Thesis ideas...

[Z]

'ello 'ello:

I'm a senior religion and psychology major. For my religion major I'm writing a thesis on something pertaining to the occult/religion and drugs (and also possibly art) - where these things intersect. My problem is that I don't know exactly where to go with this - I need some sort of central focus. The occult and psychedelics are clearly related - there is something to all these things - you can just feel it. I was considering going along the lines of ritual & psychedelics being metaprogramming tools, but I'm not entirely sure. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

The thoughts brewing in me hed aren't this vague, but I don't want to bore you all with a long rambling of some of my ideas...

[Halfglass]

Z: Why not go for the big question? Are psychedelics showing us the Other Side. (Where the dead go.) Look for clues in the Erowid reports. Make a stance and perhaps you'll blow your own mind.

[Z]

Halfglass, I was thinking something of that sort, but there are a few things that have stopped me. I don't know if there's any way to make a case for such a thing without getting ridiculous. Also, they may show us more than just where the dead go, unless you're being more metaphoric than you let on here...
If I were to do what you're suggesting, I don't think I could go far beyond anecdote - there are a few studies on psychedelics that may suggest a relationship between the psychedelic experience and NDE, but who's to say the NDE is anything like the DE...
It's obvious that these drugs and certain religious practices are tapping into something, but what in the hell is it? I'm hesitant to say the collective unconcscious because even though I think that's a part of it, the phrase doesn't seem to encompass quite enough... hum...

[daniel]

Perhaps look at different vectors for understanding transpersonal experiences: Jung's insistence on integrating the shadow; Stanislav Grof's work with birth trauma as a hologram for the entire life experience. Leary's eight circuit model. The psychology of Buddhism (especially Tibetan esoteric) and Hinduism compared with Western psychology.

Are any of the Western psychological categories good enough for explaining these experiences? Do recent advances in physics and other sciences call for a radical revision? How to conceive such?

Check out Gebser's The Ever Present Origin and Evola's Revolt Against the Modern World, as well as Bennett and Ouspensky.

[sidecross]

"…I don't know if there's any way to make a case for such a thing without getting ridiculous…"

To be boxed in by an apprehension of being labeled ridiculous is to be blind of how break through understanding comes about.

[Z]

sidecross: let me modify: I don't think I can make any better of a case than people already have for such a thing - I simply don't have the means to conduct experiments, and I don't want ot do a literature review. When I say 'getting ridiculous', I mean moving away from providing any sort of sound evidence and into the realm of pure speculation - I don't care being seen as a wacko by my professor, but I do care about making this readable and coherent. I don't mind getting quirky. Though I'd consider someone like McKenna quirky, I wouldn't consider him ridiculous, and his ideas are pretty out there. In any case, I think psychedelics and the religious experience in general tap into something beyond the realm of death, even though they might bring the individual into such a realm (or show him/her hints of it) occasionally...

daniel: yeah, that's a consideration. I don't know about Leary's 8-circut model, however. I used to think of it as a decent model for understanding humans (I went on a big Leary/RAW streak), but now I'm not so sure... it seems largely arbitrary and I can't help but think that Leary was often a rambling con-man (not to say that he didn't have good ideas now and then). It's just that that particular model has little evidence in it's favor and hasn't really led to any accurate predictions of yet, though we'll have to wait a bit (maybe only 9 years) till we see if the rest of it pans out (as far as his predictions for human development/evolution).

Modern (and by this I mean within the past 20 years) western psychological categories are hardly concerned with such experiences... it seems that the field has moved away from that whole Jungian sort of atittude... a revision is clearly in order, but I don't see it happening just yet (on a large scale - gotta convert all them squayres).