Guest speaker: Lorenzo and Friends
PROGRAM NOTES:
This podcast features the final community discussions at the June 2012 Esalen workshop led by Lorenzo and Bruce Damer. Among the topics discussed were:
-Creating a new myth for our community
-The genesis of the Occupy Movement
-Are psychedelic “mutants” among us?
-Cultural Creatives
-Freeing our food supply from money
-Timebanks
-What the mushroom has to say about the future
-The Importance of myth
-Developing a “Medicine Circle” app
-Building new cultures through shared global experiences
-The ‘superfood’ revolution and our connection to the Earth
-Indra’s Net
-The Temple at the Burning Man Festival
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Who is currently responsible for findtheothers.net? I can set up PHP forum software if I am given the right credentials.
I can be accessed at lukem [under-score] 95 [at] hotmail [dot] com
[COMMENT by Lorenzo: I’m afraid that once again I’ve started something that I don’t have the bandwidth (time) to follow through with. Actually, there have been several other volunteers as well, but I can’t seem to get around to organizing the effort. I’ll try to get back to it later this month. . . . But thank you ever so much for taking your time to volunteer. Hopefully we will be able to take you up on your offer eventually.]
http://gss.universalsoldier.ca/
…is a redirect to a Google Group who’s url is to cumbersome to memorize.
The group is called Global Survival and can also be referenced as Gss (‘Guess’), and was started by SeH (‘Seth’) to bring together some very diverse thinkers on topics of, well, GLOBAL SURVIVAL 🙂
Listening to Lorenzo’s ideas in this cast, as well as Bruce Damer’s comments about Levity and some of the other mail groups whose members are searching for answers, I thought it relevant to bring Gss to your minds as a potential model for brainstorming solutions and hacking open-source answers. Check it out. I hope it will inspire you in your further development of FindTheOthers.net
Love,
Rev
P.S. I’ve been using “Find the Others” as the subtitle to my blog, http://lovedemands.universalsoldier.ca for this whole year. Of course, I heard that phrase many years ago right here in the salon. Thanks for the push, Terence/Timothy, and thanks for being a great archivists and just-plain-good-old-hacker, Lorenzo.
+1 for mumble as a method of talking to groups via the internet – open source and secure.
As for the website, I am a software developer with a good deal of experience regarding online forums, of which many are also open-source and easy to use and customise. I do like the idea of implementing something with a Medicine Circle interface, which would require some custom work however. If more help is needed then I’m more than happy to pledge some time.
I’ll second the idea that I think the forum format would be great. Not keen on “social networking” sites per se, but do love the forum format. A dedicated Psy Salon/Find The Others forum would be great.
In my experience, we should control what we can and let go of things we have no control over.
Myth is a great idea. Just because one myth did not work, doesn’t mean we can’t create another one that will or that there hasn’t been other myths that worked better. It’s a fact that we need a myth as a collective – even the myth of not having a myth.
Further, it’s my observance that road is paved with good intentions. Instead of love or good vibes- we need more critical thinking, ways for public to understand in depth media tactics, how is indoctrination carried out, and general education. (not trade skills and indoctrination) .
In this realm of reality, it’s all a myth a-la- Joseph Campbell and Jung.This is due to the fact that we can only understand from our subjecive or objective of our mind. In every experience and our understanding of it- emotional , visual, intuitive – all is cognized in the mind which is incapable of disconnecting from the subconcious- subjective or objective. What is truth and eternal will always be – and we will never know the knower or the person experiencing as we are trapped in subjective or the objective.. It is what it is – irregardless of life and society issues.
Myth is the reality and we can mind the mind and will the material indeed .
Half way through this podcast – especially enjoyed Lorenzo’s comments in the first half.
To me – a myth is the last thing we need at the moment. A myth is a device for stability. Collective consciousness is in a state of flux at the moment. We are discarding past myths precisely because they stifled forward development. We are a long way from emerging into a new dynamic equilibrium where a common myth could possible play a positive role. Even then – myth surely is for those who cannot or will not have a direct experience of reality through psychedelics. Sorry – myth has a lot of harm to answer for over the past 2000 years. You will have to do a bit more convincing before I believe it’s worthwhile brainwashing people with dogma instead of letting them find answers for themselves.
In the meantime, the general solution is obvious. Love! Embrace love, reject hatred. The hippies worked this out and the solution is still in processing. All we have to do is keep the goal in sight while we go through the rigors of social metamorphosis.
on Timebanks,
Kevin Flaherty of cryptogon.com posted this today:
http://cryptogon.com/?p=31053
Spain’s Jobless Turn to Barter System
August 29th, 2012
Via: Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443404004577577352038273664.html?_nocache=1346037745602&mg=id-wsj&user=welcome&wpisrc=nl_wonk&mod=rss_economy
Even though she’s one of millions of young, unemployed Spaniards, 22-year-old Silvia Martín takes comfort in knowing that her bank is still standing behind her. It’s not a lending institution, but rather a time bank whose nearly 400 members barter their services by the hour.
Ms. Martin, who doesn’t own a car and can’t afford taxis, has relied on other time-bank members to give her lifts around town for her odd jobs and errands, as well as to help with house repairs. In return, she has cared for members’ elderly relatives, organized children’s parties and even hauled boxes for a member moving to a new house.
The time bank not only saves her cash, she says, but also lifts her spirits by making her feel “part of a community that’s taking some positive action during hard times.”
As Europe’s leaders struggle with a five-year-old economic crunch that has saddled Spain with the industrialized world’s highest jobless rate, young Spaniards are increasingly embracing such bottom-up self-help initiatives to cope. The diverse measures—some commonly associated with rural or disaster-zone economies—supplement a public safety net that is fraying under government austerity programs.
—
2 other Kevin Flaherty sites of interest:
http://www.cryptogon.com/backchannel/
http://farmlet.co.nz/
I think going the route of using the Vanilla software would be perfect – see an excellent example over @ DuncanTrussell.com – a very active meeting place!
http://mindbook.ws/ comes to mind immediately. it’s sort of like facebook in a way
@Zuma
Thanks for checking out my site again. I know things have been slow over there for the past year or so, but I have big plans in the works. And thanks for the link, I’ll add your site to my links also if you would like.
The youtube section will be both, at first I plan to have a blog type page where I post interesting youtube videos daily, as well as the ability for people to add their own links. Eventually I plan to mirror the better part of my archive onto its own youtube channel, but I need to get a bigger following first so that I have the ability to upload videos longer than 10minutes without having to re-upload everything. This is only a problem because my upload bandwidth is absolutely terrible. I have a workaround to where I can upload via VPN from a box with 50mbit upload, but it will be a while before I get that up and going. In the meantime new uploads will trickle in at the rate of 60kb/sec 🙁
The members section is very close to completion (should be fully operational within 2 weeks.) I’ll be sure to give you an account, as well as anyone else here that would like to check it out. Just post in the comments section on my site or contact me via email (my address is at the bottom of the page) and say that you are from the Salon. Also keep in mind the only way that people can find my page is by word of mouth, I have it set to reject all robots so it doesn’t show up in any search engines. Feel free to spread the word just make sure to keep it within the tribe!
…one venerable option shouldn’t be overlooked imho, listserv:
http://www.lsoft.com/download/listservfree.asp
You mentioned Teamspeak in the podcast. Mumble is similar and it’s open source. I setup a small server to entertain us until we get something official running. I think we should shoot for at least audio if not video communication. Be it a Mumble server, Teamspeak, Skype, or maybe something we make ourselves.
Mumble client for Linux, Mac, and Windows
http://mumble.sourceforge.net/
IOS
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mumble/id443472808?mt=8
Server Address: vx39.commandchannel.com
Port: 7159
I’ll add more user slots to this server if it turns out we need them.
You mentioned the possible use of Teamspeak to facilitate internet-based, vocal/aural discussion. I have been playing video games for years using Voice Over Internet Protocol programs, and find them all to be great, however, my favorite is Mumble (http://mumble.sourceforge.net/). As you can guess, it is an open source solution, and it is also an excellent choice for VOIP communication.
Thanks again for running the Salon! I wasn’t fortunate enough to even be alive when psychedelics were in more common use, so this podcast is one of the only that exposes me to these ideas. I grew up learning that all drugs are dangerous and scary, and offer only negative effects. I am thrilled to learn these ancient tools have so much to teach us.
Ooohh, I particularly liked the quote, “Take care of each other, take risks, share our most outrageous ideas and find the others. Find the others – continue the dialogue”
Brilliant! Very wise lady there!
With that in mind, I find it particularly… I don’t have the word for it, but coincident of fateful purpose that I am probably ascribing too much syncronicity value to…
Bah, sorry, comment is losing coherency.
With that in mind, about 3 weeks ago I finally started making a podcast, after months and years of talking about it, relating to psychedelic/visionary/drug culture, with the premise that, “Through collaboration we become coherent”.
I’d love to participate in your new webpage – I too am a fan of the audio medium, but I am trying to find ways to make it accessible to a wider audience and covering a variety of expression, not just talk. I’m not sure how I can help with the website yet, but if you have the time, take a listen to my podcast and.. let’s start a dialogue!
P.S.S. This is Jeremy Sylvester – the guy with the fractal prints at Esalen. You may also recall my incredibly beautiful girlfriend Cindy who was also there.
I own this small software company, Accelerant Group, and would be happy to donate some of my time to the development of the site. I also have several talented software engineers that can help, and will coordinate with the other volunteers as necessary.
I see this site exploding in use, if the right privacy can be enforced. This is something which has been needed for some time, and I’d be excited to be a part of it.
Regards,
Fractal Philosopher
Lorenzo,
Accelerant Group would be happy to donate up to 3 full-time web engineers to assist in this project. We have the unique talent needed to create a site with an integrated Public Key Infrastructure; which is necessary to protect the tribe with super-secure authentication and strong encryption.
Members of Accelerant Group were directly involved in research and legislation that led to the Electronic Records and Signatures act (signed by President Clinton in 2000). WE KNOW HOW TO KEEP EACH OTHER SAFE!
Please understand that the safety of the tribe is important to us; and consider this a legitimate bid and honest commitment. You and the rest of the tribe can view our capabilities at http://www.accelerantgroup.com.
**Feel free to mention the URL in your podcast if it’s appropriate.
Very Respectfully,
Fractal Philosopher
P.S. Mary-C has my contact info if you need it. I gave it to her at Esalen.
@fivegrams
hi guy! your comment was great to read.
it also served as a nudge to hit your site again -it’s been a while. (even though as always i have it linked on my front page, within the first screen at that.) please let us know when you get member application rolling, i’ll get in line. i like your ideas.
your youtube section is still under construction and i have a question: is it to be of your own youtube channel (perhaps embedded??) or collected embeds of other youtubes? or perhaps both?
http://mckennaforum.com/ looks lovely, well done, informative and inviting. thanks muchly for the link.
your link list was a help in showing me the current url for erocx1 as http://erocx1.blogspot.com/ -what i have (on my linkroll) has been outdated for some time & didn’t redirect. i am glad to have the fix.
FindTheOthers.net is a wonderful idea! It sounds a bit like what I have been trying to do over at nndmt.com. If you build it they will come! I would love to pitch a tent over there and hang out. Perhaps our sites could become partners where I host the files and you host the conversation. I’m working on a feature now that will let users who have a Members account upload their own files to the database.
There are many community driven pages that have popped up over the years, such as http://mckennaforum.com/ which has proved for some interesting discussions. I suspect that you have the following here to create something really special. I have a few ideas, something similar to facebook/google+ where each user account has their own page and can write anything and others can comment on them. There could be groups centered around various themes, tribes within tribes. Giving each person a space to share pictures and stories, a place to make new friends. This would be better than just installing phpbb and putting a logo on it, but it would require a lot of code. I am more than willing to help but I am on a pretty limited schedule atm. Just let me know if there is anything I can do.
quasiperiodic’s pointer to open source code is great.
natch, i personally prefer what i’m used to, matt wright’s classic BBS perl script, but it’s admittedly antiquated beyond antiquated, and has no *given* user/password provision or other spam safeguard. (yes, .htaccess could be used, but i’ve never done it & am not experienced with it.) so i really appreciated quasiperiodic’s comment.
(hm, i wonder if that reddit code allows for one to reedit a post, at least one not yet responded to…)
certainly, there’s many tempting alternatives involving intermediaries, like blogspot has a multiple author feature for example, but blogspot’s now directly Google owned. even if it wasn’t, it’d still be an intermediary, yeah.
i recommend this on the subject of intermediaries (at about the ten minute mark):
F2C2012: Eben Moglen keynote – “Innovation under Austerity”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2VHf5vpBy8
it’s a great talk in general, & pertinent all around, but i really like his hammering home the intermediary point…
…again & again even,
Eben Moglen on Facebook, Google and Government Surveillance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJCczbSF-B8
***
on a creation myth
given any existence at all, creation follows. can a totally void universe actually be said to exist? for sure, the act of observation itself changes things, etc. when 0 is changed to 1 we have a creation narrative but where did the blank canvas come from? myself, i need an existence myth before i can follow onto a creation myth, so one can see right off i’m patently confused. [*koff*]
i have trouble with the constraints of story structure at all. all i know is to make a mark & go from there. i hit a key & become a conduit. the spirits themselves, whether memes or ideas, or the alchemy of such one can be a cauldron for, can themselves be like boxes. i like the ‘there is no box at all’ notion. -i have a loopy page i wrote a fellow cartoonist friend on narrative & quoted McKenna’s call for a creation myth within it. (i also reference Sam Fuller’s cinematic dictum on opening shots. speaking of whom, i strongly recommend the film ‘Tigrero’.)
http://zuma.vip.warped.com/dtn.htm
i love joe campbell & learned a lot from him & do lean on those teachings heavily, but still also feel that something fundamentally precedes mythos, prior to history, prior to any sense of structure, even that of self-awareness at all. sheer occurrence itself, in contrast to pre-occurence. something singular, before otherwise…
…yet… there’s always that nagging need, or space, for a creation myth of some sort, yep… spores on asteroids or what have you.
http://www.tcj.com/flex-mentallo-and-the-morrison-problem/#comment-59122
to talk about untalkable consciousness is beyond me. i’d have to be in some trance/grace i’ve yet to experience. guiding thought is tricky, like guiding ‘automatic’ writing. one wants to not be so conscious as to think while relaying deeper ‘thoughts’ on paper or in ascii. it’s like an ocean liner; turns are broad & slow. or as my buddy jimmy says (& i constantly quote): “Don’t talk about it, you’ll jinx it.” but yes, let us look to where we would go, rather than that we’d avoid. just like riding a motorcycle…
***
http://zuma.vip.warped.com/hatha_ora-burroughs_smith-1.mp3
…the beginning words in this describe well an initial canvas…
each to their own tastes, eh? & code.
***
on apps, i’m a naysayer. the cloud sucks. see Eben Moglen again etc. (thank you Lorenzo for turning me on to him in the first place.)
on timebanks, i love it.
on food & money. centralization sucks & local is great. local is also quite under scrutiny & attack. growing your own food is definitely a hostile act to the powers that be. but still must be done. i’d love to also see shoemakers, watchmakers, weavers, tailors, carpenters, et al return as well as singular private farming. papermakers, typesetters, all the reliable human skills new & old, it doesn’t matter. to work with one’s hands at all is losing ground! centralization makes stupid. money makes stupid. power makes stupid. stupidity is virtually a commodity now, like ignorance, yep. value itself is devalued. horrible! but how does one grow food in a drought? in a desert? hydroponically?
http://www.wwltv.com/news/Plaquemines-Parish-keeping-eye-on-drinking-water-quality-as-salt-moves-up-Miss-River-165195766.html
food seed itself is already a major issue & controversy, vis a vis Monsanto’s genetically engineered strains & their patents. & the FDA…
http://www.truthistreason.net/fda-says-you-have-no-fundamental-right-to-grow-or-eat-healthy-food-its-a-privilege
we’re are in the most inexpressibly horrific of earthly historic times, as huge as it is hellish. Lorenzo, there’s a post on your blog that delineates these times really well, and relays the scope of what we’re up against. canoes trying to steer an ocean liner indeed. we may wish to sidestep (rather than change) the system, but damn if that endeavor too isn’t targeted. humanicide, terracide, we’re wishing to stop a slomo doomsday endeavor of Death entirely. i don’t think mindfulness needs equate to fear or fearmongering -in fact quite the opposite -but horrorism and terrorism by Power are on the same scale now as human power itself is; larger than ever.
we have simply never before been this extraordinarily stupid.
power makes stupid. there’s some sort of inorganic being in that, akin to the spirit in alcohol that possesses. the sheer ‘criminalization’ of basic decency itself seems to be going on, for all that it deters domination. wtf are ‘we’ on mars for? nuclear-powered at that? how dare we send such there? hubris taken beyond any Nth degree in service to such making of stupid… i think of the Falun Gong suppression in China and see it as just one aspect of power asserting itself for it’s own sake. screw power entirely.
human Ego is a worldwide monster now. a central topic i think. wisdom and maturity have been virtually outlawed along with decency. as long as humans breed and power and money help facilitate it, we’re at odds with the whole point of life in the first place.
lastly, i’ll close with an appreciation for the thoughts on regionalism i got from one of your posts on your blog:
http://www.lorenzohagerty.com/blog/?p=616
i grew up and lived in major (& coastal) international cities all my life. i had a naive notion of the homogeneity of modern america that living here in oklahoma city for the past 12 years has done much to dismantle but that article you posted really added to. a great perspective enlarger & enhancer. i recommend it.
i agree that a forum seems like a best first step.
i have to say that i’ve found reddit’s design to be a great way to have nested conversations with collapsible direct replies, collective selection of valuable discussions, and community moderation of trolls. and it’s open source!
cheers,
b/q
Talk about timing! Over the last week or so I’ve been watching “BBS: The Documentary” (about the early days of ‘online’ bulletin boards… a little before my time, though I’ve been active on forums for 10+ years now and can hardly imagine life without them both as a way to get information but also as a way to meet and interact with like-minded people) and thinking that it would be awesome if there was a forum to discuss these ‘Psychedelic Ideas’ with others.
I’m not a big fan of facebook groups and discussions of blogs/other social media sites don’t seem to do it for me either… maybe I’m resisting change a little, but I love the idea of a traditional FORUM! 🙂
Once the community starts coming together I’m sure the video chats will become very cool, since a lot of people will know each other a little bit better from the forums as well.
I’d be happy to out with this project, I’ve got time and am comfortable with Photoshop as well as basic website building / programming and feel capable of learning new stuff as well. I did set up a forum several years ago (It was just some high school buddies (literally haha) and me it never went anywhere…)
Let me know what I can do to help get this thing running! 😎
If you’ve read memories and visions of paradise you really need to check out left in the dark by tony wright. The forward by Dennis explains the general idea..
I wholeheartedly agree that our species sorely needs a new myth (or two). The ones humanity has adopted over the last few thousand years have led us nowhere, but to the disaster we’re in now.
As for me, the myth I’ve selected for myself is called the Gaia-Sophia mythos, as developed by independent scholar and shaman John Lamb Lash in his book ‘Not In His Image’. Not only does he completely obliterate all Abrahamic/savior religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) in this book, but he resurrect and applies his considerable shamanistic imagination to the gnostic writings of Nag Hammadi to resurrect what for me is humanities saving mythos. I can’t recommend this book enough for those who, like Lorenzo, are looking for a new myth of the species.
In addition to his book, he has an extensive website (www.metahistory.org) where he continues to develop this mythos (there are literally 15 books worth of material on his site on this and other topics). Here is a page that gives a brief overview of the mythos, but the book is really where you should start if it interests you: http://www.metahistory.org/GAIA%20SOPHIA/mythos/Gaia_Sharing.php#Synopsis
So, http://www.findtheothers.net/ :::
I think a forum would be a good start for this url. Just a small one for start maybe, to bring a few people together, willing to work on such project. Group chats and all this ideas could then evolve out of a forum easily over time.
I am not experienced enough to set up a php forum software alone in a minute, on the other hand i am not natively speaking english. But I got WordPress running on my dedicated server, and so i think might be capable of supporting such a project in different ways … and would like to! If someone could manage to set up a forum software, then i am there. If nobody is capable to set it up: well, i could try to set it up Lorenzo -but for this i need more details about the server and to be honest: a little time.
Janice