Salvia Divinorum - Feedback Received - Bilocated

<body stylesrc="../../../technical/backgroundforotherauthors.htm" background="../../../technical/paperwords.jpg" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" vlink="#000080" alink="#800080"> <p align="center"><font size="5" color="#008000">Salvia Divinorum Scotland ~ Experience ~ Selfish Indulgence?</font> <hr> <p><strong><font size="4">On - "Why bother?"</font></strong></p> <blockquote> Yes, Jeremy Narby – I first heard of him the day before I read your suggestion. He was recommended at the end of a book I just read, and I immediately ordered a copy of his book because of a big synchronicity involved (concerning ‘huasca and the knowledge behind building the Pyramids etc!)– your recommendation is <u>clearly</u> an additional ridiculous synchronicity, so I will read him with avid interest. </blockquote> <blockquote> No I do not exclude the Human-Plant adventure here. You do seem to have concluded from my rejection of smoking Salvia again some universal rejection of the plant realms from me – not so. It’s funny, but I remember reading somewhere that traditionally the Mazatecs do not smoke Salvia at all, and indeed are completely against the idea. If so, I think I know why – it strikes me as a kind of dead-end without ultimate utility, and containing great dangers (speculative I admit, and perhaps fear driven). But I will try oral ingestion at least once more (sometime), and other plant allies are still on the cards for me as I wrote earlier. Indeed I should make it clear that I have communed with Salvia on several occasions – on many (6-8?) occasions orally, two of which lasted for over 2 hours. I know the fear aspect of these journeys, it can be intense. But these are qualitatively entirely different when compared with my brief minute of ‘bi-located’ that prompted this series. I may well have fear issues of my own to sort out, but I do not believe that this is all that has prompted my rejection of smoking Salvia again. </blockquote> <blockquote> Indeed – this possible misapprehension about my refusing <i>all</i> plant allies is perhaps behind much that you argue <i>against me</i> with in ‘why bother?’. I agree with much of what you write (perhaps disappointingly in terms of this dialogue). I can sum this up quite succinctly: I have no problem with anyone doing anything at all - with power plants or anything else – as long as, in your terms, our individual and collective rights are not being trampled on. But our common-sense institutionalised attitudes lead us ALL to do exactly that <u>every day</u>! We each have to make a concerted, pragmatic and daily effort in order to overcome this in any way – AND THIS COMES FIRST, not a vague, someday second - it is too urgent... </blockquote> <blockquote> As you acknowledge, in the plant realms notions such as ‘human action today’ can take on a highly abstract and irrelevant flavour – but <u>they are no</u>t. This is the danger. In a concrete sense these are immensely urgent and unique times, and I believe that we must walk before we can run. So my emphasis is on what we know first, before the unknown. By all means commune with the plants to develop the known – that is their gift. But if what is already known – such as the knowledge embedded in existing institutions – is thrown out like the baby with the proverbial bathwater – as utter failure, irrelevance – whatever – then I think there is a big problem – and alienation is an excellent term for it. </blockquote> <blockquote> I want to finish with this point. You said in an earlier reply that you did not believe that people change their actions for ideological reasons (ie smoking is bad for you). But this is too quick – people do stop smoking, undergoing great stress – for ideological reasons. The list is actually endless where ideology <u>helps</u> changes in peoples actions and behaviour patterns – all religions, all progressive (and indeed regressive) political/sociological movements (what about female emancipation, the end of slavery, vegetarianism/veganism/ing, anti-racism?). Again it is a complex process – a dialectic perhaps – but ideological shifts and persuasions are not to be sniffed at or underestimated. <a href="../../../experience/selfishindulgence/yourenotkidding/reason.html" target="_blank">[my revised position...]</a>  I am personally not enamoured with the idea of ‘protest on the streets’ and anti-corporate action as it is currently construed and acted upon – I think it is generally naïve, reactionary and plays right into the hands of those it nominally opposes. I think the real thing is applying our total knowledge to the only person we can legitimately tell what to do – ourselves – and it is no easy task, and a never ending one. I think this engaged difficulty is why everyone resists the notion, and looks for someone else to blame/save the world – but that does not mean that it is wrong. Plants are a tool to this end – yet I often get the feeling that you believe the case to be vice-versa – and perhaps this is the only disagreement left between us now. </blockquote> <blockquote> Oh yes – and if we do reach a consensus – I think that is where the real work begins. </blockquote> <hr> <table border="0" width="100%"> <tr> <td width="10%"> <p align="left"><a href="../../../experience/selfishindulgence/index.html#whybother"><Back</a></td> <td width="14%"> <p align="center"><a href="../../../experience.html">Experience</a></td> <td width="15%"> <p align="center"><a href="../../../home.html">Main Menu</a></td> <td width="15%"> <p align="center"><a href="../../../salvia.html">Salvia Menu</a></td> <td width="26%"> <p align="center"><a href="../../../salvia/effects.html">Salvia Effects</a> / <a href="../../../salvia/effects/feedback/index.html">Feedback</a></td> <td width="13%"> <p align="center"><a href="../../../menu2.html">Menu 2</a></td> <td width="10%"> <p align="right"><a href="../../../contact.html" title="contact details and links to information on salvia prices and availability">Contact</a></td> </tr> </table> </body>