18AR23-24

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AR 23:24 - Fiction that challenges religious claims and answers

In this issue:

CONSCIOUSNESS - is an alternative way of experiencing an alternate reality about to return?

HORROR - the religious dimensions of popular culture found in the fiction of Stephen King

Apologia Report 23:24 (1,390)

August 1, 2018

CONSCIOUSNESS

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, by Michael Pollan [1] -- who, according to Tom Bissell in The New York Review of Books (Jun 10 '18, p1,20), "writes, often remarkably, about what he experienced under the influence of [psychedelic] drugs. (The book comes fronted with a publisher's disclaimer that nothing contained within is 'intended to encourage you to break the law.' Whatever, Dad.)"

When Pollan <michaelpollan.com> "discovered that clinical interest had been revived in what some boosters are now calling entheogens (from the Greek for 'the divine within'), he had to know: How did this happen, and what do these remarkable substances actually do to us? ...

"Pollan persuasively argues that our anxieties are misplaced when it comes to psychedelics, most of which are nonaddictive. They also fail to produce what Pollan calls the 'physiological noise' of other psychoactive drugs. All things considered, LSD is probably less harmful to the human body than Diet Dr Pepper."

What the book promotes is not "the recreational use or abuse of psychedelic drugs. What it does argue is that psychedelic-aided therapy, properly conducted by trained professionals - what Pollan calls White-Coat Shamanism - can be personally transformative, helping with everything from overcoming addiction to easing the existential terror of the terminally ill."

After a brief review of LSD's history and the initial academic claims regarding its "therapeutic possibilities," we learn that Pollan "also reminds readers that excitement around any purportedly groundbreaking substance tends to dim as studies widen. ...

"Where Pollan truly shines is in his exploration of the mysticism and spirituality of psychedelic experiences. Many LSD or psilocybin trips - even good trips - begin with an ordeal that can feel scarily similar to dissolving, or even dying. What appears to be happening, in a neurological sense, is that the part of the brain that governs the ego and most values coherence - the default mode network, it's called - drops away. An older, more primitive part of the brain emerges, one that's analogous to a child's mind, in which feelings of individuality are fuzzier and a capacity for awe and wonder is stronger. As one developmental psychologist tells Pollan, 'Babies and children are basically tripping all the time.'"

Pollan emphasizes that "psychedelics get you there quickly, while greatly intensifying concomitant feelings of oneness with … whatever it is the quieting of our default mode network puts us in contact with. Some may call it God, and others the cosmos, but even atheists come out of psychedelic therapy changed by the experience. 'You go deep enough or far out enough in consciousness,' one researcher tells Pollan, 'and you will bump into the sacred'" [or, maybe an occult counterfeit? - RP]

After labeling it "the doorway to heaven," Bissell concludes: "Michael Pollan, somehow predictably, does the impossible: He makes losing your mind sound like the sanest thing a person could do."

Consider the closing example of awakened interest in this resurgent and once feared option. "In the most moving section of the book, Pollan describes a dying cancer patient named Patrick Mettes, who sat up during his psychedelic treatment and said, 'Everyone deserves to have this experience.' Mettes's widow later described to Pollan the scene at her husband's deathbed: 'He was consoling me.' A 2016 study showed that 80 percent of cancer patients responded positively to psychedelic treatment - and the more intense their trip, the more positive and long-lasting the benefits. 'If it gives them peace,' one psychedelic researcher tells Pollan, 'I don't care if it's real or an illusion.'" <www.nyti.ms/2LIwRcA>

For a look at "psychedelic drugs" and early reviews of this book in back issues of AR, see <www.bit.ly/2OqARx1>

For more on the supposed "psychedelic" inner lives of infants, see "For Babies, Life May Be a Trip" by Alison Gopnik in Wall Street Journal, Jul 23 '18 <www.on.wsj.com/2NXyLU8>

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HORROR

America's Dark Theologian: The Religious Imagination of Stephen King, by Douglas E. Cowan [2], Professor of Religious Studies and Social Development Studies at Renison University College (Waterloo, Ont.) and a familiar name <www.bit.ly/2LGTNsB> among veterans in countercult ministry. The promo begins: "Illuminating the religious and existential themes in Stephen King's horror stories Who are we? Why are we here? Where do we go when we die? For answers to these questions, people often look to religion. But religion is not the only place seekers turn. Myths, legends, and other stories have given us alternative ways to address the fundamental quandaries of existence. Horror stories, in particular, with their focus on questions of violence and mortality, speak urgently to the primal fears embedded in such existential mysteries. With more than fifty novels to his name, and hundreds of millions of copies sold, few writers have spent more time contemplating those fears than Stephen King. Yet despite being one of the most widely read authors of all time, King is woefully understudied. ... Describing himself as a 'fallen away' Methodist, King is less concerned with providing answers to our questions, than constantly challenging both those who claim to have answers and the answers they proclaim."

Publishers Weekly (Apr 23 '18) notes that "Cowan ... dives deep into Stephen King's writings to excavate theological questions in this incisive, accessible work. Though King does not offer a coherent or systematic scaffolding for belief, Cowan writes, his horror fiction raises questions that religions purport to answer about human origins, destiny, and control over powerful forces. After defining religion as the drive to make one's life harmonious with an unseen order, Cowan approaches his argument though thematic chapters, showing King's characters struggling to find their places in an often hostile universe. His examples ... range across the whole of King's career to address the role of socialization in how humans understand inexplicable phenomena, explain emotions through narratives, answer the conundrums of death, and navigate other key elements of spiritual frameworks. Throughout, Cowan remains unconcerned with King's own religious beliefs and instead uses his characters alone to form his arguments about the religious impulse, giving the book a detached but rigorous quality. The two chapters on ritual and religious experience, in particular, effectively deploy detailed close readings (although the entire work brings nuance to King's horror tropes). Rich enough for scholars yet easily readable by a general audience, Cowan's insightful exploration of the religious questions raised by King provides a fresh way for viewing the religious dimensions of popular culture."

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, by Michael Pollan (Penguin, 2018, hardcover, 480 pages) <www.amzn.to/2OpWCwF>

2 - America's Dark Theologian: The Religious Imagination of Stephen King, by Douglas E. Cowan (NYU Prs, 2018, hardcover, 272 pages) <www.amzn.to/2NRZO33>

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