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Huehuecoyotl
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Sorry, but she sounds like a sore loser. It is very likely she sought profit from introducing it to foreigners, but wasn't savvy enough to pull it off. In the end she allowed others to rob her culture while she profited little.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
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Re: Maria Sabina speaking about mushrooms [Re: NiamhNyx]
#7685223 - 11/27/07 09:42 AM (16 years, 4 months ago) |
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I'm not making any judgements here,
Calling someone a shitbag is a judgement dearie.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Icelander
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Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said: María Sabina became bitter about her many misfortunes, and how others had profited from her name. She also felt that the ceremony of the velada had been desecrated and irremediably polluted by the hedonistic use of the mushrooms: "From the moment the foreigners arrived, the 'holy children' lost their purity. They lost their force, they ruined them. Henceforth they will no longer work. There is no remedy for it."
Shut down your grow rooms boys & girls. The famous shamaness has decreed the mushrooms will no longer work. Go ahead and eat 10 dried grams and - nothing!
I no longer have any illusion about the "shamans" out there. In ways they are like modern doctors. (draw your own conclusions)
It seems like mostly primitive superstition same as modern religion.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Icelander
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Re: Maria Sabina speaking about mushrooms [Re: NiamhNyx]
#7685246 - 11/27/07 09:48 AM (16 years, 4 months ago) |
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her culture was irrevocably damaged by ours, and I find this a reason to mourn.
Then IMO, you mourn for your lost dreams and illusions. I did the same for many years. My understanding of how the Tao/Nature words has changed my perspective on what can or cannot be lost or damaged.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Sophistic Radiance
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Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said: How does one disrespect dead & dried fungal matter?
Imagine, if you will, a foreign visitor to a Catholic eucharist. He doesn't speak the language of the congregation; when the sacramental wine is brought out, he guzzles it and gets loudly drunk. Don't you think the churchgoers might be offended by this display? I wouldn't blame them, and it honestly has nothing to do with whether or not the wine is "really" the blood of Christ, or if the fungus is "really" the flesh of the gods. It's carelessly disrespectful to their beliefs and it is offensive.
It's cynical and culturally self-centered to assume Sabina was just disappointed she couldn't make a profit. It doesn't even make sense; if she wanted to profit from the sacraments, she wouldn't have given them to everybody who visited. She would have noted their interest, feigned ignorance, and then waited for her chance to make a profit. And being that psilocybin never got much of a chance to get marketed, it's not like the door on possibility was ever shut to her, or like she was pushed out of the market by competition. You say she was disappointed she failed to make a profit, when it doesn't appear she ever tried to make one in the first place. We don't know much about her, but I don't think she was stupid, nor do I believe she was a businesswoman.
Edited by Tchan909 (11/27/07 04:09 PM)
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OrgoneConclusion
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Nice conflation between disrespecting people and their culture and disrespecting an inanimate object.
One more time, how does one 'disrespect the mushroom'? We have been on this merry-go-round many times with nary a clear response. To make it simpler, the 'disrespectful' person trips alone. What does that mean to you?
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Sophistic Radiance
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I just gave you an obvious cultural parallel to disrespected mushrooms... the disrespected eucharist.
Arguing over whether it's possible to "disrespect" a dead, inanimate object is meaningless semantic drivel. The travelers disrespected the beliefs, rituals, and customs of the natives through their approach to magic mushrooms. In doing so, they offended the natives. If you can't understand that, nothing more needs to be said.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
Edited by Tchan909 (11/27/07 04:16 PM)
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OrgoneConclusion
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Emotionalism and your subjective interpretation aside, I only have her words to go on, NOT YOUR PROJECTION OF WHAT YOU THINK SHE MEANT.
Let's read together again slowly: "They lost their force. Henceforth they will no longer work."
I contend they still work and will wager a large bet, such is my certainty. The chemical keys and neural receptors remain when the cultural trimmings are discarded. One will have an extraordinary experience given a high enough dosage (and recovery period from a previous journey) whether respect or disrespect is part of the pre-trip mindset.
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Sophistic Radiance
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"Emotionalism" is not a part of this.
Sabina said what she did because she regretted her part in what she saw as a desecration of her most sacred link with God. She probably meant that they held no more power in the context of herself as a healer and guide for the village; that her own experience of the mushrooms was sullied by her knowledge of what she had done, and that she no longer wished (or was no longer able) to use and administer them as sacred medicine. Thus, as far as her village was concerned, the mushrooms had indeed become powerless.
You don't want to hear my own interpretation of her words? What DID you have in mind when you made this thread? The Sabina-mockery corner?
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
Edited by Tchan909 (11/27/07 04:54 PM)
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vaportrail
upandaway
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"They lost their force. Henceforth they will no longer work [towards what I was trying to accomplish by using them]."
I think Tchan is justified in not taking her words so literally. This is what I took from the reading before I had sifted through this thread. The bottom line is that she felt used, it's like attending a wedding just for the sake of the open bar.. or that jesus blood thing.. whatever...
-------------------- and the hippos were boiled in their tanks
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OrgoneConclusion
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Of course your opinion is welcome, but it appears to this reader that you are inserting stuff that is not discernable from the quote.
"From the moment the foreigners arrived..." Apparently not as she took several years to get disillusioned.
Crying over the results of her choices does not sound like a true warrior or path-walker, but a petulant child.
*Petulant is my word-of-the-month*
One more time, no matter whether the visitors were jerks or not, how would that affect the ritual when they were not around? Certainly not the mushrooms as she contends. The ONLY POWER lost was her role as curandero when the villagers realized she was not necessary.
I am going to cook up some very tasty cranberry bread tonight. Come over and get drunk and make fun of my house and make a mess. I will not invite you back, but my cranberry bread will be just as tasty. An efficacious process does not lose power.
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OrgoneConclusion
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Re: Maria Sabina speaking about mushrooms [Re: vaportrail]
#7687238 - 11/27/07 05:42 PM (16 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
The bottom line is that she felt used,
Her pricked ego = mushrooms do not work? Guess I need a 'hurt feelings to logic' translator.
Quote:
it's like attending a wedding just for the sake of the open bar..
People can be users or jerks, but so what? Now the marriage will fail because of a freeloader? All of the sincere guests' good wishes and sharing of joy has now turned to ashes? The bride & groom's vows are now meaningless and the love has gone because of a mooch? Can you please be more nonsensical?
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Sophistic Radiance
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If, as you suggest, Sabina was bitter only because the villagers realized the power mushrooms held on their own by watching the westerners, then my point stands. If the incursions of the foreigners resulted in the destruction of the mushroom traditions, then the mushrooms did indeed lose the power that they had always held for those people. And perhaps they gained a new power. Who knows?
I would argue the finer points with you, but I'm honestly not sure what the finer points are. I don't know how the velada was held and what specifically happened in it, or during Sabina's healing sessions; only that mushrooms were involved.
I honestly don't see why we need to ripping on either Maria Sabina or on the travelers to Oaxaca. There was a clash of cultures, which inevitably results in ideological losses. I don't think any of the western explorers did anything wrong, I just wouldn't hold Sabina's distraught words against her either.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
Edited by Tchan909 (11/27/07 05:51 PM)
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OrgoneConclusion
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Quote:
There was a clash of cultures, which inevitably results in ideological losses.
Only losses; no gains?
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Sophistic Radiance
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I never said that, nor do I wish the events we discuss never happened. There were clearly gains as well; now we know all about mushrooms and can grow them. I'd say we're better off for it. I don't really know much about what Oaxaca is like in the first place, but I doubt it's really much more different today from in 1957 than anywhere else.
That said, I still sympathize with the loss Sabina undoubtedly felt. Her life, her role in her culture, her entire world was made into a mockery before her eyes. Don't you think you'd be pretty upset?
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
Edited by Tchan909 (11/27/07 06:09 PM)
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vaportrail
upandaway
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She said the mushrooms wouldn't work when they obviously still did. I agree with you there. When the westerners came to the "wedding" and drank all her beer, no the marriage isn't going to fail, the love is not gone, and the guests' good wishes haven't turned to ashes, obviously, yes I agree with you again. So why on earth would she say such a nonsensical statement? The answer to that question becomes pure speculation, but I suspect that she could not accept her cultural 'power position' being negotiated. She said these words out of spite, in the words of a "petulant" child. By the way, what is petulant?
Anyway, sorry I took those first two things for granted, they just seemed completely obvious and beside the point to me.
-------------------- and the hippos were boiled in their tanks
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OrgoneConclusion
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Quote:
That said, I still sympathize with the loss Sabina undoubtedly felt. Her life, her role in her culture, her entire world was made into a mockery before her eyes. Don't you think you'd be pretty upset?
The only thing certain is change. If all of her discipline and journeys did not teach her the basics then what is the point?
Last week I went down the the health club. One of my compadres was building me up to an outsider from northern Utah. He says to the stranger, "You have to play OG, he is the best!" I have been injured as of late, but as the High Priest of the Racquetball Courts I had to defend our 'tribe'. I took a thrubbing 15-5, 15-7 by the young pistolero.
Now I can no longer find joy in my favorite hobby. The magic is gone!
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Sophistic Radiance
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Religion, spirituality, and shamanism all kind of work on different levels than racquetball at the health club, y'know.
I understand your point, that she failed to adapt to change. But are you so sure that if a comparable shift in your own world occurred, that you would take it in stride? There's absolutely no way to be certain. For all you know you could be brushed aside in exactly the same way someday, and you'll want people to listen should you choose to throw a bitchfit over it.
There's no need to judge her. Nobody is perfect.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
Edited by Tchan909 (11/27/07 07:09 PM)
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NiamhNyx
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Right on Tchan for making some real, solid arguments and not filtering them through cultural assumptions and ideologies like our friend Orgone is so prone to do.
The point of the thread is to understand what she meant. The only rational argument in here, with regards to answering the question of her meaning, is what Tchan has outlined. To understand her meaning, we have to understand the context.
Whether or not you think she should have just gotten with the times and adapted is irrelevant. The point is that the way she felt was grounded in the reality of her experience, and it's not so hard to recognize how terribly shattering it must be to have one's world crumble around them. Any statement about what she should have felt or should have done instead is nothing more than the imposition of a value judgement, and is thus a much less rational approach that simply attempting to observe and understand what happened and how that influenced her feelings.
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OrgoneConclusion
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Re: Maria Sabina speaking about mushrooms [Re: NiamhNyx]
#7688412 - 11/27/07 09:49 PM (16 years, 4 months ago) |
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It is nice to know I am a friend.
Despite you and T's back-patting, the thrust of this thread was not about somebody's hurt feelings, but about shrooms ALLEGEDLY losing power. As we all know shrooms still work - I win! Yay me!
BTW, I may change my screen name to OrproneConclusion.
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