[00:00:00 - 00:00:08] We get language applied to subjects which are neither related to the past nor the future like mathematics and [00:00:08 - 00:00:13] Lay mathematics is a language which has gone out and described [00:00:13 - 00:00:20] Multidimensional spaces I think that nothing is more [00:00:20 - 00:00:22] exquisite than [00:00:22 - 00:00:30] The interior music and all music is obviously an effort to approximate this interior music [00:00:30 - 00:00:34] and I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but I'm sure you all know the story of [00:00:34 - 00:00:44] Beethoven saying you know if you if you could hear what I can hear you wouldn't bother with what I've written because it's just [00:00:44 - 00:00:47] Compared to what I'm hearing [00:00:49 - 00:00:57] You have to it's it's a knife edge because the music does lead deeper into these visionary states [00:00:57 - 00:01:04] But I still think that once you are where you want to be that if you can cast [00:01:04 - 00:01:06] loose from [00:01:06 - 00:01:09] exterior musical input that [00:01:09 - 00:01:12] This interior music will rise [00:01:12 - 00:01:16] Into perception and reward you for that [00:01:18 - 00:01:22] The way that I take psychedelic drugs seems very natural to me [00:01:22 - 00:01:28] but then when I describe it to groups of people like this I realize that people have all kinds of styles and [00:01:28 - 00:01:34] This car has caused the psychedelic experience to be sort of blurly [00:01:34 - 00:01:37] defined in the mass mind [00:01:37 - 00:01:45] My idea of how you take a psychedelic drug is that you reduce sensory input as low as you can [00:01:45 - 00:01:50] Without the reduction itself becoming an impediment. In other words, I'm not talking about [00:01:50 - 00:01:57] Isolation tanks and all that. I'm just saying a dark quiet calm cool [00:01:57 - 00:02:02] empty room is the best kind of situation and [00:02:02 - 00:02:12] Some of the most interesting trips that I've had have been to the accompaniment of a single sound [00:02:13 - 00:02:17] Which is simply a drone. It's like the Bindu the seed [00:02:17 - 00:02:24] Around which then the multiplicity of the hallucinogenic vision can gather itself and constellate [00:02:24 - 00:02:28] I mean I blush to tell you this but some of my most interesting [00:02:28 - 00:02:38] trips have been to the accompaniment of my floor heater, which makes the buzz like a refrigerator and [00:02:38 - 00:02:41] that buzz [00:02:41 - 00:02:49] Becomes you know the cutting edge of a light which is like a comet giving off in the eddies of its trail [00:02:49 - 00:02:56] Hallucination all the hallucinations there are so I think that [00:02:56 - 00:03:00] Music is intrinsic to everything that we're talking about [00:03:00 - 00:03:06] We are aspiring to the condition of music and we need music [00:03:06 - 00:03:10] Therefore we should have it as an exterior input [00:03:11 - 00:03:13] When we can have it no other way [00:03:13 - 00:03:20] So saying that music that I don't listen to music during those states is not a putdown of music [00:03:20 - 00:03:27] Music is obviously the ideal because it is one of these tonal languages [00:03:27 - 00:03:33] That you understand by hearing it is an or sprock. It has it's a language of emotion [00:03:33 - 00:03:36] Yeah [00:03:37 - 00:03:41] The graph that you develop it seems to me and [00:03:41 - 00:03:47] If you wear the pin down that you can have almost your own running the bio-rhythm chart based on this graph [00:03:47 - 00:03:51] Can you tell when one of their novel pieces is coming up in the next week or three months? [00:03:51 - 00:03:59] Definitely one of the things that I do is I have a counseling service called an amnesis [00:03:59 - 00:04:04] And the reason I organized it as a counseling service was because I wanted people [00:04:05 - 00:04:11] To interact with my wave on the level of their personal history and I didn't want them to be [00:04:11 - 00:04:14] contaminated by being my friends [00:04:14 - 00:04:21] So I basically just advertised this service in common ground which says something about understand [00:04:21 - 00:04:24] novelty in your life [00:04:24 - 00:04:31] Maps of the past and the future this and that and then people come to me and I interview them about their life and [00:04:31 - 00:04:39] We search the wave for a good fit to their life and then we integrate their wave [00:04:39 - 00:04:40] as a [00:04:40 - 00:04:46] Statistical component of the larger wave and then we can make maps of the present [00:04:46 - 00:04:54] The next six months the next ten or fifteen years at different levels and then people live it out and see if it works [00:04:54 - 00:05:01] See if when the graph indicates novelty in their life should be increasing it is increasing [00:05:01 - 00:05:07] And when it shouldn't be it doesn't it's like I've invented a one-term form of astrology [00:05:07 - 00:05:13] It only talks about novelty. It tells you when it will go up when it will go down [00:05:13 - 00:05:18] It doesn't in any given situation say what will happen. It only [00:05:18 - 00:05:25] Defines the level of novelty that must be fulfilled by whatever happens [00:05:25 - 00:05:29] Synchronicity you see what what's [00:05:29 - 00:05:32] one way that I think of this time wave is [00:05:32 - 00:05:35] orthodox chemistry physics biology [00:05:35 - 00:05:43] Probability theory all these things go together to describe what is possible [00:05:43 - 00:05:50] So you say, you know could an asteroid strike the earth? Let's ask the science and they say well, yes, it's possible [00:05:50 - 00:05:54] There are enough of them. The probability is very low or you say, you know [00:05:54 - 00:05:58] Can we cleave this molecule with the input of this? [00:05:58 - 00:06:03] Energy and say well, yes, it's possible physics allows for that [00:06:03 - 00:06:10] But what my theory seeks to describe is not what is possible [00:06:10 - 00:06:14] But what out of the set of all possible things? [00:06:14 - 00:06:20] Why is it that certain things undergo the formality of actually occurring? [00:06:20 - 00:06:27] It is as though as though they are selected out of this vast pool of possible things things [00:06:27 - 00:06:30] Which could happen without violating any known laws [00:06:30 - 00:06:39] but out of that vast reservoir certain things undergo the formality of occurring and once they have occurred the [00:06:39 - 00:06:46] Fact of their occurring has defined the level of novelty in that now past moment [00:06:46 - 00:06:51] and so that's what it's like this novelty wave is a an [00:06:52 - 00:06:59] Additional variable which has to be added in to physical laws. It's the variable which [00:06:59 - 00:07:05] dictates what out of out of the possible states which ones actually are realized and [00:07:05 - 00:07:13] It's the flux the coming and going of that wave of novelty which controls that now if that you're in a highly [00:07:13 - 00:07:16] novel situation [00:07:16 - 00:07:24] Then you get what Lily calls cosmic coincidence or Jung calls synchronicity you get [00:07:24 - 00:07:29] Obvious connections which have no obvious cause Uistri behind them [00:07:29 - 00:07:37] They they are connected through meaning not through the chain of cause and effect and that is simply happening [00:07:37 - 00:07:39] because [00:07:39 - 00:07:43] The level of novelty is so great that these sideways [00:07:44 - 00:07:51] Connections are beginning to come apparent and at the end of time or at the ingression into this higher [00:07:51 - 00:07:54] Dimension, I think this will become [00:07:54 - 00:07:57] excruciatingly [00:07:57 - 00:08:05] Present in the foreground of our experience in other words synchronicity is getting stronger [00:08:05 - 00:08:10] Coincidence is getting stronger. The world is becoming more irrational [00:08:11 - 00:08:17] Science did work better in the 19th century than it's working in the 20th [00:08:17 - 00:08:20] Because reality is slowly slipping through its fingers [00:08:20 - 00:08:25] There was a maximum moment when the dreams of science and the nature of reality [00:08:25 - 00:08:32] Overlayed almost perfectly but now reality is growing beyond it and pulling away from it and [00:08:32 - 00:08:37] I think soon I shall be pulling away from this meeting [00:08:37 - 00:08:39] Thank you very much [00:08:39 - 00:08:41] I [00:08:41 - 00:08:45] Thank you glad you enjoyed [00:08:45 - 00:08:59] Yeah, the platonic doctrine, you know that scene where Plato proves that the slave understood geometry without ever having been taught [00:08:59 - 00:09:05] By asking him certain questions. This is the doctrine of recollection that all [00:09:06 - 00:09:12] Learning is recollection and he called that an amnesis. That's great. That's a great title. Yeah, well [00:09:12 - 00:09:15] We're worried folks [00:09:15 - 00:09:25] Well, I hope you'll read the invisible landscape and let me know what you think of it around it local bookstores [00:09:25 - 00:09:28] It's fairly hard to get I think they're selling it out [00:09:35 - 00:09:37] Yes, I did I was talking about how [00:09:37 - 00:09:48] Being able to have memories is a kind of conquest of the temporal dimension and was a very important moment in [00:09:48 - 00:09:50] biology when animals [00:09:50 - 00:09:57] Could be enough outside the present to say oh I've been here before or I know [00:09:57 - 00:10:00] That I can't swim or I know that's a trap [00:10:00 - 00:10:06] I should avoid it and I was talking about how memory was a part of this evolutionary [00:10:06 - 00:10:10] conquest of dimensions which begins, you know just with tactile [00:10:10 - 00:10:19] nearness and then light and then motility through walking and finally memory and anticipation of the future and then [00:10:19 - 00:10:21] finally as in human society [00:10:21 - 00:10:28] anticipation of thousands of years of time and recovery of thousands of years of time out of the past not just [00:10:28 - 00:10:30] in the past, but in the present. [00:10:30 - 00:10:37] I kind of see that my memory is not perfect, judgmental. [00:10:37 - 00:10:45] In that sense, maybe there's a saving factor because as I live in time, if my memory is perfect [00:10:45 - 00:10:48] Then why update it? [00:10:48 - 00:10:54] That's true. That's true. Yes, we live in the present in a sense because we have such bad memories [00:10:58 - 00:11:00] Thank you for coming [00:11:00 - 00:11:09] Oh, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Good. Well, I hope to see you again. Good. [00:11:09 - 00:11:25] Yes, well, I think this deepening of synchronicity and coincidence that I talked about will have the effect of [00:11:26 - 00:11:33] Getting us to the end of power. I think it's harder and harder to plot with power even in our own time [00:11:33 - 00:11:36] We've seen the most powerful forces in the world [00:11:36 - 00:11:41] Totally brought low. I mean America loses the Vietnam War [00:11:41 - 00:11:49] Richard Nixon can't hang on to the presidency. It seems like the more powerful you are the more in danger of being [00:11:49 - 00:11:55] Depotentiated you are and I think this is about information about the density of media [00:11:55 - 00:12:02] that power and information are at war with each other and power is [00:12:02 - 00:12:07] must work hand in glove with ignorance and ignorance is [00:12:07 - 00:12:11] on the run [00:12:11 - 00:12:15] Well, we all are anybody in these societies [00:12:15 - 00:12:17] Yeah [00:12:17 - 00:12:19] I [00:12:20 - 00:12:22] I [00:12:22 - 00:12:24] I [00:12:50 - 00:12:57] Well this thing I was saying about how things are becoming more connected through time and speeding up [00:12:57 - 00:13:04] The last 10 million years of Earth's history have been the most violent and violently [00:13:04 - 00:13:10] fluctuating in all of Earth's history the last million of those 10 million years [00:13:10 - 00:13:13] Have been the most violent and of those [00:13:14 - 00:13:22] The weather and glaciation and earthquake and pole shift and all these things the last hundred thousand years [00:13:22 - 00:13:30] Have been the most violent of that. So what we're getting is an increase in all kinds of [00:13:30 - 00:13:33] Change and this [00:13:33 - 00:13:37] Why this is happening to the planet is not clear in other words during the Jurassic [00:13:37 - 00:13:40] period and and [00:13:40 - 00:13:43] Precambrian the Earth's climate was very stable [00:13:44 - 00:13:49] The Earth's temperatures were very stable. Apparently the weather was very mild [00:13:49 - 00:13:53] Now we have these tremendous fluctuations [00:13:53 - 00:14:01] Glaciations and in fact man is largely formed because of that because the glaciations have the effect of [00:14:01 - 00:14:09] endlessly splitting apart and reuniting human gene pools, which is of course the fastest way to [00:14:10 - 00:14:17] intensify diversity, you know, you breed gene pools apart and you mix the populations and you separate them again [00:14:17 - 00:14:21] Then you mix them and this is a major formative factor [00:14:21 - 00:14:26] Making man, so it's as though in a way that the [00:14:26 - 00:14:35] The planet the instability of the planet on a planetary scale has called forth an intelligence [00:14:37 - 00:14:43] Well, I'm saying it's running it's driving the pump of evolution if the thing which is making evolution happen [00:14:43 - 00:14:49] Faster than it has ever happened before because change always drives evolution, you know [00:14:49 - 00:15:01] Yes [00:15:01 - 00:15:06] We've certainly never faced a glaciation when we had the technology [00:15:06 - 00:15:12] But on the other hand if the glaciation doesn't come seen real soon will be gone [00:15:12 - 00:15:15] You know well in another hundred years [00:15:15 - 00:15:21] Gerard O'Neill suggests the major population center by [00:15:21 - 00:15:29] 2050 could well be the Jovian moon system. That's where the hydrocarbons are. That's where the [00:15:29 - 00:15:34] Metals are this is where the things we need are and if [00:15:35 - 00:15:40] Classical patterns are followed. We will go where the natural resources are [00:15:40 - 00:15:49] I think I don't think we are going to spiritualize ourselves out of existence [00:15:49 - 00:15:55] I think that Matt that the dualism between spirit and matter and body and soul are [00:15:55 - 00:15:58] Probably going to be [00:15:58 - 00:16:00] transcended we [00:16:00 - 00:16:02] what we do is we [00:16:03 - 00:16:06] Excrete ideas we take in matter [00:16:06 - 00:16:09] Unprocessed matter [00:16:09 - 00:16:16] glasses plastics metals and we excrete them as ideas in a very highly organized [00:16:16 - 00:16:31] Well, it may be a transitional phase in other words maybe sophisticated civilizations always build with molecules [00:16:31 - 00:16:37] But even we are machines in the sense that we are made of DNA [00:16:37 - 00:16:43] Obviously the the metallic petroleum phase of a culture is very brief [00:16:43 - 00:16:48] As soon as soon as we understand the genetic machinery [00:16:48 - 00:16:55] We will use that as our technology everything can be made with DNA not just people you can make [00:16:55 - 00:16:59] telephones and soft drink containers and [00:16:59 - 00:17:02] Everything can be made this way [00:17:02 - 00:17:20] Well someone [00:17:20 - 00:17:26] Wasn't you someone at the last one asks this very question that you know [00:17:26 - 00:17:33] There are two directions to turn the earth into a garden to recognize that we are the stewards of the ecosystem [00:17:33 - 00:17:38] Of the planet to try to reign in our from me thin Faustian [00:17:38 - 00:17:46] Tendencies or what I'm saying, which is space colonies and this apollonian [00:17:46 - 00:17:53] non-earth oriented culture, which I kind of lean toward because I think that [00:17:54 - 00:17:58] The other possibility was foreclosed sometime in the 18th century [00:17:58 - 00:18:04] That the moment that to achieve now that no growth [00:18:04 - 00:18:07] ecological earth says garden [00:18:07 - 00:18:14] Civilization would require unbelievable savagery being unleashed because there are too many [00:18:14 - 00:18:17] Now the only way out is up [00:18:17 - 00:18:21] Well, this is a question for [00:18:22 - 00:18:24] Technology [00:18:24 - 00:18:29] You think that we can [00:18:29 - 00:18:35] Deliver see what we have to do is either deliver an American standard of living to everyone on the planet [00:18:35 - 00:18:40] Or convince them that that that they don't want that [00:18:40 - 00:18:48] By doing it ourselves, but I I don't see that happening. I agree with you. It could happen [00:18:49 - 00:18:55] Yeah, this the space colony is wonderful because it's it it it really splits [00:18:55 - 00:18:59] Everybody has to come and say because here we're talking about building a machine [00:18:59 - 00:19:04] Larger by a thousand times than any machine ever built and saying, you know [00:19:04 - 00:19:09] Is this the answer to man's problems or is this the deeper plunge into the nightmare? [00:19:09 - 00:19:12] I feel everything that you're saying [00:19:12 - 00:19:16] But I also think that [00:19:16 - 00:19:18] It's too [00:19:18 - 00:19:21] In a sense it's too intellectual [00:19:21 - 00:19:28] Because what you're saying is we understand what should be done and let's do it [00:19:28 - 00:19:31] but what if [00:19:31 - 00:19:38] We exist to stockpile plutonium and to build the staggering [00:19:38 - 00:19:44] technology to build these space colonies because to lift [00:19:44 - 00:19:51] The Terran gene swarm off the surface of the planet because the planet is in danger [00:19:51 - 00:19:57] What about the fact that the last million years has been the most? [00:19:57 - 00:20:02] Turbulent of the last hundred million and the last hundred thousand the most turbulent event [00:20:02 - 00:20:07] Perhaps the planet is destabilizing in that case [00:20:07 - 00:20:14] What is happening is we are not it isn't that man is evolving into space man and leaving the planet [00:20:15 - 00:20:21] it's that man is the cutting edge of biology on the planet and biology is [00:20:21 - 00:20:28] Rantic to escape because it senses that the ecosystem [00:20:28 - 00:20:36] But there will be if we take everything and go and also that's the question in other words [00:20:36 - 00:20:38] It's a case the commonplace [00:20:39 - 00:20:45] Of the gee whiz school of thought that we're made of stars alien [00:20:45 - 00:20:51] Stars, you know the atoms in your body were once in the heart of alien stars [00:20:51 - 00:20:59] Well if that's true and everyone agrees it is but the statement which should follow on that [00:20:59 - 00:21:06] That means that there are atoms in your body which are which were once the atoms of alien planets not stars [00:21:07 - 00:21:12] So I think that the galaxy is no barrier at all to biology [00:21:12 - 00:21:18] Our biology is a barrier to understanding how biology really works [00:21:18 - 00:21:33] The space colonies are going to be such highly organized places in terms of our present culture and politics [00:21:33 - 00:21:39] But they're going to be totally authoritarian assistance because they have to be everything has to be totally controlled in its place for those [00:21:39 - 00:21:47] Kind of very fragile environments to survive on earth. You can have a very relaxed liberal atmosphere space colonies are going to be a prison [00:21:47 - 00:21:50] maybe [00:21:50 - 00:21:56] Because you see the earth is a prison and we are threatened by toxicity and plutonium [00:21:57 - 00:22:05] And all these wonderful things Plato on the other hand thought that the minimum governable size of the human [00:22:05 - 00:22:06] population was [00:22:06 - 00:22:13] 50,000 people now now which is more likely to give rise to a totalitarian nightmare a [00:22:13 - 00:22:16] society of [00:22:16 - 00:22:23] 700 or a billion people with short resources on earth with hostile neighbors or a [00:22:23 - 00:22:26] swarm of space colonies [00:22:27 - 00:22:30] several-hundred of them each with a population no more than [00:22:30 - 00:22:35] 50,000 and spread through a volume of the size of the solar system [00:22:35 - 00:22:43] See, I think we stand on the brink is the greatest age of pluralism since the Greek city state and that it's not true [00:22:43 - 00:22:45] This whole thing about control [00:22:45 - 00:22:53] Here is where there must be staggering control because there are hydrogen weapons backed like cordwood [00:22:53 - 00:22:59] We must have thought control not a population of leaders. They agree on both sides [00:22:59 - 00:23:06] This is the place where there is no pressure. We have no idea how [00:23:06 - 00:23:12] Dangerous to ourselves the threat of extinction is whether it occurs or not [00:23:12 - 00:23:15] Just the weight we are carrying around [00:23:16 - 00:23:23] Knowing that we could become extinct if there were a hundred space colonies spread through the solar system [00:23:23 - 00:23:30] Man would be a galactic species. There would nothing short of the explosion of the star [00:23:30 - 00:23:37] Could threaten all genes aboard the space colony and everybody will go [00:23:37 - 00:23:39] We are simply the guy who gets to push the go button [00:23:40 - 00:23:46] But the animals the plants the bacteria the fungi everything [00:23:46 - 00:23:53] Will a maybe probably fall been lots of 40s and 50s people who build these highly technologically [00:23:53 - 00:23:56] Are the most scientific? [00:23:56 - 00:24:02] Authoritarian people I'm sure it'll be built. It'll be built for the wrong reason [00:24:02 - 00:24:06] But it will be built, you know, I mean Columbus wanted to get rich [00:24:09 - 00:24:11] To the expansion of human consciousness [00:24:11 - 00:24:15] His longtime interest in plant hallucinogens [00:24:15 - 00:24:21] Drug experiences generally and the conscious development of conscious alternatives [00:24:21 - 00:24:26] Led him into the investigation of the phenomenology of religious experience worldwide [00:24:26 - 00:24:31] But particularly that of primitive people against a background of nature [00:24:31 - 00:24:38] His interest led him on a journey to the Amazon basin where he discovered a way in which these states [00:24:38 - 00:24:41] Became available to himself directly [00:24:41 - 00:24:48] Charles McKenna, I wonder if you could share with us that experience that shaped your life and work since that time [00:24:48 - 00:24:52] certainly [00:24:52 - 00:24:58] There have actually been a number of expeditions to the Amazon that I have participated in [00:24:58 - 00:25:01] the earliest in [00:25:01 - 00:25:03] 1971 the most recent in [00:25:03 - 00:25:06] 1981 in [00:25:06 - 00:25:10] 1981 a joint ethno-botanical expedition [00:25:10 - 00:25:14] composed of people from Harvard and the University of British Columbia [00:25:14 - 00:25:19] went down to Iquitos in the far east of Peru and [00:25:19 - 00:25:25] My brother was part of that expedition. He is an ethno chemist at the University of British Columbia [00:25:25 - 00:25:30] We were looking at ayahuasca, which is a hallucinogenic [00:25:31 - 00:25:39] beverage taken over a very wide area in the lowland jungles of Ecuador, Colombia and Peru and [00:25:39 - 00:25:41] we were also looking at a [00:25:41 - 00:25:43] very little studied [00:25:43 - 00:25:46] hallucinogen called ukuhei or [00:25:46 - 00:25:53] Kuroko which is used by the Wittoto Bora and Muunani people and [00:25:53 - 00:25:56] in both cases these [00:25:57 - 00:26:02] hallucinogenic drugs are based on DMT or DMT in [00:26:02 - 00:26:06] Combination with some other chemical which potentiates the experience [00:26:06 - 00:26:12] These are probably the two least studied of the hallucinogens [00:26:12 - 00:26:18] although ayahuasca is a major folk religion over a very large area and [00:26:18 - 00:26:22] is involved in shamanic curing and [00:26:23 - 00:26:28] Is very familiar to the poor classes of the lowland jungles of Peru [00:26:28 - 00:26:32] The end is well known among the mestizo [00:26:32 - 00:26:40] populations the Kuroko is a much less known drug and we were studying it because [00:26:40 - 00:26:42] the orthodox [00:26:42 - 00:26:48] Pharmacological theories say that it should not be orally active and yet it is [00:26:48 - 00:26:52] So there was a scientific problem there to deal with [00:26:53 - 00:26:57] Something of discovering a new reality for science [00:26:57 - 00:27:03] Well, you have to have a scientific problem to center these expeditions and then [00:27:03 - 00:27:10] What you actually brush up against of course is the phenomenology of the drug the drug as it's experienced [00:27:10 - 00:27:18] And this is far removed from the pharmacological issues, which will be which are being sorted out now in the laboratory [00:27:18 - 00:27:19] but [00:27:19 - 00:27:25] The experience of taking these drugs in the Amazon up these small [00:27:25 - 00:27:30] tributaries that run into the main body of the river among [00:27:30 - 00:27:38] Preliterate people who are definitely not middle class and in the ambience of the equatorial [00:27:38 - 00:27:40] continental jungles is [00:27:40 - 00:27:43] Very interesting very enlightening [00:27:43 - 00:27:47] How did you respond to that? I assume that you'd experimented with other [00:27:48 - 00:27:50] pathogens in [00:27:50 - 00:27:52] the recent [00:27:52 - 00:27:57] Past before you made that journey and that indeed you were looking for [00:27:57 - 00:28:00] The effect that would have a psychophysical [00:28:00 - 00:28:07] Response in you and yet apparently you came upon something quite unexpected. Yes. Well [00:28:07 - 00:28:12] Since the middle 60s, we had been interested in dimethyltryptamine [00:28:13 - 00:28:21] Dmt both because of the intensity of the experience and also because of the rapidity of its onset [00:28:21 - 00:28:27] when DMT is smoked it comes on in about 15 to 30 seconds and an [00:28:27 - 00:28:31] onset of the effects of that rapidity [00:28:31 - 00:28:39] actually challenges science to explain it and then the content of the experience [00:28:39 - 00:28:41] Seemed to us to go beyond [00:28:42 - 00:28:47] Even the orthodox model of what the psychedelic experience should constitute [00:28:47 - 00:28:53] in other words the psychedelic experience has been discussed in terms of [00:28:53 - 00:29:00] consciousness expansion or exploring the contents of the personal or the collective unconscious or [00:29:00 - 00:29:03] achieving [00:29:03 - 00:29:10] Great empathy with works of art or something of that sort what we found with these tryptamines [00:29:11 - 00:29:16] Was there seemed to be a dim an unanticipated dimension which was a [00:29:16 - 00:29:19] contact with alien [00:29:19 - 00:29:23] Intelligence I call it this for want of a better word [00:29:23 - 00:29:27] Organized [00:29:27 - 00:29:34] Intellect ease that presented themselves in the drug trance with information that seemed to be not drawn [00:29:35 - 00:29:43] from the personal history of the individual having the experience or even from the collectivity of human experience and [00:29:43 - 00:29:46] Later we [00:29:46 - 00:29:49] came to feel that this effect was [00:29:49 - 00:29:52] particularized to the tryptamine [00:29:52 - 00:29:59] Halocentogens in other words not only DMT and ayahuasca and these more exotic Amazonian drugs [00:29:59 - 00:30:03] But also psilocybin which is probably the most widely [00:30:04 - 00:30:06] experienced of these drugs [00:30:06 - 00:30:15] To me it was astonishing that a voice could address you in that state and impart [00:30:15 - 00:30:18] information and dialogue with you [00:30:18 - 00:30:26] Gordon wassen who discovered the psilocybin mushrooms or who formally brought them to the attention of Western science [00:30:26 - 00:30:29] He also wrote about this phenomenon [00:30:31 - 00:30:36] But for that matter so did Plato in discussing the logos for [00:30:36 - 00:30:39] Hellenic [00:30:39 - 00:30:47] Human beings this experience of an interiorized guiding voice with a higher level of knowledge was not alien [00:30:47 - 00:30:49] however [00:30:49 - 00:30:50] the [00:30:50 - 00:30:55] Intellectual adventure of the last thousand years has made an idea like that [00:30:55 - 00:30:58] Seem preposterous if not [00:30:59 - 00:31:03] psychological and so as moderns as [00:31:03 - 00:31:05] pharmacologists [00:31:05 - 00:31:10] exploring these drug states my brother and I came upon this phenomenon and [00:31:10 - 00:31:18] in the ensuing years we have worked with the directed other people's attention to it and [00:31:18 - 00:31:24] I would say a consensus has emerged that this phenomenon is real [00:31:24 - 00:31:30] But no consensus has emerged nor it may be that no consensus will ever emerge [00:31:30 - 00:31:35] About exactly what it is. Are we dealing here with? [00:31:35 - 00:31:37] an [00:31:37 - 00:31:39] aspect an autonomous [00:31:39 - 00:31:44] psychic entity as the unions would style it a [00:31:44 - 00:31:51] Sub-self that has slipped away from the control of the ego or are we dealing with? [00:31:52 - 00:31:54] Something like a species [00:31:54 - 00:31:57] Overmind a kind of collective [00:31:57 - 00:32:01] Intellectual or are we in fact dealing with? [00:32:01 - 00:32:06] an alien intelligence with all that that implies [00:32:06 - 00:32:10] It's not an easy question to answer [00:32:10 - 00:32:17] It's not even an easy question to grapple with because I think the phenomenon does not manifest itself [00:32:17 - 00:32:21] except at doses high enough that [00:32:22 - 00:32:29] Taking now psilocybin that the drug can be distinguished from any other drug and that would be my personal [00:32:29 - 00:32:36] Definition of the effective dose of a drug. You should be able to tell it from any other drug [00:32:36 - 00:32:39] Terrence there are certain parallels that are quite obvious [00:32:39 - 00:32:42] one of them that immediately comes to mind are [00:32:42 - 00:32:49] examples such as st. Joan hearing voices and gaining direction granted she was a farm girl and [00:32:50 - 00:32:52] Perhaps she was growing mushrooms in the back [00:32:52 - 00:32:58] There seems to be throughout history within the realms of religious experience [00:32:58 - 00:33:04] The hearing of voices and it's always attributed to quotes God, right? [00:33:04 - 00:33:09] whatever that image is for the the individual that's experiencing it and [00:33:09 - 00:33:13] I wonder how this equates obviously that experience does not