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Contents:

• Article: Hidden and Rejected Knowledge: Frithjof Schuon, Perennialism and the Philosophia Perennis (Tim Earney)
• My Critique and Review of Earney’s Article
• My Email Questions to Hanegraaff

Article: Hidden and Rejected Knowledge: Frithjof Schuon, Perennialism and the Philosophia Perennis (Tim Earney)

Hidden and Rejected Knowledge: Frithjof Schuon, Perennialism and the Philosophia Perennis
Tim Earney
2014
10K words; ~22 pages
https://www.academia.edu/8518930/Hidden_and_Rejected_Knowledge_Frithjof_Schuon_Perennialism_and_the_Philosophia_Perennis

My Critique and Review of Earney’s Article

Tim Earney’s article is a rejoinder to Hanegraaff’s hobbyhorse, of disparaging and rejecting the study of Perennialism, or at least rejecting Perennialism as an academic method in the study of the history of esotericism. Hanegraaff is forever trying to engineer a distinction between his scientific study of Western Esotericism, vs. those bad, religious-experiencing-based “religionists” such as Eranos and Schuon.

The main error throughout the history of the debate and still ruining this article, is the misrepresentation and false dichotomy, of “Greek rational philosophy/ Reason, sense perception” vs. “Christian spiritual faith, revelation”, both groupings which seem blind to intense mystic-state experiencing, including rationality and model-revision within such experiential state. The article contains the idea of mystic experiencing, but the debates are mainly expressed in off-base terms of “reason vs. faith”, as unhelpfully as possible.

Hanegraaff intensively works to divide the approach to the study of esotericism into two exclusive camps, rejecting, ignoring, and discouraging study of the Eranos-type popular scholars of esotericism.

It is ironic, this article points out: Hanegraaff tries to get academia to re-embrace “rejected knowledge”, and yet, Hanegraaff spills half his ink trying to discredit and reject the “religionist” approach and their writings, as non-scientific, non-academic.

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The Egodeath theory is a new, modern, scientific, explicit, fully successful explanatory model of archaic wisdom and the intense mystic altered state, which the ancients had ready access to, on-tap, in mixed wine mushroom wine.

The Egodeath theory is a superior New Theory; a modern, far more effective description and explanation of the same experiential knowledge as greatest antiquity, knowledge which was previously only presented by a relatively ineffective Old Theory.

The intensity of myth indicates that Mystery Religion was experientially effective, but there was no real explanatory framework to solve the mystery of Mystery Religion, until the Egodeath theory around 1988, 2006, and 2013.

1988: My first drafts of the Egodeath Core theory, the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence. Myth was only present as hooks for future development. Published in 12-point summary form in 1997 as a pair of comments at the Principia Cybernetica website.

2006: My main summary article at the Egodeath site, including religious mythology. Slightly reworded in 2007 to enable reading aloud.

2013: My discovery of the ultra-condensed archaic expression of wisdom:
tree vs. snake = Possibilism vs. Eternalism

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There are fallacies and false dichotomies, presuppositions:
“The intense mystic altered state is irrational.”
“Science is opposed to religion.”
“Science cannot study or observe religious experiential phenomena.”
“There’s no reproducibility of religious altered state experiential phenomena.”
“Religious experiencing is private, and in no way publically demonstrable or shareable.”

First I developed the Egodeath Core theory, without any religious mythology, during 1985-1997. Then, distinctly, after that, during 1998-2014 and beyond, I extended the Egodeath theory both to explain religious mythology, and to corroborate the Egodeath theory by the reports within religious mythology.

The two halves of the Egodeath theory (Core vs. Myth) co-support each other, corroborating each other. The fact that myth can be explained by the Egodeath Core theory, is evidence in support of the Egodeath theory. The fact that religious mythology agrees with the Egodeath theory, confirms both myth and the Egodeath theory.

The Egodeath theory does not depend on myth, and did not come from myth, but came from a modern Engineering and Science mindset, the original basis from which the Egodeath theory subsequently went on to explain myth and be justified by myth.

The original motivation and concern of developing the Egodeath theory (1985-1988) was not to explain myth, but to gain coherent personal control over time, drawing selectively from writings about metaphysical enlightenment, as well as Cognitive Science. For example, Alan Watts: The Way of Zen; Ken Wilber’s early books; and Marvin Minsky: The Society of Mind.

I drew from such material about metaphysical enlightenment when initially forming the Egodeath theory (October 1985-December 1987), but with an attitude of modern disdain about the efficacy and precision of expression in the extant books and articles. These were the Old Theory to be superseded and retired as a failed theory, or rather a jumbled less-than-theory, that failed to provide the expected understanding of coherent personal control across time.

In April 1987, I wiped the notebooks clean and created a fresh start, back to basics, and created a distinctive recognizable new basis with concepts (and “trademark” acronyms) such as Loose Cognitive Association Matrixes.

The Egodeath theory is a modern, scientific, explicit, systematic, summarizable explanatory theory. For example:

tree vs. snake = Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Religious mythology describes psychedelics causing loose cognitive association, transforming the experiential mental model from the branching, autonomous to the non-branching, dependent model of time and control.

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Ken Wilber’s first two essays in the book Eye to Eye (1983) disprove the false dichotomy, the incorrect notion that “observation” only applies to material science. I read this book around 1988. In the 2001 3rd Edition Preface, Wilber writes (condensed), in two fully quotable paragraphs:

“The first essay, “Eye to Eye” is still one of my favorite essays; the points it makes are more crucial than ever, since the orthodox mind, still embedded in scientific materialism, is deft to higher or deeper truths.”

“The essay “The Problem of Proof” presents a full-spectrum empiricism: sensory, mental, and spiritual experience, all of which are equally experiential and can be validated, with evidence that is open to confirmation or rejection by the community.”

Eye to Eye: The Quest for the New Paradigm
Ken Wilber
3rd Ed. (with new Preface)
https://amzn.com/157062741X

My Email Questions to Hanegraaff

From my email to Hanegraaff:

Clarifying what Religionism is, given that you want to make Religion (including scholarly research of the history of Esotericism) relevant, appealing, and front and center in the Humanities

I’ve found it difficult to understand what you mean by ‘Religionism’, after reading many pages about it.  

My own approach was first not esoteric, but an Engineering, Science, Cognitive Science approach. 

Only after I formed my core theory of ego transcendence in the altered state, did I investigate Esotericism and religious mythology.  

I know a lot now about ego death and Esotericism, yet, I’m not entirely sure of your distinction between a good scientific empirical approach to studying the history of Esotericism, vs. a Religionist approach.  

Are you forbidding students and other scholars of the history of Esotericism from having religious experiencing, or being fully interested in first-hand, intense, transformative, esoteric religious experiencing?

That doesn’t sound like a way to appeal to students, at all, which you are trying to do, to frame Religion as the centrally important topic in the Humanities.

How can an Empiricist (rather than Religionist) approach to Esotericism historical scholarship, possibly help and contribute to, the personal, first-hand, esoteric, higher-than-exoteric, intense religious experiencing of students?  

Youths and maidens desire and are innately drawn to intense Mystery Religion initiation; the classic, full-on, self-transcendence experience.  

It sounds like that desire, that draw, is thwarted, if Religionism is to be avoided like the plague, when doing historical scholarship, using the scientific, objective, Empirical approach.  

How can a student be motivated to study Esotericism, how can that be at all appealing, if the rule is, all Religionism must be totally avoided?  

It sounds like a contradiction.  

You are trying hard to promote Esotericism study, and yet you seem to assert that Religionism (whatever that means), must not be allowed or permitted, as a factor that motivates and spurs-on students in their eagerness (as you want them to have) to do research and scholarship in the history of Esotericism.

You are trying to advocate Western Esotericism and Religion studies as the most important and central topic of all, yet I don’t think you have written a simple, clear explanation of the difference between the Empirical vs. Religionist approaches, that is appealing, for a popular audience.  

I’d expect a popular audience to reject a boring, sterile, reductionist, too-straight-laced, experience-forbidding approach, called “the Empiricist approach to the study of Esotericism & Religion.” 

It sounds dull and inhumanly narrow; reductionist — it appears that all the excitement and motivating appeal is in the forbidden approach, Religionism.

I’d expect students to be much more attracted to what you disparage and reject, and demonize, as “the Religionist method” (read: the cool, fun, interesting, forbidden approach — don’t let Professor Hanegraaff catch you; you could get kicked out of the programme!  Be sure to keep it on the down-low — Professor No-Fun is strictly anti-initiation!

The subject of Empirical vs. Religionist method in scholarship of the history of Esotericism is crucial for you, so maybe you’ve written a popular introductory article on it, in the style of the book:

Hermes Explains: Thirty Questions about Western Esotericism
Marco Pasi (Editor), Peter Forshaw (Editor), Wouter Hanegraaff (Editor)
http://amzn.com/9463720200
July 2, 2019

One article of yours that I read recently, seemed like it had an incidental definition of ‘religionism’ that finally clarified what you mean.  I think your idea is probably simple enough, but is expressed unclearly.

(I’m trying to recall which article, has a surprisingly clear, succinct summary of Empirical vs. Religionist methods, though that wasn’t a focus of the article.)

Maybe I’ll check: 
“For an early programmatic statement on empirical versus religionist and reductionist method in relation to esotericism, see Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “Empirical Method in the Study of Esotericism,” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 7, no. 2 (1995): 99–129.

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Does the book The Immortality Key say the ancients used low doses?

How does he justify using low doses now, when the ancients report extreme experiences (through text and images) – mania, panic, madness, ecstasy, storms, possession, exorcism, angels threatening death, desperate prayer for miraculous rescue, the ruler turned to stone, and heroic epic battles with dragon/snake monsters?

To see the divine is to experience intense death, they report. Some of this describes the reported experiencing in the Mysteries of Eleusis.

Too much of the 20x watered-down mixed wine would make you insane and kill you (per some accounts), if not spiritually completely regenerate you.

How does the author defend this disparity and contradiction in dosage levels?

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The explicit modern scientific theory of Egodeath explains mythology without depending on mythology for its explanatory power.

With the Egodeath theory in hand, laid out efficiently on a silver platter, the minimum possible dosage levels are needed (mild-to-moderate), to successfully drive the experiencing of mental model transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism.

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The modern music which best describes loose cognitive experiencing is intense: Psychedelic Rock, Heavy Metal, or Acid-Inspired Rock.

The word ‘psychedelic’ has been domesticated and defanged, like 1-time microdosing in a government clinic, fed a bureaucrat’s weekend-retreat shallow platitude religion, gatekeeping, neither entering into the gated garden of God the creator, nor allowing their victims to enter in.

The hapless “patient”, the mark, the victim, the patsy, is given a flimsy, accursed beginners’ version of religion, that will collapse into paralysis the moment the real spirit of the sacrament reveals its power, yet-to-be resolved, with no help from the clinic of ignorance and folly other than cliche catch-words: ‘spiritual oneness’, ‘nonduality’.

Inflated Claims of Results, Inadequate Qualifications

This gross inadequacy of the clinicians’ syllabus for directing “patients” doesn’t prevent such clinics of folly from bragging about providing ultimate revelation and peak experience; “delivering profound mystical experience”, a method that “maximizes spiritual breakthrough”, their scientists having already done “what the Greek and Christian Mysteries were never able to accomplish in antiquity”.

Those are grand claims. Can they stand up to scrutiny in the face of being tested and overpowered by the Holy Spirit? I’ve already made fools of empty bragging Meditation hucksters, who promise the world and never deliver any enlightenment to anyone, and then when caught out, deny that they claimed anything more for ‘enlightenment’ than a mere relaxation technique (and why must I be such a naysayer and de-legitimate popular spirituality?)

There’s an argumentation fallacy, of covertly and inconsistently moving from a position that’s near-impossible to defend, to a position that’s unimpressively modest and easily defensible, while pretending you didn’t change your position.

What are these clinics claiming? One moment it’s all about safety-first, low doses for mundane treatments, and the next, it’s about the peak revelation of ultimate profound experiencing, better than Isis and her mystery religion. I can’t bear to watch her fury.

“Today’s scientists have now solved the critical flaws of the religion with no name: safety, reliability, and scalability.
“Delivering a profound mystical experience
in the most cautious [safe] way possible,
as effectively [reliably] as possible,
to the most number of people possible.
“The technology is all there: a safe, pharmaceutical-grade hallucinogen and a finely-tuned protocol that maximizes spiritual breakthrough while minimising risk.
— Muraresku, The Key of Immortality

Don’t let Muraresku get away with weasely evasive language in his claims, for him to play games with moving the goalpost claims. Demand precision commensurate with his grand-sounding claims.

Pin him down: What exactly are you claiming to provide, to what extent? In what exact ways are you claiming to be better, with “more efficacy”, than Mystery Religions?

“Maximizes breakthrough while” is a Wasson-like mealy-mouthed evasive construct, a shield to provide plausible deniability, to allow covertly moving the goalpost. “I only claimed that I’d deliver as much breakthrough as safety permits” vs. “I provide maximum breakthrough”.

“A profound experience” and “reliable” are also vague, evasive, deceitful, manipulative word-constructions. I provide a profound mystic experience, and my methods are more safe and reliable than Mystery Religion — ok, but are you specifically making the claim that you provide as much or more breakthrough than Mystery Religion did?

Brushing aside the legal analysis of Muraresku’s individual claim-words, clearly Muraresku is asserting the general superiority of his system over Mystery Religion: he praises the “psychopharmacologists and clinical psychiatrists at Hopkins and NYU” for “somehow doing what the Greek and Christian Mysteries were never able to accomplish in antiquity.” Accursed hubris.

Muraresku’s 3 goals are correct, if considered as goals — but in his asking for money, he proudly claims that “today’s scientists have now solved the flaws of [mystical and therapeutic] religion”, having already developed a scientific way, superior to the pre-moderns, to routinely simultaneously provide everyone with both of two opposed criteria: cautious safe; and “a”(?) profound mystical spiritual breakthrough.

Ah that little weasley “a” wildcard. Let Muraresku try to get away with instead writing: “Delivering THE profound mystical experience”. He can’t do it, not with a couple low-dose sessions and lacking the Egodeath theory. That key aspect of his underspecified braggadocio, he loses and cannot claim.

He cannot claim that his method provides THE profound mystical experience and FULL maximizing of spiritual breakthrough BETTER than Mystery Religion (not even as well as, not by a long shot).

I cannot claim that the Egodeath theory is safe; for safety, there’s no firm foundation but God’s will. Muraresku’s goal is sensible as a goal, but as an accomplished goal, such a claim requires qualification; circumscription.

It’s also a hope, an aspiration, an objective, a research area of investigation. Hardly a settled scientific accomplishment.

They have defined some safety protocols. But they do not yet know how to engage and reconcile the worldline dragon of pre-set non-control which guards this fruit that they claim to already have snatched from the ancients and their gods.

They crown themselves with the laurel wreath prematurely. They not only greatly overestimate their progress through the game, they claim to have completed the game, which the ancients did not complete:

Muraresku praises the “psychopharmacologists and clinical psychiatrists at Hopkins and NYU” as having already done “what the Greek and Christian Mysteries were never able to accomplish in antiquity.”
– Muraresku, The Immortality Key, p. 387

Being a modern explicit systematic non-metaphor-based theory, the Egodeath theory represents a certain kind of advance over the pre-modern expression of Transcendent Knowledge.

The efficacy and safety of the Egodeath theory is comparable to, and is joinable with, Mystery Religion.

The efficacy and safety of the professional clinicians fails to be comparable to Mystery Religion, and God-mode thinking will be upset at the trespassing and affront, the filth of sin that these unregenerate, unbaked clinicians and their newbie patients bring into the sacred realm of loose cognitive experiencing, so long as they lack Transcendent Knowledge per the Egodeath theory.

The problems of efficacy and safety are interconnected. Suppose we omit the requirement for safety and low dosage. Even then, the efficacy won’t be achieved, regardless of safety or dosage, unless the Egodeath theory is present; Transcendent Knowledge.

Summarizing the professional therapists’ solution to the unresolved, suppressed problem of “The Shadow”:
o  Lower the dosage.
o  Restrict the number of sessions.
o  Prevent access to the altered state.
o  Increase the percentage of positive spiritual catchphrases.

That will, as they say, “maximize breakthrough while staying safe” and provide, once, “a profound experience”.  Mystery Religion btfo’d!

That sounds like Wilber’s book The Atman Project: provide a substitute that will prevent transcendence.  Seek transcendence in ways that prevent it. 

They could do the Stan Grof move of switching to hyperventilation, while retaining the loftiest claims.

The therapists are taking on a truly difficult tradeoff, an inherent tension between safety vs. effectiveness at delivering breakthrough regeneration.  It is the highest claim in the world, that your scientists have already solved this difficult problem, this inherent conflict.  If you err too much on safety-first, no major breakthrough occurs.

A big variable is whether they have the Egodeath theory in hand: you can first in the ordinary tight cognitive binding state, intellectually (not yet experientially) learn about the dangers (the dragon worldline non-control experience) and the established successful responses (prayer for trust, and acknowledging dependent control).

“The technology is all there” in the Egodeath theory’s modern scientific explicit presentation of Transcendent Knowledge.

The “finely-tuned protocol” is to look for the experience of time and control as Eternalism and test and feel control-power within that experiential mode.

Ultimate Spiritual Truth is experiencing that God is the author and pre-creator of everyone’s thoughts. People should help people experience that. But a dry-well clinic with authorities who have little authority and who restrict access to others is a poor attempted approach, given the sometimes magnitude of the claims.

Anyone who comes away from this authorized clinic with a low-dose beginner’s experience, if lacking the Egodeath theory, will be completely unequipped to engage the dragon of block-universe worldline pre-existence, non-control, profound conscious dependence, cybernetic death, and transcendent reset from outside the system of personal control.

So ill-equipped, the person will be ejected in terror, from a genuine engagement with the real, intense loose cognitive state, having only experienced guaranteed-safe low doses that deliver only a preliminary feeling of oneness and unity with God, guided by vague catch-phrases about nonduality, that when tested against a real, repeated immersion, prove to be no defense against “the shadow“.

The result is the feeling of a greatest treasure of gnosis remaining out of reach, guarded and blocked by the danger of the guarding dragon, the person shut out from the garden by the angel of death with flaming sword.

How to reliably obtain peak breakthrough (as they claim), cautiously and safely (as they claim) — that is the delicate issue which they claim that their scientists have already solved, without the Egodeath theory — and solved better than ancient Mystery Religion ever accomplished.

But these scientists do not have understanding of Mystery Religion and its danger and its trembling regenerative prayer through which personal control is reconfigured and restored. They do not know how to give birth, only how to do foreplay.

The bureaucratic clinicians’ method is accursed, not blessed from on high: if they are equipped only with their scientists’ accomplishments to date (claimed to be already complete, and more effective than Antiquity, and safer), they will fail to deliver gnosis and mental model transformation from Possibilism to Eternalism, regardless of whether their protocol is cautiously safe and low-dose.

See also my posting about The Psychedelics Integration Handbook.
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/08/the-psychedelics-integration-handbook/

______________

The patient is barely toasted, rather than having fully burned away the offensive-to-God, incoherent, mortal, transient, volatile dirt of sin.

The microdose produces micro-spirit micro-transformation and leaves the “patient” unequipped for actual reckoning with the threatening dragon, the encounter with the angel of death.

The shadow bedeviling the clinic, kept at bay by keeping the overpowering spirit at bay, is the dread spacetime worm, the block-universe worldline dragon which threatens to test, subvert, and insurrect the power of self-control – loss of the sense of autonomous self-control, a fearsome and tremulous cybernetic death of the controller, the king, the steersman, the helmsman, the chariot driver, the ship pilot.

________________

The word ‘acid’ retains its taboo-charged, too-intense character. Could one ever say “Use acid in moderation”? Real religion, not ersatz spirituality schemed by committee, has such inherent intensity: could one ever say “Be slain in the spirit in moderation”? Could one ever say “Fall down before the angel of death in moderation”?

The very term exudes Dionysian aweful overpowering and transcendent religious Panic.

Intense Loosecog Rock uses analogies describing the loose cognitive state changing the experiential mental model of time and control from the Possibilism to the Eternalism model; from the branching-possibilities tree model of time, control, and possibility, to the monocoursal pre-set, frozen snake-shaped worldline of personal thoughts, frozen into the spacetime rock, the rock tomb of birth into new life, as if to shift the axis of the fate-ruled sphere of the fixed stars.

Intense Loosecog Rock focuses on describing the experiences and perspectival insights of the loose cognitive state, describing and prodding and suggesting by descriptive analogies, the altered-state loose cognition experiences of self-control Cybernetics and non-control; and of block universe frozen-time Eternalism/pre-determinism with the snake-shaped pre-existing worldline of the person’s thought and control.

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Some people advocate no-free-will, such as Sam Harris and hyper-Calvinists. Many people seem highly averse and close-minded to no-free-will.

Every person is dead-set against no-free-will, recoiling like a demon seeing a crucifix (the disempowered king fastened to the de-branched possibilities-tree). Every self-respecting moral person must reject any such theory of religion. It is anathema, a horrific idea, that completely flies in the face of all that we are, as control agents.

Embracing the idea of no-free-will would completely destroy our model of time and control and moral culpability. It is unthinkable and must not, cannot be allowed.

It is theologically offensive, denying duality of God and Satan, denying two powers in heaven, blaming God for all creatures’ thoughts and actions, as if he is master of puppets, king over kings, control agent controlling the control agents. As if God is the creator of all of Satan’s thoughts.

Arminian/Pelagian Calvinism is acceptable to the confused, animal-like mind, but not such hyper- hyper-Calvinism, which is the most frightening and horrific thought, an offensive nightmare of a theology.

Satan: The Early Christian Tradition
Jeffrey Russell, 1987
If I recall, this is the book that covers the problem of dualism of God and Satan excellently, clearly, and profoundly, even though that’s not evident at a glance.

See also my page: The Psychedelics Integration Handbook
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/08/the-psychedelics-integration-handbook/

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Muraresku, The Immortality Key, subordinates psychedelics in religious history to modern therapy/science/medical paradigm

I do not give approval of treatment centers and policies coming from such books and articles as The Immortality Key. The authors don’t even know Transcendent Knowledge, and even if they did, such authors and policy makers can only be trusted to do ill. It would be the blind (and possibly malevolent) leading the blind.

This issue is a dispute between Oregon Measure 109: Psilocybin Services Act (could be called the “authoritarian regulation” camp) vs. both Oregon Measure 110: Decriminalization and Drug Treatment Initiative and Decriminalize Nature (could be called the “egalitarian liberty” camp). See the 2nd half of this blog post.

In that dispute, I incline toward “Decriminalization” (actually, the full Repeal of Prohibition), not top-down “Services”. I have to disapprove of the proposal coming from such authors as Muraresku. The devil’s in the details, and the devil is proposing this top-down modern therapy approach.

I reject the proposed “therapy centers” approach, not because it is necessarily bad, but because I have to assume ill intent coming from such authors and publishers, and because of their lack of a defense against such an institution being co-opted.

Books on this topic have to be critically analyzed with a “hermeneutics of suspicion” (an understatement) like the above blog post does.

A system of training must come from the people, not from those with the ambition of ruling over people and turning enlightenment into a profit scheme to build a kingdom with them in charge.

Any “regulation” can be done in such a way as to free and empower people, or to trap and limit people. It’s possible to take a good thing (such as informing, training, guiding and healing people), and twist and corrupt it so as to oppress people.

How is power distributed: centralized exclusively to a ruling class, or distributed to everyone? Is therapy constructed as a dead-end trap to disempower people?

I cannot approve of an approach that can be so abused. I dare not approve some alien party’s “therapy centers” – that arrangement is too easy for the originators or for others later to abuse, too easy to transfer power from everyone into the hands of the few.

Any component of Transcendent Knowledge can be used to manipulate or liberate the populace:
o Analogy/metaphor
o Loose cognition/psychedelics
o Cybernetic non-control
o Block-universe eternalism with frozen pre-created worldlines.

A community needs a way to inform, train, and shape people so as to empower and free them to banquet, to drink in a poetic religious party, to bury and worship in meal-communion with the dead.

The training and educating approach should come from the people, not from those whose goal is to rule over others or to undermine healthy values so as to disempower people and take advantage of them.

____________

Antiquity used the metaphor (among other metaphors) of “switching from Possibilism to Eternalism in the altered state is like healing”.

Jesus the healer, or curer; Aesclepius the healer with snake wrapped around debranched tree.

Healed of sin and bodily sickness and mental illness; the agitating demon exorcised from the youth by Jesus.

Everything is like everything else, in antiquity’s extreme play of metaphors. This extreme metaphor play continued throughout Western Esotericism.

I wonder when the ineptly drawn modern symbol of “staff of Aesclepius” was created, where the debranched tree trunk becomes an upside-down baseball bat (that is, wider at the top than bottom, which contradicts a meaningful tree trunk). It is common on ambulances; an instance of mythological symbols carried into the late-modern era.

The staff of Mercury with two snakes represents the mercantile aspect of medicine, going some centuries back. The staff of Mercury, representing the message carried by the messenger, looked different in its earliest, archaic Greek form. It was longer and the snakes smaller.

_____________

Mystery-religion initiation was regulated and guided by the community and society. There were the Little Mysteries in preparation for the Great Mystery of Eleusis, for example.

To participate in the symposium “drinking clubs”, or “banqueting clubs”, some kind of qualification, certification, or training was required. Youths were normally to be sheltered from and kept from full mystic-state experiencing, until ready for full initiation into the Mysteries.

After official societally regulated accreditation through formal initiation, initiated adults were permitted membership in symposium “banqueting clubs”, and were allowed entry into other brands of Mystery Cult initiation and subsequent regular recurring “meal” participation, including in Ruler Cult.

Today’s academic symposiums have security officers to throw out unruly academics who have visited the wine counter too much.

In Antiquity, symposium drinking parties with qualified, initiated recliners-at-banquet, nevertheless required “horses” or “centaurs”, like Chiron — bouncers, to throw out out-of-control drinkers of mixed wine (such as mushroom wine).

This shows that even the ancient masters of the altered state routinely had to deal with mayhem or control-instability, of one sort of another, in their entheogenic gatherings.

My favorite person in the Good Friday experiment was suppressed in the narratives, but someone such as Rick Doblin exposed the details in a much later follow-up investigation article. A participant escaped and told a minister about a vision of revolutionary peace.

This emphasis on a kind of danger, is not a call for authoritarian repression or centralized top-down power over a disempowered populace. It’s a call to accurately represent the dynamics of initiation in the loose cognitive state, against the hubristic, overconfident book The Immortality Key.

The book Pharmakon provides some insight into contentions and political class battles, including “corrupting the youths” by unauthorized celebration of the Mysteries. The book is surprising because it is not simply positive about mixed wine in Antiquity, but addresses contentions involving how the revealing and banqueting at “drinking parties” were used, for what ends, by whom.

Society in some way regulated Mystery Religions, mixed wine (such as mshroom wine) and the “banqueting/drinking/ burial clubs”.

_____________________

Fully repeal Prohibition, particularly of entheogens; cognitive loosening agents.
Provide everyone information about Transcendent Knowledge per the Egodeath theory.
Any “therapy” must be within that situation.

__________________________________

Article: The Psychedelic Revolution is Coming to the Ballot Box

Update: November 3, 2020: These 3 measures appear to have passed. See Oregon 109, 110, DC 81 passed.

https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/oct/13/psychedelic_revolution_coming October 13, 2020 — Below are condensed excerpts with [comments].

Outline of measures & groups:

Oregon:
o Oregon Measure 109: Psilocybin Services Act – Legalize the strictly regulated therapeutic use of psilocybin.
o Critique of Measure 109 from Decriminalize Nature
o Oregon Measure 110: Decriminalization and Drug Treatment Initiative

DC:
o DC Initiative 81: the Entheogenic Plant and Fungi Policy Act – Decriminalize plant- or fungi-based psychoactive substances, from ayahuasca to peyote and magic mushrooms.

“Get city governments to ease access to psychedelics. Denver, Oakland, Santa Cruz, and Ann Arbor made possession of psilocybin mushrooms the lowest law enforcement priority.

“The mission of Decriminalize Nature is to improve human health and well-being by decriminalizing and expanding access to entheogenic plants and fungi through political and community organizing, education, and advocacy.

Oregon’s Psilocybin Services Act (Measure 109)

“Oregon’s Psilocybin Services Act (Measure 109) would allow the administration of psilocybin products, such as magic mushrooms, to adults 21 and over for therapeutic purposes.”

[The phrase “administration of … to” reeks of authoritarianism.]

“People would be allowed to buy, possess, and consume psilocybin at a psilocybin services center [so, not on their own or in their church group? bad], after undergoing a preparation session [the guide would have to know the Egodeath theory and the fearsome dragon] and under the supervision of a psilocybin service facilitator [who must have reconciled with the threatening dragon of no-free-will, a kind of non-control].

“The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) would determine who could be licensed as a facilitator and what qualifications and training they would need [10 sessions reconciling with the threat of the no-free-will worldline dragon].

[“Authority”? These unregenerate fools have no authority on Transcendent Knowledge. Cyb writes:

“Hancock praises Muraresku for on the one hand never having taken a psychedelic, while on the other hand presenting ‘hard factual data’ and ’empirical argument.’

“This comes after pages talking about how experience is more important than argument and how books are not to be trusted.

“If we agree with Hancock about the importance of experience, why are we to trust Muraresku, who has none with psychedelics?

“Hancock prizes experience over any lecture, book, or article, but then encourages us to trust someone who has never experienced a psychedelic state; he praises ‘hard factual data’ and ’empirical argument.’”

These ignorant accursed, unregenerate fools have no authority, no blessing from on high, no fire-tested wisdom.

The source of authority and the measure of truth is the intense altered state, after its end-game, final phase. The guide who shows how to play the video game must have completed the game.

One cannot have actual authority without the blessing of the angel after wrestling all night with non-control and frozen time.

A qualified guide must at least have the fullest possible understanding of the intense altered-state experience, in its end-game form, short of personally having undergone that experience.

But in terms of the guide’s own personal experience, can a person who still stands outside the gated garden of God the creator, guide others to enter in through the gate which is guarded by the angel of death with flaming sword, to access the fruit of the tree which is guarded by the frozen-worldline dragon?]

“The OHA would set dosage standards.”

[Use just enough to engage the problematizing of control, to transform thinking to Eternalism; learn the Egodeath theory and use lower dosage.]

“Oregon’s Psilocybin Services Act was created by Portland psychotherapists Tom and Sheri Eckert, who formed the Oregon Psilocybin Society in 2016. Their goal is strictly limited to therapeutic ends, not broader psychedelic reform.

Eckert said “We see psilocybin therapy as an end in itself. We see the measure as a template. We plan to help organize the new profession. We plan to spread the template.”

“Psilocybin can, as part of therapy, help relieve a variety of mental health issues, including depression, existential anxiety, addictions, and the lingering effects of trauma.”

[No mention of the healing and spiritual regeneration involved in reconciling with the threatening dragon of no-free-will and the block-universe noncontrol experience. In place of that traditional ancient religious wisdom and understanding, see the usual lame non-treatment of the problem, delivering only the doomed and accursed concept and catch-phrase, “the shadow” – a substitute in place of explanation, which might as well be labeled “HERE BE DRAGONS“.]

“Psilocybin therapy demonstrates an excellent safety record and often achieves lasting results after just one or two psilocybin sessions.”

[Then the frozen worldline dragon appeared and ate the office building.]

The Decriminalize Nature movement

“Oregon’s Psilocybin Services Act (Measure 109) is catching flak from the Decriminalize Nature movement: This initiative creates a medical model which serves the privileged members in society and makes it harder for the non-privilileged people to heal. We are concerned about the implications of an elite group of beneficiaries putting a free medicine that grows naturally out of the ground behind a paywall.

“The greatest danger of Measure 109 is that it would create a special class of permit-holders who would be motivated to lobby to prevent progressive measures such as those passed in Denver, Oakland, Santa Cruz and Ann Arbor, which are designed to enable access to the most vulnerable people by enabling them to grow, gather, gift, and share their own entheogenic plants and fungi. Eckert said “no comment”.

Oregon Measure 110: Decriminalization and Drug Treatment Initiative

“Oregonians are simultaneously voting on Measure 110: Decriminalization and Drug Treatment Initiative, which would decriminalize the possession of personal use amounts of all drugs — including psychedelics.” [per the Egodeath theory and the U.S. policy of no Prohibition laws until 1913]

“In contrast, Oregon’s Measure 109: the Psilocybin Services Act relies on a big budget and support from medical figures.”

[For those who think “law and order” requires Prohibition, consider: A man died from overdose due largely to Prohibition, which coerced him into ingesting his entire stash.]

DC Initiative 81: The Entheogenic Plant and Fungi Policy Act of 2020

“Washington DC residents will vote on Initiative 81, the Entheogenic Plant and Fungi Policy Act of 2020.

“The DC measure would have police treat the non-commercial cultivation, distribution, possession, and use of natural plant medicines (entheogens) as their lowest law enforcement priority. The measure also ask the city’s top prosecutor and its US Attorney to not prosecute such cases.

“It looks likely to win. The measure has been endorsed by the DC Democratic Party, and according to a September FM3 poll, when read the ballot language, 60 percent of likely voters supported it. That figure jumped to 64 percent when respondents were given a plain-language explanation of the measure.

“The DC initiative is well-financed. There are no registered opposition campaign committees.

“For DC Initiative 81‘s chief petitioner and campaigns spokesperson Melissa Lavasani, the measure is an outgrowth of her own personal story.

“How I got here was that I healed myself from post-partum depression with psychedelics. I had no mental health issues like that before, nor did I have any experience with psychedelics. I had an image of psychedelics shaped by propaganda. But then I listened to Joe Rogan when he had [mushroom maestro] Paul Stamets on. My husband grew up in the South and he said it was common to pick mushrooms and eat them, and he said the podcast made a lot of sense. So we decided to give it a try.”

“I was insistent on not taking pharmaceutical antidepressants because I saw one friend take his life on them and saw others have their personalities changed. I tried microdosing, and within a few days I was shocked at how quickly it worked. I was interacting differently with people and the change was so profound.”

“I was watching the Denver magic mushroom campaign — and Oakland and Santa Cruz quickly followed — and got inspired. DC was on the forefront of marijuana [cannabis] reform, so why not be a leader on psychedelic reform?”

“Passage of the measure would chip only a few flakes from the façade of drug prohibition, but you have to start somewhere.

“Our measure [Initiative 81, the Entheogenic Plant and Fungi Policy Act of 2020] is a very small step, it’s just asking for the Metro police to make it the lowest law enforcement priority so that someone at home is provided a layer of protection.

“It’s a first step. When we start talking about psychedelics, the first thing the black community thinks of is PCP. We have to undo a lot of that, so we’re out in the community talking to people about plant medicines and talking about what kind of infrastructure we need to stay safe.”

“The measure’s endorsement by the DC Democratic Party showed how attitudes are changing quickly.

“This was a safe yes for the DC Democrats,” Lavasani noted. “They learned a lesson from cannabis reform — when it happened it happened very quickly. Police reform is on the top of everyone’s list right now, and this is the only thing on the ballot that touches on that. The majority of the party understood that the small step we’re taking is a positive step toward ending the war on drugs. It’s a no brainer — we all know why the war on drugs exists [The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness], and it’s time for us to make a change.”

“For David Bronner, both the Oregon and the DC initiatives are part of a broader push for psychedelic liberation — and not just natural plant psychedelics.

“LSD has the most baggage and is the end game, but it’s my favorite psychedelic,” said Bronner. “‘Plant medicines that you can grow naturally resonate with voters, and key stakeholders in the Decriminalize Nature movement definitely favor natural plant medicines versus synthetic psychedelics. I’m a fan of all of them and have experienced the incredible healing and spiritual power of both. Johns Hopkins for end of life, anxiety, depression, and addiction is supporting the Decriminalize Nature movement.”

Free the Entheogens poster

From a comment on the article:
http://medesignman.com/MEDICINE/PROHIBITION/Free%20the%20Entheogens%202014.html
Shows a handcuffed stone mushroom man. Glaringly missing (a major strategic misstep) is the use visionary plants throughout Western religious history.

“Display or post this “Free the Entheogens” poster proudly, to show you care about unfettered religious freedom and the sacred plants of Earth. Be sure to include the disclaimer at the bottom in all postings.

“Psychoactive plants have been used by religions around the world for millennia to bring the mind of man toward understanding. Yet possession of these substances in the U.S.A. even for religious purposes may be a prison offense!

“Caution: All these substances should be given the highest respect. Misuse of powerful agents may have dire results. For adult use only, in safe doses and protected circumstances. Freedom requires responsibility.”

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Contents:

• About Wouter Hanegraaff
• Article: Psychedelics in Western Culture: Unnecessary psychiatrization of visionary experiences (2020)
• Article: The Santo Daime Church in the Netherlands: Why the ECHR Should Consider the Case (2020)
• Review of Yulia Ustinova, Divine Mania: Alterations of Consciousness in Ancient Greece
• Article: Imagining the future study of religion and spirituality (2020)

About Wouter Hanegraaff

https://www.wouterjhanegraaff.net/about

https://uva.academia.edu/WouterHanegraaff/Papers

(When I quote authors, I condense. See links for exact text.)

Article: Psychedelics in Western Culture: Unnecessary psychiatrization of visionary experiences (2020)

Article by Hanegraaff:
Psychedelics in Western Culture: Unnecessary psychiatrization of visionary experiences (2020)
Psychedelica in de westerse cultuur: onnodige psychiatrisering van visionaire ervaringen

Abstract: Historical research into the use of psychedelics in specific religious contexts may provide rational explanation for extreme visionary experiences that would otherwise give rise to questioning the mental health of those involved. If historians ignore or overlook the psychedelic factor, this can lead to an impression of ‘irrationality’ where in reality, it is about normal and even predictable reactions of mentally healthy people to the action of specific psychoactive substances.

Method: Discussion based on three examples of selective use of historical source material about psychedelics.

Result: This theme has a broader cultural-historical and science theoretical relevance, as it religious practices that have traditionally been traditionally classified as ‘magic’ and therefore were classified as irrational and potentially pathological. In this article I cover three examples: the Mithras liturgy from Roman Egypt, early modern witch ointments, and the spiritual use of hashish in the nineteenth century.

Summary: Established academics often deny the significance of psychedelics in visionary experiences. Discussion of pre-Enlightenment sources shows significant importance for a correct interpretation of important religious and cultural traditions. Critical empirical resource research without prejudice or implicit agendas is the preferred method.

Keywords: hashish, witches ointments, magic, mysticism, psychedelics,
visionary experiences

Conclusion: This is the pattern that falls where historical research into psychedelics in the western culture, from ancient times to the present day.

Enthusiastic amateur historians have been everywhere since the psychedelic 1960s; but in response to exaggerating [? check article for specifics], established academics often go back to the other side and they don’t want to see them anywhere.

The period of psychedelics as high culture arrived with the Enlightenment.

Before the Enlightenment, the source material is more modest and not always easy to interpret, but it is less scarce and more ambiguous than is often assumed, and is required for a correct interpretation of important religious and cultural traditions.

The recipe to make this ‘mystical __'[tr.?] from the past bringing light is classic and simple: critical empirical source research without prejudice or implicit agendas.

Article: The Santo Daime Church in the Netherlands: Why the ECHR Should Consider the Case (2020)

Article by Hanegraaff:
The Santo Daime Church in the Netherlands: Why the ECHR Should Consider the Case (2020)

“Prohibiting the import and use of Ayahuasca by the Dutch Santo Daime church is equivalent to ruling that church out of existence by judicial fiat, which is a clear breach of religious liberty.”

Review of Yulia Ustinova, Divine Mania: Alterations of Consciousness in Ancient Greece

Hanegraaff’s review of Ustinova‘s book: Divine Mania

Review of Yulia Ustinova, Divine Mania: Alterations of Consciousness in Ancient Greece (Routledge)

Hanegraaff’s review is 2020. The article is 2018. Her earlier work is Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: Descending Underground in the Search for Ultimate Truth (Oxford University Press 2009).

“The first comprehensive overview of the source evidence for alterations of consciousness in ancient Greece. Alterations of consciousness in Socrates and Plato as well as their predecessors Epimenides, Aethalides, Hermotimus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles, and Democritus.”

Cyberdisciple’s weblog page:
Book: Ustinova. 2018. Divine Mania: Alterations of Consciousness in Ancient Greece
https://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com/2020/08/30/book-ustinova-2018-divine-mania-alterations-of-consciousness-in-ancient-greece/

Article: Imagining the future study of religion and spirituality (2020)

Hanegraaff’s article:
Imagining the future study of religion and spirituality (2020)

This article says scholars must like and value religion, and must present a positive narrative of this enthusiasm (a word which Hanegraaff builds his brand on distancing himself from, counter-signalling the “religionist” pseudo-scholars).

Abstract (condensed):

“Reconstruct the study of religion on new and better foundations.

Provide a positive, convincing, inspiring narrative about religion that demonstrates its great importance to societal and general human concerns.

Focus on experience, consciousness, imagination, and spirituality.

Don’t be an uncritical and unscholarly religionist like Eranos or Eliade.

Move such topics out of the taboo sphere for secular scholars.

Reclaim such topics for critical non-religionist methods and approaches.”

/abstract

“The most promising dimension here is to focus on altered states of consciousness”.
“The next step in the study of mind is the scientific study of the nature and mechanisms of the imagination.”

Hanegraaff argues we must sell ‘spirituality’ (connotes personal experience) rather than ‘religion’ (connotes institutions & discursive belief). Scholars of religion must rebrand the field as covering ‘imaginative formations’, ‘spirituality,’ and ‘alterations of consciousness’. Scholars must hold religion as important, and market the field as important.

The new vision of the field of the study of religion must be “positive, constructive, and inspiring; its human importance must be evident; and our own hearts and souls as scholars and intellectuals must be in it.” He calls for “positive inspiring uplifting narratives” and then defends himself from the charge of being one of those evil “religionists”, who jumbles religiosity with scholarship. You can be positive and inspiring about the study of religion without being one of those awful religionists.

Hanegraaff prods me to construct jokes about him, with his obsessing over and demonizing religionists. I doubt anyone can make sense of what he’s on about, splitting hairs about the Correct Scholarly Stance. This artificial, constructed, engineered infighting among practically indistinguishable factions within esotericism scholarship is not helping the field.

It’s a distinction without a difference. Just contribute good ideas and scholarly insight; stop the exaggerated fixation on rightly separating religious belief and practice vs. objective unbiased scholarship. If Hanegraaff contributes more value than Eranos or Kerenyi, it’s not because he has a more correct stance on separating belief vs. scholarship.

“Our task is to recover the empirical and historical contents of ‘rejected knowledge’ for serious research, and re-integrate those materials into new stories about Western culture, including ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ (both Western and worldwide).”

“Reject the old grand narratives but contribute a better grand narrative.”

“Reconstruct ‘religion’ and ‘Western culture’ from the bottom up, producing new and better narratives built on sounder historical and empirical foundations. We need radical innovation: after deconstruction must come a positive project of reconstruction.”

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Contents:

• Cyberdisciple’s Critique: “Graham Hancock foreward to Muraresku, The Immortality Key”
• Allegro’s Self-Contradiction: Yet Another Way in Which the Moderate Entheogen Theory of Religion Is Incoherent
• Time to Stop Questioning Whether Entheogens Were in Our Religions, and Discuss What It Means that Entheogens Manifestly Were in Our Religions

Cyberdisciple’s Critique: “Graham Hancock foreward to Muraresku, The Immortality Key”

Here is the critique I’m responding to, though I’ve previously written about this self-contradiction of Allegro.

Graham Hancock foreward to Muraresku, The Immortality Key

“This is a bit like the model of John Allegro, but with the chronology extended to Constantine. Whereas Allegro had only* the first generation of Christians using mushrooms, Hancock has ‘primitive’ Christians using psychedelics in secret until stamped out after Constantine.”

Allegro’s Self-Contradiction: Yet Another Way in Which the Moderate Entheogen Theory of Religion Is Incoherent

The great irony and self-contradiction of Allegro’s book is that he says Christianity immediately forgot the authentic eucharist, and yet, Allegro presents the Plaincourault fresco from much later, as evidence bolstering the case for the presence of Amanita in Christian history.

If Christianity much later had Amanita, then Allegro’s primary thesis, that Christianity quickly forgot Amanita and instead Amanita became literalized as the historical Jesus, is contradicted. The result is almost as garbled as Wasson’s insulting, double-talk, pompous self-aggrandizing statement that the Plaincourault painter depicted mushrooms but didn’t realize it.

The moderate entheogen theory of religion typically is self-contradictory and inconsistent, with unresolved contradictions. Allegro makes no attempt to acknowledge or explain this contradiction.

Time to Stop Questioning Whether Entheogens Were in Our Religions, and Discuss What It Means that Entheogens Manifestly Were in Our Religions

The Church Fathers write about the Eucharist in such a way that strongly suggests that they recognized it as an entheogen. The McKennaesque argument is a baseless presupposition, a priori, that the big bad Catholic church completely eliminated the use and recognition of entheogens.

There is more than enough evidence, of various types, to support the ever-present use and recognition of the entheogenic Eucharist. The question is no longer “is there evidence”, but rather, what to make of such practice, and how to accurately revise the historical recounting.

We’re even past that point now. We now perceive and recognize that entheogens were valued throughout our own history. We now need to move further ahead to ask whether such manifest historical veneration of entheogens and Transcendent Knowledge was justified then, and whether entheogens (and what they reveal) can today be justified, against skeptical, puritanical, anti-drug critique.

Given that mushrooms (and the Transcendent Knowledge that they reveal) were evidently venerated throughout Greco/Roman and Christian history, what are the actual risks and potential benefits? How were they societally regulated throughout history, and how should they be?

Should we keep no-free-will secret, and not reveal that secret on the world-wide web? In published books that are available for anyone to buy on Amazon, there are advocates who argue that no-free-will is the case, but that we should keep this secret from the public.

There are advocates who argue that entheogens were used and venerated throughout our own religious history, but that we should keep this fact secret from the public.

I of course advocate keeping this knowledge secret; spread the word and make sure everyone knows to keep this knowledge secret.

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Contents:

• Cyberdisciple’s Critique of Muraresku’s Foreward, that Grants Credit for Coverage of Loose Cognition, Dubiously
• Devised a Non-binary Way to Rank Adequacy of Coverage

Cyberdisciple’s Critique of Muraresku’s Foreward, that Grants Credit for Coverage of Loose Cognition, Dubiously

Graham Hancock foreward to Muraresku, The Immortality Key
https://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com/2020/10/12/graham-hancock-foreward-to-muraresku-the-immortality-key/

The rough quick assessment in that post is good, of whether Hancock at all covers the four key topics of the Egodeath theory:

“Per the Egodeath Theory’s four fields, he [Graham Hancock] has loose cognition (psychedelics), but no determinism/eternalism, a bungled self-control cybernetics, and a vague at best theory of metaphor.” Emphasis added. Breaking out the four topics assessments:

o Has loose cognition (psychedelics) — expressed as a simple binary “Yes”. The present post seeks to problematize and reduce that ranking, which implies 100% coverage. “Yes” is only correct as a first-order approximation. I’m clarifying the assessment as “Yes, yet bungled and vague” like some of the other key topics. The ranking depends on whether you emphasize “psychedelics” (easy to cover), or “loose cognition” (harder to cover).

o Has no determinism/eternalism — expressed as a simple binary “No”

o Has a bungled self-control cybernetics — expressed as a complex degree

o Has a vague theory of metaphor — expressed as a complex degree

Hancock covers loose cognition — in a very rough approximate or indirect sense.

Devised a Non-binary Way to Rank Adequacy of Coverage

It took me a few years to analyze how to go about ranking an author’s adequacy of coverage, and also whether the author elevates to prominence (& to structural centrality) the correct topics.  I had to move from simple binaries (does he cover X, yes or no), to assessing structures of connections.  So it’s worth reviewing how to go about such assessment.

When evaluating a theory (or book or Foreward) to see “if” it covers the four areas that Transcendent Knowledge can be divided into (loose cognition/psychedelics, eternalism/determinism, self-control cybernetics, analogy/metaphor), it is not a binary, so much as a matter of degree of emphasis.

For example, Manley Hall’s book The Secret Teachings of All Ages mentions determinism like one time, but that is a far cry from both covering that topic adequately, and, elevating that topic to give it prominence over the other topics.

In a couple posts maybe around 2010, I evaluated many authors, probably rating on a 1-10 scale, how much coverage (and prominence) the author gives to each of the four topics.

One can write pages about “psychedelics” with almost no coverage of “loose cognition”, so if I rank Hancock on “loose cognition/psychedelics”, I’d probably give him a lower ranking, no matter how many hundreds of pages he writes on “psychedelics”.

This division of Transcendent Knowledge into 4 topics is more like, for this quadrant, “psychedelics BUT ESPECIALLY loose cognition in general, regardless of how accessed”.

Assessing Wouter Hanegraaff’s 2005 Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism: first, I assessed in a simple binary: Does the book at all cover psychedelics? Answer: No; finding that coverage is a needle in haystack at best, which is the opposite of what a “revealing hidden esoteric knowledge” dictionary should do. Contrast that with his summary book of Western Esotericism with mushroom caps on the front, and his later articles about entheogens.

The more potent question is: does he write about Loose Cognition? Does he connect it with: Dissolve & Coagulate? Metaperception? How transformation of the mental model of time & control (from one stable model to a different stable model) is enabled by loosening cognition?

Such coverage is what’s required to earn a ranking better than a mere, rank “Yes the book is not bereft of some words saying something about psychedelics.”

I started theorizing (in April 1987) by writing about loose cognition rather than psychedelics; I rejected writing about psychedelics, and put all emphasis on instead writing about loose cognition and how it works, its dynamics, what it involves — such as metaperception and other such cognitive phenomenology. I didn’t write about psychedelics; I wrote about loose cognitive association binding, instead, which was my actual interest.

The sheer fact of an author writing about psychedelics doesn’t count much unless the author writes about psychedelics in a particular way.

It was hard to figure this out; it was a bit subtle. At first I was too lenient; I found myself giving authors too much credit for covering “my” areas, and I then said “That can’t be right, that’s far too high a score, they are far from possessing the Egodeath theory, despite mentioning key terms one time — or in some cases, a hundred times.”

I encourage stringent requirements and giving low rankings for an author’s coverage of a key topic, unless the author truly deserves a higher ranking on that topic. More precisely, it comes down to the number of connections made, and the structures of those connections.

I can critically rank my own 2006 main article this way, saying that it does cover kind of thoroughly the four topics (in summary outline form), yet still is lacking some efficient key connections that were established in the oldest mythology of ‘tree’ vs. ‘snake’, branching vs. non-branching, Possibilism vs. Eternalism.

When I published the article, I particularly recognized that my interpretation of Moses’ snake on a tree (as a time-pole) was not adequate, was missing a key idea. That idea, fully recognized Thanksgiving week 2013, is: tree vs. snake = Possibilism vs. Eternalism. The 2006 main article covers Eternalism: it has most of the key ideas, but lacks closure.

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Contents:

• tbd

Drug Prohibition is pretext, fraud, a racket. Instead of “reform”, it needs to be entirely repealed, like in the U.S. through 1913 when there were no laws against psychoactives.

I withdraw my specific advocacy of donating to any particular group, because I don’t know their agenda. Donating to a given group may have been good some years ago, but their agenda may have changed.

One prominent organization is a broad activism group for various causes — that could be a problem, if you cannot specifically donate for the repeal of Prohibition.

Check the latest agenda of a reform organization.

http://stopthedrugwar.org – daily news

https://decriminalizenature.org/

Website:
Transpersonal Spirit: Visionary Consciousness
Article:
Decriminalization Of Psychedelics
https://transpersonalspirit.wordpress.com/2019/09/23/decriminalization-of-psychedelics/

My 2006 main article:
The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death
Section:
Freedom for Higher-Order Religion
http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm#_Toc177337613

Site Map: section:
Repealing Prohibition of Psychedelics
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/nav/#Repealing-Prohibition-of-Psychedelics

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Contents:

• todo

Media Hype about Muraresku, The Immortality Key

I like that direction of investigation and critique. It seems aligned with my most recent direction of posts at the Egodeath Yahoo Group, I think around June 2019, which start to build a proper foundation of justification of holding Transcendent Knowledge as the most valuable, highest knowledge — because that hasn’t been properly justified against potential critique. We have to go back to first principles and build a foundation for values. If our cultural ancestors held Transcendent Knowledge as of highest value, were they correct in doing so? Was their justification sound, whether implicit or explicit justification?

The article series The Secret History of Magic Mushrooms provides examples of new critique of psych’c values. What is the funding and motives and social-activism alignment, of the movement figures who have been promoted? Must-read, but proceed with complete caution; do not engage the most negative, most cynical type of thinking (which can be effective but also broadly caustic).

The article series argues that the “Consciousness Revolution” was not grassroots, but was top-down strategic Social Engineering, by people who were insincere in promoting the altered state and intended harm by promoting “Consciousness Expansion” at all, and by promoting “Consciousness Expansion” in the particular way that they did.

Even if such Establishment-aligned advocates meant to weaponize the altered state to undermine Western Civilization, the altered state in fact has the potential for positive — but that case has to be made, against mostly jaundiced former advocates of psychedelics who now heavily qualify any such advocacy, who now damn psych’cs with faint praise. These things are not 100% good; neither are they 100% harmful to society and Western Civilization.

These things can be justified as of highest value (which hasn’t really been done yet), but keep one’s guard up, against the particular way in which these things are promoted, the intent with which they are promoted. What is their actual potential for harm and for good?

On what basis can we argue, against critique, for venerating what is revealed by the mystic loose-cognition state? For example, many people are staunchly against no-free-will, though a couple books argue that no-free-will is potentially helpful for society — but I wouldn’t want to get caught up too much in that potentially endless debate. During the past couple years, I concluded that the Bible asserts, in tension, both freewill and then subsequently no-free-will, in a 2-phase, 2-layer approach, after watching Leighton Flowers on YouTube. He’s a former Calvinist (no-free-willist).

Who is advocating psychedelics, to what end, pushing what system of values, with what arguments? What are the values that those people secretly and privately hold, versus the values which they publicly try to get other people to adopt? What societal culture are they pushing for? Why was Mystery Ruler Cult advocated by the state? How was New Testament Christianity advocating Mystery Cult as a transformative societal foundation, in contrast to the state’s Ruler Mystery Cult?

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Contents:

• Intro
• Which Posts Are Copied to Egodeath.com (No Datestamps There)
• Snapshot of the Egodeath Yahoo Group Web Page on the Final Day, December 14, 2020

WordPress Site Containing All Digest Pages of Egodeath Yahoo Group Postings

https://egodeathyahoogroup.wordpress.com

The present WordPress site is EgodeathTheory.

The above WordPress site is EgodeathYahooGroup.

Intro

Update December 2, 2020:

I have nice HTML files with dates, of pretty much all the posts, ready to upload to Egodeath.com. File #1 content is listed below.

_____

The Egodeath.com site is missing my massive set of substantial postings from February 14, 2004 to December 15, 2020. The site does have some major articles around 2006. This is multiple books’ worth of substantial leading-edge & summarized breakthrough material.

That presently missing Egodeath Yahoo Group content is implicitly represented in:

• My main article at the Egodeath.com website
• This WordPress site (https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com)
• Cyb’s WordPress site, https://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com (his weblog posts & my comments).
• Max’s Transcendent Knowledge Podcast series (audio) at YouTube. “max freakout” YouTube channel. https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/07/transcendent-knowledge-podcast-episodes/

For example, my major breakthrough of November 2011 and especially November 2013 (postings of December 2013) are missing from the Egodeath.com website. Covering “tree vs. snake = Possibilism vs. Eternalism”; representing the two separate experiential states of consciousness and mental worldmodels of time and control.

On December 10, 2020, Yahoo is ending all Yahoo discussion groups / email lists, including the Egodeath Yahoo Group. I can post here instead. People can comment on posts, if they have an account and, I think, if I approve their post.

I like the “blog post with comments below” format, because it keeps the focus on the owner’s writings. I dislike how an email-based discussion group (like Yahoo Groups) gave members’ posts the same prominence as the owner’s posts.

Note: Come to think of it, I have a massive text file of Egodeath Yahoo Group posts around 2018-2019.

Transcendent Knowledge Podcast, episode 25

Episode 25, July 5, 2020 – Guest: Troy (Strange Loop)

41:00 Max copied the database of Egodeath Yahoo Group posts. Formats he presently has:
o Hundreds of PDF files, hard to search within.
o Single long plaintext file, hard to read.

Note about the Egodeath Yahoo Group at Egodeath.com

“Egodeath Weblog (was http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath) to Dec. 2007 — to see my latest research and idea-development breakthroughs, be sure to read my weblog postings from Feb. 14, 2004 to present, because these haven’t been uploaded to this website yet.”

My Egodeath Yahoo Group posts from 2001 (#1) to Feb. 13, 2004 are copied to the Egodeath.com website.

My posts from Feb. 14, 2004 to December 15, 2020 when Yahoo is ending the groups, are not presently copied to the Egodeath.com website.

History of Online Discussion Groups

Top 50 Discussion Groups for the Bible
http://peterkirby.com/top-50-discussion-groups-bible.html
At Peter Kirby’s site (he runs the site Early Christian Writings).
At that page, I posted:

My Egodeath Yahoo Group was sort of spawned or branched off from JesusMysteries Yahoo Group. Yahoo is about to end all Yahoo Groups in December 15, 2020.

A few months ago, around 2019/2020, Yahoo stopped supporting the Web-based UI that nicely mirrored the Yahoo Groups email-lists.

As of November 2020, I can still send email to my Egodeath Yahoo Group, but posts are no longer visible at the Yahoo Groups website – it became email only, and that will stop in December 2020.

Cyberdisciple has been running a WordPress site about ancient writings interpreted through the Egodeath theory of mythology and the mystic altered state.
https://cyberdisciple.wordpress.com

Since my Egodeath Yahoo Group has gone away as a Web UI, and is about to go away as an email list, I had to pick some other format to do my easy web-based daily posts – so I picked WordPress. I tinkered with it around 2016 & 2018, and rebooted it in 2020.
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com

At WordPress, I like how people can comment, but their comments are demoted compared to my articles. A bad thing about Yahoo Groups, was that my followers’ posts were jumbled together with mine, at the same level of visibility.

Without a Weblog such as WordPress, I’d have to manually update my Egodeath.com website, which I’ve been averse to update since 2007. My regular website, Egodeath.com, is not set up for people to add comments.
http://egodeath.com – includes Radical Critics, Mystery Religions, religious mythology describing the intense mystic altered state

I wish I could have celebrated end-of-life at JesusMysteries Yahoo Group by posting to that group before the Web UI went away. I was a major participant around 2001, and Peter Gandy was there a little bit then.

I’m trying to get a feel for how the JesusMysteries Yahoo Group scattered. I’m guessing that around 2015, the Atheism community broke apart and the JesusMysteries group may have dwindled then, maybe. The JesusMysteries Yahoo Group was inspired around 2000 by the book The Jesus Mysteries.

The Jesus Mysteries: How the Pagan Mysteries of Osiris-Dionysus Were Rewritten as the Gospel of Jesus Christ

The Jesus Mysteries: Was the Original Jesus a Pagan God?

Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy
http://amzn.com/0609807986

The original subtitle is shown first, above; they say Osiris/Dionysus became Jesus.

Additions to This Page Dec. 2, 2020

Oct 2001-Dec 15, 2020

Yahoo is about to end Yahoo Groups – already ended Web UI; about to end email too.

Supporter provided maximally useful few hundred HTML page files

Which Posts Are Copied to Egodeath.com (No Datestamps There)

Earlier Set 1

My dir:
/Users/michaelhoffman/Documents/TK/MaxBackupOfEdt/EDT yahoo group rip/

177 Filenames:
HtmlDigest2.html-HtmlDigest177.html (apparently captured posts up to June 25, 2017
posts #__-__

Later Superset 2

and a later, superset, separately filenamed set:

My dir:
/Users/michaelhoffman/Documents/TK/MaxBackupOfEdt/EDT yahoo group rip/EDT newer/egodeath/

183 Filenames:
HtmlDigest1.html-HtmlDigest183.html
posts #__-__
strangely missing some numbered files inclu #1, 3, 8, 9

Date format: MM/DD/YYYY

Final post in final file 183: May 20, 2019. I don’t think I posted much after that. See present WP site instead.

Group: egodeath	Message: 10751	From: egodeath	Date: 20/05/2019
Subject: Re: Transcendent Knowledge podcast commentary

Top of File 1

Trying pasting top portion of File 1 (just the listings): (need to instead upload to Egodeath site):

sages in egodeath group.

Page 1 of 177.

---

Group: egodeath	Message: 1	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 10/06/2001
Subject: Intro to Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence
Group: egodeath	Message: 2	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 11/06/2001
Subject: “Take up the cross”
Group: egodeath	Message: 3	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 11/06/2001
Subject: GnosticsMillenium group: dynamics & covert agendas
Group: egodeath	Message: 4	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 11/06/2001
Subject: Re: “Take up the cross”
Group: egodeath	Message: 5	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 11/06/2001
Subject: Why cracking the mythic code is mandatory to convince HJ’ers of CM
Group: egodeath	Message: 6	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 11/06/2001
Subject: Re: Why cracking the mythic code is mandatory to convince HJ’ers of
Group: egodeath	Message: 7	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 15/06/2001
Subject: “Death penalty” as mystic metaphor
Group: egodeath	Message: 9	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 16/06/2001
Subject: Recognizing lyrical allusions to the mystic altered state
Group: egodeath	Message: 10	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 16/06/2001
Subject: Cracking the code of the mystery-religions
Group: egodeath	Message: 11	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 16/06/2001
Subject: Corresponding history of Fatalism and entheogens
Group: egodeath	Message: 12	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 16/06/2001
Subject: Key themes of mystery allusions to mystic dissociative phenomena
Group: egodeath	Message: 13	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 17/06/2001
Subject: Re: Recognizing lyrical allusions to the mystic altered state
Group: egodeath	Message: 14	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 17/06/2001
Subject: Quantum indeterminacy, transcending det’m
Group: egodeath	Message: 15	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 17/06/2001
Subject: Amanita as the blood of Christ that cancels guilt
Group: egodeath	Message: 16	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 17/06/2001
Subject: Re: Amanita as the blood of Christ that cancels guilt
Group: egodeath	Message: 17	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 17/06/2001
Subject: Discussion group on block-universe ego death
Group: egodeath	Message: 18	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 17/06/2001
Subject: Re: Recognizing lyrical allusions to the mystic altered state
Group: egodeath	Message: 19	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 17/06/2001
Subject: New entheogenic Judeo-Christianity book by Dan Merkur
Group: egodeath	Message: 20	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 18/06/2001
Subject: Books: entheogens, mystery-religions, time/agency
Group: egodeath	Message: 21	From: Michael Anderson	Date: 18/06/2001
Subject: questions about your system
Group: egodeath	Message: 22	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 19/06/2001
Subject: Re: questions about your system
Group: egodeath	Message: 23	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 19/06/2001
Subject: Re: Quantum indeterminacy, transcending det’m
Group: egodeath	Message: 24	From: Jason Wehmhoener	Date: 19/06/2001
Subject: Re: Quantum indeterminacy, transcending det’m
Group: egodeath	Message: 25	From: 2sirius@sierratel.com	Date: 19/06/2001
Subject: Consciousness Technologies
Group: egodeath	Message: 26	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 20/06/2001
Subject: Seeing preexistence of vs. content of future
Group: egodeath	Message: 27	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 20/06/2001
Subject: Why we should seek the simplest theory
Group: egodeath	Message: 28	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 20/06/2001
Subject: Bobzien’s book: Stoic determinism/Fatalism
Group: egodeath	Message: 29	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 20/06/2001
Subject: Ego-death rapture is no ordinary fun
Group: egodeath	Message: 30	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 21/06/2001
Subject: Cahill’s _Gifts of the Jews_: linear time invented
Group: egodeath	Message: 31	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 21/06/2001
Subject: 2-layer Jesus vs. 1-layer mystery-gods
Group: egodeath	Message: 32	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 22/06/2001
Subject: Reason forces postulating Transcendent Reason
Group: egodeath	Message: 33	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 23/06/2001
Subject: Why explain Christianity as mystery-religion
Group: egodeath	Message: 34	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 23/06/2001
Subject: Most efficient way to shed illusion?
Group: egodeath	Message: 35	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 23/06/2001
Subject: Snake = magical plants = psychoactive death
Group: egodeath	Message: 36	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 23/06/2001
Subject: Ever-shrinking core of ego-death theory
Group: egodeath	Message: 37	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 24/06/2001
Subject: Re: Recognizing lyrical allusions to the mystic altered state
Group: egodeath	Message: 38	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 24/06/2001
Subject: Newsgroups as record of publishing
Group: egodeath	Message: 39	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 25/06/2001
Subject: Definition of ‘entheogens’
Group: egodeath	Message: 40	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 25/06/2001
Subject: Updated page on Determinism books
Group: egodeath	Message: 41	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 25/06/2001
Subject: Calvinism & single-future block universe
Group: egodeath	Message: 42	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 26/06/2001
Subject: Re: Updated page on Determinism books
Group: egodeath	Message: 43	From: Michael Anderson	Date: 27/06/2001
Subject: Re: Updated page on Determinism books
Group: egodeath	Message: 44	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 27/06/2001
Subject: Why the snake represents medicinal plants
Group: egodeath	Message: 45	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 27/06/2001
Subject: Re: Newsgroups as record of publishing
Group: egodeath	Message: 46	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 27/06/2001
Subject: Best cognitive-loosening agents & techniques
Group: egodeath	Message: 47	From: bluehoney.org	Date: 27/06/2001
Subject: Just a quick hello –
Group: egodeath	Message: 48	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 28/06/2001
Subject: Spiritual Plants in Religious History
Group: egodeath	Message: 49	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 28/06/2001
Subject: Importance of Historical Study of Entheogens
Group: egodeath	Message: 50	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 28/06/2001
Subject: Evolving through Seeking The Heavy
Group: egodeath	Message: 51	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 28/06/2001
Subject: Lyric Analysis: High & Mighty, 1967

---

Group: egodeath	Message: 1	From: Michael Hoffman	Date: 10/06/2001
Subject: Intro to Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence

This core theory has been stable for several years, though it may be time to rewrite and update this compact introduction to the core concepts. My recent work has focused on mapping the mystery-

Snapshot of the Egodeath Yahoo Group Web Page on the Final Day, December 14, 2020

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/egodeath/info

Welcome to Ego Death!

Group Description

This Weblog covers the cybernetic theory of ego death and ego transcendence, as defined in my main article, The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death and 1997 summary of the core Theory. This Theory incorporates the following topics:

• Block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.
  
• Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models, ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency, and self-government.
  
• Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts; transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.
  
• Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, mystery religions, mythic metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and Acid Rock mysticism.
  
• Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and psychosis and schizophrenia.
  
• Ahistoricity (nonexistence) of Jesus, Paul, Church Fathers, and Christianity in Antiquity; Christianity started after the Fall of Rome in 476. Edwin Johnson and Radical Critics.

Read the website and also read the postings here since Feb. 14, 2004.

My material is Copyright (C) 1985-2016 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved. Cite “Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com” or “Michael Hoffman, [URL]”.

— Michael Hoffman

Egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth experience

Format of URLs for Postings

See the thread: What’s to be gained from grasping the theory?
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/157

Below, I reconstruct what the URL was for my posting “Entheogenic Esotericism”, 8 years before Hanegraaff’s 2021 chapter/article.

https://egodeathyahoogroup.wordpress.com/2021/01/09/egodeath-yahoo-group-digest-66/#message3335

posting #3335, therefore the URL was (June 2004 to October 2020; for 16 years): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/3335

Does Archive.org contain any such URLs? yes

https://web.archive.org/web/20040919214924/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/messages/1

This list of posts starts w/ #3512, is close to 3335:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040906124537/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/messages

starts 3482:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040919224257/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/messages/3511?viscount=-30
So close! I can show this next to the equivalent backup at WordPress, to show they generally match.

not work:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040919224257/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/messages/3335?viscount=-30

another post in the thread is 4017: https://egodeathyahoogroup.wordpress.com/2021/01/09/egodeath-yahoo-group-digest-79/#message4017

doesn’t load, a nearby #: https://web.archive.org/web/20170222133915/https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/egodeath/conversations/topics/4115

looks promising: https://web.archive.org/web/20041201191640/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/

The present WordPress weblog “Post” has been superseded by the following WordPress web “Page” format, which is wider in a desktop browser:
Summary of the Egodeath Theory
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/summary-of-egodeath-theory/

_{Site Map}

Contents:

• Summary 1
• Summary 2
• 1-Sentence Summary with Technical Terms
• Mythemes in a Narrative Sequence Describing Ego Death Initiation
• Overview from the 2006 Main Article
• Summary 2 with Highlighting
• The Block Universe and Worldlines, in Terms of the Egodeath Theory
• See Also

Summary 1

Religious mythology describes visionary plants loosening the mind, giving the experience of one’s stream of thoughts across time as a snake-shaped worldline embedded in a frozen, rock-like block universe.

Near-future thoughts are seen as pre-existing, giving an experience of non-control and dependence on a hidden thought-source.

The mental model of time and control transforms from a branching-possibilities model, like a king steering in a tree, to a non-branching model, like a snake embedded in a rock.

Summary 2

Religious mythology describes by analogy and metaphor, visionary plants that induce the mystic altered state. Ingesting visionary-plant wine or potion induces the mystic state, which is loose cognitive association binding.

Loose cognitive binding produces an experience of being frozen in a snake-shaped worldline within the pre-existing block universe. Experiencing the frozen block universe changes the mental worldmodel of control and time.

The mental worldmodel of control and time changes, transforming from the branching possibilities tree model, to the linear frozen model, with a snake-shaped worldline of future thoughts frozen into the rock-like block universe.

Experiencing personal control as being pre-set in a worldline in the block universe, shaped like a snake frozen in rock, is a threatening experience of personal non-control, with awareness of vulnerable, helpless dependence on pre-existing thoughts.

While pursuing the greatest treasure, of transcendent knowledge, the personal control agent in the loose cognitive state now sees the threatening dragon that is uncovered in the mind. The control-agent perceives the threat of control instability due to lack of control over the source of pre-existing thoughts.

Personal control is fastened helplessly to the block universe, with the control system stabbed and penetrated in its vulnerable spot. Control is overthrown at the wellspring, which is the source of personal control-thoughts.

To pass through the gateway to attain the treasure of highest knowledge, requires the sacrifice overthrow of a king steering through the branching possibility tree, repudiating freewill-premised control power and consciously, profoundly depending instead, on a hidden, uncontrollable source of thoughts.

1-Sentence Summary with Technical Terms

Religious mythology describes experiential transformation of the mental worldmodel from Literalist Ordinary-state Possibilism to Analogical Psychedelic Eternalism.

Possibilism vs. Eternalism: Two Models of Time and Control
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/possibilism-vs-eternalism-2-models-of-time-and-control/

Mythemes in a Narrative Sequence Describing Ego Death Initiation

{wine cup with apprehension, speared dead king fastened to tree, lifted up like healing snake, reborn from rock tomb}

{man rides without steering-reins, carried by donkey/horse along path to see debranched tree trunk with snake winding up it, carved on on rock sarcophagus}

{king steering in a tree, drinks wine, becomes snake in rock}

{take fruit from snake-shaped vine, mushroom-shaped grape bunch, mix-in mushrooms, experience worldline snake petrified embedded into block-universe rock of marble, panic, frenzy, un-bind hair, grab thrysus spear that penetrates wound rebirth opening, sacrifice branching possibility-thinking on rock altar, burn away perishable aspects, become imperishable with the gods}

Overview from the 2006 Main Article

The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death
http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm

The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death explains what is revealed in religious revelation and in enlightenment, including the nature of personal control agency.

The essence and origin of religion is the use of visionary plants to routinely trigger the intense mystic altered state, producing loose binding of cognitive associations. This loose cognitive binding then produces an experience of being controlled by frozen block-universe determinism with a single, pre-existing, ever-existing future.

Experiencing this model of control and time initially destabilizes self-control power, and amounts to the death of the self that was conceived of as an autonomous control-agent. Self-control stability is restored upon transforming one’s mental model to take into account the dependence of personal control on a hidden, separate thought-source, such as Necessity or a divine level that transcends Necessity.

Myth describes this mystic-state experiential insight and transformation. Religious initiation teaches and causes this transformation of the self considered as a control-agent, through a series of visionary-plant sessions, interspersed with study of perennial philosophy. Most modern-era religion has been a distortion of this standard initiation system, reducing these concepts to a weak interpretation that is based in the ordinary state of consciousness.

Summary 2 with Highlighting

Religious mythology describes by analogy and metaphor, visionary plants that induce the mystic altered state. Ingesting visionary-plant {wine} or {potion} induces the mystic state, which is loose cognitive association binding.

Loose cognitive binding produces an experience of being frozen in a {snake}-shaped worldline within the pre-existing block universe. Experiencing the frozen block universe changes the mental worldmodel of control and time.

The mental worldmodel of control and time changes, transforming from the branching possibilities {tree} model, to the linear frozen model, with a {snake}-shaped worldline of future thoughts frozen into the {rock}-like block universe.

Experiencing personal control as being pre-set in a worldline in the block universe, shaped like a {snake} frozen in {rock}, is a threatening experience of personal non-control, with awareness of vulnerable, helpless dependence on pre-existing thoughts.

While pursuing the greatest {treasure}, of transcendent knowledge, the personal control agent in the loose cognitive state now sees the threatening {dragon} that is {uncovered} in the mind. The control-agent perceives the threat of control instability due to lack of control over the source of pre-existing thoughts.

Personal control is {fastened} helplessly to the block universe, with the control system {stabbed} and {penetrated} in its vulnerable spot. Control is overthrown at the {wellspring}, which is the source of personal control-thoughts.

To pass through the {gateway} to attain the treasure of highest knoweldge, requires the {sacrifice} overthrow of a {king} {steering} through the branching possibility {tree}, repudiating freewill-premised control power and consciously, profoundly depending instead, on a hidden, uncontrollable source of thoughts.

The Block Universe and Worldlines, in Terms of the Egodeath Theory

from article: Minkowski’s Block Universe
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/05/minkowskis-block-universe-computational-framework/ —

The 4D-spacetime block universe is rock-like, containing frozen embedded worm- or snake-shaped worldlines. The block universe contains all time and change, so the block universe is frozen and does not itself change.

A worldline is your linear stream of subjective mental content, including your personal control-thoughts, spread across time from the past into a single, pre-existing future.

The future is single, pre-existing, and non-branching, even though in the ordinary state of consciousness, it feels like we are steering through a tree of branching possibilities.

Your pre-existing, non-changing worldline is like a dark vein that runs through a white marble slab. The vein in the marble slab may “change” in a certain sense — it might “become” wider at one spot than another — yet the vein overall doesn’t change.

Per the Egodeath theory, in the mystic altered state from visionary plants, the mind has the capacity to experience the frozen block universe, along with experiencing a kind of non-control. There’s always control, but the mind experiences control differently, in the mystic altered state.

Religious mythology describes, using analogy, ingesting visionary plants and then experiencing the block universe and non-control.

Experiencing the block universe and the accompanying type of non-control causes transformation of the mental model of time and control, described by key analogies such as {wine, king, tree, death, snake, dragon, treasure, rock, sacrifice, and rebirth}.

Key mythological analogies that describe the block universe experience and concept are: {snake} = worldline, and {rock} = block universe, as contrasted with the ordinary-state experience of being like a {king} {steering} in a {tree}.

See Also

History of Developing the Egodeath Theory
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/history-of-developing-the-egodeath-theory/