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Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic drugs such as LSD, mescaline and psilocybin and also non-users who were participants and aficionados of this subculture. Psychedelic art and music typically recreate or reflect the experience of altered consciousness. Psychedelic art uses highly distorted, surreal visuals, bright colors and full spectrums and animation to evoke, convey, or enhance the psychedelic experience. Psychedelic music uses distorted electric guitar, Indian music elements such as the sitar, tabla, electronic effects, sound effects and reverb, and elaborate studio effects, such as playing tapes backwards or panning the music from one side to another.
Psychedelics are a class of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness via serotonin 2A receptor agonism. This causes specific psychological, visual and auditory changes, and often a substantially altered state of consciousness. The "classical" psychedelics, the psychedelics with the largest scientific and cultural influence, are mescaline, LSD, psilocybin, and DMT.
Psychedelic trance, psytrance or psy is a subgenre of trance music characterized by arrangements of rhythms and layered melodies created by high tempo riffs. It is comparable to the hardcore, underground style of trance music. The genre offers variety in terms of mood, tempo, and style. Some examples include full on, darkpsy, forest, minimal (Zenonesque), hitech psy, progressive, suomi, psy-chill, psycore, psybient, psybreaks, or "adapted" tracks from other music genres. Goa trance preceded psytrance; when digital media became more commonly used psytrance evolved. Goa continues to develop alongside the other genres.
Terence Kemp McKenna was an American ethnobotanist and mystic who advocated for the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, philosophy, culture, technology, environmentalism, and the theoretical origins of human consciousness. He was called the "Timothy Leary of the '90s", "one of the leading authorities on the ontological foundations of shamanism", and the "intellectual voice of rave culture".
Entheogens are psychoactive substances that induce alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behavior for the purposes of engendering spiritual development or otherwise in sacred contexts. Anthropological study has established that entheogens are used for religious, magical, shamanic, or spiritual purposes in many parts of the world. Entheogens have traditionally been used to supplement many diverse practices geared towards achieving transcendence, including divination, meditation, yoga, sensory deprivation, asceticism, prayer, trance, rituals, chanting, imitation of sounds, hymns like peyote songs, drumming, and ecstatic dance. The psychedelic experience is often compared to non-ordinary forms of consciousness such as those experienced in meditation, near-death experiences, and mystical experiences. Ego dissolution is often described as a key feature of the psychedelic experience.
Psychonautics refers both to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, especially an important subgroup called holotropic states, including those induced by meditation or mind-altering substances, and to a research cabal in which the researcher voluntarily immerses themselves into an altered mental state in order to explore the accompanying experiences.
Huston Cummings Smith was a leading scholar of religious studies in the United States. He was widely regarded as one of the world's most influential figures in religious studies. He authored at least thirteen books on world's religions and philosophy, and his book The World's Religions sold over three million copies as of 2017 and remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.
Ralph Metzner was a German-born American psychologist, writer and researcher, who participated in psychedelic research at Harvard University in the early 1960s with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. Metzner was a psychotherapist, and Professor Emeritus of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he was formerly the Academic Dean and Academic Vice-president.
Daniel Pinchbeck is an American author. His books include Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, and Notes from the Edge Times. He is a co-founder of the web magazine Reality Sandwich and of the website Evolver.net, and edited the North Atlantic Books publishing imprint Evolver Editions. He was featured in the 2010 documentary 2012: Time for Change, directed by Joao Amorim and produced by Mangusta Films. He is the founder of the think tank Center for Planetary Culture, which produced the Regenerative Society Wiki.
Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity". The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. In Jungian psychology, the synonymous term psychic death is used, which refers to a fundamental transformation of the psyche. In death and rebirth mythology, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition, as described by Joseph Campbell in his research on the mythology of the Hero's Journey. It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary western thinking.
Entheogenic drugs have been used by various groups for thousands of years. There are numerous historical reports as well as modern, contemporary reports of indigenous groups using entheogens, chemical substances used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context.
The Boom Festival is an international music and culture festival near Alcafozes, in the municipality of Idanha-a-Nova, Castelo Branco District, in Portugal. The concept of this biennale consists of the crossing of different electronic music genres, psychedelic trance, downtempo, techno & house music, arts in general, painting, sculpture, yoga, video art, cinema and theater. The festival is considered the largest event of its kind in Europe every two years and by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the most famous transformational festivals in the world. A family-friendly, inclusive festival, it is carefully designed with families with babies to people with special needs in mind. The festival has been internationally recognised for its sustainability efforts.
Palenque Norte is a Burning Man theme camp and lecture series inspired by the talks given by entheogen researcher Terence McKenna at the Palenque Entheobotany Seminars in January 1999. The camp provides space for discussions about entheobotany and entheogenic compounds. Lecturers are given on topics similar to those that were presented around the pool at the Hotel Chan-Kah Ruinas, where the original Palenque talks were held.
Cannabis culture describes a social atmosphere or series of associated social behaviors that depends heavily upon cannabis consumption, particularly as an entheogen, recreational drug and medicine.
The Ozora Festival, stylised as O.Z.O.R.A., is an annual transformational festival and arts festival in the Hungarian village of Ozora.
Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli or is selectively responsive in following the directions of the person who has induced the trance. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.
Symbiosis Gathering is an arts, music, and community gathering that encourages expressive arts, sustainability, and personal development. Symbiosis has also produced a solar eclipse festival in May 2012 at Pyramid Lake of the Paiute Tribe and collaborated in November 2012 near Cairns, Australia with Rainbow Serpent, Mother (Japan) and creators of Glade Festival. Symbiosis Gathering has been called an "adult-Disneyland", Neverland, and compared to Burning Man, Lightning in a Bottle, Boom Festival, and Rainbow Serpent Festival. The 2017 production has been called "the most transcendental event in the known universe" and was aligned with the total solar eclipse in Oregon on August 21, 2017. Symbiosis has been called a transformational festival but organizers much prefer to be known as an 'international gathering' that happens to be in the United States.
The consumption of hallucinogenic plants goes back to thousands of years. Psychoactive plants contain hallucinogenic particles that provoke an altered state of consciousness, which are known to have been used during spiritual rituals among Mexican subcultures such as the Aztec, Maya, and Inca. The Maya were indigenous people of Mexico and Central America that had significant access to hallucinogenic substances. Archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic data show that Mesoamerican cultures used psychedelic substances in therapeutic and religious rituals. The consumption of many of these substances dates back to the Olmec era ; however, Mayan religious texts reveal more information about the Aztecs and Mayan civilization. These substances are considered entheogens because they were used to communicate with divine powers. "Entheogen," an alternative term for hallucinogen or psychedelic drug, derived from ancient Greek words ἔνθεος and γενέσθαι. This neologism was coined in 1979 by a group of ethnobotanists and scholars of mythology. Some authors claim entheogens have been used by shamans throughout history, with appearances in prehistoric cave art such as a cave painting at Tassili n'Ajjer, Algeria that dates to roughly 8000 BP. Shamans in Mesoamerica served to diagnose the cause of illness by seeking wisdom through a transformational experience by consuming drugs to learn the crisis of the illness
Electronic Awakening is a 2011 American documentary film which investigates the spiritual history of electronic music culture. Told from an ethnographic perspective, the film explores the international Electronic Dance Music (EDM) phenomenon as the re-emergence of shamanic ritual. In addition to interviewing people whose lives were changed by the claimed transcendent experiences on the dancefloor, anthropologist and film’s creator AC Johner ponders the cause of this mind-altering effect and suggests that the repetitive, mathematically perfect rhythms and oscillations of EDM have the power to create a communal hive mind. The electronic beatscape propelled by the emergence in the late 1980s and early 1990s of something new and freshly synched. The primary emphasis of the documentary is the deeply spiritual basis of the cultures and practices that have developed around these parties, particularly trance music and the possibilities this spirituality might offer for ravers and the world in general. It is one of the first full-length documentary to uncover the spiritual and transformational elements of EDM culture as a central theme.
Liberation Movement is a music and art collective founded in 2010 by Resurrector in San Francisco, CA. Liberation Movement evolved out of San Francisco-based underground music project Heavyweight Dub Champion. The collective has become known for its live performances and as of 2020 has not officially released any recorded material. They have performed at many music festivals throughout the Americas. Reality Sandwich calls Liberation Movement "a new collaborative music project that pushes the boundaries of human experience". Jambase described their 2013 Symbiosis Gathering performance as "one of the most moving, mind-blowing musical experiences in recent memory."
References
- 1 2 Perry, Elizabeth (18 June 2013). "Transformational Festivals: Where Ecstatic Spirit and Sonic Celebration Unite". Redefine . Redefine Media LLC. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
- ↑ Krasnow, Stefanie Sara (26 July 2012). "Transformational Festivals". Reality Sandwich. Evolver LLC. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
- ↑ Ronald, Enroth (2005). A Guide to New Religious Movements. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press.[ pages needed ]
- ↑ Nickles, David (September 9, 2014). "Festivals, Politics, and Change". The-Nexian. Archived from the original on September 26, 2014. Retrieved April 17, 2015.
- ↑ "Boom Vision". boomfestival.org. Good Mood Lda. Archived from the original on 18 January 2013. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
- ↑ "7 Wildest Transformational Festivals". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2016-05-22.
- ↑ "What Is LIB?". lightninginabottle.org. The Do LaB. Archived from the original on 3 August 2013. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
- ↑ "About Us". lucidityfestival.com. Lucidity Festival. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
- ↑ Pitzl-Waters, Jason (2 October 2011). "Transformational Festival Culture". The Wild Hunt. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
- ↑ "'The Bloom' Documentary Series on Transformational Festivals Launches with Series Preview and Festival Map" (Press release). Portland, Oregon: Keyframe Entertainment. 18 January 2013. Retrieved 10 August 2013.
- ↑ Guille, Jason (7 March 2013). "The Bloom documentary arrives!". Sunset Labs. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
- ↑ Devenot, Neşe (18 December 2012). "The Bloom: A Journey through Transformational Festivals". Reality Sandwich. Evolver LLC. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
- ↑ "Electronic Awakening Video-On-Demand (VOD) Nationwide Release On Dec 21st". PRWeb. 18 December 2012. Retrieved 19 November 2014.