Category Archives: Entheogens

Something remarkable happened to the youth of the Western world 50 years ago. In the summer of 1967 a huge number of American teenagers nobody knows exactly how many, but some estimate between 100,000 and 200,000 escaped what they saw as their suburban prisons and made for the city district of Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco.

We now look back on the Summer of Love the name originated at a meeting of counter-cultural leaders in the spring as a lost golden age of bliss, excitement and adventure; a paradise which can never be recreated. But in actual fact, this centre-piece of the Sixtiesstill looms large over popular culture and social mores today.

Drawing on utopian traditions which date back to the founding fathers, and fuelled by the euphoric and hallucinatory powers of marijuana and LSD, the summer of 1967 saw an extraordinary culture rise in a remarkably short space of time.

There was a creative explosion in the arts, music and fashion combined with a belief that the world could be born anew. Characterised by the vivid, flowing colours of psychedelic art, and a belief that love was the solution to all problems, hippy culture set out to transform the world by rejecting every social, political, economic and aesthetic feature of mainstream Western society.

This hippy revolution became a media sensation with the release of Scott Mackenzies song, San Francisco, in May 1967, which was a huge hit in the US and much of Europe.

The story goes that a paradise of peace and love prevailed in San Francisco for much of the year, but came sadly unstuck very soon after. This new Garden of Eden was destroyed progressively by the sheer numbers of teenagers who descended on Haight-Ashbury. One leading figure described the resulting chaos as a zoo.

Commercialisation of the hippie dream compounded the problem and disillusion set in. The twin shock of the Manson murders in August 1969, and the brutal killing by Hells Angels of an audience member at the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont a few months later, provided the epitaph to an era.

According to this version, the survivors renounced psychedelia, abandoned the vain belief that love would solve everything and knuckled down to political action gay liberation, second wave feminism and environmentalism. Or they found gurus and became new agers. The Sixties were sealed off, preserved in aspic as a lost golden age, a time of innocence. It was over, finished, forbidden to anyone who wasnt there.

However, like all golden age stories, this narrative is largely bogus.

Happy together

Criticism of the Summer of Love mythology dates back to 1967 itself, to the Diggers named after the English radicals of 1649-50. This guerrilla street theatre group regarded the hippy phenomenon as a media creation, a distraction from the true attempt to build a new and more just society. They denounced the irresponsible preaching of psychedelic guru Timothy Leary, who urged teenagers to take LSD and renounce work and education, and attacked the catchy nonsense of MacKenzies song as a marketing ploy.

The truth is that like all apparently simple cultural phenomena, the Summer of Love was complex. There was a deep tension between the Diggers back-to-basics idealistic communism, the commercialism of hippy capitalists selling bells and beads, the advocates of psychedelic transformation, and the politicos of the new left based in Berkeley, California.

The single issue all these groups opposed was American involvement in Vietnam. When the war came to an end with the Paris peace accord in 1973, there was no longer a binding external enemy. The illusion of a single, principled counterculture vanished.

Flowers in your hair

In reality, there was no single Sixties, no golden age, and nothing to come to an end. Instead there were three taste cultures that all coincided, and started to change societys values.

The first of these cultures was based in fashion and music. Peacock styles for men long hair and bright colours and women in mini-skirts or flowing hippy garb. The second group were political revolutionaries, post and neo-Marxists for whom the transformation of socio-economic conditions was the pressing priority. The third group believed in inner transformation and liberation achieved through marijuana and LSD.

Though the three groups priorities were fundamentally different, they shared a belief that the past was old and stale, along with a commitment to unfettered individualism. There were, of course, still significant overlaps, and when psychedelic culture met the radical left, notions of protest as play and performance took centre stage.

Half a century on from the height of the Summer of Love, all three taste cultures have survived, but with a different relevance. Individuality and self-expression in fashion and music has continued unhindered. Traditions of political protest flourish as new targets are found in environmental activism and sexual politics. And new generations of spiritual seekers find inspiration in psychedelic drugs, now also known as entheogens.

Defining the Sixties as a single unique period, a lost golden age, seals it off from contemporary experience. The sun may have set on the Summer of Love, but the warmth of its rays are still being felt today.

Nicholas Campion is anassociate professor in cosmology and culture, principal lecturer in the faculty of humanities and the performing arts at The University of Wales Trinity Saint David. This article was originally published on The Conversation (www.theconversation.com)

Go here to see the original:

The Summer of Love was more than hippies and LSD it was the start of modern individualism - The Independent

50th anniversary By Don Lattin | 12 hours ago

Guests view the Bill Ham Light Painting Room/Light Show during the opening night of TheSummer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll exhibit at the de Young Museum in San Francisco on April 8, 2017. Photo courtesy of BillHamLights.com

SAN FRANCISCO (RNS) Over the past few months, the Bay Area has been waxing nostalgic over the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, the 1967 season when hippies and tens of thousands of seekers, drifters and runaways poured into the citys suddenly chaotic Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.

To many Americans, the psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s, which the Summer of Love came to represent, may seem like an irrelevant little experiment involving LSD, tie-dyes, free love, shaggy hairstyles and rock bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane.

A crowd keeps a large ball, painted to represent a world globe, in the air during a gathering at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, to celebrate the summer solstice on June 21, 1967, day one of Summer of Love. (AP Photo)

It was all of that, but the mind-blowing revolution that rocked the streets of San Francisco that summer may also be seen as a new religious movement that profoundly shaped the lives and spiritual expression of millions of Americans who never dropped acid, grew a beard, burned their bra, or set foot in a hippie commune.

Anyone who has ever participated in yoga classes, practiced mindfulness meditation, looked into alternative medicine, or referred to oneself as spiritual but not religious, may want to find a 70-year-old hippie this summer and simply say, Thank you.

The Cosmic Car on a San Francisco street in 1967. Photo by Gene Anthony

San Francisco had been drawing adventure seekers and freethinkers since the 1849 Gold Rush, but the immediate roots of the Summer of Love date back to the 1950s and the influential work of the Beat writers like Jack Kerouac (On the Road, 1957) and poet Allen Ginsberg (Howl, 1956).

The psychedelic experimentation in San Francisco took off in 1965, when novelist Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, 1962) gathered a Dionysian band of artists, musicians and drug enthusiasts known as the Merry Pranksters and held a series of LSD-fueled happenings around the Bay Area. Their story was immortalized by Tom Wolfes 1968 nonfiction book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Those who were in the middle of the San Francisco scene in the mid-1960s say the best of times were over by the summer of 1967, when the drugs got harder and the unconditional love got conditional.

Timothy Leary addresses a crowd of hippies at the Human Be-In that he helped organize in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco on Jan. 14, 1967. Leary told the crowd to turn on, tune in, drop out.(AP Photo/Bob Klein)

It was all downhill, they say, following the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park in January of 1967, when Timothy Leary, the former Harvard University psychologist and LSD guru, took the stage and told the stoned multitudes to turn on, tune in, drop out.

To Carolyn Mountain Girl Garcia, the 1967 Summer of Love was very much a media distortion.

It drove people in vast numbers with expectations that were never met, she said. It was kind of a sociological disaster. But it was really wonderful when it was working.

Garcia, now 71, was only 17 years old when she arrived in the Bay Area with her older brother from New York in the summer of 1963. Within a year, she met Neal Cassady, the real-life version of a charismatic character in Kerouacs On the Road.

Judy Smith, wearing face paint and flowers in her hair as she and others gather at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on June 21, 1967. Fifty years ago, throngs of American youth descended on San Francisco to join a cultural revolution. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

Cassady introduced Garcia to Ken Kesey who christened her Mountain Girl and fathered Garcias first daughter, Sunshine. Within a few years, Garcia was living with Sunshine and Jerry Garcia, the lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead.

She later co-founded an organization called the Womens Visionary Congress, a community of adventurers from generations and traditions united to explore a more vivid and profound awareness of our inner and outer worlds.

Carolyn Garcia sees psychedelic drugs and plants as a major inspiration for much of the broader spiritual experimentation in the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond.

It got people into a spiritual dimension without the religion attached. It was personal contact with the realm of spiritual energy, with an unseen force that connects everybody to life itself, to nature, she said. Many spiritual communities have evolved from the hippie times, including people taking on Buddhism and other Asian religions and recreating them as modern movements. If you want to find out about spirituality and psychedelics, just talk to your yoga teacher.

Some former psychedelic enthusiasts question whether the consciousness-raising counterculture was all that effective in transforming American society.

One of them is Robert Forte, who studied the history and psychology of religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School and has taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz and the California Institute of Integral Studies.

He sees the psychedelic counterculture as a microcosm of the best and worst of religion.

Religion is a very complex subject, spanning the whole spectrum of human behavior. It can be an ethical, exalted expression, but religion can also be a mind-control technique to subjugate the masses, said Forte, who edited two collections of essays in the late 1990s, Timothy Leary Outside Looking In,and Entheogens and the Future of Religion.

A lot of people in the 1960s had unitive experiences that informed their life in important ways.

Yet we also see all this fake New Ageism, he added. You hear a lot of cheerleading about the value of these drugs. But where is our anti-war movement today? Where are the visions we had in the 1960s about transforming the world in more ecologically, sustainable ways? Weve failed. Yet there are these people who think that by taking drugs and putting feathers in your hair and going to Burning Man you are somehow furthering this alternative culture.

For visual artist Bill Ham, the man who more-or-less invented the psychedelic light show, it was a magical time of creative freedom. Ham is now 84 and still living in San Francisco, not far from Haight Street. He arrived as an art student in 1958 and began hanging out with the Beats, who gathered in coffeehouses and poetry venues in the citys North Beach neighborhood.

Artist Bill Ham performs a light painting. Photo courtesy ofBillhamlights.com

Ham was among a small band of San Francisco beatniks and hippies who spent the summer of 1965 at the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nev., a old mining town about five hours east of San Francisco, on the other side of the Sierras.

Some fledgling musicians, including Dan Hicks, formed the Charlatans and became the Red Dog house band. Ham had just developed an art form he calls light painting, a kinetic abstract expressionism that used an overhead projector, layers of glass, oils, pigments and other liquids to project pulsating amoeba-like patterns of color onto walls and ceilings.

According to some rock historians, the Charlatans were the first psychedelic rock band. They returned to San Francisco and began performing with other fledgling groups in small clubs and dance halls and for free in Golden Gate Park. In the early years, there was little separation between the performers and audience, a connection that was intensified by psychedelic plants like marijuana and peyote, and later with powerful mind-altering drugs like LSD, which at high doses have the ability to blur the boundary between self and other.

In the early 1960s, Ham said, there was this whole city of creative people, including jazz musicians, artists, writers, dancers, avant-garde actors, and the early electronic music creators. Then it got overwhelmed by the rock and roll scene, he said, because it turned out that was where the money was.

Americas music critics discovered the San Francisco sound at the Monterey Pop Festival in the spring of 1967, a concert where the imported Texas blues singer Janis Joplin, the new frontwoman for Big Brother and the Holding Company, blew everyone away. That spring also saw the release of the hit pop song, San Francisco, with its famous lyric, If youre going to San Francisco, be sure to wear flowers in your hair.

But the most influential musical release that spring was the Beatles classic psychedelic album, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Those songs inspired millions of people around the world to experiment with psychedelic drugs and explore the mystical promises of Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism.

Peace demonstrators fill Fulton Street in San Francisco on April 15, 1967, during a five-mile march through the city. The march ended at Kezar Stadium, where a peace rally was held. Groups came from Los Angeles and the Northwest to join in the march and rally. San Francisco City Hall is in the background. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)

This was all two years before the Woodstock nation gathered on Max Yasgurs dairy farm in upstate New York.

All of the media attention focused on San Francisco and the 1967 Summer of Love attracted throngs of baby boomers to the Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It was not all peace and love.

Among the waves of psychedelic immigrants were hordes of troubled, runaway kids. Many found freedom, while others fell into drug addiction, sexual exploitation, and the worsening of pre-existing mental illness caused by the careless use of psychoactive drugs. There were definitely casualties, Ham said, but when you compare it to Vietnam, we dont have too much to apologize for.

Photographer Gene Anthony, the author of a richly illustrated book, The Summer of Love Haight-Ashbury at its Highest, captured many of the magical moments during the Acid Tests and the early gatherings of the tribe from which the soon-to-be-famous San Francisco rock bands would emerge.

In some ways it did seem like a religious movement, but more in the communal and political sense. There wasnt one charismatic leader, Anthony said. There were groups of people like the Mime Troupe and The Diggers, who were feeding the kids and trying to do something positive. There was the Free Clinic and a store where everything was free.

A young San Francisco resident, far right, came out of his apartment across the street to welcome three new visitors arriving from Ohio for the 1967 Summer of Love. Photo by Herb Greene

Anything could happen. One Sunday in the summer of 1967, Anthony was standing at the corner of Haight and Masonic streets when a black limo pulled up and out popped George Harrison, the famous Beatle, with his wife, Pattie Boyd, both of them decked out in fashionable hippie garb.

Harrison would later reveal that he was not impressed with the scene in the Haight. I expected it to be a brilliant place with groovy gypsy people, he said, but it was full of horrible spotty dropout kids.

Starting in the fall of 1966, and continuing into the 1980s, laws were passed banning and increasing penalties for drugs like LSD and MDMA, known on the street as Ecstasy or Molly. Scientific research into beneficial uses of these compounds, which date back to the 1950s, was shut down in the 1970s and 1980s. Richard Nixon declared his war on drugs, and the Just Say No mantra of Nancy Reagan became the official federal drug policy.

Today, however, there is a growing appreciation of the potentially beneficial medical uses of still-banned, mind-altering compounds like, MDMA and psilocybin, the drug that puts the magic in magic mushrooms. Government-approved clinical trials are underway at UCLA, New York University and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in which these drugs, alongside psychotherapy, are used to help people suffering from depression, substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Summer of Love exhibits have opened in San Francisco at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and at the Mission Street offices of the California Historical Society.

(Don Lattin is the author of Changing Our Mind Psychedelic Sacraments and the New Psychotherapy, published this spring. Find him at http://www.donlattin.com)

Follow this link:

How San Francisco's Summer of Love sparked today's religious movements - Religion News Service

Forest Pathway. Photographer Carey E. Ward.

Walking the Crooked Path

There are few words to adequately describe my nature as a practitioner of the Nameless Arte. There is not one single title that I identify with on a regular basis, but a collection of diverse practices that contribute to my identity. I am often hesitant to call myself anything when it comes to magical titles. Many of the words used to describe ourselves today originated during a time when people like us were feared. Many of the cultural terms for witch used in European vernacular during the Medieval Period were also associated with malevolent supernatural entities. If I had to choose a term that most closely describes what and who I am; it would have to be one of the old names used in the ancient world to describe sorcerous practitioners with the knowledge of botanical poisons and powers. The Greeks called them Pharmakos because of their knowledge of the powers of plants. In the Roman Empire they became known by the Latinized version of the earlier Greek title. The Veneficus of Rome specialized, not only in plant medicine, but also in botanical toxins. Assassination was a common occurrence in Roman political society, and the apothecary played a central role in the turning of political tides. With their knowledge of plant poisons and antidotes, a practitioner of the Venefic Arts could be an invaluable tool. Witchcraft was synonymous with the venefic arts in ancient times, and has remained a tool of the politically and socially oppressed.

In modern terms of religion I consider myself aPagan since I have never felt entirely comfortable using the termNeo-Pagan to describe myself or my practices. I dont see anything wrong with those who identify with this term, and I recognize it as a legitimate academic term. Just like other major religions, there are many diverse traditions under the umbrella of Paganism, Neo-Paganism included. Both titles are able to coexist simultaneously as they refer to different ends of the spectrum. The concept of religion as an institution based on specific doctrine is a relatively modern idea. Pagan spirituality as a whole does not fit into this compartment. I think as fellow Pagans we all follow a similar path when it comes to our reverence for nature and our relationship with the spirit world. There are many branches off of the path of paganism, each with its own unique cosmology.

Photographer Carey E. Ward.

The Path of Poisons and Witchlore

ThePoison PathorVeneficium as it has become known is a facet of traditional witch lore based on the ancient arte of plant magic. The story of the Fall, in which divine luminaries descended from the heavens is a central pillar of traditional witchcraft lore. The Fallen Ones brought knowledge of the arts to mankind, including the art of wortcunning. In addition to this knowledge, they made wives of the daughters of man, and through this union brought the legendary witchfire or Mark of Cain into the human gene pool. This ancient myth with its pre-Christian origins has been shared throughout human history preserved in occult lore. The Poison Path is just one of the ways in which we can unlock the secrets of the spirit world through communion and partnership with the spirits of nature.

Part of our practice on the verdant way is the collection and preservation of traditional plant lore. What we do not obtain from written sources we are able to learn directly from the plants themselves. Spending a lot of time in direct communion with plant-spirit allies is a great advantage to any practitioner of green witchcraft. Whether it be sitting with a single special plant of your own cultivation or immersing yourself in the forest surrounded by its collective spirit. One of the most effective devotional practices for building a strong bond with the green current is meditative walking in the forest, and cultivating traditional witch herbs. So much can be learned about the hidden nature of any plant by tending to it every day and watching it go through its life cycle.

Photographer Carey E. Ward. Lindenwood Nature Preserve.

Plants of Tradition

There are certain plants that are more associated with witchcraft and sorcery than any other. These are the herbs of traditional witch lore. The Nightshades are amongst some of the most infamous witchs herbs, including well known names like Belladonna and Mandrake. Other banes like Wolfsbane are associated with shapeshifting, sorcery and the Underworld. The infamous Fly Agaric Mushroom found across cultures has been used by shamanic practitioners to part the way between the worlds and travel back with newfound knowledge. All of these well-documented botanicals have been associated with magical practice and occult secrets over the centuries. I believe that these plants allied themselves with ancient men and women who were the first keepers of esoteric lore.

The plants within this category make powerful allies for any magical practitioner, and are not limited to those containing large amounts of toxins. Like many powerful plant spirits, just their presence and proximity is enough to bring one into a trance. Regular meditation with the living plant spirit is one of the best ways to develop a spiritual bond with the plant. Harvesting these plants is a sacrament in itself, and one of the primary practices of the green witch. The harvest ritual can be as simple or complex as the practitioner desires, and offerings are made to the spirit of the land. The plants retain their power within their bones long after their waters have left them.

Poisoners Accoutrement. Photographer Coby Michael Ward.

Underworld and Harvest

As plants of life, death and resurrection their bodies are transformed by their harvest-death returning from the Underworld as powerful spirit fetishes for artifice. Artificium is the creation of magical tools, objects and artifacts using sacred mineralogical and botanical materials, and is one of the artes of the path. Strangely enough the Nightshade plants of the Witchs Garden have roots that are perfect for the making of altar totems and ritually prepared homunculi. The berries, leaves and seed pods of these plants also produce natural amulets and tokens.

While different methods of ingestion and absorption have been utilized ritually and medicinally, it is imperative to gain ones own experience and understanding of the plants before any ritual ingestion is attempted of any kind. Any such ritual should be treated with reverence and rarity of occasion to maintain potency.

Green Witchcraft, or plant magic in general has associations with the Underworld via direct connection through the earth. The plants of the Poison Path draw nutrients up through their root systems, taking in energy from subterranean realms. While most plants draw their energy from the Sun, these shade loving denizens of the night draw their power directly from the Underworld. Their additional Saturnian correspondences further connect them to the Underworld. These witch allies nourish themselves with the dark and verdant light below, occasionally descending to its depths for protection. Because of their time spent in the Underworld during the winter months they are able to return more powerful or more numerous than before. Like a witch returning from a night at the Sabbath they bring with them new powers and lore.

The Underworld is a place of ancestral knowledge and where the hidden powers of nature reside. It is the repository for the Mysteries, where through initiatory experiences one returns with new understanding having communed with Elder Gods. The chthonic powers of the underworld are presided over by the Witch Queen or Queen of Elphame, whose consort and spirit retinue comprise the courts of the Fair Folk. It is the resting place of that divine fire that fell to Earth many millennia ago, still casting its dim green glow over the landscapes of the world below.

Plant-Based Magical Practices

The Poison Path or Crooked Way not only emphasizes the baneful herbs of medieval witchlore, but all plants with potent relationships with mankind. Understanding the balms and antidotes is the other side of the path as it weaves crookedly through the forest. Throughout history there have been certain plants that seem to have a special affinity towards humanity, plants like Ladys Mantle and Vervain are known for their powers as catalysts for magical operations. Such plants are also known for aiding practitioners in the practice of plant alchemy. There is a rich history of botanical lore that preserves medieval folk practices, and complex herbal preparations recorded in handwritten grimoires.

The historic relevancy and emphasis on academic research is another aspect that attracted me to classical witchcraft and the Poison Path. Part of my practice is piecing together bits and pieces of botanical folklore to create my own compendium of sorcerous allies. I am very interested in any documented historical use of the traditional plants of European witchcraft, and also any modern pharmacological research available on botanical entheogens. This path weaves together many facets of witchcraft mythos, including the Witches Sabbath and the infamous Flying Ointments of the Medieval Period. Interestingly we find many obscure pieces of magical practices hidden within the botanical folklore of the world. Many of the lost practices of antiquity can be regained through our direct communion with these elder spirits.

Learn More About the Poison Path Here

Read more from the original source:

The Poisoner: Pharmakos and Veneficus-Poisoner's Apothecary - Patheos (blog)

Nicholas Campion, Associate Professor in Cosmology and Culture, Principal Lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities and the Performing Arts, The University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Something remarkable happened to the youth of the Western world 50 years ago. In the summer of 1967 a huge number of American teenagers nobody knows exactly how many, but some estimate between 100,000 and 200,000 escaped what they saw as their suburban prisons and made for the city district of Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco.

We now look back on the Summer of Love the name originated at a meeting of counter-cultural leaders in the spring as a lost golden age of bliss, excitement and adventure; a paradise which can never be recreated. But in actual fact, this centre-piece of the 60s still looms large over popular culture and social mores today.

Drawing on utopian traditions which date back to the founding fathers, and fuelled by the euphoric and hallucinatory powers of marijuana and LSD, the summer of 1967 saw an extraordinary culture rise in a remarkably short space of time.

There was a creative explosion in the arts, music and fashion combined with a belief that the world could be born anew. Characterised by the vivid, flowing colours of psychedelic art, and a belief that love was the solution to all problems, hippy culture set out to transform the world by rejecting every social, political, economic and aesthetic feature of mainstream Western society.

This hippy revolution became a media sensation with the release of Scott Mackenzies song, San Francisco, in May 1967, which was a huge hit in the US and much of Europe.

The story goes that a paradise of peace and love prevailed in San Francisco for much of the year, but came sadly unstuck very soon after. This new Garden of Eden was destroyed progressively by the sheer numbers of teenagers who descended on Haight-Ashbury. One leading figure described the resulting chaos as a zoo.

Commercialisation of the hippie dream compounded the problem and disillusion set in. The twin shock of the Manson murders in August 1969, and the brutal killing by Hells Angels of an audience member at the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont a few months later, provided the epitaph to an era.

According to this version, the survivors renounced psychedelia, abandoned the vain belief that love would solve everything and knuckled down to political action gay liberation, second wave feminism and environmentalism. Or they found gurus and became new agers. The 60s were sealed off, preserved in aspic as a lost golden age, a time of innocence. It was over, finished, forbidden to anyone who wasnt there.

However, like all golden age stories, this narrative is largely bogus.

Criticism of the Summer of Love mythology dates back to 1967 itself, to the Diggers named after the English radicals of 1649-50. This guerrilla street theatre group regarded the hippy phenomenon as a media creation, a distraction from the true attempt to build a new and more just society. They denounced the irresponsible preaching of psychedelic guru Timothy Leary, who urged teenagers to take LSD and renounce work and education, and attacked the catchy nonsense of MacKenzies song as a marketing ploy.

The truth is that like all apparently simple cultural phenomena, the Summer of Love was complex. There was a deep tension between the Diggers back-to-basics idealistic communism, the commercialism of hippy capitalists selling bells and beads, the advocates of psychedelic transformation, and the politicos of the new left based in Berkeley, California.

The single issue all these groups opposed was American involvement in Vietnam. When the war came to an end with the Paris peace accord in 1973, there was no longer a binding external enemy. The illusion of a single, principled counterculture vanished.

In reality, there was no single 60s, no golden age, and nothing to come to an end. Instead there were three taste cultures that all coincided, and started to change societys values.

The first of these cultures was based in fashion and music. Peacock styles for men long hair and bright colours and women in mini-skirts or flowing hippy garb. The second group were political revolutionaries, post and neo-Marxists for whom the transformation of socio-economic conditions was the pressing priority. The third group believed in inner transformation and liberation achieved through marijuana and LSD.

Though the three groups priorities were fundamentally different, they shared a belief that the past was old and stale, along with a commitment to unfettered individualism. There were, of course, still significant overlaps, and when psychedelic culture met the radical left, notions of protest as play and performance took centre stage.

Half a century on from the height of the Summer of Love, all three taste cultures have survived, but with a different relevance. Individuality and self-expression in fashion and music has continued unhindered. Traditions of political protest flourish as new targets are found in environmental activism and sexual politics. And new generations of spiritual seekers find inspiration in psychedelic drugs, now also known as entheogens.

Defining the 60s as a single unique period, a lost golden age, seals it off from contemporary experience. The sun may have set on the Summer of Love, but the warmth of its rays are still being felt today.

See original here:

The Summer of Love was more than hippies and LSD it was the start of modern individualism - Metro Newspaper UK

Heading to San Francisco.

Something remarkable happened to the youth of the Western world 50 years ago. In the summer of 1967 a huge number of American teenagers nobody knows exactly how many, but some estimate between 100,000 and 200,000 escaped what they saw as their suburban prisons and made for the city district of Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco.

We now look back on the Summer of Love the name originated at a meeting of counter-cultural leaders in the spring as a lost golden age of bliss, excitement and adventure; a paradise which can never be recreated. But in actual fact, this centre-piece of the 60s still looms large over popular culture and social mores today.

Drawing on utopian traditions which date back to the founding fathers, and fuelled by the euphoric and hallucinatory powers of marijuana and LSD, the summer of 1967 saw an extraordinary culture rise in a remarkably short space of time.

There was a creative explosion in the arts, music and fashion combined with a belief that the world could be born anew. Characterised by the vivid, flowing colours of psychedelic art, and a belief that love was the solution to all problems, hippy culture set out to transform the world by rejecting every social, political, economic and aesthetic feature of mainstream Western society.

This hippy revolution became a media sensation with the release of Scott Mackenzies song, San Francisco, in May 1967, which was a huge hit in the US and much of Europe.

The story goes that a paradise of peace and love prevailed in San Francisco for much of the year, but came sadly unstuck very soon after. This new Garden of Eden was destroyed progressively by the sheer numbers of teenagers who descended on Haight-Ashbury. One leading figure described the resulting chaos as a zoo.

Commercialisation of the hippie dream compounded the problem and disillusion set in. The twin shock of the Manson murders in August 1969, and the brutal killing by Hells Angels of an audience member at the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont a few months later, provided the epitaph to an era.

According to this version, the survivors renounced psychedelia, abandoned the vain belief that love would solve everything and knuckled down to political action gay liberation, second wave feminism and environmentalism. Or they found gurus and became new agers. The 60s were sealed off, preserved in aspic as a lost golden age, a time of innocence. It was over, finished, forbidden to anyone who wasnt there.

However, like all golden age stories, this narrative is largely bogus.

Criticism of the Summer of Love mythology dates back to 1967 itself, to the Diggers named after the English radicals of 1649-50. This guerrilla street theatre group regarded the hippy phenomenon as a media creation, a distraction from the true attempt to build a new and more just society. They denounced the irresponsible preaching of psychedelic guru Timothy Leary, who urged teenagers to take LSD and renounce work and education, and attacked the catchy nonsense of MacKenzies song as a marketing ploy.

The truth is that like all apparently simple cultural phenomena, the Summer of Love was complex. There was a deep tension between the Diggers back-to-basics idealistic communism, the commercialism of hippy capitalists selling bells and beads, the advocates of psychedelic transformation, and the politicos of the new left based in Berkeley, California.

The single issue all these groups opposed was American involvement in Vietnam. When the war came to an end with the Paris peace accord in 1973, there was no longer a binding external enemy. The illusion of a single, principled counterculture vanished.

In reality, there was no single 60s, no golden age, and nothing to come to an end. Instead there were three taste cultures that all coincided, and started to change societys values.

The first of these cultures was based in fashion and music. Peacock styles for men long hair and bright colours and women in mini-skirts or flowing hippy garb. The second group were political revolutionaries, post and neo-Marxists for whom the transformation of socio-economic conditions was the pressing priority. The third group believed in inner transformation and liberation achieved through marijuana and LSD.

Though the three groups priorities were fundamentally different, they shared a belief that the past was old and stale, along with a commitment to unfettered individualism. There were, of course, still significant overlaps, and when psychedelic culture met the radical left, notions of protest as play and performance took centre stage.

Half a century on from the height of the Summer of Love, all three taste cultures have survived, but with a different relevance. Individuality and self-expression in fashion and music has continued unhindered. Traditions of political protest flourish as new targets are found in environmental activism and sexual politics. And new generations of spiritual seekers find inspiration in psychedelic drugs, now also known as entheogens.

Defining the 60s as a single unique period, a lost golden age, seals it off from contemporary experience. The sun may have set on the Summer of Love, but the warmth of its rays are still being felt today.

Read more:

The Summer of Love was more than hippies and LSD it was the ... - The Conversation UK

An entheogen ("generating the divine within")[2] is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context[3] that may be synthesized or obtained from natural sources. The chemical induces altered states of consciousness. Jonathan Ott helped coin the term "entheogen".[4]

Entheogens have been used in a ritualized context for thousands of years; their religious significance is well established with anthropological and modern evidence. Examples of traditional entheogens include psychedelics like peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, and iboga; atypical hallucinogens like salvia and Amanita muscaria; quasi-psychedelics like cannabis; and deliriants like datura.

With the advent of organic chemistry, there now exist many synthetic drugs with similar psychoactive properties, with many derived from these plants. Many pure active compounds with psychoactive properties have been isolated from these respective organisms and chemically synthesized including mescaline, psilocybin, DMT, salvinorin A, ibogaine, ergine, and muscimol. Semi-synthetic (e.g., LSD used by the New American Church) and synthetic drugs (e.g., DPT used by the Temple of the True Inner Light and 2C-B used by the Sangoma) have also been developed.[5]

More broadly, the term entheogen is used to refer to any psychoactive drug when used for its religious or spiritual effects, whether or not in a formal religious or traditional structure. This terminology is often chosen to contrast with the recreational use of the same drugs. Studies such as the Marsh Chapel Experiment have documented reports of spiritual experiences from participants who were administered psychoactive drugs in controlled trials.[6] Ongoing research is limited due to widespread drug prohibition; however, some countries have legislation that allows for traditional entheogen use.

Go here to read the rest:

Entheogen - PsychonautWiki

From your bong to your broomstick.

Cannabis has been included in magical, religious, and spiritual rites for millennia, from Hindu sadhus who use cannabis as a prayer to Lord Shiva to Coptic Christians who burned it on altars as a devotional offering. Witches and warlocks, too, have had a long history with this helper, utilizing it for everything from medical remedies to summoning spirits. Cannabis and hemp were both staples in folk traditions. In his 1653 Complete Herbal, author Nicholas Culpeper wrote of the plant: This is so well known to every good housewife in the country, that I shall not need to write any description of it.

Some classic uses for cannabis were in spells and rites dedicated to healing, love, money drawing, visions, and meditation. Lovestruck witches would wander out under the midsummer full moon to sprinkle hemp seeds while circling a church nine times in hopes of seeing their true love(s). Witches attempting to see into the future would burn an incense made of cannabis, mugwort, coltsfoot, and angelica in front of a magic mirror, watching for signs in the reflection of the glass.

Perhaps the most infamous usage of cannabis in magic is its inclusion in the famed Witchs Flying Ointment. Blended with other mind-altering substances like opium poppies, morning glories, datura, belladonna, and nightshade and mixed with butter or lard, witches would smear it on their broomsticks and ride them, flying off in ecstatic, orgasmic bliss. Modern witches can replicate this by blending cannabis with small amounts of other entheogens like ayahuasca, cyanescens (magic mushrooms), and of course poppies. For an entirely legal version, cunning folks can create a weed blend with blue lotus, wild asparagus root, and mugwort. Make a tincture or decoction from your herbal blend and mix it with coconut oil for a bewitching lube to help you open up and push into the Universe with lust and love.

But you can also turn your cannabis use into a magical act. Do you like to work with crystals? The next time youre having a puff while studying sacred texts or reading tarot, try smoking a sativa that enhances concentration through a pipe made of lapis lazuli, a stone known for facilitating intellectual activity, augmenting learning, and improving memory. You can also keep stones with your weed, or use fruit or vegetables with magical connotations as pipes: apples for love spells, cucumbers before attempting dream or astral work, and potatoes and other root veggies for grounding energy after a ritual.

For an abundance spell, mix a little ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg, or thyme, basil, and mint, into fresh water and carefully paint sigils, a wish, or words of power onto a hemp rolling paper and let it dry. Roll up a joint and smoke it to release the energy into the Universe. Alternately, make some edibles with these spice blends, like cinnamon oatmeal raisin cookies. Dont forget to press a magical symbol into the top of the cookie.

Last but not least, smoking from a bong or bubbler is a special way for weed witches to commune with all the elements: Earth is represented by cannabis, fire is the fire you light your bowl with, air is your breath, and water is in the bottom of the bong. Make sure you charge your bong water, too, by thinking some good vibes at it.

stashbox@seattleweekly.com

Thanks to The Fat Feminist Witch Blog for serving as a reference for this piece.

Read more:

The History and Possibilities of Putting Weed in Your Witchcraft - Seattle Weekly

As we discussed in our post about our new line of Spagyrics, Theurgica, we have returned to our original focus on making Spagyrics to support meditation, ritual, and spiritual practice of all kinds. Many Spagyrics fitting this category were already part of our work, and as promised, here are a few more. Click here to go [...]

Weve been busy this Spring, what with setting up our new home and lab, working in our yard, and catching up on all the work we set aside during our move. Somewhere in there, we managed to create two new Spagyrics, and more are on the way. Our first new Spagyric isnt a new herb for [...]

Years ago, before we even met, Paul was in the rare books business, dealing in out of print and special books on Western esoterics, Alchemy, Qabalah, philosophy, alternative healing and science, and related topics. When we met, it was in his bookstore in Boulder, Colorado, and since then, both our relationship and our stock of [...]

Each new single-herb Spagyric we create adds to our list of singles, but each one also increases the possibilities for new formulas, much like a painter mixing a new colour, which can then be used in countless paintings to come. In our last update, we told you about new Spagyrics of Solomons Seal and Vervain, and [...]

Note that this sale has expired; were leaving the post up so that the information about these Spagyrics is available. To see whats currently on sale, click here. Inspired by our new Vervain Alchymical Initiatic, we decided to have a 20% off sale on Old World initiatic [...]

To many of you, knowing and supporting our work for so long, that may seem like a very basic and easy to answer question. If so, thanks for paying attention all this time! But, if youre new to our work, or would just like a better understanding of what we do, this question is a [...]

February 26, 2012 by Micah Filed under News

Our newest Spagyric, an Alchymical Initiatic of Vervain,was inspired by my own Irish heritage and the deep reverence that many ancient European cultures held for this special plant. My own history with Vervain goes back a few years to a personal tradition I practice every year on Samhain, the ancient harvest festival more commonly known as [...]

Note that this sale has expired; were leaving the post up so that the information about these Spagyrics is available. To see whats currently on sale, click here. Looking out the window, searching the view for Nature to inspire us for a sale theme, all we see is water. Water falling from the [...]

Welcome to the conclusion of our series on the spiritual practice of flight and the plants that support it! In our first article, we talked about the legends and truths behind the witches flights, their brooms and ointments, and the tricky chemistry that practice entailed. In our second article, we discussed Eastern legends of gravity-defiance, including flying [...]

In our first article, we were inspired by the season, and talked about witches as practitioners of shamanic flight in Europe. We looked at their legendary flying ointment from a chemical perspective, and learned about its properties and dangers. Shamanic flight is not confined to archaic Europe, however, and examples of the phenomenon are common around [...]

Next Page

Originally posted here:

Entheogens : Al-Kemi : spagyrics and alchemy

Virtual Reality is blazing new frontiers in the exploration of consciousness by adding whole new dimensions to the notion of what is real.

We will see in the near future extremely effective machines using modern technology to alter consciousness; some of them, including the virtual reality technology, are already quite advanced. Stanislav Grof

Similar to the psychedelic experience, Virtual Reality is opening new paths towards mystical experiences like those that have inspired the worlds greatest religions.

Through this powerful technology, we are closer than ever to being able to enter altered states of consciousness by being immersed in a realm where time travel is possible, where fantastical landscapes capture our imaginations, and where we can prepare ourselves for the next great adventure after this life.

Read More:Microsoft Predicts Terence McKennas Cyberdelic Vision of Virtual Reality

According to Dr. Stanislav Grof, a pioneer in transpersonal psychology and psychedelic research since the 1960s and whom Ill be quoting throughout this article, The menacing specter of death that we harbor in our unconscious interferes with our everyday existence and makes our life in many ways inauthentic. In technological societies, the predominant reactions to the situation are massive denial and avoidance that are in their consequences destructive and self-destructive on an individual as well as a collective level.

How can Virtual Reality show us another way of looking at death one that puts us not in denial or avoidance, but one that helps us accept and embrace our own mortality?

The man who dies before he dies, does not die when he dies. Abraham a Sancta Clara, 17th century German Monk.

Harvard Divinity School reported that researchers were using consciousness hacking through a VR app called When We Die to prepare people for what happens when they shuffle off this mortal coil.

According to one of the apps developers, Paula Ceballos, Aging, death, and mortality are not topics that are openly spoken about in western cultures, so its [the app] addressing that, making it top of mind, and making you comfortable in the discomfort of mortality and dying.

Ceballos touched upon a key theme which corroborates both ancient teachings and modern psychedelic research as it relates to what it means to prepare for ones own death.

Separatingoneself from the ego, or separating the desires of the body from the mind, is an important step towards a living a fulfilling life without the fear of death.

To experience the loss of the ego is like experiencing death in that it is the end of how you perceive yourself in this reality we call life the death of the idea of the self as being different from everything else in the cosmos.

This notion of death before dying led Grof to write in his 1998 book The Cosmic Game:Explorations of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness:

The experience of pyschospirtual death and rebirth is a major step in the direction of the weakening of our identification with the skin-encapsulated ego and reconnecting with the transcendental domain. We feel redeemed, liberated, and blessed and have a new awareness of our divine nature and cosmic status. We also typically experience a strong surge of positive emotions towards ourselves, other people, nature, God, and existence in general. We are filled with optimism and have a sense of emotional and physical well-being.

With Virtual Reality, we are now able to step outside our own bodies and experience a realm completely separated from waking life. The key word here is experience because one has to experience this virtual reality, not just study it, in order to grasp what if fully entails. You cant fully describe in words the scent of a rose to one who cannot smell.

In VR, our identity with ourselves is suspended, like in a dream, where we can take off and fly to uncharted territories which gives us insight into new perspectives never before imagined.

Read More:Terence Mckennas cyberdelic predictions for Virtual Reality 25 years on

It can even be argued that what we call reality is a form of virtual reality what the Hindu mystics called maya or illusion and we are both actors and directors in this celestial drama.

As Grof said, The virtual reality simulating a material universe is worked out with such an acute sense for miniscule detail that the result is absolutely convincing and believable. The units of consciousness cast as the protagonists in the countless roles of this play of plays get entangled and caught in the complex and intricate web of its illusionary magic.

If we accept that the material universe as we know it is not a mechanical system but a virtual reality created by absolute consciousness through an infinity complex orchestration of experiences, what are the practical consequences of this insight? Stanislav Grof

The extent to which Virtual Reality can be used in exploring consciousness leads researchers to suggest that VR can affect our dreams to point of lucidity.

Lucid dreams are dreams where you realize you are dreaming. Its like waking up inside a dream where you can control what is going on around you.

Lucid dreaming is also the first step towards what is known as astral projection, but that is a topic for another time.

The Atlantic reported that MacEwan University Psychologist Jayne Gackenbach discovered that gamers report a greater sense of control in their dreams than non-gamers and that Virtual Reality would enhance that sense of control even greater.

When you alter peoples waking realities, their memory changes. The more you think youre in one reality, it alters your memory of other realities, said Gackenbach.

That means being immersed in a virtual reality can not only affect your dreams making them become more lucid but it also suggests that experiencing virtual reality can change ones perspective on everyday reality as well.

This is where we revert back to mystic traditions and psychedelic experiences as being in the same realm as virtual reality.

Its like the case of the Chinese philosopher Chuang-tzu who awoke from a dream in which he was a butterfly, and he could not fully determine whether he was not actually a butterfly dreaming of being a human.

Read More:New evidence for Holographic Universe backs up ancient esoteric teachings

The idea that we may be living in a computer simulation or that reality is some type of holographic illusion held together by consciousness be it collective or absolute seems a lot more plausible if we enter altered states of consciousness through the use of technology like VR, meditation, holotropic breathwork, or entheogens.

By undergoing death and rebirth in their initiatory crises, shamans lose the fear of death and become familiar and comfortable with its experiential territory. Stanislav Grof

The real world applications of Virtual Reality have led researchers to use this technology to treat depression much in the same way institutions like Johns Hopkins University is using magic mushrooms to helpterminal cancer patients.

Psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, has been used to induce mystical experiences in cancer patients that not only comforts them with their own mortality, but also as a way of allowing them to experience death before dying, much like the When We Die VR app.

Read More:Researching shrooms: The magic tripping dose, mystical experiences and the tech community

According to Grof, Many of the great mystical traditions developed specific technologies for inducing spiritual experiences and combined observation and theoretical speculation in a way that resembled modern science.

Shamanism is a worldwide phenomenon that preceded religion by thousands of years. Shamans were the first doctors, priests, and spiritual advisers of ancient communities.

Read More:The Deep Mind in the Cave: Awakening Consciousness in the Spirit of AI

In the view of the shaman, mental illness is a form of spiritual crisis, one that can be remedied by journeying into mystical realms.

Modern day shamans view psychiatric hospitals as horrific places where souls are trapped and tormented where they should be liberated and given spiritual treatment rather than be given mind-numbing drugs.

Read More:UW research into DNA storage backs up ancient shamanic knowledge

Virtual Reality is now being used to treat what our society calls mental illness.

According to an article in Big Think, So far the 285 studies published on virtual reality and mental health are encouraging. Sufferers of social anxiety, PTSD, and phobias are finding success.

Clinical psychology professor Daniel Freeman and his brother, writer Jason Freeman were paraphrased as saying, as in dreams, virtual reality is a safe space for us to engage in problem solving that wed normally be reluctant to attempt out there, and that they even foresee VR as being a diagnostic tool, cheaper and more accessible than fMRI machines and talk therapy sessions.

Virtual Reality has serious potential to unlock doors where modern pharmaceuticals and therapy have not, but what are the higher implications of VR as it pertains to altering consciousness, and where can that altered consciousness lead once the doors of perception are cleansed?

The creative intention behind the divine play is to call into being experiential realities that would offer the best opportunities for adventures in consciousness. Stanislav Grof

I keep referring to the work of Stanislav Grof in this article as his more than 40 years of experience working with consciousness is astounding!

According to Grof, whose practical research into ancient cultures combined with thousands of holotropic sessions have revealed, consciousness is not an epiphenomenon of the brain as mainstream science suggests.

Instead of the brain as a generator of consciousness, Grof postulates that consciousness acts more like a TV or radio signal if the TV or radio is damaged, the signal still exists.

In that respect, consciousness cannot be ruled out as a driving force in reality and that consciousness may actually create reality, and the source of creation is one and the same as nothingness The Void.

Just as physicists postulate that energy cannot be created nor destroyed and that the universe is filled with dark matter and dark energy that cannot be perceived, only measured, is just one mainstream science observation of this phenomenon known as The Void.

According to Grof, When all the boundaries dissolve and we transcend them, we can experience identification with the creative source itself, either in the form of Absolute Consciousness or the Cosmic Void.

Experiencing identification with the creative source or the void is to identify with our own consciousness as we are both actors and creators in the Divine Play. In other words we are the conscious universe having a human experience, as if every living thing is a simulated avatar of the original source of creation.

In order to experience life, following this logic, we are bound to act in the Divine Play, otherwise life would not exist in this respect.

According to Grof, Each of us appears in the divine play in a dual role of creator and actor. A full and realistic enactment of our role in the cosmic drama requires the suspension of our true identity. We have to forget our authorship and follow the script.

What better way to have adventures in consciousness, to explore vastness of the universe, the complexity of atoms, or the intricacies of our own psyches than through the mind-altering, dream-changing, ego-breaking technology of Virtual Reality?

See the article here:

Virtual Reality Takes Consciousness Research into Mystic Realms of the Divine Play - The Sociable

This is Entheogen. Elevate the Conversation.

Its March 12, 2017, and we are discussing psychedelic healing with Dr. Neal Goldsmith.

Neals book Psychedelic Healing: The Promise of Entheogens for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Development provides copious discussion points for our conversation today.

Neal's therapy practice, and how his use of psychedelics has informed his practice of psychotherapy

Imago therapy

LSD is a tool: Charles Manson becomes more Charles Manson; Richard Alpert becomes Ram Dass.

The substitution of the eucharist as a proxy for the original psychoactive sacrament. Can we please go back to the active version? What are the consequences of inactive substitutes in religious ceremonies? How have alternative spiritual practices sprung up in the absence of sanctioned Entheogenic rituals?

George Carlins Modern Man.

Are we in the midst of McKennas Archaic Revival? Is this another way to internalize the unfolding ecological apocalypse?

If were going to be post-post-modern, if were going to be integral, we cant have a fight between tribalism and modernity. We cant have a fight between spirituality and the material world.

Meditation, mindfulness, yoga, breathing

Deep breathing to expel carbon dioxide in addition to inhaling oxygen.

McKennas conjecture that its possible to get to the same state of consciousness that psychedelics provide access to, using meditation or chanting or drumming, but who has time for that?

What do you recommend to listeners who might be interested in some form of psychedelic therapy, present company included?

The dichotomy of tribalism vs. modernism: our human ancestors living naturally but for shorter time, vs. modern humans living longer but disconnected from nature. Spiraling up vs. retreating to tribalism.

Spirituality vs. science. The concept of rational mysticism. Einstein quote via Rick Doblin: There's no real conflict between science & religion; there's a conflict between bad science & bad religion.

Please support Entheogen by making a donation on Patreon. Become a Patron for as little as $1. Pledge just $3 or more, and get early access to new episodes, plus exclusive Patron-only features. Head over to EntheogenShow.com and click on Support.

Find the notes and links for this and other episodes at EntheogenShow.com. Sign up to receive an email when we release a new episode. Follow us @EntheogenShow on Twitter and like EntheogenShow on FaceBook. Thanks for listening.

The rest is here:

Entheogen