(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Revelatory religious experiences can be duplicated chemically? No! Colour me completely shocked and amazed.

I mean, that's like saying "Dude, you were probably imagining it, or poisoned" to the guy who says his cheeseburger told him about Brian Froud's secret life as a substitute-houseplant-for-pay! We can't have that or we'd be oppressing him!

Comments

[cmseward.livejournal.com]

Someone needs to start testing sacramental wines for psilocybin.

[mynn-sanity.livejournal.com]

And we grew out of it, mostly (http://books.google.com/books?id=sQ9Bt7I4ZdwC&dq=origin+of+consciousness+in+the+breakdown+of+the+bicameral+mind&pg=PA1&ots=Ftg9CJALLW&sig=t8Na_Qyig28bXD5YPm9xlJ8h5hE&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26hs%3Dofv%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DX%26oi%3Dspell%26resnum%3D0%26ct%3Dresult%26cd%3D1%26q%3Dorigin%2Bof%2Bconsciousness%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bbreakdown%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bbicameral%2Bmind%26spell%3D1&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1).

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

I think I love you for referring to that book.

in a moment of independent creative creation

[mynn-sanity.livejournal.com]

I wrote a short story as a jr high schooler with that theme in mind. I showed it to my mom, who asked, "Have you been reading my book"? And showed the book to me and spoke a little bit about its contents.

I think I read it a few times in college (nice long waits between classes or for the bus), it's been a long favorite. I think my family owns at least a half dozen copies and I know I've given at least that many away.

I wonder what more he would have written.

Re: in a moment of independent creative creation

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

This may be a dumb question, but have you read any Neal Stephenson? Snow Crash in particular seems to have been heavily influenced by this book, and he mentions it explicitly in The Big U.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

When an English major could've told you that...

"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

or

"Keep him wondering what pride or lack of faith has delivered him into your hands when a simple enquiry into what he has been eating or drinking for the last twenty-four hours would show him whence your ammunition comes and thus enable him by a very little abstinence to imperil your lines of communication."

Entirely not news, but nice to have a study on.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

There's been a theory kicking around the dungeons of academia for years that this was the secret behind the mind-blowing revelations reportedly experienced by participants in the Eleusinian Mysteries. I think Ruck's Road to Eleusis is the more-or-less definitive work on this idea.

Never mind the long and multi-cultural history of using psychoactive substances specifically to induce religious experiences...

Yeah. This is my surprised face.

[culfinriel.livejournal.com]

And I thought it was just LSD.