705

Do psychedelics give access to a universal, mystical experience of reality, or is that just a culture-bound illusion?

https://aeon.co/essays/is-psychedelics-research-closer-to-theology-than-to-science

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“Silicon Valley billionaires are putting their blockchain millions into funding psychedelics research, and corporates are preparing for a juicy new market. The counterculture has gone mainstream. Turn on, tune in, sell out. ”

“Perennialists tend to rank religions and mystical experiences hierarchically. All religions are one, but some are more one than others. Unitive non-dual experiences are more true, while dualist experiences (ie, personal encounters with God or a spirit) are less true. Accordingly, Buddhism, Hindu mysticism and Taoism are more true, while Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Shamanism are less true. The psychedelic research at Johns Hopkins follows this theological ranking. It uses the Hood Mysticism Scale to rate people’s psychedelic experiences – unitive experiences are scored as higher and more ‘complete’ than dualist experiences.”

“Western spiritual tourists can have a culturally naive idea that their experience of ayahuasca is the same as indigenous people’s experience, that everyone goes to the same Magic Kingdom where we all meet the same entity: Mama Ayahuasca.”

701 – In Pursuit of Silence (2015 Documentary)

In our race towards modernity, amidst all the technological innovation and the rapid growth of our cities, silence is now quickly passing into legend. Beginning with an ode to John Cage‘s seminal silent composition 4’33“, the sights and sounds of this film delicately interweave with silence to create a contemplative and cinematic experience that works its way through frantic minds and into the quiet spaces of hearts. As much a work of devotion as it is a documentary, IN PURSUIT OF SILENCE is a meditative exploration of our relationship with silence, with sound, and the impact of noise on our lives. (rottentomatoes)

“The etymological roots of the word silence
are somewhat contested. There are two words
in particular that people go back to. There’s the Gothic term ana-silan, and then</i> desinere. One of them has to do with
the wind dying down and the other has to do with
a kind of stopping of motion. They’re both to do with an
interruption, not just of sound, but the roots of silence
are also to do with the interruption of our own… The imposition of our own egos
on the world.” GEORGE PROCHNIK

imdb

694

“The day science begins to study nonphysical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”

Nikola Tesla

692 – The Happening (2008)

The Happening is a 2008 psychological horror-thriller film written, co-produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo and Betty Buckley. The film follows a man, his wife, his best friend and his friend’s daughter as they try to escape from an inexplicable natural disaster.

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Shyamalan told the New York Daily News: “We’re making an excellent B movie, that’s our goal”. Some critics enjoyed it because of this. Glenn Whipp said, “Tamping down the self-seriousness in favor of some horrific silliness, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening plays as a genuinely enjoyable B-movie for anyone inclined (or able) to see it that way”.

Joseph J. Foy, professor of politics and popular culture, describes Shyamalan’s film as an expression of “post-environmentalism” in which traditional paradigmatic politics are replaced with a call for the world to “embrace a revolutionary reevaluation of wealth and prosperity not in terms of monetary net worth or material possessions, but in terms of overall well-being”. (wiki)

imdb

691 – The Wonder of Weeds (2011)

“…when something does get labeled alien, an entire industry will spring up dedicated to its destruction.”

Blue Peter gardener Chris Collins celebrates the humble and sometimes hated plants we call weeds. He discovers that there is no such thing as a weed, botanically speaking, and that in fact what we call a weed has changed again and again over the last three hundred years. Chris uncovers the story of our changing relationship with weeds – in reality, the story of the battle between wilderness and civilisation. He finds out how weeds have been seen as beautiful and useful in the past, and sees how their secrets are being unlocked today in order to transform our crops.

Finally, Chris asks whether, in our quest to eliminate Japanese Knotweed or Rhododendron Ponticum, we are really engaged in an arms race we can never win. We remove weeds from our fields and gardens at our peril.

YOUTUBE

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“What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”

Inversnaid (1881)

Gerard Manley Hopkins

688 – IN DEFENSE OF PLANTS

“Since plants provide the ultimate power base for all the food and energy chains and webs that hold our natural world together, they also form the hubs of community structure and thus the centers of our focus.”

– John Eastman

http://www.indefenseofplants.com/

686 – The Triumph of the Fungi: A Rotten History (2006 book by Nicholas P. Money)

Everyone is aware of the nineteenth-century Irish potato famine, but fungal diseases of many other crops have had similarly apocalyptic consequences. Today, coffee, cacao, and rubber are threatened by fungi throughout the tropics. Indeed, fungi have carved their way through the ages, attacking every plant that we cultivate, constantly exploiting new hosts. In The Triumph of the Fungi, Nicholas Money offers an intimate picture of these pernicious microbes, the scientists who have sought to control them, and the people directly impacted by the loss of forest trees and cash crops. Even with the development of fungicides and other scientific breakthroughs, fungi continue to be unstoppable – this is the story of their triumph. (amazon)