Downtown Vancouver after Canada beat the US in Men's Hockey

And now that it has been more than a week since the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremony, things are returning to normal. Classes have started back at UBC and the grind of assignments, lab expectations, long term projects, and midterm exams has provided a nice break from the breakneck pace of the Olympics. Moving to Vancouver in August of 2009 has yielded an interesting perspective for living in an Olympics host city. I haven’t known a Vancouver without Olympic hype, dread and emotion. I thought Granville Street was always pedestrian only. I thought that Translink was always planning to open new rail lines. I thought Canadians were always patriotic. (Although up here, it isn’t called patriotism, it is called, “Loving Canada”)

After hosting fourteen friends from the United States in our 900 sq. ft apartment over the period of 17 days, I gained a fresh set of eyes on the city I’ve learned to live in. “Transit is so good here” and so I responded, yeah it has been ramped up during the Olympics but it actually is pretty good (especially if you’ve ever been to any other city in North America). “Everyone is so young here”, and so I responded that I didn’t realize this fact until I went back home to Charlotte, NC for the Christmas holidays as was shocked at the demographic contrasts. “People here are in such good shape!”, and I responded that you realize this fact whenever you leave the United States, even if Canada isn’t that much better as a whole on obesity rates. That’s not to say I take Vancouver for granted now, I swear I never will. But all the awesomeness just kind of grows on you until you expect awesomeness. When awesomeness becomes the everyday does it ever reach the status of the mundane?

At first, my daily activities consisted of going downtown and gaping at the large crowds of people doing nothing but walking around. Sure, the street musicians were cool but what was there really to do in downtown Vancouver during the Olympics? Stores were crowded, the cultural houses were crowded and the zip line I wanted to experience so much required a 4+ hour wait. Walking around admiring the insanity of it all got old after a few nights and I decided to check out the O-Zone (lame). Around this time I was already starting to get burned out. I’m afraid Jenn and Jason suffered the most from my exhaustion as I often couldn’t do more than just stare at the constant Twitter deliveries to my phone from VANOC and Translink. I entered Olympic overload. Showing friends around in a city I didn’t really know that well had its additional problems. “Let’s go find a bar” … “everything has a huge wait and is overcrowded” … “let’s walk around” ….  …. 20 mins later … “ok here’s something”.

Walker on the drums downtown

Sleeping nine people in the apartment during one night might sound like a feat of gymnastics but was really a joy. My favorite part about the whole experience was hosting friends and showing them around, I bemoan the cost of eating out so much but revel in the fact that I got to try so many amazing places in such a short period of time. I know Vancouver’s East Side better, taking Jane to Commercial Drive for her birthday and later in the week with other friends for bowling. (Not to mention other adventures to Dan’s Homebrewing and a Cheese shop on Hastings). I think Jane was the real gold medal winner, she somehow agreed to let me host five of my old roommates at once (all guys) immediately after all the other guests. When three friends came up from Seattle for a night, she said, “sure, bring ‘em on”. Somehow I got all my assignments for UBC done on time, sneaking away to complete them.

The Olympics brought a lifetime of memories in just a short period of time. I even learned all the lyrics to “O, Canada” by heart. However, If I have one regret from the whole experience though it is this: I didn’t watch the Olympics enough. Sure, I saw all the key moments live, along with all the biggest events. But it is not taking the time to sit down for a full curling match or failing to watch the entire two-man luge that stings now. Going to more of the actual events would have been fun but the cost was prohibitive and so much other cool stuff was going on I don’t regret passing up opportunities to do just that.

So if you ask me to sum all that up, “What was it like to live in the Olympic host city?” It was basically like normal Vancouver but with a big party downtown. Outside of Downtown Van you could barely tell the Olympics were happening.

I’m not sure I’d ever want to travel to an Olympics. Vancouver is a rare bird, equal parts civil and beautiful. If the Olympics were in Chicago I don’t think the 24/7 street party down town would have maintained its rate of zero casualties. People here don’t ride around with machine guns on motorcycles like they will during Rio 2016. Vancouver was one amazing host city that far an exceed my expectations but I could never justify spending thousands of dollars on tickets to uphold nationalistic values. Apparently British Columbia has turned me into such a hippie I think the athletes should have their favorite songs played on the podium instead of national anthems. The Olympics are a great excuse to be a tourist but without all the slow paced things I enjoy about my brand of tourism: relaxing in fun restaurants, exploring cool local shops, relaxing at local music and leisurely conversations with residents. In a city I didn’t already know, all these things would be inaccessible as a one-off tourist in a foreign land. At the end of the day, I’m thinking: wow, that was a lot of fun, hope it didn’t cost too much… oh it was $8 billion?… in the US we just put that on a credit card.

I don’t want to be a cynic who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. The collective experience shared in Vancouver was immensely valuable. If companies can possibly re-locate here the economy will benefit. Outside of downtown, businesses saw little to no upside and will experience much higher taxes. Many artists and educators will have their funding slashed dramatically hurting the local experience dramatically for decades to come. Local transit is running a huge deficit and faces the reality of significant cutbacks or canceling much needed rail projects. How shallow is modernism that it’s pinnacle is gambling the future by throwing a massive party for a few days? Could it really all be about private profits driven through socialized debt?

Life and society isn’t always about doing the rational thing though.  Maybe after watching grown men sweeping on ice for several hours at a time I’ve realized that’s what made the Olympics so much fun.

© jritch for a robot, i am not, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: canada

Renewable energy is often touted as the future because it has lower CO2 emissions or “can solve our energy scarcity problems because it will replace oil”. Unfortunately, renewable energy is far from solving those massive problems. Solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc… all require tremendous amounts of oil to get their infrastructure up and running, emitting CO2 in the process. However, I’ve lost interest in the climate change problem because it is just a subset of an industrial society that’s completely dependent on high net energy production of oil, so I’ll just focus on energy scarcity for now.

I’ve been really impressed Jeff Vail’s analysis of this renewable energy problem I’ve alluded to above. In this November 9th recap of his 2009 APSO presentation, Jeff defines the “Renewables Gap” and presents some startling numbers.

I’m working on renewable energy technology in my graduate school program at University of British Columbia but seeing the resources required for production of high-tech energy solutions is disconcerting. The amount of energy required to run the microscopes, testing equipment, and chemical synthesis of materials may not be possible in a world of energy scarcity. Energy innovation may come to a halt because we can’t afford to devote energy to it in a decade or so. Realizing that this is a possible outcome, we’ll need to use current technology when defining the Renewables Gap.

To develop a renewable infrastructure that continues with the infinite growth paradigm using current technologies may be impossible. Jeff Vail determines that, “between 80% and 90% of the total energy ever required to build, operate, and maintain these systems must be invested up front.”

Additionally, Jeff reminds us that, “these renewables produce ELECTRICITY, not oil. We’re talking here about using them to replace oil—let’s talk about conversion issues. How many GWh are needed to replace 1 mbpd of oil production? A straight BTU-to-BTU conversion: replacing 1 million barrels of oil per day production, or 365 million barrels of oil per year, equates to 70.78 Giga-Watt-Years. Clearly, however, oil and electricity are not the same thing.”

Jeff also draws on the fact that quickly ramping up renewable production also requires a significant investment in our transmission grid. I’ll focus on solar energy because that’s what I’m familiar with from the utility industry but all forms of renewable energy production face similar challenges. Solar power sounds like a great idea until you realize that the sun goes down at night and that cloud cover produces a very spotty generation profile. If clouds frequently cover the sun, the energy passed on to the grid can swing back and forth dramatically, ruining the precision engineering balances on power factor and other variables that keep our lights from going off. Mass deployment of solar photovoltaics, requires mass deployment of large-scale storage that can smooth these voltage swings, preventing damage on local transformers. Unfortunately, while the cost of photovoltaic modules has decreased over the last decade, cost effective utility scale storage is far from ready for mass deployment.

Jeff investigates the amount of oil we’ll need to invest in renewables to offset oil production rate decline in two varying scenarios. The two scenarios being an optimistic 5% rate of annual oil production decline and a more realistic 10% rate of annual oil production decline. I’ll quote the numbers he uses for a 5% decline rate because the numbers for a 10% decline rate are quite scary.

“In this [5% annual decline] scenario, to mitigate the year-1 decline in net energy from oil, we’d need to invest 467 GWy of energy in year one without any production in return—that’s the equivalent of almost 7 million barrels per day. Then in year two it’s about 130 GWy more invested than cumulative production to that point, or about a 2 million barrel per day deficit. Not until year-three will the cumulative renewable generation be more than the investment deficit for that year—meaning that not until year 3 will we begin to have surplus energy available to mitigate the actual decline in oil production (which by this point leaves us 12 million barrels per day behind the peak oil decline curve.” That’s the “Renewables Gap.”

I’m skeptical that our society would be willing to invest that much energy in renewable infrastructure growth. Quite simply, our global system has outgrown the energy available to maintain it. This means that, as Gail Tverberg concludes in his recent essay for The Oil Drum,

Efficiency and Smart Growth are “Brain” technologies, as opposed to the “Brawn” of traditional and new energy sources. As such, their application requires long-term planning and thought. Cheap energy has led to a culture where we prefer to solve problems by simply applying more brawn. As our fossil fuel brawn fades away, we will have to rely on our brains once again if we hope to maintain anything like our current level of economic activity.

“Green” energy is also highly land intensive. Some of the most cost effective options for reducing our dependence on fossil fuels are also highly land intensive. A recent article on The Enterprise Irregulars covers the issue of the coming Green Sprawl which will devastate the carrying capacity of our ecosystem to support humans. CO2 emission reduction strategies will likely take us down the road of tearing up the prime farm land we’ll need to survive an energy crisis.

I’m currently focusing on the brawn solutions and we’ll see where that takes me over the next few years. However, as things start to unravel, I’m preparing to focus my research on the brain solutions Tverberg advocates. I’ll hope the global society we’ve built can pick up on that trend before things would become too dire for policy to make a difference.

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Post tags: energy, net energy, peak oil

As independent journalist Michael Ruppert sits in a chair, in a dark room, smoking and saying alarming things my remote desire for business as usual went up in the smoke from the end of his cigarette. I’ve seen Chris Martenson’s Crash Course a few times. I’ve seen the 45 minute version of it too. I’ve read and heard many things by Jim Kunstler, Albert Bates, Richard Heinberg, Rex Weyler, Dr. William Rees of UBC; the list goes on and on. However, until my face was melted by the 83 minutes of Collapse I hadn’t seen it all put together in one blazing and succinct package.

This is an intellectual horror movie first and foremost. If Ruppert’s claims have any validity, the relatively easy way of life enjoyed by Americans, Canadians and other beneficiaries of the current economic order is about to receive a major shock.

This is the most accessible and important introduction to the concepts and consequences of peak oil that I’ve yet to encounter. Subjecting friends to 3.5 hours of data filled powerpoint slides narrated by a former Fortune 500 VP of Finance (see The Crash Course linked above) was never really the best way to get other people to recognize the same problems I’m concerned about. I didn’t hear anything new from Collapse, but Ruppert is the kind of guy who takes multiple sources and can weave them into a relevant complex narrative, this ability is amplified by Director Chris Smith’s interviewing that was the basis of the film.

Ruppert recaps the basic information behind the Hubbert model of oil extraction, net energy, the problems with the Gwar field in Saudi Arabia and the role of cheap oil in everything from toothbrushes to food. I felt the balance between information overload and dangling a hook to seekers was just about right. I tried to play the mental role of the peak oil skeptic for most of the movie, what was Ruppert saying that could convince me if I was a tried and true Chicago school economist? Smith played the role of the audience in several scenes, calling into question Ruppert’s credentials and key aspects of his theories. The movie needed about 5 more minutes of scenes like this, I think it is important to portray Ruppert for who he really is but I left without learning how he planned to prepare for the coming transition. Also, I was curious to how the director felt about the issue of peak oil before and after making Collapse.

If Ruppert’s picture of peak oil missed anything, it was the possibility for demagogues to control a disheartened populace in a collapsing world. He spoke of the anger, the unrest, the revolution but didn’t get into a lot of indicators on how that anger could be channeled by nefarious influences. Nor, did Collapse tackle many specifics, especially in the way of infrastructure issues (see Reinventing Collapse by Dimitri Orlov for that piece)

Ultimately, Ruppert calls for a human revolution. The same conclusion anyone giving a serious look to the coming transition must reach. What does a human revolution mean? Collapse skirted around the issue but mainly for lack of time. I think that revolution means focusing on low scale, low energy technologies for the external world and focusing on the internal world through human technologies like meditation and entheogens. Ruppert calls out solar and wind energy as the only two alternative energy sources that can have immediate impact… and that’s encouraging because I’m going to grad school to build solar cells.

This is a movie without a mainstream audience, too intellectual for any regular movie goer and too alarmist for most academics. I don’t see it doing too well in theatres (although I hope the world can prove me wrong) but I do see it becoming a hit when it is released to DVD. I know I’ll be passing it along as a recommendation to anyone that is even remotely skeptical in the stability of our modern civilization.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Post tags: economic crisis, humanity, peak oil

Stanislov Grof's first book

Maybe we have to be born with an interest in the origin of consciousness, where it resides and how it operates, I’m one of those people. No explanation garnered by science, religion, mystics, or from indigenous wisdom has ever fully approximated what I’ve seen in the world. Transpersonal psychologist Stanislov Grof’s first book, Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research (Dutton, 1976) reveals many fascinating accounts relayed from his personal experience while conducting hundreds of LSD sessions with patients. Grof offers his comments on what the trends of these experiences hint at, frankly admitting in the epilogue that such outlandish comments will draw harsh commentary from peers, but is wise in saying that omitting them will only continue the retardation of humanity’s ability to understand the final frontier: the human mind.

Grof discovered from working with patients suffering particular neuroses that a condensed experience brought about by ingesting a few hundred micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide can induce profound healing experiences allowing people to transcend even lifelong problems. Many of the accounts are quite gruesome as Grof is working with some particularly psychotic people, he spares no details and I felt my gut wrench as descriptions of rapes, abuse, war scenes poured from the pages. However hard these accounts were to read, it was the very ability to relive these experiences (sometimes even from the perspective of others at the scene) that allowed the patients to ultimately improve.

The description of the power and capabilities of this condensed experience (COEX) framework  makes up a large portion of the book. Grof notes that these highly symbolic psychodynamic experiences consist of material originating in the human unconscious. However, time after time, Grof wondered about the accuracy of  the scenes and situations described by his patients reliving these condensed experiences. In those cases where he could follow up, he did so and confirmed that sometimes the details were quite exact.  For example, a patient named Dana described a traumatic event that occurred when she around 12 months of age. Dana drew elaborate images of the room she was in at that time, including the patterns of embroideries. Grof independently followed up with Dana’s mother and learned that the mother found Dana’s description bristling with accuracy. The room was described almost photographically by Dana and was, “unquestionable because of the very unusual character of the furniture and some of the objects involved.”  There was no way Dana could have known this because before Dana was two years old, the family moved  and the house was condemned, torn down and the furniture and objects weren’t retained. There were no photographs of the room and the mother didn’t recall ever mentioning anything from that room to Dana.

Another interesting observation Grof passes on is that repeated LSD sessions almost always led to the patient reliving his or her birth and various trauma associated with the birthing process. Patients would describe thoughts, feelings, and toxins that were passed to them by their mother while in the womb and in rare cases described exact scenarios their mother faced.  Grof is highly skeptical (as I think we all should be) that the perinatal experience can pass on such a multitude of information to the eventual individual, forming the bases for neuroses and locking in patterns of life however there is a significant amount of evidence that (at the least) should amplify the significance of a birth.

The transpersonal, mystical and multidimensional experiences  patients faced with quite regularity after reliving a birth experience were highly interesting. Grof breaks these phenomena into multiple categories: ancestral experiences, collective and racial experiences, past incarnation experiences, procognition/time travel, out of body experiences, ego transcendence, space travels, telepathy, animal/plant/planetary/extraplanetary consciousness, encounters with extradimensional intelligences/entities, intuitive understandings of universal symbols and consciousness of the universal mind. He then proceeds by laying out accounts describing these particular scenarios. The final two chapters which include these accounts are sometimes shocking but thoroughly mind blowing. One example: the ability for a patient to assume specific advanced yogic poses despite not even knowing what yoga is. To summarize these experiences would be to completely strip them of any comprehension so its best to watch Grof’s videos on YouTube. I was continually amazed by the ability of patients to describe complex mythological sequences from obscure religions (ex. ahura mazda v ahriman from Zoroastrianism) or when patients described traumatic experiences from their parent’s early childhood they had no way of knowing (but that Grof could confirm through follow-up with parents). Reading over these accounts seems to point to some sort of collective mind, encoded in our DNA or accessible in altered states of consciousness, something like the morphic fields Dr. Rupert Sheldrake has been working on. Equally amazing were the detailed accounts of alternate universes and the beings within.

Realms of the Human Unconscious indicates that the human mind is not only our most powerful asset but also our most underused asset as we rarely develop it. Perhaps consciousness is like a radio station we’ve tuned into for the time being, by modifying the receptors in our brains we can temporarily turn the dial on the radio hardware, allowing us to pick up a different signal. As Grof states early in the book, “It does not seem inappropriate and exaggerated to compare their [psychoactive drugs] potential significance for psychiatry and psychology to that of the microscope for medicine or the telescope for astronomy.” I find it deplorable that society has been unable to build much on Grof’s work in the last 33 years and this inability to accept responsibility for our unconscious is clearly leading to global complexity our current technology can no longer handle.

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Post tags: brain chemistry, human beings, neurology, psychology

With all that being said, it is time for me to start telling the story of this summer. Specifically the story of my move to Vancouver, British Columbia, apparently a fairly uncommon move as many here tell me, “they’ve never met someone from North Carolina”. I’m a little hard to peg down because for some unexplainable reason, my accent is not of my homeland. And its not that I don’t even have the extreme NASCAR fan kind of southern accent, I just possess a neutral pronunciation of most words. Last Friday at Koerner’s Pub on campus, one guy tried to guess where I’m from and said, “Fargo, North Dakota”. I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess…

Kevin and Jane finish loading the car on the morning of our departure

My applications to graduate school started last September. As they started to pile up, I had a dream that all the application deadlines were forgotten and took it as a sign that my unconscious wanted me to get busy. My top choice was UBC followed closely by UT-Austin and Stanford with MIT and UCSD leading up the “Not sure I’d want to live there but they are good schools” category. My experience working for a utility convinced me of the importance of clean energy research and these schools all had opportunities in those areas. I did well enough on the GRE for not studying but knowing that UBC didn’t really look at the GRE score I didn’t take it over. Somehow I still got into Stanford and MIT.

After a visit to UBC in March the time-line was set. I was going there. The school was great, the lab was fantastic, the city was gorgeous. Opportunities like the Olympics were just icing on the cake, an afterthought, a big bonus. One of the primary reasons was that grad school in Canada makes financial sense. In my opinion, education doesn’t lead to freedom if it ties you down with crushing debt (i.e. $60,000/year for Stanford) and I can get by here in BC without taking out any loans. I felt more than ever that the US financial model and educational model was reaching its logical conclusion. An ending being played out today through an outdated monetary system and growing social pressure on a status quo that has satisfied those in power.

Every stage of the plan worked out fantastically thanks to help from my Mom and Dad, Jane and others. Everything was packed up and ready to go before heading into downtown Salisbury for a goodbye dinner with my parents and Jane’s parents. We left the next morning from Jane’s town home and Erby met us there. I felt bad taking Jane away from her friends but at the same time, Jane was ready for a new experience as well.

the original pancake house

We drove down to South Charlotte for a final visit to the Original Pancake House, the place I used to take Jane for Saturday morning breakfasts when we first started dating. Observational Note: could have stopped at an OPH in almost every state along the way… which one was the Original Original Pancake House… I don’t know.

Kevin and Jane say goodbye

After bidding Jane’s best ever roommate Kevin adieu, filling the car up with liquid fossils and getting a car phone charger for Erby, we hit the road on I-77 through South Carolina, catching I-26W up to Asheville and then I-40 out to Sylva, NC through Cullowhee, NC next to Western Carolina University for a visit to the ancient Judaculla Rock. I was really disappointed in the rock, I expected more distinct carvings but the acid rain and weathering had worn it down.

Judaculla Rock

According to Cherokee legend, the markings on the rock were created by Judaculla, a slant-eyed giant who dominated the mountains in years long past. He was the “Great Lord of the hunt,” a powerful being who could leap from one mountain to another, and even control the weather. They believed the rock not only marked his territory, but even bore his 7-fingered handprint, since he once used the rock to steady himself from a fall.

crossing into tennessee

we found this on the way to Nashville

Back on I-40 we crossed over into Tennessee, catching some rain through Knoxville and eventually arriving in Nashville late that night to meet up with Chris Lugo our first CouchSurfing host. Chris ran for Senate with the Green Party in Tennessee and was a really cool guy to stay with for a few nights. Famished, we drove around Nashville and found a great little restaurant called Tazza which served massive portions that satiated our desperate hunger. Wearily we returned to Chris’ house near Belmont University and were surprised at the gaudy well lit buildings on the campus there. We needed some sleep because tomorrow was our chance to explore Nashville.

Nashville was kind of abandoned for a Wednesday night

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Post tags: moving, summer 2009 roadtrip, travel, united states

during the production of this trailer, I had to line up a few shots like this

I’ve finally finished editing all my photos from the road-trip this summer and will put up a series of posts on here to describe the adventure across North America. If you are thinking that might be boring, I’ll whet your appetite with this trailer,

Update: via request from @aernst, for an approximate map of the trip, you can check out the blog post where I planned the trip.

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Post tags: summer 2009 roadtrip, trailer, video

When I found my first set of petroglyphs (my photograph above) at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, the music from the 1960s Planet of the Apes movie filled my head as I envisioned my predecessors carving out these images on these rugged hills. I could see with cinematic production quality the frantic artist, these images did not strike me as the work of a reserved and slow artisan but of someone that struggled to express either something that was important or something that he/she could not describe to the others.

What surprised me about the petroglyphs were their relation to the content of Paul Devereux’s The Long Trip . Deveraux describes in The Long Trip the evidence of the relationship between humanity and visionary plants.   The details provided in The Long Trip of the visions induced by these ancient rituals matched my observations of these petroglyphs exactly. On p. 164 of the 2nd edition (published 2008 by Daily Grail Publishing) a useful chart shows the three stages of entoptic and visual phenomena from the cultures of three separate continents. Fig 11.31 below isn’t as neatly laid out as the one in The Long Trip but demonstrates a similar concept, relating entoptic phenomena to cave art, making the case that ancient art is often depictions of visions of these trance states.

The rock art at Dinosaur National Park corresponded all the stages of trance that Devereux summarized, including spirals (basic entoptic phenomena) and transformation into animals (one of the final stages of trance states). The picture below appears to depict a shaman’s transformation from lizard into human form,

Petroglyphs aside, one major aim Paul Devereaux had for writing The Long Tail was to demonstrate that modern civilization is a grand exception to the history of humanity because we do not have a ritualized context for accessing visionary states. Even more recent civilizations in Greece had the socially accepted Mysteries of Eleusis. Since Aldous Huxley and Humphrey Osmond coined the modern term for these visionary substances as psychedelics, the associated plants and visionary tools have become stereotyped and abused before being outlawed by the United States with many other nations following suit. Devereux looks to make a case for their integration into our society.

Devereux begins by laying a groundwork for the modern context of these visionary experiences. The modern era of visionary substances began when Dr. Albert Hoffman synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide-25 (LSD). These experiences connected with the past when explorer Gordon Wasson sent morning glory seeds to Hoffman in 1959. These morning glory seeds (of the R. corymbosa and I. violacea) were used in ancient rituals throughout Mexico. Hoffman discovered that the seeds contained the indole compounds related to LSD, lysergic acid amine… the same as LSD but about 10-20x less potent.

Anthropologist Andrew Sherrat’s model of ancient intoxication is that the, “inhalation of fumes preceded the ‘drinking complex’ and was the most ancient method of taking in aromatic and psychoactive substances. ” And throughout ancient life smoked opium and cannabis sativa were prevalent. Moderns can know this through analysis of through Herodotus’ descriptions of Scythian Kapnobatai (shamans) “howling with pleasure” during their rituals with cannabis. Old World Europeans encountered smoking only when they reach the New World and witnessed natives smoking tobacco. However in the ancient world liquid psychoactives were also available, Cypriot pots shaped like opium buds (where opium was prepared in an olive oil mixture) have been found as far back as 1550-1337BC in Egypt. Consequently, prehistoric opium and hemp seeds and pollens have been found around the globe. A Neanderthal man was even found in northern Iraq with Horsetail pollen, Ephedra the source of the nerve-stimulant ephedrine.

The accounts of ancient drug use that most greatly differ from our modern culture are the descriptions of the Amanita muscaria. This mushroom, known as the fly agaric, is the stereotypical toadstool. A red cap with white dots all over it, the  eating of which is noted to produce euphoria and later hallucinations after inducing extreme physical strength and endurance. From p. 82 of the book, “A Russian anthropologist Valdimir Bogoras observed a Chukchi tribesman take off his snowshoes after eating some of the mushroom, and deliberately walk for hours through the deep snow just for the sheet pleasure of conducting exercise which caused no sense of fatigue.” Event the reindeer craved this mushroom, passing these effects on to those that at their meat. Since the active constituents of the A. Muscaria remain intact when passed through a person’s bladder the reindeer will swarm down men that urinate in the open. Fellow tribesmen would collect this urine and use it to attract the reindeer or to drink at a later time to obtain the desired effects.

One mystery surrounding these visionary substances is in their geographic location. In late 1970, anthropologist Richard Evans Shultes wrote, “…only about 150 [of the world's flora] are known to be employed for their hallucinatory properties… nearly 130 species are known to be used in the Western Hemisphere, whereas in the Eastern Hemisphere, the number hardly reaches 20.” South America is filled with various snuffs, brews and plants that produce hallucinogenic effects like ayahausca, the world’s most ancient example of a designer drug combining an MAO inhibitor in B. cappi and many various admixtures, many of which contain the potent naturally ubiquitous dimethlytryptamine.

I found the details that Devereux presented on the psychedelic’s influence on myth to be the most interesting portion of the book. One example is of Richard Rudgley’s suggestion that the middle eastern psychedelic syrian rue contributed the designs to the carpets before propelling its users into flights of ecstacy… the flying carpet myth incarnate. The myth of Santa Claus may have derived from use of the Amanita Muscaria, the red and white colors of the mushroom, the idea of Santa clambering down the chimney like the entry of smoke into the Siberan yurts during the winter, the reindeer pulling the sleigh reminiscent of the animal’s connection with the substance and the flight through the sky the description of the basic shamanic experience of leaving the body, traveling through the air. My primary interest in psychedelics lies around their relations to ancient religious experience such as in Zoroastrianism and early Christianity, an example being in the taking of the Eucharist. This book didn’t deal heavily in these issues, with only with a few mentions of Zoroastrianism. So in that sense it left me a little disappointed but that’s why I’ll need to read Jan Irvin’s Holy Mushroom, a good follow up to this book.

An excellent history of humanity’s tendency to intoxicate with pharmacological plants and to seek visionary experience, The Long Trip was deep with rich information, a strong section of notes and references. This book is filled with interesting tidbits that may have escaped those deeply interested in the field but provides an incredible gateway for those with cursory experience. In a non-threatening way, Paul Devereux succeeds in providing the general public an introduction  to our ancestors and their use of ritual hallucinogens.

‘

© jritch for a robot, i am not, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ancient knowledge, history, prehistoric man, psyche

On energy work and meditation:

I think all meditations and energy work either break down into additive or subtractive. Like your either adding (developing, building, cultivating) or you are removing (letting go, observing, freeing).

The practices where you remove, you remove thinking, remove attachments, remove blocks, pain etc. This can include energy work which it more often seems like it does… like letting go is a kind of energy work, and there are meditations where you comb your awareness through your body. This also includes zazen, where you are indifferent to everything and just observe it all.. or presence.

Additive practices are where you add on to, or develop what you have. This can include nlp and mental work, where you condition your mind, or where you condition your energy. Kundalini, nei gong’s, anything that is focused on more in the energy realm.

I think there are subsections to the additive practices though. There is energy work where you cleanse and energy work where you develop. If you develop you cleanse, but if you cleanse you don’t develop.

While in the subtractive practices, all remove. How effective is dependent on you and the practice your using.

Chinese practices in general are more focused on power, and application in the world. This is in contrast to the Yogi’s who sought to escape or become distant from the world. Where they seek to escape the cycle of moksha. This is why, from what I’ve studied the Toaist paths seem a lot longer than the yogi paths, where once you’ve reached a certain place your done. The chinese seem to pursue enlightenment beyond being free of rebirth.

Or it could just be that the chinese have it much better documented.

Another interesting aspect to it is that enlightenment according to chinese doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a paradigm of compassion and love. You can be an evil man and enlightened, or at least free of the cycle of rebirth. There are stories in the Magus of Java, of very powerful people who create massive destruction with there high level of chi.

Chinese Paths of Taoist spirituality (probably really limited):

Lei Shan Dao: the thunder and lightning path.

Yang Shen Dao: developing the immortal fetus.

Tong Ling: Religious Dao; prayer, incantation, use of symbols; devotional in nature.

Miao Tong Dao: Enlightenment Dao founded by Lao Tzu; most illusive path; no method path.

Jin Dan: Alchemical path

Shamanic Tao: the study of nature

Whats interesting is any of these they cultivate the three treasures, jing, shen, and qi internally. Most do it as an indirect result of the practices they use, while the alchemy path works to cultivate them directly as an engineer might. Some of all the practices are simple some are very complicated and dangerous. – Wikipedia

In accordance by moving forward in each of these paths there are bench marks and achievements. A quote from Sean Deanty:

While it’s true that only the Lei Shan Dao produces this trade mark “electricity.” The other Lines of the Dao have their own variety of abilities.

Siddhi’s are simply a natural outcome of correct practice and, as such, they represent a much more profound internal transformation. The siddhi’s are very specific indications of the level of internal development of “the body-mind” of a given individual.

My musings and discovery on Mao Pai: (a Lei Shan Dao)

Mao pai is a very specific practice that isn’t about the philosophy, or anything of the sort other than, just developing energy. The picture of the guy up top is it’s current most well known practitioner, John Chang. It is a closed door practice (secret), due to the potentially fatal nature of it.

“Central to the practice is the transformation of sexual energy into power, a force that the practitioner can use at will. The “cauldron” in which this formidable elixir is brewed is called the dantien (elixir field) in Chinese and is a bio energetic nexus located four fingers below our navel.” Nei Kung by Kosta Danaos Page 4

Level 1: Develop the chi in the dantien to full – tummo/clear light of bliss?

Level 2: compress the chi – reverse breathing?

level 3: Separate the dantien from the 6 chords ? – How? Minor enlightenment.

level 4: Move down to root chakra and accumulate as much yin as yang chi? – How?

Level 5: Combine them? – How? Potentially fatal.

Just meditate is the key. Sitting/cleansing meditation.

72 levels that must be opened to reach ultimate enlightenment. The 72 chakra’s. Levels 1-5 the chi is additive, so double every level. Beyond 5 the chi amount is exponential.

“As a point of interest I will say that the Mo-Pai system employs neither mantras nor visualization in its training regimen” – Nei Kung by Kosta Danaos Page 128

So in developing your yang chi, you have to be abstinent and bring the sexual energy up to your dantien. This is accomplished through meditation and held positions for extended periods of time. The meditations are like the secret of the golden flower, and Taoist yogas.

This is a very very limited side of Taoism, which could be read about for your entire life and you would still have more to learn.

John

© jchurch for a robot, i am not, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Energy work, spirituality

Focus has developed over many years, through sitting alone in a quiet place, thinking along a specific thread or simply allowing my mind to show me whatever it holds within. Over time this has lead to a particular quiescence of mind. A valuable goal but not the final destination, just the first aspect of life-long development. The goal is not to destroy the ego but to transcend it. An ability analyze and store the multiple inputs of important and unimportant pieces of information is one of the first abilities gained from this practice. To recall and to distill is a spectacular skill to have, to make balanced decisions is another result. Why do others seem to lack these abilities? Of the few things the individual can control, attention is the most apparent. Forfeiting that ability throughout our day limits the ability to think in an all-encompassing manner.

The greatest qualm I have with the modern office environment and subsequently the role of technology in our lives is the ubiquity of distraction. Sam Anderson from NY Mag summarizes the new face of attention through, In Defense of Distraction. From Sam’s interview with psychologist David Meyer,

“I  think it’s going to get a lot worse than people expect.” He [David Meyer] sees our distraction as a full-blown epidemic—a cognitive plague that has the potential to wipe out an entire generation of focused and productive thought. He compares it, in fact, to smoking. “People aren’t aware what’s happening to their mental processes,” he says, “in the same way that people years ago couldn’t look into their lungs and see the residual deposits.”

The ability to focus on any particular task and to give it our full attention, is becoming extinct. In the corporate world that now controls most of society’s assets, executives have little time to actually think about their decisions. Bombarded by emails via blackberry and continual downloads of information our workplaces are a plethora of distractions. Once again from Sam Anderson’s piece,

American office workers don’t stick with any single task for more than a few minutes at a time; if left uninterrupted, they will most likely interrupt themselves. Since every interruption costs around 25 minutes of productivity, we spend nearly a third of our day recovering from them. We keep an average of eight windows open on our computer screens at one time and skip between them every twenty seconds.

We are losing the ability to read. Not only reading online, but in books as well,

When we read online, we hardly even read at all—our eyes run down the page in an F pattern, scanning for keywords. When you add up all the leaks from these constant little switches, soon you’re hemorrhaging a dangerous amount of mental power. People who frequently check their e-mail have tested as less intelligent than people who are actually high on marijuana.

Besides the obvious consequences of information overload, the most recent episode of Lorenzo’s Psychedelic Salon podcast features Bruce Damer who reveals even more troubling ramifications of technological control over our attention. Bruce presents the implications of Antonio Damasio’s work on the speed of thinking demonstrating that our brain has a cognitive aspect and an emotive aspect which operate at completely different speeds. Unfortunately the cognitive aspect dominates when we are bombarded by information, removing our ability to factor in emotions. Take the time to listen to the podcast embedded below, but I have a few key excerpts from Damer’s talk,

“What Damasio is showing is that people who, in the lab, get a huge amount of cognitive stimulus all the time start to have no access to the emotional part [of themselves] at all. They can’t store to it, and they can’t retrieve from it. They become what he calls emotionally neutral… so if ANY crisis arises you have the wrong people [in charge], probably, because the things that put them there, and the constituencies that wanted them there, create a person who is incapable of handling a real crisis.”

Becoming emotionally neutral causes us to suffer in our lives, preventing us from truly interfacing with those around us. I have driven home from an office job in times past realizing that there is a haze separating me from the actual world. I am dulled mentally, but specifically in my emotional capacities. One of the most tragic examples in my life came a few summers ago, when I worked at an engineering firm. Returning home from a day of staring at a screen, sitting in a cube, my girlfriend called me for solace after her grandfather had passed away. I was completely unable to provide the empathy she deserved because my emotional center was shot. I had become completely dominated by the cognitive mind, unable to access any of the emotional intelligence I could provide. We all have examples of these experiences, whether we are conscious of them or not. And so does our entire society.

One of the reasons this happens, as Damer continues to describe in the podcast, is because our office environment consists of rapid eye movement across a screen. Jumping from email to email, from notification popup to excel table. This is equivalent to the rapid eye movement characteristics of stress inducing situations, like our ancestors cornered by predatory animals. The brain responds by secreting adrenaline and because our body isn’t moving this energy stagnates. Around the middle of the day we are hit with exhaustion, our adrenal glands are fatigued. After years of this behavior we face severe mental exhaustion, our sleep becomes less refreshing, we feel tired all the time. How the human species will respond to this problem en masse is unknown. This is a vast experiment, unlike any other in human history.

Perhaps the survival of the fittest will ensure that our ancestors have larger heads (adapted to the cognative), bigger eyes (to absorb more of the screens we must view) and thin bodies adapted to little sunlight (adapting to modern American nutrition, all those subject to obesity will slowly disappear). I don’t think we’ll ever reach that point but if I were to sketch it out, the future incarnation of humanity would probably look something like the picture below,

the future look of humanity? oddly familiar...

During the last few years as an undergraduate student, I was continually shocked at the inability for classmates and peers to focus. I witnessed how Adderall became a panacea for exam time. And as with most technological solutions the drug works like a charm… providing unintended consequences. Returning to Sam Anderson’s article linked above, the real problem here is that we are trying to exceed our natural abilities. Outsourcing our attention to drugs like Ritalin and Adderal turns us into robots,

Adderall users frequently complain that the drug stifles their creativity—that it’s best for doing ultrarational, structured tasks. (As Foer put it, “I had a nagging suspicion that I was thinking with blinders on.”) One risk the scientists do acknowledge is the fascinating, horrifying prospect of “raising cognitive abilities beyond their species-typical upper bound.” Ultimately, one might argue, neuroenhancers spring from the same source as the problem they’re designed to correct: our lust for achievement in defiance of natural constraints.

I don’t see a quick solution to these issues other than individuals who can take notice of the problem and can begin to practice silent meditation. David Meyer added,

there’s a subset of Buddhists who believe that the most advanced monks become essentially “world-class multitaskers”—that all those years of meditation might actually speed up their mental processes enough to handle the kind of information overload the rest of us find crippling.

The Earth’s first society built on information overload has recently been hit hard, brought its knees because the people responsible for our assets have made emotionally questionable decisions. I doubt that a thoughtful person could ever succeed in the cutthroat political or corporate world, leaving me little hope for the political will of America. Yet, I have tremendous faith in our species while we propagate methods of reflection and deep thought. We can have hope for the future of the emotional psyche.

this image has nothing to do with the text above

© jritch for a robot, i am not, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: attention, emotion, focus, mind

Updated 6/23/2009

Starting at University of British Columbia the first week of September means that it is appropriate for me to begin planning my move out to Western Canada. Jane is on board and will be bringing her car out to the Vancouver area. I will be abandoning my 2000 Saturn SL1, most likely at my parents house in Salisbury, having to rely on the bus system when I get inside Vancity. Here is the outline for the plan as it stands for now:

1. Everything is shipped via freight for about $600.
2. Leave on July 15th and drive cross country over 2-3 weeks, arrive in Vancouver around the 2nd week of August at the latest.

View Larger Map

Nashville, Chicago, Iowa Corn Palace, Badlands, Custer Battlefield, Black Hills National Forest, Mt. Rushmore, Boulder, Denver, Dinosaur, Flaming Gorge, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier, Calgary, Banff, Sasquatch

Interary

Any suggestions about the things to visit while driving across the US? Are some of the planned destinations worth a visit?

© jritch for a robot, i am not, 2009. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: moving