[00:00:00 - 00:00:07]	 You know, I found that many of your ideas and presentations were very challenging and
[00:00:07 - 00:00:13]	 dangerous to the limits that I felt on my mind, but I don't feel especially terrified
[00:00:13 - 00:00:14]	 sitting across from you talking with you.
[00:00:14 - 00:00:16]	 I don't feel like you're any danger to me.
[00:00:16 - 00:00:17]	 No, no.
[00:00:17 - 00:00:19]	 I'm a nice man.
[00:00:19 - 00:00:21]	 That's part of the strategy.
[00:00:21 - 00:00:30]	 I'm the doorkeeper to deep, dark water that everybody explores on their own.
[00:00:30 - 00:00:32]	 I am not a guru.
[00:00:32 - 00:00:40]	 I have no particular acts of my own to grind, or at least not with great vigor.
[00:00:40 - 00:00:46]	 The point to be made here is that psychedelics are not an ideology or a position.
[00:00:46 - 00:00:53]	 They are an experience, and an experience is something that we have very intimately
[00:00:53 - 00:00:54]	 ourselves.
[00:00:54 - 00:01:02]	 So, it's not something you can teach people or draw too many general conclusions from.
[00:01:02 - 00:01:07]	 It's an experience, but it's an experience that I feel people should have.
[00:01:07 - 00:01:14]	 And when I see a political system or a set of cultural values that are denying people
[00:01:14 - 00:01:21]	 this experience, then I feel like some kind of human rights abuse is taking place.
[00:01:21 - 00:01:28]	 In principle, there's nothing wrong with drugs coming out of the laboratory, but in fact,
[00:01:28 - 00:01:34]	 we don't have a large body of experience with these things, where if you go to a tribal
[00:01:34 - 00:01:43]	 situation and they are using a plant in a traditional fashion, then you have your medical
[00:01:43 - 00:01:53]	 data which tells you that these plant substances don't cause mental retardation, birth defects,
[00:01:53 - 00:01:54]	 Parkinson's syndrome.
[00:01:54 - 00:02:01]	 In other words, these human populations that have used these things shamanically have use-tested
[00:02:01 - 00:02:08]	 a number of these substances, and they are among the most powerful of all the psychedelics
[00:02:08 - 00:02:09]	 known.
[00:02:09 - 00:02:17]	 So, you're not limiting the depth of your experience by concentrating on the traditional
[00:02:17 - 00:02:20]	 botanically derived substance.
[00:02:20 - 00:02:28]	 Any culture is a kind of hallucination, a kind of self-limiting group assumption about
[00:02:28 - 00:02:36]	 reality, and we all are adapted to living within one or several cultures.
[00:02:36 - 00:02:45]	 What psychedelics do is they address a deeper level of human neurological organization.
[00:02:45 - 00:02:54]	 They reveal the brain and its function unconfined by cultural norms and expectations, and this
[00:02:54 - 00:03:05]	 can be exalting, exhilarating, dizzying, terrifying, depending on the personality and the circumstance.
[00:03:05 - 00:03:14]	 The tension between so-called straight culture and psychedelic culture is a tension over
[00:03:14 - 00:03:17]	 values.
[00:03:17 - 00:03:23]	 Psychedelics challenge the assumptions of any cultural or political system, and that
[00:03:23 - 00:03:29]	 makes them dangerous to every cultural and political system.
[00:03:29 - 00:03:37]	 So if there's anything a Marxist dictatorship, a high-tech industrial democracy, or a theocracy,
[00:03:37 - 00:03:44]	 they can all get together on one thing, which is psychedelic drugs are a knife poised at
[00:03:44 - 00:03:45]	 the heart of community values.
[00:03:45 - 00:03:53]	 Well, this is just simply nonsense, and then all the reasons brought forth are in a sense
[00:03:53 - 00:03:55]	 a red herring.
[00:03:55 - 00:04:01]	 The psychedelics are among the safest substances known for human ingestion.
[00:04:01 - 00:04:07]	 Considering the depth of their impact on human mental functioning, the fact that you pick
[00:04:07 - 00:04:14]	 yourself up six, seven, eight hours later and go on about your business with an expanded
[00:04:14 - 00:04:17]	 point of view is quite remarkable.
[00:04:17 - 00:04:19]	 People have a right to get stoned.
[00:04:19 - 00:04:23]	 They have a right to think and explore their own minds.
[00:04:23 - 00:04:31]	 This is as intimate a part of their being as their sexuality, and any culture which
[00:04:31 - 00:04:40]	 mitigates that is clearly afraid of a full and fair and open dialogue about what reality
[00:04:40 - 00:04:44]	 is and what real human values ought to be.
[00:04:44 - 00:04:52]	 I think anybody who takes a number of psychedelic trips will eventually earn their oak leaves.
[00:04:52 - 00:04:56]	 I mean, you can spend difficult evenings.
[00:04:56 - 00:05:03]	 People who dismiss this as recreational drugs or hedonism or escapism absolutely do not
[00:05:03 - 00:05:05]	 know what they're talking about.
[00:05:05 - 00:05:12]	 This can be very challenging and difficult work.
[00:05:12 - 00:05:16]	 The ocean kayaking metaphor is more appropriate, I think.
[00:05:16 - 00:05:23]	 People think meditation and yoga are the same enterprise as taking psychedelics.
[00:05:23 - 00:05:30]	 They are often sold as the same enterprise, but in fact nobody goes to the ashram with
[00:05:30 - 00:05:36]	 their knees knocking in terror over what is about to sweep over them.
[00:05:36 - 00:05:42]	 On the other hand, if you're taking high doses of psilocybin or DMT, this would be a perfectly
[00:05:42 - 00:05:45]	 reasonable response.
[00:05:45 - 00:05:51]	 All kinds of areas of human knowledge are experiencing exponential growth, and what
[00:05:51 - 00:05:59]	 the future is going to be about is the integrating of these growth surges across the surface
[00:05:59 - 00:06:04]	 of the rising wave of change and knowledge expansion.
[00:06:04 - 00:06:10]	 We're going to see more change in the next 15 years than we've seen in the last 500 years
[00:06:10 - 00:06:13]	 of the evolution of global culture.
[00:06:13 - 00:06:20]	 It's going to be a challenge and a wild ride, I dare say, for every man, woman, and child
[00:06:20 - 00:06:21]	 on the planet.
[00:06:21 - 00:06:28]	 Those who keep cultural values in place are always interested in mitigating controversy,
[00:06:28 - 00:06:31]	 exploration, and criticism.
[00:06:31 - 00:06:38]	 As I said earlier, all cultures are involved in the culture game, and psychedelics transcend
[00:06:38 - 00:06:45]	 the culture game, and whether you're a Hasid in Jerusalem or a Tokyo stockbroker or an
[00:06:45 - 00:06:53]	 Andaman Islander, if you take psychedelic substances, your cultural values will suddenly
[00:06:53 - 00:07:00]	 be much more relativistically revealed to you, and that is political dynamite.
[00:07:00 - 00:07:09]	 The tension between so-called straight culture and psychedelic culture is a tension over
[00:07:09 - 00:07:12]	 values.
[00:07:12 - 00:07:18]	 Psychedelics challenge the assumptions of any cultural or political system, and that
[00:07:18 - 00:07:24]	 makes them dangerous to every cultural and political system.
[00:07:24 - 00:07:32]	 So if there's anything a Marxist dictatorship, a high-tech industrial democracy, or a theocracy,
[00:07:32 - 00:07:39]	 they can all get together on one thing, which is psychedelic drugs are a knife poised at
[00:07:39 - 00:07:40]	 the heart of community values.
[00:07:40 - 00:07:44]	 Well, this is just simply nonsense.
[00:07:44 - 00:07:50]	 And then all the reasons brought forth are, in a sense, a red herring.
[00:07:50 - 00:07:56]	 The psychedelics are among the safest substances known for human ingestion.
[00:07:56 - 00:08:02]	 Considering the depth of their impact on human mental functioning, the fact that you pick
[00:08:02 - 00:08:09]	 yourself up six, seven, eight hours later and go on about your business with an expanded
[00:08:09 - 00:08:12]	 point of view is quite remarkable.
[00:08:12 - 00:08:20]	 If life is not to be experienced, what is it for? it certainly can't be to go each day
[00:08:20 - 00:08:26]	 to the paper box factory and then come home and consume junk television.
[00:08:26 - 00:08:29]	 I'm interested in everything.
[00:08:29 - 00:08:36]	 To my mind, the psychedelic agenda means visiting the most remote parts of the world, reading
[00:08:36 - 00:08:44]	 the most forgotten and obscure literatures, and having the most extreme experiences that
[00:08:44 - 00:08:48]	 one can enjoy safely.
[00:08:48 - 00:08:57]	 And I view taking psychedelic substances in a category with ocean kayaking, rock climbing,
[00:08:57 - 00:09:05]	 hiking the Andean Trail, it's an athletic, challenging undertaking for people who are
[00:09:05 - 00:09:11]	 interested in limits, their own limits and the limits that the world offers them.
[00:09:11 - 00:09:17]	 For one person to seek enlightenment from another is like a grain of sand on the beach
[00:09:17 - 00:09:22]	 to seek enlightenment from another grain of sand.
[00:09:22 - 00:09:24]	 And I think that's a very powerful message.
[00:09:24 - 00:09:32]	 It says we're all human, we're all in this dilemma together, and our levels of accomplishment
[00:09:32 - 00:09:40]	 and knowledge are so similar that there is no reason to assume superiority and to then
[00:09:40 - 00:09:46]	 submit to a guru or a lineage.
[00:09:46 - 00:09:51]	 Not that there are not things to be learned, but I think the richer style of learning is
[00:09:51 - 00:09:59]	 a kind of camaraderie and co-exploration of reality with an open mind.
[00:09:59 - 00:10:05]	 Somebody who claims they have answers is automatically suspect.
[00:10:05 - 00:10:13]	 Where is it writ that talking primates should have perfect models of the universe at large?
[00:10:13 - 00:10:18]	 If you met a termite who told you he was seeking enlightenment, I think it would provoke a
[00:10:18 - 00:10:20]	 small smile.
[00:10:20 - 00:10:26]	 Well on the galactic scale, the difference between us and that termite is hardly worth
[00:10:26 - 00:10:27]	 mentioning.
[00:10:27 - 00:10:34]	 If you look forward to the global transformation of human culture, I think it's been a long,
[00:10:34 - 00:10:41]	 bloody slog from the plains of Africa to the surface of the moon.
[00:10:41 - 00:10:51]	 And the cultural models that we've used are worn out and transformation is now inevitable.
[00:10:51 - 00:10:58]	 We know that we're at the limits that the planet as a resource can tolerate.
[00:10:58 - 00:11:03]	 We have technologies that could transform the world.
[00:11:03 - 00:11:06]	 We have enormous creative abilities.
[00:11:06 - 00:11:09]	 What we seem to lack is mental discipline.
[00:11:09 - 00:11:19]	 We need to change our minds about issues like class, race, gender, resource extraction.
[00:11:19 - 00:11:25]	 If we do not change our minds, we're going to push this entire planetary system into
[00:11:25 - 00:11:32]	 some state of fibrillation from which it will be very difficult to rescue it and ourselves.
[00:11:32 - 00:11:36]	 So the great challenge is to change our minds.
[00:11:36 - 00:11:43]	 And I know of nothing that does that in the time frames that we have to operate as effectively
[00:11:43 - 00:11:45]	 as psychedelics.
[00:11:45 - 00:11:50]	 If hortatory preaching did it, then we would have turned the corner with the sermon on
[00:11:50 - 00:11:57]	 the mount or with the sermon at the deer park at Sarnath or something like that.
[00:11:57 - 00:12:05]	 But we need direct neurological intervention at the meat level in order to turn this monkey
[00:12:05 - 00:12:15]	 into a planetary gardener, ecologist, and a caring force in nature and the human world.
[00:12:15 - 00:12:22]	 So Bob Bagan said it, "The greatest adventure still lies ahead, and so let's be up and about
[00:12:22 - 00:12:23]	 it."
[00:12:23 - 00:12:24]	 Is he the one who said that?
[00:12:24 - 00:12:27]	 He's one of the ones who said it.
[00:12:27 - 00:12:29]	 [END PLAYBACK]
[00:12:29 - 00:12:31]	 [END PLAYBACK]
[00:12:31 - 00:12:34]	 [ Silence ]