Benji
@benji
Benji
As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES. In doing this, he is fulfilling a need (giving himself identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal), he avoids frustrating his potential (choosing a path... See more
Farnam Street • Hunter S. Thompson’s Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life
• In my favorite talk of the entire symposium, Sam Shonkoff described two modes of connecting with history. The first mode claims that drugs played a role in advancing Judaism—for example, that hassidic Judaism was boosted by poor Jews eating ergot-filled rye bread (ergot being chemically related to LSD). These claims are tenuous at best and have little to provide modern Jewish psychedelic users beyond some modicum of validation.
• Instead, Shonkoff argued, the more common move is to make a hermeneutical claim: my ancestors may not have tripped on shrooms, but I can understand them because I tripped on shrooms. The biggest public advocate of this idea was Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, whose LSD trip with Timothy Leary could reasonably be said to have inaugurated psychedelic Judaism. For Zalman, psychedelics offered moderns a way to get in touch with the past, even if that past didn’t involve psychedelics, and even if we’ll inevitably project ourselves onto the past that we’re retrieving. Like so many previous generations, psychedelic Judaism willfully and enthusiastically injects itself into our shared history. What could be more authentically Jewish than that?
• But, as some of the other speakers noted, there’s actually a third mode: the Jewish history of altered states of consciousness. This mode encompasses mystical texts in which the senses become mixed (discussed by Eliot Wolfson and Nathaniel Berman). It might also include Biblical and Talmudic sources that point to drumming-induced trance states, as well as female-run vineyard rituals (argued by Jill Hammer). Most usefully, it could even include the real-but-obscure history of Jewish shamans (ba’alei shem), whose use of esoteric rituals, intricate ceremonies, and herbal medicines was importantly raised up by Yosef Rosen (much of this tradition died off when medical schools began accepting Jewish students).
• This flourishing, moreover, has a clear path to maturation. It’s so straightforward, in fact, that I can spell it out in broad strokes right here, in no particular order:
• Create a suite of definitive studies on the history of Jewish psychedelic use, consciousness alteration, and practical guides (some of these are already in the works!)
• Fund research teams on Judaism and psychedelics
• Establish mechanisms for cultural exchange between American and Israeli psychedelic users
• Encourage experimentation with psychedelic-boosted Jewish rituals, both communal and individual
• Design and expand trainings for facilitators and trip sitters
• Collect oral histories of Jewish psychedelic use from the 1950s until today
• Further develop informal online networks, as well as regional networks
• Draft a statement of principles for psychedelic Judaism
• Publish guidelines for safe use
• Develop Jewish thought about addiction
• Create pedagogical tools for communities with little exposure to psychedelics, so that they can appreciate them intellectually and/or try them if interested (coercion is never okay)
• Devise strategies for engagement with major rabbinic institutions
• Establish a national organization to link all the people in the psychedelic Judaism space and perhaps do public advocacy
• Conventionally, right speech means you pay attention to your speech, noticing if there are occasions where you are not exactly being truthful, you’re being harsh, or what you’re saying is divisive. Or maybe it’s just idle small talk, not amounting to much.
• My teacher said, “This is all good. But what will help you most of all is to taste silence.” I asked him why. He said, “When you learn how to live in even a little bit of silence and feel the beauty of it, the sacredness of it, then as soon as you open your mouth, you realize you’re wrong. No matter what you say, even if you use the most refined speech, it’s a crude instrument for expressing the deep experiences of being alive.”
• The more you listen and become sensitive to your speech, the more you taste silence. And the more you drink and taste the beauty of silence—real stillness—sometimes you don’t even want to speak. If you do speak, you want to say something that, in a sense, doesn’t sully the silence. Put another way, you hear when your speech is off, when there are false notes. You become more sensitive both in noticing what is not true and in being vulnerable, fragile
Is life predetermined, or are we free to choose the path we take? What is the best attitude to have in relation to that? And if we make a choice to live a life of service, how do we know that is not just an egoic pursuit?
Rupert says: ‘If God was a man, our destiny probably would have been written right from the very beginning. But as we now know, God is a woman, and she’s always changing her mind. And thank God for that – that we have no idea what we’re destined for, that there is freedom and creativity.
‘The best attitude to take in relation to that is openness and surrender, not just for the good things that happen, but also the painful and challenging things – because they have no inherent power over us. Say yes to everything, even if you don’t understand why it’s happening.
‘And don’t curtail your work in the world by considering it egoic. If you have this love and understanding, and you have a vision of somehow wanting to bring it to humanity, that’s not an egoic impulse. Follow it. Be passionate about it. Do whatever is required to bring your vision to humanity.’
Mary Oliver on What Attention Really Means and Her Moving Elegy for Her Soul Mate
Maria Popovathemarginalian.org
• It has frequently been remarked, about my own writings, that I emphasize the notion of attention. This began simply enough: to see that the way the flicker flies is greatly different from the way the swallow plays in the golden air of summer. It was my pleasure to notice such things, it was a good first step.
• An openness — an empathy — was necessary if the attention was to matter. Such openness and empathy M. had in abundance, and gave away freely…
• I was in my late twenties and early thirties, and well filled with a sense of my own thoughts, my own presence. I was eager to address the world of words — to address the world with words.
• Then M. instilled in me this deeper level of looking and working, of seeing through the heavenly visibles to the heavenly invisibles.
• I think of this always when I look at her photographs, the images of vitality, hopefulness, endurance, kindness, vulnerability…
• We each had our separate natures; yet our ideas, our influences upon each other became a rich and abiding confluence.