Scientific American recently reported on a recent study of psilocybin mushrooms, commonly called magic mushrooms. Neuroscientist Roland Griffiths and his team at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore recruited 36 middle-aged Americans with no previous psychedelic drug experience and gave them the trip of their lives:

[T]he subjects lay down on a couch in a comfortable, living room-like environment and were encouraged to use an eye mask to block out visual distraction and headphones that offered classical music. […]

Immediately following the roughly eight-hour sessions, the participants were asked to fill out a series of questionnaires designed to probe the nature and quality of the experience. Twenty-two out of the 36 volunteers described a so-called mystical experience, or one that included feelings of unity with all things, transcendence of time and space as well as deep and abiding joy.

In follow-up interviews conducted two months later 67 percent of the volunteers rated the psilocybin experience as among the most meaningful of their lives, comparing it to the birth of a first child or the death of a parent, and 79 percent reported that it had moderately or greatly increased their overall sense of well-being or life satisfaction. Independent interviews of family members, friends and co-workers confirmed small but significant positive changes[.]

The use of psychedelic drugs dates back millennia. The psilocybin mushrooms used in the John Hopkins study are revered in some Central and South American cultures, and stone carvings depicting the mushrooms that date back to 500-1000 BC have been found there.

The brightly colored Amanita muscaria, pictured above, also has a long cultural history. Its common name is fly agaric because of the old practice of soaking pieces of it in milk and then leaving the milk out for flies, which drink the milk and die.

This mushroom belongs to the same family of mushrooms as some of the most toxic mushrooms in the world, like the Destroying Angel, and can be found in many parts of North America, including Southern Ontario, but it is not deadly like its relatives.

It does contain a number of hallucinogenic compounds, and like psilocybin mushrooms has been used by some cultures as a ritualistic or shamanistic drug, especially in Siberia. Some believe that the Berserkers, Norse warriors who swore allegiance to the sky god Odin, may have worked themselves into murderous fury before battle with its help.

In spite of their ancient, mystical history – or perhaps because of it – the use of psychedelic drugs is stigmatized in most modern societies. Mystical, spiritual experiences achieved through drugs are ersatz compared to Jesus’ work in one’s soul, a Christian may comment.

In fact, few religions have any regard for spiritual experiences achieved in ways other than the doctrinal ones. (Interestingly, Griffiths intentionally chose “spiritual” people for the study because, he said, “volunteers who had some engagement with prayer, meditation, churchgoing, or similar activities would be better equipped to understand and consolidate any mystical-type experiences they might have”.)

But most people, religious or not, are apt to dismiss drug-induced mystical revelations – “transcendence of time and space”, for example – as not real, or at least, not as real as experiences achieved without the use of substances. But in the mind, what is a real experience?

I had a conversation with a friend who recently ceased taking anti-depressants, which he had successfully used for several years to treat his moderate depression. Some of the symptoms started to return soon after stopping treatment, causing him to reconsider his decision. “But I don’t want starting taking it again,” he said. “Maybe the real me is supposed to be down, and the drugs are just turning me into someone I’m not.”

But who is the “real” you, or I, or him? Is someone anyone else than themselves when they are under the influence of a psychoactive medication?

I was at the Montreal Jazz Festival last weekend. We hadn’t traveled there for that reason, we were just there to have a good time. On Friday night we stumbled on one of the stages and caught the last 8 minutes of a fabulous performance. Unfortunately, that little scrap of a performance was all we managed to see that night.

I love live music, and when I went to bed that night I felt really disappointed to have missed it. I started imagining what it would have been like to arrive at that stage an hour-and-a-half earlier. I could picture it vividly – the orange and blue lights, the lead singer flailing her arms around, the percussionist beating out his complex rhythms, me grooving a bit at first and then dancing full out, smiling and sweating and bumping into people, hands moving to the beat, whoops of appreciation. I felt like I was there.

The next day, I still felt that way, as though I’d seen the full set and danced my ass off. I felt almost but not quite satisfied, the way you feel after dreaming of sex. If it was with someone you know, you might look at them a little oddly the next time you see them. It wasn’t real…but in the mind, what is a real experience?

[tags]drugs, science, religion, mysticism[/tags]

This is about as appalling as it gets:

A former federal cabinet minister and a prominent lawyer will report today that they have found credible evidence that the organs of Falun Gong adherents in China are being harvested for paid transplants, and will call for international pressure to stop it.

The report, by former Liberal cabinet minister David Kilgour and Winnipeg immigration and rights lawyer David Matas, will call for international human-rights organizations to take the allegations seriously, and for governments and international bodies to shun China’s burgeoning transplant industry until it is stopped.

“Alarming is an understatement,” Mr. Kilgour said yesterday. “We simply can come to no other conclusion than that this is going on, on a large scale. That vital organs are being taken from people involuntarily in large numbers.

“All of the ‘donors’ — in quotation marks — are killed in process. Because they don’t just take one of your kidneys. From what we’ve learned, they take both of your kidneys, and anything else that anybody might want.”

Many of the alleged victims are in prisons.

And a report in the Montreal Gazette suggests that Canadians are travelling to China for these organs:

The Canadian government should revoke the passports of Canadians suspected of travelling to China for transplants and deny visas to Chinese doctors wanting to study transplants here, says a contentious report written by a former MP.

Our close relationship with China appears hypocritical yet again.

[tags]China, falun gong, medicine[/tags]

I went to Hamilton’s It’s Your Festival in Gage Park on the weekend.

We were strolling down a grassy laneway between rows of tents set up to peddle various wares when a fluttering red banner caught my eye: The Revolution Starts Here.

The tent with this banner was deserted. But there were two toilets sitting out front.

I’m not accustomed to seeing toilets outside of washroom facilities at festivals, so I decided to take a closer look. There was a brochure taped to the top edge of the tent. I held it down so I could take a photo.

Here’s a closeup of the device, the NEW FB-3:

The brochure explains its features in detail:

The woman in the brightly-coloured tent next door was selling children’s toys. I started to realize why she looked so irritated.

[tags]humour[/tags]

John Tory, the leader of Ontario’s Conservative Party, is angry. Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government commissioned a new logo for Ontario, and Tory doesn’t like it:

“What we have here is the tried and true traditional trillium being replaced by the partisan political pork-barrel poison-ivy look-alike, and I think they should put a stop to it right away.”

He’s so upset he’s launched a website called Save the Trillium. Tory is not content just to protect the trillium from heedless hikers and flora filchers. He’s taking aim at the trillium’s most serious threat: liberal graphic designers.

Ontario’s trillium has long been the symbol of hope and opportunity for all. The classic T-shaped logo was first used by the Ontario government more than 40 years ago. It’s been used no matter which political party was in power.

That is, until now.

Now Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals have changed the logo to more closely resemble the Liberal Party logo.*cue ominious organ chord*

[Emphasis in the original. Organ chord added.]

Let’s take a look. This is Ontario’s new trillium logo:

And here is the Ontario Liberal Party logo:

At first glance, they may not seem similar. But if you stare at these long enough – and John Tory has – your screen will go black and a large Microsoft Windows logo will start to appear in random locations – shit. Where was I…oh yeah:

1. The new trillium logo is black and white. There are black people and white people in the Liberal logo.
2. The trillium in the new logo has three petals. So does the trillium in the Liberal logo.
3. The direction of the petals in the new logo is distinctly partisan. Two petals point left, and only one points right. The previous logo, where one pointed left, one pointed right, and the third, representing the NDP, pointed straight down, more accurately reflects Ontario’s political traditions.

[tags]politics, Ontario, liberals that have no regard for tradition or vegetation[/tags]

Whenever our country happens to catch the attention of someone from beyond our borders – a rare occurrence – I always get a little thrill.

I gain inordinate pleasure whenever Seth Bullock, the sheriff on Deadwood, mentions that he is from Etobicoke, Ontario.

When something unpleasant happens here, like the arrests of our homegrown terrorist wannabes, I enjoy reading the reports from American and international media, even when they are grossly sensationalized.

I especially enjoyed it when John Hostettler, chairman of the House of Representatives subcommittee on immigration and border security, condemned “South Toronto” after the arrests as “the type of enclave that allows for this radical type of discussion to go on”, because it’s nice to hear an American mention a part of Toronto, even if it doesn’t exist.

Today in The Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash recommends, half-seriously, that Canada ought to be in the EU:

Driving through Toronto earlier this week I saw a shiny black 4×4 with an English flag sticking out of one side window and a German flag out of the other. Presumably a Canadian family of mixed English and German origin, so rooting for both teams in the World Cup. A little later I saw a car with the Portuguese flag on one side and the Italian on the other. It occurred to me that this pretty much sums up what we’ve been trying to achieve in Europe since the second world war. Welcome to the European Union – in Canada.

In fact, why doesn’t the European Union invite Canada to join at once? In most respects it would be a much easier fit than Ukraine, let alone Turkey.

The United States isn’t our only trading partner or our only ally. We have long-standing friendly ties with many European countries. Should Canada pursue closer ties with the EU?

[tags]canada, politics, european union[/tags]