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p.MsoNormal,p.MsoNoSpacing{margin:0}</style></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">The Monomyth is definitely "widely found." Campbell talks about the hero with 1001 faces. There are roughly 18,000 different cultures identified (historic and prehistoric). I have no idea what percentage have a hero myth.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">DMT experiences are "spookily" similar. You do have a very strong sense that there are "others" there, that they are waiting for you (you are expected), and they are happy to great you. There are "monsters" "evil beings" there as well and they are perceived to be rabidly hostile.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">A lot of the symbology present seems to reflect the common, often cross cultural, symbols and sacred geometry that Jung asserted as evidence of a collective unconscious.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">DMT is present, manufactured, in the human brain and exists in most plant life. A number of DMT researchers have speculated that the drug, at the dosage in the human brain, is "responsible" for the collective hallucination that all humans seem to experience as Reality. <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">The dosage, not the background, cultural or otherwise, seems to determine "which universe/reality" is experienced. You don't get to the realm of the evil ones until you hit the high dosage. Ayuhuasca is pretty much gardens and Gaia.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">davew<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div>On Mon, Nov 18, 2019, at 5:28 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:<br></div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt"><p><br></p><div class="qt-moz-cite-prefix">On 11/18/19 5:13 AM, Prof David West
wrote:<br></div><blockquote cite="mid:44bc3209-0066-4188-bfe6-9edf6d18533b@www.fastmail.com" type="cite"><div style="font-family:Arial;">Nick said:<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><i>"What struck me about them was
how many of them held the view that reality was beyond
experience: i.e., that our experience provided clues to
reality, but the thing itself was beyond experience. I never
could convince them that that their belief in a reality beyond
experience had to be based on … experience. So, why not be
monists, and talk about organizations of experience.
Ultimately, it was their dualism that confirmed me in my
monism."</i><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">How about an assertion that there
is <b><u>A</u></b> Reality beyond <b><u>"ordinary"</u></b> experience; with "ordinary experience" being the half-dozen or
so overt sensory inputs (sight, sound, balance, touch, taste,
smell) we typically associate with experience.<br></div></blockquote><p>I generally accept Nunez/Lakoff's position/arguement in Where
Mathematics Comes From:<br></p><p>from the Wikipedia article on this book:<br></p><blockquote><p><i>Lakoff and Núñez hold that mathematics results from the
human cognitive apparatus and must therefore be understood in
cognitive terms. </i><i>WMCF</i><i> advocates (and includes
some examples of) a </i><i>cognitive idea analysis</i><i> of </i><i><a title="Mathematics" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics">mathematics</a></i><i> which analyzes
mathematical ideas in terms of the human experiences,
metaphors, generalizations, and other cognitive mechanisms
giving rise to them. A standard mathematical education does
not develop such idea analysis techniques because it does not
pursue considerations of A) what structures of the mind allow
it to do mathematics or B) the </i><i><a title="Philosophy of mathematics" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics">philosophy of mathematics</a></i><i>. </i><br></p></blockquote><p></p><div style="font-family:Arial;">This point may well support Dave's hermeneutical position, though
Lakoff/Nunez do assume that there is such a thing as a human body
and that all humans roughly share the same
physical/sensory/cognitive apparatus.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"> ...<br></div><p></p><blockquote cite="mid:44bc3209-0066-4188-bfe6-9edf6d18533b@www.fastmail.com" type="cite"><div style="font-family:Arial;">The one cultural universal: every
culture (obviously not every individual in every culture)
incorporates a belief in the "supernatural." In all but, maybe,
2-3, cultures the "supernatural" includes an alternative realm
of existence (pre- and/or after-life or "other planes." The,
interpretations of this universal are multiple - pretty much one
per culture/subculture.<br></div></blockquote><p>And where does Joseph Campbell's notion of the Monomyth come
in? Is it merely "widely found", or perhaps just "cherry picked"
by Western Anthropology?<br></p><p>I am reminded of the Rick Strassman's research into entheogens,
with DMT/Ayhuasca in particular. He seems to suggest/report that
it is universal that people tripping on DMT will experience
culturally specific interpretations (in the sense of your use of
the term I think) of "another plane" and "alien beings" which
could range from angels/demons harkening from heaven/hell to
multidimensional alien beings and parallel existences.<br></p><p>- Steve<br></p><p><br></p><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div>============================================================<br></div><div>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br></div><div>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College<br></div><div>to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com<br></div><div>archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/<br></div><div>FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove<br></div><div><br></div></blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div></body></html>