Sunday, June 29, 2008

Terence McKenna: The Importance of Human Beings

The Importance of Human Beings
aka Eros and the Eschaton

From: The Psychedelic Salon
Mp3 Podcast: Download
(right click, save as)
Subscribe: HERE

PROGRAM NOTES:
[NOTE: All quotations below are by Terence McKenna.]

"What I’ve observed, and I think it’s fair to give credit to the psychedelic experience for this, what I’ve observed is that nature builds on previously established levels of complexity."

"This is a general law of the universe, overlooked by science, that out of complexity emerges greater complexity. We could almost say that the universe, nature, is a novelty-conserving, or complexity-conserving engine."

"If in fact the conservation and complexification of novelty is what the universe is striving for, then suddenly our own human enterprise, previously marginalized, takes on an immense new importance."

"Each stage of advancement into complexity occurs more quickly than the stage which preceded it. . . . Time is, in fact, speeding up."

"No one is in charge of this process, this is what makes history so interesting, it’s a runaway freight train on a dark and stormy night."

"Science is the exploration of the experience of nature without psychedelics. And I propose, therefore, to expand that enterprise and say that we need a science beyond science. We need a science which plays with a full deck."

"What is revealed through the psychedelic experience, I think, is a higher dimensional perspective on reality. And I use ‘higher dimensional’ in the mathematical sense."
Definition of ‘eschaton’: "Eschaton comes from the Greek word ‘echatos’, which just means the end."

"The ‘hard swallow’ built into science is this business about the Big Bang. … This is the notion that the universe, for no reason, sprang from nothing in a single instant. … Notice that this is the limit test for credulity. . . . It’s the limit case for likelihood."

"We’re not mere spectators, or a cosmic accident, or some sideshow, or the Greek chorus to the main event. The human experience IS the main event."

"Our culture takes us out of the body and sells our loyalty into political systems, into religions, into inanimate objects and machines, collections, so forth and so on. The felt experience of the body is what the psychedelics are handing back to us."

"[The psychedelic experience] is not a journey into the human unconscious, or into the ghost bards of our human civilization. It’s a journey into the presence of the Gaian mind."
"The world is not an unsolved problem for scientists or sociologists. The world is a living mystery."

Friday, June 27, 2008

Bruce Eisner: The Eleusinian Mysteries, LSD, MDMA, Huxley, Hofmann & more

My friend Bruce Eisner presenting, "The History and Future of LSD". His 2 hour talk recorded at the 2001 International Conference on Altered-States of Consciousness. Sante Fe, New Mexico.

The talk covers the history of LSD or lysergic-acide diethylamide tracing its origin in the organic compounds ergot said to be used in the Mysteries of Eleusius. The talk also looks at potential future uses of LSD, Neo-Eleusinian Mysteries combining a variety of conscsiouness and mind-tranforming techiques and technologies.

LSD and Aldous Huxley’s Island: Setting Sail for a Better Country by Bruce Eisner is a 40 Minute presentation given on January 15, 2006 in Basel, Switzerand.


Bruce Eisner's
Additional videos...

Thursday, June 26, 2008

The Universe is a big place

Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (Redux)

By Tony Darnell
Website: http://www.deepastronomy.com/

Also See: Hubblesite.org

Searching for the faintest objects in the Ultra Deep Field is like trying to find a firefly on the Moon. Light from the farthest objects reached the Hubble telescope in trickles rather than gushers. The orbiting observatory collected one photon of light per minute from the dimmest objects. Normally, the telescope collects millions of photons per minute from nearby galaxies.

This UTube film reminds me of the Total Perspective Vortex:

Trin Tragula was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. She would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake.

"Have some sense of proportion!" she would say, sometimes as often as 38 times in a single day.

And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex, just to show her. Into one end he lugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the ther end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she seen in one instant the hole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.

To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot have is a sense of proportion.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Aldous Huxley: The Ultimate Revolution at Berkeley on March 20, 1962

The Ultimate Revolution
@ UC Berkeley on March 20, 1962
Aldous (Leonard) Huxley
1894-1963
Mp3 Podcast: Download (right click, save as)
Subscribe: HERE
PROGRAM NOTES:

[NOTE: All quotations below are by Aldous Huxley.]

"Today we are faced, I think, with the approach of what may be called the ultimate revolution, the final revolution, where man can act directly on the mind-body of his fellows."

"We are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy, who have always existed and presumably will always exist, to get people to love their servitude. This is the, it seems to me, the ultimate in malevolent revolutions."

"Given the fact that there are these 20% of highly suggestible people, it becomes quite clear that this is a matter of enormous political importance, for example, any demagogue who is able to get hold of a large number of these 20% of suggestible people and to organize them is really in a position to overthrow any government in any country."

"If there are 20% of the people who really can be suggested into believing almost anything, then we have to take extremely careful steps into prevent the rise of demagogues who will drive them on into extreme positions then organize them into very, very dangerous armies, private armies which may overthrow the government."

"The really interesting thing about the new chemical substances, the new mind-changing drugs is this, if you looking back into history it’s clear that man has always had a hankering after mind changing chemicals, he has always desired to take holidays from himself, but this is the most extraordinary effect of all that every natural occurring narcotic stimulant, sedative, or hallucinogen, was discovered before the dawn of history, I don’t think there is one single one of these naturally occurring ones which modern science has discovered."

"Man was apparently a dope-bag addict before he was a farmer, which is a very curious comment on human nature."

"You can have an enormous revolution, for example, with LSD-25 or with the newly synthesized drug psilocybin, which is the active principal of the Mexican sacred mushroom. You can have this enormous mental revolution with no more physiological revolution than you would get from drinking two cocktails. And this is a really most extraordinary effect."

"And then again, in the case of these very strange substances like psilocybin and lysergic acid, I think there is a great deal to be said for doing what William James talked about, which was getting people to realize that their ordinary, sort of common sense view of the world is not the only view. The universe they inhabit is not the only possible universe."


Exploring Aldous Huxley on Yoism.com
Brave New World:
PDF download or Mp3 download
The Doors of Perception: ebook PDF download
UC Berkeley recording (Talk Only): Real Audio version

Friday, June 20, 2008

NEW LSD assisted Psychotherapy study begins!

MAPS.ORG
To: EROCx1
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008
Subject: MAPS News: June 2008
First legal dose of LSD administered!


The New LSD Assisted Psychotherapy Study Begins! The first subject was treated in Peter Gasser, MDs LSD/end-of-life anxiety study in Switzerland on May 13th. This marks the beginning of what will become the first LSD-assisted psychotherapy study in over 36 years. While were sad that Albert Hofmann didnt live to actually see the first administration of LSD in this study, were glad he knew the study was fully approved and that the initial subject was going to be enrolled in the study soon. This subjects second and final experimental session will take place on June 27.

Dr. Gasser's protocol is for a preliminary 12 patient, double-blind study designed to gather basic information on safety and efficacy for this patient population. This study will also be used to guide in the development of our treatment approach. Though there has been substantial prior research with LSD in cancer patients that demonstrated safety and some degree of efficacy, that research was conducted over 36 years ago. In order to generate data that will be accepted by today's regulatory agencies, new protocols must meet modern drug development standards. Research must start from scratch and build carefully.

Dr. Gasser will be writing about the details of this initial research in his report for the upcoming Summer MAPS Bulletin.

So far, many generous MAPS supporters have pledged $125,000 of the $225,000 needed to complete this important study, and we all have faith that enough people will feel called to donate the remaining $100,000.

maps.org

Friday, June 13, 2008

Thomas Roberts @ The 2008 World Psychedelic forum


Professor Emeritus of
Educational Psychology

"Psychedelic Medicine"

As presentated at the

From Psychonautica

FREE Mp3 download: HERE

This is the 2nd half of the talk "psychedelic medicine" from the 2008 World Psychedelic forum, including a talk by Thomas Roberts about modern practicalities and procedures involved in creating officially approved psychedelic medicines, and a question and answer session to finish it off. Thomas Roberts talks about a corporate model of psychedelic research, including a plan for the next 10 years, the lack of public awareness about psychedelics, public apathy towards the issue, the process of getting drugs made available to the public, how to obtain funding, modern culture's addiction to money, the procedures involved in drug trials and FDA involvement in the process, getting media coverage for drug trials in particular the importance of the financial media, the approximate number of psychedelic drug users in the US and worldwide animal studies with psychedelics, the failure of the CIA's attempts to use LSD for their evil purposes and the efficacy of ibogaine comparaed to methadone for treating heroin addiction.

Thomas B. Roberts (Ph.D. Stanford) investigates mindbody states for the leads they provide for learning, cognition, intelligence, creativity, mental health, psychological processes, and abilities that may reside in them as described in his book Psychedelic Horizons. He specializes in psychedelics, particularly their entheogenic (spiritual) uses see Psychoactive Sacramentals: Essays on Entheogens and Religion. His online archive Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments excerpts over 550 books, dissertations, and topical issues of journals. The 2-volume set Psychedelic Medicine extends this interest into health studies. He has taught Foundations of Psychedelic Studies at Northern since 1981; this is the first such catalog-listed course at a college or univeristy. He has lectured on psychedelics in Finland, Iceland, the Czech Republic, Switzer land, Mexico, and Canada and published over 100 articles, chapters, and book reviews. He originated Bicycle Day

Publications Include:
  • Psychedelic Medicine: New Evidence for Hallucinogenic Substances as Treatments
  • Psychedelic Horizons: Snow White, Immune System, Multistate Mind, Enlarging Learning
  • Psychoactive Sacramentals: Essays on Entheogens and Religion
  • Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy
  • (2006) Chemical Input, Religious Output — Entheogens: A Pharmatheology Sampler. Chapter in Partick McNamara (Editor) The Psychology of Religion, Vol. III of the Religion and Brain Series. Westport, CT: Praeger/Greenwood Press.
  • (2005) From Armchair Theology to Experimental Science: Entheogenic Keys to the Doors of Experimentation. Anthropology of Consciousness, 16(1), 51-55.
  • (2004) The New Gutenberg Reformation : From Ritual to Text to Primary Religious Experience. Society for the Scientific Study of Religion Annual Meeting, Oct 22-24, Kansas City Missouri.
  • (2003) Roberts, T.B. A New Relationship with our Minds - Multistate Mind, Thresholds in Education.
  • Roberts, T.B. (1999). Do enthogen-induced mystical experiences boost the immune system? Advances in Mind-Body Medicine.
  • Roberts, T. B. (2000). Academic and religious freedom in the study of the mind. In R. Forte (Ed.), Entheogens and the future of religion. San Francisco: Council on Spiritual Practices.
  • Roberts, T. B. (1994). Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: A Grofian interpretation. In T. Little (Ed.), Psychedelics. New York: Barricade Books.
  • Sunday, June 8, 2008

    Dr. Michael Winkelman: Psychedelic Medicine




    "Psychedelic Medicine"

    As presentated at the

    From Psychonautica

    FREE Mp3 download: HERE


    This talk from the 2008 World Psychedelic forum is given by Dr. Michael Winkleman entitled 'psychedelic medicine'. Michael talks about the possible role of psychedelics in human evolution, psychedelics as psycho-integrators, serotonin as a neuro-modulator, bringing together levels of the brain and bringing unconsciousness into consciousness, the legal status of ayahuasca and peyote in the US, ayahuasca churches and tourism, native American's use of peyote, drug fatalities, psychedelics for treatment of substance abuse problems, medical assessments of psychedelics, treatment of cluster headaches, the moral imperative of psychedelic research, treatment of post traumatic stress disorder and the prevalence of PTSD and suicide in the US army, the psychedelic afterglow, treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder, treatment of anxiety in terminal cancer patients, the efficacy of alcoholics anonymous compared to psychedelics, ibogaine and its discovery by addicts, ketamine and its similarity to psychedelics, therapeutic use of peyote, alcoholism among native Americans, peyote as a de-semanticizing agent, the importance of sexual abstinence and fasting prior to entheogen use, and different approaches to the employment of psychedelics in therapeutic settings.

    Dr. Michael Winkelman's HOMEPAGE

    Publications Include: