TMK on Education

A very short, very poignant video by Terence on what education is in history, and, what it is for these days.

Ketamine Harm Reduction

Ketamine is becoming more and more popular in the rave and festival scene.  As someone who has experienced the downsides of Ketamine first hand, I advise anyone who decides to use it to think twice.  There are some SERIOUS downsides to abuse of this drug and its insidiously addictive [often called psychedelic heroin] qualities make it easy to go from use to abuse and, hard to drop the habit even when your body is sustaining serious damage.  Some links...

Ketamine Bladder Damage
Ketamine Kidney Damage
Ketamine Addiction

There are much safer alternatives to getting high that offer deeper benefits to the body and mind than Ketamine.  K, as it is often referred to in the interest of brevity, can be a kind of fool's way to chemical enlightenment.  BUT, as I have found the insights from K do not often apply to real life in the same way as those of mushrooms, DMT, cactus/mescaline, or LSD do.  K's insights can even cross into the delusional and psychotic realms of hallucination, and you won't know how far you went to you come back, but, sadly some never do.

If even after all the evidence of K's deleterious effects you choose to use it please try to follow these guidelines to reduce its negative impact on your body and mind...

• DO NOT do K in large amounts all at once.  Take small amounts["bumps"] until you find your sweet spot then, STOP.  Large lines are overkill and a waste of K along with a health hazard.
• Be very careful of doing K in public places if you "K-Hole" and become unresponsive you could end up robbed, raped, in a hospital, or jail.
• Drink water HEAVILY throughout the night and urinate regularly.  K is very hard on your kidneys and bladder so a constant wash of fluids will mitigate damage.  Urinating frequently even if you don't have an urge is necessary, as K makes your urine acidic and letting it acid wash your bladder can BURN IT, causing semi-permanent or PERMANENT DAMAGE.  (Peeing 20+ times a day is not uncommon for chronic K-heads)
• If you are insufflating K, hock up the drip from the back of your throat and spit it out, you will not lose any of the desirable effects of the drug from spitting it out(most of the active ingredients are absorbed nasally) BUT, you will avoid your kidneys and bladder having to process all that powder.
• Make sure you do constant reality checks about your world-view and K usage.  K has been known to make many delusional and some, psychotic.  It is not rare for a K-head to believe they are the only real human being.  
• Check out the stories of the most famous K-heads, all of them smart and successful people, unable to wrangle the Ketamine demon.
• John C. Lilly
• D.M. Turner
• Marcia Moore
• When you begin to feel worried, guilty, or anxious about your Ketamine use this is a warning sign to STOP.
• If you begin to feel bodily discomfort in your nasal passages, urinary tract/bladder, or kidneys PLEASE STOP only 1 or 2 more uses of K could damage your body/organs FOR LIFE.
• Get help, move away from "the scene", get new hobbies. new friends ANYTHING to avoid doing internal damage to body and brain.

Watch out for this one folks, it's sure to get worse before it gets better.

Experience in the Face of Impermanence.

This powerful clip from Blade Runner begs the question, does human experience really mean much in the face of impermanence?

If all the universe will one day be sucked into a black hole will even the grand achievements in humanity's future amount to anything in the mind of eternity?

All we really have is the power of infinity within the present moment.  Experience shared between peoples, even if it doesn't last, holds something tangible that exists in stark contrast to the endless emptiness of time.

The Dual-Edged Sword of Cannabis Use

Cannabis is becoming more and more normal to talk about and use these days.  It's legalization is a hot topic on TV and potheads nationwide are becoming more and more vocal on the widely published benefits of its use.

Since this kind of talk is so prevalent I won't go into it here, but rather, will be relating a few subjective aspects of cannabis use I noticed from when I was an all day everyday user.

Cannabis use makes even the most mundane tasks enjoyable, or atleast, bearable.  Pulling weeds, taking out the trash, doing dishes, working at a call-center, etc...all become more enjoyable after a few puffs of the pot.  It seems to help one notice the "fun" or interesting aspects of any activity by giving one interesting thoughts that stem from, but, may not be even closely related to the activity.  This non-linear thinking is enjoyable and intellectually stimulating, as many a pothead who had a million dollar idea while doing laundry will tell you.

While it makes these activities more enjoyable through the addition of the [more than usual] non-linear thoughts, this aspect of the high also takes one out of the moment and into the mind.  Which is surely OK to do once in awhile, but, when it occurs constantly, it can cause problems.  The self begins to retreat into an escape within the mind and away from reality, as this happens reality becomes more dreamlike, and a sort of low-level disassociation from life occurs.  One begins chasing thoughts rather than life.  Although some choose to live in this state, once one has left it for a period it is easier to see it as the escape it is.

The other detrimental aspect of constant weed smoking is, that it makes one complacent with where they are in life.  If someone is living at their parent's house or has a dead-end job this feels OK as long as one is high.  Feeling of, "Just go with it." or "Don't make waves." come to mind and one becomes satisfied with what is, rather than striving for something higher.  I and many other potheads believe this is some kind of enlightenment and that being free of the desire to achieve anything makes one "higher" spiritually.  Feelings of disgust at those stuck in "the achievement trip" or "ego trip" may arise and one distances themselves from those who have goals or visions of the future.  Soon one is surrounded by those "holy" folk who live only for the present and have no relations with a future.

What one finds after one chooses to, or is forced to leave the pothead world, is that achievements and goals is what makes life worth living.  One needn't strive after buying sports cars or becoming a CEO[material trips], but, finding what we desire, striving after it, and achieving is one of the most rewarding parts of life.  One can decide to build their body up to a picture of health, create art, travel the world, meet new people...etc.

Although I have met people who cannabis did not slow down from engaging reality or achieving goals, me and most other heavy users I knew had these two problems, stemming from cannabis use, that really slowed their life down.

Cannabis used more sparingly can become an ally but one must watch out for these warning signs of cannabis taking away from the rest of life.

Try to find your sweet spot.

Great App for Watching What You Eat

Cronometer

This app helps track calories and nutrition and is easy to use and tailor to your specific diet.

I'm Baaaaack

Well I'm back and better than ever.  Don't worry untold millions of readers I have returned.

TAT Foundation for Solitary Spiritual Retreats

Sometimes it is necessary to leave society for a time in order to go deeper into the self and experience being.  When I experienced solitude it definitely changed me, for the better.

This website has resources for those on the spiritual search and lists of retreats or hermitages for those solitary seekers.

Solitary Retreat Centers in North America

The TAT Foundation

The 8 Circuit Model of Consciousness

This is a favorite mental map of mine.  This page has ALOT about it. But remember,
"The map is not the territory." and,
"The menu is not the meal."

The 8 Circuit Brain and Consciousness Model

A Conversation on LSD

Timothy Leary has a bunch of counter-culture folk over to discuss LSD.

A Video on Avoiding the Pitfalls of Fear and Conspiracy Theory

Video made by a friend.  Generating conspiracy theories and fear gives MORE power to the elites...

Some More Dr. Shulgin

Awesome website with list of questions, and answers, to Dr. Shulgin on various topics.
Ask Doctor Shulgin

We Die to Remember What We Live to Forget

Awesome article on Nietzsche, death and rebirth, and tripping, check it out.

We Die to Remember What We Live to Forget

The Failed War on Drugs

The War on Drugs has cost us billions of dollars.  Many lives have been ruined.  Little, if any, good comes from this policy towards psychotropic substances.

My man Graham Hancock says it very well on his website.  Calling it, " The War on Consciousness".

Graham Hancock's The War on Consciousness

Culture in Decline (Video)

Cool Video by creator of Zeitgeist films, Peter Joseph

Has alot of poignant points.  I thought the bit about wants being engineered into desires to serve advertising and consumption was really interesting and obvious once one thinks about history.

It was the third in the series here are the first two.

Culture in Decline Episode 1

Culture in Decline Episode 2

Parental Resistance to Transcendance

When a child leaves the home for the first time they truly begin to know how the relate to the world as a whole, rather than, their nuclear family.  This is an intense and defining experience.

As a child grows they come to eventually see their parents as real people with all their faults and shortcomings.  This supplants their childhood view of their parents as the omnipotent big people who know how to do things.

Finding out your parents have faults is a large turning point in any child's life.  At this point children may begin to define themselves in opposition to their parents.  They wish to not embody the bad character traits that their parents make evident.

When a child returns from their first extended sojourn into the world. (extended job, military, college, etc.)  They may find that they have transcended much of the neuroticisms that their parents imparted on them.  Being away from their parents for this extended period of time has made their own adoption of their parental attitudes clear and reminds them that, as children, they wished to transcend what they saw wrong in their parents' behavior.

When they return home, the former children, now individuals, may attempt to change their parents' behavior with their newfound knowledge and world experience.  This is almost ALWAYS met with resistance from the parents.

Parents are not about to let the people they raised tell them how to change their lives, even for the better.  The ego resistance to advice from children is highly evident and is detrimental to the parents.  Because who knows their faults, and how to fix them, better than their own children.

If only parents could swallow their pride and see that their children can help them transcend themselves through the insight they have gained through being raised by them.

The Pain of Separation and Duality

When one is involved in a spiritual practice, such as: hallucinogens, meditation, yoga, tantra, etc.  One will come to a difficult point in their practice where they begin to see wrong throughout all aspects of their normal life.

One may have trouble relating to friends, parents, teachers, romantic partners or neighbors.  It may feel like all of these people are against one's self and are hindering one from progressing spiritually.

One may find fault in their daily routine such as their job or usual pleasurable habits.

The desire to "renounce the world" and go practice in seclusion may begin to enter one's mind.

This part of the spiritual path is often referred to as, "The Dark Night of the Soul."  It can be a dark time indeed and can truly feel like all is wrong in one's life.  One may question their whole spiritual practice, as they believed spiritual practice would help them feel, "good".  At this point one may feel anything but good.

The thing to do when one hits this wall is not to cut-off contact with all personal relationships, quit their job, or renounce the world.  But, rather, realize that the pain one is experiencing stems from their inner-realization of separateness and duality within their experience of reality.

One is actually just realizing how painful the false duality we impose on reality is, but, the mind tries to blame this intense feeling on aspects of our daily life.

The only remedy for this is trudge through the pain, not make any hasty decisions or lash out at others, but, to continue practicing and see through the false duality binding us to a world of pain.

KEEP PRACTICING and you will come out the other side.

Culture as an Enabler

Cultures of all kinds enable us to do different things we would be unable to accomplish through our own personal will and physical ability.

The !Kung, of the Kalahari desert in Africa, tribe's culture enables human being to live and thrive in the harsh environment of the Kalahari.  A single human being would have a much harder time scratching out an existence in that environment than the millennia tested and tribally supported !Kung culture.

Cultures, (or sub-cultures), don't have to be beneficial though; there are numerous examples of cultures that permit their members to partake in things that are painful or dangerous to the individual.  A crack-house is a good example.  All the members in a crack-house form up a specific sub-culture, based on, obtaining, dealing, and using crack cocaine.  The users in the house have their desire for crack enabled and put on a pedestal within their own sub-culture.  In a sub-culture like this, even a distracting and life-draining habit like crack is accepted and made as the norm.  Humanity's herd mentality need not always be used beneficially...

On a lesser degree of destructiveness individually, but, more so, globally, Western consumerist culture enables people to feel accepted working 40+ hours a week in order to purchase lots of goods and services that they don't really need.  People accept 5+ hours of mind-numbing TV as normal and wonder little about the effect advertising is having on their life.  These people's workaholism and product fetishism is accepted as the norm even though working most jobs provides little good for the individual or society other than enabling them to partake in being an avid consumer.  

Although the crackhead culture enables individuals to harm themselves; consumer culture enables individuals to piddle their life away in trivial pursuits, while, focusing on distractions or apathy towards the damage their culture is causing to Earth and its biosphere.

Big Ol' Page on Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin

Alexander Shulgin creator of thousands of psychedelic compounds which he compiled in his opuses, PiKHal and TikHAL, is an interesting man to say the least.  He also rediscovered MDMA and popularized its use for psychotherapy leading to it later becoming a popular club drug.  He was truly a visionary and an evolutionary agent for our species.

                                                           young Shulgin in the lab

I have personally tried a few of his novel psychedelic compounds and they are unbelievable to say the least.  It is amazing to think that a man created these substances on purpose. My personal favorites...

4-ACO-DMT
-Similar to psilocybin mushrooms with alot of personal insight and pure absurd fun.  Has a 3 hour peak compared to mushrooms' almost instantaneous peak.  Visuals reminiscent of DMT.

2-CE
-UNBELIEVABLY visual.  The sky was a morphing visualizer, my posters came off the walls and conversed with me, I could see individual bugs upon all the individual blades of grass in my lawn, with eyes closed felt like I was riding a train through alien beings' living rooms, they were not pleased.  Also with eyes closed felt like I was experiencing periods of evolution from the past.(becoming a slug, gorilla, etc.)  Has to be experienced to be understood, changed my life.

Here are some collections of interviews with Sasha Shulgin and sometimes, his wife Anne, on a range of topics.

Shulgin 1995 in LA Times on Psychedelics, Government Interference and his life

Vice Magazine visits Aging Shulgin's House, listens to him Rant

Shulgin, YouTube, "Why I Discover Psychedelic Substances"

and my personal favorite...

Terence McKenna and Sasha Shulgin walk and Converse

MMMMM.....new psychedelics

Who cares how you're doing

In modern America, a popular greeting in business, pleasure, or home life is: "How [are] you doing?"

99% of people will respond "Good. You?"

That other 1% of responses is usually someone telling you that their car broke down, they just got diagnosed with cancer, lost their job, or they're having a psychotic break and telling you the Reptilians have arrived.

So...one usually hopes to just hear, "Good".  No person you're having a formal greeting with at work, while paying for services, or at a club/bar really wants to hear about your personal trials and tribulations.  This greeting has become a sort of vestigial formality from small-town periods when everyone really wanted to know what the rest of their neighbors were up to.

It kind of strikes me as weird in today's fast paced techno-urban society.  People usually just mumble it quickly and continue with their business.  What other humanistic formalities still exist that don't make sense in modernity?

Presidential Accountability

Here's an idea, what if our leaders lives where in our hands just like we put our lives in their hands?  The president makes decisions that effect everyone for better or worse and we think he feels responsible through the gravity of his position but, what if he was held accountable for his actions through regular, "votes of confidence" from the population.

People could vote to punish him in small ways such as taking away his vacation or through mitigating a portion of his power that he had mis-used.  A president that makes a bad foreign policy decision could have his ability to make calls on policy either taken away, or, voted on piecemeal by the population during every decision.

President could have their personal lives watched if they abuse their power ( like Clinton).  Why not? They watch and record all of our lives through surveillance, so, why shouldn't the man at the head of this governing body be highly surveyed as well.

The president needs to feel that there will be penalties for wrong decisions or mis-use of power.  President Bush was a gross example of a man who abused his power and got away with murder.(and more)