Guest speakers: Anna Waldstein, Ivan Casselman, and Cameron Adams

PROGRAM NOTES:

Three lecturers are featured in this session from the 3rd International Conference for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (ISSRNC) held at the University of Amsterdam 23-26 July 2009. Their presentation is titled "From the Shaman’s Circle to the Ivory Tower: Progress, Spirituality and Psychedelic Thinking."

"The suppression of mysticism, psychedelic experience, psychedelic thinking, began roughly two thousand years ago. And you get more intense socio-economic and socio-spiritual hierarchies … until you get to where we are today where there is state control of consciousness as well as state control of production and many other aspects of life." -Anna Waldstein

"They’re incredibly good at convincing us that we need a new car, and that new shirt, and the toys for our kids, or whatever, but very good at also convincing us that we don’t need this type of thing any more, this psychedelic thinking. But despite the Powers’ attempts to eradicate this, it bubbles up. … The power elite doesn’t want us to think like this because it disengages us from consumerism, it connects us with the environment, and makes us question what’s going on." -Ivan Casselman

"Whether you are thinking inside or outside the box, you are still letting the box dictate your thoughts, are you not? What you are not acknowledging is the honest fact the box itself is figmentary and illusory . And as long as one continues to act in reaction to this perceived set of dictates one cannot be truly original in thought. So once we are stuck in those grooves, even if we want to walk on top of the groove or the bottom of the groove, its still going down that same path." -Cameron Adams

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