ZOOMDOUT Photoshoot 3: "I M U N U R I" + "Terence McKenna"
6.22.10
Happy belated summer (winter) solstice, pagans! It took a little while longer than expected, but the photos from the latest ZOOMDOUT photoshoot were finally posted! You can check out the pictures on the ZOOMDOUT facebook page.
This nutty photoshoot almost fell apart minutes before the shoot was supposed to start. A panicky boyfriend of one of the model's called me fifteen minutes before her scheduled time to let me know that she was not going to be able to make it. Apparently she was too sick to talk because she was "curled up in the fetal position" with insanely painful stomachaches at the time. That's fine. Really short notice, but that's fine. At least I had the other model on her way...
Then like a disastrously giant wave of wrong, all of the emergency-scenarios hit at once. Our makeup artist wasn't picking up her phone, my other model bailed because of some sort of "family emergency," and to top it off a a full-out thunderstorm was looming and ready to ruin the outside BBQ and party. Greaaaat.
The ZOOMDOUT photoshoot was already canceled once before because all three photographers were conveniently unavailable the day before. This time around I had a photographer, but that's it--only a photographer. I was completely determined to adapt and make everything work out no matter what this time. I had to "keep on truckin' " no matter what (notice the Grateful Dead bears in the "I M U N U R I" background). Anyway, unnecessarily long story short, the storm clouds magically turned away, my sister Evelin, the recently hired ZOOMDOUT summer-intern, was able to find two of her friends to model the "I M U N U R I" t-shirts. And by the end of the night, I had two make up artists on hand, seven models, plenty of t-shirt sales, a BBQ, a fun-filled party, and a crazy set of pictures.
"I M U N U R I" Guy's
"I M U N U R I" Girl's
"Psychedelic McKenna" Girl's
"Psychedelic McKenna" Guy's
WIN. 0_0
ZOOMDOUT Psychedelic Meetup
06.19.10
So today is an exciting day! I'll be going up to Alex Grey's COSM Retreat Center on the "Green Bus Tour" bus to meet-up with the tripsters of the "Psychedelic and Entheogenic Society of NYC." It's my first time going to Alex Grey's COSM in Wappingers Falls, NY, my first time "meeting up" with this particular psychedelic Meetup group, and my first time tripping and partying with the Green Bus Tour (and I do mean tripping, not Tripping).
The Green Bus Tour is this really cool event hosting, eco-friendly, music-playing party bus that travels to happening events, parties and festivals accross the United States (kind of reminiscent of the Merry Prankster's bus, Furthur). The Green Bus tour was stared by "a group of green experts, musicians, artists and yogis setting out to inspire a culture of conscious living." Check out their video below or visit their facebook or website to learn where they're tripping to next.
As most of you may or may not know, I've been working at Reality Sandwich and Evolver for the past four months. And one of my jobs there is to write up interesting news shorts for Reality Sandwich. I'm really excited in attempting to help RS and Evolver connect previously unconnected dots. So recently, in true "psychepreneurial" spirit, I proposed to connect Reality Sandwich with the Psychedelic and Entheogenic Society of NYC Meetup group. So I wrote a news short about today's event. You can check out my most recent RS news short below.
The Psychedelic and Entheogenic Society of NYC is having a “thrilling psychedelic, spiritual event” at Alex Grey’s COSM Retreat Center the night of June 19. These NYC explorers were able to connect with each other using meetup.com, a social-networking website that enables the user to find other similar-minded people for the purpose of “meeting up” in person.
According to the society’s meet-up home page, the members of the society have been meeting up since the summer of 2007, and have met up over seventy times since then. Their last Meet-up was in May at the Strawberry Fields section of Central Park, where each explorer had the opportunity to share their entheogenic stories with the other members of this meet-up community.
The night of June 19, the COSM Retreat Center is hosting “live painting, sculpting, dancing and music” from 8 P.M.- 3 A.M. So if you’re in the NYC area and are interested in taking a trip up to Alex Grey’s COSM Retreat Center (60 minutes north of Manhattan) this June, consider contacting the members of this meet-up group for an opportunity of meeting up with “the others.” http://www.meetup.com/entheogens/
Anyway, I have to run. I have a Green Bus to catch at McCarren Park at 6 PM today. See You when I get back! (multiple puns intended) 0_0
ZOOMDOUT: A Tribute to Terence McKenna
04.03.10
"I’ll try to be around and about. But if I’m not, then you know that I’m behind your eyelids, and I’ll meet you there." ~Terence Mckenna
This blog is a tribute to Terence McKenna—a psychedelic prophet and one of the most zoomed out minds of the 20th century died exactly ten years ago today (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000).
Terence McKenna’s paradigm-shattering notions have played a major role in helping me form, structure and manifest my life’s trip down this Trip. His uniquely placid but piercing alien-voice continues to inspire and guide thousands of tripsters around the world to the keys needed to open the doors to the Truth.
In fact, the first Shulgin and McKenna video featured below is partially responsible for the formation of the ZOOMDOUT brand and backronym (Zooming Out Our Minds to Discover Our Uncharted Territory). At one point during their dialogue they briefly talk about the same largely uncharted internal landscape that ZOOMDOUT is making an effort to charter (Please see “The Tripster’s Mission is to English”).
I remember watching this video during my last semester in Syracuse and thinking to myself, “What are we waiting for? What am I waiting for? Let’s charter these uncharted territories!” Six months later, I started ZOOMDOUT with the specific purpose of collectively exploring and chartering the uncharted.
If you’ve been following us on facebook or twitter you know that I dedicate every Thursday to Terence McKenna. Terence Thursdays is always filled with some of his realizations, quotes, articles, interviews, podcasts, and video. So below is a short compilation of some of my favorite past and future Terence ZVODs. So please help me in remembering Terence, and spreading awareness. Enjoy! 0_0
ZOOMDOUT: Colombian Devil's Breath
03.14.10
AnotherVBS Gonzo-Doco gets the coveted Stoner Sunday ZVOD. I put part one up last week, and we’ll finish it out with part two this week.
In case you’re wondering what the hell a ZVOD is, it’s the ZOOMDOUT VIDEO OF THE DAY we put up each day on the ZOOMDOUT facebook page. Each day of the week (except Friday) falls under a specific zoomed out type of theme. We have Music Mondays, Trippy Tuesdays, Weednesday Wednesdays, Terence Thursdays, Psychedelic Saturdays, and Stoner Sundays. Of course we’re always open to ZVOD suggestions, so if you think you have a zoomed out enough video for us, feel free to shoot us over a link!
In this Gonzo-Doco, VBS correspondent Ryan Duffy, is in Colombia tracking down the most dangerous drug in the world--Scopolamine (The Devil's Breath).
This dangerous drug is found in a beautiful drooping flower (Flori Pondio, Emborrachera, Angel's Trumpet) that grows in the South American regions of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Because of its effects, criminal-minded people use Scopolamine to drug and “zombify” their victims in order to manipulate them to do whatever it is they want them to do.
The thing about this drug’s effects is that the victim appears to be perfectly fine, but they’re really under a “chemical hypnosis.” The victim unconsciously agrees to do whatever they are asked to do in an apparent normal state-of-mind. They’ll “willingly” take money out of their ATM; they’ll hand over their cell phone, wallet and watch; they’ll even empty out their entire home and personally put their own belongings in the back of the predator’s truck. Scopolamine is said to trap your consciousness, and you become a normal-looking obedient zombie for hours, with absolutely no recollection of what happened during the lucid stupor.
The Colombian street name for Scopolamine is “the devil’s breath” because they say this drug steals your soul. I remember my cousins would tell me horrifying Scopolamine-related stories the last time I visited Ecuador. Many of the stories sounded a lot like the ones you’re about to hear right now. So zoom out and check it out…
ZOOMDOUT VIDEO OF THE DAY (03.07.10): Colombian Devil's Breath 1/ 2
ZOOMDOUT VIDEO OF THE DAY (03.14.10): Colombian Devil's Breath 2/ 2
ZOOMDOUT--VBS: Gonzo-Docos!
02.28.10
VBS.tv, the video arm of the Brooklyn-based hipster magazine, VICE, is quickly bringing back the true concept of Gonzo to modern day docs. While larger television news networks are busy covering the snowpacolypse, VBS is covering international events that ACTUALLY MATTER. Shane Smith (VICE co-founder), Suroosh Alvi (VICE co-founder),and Spike Jonze (director of Where the Wild Things Are) are putting out some of the rawest documentaries I’ve ever seen! Have you seen the Liberia doc, yet?The Chernobyl doc? The Katrina doc? The Swansea Love Story? These guys are doing what Hunter S. Thompson was doing for journalism in the '60s and '70s. Except now we have the internet, and VBS is bringing the gonzo to their crazy-ass online documentaries.
Spike Jonze, the creative director at VBS said it perfectly in a NYT interview, “VBS has freedoms that larger outlets don’t enjoy. It is a small media company that can go off and do what it wants. We can just do things that we are interested in, and we don’t have to pretend to be objective or have some angle on what we are looking at.” That's the type of shit I love! And VICE is really doing it. Let’s just hope their new parent/ partner, Viacom and CNN, don’t corrupt them along the way.
Anyway, I made this North Korea doc a Stoner Sunday ZVOD because watching these "Gonzo Docos" is easily becoming one of my favorite stoner activities (right up there with the Google Documentaries). This ZOOMDOUT VIDEO OF THE DAY is entitled: The Vice Guide to North Korea.
Real quick: In this complicit doc, Shane Smith and the camera man manage to bribe themselves in to North Korea. When they finally manage to enter North Korea, they’re confronted with the impossible task of shooting a documentary in a country that would imprison a person for attempting to do so.
I still don’t know how the hell they did it. I’m still baffled by the fact of it. There was a guard, a guide, and a secret police with them the whole time, closely inspecting their every move. But enough text, enjoy! 0_0
Stoner Sunday—ZOOMDOUT VIDEO OF THE DAY (02.28.10): The Vice Guide to North Korea
“This is a time machine, this is 1950s Soviet Union. So they see me as a Yankee imperialist aggressor, and I see them as the land that time forgot.” ~Shane Smith
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3 (Check out the insanely synchronized North Korean choreography in this part of the doc!)
ZOOMDOUT: Seriously, Where’s Muhammad?
02.13.2010
The last fully baked ZOOMDOUT blog focused on a rather rational deconstruction of religion. I proposed that the five major religious prophets probably used a psychedelic vehicle to reach The Essence we call God, YHWA, Allah... In one of my zoomed out glimpses I realized The Essence was the common religious denominator; and that the religions of Krishna, Buddha, Muhammad, Jesus and Moses all revolve around the same Mystical Essence. These giant religions sprouted from the prophets’ revelatory journey to the root of all inspiration—the indivisible G-0-D denominator.
This blog however, focuses on seriously answering the where’s Muhammad question. As you can see in the “Where’s Muhammad” cartoon, Muhammad’s absence is holding up the prophets from starting their spiritual cannabis session. So what’s the hold up? What’s his trip? Where is Muhammad?
The 12 Muhammad cartoons
In 2006 I was in my forth semester at SU, and one of the assignments for this communications and rhetoric class I was taking was to stand up in front of the class and ad lib on a particular topic for five minutes. I hated that type of shit, so when the TA randomly chose me to deliver my impromptu, I froze. As I started to make my way up to the podium I was thinking, “Why didn’t I prepare for this? WTF am I gona talk about for five minutes? I’m such a horrible bullshitter!” By the time I faced the class the only thing I could think of was the controversial Muhammad cartoons that I had been following in the news: “I don’t know if you guys have heard of these Muhammad cartoons…”
It all started with the publication of the twelve Muhammad cartoons that a Danish artist drew for the Danish newspaper, the Jyllands-Posten daily. Portions of the Muslim community considered this Danish newspaper publication blasphemous. To fuel the dispute even more, several European publications decided to reprint the twelve Muhammad cartoons in order to support the Danish newspaper’s decision of fighting for the freedom of expression. Muslims all over the world protested that the Muhammad cartoons were blasphemous. There were deadly riots in the Middle East and Africa, attempts of boycotting Danish goods, and several nations recalled their ambassadors from Denmark out of fear for their lives. Over 200 people were killed over these twelve Muhammad cartoons.
My five minute impromptu flew by and stirred up a class-wide ethic-centric discussion in the process. At that moment, I knew these controversial Muhammad cartoons could trigger an important turning-point in our history.
South Park has undoubtedly gotten away with the most obscenely offensive jokes in television history. If you don’t believe me, you’ve probably never watched South Park. Matt Stone and Trey Parker have been able to successfully get away with jokes covering every type of offensive topic imaginable. Covering everything from transsexual and lesbian “scissoring,” to the super-gay Mr. Slave character and run away penises; from child molesting NAMBLA jokes to crippling disability mockeries (Special Olympics, Superman); from celebrity bashing (i.e. Mel Gibson, Paris Hilton, Kanye West, Carlos Mencia, Spielberg, Lucas) to national thrashing (Canada, China, Japan, Iraq, Afghanastan, the US); and even blasphemous episodes featuring giant Jewish robots, Jesus, Satan, Scientology, and even God itself. By offending everything under the sun, including the sun itself, Matt Stone and Trey Parker have demonstrated to us that they truly discriminate against no one. It’s just their comedic way of saying that everything is on an equal playing field—that everything is indeed, equal.
However, Matt and Trey failed to get away with the holiest of their jokes. The one joke considered too sacred to be depicted on television—the simple portrayal of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Comedy Central censored Matt and Trey from airing a completely plot-relevant, 4 second scene that portrayed the prophet Muhammad giving a football helmet to a fictitious Peter Griffin in a Family Guy parody. Watch it here: Cartoon Wars Part 1;Part 2.
The only thing you need to understand, if you haven’t watched this episode, was that the whole point of the elaborately constructed two-part episode was for the sole purpose of depicting the prophet Muhammad at the end. Like most South Park episodes, this episode’s relevant message was referencing the terrorist threats the Danish newspaper had to withstand in order to preserve their freedom of expression.
In the final moments of the episode, Kyle gives his little speech: “If you censor out Muhammad, then soon you’ll have to censor out more. If you don’t show Muhammad, then you’ve made a distinction of what is OK to poke fun at and what isn’t. Either it’s ALL ok, or NONE of it is. Do the right thing.” If Muhammad is off limits, it entices and entitles others to say the same about their religion, their prophet, their gender, their race, their lifestyle.
Unfortunately, Comedy Central didn’t do the right thing. At the end, instead of showing Muhammad on TV, a black screen disappointingly appeared reading: “In this shot, Muhammad hands a football helmet to Family Guy. Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad on their network.” Instead of standing up for our freedom of speech, Cowardly Central decided to take the easiest way out by simply censoring the image of Muhammad.
Distraught by their failed attempt to get Muhammad on the air, Matt and Trey decided to vindictively end the two-part episode with Jesus, George W. Bush and random suburban Americans all taking a diarrheic shit on each other and the American flag. Matt and Trey went to the absolute extreme to prove that those ridiculously offensive images are perfectly fine and good, but a simple, almost innocent image of Muhammad is completely out of the question.
By censoring the Muhammad cartoon, Comedy Central clearly expressed that our freedom of speech isn’t really worth fighting for. This attitude reflects our society’s dispassionate and lackadaisical belief in basic human rights. (It probably explains why millions of Americans are still being unnecessarily incarcerated for trivial drug offenses.) Free speech is an empirical human right, and the moment we are denied a human right, our belief in that right begins to disintegrate. It’s nice to believe we have a freedom of speech, a freedom of religion, a right to live our life, but when the time comes to stand up for our beliefs, an “Ah-fuck-it” type of attitude sits us back down.
Just when I thought The Muhammad incident was a forgotten thing of the past, I came across a NYT article about another recent Muhammad censorship incident. In August 2009 (the month before ZOOMDOUT released the Where’s Muhammad T-shirt) the Yale publishing house decided to censor the images of Muhammad from an academic book entitled, The Cartoons that Shocked the World. As the title indicates, the book is about controversial cartoons that have had a major impact on the world. Among these cartoons, of course, were the twelve notorious Muhammad cartoons.
The Yale University Press, however, decided not to include the controversial Muhammad cartoons in an illustrative book about CONTROVERSIAL CARTOONS. Not only did they decide to censor the 12 Muhammad cartoons that “shocked the world,” but they decided to censor various other widely available cartoons of Muhammad from before the Danish incident. These included a drawing of Muhammad in a children’s book, an Ottoman print, and a 19th century sketch of Muhammad being tormented in hell, “an episode from Dante’s ‘Inferno’ that has been depicted by Botticelli, Blake, Rodin and Dali.”
What the hell is the point of releasing a book about the most controversial cartoons in history, if the book itself doesn’t include pictures of the most controversial cartoons in history? It’s oxy-moronic. Like Reza Aslan, a religion scholar, said about the Yale University Press’s decision to drop the Muhammad pictures: “the book is a definitive account of the entire controversy, but to not include the actual cartoons is to me, frankly, idiotic.” It would be like National Geographic releasing a special edition entitled: “The 13 Most Mysterious Places in the World” and censoring outthe most mysterious place in the world.
This recent event just goes to further show the unleveled playing field that humanity is still playing on. As long as religions keep playing the “my God is better than your God” game, humanity will continue to clog up its own evolution. It’s like our music record of history is skipping. Like we’re stuck in a... stuck in a… stuck in a loop. So in order to assist us out of the loop, some of the original Danish Muhammad cartoons are featured below. There's Muhammad!
The Fusion of Religion: The 2012 Conclusion
Since the boundary-dissolving sixties we have ‘coincidentally’ began to dissolve societal boundaries that helped define the structure of pre-sixties history. We are in the midst of tectonic shifts in perception, and I believe the alleged 2012 consciousness shift is rooted in dissolving the most stringent boundaries of all—religion.
Think about it: America has a black president, symbolizing racial equality; countless nations have had women as their leaders, symbolizing gender equality, and as of recently, gays are finally allowed in the military, symbolizing gay equality. These events are all obviously huge symbolic examples of equality.
This boundary dissolution is also in tune with our ever-increasing connectivity Trip: the constantly evolving internet and social networking fascination (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube), the approaching singularity, increased government transparency, man and nature (eco-awareness, the green revolution, Avatar), growing fusion food trends (Kogi BBQ, Tex-Mex, French-Thai), the explosion of yoga (Sanskrit word meaning union), and the rise of the fastest growing sport in the world, Mixed Martial Arts.
Not to mention the apparentness and implications of two of my favorite topics—cannabis and psychedelics.
Cannabis, of course, has a ‘potsitive’ reputation of bringing people together. Ask a group of unlikely friends how they came to know each other; chances are they were stoned when they did. New Jersey recently became the 14th state to pass medical marijuana legislation, and the number of states adopting medical-marijuana legislation will only continue to increase. In addition, California may make history again, by having the opportunity to re-legalize cannabis in November; opening the flood gates to an even greener and more connected future.
As ‘luck’ would also have it, Salvia Divinorum, an extremely powerful psychedelic, is
L-E-G-A-L (in most states). The word has been out since the nineties, but I’m not sure people really understand the implications of Salvia’s legality. As I explained in the “Where’s Muhammad” blog below, religious and psychedelic experiences share a giant overlap. At the spark of a light, people from all around the world are able to have legal zoomed out Salvia experiences within the confines of their own room (ZOOMDOUT will begin to sell Salvia Divinorum Fall 2010).
The difference between the sixties and LSD, and the second millennium and Salvia, are the crucial circumstantial differences. For one, the internet wasn’t available for the hippies of the sixties. This instant access to vast amounts of information empowers us with the knowledge needed to make more informed decisions. We’ve wizened up and evolved since the days of Leary and Kesey, and have been introduced to the evolving psychedelic notions of Dennis and Terence McKenna, Sasha and Ann Shulgin, Carlos Castaneda, Graham Hancock, Ralph Abraham, Rick Strassman, Ralph Metzner, Rupert Sheldrake, Stann Groff, Daniel Pinchbeck, Jeremy Narby, Joe Rogan, James Oroc and many other neo and indigenous shamans with essential zoomed out perspectives.
Also, (as a monumental side note) as of February 7, 2010, Brazil completely legalized the use of Ayahuasca in religious ceremonies. There are no gender or age restrictions for the psychedelic brew. Anyone may drink it as long as it is consumed in religious ceremony. It seems as if the psychedelic phyouture has already arrived.
The Lotus Temple
I’d like to leave you guys with a few pictures of my favorite building in the world—the Lotus Temple. My girlfriend and ZOOMDOUT artist, Jaspreet, recently paid a visit to the Lotus Temple in India. The Lotus Temple is a magnificent architectural feat that symbolizes the equality of religions. Unlike your typical house of worship (churches, temples and mosques), this wondrous structure is a building of worship that welcomes all denominations. About 100 million people from all over the world have visited the Lotus Temple since its inception in 1986, making it one of the most visited buildings in the world (surpassing both the Eiffel tower and Taj Mahal between those years).
Ram Dass once said, “we might just be creating the future with fusion instead of fission.” And I truly believe that. A recent Salvia trip of mine reinforced this important notion of fusion for me. It told me that the 12.21.12 date was “the ultimate deadline,” and that this deadline was “the only deadline that ever mattered.” The time is quickly ticking; and as we funnel faster and faster down the spiraling funnel of time, we need to wake up and unite in order to make it through the Whole at the bottom. Either we make it through the Whole or we clog up the funnel. The time is now, it’s fuse or lose… 0_0
ZOOMDOUT: Where’s Muhammad?
(The lysergic inspiration behind the t-shirt and the psychedelic origins of religion)
01.17.2010
("Where's Muhammad?" - Guy's Front)
("Where's Muhammad?" - Guy's Back)
("Where's Muhammad?" - Girl's Front)
("Where's Muhammad?" - Girl's Back)
Yeah. That’s Buddha sitting in the middle of a field-full of mushrooms, rolling a J. It’s 4:20, and Moses, Jesus, Buddha and Krishna are all wondering why their prophet-buddy, Muhammad, is late for their afternoon session.
These prophets, of course, are the founders/ representatives/ Avatars of their respective religions. In chronological order, you have: Krishna and Hinduism (3,000 BCE), Abraham/ Moses and Judaism (2,000 BCE), Buddha and Buddhism (480 BCE), Jesus and Christianity (32 CE), Muhammad and Islam (570 CE). Check out this zoomed out 90 second depiction of the history of religion.
A Lysergic Inspiration
The initial inspiration behind the concept of this cartoon was during a lysergic acid trip I took last year. These little tabs zoomed me out high enough that I was truly able to see the larger picture of religion; the unified picture of religion; the fact that they’re all describing the same Thing.
I was alone that night in my basement, saucer-eyed (0_0), literally tripping over the same thought over and over and over again. I was repeatedly yelling at myself, “why can’t we all see This!? Why can’t we all see IT?! They’re all saying the SAME DAMN THING!!”
At the most essential level of each prophets’ message, you are able to truly realize that the deeper interpretations of these poetic teachings, preaches, metaphors and parables are all perfect attempts of describing the same Thing; the same Truth, the same Tao, the same OM, the same Message, the same Essence, the same Heaven, the same Nirvana, the same Transcendence, the same Abba, the same YHWA, the same Father, the same Allah, the same Jah, the same Love, the same Prana, the same IT, the same One, the same God.
Unfortunately, I feel that most people either limit themselves to think of only the superficial aspect of their respective religions, or close themselves off from religion completely. This is largely due to the fact that conventional religions of today seem to be polluted and rooted in their own imperialistic greed, inaccuracies and corruption. This trip, however, was able to lucidly reveal to me that we should learn to see through religious doctrine, nonsense, and politics in order to get a glimpse of what really matters: the Essence of every prophets’ message.
These prophets are among the most illuminated mystics in history, and we should feel obliged to take a minute and step back - to zoom out - and relish in each prophets’ transcendental message of essence. Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad were undoubtedly tuned in to a higher plane of reality than most of us will ever be able to conceive of. But how do you think they reached such zoomed out realizations? This brings me to the underlying purpose of this t-shirt—to amplify the psychedelic-nature and possible origin of religion.
If you look closely enough, you’ll find that there is a common mystical realization at the core of each religious inspiration. Each prophet had an initial “vision,” a type of revelatory experience that inspired and triggered their respective religion. For example, you have: Moses and the burning bush, Jesus and the devil, Buddha and his realizations, Muhammad and archangel Gabriel, and Krishna and his cows… In fact, there is countless literature suggesting that psychedelics were used in order to reach these zoomed out, spiritual states of consciousness.
Holy Cow!
So, let’s start by sharpening the facts of the oldest of the five major religions; Hinduism. Why do you think cows are considered to be so sacred to Hindus? Well, it is known that Krishna was a cowherd. I feel it would only be rational to assume then, since Krishna was around cows most of his life, that he knew an awful lot about cows, right? For example, I’m sure he was aware of the facts that cows are very peaceful, independent, self-sustainable creatures that provide a continuous supply of food with the milk they produce. Aside from this, I’m sure Krishna was also familiar with the fact that cow dung can be used as fertilizer and insulation. To cap it off, after a rainy day in the tropics, like certain places in India, umbrella-sized mushroom caps tend to sprout out of this incredibly useful cow dung. And not just any type of mushroom, but those little magical mushrooms that have the power to directly connect you with the divine.
So, would it be impossible to consider that Krishna, in order to innocently satiate his hunger one early dewy morning, decided to gather and eat a bundle of freshly sprouted mushrooms that he found laying all around him? Imagine eating these mushrooms with no notion of the powerful psycho-active effects that psilocybin mushrooms can have on your mind. I’m sure after his mind blast into the realm of the spiritual, Krishna quickly jumped to the realization: “Holy Cow! That is some Holy fucking Shit!”
Now, whether or not the text in the Bhagavad-Gita was mushroom-inspired is impossible to conclude. But it is rather curious, and almost difficult to deny the rationality behind this plausible hypothesis. After all, why do you think so many hippies in the sixties were reading the Bhagavad-Gita? It’s because any tripster that has read the Bhagavad-Gita can tell you that this book is overflowing with deeply spiritual, psychedelic-resonating truths. It’s truly amazing to me how a 5,000 year old book can contain such an indivisible level of eternal truth. I’m sure if more people were familiar with Krishna’s knowledge, the world would inevitably become a more conscious place.
Moses: schizophrenic or psychedelic?
How about when Moses talks to the burning bush in the Old Testament? Was Moses soberly hearing the voice of God, or was he some kind of gifted, God-seeking mystic? Is it possible that this story was merely a symbolic, fictional biblical event? Or is it rooted in literal, non-fictional truth? Maybe they’re all fragmented pieces of the truth. We just need to find the glue keeping the puzzle together.
Take for instance the frequent mention of the Acacia tree bark in the Bible. This may seem like an irrelevant biblical observation, except for the fact that certain species of the Acacia tree contain DMT. This observation becomes especially interesting when you consider the fact that Peganum harmala, a bush containing the MAO inhibitors harmine and harmoline (allows DMT to become orally active), also grows in the dry desert areas of the Sinai Peninsula and Southern regions of Israel.
Benny Shannon, a professor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, recently wrote a paper on the subject entitled, Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis. His hypothesis is that Judaism is associated with the use of psychedelics. More specifically, an Ayahuasca analogue made up of these two middle-eastern plants, the Acacia tree and the bush, Peganum harmala. (For those of you who don’t know, Ayahuasca is an Amazonian brew considered to be the most powerful psychedelic brew in the world.)
Professor Shannon states in his paper, “Jews from Iran and Morocco confirmed that harmal was associated with several magical and curative powers.” He also points out, “the Yemeni Jews use this plant to heighten one’s spirit. And in Egypt, it was known to have hallucinogenic properties.” In fact, the ancient Egyptians considered the Acacia tree to be sacred and regarded it as “the tree of life.” It is also believed that the ancient Egyptians discovered this hallucinogenic concoction over 5,000 years ago.
Taking that into consideration, let’s not forget it is believed that Moses was raised as an Egyptian prince. Is it possible, then, that he learned to prepare this alchemical psychedelic mixture directly from Egyptian royalty? Again, this can almost certainly rationally explain some of the phenomenological happenings in the life of Moses. But in reality, who knows? Although this hypothesis is convincing, it is only speculation. It’s just as likely Moses was a schizophrenic. Either way, the Old Testament is filled with a deep level of eternal truth. And if read through a kaleidoscopic lens, you’ll learn to consider the trippy little biblical glimmers that appear throughout the Old Testament. Trust me. *_0
The Buddha Experience
What about our buddy Buddha? Terence McKenna once gave DMT to a Tibetan Buddhist Monk. After the trip, the monk confirmed that DMT took him to a meditative dimension that the Tibetan Buddhist monks are familiar with. He also confirmed that DMT takes you as deep into the bardo as you can go and still return.
In his book DMT The Spirit Molecule,Rick Strassman comes to the belief that the pineal gland (the third eye, the sixth chakra, the “seat of the soul”) may be responsible for making DMT at mystical moments in our lives (e.g. near-death-experiences (NDE’s), religious experiences). If this is the case, then we should take a closer look at Buddha’s story of enlightenment.
The story goes that while sitting under a pipal tree in Bodh Gaya, India, Gautama (Buddha) promised not to get up from under the pipal tree until he found the Truth. After forty-nine days of unbridled truth-seeking, the thirty-five year old Gautama found the Truth and became known as the Buddha, meaning “the enlightened one” or “awakened one.”
On his trip to the Truth Buddha must have dipped in and out of death a number of times, familiarizing himself with the bardos and the development of dying in the process. I mean he sat under the tree for forty-nine days! That’s forty-nine days of tranced-out, unflinching meditation with very little food, water, sleep, and limited physical movement. How does a human-being endure a feat of such suicidal proportions without submerging themselves in death? If Dr. Strassman’s theory is accurate, Buddha’s body might have very well been flooded with DMT at some point during his 49-day trip to the Truth.
In The Spirit Molecule, Dr. Strassman also notes that the pineal gland develops in the embryo 49 days after conception. Because of this, he suspects that the spirit may literally enter the body on the day that DMT, the alleged molecule of your spirit, is detected in the emerging pineal gland This theory is aligned with the Buddhist cycle of reincarnation. Buddhists believe that it takes 49 days for the soul to reenter a body, or reincarnate, after leaving a body. Do you think there's something cosmic to the fact that Buddha attained enlightenment on the 49th day of his Truth Trip? Or is it just a coincidence that Gautama was reborn as the Buddha on the 49thth day? Who knows.
The Psychedelic Eucharist
Let’s not forget about the most popular hippie in history, Jesus Christ. Where should we even start with the OG of Hippies? The Dead Sea Scrolls? The mushroom shaped chalice? His cannabis miracles? The etymology of “Christ”? The lost years of Jesus? The ergot botched bread? The Muscimol “wine”? The last mushroom supper? Oh, I know, let’s start with the fairly well-documented temptation of Jesus—his hallucinations of the devil and angels in the desert.
After skipping over the majority of Jesus’s life (ages 12-30), the New Testament recommences with Jesus being baptized at the age of thirty. Shortly after that, guided by a spirit, he went to the desert to fast for forty days. During this time, Jesus began to have convincing hallucinations of the devil, (possibly due to a NDE). After he successfully rejected the temptations of the devil Matthew 4:11 says, “Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.”
What a trip! Jesus had an array of full-blown hallucinations; from a guiding spirit, to the devil, to angels. These hallucinatory experiences were undoubtedly a remarkable event in the life of Jesus because he began his preaching career shortly after these “encounters” (Matthew 4:17).
Once again, a psychedelic vision may have possibly been responsible for inspiring the largest religion in the history of the world. In addition, I’d like to point out that Jesus was the personification of the psychedelic experience. By interacting with lepers, prostitutes and tax collectors in that particular place and time, Jesus dissolved social boundaries. He was a complete radical for his time, preaching about eternity, transcendence, consciousness, spirituality, holism and love. Sounds like the epitome of a hippie to me. Below are some extremely zoomed out Jesus quotes:
Eternity: “Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58)
Consciousness: “While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” (John 12:36)
Spirituality: “You are the light of the world.” (Matthew 5:14)
Holism: “Whoever believes that the All is itself lacking in anything is himself lacking in everything.” (Thomas 152)
Transcendence: “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” (John 8:23)
Eternity: “I am the Alpha and the Omega.” (Revelation 1:8)
Holism: “When you make the two one, you will become the sons of men.” (Thomas 172)
Love: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39)
Spirituality: “The kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21)
Where IS Muhammad?
So where is Muhammad? Probably stuck in a trip in a cave near Mecca. In the PBS documentary Islam: Empire of Faith, the narrator makes mention of Muhammad’s life-changing revelation:
(Narrator voice) In a cave above Mecca, Muhammad had an experience that would be the defining moment of his life (psychedelic, out-of-tune, guitar twang). An angel was said to appear before him in the form of a man, instructing him to recite in the name of God, the Almighty. For Muhammad it was an encounter as profound, as it was deeply disturbing.
The clip in this documentary deeply resonated with me when I first watched it. I’m sure tripsters all over the world have had experiences that can be described using these same words: “an encounter as profound, as it was deeply disturbing.”
Suddenly Muhammad felt worried. He began to panic. Was the cave haunted? Was he ill? Trembling, he stood up, left the cave, and began to walk, shakily, down the mountain path. He was very confused. Then a voice, the same voice, called to him:
“Oh Muhammad! Truly you are the messenger of God.
And I am his angel, Gabriel.”
Muhammad looked up, and he saw the angel, like a human, but so enormous that his two feet straddled the horizon. For a moment, Muhammad was awe-struck. Then he tried to escape, but no matter which way he turned, the angel was there, filling the sky. Muhammad could go neither forwards nor back until Gabriel had disappeared from the sky as suddenly as he had appeared. Only then, slowly and just as dawn was breaking, did Muhammad make his way down the path, through the hills and back to his home in Mecca.
This reality-shaking experience was the inspiration behind the Qur'an and Islam, one of the fastest growing religions in the history of the world.
I’d also like to shine light on the fact that Islamic art is commonly associated with geometric patterns. This is because the Qur'an vigilantly avoids giving physical depictions of God. The fact that the Qur'an makes a specific effort to not reify God is especially significant.
Traditionally, this is why Muslims don’t worship sculptures or physical representations of God. Muhammad realized that God could not be expressed in such simplistic terms. Instead, symmetric geometry is used to represent the highly complex, chaotically-organized essence of God. If you’ve been to a Mosque, or have visited Muslim-centric countries you would see that this majestic geometry is absolutely everywhere! You’ll find these intricacies all over ceilings, walls, rugs, tiles, textiles and ceramics.
The reason I find this especially significant is because the apparent parallel between the perfect geometrical patterns prevalent in Islamic art, and the sacred, organized geometry that is universal in oncoming psychedelic hallucinations are intriguingly similar. It leads me to further suspect the common correlation between religious inspiration and psychedelic inspiration. Below are some examples of "sacred geometry" in Mosques.
(Image Above: Mosque Wall)
(Image Above: Mosque ceiling)
(Image Above: Another extremely trippy Mosque ceiling)
(Image Above: Majestic geometry in Mosque)
The same harmony and balance is also represented in Hindu and Buddhist mandalas.
(Image Above: Hindu Mandala)
(Image Above: Peaceful Deities mandala)
(Image Above: Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala)
Now you know what this "Where's Muhammad" t-shirt really represents. You can turn other people on to the ZOOMDOUT Trip by wearing this t-shirt. Use any ONE of these coupon codes at the checkout (each code gives you a unique discount): StonerMoses, HippyJesus, HolyKrishna, BuddhaTrip, MuhammadHash.
With that being said, I encourage you to broaden your spiritual horizon by contemplating on the deeper meaning of the mystical teachings of Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. Delve into the Bhagavad-Gita, the Bardo Thodol, the Old Testament, The New Testament, the Quran, and find the essence of their message; you’ll see that the prophets were all describing the same GOD; albeitin their own language, lexis and flavor. 0_0
The ZOOMDOUT trip is embedded in the psychedelic. As you may or may not know, I take psychedelics very seriously. I indubitably consider them to be a type of spiritual tool; a type of key that allows us to unlock the doors to the fractal-verse—the doors to the infinite.
Like many other people in the present and history, I use psychedelics as my personal gurus. And these gurus have an impactful manner of revealing to you such fundamental levels of essence that we have trouble downloading those raw, unfiltered experiences into ordinary language; including not only verbal languages, but physical, instrumental, programmatic, formulaic and various forms of art as well. There undoubtedly needs to be a more direct and orchestrated purpose upon entering and exiting these altered states.
So I’ll start by attempting to English a vision I had. Picture for a minute your life is an interesting trip down a long corridor filled with doors along the sides. This corridor is the waking state that we’re all overly familiar with, and the doors lead to a variety of different rooms, each filled with distinct life experiences. Other doors may open up to different but similar corridors; these are the different passages available to you during the course of your trip. Going through these doors provide you with a direct and valuable insight of what it is like to be behind certain doors. These insights have the potential to improve, illuminate, and influence your ultimate trip down the corridor.
But then there is a third type of door. However, this door doesn’t lead you to either a room or an alternative corridor. These are the doors that Huxley, Burroughs, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Morrison, Leary, Lilly, Kesey, Alpert, The Beatles and countless other tripsters of the 60s were familiar with. These are the mysterious doors that take you to the inside of the outside.
What we need to understand is that we are living within the confines of our encapsulated corridors, and the only people who are granted access outside of this enormous material structure are the dead, people with near death experiences, and spiritual practitioners.
The ZOOMDOUT Trip is meant for the certain type of spiritual practitioner that I like to call the “tripsters.” These tripsters of the world are people with the perfect mixture of higher-leveled curiosity and courage. Tripsters are the breed of people who are willing to open these doors; the people who feel the need to purposely explore the uncharted internal and external landscapes in order to further charter it. Tripsters are the people who have zoomed out of the gigantic encapsulated structure. After all, that’s what the ZOOMDOUT Trip is all about; we’re Zooming Out Our Minds to Discover Our Uncharted Territories. We are ZOOMDOUT.
As I laid out in the ZOOMDOUT Manifesto, we need to force the evolution of language. Words and metaphors are potential bridges to unconnected worlds. However, the inadequacy of the present English language to provide us with the words and metaphors needed to help us connect and become an inter-dimensional network is an obstacle tripsters need to learn to overcome. As Timothy Leary once pointed out, “Most people come back from an LSD trip and there’s only one word they can use: ‘WOW!’” Well, I think we’ve reached a level in which the all-encompassing word “WOW,” isn’t going to cut it anymore. Neuronauts, psychonauts and tripsters alike need to challenge themselves and attempt to English their trips for the benefit of the global collective. Since the late 50s and 60s, western culture has come to see a lot of the cosmic fruit, but we’ve barely managed to puncture the peel. But it’s almost 2010 now, the future is finally here, and the time has come to juice the fruit.
So, the mission of the tripster is to go into this unknown outside, implore it, explore it, then come back to inform the people of the corridors with the newly gathered information, insights, and discoveries of the “new world;” all in an attempt to charter the largely uncharted world of the outside. We’re taking on the extraordinary human task of attempting to map the infinite. We’re consciously entering the fractal-verse with a purpose, and this, in a sense, is the final frontier. I'll leave you with the words of the man himself, Terence McKenna, a central figure behind the inspiration of ZOOMDOUT. Until then, Godspeed, tripsters. 0_0
ZOOMDOUT VIDEO OF THE DAY (12.05.09): Terence McKenna: Your Mission
