“Alien Dreamtime” explored…

Each time I listen to it, there’s so much I want to say I wonder how I’ve been able to refrain myself to this point.

There’s so much I wanna say about things with which I concur of course, but also about my reservations — strong ones at times — as to what I’m afraid was a mindset that was too enthusiastic about our evolution as a species (purported to have left the animal kingdom), considering how said evolution has often manifested itself throughout the centuries, in particular during the previous one, which we, while having the confuse feeling we’re somehow pushing our luck, are allowed to hope was apotheotic for the many centuries to come regarding its most regressive aspects. Or was it actually utterly pessimistic ?

I’d hate to be thought of as a mere consumer (in this instance, of thoughts). So, I finally decided to put my reservations on virtual paper, so as to avoid any ambiguity, particularly in relation to a younger audience / readership. As this blog has occasionally been promoting the material I’m about to humbly critique, failing to do so might have put me in porte-à-faux with some of my earlier writings / *muzings*.

As to those who consider — and are bound to keep considering — the following annotations to be the incoherent and indecipherable ramblings of a madman, I regret to say I think they can’t be saved. So, I won’t waste my time with them; their inquisitorial irrationality, obtuse ignorance and $3-bill ethics of fear have made me waste so much of it already : yes, not only does stupidity — whether the attribute of suit or skirt — need to have its say; it also seeks to have the final word on everything, starting with other people’s lives and (supposedly) personal choices ! In society as we know and have known it, stupidity is the most proselytical of religions, the one which tops and pervades all others, the most powerful agent of uni– and conformity, meant to quarantine creative minds, with despair as the sole horizon, “inimical to the human condition”; it is the tragedy which makes all other wo-man-made tragedies possible…

[embed]

So much knowledge has been produced since woman is man and there is so much to feel and perceive in this world that perceiving and knowing it all — at least all that matters, moves society forward and takes the individual higher — would require thousands of lives. Additionally, the fact that we always know less on any given day than we will the next one amounts to an objective philosophical truth. So, in a sense, we’re all (at least) a bit stupid, and we ought to bear that in mind before bragging about how smart or intelligent we consider ourselves to be. But that’s not the kind of stupidity I’m pointing out here : I’m talking about stupidity as “the nothingness [that] seeks to attack the being of others” (Yes, him again !) coupled with condescending ignorance, childish thirst for hegemony and total absence of intellectual curiosity…

In the following paragraphs, I will attempt to make (intellectually) honest and rational comments about the words and opinions of a self-proclaimed “trickster”, who also happened to be a poet of sorts. This might lead to perspectival distortions, which shouldn’t however diminish the validity of either perspective…

I will of course circumscribe the exercise to the most pertinent excerpts and leave out “the great horned mushroom goddess” and other “disappearance[s] of the ozone hole”, without which the endeavor would be extremely tedious, for you and me.

At times, I might come across as though I were addressing the dead. This shouldn’t frighten you : it’s merely a rhetorical technique. That said, while most likely scattered and obviously transformed, the matter, energy and spirit which composed them when alive are still out there; so too are the ideas, dense and unscathed…

“History is ending, because the dominator culture has led the human species into a blind alley. And as the inevitable chaostrophe approaches, people look for metaphors and answers.”

Since words matter (They certainly did to you…), how else could we define history than as wo-mankind’s march through space and time, conditioned by a balance of opposite forces ? If we find common ground on this definition, we should also agree on the fact that each time chaos has been produced, it has been due to a high-magnitude conflict between said forces, hence to history, as the record of their concrete manifestation. If that is the case, how could the “chaostrophe” you’re talking about be viewed as ahistorical, or indicative of post-history ?

The “dominator culture” is undeniably to blame, but we ought to give it a precise definition and clarify exactly for what it is responsible : is it the chicken or the egg ?… In how far isn’t the — rather deterministic — apocalyptic way of thinking you’re echoing here influenced by religious clichés or “metaphors” that might have polluted the pristineness of your psychedelic experimentation (in other words, by your own neuroses) and contributing to the very “denouement” you’re warning against, as would some self-fulfilling prophecy ? Notwithstanding the unprecedented kind of firepower the human ape as amassed, which might cause tremendous devastation on a scale not even the 20th century “chaostrophe[s]” managed to reach, how could this one be so definitive as to end history once and for all, that is to say : either eradicate every last human being, or eradicate the conflicting forces that would otherwise still condition the existence of the surviving ones ?

Lastly, isn’t the psychedelic utopia itself set on putting an end to history, that is to say to chaos ? In your view, isn’t history itself a blind alley ? If so, why are you suggesting that, without the “dominator culture”, it might have produced a different result ?

“[T]his is where the future is taking us. Because the secret faith of the 20th century is not modernism. The secret faith of the 20th century is nostalgia for the archaic, nostalgia for the Paleolithic, and that gives us body piercing, abstract expressionism, surrealism, jazz, rock and roll, and Catastrophe Theory. The 20th century mind is nostalgic for the paradise that once existed on the mushroom-dotted plains of Africa, where the plant-human symbiosis occurred that pulled us out of the animal body and into the tool-using, culture-making, imagination-exploring creature that we are.”

Aside from being presumptuous, isn’t the claim that we were “pulled […] out of the animal [reign]” likely to bolster “*the dominator culture” more than anything else : if we view ourselves as being above it all, aren’t we more inclined to use every other living creature for whatever purpose we see fit ? By the way, are we the only complex creatures who’ve ever consumed mushrooms ? Is the parallel world some of us are embracing every now and then animal-free* ?…

On a different note, does the evidence suggesting a select few were allowed to taste and did in fact consume mild psychedelic substances in ancient European civilizations (What an arrogant brat, that one !), seem compelling enough to support the theory that, at some point, far earlier in time, some kind of “plant-human symbiosis” occurred that (positively) affected what would become the entire human species — which, to this day, amounts to pure speculation ? If that theory turns out to be anything other than fanciful, why were there apes who, while consuming those substances, remained just that : apes ? And, as an echo to the previous paragraph, if endocannabinoids, for instance, should prove to be an indication such “symbiosis” did indeed occur, shouldn’t we take into account the fact that those are present in nearly every other animal body as well ?…

Last but not least, isn’t it a bit far-fetched to imagine that abstract expressionism, for instance, has its roots in the invocation of a social environment in which surviving — and therefore utterly concrete preoccupations — must have been the prime, if not the only, point on the agenda ? Let’s also not forget that, in the Paleolithic already, there were murders, weren’t there ? A “paradise”, really ? Insofar as it isn’t on Earth, isn’t that a very Christian concept ? What was the average life expectancy back then ?

For us to turn to the past as a source of inspiration at critical moments in our history is nothing new. Unfortunately, neither is idealizing it (for example, by conveniently forgetting there were slaves in Ancient — “democratic” — Greece as well)…

“[T]he ego is a product of pathology and […] when psilocybin is regularly part of the human experience, the ego is suppressed. And the suppression of the ego means the defeat of the dominators, the materialists, the product peddlers.”

But isn’t resistance against “the dominators” also a matter of ego ? In certain circumstances, isn’t it a lot easier to turn people into sheeple when “the ego is suppressed” ? It’s like M.A.D., but on its head : in order for trust to be established, you need a M.A.S., or mutually assured suppression. Otherwise, you get the Donald-types.

Ego simply means “the self”, as in : “Psychedelics return us to the inner worth of the self”. Philosophically, claiming “the ego is a product of pathology” is sheer nonsense. If that’s the message nature had wanted to convey, it would have created one supreme being, in form, function and substance — call it Rehoboam or whatever –, and nothing else. The hegemonic / perverted ego is, but not the ego in itself, which is the tangible manifestation of the obvious fact that, in this reality, we are distinct, however much we may have in common, including on a spiritual level.

Just as — as Huxley used to say — there are infinite (and not just two) realities, there are, at the very least, for all sentient living beings, two fundamental ways to apprehend life on Earth : through the prism of community, which makes it possible to build great — or just useful — things together, and through the prism of individuality, upon which rests the entire notion of human rights. As the present times teach us in all sorts of ways, it is extremely perilous to consider those to be mutually exclusive. Rather than unnecessarily simplifying complex matters, we should view each one of those ways as a guardian against the (possible) excesses of the other.

“[W]e break out of the silly myths of science […]”

What “silly myths” are those ? Isn’t this a little too broad a statement for us to be able to understand that what is most probably being targeted here is the (young) Western tradition of cold, disembodied rationality, which tends to systematically dismiss the subjective (Think of Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, for instance) and, in certain areas of so-called expertise, therefore leaves a lot of useful knowledge aside, science as an oft-pompous fixed ideology rather than as an ever evolving discipline ? Principally, science being the antithesis of myth, isn’t the only place for myths to prosper in its vicinity pseudo-science (which, in this, ironically goes both ways) ? Should psychonauts portray science as an enemy ? Would that be in the interest of society right now ? Was it at the time those words were spoken ?

“The mystery is in the body, and the way the body works itself into nature.”

Doesn’t it lie in the various forms of energy which either propel or inhibit us, both mentally and physically, in how they affect us and in the meaning they both produce and might contain ?

“[T]he three enemies of the people are hegemony, monogamy, and monotony.”

How about sticking to just that first one ? They often come as a threesome and that’s why, to some people, they all sound so repulsive, but I’m not sure every woman in every harem, past or present, enjoys that particular kind of hegemony either. It can take many forms. Indeed, wouldn’t it be hegemonic to deny some people monogamy and monotony if that’s really what they want, what makes them feel comfortable, so long as they leave other people be ?

“And I realized when I looked at them, that if I could bring just one of these little trinkets back, nothing would ever be quite the same again.”

But wouldn’t you then have had to leave something of your worldly self over there too ? Isn’t that how paradoxes are created, which might lead to the destruction of humanity as a whole ? More seriously, should we want those realities to fuse ? Or would it be preferable to (again) view one as the antidote against the (potential) excesses of the other ?

“[T]here’s a button somewhere inside each and every one of us that gives you a look into the other side. And that’s the button that resets the compass that tells you where you want to sail.”

Although that metaphor is nothing for me, there’s a variety of buttons, among which a red DMT one and a green psilocybin+ one¹. Albeit from different angles, both will let you take a glimpse, but one is much gentler than the other…

As for the sailing, one’d better hope it’s not “the seas of cheese”…

[embed]

“always building and conserving upon complexity and always faster and faster and faster…”

… the problem with that being that when fast becomes (much) too fast, the people(s) are left behind because they can’t make the innovations theirs.

“We are flesh, which has been caught in the grip of some kind of an attractor that lies ahead of us in time, and that is sculpting us to its ends.”

If that’s the case, what seems highly inconsistent to me is the claim it will liberate us from “*the dominators”, since apparently, for some obscure reason, their interests always manage to wonderfully coincide with “its ends”. How could we possibly imagine that, just for once — and, what’s more, at the most decisive “leapfrogging*” of all — mass chaos wouldn’t be beneficial to them ?

Supposing such an “attractor” isn’t wo-man-made, it must have been there for billions of years. Why would it suddenly be in a rush ? Because McKenna is the name of the new messiah ? Most of all, why would we assume that it is intrinsically related to the psychedelic experience, that both use the same channel and, so to speak, frequency ? How accessible and meaningful, how genuine and intemporal, would a psytrip be in some transhumanistic reality ? In how far would ‘augmented reality’ still allow us to take a step back from everyday reality, however that would then be interpreted ?

[embed]

“[…] I believe that what we really contact through psychedelics is a kind of hyperspace, and from that hyperspace, we look down on both the past and the future and we anticipate the end. And a shaman is someone who has seen the end, and, therefore, is a trickster, because you don’t worry if you’ve seen the end. If you know how it comes out, you go back and you take your place in the play and you let it all roll on without anxiety.”

That is indeed deterministic, isn’t it ? How about the possibility we look down on a possible future, or even several possible futures ? As for the past — and that’s where the grid issue comes in –, how could cyborgs (for lack of a better word) ever again feel the things their ancestors might have felt when lifting the veil ? Never before in human history did the tools we’ve been fabricating to enhance our possibilities and — yes — dominate our environment been endogenous. Never before did even healthy people consider getting chips implanted to increase their performance. Should your faith (In the absence of even the most rudimentary evidence, how else to call it ?) against all odds one day become science, one thing a certain : the psychedelic experience would never be the same…

“A techno-escape into a future that looks more like the past than the future, because materialism, consumerism, product fetishism, all of these things will be eliminated and technology will become nanotechnology and disappear from our physical presence.”

Yes, since it speaks for itself that the corporate-conglomerate dominators, starting with “the military-industrial complex”, won’t seek to appropriate and monopolize the multibillion-dollar business nanotechnologies represent… Never would the most perverted minds among them imagine using those technologies to finally achieve what no dictatorship ever lastingly could : total control over the populace, in other words an actual Third-Empire dystopia bound to last a millennium at least.

You said earlier in your speech you would be “preaching to the choir”. But does that absolve you from failing to offer any kind of practical suggestion as to how such a monumental transition could be implemented by any other structure than the dominator culture, which — and I regret to have to say this — amounts to useful idiocy : unless every single citizen is somehow compelled to taste that forbidden fruit — but which one in the panoply exactly, and by whom ? –, you’ll never get the desired effect on a scale that would be so massive it would effectively be socially transformative…

Furthermore, wouldn’t compelling the choir in and of itself turn the nascent Church (Come to think of it, what a stupid metaphor…) into a new, perhaps even more pernicious, breed of dominators, rendering the psychedelic experiment null and void in the process ?

If you ask me, the problem is one of prerequisite and consequence. In your opinion, psychedelics are the absolute prerequisite for the eradication of the dominator culture. As far as I’m concerned, while I would not think of denying the psychedelics’ inherent potential for truly humanistic transformation on an individual level, I tend to think that, even with them in the mix, no social transformation worthy of the name will see the light of day unless we manage to resolve the dominator-paradigm first. If we don’t, it will most assuredly perpetuate itself in the utopia, thus marginalize any kind of psychedelic bliss.

Of course, according to you, we didn’t have the luxury to wait : the world was in a hurry. If so, why is that ? Might it be because the culmination of known organic evolution our species is supposed to represent now has at its disposal the kind of tools which could partly annihilate the planet in a few minutes only, and because the mere usage of those tools, as Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which were both totally avoidable) have shown, results not from reason, but from a thirst for domination on the part of a set of creatures (supposedly) formerly known as animals, one whose consequence is to propel humanity back into the Paleolithic ?…

“This is what we’re talking about here — psychedelics as a catalyst to the human imagination, psychedelics as a catalyst for language, because what cannot be said cannot be created by the community. So what we need then, is the forced evolution of language […].”

Isn’t that an interesting concept ? Lately, we’ve been seeing in Eastern Ukraine what it is for a people — or even a fraction of it — to be officially denied its idiom. But the examples long before that are legion (for instance, Richelieu, who, in the early XVIIth century, crushed all local dialects and regional tongues to forge a standardized French language, or the Marxist-Orwellian newspeak that was in effect in the late U.S.S.R.).

What does the concept of “forced evolution of language” entail in your view ? And, since you were such a visionary, why didn’t you conceive of telepathy — a.k.a. silence — as the ultimate speech revolution, one I think would be perfectly suitable for some friendly psychedelic experiment ?

“Nine times in the last million years, the ice has ground south from the poles, pushing human populations ahead of it, and those people didn’t fuck up. Why should we, then ?”

Because this is the Anthropocene, Terence, and we, as a species, have grown tectonic. And, the more we have, the tinier the space allocated to genuine dreamers has become…

Give the horned mushroom goddess my regards, will you…

[embed]

---

The full transcript of the performance can be found here (with some minor spelling mistakes).

¹ The + stands for pot after an hour or three, if you want to prolong the intensity of the trip a little…

---

This post was originally published (by myself) on August 1, 2022 on https://yannickbaele.wordpress.com, my main blog from May 31, 2012 until February 26, 2026 (ca. 3,000 posts), which was censored by Wordpress from one day to the next, without any explanation !

The first comment has been expanded.

[embed]