Maybe that title is unfair - this is a last comment on Dennis McKenna's book, "Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss," aptly named given some of the mind experiences encountered. Interesting, all, but we look for gems we can sort out for our own life, and the last I will mention is a doozy - some information Dennis receives from the other side of the chemical wall that is both comforting and chilling.
It comes from a very powerful trip he has on ayahuasca at a meeting of a religious group in Brazil that uses the naturally occurring substances as a sacrament, with the belief that the plants involved connect to a larger, cosmic intelligence that can help humans in both large and small ways. Here, he first uses the prescribed dose and gets little more than a buzz. He then returns to the "altar" to receive another, and upon sitting down hears the message, "you wanted a strong trip? Hang on to your seat belts!" or some such. And away he goes.
Dennis is a botanist, so many of his visions are not unexpected. He becomes a water molecule and is carried along on the inside of the plant to do his part in the process of photosynthesis, something he understands very well in his rational mind. He is then given a global view, showing how plants sustain all life on earth and as such are integral to everything - and then how humans are screwing it all up. These insights we could also expect. Then the clincher; as he is groveling in his feelings of guilt and despair, a voice comes back to him, telling him not to worry, adding, "you monkeys think you run the show, but you don't. We will not LET you screw things up!" (my paraphrase). Ah, what a relief.
Or maybe not. How, in fact, will the collective plant intelligence of the planet - or perhaps the collective intelligence of all life or the cosmos itself - keep us from screwing up? What is that mechanism? Once again, we are back to the nature of supreme cosmic intelligence and human free will. It might seem that we, as beings who are a part of the natural cycle, will get the message and change our ways before we ruin the planet. Our consciousness will expand to include our whole being, which would partake of the natural order and natural balance. We could see this as a new age, the dawn of a golden era. Many religions talk of this, and of how God manages our lives in ways that we do not know, to our benefit.
But there are also coinciding beliefs that insist we must first sink to the depths of depravity and ruin before any of this can happen. There are reports that God - or the cosmos - has a colder, more brutal side to its nature, just as nature as we know it on earth has its cold, brutal side; just as this greater intelligence experienced by McKenna seems to intuit - that we will not be permitted to screw things up. This sounds like a "vengeful" god to me. And nature has many ways to shrug off a species: disease, meteors, global climatic change, seismic chaos, overpopulation - all these can and have worked very well in cleansing the film of life on earth.
Dennis McKenna is not religious; he would not have us pray to God or gods for help; rather, I think he would have us listen to the chastisement of the plants and reform our ways through knowledge. That is, certainly, free will. But can we rethink ourselves to pull back from this abyss that he mentions? Can we overcome our naturally-given tendencies for accumulating more things and more power?
Or, if we are not really running the show, as he puts it, do we then not have this free will? Will we be subtly forced to change our ways, or simply annihilated? Oddly, the world of cosmic plant intelligence is no more comforting than a god of the traditional religions; perhaps even less so, for one tells us that we are made in God's image (and thus have a strong relationship to the creator), while the other that we are essentially freeloaders in a world dominated by plants. Could we ever expect their mercy?
Seems to me that every time an attempt to uncover eternal truth is made, at some point it gets scary - and laden with guilt. Could it be that our new age prophets are running round a circle, or at best a spiral, bringing them back or nearly so to the starting point? FK
It comes from a very powerful trip he has on ayahuasca at a meeting of a religious group in Brazil that uses the naturally occurring substances as a sacrament, with the belief that the plants involved connect to a larger, cosmic intelligence that can help humans in both large and small ways. Here, he first uses the prescribed dose and gets little more than a buzz. He then returns to the "altar" to receive another, and upon sitting down hears the message, "you wanted a strong trip? Hang on to your seat belts!" or some such. And away he goes.
Dennis is a botanist, so many of his visions are not unexpected. He becomes a water molecule and is carried along on the inside of the plant to do his part in the process of photosynthesis, something he understands very well in his rational mind. He is then given a global view, showing how plants sustain all life on earth and as such are integral to everything - and then how humans are screwing it all up. These insights we could also expect. Then the clincher; as he is groveling in his feelings of guilt and despair, a voice comes back to him, telling him not to worry, adding, "you monkeys think you run the show, but you don't. We will not LET you screw things up!" (my paraphrase). Ah, what a relief.
Or maybe not. How, in fact, will the collective plant intelligence of the planet - or perhaps the collective intelligence of all life or the cosmos itself - keep us from screwing up? What is that mechanism? Once again, we are back to the nature of supreme cosmic intelligence and human free will. It might seem that we, as beings who are a part of the natural cycle, will get the message and change our ways before we ruin the planet. Our consciousness will expand to include our whole being, which would partake of the natural order and natural balance. We could see this as a new age, the dawn of a golden era. Many religions talk of this, and of how God manages our lives in ways that we do not know, to our benefit.
But there are also coinciding beliefs that insist we must first sink to the depths of depravity and ruin before any of this can happen. There are reports that God - or the cosmos - has a colder, more brutal side to its nature, just as nature as we know it on earth has its cold, brutal side; just as this greater intelligence experienced by McKenna seems to intuit - that we will not be permitted to screw things up. This sounds like a "vengeful" god to me. And nature has many ways to shrug off a species: disease, meteors, global climatic change, seismic chaos, overpopulation - all these can and have worked very well in cleansing the film of life on earth.
Dennis McKenna is not religious; he would not have us pray to God or gods for help; rather, I think he would have us listen to the chastisement of the plants and reform our ways through knowledge. That is, certainly, free will. But can we rethink ourselves to pull back from this abyss that he mentions? Can we overcome our naturally-given tendencies for accumulating more things and more power?
Or, if we are not really running the show, as he puts it, do we then not have this free will? Will we be subtly forced to change our ways, or simply annihilated? Oddly, the world of cosmic plant intelligence is no more comforting than a god of the traditional religions; perhaps even less so, for one tells us that we are made in God's image (and thus have a strong relationship to the creator), while the other that we are essentially freeloaders in a world dominated by plants. Could we ever expect their mercy?
Seems to me that every time an attempt to uncover eternal truth is made, at some point it gets scary - and laden with guilt. Could it be that our new age prophets are running round a circle, or at best a spiral, bringing them back or nearly so to the starting point? FK
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