The Art of the High/Die Kunst des Highs
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Can we learn how to induce a high that leads to mind enhancements instead of leaving us dazed and confused?
Sebastián Marincolo shows us how cannabis can be used to focus attention, recall past events in detail, recognize new patterns or to enhance our imagination. Based on his interdisciplinary research, he gives practical guidance on how to use these and other mind enhancements to create art or music, better empathically understand other people, enrich one’s love life, to arrive at deep and meaningful insights, and to personally grow.
A must read guide book for everyone who is interested in the psychoactive effects of cannabis!
German version available now. English version forthcoming this summer.
Praise
“Sebastian Marincolo’s work is terrific and is going to make a big contribution to the field.”
Lester Grinspoon,
Cannabis expert and Harvard Associate Prof. Emer. of Psychiatry
“Nobody has ever broken down the nuances of cannabis psychoactivity quite like Dr. Marincolo in what he calls a ‘bouquet of cognitive effects and enhancements.’”
Gregory Frye, editor-in-chief of THE BLUNTNESS
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What Hashish Did To Walter Benjamin
How did cannabis inspire outstanding thinkers, artists and musicians like Charles Baudelaire, Rudyard Kipling, Walter Benjamin, Billie Holiday, Diego Rivera, John Lennon, Carl Sagan, Hal Ashby, Richard Feynman, and so many others? And how much did the cannabis high positively transform human societies through their work and its influence on hundreds of millions of users?
What Hashish Did To Walter Benjamin – Mind-Altering Essays on Cannabis is a collection of 20 groundbreaking neurophilosophically essays on the astounding positive potential of the cannabis high. Marincolo’s new essay collection does not only further explore the effects of a cannabis high on individuals, but also discuss the role of the positive potential of the cannabis high as it unfolded in the past – and as it may impact humanity in the future. This deep new exploration of the marijuana high as an altered state of consiousness addresses educated cannabis users and their relatives, medical cannabis professionals and patients, as well as neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers interested in the subject of altered states of consciousness.
Praise
“Marincolo’s research on the marijuana high is years ahead of others working in this field”
Joe Dolce, former editor-in-chief of Details and Star magazines. He is writing a book, as yet untitled, about the new world of cannabis.
“I agree with Marincolo’s argument about the connection between Benjamin’s meditations on hashish and his meditations on art in the Work of Art essay and elsewhere. I believe, as Marincolo suggests, that there are a good many connections with other areas of Benjamin’s thought as well (…)”
Howard Eiland, lecturer at MIT School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, co-editor of Benjamin’s Selected Writings and author of a biography on Walter Benjamin
HIGH. The Positive Potential of Marijuana
Does marijuana have a potential to lead to introspective and empathic understanding? Can it help users to generate creative ideas and valuable insights? To see new patterns and to retrieve distant memories?
Writers like Jack London, William Butler Yeats, or Charles Baudelaire used marijuana as a source of inspiration, just like the musicians Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, or the Beatles. The world famous scientists Carl Sagan claimed that marijuana helped him to gain deep insights which he often used in his publications.
In seven essays inspired by neuroscience the philosopher and photographer Sebastián Marincolo delivers new and groundbreaking explanatory approaches drawing on recent interdisciplinary research from the philosophy of mind as well as from neuroscience and other cognitive sciences. HIGH. The Mind-Altering Potential of Marijuana features dozens of fascinating reports from users about their experiences with cannabis as a mind enhancer. Based on more than a decade of research also in close cooperation with Carl Sagan’s best friend, Harvard Prof. Emer. Lester Grinspoon, one of the world leading experts on cannabis, Marincolo develops groundbreaking new hypothesis and explanations of how cannabis effects higher cognitive functions. His fine art macro photography series of marijuana strains based on deep-focus-stacking technology brilliantly complements the unusual intellectual perspective on the positive mind-altering potential of marijuana. The book also includes a foreword written by Lester Grinspoon.
Praise
“It was not until some years after I began these studies that I initiated personal use of marijuana and I gradually began to discover its capacity to enhance some of my capabilities. I have now arrived at the point where I view this substance as a nature-given blessing. And I am thankful that Sebastian Marincolo has provided us with his timely “High. The Positive Potential of Marijuana” which, as the reader will discover, does much to illuminate this wonderful phenomenon.”
Lester Grinspoon, medical marijuana expert and Harvard Associate Prof. Emer. for Psychiatry
“In many places, Marincolo’s arguments profit from the fact that the philosopher has a specialization in the cognitive sciences. Also, Marincolo’s lovely photos of the plants are stunning; magic floral details, wet chlorophylic dreams.”
Arno Frank, journalist, in a review for the SPIEGEL-ONLINE, one of Germany’s biggest online news resources
Available in German.
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High. Insights on Marijuana
Is it true that a marijuana high can lead to profound insights, as many users have reported? In his now classic essay “Mr. X”, anonymously published in 1971, even the famous astronomer Carl Sagan claimed that he owed many invaluable insights for his publications to marijuana. The investigation High. Insights on Marijuana explains in depth the different ways a marijuana high can lead to insights as well as to other mind enhancements, such as the enhancement of episodic memory, pattern recognition, imagination, creativity, introspection, and our ability for empathic understanding of others.
Countless fascinating reports given by marijuana users and cutting-edge research from various areas of knowledge help Marincolo to take our understanding of the marijuana high to a new level. His unusual study is a thoroughly accessible and entertaining interdisciplinary tour de force through the current cognitive sciences, evolutionary psychology, neuropsychology and the philosophy of mind. High. Insights on Marijuana offers a revolutionary new perspective on the mind-enhancing potential of marijuana and takes his readers to a voyage deep into the high mind.
Praise
“I’m loving it! Wow. What an amazing, important work! Your book is such a treasure – a unique resource. Such a definitive statement of everything I’ve been thinking when it comes to marijuana … I now understand the benefits that Norman Mailer, Carl Sagan, and Richard Feynman got from Marijuana.”
Jason Silva, filmmaker, gonzo journalist and founding producer/host for Current TV, the Emmy winning cable network started by Al Gore
“Marincolo’s writing and manner of thinking are excellent – I am enthusiastic about recommending his work.”
Michael Backes, author of „Cannabis Pharmacy – The Practical Guide to Medical Marijuana
Alien Minds. Investigating Eliminative Materialism
(Doctoral thesis in philosophy, published under my name Sebastian Schulz)
Alien Minds. Investigating Eliminative Materialism is a comprehensive discussion of one of the most radical and though provoking philosophical positions of our time. Proponents of eliminative materialism argue that new findings in the neurosciences are beginning to show that our folk psychology as well as current scientific psychology based on our folk-psychological framework must be considered as radically false and will therefore be eliminated in the future. Accordingly, our current psychological frameworks will be replaced by a new “psychology” which will be built on the new insights of the “materialist” cognitive neurosciences.
Marincolo’s critical refutation of this radical philosophical thesis turns out to be a tour de force through the recent philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the philosophy of science.
Received a grant from the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft)