The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching

Book Description

A thoroughly revised edition of the much-sought-after early work by Terence and Dennis McKenna that looks at shamanism, altered states of consciousness, and the organic unity of the King Wen sequence of the I Ching.

Customer Reviews:

Nice!.......2007-05-27

The beggining of this book is too technical and sometimes hard to understand for people who doesnt know much about neuroscience,etnobiology and chemistry.However,the rest of the book is very interesting,specially the part about the relation between the Tao The Ching and time.

MYSTICISM STRUCTURALLY DEMONSTRATED.......2007-01-02

the book is a true gem of cognitive philosophy. there is an energy and excitment in its reading. the mckennas demonstrate a tour de force of the lucid mind(mond).

"laborious theory"........2006-05-29

Ploughing through "the Invisible Landscape" was quite a chore. I can appreciate the effort they went to with this but has little appeal for me. I should probably have started with one of their other works. I am not sure I want to do a lengthy review. The long and short of it is it has three parts:::
First part covers the nature of memory, and the accessing of it in terms of human brain chemistry. That psychedelics might amplify its ability to access memory, reaching beyond that of day-to-day; to yester-year, to pre-natal, to previous incarnation even...?
Second part really briefly covers the brothers experience in the Amazon with some psychedelics - I found this contribution seriously lacking - like perhaps they were embarrassed to mention it even.
Third part delves into the I-Ching, the conversion of it into a time-wave, which indicates with its dips and peaks the impact of events in terms of "novelty". This culminates in the most novel event coinciding with an end of time per the Mayan calendar?
Um. Yeah. The whole book in six lines. The emphasis is in spelling out in seriously uninteresting terms how the conclusions were arrived at in parts one and three. Because these conclusions would be quite hard to pin down normally, the detail involved in explaining how they were arrived at is quite, um, what's a nice word for it; lengthy? The book does flirt with Shamanism, which is a pity really - I think the read would have proven more worthwhile if the ideas in it were translated into where they impact/ have impacted in this and other practices/ traditions...
I guess it is a good book in terms of explaining how the "far-reaching" ideas were arrived at, but I for one would have appreciated it being punted more as laborious theory and not as a must read...

pseudo-science for seared minds.......2004-08-20

The authors present some interesting theories here, but fail to answer the most important question underlying the propagation of any new theory: 'so what?' In other words, why should we care if the universe is holographic, and more importantly, why should we care if it's all going to end one day? Few people today, including even fundamentalist Christians, believe either we or the universe will last forever. The discovery of the existence of dinosaurs in the early 19th century put an end to all notions of the permanence of species, and toppled religion from its cosmological place of primacy. Impermanence of our earth and the human race is now accepted by both secularists and the religiously inclined alike.

As a piece of very baroque art, this is an interesting read. If the authors could have stepped back and created a frame of relevance for the whole, this might have become a truly influential book.

As it turns out, it has merely become an entertainment for those who enjoy the recreational use of psychedelics. Judging from the number of spelling and grammar errors in the rave Amazon reviews for this book here, one wonders just how critically such readers can evaluate McKenna's theories.

McKenna's 'time wave zero' theory was so complex no one could understand it but him, which left him high and dry with anyone skeptical of the theory, and left him surrounded by all followers and no questioners: a recipe for the negation of real inquiry in the end.

CYBERETHNOPHARMACOLOGICALLY FLAWLESS!.......2003-09-12

This book is in short, in my opinion is the best book to read if your interested in the more technical aspect of hallucinogens, hard to grapple with theories of reality, and mathematical bliss on subjects which have no previous advent to! Terence and Dennis Mckenna are the foremost spokesmen's on the Psychedelic experience, Terence Mckenna being more philosophical in his understandings, and Dennis Mckenna, being a ethnobotanist, and neurobiologist, presents work on models of drug activity that should be redefining this field! They Thoroughly cover Psychedelic's in the shamanic sense, cover their trip to the amazon and the understanding that came out of that applied to these hard to conceive theories such as the King Wen Sequence as a Quantified Modular Hierarchy, and Temporal Hierarchy and Cosmology (I-Ching) Which leads me to my second rave, Terence's Timewave Zero Theory, coinsiding with the mayan calander endate, with all the mathematics in order to support his theory, its compelling what's come out of that since. Dennis and Terence are artists with complex words and ideas, presenting them into painfully easy forms of causation

"The total unity of an event can only be understood with reference to the totality of process, that is, to the whole of nature. Thus, in this view a way is cleared not only for the implicit reference to past events to be found in the formulation of scientific laws but for our own psychological unity of memory, immediate realization, and anticipation"

Book Description

In the summer of 1974 Byron Dix discovered in Vermont the first of many areas in New England believed to be ancient Native American ritual sites. Dix and coauthor James Mavor tell the fascinating story of the discovery and exploration of these many stone structures and standing stones, whose placement in the surrounding landscape suggests that they played an important role in celestial observation and shamanic ritual.

Customer Reviews:

Unique book on Native American sites in New England.......2001-12-26

This is the only book I've seen that describes a rich variety of Native American sites in New England. They have received scant attention from most archaelogists without good reason. This book just gives an inkling of the ancient sites that exist in New England.
While many of the sites are remarkable, I do not always agree with the authors' conclusions. I also found it necessary to skim some of the lengthy, detailed descriptions of some sites.
I probably would only give this a 3 star ranking if there were other, better books on the subject. However, this is the only one that exists --- you should buy it if you are interested in this field.

Archeological view of a spiritual landscape.......1997-12-22

A superbly illustrated, highly detailed and scholarly description of sacred sites in New England, most of which are ignored by the classical archeological community. The authors provide insight into the spiritual connections between native peoples and settlers. Good information for those interested in "seeing" the sacred landscape around them.

Landscapes of the Sacred: Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality

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Frascinating and moving
A Must-Read follow up to "Solace of Fierce Lanscapes"

Landscapes of the Sacred: Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality
Belden C. Lane
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0801868386

Book Description

This substantially expanded edition of Belden C. Lane's Landscapes of the Sacred includes a new introductory chapter that offers three new interpretive models for understanding American sacred space. Lane maintains his approach of interspersing shorter and more personal pieces among full-length essays that explore how Native American, early French and Spanish, Puritan New England, and Catholic Worker traditions has each expressed the connection between spirituality and place.A new section at the end of the book includes three chapters that address methodological issues in the study of spirituality, the symbol-making process of religious experience, and the tension between place and placelessness in Christian spirituality.

Customer Reviews:

Frascinating and moving.......2006-09-22

This is one of those books that i treat myself to read, that is, I read just a few sections of each chapter to make it last longer. It is not only a book that captures one's attention, but moves one's spirit to greater depths. I am also intrigued by the scholarship and research that have gone into making this book a reality. I am looking forward to reading other works by Belden Lane.

A Must-Read follow up to "Solace of Fierce Lanscapes".......2003-01-03

If you've read Lane's "Solace of Fierce Landscapes" you'll want to read "Landscapes of the Sacred". "Landscapes" was actually written before "Solace," but has been recenly reprinted by John Hopkins Press with an expanded introduction. There's lots here for anyone interested in the cultural, religious, spiritual, and philosophical aspects of how we human beings experience place, especially those places that have sacred significance. The historical background on Puritans and Native AMerican spirituality are especially welcome.

Surveying the Religious Landscape: Trends in U.S. Beliefs

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Must Have

Surveying the Religious Landscape: Trends in U.S. Beliefs
D. Michael Lindsay , and George Gallup Jr.
Manufacturer: Morehouse Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0819217964

Book Description

In America in the 1950s churches and synagogues were full and growing. "In God We Trust" became the national motto. Since that time, attendance at houses of worship has dropped significantly, but increasingly in the 1990s religion and spirituality play an important part of our national life. Surveying the Religious Landscape, a collection of Gallup surveys, monitors these changes over the last fifty years of American life.

These surveys will appeal to those who track religion professionally, but they will also be of interest to clergy, church members, and others interested in the spiritual landscape of today. A wide variety of beliefs and practices are surveyed including: belief in God, attendance at church or synagogue, religious beliefs of today's teenagers, views about the interaction between politics and religion, life after death, questions of ethics, and others. Surveys address the differences in beliefs among those of various faith perspectives, races, age groups, genders, and those in varying geographic locations.

George Gallup, Jr. is the chairman of The George H. Gallup International Institute, co-chairman of The Gallup Organization, Inc., and Executive Director of the Princeton Religion Research Center. His other books include The Saints Among Us and Growing Up Scared in America. The Gallup Organization is located in Princeton, New Jersey.

D. Michael Lindsay serves as a consultant for theology, religion and culture to the George H. Gallup International Institute. After working at a religious university and in the corporate world, he is now pursuing a master of divinity degree at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Customer Reviews:

Must Have.......2000-06-24

Surveying the Religious Landscape is an excellent reference book for any student, teacher, reporter, or curious mind. You'll be surprised how religious a people we are.

Material Culture and Sacred Landscape: The Anthropology of the Siberian Khanty

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Material Culture and Sacred Landscape: The Anthropology of the Siberian Khanty
Peter Jordan
Manufacturer: AltaMira Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0759102775

Book Description

Study of the Khanty pastoralists of Siberia and their use of sacred landscapes.

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The Landscape of Belief
John Davis
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0691058458

Book Description

This book tells of the nineteenth-century American painters who, along with photographers, archaeologists, writers, evangelists, and tourists, flocked to the biblical Holy Land, a world of striking landscape vistas that reflected, in their eyes, a powerful image of the United States. Here they saw a metaphor for their country: a New World promised land, a divinely favored Protestant nation created by and for a modern "chosen people." Taking these biblical associations as a starting point, John Davis examines the ways in which nineteenth-century Americans looked to the actual landscape of the Holy Land as an extension of their national identity. Through close readings of panoramas, photographs, and conventional easel paintings, he shows how this "sacred topography" became a place to work out competing ideological debates surrounding American exceptionalism, prophetic millennialism, anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish sentiment, and post-Darwinian science.

Drawing on sermons, diaries, travel volumes, and novels, Davis explores the growth of a specific cultural market for landscape imagery of Ottoman Palestine and the manner in which easel painters responded to the popular demand for vernacular representations. Treating little-known painters such as Edward Troy and James Fairman together with major figures including Frederic Church, this volume combines pioneering research and new interpretations.

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Altered Landscapes: Christianity in America 1935-1985
David W. Lotz
Manufacturer: Eerdmans Pub Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0802804551

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God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape
Peggy Levitt
Manufacturer: New Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement

Remaking Muslim Politics: Pluralism, Contestation, Democratization (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics)

Religion and the New Immigrants: How Faith Communities Form Our Newest Citizens

Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations

Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics)

ASIN: 1595581693

Book Description

A major new examination of the American immigrant experience, revealing how recent immigrants are transforming religion in America and around the globe.

"People who know how to live in more than one cultural world have mastered the art of living in this global age, which is good for this country and for their homelands."—from God Needs No Passport

Thousands of Hindus fill the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City to worship with their guru from Gujarat, India. The Boston Garden plays host to a packed house of Brazilian Protestants, with ministers beamed in via satellite. Similar scenes are played out across middle America, where millions of new immigrants from Asia, Africa, and Latin America have settled over the past decade. While many Americans expect that immigrants will trade in one membership card for another, sociologist Peggy Levitt's pathbreaking new account argues instead that many keep one foot in their countries of origin by participating in religious institutions—made possible by communications technology and the ease of international travel—that are a powerful but little-known force in today's world.

Immigrants are changing the face of religious diversity in the United States, Levitt argues, helping to make American religion just as global as U.S. corporations. In a book with stunning implications for today's immigration debates—where commentators routinely refer to a "clash of civilizations"—Levitt shows that the new realities of religion and migration are subtly challenging the very definition of what it means to be an American. God Needs No Passport reveals that American values are no longer just made in the U.S.A. but around the globe.

Religion and Public Life in the Mountain West: Sacred Landscapes in Transition (Religion by Region)

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Religion and Public Life in the Mountain West: Sacred Landscapes in Transition (Religion by Region)
Shipps Jan
Manufacturer: AltaMira Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0759106266

Book Description

Huge mountain ranges and vast uninhabited areas characterize the Mountain West. The region is home to several dense urban centers, but there is enough space between cities for three very distinct religious cultures to develop. Arizona and New Mexico's rel

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