Hello to you all...

First of all, my apologies for starting this thread and then disappearing; this is the first chance I've had to get back on the computer, and it has been a real pleasure to read all your contributions. I have printed them off and will reflect on them over the next few days. How wonderful to be able to share our thoughts in this way!

Danielspaniel expresses a thought which is similar to my own interests: "Maybe such experiences are as close as we can get to understanding the ancient mind as they can enable us to sublimate our modern-thinking ego and be immersed in the place and moment?"

I have heard it said that were we to take a newborn neolithic baby and bring the child up in our own society, he would grow up to be an integrated and indistinguishable citizen. But the fact that there are no significant biological differences between us and our ancestors does not establish that our minds work in a similar way to theirs. What the thesis brings out very forcefully, is exactly the notion that the character of a human being is a product of the conditioning they receive from the environment in which they grow up. And of course, the conditioning we receive, in our frenzied money-thirsty, media-governed world, is very different to the environment in which our anscestors developed.

But this brings me to the very reason I asked for your views on this subject. For me, the stone shapes in our landscape are pictures; they are complex propositions created by minds which are every bit as advanced as our own, and yet those minds were never exposed to the kind of conditioning that we get blasted with. I go to stone circles because I am seeking "to sublimate [my] modern thinking ego." If stone circles are in some sense 'propositions', then if we are able, through careful study, to read and understand those propositions, then our efforts will put us in direct contact with the minds of our anscestors (in just the same way that you get inside the mind of an author by reading their book). My idea is that if we could attain the perspective of people so far removed from our own society, we would greatly increase the resources we have with which to analyse and perhaps reject the conditioning which previously blinded us.

I now see that it may be a confusion to introduce talk of drugs in the same breath as talk of stone circles. Drugs may offer one way of transcending the grid imposed on our modern brains. Contemplation of stone circles may be another and there is no reason to suppose that drugs are necessary in order to engage with the meaning of ancient stone shapes. There are many other ways in which we might seek a new perspective on our own minds: every word, image or sound which one perceives, if it exposes us to a new thought, may offer a new perspective. But here is one distinction we ought to draw if we want to talk about drugs. Drugs are independent of ANY society. To take the perspective of some foreign culture, and from there to criticise our own culture, is all very well, but this presupposes a value judgement whereby we decide that the foreign perspective is better than our own. Reflecting on another culture can only tell us what other human beings thought - what their assumptions were - and will not necessarily reveal what is most fundamental. I'm certainly not saying that drugs offer the path to fundamental understanding; I am merely wondering...perhaps certain drugs offer a method of sublimation which is entirely derived from nature, and which does not contain the assumptions of other fallible human beings.

Thanks again for all your contributions. I promise you I will be reading them again very carefully, and I'll get back to you if I have anything to add. And please, criticisms or suggestions regarding what I have written will really be appreciated.

Nick