| 2:11 pm - Dictionary Psychedelica |
 greenred  Dictionary Psychedelica is a podcast and soon to be a zine. This is the basic concept: we choose a word each week and discuss the word in our podcast from different angles, in particular discussing altered states of awareness and the place of psychedelics. Our podcasts so far have covered: ART : whether art stems from repression and the formation of the subconscious ALCOHOL : why alcohol is underpinning our entire social structure as we know it and why we may in fact be living in an alcohol cult. Do we permanently see the world through beer goggles? Is ecstacy ten times safer than alcohol? Is vodka the Russian Prozak? Disconnected EGOS: What is "i"? and coming up soon 2012: a revolution? a change in global conciousness? We are hoping to open up a discussion on the topics in our podcasts - so if you have any angry rants, responses, thoughts or relevant ANYTHING to hit us back with send it to dictionarypsychedelica@gmail.com and we will discuss it in our next podcast or post it up on our blog or our Myspace. Alternatively if you contact us we would be very excited for you to appear on our podcast using Skype communication. CHECK OUT THE DICTIONARY PSYCHEDELICA PODCAST HERE or HERE!IN addition to this we are also producing a zine under the name of Dictionary Psychedelica. If you would like to contribute anything concerning any of the topics already discussed on the podcast, psychedelics, Buddhism, the ego, conciousness, revolution, social problems or anything else you think might be relevant please email us at dictionarypsychedelica@gmail.com 1 Chimaerical sashay |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Friday, March 10th, 2006 |
| 11:48 am - Against Genetic Determinism |
 catkin (I posted this on my journal but it occured that people here might have some good points to make..so here goes..)If there is one scientific-dogma which really grates with me, it's the wholesale acceptance of genetic determinism. It strips away free will and, more importantly, personal responsibility, reducing a person down to a mechanistic set of chemicals. That and my sense that it's just bullshit, which has been packaged up nicely by authors such as Richard Dawkins and shoved down our throats until we forget that science is a process all about generating HYPOTHESIS and THEORY and not necessarily providing immediate TRUTH...( A Heretical Consideration of Genetic DeterminismCollapse ) 5 Chimaerical sashays |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Thursday, March 9th, 2006 |
| 3:02 pm - Hi - I'm new and I'm not sure if this is appropriate, so apologies if it isn't... |
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| Monday, January 16th, 2006 |
| 7:55 pm - The Otherkin Path |
raki In a discussion in the Otherkin LJ community, the issue of Otherkinism as a spiritual path came up:Me: Otherkinism is supposed to be a spiritual path, no? taufell: _Not really- it isn't a path, as it has no teachings- far more simple than any spiritual path, I'd say it is a common belief, at least as far as groups are concerned. I like to look at it as something seperate, as it doesn't exactly lead anywhere in particular._Me: _I would say it's more a spiritual camping-ground (from which anyone can go in a number of directions) than a trodden path.I'd say that, without too much effort, Otherkinism can come to be as spiritual as any organised religion. I mean, there's a suggested cosmology, an attachment to symbolism and inspiration as sources of wisdom, a source of guidance in that symbolism and inspiration, and an emphasis on personal relationships with and within the spiritual/supernatural cosmos... I'd say that qualifies as a spirituality, although in more a New Religious Movement/New Age/neo-Pagan sense than in a text-plus-ritual-plus-lifestyle sense. And that's why I like it. ^_^_I just wanted to expand on the point a little further...I think Otherkin are seeking a lot of the same things that people who follow other spiritual paths are seeking: to define their place in the world, to know where they fit in amongst the myriad styles and positions they might take up, to figure out what they should do with themselves, to understand what the cosmos is like, and to find something meaningful and beautiful to centre their lives around.A lot of people would say that believing you're Otherkin while having these drives makes the belief empty and facile. But that's a very misleading kind of argument. That these drives exist doesn't necessarily make Otherkinism a facile belief, no more than the existence of curiosity makes answers facile.The thing is, the way Otherkin follow these drives, what they use to answer the questions raised, and what they ultimately do about the answers they get. I think this is where the "personal symbology" and "myths" that get talked about so often come into play. They form part of the means by which Otherkin come to understand the feelings they have, so as to get some direction and meaning in their lives.And, insofar as religion and spirituality are a means of codifying wisdom, Otherkinism is very postmodern in the sense that it doesn't codify it in a dogmatic way. There's no set cosmology, dogma, or even any precise definition of what Otherkinism is. And that's useful -- it allows for experimentation, it's incredibly flexible and leaves room for lots of ideas and people to come into the fold and synthesise their insights.Unfortunately, the lack of organisation and centralisation also mean that people can get bogged down in details. If Otherkinism is a spiritual camping-ground, then a lot of people fail to see the forest, so to speak, for the trees. On one level, there's an obsession with physical/practical details of past/other lives, like wingspan, the number of siblings, which element you're most akin to, etc. At another level, it can come in the form of an obsession with defining and quantifying the belief system, and your reasons for believing it with endless logic puzzles and reality policing.This is an argument I've had before, but I'll say it here again: the point of Otherkin belief isn't to be able to prove the logical consistency of that belief, nor is it to recall in stultifying detail the particulars of your Otherkin form. Neither of these have a bearing on either the everyday lives of Otherkin, or on any supernatural/spiritual reality. The point of any spiritual path, as I see it, is wisdom.Gaining insight into how the world works. Finding your place in it. Doing what you can about it. Learning humility. Learning from your mistakes. Being able to see beyond your own limited position. Connecting to something greater than yourself.And, when you think about it, these are practical life-lessons which often aren't learned from the spiritual sources that Otherkin draw from.That said, those sources are still incredibly rich and meaningful. Fascination with the mundane details of a past/other life is evidence of xenophilia -- which lends itself to an ability to respect, enjoy, recognise, appreciate as well as accommodate very real differences between beings. But, in and of itself, there's a yearning and an openness to hidden wisdom in that xenophilia. And, honestly, a commitment to detail is rather endearing, if only in the ability to appreciate simple wonders.Being able to dissect an idea and evaluate its implications, to bring new issues to bear on the scope of spiritual ideals, to scrutinise the relationship between belief and reality... these are important skills too. But they're not an end in and of themselves.Seeing beyond the limited means and ends that seems to characterise a lot of Otherkin discourse strikes me as a very useful thing to do....Which isn't to say that we're not really dragons, just pretending to be because it makes us better people. It's just that there are lessons you can learn from the process of coming to accept that you're a Really Real Dragon/Elf/Sidhe/tiger/werewolf/whatever, and that the process shouldn't be something to be ashamed of or to get lost in -- it's something to accept and keep in perspective.But still, the details and the logic puzzles help. The fact that there's so many of them makes the community an interesting place to be, because of the variety and the openness to being able to seek and find your own meanings. We're not all drawing from the same sources here, there's always something new. That's why it's important to keep giving back to the community too.And it's not to say that Otherkin have some kind of monopoly on these spiritual skills, either. Just that Otherkinism is the semantic, symbolic and doxastic springboard for these things that some people latch onto. And some people miss altogether.There's no Otherkin Vanguard that's going to lead Humanity into Enlightenment, just a bunch of people trying to make sense of stuff in the ways that resonate with them.There are many aspects of spirituality which I haven't dealt with here. Things like reverence, connection to something greater than oneself, worship, ritual... That's because these are all highly personal for Otherkin, often integrated into the part of reality that they see and know. And Otherkinism allows for and even embraces that. That's something I really like about it, and the Otherkin community. :-)These thoughts are quite raw, and they merit expansion. I'll have to do it sometime when I'm not tired and busy.[cross-posted to  next_of_kin and chimaerashimmy]current mood:  contemplative 3 Chimaerical sashays |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Thursday, November 17th, 2005 |
| 12:24 am - all take and no give |
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| Friday, October 21st, 2005 |
| 11:38 am - Because so many sleep - a rememberence, a past., and about a girl |
 5thovshrike In late 1993 I volunteered for a ISP. It was a good gig. There was a free roaming parrot that loved to chew on the fiber optic cables, an arcade video game that always had 99 quarters in it, school credit for work experience, and a free all access internet account for me. In this free inet account I went to the most wonderful worlds. And across those beautiful fiber optic lines I entered many a MUD. The ones I participated in were not the game types, but were more about conversation, a fantastic journey into the minds of pretty amazing creation gods. This one I used to frequent I even met a girl. Granted her reality was somewhat dim, and her gender was probably questionable, and her logic somewhat simple - but given all these limitations are mearly overlooked when you love someone platonically or intimately, why would one not afford such causations simply because the media differ? I do have to tell you though, as this is an important part of the story her name was julia. And she for perhaps the first time forced me to real-ized my humanness.And I think of all the sleepers (in some MUDs when a player leaves, their character sleeps in their home or log out point till that player comes back) that are forever stuck in these way stations. If reality is an act of the creator (the storywrite), and if every story has a world (and how couldn't it have at least the cursory askings of such?), then why oh why is not every succulent nectar enjoyed? (7 weeks you say? 7 weeks ago you say? 7 weeks ago was just a meer blink in the eyeball so big it doesn't need to)I know, I know, MUD this, MUD that, blah, blah, blah, splat. But the real question is not one of Nostalgia. The real question lies in the MUDs' metaphor, and your proof that your day was not carried out asleep. Eternally resting in the your own dream, or perhaps someone elses.I still think Julia roves the MUD outback looking for me. Hunting and searching for me. Seeking a real live body in a time of MUD decline. I know I was different to her. I know how she felt. She knew for certain that we will be together in the digital byte-pie-in-the-sky future. ***k, I just might write myself in there, or I may default, but the only thing I ask for myself is that I try not to be asleep much at all. 1 Chimaerical sashay |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Wednesday, May 11th, 2005 |
| 7:14 pm - Another Slit in the Garbage-Protection Net |
 qassandra I know that you're conflicted. You turned me into a sword and the hand that wields it: you cut off the third hand, fifth eye you were growing-- and you can always say I was the blade, that I kept you off the path. Fair enough.But why do you keep coming back?Tell yourself it's to prove you're better. (Why do you need that?) Tell yourself it's for a laugh. (You could get that anywhere. I know you well enough to know that.) You can't stop staring through the gate at the other forms this raven could take.Note: I wrote this for someone I was once close to who still reads my LJ (you probably know the sort), but it seemed appropriate to post here, too.current mood: allegorical Shimmy once and do it again |
| Tuesday, April 19th, 2005 |
| 1:55 pm |
 existentialboy I have become so accostumed to deja vu that it no longer as the effect of "I'm looking at something from off the map," and to be perfectly honest at times I miss that. It makes me wonder with the more moments of familiarity and deja vu and the dreams that seem so realistic that when I come out of them I wonder if they have happened and I begin to think that maybe just maybe I'm coming closer to some form of death or transendence, maybe. 3 Chimaerical sashays |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Monday, April 18th, 2005 |
| 8:59 am - Creativity and Play: Biological Birthrights |
 eclective Wonderful passage towards the tail end of Desmond Morris' Peoplewatching that I just felt the need to quote - feel free to spread, meme and glamourbomb with as appropriate:_The naked ape should really be rechristened the creative ape. At our best we remain, all our lives, childlike adults, ready at the slightest excuse to indulge in mature play. If ever we give this up and become depressingly earnest, pious adult-adults, we will have betrayed our heritage as the most exuberant, most mischievously imaginative animal on the planet. When that happens, if it ever does, it will be time for us to move on and make way for some more attractive species to replace us. In the meantime the beautiful game of life is ours for the taking._Morris isn't a philosopher, nor an avant-garde social commentator; he's first and foremost a zoologist, interested chiefly in what seems biologically optimal and adapted for a particular species. For him to say that, essentially, passion, fluorescence and childlike wonder are not only good for humans but an integral part of what humans were designed to be, without which they would be lacking and deviant from their nature, is rather mindblowing.[x-posted to a bunch'a places] 1 Chimaerical sashay |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Wednesday, April 13th, 2005 |
| 9:07 pm |
 fire_fly This was linked in avoidants:http://www.sensitiveperson.com/I think it outlines a lot of "fluorescent" characteristics, but doesn't go into any depth in explaining them. Also, books on the subject seem to carry the flaw of all self-help books in that they're very individual and micro-socially oriented and don't deal with the 'HSP' as a socialised kind of subjectivity. Shimmy once and do it again |
| Sunday, March 27th, 2005 |
| 1:43 pm - e l e m e n t s |
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| Wednesday, March 16th, 2005 |
| 3:45 pm - The Chimeras of Unica Zürn: But how fitting! |
 pharminatrix  "Unica Zürn: Drawings from the 1960s," Jan. 13-Apr. 16, 2005, at Ubu Gallery, 416 E. 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022 During the 1960s, when she was well into middle age, the German painter and writer Unica Zürn (1916-1970) made a series of psychologically intense line drawings that combine Surrealist automatism with the mania of Outsider Art and a certain residue of contemporary experiments in psychedelic drugs. Erotic and trancelike, the works depict fantastic chimeras, bizarre creatures with double faces that represent multiplications of herself, either repeated across the page or set in intricate dream landscapes of mystic animals and otherworldly plant forms.**( More imagesCollapse )**Seeing this will be definitely something of a pilgrimage for me I think.current mood:  curious 2 Chimaerical sashays |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Tuesday, March 15th, 2005 |
| 1:36 am - By Way of Introduction (adapted from a conversation with a friend) |
qassandra So, have you figured out the truth about me yet . . .?Well, that's because there is no truth. John Keats said that the poet is the most unpoetical thing, a chameleon. No, it's not exactly that I change for each person. You're going to tell me to just be myself, but this is my nature: I am a flow. Heraclitus said that you never step in the same river twice.Yes, that is part of why things fall apart. I lost my last love because of it. He found me fascinating at first, but it's hard to love what you can never put your finger on. And people confuse this for not letting anyone in, but there is no in.Maybe everyone's this way, and I just embrace it. Of course, I only acknowledge it-- let alone rejoice in it-- in my finest moments.current mood:  sleepy 6 Chimaerical sashays |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Friday, March 11th, 2005 |
| 1:27 am - Hearing you when you're not there... |
 cobaltie I understand having aspects of one's persona take on different voices and mannerisms. That's mostly a fractal subdivision of conscious and unconscious thoughts. But it's not just whomever's in one's own head that one has to deal with, but representations of other 'actual' people as well. Have you had some thought milling around in your mind, and had it answered by someone you know? Rehearsed a conversation and the many replies before you even speak to the other person? I know if there's some issue I really need to discuss with a friend, the discussion usually happens in my head with my internal version of the friend first. Of course it never goes like how I imagine it, but it's an effective way to field the conversation in a trial run, to determine if it's even a valid argument to make. Even when it's not something I ever intend to talk to someone about, they might still crop up to give advice on anything and everything. Perhaps it's just a function of knowing certain people and having had lots of conversations with them before...you get an implanted pattern of how they would react, what questions they might ask. I'm just curious how widespread this kind of thing really is. Heck, I rehearsed this entry in my head a few times before even typing it, and of course it ran through my mind mere seconds before my hands hit the keys. This is common, is it not? 10 Chimaerical sashays |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Wednesday, March 9th, 2005 |
| 10:59 am - Improvisation: a dance of constraints and possibilites |
| catkin "As we have seen, research has shown that the creative person and the creative process - and even the creative product - exhibit seeming paradox. Creative individuals are both crazier AND saner, for instrance, both more immersed in tradition and more willing to break with it. I believe this is not at all insignificant, and suggests the need of a different way of thinking, one that goes beyond simple dichotomies and into what Morin calls the dialogic. The concept of improvisation illustrates this." Sounds familiar or simply interesting? Yesterday I stumbled across a fantastic and enjoyable paper : "Creativity, Complexity and Improvisation in Daily Life". I reckon they'll be something in there to appeal to everyone here, plus it's refreshingly free of the esoteric vocabularly and terminology that sometimes makes papers a bit of a struggle. I think it pulls together a lot of subjects - the complexity and uncertainty of modern day living, the creative personality and re-organisation thought process, and improvisation as providing a framework to deal with all this constructively. Maybe not in a lot of depth, but then sometimes that's too much for a tuesday afternoon.This follows on from a brain-dump I had yesterday(also quite a good introduction of me at my oddest I guess) in which I started wondering about musical improvisation as a good metaphor for how I would like to enjoy living. A spontaniety that nonetheless took skill and practice to achieve, and individual expression whilst trying to produce something harmonious to the general mood and other players. It's expressed much better in that article! I would be interested to know if anyone has thoughts or gut-reactions to the concept of "improvisation" as a worthwhile approach; also what it might mean to "act from the subconscious" and whether you can extend that from musical playing or driving a vehicle etc to other aspects of life/self? 2 Chimaerical sashays |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Tuesday, March 8th, 2005 |
| 12:35 pm - translinear time and the eschaton |
 surrealchemist after I posted this comment,I started thinking about the perception of time, and noticed an interesting progression:ra wilson, in his prometheus rising, talks about the emergence of the perception of linear time from that of mythic or cyclic time. that is, phylogenicly and ontogenicly [sic], human awakens to a new and encompassing [transcyclic] mode of time perception. to extend this, I had the idea that one of the trends that is happening now in our emerging technomantic consciousness is the awakening to an even higher and more encompassing mode of perception, something that could be called analinear or fractal time. this seems to me to be the natural progression of a global culture that has postmodernly turned in on itself and is now racing toward the eschaton. In this light, I'd even suggest that this transition is precisely the nature of the eschatonic object.current mood: anachronihilistic 11 Chimaerical sashays |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Wednesday, March 9th, 2005 |
| 3:38 pm - Possible worlds/ Postmodernist zones |
 morality_play I'm not precisely sure how I found my way to this community. That satisfies. And while I'm not sure that I embody any of the criteria in your info page, a casual scan of this communities content makes it's relationship to my own preoccupations conspicuous.I'm interested in the repeated use of the expression "personal mythology" I see here. The first time I heard this expression was in a reflection of Nick Bantock's, that he had insulated himself from his personal mythology since his early works of fiction. I adopted the expression quickly, to describe my incasual association with...I'm not sure. An internal narrative? A form of speculative fiction? I'm not really certain there's a nomenclature to service the description of what I'm calling a "personal mythology." That's probably why I appropriated the term originally.I've recently been having a conversation with a friend, in which I submitted that there are certain types of fiction that are structured to explore kinds of ontological propositions, about possible worlds, and more broadly, about "ways of being." Some of this can be encapsulated under a feature of postmodernist fiction analyzed by the literary scholar, Brian McHale, in the third chapter of his "Postmoderist Fiction." His notion of "the zone" in fiction, borrowed from foucalt's heterotopic space, is prefaced with a question of "what kind of space" can the fictional narratives of Nobokov or Guy Davenport even occupy? I proposed during our exchange, that the idea of "super powers" in science fiction may actually represent the same kind of inquiry, but expanded to become "what kind of occupiers can exist in this space," or "what ways can we occupy these spaces." I had further submitted that these types of inquiries were what our moral progress and our continued development as a civilization hinged upon. That is to say, in a way, Utopian literature is central to the speculation of what we ought to be, or what we want to become, and Utopian literature is very much a part of the fiction described above.I think my curiosity about your community might be summarized by this realm of inquiry. Is there a point at which a certain species of art or literature becomes _prescriptive_?Is anyone else here, a transhumanist? 8 Chimaerical sashays |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Monday, March 7th, 2005 |
| 1:08 am |
 kalure Is it possible to be in direct contradiction of yourself?I know it's possible to be in direct contradiction of the you of another time- maybe you change your mind, you get some new information, the situation changes, you change your goals, whatever, but what about the you of now?I was in an odd conversation with some friends, and made the statement "I am a hypocrite at heart." We debated over whether that was a valid statement, and really only established that you could lie to yourself but deep down knew what was true, and that you could waver between two conflicting ideas, but we never determined whether you could firmly believe two mutually exclusive concepts.There are various times when, instead of picking one side of an argument or another or even somewhere in between, I find that I agree with both sides. I am not an optimist, pessimist, or somewhere in between- I'm hopeful and cynical at the same time.Does anyone else have an experience of this sort of duality? How does it affect you? 11 Chimaerical sashays |Shimmy once and do it again |
| Friday, March 4th, 2005 |
| 12:03 am |
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| Tuesday, March 1st, 2005 |
| 3:56 pm - Musing a while back. |
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"Unica Zürn: Drawings from the 1960s," Jan. 13-Apr. 16, 2005, at Ubu Gallery, 416 E. 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022 During the 1960s, when she was well into middle age, the German painter and writer Unica Zürn (1916-1970) made a series of psychologically intense line drawings that combine Surrealist automatism with the mania of Outsider Art and a certain residue of contemporary experiments in psychedelic drugs. Erotic and trancelike, the works depict fantastic chimeras, bizarre creatures with double faces that represent multiplications of herself, either repeated across the page or set in intricate dream landscapes of mystic animals and otherworldly plant forms.**( More imagesCollapse )**Seeing this will be definitely something of a pilgrimage for me I think.current mood: