whataboutbob- thank you for reporting on this event. While the usual current events such as Peak Oil (TM) and the War on Terror (TM) dominate the attention of this and similar blogs, exploring the deeper reaches of our humanity is often ignored.

I believe one huge reason our world is such a mess can be attributed to the loss of contact with the larger, deeper dimensions of consciousness, which are accessed in the psychoactive/shamanistic traditions that are suppressed by mainstream religions. It comes as no surprise to me that in our times the most "spiritual" energy goes into fundamentalism of various stripes (someone else can write the Ph.D. dissertaion on why it is the 3 Abrahamic faiths that generate this madness), while our world slides downhill.

Perhaps one dimension of solving our world problems lies in a true reorientation of our collective values. While fundies generate noise about "values," what they demonstrate through their behavior is directly contrary to the deep wisdom of their core faiths. The experience-based psychoactive/shamanistic tradition provides direct, personal insight, not an empty declaration of allegience to "holy books."

Bottom line, we have to make cultural changes to resolve humanities self-created challanges. And the old wisdom still applies, inner individual change will create the outer cultural change. Or as the old song says:

"Give me that old-time religion..."