"We are rarely surprised by media coverage about recreational psychoactives. Most can be lumped into the broad genre of sensationalist exposé about the terrible dangers of drugs designed to titillate teens and frighten parents. The ABC News special "Ecstasy Rising", first aired on April 1st, 2004, stands out mostly because of the very high contrast with the typical news stories about the illegal use of psychoactives. It also stands out because it represents a real effort to document some of the serious failings in the government's 'war on ecstasy' and some of the collateral damage that it has caused."

From a review of the special at Erowid.

Shaman by Richard Marchand

Bruno Schulz

A facinating photo-travelogue by Iraqi-American Usama Alshaibi, who returned to Iraq after 24 years. Since he's originally from there, and has lots of family there he got to see Iraqi society from a perspective pretty much impossible for a westerner to get these days. He also has a trailer for his documentary about the trip, called Nice Bombs, but honestly the photos are much more revealing then the trailer. However, there's also a great interview with him here: part one and part two.

Fake TV News

What do Jean Baudrillard, Peter Greenaway, Michel Houellebecq, David Lynch, Bruce Sterling, John Waters, and Slavoj Zizek have in common?

They all teach at The European Graduate School

Sufism and Psychiatry

Sept 11th comics at the Library of Congress

Luke Brown

Dean Chamberlain

"Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize-winning father of modern genetics, was under the influence of LSD when he first deduced thedouble-helix structure of DNA nearly 50 years ago.

Crick told a fellow scientist that he often used small doses of LSD then an experimental drug used in psychotherapy to boost his powers of thought. He said it was LSD, not the Eagle's warm beer, that helped him to unravel the structure of DNA, the discovery that won him the Nobel Prize."

"Inside a moment, centuries of June" --Emily Dickinson

Moths gathered in a fluttering throng one night
To learn the truth about the candle's light,
And they decided one of them should go
To gather news of the elusive glow.
One flew till in the distance he discerned
A palace window where a candle burned -
And went no nearer; back again he flew
To tell the others what he thought he knew.
The mentor of the moths dismissed his claim,
Remarking: "He knows nothing of the flame."
A moth more eager than the one before
Set out and passed beyond the palace door.
He hovered in the aura of the fire,
A trembling blur of timorous desire,
Then headed back to say how far he'd been,
And how much he had undergone and seen.
The mentor said: "You do not bear the signs
Of one who's fathomed how the candle shines."
Another moth flew out - his dizzy flight
Turned to an ardent wooing of the light
He dipped and soared, and in his frenzied trance
Both Self and fire were mingled by his dance -
The flame engulfed his wing-tips, body, head;
His being glowed a fierce translucent red;
And when the mentor saw that sudden blaze,
The moth's form lost within the glowing rays,
He said: "He knows, he knows the truth we seek,
That hidden truth of which we cannot speak."
To go beyond all knowledge is to find
That comprehension which eludes the mind,
And you can never gain the longed-for goal
Until you first outsoar both flesh and soul;
But should one part remain, a single hair
Will drag you back and plunge you in despair
No creature's Self can be admitted here,
Where all identity must disappear.

excerpted from Conference of the Birds by Farid od Din Attar

"Otto Rank paces in excited anticipation as members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society file into Freud's waiting room at Bergrasse 19. Eleven present, counting himself. He cleans his round steel-rimmed glasses, checks again to be sure he has an extra pen. Soon he will know if Freud is going to admit his great debt to Nietzsche..." --Dramatization of Freud's 1908 Nietzsche evenings