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SikkimRex

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  1. Posted · Edited by SikkimRex

    A little acid DOES go a long way, its true. I remember a time of my life when there were only 2 types of people, those who HAD and those who HADNT. And you didnt have to worry about the former, and the latter were a write off... You can never UN-TAKE acid - you are a different person after it. I knew a frustrated academic who once yelled at some recalcitrant students "you guys need to take some acid - dont come back and talk to me til you have"... needless to say he ended up at teh headmasters office..

  3. Posted

    On the way back from EGA our crew met a few freinds for a drink. They wanted to know about the conference/meeting, and i dutifully described its focus on sacred plants, ethnobotany, spiritual use of plants, and the trance aspect of the meet. I was quite careful in how I framed this discussion.

    Afterwards, a friend who had come to EGA with me took me aside and said "You shouldent tell people that you are interested in this stuff?". I assmed that he was noting that there are potentially dodgy legal edges to my hobby, and that I should exercise due care- to which i agree of course.

    But what he was really saying was "If you talk about this stuff, people will think you are crazy". That is, because it is very fringe, because people assume such an interest is self-destructive, is pathological, that people who might be interested in such things are somehow brain affected. This guy was a couple of years older than me and an artist still stuck on the dole, a position that I could just as easily had been if certain circumstances hadnt transpired. As an artist and a thinker and a person, he is a guy who I admire. I was sad that he saw himself so easily sidelined and ruled out.

    I am aware of the kind of exclussive positions of Huxley, on the one hand, who thought that the use of psychedlics should be for VIP's, and that of Leary, that everyone deserves a go. I am not sure of where i stand on this (if its "secret business" or not), but I do think that there will be no shift in the broader perception of "drugs" unless people who use them or are interested or knowledgeable in them dont speak outside the community. Unless we go "well, hang on a second, there is more to this shit that you might think, for example (x)", we cannot expect attitudes to change. I am reminded of the gay "outing" that went on in Sydney in the 80's and 90's, where prominent gay people were outed by other gay community members, forced to ally themselves to the cause...

    In the most recent Queensland Civil Liberties Council newsletter, the president noted that there seems to be an increase in "wowser-ism" in the Australian community, and suggests that the drug policy committee needs to be reformed. I agree, and can feel conformity and conservatism growing in relation to drug use, and most importantly, attitudes to it. But i think that we have to start at home, and talk rationally to friends about this stuff, to ensure that they can at least perceive resons why people are interested in drugs, and why they might feel it is their right to be so interested. For me, its about the right to the sanctity of ones body, and the right to not have that sanctity invaded against ones will by others. This includes ones mind. I am somewhat aligned with Leary's International Federation of Internal Freedom here.

    So what do y'all tell your friends and loved ones? Do you think that there needs to be a public discussion not just about harm minimisation but also about the right to alter consciousness? Does the legal side outweigh your ability to talk broadly about this? Or are all of your mates just into entheogens anyway? Is this public or private business?

  4. Posted

    ok... fair enough...

    1-what is science?

    A useful way of understanding phenomena that are outisde ourselves, and that can be reliably communicated to others, with roughly consistent results. A moment of fixity in the flux.

    2-where does science stand in relation to spirituality and/or religion?

    Its another type of the above as far as I am concerned. It has real value but can easily become a useless orthadoxy when its attempted to be applied to human mental or cultural affairs. Subjectivity has real value and should be respected as a type of knowledge, even a type of rigour.

    3-where does science stand in relation to ethnobotany?

    Vitally important as a means of developing the field and investigating the raw material - plants. But it has no real use in evaluating the experience or its implications. These are cultural, emotional things, importantly personal things. Subjectivity is the tool for understanding the experience.

    4-where does ethnobotany stand in relation to spirituality and personal development?

    Gardening is a recognised therapeutic persuit and helps connect people (emotionally, subjectively) wit teh enviornment. But the "inside" bits and the "outside" bits are different. THerefore I do not beleive that ethnobotany can nescessarily inform spirituality, though the connection to the plants that it allows will undoubtedly affect our response to the effects of plants themselves.

    6-where does science stand in relation to the truth?

    It depends what kind of truth. Frankly, science isnt the truth - its just a particular version of it. But in terms of understanding phenomena, sure it can be truthful. But in terms of it understanding me - (thankfully) forget it. Its pretty clear that it is a relativistic world these days.

    Truth is just the level of dogmatism with which one can hold ones view in the face of conflicting evidence.

    Ok wandjina?

  6. Posted

    RE the chemical T shirts, I reckon the ones from the Hefter Institute are cool and sufficiently ambiguous.. and the cash goes to a good cause. The address is: http://www.cafepress.com/heffter

    I am also interested in hoodies (fcking queensland winters...). MAPS has a good one. Any leads appreciated.

    Just as an aside, its interesting that T-shirts have become meaningless. I remember in the 80's, wearing sufficiently obscure punk band T=shirts was cool, but I stopped wearing them because I got sick of just being someone elses free advertising, and also the idea that I had to use brands (even from bands) to idenitify myself.

    Now though its interesting because T-shirts have become even more meaningless.. I mean people wear Dickies T-shirts without realising that they were a seminal New York punk band from the seventies (who did great songs like "You drive me ape, you big gorilla!"). Walter Benjamin said it was gonna happen and it did - we are saturated by images, and the more there are, the less they mean. Marshall McLuhan would have been proud (the medium is the message)...

    That said, hey, I am up for a chemical T shirt that I dont really know what it means (Shulgin's dirty pictures...)

  7. Posted

    Hi P!

    Well, since I am (today!) reading about the particular influence of a French landscape architect called Michel Corajoud (who taught LA's in the 1960's in Versailles), this quote is kind of relevant, even though its specific to LA. (Excuse the translation, its a bit clunky..). It relates to teh interconnection between emotion or sense and science:

    "This exercise accepted only the references of the landscape as a guide, the horizon, the roofs of houses, the outline of certain historical parks from some distant past, the quality of certain leaves, of grasses. The two exclusive systems, that of memory and of the phenomenon, deprive each other of reciprocal connections. From this point, we would like to look at the destabilising role of an attempt at articulation, since these two forms of relation with the world are symptomatic of the compartmentalisation of the process of scientific work, on the one hand, and artistic work on the other. Observing contour lines, exposure to sunlight, the nature of soils, the phytosanitary state of the trees, uses, densities, sounds... gives information about a place which can be measured. Perceiving the colours, the chiaroscuro, the melodies, the different matters, the traditions... gives information about the impressions a milieu can procure.

    To work from the first category gives a succession of singular, raw states without any ultimate realisation. The second aims towards something arbitrary coming from an individual perception and proceeds by exacerbating the senses. Neither of the two series is able to produce the framework for a landscape project alone. What is more, each of time, even if they could be added up, their ideal sum would always be behind a new state that ceaselessly moves on. "

    Claramunt, M. and C. Mosbach (1999). "Nature of a Landscape Project." Pages Paysages(7): 54-64.

    Well.. thats not my opinion but... whats your view, as a kickoff??

  12. Posted

    Its a great book. I bought mine in the bookshop in Nimbin - still the best entheogenish bookshop in Oz that I have seen. Not sure if they have a copy still.

    If you havent seen what Raetsch looks like, have a read of my post from the LSD forum. There are some pictures of him and his partner, and also some from Torsten when he was at SAB. He was a dude.

    he has another book on witchcraft medicine, prsumably on the the tropanes mostly.. anyone had a read? Stuff to play with in there?

  13. Posted

    Welcome to Oz, Dango!

    Numbers of Acacias are reported to contain alkaloids and many people on this forum have undertaken research into this. One of the species that people are most excited about is Acacia obtusifolia. Many of the extractions that people experiment with using Acacia's involve bark from the trunk not the roots, and some use the phyllodes too. There appears to be great variation related to specific populations in specific geographies, and at certain times of the year.

    In terms of your mention in the post of damaging the plant, then clearly you are. However there are different levels of that damage. The potential to ring bark a tree is real, and there are fears held by members of this forum for some populations of rare, high-yield Acacia's in the wild. The larger question of the spirit of the plant is one that you will also find discussed here.

    There is a lot about the Acacia's archived on this forum, so, as they often say (somewhat condescendingly) to newbies, "have a go first at searching with the search function", with "Acacia" as your key word and search all forums, so knock yourself out! The host organisation of this Forum, SAB, sells seed for many Acacia's online, though I am not sure what local import/export/quarantine restrictions apply. Australia is very rich in wattles and they are beautiful and very valuable in a whole range of ways.

    Happy Hunting (for information)

    Rex

  14. Posted

    Of course Dr Hoffman did it first...

    This is an extract fronm Entheogen Review (Vol XIV, No 1, 2005 p.92) of the conference call with the MAPS crew on his 99th birthday, last year, where he discusses the possibilities of very small doses of LSD for non-psychedelic effects:

    Rick: Albert, I’m wondering if you have any suggestions for us about things that we might want to look into regarding LSD and psilocybin? I remember, a while ago, you said one of the most unexplored areas of research with LSD was low doses?

    Albert: Yes, that would be interesting. Just as a kind of pleasure drug. Heh heh.

    Rick: Ah.

    Albert: Very, very low doses; this could be a worthwhile study. I have used it, sometimes, just very small doses, for walking and thinking. This could be a worthwhile study.

    Rick: What kind of doses are you talking about, when you would go out walking?

    Albert: 25 microgram. Twenty-five, instead of 125. Or even lower: ten.

    Rick: Wow. Can you actually notice when you take ten micrograms? Can you notice that you’ve taken it?

    Albert: Oh, yes! Yes. An improved response to nature. Improved experience of nature, yes. And of thinking, a big improvement of thinking. But, may I just add to this discussion, quite another thing: the work of Kast, Walter Pahnke, and Grof—that it may be used for dying people.

    Rick: Yes.

    Albert: I think that is a so very, very important thing in our time: the people who are suffering terrible pain, which resists other pain medicaments, have been treated very successfully. And I think this should be continued, this study in dying people who suffer terrible pain. We have a big investigations and publications from Kast, Pahnke, and Grof. What do you think? That it be allowed; if the danger of becoming addicted to LSD would not exist, if you use it in this kind of a very, very important use in our time?

    Ah.. el Papa...

  16. Posted

    Dont know whether its a muscle vibration, but tinitus can give similar sensations. My parents both have (had) it, and I just thought it was some oldies thing. But with suitable paranoia, I suspect I have it myself.

    Its like a distortion (they call it ringing, but thats a bit general) of whatever sound you are hearing, and its not all the time. SOmetimes a really quitet voice will give it to me, at others not even a really loud gig will trigger it. Its eccentric.. I suspect the cause is too much loud music in headphones and live punk at an early age.. but I dont know what gave it to my parents...

    Does anyone remember that episode of Ripping Yarns where Michael Pallin is this old hunter collecting diseases? Sometimes one can have a slightly sick fascination with what is happening, largely out of our control, with our bodies... or maybe I really AM getting old...

    So thought about Tinitus, torsten?

  18. Posted · Edited by SikkimRex

    I dunno, it looks to me like you're not getting laid and are spending an inordinate amount of effort justifying making it look like someone else's fault :lol:

     

    Spot on Darklight!

    And why are we having this conversation again???

    If you are a man, women are the other (or at least AN other), and if you are woman, then men are the other. But whats interesting about that? Its inevitable. But its not specific. There are more of these OTHERS out there than you can count. And despite this big, gross difference (man/woman), there is infinite differentiation between individuals. So its more useful to say I like/dislike this particular person (or I have had a specific experience with a specific individual) and why, than it is to make these generalisations.

    I used to ask my dad (who was a sailor) "Dad, whats such-and-such a place like?", and he would always say "It depends who you meet there, son". He would never either make generalisations about places or people, or allow me to make them (did'nt stop him being a mysoginist though..). I think its fine to make judgements but make them specifically, its simply bad science to make such big generalisations from such a huge study group. Women get burnt by men and men by women and it hurts whichever way it comes. If not, why are there so many fucking love songs?

    I am with Puffingfish and Wandjina here - I would have thought that the people participating in this forum were beyond this type of discussion. I mean the entheo thing is pretty fringe, so we are all outsiders... why make more outsiders of the outsiders?

  19. Posted

    We tried some in Amsterdam where they were sold dried and did a boil up thing, and while they didnt taste too bad, they also did'nt have any activity at that dose (which was 20grams of dried material between two people).

    I mean, we were in Amsterdam, so we had been smoking and had taken some Ecuadorean mushies the day before, but nothing happened. I had expected something oblique, as described in Breaking Open the Head, but didnt get any sensation really at all.

    Obviously the dosage was too low, but the guy at the smart shop we bought them from had said to be careful, because there could be physical reactions too. At the same time, while they were selling the products legally, and they were apparently safe, no one knew much about Amanita, certainly none had direct experiences to describe. Folk-lorically they were dangerous - and they look it. But McKenna reckoned that the sheer consumption of a dangerous amount (or even active amount) itself was difficult. In oter words it was dangerous if you had a lot of it, but it was difficult to have a lot of it. But this might not be true with dried.

    Has anyone else had experiences in Amsterdam or their gnomes had experiences here that can clarify dosage and experiences?

  20. Posted

    2012 is a phenomena of faith rather than rationality, I think, but that doesnt make it either bad or impossible. The question of whether the date is arbitrary of precise really depends what you are going to do with the date. How serious its is depends on its utility.

    There is nothing new about millenarianism (anticipation of significance approaching a date - the millenium), but its worth remembering we just saw one - 6 years ago - and I dont know about you, but it certainly wasnt the best new years eve I ever had - it was like most others - less interesting than the anticipation leading up to it.

    For me, I found McKenna's ideas crazy but compelling. After some entheo-experiences in Amsterdam, particularly with high dose mushies, I saw some things that looked like McKenna said: mayan imagery; time machines inviting me in; synesthesic language that I could suddenly speak; that crazy sound. Other experiences with wattle stuff have also presented another dimension to me so strongly, so utterly convincingly, and very importantly, kinda un-romantically, that even as the experience is long passed, I have lost a lot of anxiety about "the end". I mean, what is the end??

    This is where the utility bit comes in.. What do you want to do with that date? AFter reading breaking open the head, a while after McKenna, I decided that it was just crazy enough, just interesting enough to stake a bit of a claim on it. So I decided that I am going to do all the things NOW, that I was otherwise going to put off to LATER. This has had serious impacts on things like buying property, etc.

    For me it doesnt matter what happens, or when it happens, but that I have a dumb date by which I must have certain things done, things that I want to do. Every day is precious, blah blah blah. But whether it is a star trek singularity, or me being diagnosed with lung cancer, may as well use something, anything, that can help provide impetus to be productive, to be participatory, to have experience. And you can do a lot in 6 years!

    ps If we ARE going to talk about what is going to happen in 2012, I am with the pessimists on that: 2012 is when Kyoto will be ratified, and that will also be when the failure of the non-kyoto countries will have been clearest - we will discover that nothing has changed, rather it has accelerated. Perhaps some new science will reveal a more immediate step in the catastrophic process. But I am not sure enlightenment will result, just a more accelerated decline. All the other research is esoterica I reckon, which again doesnt mean its not interesting.

    pps. The most convincing theory for me of McKenna's is that the tryptamines are communication mechanisms, that SETI has been looking in the wrong places with the wrong discipline: physics rather than chemsitry. I have got a strong feeling of this myself. But if it is, then what is it communicating with? God? Gaia? or some egotistical psychopaths with no ethics? For me, it it that wattle-land is NOT spiritual (even if that dissapointed Strassman), but that it is IMMENSE that is important. It is big enough to hold a billion intellegences. But maybe only a couple are able to communicate with OUR dimension. the question then is "does the ability to comminicate make one an omnipotent, all knowing, all caring being? ANd we have teh answer to that right here, in this dimension.. did it make Murdoch, or Packer great beings? Effectively yes, but ethically no. so 2012 may just be something that one of these intellegenaces planted here, one who may not be the greatest, but just the nerdiest; the one who could make their own wireless kit.

  21. Posted

    Was interesting to read the comments arising from the SA politician who spoke on Ecstacy. Like some others i wrote her a letter of support. While in Basel at the Hoffman thing, a number of Aussies discussed what could be done to advocate and change attitudes and policy in Australia. I dont get a strong sense of any of the organisations that do this stuff here.

    It would be great at the conference to have a chat with interested people about what we could do and be involved with as a community to work on changing attitudes and policy in Australia. I for one dont know the organisations that work in Oz, and how effective they are. Others more experienced than I must. As a greenie I support conservation organisations such as the Wilderness Society, the NPA, ACF, etc, and do so in the same way I do raffle tickets. To support good charities, etc. There is no reason why drug based issues could not have the same type of status. Maps (and the Berkley, which has been involved in changing grass from schedule one to schedule 2) is great but doesnt do anything in Oz.

    Is there such an opportunity at the conference? I know that your program Ronny is chock full of rounce, bounce and trounce, but is there space, or could it form part of an existing paper?

  22. Posted

    Hey Ronny

    Well, bought our tickets - its on. Can commit four of us from Queensland (well, one from the Blue Mountains too, actually). Just a couple of questions..

    We are planning to drive down late from Tullamarine on the Thursday - will it be a problem for us to scramble camp late at night?

    We are assuming that it will be finished up Monday arvo to get back to Melb - is that the plan?

    Its all very exciting - at the very least it will be anthropology!

    Cheers

    Rex

  23. Posted

    Well, for now, I have decided to withdraw from the MO search, so thanks to everyone for their messages.

    Moderator, can you please de-pin for me? And by the way, I did almost make an offer on a nice one near Nimbin, so if anyone needs a contact, give me a PM.

  24. Posted · Edited by SikkimRex

    Sikkemrex: i do all of this for a living, i work for the company of one of guys u mentioned in your post :)

    Botanica - was'nt meaning to be condescending - but its best not to assume too much with random punters. I am in the game too. Though I am out of practice right now (literally and metaphorically). I am writing now.

    Havent been in contact with any LA's into the entheogen thing yet, though there are a few ex-trippers I know, who regard it as "kids stuff". In the thing in Barcelona all the LA's were Dutch, yet they did not touch a thing - none of them! Again, they see it as for tourists or kids. When I visit them in Netherlands (those who I have known for a while), they always say to me "its safe to come back - we have regrown the mushrooms since you were last here".. Its just a payout - but they cant seem to conceive that this is serious stuff, deeply intellectual stuff - and as old as the world. I just laugh it off.

    So, well you must be in the states then. You must be an LA.. I should have got it from the reference to LA's being better than architects, though personally I dont beleive this, and there is ample evidence in Oz that often architects "do it better". So, to continue my investigation... Kiley is Dead. And Rose is Dead. And Treib is nostly academic these days. And Church is Dead. So you work for EDAW then.. though Eckbo is long off the scene for them. And EDAW in Brisvegas is the biggest nationally... So say Hi to Mark F. for me... I might even be working for your alma mater..

    Send me a PM and I will introduce myself and we can industry gossip...

  25. Posted

    Thanks for the reply Botanica.

    I dont know how into landscape architecture you are, but if you are interested in the inside-out thing, then you should check out a book called "Modern Landscape Architecture: A Critical Review", edited by Marc Treib. It goes through a range of approaches to the inside outside relationship that were developed by American LA's between the 1940s - 1960's. LA's such as Garrett Eckbo, Thomas Church, Dan Kiley and James Rose really created this discussion with their projects, aswell as the idea of outdoor living. The book reprints articles of these guys from the 40's and 50's. You might remember the Sunset Garden Books from the 1970's? You can still find them in the Gardening section of second hand bookshops - the Western Landscape one includes a lot of the work of these LA's and the ways they designed around indoor-outdoor, outdoor living, etc.

    The question of how a building "harmonises" with the natural environment is an interesting one. Its about THE LOOK of sustainability. Two similar buildings could use the same amount of technology and provide the same environmental technology, yet look different. So I do not think there is a single aesthetic or look for an environmental builiding, but there is the look that we personally, subjectively like. For me, buildings that dont impact negatovely on the environment physically, but set up a contrast with nature are more interesting. SOme of the houses of Harry Seidler (RIP) in Sydney do this. I think nature is spectacular and culture is too and they are at their best when together what is special of each is revealed. This is not to say that designers should not be precise in what they do in relation to nature, but they should not nescessarily mimic nature.

    Finally, if you are interested in planning and landscape architecture in cities, Barcelona is the place to research and try to visit. In the lead up to the 92 Olympics (and after a fascist dictator, Franco) they created many new spaces that were very innovative. I revisited them on this recent trip and it was interesting to see how they have grown or been used or degraded in almost 20 years. Most were in terrible shape, but a few were much better than they were then, where the vegetation has grown. and transformed the whole design. This is what vegetation should do, but few of the projects there (in Barcelona) use much vegetatation, since they were all done by architects. Their new public spaces are also pretty interesting, such as this new park amphitheatre by Foreign Office Architects (or FOA), also at the Forum. Its pretty crazy too.

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