Why psychedelics are resurging, and where they are going next. This is going to be a long haul, but I think you'll find it worth it if you stick with me through the whole story. This is my attempt to make sense of, correct and take deeper McKenna's intuitions about the historical place and purpose of psychedelics:

Oswald Spengler. Archetypal misunderstood/ignored genius. Conceived of 'civilisations' as those human social forms which develop their own high artistic traditions, independent mathematics and logic, imperial superstructures and internal historical momentum. Conceived of these as a particular kind of entity, like the human body is a particular kind of entity, which have, like it does, a particular, representable, and predictable shape and course of development. Conceived of civilizations as living beings, with a life-span of about 1000-1400 years, developing out from highly religious rural beginnings, gradually transitioning into ever more urban and centralised imperial power centers, and, most importantly, going from rural religiosity to arrogantly self-assured urban materialism then back to a reactive resurgence of the original religiosity.

Spengler illustrated how particular civilisations-- the Mayan, the Western, The Chinese, the Greco-Roman, the Egyptian, the Indian, the Mesopotamian, the Magian/Islamic-- each took the seed of an original, intuitive rural character and relationship to the cosmos and developed it, mostly without realising what they were doing, into a fully realised and all-pervading imperial life-form. This one character or energy or ethos affected almost all humans in the civilisation, seeping through and determining the development of all of their individual and seemingly separate concerns and endeavors. It was always initially perceived religiously/intuitively and then developed into a more philosophical rationality and structured high culture and finally ossified into an entirely self-assured materialism, which mistook the now all-dominant forms the civilisation had generated for the entire world-- with each phase in that cycle, and in the governmental and cultural forms associated with each, just re-expressing the same energy in a new form.

Now try to get the idea that, if you have a sense for the character/energies of civilisations-- as you can do with individual people-- and if you know what stages the life-form of a civilisation must pass through in some form-- as you can do with individual people-- then you can figure out a lot about what's coming next. You can feel it and you can think about it.




Going by the above video (please ignore the nationalistic sentiments at the end-- they're not mine and aren't important to my point here), the West's recent (20th century) encounter with psychedelic compounds was during it's young-Autumn phase. This is the phase when materialism and anti-religious atheism is at its most powerful, still young enough to feel that it needs to prove and assert itself but old enough that it's already begun to take a dominant hold on the civilisation's mainstreams of intellectual and popular discourse. This materialism, which typically corresponds with an almost religious obsession with the materialistic fields of finance and economics, is now totally manifested. Now (early 21st century) it's not young anymore. It's everywhere. The financial crisis of 2008 was an event which really cemented this change, which had already been in motion for a long time. Atheistic logical intellecutalism (dominant in academia, the West's most prestigious priesthood at present), the rapid imperial spread of a civilisation's most obvious and forceful aspects (like its governmental forms and materialistic worldviews), internecine economic class struggles (99% vs the 1%) and a lot else that is going on right now are phenomena characteristic of this mid/late Autumn phase.

Spengler predicted all of this back in the 1930s, and his predictions have almost all proven very accurate-- far more so than those of any competing school of meta-historians, such as the Marxists. But nobody, as far as I'm aware, has ever related this to the psychedelic experience. It seems to me that the West encountered the Psychedelic experience at precisely the period least amenable to any kind of useful integration or acceptance of it-- although the great internal historical momentum, or sense of destiny, that civilisations have at any stage can go a very long way to crushing or sidelining anything that doesn't fit the story. But it's almost as if (as McKenna suggested) Psychedelics appeared on the scene as a direct counter to the most total depths of the West's materialism. It crushed and misunderstood them just as its missionaries and merchants crushed and misunderstood the Mayan civilisation centuries before, but, this time, mostly by simply denying that any such thing as direct spiritual experience was valid.

This is going somewhere. Stick with me. Spengler had another idea I've alluded to already: that of the religious resurgence that springs up in reaction to the crushing weight of imperial materialism, in an attempt to heal the human spirit which that takes such a massive toll on. This again relates to the idea McKenna intuited of the 20th century being largely about an attempt at self-healing, or the 'archaic revival'-- what he was actually perceiving were the early stirrings of the Second Religiousness:





(Again, ignore the nationalistic propaganda at the end).

So-- this urge to discover and explore was, during the summer/autumn phases, manifested via materiality, science, and the drive to create a secular liberalism. All of those forms have now been generated. They have no youth, no sense of destiny, in them any more. What they do have is weight and omnipresence, dominating public discourse and what's seen as a smart or ok thing to say out in the world.

This wears on people. People are spiritual. They are religious. They long for direct spiritual experience and revelation. The Second Religiousness, and its syncretism, is a response to this.

My point is that the ascendance, the revival, that McKenna talked about-- and the 'big change' coming than many people on this forum have talked about sensing-- corresponds with this Second Religiousness. That it may either consciously be used to foster, or unconsciously may naturally gravitate towards, the integration of the psychedelic experience into the fundamental outlook of the Western mind. Furthermore, given how interlinked and fast-in-communication Western technical/imperial superstructures have made global culture, a counter-reaction of this kind could be like a jolt of awakening electrifying Gaia's global human-neural net at the speed of... well, fiber-optic cables.

McKenna/Sheldrake/Abrahams talked about how the materialistic/scientific force that had descended upon the west was almost demonic, and might actually have been demonic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSUsGMlTO2w). Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't, but it's put a material structure in place that could act as the basis for a new kind of globally conscious life form. A kind of Gaia-civilisation-- a new neural physical structure allowing the rapid propagation of a psychedelic revolution capable of awakening humanity as it has never been awakened before. All that's wrong now-- the overbearing materialism, the terrors, the destruction and the domination and the inequality-- might actually be what provokes an equally strong counter-reaction via the Second Religiousness. If people who know about psychedelics are ready, if the information is available, if the seeds of the right kind of culture for such a global spread are in place.

The West's original spirit was one of exploration, of questing into the infinite dark of the ocean, of the measurable world, of what lay beyond the superstitions it sought to fight against-- Psychedelics seem ideally suited to returning this energy to a different and higher, spiritual kind of relationship to the world. A questing out into the dark, again, to light it up in a way that, for all their brilliance, the tribal cultures and Mayan civilisation may never have approached being capable of.

If the mass of humanity is (or Western Civilisation) going to undergo an evolutionary phase-shit, to a state where it's capable of integrating and treating seriously intense, personal spiritual experience of the intensity the psychedelics seem to allow... some of us are going to have to be the heralds of that. The ones who put the pieces in place, perceive the possibilities and seize them. Or perhaps DMT/the Gaian consciousness has it all worked out, and that illusion of will isn't really will at all. Either way-- a new perspective for your consideration, and a way this story we're in could play out.


---

Edit:
p.s The kind of scientific/explorative approach favored on the Nexus seems ideal to me as a seed for this kind of spirit. The 'spirit' of the West is all about exploration, and IMO this is how it could find its way back to and make the most of integrating the psychedelics.
p.s.s Whilst you can accurately predict the broad morphology of a civilisation's progression using the Spenglerian model, and a sense for character, you can't precisely causally predict what events come next any more than you can predict precisely what career some young person will have when they become middle-aged. And, I think, cognisant individuals can consciously manipulate or affect the progression through those phases, and what form that inevitability takes, just as cognisant individuals can affect their own or others' development to some extent.

An interesting idea.

I have included the original PDF of "The Decline of the West" from Oswald Spengler in this post.

Other formats are available for download at this link:
http://openlibrary.org/b...The_decline_of_the_West.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Now is the winter of our contentment?

Ha...

You could put it that way. Although, if this were to happen, I'm sure you'd agree that the transition might not be a comfortable one. More like a flower or seasonal plant withering and imploding in on its own structure.

I don't tend to like using the Judaic Qaballah, but there's this idea there that the lowest sphere on the Tree of Life-- the fullest darkness of materialism, known as 'Malkuth'-- is the only one that really contains all the elements to spark the process of violently ascending all the way back to the eternal, spiritual light at the top. Light out of darkness, darkness out of light. In Taoism there's the idea that any overly zealous Yang force eventually falls to the indomitable balance of Yin-- all the more violently for its imbalance. In both cases the current imperial, all-dominating materialism of the West seems actually an ideal precursor for an equally violent shock of spiritual awakening. Which is interesting, because in Renaissance alchemy there's the idea that you first have to separate and make distinct and individually formed the elements of matter or of the soul before you can recombine them into a higher form of synthesis. This separation and new alchemical wedding was actually, if anything was, the core of the alchemical method.*

Psychedelics could almost be seen as embodiments of the way that Malkuth and Kether dance-- omnipresent in the basic matter of nature, ready to catapult any seeker right back up out of that time-bound matter and into eternity. And, with Spengler's model, which really charts a descent from Spirit or idea into matter or form over the course of a civilisation's life-cycle, we can make a lot more sense of how that reaction has played out. Only Malkuth-- the deepest materialism-- is seen in Qaballah as containing all of the elements necessary to spark a re-ascent, and, during the 20th century, we weren't really at the deepest night of Malkuth yet.

Thanks, Traveler. It might be that the way I've related Spengler to Psychedelics isn't the most accurate one possible, but I do think that considering what that relationship is is a worthwhile endeavor. With the source material people can think it through for themselves.

---

*I don't want to get all conspiracy here-- just relaying information relevant to the topic-- but there are long-time underground esoteric groups who think of the West's recent centuries as a kind of deliberate alchemical separation, or think that they had a part in generating it.

Materials relevant to interpreting my previous post:

The Qaballisitic Tree of Life:



The top Sphere here is 'Kether', or eternal nothingness/light. The higher Spheres are to do with atemporal/transcendent aspects of the creation process, and the lower ones to do with gradually more manifest/material ones, with the lowest sphere, Malkuth, being the basest materiality. In Renaissance alchemy, the greater and purer and more precise the separation and distinction of these descending elements, the greater the potential re-synthesis.

The lightning flash of creation, of the descent of spirit into matter:



And a system I prefer to use, which is interestingly similar in structure to that of Hexagonal Crystals (!), and the diagrams in the Nexus' banners:

I'm skeptical, as I don't think it jives with our ecological (or socioeconomic) situation(s).

Could you elaborate Snozz? Not trying to give you a hard time, I just don't understand your viewpoint, though I feel like I might if I just understood what you're trying to say a bit better

Hi SnozzleBerry-- to clarify, what don't you think jives with what? My argument was multi-staged and the truth-values of the points made weren't all inter-dependent, so it would be helpful to understand more about precisely what you're disagreeing with (for example, I did say that my use of Spengler might not be accurate, but that that wouldn't make the endeavor of relating his work to Pyschedelics any less worthwhile). It would also be helpful to get a basic sense of your understanding of our ecological and socioeconomic situation. I'd certainly like to understand them more myself.

Global and Vault, I apologize for my initial crypticness of sorts. I told myself a while ago that I was not going to get involved in political discussions on the Nexus, because I found myself getting to wrapped up in them and working myself up too much. That post reflected an attempt to maintain that agreement with myself. I've been working on certain things in my life since I came to that conclusion, and I am going to try to engage calmly in this discussion.

I'm not trying to push any buttons or incite anyone, this is just how I see things. I apologize for the relative brevity of my response, I've gotta go mail books to prisoners. If there is anything I was not clear on, please let me know. I expect I'll see responses either way




Whether Marxist or not (and I assume you're not...I'm not) it's kind of hard, imo, to sidestep dialectical materialiasm and claim that a "religious resurgence" is what will spring up "in reaction to the crushing weight of imperial materialism." That is to say, people need food, clothes, and shelter...and, unfortunately, god is not edible, wearable, or sheltering (at least, not ime). Before people can begin to address their spiritual absence, there are more basic needs that must be accounted for. The needs for food, clothes, and shelter precede the need/desire for psychedelics/spiritual practice for the majority of the population. There is no way around this. It must be addressed, but cannot be within the current socioeconomic ordering of the world.


How? By what mechanisms? There is vested interest in keeping all of this suppressed and there is a distinct lack of community practice with regards to this. As much as people like to talk about "the great awakening"...very few people are doing anything with regards to that awakening. Ime, many, if not most of the people within the psychedelic/entheogenic community are mired in an individualistic paradigm of self-focus (we can't change the world unless we change ourselves, Biggie Smalls) that fails to engage with the external world in a meaningful way. And the psychedelic/entheogenic community is a tiny group of people. While change has always hinged on small groups of people, one of my points is that this small group of people is not engaged in struggle in the manner of groups who have historically changed things.

I would challenge that some amorphous sense of change "may either consciously be used to foster, or unconsciously may naturally gravitate towards, the integration of the psychedelic experience into the fundamental outlook of the Western mind." Or that "a counter-reaction of this kind could be like a jolt of awakening electrifying Gaia's global human-neural net at the speed of... well, fiber-optic cables." By "this kind," I assume you are talking about the "awakening" or "second religiousness," yes? But again, I see grand ideals detached from physical realities. People want to survive. People want their basic needs met, at minimum. To talk of "great awakenings" without addressing the need for remedying the systemic ills of Capitalism is, imo, to put the cart before the horse. It reflects a privileged worldview; one in which the essentials for life are taken for granted (an assumption that is not the case for the overwhelming majority of the populace).


This seems, imo, divorced from ecological and socioeconomic realities. Primarily, psychedelics, as tools, require a foundation (as I've already asserted). These tools are not panaceas and in societies where they can be said to engender/foster/perpetuate certain worldviews through histories of ritual use, there are two huge factors: an understood ritual purpose that has been cemented within the culture for a long enough time so as to be considered foundational to that culture and; (perhaps the larger of these factors) many individuals in these societies want the material "bounty" of industrial civilization. They want the technological gizmos, the fossil-fuel-dependent trinkets, and the relative luxury/comfort associated with them.

At the same time, people within industrial civilization are generally uninterested in psychedelics. Yes, you can find many individuals who are interested, many who are perhaps only reluctant as a result of the drug war...but have you spent time in communities of working poor? Have you talked with individuals who are barely scraping by from paycheck to paycheck (to say nothing of those who aren't making it by, or who don't have paychecks)? These human beings have needs and self-interests that far outrank experiencing the ecstatic oneness of the Universe. There are material conditions that urgently need to be addressed before talk about global consciousness raising takes place.

Then there's the issue of ecology. The Earth is actively being killed. This is happening and we are experiencing some of the effects of this. Even if we were to successfully stop all of the destructive extraction/refinement processes today, talk of a globalized technological society, would be highly suspect, imo. And let's be real, these destructive processes aren't going to be stopped today. In fact, I would posit that we will see things prattle on, even as more waterways are poisoned beyond use, as more land is deforested, as pollution levels skyrocket to new highs around the world. Why? Because of the comfort associated with "first world" lifestyles. How can you turn around and tell developing countries not to log their forests, not to drill their oil, not to mine their ores, when they see the material abundance such practices have created for the neocolonialist powers that have done so? The race to the bottom rockets on. Without direct resistance to these physical manifestations, a second religiousness is superfluous, imo.


I would disagree, most heartily. The West's original spirit was one of domination and repression...one of exploiting material resources for physical wealth, one of racism, sexism, colonialism. Painting it otherwise is a whitewashing of history, imo. I'm not going to touch the parts I cut out of this particular paragraph, suffice it to say, I disagree quite strongly.


See, I agree with this...but only because of the typo. I think we are in the process of watching humanity take a massive dump (a phase shit, if you will) all over the very entity that is required for the sustenance of life. Capitalist logic dictates what we are seeing, and direct resistance to these processes is what is needed. Can certain understandings be fostered by psychedelics? Certainly! However, in what portions of the populace are we talking about? In what time frame? Imo, psychedelics can play the role of catalyst in some individuals, some of the time...but we need much more than that. Furthermore, look at the psychedelic/entheogenic community. What proportion are actively engaged in this kind of struggle? I guess, what I'm saying is...I don't see the evidence. To me, this seems like more discussion of glorious spiritual promises without acknowledgement of the physical realities in which we live.

Let's take a few steps back. You're making a lot of assumptions about my position, my experience, and my mode of expression which aren't warranted. What I was attempting to communicate was complex, and some amount of good-faith-- invitation to elaborate as opposed to assumption of error and thoughtlessness-- would probably be helpful.



I didn't 'sidestep' material sustenance-- I just didn't address it. The way global industry works now is incredibly inefficient, and it wouldn't be infeasible for everybody to be fed. Granted that would require large-scale social change to which there would now be much resistance. But that's more relevant to your emphasis than my assumptions because:

The Maslow-hierarchy type image of humanity you're presenting just doesn't hold true to history-- much greater religiosity flourished in times much more materially impoverished than those of the present-day West, the poorest nations on Earth (African ones) are largely the most religious, and Christianity became politically expedient for the Roman Empire amidst mass pressure from people less materially well-off than those in power. Essentially, I just don't think there's much evidence of the type of correlation or pyramidal dependence of 'privileged' spiritual concerns upon material sustenance that you're positing-- I think that the Spenglerian model is very explanatory with regards to the picture of basic human psychology you're positing, and with regards to the revolutionary models you're referencing.

Now, I agree that some kind of direct, tangible socieconomic change is... important... for humanity? But... so what? What does that mean to what I'm saying? What if what I'm saying might lay the ground for that, or might be able to run alongside it in a not-totally dependent way, or... whatever? I left that open, it's not what I'm arguing about, and so I don't really need to take a stance on it at this point except to say there's not much evidence suggesting I need to treat the ebbs and flows of spirituality and materialism, and how they could be used to or might naturally generate certain changes, as dependent upon some Marxist dialectic.

If anything I think that a global psychedelic upsurge would very well lay the ground for or agitate for needed changes or movement towards equality. But your argument that this just won't/can't happen or isn't relevant because the lower sections of Maslow's hierarchy aren't universally fulfilled doesn't match history or the evidence. People are spiritual. They're also phasic.



Well I don't speak for that community, but I'm somebody who lives a life fully dedicated to affecting/living changes that extend beyond myself. And I am a part of a very dedicated group who do so in a highly organised manner, and are good at it. So I'm not sure how what you're saying is relevant. Whoever you're arguing with isn't me.



You barely know anything about my life, or how I live it, or where I come from. I'm not 'taking these things for granted'-- I'm just not treating them as the primary factor in the evolution of human consciousness or approaches to the world. Writing this off as 'privilege' is a far more colonial approach to discourse than anything I've said.





Sure, that's all happening. And terrible. And important to me. But not that relevant to the patterns/processes I mapped in the post. Related definitely (in that the West's material form arose out of and in line with its morphology as a civilisational life-form), but not to be conflated in the way you're conflating it.



Sorry, who's whitewashing? I alluded to the West being 'Satanic' and 'terrible' in my post. I also acknowledged the high art, mathematics, and material scientific inroads it had made, and how they related to its historical development as a whole. Again, you don't seem to be addressing me or what I said. 'Faustian' is hardly a 'white' word, is it?



You're dealing with the online surface of that. IMO a great number or the creators/revolutionaries/movers of the 20th century were catalysed to some extent by psychedelics. I also think that set and setting are relevant, and that the historical patterns I'm talking about play a part in them.

But-- above all, a return to spirituality isn't necessarily a dissolution of all hardship. In fact, the two are often traditionally seen as intertwined (in the concept of the Dark Night of the Soul, for example). And spiritual upsurges have happened many times in many different 'socioeconomic conditions'. My point, I guess, was that the presence of psychedelics in the current globally networked society could make for a very different kind of spiritual upsurge than has been seen before.

They happen. They've happened before. They'll happen again. The way they'll happen isn't set in stone, seems interesting to me, and could have very great implications.

Given the exponential evolution of technology over the past half-century, I think that any prediction of the distant future that doesn't involve either 1) intelligent machines as the prominent life-forms on earth or 2) some vital symbiosis between the human mind/body and technology is unrealistic.

Looking at how fast our relationship with intelligent technology is evolving, I consider the world as we see it now to be a cross-section of the transition of life/consciousness on earth from organic to electronic. Humans will not always be the most intelligent form of life on earth, as biological evolution can only proceed so quickly. The way I see it, we are like a mother giving birth to the next generation of intelligence over the course of hundreds, if not thousands, of years. We are like a master that will soon be overthrown by his apprentice. One day (if not already), the sole purpose of humanity will be to aid in the further evolution of machines. In this new world of machine intelligence, humans (being negligibly intelligent) will be seen merely as part of the environment from which electronic beings "naturally" evolved. We will be as a natural resource, and will likely be harvested or herded as such.

That's just my opinion, however; an insight gleaned from psychedelic visions that I find quite exciting.

Vault, this is an interesting take on a classic topic, and when I think about psychedelics as some sort of natural agonists for global receptors, latent in the western society, as Gaia's antibodies or something like that, I like the idea, and I'd like to adopt it, but I cannot - at least, not relating it to Spengler's proposal. Just a few thoughts...

I think Snozz made a great post. More bitter than I would have, but lucid and grounded, imo. And the same way our society may need some of the insights brought by psychedelics, our psychedelic culture needs to keep a foot in that ground. Road maps traced by psychonauts are generally alien to our society, and if we intend to contribute to a social change, we need an accurate map of society as well. The problem I see with Spengler's maps is that they are arbitrary.

Both Spengler and McKenna made "culture" and its decadence their subject. Spengler drank from Nietzsche, and Nietzsche placed the beginning of decadence a long time ago. And since it began, you can count by dozens the philosophers who have announced the final stage of our decadence. The notion may have become popular because it's attractive (and somehow reassuring) to the frustrated citizen, same as it become attractive to the intellectual who wrote about it.

The concept of "Archaic revival" may echo in a subset of our society, able and willing to think about these matters, but I'm afraid you're overestimating the ability of that subset to actively change the basis of our "culture", the way Spengler understands it. At least as long as environmental pressure does not decrease, and if we argue that psychedelics are -precisely- what our environment is giving us to acquire awareness about the need for that change, the initiative looks good-hearted but insufficient. If Gaia needed us to change, I can think of several tricks that would be way more effective, destructive or not.

Also, as Snozz pointed out, the idealization of western culture as an "exploring culture" in its essence overlooks the fact that a good deal of that exploration was a byproduct of colonialism, triggered by geopolitics, economics and the fight for supremacy. The fact that illustrated, financially able (or sponsored) men made of adventure and exploration their motto does not imply that exploration drives the society they live in. This sounds again as an idealization.

To put it another way, Wasson was a banker. He was wealthy, he went to the Mexican Sierra and discovered psilocybe mushrooms for the western media. And I'm pretty sure his social status helped a lot to get his piece published in Life Magazine.

We needed a pharmaceutical industry for Hoffman to discover LSD-25. Isn't that a funny way for nature to share her needs?

Or maybe nature doesn't really care that much about what our society, or our "culture", decides to do.

I see this as semantic juggling. If I'm misunderstanding your position on this, I apologize. Imo, to not address an issue that is incredibly and clearly relevant to one's argument is to sidestep it. I like to live where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. Not addressing this issue makes no sense if the ideas being presented are to have practical applications, imo.


This is the sort of theoretical posturing, that, imo, can make these sort of discussions a waste of time. What could happen is not what is happening. The very framework of Capitalism assures that it is not feasible to feed everyone. In fact, doing so would be antithetical to the foundations of the capitalist paradigm.


Looking at African nations as religious does not make much sense (imo), as Capital and State have not pervaded Africa in the same sense as Europe and the "West." In looking at African communities, in addition to religion, you also find that they are generally organized along very anarchic principles. I would posit that it is as a result of these anarchic social structures (and the resulting self-sustenance they allow for) that religion is present in the manner that it is within many African communities. I would also posit that these communities are remarkably more self-sufficient than their counterparts in the more affluent "Western" nations.


I'm not a fan of theorizing about lofty hypothetical "phase shifts" (especially involving psychedelic consciousness) without addressing concrete mechanisms through which such change is possible. Any discussion that refuses to engage in practical mechanisms, or dismisses them as superfluous is, imo, intellectual indulgence, and again, seems to me a waste of time.


Many people (the majority?) have no interest in psychedelics. Many people will not take psychedelics. Many people who do use psychedelics do not have transcendental experiences that translate into lasting efforts to actually engage in challenging the structures of dominant culture. So again, I find myself wondering by what mechanisms are we talking about achieving a "global psychedelic upsurge"?


We're just going to have to agree to disagree on this, I guess. From what I'm understanding from your posts, you feel that Western (read: industrial) civilization has some sort of tangible, long-term future. I don't.


I would challenge this assertion and would be very interested to know who you are qualifying as "the creators/revolutionaries/movers." In fact, I would posit that the great majority of 20th century "Western" revolutionaries had little to no influence from psychedelic chemicals, but I'm also willing to bet that we have very different lists of people.

I hope I'm not coming off too bitter (thank you for pointing it out Vodsel), it's something I've been trying to work on with these topics. I just feel strongly about these points and don't really understand the refusal to engage with concrete mechanisms, forms of action, and structures that I am perceiving. Theory is only worthwhile, imo, if it can be applied to the world in which we live. Otherwise, what's the point?

This is how I feel also..even though the ideas here might sound nice. Im skeptical.

I think often people confuse the use of psychedelics to the state achieved by psychedelics. I think the most revolutionary thinkers were able to achieve some of the insights we seek through their individual mind. They didn't need the tool of the psychedelic chemical. This can be seen with art, such as Salvador Dali. I don't know if he ever touched psychedelics, but it is at least possible for him to have made his bizarre and wonderful art without the influence. Einstein was a very psychedelic individual. Some people are just born with it, while others (like me) have to use a physical tool to raise their minds to heightened states of awareness.

I think, with technology, the whole world is lighting up into a pseudo-psychedelic state. No longer can privileged "first-worlders" ignore the fact that there are starving people in the world, that there are injustices, inequalities, and generally wacked-out, defunct political systems. I feel it a lot. The greatest burden on me is the starvation. There is enough food, period. There is no reason why people should be hungry. When enough people realize this, and see the cause of this (read, politics and politicians) they will demand change.

I think to focus on the psychedelic molecules themselves is an error. The focus needs to be on the state. The whole world has gotten pretty damn wacky in the last decade or so. It seems to me that the whole world is on the up-slope of a trip. It's not going to be a comfortable one, but maybe we will come out of it with a higher global consciousness.

And Hixidom is right on. The technological singularity is going to throw an unfathomable wrench in the mix. The internet is a real game-changer, in itself.

I think because of the huge amount of information, and how we cannot escape it, it is going to change things. Ever have a trip where certain things you like to sidestep in your mind are there smacking you in the face? There's no escape! That, to me, is my spirituality. Spirituality comes in many forms, and if the coming spiritual shift does occur, I think it will be a reflection of this community. It will be one of self betterment. I think the materialism, greed, and frantic nature to our world in general are the beginnings of mass realization. Most folks run around with their blinders on, but they know what's coming, they can feel it.

"This can be seen with art, such as Salvador Dali. I don't know if he ever touched psychedelics"

Hashish, mescaline..maybe opium not sure.

This was done durring that time..
http://www.google.ca/img...qi=2&ved=0CHgQ_B0wCg

Thanks jaime, I guess I should have looked that up... My point stands!

Another thing I meant to mention is the appeal of ideas. Obviously, most of us (me included) don't want to see chaos and destruction. I think there is a strong desire in the human psyche to wish for a savior. The savior takes many forms, like Jesus, 12/21/2012, aliens, and "mass awakening".

It's a very real possibility that humanity has painted itself into a corner and is genuinely screwed. It may not be, either. We are either going to fix things and survive/prosper or we won't. But wishing for a savior is almost always counterproductive.

Just something to keep in mind, I guess.

I didn't mean to be a downer, so here's a hearty dude.

This is worth repeating:


So is this:

Change comes from funny and unexpected places. Pressures build slowly, but dams can burst quickly.

Ever look at the site of a forest fire a few years later? Amazing how quickly nature pushes in there to regenerate...

Only thing I am sure of, things cannot continue as they are much longer. I expect the next few decades are going to be a wild ride, and all the theorizing in the world will not likely have an effect on what actually happens.

I fully agree with this. I think it's something we need to go through. Things as they are now are completely unsustainable. There are things being done on the fringes to avoid certain things, but I doubt they'll ever be enough. To me, this is probably a make or break point for humanity. If we actually get through it, we're probably off to some pretty amazing things. In the mean time, it's going to be pretty wild, indeed.

And to the OP. I definitely enjoy this idea. You did a very good job of writing about it, and it seems to be at least somewhat possible (I have to ruminate on it a bit more). I'd just like to clarify my stance, too, that your idea could still be possible without the use of psychedelic molecules. I highly doubt the public at large is going to embrace psychedelic use any time soon, if ever. Weed is just barely eking out a foothold.

Something I have been thinking about lately is the idea of how open people are to ideas. It's one thing to say you're open minded, and another to actually be. When people are confronted with an idea that is too far from what they "know" they are almost unable to even process it. So, to many, psychedelics are just too far away from what they know, and remain simply "drugs" and "bad" and "immoral" and so on.

I thought about starting a new thread, but I figured this would be an appropriate place to put this idea, as I think it's relevant to the topic at hand. So here's my 2 cents.

I find the notion that we (human beings) can destroy this planet to be nonsense. I feel that as we reach certain points changes are being made that ensure the survival of this planet and the life on it. The idea is not an East versus West thing IMO. With the emergence of our global society as perpetrated by trade between nations and communications technologies I find those cultural boundries to be dissolving and something greater comeing from it. (And no I don't care to address the topic of the technological singularity as I feel it is discussed quite a bit when this kind of topic comes up).

Either way what I'm talking about here is evolution (for those fuzzy on the concept here is a YouTube video to explain it A Scientific Explaination of Evolutionary Theory.

Back to the point.

Nature has a way of protecting itself, far better than our ape mind can comprehend in all of it's complexity IMO, (though I'm pretty sure this is a fact, lol). When BP Oil spilled into the Gulf, a bacteria stepped up to the plate to gobble it up. When Chernobyl leaked radiation all over the place a fungus decided that it would take on radiation as a meal. And that's only the factors that play on a microscopic level. On a macroscopic level you can see it in self-mediatiated population control. In industrialized nations there is a trend towards far lower population growth, due to increased access to contraception. That's the reason why the US has this sandwich generation crisis. As far as global warming goes people tend to focus on the negative side of this, but there can be positive benefits, plants that couldn't grow so far North would be able to so with an increased temperature. Most people focus on species extinction, but not so much on the emerging species. Though I guess this focus isn't a bad thing as it does compel us to intervene in certain matters.

Either way I see human beings as heralds changing, and for lack of a better word, domesticating this planet. We take the cannabis plant and cross it's genes and tweak it to make a different thing, we raise cattle to produce more meat, we turn vicious wolves into dogs. We take rocks and build buildings. This is something we can't get away form, it's human nature to do this. And I think in the long run the truth will set us free, because the truth is contagious. Our world is freer today than it was years ago. The US doesn't have slaves in shackles and chains anymore (you can debate work as being a form of slavery, but it truly is not a brutal as as it was). I think as we continue to evolve we are going to make a better, safer, freer, more interconnected planet.

Maybe I'm an optimist, but I do feel as if you can not destroy this beautiful planet, even the most selfish greedy warmongering society can't. Sure there are problems and we need to address them to make the world a better place and that's what happens with progress. This progress just isn't going as fast as many people want and they get upset and lash out about it, IMO, because it won't happen in our lifetime.

Though lets consider the ultimate tragedy. The planet is nuked and all human beings on it die. Maybe from this some extremophile from a deep ocean vent will stretch from it's lair, evolving in a new boiling sea. And it will creep and crawl as bacteria did millions of years ago out onto land evolving each step of the way and a new intellegent speceis will rise from our downfall like a phoniex from the ashes. Though maybe that's just my optimism. But I find it arrogant to think that we have the cabability of actually ending all life on this planet.

I don't really care to debate the nuances of this ideology, just to put it out there for people to understand and misunderstand as people will do.

Either way, it's evolution baby.

Peace.