if you can't stand the heat

...STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN

OK, so you look at the book cover below and you think you know what's coming. But oh no, gentle reader, you have no idea! I can't remember where I first heard of this guy, but it wasn't too long ago that his name started popping up in my... travels. Then I started seeing this book in the local bookstores. Graham Hancock also has a website, where, among various and sundry other questions of a thousand dreams, we read: Why do Western lab volunteers, placed experimentally under the influence of hallucinogens such as DMT, psilocybin, mescaline and LSD, report visionary encounters with “beings” in the form of animal-human hybrids – beings identical to those the Amazonian shamans claim to meet and to those painted by our ancestors in the prehistoric caves? Now, I have to say, gosh, damned if I know. Which, granted, is not really a sufficient answer to such a deep question. So bear with me for a moment while I (only seem to) digress... A couple days ago I got email from a new reader. Aaron Anderson was quite enthusiastic about Mystic Bourgeoisie and we instantly got to swapping war stories, as it were. In a PS to his first mail, he mentioned that he'd studied Tibetan Buddhism at the University of Michigan (he's now a grad student at Stanford in the Developmental Psychology program). In my response re the Buddhism bit, I said... Donald Lopez seems an interesting head. And his wife, Tomoko Masuzawa, has the most interesting book cover I think I've ever seen... As it turns out, Aaron had taken a course with Lopez, and spoke with him on several occasions. With respect to the artwork, he said... I agree with you about Tomoko's cover. Is that supposed to be Huston Smith tightening the gears of World Religion? At least he's a snappy dresser. Perhaps it helps to know that Huston Smith is best known for his book, The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions -- also for being an acidhead (for which he can be forgiven) and the foremost living promoter of Traditionalism (for which he cannot). He has previously appeared here on on Mystic B, e.g., in The Jung-Eliade School, and in Follow Your Shiny Bliss. But this is all merely prologue to my response, which, without further preamble, follows... Don't get me started about Huston Smith!!! God's gift to Traditionalism -- a closet Evolan, no doubt. I meant to mention in that last one -- since I said something about drinking with Trungpa (which I definitely did) -- that I got sober since then (in Tokyo, of all places) and have remained so for the last 22 years. Before that, I drank enough to kill a small Russian regiment, and did enough psychedelics to blow Huston Smith from here to dharmakaya and back. What a fuckwit. (see? I told you not to get me started.) Which reminds me... I'm going to have to blog this... so maybe I can start that here. I was in Barnes & Noble last night, slumming as usual, and I took yet another look at this book called Supernatural by Graham Hancock -- another fuckwit. This just-published POS now stands at Amazon sales rank 2,229, and is evidently climbing the charts. Odd, for a book that's so totally out to lunch. I am just so fascinated by such people as our Mr. Hancock. Sick, I know, but there it is. Anyway, I open the thing randomly and he's saying that he smoked some DMT. Then he checks the pipe. Ta-dum-ta-dum... time passes. Then he takes another toke. "After a minute," he writes, "I could tell something was happening..." I practically burst out laughing! You got burned, asshole, that wasn't no DMT! I smoked DMT precisely ONCE. Approximately .0005 nanoseconds after my first and only hit, my body MELTED into the rug I was sitting on. It was the most totally terrifying experience I've ever had -- out of hundreds of acid, mescaline, peyote, psilocybin, you name it, trips. Fortunately, I re-incorporated several (???) minutes later and was able to stand up -- which surprised me. Everything seemed back to "normal" -- no trails, none of the usual hallucinatory tell-tales. Then I walked into the kitchen of the apartment I was staying in. Every cabinet door and drawer was opening and closing, opening and closing... a regular silent symphony of kitchen activity, except no one was making it happen. And again, no trails, nothing to indicate it was anything other than plain old ordinary 3-D reality. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. After a few more minutes, the drug had completely worn off and I had the rest of my life to wonder about what had just taken place. So yeah, I was pretty amused by Graham Hancock's "I could tell something was happening" (DUH!) "DMT experience." There oughta be a law about these fucking hosers! heh. And there, sportsfans, you have my entire take on Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind.

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