If you get into Philip K. Dick, read at least "V.A.L.I.S." and "The Divine Invasion". Especially Divine Invasion.

"A Maze of Death" is also good, although in a different class (it's "just" a mind-bending psychedelic work of art, not revelation, like the above ones).

All these pursuits.... Desires, goals and beliefs. Even if tending to the most positive of ideals, are doomed to cause you more pain and conflict.... They subtly feed your self and will never end in peace.

I felt a real pain when I read your post about psychosis. I was deeply moved by it and I genuinely fear that unless this obsessive quest (I dont mean to be rude but thats how it seems from a distance) to be somewhere or at a certain point of understanding will again cause you to slip beneath the surface.

Just enjoy the pure nothingness that you were so lucky to experience, the most incredible thing to this life is the ability to know our selves, too know who we are. Just work with that, thats all you need to understand. ever.

You know, I sometimes feel sorry for this creature. God seems to be such an aggressive jerk.

This last lingering moment - after the defeat, before the dawn - can be quite beautiful though.



Oh, I see now what your mean. You don't have to talk about these things to the common Christian. This is too heavy stuff for them. Transform your understanding down to their level, to things they understand. Shed light on the little things. I know that you are interested in the ultimate, but they are living their lives at the leaves (and only at the leaves). You shouldn't force this stuff on them.

What you want to do cannot be done through fighting this out with another man, anyway. It's a personal journey. The myths of Christianity are maps for navigating the inner territory. In a way, it is all psychology. You find that there are these immense forces inside and you want to find a satisfying solution to the equation. These forces compelled man to wage a continuous war against his neighbors. History can be seen as an unconscious expression of man's internal battle: the buildup of pressure, followed by eruption of the volcano, again and again. Our inability to find a solution, and our desperate search for it.

In a sense, this internal conflict is a driver of evolution. It drives us to find a way to integrate (better) or neutralize (worse) these forces. Think of the world cup, as a valve where this pressure can be let out. Or sexual freedom. Or capitalism (war on the market). Or the deconstruction of long-held traditions and values as a means to get rid of the threats they pose if they catch alight. The desensitization of the world on a massive scale (as depicted by the movie Equilibrium).

The tragedy is that with these attempts, the world undermines itself. What they sense as evil, bad and worthy of eradication is necessary for the healthy operation of the system. It shouldn't be erased, it should be understood. But this is a very frightening thing to do.

But with psychedelics, we can do it. We can understand darkness, in ourselves. There is no need to discuss with others. In the garment of Faith, you can descend into the palace of darkness. You can fulfill the story and reconnect the two poles into each other. And if you do that, then it changes everything.

I mentioned dark psytrance before. It may seem like a foreign thing in this context, but it is not. At least in my experience, dark psytrance makes it possible to invoke the dark forces in one's self and then connect them to the light. Here is the psychological process, as far as I can express it: you create a situation in the mind, where you can allow yourself to let out all the rage of the centuries (the evil), because there is another part in you which can "eat it all up" and convert it into peace. A good trance party is about building a machine which can convert shit to gold, switch it on at midnight and then everyone can pour all their shit into it. While pouring your shit to anywhere in the outside world is unacceptable behavior (you cannot kill anyone for instance, you have to tame your aggression), on such a trance party this is not only allowed, it is encouraged. Once you get a feel for the possibility then you open up and you REALLY GIVE ALL THE FUCK YOU CAN. This is very mysterious, that something which is seen as evil can be a food or a nourishment to something else. Sorry, I cannot really explain it, this is beyond words.

It's live, not fnog9. I think.

Anyway, you may be right. Sometimes I myself don't know what drives me on this path. Probably ego. Sometimes it seems so tiring. And crazy. SnozzleBerry quoted this from Waking Life in another thread:



which could be philosophized away, but... so true.

(I have an idea though. Perhaps you are prophets of the destination and we are prophets of the path that leads there. Now all we need is a satisfactory way to join this path to that end, so that everyone in the western world may understand how it works and can walk on it.)

Perhaps.... but it is not as bad as one might assume. I am going to treat my life as an unfolding, a natural unfolding, not as a torturous path. I have come to understand that pain is inevitable and will not be escaped, whether I indulge in all these ideas, or turn away from everything. And no matter what, the weight of the cross will not be lifted. I've come to think of it like this, God wants us to live with the full weight of the cross on our shoulders, but with the holy spirit in our hearts. The holy spirit lifts the cross for us to walk the path, ultimately to ascend. I could see why my recent stuff might seem like an obsession, but it's just this new Christian language that I've discovered. What's really going on is more like an unfolding, not a pressing obsession. I'm not trying to save the world. It's already done. Only after realizing that everything is ok can I talk about the severe weight of the cross. And there really is this epic story going on in the universe, it's undeniable. All this energy is coming to the surface for me now. I'm fine with it. Just pretty excited about it at the moment.

I didn't write about psychosis, I think it was "live".

I know what you mean, Cellux, when you say psychedelics can help us understand the darkness within ourselves, and in turn, realize how that darkness can be transformed in to something beautiful. They have helped me get used to the dark parts of my psyche so that I am not horrified by those parts of myself, I'm not paralysed with fear, and the dark parts of the psyche, once accepted as necessary, can be used to spread good in the world. Fear paralyses, makes one feel ashamed, angry, frustrated, makes one selfish and not want to do good. Acceptance of fear makes one open, accepting of the dark nature in others, makes one willing to help out. Not to mention psychedelics also tend to bring out the unimaginable beauty that is also hidden in the universe.

So beautifully said.



I remember, a decade ago perhaps there was a site on the net called brainmachines.com. Its webmaster called himself "machineelf", and he had a friend called Jamie Walsh, who was a true psychedelic christian. He had a minister friend, with whom they went to the Twilo in NYC (a very famous dance club), to spread the gospel (!)

They had a web page somewhere on the net entitled "Ministry at the Twilo" which had lots of exciting ideas about what psychedelic christianity may mean. It was a very intriguing mission.

Unfortunately, I don't find those people and pages anywhere now.

This archived page is the only thing I found:
http://www.tranceam.org/...chines/christianity.html

fnog9: I'm so happy that you don't lose it when getting too deep into these waters. For me, there comes a moment when the true inspiration leaves, but I cannot stop: the ego returns and turns it all into convulsions of the mind, instead of those light streaks of revelation I so much like to share.

Perhaps you should watch Matrix: Revolutions again, with your new eyes.

I actually haven't seen the third Matrix. I saw the second and didn't know what was going on at the end. I guess I should watch that one again too.

Reloaded is eh. Revoltions is pretty cool though. Of course, nothing comes close to the first.

Don't waste your time on the Second, it's mainly just a bridge of entertainment between the First and the Third.

For me, the Third is the top one. Especially the ending. And the Silver Pictures logo after the credits.

ah yes fnog9 I did get you and live confused... I think I had two threads open at the same time