Have you ever been in a situation where you found yourself startled by someone else’s perspective? I’m not talking about a radical opinion like fundamentalism of any sort, or terrorism of any variety. I’m talking about an everyday situation where you’re engaged with a group of other humans and someone in the group makes an observation that is remarkably unusual and at the same time accurate or relevant.
Most of the time we consider that person odd or perhaps unfiltered, but at the same time we’d be lying to ourselves if we deny walking away thinking, “why the fuck didn’t I think of that?” It’s an amazing moment for me when this occurs. I’m startled at how this truth was always in plain view and that I lacked the capacity to grasp it until it’s self evidence was demonstrated. In those moments, I genuinely appreciate the intellect that can point out the obvious, but I’m left wondering what was wrong with my perspective and how many more undisguised truths are right in front of me that I can’t perceive.
I think there are people all around us that live their lives in an altered state. Their neurons fire in a different sequence or they process input differently. Maybe unconscious brain activity influences conscious thought, or maybe they’re chemically unusual. For the most part, these people are indiscernible. They look and sound the same as everyone because most of the time they come to the same conclusions. They just take a different logic path. I think that taking that path is the key to seeing something that isn’t necessarily visible on the more travelled route.
So, I was wondering if we can consciously alter our brain and with a change in perspective see a whole new world that’s always been right in front of us?
Of course we can. There are lots of mechanisms for getting altered. In fact, the pursuit of alteration has been a goal of humanity since our caveman days. We’ve always put maximum effort into getting fucked up. The labs at Pfizer and their competitors generate 300 billion dollars worth of sales every year which is precisely fuck all compared to alcohol. Last year the breweries alone sold 500 billion dollars worth of beer to accommodate altered states. I couldn’t find any good data for wine and spirits but I’m guessing sales are brisk.
Then there’s our other artificial methods for achieving the desired state of mind. The numbers are hard to track for weed, cocaine, heroin and all the other inhalable, injectable and snortable methods of alteration, but rumor has it that demand remains strong.
We generate circumstances and we build facilities to accommodate the will of humanity to transform. Pubs, drug houses and football stadiums are all dedicated to the art of alteration. Being a rabid Budweiser guzzling sports fan at the superbowl calibrates your brain settings differently than being a junkie at a crack house, but the desire to rearrange your consciousness is common to both venue’s.
Sometimes to spice things up we combine two or more alteration methods. We’re ingenious in our pursuit. A rave is a good example of a series of adjustments being used in concert. Loud rhythmic house music, strenuous physical activity, lights, heat, the opposite sex and ecstasy all combine to produce an altered state. The end results could differ a bit from football though. In one case you might be sitting in twenty below weather wearing a dog mask that you puked in, and in the other you might find yourself having sex with someone you barely know after two hours of dancing like a retard.
I guess it’s good to have options.
A successful alteration begins with the ability to stop thinking, to clear away the clutter of everyday life and allow a physical change to occur to your brain. Church, or any religious service for that matter, is designed to facilitate that clearance. As an added bonus, the ability to stop thinking is very helpful in accepting religious doctrine. But sport fans stop thinking as well. Once the team logo is painted on their face they concentrate on beer and touchdowns. The everyday distractions of life fade away and are replaced by a group mentality that is no different from the war dance of the Apache or Kiowa. The goal is single minded purpose for the warriors and the dance itself is the culmination of a process of prayer, singing and chanting. Obviously the Apache are preparing for a different situation than Cleveland fans but the process of preparation is very similar. Sometimes the native warriors would enhance the altering with naturally occurring drugs whereas football is enhanced with tailgating alcohol and ritual high fiving.
It’s all about achieving a state of mind. If we reach this state as a group the result can be extraordinary. Not necessarily good extraordinary but extraordinary none the less. The process of deliberate transformation is common to soccer hooliganism as much as it is to attacking the cavalry but at it’s core is a change to facilitate an action.
So, we have rituals to get fucked up. We pre-drink in traditional clothing. We chant prayers or fight songs. We dance and feast and we do it because it assists our survival in the worst of things to come and enhances our experience in the best. But the results are temporary and we don’t develop an ability to refresh that alteration without repeating the drugs, dancing and alcohol scenario. We can’t stay permanently altered anyway. Somebody has to drive, and day to day distractions like eating, working and raising a family tend to suffer when the provider or caregiver is altered.
We label the permanently altered as alcoholics, drug addicts or fundamentalists because their selfish pursuit is damaging to society and they piss us off. I guess that our credo from religion to alcohol should stress the importance of moderating the pursuit of alteration. A person see’s those warnings all the time for alcohol. Drink responsibly is hypocritically included in beer advertisements but we appear to have omitted a warning to think responsibly from religious instruction manuals.
Funny how we can so easily recognise harm in one instance and totally ignore it in another.
I’ve wondered from time to time what church would be like for Catholics if they replaced the communion cracker with a tab of acid and gave everyone a liter of wine instead of a sip. I think we’d see a more interactive experience. Kind of a southern black Baptist moment only with hallucinations and no rhythm. Actually, now that I expand the acid and catholic thought process a bit, I think it would be a sad and ugly scene as straight-laced grannies can suddenly visualize a bleeding Jesus as the church organist grinds out a Door’s tune.
Speaking of Jesus.
Fasting in the desert for forty days and forty nights is another method to get altered. Being completely focussed and utterly dehydrated is a Christian combo that according to Matthew produced the temptation of Christ. During this desert ordeal Christ was tempted by Satan who personally offered the Messiah bread to tempt the lust of the flesh, power to tempt pride and the lust of the eyes which I’ve never really understood. I think it means that if Christ allied himself with Satan he could have all the power without the crucifixion part but I’m not really sure. And, oh yeah, there were angels too.
So the question for me is did this really happen or was Jesus physically altered enough by food and water depravation that he imagined the whole thing? If it really happened then Satan and Angels are with us always but we need to change our perspective in order to see them. I guess the only entirely true statement would be that the ordeal was real for the Nazarene.
Christians are only one of many human groups that use physical deprivation and discipline to enact an alteration. A spirit walk is a spirit walk regardless of your ethnicity or personal belief system. It’s kind of ludicrous that we wholly embrace our methodology and yet heap scorn and death on the users of other methods.
But, religion and the religious are mysterious.
Buddhist and Hindu malas are the prayer beads used to count the number of times a mantra is recited. Like the Shema of the rabbi’s or the Salaat of the Muslim’s it is a tool to meditate with a goal to become altered.
“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to
change the nature of the one who prays.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
At some point in my life I would like to display the necessary discipline to become altered without chemicals. I would really like to experience a change in perspective and a new way to see the world. I lack the discipline though. I always think that yoga or a look at Buddhism might be an interesting experience. Then, once I figure out how much time and energy this path requires, I always opt for wine and music. Most of the time I’m responsible. e