Xenolinguistics | Free Book
Xenolinguistics documents the author's eleven-year adventure of psychonautic exploration and scholarly research; her original intent was to understand a symbolic language system, Glide, she acquired in an altered state of consciousness. What began as a deeply personal search, led to the discovery of others, dubbed xenolinguists, with their own unique linguistic objects and ideas about language from the psychedelic sphere. The search expanded, sifting through fields of knowledge such as anthropology and neurophenomenology to build maps and models to contextualize these experiences. The book presents a collection of these linguistic artifacts, from glossolalia to alien scripts, washed ashore like messages in bottles, signals from Psyche and the alien Others who populate her hyperdimensional landscapes.
With an entire chapter dedicated to Terence and Dennis McKenna and sections dedicated to numerous other xenolinguists, this book will appeal to those interested in language/linguistics and the benefits of psychedelic self-exploration, and to readers of science fiction.
In The Press
“Diana Reed Slattery, the author and also the inventor (or perhaps
discoverer is the better term) of Xenolinguistics, her chosen
field, has been exploring the far fringes of the entheosphere for some
fifteen years now, mostly with the help of her fungal friends and an
occasional assist from MDMA. She is a psychonaut’s psychonaut, boldly
pushing off into the numinous oceans of mind in complete solitude, in
darkness, often in isolated and remote locations, no copilot off the
left wing for this pioneer. Equipped with nothing more than a journal,
pen, and of course the key instrument, her discerning and penetrating
intellect, she has established contact with an alien Logos, and not
just contacted it, but wrested its secrets from the very heart of the
Weird. She has returned from her expeditions to the Outer Mongolias of
the mind with that rarest of gifts, an alien artifact, Glide, the
sinuous, elegant and enigmatic metalanguage that she shares with us in
this book. Anyone with serious interest in the cartography of the
psychedelic cosmos and the wonders encountered there will find fertile
ground for astonishment, appreciation, and puzzlement within these
pages.”
—Dennis McKenna
“Weaving together a wide range of scientific, artistic, and
experiential voices, Diana Reed Slattery plunges into one of the
outstanding enigmas of psychedelia: the place of language. Picking up
where Terence McKenna left off, she probes the altered states of
language, from shamanic eloquence to ‘downloaded’ symbols to the
Other's alien speech. Bringing extraordinary experiences into
sparkling dialogue with critical theoretical issues, Slattery has
created a marvelous and insightful exemplar of psychonautics in the
21st century.”
—Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis
“In
Xenolinguistics: Psychedelics, Language, and the Evolution of
Consciousness,
Diana Reed Slattery provides an intriguing and far-reaching
non-fictional investigation of the linguistic and symbolic
constructions of alien languages, such as the visual language Glide on
which she based her fascinating novel, The Maze Game. Combining
first-hand experience, accounts from other ‘psychonauts’ who use
psychedelics to explore unknown territories in altered states of
consciousness, and scientific research on the entwinement of language
and consciousness, Slattery’s book is highly synthetic and
provocative, an exhilarating voyage into what it means to encounter
the linguistic alien within and without the self.”
—N. Katherine Hayles, professor of literature, Duke University and
author of
Cognition Everywhere: The Rise of the Cognitive Nonconscious
“The investigation of language systems presented in
Xenolinguistics: Psychedelics, Language, and the Evolution of
Consciousness
is a bold step forward into the documented but seldom discussed use of
psychonautic practices by scientists and philosophers. As people from
ancient times onward have used psychoactive substances to deepen their
understanding of the world, this research into the construction of
alien linguistics applies these venerable tools with focus and
discipline. Diana Reed Slattery's courageous immersion into expanded
consciousness for the purpose of knowledge creation is part of an
exciting new era of exploration and discovery that will continue to
inspire future generations of researchers.”
—Annie Oak, founder, Women's Visionary Congress
“Xenolinguistics is one of the most compelling and interesting
books that I've ever read in my life; I found it truly difficult to
put down. Part frontier science, part mystery adventure, part alien
language manual, and part interdisciplinary philosophy, this uniquely
envisioned book is impossible to categorize in any traditional form.
Slattery breaks new ground, bravely exploring the fascinating
relationship between symbolic representation, psychonaut ‘downloads,’
consciousness, and reality. Future generations will surely recognize
this cutting-edge book for helping to establish the foundation of
humanity’s post-larval entry into the extraterrestrial and
inter-dimensional arenas of interspecies communication. Masterfully
crafted, alchemically blending a wide range of perspectives, and
overflowing with fascinating details about secret languages, rare
treasures composed of unusual information, and profound insights
elegantly expressed. Psychedelic explorers, science fiction lovers,
and students of the unexplained will savor every sentence in this
brilliant and thought-provoking book. You can bet that the aliens are
certainly paying attention!”
—David Jay Brown, author of The New Science of Psychedelics and
Mavericks of the Mind
“Diana Reed Slattery's Xenolinguistics is an extraordinary
work: at once a heroic and breathtaking psychonaut’s tale, a highly
original philosophical treatise concerning what happens at the edge of
language and beyond, and a neurophenomenological meditation that
beckons us towards sciences of the future.”
—Marcus Boon, author of
The Road of Excess: A History of Writers on Drugs
“Seen through the lens of her perspectives on language, Slattery’s
Xenolinguistics provides a comprehensive introduction to the
possibilities of disciplined exploration of non-ordinary states of
consciousness. Her work catalogues the ways that transdimensional
reality may be accessed and explicates its utility as a kind of cosmic
search engine from which information on individual self-transformation
and collective human ventures may be gathered in a systematic and
expedient way.”
—Hidden Mountain, Women’s Visionary Congress
“The ineffable Other has a faithful scribe, and it is Diana Reed
Slattery. Slattery has crafted the first codex of languages reaching
back to us from the unspeakable. Magic was always incanted into being
through alien languages. Slattery has reopened the linguistic doorway
for our return to magic.She bravely glided behind the mesh of the
cosmos and returned with the news: its all built of language!”
—Bruce Damer, PhD, author of
Avatars!: Exploring and Building Virtual Worlds on the Internet
“The intersection of human language and the psychedelic experience was
initially brought to light through the work of Terence McKenna. Since
his death in 2000, however, there has been far too little work in this
field. In fact, I know of only one person who is qualified to take it
to the next level. That person is Diana Reed Slattery. Her scholarly
background, coupled with a deep understanding of psychedelic culture,
places Diana in a perfect position to help us explore one of the
central features of our lives, language. Whether you are an
experienced psychonaut or budding linguist,
Xenolinguistics: Psychedelics, Language, and the Evolution of
Consciousness
is a book that belongs in your personal library.”
—Lorenzo Hagerty, host of Psychedelic Salon podcasts, and author of
The Genesis Generation and The Spirit of the Internet
“Slattery provides us with a first-person ethnographic account of the
psychonautic landscape where a first-person science—phenomenological
methods and self-reflexivity—organizes her encounters in entheogenic
realms. She places psychedelic experiences within a discourse on
the phenomenology of knowledge and epistemology and other psychonautic
accounts. Her analyses provide a transdisciplinary scope for analyzing
the nature of entheogenic worlds. Slattery illustrates how psychedelic
technologies extend perception and the senses and permit a
reorganization of reality within which the psychonaut functions as an
ontological engineer of the entheogenic landscape. The book examines
psychedelics in terms of their effects in enhancing certain aspects of
extended perception and the increased focus on the mechanics of the
formation of perception and reality. A combination of phenomenological
description and neurological analysis leads us to a glimpse of a
neurophenomenological understanding of the neurognostic landscape of
crystal vision, extended perception, hyperconnectivity,
hyperconductivity, and multilayered realities and consciousness.
Xenolinguistics’ engagement with entheogenic realities
through dialogue with the alien other and emergent xenolinguistic
systems instills a zest for the exploration of the further realms of
consciousness.”
—Dr. Michael Winkelman, MPH, PhD, co-editor of
Psychedelic Medicine and Altering Consciousness
“Effing the ineffable—how to communicate the wordless unspeakable,
think the preconceptual, visualize the invisible, symbolize the
powerful-vague—psychedelicists and other travelers to other realms of
consciousness have been stumped by these topics for millennia. By
collecting current and historical examples, Slattery’s
Xenolinguistics tackles these conundrums, applies current
consciousness theories, and sheds light into these esoteric corners of
human communication. Xenolinguistics challenge its readers to wrestle
with these topics and to pursue further explorations. The result? A
sort of psychedelic psycholinguistics plus an ineffable more.”
—Thomas Roberts, PhD, author of
The Psychedelic Future of the Mind
- Title: Xenolinguistics | Free Book
- Author: Steven
- Created at : 2024-10-24 23:06:09
- Updated at : 2024-10-26 20:47:28
- Link: https://novels-ebooks.techidaily.com/1740515-9781583947340-xenolinguistics/
- License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.