Michael Rinella holds back too skeptically and conservatively regarding whether
Philosophy was entheogen-based, entheogen-saturated, and entheogen-focused -- at
the same time as presenting and affirming massive arguments and evidence for the
extremely common and thoroughly normal use of visionary plants throughout the
culture. As if Philosophy might be separate from the rest of the thoroughly
drug-saturated culture!

That's skepticism and extreme, unreasonable overcaution to the point of
absurdity. At some point, skepticism and doubt becomes irrationality. *Of
course* Philosophy was thoroughly 100% informed by entheogen-induced
experiencing. It's impossible that it wasn't. Entheogens make you think.
Philosophy is thinking.

The entire culture was saturated with entheogen drinking parties, mixed wine,
banqueting, trip club burial societies with dues paid in amphoras of undiluted
mixed wine.

Get a grip people! Get some plain practical common sense. You think way too
much, without an elementary grasp of what you're talking about. Be more of a
simple minded person. Go ask a child, an unlettered person, to get a plain,
simple view.

It's too complicated and lost in overintellectualizing to assume per Rinella
that the culture was filled with entheogens -- does he know anything about
entheogens? It's doubtful; the evidence (his skepticism and unreasonable holding
back) seems to indicate Rinella doesn't understand entheogens -- and yet it was
possible and plausible for Philosophy to not be inspired and driven primarily by
entheogens.

How could Philosophy possibly *not* be entheogen-based, entheogen-drenched?
Stop artificially drawing a protective boundary around Philosophy to keep it
pure from the standard point of reference for *all* of ancient culture, which
was visionary plants, and I emphasize where Carl Ruck is silent -- more
importantly and to-the-point -- the experiential phenomenology that results
*from* drugs.

Drugs are not the point. The experience *from* drugs is the point, but Ruck
fails to treat this subject and halts at the sheer presence of the drugs, as if
that's the end of the treatment of what's interesting and relevant.

*Of course* ancient Philosophy was a direct reflection of visionary plant
induced experiencing. How could it *not* be, given the effects of entheogens,
and the usage of mixed wine all throughout the culture, and the descriptions in
myth and ancient Philosophy? Do you not understand anything about the effects
of entheogens? Do you not understand your own arguments and their inevitable
ramifications?

Stop pretending as if "Gee, we don't know; maybe even though the entire culture
was soaked in visionary plants, it may very well be possible that somehow,
Philosophy -- exploring thinking and ideas and the mind -- was only slightly
concerned with the experiential phenomenology that results from visionary plants
and is reported by everyone who is initiated and everyone at religious drinking
parties.

Rinella's position is impossible and self-contradictory. At some point,
relentless skepticism produces explanatory incoherence, self-contradiction, and
irrational obtuseness.

If we accept everything else that Rinella presents other than the question of
the entheogenic inspiration of Philosophy, we are *forced* to also conclude --
as the only coherent, consistent position in his explanatory framework -- that
Philosophy *must* have been inspired primarily by entheogens. To reject the
latter is to produce an incoherent, self-contradicting explanatory framework.

Every aspect of ancient culture was pointedly, emphatically, deliberately
referenced to entheogens and -- more to the point (beyond the boundaries of
Ruck's conceptual universe, into that of Benny Shanon and my own work since
1985) -- the experiential phenomenology of the loose cognitive association
state, *especially* Religion, Philosophy, Myth, Psychology, Mysticism, and
Banqueting.

Shall we declare that Jesus didn't exist but other than that, Paul and the
Church Fathers and the Eusebian history are all true? Incoherence! You can't
declare that ancient myth and religion and banqueting are entheogen focused, but
philosophy was somehow not! Sheer incoherence and self-contradiction, with no
explanatory power, is the only possible result of such an exception, such
special pleading.

At some point, skepticism about entheogen-inspired Philosophy, while affirmation
of entheogen-inspired religion, banqueting, myth, and so on, is as bad and
irrational as trying to make Christianity immune from all Pagan influence.

It is special pleading, as opposed to following the plain evidence where it
leads in a simple straightforward obvious direction that any child can readily
see, where Rinella gets himself confused and would rather be confused than admit
the no-brainer: of course Philosophy was entheogen-focused; every other aspect
of society was, and Philosophy shows every sign of being no different, but
rather, of being concerned with the ideas and experiencing of the mystic altered
state.

There is no reason to suppose that Philosophy was somehow magically immune from
the common standard point of reference -- entheogen experiencing -- that all
other fields were pointedly keyed to, especially since Philosophy by its very
nature is concerned precisely with the kind of things -- how the mind works --
that are revealed vividly by psychoactive mixed wine.

Enough with the insanity of the Moderate Entheogen Theory of Religion. Quit
making life difficult by labored propping up of incoherence and
self-contradiction. Only one explanatory framework coheres and doesn't blow
itself to pieces in self-contradiction: my Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion.


Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.