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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.
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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.
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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”.
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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.
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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.”
The Egodeath theory 