In the dining room, at one end is a fireplace, whose alcove now holds the hifi with a vintage turntable on the top. Its brown cork platter usually has something old on it. Today it was a mono copy of Ella Fitzgerald classics on Verve from '61. It included two beautiful duets from work she did with Duke Ellington.
Either side of the chimney breast are two columns of book shelves holding about a third of my library. These are the ones I like to dip into occasionally, or to remind me of what I've read. I smoke too much weed to really remember everything, so if I am thinking about a topic, I'll have to reach for some tome or other to put myself straight. They are arranged according to topic area mostly but some of the big pictorial books have to go on the big shelf at the bottom. I've read all of them there, except for maybe the newest aquisitions which I am cueing up.
I tend to keep my more obscure books high up in order not to alarm curious visitors. I have a big set of books about psychedelics. That category does not really do them justice. They range from rational scientific analysis to the mystical and all shades in between. This is my problem. I have read up on both sides
of the arguments but find myself edging towards the sceptical with regard to the mystical end. I am convinced of the utility of psychedelic experience at some psycho-spiritual level. But, I tend not to subscribe gurus or want to subsume the things I have observed to the ideas of another.
I have one Terrence McKenna book on the shelf, (The Archaic Revival), a kind of sampler. I've heard a few of his lectures and like his eloquence on matters that for most us are hard to integrate and describe. However I do not subscribe to his particular personal rationale of them. His self transforming machine elves did not seem apparent when I first got a proper hit of DMT. However I later began to see how I could overlay my own experience on top of the features McKenna describes. In my heart I felt that this was more about the plasticity of the experiential data, than the absolute truth of his interpretation. To be honest, his inter-stellar internet type scenarios are to my mind manifestations of his hopes and aspirations for the future of mankind. There I do not blame him. I frequently entertain simillar thought experiments myself when under the influence.
If a friend asked for a good book to start finding out about psychelics, I'd send them to Daniel Pinchbeck's 'Breaking Open The Head'. Here someone of a more sceptical standoint than myself finds his concept of reality and spirituality broadened through a variety of materials. It's exciting vivid stuff at times, and was the spark of interest for me. I ordered P/Tihkal and began to get stuck in. Reading these (OK the fictionalised biographical sections + the reports then later, other bits) I felt a tinge of jealousy at the fortune of those who had tasted these substances, alongside a kind of sadness at the seeming impossibility of obtaining them. However, the lively online discussion these drugs suggested to me that there was a hope. Soon after, I started googling obscure compound formuli names latching onto a small HK outfit who were expensive, but did send what they were paid for. Tha rest is partially documented in reports online. P/Tihkal are two that I like and reflect kinds of values I concur with.
I recently bought 'Journeys Into the Bright World' by Marcia Moore and her hubsband Howard Alltounian. Soon after beginning I realised that they were both fairly obsessed with astrology and I felt a kind of distance form. As though I expected all their accounts to be informed by a viewpoint to which I don't subscribe. The book was interesting and well written and I finished it. It was all the more poignant given that she eventually appears to have come to grief courtesey of her D.O.C. The book doesn't reflect my psychedelic sensibilities too much. Again, the vista is a manifestation of the authors' personal historical grande set and setting. Different to mine. I'm not trying to be difficult here, because I have to be willing to accept that I may be on the wrong track myself.
For a book that appealed more to my rational perceptions, I recommend 'Psychedelic Information Theory' by James L. Kent. It is as rigorous as any sincere enquirer could be in applying understandable concepts to describe a possible mechanism by which normal consciousnes and the altered states might come about. His theory describes neurological processes and a brain wave based model to account for coherence and decoherence of experience. On some intuitive level this appeared to reflect some of my own leanings. I also liked his unpretentious writing style. The revealing of the hierarchy of concepts and ideas experienced while tripping resembles a kind of leakage from the subconscious. I do find that the deeper I go, the broader the catgories of phenomena and archetypes become, until a kind of unity of being is sensed. This is where I have to retain a slightly mystic element in my own conception. If you've read this far, I humbly encourage you to carry on a little more at least.
I have lots of popular science books and a few more heavier. I can handle a little maths with my leisured enquiry. I had a really good bash at 'A brief history of time' but had to acknowled defeat at about halfway. I love Richard Feynmann, whose little paperback lecture bits have given me great pleasure and moments of really tangible clarity about matters of a nonintuitive nature. I like Dawkins' books, though his hard line seems a little unnecessary to my sentiment. I entertained the possibility that he might be the agent of a benevolent God, sent to steer the good ship Humanity away from the rocks of idiocy. I would love to put that to him sometime. I tend to default to believe in an ingrained God being quite often, brought up as I was C. of E. However, I feel quite at liberty to doubt in the main, a property of the enquiring mind I was given. It might even be a holy duty.
What I'm saying is that I have absolute faith in science to hypothetically explain everything external to consciousness(Given, perhaps an infiniteley long piece of ticker tape in the metaphorical Turing machine and the rest of time). It also will conquer the mystery of the computational magic silently and efficiently taking place between our ears at all times. The point where these potentially explainable phenomenon of reality interface with the little dude in the cockpit looking out - (I, Me, You) - seems to be the exceptional phenomenon. All biological phenomena appear ultimately accounted for by processes of evolution (informed by some of the newer refinements to Darwin's model). However the evolutionary necessity of consciousness is not clearly determined. The thought experiment of Zombies comes to mind. It would be hypothetically possible to imagine a nonconscious brain being able perform all the survival jobs of a conscious brain, but without the 'me' jumping in and declaring "I did that" all the time. I do seem to be mainly conscious most of the time, although that may not appear to be the case to my Mrs sometimes. Cogito Ergo. What reason is there for the privilege it is to hitch a conscious ride on this splendid body thing I find myself looking out from. . . A divine gift? Now I'm getting mystical.
When deeply altered, it occurs to me that my conscious mind space is a three dimensional void into which anything goes. I am not so much directly creating the content, rather it appears to burst into awareness under its own occasionally astounding force, such as with vapourised DMT. There is a vibrance and vital intensity in the experience which hints at the possible immortality of consciousness. I have no material evidence for such speculation. You never get to bring any magical data back, like next weeks pool results or an undiscovered sequence of prime numbers. But the feeling is of having been tantalisingly close to the singularity where everything always is all together as one.
All these speculations say little about the external world. They are manifestations of my own grande set and setting as much as anyone else's. That's roughly where I am with it all.
PTO continued. .
Either side of the chimney breast are two columns of book shelves holding about a third of my library. These are the ones I like to dip into occasionally, or to remind me of what I've read. I smoke too much weed to really remember everything, so if I am thinking about a topic, I'll have to reach for some tome or other to put myself straight. They are arranged according to topic area mostly but some of the big pictorial books have to go on the big shelf at the bottom. I've read all of them there, except for maybe the newest aquisitions which I am cueing up.
I tend to keep my more obscure books high up in order not to alarm curious visitors. I have a big set of books about psychedelics. That category does not really do them justice. They range from rational scientific analysis to the mystical and all shades in between. This is my problem. I have read up on both sides
of the arguments but find myself edging towards the sceptical with regard to the mystical end. I am convinced of the utility of psychedelic experience at some psycho-spiritual level. But, I tend not to subscribe gurus or want to subsume the things I have observed to the ideas of another.
I have one Terrence McKenna book on the shelf, (The Archaic Revival), a kind of sampler. I've heard a few of his lectures and like his eloquence on matters that for most us are hard to integrate and describe. However I do not subscribe to his particular personal rationale of them. His self transforming machine elves did not seem apparent when I first got a proper hit of DMT. However I later began to see how I could overlay my own experience on top of the features McKenna describes. In my heart I felt that this was more about the plasticity of the experiential data, than the absolute truth of his interpretation. To be honest, his inter-stellar internet type scenarios are to my mind manifestations of his hopes and aspirations for the future of mankind. There I do not blame him. I frequently entertain simillar thought experiments myself when under the influence.
If a friend asked for a good book to start finding out about psychelics, I'd send them to Daniel Pinchbeck's 'Breaking Open The Head'. Here someone of a more sceptical standoint than myself finds his concept of reality and spirituality broadened through a variety of materials. It's exciting vivid stuff at times, and was the spark of interest for me. I ordered P/Tihkal and began to get stuck in. Reading these (OK the fictionalised biographical sections + the reports then later, other bits) I felt a tinge of jealousy at the fortune of those who had tasted these substances, alongside a kind of sadness at the seeming impossibility of obtaining them. However, the lively online discussion these drugs suggested to me that there was a hope. Soon after, I started googling obscure compound formuli names latching onto a small HK outfit who were expensive, but did send what they were paid for. Tha rest is partially documented in reports online. P/Tihkal are two that I like and reflect kinds of values I concur with.
I recently bought 'Journeys Into the Bright World' by Marcia Moore and her hubsband Howard Alltounian. Soon after beginning I realised that they were both fairly obsessed with astrology and I felt a kind of distance form. As though I expected all their accounts to be informed by a viewpoint to which I don't subscribe. The book was interesting and well written and I finished it. It was all the more poignant given that she eventually appears to have come to grief courtesey of her D.O.C. The book doesn't reflect my psychedelic sensibilities too much. Again, the vista is a manifestation of the authors' personal historical grande set and setting. Different to mine. I'm not trying to be difficult here, because I have to be willing to accept that I may be on the wrong track myself.
For a book that appealed more to my rational perceptions, I recommend 'Psychedelic Information Theory' by James L. Kent. It is as rigorous as any sincere enquirer could be in applying understandable concepts to describe a possible mechanism by which normal consciousnes and the altered states might come about. His theory describes neurological processes and a brain wave based model to account for coherence and decoherence of experience. On some intuitive level this appeared to reflect some of my own leanings. I also liked his unpretentious writing style. The revealing of the hierarchy of concepts and ideas experienced while tripping resembles a kind of leakage from the subconscious. I do find that the deeper I go, the broader the catgories of phenomena and archetypes become, until a kind of unity of being is sensed. This is where I have to retain a slightly mystic element in my own conception. If you've read this far, I humbly encourage you to carry on a little more at least.
I have lots of popular science books and a few more heavier. I can handle a little maths with my leisured enquiry. I had a really good bash at 'A brief history of time' but had to acknowled defeat at about halfway. I love Richard Feynmann, whose little paperback lecture bits have given me great pleasure and moments of really tangible clarity about matters of a nonintuitive nature. I like Dawkins' books, though his hard line seems a little unnecessary to my sentiment. I entertained the possibility that he might be the agent of a benevolent God, sent to steer the good ship Humanity away from the rocks of idiocy. I would love to put that to him sometime. I tend to default to believe in an ingrained God being quite often, brought up as I was C. of E. However, I feel quite at liberty to doubt in the main, a property of the enquiring mind I was given. It might even be a holy duty.
What I'm saying is that I have absolute faith in science to hypothetically explain everything external to consciousness(Given, perhaps an infiniteley long piece of ticker tape in the metaphorical Turing machine and the rest of time). It also will conquer the mystery of the computational magic silently and efficiently taking place between our ears at all times. The point where these potentially explainable phenomenon of reality interface with the little dude in the cockpit looking out - (I, Me, You) - seems to be the exceptional phenomenon. All biological phenomena appear ultimately accounted for by processes of evolution (informed by some of the newer refinements to Darwin's model). However the evolutionary necessity of consciousness is not clearly determined. The thought experiment of Zombies comes to mind. It would be hypothetically possible to imagine a nonconscious brain being able perform all the survival jobs of a conscious brain, but without the 'me' jumping in and declaring "I did that" all the time. I do seem to be mainly conscious most of the time, although that may not appear to be the case to my Mrs sometimes. Cogito Ergo. What reason is there for the privilege it is to hitch a conscious ride on this splendid body thing I find myself looking out from. . . A divine gift? Now I'm getting mystical.
When deeply altered, it occurs to me that my conscious mind space is a three dimensional void into which anything goes. I am not so much directly creating the content, rather it appears to burst into awareness under its own occasionally astounding force, such as with vapourised DMT. There is a vibrance and vital intensity in the experience which hints at the possible immortality of consciousness. I have no material evidence for such speculation. You never get to bring any magical data back, like next weeks pool results or an undiscovered sequence of prime numbers. But the feeling is of having been tantalisingly close to the singularity where everything always is all together as one.
All these speculations say little about the external world. They are manifestations of my own grande set and setting as much as anyone else's. That's roughly where I am with it all.
PTO continued. .