As I was getting thrown out of the store (“meh it’s 6pm and we’re closing.” gits) I saw an A3 (like 11×17 but foreign) local magazine featuring a long in depth interview with Alan Moore, the genius shaman of comic books- most notable movie translations for the illiterate: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, and the up and coming V: for Vendetta. Although I think his best work is the epic Watchmen.
It’s been a few years since the last psychedelic experience for the both of us. Likening that eternal search for The Truth to Michealangelo chipping away all that isn’t David, psychedelics can be a good chisel for shaping that form. I’m not saying there aren’t other methods to arrive in the same place, there are a great many tools you can use to realize that it is only our perception that moves through time (a shadow of the forth dimension, as both Hawking and Einstein would agree.)
“So, if this is the case, you’d have to think of a human life as being a fourth dimensional shape which is about 6 foot by 3 foot by 2 foot deep by about 70 years long.So I imagine it’s look a bit like a centipede.”
(I always though of this precept as our ‘worm-forms.’ This was also hit upon in Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. But then what wasn’t?) So each of us occupies a worm form, but see, it’s like this: your life came from life (your parents) who also occupied thier own worm-forms, generation after generation back through time, iteration after iteration of the human worm-forms connect, backwards through time, family lines running back together, merging, devolving, ascending through history: becoming apes becoming frogs becoming fish. All still the same life-form that your consciousness is but a part of!
Do you see God now?
Regardless of the Cult of Ecstasy trappings here, this philosophical viewpoint is complete bunk. It’s essentially a Causal argument, though I admit it has an interesting twist.
First off, it assumes a Platonic view of the universe, where there exist, outside of direct experience, perfect forms of which everything is a mere shadow. That’s a pretty big philsophical baseline to swallow and it’s by no means obvious. The constant battle between Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies is proof of that. It is, indeed, a seductive viewpoint — who doesn’t want to believe in such a higher form? — but it is by no means absolute.
Our culture is by no means the first to have drug problems. Ancient Roman writings speak of alcoholism, for instance. Rather, it’s more likely that technologically advanced cultures simply have the resources to spare to engage in such activies for recreation, as well as write about them for prosterity. Societies without the production have to hoard all resources, so those which produce biochemically interesting results (and thus are generally harder to get and refine, requiring labor to be reallocated from food and other necissity production) are naturally only used by those with the political power — IE, the religious leaders.
The biggest problem, of course, is that shamanism simply doesn’t work. This isn’t the WoD and just changing your perception is NOT going to change reality. Witness those fools who take psychodelic drugs, believe they can fly, then jump off a building to their doom.
That said, I personally don’t see any reason why such drugs should not be used by those who wish to engage in recreational biochemistry. As long as they don’t hurt anyone else, who cares? But trying to link drug use to some kind of spirtual awakening is intellectually dishonest at best; it’s an excuse to try to convince yourself and others that there’s some Deep Meaning in pumping yourself with mind-altering narcotics, when it’s really just an attempt to escape from reality, to hide away from the world rather than facing it.
Again, I’m not saying this is a bad thing. In all honesty, it’s probably good; the human mind probably couldn’t take the stresses of constantly living in the Real World, which is why fiction has always been and will always be a popular activity. But raising drug use on a pedestal as anything other than this sort of stress relief is insulting.
“The biggest problem, of course, is that shamanism simply doesn’t work. This isn’t the WoD and just changing your perception is NOT going to change reality. ”
Changing a perception IS changing that person’s reality, is what I’m saying. When someone’s perception is inhibiting them from being the best that they can be, shamanism is but one method among many varied forms of therepy that can bring about internal change. Using drugs recreationally can be dangerous, as noted above, although almost never on a physical threat level.
Honestly, I can tell you from first hand experience, I have been able to face the world in many places rather than hiding from it as I had been accustomed to thanks to the mind alterations my shaman has guided me through. I have acted as a shaman to others (with and without the use of any psychedelics) and successfully redirected consciousnesses into more useful flows, helped myself and others find the difference between perception and reality.
There’s no Deep Meaning in pumping yourself full of narcotics, but it can be used as to tool to get at but one of the many facets of the Deep Meaning. Moore:“I actually tend to think of drugs as an implement and a tool, rather than a thing which in interesting in itself.”
Sound to me like D&D is the way to go then. I’ve faced down despots, slain Gods, became a King, founded a religion, and bitch-slapped my old boss. If perception is reality I should be ready for anything the real world throws at me!
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” –H.P. Lovecraft
I’d say the Main Event’s greatest moment is igniting the pants of the Rocky Horror Picture Show guy, rather then be seduced. Now that certainly prepared him for real life!
Did that actually happen, if so, when?
GURPS, long time ago, Adam’s game I believe, Not sure of any other specifics.