Dave Cole's egocentric and dangerous view: "I have yet to run across anyone who had had extensive inner experiences."

Hi,
I joined this group some time ago. When searching, I apparently 
have never posted here, although I believe I carried on a brief e-
mail chat a few years ago about Rock Lyrics (old Yardbird fan) It 
seems I have had other correspondance at one time or another, but 
cannot remember specifics.

When reviewing the messages here, the books the resources etc., I 
find that much of the ideas expressed are along similar lines 
to "my," own "thinking."

While it seems that much of the deconstruction going on here focuses 
on the western models, my particular orientation has been in the 
Buddhist mode. I have been busy for some time trying to communicate 
to buddhist "larvels,"---pushing the "Entheogenic Origins of 
Religions," theory amonst literalistic Mahayana Buddhists. This has 
put me in the position of trying to unravel/deconstuct Buddhism and 
get to the heart of the explanations and tearing down dogma---
needless to say I have been confronted with nasty words and had for 
some time toyed with people, whose attention span is very short and 
who are generally very literalistic.

Of course Nichiren Buddhism had/has a broad appeal in Japan (third 
largest political party and member of the present coalition 
government) and in the west in the late sixties and up through the 
seventies. I basically resigned my function headquarters level 
function when I saw a schism coming, in 1982 and and then by the 
nineties they fell into frightening and massive schisms stemming 
from an argument between the High Priest of Nichiren Shoshu and the 
giant and highly political lay group, the Sokagakkai, lead by 
Daisaku Ikeda in Japan. Sokagakkai is worth around 125 billion in 
terms of money, just to give you an idea of it's size. In the Us 
there was at one tie around 200,000 members, today it is 
considerably smaller and far le4ss active in terms of conversion 
rate. The goal is enlightenment and "World Peace." Although they 
are accused of being a cult and some call them "dangerous," this is 
not really true---exceot to themselves and their own unity. In 
recent years they have become more democratic and less rigid, but 
the core still falls into the trap of following literalistic 
behavior, since they recruti from all ares of society, and has that 
tendancy to be old-school Japanese, very hierarchy oriented etc. 
Their schism spilled out across the oceans and into the lay groups 
of in over 125 countries.

After my heavy duty experiences with LSD and STP in the late 
sixties I became involved with Nichiren Buddhists, since the content 
of the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra (Jap. Myoho Renge Kyo) best 
resonated completely with my experiences. When I had first become 
involved in the west coast group, I was naive enough (at 20 years 
old--fresh from psychdelic-Buddhahood of my own) to imagine that all 
these young people must have had similar experiences as I had had. 
It didn't take long to discover that whatever the catylst was for so 
many westerners to get involved with Nichiren Buddhism, in the west, 
the psychedelic experience factor has only been a subliminal cause.

Many in the west who joined in the sixties had perhaps used LSD only 
to the point of the initially breaking down existing belief systems 
and creating a hypersuggestibile state. Few of them had a previous 
Buddhist study or practice background and in my 34 years of 
involvement with Nichiren Buddhists I have yet to run across anyone 
who had had extensive inner experiences.

Nichiren (1222-1282) was quite a guy though and living at a time of 
totally corrupt Buddhism, intertwined with perverse and bizarre 
tantric rituals, military ands government control---he was a 
passionate and heavily persected fellow.

In my experience, with many Buddhists and being a upper leader of 
the group in So California, for many years till 1982, there was a 
time when it was really an incredible phenomena, that was spreading 
at an incredible rate. Today they are pretty insulated and spend 
lots of time arguing with themsleves on the internet.....myself 
being the single voice trying to get them to deconstruct the 
Japanese cultural accretions and see that real Buddhism goes beyond 
dogma and distinctions about sects and superficiality or guru-style 
worship.

In the process, I have written a great deal of stuff that is 
considered too radical and trying to explain the Entheogenic Origins 
of Hinduism and Buddhism is generally like talking to Bodhidharma's 
brick wall.

Nichiren had created a Great Mandala called the Gohonzon, to which 
his followers recite a chapter and a half of the Lotus Sutra. He 
himself had had some heavy experiences, first when he was twelve---
some kind of "swoon." (ergot poisoning?) where he said he had had a 
vision of "Bodhisattva Kokuzo," who presented him with a "gem of 
singular importance," and then later, when practising the 
meditation style of Tien-t'ai (7th century) the Chinese Buddhist 
who taught the theory of "Three Thousand life states in a single 
moment," and mutual possession, which of course is much like the 
holographic mind theory, Nichiren came out of a period of seclusion 
and announced the mantra Nam Myoho Reege Kyo to the world, renaming 
himself "Sun Lotus," (Nichiren)
The Gohonzon, Nichiren taught, was the depiction of the 16th Chapter 
of the Lotus Sutra, wherein the Buddha reveals his "eternal life"

Over the years in studying archeoastronomy and Entheogen use, I was 
able to do a basic disection of the Great Mandala (gohonzon) and the 
calligraphic characters upon it and have basically deconstucted it 
in a piece I have worked on called "In the land of the Rose Apple," 
which breaks down those hindu, buddhist and shinto dieties 
inscribed upon it and the fictitious or imaginary bodhisattva 
functions, in terms of astronomical objects ala de 
Santiliana's "Hamlets Mill." It is a work in progress.

I wonder if you folks would be interested in this?

My present and recurring interest at this point in my life seems to 
be the idea of promoting the idea that "Freedom of Religion," should 
include Entheogen use. This is nothing new, but I find it 
interesting (and absurd) that the "theory" of the "Entheogenic 
Origins of Religion," has yet to go to the Supreme Court---if you 
know what I mean. Seems to me that a well thought out and 
rationally presented case, backed up by so many "scholar's 
scholars," such as Huston Smith, RA Zechner, Gordon Wasson, Aldous 
Huxley, Wendy Donniger, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, John Allegro and 
many, many others, even Albert Einstein and possibly even 
Shakespeare, who has suggested this "theory," could prove that 
making entheogens illegal really is violating the first ammendment 
to the constitution. Of ocurse this would take some kind of 
cohesive (but illusive) effort by many who are usually absorbed in 
their own goldfish bowls of reality.

Well, thats all I have to say at the moment, just felt the need to 
communicate on this board, since as I said, it echoes many of my 
own long time ideas and directions.

One last thing. Has anyone here purchased and studied the 2 
expensive (hundreds of dollars each and hard to buy) volumes by David 
Spess that elaborate on his little Book "Soma the divine 
hallucinogen?"

David Cole