When I was a kid, I remember being confused as to why adults would drink beer and alcohol. The terrible taste was clearly the body’s survival mechanism telling yourself to avoid the poison. And it made people act strange. So why did they drink it? Once I entered college, I soon discovered why this foul beverage was so popular. Moderation and measure is the key to alcohol. Interestingly, I find myself in the same situation, learning of another, even more notoriously nasty beverage: Ayahuasca. Except in this case, the beverage is known as the ultimate medicine. The fascinating tales of the spirit world associated with this beverage make it an extreme curiosity. I read Alan Shoemaker’s book, Ayahuasca Medicine with a deep interest and open mind about the shamanic traditions of the Amazon curanderos (I also just learned of the genetic connection between some Amazon tribes and the Aborigines). Shoemaker has a remarkable tale to tell to the world and we should listen carefully.
Category: book (Page 5 of 27)
Terence McKenna’s experiences with the DMT molecule piqued my already curious mind. Talking with Elves? Hyperspace travel and other dimensions? Mystical visions? Was McKenna a deranged urban shaman luring others into the world of psychedelia? I decided to investigate by first reading a book. This was Rick Strassman’s, DMT: The Spirit Molecule. It is based on Strassman’s own research with human subjects on the effects of the DMT molecule from 1990 – 1995.
After finishing the book, I had a strong intuitive sense that McKenna was correct. Travelling to other dimensions, having a mystical experience, and talking to other beings are hallmarks of a DMT trip. The DMT molecule is a sort of high octane fuel for the brain which allows a higher level of conscious reality. Perhaps even accessing new forces and energies unknown to current science. Think of the 1820’s and 1830’s and the eventual realization during that period that the world is saturated with electromagnetic forces and fields. Then scientists found that the actual functioning of their brain relies on these forces which were previously unknown. Physics helped lead to discoveries in biology. Perhaps this time, the flow of discovery will be reversed — from biology to physics.
If DMT is the fuel, then the brain is the motor, the engine for visiting and travelling to indescribable places. In many ways the human body is the most sophisticated piece of technology which exists on this planet. It’s no wonder that many call it a temple. Perhaps it’s this natural technology which will enable humans to discover how to really travel to the stars. Or perhaps with better understanding of the DMT molecule we will more fully understand what it means to live and exist as a conscious being.
Brain biotechnology, in particular the pineal gland, may hold the key to understanding the holographic universe of Bohm. He was interested in which part of the brain played the role of accessing the holographic universe. Might the primary instrument be the pineal gland?
I was surprised to find, after reading many books on evolution, that no one really mentions the fact that our ancient common ancestors in the ocean, and eventually on land, had three eyes. The pineal gland, according to evolutionary biologists is today’s analogue to this ancient third sense organ. Indeed, many species today have what is called a Parietal eye. See the Tuatara and the Triops and many extinct species as well. This is a functioning organ in the human brain (technically not part of the brain — it forms from cells on the roof of the mouth) which has roots as a sense organ. Is it “sensing” today? Why has evolution migrated the organ to the center of the brain with immediate access to our nervous system? And what might be its function as piezoelectric device?
I would highly suggest reading Strassman’s book to enjoy the amazing experiences the volunteers described (as best they could). Even reading their experiences gave me chills and a sense of healing. This is a fascinating area of research and perhaps a new age of human existence will be born from it.
The collection of papers composing the book, Wholeness and the Implicate Order by David Bohm, provides an introduction to the idea of holomovement and the implicate order of the universe. In other words, the entire known and un-known universe exists as a single inseparable flow. All parts are contained in any specified part, just as in a hologram. And all that humans observe with their biological and technological sensory apparatus are sub-regions of explicate order which form from within this whole.
As a metaphor, Bohm takes the experiment introduced by John Heller, shown below, and explains that the original oval shape drops of dye can be thought of as an explicate ordering of color and structure in time and space. After the experiment proceeds, this explicate order mixes into the glycerin system. Now, imagine the implicate order as consisting of the glycerin and dye system modified via the rotation. The system contains the original explicate ordering of the drops, in other words the existence of the dye as drops of individual colors is encoded by the glycerin system.
BUT, up to now the metaphor has been like a “time-reversal.” The real point of Bohm is that if the system is now rotated in the opposite direction, the dye will condense out of the system as an explicate order of color and shape identical to the original. This is how he suggests that the universe, i.e. the implicate order of the holomovement forms all explicate orders, including consciousness, observed by humans.
Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson describes the human mind with the eight-circuit model of Leary. Wilson explains how tunnel-realities are formed:
“Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves”
And he makes it clear that his book is itself a tunnel-reality written in English to appeal to the third circuit semantic logic of the reader. It is a book to help the reader escape tunnel-realities which is itself a tunnel-reality. That is meta! Meta-programming the reader’s own mental software to become aware of infinity is the subject of chapter 14. Topics include everything from physics to strange loops to Leary to UFOs to evolution to yoga.
Attempting to elevate the reader’s awareness to a higher state with verbal or written language is like trying to “fit a camel through the eye of a needle.” Hence the studying of Koans by students of Zen, religious fasting to deprive the mind, etc… Read Alan Watt’s The Way of Zen for more on that. This book was written by Wilson, who, in his terminology might be a thinker on a higher circuit, trying to communicate to the vast mass of humanity living on the 1st – 3rd circuits. Once a critical mass of humanity becomes aware, society will under-go a quantum leap in development. With that being said, the book is only an introduction, a starting point for a new perspective to grasp human psychology and human existence as “domesticated primates” on Earth. What is left is for the reader to explore the exercises at the end of each chapter and spread the word.
But some may argue that Wilson is himself subject to the same principals he outlines in his book; yes indeed, perhaps the entire book is the ramblings of a man attempting to brainwash his readers into having thoughts of freedom and liberty…
Paul Feyerabend’s autobiography, Killing Time, is a nice summary of the life of a very interesting person. Very brief snapshot:
Growing up in Austria he eventually participated (drafted) in World War II and became a Nazi officer. Shot in the spine and disabled for life he went back to university where he studied music, theatre, and science. He became an important intellectual in the philosophy of science. After the war he participated and became a key member of the yearly meetings in Alpbach. His ideas were influenced by Karl Popper (initially), Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Felix Ehrenhaft. He eventually found his way to Berkeley, California where he became a professor. He taught mostly at Berkeley and ETH Zürich.
His life and ideas were intimately connected with many great thinkers of the 20th century: including Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Imre Lakatos. The autobiography is a good introduction to Feyerabend. Getting to know the background and personal experiences of the great thinker helps gain perspective while reading his philosophical works.
I wonder what, if anything, Feyerabend had to say about Alan Watts? In some ways I feel that Feyerabend has helped to add elements of Eastern Philosophy to Western Philosophy. For instance, Feyerabend’s principal that anything goes and his scientific anarchy seem to have a Zen or Taoist connection. His continual insistence that reality fails to be objectively expressed by language also suggests a connection, but I believe this was also expressed by Wittgenstein?
![[ GNU Link]](https://www.gnu.org/graphics/gnubanner-2.png){kind=small}
