Living in Dangerous Times

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What (George) Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What (Aldous) Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumple-puppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that our fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.

Neil Postman, foreword to Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985).

 

After more than a decade of writing on the subject, an increasing number of people consider me an authority on mind-altering drugs and their potential role in our society. If that much is true – and while this may seem like a divergence from my normal subject matter to some of you – let me state that I consider television, and most recently the development of social media, to be the most powerful mind-control ‘drugs’ that have yet been developed, with their effectiveness at influencing and controlling docile (and often legally sedated) populations unparalleled in human history. In their diverging views of future society, Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) and George Orwell (1984) both got one aspect right, for the pen has truly turned out to be mightier than the sword, and exponentially more so now that the official narrative is delivered by a virtual world of colorful moving images. The full effect of this most modern development upon both human culture and human consciousness is still unknown. Most children watch more television than they sleep (and far more than they are schooled) and are more comfortable on computers than they are on bicycles, while virtually all adults these days are semi-permanently attached to a savvy media-device disguised as a telephone, and increasingly feel lost and ‘dis-connected’ without it. We are the children of the Great Experiment, and we march off increasingly synchronized towards a new kind of future for humanity, the end result still dark and obscure.

Perhaps it is because I grew up in the late 20th Century in a small country that for a long time only had independent newspapers and two television channels that (as children) we were largely not allowed to watch (Go outside and play!), but it seems clear that the use of the world-media as a social-control instrument took a new and more dominant form in the early 21st century, and has increased greatly over the past decade with the innovation of the internet, and now, social media. The use of the media as a form of societal influence and control – something that Nazi Germany pioneered some 80 years ago with the then recent inventions of the radio and the moving-picture reel, a future that both Huxley and Orwell famously anticipated – has now flowered into something quite new and unprecedented in the 21st century thanks to the innovation of social media, a Frankenstein beast that now promises to deliver us at least four years of a brutish, narcissistic, and seemingly ill-educated Trump Presidency that even George Orwell would have had a hard time believing.

How did such a thing happen? How have the people of the most-informed society in history become so ignorant, fearful, and superstitious, and perhaps more importantly,  so easily steered that democracy now appears to have run off it rails? (Around 42% of Americans don’t believe in Evolution for example. Around the same number still believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks despite the fact that the Bush Administration’s claims are now considered groundless, if not fabricated). One can consider the fact that in the 21st century, the current state of American Power and Prestige (at least in it’s own people’s eyes) has largely been dictated by two media blitzes of previously unprecedented proportions. Two full-scale re-structuring of our world-view that, coincidently, through a combination of luck and awareness I mostly managed to avoid.

The first of these was of course, September 11th, 2001, which was really the first day of the 21st Century, since this was the day that the Modern World changed forever. I’m sure most of us remember exactly where we were when we first heard the news reports that morning of 9/11 … I was driving to the local hardware store in New Orleans to buy materials to work on the home that I had purchased just a week before when the radio in my truck broadcast the news of the first plane hitting the first tower. (I also remember that Osama Bin Laden was immediately the main suspect, which I thought was strange, since it was followers of the blind Egyptian Cleric Sheik Omar Abdul-Ramen who had nearly brought them down the first time with a truck bomb.) Then by the time I was at the paint-store, the footage of the 2nd plane hitting the tower was being broadcast, which I mistakenly argued must have been the first. (How could two planes hit the twin towers? was my logic – the Air Force must be ready to shoot anything down within 50 miles after the first plane struck I mistakenly thought. The idea that two planes could hit the two towers that far apart seemed incomprehensible.)

I didn’t own a television and within a couple of hours it was easy to see that this was the beginnings of a 24 hour-a-day media blitz of previously unknown proportions. In response, I kept my own (foreign) head down, offered no opinions, read the few newspapers I trusted, and just worked away on my old wooden house the best I could. I didn’t yet have internet at my new house, and while I had an AOL account and an email address, other than blogs I was unaware of the primitive social media of that era. I do remember some two or three months later seeing a different clip of the 2nd plane hitting the Twin Towers in a bar in New Orleans that had a TV on late-night and instinctively let out a “Wow!”, and everybody looking at me like I had just climbed out of a cave, since no-one could believe that I had not seen the footage before. But what I did observe (in equal amazement) in those weeks after 9/11 was how many (seemingly intelligent and educated) people really seemed to believe that the USA was in imminent danger of being invaded by fundamentalist terrorists, and that it was now engaged in an actual war. Which before too long it was, with Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with 9/11 (although Dick Cheney and co. used the media to convince Americans that he was), and in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban, for not giving up Osama Bin Laden. Fifteen years later and nearly 8000 American soldiers have died and a million have come home wounded, along with an estimated 210, 000 civilian fatalities. The US is still in Afghanistan, Iraq is a living-hell, as is its formerly moderate neighbor Syria, and the entire region has massively destabilized which emboldens Iran and Saudi Arabia, and more nebulous entities like ISIS and ISIL.

George Bush and his cronies managed to use up the entire empathy of the planet in a few short weeks, and along with this “War on Terror”, we got The Patriot Act, fictitious “Weapons-of-Mass Destruction”, wire-tapping, Abu Ghraib, and daily debates about the moral validity of torture, kidnapping, and death-by-drones, to name just a few. And somewhere along with embedding reporters with the troops in the 2nd Gulf War that followed 9/11, and largely accepting without question the Bush Administration’s obvious lies and propaganda, real Journalism in America died.

The second great media-blitz that I believe has shaped modern American consciousness was when Hurricane Katrina glanced off my adopted home-town of New Orleans some five years later, and in the aftermath, the poorly constructed canals designed to take pressure off the levee system failed and the Crescent City – the Town that Care forgot – was subsequently flooded and abandoned in the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

By an extreme stroke of pure luck, I was at Burning Man in the desert in Nevada at the time, which a decade ago was probably the United States only true media black-out zone. (Sadly, no more). Katrina had been off the coast of Florida and not even on Louisiana’s mind when I drove out of New Orleans on my way to help build Black Rock City in 2005, but by the time we drove into the desert the Thursday night before the gates opened, the massive hurricane had found its way into the Gulf of Mexico, and it seemed unlikely that New Orleans would avoid it. My fiancee at that time was very nearly trapped in New Orleans. A native-born New Orleanian, she caught the 2nd-to-last flight out of New Orleans (only Southwest was still flying) on a ticket we had purchased months earlier and arrived at Burning Man on the Sunday night, and then early on Tuesday morning, August 29th, 2005, Katrina hit. Still, later that day, after everyone thought that New Orleans had dodged the bullet and while we were having our annual Fat Tuesday Mardi-Gras party at our Burning Man camp, the levees failed, and the city quickly fell into chaos.

It is interesting now, a little more than a decade later, to see how a handful of newspapers, for perhaps the last time in history, play a major role in my memory of the events. The uninvited memory as I was driving into Burning Man of the front-page of a British tabloid newspaper – Jazz City to be Destroyed! – from another hurricane that had eventually missed New Orleans a couple of years earlier. A late arrival bringing a New York Times to our camp two days after the levees failed, with a photo of the top of a crossroad signpost sticking out of eight feet of water just a few blocks from my fiancee’s house. (Which meant we didn’t need to worry about that anymore.) A horrific article in the SF Chronicle about the alleged abuses in the Convention Center and SuperDome–complete with graphic descriptions of rape and violence that turned out to be entirely fictitious–that spooked me so badly I hid it from my fiancee and seriously questioned exactly what had been going on back in New Orleans (mostly lies, as it turned out). Or the front page photo in the S.F. Chronicle, once again of the cops and military kicking in someone’s front door in New Orleans, that convinced me to return to the city while everybody else was being evacuated out.

I remember virtually nothing about the television coverage because after Burning Man, I quickly returned to New Orleans and ignored the mandatory evacuation, choosing to gut the now rotting basement apartment in my two-storied house instead (my home is in one of the oldest–and highest–neighborhoods in New Orleans and only took about a foot of water). By doing so I once again avoided the vast majority of the constant media-barrage that seemed to paralyze most everybody else, and probably added 10 billion dollars in mould damage. In the weeks that followed when noone else was allowed to come home, the city off-limits to civilians after the largest forced migration of Americans since the Civil War, I got to meet a few of the USA’s elite in-the-field media at the various bars still open in corners of the city (most notably The MapleLeaf when we reopened it), and found out firsthand that virtually all of them shared my disenchantment with the state of modern journalism. Many of them had in fact quit entirely after 9/11 and the Gulf War, and then come out of retirement for Katrina. In many ways in its relentless coverage, Hurricane Katrina became the instrument of civil-revenge for the remnants of ‘left-wing’ mainstream journalism against George Bush and his legacy, the last gasp of ‘peoples journalism’ after the terrible damage to the media’s credibility that the propaganda-coverage of the 2nd Gulf War created. (The fact that many media-savvy people now check Al-Jazeera for our unfiltered news says a lot about the state of American journalism in 2017.) The events of 9/11 and Katrina were thus the two greatest blows to the post-World War 2 myth of American Invulnerability since the war in Vietnam, and ultimately to the belief that the U.S. Government was capable of aiding and protecting its own citizens, or even interested in doing so.

It would not have been possible for us to take power or to use it the way we have, without the radio

Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda.

It is also interesting – and perhaps even important – to realize that both of these pivotal events in recent American history were (at least for most of us) pre-social media. (MySpace launched in 2003; YouTube in 2005.) Thus the Official Narrative of these two events were the last major ones to have been created entirely by the major media–newspapers and television–something that is almost hard to imagine now only a decade later. Of the two, the first – 9/11– has become the most challenged narrative since John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and thanks largely to the rapid ascension of social media, the most widely-distributed conspiracy theory in history: 50% of Americans have doubts about the official story according to a poll taken on the 12th anniversary of 9/11. The second narrative – the gross mismanagement of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the failed engineering that had been forecast for decades – has largely been forgotten, despite the fact that the U.S Supreme Court ruled that the Army Corp of Engineers was liable for the disaster, a first in the United States history.

As I have previously pointed out, both Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 were media events of previously unknown proportions — they affected every aspect of American life, they invaded every home, and were virtually inescapable. It is curious to consider the chaos that they would have unleashed into the social media world had it existed at that time. For it has become increasingly apparent to me over the past year that we have been experiencing the third great media-blitz of the 21st Century, one that has lead to the mystifying election of Donald Trump and this radical new, further swing to the right for the United States and its policies. A constant barrage of fear-based rhetoric and propaganda that far eclipses that of of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina in sheer volume, since this latest onslaught has mostly been transmitted by the new hydra-headed form of social media with its seemingly infinite number of questionable outlets.

The frightening thing we are witnessing at this critical juncture in U.S. history is that since many people no longer trust the mainstream media or the elected government after the events of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina (and a host of other increasingly obvious governmental lies) they now take their news – or their world-view if you like – from this same social media that gives voice to their frustrations, a quagmire of opinion, where facts no longer appear to matter. The official narrative has now been replaced with the competing narrative, and at this point, still early in the 21st century, the individual is constantly bombarded with any number of extreme and dangerous views with no veracity filter attached. On social media, the most important thing seems simply to be heard – a fact that the President-elect and his very savvy media ‘advisor’ Steve Bannon – a modern Joseph Goebbels who has compared himself to Dick Cheney and Darth Vader – most accurately recognized, and have now ridden into power.

This often angry and xenophobic rhetoric is most prevalent and most easily spread on social media, where deliberately generated Fake News – now infiltrating institutions as once renowned as the Washington Post – and equally deliberate disinformation, is proving to be as dangerous as any straight State-fed propaganda, and far more insidious. While a new Cold War is brewing over Russia’s involvement in hacking and fake-news dissemination – and I for one have no doubt that Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB let us not forget, would use every opportunity and advantage to influence popular opinion in the West – the deeper and more difficult truth is that Fake News is an inevitable result of the new digital-information economy.

In an opinion piece in the online version of the British newspaper The Guardian ( 8 January, 2017) that mirrors many of my own uneasy thoughts on the subject, Evgeny Morozov, the author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom writes;

The big threat facing western societies today is not so much the emergence of illiberal democracy abroad as the persistence of immature democracy at home. This immaturity, exhibited almost daily by the elites, manifests itself in two types of denial: the denial of the economic origins of most of today’s problems; and the denial of the profound corruption of professional expertise    …   The problem is not fake news but the speed and ease of its dissemination, and it exists primarily because today’s digital capitalism makes it extremely profitable – look at Google and Facebook – to produce and circulate false but click-worthy narratives   .…  (and) when think-tanks gladly accept funds from foreign governments; when energy firms fund dubious research on climate change; when even the Queen – what a populist, she – questions the entire economics profession; when the media regularly take marching orders from PR agencies and political spin doctors; when financial regulators and European commissioners leave their jobs to work on Wall Street – could anyone really blame the citizens for being skeptical of “experts”?

Morozov – a contributing editor to The New Republic and a visiting scholar at Stanford – then goes on to say: “Apparently, an economy ruled by online advertising has produced its own theory of truth: truth is whatever produces the most eyeballs.”

The result? Well, I would argue that the average semi-intelligent human mind, when confronted by a digital cosmos of debatable information of previously unimaginable and potentially infinite proportions, simply shuts down. Information Overload (as foreseen by Aldous Huxley). If you try too hard to grasp the ‘Big Picture’ from your own little corner of the world, and start disappearing down the infinite number of rabbit holes available on the World Wide Web, you risk becoming, at the very least, enraged or obsessed, and at the very worst, quite mad. I don’t know anyone who claims to have become enlightened due to the Internet, but I know plenty who seem to have become more radical or more confused. And then along with this Information Overload comes Information Fatigue — when the stream of news is so depressing, why bother even reading it, let alone fact-checking it?

So what do we do? We practice how we have been taught to survive and thrive in the Modern Age. We insulate ourselves by specialization and pour the greatest amount of our concentration and energy into some tolerable facet of our lives, some noble curiosity or distraction. Baseball, aliens, organic gardening, marijuana legalization, Burning Man. (Or Psychedelic philosophy, photography, and paragliding in my own case.) Often we become indignant at some obvious injustice in the world, or enthralled by some ancient art or modern miracle. And, thanks to the click-and-bait culture of social media, people now have an active forum to argue passionately about Trade Tower Seven, the existence of an Illuminati, about 2012, or a Flat Earth, or to deny things as seemingly obvious as Climate Change. Few subjects or opinions are taboo or considered ‘too out-there’ to be expressed. And while we can try and keep an open mind to others, another kind of fatigue sets in with every new “Pizza-Gate”; the fatigue of credibility, even the fatigue of “just-not-wanting-to-know”.

I have also witnessed how, since everybody on social media is supposed to be your ‘friend’ in this new digitally connected world, this loud outpouring of radical positions on just about everything has largely turned our own communities against ourselves! For along with this distrust of the media and government that many people are expressing – once again on social media – and this apparent overwhelming desire ‘for their turn to be heard’, I have witnessed an accompanying meanness of spirit and a complete lack of any empathy or interest in listening to any viewpoint other than their own. As the celebrity food-critic Anthony Bourdain said in his first interview after the recent election:

The threshold of acceptable rhetoric right now, the threshold of hate and animus that’s being shown at this point — this really naked hatred of every flavor, racists, sexists, pure misogyny, class hatred, hatred of the educated — this is something I’ve never seen before. And it’s now acceptable!

The last great war against Fascism – World War Two – was in many ways a War of Production, with the workers of England and the Soviet Union, and then finally of the United States, proving to be the difference against the mighty Nazi war machine. After the war, for a period of about 25 years, largely thanks to their role in the winning of World War Two, the workers and the middle-class in the West were (statistically) the strongest they have ever been in human history. In England, the much-maligned Labor Government took power after the war with clearly socialist policies, while in both England and the United States, trade-unions were powerful political forces until they were largely dismantled in the 1980’s by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Thanks to the GI Bill and the increase in production post-WWII, the largest the middle-class ever (by percentage) was in the United States in the mid 1960’s – the era of the greatest internal dissent since the Civil War, and the last time that Universities in the USA were remotely political. The fascist element in the West (let’s not forget that the United States, the home of the Robber Barons and Henry Ford has always had a distinctly fascist streak) steadily realized throughout the course of the 20th century that the way to nullify dissent was to simply eradicate the middle-class, something they have managed to do remarkably successfully since the shifting of the onus of taxation from the Corporations to the work force under Reagan, and the policies of deregulation that Clinton and all other Presidents have continued since.

According to Noam Chomsky, the true role of Government has traditionally been to protect the People from Power, originally from the Crown and then Nobles, and in the 20th century, from the new threat of Corporations. In this respect our governments have failed us miserably by financing politicians who have steadily deregulated the controls on financial institutions over the past 30 years. By increasingly avoiding paying taxes, the top 5% have made themselves exponentially wealthier, while the middle-class has been gutted by the financial instability of the times. According to Wikipedia, in the years after World War II to 1980, the income of the American Middle-Class increased at around the same rate as the wealthy; since 1980, the major increase of income has flowed almost exclusively to the top 1% of Americans. In 2014, in the aftermath of the Housing Crisis, the top 5% in the United States increased their overall wealth an incredible 20%, a virtually-unnoticed increase that surely would have caused a revolution in any other era.

This dramatic increase in the wealth of the manufacturing elite in the United States has resulted in a corresponding increase in power: the top 1% own 35% of the wealth in America. Close to 11,000 registered lobbyists (total Washington lobbyists are estimated to be up to 7 times higher) spent 2.36 billion dollars in 2016 on influencing the 100 members of the Senate and 435 members of the House of Representatives. Thats nearly 4.5 million dollars per elected official, down from a peak of 6.5 million dollars in 2010. (Figures from Center of Responsible Politics). Compared to the access of paid lobbyists, trade unions are powerless to confront or counter this kind of centralized wealth. Nor does the media have a credible voice, since there are no more independent news outlets anymore — everything has been bought and homogenized or disbanded. Meanwhile the Supreme Court–the last bastion in American democracy–ruled in 2010  (in the case of Citizens United in a 5-4 vote) that corporations had the same rights as citizens, and for the first time extended these same corporations the full rights to spend money as they wish in candidate elections federal, state and local. An estimated 1.5 billion dollars was spent trying to influence the last election by the Super PACs and other ‘dark money’ that the Supreme Court’s decision now allows – a 43% increase from the previous Presidential election. (SuperPACs directly financing candidates they prefer now appears to be replacing the active lobbying of elected officials. The number of both licensed Washington lobbyists and the annual amount they spend has dropped by one-third since the Citizen’s United decision – over a billion dollars.)

The political landscape we now occupy comes largely from the tyranny of that Supreme Court decision that has allowed for the final fascist takeover of the United States. (David Bossie, president and chairman of the group Citizens United at the time the case was argued, is now perhaps better known as Donald Trump’s deputy campaign manager.) While that may sound like a strong statement to many Americans, Fascism (using Noam Chomsky’s definition) is quite simply: “When business interests control  government.” (For example, if Rex Tillerson – the CEO of Exxon – were made Secretary of State.) These lunatics seriously believe in this idea of “the Invisible Hand,” the idea that the only thing that is stopping the industry of the world running-like a perfect well-oiled machine, is government and regulations, and pesky things like unions and people. They espouse that left alone, industry and the economy would operate on some perfect harmonic wave, and the future of humanity would be secured, guided by “the Invisible Hand.” The subprime mortgage crash which took out most of the middle classes savings was the latest example of how well that theory works. The unfortunate truth about “the Invisible Hand” is that it operates on a singular requirement: increasing profits. And, as Karl Marx pointed out, the flaw in capitalism is that it requires continuous growth and an unlimited market, and unlike “the Invisible Hand,” we all live in a very finite and bounded world. A world that is getting more crowded and more polluted, along with less habitable and less tolerant, every coming year.

Contrasting this is the disturbing smugness of the Silicon Valley Elite and the rudderless Democratic Party that it largely supports. It’s the same all-knowing smugness that has made San Francisco the most unaffordable city in the world, forced its artists across The Bay into death-traps like The GhostShip, and turned Burning Man from a pure underground-anarchist-artistic expression into The New Ibiza. They possess a naive and childish belief that the world can be changed simply by breaking the old-paradigm down. The same tech-elite who have now had to watch in horror as Steve Bannon and the new social media-savvy Alt-Right has skillfully used American Ignorance and a dinosaur-demagogue like Donald Trump (most likely with the help of one of the 20th century’s last great dinosaur, Vladimir Putin) to turn Silicon Valley’s own perceived ‘information-power’ against itself. The looks on the faces of Elon Musk, Larry Paige, Tim Cook, et al when they were summoned to Trump Tower just days after the election said it all. The employees of the 10 largest Fortune 500 tech companies had contributed just $179,400 from 982 campaign donors to the Trump campaign, while Hillary Clinton raised $4.4 million from the employees of the same companies, with more than 20,400 donations (according to a Reuters review of contribution data found.) The Donald was clearly crowing and serving up some serious humble pie.

Powerless in the face of the overwhelming obvious, Facebook has become our church meeting and our trade-union Halls, while Twitter has become the full extent of our social dissent. (The Occupy Movement, in being incapable of coming up with even the most basic of demands – such as a ban or limit of lobbyists and equally-matched federal funding for elections for example – quickly became the ultimate media storm-in-a-teacup). Twitter – arguably the most condensed of the social media forms, since it consists almost entirely of sound-bites – is also apparently how the next President intends to run the Free World, the greatest Reality-TV show in History whose ratings will be off the charts. A media-circus which the entire planet will be sickly addicted to for the next four years in a traditional-and-social media bombardment of unimaginable proportions, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, twelve months a year, and perhaps never to end. Which is where, as William S Burroughs pointed out in a memorable Rolling Stone interview before he died, George Orwell got it so very wrong. For in 1984, Orwell envisaged a population forcibly drugged and sat in front of a screen to be indoctrinated, while in 2017, we all do it voluntarily. We are hooked, and we don’t even know it.

Crazy shit huh? You can’t make this stuff up. One of the things that the social events of the past twelve months has really clarified for me (a perspective in life that has very much come from the philosophical consideration of my personal psychedelic experiences)is the elemental truth in the Buddhist perspective that we occupy two Universes: the inner Universe which we can to some extent learn to control, and the outer Universe which we cannot, which the philosophers of ancient India called the world of Maya, or Illusion. This new, all-pervading element of social media is very much the outer world, and yet if we let it, it will quickly occupy our inner world as well. Its views – and not necessarily your own – can infect you and your personal philosophy, arousing such powerful emotions that it can turn you against your own family and friends. Which is really a very sophisticated form of indoctrination and mind-control if you think about it.

This is part of the reason I have decided to start 2017 with a personal social media embargo, or by going digital cold turkey for awhile, if you like. I’m not going to stop using the Internet or email of course–that would be the early 20th century equivalent of returning to riding a horse–and as a photographer I will continue to post on Instagram so people can see my work, But I am going to take a break from my personal account of Facebook, and from the hubris of all its opposing views, if only for the sake of my own sanity. I am fortunate to be friends with a number of the most productive artists of my generation, and I have noticed that other than Instagram, they are rarely on social media (or have assistants in charge of their social media accounts if they are successful enough) since they are too busy making art. And so, in 2017, I am going to try and follow their lead, while ducking out the best I can on this super-saturated 21st century media blitzkrieg, just like I did after 9/11 and Katrina.

In doing so I hope to focus on what’s really going on in my immediate world and inside myself, and try and ignore the constant temptation in a moment of boredom to be a voyeur of other people’s lives on social media, out there amongst the trolls and the digital phantoms. I’m going to do more yoga, I’m going to spend more time outside, I’m going to read more books, and most importantly, I’m going to try and write a couple more, all from the extra time I will undoubtedly save. I also believe that I will smile more, because I won’t be thinking about some obvious crap I read on Facebook, or been suckered into some pointless argument about global warming. I’m going to make art take the time to observe the beauty around me in the world while I still can, thinking not about George Orwell and his dark mechanical vision, but of Aldous Huxley’s, the Father of Psychedelic Philosophy, and his much quoted statement that “it is a little embarrassing that after 45 years of research and study, the best advice I can give people is to be a little kinder to each other.” For as allies turn on allies, and friends turn on friends in the easily offended social media arena, as the fascists and their sophisticated mind-control increasingly turn ourselves against each other, few truer words have ever been said.

I encourage you all to try some digital cold-turkey too. Break free for a little while from your social media accounts, boycott FaceBook and Twitter for a week, or a month, or a year, and who knows we might actually learn to like it. Shield yourself and your children from its insidious grip as much as you can, for the reality is, it is increasingly difficult to function socially these days without it. Since I have a new book (hopefully two) coming out in 2017, I will be forced back on social media eventually — any kind of commercial success in the 21st century virtually demands it. But when I do, I intend to carefully structure my time on it, allowing myself only limited access each day and ultimately creating a personal platform of my own outside of Facebook (i.e. my own blog, gallery, and newsletter) for those who are interested in my work, while hopefully not becoming re-addicted to social media’s seductive beck-and-call.

Hopefully there is some young unsung genius amongst us developing a more truly community-based structure for social media, one which de-powers sophisticated platforms like Facebook and Google (that are designed to make a few people exorbitantly rich, and are increasingly being used as sophisticated agents of control), while empowering us, the very people that social media claims to represent. Proponents of block-chain technology claim that this latest technological innovation could one day allow for the direct and fair elections of officials in which we could all easily participate, and something like that would be truly revolutionary. For on the eve of a Trump Presidency, when the whole world often seems like it’s falling into the grip of a crazy dark dream, it’s time to take the red pill and wake back up in the real world while we still can.

Psychedelic Resources

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Psilocybin Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
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The Psilocybin Experience: What’s the Deal With Magic Mushrooms?
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Psilocybin and Magic Mushroom Resources
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Paul Stamets Profile: Mushroom Guru, Filmmaker, Nutritionist, Scientist
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Microdosing Psilocybin & Common Dosage Explained
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Psilocybin Nasal Spray: Relief for Anxiety, PTSD, and Depression
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Mazatec Mushroom Usage: Notes on Approach, Setting and Species for Curious Psilonauts
A look at traditional Mazatec psilocybin mushroom usage, and a comparison to the cliniical therapeutic approach, with an examination of the Mazatec setting and species used in veladas.

María Sabina: The Mazatec Magic Mushroom Woman
Magic mushrooms are incredibly popular today. How they became introduced to into American culture isn’t usually a topic discussed while tripping on psilocybin fungi. We all may have María Sabina to thank for exposing the Western world to the healing properties of the psilocybin mushroom.

Guide to Magic Mushroom Strains
Are there different types of psilocybin? Read our guide to learn about the different magic mushroom strains and their individual effects.

Kilindi Iyi: Mycologist, Traveler, Teacher
Learn about traveler and mycologist Kilindi Iyi known in the psychedelic community for his research and exploration of psilocybin.

How to Store Shrooms: Best Practices
How do you store shrooms for optimal shelf life? Learn how and why the proper storage method is so important.

Shroom Chocolate Recipes: How to Make Magic Mushroom Chocolates
This recipe provides step by step directions on how you can make mushroom chocolates with the necessary ingredients. Read to learn more!

Why Do People Use Psilocybin? New Johns Hopkins Study
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicines has just published a new study on psychoactive effects of psilocybin. Read here to learn more.

How-To Lemon Tek: Ultimate Guide and Recipe
This master guide will teach you how to lemon tek, preventing the onset of negative effects after consuming psilocybin. Read to learn more!

How to Intensify a Mushroom Trip
Learn about techniques like Lemon tekking, or discover the right time to consume cannabis if you are looking to intensify a mushroom trip.

How to Grow Magic Mushrooms: Step-by-Step
This step-by-step guide will show you how to grow magic mushrooms at home. Read this guide before trying it on your own.

How to Dry Magic Mushrooms: Best Practices
Read to learn more about specifics for the best practices on how to dry magic mushrooms after harvesting season.

How to Buy Psilocybin Spores
Interested in psilocybin mushrooms? We’ll walk you through all you need to know to obtain mushroom spores. Nosh on this delish How To guide.

Hippie Flipping: When Shrooms and Molly Meet
What is it, what does it feel like, and how long does it last? Explore the mechanics of hippie flipping and how to safely experiment.

Having Sex on Shrooms: Good or Bad Idea?
Is having sex on shrooms a good idea or an accident waiting to happen? Find out in our guide to sex on magic mushrooms.

Gold Cap Shrooms Guide: Spores, Effects, Identification
Read this guide to learn more about the different characteristics of gold cap mushrooms, and how they differ from other psilocybin species.

Guide to Cooking with Magic Mushrooms
From cookies to smoothies and sandwiches, we cover various methods of cooking with magic mushrooms for the ultimate snack.

2020 Election: The Decriminalize Psilocybin Movement
Are you curious if mushrooms will follow in marijuana’s footsteps? Read to learn about how the U.S. is moving to decriminalize psilocybin.

Oregon’s Initiative to Legalize Mushrooms | Initiative Petition 34
Oregon continues to push ahead with their initiative to legalize Psilocybin in 2020. The measure received its official title and now needs signatures.

Canada Approves Psilocybin Treatment for Terminally-Ill Cancer Patients
Canada’s Minister of Health, Patty Hajdu approved the use of psilocybin to help ease anxiety and depression of four terminal cancer patients.

Mapping the DMT Experience
With only firsthand experiences to share, how can we fully map the DMT experience? Let’s explore what we know about this powerful psychedelic.

Guide to Machine Elves and Other DMT Entities
This guide discusses machine elves, clockwork elves, and other common DMT entities that people experience during a DMT trip.

Is the DMT Experience a Hallucination? 
What if the DMT realm was the real world, and our everyday lives were merely a game we had chosen to play?

How to Store DMT
Not sure how to store DMT? Read this piece to learn the best practices and elements of advice to keep your stuff fresh.

What Does 5-MeO-DMT Show Us About Consciousness?
How does our brain differentiate between what’s real and what’s not? Read to learn what can 5-MeO-DMT show us about consciousness.

How to Smoke DMT: Processes Explained
There are many ways to smoke DMT and we’ve outlined some of the best processes to consider before embarking on your journey.

How to Ground After DMT
Knowing what to expect from a DMT comedown can help you integrate the experience to gain as much value as possible from your journey.

How To Get DMT
What kind of plants contain DMT? Are there other ways to access this psychedelic? Read on to learn more about how to get DMT.

How DMT is Made: Everything You Need to Know
Ever wonder how to make DMT? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how DMT is made.

Having Sex on DMT: What You Need to Know
Have you ever wondered about sex on DMT? Learn how the God Molecule can influence your intimate experiences.

Does the Human Brain Make DMT? 
With scientific evidence showing us DMT in the brain, what can we conclude it is there for? Read on to learn more.

How to Use DMT Vape Pens
Read to learn all about DMT vape pens including: what to know when vaping, what to expect when purchasing a DMT cartridge, and vaping safely.

DMT Resources
This article is a comprehensive DMT resource providing extensive information from studies, books, documentaries, and more. Check it out!

Differentiating DMT and Near-Death Experiences
Some say there are similarities between a DMT trip and death. Read our guide on differentiating DMT and near-death experiences to find out.

DMT Research from 1956 to the Edge of Time
From a representative sample of a suitably psychedelic crowd, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who couldn’t tell you all about Albert Hofmann’s enchanted bicycle ride after swallowing what turned out to be a massive dose of LSD. Far fewer, however, could tell you much about the world’s first DMT trip.

The Ultimate Guide to DMT Pricing
Check out our ultimate guide on DMT pricing to learn what to expect when purchasing DMT for your first time.

DMT Milking | Reality Sandwich
Indigenous cultures have used 5-MeO-DMT for centuries. With the surge in demand for psychedelic toad milk, is DMT Milking harming the frogs?

Why Does DMT Pervade Nature?
With the presence of DMT in nature everywhere – including human brains – why does it continue to baffle science?

DMT Substance Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
Our ultimate guide to DMT has everything you want to know about this powerful psychedelic referred to as “the spirit molecule”.

DMT for Depression: Paving the Way for New Medicine
We’ve been waiting for an effective depression treatment. Studies show DMT for depression works even for treatment resistant patients.

Beating Addiction with DMT
Psychedelics have been studied for their help overcoming addiction. Read how DMT is helping addicts beat their substance abuse issues.

DMT Extraction: Behind the Scientific Process
Take a look at DMT extraction and the scientific process involved. Learn all you need to know including procedures and safety.

Microdosing DMT & Common Dosages Explained
Microdosing, though imperceivable, is showing to have many health benefits–here is everything you want to know about microdosing DMT.

DMT Art: A Look Behind Visionary Creations
An entire genre of artwork is inspired by psychedelic trips with DMT. Read to learn about the entities and visions behind DMT art.

Changa vs. DMT: What You Need to Know
While similar (changa contains DMT), each drug has its own unique effect and feeling. Let’s compare and contrast changa vs DMT.

5-MeO-DMT Guide: Effects, Benefits, Safety, and Legality
5-Meo-DMT comes from the Sonora Desert toad. Here is everything you want to know about 5-Meo-DMT and how it compares to 4-AcO-DMT.

4-AcO-DMT Guide: Benefits, Effects, Safety, and Legality
This guide tells you everything about 4 AcO DMT & 5 MeO DMT, that belong to the tryptamine class, and are similar but slightly different to DMT.

How Much Does LSD Cost? When shopping around for that magical psychedelic substance, there can be many uncertainties when new to buying LSD. You may be wondering how much does LSD cost? In this article, we will discuss what to expect when purchasing LSD on the black market, what forms LSD is sold in, and the standard breakdown of buying LSD in quantity.   Navy Use of LSD on the Dark Web The dark web is increasingly popular for purchasing illegal substances. The US Navy has now noticed this trend with their staff. Read to learn more.   Having Sex on LSD: What You Need to Know Can you have sex on LSD? Read our guide to learn everything about sex on acid, from lowered inhibitions to LSD users quotes on sex while tripping.   A Drug That Switches off an LSD Trip A pharmaceutical company is developing an “off-switch” drug for an LSD trip, in the case that a bad trip can happen. Some would say there is no such thing.   Queen of Hearts: An Interview with Liz Elliot on Tim Leary and LSD The history of psychedelia, particularly the British experience, has been almost totally written by men. Of the women involved, especially those who were in the thick of it, little has been written either by or about them. A notable exception is Liz Elliot.   LSD Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety LSD, Lysergic acid diethylamide, or just acid is one of the most important psychedelics ever discovered. What did history teach us?   Microdosing LSD & Common Dosage Explained Microdosing, though imperceivable, is showing to have many health benefits–here is everything you want to know about microdosing LSD.   LSD Resources Curious to learn more about LSD? This guide includes comprehensive LSD resources containing books, studies and more.   LSD as a Spiritual Aid There is common consent that the evolution of mankind is paralleled by the increase and expansion of consciousness. From the described process of how consciousness originates and develops, it becomes evident that its growth depends on its faculty of perception. Therefore every means of improving this faculty should be used.   Legendary LSD Blotter Art: A Hidden Craftsmanship Have you ever heard of LSD blotter art? Explore the trippy world of LSD art and some of the top artists of LSD blotter art.   LSD and Exercise: Does it Work? LSD and exercise? Learn why high-performing athletes are taking hits of LSD to improve their overall potential.   Jan Bastiaans Treated Holocaust Survivors with LSD Dutch psychiatrist, Jan Bastiaans administered LSD-assisted therapy to survivors of the Holocaust. A true war hero and pioneer of psychedelic-therapy.   LSD and Spiritual Awakening I give thanks for LSD, which provided the opening that led me to India in 1971 and brought me to Neem Karoli Baba, known as Maharajji. Maharajji is described by the Indians as a “knower of hearts.”   How LSD is Made: Everything You Need to Know Ever wonder how to make LSD? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how LSD is made.   How to Store LSD: Best Practices Learn the best way to store LSD, including the proper temperature and conditions to maximize how long LSD lasts when stored.   Bicycle Day: The Discovery of LSD Every year on April 19th, psychonauts join forces to celebrate Bicycle Day. Learn about the famous day when Albert Hoffman first discovered the effects of LSD.   Cary Grant: A Hollywood Legend On LSD Cary Grant was a famous actor during the 1930’s-60’s But did you know Grant experimented with LSD? Read our guide to learn more.   Albert Hofmann: LSD — My Problem Child Learn about Albert Hofmann and his discovery of LSD, along with the story of Bicycle Day and why it marks a historic milestone.   Babies are High: What Does LSD Do To Your Brain What do LSD and babies have in common? Researchers at the Imperial College in London discover that an adult’s brain on LSD looks like a baby’s brain.   1P LSD: Effects, Benefits, Safety Explained 1P LSD is an analogue of LSD and homologue of ALD-25. Here is everything you want to know about 1P LSD and how it compares to LSD.   Francis Crick, DNA & LSD Type ‘Francis Crick LSD’ into Google, and the result will be 30,000 links. Many sites claim that Crick (one of the two men responsible for discovering the structure of DNA), was either under the influence of LSD at the time of his revelation or used the drug to help with his thought processes during his research. Is this true?   What Happens If You Overdose on LSD? A recent article presented three individuals who overdosed on LSD. Though the experience was unpleasant, the outcomes were remarkably positive.

The Ayahuasca Experience
Ayahuasca is both a medicine and a visionary aid. You can employ ayahuasca for physical, mental, emotional and spiritual repair, and you can engage with the power of ayahuasca for deeper insight and realization. If you consider attainment of knowledge in the broadest perspective, you can say that at all times, ayahuasca heals.

 

Trippy Talk: Meet Ayahuasca with Sitaramaya Sita and PlantTeachers
Sitaramaya Sita is a spiritual herbalist, pusangera, and plant wisdom practitioner formally trained in the Shipibo ayahuasca tradition.

 

The Therapeutic Value of Ayahuasca
My best description of the impact of ayahuasca is that it’s a rocket boost to psychospiritual growth and unfolding, my professional specialty during my thirty-five years of private practice.

 

Microdosing Ayahuasca: Common Dosage Explained
What is ayahuasca made of and what is considered a microdose? Explore insights with an experienced Peruvian brewmaster and learn more about this practice.

 

Ayahuasca Makes Neuron Babies in Your Brain
Researchers from Beckley/Sant Pau Research Program have shared the latest findings in their study on the effects of ayahuasca on neurogenesis.

 

The Fatimiya Sufi Order and Ayahuasca
In this interview, the founder of the Fatimiya Sufi Order,  N. Wahid Azal, discusses the history and uses of plant medicines in Islamic and pre-Islamic mystery schools.

 

Consideration Ayahuasca for Treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Research indicates that ayahuasca mimics mechanisms of currently accepted treatments for PTSD. In order to understand the implications of ayahuasca treatment, we need to understand how PTSD develops.

 

Brainwaves on Ayahuasca: A Waking Dream State
In a study researchers shared discoveries showing ingredients found in Ayahuasca impact the brainwaves causing a “waking dream” state.

 

Cannabis and Ayahuasca: Mixing Entheogenic Plants
Cannabis and Ayahuasca: most people believe they shouldn’t be mixed. Read this personal experience peppered with thoughts from a pro cannabis Peruvian Shaman.

 

Ayahuasca Retreat 101: Everything You Need to Know to Brave the Brew
Ayahuasca has been known to be a powerful medicinal substance for millennia. However, until recently, it was only found in the jungle. Word of its deeply healing and cleansing properties has begun to spread across the world as many modern, Western individuals are seeking spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical well-being. More ayahuasca retreat centers are emerging in the Amazon and worldwide to meet the demand.

 

Ayahuasca Helps with Grief
A new study published in psychopharmacology found that ayahuasca helped those suffering from the loss of a loved one up to a year after treatment.

 

Ayahuasca Benefits: Clinical Improvements for Six Months
Ayahuasca benefits can last six months according to studies. Read here to learn about the clinical improvements from drinking the brew.

 

Ayahuasca Culture: Indigenous, Western, And The Future
Ayahuasca has been use for generations in the Amazon. With the rise of retreats and the brew leaving the rainforest how is ayahuasca culture changing?

 

Ayahuasca Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
The Amazonian brew, Ayahuasca has a long history and wide use. Read our guide to learn all about the tea from its beginnings up to modern-day interest.

 

Ayahuasca and the Godhead: An Interview with Wahid Azal of the Fatimiya Sufi Order
Wahid Azal, a Sufi mystic of The Fatimiya Sufi Order and an Islamic scholar, talks about entheogens, Sufism, mythology, and metaphysics.

 

Ayahuasca and the Feminine: Women’s Roles, Healing, Retreats, and More
Ayahuasca is lovingly called “grandmother” or “mother” by many. Just how feminine is the brew? Read to learn all about women and ayahuasca.

What Is the Standard of Care for Ketamine Treatments?
Ketamine therapy is on the rise in light of its powerful results for treatment-resistant depression. But, what is the current standard of care for ketamine? Read to find out.

What Is Dissociation and How Does Ketamine Create It?
Dissociation can take on multiple forms. So, what is dissociation like and how does ketamine create it? Read to find out.

Having Sex on Ketamine: Getting Physical on a Dissociative
Curious about what it could feel like to have sex on a dissociate? Find out all the answers in our guide to sex on ketamine.

Special K: The Party Drug
Special K refers to Ketamine when used recreationally. Learn the trends as well as safety information around this substance.

Kitty Flipping: When Ketamine and Molly Meet
What is it, what does it feel like, and how long does it last? Read to explore the mechanics of kitty flipping.

Ketamine vs. Esketamine: 3 Important Differences Explained
Ketamine and esketamine are used to treat depression. But what’s the difference between them? Read to learn which one is right for you: ketamine vs. esketamine.

Guide to Ketamine Treatments: Understanding the New Approach
Ketamine is becoming more popular as more people are seeing its benefits. Is ketamine a fit? Read our guide for all you need to know about ketamine treatments.

Ketamine Treatment for Eating Disorders
Ketamine is becoming a promising treatment for various mental health conditions. Read to learn how individuals can use ketamine treatment for eating disorders.

Ketamine Resources, Studies, and Trusted Information
Curious to learn more about ketamine? This guide includes comprehensive ketamine resources containing books, studies and more.

Ketamine Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
Our ultimate guide to ketamine has everything you need to know about this “dissociative anesthetic” and how it is being studied for depression treatment.

Ketamine for Depression: A Mental Health Breakthrough
While antidepressants work for some, many others find no relief. Read to learn about the therapeutic uses of ketamine for depression.

Ketamine for Addiction: Treatments Offering Hope
New treatments are offering hope to individuals suffering from addiction diseases. Read to learn how ketamine for addiction is providing breakthrough results.

Microdosing Ketamine & Common Dosages Explained
Microdosing, though imperceivable, is showing to have many health benefits–here is everything you want to know about microdosing ketamine.

How to Ease a Ketamine Comedown
Knowing what to expect when you come down from ketamine can help integrate the experience to gain as much value as possible.

How to Store Ketamine: Best Practices
Learn the best ways how to store ketamine, including the proper temperature and conditions to maximize how long ketamine lasts when stored.

How To Buy Ketamine: Is There Legal Ketamine Online?
Learn exactly where it’s legal to buy ketamine, and if it’s possible to purchase legal ketamine on the internet.

How Long Does Ketamine Stay in Your System?
How long does ketamine stay in your system? Are there lasting effects on your body? Read to discover the answers!

How Ketamine is Made: Everything You Need to Know
Ever wonder how to make Ketamine? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how Ketamine is made.

Colorado on Ketamine: First Responders Waiver Programs
Fallout continues after Elijah McClain. Despite opposing recommendations from some city council, Colorado State Health panel recommends the continued use of ketamine by medics for those demonstrating “excited delirium” or “extreme agitation”.

Types of Ketamine: Learn the Differences & Uses for Each
Learn about the different types of ketamine and what they are used for—and what type might be right for you. Read now to find out!

Kitty Flipping: When Ketamine and Molly Meet
What is it, what does it feel like, and how long does it last? Read to explore the mechanics of kitty flipping.

MDMA & Ecstasy Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
Our ultimate guide to MDMA has everything you want to know about Ecstasy from how it was developed in 1912 to why it’s being studied today.

How To Get the Most out of Taking MDMA as a Couple
Taking MDMA as a couple can lead to exciting experiences. Read here to learn how to get the most of of this love drug in your relationship.

Common MDMA Dosage & Microdosing Explained
Microdosing, though imperceivable, is showing to have many health benefits–here is everything you want to know about microdosing MDMA.

Having Sex on MDMA: What You Need to Know
MDMA is known as the love drug… Read our guide to learn all about sex on MDMA and why it is beginning to makes its way into couple’s therapy.

How MDMA is Made: Common Procedures Explained
Ever wonder how to make MDMA? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how MDMA is made.

Hippie Flipping: When Shrooms and Molly Meet
What is it, what does it feel like, and how long does it last? Explore the mechanics of hippie flipping and how to safely experiment.

How Cocaine is Made: Common Procedures Explained
Ever wonder how to make cocaine? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the procedures of how cocaine is made.

A Christmas Sweater with Santa and Cocaine
This week, Walmart came under fire for a “Let it Snow” Christmas sweater depicting Santa with lines of cocaine. Columbia is not merry about it.

Ultimate Cocaine Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
This guide covers what you need to know about Cocaine, including common effects and uses, legality, safety precautions and top trends today.

NEWS: An FDA-Approved Cocaine Nasal Spray
The FDA approved a cocaine nasal spray called Numbrino, which has raised suspicions that the pharmaceutical company, Lannett Company Inc., paid off the FDA..

The Ultimate Guide to Cannabis Bioavailability
What is bioavailability and how can it affect the overall efficacy of a psychedelic substance? Read to learn more.

Cannabis Research Explains Sociability Behaviors
New research by Dr. Giovanni Marsicano shows social behavioral changes occur as a result of less energy available to the neurons. Read here to learn more.

The Cannabis Shaman
If recreational and medical use of marijuana is becoming accepted, can the spiritual use as well? Experiential journalist Rak Razam interviews Hamilton Souther, founder of the 420 Cannabis Shamanism movement…

Cannabis Guide: Effects, Common Uses, Safety
Our ultimate guide to Cannabis has everything you want to know about this popular substances that has psychedelic properties.

Cannabis and Ayahuasca: Mixing Entheogenic Plants
Cannabis and Ayahuasca: most people believe they shouldn’t be mixed. Read this personal experience peppered with thoughts from a procannabis Peruvian Shaman.

CBD-Rich Cannabis Versus Single-Molecule CBD
A ground-breaking study has documented the superior therapeutic properties of whole plant Cannabis extract as compared to synthetic cannabidiol (CBD), challenging the medical-industrial complex’s notion that “crude” botanical preparations are less effective than single-molecule compounds.

Cannabis Has Always Been a Medicine
Modern science has already confirmed the efficacy of cannabis for most uses described in the ancient medical texts, but prohibitionists still claim that medical cannabis is “just a ruse.”

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