My take on drugs is that they have great potential, if used correctly. The problem is control.

Most shamans do not use anything except meditation. Hypnosis (another form of mediotation) can do the same thing, but it takes a while to advance spiritually and to develop the skills, and we tend to be lazy.  As a result we get huge amounts of data of which we can interpret ony a tiny amount, according to how far we have advanced spiritually.

For the average person, drugs are rather like a laxative for a clogged mind. All kinds of stuff comes out, but as a steady diet, there are far more nourishing things.

d

I don't expect this to really make sense but i want to say it anyway, but I think the problem of whether or not the demons really exist is not easily answered but somehow this article relates to it:

http://www.magicandreason.com/pdf/AfterTheRevolution-JosephFelser.pdf

and I found the link to it above (Bruce's links)

I always likes that quote:

"What is real?" said the Velveteen Rabbit.

I don't know Lucy; I'm a died in the wool TMI follower; anything I don't want rubbing up against me I simply see it not there.
  seems to be working ok.

The funny thing is, that the images come up for people going throiugh this experience who aren't from this culture. And they come up for non-vine-induced shamanic experiences too. Maybe there is something valid to that Jungian collective subconcious thing. Reminds me of the story RAM told of repeatedly visiting a place that had a particular structure in it, and no one there could recall who built the structure...or why. But it was there in that region.  It was in the conciousness of that region.

Likewise the bats and spiders and demons and so forth are there in the shamanic space, and they serve a purpose.

I keep thinking of the earlier film version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe...the kids are in Narnia and they get to the big battle scene, and the witch has assembled all the "bad" creatures, which, being animated, look a bit other-worldly to me. I keep thinking the demons in the shamanic world must resemble that sometimes.

So if you don't need spiders and demons and all that Halloween stuff to get to the deep parts of your subconcious, well that's great. I assume that your (hypothetical) ayahuasca trip would be quite different!

But personifying fears as yucky things like snakes and spiders has a use, because then you can name them and then you can deal with them.

I was looking for something else when I found this about sleep paralysis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

and I think the picture is really great!

but one thing that was really interesting was all theinformation about other cultures considering that the sleep paralysis is associated with demons.

Also fit in, for me, with what Alysia was saying elsewhere about
"If all is illusion are you all the illusion or am I the illusion?"

(http://www.afterlife-knowledge.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1149974459)

why did so many cultures use the illusion of demon to explain sleep paralysis? or maybe Mr. Jung has the answer to that....

The above link is to Graham Hancocks latest book 'Supernatural' - it is a briliant book and recommend to anyone pondering DNA, DMT and Alien abductions.  Has anyone read it?

i'll just copy a clip of the review here;

"In this chapter Hancock provides a marvelous illustration of the correspondences between shamanic experiences and the ‘alien abduction’ phenomenon (surrounded by quotes because Hancock is certainly not arguing for ‘nuts and bolts’ UFOs and aliens). It’s a good, solid introduction to what is a quite bizarre topic, and hopefully it provides enough evidence to draw the more ‘straight-thinking’ readers into the following chapters. It also shows (sadly) how little we really understand about ‘alien abductions’, while at the same time presenting ways forward for research, with the many parallels to psychic experiences.

Subsequent chapters add in Vallee’s link between fairy folklore and UFO experiences. In fact, Supernatural virtually becomes a comparative mythology investigation, with the subjects being shamanic voyages, fairy folklore and alien abduction reports. Time after time, Hancock presents stunning evidence to show that these are all part of a single phenomenon. Furthermore, in part four of the book he ties in DMT, the DNA element of shamanic visions (as explored by Narby, Harner and others), and the idea that information encoded within our ‘Junk DNA’ may be facilitating our ‘education’, by either advanced alien civilisations or entities from parallel/spiritual dimensions. Lastly, like a prodigal son returning to his roots, he discusses how this may relate to art and religion in ancient civilisations, specifically the Egyptians and Mayans"

I agree with Dave that certain drugs may be beneficially in relaxing or clearing a blocked mind .. and here maybe we can bring in hemisync.  The anti-drug campaigns should say - "Do not take drugs because they are so nice" and i think this is where teenagers etc get confused they are told not to take drugs because they are bad but the teenager has a line of coke, say, and finds that it is actually very nice .. so then he does not trust the person or the belief that drugs are bad because he finds them nice and the drugs (temporarily) puts his mind in a better place than reality.  A real problem.

(i'd like to say that reality is the biggest high and yes there are far more nourishing things then chemical highs ... food yes optimises our body, air, and much rather a love high than a drug high)

Hancock discusses drugs (and more) in his book and i'd like to summarise it briefly here if i may in my next post.