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'Outmoded' Fallacy - Diminishment by Portraying only Ancients & Primitives as Using
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Entheogen use has been constant in
religion
>Egodeath.com
discusses the possibility of "block universe determinism", the idea
that free will is an illusion and everything really is unfolding by itself, as
planned.
The
"no-free-will" idea is powerfully paired with the commonplace idea of
"no-separate-self", identifying the two as "the
no-free-will/no-separate-self insight".
The separate self illusion essentially *is* the freewill illusion; the
first purpose of the illusory separate self is to wield the supposed power of
freewill. New Age religionists worship
the "no-separate-self" idea but whose worldmodel is shattered by
Ramesh Balsekar's proposal in the magazine What Is Enlightenment? that the core
of revelation is no-free-will.
At last
even these religionists on their cliched "path" confront the meaning
of having to sacrifice the ego's *most prized possession* as the sacrificial
price of entering heaven and nirvana.
Anyone is willing to kill their firstborn child, that's a low
price. Kill the separate-self
illusion? Everyone is fine with
that. But what egoically possessed
person would be willing to give much more than that, and sacrifice their own
free will?
It is
against the nature of ego to let go of its precious ring of power, its most
precious possession, free will. The
moment ego is brought to sacrifice free will, the ego dies, burned away as a
husk, and only the true and real aspects of the person remain, with the ego
remaining only as a vestigial ghost, one's childself now relegated to the
shadowy underworld of Hades. The damned
in hell are possessed by the freewill demon-delusion; the saints in heaven have
had their freewill delusion burned off by the fires of purgatory.
>There
is further a significant discussion of psychoactive substances
(psychedelics/entheogens) and the possible role they have played in the
emergence and development of world religions large and small.
>so in
recent months i couldn't avoid the speculation that perhaps helen and bill
[some creators of The Course in Miracles] had access to some LSD or other
substances.
In the
book Up From Eden, Ken Wilber speculates that foreign religions don't have
strong long-term prospects in the U.S., but that Christian-derived religion and
the technology of psychoactives are more likely to have a long-term future: he
cited specifically Course in Miracles and LSD.
One
researcher is gathering suggestive evidence for Amanita in the creation of
Mormonism.
I am fully
entering the realm of strategic, productive, and efficient speculation. What we need before we can gather evidential
proof of the entheogen theory of the origin of religions is an *excellent
hypothesis* that would, if it were true, explain everything. Feyerabend states that it's *not* the case
that evidence builds up for a new theory until it overwhelms evidence for the
old theory.
One
paradigm doesn't come along and persuade inveterate doubters through compelling
force of evidence. What actually
happens is that there is, in the early adoption phase, a shortage of evidence
for the new theory or paradigm, yet some researchers commit to the new theory
*despite* its inferior evidence: the new theory just seems more sound and
plausible, a more convincing proposition *despite* the early lack of
evidence.
So it is
with the current state of the entheogen theory of the origin of religions. There are conventional entrenched
assumptions that entheogen use was rare, that it was cut off from the
mainstream, that it wasn't influential, that it was used only by a rare and odd
deviant religionist or two -- these are all entrenched axiomatic
assumptions.
Now it is
wise and powerful to wave aside all that knowledge, all that framework of
conventional assumptions, and erect anew a different set of axiomatic
assumptions that is part of a different highly viable paradigm. Forgetting all we think we know, consider
this paradigm, this set of assumptions, motives... this "reality
tunnel" (Robert Anton Wilson).
o Meditation was created to augment
entheogens, and as entheogens were suppressed, meditation was used more and
more with the effect of overly praising it and giving it credit that is
actually stolen from entheogens.
o All religions began and were reinvigorated
through entheogens.
o All the mystic geniuses who created and
reinvigorated religions used entheogens.
o There is a great deal of explicit entheogen
evidence, if we simply think to look for it -- such as the lily as symbol for
datura, and the lotus blossom representing the entheogenic species of water
lily, and Christian haloes as stylized Amanita cap.
o What percentage of late 20th Century U.S.
citizens and Europeans used entheogens?
Suppose 25%.
o What percentage of early Eurasians, 1000
B.C., used entheogens? Suppose 25%.
o What percentage of Eurasians 500 BCE--500 CE
used entheogens, such as "mixed wine"? Suppose 25%.
There are
exact parallels in comparing the debate of whether Classic Rock *is* Acid Rock,
and whether Christian and other Mystery Religions were entheogen initiation
religions. Everything hinges on
cultural context, the actual incidence of using entheogens, and your
assumptions about how rare or suppressed or uninfluential entheogens were in
the period in question.
Those who
say that Rush, being philosophers, in the Rock culture after the 60s, wouldn't
have used entheogens, are living in a reality tunnel that is at odds with the
statistical and cultural realities.
It's less interesting to analyze Led Zeppelin -- there isn't much
Mystery there, with Robert Plant picking a psilocybin mushroom at the start of
his mid-1970s Rock concert movie.
But
analyzing the controversial band Rush provides a great deal of insight on the
debate over whether real Christianity was entheogenic initiation and whether
medieval Christianity was also founded on entheogenic experiencing.
If you
assume that the 1970s were as LSD-influenced as we *know* them to have been,
and if you assume that mid-1970s Heavy Rock such as Queen and Led Zeppelin was
strongly influenced by and devoted to drug-induced altered states, then it
becomes highly plausible, not in the least implausible, that Rush also was
strongly influenced by and devoted to entheogens. You adopt either one paradigm or the other, with a huge raft of
axiomatic assumptions. Either:
o The 70s were somewhat saturated with drugs,
but Classic Rock was largely independent of this, especially Rush.
or
o The 70s were totally saturated with drugs
and Classic Rock was a mystic philosophical experiential religion devoted to
the altered state, with some groups taking it to a highly refined art form,
such as Rush.
Which
reality tunnel seems more plausible?
Which set of assumptions and way of thinking seems more sound and
likely?
Arguments
are interesting because they so often come down to incommensurable paradigms,
mutually exclusive reality tunnels, with their own "coherent" sets of
axiomatic assumptions. People must take
responsibility for their faith-like adoption and choices of sets of axiomatic
assumptions.
Would you
accept the convention view, which is pushed into the following corner? "Around 1000 BC, entheogen use was
common, and 500-500 it was common, and in the late 20th Century it was common
-- yet, during Medieval Europe's Christian reality-tunnel, entheogen use was
rare and not influential -- that Christianity was an exception."
I propose
instead this axiomatic assumption: entheogen use is more of a constant across
eras. In all eras of European history,
entheogen use has remained constant -- suppose 25% (naturally, this figure
needs heavily qualification or definition, but it is plenty clear enough for
the ideas I'm laying out here).
So I don't
think the question is "Was entheogen use common in Christianity in the
early and Medieval eras?" We need
to draw up stronger axioms than that: *Given* the assumption that entheogen use
is practically a constant in Europe across the eras, what was its role,
influence, and relation to the Christian religion? What is the relation between unofficial European religion,
official Christian religion, and entheogen use?
I propose
that entheogens were 25% present in unofficial European religion, in monastic
religion, and in official religion. The
populace was fully aware of entheogen religion -- as much as today's ignorant
U.S. population is aware that entheogens produce religious experiencing and
insight -- and the monastics were fully aware of entheogen religion, and so
were the officials.
There was
no possibility of disputing entheogens' central role in Christianity; all
dispute revolved around social control, suppression, revival, unofficial
prophets versus official priests, and so on.
Many people were clueless about entheogens at the heart of Christianity,
but many were not, just the same as today, many people are not clueless about
the intense religious and philosophical potency of entheogens.
We all
play huge social-control games around this huge potential, but no serious
thinker is so clueless and idiotic to go up against this most concrete of
facts. More characteristic is like
Zaehner, striving to find ways to belittle the intense religious experience of
entheogens as being in some vague way inferior to official, purportedly
non-entheogenic mystic experiencing.
It's
obviously a hopeless case to deny that entheogens produce profound, intense
religious experiencing. All that the
anti-entheogenist can do is distort and try to steer aside this reality, but
not deny it head-on.
So which
axiomatic assumption sounds most plausible:
o Our religious evasions about the importance
of entheogens today are wholly different than during early Christian and
medieval eras.
or
o Our religious evasions about the importance
of entheogens today are essentially the same as during early Christian and
medieval eras.
The phony,
amoral, profit-driven "War on Drugs" (prohibition for profit) and the
controversy about whether Rush is Acid Rock both provide much insight into
axiomatic assumption-sets, which is essential for understanding how early
Christianity, medieval Christianity, and religions in general originated and
were reinvigorated through very common and very influential entheogen use. I would even hesitate to say any longer that
entheogenic religion was "suppressed" or "suppressed to some
degree" in Christianity.
The idea
of "suppression" is too simplistic and always underestimates how very
common and even *dominant* entheogens were throughout Christian history. Are you surprised to imagine Christians of
the 1400s, 1500s, 1800s, 1700s... commonly using entheogens? But if we apply a certain set of axiomatic
assumptions, everything falls into place in a different and self-consistent
arrangement.
Imagine
Christianity being dominant from 300 to 2000 in European culture and imagine
that in all eras, 25% of people had significant religious experiences through
entheogens. Even if 5 or 10%, the main
idea still holds. In this reality
tunnel, a significant percentage of mystics, priests, and laity were
*constantly* experiencing the entheogen aspect of the Christian religion.
We cannot
assume that this entheogen inspiration was ever absent -- not in the 1400s, not
in the 1600s, not in the 1700s or 1800s.
Do we fancy that we know so much about entheogens, but Europeans were
worse-than-subhuman barbarian savages completely bereft of all knowledge of
plants? But how could that be; it is
*we* who are out of touch with plants.
They had
potions. *We* are attracted to
psychoactive plants, were not our ancestors?
We proudly fancy ourselves the first generation since antiquity to have
discovered entheogens.
We would
likely be closer to the truth if we accept the axiom that entheogen use is a
constant across eras, and that just as mystics today are very interested in
entheogens, so were their ancestors. It
is time to look out at the world and history and evidence from *this* set of
assumptions and see how the story elements fall into place, painting a picture
that is drawn together by its own compelling logic.
I'd be
more inclined to admit that Christianity has always struggled around the
central fact of the psychoactivity of the true sacrament, rather than any
longer saying that entheogens were simply "suppressed". Commandeered, slightly, suppressed, a
little... but not much. See the Amanita
halos, see the lily daturas -- you call that "suppressed"? No, I call *us* blind and ignorant. Our entheogen-using Christian ancestors knew
a thing or two about plant potions.
The
greatest danger for us in retelling the story of Christian history and the
history of religions is to underestimate the presence of entheogens. The greatest profit now is through erring on
the side of overestimating the importance of entheogens. What is the maximum presence of entheogens
we can possibly imagine in religious and Christian origins and ongoing
reinvigoration?
Let us generally
suppose that entheogens were "many times more important" in the start
and continuation of Christianity than previously imagined. This axiomatic assumption produces highly
suggestive and interesting possibilities that haven't been considered nearly
enough.
After we
make this "maximal influence" case, then we can consider backing off
to some degree and acknowledging that entheogens were not the entirety of the
origin and continuation of Christianity.
I advocate the "maximal influence" case and am dedicated to
enabling research on the question:
What is
the maximum possible role of entheogens in the origin and continuance of
religions? A case can be made, or at
least a hypothesis can be formulated, but has never yet been made very
strongly, that entheogens have been very central and dominant and popular in
the origin and continuance of religions.
It is time
to get this hypothesis, this proposition, this paradigm, in order; it is time
to systematize a theory in which entheogens are given a maximal, rather than
the accustomed minimal, role, in the start and continuation of religions,
including Christianity, Buddhism, the Hebrew religion, and Rabbinical Judaism.
>On
Amanita, the Course in Miracles perspective seemed apparent, right on. It seemed like we really are all heading
inevitably toward god and the only proper response is profound and humble
gratitude. I am convinced that one of
the motivations for keeping psychedelics illegal is their potential for undermining
the authority of established religions, since, if one can get one's spiritual
experiences from substances, why join a church?
It is more
important now to put forth a perfectly clear and explicit and straightforward
theory to be considered, rather than relying on a base of compelling evidence. The theory comes first, the suggestive
evidence comes next, and the compelling evidence is effectively constructed,
assembled, and recognized much later.
Paradigms aren't based on compelling evidence, so much as on their
ability to bring a framework and perspective into focus so that we perceive a
scene that has its own integrity.
We cannot
perceive the "supporting evidence" until we already have the highly
refined *theory* to look through as a focusing lens.
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