Rise of the electric shaman?

Today I was listening to a documentary about shamanism. The thing in specific that interested me was talk about mind altering substances that allow access to different levels of reality.

As I understand it, not all shamans use psychotropic substances some use drums and dance or even fasting to obtain the altered mental states needed.

I listened to the man on the radio talk about the process of trance that overtakes a shaman as he works and I couldn’t help but think that I knew what he was talking about a little better than maybe I should.

Now, I have never taken psychotropic's but I did know what he was talking about. you see, i play video games, i play them allot and some times i play them late at night way more than i should. Last Halloween of all nights i was playing the well known Team Fortress 2. The game is a first person shooter, its done in a comic book style, it has very bright colours and is played very fast.

That night as I played the game in the dark while tired something happened to me, and I suspect i am not the only one that has experienced it. the game became crisp and sharp and everything else dropped away into the background. gamers call it playing hard but i think its more than that, i think at that moment when you realise you are being consumed for that instant by the totally overlapped reality of the game, i think that that is the beginning of a shamanistic experience, i know that the place a shaman goes is far more intense than the video game induced trance but i can see the course and i think that anyone who has played guitar hero for any length of time knows what i am talking about here.

please excuse my babbling but this is an idea that has been forming for a few days now.

If everything shamans go through is to change consciousness and access other levels of reality then maybe its not to strange to use video games for this, maybe the repeated actions and light movements are ideal for the level of focus that may change your state of mind.

jut like dance or music video games give your brain something to focus on while your soul adventures.

are there other ways to free your mind? is electricity and the great inventions that it powers a new tool for the shaman?

Hemp. Just a thought

Hemp is an interesting plant, its also known as cannabis, marijuana, Mary Jane, dope, weed an another stack of names.

I am not in favour of people getting high twenty-four hours a day but if that's what people want to do then that's their choice. the governments of the world policing nature strikes me as a little crazy.

Hemp can be used to make paper, plastics, shampoo, rope and a stack of other things. and it grows fast. Hemp really could have us from our reliance of fossil fuels and forest felling.

for too many reasons its illegal.

why am i spending the time telling you this? well because today i read an article about how its the worlds favourite drug.

one article says the following:

“The government has spent millions trying to warn young people about the risks of smoking cannabis, but despite high-profile television campaigns, it remains the most commonly used illegal drug in the UK.”

i think its about time we stopped worrying about people getting high and started using this plant for fuel, paper and clothing. people get high why should we care about that? it happens, it always has.

anyway, there's a better discussion than this little post happening over on the David Icke forum.