Baddogma's Other Meta Cafe- Polite Discussions About Scientific Mysticism and General Weirdness

a reply to: Peeple
Many, many thanks Peeps, Friesing was a lovely place to spend a few hours between our flights. Such a quaint little city, so clean, tidy and orderly but even so, not too cold and unwelcoming to us grubby English visitors. We had a nice breakfast, complete with a very cute and friendly waiter (although he was Afghani not German) before wandering around the cathedral and then out to the botanical garden, which has the best collection of paeonies that I have ever seen (we were a week or two too early for some, but not others). For my first taste of Germany it was a very positive experience, we even saw a UFO on the bus ride from the airport, a painted one but still...

Munich airport was also very nice not least of all because I was not made to feel like a total pariah for needing a nicotine fix, on the contrary I felt provided for and well served. Quite the contrast with Manchester and Tblisi. And did I mention how clean everything is. Arrived in Manchester and filth everywhere, I fitted in better of course but I wonder what Germany's secret is. Better wages? Better conditions? Actually understanding that cleaning is a valuable service that requires investment in sufficient labour and hours to be effective? Even the toilets at the gardens were immaculate, I felt bad for leaving wet footprints, I should have and could have, left my boots at the door.

I was there to briefly and only saw a small corner of Germany, but I wondered what it is like to be poor in Germany, what do you do with your homeless people and beggars? Do you have those? I suspect not but then there must be safety nets then??

It is odd, I feel more of a culture shock from Germany than I did from Georgia. Georgia was very different culturally, it has that whole cultural crossroads thing that I love, yet it is very self assured of it's own unique identity, so while it is incredibly open to difference it doesn't feel any need or leaning towards pandering or sycophancy. They know who they are and expect you to too. I like that alot. Germany however accomodating felt sterile and perhaps a little uptight. I'd like to go to Berlin though, it is perhaps different again? There was a groups of drunken young men in leder-hosen at the airport and even that felt muted, I didn't feel at all inclined to ogle their naked calves, if men can't be silly even when in drink, what really is the point of anything?

Thanks again for the tip, much appreciated by both my son and I

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

I'm glad you liked it. It's a little bit funny "tidy... uptight" are kind of exactly what I critisise. We do have homeless people but there are far more in Berlin than in Bavaria. In Munich not even the beggars are really homeless, there are plenty of shelters, it's the richest city in Germany I think. Berlin has more extremes, it's super hip and lots of rich people but also loads of failed existences plus "dreamers" from Eastern Europe. If you compare Munich and Berlin you'll find yourself thinking: two different countries.

I don't know what the secret is since it's Bavaria I'd guess supervision, that's kind of our thing, land of the control freaks.

Sounds like you had a lovely trip. Welcome back

a reply to: Peeple

Yeah, I don't think i would last long in Bavaria before they were running me out the area waving pitchforks. It was nice to visit though, and it made me even more sad about Brexit. There is so much for us to learn from each other. We could all do with a little of that Bavarian supervision. Georgia is desperate to join the EU, all they are to the "East" is a conduit for gas and oil pipelines to run through, the "west" on the otherhand are investing heavily in property and in doing so helping to establish business and trade connections that will help improve infrastructure in the long term. They want to participate, not just be tapped as and when they are needed.

My taxi driver told me that his children do not learn English because he is a Russian-Georgian and the English are capitalists. In the next sentence he said that England has the best women politicians though and had nothing but praise for Margaret Thatcher. I thought it wise not to ask what his opinion was of Merkel because he would probably share it. Taxi drivers it seems are the same the whole world over.

I did have a lovely time thank you. Tblisi is a stunning city, full of contrasts and contradictions. I don't like travelling very much, but I do enjoy being a stranger in a strange land. And I learnt a little bit more about "why the world wags and what wags it"*. I also brought back a nasty lurgy so am suffering for my efforts, but hey ho, such is life as we know it.



How about you, what's wagging your world at the moment?

* “The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.” ― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

I'm struggling a bit, the book I work on refuses to be written, the weather is so nice. I try to make some fundamental lifestyle changes but my lack of discipline at the moment is almost overwhelming. Nothing new.
I like your footnote.
Are you doing a new painting?

a reply to: Peeple

i just hit reply on the last post.

i realised watching this that its how i change words.
but its more than that.

im sorry i missed the last bit of conversation.


but, whatever we are talking about now mabey this is a cool video from the past.

a reply to: Reverbs

I do love Terence McKenna. He has this awesome quote.

And when he talks he makes me think.
The transzendental object at the end of time, is to me the frequency at the end of spacetime. If as above so below is true there must be a consciousness emitting from the universe. In the small we met the fields. They answer hello from the very large. Or Earth sized for those who are more conservative. But I believe the intelligence is coming from spacetime and everything in it. Our universe as a whole is a very complex being.


And in regards of timewave zero I believe it didn't work because it's too narrow. Just one culture's story can't predict the whole.
But I bet 2012 was a bad prophecy for the South and Central Americans.
So what do I know, if someone would rewrite it, to analyse each countries mythology and history and let the program predict the timewave for the next year for each individual, you'd also have to feed it with a novelty adding factor, entropy and chance, spontaneous ideas. The matter of how trustworthy is my "inspirit-ation"... It failed because it didn't consider enough factors.

But otherwise he said so many extremely smart things.

a reply to: Peeple

And we should honor him for his research a psychonaut and a hero.
I mean it looks like it killed him and I believe shamans are never as old as you'd expect them to be. I am glad he shared as much as he did, so I don't have to do the same.
But I am glad there are people braver than me who are researching.
With plants. Nature wants to be our friend, maybe less than he did. My health advice.
We want to get in touch with Earth. Not some laboratory.
And keep an open mind about what we may find.

I hope you don't mind me rambling here

I had a husband once. If he'd contact me he picks me up then and there I would go.
But I seriously need 3 horses and a bloodhound.
No contact with friends and family. Fine.
Just a lot of nature. And I will be fine.
I think we could be friends.
Playing games with him was more fun than with others.
He kept the supply coming. And did a very good job.
But he sold me. That's a problem I can't get over.
I'm not a forgiveness person. I want justice.
That's why I feel I should leave Germany.

I'm not free from emotional bias. I hate Germany.
I want to get abducted.
I don't care where to as long as there are 3 horses and a bloodhound.
It's not like I'm threatening anybody but you'll regret it if you don't do it tonight.
All the stories together I think it's clear there are other intelligences.
I won't deny anyone their little greys story that's one story we will keep in mind.
If religion is good for something than it's because it reminds us there are stories about the other, the ghost in nature, we are telling ourselves, probably since we decided caves are a good places to live in.
I have proof it has a history of messing with us for at least 3000 years.
That's the part I would like to focus on.

a reply to: Peeple

thats an awesome quote thanks for showing me. thats how i live my life.

a reply to: Reverbs

Did I not show you that before? I have that in my uploads since the beginning almost of my ATS days.

I'm the most alienated. I seriously considered I am an alien that's how alienated I was.
I don't understand people.
A reason why I fully concentrate on my perspective.

And what I've found is I never walk alone. Something that can completely take over the narrative
I'm not saying it does that to everybody. I am saying it probably can and will and laughs its ass off while it does.

I would start with a few basics, like we are intelligent beings and not for your entertainment or food.
Hi. How did you find us?

a reply to: Peeple

another quote I agree with. I started thinking everyone else had to be aliens when I was 4. how else would life/society make such little sense?
then i was like wait no.. these humans are just like this. im the alien. lol. take me back where i belong!

but to me thats more psychological or i should say for me its psychological. to maintain my sanity i stopped participating in the madness.

and as far as the "other" i feel it too. i dont know what it is.

and no pretty sure you never showed me those quotes. i tend not to bring up terrence only because it makes it look like i listened to him and over time became like him. when in fact i found him later by doing exactly what that first quote says. its funny how many times ive argued with people who say "science says." science cant speak first of all. second i do my own research. nothing else can live up to my standards of reality.


so i was the human, then i was the alien, and now my signature completes the circle.

"Hello, my name is human."

a reply to: Reverbs

Nowadays I say born & raised Earth. That's verifyable.
I just love SciFi and aliens.
I like Greek mythology. They're so outside of good and bad. With battles and it fits the time it was made in.
And I could come up with a justification why it could be true-ish.
The most beneficial would be it's Earth.
But I don't know because I can't tell if we are violent apes despite being in contact with it, or because. Is that good or bad?
I think even if all we have is stories as evidence, what we can say is it lives just underneath the surface.

Psychology as interest into how the mind works, is fine, but the medical part of it is just crap. You can't fix the soul if you feed the body a bandaid. People need to work out what they experienced.
And the question wtf is going on seems at the moment unsolvable.
That's not necessarily helping the "public mental health".
But there are reactions, like everything related to traumas, and there are I guess chemical imbalances, but they're treated the same. Hello? How on Earth is that supposed to work? Do your job help the people figure it out.

a reply to: Peeple

your view on psychology is basically a carl jung quote. cant remember what book i got it from.

psychology = the study of the mind.
nothing more or less.
not sure why people hate bandaids.
i love bandaids. painkillers dont put your ear and skull back together but damn if you wouldnt even get to the healing the body phovides without going completely insane first without them.

"People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls."
-carl jung

"Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."
-carl jung

from peeps

That's not necessarily helping the "public mental health".
But there are reactions, like everything related to traumas, and there are I guess chemical imbalances, but they're treated the same

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."
-carl jung


i know im stretching it but thats what i do to find new meaning where no one has gone before.





ive seen so much of the unconscious of myself that its just an ongoing thing i cant unsee in me and in everyone else, in organizations and as society, and even as a planetary biome..

its tricky to explain, but i dont mean the word psychology like most people must mean it. that is because i dont mean mind like most people mean that. the universe is like one side of a mirror. the reflection is inside the soul.

because its so weirdly as above so below i can look at either image as they seemingly create each other simultaneously.

ill never be able to give away my experiences. its not worth anything to anobody who didnt also go there.

back to alien alienations:

"Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible."
-carl jung

a reply to: Reverbs

Love it. Brain storm ahead.
Your last sentence describes the video.

I'm ready, I think we're getting hit soon. In Bavarian "jetz fatzt's'ts glei". Soon it will explode. Would be a way to translate it.
I keep thinking about Venezuela. If we will see a showdown?

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: KilgoreTrout

I'm struggling a bit, the book I work on refuses to be written, the weather is so nice. I try to make some fundamental lifestyle changes but my lack of discipline at the moment is almost overwhelming. Nothing new.
I like your footnote.
Are you doing a new painting?

I have a book like that too. I don't feel like writing, I don't feel like communicating in words much at all at this phase in my life, which is another of the joys of travel. Communicating without words is far more entertaining.

I started a painting after the last picture I showed you, I was going for a medieaval manuscript/pharmacoepia kind of thing based around recipes for Flying Ointment and Twilight Sleep amongst other "secret" knowings, but I got frustrated with the paints I was using not quite doing what I want them to do and taking up so much space so it is sitting unfinished on top of one the bookshelves while I think about what I am going to do next. I'm in a slightly similar situation to TEOTs in that I need to find a different way to earn living. Painting is not how I want to earn a living, it's more like therapy to be honest. Painting is more how I communicate with myself, which is why I suppose I find such stillness "there" but it is not going to earn me a living. But it is also about building a portfolio of work should I choose to go back to school to study art and design.

I'm running out of time and patience (mainly patience) with my current situation, I have a couple of years to get my # together and come up with a direction to take. I'm leaning towards something fire based, I can't go big given my situation, no room for a kiln or forge, but I can house a blow torch so I am currently looking to learn soldering and annealing techniques. I've always loved burning and melting stuff, it feels like a win-win even if it doesn't lead to income generation.



Speaking of Terrence McKenna (indirectly) did you see the article in the Guardian a few days ago about the burgeoning use of Psilocybin micro-dosing to mood-manage...

Rosie has just returned from the school run. She drops a bag of groceries on to her kitchen table, and reaches for a clear plastic cup, covered by a white hanky and sealed with a hairband. Inside is a grey powder; her finely ground homegrown magic mushrooms.

“I’ll take a very small dose, every three or four days,” she says, weighing out a thumbnail of powder on digital jewellery scales, purchased for their precision. “People take well over a gram recreationally. I weigh out about 0.12g and then just swallow it, like any food. It gives me an alertness, an assurance. I move from a place of anxiety to a normal state of confidence, not overconfidence.”

Over the last 12 months, I have been hearing the same story from a small but increasing number of women. At parties and even at the school gates, they have told me about a new secret weapon that is boosting their productivity at work, improving their parenting and enhancing their relationships. Not clean-eating or mindfulness but microdosing – taking doses of psychedelic drugs so tiny they are considered to be “subperceptual”. In other words, says Rosie: “You don’t feel high, just… better.”

www.theguardian.com...



Apart from mood enhancement, micro-dosings potential as a performance enhancer is being explored with many claiming it increases their creativity. I suppose the implication being that microdosing has all the positives without your having to deal with any of the "nasty" realisations that could come with a trip. In terms of what McKenna was about, I think this is the other side of the coin, people using the same compounds to keep their doors of perception tightly locked and the windows barred. It's kind of funny, but mostly very sad.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

It's funny because I know the story, I am not really sure what it is about. That's my recreational pause to diggest it all once again.

People in rich countries shouldn't have to worry about "making a living". It would be much more beneficial to society if everybody could afford to pursuit their interests.

Don't burn the house down

And I believe everything that gets kids away from hardcore chemicals is good. And it's natural. I prefer them microdosing nature, to overdosing cemistry.

a reply to: Peeple

I agree that nature has better solutions than big pharma are yet able to profit from. What I object to, without really objecting, is the belief that "taking the edge off" is anything more than it is, a controlled addiction. They are neither treating or facing the underlying causes, they are using drugs to hide from it. Which is fine, and I get that totally, but call it as it is. They are using micro-dosing because they got sick of the hangovers from their previous choice of self-medication. That glass of wine at the end of the day, just stopped taking the edge off and started putting edges on it instead. A little while down the line they're going to find that micro-dosing doesn't quite do it for them anymore and they are going to move onto the next fad that promises to solve their difficulties with reality. And so the cycle continues, whereas if they took a full dose they might just start seeing the tree instead of just wondering why they are staring at it.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

The first dose "entrance fee", and from there on the weekends, you have to contribute during the week, that's just the price of society, except really bad ptsd patients. Trauma can be emotional, rational, when your worldview gets scattered and your culture doesn't work anymore for you...
To keep you floating through the week a little Cannabis, the plant herself. As tee, smoking, vaporising, however you like it a nice, mild sativa.
For everybody. We want society to chillax a little, right?


Imagine your sun gets 1600€ or the equivalent in pound when he turns 18. From there on 50% taxes on your additional income, but a 100% Tax return if you spend the money in the country you made it in. And you get the citizens' income, of the country you are born in.
He could travel. Try to do his art thing.
And all of that in a cool society with a clear set of rules.
No more survival pressure. Imagine what we could do.

a reply to: Peeple

I'm more concerned with what it is these people believe they are contributing to and which requires them to self-medicate to counteract the emptiness that they feel in that pursuit. These people are middle-class and by societal standards successful, but they are self-medicating to fill some need that that success is not fulfilling, and in doing so, pasting on a veneer that encourages others to follow and fulfill similarly empty and unfulfilling goals. All the while the world continues it's slippery slide into creating an environment that we are still, most of us, hopelessly ill-adapted to. They need their trucks and their SUVs to display their status and to feel important, and their microdosing (or glass of wine) enforces the delusion that what they are doing is in anyway important or necessary to the world turning. That's why I find it so terribly, terribly sad. It's doom porn starring a load of wishy-washy Gwyneth Paltrow types prending to be real girls.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

I think that's two issues. One is working at job that's just mindless. The other is the question what contribution do I value.