Theory of Gaia

[Lucas88]

Interestingly, @Lucas88 has a friend who told him that Gaia called upon him to try Ayahuasca during a ceremony. After Lucas tried Ayahuasca he had many esoteric secrets revealed to him in a psychedelic experience. I'm not sure if he has talked about this before.

That friend was my wrestling instructor from Spain (I've spoken about him in some other threads about womanizing since my wrestling instructor is a major player ). Actually, it was the Pachamama who told him to invite me to try Ayahuasca. One night I received a text message from him out of the blue explaining to me that he became acquainted with the Pachamama during an Ayahuasca trip and that she told him that she wanted me to take Ayahuasca in order to become acquainted with her too. I was amazed by such invitation transmitted to me through my wrestling instructor and attended an Ayahuasca ceremony with the same shaman shortly thereafter.

I did indeed have a really deep experience with visions which showed me insights into the nature of reality and all phenomena being manifestations of a single divine consciousness which underlies and sustains all life and is itself alive.

If I remember correctly, I might have shared some snippets of my Ayahuasca experience with @gsjackson in the thread on psychedelics. I've never shared my experience in any depth on this forum, although I do still have my whole diary entry for that day written just half an hour after coming out of the trance state saved somewhere on my hard drive.

[Lucas88]

Why do you think that humans have tried to separate ourselves from nature when we are part of it?

Because, while nature does indeed provide us with everything we need to survive at the most basic and primitive level (e.g., hunter-gatherer societies), nature alone is full of brutality and doesn't make for a higher and more fulfilling existence with all of the benefits of technology, culture, intellect and the arts. In order to create such a higher and more fulfilling existence, we inevitably require human ingenuity and unnatural manipulation of our environment, not just nature.

Almost nothing that we call civilization and that has vastly improved our lives in comparison to the barbarism of precivilization can be considered strictly natural. Even the cereals that we cultivate and consume such as wheat and barley are the result of artificial selection by ancient farmers over the course of millennia during the agricultural revolution. Before then such things were hardly edible at all. Likewise, much of our livestock is the result of the selective breeding of domesticated animals. This selective breeding made them a lot more useful for our purposes.

Then there is civilization itself. Dwellings to protect us from the elements, complex social orders which allow concerted human effort on a large scale, writing and learning which allow for the development of the sciences and the arts - all of these things allow for a mode of life far superior to running around the forests in loincloths and hunting wild game.

Now more than ever unnatural things are making possible unprecedented advancements for humanity. AI is not only driving forward a revolution in robotics and automated systems that will make all of the tasks necessary for the maintenance of civilization much more efficient, but is also allowing us to analyze enormous quantities of data (previously unconceivable quantities) which will allow for major breakthroughs in all kinds of scientific fields. At the same time, genetic research will offer cures for a host of genetic diseases previously incurable. This state of unnature is obviously far better than living in mud huts, defecating in bushes and hunting mammoths with primitive spears.

Nature, while necessary and fundamental, is also cruel and unforgiving. Humans must use and indeed have used our innate ingenuity - our great Promethean gift - to transcend the limitations of nature and build upon it something much greater and more conducive to human flourishing.

Do you think Gaia provides us with entheogenic plants so that we may view the nature of reality for ourselves and come to know god?

I speculate that entheogenic plants such as Ayahuasca might form part of a more primitive Telluric spirituality given to tribal peoples but still useful to many modern people today - a Telluric spirituality which connects those who partake in it directly to Gaia or the Pachamama, the intelligent spirit and consciousness of the Earth.

This is in contrast to the more developed Celestial forms of spirituality such as Kundalini and inner alchemy which connect the adept to heaven (in the case of the Kundalini, a joining of the Telluric lifeforce energy with Sahasrara) and the higher realms of consciousness.

[MrPeabody]

When I was in the Amazon, the Shaman had us take a flower bath before taking Ayahuasca. The flower bath had various plants and herbs soaked in it. We poured it over our heads and had to let it dry naturally without using a towel. When I took the Ayahuasca in ceremony, the plant teachers appeared in my visions and they approached me. They said that they can’t normally approach humans because they smell bad (because of all the chemicals we westerners have in our bodies). That is the purpose of the flower bath. They gave me a tour of the jungle, and showed me how everything moves slowly and methodically, the insects, the plants, and the animals are all acting together as one being, and there is a natural flow without control or planning. When we humans enter the jungle, everyone in the jungle – the plants, the animals, the insects – know we are there and are watching us. They told me that they are disturbed by human civilization – they can hear it and to them it is alarming – like crazy, loud chaos with no connection and out of sync to the natural flow.

[willymonfrete]

What are u gonna do?life sucks.

[MrMan]

This is just a small example of how detrimental technology has become to our species. However, I do agree that automation of labour is a must! Though in a capitalist world this is also a problem as it just means more people straving to death without any income. What do you guys think of this @WanderingProtagonist, @willymonfrete and @MrMan?

I haven't kept up with the thread, and I don't hold to pagan ideas about mother earth. I recognize the earth is a creation and I believe that God has put the earth under man's authority to subdue it. But I also believe we are to be good stewards of what we have been entrusted.

In Revelation 11:18, the 24 elders call on God to, among other things, "shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth." The readers at that time would not have thought of non-biodegradable plastic filling land fills, but there might be some application there as well. The idea of defiling the land shows up in passages about sexual sins and human sacrifices that were done among the pagans and that Yahweh's people were not to emulate, women getting divorced, remarrying, going back to their first husband. Also innocent blood cried up from the ground.

But I think we should be good stewards when it comes to pollution. We've moved away from the idea of most people having plots of ground to farm. That was a model, at least for white people, that we had for a while in the US, where, among whites, a lot of people had their own farms. Because of the gains from specialization, probably, we have moved to having a very small percentage of Americans be farmers. And then we specialize in these little micro-niches or do unskilled or low-skilled labor jobs.

If some country or society wanted to go back to small organic farms, or individuals in a society wanted to get together and form communes, there may be some space for that with the demand for organic products and the fact that some agricultural products still come from intensive agriculture.

I could see robots could take over a lot of human work over time. If they get into farming, that could make what I described above a lot more competitive.

Combining robots with AI and you could have some very useful and powerful machines doing many different types of labor. I haven't seen a robot automaton taking orders at fast food restaurants, but they do have some kind of AI system on Checkers and Rally's drive-thru windows. When I went through, they had me by-pass the system and order at the window. But I suspect it will be more sophisticated.

I do think societies should respect property rights. So just taking wealth from one person to solve the problem of others being put out of business is a big ethical problem. We already have a large percentage taken out of our paychecks for taxes for social programs. But we are also seeing a smaller generation coming up in a lot of the developed economies, and a huge older class, so we may see a labor shortage in some of the big economies like the US, Japan, many of the European countries, Russia, and China. So there may be a lack of both consumers with money to spend and people to work in factories.

[MrMan]

"Since 1988, just 100 companies have been responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to this, only 25 corporations and state-owned organisations were found to be responsible for over 50% of the global industrial emissions during the same time period."

Most damage to the environment is caused by big corporations rather than individual consumers who are being blamed and punished for being motorists etc. I think the whole thing is a joke. Half of this industry isn't even needed. A lot of these corporations are producing shit nobody even needs!

What kind of green house gases? A toxic gas, or carbon dioxide, which we also breathe out and which plants gobble up?

After typing that, I found this link:
https://peri.umass.edu/greenhouse-100-p ... ex-current

A lot of these are energy-producing companies. They produce gases while making electricity for the masses to use. We light and heat our homes, run our computers and entertainment devices, cook, wash our clothes, etc. with this electricity. It doesn't sound like some big crime against humanity. There are some heavy industries and mixed chemical type industries there, too. It looks like, at a glance, so many these companies provide valuable services that people like us benefit from.

A large power plant is a complicated thing to run. I suppose it is possible that one person (Mr. Burns) could own one. The way our society has evolved, large corporations typically own and run these types of businesses. It's not going to be a small mom and pop business. A lot of other large heavy industry relies on economies of scale to be economical, and requires elaborate coordination of a lot of people and equipment to work. Again, in our society, that lends itself toward a corporate structure. I suppose government could manage some of these types of industries, but that hasn't worked out as efficiently, historically as regulated corporations.

I am not joining this 'corporations are evil, and it is okay to steal from them' idea. I am glad to have electricity, paper, agricultural products, products made from steel, etc.