unborn and Undying; Birthless and Deathless’ and so on, what do you take it that they mean? Because, as this physical body has a limited life-span, they can only be referring to themselves as being a psychic entity receiving its post-mortem reward of immortality. Thus the reality of their psychic ‘being here’ is vastly different to the actuality of sensately being here’.

RESPONDENT: ... and without addicting qualities ...

RICHARD: As I understand it lysergic acid diethylamide is not addictive.

RESPONDENT: ... on the one hand because of the absence of a pleasure/pain centre ...

RICHARD: The absence, that is, of the affective pleasure/pain centre (as in the pleasure/pain principle which spiritualism makes quite an issue out of yet never does eliminate) ... which means that, as it is impossible to be hedonic, addiction does not happen.

RESPONDENT: ... on the other hand because the effect is permanent. Is that correct?

RICHARD: As you have included so many features into your query as to make an unqualified answer impossible it cannot be answered as-is. Suffice is it to say that while the ingestion of psychotropic substances can, on occasion, induce a pure consciousness experience (PCE) it is not something I either advise or encourage. For instance:

• [Richard]: ‘... I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances (for obvious reasons). If, however, someone already has done so, and intends to do so again of their own accord and volition anyway, then I would counsel their very careful and considered use as it is all-too-easy for an altered state of consciousness (ASC) to emerge rather than a pure consciousness experience (PCE) ... there are many accounts available on the internet and 4 or 5 years ago I browsed through several web pages and never found any description that resembled a PCE’.