Hello all,

I guess I'm older than I wish I was, in order to start walking this way. I could have come to a place like this -or to its stone age equivalent- around fifteen years ago, but when I was right in the threshold, about to knock the door, life sent me to other places. Now I'm trying to get back, to catch up. Hopefully, my walkabout of the last decade will make any experiences more meaningful, and my head won't be too hardened.

I was raised in a moderate catholic environment. After primary school, I shook off a lot of crap by reading. Nietzsche lit the fuse, and then I started enjoying Burroughs, Huxley, Jünger, Castaneda. You know how it goes. But it was the spanish sociologist and philosopher Antonio Escohotado, with his monumental General History of Drugs, who gave me one of the biggest mind boners I've ever had in my life. He made me realize that, to me, the importance of a book doesn't depend on the answers it provides, but rather on the new questions it arises. I spent a few years breaking some pesky paradigms, and gathering not only more books, but also a few plant materials. I flirted with them, but I was too scared to roll up my sleeves in a serious way.

Then, I met a girl. We started getting closer. And one day, gingerly, naively, I blurted out a list of drugs I had tried so far, and another one of the drugs I intended to try. Then she freaked. Big time. She didn't, wouldn't understand my reasons. To her, I was a teenager playing. Thirsty for social integration. Oblivious of the dangers of dope. And discussing it didn't work. And I didn't want to lose her. So I reluctantly buried my books and threw my plants away.

The mistake only became obvious years after that, when our marriage sunk. For other reasons, of course. But you get the point.

In the last two years, I've been getting back to my roots. I discovered things that I was probably meant to discover when I was twenty-five, but here they are. McKenna, Hoffman, Shulgin, Ott, Strassman. Psilocybin and LSA. And most importantly, I found a mate to join me.

DMT is somewhere around the corner, I don't know how close. In the meantime, I have started to explore salvia. And getting acquainted with reverse tolerance after two attempts. A couple days ago I felt my body blown with a unique breeze, almost phasing out, but meekly coming back to the vessel a couple minutes after the first bong hit. Hopefully, the next time there will be a breakthrough, the one I've been looking for.

And I'd love to share it, and this seems the right place. As long as my head isn't too hard.

Nice to meet you, guys.

Vodsel

Welcome to the community Vodsel, sounds like you have a lot of life experience to share. And a very healthy reading list

Escohotado's Historia General de Las Drogas is one book that I would really love to see translated into English. It's one of those books that really makes me regret not learning other languages... though I suppose it's never too late for me to start.

Nice list of authors. Definitely must reads for people thinking about psychonautics.

Never read Escohotado, and my Spanish is probably not good enough to attempt it. It is one thing to be able to ask directions and get the gist of a simple news article... another thing entirely to be able to read serious works.

Anyway, welcome to the Nexus man. I'm sure you will find what you are looking for here. There is even a thread here on whether someone should quit entheogens for their mate.

Aloha.

Vodsel thank you for sharing and kudos to you for taking that next step in joining the nexus.

It is NEVER too late to embark on this journey.

I am happy to here you have a mate that is with you for this, that is very important IMO, at least it has been for me.

Welcome aboard! I look forward to hearing from you more.

'Never too late' is an excellent motto. It is true, though, that Escohotado would not be an easy read for a starter... and most likely he would make Google translator have a nervous breakdown. Not because he is not clear to read; he is actually one of the most precise essay writers I have ever read in spanish. The problem is - his vocabulary, technical or not, can be so vast that, unless you have a medium proficiency in written spanish, you will need reference books to walk through it. That said, he's delightful to read. He often made me aware of the lucid, thorough construction of the paragraph I just read - whether it contained a specially significant idea or not.

If I knew enough english to translate accurately technical texts (and if I had a spare year) I would be happy to work in his treatise. Some have claimed that it is the most exhaustive and accurate history of pharmakoi ever written, and as far as my experience is concerned, I do agree. Having a top-class teacher of law, philosophy, sociology and epistemology write a book like that is a luxury.

In other news, it's curious to realize that your notes on Pipiltzintzintli are one of the first posts I browsed here in the nexus. For some reason (maybe the unmistakable word) I remembered it after reading Ott's Pharmacotheon. Now, definitely, I will read it properly.



I share that feeling. And thanks for the link, I bookmarked the thread for reading. Every story is a world in itself, but I guess that's a topic I will always have a say about.



Thanks Ice and all for taking some time to write back. I knew a community like this would be different - every community has its bonds and complicity, but the nature of the entheogenic experience brings along something unique. It's like stripping off the dogma from religious communion. Or like stripping off the orthodoxy from empiric science. I feel it brings the best of both worlds, and I think that's the ultimate reason why it caught my attention and it never let it go, even when it was dormant.

If you read the intro I just posted it may have some resonance. I was having similar thoughts about my age and life path. And the universe delivered a ride to my second Burning Man as the co-pilot with a wonderful 64-year-old camp-mate who was having a very similar experience - a kind of re-awakening, finding himself again after marriage, parenthood, etc. 15 hours of driving with him really put things in perspective - from where he sits, I look like a young 41-year-old whippersnapper!