“His conclusion is that, all of Christianity is a gigantic misunderstanding, what it is really about is the fertility cults and the consumption of psychedelic mushrooms.” –Joe Rogan
Here’s a fun podcast with Joe Rogan and Jan Irvin, contributor to the recent book The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity.
Beware the “clockwork [sic] elves” who control the global elite promising them “eternal life, total power, total control, everything you could ever want, just kill everyone [...] friendly little guys…” Via Modern Mythology:
Right. Most if not all mythologies include creatures resembling elves. Therefore the archetypal image must be based upon encounters with the Machine … Er … Clockwork Elves. As with all paranoid logic, this argument is easily felled by Occam’s Razor, which advocates that “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity,” in short, that the “simplest answer is most likely the correct one.” It is much more plausible to propose that the entities encountered during the DMT-experience could very well bear some measure of resemblance to elves (elongated and angular shapes are common); that one comes to think “if they look like elves, they are elves” at least makes sense!
THERE ARE NO FUCKING MACHINE ELVES!
To be fair, Alex didn’t make this shit up.… Read the rest
Does the altering of consciousness, through means chemical or otherwise, lie at the very heart of existence? Author and neuroscientist Sam Harris, usually known for ripping religion to shreds, delves into the meaning and value of drugs in an essay via SamHarris.org:
Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person’s thoughts. Every waking moment — and even in our dreams — we struggle to direct the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of consciousness that we value.
Drugs are another means toward this end. Some are illegal; some are stigmatized; some are dangerous — though, perversely, these sets only partially intersect. There are drugs of extraordinary power and utility, like psilocybin (the active compound in “magic mushrooms”) and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), which pose no apparent risk of addiction and are physically well-tolerated, and yet one can still be sent to prison for their use—while drugs like tobacco and alcohol, which have ruined countless lives, are enjoyed ad libitum in almost every society on earth.
Not only that, but the researchers at John Hopkins say they’ve found the perfect dosage. Sadly, this looks to be one of those cases in which society lags behind science. Via Yahoo News:
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have been studying the effects of psilocybin, a chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms. Now, they say, they’ve zeroed in on the perfect dosage level to produce transformative mystical and spiritual experiences that offer long-lasting life-changing benefits, while carrying little risk of negative reactions.
The breakthrough could speed the day when doctors use psilocybin–long viewed skeptically for its association with 1960s countercultural thrill-seekers–for a range of valuable clinical functions, like easing the anxiety of terminally ill patients, treating depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and helping smokers quit.
The Johns Hopkins study involved giving healthy volunteers varying doses of psilocybin in a controlled and supportive setting, over four separate sessions. Looking back more than a year later, 94 percent of participants rated it as one of the top five most spiritually significant experiences of their lifetimes.
This Friday, May 20th is the last day to register at the $90 Early Bird rate for ”The Psychedelic Adventures at the Edge of the Abyss: The Ideas of Terence and Dennis McKenna.” Hosted by Dennis McKenna, the course features a special line up of close friends of Dennis and Terence who can speak with rare insight about the brothers’ legacy and their relevance for today: Daniel Pinchbeck, Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna, Ralph Abraham, Marc Pesce, Ralph Metzner, and Erik Davis.
The series has 4 sessions and starts on June 5. You will be in dialogue with these inspirational thinkers, asking them questions, challenging their assumptions.… Read the rest
Marijuana won’t be legalized anytime soon. But that’s OK. Because what I’m about to tell you is going to make weed look like the cheap high it is.
When everyone catches wind of what I’m about to tell you — the establishment will be tripping over themselves to legalize every single drug in the book to keep from losing you as a customer. That’s how powerful this secret I’m about to reveal to you is. . . Your brain produces a chemical known as DMT; one of the most powerful hallucinogens in existence.
Reports of encountering “multidimensional machine elves” are common. And your brain produces this chemical naturally. In fact they say DMT is what makes us dream. Now what if there was a way to release this chemical into your body on demand? It would obviously have to be a form of self-hypnosis; a way of “tricking” your brain into mass-producing and releasing this chemical.… Read the rest
Miley Cyrus has one-upped Michael Phelps’s infamous bong-smoking incident by filling hers with the psychedelic plant Salvia divinorum (see video below). Could Salvia become the next hot drug on campus in the U.S.? Comments especially welcome from anyone who has experience with the Magic Mint.
Mandelbrot Islands of Consciousness. Image: David R. Ingham (CC)
Site editor’s note: This article was originally published as part of the Russ Kick-edited Disinformation anthology, You Are STILL Being Lied To. Hancock’s latest book is a novel dealing with some of the issues presented below titled ENTANGLED: The Eater of Souls.
We are told that the “War on Drugs” is being waged, on our behalf, by our governments and their armed bureaucracies and police forces, to save us from ourselves. “Potential for abuse and harm” are supposed to be the criteria by which the use of drugs is suppressed—the greater a drug’s potential for abuse and harm, the greater and more vigorous the degree of suppression, and the more draconian the penalties applied against its users.
In line with this scheme drugs are typically ranked into a hierarchy: Schedules I, II, and III in the US, Classes A, B, and C in the UK, and so on and so forth all around the world.… Read the rest
Disinformation: The Podcast: Episode 15 — Entangled with Graham Hancock
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This episode features an interview with Graham Hancock, author of Fingerprints of the Gods, Supernatural, The Sign and the Seal, and the recently released Entangled. We discuss Graham’s influential work in the field of alternative history, 2012, his recent shift from non-fiction to fiction, and his views on the “War on Consciousness.”
Disinformation: The Podcast is a monthly series featuring interviews with authors, artists and filmmakers about topics related to politics, the occult, conspiracy, magick, hidden history, spirituality, fringe science, and much more. Past interviews include Jim Marrs, Douglas Rushkoff, and the legendary Alan Moore.
Graham Hancock recently blogged for boingboing on the recent resurgence of the use of psychedelic drugs in medical research. Now there is an exhibit in London at the Wellcome Collection entitled “High Society.” The official description says:
From ancient Egyptian poppy tinctures to Victorian cocaine eye drops, Native American peyote rites to the salons of the French Romantics, mind-altering drugs have a rich history. ‘High Society’ will explore the paths by which these drugs were first discovered – from apothecaries’ workshops to state-of-the-art laboratories – and how they came to be simultaneously fetishised and demonised in today’s culture.
Jake Wallis Simons reviews the exhibit for the Telegraph:
…this Thursday, the Wellcome Trust will open the doors on High Society, an exhibition exploring the history of mind-altering drugs. In keeping with the Wellcome ethos, the exhibition blends a scientific and cultural approach, with curiosities such as a 20 metre opium pipe – an installation by the Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping – sitting alongside more scientific (if no less bizarre) exhibits, such as a Nasa experiment that studied the strange webs spiders spin after they are given different types of drugs.
