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A friend of mine sent me a critique of Jordan Peterson yesterday in response to my encouragement of her to give him a listen. Originally published in an American journal called The Star, it’s the first decent criticism of Peterson I have read. Continue reading
You rang me like a bell.
I lie on my back with the night pressed against my face
And the images resonate one after another –
Lying propped on your elbow in the eddies of the sheets
Looking at your bare ass as you’re bent over packing your suitcase
Prowling the footpath beside me with high-heeled precision
Reaching up inside you toward the depths of where you dream
If Hollywood filmmaking is spellcasting, A Star Is Born seduced me absolutely. Continue reading
After taking a regular interest in his podcasts, I’m finding it hard to tell. Continue reading
There is something confronting about the disembodied voice of a stranger on the telephone, particularly when it’s someone you may fall in love with. Continue reading
5.
The malocca was transformed into a throne room and the courtiers partied in the room below us. I sat on my throne, a giant black widow spider at either hand, remote in the shadows. Continue reading
4.
The ayahuasca, a thick, tar-green puree, ran into the glass. I raised it to my lips, held my breath, and attempted to pour it down my throat without inadvertently tasting it. The flavour was like a fist squeezing the base of my tongue. Continue reading
3.
By the next morning, I felt physically sick and exhausted. I went to the dispensary and took the thimble of turgid green medicine. As the taste worked its way into my guts as a filament of revulsion, I considered giving the final session a miss. Continue reading
2.
The ceremony itself transpires in a ritual space called a malocca, which is a large communal hacienda. Each of the participants lies on a mat on the floor with a pillow, a blanket and a bucket at its foot. The ceremony begins with each coming forward to imbibe the ayahuasca, not unlike a communion of sorts. Continue reading
“By degrees we beheld the infinite abyss, fiery as the smoke of a burning city; beneath us at an immense distance was the sun, black but shining round it were fiery tracks on which revolv’d vast spiders, crawling after their prey…
‘The air was full of them and seemed composed of them; these are devils and called powers of the air, I now asked my companion which was my eternal lot? He said, between the black and white spiders.”
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
1.
I’ve enjoyed a limited, peaceful relationship with drugs and alcohol. I had a profound experience with LSD in my early twenties which had lived up to the hype with a bona-fide religious vision. Continue reading
Theme Park at its Darkest 