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Old dog learns new tricks

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11:30 / 23.01.06

I wonder how much a given analysis reveals about the analyser and how much about the analysed. That must be an interesting aspect of such work...Ganesh? Surely you learn at least as much about your'self' as you do about another 'self' once you start picking around?

*shrugs cryptically*

More generally - but with one eye to the 'reductionist science' comments a little further up - I kinda wanted to explain why I'm slightly wary of doing too much 'analysing' of my own within this thread.

I'd missed the initial SD thread and when you started this one, Money $hot, I did start to wonder whether the experiences described reflected some sort of hypomanic episode brought on by either the psychotropics, the extreme(-sounding) fasting, or both. I think it was the 'downloading Portuguese' stuff in conjunction with the apparently sudden desire to undergo extensive body-tattooing that made my pshrinky sense tingle.

I didn't jump into the discussion at that point, because I felt - and still feel - out of my depth. I'm aware of the limitations of adopting a rigidly 'psychiatric', pathologising view of this sort of phenomenon - and recognise that I personally lack the specific experience upon which to construct the correct frame of reference for evaluating it.

In such situations, my strategy is usually to seek out others who might more knowledgeably comment on the situation: in this case, other 'frequent flyers' of the Temple. It's reassuring and useful to me to read the likes of Mordant providing context from her own magical experiences, and I think it's also a Good Thing that you've been gently challenged here and there.

That's pretty much all the 'analysis' I'd be willing to offer. It feels really presumptious to chuck any more 'scientific' speculation into the mix. I'm following this thread with interest, though.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

11:42 / 23.01.06

Cool. I'm really grateful for everyone who has contributed to the language issue, for learning me a thing or two.

11:45 / 23.01.06

(That's more of a personal 'is M$ mad' slant than a wider attempt to interpret entheogen experiences but hey ho, I'm a semi-turgid scientist at best...)

15:06 / 23.01.06

I soooo did not read the last few posts

Less searchable M0rd4nt

15:17 / 23.01.06

How do you mean, DM? In a "too long; didn't read" sense or in a stunned surprise sense?

17:28 / 23.01.06

No, it's more of a "I've already seen this discussion in another thread that I'm still getting around to read with due attention" thing.

18:04 / 23.01.06

M$, I believe that the issue with scientific research on entheogens is largely political in nature, rather than reflecting a bias in the scientific community itself - although such a bias may indeed exist due to political pressure. Mind-altering substances have been so vilified that most scientists probably just don't want to go there. Research grants don't come easily to people who are digging in areas the government doesn't like.

18:18 / 23.01.06

Eeeevil Scientist, what do you think about the Koren Helmet? Inducing intense religious experience via rotating magnetic fields? That would seem to indicate a causal connection between brain state and perceived contact with Godlike beings, a one-way causal chain from physical cause understood by science to a change in conscious experience traditionally the remit of Religion.

So (he posted baitingly) if we can contact the gods whenever we like via a big technohelmet, that would support the hypothesis that the gods aren't in fact external entities with their own intent but in fact a projection by our own brain.

The reason I bring it up is that the common ground of the primacy of experience that the 'enlightened' magician and scientist share is sadly lacking in many hardnosed scientists and soft brained occultists. There are schools of thought (e.g. Behaviourism) that decry anything that can't be measured, just as there are many occultists who despise science as a soulless machine producing evil tech that will kill our souls.
You and I probably agree on quite a lot, but I think Crowley and Skinner may not have got on so well if you see what I mean. There *is* a conflict between the methodology of science and magic, the underlying premises are at odds with each other past a certain point. Some people would say M$'s experience were 'just hallucinations' just as they would say the Angels people see under the technohelmet aren't real because they're caused by the magnetic fields spinning around and not an invisible being manifesting. It's all about the underlying assumptions, innit?

18:29 / 23.01.06

M$, I believe that the issue with scientific research on entheogens is largely political in nature, rather than reflecting a bias in the scientific community itself - although such a bias may indeed exist due to political pressure.

My experience with scientific research (I used to be a molecular biologist, wau back in the 90's) tells me they are all politically bias (not to mention economically). That's why two scientists wrking on the same subject in different labs can come up with completely different data. and that's also why I lost faith in science.

btw, I used that freaky Koren helmet once in a tantative therapy conducted by an exorcits priest (seriously). I'll tell you that, I saw no angels, but I did feel like I had taken lots of ecstasy... groovy, man!

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18:41 / 23.01.06

Some people would say M$'s experience were 'just hallucinations'...

...and quite possibly be guilty of the same fallacy as me claiming my language was simply a description with no other layers or levels...

You know, like claiming 'they're just words'.

19:12 / 23.01.06

Actually, my understanding is that it's not that there are laws against performing the research -- it's just that because the substances themselves are outlawed, obtaining the necessary permissions to perform the research is difficult to the point of impossibility.

If research on entheogens was outlawed-outlawed, we wouldn't have had the terribly embarrassing incident a couple of years ago when Princeton(?) got their methamphetamine (MA) and metadioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) confused and published a paper talking about how harmful Ecstasy was. Then had to apologize for using the wrong drug.

If you want to read more about where science and entheogens intersect, you'll need some MAPS.

21:15 / 23.01.06

Well, I've done some biochem work with LSD and MDMA over the past year or so, but not on human or animal subjects. A lot of the time (particularly in the UK), the thorny issues will not come from physically working with the drugs, but from running an experiment with humans, because thats a massive bioethical can of worms.

That's in the UK though, from what i hear getting a licence to work with these things in the US is a lot more difficult unless you're actively searching for harm. Though that's alleged, obviously.

Also, I'd like to second the points made above by various posters that science and magic are just tools, and not mutually exclusive ones at that. To my mind, a good scientist should trust hir intuition, and I guess a decent magician will test, review, and repeat hir experiments.

Many thanks to M$ for putting this up for peer review. it's one of the best things i've read in here, and that's saying something.

11:24 / 25.10.06

Just bumping this to say a huge thanks to you Money $hot, for writing all that and posting it up here. For some insane reason I'd seen the thread around quite a bit a while ago, but had only quickly looked at it and then left it until now. Thanks to grant for linking to it from the barbeclassics thread too, which was how I found it again.

Thanks so much for the level of detail and the amount of things you wrote about, things that many others probably wouldn't want to write, (it being too personal for some and all.) because it made reading about it so much better. The culmination of the events you had at the Caboclo Guerreiro were amazing to read, and the breakthrough especially, that had me grinning quite a bit, and I'm chuffed that you've had something so brilliant happen for you on such a huge level.

Thanks again for taking the time to write about it.

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