axtheter
I was using K as a temporary vacation from reality aka k-hole. Lovely wonderful experiences and I innately knew it was helping with the depression. The most important factor was the set/setting/almost ritualistic use. And I don't do it anymore, never did it so much like so many other people.... and no compulsion to either. I have been sitting on some MXE for a decade now as well... I am an outlier??
Ritual is an element that is sorely lacking in the majority of westerner's use of psychedelics - it does comes with the ayahuasca package "just because that is what you're supposed to do" aka drugs tourism. But the other stuff... This element of ritual is what I think you're overlooking. Ritual also would have prevented DM Turner from taking ketamine before taking a bath which is a very really bad idea; he was really blatantly ignoring the risk factors for whatever reason.
This reminds me of a psychologist, Mexican I think, who in the 70s IIRC was using datura and other such things in his work helping patients. He's a bit obscure and I haven't found much info (I will hunt down my notes if people insist). So my opinion is that dissociatives have their use, but you really need to know what you are doing which most people do not. Personally, I think salvia is very useful... but I am sort of autistic and there is an Internet theory I came across that only the autistically inclined really take to salvia; neurotypicals can't handle the weirdness at some deep level. I have no proof of this but from what I've read and personally know, of course...
As an aside, I met Ann and Sasha a number of times 20 odd years ago. So I personally find it a bit irksome you're using such a handle. You've agreed to change it which I commend you for... For the newbies who know the name, but not that he's dead, it would be confusing. But you are relaying correct and valuable information, so that is good - except for the wide ranging generalizations ... ;)
I only skimmed the paper and so may be entirely wrong, but the sample sizes seemed awfully small. What drove me crazy is their simplistic notion is that the CPI and CI indexes of the countries they visited was a factor of sorts. The CPI is a ranking of countries "by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.". The key word is 'perceived' - some cultures, 'back-scratching' is a fundamental component of how the society works and so by idealistic Western standards, it is wrong, but that society isn't hypocritical about it.
On the other hand, the UK is #10 in the CPI list, but after living here for a number of years now, I understand the culture enough to say that the English are utterly hypocritical about the amount of corruption that is actually present, despite the PERCEPTION the UK is a country that belongs in the top 10. And most English people I know are well aware of the inherent corruption (at least my friends, all left leaning ex-communists...) If the study was correct, then foreign students from other countries who study here, travel here would be become less immoral?? I think not. Morality is primarily a function of the individual, their personality, and how it was shaped by their own culture growing up. I doubt very much it is affected so easily, except for weak willed people.
Living here has not made me any more corrupt, but the opposite. Although I no longer have any problem stabbing someone who has shown themselves to be corrupt/unethical in the back... as a counter-action. I have gotten tired of being screwed with, but I certainly am not going to plan to be unethical right off the bat with someone. i.e. I play Tit for Tat now in the Prisoner's Dilemma game of life, not the ideal strategy taught to children to socialize them properly.
So if you want to measure how 'personality morality' changes over time, superficial things like a brief exposure to other cultures isn't going to be useful, it is hard core life experiences that shape a person more, and how their understanding of humanity evolves. And that is much harder to assess and doesn't get you published etc etc.
And I bet this bad study could/would be used by populist nationalists etc to justify why exposure to other cultures must be prevented... oh lord.
No, because the English are a race apart. No Englishman is too low to have scruples: no Englishman is high enough to be free from their tyranny. But every Englishman is born with a certain miraculous power that makes him master of the world. When he wants a thing, he never tells himself that he wants it. He waits patiently until there comes into his mind, no one knows how, a burning conviction that it is his moral and religious duty to conquer those who have got the thing he wants. Then he becomes irresistible.
Like the aristocrat, he does what pleases him and grabs what he wants: like the shopkeeper, he pursues his purpose with the industry and steadfastness that come from strong religious conviction and deep sense of moral responsibility. He is never at a loss for an effective moral attitude. As the great champion of freedom and national independence, he conquers and annexes half the world, and calls it Colonization. When he wants a new market for his adulterated Manchester goods, he sends a missionary to teach the natives the gospel of peace. The natives kill the missionary: he flies to arms in defence of Christianity; fights for it; conquers for it; and takes the market as a reward from heaven.
In defence of his island shores, he puts a chaplain on board his ship; nails a flag with a cross on it to his top-gallant mast; and sails to the ends of the earth, sinking, burning and destroying all who dispute the empire of the seas with him. He boasts that a slave is free the moment his foot touches British soil; and he sells the children of his poor at six years of age to work under the lash in his factories for sixteen hours a day. He makes two revolutions, and then declares war on our one in the name of law and order.
There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles; he supports his king on loyal principles, and cuts off his king's head on republican principles. His watchword is always duty; and he never forgets that the nation which lets its duty get on the opposite side to its interest is lost.