Extreme close-ups of bug eyes transform them into psychedelic wonderlands
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by American Dream » Thu Aug 28, 2014 6:36 pm
by American Dream » Fri Aug 29, 2014 10:37 pm
by American Dream » Sun Aug 31, 2014 11:21 am
Slip Inside This House: The Nightmare Trip of the 13th Floor Elevators Part IV
"Higher worlds that you uncover
Light the path you want to roam
You compare there and discover
You won't need a shell of foam
Twice born gypsies care and keep
The nowhere of their former home
They slip inside this house as they pass by
Slip inside this house as you pass by"
by American Dream » Sun Aug 31, 2014 7:43 pm
The “Little Suzuki” himself founded the world’s first Buddhist monastery outside of Asia, at Tassajara hot springs—located three hours southeast of San Francisco—in 1966. The list of visitors and close associates to the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) and Tassajara predictably reads like a “Who’s Who” of American Buddhist (real and wanna-be) spirituality: Alan Watts, beat poet Allen Ginsberg and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gary Snyder. Also, translator Thomas Cleary, social economist E. F. Schumacher, and Stewart Brand (co-founder of the Whole Earth Catalog). Plus Robert Thurman, the Harvard-graduated scholarly father of Hollywood-goddess Uma and the self-proclaimed “first hippie in Asia,” who was ordained as the first American Tibetan Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama himself. Additionally, Joan Baez, Mick Jagger, and Earl McGrath, the (former) head of Rolling Stone Records. Also, anthropologist Gregory Bateson, former California governor and 1992 U.S. presidential candidate Jerry Brown, and numerous other recipients of (seriously) autographed fruitcakes later presented by Suzuki’s successor, Richard Baker.
For, before passing away in 1971, Suzuki-roshi had named Baker as his sole American “dharma heir,” or recipient of the Buddhist “transmission” from guru to disciple. (Baker, for his own part, had earlier organized the first major LSD conference in the United States, in 1966.)
“[What] does transmission mean?” I asked Suzuki.... “Does it mean that Richard Baker is perfectly enlightened, and that his mind is the same as the mind of Buddha? Is his understanding complete?”
“Oh, no no no,” Suzuki said. “Don’t make too much of it. It means he has a good understanding. A good understanding and a complete commitment”....
t was the equivalent of getting a teacher’s certificate. Suzuki had said in lectures, “Transmission is nothing special,” or “Actually, there is nothing to transmit” (Chadwick, 1999).
Baker himself, however, apparently evinced a somewhat more self-flattering understanding as to the significance of his own spiritual inheritance:
Transmission happens outside the limits of identity and ego. The fact that an acknowledged master acknowledges you as a Zen master means “you are no longer a Buddhist; what you do is Buddhism” (Downing, 2001; italics added).
And what, then, “is Buddhism”?
As abbot of San Francisco Zen Center, between the abbot’s budget and use of community-owned residences and resources, [Baker] lived in a style that he estimates could be duplicated by a private citizen with an annual salary of close to half a million dollars a year (Tworkov, 1994).
Discipline under the transmitted “Frisco Zen master” then reportedly (Downing, 2001) included:
Baker dictating to his followers as to whom they could or couldn’t be involved with in sexual relationships
The master having his followers “stand in rows and bow as he drove away from Tassajara” in a “fantastic to drive” BMW, thereby causing himself to be viewed by at least one of those bowing disciples as the “Richard Nixon of Zen”
Ostensibly “lifetime” members of the Tassajara Board of Directors involuntarily “going on sabbatical” when not being sufficiently supportive of Baker’s wishes
“What Baker transmitted,” said a senior priest, “was power and arrogance and an attitude that ‘I have it and you don’t’” (Tworkov, 1994).
At the San Francisco Zen Center, the problems that came to a head in 1983 [involved] a number of master-disciple sexual affairs, as well as a complex pattern of alleged misuses of authority and charisma, both psychologically and financially (Anthony, et al., 1987).
More specifically, the Harvard-educated, married Baker “was forced to resign after his affair with a married student was revealed” (Schwartz, 1996). The frantic husband of the rich, lithe blonde in question—whom Baker reportedly claimed had seduced him (we should all have such luck)—was a writer by the name of Paul Hawken. He, in turn, was of upscale Smith & Hawken garden tool (and more) catalog fame, and had previously been seen within the community as being Richard’s best friend, even being referred to thusly by Baker himself (Tworkov, 1994).
At least two other women were reportedly cruelly discredited as being mentally unstable by Richard following the termination of his alleged sexual involvement with them (Downing, 2001).
After all that, the author of The Tassajara Bread Book expressed his own opinion of Baker:
A friend of mine said it best: I give thanks to Dick Baker every day for fucking up so incredibly well that it gave me my life back, because I had given it to him (in Downing, 2001).
Senior priests were testifying at public meetings about physical and psychological abuse Richard had [allegedly] perpetrated....
Richard’s close friend and advisor, Esalen’s Michael Murphy, told Richard that “the whole alternative movement was crippled by what happened at Zen Center” (Downing, 2001).
And yet, to the present day, Baker reportedly insists:
The only scandalous thing that happened at Zen Center is how I was treated (in Tworkov, 1994).
by American Dream » Tue Sep 02, 2014 9:49 am
The psychedelic secrets of Santa Claus
By Dana Larsen - Thursday, December 18 2003
Modern Christmas traditions are based on ancient mushroom-using shamans.Although most people see Christmas as a Christian holiday, many of the symbols and icons we associate with Christmas celebrations are actually derived from the shamanistic traditions of the tribal peoples of pre-Christian Northern Europe.
The sacred mushroom of these people was the red and white amanita muscaria mushroom, also known as "fly agaric." These mushrooms are now commonly seen in books of fairy tales, and are usually associated with magic and fairies. This is because they contain potent hallucinogenic compounds, and were used by ancient peoples for insight and transcendental experiences.
Most of the major elements of the modern Christmas celebration, such as Santa Claus, Christmas trees, magical reindeer and the giving of gifts, are originally based upon the traditions surrounding the harvest and consumption of these most sacred mushrooms.
The world tree
These ancient peoples, including the Lapps of modern-day Finland, and the Koyak tribes of the central Russian steppes, believed in the idea of a World Tree. The World Tree was seen as a kind of cosmic axis, onto which the planes of the universe are fixed. The roots of the World Tree stretch down into the underworld, its trunk is the "middle earth" of everyday existence, and its branches reach upwards into the heavenly realm.
The North Star was also considered sacred, since all other stars in the sky revolved around its fixed point. They associated this "Pole Star" with the World Tree and the central axis of the universe. The top of the World Tree touched the North Star, and the spirit of the shaman would climb the metaphorical tree, thereby passing into the realm of the gods. This is the true meaning of the star on top of the modern Christmas tree, and also the reason that the super-shaman Santa makes his home at the North Pole.
The amanita muscaria mushrooms grow only under certain types of trees, mostly firs and evergreens. The mushroom caps are the fruit of the larger mycelium beneath the soil which exists in a symbiotic relationship with the roots of the tree. To ancient people, these mushrooms were literally "the fruit of the tree."
Ancient peoples were amazed at how these magical mushrooms sprang from the earth without any visible seed. They considered this "virgin birth" to have been the result of the morning dew, which was seen as the semen of the deity. The silver tinsel we drape onto our modern Christmas tree represents this divine fluid.
Reindeer games
The active ingredients of the amanita mushrooms are not metabolized by the body, and so they remain active in the urine. In fact, it is safer to drink the urine of one who has consumed the mushrooms than to eat the mushrooms directly, as many of the toxic compounds are processed and eliminated on the first pass through the body.
It was common practice among ancient people to recycle the potent effects of the mushroom by drinking each other's urine. The amanita's ingredients can remain potent even after six passes through the human body. Some scholars argue that this is the origin of the phrase "to get pissed," as this urine-drinking activity preceded alcohol by thousands of years.
Reindeer were the sacred animals of these semi-nomadic people, as the reindeer provided food, shelter, clothing and other necessities. Reindeer are also fond of eating the amanita mushrooms; they will seek them out, then prance about while under their influence. Often the urine of tripped-out reindeer would be consumed for its psychedelic effects.
This effect goes the other way too, as reindeer also enjoy the urine of a human, especially one who has consumed the mushrooms. In fact, reindeer will seek out human urine to drink, and some tribesmen carry sealskin containers of their own collected piss, which they use to attract stray reindeer back into the herd.
The effects of the amanita mushroom usually include sensations of size distortion and flying. The feeling of flying could account for the legends of flying reindeer, and legends of shamanic journeys included stories of winged reindeer, transporting their riders up to the highest branches of the World Tree.
Santa Claus, super shaman
Although the modern image of Santa Claus was created at least in part by the advertising department of Coca-Cola, in truth his appearance, clothing, mannerisms and companions all mark him as the reincarnation of these ancient mushroom-gathering shamans.
One of the side effects of eating amanita mushrooms is that the skin and facial features take on a flushed, ruddy glow. This is why Santa is always shown with glowing red cheeks and nose. Even Santa's jolly "Ho, ho, ho!" is the euphoric laugh of one who has indulged in the magic fungus.
Santa also dresses like a mushroom gatherer. When it was time to go out and harvest the magical mushrooms, the ancient shamans would dress much like Santa, wearing red and white fur-trimmed coats and long black boots.
These peoples lived in dwellings made of birch and reindeer hide, called "yurts." Somewhat similar to a teepee, the yurt's central smokehole is often also used as an entrance. After gathering the mushrooms from under the sacred trees where they appeared, the shamans would fill their sacks and return home. Climbing down the chimney-entrances, they would share out the mushroom's gifts with those within.
The amanita mushroom needs to be dried before being consumed; the drying process reduces the mushroom's toxicity while increasing its potency. The shaman would guide the group in stringing the mushrooms and hanging them around the hearth-fire to dry. This tradition is echoed in the modern stringing of popcorn and other items.
The psychedelic journeys taken under the influence of the amanita were also symbolized by a stick reaching up through the smokehole in the top of the yurt. The smokehole was the portal where the spirit of the shaman exited the physical plane.
Santa's famous magical journey, where his sleigh takes him around the whole planet in a single night, is developed from the "heavenly chariot," used by the gods from whom Santa and other shamanic figures are descended. The chariot of Odin, Thor and even the Egyptian god Osiris is now known as the Big Dipper, which circles around the North Star in a 24-hour period.
In different versions of the ancient story, the chariot was pulled by reindeer or horses. As the animals grow exhausted, their mingled spit and blood falls to the ground, forming the amanita mushrooms.
by American Dream » Wed Sep 03, 2014 1:37 pm
The Online World Is Also On Fire:
How the Sixties Marginalized Literature in American Culture
(and Why Literature Mainly Deserved It)
Loren Goldner
The real "sixties", of course, (at least for white middle-class American youth) started in approximately 1964 with the Berkeley student revolt and, following hard on that, with the appearance of the hippie counter-culture.
In 1964/65, "literature" was still everywhere in the air among people who felt they were, or wanted to be, in the center of "what was happening". No such person would voluntarily admit to an ignorance of Kesey, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Salinger, Jean Genet, J-P Sartre, Camus, Kierkegaard, Unamuno, Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, Kafka, Mann, Aldous Huxley, Proust, Henry Miller, Michael McClure, Leroi Jones and many other names one could provide. There was an equally imposing list of names from jazz, psychoanalysis, philosophy, the theatre, film, sociology (e.g. C. Wright Mills), 20th century music, performers such as Lenny Bruce. All of these elements seemed to blend into one sensibility which one might characterize with then common-coin words such as "beat" or better "existentialist".
About one year later, in 65/66. this world, which could have been found with some variation of names in 1950, or even in embryo in 1940, was mortally wounded. All dramatis personae at the time agreed in this assessment: ca. 1966 or 67, a group of beats around Herbert Gold put out a manifesto calling for a regroupment of people who liked jazz, literature, etc. against the rising tide of the hippie counter-culture with its beads, Be-Ins, rock concerts, communes, "underground newspapers", mysticism (and of course basic, willed illiteracy and anti-intellectualism). It got big play for a day in the SF newspapers and was never heard of again, a pure media event. (Miles Davis, in his autobiography, has a very pointed description of his realization, ca. 1968, that jazz had been overwhelmed by rock, echoing the same assessment but drawing very different conclusions.)
What was responsible for this tremor, after which literature never regained the centrality it had in American (middle class) culture up to 1965? It was the incredible kalleidoscope of events, from the Berkeley Free Speech movement, the bombing of North Vietnam, the assassination of Malcolm X, the invasion of the Dominican Republic, the Watts riots, the emergence of LSD, riots on Sunset Strip, the break in rock associated with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the appearance of Black Power and the end of the civil rights movement, the Hells Angels' attack on the first big Berkeley anti-war march in Fall 65, the appearance of strobe light shows and the Fillmore Auditorium and the Avalon Ballroom and the Haight Ashbury and Country Joe and the Fish, Bob Dylan's seemingly epochal shift from folk to electric. All in one year. One might stir in the Cultural Revolution in China (that is, the fantasy thereof for Western youth), the simmering Third World revolutions in Latin America and Africa and Asia, the coming of the gurus and swamis from India, the Beatles' shift to drugs and meditation, to add a truly international dimension.
The total impact of these events, compressed into such a short time at the very moment when there were more adolescents coming of age as a percent of the population than at any time before or since, (a demographic reality that itself stamped events) dealt a fatal blow to pre-1965 "avant-garde" culture. Michael Rossman, a Berkeley activist and journalist, wrote somewhere about the experience of the inebriation of FSM in Fall 64: he said that "the pitch was such that if one suddenly noticed that the white wall of one's apartment was in fact a heaving wall of white ants, it might seem startling but it would not seem incredible, because incredible things were happening every day, not merely on the TV screen, but through people's lived collective action". The subsequent roller coaster ride up year by year rose to the crescendo of 68/69, and was followed by the crash that began, and accelerated, after 1969, to ca. 1977. In half a decade, the country had gone from LBJ's Great Society and Martin Luther King and the Peace Corps to the Weathermen, the Altamont concert, Charles Manson and the murder of Fred Hampton by the Chicago police. Where there had been in 1960 earnest crew cut and bobbed-hair liberal supporters of JFK, and Young Republicans, there were in 1970 Trotskyists, Stalinists, Maoists, Young Lords, Black Panthers, White Panthers, Hell's Angels, Gypsy Jokers, Up against the Wall Motherfuckers, Tim Leary and Richard Albert aka Baba Ramdass, Ken Kesey' and his bus of Merry Pranksters, Carlos Casteneda and Mescalito, Esalen, the Guru Maharaji, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, free jazz black nationalists, the East Village Other, the Stonewall riots, women's consciousness raising groups, Woodstock Nation, fragged Army officers in Vietnam, the death of George Jackson, Attica, the Chicano riots in LA, the Brown Berets, the "army of 100,000 Villons" as Saul Bellow called them, "modernism in the streets" as Daniel Bell put it.
by American Dream » Wed Sep 03, 2014 3:39 pm
In this 1977 video, surrealist science fiction author Philip K. Dick suggests we are living in a computer simulation.We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in our reality occurs. We would have the overwhelming impression that we were re-living the present - déjà vu - perhaps in precisely the same way: hearing the same words, saying the same words. I submit that these impressions are valid and significant, and I will even say this: such an impression is a clue, that in some past time-point, a variable was changed - re-programmed as it were - and that because of this, an alternative world branched off.
by American Dream » Thu Sep 04, 2014 3:00 pm
by American Dream » Sat Sep 06, 2014 7:40 am
Have you ever seen a bumper sticker on an SUV with the words "what would Jesus do?" That's an advertisement, not a real question. Especially when it's on an SUV. Anyone asking that question sincerely is fixing to get a horrifying answer. The driver is not that open minded. He is really saying "Jesus made me do it".
Like America, he is a baby trying to avoid responsibility for a major accident he is about to cause while he is bumbling around obliviously knocking into things like the planet's atmosphere, Iraq, and the Tar Sands: "But I didn't do it, it was Jeeeesus…"
My friend Bypolar the Toxic Cherub and I were kickin' it the other day, and we ended up getting into a conversation about this. We realized Americans act like baby gods. This country is a porcelain Baby Jesus, a 237 year old Divine Prince who never had to grow up. He shits all over the place and then yells and abuses the planet when it doesn't clean itself up for him. He is desperately afraid of shattering.
Bypolar turned this conversation into a set of memes called White Baby Jesus. Here are the first two:
Just because Bypolar and I can laugh about this though, doesn't mean we're full-grown angels ourselves. On bad days, my own bumbling makes me nauseous. I get sick with anxiety. I worry about bumping into things, and things bumping into me. I worry about people and objects dying, instead of loving them. I am frozen by that fear, and I cut my actions short just when all of our actions could really start to blossom into some thing radically beautiful that might help unravel the catastrophe known as capitalism.
Like Timothy Morton said, when it comes to global warming and the ecological crisis, we are all hypocrites. None of us know what to do. While America is bumbling around, we're bumbling around inside it. Protesting and rallying isn't solving the problem, and neither is sitting at home shouting at the television as the next hurricane or war approaches.
What the planet teaches us is this: doing something feels like doing nothing when you compare it to the perfection of our idols. But doing nothing is doing something because nothing doesn't exist.
It is not possible to live a pure life in this spiritual desert. There is no pristine mountain left that I can run to, where I can laugh cynically at the fools polluting their valley below. We moved that mountain a long time ago.
So I guess I should start by planting my ass somewhere, in a blighted room in a blighted city or some blighted country, breathing smoky air with some friends, plotting our next moves. If there are spiritual heights, honestly, that's where they start.
I think this is what Morton means by "dark ecology"; he uses the word "dark" to mean something like "uncanny and discomforting". A lot of white people might think that Bypolar's art is too dark because it is definitely ecological, definitely uncanny, and definitely not white. Whiteness is not just a skin color, it is an attitude- an attitude that puts the pursuit of happiness over the pursuit of freedom, solidarity, and sincerity. People who act white will avoid dark ecology for the same reason they will avoid sincerely asking the question "what would [that dark revolutionary known as] Jesus do?"
And just in case you are a white person reading this who thinks "I am not like those other white people", ask yourself, by "other white people", do you mean the poor white people who live where your pollution goes when you flush it away? The problem is not just Nascar driving hicks. We are all Nascar driving hicks. I drive a Volvo and am addicted to work instead of Budweiser - I'm even more of a problem then the folks in Appalachia who live downstream from those moved mountains.
When it comes to you America, there is no haterade I can drink, because you turned it into oil, and got me hooked on it. It's toxins run through my veins. Recently, we've been using it to fuel this spiritual road trip through our fear and loathing.
But then we wake up suddenly nauseous from a bad hangover. We realize that haterade oil has been the fuel that's been running this Titanic world of capital for hundreds of years. We realize a melting iceberg just hit us upside the head and now the floor is reeling. It is not the ground. It never was.
That sinking feeling is exactly what we need in order to get our balance, put our feet back on the planet, and breathe the fucked up climate in and out of our faces. Maybe that's our first baby step towards not breaking all the shit we touch.
by American Dream » Sat Sep 06, 2014 10:53 am
by American Dream » Sun Sep 07, 2014 9:08 am
by American Dream » Mon Sep 08, 2014 9:04 am
by American Dream » Thu Sep 18, 2014 11:23 am
A Sun That Never Sets: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Landig Group Part I
The Landig Group, which first emerged in Vienna during the early 1950s, never gained much of a following (at least in terms of sheer numbers) during its run and has largely been forgotten outside of certain circles since its membership began to die off in mass during the 1990s. But it none the less managed an enormous influence upon neo-fascist circles in Europe and South America. What's more, its ideology is one of the modern cornerstones of Esoteric Nazism and has even made striking inroads amongst mainstream metaphysical circles.
Despite this, the Landig Group has generated very little coverage from either New Agers or conspiracy theorists. This is not especially surprising as far as the former are concerned (as the presence of so many fascists in 20th century metaphysical circles, especially those concerning "Ancient Astronauts," is rather embarrassing to such individuals) but the silence of the latter is rather striking given the ample indications that there was an intelligence purpose behind the Landig Group's activities.
Even when the Landig Group has been addressed, such as in the case of several of Joseph P. Farrell's ridiculous accounts of post-WWII Nazi survival, they have been presented in the most literal and outlandish light as possible. But then again, given that the Landig Group potentially had ties to some of the "guiding lights" of American conspirology, it may not be that surprising after all that Landig and his merry band have been so widely dismissed or reduced to caricatures by "serious" researchers.
Dealin' with the hogwash, as you know...
by American Dream » Thu Sep 18, 2014 6:40 pm
by American Dream » Sun Sep 21, 2014 8:15 am
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