A Crisis Of Consciousness

Watch Here - http://youtu.be/OEG0syeAo4U

http://alchemicalarchives.blogspot.com/

Our present global crisis is more profound than any previous historical crises; hence our solutions must be equally drastic. I propose that we should adopt the plant as the organizational model for life in the twenty-first century, just as the computer seems to be the dominant mental/social model of the late twentieth century, and the steam engine was the guiding image of the nineteenth century.

This means reaching back in time to models that were successful fifteen thousand to twenty thousand years ago. When this is done it becomes possible to see plants as food, shelter, clothing, and sources of education and religion.

The process begins by declaring legitimate what we have denied for so long. Let us declare nature to be legitimate. All plants should be declared legal, and all animals for that matter. The notion of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous.

Re-establishing channels of direct communication with the planetary Other, the mind behind nature, through the use of hallucinogenic plants is the best hope for dissolving the steep walls of cultural inflexibility that appear to be channeling us toward true ruin. We need a new set of lenses to see our way into the world. When the medieval world shifted its worldview, secularized European society sought salvation in the revivifying of classical Greek and Roman approaches to law, philosophy, aesthetics, city planning, and agriculture. Our dilemma will cast us further back into time in search for models and answers.

The solution

The solution to much of modern malaise, including chemical dependencies and repressed psychoses and neuroses, os direct exposure to the authentic dimensions of risk represented by the experience of psychedelic plants. The pro-psychedelic plant position is clearly an anti-drug position. Drug dependencies are the result of habitual, unexamined, and obsessive behaviour; these are precisely the tendencies in our psychological makeup that the psychedelics mitigate. The plant hallucinogens dissolve habits and hold motivations up to inspection by a wider, less egocentric, and more grounded point of view within the individual. It is foolish to suggest that there is no risk, but it is equally uninformed to suggest that the risk is not worth taking. What is needed is experiential validation of a new guiding image, an overarching metaphor able to serve as the basis for a new model of society and the individual.

The plant-human relationship has always been the foundation of our individual and group existence in the world. What I call the Archaic Revival is the process of reawakening awareness of traditional attitudes toward nature, including plants and our relationship to them. The Archaic Revival spells the eventual breakup of the pattern of male dominance and hierarchy based on animal organization, something that can not be changed overnight by a sudden shift in collective awareness. Rather, it will follow naturally upon the gradual recognition that the overarching theme that directs the Archaic Revival is the idea/ideal of a vegetation Goddess, the Earth herself as the much ballyhooed Gaia--a fact well documented by nineteenth-century anthropologists, most notably Frazer, but recently given a new respectability by Riane Eisler, Marija Gimbutas, James Mellaart, and others.

The closer a human group is to the gnosis of the vegetable mind--the Gaian collectivity of organic life--the closer their connection to the archetype of the Goddess and hence to the partnership style of social organization. The last time that the mainstream of Western thought was refreshed by the gnosis of the vegetable mind was at the close of the Hellenistic Era, before the Mystery religions were finally suppressed by enthusiastic Christian barbarians.

My conclusion is that taking the next evolutionary step toward the Archaic Revival, the rebirth of the Goddess, and the ending of profane history will require an agenda that includes the notion of our reinvolvement with and the emergence of the vegetable mind. That same mind that coaxed us into self-reflecting language now offers us the boundless landscapes of the imagination. Without such a relationship to psychedelic exopheromones regulating our symbiotic relationship with the plant kingdom, we stand outside of an understanding of planetary purpose. And an understanding of planetary purpose may be the major contribution we can make to the evolutionary process. Returning to the bosom of the planetary partnership means trading the point of view of the history-created ego for a more maternal and intuitional style.

From The Archaic Revival by Terence McKenna

More: http://undergrowth.org/plan_plant_pl...erence_mckenna

[ribiq]

A lot of people here might not agree with McKenna, but I agree with the notion that psychedelic Shamanism has a lot of value. But I'm also not as black and white as he is about it, and I do think that naturally altered states hold a great deal of value as well -- probably a slight bit more in my opinion. I dream of a World where any form of peaceful spiritual experience is both legal and accepted by western cultures

Originally Posted by Terence McKenna

The pro-psychedelic plant position is clearly an anti-drug position. Drug dependencies are the result of habitual, unexamined, and obsessive behaviour; these are precisely the tendencies in our psychological makeup that the psychedelics mitigate. The plant hallucinogens dissolve habits and hold motivations up to inspection by a wider, less egocentric, and more grounded point of view within the individual.

Drug dependency occurs because a person becomes addicted to the pleasure experienced from them.
And for some, drug taking is done to avoid\subdue\cover over pain already occuring.

That's why they call it tripping...to leave one place to go to another.
The pain returns after the drugs wear off, so instead of discovering the source of their pain, they take the simpler way out by continuing to take the drug.

Plant hallucinogens do not dissolve habits and hold motivations up to inspection by a wider, less egocentric, and more grounded point of view within the individual...
people do by consciously examining themselves, accepting and facing a problem and searching for solution\cure\source

Plant hallucinogens, like meditation, may offer an environment conducive to exploration, but that's all.
If one thinks plant drugs do the healing, then one becomes dependant on the drug, totally missing the whole point that self has the ability to heal self.

Agree with both of you :-)

[ribiq]

Alternate Carpark- I would argue that psychedelic drugs, done correctly in a significant dose, are not a means of escapism as is the classic broad drug argument. True psychedelics -- psilocybin especially -- done at a high enough dose for a significant effect will not hide from you anything you are trying to avoid. If you have repressed issues, they will be put right out in front of you. This is what bad trips are about; people don't understand that taking these kinds of drugs is not like smoking pot or other generally positive drugs. These are serious introspective experiences, and will not be forgiving. The term "tripping" is given to it because you are often launched into a reality that is not physical. This concept is no different from any altered state, you could say that meditation is a "trip," or astral projection or any other altered state where the physical is not primary.

They can be transformative in extremely positive ways, but the issue is that it takes personal experience at a significant dosage for anyone to truly recognize this. And, of course, for anyone who believes that the experience will not be positive or beneficial, it will not be; that's how it works. Self-fulfilling, just like any lucid altered state

But you're certainly right: drugs do not do the healing. We do the healing through conscious development, and certain drugs used intelligently, just like meditation, are a medium through which to interact with the nonphysical and affect change in your life.

I still like naturally altered states the most -- always at your fingertips!

[psychoslice]

But who really does drugs correctly, to me its just a fake way of trying to be your SELF, you are already that, through drugs one tries to capture their experience over and over again, when all along its just the pleasure they are after, ignorant of what truly IS.

My point being one does not need drugs to enable one to deeply self explore.

Even though they can enhance the inner evironment coducive to iner exploration.
But as soon as you use a chemical, you can become attached to it, dependant on it.
One can be deluded into thinking the state cannot be achieved without the drug.

There is also the issue that the increased state induced by drugs is putting oneself into a state that one is either not ready for, or one is bypassing things that need to be learned on the journey toward a natural development of that state.

Summary: each person had particular reasons why they use drugs.
And these reasons may be either beneficial or a hinderance to them.

For someone to claim that drug usage is always a good thing for everyone all the time,
and is the answer to all of humanity's problems, to me the person lacks wisdom and common sense, is narrow minded, biased.

http://theweek.com/article/index/225...eat-alcoholism

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...-disorder.html