i-Dosing

I am with you on this one Leon.

One of my gripes (old curmudgeon that I am) is that with a lot of 'alternative' (and New Age) spirituality there is often something to buy....a retreat, a book, a guru, a course, a therapist, a DVD. Some of these are very expensive indeed and beyond the pocket of many of us.

None of these are wrong in themselves of course and people have to make a living. But sometimes I do wonder about it all. Is spirituality becoming just another commodity? I guess I already know the answer to that one!

On what basis are such products recommended to Sandwichers? Will using this technology for example actually induce lucid dreams or give me peyote experience? Did it do anything for the author of this Blog? Now that's what I would find interesting!

Personally I like to read genuine reviews of books etc here. But what we often get is an extract from a book or a link to a commercial site. Essentially then, just another advert!

But I still return here for some of the fantastic articles. I haven't read anything anywhere as powerful as 'Exile Nation' for a long long time.

Do not look outside yourself. The Teacher is within. (George Fox)

Thankyou for your response Jennifer I truly appreciate your response.

I certainly take your point about what constitutes advertising and we could no doubt discuss it at length. ( For example I can advertise something without gaining from it myself, simply by making it known to a wider audience that otherwise might not be aware of it . To advertise essentially means to draw attention to)

The broader point I (and I think Leon) were making was the sense of being pointed in the direction more and more to products for sale. There is a significant difference in drawing attention to a commercial and a non commercial site. The commercial site purely exists to sell a product. That is its reason for being.).

'All of the amazing content that you read for FREE was created for FREE. We have come to the point where we want to expand past what we are already doing, and need some cash to do it. We aren't asking for a lot of money--just $30 a year to support what we are doing. I truly don't understand why this seems so outrageous to people or why it is being conflated with notions of spirituality'.

Yes I think professional writers should be paid for their work and yes I think that thirty dollars a year is very reasonable and for most people affordable. In no way do I find this outrageous and I am sorry if I gave that impression even by implication.

My point was about highly expensive and often dubious commercially driven ventures which purport to further personal development (part of our capitalist culture's appropriation of everything as a saleable product) and I did not include RS itself in this.

I am sure there are readers who continue to value the kind of links which make me feel uncomfortable and that is fantastic. It meets their need to be aware of something they could personally find very helpful.

My comment offered an expression of my personal unease only, though some others share that unease. We may be mistaken or we may be onto something significant. Let each make up their own mind!

 I find much to enjoy on RS and very much value many of the articles. I comment because I care about its success (and possibly because my inner curmudgeon likes to have a moan now and then) and to participate in and sometimes stimulate discussion.

Now I am going away to mumble into my long white beard about how things aint what they used to be and what is the world comimg to!

we really need to focus on the comments here, because, it usually seems to be lost in the signal to noise ratio.the cross over of what a site like RS purports to represent.I have a lot of thought about this, I however tend to always find that strange middle lands place where all these ideas, new age computer new fangled gadgets and also the voices that begin to sound like gadgets.How do we cut through the hype, the utter garbage in garbage out of what really is a reality sandwich.It seems that we are suppose to be polite to the comments, and yet there is so much impolite content in the contexts we attempt to grapple with.Just what is "New Age" and just what is hip? Yeah i have a mind machine, so what? I gotta run, I'm late.

Robert Monroe pioneered in this technology in the 70's and 80's.

I still have a set of cassette tapes from the Monroe Institute.

It is in no way similar to psychedelics. What it can do is invoke profound relaxation and induce the mind-body into a state similar to sleep but with awareness. The Monroe Institute investigated this as a method of invoking out of body experiences and, I think, for some people it might work well. Unfortunately I am a little too grounded in this reality and something more forceful is required for me.

I would suggest that anyone interested in the technology, check out the Monroe Institute. They have been at it longer.

These comments have been very helpful but I feel I'd like to express some concern about being too much of sticklers on things that are "commercial." After hearing those comments, I went through the site and noticed that most of our shout-outs for "commercial" products are actually books from independent publishers. As Jennifer mentioned, we don't currently have the resources to do book reviews, so we run chapter excerpts and news posts on new releases.

We intend to keep on informing RS readers about interesting cultural material coming out in the fields we cover (who else is doing this for us?). Most often this will mean supporting struggling small businesses like our own, but sometimes it may be something more mainstream, if of potential interest to readers. We don't want to overly censor what we cover.

And Fabrice, I really appreciate your explanation of how we could better ask for support for Backstage. Although we most likely won't be able to send out T-shirts (since $30 would barely cover the cost), we definitely need to show more of the cool stuff you can get on Backstage.  Also, I intend to see if we could do more of an NPR approach to asking for financial help to keep us afloat. And that said, I'd like to invite anyone who loves the site and can afford the $2.50 per month for Backstage, to go ahead and sign up and help ensure that we can continue throughout the New Year.

Thanks for everyone's support and dynamic participation over the last couple of years!

As a pagan and a chaos magician, I use technology to perform ritual and reach other states. I work with binaural beats and have bought products from Monroe Institute, among others. For instance, I bought a very nice CD from someone who incorporates binaural beats with solfeggio tones. Very nice! Also, Monroe Inst. has gotten on the bandwagon and has several offerings with music and drumming, which I also bought.

I ordered a couple of CDs from I-Dose based on the Sandwich article. I have no doubt that I won't get high from listening to I-Dose products. But I do wish to explore on my own and figure out which tracks will work for meditation, or ritual, or study. The fact that a track may bear a label called, "Cocaine," does not have anything to do with the work I might be able to do with it.

As for making money off this, since when did the Marxist revolution hit? I missed it. We live in a capitalist society and people must make money to eat and consume. It's a fact. Here's a shocker: I have whored myself out for medical benefits. Yes, it's true. I hate my job, but keep it so I can get money and medical benefits.

By the way, from a mail list, I ascertained that Monroe Institute has a more powerful technology, but does not share it with the public. What if I-Dose represents some of that withheld technology? I'd like to explore it for myself without Monroe Institute deciding what I should get into. This point is moot, however, because I have no idea what combination of binaural beats they are guarding.

On two levels this conundrum has fascinated me...1. I have my own very very very successful experiences with binaural beats, not docking those who haven't, I've just never heard such disappointment with the technology before. For instance, when I was in Europe last summer on a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I got, maybe, 15 hours of sleep in 5 days before it was time to head over to AMsterdam for two days without crashing at the airport for the remainder of the trip. I had also been walking all over Paris for 15-18 hours a day for those 5 exhausting days. Nevertheless, I was determined to see as much as I could possibly see, as this was an opportunity I never dreamed I'd have. I wanted to make the most of it. On the flight from Paris to Amsterdam I used a binaural beats app (another one, so, yeah, kind of not the ONLY program as stated in the article- ooops!) and took myself from beta down to delta, and stayed there till the end of the flight, then brought myself back up to beta. Gotta say, I actually felt rested and ready for whatever Amsterdam had prepared for me. Hard science? No. Just saying, it really came through in that experience, for sure. Also, I started using the same program to put myself to sleep at night because I was in a really stressful job and a crammed living situation sharing a tiny room with my three year old in my father's house. I was caught up in survival mode to the nth degree, and had so much trouble even dreaming, my last creative love where I once played with lucid dreaming. After a month of the beats at bedtime, my dreams came back, and I also started to notice that I was much more open to creativity in my waking life as well. Shortly after that I started to have some very very very intense and real experiences with 'downloads' wherein I would have vivid visions and sensory experiences in meditation. (Worth noting that my mind-altering drug experiences are limited to two mushroom trips almost a decade ago). These experiences were so intense that I ended up completely changing my life because of their profound messages. WHile I don't think I can attribute them to the beats per se, I do feel that they played a role in priming my brain to receive such messages that my mind might have otherwise totally blocked out or rationalized. And 2.As I am working on my own project to assist in the expansion of consciousness, I am struggling with finding a real way of supporting myself while being compensated for all the many many hours that go into creating, nurturing, designing, and managing the project. I, personally, am finding that donations are not enough to pay rent and feed me and my daughter at this point, and am at a loss for how to make this happen without going down the 'commodity' road. I was super interested in what RS was doing to bring in funds to feed the project, and its clear in some of these posts that the current method has room for improvement. So... just fascinated to learn more about how this community will support itself if not through affiliations or memberships... will donations actually work? Curious about the possibilities here, and looking forward to learning from a site I often find myself looking to for guidance about actualizing and supporting the consciousness movement that's by the people for the people. Peace.

with a silk screening kit you can get the cost of making tshirts down to 5-20 dollars each and is super easy dude.. made 30 last year for a total cost of 200 dollars and about 2-5 hours of time DIY ATTITUDE ALWAYS WINS

when i saw that, i immediately registered to find the paypal link, then i found there is only an option to pay by the year. i have to wait to become a backstage member. i've enjoyed the site for awhile, i want to help keep it going and growing. the article about idosing would've been better if it reviewed the e-book instruction manual the company is selling. i've played with these type of cds for a few years and i've not seen any instruction included with them beyond "use headphones" or "don't drive."

although this is quite interesting to listen to, it dosent work, the only way to have the real experience is to try the real stuff........ To bad its illegal...