Psychonautics
Or, "Life, before and after and outside the preconceived notions of life."
An Epiphenominalistic Thought-Form Is Born
While it remains to be seen how the human mind processes information over time, I still gain a great deal of pleasure from the occasional epiphany, though I understand next to nothing of how they come to be. I am aware of several different thought processes coursing through my conscious mind, and even a few of my unconscious mind, yet when they begin to arrange themselves into a coherent image, I choose to enjoy the moment of revelation before looking into the "why". An oddity, for my personality, as I look into the "why" of anything and everything. But when it comes to why I choose to enjoy the moment only when it comes to epiphanies, the only answer I can find is "why not?"
On a daily basis, I am asked a certain question. We are all asked this question from time to time by people who know us or know of us. In some cases it's used as a greeting, without a particular care as to what the answer is, unless it catches them off guard. The certain question in question is, "Hi! How are you today?"
For the most part, the expected answer runs a few words, in my observations of others. Simple sentences such as, "Fine, and you?" or "Pretty good" or "Not so well."
None of these answers do justice to the meaning behind the original question, at least linguistically. The intentions of the questioner could be conditioned habit, or a genuine interest, neither of which is my place to assume until I have highly advanced psychic powers of the mind. Which I am working on.
Seeing as how I have no absolute idea what spirit the question was asked in, I have a tendency to be as well-rounded and detail-oriented as possible when answering. In this way, I have not only gotten across the likelihood of a person to wish being in close proximity with me, as well as my current mental state, and what directions my thoughts are traveling at the moment.
So when I am asked the question, "How are you today?" I respond honestly.
"Relatively tolerable at the moment, with an inclination toward a more positive attitude in an hours time, due to a project I am currently working on. How about yourself?"
I sound like a damn weather report, save the finishing move, "Back to you, Jim"
This has caused a majority of those who have close contact with me to ask another question, "Don't you ever get tired of thinking so hard about everything?". And for once, I can answer with a single word.
"No."
Everything is of interest to me in one degree or another. If I were to stop thinking so much about the nature of the world around me, I would become rather depressed and stagnant, and would not be actively participating in my own personal evolution. Some have accepted the way I think and ask questions to better understand it. Others have completely given up trying to understand, and just watch me in awe. Some are merely irritated that I give complex answers when they wanted something concise and simple. And a small minority assume that I know an awful lot of nothing that is of any consequence, and ignore almost everything that comes out of my mouth. All very valid positions, considering the infinite perspectives that can exist between two people in any given conversation.
I was struck recently, with an epiphany so very vastly large in it's implications, that I chose to ignore everything around me and write a synopsis down, so that it would not be lost forever to the ether of unconscious thinking. It meant enough to me in that slight moment of understanding, that I attached a mental string to it, not to be lost. Writing down a few short sentences of description, I solidified it within my conscious mind as a beacon, so that I might let my unconscious mind work on it while I went about my day. As it turned out, I didn't actually get back to actively thinking about it for two days, but on the third day it rose in fulfillment of my expectations and I began to process the implications.
I think I have found a way to prove that there is a life after the physical death of our human bodies. Perhaps even life before the physical birth. Now for a cliffhanger.
Before I get into that, an example of how my thought process works. I must comment on the biases that I observe in myself during such a revelation in my mind, as well as how I go about the research needed to round out my conclusion. I usually think I am "right", at least right enough for my personal consumption. This proves difficult when attempting to explain the validation of ideas to a person outside of myself. That is when the serious writing and thinking begins, as I must not only adjust my vernacular to appeal to a more generalized and vast audience, but I cannot sacrifice the details that make up my point. To sacrifice the details is to create something that more closely resembles a religion or a cult, than a really good idea.
The problem with this is that I must admit I use a more "religious" order of thinking up to a point, in the sense that I start with an idea, and then look for ways to validate my way of thinking. Unlike most religious orders, I work hard to make sure that I am capable of being "wrong", in the event that further research implies that.
For example, the Catholic church has come out and admitted that belief in extraterrestrials and space aliens is sanctioned by the Vatican, as other beings in the universe would have the same "God" with a capital "G" as we do.
What I find interesting in this statement of position is that it elevates Scientology up to the religious level of Catholicism, or lowers Catholic beliefs to Scientology levels, where they worship an alien overlord who presides over multiple alien species. This is not a position, nor a conflict of interest, that I wish to place my ideas into. Ideas "thrown into the ring" between both of these belief systems, is not my aim. Rather to make my ideas most applicable to the larger scheme of things, or a final zenith of all things. This proves difficult, but is required of myself if I am to remain intellectually honest with myself and others.
It is in this way that I do find the "scientific method" to be most useful, in that I see where my research takes me, and let my intellectual honesty allow for the possibility that I'm barking up the wrong tree. "Making mountains out of molehills" is a phrase that comes to mind, as I have been guilty of this type of thinking before, and recognize it as being a possibility as I proceed down any path I can imagine.
Thanks a lot, Pareidolia.
There are some around me that are aware of my fascination with a particular molecule that has baffled molecular biologists and neural chemists around the world in the past. A great deal of progress has been made in the study of this particular molecule over the past few decades, through special government sanctioned permissions, but the information gleaned from this doesn't easily escape into public knowledge because of its very nature. Since the Nixon administration oddly enough, and the birth of the so called "War against Drugs", this molecule has been classified as a Schedule One drug which is considered the most illegal. However, its illegality does not directly translate into it being a dangerous substance, as this molecule exists inside of all living things on the planet. The molecule exists in all plant, all animals, and inside the human brain. It is part of our very nature, and without it we go insane and die. Yet, it is illegal, making everyone on the planet guilty of possessing it. This includes, ironically, any President or Drug Czar that works for them.
The name of this molecule is Dimethyltryptamine, and it resides in the Pineal gland in the very center of the human brain. It activates naturally in three points of a human life. When we are being born, when we are in deep REM sleep, and when our physical bodies are dying. The implications of this are absurdly vast in and of itself, and what we do know about it already is not even a fraction of what has been theorized about the molecule.
It is very strongly hypothesized that Dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT, is the molecule that allows us to dream each night. At the very least, it is released in the human brain in large quantities while dreaming. It is also strongly hypothesized that it is the cause of so-called "spiritual" experiences.
DMT is categorized as a potent, fast-acting psychedelic, and has made up the basis of many "magical" brews used by ancient shamanic and tribal cultures around the world. At the very least, this shows that DMT is an integral ingredient for where human culture emerged from, and should be studied more vastly. Studied by anthropologists and archeologists, to say nothing of the modern scientific community as a whole. Yet it has been ostracized and shunned from modern thought because it is a psychedelic, rather than in spite of this fact. Ignorance of the fact that psychedelics exist in various forms in the human brain all the time, makes shunning a testable molecule even more ridiculous. To say nothing of outlawing a component of human brain chemistry.
Our drug-phobic culture has been conditioned to demonize the very substances that allow us a potential for a further understanding of ourselves, and only very recently has this psychological "iron curtain " been pulled back a few inches for a peek of what is behind it, only to be shut again before any questions can be answered. A metaphorical slap on the wrist keeps the Pavlovian dog conditioned inside all of us from exploring further.
"One cannot help but ponder the strange dichotomy that the nation based on establishing individual freedom has now outlawed every substance which might aid in the the exploration of that last and most important frontier, the human mind. Alexander Shulgin, world renowned chemist in the field of psychoactive drugs is quoted in a recent periodical: 'Our generation is the first ever to have made the search for self-awareness a crime' "
-Myron Stolaroff
In scientific material reductionist circles, it is commonly assumed that nature is a cold and unfeeling aspect inherent in all things. That the universe cares nothing for us as a species, this material world is all there is, and there is no such thing as an afterlife. To say nothing of a before-life. There is no creator of any kind, or there would be evidence. This leads to the assumption on the part of some atheists, that absolutely nothing happens when we die, that there is just a void and we cease to exist. The idea that we came from nothing, our thoughts are just random chemical reactions that exist only to keep us alive as long as possible, and we return to nothing. This leads some to believe that there is absolutely no point to life, and anything we do is inherently meaningless. A very nihilistic perspective ensues, and they cease to be invited to the really life-validating and affirming parties, unless they can hold back their opinions for a few hours. In this way, it could be that in order to have a good time, these perspectives must take a back seat to the pursuit of belonging to a particular group for the sake of fun. But scientifically, it must be realized that there is no point in having fun, other than to propagate certain endorphins in the brain, which make an individual want to continue living. But there is no other scientific explanation for why this is important, other than to keep an individual alive.
The problem here is that if there is no point in living other than self-propigation, why do we try to have fun at all? What is the point of life, if the conclusion science has reached is that there is no point? Why do we exist at all, if there is no point in existing? These unexplainable questions go around in circles until they are picked up by philosophy, and abandoned by the general scientific "experts". There are many scientists who do pursue these answers, and find very rewarding potentials for answers, but they are not generally recognized by the scientific community as a whole.
The point of interest that I stumbled upon was that of the idea of a "cold and unfeeling universe", which comes close to the phrase of a "dog eat dog world", neither of which do I necessarily believe in. If you want it to be the case, then sure, you can make it that way. It's possible, I must admit a great deal of things are possible, but I find that particular perspective unrealistic in my life experiences thus far. An absence of evidence being the reasoning behind a lack of investigation is the most un-scientific reason to ignore an idea I have ever heard of.
To be fair, there is once again a budding scientific interest in hallucinogens and their potential application in treating certain neurological conditions. The proverbial cat, it seems, is out of the bag.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html?sudsredirect=true
Psychonautics
In pre-industrial times, a sailor took their life into their own hands they pursued the romanticized exploration of that which they did not know. Traveling to ports and harbors in different countries and nation-states, they grew aware of the differences of other people in other lands, and their old myopic perspectives would change. They could not any more unlearn what they grew to know, than they could mitigate the risks involved in stepping onto a ship in the first place. There is a risk in any type of exploration. Risk of pain, injury, or even death. Yet they continued to take those risks as they came, some for money, perceived freedom, or for the sake of adventure into the unknown.
A "Psychonaut", in Greek, refers to a sailor of the human mind. It entails people who explore the unknown aspects of the human mind, and alter their perspectives in search of higher personal truths, through various means. Some would explore the dream realm, others the mental effects of various types of yoga. There are and were those who would ingest tribal hallucinogens in search of spirits and deities and unconscious beings of the imagination.
It seems quite evident at this point, that these early influences into tribal psychology affected the psychology of human kind over the centuries. So to ignore these methods of mental exploration is to ignore where human kind came from, and without knowing where we came from, how can we steer the ship toward a favorable future?
Virtual Reality Or, "When I dream, I dream big."
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
at
4:52 AM
AKA: "The Rule Of Experts over us" vs. "the rule of dreams before us."
Dreaming is one of those things about humans I'll never understand. It's one of those, "We all do it, so why don't we know anything about it?" kind of issues. Often times, the concept of dreaming is brushed aside as another of those "unimportant" things to spend any time on. It certainly doesn't help the gross national product or any capitalistic model I'm aware of, but if we were to suddenly stop doing it, we'd either go insane or die. At least that much has been observed over time, yet this subject is still marginalized in the mass consensus. It's important to our very survival, and yet...
We need to breathe to keep ourselves alive, and we know a great deal about how to keep people breathing long after they would have normally died. We know plenty about breathing.
We need to eat to keep ourselves alive, and we have a world wide selection of menus and recipes to add variety and fun to the process of continuing to live. We know plenty about eating.
We need to dream to keep ourselves alive and sane, and yet we as a species can only theorize why this is important. It is a mysterious phenomenon, and we deal with it daily, and we know next to nothing about it's purpose.
Dreaming has been placed on a back burner of popular thought, right up there with ghosts,alien abduction, and religious experiences. Events around these subjects happen, but damned if there's any financial backing to "legitimately" study those subjects. To prove, or to disprove the validity thereof. For now, dreaming seems to exist as one of those things that shall be important only to the individual experiencing them.
We still have no universally agreed definition of what is occurring biologically, and the discovery of Rapid Eye Movement is only a little over 50 years old, but only proved that it was associated with dreams. Certain neural transmitters are shut off in the brain while dreaming, which is theorized as preventing us from moving around in the "real world" if we do it in a dream.
The most often heard explanation for dreaming is the clearing of mental clutter in your down time, rather than while awake. This was presented to me as fact when I was young, and it was only in 2004 that I found it was only a theory. As are several other proponents of absolutism in the field of dreams.
I find most of the main stream "experts" have a tendency toward crappy science, as the more difficult to explain issues of the universe are placed on back burners, in the hopes that the public will forget about them perhaps. When the public doesn't forget, the "expert" answer usually involves an answer that benefits who ever pays them to say it. Either that, or the people looking for answers are marginalized as "tin-foil hats", "ufo communities", and of course, "kooks" and "conspiracy theorists."
While there are several scientific minded research scientists who do not "sell out" to the highest bidder, and I've seen fascinating work in great subjects by them, but they seem the exception to the rule of "Experts." Scientist who are driven by a need to find out and understand the interesting oddities around them in the world, and care nothing much for the high-paying government military jobs offered to their genius. Yet the "Experts" rule, over the perceptions of the average person at least.
Real Scientists like Rupert Sheldrake, who devised methods of being able to prove the psychic connection between pets and owners. Or the predictability of telephone calls between people who were "just thinking of you a moment ago." Yes, that was proven to be much more than just chance. And it was proven in the 90's. Before caller ID was a thing.
Never heard of Rupert Sheldrake? Why would you? He's not rich as a scientist because there is no money in proving what everyone feels is true on an innate level they cannot define. He won't work for companies who seek to exploit his tests in order to exploit more people and make more money. If it cannot be harnessed and brought to the bidding of men who want money, then it is of no value in the mass market. And that is how you are controlled everyday, and prevented from knowing what's going on, because if you knew you would demand it.
Even with figures such as Carl Jung, and Robert VanDeCastle, dreaming remains a very misunderstood phenomena that warrants further explorations. And as a self professed "Psychonaut", I make the human experience in altered states of mind my self-improvment laboratory.
For the non-initiated, a Psychonaut is one who practices Psychonetics, which is explained by the online oracle of Wikipedia as follows.
"Psychonautics (from the Greek ψυχή soul/spirit/mind and ναύτης sailor/navigator - a sailor of the mind/soul)[1] refers to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, including those induced by mind altering substances, and to a research paradigm in which the researcher voluntarily immerses ... See Morehim/herself into an altered state by means of such techniques, as a means to explore human experience and existence. [2] The term has been applied diversely, to cover all activities by which altered states are induced and utilized for spiritual purposes or the exploration of the human condition, including shamanism, lamas of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, [3] lucid dreaming,[1] sensory deprivation,[1] and modern drug users who use hallucinogenic drugs in order to gain deeper insights and spiritual experiences.[4]
A person who uses altered states for such exploration is known as a psychonaut."
Altered states need not include the myopic arguments such as whether hallucinogens are "evil" or "good", no matter what authority figure outside of yourself you choose to listen to. Altered states can be being moved to dance from the right catchy tune or beat, it can be meditation on your own, pharmaceutical products you pay for, or the beer you drink. I prefer dreaming for a majority of my work in Psychonautics.
It becomes rather easy for the mundane and dull-witted among us to judge harshly those who seek out the different within themselves. It is rather easy to judge those who have different perspectives as being "scary" or "insane", never noting that "sanity" is merely a large amount of followers all agreeing that differences should be shunned, and that individuality is a sickness. These include the same folks who swear up and down they are not bigoted at all, right until they come across an opinion they don't agree with. Or a nerd, hippy, or punk. Goth, perhaps? Jock? All very divisive terms used to keep people apart, a taxonomy of self-impossed repression from happiness. After all, how can you be happy with those people in that social group over there threatening you in some manner of your own perception that you cannot exactly define? You know, like a child would. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have heard the sneer of disgust and hatred at the mere mention of certain words.
"Stupid Republicans"
"Bleeding heart Liberal"
"Damn Hippy"
"Bottle Returners"
On and on.
But replace the word "hippy" with "Jew", or any other group title, and you can quickly see it's the same problem of judgement and myopic thinking. These titles are just words, and these words have power over how most people think and define themselves. If that's not a magic spell cast over the masses like a fisherman's net drags fish in for the slaughter, then feel free to argue me down from my point.
Racism might be on it's way out, or it might not. But while that concept is still wavering, we are perfectly content to rip each other down for minor differences.
I have biases against other people, sure, we all do on an individual level with someone. But a bias against a group of people based on a generality and a stereotype that was handed to us since childhood? We have to learn to be better than how we were taught, and more so, we must want to learn.
I have found that the one bias over a general group of people are the self-proffesed "experts" that are, generally, quoted generally on the major media networks. They are the "experts" so we must listen to what "they" say.
Well, yes "listen", but not obey and take as fact. Fact is in the eye of the beholder, it's subjective, so anyone claiming an absolute position on so-called consensus reality, is only speaking the facts they have surrounded themselves with, and discarded anything that says otherwise. In this sence, the "experts" have created a new dogmatic religion with priests in white lab coats, and their flock of followers worship them at the altar. Never once thinking, "Maybe I could do it better.", because the "experts" are here to tell you what to think, instead of how to think.
So yeah, I've got some work to do on my biases, but I can admit it. However, the religion of scientific materialist reductionism claims no mistakes or biases, only absolutism.
There are my aforementioned models of scientific excellence, the people who are scientifically minded enough to challenge old concepts to get at some sort of deeper underlying truth. The trut's that lead to more questions.
Maybe that's why I choose dream analysis.
There are many interpretations of the story in a dream once it is told, but currently, only one observer for each dream.
In the "real" world, we generally strive toward one interpretation of the story of our lives and our world, when we have billions of observers.
Trillions if you count the animals.
Sweet dreams.
Dreaming is one of those things about humans I'll never understand. It's one of those, "We all do it, so why don't we know anything about it?" kind of issues. Often times, the concept of dreaming is brushed aside as another of those "unimportant" things to spend any time on. It certainly doesn't help the gross national product or any capitalistic model I'm aware of, but if we were to suddenly stop doing it, we'd either go insane or die. At least that much has been observed over time, yet this subject is still marginalized in the mass consensus. It's important to our very survival, and yet...
We need to breathe to keep ourselves alive, and we know a great deal about how to keep people breathing long after they would have normally died. We know plenty about breathing.
We need to eat to keep ourselves alive, and we have a world wide selection of menus and recipes to add variety and fun to the process of continuing to live. We know plenty about eating.
We need to dream to keep ourselves alive and sane, and yet we as a species can only theorize why this is important. It is a mysterious phenomenon, and we deal with it daily, and we know next to nothing about it's purpose.
Dreaming has been placed on a back burner of popular thought, right up there with ghosts,alien abduction, and religious experiences. Events around these subjects happen, but damned if there's any financial backing to "legitimately" study those subjects. To prove, or to disprove the validity thereof. For now, dreaming seems to exist as one of those things that shall be important only to the individual experiencing them.
We still have no universally agreed definition of what is occurring biologically, and the discovery of Rapid Eye Movement is only a little over 50 years old, but only proved that it was associated with dreams. Certain neural transmitters are shut off in the brain while dreaming, which is theorized as preventing us from moving around in the "real world" if we do it in a dream.
The most often heard explanation for dreaming is the clearing of mental clutter in your down time, rather than while awake. This was presented to me as fact when I was young, and it was only in 2004 that I found it was only a theory. As are several other proponents of absolutism in the field of dreams.
I find most of the main stream "experts" have a tendency toward crappy science, as the more difficult to explain issues of the universe are placed on back burners, in the hopes that the public will forget about them perhaps. When the public doesn't forget, the "expert" answer usually involves an answer that benefits who ever pays them to say it. Either that, or the people looking for answers are marginalized as "tin-foil hats", "ufo communities", and of course, "kooks" and "conspiracy theorists."
While there are several scientific minded research scientists who do not "sell out" to the highest bidder, and I've seen fascinating work in great subjects by them, but they seem the exception to the rule of "Experts." Scientist who are driven by a need to find out and understand the interesting oddities around them in the world, and care nothing much for the high-paying government military jobs offered to their genius. Yet the "Experts" rule, over the perceptions of the average person at least.
Real Scientists like Rupert Sheldrake, who devised methods of being able to prove the psychic connection between pets and owners. Or the predictability of telephone calls between people who were "just thinking of you a moment ago." Yes, that was proven to be much more than just chance. And it was proven in the 90's. Before caller ID was a thing.
Never heard of Rupert Sheldrake? Why would you? He's not rich as a scientist because there is no money in proving what everyone feels is true on an innate level they cannot define. He won't work for companies who seek to exploit his tests in order to exploit more people and make more money. If it cannot be harnessed and brought to the bidding of men who want money, then it is of no value in the mass market. And that is how you are controlled everyday, and prevented from knowing what's going on, because if you knew you would demand it.
Even with figures such as Carl Jung, and Robert VanDeCastle, dreaming remains a very misunderstood phenomena that warrants further explorations. And as a self professed "Psychonaut", I make the human experience in altered states of mind my self-improvment laboratory.
For the non-initiated, a Psychonaut is one who practices Psychonetics, which is explained by the online oracle of Wikipedia as follows.
"Psychonautics (from the Greek ψυχή soul/spirit/mind and ναύτης sailor/navigator - a sailor of the mind/soul)[1] refers to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, including those induced by mind altering substances, and to a research paradigm in which the researcher voluntarily immerses ... See Morehim/herself into an altered state by means of such techniques, as a means to explore human experience and existence. [2] The term has been applied diversely, to cover all activities by which altered states are induced and utilized for spiritual purposes or the exploration of the human condition, including shamanism, lamas of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, [3] lucid dreaming,[1] sensory deprivation,[1] and modern drug users who use hallucinogenic drugs in order to gain deeper insights and spiritual experiences.[4]
A person who uses altered states for such exploration is known as a psychonaut."
Altered states need not include the myopic arguments such as whether hallucinogens are "evil" or "good", no matter what authority figure outside of yourself you choose to listen to. Altered states can be being moved to dance from the right catchy tune or beat, it can be meditation on your own, pharmaceutical products you pay for, or the beer you drink. I prefer dreaming for a majority of my work in Psychonautics.
It becomes rather easy for the mundane and dull-witted among us to judge harshly those who seek out the different within themselves. It is rather easy to judge those who have different perspectives as being "scary" or "insane", never noting that "sanity" is merely a large amount of followers all agreeing that differences should be shunned, and that individuality is a sickness. These include the same folks who swear up and down they are not bigoted at all, right until they come across an opinion they don't agree with. Or a nerd, hippy, or punk. Goth, perhaps? Jock? All very divisive terms used to keep people apart, a taxonomy of self-impossed repression from happiness. After all, how can you be happy with those people in that social group over there threatening you in some manner of your own perception that you cannot exactly define? You know, like a child would. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have heard the sneer of disgust and hatred at the mere mention of certain words.
"Stupid Republicans"
"Bleeding heart Liberal"
"Damn Hippy"
"Bottle Returners"
On and on.
But replace the word "hippy" with "Jew", or any other group title, and you can quickly see it's the same problem of judgement and myopic thinking. These titles are just words, and these words have power over how most people think and define themselves. If that's not a magic spell cast over the masses like a fisherman's net drags fish in for the slaughter, then feel free to argue me down from my point.
Racism might be on it's way out, or it might not. But while that concept is still wavering, we are perfectly content to rip each other down for minor differences.
I have biases against other people, sure, we all do on an individual level with someone. But a bias against a group of people based on a generality and a stereotype that was handed to us since childhood? We have to learn to be better than how we were taught, and more so, we must want to learn.
I have found that the one bias over a general group of people are the self-proffesed "experts" that are, generally, quoted generally on the major media networks. They are the "experts" so we must listen to what "they" say.
Well, yes "listen", but not obey and take as fact. Fact is in the eye of the beholder, it's subjective, so anyone claiming an absolute position on so-called consensus reality, is only speaking the facts they have surrounded themselves with, and discarded anything that says otherwise. In this sence, the "experts" have created a new dogmatic religion with priests in white lab coats, and their flock of followers worship them at the altar. Never once thinking, "Maybe I could do it better.", because the "experts" are here to tell you what to think, instead of how to think.
So yeah, I've got some work to do on my biases, but I can admit it. However, the religion of scientific materialist reductionism claims no mistakes or biases, only absolutism.
There are my aforementioned models of scientific excellence, the people who are scientifically minded enough to challenge old concepts to get at some sort of deeper underlying truth. The trut's that lead to more questions.
Maybe that's why I choose dream analysis.
There are many interpretations of the story in a dream once it is told, but currently, only one observer for each dream.
In the "real" world, we generally strive toward one interpretation of the story of our lives and our world, when we have billions of observers.
Trillions if you count the animals.
Sweet dreams.
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Archaic Revival and the Avatar Depression Syndrome
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
at
4:41 AM
Disclaimer: This article is not designed to trample on belief systems, but to provide an alternate opinion. I saw a solution to a problem, and had to comment on it. This is a work of emotion and feeling, not statistics and so-called facts.
Genesis in a Nutshell
Once, long ago, our ancestors were monkeys in the trees of Africa. We came down from the trees and lost our tails, and most of our fur. Then began the era of the ape. We ingested the new foods from the forested floor. One of the new foods, was a curious red food that grew at the ground of the trees, after the fall grace, after the decent from happier and more innocent times. It was a soft and spongy red substance, with white spots, and it gave those who ate it visions of a being that was higher and more advanced than ourselves. When they saw that the mushroom grew in the waste of certain cattle, they began a settled life, and began to domesticate this holy animal of the gods.
Tribe life continued on, over centuries. The men who ate the mushroom were given a higher visual accuracy, helping them on the hunt. The women, who were left behind to care for the children, used the powers of the mushroom to listen to the visions and create a language. A way of making sounds and giving association to them. It was then that the concept of a deity was born. A high and powerful being, or beings, that were teaching and informing us.
The elderly and less active would become the shamans and story tellers and bards, weaving tales that would captivate any audience. After all, these tales came from people who had experienced much of life, and of the divine. They were the elders, the experienced, and their words were wise.
The storytellers would gather the tribe around the fire late at night, and weave tales of great struggles and victories, deaths and sex, hate and love, fears and desires. The tribes people would laugh and shout, happy in the victories and openly weeping at the losses. They were a people unafraid to feel their emotions, and express them openly.
When they were joyous, they would laugh and frolic, with no need to worry of what others felt.
When they lost a loved one, they would mourn, loudly and with open emotion.
They felt everything around them, and loved the sensation of emotion.
Men were allowed to openly cry back then, and women were allowed to be filled with rage.
At the end of the day, they respected each other, and had empathy for each other.
But as there were many interpretations and perceptions of what the visions were, and after in-fighting among the ape population, factions and groups split off. They would associate only with those that followed the way of their alpha leader and interpreted the teaching of their gods. Whatever made sense to an individual decided their fate in these divisions. Each split caused a rift in their language, as anything that resembled what they once held dear for communication was now shunned. Each split carried with them the red and white mushroom as well as the domesticated cattle, as it was their holy sacrament, though the word and meaning had not been invented yet. Some splits resulted in battles, in which the losing side would lose their cattle, as well as contact with the divine. This was the greatest of losses to them. The winning side would have access to the divine knowledge, and it would empower them over those who did not. The ability to become drunk with power was invented, and it's progression through time became known as the dominator culture.
It was then that the first mushroom cults arose in Sumer and Mesopotamia. Its priests were a mixed bunch, some using the holy sacrament for further research and greater enlightenment. Some priests used it for dominion over the populace. Higher knowledge over others could be used to enlighten the masses, or to keep them dull and stupid. This was the birth of the Information War, the time when information held the power to elevate an intellect, or to hold dominion over other apes decendants. They were no longer a nomadic people, they were domesticated, locking themselves in walls and squares of stone against the outside world. Keeping their agriculture to themselves, inside the prisons they made for themselves.
Once, long ago, our ancestors were scattered tribes of humans across the landscape of our planet, all speaking different types of languages. This became known as the fall of the tower of Babel. As we fell from the tree tops, we fell from grace of movement through the branches, to take on a new form. Different peoples spoke different languages, and shared a splintered history. There were those who sought dominion over the natural world, so that it might give up its secrets to a select few priests of the mushroom cults, that they might hold dominion over others.
We emerged from the caves and makeshift dwellings. The nomadic tribes who held fast to our original beliefs since the days of coming down from the trees. Seeing others like us, come across the horizon, with various weapons. They had a similar form to us, and yet we did not recognize them. Their spirits were hard and dull, and they knew only following orders for their demi-gods, the mushroom cult leaders. The dominator culture envoys to the peaceful tribes.
We know what happened next, the dominator culture rose and fell, taking various forms. Using native beliefs against the natives, trying to collect them all under a Status Quo. This was much more easy that simple warfare. If you could trick a population into serving your god, or convince them that your god and their gods were the same thing, you had control over them. The Roman Empire, Emperor Constantine, Paganism into Catholicism. The mushroom cults evolved and kept their holy sacrament to themselves, foisting other sacrament substitutes on to the populace.
And so on, until now. We no longer believe our sacraments hold any power, and religion is a dying art of confusion and guilt. Yet we still hold to certain ideas of spirituality. These ideas sustain us for now, but we want more than just ideas and sustainability.
We want prosperity at the expense of no one.
At the expense of no people.
At the expense of no animals.
At the expense of no plants.
At the expense of nothing at all, prosperity now.
The Archaic Revival
A relatively famous ethnobotanist and South American shamanic authority named Terrence McKenna coined the term "Archaic Revival" to describe something that humanity is lacking, and may soon be recovering, if he was correct. It was his theory that the psychedelic mushroom had a very pivotal role in our development as a species, and through his scientific research, was able to prove the vast majority of it. Yet he gained no recognition from pop-culture and the scientific community. He broke a taboo.
The taboo inherent in our culture that psychedelic drugs hold little or no value to human kind, past, present, or future. I personally find it interesting that he and Timothy Leary enjoyed quite a great deal of popularity in North America and Europe, until the government of the United States declared a "War or Drugs" which criminalized and came down hard on all drug use, even the useful and medicinal ones. Any drug that was not authorized by pharmaceutical companies and the FDA, had no value to humans or was suddenly dangerous.
Quick question. How many people have died of psychedelics? No, not the guy who jumped off a building on acid. Frank Olson was actually a CIA clerk, when they were testing it in the 50's. And they didn't warn him before they did this experiment, so he thought he was losing his mind for no reason, which you never hear about in the urban legend. There is also evidence that says he was thrown from the window. Never mind the sidenote.
I'm talking about the natural psychedelics. The plant based hallucinogens that were used by indigenous tribes the world over for several thousand years until today. The ones with no recordable ill-effects. The ones that drop you off pretty much the way they found you, just with new ideas about life, the universe, and everything. There appears to be something in there.
There is a molecule in the human brain, excreted by the Pineal gland, that is speculated to be the cause of human imagination and dreams. It excreted only during three phases of a human beings life. When they are being born, when they are dreaming, and just before they die. The only points in human life where magic seems to occur naturally.
There is a 4th place where the molecule is excreted from the Pineal gland, and that is when the human being has ingested a hallucinogen. A molecule that has been extracted from plant matter by shamanic tribes for thousands of years. Without negative side-effects.
The molecule is called dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT. It allowed Shamans and tribes to communicate with the Earth-mother and other other gods. They arrived at decisions and practices they came upon thanks to the visions.
Terrence McKenna often spoke of the best way to search for extraterrestrial life, which was to search for evidence of it here, on our home planet. Search for some form of life on this planet that was non-invasive and put it to the test. He believed that he found it, in psychedelic mushroom spores. They are one of the few naturally occurring biological entities on the planet that can survive in deep space conditions. They grow only upon matter that is already dead, or decaying, which allows it to non-invasively thrive in most ecosystems. Mushrooms and fungus growing around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster have been found to actually diffuse the radiation in the soil, only recently. And when ingested, not only provably improve the quality of your vision, but also provide visions of the universe and ideas bigger than yourself and your pre-conceived notions of supposed "reality".
He also mentioned of the irony of looking for radio signals from space using a giant radio collecter dish in South America, seeing as how they cleared the bottom of the crater's bowl out to make the dish, by letting white cows eat the grass. The same domesticated animals that allow the mushroom to exist. No wonder I think, like the dark comedian Bill Hicks, that fast food burgers are the Antichrist.
Fungus and mushrooms now sound like something a non-invasive alien intelligence would launch at starter planets, so that species might develop on their own, and evolve at their own pace and preference. After all, without a certain sense of free-will, we would resign to fate. A sort of Exo-Genesis or Panspermia is the idea of life on this planet originating elsewhere in the universe. A Bell non-locality theorem seems very likely, if the Exo-Genesis is to be taken seriously. After all, the information had to come from somewhere, didn't it? So why not this one? We suspend our disbelief in the movie theaters and every time we hear a story, and then we are inspired into certain actions and behaviors over time, even if we don't agree with what is presented we are still affected by it.
The idea of the Archaic Revival is one of the human collective unconscious retreating from the horrors of the world we currently live in, and reflecting on somewhat simpler times. Instead of a focus on taxes, wars that threaten to never end, and the powerfully corrupt banksters and corporations preying upon the weak of their own species, a redirecting of our spirit and will toward something more tranquil and beautiful. We have a wish to go back to Eden, whatever the details of that means to us on a personal level.
We see it everyday. The signifiers of someone rebelling against the status quo. Tattoo's and body piercing, willful body modification, movies of the little guy winning against the powerful status quo. Feathers in our hair and earrings, and a tribal beat to our popular musics. Stories of ancient peoples allowed to live their lives without intrusion upon the natural order of things. The meek inheriting the Earth. We all want it, the majority of us at least. A return to innocence and magic and wonder. Where we are all treated equal, in spite of how different we appear or act. Our differences celebrated, our quirks allowable and our opinions considered, rather than causes for in-fighting. Respect.
Sounds like a threat to a corporate profit margin to me. The same profits that sky-rocket when we all eat the same, and buy the same, and listen to advertisements designed exclusively to hook us based off our fears. If I have to buy something to be "cool", then I'll settle for being myself.
And slowly, we're all realizing that.
Avatar Depression Syndrome
Since the release of James Cameron's written and directed film "Avatar", there have been people experiencing what I would call "Avatar Depression Syndrome". That is to say, people who have watched the film "Avatar" and have become depressed that they can not live like the protagonist characters, the Na'vi. Some have even expressed thoughts of suicide.
It reminds me of a 60 Minutes article on people who become depressed after playing Everquest, the MMORPG that swept the video gaming nation a decade back. One person they examined actually killed himself because he was so distraught that his online life in the game was not "real" and he would never be so happy again in this world. I've heard similar stories about World of Warcraft, and Dark Ages of Camelot.
I'm rather sympathetic to this state, as I like a good deal of escapism from time to time, but am coming from a very unique perspective. The word "Avatar" is a very old reference to a Deity who takes human form. A God or Goddess takes human form to better understand the people around them.
Similar to how we don Avatars in video games. We control a character in a virtual universe that is similar, but not the same as our own. We are interacting with another universe, with a higher knowledge of what is going on in that game, or universe. Sometimes we can alter the appearance of our Avatar to better suit how we wish to interact with an alternate universe. But, ultimately, we have knowledge from outside the virtual space that gives us an advantage over the game characters.
Similar to how Jesus had a advantage over those he interacted with. Jesus was an Avatar. He was the representation of God in human form, to better interact with the average human. Like the "Sky-people" were just humans in Na'vi form, to interact and better understand them. When it comes down to terms and language, we can quickly see that we have a great deal more in common than we have to separate us. After all, "Avatar" is a Hindu reference, that on it's surface indicates a relationship between humans and a god or goddess.
In the story, the Na'vi are under siege by a human corporation looking to mine a rare mineral from under the native people's land and planet. The Na'vi have a very symbiotic relationship with their home, and interact with the other animals and plants with a very respectful and necessary way.
Military trained "guns for hire" are enlisted by the human corporation to make way for their mining operation, very similar to the Halliburton and XE (formerly Blackwater) forces that are currently ripping the native people of Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran and Pakistan out of their homes and slaughtering them. Either through economic sanctions or military brute force. Cowardly drone fighters are controlled remotely so the pilot will never risk their life while killing others. The same terms are used by the mercenaries in James Cameron's epic as they were in the continuing massacre in Iraq, "Fight Terror with Terror" as well as "Shock and Awe". Interestingly enough, the Na'vi fight back. And yet, we cower before an ever more powerful military force and corporations that control our very thoughts and inclinations.
There are two scenes in the movie Avatar where the military pilots are flying against the native Na'vi, while the General speaks of that nights dinner, and holds a coffee cup. This shows quite plainly the non-chalance in regard to intelligent life, and their paid job to kill it. "It?" I mean people. Their non-chalance in regard to killing other peoples who look different and worship different. The coffee cup represents their over-confidence and relaxed attitude in their ability to massacre an entire race of people for being "in the way". In the way of what? In the way of clear-cutting a forest to obtain a mineral deposit. The name of the resource doesn't matter, but the point is clear. This has been the short-sighted plan of human politics and corporations since the Industrial Revolution.
Do we feel a symbiosis with the Na'vi, or the corporate space marine mercenaries? The Na'vi worked out a symbiosis with the natural life around them, and a mutual respect on individual terms. The corporate space marine mercenaries were trained to destroy life and beauty for a profit.
Where do we each fall, individually, in this duality?
And we respond to these tales, told to us by modern day mass story tellers, and we know them to be real tales. Parables that explain right and wrong, and what to think about when we see similar situations in our day to day life. Our directors and writers of Hollywood, like it or not, represent a kind of Shamanic Bard. Telling us tales of how the world seems to be, and assuring us that all will be well in the end, as long as good people stand up for themselves. Taking us along on their vision of fantasy, that originated somewhere in their imagination, and has a certain basis in reality. And telling us that if we can dream it, we can live it someday.
In their, "Image-nation" of how we all dream things could be.
These things are to be celebrated, and aspired to, regardless of how depressing the current world is.
The world never changed for the better on the ideas of pessimism.
The world changes for the better on the ideals of optimism.
Not optimism for yourself, but for everyone you care about. This can include friends, family, coworkers who become friends, strangers on the street who become friends because you dared to speak up. It's a chance we take with every day we get out of bed.
Suicide is no option, or rather it is an option with a dead end. It will get you nowhere toward happiness in this world, even if you believe another world after life exists or not. There is no guarantee of a better world beyond this one. Heaven or hell, this world we have is what we make of it. I'll not pass judgement upon any who choose this path, but it is a choice of giving up on what you have now. Regardless of how much better you imagine other worlds to be, they are not what you live now.
You are here, now. Work on one project before committing to another one. Especially if that new project has no provable ends.
I wish so much for other realities it hurts me. I wanted to be Atrayu riding Falcor in the Never-ending Story. I wanted to be Wesley in The Princess Bride. Hell, I wanted to be Inigo in Princess Bride as well. I dream of being a satyr running through forests of peace and joy. I want to be things that do not exist on this planet. I want to be so many characters and aspects that dwell within myself, and yes, I am currently stuck being myself. No escapism there. So I may as well be the best version of myself that I can be. I will be the hero of my own story, and I will decide the rules that I live by. The heroes and characters we adore and love have to live in their worlds, dreaming of others, as we live in our world dreaming of others. Our imagination always offers more advantages than what is called "reality", and like Avatar, it usually has a better soundtrack.
If I get the chance to participate in a real avatar program such as the one in James Cameron's movie? You bet, I will try anything once, if I can come back. Maybe even twice if I like it, or did it wrong the first time.
The point is, we don't know for sure if we get another life after this one, so lets do the most that we can with what we got.
We have such a need for immediacy in North America. We want it all and we want it yesterday. No wonder we get so depressed, the world and the universe don't work that way yet.
If modern technology is any indicator, and we keep doing more and more with less and less, our dreams might come true. And relatively soon. I would imagine within my lifetime, and yours as well. And all those people who want to be Na'vi might be able to someday. And perhaps I too can vacation in the body of my choosing. Maybe it will be in a virtual environment, or a reality based one. Maybe I will upload myself to a Matrix of my choosing, or swap one shell for another. But I can't right now, so I'll be patient.
But I will always be myself. It's what I know how to do best. Even if I were to be in an avatar body of some type, I would still be myself.
We have the technology to fix this planet up, and live our dream lives, if we can simply wrestle control of it away from corporations who want only to make a buck off of our entertainment. You can design your future, and nobody else, unless you invite them to do so alongside you. To see your vision. And if you invite them, allow them to invite you into their vision as well.
If you do nothing, then you are inviting the dominator culture to decide your future for you. You are inviting the corporate space military mercenaries to decide your future for you.
Or in our current realities case, if we let the corporate entities and non-representing politicians lead us to disaster rather than our salvation. At our own hands, either way. It's our choice at this point. Accept irrational wars, or be consumed by them.
There is no single way to achieve what we want in life, but there are many. As many as there are opinions and perspectives in the world.
You can invite others to see you.
As you can see them.
As I see you.
As you see me.
Namaste.
( I see the Devine in you, as you see it in me.)
Genesis in a Nutshell
Once, long ago, our ancestors were monkeys in the trees of Africa. We came down from the trees and lost our tails, and most of our fur. Then began the era of the ape. We ingested the new foods from the forested floor. One of the new foods, was a curious red food that grew at the ground of the trees, after the fall grace, after the decent from happier and more innocent times. It was a soft and spongy red substance, with white spots, and it gave those who ate it visions of a being that was higher and more advanced than ourselves. When they saw that the mushroom grew in the waste of certain cattle, they began a settled life, and began to domesticate this holy animal of the gods.
Tribe life continued on, over centuries. The men who ate the mushroom were given a higher visual accuracy, helping them on the hunt. The women, who were left behind to care for the children, used the powers of the mushroom to listen to the visions and create a language. A way of making sounds and giving association to them. It was then that the concept of a deity was born. A high and powerful being, or beings, that were teaching and informing us.
The elderly and less active would become the shamans and story tellers and bards, weaving tales that would captivate any audience. After all, these tales came from people who had experienced much of life, and of the divine. They were the elders, the experienced, and their words were wise.
The storytellers would gather the tribe around the fire late at night, and weave tales of great struggles and victories, deaths and sex, hate and love, fears and desires. The tribes people would laugh and shout, happy in the victories and openly weeping at the losses. They were a people unafraid to feel their emotions, and express them openly.
When they were joyous, they would laugh and frolic, with no need to worry of what others felt.
When they lost a loved one, they would mourn, loudly and with open emotion.
They felt everything around them, and loved the sensation of emotion.
Men were allowed to openly cry back then, and women were allowed to be filled with rage.
At the end of the day, they respected each other, and had empathy for each other.
But as there were many interpretations and perceptions of what the visions were, and after in-fighting among the ape population, factions and groups split off. They would associate only with those that followed the way of their alpha leader and interpreted the teaching of their gods. Whatever made sense to an individual decided their fate in these divisions. Each split caused a rift in their language, as anything that resembled what they once held dear for communication was now shunned. Each split carried with them the red and white mushroom as well as the domesticated cattle, as it was their holy sacrament, though the word and meaning had not been invented yet. Some splits resulted in battles, in which the losing side would lose their cattle, as well as contact with the divine. This was the greatest of losses to them. The winning side would have access to the divine knowledge, and it would empower them over those who did not. The ability to become drunk with power was invented, and it's progression through time became known as the dominator culture.
It was then that the first mushroom cults arose in Sumer and Mesopotamia. Its priests were a mixed bunch, some using the holy sacrament for further research and greater enlightenment. Some priests used it for dominion over the populace. Higher knowledge over others could be used to enlighten the masses, or to keep them dull and stupid. This was the birth of the Information War, the time when information held the power to elevate an intellect, or to hold dominion over other apes decendants. They were no longer a nomadic people, they were domesticated, locking themselves in walls and squares of stone against the outside world. Keeping their agriculture to themselves, inside the prisons they made for themselves.
Once, long ago, our ancestors were scattered tribes of humans across the landscape of our planet, all speaking different types of languages. This became known as the fall of the tower of Babel. As we fell from the tree tops, we fell from grace of movement through the branches, to take on a new form. Different peoples spoke different languages, and shared a splintered history. There were those who sought dominion over the natural world, so that it might give up its secrets to a select few priests of the mushroom cults, that they might hold dominion over others.
We emerged from the caves and makeshift dwellings. The nomadic tribes who held fast to our original beliefs since the days of coming down from the trees. Seeing others like us, come across the horizon, with various weapons. They had a similar form to us, and yet we did not recognize them. Their spirits were hard and dull, and they knew only following orders for their demi-gods, the mushroom cult leaders. The dominator culture envoys to the peaceful tribes.
We know what happened next, the dominator culture rose and fell, taking various forms. Using native beliefs against the natives, trying to collect them all under a Status Quo. This was much more easy that simple warfare. If you could trick a population into serving your god, or convince them that your god and their gods were the same thing, you had control over them. The Roman Empire, Emperor Constantine, Paganism into Catholicism. The mushroom cults evolved and kept their holy sacrament to themselves, foisting other sacrament substitutes on to the populace.
And so on, until now. We no longer believe our sacraments hold any power, and religion is a dying art of confusion and guilt. Yet we still hold to certain ideas of spirituality. These ideas sustain us for now, but we want more than just ideas and sustainability.
We want prosperity at the expense of no one.
At the expense of no people.
At the expense of no animals.
At the expense of no plants.
At the expense of nothing at all, prosperity now.
The Archaic Revival
A relatively famous ethnobotanist and South American shamanic authority named Terrence McKenna coined the term "Archaic Revival" to describe something that humanity is lacking, and may soon be recovering, if he was correct. It was his theory that the psychedelic mushroom had a very pivotal role in our development as a species, and through his scientific research, was able to prove the vast majority of it. Yet he gained no recognition from pop-culture and the scientific community. He broke a taboo.
The taboo inherent in our culture that psychedelic drugs hold little or no value to human kind, past, present, or future. I personally find it interesting that he and Timothy Leary enjoyed quite a great deal of popularity in North America and Europe, until the government of the United States declared a "War or Drugs" which criminalized and came down hard on all drug use, even the useful and medicinal ones. Any drug that was not authorized by pharmaceutical companies and the FDA, had no value to humans or was suddenly dangerous.
Quick question. How many people have died of psychedelics? No, not the guy who jumped off a building on acid. Frank Olson was actually a CIA clerk, when they were testing it in the 50's. And they didn't warn him before they did this experiment, so he thought he was losing his mind for no reason, which you never hear about in the urban legend. There is also evidence that says he was thrown from the window. Never mind the sidenote.
I'm talking about the natural psychedelics. The plant based hallucinogens that were used by indigenous tribes the world over for several thousand years until today. The ones with no recordable ill-effects. The ones that drop you off pretty much the way they found you, just with new ideas about life, the universe, and everything. There appears to be something in there.
There is a molecule in the human brain, excreted by the Pineal gland, that is speculated to be the cause of human imagination and dreams. It excreted only during three phases of a human beings life. When they are being born, when they are dreaming, and just before they die. The only points in human life where magic seems to occur naturally.
There is a 4th place where the molecule is excreted from the Pineal gland, and that is when the human being has ingested a hallucinogen. A molecule that has been extracted from plant matter by shamanic tribes for thousands of years. Without negative side-effects.
The molecule is called dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT. It allowed Shamans and tribes to communicate with the Earth-mother and other other gods. They arrived at decisions and practices they came upon thanks to the visions.
Terrence McKenna often spoke of the best way to search for extraterrestrial life, which was to search for evidence of it here, on our home planet. Search for some form of life on this planet that was non-invasive and put it to the test. He believed that he found it, in psychedelic mushroom spores. They are one of the few naturally occurring biological entities on the planet that can survive in deep space conditions. They grow only upon matter that is already dead, or decaying, which allows it to non-invasively thrive in most ecosystems. Mushrooms and fungus growing around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster have been found to actually diffuse the radiation in the soil, only recently. And when ingested, not only provably improve the quality of your vision, but also provide visions of the universe and ideas bigger than yourself and your pre-conceived notions of supposed "reality".
He also mentioned of the irony of looking for radio signals from space using a giant radio collecter dish in South America, seeing as how they cleared the bottom of the crater's bowl out to make the dish, by letting white cows eat the grass. The same domesticated animals that allow the mushroom to exist. No wonder I think, like the dark comedian Bill Hicks, that fast food burgers are the Antichrist.
Fungus and mushrooms now sound like something a non-invasive alien intelligence would launch at starter planets, so that species might develop on their own, and evolve at their own pace and preference. After all, without a certain sense of free-will, we would resign to fate. A sort of Exo-Genesis or Panspermia is the idea of life on this planet originating elsewhere in the universe. A Bell non-locality theorem seems very likely, if the Exo-Genesis is to be taken seriously. After all, the information had to come from somewhere, didn't it? So why not this one? We suspend our disbelief in the movie theaters and every time we hear a story, and then we are inspired into certain actions and behaviors over time, even if we don't agree with what is presented we are still affected by it.
The idea of the Archaic Revival is one of the human collective unconscious retreating from the horrors of the world we currently live in, and reflecting on somewhat simpler times. Instead of a focus on taxes, wars that threaten to never end, and the powerfully corrupt banksters and corporations preying upon the weak of their own species, a redirecting of our spirit and will toward something more tranquil and beautiful. We have a wish to go back to Eden, whatever the details of that means to us on a personal level.
We see it everyday. The signifiers of someone rebelling against the status quo. Tattoo's and body piercing, willful body modification, movies of the little guy winning against the powerful status quo. Feathers in our hair and earrings, and a tribal beat to our popular musics. Stories of ancient peoples allowed to live their lives without intrusion upon the natural order of things. The meek inheriting the Earth. We all want it, the majority of us at least. A return to innocence and magic and wonder. Where we are all treated equal, in spite of how different we appear or act. Our differences celebrated, our quirks allowable and our opinions considered, rather than causes for in-fighting. Respect.
Sounds like a threat to a corporate profit margin to me. The same profits that sky-rocket when we all eat the same, and buy the same, and listen to advertisements designed exclusively to hook us based off our fears. If I have to buy something to be "cool", then I'll settle for being myself.
And slowly, we're all realizing that.
Avatar Depression Syndrome
Since the release of James Cameron's written and directed film "Avatar", there have been people experiencing what I would call "Avatar Depression Syndrome". That is to say, people who have watched the film "Avatar" and have become depressed that they can not live like the protagonist characters, the Na'vi. Some have even expressed thoughts of suicide.
It reminds me of a 60 Minutes article on people who become depressed after playing Everquest, the MMORPG that swept the video gaming nation a decade back. One person they examined actually killed himself because he was so distraught that his online life in the game was not "real" and he would never be so happy again in this world. I've heard similar stories about World of Warcraft, and Dark Ages of Camelot.
I'm rather sympathetic to this state, as I like a good deal of escapism from time to time, but am coming from a very unique perspective. The word "Avatar" is a very old reference to a Deity who takes human form. A God or Goddess takes human form to better understand the people around them.
Similar to how we don Avatars in video games. We control a character in a virtual universe that is similar, but not the same as our own. We are interacting with another universe, with a higher knowledge of what is going on in that game, or universe. Sometimes we can alter the appearance of our Avatar to better suit how we wish to interact with an alternate universe. But, ultimately, we have knowledge from outside the virtual space that gives us an advantage over the game characters.
Similar to how Jesus had a advantage over those he interacted with. Jesus was an Avatar. He was the representation of God in human form, to better interact with the average human. Like the "Sky-people" were just humans in Na'vi form, to interact and better understand them. When it comes down to terms and language, we can quickly see that we have a great deal more in common than we have to separate us. After all, "Avatar" is a Hindu reference, that on it's surface indicates a relationship between humans and a god or goddess.
In the story, the Na'vi are under siege by a human corporation looking to mine a rare mineral from under the native people's land and planet. The Na'vi have a very symbiotic relationship with their home, and interact with the other animals and plants with a very respectful and necessary way.
Military trained "guns for hire" are enlisted by the human corporation to make way for their mining operation, very similar to the Halliburton and XE (formerly Blackwater) forces that are currently ripping the native people of Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran and Pakistan out of their homes and slaughtering them. Either through economic sanctions or military brute force. Cowardly drone fighters are controlled remotely so the pilot will never risk their life while killing others. The same terms are used by the mercenaries in James Cameron's epic as they were in the continuing massacre in Iraq, "Fight Terror with Terror" as well as "Shock and Awe". Interestingly enough, the Na'vi fight back. And yet, we cower before an ever more powerful military force and corporations that control our very thoughts and inclinations.
There are two scenes in the movie Avatar where the military pilots are flying against the native Na'vi, while the General speaks of that nights dinner, and holds a coffee cup. This shows quite plainly the non-chalance in regard to intelligent life, and their paid job to kill it. "It?" I mean people. Their non-chalance in regard to killing other peoples who look different and worship different. The coffee cup represents their over-confidence and relaxed attitude in their ability to massacre an entire race of people for being "in the way". In the way of what? In the way of clear-cutting a forest to obtain a mineral deposit. The name of the resource doesn't matter, but the point is clear. This has been the short-sighted plan of human politics and corporations since the Industrial Revolution.
Do we feel a symbiosis with the Na'vi, or the corporate space marine mercenaries? The Na'vi worked out a symbiosis with the natural life around them, and a mutual respect on individual terms. The corporate space marine mercenaries were trained to destroy life and beauty for a profit.
Where do we each fall, individually, in this duality?
And we respond to these tales, told to us by modern day mass story tellers, and we know them to be real tales. Parables that explain right and wrong, and what to think about when we see similar situations in our day to day life. Our directors and writers of Hollywood, like it or not, represent a kind of Shamanic Bard. Telling us tales of how the world seems to be, and assuring us that all will be well in the end, as long as good people stand up for themselves. Taking us along on their vision of fantasy, that originated somewhere in their imagination, and has a certain basis in reality. And telling us that if we can dream it, we can live it someday.
In their, "Image-nation" of how we all dream things could be.
These things are to be celebrated, and aspired to, regardless of how depressing the current world is.
The world never changed for the better on the ideas of pessimism.
The world changes for the better on the ideals of optimism.
Not optimism for yourself, but for everyone you care about. This can include friends, family, coworkers who become friends, strangers on the street who become friends because you dared to speak up. It's a chance we take with every day we get out of bed.
Suicide is no option, or rather it is an option with a dead end. It will get you nowhere toward happiness in this world, even if you believe another world after life exists or not. There is no guarantee of a better world beyond this one. Heaven or hell, this world we have is what we make of it. I'll not pass judgement upon any who choose this path, but it is a choice of giving up on what you have now. Regardless of how much better you imagine other worlds to be, they are not what you live now.
You are here, now. Work on one project before committing to another one. Especially if that new project has no provable ends.
I wish so much for other realities it hurts me. I wanted to be Atrayu riding Falcor in the Never-ending Story. I wanted to be Wesley in The Princess Bride. Hell, I wanted to be Inigo in Princess Bride as well. I dream of being a satyr running through forests of peace and joy. I want to be things that do not exist on this planet. I want to be so many characters and aspects that dwell within myself, and yes, I am currently stuck being myself. No escapism there. So I may as well be the best version of myself that I can be. I will be the hero of my own story, and I will decide the rules that I live by. The heroes and characters we adore and love have to live in their worlds, dreaming of others, as we live in our world dreaming of others. Our imagination always offers more advantages than what is called "reality", and like Avatar, it usually has a better soundtrack.
If I get the chance to participate in a real avatar program such as the one in James Cameron's movie? You bet, I will try anything once, if I can come back. Maybe even twice if I like it, or did it wrong the first time.
The point is, we don't know for sure if we get another life after this one, so lets do the most that we can with what we got.
We have such a need for immediacy in North America. We want it all and we want it yesterday. No wonder we get so depressed, the world and the universe don't work that way yet.
If modern technology is any indicator, and we keep doing more and more with less and less, our dreams might come true. And relatively soon. I would imagine within my lifetime, and yours as well. And all those people who want to be Na'vi might be able to someday. And perhaps I too can vacation in the body of my choosing. Maybe it will be in a virtual environment, or a reality based one. Maybe I will upload myself to a Matrix of my choosing, or swap one shell for another. But I can't right now, so I'll be patient.
But I will always be myself. It's what I know how to do best. Even if I were to be in an avatar body of some type, I would still be myself.
We have the technology to fix this planet up, and live our dream lives, if we can simply wrestle control of it away from corporations who want only to make a buck off of our entertainment. You can design your future, and nobody else, unless you invite them to do so alongside you. To see your vision. And if you invite them, allow them to invite you into their vision as well.
If you do nothing, then you are inviting the dominator culture to decide your future for you. You are inviting the corporate space military mercenaries to decide your future for you.
Or in our current realities case, if we let the corporate entities and non-representing politicians lead us to disaster rather than our salvation. At our own hands, either way. It's our choice at this point. Accept irrational wars, or be consumed by them.
There is no single way to achieve what we want in life, but there are many. As many as there are opinions and perspectives in the world.
You can invite others to see you.
As you can see them.
As I see you.
As you see me.
Namaste.
( I see the Devine in you, as you see it in me.)
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