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Show DISAPPEARING INTO THE MAGICIAN'S HAT The danger in confusing speculation with reality is obvious. If one becomes seriously involved with a fantasy, he is mad. If his brain is not connecting up a certain portion of associations that pertain to the real world, he cannot relate to it well, rejects it. He is searching for a mythical beast and expects to find him in reality. The Chinese have a term for a total submergence in unreal experience (in this case, via the broad highway of opium). They call it chasing the dragon. Buying an intellectual television set which runes in the metaphysical channels is not substantially different from sticking to the electric one-it just depends on how complex your fantasy has to be in order to provide the proper entertainment. One just occupies a different amount of brain for the same childish greed. OR LENDS FALSE SIGNIFICANCE TO THEIR BAR HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE HARE RAMA HARE RAMA RAMA RAMA HARE HARE Now we include religious-type mysticism; as exemplified by the above mantra, in the scenery of dragonville, right Well, may-beso, maybenot. Depends on what you mean by mysticism. If you mean any method for appreciating timeless good or something like that, perhaps not. If, on the other hand, you mean buying one man's line, definitely. Huh? Pretty far afield though we are, let's look a minute at your garden variety mystic. Now here is a guy who claims to have found some method of transcending the mundane, or of appreciating it fully. Typically, he experiences an intense feeling of pleasure, everything seems clearer. Time passes without notice. Somehow sounds familiar-like intense stimulus without letup. Unlike dragon chasing, however, the mystic experience is consciously sought for what it is-so much so that there are schools of technique for attaining it. While clothed in different rhetoric, almost all of them share the common elements of discipline, meditation and concentration. Most also involve focussing the attention on some variety of rhythm. The electroencephalograph boys tell us that a high meditational state is characterized by high and constant Alpha brain wave peaks. Similar peaks can be produced by asking a sub- ject to imagine a sound or scene. States corresponding in description to mystic ecstacy have been induced by conditioning a man to produce Alpha waves. There's something there-what it helps you appreciate is optional-that corresponds closely to constant stimulus. It's theoretically possible, then, to attain a high stimulus level without resorting to artificial or fantastic means. It is also, from all available description, an intensely personal experience. Seems to be the Bill of Lading for the crate marked Constant Stimulus Without Coercion. An interesting sidelight. Notice that there is little ideology involved or required, that it is highly portable, that there is no escapism involved, and that it is highly individual. Of course, even the resort of a perfect nirvana isn't going to satisfy. We may have an alternative to high media stimulus, but we haven't supplanted the conditioning it has given us. There is still a restless feeling, a need to move on which can not be shaken. Must keep looking, trying new things, moving along. Where is that getting you ? Along the beach again? Or out to lunch? How can you be restless when there is no place to go? |