Great talk by Alex Grey, the extraordinary artist whose paintings are incredible depictions of [purported] higher realms.
Anything Alex Grey is awesome. But it's interesting, I don't think people need trips necessarily as "therapy" when his art was enough to grip me as a teenager and push me against the glass. In fact, in many ways, I became exploratory of drugs because I couldn't handle real life (and those aspects of it you glimpse in AG's art) and was looking for a more mundane
mundane.
This is a dense thread I've been meaning to hop into, though I'm not sure where to start. Background I suppose.
I'm glad you dove in, Wic. The middle... three pages seem to have strayed towards different aspects of drugs in relation to X, anyways (not necessarily therapy related).
I've done a substantial amount of psychedelics. Several (dozens) of trips of often heroic doses of mushrooms and acid, dabbling with MDMA (I hesitate to call that a proper trip, but whatever), and a few 2C-E/I trips, few mescaline, and a DMT dose. Not really a 'party' tripper, I treat them with respect and go in with the intention of coming out with something new.
That's really cool. How did you learn of the respect-frame? Just asking as it was many years after I'd already abused drugs that I learned from smarter, calmer people that intentions could be made whetstones (thankfully, I had a general predisposition for treating all moments as being interpretable to provide a lesson for me contextually).
I think most people should have some experience with psychedelics, because I think it's valuable to have your fundamental belief systems altered frequently. You're not the same person you were 10 years ago, and if you compared those two people, you can obtain some insight into yourself, your life, your path, etc. Tripping is often like doing that immediately, several times in rapid succession. Plus, they're fascinating as all hell.
Truth - but people can do these things elsewise also. Drugs aren't the only experiences that mediate changes of this magnitude.
I know many, many people start finding the 'magic' of them, talking about alternate/transcendent realities, profound and externally-generated insights, so on. This bothers the shit out of me. Physically ingesting a physical drug as it works physical effects on your physical brain creating alterations to your subjective experience, to me has always been superb evidence of the physical basis of said subjective experience. That this is not obvious to most is frankly depressing. I've lost good friends to that sort of lunacy. But! So it goes.
I think these thoughts in people around me primarily made me go from some subset of Christian to Agnostic (I may still have been still thinking in terms of soul rather than self at 15-16). Everything is possible. Reality is completely and utterly more than we individual humans here on Earth bound to our biohusk can possible comprehend. I'm going to focus on saving our little corner from ourselves (which is the only real obstacle) and maybe working towards getting us out of this perilous planet-bound existence. Go a Scattering like the Ousters
.
Before psylocibin, lsd, and mdma were criminalized, there was much effort in studying their therapeutic effects. MDMA was used (in carefully controlled dosages with great preperation) with children from abusive, awful homes who developed severe antisocial behavior to very positive effects (from raging and fighting other children for their toys to actively sharing and hugging others). LSD can be used to treat migraines (non-psychoactive doses), Bill whatshisface who helped found AA promoted it for treatment of alcoholics. Sci mentions above psylocibin being used for anxiety of terminal patients. There's plenty of bits here and there in the 50's-70's, and it's an absolute shame that we haven't been able to spend the past decades building on that research (don't even get me started on the state of pharmaceuticals).
Ah, the seventies. The glory days of research with drugs.
You know, there are a handful of labs worldwide studying psylocibin. And I know I've seen some fMRI studies of brains on mushrooms and marijuana. I can probably dig some stuff up for you, Wic.
Oh yes, what's that about the coordinated effort toward medicalizing the world? We should probably make another thread
.
Saddest of all is how these get lumped in with 'drugs' in general. It's a lazy thing to do, completely detracting from their function.
Annnd I've run out of steam and work is calling.
My favorite is to tell people that everyone I've ever worked with thinks nothing of abusing over the counter medication to affect their subjective experience but pooh, pooh, the arbitrary category of 'drugs,' which for some reason... doesn't include alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, refined sugar. Or that people in power are just people with power and all the evidence that they snort a bunch of codeine and do their job just like the rest of the pillheads out here.
I love the work posts that are contributed around here.
EDIT:
I agree with this. People I have talked to regarding these substances do admit that having your belief system altered is
something that causes doubt and fear. You do not want to realize that you might be fundamentally wrong about how you view reality. Personally I found it very helpful in how I look at things, and how people use language and rhetoric to portray
reality in a certain way.
Honestly, these threads of thought describe some aspects of why the Western Empire has a history of substance abuse, and pretty much why all other society have retained extensive histories, at least, if not practices of intensive
ritual use. Guiding elders, ceremony, you know, constructing something of a necessary pedestal to divide the journey from the mundane - it's explicit in their actions: "this is not for regular consumption."
This one is a little tricky, though I agree with your reasoning. The question of why these substances provides a genuine mystical experience for certain people is fascinating. It is not something you read in a book, or something people tell you is the truth. You experience it first hand, and I can see that people get so awestruck by the experience that they end up explaining it using religious terminology. It has the potential of becoming a religion(and some people claim that it was the "true" religion back in the day, with mushroom cults etc.)
Narrative serves as a major component of regular function. So in achieving altered state, narrative might be likely to remain proportionately present in experience of that state.
Personally(and I think I have said this before, either here or in another tread) I do not think that we visit other dimensions and so on, but rather take a deep dive into "ourselves" or our unconsciousness where we encounter lost memories, supressed emotions, hopes and fears. This can be a thrilling ride if you have experienced much in your life.
Unfortunately, there hasn't been as much research into how the experiences might correspond to what happens. Is it like my perspective of dreams and tarot where the benefit is explicitly from getting a random narrative to correspond with your life? (in the same sense Wic highlighted that different drugs provide semi-random patterns of excitation and inhibition, tuning up and down different aspects of experience to provide with a definitively altered frame for viewing reality)
Yes, it is sad , but I do think those days are over. The evidence and conclusions from recent research are just to positive to ignore in the long run. I also believe that if we could study these substances freely without prejudice we would learn more of what the experience really is, and maybe prevent another religious cult from springing to life:)
Hmm... hmm... but more importantly, prejudice in our world, Royce, is also
profitable. See Wic's impending rant on pharmaceuticals
.
Great talk by Alex Grey, the extraordinary artist whose paintings are incredible depictions of [purported] higher realms
Yes he is quite amazing:) I think he made the cover art for some of the Tool albums too.
Yeap! From Lateralus on AG has worked with Tool, even on their Show Art and Videos. It's a beautiful coordination of attempting to raise the bar of consciousness a little.
