People've been saying this since the 1960s. But instead of an Aquarian Age, we've suffered the most self-absorbed, grasping generation ever born, the boomers, and they've taken a wrecking ball to near all American institutions (a few for the better). Predict more of the same.https://twitter.com/iamjustincscott/status/1057070077722484736 …
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Plenty of westerners go into a jungle and come out believing implausible Andean and Bwiti claims. Or take DMT and believe they were talking to aliens. I know some of them personally —grounded people who acquired very niche beliefs. Same can happen w/o drugs, too -see Evangelicals
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that's called belief tourism. often, we find what we're looking for.
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you're right, though, to point out that hard skepticism crumbles in the scouring light of the psychedelic experience. a cultural container ought to modulate what beliefs a person retains afterwards though.
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Westerner takes on a Bwiti mytheme after being exposed to it by a Bwiti shaman. The mytheme is a reality in Bwiti culture and the psychedelic experience allows the Westerner to, for just one day, feel like they're immersed in it. It re-enchants the world.
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what mythemes should Westerners use in our own cultural container for psychedelics? I find the traditional Judaeo-Christian canon to be sorely lacking. A fully disenchanted corpse that I'd rather not reanimate. Where do we go from here?
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I love that question, and I don’t know. I suspect there is serviceable material in any belief system that can be mined, refined and operationalized —even Christianity, about which I’ve historically had a chip on my shoulder. The container I want is a few accepted rules, norms:
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My desired container is simple: 1. Recognition that people in the grips of a mystical experience are in a precious and vulnerable state analogous to childhood, and 2. A taboo on introducing violence, ads, new beliefs, and new partners to people in that state.
End of conversation
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