Posts tagged "spirituality"
A Treatise on Psychedelics Part 2/3: The Mystical Experience
This guest post by Martijn Schirp continues from Part 1, discussing the Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research that he attended. It was originally published on higHExistence.com. If we recognize the plant as an autonomous power which enters in order to put roots and flowers in us, then we distance ourselves by several degrees from the skewed perspective which imagines that spirit (Geist) is the monopoly of human beings and doesn’t exist outside of them. A new world-picture has to follow the planetary leveling; that is the task which the next century will take up. –Ernst Jünger, The Plant as Autonomous Power. Where are the...
Visionary collages by Eugenia Loli
Eugenia Loli’s collages remind me very much of psychedelic exploration. The canny juxtapositions, spacey visuals, and surreal portraits of humanity all speak directly to my subconscious, which loves to throw around this kind of imagery when I’m dreaming or in a mystical state. These psychedelic qualities are no accident. In the artist’s words: I’m intrigued by DMT’s ability to make people more spiritual, and bring them closer to their true nature and potential. Some of my art tries to capture just that, rather than simply describe a trip. I’m not into making representational art, so I capture the...
Tierra Vida: An Ayahuasca Journey
There have been a flurry of ayahuasca documentaries lately, but I think this one takes the cake. In 2012, Alex Ward lived out of a backpack for 8 months, participated in over forty shamanic ceremonies, and went exploring “far beyond the veil of reality with Ayahuasca.” A freelance artist and filmmaker, Alex was originally looking for artistic inspiration to spur his creative pursuits. But as he puts it, “I got a little more than I bargained for.” Lucky for us, he made a short (26 min) video testimonial about the experience and what he learned from it. Check it...
Sacredness Is in the Eye of the Beholder
There is a logical fallacy that psychonauts tend to make called the Appeal to Tradition. Just as it sounds, this is when someone describes a particular method or system as superior because it is traditional. The truth, of course, is that a solution’s stature as a tradition has no bearing on its effectiveness. A tradition may be passed on for many generations and still remain fundamentally flawed. Even psychonauts with the best of intentions commit this logical error. Having come to deeply respect a particular entheogenic tradition — for instance, the Amazonian ayahuasca ceremony — they insist that it is...