This won't stop the incredible number of shamans, priests and holy men in India.

The majority is ignorant and uneducated, I read a Harpers article were one girls devotion drove her to marry a snake believing it was a reincarnation of a god due to some old witch deeming it so.

The lower classes use this all for hope, the upper classes like it because it lets them control the lower classes easier. India is still living according to the caste system.

Heres hoping stuff like this changes that.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Pretty toxic mushrooms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria

I like this part:

The active ingredient is excreted in the urine of those consuming the mushrooms, and it has sometimes been the practice for a shaman to consume the mushrooms, and the rest of the tribe to drink his urine: the shaman, in effect, partially detoxifying the drug (the sweat- and twitch-causing muscarine is absent in the urine).[52] This was also not an uncommon practice in Siberia, where the poor would consume the urine of the wealthy, who could afford to buy the mushrooms.[52] If a fly agaric is eaten, it is usually not fresh, but in its dried or cooked form, where ibotenic acid is converted to the more stable and far less poisonous muscimol.

But..... why would ya want such a ragged trip, when mushrooms grow in cowfields?? Bucha self-shamanics.....I got a good one for ya, chew up 100 morning glory seeds, snort some nutmeg, chew on some salvia leaves while smoking banana peels, and tell all yer friends, how expansive an experience you had, and leave out the heart palpitations, diarrhea, and itching and burning sensations parts.....yer sure to start another college trend......!!

This is mainly for Lurch, but maybe for Doc_M too:

"He hypothesized a possible genetic predisposition for homosexuality in certain humans by using a theory he calls 'inclusive fitness,' defined as the sum of the individual's reproductive successes plus the reproductive success of others who carry that person's genes. He explained that there are homosexual genes that exist not only in the individual who is homosexual but in his relatives. Homosexual persons contributed to the survival of the family by not having children so they were available to support and help other family members, by serving in roles such as aunt, uncle, shaman, or medicine man. Thus, genes for homosexual orientation increased in frequency, not because they aided the homosexual person in his or her own survival but because they aided the relatives who shared his gene pool. This broader spread of the genes helps explain how persons with the homosexual genes could be reproduced, since they themselves often did not produce offspring."

The most common addictions are to alcohol, caffeine and nicotine. Thus we should make drinking, smoking and drinking coffee illegal activities.

*rolls eyes*

What exactly do people think will happen if you legalize marijuana? Anarchy in the streets? Netherlands has had it for some time I don't see their society collapsing into itself.

There is a reason crime and drugs are tied into together both are illegal activities, the prohibition saw the raise of the mafia because they would risk the transportation of alcohol for profit. Once that was legalized (again) the large benefits of importing exporting that once 'illegal' substance was lost. That is the same case in all illegal drugs, especially high profit ones like heroine and cocaine which is 3 by 3 on the dependence and physical harm scale, yet pound for pound produces higher profit and more 'dependable' consumers.

Marijuana on the other hand is not a high profit drug, due to the sheer bulk needed for profitable sale and that it's not psychically addictive (if you don't believe that ask your Dad who probably partook in the hey days of the 60s era of free sex and drug consumption).

The war on drugs is stupid beyond all measure because its tax payers money being sunk away for problem that tries to attack the suppliers and not the large demand that exists. If demand is there, suppliers will always exist in turn no matter how many drug barons get put away. And while crystal meth is spreading through out America the anti-Drug establishment keeps going after the small fish that constitute the marijuana growers in California and other states for the medical marijuana consumption.

Meanwhile arresting marijuana users who are usually first time offenders, sending them through a court and jail system that is already over stretched only increases the problem. So what you have is a few pot heads in a prison with hardline criminal thieves, murders and rapists. Jail only creates more criminals then reforms them, due to the nature of the prison system as it is (reformation is not the guiding principle it is punishment). Thus we have a Colditz castle scenario of secondary criminal education.

I find the whole situation just perverse since drug consumption is the abuse of your own body, your body doesn't belong to the state. It leads to the laughable situations where substances like DMT which are produced naturally in the brain and have been used for thousands of years in South American Shaman rituals are Schedule 1 drugs in the US, which is the same level as heroine, cocaine and PCP. Ridiculous.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'terence, mckenna, bard, culture, shamanism, evolution' to 'terence mckenna, bard, culture, shamanism, evolution' - edited by Fedquip

Quantummushroom is confusing religion with the belief in God, which are not the same thing.

There has always been a belief in 'the other', 'the cosmic attractor', 'the goddess', and even the worship of the mushroom, the moon and mother earth/Gaia. This is religion in the ancient shamanic sense and is more than 12,000 years old. It is almost certain that it has its roots in the psychedelic experience and is **boundary dissolving**.

Religion as we experience it today has only existed for 2,500 years and is a social control mechanism employed by governments everywhere in the world. With the decline of religion in most of the western world, governments have now invented 'terrorism' as the fear factor. Religion in this sense is **boundary building**.

Existentialism as proclaimed by Nietzsche is a third 'way' that denies both the very real religious/psychedelic experience AND the existence of a god, goddess, or higher cosmic attractor. Atheism does not necessarily equal existentialism, again Quantummushroom is confusing these things.

The third confusion here is 'kill the religion and you kill the civilization'. Almost right - kill the religion and you kill the culture would be more accurate.

Killing religion as Neitzsche says would lead to the death of culture and a descent into chaos. We know something today that Nietzsche didn't know, a little mathematical theory called Chaos Theory which is likely the most important discovery since the wheel. From the natural chaos a new order would arise, one free of culture and boundaries. Chaos is the source of imagination and all creation.

Religion is not based on faith - it is based upon the religious experience. The very real power of this experience has been seized upon and hijacked, and turned into something which takes a lot of faith to swallow, whilst retaining all of its original social power.

Finally, the US education system being crap has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with socialism. I agree with QM that socialism is facism in slow motion. I live in a country where people have fought and died for socialism and we have one of the best education systems in Europe. The reason the US education system is crap is because it is entirely culture bound.

And nobody else has any idea either what "consciousness" is or where it comes from. Shamanism, philosophy and eschatology are just as much guessing as science. But instead of saying they dont know, some of them post that they do know, knowing full well it cant be proven at the moment one way or the other.

Enzoblue, I am totally with you. Lets enjoy the ride and see if we cant find an answer somewhere down the road.

Until we create robots with consciousness and thereby (dis)prove that consciousness is created as a stacking of simple elements this entire discussion does not bring us anything. It is faith based. Using quantum physics to disguise that you really have no clue is just lame.

Science even now has no formal theory about how pure intention translates into physical movement, never mind having any light to shed on the origin of consciousness.

Consciousness cannot be probed by science, it is not in the realm of reductionist methodology. Consciousness is in the realm of shamanism, philosophy and eschatology.

TO CATHOLICPRIEST
Excellent post.

Julian Jaynes proposed in his controversial 1977 book 'The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind' that in pre-Homeric times (before the historian Homer) people did not have the highly developed minds that we take for granted today.

What we call the 'ego' today was for these ancient people what they called a 'god'.

When danger threatened suddenly the god's voice was heard in the individual's mind. This function of the mind has since evolved and become integrated into what Jung called the 'ego'.

Science has nothing to say about the origin of consciousness, aside from Daniel Dennett's reductionist ideas which I don't accept. Religion on the other hand SHOULD have something to say about origin of spirit/consciousness but it has become so sidetracked over the millenia with social control that it has completely lost its way.

Religion in the ancient, shamanic, spiritual, natural sense would be very welcome in the world right now, and would be welcomed by every individual on this planet.

Religion gets a bad rap because it has tended over the last 3-4000 years toward social control, no matter which of the religions you choose to look at. This is why the seperation of church and state is VITAL.

If any one of us were to go back in time and go into Jesus's church, we would be going in there to LEARN, to learn about ourselves, our minds, our consciousness, our spiritual centre. When we 'graduated' we would not need to go back, and we would be informed and learned enough to teach others.

Science teaches. Religion controls.

I didn't think it was really disturbing. More interesting than anything. What terms would we be using to describe this scene if it took place in a national geographic documentary about South American tribal shamans?

Personal opinion:

Meditation is simply self-hypnotism. It's a way of getting your conscious mind to believe it's in an sub-conscious state and that the sub-conscious state is the more "real" one. The sub-conscious state of mind is simply a view of the world without the full set of tools your conscious mind has access to, (the tools that translate info from the senses). It's good to dip into your sub-conscious just to get a different view for analysis purposes, just so long as you realize that it's a handicapped view and not real. Like a dream view verses an awake one, you shouldn't take it too seriously.

Ohter attempts to tap into this "true" reality usually involve sleep/food deprivation and drugs like with shamanism etc. It's all bs that people can get caught up in while the real world goes on without them.

Doomo, Choggie-chan.

In reply to your comment:
“Less concerned about feelings or emotions or offending sensibilities than I am about meaningful dialogue. I am guilty of inciting some smug, assumptive, reactions, but that is not my problem, it is that of the receiver's perceptive abilities-I have a real problem with rah rah rah knee-jerk bandwagon diversion than anything else, and when I see it rear its head, I get in Head-Biting stance, like chumming for some clear-thinking instead of a+b=c necessarily, all the time. Non-linear is the world we live in, and the more you try to make it into a straight line, the more insane it becomes.....Most issues are not black and white, esp. with politics and religion.....and the world we all see, is seen trough many receivers, many perspectives, all conditioned and created by exposure, input, and experience.

Homeopathy
Alternative Cancer Cures
Chinese Medicine
QiGong
Kung Fu
Shamanic Healing
All time-honored, varied in practitioners and technique, and as valid as any Barium juice,
radiation bombard, or battery of pharms.....even moreso in this humble opinion...Why??? Follow the origins, follow the money, and look to the practitioners agendas, to find the answer.........Western Medical knowlege was greatly influenced by Nazi experimentation on live subjects.......we have not come that far.....
These systems have developed no-doubt over the years, but at a pathetically slow pace in light of the scams that have been perpetrated for personal agendas and empire building......Trust not, lest you be smudged, drained, pumped with toxins and offered upon the alter of your grandma's life savings....that's western medicine in a nutshell

....did i get off topic?????
more power to ya, guardian of the underworld!!!”

Less concerned about feelings or emotions or offending sensibilities than I am about meaningful dialogue. I am guilty of inciting some smug, assumptive, reactions, but that is not my problem, it is that of the receiver's perceptive abilities-I have a real problem with rah rah rah knee-jerk bandwagon diversion than anything else, and when I see it rear its head, I get in Head-Biting stance, like chumming for some clear-thinking instead of a+b=c necessarily, all the time. Non-linear is the world we live in, and the more you try to make it into a straight line, the more insane it becomes.....Most issues are not black and white, esp. with politics and religion.....and the world we all see, is seen trough many receivers, many perspectives, all conditioned and created by exposure, input, and experience.

Homeopathy
Alternative Cancer Cures
Chinese Medicine
QiGong
Kung Fu
Shamanic Healing
All time-honored, varied in practitioners and technique, and as valid as any Barium juice,
radiation bombard, or battery of pharms.....even moreso in this humble opinion...Why??? Follow the origins, follow the money, and look to the practitioners agendas, to find the answer.........Western Medical knowlege was greatly influenced by Nazi experimentation on live subjects.......we have not come that far.....
These systems have developed no-doubt over the years, but at a pathetically slow pace in light of the scams that have been perpetrated for personal agendas and empire building......Trust not, lest you be smudged, drained, pumped with toxins and offered upon the alter of your grandma's life savings....that's western medicine in a nutshell

....did i get off topic?????
more power to ya, guardian of the underworld!!!

Shaman Cat