ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS is a much needed
accessible exploration into the role of psychoactive sacraments -
entheogens - in religion, mythology, and history, and also includes
most treatments of the subject focus on modern scientific research,
psychotherapy, are auto-bibliographic accounts, or are
agenda-driven or otherwise naive and myopic. A great mystery of
altered states of consciousness and species development is
expanding with new archeological and anthropological discoveries.
Religious story telling (myth) is a timeless journey. Surprisingly
it's not about truth. It's about finding one's self in the midst of
the discovery of the "Other." It is the story of what is separate
and unknown that creates self-consciousness. Our entire life
consists ultimately in the discovery of the "Other," which gives
meaning to the discovery of the self. The arts and language are the
fossil remnants scattered on our path. ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN
CONSCIOUSNESS discusses the influence of psychoactive substances on
consciousness, human evolution and mystical experiences. It
explores how religion, mythology, art and culture stem from
entheogenic consciousness and why it's important to us today.
"Entheogens, or psychoactive sacraments, have a long, storied
history that has played an essential role in the evolution of
consciousness, mythology, culture, religion, art - and even history
and politics. ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS outlines
this suppressed - yet seminal - undercurrent of history, giving
examples of the role of entheogens from the primal shamanic
religions through, the historical religions, esoteric mystical
traditions including the Mystery Religions, alchemy and
Freemasonry, and into contemporary expressions. Authors Ruck and
Hoffman draw upon decades of research and personal experience in
discussing the best documented examples of historically important
entheogenic evidences, various ongoing threads of research and
speculation to muse upon the 'meaning' of it all..." Our hominid
ancestors experienced a spiritual wakening at the very dawn of
consciousness that set them apart from the other creatures of our
planet. It was a journey to another realm induced by a special food
that belonged to the gods. This was a plant that was animate with
the spirit of deity. It was an entheogen. It was the visionary
vehicle for the trip of the first shaman. The story was told over
and over again until it achieved the perfect form of a myth. The
realm was imagined as a topographical place, the outer limit of the
cosmos, the fiery empyrean, or its geocentric opposite, our own
planet Gaia. Myths multiplied over time, but they always preserved
this primordial truth. These myths provide a road map, a scenario,
if you can read them, for whoever today wants to follow. However,
it is not an easy journey, and it is also fraught with many
dangers, of getting lost, of finding no return. Access to the
entheogens is now largely prohibited or strictly licensed. The
restrictions constitute an infringement of cognitive freedom,
limiting the further evolution of human potential into productive
creative imagination and experiences that lie beyond the normal,
the traditional province of shamans, who can understand the speech
of plants and animals, change shape at will, and journey, both
physically and in the spirit, to distant exotic realms. In
addition, religions have staked out territorial claims to this
realm of spiritual consciousness. They have colonized it,
identified it with their god, often reserving the access for their
own elite. Similarly, trade in drugs, both medicinal and illegal,
has colonized the etheogens, making them only chemicals, rationally
depriving them of their spirit. ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN
CONSCIOUSNESS is a guide for the curious that provides a historical
overview of the role that entheogens have played in the development
of our unique supremacy as a species and offers also pathways and
advice for reconnecting with the primordial sources of nature's
power. ENTHEOGENS, MYTH AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS investigates the
role entheogens have played in the evolution of humankind's attempt
to define reality in a context of metaphysical or theological
dimensions. Although other botanical intoxicants will be considered
(cannabis, daphne, opium, Syrian rue, datura, mandrake), none, with
the possible exception of mandrake, seem to have lent themselves so
readily to metaphoric personifications, which make this the subject
for a course on mythology. The source of humankind's fascination
and repulsion for fungi, indeed, leads to a fundamental
consideration of the psychological nature of mankind's fascination
or awareness of what in the categorization of religions is termed
animism and rituals of ecstatic shamanism. In addition, the linking
of bread and wine as sacramental foods is due to parallel concepts
of controlled fungal growth as a simulacrum of the cosmos itself.
The goal is not so much to acquire factual knowledge of this vast
subject, but to open up pathways for reflection upon the basic
nature of human existence and consciousness. The narrative is the
awesome history of discovery and the findings of ancient rituals
that meld into twentieth-century controversy and criticism of
psychedelics. The future of humanity and the direction of
twenty-first century brain science is challenged as well as our
sense of social convention. Entheogens have been deemed be
prohibited controlled substances and as such is an infringement of
cognitive freedom. Whatever the danger of potential abuse, the
substance is not the fault, but the user. The hammer is not guilty,
but the carpenter who misuses it because of deficient training. In
order to exonerate the executioner in Classical antiquity, the axe
was brought to trial and found guilty. The prohibition has
drastically retarded the investigation into the therapeutic
potential of proscribed drugs, including their efficacy in curing
addiction. Some of these substances also offer the potential for
accessing levels of cognition and consciousness beyond the
ordinary, the traditional provenance of mystics and shamans, like
bilocation, clairvoyance, and zoomorphism.
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