The Underdog World Revolution
In this video from Reality Sandwich's "Burning Briefs" storytelling night, Daniel Pinchbeck shared one of the proudest, most humiliating, and hilarious experiences of his life. Hearing about the devastation of hurricane Katrina while on a "challenging dose of medicine" at the Burning Man Festival, Daniel embarks on a bold mission to stop the burning of the Man in order to create "a center to draft a new planetary constitution." Here's the video.
Daniel is currently touring the US to promote the paperback release of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006). Check out tour dates here.
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- 9-20-07
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Nice
appreciated
thank you so much for your honesty! made me feel a lot more solid about similar thoughts and feelings. i have yet to grab a microphone about it... but i can sympathize with the impulse!!
we'll get this thing really moving yet : ) no doubt there are many more like little elf and myself who have gotten the memo!
Let's Go!
Exclaimed Daniel!
?
RS
RevolutionarieS
: )
There's a little bit more to it...
Daniel hasn't told the whole story, but I was there for the first part of it.
Friday of Burning Man 2005, I had gone to Media Mecca to look for Flackmaster, who had suffered a badly broken arm at the hands of a drunken clown the previous year. The perp had been quickly apprehended and brought to justice and I wanted to congratulate Flackmaster on his swift victory. I had just found him and was starting to talk to him when Daniel came up and pulled me away, insisting on my immediate attention. He was extremely agitated and it was clear that he thought the apocalypse was nigh. In retrospect, it's obvious he was tripping on something, but I remember giving him the benefit of the doubt.
My wife had arrived at Burning Man that Friday afternoon with a copy of the day's newspaper, which had front page stories about the tragedy that was unfolding in New Orleans. We were are seriously worried about what was going on, which Daniel thought was going to precipitate world collapse. He explained that he'd been doing research on environmental catastrophes for his new book (which had just gone to press) and that he knew that Katrina was just the beginning of the end. He thought, specifically, that destruction of oil refineries and interruption of shipping on the Mississippi, among other things, was going to precipitate global economic collapse.
Daniel formulated the following plan: He was going to persuade the organizers of Burning Man not to burn the Man and get Larry Harvey to tell everyone at the event to stay in the desert in order to provide the world with a Utopian model of a survivalist community. (Despite the fact that the resources people had brought with them--especially water--would only last for a few days.) He was especially fixated on the idea of not burning the Man so that the world would know the Burning Man community was serious about what needed to be done.
Daniel insisted on talking to Larry Harvey and wanted me to come along, so I (the other friend?) went with Daniel to Camp One. After we hung out and waited for a while, it became apparent that Larry wasn't available. However, ActionGirl (BMorg's Communications Manager) graciously agreed to meet with Daniel and consider his plan. To her credit, she listened patiently to him as he explained that BMorg needed to cancel the burn and persuade everyone to stay in the desert to ride out the apocalypse. I chimed in that I thought it would be helpful for BMorg to make a statement of concern and support for the people of New Orleans, but cautioned ActionGirl that it would be unwise to do anything that would make the people at Burning Man look any more like a bunch of wackos than they already did. She was not amused by what either of us had to say, but did listen to all of it and agreed to consider Daniel's request. What a perfect example of Grace!
I had a pair of walkie-talkies and offered one to Daniel so we could keep in touch, but he insisted on taking both of them (which left me without walkie-talkies for the rest of the event--I'd still like to have them back). He started walking back to his camp to organize the survivalists and I remember saying, "Wait a minute, I need to get my bike." Daniel's response was something like, "It's not your bicycle anymore. Soon all the bicycles will be collectivized."
At that point, I decided he'd totally lost it and returned to my wife, who was by that time pissed off at me for having blown her first afternoon on the Playa and for giving Daniel our walkie-talkies. I later heard how that evening he'd grabbed a microphone at Center Camp and started ranting (the story he tells here).
I'd gifted a bag of copal incense to Daniel that had been brought from Guatemala by the deceased father of a close friend of mine fifty years earlier, thinking he'd be able to use in in a meaningful way in conjunction with his interest in the Maya. (Ironically, his momentary preoccupation with apocalypse prevented him from hearing that part.) He later told me he'd tossed the copal into a campfire while out at the hot springs partying on La Contessa after the event. So much for the plan of austerity in the desert!
And that, as Paul (not Larry) Harvey says, is the rest of the story.
DONT TAKE THE BADACID
T R I P P E R
maybe this is why the optimisms of the sixties teetered out. lets see
simple things: plant trees
don't be an asshole
Figure out ways to get around with out burning gas
realize our minds are complete fabrications
realize its all relative and everyone is right and not
get over this obsession with linear progression
clean things
stop wanting so much
become aware of what awful over indulgent hypocrites we all are
blow it all up or not
leave the cities or not
Die with Artfulness live with breath
know there is nothing to do and that we can do it all
good tales help the soul chill
Great story! And good medicine for the overwhelmed soul in any of us that might want to bite off more than it can chew...and the inflated indigestion that can result. Reminds me of an evening a couple years ago when I spilled the beans to an unsuspecting friend over drinks about the future vis-a-vis 2012, and the poor expression on her face when I had finally finished. Fortunately, our friendship has outlasted that moment of hysteria, and, two years later, I'm better able to hold both my alcohol and my planetary anxiety in a growing space of open uncertainty. Maybe I'm a better friend as a result.
I also like this tale as an example of the widening of vision through moments of inconvenient initiation. It takes something to be able to tell the story of our more embarrassing public moments -- not to mention going through them in the first place. Digesting such Rolaids-moments over time might relax the soul into a more deeply widened space of a humor that's actually up to the task of communicating the vision of uncertain possibility and radical emergence, beyond do-or-die binary problem solving. The way through the present and into our anxious future ain't no straight line!
Eeeerie. Sounds like the
wild at heart
Sometimes it's just necessary to go buckwild!!
Keeping everything on an even keel is simply status quo - and even Burning Man can appear status quo and stagnant. Sure, big fire in the desert - big deal. What does it accomplish outside of those few days? I never see any art cars driving around my block. It's a bit like earth day or peace day - simply 'gated cities' in some respect.
Bravo Daniel! One way or another we're in an era where we need some wildness, some walls knocked down, some egos squashed, some outrage, some wake up calls.
Usually the shamanic medicines are correct. They often have a good sense of humour too - putting their own spin on things. Often they say - change things, but have fun. The change is the fun.
call it what it is
Why not just call it what it is-- the same unguided, unritualistic, tripping and blibbering about revolution that stunted the 1960's and caused most people's basic level understanding of psychedelics (certainly not medicine in this case) to become tainted.
The context of taking drugs at a big festival like this is just what Burning Man seems to be about. What else do you hear about Burning Man other than absurdity and drugs and radical egoism? The irony of Daniel's aimless journey to make Burning Man about something relevant while tripping out on a drug he calls medicine is the only teaching I find relevant here.
In his story, Daniel goes around asking people to stop doing what they've always been doing, drinking, etc, while he is doing exactly what he seems to have been doing for the past 5 or 6 years: taking drugs, struggling against ritual and linear context, and "rapping" a lot about change.
This shit is like psychedelic hip-hop-stars pointing at themselves and their ability to articulate big ideas while paying no homage to preceding traditions that would probably need to have a stern word or two with the young pop-star.
Lets get real. Daniel calls out Whitley Streiber, and I thought it was rad. But its time someone did the same for him. These are ancient medicines--not hipster bullets for hipster shadow-guns.
We can all see this positively. Lets stop creating little niches for ourselves to sound off in, create mini-revolutions of ego within, take drugs in without tradition and training,and go out into the real world where we need to build relationships with human beings who may know nothing about spirit and who have justified reasons for thinking that psychedelic hipsters and our big ideas are hokem.
Lets stop trying to raise consciousness for the whole world by running around on drugs in the desert and lets focus on simpler things. Lets try to promote healthy understandings of medicinal psychedelics that can be cultivated into our civic spheres. Lets work on promoting green energy, renewable energy, etc.
It does nothing to say "I hate our government" other than to admit that there is a part of ourselves that we hate. I for one am just fed up with the way in which most of our psychedelic community just has no idea how absurd they look and are to the rest of the world because of the inability to unite behind the simpler of ideas. I will stand up and say that this starts with me.
I need to learn to love. But honest to fucking God, when can we all move past the hedonism and ego-tripping? I'm sure that this all sounds very absolutist, and I do feel pretty jazzed right now, but I think its time that someone just asked the simple question---why are we all still tripping around aimlessly instead of trying to do things to bring the medicinal utility of psychedelics into our world?
These things are illegal. And I don't see people fighting to legalize, I see people hiding out in the bushes, doing illegal things, blabbering about revolution and doing nothing but creating personal narratives in the hopes to "raise consciousness."
Lets get real---we're just telling our stories and intellectualizing out of our asses about some grand concept of raising consciousness with our personal, ego narratives. I say this as one who is beginning to see this in myself more than anywhere else---truth. But why not sound off on Daniel---he's got a great deal of power right? He's Quetzacoatl's chosen messenger, right, bringing the second coming of the Christ energy with the Daime, right?
Hi Jacob,
I can appreciate your perspective, but I don't think you give Burning Man or Daniel a fair shake in your estimation. Have you been to Burning Man?
This year was my first, and I can tell you, there's a much deeper significance out there in that desert than you paint in your portrayal of "absurdity, drugs, and radical egoism." As to your desire to see moves made towards the "medicinal utility" of psychedelics in our culture, I think you'd be amazed at the level of conversation on this very topic that goes on at the festival.
I personally spent most afternoons engaging with some truly visionary chemists, psychiatrists, ethnobotanists, and writers whose raison d'etre is working towards sustainable modes of pyschedelic research and shamanic cultural integration. Graham Hancock, Sasha and Ann Shulgin, Erik Davis, the MAPS crew, and many other luminaries of the psychedelic/scientific/medical world were in attendance this year -- this isn't your father's Acid Test, by any means.
I'll leave you with another ponderable, something that stuck with me as proof that there's more to the playa than meets the outsider's eye. It was starkly obvious to me at several points during my week in the desert that the universe was smiling broadly on the magical city we'd created. Take a look at that double rainbow again, and tell me you can't sense what I'm getting at.
The reason I haven't and
The reason I haven't and will not go to burning man is simple: I have only ever met dozens of burners who talk about the unbridled drug use of the festival in combination with a lot of "talk" about psychedelics.
No offense, I just hear the same thing in what you're saying. It's a huge get together of people who like to do and talk about psychedelics, coupled with a lot of very cool, but seemingly ego-flaunting displays of radical individualism.
What's more radical than being alive in every moment--nothing more and nothing less?
I respect the names of most of the authors you named. Shit, I dig Daniel's books. I've listened to every Terence Mckenna lecture in existence and done enough psychedelics for a small band of dwarves.
But I have to admit that I'm just tired of the psychedelic community doing a lot of illegal tripping, nothing to promote legalization for the most part, and a lot of talking about big ideas for the sake of raising consciousness.
I mean hear I am. It was recommended I check this site out---its all about raising planetary awareness, yadda yada.
But, I guess I'm just playing skeptic, maybe I'm projecting some deep issue of my own, ----I see a lot of talk about, well, mostly psychedelics and a lot of personal narratives about, like, a pop-culture of psychedelic "stuff."
It seems to me like there is a fascade of a culture here that is impressed with its own likeness.
I mean, no offense again, but a rainbow is a rainbow, and two rainbows are two rainbows. I saw a double rainbow last spring on my drive to work---it was surrounding a military base full of people who probably believed that it was wishing them well on their way to fight in a war that they believe is saving the world.
How do you plan on telling them that they are wrong and that your citie's rainbow meant something more significant? How do you plan on doing it after you tell them that most of the people in the city are on drugs that they call medicine---- only because once upon a time shamanic cultures used these substances in ritual, medicinal settings?
These people are going to say, "thats just drugs, and the rainbow seems important to you because you are on drugs and are dellusional enough to say that they are medicine."
We need to honor that perspective.
So what does it come down to? In my estimation it comes down to love---something that is far simpler than psychedelics and burning man, though medicinal entheogens can remove blocks to love for people if properly administered with a practitioner (admittedly this is kind of a strict view on things---and I don't want to be totally set in stone about it).
What bothers me is how absurd and ironic this story of Daniel's is. Here he is running around Burning Man trying to tell people that Burning Man needs to change and that they are all still doing the same old thing, while doing what he has been doing for the past 5 years..........?
Please---tell me how I'm not supposed to be irritated by the glossed over irony in that---especially considering that Daniel proclaimed himself an emissary to the Aztec God's second coming in his last book and just went onto someone elses radio show to call THEM out about THEIR pathology???
I don't know if there is a nice way to say all of this, and I'm not even sure that I'm qualified to as a human being----we've all got our shit.
In a shamanic context
Your last statemnet is entirely untrue, we do not 'all have our shit' we are perfect its the ego demons that the perceiver channels which bring up this perspective. wise men as far back as ancient times knew we were perfect and pure to begin. and if daniel had succeded? would that shit have been his too? or all our freedom?
Shamanically speaking, when one is under a heavey dose of medicine, the ego dies (usually only temporarily) but what this means is that daniel most likely ended up being consumed by his quetzlcoatl archetypal higher self (similar to channeling). that was the opposite of an egotrip he tripped for justice, and he tried to instigate change the quickest way he thought possible at the time. Now think deeper and notice the extreme oppression and antics of our central government, a shaman can see the demons that haunt the cia and white house. daniel hasnt revealed the true futility of the democratic sphere although it should be clear as we havent truly voted in years. he knows as we all know that change starts with a group of eloquent people who need to stand on a mountain so to speak and wake the sleeping masses from their dramatic dream. you are still attached to some of these drama demons(living thoughtforms that feed upon those that think them and stick around their astral body) in the form of a skeptic doubt, your ego is trying a last ditch attempt to possibly steer you away from the people who would take you to that mountain. its is all about Love(which is a learning expirience) and to acheive the peace love and harmony daniel and we all so strive for we must wash out the negative with a higher vibration(entheogens) and reveal the demonic delusion and drama around society for what it is a temporary time trap entrancing our soceity to cut itself repeatedly. all religions were the same at the start, all philosophies lead to the same path, even art and peotry can take you to your source; but its the differentiation of these Love chunks and demonization by the atheists(i once was one too) of the name and meaning of the 'unknown god' that keeps us in this soceital stalemate. as they do in Zen we need to revert to our original state or start over with our natural purity (as can be seen in childhood). this could be similar to the indian sage ramesh that daniel quoted in a previous article where enlightenment is refered to as the destruction of personality. is my personality in this comment? typing these words is more akin to channeling thoughts that need to be present in cyberspace, doing is an illusion im simply riding the wave and current which is change that i allow to flow through me; we all should allow our higher selves to flow through us and push for the change, otherwise your only fulfilling the opposing wall of the status quo. we will expirience a paradigm shift and a resurgence of Truth; the truth is that love wisdom and happiness are the faces of the unknown god, the truth is we are all tiny representations of the cosmos with a missing half(which allows for personal turmoil in the first place). the truth is also that we wanted the drama we put ourselves into it in order to come back to the light, but this game we've been playing with ourselves is beggining to hurt those who cant consciuosly participate (the environment) and that is exactly why im typing here today as a domino effect to the wakeup call daniel directly received from quetzlcoatl, a seemingly second hand push from the environment to evolve our dna, we are all parts and peices of this environment and like the spiritualized person who defeats a tough cancer our earth as the organism it is, has set its intention to change. this is beyond the skeptic ego, and its downfall; this will be a planetary reawakening to the love that has always been.
this is sparta!
~.all is love, and may that force be with you.~
In a shamanic context
In a shamanic context nothing, man.
There is next to no shamanic context to what Daniel did at Burning Man.
To say that he was using medicine is like saying that a man with a scalpel is a surgeon.
The truth is that he was tripping out.
Look, I've done enough psychedelics to know how agitated and inflated we can all feel about our great ideas. I think psychedelics are amazing. I think we need to learn to understand them more, and I think that we need to fight to legalize medicinal use. How, I'm not sure--I'm just beginning to awaken to these feelings.
But I'm tired of people all tauting the evolution of consciousness behind the guise of some amazing diety they claim to be channeling, some lineage they claim to be in because of a past life they saw during some mushroom or homemade dmt-mix.
The truth is this---I see a pattern emerging, and I wonder why, if Daniel has put himself in the public eye by writing autobiography and claiming all these things about these powers he is channeling and connected with, we don't question it.
Here's the pattern: a resistance to ritual and sacred context (read his books, everything from monogamy to the daime to the Iboga ceremony), and continual use of psychedelics coupled with lots of talk about how he is feeling personally moved to be an emissary of secondary, higher powers for the sake of revolution.
Isn't it posssssssssssible that the "medicine" in this case was giving Daniel a big dose of "wake up and smell the roses of who you have been in the public eye?"
I'll say it again: Daniel was running around at Burning Man in this story on a drug he calls medicine, though he is not a practitioner and there was no shaman present. He was trying to lead some kind of immediate revolution that began with his own feelings of rage. He was telling people to stop doing what they've always been doing. His revolution failed.
I say again, with all the experential knowledge I have of the self and the shadows we all project, isn't it possible that Daniel's revolution is craving to begin--- within himself?
I wouldn't normally go after someone like this, but the truth is that he puts himself out here and claims kinship to dieties and secondary powers behind all of these causes that, to me, will never ever ever make sense to the larger whole.
I see Daniels desparate attempt at revolution in this story to be an absolute indicator of the psychedelic giving him a hard and ironic lesson in the nature of himself.
Why is it too difficult for all of us to have a serious conversation about why, why, why psychedelics are so flippantly used in a culture that could benefit GREATLY from some healthy and medicinal contexts for these ancient traditions?
Here we have this project about evolving and raising consciousness----I say we start with the founder of this project, whose self-narrative overarches every other thing that is posted on this website. His stuff gets the most attention, right, his stories draw the most attention, and he is by and large the rock-star of the psychedelic community right now.
I'll get behind someone who can take a serious look at themselves.
Why Daniel, why do you call it medicine? You have done no practitioner training. You were not accompanied by a practitioner. People can seriously seriously hurt their brains, their psychology, and their emotional life because of the unbridled use of psychedelics.
Is this about raising consciousness, or is this about glamorizing your own egotistical ideas of revolution, a revolution that, it seems to me, is aching to begin with you!
I stress again, because I hold you as a brother, I constantly strive to see everyone in creation as a brother and sister, that I struggle with the same thing.
But I'm looking for leadership in myself and without. And I think these conversations need to be had---you prompted that in me when you called out Whitley Streiber.
I want a leader of spirit--not someone who just trips around talking about revolution. Isn't it possible to have some kind of discipline with psychedelics----those who came before us did, and we never charge them with being conservative or retarded. We never say that shamanic discipline and ritual were not progressive----not until we are asked to respect discipline in the least bit with these substances.
And I had promised myself I wouldn't check this website out. Now here I am, and I'm participating. I'm not above it.
So are we going to raise consciousness or not?
Shaman of the light
that is exactly what we have been doing, raising consciosness, your skeptic ego is part of the problem/ and the fact you think you 'know' anything. that would be in your opinion true 'evil'.
psychadelics do nothing for the enlightened man (it becomes akin to a mathcstick amongst a bonfire of love) can't you see that without a fear based rage ego (which daniel very well may have had) tripping out is impossible (and all is love) if we realize that we are all Quetzlcoatles. we are all flying serpents (spiritual masculine bird counterpart, coupled with the feminine energy; snake; intuitive; spine) we are all Buddhas in our own right, and our christ consciousness is the only permanent consciousness we all have. the point of your existence is obviously Love (which when applied with a vibratory science, the tarot, reveals its meaning to be:) A learning expirience that can only be acheived through the splitting of each and every one of us into opposing magnetic poles of feminine and masculine, you see this is why sex is a major human focus it is a way for us to find and connect with our source, ourselves. this is the wild shakti kali yuga energy which is frantically searching for its source (those caught in the meth trap, sexual violence, materialism, etc) but the only thing stopping her from seeing the source in nearly everything she does is her belief in that singular demon of delusion who whispers in her ear 'I'm god dear, im in this pookie here: dont you see how easy it is and close and near i am, dont listen to anyone else you see their lyers, cheats, and theives' its the the belief in one source of happiness, in one escape (money, drugs, material goods, power, pain, sex), not present in anything else, and the belief that pain is a constant is a byproduct of this closed minded veiw of happiness and love. shamans buddhists, and zen masters have always known the source of love in all (because psychic phenomena is normal in a pure person, and is present in the retreival of emotions such as love), shamans would take entheogens to psychically ride thoughts (strings if you've ever felt them/string theory if your into quantum play), zen masters would hold one thought in their head until, like all thoughts, they (accidently ride it to) find its singular source and are instantly illuminated (filled with light) hence the meaning of zen parables.
entheogens can free the mind from its constraints, and maybe they helped daniel extinguish any remnants of his ego at BM, i know i nearly did around the same time. and we dont need just one 'leader' we need us all to become spirals of love this a grassroots revolution
here read this cyber shamanic literature explaining more in depth the dangers of your skeptic demon (you too hoopes)
Everything you have ever liked or love has to do with its energetic intensity, Methamphetimines are the chemical and spiritual opposite of Kundalini Yoga the yoga of divine fire fills one with the intensity of the divine based on ones will whereas meth thrusts a violent energy into oneself an energy with a demonic life(that is contained in the crystal, which energy the user can feel, a glimpse of god given through an evil entity that tethers and tricks the user and feeds upon him afterward [pulling the user into extreme states, that ultimately deplete its energy]) that consumes.energy occurse with any movement positive or negative. art, singing, dancing, philosophizing, and sex are all the same paths to happiness; that have been differentiated in a soceity intent on distracting, stalling, and delaying any personal evolution in order to keep the negative ego demons in power, intent on keeping the lower astral close to home. after all what is the intent behind the greys who whitley's their slave; he drank a demonic potion not unlike meth that instead fills him with the need to spread this negative outcome, indeed. these greys know a time is approaching where there presence on earth will be minimal to none, this is there attempt at a last ditch egoic effort to suck as much of their life sustaining negative drama and misery, which drove their race to become autonomous demons in the first place, as they can. Or maybe they dont know and are instigating a change which could very well be all that we need to stand up and shine our light upon their fruitfull misdeed. a real and firm face for all our miseries may very well appear as the greys and their actions come near. but this face has always been and lies at the very preconception that people believe misery is a part of life. it is not, it is a part of a fruitless death, of distraction, and of energy feeding delusion thoughts. these truth has been known for centuries by the keepers of the light and its secrets the masons(who allowed the game to continue), the opposite team to the catholic church (whose crucifiction idol is one of violence and pain, which is more reminiscent of beelzebub than of jesus the guiding light) whose ascetism is the 360 opposite of free will love and peace. the cross refers to reincarnation back to earth (hence the downward facing long end) which is why jesus arose back to prove that love does conquer all, but has been used by the church for centuries to keep their autonomous slaves reincarnating where they wont be trouble and can be used as food for the demons which keep the rulers pampered and 'safe'. the catholic church is the symbol for all that is wrong in misdirecting ones energies or misinterpreting ones own conditioning, although there is a smidgen of truth there it has been diverted to demonic means. but every sadistic spell comes back to caster and creates an even more depressed and dark state of mind, createing a need to hurt to gain that loving friction which is violence and the deeper dis-assimilation from his source. I know this because i was once very demonic indeed, my last lives (and portions of this one) were racked with hate and evil intent. There can be an energy ecstatic in evil but unless your the next hitler your only going to feel a little bit depending on how receptive and sensitive you are too it, its like a ciggarette addiction you need to learn to love the painful energies, something our society has steered our masculine youth towards. this action created a rubberband effect, i had gained a great intellect (from the genius of evil) and when i had read 2012: the return of quetzlcoatl (genius of good) (coupled with the loving feminine shakti cannabis energy in me) i woke up and could feel an instant change after finishing the book. my psychic senses were more tuned than most due to the expirences I've had and i was very receptive to the light. less than a year later and here we are close to the cusp of change.
(physical)(astral)(spiritual)
See, Feel, Know, the transformation
I AM so far
Ain Soph-Aur
This is exactly what I'm
This is exactly what I'm talking about.
I raise completely legitimate questions, in the spirit of what this site is supposed to be about, and I get a response that suggests that it is my ego, my shadow, my evil, my inability to just "think" positively, and a long-winded, dense response about a zillion different things that somehow vaguely coorespond to psychedelics and about ten different cosmologies, authors, prophets and channeling deities that are in these different tensions with one another.
I'm holding up the parade to human evolutionary nirvana? You and Daniel are pushing it forward, and I'm not? We're all one?
This babbling makes perfect sense to you, I have no doubt. But the center of everything you're saying revolves around the idea of paradox.
Which is why its funny to me that you need to say that I'm wrong and you're right about some issue that you percieve me to be talking about: namely that Daniel or you aren't good people.
I'm not here to argue about conversations regarding the nature of ultimate reality. And I'm not here to say that Daniel or you or anyone else isn't a good human being. It doesn't interest me. I don't need all of that.
I'm asking a legitimate question about the nature of psychedelics, being used out of a ritual and sacred context, flippantly called medicine, and all this talk about revolution that seems to accompany it.
Are you really obtuse enough to not realize that psychedelics can and often do cause some serious serious trauma to people? Are we all obtuse enough to skirt the fact that we will get nowhere with the repetition of hedonistic lifestyles?
I couldn't care less about your pages of rap about cosmology and enlightenment and ultimate meaning. Address the issue at hand without writing a doctoral dissertation about some spiritual science you've concoted from the drug trips you've had or books you've read.
Why do we who claim to be concerned with spirit have next to zero discipline, context, tradition, training, and sacredness involved in our use of entheogens?
Why is it that we all babble about external revolution, not internal revolution, when we use these things out of context?
I see a pattern.
Someone say something meaningful about this concern please---something that doens't have to do with my shadow or my inability to just think happy thoughts.
your delusion is differentiation, the truth is we are one
this is Plato's cave scenario no matter how much i point to your source the answer to your problems and Love you still hold on to those shadows on the wall projected by this ego which only clouds the entire interconnectedness of my previous posts. you want to set up an organizational system to regulate psychadelics well great!, i love you and agree with you on that but daniel did use it as medicine in the sense that he learned a lesson. but the important factor in this is that that is impossible until restructure the framework of our fear based soceity where you my freind still have doubts (though pinchbeck was honest and shared his humility). listen to the zen masters stop worrying you consciously project your negativity when you do on the situation just as whitley is doing, everything is interconnected and its your intellectual 'monkey' (throwing in facts attempting to analyze)mind that is keeping you from riding these thought strings to their source (and understanding my previous posts) and knowing the coming waves of actions that we are merely here to catch and implement. its the science of enlightenment these words are directly raising consciousness if they can be understood and linked to huge archetypal web which is the source of all Knowledge (knowingL[ights]edge, the understanding of language and symbols/art/pictures) the sun(the ultimate light shaman). after all im De(light)ed to tell you that it obviously gives rise to everything we know and when one in under the influence of entheogens (god or light containing substances) you can see the light of your very mind shine and illuminate any reality you so please because your will and human condition gives you that choice (to go back to the source or not) and that is the definition of existence, a learning expirience based on Love (vibrationally explained in my bio).
and these 'paradox' questions are very much the nature of your reality and the source of your and all pain so why ignore it and only narrowly focus ona an afterthought that will come to be once the tranformation follows through.
do not look to fight another skeptic (as beelzebub would attack lucifuge/mars vs. saturn) the Microcosm is the Macrocosm and everything is quickly moving into perfection
This is a light Shamans veiw
Paradox
Certainly some people have been seriously damaged by psychotropics and some methods of taking psychotropics do not elicit useful results. Your points are valid. So are everyone else's.
Here's what I took away from Daniel's story: this powerful medicine he ingested brought up topics and energies that otherwise would have lain dormant. They came out in embarrassing, funny, offensive, sublime, aggressive, amusing fashions. In the end, although the "goal" of these energies was not achieved, other profound ramifications were realized. The expression of this energy elicited conversations and activities with a wide variety of people whose own energies and thoughts on the subject would have also lain dormant had Daniel not been the conduit for unleashing this theory.
It seems clear to me from the story that this particular dosage of medicine, and its effect on Daniel, had profound and long-lasting positive consequences for many of the people involved. This seems far from pointless. As Daniel says at the end of the story, the energy was brought out into the open. It made people think. I think that's worthwhile.
Thank you for your
Thank you for your thoughtful responses KC and AE.
I hope Daniel was aware of the irony. I don't see how he couldn't be.
I don't want to be the judge of what's pointless and what isn't.
But, KC, what I hear you saying is that this strong dose of medicine elicited a strong response from a wide variety of people.
So what is the difference between doing this and, lets say, drinking an entire bottle of rum and going to a football game with a tank full of anger and a lot to say about the NFL's passer-rating system?
Would this be "medicine?"
It certainly alters your consciousness, and it certainly elicits a strong reaction from a wide variety of people who are all interested in the same thing: football.
Lets say this guy at the football game really makes people think about the passer-rating system for a few minutes, people recognize that the guy is a popular tv announcer, but he is spilling beer all over them and being obnoxious.
People walk away and say, "that guy made me think."
The next day, the tv announcer thinks to himself, "man, I learned a thing or two, and that energy was released in an interesting way. The spirits of booze certainly had some interesting things to teach me."
The answer is no. You would call it drinking. You would call it booze, not medicine.
It's all about love and non-judgment, right? But there it is---you probably wouldn't drink booze to this effect because you probably don't see it as medicine.
So don't even hand me this bullshit about witholding judgment. You judge all the time. All of us.
We judge. It is not wrong or bad to judge. We should not be afraid of doing it.
Maybe you're judging the act of judging?
The point is still here, and nobody has done a lick to address it. The only thing that is being said to me is twofold: you are negative, and we should never judge what is medicine and what isn't (in itself, a judgment).
I for one will not participate in the psychedelic hedonism that comes as a result of this slippery slope.
Ok so you point out that in the beginning we learn by experiment, but we shouldn't we seek to train practitioners and establish ceremony and ritual.
I'm so tired of every fucking person who has a myspace page saying that they're a "light shaman."
Maybe that's what Burning Man is? I haven't been, so maybe I should give it a break. But I still won't attend for the fact that I know that its a lot of people running around buck naked tripping out of their minds---many of them probably doing a lot of damage to their spirits and minds.
We need to be ballsy enough to live in a world that is neither absolute or relative, neither absolutely relative or relatively absolute, but infinite.
In the infinite, I tremble. A holy holy reverance.
I have been learning to see life as something to be lived with needing only the sustenance of the love inside of my heart.
Psychedelics can lead us there----Ram Das, all of these guys used psychedelics initially. But the point of any great teacher is to teach the student to know how and when to separate.
I don't feel the tradition of the teachings of shamanism in the psychedelic hedonism stuff. And I just really recoil when people flippantly toss around the word "medicine."
This is the same reason that peer journals were never able to publish their discoveries---the DEA went up first because kids were losing their minds.
I will sound off about this until I find one person in this little psychedelic niche who has something to say that isn't vague---that doesn't hide behind some talk about non-judgement.
We all judge, it is a part of the duality of being human. So someone tell me why this is medicine and not hedonism?
Tell me without saying, in some subtle absolutist guise, that you are, again, absolutely incapable of judging.
hmm
Your metaphor does not ring true for me. There is a long lineage of shamanic exploration through psychedelics and powerful plant substances, and Daniel is a part of this. So far as I know, there is no long lineage of seekers achieving enlightenment via alcohol. I see you mostly dismissing set and setting entirely here -- Burning Man is a place where participants would expect to encounter people on plant voyages and this experience is embraced and appreicated, whereas booze at a football game is considered more of a nuisance. At Burning Man, one is far more likely to find broad acceptance of experimentation and attention to the importance of what comes up during play. That is the difference.
You say you don't feel shamanism in "the psychedelic hedonism stuff" -- if it doesn't connect for you, so be it. But it's no reason to dismiss the shamanic work others are experiencing in that realm.
You asked for someone to say something that isn't vague, so hopefully I've obliged.
Daniel, to me has been
Daniel, to me has been more of a spectator of these traditions, in sofar as he has participated in a variety of traditional settings for the purpose of a spectator piece of immersion journalism.
We can't appropriate here and be sure that Daniel is A) any kind of expert or B) respectful OF the traditions he took part in as they would require respect for their tradition.
He mentions his struggles with monogamy as a system in the books. He mentions his struggle with the Iboga ceremony ritual setting. He mentions his struggle with the Daime ceremony setting. The fact is that it was far different and more difficult for him to submit himself over to the authority and rigor of these settings.
What I see is a clear difference. In so many spiritual masters you see, after these voyages that they make into spirit, a turn inward, a revolution that happens inwardly. What I have seen from Daniel is a rebellious spirit, albeit very kind for the most part, spiritual spectatorship in the form of immersion journalism and a tremendous weight placed on his personal narrative, followed by constant turns outward: grand ideas for revolutionizing the world with little mention of revolutionizing himself----other than that his feelings on monogamy changed (ding ding).
When I heard his Burning Man story and felt his anger towards our government, felt his anger on the Streiber show (a HUGE irony), and still feel his complacence in not ever addressing his internal struggles as honestly as he is willing to address the planets---well, I'm just not impressed.
As far as my booze example goes:
Booze at a football game is a given. People expect it. And alcohol has its roots long long long ago.
My point was a simple one, that, apparently you refuse to acknowledge. We all have to make judgments from time to time.
Perhaps Burning Man is a great place to do some tripping. I do believe that it is probably more socially acceptable there than many other places. Ok. Fine.
But it doesn't change the fact that it is illegal, and it doesn't change the fact that most of these burners do absolutely nothing to be an activist for the promotion of legalization. The reasons for this?
It takes effort beyond the self, and it requires knowledge of and discipline with ceremony and ritual and training.
Because our institutions demand that we be able to have these conversations---lest we call alcohol medicine----we have to be able to show why tripping demands respect.....which I agree, it does.
But the plant teachers, the shamans, the ceremonies, these are the places we need to go to in order to find out how to teach our culture about these things.
Fine, I'll give you Burning Man as a place to trip illegally----but I'll go back to where I started---the same reason we are doing nothing to promote legalization and education is the same reason the 60's stopped working.
I much much appreciate those who are trying to learn in the Amazon, those who are doing the medical research, those who are trying to get grants for research, the Strassmans, Narbys, etc.
And there is a place for tripping illegally---just not sure how long we should focus on that alone in our spiritual endeavors.
difference of opinions
Yes, psychedelics are illegal in the US (with the exception of some religious ceremonies). Given the long, hard road to legalizing marijuana for medicinal use, it's my opinion that spending a lot of time/money/effort to legalize psychedelics would be fruitless at this point and we're better off using those resources elsewhere. I'd wager we've got bigger fish to fry as a culture and a species in the next five years than whether the government gives its rubber-stamp approval to plant teachers.
I'm not quite sure what to do with the rest of your post because a) I don't really have a sense of Daniel setting himself up as a "spiritual master," and b) I totally disagree that he's offered "little mention of revolutionizing himself" -- indeed, that's what I would say his two books have been about, on a very intimate level.
Would you have the same opinion of Daniel's story if he had meditated for several hours and come to this state, or if he had intensely studied political science texts for a few days and came to this conclusion, or danced till he felt like a revolution? Is your issue with his concept, or with his methodology?
He has proclaimed himself to
He has proclaimed himself to be the emissary of an Aztec diety who is making his return---what this means has only really been talked around, and more often than not, externalized.
And he recoiled when he was called the 2nd Timothy Leary on the Colbert Report last year.
If he can call people out, then can't he be called out?
Q's
at this point your only trying to discredit daniel. call him out for learning and tripping? wouldnt you say thats what your trying to do? are you looking for an agreeing dissenter? or a dissenting agreement?
are you insinuating quetzlcoatle is an evil spirit?
hahaha and you dissed a light shaman? i thought you were concerned with good and evil?
wouldnt you say the light is a good shamanic guide?
What is the question that supercedes all questions? why are we here? why do we exist?
why not?
my vagueness delights me
I don't diss a light shaman,
I don't diss a light shaman, I diss everyone and their brother who decides that their unique experiences with psychedelics makes them a shaman.
bogus
I am not insinuating that Q is an evil spirit, I am insinuating that in Daniel there is a bit of a Jesus Complex that he does not openly address for, maybe, the same reason that psychedelics are not practiced in sacred ritual and with tradition in these little psychedelic niche: ego.
I don't want him to feel bad or feel judged---like he said in the Streiber interview, "I enjoy healthy disagreements with friends all the time."
I certainly don't want to lead a revolution. If anything my frustration comes from how much I admire, even am jealous, of Daniel's experiences and brilliant mind.
He is a treasure for this world, and his efforst and ideas are awesome. I actually full-heartedly agree with what he wanted to do at Burning Man with the underdog revolution.
I'm going to leave it at that.
a quick note
Jacobmarley: 1) Why do we who claim to be concerned with spirit have next to zero discipline, context, tradition, training, and sacredness involved in our use of entheogens? (...) 2)Someone say something meaningful about this concern please---something that doens't have to do with my shadow or my inability to just think happy thoughts.
First, I think you are being a bit harsh - some people at least are checking out the traditional ayahuasca practices in Peru and Ecuador, at least by proxy or tourism. Even the Santo Daime works are spreading, albeit very slowly - a few people in europe are exploring this church with sensitivity. I think its wrong to characterise the scene as completely hedonistic. Most perhaps, but certainly not all.
Second, I'm sure I can't be particularly meaningful in my 20 minutes online, but you do raise some points that deserve serious consideration, Jacobmarley, in this thread and in others. Don't feel isolated. Certainly there are people near me working very closely via plants with the local biosphere and encountering all sorts of problems and wonders of the kind that don't often get discussed online - or so it seems from here. Indeed, language itself is a big problem - sometimes its like trying to use a broken 100m high crane to transplant orchids from a stagnant puddle to one that is quivering with potential...!
Its curiously difficult to tell the whole truth. Perhaps when we can do that, we will be able to communicate effectively with the 'whatever-it-is' that lives outside of our customary awareness. Untill then I suppose we can be positive, and focus on hopeful things...but lets not forget also to ask the uncomfortable questions. Sometimes we might be required to sleep out in the rain for a few days, without food, singing heartfelt songs, dancing...poor wretches that we are and oh, suddenly a necessary flower has bloomed....
It is possible to 'speak' to the land, and to get answers too. I'd love to hear from Burners if they are attempting this in the USA; it would certainly be interesting to swap notes. But I think Jacob has a point. Why not embrace your biosphere, let it speak through you, and let yourself speak through it? Heading out to Nevada desert and breaking out of the egoic confines is something people definitely should do - let it all go, scream out loud! But try and bring what you learn out there home with you, to the people you meet in the contemporary world, human and other than human. Its definitely great fun to argue the toss online, but ultimately it is a leisure activity.
A post behalf of my good friend sidecross:
Truth
all is love, and may that force be with you.
i agree
Big Bang Theory
One important thing to consider, is that the first (or second?) helper in this scenario, was Paradox.
There's a whole lotta paradox here.
Like in the way jacobmarley, you take on a bit of a bah humbug role.
Despite your ghostly insights.
Some of which are valid.
However,
Quote: jacobmarley why are we all still tripping around aimlessly instead of trying to do things to bring the medicinal utility of psychedelics into our world?
Who is 'we'?
There are some plants (psychedelics, medicines, call them what you will) that have a serious sense of humour. Oh of course there's the cosmic giggle - but have you heard of the cosmic practical joke? Or perhaps the galactic bait and switch? The omniversal candid camera?
Yes, these plants, these medicines are serious and they very often say such things as 'clean up the waters, clean up your relationships, clean up your mind, your body' and so forth. But often they see an even bigger motion picture and will present ideas such as the rabid runnings of The Underdog World Revolution.
In this way they might show one the outrageous humour of it all and this can be incredibly humbling.
But also these little helpers, these plants plant seeds. And sometimes that seed needs some serious thrust and spike in order to get into the ground. In other words, these medicines, these plants, often present something so wild, so woolly, so wacky that it simply alerts and grabs the attention. "This is ...something!!" says the mind, the heart. And afterwards as the seed has spent time underground, perhaps sprouted a bit, watered a little. It comes to light that the intial freaky idea wasnt the whole story - it was simply there to catch your attention, it was a 'big bang' from which may stream many other myths. Myths that mature.
In the Burning Man Big Bang that was/is The Underdog World Revolution there appears the seeds of the whole wheat (or spelt) bread that makes up a multi-layered Reality Sandwich. A place where yes, we are promoting (and acting upon) green energy, renewables and many, many other ways of living and loving.
not al benevolent
In the same way that you say who is "we"---who are "they"--the plant teachers?
If we grant ontology to individual plants, like we do individual trippers, then what we are dealing with may not be the spirit of some plant, or plant teachers, but the multitude of spirits that are accessed through the plants ingestion.
Why is it safe to assume that they are all teachers?
Why do shamans apprentice? Why did shamans initially have to establish relationships with a multitude of spirit guides?
The role of a shaman, traditionally, has been to stake out and make relationships with these different spirits, all of which belong to different realms, merely opened perhaps, by the ingestion of a plant.
The traditional way of arguing against this is to say---well its all internal, there aren't really these external beings, etc.
Well which is it? We want plant teachers but we don't want to face the fact that with ontology comes diversity, and with diversity comes possibility for duality?
Yet---the reality of the psychedelic situation is that people really do lose their minds, people really do have to learn to clean out bullshit from within, etc, etc.
I don't want to judge Daniel's story, but there is an element of "lets just call a spade a spade" about it.
I did find it hilarious---I felt like---well its about time he learn to stop doing the same old thing, running around on psychedelics, trying to lead revolution.
And, yes, in this case I think that he safely was given a good lesson.
But what about that rage? It was still there as he told the story----starting it by talking about how he hates the government.
So many kids look up to this guy---maybe he did well with this hard lesson because he's had the benefit of going to the original traditions and knowing a bit of how to take care of himself.
But what about those kids or people who go into this world without a clue as to what they're doing?
Are we totally sure that these are just, benevolent loving teachers? All the time?
I'm not convinced. And the real bah-humbug is found in the man who thinks only of himself.
I raise these questions because Daniel is, in large part, promoting a generation of psychonauts to be just like him: have a grand narrative and trip.
Problems problems if they aren't all benevolent teachers.
Problems if we try to introduce these things to popular culture and fail to recognize that they aren't all benevolent, too.
Optimism
For what it's worth--which I hope is a lot--there is some hope amidst the negativity in this story from today's news:
Despite scary global warming forecasts, climate scientists are strangely optimistic
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/sep/24/despite_scary_global_warming_forecasts_climate_sci/
The Buddhist monks in
The Buddhist monks in Myanmar are also a source of optimism. That's some powerful medicine they must be using, but I doubt it's entheogenic.
Hopefully, the world is watching
(or) The world is watching, hopefully...
Have thy heart in heaven and thy hands upon the earth - Thomas Vaughan
Hello
I have with the help of Reality Sandwich’s webmaster, Jonathan, cleared up the problem that prevented me from directly posting on this topic; my appreciation to John Hoopes for posting my brief comment on this subject.
Burning Man had its finest moment this year when someone burned it down before the actual beginning of Burning Man.
San Francisco celebrated the 40th anniversary of the “67 Summer of Love” this is another absurdity that has lost its focus. As someone who was in San Francisco area since January ’65 the original ‘67 Summer of Love’ was more marketing promotion than anything else. The real magic of that era was crushed by the expectation of what it could be.
What happened in Tiananmen Square in ’89 and what is happening today in Myanmar by the Buddhist Monks dwarfs both the early 60’s in San Francisco and the current Burning Man.secret mystic yogas (episode one)
Burning Briefs