I live in western Washington. The gray and the short daylight is depressing, and the damp cold spells aching joints for a lot of us.
But one big positive to this area is that it's one of the few places where Nature isn't trying to kill you daily. No poisonous snakes or insects, only one poisonous spider (comfortingly named Brown Recluse ), no annual tornados or hurricanes.
Tucson may be in my future for sun and dry warmth, but it has rattlesnakes, coral snakes, scorpions, tarantula hawks. ...
Ah, yes, the monsoon. I was in Tucson for part of that last year, and discovered another unexpected predator. I'd only been there in the dry before, so I had no idea that the desert could suddenly produce a thousand mosquitoes per square yard.
"Please consider doing this! It takes only a few seconds." Done -- very exciting. I think the movie would be a great success, and if it would be possible to make a genuine investment in it, with the possibility of a return, count me in.
One of the truly great things developing out of the rot and disintegration of Hollywood, the rise of various viable independent production outfits. This includes new Christian outfits like Pureflix and Angel Studios, who are raising the bar on Christian productions, putting out higher quality material that tells compelling stories, including THE STORY. Not only giving Christians greater examples of what their narratives could be, but drawing in the unreached. With things like Sound of Freedom, Shift, The Chosen and others, we live in exciting times. Andrew Klavan, my favorite Daily Wire personailty, says one of the worst things conservatives have done is dismiss the importance of the arts and storytelling, regarding them as frivolous and unworthy, effectively ceding them, while focusing on governmental policy and business. Well...how has that worked out? Politics and policy is downstream of culture. And abandoning the academy and the arts, they let the Left conduct their long march almost without meaningful opposition. Sure, National Review stood there and shouted "STOP!" for a time, but unless you are willing to force the issue, meet it head on, all you are doing is making noise, becoming an impotent, empty, increasingly muted former cacophany. It was a step. Then there was Rush. But now, the conservative movement, and the Christian community has woken up far more widely and broadly and realized all of these fronts are important, not just what the bow tie crowd prefers, who never, in the end, managed to conserve anything. FRom Angel Studios, to alternate media, to the Iron Age, to Gamergate and more, a combo of this broad guerilla campaign and the cultural rot fully infesting the Left, Angel Studios is just one more light shining forth in the darkness. Amen.
We just found Wingfeathers from Angel Studios 2 weeks ago and my oldest is in love with it. I love the cooperative funding model. Such a glad alternative to the centralized, closed-off Hollywood model. I'd love to hear more about their other works. It's wonderful they're considering Live Not By Lies. Interest expressed!
There is The Chosen, of course, one of the most engaging depictions of The Gospels and jesus's earthly ministry I've ever seen. And then there is The Shift, a science fiction story coming out about alternate universes, choices, temptation and evil.
There may be someone before Trump who was as responsible for the infantilization of the capacity for thought in conservatives as Rush Limbaugh, but if so, I am not aware of who it is.
"There may have been someone...infantilization of the capacity of thought..." That so? Please, be specific. Also, your voting record would be helpful, before one can take you seriously. Also, please cite what you consider "non-infantilized" political thought, and why what you consider that, is in fact that.
BTW, me personally, I do not consider Rush's contributions as a political philosopher to be his primary contribution. Rather, is ability to not only successfully mount an argument on the public stage and dominate, but have fun doing so. He did not take the Left seriously, and this drove them nuts. That's part of what also drives them nuts about TRump, relentlessly mocking them. If it is one thing they cannot stand, is being mocked, not given their undue due as "intellectuals." There is nothing in the modern Left that qualifies as that, and there has not been for a very long time. Leftist thought in the West for a very long time has been untenable, intellectually speaking.
His whole schtick was anti - intellectual. Have you forgotten the constant references to "intellectual fuddy duddies?" Granted, he was an entertainer, but that conservatives would take him as a thought leader shows how unserious conservatives had become by the 90s. Anthony Esolen is what a leader of conservative thought should be. He actually tries to celebrate the good, the true, and the beautiful. How many "conservatives" do you think would be interested in reading him?
And, of course, it's only gotten worse with Trump. Here's a shocking fact: politics, as opposed to flimflammery, is about leading. It's about making serious policy speeches and having something like purposefulness in doing what you do. It isn't about demagoging your way through a political career.
"Its about making speeches." What a load of crap. No. Politics is about POLICY. It is in the name. What you are talking about is style. And I'm sorry, not everyone is inspired by your preferred stuffy, bow tie style. Yeah, and your voting record is not that of a rock ribbed conservative. Who did you vote for past Bush, btw?
Trump, for all his faults and issues, as far as policy goes, not those speeches that make you all gooey, was a conservative. Other than his COVID policy, he was the most conservative, pro-American admin since Reagan. Further, he enraged the Left, and hated them. And called out the Deep STate, though he was not nearly as effective against them, partially due to his inexperience, partially due to the fact that he, like most of us, had no idea how deep the corruption actually went. Now we know. And the next Republican president will be expected to address that. IT is vital to the future of the country to take a serious axe to the entrenched bureacracy.
Tee, you say you're a Christian. Maybe you are. I am a Christian. You act like a little snot. I'm 71 years old. Don't address me that way.
It's obvious that you're either young or naive or both. Our politics has been throttled in the last few decades by a lack of people who can make coherent policy addresses. As a reference, go to YouTube and watch President Kennedy's speech on Medicare at Madison Square Garden in the summer of 1962. For that matter, watch President Eisenhower's Farewell Speech of January 17, 1961, in which he warned about the threat of the military industrial complex to the nation's future.
Speechmaking used to be understood as intrinsic to how a political leader leads, not considered "style." But you get angry with me for pointing out Trump's forsaking of it for jump 'n' jive demagoguery. You're eager for Trump, but for DeSantis, a serious man, who has a record of accomplishment, not so much, right?
Trump's hold on people reveals how dumbed down and how crass the nation has become. If you are a Christian, you should understand that America's crisis is spiritual, not political.
I voted for Bush in 2000 because I thought he'd be better than Gore. I'm certain I was wrong. Gore would never have pursued Bush's disastrous foreign and military policy. If Pat Buchanan had had any chance to win, I'd have voted for him.
I haven't voted since 2000. Politics can't fix this country. And what it could do, it won't. Pat Buchanan is my idea of the kind of President we needed. Unfortunately, he could have become President only of a country which doesn't exist anymore.
Our politics throttled by speech. Wow, what a load of crap. That speeches are the magic. Yes, I am a Christian, so if it is fair game to say what one "acts like," You act like an old fogey stuffed shirt, while at the same time a naive child. The idea that magic speeches made it happen, you might as well be saying fairy dust does it. Actual POLICY makes things happen. Or doesn't. That is the actual mechanisms of state. Age is merely a number. Respect is earned. YOu are a stranger, and at best, you warrant courtesy as such. But since you came in swinging, that is also out. Since you have followed up with the same, well, we are where we are. And since Christ also had sharp words for those he deemed deserved it, and several examples can be produced, well, the Christian card does nor work here. I"m not swearing and I'm not talking about your Mom. I'm talking about you and your fake civility, Mr. Smith datedness and your pretenses.
Only an imbecile would be a "rock ribbed conservative," and only an imbecile would be a doctrinaire liberal, if that even existed anymore. We have a hard and crazy Left and hard and crazy Trumpers like you.
Why are you so sure I think Trump was terrible on policy? He did some good things, such as his federal court appointments and his at least talking a good game about trade policy and sealing the border ( and trade policy, I remind you, is a break with the rock ribbed conservatism of the last fifty years, although it's very much in keeping with the conservatism of a hundred years ago ).
So, why didn't he seal the border? He was Commander - in - Chief. Why didn't he do what Eisenhower did with the unfortunately named Operation Wetback? If I were President, I'd damned sure seal the border. I've lived most of my life in Houston, and have a rafter of horror stories about what illegal immigration did to my old neighborhood thirty years ago.
And only an imbecile would look to a guy like you and see either principle or would allow a cretin like you to set terms. Go back to your George Will columns. The real world needs action.
Demanding someone else's voting record in order to judge their opinion is a dick move.
When Trump was on the rise, Limbaugh told a story on the air at least twice about how the two men made plans to golf, and when they got together on a Sunday they had been unaware that it was Easter. Limbaugh considered Trump a man of his word for keeping their Easter Sunday golf date before half-heartedly going to be with his family, including whichever wife he was with at the time. Limbaugh told this story with humor and reverence, and the Dittoheads didn't notice or didn't care that neither man, neither champion of whatever passes for cheap conservativism, knew it was the most important of Christian holidays.
Lecturing someone on policy issues, yet refusing to demo your own policy inclination is disingenuous. Winging on style (hate your tomfoolery, but soaring speeches are the mark of a serious policy maker, LOL). Sorry, man, it is in the secrecy of the voting booth you see the true heart. And it is telling you won't show yours. That you are more about ceremony and outward demonstrations of symbols of piety, rather than where the heart is. BTW, did not vote for Trump to be a preacher. I voted for a President. I only care about policy. And him, as opposed to Hillary, no contest. Same with that pervert pedo, Biden.
Cold as in "far from the answer / you're getting cold", or it was cold to bring up MDJ? If you're talking conserva-points reduced to catchphrases and "hot takes", nobody did it better than Morton Downey, Jr.
Too be fair to Limbaugh, he spent twenty years regurgitating NATIONAL REVIEW talking points and it made him a multi-millionaire. Limbaugh actually learned from his dittohead listeners on issues like immigration. Further, Limbaugh isn't bone-stupid like Sean Hannity.
All true. Look, I appreciated Limbaugh in the early 90s because I admired his having hit on an original and extremely entertaining formula for a talk show. I wish I had stopped to consider how deracinating of thoughtful conservatism his schtick might turn out to be.
Limbaugh was actually funnier at the beginning. NATIONAL REVIEW put him on a magazine cover about 1994 and Limbaugh began to take himself more seriously and became less funny.
This sounds amazing! I will do this and post this article in Alisa Childer's patreon group as well, and other groups. I guess the question I have is would this focus primarily on the first half and their stories or the second half on what american christians need to learn as well? I would love to see a video series to go with the book geared for bible study small groups to use. Either way I'll be supporting this!
Re: psychedelics - I’m pretty sure the guy who invented the wheel never intended it to be used on a Tesla. Nevertheless, the two technologies work together like milk and cookies. I’m not saying that these substances can’t be dangerous. They can be. But there’s one take away that I think gets missed in that letter. You absolutely must have a *context* for using any psychotropic. Going into it Willy nilly, dabbling, and without direction is a recipe for disasters. Shamans were taught the terrain. They knew what was safe, what beings were best avoided, and they went in with intention. They had a cosmology, psycho spiritual safety nets, and often times actual safety nets like experienced community members. If you’re just as rigorous, these things aren’t nearly as pernicious as someone who goes in open ended.
As a non-Christian, I’d ask the same of any vision of the saints. 😜 But there are mechanisms that they’d use. To give you a technical example, first off, you have to be very careful about trusting anything you encounter during a psychedelic trip. An entity also needs to be seen in context. Beings belong in certain places and should be doing certain things. Variations in behavior often connote that they are deceitful. An experienced shaman will also form relationships with certain beings. Over time, he seeks out their help specifically because they’ve been helpful in the past. This is the good tree bearing good fruit. (Some shamans will actually form relationships with obviously malevolent entities, but that’s an entirely different subject).
But more to the point, and this is my perspective as a Zen Buddhist - you have to be careful with any entity, even the empirically benevolent ones. There’s a koan that goes “if you meet the Buddha on the street, kill him”. Altered states can be leveraged to encounter strange creatures, but they’re better employed for the purposes of our own liberation. Altered states attained by meditation and psychotropics help us probe our own consciousness and aid us in dissolving our psychological obstacles and seeing the world as it is. They are a tool, not an excuse to go dabbling in the distant antipodes of consciousness.
And as a Christian, my first check is going to be the Word of God, not the "saints." It is what it was given to us for. Check any "entity" and anything they have to say against that. "Test the spirits." Also, the Word strongly warns against "pharmakeia" (sp) or drug use, just for this reason. There is a whole list of practices that are to be avoided, for the doorways that can open and the entities that can obtain permissions to interact with you as a result. Because unless they come with the authority of God, they are not benevolent. They seek to deceive and ultimately destroy you, especially your soul.
My point being, nothing you offer has anything against which to check it. Only their word and your belief in your own perception. That's it. In my experience, that is not enough. And there is a whole ream of people who have been caught up in this deception in various ways, who plunged in to depression, depravity and in the worst cases, were destroyed. Ultimately, this all plays to vanity, that "spirits" selected you out for guiding you to your individual enlightenment, etc. But it is all deception.
I say this as a guy who has dabbled himself in such practices (not with drugs) and has had experiences. Nothing overtly negative, but was shielded from anything really bad and delivered from the same by the Holy Spirit. And I personally know of people who also dabbled in such and attracted the attention of entities and only through prayerful intervention, were they rescued from it.
My brother and 3 friends rented a cabin in upstate NY, and took LSD in the early 80's. During their trip they ripped a bible to shreds and mocked it as b.s. (he bragged about this to me at the time)
After this experience my brother became an angry atheist. Before it he was like me, a kid who went to church because Mom and Dad made us. We knew our faith but we really didn't take it seriously.
My brother has had a brutal life, unfaithful wife, divorce, kids who despise his 2nd staunchly atheist wife.
One of those cabin-friends was shot in the back of the head in a bar in upper Manhattan. Another hung himself in his final year of college. The third became a well-known alcoholic in my neighborhood, who seems to have cleaned up at around the age of 50.
Are the hardships and tragedies of these 4 guys related to the cabin incident? Did demonic entities use this opportunity to "move in" on these guys? That can't be proven. The drug was not necessarily the problem, more the renunciation of everything my parents tried to instill in us. From what I've read and seen about exorcisms, there is a surprising correlation and "legalese" involving these kinds of acts. In the gospel Jesus leaves the towns he isn't welcome in.
The two friends who died were not from religious and prayerful families. My brother, and the former alcoholic are from very faithful prayerful Catholic families......again, draw your own conclusions.
Oh of course there’s checks. Specifically within Buddhism as I mentioned it, but don’t forget that indigenous communities have been using psychotropics probably longer than we were actual, biological humans. I respect your beliefs and glad they supply you with peace and guidance, but I would also say that there incredible sophistication to these practices that you might not have had exposure to. The real, very real, and absolute danger is when these practices are undertaken without that sophisticated context. I think the subsequent posts in this thread clearly demonstrate how far off the rails one can go when there isn’t a tradition hemming that experience in.
IF that tradition is built upon falsehoods, it does not matter. Length one may suppose it was practiced also does not matter. Mankind was fallen almost from the beginning. Resorting to drugs is just symptomatic of it. Building rituals around it does not make it any less so.
Rule 1, never seek out spirits. This dates back to Old Testament.
Rule 2, in case of unsought spiritual encounter, keep in mind the possibilities of both self-deception and of deception by a real being. (St. Paul)
This is why the Catholic Church is hyper-cautious and skeptical about visions and apparitions. Very few are "approved," and that only means that they aren't contrary to the faith, not that you have to believe in them.
"Test the spirits." This is basic. That is why we always, always, start with the Word. When I was kind of out in the wilderness, considering all kinds of things, one thing that helped eventually turn me around was messages supposedly from people who were using psychics/mediums. Also, some things from near death experiences. In the case of near death experiences, some of those are an actual encounter with the divine, something Godly. Some of them are not. It may have been spiritual, but it was not of God. On psychics and mediums, those are flatly forbidden by the Bible, and those that are not fakery (which is most of them) WILL be something demonic. I do believe, in rare circumstances, usually around the passing of a loved one, the Lord does allow a moment of contact at times to help in the grieving process. But the characteristic of such an encounter is to put the recipient at peace, not to encourage daliance with the esoteric. My father, who is both a devout man of faith and a rigid man of reason (he was an engineer at NASA during the moon shots) was of the opinion that souls went straight to their final reward, no hanging around. However, when my brother was killed in the early 90s in an auto accident just after graduating from college, my father reported that one morning, he recalled a moment where he experienced the presence of my brother, and Chip assuring him that he was ok, to not worry about him. And that was that. Many years later, just last year, in fact, my mother passed away (my father several years before that). The following week, my father's younger brother, William, also went on to Glory. HE had been slowly deteriorating from Parkinson's for many years and at this point, was almost comatose. When he died, the week after my mother passed, he actually got buried first. Because my mother had gone from COVID, quarantine procedures delayed her final repose. So when I went to my uncle's funeral, a few days before my mother's, but over a week after Mom had died, I show up at the pre-funeral reception, hobnobbing with cousins. Two of them came up to me with strange looks on their faces, asking me, "Have you heard?" "Heard what?" I responded. They told me the night before Uncle William died, after all that time, lying still and comatose in his bed, with only sensors revealing he was still alive, he sat up in bed, staring at a space in the room. "Mary is here," he said. "Mary who?," they asked him. "J.B.s Mary," he said, and he pointed at that space. J.B. is my father, his older brother. Mary is my mother, and wife of J.B. Apparently this happened one more time in the night. He then died. This phenomenon, a soul comforting someone left behind, or one ushering someone passing onto the hearafter, happens a lot. In my mother's case, there was lots of setup. After I got out of the Army, I went to work at a local radio station as well as a local paper. The radio gig is mornings, so I would get up with the dawn patrol, do the show, then swing by my folk's house and do a Bible reading with them. After Dad passed and William's condition grew worse, my mother would pray for either his recovery or in the Lord's mercy, bring him home. This went on for a few years. Then the event I described happened. I can tell you this. Knowing my mother, if the folks on the other side had given her the option, she absolutely would have been part of the welcome wagon bring my Uncle home.
Then, on the other hand, you have some stories from NDEs or psychics, telling very different sorts of tales. From mediums channelling "loved ones" who are telling grieving ones stories that increasingly sound at odds with the character of the people they supposedly are communicating with, even being told to do things that do not square with their character or with the Word of God.
Or NDEs, where a suffering person supposedly has an encounter with Jesus, but they are told they are "perfect." When one checks with the Word of God, we are not, that is not how Jesus would describe any of us. We are loved. We are cherished. And for those who accept his gift, we are saved and reconciled before the Lord almighty. But we are not perfect. If we were, he would not have needed to come here. And he's not going to tell us an untruth just to make us feel better. "I am the Way, the Truth and the Light. No one comes to the Father but by me."
This is not some weird quirk of unproven evolution. This is not messing around with forbidden chemicals. This is the Word of God, which is our primary tool upon which to square everything. Christ himself, when confronted by Satan in the wilderness, countered every temptation with a quote from Scripture, "It is written..."
Our first check, ALWAYS, is the Word. And those who think they don't need it, have no way of checking the authenticty of anything they present. So when they begin to give you nonsense about "counsel from spirits", or how "there is no sin, it is only development of your soul for the next stage of enlightenment," yes, I've heard all these, these are lies from the pits of Hell, intended to lead you astray. By entities who may appear as benevolent, enlightened, who only mean to help you. But check what they are saying, what they are telling you against the Word.
BTW, I mentioned mediumship. One Bible story I'm using for my coming course is the Witch of Endor. King Saul goes to this witch to get some insight into a coming battle. And while there, in the course of her working, along comes the spirit of the Prophet Samuel. Two things interesting to note about this story. 1. The witch was as surprised as Saul was that this apparition appeared. Which tells me that she normally did film-flammery, and to have something actually manifest was shocking to her as well. 2. The verses describe Saul as KNOWING beyond a doubt this was Samuel. And, as a true prophet of the Lord, there on the Lord's authority, gave him a true prophecy, telling him that his time was at hand, and both he and his sons would die on the coming battlefield. The Lord's judgement against Saul was coming. Saul was that far gone to even seek the assistance of a medium, but God used that instance to give him a true word of judgement, and in a sense, a mercy.
This really has nothing to do with your thoughtful post but...Robert Pirsig's son, who appears in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as Pirsig's passenger, was stabbed in an attempted robbery outside the Zen Center in San Francisco back in the 70s. A senseless crime but what always stood out for me was the contrast between the serenity of the Zen Center (I've been there) and the random violence outside (been there too). RIP, Chris Pirsig.
Suzuki Roshi’s own daughter was murdered by a deranged student that he had taken in out of compassion. That places seems cursed, but you could probably say the same about most of San Fran these days.
There's an interesting book about the SF Zen Center, Shoes Outside the Door by Michael Downing. It seems like that place sowed the seeds of its own destruction.
It very much did. There’s a lot of complexity to that issue - one I’ve only really started to pick through. Suzuki, out of the, say, four big names associated with zen in the 60s, was actually the most successful. The other three were mired in corruption, sexual scandals, and all sorts of other stupidity. On the one hand, there’s utterly no excuse for what they did. On the other hand, they led impeccable monastic lives before coming to America. The best I can make of it is that these guys had utterly no idea how to handle the sexual revolution, liberalization, and other features of American culture they were essentially just dropped into. They also had no idea how to deal with the unblinking, cult-like reverence their students showed them. Mix all of that together and it was an recipe for pretty much everything that happened. The current crop of western teachers have faired much better. Most of them were brought up in the states, know the culture, and aren’t put on the same pedestal as an “exotic master from the East”. Stuff still happens, sure, but it’s much better than it was.
Melting your brain for any reason is not justifiable.
It's also instructive to note that shaman culture is exclusively present in third-world societies. Cultures who accomplish anything never bother with such nonsense
Except for China, India, Tibet, the entirety of Western Europe, most of the tech sector from the 60s to the present day, more than a few physicists of renown, much of advanced pre Colombian South America, Ancient Greece, and potentially early Christianity. But apart from those, yes, all writhing melty brained morons.
What asia created was entirely independent of drug use. Note that today, as China rises to a massive world power, they are simultaneously one of the strictest anti-drug cultures on the planet.
Pre-Columbian South America was a shithole so no surprise there.
As for the west coast tech sector, speaking as a person who has studied and worked in those circles for the past 10 years, I can say that absolutely no one seriously thinks working on psychs is a good idea. You'll get the creative morons in management to take shrooms to give themselves some sort of "inspiration", but usually the general worker is all talk when it comes to drugs. 99% of people here try a couple times and never pursue it afterwards because you can't work in any serious capacity under the influence.
Let me put it another way: rape is a facet of culture throughout history. Some of the most powerful emperors, businessmen, artists, and movie directors were rapists. So should we encourage rape for a director to produce great movies? No.
Nope. I've done both quite extensively in my early 20s.
Growing up was realizing what a waste of time it was. It's no exaggeration to say my life became infinitely better quitting all that and becoming a more serious Christian
My family and I were staying in a B&B just outside of Doolin, Ireland last fall. It was located off a tiny road surrounded by farms about 1/2 mile from the sea. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I went outside for a smoke. Outside over the pastures and sea was the clearest sky full of stars I have ever seen in my life. It was like being on the edge of eternity. I’d love to have a cottage there just a short walk to a pub!
Is Doolin still a major music mecca? I remember sitting in a quiet pub there many decades ago when a jam session suddenly broke out and the place was hopping. It was a delightful surprise.
The interior of Maine is made up of thousands of small lakes and ponds. In August of 1984, I spent one of the best weeks of my life at an isolated plywood shack on Lake Nicatous. The fishing was good. On a clear night you could see a million stars in the sky. It was spectacularly beautiful. I felt very small and insignificant. My problem with Maine is how cold it is at night even in August.
Southwest of Cambridge, MD is the lightly settled heart of the Chesapeake's crab country. The Blackwater Nature Reserve is located there and I used to take my children fishing there on Saturdays and drink beer. The nearby towns are small. Taylors Island. Hoopers Island. Madison. Woolford, where Harriet Tubman was raised. Men crab and arster the Chesapeake. The sika deer- actually part of the elk family- roam the marshlands. Most of the area is pretty isolated. This is the best part of Maryland's Eastern Shore. Suburban Washingtonians want to build a bridge and a highway through it so they can reach their beloved Ocean City a half-hour faster. It would ruin Crab Country to do so. And it would ruin the Blackwater.
Portland, ME, has a lot of B2B payment companies because Maine is where trucks on the east coast start their runs, loaded with potatoes. I had an appointment to close a consulting deal at one of these companies and was told to park in a garage next door to their offices. It was one of those corkscrew ramp situations and I knew if I didn't park on the roof I'd never find my car again. So I went up to the top and when I got out of my car I saw Casco Bay spread out before me. It was a cool (vide infra) cloudless August day. It's called Calendar Bay because there are 365 islands in it. During the call I found out very few people in Maine have air conditioning on account of they don't need it. My wife and I that fall spent a wonderful week on Peaks Island, which can only be reached by ferry, though you can bring your car. We ALMOST retired to Maine, until we found out just how very cold indeed it gets in the winter.
The interior of Maine is the wildest place east of the Mississippi, excepting northern Michigan and the Youper I suppose.
I spent a few years living in an old shotgun shack in Texas hill country. No A/C. Man, I tell you can ADJUST to the heat but winters there kicked my butt. Books, a few old movies, a river to swim in and squirrel hunting is all you need.
Unfortunately, winter in Austin usually lasts about a week! Be glad you're not here now - 20+ days straight of over a hundred degrees, with no end in sight.
Here in Delaware I biked Tuesday from Rehoboth down to Bethany on Coastal Highway which goes along the beach through wetlands there, and I saw scads of marshmallows in bloom along the road-- the wetland plant that is, not the confection :), though I'm told that there's a connection between the two. They look like hibiscus with big showy white and pink flowers.
Try winter in the NEK ( north east kingdom) of Vermont on Al lake on the border with Canada. Can get 60 below wind chill . That is a wicked thing. Texans have no concept of this in general.
How cold are those winters? I assume we're not talking sub zero in Texas. You can dress for the cold after all. I bike through the winter here in the mid-Atlantic as long as there's no snow or ice, well layered up as needed, and cussing out the wind some days. No AC would be a deal breaker for me in a hot climate, though I did survive four summers in Michigan and three in Ohio without AC-- but in houses built for that (lots of windows on all sides, and big shade trees).
At that time it dipped in the teens a few times and the shack was uninsulated but otherwise it reflects a weak constitution on my part. I won’t ever go north most likely.
"The thing is, it was fun, and it helped me unexpectedly. The doors of perception opened up for me, and I saw the world totally afresh."
This was my experience too. Like Rod I got into psychedelics, mostly LSD, in college; junior year in particular. It was a laugh with my friends, but it did open those doors, so to speak. Gave you perspective, some insights... hard to describe really. But mostly I did it because we were going to Grateful Dead shows at the time, and I enjoyed that.
But I saw that not everyone reacted to the drug the way I did. A girlfriend who'd never taken it, I stupidly gave her 1/4 of a hit at one Dead show. She completely freaked out, started screaming; another woman we were with had to calm her down and since I was the one who triggered the fit (my girlfriend had asked me not to smoke any more cigarettes; in the middle of a trip I was absolutely going to smoke some more cigarettes) I had to sort of disappear for a while, which I did, into a hillside with some 100,000 people.
In general, psychedelics are not for people who have serious unresolved issues. I haven't done anything in 10 years and at this point I wouldn't - as fun as they were back in the day, I've had some significant (unrelated) health scares in recent years, and if I were to do acid or anything else psychedelic, those little nagging paranoid hypochondriac voices in my head would be absolutely screaming at me - it would be the opposite of enjoyment, I would feel like I was dying.
Bottom line, I took them and I enjoyed them but it definitely changes your head; and if your head is fragile in any way you need to give this stuff wide berth.
I fiddled around just a little with those things in my own misspent youth. Nothing profound ever happened, though we did scare ourselves a bit wandering through a cemetery at night and making up spooky stories. I do agree one shouldn't play around with these drugs. Mostly you'll be OK, but like drunk driving the consequences can be ugly.
"Unresolved issues"... Good point. Most of the drug use in this country starts off as recreational but some do seek enlightenment with psychedelics although I doubt the sought-after nirvana is ever found. We have way too many hang ups.
Ideal dream house? Easy. A five room beach house built on 15' stilts on a tropical, coconut palm strewn beach. A thousand miles from the nearest neighbor and a five minute drive to a good, 5-star Italian restaurant.
I’ve visited the monastery. I’m poor. I dream.
Ok, you made me chuckle! Ohio isn’t so bad, even with the grey.
Ha!
I live in western Washington. The gray and the short daylight is depressing, and the damp cold spells aching joints for a lot of us.
But one big positive to this area is that it's one of the few places where Nature isn't trying to kill you daily. No poisonous snakes or insects, only one poisonous spider (comfortingly named Brown Recluse ), no annual tornados or hurricanes.
Tucson may be in my future for sun and dry warmth, but it has rattlesnakes, coral snakes, scorpions, tarantula hawks. ...
Ah, yes, the monsoon. I was in Tucson for part of that last year, and discovered another unexpected predator. I'd only been there in the dry before, so I had no idea that the desert could suddenly produce a thousand mosquitoes per square yard.
But they are DRY mosquitos.
As a fellow western Washingtonian, I hate to tell you there are black widows out here too. I’ve had them in my garage.
"Please consider doing this! It takes only a few seconds." Done -- very exciting. I think the movie would be a great success, and if it would be possible to make a genuine investment in it, with the possibility of a return, count me in.
One of the truly great things developing out of the rot and disintegration of Hollywood, the rise of various viable independent production outfits. This includes new Christian outfits like Pureflix and Angel Studios, who are raising the bar on Christian productions, putting out higher quality material that tells compelling stories, including THE STORY. Not only giving Christians greater examples of what their narratives could be, but drawing in the unreached. With things like Sound of Freedom, Shift, The Chosen and others, we live in exciting times. Andrew Klavan, my favorite Daily Wire personailty, says one of the worst things conservatives have done is dismiss the importance of the arts and storytelling, regarding them as frivolous and unworthy, effectively ceding them, while focusing on governmental policy and business. Well...how has that worked out? Politics and policy is downstream of culture. And abandoning the academy and the arts, they let the Left conduct their long march almost without meaningful opposition. Sure, National Review stood there and shouted "STOP!" for a time, but unless you are willing to force the issue, meet it head on, all you are doing is making noise, becoming an impotent, empty, increasingly muted former cacophany. It was a step. Then there was Rush. But now, the conservative movement, and the Christian community has woken up far more widely and broadly and realized all of these fronts are important, not just what the bow tie crowd prefers, who never, in the end, managed to conserve anything. FRom Angel Studios, to alternate media, to the Iron Age, to Gamergate and more, a combo of this broad guerilla campaign and the cultural rot fully infesting the Left, Angel Studios is just one more light shining forth in the darkness. Amen.
We just found Wingfeathers from Angel Studios 2 weeks ago and my oldest is in love with it. I love the cooperative funding model. Such a glad alternative to the centralized, closed-off Hollywood model. I'd love to hear more about their other works. It's wonderful they're considering Live Not By Lies. Interest expressed!
There is The Chosen, of course, one of the most engaging depictions of The Gospels and jesus's earthly ministry I've ever seen. And then there is The Shift, a science fiction story coming out about alternate universes, choices, temptation and evil.
"Then there was Rush."
There may be someone before Trump who was as responsible for the infantilization of the capacity for thought in conservatives as Rush Limbaugh, but if so, I am not aware of who it is.
"There may have been someone...infantilization of the capacity of thought..." That so? Please, be specific. Also, your voting record would be helpful, before one can take you seriously. Also, please cite what you consider "non-infantilized" political thought, and why what you consider that, is in fact that.
BTW, me personally, I do not consider Rush's contributions as a political philosopher to be his primary contribution. Rather, is ability to not only successfully mount an argument on the public stage and dominate, but have fun doing so. He did not take the Left seriously, and this drove them nuts. That's part of what also drives them nuts about TRump, relentlessly mocking them. If it is one thing they cannot stand, is being mocked, not given their undue due as "intellectuals." There is nothing in the modern Left that qualifies as that, and there has not been for a very long time. Leftist thought in the West for a very long time has been untenable, intellectually speaking.
His whole schtick was anti - intellectual. Have you forgotten the constant references to "intellectual fuddy duddies?" Granted, he was an entertainer, but that conservatives would take him as a thought leader shows how unserious conservatives had become by the 90s. Anthony Esolen is what a leader of conservative thought should be. He actually tries to celebrate the good, the true, and the beautiful. How many "conservatives" do you think would be interested in reading him?
And, of course, it's only gotten worse with Trump. Here's a shocking fact: politics, as opposed to flimflammery, is about leading. It's about making serious policy speeches and having something like purposefulness in doing what you do. It isn't about demagoging your way through a political career.
Here's my presidential voting record, Herr Gauleiter: 1972, McGovern. 1976, Carter. 1980, Reagan. 2000, Bush.
"Its about making speeches." What a load of crap. No. Politics is about POLICY. It is in the name. What you are talking about is style. And I'm sorry, not everyone is inspired by your preferred stuffy, bow tie style. Yeah, and your voting record is not that of a rock ribbed conservative. Who did you vote for past Bush, btw?
Oh, and Bush was not a conservative. He and his son were both died in teh wool deep state serving globalists. Especially Dubya.
Trump, for all his faults and issues, as far as policy goes, not those speeches that make you all gooey, was a conservative. Other than his COVID policy, he was the most conservative, pro-American admin since Reagan. Further, he enraged the Left, and hated them. And called out the Deep STate, though he was not nearly as effective against them, partially due to his inexperience, partially due to the fact that he, like most of us, had no idea how deep the corruption actually went. Now we know. And the next Republican president will be expected to address that. IT is vital to the future of the country to take a serious axe to the entrenched bureacracy.
Tee, you say you're a Christian. Maybe you are. I am a Christian. You act like a little snot. I'm 71 years old. Don't address me that way.
It's obvious that you're either young or naive or both. Our politics has been throttled in the last few decades by a lack of people who can make coherent policy addresses. As a reference, go to YouTube and watch President Kennedy's speech on Medicare at Madison Square Garden in the summer of 1962. For that matter, watch President Eisenhower's Farewell Speech of January 17, 1961, in which he warned about the threat of the military industrial complex to the nation's future.
Speechmaking used to be understood as intrinsic to how a political leader leads, not considered "style." But you get angry with me for pointing out Trump's forsaking of it for jump 'n' jive demagoguery. You're eager for Trump, but for DeSantis, a serious man, who has a record of accomplishment, not so much, right?
Trump's hold on people reveals how dumbed down and how crass the nation has become. If you are a Christian, you should understand that America's crisis is spiritual, not political.
I voted for Bush in 2000 because I thought he'd be better than Gore. I'm certain I was wrong. Gore would never have pursued Bush's disastrous foreign and military policy. If Pat Buchanan had had any chance to win, I'd have voted for him.
I haven't voted since 2000. Politics can't fix this country. And what it could do, it won't. Pat Buchanan is my idea of the kind of President we needed. Unfortunately, he could have become President only of a country which doesn't exist anymore.
Our politics throttled by speech. Wow, what a load of crap. That speeches are the magic. Yes, I am a Christian, so if it is fair game to say what one "acts like," You act like an old fogey stuffed shirt, while at the same time a naive child. The idea that magic speeches made it happen, you might as well be saying fairy dust does it. Actual POLICY makes things happen. Or doesn't. That is the actual mechanisms of state. Age is merely a number. Respect is earned. YOu are a stranger, and at best, you warrant courtesy as such. But since you came in swinging, that is also out. Since you have followed up with the same, well, we are where we are. And since Christ also had sharp words for those he deemed deserved it, and several examples can be produced, well, the Christian card does nor work here. I"m not swearing and I'm not talking about your Mom. I'm talking about you and your fake civility, Mr. Smith datedness and your pretenses.
Only an imbecile would be a "rock ribbed conservative," and only an imbecile would be a doctrinaire liberal, if that even existed anymore. We have a hard and crazy Left and hard and crazy Trumpers like you.
Why are you so sure I think Trump was terrible on policy? He did some good things, such as his federal court appointments and his at least talking a good game about trade policy and sealing the border ( and trade policy, I remind you, is a break with the rock ribbed conservatism of the last fifty years, although it's very much in keeping with the conservatism of a hundred years ago ).
So, why didn't he seal the border? He was Commander - in - Chief. Why didn't he do what Eisenhower did with the unfortunately named Operation Wetback? If I were President, I'd damned sure seal the border. I've lived most of my life in Houston, and have a rafter of horror stories about what illegal immigration did to my old neighborhood thirty years ago.
Why didn't your hero seal the border?
And only an imbecile would look to a guy like you and see either principle or would allow a cretin like you to set terms. Go back to your George Will columns. The real world needs action.
Demanding someone else's voting record in order to judge their opinion is a dick move.
When Trump was on the rise, Limbaugh told a story on the air at least twice about how the two men made plans to golf, and when they got together on a Sunday they had been unaware that it was Easter. Limbaugh considered Trump a man of his word for keeping their Easter Sunday golf date before half-heartedly going to be with his family, including whichever wife he was with at the time. Limbaugh told this story with humor and reverence, and the Dittoheads didn't notice or didn't care that neither man, neither champion of whatever passes for cheap conservativism, knew it was the most important of Christian holidays.
Lecturing someone on policy issues, yet refusing to demo your own policy inclination is disingenuous. Winging on style (hate your tomfoolery, but soaring speeches are the mark of a serious policy maker, LOL). Sorry, man, it is in the secrecy of the voting booth you see the true heart. And it is telling you won't show yours. That you are more about ceremony and outward demonstrations of symbols of piety, rather than where the heart is. BTW, did not vote for Trump to be a preacher. I voted for a President. I only care about policy. And him, as opposed to Hillary, no contest. Same with that pervert pedo, Biden.
Maybe Morton Downey, Jr.
Cold, very cold.
Cold as in "far from the answer / you're getting cold", or it was cold to bring up MDJ? If you're talking conserva-points reduced to catchphrases and "hot takes", nobody did it better than Morton Downey, Jr.
I said it with the greatest admiration. Downey made Limbaugh look profound.
"Bow tie ruffles in indignation."
Morton Downey Jr. was not as famous as Rush, but his 80s show pioneered the Politics-as-bullying-bad-boy, approach.
I'm old enough to remember Joe Pine in the late 60s. I was too young to actually care about Pine.
Too be fair to Limbaugh, he spent twenty years regurgitating NATIONAL REVIEW talking points and it made him a multi-millionaire. Limbaugh actually learned from his dittohead listeners on issues like immigration. Further, Limbaugh isn't bone-stupid like Sean Hannity.
All true. Look, I appreciated Limbaugh in the early 90s because I admired his having hit on an original and extremely entertaining formula for a talk show. I wish I had stopped to consider how deracinating of thoughtful conservatism his schtick might turn out to be.
Limbaugh was actually funnier at the beginning. NATIONAL REVIEW put him on a magazine cover about 1994 and Limbaugh began to take himself more seriously and became less funny.
I think it was when the Republicans had their big sweep in 1994 that Limbaugh started to see himself as a serious figure.
Right.
And congrats, Rob.
Oh, and done.
Great news! Done! I always wanted to be a movie investor mini-not-mogul!
This sounds amazing! I will do this and post this article in Alisa Childer's patreon group as well, and other groups. I guess the question I have is would this focus primarily on the first half and their stories or the second half on what american christians need to learn as well? I would love to see a video series to go with the book geared for bible study small groups to use. Either way I'll be supporting this!
Well, we haven't sat down to plot out the series yet, but I think it needs both.
Definitely agree that it needs both!
Re: psychedelics - I’m pretty sure the guy who invented the wheel never intended it to be used on a Tesla. Nevertheless, the two technologies work together like milk and cookies. I’m not saying that these substances can’t be dangerous. They can be. But there’s one take away that I think gets missed in that letter. You absolutely must have a *context* for using any psychotropic. Going into it Willy nilly, dabbling, and without direction is a recipe for disasters. Shamans were taught the terrain. They knew what was safe, what beings were best avoided, and they went in with intention. They had a cosmology, psycho spiritual safety nets, and often times actual safety nets like experienced community members. If you’re just as rigorous, these things aren’t nearly as pernicious as someone who goes in open ended.
But do they actually know all this? How do you know they are not being deceived by things that appear as "angels of light?"
As a non-Christian, I’d ask the same of any vision of the saints. 😜 But there are mechanisms that they’d use. To give you a technical example, first off, you have to be very careful about trusting anything you encounter during a psychedelic trip. An entity also needs to be seen in context. Beings belong in certain places and should be doing certain things. Variations in behavior often connote that they are deceitful. An experienced shaman will also form relationships with certain beings. Over time, he seeks out their help specifically because they’ve been helpful in the past. This is the good tree bearing good fruit. (Some shamans will actually form relationships with obviously malevolent entities, but that’s an entirely different subject).
But more to the point, and this is my perspective as a Zen Buddhist - you have to be careful with any entity, even the empirically benevolent ones. There’s a koan that goes “if you meet the Buddha on the street, kill him”. Altered states can be leveraged to encounter strange creatures, but they’re better employed for the purposes of our own liberation. Altered states attained by meditation and psychotropics help us probe our own consciousness and aid us in dissolving our psychological obstacles and seeing the world as it is. They are a tool, not an excuse to go dabbling in the distant antipodes of consciousness.
And as a Christian, my first check is going to be the Word of God, not the "saints." It is what it was given to us for. Check any "entity" and anything they have to say against that. "Test the spirits." Also, the Word strongly warns against "pharmakeia" (sp) or drug use, just for this reason. There is a whole list of practices that are to be avoided, for the doorways that can open and the entities that can obtain permissions to interact with you as a result. Because unless they come with the authority of God, they are not benevolent. They seek to deceive and ultimately destroy you, especially your soul.
My point being, nothing you offer has anything against which to check it. Only their word and your belief in your own perception. That's it. In my experience, that is not enough. And there is a whole ream of people who have been caught up in this deception in various ways, who plunged in to depression, depravity and in the worst cases, were destroyed. Ultimately, this all plays to vanity, that "spirits" selected you out for guiding you to your individual enlightenment, etc. But it is all deception.
I say this as a guy who has dabbled himself in such practices (not with drugs) and has had experiences. Nothing overtly negative, but was shielded from anything really bad and delivered from the same by the Holy Spirit. And I personally know of people who also dabbled in such and attracted the attention of entities and only through prayerful intervention, were they rescued from it.
My brother and 3 friends rented a cabin in upstate NY, and took LSD in the early 80's. During their trip they ripped a bible to shreds and mocked it as b.s. (he bragged about this to me at the time)
After this experience my brother became an angry atheist. Before it he was like me, a kid who went to church because Mom and Dad made us. We knew our faith but we really didn't take it seriously.
My brother has had a brutal life, unfaithful wife, divorce, kids who despise his 2nd staunchly atheist wife.
One of those cabin-friends was shot in the back of the head in a bar in upper Manhattan. Another hung himself in his final year of college. The third became a well-known alcoholic in my neighborhood, who seems to have cleaned up at around the age of 50.
Are the hardships and tragedies of these 4 guys related to the cabin incident? Did demonic entities use this opportunity to "move in" on these guys? That can't be proven. The drug was not necessarily the problem, more the renunciation of everything my parents tried to instill in us. From what I've read and seen about exorcisms, there is a surprising correlation and "legalese" involving these kinds of acts. In the gospel Jesus leaves the towns he isn't welcome in.
The two friends who died were not from religious and prayerful families. My brother, and the former alcoholic are from very faithful prayerful Catholic families......again, draw your own conclusions.
Oh of course there’s checks. Specifically within Buddhism as I mentioned it, but don’t forget that indigenous communities have been using psychotropics probably longer than we were actual, biological humans. I respect your beliefs and glad they supply you with peace and guidance, but I would also say that there incredible sophistication to these practices that you might not have had exposure to. The real, very real, and absolute danger is when these practices are undertaken without that sophisticated context. I think the subsequent posts in this thread clearly demonstrate how far off the rails one can go when there isn’t a tradition hemming that experience in.
IF that tradition is built upon falsehoods, it does not matter. Length one may suppose it was practiced also does not matter. Mankind was fallen almost from the beginning. Resorting to drugs is just symptomatic of it. Building rituals around it does not make it any less so.
"indigenous communities have been using psychotropics probably longer than we were actual biological humans"
Are you claiming that indigenous people are not human? That they are a different species?
Rule 1, never seek out spirits. This dates back to Old Testament.
Rule 2, in case of unsought spiritual encounter, keep in mind the possibilities of both self-deception and of deception by a real being. (St. Paul)
This is why the Catholic Church is hyper-cautious and skeptical about visions and apparitions. Very few are "approved," and that only means that they aren't contrary to the faith, not that you have to believe in them.
"Test the spirits." This is basic. That is why we always, always, start with the Word. When I was kind of out in the wilderness, considering all kinds of things, one thing that helped eventually turn me around was messages supposedly from people who were using psychics/mediums. Also, some things from near death experiences. In the case of near death experiences, some of those are an actual encounter with the divine, something Godly. Some of them are not. It may have been spiritual, but it was not of God. On psychics and mediums, those are flatly forbidden by the Bible, and those that are not fakery (which is most of them) WILL be something demonic. I do believe, in rare circumstances, usually around the passing of a loved one, the Lord does allow a moment of contact at times to help in the grieving process. But the characteristic of such an encounter is to put the recipient at peace, not to encourage daliance with the esoteric. My father, who is both a devout man of faith and a rigid man of reason (he was an engineer at NASA during the moon shots) was of the opinion that souls went straight to their final reward, no hanging around. However, when my brother was killed in the early 90s in an auto accident just after graduating from college, my father reported that one morning, he recalled a moment where he experienced the presence of my brother, and Chip assuring him that he was ok, to not worry about him. And that was that. Many years later, just last year, in fact, my mother passed away (my father several years before that). The following week, my father's younger brother, William, also went on to Glory. HE had been slowly deteriorating from Parkinson's for many years and at this point, was almost comatose. When he died, the week after my mother passed, he actually got buried first. Because my mother had gone from COVID, quarantine procedures delayed her final repose. So when I went to my uncle's funeral, a few days before my mother's, but over a week after Mom had died, I show up at the pre-funeral reception, hobnobbing with cousins. Two of them came up to me with strange looks on their faces, asking me, "Have you heard?" "Heard what?" I responded. They told me the night before Uncle William died, after all that time, lying still and comatose in his bed, with only sensors revealing he was still alive, he sat up in bed, staring at a space in the room. "Mary is here," he said. "Mary who?," they asked him. "J.B.s Mary," he said, and he pointed at that space. J.B. is my father, his older brother. Mary is my mother, and wife of J.B. Apparently this happened one more time in the night. He then died. This phenomenon, a soul comforting someone left behind, or one ushering someone passing onto the hearafter, happens a lot. In my mother's case, there was lots of setup. After I got out of the Army, I went to work at a local radio station as well as a local paper. The radio gig is mornings, so I would get up with the dawn patrol, do the show, then swing by my folk's house and do a Bible reading with them. After Dad passed and William's condition grew worse, my mother would pray for either his recovery or in the Lord's mercy, bring him home. This went on for a few years. Then the event I described happened. I can tell you this. Knowing my mother, if the folks on the other side had given her the option, she absolutely would have been part of the welcome wagon bring my Uncle home.
Then, on the other hand, you have some stories from NDEs or psychics, telling very different sorts of tales. From mediums channelling "loved ones" who are telling grieving ones stories that increasingly sound at odds with the character of the people they supposedly are communicating with, even being told to do things that do not square with their character or with the Word of God.
Or NDEs, where a suffering person supposedly has an encounter with Jesus, but they are told they are "perfect." When one checks with the Word of God, we are not, that is not how Jesus would describe any of us. We are loved. We are cherished. And for those who accept his gift, we are saved and reconciled before the Lord almighty. But we are not perfect. If we were, he would not have needed to come here. And he's not going to tell us an untruth just to make us feel better. "I am the Way, the Truth and the Light. No one comes to the Father but by me."
This is not some weird quirk of unproven evolution. This is not messing around with forbidden chemicals. This is the Word of God, which is our primary tool upon which to square everything. Christ himself, when confronted by Satan in the wilderness, countered every temptation with a quote from Scripture, "It is written..."
Our first check, ALWAYS, is the Word. And those who think they don't need it, have no way of checking the authenticty of anything they present. So when they begin to give you nonsense about "counsel from spirits", or how "there is no sin, it is only development of your soul for the next stage of enlightenment," yes, I've heard all these, these are lies from the pits of Hell, intended to lead you astray. By entities who may appear as benevolent, enlightened, who only mean to help you. But check what they are saying, what they are telling you against the Word.
BTW, I mentioned mediumship. One Bible story I'm using for my coming course is the Witch of Endor. King Saul goes to this witch to get some insight into a coming battle. And while there, in the course of her working, along comes the spirit of the Prophet Samuel. Two things interesting to note about this story. 1. The witch was as surprised as Saul was that this apparition appeared. Which tells me that she normally did film-flammery, and to have something actually manifest was shocking to her as well. 2. The verses describe Saul as KNOWING beyond a doubt this was Samuel. And, as a true prophet of the Lord, there on the Lord's authority, gave him a true prophecy, telling him that his time was at hand, and both he and his sons would die on the coming battlefield. The Lord's judgement against Saul was coming. Saul was that far gone to even seek the assistance of a medium, but God used that instance to give him a true word of judgement, and in a sense, a mercy.
This really has nothing to do with your thoughtful post but...Robert Pirsig's son, who appears in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as Pirsig's passenger, was stabbed in an attempted robbery outside the Zen Center in San Francisco back in the 70s. A senseless crime but what always stood out for me was the contrast between the serenity of the Zen Center (I've been there) and the random violence outside (been there too). RIP, Chris Pirsig.
Suzuki Roshi’s own daughter was murdered by a deranged student that he had taken in out of compassion. That places seems cursed, but you could probably say the same about most of San Fran these days.
There's an interesting book about the SF Zen Center, Shoes Outside the Door by Michael Downing. It seems like that place sowed the seeds of its own destruction.
It very much did. There’s a lot of complexity to that issue - one I’ve only really started to pick through. Suzuki, out of the, say, four big names associated with zen in the 60s, was actually the most successful. The other three were mired in corruption, sexual scandals, and all sorts of other stupidity. On the one hand, there’s utterly no excuse for what they did. On the other hand, they led impeccable monastic lives before coming to America. The best I can make of it is that these guys had utterly no idea how to handle the sexual revolution, liberalization, and other features of American culture they were essentially just dropped into. They also had no idea how to deal with the unblinking, cult-like reverence their students showed them. Mix all of that together and it was an recipe for pretty much everything that happened. The current crop of western teachers have faired much better. Most of them were brought up in the states, know the culture, and aren’t put on the same pedestal as an “exotic master from the East”. Stuff still happens, sure, but it’s much better than it was.
This, of course, is not a coincidence.
Melting your brain for any reason is not justifiable.
It's also instructive to note that shaman culture is exclusively present in third-world societies. Cultures who accomplish anything never bother with such nonsense
Except for China, India, Tibet, the entirety of Western Europe, most of the tech sector from the 60s to the present day, more than a few physicists of renown, much of advanced pre Colombian South America, Ancient Greece, and potentially early Christianity. But apart from those, yes, all writhing melty brained morons.
What asia created was entirely independent of drug use. Note that today, as China rises to a massive world power, they are simultaneously one of the strictest anti-drug cultures on the planet.
Pre-Columbian South America was a shithole so no surprise there.
As for the west coast tech sector, speaking as a person who has studied and worked in those circles for the past 10 years, I can say that absolutely no one seriously thinks working on psychs is a good idea. You'll get the creative morons in management to take shrooms to give themselves some sort of "inspiration", but usually the general worker is all talk when it comes to drugs. 99% of people here try a couple times and never pursue it afterwards because you can't work in any serious capacity under the influence.
Let me put it another way: rape is a facet of culture throughout history. Some of the most powerful emperors, businessmen, artists, and movie directors were rapists. So should we encourage rape for a director to produce great movies? No.
Would it be fair to say that you haven’t tried psychedelics or extensive meditation?
Nope. I've done both quite extensively in my early 20s.
Growing up was realizing what a waste of time it was. It's no exaggeration to say my life became infinitely better quitting all that and becoming a more serious Christian
🤷♂️ when I left the Benedictines, I felt the same way
Re: Pre-Columbian South America was a shithole so no surprise there.
So was medieval and early modern Europe if we're going to judge societies by today's standard of living.
Right. Alfred the Great didn't have rolls of Charmin toilet paper at his disposal. No fish and chips. No Guinness Stout.
My family and I were staying in a B&B just outside of Doolin, Ireland last fall. It was located off a tiny road surrounded by farms about 1/2 mile from the sea. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I went outside for a smoke. Outside over the pastures and sea was the clearest sky full of stars I have ever seen in my life. It was like being on the edge of eternity. I’d love to have a cottage there just a short walk to a pub!
In September 1991, my wife and I had a beer in a pub in Doolin during our honeymoon. Doolin's not far from the Cliffs of Moher.
Now that I think of it, we stayed the night in Doolin at a B & B and went to the three pubs that had amateur music. It was a lot of fun.
I think I need to go there...would you mind sending a link?
https://www.airbnb.com/split-stays/44084613?adults=2&category_tag=Tag%3A8678&location=Doolin%2C%20County%20Clare%2C%20Ireland&split_stays_uuid=b257abfc-f706-4eed-8686-4a542659c954&check_in=2023-09-19&check_out=2023-09-22&source_impression_id=p3_1690672063_zoXLstz4AmLOcsKn&previous_page_section_name=1000&other_listing=4202201&focused_listing=1&other_check_in=2023-09-15&other_check_out=2023-09-19
Ireland is beautiful if infected by woke leftism. So much of Ireland is physically beautiful to look at.
Is Doolin still a major music mecca? I remember sitting in a quiet pub there many decades ago when a jam session suddenly broke out and the place was hopping. It was a delightful surprise.
Gus O’Connor’s pub had live music and I think does nightly.
You may be thinking of Ennis, which is nearby and known for its sessions.
The interior of Maine is made up of thousands of small lakes and ponds. In August of 1984, I spent one of the best weeks of my life at an isolated plywood shack on Lake Nicatous. The fishing was good. On a clear night you could see a million stars in the sky. It was spectacularly beautiful. I felt very small and insignificant. My problem with Maine is how cold it is at night even in August.
Southwest of Cambridge, MD is the lightly settled heart of the Chesapeake's crab country. The Blackwater Nature Reserve is located there and I used to take my children fishing there on Saturdays and drink beer. The nearby towns are small. Taylors Island. Hoopers Island. Madison. Woolford, where Harriet Tubman was raised. Men crab and arster the Chesapeake. The sika deer- actually part of the elk family- roam the marshlands. Most of the area is pretty isolated. This is the best part of Maryland's Eastern Shore. Suburban Washingtonians want to build a bridge and a highway through it so they can reach their beloved Ocean City a half-hour faster. It would ruin Crab Country to do so. And it would ruin the Blackwater.
Portland, ME, has a lot of B2B payment companies because Maine is where trucks on the east coast start their runs, loaded with potatoes. I had an appointment to close a consulting deal at one of these companies and was told to park in a garage next door to their offices. It was one of those corkscrew ramp situations and I knew if I didn't park on the roof I'd never find my car again. So I went up to the top and when I got out of my car I saw Casco Bay spread out before me. It was a cool (vide infra) cloudless August day. It's called Calendar Bay because there are 365 islands in it. During the call I found out very few people in Maine have air conditioning on account of they don't need it. My wife and I that fall spent a wonderful week on Peaks Island, which can only be reached by ferry, though you can bring your car. We ALMOST retired to Maine, until we found out just how very cold indeed it gets in the winter.
The interior of Maine is the wildest place east of the Mississippi, excepting northern Michigan and the Youper I suppose.
Totally agree about N Michigan and the UP. It’s my favorite area on the planet.
I spent a few years living in an old shotgun shack in Texas hill country. No A/C. Man, I tell you can ADJUST to the heat but winters there kicked my butt. Books, a few old movies, a river to swim in and squirrel hunting is all you need.
We lived in Austin for two years. Hill country winters are among the loveliest I know. Cold enough for a fire every third night.
Unfortunately, winter in Austin usually lasts about a week! Be glad you're not here now - 20+ days straight of over a hundred degrees, with no end in sight.
We were completely unprepared for the wildflowers in spring, which lasts for months. So beautiful.
Here in Delaware I biked Tuesday from Rehoboth down to Bethany on Coastal Highway which goes along the beach through wetlands there, and I saw scads of marshmallows in bloom along the road-- the wetland plant that is, not the confection :), though I'm told that there's a connection between the two. They look like hibiscus with big showy white and pink flowers.
I still miss Grottos pizza. Part of my long-gone youth.
Try winter in the NEK ( north east kingdom) of Vermont on Al lake on the border with Canada. Can get 60 below wind chill . That is a wicked thing. Texans have no concept of this in general.
How cold are those winters? I assume we're not talking sub zero in Texas. You can dress for the cold after all. I bike through the winter here in the mid-Atlantic as long as there's no snow or ice, well layered up as needed, and cussing out the wind some days. No AC would be a deal breaker for me in a hot climate, though I did survive four summers in Michigan and three in Ohio without AC-- but in houses built for that (lots of windows on all sides, and big shade trees).
At that time it dipped in the teens a few times and the shack was uninsulated but otherwise it reflects a weak constitution on my part. I won’t ever go north most likely.
"The thing is, it was fun, and it helped me unexpectedly. The doors of perception opened up for me, and I saw the world totally afresh."
This was my experience too. Like Rod I got into psychedelics, mostly LSD, in college; junior year in particular. It was a laugh with my friends, but it did open those doors, so to speak. Gave you perspective, some insights... hard to describe really. But mostly I did it because we were going to Grateful Dead shows at the time, and I enjoyed that.
But I saw that not everyone reacted to the drug the way I did. A girlfriend who'd never taken it, I stupidly gave her 1/4 of a hit at one Dead show. She completely freaked out, started screaming; another woman we were with had to calm her down and since I was the one who triggered the fit (my girlfriend had asked me not to smoke any more cigarettes; in the middle of a trip I was absolutely going to smoke some more cigarettes) I had to sort of disappear for a while, which I did, into a hillside with some 100,000 people.
In general, psychedelics are not for people who have serious unresolved issues. I haven't done anything in 10 years and at this point I wouldn't - as fun as they were back in the day, I've had some significant (unrelated) health scares in recent years, and if I were to do acid or anything else psychedelic, those little nagging paranoid hypochondriac voices in my head would be absolutely screaming at me - it would be the opposite of enjoyment, I would feel like I was dying.
Bottom line, I took them and I enjoyed them but it definitely changes your head; and if your head is fragile in any way you need to give this stuff wide berth.
I fiddled around just a little with those things in my own misspent youth. Nothing profound ever happened, though we did scare ourselves a bit wandering through a cemetery at night and making up spooky stories. I do agree one shouldn't play around with these drugs. Mostly you'll be OK, but like drunk driving the consequences can be ugly.
"Unresolved issues"... Good point. Most of the drug use in this country starts off as recreational but some do seek enlightenment with psychedelics although I doubt the sought-after nirvana is ever found. We have way too many hang ups.
It is a false path.
VERY encouraging news about the documentary series. The lack of education about the history of totalitarianism is enabling today’s totalitarians.
Brilliant video. I would certainly watch a series or film on Live Not By Lies.
My view on psychedelics is since I already have a tenuous enough grasp on reality I really shouldn't do anything to make it worse.
Yes, I’m with you.
Wisdom!
Ideal dream house? Easy. A five room beach house built on 15' stilts on a tropical, coconut palm strewn beach. A thousand miles from the nearest neighbor and a five minute drive to a good, 5-star Italian restaurant.