There are a couple of other longer, trailers for the video as well. I watched them and even though they had brief shots of some first nation peoples using traditional psychedelics, the various people interviewed who were included in the trailer were a variety of New Age types, including Deepak Chopa, Sri Sri Ravi Shakar, Joel Osteen, Marianne Williamson, Peter Coyote, and Ram Dass.
The first two are operating on the Hindu model of reality, which for all intents and purposes has become almost identical with some of the conclusions of Mary Baker Eddy’s belief system. Three of them at least, are operating from ideas that emanated first from Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science. I don’t know when I will be able to see the film, but I draw a strong contrast between the psychedelic experiences of first nations and the teachings of the aforementioned and most of the New Age types, who insist non-science-based miracles are possible through the power of one’s thoughts and/or prayers. Also, Chopra, Shankar, Williamson, and Osteen pretty much hold that matter is unreal and therefore you can and do create your own reality. Then they tell you to go out and create a prosperous one to prove you can create your own reality. Which is what they have spent their lives doing, thus proving their premise.
And. Not one of them except Ram Dass was a notable user of psychedelics. In fact, the underlying bias is that one does not need drugs to create one’s own reality. Creating your own reality is the truth the degree that your own personal algorithm for prosperity allows it, but creating you own reality in order to prosper, is not EVER a legitimate purpose of psychedelic use.
Of the people in the trailer, one of them is by far the most successful. That is SriSriRaviShankar; master of the breath. He might be the biggest Guru in the world and the biggest in India, for sure. I once saw a train of other Gurus about a mile long come by and one by one bow to him with a scarf which was put on the srisri and immediately taken off so the next scarf could be placed there. After wards, most left the stage, but some of them got to sit on the 150 foot wide stage platform in a special Top Guru Section.. He is not the biggest Guru in India because he has enlightened the most people, No, he is the biggest because he has the most wealth and political influence. So, the goal of the Gurus is also to create their own reality then go out and make it prosper. The more prosperous, the more enlightened by that standard.
The traditional uses of psychedelics were never about becoming a guru or having the most influence, they were about connection. The obvious connection is within the group, in which psychedelic connections can become more real than reality- when you are there, and they were taken primarily for the purpose of cohesiveness of the the society or culture, as a group and for one’s connection to the group. The secondary effect is almost always a realization of one’s connection to everything in the Universe, starting with one’s own group. Thus one knows that everything is in its place in the Universe, and all is in order, because there is no possibility of breaking the Universe’s laws, thus bringing misfortune on self or group. That realization is as powerful as any ever made by a Christian Science Practitioner.
In my post on supplements, I mentioned the use of herbs as supplements and that I have been fond of herbal studies and wild-crafting certain herbs since the Haight Ashbury – That’s 50 years by golly.
The one herb I skipped in the Supplements post was Cannabis. Perhaps the most important herb mankind has ever used.
if you haven’t discovered penicillin, you might need to pray away infection, but the Universe, universal laws of chemistry, created the compound penicillin, eons before mankind isolated it as a medicine. It is up to us to discover the Universe. And when the Universe provides a cure, incorporate it as needed.
You must be true to yourself. If your path does not duplicate Mary Baker Eddy’s, her church, -that cracked and decaying edifice- you must take the metaphors and make them your own truths. ” MKHuggins
Now, if you believe the Universe might be what is Real, then cannabis was growing before man even became man. The compound of THC came into being eons before man became human. Eating it doesn’t get you high unless you cook it or heat it up, when a precursor turns into THC, the chemical that gets you high. Now notice I am saying “HIGH” not stoned.
We can only guess how it was first burnt and inhaled, but we know it was. A Siberian burial revealed an ancient person at least 2500 years ago.with a stash of marijuana. That is the earliest case of the plant itself being found, since plants are notorious for composting themselves.
THC is a substance, like penicillin(that came from bread mold, another fungus), that had THC eons before humanoids discovered it. some people had even figured out how to use moldy bread long before penicillin was isolated as an active compound against bacteria. It is up to mankind to figure out what a plant is good for and cannabis had to have been a very early find.
We have cannabis receptors in our brain. Yes, that is what scientists call them, cannabinoid receptors. Mankind has a perfect place, mostly in the brain, for cannabinoids to do their thing when they find a receptor to hook up to. Not only does it have many healing effects, the main one is in terms of relaxation, being able to lift the burdens of the day without getting drunk. It is a blessing to all who have used it thus. A way this Puritan-derived society, deep into its adherence to “reality” thinks is perfectly awful. Puritans don’t get high, they get drunk and think that is what getting high is, only worse.
Christian Science is the purest from of Puritanism and I make arguments for that elsewhere in this blog, so the idea of smoking pot, not only has the bad connotation of smoking something, but something that alters the consciousness is even worse. Puritans have a horror of that, like no others – except those influenced by them, like a lot of folks in the USA.
But cannabis is about to be made legal, so we need to deal with it. I deal with it by the reasoning in the two paragraphs quoting myself, above.
Meanwhile, back in the Haight Ashbury, my new found friend, Reggie, with whom I took LSD and discovered MBE, also smoked pot. OK. Most x-tian sighers have already opted out of reading this, or upon reading this, opt out of reading my blog anymore. T
Too bad, because I will be here with these statements, anyway, because I am Mary Baker Eddy’s equal, as you are.
Who ALWAYS does what their mom tells them to?
Even if she disapproved, no one does everything their mom tells them to do, and that should include the “children” of MBE. I followed Mary as far as I could, and remnants still stick, but she taught so many half-truths and untruths, that it takes a person with training in critical thinking to realize how garbled her mind was- if her books are any indication. So people who subject themselves to these ideas without thought, have left their critical thinking skills behind. People who say, “Interesting Concepts, I can use this idea,” make the concepts their own, and do not allow the human who tried to express those ideas in some books over 100 years old to boss them around.
Yes, she was on to something, a few things, actually, but denying the reality of the Universe was the height of hubris.
Anyway, most people get done with the seeking part of their lives and typically leave psychedelics alone after that. The ones who keep on using them are usually people who are trying to figure out what the phenomenon of being high is, what consciousness is and other high-flown ideas. No one who takes LSD consciously takes it as an escape from reality. Indeed, it is a fully conscious plunge into a Reality one never imagined.
THC.
Along with the intensity of the psychedelic experience, there is another substance, found in a common plant, a weed, really, that does not take one anywhere near the experience of LSD, but is mildly psychedelic. That means mind-expanding. After a day at work in a country like the USA, one is usually stressed, and perhaps even achy. The temporary woes of the American lifestyle. The way things are set up in America is to lean toward increasing misery and decreasing one’s integrity of Being at every step, which is a very Puritanical mindset. so many people go home and start slamming back beers, of which 3 or more, even with dinner, will get you drunk, although people who drink 3 beers or more daily deny if you say so.
On the other hand, cannabis relieves mild physical aches and pains beginning with the first puff. within seconds, one is releasing tension. It also tends to lift the mind to a slightly higher level of intra-connectivity. This is good for thinking, It is also like a prayer for the physical body and the daily mind, in that one feels uplifted and can experience good sensations, like music and food with extra-sensitivity. Real food tastes good, good enough to notice it tastes good. In the normal tiredness after a day of work, few adults experience uplifting happiness at the smell and taste of good food. So cannabis is uplifting. It uplifts the spirits and the cares of working. The short term memory thing is probably its most useful in releasing the woes of daily life. Pot does not affect long term memories, if any were made during that day.that have a reason to persist.
Now that’s an herb.
The Herb in the Haight.
Back in the Haight, everyone smoked pot from tin St Albert tobacco cans, until they got scarce! Back then, people scored lids of pot. A “lid” referred to the amount you got for $10.00 or so. It was filled to the lid of the can. This pot was always the Mexican pot, which was full of sticks and seeds. Everyone had boxes to let the seeds roll down and collect at the bottom. Seeds were as dangerous to your freedom as the actual herb; I had a friend busted for one seed on the floor of his car during a traffic stop.
When the seeds were gone, you could roll a joint. Joints were thinner than cigarettes, most of the time. You could get high on that stuff, but you had to keep smoking it. Every group that met for any reason, on the street or .at someone’s home passed a joint around. There just so happened to be a number of garage style bands living in the Haight because the rent was really, really cheap. They would play together in their homes while smoking pot on a daily basis. They were all very sensitized to the music, because that is one of the best things that happens, even on seedy weed. You can hear way farther into the music than you can while straight. These groups improvised a lot and eventually took rock music to places never dreamed of before.
Almost everything those pioneers learned, is still practiced in the music world today. And that really was what happened when mediocre garage bands got high together. And probably still happens today. The groups got better at creating the right sound, if that had eluded them before getting high. (Remember, Louis Armstrong was the biggest pothead in the music world at the beginning of the 20th century and his influence persisted until the day he died in 1971, 5 years after the Haight first unleashed its collective musical genius.)
The first time ever I heard Jimmy Hendrix on a record, I was high on pot. And I got it. And we all knew this guy had a musical genius that would change how guitars are played. And It did. Reggie and I went to the Monterrey Pop Festival and heard him in person – high on pot, of course. People were passing joints around and everyone had one. It was like the loaves and the fishes, or something. But this guy took the guitar to places no one else had ever thought of and people who didn’t get high did not like him at first. That may have changed. Maybe not.
Reggie, my MBE-reading friend, told me he had one friend 75, years old, who had smoked for 50 years. He was slim, still athletic-looking, and looked way younger than 75. Reggie’s mind was formed in Christian Science. He was aware that MBE kicked out people who didn’t stay sober, but whether he was kicked out or not, he had to stay true to himself. Pot worked for him. When he got high, he learned that he understood what MBE was trying to describe because he had a whole compartment in his head that experienced God as Father/Mother and knew he was God’s Perfect Child, whatever he did.
The Herb in Reggie in the Present
Now he is 75, slim, athletic and never had a vaccination and never had a childhood disease except a broken nose and crooked teeth, both of which his class-taught mom fixed, matter of factly with no scare talk about how using doctors will make you addicted to using doctors.. I have another story in here about when he got cellulitis a few years ago, what a battle it was to get him to the hospital. And that, so far is the only time he has needed a medical intervention. Knock on wood.He is still in the IATSE stagehand union and still takes calls where he is as physical able as the young ones, who often say they want to be as fit at 75 as he is.
Now there is ample scientific evidence that pot prevents a lot of cancers, maybe over 90% of them for people who use it have far lower rates of cancer of all kinds. You Tube is full of testimonials of people who used Rick Simpson oil ( a highly concentrated solution of cannabinoids.) to overcome cancer- a lot with before and after videos.
So maybe pot does the same thing that CS claims to do; protect one from numerous diseases and help one recover, if needed.
And I know that pot is better than a placebo in hundreds and growing numbers of objective science-based studies, done in other countries. Now we will be able to carry these out in the USA, too.
So Reggie, as an open minded inquirer, tumbled onto the one herb that is probably better than Christian Science in helping you meet physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Reggie prays unceasingly using his slightly updated version of MBE’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. He has a very low fear level. He is not afraid, except in small time-limited ways when fear lights a fire under his booty and he intervenes somehow to remove the cause of the fear. Mostly he has tamed his fear and uses his adrenaline to move forward, not to run away.
I dearly hope some of you have read this far. If you have another POV, just put this info into a bag and hold it for comparison, until you find convincing evidence I am wrong. If not, maybe Reggie is a CS pioneer for a new generation of people who grow beyond the church even while leaving roots there as in still being a member of the Mother Church. Floyd Shank, his mother’s Class Instructor, knew Reggie well, from birth and never even suggested he be kicked out of the church. He just said Reggie didn’t need pot and LSD to get high on MBE.
I respectfully disagree. Reggie internalized the church’s health lessons, demonstrated by his extraordinary lifelong health without serious injuries, but he moved beyond health and the mortal mind. He brought his CS-trained mind to the problem of Consciousness. In the physical world, if you want to fly, you get on a THING called and airplane, in the world of Consciousness, you smoke, or swallow, a THING called+ a psychedelic, that releases the hold your everyday mind has on things and lets it relax a bit ,to let a larger consciousness elevate you.
I leave it to the reader to follow the links for the details.. Glyphosate tolerance is the reason for altering the genetic structure in GMO food products that allow the plant to tolerate the herbicide. This genetic modification is a really stupid one if you want people to accept the concept of GMO.
If food is going to be my medicine, then I want to have my food Round-up free. Organically grown with compost is the best way to grow food, but at least- not having to eat glyphosate with my fruits and veggies. This substance has been, and is being, banned around the world. Its US license is coming up. I hope by making my public statement against it, I somehow contribute to banning it.
I got scolded in a comment from a previous post about putting forth un-science-based info. This is not true, and I feel I need to catalog the dangers of chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer to those trying to leave a Christian Science-based state of mind. There is so much science against using these substances, I can’t see anyone believing any different than that they are patented substances, not fertilizers created by the earth’s natural cycles of growing, then rotting to produce more growth.
Understanding Mortal Mind 