Ego Death and Self-Control Cybernetics

All material at this website is Copyright © 1985-2007 Michael Hoffman. All rights reserved.  Copyright notes

The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death – Main article; read this first.  mobile  audio

    

Introduction and Overview

This research defines and outlines the ego death theory, as a new systematic research framework and paradigm.  The ego death theory holds that the essence and origin of religion is the use of visionary plants to routinely trigger the intense mystic altered state, producing loose cognitive-association binding, which then produces an experience of being controlled by frozen block-universe determinism with a single, pre-existing, ever-existing future.

Experiencing this model of control and time initially destabilizes self-control power, and amounts to the death of the self that was conceived of as an autonomous control-agent.  Self-control stability is restored upon transforming one's mental model to take into account the dependence of personal control on a hidden, separate thought-source, such as Necessity or a divine level that transcends Necessity.

Myth describes this mystic-state experiential insight and transformation.  Religious initiation teaches and causes this transformation of the self considered as a control-agent, through a series of visionary-plant sessions, interspersed with study of perennial philosophy.  Most modern-era religion has been a distortion of this standard initiation system, reducing these concepts to a weak interpretation that is based in the ordinary state of consciousness.  The ego death theory is, specifically, the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence, and it incorporates the entheogen theory of religion.

 

 

To ensure that this research is not lost, mirror the article and site and download backup copies, attributing "Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com".

Translations of the main article: Dutch

Machine translations of the main article: Arabic (local copy), Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, French (local copy), German (local copy), Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian (local copy), Japanese, Korean, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Portugese (local copy), Romanian, Russian (local copy), Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish (local copy), Swedish, Turkish, Welsh.  For machine translation, the article is available as a shorter webpage: http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligionPart1.htm

Machine translations of the Egodeath website: Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Portugese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Welsh.

 

Egodeath Weblog to Dec. 2007 -- to see my latest research and idea-development breakthroughs, be sure to read my weblog postings from Feb. 14, 2004 to present, because these haven't been uploaded to this website yet.

Introduction to the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence -- core theory published at Principia Cybernetica Jan. 1997 (my Phase 1 work, before studying myth and history of religion)

The New Testament as It Was Originally Understood: The King on the Cross in the Context of the Roman Empire – outline of next article, Sep. 2006

Why This Egodeath Theory Is the Only Possible Religious System Modernity Can Take Seriously -– Oct. 5, 2006.  The Egodeath theory is immediately testable.

Goal and Scope of the Theory

Long draft of main article, with outtakes

Wasson and Allegro on the Tree of Knowledge as Amanita -- March 2006 article for the Journal of Higher Criticism

   Christian Mushroom Trees -- May 2006 gallery for the Wasson/Allegro article

What's New

Competing Views about Entheogens in Religious History – April 11, 2007.  Defines and compares the main contending views, including Letcher's rebuttal to the Wasson/Allegro/McKenna maximal mushroom theory of religious origins in his recent book Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom.

Scholars Need to Put Entheogens in Their Proper Place in the History of Religious Experiencing -- An open letter to entheogen scholars and mainstream academic religion scholars. August 23, 2007

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Voice recordings (Podcasts)

Main Egodeath theory article, read aloud -- .zip, all parts, 60 minutes. v3, July 23, 2007. As separate mp3 files:
    Overview
    The Entheogen Theory of Religion
    The Dissociative Cognitive State
    The Block Universe and Frozen Worldlines
    Self-Control and the Hidden Source of Thoughts

Emergent missional post-church practice, entheogen house-church movement -- 6 minutes, Dec. 10, 2007

Why the Emergent movement in Christianity must add entheogens and subtract the historical Jesus -- December 8, 2007
    Part 1: preliminary definitions of Emergent vs. Evangelical
    Part 2
    Part 3
    Part 4

Why the Egodeath theory was first systematized in 2006 -- July 2, 2007.
    Part 1 -- 2 hours
    Part 2 -- 22 minutes
    Part 3 -- 1 hour 24 minutes

Points often left out from discussions of the Egodeath theory -- 26 minutes. July 16, 2007.

Interview with Max Freakout at Psychonautica -- Aug. 10, 2007. List of Psychonautica podcasts -- listen to episodes such as 11-17, covering the Egodeath theory.

Discussion of questions in preparation for my interview on the Psychonautica podcast. August 1, 2007.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Max's questions:

• How did I first begin to formulate the Egodeath theory?
• How important are the various domains for the Egodeath theory? Is the Theory a form of Eastern, Western, or Shamanistic religion?
• Is the issue of freewill of central importance to ego death?
• How did I get the idea that the issue of freewill is of such central importance to ego death?
• Explain the ordinary understanding of autonomous control which the ego-death experience proves to be illusory.
• What does the 'transcendence of no freewill' mean and involve?
• Explain the concept of block-universe determinism and time as a spacelike dimension.
• How does Egodeath theory relate to the shamanic ability to heal?
• Does saying that drug-free meditation is 'bunk' mean that there is no value to the practice of meditating?
• Explain the idea that 'drug-policy reform' is conceptually brainwashed.
• What should pro-justice activists focus their efforts on doing, to be most effective?
• What are the vulnerabilities of the Wasson-Allegro-McKenna theories of the origin of religion?
• What is my take on McKenna's idea of the 'stoned ape'?
• What is the relevance of the ahistoricity of Jesus to the Egodeath theory?
• How do I envision the future for the development of the Egodeath theory?
• What is the relationship between the disappearance of the separate-self sense, the experience of nonduality, the intense mystic altered state, meditation, and the problematization of personal control-power in light of the part/whole (self/Ground) relationship in the dissociative cognitive state?

Discussion of various questions -- Oct. 6, 2007.
Questions covered:

• Why bother spreading the truth about the nature of religion and religious origins?
  
• How does the Establishment treatment of topics shut-out coverage of entheogens in religious history?
  
• What is the way forward so that the mainstream culture integrates the maximal entheogen theory of religion?
  
• What evidence and arguments are there that the original Christians used drugs?
  
• Discuss the assertion "There's no need to assume drugs in primitive Christianity."
  
• To what extent were drugs used in the history of Christian practice?
  
• Is New Testament Christianity more important than purely mystical Christianity, because of including a political vector on the mystical insights?
  
• Are John Pilch, Jonanda Groenewald, Marcus Borg, John Ashton, and Stevan Davies on the right track? Can they be converted from their standard academic "alien social-psychology" theory of "alternate states of consciousness" to the simpler drug-use theory?
  
• How was Wasson (or Allegro) great? How did he limit or cripple the field?
• What will be retained of Wasson (or Allegro)? What will be rejected?
  
• Why bother setting the record straight on the errors of Wasson and the merit of some of Allegro's ideas?

White-light electricity hum/buzz/beats feedback -- Instrumental only. Free-form electric guitar. The main part starts around 1:30. 8 minutes. From an idea-development spoken-word recording named Escape Velocity, by Illumination Valve, March 19, 1993, a few minutes prior to the onset of transcendent religious control seizure (which was also captured on tape, against the backwards playback of this passage). Uploaded July 24, 2007. Compare to the visual art of Alex Grey.

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Entheos Journal

Entheos is a good journal focused on the use of entheogens throughout religious history.  The editor replied to me:

Sep. 17, 2006 -- "We're still printing issue #4 (Soma 2 of 2 [vol.2:no.2]).  We've got all of the remaining 6 planned out.  The plan is to do 10 issues total.  Issues #5 & #6 are co-edited by Strassman, and are ready for initial production."

Oct. 4, 2006 -- "The idea is to keep the back issues in print and sell them both wholesale and retail.  After issue #4 is out, we'll focus on the site and web commerce/.pdf sales. As it is, I've got 100 copies each of issues #1 & #2 at the bindery (retail $25, wholesale ~$15 [depending on quantity]). I'm printing issue #4 before doing another run of issue #3."

I recommend these issues and the announcement email list. http://entheomedia.org

Rational Model of Mystic Insight: Meta-Theory

Rationality of Mystic Insight

Transcendence of Rationality

Ergonomic Advantage of Rational Model

Good Theory Must Be Explicit and Direct

Packaging the Theory

Enlightenment Requires Systematic Theory Integrated with Experience

Techniques for Developing Theory

Need for Simplicity, for a Good Theory

The Nature of Theory

Balance and Emphasis More Key than Mere Comprehensiveness

Evidence vs. Paradigms

Models, Interpretive Frameworks

Books and Resources Relevant for Ego Death Theory

Comments

Need More Vision, Less Granular Proving

Summary of this Theory Published at Principia Cybernetica Jan. 2, 1997 - part 2

Comments on Egodeath Theory

Key phrases

Detailed Tables of Contents for Books about Theory Construction

Ken Wilber's book Integral Spirituality -- Detailed Table of Contents – Oct. 1, 2006

The Universe Next Door: A Basic World View Catalog -- James W. Sire -- detailed table of contents -- HTML -- Word -- Amazon

Reality Isn't What It Used To Be -- Walter Truett Anderson -- detailed table of contents -- Word -- Amazon

Evolutionary Epistemology and Its Implications for Humankind -- Franz Wuketits -- detailed table of contents -- Word -- Amazon

Epistemology and Cognition -- Alvin Goldman -- detailed table of contents -- Word -- Amazon

Developing a Major New Theory Online

Copyright, Priority, Innovation

Scholarly Priority of Discovery

Archives of this Website at Internet Archive Wayback Machine (archive.org) going back to 1999, and earlier cybtrans.com archives back to 1997; my original site about the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence was http://www.well.com/~hoff/, around 1994 or so – near the beginning of the Web.

Newsgroup postings: "cybernetic theory of ego transcendence" -- these publically archived Usenet newsgroup postings establish that I am the first to publically publish the loose-cognition no-free-will crash-and-gratuitous-reset theory of religious experiencing, at least as early as March 16, 1995.

Signatures I've Used in Online Postings

Online Writing Strategy and Style

Improving the quality of online discussion - psychology and strategy of posting productively

Discussion Group Aspects

On Moderating

Yahoo discussion groups about mystery-religions - not highly recommended.
Egodeath discussion group

About My Book Lists

General info - My main About You area -- My full description area -- (Admin:) book lists starting at list 41

The book lists below enable following links to additional related books. (lists 1-35)

Ego death as deterministic self-control cancellation - key books in all main topics: determinism, entheogens, mythic-only Jesus

50-book guide -- So you'd like to ... Experience ego death and understand it rationally - the section headings are designed to themselves convey the entire theory.