A proposal for an organisation

[soma8]

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.

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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.

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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.

[nabraxas]

i admire your vision.

the name MUST remain the same.

this is a big venture- i'm interested & will offer any support i can.

i would be concerned about exposing the activities ov shamans, but the authorities seem to be pretty much instep w/what's occuring anyway(damn them).

as to the ideas on fractal govt., they have some merit but the forms they would produce seem too static.

[soma8]

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.

[Thelema]

GReat idea soma8! I was trying to form a similar church a while ago based on the Temple of Inner Light in New York. Unfortunately the guy over there (who's nick is somae7-coincidence????)didn't seem very interested....

but the name seems good...under OZ law, don't we need 10 000 members to become bona-fide?

i for one would like to be the resident hermit>>LOL

[jetblack]

Definitely an interesting prospect. Probably end up being branded a cult by the authorities, accused of planning a mass suicide, and all shot in a raid to stop us killing ourselves. Nevertheless, I'm interested.

[soma8]

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.

[soma8]

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.

[spiraleyes]

[ 02. May 2003, 14:35: Message edited by: spiraleyes ]

[soma8]

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.

[spiraleyes]

what happened

it got lost...oh well.

if the truth can be told as to be understood, it will be believed

[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.

[elfspice]

d'oh

I went and signed myself up for a new username, and then just now I logged in under my usual name which I use elsewhere, and it worked!

so anyway, soma8 is also elfspice, in case people wonder where he went when he doesn't post anymore :D

[Yeti101]

Sounds interesting. I'm all for it, so long as there is a place for someone who through years of study and introspection, has no idea whatsoever what is going on, and will argue contradictory points whenever it suits him, because that is all he is good at (permanent philosohpy student here).

On the other hand, maybe the grassroots movement we are part of is better for staying under the official radar. Nothing pisses the conservatives off like a bunch of people trying to do something. Maybe we could split the coalition by infilrtating the National Party.

Yeti.

[elfspice]

Philosophers are always welcome, no dogma is required to be followed, the main thing is to get people together. I'm sure that the group will be dismissed as a bunch of nutters like most cult-type groups are dismissed. It is my feeling that the time is ripe for a gathering of people under an alternative organisation for the purpose of allowing the members to pool their resources towards common goals.

The establisment is afraid of people getting together, but they are not omniscient or omnipotent enough to be able to chase everyone, and it is unlikely that we will present a large threat to anyone for quite some time yet. Besides which, the main purpose is to establish a community, and hence we will discourage people going out on a limb for a cause in the name of the order if it puts the group at risk. We don't want to ruffle feathers, we just want to take advantage of the freedoms given to religious organisations.

This is not a survivalist cult or any such nutty thing, it is about creating a sustainable community of free spirits which can act as a showcase for the potential of humans to get along with each other and all life on the planet - Without forcing the members of the group into a specific mould. It is a great challenge indeed, with mammalian politics generally irrepresible in groups, but we will strive to transcend these problems.

[nabraxas]

was having no trouble using that link, but today it doesn't seem to wanna go anywhere- why doesn't it like me anymore? i registered an everythink.

[Terry Trichocerous]

I have a few comments on setting up such an organisation.

Whilst 'The Monastic Order of Chaos' is certainly a 'cool' name, it is unlikely to command respect. With a name such as that, it is too easy for policy makers and the community at large to simply dismiss our beleifs as just being that of another 'crackpot' organisation of hippies.

It is my belief that was it is needed is a sort of lobby group. A group with a name like 'Australian Ethnobotanical Society' or something that sounds relatively professional. This group would be best served by lobbying governments by making it aware of research into positive uses of ethnobotanical products. For example, did you know that 'UCLA psychiatrist Grob recently received FDA approval to investigate whether psilocybin can relieve anxiety in late-stage cancer patients'?

Well researched and reasoned arguments are the only way to get through to policy makers. Claiming they are all a bunch of idiots pedalling there own self interest will get us no where.

Similarly, our organisation would need to be associated with other organisations in order to give us credibility. Perhaps some sort of tie in with the World Wide Fund for Nature, or various Australian botanical gardens.

We also need to pick fights that are winnable to garner credibility. For example being anti scheduling of all things would be a mistake. Being anti scheduling of GHB/GBL would also be a mistake due to the amount of people abusing it at raves and the publics fear of it as a 'New Ecstacy'. Being anti the scheduling of Salvia, mushrooms and Kratom are more winnable fights.

I think that you have to play there game to get any sort of response, and in order to do that, we need credibility.

[t st tantra]

don't really understand these moves to form an organisation,dont we have two already in sab and eba.some people appear to want to unite the two groups,which already share many members.

are we really talking about a public face?

t s t .

[mesq]

SAB and EA.net are online... we are talking here of a "real-life" boots on the ground kind of organisation...

TS I also don't understand about the concept of uniting the two "groups" who is talking about uniting EA and SAB?? I thought more or less that most of the Australian online EB community is united on at least one level... that is, that we all want the freedom to pursue our interest(whatever they may be) in these plants. When we past that there are alot of minor differences between ideals that make it hard to organise a large group of people... not to mention that the entheogenic experience.. which is a main factor here, is a very personal thing...

[ 12. May 2003, 11:12: Message edited by: Mesqualero ]

[elfspice]

Yeah, the whole idea is not about setting up a lobby. I have looked into the subject of non-profit organisations in general, and I settled upon forming a 'religious' group because it is about forming an active - as mesq says 'boots on the ground' organisation, actively pursuing on-the-ground activities which we all believe in that can be made more productive and useful if good environments and long periods of research are done into practicalities of the forms of medicine that we will be practising.

The problem with lobbies is that they have nothing to do with everyday life, though they can help things change, ultimately the greatest improvements will come from people working together on the ground. From a practical financial perspective also, a lobby cannot be income tax exempt or an income tax deductable gift recipient. Also, a community organisation engenders more activity in smaller ways which affect our personal lives more than a lobby can, not that I discount the value of lobbying and so forth, these things are important too.

[nabraxas]

also, if a serious lobby group was required,

judging by the interest in the local ethnobotany meetings- there would be a place to start.