USA to Ban Synthetic Cannaboids

From: DEA Public Affairs
November 24, 2010

 
DEA Moves to Emergency Control Synthetic Marijuana
Agency Will Study Whether To Permanently Control Five Substances.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is using its emergency scheduling authority to temporarily control five chemicals (JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, and cannabicyclohexanol) used to make “fake pot” products.  Except as authorized by law, this action will make possessing and selling these chemicals or the products that contain them illegal in the U.S. for at least one year while the DEA and the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) further study whether these chemicals and products should be permanently controlled. 

A Notice of Intent to Temporarily Control was published in the Federal Register today to alert the public to this action. After no fewer than 30 days, DEA will publish in the Federal Register a Final Rule to Temporarily Control these chemicals for at least 12 months with the possibility of a six-month extension. They will be designated as Schedule I substances, the most restrictive category, which is reserved for unsafe, highly abused substances with no medical usage.

Over the past year, smokable herbal blends marketed as being “legal” and providing a marijuana-like high, have become increasingly popular, particularly among teens and young adults.  These products consist of plant material that has been coated with research chemicals that mimic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and are sold at a variety of retail outlets, in head shops and over the Internet.  These chemicals, however, have not been approved by the FDA for human consumption and there is no oversight of the manufacturing process.  Brands such as “Spice,” “K2,” “Blaze,” and “Red X Dawn” are labeled as incense to mask their intended purpose.

Since 2009, DEA has received an increasing number of reports from poison centers, hospitals and law enforcement regarding these products.  Fifteen states have already taken action to control one or more of these chemicals.  The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 amends the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to allow the DEA Administrator to emergency schedule an abused, harmful, non-medical substance in order to avoid an imminent public health crisis while the formal rule-making procedures described in the CSA are being conducted. 

“The American public looks to the DEA to protect its children and communities from those who would exploit them for their own gain,” said DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart.  “Makers of these harmful products mislead their customers into thinking that ‘fake pot’ is a harmless alternative to illegal drugs, but that is not the case.  Today’s action will call further attention to the risks of ingesting unknown compounds and will hopefully take away any incentive to try these products.”

Sasha Shuglin needs our Support!

This morning Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, Worlds Greatest Pharmacologist & Research Chemist who created hundreds of psychoactive compounds has suffered from a stoke in route to the hospital for a scheduled test on a foot ulcer that was not healing and may need to be amputated. Sasha & Ann have been seriously struggling recently and they can certainly use our love & support in any way possible. Sasha and Ann are two great minds & souls who have done many wonderful things for our community.

If possible, please send a donation of any size directly to his family to help during these difficult times.

Their Paypal address is annandsashashulgin@comcast.net 

Mailing address:
Sasha Shulgin
Transform Press
PO Box 13675
Berkeley CA 94712.

I am sending a gift to them tomorrow. If you wish to sign the card, please leave a comment below and I will include it with the delivery.

You can also make a charitable tax deductable donation to help preserve his life's work via EROWID.

The world loves more because of you Sasha! Wishing you a peaceful and speedy recovery.

All Love & Light,
E

Why Intelligent People Use More Drugs

Published in Psychology Today
Oct 31, 2010
By Satoshi Kanazawa

The human consumption of psychoactive drugs, such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, is of even more recent historical origin than the human consumption of alcohol or tobacco, so the Hypothesis would predict that more intelligent people use more drugs more frequently than less intelligent individuals.

The use of opium dates back to about 5,000 years ago, and the earliest reference to the pharmacological use of cannabis is in a book written in 2737 BC by the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung.  Opium and cannabis are the only “natural” (agricultural) psychoactive drugs.  Other psychoactive drugs are “chemical” (pharmacological); they require modern chemistry to manufacture, and are therefore of much more recent origin.  Morphine was isolated from opium in 1806, cocaine was first manufactured in 1860, and heroin was discovered in 1874.

Given their extremely recent origin and thus evolutionary novelty, the Hypothesis would predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to consume all types of psychoactive drugs than less intelligent individuals.  Once again, as with alcohol consumption, the fact that the consumption of psychoactive drugs has largely negative health consequences and few (if any) benefits of any kind is immaterial to the Hypothesis.  It does not predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to engage in healthy and beneficial behavior, only that they are more likely to engage in evolutionarily novel behavior.  As I point out in an earlier post, more intelligent people are often more likely to do stupid things.

Consistent with the prediction of the Hypothesis, the analysis of the National Child Development Study shows that more intelligent children in the United Kingdom are more likely to grow up to consume psychoactive drugs than less intelligent children.  Net of sex, religion, religiosity, marital status, number of children, education, earnings, depression, satisfaction with life, social class at birth, mother’s education, and father’s education, British children who are more intelligent before the age of 16 are more likely to consume psychoactive drugs at age 42 than less intelligent children.

The following graph shows the association between childhood general intelligence and the latent factor for the consumption of psychoactive drugs, constructed from indicators for the consumption of 13 different types of psychoactive drugs (cannabis, ecstasy, amphetamines, LSD, amyl nitrate, magic mushrooms, cocaine, temazepan, semeron, ketamine, crack, heroin, and methadone).  As you can see, there is a clear monotonic association between childhood general intelligence and adult consumption of psychoactive drugs.  “Very bright” individuals (with IQs above 125) are roughly three-tenths of a standard deviation more likely to consume psychoactive drugs than “very dull” individuals (with IQs below 75).

The following graph shows a similar association between childhood intelligence and the latent factor for the consumption of psychoactive drugs among Americans.  The data come from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.  The childhood intelligence is measured in junior high and high school, and the adult drug consumption is measured seven years later, and constructed from indicators for the consumption of 5 different types of psychoactive drugs (marijuana, cocaine, LSD, crystal meth, and heroin).  The association is not monotonic, but nevertheless, “normal” (90 < IQ < 110), “bright” (110 < IQ < 125), and “very bright” individuals consume more psychoactive substances than “very dull” or “dull” (75 < IQ < 90) individuals.  Once the social and demographic variables are controlled, however, the positive association between childhood intelligence and adult drug consumption is not statistically significant in the American Add Health sample.

People – scientists and civilians alike – often associate intelligence with positive life outcomes.  The fact that more intelligent individuals are more likely to consume alcohol, tobacco, and psychoactive drugs tampers this universally positive view of intelligence and intelligent individuals.  Intelligent people don’t always do the right thing, only the evolutionarily novel thing.

---

Source URL: http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/49834

Timothy Leary: From Mind to SuperMind - Mp3

FROM: The Psychedelic Salon #244: 
 Timothy Leary: From Mind to Supermind

▼ Free Download: MP3 PCs – Right click, save target as. Mac - Ctrl-Click, select option.

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Date: January 28, 1985
Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Speaker: Timothy Leary

“More changes have taken place in the last twenty five years, unquestionably, than in any period of human history. Just as I said an hour on the Greenwich map is a century, a decade these days seems to be a century. Can you remember the ancient history of the 1960s?”

“If you change the techniques of child rearing, if you change the very philosophy and techniques in the daily, moment to moment way that children are brought up, hey, listen, never mind university, you’ve changed that culture.“

“The average post-1946 kid by the age of five had experienced a hundred times more realities, more dramas, more history, more geography, more hype, more propaganda, you name it, than the wisest, oldest, most traveled human beings of the past.”

“To a ‘factory philosopher’ a machine to think is a machine to perform many repetitious tasks.”

“Information, information is the air and the water and the bread and the shoes of the future.”

www.PsychedelicSalon.org

Your Brain on Drugs

Your Brain on Drugs: Dopamine and Addiction
From: BigThink.com
By: David Hirschman
September 13, 2010
"You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when it's waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye" wrote gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, no stranger himself to the compelling nature of addiction.

As has been demonstrated many, many, many times over, drug addiction is a powerful force that can take control of the lives of users. In the past, addiction was thought to be a weakness of character, but in recent decades research has increasingly found that addiction to drugs like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine is a matter of brain chemistry.

Dr. Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, says that the way a brain becomes addicted to a drug is related to how a drug increases levels of the naturally-occurring neurotransmitter dopamine, which modulates the brain's ability to perceive reward reinforcement. The pleasure sensation that the brain gets when dopamine levels are elevated creates the motivation for us to proactively perform actions that are indispensable to our survival (like eating or procreation). Dopamine is what conditions us to do the things we need to do.

Using addictive drugs floods the limbic brain with dopamine—taking it up to as much as five or 10 times the normal level. With these levels elevated, the user's brain begins to associate the drug with an outsize neurochemical reward. Over time, by artificially raising the amount of dopamine our brains think is "normal," the drugs create a need that only they can meet.

"If a drug produces increases in dopamine in these limbic areas of the brain, then your brain is going to understand that signal as something that is very reinforcing, and will learn it very rapidly," says Volkow. "And so that the next time you get exposed to that stimuli, your brain already has learned that that's reinforcing, and you immediately—what we call a type of memory that's conditioning—will desire that particular drug." Over time, the consistently high levels of dopamine create plastic changes to the brain, desensitizing neurons so that they are less affected by it, and decreasing the number of receptors. That leads to the process of addiction, wherein a person loses control and is left with an intense drive to compulsively take the drug.

According to Volkow, the reason that dopamine-producing drugs are so addictive is that they have the ability to constantly fill a need for more dopamine. "So a person may take a hit of cocaine, snort it, it increases dopamine, takes a second, it increases dopamine, third, fourth, fifth, sixth. So there's never that decrease that ultimately leads to the satiety," she says.

Adam Kepecs, a neuroscientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory says that addiction has to do with the brain's expectations. An emerging idea, he says, is that drugs basically "hijack" the brain's normal computational enjoyment and reward mechanisms.

"Let’s say you’re happy about a great chocolate ice cream," says Kepecs, as an example."Over time you learn to expect that the chocolate ice cream is really great and you have no more dopamine released in expectation of that when you receive it. Whereas, if you take an addictive drug, you can never learn to expect it because the drug itself will release an extra kick of dopamine. And when that happens, the value of that drug keeps increasing because now you’re learning that 'Wow my expectations were violated, therefore this must be much more valuable than what I thought before.' So basically what ends up happening: the dopamine system gets hijacked by these drugs."

Volkow notes that there are other components to addiction—like genetics and age of exposure—which is why not everyone who takes drugs becomes an addict. She says approximately 50% of the vulnerability of a person to become addicted is genetically determined, and research indicates that if a person is exposed to drugs in early adolescence they are much more likely to become addicted than if they were exposed to the same drugs as an adult.

Takeaway
One of the key functions of the neurotransmitter dopamine is to create feelings of pleasure that our brains associate with necessary physiological actions like eating and procreating. We are driven to perform these vital functions because our brains are conditioned to expect the dopamine rush that accompanies them.

Addictive drugs flood the brain with dopamine and condition us to expect artificially high levels of the neurotransmitter. Over time, the user's brain requires more dopamine than it can naturally produce, and it becomes dependent on the drug, which never actually satisfies the need it has created.

More Resources

• What Addicts Need, 2008 Newsweek article on how scientists are using insights about neurochemistry to treat addiction.
• Addictive Research, 2007 TheScientist.com article
• University of Texas Addiction Science Research and Education Center description of the role dopamine plays in addiction.

Critical Thinking: The Elite Vs You in Mp3

This Mp3 is the raw audio recording of an interview with Richard Grove from the film Believers Beware: Contrary Conditioning by Paul Verge. An extensive overview on the criminal manipulation of the US & Global Economies, Markets, Regulatory Agencies and Citizens. The NWO, Cultural Conditioning, Global Politics & Government, Media, Propaganda. Contemporary School Vs a Classical Education. The Lost Tools of Learning: Trivium, Quadrivium, Rhetoric, Logical Fallacies. I am certain you will find this interview extremely enlightening, rewarding and informative! Thank you Paul, Rich & Lisa!

Please support The Peace Revolution and TragedyandHope.com

The Intellectual Elite Vs. You!
The Resurrection of Critical Thinking

Featuring: Richard Grove & Lisa Arbercheski
www.TragedyandHope.com & www.PeaceRevolution.org

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From The Peace Revolution Podcast
Raw audio of Interview clips from the film
Believers Beware: Contrary Conditioning
By Paul Verge / Divergent Films
Recorded December 10, 2009

Points covered in this Interview
1) The New World Order / NWO. Plato’s Republic. Suppress thought. Subjugate the public thru poor education.
2) Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express. Too much evidence = multiple culprits. Plausible deniability.
3) Ego worshippers use hidden knowledge to perpetuate the NWO. Intellectual Elite dumbing down the masses.
4) Socrates / Plato: Allegory of the cave. The illusion works the same today as it was 2500 years ago.
5) Books Vs. Internet research. Eustace Mullins - "Secrets of the Federal Reserve" & "The World Order"
6) "Superclass" using Rhetoric, Fallacy arguments and dumbing the public down.
7) News agencies lying to help protect their advertisers. How the NWO is fed by that relationship.
8) "With No Apologies" by Senator Barry Goldwater Ch 33 - The Non Elected Rulers
9) The CFR, TC, Bilderberg, Trilaterals Subverted groups, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Trilateral Commission.
10) David Rothkopf CFR “We've got the world on our key chain ready to take it for a ride.”
11) Fareed Zacharia CFR "The Post-American World"
12) The Last Will & Testament of Cecil Rhodes. Forms Tax-Exempt Foundation to undermine state sovereignty.
13) Lewis Lapham "The American Ruling Class" CFR members & Elite. Rule because the public is willfully ignorant.
14) Albert Einstein Learning our way out of the insanity by evolving our consciousness.
15) John Taylor Gatto’s book "Dumbing Us Down"
16) The 7 Lessons that Compulsory Curriculum teach:

1. Confusion. Everything I teach is out of context. I teach the un-relating of everything.
2. Class position. That’s the real lesson of any rigged competition like school. You come to know your place.
3. Indifference. The lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything?
4. Emotional dependency. By stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors, and disgraces, I teach kids to surrender their will to the predestined chain of command.
5. Intellectual dependency. Of the millions of things of value to study, I decide what few we have time for, or actually it is decided by my faceless employers….Curiosity has no important place in my work, only conformity. Gatto says this is “the most important lesson, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives.”
6. Provisional self-esteem. The lesson of report cards, grades and tests is that children should not trust themselves or their parents but should rely on the evaluation of certified officials. People need to be told what they are worth.
7. One can’t hide. Surveillance is an ancient imperative, espoused by certain influential thinkers [such as Plato, Augustine, Calvin, Bacon, and Hobbes]. All these childless men…discovered the same thing: children must be closely watched if you want to keep a society under tight central control.

17) Other selected passages from "Dumbing Us Down"
18) John Taylor Gatto Re-Cap
19) Gene Odening's concern. The harm being brought to the current generation of students.
20) More on the Trivium.
21) Dan Brown's Lost Symbol.
22) Cecil John Rhodes
23) William T. Stead inventor of the “Interview” died on the Titanic.
24) More on William T. Stead.
25) How to find books. "The Review of Reviews"
26) Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes. ACTUAL BOOK UNVEILING
27) Last Will & Testament of Cecil John Rhodes. Quotes from page 73
28) Last Will & Testament of Cecil John Rhodes. Rich's elucidations.
29) Removing doubts that the NWO exists..
30) About Caroll Quigley
31) Quote from Quigley on Internalization of Controls
32) Carbon emissions. Pollution is mainly from corporations, not the public and Not by accident.
33) Evolution of Civilizations: Old way of war Vs New Form of War. Subversion thru Commerce.
34) Good analogy of the monetary system as an invisible control system you can't see until you are out of it.
35) Quigley's "The Anglo- American Establishment", and "Tragedy and Hope", and Quigley's credibility.
36) John Taylor Gatto's book Dumbing Us Down, reality Vs What we are taught. Suppression of education.
37) Norman Dodd, Reece Committee, Robert Hutchen. Carnegie Endowment brings the US into war.
38) Dumbing down in school to perpetuate the loss of Critical Thinking and become non-thinking followers.
39) War is waged to maintain the sales & consumption cycle. Empty minded consumers obey without question.
40) The Great Conversation - Robert Maynard Hutchins - 500 families who own the copies of these books.
41) The importance of these books and the Liberal Education.
42) Liberal Education had been gone for 90 years!
43) What would America look like after 150 years with out Critical Thinking? Understanding education.
44) Liberal Education. More on Plato's Allegory of the Cave.
45) Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Middle Ages, Renaissance. History repeats. Recognize patterns. Break the Status Quo.
46) Civic Responsibility. Learn to understand for yourself. Government Deception, Rights, Privileges, Responsibility.
47) New World Order Ideology - Fabian Socialism.
48) Fabian Socialists, Fabius the Roman Dictator, Wolf in Sheep’s clothing, Hammering the World into their image.
49) Propaganda, Propagating ideas. Media is Propaganda. Is it helping to expand or suppress your consciousness?
50) Trivium & Quadrivium: Thinking Critically and Creatively. Autodidactic Learning.
51) Dorothy Sayers, "The Lost Tools of Learning"
52) Trivium and the 3,4,5 Triangle. 3 Trivium, 4 Quadrivium, 5 Senses.
53) Trivium: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric. How & Why it works. See thru fallacies, determine facts, share knowledge.
54) 1886 Supreme Court Justice Morrison Waite grants CORPORATIONS the same as Human Beings.
55) Externalization of Cost. To Cheap to be true. Only the poor pay the true price.
56) “War is a Racket” by Smedley Butler, 1934-1935 Plot - Gerald MacGuire
57) Quote “War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives” ~Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.
58) Who was Major General Smedley Butler?
59) Propaganda, 1928 Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud's nephew. Ch 1 Organizing Chaos.
60) Quote from Propaganda by Edward Bernays.
61) The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. Brought America into war by using Propaganda & Demonization.
62) After Treaty of Versailles 1919 Invention of Credit causes Roaring 20's. Bernays & Lippmann sex up ads.
63) Bernay's 1928 Propaganda, Use of mass media to fool the public en masse. Bankers fund Ideologies.
64) The END result? The Planned Obsolescence of America
65) Earning profit responsibly, Cartel Capitalism VS. Compassionate Capitalism, Pollution, Externalizing Costs.
66) Hegelian Dialectic makes the public do rulers dirty work. Whole in the system. De-population, False dilemmas.
67) Club of Rome makes Humanity its own enemy by placing false blame for pollution, the climate, over population.
68) Carbon Tax Scam - Al Gore plan taxes the Problem instead of Solving. Avoiding REAL solutions like Hemp.
69) US Economy Scam - Robert Rubin removes Glass/Steagel. Results in Enron.  Sarbanes-Oxley Backdoor.
70) 29 year-old Goldman Sachs Exec Adam Storch named Chief Operating Officer of SEC’s New Enforcement Division.
71) Whistle blowing. Financial collapse could have been avoided. Paying institutions & the media to lie to you.
72) Education and Religion do 2 things with information- They provide it and conceal it.
73) Prisoner VS Slave mentality - Hoping for a better master, a better system of obedience. 
74) The Root of the Problem. Suppression of Consciousness, Creation of  artificial boundaries.
75) Einstein: You can’t solve a problem from the same mindset that created it.
76) Explaining the Game to children and empowering them.
77) The Reality of the True Problem. Rejecting the Status Quo
78) What corporations want you to do VS what you should be doing. How they profit from our ignorance.
79) Learning our way out of the Problem. Sharing the wisdom.  Popping the illusion bubble.
80) Treating Root causes instead of Symptoms in society, our lives and our health. Avoiding the cycle.
81) Find REAL solutions in lieu of relying on "Authorities". They only seek profit & control.
82) Learning, Understanding, disarming the fear with Knowledge. Learn how to think, not what to think.
83) DisInfo Agents capture public energy and attention. Feeding mans infinite appetite for distraction.
84) Purposeful complication.
85) Words, Propaganda, making choices to react emotionally instead of critically.
86) High Vs. Low Vibrations, Tone, From SD to HD.
87) Synchronicity, Carl Jung, Legitimate Suffering,
88) Fear, Manifestation, Religion, the Middle man, Suppressing Consciousness and Hell.
89) Believing VS. Really Knowing.  Some GREAT easy solutions.
90) Running it Their Way: Corporate Pollution and externalizing blame.(Climate Change / War on Terror).
91) Let go of pre-conditioning. Why churches hide= Occultism.
92) Finding solutions by changing habits first, then collaborate and resist advertising and propaganda.
93) Solving Problems with Words and Understanding and Cooperation. Logic and Reason.
94) Spending our time like we spend our money. Know your REAL self. Notice Corporate Conditioning, Resist!
95) Acting Vs. Reacting and Asking the Right Questions about our habits.
96) Who are you? What is important? Do you like what you’re doing? What are you doing to change it?
97) The multi-pronged onslaught against us. Connecting the dots Defeat Corporate Media.
98) Neil Postman "Amusing our Selves to Death" Suppression of Consciousness.
99) Consumerism/Slavery, Understanding motives and intentions. Threat and Fear Culture Vs. Love.
100) Our adversaries are our greatest teachers.
101) Learn the lessons! They fear the awakening.
102) Selective Genocide, Homosexuality as a control mechanism. Setting the boundaries.
103) Overcome Fear, Learn to be Free, Achieve Happiness, Don't avoid Fear & Pain. Confront & Defeat it!
104) The final message. Does the source of information help or suppress your own consciousness?

“Think for yourself, Question Authority”
Dr. Timothy Leary

www.GaianBotanicals.com

Andrew Weil: Maps Lecture - Video & Mp3

Speaker: Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D.
MAPS: Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century
The Future of Psychedelic & Medical Marijuana Research
April 16, 2010 - San Jose, California
CME Track 01 Disk 01-306. Runtime: 59:14
Thank Jan @ gnosticmedia: FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD right click, save as.

This is a great talk by Andy Weil featuring his unique perspective on the current state of Psychedelic Medicine & Medicinal Marijuana. The successes and the challenges that lay ahead. As leader in the field of integrative and alternative medicine he shares his valuable insights into clinical trials on mind-body medicine and tells how even after publishing solid findings from medical pioneers, most doctors will not change their practice.

Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century - Andrew Weil M.D.
From MAPS: Psychedelic Science

Forty years ago the U.S.led backlash against the possibility of researching the potential beneficial effects of psychedelics and marijuana. Many studies had shown psychedelics to be useful for managing anxiety and depression in terminal cancer patients, for treating alcoholism and opiate addiction and for catalyzing spiritual/mystical experience. At the same time, marijuana was found to be effective for relieving nausea and vomiting often associated with cancer and chemotherapy. Now that restrictions on research with these agents are easing, a new generation of investigators is continuing these studies, as well as looking at MDMA for PTSD, psilocybin for OCD, and marijuana for MS, chronic pain, PTSD, and other conditions. Many other possible therapeutic applications of psychedelics and marijuana needs to be carefully designed and conducted to avoid another backlash from anti-drug zealots. Along with some great personal stories. He is always a pleasure to hear. I think you will enjoy it.

All the best,
E

www.GaianBotanicals.com

TED Talks: 3D Atlas of the Universe

Another stellar real life technology that reminds me of Trin Tragula's Total Perspective Vortex.

The Digital Universe 3D Atlas

From: TED Talks
By: Carter Emmart
Free Download: The Digital Universe Program

As the Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History, Carter Emmart directs their groundbreaking space shows and heads up development of an interactive 3D atlas called The Digital Universe. He coordinates scientists, programmers and artists to produce scientifically accurate yet visually stunning and immersive space experiences in the AMNH’s Hayden Planetarium. It incorporates data from dozens of organizations worldwide to create the most complete and accurate 3D atlas of the Universe from the local solar neighborhood out to the edge of the observable Universe.

Download this software for the unbeatable price of FREE!
 

Carter Emmart: “The flat horizon that we've evolved with has been a metaphor for the infinite, unbounded resources and unlimited capacity for disposal of waste. It wasn't until we really left Earth, got above the atmosphere and had seen the horizon bend back on itself that we could understand our planet as a limited condition. The Digital Universe Atlas has been built at the American Museum of Natural History over the past 12 years. We maintain that, put that together as a project to really chart the universe across all scales. What we see here are satellites around the Earth, and the Earth in proper registration against the universe, as we see. NASA supported this work 12 years ago as part of the rebuilding of the Hayden Planetarium so that we would share this with the world.

The Digital Universe is the basis of our space show productions that we do -- our main space shows in the dome. But what you see here is the result of actually internships that we hosted with Linkoping University in Sweden. I've had 12 students work on this for their graduate work. And the result has been this software called Uniview and a company called SCISS in Sweden. This software allows interactive use. So this actual flight path and movie that we see here was actually flown live. I captured this live from my laptop in a cafe called Earth Matters on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where I live. And it was done as a collaborative project with the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art for an exhibit on comparative cosmology.

And so as we move out, we see continuously from our planet all the way out into the realm of galaxies as we see here, light travel time, giving you a sense of how far away we are. As we move out, the light from these distant galaxies have taken so long, we're essentially backing up into the past. We back so far up we're finally seeing a containment around us -- the afterglow of the Big Bang. This is the WMAP microwave background that we see. We'll fly outside it here, just to see this sort of containment. If we were outside this, it would almost be meaningless, in the sense as before time. But this our containment of the visible universe. We know the universe is bigger than that which we can see.

Coming back quickly, we see here the radiosphere that we jumped out of in the beginning. But these are positions, the latest positions of exoplanets that we've mapped. And our sun here obviously with our own solar system. What you're going to see -- you're going to have to jump in here pretty quickly between several orders of magnitude to get down to where we see the solar system. These are the paths of Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 11 and Pioneer 10, the first four spacecraft to have left the solar system. Coming in closer, picking up Earth. Orbit of the Moon, and we see the Earth. This map can be updated. And we can add in new data.

I know Dr. Carolyn Porco is the camera P.I. for the Cassini mission. But here we see the complex trajectory of the Cassini mission color coded for different mission phases, ingeniously developed so that 45 encounters with the largest moon, Titan, which is larger that the planet Mercury, diverts the orbit into different parts of mission phase.

This software allows us to come close and look at parts of this. This software can also be networked between domes. We have a growing user base of this. And we network domes. And we can network between domes and classrooms. We're actually sharing tours of the universe with the first sub-Saharan planetarium in Ghana as well as new libraries that have been built in the ghettos in Columbia and a high school in Cambodia. And the Cambodians have actually controlled the Hayden Planetarium from their high school.

This is an image from Saturday, photographed by the Aqua satellite, but through the Uniview software. And so you're seeing the edge of the Earth. This is Nepal. This is, in fact, right here is the valley of Lhasa, right here in Tibet. But we can see the haze from fires and so forth in the Ganges valley down below in India. This is Nepal and Tibet.

And just in closing, I'd just like to say this beautiful world that we live on -- Here we see a bit of the snow that some of you may have had to brave in coming out. So I'd like to just say that what the world needs now is a sense of being able to look at ourselves in this much larger condition now and a much larger sense of what home is. Because our home is the universe, and we are the universe, essentially. We carry that in us. And to be able to see our context in this larger sense at all scales helps us all, I think, in understanding where we are and who we are in the universe.”

Download the Digital Universe Software: FOR FREE!
Download the Digital Universe: User Guide
The Digital Universe: BLOG

Dr. Richard Evans Schultes: Hallucinogenic Plants

 
From: Gnostic Media Podcast #79
Professor Richard Evans Schultes Lecture
Download: FREE Mp3 [right click, save as]
Subscribe: HERE

This episode of the Gnostic media podcast features a rare lecture Dr. Richard Evans Schultes on the topic of: Hallucinogenic Plants. I have an original BPC [Botanical Preservation Corps] cassette of this talk but there in no info on it other the #028. For those not familiar with Professor Schultes, he is widely considered The Father of Modern Ethnobotany and the real life Indiana Jones. Some of his students include Tim Plowman, Andrew Weil and Wade Davis. He coauthored Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers with Albert Hofmann and Christian Rätsch.

Richard Evans Schultes was a Boston-born and Harvard-educated botanical explorer, ethnobotanist and conservationist. To research his undergraduate thesis at Harvard, he travelled to Oklahoma with Weston LaBarre in 1936 to study the use of peyote among the Kiowa. In 1938 he travelled to Oaxaca, Mexico with Pablo Reko to seek the identity of teonanacatl. He and Reko were successful at identifying the species of mushrooms used by the Mazatec Indians and were the first to record the species used for their psychoactive properties.

In 1939 Schultes again travelled to Mexico in a successful attempt to verify the identity of Ololiúqui. He travelled throughout Mexico for a few years researching and collecting botanical medicines, hallucinogens, and poisons, before earning his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1941. He soon became caught up in World War II when he was recruited by the United States to find an Amazonian source for rubber. He spent the next ten years working on this project.

In 1953 Schultes became the curator of the Orchid Herbarium at Harvard. He served as Curator of Ethnobotany for the Harvard Botanical Museum from 1958 to 1967 and as Executive Director from 1967-1970. In 1970 he was named Professor of Biology and Director of the Botanical Museum, positions he held until his retirement in 1985.

Schultes was a prolific writer, published over 450 technical papers and nine books on Ethnobotany, and was widely recognized as one of the most distinguished figures in the field. He received many awards for his work including the Cross of Boyaca (Colombia's highest honor), the annual Gold Medal of the World Wildlife Fund, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement and the Linnean Gold Medal (the highest award in the field of botany).

Schultes left our world and became one with the ancestor spirits in 2001.

 

Links:
EROWID: Richard Evans Schultes
Wikipedia: Richard Evans Schultes
Chapter from John Allen’s: Mushroom Pioneers
Buy superior Ethnobotanicals: GaianBotanicals.com
The American Academy of Achievement: Interview 
Interview by Peter Gorman: HIGH TIMES Magazine
Richard Evans Schultes: A Tribute & Bibliography in PDF
Heffter Review #1: Antiquity of the Use of New World Hallucinogens

Golden Guide: Hallucinogenic plants
 
Ethnobotany: evolution of a discipline Google Books

www.GaianBotanicals.com

Personal Update

Hello friends,

First I want to thank all of you for your friendship and support during the most challenging time of my life. It means a great deal to me and all the love really helped me immensely. Its been awhile since I have last written, this is due to my being hit by a tsunami of trouble & disaster. While this analogy may not be appropriate, its the best metaphor I could come up with. For those not familiar with my recent medical crisis, you can read about it in two blog entries: EROCx1 is very ill and My Road to Recovery. Since this has effected many of my readers (mostly friends. acquaintances and people I do business with) I wanted to bring that story to a close and update everyone here on where I stand today.

The definitive cause of my mental & medical break down was due to a bad doctor and horrific pharmaceutical interactions from medication prescribed to me together that should not be even be used with in 30 days of each other.  I had to get a new doctor due to my company changing insurance providers with out notice. My prior doctor successfully treated my back injury and managed my pain with 2 prescriptions. The new doctor wrote me 12 prescriptions in less then 2 months. On top of this he gave me a large quantity of samples which propitiated when my insurance originally denied one of them. These samples were not entered in to my medical records and when things got really bad he didn’t speak up on the true cause to protect himself from a Malpractice case. This resulted in many horrible side effects including making me delusional or more accurately described as temporarily insane. I was eventually hospitalized and it took 5 doctors, intensive testing and therapy to get almost back to normal. My new insurance did not cover ambulances, psychiatric medicine or therapy. Since my hospital stay was deemed to be the result of a “psychiatric” problem they are attempting to deny coverage for the ambulance, hospital, some doctors, psychiatrist, therapist + had high co-pays and uncovered medicines, the list goes on. I have an attorney, but due to the lack of accurate medical records it will probably come down to my word against the doctor and he did a good job of covering his ass so who knows how it will go. Once my attorney either gives up on or wins my case. I will be releasing individual & company names and do my best to warm the public of their unethical if not criminal behavior.

Given the severity of my condition and unknown diagnosis our former residence were renting out remained vacant because we could not rent or sell it. We also feared the chance that I would not recover enough to afford our current home and may need to move back, this left us paying mortgages and utilities on two properties. Not only was my health & wellbeing destroyed and my families financial stability was as well. I was unable to work my day job loosing 4 months pay and my store a neglected with orders backing up and inventory running out. Delays and bad feedback ruined my flawless reputation and I lost a large % of my customer base. Good friends [Especially James & Joe] came to the rescue and we were able to help ship everything out, handle correspondence and prevent a total collapse. Reflecting on friendship, during all the madness and chaos I also lost some close friends, Its my sincere hope that one day they will understand the nature of my illness, will accept my apologies and that we can one day be friends again.

I suffer from 3 month solid gap in my memory and was surprised to receive $1000’s of dollars in charge backs and nearly $4000 in combined over due invoices from my suppliers for material I have no evidence or recollection ordering or receiving. Even after a thorough accounting of inventory, emails, purchase orders & sales receipts. The only thing I can think of is some took advantage of my situation and its plausible that my packages arrived while I was hospitalized, in therapy or at a doctors visit which was typically 3-4 days per week and someone must have stolen the boxes which are often left on my doorstep when no one is home. Speaking of all the Dr’s visits and chaos I also rear ended another car while attempting to drive to a doctors appointment before I fully realized the severity of my condition.

Lets see, oh yes. During this period my domains expired causing me to loose all my correspondence, contacts, email and data + I had to buy one domain back for an excessive premium. Then my shopping cart facilitator "ecrater” banned and removed Salvia from my catalog with out notice. This led to one positive outcome, it forced me to complete a total revamp of Gaian Botanicals that was in the works for over a year, it is now on my own server which I thought made us independent from the prejudices demonstrated by ecrater. The new site is outstanding, an enormous improvement over the original version. Again, I couldn't have done with out help from my friends, especially Scott and feedback from customers willing to beta test the new site and point out errors and offered helpful suggestions.

Unfortunately the new site some how prompted an investigation by PayPal, the payment processor we used as a merchant account with out incident for several years. Who incorrectly claims Salvia divinorum is “illegal” (even though we always abide by the law and honor individual state regulations both publically and privately to be incompliance with all laws even if we don't agree with them) and/or is falsely considered “dangerous” and a violation of their acceptable use policy even if it is not specifically prohibited and the policy is incredibly vague, nor is their any evidence that Salvia is “dangerous". They “limited” my account which means I could NOT access my funds although they had no problem continuing to accept money for items they insist “pose a danger to the public”. Funny how that works. They gave me 5 days to remove all Salvia divinorum products (our best seller) from the new site we worked so hard on and forced me fill out an affidavit confessing that I am a naughty boy and will not break their unwritten rules again or else they will steal my money, close my account and report me to law enforcement agencies. Thus leaving no choice but to submit to their unjust demands or be completely shut down from accepting electronic payment. I am actively seeking a new merchant account / payment processor hoping to find one that is NOT prejudice against ALL of us. Sadly I am surprised to learn that many corporations have similar discriminatory policies.

The Inquisition is alive today and is far more powerful then ever before. Its only evolved from straight out strong armed thievery & looting of immeasurable amounts of wealth and relics. Occupation of foreign nations, enslavement or genocide of entire populations, Holy wars, the practice of physically torturing people for confessions, burning at the stake and other methods of murder to “save souls”. It has secretly hidden behind public awareness controlling governments, corporations, banks, economies and of course still propagating propaganda, religious and racial wars among other crimes against humanity. The United States aka “Land of the Free”  holds the world record for incarcerating more of its own citizens per capita then any other nation on earth. This includes governments who take political & religious prisoners and maintains debtors prisons. They regularly confiscate (steal) good peoples hard earned money, property, children, marking them as un-employable, destroying lives and families all for the heresy of using your own mind & body as they wish and for exercising free will which can deem one guilty of committing a victimless “crime” which total insanity in the first place. Especially for those poor victims prosecuted for man made laws declaring pats of nature (or creation) illegal. At at rate I better stay on topic.

This pretty much concludes what I wanted to summarize and hopefully explains delays in the recent past, the temporary changes to my catalog and my lack of attention to EROCx1 BLOG, forums, correspondence and general involvement with the community I love. Rest assured any and all paid order will ship immediately and I will not rest until I correct this injustice. I will not let all these negative experiences get me down. Timothy Leary changed my life when I was younger telling me, “You determine the reality in which you inhabit. Do not be a victim of culture.” Thus I am viewing my recent struggles as a learning experience, as inspiration to grow, to force evolution to its fullest potential, a reminder of impermanence, to NOT take this wondrous life for granted and to cherish and love what is truly most important in life.

Again, I would like to thank those who stuck with me, helped me, saved me. Those who sent love, inspiration and even financial donations to get me to the here and now. I appreciate you and hope to have your continued friendship and support of Gaian Botanicals.

Namaste to you all!
EROCx1 

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While I have your attention. I am very excited to announce our new High Potency / Full Spectrum 50x Kratom Extract! This is the latest and most advanced high potency, full spectrum Kratom extract available anywhere. Its a great value given its effectiveness and the great expense to R&D and manufacturer it. I firmly believe it to be vastly superior to all other extracts in this price range. I couldn't be happier with it and this is just the first of many new products soon to be added to the Gaian Botanicals Catalog.

www.GaianBotanicals.com

The Conscious Video Directory

The Conscious Video Directory aka CVD is an enormous collection of over 250 online videos from short Documentaries [30mins-1hr] to much longer in depth Research Films [2hrs-4hrs] accessible to all for the unbeatable price of FREE! These films cover a wide range of topics rarely found in mainstream culture, anyone reading this blog entry is certain to find plenty of interesting films to watch online and possibly saved if you have some sort of video capturing software installed. [*RealPlayer wouldn't work for me]. It would be awesome if they could be burned to DVD, Divx or saved to be viewed on a media player. Maybe I just need to get with the times and hook a PC to my TV. I don't particularly enjoy watching a film at my desk where I work. Regardless, this site it a phenomenal resource. Big thanks to Derek Gedney, your efforts to spread truth and awareness are greatly appreciated!

A complete list if films is available HERE.

Just thought I would share!

Peace,
EROCx1

www.cvd.futureproducer.net

Botany of Desire: Michael Pollan

An eye-opening exploration of the human-plant relationship with author Michael Pollan. Featuring Michael Pollan and based on his best-selling book, this special takes viewers on an eye-opening exploration of the human relationship with the plant world — seen from the plants’ point of view. The program shows how four familiar species (the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato) evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control.

www.pbs.org/thebotanyofdesire

www.michaelpollan.com
www.pbs.org/thebotanyofdesire/