Michael Vipperman

Insight

During and after a psychedelic experience, trippers often say that they’ve learned or discovered something through the experience — for many, that’s why they took it in the first place. When I talk about this to non-users, however, there’s often a reluctance to accept that this is possible. How could a drug teach you something? Weren’t they just hallucinations? If you did learn something, couldn’t you have learned it at least as easily sober?

Often, the things people learn are features of their surroundings which, some might argue, could have been observed without having taken drugs. For example, negative perceptions of the places where the trip took place. One respondent said that Wasaga Beach “…felt like an episode of the Jersey Shore… it was douche-con. … every time I think about it, it makes me laugh, it just seems like a hilarious place.” Another (a white, male, 17 year old) talked about tripping at Canada’s Wonderland and said how the greed and gluttony of the place really bothered him. “It made me more aware of how everyone was trying to sell me something, literally everywhere I looked. … gluttonous entitlement… morbidly obese children stuffing their face with doughnuts. It led to a bad experience, and, in all honesty, I do not want to go back to Wonderland.” It’s not like the things my respondents were noticing about Wasaga and Wonderland were produced by the drugs they’d taken, and some people might develop similar impressions of those places without psychedelics. In fact, another of my respondents told me about a great trip had at Wonderland, so taking mushrooms there is neither necessary nor sufficient for developing those negative impressions. However, for my respondent who did that feel that way, the mushrooms seem to have played some sort of role.

In cases like these, that role is in blowing up what’s already happening to larger than life proportions. By exaggeration, truth becomes more obvious: motives and relationship dynamics we usually just ignore come to the surface, and the superficial pleasures of places like Wonderland and Wasaga may no longer be sufficient to blind us to their faults, which are now experienced on a much larger scale. Similarly, I’ve had several respondents talk about romantic relationships that they realized were doomed because of a trip: they were together for the wrong reasons to begin with, but until they took psychedelics, they lacked the insight to realise that they don’t actually like each other all that much. First they sobered up, then they broke up.

There are some common insights which often occur to people during psychedelic trips. Things like… we are all connected; trees contain recursive geometry; nature is awesome; love, empathy and compassion are very important. When described in writing like this, these things seem obvious, but sometimes experience is necessary to catalyse our understanding. The classic psychedelics simultaneously increase our perception of significance while improving our ability to think both clearly and abstractly, helping us to see what we should have seen all along.

Not all insights gained are experienced as good things. Sometimes, self-critical observations become dominant. For instance, you might realize that you’re lazy, filthy, selfish, effluent, unprepared or disrespectful. Some people realise they have a poor diet, get insufficient exercise, have a bad living situation or a weak social support network, etc. These sorts of insights are often on the margins of our consciousness and can be accessed by act of will; the psychedelic seems to cut out the middleman, so to speak, confronting us with our lives and surroundings whether we want to confront them or not. While this may be unpleasant, sometimes it provides just the slap in the face we needed in order to start fixing things. One respondent told me how, during a solo acid trip, it occurred to her that she really knew very little about her friends, having mostly gotten by on superficial details and never having cared to ask many personal questions. Rather than simply sulking or feeling ashamed, she spent the next while making lists of everything she did know about her friends, committing herself to learning more about them in the future.

To many people, especially non-users, this probably doesn’t sound like what you’d expect from an acid trip — it sounds more like just a day spent at home thinking about things. But for a lot of people, that’s exactly what an acid trip is. “Tripping” really just means thinking intensely about something, often to the point of absorption. If you follow the standard recommendation for a trip (preparing by eating well, thinking through your current mental state with an eye to anything that may be wrong, ensuring that you have a comfortable place where you can be alone if you choose, but also good, loving friends to communicate with if you want company, and taking time afterward to reflect upon and integrate anything you may have learned), chances are good that you’ll gain valuable insights even if you don’t take a drug: intentionality and contemplation are enough. However, some substances seem to synergize fantastically with this sort of process, and are therefore useful to occasion insights.

When an insight comes to us in a visual form, it seems easier to make the leap to saying that it was “because” of the drug, since we associate seeing things with being on drugs. It’s often said, for instance, that Dr Francis Crick discovered the molecular structure of DNA because, after many nights of trying unsuccessfully to work it out, he took LSD and saw a vision of a double helix.* For Crick, attempting to translate an extremely complex mess of numbers into an also complicated shape was clearly made a lot easier by the introduction of a visually stimulating substance.

Here’s one example of an insight with a visual dimension, from Lyrebird (an experimentalist):

“I had this one thought about the way that our society funnels people… I had this image of discrete columns of light, and I had a lot of thoughts related to vertical and horizontal assemblages of societal energy. … It seems like everybody is being… fractured… and there’s this fractured intent that permeates, where it feels like everyone’s going in a million different directions at once, versus the idea of there being some sort of continuum of willpower, and everyone working together towards some kind of mutual benefit. … It becomes very visual. All these concepts are given an imagined body, and that really helps me assemble information.”

The capacity of psychedelics to play with sensations and perceptions is not limited to the visual field, of course. Darqchild, Dave, Firefly and Four all told me that tripping taught them new ways of understanding the body, providing insight into angles of motion, joints and fluidity, making them better at such things as dancing (Dave), anatomical drawing (Firefly) and martial arts (Four). Darqchild also explained that abstract ideas may be felt physically, making them far more concrete and therefore easier to evaluate and understand. This, I think, is the crux of the matter: that normally we will try to understand things using only our heads, which, singular and rigid, can’t quite wrap around them. On psychedelics, however, our cognition becomes fluid, and we flow over them, experiencing with our totality. Music, emotions and concepts all engage us through many senses at once, and the visual or tactile experience of something can give us an enormous push towards actually understanding it on a very profound level.

*Interestingly, this is almost exactly the same story as August Kekulé’s discovery of the molecular structure of benzene, except that his vision (of an Ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail) came while simply daydreaming, not on any drug. This supports my point, above, that introspection might lead to insights even sober… but how often do you have visions when you daydream? The advantage of psychedelics is how reliable they are for putting us in that state.

2011: 08/14
CATEGORY: Drug Education
14 comments

The Paradox of Normal

This week I wrote a major paper for Feminist Studies in Sexuality, WGS374, a women’s studies course at UofT. I figured, considering the title of the course and its contents, that I should go balls out. It’s about Chester Brown’s new graphic novel, Paying For It. Check it out.

“Nearly everybody who has put any thought into it agrees that the dominant construction of sexuality is problematic: we don’t all agree about what it should be like, but nobody wants it to go on like this. Those who see the extent and systematic nature of violence, dominance and degradation may be wise in taking the most radical position conceivable to them at each moment; if a situation is bad enough, anything you can do to destabilise it could allow the emergence of something better. The tools for this include reflexivity and deconstruction, subversive irony, heterodoxy, drag: anything that will confuse, shock and challenge. Actively resist categorisation, and you cause the categories to shift. This is, however, not Brown’s objective, and these are not his tools. His presentation is minimally challenging and minimally heterodox: his lovers hide all their thousand faces. His politics are simple and straightforward, his representation of sexuality as uncomplicated as his goal: to insert a slight alteration. To revise, not to reject. He wants not to smash an irredeemable patriarchy, but only to shift it in the direction of wisdom, to make it see that prohibition makes things worse for everybody. For prostitution to actually be accepted as completely “normal” seems implausible, but its abnormality hinges on a stigma he has endeavoured to Imagine away, and he has already had some small scale success.”

… seriously, just view the pdf.

I feel like it’s in need of an appendix or two and some revisions, but those will have to wait a week or two. Maybe I’ll do a Normal: Redux in a couple weeks (whoa, one appeared. How about that?).

More psychedelia next week. My brain was too broken after this endeavour to put effort into a new article this week. Next will be about the concept of Insight — people claim to be receiving insight from using drugs, but what does that even mean? Is it possible?

2011: 08/07
CATEGORY: Formal Essays and Research
Sex/Gender/Sexuality
1 comment

Psychedelic Defined

To make this mundane world sublime,
Take half a gram phanerothyme

To fathom Hell or soar angelic,
Just take a pinch of psychedelic

During my interviews about psychedelic drugs, I allowed my respondents to define “psychedelic” rather than trying to define it for them. Not surprisingly, I got a variety of answers, and rather than simply choosing my favourite, I’ll try to sketch out their breadth. A good place to start is the term’s origin and etymology: two couplets (quoted above) shared between Humphry Osmond and Aldous Huxley, each coining a term to describe the mescaline experience. Both terms, phanerothyme and psychedelic, mean approximately the same thing: it manifests the mind (or shows the spirit).

Thus, this definition, from Heru (a cultural engineer)*:

“Psychedelic I take in the most literal sense, manifesting the mind. A thing which is psychedelic is a thing which brings us more in touch with the nature of our consciousness and our minds as an active process of assembly. In Buddhism, rather than the five senses we normally think of, they describe six senses. So the five main senses, but the mind is considered a sense too, in that we react psychologically to events which occur in the mind as much as we do to impressions we get through the other senses. I see psychedelic as a thing which brings us more into contact with that level of our comprehension, which is a direct apprehension of how we’re organising, compiling and creating ontology.”

One obvious way in which the use of a substances could effect this is via hallucination, a facet which Merc (a seeker) emphasises:

“Something that makes me question the reality around me. Since I started with psychedelic drugs in particular, I’ve always been interested in the idea of reality being very pliable, being something that’s very subjective, and I find psychedelic drugs are proof of that.”

Mark’s attempt at a definition, on the other hand, focuses on the key examples of psychedelics, which I should point out are generally agreed upon. LSD and psilocin mushrooms are the prototypes and were mentioned by nearly everybody (in other articles when I use the term “classic psychedelics” it is these or similar substances that I refer to). Others, such as ayahuasca, come up less often but are not disputed; still others, such as ketamine and cannabis, are more controversial and less prototypical, but are still considered psychedelic by many people.

“There are certain commonalities, like they have hallucinatory properties, which I don’t think is essential to the category because you have drugs which are definitely psychedelic but are not hallucinatory. I think the essential quality for me is that they’re drugs which mess with your reality engine, the part of your brain which constructs your sense of reality is being tweaked, so you have a different experience of that construction of reality. So a drug that makes you hot or cold, or merely makes you hallucinate, would not fall into this category. It’s actually got to tweak this metaphysical region in the brain.”

The above takes on the definition are all about the experience specifically: it tweaks our reality engine, making it clear that reality is pliable, putting us in contact with the machinery by which we construct reality. Then we get a teleological perspective of sorts, pointing to its uses, and therefore hinting at intentionality. From Julian (a student of the hermetic arts):

“Psychedelic drugs are specifically an external substance used for the purpose of mind expansion. The thing with that is drugs that can be described as psychedelic can be used for non-psychedelic purposes, and vice versa. But essentially a substance used to explore parts of the mind that in regular modes of consciousness aren’t quite so readily accessible.”

Going more in depth as to application and potential for benefit is Kairon (a biophysicist):

“…something that will reveal to you some aspect of cognition or reality which you otherwise would not have access to. … Having that sort of gestalt pattern matching facility clocked into overdrive would be a good example. You normally have a much more constrained notion of what you’re doing or what you might be doing on a day to day basis, or what might be going on in the situation you’re observing, but the space of possibilities is quite a bit broader than that. So having your faculties greased a bit so that you can explore more of that space is extremely valuable. Having been made aware of that possibility you can then often bring that back into every day life, and that will inform your decisions.”

Once we start talking about application and benefit, of course, we have to deal with situations in which that is not being received. From Hermes (a mathematician):

“I don’t think that there are psychedelic drugs and non-psychedelic drugs. I believe that psychedelia is an aspect of any particular state of consciousness, and it depends entirely on how it’s being used. You can ask yourself, is this a mind-revealing experience, am I learning something about myself and the world around me, or am I doing something habitual or just for the hell of it? In fairness, there are some substances which strongly suggest to the user, or may even force upon them, some kind of new insight about how it all works. And there are certain experiences that one cannot help but learn from. Even just the fact that such an experience is possible says something profound about how reality is structured, so you can’t help but learn something from that experience.”

I’m wont to argue that, given suitable reflection, any change in perspective, once compared to any other perspective, can provide meaningful insight if we examine the ways in which the two are different: a “psychic triangulation” of sorts, to fitting with the cartographic metaphor for psychedelic use. In other words, seeing how you experience yourself and the world on any substance and comparing that to when you’re sober can deepen your understanding. This remains true regardless of the perceived quality or accuracy of the new perspective: for instance, it works perfectly well with alcohol, usually considered impairing. However, for many users, the perspective given by what we tend to call “psychedelic” is seen not as quite the opposite, providing remarkable insight and clarity. From Marz (a nice, peaceful, little psychedelic, light-worker hippie-child):

“I really wouldn’t classify psychedelic as a drug, I’d classify it as spirit, as an exploration of other realms, and as a tool to help you get there. It’s what Terrence McKenna described as a switch or a dial to different dimensions: it gives you the ability or the access to different places you regularly wouldn’t be able to get to on this stream of consciousness. … To me, psychedelic is a direct connection to all that there is, to truth.”

Brigitte (an explorer of self) speaks similarly:

“A portal, a gateway, given to us in this experiential playground – earth I consider a playground, that we are all children of the cosmic community, and using psychedelics is a way to remember, remind and reacknowledge who we are in this great big cosmic landscape.”

In both of the above two, the idea is of another reality into which we can enter, which would probably imply to a reader that it’s the same for everyone. So, to balance that, from Lyrebird (an experimentalist):

“There’s a level of variability attributed to it. They act as amplifiers. I’ve had some experience with other substances, but the thing that seems unique about the psychedelic ones is that there’s never a feeling of a foreign presence or that your attitude or disposition is being pushed in a direction that it doesn’t want to, it’s just that your state of mind is crystallized in some way. … It suggests a kind of introspection and revelation. It’s very psychological, it relates to self-exploration.”

Another respondent (a male, 17 year old Caucasian) seems to, like Lyrebird, identify the insights or revelations as having to do wih self-knowledge, rather than access to some external reservoir:

“It opens up a whole new way of thinking and seeing the world. It’s kind of like unlocking potential in that sense, allowing you to really see what’s in front of your face, something that you’re looking for but it’s too close, or even too far sometimes. It’s kind of like binoculars to a higher state of being. I find on psychedelics – on acid at least – I’m more articulate, I move more freely, I’m more energetic, happier… just generally all around good things, I feel like I’m an over-man of sorts. … They’re kind of like a binocular that lets you briefly see yourself at that state, and once you come down you’ve got to work towards that state, you’ve got to climb that mountain. … They point you in a direction to go. By the end of it you’re left with an arrow which indicates a direction.”

Psychedelic, of course, also has its historical situatedness. It refers to art or music that tends toward being highly experimental, often involves recursiveness or spirals, bright colours and a sense of timelessness. These (and other) associations are important to bear in mind. When I think of psychedelics, multidimensional, fractal realities of unimaginable complexity are in my mind… but so are moments and spaces of seemingly eternal peace, serenity and joy, and the feeling that in its grand complexity, everything is perfectly simple. Psychedelics seem to bring out the spiritual side of people, and they seem to give us a taste of what we imagine enlightenment might be like. They magnify reality, drawing us to look at what we normally ignore, revealing the sometimes cosmic importance of the things we take for granted. They amplify parts of the psyche we didn’t even know existed. Sometimes they cause visions, sometimes they’re not visual at all; sometimes they overwhelm us, and sometimes they feel comfortable, familiar; sometimes they catalyze a communal energy and lead to incredible oneness of spirit, and sometimes they make us want to be alone. They are, in a word, potential: potential for what is impossible to predict.

Have respect, or be destroyed.

——————————————————————————————-

*All my respondents were given the opportunity to provide a pseudonym and a self-description, which appears in the brackets in the form they requested.

2011: 07/31
CATEGORY: Drug Education
Drugs, Herbs, Medicines, Poisons
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The Psychotherapeutic Setting

There are many radically different contexts in which psychedelics have been found to be beneficial, but one model for how to facilitate a powerfully transformative experience stands out. This setting combines safety, support and intensity in a way so effective that many people who had taken acid or mushrooms repeatedly before trying it have described it as their first “true” psychedelic experience, completely overshadowing all their previous trips.

The model arose out of the work of many pioneers of psychedelic therapy in many countries, but for the purposes of this article I will rest mainly upon the work of Stanislov Grof, who crystallized the research of many other psychologists into the book, definitive as of the 1980s, LSD Psychotherapy. I also draw upon the work of “secret chief” Leo Zeff, and on my own experience as well as that of those I have interviewed.

The model is essentially this: deep introspection in a supportive environment facilitated by experienced and compassionate guides.

It Goes Something Like This:

This is a best case scenario; practical considerations may necessitate alterations.

You are referred by somebody who trusts you to a psychedelic guide or group. You meet with the people who will be facilitating your trip, and each of you works to establish comfort levels. You discuss expectations, prior knowledge and experience, your views on spirituality, your current life situation, the areas of your psyche that you feel need work, and anything else that seems relevant. They run you through a list of contraindications to make sure everything will be safe (pregnancy, epilepsy and heart defect are of particular concern). If the guides require compensation for their services, that is discussed, negotiated and agreed upon. If you all get along and trust each other, and they feel you are a good candidate, a time is chosen on a separate day for the trip to take place, making sure that you will be able to have both that and the following day completely free of any responsibilities.

On the chosen day you meet at a place where privacy will be guaranteed (your home is fine, provided absolute privacy can be assured). You partake in some form of relatively minimal ceremony, designed to put you on a positive footing without adding unnecessary content. Different guides have different levels of ceremony or ritual they like to employ. Leo Zeff, for example, would have the tripper bring a series of photographs from their childhood and of people important to them, so that these images would be fresh in the mind, and would present the medicine in a cup as a symbol for transformation. In any case, last minute questions are dealt with, the plan and any rules are explained (typical rules include “there will be no sex during the experience” and “you will not go outside without my permission”), and a moderate dose of LSD is consumed, LSD being widely agreed upon as the ideal for a first experience; availability, legal concerns, intention, personal preference and time constraints may lead to something else being substituted.

Then… you lie down and go into it.

Headphones with a long playlist of beautiful, spacious music, eyeshades and a comfortable place to lie down combine to block out external stimuli and encourage maximum introspection. At this point, the role of the guide(s) is to keep you lying down with your eyes closed. Any attempt at psychoanalysis or counseling at this point will be counterproductive.

It’s highly, highly recommended that you continue to introspect for the first several hours of the experience. This, really, is the key to the entire model, and if you can’t find or afford an experienced guide, at least follow this part. Don’t walk around. Don’t talk to people. Don’t play games. Don’t have sex. Just… go inward and face whatever comes. Later, when you’re well past the peak, there will be time to do that other stuff, all of which is great, but all of which can distract from the vitally important work at hand.

What happens when you’re ready to emerge depends entirely on what happened up to that point and so I won’t try to list examples, but your guide(s) will be there to talk to you, to hold you if you want to be held and to keep you comfortable. As you come down, taking a walk somewhere beautiful is highly recommended (water and trees are perennial favourites).

If the arrangement you’d settled upon was a single trip, you should meet with your guide(s) again after sobering up, ideally before a week has passed, to discuss the experience. In Grof’s work, it was common for people to have many subsequent sessions so as to progress through different layers of the psyche, from biographical memories of formative experiences to reliving the birth trauma to archetypal encounters. It was not expected that this all take place in a single session. However, there are also many reports of single sessions so transformative for later work to be unnecessary.

On Suitability of Guides

Guides must: be compassionate, trusting, patient and experienced.

Having more than one guide, ideally with a diversity of skillsets and genders, is a best case scenario. If you have both a male and a female guide, there will be someone onto whom to project either your mother or father complexes, and it will give an alternative person to talk to if the gender or disposition of the individual guide makes it difficult for you to relate whatever it is you’re going through to them; you want to be able to be able to share whatever comes up, no matter how intense or personal, and sometimes that’s just easier with one gender or another, depending on your comfort levels. A historically typical therapeutic dyad, such as the one employed in the Hopkins Psilocybin experiments, consists of one psychologist and one social worker or counsellor, t0 ensure a variety of skills for you to draw upon.

The precise background and training of the guide(s) can vary widely and still be excellent, but in order to qualify as guides for a psychedelic session, it is absolutely crucial that they have been through intense psychedelic experiences themselves (dramatic experiences with transcendental meditation, for example, can substitute for drug use; however, familiarity with the specific substance being used is a big plus). In depth understanding of mind, open-mindedness, compassion and trust-worthiness are also key. Remember that this is the best case scenario: you may not be able to find (or afford) two guides for an extended session. One will usually be good enough, provided the trust is there. Sometimes, bizarre or terrifying things can emerge during the process, so it’s essential that a guide be able to accept intense, even shocking material, without judgment. Because of that, an inexperienced friend or lover may not be appropriate, regardless of how good their intentions may be. At the same time, a trained psychologist who has never had a psychedelic experience will also be inappropriate, because their training will not be adequate preparation for what can happen during a psychedelic trip. Choose your guide(s) carefully.

To Summarise:

Have at least one, ideally two, trustworthy and experienced guide(s) who you’ve met at least once before. Do your preparations, take your medicine, lie down, close your eyes and listen to music until your head explodes. After a few hours, talk about what just happened. Then go for a walk somewhere pretty. Meet up a couple days later and talk more.

In conclusion:

The psychotherapeutic setting for psychedelic experience is not the only setting which may produce benefit, but it is the most reliable, and one of the most powerful. I therefore highly recommend it as a starting point for anyone who wishes to explore psychedelics. Group, natural and ceremonial settings can also be great… but you should never, ever take a psychedelic for the first time in a public place, around people who don’t understand what a psychedelic trip is all about, or who you don’t trust completely. You simply do not know how you will react. You might miss out on most of the benefit you could have received, and you could even put yourself in physical or psychological danger. Save public settings for after you’ve established familiarity and comfort with the substance, and never take a psychedelic if you aren’t sure that it’s the right time and place to do so.

2011: 07/24
CATEGORY: Drug Education
4 comments

Cleansing and Banishing Rituals

Many people are aware that when you enter into a psychedelic experience, your set (where you’re at psychologically) and setting (how the experience is framed) can make a big difference. Do you have ways of clearing your mind so as to begin with a blank slate? Having a lot on your mind might provide useful material to work with during the experience, and even uncomfortable thoughts might provide an excellent opportunity to work through or resolve some of your baggage, but sometimes, influences from your mental state or surroundings can get in the way of what you’re trying to do, or even prove dangerous. On the one hand, be responsive! Trips often seem to have a mind of their own, and no matter what your intentions may have been, it’s almost always best to relax and take whatever comes, as it comes and on its own terms. On the other hand, there are ways of lessening the extent to which outside influences will be an issue. The biggest part of that, of course, is choosing your time, place and company carefully, but there’s also another very useful set of techniques: cleansing and banishing.

A banishing ritual is anything done to purify a space, literally banishing unwanted influences from the area. Many different magical systems have their own rituals, and it’s always best to use whatever makes the most sense or is the most salient to you and anyone you’re tripping with. If somebody has very negative associations with the occult, drawing pentagrams and vibrating the names of archangels in front of them might be a bad idea. Do what fits. This sort of ritual need not even be explicitly “magical;” carefully cleaning your body and your home can be an excellent way to prepare for a trip. Prosaically this means that you have a clean place to enjoy during the experience, or a clean place to return to after if you won’t be tripping at home, but the symbolic component is at least as important: by tidying up, you put your mind in order as well. Tripping somewhere you consider filthy can be really unpleasant and prevent you from getting anything meaningful out of it, and a messy place can also make you feel like a loser who never accomplishes anything. At least if you’ve got a clean room, you can feel that much better about how you spent your weekend! Bathing or showering beforehand likewise can give you a good place to start from. Remember that when your senses are enhanced, a level of mess you’re normally okay with might seem truly gross!

In contemporary Western occult circles, the most famous and widespread ritual of any kind is the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, or LBRP. It’s so prevalent that, during my series of interviews in the summer of 2010, three different respondents told me to include directions to it! One noted that it isn’t the banishing ritual he uses himself, but said that it’s the standard and doesn’t require any experience practicing magick for it to be useful or effective (others disagree, and suggest you should not involve yourself in ritual magic without proper guidance. Your call). Many magicians perform it first before doing any major working at all. It isn’t thought to contribute to or influence what comes after it; it simply dispels anything lingering in the air (be that meddling spirits or distracting thoughts). To that end, if ceremonial magic appeals to you, it might be worth trying it out before dosing. Here’s a set of directions written by one of my respondents.

An excellent, simple and popular way to cleanse an area is smudging: burning a sacred plant and washing yourself and the space in its smoke. Many plants can be used for this, each with different symbolism and effects. An Ojibwe elder taught me to take sacred tobacco and either white sage or sweetgrass — white sage if there’s a negativity that needs to be driven off, sweetgrass if we want to keep a good energy going — and burn them together in a smudge bowl (he uses a conch shell). To receive it you must have your feet firmly planted so that you can feel your connection to the earth (still works in a building as long as you’re not more than six stories up), and with your hands draw the smoke over yourself, offering the bowl to everyone present so that they may do likewise. Many people simply burn white sage on all occasions by itself, taking care to get the smoke into all corners of the space. From my experience, white sage burns much easier and more smoothly than sweetgrass and has a strong, pleasant, smell.

With sacred plants, growing them yourself is always the ideal, but the plant matter, and various “smudge sticks” (braids of plants for smudging) can be purchased commercially online, or at incense, herbal and First Nations stores. In Africa and the Middle East, frankincense has traditionally been burned for a similar purpose: it smells wonderful and leaves your space with a positive energy, functioning as an antidepressant and to sever connections to the past. Frankincense is also great to burn during the trip, any time you need a dose of positivity, whereas the First Nations way of smudging I would tend to do at the beginning, and the morning after, rather than during.

Remember, the point of any banishing or cleansing ritual is to make you feel comfortable and to keep out unwanted influences. To that end, do whatever makes the most sense to you, and don’t worry too much about being “proper” or about what comes from where: that’s not the point.

Got a favourite way to cleanse or banish? Post it in the comments!

2011: 07/17
CATEGORY: Drug Education
1 comment

Keep On Trollin’

Keep On Trollin’:

Contemporary heterosexual struggles with female gender presentation: two examples of drag juxtaposed in a popular YouTube video. (view or print as PDF)

Ray William Johnson (RWJ) is a comedian with more than two hundred YouTube videos, each with millions of views. His format is simple: each episode discusses three videos which have become very popular (“gone viral”), or otherwise interest him. His commentary tends to be deeply self-referential, “low brow” (fart jokes, sex jokes, self-deprecation, etc), and generally indulges in stereotypes, blatant but self-conscious sexism/racism (making racist comments and then admitting that they’re racist), “your mother” jokes… whatever will entertain people enough to make them watch his videos. He’s also highly tuned in to internet culture, dropping casual references to internet memes both popular and obscure. Because of this, and particularly because of his astounding popularity, I consider him to be as close to an embodiment of the young, cool mainstream as exists. By seeking out and surrounding himself with everything that fascinates people, and by indulging in every stereotype, he serves as a screen for the state of our[1] culture.

Not all of his videos are primarily about sex and gender; I’m just lucky that way: this came out after I’d sat down to write about gender, but before I chose a compelling topic. That said, this video is almost entirely focused on gender construction, and because of RWJ’s willingness to indulge in stereotypes, it’s very revealing of the current mainstream discourse on gender among plugged-in youth. Here’s a “quick” roundup of some of the sex/gender representations in the film.

The title is “GIRLS ARE CRAZY” (often, a man’s behaviour is seen as due to him and a woman’s as due to her gender). The audience is referred to as “guys” and generally assumed to be male. An unusually animated expression on a man is a “rapeface” and signifies him as a molester and/or rapist. Because the man in question is black, his likely victims are “white bitches.” Typical internet behaviour for guys is “Lookin’ for beatin’ material.” A man is initially identified as a girl based on clothing, movement, and serving as an object for male enjoyment. Guys who enjoyed this mimicry prior to knowing the performer’s biological sex are called “so gay.” Being gay is assumed to be something that guys are afraid to be, and of which “having a boner” is evidence (“body… regarded as access to unmediated truth” (MacKinnon, 1989)). Viewers think everyone is either a “douche” or a “fag” (gendered insults used in other than explicitly gendered ways). Our prototype of cool would enjoy the visual stimulation regardless of the actual gender of the performer, but uses the gendered insult “bitch” to demand the subservience and continued objecthood of anyone performing female gender traits. A penis is the default “weirdest part” of a man in drag. Reference to a “tranny bar” (bars are seen as the appropriate place for drag, despite the moustache which makes it highly unlikely that Steve is a “tranny”). RWJ speaks “for everyone” in complimenting Steve’s ass. If a young girl lacks a boyfriend, she feels something must be wrong with her. What guys want is lots of makeup, for her to be tan, to dance for them and to pose in ways that exaggerate sexual characteristics. RWJ calls her “sweetheart,” and suggests she “do the dishes.” Guys are easy to attract. Having a penis is an impediment to this, but it’s still easy. An appropriate response to stupid behaviour is violence directed at male genitalia (note that one of the pictured people when he says this is a woman). “Anywhore” replaces “anyway” and is used as a transition. The girl is recognised as giving a satirical “socio-political performance,” and Johnson compliments her on doing a great job. He then refers to the viewing guys from earlier as gay.

That’s a lot of gender and sexuality for just over 5 minutes worth of video. What I find interesting here is the parallelism between the two instances of drag, by which I mean conscious performance of gender presentation.[2] We have here a juxtaposition of two very similar behaviours: a biological male and a biological female performing certain elements of female gender presentation to a male audience as a form of “trolling” (internet behaviour in which you trick somebody to provoke some form of desired response). And, notably, both are complimented on doing so effectively, although the man is complimented on his ability to be sexually desirable (“nice ass”), and the woman is complimented on the “socio-political” statement she has made. That the man’s performance is also a socio-political statement is not considered, though in the words of Judith Butler, he is certainly “working sexuality against identity.” (Butler, 1993) The contemporary fluctuation in appropriate female gender presentation is revealed in both as inconsistent and tied in with oppression. The binary is assumed, as is men’s desire to watch women show off their bodies and dance. Particular traits – lack of body hair, revealing clothing, makeup, willingness to engage in sexual performance, facial hair – are highlighted as gender markers. (Tauches, 2011)

The way heterosexual males grapple with the implications of incidental attraction to men is also interesting. The manly response here is to recognise the drag as a joke and play it off, presenting as savvy and tolerant. Note that the viewing guys in the video say “very nice” after seeing Steve’s moustache, but RWJ still assumes they will now question their sexuality, and later calls them gay. By implying that, unlike them, he is certain of his heterosexuality and therefore can get sexual enjoyment out of a man in drag without questioning it, he gains status. Thus, homosexuality is experienced as a challenge to heterosexual identity (Butler, 1993), but not being bothered by that has become a mandatory part of masculine identity. The success of drag performances in rendering this mandatory, in particular via trolling as a cultural mode, demonstrates the relevance and effectiveness of Butler’s strategies for the undermining of identity, and the discursive changes they can bring about in a relatively short period of time. RWJ therefore succinctly echoes Butler’s politics: “keep on trollin’.”

Bibliography:

Butler, Judith, 1993. Imitation and Gender Subordination. In The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, edited by Henry Abelove et al.New York: Routledge. 307-320.

MacKinnon, Catherine. 1989. Sexuality. In Toward a Feminist Theory of the State.Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press. 126-154

Tauches, Kimberley. 2011. Transgendering: Challenging the ‘normal.’ In Introducing the New Sexuality Studies, edited by Steven Seidman et al. New York: Routledge. 134-139.

[1] By “our” I mean young people on the internet (prototypically but not exclusively the North American, English speaking internet – he’s also very popular in Russia, Japan and elsewhere).

[2] I would argue that presentation becomes drag when it is consciously, rather than tacitly, chosen

2011: 07/13
CATEGORY: Formal Essays and Research
Sex/Gender/Sexuality
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Iboga: Serious Business

I recently had the opportunity to try what is simultaneously one of the most positively transformative drugs there is, and one of the least fun. It’s totally legal in Canada, but normally a session with it would cost upwards of $10,000, and good luck finding it on your own — there isn’t much of a street market (although if you scroll down to the comments section you’ll see some entrepreneurs who’ve figured out this article would be a good place to advertise). Things have a way of finding their way to me, however, and so on the morning of Saturday, July 2, 2011, a shaman I’d only met twice previously came to my house with a small bag of dried iboga root bark, coated in mud from the jungle floor in Gabon.

What is Iboga?

Tabernanthe iboga is a very, very special tree. It’s the only well known African psychedelic, and it’s totally different from the various LSD or DMT-like substances you’re more likely to have encountered. Used mainly as part of the Bwiti religion, whose founders claim to have gotten it from Pygmy shamans, its pharmacology is not well understood. The most studied active constituent, ibogaine, is annoyingly difficult to synthesize, and its effects are sublimely complicated, seeming to work simultaneously through a number of different neurotransmitter systems. Of interest to drug connoisseurs is its kappa-opiod affinity, a trait which it shares with Salvia divinorum, and there are some distinctive features which bear that out: the visions are distinctly vocal, utterly unconnected to external stimuli, and very repetitive. However, sharing a few features with Salvia does not make the two drugs similar; iboga is fundamentally different from every other drug I have ever experienced. That its visions have more in common with those of Salvia than those of conventional psychedelics is less important than the orders of magnitude of difference in the durations of the two drugs, or the fact that you can still be perfectly aware of the world around you while deep into it on iboga.

Though we lack rigorous understanding of how exactly it works, iboga seems to have a three part effect. First, it seems to activate a REM cycle during the waking state, which leads to the curious situation in which you can literally watch yourself dream. Second, it gives an amphetamine-like stimulation: the heart pounds and the mind races (it is, therefore, contraindicated for anyone with heart problems — take this seriously, as there have been deaths). Third, it completely obliterates your sense of balance, meaning that if you try to move around you’ll become nauseated. In combination, this all means that you can’t really do anything except lie back and go into the powerful, introspective visions that come. When I ate my 5 grams of dried root bark, the mind-blowingly intense visions lasted for about 12 hours, followed by a 12 hour comedown. In Gabon, they supposedly eat 30-40 grams of wet root and it lasts for three days.

A major reason why iboga has received attention in North America in recent years is that it’s been conclusively proven to cure addictions. LSD, ketamine and other drugs are also known to help with addictions, but this is different… heroin addicts who take iboga not only have the epiphany that they shouldn’t use anymore (LSD is great for that), but it actually eradicates the physiological addiction as well. Something about its complex neurochemistry returns the brain’s homeostasis to non-addiction levels, which means that not only will it inspire you to not want to use, it’ll also make it so that you won’t have any withdrawal whatsoever (note that there’s a danger here: if a heroin user takes iboga, and then takes hir normal dose of heroin, sie may overdose. What is being reset is tolerance, of which withdrawal is a function). This has been confirmed in rat studies, and shown to not be exclusive to heroin: it also gets rats off of alcohol and nicotine, and interrupts non-pharmacological compulsions of all sorts in humans. This is a drug that literally frees your mind — and not simply from the dictates of a society intent on controlling your behaviour, which is the sense in which we usually mean that psychedelics free your mind. Iboga frees your mind from itself.

Like with most drug plants, there's a lot more than just one active chemical. Ibogaine has four isomers, and its key metabolite has some of the strongest effects

What’s it like?

It’s basically like watching yourself dream, but more intensely. Scenes from your memory and imagination play themselves out, but you have a certain distance from them and won’t necessarily identify with them directly, which means that even though it might show you all the worst things you’ve ever done, you’re likely to experience it as “huh, I shouldn’t do that stuff in the future” rather than “oh god I’m an awful person I deserve to die.” For many people the visions focus particularly on social network relations. Who are you connected to and in what ways? Who have you hurt or disappointed? How can you be a better person?

It’s even rumoured to demonstrate the objectivity of moral principles, and to affirm the reality of the spiritual beliefs of the tribe. Because of this, it’s well-suited for an initiation ritual, but even outside of its traditional shamanic context it has a distinctly moral character, visions more normative than transcendental. Whereas LSD reveals how amazingly rich and awesome the world is, and whereas DMT demonstrates that there’s way more going on than the physical world we can normally perceive, iboga teaches what it means to be a good person.

My trip report

I dosed at around 9:30 in the morning. 1 gram mixed into yoghurt, wait 45 minutes in case of allergic reaction (it can cause respiratory failure, and I have asthma and am allergic to some trees. Caution is prudent), 4 more grams mixed into yoghurt. The 4 grams I found to be particularly foul tasting, but with the addition of some honey and salt it went down okay. I retreated to my trip space and made a few notes as it slowly came on — once it was fully on, writing was not remotely appealing.

At first the visions were strange and sometimes silly, with very direct semiotic content: symbols, numbers, words. Subtitles and surtitles scrolled past my vision constantly, words overlapping other words, and I couldn’t make sense of nearly any of it. A soundtrack of fast paced, complicated music emerged: by far the most complex auditory hallucinations I’ve ever experienced.

A giant cobra appeared in front of me and opened its mouth, and the phrase “some day, you will die” repeated five times while I was swallowed. This didn’t alarm me in the slightest, and I found it stereotypical and largely irrelevant, but yet it persisted. Many strange patterns would coalesce briefly, combined with sounds or phrases, often entirely ridiculous material that I intellectually rejected — stupid in-jokes, content repeating across several visions. The more nonsensical and annoying to my rational mind, the more likely to show up over and over and over. Anticipating its 24 hour duration, it was in no rush, and didn’t mind mucking around a little — plenty of time for serious content later.

I remembered what my shaman had said about it being great at answering questions, so I asked it what I should do in the coming weeks. Series of numbers and equations which I couldn’t understand appeared, and after a couple minutes of this, the phrase: “learn math.” Damn this stuff is straight-forward.

Then… it actually kicked in.

A sequence of small brown cells emerged. Each would say the word “do” (both spoken and written on it) and become inert, and then another would appear to the right. do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do… columns and rows emerging, rapidly increasing. A mountain of brown forming. Soil, the inevitable end result of life. Self perpetuation. Permutations upon permutations. Complex forms arising, mistakes being made. Cellular reproduction errors, disgusting deformities, horrible disfigurements. Apocalypse.

I have no way of describing my visions in any sensible narrative, but this motif of intent — life’s simple desire to do, as opposed to not-do — continued for a long time. I saw complex portrayals of the many varieties of life, all tying back to an ever increasing mass of brown. I remembered how the roots I’d taken were coated in soil from the jungle in Gabon.

The visions covered many different topics and I can’t remember the vast majority of them. A lot had to do with Africa: how people there live, the many different species, something to do with the spirit of the land. It was distinctly conversational, and I felt that the continent itself was speaking to me. Oddly, it was not black people in Sub-Saharan Africa I was seeing for the most part, but Arabs in Morocco, probably Agadir. Go figure.

At one point I saw my mother surrounded by celestial beings with serpent-like tentacle wings. Her eyes were radiant. Many hours later when the visions came to an end, the first thing I did was to call her and tell her that I love her.

A huge proportion of the visions were extremely ugly. In the first half of the trip, the prevailing theme was organic diversity, mutation and adaptation, and the majority of that consisted of horrible deformities, twisted, malformed bodies, useless organs, and things like the cellular development of twins. I understood it as an exploration of the different ways in which life, trying simply to persist and reproduce itself, can end up doing something rather different, and how for the most part that only produces suffering, but occasionally leads to adaptation and the emergence of new stable forms. In the second half of the trip, I had many visions of the destruction of my body, the prevailing theme being too personal to explain here. All pretty messed up stuff. An interesting thing about iboga though is how it gives you distance from what you’re seeing, so for the most part it didn’t really bother me that I was seeing deformed and disfigured bodies. They simply were, and I did not judge them.

As I started to sober up, I was filled with an intense and very specific urge to share an erotic video I’d seen weeks earlier with an Egyptian friend I hadn’t spoken to in a while. I did, and she loved it. So specific. So strange.

The physical experience

I became nauseated around six or seven hours in, and began vomiting water whenever I drank it. Thanks to a successful fast, there was no taste to my vomit, so it wasn’t too bad, but I was certainly dehydrated and unable to move around. The trip lasted for an enormous amount of time, and was extremely exhausting… I’d turned off my cell phone and had no way of knowing what time it was, but I definitely spent a number of hours in disbelief that the visions were still taking place, already having experienced far more than I could remember or integrate, and just wanting to rest. In the evening I began to sweat, and the physical discomfort added to the overwhelming nature of the visions, leaving me in a prolonged delirium. The intense visions finally stopped around 10 PM, but I was still extremely introspective and needing to process a lot of very heavy, highly personal material that’d emerged in the second half. I listened to the song Thank You for Talkin’ to Me, Africa, posted the phrase as a Facebook comment, and lay down to think. At 8 AM I still hadn’t slept, was still nauseated, and was still seeing tracers and flashes of light around the room. I was eventually able to stomach a bowl of porridge in the early afternoon, and went to a yoga class at 6:30 PM, during which I sweat more than I’ve ever sweat in my life. That night I had trouble sleeping, but while the fast left me with low energy for the next day or so, at no point did I feel sleep deprived. Artificially induced REM is good for that.

After effects

Before taking iboga, I wasn’t addicted to any drugs, but I did have my share of compulsions. I also have ADHD, experienced partly as a constant excess chatter in my mind combined with a vague anxiety and restlessness, and to calm this I’ve self medicated many times with alcohol and cannabis. After taking iboga, I had absolutely no desire to drink alcohol or smoke. On Monday I had dinner with a friend and she wanted a beer, so I got one too, but could only bring myself to drink half of it. It absolutely did not interest me, and still does not, nor does cannabis. The most surprising thing is that my ADHD seems to have significantly improved. I was not expecting that, and maybe it won’t last, but after a week the excess chatter and restlessness are still far less than they were before my trip. My focus is enormously better, and I’ve had an unusually productive several days. Could iboga be a treatment for ADHD? This truly is an amazing medicine…

Update two months later: Most of these effects were not permanent. Iboga seems to interrupt compulsions, freeing you for at least a few days, but unless you make significant changes in your life during that time, your bad habits will probably creep back in.

In conclusion

Iboga is serious business. It tastes disgusting, it feels horrible, it lasts for an entire day, it’s almost impossible to acquire, and some of the visions it gave me were truly disturbing. It’s not fun in any way, shape or form. The experience was very difficult and a lot of work.

But it was also deeply rewarding. It didn’t teach me anything about morality or my social relations which I didn’t already know (though apparently it often does for others), but it brought to the surface and forced me to process some deep-rooted psychological difficulties, and has left me with substantially improved mental health. I don’t think I’ll take it again any time soon, but I’m very glad to have been through it. Almost the only reason I don’t recommend that nearly everyone try this stuff is that I’m worried about overharvesting; the jungle in Gabon is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I’d hate to see its ecosystem messed up by massive demand for a tree which only grows there.

Anyone got access to a greenhouse?

————————————————————–
Further reading:
The Healing Journey by Claudio Naranjo: http://www.ibogaine.desk.nl/naranjo.html

2011: 07/10
CATEGORY: Drugs, Herbs, Medicines, Poisons
80 comments

Project Ballyhoo: It’s Zine time, Baby!

The initial concept for the zine was “Psychedelic reflections on the G20.” Here’s what I’ve got so far! The above image is the front cover.

Inside front:
https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/ballyhoointro3.pdf
opposite:
https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/aintsayin1.jpg

https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/tacticalfrivolitycompanion1.pdf
opposite:
https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/tactical-frivolity.jpg

https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/aint-canada2.pdf
opposite:
https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/thisiscanada1.pdf

https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/thisiscanada2.pdf
opposite:
https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/thisiscanada3.pdf

Calligraphy above and below this, spread across the centre two pages:

https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/litany1.pdf
opposite:
https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/violencebias.pdf

https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/litanypart2.pdf
opposite:
https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/g20astro.pdf

https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/litanypart3.pdf
opposite:
https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/190147_4506362924_504652924_27899_908_n.jpg

https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/litanypart4.pdf
opposite:
https://michaelvipperman.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/artist-credits21.pdf

Back cover:

The plan here is two runs of printing. First run will be as many as I have investment to cover. They will be sold PWYC, recommended minimum $2. Proceeds will first go to reimburse investors, +10%. All further proceeds will be split 50/50 between honourariums for the artists who contributed, and reinvestment.

Second run will be as many as the profit from the first run can support. Division of proceeds to depend on how large that is. If it makes a profit, at least 50% will go towards the Legal Defence fund for the remaining G20 accused.

Let me know if you would like to invest.

So far I have $300 in pledged investment. At a printing cost of $1.63 per copy, that means the initial run will be ~200-400 copies. If I receive more investment, the initial run will be larger. All financial details will be posted online and remain transparent.

—————————————–

Update June 24:
Printed 300 copies at a cost of $489. Received $100 investment, have been pledged $100 each from two other people but have not received it yet. Sold two copies: one for $5 and one for $10. Several people have said they intend to buy one but have not seen me yet to do so.

Update June 25:

Monetary proceeds from one day selling booklets at and around a rally/march: $202.70. Other gifts: a necklace with great symbolic value that I prize highly and might repurpose, two DVDs, a bag of lychees and a live musical performance. The money is roughly 40% of the printing costs, so those who have already provided investment will receive 40% of their money back when next I see each of them. Speaking of which, also received $100 in investment.

Update June 26:

Sold five booklets for $5 each. Returned $50 to one of the initial investors. Several more people expressed intent to purchase.

Update June 30:

Rec’d $50 selling to friends and family

Rec’d $49 selling door to door

Update July 12:

Rec’d $44

Total rec’d so far: $385.7

Big box of issues left. They sell pretty easily if I actually put the time into offering them to people, but I’m not putting a huge amount of time into that at the moment, so it might take a while.

inside cover 1 2 3 4 5 6

2011: 06/23
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
1 comment

Reasons People Were Arrested at the Toronto G20 – Complete List of Explanations and Citations

Being from Montreal
Many Canadians and Quebecois alike came to protest the summit. Feeling that these people were a potential danger, they began arresting everyone from Canada’s favourite city without needing any other pretext.

Wearing Black
Due to the fear of “black bloc” tactics, many people were arrested for wearing black, even though many of us wear black all the time and the actual “black bloc” removed all their black clothing immediately at the end of the so-called “riot.” Adam Nobody, a roadie carrying a sign that said “Let Donna Graduate!” was tackled and punched repeatedly because his shirt was black.

Blowing Bubbles
The “officer bubbles” incident is now legendary. To be totally truthful, blowing bubbles was not actually the reason for her arrest: she was arrested for having the phone number for legal defence on her arm and possessing a bandana. I deeply apologise for publishing a misleading flyer.

Not Showing ID Fast Enough
Charlie Veitch, aka the Love Police, was imprisoned for a day and released without charge because, when a police officer asked for his identification, he insisted that the officer provide his own identification first. Canadians are not, by law, required to show ID when asked, which is why he was not charged. But why was he arrested and held in solitary for more than a day in the first place?

Planning a Dance Party
The idea was that Toronto is a fun loving city, so, while we resent the redistribution of wealth upward that the G20 represents, instead of a protest let’s have a street party and show the world leaders the freedom and beauty that Canadians believe in. Once the reality of the weekend set in, this became an extremely bad idea and really ought to have been cancelled by the organisers, but was it really justified to grab her with a snatch van? Plain-clothes officers jumping out of unmarked vans is no way to conduct an arrest.

Having the Keys to her Own Office
Lara Mrosovsky, who works in a children’s garden, was arrested for possession of “burglary tools,” which were the keys to her office. That’ll teach her.

Having Dinner at the Keg
A large group was walking along The Esplanade, many ready to call it a day and get some sleep. A police line formed in front of them, just past the doors of The Keg, so they turned to go the other way, but a new police line had formed behind. People asked to leave but were not allowed. At least one couple finished their dinner at the restaurant, unaware of what was happening outside, and were immediately arrested upon stepping outside, told by a cop that “it’s too late.” For what? Charter rights?

Being an amputee
This is probably the sickest one of all. Somebody decided that the Free Speech Zone had to be cleared, so cops charged forward with horses to get people to run, and then formed new riot lines successively further into the park until there was no park left. John Pruyn, a 57 year old amputee, was unable to run, and because he was moving too slow, instead of helping him, they confiscated his leg, dragged him across the concrete and kicked him repeatedly before arresting him.

Singing John Lennon Songs
A large group was walking along The Esplanade, ready to call it a day and get some sleep. A police line formed in front of them, so they turned to go the other way, but a new police line had formed. People asked to leave but were not allowed. So, tired, they sat down and sang Give Peace a Chance. As soon as they finished singing, a cop announced on a megaphone that they would all be arrested.

Carrying eye-wash solution
Many activists and reporters feared excessive force by the police, including the use of pepperspray and tear gas. Some brought eye-wash solution just in case. Police, upon finding it in people’s bags, declared it an “incendiary device” and had them charged.

Being Deaf
Emomotimi Azorbo was arrested for not obeying a police order he could not hear. He claims he was trying to cross the street to buy a drink; the order was to leave the area. The unnecessary arresting of young black men is hardly a new thing in Toronto, but did they really have to deny him a sign-language interpreter, insisting that a cop be present when he talked to his lawyer?

Having an Unlikely Name
Picture one man handcuffed on the ground, already beaten by a cop who has now been charged, another man in a uniform standing over him. “What’s your name?” “Adam.” “What’s your last name?” “Nobody.” — at this point, the cop kicks him the face, breaking his jaw, before another officer takes his wallet and realises that really is his name. Again, I have to apologise for being misleading… he would have been arrested anyway, for wearing black. But how has the officer who kicked him not been charged yet? He was handcuffed and on the ground for Christ’s sake.

Writing in Chalk on the Sidewalk
A designer and journalist was so offended by the Toronto Police Service’s conduct during and after the G20 that he felt compelled to write: SHAME ON YOU with charcoal (not chalk! My mistake) on the sidewalk outside Police Headquarters… so he was arrested, cuffed, strip-searched and put in solitary confinement on the charge of mischief.

Speaking French
This is really just part of the “Being from Montreal” reason above. The fact that people spoke French was used to identify them as being Quebecois and therefore a terrorist who needed to be arrested. I was told of one incident where a man was apprehended for speaking French, and released when they found out he was from France, not Quebec.

Wearing a Jester’s Hat
In truth. the jester’s hat was the reason police were able to identify and arrest the man, but their justification was that he was carrying a bottle of vinegar which they assumed was a bomb.

Following Police Instructions
Lines of riot cops arbitrarily shutting down dozens of streets gave conflicting and confusing orders to the crowds. Innocent people who asked the cops how they could go home were told to go to a place where everybody was immediately arrested. This was not one specific incident, but many.

Misinterpreted and Unconstitutional Secret Laws
Passed in secret and blocked from publication, the Public Works Protection Act did not actually include the powers that Bill Blair, the only person who had access to it, claimed. Police arrested and charged people according to his lies, and then the charges mysteriously disappeared and Blair claimed no-harm-no-foul.

Speaking in the Free Speech Zone
There were a lot of different people giving a lot of different speeches in Queen’s Park. When the police started forcing people out, some didn’t want to be silenced and stayed, and for this they were arrested.

Having Coloured Hair
This is one of several variations on being arrested for looking different. Police grabbed anyone they guessed was a protester, such as Natalie Gray, who was identified as such because she had blue hair and therefore must have been up to no good.

Carrying a Bottle of Vinegar
A police officer saw a protester with a bottle of something, assumed it was a molotov cocktail, and proceeded to arrest and charge the man even after discovering it was vinegar. He was recently acquitted of possessing an incendiary device.

Trying to go Home
This happened to dozens of people. The cops had shut down so many streets and made movement through the city so difficult that anybody unfortunate enough to be outside had a good chance of not making it home. This despite mayor David Miller’s request for us to go out and have a normal day in our city.

Singing Hip Hop
Hip-hop band “Test Their Logik” made an aggressive music video in which they encourage dissent. They were arrested for conspiracy and ordered not to make music together. Yes, the police literally ordered a hip hop group to disband. Good thing they got off.

Being a Legal Monitor
Fearing charter violations, legal monitors were trained to be in the crowds and make sure the police followed the law. As it turns out, the law had nothing to do with the arrests, and the monitors were arrested just like everyone else.

Living in Parkdale
A building in Parkdale was used to give somewhere for protesters to stay. Police cracked down on it and essentially arrested everybody in the vicinity, though it was nowhere near the summit site or any vandalism.

Wishing an RCMP Officer “Good Luck”
Sean Salvati went to a Jays game in the days leading up to the G20. Outside there were a lot of police and he had friendly conversation with them, hoping they would do a good job to defend the city. On his way home, he wished a female RCMP officer “good luck,” so they dragged him out of his taxi, arrested him, beat him and left him naked in a cell.

Giving TTC Tokens to Released Prisoners
A number of people came to support the 1105 prisoners being held in the Eastern Avenue detention centre, and were attacked and arrested for doing so.

Going to a Live Action Roleplay Event
Before the G20, a man was on public transit on his way to a LARP event in Southern Ontario. He was pulled off of transit and arrested because he had chain mail and some de-weaponised arrows (pool noodles attached to the ends by tube socks). Once they figured out he was unrelated and not dangerous, they let him go, but kept his gear, and then displayed it as examples of weapons brought “to attack our city.”

Having the Phone Number for Legal Defence
Fearing that people might be arrested unjustly, a legal defence group instructed people to write their phone number on their arm so that they’d have it, just in case. Police then used this to identify protesters — after all, if you were worried about being arrested, obviously you’re dangerous and should be locked up.

Taking Pictures
There have been a number of examples of police brutality documented by private citizens at the G20, and there have been a number of other examples for which the documentation has been destroyed (cameras smashed, or confiscated and the files deleted). In some cases, people were arrested simply for trying to document what was going on.

Organizing a Film Screening
Jaroslava Avila, a political science student at the University of Toronto, contributed to the protests of the G20 weekend by organising film screenings. Because that’s almost the same thing as telling people to break windows, she was arrested and charged with conspiracy. Her charges have been dropped because there was never any evidence, just like all the other “conspirators.”

Speaking on a Panel at the University
Alex Hundert, originally arrested before the G20 on charges of conspiracy, was given a bail condition that he was not to participate in any public protests. He didn’t think this would apply to speaking on a panel at Ryerson, and it turns out the judge agreed, but that didn’t stop seven RCMP agents from showing up at his door and arresting him for it. Apparently his ideas are too dangerous for us to hear.

And Many Others!
The events surrounding the G20 are hard to see as anything but the criminalisation of dissent. There are very good reasons why people should be protesting the G20. It’s easy to blame the “black bloc” or the unrelated bystanders who burned the cop cars, but the arrests actually started before those incidents, with late night warrantless raids on people’s houses, dozens of community organisers dragged away at gunpoint and hit with the vague charge of “conspiracy.” Make no mistake: their crime was protesting.

In the days that followed, many others were arrested as well, often for truly absurd reasons, and these are the reasons I have chosen to emphasise on my flyer, because they’re very hard to disagree about. No matter what you feel about the anti-state views of Hundert, Singh, etc (personally, I think they’re noble and worthy of our admiration, but short-sighted in a number of ways and sometimes too antagonistic), you no doubt agree that arresting a man for being an amputee is fucking disgusting. However, these incidents of “innocent” people being caught up took place in a broader context of a crackdown on all forms of dissent, “violent” and otherwise. The police campaign was extreme, brutal, unfair and totally illegal, and there are people who are still behind bars a year later simply because they don’t like the direction our government is taking. Given the unprecedented way they were victimised, how can we now not see that they were right all along? If the government is willing to do this, what else are they willing to do?

In the words of the CSN, “Support the G20 accused, even the innocent ones.”

In Solidarity,
Michael

2011: 05/30
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Thoughts and dreams