Media

How the Internet fuels the global psychedelic community

Suntoucher — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:38:55 +0000

This year and the next, the United Nations will evaluate the War on Drugs. Since its official start in 1998 we have been bombed with official statistics on drug use, drug addiction, drug trafficking, street prices, courtcases and all the like. But what does this information tell us? Drugs are bad, drugs are expensive, drugs are addictive, drugs equal crime. These numbers obviously show us that drugs, despite of their bad reputation, are undeniably part of our society.

I am about to take a deeper look into a drug category that does not show up in the statistics provided by the drug monitoring institutions, that are mostly concerned with cocaine and (meth)amphetamines. The drugs within the category I'd like to talk about have a lot in common: they are 100% natural, they are mostly legal, they are not addictive, they provide an expansion of consciousness that can be described as a spiritual experience, they are used by a steadily increasing number of young people, and they are mostly sold over the Internet. How can I be sure about all this if statistics do not provide much information on the matter? It’s simple: the Internet demonstrates it.

Legal Drugs

On the menu are seeds with exotic names such as Hawaiian Baby Woodrose and Morning glory. You can buy ingredients for shamanic potions like Ayahuasca and other indigenous sacraments from the depths of the Amazon. There are also relaxing herbs such as St. Jons Wort, Valerian, Blue lotus, stimulants such as Kratom, and powerful hallucinogens that give worrisome American parents the shivers such as Lady Salvia (Salvia divinorum). There are numerous online vendors that offer these legal psychedelics in their natural form, as plant material. Working for one of these suppliers I’ve witnessed ever increasing sales and returning customers since 1999. I’ve also witnessed an ever increasing number of competitors, with equally increasing sales. Some of them keep an assortment consisting of hundreds of different natural psychedelics; others focus on one easily available and fashionably marketable drug.

The Mighty Web

It appeared that the Web has exactly those qualities that proved essential for the formation of a large, global psychedelic community. More than any other non-mediated social phenomena the use of psychedelics was fueled by the Internet’s biggest successes: access to unbiased information, interactive communication and e-commerce. First hand information from experienced users has proved essential for those who consider using a certain drug. Erowid, with 45.000 documents generally considered the most extensive online source on psychedelic information, was one of the first websites that saw the importance of user submitted content. A few trip reports can provide you with the pitfalls and potentials more so than those static, moralistic, educational texts. But there is more to the psychedelic network that heavily clouds the Web; numerous blogs, dazzling artwork, news about psychedelic studies, podcasts with conference talks of “gurus” like Terence McKenna, and videos of - for instance - “psy” events like Burning Man.

The relation between psychedelics, commerce and computers is anyhow interesting. Hippie-trippy designs never lost their impact on modern graphic design. Computer graphics, animation and virtual reality have always been marked by psychedelics. And although Burning Man used to be labeled as too-hippie-to-mention, it is now considered the ultimate melting pot of creativity, freedom and happiness by the numerous Silicon Valley workers and Wall Street executives that join the parade of cosmic artists.

Problems and Challenges with Internet Sales

The sale of natural psychedelics is not as natural as it may seem, at least in most countries. Only in a few countries are natural psychedelics - and smoking supplies too - openly sold and marketed according to their intended use. Dutch “smart shops” pioneered, and later Spain, Italy and other countries followed. In the early nineties Conscious Dreams opened the first “smart shop” in Amsterdam, a place that offered 100% natural drugs to adults. Non-chemical enery pills and so-called magic mushrooms, first available over-the-counter in 1994, were the biggest hits. In Europe there are now many online smart shops active of which Azarius is best known. People from many parts of the world can buy the natural products and get information on their use and history. However, things are a little complicated for these web shops that operate within the legal framework. Shipping restrictions are necessary, but finding out what can and can not be sent to a given country or state is difficult due to unclearly stated and often changing national legislation. For example, if it is legal to sell a certain plant extract, does that also apply to its seeds, its fruits and the synthesized form of its active substance? To be “safe” from governmental penalties most shops refrain from marketing their wares as consumption goods. Unfortunately this does not make things safer for the customer who - consequently - does not receive any dosage information or user guidelines with ordered products. But the solution to this is also provided by the freedom and neutrality of the Internet, where this information can be found within a few mouse clicks.

Social applications such as forums, book marking sites, communities, and online networks show us that the psychedelic movement is not a separated subculture, but a movement perfectly integrated in society. There are Facebook and MySpace groups directed to the use of entheogens, Amazon can help you fill quite some bookshelves with works on psychedelics, and even your neighbor might have booked an ayahuasca healing session for his planned trip to South America. Every person can be a psychonaut.
Although we're still talking about a niche that has to deal with major oppression from politics and religion, it is as alive and expanding as the Internet itself.

- Jakobien van der Weijden

References ... Read More »

Boris van der Ham over XTC (GeenStijl)

Tech Carries a Torch for Burning Man (Cnet)

Executives at Burning Man (Portfolio)

McKenna's Last Trip (Wired)

World Drug Report (United Nations)

About (Conscious)

Save The World With Music

strwdle — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:13:43 +0000

Save The World With Music is a fun free music quiz that donates clean water for a day every time a question is answered correctly. We're working in conjunction with the charity 'Play Pumps International' who provide access to clean drinking water across schools and communities in Africa.

Please take the some time out to check out the quiz and if possible spread the word about the cause!

http://www.savetheworldwithmusic.com

AntiMatters Volume 2 No 2 Released

koantum — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:27:29 +0000

CONTENTS

Materialism
Abstract PDF
Sri Aurobindo (pp 1-8)

Beyond Natural Selection and Intelligent Design: Sri Aurobindo’s Theory of Evolution
Abstract PDF
Ulrich J Mohrhoff (pp 9-31)

Sri Aurobindo and Hinduism
Abstract PDF
Peter Heehs (pp 33-45)

Indian Spiritual Knowledge and the Psychology Curriculum
Abstract PDF
Matthijs Cornelissen (pp 47-57)

Should We Expect To Feel As If We Understand Consciousness?
Abstract PDF
Mark C Price (pp 59-70)

Diseases of Meaning, Manifestations of Health, and Metaphor
Abstract PDF
Kim Jobst,Daniel Shostak,Peter J Whitehouse (pp 71-80)

Awakening the Genius Within
Abstract PDF
Yasuhiko Genku Kimura (pp 81-85)

Can the New Science of Evo–Devo Explain the Form of Organisms?
Abstract PDF
Steve Talbott (pp 87-102

Book Reviews

Review of Moalem and Prince: Survival of the Sickest
PDF
(pp 103-110)

Review of Vaughan-Lee: Alchemy of Light
PDF
(pp 111-117)

Review of Martin: Does it Matter?
PDF
(pp 119-126)

Review of Northcote: The Paranormal and the Politics of Truth
PDF
(pp 127-133)

Book Excerpts

Reinventing the Sacred
PDF
Stuart A Kauffman (pp 135-144)

The Ascent of Humanity
PDF
Charles Eisenstein (pp 145-165)

Self-Promotional Prophet: Daniel Pinchbeck’s 2012

aeolus kephas — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:13:16 +0000

While reading Daniel Pinchbeck’s 2012: The Year of the Mayan Prophecy (formerly The Return of Quetzalcoatl, change presumably instigated by the publishers), I became so enthusiastic that I began to write a review halfway through it. Then something odd happened. Around page 300 (with part six), the book began to go horribly wrong, and by the time I was finished, I had an entirely different take on it. For the first 200 pages or so, I didn’t want the book to end. For the last hundred pages, I couldn’t wait to be done with it. To say that Pinchbeck overstays his welcome would be a grotesque understatement. By the end of the book, he has more or less destroyed whatever good will we had for him, and I wound up holding my head in my hands, muttering to myself: “Another good mind bites the dust.”

Since my first notes are an accurate description of my response to the book up to that point, however, I’ll include them here before moving onto my final judgment. These initial impressions amount to a review of the first 250 pages of 2012.
Pinchbeck’s book is a tour-de-force; an astonishing achievement that manages to blend worldly (and world-weary) skepticism with a wide-eyed sense of wonder. What the author attempts—and by and large achieves—is to build a bridge between the rational/sensationalist viewpoint of mainstream media (Pinchbeck’s background is as a New York journalist and editor), and the cutting edge of shamanic vision, an area which the mainstream generally relegates to the “lunatic fringe.” Yet at no point does Pinchbeck resort to dumbing down or simplification. 2012 is certainly not a book for everyone, but it has a very wide reach, and potentially it could connect to even the most skeptical of readers—if not to persuade, then at least to challenge. Pinchbeck is a futurologist, attempting to describe concepts that have yet to take hold of the consensus, being basically incompatible with it, by using terms apprehensible to our current worldview. This is no easy task, yet Pinchbeck manages it without coming off as either a raving lunatic or prophet of doom.

For a work as chock-a-block with ideas as this (perhaps only 20% of which are original to Pinchbeck), the author stays remarkably on track, and there’s very little here that struck me as being off-the-mark. Yet apparently the book was not well-received (Rolling Stone described it as being “widely panned”). Taking a hostile, even derisive stance to Pinchbeck’s brand of apocalypticism, the mainstream media latched particularly onto his avocation of the psychedelic experience, and his claim to being the chosen prophet of Quetzalcoatl. (It has to be said that Pinchbeck walked right into that one.) Yet 2012 is in no way spurious or outlandish, nor is it poorly argued, researched, or written. It’s an exemplary work of apocalyptic scholasticism, and the only way to dismiss it is to argue that Pinchbeck is just another drug-damaged lunatic with delusions of grandeur. To this extent, in keeping with tradition, the more virulently the world rejects the message, the more it—inadvertently—confirms the truth of it. Pinchbeck has volunteered for the most thankless role there is, and he ought not to trouble himself too much about such a chilly reception. His reward is not of this world anyway.

That said, there are times when Pinchbeck doesn’t seem quite equal to his task. Brilliant as 2012 is, it lacks a unifying poetic vision. It is more of a compendium, an overview of ideas, than a unique creative work, and although Pinchbeck writes extremely well, he doesn’t appear to have an especially strong sensibility. Most of his insights come from the head and not the heart. In an odd way, he seems a little too worldly, and perhaps this is what has led to his coming up against the world in such a fashion. Apparently, despite all his fevered convictions, part of Pinchbeck still wants to curry the world’s favor. Eager to receive credit for being the messenger, he’s busy building bridges to a world he knows, in his heart of hearts, won’t be around much longer. He might be better off burning them instead.
*

These were my first impressions. The last quarter of 2012, however, is such a fatal error of judgment on the part of the author that the book winds up as a cautionary tale: a warning about what happens when the messenger gets consumed by self-importance and decides to “improve on” the message, thereby destroying it in the process. Pinchbeck’s ideas on masculine-feminine energies, the Kali Yuga, and the unnatural restrictions of monogamy are not actually bad, nor are they poorly expressed. But they belong in another work, as does (considerably more so) his distinctly uncomfortable private accounts of marital break-up and unrequited sexual desire. For the previous 300 pages (or at least 250, up to the end of part 4; part 5 is a somewhat superfluous but not uninteresting retread of crop circles in Glastonbury), Pinchbeck presented an almost unassailable argument for the end of consensus reality. After such a relentless but inspired barrage of information, it’s extremely difficult to sustain interest in such relatively trivial questions: our attention is all used up. As a result, all the air begins to leak out of 2012, as it slowly sinks into the quagmire of Pinchbeck’s personal obsessions and neuroses.

Pinchbeck not only dissipates our good will towards him, he rapidly erodes his credibility. If he had he kept the work to the first four or five parts and left out the final hundred ages, I have no doubt his book would have received a vastly more positive response. As it is, those people desperate to dismiss the book as the work of a self-obsessed crank found, in this last section, all the proof they needed. Pinchbeck’s description of the process by which he comes to realize he is the chosen avatar of Quetzalcoatl and the Great Beast 666 is embarrassing. (No wonder Pinchbeck took a couple of pages out to revile Crowley earlier in the book: he was setting the stage for his own assumption of power and had to be sure to banish all pretenders first.) Then, when Pinchbeck reveals the Quetzalcoatl “transmission,” it is a lackluster piece of prose, offering nothing he hasn’t said already, and better, in the previous pages. Pinchbeck writes:
“The writer of this work is the vehicle for my arrival—my return—to this realm. He certainly did not expect this to be the case. What began as a quest to understand prophecy has become the fulfillment of prophecy. The vehicle of my arrival has been brought to an awareness of his situation in sometimes painful increments and stages of resistance—and this book follows the evolution of his learning process, as an aid to the reader’s understanding. . . . almost apologetically, the vehicle notes that his birthday fell in June 1966—6/66—“count the number of the Beast”. . . . The Beast prophesied is the ‘feathered serpent,’ Quetzalcoatl.”

Is Pinchbeck so deluded he fails to see that the proof of his prophet-status is only ever in the pudding? If he had let the work speak for itself, he might have had a shot at becoming a leading spokesperson for the Eschaton; instead he couldn’t wait to be coronated, and manufactured his own tawdry crown, turning his book into a declaration of its own importance, and of its author’s quasi-divine status. As a result, he merely demonstrates the pathological delusions which invariably befall the magician on his path to freedom. What makes this even more depressing is that Pinchbeck is fully aware of the possibility, and yet maintains the delusion anyway.

“[P]erhaps I had succumbed to a trap set by malicious entities from the astral plane, puffing me up with delusions of grandeur, ready to tear me down in future, as they had done to poor Aleister Crowley…?” He even cites his hero Terence McKenna: “The notion of some kind of fantastically complicated visionary revelation that happens to put one at the center of the action is a symptom of mental illness.” Apparently Pinchbeck believes that simply acknowledging these possibilities is enough to banish them. (He makes it clear he is nobody’s fool.) But I’d wager the reverse is the case: by showing himself willing to entertain the idea that he has been duped, he convinces himself that such a thing could never happen to him. But it did.

I have little doubt Pinchbeck’s editors begged him to leave out the last segment of the book, but you can bet Pinchbeck was having none of it. This was the essence of the work, the essence of his message, that the quest for prophecy, etc, etc. But by making the whole work—the whole “return of Quetzalcoatl”—about himself, he reduces 2012 to a personal rant and almost obliges the reader to reject it, baby with bathwater, as a deeply embarrassing demonstration on the pitfalls of psychedelic self-importance.

A Rolling Stone article notes how Pinchbeck’s original publisher dropped the book: “Gerald Howard, a venerable editor of authors like Don DeLillo, offering the comment, ‘Daniel, you’re not Nietzsche.’ Says Pinchbeck, ‘It was hard for him to conceive that someone of my generation was doing something of primordial significance.’”

It’s clear where Pinchbeck stands in regard to his own talent. Does he really believe, in the light of all his visions, that a cosmic shift in consciousness hinges around a book he wrote about it?! Apparently, that’s exactly what he believes. Pinchbeck has mistaken his finger for the Moon, and is busy fobbing off menus for meals. He has succumbed to the common delusion that the messenger is more important than the message, that the intellectual apprehension of an idea is essential to its existence. This ties in with Pinchbeck’s fanciful, New Age notion that we (and especially he, as a “visionary”) are creating the future through our thoughts. There is a huge difference between admitting that our thoughts influence reality and claiming that they create it, but it’s a difference Pinchbeck seems to have willfully ignored. It’s basically the same abyss that lies between the idea of tuning into the archetypal energy of “Quetzalcoatl,” and of being the (sole) chosen vessel of a god: the difference between enlightened responsibility and demented self-importance (i.e., hubris).

The sad fact is that this kind of thinking usually winds up having the very opposite effect to the one intended. Pinchbeck’s insistence on believing he is The One—the world’s savior—doesn’t make it so; it only cripples his ability to be an efficient messenger. By the end of the book, Pinchbeck has accomplished something I would have thought impossible: he made me feel jaded and cynical about the Apocalypse. In the end, 2012 presents probably the best argument there is for steering clear of psychedelics and of consciousness expansion in general. If taking the red pill is going to turn us into Daniel Pinchbeck, for God’s sake take the blue pill! Pinchbeck has gone over to the dark side without even knowing it. Great beast indeed.

Bazooka Jones: New snapshot from the upcoming Indy 4 movie

red pill junkie — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:41:43 +0000

For those die-hard Indy fans out there, here's this new pic of our favorite archeologist (Lara who?) wielding some serious fire power; I only hope he gets the chance to use it this time, not like in Raiders when he cowed from destroying the Ark of the Covenant.

Follow the links and you'll find an interview with Producer Frank Marshall. Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf (who plays the part of Indy's son Mutt... what's with George Lucas and dogs anyway??) are also appearing in February's cover of Vanity Fair magazine, and there's also a behind-the-scenes video of the photo-shoot.

-So, Doctor Jones, what was the topic of your Doctorate thesis anyway?

-Use of ordnance as a tool in archeological digs

Second issue of AntiMatters released

koantum — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:36:01 +0000

AntiMatters - http://anti-matters.org - is an open-access journal published quarterly by the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in Pondicherry, India. It addresses issues in science and the humanities from nonmaterialistic perspectives.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Preface to the Second Issue - pp 1-13

2 Daniel D. Hoffman: Dismissing God - pp 15-20

Debates between theists and atheists often hinge, naturally enough, on advances in cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary biology. Here I contend that such advances, though relevant to the debate, cannot license deductively valid arguments for or against theism. I contend further that the central role of probability in evolutionary theory grants no inductive strength to arguments for or against theism. The Kolmogorov axioms of probability and the mathematical definition of a stochastic process suitably model mutation and selection; using this fact to conclude for or against theism requires, in either case, a leap of faith.

3 Sri Aurobindo on Subliminal Consciousness - pp 21-54

A compilation of passages from two of the major works of Sri Aurobindo, concerning the subliminal regions of our consciousness, with introductory biographies of Sri Aurobindo and of F. W. H. Myers, who coined the term “subliminal consciousness” and introduced the subject into scientific psychology. In Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century, Kelly et al. (2006) argued that the subliminal parts of our consciousness hold the key to all or most of the phenomena we tend to label as “paranormal.” According to Sri Aurobindo, they also hold the key to all or most of the phenomena studied by “ordinary” psychology. Through the subliminal we can enter non-physical planes of existence, whose raison d’être is explained.

4 Ulrich Mohrhoff: Fodor on Adaptationism - pp 55-60

In a recent paper, Jerry Fodor argued that explanations of phenotypes in terms of their selection histories are not nomological and “don’t claim or even aspire to be”: adaptationist explanations are species of historical narratives. What is more, even if adaptationist explanations were true causal explanations, nothing would warrant the transition from a functional theory that explains behavior in terms of its function to a psychological theory that explains behavior in terms of intentions. In other words, evolutionary psychology is a nonstarter. The reduction to selection of evolutionary psychology in general and of intentionality in particular won’t work. The present paper gives the gist of Fodor’s argument minus some of the technicalities. It is intended not as a substitute but as an incentive to consult Fodor’s own paper.

5 Ulrich Mohrhoff: Sewell on Darwinism and the Second Law - pp 61-70

In a couple of recent publications, Granville Sewell, who is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas El Paso, argued that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics in a spectacular way. Specifically, he noted that if an increase in order is extremely improbable when a system is closed, it is still extremely improbable when the system is open, unless something is entering which makes it much less improbable. The Darwinist’s argument of “compensation” is logically flawed: an extremely improbable event is not rendered less improbable by the occurrence of other events that are more probable. Order can increase in an open system, not because the laws of probability are suspended when the door is open, but because order may walk in through the door. If we found evidence that DNA, auto parts, computer chips, and books entered through the Earth’s atmosphere at some time in the past, then perhaps the appearance of humans, cars, computers, and encyclopedias on a previously barren planet could be explained without postulating a violation of the second law here — it would have been violated somewhere else. The present “extended summary” is intended not as a substitute for Sewell’s original publications, which deserve the broadest possible exposure, but to draw attention to it.

6 Robert Forman: What does mysticism have to teach us about consciousness? - pp 71-89

A key strategy for understanding a complex phenomenon is to look at its simplest manifestations. The gene structure of E. coli, for example, has contributed significantly to our understanding of gene functioning in more complex organisms. Mystical experiences may represent the simplest form of human consciousness and thus, by the same token, may provide valuable insights into the nature of human consciousness.

7 Satprem: The Secret of the Veda - pp 91-96

When Sri Aurobindo first read the Vedic scriptures in translation, they appeared to him as an important historical document but seemed of scant value for a living spiritual experience. Fifteen years later, he read them in the original Sanskrit and found there “a constant vein of the richest gold of thought and spiritual experience.” Meanwhile, he had had experiences for which he had found “no sufficient explanation either in European psychology or in the teachings of Yoga or of Vedanta,” but which “the mantras of the Veda illuminated with a clear and exact light.” It was through these experiences that Sri Aurobindo came to re-discover the true meaning of the Vedas, the gist of which is presented. A short biography of Satprem and an excerpt from one of his conversations with The Mother are included.

8 Medhananda: Buried in the Sands of Time: The Gospel according to Thomas - pp 97-110

In 1945, an extensive anthology of the sayings of Jesus was found preserved in the dry sands of a tomb near Nag Hamadi, Egypt. Going back to a Greek text dating about 100 AD, this Coptic text begins with a prologue that attributes its recording to the apostle Thomas. Applying the psychological approach by which Sri Aurobindo had uncovered the esoteric meaning of the Rig Veda, the author elucidates the inner meaning of the Gospel according to St. Thomas. A brief biography of the author is appended.

9 Peter Kingsley: The Spiritual Tradition at the Roots of Western Civilization - pp 111-141

A compilation of passages from two books by Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom and Reality. Kingsley is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work on the origins of western spirituality, philosophy and culture. In the space of only a few years, his books have exerted a profound and far-reaching influence outside as well as inside academia. He has worked together with many of the most prominent figures in the fields of classics and anthropology, philosophy and religious studies, ancient civilizations and the history of both healing and science. The recipient of many academic awards, he has been made an honorary Professor both at Simon Fraser University in Canada and at the University of New Mexico.

10-11 Two interviews with Peter Kingsley.

12 Peter Kingsley: Raven’s Appearance: The Language of Prophecy - pp 161-164

What really is happening when a raven comes and tells someone what is going to happen?

13 Book Review: The Spiritual Brain by Beauregard and O’Leary - pp 165-174

14 Book Review: Science as Spiritual Practice by Imants Baruss - pp 175-187

15 Book Excerpt: Daniel D. Hoffman, Peeking Behind the Icons - pp 189-201

Chapter 8 of Visual Intelligence (W. W. Norton & Company, 2000).

16 Book Excerpt: Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness - pp 203-222

Excerpts from Part I (The Mystic Fact) of this pioneering study.

Another bridge tragedy

red pill junkie — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 17:10:42 +0000

First it was Minneapolis, then China. Now, yet another bridge collapsed in Pakistan killing at least 6 people. Coincidence?

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j14E...

Civitavecchia drops obscenity case against "Da Vinci Code"

plw12752anderson — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:27:40 +0000

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertain...

Local media in Italy believes the case caused so much bad publicity for that village the case was dropped.

Dracula's Castle Controversy

plw12752anderson — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:38:13 +0000

Here is something for Dracula history buffs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/200706...

BUCHAREST, Romania
Property seized now returned to royal family.

Oldest Man 138

plw12752anderson — Wed, 30 May 2007 20:29:34 +0000

http://weirdindia.blogspot.com/2007/05/o...

As per Indian "Limca Book of Records", oldest person of India is "Habib Miyan", who celebrated his 138th birthday last sunday. He is a resident of Pink City "Jaipur" in Rajasthan state of India. People from all walks of life thronged his residence in Jaipur to greet him on that day.