All the tools of initiation have been reversed, and given to children who don’t know how to use them, but denied to adults, thereby making the “adult” populace deprived.

Woah! Crazy good insight!

I think kids’ brains are still forming in their teens, and when they hit 18 they should be allowed to go hog-wild and smoke whatever they want to smoke.

Supposedly it stops forming when they turn 23 or so

I wonder if in a way, this whole thing about the brain development turning off is sort of a cultural shorthand giving people permission to stop developing personally at a socially acceptable age?

that’s a great question…

Ten years? That’s a lot of funyons.

You mean these things?

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Nah, I usually just have a cup of tea and a smoke or something. Or maybe some Snyder’s of hanover pretzels with some sharp cheddar and a nice coca-cola on ice. Or peanut butter on french bread. Oh wait there’s some leftover chinese takeout form last night, damnit we gotta buy a microwave one of these days…

I think kids’ brains are still forming in their teens, and when they hit 18 they should be allowed to go hog-wild and smoke whatever they want to smoke.

I know there’s physiological evidence to say that the brain stops forming at a certain time, but I’ll be fucked if I’ve hit that wall yet (25). I wonder if in a way, this whole thing about the brain development turning off is sort of a cultural shorthand giving people permission to stop developing personally at a socially acceptable age?

If anything, the reason why bongs have cartoon characters on them is because of NOSTALGIA.

That’s it right there I think.

Nowadays, kids are bombarded with quite a paradox: being forced to grow up fast socially while at the same time being babied more than they ever have been at home. Not every home is like this, but I’d say on the average this description fits the modern American family very well.

I think kids’ brains are still forming in their teens, and when they hit 18 they should be allowed to go hog-wild and smoke whatever they want to smoke. Sure, some kids start at age 12 and are fine afterwards, but what about the kids who become total dropouts because of the early exposure?

If anything, the reason why bongs have cartoon characters on them is because of NOSTALGIA. How many Sponge Bob bongs are there? I’m sure there are some– Sponge Bob is popular with adults as well as kids– but when was the last time a California Raisin cartoon was on the air?

This post sounds stoned, and ironically I am sober. I just got over being sick…

It was also revealed that study was a marketing gimmick paid for by HP or some other company who was trying to promote an organization software package

Goddamnit, that was one of my favorites. Well, what about the study about weed making you drive safer, the one that Getting It covered back in the good old days (i.e., the previous administration)?

I don’t think that’s a crazy theory at all. It makes perfect sense. I don’t just think it’s about contact with the divine though - I think it has to do with instinctively trying to reconfigure the brain to assume an adult role within society. I think the point of most “primitive” initiation rituals is that your child brain is re-imprinted with a new set of rules and a supporting story-system to turn you into an adult.

Dead right. That original post is a worthwhile read.

It’s either that, or we’ll continue to be ruled by kids in adult’s bodies.

You know, I came to this realization the other day: when I was a kid, I spent a lot of time trying get away from all that stupid kid shit because I didn’t see how it would help me once I entered the adult world where I would have responsiblities and the rights that corresponded with them. Well, here I am, and goddamn, I’ve realized there is no adult world, I’ve still got bad skin, and I never got my rites, neither. The clothes and the wallets change but everyone is whiny and sexually insecure and trying to get their hair just like some celebrity’s and still after peer approval. It speaks volumes for our society that rites of passage include being able to buy your own cigarettes and booze. The girl at the bar’s t-shirt reads: “Driving at 16 Fucking at 18 Drinking at 21! Kappa Delta 4Ever!”

Remember the fifties, how every smart person on the planet experimented with self-improvement through LSD? Normal doses back then were usually ten times higher than today’s street doses. This is just me shooting from the hip here, but I’m wondering, whether this is a massive social control mechanism. Most people I know think that real drugs, the ones that’ll carpetbomb your tiny little doors of perception, are “for kids”–after all, they did acid three or four times as a kid and it “makes you paranoid.” All the tools of initiation have been reversed, and given to children who don’t know how to use them, but denied to adults, thereby making the “adult” populace deprived.

http://www.timboucher.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=252

It seems like the distinction you’re after might be better served by asking what the social role of initiation is, versus the spiritual importance of it.

Also, not having any first hand experience of Skull & Bones, I’m not going to try and decide for them whether their ceremonies have any validity socially or spiritually. I imagine though that the bond it creates among its members is an extremely strong one. That’s about the only conclusion I’m prepared to come to.

I think Jesus advice that you will “know them by their fruits” is an adequate discriminator between the simulacrum of initiation and the genuine article.

I’m reminded of how Tolkien described Sauron’s creations, he was jealous of the genuine and pure elves and such, and created his abominations of orcs and trolls, in a twisted parody.

For those who “know” (or are at least hip ), it’s obvious how such societies mirror the true symbols of tradition, but twist them around to appeal to the lower self. The “elect” of Tradition seldom wield political power, and never in the way these guys do; their eliteness not is due to their material deeds, but to spiritual ones.

In observing Western or Christian initiatory experiences direct contact with the divine seems all too rare. In RCatholicism it is infants who are baptized, in most fundie churches it is people who have accepted a crucified Christ as a redemptive feature, both of these strike me as simply empty ritual or at the very most the acceptance within a proscribed hierarchy. You see i have this crazy theory that youth experiment with drugs precisely because they are looking for this enigmatic transcending union, jmho.

Oh, no, I agree one hundred percent. Modern rituals are but the echoes of genuine initiatory rituals (and require extremely tortured chains of reasoning to justify them ), but that of course does not preclude genuine mystical experiences that spontaneously arise in followers of “degraded” traditions. Any divine influence I felt was, I’m sure, a purely spontaneous manifestation.

I’ve never had the slightest interest in any stimulants, but it was an entheogenic (mushroom) experience that got me to take the esoteric and mystic facets of religion seriously.

After a genuinely “cosmic” trip, I don’t think anyone can pretend any longer to ignore the very real presence of “supernatural” or nonsensory phenomena. Seriously. “gnosis” is such that it is truly unspeakable and supremely undeniable by those who experience it.

If George Bush had gone through something like this, maybe he wouldn’t have graduated college at age 29 (and this from a man who didn’t a work a day in his life!). Or maybe, even today, he wouldn’t be a little boy still trying to impress Daddy.

I like the basic sentiment here, but it’s fairly inaccurate in that George W. Bush and many others DID go through these rituals. It’s called Skull & Bones. It’s a ritual death and rebirth designed to re-imprint you to complete loyalty to the group and your role therein.

i have this crazy theory that youth experiment with drugs precisely because they are looking for this enigmatic transcending union

Sounds totally right on to me.

Sometimes I think that Robert Bly had it right. A dozen or so years ago he wrote a book called Iron John, about the lack of modern initiation rights for males. It some ways it’s a vague, meandering book written by a much-too-chatty poet, but his main point is right on the mark: these days there are no initiation rites for young men.

In the past, in nearly every culture, these rites were performed at the age of 12, initiating the boy into manhood. Today, we send 12-year-olds to middle school, and then wonder why society and schools have such problems with them.

Is this lack of initiation rites the problem with these armchair-warrior chickenhawk cowards? Are they still in some ways 12 years old? They’ve never grown up, maybe? They’re trying to prove they’re men by starting wars? They’re trying to overcome their childishness and become men by murdering innocent people?

I recently saw Donald Rumsfeld raise his arms in a cheer when he heard about American victories in Iraq. He looked like a middle-schooler at a football game. What is he, 71 years old � and has never grown up? And he’s proud the US demolished a fourth-rate country like Iraq? What sort of childish megalomania is that?

Maybe all these chickenhawks need to taken out in the woods and subjected to the ritual death and rebirth that all cultures visit on their 12-year-old boys. Then maybe they would be transformed into the men they’re trying to be, and without starting unnecessary wars.

Maybe one of the purposes of these ancient rites is to overcome childish hubris. Thomas Hobbes made the oh-so-accurate observation, “The evil man is the child grown strong.” An adult understands hubris and fights against it in himself. Children don’t even know what it is.

I think these rites are a pretty nifty idea. Imagine Limbaugh, Boot, Goldberg, Perle, Wolfowitz…all of them, sitting in the woods, smeared with chicken blood, feathers in their hair, beating tom-toms and dancing around a bonfire. If George Bush had gone through something like this, maybe he wouldn’t have graduated college at age 29 (and this from a man who didn’t a work a day in his life!). Or maybe, even today, he wouldn’t be a little boy still trying to impress Daddy.

Then they can say, “At last, we are men.” Then, with their heads on straight, they’ll cease to be bullies and cowards, and won’t be so eager to send soldiers into quagmires.

It’s either that, or we’ll continue to be ruled by kids in adult’s bodies.

The Brain of the Chickenhawk

You see i have this crazy theory that youth experiment with drugs precisely because they are looking for this enigmatic transcending union

I don’t think that’s a crazy theory at all. It makes perfect sense. I don’t just think it’s about contact with the divine though - I think it has to do with instinctively trying to reconfigure the brain to assume an adult role within society. I think the point of most “primitive” initiation rituals is that your child brain is re-imprinted with a new set of rules and a supporting story-system to turn you into an adult.

This is accomplished, in a way, with kids breaking away from the domain of their parents (ie, childhood) by experimenting with drugs. Unfortunately, the ritual container this imprinting occurs in is one outside of the world of adults. When kids do drugs now, they don’t become adults so much as they become teenagers, quasi-adults in a state of limbo, where their bodies and minds beg to be treated like adults, but end up still be treated as kids on many levels.

Now, I don’t have kids myself, but if and when I do, I’ve wondered about this a lot: giving them proper initiation rituals at the right age to help them along psychologically and spiritually. I’ve heard stories from friends about the first times they got drunk or high was with their parents. There’s something about that which makes a lot of sense to me.

Gina, I was “initiated” with a baptism ceremony. It may have been an initiation into a pathological or heretical strain of Xtianity (hard to say) but such ceremonies do still go on.

My point regarding initiation vs baptism within an organised environment is the experiential aspect, mostly Prunesquallori. When I speak of initiation within indigenous peoples or even wild spontaneous spiritual initiation I mean direct contact with divine. Though I know these experiences can’t be custom ordered, young men and women in indigenous tribes are set on a path towards the goal of divine contact.

In observing Western or Christian initiatory experiences direct contact with the divine seems all too rare. In RCatholicism it is infants who are baptized, in most fundie churches it is people who have accepted a crucified Christ as a redemptive feature, both of these strike me as simply empty ritual or at the very most the acceptance within a proscribed hierarchy. You see i have this crazy theory that youth experiment with drugs precisely because they are looking for this enigmatic transcending union, jmho.

http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005...liens-and-occult-initatition-rituals/

Here’s an interesting question, when did we stop initiating our children? Indigenous people spiritually initiate their youth as a right of passage. Have we dropped the ball on our children by not initiating them spiritually to follow some belief system besides the almighty God Mammon? I’m not just speaking of entheogen use or smoking pot, but the same sort of esoterica we ourselves are postulating.

There are belief systems that still do initiate their children, I know this is prevalent in afro-carribean religions n the US, it may exist in other immigrnat cultures as well.

I think society suffers terrible from kids not having anything to beleive in but whatever popular culture tells them is cool. Gangs may be a substitute for this as well.

There was a UK study that came out showing that checking your email and answering the phone at work impaired productivity and concentration more than smoking marijuana beforehand.

It was also revealed that study was a marketing gimmick paid for by HP or some other company who was trying to promote an organization software package. I have a link about it somewhere.

Here we go:

http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005...13/email-makes-you-stupider-than-pot/

Actually, this site has more info than mine:

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2005/04/does_email_really_re.html

OTOH i have been high every day for the last 10 years and it has affected me not a whit. Sweet job at a fortune 500 company, homeowner, taxpayer, married, the whole shebang.

Ten years? That’s a lot of funyons.

Sorry, target of opportunity.

There was a UK study that came out showing that checking your email and answering the phone at work impaired productivity and concentration more than smoking marijuana beforehand.

I can’t even find weed any more.

I started at age 15. Typically I would go spend a couple hours in the library doing my school work, and smoke a bone on the way home, as a little treat for myself. I was varsity cross country and swimming, and passed 6 AP classes and tests, shit I had a year of college credit by the time I was graduated from high school.

I’ve dosed over 130 times.
Only regret: cocaine.

-tc
syseng@msn.com

Also I want to check out Hakim Bey’s recent anthology “Orgies of the Hemp Eaters.”

I swear to God they grow drug agents in a big vat…that’s the only wya they can get cops so ignorant of culture.

SIKE!

Thanks for the toxic raisins tip Garrett… I’ll look into it.

Anyway, it would be funny that those same little dancing raisians would move onto trying to lure kids into smoking pot.

‘Course, that’s just me. Other people are built differently with different sensibilities.

i would be a fucking mess without herb. drinking on the other hand i could do without. but i spend so much time in clubs its really hard to not drink some. especially since they put all the no smoking laws into effect…

and i really need to stop smoking cigarettes. and that i didnt start until i was like 20.

and the only other drug ive done really is acid. and that only like 5 times when i was about 17.

fucked me up. im still trippin.

i want to eat some mushrooms soon. i just gotta get my head together abit more first.

and i drink too much coffee.

one
human?

I didn’t start smoking pot until i was 25 myself - no lie.

OTOH i have been high every day for the last 10 years and it has affected me not a whit. Sweet job at a fortune 500 company, homeowner, taxpayer, married, the whole shebang.

Truly tha herb is one of god’s most wonderful creations! I think I’ll go get stoned right now!

If marijuana were legalized the military would have to be delegalized. You couldn’t have a bunch of trained killers finding themselves.

Ha, I don’t just think we’re talking about the military here, either!

Another friend of mine who was in the Navy and I had a conversation once about why the military doesn’t really give a shit about amphetamines and alcohol, but is defacto fascist in its response to marijuana use. He explained how easy it is while in port to get hookers and alcohol. But remarked that what everybody off the boat really needed was to get high. Becuase once they did, they’d look about their ranks (all stoned) and say: “Anybody ever thought about why we’re gonna get back on the boat?”

If marijuana were legalized the military would have to be delegalized. You couldn’t have a bunch of trained killers finding themselves. That would be the answer to the greatest riddle of all! Why they hate our freedom.