Chap 1-3, What a country!

The famed comedian, Yakoff Smirnoff used to say, "What a country!" This statement was yelled in a silly eastern European accent every time he was excited by something that can be done in America and not Russia. (For those not familiar with Yakoff work, check this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakoff_Smirnoff)
“What a country,” was my primary though as I read the first three chapters of Altered States, because the ideals expressed in every of the 40 or so pages are far off the grid of American popular culture.
I'm really going to avoid talking about this class in public because there might be protest. (Those of you that think that last statement was ridiculous need only read this link: http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/17/da.vinci/index.html. (To save you time I was highlighting the fact that our country is the place in which a piece of fiction was protested because it challenged certain religions.)

Not to send this post off in an entirely different direction I'll get back to my central theme. Discussing topics such as paranormal activity and consciousness seem to be relegated to T.V. shows like the X-files and Grateful Dead concerts, both mentioned in the reading. Not to 300 level classes in academia.

More than anything I'm happy to find a class like this because many of the ideals listed in our first reading are counter to many you find in our American society. This creates a vacuum to what can and can’t be trusted. For every validated and studied observation within our book, there is a plethora of other bad information elsewhere.

When you think about figures like shamans, they challenge the roles we find in multiple areas of our society. First being the religious establishment.

Many in America have their own shamans in the form of ministers, rabbi and priest. (That reminds me of a good joke) These religions have very rigid belief systems. They have their own processes that explain paranormal activity, consciousness and even demons.

We also have a health care system that disagrees with singular human being possessing healing powers, unless he's a doctor writing a prescription.

I'm not trying to persecute these establishments because I believe our society does a lot to fuel creativity and innovation, both other topics also tackled in our reading. While we spirituality is relegated into one segment of the society, creativity seems to remain on the forefront. One could argue that America rewards a lot of the virtues discussed in chapter 1.

In closing, I keep on thinking about Yakoff because I’m excited about this subject area. I already love the text book (appearance and price) and can’t wait to read some more Huxley.