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Yeti101

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    Aboriginal marriage and ancient traditions

    in Creativity, Spirituality & Philosophy

    Posted · Edited by Yeti101
    Leaving words out of sentences, again.

    Hi @beau_dean

    The source is The Last Cannibals (1957) by Jens Bjerre.I note that Bjerre is not widely cited, which means his claims may well never have been academically tested. I can't comment on the veracity of what he wrote, but I would encourage you to think on the following:

     

    Anthropology is supposed to be objective in the sense that anthropologists are not supposed to judge - only record and report - hence the use of cultural relativism as an axiom of anthropology. (Note that this is different to moral relativism or neo-nihlism.) Was Bjerre observing in this way? Two people may witness the same event, but what they see (or what they think they see), what they remember later, and what they report are all influenced by their worldview - including any predjudices they have. In any case, evaluating something based on 'universal' values, and properly locating something in it's cultural context are not mutually exclusive, it just takes mental effort (which most people are keen to avoid)

     

    What is the broader context of Bjerre's observations? What else did he have to say about these people he was observing? I wonder if it puts these events in a different light? Context is important. 

     

    Regarding context, if you didn't read the whole book, and haven't read or studied a good amount of anthropology/social science/aboriginal studies etc, you are not getting the whole story. If you found that excerpt on the web (and I'm willing to bet that you did), then I'm pretty sure I know where you found it (and where previous redditors found it). Without getting off-track, the operator of the Heretical Press, Simon Sheppard, does have a particular racial-ideological axe to grind, and is very selective & manipulative in what he cites. 

     

    I'd be interested to hear what other research and reading you've done. IMHO, to even start to come to grips with culture of one group, let alone the enormous diversity of indigenous culture in Australia, requires a lot more than using google.

    • Like 7

    DMT story in MSM

    in News & Notices

    Posted

    Quote

    DMT is becoming more popular in Australia

     

    IT’S incredibly euphoric and your mind loses all sense of reality.

     

    Olivia Lambert @LivLambert 

     

    Earth is amiss and you’re travelling to a new dimension with a kaleidoscope of colours smothering and intoxicating you.

    This is what it’s like to hallucinate on DMT, a drug that is being used more and more in Australia and experts say they don’t even know a lot about it.

    It’s one of the most powerful psychedelic narcotics that derives from plants in the Acacia species and it warps your sense of seeing and being.

    DMT, also known as Dimethyltryptamine or Dream Time, was historically used as a “journey to find yourself” but experts believe it’s now more dangerous and becoming less natural and more synthetic.

    Anybody can get their hands on DMT through the dark web and one in four listings for the psychedelic drug on the website are from Australia.

    Forensic toxicologist Andrew Leibie said DMT was a tryptamine, a new class of psychoactive substances.

    It’s born from the ground like magic mushrooms and has a similar psychedelic effect.

    “It’s pretty rare at the moment,” Mr Leibie said.

    “What tends to happen with all these newer types of drugs is the drug is not particularly toxic but the hallucinations are violently real.”

    Mr Leibie said it was dangerous if people were buying it off the street because drug manufacturers were trying to replicate the high you get from the plant.

    “It’s something that is increasingly being designed in a laboratory. It might be an innocuous plant but when you don’t know what else is in there and it can be a real problem. It could be cut with something more dangerous,” he said.

    Not a lot is known about DMT yet. Picture: National Geographic Channel

    Not a lot is known about DMT yet. Picture: National Geographic ChannelSource:Supplied

    While some describe the trip as a spiritual journey, others have found the drug to be terrifying.

    Non-profit educational and harm-reduction resource Erowid has reported the experience of a first-time DMT user.

    “The experience itself was as if someone crosswired my five senses and put my brain into an infinite feedback loop,” they said.

    “There were no elves. There was no dark matter. There was no room, people, chair, or anything but my mind looking at itself looking at itself looking at itself.

    “I had a concept that five minutes of this would melt my brain and I would die. And I realised that death would not save me but I would be like this until the end of the universe. It was the most terrifying, horrifying experience I have had or could imagine having.

    “When I came to, I was told that I had screamed at the top of my lungs for three minutes. I had bitten my hand so hard that I had broken through the skin.

    “I had given myself a black eye, scratched my face, one eyeball and both my eyelids.”

    Forensic toxicologist Andrew Leibie says DMT is mostly synthetic in Australia.

    Forensic toxicologist Andrew Leibie says DMT is mostly synthetic in Australia.Source:Supplied

    Mr Leibie said DMT was just another addition to the evolving drug scene.

    “Every six months or so we are talking about a new drug,” he said.

    “The ice epidemic hasn’t gone away but drugs are so freely available and people can experiment with a wide range of compounds.

    “The scientific community is struggling to catch up. Compounds that haven’t even been tested yet are being consumed by dozens of Australians on the weekend.

    “Scientific knowledge about these drugs are behind of where the people are.”

    Drug Info NSW says DMT is a powerful hallucinogenic with a chemical structure similar to psilocybin, a compound produced by more than 200 species of mushrooms.

    The organisation said most DMT drugs bought on the street were synthetic.

    In its purest form it’s a crystal but on the street it’s usually in a powder form. 

    The 2013 National Drug Strategy Household Survey found that 9.4 per cent of Australians aged 14 and above had tried hallucinogens including magic mushrooms and LSD.

    Drug Info NSW says the hallucinogens can have long-term effects and cause spontaneous recurrences of something that happened while somebody was on the drug.

    They can occur for days, weeks and even years after taking it.

    It can also affect your memory and prolong depression and anxiety.

    Others however argue DMT can actually be a treatment for mental illness.

    Melbourne based IT consultant Grant Eaton watched the documentary DMT: The Spirit Molecule and travelled to Peru to find a plant with DMT to cure his lifelong depression.

    He had never tried drugs before and said the plant benefited him in ways exercise, diet, counselling and pharmaceuticals couldn’t.

     

     

    When's that TGA decision happening again? Amazing timing. Probably a coincidence. Not great press though. 

     

    • Like 2

    Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Resources

    in Chill Space

    Posted

    Hey @Sallubrious- just pm'd you. I agree with @Alchemica - please hang around - you do make a positive difference in people's lives!

     

    FWIW, this thread, and those resources, are predominately aimed at situations of acute crisis. Supporting the choice - the right, to end one's life with dignity (and with informed consent) is not mutually exclusive with helping people to not take their own lives when they aren't thinking clearly and there are be better options. And irrespective of whether the decision to take one's own life is rational or not, the people left behind need support - which is a big part of what these organisations provide. 

     

    Sadly, modern psychology and psychiatry, have not made spectacular headway on how to be happy, or even how to avoid being particularly un-happy/depressed/anxious etc. I don't know the answer - clearly - because if I did, I would have told you all, and things would be very different. 

     

    The only thing I would say is that wherever people are at, and whatever they are going through, they don't necessarily have to go through it by themselves. Sometimes that is the best anyone can offer.

    • Like 3

    Post a random picture thread

    in Chill Space

    Posted

    https://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CxueSAw_fjQ/Vm948jdGTrI/AAAAAAAAprM/gi7ITtslP3k/s1600/front.8.full.jpg&key=2be71157dc4c2bc95c5d12859c478913aa27f30b771764fb1b04dbbaac584bfe 

    • Like 2

    Detox advice

    in Chill Space

    Posted

    All good advice so far :) 

    If you are getting plenty of exercise, water and eating well (plenty of fresh fruit & veg, omega 3's, iron & other minerals etc), then the only thing I'd add is plenty of sleep - including going to bed at a reasonable time. On the exercise front, look at doing some high-intensity interval training (HIIT) - quick results, and I found it really cathartic. 

     

    I think a lot of this is the head-game. There's a limit to how much you can speed up the natural physiological processes - mostly all you can do is support them with aforementioned exercise and veggies etc. While that's happening, it's a good time to look after yourself mentally. There's a lot of stuff around, but I found self-compassion http://self-compassion.org/ really helped me when I was in a tough place emotionally. I wish I'd known about this when I was trying to quit smoking & get my drinking under control.

    • Like 2

    Wim Hof Method

    in Creativity, Spirituality & Philosophy

    Posted

    I know what you mean with the blood-pressure blackouts - I would not want that to happen when I was underwater!

     

    From what I can tell, there are reason that Wim's breathing method is the way it is - and avoiding hypocapnia is one of them. How hard and completely you breath out made a big difference to how much I felt like I was hyperventilating. I found forceful expulsion in the wim-hof cycle made me dizzy, but the exhalation without force did not. I have't watched enough of the videos and read enough of his stuff to get a full picture of what's happening, but I'm pretty sure that hyperventilation and hypocapnia are not what Wim has in mind. 

     

    But yes, full-on hyperventilation and swimming seem like a bad mix - can't believe I used to do that. 

     

    On a related note, I found this article about g-Tummo - it has science and stuff: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058244

    • Like 1

    Post a random picture thread

    in Chill Space

    Posted

    https://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AAr-1p69xbc/VvRQPRcG_nI/AAAAAAAABJs/D5yrk6YCxrs8xYkwbFg3JcdGtBuNGaGSQ/s640/barn04-www-scarfolk-blogspot-com.jpg&key=dd63bd46ed0a7087374afef28af13b238f33296ee427ead9a71adf7d457defa0 

    • Like 5

    Follow feature help

    in Site & Forum Matters

    Posted

    Thanks DB, I can see the people I follow, but the only control I can find over people following me is to allow them to follow me, or to not allow them - no way to edit the list. I've switched it off, I guess my ego will just have to live with that. 

     

    How long before alcohol withdrawals become a serious concern?

    in Pharmacology, Chemistry & Medicine

    Posted

    Fuck man, that sounds tough. 

     

    What have your withdrawal symptoms been like in the past? 

     

    Also, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that repeated withdrawal from alcohol can be bad - kindling - the symptoms can sometimes get worse each time (from what I've read).

     

    I'm not qualified, but having had someone close to me go through serious alcohol withdrawal (DT's - the whole deal) I'd want a sitter and/or medical help on speed dial.

     

    Take care, and if you need anything, let us know - and feel free to PM me for a private vent. 

    • Like 1

    Who's your messiah now?

    in Creativity, Spirituality & Philosophy

    Posted · Edited by Yeti101
    words and stuff

    I tried to watch the video, but that guy gives me such an instant vibe of total douche-lord, I just don't think I can make it all the way through. I should give him a chance. But stuff takes so long to say verbally – I get impatient listening to people talk – would rather read something any day. I promise I’ll give it another go over the weekend.

     

    In the interim, here's my completely un-asked for 2 c worth.

     

    While it's seen as uncool in some quarters, I've got to concur that knowledge is more than solely a feeling or belief. Or if it is, there's a framework involved. The idea of knowledge as 'justified true belief' has had some serious technical difficulties since Gettier smashed it in the 1960's, but it gives a rough guideline for thinking about stuff nonetheless.

     

    Do you believe something?

    Do you have good reason for believing it?

    Is it actually true? 

     

    Only if you can tick all 3 boxes, is it knowledge.

     

    Trying to get even everyday beliefs into that framework can end up as a mess, let alone anything more esoteric. Consider:

     

    • I believe that I ate my lunch just now. I take my recent memory of it, plus my observation of an empty lunchbox and introspective lack of hunger, as good justification for me thinking this. Unless I'm radically wrong about lots of features of the universe, it's probably an actual fact in that it's a physical state of the world that this happened. 

     

    • I believe that chem X allows me to access dimension Y. I take my trippy experience, which I interpreted a certain way, plus my other beliefs about the universe as being justification for this belief. Is it true though? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.

     

    Tricky.

     

    Justification is a pain in the hole - but we can at least pick out the dodgy candidates - circular reasoning and the like (e.g: 'How do you know the Bible is true? Because an angel told me. But how do you know it was an angel? Because I read about angels in the Bible.' and so on). Maybe chem X does allow me to see into dimension Y, but justification means tying it into a whole web of related knowledge - including (ideally) some actual scientific knowledge about the world. This maybe it’s true, but we don’t yet have what passes for a good justification for believing it as our physics isn’t advanced enough etc.

     

    You might feel I'm being unfair, especially because I made similar assumptions about lunch-related knowledge. I assume my memory is an accurate reflection of past events. I assume the past exists. I assume my senses tell me something about the way the world actually is. Should we trust these assumptions just because we generally share them? Some people think so. Others, not so much.

     

    This leads to the real kicker, that I would have to go through the same steps for each of my justifications – I believe that my memories tell me about the past, which is justified by some other bit of knowledge, which then has to be further justified and so on.

     

    It’s no wonder philosophers gave up on this justified true belief. Theory of knowledge - epistemology - is a mess at the best of times. 

     

    I've been wondering about this a bit lately, and perhaps a better way to think about it is something like this:

     

    The amount of proof, justification, evidence, hard maths, or whatever, that is required to prop up something as knowledge is proportional to how deeply and broadly this belief can cause suffering and disruption in people’s lives, and the lives of other people around them. The more it potentially it screws up your life, the higher the bar. The more people are negatively affected, the higher the bar. Is it really ‘knowledge’ or not? Beside the point.

     

    • A belief that I should stand on one leg and whistle Greensleeves backwards for 30 seconds in private, every 18th Tuesday has a relatively low bar. I mean really, who gives a shit?

     

    • A belief that you should give all your money to some guru – that should require a bit more to back it up.

     

    • A belief that any females who don’t dress a certain way are morally bankrupt and are implicitly granting sexual consent – saying that you ‘know’ that to be true should require a very high level of justification.

     

    • A belief that everyone who doesn’t live in a society that has exactly the same economic system as yours should be vaporised by nuclear weapons – probably needs quite a bit to back it up.

     

    • A belief that this world, and all life everywhere, are so inherently flawed that the best thing that could happen is for everyone and everything to just die; to call that knowledge requires an almost unimaginably high standard and amount of evidence and reasoning – and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

     

    Or something like that.

    • Like 4

    Washington - Pot prices drop with legalisation

    in News & Notices

    Posted

    Some anti-legalisation campaigners, such as Kevin Sabet and our own lovely Jan Copeland, say that this is a bad thing - that weed will be too cheap and that this will lead to increased problems. For the record, I don't agree with them, but it does show why the opposition from certain quarters is so strong - going to really eat into the profits of alcohol and organized crime.

    • Like 2

    Post a random picture thread

    in Chill Space

    Posted

    https://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=http://s-ak.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/web05/2010/12/4/19/enhanced-buzz-17103-1291507511-9.jpg&key=95fdb6a3a6c21a7f004b8208a57bb97ac1933beee13d8ccb401b89296caed90b

    • Like 7

    Wim Hof Method

    in Creativity, Spirituality & Philosophy

    Posted

    I think part of why this differs from hyperventilating is how you exhale, @CrayZ - I read it this way: because you breathe out by relaxing there's quite a bit of residual breath left - I've tried both and I get much more dizziness from forcing the breath out. Mind you, I'm doing diaphragm breathing, which I think lends itself to this type of thing. I'm thinking I'll have to bite the bullet and buy it <___base_url___>/uploads/emoticons/default_smile.png, plus whatever I can find on g-tummo mediation.

     

    I've only done hands & feet in cold water, but I might go for a dip in the ocean tomorrow. No cold showers for a while though. I'm saving money by not using heaters, so I am getting a fair bit of practice with being a bit cold. 

    • Like 3
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