Talk:Ego death

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Hey everyone. What is this article to be based on? Where does this term come from? Is anyone devoted to fleshing this out? The ambiguious and confusing nature of this stub now seems to beg nomination for deletion. 66.41.66.213 04:30, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The term is frequently used in acidhead communities (of which there is no lack on the internet. If I recall, erowid.org and deoxy.org are full of stuff about it. Pthag 12:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


Just a note: ego-death is possible through the use of marijuana. - anon

Adding on to that, It usually takes a higher than normal dose of most drugs. However, they all act differently, and I have heard ego death is much easier to achieve with DMT than say, alcohol. --HL-SDK 17:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Cultural historical usage indicates that cannabis should also be considered as a potentiator of other visionary plants, as a potentiator; it is a "present-ism" error to only consider cannabis used alone versus another plant used alone. Even in the first-world 1960s, it was common for cannabis to be used in conjunction with LSD, so we should be cautious about assuming to pit one plant, used in isolation, against another; compare ayahuasca formation from *combinations* of plants. MichaelSHoffman (talk) 21:40, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] How to expand this article

First do a quick and dirty brainstorm draft, setting aside Wikipedia requirements per the official "Rule 1: ignore all rules"; then in a subsequent phase, tighten up the article.

Stanislav Grof's book Ultimate Journey has "ego death" hits in fulltext: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0966001990

Fulltext search of some of Grof's books: http://books.google.com/books?as_q=&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=ego+death&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_libcat=0&as_brr=3&as_auth=Grof

One of Ken Wilber's books, such as No Boundary, discusses types of "death" at each level of psychospir. devel. Try fulltext search for ego death at http://www.amazon.com/o/asin/1570627436

Stephen Gaskin's book Amazing Dope Tales has definitive 60s usage of the term (search fulltext for: ego death): http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1579510108/ref=sib_dp_pt/002-7338888-9744054#reader-link


Book fulltext search: http://books.google.com/books?tab=sp&sa=N&um=1&hl=en&q=%22ego+death%22

Scholarly articles search: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?um=1&tab=ws&hl=en&q=%22ego%20death%22 Extract, compile, and merge the definitions of "ego death" from these published works.

Web pages: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q=%22ego+death%22


No online fulltext found:

The book Holy Madness by Georg Feuerstein includes sections: God, Enlightenment, and ego-death -- The loss of God and faith -- The ego illusion -- The mystical ego -- A new life through ego-death. http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1890772542

Stanislav Grof's book Beyond Death: The Gates of Consciousness http://www.amazon.com/o/asin/0500810192

-- MichaelSHoffman 20:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Title of article

The article was originally titled "Ego death". It was a mistake to rename the article to the non-standard term "Ego disintegration". This decision has nothing to do with "neutral point of view" and "death being non-neutral"; this naming decision must be based on the standard language. The term 'ego death' appears 38 times more frequently per Google than the non-standard term 'ego disintegration'.

The article should be reverted back to the title "Ego death" MichaelSHoffman (talk) 05:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The article title has been reverted by someone back to the de facto standard terminology, "Ego death". In future, moving/re-titling as article such as this should request community input before such a modification. MichaelSHoffman (talk) 21:40, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Synonym

It's usually used synonymously with "ego loss", if that helps in the hunt for bona-fide sources. Fearwig 23:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

'Ego dissolution' also appears to be used. 66.11.179.30 (talk) 10:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Naming, "death"?

death is associated in such a negative manner in main stream experience consciousness, I believe ego - disintegration, or "ego loss", would be more relevant positive terms as this article's name. --Procrastinating@talk2me 12:07, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

→Yes, this point has been raised before (see above).
First of all: when you say...

death is associated in such a negative manner in main stream experience consciousness

...is your concern that there is something misleading or inaccurate or offensive about the name of this article? Because, here's the thing: "ego death" hurts, man -- make no mistake about it. And its name, then, is in part meant, I suppose•(see below), to convey the sense that it's just not the sort of thing you 'd want to mess around with lightly, or "for fun," or because you were having a slow day at work, or whatever.
Second of all:
  • It is not like "disintegration."
  • It is not like "loss."
  • It is not like "dissolution."
  • It is, though, a lot like death.
But by all means: if you can find a valid reference that discusses the subject-matter of this article (and as it is now named) in terms of "disintegration," "disolution," or whatever else -- hell, go ahead put it up there! I doubt it'll be a lot worse than the "egodeath.com" contributions, anyway! And, as in all things, especially at Wikipedia: the more the merrier!
Please let me know if I can in any way further, or more relevantly, etc, address any point you would like to make about this matter.
Image:Face-grin.svg—Wikiscient— 03:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
• I didn't name it myself, of course -- that was actually done by an international committee of highly-trained psychonautical professionals a few years back, by a process of negotiation and secret balloting which went on (I heard) for a long time... so there's no need for the likes of us to get all caught up in that sort of thing now ourselves, I hope — right?

The phenomenology of ego death does involve disintegration, loss, and dissolution of cognitive patterns and mental-association structures; also suspension of accustomed cognitive patterns and structuring. Thus the literature about ego death phenomenology uses all of this language. MichaelSHoffman (talk) 21:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I've never posted on wikipedia so please forgive me if i do not follow proper procedure yet.

I don't think it is worth changing the article name or the concept of ego-death over it. I certainly think the scary part of the word death is helpful, and if you've had a high dose of Salvinorin-A, you know what I mean. But it is worth debating. Unless you have actually died, you don't "know" for sure if it is alot like death. Even if you have had "near death" experiences, it is still only that, you don't come back from "real" death. I personally believe that total ego death is in fact death, and therefore should not be sought. While we are alive, making friends with death is courting psychosis, which is just suicide from the point of view of those wishing to live, not blissful nirvana. I guess a pop culture analogy would be the matrix, "the body cannot live without the mind" - morpheus

So, ego disintegration or loss to me is as understandable as death, because I'm not sure how you could interpret ego disintegration as sounding fun. When people talk about coping with loss for instance, they are talking about coping with death, usually of a loved one. Disintegration sounds a lot like death to me as well, like you've been hit by a phaser set to disintegrate or whatever like on Star Trek. Oyarsan (talk) 06:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Well: welcome to Wikipedia, Oyarsan! Your contributions, especially seeing as how you sound as if you may yourself be experienced in the relevant way, are welcome both here and in the main article. Also, please by all means feel free to be forgiven if you do not follow proper procedure yet!
I hear what you're saying, above. All-in-all, though, don't you think we should keep the article's name as-is? Or would you like to see it changed?
!
—Wikiscient— 08:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I can tell this is going to be fun, thanks for your confidence. I love how you can use a word and it give it a special meaning, like you did with hearing. I'm totally fine with the name of the article, I'll probably have more thoughts on it after I have given it some more time. Oyarsan (talk) 21:19, 8 April 2008 (UTC)