Talk:Psychonautics/Archive 2

William White

Among notable psychonauts is listed William White; this link is to a disambiguation page and there is no contextual information to allow selection of which person is being referred to here. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Albert Hofmann

What evidence/information points towards Hofmann being a psychonaut? Having read some of his writings he does not strike me as such, beyond simply admitting the possibility that LSD could be beneficial to artists. I have seen nothing that suggests Hofmann himself would use things like LSD in a manner similar to other Psychonauts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.155.247 (talk) 23:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

AfD

This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy.
Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 22:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The result was keep.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:22, 4 May 2008 (UTC) <-- Copied from the article's AfD by Writtenonsand (talk) 18:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

NPOV tag removed

I removed the NPOV tag, which pointed to this discussion page. I don't see a specific, clear issue to resolve, that is present in the article, and that is under debate in the present discussion page; that is, there is no discernable issue to reach some resolution as the criterion for removing the NPOV tag. It's not clear from this discussion page why the NPOV tag was ever posted in the first place. As such, the NPOV tag served no purpose and just cluttered the article. If you insert the NPOV tag, please be specific about what aspect of the article is supposedly NPOV, in this discussion page, so that that point and aspect can be discussed and resolved in order to eventually remove the NPOV tag. MichaelSHoffman (talk) 22:16, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Sceptre and his buggy bot

Sceptre, your talk page is locked, so I'm addressing you here. Please stop reverting my attempts to request citation for complete nonsense. I'm not going to stop doing the right thing simply because your bot is buggy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.222.201.18 (talk) 13:31, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Missing Headline

Andrew Weil should be on the list of Psychonaut, in my humble opinion. Solombas (talk) 15:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Add references or get this article deleted. NPOV tag restored

Start adding references. This article makes many unreferenced claims, and as such includes a collection of dangerous comments. It is quite telling that the illegal status of many of these practices isn't even mentioned. Make it NPOV or get it deleted. I'm readding the NPOV tag. -- Fyslee / talk 14:40, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Since no one ever explained in what way the article is supposedly POV I removed the POV-Flag.

"It is quite telling that the illegal status of many of these practices isn't even mentioned." - You are free to mention something about legality in this in the article. However, keep in mind that in most countries the consumption (in contrast to possession or trade) is absolutely legal, making the practices in fact legal. --John.constantine (talk) 00:03, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Come on, be realistic. How is consumption possible without prior possession/trade? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.148.192 (talk) 10:45, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Stuff exists. You write about it in an encyclopedia. This website isn't a babysitter. I don't think we need to inform everyone about the exact status of each thing in every country on earth, do we? Let's pretend like it is the internet age. 99.246.173.92 (talk) 02:50, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah seriously! An encylcopedia isn't about informing people of course! It's about showing off cool stuff that happens when your on drugs, not how they got it. Haha I think the issue should be that this doesn't need to say anything about drugs being illigal at all- theres a separate page already about that. 72.199.100.223 (talk) 04:25, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

This article is incredibly poorly written and needs the attention of an expert (if there is any in such a field). There are no references, it's not subjective and has varying scope.

--96.51.249.130 (talk) 09:51, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed - for example the section Brain function starts with a paragraph on ancient traditions, not brain function. Another problem is that the article makes many assertions without providing references. Autarch (talk) 21:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Into the mind we go

See the books written by Ronald K. Siegel. I had not the slightest idea the sharing of visual hallucinations between my wife and myself while I experienced clinical depression was called folie a deux. Siegel recognized it immediately. In different fields, usually the things we enjoy, some persons are more disciplined and curious than others. He has earned praise from Dr. Oliver Sacks. Kazuba (talk) 02:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Cruising for another AfD

The main reson for the AfD of April 2008 was lack of references and citation. Most every "keep" vote mentioned the availability of many references and citations as the reason for keeping this article. I do not see much evidence that since then anyone has taken advantage of the resources that apparently exist. After almost two years I don't expect that the same arguments about the availability of references will stand up a second time and recommend those who are working here spend time sourcing this piece before the article is again nominated for deletion. Jojalozzo (talk) 16:10, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Experts needed to address "weaseling" and ambiguity

This article lacks specificity and over-uses passive voice and generalization. This "weaseling" style and the article's lack of citations leads me to doubt that the editors have sufficient knowledge of the subject to bring this article up to WP standards. Jojalozzo 02:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Inception

Based on the drug use to induce the dreams or dream state, the characters of the Christopher Nolan's film "Inception" are by definition "Psychonauts". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.19.169.211 (talk) 21:50, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Stub + rewrite

The majority of views at the second AFD seem to agree the article is substandard and needs stubbing and rewriting to remove large chunks of unsuitable content. I've had a go - it's far from complete, but as far as it goes it is a reasonable stub. I found it worked better to write an article from sources on psychonautics, than psychonauts, so I have moved the pages there.

Possible topics and sections needed (examples): -

• Philosophy section covering views on the use of substances for exploration of the psyche;
• History section of this kind of usage from religion through into contemporary culture, and across a range of specific cultures from Tibet to Shamanism to the hippie era (which is different from the history of the word);
• Actual and discussed use of the topic in therapy (main article: Psychedelic therapy);
• Psychological aspects of such usage;
• Current views from various fields such as therapy through to drug abuse analysis;
• Descriptions of the subjective experiences it labels (as discussed in scholarly writings) possibly linked to more complete articles on that topic.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 02:42, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Brilliant! Thank you! Jojalozzo 04:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Note that I just slapped the references in for the time being - they aren't done to standard at all, at this point although the info is there. Considerable copyediting and other work is still needed. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:43, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Recommencing work on this article in the near future (with luck). Images added, stuff above to source. Neesds to address valid talk page points by other users above. For example

• "Approaches similar to psychonautics but not denoted as such, often due to the modernity of the term, are also described in numerous sources...." (allows us to give due weight to cases such as religious figures, not often described as "psychonauts" but likely covered by the same kinds of description)
• Skeptics views (if sourced and not tiny-minority)

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 02:09, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Pseudoscience

I just read an article that described psychonautics as pseudoscience. The authors of the article were apparently dismissive of psychonautics as being somehow illegitimate. The commentary was made in passing and wasn't elaborated upon, but it got me to thinking that this probably is a mainstream view of psychonautics and psychonauts. If good sources for this can be found, it definitely merits inclusion under a criticism section. 68.154.234.87 (talk) 10:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Are the claiming to be doing science in the first place? 88.159.72.240 (talk) 21:16, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

If something resembles science or is taken as science but it is not science, it is usually called pseudoscience. I'm sure there's a quite a bit of pseudoscience to be found in psychonautics, though I can't call anything to mind. ButOnMethItIs (talk) 03:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

If there isn't a claim of doing science then writing that it is, or might be, pseudoscience resembles slander in a way, doesn't it? Like they claim it to be a science, but they are liars, kind of.. PaleZoe (talk) 02:47, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

"Psychologist Dr Elliot Cohen of the UK Institute of Psychonautics and Somanautics defines psychonautics as "the means to study and explore consciousness (including the unconscious) and altered states of consciousness; it rests on the realisation that to study consciousness is to transform it."

Pretty sure study and exploration of the psyche is science, and claims to be. 72.199.100.223 (talk) 04:28, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

How so? Poetry can be study and exploration of the psyche too, and not claim to be science. Not all study or exploration is scientific, and to claim so cheapens the definition of science I think. Denial (talk) 11:46, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The overall purpose of poetry is not study and exploration, it's entertainment. The purpose of psychonautics is, like I quoted from a professional, "the means to study and explore the consciousness." If you think that this lady is a cook, that's, but that would mean that this is pseudoscience. You're right, no one claims poetry is science, because it's all about emotions, and perhaps informing another. But psychonautics is different in that it purposely attempts to discover the concious through the use of psychotics. Exploration in the name of discover, study for the sake of revealing, is scientific, especially if their is an institute devoted to the science (or pseudoscience) of Psychonautics. 72.199.100.223 (talk) 01:00, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

For some reason you equate study in general with the application of the scientific method in a strict sense. There is little reason in doing so. If you check www.dictionary.com and search for "study" you will find a great variety of definitions. For instance, it is complitely accurate to say: "A six-year old child is studying an anthill." Nobody, who utters the aforementioned sentence means that the child is applying scientific method in her endeavor to understand what the ants are doing, but just that the child is observing the anthill and possibly even making some crude mental notes of what the ants are doing under certain circumstances. It is quite similar with psychonautics and meditation and various other disciplines of study. Often they do not claim to apply the scientific method. It is only when they make this unfounded claim of being science (explicitly or implicitly) that they can be accurately described as pseudoscience. The bottom line is that the child interested in the anthill - as well as practitioner of meditation or psychonautics - are all

1) studying something 2) not applying the scientific method 3) not claiming to be scientific 4) not doing pseudoscience 213.243.149.219 (talk) 15:33, 7 October 2010 (UTC)