Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Nitpicking comment here: the word you're looking for is
"psychotomimetic," a word which really disturbed early researchers.
Thus, in a correspondence with Aldous Huxley, who preferred the word
"phanerothyme," Humprhy Osmond coined the word "psychedelic": 

Huxley: "To make this trivial world sublime, take half a gram of
phanerothyme"

Osmond in response: "To fathom Hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch
of psychedelic."

Osmond was a practicing psychiatrist and knew the difference between
what he was experiencing and psychosis. 
  

    
Psychotomimetic and psychomimetic are synonyms, so either one will do.
I think knowing the difference is an important aspect of the
psychomimetic experience vs the psychotic episode.
  

    
Psychotomimetic implies mimicking psychosis. Psychomimetic means
mimicking mental processes or something. Dunno where you got the
synonym thing, but at any rate the former is no longer used.
  

    
I googled the terms.
  

    <scribbled by mcdee Tue 30 Aug 11 18:05>
  

    
Everything lives on in the the Google!
  

    
Oh, you googled the terms, that settles it!

I'm with capt on this; the word is psychotomimetic.

Anyway -- I am curious. With all this:
  
  - classical Greek/Roman pagan traditions
  - a little bit of old testament judaism, plus jewish mysticism e.g.
  kabbalah (my last name comes from town called Dulcigno, now in
  Montenegro, and that was a place where a messiah figure named Shabbatai
  Sevi was exiled for his messianic/kabbalah movement in Ottoman
  Thessaloniki/Salonica)
  - witchcraft/wicca medieval burning times - i find Wiccan
  practitioners are sympathetic to my line of thinking
  - freemasonry - revival of Eleusis other pagan practice, plus cross
  pollenation with Islamic/Sufi strains and mysticism like the dervishes
  - Greek Orthodox, Athonite monasticism
  - hippie pagan and witchcraft revivalism; later techno-pagans

...did you explore actual shamanism? As in traditional native American, 
Siberian, etc etc, shamans? Or the modern teachers of "core shamanism" 
such as Michael Harner and Leslie Gray?

From my studies I got the idea that shamanism is much more generic 
and universal than the esoteric and religious things you enumerate, and 
much much more down to earth. 
  

    
"Oh, you googled the terms, that settles it!"

I figured you could look for yourself, but if you want some of the
explicit references:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/psychomimetic - lists psychotomimetic as
a synoonym for psychomimetic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotomimetic - "Psychotomimetic drugs
(also referred to as psychomimetic drugs) affect thought, perception,
and mood..."

Lewis' Dictionary of Toxicology at
http://books.google.com/books?id=caTqdbD7j4AC&pg=PA865&lpg=PA865&dq=psychomime
tic+vs+psychotomimetic&source=bl&ots=uK0rDfZNxj&sig=JkxADSAU0BBTw3GGni62anXOo_
k&hl=en&ei=nyxeTsvnLYqRgQegu7X5AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0
CDcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false:
"psychomimetic agent. See psychotomimetic drug." (Also shows the term
psychosomimetic as an evident synonym.)

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/psychomimetic and
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/psychotomimetic

http://universalium.academic.ru/180431/psychomimetic

http://en.factolex.com/Psychomimetic

http://www.wordnik.com/words/psychomimetic
  

    
There is also a living tradition of female shamans in Korea even now,
existing side-by-side with the local flavor of Buddhism and the
overwhelming Christianity. The shamanism is hereditary, carried through
the grandmother, skipping generations, as I remember. 
  

    
It would be interesting to know how many cultures still have living
shamanistic traditions.  I suspect that we of Western European descent
get a pretty warped picture, since our culture was pretty much burned
over by the witch hysteria.
  

    
Does neoshamanism suggest a possible revival?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoshamanism

(Or is it just a variation of "new age" thinking?)
  

    
From what I have seen the core principles of the shamanic path - the
enlightenment of the soul - resonate through much of rave, wiccan, and new
age subcultures which are HUGE in the U.S. for sure, and I would not be
surprised if they were all also flourishing worldwide.  It seems there are
more people than ever (even proportionally) seeking out higher truths.  The
self-help spirituality group is in on that too.  It seems to me we are deep
in an enormous revival stemming from the 60's psychedelic explosion and that
it continues to grow.  There are more psychoactive drugs out there than ever
- more being invented constantly.

The one person I know heavily involved in rave culture is also involved in a
spiritual community that developed from that group - my guess is this is not
atypical.  What I am seeing is a coming together of the traditions.  More
and more people are integrating shamanic practices from around the globe,
creating their own practice.  That is certainly how I approached my own
spiritual journey back in the 70's - through the integration of all the
existing practices I'd studied.  After Campbell, it is like the cat is out
of the bag that is is one hero with a thousand faces.
  

    
Where's a good place to see this happening? I.e., are there some
specific web references for authentic neoshamanist groups or events?
  

    
I seem to recall that there's a US group dedicated to shamanistic
practices with ayahuasca.  A brief Google search turns up some *very*
colorful websites!
  

    
One place that came to mind is the Temple of Yes in Santa Cruz.  Here is a
link about their pipe ceremony, for instance:
http://templeofyes.org/services/pipeceremony.html

Another example is this schedule from this year's Pantheacon:
https://pantheacon.com/files/PantheaCon_2011_Schedule-v0201.pdf

Here is a wiki entry on PLUR, which is related to spiritual practices at
raves, as is indicated by the connection of the term to the use of
psychoactive drugs specifically to discover unknown aspects of themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLUR

And the entire canon of self help/new age/spirituality books is chock full
of what I would call quasineoshamanic "stuff" that may not include drugs but
often include breathing, visualization, and meditation to reach altered
states and borrows from all manner of indigenous shamanic practices.  I'd
even put "The Secret" into this catagory - manifestation through prayer.

I am getting a bit off track from the book, but responding to the question
of shamanic practices surviving, reviving, etc.

http://www.eastwest.com/ (generic new age book reference)
  

    
Slip.  You can spend forever reading about these countless groups and gurus
on the web (and I have).
  

    
check out your local Evolver groups at http://www.evolver.net
  

    
Or zoom on over to Black Rock :)
  

    
Was going to say!!
  

    
jewel, thanks for those posts. when i was shopping the manuscript
around, i had one publisher (Body Mind Spirit specialist, which was new
sales genre when New Age became a joke) who said they would publish it
if i would be explicit about non-drug ways of attaining spiritual
states and actually put the emphasis there. they sort of missed the
point of the book, but I did agree there were and are many non-drug
paths. i guess i still come back to the dramatic efficacy of botanical
or chemical agents, at least in the role of awakening one's awareness
of higher states. Of course, almost everyone now understands you can't
live there.  




 
  

    
The next Inkwell.vue conversation is starting, so this one can end (or
continue, if there's more to say, and I think that might be the case).


The Inkwell hosts want to thank Don Dulchinos and all the others who
have contributed to the discussion so far. 
  

    
My copy of this just arrived from the publisher, so I may be back with
comments once I've done some reading, if anyone's still around.
  

    
Looking forward to it!
  

    
for you Jennifer, i'll stick around. 

Thanks Jon for thinking of me, and everyone who contributed your
thoughts here.

here's an interesting link for a bonus:
http://homepage.mac.com/dodecatheon/22F.html
  

    
Thanks, Don! 

Interesting link!