Cyberethnicpharmacology

Upheavals and moving into a new place has left me little time for reading lately.

But I've decided to jump-start the fairly obsessive habit I have for devouring books in search of knowledge on the unknowable, by reading The Invisible Landscape by Terence and Dennis McKenna.

Seriously, someone once thought I needed an intervention...

Not that I needed convincing buying the book, but the quotes on it sold me.

"One of the most mind-boggling books I've ever read." - Jerry Garcia

"If only a fraction of McKenna's thought is true, he will some-day be regarded as the Copernicus of consciousness..." -The Village Voice

I agree.

Don't Dither While Rome Burns

"In a way, it’s the poets that have failed us. Because they have not provided a song or sung a vision that we could all move in concert to. So now we are in the absurd position of being able to do anything, and what we are doing is fouling our own nest and pushing ourselves towards planetary toxification and extinction. This is because the poets, the artists, have not articulated a moral vision. The moral vision must come from the unconscious. It doesn’t have to do, I believe, with these post-meaning movements in art; deconstructionism and this sort of thing. Arts task is to save the soul of mankind, and that anything less is a dithering while Rome burns... because if the artists, who are self-selected for being able to journey into the "other", if the artist cannot find the way, then the way cannot be found."
- Terence Mckenna, part of a lecture titled "Opening the Doors of Creativity"

If you understand what Terence is saying here, then you can appreciate why Maynard James Keenan and his projects are important.

I truly believe that he is one of the few who point the way with their medium. Just like the mushroom, if you're brave enough to take his ideas in high doses, you'll experience the effect. Now let me clarify that it does not mean we are free to ingest his essence as we please. It's only his art that we need take from. Leave the artist free to do his work. Isn't it extremely selfish to ask for more?

Now I know that there will be some who will roll their eyes, assuming I'm simply idolizing. But before you do, make sure that you are not judging without valid information. You cannot judge an artist by his fans. Those who follow blindly are not the important thing to focus on here. Instead, turn the spotlight onto what he has to say.

I also know that Maynard does not want to wear a crown for these people, or anyone. This fact alone should lend credence to his credulity. Anyone who claims allegiance without being deeply immersed in the subversive...sacred geometry, archaic science and shamanism, psychedelics, magic, male and female polarity, political hypocrisy, and the like...should not be used as an instrument of measurement.

This, I believe, is the unfortunate predicament these artists have found themselves in. Hell, I'd be bitter and reclusive about it too.

People didn't understand Jesus either. So they fuckin' crucified him.

Don't give in to astonishment!

The programmed thoughts I had about psychedelic drugs are vastly crumbling. Hallucinations were deemed 'not real' surely by someone who had never had the experience of it.

Well what is real then? We know so little of this universe that is amazingly complex and beautiful in its simplicity. We know so little and presume so much. We presume to have a grasp on reality. How we think things should be.

Could Terence Mckenna's machine elves and Drunvalo Melchizedek's Hathors be one and the same? The Hathors can be found prominently in ancient Egyptian structures.

Drunvalo describes them as:

"Fourth-dimensional beings on the higher overtones of Venus. They are the most intelligent consciousness in this solar system, and they function as the headquarters of central office for all life under our Sun. The Hathors love is on a level of Christ consciousness. They use vocal sounds as their means of communicating and performing feats within their environment."

At about minute one or two of a DMT trip, according to McKenna, one may burst through a chrysanthemum-like mandala, and find:

There's a whole bunch of entities waiting on the other side, saying "How wonderful that you're here! You come so rarely! We're so delighted to see you!"

They're like jewelled self-dribbling basketballs and there are many of them and they come pounding toward you and they will stop in front of you and vibrate, but then they do a very disconcerting thing, which is they jump into your body and then they jump back out again and the whole thing is going on in a high-speed mode where you're being presented with thousands of details per second and you can't get a hold on [them ...] and these things are saying "Don't give in to astonishment", which is exactly what you want to do. You want to go nuts with how crazy this is, and they say "Don't do that. Pay attention to what we're doing".

What they're doing is making objects with their voices, singing structures into existence. They offer things to you, saying "Look at this! Look at this!" and as your attention goes towards these objects you realise that what you're being shown is impossible. It's not simply intricate, beautiful and hard to manufacture, it's impossible to make these things. The nearest analogy would be the Fabergé eggs, but these things are like the toys that are scattered around the nursery inside a U.F.O., celestial toys, and the toys themselves appear to be somehow alive and can sing other objects into existence, so what's happening is this proliferation of elf gifts, which are moving around singing, and they are saying "Do what we are doing" and they are very insistent, and they say "Do it! Do it! Do it!" and you feel like a bubble inside your body beginning to move up toward your mouth, and when it comes out it isn't sound, it's vision. You discover that you can pump "stuff" out of your mouth by singing, and they're urging you to do this. They say "That's it! That's it! Keep doing it!".

We're now at minute 4.5 [of the trip] and you speak in a kind of glossolalia. There is a spontaneous outpouring of syntax unaccompanied by what is normally called "meaning". After a minute or so of this the whole thing begins to collapse in on itself and they begin to physically move away from you. Usually their final shot is that they wave goodbye and say "Deja vu! Deja vu!".

Could DMT, then, be a gateway of sorts to the next dimension? Or any dimension? We know DMT occurs in our own brains naturally, they think relating to dreams and near death experiences. But they don't really know.

Could our dreams be a connection to the next dimension? Perhaps we exist on all simultaneously. Or, our dreams could be practice for life in the next dimension. I believe we're definitely not awake or advanced enough to figure out what dreams really are. Which is sad to me, because I feel they must be important on a level we're missing.

Realizing that these things could in fact, be possible...it makes me view DMT and Terance's stories with greater enthusiasm. I feel like I'm salivating over being able to explore this reality. Experience is everything, right? Psychedelics are not for everyone, that's for sure. That's why we have shamans.

So in saying that, I have to decide. Do I want to be a shaman?
Am I smart enough? Prepared enough?
Is courage really the only thing you need?

If I pinch, will you wake?

I drink up this mans words with a thirst so great, that I'm not sure it will ever be quenched.



Get to know Terrance, and all the boundaries of culture will fail. After listening to him speak, I feel a little more free. Sort of like I'm on a path of awakening from sleepwalking. And isn't that what we as a society are doing? We are all sleepwalking. Blindly fumbling through life with our minds in the gutters and our hearts closed down. We expect, and therefore get, the worst.

Just observing people in public can spell it all out for you. I look around and immediately see a majority of overweight people. Now this clearly reflects an imbalance. A disenchantment from the sacred. Our bodies are an essential part of nature, and we destroy it on an inner level the same way we destroy nature on an outer level. We objectify, dominate, pollute and deny our bodies. Simply look at how we treat sexuality. It's absurd! We've been taught to fear...to be ashamed...which leads to guilt and all other kinds of negativity. Molestation and rape. I believe these things would be largely eradicated if we just swept away the old world views. And who gave us these horrid views? Old-world, tight-ass aging men of the churches, mostly. And why did they do this? To gain control. Do you see the parallels to government and media?
Turn off CNN and stop the cultural cramming of garbage down your throat. Open your eyes to nature and realize that you are a spiritual being having a human experience. Your body reflects your mindset to the rest of us. What message are you sending? Educate yourself on what scientists are saying about "mind over matter." These are the things that CNN won't tell you, you need to find out for yourself.

Society needs to stop playing the victim. We let outside influences effect us so profoundly, and take no responsibility. Do you notice that no one smiles at anyone else? No one says hello. We largely ignore each other and wonder why we feel so alone. I mean, if someone smiles at you on the bus, you probably wonder what the hell they want and think it's creepy. It's almost as if we're so chemically addicted to our negative emotions that we just can't quit.

We rush around...becoming enraged when others get in our way...only to rush to jobs that most of us hate. We unhappily work for the concept of paper money to exchange for goods that we (mostly) don't need, for things that destroy the environment and thereby destroying ourselves...and rarely do we ever spend time or money on things that are good for us. That's just too much of a guilt trip there. I can only shake my head. I don't understand this unending cycle. And does the average person on the street realize these things? Or are most of us in such a sleepwalking daze that we can't even wake from the dream?

Before, I felt nothing but contempt for such people and things. But these days I understand that it may all be part of a process. An awakening, if you will. Instead of hating that rude, hateful asshole driving a Hummer...I let that feeling pass and instead feel sorry for them. I think about what state they must be in to allow material things of no consequence to define them, and think that maybe they were denied the love they needed in life. And if we're denied love from the beginning, how are we ever going to be able to feel and express it to others? I retain the thought that I'm connected to every other human being. I mean, how can we heal if those of us who are preaching love and acceptance secretly hate those who don't? That would be another endless and not to mention, pointless cycle.

Author Drunvalo Melchizedek wrote about how we need to love even those of us who are destroying us, the governments and churches, etc. If we make positive changes within ourselves first, then they will manifest in our world. According to quantum physics, this is exactly what happens. Our world is in the state it's in because it reflects what's inside of us! So maybe you can't outwardly change the world...but maybe you can do it inwardly with ease. I believe this is why Mother Teresa refused to participate in anti-war protests and rallies. She understood this concept and told them to call her when they decided to have a peace rally instead.

All these pictures are from the brilliant magazine Adbusters. Go to adbusters.org to have your mind blown.

This Body Holding Me

Terrance McKenna is my newest teacher/spirit guide/hero. The first lecture of his I listened to was called "what science forgot". I'm completely hooked and I highly recommend listening to him. You can download his talks for free from pod casts on itunes. I was always given the impression that he was just some guy who liked to get loaded on mushrooms...so I wasn't interested. This however, is not the case. If you're even a little interested in culture, philosophy, language, the arts, and discovering the nature of reality...do yourself a favor and listen to McKenna. He was truly a shaman to our culture.

I wonder if we are merely consciousness with free will. If this is the case, it would be logical to assume that there is consciousness without free will. That which simply goes along for the ride. This invokes the possible perspective of the plant world, the Earth, solar systems, galaxies, universes, a cell, an atom, mushrooms, cannabis. Things different from us but equally accessing consciousness.

Maybe consciousness is something of a separate existence that we're progressively tapping into with our evolving brains. Or is consciousness in the process of coming back in on itself? Did consciousness expand out creating physical form to experience itself in an infinite number of ways...making all things connected and making possibilities infinite?

If you convince yourself enough to believe that you are NOT your body- you are what is manifesting THROUGH this human body...consciousness...things will look a lot differently to you. Goals seem to change, truths become apparent, the important things seem to correlate out of chaos and into coherency.