DOSE:

3 oz

oral

Cacti - T. pachanoi

(tea)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

Description of mindset & setting.
The day of, I was rather excited, as I have worked quite hard to make my concentrate. I had grown this cactus indoors for about two years and I decided it was time to harvest. I asked permission from the cactus and I intuited that the cactus approved under the condition that I repot him and leave him outside. I agreed to the terms and proceeded to carefully cut three long sections off of the cactus and cut the tips off of these for further propagation. I let the 4 inch tip pieces dry and planted them outside, each in a small pot with good soil. I've yet to buy a new pot for the father cactus, but will likely do so tomorrow.

I've had experience with psychedelic tryptamines prior, mainly with psilocybin, DMT, and bufotenine. I've also done LSD several times in the past but this is my first mescaline experience. I'm a little apprehensive because my experiences with mushrooms tend to be rather intense and sometimes not very pleasant. I was afraid mescaline might be similar so it took some encouraging via reddit to take 3 ounces, as I had originally planned on only taking 1 ounce, and boy I'm glad I did.

My mother is also interested in psychedelics but has never tried them, and I spent a lot of that morning describing what the experience is like, so I was excited and psychologically primed for psychedelics. I think I was expecting something similar to a mushroom experience or LSD as that would be my only reference point for psychedelics. I also live in a townhome complex, in a pretty nice part of town, and next to a national monument that I can walk to and be in nature.

I had also been listening to a lot of Ram Dass and Terence McKenna lectures in the weeks prior to this trip.

Perparation:
5lbs T. pachanoi, unknown cultivar. De-spined and peeled skin, diced and pressured cooked with distilled water for 20 minutes, blended and strained. Repeated this process once. Then, boiled the liquid down to 8 ounces of a green concentrate, roughly the consistency of half and half. My dose consisted of 3 ounces of this liquid, which I estimate to be between 150mg and 250mg of mescaline.

Trip report:

T+0:00
I'm doing laundry and cleaning my apartment. I just took 3 ounces of this rather nasty green liquid. I've never tasted pee but this is what I imagine pee tastes like, but more bitter. I text my fiancee who is at work and tell her I'm taking the cactus juice. She tells me to keep her updated on what happens.

T+1:00
Not too much but I can definitely feel something. At this point, it's a body high and I'd compare it to a hit of cannabis, yet without the psychological effects and the "stoned" feeling. It's very clear-headed.

T+2:00
I'm tripping. I still feel a body high, much like cannabis, but I'm thinking extremely philosophically and texting my fiancee my thoughts. This is around the time that my first major trip insight happened, which I relayed in text message to my fiancee.

I had arrived via a long train of thought to an obervation that I felt everything in this world is perfect. Everything I looked at was perfect, except for people to some extent and especially except for myself. The feeling was undeniable, I was imperfect in a perfect world, and so I needed to figure out why. It came pretty quickly: I feel imperfect because I put the burden of identification on the body-mind, yet I do not put the burden of identification on the outside world. I do not view other as self and so I am allowed to see other's innate and inherent perfection. Because I think of this body as "self" and the innate idea of self is so lofty, whether I think of as self is necessarily less than self and will necessarily be unsatisfying to look at.

Uereka! The most important spiritual insight I've ever had. If I view things as self, as mine, they will never seem good enough because self is beyond that. Psychologically, self is God, I am God: infinite, perfect, in control, perfectly wise, perfectly compassionate, eternal, etc. etc., but this body-mind is not. It's frail, it runs on food, it is born, it dies, it gets sick it's wrong sometimes, right sometimes.

Because of this dissonance between ideal self and the bodymind, if we think that this is us, we doom ourselves to suffer. That, I observed, is the root of suffering: Identification, especially with the bodymind.

I checked out, and realized, I am beyond this body, beyond this mind, I am beyond any conditioned thing, so if I think that this body-mind is me, it's not only wrong, but causes a myriad of problems due to the body-mind always falling short. So I stopped and said: This bodymind is not me, I am not this, and lo, I finally saw its perfection, just like everything else. My body-mind, free from the burden of identification, of being me, was now the same as every other perfect and beautiful thing in this universe. I now saw, because I gave up on burdening this poor impermanent thing with my self-view, its perfection. I felt compassion for it, felt love and felt no need to compare it to others, or feel any sort of competition, only care.

I relayed this insight to my fiancee, who later said "oh God I don't know if I want to take this stuff if I'm going to be this philosophical". We both laughed.

T+3:00
My fiancee gets home from work. I feel great right now. This is not like any other psychedelic I've ever tried, and so far it's shattered my idea of what psychedelics can be. I am starting to feel a small amount of visuals but they are of a completely different character to what I'm used to. It's almost as if I am not seeing perceptual distortions, but rather I'm seeing things as they really are, and more profoundly and clearly than I every thought possible.

I remember Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception, describing how folding cloth contained the eye of God and remembering seeing that effect very clearly in everything I looked at. Plants, the walls of my apartment, a paper towel, my fiancee, the small imperfections in construction, everything contains within it a universe of profound and infinite depth at every glance and the realization was that this was always there, I had just never been aware of it. It was clear to me that this level of perception, that the divine resides intimately in every form, was only intellectually known prior to this, and only now could I really see it. I nearly wept from the beauty.

I didn't spend time staring at anything. I felt I was being and doing and moving around as I normally do, but now I was noticing how important and innately perfect all forms are.

T+3:30
At this point I start feeling waves of energy roll over me, much like laying down on a beach and letting the waves of ocean water wash over. I said "this is nothing like any other psychedelic, I didn't know they could be like this". It became clear, how I have been describing psychedelics to my mother as very intense, a kick in the pants almost, was nothing like this at all. Whereas I've known mushrooms to be a masculine and very strong, almost scary fatherly teacher, mescaline it became clear is like the mother earth herself: loving, wise, beautiful in her age and wisdom and in her mystery, embracing and gentle.

I compared the experience to MDMA and noted some mild entactogenic effects. The visuals here were not strong, just simple vibrating of the edges of objects and more intense colors.

T+4:00
I decided to go for a walk by myself outside. Unlike with other psychedelics, where I'm very hesitant to go outside due to the risk of becoming known to other people, I felt compelled to go outside and unafraid of social interaction. I almost wished people knew that I was tripping on mescaline so they could try it for themselves, but I still knew that might not be the best idea. Again unlike other psychedelics, where I may want to shut it and have an intensely personal experience, I wished instead to go outside and feel connected to everything.

I first went for a walk around some empty land. I'm tripping pretty hard and I find a shiny mylar balloon deflated and caught in a fence. I decided I loved it, that it was beautiful and decided to pick it up and dispose of it properly in a trash can.

After throwing it away, I entered the national monument boundary after calling my fiancee and again letting her know where I was in case she needed to come find me. I assure here that I am functioning perfectly fine and that she ought not worry about me. I go in a seldom used part of the park, where there are a few coyote dens. I become quite interested in trying to find signs of the coyotes since I haven't seen them in a long time and we are going through a severe drought currently.

I go and look and I find I'm extremely in tune with the land. I am seeing it now as a single living entity and the connection between the the rain, the ground, the grass, the animals and the humans is extremely apparent. I find no fresh signs of the coyotes, no fresh tracks, and the Amaranth roots that the coyotes eat when food is scares are all dry and dead. I'm worried now. I know that the presence of the apex predator is the surest sign that the land is healthy and I see no signs of them, but I'm not sure. I don't have enough signs to tell if the coyotes are still there.

I look around. Near the dens, the Chamisa bushes are bright green and healthy, healthier than anywhere else in the canyon, but the land around is still obviously sick. I think of the coyotes and climb near the mouth of their dens to try and find signs, but I only find petroglyphs of coyotes and signs of warning from the natives long ago not to trust the coyote as they are tricksters. Now I put that aside, because if the coyotes are gone, the land is really sick.

Still no signs. The amaranth roots are scattered on the ground and dry like charcoal. No animal could eat this. It's hot, maybe 100 Fahrenheit, and it's cloudy. My intuition for signs of nature is clear now. I understand well why the natives revere peyote. I feel more grounded and more clear than I have ever felt. I become to feel like the mechanisms by which we interpret signs can and should be used slightly beyond their means of science, by ways of divining or telling the future, but those should still be taken with a grain of salt.

With that knowledge, I look to the sky and the land, and the mountains, and try to tell what the future will hold for the land. The earth tells me nothing, just like shaking a magic 8 ball and getting the "ask again later" sign.

I decide to go back home and as I piece my experience together a problem with society becomes clear. We don't know, as people, what we are. We had at one point and still have, an innate purpose but we've become lost and drunk with choice so as to have lost sight of our original jobs on this earth.

I knew: If we humans think of ourselves as anything other than caretakers of the earth, it will lead to ruin.

T+5:00
After getting home and discussing my insights and mulling over many different things with my fiancee, we decide to find food. Perceptions are much the same though I feel I have peaked at this point. Interactions with people are painful and deep in that I can see the pain, if any, and the joy, if any, others carry. I find I am very kind to people on account of this and smiling a lot, people smile back at me and wave. This is not normal. The people I interact with can sense my affect and are treating me much more friendly than usual.

The food was delicious. I had another insight that the body-mind is a machine. What is put into the body has an output as feelings and mental phenomena. So as a machine, it's best to give the body good fuel. Vegetables, etc.

T+6:00
My fiancee and I decide to go to the mall, and much of the same thing happens. I find I'm really enjoying being in public, again completely against my expectation of psychedelics. Every interaction I have, I see the beauty in people, see their perfection, and treat them as they are: as God. Many people sense this and treat me respectfully back. This is not normal. Normally, I compare myself to others, find their flaws and mentally denigrate them. Now, none of that. I see what's important.

T+:9:00
It's dark now, and the effects are wearing off but I still feel rather energetic, so i go for another walk out in the national monument. I find a nice cliff edge to sit and look at the city. Normally, I see the city as a sort of cancerous growth, but not today. It seems hopeful, teeming with life and with movement. It feels invigorating, and this feeling is still compatible with the knowledge of climate change, how people have lost their ways and no longer think of themselves as caretakers. This was a few days ago, and this part is mysterious to me. I see so much love and hope in the city, and I know that people need better direction. I hope what I've done and what I do in the future can help so we can better take care of our planet, and to respect and really take care of the land like we're supposed to.

Conclusion:
I wonder now, where I go from here. I may wish to share this medicine with others. This seems to be medicine for the whole Earth, and not just for me, and not just for its caretakers. The Earth is not just here for us. This is a refuge for life and we are here to take care of it. In order for people to see that, I think this medicine can help. I think I will be an advocate for it and work to share its knowledge for others. My worldly life will be short, but I know my purpose now, as a caretaker of the land.

Exp Year: 2022	ExpID: 116442
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 28
Published: Aug 7, 2022	Views: 519
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Cacti - T. pachanoi (64) : General (1), Preparation / Recipes (30), Nature / Outdoors (23), Personal Preparation (45), First Times (2), Alone (16)