NP: Q re Jung Order

[Joseph Tracy]

As far as  New Age, channeling, the lovely and vivaciously weird Shirley Mclaine etc., not much to say . I was headed in a different direction at that time.  As far as psychedelics and meditation, It would be a very intense form of meditation, but there is  a guy named Mike Siegel who is trying to engineer a biofeedback system that might guide people toward transcendent mind states( let’s not quibble about terms, if you have taken psychedelics you know that none are adequate). His preparatory work included monitoring brain states for psychedelic use and for advanced practitioners of yoga/meditation. There did seem to be signifigant similarities in his research but  these were serious yogis. .  I have only started meditating daily for 2 months thoghh qi gong does similar things and I have been practicing for 4 years this month). With meditation I have only had 2 experiences even remotely resembling psychedelics.  I am an artist and pretty good with visual imagination, and these 2 times were very pleasant and mindbending experiences but far less psychologically or visually intense than psychedelics.  They are also for me anyway harder to achieve. Buddhism opposes inebriants  and that clouds the issue. but I know at least one  decades long Tibetan Buddhist who uses psychedelics. So to indulge what may come off as new age lingo-  the idea that plant compounds have a role in the spritual ecology of humans and the larger planet does not seem the least bit far fetched or problematic to me. But I do suspect there are other routes into very intense altered states.

One thing that is rarely discussed with psychedelics is the long term effects on a person’s outlook  and thinking. IMO the thrill ride is great but not the main show.

Siegel:   https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-456-engineering-enlightenment-2/ <https://psychedelicsalon.com/podcast-456-engineering-enlightenment-2/>



> On Feb 16, 2016, at 12:33 PM, Allan Balliett <allan.balliett at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> The most misleading idea, though, would have to be the idea that meditation can be a replacement for psychedelics, if you ask me.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20160216/7b2cc156/attachment.html>