Psychedelic-information-theory-Shamanism-in-the-age-of-Reason

process by which the subject takes that content and shapes it intolasting memories, beliefs, and behaviors; this is the process of encodingpsychedelic information into synaptic networks. Content generationwithout behavioral integration is essentially meaningless, so the truetestament of psychedelic power is not the ability to produce visions, butthe ability to imprint new information and transform belief.Cultural TransmissionPsychedelic visions do not stay in the head; if they did there wouldbe no psychedelic art, no psychedelic music, no psychedelic spirituality,and no psychedelic revolution. Psychedelics activate a process in whichthe realm of the psychological spills out into the realm of the physical.It is clear from 20 th century history that psychedelics can fuel artisticexpression, social experimentation, religious movements, and politicalactivism. There is no other class of drugs which can claim to have suchpowerful cultural sway. 8 If psychedelics only produced hallucinationsthere would still be legitimate cause for fascination, but psychedelicsalso influence cultural movements, which makes them a global religiousand political force to be reckoned with.The ritual bonding of social groups though cultural transmission ofpsychedelic information is a subject that has been overlooked in almostall psychedelic research. Not only do psychedelics produce change atthe individual level, they also produce changes at the group or triballevel, and thus they influence change in the social structures and goalsof human culture. The spread of psychedelic information can be subtleor explicit, starting with the creation of art influenced by thepsychedelic experience and culminating in the indoctrination of othersinto the psychedelic tribe through ritual sharing of the sacrament. Oncea subject has been indoctrinated they too will spontaneously generatepsychedelic information and begin sharing that information withothers. This information process cascades from person to person untilthe cultural transmission of psychedelic memes reaches a tipping pointand becomes openly adopted and even celebrated by the culturalmainstream.