{"id":38,"date":"2018-02-13T14:11:35","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T12:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa5\/?p=38"},"modified":"2026-01-23T12:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T10:00:18","slug":"ray-langenbach-riddle-coma-entrhrallment-at-the-neuro-receptor-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa5\/ray-langenbach-riddle-coma-entrhrallment-at-the-neuro-receptor-theatre\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cRiddle Coma\u201d: Entrhrallment at the Neuro-Receptor Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Abstract<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking of his experiences with mescaline in <em>The Doors of Perception<\/em>, Aldous Huxley proposed that &ldquo;In life, man <em>proposes<\/em>, God <em>disposes<\/em>&rdquo;. The proposition for Huxley appears to have been a provisional epistemological inquiry while the <em>disposition<\/em> was ontological and &ldquo;objective&rdquo;&ndash;&ldquo;naked existence&rdquo;, accessible via the direct experience of psychotropic &ldquo;gratuitous grace&rdquo;. The 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine (mescaline) molecules that attached to Huxley&rsquo;s dopamine receptors produced an augmented sensorium: &ldquo;The great change was in the realm of the objective.&rdquo; The synaptic theatre of neuro-receptivity (observed in recent MRI studies) opens with the desegregation of the rich-club higher functions of the cerebral cortex, the frontoparietal lobe, inferior temporal cortices, and bilateral thalamus, producing an increased receptivity to environmental stimuli and a globalization of the experience of &lsquo;selfhood&rsquo;.On the one hand, the deactivation of hub hierarchies allows for increased randomization of synaptic processes, producing enhanced <em>subjectification<\/em>, the feeling of wholeness and universal communication. On the other hand, disintegration of brain hierarchy leads to the precarious experience of <em>de-subjectification<\/em> and vulnerability for the entire organism. (Huxley&rsquo;s classic British understatement: &ldquo;What had happened to my subjective universe was relatively unimportant.&rdquo;) Indeed, the experience of ego death or psychic death is incommensurable and beyond common signifying practices. How does one describe an act of will that perilously submits will to the flames? I will consider this problem by building on the phenomenon of neuro-reception and interleaving various performance systems and ephemera: Aldous Huxley&rsquo;s <em>proposition<\/em> and <em>disposition<\/em>, Walter Benjamin&rsquo;s messianic moment, Rudolf Bultmann&rsquo;s eschatology, Christopher Cherniak&rsquo;s &ldquo;riddle coma&rdquo;, and Bas Jan Ader&rsquo;s negotiations with the tipping point, &ldquo;the miraculous&rdquo; and corporeal death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"CARPA5 02.09.2017 Keynote: Ray Langenbach\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xU_dIgj25Og?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Ray Langenbach,&nbsp;keynote presentation 2.9.2017 CARPA5 <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/xU_dIgj25Og\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">youtu.be\/xU_dIgj25Og<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abstract Speaking of his experiences with mescaline in The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley proposed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-keynote-address"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":841,"href":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}