The Function Of Belief

[greymare]

Maybe we're just splitting hairs over "root" (Australian slang, grey!).

Did Beethoven spend a lifetime creating music just to impress the ladies?

s.

Isnt this just typical, get a group of guys together and soon enough it all comes down to sex. LOL. Fair Dinkum!!! All Ican say is unless you are really hungry and downright randy dont go to Taos when you are invited for lunch. You might get more than you bargained for. LOL Personally, I think most of what happens in society is purely for sex (reproduction). Generally, most women dress up get all "puffed and fluffed" to attract the male of the species. Men like to be "manly" and do blokey stuff to attract females. There is NO mystery to that. But as you get older and llife isnt necessarily about reproducing other things get more interesting. Still looking.......

 

[flowperson]

Hi...As I pointed out elsewhere here, the self identification of the human spirit with observed phenomena of nature was a common theme among very ancient people. We all started out as Pagans. In Europe, this was predominantly a matter of assuming the persona of animal spirits in the pursuit of transcendence and a joining with the elements of nature. The occurrence of these artistic representations of these joinings and transformations in caves was symbolic of a rebirth of the human spirit in the form of animal spirits within the womb of mother nature.

N. American Natives also followed this path as did most of the people of those times who subsisted upon the rewards of the hunt. Rock art in the southwest U.S. and in N. Africa also demonstrated this tendency. I agree that this process was evolutionary, but was not necessarily the forerunner of organized religions. This transition took place most clearly among the agrarian tribes beginning about 10,000 years ago. This was the period of time in which people began to settle in communities to raise crops, and others remained nomadic and continued their animal centered existence whether through hunting and/or herding. One may see this separation of origins by studying archaeological evidence of the offering of blood sacrifices versus grain offerings at holy sites.

For example, at Hebrew ritual sites one sees a division of focus of these two origins. The grain offering was in the form of bread loaves placed upon the altar in the holy of holies. The blood offerings were made outside of the tabernacle/temples upon the horned altar in the courtyard. This implies an inside/outside dichotomy within the whole, at least in the roots of Judaism. Blood offerings associated with the animal spirits were to be kept outside of the holiest portions of the tabernacle/temple, whereas plant offerings were recognized to be less destructive spiritually and were allowed in the holiest precincts of worship.

My two cents.

Grey... I don't have very much to do on Sunday afternoons these days other than to think too much. Sorry, it's just my nature me loove .

flow....

 

[Snoopy]

Isnt this just typical, get a group of guys together and soon enough it all comes down to sex. LOL. Fair Dinkum!!! All Ican say is unless you are really hungry and downright randy dont go to Taos when you are invited for lunch. You might get more than you bargained for. LOL Personally, I think most of what happens in society is purely for sex (reproduction). Generally, most women dress up get all "puffed and fluffed" to attract the male of the species. Men like to be "manly" and do blokey stuff to attract females. There is NO mystery to that. But as you get older and llife isnt necessarily about reproducing other things get more interesting. Still looking.......

Just trying to empathise with your lingo, grey!

I think to correlate all aesthetics with mating is to grossly debase it. Aesthetics can be a means of bringing about and maintain social order, in the widest sense of aesthetics (e.g. architecture, ritual, design, urban structure).

s.

 

[greymare]

Hi...As I pointed out elsewhere here, the self identification of the human spirit with observed phenomena of nature was a common theme among very ancient people. We all started out as Pagans. In Europe, this was predominantly a matter of assuming the persona of animal spirits in the pursuit of transcendence and a joining with the elements of nature. The occurrence of these artistic representations of these joinings and transformations in caves was symbolic of a rebirth of the human spirit in the form of animal spirits within the womb of mother nature.

N. American Natives also followed this path as did most of the people of those times who subsisted upon the rewards of the hunt. Rock art in the southwest U.S. and in N. Africa also demonstrated this tendency. I agree that this process was evolutionary, but was not necessarily the forerunner of organized religions. This transition took place most clearly among the agrarian tribes beginning about 10,000 years ago. This was the period of time in which people began to settle in communities to raise crops, and others remained nomadic and continued their animal centered existence whether through hunting and/or herding. One may see this separation of origins by studying archaeological evidence of the offering of blood sacrifices versus grain offerings at holy sites.

For example, at Hebrew ritual sites one sees a division of focus of these two origins. The grain offering was in the form of bread loaves placed upon the altar in the holy of holies. The blood offerings were made outside of the tabernacle/temples upon the horned altar in the courtyard. This implies an inside/outside dichotomy within the whole, at least in the roots of Judaism. Blood offerings associated with the animal spirits were to be kept outside of the holiest portions of the tabernacle/temple, whereas plant offerings were recognized to be less destructive spiritually and were allowed in the holiest precincts of worship.

My two cents.

Grey... I don't have very much to do on Sunday afternoons these days other than to think too much. Sorry, it's just my nature me loove .

flow....

dont be sorry flow, its what we love about you. besides, i like eavesdropping on these intelectual discussions, " me n my lot neva did much book learnin"

 

[flowperson]

" me n my lot neva did much book learnin"

Yeah Grey, but I'll wager that you could write a book or two about the things that you and your lot do know. We each have our own knowledge and talents. The trick is doing something with all that which may benefit others my dear.

flow....

 

[greymare]

oh I could write some stories, let me tell ya, but no one would believe me. LOL except you of course dear flow.

 

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, everybody!

The emergence of abstraction very likely did give rise to the emergence of supernatural beliefs. But surely this was a side effect. Abstraction is a tool of the brain that allows foresight, logic, planning and all the other faculties mankind developed as a requirement of moving very rapidly out of Africa into a wide variety of habitats. Adaptability created abstraction for survival not to ponder God.

I am of the opinion that it is a bit hard to say which was the side-effect. There is a key element I have stumbled across now in a few different contexts, and I find it surprising to find it once again here in the quotes I submitted above, namely the comfortable familiarity ancient peoples had with hallucinogens (at the very least the shamans were extremely familiar with such). Now, I suppose in the neo-classic Freudian psychoanalysis argument it could be said that "G-d" came about because all of these shamans were out of their freaking gourds. But that argument rings hollow to me. As I have said before many times, there is too much similarity across far too wide of a field and across too many boundaries to attribute an imaginary "G-d" to a chance invention.

...we can see looking to the very beginnings of primitive beliefs that we drew all we knew from what we knew. Not what we did not know.

Actually, this reinforces my point...think about it. If prehistoric humans did not already "know" "G-d," why did they bother to invent one? The essence of your argument strikes me as "we have 'G-d' because we believe," whereas I contend that we believe because we have "G-d." If we did not "know," there would not be.

As beliefs developed over time they grew more complex and drifted ever further from the natural environment from which they stemmed. With the emergence of permanent settlements and the gradual divorce from wider nature, and new tools such as record keeping, they developed quickly into wholly anthropocentric edifices of thought. The human history of art shows very clearly the evolution of the supernatural to be just that, an evolution. Very strong evidence for saying religion is not gifted on man by a divine entity, but is solely the product of our imaginations? I think so.

I have no argument about the evolution of religious institutions, but your position proceeds from an assumption (in my opinion, mistaken) about the origins of the mystical union with the Divine. I have no argument against your assessment with the construction and eventual corruption of the institutions of religion...I agree. But that does not preclude a very real, even if not quantifiable or qualifiable, connection and / or association with an underlying "spirit realm." I know I am vague, I really don't have words to describe accurately what I mean to say, and certainly not convey that essence in its fullest across to others. The way that is named is not the true way.

Hi...As I pointed out elsewhere here, the self identification of the human spirit with observed phenomena of nature was a common theme among very ancient people. We all started out as Pagans. {Key point! -jt3} In Europe, this was predominantly a matter of assuming the persona of animal spirits in the pursuit of transcendence and a joining with the elements of nature. The occurrence of these artistic representations of these joinings and transformations in caves was symbolic of a rebirth of the human spirit in the form of animal spirits within the womb of mother nature.

Considering such figural anthropomorphic chimera as the Lowenmensch and others, I generally agree. While I agree we were "Pagans," I think even Pagans will acknowledge that Paganism casts a very wide net. I suspect one could considerably narrow the field by considering Shamanism specifically. Otherwise one may get superfluous associations with, oh- the Roman and Greek pantheons for example. Even though I suspect there probably was some type of rudimentary magic associated, I don't believe it was akin directly to that of, oh- Wicca.

I wanted to keep the quotes above short, but there is a preceeding paragraph or two to the first quote that shed some light in the direction of shamanism:

Ever since the beginning of the XXth century, several attempts have been made to find the meaning(s) of Paleolithic rock art. Art for art’s sake, totemism, the Abbe Breuil’s hunting magic and Leroi-Gourhan’s and Laming-Emperaires’s structuralist theories were proposed and then abandoned one after the other (Delporte 1990, Lorblanchet 1995). Since then, most specialists have made up their minds that it would be hopeless to look for the meanings behind the art. They prefer to spend their time and efforts recording it, describing it and dating it, to endeavour to answer the questions 'what ?', 'how ?' and 'when ?', thus carefully avoiding the fundamental question 'why ?'. In the course of the past few years, though, a new attempt, spurred by David Lewis-Williams, was made in order to discover an interpretative framework. Shamanism was proposed (Clottes & Lewis-Williams 1998). Considering the fact that shamanism is so widespread among hunter-gatherers and that Upper Paleolithic people were admittedly hunter-gatherers, looking to shamanism as a likely religion for them should have been the first logical step whenever the question of meaning arose.

In addition, shamanic religions evidence several characteristics which can make us understand cave art better. The first one is their concept of a complex cosmos in which at least two worlds - or more - coexist, be they side by side or one above the other. Those worlds interact with one another and in our own world most events are believed to be the consequence of an influence from the other-world(s). The second one is the belief of the group in the ability for certain persons to have at will a direct controlled relationship with the other-world. {emphasis mine, -jt3} This is done for very practical purposes : to cure the sick, to maintain a good relationship with the powers in the other-world, to restore an upset harmony, to reclaim a lost soul, to make good hunting possible, to forecast the future, to cast spells, etc. Contact happens in two ways: spirit helpers, very often in animal form, come to the shaman and inhabit him/her when he/she calls on them ; the shaman may also send his/her soul to the other-world in order to meet the spirits there and obtain their help and protection. Shamans will do so through trance. A shaman thus has a most important role as a mediator between the real world and the world of the spirits, as well as a social role.

Upper Paleolithic people were Homo sapiens sapiens like us and therefore had a nervous system identical to ours. Consequently, some of them must have known altered states of consciousness in their various forms including hallucinations. This was part of a reality which they had to manage in their own way and according to their own concepts.

Paleolithic Cave Paintings and Rock Art in France

I don't see pre-historic people facing overwhelming fears of the unknown for the sheer pleasure of the experience...they had to at least intuit something of value to face and conquer that paralyzing fear.

This transition took place most clearly among the agrarian tribes beginning about 10,000 years ago. This was the period of time in which people began to settle in communities to raise crops, and others remained nomadic and continued their animal centered existence whether through hunting and/or herding. One may see this separation of origins by studying archaeological evidence of the offering of blood sacrifices versus grain offerings at holy sites.

I overlapped the quote above, the end being the opening for the earlier quote, to point out the association with hallucinations and hallucinogens. Elsewhere I have pointed to how early agriculture may very well have stemmed from the desire to cultivate grains *not* as a source of human food (humans are not evolutionarily equipped to consume grains), but as a source of ergot and to be fermented into beer or wine for hallucinogenic purposes.

For example, at Hebrew ritual sites one sees a division of focus of these two origins. The grain offering was in the form of bread loaves placed upon the altar in the holy of holies. The blood offerings were made outside of the tabernacle/temples upon the horned altar in the courtyard. This implies an inside/outside dichotomy within the whole, at least in the roots of Judaism. Blood offerings associated with the animal spirits were to be kept outside of the holiest portions of the tabernacle/temple, whereas plant offerings were recognized to be less destructive spiritually and were allowed in the holiest precincts of worship.

That is an interesting insight I had not considered before.

 

[Tao_Equus]

Hi juantoo, so nice to have you to respond to

..... namely the comfortable familiarity ancient peoples had with hallucinogens .......there is too much similarity across far too wide of a field and across too many boundaries to attribute an imaginary "G-d" to a chance invention.

There is no denial of the fact that no matter where mankind went in the world he seems to have sought out hallucinogens. Ergot however is not one of them, infact it is a very poor hallucinogen. Ergot poisoning does eventually lead to hallucinations but only after blood vessels in the limbs and head have constricted to the point that gangrene has set in. Infact it is not the alkaloids working like conventional hallucinogens that cause ergot hallucinations but the damage being done to the brain by blood starvation. It does contain traces of lysergic acid but one would have to consume so much that the other toxins present would render you dead long before you got your trip.

Whether it be Peyote in Mexico, the famous mushrooms of Java, or those little liberty caps the druids once drank as tea round the monoliths of early Britain.... there is always the same active alkaloid at work. Psilocin. Given that in every culture they were taking the same drug it comes as no surprise that they were having essentially the same experience.

Actually, this reinforces my point...think about it. If prehistoric humans did not already "know" "G-d," why did they bother to invent one? The essence of your argument strikes me as "we have 'G-d' because we believe," whereas I contend that we believe because we have "G-d." If we did not "know," there would not be.

Lol, nice try but I feel you miss my point This is of course as your paste rightly states entirely in the realm of speculation but it does appear that the most likely thinking of those people was to get in touch with their ancestors and/or their animal totems. I do not know if you have ever killed an animal with your own hands. I have and it made me feel very strongly a sense of love and respect for those animals. I think the act of taking a fierce creature that could take you must magnify this sense even more. So it is no surprise to me why animal totemism is so universal right through human history. They did not invent it, it came as a natural set of emotional responses. They recognised what it is for a strong powerful animal to give up its living essence so that they might live and the respect became reverent. All very natural. No divine hand need be invoked. God on the other hand came about as i state above as an evolution as those earlier rituals were made ever more complex in first agrarian and then urban cultures. That evolution eventually divorced ritual respect for prey animals and was transformed into a twisted self-worship of man-like Gods.

I have no argument about the evolution of religious institutions, but your position proceeds from an assumption (in my opinion, mistaken) about the origins of the mystical union with the Divine. I have no argument against your assessment with the construction and eventual corruption of the institutions of religion...I agree. But that does not preclude a very real, even if not quantifiable or qualifiable, connection and / or association with an underlying "spirit realm." I know I am vague, I really don't have words to describe accurately what I mean to say, and certainly not convey that essence in its fullest across to others. The way that is named is not the true way.

I cannot prove you wrong on that. Yet I have found before me a perfectly logical hypothesis of how the concept of the divine came about that clearly defines it as the product of our superstitious nature. Our emotional nature lends us to fanciful ideas. That does not make it real though.



Tao

 

[greymare]

this is exactlly the type of conversation that keeps me comeing back. Tao makes sense to me. It falls into place in my way of thinking. Im only eavesdropping and have no relevant input but I seem to identify more with this than anything.

 

[Tao_Equus]

Thank you Grey
Glad its not just me that it seems common sense to.

Tao

 

[greymare]

For a long time I was searching for religious signs (in my life) to show me which faith was right. I was dissilusioned with my Catholic upbringing and of course nothing made sense to me. being just a "silly girl" , the questions were the nonsensical ramblings of my youth and as soon as I was married I wouldnt have to worry about these things. (yeah, my folks had HIGH hopes for us girls) LOL. So yes, Ill pick your brains on occassion and probably interrupt your conversations with others, but bear with me, Im only clarifying what I seem to already know. (its like Im remembering it)

 

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, Tao!

There is no denial of the fact that no matter where mankind went in the world he seems to have sought out hallucinogens. Ergot however is not one of them, infact it is a very poor hallucinogen. Ergot poisoning does eventually lead to hallucinations but only after blood vessels in the limbs and head have constricted to the point that gangrene has set in.

I haven't time to address everything just now, but I did want to point out that ergot on the spoiled rye crops seems to be sufficient as a source of hallucinogens to be historically implicated in both the French Revolution and the Salem Witch hunts. This implies to me that ergot on spoiled rye and possibly other cereal crops *may* have been a source for hallucinogens. That does not mean the mushroom sources were not also used, but I doubt mushrooms were the stimulous for the agricultural revolution. Perhaps that grain was initially intended for distilling into beer and mead, and perhaps some of it spoiled with ergot and provided a bit different *buzz.*

I'll have to get back later.

Thanks Tao!

 

[juantoo3]

this is exactlly the type of conversation that keeps me comeing back. Tao makes sense to me. It falls into place in my way of thinking. Im only eavesdropping and have no relevant input but I seem to identify more with this than anything.

Only too happy to be of service, m'lady!

 

[Tao_Equus]

Hi juantoo,

Kindest Regards, Tao!

I haven't time to address everything just now, but I did want to point out that ergot on the spoiled rye crops seems to be sufficient as a source of hallucinogens to be historically implicated in both the French Revolution and the Salem Witch hunts. This implies to me that ergot on spoiled rye and possibly other cereal crops *may* have been a source for hallucinogens. That does not mean the mushroom sources were not also used, but I doubt mushrooms were the stimulous for the agricultural revolution. Perhaps that grain was initially intended for distilling into beer and mead, and perhaps some of it spoiled with ergot and provided a bit different *buzz.*

I'll have to get back later.

Thanks Tao!

I remember reading of those and a few other historical 'incidents' that were attributed to ergot poisoning. Such occasions are accidents however and not at all like entheogens sought out and carefully prepared for ritual/mystical purposes. Whenever and wherever people first brewed ale they would have been getting a buzz anyway from the alcohol. Lysergic acid is soluble in water and perhaps poorer quality grains were used for brewing which led to the occasional batch having quite a high volume present and maybe helped destroy the toxins that would normally cause St Anthony's Fire, (called this for the excruciating pain that accompanied the blood vessel constriction ergot poisoning causes). But lysergic acid in itself is a very weak hallucinogen and not at all like its synthetic cousin lysergic acid diethelamide, or LSD.

Tao

 

[flowperson]

Hi Tao...
I find your depth of knowledge regarding alchohol and drugs fascinating. I've always been fascinated with rye's (the grain) implicit association with things which reside, shall we say, on the darker side on human experience. The list of top five rye producing countries in 2005 tells you something about all that.

J.D. Salinger wrote a book titled, Catcher in the Rye, which was published in 1951 about dark subject matter as it manifested itself in a sixteen year old boy who had lost his way and family's support. Interestingly the book had become an obsession in the mind of John Lennon's assassin and also in the mind of Mr. Hinckley, President Reagan's attempted assassin. I'm just very interested in why this association between rye and the dark side of life seems to be so endemic. Juan, thanks for reminding me of this in your posts regarding rye ergot. Sounds like nasty stuff according to the Wiki info.

Here are some Wiki references which may stir some ideas. Thanks again guys !

flow....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Catcher_in_the_Rye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_beer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_whiskey

 

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, all!

J.D. Salinger wrote a book titled, Catcher in the Rye, which was published in 1951 about dark subject matter as it manifested itself in a sixteen year old boy who had lost his way and family's support. Interestingly the book had become an obsession in the mind of John Lennon's assassin and also in the mind of Mr. Hinckley, President Reagan's attempted assassin. I'm just very interested in why this association between rye and the dark side of life seems to be so endemic. Juan, thanks for reminding me of this in your posts regarding rye ergot. Sounds like nasty stuff according to the Wiki info.

Here are some Wiki references which may stir some ideas. Thanks again guys !

Thank you for that, Flow! It never ceases to amaze me how the better conversations around this site build upon what each participant brings to it. I would have never made the association with "the Catcher in the Rye," (probably because I haven't read the book).

There is no denial of the fact that no matter where mankind went in the world he seems to have sought out hallucinogens. Ergot however is not one of them, infact it is a very poor hallucinogen.

Cultural acceptance no doubt plays a significant part. I can't help but think that "attitude" plays a role as well. If I may explain (as briefly as I can, ha!):

Tobacco, for instance, is now known to be a serious threat to one's health, and I could list a number of diseases implicated to its use.

Yet, tobacco was (and as far as I know still is) used ceremonially by Native Americans. Now, Amerindians certainly do have their share of diseases, in modern times it seems brought about in large part by misuse of "demon whiskey" and its close cousins. But the diseases brought on by misuse of tobacco seem to be largely absent among Amerindians. I think, and admit this is speculation on my part, that that coincidence relates to how Amerindians approach their consumption of tobacco. I find an amazing contrast of excesses: the Europeans suffer from the overindulgence of what the Indians used ceremonially, and the Indians suffer from the overindulgence of what the Europeans once used ceremonially.

Whether it be Peyote in Mexico, the famous mushrooms of Java, or those little liberty caps the druids once drank as tea round the monoliths of early Britain.... there is always the same active alkaloid at work. Psilocin.

I could add Fly Agaric to the list, but I don't know the active ingredient.

Given that in every culture they were taking the same drug it comes as no surprise that they were having essentially the same experience.

I don't think this is a reasonable assessment. I admit to a very limited scope of understanding, but in what little I have stumbled on and what scarce personal experience I have partaken in, I don't see how one can claim that two different people could share the same (or even fundamentally same) hallucination *without* a coach. Now, with a coach and ceremony to guide a group, there might be a significantly similar shared experience. But I fail to see how that shared experience would traverse thousands of miles and many multiples of cultural groups, unless there were a common element passed between them. I see two possibilities: either some nomadic wandering shamanic group evangelizing an illusory lie, or some underlying "spiritual" commonality that each was able to tap into in a culturally significant way.

Lol, nice try but I feel you miss my point This is of course as your paste rightly states entirely in the realm of speculation but it does appear that the most likely thinking of those people was to get in touch with their ancestors and/or their animal totems. I do not know if you have ever killed an animal with your own hands. I have and it made me feel very strongly a sense of love and respect for those animals. I think the act of taking a fierce creature that could take you must magnify this sense even more. So it is no surprise to me why animal totemism is so universal right through human history. They did not invent it, it came as a natural set of emotional responses. They recognised what it is for a strong powerful animal to give up its living essence so that they might live and the respect became reverent. All very natural. No divine hand need be invoked.

I do not discount the totem and ancestor aspects, but again we are dealing with a spirit realm. You and I are dealing with this philosophically, *mentally*, and trying to discuss a matter that lies just beyond the material or overlaps it only slightly. I cannot state with any certainty of knowing just what that realm is composed of, having only limited exposure myself, but I "know" as much as any person open to such experience that it does exist. "G-d" in the sense I have long tried to convey not only in this discussion but in others as well encompasses totem and ancestor spirits, and other spirits.

God on the other hand came about as i state above as an evolution as those earlier rituals were made ever more complex in first agrarian and then urban cultures. That evolution eventually divorced ritual respect for prey animals and was transformed into a twisted self-worship of man-like Gods.

In the anthropomorphic "beard or tits in the sky hurling thunderbolts," yes I agree. I realize the limitations in conveying what it is I am trying to get across, but this is decidedly *not* it.

Yet I have found before me a perfectly logical hypothesis of how the concept of the divine came about that clearly defines it as the product of our superstitious nature. Our emotional nature lends us to fanciful ideas. That does not make it real though.

You are certainly welcome to view the Divine in whatever manner makes it easier for you to relate. It is not mine to convince you otherwise. And there is always the possibility I may be mistaken in my own view. The important thing is that we both keep looking.

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

OK, new wrinkle, now that I have had some time to mull it over in my mind.

So, we tend to believe because "we seek endlessly to understand and approximate what nature does" and call it "beauty?" If so, then does that mean that our pre-historic ancestors...and by extension through collective unconscious, ourselves...believe killing and death beautiful? The thrust of the spear, the slice of the throat, the watching in anticipation as the blood puddles, the draining of the life from the eyes...beautiful? Red of tooth and claw, beautiful? Those skulls of real cave bears that surround and sit atop those cave altars create quite a humbling sense of decorum.

First, death is beautiful.

Think about how great it must have been for early man to discover more, and more efficient ways of killing animals. A big animal has a lot of meat. Celebrating the hunt seems pretty natural. Even in a hunter-gatherer set-up the hunt is a proactive expression of dominance over nature.

The paintings on the cave walls are predominantly of prey animals and hunts, not butterflies and waterfalls.

That's silly.

There may be some element of truth to my sarcasm...if we look to our collective fascination with war, blood sport and competition. Anybody with even an idle interest knows that ice hockey, American football and World Cup football are anything but sedate, even for the fans. Or what of our idolization of "gangsters" and others who use violence and murder to achieve what we feel we desire in this life?

Football is liquid chess. Golf is liquid physics. I don't understand hockey, but blood flows naturally from the "game." Think of those Mayans playing serious ball on the ball court. Gladiator fights in the arena. It's a Yin-Yang bloodsport. Just ask drone bees- it's what males do. We're expendable like that!

Seems we have again returned to another one of those untouchable subjects...sacrifice and death. Which may actually be the point, at least according to Campbell.

So how do we account for these real evidences?

We acknowledge that we're still barbarians!

Chris

 

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, Tao!

I remember reading of those and a few other historical 'incidents' that were attributed to ergot poisoning. Such occasions are accidents however and not at all like entheogens sought out and carefully prepared for ritual/mystical purposes.

I agree there is a difference between intentional and accidental "poisoning." Even so there had to be an accidental first, and I would guess many separate accidental firsts, before (perhaps long before) there were any intentional poisonings for the purpose of deliberate hallucination.

Unless, and this argument demands acknowledgment of a specific point of view that embraces spiritual communion like the Native American Shaman, through spirit quest new knowledge is made known through communion with the Divine. Native American traditional stories like those of the Buffalo Calf Woman point in this direction, as do other stories I recall here and there dealing with the discovery of healing uses of herbs, etc.

In other words, it is possible at least from a shamanic point of view that knowledge of what various natural substances could do and how to properly use them were conveyed via that connection with the underlying spiritual commonality.

Whenever and wherever people first brewed ale they would have been getting a buzz anyway from the alcohol. Lysergic acid is soluble in water and perhaps poorer quality grains were used for brewing which led to the occasional batch having quite a high volume present and maybe helped destroy the toxins that would normally cause St Anthony's Fire, (called this for the excruciating pain that accompanied the blood vessel constriction ergot poisoning causes).

The thought just occured to me that Native Americans were not agrarian, so ergot would not have played a significant role for them and other non-agrarian cultures. In the Middle East, and by extension Europe, is where the impact of ergot as well as mead / ale / fermented grain holds potential for influencing whole civilizations. The importance is that these cultures went on to rule the world, and are specifically those that went on to build walled cities and develop war as an art (paranoia?), learn to work metals, invent the wheel, and develop writing and law. I have no doubt there were similar and effectively simultaneous developments in the Orient, although the mechanisms for that development are even more fuzzy to me (of course, "shaman" is a term derived specifically from Siberian pre-historic cultures). No sense arguing who was first, it seems to me the "Aryans" of the Steppes were probably the intercessory tribes that spread influence East and West as well as South.

Perhaps the agrarian cultures had some way of mitigating the adverse effects of ergot, perhaps not. I haven't seen anything that points one way or the other. But agrarian societies became agrarian (raising grain) for some reason, and I don't think human "food" was it. That was an afterthought. Cattle feed and fermentation are the two most likely candidates in my mind, in both cases ergot would be an occupational hazard that would have to be dealt with.

Then again, there's always fly agaric in reindeer piss like pre-historic Lapplanders partook of, maybe (speculating) something similar with ergot? Let the cow (or whatever) synthesize the harsher elements out, and partake of the "water soluable" components in a ceremonial environment...perhaps in combination with the fermented "juice of the gods?"

 

[juantoo3]

Kindest Regards, China Cat!

First, death is beautiful.

While you are one of the few here I would expect to say something like this, one has to admit this is a topic that must be broached gingerly. I cannot help but wonder if your response would have been quite the same just after Prober passed.

I can agree philosophically, although in the moment it can be quite difficult to see. What is the old Native American saying?, "today is a good day to die."

Think about how great it must have been for early man to discover more, and more efficient ways of killing animals. A big animal has a lot of meat. Celebrating the hunt seems pretty natural. Even in a hunter-gatherer set-up the hunt is a proactive expression of dominance over nature.

Granted, but depending which researcher one looks to, those "hunters" may have been more opportunist than cunning predator. The stomach contents of the Tyrolean Ice Man revealed an almost wholly vegetarian diet. The scenes we are indoctrinated with showing a human wolf-pack surrounding a mammoth may be more fancy than reality.

Of course, at some point "we" did master hunting critters the size of buffalo, but the bone dumps in caves and elsewhere are disproportionately full of the remains of far smaller critters. So there may be some relevance to "celebrating" the successful hunt of a large animal with a mural on a wall.

That's silly.

Why? When considering the paintings in the various caves I have looked at, the vast majority are depictions of prey animals. Next are the predators. Both are depicted with amazing realism, and incorporate natural curves in the rock wall to enhance them. Next up are the handprint stencils and reproductive organs, and finally are the stick drawings of humans and other "non-realistic" representations of humans. Occasional human-animal chimera are also depicted, probably the least frequent of all.

The Fumane Cave Sorcerer from Northeastern Italy

No waterfalls, no butterflies. Nothing we today intrinsically associate as beautiful in nature. No puppies, no kittens, no flowers. Come to think of it, no bunnies or birds or fish that made up most of the flesh food in the typical pre-historic diet.

Football is liquid chess.

I can see someone saying this, chess is probably the oldest war game still being played without loss of human life. I have always associated American football with the Roman gladiatorial games.

Golf is liquid physics. I don't understand hockey, but blood flows naturally from the "game."

I suppose for someone who appreciates golf that would be an apt metaphor. I see similar in billiards and bowling, and sailing. I don't understand hockey either, then again I don't understand roller derby, but I like to watch both when they are on.

Think of those Mayans playing serious ball on the ball court. Gladiator fights in the arena. It's a Yin-Yang bloodsport. Just ask drone bees- it's what males do. We're expendable like that!

I did, which is where and why I chose the term "blood sport." Bread and circuses. It's still the same old bread and circuses, and we are still as entertained as we ever were with the chance to see blood spill.

We acknowledge that we're still barbarians!

After we've spent a few thousand years and how many stabs at institutional religion to convince ourselves otherwise? C'mon now, Chris, you should know better than that... How can we possibly be barbarians...we're civilized!

 

[Tao_Equus]

Hi Tao...
I find your depth of knowledge regarding alchohol and drugs fascinating. I've always been fascinated with rye's (the grain) implicit association with things which reside, shall we say, on the darker side on human experience.

lol..... well I do come from the city that gave the world Irvin Welsh!!
YouTube - Trainspotting - Shoot The Dog

My dad was a brewer for almost 30 years and I have previously confessed to my misspent youth What else can I say!!

Great focus in on Rye there. Thanks.

Tao

Juantoo,

There are a number of points in your posts I wish to respond to but time is not kind to me at moment. Feel free to read your post again and try to predict what I will say

Tao