Category: shamanism
Faustin Bray, the founder of Sound Photosynthesis, interviews one of the world’s foremost experts on visionary substances, Jonathan Ott, wherein they discuss such things as the civilizational collapse, off-grid strategies, navigating time-streams as well some nuances of the modern psychedelic movement. Interviewer Faustin Brey sorta trails off at the end but a Jon Ott interview is a rare treat so enjoy. :)
Be a good monkey and finish your 5 dried grams, or no dessert for you! :P
This very accessible and deeply fascinating one-hour documentary takes a look at some of the variety of modern scientific experiments looking at psychic phenomena.
You can download the 600 mb AVI movie file here or stream a low quality version here.
Purchase the DVD at SomethingUnknown.com
Cultivating A Cure is a documentary in production and currently fundraising for completion. It is about the wealth of medicinal plants in the Amazonian rainforest and their impending threat of eradication. It includes interviews with native healers and research scientists such as Dennis McKenna.
Please the watch the trailer for what looks like a beautiful and immensely important project: CultivatingACure.com
Here is a 7 minute promo for what appears to be a mainstream adventure/documentary television program in development about Ayahuasca healing in the Amazon.
Bringing valuable information to spiritually starving masses sounds pretty good but it’s also possible to trivialize entheogenic practices with pop-culture antics or feed the still unstable aspects of ayahuasca tourism. We’ll see what happens.
This seems to point toward how high-end psychedelic documentaries are going to become:
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I found this talk given by Erik Davis at the 2010 Horizons Conference in NYC a very enjoyable and accurate delineation of the psychedelic renaissance landscape:
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In the video, Erik describes James Kent’s Psychedelic Information Theory, which you can learn more about from watching his excellent presentation at the 2010 Psychedelic Science Conference in San Jose:
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Check out some these very interesting interview clips from the upcomming documentary about psychedelic healing: From Neurons to Nirvana:
http://vimeo.com/channels/neuronirvana
NPR Morning Edition speaks a couple minutes about Fly Agaric mushrooms and Christmas.
Some extension and commentary:
Fly Agaric mushrooms only grow under pine trees and birch, which is why we use birch branches as Christmas decorations, and why we put a pine tree in our home with brightly colored gifts underneath (the fly agarics are the brightest red you’ve ever seen). In Lapland Siberia, the village elder or shaman would go out and collect these intoxicating mushrooms to bring good cheer during the cold dark solstice season, like we enjoy a nice schnapps. He or she would find the bright red mushrooms under the pine trees (like presents), pluck them and place them on the boughs of the tree to dry a bit and go back and collect them all later in his satchel (drying made them lighter and easier to carry more). This is why we place ornaments on the boughs. In fact, before Coca Cola promoted the red and white theme, antique, turn-of-the-century Christmas ornaments from Germany and nearby were actually replicas of the amanita mushroom or the head of a man with a white beard and red hat with white polka dots. (140 examples)
Since the front door of the yurt was often snowed over the shaman would enter through the smoke hole / chimney to distribute the mushrooms. Because these mushrooms are less toxic and more psychoactive when dried, people would put them in stockings and hang them over the fireplace to dry overnight. If you burned them into black chunks of ‘coal’ you were probably naughty this year but if you were nice you got some happy treats. This is where the stocking tradition comes from.
As NPR pointed out, reindeer love these mushrooms for their psychoactivity too, and the Siberians have long refered to them as “flying reindeer” because shamanic flight, astral projection, out-of-body experiences go hand in hand with psychedelic plant traditions. (That guy at the end who dismisses all of this in favor of the Coca-Cola explanation is quite the nincompoop.)
The other aspects of Christmas are largely astrological (tree-top star = Polaris, Spiral of popcorn or candy around tree = Draco) but the great majority of America’s favorite, Christian, family friendly holiday, from red & white candy canes to Rudolf, is almost entirely based on a mushroom cult!
OH, THE DELICIOUS IRONY!!!! :D
♥ ♥ ♥ Merry Christmas!!! ♥ ♥ ♥
……………….★
…………….*✱ ♥
…………..*♥- ҈ -*※
………..*✱ *♥*❉**
………¨※ *♥*- ҈ -*✿*
……..*♥**✱ *✿*- ҈ -*♥*
..*8***♥**- ҈ -**✿*♥*※
**- ҈ -*♥**❉**♥**o*✱*♥*
……………__▒__
……………▓▓▓/
For more information of the astrological and shamanic origins of Christmas check out this excerpt from The Pharmacratic Inquisition:
Videos from the 2010 “Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics” conference are now online. The conference took place on Sept. 24-26 at Judson Memorial Church in New York City. The available videos are:
