EROCx1 BLOG

Hunter S. Thompson - Final Hours

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:27:38 PST

Final 24 charts the life of this troubled genius and uncover why a bullet to the head was the only way out. This compelling documentary series unlocks the hidden secrets, psychological flaws and events that result in the tragic deaths of famed notorious and the iconic. Every episode maps out the final 24 hours of a different famous person's life. The series weaves the star's back-story with events from their last day, which lays bare the threads of fate that led inextricably from childhood to the moment of death. These are no ordinary biographies. They're psychological detective stories attempting to uncover the mystery of why the celebrity died. Hunter S. Thompson was an author trapped in the body of a rock star. His drug-fuelled adventures were legendary and became the basis of one of the classics of 20th century literature. Thompson's constant questioning of authority and wild antics made him a hero for a generation of rebels across the globe. But in the end it wasn't enough. A lifetime of alcohol and drug abuse was taking their toll and at 67, with a broken leg, two hip operations and in chronic pain Thompson could no longer live up to the legend he'd created. On February 20, 2005, he decided to end it all with one of his favorite possessions, a Smith and Wesson 45. Final 24 charts the life of this troubled genius and uncover why a bullet to the head was the only way out.

Wade Davis: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:38:10 PST

Speaker: Wade Davis
From: The Long Now Foundation
Location: Cowell Theatre: San Francisco, CA
Download: Mp3
Download: PDF Transcript
Date: January 13, 2010

Anthropologist Wade Davis is one of the world's great story tellers, with personal adventures to match. An Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic, he specializes in hanging out with traditional peoples and exploring their religious practices.

He first came to public notice with his discovery of the reality of zombies in Haitian voodoo and the substance used to poison them---chronicled in his 1985 book, The Serpent and the Rainbow. He is the author of 13 books, including One River and Shadows in the Suns, and has hosted, written, and starred in numerous television specials, including "Earthguide," "Light at the Edge of the World," "Spirit of the Mask," and "Forests Forever." This talk is based on the prestigious Massey Lectures that Davis gave in Canada in 2009.

W. Davis: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World from The Long Now Foundation on FORA.tv

Summary

What does it mean to be human and alive?

The thousands of different cultures and languages on Earth have compellingly different answers to that question. "We are a wildly imaginative and creative species," declares Wade Davis, and then proves it with his accounts and photographs of humanity plumbing the soul of culture, of psyche, and of landscape.

The threat to cultures is often ideological, Davis notes, such as when Mao whispered in the ear of the Dalai Lama that "all religion is poison," set about destroying Tibetan culture.

The genius of culture is the ability to survive in impossible conditions, Davis concludes. We cannot afford to lose any of that variety of skills, because we are not only impoverished without it, we are vulnerable without it.

www.GaianBotanicals.com

Wade Davis author of The Wayfinders at the 2009 Massey Lecture in the Convocation Hall, Toronto, October 31, 2009.

Graham Hancock: 2012 Tipping Point

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:44:21 PST

From: 2012 The Tipping Point
Date: January 22-24, 2010
Future Events: Greatmystery.org

Graham Hancock's chief areas of interest are ancient mysteries, stone monuments or megaliths, ancient myths and astronomical/astrological data from the past. One of the main themes running through many of his books is the possible global connection with a 'mother culture' from which he believes all ancient historical civilizations sprang.

There are texts and traditions coming down to us from the Maya that suggest that this is not just the end of an epoch, but the end of an entire age of the Earth and of everything that has been built and accumulated in the last 5000 years - that this too will come to an end. It's often been said that those who forget the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them. But what if we have forgotten an entire, hugely important episode in human history? Myths and legends from all over the world insist that a great civilization that was technologically advanced, powerful and wise existed in deep antiquity but was wiped from the face of the earth when it "angered the gods". In this lecture, Graham Hancock makes the case for a lost civilization destroyed in a global cataclysm at the end of the last Ice Age around 12,500 years ago. As we approach the fated year 2012 he argues that our civilization, too, despite its technological prowess, might be poised on the brink of becoming the next Atlantis.

Graham Hancock

2012: GLIMMERS OF HOPE

Throughout the world the ancient teachings of indigenous people tell of a time of great change rapidly coming upon us and that it is now beginning its planetary manifestation. The Hopi for example believe that we are walking in the last days.

Graham Hancock was a featured speaker at the Cancun Prophets Conference, has dedicated his life to uncovering the great mysteries dwelling in the meaning of myths and monuments from pre-history. Through his revelatory work it becomes apparent that a warning has been handed down to us, a warning of terrible cataclysm that afflicts the Earth in great cycles at irregular intervals of time—a cataclysm that may be about to recur.

Let’s take a look at this.

From Graham Hancock’s outstanding investigatory book Fingerprints of the Gods, we read the Hopi myth that –

“The present world is the fourth. Its fate will depend on whether or not its inhabitants behave in accordance with the Creator’s plans”

I had come to Arizona to see whether the Hopi thought we were behaving in accordance with the Creator’s plans...

The end of the world

The desolate wind, blowing across the high plains, shook and rattled the sides of the trailer-house we sat in. Beside me was Santha, who’d been everywhere with me, sharing the risks and the adventures, sharing the highs and lows. Sitting across from us was our friend Ed Ponist, a medical-surgical nurse from Lansing, Michigan. A few years previously Ed had worked on the reservation for a while, and it was thanks to his contacts that we were now here. On my right was Paul Sifki, a Ninety-six-year-old Hopi elder of the Spider clan, and a leading spokesman of the traditions of his people. Beside him was his grand-daughter Melza Sifki, a handsome middle-aged woman who had offered to translate.

‘I have heard,’ I said, ‘that the Hopi believe the end of the world is coming. Is this true?’

Paul Sifki was a small, wizened man, nut-brown in color, dressed in jeans and a cambric shirt. Throughout our conversation he never once looked at me, but gazed intently ahead, as though he were searching for a familiar face in a distant crowd.

Melza put my question to him and a moment later translated her grandfather’s reply: ‘He says, “why do you want to know”?’

I explained that there were many reasons. The most important was that I felt a sense of urgency: ‘My research has convinced me that there was an advanced civilization – long, long ago – that was destroyed in a terrible cataclysm. I fear that our own civilization may be destroyed by a similar cataclysm...’

There followed a long exchange in Hopi, then this translation: ‘He said that when he was a child, in the 1900s, there was a star that exploded – a star that had been up there in the sky for a long while…And he went to his grandfather and asked him to explain the meaning of this sign. His grandfather replied: “This is the way our own world will end – engulfed in flames…If people do not change their ways then the spirit that takes care of the world will become so frustrated with us that he will punish the world with flames and it will end just like that star ended.” That was what his grandfather said to him – that the earth would explode just like that exploding star...’

‘So the feeling is that this world will end in fire…And having viewed the world for the past ninety years, does he believe that the behavior of mankind has improved or worsened?’

He says it has not improved. We’re getting worse.’

‘So in his opinion, then, the end is coming?’

‘He said that the signs are already there to be seen…He said that nowadays nothing but the wind blows and that all we do is have a weapon pointed at one another. That shows how far apart we have drifted and how we feel towards each other now. There are no values any more – none at all – and people live any way they want, without morals or laws. These are the signs that the time has come...’

Melza paused in her translation, then added on her own account: ‘This terrible wind. It dries things out. It brings no moisture. The way we see it, this kind of climate is a consequence of how we’re living today – not just us, but your people as well.’

I noticed that her eyes had filled with tears while she was talking. ‘I have a cornfield,’ she continued, ‘that’s really dry. And I look up into the sky and try to pray for rain, but there is no rain, no clouds even…When we’re like this we don’t even know we are.’

There was a long moment of silence and the wind rocked the trailer, blowing hard and steady across the mesa as evening fell around us.

I said quietly, ‘Please ask your grandfather if he thinks that anything can now be done for the Hopi and for the rest of mankind?’

‘The only thing he knows,’ Melza replied when she heard his answer, ‘is that so long as the Hopi do not abandon their traditions they may be able to help themselves and to help others. They have to hold on to what they believed in the past. They have to preserve their memories. These are the most important things…But my grandfather wants to tell you also, and for you to understand, that this earth is the work of an intelligent being, a spirit – a creative and intelligent spirit that has designed everything to be the way it is. My grandfather says that nothing is here just by chance, that nothing happens by accident – whether good or bad – and that there is a reason for everything that takes place...’

"I think we have gone through and are going through the final stages of a very dark age, but I also see glimmers of hope everywhere I look. I see people who are no longer willing to have their thoughts and their consciousness controlled by others, people who seek direct spiritual contact, who recognize that the established monotheistic religions, whether Judaism, Christianity and Islam, while they might have been instruments of liberation sometime in the past are now primarily instruments of oppression, and hold down and repress the human spirit. And I see everywhere around me people reaching out to by-pass that monolithic block of established religion and make their own contacts and own connections with the spirit realm. I do see a new birth of human consciousness underway. And when these things happen they can sometimes happen very fast. So I cannot rule out at all the possibility that all of us are going to be looking at the mystery and meaning of life in a very different way very soon and that date 21st. of December 2012 sticks in my mind as one that is really worth consideration." ~Graham Hancock

Brain Sync: Brain Wave Therapy

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:23:17 PST

I have experimented with Bio Feedback, Guided Meditation, Mind Machines, Binaural Beats & Brain Wave Stimulation of all sorts since the early 90’s. Both straight and enhanced with various Entheogens. Recently I discovered BrainSync Brainwave Therapy Audio and have never been as impressed as I am with:

Just over one year ago I suffered from a horrific prescription drug interaction that totally devastated me for nearly 5 months. I have gone through cycles of depression, anxiety, insomnia and general ill-being which is very unlike me prior to my illness. I have tried numerous remedies since, with very little improvement until I found Healing Meditation by Kelly Howell, creator of Brain Sync and host of the Theatre of the Mind, an outstanding free podcast.

The Brain Sync site hosts about 100 different therapy sessions that can be downloaded in Mp3 or purchased on CD. These audio programs deliver pure and precisely tuned guided meditations on top of sound frequencies that drive brain activity into high level states of mind. These are brain states known as: Alpha for heightened creativity and deep relaxation; Beta for high focus and concentration; Theta for meditation, insight and memory; Delta for deep sleep and healing; and Gamma to increase cognition and improve IQ.

So far, I have only used Healing Meditation. During this session she guides you into a healing light in which I felt a strong tingling sensation on the parts of my body this light was hitting. Feeling incredibly healed and euphoric. This program I will personally vouch for. Not that its needed, CD purchases come with a 60 day money back guarantee. There are also sample files that may be downloaded for free. At the very least, check out the free podcast. I promise, you will not be disappointed. I was so impressed, I became an affiliate. Other than Amazon, this is my only time doing so in over 20 years of posting on the internet. So if you visit, please use my links. It would be greatly appreciated.

Trialogues: McKenna, Sheldrake, Abraham

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:20:00 PST

Trialogues are from a series of lively, far-reaching discussions between Rupert Sheldrake, Ralph Abraham and Terence McKenna, that took place between 1989 and 1998, in America and England. These Mp3’s are generously hosted by Rupert on Sheldrake.org

These three-way conversations began in private after their first meeting in 1982. Encouraged by their similar fascinations and complimentary views, and inspired by the synergy of their ideas and styles and the input of differing areas of expertise, the three friends continued to meet and explore new areas of thought. Throughout their public trialogues, which began in 1989, they maintained the spontaneous, playful and intrepid spirit of their private talks, and were thrilled that these explorations inspired further discussions amongst their audiences. Their trialogues and friendship have been a source of great inspiration and stimulation for their own lives and work.

In their first set of public trialogues, held as a workshop at Esalen in 1989, they explored aspects of the world soul from the perspectives of chaos, creativity and imagination, and discussed many topics including: light and vision; the psilocybin mushroom; the unconscious; entities; the resacralization of the world; the reform of the educational system and the Apocalypse.

Their second series of trialogues examined evolution in all its forms, through new topics that included: grassroots science; psychedelics, computers and mathematics; psychic animals; the World Wide Web; celestial intelligences; the nature of time and the evolving mind.

Edited transcripts of many of their first series of trialogues are published in the book Trialogues at the Edge of the West (later published as Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness), and many of those from their second series can be found in The Evolutionary Mind.

Terence McKenna was an ethnopharmacologist, shamanologist, and author, known for his theories on plant hallucinogens and the novelty wave, and the bardic skill with which he conveyed his ideas. Sadly Terence died aged 53 on April 3, 2000.

Ralph Abraham, PhD, is a Professor of Mathematics, author, and pioneer in the fields of Chaos theory, computer graphics, visual mathematics and dynamical systems.

Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, one of the world’s most innovative biologists and writers, is best known for his theory of morphic fields and morphic resonance.

1. Cast of Characters
An introduction to the first series of public trialogues held at Esalen, California in 1989.

2. The Evolutionary Mind
What could have been the cause for the breakthrough in the evolution of human consciousness around 50,000 years ago?

3.. Consciousness and Machines
A discussion on the evolution of consciousness as it relates to machines. Symbolic logic, nanotechnology and the possibility of a synthetic super-intelligence.

4. History, Fractals and Change
The fractal idea of history, and millenia as the plateaus of history. These bifurcation periods as opportunities to influence the creation of the future.

5. Creativity and the Imagination
The crisis in science: collision between the permanent and evolutionary views of the nature of reality. A wide-ranging discussion in two parts.

6. Creativity and Chaos
The chaos revolution, chaotic attractors and indeterminism in nature. A comprehensive discussion in two parts.

7. Chaos and the Imagination
How can chaos theory and full access to the imagination aid us in our understanding of the world and in the creation of our future? A discussion in 2 parts.

8 Light and Vision
How is our own vision related to light, and how is the perception of the world soul related to light? A discussion in 2 parts.

9 Entities
Are disincarnate and non-human entities mental projections or non-physical, autonomous entities? How do they relate to the world soul and how can we interpret their messages? A discussion in 2 parts.

10 The Unconscious
What is the nature of the unconscious, and how can we access its restorative powers? A discussion in 2 parts.

11 The Resacrilisation of the World
In what ways can we bring the sacred back into the world? A discussion in 2 parts.

12 Education in the New World Order
How could the educational system be reformed and resacralized? A discussion in 2 parts

13 The Apocalypse
This investigation into apocalyptic messages starts with the question of whether they are self-fulfilling prophecies or intuitions of instability.
A discussion in 2 parts.

14 Grass Roots Science
The trialoguers discuss the need for a new grassroots model of science.
A discussion in 2 parts.

15 Saving the World
The trialoguers address the problem of over-population and resource depletion.
A discussion in 2 parts.

16. Gender Issues
Exploring gender issues and ways to heal society.
A discussion in 2 parts.

17. Cannabis
The trialoguers discuss cannabis and its potential as a tool for cultural evolution.
A discussion in 2 parts.

18. Crop Circles
An in-depth investigation into the mystery of crop circles.
A discussion in 2 parts.

19. Psychedelics and the Computer Revolution
The cultural impact of psychedelics and the computer revolution.
A discussion in 2 parts

20 Fields, Brains and Chaos
Rupert and Ralph explore fields and the memory process
A discussion in 2 parts

21 A Report on Crop Circles
Further explorations into the crop circle mystery.

22. Psychedelics and Mathematical Vision
Exploring the connection between mathematical vision and the psychedelic experience. (2 parts).

23. The Immediate Future and the Millennium
How can society be reconstructed and improved? (2 parts).

24. The Heavens
Rediscovering a sense of the life of nature and of the heavens. (2 parts).

25 Utopianism and Millenarianism
The ongoing cultural impact of utopianism and millenarianism. (2 parts).

26 Hazelwood Introductions
The three friends describe each others’ lives and work.

27 Homing Pigeons
Homing pigeons and the extraordinary implications of unexplained biological mysteries. (2 parts).

28 Time
New ways of understanding the nature of time. (2 parts).

29 Fractals
How fractal models can enhance our understanding of the world. (2 parts).

30 Angels, Entities and the Heavens
Recovering the links between heavenly states and the physical heavens.

31 Hawaii
In Hawaii, the trialoguers explore what Hawaii can teach us about evolution. (2 parts).

32 The World Wide Web
A trialogue from 1994 on the transformative potential of the World Wide Web (2 parts).

33 Scepticism and the Balkanization of Epistemology
A trialogue on finding the middle ground between unanchored speculation and dogmatic skepticism (2 parts).

34 Morphogenetic Family Fields
An investigation into telepathic bonds within social groups and the nature of the fields that may underlie these connections (2 parts).

www.EROCx1.com

A Conversation On LSD

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:07:46 PST

A rare home movie of a conversation between early LSD pioneers Timothy Leary, Oscar Jangier, Al Hubbard, Sidney Cohen, Myron Stolaroff and Humphry Osmond & others. A must see for psychedelic historians. I believe this was filmed at Tim’s home circa 1972.Thank you Timothy Leary Archive!

Download:
512Kb MP4 <-Right Click, Save Target as
14GB Digital Video Format Link

First published Terence McKenna interview

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:49:01 PST

Source: EROWID
by Elvin D. Smith
PDF Scan: Psychozoic Press No 5
Terence McKenna Talks to the Psychozoic Press
Published in the Psychozoic Press, No 5-9 (1983-1984)
Visit: Terence McKenna Archive

Q. When is a book more than a book?

A. When the material presented therein triggers within the mind of the reader conceptualizations greater than those which can be expected as a consequence of logical deduction.

The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching (1975) by Terence and Dennis McKenna is just such a book. When Terence sent me a review copy of this book some time ago, I was astounded, to put it mildly. The authors have shown how scientific knowledge in fields such as quantum physics, chemistry, genetics, and information theory interfaces with subjective metaphysical precepts manifested by the psychedelic experience. Science, they're telling us, has nearly reached the end of its rope by restricting its investigations to aspects of the physical world which can be repeatedly produced in controlled situations. Science has a difficult time getting an investigative handle on phenomena such as telepathy, UFO experiences, and similar paranormal phenomena, because these situations are difficult, if not impossible, to investigate from the laboratory bench.

Terence and his brother are also the authors of Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide (1976), written under the pseudonyms O. T. Oss & O. N. Oeric. Terence has lectured extensively on hallucinogens and consciousness at the Esalen Institute, and is currently working on another book soon to be published. His brother is busy preparing a doctoral thesis on plant hallucinogens.

You could say Grower's Guide launched the starship and provided the initial acceleration. Now that we're so close to the hyperdimensional shock wave--as we transfer into the higher dimensions--the ontological linguistic transformation that Terence McKenna speaks of becomes necessary--indeed, the most obvious choice--for communication. There is quite a shock front to get the hyperdimensional shift to become probabilistically localized, but his discussion on time and the I Ching in The Invisible Landscape make the potentialities distinctly visible. Yet what I first noticed about Terence was not what he was saying, but how he was saying it. (Those of you who have heard him speak or heard his tapes will know what I'm talking about.) Terence, and his brother too, both have a peculiar way of enunciating every word with a lucidity unlike any other speaker I've heard. Perhaps he has access to a 7-element hyperdimensional communications processor or something. "Fascinating", as Spock would say. He's probably a skilled hypnotist besides...

Terence McKenna, author, lecturer, and shamanic explorer of the realm of psychedelic states, has been described by some as being "so far out, nobody knows what he's talking about", and by others as "the most innovative thinker our times". You be the judge.

The writings of the McKenna brothers are fascinating to me, not because I agree with everything they are saying (I don't), but because they are presenting ideas which are self-propagating. The Invisible Landscape triggered more questions in my mind than it answered; the impression is that the ideas presented are just the tip of the iceberg, a single needle on the redwood tree, one cell within the nervous system. In this sense, The Invisible Landscape is a book that's more than a book. I decided to talk to the author.

Psychozoic Press: Mr. McKenna, what's the most important shortcoming as you see it of science's approach to studying the world around us?

Terence McKenna: Science is interested in the kind of phenomena where, when you recreate the initial conditions, the same effect is always observed. And yet in life, you never experience the same sort of initial conditions; they're always different. Every set of processes that are really interesting has many end states. So you can think of science as a kind of large-grid description of the world. It only explains the simple phenomena that can be repeatedly triggered. All the complex phenomena--consciousness, memory, culture--these things slip right through it.

PP: In the lecture you gave at the Esalen Institute on "Tryptamine Hallucinogens and Consciousness", you talked about calling yourself an explorer. You referred to LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and other hallucinogens as each being a distinct phenomenological universe. Would the physics of concrescence you're talking about in The Invisible Landscape be a sort of proto-science which seeks to integrate these various phenomenological universes?

TM: Concrescence is a philosophical term taken from Alfred North Whitehead. It means the growing together of something. And on the highest level, the growing together of everything. And in that sense, yes, these psychedelic drugs anticipate future states of human consciousness. The historical process is an exploration of these psychedelic states at the cultural level. You can actually say society is becoming more psychedelic; it means that society is becoming more and more reflective of the modalities of mind, and that process can be seen as an informational "growing together", a concrescence.

PP: Yes. When you stop to think about the way thinking has evolved in physics, you can see that it covers larger and larger domains in trying to describe the material aspects of three-dimensional matter.

TM: Well, science has outsmarted itself by pushing its analysis of the physical world to such a limit that it becomes recursive. You discover that you're no longer talking about velocity and momentum and charge and spin, you're talking about syntax and language and point-of-view and perspective and emphasis. The language of psychology almost emerges as a necessary consequence of examining matter at the very deepest level. This is symbolized by the ouroboric snake taking its tail in its mouth. Any analysis pursued deeply enough will lead back to the question of who analyzes, and this is what has happened in physics.

PP: Some of the labels they have come up with to name these different qualities reflect that, too: "charm", "color", and "beauty". The problems they have with labeling these things are kind of interesting in themselves.

TM: Well, they intuitively feel them to be primary qualities, so they want to label them with primary philosophical values. It's very platonic--almost Pythagorean.

PP: Yes, I was reading something not long ago about the "truth" quark--that's getting pretty fundamental.

TM: That's right, the search is on for the truth quark, now that naked beauty has been observed!

PP: You also spoke of "tuning" images so that the intent of meaning could be beheld in 3-D space--a technique of communication for which language is just a foreshadow. I understand what you're talking about, but it seems you're avoiding the term "telepathy".

TM: Telepathy I assume to be mind-to-mind transfer of thought, but with no ontological transformation of language. In other words, if you could hear what I'm thinking without me speaking, that would be telepathy. But I'm talking about something very different. It's actually an ontological transformation of the language so that language is no longer perceived with the ears, it's perceived with the eyes. When I speak, between you and me there comes into being the subject that I am discussing, and we can both look at it. And I turn it for you, and you behold, then, my intent, rather than hearing my intent.

When you hear my intent, what happens is I make small mouth noises, which have meanings assigned to them in the language called English. You have an English dictionary in your head. So my small mouth noises impinge on your brain, and you look in your English dictionary, and you figure out what I'm saying. Because we have a more-or-less common body of meaning. Although there can be misunderstanding if the subject is subtle.

I'm talking, though, about a kind of psychedelic language. You can almost think of it as an audio hologram, where sound is used to produce visual displays that are mutually beheld.

This idea, which sounds fairly outlandish, is actually very old. Philo Judaeus, an Alexandrian Jew of the second century, talked about the more perfect Logos, posing the question: "What would be the more perfect Logos?" And he said it would be a phenomenon that would move from being heard to being beheld without there being at any point a noticeable transition from one to the other.

And this would have just remained wild theological rambling, if it weren't for the fact psilocybin and the tryptamine hallucinogens, especially DMT, make this possible. By singing and making linguistic vocalizations on these psychoactive compounds you can then produce a synesthetic glossolalia; you can control the contour of the hallucinogenic topology to such a degree that you can put meaning onto it. In other words, you are no longer the passive observer of an alien continuum; you are, in fact, through sound, imprinting onto this continuum intent and meanings. So it becomes a sculptable medium. And this is what mushroom shaman know. I think this is happening at higher doses than are usually taken in a recreational context in this society. But above five grams--if you weigh in the 140 pound range, and you take it in comfortable, dark, situations where you lie still in complete darkness with your eyes closed, no music, and you work with it--this becomes possible. The whole shamanic tradition that touches mescaline, as well, stresses the magic song--the song which is not willed, but comes through you. With ayahuasca in the Amazon, it's the same thing; the magic song is very much stressed.

So I think there is a potential technology--a fusing of language, psychoactive drugs, and thought--that could produce this ontologically different form of communication. In a sense, to return to your question, it is telepathy, But it's a whole different idea about what telepathy would be like, rather than being mind-to-mind transfer of spoken thought.

And I lecture about this. What I'm concerned to do professionally is to try and get people to redefine the psychedelic experience--at least the tryptamine-based psychedelic experience: psilocybin, DMT, and ayahuasca. It isn't the psychedelic model that we inherit from the '50s or the '60s: that you are opened to past emotional trauma, that you have deep insight into your personal existence, that you uncover traumatic material and resolve it. The Freudian and Jungian models of the psychedelic experience don't prepare you for the phenomenology of psilocybin at high doses; something else is going on. We're going to have to have a new model because it relates to all this linguistic stuff and the way in which language and the visual cortex are keyed and controlled. It hints at a new potential for an expression of humanness that is not technological, except in the mushroom as the product of technology.

And it's like language. The way in which language emerged must have been similar to this. In fact it's possible to suggest that man was formed by the interaction of curious higher primates with hallucinogenic plants. Because in experiments with monkeys where they had available DMT pipes--where the monkey could walk over and take a hit if he wanted to, but he didn't have to--certain monkeys would become literally fascinated by consciousness, by the phenomenon of watching themselves go through some kind of totally weird transformation.

That lays the basis. Once you are fascinated by a neurophysiological response, the more you trigger it, the more the credos are laid down for it to be more and more accessible. So you can just imagine these monkeys bootstrapping themselves toward Milton, Shakespeare, Bach, and Einstein, with these plant hallucinogens.

PP: So you're actually saying then that we're going through a second or higher phase of learning with these hallucinogens.

TM: Right. The cultural catalysis that is a product of hallucinogens is now entering a new phase. It's related to an ontological transformation of how we perceive and handle language. And I'm sure technology will have some role to play in this.

Information is what is loose on this planet. If you were to come in a flying saucer from another star system and observe the Earth, you would not have Linnaean bias of seeing everything in terms of competing species. What you would see is that there is a gene swarm on this planet; an immense gene swarm is furiously exchanging genes, but species are not being differentiated out of it. And that gene swarm represents an information swarm, because DNA is essentially a way of storing and transmitting and replicating information. That is what life is.

But then with culture and the advent of language, and then the further advent of alphabets and writing, information is taking on this more and more intense, rapidly replicating and self-reflecting ability. And when you get to the level of computers and technology, it's almost like consciousness is beginning to move out of the monkeys and into the excreted, reef-like, technoconcrescense that the monkeys produce. We are more like coral animals taking metal out of the earth, crimping it with ideas, and excreting it as machinery. I think it was Marshall McLuhan who said people are the genitals of technology. They exist to design next year's model and make it better. Information has this desire to self-reflect and replicate itself.

And of course, the psychedelics relate very closely to this. Because they are essentially information probes of some sort, reporting telemetric data coming in from nearby and not-so-nearby dimensions. But they are entirely interpretable as information, and in that sense probably susceptible to analysis by information theory.

PP: You've talked quite a bit too, about the UFO experience. I've read a few references to people who have had a perception of "galactic consciousness" with LSD. I've had that experience, too. But I notice you have made quite a point of differentiating the tryptamine hallucinogens from the others.

TM: Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "galactic consciousness". I can imagine that LSD gives you a vast and sympathetic perspective with nature on an astronomical scale. But what I'm talking about with these tryptamines is something a little different. It's the sense of the presence of an intellect of some sort--the sense that there are life forms, and forms of conscious organization, that really are alien and bizarre. But the problem is that they are not 30,000 light years away; they somehow, someway, interpenetrate the here-and-now.

This is a persistent claim of shamanism, and of true folkloric thinking worldwide. But it's a very alien idea to the last thousand years of Western thinking, where we have been definitely on the retreat from the idea that the universe is populated with teaming angels, demons, or anything else.

Again, the reason I link the UFO to psilocybin is because in the high-dose situation, or in the repeated high-dose situation in isolation, the psilocybin experience blends imperceptibly into what is called the "contact experience".

And nobody likes to hear this, because the UFO people are very jealous of their UFOs and absolutely convinced that they come from the stars and are made of metal and bear great hope for mankind. They think that any explanation which explains this in terms of human psychology or something like that is a reductionment. But actually, I don't think this is true. I think the UFO represents a sort of "shock wave" of concrescence; it precedes concrescence. It's a shadow of concrescence that haunts time and has always haunted time. It comes and goes, in and out of history. It is like a reflection of the end of history. It is the spiral lens-shaped topology left when everything flows together--when the temporal vectors collapse, you know, and we pass beyond description...

PP: The thing I was thinking of, just then, is that the attitude we hold toward these UFOs now probably is not much different than that which primitive men held about the moon and stars 10,000 years ago. They probably looked up in the sky and wondered what the silvery disk of white light was that moved across the sky at night.

TM: Yes, that's right. And you don't have to go back 10,000 years. A very interesting parallel to the relationship of the flying saucer to modern people is the relationship of the search for the philosopher's stone to the psychology of people in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Here it was rumored, you know, that certain people could produce a magical object that would give you long life, transmute substances into gold; it was just this mystical substance that would do everything, the universal panacea. Certain people claimed to have seen it or possessed it at one time, and wild and fantastic speculation was launched around this thing. Thus it served as a great impetus to the exploration of physical matter. And then, as more and more was discovered about physical matter, obsession with the philosopher's stone was slowly itself transformed into modern science. And I think the UFO obsession, if it develops correctly, will slowly change from an obsession with brotherly space people who will come and save us from ourselves into a much deeper appreciation of the hyperdimensional nature of consciousness, and the realization that all mind is Mind. There is only one Mind. Humanness is a name for a section of Mind that we exercise some control over. But information passes everywhere. There's an aphorism: Understanding passes everywhere.

PP: How about the UFO experience in relation to other types of light visions, like people seeing angels and saints and Virgin Marys? Ezekiel's UFO, are you familiar with that?

TM: Sure. That's all this business of "the other" presenting itself within the context of the historical situation. In other words, what happens is that you're somebody in some historical period and you're out in the wilderness. Something very strange begins to happen. The immediate symptoms of it are that the hair on the back of your neck stands up and your knees feel weak and you see a tremendous light descending from the sky. At that point your mind throws an enormous question out in the universe, which is: "WHAT'S HAPPENING?" And the answer comes back dependent on your historical situation. It is either without doubt, a manifestation of Krishna, or the Virgin Mary, or the flying saucer, or the philosopher's stone, or your personal guardian spirit--it depends entirely on who you are. You explain. The mind just goes into a tizzy of explanation. Whenever the mind is confronted with something it can't immediately dismiss, it falls into a frenzy of explanation, and that is what happens in that situation. And again, it has close parallels with these tryptamine hallucinogens. Because what happens when you smoke DMT, and what makes it so strange, is you immediately have these very complicated three- (at least, possibly four-) dimensional hallucinations by which you are surrounded. And you attempt immediately to pour language onto them. You say, "It's a . . . it's like a . . ." And it doesn't work. And the more that it doesn't work, the monkey inside you begins to go into some kind of shock. Because language is supposed to work.

PP: So that triggers the glossolalia-like phenomenon you were talking about in the Esalen lecture?1

TM: Well, in an effort to utter what the thing is, and seeing that English is hopeless, you are abandoned to your deeper intuition. And out of that comes the glossolalia, which then is actually able to "lock" that modality and affect it or "dance" with it. You wouldn't say "control" it, but you can then enter the flow and go through these changes with it.

I think that the great failing of psychedelic reportage and research is that the content of the experience is not stressed. They say "you have vivid hallucinations". But what the hell is a "vivid hallucination"?

I think people should be questioned very, very carefully. This is the interesting part. What it does to your heartbeat and whether your sweat increases and all that may be interesting to pharmacologists, but how many of us are pharmacologists? Most of us live in the real world, and what we want to know is what did it say to you about the real world, and the nature of reality, and how we should behave in the situation in which we find ourselves. That's what is most "obviously" important; and everybody's relationship to psychedelics is like that. They are into it for what it does for them--how it makes them understand being. But then when we rise to the level of scientific and psychological and clinical descriptions, all we hear about is heartbeat and whether the pupils are dilated, whether the reflexes were impaired.

PP: Is the psychedelic experience, then, going to be of paramount importance in the evolution of consciousness, or would these experiences be more appropriately regarded as accessory conveniences rather than essential elements? Just how important is the psychedelic experience?

TM: I think it's absolutely central. As I mentioned earlier, I think it not only causes us to become human beings, to emerge out of the primate substratum, but it is also driving us to move beyond being human beings. Speaking specifically of psilocybin, DMT, and ayahuasca, these are the hallucinogens which most closely resemble neurotransmitters. LSD does not occur in mammalian metabolism, [lysergic acid amide] only occurs in morning glories and ergot. Mescaline occurs in cacti, ketamine occurs in no organic situation. But DMT occurs endogenously in the brains of all mammals, including man. The β-carbolines occur endogenously in the brain of man. In fact, as you ascend the primate phylogeny, more and more occurs, so that man has the greatest concentration. N,N-dimethyltryptamine is very closely related to serotonin, which is 5-hydroxytryptamine and is the major neurotransmitter that's driving the brain.

So I think it's possible even to suggest that to produce a state of mind roughly analogous to ayahuasca intoxication, all that's required is a one-gene mutation in the human genome. My hit on what these tryptamine hallucinogens are doing, is that they are literally anticipating future states of human evolution. This is the way the human mind is going to evolve. This is why, I think, there is such a persistent report that psilocybin hallucinations are science-fiction-like and seem to present these, you know, super-glossy, machine-like, highly polished surfaces that you can see into; I think that's an anticipation of cultural modalities. Like science fiction is an anticipation of the future, so is psilocybin. These things all come together. We are moving into the kinds of chemical brain states that will allow this kind of synesthesia--the visible glossolalia that I talked about. It could be a voluntary activity of normal metabolism.

PP: It seems odd, then, that the Eastern mystics haven't recognized this. Most of them are saying if there is any kind of drug involved, it's not a valid experience.

TM: Well, this is a special gripe of mine. I'm not impressed with priest craft. I think hierarchical religions are anti-progressive. This is why I have such respect for shamanism, since what it chiefly is, is very idiosyncratic. Shamanism is experimental psychology carried out by people who are not like us. It is not a religion in the sense of a set of dogmas; it's more like a set of maps that are given to you, and then you travel where you will.

I don't think that the yogic states approximate the tryptamine intoxication. In fact, part of what I'm trying to do with my career is point people to this and say look at this. This has been overlooked. Psilocybin, which is the most often contacted of these tryptamine hallucinogens, has--in the literature and the legal codes and all that--been treated as though it were like LSD. People say, "LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, etc.". But psilocybin is totally different from anything else. It has a phenomenology that we need to look at very, very carefully. It raises all kinds of questions in areas where we have never before been able to do anything. It allows you the repeated phenomena of "contacting an alien intelligence". We can do this with psilocybin in the laboratory with naive subjects. So that's big news for experimental psychology. Even if this "talking to aliens in the head" is only a psychosis, it's still big news that here is a compound that will repeatedly trigger it in a situation where you can study it.

Experimental psychology, pharmacology, linguistics, information theory, aesthetics, heuristics--all these disciplines would profit themselves by including the psychedelic experience in the province of things to be integrated.

PP: Yes, I think so. The concept of communication with an alien intelligence, which you brought out in the Esalen lecture, has been part of my own experience, too. And much more so with psilocybin than with any other type of hallucinogen.

TM: Yes. Well, because of the book we had written about growing the mushroom, we had access to name lists of people who had expressed interest in the book.2 We sent out many questionnaires about how people related to psilocybin. One of the questions was: "How much do you take?" Another was: "Do you hear voices?" We discovered that people who never took more than two or three grams (that's probably eighty-five percent of all people who take mushrooms) did not report voices. But the group using the high doses, seventy to eighty percent of those people checked that they heard voices, and some people felt inspired to write paragraphs about it.

PP: You spoke about getting in touch with the over soul through psychedelic drugs and leaving behind an era when man is "disciplined" by messiahs and saucers and progress is halted for millennia at a stretch. But wouldn't that make us as reliant on psychedelic drugs as we now are on technological materialism and hard science?

TM: No, because I assume that once you have contact with the over soul, ways will be found to access it without dependence on psychedelics. The idea of the over soul is another one of these metaphors to try and explain this "voice which integrates everything".

The reference to man being disciplined by saucers and messiahs is the idea that these religions, which arise from time to time and which halt all progress in any area except the exegesis of their own religious message, are like cultural governors. They occur because society becomes neurotically imbalanced. And in order to save it from itself, a kind of stasis is imposed in the form of some very autocratic, dogmatic religious faith which holds everything together for a thousand years or so while everybody catches their breath. Then it is eroded, and then progress in psychology and science and mathematics and other things begins again. But then the culturally neurotic situation arises again. And each time the intervention by the over soul is appropriate to the historical context.

For instance, the Hellenistic world, groaning under Roman imperialism, which was based on Greek philosophy, was totally ripe for a guy who rises from the dead after three days and preaches a certain gospel. And it's amazing, you know, where in a world where information moved no faster than a horse could gallop, Christianity exploded out of the Middle East. And the Roman authorities couldn't believe it. To them, it was just the wildest garbage! They were trained in Greek materialism and Euclidian mathematics and epicurean ethics. The idea that somebody could rise from the dead was utterly preposterous. Yet the servants were whispering and attending meetings, and the authorities dismissed it till it was too late.

Now, the flying saucer thing is very, very similar. No serious person gives it a moment's thought. It's just the stuff of the National Enquirer. Nevertheless, these polls keep coming out: thirty-seven percent of the American people believe flying saucers are real; eleven percent claim to have seen one. What's happening is that loyalty is being transferred from scientific institutions to the "space brothers". Not on the governing level of society, where everything is calm and controlled, but with the great masses who read the National Enquirer and say, "Well Ma dear, it seems tuh me th' space folk know a great deal more about it than prezydent Raygun!' That's dangerous talk. That means the official religion, which is science, is helpless in the face of this thing. They say, "It's something, but it's nothing." But they don't realize the important thing about the flying saucer is not, "What is it?" The important thing about it is, "What is it doing to human society?" What it's doing is throwing open the door to the legitimate belief in the irrational, and all kinds of other stuff.

It's changing, in other words, the social mass psychology. And that is something the government is usually the one to look after--our mass psychological images. Then here comes this other thing--out of the unconscious, I claim--to subvert the historical dreams of people who think they run things, and to instead send society in some other direction. It's like a metaphysical spanking. A mature society would not need messiahs or flying saucers to keep kicking it back into line. A mature society would just avoid being neurotic and things would develop without these lurches in one direction then another.

PP: I'm not sure if I'm going to agree with that completely, but...

TM: (laughter) If you don't, just walk out!

PP: Well, you talked along the same line about science betraying human destiny. The impression I have is not that science is betraying human destiny, but that science is dispensing its discoveries similar to the way the rain is sent on the unjust and the just. It seems that the political and economic communities have polluted science by applying that knowledge for localized and sometimes devious personal objectives. So all that comes down from science can go either way. Einstein wasn't thinking about Hiroshima, for example, when he worked out the equations of General Relativity.

TM: That's right. But on a larger scale, science has biases that have led us into the place we are: the fantastic concentration on understanding matter. What if, in the thirteenth century, they had become as obsessed with psychology as they become with matter; where would we be today?

PP: We'd probably be in our caves and huts meditating.

TM: Possibly. Or maybe that route would have taken us to the stars far sooner. What if shamanism had not been stomped on and pushed to the edge of the empire? What if instead we had pursued a route such as the Druids or the Incas or the Mayans? Because these were high civilizations; they attained levels of civilization comparable to where Europe was around 1200.

But we chose a certain path--a bias in favor of certain rules of evidence, certain ideas about what constituted claims on our cultural attention.

PP: I think that was necessary, though, to lay the foundations for more metaphysical developments later.

TM: Actually, I agree with you. What I often say in my public lectures is that civilization is the 10,000-year dash from the campfire to the starship. And it's a complete riot, and nobody knows till the last second whether it ends in complete catastrophe or in, you know, everybody being gathered into the Lord and setting off for the galactic center. And we won't know. It just becomes more and more frenzied and crazed. And in geological and biological terms it lasts only a micro-second. But if we who live seventy years have the fortune or misfortune to be born and die anywhere in that tiny 10,000-year span, it's a pretty crazy situation.

PP: You also talked about the primary and secondary qualities of matter such as mass, location, and velocity as opposed to color and texture, and then gave some discussion about these qualities being equivalently real, and pointed out that there's no justification for holding one set more real than the other.3 This brings us to the question: Is there any objective reality, or should we dispense with what is called objective reality?

TM: I think we should probably dispense with that notion. At bedrock, I don't believe the universe is made of quarks, or particles, or electromagnetic fields, or God's love, or anything like that. What I think it is made of is language. And where does language come from? It seems like it comes from inside our heads.

All these things--the Universe is this, it's that--these are just word nets. The Universe seems to be what you say it is. And to some degree, not what I say it is, or what you say it is; we are embedded in a cultural voice which says what it is. Then within that cultural voice we have our own small voice and we can "tinker" with the cultural definition of reality to some degree.

But over millennia, the cultural voice has changed its mind several times about what reality is. So I think we need, not a physics of what reality is, but a syntax, a grammar. We need to approach reality the way we would approach a work of literature, rather than the way we would approach a material system.

PP: So would you say language is rapidly becoming obsolete as a means of communication?

TM: It's self-transforming. Language begets meta-language, and so on. It's a bootstrapping effect.

PP: How does this sound: The probability that objective reality exists at all varies between zero and certainty as a function of the state of mind?

TM: Oh, I could "fly" with that.

Notes
1. Tryptamine Hallucinogens and Consciousness by Terence McKenna. Dolphin Tapes, Big Sur, CA. 1982.
2. Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide by O. T. Oss and O. N. Oeric. And/Or Press, Berkeley, CA. 1976.
3. See page 32 of The Invisible Landscape by Dennis and Terence McKenna. Seabury Press, New York, NY. 1975.

Hallucinogen actions on human brain revealed

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:59:25 PST

Mushrooms' magic? Tuning out is key to turning on
By: Melissa Healy
From: Los Angeles Times
Date: January 23, 2012

Psilocybin mushrooms' power to throw open the doors of perception is well documented in ancient legend and modern song. But not until now have high-tech brain-scanners captured the process by which psilocybin causes a sudden shift in human cognition. The secret to its mental magic? It appears to power down the brain's seat of reason and disconnect it from regions that process the way we see, hear and experience the world.

Those findings, gleaned by a group of British neuroscientists, were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Within a minute after subjects got an infusion of psilocybin, researchers said, scanners that plot blood flow within the brain detected a sudden drop in activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex, two areas of the brain that appear to be key in "grounding" us in reality. These areas also are key nodes of the brain's newly identified Default Mode Network, which springs to life when our minds wander.

Thus untethered, the brain's sensory regions are free to soar. Subjects reported unusual changes in their visual experiences, including geometric patterns, distortions of space and size, and dreamlike perceptions. They reported that their thoughts and imaginations wandered, their perceptions of time were changed, and sounds they heard brought on vivid images -- a mingling of sights, sounds and thoughts such as those experienced by people with the brain regions that showed the most consistent decline in activity under psilocybin's influence were the same brain regions that are most active in everyday cognition, said the study's authors, who come from a consortium of British universities and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Those regions function not only as "connective hubs" among brain regions with different functions; they are key in the kind of idle thinking in which we place ourselves at the center of our surroundings and experience.

The study's authors suggest that psilocybin's outsized effect on the brain's Default Mode Network may reveal a key function of the system. The findings suggest that a working Default Mode Network "is crucial for the maintenance of cognitive integration and constraint under normal conditions."

The study also may help suggest why psilocybin is increasingly seen as a promising treatment for a number of psychiatric conditions, including depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder. By suppressing the intrusive and self-centered ruminations that are hallmarks of depression and allowing individuals to transcend themselves, drugs like psilocybin may be key to shifting perspectives and priorities, the authors wrote.

Complete Article: Neural Correlates of the Psychedelic State as Determined by fMRI Studies With Psilocybin

This article contains supporting information online at: www.pnas.org

By: Robin L. Carhart-Harrisa, David Erritzoea,Tim Williams, James M. Stone, Laurence J. Reed, Alessandro Colasanti, Robin J. Tyacke, Robert Leech, Andrea L. Malizia, Kevin Murphy, Peter Hobden, John Evans, Amanda Feilding, Richard G. Wise, & David J. Nutt

www.GaianBotanicals.com

The Marketing of Madness: The Truth About Psychotropic Drugs

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:13:05 PST

The Marketing of Madness is the definitive documentary on the psychiatric drugging industry. Here is the real story of the high income partnership between psychiatry and drug companies that has created an $80 billion psychotropic drug profit centre.

But appearances are deceiving. How valid are psychiatrists’ diagnoses – and how safe are their drugs? Digging deep beneath the corporate veneer, this three-part documentary exposes the truth behind the slick marketing schemes and scientific deceit that conceal dangerous and often deadly sales campaigns.

In this film you’ll discover that… Many of the drugs side effects may actually make your ‘mental illness’ worse. Psychiatric drugs can induce aggression or depression. Some psychotropic drugs prescribed to children are more addictive than cocaine. Psychiatric diagnoses appears to be based on dubious science. Of the 297 mental disorders contained with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, none can be objectively measured by pathological tests.

Mental illness symptoms within this manual are arbitrarily assigned by a subjective voting system in a psychiatric panel. It is estimated that 100 million people globally use psychotropic drugs.

The Marketing of Madness exposes the real insanity in our psychiatric ‘health care’ system: profit-driven drug marketing at the expense of human rights.

This film plunges into an industry corrupted by corporate greed and delivers a shocking warning from courageous experts who value public health over dollar.

John Taylor Gatto: Ultimate History Lesson

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:38:35 PST

The Ultimate History Lesson Hours 1-5 (YouTube Playlist)

When John Taylor Gatto resigned from his job, he did so on the Op-Ed page of the Wall Street Journal. At the time, he was NYC and New York State School Teacher of the Year. Herein, with more than 200 footnotes, and more than 30 books references; this 5-hour interview session, memorializing Gatto’s research, publications, and life experiences, forms an impeccable resource and reference library of the Underground History of American Education. Each hour focuses on examining the evolution of ideas; which manifest today in the phenomenon of public schooling. By dissecting the history and presenting you with the references, you’re left at the end of each hour; with a copious amount of information, from which you can continue your own personal journey of discovery.Please consider making a purchase or donating to the Tragedy & Hope Community

Official Websites:
theultimatehistorylesson.com
JohnTaylorGatto.com
TragedyandHope.com
Peace Revolution Podcast
The Podcast episodes feature round table discussions with Richard Grove, Lisa Arbercheski, Jan Irvin, Tony Myers and Paul Verge to better understand the ideas & information presented by John Taylor Gatto. With over 1,000 detailed notes, links, and references for further study. I recommend subscribing and checking out previous episodes. This is one of my favorite Podcasts!

Peace Revolution Podcast #41
Download: Mp3

OUTLINE FOR YOUTUBE HOUR 1:

1. Arriving at abstraction, critical thinking and draft evaluations

2. The metaphor of schooling and the school of fish. Collective expectations vs. individualism, identity and uniqueness. Volition in group selection. Language theft, Newspeak, Lippmann and the schooling transformation. The language of education becomes respected out of ritual.

3. Awareness of contrary dynamics leading to theories of dialectics. Intellectual self defense, questioning authority. The malign intent against individuality. Reality testing. Conditioned from infancy to shave the truth. Education begins with mistrust.

4. Outcome based education, servile arts vs. independent self sufficiency and life-long learning. The logic of schooling and asking "why?" Teaching experiences spanning 30 years including Gold Coast, Harlem, and Spanish Harlem and the disparity between what Gatto accomplished vs. the Protocol. Teaching his class to asking questions. Visiting delegations. The ideal of 120 individual curricula. Learning more from students than from the Ivy League.

5. The extension of childhood and the economics of planned obsolescence. Lincoln's Mudsill Moment in 1859. The British are financing the whole western movement and attempting to reinstall their class system. Americans, independent livelihoods and the incompatibility with the concept of the proletariat based factory systems. Private independent systems of value. Slavery, wives of the Plantation owners and the causes of the Civil War. Northern industrialists wage slavery and deadwood.

6. The pulpit and the press. William Rainey Harper and the Chautauqua's. Mass media. Ideas and ways of thinking introduced to the "best" people. A second American Revolution, controlling public opinion, mechanizing workforces. Carnegie and the elimination of the need for skilled labor.

7. Leverage and the alchemy of wealth, power, fame. Global Governance and Rockefeller lineage. Rockefeller rape allegations. Horatio Alger. "The Rise of the Dangerous Class in New York City", Adoption institutions, Lowering unit value of labor by encouraging women in the workforce, social work industry rises. Children of Labor sent west in box cars. Lutheran parents with Episcopal Hierarchy, farmers, free labor. Breaking the parental bond. The theory of "Mirror Neurons."

8. School and un-making connections. Short answer testing, memorization and disjointed thinking. Automatic weight lifting machines.

9. Frustration and Aggression and the removal of volition in schooling. Executive hiring. Cronyism and the illusion of credentialism in higher learning. How to get into Harvard or Princeton. Wealth and Fame. Ambiguous excellence and "added value". Physical, Mental and Social Hobbies. Team sports vs. carving your own path. Seat less unicycle over broken terrain. Removing imagination. "Garbage in, Garbage out."

10. Standardized testing, the Princeton Review and "What Smart Students Know." 50/50 Learning. GPA and obedience. Unmasking reality. Bush, Kerry and the "C" Averages. Skull and Bones Presidential Theatre. "Chutzpah" and the contempt for ordinary people. Economic crisis, real estate bubbles, savings and loan and the City Bank of New York. Sophisticated amoral social engineers. Speaking in China.

11. Incoherence and the exhausting of national vitality. Prussian education runs its course. Family as the root of Nations. Rhetorical concern and the dependence on constant warfare. The explosion of invention causing the "crisis of capitalism." Rockefeller, Carnegie, Astor, Vanderbilt undermine education by assembled capital. Small farmers, Entrepreneurs and the transition to the corporate economy.

12. Prussian schooling, Johann Fichte and the "Addresses to the German Nation" Battle of Jena (1806) Spinoza and "Tractatus Theologico Politicus". Forced schooling to destroy the imagination. Bells, testing, ranking. John Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion," Justified Sinners and the elect.

Peace Revolution Podcast #42
Download: Mp3

OUTLINE FOR YOUTUBE HOUR 2:

1. The Ominous Continuity. Fichte, Spinoza, Calvin and Plato. "The Republic" and "The Laws." The danger of ordinary people. Charles Darwin and "The Descent of Man", "On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of the Favored Races" "The hopeless Irish." The influence of Thomas Malthus. "The Book of Common Prayer" and the "Homily of Obedience". Wedgewood Pottery. (00:25-8:57)

2. Francis Galton and the "Galton Clubs." The so-called "Menace" to the human race and the way to render them harmless. Eugenics, Population control and the breeding of the "biologically advanced." The Emergence of the majority of Private Schools post "Descent of Man". "Fitter Family Competitions" and the reinforcement of Darwinian and earlier philosophies. "Natures Work or the Lords Work" (8:57-14:15)

3. Wilhelm Wundt and the Prussian Ph.D. University of Berlin and Leipzig. Edward Everett as the first American Ph.D. Clout and the ticket to intellectual management. The Japanese "Prussian" Constitution. (14:15-16:45)

4. The "domination of ideas" and connecting the dots. "Not a good way to get tenure." The lineage of insights. (16:46-18:19)

5. Irrationality and the Utopian ideals. Adam Smith and the "Wealth of Nations." William Playfair and the so-called destruction of the social order if everyone knew they were capable of intellectual development. "Liberal" is not a dirty word. (18:20-22:50)

6. Adolf Hitler and "Mein Kampf." Ivy Lee, Bernays and Propaganda. (22:50-23:48)

7. Teaching 5 classes the same material. Discarding the assigned curriculum and exercising your "mental muscles." Equality across social classes. Predestination, Moby Dick and Gregory Smith's lesson for the teacher. Active mentalities behind the street idiom. Taking kids seriously. Jamal Watson and doing comic books right. (23:49- 32:49)

8. The nationally known Assassination's expert that flunked out of Cornell. "Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth" and "The Rise and Fall of Diamonds: Shattering of a Brilliant Illusion. " DeBeers Diamond Mines and "worthless" diamonds. "News from Nowhere: Television and the News". (33:38-36:25)

9. Shaking beliefs, the known universe and seeing the destructive disconnected narratives. The moral and ethical break. Medicine and Nutrition. The closed universe of education and "one hand washing the other." Shakespeare for 8th Graders. The myth of the "dumb class." Experts inventing problems. (36:25-40:40)

10. Innate, infinite potential. Apprenticeship, skill building and biological imitation leading to selection. Richard Branson finds his way home and drops out of high school. Independent livelihood. The rationale of corporations and political control. GM and the fast track of finance. (40:40-46:19)

11. Walkabout as a rite of passage. Fragmenting and compartmentalizing education. Striking out so history won't repeat itself. "The bad things done in school have been intellectually justified." The definition of marketing as "overcoming sales resistance." (46:19-49:57)

12. Leveraging the opinion makers. Andrew Carnegie (the Atheist) and Organ donations. Carnegie and Rockefeller Pensions for Teachers. Carnegie Credit Systems. The Religion of Leverage and planning the future of Cities and Nations. The Chautauqua and the leveraging travelling Christian Ministers. Harpers Methodists and Rockefeller Baptists. The forty kinds of Baptist "one small fragment of Baptists that is like Episcopalian." The Quaker transformation from pious, humble people to the most powerful small sect in the country." 100,000 Quakers and two American Presidents. (49:58-54:31)

13. You can't think clearly without the data. "How to spin a local authority into your scheme and let him do the work." The paycheck dependent managers and those that listen to the tom-toms. Schools in 1905 vs. today. (54:32- 56:54)

14. Frederick Gates, Rockefeller Labor disputes and the idea Philanthropic "altruism." Private corporate foundations and American schooling. Congressional investigation of Walsh and Reece and how the foundations use leverage to control the curriculum, the testing systems and the public perception. Rockefeller, Carnegie and Ford dividing responsibility. The White House conferences that homogenize public opinion. Ford and the Psychological output of schooling. Carnegie and Rockefeller and Globalization of ideas. Advertising, marketing and media. (56:54-100:50)
END TAPE -- "The Mechanics of how it's done." (100:50-101:24)

Peace Revolution Podcast #43
Download: Mp3

OUTLINE FOR YOUTUBE HOUR 3:

1. Corporate and Foundation funding of Education. The Reece Committee, Norman Dodd and the Carnegie minutes. (1:09-2:43)

2. Metaphysical Club, William James, John Dewey, Wilhelm Wundt and the shapers of 20th Century institutions. Charles S. Peirce and Pragmatic Philosophy. The Old Norse Religion. Truth and Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the Judicial System. (3:15-6:51)

3. Kant and the removal of cause and effect. (Rationalizing irrationality) The Critique of Pure Reason. Pragmatism meets Justified Sinning and the ends justify the means. (6:51-8:23)

4. Bertrand Russell's "The Impact of Science on Society", Fichte, cybernetics and influence of Utopia. Psychology and Pragmatism and vehicle of education. (8:24-9:39)

5. Literacy in the Colonies, Coopers' "The Last of the Mohicans", and "Common Sense." Thomas Paine and the Printing Press. The Complexity of Ideas. Teaching the "criminal" active literacy's and elite boarding schools. Obama, Bill Clinton. Populism and the Science of Speech. (9:40-17:11)
6. Yale and the British Class Tradition. Harvard and the Unitarians. The Massachusetts School Committee. Fabian Socialism and the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. Beatrice Webb, the niece of Herbert Spencer. "Root Hog, of Die!" "Kill them with kindness. Vs. kill the brutes." (17:11- 21:12)

7. The London School of Economics, Arthur Balfour and the Society for Psychical Research. William T. Stead, Cecil John Rhodes. The Avengers, James Bond the License to Kill (21:13-22:43)

8. The Natural Instinct and the Arch of Life. Congregationalists. Martin Luther. "Every Man his Own Priest." Dissenting independent Religions in the new world. No continuous governments vs. the preservation of hierarchy (22:43-27:04)

9. Intellectual self defense. Oscar Callaway, J.P. Morgan interests and media control. Harry Truman calls out Rockefeller. "Virtual Global Society", World War II and the inability to replace German losses. War Profiteering and Foreclosing the Freedom of Speech. (27:04-30:47)
10. Carroll Quigley and the Council on Foreign Relations. "Tragedy and Hope" and the "story not as delivered." The printing controversy, Quigley's mastery of prose and his admission of agreement. "The Anglo-American Establishment" (30:47-39:35)

11. Revisiting Charles Darwin's "Descent of Man." Francis Galton and the institutionalizing the anti-educational nature. (39:54-42:49)

12. The Cato Institute. Adam Smith and the "Theory of Moral Sentiments." The religion of Libertarian Capitalism (42:11-42:50)

13. Ben Franklin as the "ultimate pragmatist." The Printing Press, the Postal Service, and the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin and the German Pietist groups. (42:50-50:06)

14. Thomas Edison goes west and "The Grand Trunk Herald." (50:07-53:30)

15. Documented history as birthright. The colossal crime, Thomas Malthus and "climbing the mountain." (53:30-55:20)

16. Lippmann, Bernays and Spinoza. "Tractatus Theologico-Politicos." Thomas Jefferson's "Notes on the State of Virginia." The secular religion and the Church of England. (55:20-57:46)

17. "Machiavelli as a fountain of utility for the Borgias." Hobbes "Leviathan" How to maintain power over "the great unwashed." (57:46-100:39)
End of Tape/ Hour 3 -- The contradiction of national policy and the Trilateral Commission. "The Crisis of Democracy". Power is never where it seems to be. The Great Books.

Peace Revolution Podcast #44
Download: Mp3

OUTLINE FOR YOUTUBE HOUR 4:

1. BEFORE Slate: Book signing. Bionomics and attempts to control evolution. David Starr Jordan of Stanford University and was President of Indiana University. He hired Elwood P. Cubberley at Stanford. "Managers of Virtue" and Cubberley's unifying of hiring. The "Daughters of the Barons of Runnemede." (00:00- 25:00)

2. "Metalogicon" A Twelfth-Century Defense of the Trivium" by John of Salisbury book presentation. WYBM introduction promo(25:10-26:45)

3. Who is R. Gordon Wasson? Soma and the Magic Mushroom and Wall St. heavy hitters. "Soma: The Divine Mushroom of Immortality, (Ethno-Mycological Studies)" by R. Gordon Wasson (1968)
Council on Foreign Relations meetings. (26:45-27:54)

4. Who is Antony C. Sutton? Brief correspondence. "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution" (1974), "Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler" (1976) Adding up reality. Ramsey Clark marginalization. Lysander Spooner, Frederic Bastiat. "The Daughters of the Barons of Runnymede" and discovery of continuity. (27:54-30:29)

5. Who was Ignatius Loyola? Penetrating the Reformation and the Army of Jesus. Luther's "Every man his own Priest", "Wild Declaration of Radicalism" Getting rid of the Priesthood and the middle men. (30:30-32:

6. The influence of the Illuminati on the Education System? Powers behind the scenes. Standardized testing dismissed in most universities. Johann Pestalozzi, Johann Kaspar Lavater, and the "Leipzig Connection." Militaristic strategies. The artificial extension of childhood. "The Story of Civilization" by Will and Ariel Durant. Beginning the productive life early. David Farragut, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson. The effects of marginalizing the young. Alexander the Great. (32:22-40:11)

7. The value of Hemp. Jefferson and Washington and the role of hemp in American history. The Hearst Family and wood pulp for newspapers. Reefer Madness. The quality of books then and now. (40:11-41:42:070

8. The necessity of reading the old books vs. reading the digests and abstracts. Marcus Aurelius "Meditations" "Nothing you can buy is worth having and no one you can order around is worth associating with." Reading Aurelius in 6th Grade in Western Pennsylvania. Julius Caesar. Pitting classes against each other. Division by meaningless competition. What do we learn that is enhanced by competition? Keeping track of ideas. Maintaining the social and economic order through education. How to manage a society that wouldn't require managing? (42:08-48:48)

9. The Trivium and Quadrivium. 3rd Grade Jesuit Boarding School and the intellectual diet. "The causes of the first World War." Reality testing. Dorothy Sayers and "The Lost Tools of Learning." The division caused by subject learning and measuring memory vs. actual performance. Making informed decisions. "Know yourself." Personal adaptations of the Trivium. (48:49-55:47)

10. "The 12 Secrets of the Boarding School Curriculum of Power", Groton/FDR, St. Paul's/John Kerry, Andover/Bush, Choate/Kennedy, and Episcopal in Virginia/ John McCain. Schools grounded on Religion as well as Anglican and Quaker traditions. Passive and Active literacies. Having a strong competency in the active literacies is at the core of the elite private boarding schools. Insights into institutional forms. Theories of human nature. Mastery of the social forms. (55:48-100:25)

11. Artificial extension of childhood as a secret of crowd control. Political idioms and rhetoric, units of meeting and iambic pentameters. Building models, exercises and immediate results. (1:10:28-1:16:16)

Peace Revolution Podcast #45
Download: Mp3

OUTLINE FOR YOUTUBE HOUR 5:

1. Is there an easy way to learn? Understanding yourself + raw experience. Allowing kids to follow their own instincts. Group projects with tangible goals. "Principia Mathematica" Alfred North Whitehead and statistical sampling prediction. "Aims of Education and Other Essays". (10:14-15:25)

2. Training fleas before you break their will. "Hubert's Dime Museum and Flea Circus." Breaking autonomy and "taking the lid off". Imposing your will. "Hired as the lid on the container." (15:26-18:53)

3. Wilhelm Wundt and Laboratory schooling. The Roman Collegia and 5th Century crowd control. (18:54-20:11)

4. Connections between Calvin and modern theocratic states? The impulsion of certainty, rules, and algorithms. Experimenting with humanity and enlarging its boundaries. Human ingenuity was seeing as a risk for capital formulation. Using financial crisis. "Overproduction" and "Overcapacity", "hyper-democracy" and the inability to suppress the people. The Trilateral Commission and "The Crisis of Democracy". Hyperinflation and warfare. (20:09-27:35)

5. The role of curiosity as "the lever that produces invention and forces you in a fun way to think for yourself." How schools destroy curiosity. Admiral Perry and Japan. (28:41- 31:10)

6. When did the American Dream become one of lifelong servitude and debt slavery? Lincoln @the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. "The American dream was Liberty, Freedom, and personal Sovereignty." "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" and IT technology. Discoveries by "non-experts." New ways to treat cancerous tumors by John Kanzius. Robert Scott Root-Bernstein. How to deal with ambiguity. (31:10-40:57)

7. "The Principles of Psychology" by William James (1890) "Habit as the enormous flywheel of society..." The world is much bigger than you believe it is, because of conditioning. (40:57-43:43)

8. "The Six Important Functions of Secondary Education". Alexander James Inglis and "The Principles of Secondary Education"; Adjustive functions, Integrative (conformist) Functions, Directive Function, Differentiating Function, Selective Function, and the Propaedeutic Function. (1918) Getting the Inglis lecture from Harvard. (43:44-56:43)

9. Cutting out the middle man. Why can't students just read books? Strawberry Fields Monument, "Pizza Palace Sued," paying the way to Paris. Hampshire College. (56:43-109:36)

10. Something that would "echo through time." "Sensible children do not wish to be incomplete human beings." Stage theories of human development, tormenting and limiting possibilities. Don't be your kids enemy, be a partner and enlarge the opportunity." "No homework please!"(109:36-1:10:41)

END TAPE 5 -- What does a college education really get you in the 21st Century? The last hoop to jump through that doesn't deliver much along a prescribed plan. Cornell, Columbia and Reed College experience. No bang for the buck, unless you commit. The value of persistence and the learning process and those that demonstrate merit. George W. Bush and the Iraq War. What was the role of UNESCO in Education? Pestalozzi and "killing them with kindness", Fabian Socialism, and "fundamental principles of human physics." "The Imperial Cruise" and "Perfectibilists" (1:10:41-1:27:20)

Peyote to LSD - A Psychedelic Odyssey

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:13:50 PST

Peyote to Lsd: Psychedelic Odyssey

From: Wade Davis Blog

In this feature length documentary, renowned botanist, explorer, and author Wade Davis, follows in the footsteps of his mentor to experience for himself the mind bending discoveries that Professor Richard Evans Schultes brought to the western world. Get an insight into native ceremonies and learn the secrets of shamans and medicine men. Retrace the thrilling exploration that transferred ancient knowledge to the developed world. Finally, visit laboratories in Switzerland to explore the evolution of psychedelic substances from sacred plants to LSD. Legendary writers, musicians, and Beat poets offer insight into the counterculture and mainstream influence of botanical compounds.

www.EROCx1.com

Rosicrucian Digest: Eleusis

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:05:28 PST

Rosicrucian Digest: Eleusis
Volume 87 Number 2 2009

COMPLETE ISSUE: FREE PDF DOWNLOAD
Web additions with Mp3’s & more

This is the seventh in a series of thematic issues of the Rosicrucian Digest exploring sources that have contributed to the Rosicrucian tradition. I think most of you will really enjoy The Message of the Eleusinian Mysteries for Today’s World by Albert Hofmann, Ph.D.

The Message of the Eleusinian Mysteries for Today’s World Albert Hofmann, Ph.D. PDF: Read article MP3: Audio Image: Albert Hofmann; Marcus Aurelius at Eleusis; Telesterion at Eleusis; The Rape of Proserpine; Ecstasy of St. Teresa; Leaders of Zen; Persephone purifying a candidate
What We Can Learn about the Eleusinian Mysteries George Mylonas, Ph.D. PDF: Read article MP3: Audio Image: Eleusis;Rossetti’s Persephone
Demeter and Persephone Charlene Spretnak, M.A. PDF: Read article MP3: Audio Image: Ceres; Persephone; Ceres and Triptolemos
The Wisdom of the Sages: On the Homeric Hymn and the Myth of Demeter Nicholas P. Kephalas, F.R.C. PDF: Read article MP3: Audio Image: Karyatid; Cave of Pluto Triumph of Demeter;Return of Persephone; Plato; Triptolemos
At Eleusis Ella Wheeler Wilcox, S.R.C. PDF: Read article MP3: Audio Images: Ella Wheeler Wilcox; Eleusis Museum and Mountains
The Lesser Mysteries of Eleusis Stefanie Goodart, M.A., S.R.C. PDF: Read article MP3: Audio Images: View of Athens from the River Ilissos; Purification of Herakles; Herakles Veiled; Purification of Herakles from Torre Nova
Eleusis Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel PDF: Read article MP3: Audio Images: Georg Hegel; Main Entrance to Eleusis Sanctuary
The Ritual Path of Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries Mara Lynn Keller, Ph.D. PDF: Read article MP3:Audio Images: Main Entrance to Eleusis Sanctuary; Aristotle Teaching; Acropolis at Night; Votive Piglet Statue; Asclepius; Rape of Persephone; Demeter and Kore; Dionysus and Ploutos; Cicero
The Eleusinian Mysteries and the Bee Julie Sanchez-Parodi, S.R.C. PDF: Read article MP3: Audio Images:Rembrant’s Rape of Persephone; Golden Anatolian Bee; Minoan Gold Bee; Bees of Malia; Robert Fludd’s Dat Rosa Mel Apibus
Eleusis: The Card Game Robert Abbott, John Golden, and the Staff of the Rosicrucian Digest PDF: Read article MP3: Audio Images: Ruins of Eleusis

Supplementary Web Articles

The Rapture of Being Alive: Reflections on a Journey to Eleusis Elisa Cuttjohn, S.R.C. PDF: Read article Images: Completion; Circle Dance; In the Womb; A New Day; Gratitude; Great New Story; Learning; Gaia; The Mysteries
Wisdom of the Sages: The Eleusinian Mysteries (Full Version) Nicholas P. Kephalas, F.R.C. PDF: Read article Images: Ruins of the Temple at Eleusis; Koliva; Fronticepiece to The Golden Ass; Plutarch’s Lives; Academy of Plato: Phaedrus: Orpheus; Temple at Eleusis; Athena’s Olive Tree; Production of The Frogs; Temple of Demeter at Eleusis; Eastern Orthodox Ritual
The Eleusinian Mysteries and Other Mystery Religions Jeremy Naydler, Ph.D. PDF: Read article Images: Bronze Osiris Images; Isis Finial; Eros and Psyche; Ziggurat at Ur; Osireion at Abydos
Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries Richard G. Geldard PDF: Read article Images: Telesterion at Eleusis; Mountains at Eleusis; Dionysus-Osiris; Demeter; Demeter, Persephone and Triptolemos; Phryne at the Poseidonia in Eleusis; Kore; The Ninion Votive Plaque; Eleusis and Part of the Island of Salamis; Demeter and Metanira; Hades and Cerberus; Triumphant Return of Dionysus; Hunt for the Calydonian Boar; Eubouleus
Mastery of Life at Eleusis and in the I Ching Antonietta Francini, M.D. PDF: Read article Images: Ruins of Eleusis Telesterion;The I Ching; The Emerald Tablet

If you enjoyed this issue, I also recommend Rosicrucian Digest Volume 89 Number 2 2011 on Gnosticism

Pax ~EROCx1

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TERENCE MCKENNA: BEYOND 2012

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 23:00:23 PST

TERENCE MCKENNA: BEYOND 2012

A one-day seminar celebrating the life and ideas of Terence McKenna and taking the next steps beyond 2012

WITH: Bruce Damer and Lorenzo Hagerty.and including a musical performance by Constance Demby. EROCx1 will be in attendance.

COST: $40 (lunch included) A sandwich and drinks lunch is included in the cost. Vegetarian options available.

WHEN: Saturday, January 28, 2012 PARKING:

10:00 AM to 6:00 PM Due to limited parking space in the location,
a short shuttle service will be provided (included in the cost.)

Directions for parking are spelled out in the attached map and note below.

WHERE: Nature Friends
423 Yucca Trail
Sierra Madre, CA 91024

Join Bruce Damer and Lorenzo at a beautiful location in the foothills of Sierra Madre for a one-day special event this coming January 28^th. This is our kickoff event in a series of similar seminars to be held throughout the USA later in 2012. It will take you on a deep dive into the life, times, journeys, and thoughts of Terence McKenna, and then lead you to bounce his ideas and ours way beyond 2012.

Terence has been described as Copernicus of consciousness and intrepid explorer of the psychedelic plane, a scholar of history and the human condition, and an optimist about the future of our civilization. Bruce guided Terence into the virtual worlds in the late 1990s, and he will build on the themes he and Terence explored: complexity and novelty in the universe, the mind altering powers of technology, the meaning of visionary and virtual worlds, and the perils and prospects for human civilization. Lorenzo will take us from 2013 into the emerging era of cyber-enhanced humans, immersed in a meme-space stranger than we can suppose.

PRESENTERS:

Dr. Bruce Damer is a visionary technologist, researcher, and pioneer of avatar virtual worlds. He has visualized and designed missions for NASA, created the DigiBarn Computer Museum and Psychedelia Archives, and leads the EvoGrid project which takes aim at the conundrum of the origin of life, and the understanding of the strange properties of the conservation of novelty. Learn more about Bruce and his work at: http://www.damer.com .

Lorenzo Hagerty is the host of the globally influential Psychedelic Salon podcast. He brings an engaging style to his teaching from his years as a naval officer, lawyer, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and award-winning author. Find out more about Lorenzo at: http://www.lorenzohagerty.com .

Constance Demby is an internationally acclaimed, Grammy-nominated, award winning performing and recording artist. In live concert, Constance presents a range of sonic environments, accompanied by her penetrating voice: the Cosmic-Electronic-Symphonic Orchestra performed on digital sampling synthesizers, the Hammer Dulcimer with over 100 vibrating strings, and the Sonic Steel Space Bass, a ten foot sheet of steel that produces deep, primoridal, resonant sounds. An original design by Demby, the Sonic Steel Instruments have been recorded by Lucas Skywalker Studios for use in their filmscores, and also filmed by Discovery Channel at Gaudi's Parc Guell for "The Power of Music." Learn more about Constance at: http://www.constancedemby.com .

REGISTRATION: Register now for this very special event by sending your check or money order (sorry, no credit cards) payable to the seminar registrar:

Kenneth Symington Phone: 626-355-5571
722 Woodland Drive E Mail: Perigee63@aol.com
Sierra Madre, CA 91024 Fax: 626-790-6398

Ken is an author and translator of several books, among which is “The Three Halves of Ino Moxo”, by Cesar Calvo, about Amazonian shamanism. Ken was also one of the 4 organizers (along with Terence, Jonathan Ott, and Rob Montomery) of the Entheobotany Seminars, held in several locations during the 1990s.

This seminar is expected to fill up quickly, and capacity is limited, so don’t wait to send in your registration as soon as possible. Make sure you let us know your phone and or e-mail address, and we will confirm your registration as soon as it is received.

If you have any questions, call or e-mail Ken at the above numbers.

PARKING AND SHUTTLE SERVICE DETAILS.

Follow directions in the attached map, and park in the public parking spaces behind Taylor’s Market, at the SE corner of Baldwin Ave. and Sierra Madre Blvd. The shuttle van service will take you from the South side of the lot to the Nature Friends site (5-10 minutes.) If the parking space there gets full, there is additional parking in public parking lots to the left of it in Mariposa St., behind the shops in Sierra Madre Blvd. The shuttle van will operate continuously from the Taylor’s Market lot to the site, from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM as needed. Wait for it at the Taylor’s Market lot.

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Robert Anton Wilson: Maybe Logic

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:13:13 PST

Robert Anton Wilson Predicts Occupy Movement: Download FREE MP3

Maybe Logic: The Lives and Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson (2003) Guerrilla ontologist. Psychedelic magician. Outer head of the Illuminati. Quantum psychologist. Sit-down comic/philosopher. Discordian Pope. Whatever the label and rank, Robert Anton Wilson is undeniably one of the foundations of 21th Century Western counterculture. Maybe Logic - The Lives and Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson is a cinematic alchemy that conjures it all together in a hilarious and mind-bending journey guaranteed to increase your brain size 2 - 3 inches! From the water coolers and staff meetings of Playboy and the earth-shattering transmission of the Illuminatus! Trilogy, to fire-breathing senior citizen and Taoist sage, Robert Anton Wilson is a man who has passed through the trials of chapel perilous and found himself on wondrous ground where nothing is for certain, even the treasured companionship of a six-foot-tall white rabbit. Featuring RAW video spanning 25 years and the best of over 100 hours of footage thoroughly tweaked, transmuted and regenerated, Maybe Logic follows a reality labyrinth which leads through the hollows of human perception to the vast star fields of Sirius where we find one man alone, joyfully accepting his status as Damned Old Crank and Cosmic Schmuck. Beaming with insight, frustration, compassion, and unshakable optimism, the ever-open eye of Robert Anton Wilson penetrates human illusions exposing the mathematical probabilities and spooky synchronicities of the 8 dimensions of his Universe. Written by Anonymous

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Terence McKenna: What’s So Great About Mushrooms?

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:55:00 PDT

Terence McKenna on the Psychedelic Salon Podcast
Episode 287 What's So Great About Mushrooms? #1 FREE Download
Episode 288 What's So Great About Mushrooms? #2 FREE Download
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PROGRAM NOTES:

[NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.]

“There is no scientific truth, or new paradigm, can arrive in a vacuum vis-à-vis the opinions of the general informed public. If it doesn’t fly with the general informed public it doesn’t matter what degree of internal rigor it has, an idea is probably doomed to a kind of or a kind of obscurity.”

“How are we to relate to the plants which intoxicate? Do they drive us mad, or do they return us to the “religio” to our own origins? Are we to see the states of mind which they invoke as tremendously alien, or are we to see them as, in fact, a way of going back to the primary situation in which everything that we call human found genesis?”

“If you want to change people’s minds about something you have to get scientists to change their minds.”

“It’s actually cooperation is what nature seeks to consolidate and conserve. And it is the species which can make itself most user-friendly to its neighbor species which actually survives.”

“The de-sacrilizing of natural space is the process of cutting it into grids and erecting flat, planer surfaces along those grids to cut out the influx of energy that is part of the natural world.”

“Whatever Christianity was, it was a historical episode where the most patriarchal wrath extant on the planet was suddenly pumped full of so much energy that everything else was just shoved to the wall.”

“It’s impossible to stop the forward march of information.”

“This is the chaos at the end of history.”

“Because our culture crisis is so much deeper [than during the Renaissance], we are casting back to 20,000 or 30,000 years back into the past.”

“I think the task of finding the extraterrestrial is a task of recognizing it when you find it.”

“When talking about evolution it is important to remember that the cardinal dictum of Darwinian mechanics is that there is no teleology. That means that evolution is not moving toward something. All notion of purpose has to be given up. It isn’t that things evolve or move toward higher forms. It’s just that things complexify, and this complexification gives rise to what we define as higher form.”

“Culture is sort of a shockwave which follows behind language. Culture is fossilized language.”

“One of the reasons I think these psychedelic compounds still are important is because they catalyze the evolution of language.”

“I see the whole world we’re living in as basically the legacy of LSD.”

“The dreams of the alchemists of the 16th Century have been entirely realized in the technical accomplishments of the 20th Century.”

“[Acid] heads are in charge of designing the cutting edge of culture.”

“But there are no professionals in the field of self-exploration. That’s everybody’s job. I mean, you all are Ph.D.s in consciousness exploration, or if you’re not you should be, because what else have you got going?”

www.GaianBotanicals.com

Manifesting The Mind : Documentary On Psychedelics & Shamanism

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:09:27 PDT

Manifesting the Mind features various aspects of shamanism with a broad look at psychedelics in general. Why are psychedelics so brutally suppressed in our culture? What exactly are some of the psychedelic plants and chemicals and how can they benefit us? With philosophy and insight from Robert Bussinger, Mike Crowley, Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy, Alex Grey, Clark Heinrich, Nick Herbert, John Major Jenkins, Dennis McKenna, Terence McKenna, Daniel Pinchbeck, Dr. Rick Strassman & others.

Chapter 1 – Start
An introduction to shamanism and shamanic medicines.

Chapter 2 – Manifesting God?
A discussion regarding the word “Entheogen” verses other words such as “Psychedelic” to describe shamanic medicines and psychoactive substances.

Chapter 3 – Psychedelic Fanatic
What are the effects of psychedelics and are these psychedelic substances addictive?

Chapter 4 – Psychedelic Remedy
Cannabis and other shamanic medicines used medicinally

Chapter 5 – Drugs and Culture
From coffee to cocaine… What constitutes a “bad drug”?

Chapter 6 – War on Consciousness
Is the war on drugs a war against certain states of consciousness?

Chapter 7 – Ibogaine
Can a shamanic medicine cure heroin, meth, alcohol and other addictions?

Chapter 8 – DMT
DMT, the most hallucinogenic substance known to exist, is found naturally in the human body and in nearly every other living thing.

Chapter 9 – Ayahuasca
What are the components and the effects of Ayahuasca? How is it different than other forms of DMT?

Chapter 10 – Reality Thermostat
Where do the boundaries between our selves and the world exist? Are hallucinations “real”? What is ego-death? What can be learned from a psychedelic experience?

Chapter 11 – Controlling the Masses
We are groomed to be consumers - this is encouraged via propaganda - as long as we consume those things that are sanctioned by the corporate hegemony.

Chapter 12 – Manifesting Change
Turn on, Tune in, and Drop out. Psychedelics as a catalyst for change.

Chapter 13 – Amanita muscaria
This archetypal mushroom has been used in religious art and modern iconography. How does it compare to other psychedelic substances?

Chapter 16 – Religious Roots
Psychedelic substances can often be found in early religious traditions.

Chapter 17 – Flesh of the Gods
The religious/spiritual experience. What is the origin of the sacred meal? Did the original “communion” induce a psychedelic experience? The replacement of the shamanic sacrament with a placebo.

Chapter 18 – The Heart of the Mysteries
Has the direct access to the mysteries been cut off from our modern culture?

Chapter 19 – Soma
What was the original Soma and Amrita?

Chapter 20 – Credits and Biographies

Buy the DVD

Timothy Leary Interviews

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:32:36 PDT

Timothy Leary on the Psychedelic Salon Podcast
Episode 284 Timothy Leary The Revolution Continues #1 Download
Episode 285 Timothy Leary The Revolution Continues #2 Download
Episode 286 Timothy Leary The Revolution Continues #3 Download
Download Mp3 To Download, right click & save target as..

On November 13, 1976 Howard Pearlstein & Henry Marshall interviewed Dr. Timothy Leary just a few months after his release from prison in 1976. It took place in Houston, Texas for the local Pacifica Station, KPFT. Unlike most radio interviews, instead of just one person asking the questions this one consisted of a panel of men who at times seemed more like a board of inquiry of some kind. However, it doesn't take long for Dr. Leary to be in full command of the situation. And for historians who are interested in whether or not Leary gave evidence against one of his attorneys, you'll be quite pleased when the questions trend in this direction. Tim defends his own sanity but quickly moves on to a preliminary discussion of Leary's 8-Circuit theories, evolution, the future, space migration, life extension & more.

Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. During a time when drugs like LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison Experiment and the Marsh Chapel Experiment. Both studies produced useful data, but Leary and his associate Richard Alpert were dismissed from the university.

Leary believed LSD showed therapeutic potential for use in psychiatry. He popularized catchphrases that promoted his philosophy, such as "turn on, tune in, drop out ", "set and setting", and "think for yourself and question authority". He also wrote and spoke frequently about transhumanist concepts involving space migration, intelligence increase and life extension (SMI²LE), and he developed the eight-circuit model of consciousness in his book Exo-Psychology (1977).

During the 1960s and 1970s, Leary was arrested regularly and was held captive in 29 different prisons throughout the world. President Richard Nixon once described Leary as "the most dangerous man in America". Leary was released from prison on April 21, 1976 by Governor Jerry Brown.

[NOTE: All quotations are by Dr. Timothy Leary]

“From my earliest years I wanted to figure out what life was about. I wanted to find out why I was here so that my actions and my desires would have some meaning. I don’t understand why everyone isn’t mainly and centrally a philosopher, because if you aren’t trying to figure that out for yourself you’re borrowing, or begging, or passively taking on someone else’s philosophy, and this may lead to situations that are unsatisfactory.”

“A philosopher never gets in trouble if his ideas are not new.”

"I spent four years in 29 jails and prisons on four continents."

“Looked at it pragmatically, the trick of taking intelligence tests is to get the highest score possible in terms of intelligence as defined by middle class intellectuals who designed the test.”

“It’s the nature of the game that a philosopher who’s proposing radical new ideas will be opposed by 80% of society.”

“My responsibility is to the genetic process and evolutionary process as I see it.”

“We have to be gentle with each other because we are going through a period of mutations.”

“I think, though, that there has never been a cultural change in history that was as profound, as pervasive, and as bloodless as the cultural revolution of the Sixties. By and large it was a smiling revolution.”

“By and large I’m very proud of what happened in the Sixties, every aspect of our culture was reformed and revised and reviewed and improved.”

“Now, LSD is a dangerous drug because it’s basically a post-terrestrial experience. And for caterpillars to start taking a butterfly drug, it gives you perspectives, and forecasts what’s to come.”

“There’s perhaps less than ten percent of the population who should even consider, under the best circumstances of disciplined control, to take this drug, because LSD is not a hedonistic, laid-back, multi-orgasm drug. It really isn’t. It’s a neurological experience. It’s a sixth circuit neuroelectric experience, and it’s basically preparation for post-terrestrial life.”

“To summarize, I’m an evolutionary agent using electromagnetic energies to broadcast evolutionary signals. The signals are ‘leave the planet’, ‘get smarter’, and ‘learn how to live as long as you want’.”

Leary makes a point about President Kennedy attempting to turn the solution to a bad economy away from war and into space.

Further information may be found at:
FREE Mp3 recordings are featured on the Psychedelic Salon Podcast
Dr. Timothy Leary on Wikipedia
The Timothy Leary Movie Archive
www.EROCx1.com

Secrets in Plain Sight

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 05:52:50 PDT

From: secretsinplainsight.com

Quicktime intro for iPad users

Watch individual episodes and read the blog for the latest discoveries.

Synopsis: Secrets In Plain Sight is an awe inspiring exploration of great art, architecture, and urban design which skillfully unveils an unlikely intersection of geometry, politics, numerical philosophy, religious mysticism, new physics, music, astronomy, and world history. Exploring key monuments and their positions in Egypt, Stonehenge, Jerusalem, Rome, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Washington DC, New York, and San Francisco brings to light a secret obsession shared by pharaohs, philosophers and kings; templars and freemasons; great artists and architects; popes and presidents, spanning the whole of recorded history up to the present time. As the series of videos reveals how profound ancient knowledge inherited from Egypt has been encoded in units of measurement, in famous works of art, in the design of major buildings, in the layout of city streets and public spaces, and in the precise placement of obelisks and other important monuments upon the Earth, the viewer is led to perceive an elegant harmonic system linking the human body with the architectural, urban, planetary, solar, and galactic scales.

Scott's Youtube page at: http://www.youtube.com/user/Secretsinplainsight

GnosticMedia Youtube page at: http://www.youtube.com/user/GnosticMedia

Carl Ruck: Mushrooms, Myth & Mithras

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:00:27 PDT

From: gnosticmedia.com
Podcast Episode #122 – DOWNLOAD MP3
Mushrooms, Myth & Mithras: The Drug Cult that Civilized Europe
Professor Carl A.P. Ruck interviewed by Jan Irvin

This episode is an interview with Prof. Carl Ruck, titled “Mushrooms, Myth and Mithras: The Drug Cult that Civilized Europe” and is being released on Friday, Sept. 23, 2011. My interview with Carl was recorded on Sept. 22, 2011.

Today Carl Ruck is back for his 3rd interview with us to discuss his explosive new book, Mushrooms, Myth and Mithras, The Drug Cult that Civilized Europe.

Carl A.P. Ruck is Professor of Classics at Boston University, an authority on the ecstatic rituals of the god Dionysus. With the ethno-mycologist R. Gordon Wasson and Albert Hofmann, he identified the secret psychoactive ingredient in the visionary potion that was drunk by the initiates at the Eleusinian Mystery. In Persephone’s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion, he proclaimed the centrality of psychoactive sacraments at the very beginnings of religion, employing the neologism “entheogen” to free the topic from the pejorative connotations for words like drug or hallucinogen.

Also included in this post is the video Heretical Visionary Sacraments Amongst the Ecclesiastical Elite" by Carl A. P. Ruck & Blaise Daniel Staples A talk presented to : The Italian Society for the Study of the States of Consciousness on August 30, 2003 at Perinaldo, Italy.

www.GaianBotanicals.com

Entheogens & Existential Intelligence

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:57:14 PDT

Entheogens & Existential Intelligence:
The Use of “Plant Teachers” as Cognitive Tools
By Kenneth Tupper
From: www.ayahuasca.com
Download: Full Text Version

Painting by Yvonne McGillivray

Abstract

In light of recent specific liberalizations in drug laws in some countries, this article investigates the potential of entheogens (i.e. psychoactive plants used as spiritual sacraments) as tools to facilitate existential intelligence. “Plant teachers” from the Americas such as ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, and the Indo-Aryan soma of Eurasia are examples of both past- and presently-used entheogens. These have all been revered as spiritual or cognitive tools to provide a richer cosmological understanding of the world for both human individuals and cultures. I use Howard Gardner’s (1999a) revised multiple intelligence theory and his postulation of an “existential” intelligence as a theoretical lens through which to account for the cognitive possibilities of entheogens and explore potential ramifications for education.

Introduction

In this article I assess and further develop the possibility of an “existential” intelligence as postulated by Howard Gardner (1999a). Moreover, I entertain the possibility that some kinds of psychoactive substances—entheogens—have the potential to facilitate this kind of intelligence. This issue arises from the recent liberalization of drug laws in several Western industrialized countries to allow for the sacramental use of ayahuasca, a psychoactive tea brewed from plants indigenous to the Amazon. I challenge readers to step outside a long-standing dominant paradigm in modern Western culture that a priori regards “hallucinogenic” drug use as necessarily maleficent and devoid of any merit. I intend for my discussion to confront assumptions about drugs that have unjustly perpetuated the disparagement and prohibition of some kinds of psychoactive substance use. More broadly, I intend for it to challenge assumptions about intelligence that constrain contemporary educational thought.

“Entheogen” is a word coined by scholars proposing to replace the term “psychedelic” (Ruck, Bigwood, Staples, Ott, & Wasson, 1979), which was felt to overly connote psychological and clinical paradigms and to be too socio-culturally loaded from its 1960s roots to appropriately designate the revered plants and substances used in traditional rituals. I use both terms in this article: “entheogen” when referring to a substance used as a spiritual or sacramental tool, and “psychedelic” when referring to one used for any number of purposes during or following the so-called psychedelic era of the 1960s (recognizing that some contemporary non-indigenous uses may be entheogenic—the categories are by no means clearly discreet). What kinds of plants or chemicals fall into the category of entheogen is a matter of debate, as a large number of inebriants—from coca and marijuana to alcohol and opium—have been venerated as gifts from the gods (or God) in different cultures at different times. For the purposes of this article, however, I focus on the class of drugs that Lewin (1924/1997) termed “phantastica,” a name deriving from the Greek word for the faculty of imagination (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1973). Later these substances became known as hallucinogens or psychedelics, a class whose members include lysergic acid derivatives, psilocybin, mescaline and dimethyltryptamine. With the exception of mescaline, these all share similar chemical structures; all, including mescaline, produce similar phenomenological effects; and, more importantly for the present discussion, all have a history of ritual use as psychospiritual medicines or, as I argue, cultural tools to facilitate cognition (Schultes & Hofmann, 1992).

The issue of entheogen use in modern Western culture becomes more significant in light of several legal precedents in countries such as Brazil, Holland, Spain and soon perhaps the United States and Canada. Ayahuasca, which I discuss in more detail in the following section on “plant teachers,” was legalized for religious use by non-indigenous people in Brazil in 1987i. One Brazilian group, the Santo Daime, was using its sacrament in ceremonies in the Netherlands when, in the autumn of 1999, authorities intervened and arrested its leaders. This was the first case of religious intolerance by a Dutch government in over three hundred years. A subsequent legal challenge, based on European Union religious freedom laws, saw them acquitted of all charges, setting a precedent for the rest of Europe (Adelaars, 2001). A similar case in Spain resulted in the Spanish government granting the right to use ayahuasca in that country. A recent court decision in the United States by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, September 4th, 2003, ruled in favour of religious freedom to use ayahuasca (Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, 2003). And in Canada, an application to Health Canada and the Department of Justice for exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act is pending, which may permit the Santo Daime Church the religious use of their sacrament, known as Daime or Santo Daimeii (J.W. Rochester, personal communication, October 8th, 2003)

One of the questions raised by this trend of liberalization in otherwise prohibitionist regulatory regimes is what benefits substances such as ayahuasca have. The discussion that follows takes up this question with respect to contemporary psychological theories about intelligence and touches on potential ramifications for education. The next section examines the metaphor of “plant teachers,” which is not uncommon among cultures that have traditionally practiced the entheogenic use of plants. Following that, I use Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (1983) as a theoretical framework with which to account for cognitive implications of entheogen use. Finally, I take up a discussion of possible relevance of existential intelligence and entheogens to education.

Plant Teachers

Before moving on to a broader discussion of intelligence(s), I will provide some background on ayahuasca and entheogens. Ayahuasca has been a revered “plant teacher” among dozens of South American indigenous peoples for centuries, if not longer (Luna, 1984; Schultes & Hofmann, 1992). The word ayahuasca is from the Quechua language of indigenous peoples of Ecuador and Peru, and translates as “vine of the soul” (Metzner, 1999). Typically, it refers to a tea made from a jungle liana, Banisteriopsis caapi, with admixtures of other plants, but most commonly the leaves of a plant from the coffee family, Psychotria viridis (McKenna, 1999). These two plants respectively contain harmala alkaloids and dimethyltryptamine, two substances that when ingested orally create a biochemical synergy capable of producing profound alterations in consciousness (Grob, et al., 1996; McKenna, Towers & Abbot, 1984). Among the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, ayahuasca is one of the most valuable medicinal and sacramental plants in their pharmacopoeias. Although shamans in different tribes use the tea for various purposes, and have varying recipes for it, the application of ayahuasca as an effective tool to attain understanding and wisdom is one of the most prevalent (Brown, 1986; Dobkin de Rios, 1984).

Notwithstanding the explosion of popular interest in psychoactive drugs during the 1960s, ayahuasca until quite recently managed to remain relatively obscure in Western cultureiii. However, the late 20th century saw the growth of religious movements among non-indigenous people in Brazil syncretizing the use of ayahuasca with Christian symbolism, African spiritualism, and native ritual. Two of the more widespread ayahuasca churches are the Santo Daime (Santo Daime, 2004) and the União do Vegetal (União do Vegetal, 2004). These organizations have in the past few decades gained legitimacy as valid, indeed valuable, spiritual practices providing social, psychological and spiritual benefits (Grob, 1999; Riba, et al., 2001).

Ayahuasca is not the only “plant teacher” in the pantheon of entheogenic tools. Other indigenous peoples of the Americas have used psilocybin mushrooms for millennia for spiritual and healing purposes (Dobkin de Rios, 1973; Wasson, 1980). Similarly, the peyote cactus has a long history of use by Mexican indigenous groups (Fikes, 1996; Myerhoff, 1974; Stewart, 1987), and is currently widely used in the United States by the Native American Church (LaBarre, 1989; Smith & Snake, 1996). And even in the early history of Western culture, the ancient Indo-Aryan texts of the Rig Veda sing the praises of the deified Soma (Pande, 1984). Although the taxonomic identity of Soma is lost, it seems to have been a plant or mushroom and had the power to reliably induce mystical experiences—an “entheogen” par excellence (Eliade, 1978; Wasson, 1968). The variety of entheogens extends far beyond the limited examples I have offered here. However, ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms, peyote and Soma are exemplars of plants which have been culturally esteemed for their psychological and spiritual impacts on both individuals and communities.

In this article I argue that the importance of entheogens lies in their role as tools, as mediators between mind and environment. Defining a psychoactive drug as a tool—perhaps a novel concept for some—invokes its capacity to effect a purposeful change on the mind/body. Commenting on Vygotsky’s notions of psychological tools, John-Steiner and Souberman (1978) note that “tool use has . . . important effects upon internal and functional relationships within the human brain” (p. 133). Although they were likely not thinking of drugs as tools, the significance of this observation becomes even more literal when the tools in question are plants or chemicals ingested with the intent of affecting consciousness through the manipulation of brain chemistry. Indeed, psychoactive plants or chemicals seem to defy the traditional bifurcation between physical and psychological tools, as they affect the mind/body (understood by modern psychologists to be identical).

It is important to consider the degree to which the potential of entheogens comes not only from their immediate neuropsychological effects, but also from the social practices—rituals—into which their use has traditionally been incorporated (Dobkin de Rios, 1996; Smith, 2000). The protective value that ritual provides for entheogen use is evident from its universal application in traditional practices (Weil, 1972/1986). Medical evidence suggests that there are minimal physiological risks associated with psychedelic drugs (Callaway, et al., 1999; Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1979/1998; Julien, 1998). Albert Hofmann (1980), the chemist who first accidentally synthesized and ingested LSD, contends that the psychological risks associated with psychedelics in modern Western culture are a function of their recreational use in unsafe circumstances. A ritual context, however, offers psychospiritual safeguards that make the potential of entheogenic “plant teachers” to enhance cognition an intriguing possibility.

Existential Intelligence

Howard Gardner (1983) developed a theory of multiple intelligences that originally postulated seven types of intelligence (iv). Since then, he has added a “naturalist” intelligence and entertained the possibility of a “spiritual” intelligence (1999a; 1999b). Not wanting to delve too far into territory fraught with theological pitfalls, Gardner (1999a) settled on looking at “existential” intelligence rather than “spiritual” intelligence (p. 123). Existential intelligence, as Gardner characterizes it, involves having a heightened capacity to appreciate and attend to the cosmological enigmas that define the human condition, an exceptional awareness of the metaphysical, ontological and epistemological mysteries that have been a perennial concern for people of all cultures (1999a).

In his original formulation of the theory, Gardner challenges (narrow) mainstream definitions of intelligence with a broader one that sees intelligence as “the ability to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in at least one culture or community” (1999a, p. 113). He lays out eight criteria, or “signs,” that he argues should be used to identify an intelligence; however, he notes that these do not constitute necessary conditions for determining an intelligence, merely desiderata that a candidate intelligence should meet (1983, p. 62). He also admits that none of his original seven intelligences fulfilled all the criteria, although they all met a majority of the eight. For existential intelligence, Gardner himself identifies six which it seems to meet; I will look at each of these and discuss their merits in relation to entheogens.

One criterion applicable to existential intelligence is the identification of a neural substrate to which the intelligence may correlate. Gardner (1999a) notes that recent neuropsychological evidence supports the hypothesis that the brain’s temporal lobe plays a key role in producing mystical states of consciousness and spiritual awareness (p. 124-5; LaPlante, 1993; Newberg, D’Aquili & Rause, 2001). He also recognizes that “certain brain centres and neural transmitters are mobilized in [altered consciousness] states, whether they are induced by the ingestion of substances or by a control of the will” (Gardner, 1999a, p.125). Another possibility, which Gardner does not explore, is that endogenous dimethyltryptamine (DMT) in humans may play a significant role in the production of spontaneous or induced altered states of consciousness (Pert, 2001). DMT is a powerful entheogenic substance that exists naturally in the mammalian brain (Barker, Monti & Christian, 1981), as well as being a common constituent of ayahuasca and the Amazonian snuff, yopo (Ott, 1994). Furthermore, DMT is a close analogue of the neurotransmitter 5-hydroxytryptamine, or serotonin. It has been known for decades that the primary neuropharmacological action of psychedelics has been on serotonin systems, and serotonin is now understood to be correlated with healthy modes of consciousness.

One psychiatric researcher has recently hypothesized that endogenous DMT stimulates the pineal gland to create such spontaneous psychedelic states as near-death experiences (Strassman, 2001). Whether this is correct or not, the role of DMT in the brain is an area of empirical research that deserves much more attention, especially insofar as it may contribute to an evidential foundation for existential intelligence.

Another criterion for an intelligence is the existence of individuals of exceptional ability within the domain of that intelligence. Unfortunately, existential precocity is not something sufficiently valued in modern Western culture to the degree that savants in this domain are commonly celebrated today. Gardner (1999a) observes that within Tibetan Buddhism, the choosing of lamas may involve the detection of a predisposition to existential intellect (if it is not identifying the reincarnation of a previous lama, as Tibetan Buddhists themselves believe) (p. 124). Gardner also cites Czikszentmilhalyi’s consideration of the “early-emerging concerns for cosmic issues of the sort reported in the childhoods of future religious leaders like Gandhi and of several future physicists” (Gardner, 1999a, p. 124; Czikszentmilhalyi, 1996). Presumably, some individuals who are enjoined to enter a monastery or nunnery at a young age may be so directed due to an appreciable manifestation of existential awareness. Likewise, individuals from indigenous cultures who take up shamanic practice—who “have abilities beyond others to dream, to imagine, to enter states of trance” (Larsen, 1976, p. 9)—often do so because of a significant interest in cosmological concerns at a young age, which could be construed as a prodigious capacity in the domain of existential intelligencev (Eliade, 1964; Greeley, 1974; Halifax, 1979).

The third criterion for determining an intelligence that Gardner suggests is an identifiable set of core operational abilities that manifest that intelligence. Gardner finds this relatively unproblematic and articulates the core operations for existential intelligence as:

the capacity to locate oneself with respect to the farthest reaches of the cosmos—the infinite no less than the infinitesimal—and the related capacity to locate oneself with respect to the most existential aspects of the human condition: the significance of life, the meaning of death, the ultimate fate of the physical and psychological worlds, such profound experiences as love of another human being or total immersion in a work of art. (1999a, p. 123)

Gardner notes that as with other more readily accepted types of intelligence, there is no specific truth that one would attain with existential intelligence—for example, as musical intelligence does not have to manifest itself in any specific genre or category of music, neither does existential intelligence privilege any one philosophical system or spiritual doctrine. As Gardner (1999a) puts it, “there exists [with existential intelligence] a species potential—or capacity—to engage in transcendental concerns that can be aroused and deployed under certain circumstances” (p. 123). Reports on uses of psychedelics by Westerners in the 1950s and early 1960s—generated prior to their prohibition and, some might say, profanation—reveal a recurrent theme of spontaneous mystical experiences that are consistent with enhanced capacity of existential intelligence (Huxley, 1954/1971; Masters & Houston, 1966; Pahnke, 1970; Smith, 1964; Watts, 1958/1969).

Another criterion for admitting an intelligence is identifying a developmental history and a set of expert “end-state” performances for it. Pertaining to existential intelligence, Gardner notes that all cultures have devised spiritual or metaphysical systems to deal with the inherent human capacity for existential issues, and further that these respective systems invariably have steps or levels of sophistication separating the novice from the adept. He uses the example of Pope John XXIII’s description of his training to advance up the ecclesiastic hierarchy as a contemporary illustration of this point (1999a, p. 124). However, the instruction of the neophyte is a manifest part of almost all spiritual training and, again, the demanding process of imparting of shamanic wisdom—often including how to effectively and appropriately use entheogens—is an excellent example of this process in indigenous cultures (Eliade, 1964).

A fifth criterion Gardner suggests for an intelligence is determining its evolutionary history and evolutionary plausibility. The self-reflexive question of when and why existential intelligence first arose in the Homo genus is one of the perennial existential questions of humankind. That it is an exclusively human trait is almost axiomatic, although a small but increasing number of researchers are willing to admit the possibility of higher forms of cognition in non-human animals (Masson & McCarthy, 1995; Vonk, 2003). Gardner (1999a) argues that only by the Upper Paleolithic period did “human beings within a culture possess a brain capable of considering the cosmological issues central to existential intelligence” (p. 124) and that the development of a capacity for existential thinking may be linked to “a conscious sense of finite space and irreversible time, two promising loci for stimulating imaginative explorations of transcendental spheres” (p. 124). He also suggests that “thoughts about existential issues may well have evolved as responses to necessarily occurring pain, perhaps as a way of reducing pain or better equipping individuals to cope with it” (Gardner, 1999a, p. 125). As with determining the evolutionary origin of language, tracing a phylogenesis of existential intelligence is conjectural at best. Its role in the development of the species is equally difficult to assess, although Winkelman (2000) argues that consciousness and shamanic practices—and presumably existential intelligence as well—stem from psychobiological adaptations integrating older and more recently evolved structures in the triune hominid brain. McKenna (1992) goes even so far as to postulate that the ingestion of psychoactive substances such as entheogenic mushrooms may have helped stimulate cognitive developments such as existential and linguistic thinking in our proto-human ancestors. Some researchers in the 1950s and 1960s found enhanced creativity and problem-solving skills among subjects given LSD and other psychedelic drugs (Harman, McKim, Mogar, Fadiman & Stolaroff, 1966; Izumi, 1970; Krippner, 1985; Stafford & Golightly, 1967), skills which certainly would have been evolutionarily advantageous to our hominid ancestors. Such avenues of investigation are beginning to be broached again by both academic scholars and amateur psychonauts (Dobkin de Rios & Janiger, 2003; Spitzer, et al., 1996; MAPS Bulletin, 2000).

The final criterion Gardner mentions as applicable to existential intelligence is susceptibility to encoding in a symbol system. Here, again, Gardner concedes that there is abundant evidence in favour of accepting existential thinking as an intelligence. In his words, “many of the most important and most enduring sets of symbol systems (e.g., those featured in the Catholic liturgy) represent crystallizations of key ideas and experiences that have evolved within [cultural] institutions” (1999a, p. 123). Another salient example that illustrates this point is the mytho-symbolism ascribed to ayahuasca visions among the Tukano, an Amazonian indigenous people. Reichel-Dolmatoff (1975) made a detailed study of these visions by asking a variety of informants to draw representations with sticks in the dirt (p. 174). He compiled twenty common motifs, observing that most of them bear a striking resemblance to phosphene patterns (i.e. visual phenomena perceived in the absence of external stimuli or by applying light pressure to the eyeball) compiled by Max Knoll (Oster, 1970). The Tukano interpret these universal human neuropsychological phenomena as symbolically significant according to their traditional ayahuasca-steeped mythology, reflecting the codification of existential ideas within their culture.

Narby (1998) also examines the codification of symbols generated during ayahuasca experiences by tracing similarities between intertwining snake motifs in the visions of Amazonian shamans and the double-helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid. He found remarkable similarities between representations of biological knowledge by indigenous shamans and those of modern geneticists. More recently, Narby (2002) has followed up on this work by bringing molecular biologists to the Amazon to participate in ayahuasca ceremonies with experiences shamans, an endeavour he suggests may provide useful cross-fertilization in divergent realms of human knowledge.

The two other criteria of an intelligence are support from experimental psychological tasks and support from psychometric findings. Gardner suggests that existential intelligence is more debatable within these domains, citing personality inventories that attempt to measure religiosity or spirituality; he notes, “it remains unclear just what is being probed by such instruments and whether self-report is a reliable index of existential intelligence” (1999a, p. 125). It seems transcendental states of consciousness and the cognition they engender do not lend themselves to quantification or easy replication in psychology laboratories. However, Strassman, Qualls, Uhlenhuth, & Kellner (1994) developed a psychometric instrument—the Hallucinogen Rating Scale—to measure human responses to intravenous administration of DMT, and it has since been reliably used for other psychedelic experiences (Riba, Rodriguez-Fornells, Strassman, & Barbanoj, 2001).

One historical area of empirical psychological research that did ostensibly stimulate a form of what might be considered existential intelligence was clinical investigations into psychedelics. Until such research became academically unfashionable and then politically impossible in the early 1970s, psychologists and clinical researchers actively explored experimentally-induced transcendent experiences using drugs in the interests of both pure science and applied medical treatments (Abramson, 1967; Cohen, 1964; Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1979/1998; Masters & Houston, 1966). One of the more famous of these was Pahnke’s (1970) so-called “Good Friday” experiment, which attempted to induce spiritual experiences with psilocybin within a randomized double-blind control methodology. His conclusion that mystical experiences were indeed reliably produced, despite methodological problems with the study design, was borne out by a critical long-term follow-up (Doblin, 1991), which raises intriguing questions about both entheogens and existential intelligence.

Studies such as Pahnke’s (1970), despite their promise, were prematurely terminated due to public pressure from a populace alarmed by burgeoning contemporary recreational drug use. Only about a decade ago did the United States government give researchers permission to renew (on a very small scale) investigations into psychedelics (Strassman 2001; Strassman & Qualls, 1994). Cognitive psychologists are also taking an interest in entheogens such as ayahuasca (Shanon, 2002). Regardless of whether support for existential intelligence can be established psychometrically or in experimental psychological tasks, Gardner’s theory expressly stipulates that not all eight criteria must be uniformly met in order for an intelligence to qualify. Nevertheless, Gardner claims to “find the phenomenon perplexing enough, and the distance from other intelligences great enough” (1999a, p. 127) to be reluctant “at present to add existential intelligence to the list . . . . At most [he is] willing, Fellini-style, to joke about ‘8½ intelligences’” (p. 127). I contend that research into entheogens and other means of altering consciousness will further support the case for treating existential intelligence as a valid cognitive domain.

Educational Implications?

By recapitulating and augmenting Gardner’s discussion of existential intelligence, I hope to have strengthened the case for its inclusion as a valid cognitive domain. However, doing so raises questions of what ramifications an acceptance of existential intelligence would have for contemporary Western educational theory and practice. How might we foster this hitherto neglected intelligence and allow it to be used in constructive ways? There is likely a range of educational practices that could be used to stimulate cognition in this domain, many of which could be readily implemented without much controversy.vi Yet I intentionally raise the prospect of using entheogens in this capacity—not with young children, but perhaps with older teens in the passage to adulthood—to challenge theorists, policy-makers and practitioners.vii

The potential of entheogens as tools for education in contemporary Western culture was identified by Aldous Huxley. Although better known as a novelist than as a philosopher of education, Huxley spent a considerable amount of time—particularly as he neared the end of his life—addressing the topic of education. Like much of his literature, Huxley’s observations and critiques of the socio-cultural forces at work in his time were cannily prescient; they bear as much, if not more, relevance in the 21st century as when they were written. Most remarkably, and relevant to my thesis, Huxley saw entheogens as possible educational tools:

Under the current dispensation the vast majority of individuals lose, in the course of education, all the openness to inspiration, all the capacity to be aware of other things than those enumerated in the Sears-Roebuck catalogue which constitutes the conventionally “real” world . . . . Is it too much to hope that a system of education may some day be devised, which shall give results, in terms of human development, commensurate with the time, money, energy and devotion expended? In such a system of education it may be that mescalin or some other chemical substance may play a part by making it possible for young people to “taste and see” what they have learned about at second hand . . . in the writings of the religious, or the works of poets, painters and musicians. (Letter to Dr. Humphrey Osmond, April 10th, 1953—in Horowitz & Palmer, 1999, p.30)

In a more literary expression of this notion, Huxley’s final novel Island (1962) portrays an ideal culture that has achieved a balance of scientific and spiritual thinking, and which also incorporates the ritualized use of entheogens for education. The representation of drug use that Huxley portrays in Island contrasts markedly with the more widely-known soma of his earlier novel, Brave New World (1932/1946): whereas soma was a pacifier that muted curiosity and served the interests of the controlling elite, the entheogenic “moksha medicine” of Island offered liminal experiences in young adults that stimulated profound reflection, self-actualization and, I submit, existential intelligence.

Huxley’s writings point to an implicit recognition of the capacity of entheogens to be used as educational “tools”. The concept of tool here refers not merely the physical devices fashioned to aid material production, but, following Vygotsky (1978), more broadly to those means of symbolic and/or cultural mediation between the mind and the world (Cole, 1996; Wertsch, 1991). Of course, deriving educational benefit from a tool requires much more than simply having and wielding it; one must also have an intrinsic respect for the object qua tool, a cultural system in which the tool is valued as such, and guides or teachers who are adept at using the tool to provide helpful direction. As Larsen (1976) remarks in discussing the phenomenon of would-be “shamans” in Western culture experimenting with mind-altering chemicals: “we have no symbolic vocabulary, no grounded mythological tradition to make our experiences comprehensible to us . . . no senior shamans to help ensure that our [shamanic experience of] dismemberment be followed by a rebirth” (p. 81). Given the recent history of these substances in modern Western culture, it is hardly surprising that they have been demonized (Hofmann, 1980). However, cultural practices that have traditionally used entheogens as therapeutic agents consistently incorporate protective safeguards—set, settingviii, established dosages, and mythocultural respect (Zinberg, 1984). The fear that inevitably arises in modern Western culture when addressing the issue of entheogens stems, I submit, not from any properties intrinsic to the substances themselves, but rather from a general misunderstanding of their power and capacity as tools. Just as a sharp knife can be used for good or ill, depending on whether it is in the hands of a skilled surgeon or a reckless youth, so too can entheogens be used or misused.

The use of entheogens such as ayahuasca is exemplary of the long and ongoing tradition in many cultures to employ psychoactives as tools that stimulate foundational types of understanding (Tupper, in press). That such substances are capable of stimulating profoundly transcendent experiences is evident from both the academic literature and anecdotal reports. Accounting fully for their action, however, requires going beyond the usual explanatory schemas: applying Gardner’s (1999a) multiple intelligence theory as a heuristic framework opens new ways of understanding entheogens and their potential benefits. At the same time, entheogens bolster the case for Gardner’s proposed addition of existential intelligence. This article attempts to present these concepts in such a way that the possibility of using entheogens as tools is taken seriously by those with an interest in new and transformative ideas in education.

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Dobkin de Rios, M. (1984). Hallucinogens: Cross-cultural perspectives. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.

Dobkin de Rios, M. (1996). On “human pharmacology of hoasca”: A medical anthropology perspective. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 184(2), 95-98.

Dobkin de Rios, M., & Janiger, O. (2003). LSD, Spirituality, and the Creative Process. Park Street Press.

Doblin, R. (1991). Pahnke’s “Good Friday Experiment”: A long-term follow-up and methodological critique. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. 23(1): 1-28.

Egan, K. (2002). Getting it wrong from the beginning: Our progressivist inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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Grob, C. S., McKenna, D. J., Callaway, J. C., Brito, G. C., Neves, E. S., Oberlander, G., Saide, O. L., Labigalini, E., Tacla, C., Miranda, C. T., Strassman, R. J., & Boone, K. B. (1996). Human psychopharmacology of hoasca, a plant hallucinogen used in ritual context in Brazil. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 184(2), 86-94.

Grob, C. S. (1999). The psychology of ayahuasca. In R. Metzner (Ed.), Ayahuasca: Hallucinogens, consciousness, and the spirit of nature (p. 214-249). New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press.

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LaBarre, W. (1989). The peyote cult (5th ed.). Hamden, CT: Shoe String Press.

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Luna, L.E. (1984). The concept of plants as teachers among four mestizo shamans of Iquitos, northeastern Peru. Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 11(2), 135-156.

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McKenna, D. J., Towers, G. H. N., & Abbot, F. (1984). Monoamine oxidase inhibitors in South American hallucinogenic plants: Tryptamine and -carboline constituents of ayahuasca. Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 10(2), 195-223.

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Ott, J. (1994). Ayahuasca analogues: Pangæan entheogens. Kennewick, WA: Natural Products Co.

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Riba, J., Rodriguez-Fornells, A., Strassman, R.J., & Barbanoj, M.J. (2001). Psychometric assessment of the Hallucinogen Rating Scale in two different populations of hallucinogen users. Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 62(3): 215-223.

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Zinberg, N. E. (1984). Drug, set, and setting: The basis for controlled intoxicant use. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

i The 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances allows for indigenous peoples to use traditional medicines and sacraments even if those substances are prohibited under international drug control treaties (United Nations, 1977, Article 32).

ii Santo Daime is the name of the sacrament as well as the religion.

iii Writers and drug aficionados William S. Burroughs and Allan Ginsberg (1963) published an account of their experiences seeking out and drinking ayahuasca in South America in the early 1960s, but their report was mostly negative and did not inspire many others to follow in their footsteps. As ethnobotanist Wade Davis remarks, “ayahuasca is many things, but pleasurable is not one of them” (2001).

iv The original seven types of intelligence Gardner (1983) proposed were: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.

v Eliade (1964) identifies two primary ways of becoming a shaman: 1) hereditary transmission, or falling heir to the vocation in a family legacy passed down from generation to generation; and 2) spontaneous vocation, or being called to shamanism by the spirits. Prodigious existential intelligence may be manifest in either case.

vi Here I conceptually separate education and schooling; unfortunately, I don’t see the latter institution—the legacy of 19th-century homogenizing and democratizing socio-political programs (Cremin, 1961; Egan, 2002)—as inspiring much optimism for an embracing of existential intelligence.

vii Gotz (1970) argues that the practices of teachers might benefit from the mind-expanding potential of psychedelics.

viii “Set is a person’s expectations of what a drug will do to him [sic], considered in the context of his whole personality. Setting is the environment, both physical and social, in which a drug is taken” (Weil, 1972/1986). These factors influence all psychoactive drug experiences, but psychedelics or entheogens especially so.

Hurricane Irene Could Sprout Magic Mushrooms

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 10:32:46 PDT

Hurricane Irene Could Sprout Bumper Crop Of Magic Mushrooms
From: www.huffingtonpost.com
By: David Moye

Everyone knows the potential destructive power of hurricanes, but few people are aware that storms like Hurricane Irene encourage growth of psychedelic mushrooms.

Yes, it sounds trippy, but one of the strange aftermaths of a hurricane is an increased amount of mushrooms popping up -- especially the psilocybin -- or "magic" kind -- the ones that cause hallucinations.

According to Dr. Casey Simon, an addiction expert based in Orange County, Calif., hurricanes create the perfect climactic conditions for the mushrooms to grow.

"Mushrooms are spores and they multiply in moisture and are spread by wind," he told HuffPost Weird News.

Dr. Suneil Jain, a naturopathic physician in Scottsdale, Ariz., goes even further.

"The moisture, humidity, the wind and the temperature during hurricanes is the perfect climate for mushrooms," he told HuffPost Weird News. "Also, both hurricanes and mushroom growth are associated with new or full moons, so there may be a lunar element as well."

Jain says, generally, psychedelic mushrooms are noted by their bluish-gray stems, but stresses that many mushrooms can be toxic and ones picked in the wild should not be consumed unless they've been examined by an expert.

However, despite the hallucinogenic effects, he says that magic mushrooms are relatively safe.

"These substances have been used for centuries, with just a handful of cases of addiction, or long-term problems," he said. "Generally, they are fairly benign."

Recent studies by Johns Hopkins University suggest psilocybin mushrooms may have medical benefits, and Jain is one of those who believes the findings could have a positive impact on humanity.

"There is evidence that it can help in treating OCD, body dismorphia issues and even marital problems," he said.

Simon says the real danger of the mushrooms isn't the psilocybin.

"Some mushrooms can attract a fungus that makes them more toxic," he said. "It looks like a gray mold on the under side. Just a few differences in temperature can make a difference."

Jain says that's why experienced mushroom experts pick mushrooms when they are as fresh as possible.

"The optimal time to pick is right after the storm before the other elements can affect them," he said.

Still, the news that the whole East Coast of the U.S. could soon be awash in 'shrooms is bound to get every hippie worth his hemp sandals and hacky sack on the hunt for a new high.

Mushrooms are likely to pop up in locations where bark is used for decorative landscaping, like industrial parks and government offices, according to ethnobotanist Clark Heinrich

It's important to emphasize that wild mushrooms -- both mind-altering or not -- should not be consumed willy nilly, but Jain hopes to use the fact that so many potentially medicinal mushrooms will soon be popping up all over the East Coast as a way to raise a discussion about an aspect of the medical-pharmaceutical industry he doesn't like.

"There are a lot of medicinal plants that [have health benefits]," he said. "For instance, the main ingredient in statin drugs comes from red yeast rice. But instead of focusing on the plants that can heal, medical science tries to find the active ingredient, change it slightly and then market that so they can charge a lot."

"Besides that, singling out one ingredient in the plant, like psilocybin, doesn't take into account that everything in the plant, and that they all work together."

Dennis McKenna interview by Peter Gorman

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:33:51 PDT

Subscribe to the Psychedelic Salon Podcast

Podcast 276 – “Peter Gorman Interviews Dennis McKenna Part 1” Download Mp3
Podcast 277 – “Peter Gorman Interviews Dennis McKenna Part 2” Download Mp3
To Download, right click & save target as..

Guest speakers: Peter Gorman and Dennis McKenna

Recorded in 1994

[NOTE: All quotations are by Dennis McKenna.]

“The idea that you could use these to actually explore other dimensions, real worlds that were outside the cognizance of our ordinary world, is really what I think fascinated me about psychedelics.”

“More than anything else, it [DMT] seemed to be not an experience, not a drug, but a place, an actual other dimension that you were plunged into.”

“In order to understand its limitations, I almost had to become the ‘enemy’. I had to become a scientist in order to understand the limitations of science.”

“I think that Ayahuasca is actually much more controllable than mushrooms. . . . I think that it is quite an amazing tool for self-understanding and for exploration. I think that it’s good for you, actually physically and psychologically good for you.”

“It’s no different than it ever was. When the Jesuits and the missionaries came to meso-America the first things to go, the first things to be stamped out was the knowledge of the sacred plants and the practice of using the sacred plants.”

“I think that Christianity linked with Calvinism has a hard time dealing with what you might call facts of biology, which in another phrase is sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. In some ways, life is about sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. Biology is about those things.”

“All experience is a drug experience. Whether it’s mediated by our own [endogenous] drugs, or whether it’s mediated by substances that we ingest that are found in plants, cognition, consciousness, the working of the brain, it’s all a chemically mediated process. Life itself is a drug experience.”

“He [Terence McKenna] will never let a fact get in the way of making a provocative statement. He’s a good story teller, but I think it’s important to remember that they are stories, and that he often makes mistakes in his lectures.”

“In that position, a guy who can pack the houses every time, I feel has a larger responsibility to the psychedelic community to refrain from making these completely off-the-wall comments, and to actually tell it like it is, not how he imagines it to be.”

“I’m sure that Terence views it as theater. I can’t believe that he takes what he says seriously. I mean, I can tell you that he doesn’t. Much of what he says he says it because it’s going to get a rise out of somebody. He’s always been that way.”

Peter Gorman

Writer, Explorer, Naturalist

Dennis McKenna

Writer, Ethnopharmacologist, Researcher, Explorer

www.EROCx1.com • www.GaianBotanicals.com

Swedish House Mafia @ Creamfields 2010

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 18:36:42 PDT

Listen below or click on Essential Mix 2010 to Download:
Download in 320kbs Mp3: HERE
01. Sander van Doorn – Reach Out / Florence and the Machine – You Got the Love (Acapella)
02. Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso, Steve Angello & Laidback Luke – Leave the World Behind
03. Butch – Tease Me / Funkagenda – What The Fuck (Acapella)
04. The Prodigy – No Good For Me (Da Fresh Bootleg)
05. Mohombi – Bumpy Ride (Sebastian Ingrosso Remix)
06. Steve Angello & AN21 – Valodja / Pocket808 feat. Nathan Hudson – Ghost Ship (Hook ‘N’ Sling Remix) / Eurythmichs – Sweet Dreams
07. TV Rock – In The Air (Axwell Remix) / Laidback Luke – My G*O*D (Guns on Demo / Basemant Jaxx – Where’s Your Head At? (Acapella)
08. Swedish House Mafia – Miami 2 Ibiza (Instrumental)
09. Thomas Gold – AGORa / Junior Jack – My Feelings (Acapella)
10. Steve Angello – Rave N Roll / Robin S – Show Me Love (Acapella)
11. Marco V – Reaver
12. D-Formation vs. Bloody Beetroots, Steve Aoki – Weakness 4 Warp (Bass Kleph Bootleg)
13. Pendulum – The Island (Steve Angello, AN21 & Max Vangeli Remix)
14. Axwell – Nothing But Love (Remode)
15. Sebastian Ingrosso – Kidsos
16. Funkerman feat. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Otherside 2010
17. Adrian Lux – Teenage Crime (Axwell & Henrik B Remode)
18. 2000 And One – Spanish Fly (Butch Remix) / Calvin Harris – Flashback / Steve Angello & Laidback Luke 0 Be (Loop)
19. Oliver Twizt – You’re Not Alone (Bingo Players Remix)
20. Congorock – Babylon Steve Angello Edit & Laidback Luke – Be
21. Steve Angello – Knas & Laidback Luke – Be / Axwell – I Found U
22. C-Mos – 2 Million Ways (Axwell Remix) / Sebastien Drums, Tom Geiss & Eric G – Funky Beep (Dub Mix) / The Verve – Bittersweet Symphony / Supermode – Tell Me Why
23. Swedish House Mafia feat. Pharell – One (Your Name)
24. Steve Angello – Tivoli
25. M.A.N.D.Y. vs. Booka Shade – Body Language / Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition (Axwell & Dirty South Remix)
26. Daft Punk – Be More Time (Laidback Luke Bootleg)
27. Swedish House Mafia – One
28. Swedish House Mafia – One (Congorock Remix)
29. Swedish House Mafia feat. Pharell – One (Your Name)

www.EROCx1.com

Electric Daisy Carnival LV 2011 Mp3’s

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 23:09:47 PDT

Unfortunately I was unable to score tickets to this years EDC in Las Vegas even though I could see the fireworks from my house. Talk about rubbing it in. At any rate many friends knew how badly I wanted to attend so they began sending me digital audio recordings made from some of the top performances at the 2011 Electric Daisy Carnival.

I will share those here in the name of community. If you have some that I am missing or have better copies of any listed, please do share. Big thanks to Paul Loeb.

For best results, right/ctrl click and Save As.

www.EROCx1.com

Aldous Huxley: Mp3 Interview

noreply@blogger.com (EROCx1) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 22:55:52 PDT

An Interview with Aldous Huxley
"Capital A, Capital R" Circa 1959
Transcribed by Plutonic / From EROWID
Originally published by British Library Sound Archive

DOWNLOAD MP3 BELOW (5:38 Min - 8MB)
Aldous Huxley Interview Right Click, Save Target As.

Q: How often have you taken mescaline yourself?

A: I've taken mescaline twice, and lysergic acid about 5 times I suppose. I would like to take it about once a year I think. When one [oh] doesn't ... most people that I know who take it have no desire to sort of fool with it, or take it constantly, I mean the thing take it too seriously to, to behave in this way towards it, you wouldn't want to wallow in it. I mean you needed a good enough time to digest this I think, I mean I don't know, most people I know that eat it don't have any special desires to go on taking it, I mean they would like to take it every six months or every year, something of that kind. But I still have to meet one who wants to take it constantly.

Q: But isn't it a condition that one would want to be in all the time?

A: You couldn't be in it all the time cause it's so to say beyond the level of biological efficiency. The world becomes so extraordinary and so absorbing that you couldn't cross the street without considerable risk of being run over. You wouldn't want to do anything else because just experiencing this thing is so extraordinary.

Q: Is the effect the same on everyone?

A: Statistically about 70 percent, 75 percent probably get a good and positive happy result from it, and a certain percentage get no results, a certain percentage get very unpleasant and ill-like results out of it, get very frightened. Mine were always positive, I didn't have what some people have which is a great elaborate visions with the eyes closed, some people have the most elaborate and circumstantial visionary experiences with the eyes closed. I merely see sort of living geometries but never any of these great landscapes and figures and architectures which some people see.

Q: Do you sit, or do you move about?

A: I've spent a lot of time sitting quietly looking at things, and getting these sort of strange metaphysical insights into the world.

Q: Is it a habit forming drug?

A: In most occasions it has no more hangover then two cocktails, some people feel actually much better the next day. It's being used to some extent in therapy, there's a man here called Sandison that uses it a lot, there are several people in America, in Canada several groups have had very very good results with alcoholism using LSD.

There's a new drug now, psilocybin, which is derived from the Mexican mushroom which has the same effect but doesn't last quite so long. And that it is being used in France therapeutically with some success. Mescaline you take a capsule of 400 milligrams and the lysergic acid you take this incredibly small dose of 100 gamma, which is 100 millionths of a gram, a ten thousandth of a gram, a 10th of a milligram which is a homeopathic dose, it's perfectly extraordinary it should have any effect and in fact it has an effect long after all traces of it have gone out of the body, it has an effect by triggering some... nobody knows exactly what, probably inhibits one of the 27 enzymes which control the functioning of the brain, either inhibits one or stimulates one and I don't think anyone quite knows what it does.

The intensity of the experience is entirely unlike any ordinary experience, but on the other hand it quite obviously resembles spontaneous experiences certain artists and religious people have unquestionably had. It's an immense intensification of the world, a transfiguration of the external world into incredible beauty and significance. It's also beyond this kind of aesthetic experience, there may be other experience, a sense of solidarity with the universe, solidarity with other people, understanding of such phrases as you get in the book of Job: "Yeah, Though He Slay Me, Yet Will I Trust In Him", it becomes quite comprehensible. This thing opens the door to these experiences which can be of immense value to people if they choose to make use of them. If they don't choose to, I mean this is what the Catholics call a gratuitous grace, it doesn't guarantee salvation or it's not sufficient and it's not necessary to salvation but if it can be collaborated with and used in an intelligent way it can be an immense help to people. This sense that in spite of everything which of course is the ultimate, I suppose, the ultimate mystical conviction in spite of pain, in spite of death, in spite of horror, the universe is in some mysterious sense is all right, capital A capital R.