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Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:
1. An interesting analysis of Terence McKenna's oft-used quote "Culture is not your friend." The author takes apart the reasons why Terence's advice may be somewhat half-baked.
That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.
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Cannabis
LSD
Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms
MDMA/Ecstasy
Ayahuasca/DMT
Iboga/Ibogaine
Dissociatives
Opiates/Opioids
Kambô
Kratom
Kava
Khat
Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy
Disclaimer: "This Week in Psychedelics" does not censor or analyze the news links presented here. The purpose of this column is solely to catalogue how psychedelics are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation.
The Bhagavad Gita is a traditional Hindu scripture that is part of the epic Mahabharata. It is essentially a dialogue between a prince named Arjuna and his guide, Lord Krishna. It takes place right before a battle in a war between families that Arjuna is expected to fight. The text introduces many concepts in Hinduism, including dharma, yoga, bhakti, karma, and more.
I really wanted to like this book. Having purchased it over ten years ago, going into reading it with the knowledge that it is one of the most important Hindu texts, and listening to people like Duncan Trussell quote it and explain it in his podcast built it up in my mind, but ultimately, this was a tough read for me and I didn't get much out of it. That's likely due to the fact that I didn't understand most of it.
I'm going to go ahead and blame my experience with this text on the edition that I read, rather than on the text itself. Fear not, I plan to read a few alternative versions of the Bhagavad Gita over the next several years. I already have several in mind, but if you have any that you would recommend, please let me know!
2/5 stars. 97 pages.
This is one of Philip K Dick's earliest novels (his ninth, in fact), originally published in 1955. As such, it makes for compelling fiction with a science fiction-like twist, but may not be classified strictly as "science fiction". It takes place in the then near-future year of 1957, when eight people are involved in a tragic lab accident that transports them through time and space to a multitude of various worlds and states of consciousness.
The worlds are eventually revealed to be solipsistic manifestations of the inner worlds of some of the book's main characters. Each one embodies the secretly-held thoughts of its creator, trapping the group inside a unique universe with its own set of ethics, rules, and scientific principles. The central protagonist, Jack Hamilton, figures out what is going on and helps the group travel through each world—by the skin of their teeth, mind you.
Although I wouldn't advise a PKD novice to read this as their first book of his to check out, it is a solid novel. The characters are well-fleshed out, the plot is fairly engaging, and the writing makes for a quick and easy read. I am very glad to have finished this one, and I doubt I will return anytime soon. But maybe I will.
3/5 stars. 243 pages.
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Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:
1. In the early 1970s, a Rutgers University environmental science student named billy barr (he spells it lowercase) returned to Gothic, Colorado after graduation and has lived in the ghost town as its sole resident for the past several decades. The location is supposedly a ghost town built around a silver mine. barr didn't just stay for the sights—he has meticulously collected snowfall and temperature measurements that have proven quite valuable to climate scientists.
2. The Netherlands has been an early adopter of renewable energy technologies for centuries, using wind power for centuries. As of now, the Dutch railways network will be using it to power 100% of their electric trains. Even though that is extremely impressive, they even did it one year ahead of schedule! The electric trains shuttle 600,000 people in around 5,500 trips per day, and it only takes an hour for a wind turbine to generate enough power to run a train for 120 miles. And they're not stopping there—the railways network will continue researching ways to reduce their machines' consumption of energy by 35 percent before 2020 as well!
That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.
