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I think you have to take what Martin Ball and Leo Gura say within context and Leo's "The magic pill to God and enlightenment" was as much a question or title for a discussion than anything.

I've read Martin's (not terribly well written!) books and in fact spoken to him three or four times. He's coming in from an entirely non dual angle on this and totally rejects the addition of dualistic paradigms to the experience as are often apparent in shamanism or new age healing techniques. I do entirely agree with him here however he's certainly not made himself popular amongst entheogen enthusiasts in the way he expresses himself - he's often come across as arrogant and know-it-all. I'm also somewhat confused by his theory of fractal energy - the miracle of the phenomenological world arising from emptiness/consciousness can be seen when returning from the 5-meo-dmt experience and fractals seem to have little to do with this.

As for Leo, my total respect goes out to this guy! I think you have to trace the progress of his videos on actualized.com to see how he's got to where he is. He is a totally dedicated seeker and has used etheogens wisely, along with many other techniques and a wholly mature attitude to this, to bring himself to an understanding of unity consciousness. That's not to say that some of his videos, especially earlier ones, weren't complete rubbish but key events were when he tried out 5-meo, AL-LAD and 2C-B and his video Understanding Absolute Infinity - Part 1 published July 2017.

Well, you are reading right as to what I was told I had. I'm sorry that I wasn't clear, poor communication on my part.

Let me explain-several years ago, when I was just deciding to begin working with psychedelics as a last-ditch effort to stop my life from completely falling into the abyss after years of addiction, depression, suicide attempts etc (if you're truly interested about it, I'll link this to my blog- my essay from one on 5meo called Why Venom Now is in the articles subforum here- I don't keep consistent avatars across forums but I do contribute to a couple quite often.)

Hi Acasta Gneiss

No, I think you explained it pretty clearly - it's just that I was shocked by the high dosages and thought maybe there'd been a mistake 

And I remember reading Why Venom Now when you first put it on the Nexus and then later on here. A very well written and really well thought out article.

I guess you know what your body can handle in terms of dosage. I personally would start much, much lower. Just don't put yourself in any danger! Sorry to hear you've had so much trauma recently. Sending love and hugs 

[am]

Am I reading this right? You IV'd 50mg of 5-meo? And 50mg IM'd didn't produce a breakthrough?

If I am reading it right, these doses seem massively too high! I would expect IV or IM to be considerably less that a vaped dose i.e. much less than 15mg. You mention that you read TiHKAL:

(with 1.3 mg, i.v.) "In a few seconds I was participating in exquisite, full body, teeth-chattering shivers that lasted in all about 10 minutes, nearly the duration of the effects. The sensations seemed to come more from my head region, whereas my 'full blown' experiences of smoked 5-MeO-DMT seemed to emanate from my center and heart."

(with 2.3 mg, i.v.) "I remember having a perspective of knowing I was aware and, if not from the start of the experience then very soon into it, knowing I knew I was aware. I thought I was an ocean. I don't remember where I first lost continuity of consciousness (this is a little like a black-out from hard liquor) but I remember being aware of the sounds I was making apparently some time after I began vocalizing. Around the time I thought to change these sounds as I pleased, I also noted with brief wonder that the sound was continuous, not changed by my breathing. I sang my way back."

(with 3.1 mg, i.v.) "I vocalized effortlessly. I was getting in touch with my body. I said, 'Turn off the lights,' and 'I love you,' and then I lost it. I was amazed later to find a roomful of people who had been frightened by the noises they had been amazed to hear, and I was amazed to be told I had made."

So he's looking at 3.1mg being worryingly high!

Hey Guru D, you are overthinking this way, way too much! Your mind can go round in circles a hundred thousand times and never find the "answer" that it is looking for.

Do I feel scared before taking this substance? - yes, shit scared every time. Have I been scared after taking it? - yes, a few times I've literally thought I was dying as everything that I imagined I was dissolved. Have I had a hard time coming back from the experience? - yes, a couple of times I've found it profoundly disconcerting (for a few minutes) to come back from being infinity to having a limited human body and thought process. But this substance has given me insight into What Is that decades of meditation, mindfulness, therapy and self observation tecniques didn't. It is simply astounding.

I think you've already received the advice you need to take it sensibly and not risk any adverse physical effects. I've in fact never heard of anyone taking 15 mg straight off and suffering any ill effect; 30 mg, yes. I'm pretty sure Dr Octavio Rettig has given over 10,000 doses of toad medicine now and Dr Gerardo Sandoval probably well over 2,000, to quote just two examples.

To sum up:
1. Have a balanced, sober sitter with you, if possible
2. Go in incrementally larger doses from 5 mg till you find your release dose
3. Avoid all MAOIs
4. Don't take it in conjunction with any other substance/drug/medicine/intoxicant
5. Don't take it whilst in the bath, driving or operating heavy machinery 


Sending you good vibes and do just switch off that default mode network with some meditation or something 

Hi Guru D. A bit like asking for swimming lessons when a tsunami is about to hit you 

The ego lives from fear. You overcome that fear and take it or you don't and you never take it. The last four times I have taken it have been ecstatically beautiful if that's any consolation 

Good luck indeed 

The HCl salt can very definitely be vaped!

In theory you should up the dosage by the proportion contributed by the molecular weight of the hydrogen chloride
(((218 + 36)/ 218) - 1) * 100 = 16.5%

I personally have always found this to be an underestimation and think possibly +40% is closer when comparing with freebase. But as the dosage required varies considerably between individuals, your best bet is always going to be to incrementally increase the quantity in small steps till you arrive at the desired result.

Hi Flux

Thanks so much for checking this out for me - much appreciated. No, I didn't get your message; I'll send you a quick PM now to check the technology :-)

I've read through the "Codigo Penal" but it's all pretty vague stuff. Also some of it hides a multitude of sins - it's legal to smoke marihuana but if you were to pass the joint to your husband/wife/friend then a minimum 5 year sentence applies!

I'm thinking of going the whole hog and swapping my OS to Linux end of this year too 

DailyMotion and Vimeo are pretty good alternatives to YouTube!

Hi HumbleVoyager

Yes, I would be interested in working with synthetic only. I know that there are people who collect toad venom responsibly and there are also people who keep their own toads in optimum conditions. However the system is potentially open to abuse and I see no objection to using laboratory manufactured product which has been appropriately tested for purity.

I've been doing a mini survey of people who have tried 5-meo or are thinking trying to see their reaction to this ROA. To my surprise, most say they think it a little odd although in the correct setting, and self administered, they would be happy to do it.

It seems to have the following advantages:

it doesn't depend on someone's technique when it comes to handling a vaporizer, nor their ability to hold their breath the correct amount of time
it seems to be almost twice as strong by this ROA (I've yet to fully verify this)
it is a slower and decidedly more controllable entry
it can be done with great accuracy as you can dissolve 50 mg in 5 ml of water then just use the precise amount from a 1 ml syringe
(1 ml = 10 mg, potentially equivalent to 20 mg vaped)

I should point out first that the following experience occurred in a country where the consumption of 5-meo is legal. I have tried not to wax lyrical about the deeper meaning of the experience, just give the details of what happened in a more or less scientific manner.

I had never really considered this as a ROA but I had a bad cold and sore throat and I didn't fancy vaping anything which might make my throat more uncomfortable. I measured out 5 mg of 5-meo using an accurate milligram scale and added 1 ml of warm water from a syringe and stirred. Once it was dissolved, I sucked the resultant solution back into the syringe. I lay on the bed face down, administered it and lay in that position for about two minutes. There was almost no effect at that point and I generally expected that there it would be none (especially after reading a report on here of someone plugging much, much larger doses with no effect).

I waited another 2 minutes and started to feel the unmistakable onset of a 5-meo experience. However the onset was much gentler than when vaped, just a gradual easing into it. Over the next 2 minutes the experience came on considerably stronger. At that point I would compare the overall effect as similar to when I have vaped 10-11 mg. The relatively slow build up, I felt, gave me more time to surrender to what was happening and reassure myself that the place I was entering was wholly natural and not to be fought in any way.

I have no idea about the following minutes but for the whiteness and singularity of the experience, a true knowing of what is. As I came out of it I opened my eyes and saw a small spider making its way across the ceiling. I felt the return of some of the physical and mental discomfort I had had before taking the substance. With sweeping hand gestures I tried to free my head and body of these. Another 2 minutes later and I was pretty back to normal. I saw from the clock that the whiteout part of the experience had lasted around 12 minutes, maybe a little less. I lay there for another few minutes and then had no problem getting up and carrying out a few basic tasks.

I will really consider this ROA as a possibility in the future. The slow onset does give some possible advantages over the incredibly fast onset that's usual with vaping. There was a nice handover from intellectual, ego based concern to surrender to ego loss that sort of gets bypassed when the transition happens in just 15 or 20 seconds.

Thanks very much for you excellent reply Xzen. Yes, it's certainly a project that needs a huge amount of preparation and research. I finish a long term (20-year!) project this December so I'm going to have time to dedicate myself to some of the investigation required to make this work well. I'm aware of several people who are already working in this field, some from a shamanistic angle (which is in no way my approach), and some from a therapeutic angle.

I'll definitely keep you in the loop, Xzen, and I'm happy to hear from anyone else who might be interested in whatever capacity.

[I'd be grateful if anyone can point me to the exact words in the Mexican legislation]

For quite a while now I've had the idea of setting up a retreat center in Mexico which would employ 5-meo, and possibly other entheogens, as a mode of healing as well as understanding the non dual nature of reality. There are a number of centers in Mexico, such as those offering ibogaine for additions, which are run on a medical basis often with US or Mexican doctors (which I'm definitely not).

I can see in the legal status list in this forum it's showing up as "legal" in Mexico. I have tried to check this out and, despite being a Spanish speaker and having a familiarity with legislation, I haven't come up with anything conclusive on this.

I'd be grateful if anyone can point me to the exact words in the Mexican legislation 

Also, if anyone is interested in this project in whatever capacity, feel free to contact me!

I boiled the grass with successive quantities of weak citric acid solution but with 2 kg of starting material that means you end up with a large amount of liquid. The main problem was getting rid of any solid in the liquid. I filtered several times then reduced the quantity of liquid over a low heat but this seemed to produce a lot more solid. I used a mixture of letting it settle, pour off the liquid, filter, reduce to half then repeat - several times. After basification, the liquid went from light browny green to darker brown. Lots of the brown came across when adding the NP solvent and attempts to purify it seemed to result in losing everything.

If anyone wanted to try this on a more scientific basis, I'd recommend the use of a buchner filter, which I don't have.

I have no explanation for the delay in the effects. Normally a vaped substance will either cross the blood brain barrier almost immediately or it won't cross at all.

I did an extraction of Phalaris arundinacea about two years ago with very mixed results. I'd heard a lot of varying advice about best times to harvest it, such as early in the morning, or which part of the grass contains most tryptamines. I found an area covering many acres of public land and picked about 2 kg in the afternoon. I didn't have the chance to do an extraction until 2 weeks later on the material. I ended up with a relatively small amount of brownish goo, despite my best attempts to get crystals. I vaped a quantity, probably 15-20 mg, and thought at first that it had had no or very little effect. However about 15 minutes (not seconds!) later, some sort of tryptamine effect came on with open eye fractals and weird body sense. The main effects faded after about 10 minutes and took about another 40 minutes to completely disappear. My guess would be some sort of tryptamine but not 5-meo or nn-dmt.