Drugs
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You know who's a thousand times cooler than Carl Sagan? Freeman Dyson. Stupid people are huge recreational drug users, it's called beer. Lol Steve Jobs vis-a-vis Bill Gates. What a pretentious douche.
10 Scientific and Technological Visionaries Who Experimented With Drugs
Psychodelics
Research
Soma
Soma (Sanskrit सोम sóma ), or Haoma ( Avestan ), from Proto-Indo-Iranian * sauma- , was a Vedic ritual drink [ 1 ] of importance among the early Indo-Iranians , and the subsequent Vedic and greater Persian cultures. It is frequently mentioned in the Rigveda , whose Soma Mandala contains 114 hymns, many praising its energizing qualities. In the Avesta , Haoma has the entire Yašt 20 and Yasna 9-11 dedicated to it. It is described as being prepared by extracting juice from the stalks of a certain plant.Land of Psychedelic Illuminations by Brian Exton, an example of psychedelic artwork Psychedelia is a name given to the subculture of people who use psychedelic drugs , and a style of psychedelic artwork and psychedelic music derived from the experience of altered consciousness that uses highly distorted and surreal visuals, sound effects and reverberation , and bright colors and full spectrums and animation (including cartoons ) to evoke and convey to a viewer or listener the artist's experience while using such drugs. The term "psychedelic" is derived from the Ancient Greek words psuchē (ψυχή - psyche, "mind") and dēlōsē (δήλωση - "manifest"), translating to "mind-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly ordinary fetters.
Psychedelia
Alberto Villoldo On Ayahuasca
I started out in the brain laboratory at San Francisco State University – literally surrounded by hundreds of formaldehyde preserved brains. We were studying how we develop psychosomatic disease, and how we could create psychosomatic health. One day I realized that I had been looking out of the wrong end of the microscope, becoming caught in the minutiae of neurons and brain chemistry, and missing the larger picture of the mind. I decided to leave my lab and travelled to the Amazon, to work and study with medicine men who had no MRI’s and brain scans, only the power of the mind and local herbs to heal their patients. For twenty-five years, I apprenticed with extraordinary shamans and healers, and learned the use of the fabled vine of the dead, ayahuasca.
The Chemical Carousel
In the past few years, as addiction researchers have been busily mapping out the chemical alterations caused by alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, heroin, and tranquilizers, America’s most popular illegal drug has remained largely a scientific mystery. It is a drug that millions of Americans have been using regularly for years, and yet it is the least studied drug of all. .... In the late 1980s, a team of researchers at NIMH was investigating a category of receptors for substances called pain peptides. Not too far down the hall from the peptide researchers, neuroanatomist Miles Herkenham was working with some of the superpowered THC analogs Pfizer had come up with.
An Introduction to the Entities
DMT (dimethyltryptamine) is the most powerful and fast- acting of the tryptamine class of hallucinogens. After smoking DMT users regularly report fantastic trips to
DMT, Moses, and the Quest for Transcendence
by Cliff Pickover , Reality Carnival "DMT in the pineal glands of Biblical prophets gave God to humanity and let ordinary humans perceive parallel universes." The molecule DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine) is a psychoactive chemical that causes intense visions and can induce its users to quickly enter a completely different "environment" that some have likened to an alien or parallel universe. The transition from our world to theirs occurs with no cessation of consciousness or quality of awareness. In this environment, beings often appear who interact with the person who is using DMT. The beings appear to inhabit this parallel realm.Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux. Once upon a time, antipsychotics were reserved for a relatively small number of patients with hard-core psychiatric diagnoses - primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - to treat such symptoms as delusions, hallucinations, or formal thought disorder.
Mass psychosis in the US
( Photo by JB Banks ) Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person’s thoughts. Every waking moment—and even in our dreams—we struggle to direct the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of consciousness that we value.
The Blog : Drugs and the Meaning of Life
Entheology
By David Ian Miller Alex Grey paints souls. His work shows human bodies — rendered with medical-illustration precision — wrapped in layers of sacred energy. Whether you believe Grey's work depicts the reality of divine auras or a particularly vibrant artistic license doesn't much matter. His paintings have an uncanny effect on viewers, making them sense — or at least consider the possibility of — the subtle energies that surround us and how these personal force fields might change depending on our intention, actions and moods.
Mary Jane