I find it odd that any raw foodist would want to take any form of drug. Why purify your body with healthy foods and then put toxic substances into your body to undo all your good work? No drugs give genuine spiritual experiences, they merely create the illusion of a spiritual experience by altering the chemicals in your brain. If you are looking for a spiritual experience then live a spiritual life. Drugs merely give artificial highs and serve as a form of escapism from reality, but facing up to reality is one of our greatest lessons in life. Not all, but some raw foodists kick up such a fuss about eating any cooked foods, but taking drugs is ok for some? It just seems so strange to me, even hypocritical. Just my opinion.

Spirituality is not owned, and it can never be owned. Your opinion of what is spiritual is different than my opinion which is different than someone else. I find a lot of what I see in the raw foods community to be cult-like, and often orthorexic. I accept that, knowing that it could be worse. However, the cult like status is what bothers me mostly. Moral high ground is not good. I am sure the Native American Church is surprised to learn their peyote healing is an escape from reality. I thought it was an escape from rampant alcoholism and despair, personally.

I accept I may be hypocritical to you, but everything I do sits well with me, and makes perfect sense. I would not do it otherwise. Nor do I have any desire to escape reality, but to face it head on. If I were going to escape reality I would choose something a bit more mellow than healing sacraments. Like, heroin or booze or something.

Raw foods do not "purify" you. That is a very dangerous illusion, IMO, that often leads to unhealthy fixations, like trying to ingest 100% non-cooked foods at absolutely any cost when 99% (even 95%) is going to give you the exact same results. As for "no drugs [giving] genuine spiritual experiences," well, nearly every culture throughout time and space would disagree. Nearly every one of those cultures has used "drugs" to explore non-ordinary realities. The ideas that plant based psychotropic substances (whole foods) are remotely similar to industrial pharmaceuticals and narcotics is a very new, very modern one. In sum, there is no need to call anyone here a hypocrite for their choices.

Hi Advaya,

That was truly a great post , thank you again for sharing x No I absolutely never felt you were emotionally unstable.... but hadnt realised you werent taking shrooms regularly. My mistake x
Thats why I was curios about the stomach issues.

Much love Matty x

i just thought i would clarify that psilocybin is not toxic and neither are the psychedelic mushrooms in any amount that you could possibly eat. sometimes we are misled. there are of course a few psilocybin species that contain toxins as well as psylocybin or something simmilar, but they are not traditionally used.
also, thc is soluable in oil and does not need to be heated. let it sit long enough and you will have what you are looking for.

Cannabis is the tree of life a god given gift to us, not only the flowers but the entire plant, for fiber&food, but one has to use it PROPERLY and for the right reasons, cannabis will enhance yourself, use it wrongly and it will enhance the wrongness! use it right and it will open up doors to your inner soul and take you to places you never thought exist, as far as health concerns, smoke is bad, so best ways to use it are either a vaporizer, eating it, and using a water pipe(bong), with that said, even in a joint, the worst way of using it, the pros outshine the cons by a lot.

Here's a recipe for cannacoco oil, its not 100% raw but given coco oil high resistance to heat to me it seems pretty ok:

Whole Marijuana in Water with Coconut Oil

(Use 1 ounce cannabis to 14-16 ounces of Coconut Oil)

1. Simmer cannabis in a small pot half-full of water for about one hour, stirring occasionally.

2. Add coconut oil; stirring gently, bring to a simmer. Remove from heat.

3. Let sit for 2 days (slow extraction process - this does NOT degrade the oil, and so is more in line with your raw foods philospohy).

4. Reheat until oil is melted.

5. Strain, refrigerate and separate the oil from the water:

A. Line a strainer or colander with cheesecloth and place over pot or bowl at least as large as pot containing oil/water/cannabis mix

B. Pour mixture over cheesecloth-line strainer; allow to cool until cool enough to handle; remove herby cheesecloth from strainer

C. Twist the cheesecloth bundle to wring-out your herb; if desired (to extract maximum amount of oil from cannabis material), you can pour 1-2 cups of boiling water over your cannabis cloth pouch while it rests in the strainer - then squeeze out this additional water as well

D. Pour liquid into a pot that fits in your 'fridge. Cover, let cool, then refrigerate this water/oil mixture for at least 24 hours. The oil will harden on top.

E. After 24 hours, separate oil from water by first removing a pie-shaped wedge from top, then pull off all remaining oil chunks

F. Dry the oil by placing it on a paper towel and gently patting off excess water from bottom; bottom surface of oil that was in contact with water might be mushy. You can scrape it off if desired and use it in a recipe that can tolerate a bit of moisture in it (authors recommend brownies).

G. Now you have chunks of MJ infused Coconut oil (they will be white when solid because of the oil's opaque nature, but will turn green again when heated); place dried chunks in small pan and melt until liquid

H. Pour into jars*; cool, cover and refrigerate. If you're not going to use the oil within a week, store it in the freezer. Remove from refrigerator/freezer and allow to soften before use.

*The authors suggest storing oil in wide-mouth mason jars for easy measurement in recipes.

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Another recipe for 100% raw cannabis infused olive oil(I've personally used it and it works great, only down thing is the time for making it, oh taste isn't great either..):

Piece apart dried buds (do not grind).

Place buds in mason jar (or other air-tight glass container) and cover the buds with oil (maybe a 1/4 - 1/5 inch of oil above the top of the buds... you may need to add a little more oil throughout the infusion process, IF the buds swell and soak up the oil).

Stir oil/bud mixture well.

Seal container.

Store in a dark place, like a closed cupboard or pantry for 3-4 weeks.

Vigorously shake mixture daily; remove lid to "burp" mixture once each week. While the jar is open, sniff for signs of spoilage; visually inspect for mold. These problems are unlikely with olive oil, as it is highly resistant to oxidation, but better safe than sorry.

At the end of the infusion cycle (3 weeks MINIMUM), strain oil through cheesecloth, removing all plant material. Be sure to "press" the plant material during removal (gather the ends of the cheesecloth around a wooden spoon and twist to "wring out" the oil soaked cannabis).

The remaining oil is your cannabis infusion.

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Cannabis is anti-inflammatory, antinociceptive, anti-ulcer and antitumor and that is just a part of its activities! the reason it works so perfectly with our body is that the same naturals chemicals that are inside the plant are also used in a system in our body called "endocannabinoid system", you can read more about it at : http://www.endocannabinoid.net/, so it basically just enhance that system, cannabis works WITH our body and NOT AGAINST it like other "drugs", our body has receptors specially designed to pick up those chemicals and use them because of our build in system, if you are interested in some more knowledge you can roam around http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez it holds all recent scientific researches, write there, cannabis, thc, endocannabinoid, cbd, cannabinoid or anything else that is related to cannabis, names of diseases also would give good results, also write down a search for "mechoulam R" its the name of an Israeli professor who does lots of work on cannabis medical use, he is the person(well he and he's team) who first broke down cannabis's chemical composition in the 60's and subsequently discovered the endocannabinoid system.

Also another word on dealers and drug trafficking, I agree with every word on the wrongness of that in today's world, unfortunately because cannabis is illegal in most of the world, cannabis usually comes to us in less the pleasant ways, and you can also never know what is really in there, for example in Israel is it common knowledge that Adolan(synthetic heroin) is added to hash to make it addictive.. the only way to avoid it is growing yourself, which can be done completely stealthy and if you keep your mouth shut you have almost 0% chance of getting caught, or buying from someone who grows it responsibly.

Thanks for the info!

Since I've been RAW my desire to smoke has lessened, going from all day to once a week or less.

what can you do with dried stems?

Zoe,

Mushrooms absolutely did NOT come to Earth from outer space. Mushrooms are fungi, and fungi have their own branch on the tree of life. All living things on Earth today are related--they have a common ancestor. You can look at the characteristics of mushrooms, including DNA, and see who they're most closely related to and where they branched out on the tree of life as life evolved on Earth. Fungi and animals are fairly closely related--fungi are more closely related to animals than they are to plants, in fact. About 1.5 billion years ago, there were no fungi nor animals, but there was a population of single-celled organisms that was their common ancestor. That population somehow became separated into at least two groups that no longer interbred with the other group; one of the groups evolved into fungi, the other into animals.

Now, as to what degree material from outer space influenced the very earliest development of life on Earth... I think that's something people are still trying to figure out (and maybe we'll never know for sure).

Ya serious, I agree with Tomsmom. Why are we talking about drugs?

isn't smoking pot the opposite of healthy. Smoking anything is bad for your lungs. Plus most of my friends that smoke are fat and talk in circles.

I will be attempting to make raw cannacoconutbutter by wrapping a mixture of finely ground buds, coconut butter, and extra coconut oil in foil and warming it in the sun periodically over a couple weeks. I will report back with my findings :D If this works out I will use it to make tasty vanilla coconut macaroons.

addicted- There are ways to consume cannabis without smoking it, you know. : ) Vaporizers exist, and many people have them. There are almost no drawbacks to vaporizing cannabis whatsoever. None of the people I know who smoke weed are fat, nor do they talk in circles. Causation≠Correlation.

I think it should also be noted that without the MDMA experience I had, I may not be vegan right now, and without the psilocybin experience I had, I almost certainly would not be raw. That's not to say I wouldn't arrive at this point eventually through my own exploration, but psychedelics are brilliant catalysts for thought, and I have made some of my most positive changes with their aid, including going vegan/raw. Such misunderstood substances.

When I was 19 or so I decided to experiment with various mind-altering substances; namely cannabis, salvia and believe it or not, Morning Glory seeds. The Morning Glory was by far the most powerful (the fact that I took 7 grams might have had something to do with it ;p). I could feel my soul "dissociating" from my body and had to meditate very intensely not to let that happen (in between puking my guts out!). I feel that if I had let that happen then I would have transformed into something else entirely and I was very unprepared for that to happen. M view on these substances is that they tear down the walls that living in this society builds around and inside of us that prevent us from truly knowing who - or what we are. Some people just are not ready for that, including me.

An observation I had later that week totally blew my mind away. As I was walking into the backyard of a friend of mine and into the blaring sunshine I had the most intense feeling of being entirely connected with the earth and the air and just everything, caught me by surprise! Perhaps it was a residual manifestation of the plant.

The Salvia was very interesting as well but not quite as haunting as the Morning Glory.

You should try LSD if you enjoyed morning glory seeds! LSD is much more lucid, less intoxicating than LSA, and won't make you ill, but is otherwise similar. Although it will be much more difficult to find, and it is illegal to possess.

I have strong feelings on this since I am here because of my drug past. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia 3 years ago and believe drugs contributed to it. I smoked pot for a long time, but I took 'E' for for 7 years until I was diagnosed. I was not a stupid drug user, so did my research before trying it. I took 5HTP before and after to increase my serotonin levels. Low serotin levels are associated with Fibromyalgia and Depression. I stopped drinking, smoking and any other drugs after my diagnosis. Then I went RAW for awhile. But soon I was back to eating bad and took 'E' about 9 months ago. It had been years and I took too much. I was not able to reach a level that I remembered and kept taking more. It was horrible the next day. I currently am in a Fibro Flare and just started taking medication for Depression. I take about 5 pills 3 times a day. I hope I can get back to RAW and heal myself. I will not be doing anymore drugs. My husband is a brewer, so I do taste his beer, but at the last beer festival I did not drink.

Sorry to hear that Jen. Out of curiosity, how often did you take it? Did you test your pills with reagents every time? All the 5-HTP in the world won't prevent serotonin issues if you take it took frequently/too many times overall.

Alexa- I took it about monthly for as few years, sometimes more often. Then it became more like twice a year as time went by. It always got it from friends who said it was good but I never tested it myself.