"Most people never realize that the purpose of intoxication is to sharpen the mind." Aghori Vimalananda
A curious quote and not something easily understood on face value. I did hear a theory once that modern western civilisation was created through alcohol. It may seem strange but think about it, creativity is something that comes spontaneously, something without conscious effort. Alcohol loosens that conscious inteference to let the subconscious express itself. So our inventiveness may have come about by having alcohol in our diet!
Some examples without alcohol; Einstein came up with some of his greatest ideas, not by laboratory analysis but by aimlessly day-dreaming. When I write poetry, usually it comes best when I don't have any intent about it. In fact times when I'd quite happily sleep I can't because there's so much "noise" in my mind, it has to be written down!
Going back to alcohols hand in western civilisation; we've also got a huge complex culture surrounding alcohol itself, we have the institutions of bars, clubs and pubs, there are many different types of alcohol and different ways to serve and drink alcohol. Nothing quite as complex as a Japanese tea ceremony but complex nonetheless like the symbel ritual of Theodish and Asatru or the more modern drinking games.
Alcohols become such a cultural influence it's given birth to Alcoholics Anoymous, which isn't just a group of alcoholics getting together and talking about their problams but it also hase the 12 Step system, which has a spiritual aspect to it. But this goes against the above quote. AA is about people who want to remain sobre because they cannot control their drunkeness not about reaping the benefits of a drunken creativity.
We should also be careful of our state of mind. An ex-girlfriend was talking about mind altering substances and how if you're in a bad state of mind then any drunken, hallucinatory or 'high' experience will be a bad experience. For this reason and also seeing the effects of alcoholism I do not use alcohol or any substance to compensate for my emotions, instead I prefer to sobrely deal with them.
Perhaps to sharpen the mind means that people who are able to consciously indulge in drunkenness and fantasy and consciously detach themselves from it at will are the ones who reap the benefits and have the "sharpest" of minds. They do not drown the rational mind in emotions nor do they suppress emotions with rational analysis, they balance it.
Much like einstein, he didn't permanently day-dream. One moment he'd analyse, he'd then take a break and day-dream where his E=MC2 bubbles up from the subconscious. Here his rational thinking had sunk it to be processed without rational interference so it could have a more organic, active form. Then of course with this he'd go back to his rational thinking to give it more rational sense.
This is the same process as my poery writing. I like to fill my mind with info and when I've got something really interesting I read about it then put it down. Later it'll "bubble up" again where I can use the right words to express it. It's like the info gives it a bone structure then the more spontaneous subconscious part of it gives it muscle. Without our bones we'd be like living jelly, without muscles we'd be, well dead...
Another point to make about fantasy or drunkeness is that is that humans have developed a psychological need for fantasy. For all the rational atheists preaching about objective and logical truth we still have this inbuilt desire for fantasy and ritual. But if we indulge this too much we live a useless delusion. What do we do?
Well like Satanists we can allow our selves an "Intellectual Decompression Chamber" http://www.dpjs.co.uk/idc.html Some Satanists being objectivists also recognize humans are a religious animal, where we need some sort of ritual, magic, fantasy, dogma and meaning in our lives. To deny this is a kind of emotional suicide, a most unhealthy act. So to satiate our religious desire AND not fall onto the path of delusion we can allow ourselves Anton Lavey's Intellectual Decompression Chamber, where you indulge in consciously contrived delusion allow some moments for ritual and fantasy before returning to sobre consciousness.
There's the norse god Odin that can teach us a thing or two about this. To gain wisdom he made a sacrifice. That is in exchange for wisdom he had to sacricfice an eye, like he's taken out one sobre 'outward' looking eye to gain an intuitive 'inward' looking eye.
So what I think is that drunkeness or delusion isn't sharpness in itself but a tool to aquire sharpness of mind, much like rough sand-paper creates smooth wood, or how smelly poo can make a colourful and fertile garden. I like ritual, I like mythology and the feeling of 'sacredness', why shouldn't I use those? But i do, and from it I gain not just 'good feelings' but also a sense of community in group rituals, there's also the fact it can convey the sense of something sacred, magical and meaningful and these are I think, important for our psychological welfare.
Note: I've confused some concepts because of the limits of language and because different people apply different values on them, like magic-mundane, fantasy-fact, delusion-knowledge, unconscious-conscious, intuitive-intellectual, irrational- rational. Some of these overlap and some of these don't, but they all have a parallel in one way or another.
