soma8

Hello people, For those who are interested in being a part of or interacting with people involved with the order, I have set up a forum. It's on a free php/mysql host, which unfortunately means that there is no email notifications etc, which means if anyone loses their password, I will have to sort out getting it set right personally. Other than that caveat though, the server seems to be quite good, and fast, though it sometimes lags a bit, it sometimes might be maybe 20 seconds before it responds, but when it does, it will come down nice and fast :D the forum is at: http://cgi-bin.spaceports.com/~chaosau/ do not simply click on that address, for some reason the server gives 404 errors if you do that. Copy that address and paste it into the address bar of a new browser window and you will be taken there.

crying is getting up there too :D

mesc, that is one wicked pressure cooker. You could do massive amounts of substrate sterilisation in that... If used to do distilling, you'd want to put a copper or stainless steel inner pot into it. I think that the copper condenser I posted up would produce a lot of distillate. I was thinking about this and it occurred to me you could go for something even funkier than that - since the jacket pipe doesn't need to be able to withstand heat, a large pvc pipe could be used for the jacket instead, and the condensing tube in the middle could be made into a spiral to massively increase the rate at which it condenses things. Of course, technically speaking that would be an illegal piece of equipment.

heh, yeah, keep the talk of drugs and magick more or less under the table... I think it would be great to make the public debut in the fundraising by selling herbs, stuff like brahmi, ginseng, gotu cola, brain fixing stuff, both dry and seedings/cuttings. I think the best spin to put on it is to paint it as a religion like wicca. I don't know how the name will go down with this way of presenting it... people always thing disorder when the read the word chaos. I think that the best way to address it is to point out the etymology of the word chaos, which was originally the greek word for the goddess of the void before creation. Thus it also then paralells with Taoism. It is a non-denominational group, people who are members are free to practise whichever form of 'worship' that they want, pantheism, paganism, siberian shamanism, mexican shamanism, esoteric/gnostic christianity, whatever you like. The praxis of the group will be tolerance and patience. I'm expecting that the takeup will be slow at first, but once there is lots going on, more people will want to be a part of it.

yep, it is true that one's perception of time accelerates with age. I think it's for the simple reason that we don't remember as many of the mundane details as we get older, like something that has been touching your skin for a long time, eventually all sensation stops if there is no changes. I'm not really one for eschatology really, but my feeling is that 22/12/2012 is a significant future date. From that point on we enter a nu aeon (to use the chaoist term), life as we know it will be transformed - and I think that it can go two ways. Either we anihilate ourselves as a species, or the quantum leap into the next major level of evolution occurs. Hive mind, that sort of thing, you know. The return of magick. The return of shamanism, in a new form, technoshamanism, the merging of science with magick. My feeling about this was shaped by psilocybin experiences, and a palpable feeling of a sense of the future state of humanity, of a sense of teleology that was not called on, but came to me. Eventually everything must go through a catastrophic upheaval, either to cleans the slate for a new run, or the synchronous emergence of a new state of existence.

um... I think that polypropylene is perfectly safe with alcohols. I figure if it can withstand toluene and turps it's probably safe with a much more polar solvent. However, I have never heard of such a thing as a polypropylene condenser. A problem that would exist with using plastics for condensers is their insulative nature. It would certainly be safe to use a polypropylene container to heat the brewing broth though. It is brewed in the stuff generally speaking. and I would think it would be safe to use it to collect it, but I don't see why a simple glass bottle wouldn't be okay too. I am of the opinion if glass is not essential then the advantages of polypropylene, polyolefins and polytetrafluoroethylene in not being very easy to damage should be taken advantage of. PP sep funnels and vacuum filtration gear are a lot cheaper than equivalent pyrex or soda glass too.

hmmm... Maybe I never used enough to get psychosis when I used to use it... buuuut... I tend to adopt the same policy that gets you through a bad trip of any other sort - be aware that your state is making you prone to this kind of ideation. I had a very odd experience once with this stuff where I discovered that an attitude of acceptance seemed to flood my brain with blissful yumminess. I feel that meth is mildly psychedelic, and the presence of extreme euphoria and paranoid delusions is a feature that is also present in psychedelics.

aren't fungus nats there because there's an excess of fungus and fermenting going on in the plant's substrate? ie too much water? I never thought they were a pest, just a sign of fermentation. I think they are also known as vinegar flies. I could be wrong, I just never looked into it because I remember them from stinky compost buckets and rotting fruit, so I figured that it was fermentation that attracted them.

That pot sounds like it would be good for distilling, except for the fact it's made out of iron. If a copper inner pot was used it would be lovely. A good condenser can be made with common copper piping: I too have noticed that commercial alcohol gives you a hangover. the theory I subscribe to is that it is from preservatives. Homebrew and moonshine never give you hangovers. I love home chemistry :D

The colloquial name for the soldiers of ANZAC is a little clue I will drop with regard to a perfectly pure source if ipa. It says on the bottle '100%', which I have been lead to believe may just be true. I haven't done an evaporation test on it, but it cleans my monitor well. It's a bit expensive, about $5 for 200ml or something like that. I forgot to ask them whether they sold it in bulk containers. They probably do, everything else they had (toluene, xylene, shellite, etc etc) was available in 20L and 200L quantities as well. IPA has a reputation from what I have read, for being a good recrystallisation/purification solvent. Probably this is a factor of it's particular polarity.

hmmm... I'm not sure what we can do about being branded a cult and all that sort of thing. Well, for one thing, being open and vocal about ourselves in the public eye will help a lot if it comes to this sort of thing. I don't think it will though. The church of wicca is not suffering persecution. Also, the increasing good public feeling about the subjects we are interested in will help a lot. I guess it goes without saying that part of the enchanting that goes on in the group should be aimed at promoting our freedom from oppression and safety from dangerous people, at least until we are clearly being accepted.

yay, I am so happy to hear about others who want to do this. Oh, I forgot to post this here - here is the addresses to join and post to the mailing list I have set up to discuss the formation and activity of this group: To Join: send an email to [email protected] To Post: Send mail to [email protected] I think that people are slack about doing things like this because of the victim mentality that so many of us have had impressed upon us regarding our beliefs. And they don't have any faith in other people actually doing the right thing by the group and really making it work. I believe that it can work, and it does work, there are many already existent and functioning covens and magickal orders already in existence, and they are not all plagued by constant infighting and apathy. I believe that it all comes down to the appropriateness of the leaders involved. They need to be the people who all can agree represent the group properly. It would be truly wonderful if we could get the number of people involved up to 10000. It may happen too. Something that I haven't explained about the order is that it is intended to be a multi-'faith' order. The essence of chaos magick is in the acceptance and utilisation of diverse forms of spiritual and magickal practise. Though it may sound like an ism, this is not the intention, the idea is that all systems of belief can live together, so long as they follow the guiding principle that is the creed of wicca: 'do what thou wilt and it harm none' Tolerance is the key. Active conflict must always be dealt with in nondestructive ways for the group. The promotion of ideas of 'us and them' should always be stopped and addressed before animosities build up. People don't need to compromise themselves to accept the differences in other people. If real and consensual damage is being done by a party it should be spoken by those who are suffering in a calm and clear way. When voices are raised you begin the slide down the slippery slope into division and war between equals. hmmm... anyway, do get yourself signed up if you are interested in getting involved. As the initiator of this project, I am not going to rest until this little creature lives and breathes and takes its first steps.

Abraxas, the whole idea of the organisation running in this way is that it is more fluid and representative. As I said, nothing decreed at the most inner level of the group is compulsory, except in issues of public representation of the group, this is the whole point of organising this way, there is only one area where the caution that can be produced by majority rules systems is public relations. What I mean by that is that caution is neccessary. The economic system that would be implemented would basically be a case of funds feeding in through the various sources of income, donations, fund raising projects etc, and then it is increased by the fund raising projects, and the funds are distributed back out into the network to apply to projects according to the number of people who want the project done. I have proposed that one thing that the community could do to increase our financial power is to run an ethnobotanical supply, which would keep our resources within the organisation while funnelling funds from the individuals outside of the group who purchase from it. This supply operation could potentially be based around SAB, and it would spread the net further for the sources of materials to be sold, folks could run small nurseries in their homes which would be sold through the organisation. Good to hear other people like the name of the organisation. I figured you would abraxas, after reading your links post on EA, but others like the name too, eccles as well. :D anyhoo, I am not much chop at organising things, I'm more of an ideas person, so let's start organising this, I will definitely need help to get this anywhere. I think the first thing that needs to be addressed is a "who's in" list, and possibly a mailing list should be created for this. I was also thinking that would be good to do another mailing list system which is structured upon the organisational model I have proposed. This will help support the organisation structure, in essence, all members of each cell will have their own personal mailing list which emails within their group, and up to the group higher up in the network. This means a lot of little mailing lists all feeding into a central council. If anyone can provide a server to run this, I can set it up, and I welcome any others to contribute to this.

Okay, I have been up very late tonight, doing a lot of thinking, and I posted this stuff on EA, and I think that it is relevant to the folks here, who are involved in the same area. The first bit is an idea for forming a national organisation to channel funds and energy into furthering our interests, the second is a model which I think the organisation should be organised with. ------------------ While thinking about what the brisbane ethnobotanical group could do with regards to organising activities and so forth, an idea, which I feel is exactly what everyone here wants to happen occurred to me. Back in february 2001, while doing a lot of thinking about the subject of not paying tax (which is very naughty, and I don't think it is a good idea anymore), something that came to me from somewhere, I can't recall where, it might have been on the internet, or from nexus magazine, and the idea got into my head about forming a religious organisation. So, anyway, on the 23rd of february, 2001, I put in an application to register a charitable organisation, the organisation's birth name was 'The Monastic Order of Chaos' (for those who are curious, look it up at http://abr.business.gov ). Of course, being me, the two things I thought should be the primary business of the organisation was ethnobotanical/phytopharmacological/entheogenic research, and research into technologies such as 'free' energy and gravity control. The latter of course I will pursue as well, under the auspices of the organisation, I have already found one potential partner in doing this work. But more current and available, now that I am involved more fully with the australian ethnobotanical community, is the former idea. Since we all want the same things - reliable and fairly priced supplies of ethnobotanical materials (plants, equipment and seeds etc), it would make a lot of sense if we all banded our resources together to create a business, a nonprofit business, devoted to raising money for the group by doing what we want to be done for each other, as well as facilitating more research. So, I am totally open to the name of the organisation being named something else, unless everyone loves the name. It can certainly trade under different names for it's different activities, this would be essential really. Registering new aliases for the organisation costs nothing, it just takes about a month for the tax office to make it official. I have already made two new names for it, 'the temple of loki' and 'ikol.net' I am calling for all who would be interested in participating and joining the organisation. Since most of us basically believe in shamanism, anyone who wants to join will become legitimate practitioners of the 'religion', and this could permit the formation of monastery type facilities where people can live together, all sharing the same interests, and thus free of the constraints of living with and near other folk who are prejudiced against what we all believe in. By centralising our financial clout in this organisation, we will be able to create a much greater impact on the community also. And one thing that I alluded to near the top of this post, the organisation is not subject to income tax. It is an unincorporated organisation, so I would think it might be right to call it a federation. Imagine that - the australian ethnobotanical federation. It has a nice ring to it doesn't it... We will need people to do administration and finances, people to manage communications, people to do marketing and PR work, researchers, teachers, visionaries, leaders, etc etc. I think it would be of great benefit to the community if we could put aside our differences in order to achieve this goal. Everyone will benefit, and the collective resources that this will enable us to muster will be of great benefit in influencing the legislation surrounding the subject we are all interested in. If a member of the community becomes the subject of legal wrong doings, we can pay for good lawyers and good expert witnesses to speak up for us and begin legal precedents which will really turn the tide against the prohibitionists and corrupt governments and elite cliques who don't want what we want, and to take it further, from the statistics of the use of drugs in the wider community, what the people themselves want. Please, everyone contribute your comments and suggestions, and ultimately, let's all get behind this and put our money where our mouth is. One of the beautiful things about truth is that when it is spoken, lies crumble like vampires in the sun. We all know that prohibition is wrong, and is based on and propped up by lies, let's stand up and shout the truth it from the treetops and really make some changes that make the world a better place. ----------------- Since forms of government are being discussed in this thread as well, I would like to share a model that I found through someone's signature on the hive. It is called fractal democracy. small numbers of people, let's say somewhere around 7 form the base cell of the organisation. out of these, the group agrees on who represents their group will the best, and these selected persons form together with others who are selected to form the same kind of grouping, and these people then select one out of their group which goes up to the next level, where the same thing happens again. This method of distributing the will of the people is guaranteed to be totally representative, because it is the collective decision which ultimately feeds up to the top level, which irons out all the kinks. Another element which is important to this system is of constrained regionalism. Decisions that are made at higher levels can be disagreed with by the lower constituencies, and the framework permits this difference with the proviso that each group and region is permitted their own particular set of rules, so long as they don't infringe upon the others. I think actually that this model is much like the one that was used by the aboriginals, and there was regional convergences on a regular basis, the collectives meeting as often as their geographic separation demanded. The advantage of this model is that nobody is forced to conform to a central view, and it also permits the experiments created by the differences to come back to the whole collective and the results can be discussed amongst the levels of the system, and then, if a different way proves to be effective, it will eventually be adopted by all, but if it proves to be ineffective, the group will know that by seeing how everything worked out for the others.