tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5595377920075277072.post4782709159612279810..comments2024-03-16T18:25:58.508+00:00Comments on Andy Letcher: On walking with plantsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03200561583631896799noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5595377920075277072.post-22947922719890170112014-12-05T00:49:25.984+00:002014-12-05T00:49:25.984+00:00This inspired me to share some thoughts of my own ...This inspired me to share some thoughts of my own about entheogen use, if you're interested: https://forestdoor.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/entheogen-use-in-spirit-work/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5595377920075277072.post-20841612816149508062014-11-18T18:49:40.290+00:002014-11-18T18:49:40.290+00:00For Scythia, certainly, provided Herodotus wasn...For Scythia, certainly, provided Herodotus wasn't making it all up. Alas, he's a far from reliable witness.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03200561583631896799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5595377920075277072.post-27732730455658185512014-11-18T16:27:50.764+00:002014-11-18T16:27:50.764+00:00 Do Scythian Sweat lodges, with hemp-seeds in the ... Do Scythian Sweat lodges, with hemp-seeds in the rock-pit, count as evidence?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5595377920075277072.post-11921098554877851832014-11-12T23:49:58.440+00:002014-11-12T23:49:58.440+00:00Hi Andy,
As the author of the Facebook post quoted...Hi Andy,<br />As the author of the Facebook post quoted, I should point out that I'm not denigrating people for using hallucinogens, certainly not if such use is part of a long-developed culture into which their use is integrated. In my youth, I bought into the 60s idea that hallucinogens were a short-cut to God. As part of the drug sub-culture I soon discovered that most people in it were using drugs purely recreationally with no interest in consciousness-expansion. Confusing my own motivation led me to a mental breakdown at age 18. I was able to rebuild my mind. Others I knew were not and became permanently mentally ill.<br />OK, there were transcendent experiences too, but, for me, they were outweighed by confusion and paranoia. That's why it was such a delight for me to find that Otherworld journeying, shape-shifting and the like could be accomplished without ingesting plants or chemicals, and without the mental and physical problems that can accompany their ingestion. This is why Ronald Hutton's observation, in 'Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination,' that some Siberian peoples hold that you can't be much of a shaman if you need drugs to get you there resonated so strongly with me.<br />I'll happily grant that the lack of evidence for hallucinogens in British prehistory is not necessarily evidence for a lack of same. There is evidence for the use of mead as a mood-altering substance, including some suggestive of its use in spiritual contexts (e.g. the Irish goddess, Maeve, whose name means 'mead' and 'intoxicating').<br />I'm currently reading a rather fine book called 'The Wolves of Heaven' by Karl H. Schlesier. In it, he postulates (as others have) the existence of a nexus of ideas and practices that we must reluctantly now call 'shamanic' that spread from Asia across the whole of Europe in one direction and into the Americas in the other. He lists about a hundred parallels between Northern Siberian beliefs and practices and those of the Cheyenne of the American Plains. These include animism, a cosmic tree, spirit lodges, animals regarded as sacred, hunting as sacred ritual, shamanic use of drums, rattles, feathers, and so on and on. I haven't yet finished the book, but so far have found no references to drug use at all. <br />On my recent trip to the Quileute and Makah reservations in Washington State, I saw signs everywhere advising residents to steer clear of alcohol and drug use.<br />It seems (and I accept I may be wrong) that the use of hallucinogens in spiritual or 'shamanic' contexts becomes prevalent only in the 'Peyote belt' in the more arid southern states of the US and then on into South America. In Europe and Northern Asia, not so much.<br />The Hindu Vedas mention soma, but this (and again I may be wrong) seems to be ephedra, still used in small, symbolic quantities in Zoroastrian rituals under the name hoama. Ephedra is not an hallucinogen, it's more like an amphetamine.<br />Underlying all this is another concern, which is a sense that people seeking a spiritual path that connects them with the land and their ancestors would perhaps do well to look to their own land and ancestors before trying to borrow someone else's - Wannabee Indian Syndrome.<br />There are people in Britain and Europe who will only use a herb or feather in ceremonies if they've been flown over from America. In Britain and Europe, we do have birds and sacred herbs of our own, usually to be found simply bywalking out of your front door.<br />The current buzz around Ayahuasca seems to me another example of this quest for exoticism that ignores the spirits of our own land and ancestry.<br />Much love and many blessings,<br />Greywolf (so called as a result of a vision in a sweat lodge, for which there is evidence in British prehistory :-) ) xxAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01639654929396911073noreply@blogger.com