Ritual initiations symbolising death and the effects of DMT?

Whilst pondering on an entirely different question I suddenly wondered weather the 2 could have any connection.

A lot of known(secret) societys utilise ritual initiations and as far as I am aware most intitiations involve a symbolic death followed by a "re-birth" I have read that '___' is produced primarily in birth and at the time of death and it has been speculated that many benificial enlightenments can come from the experience of '___'.

So in a nutshell, could there be any connection between the two and that is the reason for the symbolism?

What is '___'?

reply to post by thefamiliar


You could be on to something, although keep in mind a great deal of non-secret societies use '___' as an initiatory tool as well.

Having a great deal of personal experience with '___', my comments are that death as it will manifest permanently at the end of your life can be experienced on '___' in much the same fashion, conciousness and uninhibited, complete awareness without a body is something everybody needs to experience whether as an initiation/coming of age or not.

Whether these 'secret societies' use '___' in their initations is largely arbitrary in my opinion; if they did use it, it would be purely to create a less sheepled awareness and perspective within their new initiate.

att mods: Any reference to personal use made by me occurred before the thread was moved, regards.

reply to post by MMPI2


'___' or Dimethyltryptamine is the most (behind 5-methoxy-dmt) powerful psychedelic substance known to man, and occurs naturally in pretty much every living organism.

Learn more:

'___'-Nexus

The Spirit Molecule (Documentary)

The spirit molecule e-book can be found on Shroomery, I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more.

reply to post by ballsdeep


Agreed, I did not mean only secret societies use ritual, I used the term as it seemed most appropriate for this forum.

I enjoy the concept than myth and religion are all based in science. The concept that religion and arcane rituals are misinterpretations of lost scientific procedures seems plausable to me.

I was interested in the possibility that these rituals are watered down and confused procedures to increase awareness and alter perception to better understand the reality of the world.

I know that certain churches use enteogens in rituals, and not just "hippy" churches. I've talked to a priest or preacher (whatever you call it, I'm not religious) in the catholic church that told me of his use of mushrooms every 5 years to "cleanse his soul". '___' is not the only entheogen there is, all psychadelics are entheogens.

They activate your "3rd eye", your pineal gland. This is what many consider to be the gateway to the soul. This is also activated at birth and death. So yes, using entheogens will symbolize "life/death", becuase you actually are born and die on entheogens.

In church when you eat the cracker and drink the wine symbolizing the taking of the body and blood of Christ is an ancient ritual of eating mushrooms and drinking some sort of psychadelic tea. At the last supper, the holy sacrement Jesus gave to everyone was a mushroom.

reply to post by thefamiliar


Do it yourself and you'll be replacing 'plausible' with 'absolute'; psilocybin is a better intro substance though, you've got a lot more room to manouver in terms of dose and you'll learn to navigate the entheogenic landscape before being launched through it on '___'.

Originally posted by GeechQuestInfo
'___' is not the only entheogen there is, all psychadelics are entheogens.

This is true, although '___' is probably the best substance for use in an initiatory setting, it's quick (sessions last 15 minutes from baseline to peak to baseline), the experience is also wayyyy less convoluted than more mainstream psychedelics (I'm not saying the experience is always more transcendant on '___' - it's just a lot easier to get there).

edit - also genesis 2:17

reply to post by ballsdeep


I have no interest in "taking" '___' whatsoever, I have in the past taken most drugs and no longer feel the need to take any more!

As I said I was curioous as to weather the symbolic death was origionaly meant as a way of releasing '___' and the mystism grew out of a loss of understanding the origonal purpose?

reply to post by thefamiliar


From what I've seen/heard it takes a lot of meditative skill coupled with some hecktic entheogenic experience before a person can get the endogenous '___' flowing properly/at will. I doubt any shamanic (or other) ritual is able to cause a burst of activity in the pineal (at least not on a surefire basis), especially in initiates who have endured an otherwise normal existence prior to the ceremony.

reply to post by ballsdeep


Yes but maybe in the origonal context the "death" was not quite so sybolic?

I know that Wicca has a symbolic death in there initiation , I was actaully quite dissapointed when I found out quite how symbolic it was.

reply to post by thefamiliar


Well yeah I guess? I don't see what this has to do with '___' any more though?

Death is a prominent figure in many cultures, mainly because the birth/life/death cycle when understood properly creates a far more productive and well adjusted perspective within people. Over time, however, especially in the west - death has become a source of extreme fear for a lot of people; enabling religion to tighten its stranglehold on the population's existential perception while it (the population) forgets the important lessons it learned a long time ago.

The only knock I have on '___' as opposed to other entheogens is that the memory of the '___' trip leaves very quickly, exactly like a dream.

Mushrooms, peyote, mescaline; all of those will also stimulate the pineal gland and you are more likely to remember your experience.

Life/death and entheogens are the greatest secret of all. More so than CIA drug running, NWO, aliens.

All of those "secrets" are merely symptoms of life and death. Entheogens are life and death. They are god and Satan. They are yin and yang.

reply to post by ballsdeep


What I meant was that there is a lot of speculation regarding the positive effects of '___' in terms of achiving a higher awareness and enchanced mental function. I was merley interested in posibillity that this could have been the origonal reason for the sybolic death/rebirth in many cultures/religions/secret societies and over time this has been somewhat lost in translation?

reply to post by thefamiliar


It may have started from that end a long, long time ago, but I'd say any post Christ society using entheogens would have been well aware of the existential implications of the substances before they made use of them.

'___' is thought to be produced by the pineal gland, called the Third Eye. Guess what? Fluoride weakens and freezes the pineal gland. Guess what? There are tons of fluoride in our water. The elite does not want us to know that '___' is a gateway to a higher dimension. It's more than a drug, it's a key.

It gives you out-of-body experiences, so yeah, it's pretty much like death, or so it can feel like. Every human should consume this substance. A life without '___' is like a life without awareness.

'___' is produced naturally within the human body, and it is extracted from basic common plants and crystalized (typically) into a solid substance for smoking or injecting.

If there is any one substance known on this earth that can allow you to transcend out of body and into an entirely different realm of consciousness, this would be the one.

Experiencing '___', for many, would be described as a religious experience, like experiencing the God mind or tapping into the universal energy so to speak. Many refer to this as an "ego death".

It can be an extremely powerful, unbelievably intense, life altering event. For an initiate of any society to use '___' as a ritualistic means of pledging to a group, this would require a serious leap of faith.

In my opinion, it would be just as likely to frighten the person away than it would anything else.