This is a TEDx presentation given by my favorite scholar of the rhetoric of biochemistry and post-vital living, Richard Doyle, about the importance of developing our conceptions of the noösphere.
Currently I’m reading his newest scholarly book concerning his ecodelic hypotheses about archaic and contemporary psychedelic media technologies, Darwin’s Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and the Evolution of the Noösphere.
“But do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongues against the tops of their teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss? Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it? Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite, please, affirm and tickle those they talk to? Do they?”
I enjoy the work of science history writer Mike Jay and this book has been begging to be written so I am really looking forward to this one:
(Click image for Amazon link)
An illustrated cultural history of drug use from its roots in animal intoxication to its future in designer neurochemicals
• Featuring artwork from the upcoming High Society exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London, one of the world’s greatest medical history collections
• Explores the roles drugs play in different cultures as medicines, religious sacraments, status symbols, and coveted trade goods
• Reveals how drugs drove the global trade and cultural exchange that made the modern world
• Examines the causes of drug prohibitions a century ago and the current “war on drugs”
Every society is a high society. Every day people drink coffee on European terraces and kava in Pacific villages; chew betel nut in Indonesian markets and coca leaf on Andean mountainsides; swallow ecstasy tablets in the clubs of Amsterdam and opium pills in the deserts of Rajastan; smoke hashish in Himalayan temples and tobacco and marijuana in every nation on earth.
Exploring the spectrum of drug use throughout history–from its roots in animal intoxication to its future in designer neurochemicals–High Society paints vivid portraits of the roles drugs play in different cultures as medicines, religious sacraments, status symbols, and coveted trade goods. From the botanicals of the classical world through the mind-bending self-experiments of 18th- and 19th-century scientists to the synthetic molecules that have transformed our understanding of the brain, Mike Jay reveals how drugs such as tobacco, tea, and opium drove the global trade and cultural exchange that created the modern world and examines the forces that led to the prohibition of opium and cocaine a century ago and the “war on drugs” that rages today.
The first peer-reviewed journal for the study of electronic dance music culture, Dancecult, has officially launched!!
I had the pleasure of chatting with Graham St. John last weekend at Symbiosis, who is the executive editor of the journal and also editor of the academic volume, Rave Culture & Religion. He told me we can also look forward to an entire book about the history and philosophy of Psytrance some time next year. Looking forward to it!
Interesting documentary about the esoteric roots of the USAn Nation. Deals with Founding Fathers like Ben Franklin and secret societies and mystery schools such as the Rosicrucians and Francis Bacon’s involvement with the founding of the America as well as his successful endeavor to help produce the collected works of Shakespeare. Quite long, at 2 hours and 45 minutes, but fascinating information that may appeal deeply to some.
Link: THE NEW ATLANTIS
Science writer John Horgan reviews Benny Shanon’s highly regarded book about ayahuasca and psychology, Antipodes of the Mind:
>>>>> theglobeandmail.com
Terence McKenna tells a funny story about cannabis:
Alternet has an article that is an homage to the pivotal role LSD played in the writer’s life journey of discovery. A pleasure to read and a transportive tour through the late 60′s cultural landscape.
Skinny Dipping in Reality: The Great Hippy LSD Enlightenment Search Party
First LSD trip, 1965: Tumbling, tumbling, tumbling inward with eyes closed, I could hear the spider plant hanging in the basket overhead singing in its green subatomic plant language, a hymn to the sunlight charging my bedroom atmosphere. On the back of my eyelids spun a great wheel of existence, turning both ways simultaneously generating an unearthly mournful chant that seemed to be composed of every human voice on earth. It rose in some unknown universal tongue singing, “Wheel of life, wheel of death, Bangladesh, Bangladesh. Wheel of life, wheel of death, Bangaladesh, Bangaladesh.” Millions of starving faces, young men, girls, old men, babies, crones, materialized in uncountable swarms, each face transfigured by some unnamable mutual understanding that I could not share. Then they atomized, leaving the room filled with the scent of wood smoke, shit and citrus blossoms (an odor I would instantly recognize decades later in poverty stricken Central American villages.)
No words can describe an LSD trip, but let me say that at the end of this one, I sat down and cried. For happiness. My deepest hope and suspicion, the one to which I dared not cling, had been confirmed. Life could indeed be significant, piercing and meaningful.
Continue reading at Alternet.com
Ridley Scott, director of Alien and Blade Runner, has confirmed that he is developing a movie version of Aldous Huxley’s prescient, dystopian novel, Brave New World.
link: io9
In this recording, The Bard transports us to the 19th century by reading a passage from the first official work of drug-writing (excluding the Bible, Bagavad Gita, etc), Fitz Hugh Ludlow’s The Hashish Eater (with sound effects!).
In the new book ‘Year Million: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge’ various theoreticians write exposes on the very distant future (a million years instead of the usual 100 years pondered by futurists) from
“planets [that] will be converted into generic nano-engineered stuff known as ‘computronium’ [and] assembled into Matrioshka brains, or M-brains [...] which are built round a star to collect all its radiant energy [and] each shell would be filled with intelligence, using waste energy from the one beneath”
to
“evolved intelligence will tap into the quantum computation of the cosmos to let us commune with the souls of stones”
“the first book ever published about psy-trance culture. But it goes beyond that.
The “Boom Book” was a project made during 2007 as a commemoration of Boom’s 10th anniversary.
This book is a collaborative project made by anthropologists, journalists, designers, illustrators, poets, musicologists, and photographers to capture the essence of the Boom Festival. The Boom Boom includes essays, interviews, visionary art by Alex Grey, Robert Venosa or Android, and innovative texts about psy-trance.”
Check out the video on the website: boomfestival.org/boombook/
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