tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21264973765460643142024-02-18T19:48:06.453-08:00NemblogReverend Nemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15100234440789460770noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2126497376546064314.post-21480590292050219422010-11-27T19:15:00.000-08:002010-12-21T10:11:05.650-08:00Reading, Righting, Wronging, Religion and Rationalism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMZztPsEwKDSRX8-54Dny28OjWrSkDpFnNO45sluiFbnFiOEzY16-XXgvnsejgQa_CUkc3fgZxnjptrQaYMPaZiLjAJg6BgFKsXUWzxK5hG25MGUcxEnutTF0LkeCcKtP_T8U1nhYYzQJA/s1600/ayatollah_dawkins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMZztPsEwKDSRX8-54Dny28OjWrSkDpFnNO45sluiFbnFiOEzY16-XXgvnsejgQa_CUkc3fgZxnjptrQaYMPaZiLjAJg6BgFKsXUWzxK5hG25MGUcxEnutTF0LkeCcKtP_T8U1nhYYzQJA/s1600/ayatollah_dawkins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMZztPsEwKDSRX8-54Dny28OjWrSkDpFnNO45sluiFbnFiOEzY16-XXgvnsejgQa_CUkc3fgZxnjptrQaYMPaZiLjAJg6BgFKsXUWzxK5hG25MGUcxEnutTF0LkeCcKtP_T8U1nhYYzQJA/s1600/ayatollah_dawkins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMZztPsEwKDSRX8-54Dny28OjWrSkDpFnNO45sluiFbnFiOEzY16-XXgvnsejgQa_CUkc3fgZxnjptrQaYMPaZiLjAJg6BgFKsXUWzxK5hG25MGUcxEnutTF0LkeCcKtP_T8U1nhYYzQJA/s640/ayatollah_dawkins.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
I have some friends whose bubbly personalities sometimes froth up into indelicate spume which gets my gag reflex going. A polemic about the <i>madrassa</i> got me thinking, and my thoughts are below. But first the original sin, from a man who was born in The Great Satan:<br />
<br />
"A <i>madrassa</i> is an Islamic School where boys are made to memorize the Koran and hate supreme infidels like yourself. It's early indoctrination that continues into the tender killing years. Think of it as a terrorist incubator. Oh, and they teach math too."<br />
<br />
In response:<br />
<br />
The Koran is a poem which has been written down, not a book as we understand the medium. The way it works, ideally, is that the verses are bouncing around your unconscious all the time, rather than being a series of steps in an argument, as we tend to read text, and that requires memorisation - as with the Vedas, the Torah (including commentary), hymnals and other inspired works - and tarot works the same way. Anyway, memorisation traditionally begins in early childhood, when the brain is a sponge, and with some discipline which is not fashionable in the west today.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVEPuh0kTsx7Qkj3Qj92EdA_rBiAZjXPc5XoC_5IleeW9_FEd3r_o4PZIj7NDAPlK_wIyGICb57urrN_UtQFTVt9P7-6JTodNhmnmgjkBeo6swtuOhPlHB0MXzoYfMYP0taozaaZsa4bjM/s1600/madrassa6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVEPuh0kTsx7Qkj3Qj92EdA_rBiAZjXPc5XoC_5IleeW9_FEd3r_o4PZIj7NDAPlK_wIyGICb57urrN_UtQFTVt9P7-6JTodNhmnmgjkBeo6swtuOhPlHB0MXzoYfMYP0taozaaZsa4bjM/s320/madrassa6.jpg" width="320" /></a>So let's separate the pure tradition from the bastard child of it practiced amongst Wahhabis and other fiends today - because not all discipline in childhood is indoctrination. ALL religions, including shamanistic ones, have been or are being co-opted by a state of mind which is pathologically unpoetic. In Christianity, literal interpretation of the Bible is only 100 and a bit years old, and coincides with mechanistic philosophy, which interprets everything in a nuts and bolts, true or false, right or wrong, you or me manner. This makes it impossible to understand the Revelation of John or the Book of Daniel, and you end up a Jehovah's Witness if you try, devoutly painting lions and lambs lying next to each other, and men beating swords into ploughshares - what am I gonna go with a ploughshare in South London, or a sword, for that matter? It's all Stanley knives and CS gas round here. The other product of rationalistic religion, if you are the military-industrial complex, is that you end up actually creating genuine doom for us to enjoy - witness the word of god made flesh.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I imagine something similar for Islam, which has undergone a rapid transformation since Englishmen, Americans and Soviets started extracting oil from beneath camel routes. In the service of what? Their own gods Mammon and Progress. In God we trust indeed!<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Literalism doesn't work with holy books, they are, all of them that I know, self-contradictory, and the Koran extremely so, winding, circular, and confusing. You can't even begin to interpret it if you don't know all of it - for example:</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdcXTRdyCgkE4R_x-Zqy9HH3u5qDhMaKqmhq0vXx5AqYsxtDf4xg1hANpHdyCy-mhHM-k7aEz5WAx-HEG3lrYqrXMyctg9DftR9uUU0WkmQ59nMsBkQzMFhhM3BymLiEcHVK8G9EUHLE_a/s1600/madrassa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><br />
</span></a><br />
<br />
"If Allah so willed, he would have made you a single People, but his plan is to test each of you separately, in what He has given to each of you" (Koran 5:48)<br />
<br />
"Our God and your God is one; and it is to Him that we bow." (Koran 29:46)<br />
<br />
Contrast that with:<br />
<br />
"If anyone desires a religion other than Islam, never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost" (Koran 3:85)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdcXTRdyCgkE4R_x-Zqy9HH3u5qDhMaKqmhq0vXx5AqYsxtDf4xg1hANpHdyCy-mhHM-k7aEz5WAx-HEG3lrYqrXMyctg9DftR9uUU0WkmQ59nMsBkQzMFhhM3BymLiEcHVK8G9EUHLE_a/s1600/madrassa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdcXTRdyCgkE4R_x-Zqy9HH3u5qDhMaKqmhq0vXx5AqYsxtDf4xg1hANpHdyCy-mhHM-k7aEz5WAx-HEG3lrYqrXMyctg9DftR9uUU0WkmQ59nMsBkQzMFhhM3BymLiEcHVK8G9EUHLE_a/s320/madrassa.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
Of course, Islam means surrender, so perhaps there is more to the chapter than is obvious to the ignorant, but it would be unseemly for me to do a midrashic commentary on the Koran, as I haven't read it all (though note that <i>midrash</i> and <i>madrassa</i> come from the same root). My point is that surgical exegesis, with the gaze of a scalpel-wielding anatomist, gives you nothing useful for spiritual growth, only for propaganda.<br />
<br />
<br />
The text the Koran grew out of notes the contradictions explicitly:<br />
<br />
"Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord." (Ezekiel 20, 25-26)<br />
<br />
More on this subject <a href="http://wp.nemusend.co.uk/reading-room/chapter-13">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNIpUaqy1pcoKHkTDoZmH3ST9NcVJphV1lh80t2qBq300WNDif0Sqpl4TcmMZ5XRp6RkQWmq1HliDY4VsEAsg7Xbfo-gbOFgolhVYwG9zdtwxZwh7_MltyTjc2HLVsB-1ubBNHJQMlrNeN/s1600/_40047338_madrassa203ap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNIpUaqy1pcoKHkTDoZmH3ST9NcVJphV1lh80t2qBq300WNDif0Sqpl4TcmMZ5XRp6RkQWmq1HliDY4VsEAsg7Xbfo-gbOFgolhVYwG9zdtwxZwh7_MltyTjc2HLVsB-1ubBNHJQMlrNeN/s1600/_40047338_madrassa203ap.jpg" /></a>That said, many madrassas today emphasise certain chunks of complexity over others, and the noble Islamic tradition provides powerful techniques which can be used to firm up young minds, rather than make them malleable. We use other techniques to indoctrinate our own children with the little we understand about the natural world, and they grow up incapable of seeing the world any different, abhorring any other philosophy. Dawkins is the worst example of this, the atheist Ayatollah, hawking his blinkered faith as rationalism. A fatwa upon him!<br />
<br />
<br />
My religion, by the way, which is Santo Daime, has just been banned in England by mechanistic idiots of the fundamentalist school, who can't tell the difference between crystal meth and ayahuasca, because both are drugs, and drugs are bad. Five of my friends have been arrested, one is still under house arrest. I am fuming, and if I had the means and the courage, I would bomb parliament. I may yet, though maybe chemical warfare with Agent DMT would be more poetic.<br />
<br />
In another religion close to my heart, which is Thelema, one technique is to wear a ring on one finger one day, and be, say, a libertarian vegetarian, and the next day on another, and be a staunch Catholic reactionary who likes a good barbecue, referring back to your finger if you forget which you are meant to be. Crowley, after the thirty odd obscene, obscure, and blasphemous books he had written had bombed, assumed a fake name and penned a book of poetry in praise of the Virgin Mary. It did quite well in Christian circles, despite the acrostic in the epilogue, which was also a poem to the Virgin. The first letter of the first and last word of each line spelled - "The Virgin Mary I desire, but arseholes set my prick on fire." Needless to say, the Christian community didn't notice. Like someone said, we see what we are trained to see.<br />
<br />
Love unconditional,<br />
<br />
Abu-Nemu Ibn Ibrahim / Rabbi Nechman / Richard Nemkins / Nemado de Jesus / Frater Nemurabo (depending on the finger)Reverend Nemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15100234440789460770noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2126497376546064314.post-72352109909833344162010-10-21T17:58:00.000-07:002010-10-26T11:30:48.594-07:00Viva o nosso feitio!<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="560" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XfDtOxvB364?rel=0" frameborder="0"></iframe><br />
<br />
This is how daimistas make ayahuasca. It is my answer to Scotland Yard, HM Customs, and <i>The Sun</i> (see previous post)<br />
<br />
<i>O ouro que tem na terra é a luz que brilha mais</i>Reverend Nemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15100234440789460770noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2126497376546064314.post-9404404723477067522010-10-19T17:43:00.000-07:002010-10-26T11:32:58.864-07:00Softcore hex!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Toe of frog and eye of newt,</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Judges hammer and policeman’s boot,</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Photographer’s flash and a journalist’s pen</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And the craft and the daft are warring again.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hail standing stone and running water!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hail sexy son and devil’s daughter!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">With Magick Wand and Holy Grail</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Curse the Wicked Witch of the Daily Mail!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN-GB">The bards of old wandered through Albion, singing stories and swapping tidbits, bringing news and offering commentary. In the spirit of the Bardic tradition, I offer the above malediction in response to the Daily Mail’s recent attack on druidry, entitled <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_2014233629">“</a></span><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1317490/Druids-official-religion-Stones-Praise-come.html "target="_blank">Druids as an official religion? Stones of Praise here we come”</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN-GB">In this article, Eastern philosophies, pagan and spiritualist religions, and “mind-bending cults”, are lampooned as “</span>totally barking mumbo-jumbo<span lang="EN-GB">”. Such ill-informed and unprovoked attacks pass for journalism in the paper which used to run favourable editorials about Hitler and Mosely, (“Hurrah for the Blackshirts!” - Jan 1934), and it is popular. 2.3 million people pay for the privilege of reading it, and it is a major shaper of opinion. So what can a conscientious druid do? In the spirit of “What would Jesus do?”, I ask you:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What would the Morrigan do?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Would she write letters of complaint and sign petitions?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">No. She would work a curse, and a pretty one.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The tragedy of the old gods is not that the godless slander them, but that their adherents do not take refuge in them. The spirits which once took part in our daily lives are lying about unemployed as never before.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A week later, the even more popular Sun printed <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3168623/Mind-busting-jungle-drug-hits-UK.html" target="_blank">“Mind-busting Jungle Drug hits UK”</a>:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is so ill-informed that I had to ask myself if they really were talking about the same ayahuasca which has recently been seized at the English border, the same ayahuasca that the Brazilian and Peruvian governments have declared to be safe for use and part of the cultural patrimony of their countries. Until a few months ago, several UK groups had been importing ayahuasca openly and above board, as they do in most of Europe. We held sessions in huge Church of England churches in the heart of London, with the blessings of the vicars. It was not a smuggling operation. We were not extracting, smoking and selling DMT crystals. DMT, which is produced naturally in our brains, can be extracted with much less trouble and expense from several easily available plants. Why go to the trouble of a week labouring by a furnace, painstakingly breaking up woody vine, picking tens of thousands of leaves, and then boiling it up ritualistically for days?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now suddenly our sacrament is being impounded, people are being arrested, dossiers are being prepared, and DMT is “set to become a bigger menace than crystal meth”.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The conservative estimates are that a court case will take 2 years and tens of thousands of pounds, but is it in courts and editorials that mystics should fight their battles? Does good fight evil? Or can it just be present, rather than absent? Things are shit, or gold, or something in between, and that continuum is where the alchemist focuses his efforts. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Druids, alchemists, mystics and magi, work your art in your temples and your labs. Seal your circles and crucibles from the lords of ignorance and opinion, whose work is to criticise what they don’t understand. Let your own work be the Great Work, though it be practiced underground and humbly, internally, in secrecy and solitude, for there is no news here. We have been doing this for millennia.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Great Work is defined variously as the emancipation of the will, or the path of spiritual evolution, or raising the consciousness of conscious beings. In alchemical terms, it is making gold from terra negra, variously considered as shit, mud or otherwise detestable matter. The catalyst is the philosopher’s stone, and the basis of this is Vitriol. Alchemists made a distinction between common vitriol and the Vitriol of the Philosophers, and noted the danger in swallowing the common one.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The opinions of the stupid and the lazy, distilled into invective, make common vitriol, and if we swallow it, we allow Muggins materialism to poison our work. The seal is broken, and our work ceases to be hermetic. The Vitriol of the Philosophers is something different, and its formula is as follows:</span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">V.I.T.R.I.O.L.:</span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem</span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN-GB">(Visit the interior of the Earth, and by rectifying it, find the hidden stone)</span><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The nature of the Philosopher’s Stone is to turn shit into gold. As for the nature of Philosopher’s Vitriol, that would be something to ponder.</span></span></div>Reverend Nemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15100234440789460770noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2126497376546064314.post-2688850203632192212010-08-10T06:22:00.001-07:002010-08-19T12:22:01.375-07:00Paradigm drowningI had always wanted to go to a rodeo, but like so many dreams, the romance didn't last. Men falling off horses soon ceases to entertain, and cowboy hats and appalling music are only funny if you have another cynic to exchange cracks with. So it wasn't that late when I took the dark dirt track home, and I wasn't that drunk, but I was being silly and I did deserve to fall over. I slept easily enough at home, but soon awoke in agony, unable to find a position which afforded relief to my left arm, which had broken my fall and perhaps some bones. Delirious with pain and endorphins, I hallucinated horses until the morning, when a friend took me to hospital.<br />
<br />
I always expect to see zombies in hospitals, but apart from some loud retching and a Down's syndrome girl smiling broadly at me from beneath her severe head wound, there was nothing to take my mind off my poor arm. The radiologist and the doctor diagnosed a fracture and put me in an ambulance across town. I had to interrupt the driver from his natter with a nurse by beeping his horn and saying "oi, let's go, my arm is broken!", but eventually we arrived at Sao Benedito hospital, where the orthopaedist told me it didn't look broken. He was clearly brighter than the other two, and we disagreed good-naturedly about alternative medicine as he set the cast as well as any medieval bone-setter might. He gave me a prescription, insisting that I take it, and told me, for the love of god, not to take arnica, because it causes horrendous internal burns.<br />
<br />
He is right, of course. Arnica is highly toxic, as are the sources of many homoeopathic medicines, but homoeopathy is a distinct discipline with its own principles and practices, much ridiculed by mainstream medics. He also commented that its effect was unproven. I don't know about homeopathic preparations of arnica, but plenty of studies attest the action of homoeopathic remedies. Plenty show no effect as well, but that does not disprove homoeopathy. Science doesn't work like that. A negative result doesn't falsify homoeopathy, it means that the test does not support the hypothesis that a certain medicine has a certain effect, which is quite different - many allopathic trials do not support their hypotheses.<br />
<br />
Meta-analysis adds up the results of many trials, but it only takes into account experiments done and published. When the paradigm is alternative, research is discouraged and obstructed by the larger labs, and publishing in the medical press is subject to a great deal of censorship. Michel Schiff reports that during a controversy over the results of a high profile experiment supporting homeopathy, 21 replications from various labs were rejected, and the relevant journal reported only one failed replication. (<a href="http://wp.nemusend.co.uk/reading-room/chapter-03">Read more here)</a><br />
<br />
The burns are a tragic example of what happens when paradigms are inexpertly surfed. Justifiably suspicious of pharmaceuticals, people are looking towards alternatives, but ingesting a homeopathic source plant as if it was a herbal medicine is thoroughly confused, and potentially fatal. These burns prove nothing more than that a little knowledge can be dangerous, and that we should be careful when our health is at stake. The many YouTube videos attacking homoeopathy with the assumptions of allopathy are doing the same thing, jumbling up paradigms, whether it is James Randi complaining that there are no molecules left in homoeopathic dilutions, as any homoeopath readily admits, or teenagers munching entire pots of homeopathic pills and saying "look, nothing happened!"<br />
<br />
I skilfully rode a bus to the rodeo, but I did not mount a furious horse and press a few coins into its hoof. That would be the wrong practice, like drinking arnica juice as if it was nettle tea, and I would deserve any injuries sustained. Swallowing herbs as if they were allopathic pills can also be as dangerous, because the question of dosage is complex and the effects tend to take longer, but basically because you need to work with the plant, getting to know it and coming to respect it as you do so.<br />
<br />
I did laugh at the rodeo, from my lonely cynical tower, but not for long because I had better things to do, like monkeying about until i hurt myself. The cowboys had a great time, and I had a good time too, on my own adventure. I got an inside look at Brazilian hospitals, I hung out with nurses and was driven around in an ambulance, all the while giggling and light-headed from my hi-grade endogenous opiate trip. Refusing pain-killers made me feel far more manly than angry horse antics could have done, and asking the homoeopath for exactly what the doctor had forbidden made me feel pretty hardcore too. People enjoy different things.<br />
<br />
Paradigms, like pleasures, are a matter of taste, not truth, but make sure you know what you are doing before riding someone else's horse.Reverend Nemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15100234440789460770noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2126497376546064314.post-55649930545741317412010-07-01T20:09:00.000-07:002010-07-01T20:09:06.822-07:00Nemu's End reviewed online<span style="font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: small;">A glowing <a href="http://psypressuk.com/">review</a> of Nemu's End at <a href="http://psypressuk.com/">Psychedelic Press UK</a> - Woo-hoo!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><em>Originally published in 2009 ‘Nemu’s End – History, Psychology, and Poetry of the Apocalypse’ by Reverend Nemu is an exploratory work of non-fiction. The premise of the book is a deconstruction of social, historical, philosophical and scientific strata. And at the same time it posits the idea of ‘apocalypse’ as a revelatory force of change in both ourselves and society.</em></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">A book of this nature is difficult to comprehensively review. The amount of diverse ground it covers means anyone wishing to test the numerous facts would have to set aside a good deal of time to reveal and investigate all its various sources and references. Though, it should be said, the fundamental aspect of the book i.e. the message of apocalypse, the possibility of a catastrophic change in perspective for the Self, is the consistency that binds all the many fields together.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The rapid fact-weaving narrative of the book is engaging and, as the reader, you are whisked through highly diverse topics and debates, like the scientific method, Spiritualist churches, biographical details, theories on human perception and so on. The apocalyptic message is, however, always consistent – uncovering that which is hidden from us by revealing the untruth of received and untested wisdom – For example, Nemu attempts to break down the scientific method and in doing so demonstrates the possibility of multiple analytical perspectives; revealing the danger of being trapped by a single discourse.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">One section that I found particularly interesting is titled ‘<em>Neuro-Apocalypse One: The Monkey Puzzle</em>’. In it, Nemu describes – against the backdrop of his own experiences of living in Japan – cultural, linguistic and perceptive differences between Westerners and the Japanese and does so in good humour: “<em>We navigate through the visual cortex, and touch the world through the padded gloves of our nervous systems, which is why a kiss from a Thai princess tastes sweet like mango, until you realize this mango is a man.</em>” He further demonstrates the relativity of perception and in doing so reiterates how one must not be mastered by these perceptions, precisely because they are relative.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I’ll now concentrate more on the sections to do with psychedelics, in order to keep this review more concise and the book within the general scope of PsypressUK. It should be noted that these constitute only a couple of the chapters of ‘Nemu’s End’. Aside from the political-historical analysis of State intervention with psychedelic drugs, which is now standard fare in demonstrating State repression and secrecy, Nemu outlines what role psychedelics can play in the apocalyptic analysis of Self.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Citing the work of Dr. Roland Fischer, who conducted experiments with Psilocybin and their effects on visual space, Nemu correlates Fischer’s findings that they improved visual acuity and revealed imbalance, to the general characteristics of psychedelics: “<em>This capacity to reveal imbalance makes them excellent tools for learning about ourselves. Whereas we often convince ourselves that we are neither addicted nor compulsive, and that our behaviour is perfectly rational, psychedelics question these assumptions.</em>” In giving psychedelics value as tools for “<em>learning about ourselves</em>” Nemu ascribes them a psychological value; very in keeping with 1950s discourse. The important difference is the way in which the psychedelic experience is mediated; by a setting rather than a psychoanalyst.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Nemu describes, very positively, his experiences and the practices of Santo Daime; a syncretic spiritual practice that uses ayahuasca as a sacrament: “<em>In a Daime work, wandering around, eating, chatting, and the whole social game is forbidden. With the ego temporarily obliterated and nothing to do but sing, shake a maraca, and dance in formation with everyone else, you can safely follow your journey where it takes you.</em>” Interestingly, this paints a similarly mediated psychological picture, only that the practice is mediated through song and dance. Also, it is worth noting, the identification of the “<em>ego</em>” with the “<em>whole social game</em>” is very indicative of the psychedelic conception of the ego first employed by Timothy Leary.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">A major debate surrounding contemporary psychedelic culture concerns the historical, or pre-historical, use of psychedelic drugs by humanity. Nemu writes: “<em>It is a kind of heresy to speculate that the ancients took drugs, but the opposite is just plain silly.</em>” The ‘ancients’ refers to history, not prehistory and it essentially encompasses the pre-ecclesiastical written records. The academic argument that Nemu slyly backhands as “<em>plain silly</em>” is that the historical record is inconclusive; however, this doesn’t deny that it happened but rather recognizes that to say it as such is a faith-based argument. Therefore to anyone who makes this claim we must ask; why do you make this argument? ‘Historical truth’ would perhaps fly in the face of evidence so perhaps the most purposeful reasoning for making the argument is to historically pin a legal status of psychedelics and thereby adding weight to the contemporary voice for legalisation.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">In the end though, Nemu’s assessment of psychedelics is very representative of the whole ‘apocalypse’ project and it seems to embody the whole process of change that underlines the book: “<em>Psychedelics tear down constructions and wash away worlds, unleashing the raw power of consciousness.</em>” The power of consciousness can perhaps only be measured in the way that it is exercised and ‘Nemu’s End’ is a brilliant exposition of the ways that we can utilize the consciousness tool. So in deconstructing so many threads, Nemu, simultaneously through the apocalypse, posits the possibility of a new construction of Self. To download for free, or to order a copy to buy, please visit Reverend Nemu’s <a href="http://www.nemusend.co.uk/" target="_self" title="Revered Nemu's website">website</a>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span>Reverend Nemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15100234440789460770noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2126497376546064314.post-34566382672125703582010-06-01T11:11:00.000-07:002010-06-01T11:11:32.600-07:00Small town apocalypseBack in Brazil, in my girlfriend's rural hometown. It's alright, if a little Catholic, and her mum runs the prayer sessions at the church, whilst the neighbours are idol-smashing evangelists. There are five churches here, which is remarkable since there is almost nothing else - a chemist, a construction shop, a supermarket, but no internet shop. Subsistence farming is all that there was a few decades ago.<br />
<br />
My parents came here once, and one night we went out for caipirinhas - rum and lime and sugar and ice. After various aunts and cousins had managed to source some limes from amongst their various in-laws and grandchildren, we were sitting amongst the cowboys at a spit and sawdust bar, sipping our iceless caipirinhas, and my dad asked how the town came to be founded.<br />
<br />
"There was a drought," said the oldest cowboy, chewing a piece of straw (seriously, he was). "It was so dry that we had to go all the way to Aracuai to get food, and the animals were dying. So we raised a holy cross, that one by the square. Everyone from around the valley went down to the river and took a stone to the foot of the cross so that it might rain. But it still didn't rain, so we buried a kilo of salt and prayed to Saint Sebastian, and the drought came to an end. That is why this place is called São Sebastião da Boa Vista."<br />
<br />
My father was left speechless. He and the cowboy, both in their mid-sixties, were trying to communicate across an abyss of incompatible perspective.<br />
<br />
The other day, my girlfriend found the original flag of Saint Sebastian discarded in a field - it is seventy years old, the oldest thing the town produced, and no-one gives a monkeys. Whatever culture there was has been swamped by TV, and Brazilian soap operas espouse the same values that Dynasty exported a few decades ago. Her father grew up literally naked in the forest, he used to hide when people passed by because he had no clothes. He never learned to read, but he quite happily hides in a tree for six hours straight, making the calls of various birds, waiting for an armadillo to stray into his shotgun sights. <br />
<br />
His son watches cartoons every day and plays playstation religiously. He is the result of an incredible apocalypse, from subsistence farming to Woody Woodpecker, in fifty years. <br />
<br />
Where is it all going though?Reverend Nemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15100234440789460770noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2126497376546064314.post-14785469427937916032010-04-07T16:31:00.000-07:002010-04-07T16:31:07.626-07:00Book review online!First review of Nemu's End, at <a href="http://alternativeculture.com/books/newbooks.htm#nemu">Alternative Culture</a>.<br />
<br />
Woohoo!Reverend Nemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15100234440789460770noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2126497376546064314.post-83683086870412895872010-03-30T14:19:00.000-07:002010-03-30T14:26:19.392-07:00Testing testing...One. Two. One two.<br />
<br />
Ninety-three.<br />
<br />
This is your Reverend speaking.<br />
<br />
Welcome to the Church of Nem. This blog, <a href="http://www.nemusend.co.uk/Nemu/Chapel_Perilous.html" style="color: #cc0000;">the site</a><span style="color: #990000;"> </span>and <a href="http://www.nemusend.co.uk/Nemu/Reading_Room.html" style="color: #cc0000;">my book</a>, Nemu's End, are all about the apocalypse, from all sorts of perspectives. Here is a snippet from the intro:<br />
<br />
"The apocalypse knocked on my door twelve years ago, bearing pamphlets depicting the grim fate awaiting those who would not witness Jehovah. The apocalypse and apocalyptic people have fascinated me ever since. Apocalypse means 'removal of a veil' or 'revelation', and is relevant to scientific discovery (dis-covery), cultural development, and the expansion of the conscious mind into the unknown. Nemu’s End is about these processes, about how limitations are formed, and what happens when they collapse. (<a href="http://www.nemusend.co.uk/Nemu/02.html" style="color: #cc0000;">...</a>)"<br />
<br />
You can browse the book online, wander around the site, or leave a comment. There will be more soon, including a video about skepticism and censorship in science, a random rant generator, and a link to an interview on <a href="http://lila.info/" style="color: #cc0000;">Lila</a>.<br />
<br />
For the moment, however, we are limited to Nemu's End and<span style="color: #990000;"> </span><a href="http://www.nemusend.co.uk/Nemu/Ministry_Outreach.html" style="color: #cc0000;">some light reading about the link between Martin Luther's constipation and the Reformation</a><span style="color: red;">.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_QEFi8JtSutcueKPjxoIF9H-pPfIko9N5_MNFLhE1cckroQhSWobUh38nOuFLNIYcux24Ggy2Ub4UH7iQj4q86dK8q8Xssm1BPTQbb1EMJbrawRSMt0qzxJ3hCU_Z8cT2cjGZPSdhh85X/s1600/snakehead.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_QEFi8JtSutcueKPjxoIF9H-pPfIko9N5_MNFLhE1cckroQhSWobUh38nOuFLNIYcux24Ggy2Ub4UH7iQj4q86dK8q8Xssm1BPTQbb1EMJbrawRSMt0qzxJ3hCU_Z8cT2cjGZPSdhh85X/s320/snakehead.png" /></a></div>Reverend Nemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15100234440789460770noreply@blogger.com1