_/\_

as jin would say....yessssss.....

I see. So what is preventing your purpose from seeing the light of day? I realise I'm basically asking why there is hatred in the world, but I think that this is THE main problem with the world. Well, there are others too.

In my own opinion greed is certainly a factor; but as Chimp Z said, it's an extensive system with extensive roots. The means by which traits like greed operate and maintain themselves is through institutions that systematically usurp resources from certain groups of people. We can talk about abstract ideas like greed all day long, but we're never going to see material improvements if we don't acknowledge the mechanisms through which these systems operate, and then do something about it. You can't fix a car engine if you aren't able to identify its various parts, if you don't understand how the engine works in the first place, if you don't get your hands dirty.

Ignoring the role that race (among many other things) plays in our engagement with psychedelic drugs is a disservice to our collective effort in understanding what these substances have to offer, and I think only serves to integrate psychedelia into our already dysfunctional and violent culture. It's a waste of potential.

So lets go along with the car analogy, which is a good one. Let's say the car isn't working too well, and there are a few symptoms. Dodgy noises from the engine being the main one. This is identifying greed as being a problem. We pop the hood and see smoke billowing from one particular part of the engine. I don't know about you guys, but I don't know jack about cars. So someone who is ignorant of how the world functions is basically a me, i.e. don't know jack. We take the car to a mechanic. They take a look and say "maaaan, this is some serious damage". The mechanic says the damage is so bad, that there is no point in repairing the individual parts. The whole engine needs to be replaced. We collectively groan at how much it's going to cost us, and we say "no thanks". Then we go on our merry way with a broken car, ready to give out at a moments notice.

The damaged engine is our current global system. It didn't happen from one singular event. It happened over time, and has exponentially slowed down the momentum of the car. We could attempt to fix each part of the car, at a time. But the mechanic (i.e. the brains of the world) says we should just start anew.

I don't know what I'm talking about, I just woke up and the world is fuzzy once more.


About the race part, that's a whole can of worms that is deeply ingrained into various groups of people. White supremacists, Black supremacists, Arab supremacists. You'd be hard pressed to find a black White supremacist like Clayton Bigsby or Uncle Ruckus, two fictional characters. Ultimately, most racists have the viewpoint that their race is superior to others. Ego at its core.



This is an excellent and much needed discussion, however. I have to go somewhere now, so I cut this post short. Someblackguy, thank you for bringing some life back into the Nexus. I hope your project gets some positive results.

Some typical examples of entheocolonialism can be seen with many things that have to do with iboga/ibogaine. And there appears to be 'popular' indigenous people and 'unpopular indigenous people'. Like people care for mountain gorilla but they couldn't care less if Indian vulture goes extinct.

We (intezam) are not ready to sample ibogaine for our casual consciousness exploits unless we found a way of extracting it from confederate jasmine or some other (common) plant.

Some folks seem to feel they always and naturally deserve the very besssssst. They are like those people who purchase rhino horn daggers, tiger bone powder and who keep baby orangs and let them smoalk ciggies for youtubes to enjoy....they don't even understand that this is evil (yet some kind of ignorance/silliness is = evil)

There's a bit of a disconnect here. No one takes ibogaine for "causal consciousness exploits." Most people who do ibogaine are people who are desperate for help, at the end of their rope in life, or perhaps are even a life-threatening situation involving an out-of-control addiction or suicidal depression. It does not make sense to compare this to hunting for sport, pleasure, trophies, etc.

But other than that, you are certainly avoiding ibogaine for the right reasons.

other examples of entheocolonialism would include:
the thoughtless and in places rampant destruction of plants (and hence the environment), in some cases in areas regarded as sacred to indigenous peoples (as a church or mosque would be to some), in un-sustainable plundering to profit and feed a manipulated (marketed to with hype) market, which is largely uneducated as to the damage and lack of ethics their 'dmt' or similar 'product' is involved in..
(and some people wonder why they have certain kinds of unpleasant 'colonial' experiences - suggestion)

the genericism, and self aggrandising publicity of the growing modern 'non-denominational', 'facilitator' neo-shaman, who further feed an unconscious market demand and appetite for what, more seriously, is a group of usually already privileged people (majority male) who ride on the back of the 'great tradition of aya pacha mama huasca', with little real experience, proclaiming safety, while not in fact offering their participants (audience) anything approaching the same level of duty of care, experience, wide-range healing techniques, or responsibility for the 'adjustment' being given the group (often large in number to maximize profit) ..and then they boast that they are 'musician healers', when any old-school real curandero would say it's the plants (and relationship with them) ..it's colonising very old traditions with certain kinds of western attitudes, with a certain disrespect for the very indigenous traditions who paved the platform..




well, like greed, this could be said to be an abstract concept...and i agree with Praxis that the actualised workings need to be examined..but we still as a species have our core sense of compassion vs predation...as part of nature

i think without truly looking within and without, certainly, using different cultural language - the 'demons of mind' aggregate in relative qualities such as 'greed', or fear...manifesting as deep pathological insecurities such as race/religion supremicism and isolation, or ignorance manifesting as un-sustainable, non-symbiotic, and unbalanced disregard for the collective environment and nature, or the plight of the more vulnerable...
as Bhodhisativa said, it's a human problem..and as you suggest some qualified relative mode of interacting existence.

..a final example, for now, of entheocolonialism, would be the increased 'rationalist', current paradigms of world view that is often applied to interpreting these plants, which have been learned from 'non-western' cultures, both experientially and in how they are utilised...a more balanced approach would be to also take the claims of other cultures (who don't use our kind of linear-rational world view language) more seriously...
.

ps. regarding my views on some commercial ayahusca facilitators, it is their exploitation of people and resources, and of indigenous tradition without full understanding or respect, and the play then of market forces and aya tourism, i'm calling 'entheocolonisation'
..people finding their own understanding through self exploration, self empowerment, and away from the 'market' is personal liberty and freedom from colonisation and unethical investment..
Who or what the 'colonisers' are is a more complex issue..

The human eye can distinguish more shades of green than any other color
for the primitive purpose of identifying predators in the surrounding jungle.
The jungle is razed and wilted.
All that stands are predators feeding on each other.
And the birds sing and watch..

A bit of satire to lighten the mood...



http://www.theonion.com/...r-week-guiding-tec-52941


This post will serve as a running bibliography of (legitimate) sources for the topic. Please submit by inbox any materials (books, academic articles, journalism, links to media sources, etc.) which you feel are essential or valuable to the discussion of entheocolonialism. I will review and post them here.

Thanks....Y'all are awesome, by the way.

Bibliography

Aldred, L. (2000). Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun Dances: New Age Commercialization of Native American Spirituality. The American Indian Quarterly, 24(3), 329-352.

Hobson, G. The Remembered Earth. "The Rise of the White Shaman as a New Version of Cultural Imperialism." Albuquerque, NM: Red Earth Press; 1978: 100-108.

Hofmann, A. (2013). "From remedy to inebriant" In LSD, my problem child. Oxford: Beckley Foundation Press.

Labate, Beatriz Caiuby., and Henrik Jungaberle. The Internationalization of Ayahuasca. Zürich: Lit, 2011. Print. (Praxis.)

Labate, Beatriz Caiuby, and Clancy Cavnar. Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and beyond. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014. Print. (Praxis.)

Lazzari, Axel. Ante la serpiente del mal: comentario extemporáneo a otro texto de Taussig. Papeles de trabajo. Revista electrónica del Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales de la Universidad Nacional de General San Martín; Año: 2009 vol. 2 p. 1 - 8

Luna, L. E. (2003). Ayahuasca: shamanism shared across cultures. Cultural Survival Quarterly, 27(2), http://www.culturalsurvi...-shared-across-cultures, accessed 15 February, 2015.

Muñoz, J. (2007). Ayahuasca and the gringos: the clash between Western psychonaughts and traditional practices. 3rd Amazonian Shamanism Conference. Lecture conducted from Chinchilejo E.I.R.L., Iquitos.

Saldanha, Arun. Psychedelic White: Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.

Strassman, R. (2001). Stepping on holy toes. In DMT: The spirit molecule : A doctor's revolutionary research into the biology of near-death and mystical experiences. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press.

Taussig, Michael. Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.

Tupper, K.W. (2009). Ayahuasca healing beyond the Amazon: The globalization of a traditional indigenous entheogenic practice. Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs, 9(1), 117-136.

We don't really buy into that, Rhythm. Not here, at the nexus. And even if it was true, does desperation justify everything? Like getting a new liver in China? Whom was it taken from and why....?

We know that much: Gabon has a very unique rainforest. During and after the various ice-and dry ages when the whole Congo basin changed into a savanna area, it was from these pockets of forest that the whole Congo basin was recolonized with trees, herbs and other plants, however, there are some plants that stay in these unique coastal forests and iboga appears to be one of them....(...we think)

The government which represents the people of Gabon declared iboga a national treasure for the people of Gabon (only). So when we circumvent that by falsehood (...ethically harvested in Cameroon....other lies..etc).....well, you know what we're saying (..it is not ours for the taking -- no matter what)

Some Asian peoples take tiger bones, rhino horn powder, bear bile medicines (these are not just considered tonics) and all kinds of objectionable, unsustainable products and they also claim desperation of sorts.....so provoking as it may be, it is not even such a far fetched comparison.

We have no problems in judging others (for the creation of such demands) -- but we have issues when there appears fault with our own practices. This is 'normal' human behaviour. This thread is great because here we can address these things....

I feel like I share this here kind of incessantly, but I think its very relevant. The UMIYAC Declaration is the result of a gathering of indigenous healers that took place in June of 1999. In it they declare their stance on the globalization of ayahausca, spiritual tourism, bio-piracy, etc...

This is also a good essay about how the use of ayahuasca since the late 1800's has been shaped by a history of colonialism, and compares/contrasts the ways its modern use grew out of colonial rubber tapping projects to the current proliferation of Western retreat centers and liberal non-profit NGOs such as the Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council. It gets a bit obnoxiously wordy here and there, but I think the article does a great job highlighting the problematic nature of the impact that well-intended tourists and NGOs have on local communities and economies.



Bia Labate does a lot of great research surrounding the social impacts of entheogen use, drug policy, and indigenous traditions; much of her work focuses on globalization. I am specifically interested in the following books, which both appear to touch on this subject extensively, if anyone happens to have a pdf of either handy:





EDIT: Just seeing your post someblackguy, my apologies! I'll shoot you a message with the bibliography info for both books I mentioned.

Why is LSD a dominant European drug of the local "Shaman"? Was it stolen from the Sandoz labs and commodified by evil Westerners? White skin Indo-european magic traditions are much older than Christianity. The Marxism quarrel confused me. Neoliberalism & captitalism are just shallow buzzwords (artificial concepts with no exact definition) for fear imo. Fear of the other, fear of the foreign, fear of shortage. Property starts with weapons & war. You can see chimpanzees using weapons for hunting. Are chimpanzees white neoliberal capitalists? Sorry, but I'm still confused.

Chimps also throw their own shit at each other.

Why throw the baby out with the bathwater? Violence is a part of life, regardless of race or gender, period. But we are not chimpanzees. We can self reflect, control our inhibitions, and avoid violence/suffering when it's not necessary.

Yes, but that's not a characteristic of the Western colonialist. See the confusion? War, property, territory & control over resources is a characteristic of the Hominidae.

Edit: I'm only confused by artificial concepts. Homos found out that Cannabis makes you high and they puffed and passed the blunt and the seed. Nothing was stolen. Maybe trade was involved in the year 500 BC (like 300 cannabis seeds for 2 eggs)

I don't necessarily think conflict over territory/resources is entirely avoidable, but I think colonialism is an extreme manifestation of these traits gone unchecked, and is very much avoidable. I think it's fatalistic to declare that colonization is inevitable and therefore justifiable based on this reasoning. Yes, we may be predisposed to violent behavior but as humans we also display traits that are not characteristic of the Hominidae.

Not everyone who is genetically predisposed to becoming an alcoholic becomes one. Does it make more sense to blame genetics for a drinking problem and stay that way until it kills you, or recognize the decisions you made to get to that point and make a conscious decision to change your behavior? Sure, genetics may have played a role--but ultimately it is on you to make the necessary changes to improve your health.

I don't want to derail this thread too much more so I'll stop there. I'll admit that I've spent a lot of time thinking about this very thing, Ufostrahlen, and I won't pretend to have all the answers--but I really don't think it makes sense to limit our potential as humans to that of the most undesirable traits of a less-evolved species.

Research Methodologies: Critical Discourse Analysis

Here's the wikipedia definition:



The following example taken from the website How to Use Psychedelics shows how critical discourse analysis will be a crucial tool to investigate the underling assumptions and implicit attitudes that trouble even the best intentions of a whitestream psychedelic/entheogenic subculture:



Who is "us" here?

Who are "they"?

I got a bit of flack (a term that I'm using per forum language guidelines) for my member name: "someblackguy." Everything from "Who cares?" to "Why do you need people to know you're black?" as though the name came from some coded profanity or obtuse race-promotion. It's meaning is perhaps too explicit for comfort: I'm "some black guy" indeed, but it was taken to have other implicit meanings or to be a statement of avarice towards non-black persons. From the response it was as though I were throwing up a barrier of "blackness" between myself and certain parts Nexus community by calling attention to some social situation of uneasy power relations. To their minds, I was imposing an "us"/"they" dynamic by putting a racial identifier right in the name: "Someblackguy?" Doesn't he know that we're all one here? How rude.

I wondered, would that same tension, wary skepticism, apply here: between an "us" doing the healing and some pathologized "them" receiving supposed therapy? In the best intentioned—if laughably naïve—language of this therapeutic directive, would they even notice the implied power relationship? Did you?

What statements about societal power relations between "us" (therapist) and "them" (patient/client) does "Healing Racism, Sexism, and Sexual Discrimination with Psychedelics" make explicit? Who is assumed to be in the minority here? Who is assumed to be in the majority? How might these inbuilt assumptions (in the scenario of white/heterosexual/male therapist "healing" minority/gay/female patient of their "racist, sexist, homophobic indoctrination" ) complicate the stated goal of "Healing Discrimination"?

Suppose this therapy happens under that allopathic model of treatment which is the standard in Western medicine and mainstream mental healthcare (treatment of individual symptoms and/or tissues based on the Hippocratic philosophy of medicine which rejects the intervention of supernatural forces for a disease model with organic etiology and empirical diagnosis). How do we even locate a disease like bigotry, racial discrimination, sexism, or homophobia? Where are symptoms taking place in the body, where in the mind? "Show me where it hurts." Does that allopathic, individuated approach seem appropriate here in a scenario of epidemic and diffuse societal pathology? Can any therapy that places the individual as the locus of disease and treatment address a systemic pathology?

The rejection of folk medicines, shamanism, and faith healing in Western practice came to be reinforced by state regulatory regimes established in response to the widespread abuses and patent medicine quackery of early industrialized medicine. Pharmaceutical corporations, private insurers, and public healthcare entities now battle to triangulate standards of care and the allocation of resources for vast populations. From its philosophical roots to the modern medical industrial complex of institutional, governmental, and moneyed forces, Western medicine is political even if its application has become blindly depoliticized. The separation of doctor and patient by expertise or, in the case of the statements in question, by status—the separation of symptom and cause—the separation of individual and community care; even the separation of the wounded from the healer: taken for granted in the theater of Western medicine, these are not universal to all modes of healing or therapy. The philosophy of modern medicine draws heavily from particular Western humanistic traditions that place an intact functional self at the center of its cosmos. When that vitruvian self is compromised by disease or injury the goal of medical care is to address the problem and "make whole." All too often that person is "made whole" by treating them as a part.

Ego death, boundary dissolution, the expansion of consciousness that takes place under the influence of entheogenic medicine and psychedelic psychotherapy, under these conditions standard therapeutic postures, performances, and professional boundaries can become unworkable, as would any therapy that labels these manifestations as side effects, or worse hallucinations, separate from the goals of treatment. The wounded healer, the singing of icaros, the appeal to spirit, the shamanic persona, the healing crisis hold no place in diagnostic manuals or medical school training, much less in modern practice. The condition of many healers and the symptoms produced by entheogenic shamanism are likely to be found among the diagnostic criteria of the American Psychological Association's DSM rather than in the recommended course of treatment. In fact induction of experimental states of "chemical psychosis" was among the potential uses of these drugs suggested by early researchers into psychedelic pharmacology. Therapeutic models which embrace traditional practices and knowledges—while haunted with the problem of spiritual authority, authenticity, and appropriation—have emerged in the modern psychedelic therapies which seek to address the problem of sophisticated tools and developed procedures (ex. yagé and drum) placed into primitive systems of allopathic medicine.

The boundary between self and others is problematic even with organic diseases that have established avenues of treatment: diabetes is a social issue, just as second hand smoking, childhood obesity, addiction, even the spread of contagions through populations. In practice mainstream psychology polices this boundary with institutional standards and therapeutic guidelines handed down by monolithic psychological associations that often default to the interests of the professional rather than those of the patient in care. Healthcare as a social project is not apolitical but treatment can be depoliticized to the point where it cannot see its own political liabilities and biases or take account for its own role in totality of disease—until an internal protest forced its hand in 1973, the American Psychological Association's official stance was that homosexual orientation was a treatable disease. Courses of "treatment" included electroshock, genital mutilation, destructive behavioral modification, and chemical castration. Complicit in the politics of Jim Crow segregation in the southern US, the psychological profession has been implicated for informing a culture of scientific racism in the early 20th century.

"heal the individual"?

Can a depoliticized individuated treatment model actually treat, diagnose, even "heal" social/political/cultural sickness if, like sexual orientation or student IQ vis-à-vis race, it cannot locate it in the body? What would be the harmful effects of insinuating societal dysfunctions onto the individual seeking treatment? The recommendations given at HowToUsePsychedelics.com find the site of pathos not in the sick society, not in the dysfunction of a broken body politic, but in that person suffering their ill effects. Such a model offers palliative care at best, along with the risk for visiting untold harm upon that individual seeking help. This allopathic mainstream approach, so reliant on assessing and fixing a broken self, cannot be competent to wield powerful medicines whose primary effects include the dissolution of ego. Even in its own proscribed treatments allopathic mainstream fails to address systemic racism or homophobia by myopic focus on the individual as the site of mental illness—this is to say nothing of the lack of mental health outreach to marginalized communities. Under Western mainstream psychotherapy standards, a program such as "Healing Racism, Sexism, and Sexual Discrimination with Psychedelics" is frightening in the backwards scenario it chirpily recommends to patients and therapists.

"...introducing the individual to a perspective..." What prejudices this tek for "unlearning" prejudice?

"Psychedelics can allow us to unlearn racist, sexist, or homophobic indoctrination." They should have just stopped there. "This includes people of color, women, gays and lesbians and any others." Have you ever heard of any other medicine or treatment qualified by a therapist as effective not only for "us," the assumed reader, but also includes people of color, women... I do not remember ever seeing such "inclusive" language used elsewhere to describe any other treatment modality. "This medicine is effective even for gays and lesbians" does not appear in the indications for any other form of therapeutic intervention that I am aware of, à la "Safe for pets" or "Not tested in children under 12."

"This medicine is effective for curing racist assumptions. It even works for people of color!" Is that a model for social reform through psychedelics?

Instead of "healing" people of color, LGBT, women, and "any others" (mind you not anyone, but any others ) of their internalized less-thans, perhaps the good doctors at How to Use Psychedelics might do better to introduce some fellow non-minorities to the perspective that they are, in fact, not "greater than." Would that not be even more effective in assessing and treating "the dehumanizing affects [sic] of racism, sexism, or homophobia"?

For the record there is no such term "micro-ways" in the fearful Logos of the social sciences nor in any psychedelic psychotherapy that I am aware of. Perhaps the author meant microaggressions? Perhaps the "author" had no idea what they were talking about when they penned their panacea for prejudice. In fact there does not seem to be any theory of social science or psychedelic therapy informing this two-paragraph-cure for the "micro-ways" of discrimination. These are just a list of the author's best intentions. The legal term for "best intentions" applied by this formula varies by jurisdiction, from "reckless imprudence" to plain old "medical malpractice."

So, take How to Take Psychedelics with a grain of salt... but just in case, do be careful around "micro-ways," especially if you have an older model pacemaker. My obvious disdain for this particular piece (of New Age blatherskite) notwithstanding, for the sake of this project I hope that by critical discourse analysis and other decolonizing research methodologies we can challenge some of the materials and claims of "how-to" authority that have come down from the psychedelic discourse. I can only imagine what you guys make of Leary's homage The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead. I'm not sure if there are degrees of cultural appropriation, but I will offer this one helpful standard: if at any point you should find yourself lost in the throes of composing your sequel to an 8th century Tibetan holy book, then perhaps you've gone a myte too far.



Here it seems that he/she is 100% correct—sadly this is one of the only documents that speak directly to the issue. The author(s) of this bit of well meaning worthlessness "Healing Racism, Sexism, and Sexual Discrimination with Psychedelics" might be prime examples of the "white savior" complex letudiante earlier brought to our attention. In this case we might just agree after all.

Before you set out to help me "awaken" from my "internalized oppression," before the psychedelic movement can help anyone who has "faced systemic, historical, oppression" maybe it should take account of its own very much externalized issues. Before helping "people of color, women, gays and lesbians and any others" unlearn their secondary status, perhaps the author would like to take some time, and some entheogens, to "unlearn" it themselves (or at very least not rely on inequality as a treatment modality in psychedelic therapy). How does that sit with you: the implied whiteness of the therapist who is graciously "introducing" the idea of equality to their minority client under a major dose of LSD or psilocin? Does that seem even remotely workable? Or safe? The set, globalism; setting, modern history. I can only imagine what unpleasant conjuring takes place at the mercy of the countertransference phenomena and ghosts of such a "healer." Having to explain that they're doing more harm than good would be difficult at the best of times; imagine doing so under a psycholytic treatment of LSD. You'd likely need another therapist just to treat the results of being a "they" caught up in best intentions of an "us."

______________________________________________________________________________________

Afterword:

The site whose content was the subject of this article, howtousepsychedelics.org describes itself as a "guide [...] intended as a starting point for using psychedelics for personal healing, recovery, and development, on your own or with a mental health professional." It describes itself as an organization "developed by a group of friends. We are professionals working in law, software, film, and video. We are about half men and half women. We are white, black, and Asian. Psychedelics have played an important role for all of us in our psychological development, exploration, and mental health and we felt there was a need for a clear, usable guide for responsible and productive psychedelic use."

A link to this collaborative research project has been sent to the organization's email address:

Hello. I am a researcher and writer currently studying the topic of psychedelic therapy and the psychedelic discourse, but my background is in the field of critical psychology. I am directing the research efforts for a collaborative project, the first of its kind, on the colonial legacy of the psychedelic movement, titled "Entheocolonialism." In my research into the discourse of the online psychedelic movement I came across your statement describing the potential for psychedelic therapies in terms of "Healing Racism, Sexism, and Sexual Discrimination with Psychedelics" via its prominence in google search results. I invite your response to my suggestions, which can be published on the research forum or made to this email address, where it will be forwarded to be added to the materials of the public research page at DMT-Nexus. While I was disappointed with the implications of your statement, I do invite your participation in the project whose goals in aligned with those stated on your website: "we think there’s a real need for a clean, modern, well curated internet discussion forum for responsible and functional use of psychedelics. Existing message boards tend to be confusing, poorly designed, and primarily focused on recreational use. If you are in a position to setup and run something like this, we’d love to hear about it, promote it, and we’d love to give you our thoughts about what would make it work well."

I believe that we share the same desire and concerns about the ethical direction of the online psychedelic discourse. I hope that this project will be an overture for later research and publicly available knowledge sharing which is greatly needed in this effort to integrate psychedelic/entheogenic experiences, materials, and treatments into the social, medical, spiritual, and institutional life of our communities and the larger world. I would like to make this an opportunity for conversation, rather than a one way critique. Your response would be a meaningful gesture towards bringing about the dialogue you describe as so needed in this movement which should be redirected to the affirmation of human potenial per the message of your organization. I agree. Thank you for your time and consideration. The project can be found at https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=71489

Anyone involved in these topics knows that this is not easy work, but the movement towards psychedelic integration is an effort that in the end is worthwhile, crucial. This reform is not achievable without difficult dialogues towards institutional change, starting with those institutions within the psychedelic discourse. I applaud your efforts towards this goal and ask that you join in this effort “for responsible and functional use of psychedelics” in whatever capacity. I patiently await your response.

—“someblackguy”

All content on their site, including their statement "Healing Racism, Sexism, and Sexual Discrimination with Psychedelics," is published under Creative Commons user agreements and is part of the public domain—free for the public to use, copy, and distribute for noncommercial purposes. They can be contacted at hello@howtousepsychedelics.org.

Yeah, I understand. The last 1P-LSD trip told me: all is perspective, therefore subjective. Let's see what the future brings. The world isn't white, and 1.37bn Chinese will soon form the largest economy in the world. The white colonial male is a dying breed. Let's make some colorful babies and split the white into rainbow colors with some black for the contrast. We need green & blue skinned humans, too. A call for the genetic engineers!

^ greater diversity is the key to survival of species...we should all hope for more range of colours in our genetics

the dominator regime in China presently presents a serious threat to cultural and intellectual diversity, and is busy economically colonising areas of the world..it's a little bit more 'thought out' than aggressive chimps, and affects a lot more species/diversities..

the counter argument to the chimp argument is the bonobo chimpanzee..
make love not war..

there were two points i can see about Marxism and opposing ideologies - firstly that almost any kind of social equality politic is often now branded Marxist or extreme left as a way of trying to discredit..but also, major implementations of government policies affecting peoples lives and leading to wars, are based on 'ideologies'..
a completely free market capitalism approach to the world may not take the interests of the environment or minority groups as paramount..likewise totalitarian regimes riding on the back of the twisting of ideologies (Marxism etc) to benefit a small power elite is equally potentially destructive to the collective balance of the world..
..ideologies aside, no we are not chimps..we have a chance to think our way out of this mess...a great responsibility..in the future it may be different races or powers colonising and oppressing (violent suppression).. regardless of race, it is the very tools of colonisation (and ideologies used to justify) which need to be examined to be changed..

Colonialism isn't a white thing. It just so happens that the most aggressive colonisers in recent history were white. I think colonialism is a monarchy thing. England, France, Spain, Holland, Portugal all had colonies all over the world. Something tells me their respective monarchs were the ones that wanted to colonise other lands, not the people. I highly doubt the local bartender wanted to invade other countries without input from monarchist propaganda. What's in it for the common layperson?

It's the same reason why millions of soldiers laid down their lives for wars that did not even concern them. The power of propaganda. Granted, some wars needed to be fought in order to topple destructive regimes.


On the psychedelic front, however, this colonialism is a lot more benign. It doesn't involve killing people. It involves taking cultures. No culture should adapt to Western cultures. If one is born and bred in a Western culture, and wants to learn about an indigenous culture, it's best if that Westerner actually goes there and tries to learn for themselves. The internet is just the first stepping stone. Instead, the rise of the plastic shaman is kind of delegitimising ancient cultures that were focused on healing people, not making a quick buck.

it's not in the interests of these 'plastic shamans' to highlight the true depths, wisdom and duty of care of many traditional culture plant healers...it would be bad for their business..so increasingly people with little material wealth (compared to the plastic shamans and their clients) who have really studied, and uphold ancient customs, become sidelined, while more aggressive and opportunistic people within their own culture are influenced by the western money game, and become questionable shamans within their own countries..ultimately it's the disrespect and true understanding of the older cultures, along with an ad hoc appropriation, and little regard for helping people really, that makes these commercial neo-shamans colonisers and tools of the destruction of non-western indigenous ways of life, as well as colonisers of the very sacred inner spaces of individuals who naively put their trust (and earnings) in these greedy show-men...
.