jamie wrote:I think the theory is just too much for many people to take at this point..the idea that we all have some sort of brain damage that has impaired our judgement makes people instantly defensive I find. It is what is is anyway..whatever that may be
Isn't that an interesting behavior? It proves the point so amazingly well!
It certainly is compelling that there are parts of ourselves, seemingly the more intimately human parts, that so startlingly parallel the psychedelic experience... Even moreso that working with these drugs ad the insight they provide can bring us more in harmony with these alienated parts of ourselves which offer such great benefit to living a fulfilling, healthy life.
One particular mythology I've always found very, very interesting is how many separate peoples pass down tales of paradise lost, being the inheritors of our ancestors cosmic blunder, doing penance, and other allusions to lost parts of ourselves, etc. These myths are even common among indiginous tribes in Africa, and are a significant part of the oldest known human oral tradition(s) from peoples with the closest ties to Genetic Adam. Especially interesting considering that these myth seem to have developed not long after the human migration from lush, biodiverse jungles to the plains of Africa around ethiopia, which despite being much more hospitable in those times, seems to have had little to no psychedelic plants during the infancy of humanity.
One thing I've noticed is that it seems, according to the accounts I've read and research into the histories of plants on earth, is that these themes are startlingly common among peoples with historically limited access to or use of traditional psychedelic or similar plants. While these myths are nearly unheard of in Norther Europe, Asia, western North and South Americas, Australia, the Middle East, the Redgaurds of Hammerfell
, etc... They are a very, very common theme in the plains of Africa, Western Europe, eastern North America, many isolated island peoples, etc... seemingly places and peoples with limited access to plants that can produce a mystical experience or bring about insight into the nature of ourselves as we truly are. Even traditional Japanese philosophies have motes of the cold, dispassionate take of the western world. There are also, from what I've noticed, stronger trends toward monotheism, fundamentalism, obsession or depression over the human condition, angst over the division of body and spirit, and persecution of other belief systems in these peoples, just as can be seen in the division between the "turned on" populace and the naive realist/fundamentalist camp in (mainly American) society today... funny, huh?
I'm no scholar, just a student who put two and two together... but I do find it very, very interesting. I wish I could find some work on this subject by properly educated folk, if even to prove me wrong and lay my fascination to rest.