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I've just typed out a massive reply to you Gyrus, and then I lost it.
You said: People like David Lewis-Williams (The Mind in the Cave) seem willing to bring altered states to the centre of the stage of the origins of art - is anyone doing the same with the origins of humans, consciousness and religion?
One of your links, here: Prehistoric Psychoactive Mushroom Artifacts says that:
this article intends to focus its attention on a group of rock paintings in the Sahara Desert, the works of pre-neolithic Early Gatherers, in which mushrooms effigies are represented repeatedly. The polychromic scenes of harvest, adoration and the offering of mushrooms, and large masked "gods" covered with mushrooms, not to mention other significant details, lead us to suppose we are dealing with an ancient hallucinogenic mushroom cult. What is remarkable about these ethnomycological works, produced 7,000 - 9,000 years ago, is that they could indeed reflect the most ancient human culture as yet documented in which the ritual use of hallucinogenic mushrooms is explicitly represented. As the Fathers of modern ethno-mycology (and in particular R. Gordon Wasson) imagined, this Saharian testimony shows that the use of hallucinogens goes back to the Paleolithic Period and that their use always takes place within contexts and rituals of a mysfico-religious nature.
I would suggest that this is certainly thinking about religion, and also human consciousness. I don't know why you are separating the research into the use of hallucinogens within ancient civilizations in terms of art from that of its affect on consciousness, the things all cross into each other and are inextricably linked aren't they?
Lysergic acid in Ergot found in bad bread in the middle ages caused people to hallucinate and dance including, I once read, Thomas More. The Greeks had Kykeon which was said to contain Ergot and cause revelatory states and R Gordon Wasson wrote a book about it called, 'The Road to Eleusis'. Some people believe that the Norse 'mead of inspiration' had mushrooms in it. All those occurrences of hallucinogens in foodstuffs or drinks would affect people in many ways, including artistically, certainly consciously and religiously.
I can't read the whole of the Independent article, but I would like to. Are you a member of the Independent site, and if so could you PM me a copy of the article?
33, as Gyrus says, I think you might mean Alexander Shulgin. He and his wife Ann did lots of experiments in synthesising psychoactive drugs. He's written two well known books about it called PiHKAL and TiKHAL. |
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