My new album of Dionysian lyre music out now! https://ataraxiaalpha.bandcamp.com/al...

A nightclub is more religious than a church, as it is the place where the original religious rituals of our prehistory still take place today. The act of dancing to music, forgetting ones problems, losing ones sense of individual self and becoming part of a larger whole or feeling at one with others have always been natuaral human needs. Whether they take place in a shamanic circle, Dionysian procession, dance hall or rock concert, the psychological benefits which this behaviour brings are not lost on us.

What is a religious communion and where do these rituals come from? Eating & drinking are religious rituals. When we eat we assimilate the properties or nutrients of the food. If we ourselves were to be eaten our own powers would be taken on by our devourer. This is clear in early religions that were agricultural, the God was in the food which was grown and then consumed. This idea has survived even into the monotheisms with bread representing the God whose powers are taken on through being eaten. The meaning of communion is precisely this, to take on the powers of the God by eating him or her. This sort of communion is common and is apparent from the Bacchaic rituals of Dionysos to Jesus' last supper. The baccants eat the raw flesh of animals and drink wine to become intoxicated with the power of the God just as a Christian comes to be one with Christ by eating the bread & wine of communion. We should speak less of the food of the gods, like Terrence McKenna does, and see rather that the food is the God itself. When we eat we assimilate the powers, which is still apparent in the Christian tradition of thanking God before commencing a meal. We take our powers from whatever we choose to eat and assimilate into our bodies. As it is commonly said that character can be determined by diet. This is more specifically the case with those who choose to consume what our society calls "drugs". Narcotics have always been considered to be powerfully spiritual and hence their demonisation as "drugs" in modern societies. Both Catholicism and the secular state have felt threatened by the individuals direct contact to the divine through these mediums, not needing an intermediary. There are many examples similar to the better known Dionysiac cult of intoxication through wine, such as Corn Dolly deities sacrificed in various rural communities even to this day and age. The God is drunk as ale, or eaten as mushrooms and other psychedelics, which are now considered "drugs" were once called entheogens, quite literally to "put the God within you". This is also clear with the idea of the state of ecstasy. Literally from the greek for ex stasis, out of the body.

Nightclubbers are thus engaging in the same Dionysian or shamanistic rituals today when they let a combination of music, alcohol & drugs, get them out of their everyday experience. A night club is then far more religious than a church, as it is only here where people, quite unknowingly for the most part, engage in the original religious rituals of dance and intoxication to become one with the world around them, while partaking of the same cathartic benefits that this ritualistic behaviour has always had and still brings us.

More lyre music available at:   / ataraxiaalpha  

Thanks for listening!