I highly recommend the book _The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience_ for those interested in serious scholarly research about Ayahuasca and its subjective effects.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't feel like you provide enough sample content to convince me that this is worth paying money for.
What does this book say that hasn't already been said by various mainstream self help authors, Steve Pavlina, people in the human potential movement, etc. ?
I just added another 3 chapters to the book preview that you get from clicking the cover. That brings the total to 7 chapters, nearly 20% of the 36 chapters in the book. If you're not excited to get the book at that point, you're probably not going to like it once you buy. Which is totally cool.
As for your second question, there are 6,000 books in the "Applied Psychology" category on Amazon, and 28,000 books in the "Success". Between all of them, I'm sure that none of the ideas I've presented in this book haven't already been said.
What this book offers is my unique take on those ideas, the personal stories I've shared, the way I've presented the research, and the voice through which I've expressed it.
I know a lot of trans people in my local community - but I'm trans myself so that's only logical. Still, intuitively, it can't be anywhere near as rare as 1:10,000
> Notice this is written by Lynn Conway - very accomplished chip designer/electrical engineer/systems engineer
And also an outrageously biased and partisan activist whose claims, when writing on anything but chip design, should be checked with a microscope and then promptly thrown out as cherry-picked or misleading in some way you weren't competent to figure out.
I've seen some of these claims before and find them interesting.
The TM quote is pretty hilarious/strange - "they" either means the government or whatever tryptamine fueled fantasies he encountered in South America.
Could you cite something regarding the Eleusian Mysteries ushering in the Greek Dark Age?
Cicero supposedly said:
"Among the many excellent and divine institutions that your Athens has developed and contributed to human life, there is none, in my opinion, better than these mysteries, by which we have been brought forth from our rustic and savage mode of existence, cultivated and refined to a state of civilization; and as these rites are called "initiations" so, in truth, we have learned from them the first principles of life and have gained the understanding, not only to live happily, but also to die with better hope.
"
Of course, since I can't read Latin or Greek, I can't really verify that this quote truly was written by Cicero.
Regarding the strain of opinion that thinks modern entheogen advocates are being systematically manipulated by government agents - there might be some truth to it, but I feel like it must be an inadequate explanation.
Entheogens have been used well before modern USA governments. Governments in general seem to expend much more energy trying to prohibit them than they do covertly advocating their use. I just find the whole thing to be very implausible.
I would not doubt Cicero would have said that regarding Eleusian Mysteries. He was a politician during a time when the Caesar was worshipped as a god, and massive bureaucracies of priests evangelized his divinity as "Pontifex Maximus", highest priest of the Roman state religion. Like the Greeks, the Romans had similar initiation rituals and mysteries to inculcate the population into their mythologies espousing Caesar as god. To me, it sounds like Cicero is simply admiring the implementation of the Eleusian Mysteries, the result of which was a "cultivated", "refined", "happy" population -- all synonymous with an obedient population.
Regarding a citation of the Eleusian Mysteries ushering in the dark age, I don't have anything specific other than the fact that they were correlated in time. Since they were mysteries, the curators of which went to great lengths to guard their secrets, facts are hard to come by. Substitute Eleusis for Egyptian magic rituals, the Roman imperial cult, or other state religions, and I think you'll see similar patterns.
But I think it's useful to ask, why did these mystery religions use occulted knowledge? Why keep knowledge from groups of people, if not to keep them in the dark as a means of controlling them? Are these mysteries not akin to the noble lie which Plato discussed in The Republic?
Myths, combined with psychedelic drugs, which provide emotional catharsis and grandiose visions, are an effective way to /mystify/ people. Mysticism, by way of confusing, offers a means to control an individual by providing an opportunity to substitute or suggest the reality the hierophants want their initiates to believe.
This is the opposite of the scientific discovery, reason, and the challenging of traditional authority that marked The Enlightement.
Good point on Cicero's political affiliations. I'm sure that must have greatly influenced much of his writing.
I'm curious if you are at all familiar with the theories Micheal Hoffman discusses at his website egodeath.com
His ideas are extremely difficult to summarize, but they are of great relevance to the issues we are discussing (Eleusis, Egyptian mysteries, Roman state religion, Plato, myths, mysticism, etc)
He would probably answer your question "Why did they keep knowledge from groups of people, if not to keep them in the dark as a means of controlling them?" by saying that, while political control was, of course, a real thing in those times, the original function of mystery cults was actually to initiate participants into true knowledge of the transcendent through the use of ritual and entheogenic drugs.
Yes, I'm familiar with Michael Hoffman's egodeath theory, and I agree with many of his historical perspectives and interpretations of religious experience. Like you say, his theory is hard to summarize. Relating to this thread, I think psychoactives can be a double-edged sword used for good or evil. Quoting Hoffman:
> Given that the Empire used entheogenic mystery-religion initiation to dominate socially and oppressively, Christianity used mystery-religion initiation to emancipate/liberate ... The religions of Jesus and Caesar were in a battle over the meaning and application of mystery-religion initiation. It's a battle about what to do with the fact of mystery-religion initiation. [1]
Perhaps there were mystery cults with the best of intentions, such as the Gnostics for example, who would have had good reasons to conduct their initiations in secrecy to avoid persecution. And perhaps psychoactives can be used for "short path enlightenment" as Watts would say, as well as for political control.
What gives me pause for concern is the evidence of deep involvement on the part of the CIA with the drug counterculture. This is the same agency with a history of overthrowing democratically elected governments, conducting heinous psychological experiments on Americans, and not to mention torturing and murdering people around the world. They're simply not to be trusted.
Yet we find the fingerprints of the CIA all over the origins of the so-called psychedelic revolution, even carefully crafting the terms and definitions in which to frame the discussion:
> In the early years of research into these drugs, psychology researchers and military intelligence communities sometimes called them, aside from “hallucinogen,” by the name “psychotomimetic” –which means psychosis mimicking. The word hallucinogen, “to generate hallucinations,” came just a few years before psychotomimetic. The same year that psychotomimetic was created we also saw the creation of the word “psychedelic” – which means “to manifest the mind.” The last stage of this etymological evolution, as we’ll see, was the word “entheogen” – which means “to generate god within.”
The word "entheogen" was a creation of Wasson and Ruck [2], which has the intended effect of framing discussions about psychoactives as spiritual phenomenon. Like Leary said, it's all about set and setting.
Jan Irvin, a researcher in this field who I quoted above, has said that "mysticism is the tool of tyrants". It's hard to find cases in history of mysticism liberating individuals with so-called true knowledge. Usually, it's been the opposite: rational, scientifically-based discovery has been the liberator from superstition, ignorance, prejudice, and authority.
I'll definitely check out csp.org since this is an area of interest for me. And I'd be happy to talk about experiences via an email discussion with you at donald dot ness at gmail dot com.
That's an interesting point. It seems that Cicero would have been between a rock and a hard place, on the one hand advocating republican ideals, and on the other appearing loyal to Caesar in the midst of imperial ambitions.
It's true that there were contingent circumstances that led to the modern prohibition of psychedelics back in the 60s.
However, you seem to be overlooking the overarching theme of prohibition that goes back many, many centuries in Western culture. There is a lot more to this than simply a modern governmental overreaction.
Jonathan Ott, in his Proemium, says it far better than I can:
" Despite overwhelming scientific and experiential evidence to the contrary, human beings are conceived of as a special creation apart from other animals, and we are enjoined to subdue the world, which is matter. This horrible superstition has led to the despoiling and ruin of our biosphere, and to the crippling neurosis and guilt of modern people (Hofmann 1980). I call this a superstition because when people have direct, personal access to entheogenic, religious experiences, they never conceive of humankind as a separate creation, apart from the rest of the universe. "Every thing that lives is Holy," us included, and the divine infuses all the creation of which we are an integral part. As the dualistic superstition took root in our ancestors' minds, their first task was to destroy all aspects of ecstatic, experiential religion from the archaic ("pagan") world. The destruction of the sanctuary of Eleusis at the end of the fourth century of our era (Mylonas 1961) marked the final downfall of the ancient world in Europe, and for the next millennium the theocratic Catholic Church vigorously persecuted every vestige of ecstatic religion which survived, including revival movements. By the time of the "discovery" of the New World, Europe had been beaten into submission, the "witches" and "heretics" mostly burned, and ecstasy was virtually expunged from the memory of the survivors. For the Catholics, and for the Protestants after them, to experience ecstasy, to have religious experiences, was the most heinous heresy, justifying torture and being burned alive. Is it any wonder that today we have no place for ecstasy?
In the New World, however, the Age of Entheogens and ecstasy lived on, and although in 1620 the Inquisition in Mexico formally declared the use of entheogenic plants like peyotl (see Chapter 1) to be heresy and the Church vigorously extirpated this use and tortured and executed Indian shamans, ecstasy survives there even now. It bears witness to the integrity of the New World Indians that they braved torture and death to continue with their ecstatic religion- they must have been bitterly disappointed in the "placebo sacrament" of the Christian Eucharist, which is a placebo entheogen (Ott 1979b)- and it is largely as a result of the modern rediscovery of the shamanic cult of teonanacatl (see Chapter 5) by R. Gordon Wasson in Mexico in 1955 that the modern use of entheogens, in many respects a revival of ecstatic religion, began. Even though myriad justifications for the modern laws against the entheogens have been offered up, the problem modern societies have with these drugs is fundamentally the same problem the Inquisition had with them, the same problem the early Christians had with the Eleusinian Mysteries- religious rivalry. Since these drugs tend to open people's eyes and hearts to an experience of the holiness of the universe... yes, enable people to have personal religious experiences without the intercession of a priesthood of the preconditioning of a liturgy, some psychonauts or epoptes will perceive the emptiness and shallowness of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition; even begin to see through the secular governments which use religious symbols to manipulate people; begin to see that by so ruthlessly subduing the earth we are killing the planet and destroying ourselves. A "counterculture" having ecstatic experiences in California is quite as subversive (Einhorn 1970) and threatens the power structures in Sacramento or Washington just as much as the rebellious Albigensians or Cathars, Bogomiles, Fraticelli "de opinione," Knights Templar and Waldenisians threatened the power structure in Rome and Mediaeval times (Cohn 1975)."
Thank you very, very much! Promoting these sorts of ideas is my main contribution to HN (since I am not a professional programmer, but merely a techie dabbler and lover of mathematics)
However, the real credit should go to people like Jonathan Ott, Charles Grob, Stanislav Groff, James Fadiman and Benny Shanon. Terence McKenna too, of course, but I find his views are less appealing and less convincing to the typical HN demographic. There are far more academically credible authors who write deeply about these things than TM.
I was a lot happier when I stopped reading LessWrong. I'm not even trying to be (overly) snarky - I really did used to read LW and I'm very glad I stopped as it was one of the many small things dragging down my well being.
Spending a lot of time commenting and, especially reading comments, is usually sad-making, as you're likely avoiding a better alternative as you would with a video game.
As well, there unhappiness-producing currents in many "we are all so smart" commenting fora, but I expect most people can expect a positive or at least enlightening experience if they're wise enough to avoid ego-tussles.
If you find you're getting less out of a group than you used to, likely you've grown more than the group. You wouldn't necessarily have done better to avoid it in the first place.
Would you care to elaborate on this? I have my own criticisms of LW and without mentioning what they are, I want to see if other people's match up with mine.
Edi/Disclaimer: I do feel like I benefited intellectually by reading the original Sequences on LessWrong. The general idea that strong AI might represent a risk to humanity seems plausible, although I'm not sure how credible the specifics are.
Well, I don't feel intelligent or well educated enough to critique most of what they (EY and supporters) say point by point. However, one thing I recall seems indicative of some of the systemic problems with how he/they think about the world:
EY once wrote that he tried "exercise" (unspecified but presumably steady cardio) and found that it "didn't work". His conclusion was that he....inherently was unable to improve his physical fitness due to some genetic trait that a minority of the population was cursed by.
That is so breathtakingly arrogant and foolish that I was taken aback and it was one of the many small things that led me to question his 'rationality'.
Presumably, EY was a baby, and like all other babies, gradually developed increased muscular strength and coordination during the process of learning to walk. Thus, his muscles are capable of responding to stress and adapt to that stress by getting stronger. If EY had the grit to actually try rigorous training such as progressively loaded barbell squats I'm quite sure he would experience at least a modest, but measurable, increase in physical fitness. Instead, he rationalized his physical weakness and chose the easy road. Plenty of people do this, but they're not so 'rational' as to try and intellectually justify it on their own website publicly!
* I don't feel like searching LW to try and find a citation for this - but does anyone really doubt it? Just look at a picture of the guy.
IIRC his attempted exercise was walking around the Bay Area which left him winded and sore. Agree it sounded woefully ignorant to the science of fitness. He would have done a lot better to hire a physical trainer who could kick his ass a little bit, boot-camp style.
I see LW as part of the cult of reason - under risk of strawmanning, it's the idea that pretty much everything subject to perfect logical deduction from first principles.
It's important to study and understand human biases and it can be helpful in overcoming many struggles since most of the time, you're your own worst enemy, but the philosophy that you're inherently flawed and you should put up a constant effort to be "less wrong" is a recipe for disaster IMO.
Absolutely, take time every now and then to reflect on life and whether any biases and assumptions about the world is impairing your wellbeing and happiness and whether it might be worth changing that -- but in everyday life, listen to your impulses, intuition and feelings. Don't be blind, don't be stupid, but also don't constantly second-guess yourself.
I should totally write a self help book. Or at least make some inspirational Facebook cover photos.
> but in everyday life, listen to your impulses, intuition and feelings
The idea, if I understand it correctly, is that those are the things that are supposed to end up "less wrong." You're not supposed to be consciously thinking all the time about how your thinking is broken; you're supposed to practice a few tricks for a while, internalize them, and then your impulses/intuition/feelings will be (less) broken.
I think that's right, and it's probably even pretty compatible with what I suggest.
What I think is dangerous is adopting the underlying philosophy that your intuition is inherently wrong and in need of salvation from reason.
In this, as with every other area of human improvement, there's a balance to be struck between recognising your current state as "good enough" (even that has a derogatory ring to it) while not isolating you from the fact that there's almost always almost infinite room for improvement. And I think the cult of reason and LW in particular is bad at recognising and respecting a "good enough" state.
Or put another way, imagine if the most popular software engineering website was "YoureNotAsGoodAsJohnCarmack.com".
I think they have taken this idea of being logical and internalized it as a status symbol.
The use of the word "rational" apparently only applies to them so by criticizing LW, I assume that makes you irrational.
Is it useful for every human to overcome the biases on their list? Or are these just criticisms that one group can use to distinguish themselves from other people? [1] I don't even believe all of these biases exist but instead could be attributed to a discrepancy in definitions and usage of language in a formal and colloquial sense. Further, although possibly mentioned elsewhere, I think it is possible to suffer from a "cognitive bias" cognitive bias where belief about overcoming cognitive bias causes a new cognitive bias.
Check out this link [2], I think Harry Potter is associated with Eliezer himself.
In short, I don't think a bunch of people who claim to be rational are completely ego free.
edit: I don't mean this to sound as if I am arguing there is no such thing as cognitive bias or that nobody can really be rational but that ego can and has gotten in the way of discussion about it.
I've been on it for years, but I firmly classified it as internet television and a fun place to argue amateur philosophy. Productivity impact, pfeh. YMMV of course.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Antipodes-Mind-Phenomenology-Exper...