Culture and the individual

Between culture and the individual the relationship is, and always has been, strangely ambivalent. We are at once the beneficiaries of our culture and its victims. Without culture, and without that precondition of all culture, language, man would be no more than another species of baboon. It is to language and culture that we owe our humanity. And "What a piece of work is a man!" says Hamlet: "How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! ... in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god!" But, alas, in the intervals of being noble, rational and potentially infinite,

man, proud man,

Dressed in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he is most assured,

His glassy essence, like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As make the angels weep. "

Genius and angry ape, player of fantastic tricks and godlike reasoner—in all these roles individuals are the products of a language and a culture. Working on the twelve or thirteen billion neurons of a human brain, language and culture have given us law, science, ethics, philosophy; have made possible all the achievements of talent and of sanctity. They have also given us fanaticism, superstition and dogmatic bumptiousness; nationalistic idolatry and mass murder in the name of God; rabble-rousing propaganda and organized Iying. And, along with the salt of the earth, they have given us, generation after generation, countless millions of hypnotized conformists, the predestined victims of power-hungry rulers who are themselves the victims of all that is most senseless and inhuman in their cultural tradition.

Thanks to language and culture, human behavior can be incomparably more intelligent, more original, creative and flexible than the behavior of animals, whose brains are too small to accommodate the number of neurons necessary for the invention of language and the transmission of accumulated knowledge. But, thanks again to language and culture, human beings often behave with a stupidity, a lack of realism, a total inappropriateness, of which animals are incapable.

Trobriand Islander or Bostonian, Sicilian Catholic or Japanese Buddhist, each of us is born into some culture and passes his life within its confines. Between every human consciousness and the rest of the world stands an invisible fence, a network of traditional thinking-and-feeling patterns, of secondhand notions that have turned into axioms, of ancient slogans revered as divine revelations. What we see through the meshes of this net is never, of course, the unknowable "thing in itself." It is not even, in most cases, the thing as it impinges upon our senses and as our organism spontaneously reacts to it. What we ordinarily take in and respond to is a curious mixture of immediate experience with culturally conditioned symbol, of sense impressions with preconceived ideas about the nature of things. And by most people the symbolic elements in this cocktail of awareness are felt to be more important than the elements contributed by immediate experience. Inevitably so, for, to those who accept their culture totally and uncritically, words in the familiar language do not stand (however inadequately) for things. On the contrary, things stand for familiar words. Each unique event of their ongoing life is instantly and automatically classified as yet another concrete illustration of one of the verbalized, culture-hallowed abstractions drummed into their heads by childhood conditioning.

It goes without saying that many of the ideas handed down to us by the transmitters of culture are eminently sensible and realistic. (If they were not, the human species would now be extinct.) But, along with these useful concepts, every culture hands down a stock of unrealistic notions, some of which never made any sense, while others may once have possessed survival value, but have now, in the changed and changing circumstances of ongoing history, become completely irrelevant. Since human beings respond to symbols as promptly and unequivocally as they respond to the stimuli of unmediated experience, and since most of them naively believe that culture-hallowed words about things are as real as, or even realer than their perceptions of the things themselves, these outdated or intrinsically nonsensical notions do enormous harm. Thanks to the realistic ideas handed down by culture, mankind has survived and, in certain fields, progresses. But thanks to the pernicious nonsense drummed into every individual in the course of his acculturation, mankind, though surviving and progressing, has always been in trouble. History is the record, among other things, of the fantastic and generally fiendish tricks played upon itself by culture-maddened humanity. And the hideous game goes on.

What can, and what should, the individual do to improve his ironically equivocal relationship with the culture in which he finds himself embedded? How can he continue to enjoy the benefits of culture without, at the same time, being stupefied or frenziedly intoxicated by its poisons? How can he become discriminatingly acculturated, rejecting what is silly or downright evil in his conditioning, and holding fast to that which makes for humane and intelligent behavior?

A culture cannot be discriminatingly accepted, much less be modified, except by persons who have seen through it—by persons who have cut holes in the confining stockade of verbalized symbols and so are able to look at the world and, by reflection, at themselves in a new and relatively unprejudiced way. Such persons are not merely born; they must also be made. But how?

In the field of formal education, what the would-be hole cutter needs is knowledge. Knowledge of the past and present history of cultures in all their fantastic variety, and knowledge about the nature and limitations, the uses and abuses, of language. A man who knows that there have been many cultures, and that each culture claims to be the best and truest of all, will find it hard to take too seriously the boastings and dogmatizings of his own tradition. Similarly, a man who knows how symbols are related to experience, and who practices the kind of linguistic self-control taught by the exponents of General Semantics, is unlikely to take too seriously the absurd or dangerous nonsense that, within every culture, passes for philosophy, practical wisdom and political argument. As a preparation for hole cutting, this kind of intellectual education is certainly valuable, but no less certainly insufficient. Training on the verbal level needs to be supplemented by training in wordless experiencing. We must learn how to be mentally silent, must cultivate the art of pure receptivity.

To be silently receptive—how childishly simple that seems! But in fact, as we very soon discover, how difficult! The universe in which men pass their lives is the creation of what Indian philosophy calls Nama-Rupa, Name and Form. Reality is a continuum, a fathomlessly mysterious and infinite Something, whose outward aspect is what we call Matter and whose inwardness is what we call Mind. Language is a device for taking the mystery out of Reality and making it amenable to human comprehension and manipulation. Acculturated man breaks up the continuum, attaches labels to a few of the fragments, projects the labels into the outside world and thus creates for himself an all-too-human universe of separate objects, each of which is merely the embodiment of a name, a particular illustration of some traditional abstraction. What we perceive takes on the pattern of the conceptual lattice through which it has been filtered. Pure receptivity is difficult because man's normal waking consciousness is always culturally conditioned. But normal waking consciousness, as William James pointed out many years ago, "is but one type of consciousness, while all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these forms of consciousness disregarded."

Like the culture by which it is conditioned, normal waking consciousness is at once our best friend and a most dangerous enemy. It helps us to survive and make progress; but at the same time it prevents us from actualizing some of our most valuable potentialities and, on occasion, gets us into all kinds of trouble. To become fully human, man, proud man, the player of fantastic tricks, must learn to get out of his own way: only then will his infinite faculties and angelic apprehension get a chance of coming to the surface. In Blake's words, we must "cleanse the doors of perception"; for when the doors of perception are cleansed, "everything appears to man as it is—infinite." To normal waking consciousness things are the strictly finite and insulated embodiments of verbal labels. How can we break the habit of automatically imposing our prejudices and the memory of culture-hallowed words upon immediate experience? Answer: by the practice of pure receptivity and mental silence. These will cleanse the doors of perception and, in the process, make possible the emergence of other than normal forms of consciousness—aesthetic consciousness, visionary consciousness, mystical consciousness. Thanks to culture we are the heirs to vast accumulations of knowledge, to a priceless treasure of logical and scientific method, to thousands upon thousands of useful pieces of technological and organizational know-how. But the human mind-body possesses other sources of information, makes use of other types of reasoning, is gifted with an intrinsic wisdom that is independent of cultural conditioning.

Wordsworth writes that "our meddling intellect [that part of the mind which uses language to take the mystery out of Reality] mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things: we murder to dissect." Needless to say, we cannot get along without our meddling intellect. Verbalized conceptual thinking is indispensable. But even when they are used well, verbalized concepts mis-shape "the beauteous forms of things." And when (as happens so often) they are used badly, they mis-shape our lives by rationalizing ancient stupidities, by instigating mass murder, persecution and the playing of all the other fantastically ugly tricks that make the angels weep. Wise nonverbal passiveness is an antidote to unwise verbal activity and a necessary corrective to wise verbal activity. Verbalized concepts about experience need to be supplemented by direct, unmediated acquaintance with events as they present themselves to us.

It is the old story of the letter and the spirit. The letter is necessary, but must never be taken too seriously, for, divorced from the spirit, it cramps and finally kills. As for the spirit, it "bloweth where it listeth" and, if we fail to consult the best cultural charts, we may be blown off our course and suffer shipwreck. At present most of us make the worst of both worlds. Ignoring the freely blowing winds of the spirit and relying on cultural maps which may be centuries out-of-date, we rush full speed ahead under the high-pressure steam of our own overweening self-confidence. The tickets we have sold ourselves assure us that our destination is some port in the Islands of the Blest. In fact it turns out, more often than not, to be Devil's Island.

Self-education on the nonverbal level is as old as civilization. "Be still and know that I am God"—for the visionaries and mystics of every time and every place, this has been the first and greatest of the commandments. Poets listen to their Muse and in the same way the visionary and the mystic wait upon inspiration in a state of wise passiveness, of dynamic vacuity. In the Western tradition this state is called "the prayer of simple regard." At the other end of the world it is described in terms that are psychological rather than theistic. In mental silence we "look into our own Self-Nature," we "hold fast to the Not-Thought which lies in thought." we "become that which essentially we have always been." By wise activity we can acquire useful analytical knowledge about the world, knowledge that can be communicated by means of verbal symbols. In the state of wise passiveness we make possible the emergence of forms of consciousness other than the utilitarian consciousness of normal waking life. Useful analytical knowledge about the world is replaced by some kind of biologically inessential but spiritually enlightening acquaintance with the world. For example, there can be direct aesthetic acquaintance with the world as beauty. Or there can be direct acquaintance with the intrinsic strangeness of existence, its wild implausibility. And finally there can be direct acquaintance with the world's unity. This immediate mystical experience of being at one with the fundamental Oneness that manifests itself in the infinite diversity of things and minds, can never be adequately expressed in words. Like visionary experience, the experience of the mystic can be talked about only from the outside. Verbal symbols can never convey its inwardness.

It is through mental silence and the practice of wise passiveness that artists, visionaries and mystics have made themselves ready for the immediate experience of the world as beauty, as mystery and as unity. But silence and wise passiveness are not the only roads leading out of the all-too-human universe created by normal, culture-conditioned consciousness. In Expostulation and Reply, Wordsworth's bookish friend, Matthew, reproaches the poet because

You look round on your Mother Earth,

As if she for no purpose bore you;

As if you were her first-born birth,

And none have lived before you!

From the point of view of normal waking consciousness, this is sheer intellectual delinquency. But it is what the artist, the visionary and the mystic must do and, in fact, have always done. "Look at a person, a landscape, any common object, as though you were seeing it for the first time." This is one of the exercises in immediate, unverbalized awareness prescribed in the ancient texts of Tantric Buddhism. Artists visionaries and mystics refuse to be enslaved to the culture-conditioned habits of feeling, thought and action which their society regards as right and natural. Whenever this seems desirable, they deliberately refrain from projecting upon reality those hallowed word patterns with which all human minds are so copiously stocked. They know as well as anyone else that culture and the language in which any given culture is rooted, are absolutely necessary and that, without them, the individual would not be human. But more vividly than the rest of mankind they also know that, to be fully human, the individual must learn to decondition himself, must be able to cut holes in the fence of verbalized symbols that hems him in.

In the exploration of the vast and mysterious world of human potentialities the great artists, visionaries and mystics have been trailblazing pioneers. But where they have been, others can follow. Potentially, all of us are "infinite in faculties and like gods in apprehension." Modes of consciousness different from normal waking consciousness are within the reach of anyone who knows how to apply the necessary stimuli. The universe in which a human being lives can be transfigured into a new creation. We have only to cut a hole in the fence and look around us with what the philosopher, Plotinus, describes as "that other kind of seeing, which everyone has but few make use of."

Within our current systems of education, training on the nonverbal level is meager in quantity and poor in quality. Moreover, its purpose, which is simply to help its recipients to be more "like gods in apprehension" is neither clearly stated nor consistently pursued. We could and, most emphatically, we should do better in this very important field than we are doing now. The practical wisdom of earlier civilizations and the findings of adventurous spirits within our own tradition and in our own time are freely available. With their aid a curriculum and a methodology of nonverbal training could be worked out without much difficulty. Unhappily most persons in authority have a vested interest in the maintenance of cultural fences. They frown upon hole cutting as subversive and dismiss Plotinus' "other kind of seeing" as a symptom of mental derangement. If an effective system of nonverbal education could be worked out, would the authorities allow it to be widely applied? It is an open question.

From the nonverbal world of culturally uncontaminated consciousness we pass to the subverbal world of physiology and biochemistry. A human being is a temperament and a product of cultural conditioning; he is also, and primarily, an extremely complex and delicate biochemical system, whose inwardness, as the system changes from one state of equilibrium to another, is changing consciousness. It is because each one of us is a biochemical system that (according to Housman) "Malt does more than Milton can, to justify God's ways to man".

Beer achieves its theological triumphs because, in William James' words, "Drunkenness is the great exciter of the Yes function in man." And he adds that "It is part of the deeper mystery and tragedy of life that whiffs and gleams of something that we immediately recognize as excellent should be vouchsafed to so many of us only in the fleeting earlier phases of what, in its totality, is so degrading a poisoning." The tree is known by its fruits, and the fruits of too much reliance upon ethyl alcohol as an exciter of the Yes function are bitter indeed. No less bitter are the fruits of reliance upon such habit-forming sedatives, hallucinogens and mood elevators as opium and its derivatives, as cocaine (once so blithely recommended to his friends and patients by Dr. Freud), as the barbiturates and amphetamine. But in recent years the pharmacologists have extracted or synthesized several compounds that powerfully affect the mind without doing any harm to the body, either at the time of ingestion or, through addiction, later on. Through these new psychedelics, the subject's normal waking consciousness may be modified in many different ways. It is as though, for each individual, his deeper self decides which kind of experience will be most advantageous. Having decided, it makes use of the drug's mind-changing powers to give the person what he needs. Thus, if it would be good for him to have deeply buried memories uncovered, deeply buried memories will duly be uncovered. In cases where this is of no great importance, something else will happen.

Normal waking consciousness may be replaced by aesthetic consciousness, and the world will be perceived in all its unimaginable beauty, all the blazing intensity of its "thereness." And aesthetic consciousness may modulate into visionary consciousness. Thanks to yet another kind of seeing, the world will now reveal itself as not only unimaginably beautiful, but also fathomlessly mysterious—as a multitudinous abyss of possibility forever actualizing itself into unprecedented forms. New insights into a new, transfigured world of givenness, new combinations of thought and fantasy—the stream of novelty pours through the world in a torrent, whose every drop is charged with meaning. There are the symbols whose meaning lies outside themselves in the given facts of visionary experience, and there are these given facts which signify only themselves. But "only themselves" is also "no less than the divine ground of all being." "Nothing but this" is at the same time "the Suchness of all." And now the aesthetic and the visionary consciousness deepen into mystical consciousness. The world is now seen as an infinite diversity that is yet a unity, and the beholder experiences himself as being at one with the infinite Oneness that manifests itself, totally present, at every point of space, at every instant in the flux of perpetual perishing and perpetual renewal. Our normal word-conditioned consciousness creates a universe of sharp distinctions, black and white, this and that, me and you and it. In the mystical consciousness of being at one with infinite Oneness, there is a reconciliation of opposites, a perception of the Not-Particular in particulars, a transcending of our ingrained subject4bject relationships with things and persons; there is an immediate experience of our solidarity with all being and a kind of organic conviction that in spite of the inscrutabilities of fate, in spite of our own dark stupidities and deliberate malevolence, yes, in spite of all that is so manifestly wrong with the world, it is yet, in some profound, paradoxical and entirely inexpressible way, All Right. For normal waking consciousness, the phrase, "God is Love," is no more than a piece of wishful positive thinking. For the mystical consciousness, it is a self-evident truth.

Unprecedentedly rapid technological and demographic changes are steadily increasing the dangers by which we are surrounded, and at the same time are steadily diminishing the relevance of the traditional feeling-and-behavior-patterns imposed upon all individuals, rulers and ruled alike, by their culture. Always desirable, widespread training in the art of cutting holes in cultural fences is now the most urgent of necessities. Can such a training be speeded up and made more effective by a judicious use of the physically harmless psychedelics now available? On the basis of personal experience and the published evidence, I believe that it can. In my utopian fantasy, Island, I speculated in fictional terms about the ways in which a substance akin to psilocybin could be used to potentiate the nonverbal education of adolescents and to remind adults that the real world is very different from the misshapen universe they have created for themselves by means of their culture-conditioned prejudices. "Having Fun with Fungi"—that was how one waggish reviewer dismissed the matter. But which is better: to have Fun with Fungi or to have Idiocy with Ideology, to have Wars because of Words, to have Tomorrow's Misdeeds out of Yesterday's Miscreeds?

How should the psychedelics be administered? Under what circumstances, with what kind of preparation and follow-up? These are questions that must be answered empirically, by large-scale experiment. Man's collective mind has a high degree of viscosity and flows from one position to another with the reluctant deliberation of an ebbing tide of sludge. But in a world of explosive population increase, of headlong technological advance and of militant nationalism, the time at our disposal is strictly limited. We must discover, and discover very soon, new energy sources for overcoming our society's psychological inertia, better solvents for liquefyingthe sludgy stickiness of an anachronistic state of mind. On the verbal level an education in the nature and limitations, the uses and abuses of language; on the wordless level an education in mental silence and pure receptivity; and finally, through the use of harmless psychedelics, a course of chemically triggered conversion experiences or ecstasies—these, I believe, will provide all the sources of mental energy, all the solvents of conceptual sludge, that an individual requires. With their aid, he should be able to adapt himself selectively to his culture, rejecting its evils, stupidities and irrelevances, gratefully accepting all its treasures of accumulated knowledge, of rationality, human-heartedness and practical wisdom. If the number of such individuals is sufficiently great, if their quality is sufficiently high, they may be able to pass from discriminating acceptance of their culture to discriminating change and reform. Is this a hopefully utopian dream? Experiment can give us the answer, for the dream is pragmatic; the utopian hypotheses can be tested empirically. And in these oppressive times a little hope is surely no unwelcome visitant.

by Aldous Huxley, 1963

The Acid Queen, Chapter 7

The human mind cannot be conceived of as a glass or window through which information passes without bending or being distorted. Rather, external phenomena are filtered through a preexisting structure. This structure itself is shaped by experience and conditioning and expectations which are themselves, to varying degrees, learned. This filter—or "reticular system," as it is more precisely called—discriminates. It accepts and rejects information, sifting through the daily barrage of sensory input like a kind of organic pre-programmed computer. The philosopher, J. Bronowski, has written about what he calls the "interlocked picture of the world" which the brain constructs. This picture is not the way the world looks but rather our way of looking at it. All perceptions, after having been picked up by the senses, are graded (interviewed, if you like) and screened by the reticular system before being forwarded to the mind.

Accordingly, we automatically distinguish between what our experience has told us is relevant and what is irrelevant—or nonfunctional. This filter is itself shaped by the environment in which the individual finds himself. The signals and messages he chooses to pick up are those he has been trained to categorize as being of some importance to his survival. Others will be deflected. Accordingly, it is not the "eye" of the artist which permits him to detect nuances where the non-artist will see nothing—it is simply that the artist will not automatically screen out information which, to the other, is of no value or importance.

It is likely that LSD attacks this filter, rendering it more porous, opening up tunnels which would otherwise remain sealed. The effects of LSD are therefore of deep significance. One's reticular system is finally the product of one's whole cultural milieu. No culture could ever remain "intact" if the mental filters of its members were not synchronized with the larger, more generalized cultural filter. When LSD disrupts the functioning of the filter, it removes the individual from this over-all cultural context. It drives him not "out of his mind," but out of the filter surrounding his mind.

On the basis of its morality, priorities, prejudices, goals, ideals, and fears, any given society will roughly impress a similar set of mental reflexes on its members. Thus, people who grow up in a given society tend strongly to agree upon certain concepts basic to the structure of the society. Depending upon the technology and philosophy of the society, its degree of sophistication, their views will be approximately representative. And to the extent that the society is incapable of achieving some kind to overview—of transcending its own nature, its own habits, its own assumptions—so too will the perceptions of the individual be limited and inhibited. The cultural point of view, which is converted into a perceptual method, is internalized, and each individual becomes a walking micro-culture. Any device or system which tends to break down the structure of the individual micro-culture assaults, in the most direct and specific way possible, the very foundations of the overculture, the partial and culturally-limited point of view-which members of a given society share, if they are to have any common impulse or behavior pattern at all. Or, more to the point, if they are to be controlled, managed, organized, or led.

A Czech doctor once said that LSD inhibits conditioned reflexes. To the extent that it does that, it removes the individual from the context of his culture. It takes him-however temporarily away from the familiar board, renders the normal rules of the game useless, and opens him up to a radically-altered perception.

To a lesser degree, regardless of the differences in the chemical process whereby the effect is achieved, this is also the secret of marijuana, hashish, peyote and so on: not really that they "expand" the mind, but that they widen the doors of perception, as Aldous Huxley said, sometimes just slightly, although at other times not only is the door (the preconditioned mental filter) knocked right down, but a whole wall may be demolished, and sensory data previously blocked out comes pouring in. One stands exposed, literally, to the elements, suddenly naked.

Few cultures have ever had as much of a vested interest in compartmentalized perception as technological society. Specialization insists upon informing individuals deeply but narrowly. And the organization of specialists from different fields has become the key to technological success. The "partial and culturally limited point of view" which has grown up in the West takes its shape mainly from the incubators of Aristotelian logic, Christian dualism and the concept of length. These great formative roots have in common an insistence upon division and fragmentation. Aristotelianism gave us a subject-predicate language, "with its tendency to treat objects as in isolation and to have no place for relations." Christianity, of course, insists upon the theology of God and the Devil, absolute Good and absolute Evil, Heaven and Hell, the Spirit and the Flesh. We have already noted the effects of the concept of length. Together, they provide the conceptual blueprint for the Western psyche—a blueprint the outline of which has been blurred by electronic media, physics and the tremendous insights offered by Gestalt therapy and general semantics, but which remains nevertheless the operative design.

It is worth nothing, as several writers have pointed out, that what is existentially astonishing about the LSD experience is the "discovery" that, mentally, most of us have been operating within the confines of a quite narrow and sharply restricted level of consciousness. The dualistic image of the world, which is our culturally limited way of viewing things, is "real" only along the avenues of this one wavelength of consciousness. It is the Oneness of the universe which becomes apparent once the dualistic image to which the reticular system is harnessed has been dissolved or broken down. Again, this discovery can be made through less potent (and dangerous) drugs. It can also be made without recourse to drugs at all. For the consciousness which the drug experience offers is not unique; it is not "new"; it is not unnatural; there is nothing "freaky" or "far-out" or weird about it all, except in the context of contemporary society. The fact that such a holistic consciousness should be seen as being irrational reveals nothing except the degree to which Western civilization itself has become unnatural and freaky.

What do you "see" while stoned, whether on pot or acid or any other "hallucinogen," that isn't already apparent to a mind not locked in a conceptual cage? The attraction felt by drug-users for ancient Oriental philosophies and religions is no mere coincidence. Through their drug experiences they have come to see a reality not split by Aristotelian logic or Christian dualism or operationalism. They see things as they were always seen long before the concrete perceptual foundations of the West were poured. The "culturally-limited" point of view stamped upon generations of Europeans and their colonizing children is suddenly seen, through the medium of drugs, to be the product of a "narrow and restricted level of consciousness." To those minds most conditioned by the Western version of consciousness, the attitudes induced by drugs seem appallingly regressive: the idea that "primitives" and "savages" and "barbarians" and "heathens" might have had a better grasp of reality than their white conquerors does not go down well. It makes white supremacy a cruel joke. It makes what we have been conditioned to think of as "civilization" something very close to a farce. Just incidentally, it renders every established political context meaningless, at least as meaningless as the artificial contexts established by economics.

The real fear behind the generally hostile reaction to drugs is that the insights offered by these drugs might be more valid than the insights offered by established authority, that what is called "hallucination" and "illusion" might in fact be a greater (wider, deeper, more profound) perception of reality than the ordinary. Suppose that while stoned you do see things more clearly and directly. Suppose that ordinary (that is, culturally-conditioned) perception is something like partial blindness, imperfect, distorted, incomplete. And now allow just the possibility that drugs might open your eyes wider, that you might be able through the medium of drugs to perceive things in a more complete manner, that you might be able to activate repressed or dormant perceptual faculties within yourself.... Immediately, one can appreciate the threat these drugs represent to the established order. It is an order dominated by people who have learned the tricks of surviving and flourishing inside it. If it may be thought of as an elaborate machine, it is a machine which some people have learned to operate, and these people, naturally, have risen to positions of power based on their ability to operate the controls. They understand this machine. They have a mechanic's love of its familiar intricacies. Anything which suggests the existence of another, more complex and pervasive machine, one whose functioning is not understood by the people who have learned to work the old machine (or reality) is threatening to them in the extreme. If a greater reality emerges and claims the minds of men, what becomes of the lesser reality? It will be consigned, inevitably, to the garbage heap. And with it, also inevitably, will go all those who depended on it for their power and authority.

The fear of drugs is deep-rooted, but it has nothing to do with worries over whether young minds might be corrupted or ruined or that people will get intoxicated; after all, alcohol is not so feared. As for fear of young minds being ruined or somehow "lost" to society, this is at the very least a transparent rationalization. If the danger of "losing" young citizens was the authentic cause of the reaction to drugs, then automobiles would be far more loathed and hated than pot or acid. Who can argue that the automobile does not claim more young "minds" (along with their bodies) every weekend in North America than do drugs in a year? No, the parent who will turn the keys to his car over to his teenage son, but who will fly into a rage if he finds a single joint of grass in that same son's room, is reacting to a fear that runs far deeper than concern for anyone's well-being other than his own. Instinctively, many in our society have sensed what is going on: namely, that the premises and assumptions upon which this social order was built are being shaken at their roots, and that drugs, in some mysterious way, are a critical factor. The people who advocate their use, or who, more simply, use them, are in some fundamental way different. They come, rather literally, from another world. They are foreigners, aliens, members of another tribe. The reaction to them is almost as ferocious as the reaction to immigrants in earlier times.

It was presumably an understanding of this which prompted Eldridge Cleaver to write that the conflict between the generations today is deeper, even, than the struggle between the races. Although it is much more than a purely generational conflict, there are proportionately far fewer older people who perceive the "greater reality" than there are young ones.

This great reality is, to begin with, ecological. Ecology, after all, is merely one of the first of our Western sciences to escape the clutch of Aristotelian logic. Of necessity, it abandons subject-predicate methods in favor of relational methods, extends the concept of the organism-as-a-whole to "organism-as-a-whole-in environments," is non-anthropomorphic, and concerns itself with whole systems in a functional (rather than merely additive) nonlinear manner. The orders and relations recognized by ecology are "higher;" that is, they are more profound. Peter Henry Liederman notes that we are moving from the Dialectic Age to the Ecological or Global Age. The "greater reality" is becoming increasingly apparent. "Western philosophy has taught us to think of everything in terms of dualisms, diametrically opposed, competing opposites. However, the philosophical base of Western thinking may be undergoing drastic change, for in science, politics, economics, and even religion, it is becoming less and less popular to view everything in isolation from the total system surrounding it."

But ecology recognizes, as yet, only purely physical relationships and harmonies. The task of exploring further non-physical relationships has fallen to such embryonic sciences as parapsychology. J. B. Rhine has been able to verify experimentally the reality of psychokinesis, extra-sensory perception, precognition, clairvoyance, and telepathy. Evidence is beginning to accumulate that plants have emotions, that there is a "pool" of vegetable consciousness which functions telepathically across great distances and possesses memory. Experiments by Clive Backster indicate that every living cell has "primary perception," which implies a mind of sorts. (A test tube sample of human sperm was able to select its "daddy" from a group of men.) Amoebas, mold cultures, fresh fruits and vegetables, yeasts and blood samples have all shown "emotional" reactions recorded on the galvanic skin-response section of polygraph instruments, and the "power of prayer" to affect the growth of plants has been repeatedly demonstrated. The literature which almost overnight has become available on these new "paranormal" frontiers of the mind is staggering. While it is true that much of it can be dismissed as being exploitive and sensationalistic, it remains that empirical data is accumulating at a tremendous rate. Much of the serious work being done is going on in the Soviet Union, although Soviet scientists take the position that psi results (which many of them acknowledge) must stem from some unknown physical source of energy.

J.B. Rhine, after forty years of experimental work in the field of parapsychology, was able to put it sweetly: "If a man criticizes us honestly, I know that he just has his windows cut to a certain size and can't see any further." And can't see any further. Here perhaps, is the edge which splits our society so cleanly into fundamentally different camps. On the one hand: the predominantly older individuals whose perception is filtered through a pre-existing operational structure, the result of previous experience, conditioning and internalization of culturally-patterned points of view. And on the other: the mainly younger individuals whose reticular system has been softened in a variety of ways (electronic media would be one) so that it is not so tightly bounded and fixed, in terms of what they are able to perceive; and for these individuals the traditional Western mode of consciousness is but one wavelength on the spectrum of perception. Other wavelengths are more apparent to them.

The consciousness which emerges once the walls fashioned by Western science and religion have been dissolved or penetrated by drugs is not by any means a peculiar consciousness. The extent to which it is in harmony with the teachings and intuitive knowledge of other times and places (pre-technological and non-Aristotelian) has been clearly revealed by various studies, perhaps the most definitive one of which was reported by Willis Harman in Main Currents of Modern Thought :

"Through the psychedelic experience persons tend to accept beliefs which are at variance with the usual conception of the "scientific world view." In a current study (by C. Savage, W. Harman, J. Fadiman, and E. Savage) the subjects were given prior to and immediately after the LSD session, a collection of 100 belief and value statements to rank according to the extent they felt the statements expressed their views. Subsequent personality and behavior-pattern changes were evaluated by standard clinical instruments and independent interviews. It was found that therapeutic consequences of the LSD session were predictable on the basis of the extent to which subjects indicated increased belief in statements such as the following:

-I believe that I exist not only in the familiar world of space and time, but also in a realm having a timeless, eternal quality.
-Behind the apparent multiplicity of things in the world of science and common sense there is a single reality in which all things are united.
-It is quite possible for people to communicate telepathically,
without any use of sight or hearing, since deep down our minds are all connected.
-Of course the real self exists on after the death of the body.
-When one turns his attention inward, he discovers a world of 'inner space' which is as vast and as real as the external, physical world.
-Man is, in essence, eternal and infinite.
-Somehow, I feel I have always existed and always will.
-Although this may sound absurd, I have the feeling that somehow I have participated in the creation of everything around me.

I feel that the mountains and the sea and the stars are all part of me, and my soul is in touch with the souls of all creatures. Each of us potentially has access to vast realms of knowledge through his own mind, including secrets of the universe known so far only to a very few.
Note that in accepting these statements the individual is in effect saying that he is convinced of the possibility of gaining valid knowledge through an extrasensory mode of perception. "

Dr. John Beresford, who has described the discovery of LSD as possibly the most critical event in human history, remarked: "Take it once and you know that all you've known about consciousness is wrong."

The point here is simply to emphasize that the consciousness which comes into focus through the medium of drugs is basically no different from the consciousness manifest in various ways in most, if not all, peoples who have not been snagged by the inherent limitations of Western thought-processes. Those belief and value statements just quoted might have been uttered as readily by ancient Chinese, aboriginal Bantu tribesmen, Eskimos, American Indians, devotees of the Upanishads, Buddhists, Taoists and Zen masters, as they were by Westerners who had taken LSD. And those beliefs and values, while sounding strange coming from the heart of Technology Land, were by no means strange to these other peoples. What was strange, even frightening and insane, to them was the Western brand of logic, which was clearly exploitive, atavistic, and egocentric.

"It is my personal belief, after thirty-five years experience of it," wrote Sioux Indian doctor Charles Eastman, "that there is no such thing as 'Christian civilization.' I believe that Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable, and that the spirit of Christianity and of our ancient religion is essentially the same." Dr. Eastman here put his finger on the crack which has now widened to the point where it is breaking the established Western churches apart. This Sioux would seem to be closer in spirit to a modern white pothead or acidhead (and a lot of others, all of whom could be loosely grouped together under the heading counter culture) than these whites are to their own elected representatives, the administrators of their universities and, certainly in many cases, to their own parents.

Ted Hughes has noted that the fundamental guiding ideas of our Western civilization derive from Reformed Christianity and from Old Testament Puritanism, which are based
on the assumption that the earth is a heap of raw materials given to man by God for his exclusive profit and use. The creepy crawlies which infest it are devils of dirt and without a soul, also put there for his exclusive profit and use. By the skin of her teeth, woman escaped the same role. The subtly apotheosized misogyny of Reformed Christianity is proportionate to the fanatic rejection of Nature, and the result has been to exile man from Mother Nature—from both inner and outer nature. The story of the mind exiled from Nature is the story of Western Man. It is the story of his progressively more desperate search for mechanical and rational and symbolic securities, which will substitute for the spirit-confidence of the Nature he has lost. The basic myth for the ideal Westerner's life is the Quest. The quest for a marriage in the soul or a physical re-conquest. The lost life must be captured somehow. It is the story of spiritual romanticism and heroic technological progress. It is a story of decline. When something abandons Nature, or is abandoned by Nature, it has lost touch with its creator, and is called an evolutionary dead end. According to this, our Civilization is an evolutionary error. Sure enough, when the modern mediumistic artist looks into his crystal, he sees always the same thing. He sees the last nightmare of mental disintegration and spiritual emptiness, under the super-ego of Moses, in its original or in some Totalitarian form, and the self-anaesthetising schizophrenia of St. Paul. This is the soul-state of our civilisation. But he may see something else. He may see a vision of the real Eden, 'excellent as at the first day,' the draughty radiant Paradise of the animals, which is the actual earth, is the actual Universe: he may see Pan, whom Nietzsche, first in the depths, mistook for Dionysus, the vital, somewhat terrible spirit of natural life, which is new in every second. Even when it is poisoned to the point of death, its efforts to be itself are new in every second. This is what will survive, if anything can. And this is the soul-state of the new world. But while the mice in the field are listening to the Universe, and moving in the body of nature, where every living cell is sacred to every other, and all are interdependent, the housing speculator is peering at the field through a visor, and behind him stands the whole army of madmen's ideas.

So the "greater reality" is an ecological consciousness, coupled with an intuitive awareness of the existence of super-sensory phenomena; it is, further a pantheistic consciousness well-understood by non-technological peoples, not bounded by an Euclidean, Aristotelian or Newtonian conceptual framework, a "native" (i.e., non-literate, less rigidly structured) sensibility. And it involves, as well, a kind of existentialism: that is, the awareness that man is a creature with no excuses. Meaning is something we invent or create for ourselves; everything we do, whether we are willing to acknowledge it or not, we choose to do. Authoritarian religions flourish in direct proportion to the unwillingness of great numbers of people to assume responsibility for what they are and what they do. Reliance on a higher moral authority—an anthropomorphic authority, at any rate—is no different from reliance on a parent for guidance. It is evidence, simply. that one has not grown up or learned to stand on one's own feet; it is, in an adult, a form of regressive behavior. The great sense of reality involves an awareness of more complex orders, higher levels of interaction and influence, but it does not allow that these be grasped solely through metaphor or allegory: it demands that they be perceived directly. The responsibility for bringing one's behavior into harmony with these more pervasive orders of existence remains with the individual.

Through the medium of drugs, many people achieve a comprehension of this reality. Others are "there" to begin with, and many others find their way to it through other media, such as creative activity, various kinds of existential group therapy, Gestalt therapy, General Semantics, yoga, meditation, etc. These other routes are most arduous, yet when they do finally break the mind out of its cage, the effects are more lasting and indelible. By themselves, drugs can awaken individuals to a higher consciousness, but they cannot keep anyone there. If we may conceive of "normal" consciousness as being a kind of stupor, then the individual whose only means of awakening involves recourse to drugs is in the position of a person who must have cold water dashed in his face repeatedly to keep him on his feet. There is more than a bit of Pavlov's dog in all of us. Inevitably, through habitual activity of any kind, whether dependence on drugs or an alarm clock or cold water or hot coffee, we get programmed, and to the extent that we are programmed we are that much less free and that much less capable of creative behavior; we are also that much less able to respond in new ways to new situations.

The drug experience cannot be understood in the absence of an understanding of the events and experiences onto which it impresses itself. For people who are genuinely turned on, drugs are incidental. Being turned-on is a state of being which exists to varying degrees, or at least in its embryonic form, before one comes into contact with drugs; one's consciousness may be liberated by drugs only to the extent that it was ripe for liberation to begin with. The answer is not to be found in drugs; drugs may make the questions clearer, or even pose them. But what answers there are can be found only in existence, in the experience of one's being. Turned-off people generally remain turned off, no matter how many drugs they ingest.

Psychedelics are devices which can be made use of by individuals whose psychology is properly geared to the era we are entering, just as automobiles are devices used (sometimes well, sometimes badly) by people geared to the age we are just leaving. The risk factor is probably about the same. And let us not forget the reactions of horror and loathing with which the automobile was greeted when it made its debut. Simply, if we do not consider it immoral to drive to the supermarket in the jockstrap of a mechanical monster, why should we consider it immoral to be carried somewhere else in the arms of a psychopharmacological angel? Drugs lend themselves to the kind of psychic adjustments which are involved in being turned on, just as cars lend themselves to the state of mind which derives some value from mobility.

We may understand the drug phenomenon better if we think in terms of the need for equilibrium. It was not until the advent of mass media that the operational mode of consciousness could penetrate every level of experience. At every point of contact with the world out there we found ourselves confronted with engineers. Our emotional responses had been fiddled with, tickled, trained. Every commercial sought to control these responses. Every government announcement had been designed to impress itself upon us at the deepest level possible. Subtle (and often not-so-subtle) manipulation had become the overwhelmingly dominant characteristic of the mass society in whose currents we found ourselves washed. Manipulation is pure operationalism. Almost nothing was said or done "in public" without a reason. The whole public sector had been turned into a fantasy world. Not incidentally, but fundamentally. And not despite "rationality," but strictly in accordance with the functionalistic imperatives inherent in our concept of rationality. It was to this world that we related ourselves, incorporating its distortions into our own systems. Even our "spontaneity," in part, had become based on emotional responses patterned on false memories.

Yet in its natural state, human consciousness possesses a "center," which is not a single point of identity but a psychic ecosystem of sorts. It was this system whose equilibrium had been massively disrupted by the full-scale intrusions of technological rationality, and it was this system which needed to right itself in order for identity, the touchstone of consciousness, to retain some basic intactness. Just as physically we require nourishment (real food) in order to survive, so psychically, we require real, substantial experience, real events, real people.

Certainly, we still have much of that. But the servings of real experience, in relative terms, had shrunk drastically in comparison to the unreal experience with which we were daily confronted. The psyche was to become undernourished, its internal equilibrium was disrupted, and in order to regain that equilibrium, to replenish itself, the, psyche had to make some large re-adjustments. It had to become more adept at distinguishing real from unreal, in order to reject the toxic food of unreal experience. And it had to find ways of improving its immediate perception of things and events. Drugs, insofar as their use (as opposed to their misuse) assisted in the process of cleansing the doors of perception, enlarging them at any rate so that they were no longer contained within the artificial operational frame, were admirably suited to one of the essential psychic requirements of the times.

Let us back up a bit at this point and see if we can get a little closer to what is meant by a "psychic center." To begin with, not very much is known about the "mind" except that it is assumed to exist somewhere inside the brain. That does not narrow the search very much: exploring the brain is like sending a rocket into space; it is a bottomless universe. One might ask, where in the midst of the uncharted region am "I"? There are roughly twelve billion nerve cells inside the brain. Each is capable of transmitting and receiving impulses from other nerve cells. Some of these cells may have as many as ten thousand transmitting terminals each. In comparison to the complexity of the workings of these cells, the most sophisticated computer is nothing much more than a toy.

Roughly, the brain is made up of the left and right cerebral hemispheres, each covered by a deeply folded cortex. Each cortex has a temporal lobe having something to do with hearing, an occipital lobe relating to seeing, a parietal region having to do with skin sensations and muscular activity, and the crucial frontal lobe which gives us the power to plan. Among other things, the brain also contains large tracts known only as "Silent Areas" about which nobody knows very much. Our sense of consciousness is assumed to be housed in the cortex, popularly known as the seat of the intellect. But when Wilder Penfield of the Montreal Neurological Institute explored the cortex of his patients during brain surgery by "tickling" different parts of it with an electrode, he discovered that the person being tickled could not be "found" there. "I" was always somewhere else. As science writer N. J. Berrill puts it, people make use of the cortex, and may even in part be embodied there, but they remain "elusive even though fully at home...." The question of consciousness is two-fold: What is it and where is it? We know almost nothing of the nature of thought and little of the relationship of mind to brain. "One of the few things which is known is that the activity of the brain is almost pure energy, primarily electrical. All cell activity is accompanied by electrical charges." Marshall McLuhan has defined automation as being "a non-specialist kind of energy or power that can be used in a great variety of ways." This definition could as easily be applied to the mind, which could also be referred to as a "total synchronized electric field." Or, as Jung has described it, "a question mark arbitrarily confined within the skull." Science writer Berrill sums up most of what is known about the mind by saying, rather lamely, "consciousness, thought, the mind itself, are the expressions or creations of the sum total of the activities of twelve billion cells, each with multiple extensions and connections. Together they seem to embody pure energy of an electrical nature." Our thoughts, our sense of identity itself, somehow emerge out of the seemingly random interplay of forces within this given area. How? No one knows. Why? Again, no one knows. Nevertheless, we take this most central of mysteries for granted. It seldom, if ever, crosses our "minds" that we do not know what our "minds" are. "I" exist and am conscious of being conscious, and it is possible to assume functions, to take on responsibilities, on the basis of this thinnest of threads of information.

Our "center" is therefore not a given point, but a whole effect. The impact of mass media and technological rationality can now perhaps be better understood. Just as the whole eco-system of the earth can be disrupted by the addition of certain compounds, so that the system loses its equilibrium and begins to collapse, so too can the "mind" be affected. The acquisition of false memories, false sets of responses, etc., disrupted the internal harmonies of the psyche in just such a fashion. The mind of technological man had become polluted. Well, everyone knew this. But few realized just how far the pollution had gone and how dangerous it was. The earth, obviously, had suffered the effects of pollution for thousands of years without its atmospheric balance being decisively affected. It was not until the Industrial Revolution that man's capacity to pollute took a quantum leap, suddenly threatening the balance of the whole global eco-system. Individual psychic ecosystems had, too, been affected by manipulation and tampering for thousands of years, but it was not until arrival of mass society that these basic harmonies likewise found themselves threatened on a gigantic scale. Drugs, at this point, may fairly accurately be conceived of as detergents being added to oil slick in order to clean up the mess.

The central point about drugs is the most obvious: the fact that they do nothing except alter the chemical relationships in the brain. (The mescaline molecule, for instance, resembles adrenaline. When mescaline is introduced, this enzyme, mistaking the mescaline molecules for adrenaline, begins to destroy them. While its attention is focused on the mescaline, however, the adrenaline begins to accumulate elsewhere: the enzyme can't handle both.) Once the chemical environment has been altered, the brain begins to function differently. It is still functioning. But not in accordance with established frames of reference. Frequently, it begins to work overtime.

Images, thoughts, impressions, always flashing about in the background, suddenly move to stage center. The brain is now functioning in a different continuum. Like an engine run at high speed, it gets "broken in," accustomed, that is, to operating at a different frequency, rate of speed, and along different perceptual avenues. It becomes, in many basic respects, more agile.

It is, as a result, more prepared to move in new evolutionary directions. The mind trains with drugs. It acquires new reflexes, a new kind of coordination. It exercises its muscles and gets itself ready to take the leap into the future. The drug phenomenon is not an end. It is the beginning of something which has never happened before. What will follow is now becoming apparent. Drugs, finally, are only another medium. In the context of technological society, acting synergistically in relation to rock music, mass media, urbanization, and a host of other factors, this major new medium carries the message of change, real change, as opposed to a mere change in flags, label, underwear, or oaths of loyalty.

by Robert Hunter, 1971

Substance info: Peyote

Peyote (Lophophora williamsii) is a small button shaped cactus 2-5 inches in diameter, which grow in Mexico and the Southwest United States. Peyote is a hallucinogen, producing significant physical, visual, and perceptual changes. It is traditionally dried and eaten in a ritual setting to induce visions, and has been used by natives of Mexico for thousands of years.

Though Peyote is used recreationally by some, it is relatively uncommon on the street. Because a single Peyote button can take 5-15 years to mature, there is some concern about the over-harvesting of Peyote in the wild.

Dose

The effective dose for mescaline is 200–500 mg, equivalent to about 5 g of dried peyote.

Law

Lophophora williamsii is one of the few plants specifically named as illegal in the United States. It is a schedule I substance, along with its active ingredient Mescaline, making it illegal to buy, sell, or possess. There is a notable exception to this law which allows the use of Peyote by member of the Native American Church. Other countries, such as Canada, list chemicals contained in peyote as controlled substances, but peyote itself is specifically exempt from criminalization.

History

The use of Peyote as a psychoactive was first recorded by Spanish conquistadors when they first arrived in the new world in the late 15th century. Based on historical Chichimeca and Toltec events, estimates are that Peyote has been used by native Mexicans for thousands of years. Use of Peyote spread during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Terminology/Slang

The Substance: Peyote; Lophophora williamsii; Mescal; Buttons; Big Chief; Mescalito.
The Experience: Tripping

Effects

Peyote is reported to trigger states of "deep introspection and insight" that have been described as being of a metaphysical or spiritual nature. At times, these can be accompanied by rich visual or auditory effects.

Duration

The effects last about 10 to 12 hours.

Positive effects

Feelings of insight, brightening of colors, closed and open eye visuals, euphoria, laughter. Increase in energy (stimulation), enhanced tactile sensation, feelings of hope, rejuvination, happy and/or dreamy, increased access to spiritual ideation; deep esoteric experiences.

Risks

As with many other psychedelics, the coming-up period of a peyote experience can be uncomfortable with some of the more negative effects occurring during this time. Many users experiment nausea, vomiting, chills and/or heat waves during the onset.

Addiction potential

Peyote is neither physically addicting nor likely to cause psychological dependence. Withdrawal effects following discontinuation have not been reported.

Negative effects

Nausea and/or vomiting, chest and neck pain (in early stages of experience), shortness of breath, uncomfortable changes in body temperature (sweating/chills).

Confusion, difficulty concentrating, problems with activities requiring linear focus, difficulty communicating, inhibition of sex drive, insomnia, unpleasant or frightening visions, unwanted and overwhelming feelings, depression, anxiety, paranoia, fear, and panic.

An explanation of Yin and Yang

Yin and yang describe how we can be connected to our universe. For exam- ple, the experience of climbing a mountain in the sun could be described as yang compared to the feelings we experience while lying in the shade.

We can use yin and yang to describe our relationships with anything, including food, exercise, and the weather. Where it becomes interesting is that we can also describe our current state in terms of yin and yang. So I could say, “I feel really yin today.” If I was not happy in that state, I could simply connect more deeply with those things I have identified with as helping me feel more yang, and change my current condition to being less yin.

Ultimately, yin and yang are wonderful ways to generate greater self- awareness and make interesting connections between our own conditions and all our possible interactions with the world we live in. Yin and yang allow us to connect ourselves to everything around us so that we can quickly decide what we need to do to bring ourselves back to a more balanced state when feeling any discomfort.

A very primitive use of the Chinese characters for yin and yang is thought to date back to the fourteenth century BC. It is thought that initially the character for yin described the night and yang the day. The I Ching explains a method of divination for receiving advice and insights from the divine, or our own sub- consciouses, depending on your view, and in this book the broken lines that make up the hexagrams are considered yin and the solid lines yang. The I Ching is thought to have originated around 2800 BC, although it was also added to and developed later.

A much more evolved interpretation of yin and yang appears throughout the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, which was written anywhere between 2600 BC and 200 BC.

Yin and yang can be interpreted in different ways. For much of its history yin would describe the way we feel during the night and in winter compared to the yang feelings we might experience in the summer and during the day. In Chinese medicine, the word “cooling” is associated with yin and “warming” with yang. So a food that feels warming would be more yang than a food that feels cooling.

The basic idea is using two words to describe the effect of outside influences on us, and to cultivate the awareness of how we can help change our health through a change of those influences. Yin and yang is used in feng shui, macrobiotics, Chinese astrology, the I Ching, traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, shiatsu, tai chi, qi gong, and Chinese philosophy.

One traditional Chinese interpretation is that yang is experienced on the sunny side of the mountain and yin on the shady side. Other ways we can experience natural environmental yin and yang is to see how we feel during a hot, dry, day in the summer, when there is a greater presence of yang energy compared to a cold, damp, frosty night in the winter. We could also compare the way we feel during the full moon to the new moon. During the full moon some of us become slightly more yang, and this corresponds with a three to five percent increase in car accidents, crime, and admissions to emergency rooms.

Using this definition of yin and yang, I would feel more energetic, expres- sive, outgoing, social, alert, warm, active, and motivated when I sense I am more yang. When I describe myself as more yin, I feel more withdrawn, introspective, meditative, cool, relaxed, calm, peaceful, objective, clear-minded, and insightful. I would suggest you make your own list of what feels like yin or yang to you, drawing on your experience of night and day, winter and summer, and shade and sun.

We are always more yin or yang and most of the time, and this is healthy; however, sometimes we may find we experience problems from being too yin or yang. Once we have identified whether we are too yang or yin, we can simply expose ourselves to more of the opposite energy and reduce the influences we have too much of. For example, if I felt too hot and active and this was contributing to a headache, as though the sun and heat was too strong for me, I could eat all the foods I know cool me down. For me, this would be raw cucumber, grated daikon, fresh fruits, lemon water, apple cider vinegar, plain yogurt, and salads. As a result, I would feel more yin; in the past, this has resulted in my headache receding.

Practical applications

Yin and yang can literally be applied to anything and that is one of its greatest benefits.

Practically it is most often used in the practice of subjects including macrobiotics, feng shui, shiatsu, acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, oriental philosophy and tai chi.

Macrobiotics

In macrobiotics different foods and cooking styles are used to create meals that once eaten could make our energy more yin or yang. Generally raw or lightly cooked watery vegetables will help us feel more yin and well cooked dryer foods like grains, beans, fish or meat would help us feel more yang.

Feng Shui

In feng shui, yin and yang can be used to create different environments to make it easier for us to feel more yin or yang. Generally we can say that hard, shiny, smooth, open surfaces create an environment in which we feel more yang and soft, textured, mat, irregular surfaces more yin. Colours can be a powerful influence on our emotions. Pale blues and greens can help us feel more yin whilst bright reds, yellows, purples or orange more yang.

What Makes A Macrobiotics Diet Special

Macrobiotics has developed over the period of nearly a century. There has been plenty of time to test the foods and develop its full potential. It has evolved from a healthy rural Japanese diet into a set of principles that can be applied to any diet anywhere in the world. During its growth it has been examined by each new theory on healthy eating, by all the new nutritional discoveries and by the hundreds of thousands of people who have tried it. Macrobiotics has been around long enough to demonstrate its longevity as a tried and tested way of eating - this is no fad. It is a safe, common sense approach to healthy eating and healing.

Macrobiotics has always had a strong link to traditional oriental medicine. In particular Michio Kushi developed the link between the ideologies used in healing and macrobiotics. Both traditional oriental medicine and macrobiotics are based on the idea that everything has a living energy. This is similar to the principles used in practices including acupuncture, tai chi and yoga. This living energy, known as chi in China and ki in Japan and prana in India flows through our bodies carrying our emotions, beliefs and spirit.

This energy or life-force influences the way we feel, our moods and ultimately our health. Rather than using needles or herbs you can do something similar using food. Food is a very powerful healing medium as the food is carried into your blood and on to every cell in your body. We have to eat anyway so why not make each meal a healing experience for the body.

There are many influences on your energy; the weather, other people, your home, exercise, however one of the most powerful is food. Food has its own living energy and when you eat it you take this energy deep into your body, directly changing your own life-force from the inside. The food you eat not only changes your body on a biological level but also on an energetic one. Each meal has the potential to change the way you feel, your emotional state and even your long-term attitude to life.

You can estimate the kind of life-force a dish has by looking at the way it grows, its growing season, where it grows, how it is processed and the cooking method. This means you can choose a meal to change your own energy in a way you think will be most helpful to you.

For example if you wanted to be more relaxed you might choose something that grows in the autumn when the environmental energy is more settled, a food that has a round shape and that grows steadily. A sweet taste would be more relaxing. For example a pumpkin or swede. If one of these were to be cooked slowly into a vegetable stew or soup you would have a dish that contains energy that spreads out evenly and slowly helping your own energy flow in a relaxed manner.

To feel more settled you might add vegetables that grow down into the ground like carrots or parsnips. This body of knowledge is unique to macrobiotics and is an important part of being able to create a diet that uniquely helps you feel the way you need to, do the most with your life.

Macrobiotics is a unique and different approach to healthy eating as it recognises that every food has its own living energy and that this energy influences the life-force within us.

1 It is a broad varied diet primarily consisting of grains, vegetables, fish, beans, seeds, fruit and nuts.

2 Many people have claimed eating a macrobiotic diet has helped them recover from illness.

3 It is a flexible approach to eating that can be used from a few days to a lifetime.

4 Macrobiotic principles show you how to choose and prepare foods to feel the way you want.

5 You can eat anything as long as you know what the likely influence of that food is and are sure it will lead to good health.

6 The high fibre component of macrobiotics keeps your digestive system healthy.

7 Being low in saturated fats a macrobiotic diet enhances your blood quality improving your circulation and heart.

8 Having a low glycemic index and load macrobiotic foods encourage even blood sugar levels making it easier to loose weight and enjoy emotional stability.

9 The foods are well balanced in terms of acid and alkaline as well as sodium and potassium.

10 The predominance of complex carbohydrates mean that the meals provide plenty of sustainable energy leading to greater stamina.

11 The general macrobiotic diet is high in proteins, iron, calcium and other minerals and vitamins.

12 Macrobiotic is a complete approach to healthy eating that encompasses selecting ingredients, preparation, cooking and eating.

Why do yoga?

Why do yoga?

The short answer is that yoga makes you feel better. Practicing the postures, breathing exercises and meditation makes you healthier in body, mind and spirit. Yoga lets you tune in, chill out, shape up -- all at the same time.

For many people, that's enough of an answer. But there's more if you're interested.

For starters, yoga is good for what ails you. Specifically, research shows that yoga helps manage or control anxiety, arthritis, asthma, back pain, blood pressure, carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic fatigue, depression, diabetes, epilepsy, headaches, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, stress and other conditions and diseases. What's more, yoga:

-Improves muscle tone, flexibility, strength and stamina
-Reduces stress and tension
-Boosts self esteem
-Improves concentration and creativity
-Lowers fat
-Improves circulation
-Stimulates the immune system
-Creates sense of well being and calm.

And that's just the surface stuff. In fact, most of the benefits mentioned above are secondary to yoga's original purpose.

Developed in India, yoga is a spiritual practice that has been evolving for the last 5,000 years or so. The original yogis were reacting, in part, to India's ancient Vedic religion, which emphasized rituals. The yogis wanted a direct spiritual experience -- one on one -- not symbolic ritual. So they developed yoga. Yoga means "union" in Sanskrit, the classical language of India.

According to the yogis, true happiness, liberation and enlightenment comes from union with the divine consciousness known as Brahman, or with Atman, the transcendent Self. The various yoga practices are a methodology for reaching that goal.
In hatha yoga, for example, postures and breathing exercises help purify the mind, body and spirit so the yogi can attain union.

Pranayama breathing exercises help clear the nadis, or channels, that carry prana the universal life force, allowing prana to flow freely. When the channels are clear and the last block at the base of the spine has been opened, Kundalini rises through the spine, through the central channel called the sushumna-nadi, and joins the crown chakra. According to the tradition, the release of Kundalini leads to enlightenment and union.

If you do yoga will you become enlightened?

Well…you might (of course, it could take a few lifetimes of diligent practice). But then again you might not. But it doesn't really matter because yoga is a process, and there's a lot of good to be had along the way.

What if you don't believe in talk about enlightenment, spirit and the rest of it?

That's okay, too. Yoga doesn't discriminate. Even if you don't believe in the spiritual side of life, you can still do yoga. Whether enlightenment, nadis, prana and Kundalini is literal truth, metaphor or myth is irrelevant. If you do yoga, chances are that you will feel its psycho-physiological effects.

Moreover, the concept of union has a powerful down-to-Earth meaning. Yoga helps us get in touch with our true selves.

Between work, home and all of the demands and stresses in between, it's easy to lose touch with who we are, that core essence with which we were born. Rushing around all day it sometimes feels like the "I" inside is simply the result of the things we do all day -- or the effects those things have on our minds, bodies and spirits.

Ever say "I am hungry" or "I am stressed"? We identify with our conditions. It's like "hungry" or "stressed" is a name (Hi. I'm Stressed. What's your name?) As a result, our identities shift with our moods and conditions.

In truth, however, we are not the conditions we experience or things we do. We are not our jobs or the thousands of tasks that make up our jobs. We are not the sensations or emotions we feel. We are not the car we drive or the house we live in. We are not "S/he Who Must Pay Bills." We are not Mr. and Ms. Stressed.

Strip away the emotions, sensations and conditions and somewhere deep down inside you are still there. Strip it all away and you find out who you really are.

The techniques developed by the yogis to transcend also help us strip away the things that try to mis-define us -- the emotions, sensations, desires, achievements and failures of daily life. Through yoga we learn to develop a greater awareness of our physical and psychological states. As a result, we're in a position to better manage our reactions to the thoughts, feelings and responses we have to the various situations we deal with every day.

With greater awareness comes the sensitivity and skill to find and remove the physical and psychological blocks that often keep us from our true selves. We no longer identify with our conditions. Instead of saying, "I am stressed," we begin to say, "I feel stress," or "stress is present." It's a subtle but powerful difference.

Or better yet, we say "I feel anxiety and fear, and that's causing stress and in particular it's causing tension in my neck and shoulder." So we breathe deeply to soothe the anxiety. We review the events that led to the onset of those feelings, and in the process they lose their grip on our nervous system. We intentionally relax our shoulder and neck to prevent the stress and tension from building into a permanent condition.

Yoga gives us control of ourselves. It helps cut through the layers of mis-identities that arise in response to our actions, experiences and feelings. It calms the frenzy, clears the clutter and allows us to get back in touch with ourselves.

Yoga is union with self. Or, as Patanjali, one of the great yoga sages, said:

Yogashcittavrittinirodhah (Yoga stills the fluctuations of the mind).
Tada drashthuh svarupe' vasthanam (Then the true self appears.)

However, yoga is not about self-absorption. Yoga is about being in the world. Although most books, videos and websites focus on yoga postures, breathing and meditation, the tradition also emphasizes love, compassion, knowledge and right action as paths toward union.

Whether you pursue yoga as a spiritual path or for its psycho-physiological benefits, yoga is a methodology for developing a deeper experience of your self and the world.
And it makes you feel really good.

by John Tunney

Substance info: Ayahuasca

"Ayahuasca" is a term for both the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and for the visionary brew made from that plant, usually in combination with an additional DMT-containing plant(s). The word "ayahuasca", from the Quechua language, means "vine of the souls". A traditional South American preparation, the ayahuasca brew frequently employs Psychotria viridis leaves as the DMT source. Inclusion of B. caapi, which contains monoamine oxidase inhibiting harmala alkaloids) allows the DMT, which would otherwise be quickly broken down in the body by the enzyme monoamine oxidase, to become orally active.

Ayahuasca is prepared by boiling or soaking its plant components; traditional brews may sometimes contain additional psychoactive and/or medicinal plants including tobacco, Brugmansia, Datura, and a long list of others.

Outside the Amazon basin, in cities around the world, ayahuasca is prepared with a wide variety of ingredients including pure chemicals (sometimes called "pharmahuasca") or substituted "analogue" plants, such as the root-bark from Mimosa tenuiflora [= M. hostilis] (sometimes called "mimosahuasca"), and often the seeds of Peganum harmala (Syrian rue) as a source of MAO-inhibiting harmala alkaloids. Ayahuasca is known for its tendency to induce vomiting and/or diarrhea in many users, its rich and complex visual effects, its reported healing properties, and its powerful mind-altering entheogenic effects.

Dose

As the dosage of ayahuasca increases, the effects become stronger and more intense; at a certain point, some people may black out and forget much of the experience.

Price

Ayahuasca brew is rarely available in the general underground market, but is sometimes sold or distributed within small networks of people. When available, brew made from traditional plants (B. caapi + P. viridis) has sold for around $50 per dose. Participation in underground ayahyasca circles cost $100-300 (or more) per person. Component materials are available for a wide range of prices, with analogue plants tending to cost less.

Law

While none of the standard plant constituents of ayahausca are specifically controlled federally in the United States, DMT is Schedule I in the U.S. and in most countries. As a DMT-containing preparation, ayahuasca is generally considered to be illegal. Harmala alkaloids are not scheduled in the U.S., but some are Schedule III in Canada. Numerous ayahuasca plants and their analogues are illegal in France. We are not aware of any other countries in which Hamine or Harmaline are scheduled. Religious use of ayahuasca was specifically allowed by Brazil's Supreme Court in the late 1980s.

Chemistry

Some South American shaman have said that the "true spirit" of ayahuasca is in the B. caapi vine, which contains the MAOI harmala alkaloids. They say that the DMT-containing plants are primarily used to give the visions more color and depth, but are not the primary force of the message. Others argue that DMT is the dominant part of the brew, as it is a far more psychoactive substance than any harmala alkaloids by themselves.

History

Harmaline was first isolated from Syrian rue seeds in 1841 and the first Western record of the psychoactive effects of B. caapi (in the Brazilian Amazon) was made in 1852. Several reports were published in the mid-nineteenth century about the use of B. caapi. In 1922-1923 a film of traditional yagé ceremonies was shot and then shown to the annual American Pharmaceutical Association meeting. The popularization of ayahuasca in writing and media during the late twentieth century has led to many North Americans and Europeans travelling to South America to take ayahausca in "traditional" settings, creating a new industry around this "entheotourism". This industry helped cause a major shift in how ayahuasca use is viewed in its native lands. By the late 1990s, ayahuasca brews started to be sold by street vendors in glass bottles in some South American cities.

Effects

Onset

Depending on how much and how recently one has eaten food, effects begin between 20 and 60 minutes after ingestion.

Duration

Ayahuasca users report 2-6 hours of peak effects with 1-8 hours after of lingering effects, depending on dosage and individual metabolism. Higher doses usually have longer-lasting effects.

Positive effects

Mild to extreme mood lift, euphoria, ego softening / ego loss, oceanic feeling of connectedness to the universe, feelings of love and empathy.

A sense of inner peace and acceptance of self, others, and the world, profound life-changing spiritual experiences, emotional healing / mentally therapeutic. Sometimes claimed as physical healing (such as anti-cancer effects).

Risks

There are few, if any, serious injuries or deaths associated with ayahuasca use. However, because ayahuasca contains a monoamine oxidaze inhibitor, which deactivates a key enzyme responsible for breaking down chemicals that could otherwise be toxic, it is possible to have severe negative reactions to ayahuasca, particularly if it is combined with proscribed foods and/or drugs. Those who chose to consume ayahuasca should educate themselves about compounds that are contraindicated when taking MAOI drugs before attempting any use.

Combining MAOI drugs with a wide array of over-the-counter, prescription, or recreational drugs can lead to very unpleasant or fatal effects. There are many articles devoted to discussions of foods and drugs that are contraindicated with any MAOI use. Also, as with any intense psychedelic, ayahuasca can precipitate short- or long-term changes in personality or catalyze psychotic or neurotic episodes.

Negative effects

Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, body aches, sweats/chills (alternating), and other flu- or food poisoning-like symptoms, much less common after multiple experiences.

Fear and/or paranoia, feeling as though one is losing their mind or is dying, disequilibrium, difficulty walking.

Substance info: Kratom

Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) is a tropical tree growing from 15-50 feet tall (5-15 meters) that is native to Thailand and Malaysia. It has broad, oval leaves that taper to points, yellow flowers that grow in clusters, and winged seeds. The primary active chemicals are mitragynine, mitraphylline, and 7-hydroxymitragynine, all found in the leaves. Kratom leaves have been chewed for stimulant, sedative, and euphoric effects by people in Thailand and South Asia for centuries. They can also be smoked, brewed as a tea, or made into an extract. Kratom use is relatively uncommon in the US and Europe, though it is available in raw and extract-enhanced forms from ethnobotanical vendors.

Dose

Kratom leaves differ greatly in potency, depending on the type, grade, and freshness. Leaves with green veins are often claimed to be more potent than those with red veins, but there is contradictory evidence. Low doses are around 2-4 g of plain dried leaf, moderate doses are 3-6 g, and strong doses are 5 g or more. When chewed fresh, half of a large leaf (8-10") is often enough to produce noticeable effects.

Price

Dried, untreated leaves are available from ethnobotanical vendors for 30-80 cents (USD)/gram. Higher potency extracts may cost $2-8 USD/gram. (2009 data)

Law

Kratom is currently uncontrolled in the United States and many other countries. In 1946 it was made illegal to buy, sell, or grow in Thailand, and in 2005, both M. speciosa and mitragynine were made illegal to buy, sell or possess without a license in Australia.

Chemistry

Kratom leaves contain the indole alkaloids mitragynine, mitraphylline, 7-hydroxymitragynine, and numerous other alkaloids, including paynanthine, speciogynine, and speciofoline. Mitragynine has traditionally been cited as the primary active chemical in kratom leaves, but some recent evidence points to 7-hydroxymitragynine instead.

Pharmacology

Mitragynine is a partial agonist of the mu- and delta-opioid receptors. This may account for its apparent efficacy in treating opiate withdrawal. Because kratom acts as both a stimulant and a sedative, secondary alkaloids may be pharmacologically important.

Production

Kratom grows wild in marshy regions in Asia and the Pacific Rim, especially Thailand, Malaysia, Borneo, and New Guinea.

History

Kratom appears to have been used in Thailand for centuries, recreationally and as an antidiarrhetic. Its use as an opiate substitute in Malaysia was reported in the nineteenth century. Peasants have used it to counteract the tedium of physical labor, similar to the use of coca in South America. The chemistry of its alkaloids was investigated in the 1920s, and mitragynine was isolated in 1923. Kratom leaves became part of the ethnobotanical trade in the United States and Europe in mid 2000. In the early 2000s, stories about the use of kratom to reduce opiod withdrawal effects began circulating on web forums.

Effects

Kratom is often described as producing simultaneous, contradictory effects. Users report both an opiate-like sedation and coca-like stimulation. The stimulating effects tend to predominate at low dose levels, which may cause alertness, energy, and mild euphoria. Higher doses tend to be more tranquilizing, causing an opiate-like dreamy reverie. Excessive doses can cause severe nausea. Kratom is sometimes used as an opium substitute and has been found to suppress symptoms of opiate withdrawal. As with opium, it is known for causing constipation, and is sometimes used as a treatment for diarrhea.

Onset

When taken orally, kratom effects typically become noticeable in 15-20 minutes and clearly apparent in 30-60 minutes. Strong doses may have a more rapid and dramatic onset.

Duration

A moderate kratom dose can cause strong effects lasting 2-4 hours, though residual effects can last hours longer. Users sometimes experience an afterglow the next day.

Positive effects

Simultaneous stimulation & sedation
Feelings of empathy and euphoria
Aphrodisiac qualities for some people
Vivid waking dreams
Useful with physical labor

Visual effects

Some visual effects are reported, including both open-eye and closed-eye effects, though they are considered fairly mild if they occur at all. Effects reported include wavering, shifting, and strobing in the visual field; some patterning with eyes closed; and increased closed-eye visualizations.

Risks

Kratom is not known to be toxic, but it can be quite unpleasant at high doses, causing nausea and vomiting. Regular use can lead to physical dependency. Kratom use can cause constipation similar to that caused by opiates. Chronic heavy use is reported to cause darkening of skin, insomnia, dry mouth, and anorexia.

Contraindications

Do not operate heavy machinery. Do not drive. Care should be taken if combining with other sedatives (or stimulants). Use extreme caution if combining with MAO inhibitors. Kratom could be dangerous to combine with an MAOI.

Addiction potential

There are reports of physical dependency after frequent, heavy kratom use. Individuals who use it regularly or in large doses may find it difficult to stop. Withdrawal symptoms include irritability, yawning, diarrhea, runny nose, and pain in the joints or muscles.

Risks of death

We are not aware of any cases of severe poisoning or death resulting from its use. Animal studies have found even very large doses of mitragynine (920 mg/kg) to be non-lethal.

Pleasure and Desire: Tantric Tools for Spiritual Growth

Tantra is primarily concerned with inner, mystical experiences, contrary to popular notions that it is the Yoga of Sex or a form of couples’ therapy. In Tantra, all mundane activities are opportunities to experience the divine, especially when they are approached with consciousness and intention. While Tantra is a deeply personal path in this sense, the inner journey should generate the awareness that everything is connected; in fact, the word Tantra is often translated as web or weaving, implying a weaving together with all that is. Moments of strong desire and intense pleasure are opportunities to experience this sense of connection directly.

In Tantric cosmology, the entire universe vibrates with pleasure and desire; Tantrics understand the ever-unfolding process of creation in explicitly sexual terms – the attraction and union of male and female polarities, “Shiva” and “Shakti” in the Hindu Tantric tradition. Thus, in Tantra, the experience of pleasure on a microcosmic, individual level, evokes the universal process. At peak moments of pleasure, the practitioner has an opportunity to experience merger, a state of union (or Yoga) with all that is.

This attitude toward pleasure is made explicit in the Vijnanabhairava Tantra, an 8th Century C.E. Kashmir Shaivite text and one of the most important Tantric scriptures: “On the occasion of great delight being obtained. . .one should meditate on the delight itself and become absorbed in it, then his mind will become identified with it.”[i] Other verses emphasize that desire pervades the universe and that a person can attain an understanding of the ultimate reality by contemplating desire itself, rather than the object of that desire.

American culture in particular is permeated by an extraordinary ambivalence about pleasure and desire. Desire drives marketing and consumerism with the idea that pleasure can be found in the next purchase; of course, the pleasure is fleeting. As it recedes, it is replaced by desire for another item in a never-ending cycle. Sexuality is one of the main lubricants that keep this wheel in motion. We are conditioned to believe that we will be healthier, happier, more beautiful, that we will attract that gorgeous man or woman in the ad, if we just make the right purchases. While this observation is not new, it is important and too easily forgotten, given the pervasiveness of consumerist messages.

At the same time, our society, largely but not exclusively due to the influence of Christianity, tends to view the body and its pleasures as suspect, at best, and evil, at worst. Eastern religious traditions have their own sexual taboos and pleasure denying attitudes, albeit without a punitive, judgmental deity or the belief in eternal damnation. There seems to be a correlation between the rise of institutional religion and the denial of the body, and this makes sense. If the natural activities of daily life are defined in negative terms, people begin to view themselves as flawed or worse; this makes them more willing to surrender their autonomy and obey the demands of an institutionalized system – religious, social, political, military or economic.

Our Puritan heritage still has a profound impact on our social mores. The Puritans saw wealth as a sign of God’s favor and believed that any form of non-marital sexual activity or desire was a pathway to damnation, since Satan could exploit the body to steal the soul. The marketing of sex notwithstanding, America remains a sex-negative, anhedonic (pleasure-challenged) culture that values work and material “success” above all else. While many European societies are more accepting of pleasure, the legacy of 2000 years of messages that negate or seek to control sexuality and enjoyment is difficult to escape.

Where is the possibility of freedom? We are all caught between the conflicting messages of hedonism as a marketing tool and the omnipresent cultural theme that tells us enjoyment leads to damnation. Some may overreact and convince themselves that self-indulgence is a form of resistance, but they often remain caught in the cycle. Others may capitulate and snuff out their desires in any one of a myriad of ways.

Tantra provides several ways out of this apparent dilemma. By bringing awareness to desire and pleasure, by making a study of what truly makes us feel the vibration of life within us and around us, we can begin to function with more autonomy. We may never totally free ourselves from the cultural constructs that shape us, but if we bring awareness to our actions, recognize those constructs as nothing more than that and commit ourselves to exploring desire and pleasure, deliberately and consciously, we can begin to find ways to get off the wheel.

In practical terms, this means developing new ways of approaching desire and pleasure. Desire is a powerful force that can motivate and inspire. Suppressing it entails suppressing our fundamental humanity, and most people pay a heavy price for doing this. The problem is not with desire itself but with attachment to outcomes, so as a first step, it is important to cultivate an attitude of non-attachment. To paraphrase the Vijnanabhairava Tantra, we should not focus on the object of desire. Instead, we must bring our awareness to the desire itself and recognize it as an energy that is both within and all around us. Armed with this understanding, it is possible to become a little freer, whether or not we pursue a particular object of our desire.

Next, it is important to recognize the sacredness of desire (including sexual desire). Bhagavan Das taught us that when you feel an erotic charge, you can gaze upon the person who awakens it and view that person with reverence and awe, while mentally repeating a mantra of gratitude and praise, such as Om Namah Shivayah (Praise Shiva) or Jai Ma (Praise the Goddess), or whatever form of praise feels appropriate.

The conscious pursuit of pleasure as a spiritual path requires awareness. People generally understand pleasure either in purely instinctual terms or as it is culturally constructed. Few of us give much thought to what truly brings us pleasure, both erotically and in more general terms. By discovering and cultivating the true sources of your own pleasure, you can begin to free yourself from limiting ideas and conditioned responses. The simplest way to begin this exploration is to make a list of the things that give you pleasure and then to examine the items on the list, identifying the qualities of each one and looking for patterns, connections and themes.

Once you have developed an understanding of what we call your Pleasure Palette, you can begin to cultivate a sense of reverence in the context of pleasure. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with seeking pleasure for its own sake, but the experience of pleasure is much richer when it is both understood and fully appreciated. This is true for any experience, from eating ice cream to feeling the breeze on the skin. In the context of sexuality, the awareness of what brings you to the peak of ecstasy can be translated into reverence for your partner and for the experience itself.

The erotic spark exists wherever pleasure and desire are found. It arises as a reminder that everything is divine. Recognizing this and cultivating reverence can transform you; people will feel it and reciprocate, energetically. The benefits will come back to you and multiply, leaving you more open to others, more creative, more confident and sexy, and less constricted by mental boundaries, whatever their origin.

by Mark A. Michaels