Altered state of consciousness

"When I recognized the unique nature of this category of non-ordinary states of consciousness, I found it difficult to believe that contemporary psychiatry does not have a specific category and term for these theoretically and practically important experiences. Because I felt strongly that they deserve to be distinguished from “altered states of consciousness” and not be seen as manifestations of serious mental diseases, I started referring to them as holotropic. This composite word means literally "oriented toward wholeness" or "moving toward wholeness" (from the Greek holos = whole and trepein = moving toward or in the direction of something). The word holotropic is a neologism, but it is related to a commonly used term heliotropism – the property of plants to always turn in the direction of the sun."...The Consciousness Revolution: New Perspectives in Psychiatry, Psychology, and Psychotherapy...Stanislav Grof, M.D.

"The proper role for representative democracy regarding drugs is to work out how visionary plants and psychoactive substances are to be healthily integrated into mainstream culture, making dissociative-state religious initiation as ergonomic and as safe as possible. Drugs are not a problem to be eliminated and suppressed, but a means of maturing to be channeled.

The Supreme Court of the United States has recognized the legitimacy of Peyote and Ayahuasca in worship; these plants have the same effects as LSD and Psilocybe mushrooms, including causing the person’s power of will and power of self-control to become seized and then restored in a religiously transformed configuration.

The threat of the encounter with the power of the divine is, specifically, the threat of loss of control of one’s thoughts when studying self-knowledge in the ecstatic state. This inherent danger of entheogens is inherent in the encounter with the power that transcends our personal control of our will. This danger is mitigated by having a systematic model of personal control agency, in conjunction with mastering the skilled use of entheogens and understanding how past cultures have accommodated this danger. This necessary danger that is inherent in the encounter with the power of the divine is the gateway to mature religious knowledge."...The Role of Democracy for Ecstatic Danger...by Michael Hoffman

• Altered state of consciousness (Wikipedia)
• Psychedelic experience
• Psychonautics
• Shamanism
• Ayahuasca
• The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death...by Michael Hoffman
• Might the Gods be Alkaloids...by Alex Polari de Alverga
  " In reference to Wasson’s work, Levi Strauss interprets the myth of the tree of knowledge and the biblical story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit as a metaphor of man’s contact with the primordial entheogen. In other words, this act marked man’s shift from an indifferent state of nebulous clairvoyance to a state of lucid self-awareness, the consequence of which was man’s expulsion from Eden."
• Eight-circuit model of consciousness (Wikipedia)
• Key Players in Altered States of Consciousness

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