Trance Inducing Music

This song takes me through multiple dimensions while representing the synapses being fired in my brain. I like the disentegration of the piano into a digital void in this song, giving it many textures. The song very easily invokes a trance on me whenever I listen to it.

The Sacred, The Divine, The Different

In “The Politics of Ecstasy,” Timothy Leary expresses his belief that psychedelics are the next progression in human development due to the fact that they allow the expansion of mankind’s consciousness. Leary believes that faith should be invested in the visionary that provides a philosophy or idea beyond the conception of the vast majority, in particular, established institutional structures.

Furthermore, Leary also believes that the suppression of psychedelics is ingrained in Puritanical American culture and despite many studies that prove their healing and pleasurable qualities, they have been condemned because of their ability to induce a religious experience outside of religious institutions.

In particular, Leary is trusting of radical ideas that have the ability to shape the future. His analogy of the automobile’s conception is very relevant in that represents an idea that was developed even though the infrastructure to make it work was not yet conceivable. With belief that LSD and other psychedelics have the ability to unlock the human mind to develop new ideas and break from cyclical historical failures, Leary defends psychedelics by recalling their benefits. However, Leary believes a great divide continues to exist between skeptics so long as they remain inexperienced. In reference to George Bataille’s, “The Festival, Or Transgression of Prohibition,” the psychedelic experience can be viewed as “sacred” among “profane life” and having more value. This value results from psychedelics having new possibilities defined against the “profane life” which in contrast is limited. Hence, the “profane life” attempts to prohibit the “sacred” or betters stated, divine. Therefore, psychedelics have gained divinity in American culture and is thus condemned for its disruptive nature to the status quo.

Walter Benjamin's "Hashish in Marseilles"

This is by far one of the funniest readings I have ever been assigned. Walter Benjamin, the theorist who coined the term "Aura" and wrote the amazing Theses On the Philosophy of History, details his experience on hashish in the most scholarly of ways. I think the funniest part about this essay is reading Benjamin vividly articulate his munchies.

"To my lionish hunger, it would not have seemed inappropriate to satisfy itself on a lion. Moreover, I had tacitly decided that as soon as i had finished at Basso's (it was about half past ten) I would go elsewhere and dine a second time."

Nevertheless, Benjamin explains how on this altered state he is able to analyze things on a new level. He concludes with the following:

"I would like to believe that hashish persuades Nature to permit us--for less egoistic purposes--that squandering of our own existence that we know in love."

I interpret this as Benjamin stating that hashish enables a person to get lost in the moment in a liberating, transcendental manner similar to the experience of being in love.

The Seashell & The Clergyman

Although it might not abide by the ontology of Surrealist films or fit Germaine Dulac's theory of "pure cinema," this film is definitely dreamlike and treads the zone between reality and unreality tapping into some Freudian concepts of suppressed thoughts and memories. I especially like the scene at 1:35, priceless!

Desert Desolation

Let’s go up there. Yes, let us. For the sun will be gone in an hour. We’ll climb this natural monstrosity of rocks layered upon rocks, hiding its meaning ever so deep. It’s breezy, grab a jacket, keep the blood flowing to the extremities to keep moving and more so for the brain to maintain focus. That looks steep, we’ll take this way, snap a photo we must remember that we were here and not only capture the awe inspiring, but the awe itself, empathetic in nature, the wolf pack of has grown closer. KOOKOO!?!………..KAAKAA, my brother you are still here with me. Call and response type of situation, yet the caller has no more or less significance, yet communal concern. These rocks are sharp, my hands will be raw, yet the top will be so rewarding. Glad that these shoes are a rubber extension of my feet as they grip ever so well to every enticing rock. Pan here, zoom there, the camera is the cyborgian extension of my memory. Film the legs, watch the body work its way up, we must document our struggle to illuminate our glory. Can I make this? I got it, distribute my weight evenly. 127 hours, I saw that movie, this looks a similar situation I got the camera, you got the water, who’s got the knife. Keep moving. KOOKOO…………… Where is he? KOOKOO…………….KAAKAA. We’re almost there. Bodies become outlined in gold as hair blows in the wind as shivers are prevented by the shelter of our new home of rocks. Breathing heavily, out of breath already? The air is perfect though, move on let my heart beat faster with admiration. We are high, this is beautiful! That is the rock, that is the spot. Proceed. Is it possible? We’ll try. We must go down to come up. KOOKOO…Oh there he is. Lets go there instead, we can’t make it. We are kings of the desert. Sit, chill relax, the respiratory system is calm now, give it some hazy love. We are literally high and mentally lifted. Feel that golden sun our faces and lay back. Calmness grounds me to the earth and these rocks are further solidarity. The sky is enchanted with Technicolor clouds, a phoenix. A catching mitt, a space ship. You beautiful source of light, changing color to match our emotions. Can you stay there and we will continue to stare. Panoramic, wide vast, my eyes usurp my other senses. You must go, I know. I’ll stare at you till I’m blind. Fruits of our labor in this dry desert. Goodbye sun, sinking behind the horizon, that is West, it does not matter. Get down before night falls and we fall. I have forgotten what flat ground feels like as I stumble down the rocks disoriented from a 180-degree flat plane. We really put ourselves on a challenge here guys. Boulder cradle…but please don’t cradle us to our deaths. The ground is grounding reorient and proceed. Both feet on the same plane, lets the brain explain what is reality of our memories of motor skills. Saddle up, we’re on the road again.

Integratron

I can't believe I almost wasn't able to make this trip! For the longest time I have tried to make it out to Joshua Tree and I'm glad this class field trip brought me their and to the Integratron. The little bit I read about the Integratron left me intrigued. Supposedly a man by the name of George van Tassel was contacted by aliens from Venus who gave him the blueprint for the Integratron and told him to build it to harvest human energy and send it back to Venus. Sounds crazy right, in addition to the unique architecture of the Integratron, the inside allows for incredible reverberation of sound.

Climbing up into the Integratron was like climbing into a rural spaceship. Constructed out of beautiful solid pieces of wood, I was pleased to find a floor mattress awaiting me as we embarked on a "Sound Bath." As we all laid down and relaxed, a woman who had at her disposal several large quartz bowls proceeded to play them like instruments. The poly-aural quality of the trance inducing quartz came at me from all different directions. More a minute it felt as though a large balloon of sound was being squeezed in one ear and pushed out the other, after this feeling I fell into a deep trance and lost consciousness.



I woke up feeling like I had just lost track of time. I was in a daze, but extremely relaxed. As I looked around it seemed as though everyone else was coming to consciousness around the same time. It was very refreshing.

Enter The Void

By far one of the craziest films I've ever seen. It has all the aspects of a film that I would like, a great soundtrack, scored by Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk, innovative cinematography by Benoit Debie, and a dark drama about young adults which takes place in Tokyo. The film is written and directed by Gasper Noe who also made Irreversible. Well equipped with special fx, the film does a good job of conveying the drug trips experienced by the characters and immersing the spectator in them as well. This film was definitive of trippy, with disorienting colors and camera movements designed to emulate psychedelic experiences. The film challenges the viewers to try to grasp reality, much like they would if they were on drugs. Enter The Void can definitely be viewed as "psychonautic" media as it is capable of inducing analysis of the viewers' own psyche.