Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Christian Rätsch: Interview on mythology, religion and altered states

Christian Rätsch
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In this episode of the psychonautica podcast, Max Freakout interviews author, anthropologist and ethnopharmacologist Dr. Christian Rätsch, they talk about mythology, religion and altered state experiences, myth as a tool for understanding reality, the role of belief and the literal interpretation of Christian scripture, India as a spiritual centre, the growing popularity of ayahuasca ceremonies, the financial crisis and erosion of western values, money as a pathological collective hallucination, the difference between money and value, possible alternatives to the money system, equality and tolerance, unconditional love and freedom, the utter failure of politics and capitalism, the fallacy of dualism, the inevitable failure of hierarchical power structures, the problem of overpopulation, the measures used to deal with overpopulation in rainforest tribal societies, the role of entheogens for spreading awareness, the absence of meaning and message in the psychedelic experience, the mutual co-dependence of matter and mind, the function of shamanism, shamanism as a technology, the potential value of shamanism for western culture, western hierarchical attitudes towards shamanism, the fallacy of organized religious approaches to entheogens such as those of Santo Daime and the UDV, the difference between dualism and polarity, the polarity of mythology and philosophy, the philosophy of Nietzsche, Dionysus and Apollo, reconciling the duality of subjective and objective within science, the abuse of science as a substitute for religion, the illusion of objectivity, the ultimate goal of scientific enquiry, eschatology and 2012, linear and cyclical models of time, the end and beginning of time, inaccuracies of calendars and the shamanic role of visionary art literature and music.

Web links:
EROCx1.com
Erowid.org
Psychedelic Salon
Christian Rätsch Homepage

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