An interactive interview with Hippie3. The man behind topia.

i thought maybe some of y'all might like
to interview me
kinda like we did for pf in those chronicles.
folks talk about doing an article
ever so often
so maybe this can be a start.
anyone have any questions
they'd like to ask me ?
please don't ask me to incriminate myself
or give out personal identification info,
etc.
but if you are curious about things we can talk about without getting me in trouble,
then ask & i'll do my best to answer
as truthfully as i can under these circumstances.
if i'm a bit vague, i hope you understand the necessity

Ok, how about we start off with the big one.

What part of you do you think it is that seeks out confrontation? As a casual observer, I see you go after your enemies like a doberman.

Many would choose to ignore their enemies, which would cause them to fade into oblivion. Normally, if you push a person, they will push back. You've chosen a different path. Care to explain?

You mentioned that one time you met God , face to face , during an intense trip . Could you share the details with us ?

What part of you do you think it is that seeks out confrontation? As a casual observer, I see you go after your enemies like a doberman.


experience has taught me that one must fully resolve an issue,
one cannot safely just
turn their back
to their enemy and walk away.

for me
the critical point comes when
i determine that someone is indeed
my enemy,
not just pissed off
but out to get me,
and persistant.

see,
if they just sting me once or twice
if the wound is minor
i might shine it on
as there are better things to do
than waste my energy
swatting every flea that bites me.

but when i see an enemy that means to do me serious harm
and persists at it
then my mind makes the decision
that here is
my enemy.

so i then do my best to neutralize the threat
forever.
i'm not talking murder.
i'm just talking about removing their fangs,
pulling their claws,
weakening them by going after the assets
until they are impotent,
willing but yet unable to harm me.

i hit back so hard that they see the wisdom in leaving me alone.
i'm open to repentance and apology,
if an enemy has had enough
and chooses a different path.
but until that happens
my enemy is my enemy.

life is ruthless
and so am i if wronged.
maybe it's the irish mixing with the german in my blood,
or maybe it's because i've had a pretty hard life
and had to fight and claw my way just to get anywhere.
i am what i am,
and i can accept that.

btw-
i reserve the right to include a small amount of bullshit to protect the guilty and make for a better tale.

What led you to creating this Website..?

You mentioned that one time you met God , face to face , during an intense trip . Could you share the details with us ?

that was my eye-opening,
my first real vision.
i ran into a friend
who knew a friend with some hash.
i wanted some
so my friend took me
to see his friend.
as we set there bullshitting,
checking out the hash
[which was good, btw]
he pulled out a big fat bag of shrooms.
so i said
'hey man, i'd like some of those, too.'
so i ended up buying an ounce of each,
dried cubensis and blond lebanese.
i hadn't seen either in quite a long time
so i was naturally pleased
and went home to celebrate.

i ate about 14 dry grams [1/2 ounce] of the shrooms
and also injested about 3 grams of the hash
[ate it too.]
i had this old audio cassette tape of some hindu chants
and another cassette called 'planet drum'
by mickey hart.
i set up my double tape deck to play one after the other and then repeat,
so the music would last all night.
i turned on some mood lighting,
lit some incense
turned off the phone,
bared the doors, closed the curtains
and laid down on my couch,
just listening to the chants and the drums.

at some point in time
my soul left my body and began to travel thru
time and space,
there was an 'angellic' [for lack of a better word] being that acted as my 'guide',
and it showed me many things and revealed many secret truths to me.
much of what i learned
the 'angel' told me to never reveal,
and told me no one would believe me anyway,
that i'd only hurt myself if i tried to tell.
so it locked away a large portion of my memory from my conscious access to protect me.
but i still remember many things
that it said were ok to talk about
although still no one would believe me.

it showed me the entire history of the human race,
it took me back to when life began as some slime on a rock,
and for a million years i lived the life of that slimy rock.
then it began to take me thru a series of incarnations
as various lifeforms as life evolved.
to borrow a phrase, it showed me a brief history of time.

i saw all my ancestors stretched out like a railroad into the past,
and i saw their abject misery
and heard the cries of a billion lost souls who had suffered in life.
it showed me that we were living in slavery,
but one day we would be free.

as time continued to unfold before my eyes
it began showing me the future,
my own personal destiny as well as that of the universe itself.
i discovered that before i was even born
the things that would eventually kill me
had already been set in motion,
that my death had always been part of my destiny
and there was nothing to fear.

i saw that life and the universe as we know it is an illusion,
just patterns of energy dancing before the eye of god.
i saw that the purpose of the universe
was to become The Greatest Story Ever Told
that life was drama
and we are actors playing a part,
with each of us having our unique thing to do.

i saw that some people play bit parts,
making a brief appearance and die young
or remain a part of the faceless masses,
the audience that watches this drama
being acted out across the time-space matrix.
i saw that some people had leading roles,
and i saw that each of got to take turns
playing out each and every role over time,
re-living life in the same vessel so that
each of us knew what it felt like to be a king,
a beggarman, a thief, a cripple, a woman, a child,
good, evil, wise, foolish,
a proud father, a grieving mother, a widow, a slave, etc.
we played each role
so we could understand that part of the drama fully.
so we could see for ourselves what was right
and what was wrong,
life was an education,
it teaches us.

the bibles have it all wrong,
god doesn't make up rules and shove them down our throats,
he lets each of us live and learn so we can discover why
it is better to be good than to be evil, why one should not murder,
why one should not chase after false gods, etc.
i saw that some religions had come close to the truth
but not one was really right,
the truth was much greater than they thought-
for we are actually what they claim jesus was,
we are god become flesh,
a splinter of the universal conciousness
that will soon return from whence it came,
to be reunited as one but yet many.

i could not stand to look directly into the light that surrounded god,
it was far too bright
but i saw from a distance what looked like a halo
around a star
but as i got closer i realized that the halo was actually billions of 'angels' dancing around the light of god
and they were singing to him their love and admiration.
and i could see the world
and its' problems and so could the 'angels'.

and i saw angel after angel coming before god
and pleading for him to send them back
so they could help the people of the world.
even though they knew that to become flesh
was to endure agony and death
but their love was so great
that they leaped at the chance to suffer for others.
and so they threw themselves into the world and became flesh,
entering the world as a baby
to help work out the plan of god here.

i saw pure love,
it radiated from god like
sunshine, i could feel its' soothing warmth
and knew then how utterly safe i was.
and then my guide told me that i had to go back,
just as i saw the angels doing,
and that i had some work to do.
that god would always be at my side.
and so
i came back
and here i am.

(Message edited by admin on December 06, 2004)

What sparked your interest in mushrooms in the first place, if from an interest in eating them, how did that develop into an interest in their cultivation?

[reefer]

I'm not sure if you can answer this but I was curious about your age.

[shedthemonkey]

I know much of your physical suffering came from a motorcycle accident. Even so, do you have a "Dream Bike"?, the ideal motorcycle? Does it exist already or would it be a custom job? Would you please describe it?

[cleanjar]

how often do you take a shower
and do you use soap/shampoo??

and i hope you dont wear patchoulii..
that might be a "problem".

a lot of hippies dont shower often
that is why i ask.

do you often go days on end
without changeing into clean clothes?

and i hope that you brush your teeth
twice a day
and cut/clean your finger/toe-nails
at least once every week or two

Whats the story with your Nick ?

I know you answered this before but that thread is long gone.

Peace...

What led you to creating this Website..?

another long story.
basically i created it
because i kept getting
tossed off all the other websites.
folks have been trying to shut me up
almost since the first day i found the internet.
there had been basically just 2 places to go
for shroom info when i found the scene-
the shroomery and usenet/alt.drugs.mushrooms
i found ADM first as usenet is easy, i could get there on my old webtv
[go ahead and laugh but it got me here ]
at first i was just a newbie like every starts out, so i began gobbling up all the info i could find.
i had tried growing shrooms before with limited success but the internet was a real eye-opener.
i got some spores from pf and made a few cakes and got me some shrooms.
i'm a natural teacher kind of person,
i enjoy it
so i began answers questions for folks on usenet,
what little i knew, just to kind of repay what i felt as a debt of gratitude to the community.
after awhile i began to be
one of the regulars,
posting on ADM every day like i now do here.
one day, about 6 years ago now,
a big ruckus began to flare up
as some new vendors showed up on the scene
and began trying to put pf out of business
by spreading lies like pf's spores grew shrooms thst made one sick, etc.
i knew those were lies
and since pf had helped me out,
i did my best to help him out.
i began to document and expose certain individuals who were involved,
earning me their permanent hate
even unto this day.
that was proly my biggest mistake on the 'net,
getting in the middle of someone else's fight.
i'm still paying the price.
but i did what i thought was right at the time,
i defended pf with all my power.
and we fought them to a standstill,
the community divided into two camps,
one side pretty much hung out at shroomery,
the other stayed on ADM.
those of us left on ADM began to talk about
how we needed an alternative to shroomery
due to their involvement in commercialism.
one of our regular posters, a fellow calling himself 'karl brooks' had also joined in the fight to defend pf,
and old karl was kinda special.
see, karl had some kind of multiple personality disorder/obsession,
he played dozens of different personas at the same time.
one of karl's personas was called 'ben dover'.
and ben dover got in a big personal dispute
with captain max over at sporelab
and happened to own some server space
so he put up a website called
'DroolDonkey' as a gag-site meant to mock max.
a bunch of us,
meaning me and several of karl's personas
that i thought were different people
but were actually him in disguise,
decided it'd be great if we used that server space to create a real website that could be like shroomery but better.
we started out as full partners,
ben dover and i were both admins
for a couple of minutes
before he changed him mind,
demoted me and took control.
but i didn't care too much as he still granted me wide authority to do my thing
so i set about the task of building a website.
i copied and pasted everything i could find about mushrooms everywhere on the 'net
and brought it back to drooldonkey.
i began posting our link over at shroomery
inviting folks to come check us out
and at first a few did
but then it began to turn into a flood,
and the site really took off,
becoming the first real major rival to shroomery.
at first ben pretty much let me run the place,
but soon my enemies began to infiltrate
and started whispering against me,
and ben began to listen
and gradually he turned against me.
eventually he took over my nym and began impersonating me, framing me for stuff i never did.
they banned me,
and i returned to ADM and resumed posting there.
but old ben was too nutty,
his multiple personalities began to unravel
and folks began to see that all was not right.
one day ben just pulled the plug,
boom- drooldonkey was gone.
no warning,
a pity too as a great deal was lost.
the members scattered and a few formed new sites for the refugees,
the primary one become theforestfloor.
but i wasn't welcome there,
old ben had damaged my reputation
and my old enemies were still there and powerful
so i drifted back to ADM, occasionally posting at shroomery or forestfloor but not really welcome at either site, as soon as i posted folks would come out and begin attacking me, calling me names, etc.
but i pretty much enjoy a good fight so i held my ground and kept working, teaching.
alot of folks had heard of me by then.
well
i began working on my invitro project
and learned about dunking at the very same time.
when i discovered how well both teks worked,
i began to publish my results at all the various sites, shroomery, forestfloor, adm.
of course as always i was promptly attacked,
set upon by multiple faceless nyms
who called me a liar and ridiculed the teks,
etc.
i fought back as best as i could
to prove both teks worked
but the only one who listened was pf,
who saw the potential of invitro
and promptly added it to his tek,
and his book, the first and only official
improvement to the pf tek
and he credited me
which pissed off my enemies even more.
they began to demand that i be banned,
said i was a trouble-maker, a liar.
the forestfloor was first,
they banned me.
a few days later
the shroomery followed suit.
putting me right back where i began,
on ADM.
by this time
i'm starting to get a little pissed off
so i said fuck it,
i'm going to build a site
where no one can ban me
because i'll be the one doing the banishing.
so i looked around and found a server in ireland
and the guy helped me build a site
and got me up and running online for a couple hundred bucks.
so i then began to do
what i had done before at drooldonkey,
i began by copying everything i could find to mycotopia, building a data base
and i began posting the link every where i could.
of course
not everyone hated me or was my enemy,
i had met quite a few by then who respected
and/or admired my work
and soon the new site began to hum along,
small but steadily growing.
soon though i learned a hard lesson about the 'net- as soon as you build something valuable someone else will come along and try to get a slice of your pie.
my server-hosting company noticed my bandwidth useage climbing
and suddenly decided to change the terms of our agreement and sent me a large bill,
back-charging me for hundreds of dollars worth of bandwidth
and threatening me with immediate shut off
if i didn't pay up right away.
well,
i had put alot of work into building 'topia
so i naturally blew my stack.
in my rage
i overturned my computer desk and
killed my poor old system.
bang-
i was in the dark again.
i was offline about 3 months
before i was able to get it fixed.
it was halloween eve 2001.
i looked for my old site to see what that jerk had done to it,
found it was gone
but there was a pointer to a new mycotopia
on another server.
seems the members of 'topia had,
in my absence/sudden disappearance,
handled everything themselves,
got some space from a very kind sponsor
picked up a freeware version of discus
and had resurrected what they could.
i was pleasantly surprised
and announced my return.
i've been here ever since.
mycotopia's been thru a lot of changes since then.
at first when i got back
i was just another member helping out
but soon they returned my admin powers
and once again the site was mine.
but that really didn't set well with some,
who had their eye on the spot for themselves,
a guy named nan and his friends.
a few of my old enemies had gotten in too during my absence, and they murmured against me behind my back and complained about my decisions
and eventually
almost exactly a year to the day after my return
nan made his move.
he demanded that i resign as admin and turn the site over to him,
claiming i was unfit and harming the site,
that he could do better.
he had alot of popular support here too,
nan was a good people person
and he worked at being a guru.
but naturally i refused to step aside for him
and another big fight ensued.
i ended up firing and banning most of the mods at that time [imok being the only exception]
as well as booting about 1/3 of the membership.
it was, to say the least,
a severe blow.
nan tried to destroy what was left,
but we held on and gradually healed.
they left and founded another site
nan's nook,
nan eventually went nuts like dover/brooks did
and they took over his site
renaming it the nook, and it's still there today,
and i'm still banned there too.
lol
i moved off my old server [then in canada]
since he was a friend of theirs
and onto the server of a member here
where i've been ever since.
we got new members and new mods
and carried on with our work
which pretty much brings us up to today.

My hat's off to ya Hip, cause this is the sweetest spot on the web..i'm glad u n Max r OK now too..

[morella]

Hippie, were you kidding when you said that you were once a preacher or was that true?

(Message edited by morella on December 06, 2004)

This is a cool thread :-)

[fantasydealer]

Hey Hip, I have a question for you,
Why is there a 3 at the end of your
name? Since you where the fist on this
site you should have been able to get
the origanal? Or is there some meaning
behind it? thanks, cool thread by the way.

FantasyDealer

1. What’s the significance behind the name “Hippie3”?
2. What was your first introduction to psychedelics? (Mushrooms, LSD, Mescaline and such)
3. What has been the basis, or the reason behind your continuing experimentation with such “hardcore” psychedelic drugs?
4. You frequently speak of “Destiny.” The word implies a destination of some sort. What is you understanding of destiny, and what part, if any, do we humans play in shaping our own?
5. If you can choose two words, mantras if you will, that you find most important to you. (example: grace and humility)


Thanks Hip
-AoA

who are those three characters under all your posts?,.........im gonna bet that its got somthing to do with the 3 after hippie

(Message edited by Quagmyer on December 07, 2004)

Do you have any regrets from your time at ADM?

Do you see an end to the "drama" that has haunted the OMC?

[shamrox]

Are you Indian? Just wondering due to the "Namaste" at the bottom of your posts. Maybe Hindu?

I think it's me you're thinking of Morella. I used to be a preacher, but that was long ago.

What sparked your interest in mushrooms in the first place, if from an interest in eating them, how did that develop into an interest in their cultivation?

i had to learn to grow them
in order to get them,
they were almost never to be found on the streets.
and my primary interest is in eating them,
i never set out to be a pro grower.
but once i started
my curiosity got the best of me,
i had to know everything there was to know.
then i gradually came to believe that my destiny
was intertwined with shrooms,
that i was to play a pivotal role.
so i stuck with it,
as my ministry.
my service, my atonement for my many many sins.
and it's fun,
i get to meet lots of great & interesting folks.
frankly i don't grow any more,
haven't had a shroom in the house for months.
don't even trip that often when i did keep them on hand.
i'm just here now for you all.
to share what little i know.

I'm not sure if you can answer this but I was curious about your age.

i'm old, grey headed and toothless.
i can't hear or see very well,
can barely walk.
hemorroids, dry flaky skin, arthritis
are my daily companions.
let's just say
old enough.

know much of your physical suffering came from a motorcycle accident. Even so, do you have a "Dream Bike"?, the ideal motorcycle? Does it exist already or would it be a custom job? Would you please describe it?

i'd love to have a custom trike [three wheeler]
i can see it in my head
but it's hard to describe.
black and chrome,
big fat tires on the back,
stretched out front fork,
keg of beer & build-in grill/cooler
on the back for tail-gating.
maybe a tech'd-out VW motor to power it,
killer stereo to lure the honeys closer.
you get the picture.
and i'd have a dirt bike too,
light but powerful,
just for off-road fun, mud.

(Message edited by admin on December 07, 2004)

how often do you take a shower
and do you use soap/shampoo??

do you often go days on end
without changeing into clean clothes?

my old house doesn't even have a shower
but i do take baths,
and the wife makes me use soap, too.
i go for days on end
without ever even putting on cloths,
let alone clean ones.

Whats the story with your Nick ?

i like to stay a bit vague on that issue,
kinda fun to let folks speculate.
let's just say
it is both
meaningful and meaningless.
but i've kept this same nic
since the 1st day i hit the 'net.
i know lots of us change nyms frequently
but i decided to stick with one
just to make sure
everyone knew my name,
that my 'record' would follow me.
perhaps i'm being a stubborn old fool,
it'd be so easy to shed all the hippie3 baggage,
just a few cosmetic changes
and presto- i'm a new man.
but no,
i decided to stick with it,
the pluses and the minuses
so folks can judge my long term actions.
if one wanted to they can go to usenet
and pull out my posts from 5-6 years ago
and see for themselves my consistancy
or lack of it.
on the internet
a name is everything.
you can be a nobody if you want, anytime.
but it's much harder to become a somebody.
that takes an investment of time & energy.

were you kidding when you said that you were once a preacher or was that true?

it's true,
i spent a few years as a bible-thumper.
studied every religious book i could get my hands on,
christian bibles, koran, hindu, buddhist.
raised a catholic, went to catholic school,
even was an alter boy, briefly.
lol
like a lot of folks
i got religion in a jail cell.
when they threw me in there,
i knew i'd hit rock bottom,
the end of the line.
i also knew i had a lot of time to kill
so i picked up an old worn copy of good king james' translation
and started reading.
being the type of fellow i am,
i threw myself into the task,
and after a couple years of study
i knew my bibles inside and out.
better than most preaches do, i daresay.

i even preached the gospel
in the markets, on the street corners,
even house-to-house.
was never a presiding minister in a formal church,
just a deacon but i prefered the old fashioned
ministry, we met in our private homes instead of cathedrals,
we had discussion groups instead of masses, very informal.
but i did do my stint as a foot soldier for the xian god.

but i gradually became aware of the tiny flaws,
the little cracks in the doctrines & translations
that give away the horrible truth that it's all manufactured, packaged and sold.
i began to see the churches as instruments of oppression,
just another power block in the social construct
that enslaved our species so many centuries ago.
i no longer practice any religion
but i proly come closest to being some kind of buddhist at heart.

(Message edited by admin on December 07, 2004)

What was your first introduction to psychedelics? (Mushrooms, LSD, Mescaline and such)

i suppose that was way back in 1974 or so,
my girlfriend and i were driving over to
the dealer's house to get a bag of smoke
when she pulled out what she said
was 1/2 of a 4-way hit of 'windowpane' [LSD]
and stuck it in my mouth.
acid was all we found around in those days,
knew what shrooms were but no one had any.
i did run into what was claimed was mesc,
but i have my doubts.
there was strawberry & chocolate mesc
it was kind of a granular powder
i think, in hindsight, it might have been
one of the early 'designer' drugs,
perhaps MDA.
but mostly we did purple microdots or green blotter, etc.
i was just a kid, more interested in
sex, drugs & rock 'n roll
than anything profound.

What has been the basis, or the reason behind your continuing experimentation with such “hardcore” psychedelic drugs?

i like to get high.

i love the feelings i get on shroomage,
the warm fuzzy orgasmic love
for everyone and everything,
the utter compassion and understanding for life.
and i'm a bit of an amatuer scientist,
have been since i was a young boy.
got my telescopes and my microscopes,
and i love deductive logic and so
my two fields of interest
overlap nicely.

You frequently speak of “Destiny.” The word implies a destination of some sort. What is you understanding of destiny, and what part, if any, do we humans play in shaping our own?


as i mentioned,
i see life as
a great Shakespearean play,
a comedy, a tragedy, a mystery,
drama.
meant to entertain,
eternity gets pretty boring
if nothing's happening
so this whole crazy mega-multi-verse
is kind of like your local
megaplex cinema,
each person's life
is a different 'movie'.
some of the movies are sequels, or spin-offs.
they intermix and intertwine
with a constant theme
that we call history.

as far as shaping our own,
like i mentioned in my vision,
i think each of us already
volunteered for this mission,
we knew what we were going to
be doing here before we came here.
so that's free will,
the volunteering part
but once we became flesh
we were locked into our role, our part,
our character.
we have to say our lines,
and we show up in the proper scenes
and act out our bit of this drama,
no 'free will' there because we're
just following the script.
even if we flub our line
or try to ad lib
that changes nothing,
such has already been
factored into the plan,
no act of ours could change the
outcome.
i don't know yet
how the play ends,
just like the rest of the universe
i'm still perched on the edge of my seat,
watching as the drama unfolds
waiting to see what
the Director has in mind for
his grande finale.


(Message edited by admin on December 19, 2004)