Ayahuasca

As far as what I can contribute to the ayahuasca discussion, most of the samples that Jonathan

discussed this afternoon were actually collected by Cass and myself in 76, and then Dennis wrote

that paper using those samples from some that he had obtained earlier that year. They all,

most all came from a single salmon, John Fidel Mosandite, who was then at the Arena Colcha near

Tupulco. We bioassayed all those brews, and they were very strong. When I began making

my own ayahuasca, I used those experiences as the benchmark for what I was trying to achieve

with my own brews. In terms of recipes, if you want to, you know, rather than trying to substitute

an analog, if you're still interested in what goes into a healthy dose of ayahuasca, the way

what I settled with, I had a clone of single individual plant called Plowman 6041 that Tim Plowman had collected

in Yuri Magwesk in 1970 that was called a Cielo ayahuasca. The ayahuascaros recognized types of ayahuasca more

differentiated than the species. They speak of Cielo ayahuasca, Trompetero ayahuasca, so forth and so on. So this is a Cielo ayahuasca, Plowman 6041. I grew it for many years, and when I started it, it was a

year, and when I made ayahuasca, I used 500 grams of fresh material per dose, and 85 grams of fresh Cicotria Viridus per dose, and then prepared it in the standard way, which is to boil the total volume of crushed ayahuasca and Cicotria Viridus.

You make it in a non-aluminum pot. You don't use aluminum utensils because the aluminum is reactive and will mess with the effectiveness of the ayahuasca. And you layer in to the pot, and the pots can be quite large.

You layer in to the pot, and you layer in to the pot, and you layer in Cicotria leaves, crushed sanicereopsis coffee, the entire plant vigorously smashed with a hardwood club to separate the fibrous material.

And then you boil it for four hours at a rolling boil, not an explosive boil, but a constant boil. Pour off the deeply yellow liquid that results.

Harmine is yellow. And you pour off the mother liquor into another container, replace the first wash with a second wash, boil it four hours more, then discard all the solid material.

Keep it steaming into the bushes. And then combine the two washes, which is a lot of water, I mean 10-15 gallons of water, and then drive it down to the number of doses that you have pre-calculated.

And I can make up to 12 to 15 doses at a time in pots of this size. And I drive it down to 100 milliliters per dose. In the final evaporation, you want to be careful not to boil it too rapidly, or the sugars, which are cooked out of the ayahuasca, will tend to caramelize and make it thick.

And this does not affect the pharmacology of the ayahuasca that makes it hell to swallow. And if you do it right, you can get it down to 100 milliliters and it will still pour. It's as thin as water. It won't thicken unless you have boiled it with too hot a flame.

Are you not destroying any psychoactive potentials, the more caramelized one or the more liquid one?

No, it's more like it's an aesthetic thing. It goes, you've hurried it. And if you're giving it to people who are knowledgeable, they will comment on this.

The sign of amateurish ayahuasca is ayahuasca that's sick. Does it needn't be? Those are just sugars. It's not doing any good.

My interest in ayahuasca, which I indulged over 75 years or so, began with, and if you haven't read it, you should probably read Burroughs and Ginsberg's book, The Yah-He Letters, The Search for the Blue Flash, is how I think it is.

And it sort of initiates the modern era of writing about ayahuasca. The most recent interesting book about ayahuasca, other than Eduardo's Commentaries on the Paintings of Pablo Amaringo, is probably Michael Kostig's book, Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man, which is just a wonderful book.

Even if you don't give a hoot about drugs, I think it's a wonderful book for the richness of the language and the way in which he tells the story of the 20th century history of shamanism in the Kutumayo region.

But my interest in ayahuasca was the same interest that many of the early ethnographers and anthropologists were motivated by, which was persistent rumors of group states of mind.

As Jonathan mentioned, the first people to characterize the alkaloid named it telepathine.

This was because they had the grandiose hope that this would be a telepathic drug.

And in a sense, I think it's too early to dismiss this possibility.

Most of us think of telepathy as one person hearing another person sing.

And that I don't think ayahuasca can deliver.

But what it can deliver is an incredible ability to see what other people mean.

Ayahuasca is driven by sound, by song, by whistling.

And its ability to transform sound, including vocal sound, into the visual spectrum indicates that some kind of information processing membrane or boundary is being overcome by the pharmacology of this stuff.

And things normally experienced as acoustical experience become instead visibly beheld.

And it's quite spectacular.

I mean, I've had ayahuasca where, you know, you can sing a tone and just lay down like a Barnett Newman painting,

a chartreuse line an inch and a half wide in the darkness, and then you switch the tone and cross it at a 90 degree angle.

And then as you begin to experiment, you discover that the whole modality behind your closed eyes is open to being driven by these sounds.

And I think probably a lot of the shamanism, especially the off the main rivers shamanism involving ayahuasca,

is this kind of pseudo-telepathic involvement with sound.

I mean, there are a lot of interesting things about ayahuasca, even in distinction or in contrast with other cycle-active plants, for example.

ayahuasca, it's essentially brain soup.

There's nothing in it which doesn't occur naturally in human neurometabolism.

When you take ayahuasca, you alter the ratios tremendously and the concentrations.

But, you know, mescaline, so far as we know, salvia desinorum, ibogaine, these things don't occur ordinarily in human metabolism.

Mescaline might under certain conditions.

But the major psychedelic neurotransmitters are what are represented in ayahuasca.

And it's the only hallucinogen I know where if it's made right, the next day, the day after the experience,

you actually feel better than if you hadn't done it.

I mean, even with mushrooms, which are dear to my heart, the day afterwards, I tend to keep the phone unplugged and just, you know, hot baths and this and that.

But on ayahuasca, you're just ready for action at 4 o'clock the next morning, next day.

And the hallucinations are extraordinary.

They seem to occur, in a way, it seems more versatile than psilocybin.

The hallucinations can range over a wider range.

I mean, they can be anything from nature-based, botanical, insectile to just, you know, you name it.

I remember one period of hallucination in ayahuasca where it was gold Egyptian hieroglyphics against black moving through these tunnels and this sort of thing.

And it's very, I think it's safe.

It's probably used by more people than any of its psychedelic plant cults in the world, if you don't consider cannabis the plant cult.

And as a strong hallucination, you know, in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, down into Bolivia,

and then it's made inroads in the 20th century in a big way into Brazil, portions of Argentina,

and then more sophisticated populations all over the world are going to get inundated.

Are there any questions about that?

Yeah, but it would grow in the Canaan, if you don't know.

Oh, yeah, it'll grow.

It grows well in Hawaii.

It could, many, many plants are, have more restricted ranges than their natural capacity.

Plants, most plants have not occupied their full range.

This is a consequence of the glaciers only having melted 20,000 years ago.

I'll ask that, I mean, one of the things that interests me that I've talked to Brett Blasher about it,

is that I think that there may be banisteriopsis of some sort instigated in Mayan religion.

Nobody has ever been able to prove this,

that there is a whole elaborate kind of Mayan symbolism that you see at Talon,

I'm sorry, that you see at Talon and at other sites that's called umbilical symbolism.

And I think these things that have been taken for umbilical course are probably vines of some sort.

The last time I was at Tikal, in the ruins themselves,

there were many yellow flowers, Malfagasius flowers, on the ground

that had clearly been shed by large vines that you could see going up into the canopy.

And I collected in Belize non-flowering Malfagasius vines

that I was unable to distinguish from Ayahuasca.

So, you know, this may well be happening,

or could have been happening among the classes of Malfagasius.

But exactly what their drugs were and who used them is pretty expectantly.

There's no trace of that in that current Malfagasian population?

Well, there's, I mean, no trace of vines.

No, they're pretty, I think, the morning glory seeds,

the mushrooms among the Sierra Mazatec and the Indians,

the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs,

among the Maya,

I think the morning glory complex,

and the Salvia Divinoa.

And, but whatever else may have gone on,

you know, there's a whole,

I mean, Jonathan is the expert on this,

but there's a whole number of plants which may have been

used for their psychoactive effect in Mexico.

Various coleuses,

the Emias salicifolia,

some people believe certain water lilies,

whole plants like

which is now used as a flavoring

for certain kinds of chocolate drinks.

Still, there are depictions on pieces of statuaries

that seem to suggest that maybe this would have

a nice concrete style of usage in the past.

I have a question about,

you're talking about how the visual experience

was driven by sound.

Right.

Have you found that the visions could be driven by anything else?

Any other occurrences besides sound?

Touch or...

Well, I tend to lie down and sit still in silent darkness.

I suppose cannabis helps most of these things.

But really, the ayahuasca is extraordinary.

The last time I took it

was in a non-traditional setting,

but with one other person,

and sitting in completely silent darkness.

And this guy had these Tibetan chimes,

you know, the kind you strike with a piece of deer horn?

And it would be completely silent.

And he would strike this thing,

and it would literally form a piece of jewelry

or a thing like a machine in the air.

Just this thing!

And the thing would come into being

as long as the sound is there.

And then it would disappear.

And then he would make another one.

And it was very clear

that we were seeing the same thing

because I commented on it

and described what I was seeing.

And it looked like a little thing

made out of iridescent titanium

with brass connectors.

And it was like an enormous laurel birch earring

and something like that.

It's a very specific kind of object.

I think these things are very mysterious.

I mean, it was a pity that

that Rocio's English

didn't allow a real discussion

of these stories

about the people who disappear

for days and weeks on end

who go into a parallel world.

Because, you know,

if you just think

these aboriginal people

are ignorant savages,

well, then you can just dismiss it.

But if you've just gotten this far

on the premise

that shamans know

what they're talking about,

well, then you have to take very seriously

this more outlandish stuff.

You know, I mean,

where do you draw the line, you know?

And Ayahuasca is,

you know, Eduardo Luna,

who some of you know,

is very keen to insist

that what Ayahuasca

is really about

is where you get on it

if you keep these diets

for weeks and months

and then take it repeatedly

over and over

in these situations

of sensory deprivation.

And I think these people

are basically erasing

ordinary linguistic structures

and they live in a world

half, perhaps more than half,

hallucination.

And their fears of magical attack

and their relationships

to invisible beings

and all this

is a kind of,

I suppose,

in Western terms,

the only thing you could say

is it's a kind of self-generated,

self-controlled,

schizophrenia.

But that's just the word,

schizophrenia.

I mean, what it is

is it's a self-generated,

self-controlled immersion

in a non-causal,

parallel construct

of some sort.

And the reason shamans

live in isolation

and on the periphery

of modern

and high-density

urban civilization

is essentially

so that they can

build these capsules

within the air

that they inhabit.

They build

unique mythological structures

that are like accretions

of their very powerful personalities.

That's what all this

storytelling is about.

These stories are

the contextual,

define the contextual limits

of what is possible.

And if you live

in a culture

where night after night,

year after year,

you've grown up

around the fire

hearing the most respected

people in the group

tell these outlandish stories,

then for you

it legitimizes

the search for a doorway

out of mundane experience.

And that's really

the only precondition

for finding

such a doorway.

I mean,

if you love the weird

and you probe it

often enough,

deeply enough,

eventually

you'll hit the jackpot

and the door

will swing open.

And I watched it

definitely

very effective

for doing that.

Yeah.

I guess the Icaros

really generate

a lot of visions,

the song sung,

and some of those

are available on cassette.

Do you think

that kind of

visionary generation

would come through

in a cassette

if you give

an ayahuasca analog

and type one of these things?

Yeah,

I mean,

if you listen

to the music

on ayahuasca,

it transforms

the music.

You have to be

very careful.

I recall

many years ago

it was the night

of a total eclipse

or some hellish

thing in the sky,

a total eclipse

at some time,

and Sunwater

and Adele,

who some of you

may know,

and I decided

that we would do

the ayahuasca

that I'd had

in the back

of the refrigerator

for years.

And this was

like a long time ago,

maybe eight years ago,

and I got it out

and I couldn't remember

whether Don Fidel

had said,

always shake

the bottle

or never

shake the bottle

before you fall.

So,

to be safe

we should shake

the bottle

in case

that's what

he did say.

So I did,

and,

you know,

I've never had

it hit me

so hard,

and we were,

I had put on

a record

which I had

previously found

mildly entertaining,

and the goal

of the first

40 minutes

of this ayahuasca

trip became

to survive

the playing

of this record.

I mean,

it was so,

I don't know,

I've had other

experiences.

A friend of mine

brought me a tape

from tribal

Afghanistan

that I listened

to one night

in Hawaii

and I became

so alarmed

and freaked out,

and I just,

I could hear

something in this

music that just

shouldn't have

been there.

I could hear

that,

you know,

this wasn't

wizened ragheads

in mud hut

somewhere,

that these guys

had connections

into the

Martian

musicians'

union

of the

era.

It's highly

agitating,

but the

ayahuasca songs

are probably

tailored to

create a certain

aura of

confidence,

and they're

reassuring.

It's nice to

sit with these

old guys

and watch

them make

beautiful music,

and when

you're alone,

you can sing

too.

I mean,

it's very

important to

sing,

especially if

you become

afraid or

alarmed.

This is the

key.

If you get

into deep

water with

these substances,

this is true

of psilocybin

as well.

You don't

want to

clench.

You don't

want to

assume the

fetal position

and stop

breathing,

and you

want to

sit up

straight and

breathe and

sing,

and sing

it back,

and it

will step

back.

It will,

you know,

you can take

control of

your situation.

most of

the time.

I wanted

to ask

about the

parallel

universe.

American Indian

storytelling and

mythology has

a great deal

to say about

these things,

and there's

adventure myths

about the

two young

guys that

go out

and hit

the seat

and disappear

for 12

years.

You know,

this is a

common

and enduring

theme,

but it's

my speaking

position

that this

must have

done

a little

bit

about

when

you

get

into

that

place,

what

level of

barriers

do you find

yourself

giving it?

Well,

I'm very,

very careful.

I mean,

like,

the way I do

these things

normally

is alone,

and I

unplug the

telephone,

and I

don't tell

anybody I'm

going to do

it,

and I

do it in

darkness,

and I

roll joints

in front of me

so I

don't even

have to

move,

and basically

once it

gets going,

I don't

do

anything,

because I'm

so aware

of how

involved

me is.

I mean,

I don't,

I think you

have to be

almost a

damn fool

to just

grab hold

of this

stuff and

start flailing

it around.

I mean,

for me,

it's like I

creep up

to the

abyss

and hang

my head

and look

and then

I edge

back to

them.

The idea

of trying

to actually

do something

is terrifying

because it

will work.

I mean,

you can do

it,

but you

don't

understand

what you're

doing.

So I

like to

look

as Peter

Scheller

is doing.

But the

children

are going

in a

mission.

They're

doing purposeful

work for

what's

meaning.

They

cure.

They cure

and they

get

but the

main

thing,

I mean,

I think

the getting

information

thing is

sort of

overstressed

because it's

astonishing and

it proves that

it's a higher

dimension.

I mean,

if somebody

really can

see who

stole the

chicken and

they really

can see,

then even

though it's a

trivial matter

about a

chicken,

there's nothing

trivial about

the fact that

they are

exhibiting a

paranormal

ability which

seems to

involve the

contradiction of

cause and

effect.

How can

they see

who stole

the chicken?

Number one,

the chicken

has already

been stolen

by the time

the question

is asked of

the shaman.

Well,

so then does

the shaman

travel back

in time?

Does the

shaman read

the minds

of everyone

in the

tribe and

look and

find who

stole the

chicken that

way?

Or is

it just

an inspired

gift backed

up by

social

pressure?

what exactly

is going

on here?

And then

when you

turn toward

the future,

it becomes

even more

mysterious because

many of

these shamanic

things are

about deciding

where the

hunting will

take place.

And say,

you know,

if we go to

the second

waterfall,

then there

will be

kapibari to

be killed.

And then

they go and

there is and

they do.

Well,

if you

believe that

this person

actually saw

the future,

then you're

coming perilously

close to

some kind

of determinism,

which is,

you know,

not supportable

philosophically.

I mean,

if the universe

is absolutely

determined,

then thinking

has no

meaning.

Because if

the universe

is determined,

then you

think what

you think

because you

couldn't think

anything else.

So thinking

suddenly is

divorced from

the enterprise

of knowing

reality.

And that's

a little

discouraging

to those

who butter

our bread

in the

fields of

philosophy.

So I

think it's

very mysterious.

The model

that I use

for all of

these psychedelics

is a

mathematical

model,

not a

psychological

model or

a spiritual

model,

but a

mathematical

model.

Minds,

under the

pressure of

evolution,

under the

pressure of

the need

to defend

self and

offspring,

has folded

itself down

into the

three-dimensional

space-time

matrix of

the body.

Mind has

sort of

crippled

itself in

order to

caretake the

body and

the here and

now.

Well,

when you

take these

psychedelics,

it's like

it's severed.

The mind

is severed

from the

physical

envelope,

and you

wander in

a much

larger

dimension,

and it

is literally

a higher

dimensional

manifold,

and that's

how these

apparently

miraculous and

magical things,

that's why the

shaman can see

into a human

body,

because in a

higher dimension,

the inside and

the outside

are the same

place.

there is no

distinction.

So, it's an

inner sensorium

that has a

higher dimensional

character to

it.

It's a great

mystery, you

know, and it

doesn't need to

detain us here,

but it's a

great mystery,

the relationship

of consciousness

to number,

and of nature

to number.

After all,

nature is

nature, the

deployed

three-dimensional

physical world

in its

dynamic.

Numbers are

abstractions

generated, so

far as we

know, only by

the human

mind.

They are

inventions of

the human

mind, and

yet nothing

is as

descriptive of

nature, no

tool is as

powerful as

a descriptor of

nature as

mathematical.

Why is

this?

Well,

ayahuasca seems

to say it's

because the

mathematical, the

higher mathematical

dimensions of

the world are

objects not

merely for

abstract, deductive

discovery, but

for experiential

encounters.

And then, if this

is true, then our

world, as we

experience it in the

here and now and

day to day, is

hopelessly limited and

circumscribed, a very

limited world that

we're operating in,

inside our culture,

inside our language,

inside our body, and

so forth and so on.

And in the silence, in

the darkness, swept

away by these alien

alcohols and the

plant mines behind

them, you find out a

truth that can barely

be told.

And most of it can't

be told.

The sense of self

in the Iowa system?

Yeah, and the

ego in general.

Well, I think that

these things are very

humbling.

It's very hard to do

if you have an ego

that's very...

If you're, for

instance, I mean, if

you're the kind of

person that other

people consider a

jackass, it's pretty

hard to do these

things if other

people's judgment on

you is correct.

You know, I mean,

the person who can

dominate a noisy bar

is not probably a

good candidate for

ayahuasca.

That kind of bravado

and machismo and,

you know, I mean,

ayahuasca loves to

take prideful people

and rub their nose in

it.

I mean, it can make

you beg for mercy

like nothing.

You know, you have

to really approach

it humbly.

I mean, I speak

from experience

that, you know, I

probably am easily

betrayed into

assuming I know

what I'm doing.

And that's the

moment when

catastrophe strikes.

What I always say

to it when I go

into it is I say,

you know, I'm

going to take a

big dose, so

please don't kill

me.

Here I am, I'm

yours, I surrender,

I hold nothing

back, I didn't

cut the dose, I

didn't water, I

didn't water the

tea, so please

don't kill me.

And then it usually

responds by not

killing you, if it

so amuses you.

You know, you can't

demand it.

The real bad

drift comes when you

try to put the

squeeze on it.

You know, when you

try to force a piece

of information.

And, uh, actually,

see, that's the

difference also in

the cultural context

of Ayahuasca, in

many areas where

there's been a lot

of social disruption

in the community,

the roads, or

hundreds of years

of missionary

influence, um, and

what is still

remaining in the

Ayahuasca culture

is that the people

always think it was

some kind of intense

meter to heal

someone, or to,

like, send a

star to kill

someone, or something.

They don't just take

it just to completely

just threaten themselves

and just flake.

I mean, they do,

too, like, during

their initiation and

stuff, but I mean,

once they, like,

the shamanes, I guess,

or even a lot of

the young people,

really, they'll just

take it with something

in mind, you know.

Of course, there's

exceptions, so the

difference is that

is that a lot of

times, um, like,

we hear a lot of

weird stories about,

like, um, I don't

know, like, young

upstart shamans

that, like, have

just, like, a

like, you don't

talk about, I mean,

there's a lot of

weird black magic

that goes on, too,

because a lot of

people just don't

know how many

people can heal,

and so, a lot of

death, though,

it should be good

to, you know,

I was thinking

either to black

magic, or...

And I think a lot

of shamans are,

they like to just

graze the underbelly

of the thing.

They're really

concerned about

their community

and healing

sick people

and holding it

all together.

It's an exceptional

personality in any

society, Amazonian

or urban American,

who is the go

for the gusto

kind of person

who just wants

to get as loaded

as they possibly

can.

I mean, this

shaman that I

studied with in

Peru, the

ayahuasca that

they would

take on Saturday

nights at

touring would

be only about

two-thirds of

strong, and

then every

Wednesday night

we would take

it, just he

and a couple

of other people

and he said

this was our

school, he

said, this is

when we learn.

On Saturday

nights we

cure the people,

but on Wednesday

nights, you

know, we

plunge to the

death.

And it was a

much more

intense, quiet,

inward kind of

driving in those

situations.

So, if we

took our

watch on a

Wednesday, it

would be

having a

simultaneous

experience.

Quite so.

Every day, the

week, the

party is

loaded.

how would

you compare

the nature

of reality

or perceived

reality under

ayahuasca and

under mushrooms?

Well, the

thing about

psilocybin that

is so

extraordinary, and

I think enough

people have

experienced this

now that we

can make a

generalization about

it, the

mushrooms talk,

they speak to

you in your

native tongue,

and that

conversational

speed, and

it's, you

know, the

damnedest thing

until it

happens to

you, you

can't imagine

what somebody

could be

talking about.

Once it

happens to

you, you

know exactly

what they

mean.

The

mushroom is

animate and

articulate and

also kind of

extraterrestrial.

Its

hallucinations

tend to the

grandiose, the

history ending,

the galactarian

destiny that

awaits the

biological

overmind.

It's this

ta-da, ta-da,

kind of thing.

Ayahuasca is

biological and

organic, and

you feel the

spirit of the

forest, like

Rocia said.

It's more

feminine, and

after a good

ayahuasca trip,

you feel like

your eyes are

just bugging out

of your head

because you've

spent so much

time looking

looking.

The language of

ayahuasca is

visual.

It shows you,

and shows you,

and once this

showing gets

going, you know,

it's hard to

shut it off.

I mean, it

really wants to

show, but it's

silently, it

spills out this

cornucopia of

images, and you

sing, and you

manipulate it,

where the mushroom

mushroom is, you

know, highly

articulate.

It also is

visual, but it

also can talk,

which is just

such an astonishing

thing for a

western.

I mean, we are

just not prepared

for talking

agile.

Have you tried

the two together?

The two together?

I wouldn't do

that, actually,

because I think

the monoamine,

oxidase, inhibiting

properties of the

carmine, would

so intensify and

synergize the

psilocybin, that

you might find

yourself swinging

from the

chandelier.

And the

shamans don't

do that, the

shamans don't

do that, either.

In the Amazon,

you can rarely get

an ayahuasca to

give you the

time of day

regarding mushrooms.

They always

say, well, we

use mushrooms and

we don't have

ayahuasca, but

the caveat is, and

we always have

an ayahuasca.

For women who,

have you seen

in a jungle, women

taking ayahuasca, or

is there three

closest by him?

It depends on the

tribal, it depends

on the people, but

around Hukalpa, there

were women in the

circles.

There was this

woman, this

angula, who

just, you know,

she drank with

the best of them

and would recount

outrageous

visions, and this

lady must have

weighed under

a hundred pounds.

One of the

shamanesses, or

shaman, female

shamans that we

tried to contact

in 76, is this

famous woman who

studied with

Manuel Cardova

Rios, the guy who

wrote Wizard of the

Upper England, her

name was Juana

Gonzales Ovi, who

told us about her.

She had come to

him as a girl of

25, with leprosy, and

he had taken her into

the woods for six

months and cured her

of leprosy, which

that you can cure

leprosy with ayahuasca,

is definitely an

unorthodox idea.

And she became a major

ayahuasca era in this

area, and her stuff

was said to be the

best, but she had

lost her hands and

her feet, so the

experience of taking

ayahuasca with her

was fraught with her

presence, which was

fire-like.

The new field of

medicine, the feeling

of sound, and with

the person's voice

is analyzed, the

spectrum analyzer, and

the missing notes are

provided to that

person, either by

singing or humming,

or to get the

person to just match

the note that he's

missing, apparently

will feel all kinds

of ailments.

And I'm wondering if

you can see sounds

that the curator of

the arrow just can

see by the sound

that person's voice

is making what's

totally missing in

his picture.

Well, there's

obvious that there's

some kind of

diagnostic sensitivity

to invisible stuff

that we don't

ordinarily perceive.

We were talking

last week, some of

you may have seen

this, I mention it

because I'm trying

to confirm it.

I've seen on three

occasions in my

life, at about

this light level,

sitting, watching

someone in profile

as you're watching

me, on a very

slight dose of

mushrooms, there's

something that goes

on in front of

the person's mouth.

It looks like

oil in water.

water.

And my rational

explanation for what

this is, is that

you pull air into

your lungs and it

is heated, and

therefore it has a

slightly different

refractive index

than the cold air

in front of your

face.

And so when you

speak, the mixing

of the hot and

cold air can be

perceived under

some conditions, and

I would get

photographed under

some conditions,

as a kind of

oily, turbulent

something in front

of your mouth.

Well, is that

cheerful explanation

correct, or are we

on the brink of

something else, some

demanding or

exhaustive phenomenon?

Going back just a

little bit, I should

probably mention, a

friend and I have

been growing

ayahuasca clones, I

guess it's from your

clone actually, for

three years, and in

the lack of the

stachypia or DMT

additives, my

friend has reported

numerous successes

with shrooms.

Adding the

shrooms to the

ayahuasca?

Yes.

What proportion

do you know?

Not sure.

It would be

interesting to know,

I think you might

need to get away

with that, probably

what it would be

is a fair bit of

ayahuasca and a

tiny bit of

mushroom.

One of the

longest, hardest

evenings I ever

spent was, I

got the idea I

would take half a

dose of ayahuasca

and half a dose

of mushrooms, and

I felt like I

was battling

demons to return

with a shred of

my sanity.

I mean, it was

just ghastly,

phobic of that

combo.

You took them

at different

times?

No, I took

them together,

two and a half

grams of

mushrooms and

a half a dose

of ayahuasca, and

it turned me

every way but

loose.

And it was

unpleasant.

I mean, I

really thought I

had done it this

time.

What it did was

it interfered.

It was very

clear what the

past was very

cool.

What seemed to

be happening was

that it was

interrupting RNA

transcription of

short-term memory.

So I knew who

I was and my

history and how

I had gotten

into this

situation, but I

couldn't remember

the last three

minutes.

And this would

create this

anxiety in me.

And then I

would forget why

I was anxious.

And then that

would create more

anxiety.

And I was

into some

kind of

intellectual

regress that

was, and I

was just riveted

in this chair,

and I thought,

you know, if

this doesn't

unsnap itself,

they'll just put

me in a ward

somewhere, you

know, I'll just

be carried out

here.

And it felt

like, you

know, that

scene in 2001

when the guy

is outside

making the

repair, and

then he

comes back

and says,

open the

pod door,

Hal.

I can't do

that, Dave.

Well, it

was, I

could almost

see the

jammed

enzymatic

machinery in

the mass.

I mean, I

had this very

clear vision of,

oh God, it's

gone down the

wrong pathway,

the degradative

enzyme has

somehow been

locked out of

the process,

and here we

are, folks,

circling the

airfield,

running out

fuel, zero

visibility down

below, and

after about

two or three

hours of this,

so, it

evases.

Well, you

should show

your fun,

you know,

it doesn't

preclude

continuing this,

it will just

jack it to a

higher level.

Cool.

Sure.