Generators of Imagination, The Historical Purpose of Human Beings – Terence McKenna (Video)

Generators of Imagination, The Historical Purpose of Human Beings - Terence McKenna (Video) | Third Monk

From a 1991 lecture entitled Where Does Reality Begin and End?, Terence McKenna talks about the role of human beings in nature and reality.

We can become a highly evolved and aware species that acts as the voice of nature but artificial conflicts are holding us back.

We are energy storage and release mechanisms, sanctioned by nature for some purpose which will be visible somewhere downstream in the flow of time but which is opaque to us now.

– Terence McKenna

Soundtrack: DJ Shadow – Transmission 2

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Hotboxing Caves – Oldest Evidence of Cannabis Use Discovered

Hotboxing Caves - Oldest Evidence of Cannabis Use Discovered | Third Monk

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Archeologists working at 120,000 year old cave in the Hindu Kush mountain range have unearthed the most ancient evidence of cannabis use to date.

A team from Quad-i-Azam University in Pakistan discovered a cave containing ancient Indica seeds along with various other objects belonging to a cave dwelling, cannabis-loving shaman.

According to the location and context in which the cannabis was found, leads us to believe it was used for ritual purposes.

It seems that the occupants of the site threw large quantities of leaves, buds and resin in the fireplace situated on the far end of the cave, filling the entire site with psychotropic smoke. – Professor Muzaffar Kambarzahi, World News Daily

The discovery of resin inside a jar found on site confirms the fact that our stone age ancestors were not so different from us after all. They were hot-boxing their cave, a practice that is alive and well in contemporary culture.

While this may be the oldest known case of ritual cannabis use, it’s far from unique. Cannabis has a well documented history in ancient culture: Aryans, Scythians, Thracians, even the Dacians used Cannabis to induce trance-like states of altered, if not heightened consciousness.

Cannabis Sativa also served more practical purposes in ancient cultures. Hemp cord was found in some 10,000 year old pottery unearthed in what is now Taiwan, suggesting that it may have been one of the first crops grown in the early days of agriculture.

Moreover, such evidence inspired Carl Sagan to speculate on the possibility that marijuana cultivation may have been instrumental in the development of agriculture and, consequently, civilization as we know it.

Archaeologists Discover Marijuana in 120,000 Year-Old Prehistoric Site | Marijuana News

Psychedelics Influenced the Origins of Prehistoric Cave Paintings?

Psychedelics Influenced the Origins of Prehistoric Cave Paintings? | Third Monk image 4

psychedelic-cave-paintingsA new scientific paper on the origin of cave paintings suggests that humanity’s earliest artists deliberately sought out psychedelic states to create visionary art.

Prehistoric cave paintings across the continents have similar geometric patterns not because early humans were learning to draw like Paleolithic pre-schoolers, but because they were using psychedelics, and their brains—like ours—have a biological predisposition to “see” certain patterns, especially during consciousness altering states.

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At its core, this proposed theory challenges the long-held notion that the earliest art and atrists were merely trying to draw the external world. Instead, it sees cave art as a deliberate mix of rituals inducing altered states for participants, coupled with brain chemistry that elicits certain visual patterns for humanity’s early chroniclers.

The cave painters had rituals that involved taking drugs (undoubtedly plants) that they consumed in a frenzy to get to this creative state. This behavior and the same results were noted by 1960s-era academics studying the effects of peyote, a hallucinogenic cactus found in North America.

The non-ordinary visual experiences were often characterized by similar kinds of abstract geometric patterns, which he classified into four categories of form constants:

(1) gratings, lattices, fretworks, filigrees, honeycombs, and checkerboards

(2) cobwebs

(3) tunnels and funnels, alleys, cones,and vessels

(4) spirals

“Intriguingly, these form constants turned out to resemble many of the abstract motifs that are often associated with prehistoric art from around the world, including Paleolithic cave art in Europe.”

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psychedelic-cave-paintings-Blog Peterborough glyph

psychedelic-cave-paintings-ShamanFremontWarriorA BBC Documentary How Art Made the World suggested that art was originally an exclusive domain of spiritualists – these images were what the “Shaman” saw in trance. Terence Mckenna’s Stoned Ape Theory goes even deeper by suggesting that the ingestion of shrooms by early primates was the starting point of human evolution.

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psychedelic-cave-paintings-huntBut why would people across continents and cultures be drawn to record the same shapes?

The paper states the images generated by specific neural centers do resemble the templates for lots of 1960s psychedelic artists.

Why did they early humans gravitate to these patterns? Because the imagery was seen or sensed while having a super-sensory experience and therefore seemed to be imbued with cosmic significance. Put another way, people who explore their consciousness with psychedelics tend to find magic in simple details.

Were Paleolithic Cave Painters High on Psychedelic Drugs? Scientists Propose Ingenious Theory for Why They Might Have Been | AlterNet

15 Iconic Images From History and Pop Culture (Photo Gallery)

15 Iconic Images From History and Pop Culture (Photo Gallery) | Third Monk image 16

Take a look back in time with these great iconic images from History and Pop Culture.

Salvador Dali

At the end of his shoot with artist Salvador Dali — a session that took six hours and 28 throws (of water, a chair, and three cats), “my assistants and I were wet, dirty and near complete exhaustion,” photographer Philippe Halsman reported. The resulting image, with a leaping Dali in midair amid the madness, is a portrait as kinetic and surreal as artist’s own work.

 

Frozen Niagara Falls

 

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

 

Young Beatles

 

View from the Window at Le Gras 1826 (First Photo Ever Taken)

 

Pablo Picasso

For this 1949 portrait of Pablo Picasso in his studio in the south of France, the artist was inspired by Gjon Mili’s previous photos of ice skaters spinning through the air with small lights attached to their skates. Mili left the shutters of his cameras open as Picasso made ephemeral drawings in the air of a darkened room. This one was of one of a centaur. Mili caught the artist himself by using a 1/10,000th-second strobe light. This photo ranks among LIFE’s best partly because it actually captures the moment of creation by a genius.

Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris

 

 

Elvis in the Army

 

Charlie Chaplin and Ghandi

 

Google Launches in 1999

 

Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly

Backstage at the Academy Awards, two past Best Actress winners, Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly, await their turns to present. That Allan Grant could catch both supremely elegant, stylish icons together in a moment may have been a stroke of luck (Hepburn and Kelly never did work together, and very soon after this photo was taken the latter left Hollywood to become Monaco’s princess). But Grant’s use of composition and lighting — with the two women parallel and glowing in profile — is nothing short of masterful.

First Ever Free space walking, using the Manned Maneuvering Unit by Bruce McCandless – 1984

 

Construction of Disneyland

 

 The First Computer Ever

 

John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy

Then-U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy confers with his brother Robert F. Kennedy in a hotel suite during the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Looking at Hank Walker’s image today, through the filter of all we know now — that Jack would indeed win the nation’s highest office, with Bobby by his side as his most trusted adviser; that the brothers would navigate the United States through almost three years of magic and turbulence; that each man would be cut down by an assassin’s bullet by decade’s end — the poignancy is astonishing. And yet, even without the context of that history, the photo, with all its fascinating details and near-perfect composition, stands alone as powerfully

31+ Great Iconic Photos from History | Fun Bazaar