Regarding your 6th feature: intoxication as social norm...
It's no doubt true (except perhaps in the case of esteemed, well-paid legislators, intellectual prostitutes under the influence of commercial interests) that alcohol and other substances are a terrible blight on civilization.
There's an interesting book "The Immortality Key: the secret history of the religion with no name" in which Dr. Brian Murarescu traces the use of entheogens in the Eleucian Mystery School (EMS) two thousand years before Christ to the phenomenal growth of Christianity accomplished by highjacking sacred EMS rituals making them regularly available to all vs. a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Over time, the ritual's active ingredients were changed frOM psychedelic to alcoholic which degraded the Sacred which in turn devolved into the matrix (mate tricks) of social control.
There are civilizations mature, primitive or advanced enough (which perhaps the West is becOMing, which Iskcon is decidedly not) to recognize entheogens as one of the sacred modalities available for the freeing of humankind, civilizations in which men are responsible enough to choose to go There or not.
Hare Krishna Prabhu. Excellent. ♥️🙏
All of what you share is well received.
Regarding your 6th feature: intoxication as social norm...
It's no doubt true (except perhaps in the case of esteemed, well-paid legislators, intellectual prostitutes under the influence of commercial interests) that alcohol and other substances are a terrible blight on civilization.
There's an interesting book "The Immortality Key: the secret history of the religion with no name" in which Dr. Brian Murarescu traces the use of entheogens in the Eleucian Mystery School (EMS) two thousand years before Christ to the phenomenal growth of Christianity accomplished by highjacking sacred EMS rituals making them regularly available to all vs. a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Over time, the ritual's active ingredients were changed frOM psychedelic to alcoholic which degraded the Sacred which in turn devolved into the matrix (mate tricks) of social control.
There are civilizations mature, primitive or advanced enough (which perhaps the West is becOMing, which Iskcon is decidedly not) to recognize entheogens as one of the sacred modalities available for the freeing of humankind, civilizations in which men are responsible enough to choose to go There or not.