W E B T R A I L

* Marijuana product placement on grocery shelves? link

* Visualize that the Holy beings enter your heart chakra or a Dharma wheel in the form of lights before you move anything on the altar. There really is a method to moving your altar. link

* A Pima, Arizona, couple has stepped down as leaders of a church that considers marijuana a sacrament and deity. The government contends the church is a front for drug trafficking. link

* Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox - A documentary. link

* I didn't know Richard Clarke had a website. link

* BBQ-ing with Bobby Seale - Yes, that Bobby Seale. link

* Help Hastert Hide the Perv and more silliness - link

* David Byrne offers up “Record Companies: Who needs Them?” and gives his opinion on the Montreal music this week. link


FULL MOON
Take some time around this Full Moon to create more balance in your life, in whatever way you feel called. Use the tools you have to stay centered. listen to your heart, and remember: "To go out of our minds at least once a day is tremendously important. By going out of your mind you come to your senses! When you come out of the conditioned, limited and unaware mind the center of gravity naturally shifts to the heart." --Alan Watts

CROTAN

Dr. Dennis McKenna is the world's leading researcher into Ayahuasca, a trans-formative chemical compound that was developed by the Shamans of the Amazon. Just wanted to touch base with everyone and let you know about Croatan. Thank you for helping us to make this happen. Croatan is a unique event and the first of it's kind to be hosted in the heart of Appalachia. Dennis will be making a brief appearance at Malaprops (Asheville, NC) on Saturday around noon and then back to the Croatan site by the river that evening. The main lecture will be at 5:30 on Saturday, 4-22. [MORE]

Directions - You'll find more liberal, progressive, and underground events like this on my Asheville website.

John Halpern: an informant for the DEA?

-- by Jon Hanna

"I've recently penned the article "Halperngate" for the current issue of The Entheogen Review."

"Since this article deals with a lesser-known snitch, John Halpern, who has also been a psychedelic researcher largely supported by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, and who still frequents underground events (he will be part of a team at the 2006 BOOM Festival's crisis tent), I feel that it is important for the psychonautical community to have the opportunity to read about Halpern's past choice to repeatedly provide testimony to the DEA related to the arrest and trial of Leonard Pickard and Clyde Apperson, who were ultimately both convicted of LSD manufacture." A PDF of the article is posted at:

www.entheogenreview.com/halperngate.html

"Information about the availability of the hard-copy of this issue of The Entheogen Review will be posted at their main site after 4/12/06; this issue (Vernal Equionox 2006) also contains some reviews of the LSD conference in Basel, the H.R. Giger museum, and a Swiss absinthe bar. As well, there's an ayahuasca article from Peter Gorman, and network feedback notes on the psychoactivity of Pedicularis species, Kaempferia galanga, Atropa belladonna, and DOC. Plus there's an events calendar, my "Sources" column reviewing the latest in psychedelic art, entheobotanical vendors, and book dealers, and a remembrance for Carla Higdon, who passed away earlier this year. See www.entheogenreview.com for more information on the journal."

Interesting.... and probably not the only one in the psychonautical community.

Life Among the Neo-Pagans
--Paul Krassner's article on the Starwood Festival

The first event was on a weekend, attended by 185 people, with twenty presentations and a bonfire built from an old split-rail fence. This July marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of Starwood; the weeklong event drew 1,600, with 150 presentations and twenty musical and theatrical performances. I attended several workshops, including "Shamans and Drugs" by Stanley Krippner, a psychology professor at Saybrook Institute, psychic researcher and co-author of Dream Telepathy. A member of the Rainforest Action Network, he mentioned a Brazilian tribe, the Guarani, whose members have hanged themselves from endangered trees. I related my participation at an ayahuasca ceremony in Ecuador where the shaman's shrine included a sealed-beam headlight from an old Buick and a gray clamshell-like item that opens up, revealing a head of the Virgin Mary that can be used as a Jell-o mold.

[More »»] - Via [Wildhunt Weblog]

About Terry Gilliams's Tideland, Jennifer Tilly says, "Jeff Bridges is a burned-out rock musician addicted to heroin, and I'm an ex-groupie addicted to methadone - and we have this little neglected and abused girl who is living in a fantasy land."

"This movie is very surreal. Terry describes it as a cross between Alice In Wonderland and Psycho. Tideland is done, says Gilliam. Just tell me when to show up at the theater.

The Mars Volta to curate next ATP (All Tomorrows Parties). Bands so far confirmed to play alongside The Mars Volta include The Kills, Diamanda Galas, Cinematic Orchestra, Blonde Redhead, Jaga Jazzist, Weird War, and more. What makes ATP events so fun is that they have chalets available for weekend rental with the shows.

The Ayahuasca-Alien Connection. Excerpts from:
Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman

Advance Tom Robbins book, Wild Ducks Flying Backqards already sold on eBay. (Thanks, Madison)

More banned cover art from Freeway Jam. Comprehensive listings in Taboo Tunes. For being against the war, (Dead Kennedys, Barry McGuire) having a misplaced appendage, visual pubes (Black Crowes cover), teeny boobs flashing (Blind Faith), and more.

Weirdness Quotient: Country Porn - NSFW and Ice Cream Truck songs from WFMU.