The Part Where I explain WTF To Expect From This Posting
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So the inspiration to compound on a thought I've been having for a while came today in reading a GREAT piece by none other than Mr. David Jay Brown..That inspiration is the 3rd Renaissance, but before we get to it, I have to direct you to read DJB's post...... Unfortunately, its 2 years old, give or take, so I am a little late to the party reading it. I was ALSO having enormous problems posting a comment there, so this entire blogpost is literally both my comment to David Jay Brown on this old blogpost of his, as WELL as my new commentary expanding on the 3rd Renaissance.
First, the article I read that blew me away with how similar to my own ideas it is:
http://www.psychointegrator.com/2011/08/research-chemicals-for-psychonauts-the-global-explosion-of-designer-psychedelics/
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The Comment I Couldn't Leave Under DJB's Wordpress Blog No Matter What I Tried.
If you ARE DJB: This was supposed to be directly posted for you to read under your own article on Wordpress.
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DJB: I read your articles in the SC Paper pretty regularly, and while I do tend to think that sometimes your complete childlike honesty about how you feel on something and/or what your specific opinion of something that is a little out-there for most of the mainstream ignorant, may kind of do more harm than good in the ultimate fight on with both you and I are on the same side, because if its non-accessible at all to people then you are only preaching to the choir.
But with those criticisms out of the way, and they are truly the only legitimate criticisms I have of you, which is saying something--I can now feel I'm not hiding anything when I hit you with this unqualified, adoring praise: Never before, has somebody else so acutely, and accurately summed up the entirety of my beliefs on the very topic of the current goings-on in the psychedelic community--both above and below the board--- in such a uniform way. Each paragraph, as it started, seemed sure to introduce something that I could not have SWORE was taken directly from my head and past debates I've had with people...It also seemed inevitable, that by the time I was done reading it, there'd be a substantial quantity of things I normally would want to include when trying to paint a comprehensive picture of why I so revere psychedelics that you'd have left out.
None of these assumptions, which were made by default because, really, nobody has ever so completely lined up with me as completely, with how I feel things ARE, with why I am not concerned about the rampant and heavy use of the 100s of psychedelics now permanently endeared to the Akashic Records of 21st century humanism, and why I have more hope than EVER that things are going in the right direction.
You covered all the points I'd make in the same debate, and I simply wanted to bow with respect on seriously having comprehensively come to all the same conclusions I have, with the same logic and same understanding of the inevitable, and what is RIGHT and GOOD.
From mentioing the fact that if not for so many people continuing to use them after they were banned decades ago, they wouldn't be sanctioned in studies now, and positively embracing the expanded menagerie of quality molecules now available, rather then pooh-pooh it with an elitist traditionalist attitude like so many people do...... You have nailed it. Mad respect.
In fact, I am going to be blogging with a link and attribution to you and this today, and expanding on a specific segment of these ideas in a piece I like to call "The 3rd Renaissance"----Come visit me (and stay to view my blotter art collection, while you're there! Its one of the best!)--- When the new blog piece is done, it will be the first one you see on the page:
http://blotterfelon.blogspot.com
__THIS IS THE POINT WHERE THE COMMENT I COULD NOT POST WAS SUPPOSED TO STOP__
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The Part Where the Title to My Blog Post and the Content Converge:
The 3rd Renaissance
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Its this research chemical fueled eruption that continues to fuel what I refer to as the 3rd Renaissance, which is really an extension of the second, but with a definitive break from the 2nd occurring the day they arrested Leonard Pickard and Clyde Apperson. The first two human rebirths and expansions of consciousness fueled by the expanding use of psychedelics were characterized by a couple things that are entirely different from the 3rd one---And the first two were not for the better--- The big key pieces that were MISSING in Renaissance 1 (the 60s) and 2 (the 90s) but is now present during this the third one we are now in, are as follows:1) Public Recognition of the fact that they ARE mostly safe when used correctly, that they DO have medical uses, and that the government has essentially been lying to everyone forever about this stuff simply did not exist in the first two. In fact the lying began as a result of 1, and continued to keep 2 under wraps pretty well as the War on Drugs accelerated. That is all different now.
2) Respect--(Directly correlates to #1, and brought about mainly by the work of MAPS, Hefter and a few other organizations, and the positive medical contributions already made in recent years._
3) Key Players in the global supply chain, all told, would fill a stadium, at least: This is key, but often goes unnoticed.
In the 60s, there was legitimate Sandoz crystal for a time, plus Owsley crystal, and probably a few others. In the 90s, it was basically just Mr. Pickard supplying the planet. Until the mid oughts, only a very small handful of us were familiar with Tihkal, Pihkal, Shulgin, and the cornucopia of good things that came from his efforts. Similarly, the same can be said of the substituted cathinone analogues, like methylone, mephedrone, etc. Around the time when Dave Nichols' creations made their way into the public consciousness, things changed. The silver lining that came from the global exploitation of these chemicals for profit by bath salts manufacturers and which led to their outright ban in many places, is that for every 100 kids happy to get high and not ask too many questions, you have 1 who, (like myself back when I was just growing up in the early 90s Rave scene)--not content to only ingest, but are actually driven by a need to UNDERSTAND everything about what they are taking, what it does, why its legal or illegal, where is the current supply sourced, what benzene ring structural identifiers/what class of chemical is the active ingredient, etc etc
So, before, there were maybe 1 of us in ten thousand or in a hundred thousand who had this erowid-like compendium of knowledge that we were driven to seek out because of our own enlightenment experiences, and our own peek behind the curtain, so to speak, you now have one kid in 500 or 1 in 1000 who became driven by the same thirst for this kind of knowledge, and THAT is the silver lining to the supply fragmentation, and may ultimately actually outweigh the horrific negatives that were perpetuated for personal profit, which directly resulted in the Feds, and many state level officials systematically banning SO MANY great substances that were easy to get ahold of for many years until the bath salt epidemic came down the barrel.
Of course, along with the drive to learn, came the entrepreneurs who realized--if the bath salts people could do it, so can I, and learned the ropes on supply side black market gray-legal-area economics.The final result? The 3rd renaissance is shaping up to be quite the lasting juggernaut, since its nearly impossible to imagine what might lead to its demise, with so many smart youngsters out there, and with the hydra having grown too many heads, IMO, for the government to kill it this time.
No more single bust-destroys-human-civilization for decades type scenarios. Thousands of people have taken it upon themselves to operate their own supply chain utilizing their own resources and creating another, essentially, another youth driven drug boutique, where they aren't big enough to warrant special attention, and the whole cast-of-thousands thing means that there are more psychedelics, purer, cheaper, stronger, then ever before, with no single place to pinch off the spigot. The cheapness, and the wide acceptance fuels more experimentation, and availability, and its hard not to wonder if we are just going to go parabolic in consciousness and evolutionary progress while this one is still snowballing, or is some gigantic unseen hand like the elimination of cash and permanent move to digital currency only....OR possibly the 24/7 Big Brother Monitors 100% Of Your Communications bill about to be introduced...OR even something more drastic, like a complete and full ban on all packages from China...... just waiting to be dropped on us, ready to snuff out again this flame of progress, and some of the manic feeling of inevitability that has seemed to accompany civilization's increasing expansion of consciousness on this latest run...... Barring insanely drastic measures, I do feel that the third time is truly going to be the human evolutionary breakthrough charm, that may lead to a lasting and better starting point for all of us if things get done correctly, and we are able to reverse some of the harm we have done to our planet and our fellow man by denying the positives and inflating the negatives to the point of telling blatant lies to keep people ignorant, rather then allow enlightenment to come cheap, and en-masse.
