Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: August 17, 2012 10:47PM
Mere experiences that get mislabeled as Illumination or Dropping
(Corboy note: in the early days of Guru mahara-ji, a lot was made abotu 'white light' experiences. Ditto for clear white light being seen in some systems as a sign of advancement.
If this is merely caused by fixing one gaze and its only a normal neurological event that is given an excess of meaning that it doesnt actually have on its own, its scary to imagine people throwing lives and money into the lap of someone on account of a neuro-tingle)
Quote
Someone was discussing Tolle on an older Google listserve and mentioned something.
There is a discussion on the Google listserve that raise intersting points
[forum.culteducation.com]
[]'A cessation of mentation as a result of intense concentration _may_ be
a precursor to Awakening in some "accidental" enlightenment
experiences..... (Echart Tolle** or John Wren-Lewis'), or in some
very thorough systematic approaches (like the Theravada), but it is
not Awakening itself: or, put it this way, it isn't a _necessary_
precursor to Awakening.
(((Corboy note::the author generously names Eckhart Tolle's but ET's hunger for money and publicity calls his alleged enlightement into question so far as I am concerned Corboy),
'In fact, Awakening is a BREAK in any form of
samadhi-like concentration (taking "samadhi" in its lesser meaning -
for it can also mean the Result itself, in some systems). It's at
complete right angles to anything you've ever experienced or imagined.
(I say this based on your writings - you may be playing a game of some
sort, but I am responding to your words as they stand.)
"It's like this: if you fix your gaze, the saccades (the little
jerkings about) that your eyes constantly unconsciously make cease,
and because the visual system normally sees things by noticing
borders, edges and differences, the visual system "whites out".
"(Author turned aside to comment to discussion participants)This is taken advantage of in some Daoist practices, and some Dzogchen Longde practices, if I'm not mistaken - right Namdrol?)
(Corboy note: very interesting as the Vajrayana practices aim at Clear Light. If that CL is being produced by a mundane neurological glitch due to prolonged fixation of the eyes then this calls into question all the various white light experiences people and religous systems use to validate claims of enlightenment.)[/[/i]i]
"Since the whole mental system works in an analogous way, by noticing
differences, I believe something analogous may happen if the _whole
mental system_ is "frozen" in a concentrative state - it ceases to
experience anything at all. BUT THAT IS NOT AWAKENING.
(Corboy note: in the early days of Guru mahara-ji, a lot was made abotu 'white light' experiences. Ditto for clear white light being seen in some systems as a sign of advancement.
If this is merely caused by fixing one gaze and its only a normal neurological event that is given an excess of meaning that it doesnt actually have on its own, its scary to imagine people throwing lives and money into the lap of someone on account of a neuro-tingle)
Quote
A person named Daniel was doing sitting meditation and reported this
"it happens that for a long time I lose awareness of everything -- of myself, of time, of my mind, of objects -- everything.
I sit and it feels like 10 minutes have passed, when in fact one hour or more have passed. Is this alright ?
Am I doing something wrong ? It is almost as if I fell in deep sleep, except that I don't think this is the case because I had my wife watching me to see if this was the case, which wasn't.
"Blogger LV said...
Daniel,
You're hitting a state of non-perception. If possible, you need to find an experienced meditation teacher to get you past this obstacle. Your experience sounds exactly like it:
"The second state was one I happened to hit one night when my concentration was extremely one-pointed, and so refined that it refused settle on or label even the most fleeting mental objects. I dropped into a state in which I lost all sense of the body, of any internal/external sounds, or of any thoughts or perceptions at all — although there was just enough tiny awareness to let me know, when I emerged, that I hadn't been asleep. I found that I could stay there for many hours, and yet time would pass very quickly. Two hours would seem like two minutes. I could also "program" myself to come out at a particular time.
After hitting this state several nights in a row, I told Ajaan Fuang about it, and his first question was, "Do you like it?" My answer was "No," because I felt a little groggy the first time I came out. "Good," he said. "As long as you don't like it, you're safe. Some people really like it and think it's nibbana or cessation. Actually, it's the state of non-perception (asaññi-bhava). It's not even right concentration, because there's no way you can investigate anything in there to gain any sort of discernment. But it does have other uses." He then told me of the time he had undergone kidney surgery and, not trusting the anesthesiologist, had put himself in that state for the duration of the operation.
In both these states of wrong concentration, the limited range of awareness was what made them wrong. If whole areas of your awareness are blocked off, how can you gain all-around insight? And as I've noticed in years since, people adept at blotting out large areas of awareness through powerful one-pointedness also tend to be psychologically adept at dissociation and denial. This is why Ajaan Fuang, following Ajaan Lee, taught a form of breath meditation that aimed at an all-around awareness of the breath energy throughout the body, playing with it to gain a sense of ease, and then calming it so that it wouldn't interfere with a clear vision of the subtle movements of the mind. This all-around awareness helped to eliminate the blind spots where ignorance likes to lurk."
[www.accesstoinsight.org]
"Another type of wrong concentration is one that a modern practice tradition, following DN 1, calls a state of non-perception (asaññi).. I
n this state, which is essentially a concentration of subtle aversion — the result of a strongly focused determination not to stay with any one object — everything seems to cease: the mind blanks out, with no perception of sights or sounds, or of one's own body or thoughts. There is just barely enough mindfulness to know that one hasn't fainted or fallen asleep.
One can stay there for long periods of time, and yet the experience will seem momentary. One can even determine beforehand when one will leave the state; but on emerging from it, one may feel somewhat dazed or drugged, a reaction caused by the intense aversive force of the concentration that induced the state to begin with.
There are other forms of wrong concentration, but a general test is that right concentration is a mindful, fully alert state.
Any state of stillness without clear mindfulness and alertness is wrong."
(If one dislikes the term 'wrong' one can substitute the term 'misleading' as in a map giving inaccurate directions. Corboy)
[www.accesstoinsight.org]
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: August 18, 2012 11:25PM
Recently caught on to a simple distinction between western logic and scientific method
vs the so called philosophical systems in Hinduism and some forms of Mahayana Buddhism.
In Western classical logic, grammar, evidence based scientific method, mathematics, and disciplines based on these (engineering, law, medicine, etc) one is not required to undergo or attain an experience of transcending discursive intellect as a a perequisite to studying and understanding these subjects.
These disciplines are secular. They do not require that one have a transcendal or "religious experience" in order to be competant.
Indeed, this is part of the reason why so much suspicion fell upon Socrates, who is given credit for developing secular forms of argument and logical analysis. His society was in terror and disarray followed by war and epidemic and defeat. Socrates had too many students who had angered the public. THere was a surge of religiosity in Athens and it was feared that a man who was abrasive, had too many students with bad track records and who had created a secular, godless form of thought analysis had become too disruptive for the city to cope with.
Our forms of logic, arguement and investigation of the physical world dont require religious experience for validation. All one need do is learn the rules of logic and have good manners for a group conversation.
One can remain in a state of 'conventional' or discursive intellect and attain competance in these areas.
By contrast, in some Hindu and some of the Buddhist Mahayana traditions, a student will be scolded by a preceptor that he or she has misunderstood the professor or having trouble with the text because he or she has not yet attained "unconditioned awareness" or clear light mind.
In this set up, a tutor or professor can sidestep even valid critique by pulling this tactic, one that no competant intructor in western logic or its affiliated disciplines would be permitted to do.
In the worst circumstances, someone attempting to report that a Buddhist or Hindu guru is commiting harm, can be told that they are in a conventional state of awareness and in the grip of illusion, unable to pass judgement on a being free of ego bound awareness.
(Yeah sure)
found this item especially helpful.
That critical thinking and classical logic and systems based on these, do NOT require
that one transcend (or discard) discursive thought or undergo some sort of transcendental (or initiatory) experience in order to be competant to understand or express a viewpoint of such systems.
Recall how often one questions some guru or new age set up and the advocate replies, "Well, have you EXPERIENCED it?"
You've got the intiatiatory experience or you dont, and if you dont, you shut up.
However, I am very sorry to report that this same dirty trick is pulled in even older systems of Hinduism and some forms of Buddhism--the notion that you have to attain a right sort of viewpoint unfettered by conventional (or evidence based) thought before you have any right to point something out.
Sixty years ago, Agehananda Bharati, when a student in a Ramakrishna monastery, caught the professor making textual errors when teaching from a Sanskrit text. Unlike the other students, Bharati had enough background that he knew when the instructor was making a mistake and dared, despite being an underling, to point this out.
Quote:
"I learned the stereotypical method of rebuttal common to all* traditions of religious doctrine in India: The moment discursive thought (that is, thought that is based on reaching a conclusion through use of reason and verifiable/falsifiable evidence) would jeopardize the axiomatic perfection of the text, the critic is given a simple line:
‘Your argument may be intellectually valid but what of it? Only those who have seen the light can see the consistency of the text. Only those who have experienced the truth from within can see that intellectual argument is of no avail in the end.’
Bharati commented,
"this would hardly be objectionable were the atmosphere among Indian scholastics purely non-discursive (that is if they were in a state of enlightenment 100% of the time and used intuitive, non-rational methods of thought 100% of the time). But this is not true: the theologians avail themselves of refined scholastic argument all the time, but they jettison all of it the moment their axioms are impugned.’ (Bharati, The Ochre Robe pp. 132-133)
(My note) In other words, the evasiveness Bharati described is the equivalent of a losing baseball team suddenly declaring that they are really winning, not losing, because they’re playing football, not baseball—and the other team is too stupid and unenlightened to have known this.
**What Bharati describes can be easily abused and twisted into the various ‘thought stopping’ techniques endemic to cults. What made Bharati’s observation so very radical was his discovery that this ‘shuffle’ was NOT perpetrated by just a few charlatans or rogue scholars; he found this evasion tactic was commonly practiced throughout the Indian spiritual scene.
It was a trick that could be easily exploited by charlatans, but was so much a part of 'normal' scholarship that most persons would allow themselves to be intimidated.
Bharati’s other discovery, based on his own experiences and his interviews of many gurus and monks, was that it is impossible to be enlightened 100 % of the time. You cannot function, while in enlightenment, just as you cannot function while in the throes of orgasm.
* You cannot even speak about enlightenment, or teach it unless you emerge from the enlightenment experience itself.
This means that any person who claims they are 'permanently enlightened' at every instant is not speaking accurately.
To talk about or of enlightenment, you cannot be in it.
You can remember the experience, but you cannot be in it while remembering it or talking of it to an audience. In India, Bharati learned that over the centuries, part of the guru role required that the person in that role speak in a sort of heightened language as though in the midst of enlightement, despite being in a state of mind that precluded being enlightened. A sort of heightened language, rather similar to the tone and dignified stance used by officials giving inaugeral speeches or presiding at ceremonies.
So this led to the misleading assumption one could be in a state of transcendance of discursive thought, yet do things that require discursive thought--such as lecturing to an audience.
And Bharati learned that enlightenment does not necessarily improve character and has no predictable ethical consequences. As he put it, a person who is a stinker before enlightenment remains that way after enlightenment, unless that person volunatarily does some work on herself.
Says Bharati 'Facts remain facts and their dignity must not be impugned by any motives, not even spiritual ones.'
The Ochre Robe, p 130.
vs the so called philosophical systems in Hinduism and some forms of Mahayana Buddhism.
In Western classical logic, grammar, evidence based scientific method, mathematics, and disciplines based on these (engineering, law, medicine, etc) one is not required to undergo or attain an experience of transcending discursive intellect as a a perequisite to studying and understanding these subjects.
These disciplines are secular. They do not require that one have a transcendal or "religious experience" in order to be competant.
Indeed, this is part of the reason why so much suspicion fell upon Socrates, who is given credit for developing secular forms of argument and logical analysis. His society was in terror and disarray followed by war and epidemic and defeat. Socrates had too many students who had angered the public. THere was a surge of religiosity in Athens and it was feared that a man who was abrasive, had too many students with bad track records and who had created a secular, godless form of thought analysis had become too disruptive for the city to cope with.
Our forms of logic, arguement and investigation of the physical world dont require religious experience for validation. All one need do is learn the rules of logic and have good manners for a group conversation.
One can remain in a state of 'conventional' or discursive intellect and attain competance in these areas.
By contrast, in some Hindu and some of the Buddhist Mahayana traditions, a student will be scolded by a preceptor that he or she has misunderstood the professor or having trouble with the text because he or she has not yet attained "unconditioned awareness" or clear light mind.
In this set up, a tutor or professor can sidestep even valid critique by pulling this tactic, one that no competant intructor in western logic or its affiliated disciplines would be permitted to do.
In the worst circumstances, someone attempting to report that a Buddhist or Hindu guru is commiting harm, can be told that they are in a conventional state of awareness and in the grip of illusion, unable to pass judgement on a being free of ego bound awareness.
(Yeah sure)
found this item especially helpful.
That critical thinking and classical logic and systems based on these, do NOT require
that one transcend (or discard) discursive thought or undergo some sort of transcendental (or initiatory) experience in order to be competant to understand or express a viewpoint of such systems.
Recall how often one questions some guru or new age set up and the advocate replies, "Well, have you EXPERIENCED it?"
You've got the intiatiatory experience or you dont, and if you dont, you shut up.
However, I am very sorry to report that this same dirty trick is pulled in even older systems of Hinduism and some forms of Buddhism--the notion that you have to attain a right sort of viewpoint unfettered by conventional (or evidence based) thought before you have any right to point something out.
Sixty years ago, Agehananda Bharati, when a student in a Ramakrishna monastery, caught the professor making textual errors when teaching from a Sanskrit text. Unlike the other students, Bharati had enough background that he knew when the instructor was making a mistake and dared, despite being an underling, to point this out.
Quote:
"I learned the stereotypical method of rebuttal common to all* traditions of religious doctrine in India: The moment discursive thought (that is, thought that is based on reaching a conclusion through use of reason and verifiable/falsifiable evidence) would jeopardize the axiomatic perfection of the text, the critic is given a simple line:
‘Your argument may be intellectually valid but what of it? Only those who have seen the light can see the consistency of the text. Only those who have experienced the truth from within can see that intellectual argument is of no avail in the end.’
Bharati commented,
"this would hardly be objectionable were the atmosphere among Indian scholastics purely non-discursive (that is if they were in a state of enlightenment 100% of the time and used intuitive, non-rational methods of thought 100% of the time). But this is not true: the theologians avail themselves of refined scholastic argument all the time, but they jettison all of it the moment their axioms are impugned.’ (Bharati, The Ochre Robe pp. 132-133)
(My note) In other words, the evasiveness Bharati described is the equivalent of a losing baseball team suddenly declaring that they are really winning, not losing, because they’re playing football, not baseball—and the other team is too stupid and unenlightened to have known this.
**What Bharati describes can be easily abused and twisted into the various ‘thought stopping’ techniques endemic to cults. What made Bharati’s observation so very radical was his discovery that this ‘shuffle’ was NOT perpetrated by just a few charlatans or rogue scholars; he found this evasion tactic was commonly practiced throughout the Indian spiritual scene.
It was a trick that could be easily exploited by charlatans, but was so much a part of 'normal' scholarship that most persons would allow themselves to be intimidated.
Bharati’s other discovery, based on his own experiences and his interviews of many gurus and monks, was that it is impossible to be enlightened 100 % of the time. You cannot function, while in enlightenment, just as you cannot function while in the throes of orgasm.
* You cannot even speak about enlightenment, or teach it unless you emerge from the enlightenment experience itself.
This means that any person who claims they are 'permanently enlightened' at every instant is not speaking accurately.
To talk about or of enlightenment, you cannot be in it.
You can remember the experience, but you cannot be in it while remembering it or talking of it to an audience. In India, Bharati learned that over the centuries, part of the guru role required that the person in that role speak in a sort of heightened language as though in the midst of enlightement, despite being in a state of mind that precluded being enlightened. A sort of heightened language, rather similar to the tone and dignified stance used by officials giving inaugeral speeches or presiding at ceremonies.
So this led to the misleading assumption one could be in a state of transcendance of discursive thought, yet do things that require discursive thought--such as lecturing to an audience.
And Bharati learned that enlightenment does not necessarily improve character and has no predictable ethical consequences. As he put it, a person who is a stinker before enlightenment remains that way after enlightenment, unless that person volunatarily does some work on herself.
Says Bharati 'Facts remain facts and their dignity must not be impugned by any motives, not even spiritual ones.'
The Ochre Robe, p 130.
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: September 23, 2012 10:11PM
Ayahuasca...not to be taken lightly.
Am not sure Kyle Nolan's family will be comforted by the hope that this will be a step in our evolution. Or comforted by hopes that the noble medicine of ayahuasca and its adminstratants will not suffer in reputation.
Judging by how the Nolan family has fared at the hands of a pair of creeps while struggling with the death of their son, it doesnt appear human evolution has taken that much of a march forward.
[healdsburg.patch.com]
[news.sky.com]
Police are searching for a thief and a con artist who ripped off a grieving family.
Ayhuasca is known to interact with a wide variety of both prescription and over the counter medications, as well as foods containing tyramine.
Unless the ayahuasca user is given careful and detailed list of what foods and drugs (RX and OTC) to abstain from prior to using ayahuaca, severe and potentially fatal interactions will ensue, not limited to high blood pressure.
Ayahuasca produces strenuous vomiting. If someone is in medically fragile condition, such as undetected heart disease or fragile blood vessals in the eyes or brain, the vomiting could trigger bleeding or a potentially fatal cardiac arrhythmia.
One correspondant on this thread said he or she had not heard of an ayahuasca death.
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Am not sure Kyle Nolan's family will be comforted by the hope that this will be a step in our evolution. Or comforted by hopes that the noble medicine of ayahuasca and its adminstratants will not suffer in reputation.
Judging by how the Nolan family has fared at the hands of a pair of creeps while struggling with the death of their son, it doesnt appear human evolution has taken that much of a march forward.
[healdsburg.patch.com]
[news.sky.com]
Police are searching for a thief and a con artist who ripped off a grieving family.
Quote
Kyle Nolan, 18, died after drinking extracts of a psychedelic plant called ayahuasca during a ritual in the Madre de Dios jungle region of Peru.
Clients and friends of Nolan's mother Ingeborg Oswalo contributed about $1,000 (£615) to his memorial fund, which was kept in a donation box at her veterinary surgery.
On Wednesday, a receptionist said a toothless woman came into the office and chatted for about 40 minutes.
The receptionist said that after she turned her back to find a brochure, the woman and box were missing.
Vargas, 58, admitted trying to cover up Nolan's death by burying him
A day earlier, a man pretending he was Nolan's brother called his grandmother in Los Angeles pleading for $2,100 (£1,300) to get out of prison on bail.
The caller asked the grandmother not to call any other members of the family, saying he did not want to cause any further upset.
She transferred the money before discovering the scam. Police are looking for suspects in both cases.
Nolan, from northern California, went on a spiritual retreat in the Amazon rainforest about 530 miles east of Lima on August 17.
He was later reported missing and his mother travelled to Peru to appeal for information after police failed to find him.
Shaman Jose Manuel Pineda Vargas, 58, later admitted trying to cover up his death by burying him in the grounds of his retreat. He was arrested with two other men.
Ayhuasca is known to interact with a wide variety of both prescription and over the counter medications, as well as foods containing tyramine.
Unless the ayahuasca user is given careful and detailed list of what foods and drugs (RX and OTC) to abstain from prior to using ayahuaca, severe and potentially fatal interactions will ensue, not limited to high blood pressure.
Ayahuasca produces strenuous vomiting. If someone is in medically fragile condition, such as undetected heart disease or fragile blood vessals in the eyes or brain, the vomiting could trigger bleeding or a potentially fatal cardiac arrhythmia.
One correspondant on this thread said he or she had not heard of an ayahuasca death.
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Quote
Peruvian shaman buried body of U.S. teen who died from drinking ayahuasca
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Peruvian shaman admitted to police on Wednesday that he had buried the body of a U.S. teenager to cover up his death during a spiritual retreat in the Amazon last month.
Shaman Jose Pineda Vargas, 58, told the authorities that 18-year-old Kyle Joseph Nolan, from northern California, died on August 22 from exceeding the dosage of a medicinal brew called Ayahuasca while staying at the Shimbre Shamanic Center.
Vargas then buried Nolan’s body at his jungle retreat and said that the teenager disappeared. Nolan's mother began searching for him after he failed to return from Peru as scheduled August 27.
Nolan arrived at the shamanic center on August 17 and according to the Spanish-language site, he paid $1,200 to take part in the Ayahuasca ritual.
‘It's like he's vanished,’ his mother, Ingeborg Eswalo, said before police found her son’s body in a thick brush on the grounds of the shamanic center.
Vargas’ spiritual retreat is located near the native community of Tres Islas in the Madre de Dios region of the Amazon basin that borders Brazil, according to police colonel Roberto Palomino.
Peru is a popular destination for a growing number of tourists who want to try Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic concoction derived from Amazonian vines and shrubs that is traditionally drunk in indigenous ceremonies with the guidance of a shaman to heal sicknesses and communicate with nature and ancestors.
A similar brew is also used in certain religions in Brazil.
The website for the Peruvian retreat, written in English, describes Pineda as ‘Master Shaman Mancoluto,’ and says he helps Ayahuasca initiates ‘open their minds to deeper realities, develop their senses and intuitive capabilities and unlock the person's untapped potential.’
The center says it holds five ceremonies held over 10 nights, when participants ingest psychedelic plants in ‘a comfortable private space in the middle of a virgin rainforest,’ but that people familiar with the side effects of the drugs are always on site to help.
Vargas was arrested following his confession, along with two other men who are accused of helping the shaman bury Nolan.
In 2011, Vargas was featured in a documentary called Stepping Into the Fire that tells the story of a wealthy New York Stock Exchange trader who travels to Peru - the land of his ancestors - in search of enlightenment, only to encounter the spiritual leader.
A synopsis of the film on the site IMDB describes Vargas as a 'first-level master shaman descended from one of the earliest civilizations in Amerindian history, Chavin.'
The documentary also touts the shaman's 'expertise in natural health, particularly in the case of two ancestral medicines known as Ayahuasca and Huachuma.'
22:40 EST, 12 September 2012
Snejana Farberov
[www.dailymail.co.uk]
Reputation Comments on this Post:
Very complete and well done article you have brought to us.
Great article that definetely cries out "more info needed!" Please keep us updated if you happen to stumble upon more details, or a coroner report.
Another interesting and very well selected article. I don't know how you do this, but keep it up!
great find
Enjoyed reading this, excellent find. Keep us all updated please!
US Teen Dies After Amazon Psychedelic Ritual
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A shaman has admitted trying to cover up the death of an American teenager who died after eating an hallucinogenic plant by burying him in the grounds of his Amazon retreat.
Kyle Nolan, 18, died after drinking extracts of a psychedelic plant called ayahuasca during a ritual in the Madre de Dios jungle region of Peru.
He was reported missing ten days later when he failed to return to the US.
His mother Ingeborg Oswalo, from northern California, travelled to Peru and launched a media appeal for information after police failed to find him.
He was eventually traced to the Shimbre Shamanic Centre, near Tres Islas, but shaman Jose Manuel Pineda Vargas, 58, told them he had disappeared from the area.
He later confessed to burying him in the grounds of the retreat, and was arrested with two other men who helped cover up the death.
Local police chief Roberto Palomino said: "During a drinking session of a hallucinogenic beverage, the following day they found him dead and did not advise authorities, police or competent authorities.
"They proceeded to bury and get rid of the body."
Spanish language website Peru21.pe said the teenager had paid £800 to take part in the ritual.
For centuries, Amazonian Indians have been drinking ayahuasca - a combination of the ayahuasca vine, tree bark and other plants - to achieve a trance-like state.
It is traditionally drunk in indigenous ceremonies in the presence of a shaman, and has become popular with New Age tourists from Europe and the US.
The website for the retreat, written in English, claims ayahuasca helps people "open their minds to deeper realities, develop their senses and intuitive capabilities and unlock the person's untapped potential."
Sting and Tori Amos have reportedly admitted sampling it in Latin America, where it is legal, as has Paul Simon, who chronicled the experience in his song Spirit Voices.
[uk.news.yahoo.com]
Reputation Comments on this Post:
Very interesting and disturbing article.
great addition to the forum,good read
Thanks for the extra info on this story
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Old 14-09-2012, 02:02
Trancel0v3r Trancel0v3r is offline
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Re: Peruvian shaman buried body of U.S. teen who died from drinking ayahuasca
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To SWIM this is whole practice is worrying, in that these people truely believe that after taking DMT in its various forms, or other halluciongens no doubt, that the result is an encounter with spirits and the supernatural, rather than down to scientific reasoning and logic due to changes in the brains filters and nuerons
. To then try and cover up a persons death by someone who is considered a master in the trade adds to the problem. I have no doubt that Ayahuasca etc can help with addiction and problems in ones life, and indeed lead someone to ultimately become a better person, but I'd rather do it in the hands of a medical team in the know, instead of a remote forest, guided by a sharman misiformed by myth and fantasy....
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Old 14-09-2012, 02:36
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Re: Peruvian shaman buried body of U.S. teen who died from drinking ayahuasca
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't think this tragedy should be in any way linked with the traditional worldview of Amerindian shamans. It is certainly disturbing what this man did but honestly it's not likely this kid died because of ayahuasca, which is known to be pretty non-toxic. Chances are it was some sort of medical fluke, because I've never heard of an ayahuasca death before. It certainly didn't have anything to do with traditional beliefs about ayahuasca.
Medical science cannot explain ayahuasca intoxication, period. It can describe the mechanics of the intoxication but this is like describing a book in terms of ink and paper. These are rich experiences that inspire myth and fantasy. This is where I think you have the direction wrong - myth does not taint the experience, it is a product of the experience. If you can experience something as wonderous and profound as psychedelic intoxication and reduce it to neurons and filters...you lack imagination.
I doubt that taking ayahuasca surrounded by a medical team of people taking your blood pressure, checking your pupils, asking you questions about how you feel and probably just sedating you if things got tough, would be very enlightening. I don't believe in supernatural planes being accessed through drugs but I think it's dismissive to ignore the mythology that has evolved alongside millenia of ayahuasca use. Myth is instructive; one needn't literally believe in it for it to be effective.
This guy is one of hundreds of shamans doing the same thing in South America. I would like to see people like this offering their services but with a team of college-educated medics on hand to make sure there's a safety net if things go beyond "bad trip" to "medical emergency." But I don't think there's anything wrong with experts on traditional ingestion of a sacred brew sharing their culture with foreigners, myth, fantasy and all.
Quote
Re: Peruvian shaman buried body of U.S. teen who died from drinking ayahuasca
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There has been a tendency in certain writers, or self appointed experts on psychedelia, to promote shamanism. Terence McKenna wrote a lot about Shamanism and this subject was continued with vacuous nonsense like Daniel Pinchbeck's writings, in which he opines that the psychedelic experience is invalid without "Shamanism."
I also don't see what is wrong with shamans sharing their knowledge which is fascinating in itself. Nor can you blame them for trying to make some money, but many of these centres are run by foreigners, charging a hefty fee (over $1000), who claim to be 'spiritual' healers/ teachers. There are those who have been helped apparently by 'spiritual' encounters with jungle spirits (set and setting!), but remember how many people claim to have been helped by Jesus, Krishna, etc.
This type of tourism is now quite widespread. Problems are bound to occur. I doubt that the participants are properly prepared and the potency of brews which the shaman make cannot be accurately controlled. They are also full of toxins-- hence the vomiting. Different plants have different alkaloids and so on. (Jonathan Ott wrote rationally about this.)
Strassman did conduct such scientifically controlled experiments in DMT: The Spirit Molecule. There were certainly problems with the setting.
Reputation Comments on this Post:
I agree 100% about this being more of a tourist attraction these days, than a spiritual embarkment, which is what it should be.
Good point about the romanticism of shamanic practices
Thanks for bringing this up
Quote
ebastopol teen died in Peru trying ‘to further open his mind’
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kyle Josef Nolan and his parents knew exactly why the 18-year-old Sebastopol man traveled to a retreat center in the Peruvian jungle: to participate in an “ayahuasca ritual,” ingesting a psychoactive concoction used by Amazonian people for centuries and popular with westerners, including the musician Sting.
But the 10-day program at the Shimbre Shamanic Center went tragically wrong, and the operator, a shaman named Jose Manuel Pineda Vargas, attempted to cover up Nolan’s death and lied to his mother when she first arrived in Peru, according to Sean Nolan of Petaluma, Kyle’s father.
Peruvian National Police said they arrested Pineda, 58, who called himself “Master Mancoluto,” and two men who allegedly helped bury Nolan’s body on the shamanic center’s property outside the city of Puerto Maldonado in southeastern Peru near the Bolivian border.
A YouTube video depicts Pineda leading authorities to the spot where Nolan’s body was unearthed.
Ingeborg Oswald of Sebastopol, Nolan’s mother, and his sister, Marion Nolan, were in Peru Friday waiting to bring Nolan’s body home and also obtain official reports on his death, Sean Nolan said.
“This is what he wanted to do,” Sean Nolan said. “This was not to be a vacation for him, but rather an experience to further open his mind.”
Nolan, a 2011 graduate from Analy High School, had taken a year off from school and worked odd jobs to save money for the trip to Peru and the shamanic retreat, where ayahuasca is the “centerpiece” of a 10-day program, Sean Nolan said.
“It does have inherent risks,” he said.
Sean Nolan said he was concerned about his son’s use of ayahuasca, a psychoactive brew widely used by indigenous Amazonian people that contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a psychedelic substance that is illegal in the United States.
Nolan said he had researched ayahuasca and found no reports of “bad experiences” with it. He disputed a media report that his son had taken an excessive dose in an Aug. 22 ritual at the shamanic center.
On the program’s seventh day, the shaman made a specific “preparation” for each of the participants, who had fasted and taken other steps prior to the ritual.
“Kyle drank what he was given,” his father said, then found his way to a tent on a wooden platform on the center grounds. No one checked on him, and he was found dead the following day, Aug. 23, his father said.
After Kyle Nolan failed to return home on Aug. 26, his mother and sister made the first of two trips to Peru to find him. Sean Nolan said that Pineda “looked them right in the eye” and told them Kyle had seemed “despondent” and “just walked off with his suitcase.”
Pineda’s account apparently did not hold up under police questioning, Sean Nolan said.
Roberto Velez, the owner of the Shimbre Center, told Oswald what had really happened, prompting her second trip to Peru, Nolan said. Oswald is a veterinarian who runs a clinic in Rohnert Park.
On Friday, the Shimbre Shamanic Center’s website had only two photographs: a man identified as “Master Mancoluto” and a round, unoccupied building. All other information on the site had been deleted.
More than 30 YouTube videos depict people describing their “ayahuasca experience,” including Sting, who said he drank it at a big church in the jungle outside Rio de Janeiro about 20 years ago. In four minutes, Sting said, he experienced a sensation of being “wired to the entire cosmos.”
“It is communion, this direct access to the Godhead or whatever you think that is,” Sting said, calling it “the only genuine religious experience I’ve ever had.”
Charles Grob, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine who has studied ayahuasca, said in a YouTube video that it can cause “a very painful ordeal, it can be an eternity in a hell realm, as it were.”
Grob said the substance can be harmful when used along with certain anti-depressants, but he had heard of only one ayahuasca-related death. That involved an elderly Native Canadian woman whose body was overloaded with nicotine.
Kyle and Marion Nolan and their brother, Kevin Nolan, were triplets, born on Sept. 23, 1993. Kevin and Marion are sophomores at UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, respectively.
Cesar Inda of Sebastopol said he knew the brothers at Analy High, describing them as a “dynamic duo” who looked a lot alike and were “almost inseparable.”
Inda, 19, said he had seen Kyle Nolan at Santa Rosa Junior College early last month and was shocked to learn on Facebook of his death .
“It really made me think how short life can be,” he said.
Sam Watkins, 19, of Sebastopol said he and Nolan were good friends at Twin Hills Middle School years ago. They played video games and listened to classic rock, including “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” by both Bob Dylan and Guns N’ Roses.
Watkins recalled that Nolan would come to his birthday party in the middle of summer when “everybody else was gone.”
September 15th, 2012
Photo: Kyle Nolan of Sebastopol, right, pictured with his triplet siblings Marion, left, and Kevin. Kyle died Aug. 22 at a jungle retreat in Peru. (Family photo)
By GUY KOVNER
[sebastopol.towns.pressdemocra...open-his-mind]
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Tragedy in the Amazon
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Apparently, there was a death recently at Chimbre (Shimbre?). An 18 year old kid passed away during ceremony, though details are still spotty and it looks as though there was an attempt to cover up the tragedy and pretend he just 'disappeared'. Mancoluto and two others were put in police custody, and the future of the retreat center is at risk.
I have to say that I'm not surprised. When I wrote my original post about Chimbre, I heavily edited my writing so as not to be another one of the smack talkers online. This retreat center was notorious before it even opened, after the SNAFU with Pinchbeck and the Reality Sandwich retreat that was cancelled due to monetary squabbles, and a bevy of documentary filmmakers who were brought on and then discarded after 'creative differences' (including the gentleman who invited us down).
But that was all just drama. Interpersonal drama, around money, and around message: philosophical, personality, and moral differences. The stuff that I edited out of my original post that was truly relevant was related to the methodology of Chimbre.
Mancoluto, aside from claiming to be descended from Martians by way of Atlantis, Lemuria, and Chavin de Huantar, also claimed to be a "First Level Shaman". He said there were only 5 such skilled people on earth, and that it signified they were: a) possessing of 7 senses including ESP, Telepathy, and Intuition, and b) pureblooded Martians.
Needless to say, this was pretty controversial stuff. I didn't really believe it, but found myself translating it to the other retreat-goers as all of his apprentices were selectively editing what he said to fit their narrative.
The Maestro also had an extremely avant-garde approach to administering the medicine. Rather than prepare the brew himself (he DID prepare the San Pedro as he is a Huachumero), he bought it second-hand from an ayahuasquero in Pucallpa. He also didn't sing ikaros, but instead sang the same song about Las Huarinjas (his homeland, and the San Pedro capital of Peru) before sending the 'ceremony' participants alone out into the jungle.
I repeat, alone out into the jungle. Yes, there were several minders, apprentices (oftentimes also under the influence of either San Pedro or Ayahuasca) who were supposed to keep an eye on people. However, they were spread out across at least an acre of raised walkways, each in individual tents on raised platforms.
Maestro Mancoluto claimed that he was able to monitor everyone from up in his scaffold tower using his ESP and Telepathy. After sending all of the ceremony participants into the jungle, he climbed into his room and would watch Peruvian Soap Operas while sitting on a bank of batteries. He said they didn't need the circle, the group intention, the ikaros, or his guidance to get the most from the medicine. In his own words, all that was just 'therapy', and therapy was for the weak. He wanted people to evolve, to awaken their DNA. to that end, he said ayahusca was only useful as a purgative, a reset button, and that San Pedro was the true medicine.
The ayahuasca he administered was heavy on the brugmansia admixture, though in a one on one interview he confided in me that he had three mixtures with separate quantities of Toe (brugmansia, a dangerous tropane alkaloid containing plant) and that he'd instruct his apprentices to give people different brews depending one what his intuition told him. Brugmansia is notorious for its deliriant and anti-cholinergic effects, and can cause blindness, amnesia, ataxia, xerostomia, hyperthermia, tachycardia, and death. On our arrival (after the first night of ayahuasca and san pedro), one of the participants, an 18 year old America, reported wandering out of the jungle, onto the road, talking to people that weren't there, waving down cars, smoking imaginary cigarettes, and that his eyes actually changed color, all of which indicated a high quantity of Brugmansia in Mancoluto's borrowed brew.
Mancoluto also administered San Pedro in the same ceremony as the Ayahuasca, after he'd sent all those who'd imbibed Ayahuasca out into the jungle alone. He'd then lead the Huachuma participants in a march around the Maloca before sending them alone out into the jungle.
All of these things were very disconcerting, and many people (including several of his volunteers and some acclaimed international researchers) refused to participate in such a dangerous ceremony. At the time, many of us discussed at length whether or not it was responsible to send people alone into the jungle on Ayahuasca or San Pedro, let alone on a brew heavily laced with tropane alkaloids.
For experts and experienced psychonauts, such an experience alone with the medicine and the jungle could be a really beneficial thing, we rationalized. Maybe his goal of administering this brew to Wall Street would help influence the trajectory of global finance. Maybe he's living the shaman dream?
Now, in light of the death of an 18 year old kid from Northern California and the subsequent cover up, I feel the need to come clean. When I wrote my first journal, I wanted to show appreciation to Rob and the Chimbre crew by writing a non-critical blog after they so graciously allowed us (and many others) to participate for free in their retreat. Many of their naysayers were already spread out on the internet, and I had no desire to join their ranks given the rationalizations I'd created in my mind about Maestro Mancoluto and Chimbre. But now that my trepidations and fears have been confirmed, I feel it necessary to write this follow up.
Ayahuasca and San Pedro are incredible medicines with complex rituals and ceremonies developed over thousands of years of co-evolution between man and plant. They also contain various admixtures, depending on the preparer, and Ayahuasca in particular is frequently mixed with potentially dangerous other plants. That is part of the reason so many practitioners stick to the dieta and the ritual, including the circle, the darkness, the group intention, and the ikaros.
While I am not experienced enough to tell anyone whether or not they should participate in a particular ceremony or with one shaman or curandero or another, I think its absolutely essential for people to do their homework.
Find out what is in the medicine. Ask if a ceremony is traditional, or avant-garde, and decide if its right for you. Make sure you're not taking any medication or eating any food that is contra-indicated. The dieta is not just superstition, it can save your life!
I'd also like to say that I am deeply sorry to the family of Kyle Nolan for their loss, as well as to all the people who put so much into Chimbre and believed in Mancoluto's message. Losing someone so young in such a way is just terrible. Having lost some of my friends, too young, in murky situations, I know how much it hurts, but I can only imagine what losing a son is like...
That being said, hopefully this doesn't create a backlash against the medicine, this is the first death I've heard of related to Ayahuasca since I was introduced to it, and someone dies in America from prescription drug overdose every 19 seconds [www.cdc.gov] . May we hold those responsible for this tragedy to the same standards we would a Western Doctor who misdiagnosed someone or was engaging in a groundbreaking therapy that went awry. I also pray for Mancoluto, Rob, and those involved, that if they were acting responsibly they are exonerated, and if they were acting irresponsibly, that they eventually find justice and peace.
May this be just another step in our collective evolution.
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: September 23, 2012 10:15PM
Quote
The knowledge which Shaman Mancoluto carries comes from the Order of Bancotauri, a system used by the Shamans of Chavin de Huantar to access a superior metaphysical knowledge coming from Atlantis, Lemuria and different parts of the Universe.
Corboy note: This is fake shamanism. The suff about Atlantis and Lemuria derives from a European source, Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy, which was first published and popularized in Western Europe in the 1870s.
Since Mancaluto was willing to use Blavatsky, a Western source, for his narrative, he could have done his trustful devotees the service of having some medics trained in Western medicine discreetly on hand to monitor and assist. THis can be arranged in a respectful manner.
But...this cannot be called authentic shamanic practice. True shamans never charge $$$ for participation in services.img
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
Jose Manuel Pineda Vargas, “Master Mancoluto” was born in the year 1954 in the city of Chiclayo, located on the northern coast of Peru. Displaying psychic abilities at a young age, Mancoluto´s grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great grandparents began with his shamanic training complementing them with important ancestral brews such as San Pedro, Micha and Ayahuasca. Its roots are cultivated mainly through the descendents of Chavin de Huantar but to a lesser extent he also carries in his organic make up the blood of one of his great-great grandparents from Mongolia and another from a North African tribe named the Batu.
For many years, Master Mancoluto worked in hospitals applying ancestral medicines and practices unknown by today’s academic practices, using his knowledge of human physiology and psychology to assist patients.
Mancoluto´s Ceremonies feature a rare Chavin initiation process that provides interpretations of the visions and experiences of each participant’s journey. He uses both, San Pedro (originally named Huachuma) and Ayahuasca to heal and cleanse initiate’s physical and energetic bodies, open their minds to deeper realities, develop their senses and intuitive capabilities and unlock the person’s untapped potential. Also with the guidance of Mancoluto, the initiates may be able to enter unknown parallel dimensions while they are under the influence of San Pedro or Ayahuasca. If the initiate had the opportunity to enter one of these unknown realms, Mancoluto will provide sufficient information and decipher the visions the next day so the experience can be fully understood.
BANCOTAURI ORDER
img
The knowledge which Shaman Mancoluto carries comes from the Order of Bancotauri, a system used by the Shamans of Chavin de Huantar to access a superior metaphysical knowledge coming from Atlantis, Lemuria and different parts of the Universe. A large part of this knowledge disappeared due to time and distortion by religious and spiritual beliefs and philosophical institutions.
The masters of the Bancotauri Order may age as any other person but they stay young and awake in their mind to continue learning, since the knowledge of Bancotauri has no end. The System of Bancotauri has a King Shaman who is born every four generations. The word King refers as the one who carries the knowledge and needs to pass it on to capable beings for the positive future sake of humankind; the word doesn’t have a connotation of power nor authority but it conveys order in the management of knowledge, guidance and social issues
[/quote]
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: September 23, 2012 10:52PM
Corboy note. A flat internet search will not necessarily give full details of precautions and hazards of ayahuasca.
I want to make clear that I am not saying dont take it. People who want experiences will huff gasoline or glue if thats what it takes.
But with ayahuasca, there is a profit driven tourist industry. And unlike huffing glue or gasoline in the urban scene, if you are in the jungle and get into trouble, you cannot easily be taken to a hospital. Most of us, having grow up cossetted by the urban and medical safety net, have illusions of physicial invulnerability that we are utterly unaware of, and expectations of speedy rescue that are realistic only in our home towns--and sometimes not realistic even then.
In the jungle, thousands of miles from home, its another world. One cannot comprehend how freaky and potentially dangerous jungles are, even when one has ones wits fully intact.
Ever seen those jungle movies? Unless you stay for the credits and sit through every single one, you wont catch the credit that lists the names of of the medical team who collectively kept the entire film crew healthy during the film shoot, and kept their cuts from going septic and did prophy against malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, Chagas Disease, or lessons on shaking out shoes and boots to remove scorpions before putting your feet in.
A straight Google search of ayahuaca gives only this.
[www.google.com]
Google ayahuasca and dangers, you get this
[www.google.com]
Google ayahuasca contraindications
[www.google.com]
Now, having learned that one outcome of ayahuasca interacting with monoamine oxidase inhibitor drugs or tyramine is stroke, lets put ayahuasca and stroke into the Google search slot.
[www.google.com]
The results become yet more specific.
Now, many of us when 18 think we are immortal.
How many of us might think to ourselves, suppose I or one of my ayahuasca trip buddies gets seriously ill during this event? Is the center set up so that we can be taken to the hospital if one or more of us get sick? How far into the jungle are we?
So many have extolled the virtues of the drug, and so much money is now involved in ayahausca tourism that one must ask, "Money and profit are involved here. If I go to Peru and take ayahuasca, I am a source of big income. How do I know the actual risks of this drug - and can I learn whether the trip guide I hire will have the ability and the willingness to look after my welfare?"
How many of us, when we were 18 years old, could think in these terms?
Another matter: Many of us, even teenagers, are either using RX drugs that potentially interact with ayahuasca or might be using over the counter drugs that can also interact with it.
I only knew the potential risks of ayahuasca and what a strenuous drug it can be having read John Horgan's description of using ayahuasca written in a chapter of his book, Rational Mysticism. Horgan took the drug in the United States, was given clear instructions on which drugs and foods to abstain from. He is a robust and strong man, to judge from his book photograph, and he had had prior youthful experience using LSD, and had since then, been a seasoned science reporter. Even with all these advantages, Horgan reported that the ayahausca trip was psychologically arduous and that the heavy vomiting he suffered was very unpleasant.
[www.pressdemocrat.com]
I want to make clear that I am not saying dont take it. People who want experiences will huff gasoline or glue if thats what it takes.
But with ayahuasca, there is a profit driven tourist industry. And unlike huffing glue or gasoline in the urban scene, if you are in the jungle and get into trouble, you cannot easily be taken to a hospital. Most of us, having grow up cossetted by the urban and medical safety net, have illusions of physicial invulnerability that we are utterly unaware of, and expectations of speedy rescue that are realistic only in our home towns--and sometimes not realistic even then.
In the jungle, thousands of miles from home, its another world. One cannot comprehend how freaky and potentially dangerous jungles are, even when one has ones wits fully intact.
Ever seen those jungle movies? Unless you stay for the credits and sit through every single one, you wont catch the credit that lists the names of of the medical team who collectively kept the entire film crew healthy during the film shoot, and kept their cuts from going septic and did prophy against malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, Chagas Disease, or lessons on shaking out shoes and boots to remove scorpions before putting your feet in.
A straight Google search of ayahuaca gives only this.
[www.google.com]
Google ayahuasca and dangers, you get this
[www.google.com]
Google ayahuasca contraindications
[www.google.com]
Now, having learned that one outcome of ayahuasca interacting with monoamine oxidase inhibitor drugs or tyramine is stroke, lets put ayahuasca and stroke into the Google search slot.
[www.google.com]
The results become yet more specific.
Now, many of us when 18 think we are immortal.
How many of us might think to ourselves, suppose I or one of my ayahuasca trip buddies gets seriously ill during this event? Is the center set up so that we can be taken to the hospital if one or more of us get sick? How far into the jungle are we?
So many have extolled the virtues of the drug, and so much money is now involved in ayahausca tourism that one must ask, "Money and profit are involved here. If I go to Peru and take ayahuasca, I am a source of big income. How do I know the actual risks of this drug - and can I learn whether the trip guide I hire will have the ability and the willingness to look after my welfare?"
How many of us, when we were 18 years old, could think in these terms?
Another matter: Many of us, even teenagers, are either using RX drugs that potentially interact with ayahuasca or might be using over the counter drugs that can also interact with it.
I only knew the potential risks of ayahuasca and what a strenuous drug it can be having read John Horgan's description of using ayahuasca written in a chapter of his book, Rational Mysticism. Horgan took the drug in the United States, was given clear instructions on which drugs and foods to abstain from. He is a robust and strong man, to judge from his book photograph, and he had had prior youthful experience using LSD, and had since then, been a seasoned science reporter. Even with all these advantages, Horgan reported that the ayahausca trip was psychologically arduous and that the heavy vomiting he suffered was very unpleasant.
[www.pressdemocrat.com]
Quote
By GUY KOVNER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Friday, September 14, 2012 at 7:16 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, September 14, 2012 at 8:15 p.m.
Kyle Josef Nolan and his parents knew exactly why the 18-year-old Sebastopol man traveled to a retreat center in the Peruvian jungle: to participate in an “ayahuasca ritual,” ingesting a psychoactive concoction used by Amazonian people for centuries and popular with westerners, including the musician Sting.
But the 10-day program at the Shimbre Shamanic Center went tragically wrong, and the operator, a shaman named Jose Manuel Pineda Vargas, attempted to cover up Nolan's death and lied to his mother when she first arrived in Peru, according to Sean Nolan of Petaluma, Kyle's father.
Peruvian National Police said they arrested Pineda, 58, who called himself “Master Mancoluto,” and two men who allegedly helped bury Nolan's body on the shamanic center's property outside the city of Puerto Maldonado in southeastern Peru near the Bolivian border.
A YouTube video depicts Pineda leading authorities to the spot where Nolan's body was unearthed.
Ingeborg Oswald of Sebastopol, Nolan's mother, and his sister, Marion Nolan, were in Peru Friday waiting to bring Nolan's body home and also obtain official reports on his death, Sean Nolan said.
“This is what he wanted to do,” Sean Nolan said. “This was not to be a vacation for him, but rather an experience to further open his mind.”
Nolan, a 2011 graduate from Analy High School, had taken a year off from school and worked odd jobs to save money for the trip to Peru and the shamanic retreat, where ayahuasca is the “centerpiece” of a 10-day program, Sean Nolan said.
“It does have inherent risks,” he said.
Sean Nolan said he was concerned about his son's use of ayahuasca, a psychoactive brew widely used by indigenous Amazonian people that contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a psychedelic substance that is illegal in the United States.
Nolan said he had researched ayahuasca and found no reports of “bad experiences” with it. He disputed a media report that his son had taken an excessive dose in an Aug. 22 ritual at the shamanic center.
On the program's seventh day, the shaman made a specific “preparation” for each of the participants, who had fasted and taken other steps prior to the ritual.
“Kyle drank what he was given,” his father said, then found his way to a tent on a wooden platform on the center grounds. No one checked on him, and he was found dead the following day, Aug. 23, his father said.
After Kyle Nolan failed to return home on Aug. 26, his mother and sister made the first of two trips to Peru to find him. Sean Nolan said that Pineda “looked them right in the eye” and told them Kyle had seemed “despondent” and “just walked off with his suitcase.”
Pineda's account apparently did not hold up under police questioning, Sean Nolan said.
Roberto Velez, the owner of the Shimbre Center, told Oswald what had really happened, prompting her second trip to Peru, Nolan said. Oswald is a veterinarian who runs a clinic in Rohnert Park.
On Friday, the Shimbre Shamanic Center's website had only two photographs: a man identified as “Master Mancoluto” and a round, unoccupied building. All other information on the site had been deleted.
More than 30 YouTube videos depict people describing their “ayahuasca experience,” including Sting, who said he drank it at a big church in the jungle outside Rio de Janeiro about 20 years ago. In four minutes, Sting said, he experienced a sensation of being “wired to the entire cosmos.”
“It is communion, this direct access to the Godhead or whatever you think that is,” Sting said, calling it “the only genuine religious experience I've ever had.”
Charles Grob, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine who has studied ayahuasca, said in a YouTube video that it can cause “a very painful ordeal, it can be an eternity in a hell realm, as it were.”
Grob said the substance can be harmful when used along with certain anti-depressants, but he had heard of only one ayahuasca-related death. That involved an elderly Native Canadian woman whose body was overloaded with nicotine.
Kyle and Marion Nolan and their brother, Kevin Nolan, were triplets, born on Sept. 23, 1993. Kevin and Marion are sophomores at UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, respectively.
Cesar Inda of Sebastopol said he knew the brothers at Analy High, describing them as a “dynamic duo” who looked a lot alike and were “almost inseparable.”
Inda, 19, said he had seen Kyle Nolan at Santa Rosa Junior College early last month and was shocked to learn on Facebook of his death .
“It really made me think how short life can be,” he said.
Sam Watkins, 19, of Sebastopol said he and Nolan were good friends at Twin Hills Middle School years ago. They played video games and listened to classic rock, including “Knocking on Heaven's Door” by both Bob Dylan and Guns N' Roses.
Watkins recalled that Nolan would come to his birthday party in the middle of summer when “everybody else was gone.”
Sebastopol teen died in Peru trying 'to further open his mind'By GUY KOVNER
Kyle Nolan
PressDemocrat.comSeptember 14, 2012 8:15 PM
<p>Kyle Josef Nolan and his parents knew exactly why the 18-year-old Sebastopol man traveled to a retreat center in the Peruvian jungle: to participate in an “ayahuasca ritual,” ingesting a psychoactive concoction used by Amazonian people for centuries and popular with westerners, including the musician Sting.</p><p>But the 10-day program at the Shimbre Shamanic Center went tragically wrong, and the operator, a shaman named Jose Manuel Pineda Vargas, attempted to cover up Nolan's death and lied to his mother when she first arrived in Peru, according to Sean Nolan of Petaluma, Kyle's father.
Peruvian National Police said they arrested Pineda, 58, who called himself “Master Mancoluto,” and two men who allegedly helped bury Nolan's body on the shamanic center's property outside the city of Puerto Maldonado in southeastern Peru near the Bolivian border.
A YouTube video depicts Pineda leading authorities to the spot where Nolan's body was unearthed.
Ingeborg Oswald of Sebastopol, Nolan's mother, and his sister, Marion Nolan, were in Peru Friday waiting to bring Nolan's body home and also obtain official reports on his death, Sean Nolan said.
“This is what he wanted to do,” Sean Nolan said. “This was not to be a vacation for him, but rather an experience to further open his mind.”
Nolan, a 2011 graduate from Analy High School, had taken a year off from school and worked odd jobs to save money for the trip to Peru and the shamanic retreat, where ayahuasca is the “centerpiece” of a 10-day program, Sean Nolan said.
“It does have inherent risks,” he said.
Sean Nolan said he was concerned about his son's use of ayahuasca, a psychoactive brew widely used by indigenous Amazonian people that contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a psychedelic substance that is illegal in the United States.
Nolan said he had researched ayahuasca and found no reports of “bad experiences” with it.
He disputed a media report that his son had taken an excessive dose in an Aug. 22 ritual at the shamanic center.
On the program's seventh day, the shaman made a specific “preparation” for each of the participants, who had fasted and taken other steps prior to the ritual.
Kyle drank what he was given,” his father said, then found his way to a tent on a wooden platform on the center grounds. No one checked on him, and he was found dead the following day, Aug. 23, his father said
After Kyle Nolan failed to return home on Aug. 26, his mother and sister made the first of two trips to Peru to find him. Sean Nolan said that Pineda “looked them right in the eye” and told them Kyle had seemed “despondent” and “just walked off with his suitcase.”
Pineda's account apparently did not hold up under police questioning, Sean Nolan said.
Roberto Velez, the owner of the Shimbre Center, told Oswald what had really happened, prompting her second trip to Peru, Nolan said. Oswald is a veterinarian who runs a clinic in Rohnert Park.
On Friday, the Shimbre Shamanic Center's website had only two photographs: a man identified as “Master Mancoluto” and a round, unoccupied building. All other information on the site had been deleted.
More than 30 YouTube videos depict people describing their “ayahuasca experience,” including Sting, who said he drank it at a big church in the jungle outside Rio de Janeiro about 20 years ago.
In four minutes, Sting said, he experienced a sensation of being “wired to the entire cosmos.”
“It is communion, this direct access to the Godhead or whatever you think that is,” Sting said, calling it “the only genuine religious experience I've ever had.”
Charles Grob, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine who has studied ayahuasca, said in a YouTube video that it can cause “a very painful ordeal, it can be an eternity in a hell realm, as it were.”
Grob said the substance can be harmful when used along with certain anti-depressants, but he had heard of only one ayahuasca-related death.
That involved an elderly Native Canadian woman whose body was overloaded with nicotine.</p>
Kyle and Marion Nolan and their brother, Kevin Nolan, were triplets, born on Sept. 23, 1993. Kevin and Marion are sophomores at UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, respectively.
Cesar Inda of Sebastopol said he knew the brothers at Analy High, describing them as a “dynamic duo” who looked a lot alike and were “almost inseparable.”
Inda, 19, said he had seen Kyle Nolan at Santa Rosa Junior College early last month and was shocked to learn on Facebook of his death .</p><p>“It really made me think how short life can be,” he said.
Sam Watkins, 19, of Sebastopol said he and Nolan were good friends at Twin Hills Middle School years ago.
They played video games and listened to classic rock, including “Knocking on Heaven's Door” by both Bob Dylan and Guns N' Roses.</p><p>Watkins recalled that Nolan would come to his birthday party in the middle of summer when “everybody else was gone.”</p>
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Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
walter1963
()
Date: October 15, 2012 09:58AM
Exactly what sort of parent underwrites/supports a teenager's experiment drug use in foreign country? The tickets aren't cheap.
The idiocy and irresponsibility displayed by the parents is truly overwhelming. It would be interesting to know if they themselves where New Agers or heavy recreational drug users.
I mean it's clear his father didn't do any real research on ayahuasca. Just google "ayahuasca bad trips" and you get a truck load of posts and articles about bad trips. It's clear you better have a sober friend with you and a cell phone to call 911 if things go bad. And you certainly don't travel to a primitive country to a dodgy outfit with dodgy characters running it to scam foolish Americans and Europeans.
And Nolan, he could have went to any pot store and asked for locals who were into it.
The mother apparently is just a dingbat who goes along with any harebrained project.
The fact that a toxicology screening wasn't done here in the states tells me the kid was probably on a host of other illegal drugs as well that the parents didn't want to be public knowledge and he probably died of drug interactions. Look most sober teenagers do not wake up one day and decide to ayahuasca. You really have to be in the drug scene to even be aware of it.
The idiocy and irresponsibility displayed by the parents is truly overwhelming. It would be interesting to know if they themselves where New Agers or heavy recreational drug users.
I mean it's clear his father didn't do any real research on ayahuasca. Just google "ayahuasca bad trips" and you get a truck load of posts and articles about bad trips. It's clear you better have a sober friend with you and a cell phone to call 911 if things go bad. And you certainly don't travel to a primitive country to a dodgy outfit with dodgy characters running it to scam foolish Americans and Europeans.
And Nolan, he could have went to any pot store and asked for locals who were into it.
The mother apparently is just a dingbat who goes along with any harebrained project.
The fact that a toxicology screening wasn't done here in the states tells me the kid was probably on a host of other illegal drugs as well that the parents didn't want to be public knowledge and he probably died of drug interactions. Look most sober teenagers do not wake up one day and decide to ayahuasca. You really have to be in the drug scene to even be aware of it.
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: October 21, 2012 11:53PM
A small exerpt from an excellent article by Matthew Remski in Elephant Journal. Remski goes into detail, itemizing rhetorical and grammatical tricks used to deflect legitimate critique and to hamper clear thinking.
Ironically these rhetorical skills, made available by Western culture, and refined by American high pressure advertising, are put in service of selling religions that create a feudal and pre-modern mindset in devotees--which preserving their ability to generate income in capitalist society.
Yes, a guru can have his or her cake and eat it, too.
[www.elephantjournal.com]
Quote
"...one has to contemplate the extraordinary clash of pre-modern and postmodern cultures that constitutes much of the Tibetan-Buddhism-Comes-West experience.
We might call it an “epistemic collision”, in which two descriptions of the world and existence are mutually exclusive, leading both to mutual distortion and/or romanticization.
The Tibetans have not waded through the scientific or humanistic revolutions that form the groundwork for postmodern life.
How do we meet them?
How do we understand their world of deity yoga and oracular possession? How can they understand our general democracy of thought?
What do we create out of our mutual projections onto each other?
In my experience, Tibetan religions can speak powerfully to a wounded place in (postmodern) folk that yearns for pre-modern simplicity, or perhaps even a renewed clarity of childhood power dynamics.
This is not to demean the soaring complexity of Tibetan metaphysics, nor the therapeutic jewels in its meditation technology, but to suggest that its hierarchical and faith-soaked method of transmission runs counter to the secular-liberal-humanist neurology that most western acolytes bring to it.
To take it on fully, we have to partition off about four centuries of culture in our brains. Like every split, there is price to a pay.
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: October 23, 2012 05:02AM
A comment from a discussion on Elephant Journal
[www.elephantjournal.com]
Any guesses as to which parts of the cultural overlays to TB that will be stripped away
? I used to think it would be the shamanistic and mystical aspects.
But, Malcolm, I often organize teachings, pujas and events for my abbots - if we announce a Tara initiation or, better still, a spooky Yamantaka protection/blessing - we'll fill any center or temple.
Announce a teaching on the Four Noble Truths, Three Poisons, or any teaching with the words 'ethics' or 'logic' in it and if 20 people show up it's a big deal. And, rather sweetly, they'll all be from the loyal, supportive Vietnamese community - and they'll take notes. Westerners seem drawn to the aspects of TB that have roots in paternalism and tribalism.
Earlier Malcolm had observed:
There is a lot of fantasy role playing in Tibetan Buddhism, unfortunately, much projection and a lot of unworked out people using Tibetan Buddhism to work on their issues. The problem is that just as in bad relationships, people keep repeating the same mistakes with their teachers, students and compatriots.
There are a lot of issues, deep issues, with the psychological health of Tibetan Buddhism as a whole. As I understand things, the Dharma should allow us to become more integrated human beings, able to access our native compassion and wisdom. The Dharma is not a religion. Buddhism is a religion.
We are at a global turning point, and Tibetan Buddhism also must catch up or become an irrelevant parochial dogma with little bearing outside its own culture sphere and those clients it can engage.
The missionary religion called "Tibetan Buddhism" has a general lack of integration with its larger audience -- that said, there are a lot of wonderful teachers and students who have benefitted enormously from the Dharma teachings preserved in Tibetan Buddhism. But we should carefully distinguish between Tibetan Buddhism and the Dharma -- they are not one and the same thing
and
malcolm · 16 weeks ago
The difference in our perspectives is that I am not suffering from some idea that West = corrupt or that "spiritual paths" are havens from anything. There is just as much corruption in Tibetan culture as there is any other culture and maybe it is worse because much of that corruption is done in the name of Dharma.
Whatever the criticisms leveled at people like Michael Roach, Osel Tenzin etc., we should stop the pretense that Tibet was a Shangrila, etc.
HH Dalai Lama has aptly pointed out, there is no official school of Lamas. Students make Lamas. Michal Roach is a "teacher" because he has students. You feel he is directly and morally responsible for the death of Ian Thorson. Maybe he is. I don't pretend to know. I was not there. But what I do know is that unless someone can prove criminal intent, then there is nothing we can do apart from saying "Maybe it is better you don't go in that direction". Of course, this is an issue that affects the Gelugpa school more than anything else. Of course the Gelugpa school has a lot of issues based on the behavior of Trijiang Rinpoche, the Shugden controversy, Pabhongkha's legacy of trenchant sectarianism, etc.
I will be frank -- from my perspective, Michael Roach is merely an extension of a trend in the Gelug school that begins with Pabhongkha.
Now then, when it comes to the freedom of others, we must respect that even if we disagree. For example, I think practicing Dogyal is foolish and stupid. But we live in a pluralistic society that is not ruled by warlords, kings and aristocrats, so there is little we can do apart from voice our opinion. But we are lucky we can do that -- because in soceities governed by warlords, kings and aristocrats we generally do not have that freedom. For example, the Gelugpas locked up all the books of other schools for centuries. Tibet was never a bastion of religious freedom. People have this attitude that Tibet was this superior spiritual culture but that is frankly very naive.
[www.elephantjournal.com]
Any guesses as to which parts of the cultural overlays to TB that will be stripped away
? I used to think it would be the shamanistic and mystical aspects.
But, Malcolm, I often organize teachings, pujas and events for my abbots - if we announce a Tara initiation or, better still, a spooky Yamantaka protection/blessing - we'll fill any center or temple.
Announce a teaching on the Four Noble Truths, Three Poisons, or any teaching with the words 'ethics' or 'logic' in it and if 20 people show up it's a big deal. And, rather sweetly, they'll all be from the loyal, supportive Vietnamese community - and they'll take notes. Westerners seem drawn to the aspects of TB that have roots in paternalism and tribalism.
Earlier Malcolm had observed:
There is a lot of fantasy role playing in Tibetan Buddhism, unfortunately, much projection and a lot of unworked out people using Tibetan Buddhism to work on their issues. The problem is that just as in bad relationships, people keep repeating the same mistakes with their teachers, students and compatriots.
There are a lot of issues, deep issues, with the psychological health of Tibetan Buddhism as a whole. As I understand things, the Dharma should allow us to become more integrated human beings, able to access our native compassion and wisdom. The Dharma is not a religion. Buddhism is a religion.
We are at a global turning point, and Tibetan Buddhism also must catch up or become an irrelevant parochial dogma with little bearing outside its own culture sphere and those clients it can engage.
The missionary religion called "Tibetan Buddhism" has a general lack of integration with its larger audience -- that said, there are a lot of wonderful teachers and students who have benefitted enormously from the Dharma teachings preserved in Tibetan Buddhism. But we should carefully distinguish between Tibetan Buddhism and the Dharma -- they are not one and the same thing
and
malcolm · 16 weeks ago
The difference in our perspectives is that I am not suffering from some idea that West = corrupt or that "spiritual paths" are havens from anything. There is just as much corruption in Tibetan culture as there is any other culture and maybe it is worse because much of that corruption is done in the name of Dharma.
Whatever the criticisms leveled at people like Michael Roach, Osel Tenzin etc., we should stop the pretense that Tibet was a Shangrila, etc.
HH Dalai Lama has aptly pointed out, there is no official school of Lamas. Students make Lamas. Michal Roach is a "teacher" because he has students. You feel he is directly and morally responsible for the death of Ian Thorson. Maybe he is. I don't pretend to know. I was not there. But what I do know is that unless someone can prove criminal intent, then there is nothing we can do apart from saying "Maybe it is better you don't go in that direction". Of course, this is an issue that affects the Gelugpa school more than anything else. Of course the Gelugpa school has a lot of issues based on the behavior of Trijiang Rinpoche, the Shugden controversy, Pabhongkha's legacy of trenchant sectarianism, etc.
I will be frank -- from my perspective, Michael Roach is merely an extension of a trend in the Gelug school that begins with Pabhongkha.
Now then, when it comes to the freedom of others, we must respect that even if we disagree. For example, I think practicing Dogyal is foolish and stupid. But we live in a pluralistic society that is not ruled by warlords, kings and aristocrats, so there is little we can do apart from voice our opinion. But we are lucky we can do that -- because in soceities governed by warlords, kings and aristocrats we generally do not have that freedom. For example, the Gelugpas locked up all the books of other schools for centuries. Tibet was never a bastion of religious freedom. People have this attitude that Tibet was this superior spiritual culture but that is frankly very naive.
Re: Recovering from New Age Mumbo Jumbo
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: October 23, 2012 05:10AM
Note: The article here contains remarkable analyses of charisma. Remski describes his own process of withdrawing projections. It is rare to see this described so well.
[www.elephantjournal.com]
Matthew Remski:
+17 Vote up Vote down
matthew 78p · 16 weeks ago
Malcolm: I appreciate your posts both here and below and have a few responses that I'll stick here, to avoid the vata-aggravated text-pinching below. I especially appreciate what you have to offer around the intersection of Vajrayana, iconography, and the pomo psyche.
But some of your other comments betray the anti-social, stealth libertarianism that I take some time to critique in the article. You go a step further, however, with a metaphysical party-stopper -- "this is samsara and nothing we do will fix it", which gives an overall depressive timbre to your voice.
The scandal around Amrit Desai removed him from power, and transformed the entire Kripalu culture. Gurumayi is now invisible, and not attracting any more students, most likely because of the exposure of her intra-ashram politics and the unfolding story of Muktananda's sexual abuses. Legal pressure on Bubba Free John forced him to a barren island in Fiji where he grew obese and dropped dead. Eido Shimano was ousted, and Dennis Genpo Merzel humbled himself. News about Trungpa's regent electrified the Naropa community towards greater transparency and a fuller account of the Rinpoche's legacy. John Friend looks like he's out for the count. I'm just getting started: I don't know what sector of scandals you are considering that have been meaningless to the teachers involved.
But who cares what happens to individual sociopaths? Whether Roach goes on to erect a nouveau-kitsch Potala for himself in Beijing doesn't matter. What matters is how we develop our dialogue surrounding dysfunctional power dynamics within communities that purport to be evolutionary. Roach is the 1% -- actually, far less. The rest of us wind up having to look closer and closer at what we want and what we do. It does at times seem like critics and supporters are ships passing in the night. But the incredible thing about us is that we learn, often through rupture.
Your framing of "People who are students of Michael Roach will for the most part remain his students. People who have left will seek to justiify it to themselves" is a false dichotomy that ignores the most interesting group of all: people who are changing from one to the other because of their own emerging integrity, through dialogue and community. We know there are many: the boards are dripping with their stories, and many express profound gratitude that fora such as these decrease their solitude.
Another point: in my therapeutic experience, the rupture is as important as the recovery, and experiencing it fully decreases the amount of future splitting/repression. When you advocate that critics "are better served by finding suitable spiritual alternatives for themselves than spending too much time nursing wounds and resentments", you gloss over the possibility that a discernment phase involving wounding and even resentment might be a central factor in growth. It is rare that the right therapeutic choice is to say "get over it."
Finally, this comment ignores the fact that some people really don't need "suitable spiritual alternatives" as they recover from traumas induced in spiritual contexts. Some simply need a good job, or to raise a child, or to become active in local politics, or to plot a garden. Perhaps we're in agreement here, given our shared interest in Indo-Tibetan medicine. Report Reply +6 Vote up Vote down
Corvid · 16 weeks ago
Again...the remaining retreaters are in danger.Many saw this coming and in the future Dm will find they don't have many friends left in the county if Roach isn'tt removed . Report Reply +6 Vote up Vote down human · 16 weeks ago
Jerry.....you have been warning people about DM for years........I so appreciate how much you truly care about the people at Diamond Mountain.....It might not appear to all of them at this time, but you have sincerely been a great friend.
Over the years, your caring has showed in all the various places that you have posted concerning Diamond Mountain.
Although you are not a Buddhist, you represent.....at least to me.....what following the path is all about.
Thank you. I hope your campaign saves some lives, either mentally or physically. (another death
and from 'Human'
Human · 16 weeks ago
Excellent dialogue Matthew, Tenor, Malcom, Karen, and Ekan....among others...
I have been following the Michael Roach, Diamond Mountain, Christie McNally story since they came out of the first retreat. At that time I was at the beginning of exploring Buddhism, and looking for answers, free teachings on-line, etc.
I have been one of the "lurkers" here. Reading all the articles, comments, etc. I haven't gotten all my thoughts together on what I would truly like to say.
I will say this though: I am so glad that back then I found the diamond-cutter website. I even made a few posts back then on the site. I would also say that some of the dire warnings back then have come to fruition now........and I am very sad that the fruition resulted in a man's death. It also saddens me that many people back then, due to trying to follow "right speech" did not share more of their experiences......especially when it came to the Quiet Retreat" and what was going on during that time. There is more to that story that hasn't been divulged and would give better perspective to what is happening now.
That is why I so appreciate Ekan for sharing her story, as well as some of the others. I mention Ekan due to the fact that she has such an insider perspective right up to the Great Retreat. I also appreciate how she is slowly sharing her experience and what has happened at Diamond Mountain. If only someone back when... after the first retreat...... had the courage to share their personal experience, maybe all of this might not have happened.
I guess what I am saying is that I was lucky to have found the diamond-cutter website back in the day...and now, with this national coverage, and Matthew's excellent articles.........and all of the excellent comments........and people now not so afraid to share their experience........many people will be saved from the absolute narcissism of Michael Roach.
There is no doubt in my mind that some really way out funky things happened in that first retreat...(all women retreaters and MR...) and I hope that someday, somebody has the courage to truly let out what happened there........without it being "hearsay" ........for the benefit of all sentient beings.
I think "Sex and the Spiritual Teacher" really can apply to Michael Roach.
I feel for Christie McNally and the other women, who will go unmentioned, that he has effected.
Once again, thank you everyone for such respectful, excellent dialogue. I have learned so much through these postings, and it has once again fueled my passion for Buddhism. I also appreciate the dialogue about how Buddhism (Tibetan) needs to be integrated into Western Society.
Matthew, you have done a great service, and have been extremely eloquent in your delivery.
[www.elephantjournal.com]
Matthew Remski:
+17 Vote up Vote down
matthew 78p · 16 weeks ago
Malcolm: I appreciate your posts both here and below and have a few responses that I'll stick here, to avoid the vata-aggravated text-pinching below. I especially appreciate what you have to offer around the intersection of Vajrayana, iconography, and the pomo psyche.
But some of your other comments betray the anti-social, stealth libertarianism that I take some time to critique in the article. You go a step further, however, with a metaphysical party-stopper -- "this is samsara and nothing we do will fix it", which gives an overall depressive timbre to your voice.
The scandal around Amrit Desai removed him from power, and transformed the entire Kripalu culture. Gurumayi is now invisible, and not attracting any more students, most likely because of the exposure of her intra-ashram politics and the unfolding story of Muktananda's sexual abuses. Legal pressure on Bubba Free John forced him to a barren island in Fiji where he grew obese and dropped dead. Eido Shimano was ousted, and Dennis Genpo Merzel humbled himself. News about Trungpa's regent electrified the Naropa community towards greater transparency and a fuller account of the Rinpoche's legacy. John Friend looks like he's out for the count. I'm just getting started: I don't know what sector of scandals you are considering that have been meaningless to the teachers involved.
But who cares what happens to individual sociopaths? Whether Roach goes on to erect a nouveau-kitsch Potala for himself in Beijing doesn't matter. What matters is how we develop our dialogue surrounding dysfunctional power dynamics within communities that purport to be evolutionary. Roach is the 1% -- actually, far less. The rest of us wind up having to look closer and closer at what we want and what we do. It does at times seem like critics and supporters are ships passing in the night. But the incredible thing about us is that we learn, often through rupture.
Your framing of "People who are students of Michael Roach will for the most part remain his students. People who have left will seek to justiify it to themselves" is a false dichotomy that ignores the most interesting group of all: people who are changing from one to the other because of their own emerging integrity, through dialogue and community. We know there are many: the boards are dripping with their stories, and many express profound gratitude that fora such as these decrease their solitude.
Another point: in my therapeutic experience, the rupture is as important as the recovery, and experiencing it fully decreases the amount of future splitting/repression. When you advocate that critics "are better served by finding suitable spiritual alternatives for themselves than spending too much time nursing wounds and resentments", you gloss over the possibility that a discernment phase involving wounding and even resentment might be a central factor in growth. It is rare that the right therapeutic choice is to say "get over it."
Finally, this comment ignores the fact that some people really don't need "suitable spiritual alternatives" as they recover from traumas induced in spiritual contexts. Some simply need a good job, or to raise a child, or to become active in local politics, or to plot a garden. Perhaps we're in agreement here, given our shared interest in Indo-Tibetan medicine. Report Reply +6 Vote up Vote down
Corvid · 16 weeks ago
Again...the remaining retreaters are in danger.Many saw this coming and in the future Dm will find they don't have many friends left in the county if Roach isn'tt removed . Report Reply +6 Vote up Vote down human · 16 weeks ago
Jerry.....you have been warning people about DM for years........I so appreciate how much you truly care about the people at Diamond Mountain.....It might not appear to all of them at this time, but you have sincerely been a great friend.
Over the years, your caring has showed in all the various places that you have posted concerning Diamond Mountain.
Although you are not a Buddhist, you represent.....at least to me.....what following the path is all about.
Thank you. I hope your campaign saves some lives, either mentally or physically. (another death
and from 'Human'
Human · 16 weeks ago
Excellent dialogue Matthew, Tenor, Malcom, Karen, and Ekan....among others...
I have been following the Michael Roach, Diamond Mountain, Christie McNally story since they came out of the first retreat. At that time I was at the beginning of exploring Buddhism, and looking for answers, free teachings on-line, etc.
I have been one of the "lurkers" here. Reading all the articles, comments, etc. I haven't gotten all my thoughts together on what I would truly like to say.
I will say this though: I am so glad that back then I found the diamond-cutter website. I even made a few posts back then on the site. I would also say that some of the dire warnings back then have come to fruition now........and I am very sad that the fruition resulted in a man's death. It also saddens me that many people back then, due to trying to follow "right speech" did not share more of their experiences......especially when it came to the Quiet Retreat" and what was going on during that time. There is more to that story that hasn't been divulged and would give better perspective to what is happening now.
That is why I so appreciate Ekan for sharing her story, as well as some of the others. I mention Ekan due to the fact that she has such an insider perspective right up to the Great Retreat. I also appreciate how she is slowly sharing her experience and what has happened at Diamond Mountain. If only someone back when... after the first retreat...... had the courage to share their personal experience, maybe all of this might not have happened.
I guess what I am saying is that I was lucky to have found the diamond-cutter website back in the day...and now, with this national coverage, and Matthew's excellent articles.........and all of the excellent comments........and people now not so afraid to share their experience........many people will be saved from the absolute narcissism of Michael Roach.
There is no doubt in my mind that some really way out funky things happened in that first retreat...(all women retreaters and MR...) and I hope that someday, somebody has the courage to truly let out what happened there........without it being "hearsay" ........for the benefit of all sentient beings.
I think "Sex and the Spiritual Teacher" really can apply to Michael Roach.
I feel for Christie McNally and the other women, who will go unmentioned, that he has effected.
Once again, thank you everyone for such respectful, excellent dialogue. I have learned so much through these postings, and it has once again fueled my passion for Buddhism. I also appreciate the dialogue about how Buddhism (Tibetan) needs to be integrated into Western Society.
Matthew, you have done a great service, and have been extremely eloquent in your delivery.
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