Hippies started it, New Agers kept it going. What’s next for consciousness culture? |280|
Summary: They may shun religious dogma, and scientific dogma too, but Ken Jordan of Reality Sandwich has tapped into a group that’s restarting the consciousness culture revolution.<br> <a href="http://ba0.8a3.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/280-ken-jordan-reality-sandwich.jpg"></a><br> Psychedelics are part of the culture change.<br> Interview with Ken Jordan co-founder and executive editor of Reality Sandwich and Evolver of on the consciousness revolution and its impact on culture.<br> Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Ken Jordan about the consciousness revolution and the shifting paradigm in science and our culture:<br> Alex Tsakiris: You mentioned the FOIA Act and how [the government released] 10,000 pages. Well, go get those 10,000 pages today! You can’t get crap out of the FOIA Act. And don’t take our African-American-slash-black president and hold him up as any example. He’s the one who squashed all that stuff. He’s the one who not only rubber-stamped but [also] further promoted all the right stripping that was endorsed and supported by his predecessors–the Bush & Cheney regime. So I think what a lot of people are trying to figure out in this consciousness transformation that you guys are so much about in terms of Reality Sandwich — they want to know what’s real. And they want to know what’s real from two angles… because I think we get the personal transformation angle. So, Psychedelics? I can do that. I can be transformed. Spiritual practices? I can do that. I can be transformed. But you’re also holding out the idea that there can be this cultural transformation and that that’s really possible. And I have to wonder… is it really possible in the society we live in? In the culture? In the post-911? In the flag-waving, support our troops kind of culture that we have.<br> Ken Jordan: Well, there are no total victories. Obama is a partial victory. Obama’s a huge victory for the Civil Rights Movement. Whatever he does as president is almost secondary if you ask me. There are things that he does that I appreciate, and there are a lot of things that he does that obviously I do not appreciate in the political climate that we live in. I think he’s made some choices and has some allies that I wouldn’t have. At the same time, the simple fact that he won, and then won again in the same country where Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were shot 50 years earlier… to me is a sign of change. It’s massive. And you have to take your wins. If you don’t take your wins and accept them frankly for the victories that they are, you’re really impoverishing your own sense of what kind of change is possible. In many ways you can look at the movements of the ‘60s and see some serious wins that have transformed not just American culture but the culture of the world in a very positive way. The opening that came out of the ‘60s, the psychedelic culture, led to a very different understanding of spirituality that is possible now in America that was unthinkable back then. It’s not simply, “oh I took psychedelics…” A lot of people take psychedelics and they don’t get their opening. They don’t get their awakening. But there are a lot more people who are having interesting awakenings at this point outside of the restrictive confines of traditional religious practices. My sense is, and this is one of the interesting things about having the gig that I’ve got, my sense is that this is unprecedented in American culture. And that is a direct continuation of what happened in the 1960s. But this isn’t just about the ‘60s, that kind of opening, that kind of engagement or awakening. This is something that’s been popping up through the culture, through societies throughout history. These are deep currents, and there are moments where I think the spiritual energy breaks through and becomes more present. And there are moments where it becomes more oppressed and under the surface.<br>
