I always found this subject really interesting, why do the scientific rational minds immediately shut off their intelligence when they hear the word 'psychedellic'?
And really I think thats what it is... he simply used the P word, it's a bad word in those communities.
Ted doesn't ban metaphysical talks, or heresy, or even talks about being a spirit leaving the body. Or even esoteric subjects about all being one concioussness.
Watch these two videos
http://www.ted.com/talks...l_stroke_of_insight.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZNlN31hS78Those two videos cover all those subjects, that first one being an actual TED talk, not TEDx which is not part of the central TED organization.
Between those two non-banned videos, Hancock did not say anything based on more heresy, more pseudo-science, more esoterism or any of that. In fact in Hancocks associated it to the archeological evidences of shamanism his talk I think is even more grounded in factual science.
So why is Hancock banned? The one thing Hancock talked about was psychedellics. I think that is really the one and single thing.
Which brings me back to my initial though that I find so interesting to think about. Why are psychedellics such a bad word to scientific rationalism? What is it specifically about psychedellics that once the subject is brought up, your put under automatic disregard. Either outright or by people becoming so narrowly focused on singular points to try to 'disprove' you, where if you never had said the P word, they wouldn't have gotten that critical. Bolte Taylor says way more things purely esoteric, and purely conjecture without ANY backing of anything, but they keep their mind open to kind of understand around that and try to understand her central point. But you say the P word, they stop doing that, the little things that would of gotten by like in Bolte Taylor's video now get highlighted point for point and dissected.
This is an open discussion I would like to hear more peoples thoughts on why. But this is why I think that may be.
Psychedellics force you to confront your demons. People don't like to do that. And we all know someone who has never had psychedellics probably has way more buried demons than someone who hasn't. By bring the subject of psychedellics up, you are bringing up something which is directly related to someones inner demons and they I think can almost instinctually FEEL that. The confrontation of their demons is associated with the P word. They shun the P word and immediatly shut down as a means of shutting down the unconciously percieved potential of having to confront their demons through psychedellics. They essentially shun psychedellics as an offensive measure in suppressing the confrontation of their own demons.
If all that esoteric talk is presented through the guise of a stroke and a near death experience like Bolte Taylor's video, it's ok. Because there is no 'thing' present that would have the power to force someone into such a state of confronting their own inner self. It's disconnected from them, it's just a subject of a talk, its just an idea. But bring in psychedellics and it's no longer just a subject of a talk. It's a real thing, you can go get it, take it, it will force you into that state. It brings it a little too close to home for them to be comfortable with. They don't want to let into their minds the awareness that something exists which could force them into the position of viewing their inner selves.
Now there is another point, and McKenna talk about this some in alot of his lectures. But there is just a long running tradition of shunning all plant based spirituality. Because the Christian church hated it, it was seen as a threat. All the 'witches' and 'pagans' were actually largely psychedellic people of their own, they were shamans of the european descent carrying on the lineage of plant based spiritualism. Which was a direct threat the christian enterprise. So just the notion that 'god' or 'spirit' could be brought through a plant, and NOT through the bible incited immediate and irrational criticism, or witch burning. I think alot of scientific rationalists have what I call 'residual christianity' in them. Where unconciously they still have instincts of the christian past running in them and they just don't realize it. The shunning of the P word, even in modern scientific study comes from this instinct. It's just an automatic irrational thing they do. Because we all know psychedellics have demonstrated incredible things under clinical scientific rigor, they are INCREDIBLY fascinating from the point of view of clinical empirical science. But they are still seen as taboo. With how scietifically interesting and promising psychedellics are, you would expect the entire scientific world to be all over them, under constant research. But they aren't it's a huge taboo. Which I think is just this running residual christianity where they are just unconsciously and irrationally suppressing anything that feels associated to it by old instincts in them.