Cannabis: Stealth Goddess by Douglas Rushkoff
There are some of us for whom Cannabis stimulates deeper insight into whatever subject one is investigating, a relaxed capacity for self-reflexivity, a more secure grounding in one's own sense of authenticity in a phony, hypocritical world, deeper relationships with others and with self, and most importantly, an ethics of refraining from harming others. Rushkoff claims that Cannabis raises conscience.
Here's a quotation:
Cannabis will give you the greatest gifts she has to offer--but she wants something in return. She wants your soul.... In short, Cannabis raises consciousness, creates a relationship, and--immediately after its peak--forces a self-evaluation. That's the step that can't be avoided.... [T]he higher you go, the more intense a self-examination will be demanded once you crest....
Paranoia is reserved for the elder, more experienced users--and at that, only the ones who both hear Cannabis's messages and repeatedly refuse to comply. Who in their right minds would change their lives to conform to what they were thinking when they were stoned?
To put it most simply, pot stops time.... The lean-forward of your directed, intentional life ceases. You are still doing what you are doing, but the goal no longer exists. The simplest effect of this time-stoppage is to bring focus to the task at hand. There is no goal; there is only process.... The act in this moment is all there is....
For those accustomed to avoiding life's more existential dilemmas by busying themselves with activity, this slipping out of sequential time can be enough to induce some serious psychic trauma. For them, to just be is hard enough. Especially if they've been avoiding who they are for a long while.
Kids are immune to this effect.... Adults, however, make their own momentum.... Stoned, however, time stops. The self-generated momentum ceases, and whateer that motion was helping to hide comes to the surface.... Pot is a drug that requires a level of respect, trepidation and devotion that most people aren't prepared or expecting to give her.
I'm interested in hearing from other members who use Cannabis to enhance their experiences or activities: reading, writing, philosophizing, relating to others, self-exploration and problem-solving, communing with nature, feeling physically/spiritually/emotionally better, etc.
Here's a quotation:
Cannabis will give you the greatest gifts she has to offer--but she wants something in return. She wants your soul.... In short, Cannabis raises consciousness, creates a relationship, and--immediately after its peak--forces a self-evaluation. That's the step that can't be avoided.... [T]he higher you go, the more intense a self-examination will be demanded once you crest....
Paranoia is reserved for the elder, more experienced users--and at that, only the ones who both hear Cannabis's messages and repeatedly refuse to comply. Who in their right minds would change their lives to conform to what they were thinking when they were stoned?
To put it most simply, pot stops time.... The lean-forward of your directed, intentional life ceases. You are still doing what you are doing, but the goal no longer exists. The simplest effect of this time-stoppage is to bring focus to the task at hand. There is no goal; there is only process.... The act in this moment is all there is....
For those accustomed to avoiding life's more existential dilemmas by busying themselves with activity, this slipping out of sequential time can be enough to induce some serious psychic trauma. For them, to just be is hard enough. Especially if they've been avoiding who they are for a long while.
Kids are immune to this effect.... Adults, however, make their own momentum.... Stoned, however, time stops. The self-generated momentum ceases, and whateer that motion was helping to hide comes to the surface.... Pot is a drug that requires a level of respect, trepidation and devotion that most people aren't prepared or expecting to give her.
I'm interested in hearing from other members who use Cannabis to enhance their experiences or activities: reading, writing, philosophizing, relating to others, self-exploration and problem-solving, communing with nature, feeling physically/spiritually/emotionally better, etc.
Comments (31)
I'd rather just say that I like weed than claim that it's a chemical messsiah that can stop time. :joke:
Weed, shrooms and some other things can be very valuable in giving one alternate perspectives.
Agreed, sounds like stoner talk to me. Thats that thing that people do when they like something and so create a bunch of culture and ritual and bullshit about it.
Yeah, exactly.
Mannheim would say that you can't create culture, rather it emerges spontaneously from its milieu.
Not that I believe in any of that bullshit.
Its both, and I was specifying the instances of when the culture IS being created. This seems like one of those things.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces
Glad you like it! Now go read the article.
sola dosis facit venenum but slippery slope fallacy notwithstanding it's a short step from Rushkoff's raised conscience to stoned unconscious.
hahaha. So I clicked on the link. Then went ugh, this Jungian archetypal hero nonsense. But then I read a bit...then forgot why I was reading. I came back and glanced at the OP again, and it finally made sense. I like the joke :grin:
I'm not sure what you mean by "stoned unconscious," but that's not what Rushkoff is talking about at all. There are people who prefer that mode, who use Cannabis to melt into the couch and stop thinking altogether, but that's a different issue. Rushkoff's essay is descriptive of a very specific state of mind enhanced by Cannabis--a socially-conscious high is not like a couch-lock high.
This is interesting: there are some things I can do that way, like learning a new hobby or language, but there are other things I can't do that way, like alleviate depression/anxiety.
I use Cannabis primarily as medicinal: it has relieved depression and anxiety in me like no SSRI was ever able to do. It creates a wide-open space for me mentally/emotionally, where I'm less reactive and more rational. I've been making my own tincture for two years and the difference in my life is amazing. I believe tincture is a great medicinal way to take it. And growing my own, I know the quality and treatment have been guaranteed.
I like to keep my ECS saturated; the research being done now on how many illnesses can be linked to a depleted ECS is mind-boggling. I like to think of Cannabis as humans' best friend from the plant world, akin to the dog in that sense. Cannabis evolved right alongside humans, because they cultivated it and took seeds with them wherever they went. The plant was indispensible to humans: as a source of fiber, protein (from seeds), medicinal and spiritual use. She's been with us a long, long time.
To me, he exhorts: although his essay is written as a description of the way that Cannabis works on a mature mind, I came to the conclusion that in reality, Rushkoff is being hortatory, telling us, "Use Cannabis in order to break free of the constraints of bourgeois/white privilege mentality; use it to see clearly what is really happening in the world, and stop pretending that your life style isn't part of the problem; use it first and foremost to know thyself better."
But that's just my reading; you are welcome to your own, although I don't believe you've read the essay, have you? It appeals deeply to me, but de gustibus non disputandum est.
Sounds preachy and kind of elitist or snobby to me.
I did read some of it, but it doesn't really appeal to me.
Yeah, I can tell you don't like it; you made that clear twice. Me, I love the essay. If you know anything about Rushkoff you know that he's an admired intellectual and no elitist.
But I trust medicinal plants much more the pharma's psychotropics.
I agree; most people probably want the easiest, fastest way to feel good, or to feel nothing at all. I make no judgements or "needs to be" about how and why other people use Cannabis. In an ideal world, we'd all be able to meditate for 7 straight weeks and attain enlightenment like the Buddha.
If I understand you correctly, that is how real change--referring to emotional/intellectual/spiritual or ethical--occurs for humans. At least for me, and as I tell my students, growing up takes a lifetime. I've spent much of my 66 years coming to understand myself better, and the effort has been quite worthwhile. Something else I always tell students: just because someone reaches the age of 50 or 60 doesn't mean they're grown up. Many nod their heads affirmatively when I ask them if they know folks in their 60s who are still tantrum-throwing children.
I think HH the Dalai Lama's influence on many Westerners is a positive thing: he's a very special and wise man. But stuff like all the celebrities who got interested in Kabbalah, who hadn't spent years and years before that studying Hebrew and the fundamental Jewish texts like Torah, Tanakh, Talmud, etc.--that's a little silly in my book, although I hope they all got something good out of it.
But sure, age is not guarantee of anything. I'm not much younger than you..
I don't quite accept the truth of the claim but it's something really worth investigating. Imagine cannabis, a plant, helping humans get along (socially conscious) and we have a harmonious society. Peace thus achieved we can direct our resources to protect our eco-system which includes plants. A plant then has helped all plants. It's a trickle down effect and may take generations to achieve but it seems so possible to me.
I wonder now if there are other plant chemicals that modulate animal, especially human, behavior to ensure their survival. For example what's there in rice and wheat that makes us cut down vast tracts of other plants just so we can cultivate them? Sounds like the Night Shyamalan movie whose name I forget.
I believe that achieving emotional maturity is hard work, albeit different kinds of hard work for different people. Clearly there are innumerable paths...
Quoting TheMadFool
That will be the day when the cows come home. I have no statistics on the subjective experiences of Cannabis, but there are far too many variables among people for us to imagine that everyone can use it the same way or achieve the same experiences. We're just too (self-)destructive a species...