Psychedelic Adventure

Hippie Masala : A Documentary about Flower Children !

In the 1960s and 1970s thousands of hippies journeyed east to India in search of enlightenment. Indian peasants assumed that a severe drought in the West was the reason for their migration. India’s holy men saw it as a search for a deeper spiritual meaning to life.

Most of the hippies moved back to their home countries after a few months or years while others stayed for good. 'Hippie Masala' is a portrait of Western expatriates: Robert from Holland, a gifted painter, lives with his wife and young children.

Meera, a hermit, seeks enlightenment on her own, while Cesare, an Italian expatriate, strives for spiritual liberation through back-breaking yoga. Hanspeter, a man originally from Switzerland, runs a small farm in the Himalayas. Erica and Gillian, South African twins, sew hippie handicrafts by day and party tirelessly at night.

All, in the end, embraced this land of ancient traditions and transcendent pleasures as their own. Hippie Masala is a fascinating chronicle about aging flower children who, after fleeing Western civilization, found a new way of life in India.

Reference : Alive Mind Cinema

Strain Hunters : India Expedition ~ A Cannabis Documentary

Cosmic ૐ Oneness Cannabis , Documentaries 0 Comments

'Strain Hunters' are people that can’t sit still for too long, hence embark on another expedition traversing the Malana Valley in the Himalayas in search of the fields from where comes the world's finest charas made from live plants.

After completing the Malawi expedition in 2008, Arjan and myself began to think about the next mission. We had many destinations in mind, because the list of places where amazing landraces are awaiting is a long one. After much thinking and talking we selected a few “top-spots” on our list, and started gathering information and ideas. It became very clear that there was one place that could not be overlooked: the region of the Himalayas, particularly the Indian side, where the best charas and creams are from.

Ever since 1993, when the Green House won the Cannabis Cup with a cream from Malana, Arjan wanted to explore the origins and the history of this wonderful hashish. His last trip to India was in the 1980s, when he acquired the genetics that gave birth to the Himalaya Gold, one of the most acclaimed outdoor strains ever produced. So we decided time had come to go strain hunting in India. Now we needed a good guide, someone that could show us the right path to the highest fields, the tastiest creams, and the holiest of mountains.

A few years back, during one of the Cannabis Expos we attended in Europe, we met Italian book writer and connoisseur Franco Casalone, author of the most famous books on cannabis written in Italy. He lived in the Indian Himalayas for several years, living the life of a true charsí (master of charras-making). We suddenly had the feeling that he was the right man for our mission, so we contacted him. Loving the chance to get back to his beloved mountains, he accepted to be our guide, to become a Strain Hunter, and to make our dream possible. What started as an idea was now becoming reality.

Time to organize a scouting-trip to have a look at the area and prepare the path for the realization of the second Strain Hunters documentary. In June 2009 we boarded a flight to Delhi, and the adventure began. We spent two weeks trekking the mountains and the valleys of Himachal Pradesh, meeting several key-players in the area, from mountain guides to growers, and we visited more than 30 fields for the production of charras and cream. In this area the seeds are planted in May, so we could see tens of thousands of young plants already growing in the fields. For most of the fields we visited, we sampled the charras made the previous season. This way one can select the best fields and the best growers and charras makers.

Planning for a documentary involves truly challenging logistics: every route has to be walked in advance, camp sites have to be checked, and because electricity is needed to charge batteries and back-up of tapes it’s not easy to stay too long away from civilization. Moreover, moving through rough mountain terrain with a whole camera-crew can prove difficult, unless every detail is considered and every issue is addressed and solved beforehand. When we were satisfied with our plan, we went back to Amsterdam to start organizing for the mission ahead.

We were excited because we knew that we had found an amazing place with amazing people. In these mighty mountains charras has been used for thousands of years, and only recently the Indian government, under US and EU pressure, is acting against it. Since 2003 the police started chopping down cannabis crops and arresting people who produce charras. New dam-projects are underway, and the life in this region will change forever once they are completed. The entire cultural heritage of these mountain will be washed away in a few years, unless people around the world become aware of the problem. So we felt it was our duty to expose the situation of the cannabis plant and the people that live in these areas, victims of an out-of-control globalization madness.

We planned to go back to India at the beginning of October, when the first crops would be mature and the people would be busy making the charras and the creams the whole world want to smoke. The months went by fast, because life is busy at Green House Seed Company, and we never have time to get bored.. before we knew it, it was time to go back to the holy mountains of Shiva and Parvati. We arrived in India on a hot night, the air was sticky and the intense smell of the city was hard to accept after a long flight. Simon was there waiting for us, another Strain Hunter joining the mission from a far corner of Africa. The crew was complete, and the spirits high.

After another short flight to Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, we started driving. The car: a Mahindra, the roughest of Indian off-road vehicles. For 14 days we drove, we rode Enfield bikes, but most of all we walked up and down the mountains and the valleys of this amazing part of the world. We smoked great charras and unbelievable creams, mostly 1 or 2 years old, but in some cases even 3, 4 or 5 years old; real connoisseur stuff, jealously preserved by many master makers. We rubbed many hands of cream, learning the secrets from those who have been doing it all their lives. We met amazing people along the way, people that are struggling to preserve their lifestyle, their environment, their values and their entire framework of living. Globalization is claiming their land, and forcing them to adopt the values of a consumer-driven society, where being self-sufficient in harmony with nature goes against the principles of the economy. For 14 days we witnessed the damage brought to these communities by the building of dams, roads and other massive infrastructural projects.

During the traveling we were able to collect many seeds from different phenotypes of the same landrace, as well as some variations crossed with other genetics imported from Pakistan, Afghanistan and even from Swaziland. Now it's our time to give something back. Thanks to the cooperation between Green House Seed Company, the Green House Foundation and Gagarinpost Productions, a dream has come true. We are proud of it, and we look forward to the next dreams.

Reference : Strain Hunters

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Touched : A Documentary on Alien Encounters

Cosmic ૐ Oneness Aliens , Documentaries 4 Comments

'Touched' is a documentary film by Laurel Chiten (Twist and Shout, The Jew in the Lotus, Twisted) which features interviews with people who believe they have had multiple encounters with these beings, which can be best described as the typical grey humanoid ETs with large pear shaped heads and almond shaped eyes. While some report these experiences as terrifying, some feel a deep connection with these beings ... perhaps from past lives in different worlds !

Here is what Lauren Chiten has to say about the film ...

A few years ago, Harvard psychiatrist John Mack, a leading researcher in the alien encounter phenomenon, approached me after seeing my recent film The Jew in the Lotus. He wanted me to consider making a movie about encounters with these alien life forms. I told him no. I knew next to nothing about alien abduction, had no interest and thought it was all rather foolish. Then, he invited me to meet some of the people who claim to have had these experiences. They seemed rather normal and spoke about their feelings of connection and longing for these uninvited intruders to return. I had stumbled into a world filled by people who had been touched by something ... and had their lives blown apart because of it. I was mesmerized. I feel that I was abducted by John Mack.

This started my journey into the lives and minds of alleged abductees around the world, and into my own personal journey through skepticism, fear, insomnia, fascination, confusion and led to many many questions.

These “experiencers,” as many of them call themselves, bring with them reports of missing time, bodily probing, sperm extraction, impregnation, a strange project to create a hybrid/alien-human race and apocalyptic warnings. According to various studies, the number of people world wide reporting alien abductions reaches into the hundreds of thousands. As there is no conclusive physical proof, the debate as to whether these stories are true or not could go on forever. Instead, I became more interested in the people — those who have had their lives both torn apart and transformed by this experience.

What happens when the unexplained intrudes into our lives, and how do lives and relationships respond when credulity is strained to a breaking point? This is the leading question I set out to explore. This is a film about the human experience — about longing for connection and fear of separation.

When a person is confronted by something that is so powerful, so indescribably outside the realm of everyday life, it forces a reexamination of everything previously taken for granted. The experience redefines every relationship: with one's self, family, and reality itself.

Following the lead of those like Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell the audience will witness an archetypal “Hero's Journey.” For the subjects of our film, this experience has resulted in a kind of Holy Grail search for truth. Beneath the sensational aspects of alien abduction, these are real people looking for answers. Touched follows a human quest to solve a mystery — perhaps only to find that the answer is the quest itself.

I now call myself agnostic. I am not convinced that these people have been visited by “aliens,” but I do believe that something profound has happened to them. And maybe, just maybe, everything they have described is, in fact, completely true.

— Laurel Chiten

Blind Dog Films

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The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav

Cosmic ૐ Oneness Gary Zukav , Oneness 0 Comments

Gary Zukav's "Dancing Wu Li Masters" is a wonderful mind expanding journey into the world of quantum mechanics. At an Esalen Institute meeting in 1976, tai chi master Al Huang said that the Chinese word for physics is Wu Li, patterns of organic energy. Journalist Gary Zukav and the others present developed the idea of physics as the dance of the Wu Li Masters, the teachers of physical essence. Zukav explains the concept further...

The Wu Li Master dances with his student. The Wu Li Master does not teach, but the student learns. The Wu Li Master always begins at the center, the heart of the matter. This book deals not with knowledge, which is always past tense anyway, but with imagination, which is physics come alive, which is Wu Li. Most people believe that physicists are explaining the world. Some physicists even believe that, but the Wu Li Masters know that they are only dancing with it.

The new physics of Zukav's 1979 book comprises quantum theory, particle physics, and relativity. Even as these theories age they haven't percolated all that far into the collective consciousness; they're too far removed from mundane human experience not to need introduction. The Dancing Wu Li Masters remains an engaging, accessible way to meet the most profound and mind-altering insights of 20th-century science.

~ Mary Ellen Curtin

Gary Zukav has written "the Bible" for those who are curious about the mind expanding discoveries of advanced physics, but who have no scientific background.

Like a Wu Li Master who would teach us wonder for the falling petal before speaking of gravity, Zukav writes in beautifully clear language, with no mathematical equations... opening our minds to the exciting new theories that are beginning to embrace the ultimate nature of our universe... Quantum mechanics, relativity, and beyond to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect and Bell's theorem.

Get The Book

Reference : Gary Zukav

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