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http://www.parkstpress.com/titles/psysac.htm
http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=089281862X
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/089281862X
Merkur shows the existence of a more or less continuous
tradition of psychoactive Western religion. Various separate threads of mystic
techniques have sometimes come together to form an approach to the mystic
altered state that is based on rational reflection, together with short-session
use of visionary plants, rather than continuous long-term meditation.
This book associates a seemingly overlooked tradition of
short-session meditation with the use of psychoactive, visionary plants. The use of psychoactives enables a more
rationality-oriented approach and obviates the need to constantly meditate for
long-term periods. This
entheogen-using, short-session, rational form of mysticism is being
increasingly recognized throughout Western history. Meditation, psychoactives, and rational thinking can be and
historically have been brought together to augment each other.
Merkur helps entheogen researchers focus not only on
revealing the presence of particular plants in mystic-state practices, but also
on the traditions of using the plants in a shared religious framework and reflecting
on the experiences produced by the visionary plants. The field of mysticism greatly needs such coverage of the
important and challenging semi-secret tradition of not only entheogen use, but
entheogen use combined with rational mysticism and short-session meditation.
I don't think Merkur is claiming that the mystics who
combine these approaches claim that every aspect of mystic experiencing is
entirely rationally explainable and conceptually tangible; the vision of the
transcendent cosmic throne may still include a certain aspect that is, in a
way, beyond the reach of complete, direct conceptualization.
Despite the seemingly entrenched assumptions that
mysticism is inherently slow and laborious, drug-free, and non-rational,
rational short-session meditation forms an effective alternative tradition or
alternative view of what approach makes sense.
This proposal contradicts the dominant assumptions about the techniques
and conventions of mysticism: the assumption, perhaps misguided, that mysticism
ideally should not use psychoactives, is not rationality-oriented, and must be
conducted for extended, endlessly long meditation periods. In some
semi-obscured traditions that are recently coming to light, these approaches
have come together naturally and effectively.
This seems similar to the "lightning-bolt"
short-path variety of Buddhist meditation technique as portrayed by James
Arthur in Mushrooms and Mankind, which points out that Vajrayana was created by
combining Tantric Buddhism and the native Bon shamanism of Tibet. The approach Merkur describes also seems equivalent
to the evident visionary-state experiencing on tap in the Hellenistic
mystery-religions, in which a person commonly undergoes a moderate number of
limited-duration initiations to achieve spiritual purification and mental
transformation, reshaping the mind's conception of the self by the encounter
with transcendent experiencing.
Merkur, as psychologist, contrasts the experience of loss
of the sense of personal freedom, which he portrays as being conventional
mysticism, with a supposedly different experience of a psychoactive rational
mysticism that involves panic attacks.
However, I'd point out that the loss of the sense of being a
metaphysically free agent is integral to a mystic-state panic attack. When the
psychoactive perspective and self-sense, combined with rational analysis about
our assumption of personal sovereign agency, suspends the sense of wielding
metaphysically free power, that is the very cause and central vortex of the
panic attack. The self-commanding part of the mind panics because the mind
perceives the lack of metaphysical freedom and self-control, and sees the
mind's vulnerable dependence on the mysterious uncontrollable arising of
personal control-thoughts, like discovering that one's controllership is
dependent on whatever happens to come up from an underground spring in a cave.
Merkur uses the Psychology interpretive paradigm, but that
would be strengthened by a stronger Philosophy of Metaphysics background,
including the philosophy of time and responsible control agents. The book
doesn't really explain what the union with God experience, or the vision of the
invisible transcendent controller on the cosmic throne above one's personal controllership
level, would be like for a modern entheogenic rational mystic.
Merkur reveals the occasional conjunction of Western
religion and psychoactives, and also a kind of rationality which I would call,
with Ken Wilber, "vision-logic" or visionary rationality.
Fortunately, this book does not depend on identifying
mystic sacraments as any one visionary plant.
There is consensus in the field of the entheogen theory of religion that
it is more important to identify scriptural allusions to psychoactives, and
find how psychoactives were combined with meditation and visionary rationality,
than to identify the main and minor entheogens used. The important point is to
recognize the terms "sacrament" or "manna" as meaning
visionary plants.
Subsections include The Necessity of Vision; Philo's
Meditative Practices; Other Varieties of Ecstasy in Philo; The Contemplative
Practice of Aristotle; Discursive Meditations in Islam; Bernard on
Intellectualist Mysticism; Bernard on Trance-Based Mysticism; Death and Resurrection
at Sinai; Maimonides on Meditation, and others.
Merkur provides essential coverage of primary religious
experiencing at the origin and heart of Judeo-Christianity, providing highly
valuable contributions that help to discovering the semi-suppressed tradition
and history of entheogens in Western religion, as well as expanding our expectations
about the nature of mystic experiencing.
This book is a step toward covering entheogens casually as just one
part, not especially novel or controversial, of a system of philosophy and
religion.
This scholarly book is clear, organized, and presents a
focused and well-supported thesis -- an excellent source for researchers to
cite. Merkur is a clear writer who
states where he's headed, states why he's covering subjects, and summarizes
what he has established.
An invaluable, much needed, must-have contribution to
research in the history of mysticism, theory of mystic-state insight and experiencing,
and the entheogen theory of religion.
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