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Oops, double post. Must've been the double vision.
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Bukowski weren't nuttin' but a sad, ugly, ol' alcoholic Pollack. It'd be nice to be Bukowski on'y when you consider his alternatives...Attached FilesComment
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Wow....that came from out of nowhere.Originally posted by osopardoComment
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avatar man....dude you got a fetish for changing that thing or what? change the damn thing back...Originally posted by Tom Yum
We all know the Tom Yum Av and it aint wolverine
.....really man im not kidding...CHANGE IT
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See now THAT came out of nowhere
seriously, change the damn thing back though, Mkay?
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talking about drugs...here's a paper I just compiled on the subject for my anthro class....enjoy. (I hope the citations are allright...mwa ha ha ha.)
pg 1-5 (out of 14)
When one contemplates the term “altered states of consciousness”, it is impossible not to evoke the images we’ve come to associate with shamanism and primitive drug usage; the Siberian shaman in a trance state brought on by Amanitas or Somas, or the “fierce” Yanamomo medicine man in a hallucinogenic stupor brought on by yahe brew. (Chagnon, 1977/ Whitten, 1987) Taking drugs in the course of one’s spiritual and religious life is often something that we associate with primitive and indigenous cultures through what we see in popular culture. As I hope to point out in this paper, the use of entheogens (drugs used with religious and spiritual intent) is an important and vital topic not only to the study of primitive religions and anthropology, but also to contemporary multidisciplinary studies that could shine some light onto the nature of “spirituality” itself.
The idea of ingesting indigenous hallucinogenic and psychotropic fauna and flora or concocting intoxicating substances out of them seems to be one of the most ancient religious activities of humanity and an almost universal phenomenon amongst both primitive and modern peoples, as evidenced by the “stone-age psychedelia” found in archeological sites like the Cave of Lascaux in southwest France, which dates back as far as the Upper Paleolithic era and mirrors neatly that of more modern San bushmen of southern Africa. (Roger, 1991)
As denizens of the Western world, we tend to overlook the entheogenic roots of our own ancient cultures that, even now, saturate modern customs and religious ceremony within our mainstream religions. Previous to their “final settlement” in Europe and Asia Minor, the Indo-European tribes that wandered between India and Iran practiced a form of inebriation sacrament that is almost identical to that of Siberian shamanism through the intoxicating fungi Wasson and Amanita muscaria. (Wohlberg, 1990) The ancient Greek god, Dionysus, had festivals dedicated to the imbibing of wantonous amounts of alcohol, an entheogen, along with dancing and other festivities that mirror those of the pre-Greek mushroom god, Sabazios. (Emboden, 1977) The use of alcohol as a sacrament is still seen today in many Christian denominations, namely in the Communion of Catholic mass.
Even the Buddhist tradition can be linked to the use of psychoactives, as Hajicek-Dobberstein (1995) points out in her article on the biographies of a few select Buddhist monks living in the second and ninth century and the Soma (Amanita muscaria) symbolism found in the Rg Veda text. It is her opinion that the practice of consuming the “fly agaric” mushroom stems directly from its shamanic use in Northern Eurasia, and the Rg Veda soma symbolism shares some similar features with the ancient Norse god, Odin.
In order to better understand the influence of these substances, they have to be separated categorically both by how they work and what type of physiological reaction they create in the person who uses them. The typical definition of the drug category “hallucinogen” is often vague and misleading. Perhaps the best definition for this set of drugs is that found in Harry Shapiro’s “Recreational Drugs” (2004);
This group of drugs cover a wide range of chemically dissimilar substances which act on the brain to alter our perception of what is real. They break down or bypass the mechanisms which filter sounds, thoughts, and images which crowd into our brain on a daily basis.
This category usually contains what most people think of as classical hallucinogens, which include mushrooms (psylocibe cubensis), soma “fly agaric” mushrooms (amanitas muscaria), marijuana, ibogaine, peyote, ayahuasca, and man-made derivatives of these drugs such as mescaline or DMT (N, N- dimethyl-tryptamine), as well as various synthetic drugs such as LSD (d-lysergic acid diethylamide) and the barbiturate quaalude (methaqualone). (ibid.)
In actuality, with the exception of LSD, and DMT all of these drugs are psychedelic drugs, but will not produce true hallucinations, although they do cause visual distortions, they do not “confuse the objective reality” of a situation. Oddly enough, some of the drugs that do produce true hallucinations are the dissociative, delusional anesthetic drugs such as ketamine, scopolamine, and phencyclidine or PCP. (Shulgin 2003)
The shamanic or religious use of drugs, however, doesn’t necessarily require such an extreme, as the characteristics of an altered state of consciousness could be essentially anything outside of normal perception, namely; difficulty concentrating or an altered memory, increases in feelings of power and control, or alternately, feelings of helplessness or a loss of control, visions (including introspective events that don’t alter objective perception, viz. eidetic images), timelessness or alterations in perception of time and space (spatial disturbances), extreme or detached emotions, attachment of new meaning to objects or experiences (including synesthesia, or the associating one sense with another, namely “tasting” colors), distortions in kinesthetic properties (i.e. unusual feelings about ones own body, such as heaviness or lightness, and tingling in the limbs), and an increase or decrease of the senses. (Stein, 2005).
Perhaps it is better, for the sake of truly understanding drugs, to categorize them by how they directly effect the mammalian brain rather than by their vague symptomatic effects. In James Kent’s “Psychedelic Information Theory”, he breaks mind-altering drugs into different categories based on their physiology with the brain. (2005).
A class of common “classical psychedelic” drugs are tryptamine type drugs that effect seratonin and dopamine receptors in the brain, and can be formally described as 5-HT2A antagonists. This class of drugs include LSD, psylocibe, mescaline (derived from peyote), muscimol (derived from amanitas), and a plethora of synthetic Shulgin type derivatives, namely 5-MeO DMT, 2-CB, and “foxy”-methoxy (5Aco-Dipt). At low doses, these drugs react like a stimulant, creating an amphetamine like burst of energy as well as sensory distortions and, in higher doses, create introspective hallucinations and “boundary dissolution”.
Another class of drugs can be described as empathogens or entactogens. Empathogens act as sensory stimulators, whereas entactogens act as sensory stimulators. These drugs elicit some responses similar to those found in “classical psychedelic” drugs, namely disruptions in sensory and emotional aspects, but are non-visual, meaning that they won’t create visual hallucinations (either introspective or those that appear outside of the body) unless taken in dangerously high doses. This class of drugs essentially covers the rest of the Shulgin tryptamine library, and includes the ever popular club drug MDMA (methyl dioxy methanphetamine, commonly referred to as ecstasy).
True hallucinatory drugs are referred to as “disassociatives”, and include ketamine, DMT (the hallucinogenic chemical derived from the South American entheogen ayahuasca), PCP, and DXM (dextromethorphan, the active ingredient in many over the counter cough medicines). These drugs can be formally called NMDA antagonists, and they act upon certain loci in the brain to elicit the same response as a near-death experience (NDE). They essentially isolate different parts of the brain, binding to glutamate sites and blocking neural firing within the brain, creating an interactive, lucid-dream state in which the body is essentially asleep while the mind keeps working in an inhibited state. These drugs, like the 5-HT2A drugs, act as stimulants in low doses, but act as CNS (central nervous system) depressants (like alcohol) at moderate doses, and create true hallucinations and a state similar to a psychotic episode or a dream state in high doses, characterized by an out-of-body experience as well as loss of memory and personal identity, hypogogia (a multiple waking-dream state), hypnophasia (a phantasmagoric sense of reality) and recursive dream realities.
Perhaps the most dangerous and ill-researched group of psychedelic/psychotic drugs are those classified as tropane delirients, such as jimson weed, datura, belladonna, and a number of plants found in the Solanaceae family, whose active chemicals include atropine and scopolamine, which lead to “frank and concrete” hallucinations. These as well as the “classic anticholinergics”, including muscimol, the active chemical in amanitas muscaria, block the action of acetylcholine within the brain and act upon both cardiac and skeletal muscle systems as well the glossopharyangeal and vagus nerves in a fashion that makes it very dangerous to consume, even in small quantities. The neural pathways it acts upon, are also pivotal to recall and the formation of long term memories, making it dangerous not only physiologically, but psychologically as well.
Both experientially and behaviorally it seems obvious that the functions of the prefrontal cortex (contextualization of self) and hippocampus (memory formation and recall) are totally disrupted, indicating low aminergic modulation...acetylcholine acts as both a dream promoter when aminergic functioning in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus is low...(the use of anticholinergics) disrupts the waking/memory/sleeping dichotomy, and thus the thin chemical boundaries which normally prevent the dreaming mind from intruding upon the waking mind vanish. (ibid.)
The final of drugs are the kappa-opoid agonists, such as the Central American mint entheogen, Salvia divinorium, which creates similar effects as the 5-HT2A and NMDA drugs by acting as both an amplifier and a filter to certain somatic triggering within the rational and subconscious brain, disrupting both limbic and brainstem functioning in the course of creating all of the psychedelic and psychotomimetic effects seen in the above hallucinogen sub-categories.
All of these drugs, in every classification, have been used to achieve the same overall goal, to expand the consciousness of the user, and to try to shine light upon the abstract questions that have plagued humanity since the ability to ask those questions evolved. Even today, modern researchers from multiple scientific and humanitarian disciplines look to these drugs to shine some light upon a collective unconsciousness of man, some “shared, inherited reservoir of memory tracing from our species’ history.”
(Myers, 2005).
Amongst the ancient paintings such as those in France, and indeed, across the globe, are those in Tassili in Northern Algeria that date back to 5,000 B.C., and depict a group of “mushroom-ed humanoids”. Perhaps the most prolific and well documented mushroom based religions are those of Central and South America . The polytheistic Mixtec culture in Mexico worshipped a god who represented psychedelic mushrooms, Piltzintechuhtli, or Seven Flower. Piltzintechuhtli is depicted in the Vienna Codex, or Codex Vindobonensis, circa the 13th or 15th century, along with seven other gods, holding mushrooms in their outstretched hands. (Erowid, 2005).
The Aztec had their own psychoactive plant god, who presided over their ritual hallucinatory trances. Xochipilli is the “Prince of Flowers”, and keeps his followers safe when they consume a plethora of psychedelic drugs including morning glory seeds (traditionally called tlilitzin amongst the Aztec, it’s psychoactive element is LSA, which is closely related to LSD.), peyote (peyotyl), mixitl grain, datura (tlapatl or toloache), salvia divinorium, and, perhaps most prized among the Aztec, the psylociban mushrooms (teonanacatl or “divine flesh”). (ibid.)
For a considerable period of time after the conquest of the Aztec in 1521, the use of psychedelic mushrooms amongst the indigenous peoples of mesoamerica was both prohibited and, as a result, it was later contested amongst academians even until the 20th century as to if psychedelic mushrooms even existed in the Americas. A 1656 guide for missionaries not only denounces the ingestion of mushrooms amongst the indigenous peoples, but depicts the Devil dancing upon the mushrooms, or trying to entice an Indian into eating one, much like the snake in the genesis story of the Bible.
(Schultes & Hoffman, 1979)
In the 1930’s an Australian anthropologist named Robert Weitlaner witnessed a Mazatec mushroom ceremony, or velanda, by the Otomi Indians of Puebla outside of Oaxaca, Mexico. The mushrooms were sent to both Stockholm for chemical analysis, and to Harvard University for botanical classification by an ethnobotanist named Richard Evans Schultes. The mushrooms were later classified and named as Panaeolus sphinctrinus, whichComment
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is the primary psychedelic used by the Mazatecs. Shortly after one psychedelic was found and classified, scientists began collecting mesoamerican mushrooms for analysis, including Psilocybe caerulescens, Psilocybe mexicana, Psilocybe cubensis, and a mushroom known as Psilocybe aztecorum, which only grows in the volcanic soil around Mt. Popocatepatl. In 1956, samples of these mushrooms were sent to a Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz, and to a research chemist by the name of Albert Hoffman, to extract and classify their hallucinogenic component. (Erowid, 2005)
As a result of this acute interest in psychedelics amongst the mesoamerican tribes, it is now known that the mushrooms are used in religious rites, divination rituals, and even curing rituals amongst the Mazatec, Chinantec, Chatino, Mije, Zapotec, and Mixtec who reside in Oaxaca, as well as the Otomi of Puebla, and the Tarascana of Michoacan.
The only way we can peer into the rituals of old Aztec culture is to examine the modern mushroom ceremony. Before the ceremony, the mushrooms are collected in the forests by a virgin girl during the new moon. The activity is an all-night long seance, wherein participants chant throughout the beginning, and then let themselves be drifted away by the drug, with the shaman chanting continuously to aid his/her concentration in her divinations or cures.
It is also now known, through archeological findings, that the Mayan culture incorporated mushrooms into their religious rites, as several miniature mushroom stones, over 2200 years old, have been found around Guatemala City, which coincide with the Nine Lords of Xibalba myth described in the Mayan sacred book, Popol Vuh, which is supported by the correlation of mushrooms being named for the underworld in Mayan and contemporary Guatemalan languages. Recent finds include other mushroom stones, which show Mayans sitting under enormous mushroom caps, that date back to the first millennium B.C. (Shultes & Hoffman, 1979)
Another drug used by Mazatec Indians is a type of mint or more precisely, perennial labiate, known as “Ska Maria Pastora”, “hojas de Maria”, “hojas de Pastora”, “hierba (yerba) Maria”, or “la Maria”, more commonly known as Sativa divinoruim. The name of this plant, “la Maria”, comes from the Mazatec syncretistic belief in the mint as an incarnation of the Catholic Virgin Mary.
The Mazatec also worship the Catholic saints in a polytheistic pantheon that is commonly modeled by other primitive and shamanic religions that have come away from contact with Christianity with a syncretism of their old beliefs mixing with Christian dogma. Among one of the most interesting stories the Mazatec tell about the Catholic saints is one in which San Pedro (Saint Peter) cures a sick baby Jesus by using tobacco in the shamanic fashion of the Mazatec.
Salvia is ingested either for perported curative properties, prescribed by experienced “curanderos” (Mazatec shamans) or to create visions needed for Mazatec divination rituals. The curanderos harvest the mint from the mountains in a ritualistic fashion, praying before they ascend to pick the leaves, and again when they are preparing it into either a curative infusion or divining brew.
The effects of Salvia can be characterized as a state of psychedelia including eidetic imagery, but without concrete hallucinations, which comes on much faster than the onset effects of psylociban mushrooms, but is much less potent, and not nearly as long lasting. It is for this reason that la Maria Pastora is only used as a curative tincture when mushrooms cannot be found, and as a divining drink only amongst shamans in training and when morning-glory seeds can not be found.
The Mazatec, like many other shamanistic religions, believe that magic, such as that of la Maria, can hurt and kill if used with nefarious and ill intent, and cause insanity or loss to those who misuse it. The Mazatec shamans also know the curative and psychotropic actions of their local foliage very well, as is seen in their aversion to another psychedelic plant that grows in their vicinity, the woodrose (Argyeria nervosa, which contains LSA along with other psychotropic elements), which they believe to cause insanity in those who ingest it.
A Mazatec learns to become a shaman through an apprenticeship late in life, usually after the age of thirty. The training includes learning the basic herbalism of the area, and a two year training period in the use of psychotropic plants, in which a strict diet is adhered to, and abstinence is considered pertinent for extended periods when they are ingesting different doses of the drugs at specifically spaced intervals.
The curative properties of S. divinorium includes regulation of eliminatory functions, relieving pain in those suffering from a terminal disease, for headaches and rheumatism, and to treat a disease called panzon de barrego, which is characterized by a swollen abdomen, caused by a brujo, or witch.
The divination ritual works on the idea that visions caused by the drug, or even possession by the drug, can help the shaman foretell future events, find theives or a brujo, or to talk to ancestors or saints. An explanation of the workings of Salvia, according to the son of a Mazatec shaman is as follows;
What happens to the i-nyi-ma-no (the soul, the heart, or life, all three concepts are contained in a single Mazatec word) when one drinks the Maria is that the Maria has so much liquor (licor) that one is left as in a faint. For this reason a person becomes intoxicated (borracho) when they have been entered by the Maria, the oration my father prays and the words of Christ, also. But it really isn’t liquor, I tell you, you go into a “delicate” state (delicado vayas)...what is happening to the i-nyi-ma-no; something does happen, but it is small and unimportant. At times one who takes Maria becomes half-drunk, but with the result that what they are taking will be engraved on their mind. (Valdez & Diaz, 1983)
Of the other drugs utilized by mesoamerican tribes such as the Taino and the Mataco are a series of entheogenic snuffs and topical drugs produced by the seeds of the Piptadenia peregrina and Anadenanthera peregrina plants. The drugs created from these plants are called by different names amongst the tribes, Cohoba, Yopo, and Vilva, respectively. Another drug used by the neighboring Omagua and the Mura is used as an enema, called a parica. The most notable drug used by these tribes is ayahuasca, which is imbibed by the Maypure of Orinoco, and reaches as far south by the Yanamamo, where it is brewed into a drink called yahe. (Ott, 1993) The most interesting drug used among tribes belongs to the tradition of the Matses. A substance called yapo, which is derived from the secretions of an arboreal tree frog, which contains several new found chemicals that have a broad spectrum of medicinal uses, is applied by rubbing it into newly burned areas of the skin. It is believed amongst the Matses that this drug can tell whether a woman is pregnant, and is the primary component of hunting based and other secular and religious divination practices. It is also said to make the person under it’s influence “invisible” to both animals and enemies, and is often used in conjunction with a snuff called nu-nu which heightens the senses for hunting and the dispatching of enemies. (Gorman, 1993)
Another well documented group that uses hallucinogenic substances in their rituals are the peyote eaters amongst the North American native tribes such as the Houichal, the Navaho, the Yaquis, the Lipans, the Chirichuas, the Carrizo, the Tonkawas, the Moustakas, the Mescaleros, and the Apaches.
In an article on Shamanism amongst the Apaches of the Mescalero Indian Reservation (Boyer, et al.-no date given), the ceremonial use of peyote is described as being generally associated with witchcraft, and is practiced by the shamans who are said to use their magic to kill enemies of the tribe and, occasionally, personal enemies within the same tribe.
The use of peyote among the Apaches can be traced through the Mescaleros, who took the practice from the Lipans, who in turn learned it from the Carrizo Indians and other groups from northern Mexico. The shamanistic and mystical beliefs of the three tribes living on the Mescalero reservation; the Mescaleros, the Chirichuas, and the Apaches, are all very similar. To these tribes, the world is filled with supernatural power, that has no a priori affiliation with good or evil, but that the virtue of a practice is based solely on it’s potency, and the aims of it’s ceremonial usage. Each shaman learns their trade through their own supernatural means, usually through visions, and has private rites and rituals, whose workings are known only to him.
Because of use of peyote amongst self-proclaimed dangerous witches, as well as violence that occurred because of controversy over the drug, it’s use has died out among the tribes of the Mescalero Indian reservation, with the exception of a handful of devious and dubious characters, who are said to use their magic in forbidden love ceremonies, or to inflict injury and death. (ibid.)
In stark contrast to the Mescalero tribes view of peyote are those of the Huichol, who use peyote annually in order to see as the gods see, and to perform a prescribed ritual pilgrimage to the lands they believe their ancestors came from. (Stein, 2005) And the Moustakas use it as a healing herb, and to curevices such as drug and alcohol addiction. (Dombrowe, 2005).
Perhaps the most commonly used drug in the world is marijuana. Because it is not inherently psychedelic unless taken in very large quantities, marijuana as it is used as a religious sacrament in the Rastafarian community can probably be more easily compared to the use of wine in Catholic Mass than to the peyote ceremonies or the mushroom ceremonies of the previously described peoples, even though its use can be traced back nearly as far. (Schultz & Hoffman, 1079)
Several Indian Vedas as found in the Zend-Avesta written in 600 B.C. sing of cannabis as a divine nectar of the gods, which can promote healing in man, and visions of the gods. A hemp drink prepared with dried leaves or flowering shoots called Bhang is said to have been one of the favorite drinks of several Hindu gods, including Indra, the god of firmament, and of Shiva, who set protocols for sowing and harvesting the hemp plant. The ancient Indian medical books, the Sushruta, and the Bharaprakasha, claim hemp can cure leprosy, mania, dandruff, insomnia, venereal disease, whooping cough, earaches, tuberculosis, and a host of other ailments.
Hemp can also be traced back to ancient China, where it was used as a sacred healing herb, touted by its alleged curative properties by emperor Shen-Nung over five thousand years ago, who claimed it to treat malaria, beri-beri, constipation, rheumatic pains, and absent mindedness.
In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition from the Himilayas in Tibet and India, two different preparations for cannabis are made, a candy known as maajun is made from shoots and dried leaves and pounded with spices, and ganja is made from the resin filled flowering tops pressed into a mass to change it’s chemical structure. These Buddhists see hemp as an essential part of their religion, citing the belief that during the six steps of asceticism, Buddha consumed nothing except for one hemp seed per day. Marijuana also plays a pertinent role in their meditations.
An ancient group of Persian warriors encountered by Marco Polo would eat hashish in order to bolster their courage, and to show them the rewards left to them after their deaths. This group lead by Persian nobleman Al-Hassan Ibn-al-Sabbah are the origin of both the words “hashish” and “assassin”.
In Africa, cannabis was used to treat dysentery, malaria, anthrax, and fevers, and is still used by the Hotentots and Mfengu to treat snakebites, and by Sotho women to as a painkiller during childbirth. The Kasai tribe of Congo has recently brought back, or “revitalized”, a Riamba cult, wherein a hemp god has replaced ancient fetishes and is praised as a protector against harm. (Schultes & Hoffman, 1979)
The Rastafarian cult is a revolutionary movement out of Jamaica that doesn’t have a written doctrine, but maintains that Haile Sellassie is the living God, and that marijuana is a sacred key to perceiving the universe, and as a symbol against oppression of any kind, “the first show of protest against the tolatarian laws of ‘Babylon.’” It is also a meditary influence and a way to calm the troubles of the mind. (Barrett, 1988)Comment
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When the Rastafarians smoke herb as a ritual in a group, they say a small prayer;
“Glory be to the Father and the maker of creation. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be. World without end: Jah Rastafari: Eternal God Selassie I.”
The smoker seems to go into a trance and takes a few more puffs before passing the pipe or spliff (marijuana cigarette/ joint) along. In Leonard Barrett’s book, “The Rastafarians” (1988), it is suggested that Halie Selassie is not truly the central focus of the movement, and indeed may only be a symbolic figure standing as a racial redeemer and opponent of the evils of colonialism and oppression, according to Ras Sam Clayton, a leader in the Rastafarian community;
The herb the is key to new understanding of the self, the universe, and God. It is the vehicle to cosmic consciousness; it introduces one to levels of reality not ordinarily perceived by the non-Rastafarians, and it develops a certain sense of fusion with all living beings.
(Barrett, 1988)
In a pamphlet distributed by the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church of Jamaica entitled “Marijuana and the Bible” (1988), several sources are cited from religious teachings and texts to give credibility to their use of marijuana as a sacrament. The interpretation of sources lending evidence to their argument ranges from hemp use amongst ancient peoples, to even some passages that they claim lead to the conclusion that marijuana is the true Semetic, Catholic, and Moslem sacrament.
The effects of marijuana was proof to the ancients that the spirit and power of god(s) existed in this plant and that it was literally a messenger (angel) or actually the Flesh and Blood and/or Bread of the god(s) and was and continues to be a holy sacrament. Considered to be sacred, marijuana has been used in religious worship before recorded history.
The pamphlet traces the origins of cannabis as a Semetic sacrament to it’s etymology from “kanabos”, and a Sythian term “cannabis”, through a series of neighboring tribes and cultures. The conclusion they come to from the knowledge of religious uses as a ritual fumegate (incense) amongst the ancient Babylonians, and links the spread of the word with the spread of Judaism with Abraham’s, the father of the religion, origin in Ur, the ancient capital of Babylon.
The use of marijuana as incense leads them to see evidence of its use in passages from the Torah that include symbols associated with incense, namely; smoke, clouds, and fire. Some examples of this symbolism can be seen in the following passages; Exodus 3:1-12, Exodus 40:26, Leviticus 16:2-13, Isiah 6:4, Numbers 11:25, II Samuel 22:9, and Psalms 18:8.
The concept of cannabis as a Christian sacrament comes out of the belief that both Jesus, and his cousin John the Baptist, were members of an ascetic sect that had a monastic order outside Palestine called the Essenes. The Essenes would use hemp for its psychotropic properties to guide in introspection and meditative thought, and learned the practice from another closely related Egyptian sect known as Theraputea, from whom we get the word “therapeutic”. The members of the Zion Coptic Church believe that the long period unaccounted for in Jesus life in the New Testament (13-30) may have been spent being initiated into and participating in this group.
Among the other claims they make are that the Baptism of Jesus by fire, the “new wine” of the wedding feast of Cana, the Communion ritual that started at the Last Supper, and the Holy Spirit, especially as described at the Pentecost, all involve the smoking of marijuana. (ibid.)
On the note of Christian psychedelia, on Good Friday on 1962, a young Harvard student named Walter Pahnke, for his Ph.D in Society and Religion, under the tutelage of his academic advisor, Dr. Timothy Leary, conducted an odd and infamous experiment with a group of twenty Protestant divinity students at the University of Boston’s Marsh Chapel.
(Dobbin, 1991)
The premise of the experiment was to discern whether or not a psychedelic drug, such as the psylociban capsules used in the experiment, would “facilitate a ‘mystical’ experience in religiously inclined volunteers who took the drug in a religious setting”. (mimicking in a contemporary context the tribal groups who use the drug for similar purposes) Such an experience, he further hypothesized, would result in persisting future positive changes in the attitudes and behavior of the experiment who received the psilocyban pills. The test was conducted in a double blind method, but perhaps a little overzealously as, at the behest of Dr. Leary, half of the observing professionals were also administered the drug.
With the exception of one subject who had to be administered a tranquilizer (thorizine), the experiment was a complete success, with the research group scoring much higher in a broad battery of testing methods to test the validity of their drug induced “mystical and transient” experience than the control group, who were given an active placebo of nicotinic acid, in an attempt to “potentiate suggestion...of somatic effects”. Even in follow up studies on the subjects conducted at 6 months, 12 months, and again by a different group of researchers over 23 years later, 18 of the 20 experimental subjects look back fondly on their experience. (the one who had to be sedated, and a subject who died (unrelated to the test) before the long term follow-up.)
Despite the success of his “Good Friday Experiment”, Pahnke wrote an article in 1969 dubbed “Implications of LSD and experimental mysticism” which illustrates and considers many potential risks of using psychedelic drugs in a non-controlled setting, and of other irresponsible employment of entheogenic experimentation.
Besides Pahnke, several other scientists of his generation were very interested in the mystical experiences induced by the ingestion of drugs. In “Chronic users of LSD: The ‘Acidheads’” (Blacker, et al. 1968), researchers found that a culturally, religiously, and ethnically diverse group of acidheads (people who routinely and habitually ingest LSD), held common magical and mystical beliefs outside of their religion, namely an aversion to violence and aggression, and a belief in magic (that the power of suggestion and subjective experiences of control could bestow upon them a sort of omnipotence, and the ability to perform supernatural tasks).
The cause of the “mystical LSD experience” is due in part by the drugs interactions with serotonegic neurons that effect the nueromodulatory system, which effects an array of brain activity, including workings in the neocortex. LSD creates “an increased amount of somatosensory data (which is) processed with a corresponding increase in what is deemed important.” This means that the non-drug mystical experience, as currently studied, shares similar brain functions as an LSD experience. (Goodman, 2002) In a series of studies on animals, primarily pigeons, to try and isolate the same mechanism, it was found that what could be considered religious brain activity is conducted by “induced states of CNS excitation and sympathetic nervous system arousal.” (Siegel, 1977)
Perhaps one of the most contemporary and perhaps the most demonized groups who engage in ritualized drug usage are those involved in the “rave” culture, which is personalized by the attendance of underground quasi-legal events, wherein attendees dance to rhythmic and pulsing, beat-driven music, some of which are under the influence of psychedelic tryptomines and phenethylamines (such as MDMA, aka ecstasy) developed by Dr. Alexander Shulgin. (Batchelder, 2001)
These drugs were developed with the sole intent of creating a reliable and effective means to reach a mystical and spiritual experience. In the process of grouping literally the thousands of drugs he synthesized and divided into levels of experience (Plus One, through a Plus Four) none fall within the strict qualifications of a Plus Four experience, which he describes as;
A rare and precious state transcendental state, which has been called a “peak experience, a” religious experience,” “divine transformation, a “state of Samadhi”, and many other names in different cultures. It is not connected to the +1, +2, and +3 of the measuring of a drug’s intensity. It is a state of bliss, a participation mystique, a connectedness with both interior and exterior universes, which has come about after the ingestion of a psychedelic drug, but which is not necessarily repeatable with a subsequent ingestion of that same drug. If a drug (or technique or process) were ever to be discovered which would consistently produce a plus four experience in all human beings, it is conceivable that it would signal the ultimate evolution, and perhaps the end of , the human experiment. (Shulgin, 2003)
Several other modern researchers, including William Richards (2005), still believe that the study of psychedelic drugs “as a frontier in psychology and religious experience that could prove to have profound implications for advancing our understanding of spiritual dimensions of consciousness. Another prominent researcher, as cited in an article “Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered” (Wulff, 1999), says that “the genie is out of the bottle, and we neither need nor are able to force it back in, so we must use our resources of intelligence imagination, and moral discernment to find ways of making it serve us.”
It follows from the information presented here that the use of psychedelic substances is not only a valued and valuable means of reaching altered states of consciousness within primitive religious contexts, but can be studied to unlock and decode several questions that are inherent in religion, mysticism, and subjective and objective spirituality.
Works Cited
Books:
Stein, R., & Stein, P. (2005). The anthropology of religion, magic, and witchcraft. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Shulgin, S., & Shulgin S. (2003). PIHKAL: Phenethylalamines I have known and loved.
California: Transform Press.
Shapiro, H. (2004). Recreational drugs: A directory. London: Salamander books.
Changon, N. (1977). Yanamomo (umlatt over the o): The fierce people. Rinehart publishers. (excerpt taken from the below, marked *)
*Whitten, P. & Hunter, D. (1987) Anthropology: Current prospectives, 5th ed. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company.
Kent, J. (2005). Psychedelic information theory [Book]. Retrieved from tripzine.com.
Myers, D. et al. (2005). Exploring psychology, sixth ed. New York: Worth Publishers.
Shultes, R. & Hoffman, A. (1979) Plants of the gods: The nectar of delight-The early history of cannabis & Little flowers of the gods: Retrieved from erowid.org
Barret, L. (1988). The Rastafarians. Beacon Press. Retrieved from erowid.org
Ott, J. (1993). Pharmacotheon: DMT snuffs-Cohoba, yopo, and vilva. The Natural Products Co. Retrieved from erowid.org
Boyer, B. & Boyer, R. & Basehart, H. Hallucinogens and Shamanism: Shamanism and peyote use among the Apaches of the Mescalero Indian Reservation. Retrieved from erowid.org
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles:
Dobbin, R. (1991). Pahnke’s “Good friday expirement: A long term follow-up and methodological critique. Journal of transpersonal psychology. Vol. 23 (1)
Valdez, R. & Diaz, J. & Ara, P. (1983). Ethnopharmacology of Ska Maria Pastora (salvia divinorium, epling, and jativa-m) Journal of Ethnopharmacology. Vol. 7 (?) 287-312.
Blacker, K.S., et al. (1968). Chronic users of LSD:The acidheads. American Journal of Psychiatry. Vol. 125 (sept. 3rd) 341-351.
Batchelder, T. (2001). Drug addictions, hallucinogens and shamanism: the view from anthropology. Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients. (July) Issue 216
Wuff, D. (1999). Briefly noted- Psychedelic drugs reconsidered/Sacred plants, consciousness, and healing: cross cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives/Entheogens and the future of religion. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. Vol. 38 (1)
Abstracts:
Hajiceck-Dobberstein, S. (1995). Soma siddhas and alchemical enlightenment: Psychedelic mushrooms in Buddhist tradition. Journal of Ethnopharmacology. Vol.48 (2) 99-118.
Wohlberg, J. (1990). Hoama-Soma in the world of ancient Greece. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. Vol. 22 (3) 333-342.
Siegel, R. (1977). Religious behaviors in animals and man: Drug induced effects. Journal of
Drug Issues. Vol. 7 (3) 219-236.
Goodman, N. (2002). The serotonergic system and mysticism: Could LSD and the nondrug-induced mystical experience share common neural mechanisms? Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. Vol. 34 (3) 263-272.
Lewin, R. (1991). Stone age psychedelia. New Scientist. Vol. 130 (1172) 30.
Emboden, W. (1977). Dionysus as a shaman and wine as a magical drug. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs. Vol. 9 (3) 187-192
Pahnke, W. & Richards, W. (1969). Implications of LSD and expiremental mysticism.
Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. Vol.1 (2) 69-102.
Richards, W. (2005). Entheogens in the study of religious experiences: Current status.
Journal of Religion and Health. Vol. 44 (4) 377-389.
Dombrowe, A. (2005). Touched by spirit: A heuristic study of healing experiences in peyote ceremonies. Discertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences & Engineering. Vol. 66 (5-B) 2815.
Website exclusive documents:
Erowid (2005, November) Psilocybe mushroom history. Retrieved from erowid.org
Gorman, P. (1993, July) Making Magic. Retrieved from erowid.org
Pamphlets:
The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church (1988). Marijuanna and the Bible. Beacon Press. Retrieved from erowid.orgComment
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praise it...PRAISE IT OR DIE!!!!
just kiddin...I just saw the drug shit, and thought I might prove I'm not a complete idiot...any advice or suggestions as to how I might change it and make it better would be GREATLY appreciated...and make it quick, this son-of-a-bitch is due Tuesday the 11th. (I personally feel questionable about the conclusion, and may change it a bit.)Comment
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WHAAAAAA
NO TERRENCE MCKENNA!!?
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The "Stoned Ape" theory of human evolution
Perhaps the most intriguing of Terence McKenna's theories and observations is his explanation for the origin of the human mind and culture. McKenna theorizes that as the North African jungles receded toward the end of the most recent ice age, giving way to grasslands, a branch of our tree-dwelling primate ancestors left the branches and took up a life out in the open—following around herds of ungulates, nibbling what they could along the way.
Among the new items in their diet were psilocybin-containing mushrooms growing in the dung of these ungulate herds. The changes caused by the introduction of this drug to the primate diet were many—McKenna theorizes, for instance, that synesthesia (the blurring of boundaries between the senses) caused by psilocybin led to the development of spoken language: the ability to form pictures in another person's mind through the use of vocal sounds.
About 12,000 years ago, further climate changes removed the mushroom from the human diet, resulting in a new set of profound changes in our species as we reverted to pre-mushroomed and brutal primate social structures that had been modified and/or repressed by frequent consumption of psilocybin.
McKenna's theory has intuitive strength, but it is necessarily based on a great deal of supposition interpolating between the few fragmentary facts we know about hominid and early human history. In addition, because McKenna (who describes himself as "an explorer, not a scientist") is also a proponent of much wilder suppositions, such as his "Timewave Zero" theory, his more reasonable theories are usually disregarded by the very scientists whose informed criticism is crucial for their development.
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his spoken word stuff is hypnotic...and extremely enlightening if a little annoying (that voice of his man) its amazing though, he knows the right sounds and combinations of sounds to make you feel as though you are actually under the influence of DMT.Comment
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@ Garland, I'm going to take my time with your essay but when I'm done I'll post my thoughts.
The thing with Bukowski is that he wasn't trying to be anything, he didn't feel like he needed to live up to anyone's standards. Frankly I think the decision to be that honest with yourself takes a lot more courage than most people have. That honesty combined with the fact that he was one of the most gifted writers of his generation makes his work extremely powerful for those who have the intestinal fortitude to appreciate it. One way or the other the point of that poem wasn't that it would be good for YOU to be Bukowski; he didn't give a damn what you or I thought of him. The point was that he knew that it was good for Bukowski to be Bukowski despite his flaws- that's a bit of timeless wisdom that IMHO is lost on many people because they are too busy wasting their life trying to live up to someone else's ideals whether that be their religeon's, their country's or their parents'. That's what made him great and that's why his legacy will outlast the memory of many men who were more sober and better looking. That's what makes him heroic enough to quote in a thread devoted to heathen's and heretics.Originally posted by osopardoComment
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Originally posted by Sagacious Lu
Sagacious Lu sticks it to the man - Solid.
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....Originally posted by BoarSpear.....really man im not kidding...CHANGE IT
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Where the hell is the hedgehog??
....yikes no wonder you changed it...i had not thought about sharing a nickname with THE HEDGEHOG, ole Ron Jeremy
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