Yahoo,

Don't delete this group.  I am on hiatus and will be posting to this popular
scholarly group in a year or two.  This is an important archival weblog and
it will continue with new content before too long.

-- Michael Hoffman, group owner.  Since 2001.

>>As the first scholar to try historical speculation about entheogens as the
basis of a religion in Late Antiquity, some of Allegro's bold postulates
will remain standing, even while his premise of an anti-drug Roman culture
rested on the incorrect status-quo assumption-framework and bolstered the
existing, incorrect model of drug attitudes in Late Antiquity.

That incorrect model is finally overthrown, I feel, with David Hillman's
book The Chemical Muse.  That is why I took a hiatus from my several-year
hiatus to read and review his book.

In my book review of David Hillman's The Chemical Muse, for altered-state
experiential phenomenology, I cited Benny Shanon's book Antipodes.  I could
also mention "The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience" by
Ralph Metzner (  <http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1579830005/>
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1579830005/ ).  I categorize Metzner as a 20th
Century-only writer, not attuned to entheogen history, but he writes on Page
81 in his article "Molecular Mysticism", in the book "Gateway to Inner
Space: Sacred Plants Mysticism and Psychotherapy", Christian Ratsch (Ed.) (
<http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1853270377>
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1853270377 ): "In my earlier writings, I
emphasized the newness of psychedelic drugs, the unimaginable potentials to
be realized by their constructive application; and I thought of them as
first products of a new technology oriented towards the human spirit.  ...
my views [about their novelty] have changed under the influence of the
discoveries and writings of cultural anthropologists and ethnobotanists, who
have pointed to the role of mind-altering and visionary botanicals in
cultures across the world."

Thus the writers about psychedelics in the 1960s made a fatal strategic
misstep in treating psychedelics as new, modern, and unprecedented.  Didn't
the 1960s know that "our own" religion was based on entheogens?  No.  Who
wrote the first book focusing on psychoactives in Western religion, in the
period of Late Antiquity?  John Allegro did, not Wasson, who did his best to
suppress such a consideration about that era.  As the first scholar to try
historical speculation about entheogens as the basis of a religion in Late
Antiquity, some of Allegro's bold postulates will remain standing, even
while his premise of an anti-drug Roman culture rested on the incorrect
status-quo assumption-framework and bolstered the existing, incorrect model
of drug attitudes in Late Antiquity.

Also, James Kent's book draft Psychedelic Information Theory (
http://www.tripzine.com/pit/ ) is surprisingly phenomenological for a
self-described hard-science approach.  My first phase of research used the
cognitive phenomenology approach, but lately I'm focused on entheogen
history, explained by entheogen phenomena, rather than on entheogen
phenomena in isolation.  So recently I've been on the lookout for
specifically entheogen *history* scholars, and tend to think of
contemporary-only entheogen researchers as uninformed, as continuing to make
the same mistake Metzner made in the 1960s.  But really now, I'm calling for
an integration of present-focused entheogen theory together with
historically focused entheogen scholarship: both are needed, to inform and
complete the other.  We need to combine the present-day phenomenological
perspective of James Kent, Benny Shanon, and Martin Ball with the historical
perspective of David Hillman, Clark Heinrich, and Carl Ruck.

I wrote and posted this review today.  The ASIN book links resolve when
reading the review at Amazon.


Review title: Maximal entheogen theory of religion in late antiquity
Rating: 5 stars
Tags: entheogens, late antiquity, psychedelics, psychedelic drugs, visionary
plants, religion, altered state, mystic experiencing
Reviewer: Michael Hoffman


The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization
By David Hillman, Ph.D.
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0312352492/
Aug. 2008, 243 pages.


David Hillman's book "The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western
Civilization" is a required book in the field of entheogen scholarship.  It
presents a maximal entheogen theory of religion in Late Antiquity; it is the
first book to present such a strong, clear view.  The use of psychoactives
was utterly normal, commonplace, mainstream, and culturally integrated.

Hillman forces a revision of the assumption-framework that is used by some
other entheogen historians.  John Allegro's book [[ASIN:0340128755 The
Sacred Mushroom & The Cross]] postulated that the early Christians were
motivated to use coded story-figures such as the figure of Jesus in order to
hide their deviant, unusual practice of use of visionary plants (mushrooms)
from mainstream culture, which persecuted and disallowed such use.  Hillman
doesn't address Allegro's explanation, but that aspect of Allegro's theory
is soundly disproved by the culture that Hillman reveals, a culture
thoroughly saturated with psychotropic drugs, and must be abandoned.

The cover art shows Plato with red eyes, which today has culturally
distorting connotations of "Plato smoked pot."  Hillman should've chosen
instead something like the fresco showing Dionysus' victory procession, with
Dionysus on a chariot drawn by four tigers with mushrooms above their backs.
The book would benefit from ancient pictorial evidence of psychoactive
plants and their use, of which there is no shortage.

The book ought to have subheadings.  The author omits subheadings, thus
obscuring what specific topics are covered in the book.  This lack of
topical entry points can also make the book seem more boring, when one gets
caught in a topic of less interest and cannot see where the next topic of
interest begins.  I have extracted some potential subheadings below.

Introduction chapter.  Hillman's thesis committee forced him to remove his
chapter on ancient world's recreational drug use, saying "the Romans just
wouldn't do such a thing" -- a baseless anachronistic presupposition,
projecting today's outlook onto the past, thus censoring and obscuring the
outlook that characterized the past.

Chapter 1: The Ancient Crucible.  This chapter emphasizes the misery and
anguish of ancient life.  I too felt miserable and filled with anguish after
reading most of it, since I was expecting to read about entheogens instead.
The reader starts wishing for some opium to ease the pain of reading this
chapter.  Skip this chapter and read it afterward.  It is of peripheral
relevance and gives the wrong impression that the book justifies entheogen
use because opium lessens misery.

Chapter 2: Ancient Medicines.  Skip this chapter and read it afterward.  It
is of peripheral relevance and would give the wrong impression that the book
prefers a medicinal paradigm.  Chapters 1 and 2 are appropriate to provide
background and peripheral information, but act as a hurdle in their
placement in front of the expected chapters about entheogens.

Chapter 3: Greeks, Romans, and Recreational Drugs.  The classical world was
well aware of the effects of cannabis, scopolamine plants, opium, mushrooms,
ergot, wormwood (thujone), and hemlock.

Chapter 4: Promethean Euphoria.  Covers drugs in myth, including the myths
of Prometheus, Demeter, ambrosia, Dionysus, Odysseus & the Cyclops giant
Polyphemus, and Narcissus.  Mixed wine is partly covered here.

The scope of the book is Greek and Roman culture in Late Antiquity; there is
little comment on the transition to Christendom.  Hillman doesn't address
the question of "To what extent were visionary plants used throughout
Christian history?"  But he does conjecture that Jewish and earliest
Christian practice included visionary plants.  He uses the noncommittal term
"Christian mythology", and discusses political struggles in antiquity, but
doesn't address the origins of the Jesus figure or the motives for creating
Christianity.  The investigation of the history of the mystic altered state
must extend far beyond this books' focus on the sheer use of visionary
plants, such as commentary connecting social structures with the specific
phenomena that are encountered within the intense visionary state.

Hillman doesn't cover mythic metaphors, cognitive phenomenology (per Benny
Shanon's book [[ASIN:0199252939 The Antipodes of the Mind]]), and
altered-state metaphor.  Hillman's treatments of myths remain as superficial
as any uninspired scholar's.  He focuses on the sheer fact that the plants
were used, rather than on cognitive phenomenology resulting from the
plant-induced altered state.  Like Carl Ruck's work, Hillman doesn't provide
interpretations of mythic metaphors except in terms of the physical plants
and the sheer fact of using them.  He assumes simple literalistic readings
of the mythemes, as opposed to reading them in terms of mental experiences
from visionary plants.

He doesn't cover self-control instability in the altered state, or the
common experiential phenomenon of ego death.  He reads all mythic references
to "death" as literal death, rather than metaphorical description of
specific cognitive phenomena encountered in the mystic altered state.  The
mythemes of 'death', 'mortal', 'divinization', and 'king' are bandied about
unreflectively in these pages, rather than considering them as aspects of
plant-induced experiencing.  What does 'death' mean to the person during the
altered state which Hillman writes about?  He ought to consider, for
example, 'death' as the altered-state suspension of the self as controller
and mental construct, and the overpowering of the personal self by the
broader space-time world in which the self is embedded.

As another example, the Introduction discusses Actaeon being killed for
looking upon the goddess Artemis, but Hillman superficially treats this
death as a simple literal death as punishment for (vaguely) "seeing too
much", rather than as the specific death of the pseudo-autonomous self
during the mystic altered state.  Hillman doesn't tie-in the myths from late
antiquity with today's mystic-state reports of the cessation of the egoic
conception of oneself, or perceiving a higher level of control that trumps
and originates one's own power.

He reads the themes of 'maiden' and 'youth' flatly and literalistically,
rather than matching them with the idea of the uninitiated mind prior to
ingesting the sacred meal in a mystery-cult initiation.  Hillman's line of
thought needs to develop further by applying cognitive phenomenology to the
interpretation of mythemes -- by explaining mythemes as metaphorical
descriptions of the cognitive phenomena that are encountered in the
plant-induced, altered cognitive state.

Chapter 5: Drawing Down the Moon.  This too-vaguely titled chapter actually
covers sorcerer/druggists; ancient magicians were somewhat comparable to
"drug dealers".  Zoroastrianism and the Magi.  The practice of magic was
tantamount to the use of drugs.  Magic was a matter of control &
manipulation, including manipulating the mind of a desired lover, through
seeming manipulation of reality in the drug-induced altered state.  Medea &
Jason.  Scholars intentionally mistranslate words to avoid writing "drugs";
Circe's mastery is specifically of drugs, and yet scholars deliberately
mistranslate words for her drugs instead as vague "charms".

Hillman affirms the ancient Greeks' belief in Fate (heimarmene), but without
detailed elaboration, without considering how the belief in Fatedness was
connected with altered-state experiencing.

Chapter 6: The Divine Gift of Mind-Bending Intoxication.  Scholars
standardized on mistranslation of words for opium as "poppy seeds".

Hillman writes that drugs were "a" means of entering into the divine realm,
"just another means of invoking the Muses", but he never says what the
implied "other means" of entering into the divine realm were.  That raises
the question, which he should've addressed, of whether drugs were the only
effective means of entering into the divine realm.  If plant-drugs were the
chemical muse, then was there some non-chemical muse as well, some non-drug
technique of entering into the divine altered state?  It is surprising that
Hillman is silent about the existence of that debate among entheogen
scholars.

The Muses, divine poetic inspiration, and ancient literature.  Psychoactive
drugs were a primary, standard concern of ancient literature.  Homer's
bardic works: the Illiad; the Odyssey, including the Lotus-Eaters.  Virgil's
work: the Aeneid, including stories of Dido and Amata.  Ovid's works:
Amores; Heroides; and Ars amatoria.  The audience used psychoactives and
understood the authors' incorporation of themes involving psychoactives.

Chapter 7: The Pharmacology of Western Philosophy.  The pre-Socratic
philosophers, drug-sorcerers, or sages.  Diogenes.  Epimenides:
Root-cutters, mandrake, and Epimenides' stimulant.  Pythagoras: his
initiations into mystery religions, and Magi.  Empedocles and the birth of
natural science.  Mixed wine included opium, henbane, and psychoactive
herbs, unguents, and spices.  Plato's Phaedrus: Divine madness, inspired
mania, divine possession, and the Muses.

Chapter 8: Democracy, Free Speech, and Drugs.  This chapter opens with 8
pages about the creation of democracy in ancient Athens, with no connection
to entheogens.  This puts a strain on the reader's patience, waiting so long
to get to the claimed subject matter of the book.

The political and drug aspects of plays.  Until recently, scholars
deliberately mistranslated or suppressed Aristophanes' ribald wording, but
they continue to deliberately mistranslate drug references to suppress,
distort, and censor those.  Plato's work The Laws.  Aristophanes' play
Thesmophoriazusae.  Aristophanes' play Wealth.  Euripides' play Andromache:
free speech, personal freedom, and civil liberties.  Athens vs. Sparta:
egalitarian democracy vs. authoritarian oppression.  Euripides' play Medea.


This chapter touches on mystery cult initiation, Eleusis, Carl Ruck's book
[[ASIN:1556437528 The Road to Eleusis]], and the scholarly suppression of
such academic investigation into ancient psychoactives use.  Surprisingly,
Hillman provides no deep coverage of entheogens in mystery-cult sacred
meals, which most readers are expecting; he presents only 2 pages focusing
on this topic.  The book has a surprising lack of detailed coverage of
entheogens in the sacred meals of all the mystery cults of late antiquity,
such as emperor cult.  Hillman merely touches on, but doesn't provide
sustained, in-depth coverage of "drinking" symposium parties; for example,
he doesn't expound upon Dennis Smith's book [[ASIN:0800634896 From Symposium
to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World]] to explain
"drinking clubs" in terms of visionary plants in mixed wine.

Conclusion chapter: The Western Pursuit of Happiness.  Personal freedom and
democracy in Athens went along with psychoactives.  The status quo claims to
endorse freedom, democracy, personal autonomy, and civil liberties, but
demonizes psychoactives, against the values of Athens which created our
valuation of freedom and personal liberties.  The drug knowledge that is
embedded in antiquities would be a valuable resource, and is the kind of
knowledge governments and businesses are looking for.  Moralistic censorship
rewrites history and creates a fictional image of the past to prop up the
status-quo powers.  Factual historical knowledge about the integration of
psychoactive drugs into the culture of antiquity would provide conceptual
tools that would help society remain free from tyrants and aristocrats.

Notes section.  The book uses endnotes rather than footnotes.  These are
proper, correctly used endnotes (or footnotes): they are strictly citations
of where to find source material, rather than passages which ought to be in
the body of the book instead.  Much more of the book needs such pointers to
the source texts, to help interested scholars quickly develop the material
further than Hillman takes it.

Bibliography.  The only entheogen-scholarship book mentioned is The Road to
Eleusis.  Hillman's book seems to be research done in isolation from the
most closely related existing books.  There is a surprising absence of Carl
Ruck's other books, Dan Merkur's books such as [[ASIN:0892817720 The Mystery
of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of the Bible]], Clark Heinrich's
historical survey [[ASIN:0892819979 Magic Mushrooms in Religion and
Alchemy]], Entheos journal, and the dispute between Wasson and Allegro about
the Plaincourault fresco ([[ASIN:1439215170 The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of
Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity]]).

The game is up, for the status quo academic Establishment.  Their effort to
censor out psychoactive drugs from the mainstream of late antiquity is
thwarted by this book.  Scholars who care about their future reputation must
cease their alliance with the distorting forces of suppression of the
psychoactives aspect.  Those who care about aligning with the facts of the
matter and are looking for longevity, need to divorce themselves from the
status-quo denial of the evidential facts, and work toward building a
drastically revised model of antiquity.

People make the false statement that there is little or no evidence of drug
use in antiquity.  Hillman goes beyond merely asserting that scholars would
easily locate ample evidence if they began looking for it.  He demonstrates
that scholars have already run into ample evidence, but are censoring,
deliberately ignoring, and deliberately mistranslating the evidence, in a
cover-up.

The effort of proving that the ancient evidence describes the visionary
plants themselves, too much follows the lead of the status-quo academics.  A
continued heavy critique of the academic status quo is needed, but without
letting the status quo define the boundaries of the investigation.

This book aims to adequately prove the case that psychoactive drug use was
entirely normal and mainstream and ubiquitous in late antiquity.  This book
doesn't aim to be comprehensive in fleshing-out all use of psychoactives in
late antiquity.  The field of entheogen scholarship needs expanded follow-up
volumes that put less emphasis on convincing the skeptical academic
Establishment, and more emphasis on comprehensively laying out more
connections between late antiquity, the culturally integrated use of
visionary plants, and the deeper interpretation of mythemes.

This book opens up a call for serious scholarship that engages the extent of
drug use in antiquity.  Serious, substantial scholarship will need to go
beyond Hillman, beyond the sheer assertion and proof that visionary plants
were used, into explanation of mythemes that describe the experiential
content of the resulting mystic altered state.  Hillman's political focus on
personal freedoms needs to be expanded into the realm of altered-state
mythemes such as the death of the king, and gods as rulers -- connecting
personal altered-state experiencing with social structures and governance,
as was done in the thoroughly drug-saturated culture of late antiquity.

The Church of Christ quasi-denomination is based on the principle of exactly
modelling
today's church worship activity on the model that is specified in the New
Testament.  Does
the worship practice in the Churches of Christ today actually match the model
specified in
the New Testament?

Even more directly to the point, does the worship practice in the Churches of
Christ today
actually match the practices of early Christians, where those early Christian
practices are
basically aligned with the New Testament description of the practices of Jesus
followers?  I
will abbreviate the latter question:


Does today's church practice match the practices and purposes of early
Christians?  For
what purposes should enlightened people do Christian practices today and gather
for
house-church-shaped Christian assemblies today?  Is it possible to do church in
the exact
same way and for the exact same purposes as early Christians?

I define "early Christians" as circa 135 CE (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt
) to 313 CE (a 178-year period that is my favored period as point of reference
for what
Christianity or New Testament Christianity actually was about, what it meant). 
I select this
period as the definitive measure of and reference point for authentic New
Testament
Christianiy because I hold that the New Testament books were written, or
redacted into
existence from Josephus etc., starting in 135, and that the nature of
Christianity shifted
from counter-empire house-church Christianity to organized institutional empire-
supporting Christianity starting in 313.


Did early Christians have pews?  No.

Did early Christians have a podium and microphone?  No.

Did early Christians have fresh grape juice to drink, on demand?  No.

Did early Christians dress up on Sunday and take their family to a building
called "Church"?
No.


Why do people "go to church" today?  Why did early Christians gather, and how
often did
they gather, while the New Testament canon was being formed?  What are the
motivations,
and how are the motivations for "going to church" conceptualized today?  What
were the
motivations for the early Christians to come together into assemblies?

What are the background cultural conventions today, as the backdrop or general
context
against which people "go to church" and do what they do?  What was the normal
cultural
context and practices of the early Jesus followers, against which they gathered
together
during their assemblies?

Why do people gather "in church" today and bring their children, their families?
Why did
early Jesus followers come together into assemblies, and did they bring their
children?  Did
they have a "family oriented assembly" mentality?

Ultimately, "going to church" and doing "Christian worship" today must be
compared not
to early Christian practice, but to *non*-Christian broadly religious-related
practice in
antiquity.

Why did ancients in general do whatever they did that is roughly equivalent to,
although
distinctly different from, modern-era "going to church" or other "Christian
activity"?  To
have a religious drug party, with other social activities connected, like
symposium
"drinking parties" and "funeral clubs"?

How is "going to church" and "Christian activity" distinct from other aspects of
life today?
How was "religious-related activity" distinct from other aspects of life in
antiquity, for
non-Christians and for Jesus followers (or Jesus assemblies)?


A Woman's Place: House Churches In Earliest Christianity
by Carolyn Osiek
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0800637771/
Nov. 2005

Families in the New Testament World by Carolyn Osiek

Early Christian Families in Context by David L. Balch

Women's Religions in the Greco-Roman World by Ross Shepard Kraemer

Households And Holiness: The Religious Culture Of Israelite Women (Facets)
(Paperback)
by Carol L. Meyers

House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early
Christianity
by Roger Gehring

The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives by Beryl Rawson

Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family by Richard P. Saller

From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World by Dennis
E. Smith

I might read-aloud various decent past postings.

I want to refine my spoken-word recording skills, including the vocalization
(clean, natural, and flowing), recording (clean, clear, and
immediate/present), and production aspects (loudness, & speed and ease).
One way to gain the quantity of experience and practice to apply what I've
learned, is to read-aloud past postings.

For any future postings, I'll consider also reading them aloud, hopefully as
a thread and as 45 minutes long.  Hopefully with some added clarification,
added points and commentary, added-in.

I re-recorded my reading of the post "Emergent missional post-church
practice, entheogen house-church movement", and uploaded it.


Signal/noise ratio:

This time, I used a Mac with good sound chips onboard.  This is top-quality
sound for an unprocessed signal (no compressor, no noise gate).  I'm going
for an ultra-honest, unprocessed, immediate sound, done optimally.  It's a
philosophy that has pros and cons.  This recording has the very good
signal-to-noise ratio I hoped for originally -- no ragged, ratty digital
junk noise in the background (like my first try today).  I'd have to turn
off the HVAC system to silence the background (room noise leakage) more.


Production:

My voice became hoarse and the room resonates badly.  The editing is sub-par
because I just learned the GarageBand recording application.  Sometimes
there's complete silence -- an automatic feature I didn't intend.

This audio file is not as loud as a standard pro recording should be,
because it uses no compressor, limiter, or clipping.  GarageBand normalized
it to 0 dB.


Vocalization:

My first try at reading this today used over-pronunciation; it was stilted,
choppy.  I read it more smoothly and flowing-together, for the second
recording, although my voice became worn out, more deep and raspy, and less
clear-toned.  It's hard to relax and sound flowing while also working to
control the vocalization and breathing.  The recording is really good, aside
from the above complaints, but it's not my voice, which should be a little
higher and clearer.

This recording doesn't have the signal-noise ratio I hoped for.  I need to
put a real sound-card in this computer.  Probably all the still-substantial
noise in this latest recording is from the on-board (thus bad) sound "card"
-- I doubt that the mic and mixer noise is at all audible against that din.

It's also lossy-compressed more than my usual: 96 Kbps rather than 128.

On my latest spoken-word file, reading the posting "Emergent missional
post-church practice, entheogen house-church movement", I spoke louder (at
presentation-level, risking a "shouting" impression), to get above the noise
floor, and amplified the result by 3dB to push it into momentary distortion,
to make the playback level louder.  I completely disconnected all unneeded
cables to the mixer, to eliminate potential whine-feedback paths -- for that
reason or by luck, I think the mic had zero nuisance noise during this
session -- just the hiss floor, only.

I'm hoping that this recording achieves my best signal-noise ratio ever, and
achieves louder, standard levels.  No compression or other processing; this
should achieve an intense immediacy of presence (even though this risks
too-punchy volume spikes and requires "manual" voice control while
speaking).  With no compressor, the risk is that you're always alternately
either shouting at the listener, or somnambulantly mumbling, as if you've
run out of energy -- it's hard, it takes skilled control, to speak and
project at the natural, just-right level, without the crutch of a
compressor.

I should deaden the room reverberation.

To create a pretty clean recording with pretty fast, minimal editing
required, I used the mixer master volume as a Mute, to create a quiet raw
track, and then did quick minimal editing-out silences longer than 2
seconds.

Podcast of this posting:

7 minutes, 5 MB

One way to download the file: at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/5111 (intended to be the
number of the present message)
right-click the URL
http://www.egodeath.com/mp3s/EmergentEntheogenChurch.mp3
and Save As.

I often puzzle over what role or practice I could possibly do to be a
meaningful part of Christianity and Christian practice.  I researched
"missional", "emergent", "house church" and "dying church".  My grandfather
wanted me to preach the gospel.  In a sense the answer is in front of me:
studying, theorizing, and writing about religion and the New Testament
online is *already* "participating in emerging church" in the way that is
uniquely suited for me as Egodeath theorist.  I've already been doing it (my
suitable appropriate equivalent for church participation), without realizing
it.  I've always thought that the best contribution I could possibly have
for the bride of Christ (that is, the Christian church) is to set straight
the original meaning of the New Testament.

'Missional' means mentally doing away with church buildings and professional
pastors, and doing more like early house-church practice prior to
Constantine, and taking "the church" more out within the normal,
non-"church" world.  The diversity inherent in Emergent or Emerging church
suggests that no one single uniform model of "being church" or "doing
church" is suited for everyone.  We're seeing a live-and-let-living
diversity of versions of Christianity that is more like prior to the forced
uniformity that occurred under Constantine and under the ruling-class bishop
takeover movement.

I have mixed feelings about the potential of Christianity.  It can never
attain the relevance it had in the Roman Empire, yet it remains the most
important religion, and a theory of religion cannot possibly avoid
Christianity, be must take it on and take it over, going *through* rather
than around Christianity.  This includes abandoning the idea of the
perfectibility of Christianity and the Christian societal project.
Christianity will remain always a broken tool.  Yet we must perfect and
repair to the extent possible this broken tool, this solution that perfectly
fits a problem (the Roman Empire) that's different than today's problem.  At
best, a repaired Christianity can only be half-successful, because it no
longer has the Roman Empire to push against and to serve as a more desirable
alternative to.

Many Christians are coming to feel "I can't stand the church".  Many
Christians are concluding that "the church" must be killed to make way for
*the church*, meaning the expanding alternative network-community of
followers of Jesus against empire.  This requires throwing away the
institutional church which has become merely an arm of empire, a tool to
prop up empire, and doing away with Christendom.

For "house church", think "Ayahuasca Christian worship, with the Social
Gospel".  Christianity is thus strategic and fitting for the Egodeath theory
and the maximal entheogen theory of religion.  If entheogenists just ignore
Christianity, then they cannot *leverage* its huge potential, given that New
Testament Christianity was the use of visionary plants within a
kingdom-of-God metaphor-framework, serving to construct a just
social-political configuration.

Many Christian group leaders have incorporated the true psychoactive
Eucharist into their group worship practices.  These would be today's
persecuted Christian groups, although I must reiterate that Christians were
not persecuted for drug use (which was the cultural norm), but, if anything,
for rejecting the social-political system of the Roman Empire (as well as
resisting the later ruling-class bishop takeover movement).

If you wish that there were an existing influential religion that was based
on psychedelics and was used for social justice, there is, and it is New
Testament Christianity in the Roman Empire.  It is no coincidence that the
peyote and Ayahuasca Christian micro-churches so readily manage to integrate
psychoactives into their Eucharistic practice, because until the modern era,
ever since early proto-Christianity, the Eucharist was understood in
mainstream Christianity to be visionary plants.  Where is the power to win
new converts?  The power to win new converts to the Christian faith is in
the psychoactive flesh and blood of Christ our savior, who has come in the
likeness of sinful flesh.

Many Christians agree that we must destroy Christianity (or that which has
passed for such) in order to save it.

Given that the Roman Empire doesn't exist for the gospel's alternate savior
figure to push against, the best we can do is to explain the Roman Empire as
that which Christianity was a rebuttal to, and equate the Roman Empire with
today's empire -- something like "Jesus and his rejected sacramental body,
not Bush/Cheney and their Evangelical Right support-base, is my lord and
savior."  Now *this* is the true gospel, of spiritual salvation and the
kingdom of God, that's worth proselytizing, worth inviting others into.

Entheogenic house churches have the sacrament-administering advantage over
mere home bible-study and prayer groups that are limited to the ordinary
state of consciousness decorated with emotionalism.  The New Testament
serves as the guide to righteously and justly interpret and shape the
intense altered-state Holy Spirit experiencing that results from ingesting
the Eucharistic flesh of the savior.


Reference: books:

The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church
by Alan Hirsch
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1587431645/
Jan. 2007

Starting a House Church
by Larry Kreider, Floyd McClung
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0830743650/
April 2007

See the associated books and book lists, with an eye toward radical
replacement of "churches" and "Christian culture" with entirely new forms.
These are the leading edge of change and vitality within an otherwise
stagnant, dead, and inert topic.

In terms of social groups, I also have a degree of feeling I'm a "Great
American", "Great Californian", "Great Engineer", and "Great Alumni".  I'm
not only a proud Theorist, I'm a proud American, a proud Californian, a
proud engineer, and a proud alum.  Perhaps a proud cybercult denizen (e.g. a
proud member and product of the Mondo 2000 & WELL community).  A proud
Christian, and a product of Christianity.  Also a proud Alan Wattsian, a
product of his treatment of Eastern and Western religion.

As a Theory creator, I'm a product of America, California, engineering,
cybercult, tech school and university, the WELL, and Christianity -- I am a
representative of these groups.  My pride and my achievement reflects back
onto these groups.  I'm also a member and product of other groups, such as
the JesusMysteries online discussion group, my circle of friends, a member
of professional societies, a member of the group entheogen scholars.

Also now I had my Bar Mitzvah a week ago, so now I am a member of the Jews,
and I'm a product of a Jewish upbringing, as well as baptized into the
Church of Christ, thus my greatness (due to my Theory's greatness) would
amount to pride and product of these groups.  To some extent I'm a member of
my grade school long ago, but that's not directly associated with my
theorizing, so my greatness or achievement in Theory hardly reflects back to
that social or societal group.  My significant social groups relevant for
Theory development only has tangible roots going back to mid high school.
Before that, I was generic and you could not tell that I'd have any future
in Theory development about transcendent knowledge; such a future would have
been conjectural had you analyzed my life back in early high school.

Prioritizing my influences *as* a Theorist might place me (and my
Achievement) as a member and product of certain groups more than others:
firstly,
* Engineering
* University  (and, private university where all courses are actually
taught by professors)
* California
* Human Potential movement / transpersonal psychology
* Alan Watts
* Christianity
* Stanford / Palo Alto (I characterized my Phase 1 work as "the
Stanford view": that is, exuding the vibe and mentality of Silicon Valley in
the 1990s).
* Entheogen scholars
* Ahistoricity scholars
* The WELL / cybercult, then the Web especially during my Phase 2
* The late 1980s through 1990s

Not much:
* Judaism as cultural practice & upbringing
* Grade schools
* Pomo studies
* Tech school
* Eastern religion in general
* America (I consciously feel more affinity, a product more of
California than of America, because America is = "the world at large", with
"Europe having disappeared and ceased to exist" for me per Jean Baudrillard.
Thus I am *so* much a product of America that there's nothing consciously
distinctive about this cultural context for me.)

I *have* felt an identification with these groupings as I have developed my
Theory of transcendent knowledge; for example, I pointed this out
prominently, 3 years into it, in my commencement party, pointing out that
it's very distinctive that I'm developing a Theory of transcendent knowledge
*as* an engineer, with that mentality and character.

Even though I highlight my personal stature being concomitant with the
success of my Theory, I have also always felt a strong social sense of
identification with these groups, institutions, and societies.  A Great
Theory, thus necessarily a proud theorist, and thus also a proud member (and
representative) of these social groups.  Our society is packed full of
taboos, including the taboo solutions to the long-lasting puzzles about
religious origins and religious knowledge.  I have had to be the one to
concertedly break all of these taboos together; it was inherently necessary
as part of creating the Theory.

Even as I break these taboos, and offend publicly all groups including the
groups that created me, these groups are at the same time forced to
acknowledge me as their representative, their product.  I am a product of my
society and upbringing, of the many adults who inducted me, often
deliberately, into subcultures and entrenched taboo cultural practices that
are as normal and entrenched as they are officially tabooed.  For example,
in 8th Grade graduation, we were initiated with an oil light show and the
David Bowie song Space Oddity.

I am a product of my church; I represent my church even as I propose
throwing Christianity into the garbage can as ill-suited and ill-fitting for
today's modern world or any world after the Roman Empire.  I represent my
university even while I condemn the universities for self-censoring
themselves about entheogens and the drug origins of the religions, providing
a false pseudo-education that lacks actual initiation and lacks real
Philosophy, which was multi-state, altered-state-based Philosophy.  I am a
representative of Engineering and the many Engineers of cybercult (for
example) who straightforwardly affirm the value of entheogens or
psychedelics -- even if official culture makes-believe that Engineering is
"too straight-laced for drugs".

Against the official version of Engineering, I truly do represent Engineers
in their entheogen-positive views.  Against the official modern version of
Christianity, I truly do represent many Christians across history in their
entheogen-positive Eucharistic views, like it or not.  When I assert the
Egodeath theory, I do so as a proud Christian, a proud member and product of
my church congregation, a proud member of my troubled and taboo-haunted
society, a proud member of my engineering society, a proud alumni of my
university (even though I often felt depressed about that university at the
time and a few years afterward), a proud American and product of America,
and now most recently (in the future from here on out) a proud confirmed
Jew.

People worked hard to produce me as a Christian, as an American, as a
Californian, as a Jew, as an engineer, and what they have produced instead
is this taboo-trampling monster instead: I am a proud product of and
representative of Christianity, America, California, engineering school, and
my university, and the many adults who deliberately shaped me into the
fullness of our culture and its tabooed views and practices, as well as my
peers.  What have you wrought?  What is the product of your efforts, your
systems, our social forms?  The Egodeath theory, me, my Theory.

This is what I give back to the society that formed me; this is its product,
through me, this is the best and most valuable thing I could possibly offer:
the Egodeath theory.  Like it or not, pretend to like it or not, be shocked
or offended or not, or cheer and praise it or not -- you get what you get,
you get what you sowed, you get your return on your investment.  People gave
their lives and shed their blood in battle, and I gave my life energy, in
order to bring forth this ultimate, paradigm-shattering product, the
Egodeath theory: systematized explicit transcendent knowledge.

I'm ready to relatively turn my attention back to my Phase 1 topic of
cognitive science/ cognitive phenomenology, rather than my more recent Phase
2 "historical" focus of history of religion and myth.  However, the
revisionist historical focus (Christianity, Eastern meditation, entheogens
in the origins of those religions, and ahistoricity of Jesus) is valuable
for its sensationalism.  My treatment of religions has value for
sensationalist attraction, that the pure cognitive phenomenology theory
can't have.  I asserted some surprising positions in my 1988 commencement
party presentation, about how alien and boring and not-immediately-relevant
my theory was (during my Phase 1).

I want to highlight the surprising ideas in the Egodeath theory both as
applied to our religious and cultural past, and to present mental
processing, and to the future of religious practice and our
self-understanding.  Phase 1 (cog sci) and Phase 2 (religious historical
revision) both are sources for many surprising points, and it is crucial to
be surprising, for a new theory.  For example, although espousing
"determinism" has problems because people object to "determinism" (as *they*
conceive of it - usually a misunderstanding), it does provide some
motivating, attractive controversy, some "bad PR" (given that "there's no
such thing as bad publicity).  To be notorious, to be controversial, to be
infamous -- these things have their advantages.

Above all, don't be a wallflower.  To all the people who are so stupid or
cheap and superficial in their thinking that they equate ego transcendence
with mundane humility and mundane self-deprecation in regular social
relationships in the ordinary state of consciousness, what can one say but
"you are a small and insignificant person in light of my huge superiority of
person" -- that is, pulling the strings that they have constructed, pressing
their buttons that they put forward.  If you want to demonstrate to me that
you are not a serious thinker, all you have to do is equate "ego
transcendence" with mundane "humility".

To emphasize the difference, I am the world's most humility attuned person
regarding personal power in the altered state (that's the true meaning of
'humility' in a religious context or in transcendent knowledge), and I am
the world's most proud person (best theorist) with the strongest sense of
superiority to others in the mundane world.  That's like Wilber's call for
"an ego strong enough to die".  As a theorist, I am the best, and the most
superior to others, because as a control-agent, I'm most attuned to the
utter powerlessness of the personal locus of control in light of the
uncontrollable higher-level controller that is the source of all of our
thoughts and actions.

I'm fully proud, in the mundane state (as a competing theorist), and I'm
fully humble, with respect to that which is revealed in the altered state.
That demonstrates how distinct mundane pride is from religious-state
humility.  Anyone who understands ego death ought to be very proud and
consider themselves superior to other people (while per the New Testament,
constructing a flat, fair, non-oppressive, just society).  And anyone who
understands ego death is, by definition, truly humble, in the sense which is
religiously relevant.  The Elect of God are proud (before others) to be
humbled (before God).

Little people with nothing to contribute are always the first to criticize
and put-down anyone who stands out and puts forth a substantial
contribution.  American society has schizophrenic self-contradictory values:
we give lip-service to striving for excellence, and we enviously disapprove
of those who actually achieve excellence.  That attitude voted for the
abrasively and aggressively imbecilic G. Bush.  Australia is more
consistent: they are suspicious of even striving for excellence, because
they equate excellence with oppressiveness and oppressive social structures.
Anyone who contributes more than others is suspect of striving to oppress
others.  Excellence is equated with oppression.

Ayn Rand criticized this tendency in the socialism of her day, and pointed
out the possibility of the superior people going on strike, against the
freeloaders who would keep down the superior people.  However, her system
was helpless against the unethical people in influential positions that
really do want to just oppress other people.

These ideas are intellectually interesting, but all I'm really saying is
that our society holds loose sets of values that are mutually contradictory,
and that to make an impact, one must be proud and must stand out from the
crowd, in order to punch-through the noise.  You must explicitly offer
something different, something distinctive, something that boldly stands
out; you must boldly *contradict* the existing norm.  Anyone who is too
humble, too much a wallflower, never self-assertive, a pushover, who just
blends into the hive society, like the characterization of the Japanese
culture as "the peg that stands out will be hammered", cannot succeed at
creating something innovative and making it available and visible in the
noise of post-modern culture.

It's taboo to point out these realities, but as the theorist of ego
transcendence, discussing this taboo is relevant, and I did play with this
taboo even 20 years ago in my Theory commencement party presentation.  You
have to -- secretly or not -- think in terms like being destined for
greatness; you have to go to "prep school" and "finishing school", so to
speak; you have to be deliberately cultivated.  The exceptions (people who
are actually thoroughly unassuming and self-effacing) are rare so as to
prove the rule.  If Madonna is famous for being famous, Curt Cobain is the
one person who is famous for acting "not famous".

To some extent, these are reflections that I am actively using, that affect
me; but to some extent these are merely idle reflections that I've had to
think about and that amount to nothing in practice, for me personally.
Anyone who writes a book, in some sense *has to* think of themselves as in
some way "destined for greatness", even though coming to grips with that
practical fact of psychology may be tabooed in our democratic,
aristocracy-hating society (a society which nevertheless worships fame).

To declare all previous theories of transcendent knowledge to be grossly
inadequate, sloppy, and ineffective, as I have done since 1986, is to right
away, inherently, in some sense already be proud and to act as though one is
destined for greatness.  That implication is unavoidable, and suitably
appropriate, even if the concept of "destined for greatness" is taboo in
democratic society that worships *striving for* excellence but jealously
hates and fears any actual *achieving* of greatness, equating greatness with
oppression and pushing down other people.

The person who has achieved may have a certain kind of comfort being around
others who have achieved, like pop stars hanging out together in their elite
circles, circles which play with being oppressive elite circles.  I should
read books on the social psychology of fame and pop stardom -- that would
help me address this topic that's relevant for the general theory of ego
transcendence and for my particular personal needs as a breakthrough
theorist.

I'd connect it with ideas of "Jesus Christ superstar", the apostle figures
as stars, the early popes, emperors in antiquity, the person of the King ("I
am the state"), and the New Testament project of using religious
experiencing to bring about a flat, non-oppressive way of organizing
society, against the "superstar" Caesar-based steep hierarchy system of
honor and shame, and client/patron pyramid.  Compare Imperial Cult to the
cult of pop stardom -- and postmodern analysis of "pop cult".

When did I first start thinking about the idea of being "destined for
greatness"?  Some time in between envisioning writing a book in 1986, and my
commencement party in Spring 1988.  To declare all previous religion and
theories of transcendent knowledge as inadequate, to be replaced by one's
own theory, is inherently tantamount to conceiving oneself as, and mentally
preparing oneself to be as, "destined for greatness" -- regardless of how
one tries to spin and portray that inescapable fact.

Sometimes democratic society expects and demands that the person who is
actually in fact great, to strenuously make-believe and play-act humility.
Thus it is a flimsy cliche that we eulogize great Americans as infinitely
humble.  The rule in our society is that when you talk about a great
American, you *must* declare them to have been infinitely humble,
*regardless* of the truth of the matter.  It's a matter of American pride
that we *must* declare the achievers who are role models to be paragons of
humility -- lest we commit the unpatriotic and traitorous crime of
worshipping kings and aristocracy who rule (and oppress) by divine right.

To admit that one has to think of oneself as "destined for greatness" is
considered traitorous -- it's felt, in our blood, to be a crime against the
nation, even though picking up the pen to write a book *inherently* has that
component of pride, verge, and willingness to stick one's head out and
declare "I have something of value to provide to society, that other people
cannot offer."  To set one's mind to achieving anything that is outstanding
and culture-changing is, in some sense, inescapably to address all other
people as "peasants" or "proles", no matter how you try to spin and evade
this fact.

To contribute something distinctive of value to society, one *has* to have
some sort of "high view of oneself", to fail to -- like British "commoners"
-- "know your place" or "keep to your station".  Alexis de Tocqueville would
be relevant, in his comparison in his 1835 book Democracy in America, of the
different attitudes of Americans ("a society where every citizen is a
sovereign king") compared to the British, French, and European aristocratic
monarchies.  The real idea is that as an American, you are supposed to try
to achieve full human potential, but not in a way that denies achievement or
potential greatness to other "citizen-kings".  Thus it's OK to think of
oneself as "destined for greatness" in a way that permits others to be so as
well.

Consider Leibniz, Newton, and Descartes battling it out for acclaim and fame
in Natural Philosophy, and how that was treated as rivalry between the
early-modern nations of Germany vs. England vs. France, where national egos
competed against each other for greatness and superiority.  Or the German
cultural inferiority complex that is said to have given rise to Weimar
German culture.  The American system has a certain innate egoic inferiority
complex since everyone is expected to strive for the greatness of achieving
their human potential, lifting themselves high by their own bootstraps as
each person a sovereign citizen-king.

This can lead to depression, frustration, and self-condemning that can
result from an overdose of Shirley MacLaine New Age self-help philosophy
that credits and blames the individual for all that happens to them and all
that they achieve.  "You are fully responsible for all that happens to you
and all that you experience" (a rather convenient self-justification for
those who happen to be among the privileged, sheltered, fortunate, lucky
elite who grew up with an unconscious sense of entitlement and who, on the
whole, get all the breaks).

Being a paradigm-changing theorist of transcendent knowledge cannot be
compared to an average successful businessperson -- a better comparison
would be to innovative engineers who are considered to be the creators of
new major influential technologies like the Web, Amazon.com, the Mac, or
Google.  Or to influential, famous scientists.  That is, the product or
achievement is intimately associated with the person who created it.  Thus
"I *am* the Egodeath theory", and for the Egodeath theory to be famous and
influential is inseparably synonymous with me as a person being famous and
influential.  That's why I've been forced to consider my person being thrust
into the role of "great and famous" simply by virtue of my Theory striving
to become "great, breakthrough, famous".

It's not actually possible to envision the Theory becoming "great,
breakthrough, famous" while I consider myself like the hogwash requisite
cliche of the eulogizing and hagiography of famous innovators as "he was
infinitely humble".  That would be nonsense in the case of this Theory of
transcendent knowledge; it is nonsense and an impossibility that the Theory
would be considered as "great, breakthrough, famous" while I go around
considering myself "just an ordinary Joe like G. Bush."  For my Theory to be
received as Great is *inherently*, by the nature of such theorizing, for me
personally to be seen as Great -- any avoiding of that necessity is phony
pretense.

I don't know if this reality and situation is a "problem" for me, but it is
certainly something I've been forced to consider: it comes with the
territory the moment I thought "all the existing, previous theories and
religions are bunk, ineffective, inefficient, they aren't cutting it, not by
a long shot, and I have to step in and remedy this situation by formulating
and putting forth a new, vastly superior Theory -- a great Theory, which
would be *my* Theory."  The result of putting for a great Theory is
*necessarily* that one becomes great oneself; this is inescapable (and not
necessarily undesirable, a bad thing).

That gives some background on why I've been grappling since 1988 with being
in a position of "destined for greatness" as a result of striving to put
forth a Theory of transcendent knowledge and religious that is "destined for
greatness".  This type of intellectual product is inseparable from one's own
person.  "Great Theory" necessarily immediately entails "Great Theorist".

Today I watched the videotape from my 1988 college party which was to
announce my commencement of writing my Egodeath theory as books.  I watched
it to determine whether my stated objectives of the Theory have been carried
forth consistently, matching my current conception of the Egodeath theory
and project of theorizing.

There were questions from the audience, all college students -- friends, and
their friends.  My responses, and my description of the Theory and Project,
were acceptably coherent with my current thinking, although of course then I
was only 3 years into the Project, now 22 years, so I now have some 7 times
the breadth of potential responses, and some of my terminology-usage has
improved.  In evaluating this presentation in the video, I determined that
my conceptualization of the Project and Theory back then, 20 years ago, was
not essentially different than now -- just less developed.

I am intently devoted to making good on the promises and plans that I told
to the audience, my friends, 20 years ago.  Since then, the Web arrived,
with my Egodeath content, and Austin's book Zen and the Brain has arrived --
but surprisingly little has changed in these 20 years; my basic complaints
about the state of knowledge still basically hold true and my criticisms
still hold up.

I'm more articulate now, though I had no shortage of ideas and responses 20
years ago.

I added these 4 podcasts to the home page, where you can right-click them to
download.

http://www.egodeath.com/ -- Podcasts section:

Why the Emergent movement in Christianity must add entheogens and subtract
the historical Jesus -- December 8, 2007
     Part 1: preliminary definitions of Emergent vs. Evangelical
     Part 2
     Part 3
     Part 4

I'm re-uploading
http://www.egodeath.com/mp3s/EmergentPodcast03.mp3
It should be no shorter than 49 minutes, ~46 MB.

I'm uploading the 4th podcast for the present thread.  This podcast covers:

MYSTERY CULTS, IMPERIAL CULT, AND CHRIST CULT (EUCHARIST, HOLY SPIRIT)
Explanation of mystery-religion, including Imperial Cult and Christian
house-church agape meals.

ADDING DRUGS TO EMERGENT
How Allegro was right, and how he was wrong, and why we must move through
him, and cannot move around him.

ADDING DRUGS AND AHISTORICITY TO EMERGENT
Integrating Emergent, the psychoactive entheogenic Eucharist, and the
ahistoricity of Jesus and all the apostles.

DRUGS IN NT METAPHOR
What it's like to experience helpless frozenness in spacetime (often as
Fatedness or predestination) and perceiving the all-sovereignty of God over
all of one's thoughts and actions.  How this was expressed in the New
Testament as "crucifixion and resurrection through the Eucharist and Holy
Spirit".

ENTHEOGENISTS MUST ENGAGE WITH CHRISTIANITY
Why entheogen religion must go through Christian theology and take over
Christianity to return it to the New Testament meaning.

AHISTORICITY
No historical Paul, and, less interestingly, no historical Jesus.

INHERENT LIMITS OF MODERN THEOLOGY
Why theology cannot make any sense until the entheogen-and-ahistoricity
reading of the New Testament.

EMERGENT; CHURCH TRENDS
The tepid "Emerging church" vs. the radical "Emergent church".

BASIC CORRUPTNESS OF EXISTING CHRISTIANITY
Which is more profound and paradigm-shattering: exposing Eastern religion as
totally corrupt and bunk, or exposing Western religion as totally corrupt
and bunk.

CLEARLY UNDERSTANDING THE LIMITS OF CHRISTIANITY
Why Christianity, rightly understood per the original New Testament
Christianity, is fundamentally crippled outside its native Roman Empire
context.

NT MEANING AND GENRE
What kind of writings are the New Testament books?  How to read the New
Testament.

ACTUAL MEANING-CONTEXT OF NEW TESTAMENT
The primary origin and context of New Testament Christianity was the Roman
Empire in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, not Jerusalem in the 1st century.


I'm considering doing a 5th podcast for this thread, which would *actually*
do what I originally intended: spend 4 minutes *summarizing* each of the
stated topics.  Only now is it possible to do this, because now I have both
written about these topics (at least partially), and have spoken about these
topics.  The 4 podcasts so far in this thread all have to be considered as
preliminary warm-ups, practice runs, that go into some detail but largely
fail as efficient summaries.  Before I could do a "perfect" podcast as
originally envisioned, I would need to repeatedly listen to these 4
preliminary, warm-up podcasts.  And I would also, ideally, need to type-up
the summaries.


One way to download the file: at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/5102
right-click the URL
http://www.egodeath.com/mp3s/EmergentPodcast04.mp3
and Save As.

I'll update the page http://www.egodeath.com/ to contain the link, which
you'll be able to right-click.  I should break out a separate Podcasts
navigation page.

I think I can eliminate, in future recordings, the sporadic whine that might
be found in EmergentPodcast01.mp3, 02.mp3, and 03.mp3.  It was largely or
partly due to having inactive channels that were not turned down on the
mixer.  Turn down unused mixer channels!

Too bad about that slight flaw in recordings #1-3, but one must learn at
some time, and at least I am learning as fast as possible.

I'm uploading the 3rd podcast for the present thread.  This podcast covers:

CHARACTERIZING DRUGS
Psychotomimetic drugs, or hallucinogenic drugs.  Conceptual networks and
assumption frameworks.  All translation across cultures is mis-translation.

DRUGS EXISTING IN EMERGENT
References to LSD, psychedelia, and Tim Leary found in emerging church
podcasts and weblogs.

EVIDENCE AND SCENARIO FOR ALL ANCIENT RELIGION HAVING DRUG BASIS
The evidence that proves that all religion was based on psychedelic drugs
throughout the Roman Empire, including the Christian Eucharist during the
first several centuries and beyond.


I plan to do a 4th podcast for this thread, spending about 5 minutes on each
of the remaining topics.

One way to download the file: at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/5100
right-click the URL
http://www.egodeath.com/mp3s/EmergentPodcast03.mp3
and Save As.

I'll update the page http://www.egodeath.com/ to contain the link, which
you'll be able to right-click.  I should break out a separate Podcasts
navigation page.

To pretty easily produce pretty clean recordings, I'm settling on a sweet
spot, of using Mute and using clean vocalization to produce as clean a
master session recording as I can, and then, doing some minimal amount of
editing -- *not* deleting every hiccup, dog bark, or excess tenth of a
second of silence as I used to (*very* grueling and prohibitively
time-intensive), but rather, deleting all silences longer than perhaps 7
seconds.  That technique is helped alot by the technique of using Mute and
using clean vocalization.  I developed a useful Mute technique around
halfway into today's latest recording (EmergentPodcast02.mp3).

I've had trouble getting the recordings to be loud enough, even with
normalization.  So I'm trying selecting 10-minute blocks and normalizing
each block to 0dB level, to make the recording louder than all-at-once
normalizing produces.  Using a compressor would help more, to make louder
recordings.

I'm uploading the 2nd podcast for the present thread.  This podcast lists
the planned topics, then discusses points about some of those topics, points
that I have already written about.  This podcast amounts to reading-aloud
two major postings from the present thread.  I plan to do a 3rd, main
podcast for this thread, which will evenly spend 4 minutes per each of the
15 topics.

I'm targeting 60 minutes / 60 MB for each podcast.

One way to download the file: at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/5098
right-click the URL
http://www.egodeath.com/mp3s/EmergentPodcast02.mp3
and Save As.

I'll update the page http://www.egodeath.com/ to contain the link, which
you'll be able to right-click.  I should break out a separate Podcasts
navigation page.

The following discussion (a re-post about "the New Testament as guide to how
entheogens ought to be experienced") fulfills several existing topics for
this podcast such as:

Psychotomimetic drugs (that is, hallucinatory drugs).

What kind of writings are the New Testament books?  How to read the New
Testament.

References to LSD, psychedelia, and Tim Leary found in emerging church
podcasts and weblogs.

How Allegro was right, and how he was wrong, and why we must move through
him, and cannot move around him.

The evidence that proves that all religion was based on psychedelic drugs
throughout the Roman Empire, including the Christian Eucharist during the
first several centuries and beyond.

Integrating Emergent, the psychoactive entheogenic Eucharist, and the
ahistoricity of Jesus and all the apostles.

What it's like to experience helpless frozenness in spacetime (often as
Fatedness or predestination) and perceiving the all-sovereignty of God over
all of one's thoughts and actions.  How this was expressed in the New
Testament as "crucifixion and resurrection through the Eucharist and Holy
Spirit".

Explanation of mystery-religion, including Imperial Cult and Christian
house-church agape meals.

Why theology cannot make any sense until the entheogen-and-ahistoricity
reading of the New Testament.

Why entheogen religion must go through Christian theology and take over
Christianity to return it to the New Testament meaning.

________________________


The New Testament as guide to how entheogens ought to be experienced


The New Testament says "here's how the altered state ought to be
experienced: as that which leads toward the just kingdom of God, not the
empire of Caesar."  The New Testament not only utilizes the ASC (intense
altered state) as a fixed-shaped experiencing or perception in service of
the "kingdom of God"; also, the New Testament works the other direction,
starting with the principle of the just kingdom of a loving God, using that
as a way of shaping and interpreting the ASC experience.

The New Testament confronts the Roman Empire, which says "here's the ASC and
here's how it props up the Roman Empire".  The New Testament says "Instead
of your religious-experience ASC and your violent and oppressive empire of
Caesar, here's a better view and version of the religious-experience ASC, in
conjunction with a better vision of a just kingdom."

The New Testament provides a better vision of the phenomenology of the
altered state, and a better vision of the social-political configuration
that the ASC can be utilized to prop up -- compared, specifically, to the
Roman Empire's "divinely authorized" social-political configuration and its
use of religious experiencing to justify itself.

Thus the New Testament isn't just a preliminary objective (experience the
ASC) in service of a subsequence objective (the kingdom of god); the New
Testament presents a coupled alternative pairing of a certain, particular,
strategically described vision of what the altered state should be about, in
conjunction with a certain vision of the social-political configuration.

The New Testament explains how we *ought* to experience psychedelic drugs --
in terms of a loving God and leading toward a better social-political
configuration.  And the New Testament explains how we *ought* to set up a
social-political configuration.  These two visions are not contrasted
against today's system of empire, in the New Testament, but against
pre-modern empire, and particularly and especially against the specific
Roman Empire.  The New Testament says "Instead of experiencing entheogens in
the way that's part of the official Roman Empire, experience entheogens in
this other way, within this other experiential-interpretive framework,
instead."

The Bible does not advocate or prohibit psychoactive drugs; rather, the
Bible says "Interpret and conduct psychoactive drug experience in this godly
and just way, instead of in a way that props up a harmful society."  The
Bible is concerned with *how* we use entheogens, more than *whether* we use
drugs.  The New Testament tells us to ingest the Eucharist to experience the
Holy Spirit and be spiritually regenerated in accord with the loving and
just kingdom of God.  The New Testament, in effect, tells us that the use of
drugs in a way that goes against the loving and just kingdom of God amounts
to sorcery and demon-worship, while the use of drugs in a way that builds up
the loving and just kingdom of God amounts to the Holy Spirit, salvation,
and worship of God.

I felt that I could not leap into the radical leading-edge interesting
topics in light of Emergent, without first laying down some foundation
discussion about the Emergent movement in relation to Conservative
Evangelicalism and Liberal Mainline denominations.  This latest, preliminary
podcast serves as a relatively dull bridge to the non-dull topics which I am
actually interested in demonstrating an interesting treatment of.

Followers of the Emergent movement, or trends in Christianity, will find my
preliminary comments interesting, and not particularly dependent on the
"controversial" topics of entheogens and ahistoricity.  The "controversial"
topics of entheogens and ahistoricity play only a minor role in this
introductory or prolegomenon podcast.

One way to download the file:

At
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/5091
right-click the URL
http://www.egodeath.com/mp3s/EmergentPodcast01.mp3
and Save As.

I'll update the page http://www.egodeath.com/ to contain the link, which
you'll be able to right-click.  I should break out a separate Podcasts
navigation page.


This preliminary Podcast is relatively dull; it's not the vision I had for
this thread.  It's merely preliminary.  It is practice and warm-up for the
main Podcast I planned in this thread.  I may need to sweep evenly across
the topics giving 5 minutes each, and then optionally add further expansion
of certain points.  This fast pacing, skipping across topics, should help
against dullness.  I add a certain dullness in that I routinely discuss
these "edgy" topics at a highly developed level, yet casually.  I discuss
them as if a boring routine classroom lecture, not injecting or forcing any
hype and tone of excitement like marketing blurbs for some book hyped such
as "Controversial secrets of Jesus followers, revealed!"  Let the substance
carry the excitement (the non-dullness).

The practice of creating a warm-up, practice Podcast, to practice verbally
discussing and vocalizing a set of topics, has been proven to work for the
Egodeath material.

In my latest vocal recording, the coughing isn't as bad as I thought -- only
a few spots.  After getting rid of long, 15-second silences, I'm surprised
at how clean this recording is.  I do admit that the sometimes long
sentences and compound statements in this recording would be easier for the
listener to follow if I cleaned them up.  But there's nothing distinctly bad
about this recording, other than a few coughs -- this is really good news
for me.  Doing penance, of spending hours cleaning up my vocal bad habits,
has prompted me to clean up my speaking while I am speaking.

I'm getting better at recording vocally clean sessions that don't have to be
edited.  I've learned to weed out most of the junk vocalizations while I am
speaking: "um", "you know", "so", and "I mean" -- and to breathe quietly,
and to manage other vocal junk noise.  I would benefit from setting up an
easy-to-use Pause and Mute.

I'm prepping a preliminary podcast for uploading.  I only did minor editing
-- removing major silences, and normalizing volume.  The unexpected problem
with not editing is that I'm coughing and having trouble talking at all.

This podcast compares Conservative Christianity, Liberal Mainline
Christianity, Emergent movement, and the Egodeath theory.  The information
is subset of what I've posted.  The next will actually go into the points in
the present thread.

The URL will be:
http://www.egodeath.com/mp3s/EmergentPodcast01.mp3