New World Shamans - Let's Unite!

[toadvenom]

From the excerpts, I thought this book was going to be filled with the psychedelic adventures of Daniel Pinchbeck. Instead, it is filled with something better. For, the Internet is already loaded with psychedelic trip reports for anyone who is solely interested in that. What this book does is reveal the underlying context for these experiences. With the increasing amount of information available about spirit plants and chemicals over the Internet - where to obtain them, how to cultivate and extract from them - one must still look much harder to find the deeper framework from which to understand what these plants and substances are doing in our lives. This book provides that deeper framework.

We are the latest incarnation of the Old World Shamans. Will we be able to fully harness the powers that work in our favor and, at the same time, banish the powers that convene against us? Will we regain the lost knowledge, or at the very least, relearn how to navigate and interpret the regions of the nether dimensions?

In my world, psychedelic plants are medicine and I use them for insight and healing. For me, this is, and always has been a spiritual pursuit. This book not only reaffirms the way in which I use these tools, it opens up whole new possibilities for spiritual grow and exploration.

What does the psychedelic experience teach us about the nature of ourselves as human beings? If these substances can open up our hearts to love and healing, why can they also open us up to evil? That is the nature of our reality - we live in a world of duality. And given freewill, men are warriors at heart. So even though we may taste the divine, we still exist in societies that demand political alliances that compete with one another.

Will the modern world with its War on Drugs ever accept the New World Shamans? Probably never. But, as Daniel alludes, we may be its only salvation. Then again, how many people do you know who enjoy having their realities completely shattered? So, maybe the issue is one of timing. And when the world is ready, here I am, and there I'll be.

The Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert (http://members.cox.net/toadvenom/index.htm)

[daniel]

Thanks so much for your comments, Dr. Toadvenom. I love reading trip reports on Erowid, but I do feel my book supplies a useful larger context. For instance, I wish Erowid had a place where people recorded their dreams and synchronicities around major psychedelic experiences.

I think that the world has already entered a high-impact psychedelic phase. The old rationality that held things together from the 1970s through the Clintonian Era seems shattered. We have clearly entered a new realm - an occult realm where "reality" is continuously fabricated. The new technologies guarantee that there is no more reason to believe any tape or video clip. I sometimes suspect we are witnessing the culmination of various prophecies, including those in The Book of Revelation. I was watching CNN and Fox News during election night, and I realized what the announcers reminded me of: The "locusts with human faces" described in Apocalypse.

I suspect that the overwhelming attempt to implement super-snooping technology and other repressive mechanisms has to do with the instability in the air: Climate change, the "global casino" of the financial markets, and the collapse of the dominant paradigm into a heap of dry dust.

Have you checked out Arguelles' "Time and the Technosphere"?

[Oedipud]

Synchronicity.

I like the sound of it. Kissing cousin to serindipity, the way it rolls off the palette.

Why is it, do you think, that synchronicity seems to pervade the lives of those that seek the sublime? Is it the knee-jerk reaction of the brain, developing new neuronal structures to accommodate the search? Or is it recognition of a deeper level of existence...a glimpse of ripples in the fabric of reality?

Any suggestions for cliches' that aren't as tired as 'fabric of reality'?

Personal experience has taught me that synchronicity is not only a phenomenon, but it's a way of life. Sadly, if it's not experienced in moderation, it's quickly bastardized like the numerous fads pushed down our collective throats. And that, I feel, is sad. That I can't shake societal paradigms to continually appreciate the unknown is a source of great consternation for me.

I couldn't agree with you more, Daniel, about news personalities. Not to take a turn down Icke Road, but it seems that news anchors, celebrities, and politicians have seething insectile/reptoid underbellies. I think the degree of deceit and the manufacturing of persona gives them an almost alien aura to those who've undergone any sort of psychedelic transformation.

That, or they're fourth dimensional shape-shifting reptoids intent on sacking the human race.

For now, I'm going to choose the former.

[ November 21, 2002, 08:17 PM: Message edited by: Oedipud ]