DDD SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ DEC 9, 2014

1. According to this eye-popping article from the Independent UK, using "magic mushrooms" can change one's personality... for the better! The article states:

The study, at Johns Hopkins University of Medicine in Baltimore, found that a single dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, was enough to cause positive effects for up to a year. "Psilocybin can facilitate experiences that change how people perceive themselves and their environment," said Roland Griffiths, a study author and professor of psychiatry and behavioural science at Johns Hopkins. "That's unprecedented."

Users who had a "mystical experience" while taking the drug showed increases in a personality trait dubbed "openness", one of the five major traits used in psychology to describe human personality. Openness is associated with imagination, artistic appreciation, feelings, abstract ideas and general broad-mindedness. None of the other four traits – extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness and conscientiousness – was altered.

The study further shows that those who did NOT receive a beneficial boost of openness from ingesting shrooms didn't show any negative responses, either. Not a single "bad trip", and not a single negative result throughout the study. That's a damn sight better than most pharmaceutical tests, I can assure you.

2. If you're the kind of reader who enjoys a giggle or a titter to go along with your shivers, then look no further than artist Patrick Dean's ongoing blog series featuring Underwhelming Lovecraft Monsters! The example below is just a sketch pad scan. Most of the posts involved somewhat involved, multi-paneled stories that are sure to give great delight to even the most glancing of Lovecraft fans. Enjoy! And, by all means, Bookmark it as a favorite! When I put together that Daily Dirt Diaspora Ultimate Online Comics Page (coming soon), Underwhelming Lovecraft is sure to be a member strip!

3. Read this detailed overview of the Cicada 3301 online mystery that baffled the net's best code-breakers for the better part of a year. Then read this detailed overview of one group's collective attempts at solving that mystery. Then read this gripping account of Joel Eriksson, who "solved" Cicada 3301... but not really. Although I do appreciate his guesstimate about who might be behind the now annual hacker's delight puzzle game:

"It is most likely an underground organization, not related to any government or intelligence agency," he says. "Based on the references in their challenges—the Agrippa poem by William Gibson, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake, The Book of The Law by Aleister Crowley — and their constant references to prime numbers and the like, they are likely intellectual, anti-establishment, ideologically driven and they seem to be valuing logical/analytical thinking highly. They seem to share a lot of ideology with the cryptoanarchy movement, and old-school hackers."

Personally, although I find the references kind of interesting - and in hindsight, I would have easily guessed the answer to the first clue right away - "a book dictated to a beast?" Nigga please - the whole enterprise strikes me as a huge waste of time. But then again, what isn't these days? Still worth a read, that's for sure.

ON THIS DAY IN PARAPOLITICS, MAY 12

On this day in 1938, while researching drugs to improve blood circulation and prevent geriatric disorders, chemist Albert Hoffman first manufactures LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) for Sandoz Labs in Switzerland. It will be five years before he accidentally ingests any of the wonderstuff, himself, after which he will write: "Last Friday, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed, I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away." Cue the sitar music and turn on the lava lamps! Here are some other people's trip stories.

On this day in 1932, ten weeks after his abduction and following one of the most torturous and multiply-botched criminal investigations in legal history, Charles Junior, the infant son of aviation pioneer and avid Nazi-supporter Charles Lindbergh, is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey, a few miles from the Lindbergh home.

On this day in 2002, former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a 5-day visit with Fidel Castro.   He was allowed to address the Cuban public uncensored on national television and radio with a speech that he wrote and presented in Spanish. In the speech, he called on the US to end "an ineffective 43-year-old economic embargo" and on Castro to hold free elections, improve human rights, and allow greater civil liberties. From a parapolitical perspective, it would have been supremely interesting to hear what these two had to say to each other during their private conversation.

On this day in 2008, an earthquake measuring around 8.0 magnitude shook China's Sichuan region to bits, killing over 69,000 people... and you probably don't even remember, considering the accelerated rate at which feces are colliding with propeller on every conceivable level these days.