Trialogue Jun 1998

Greetings from Cyberdelic Space.

This is Lorenzo, and I'm your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.

Well, I just couldn't put this off any longer, but I'm afraid I'm in need of another little

hit of McKenna, Abraham, and Sheldrake in one of their trial logs.

But I don't want you to get worried now.

I'm not going to go into another one of those long series of nothing but trial logs.

I just needed a little McKenna fix, if you know what I mean.

The conversation I'm going to play today was actually recorded on June 8, 1998, at Santa

Cruz, California.

And in the box of cassette recordings of these trial logs that Ralph Abraham loaned to me

for this project, this trial log was the most recent one.

Actually, there were three tapes with that date on them, and they're each about an hour

and a half long.

So right now I'm going to play the first hour of the first tape, and we'll get to the rest

of that tape in another podcast later this week.

But since today's program is so long, I'm going to dispense with most of my usual chatter and

join you in listening to Terrence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake talk about

skepticism and the balkanization of epistemology.

What I thought it would be interesting to discuss as part of our new series of trial logs, because

I think it's an issue that more and more people are becoming aware of, is the whole question

of skepticism and what I call the balkanization of epistemology.

And what I mean by that is that somehow as a part of the agenda of political correctness,

it has become not entirely acceptable to criticize or demand substantial evidence or expect people,

when advancing their speculations, to make what used to be called old-fashioned sense.

And I think this tolerance of unanchored thought and speculation is confusing the evolutionary progress

of discourse, but I'm also aware that if you draw the parameters too tight, the baby goes out

with the bathwater, or you become a defender of scientism or some kind of orthodoxy.

So in my own situation, I've been trying to both understand what is strong and to be supported

in science, and what needs to be criticized, and equally to look at the alternatives to science,

the counterculture, the new age, and to ask myself, what is strong, what serves the evolution

of discourse, and what is in fact this type of unanchored thinking that I'm concerned about.

So first, let me talk a little bit about how I see science.

If any one of us were to take what is called a scientific approach to many of the phenomena

that interest us, psychic pets, the source of the content of the psychedelic experience,

et cetera, et cetera, if we were to take a hard scientific view of these things, these phenomena,

which we know exist, and which we find rich in implications, would simply not be allowed

as objects of discourse.

They would be ruled out of order.

So there's something wrong on one level with scientific, what's called empirical, empiricism,

skepticism, positivism, it has different names.

On the other hand, if we go to the other end of the spectrum, and are willing to admit the testimony

of iridologists, crop circle enthusiasts, victims of alien abduction, those who channel Atlantis,

those who suspect undetected planets, those who believe vast alien arcologies,

dot the planes of Mars, and so forth.

And pro bono, better get that in.

Yes, pro bono proctologists from other star systems, making unscheduled house calls

late at night in our homes.

Yes, I mean, both of you realize, I'm sure, that medical professionals, regardless of their

species, or star system of origin, do not make house calls anymore.

So, I see then this problem.

Science is too tight-fisted.

It misses much of what is interesting.

To abandon the approach of science is to just be without rudder in an ocean of strident claims

and counterclaims, many of which are preposterous, and certainly not all of which can be true.

So, after thinking about this for a while, my approach was to say, well, science went from

superstition to its present positivist position through a process of evolution, temporal unfoldment.

So, using a method I've advocated in other situations, I conducted the following exercise.

I said, I will move backward through the epistemological history of science to the last same moment science knew,

and then analyze what that consists of, and I'm not completed in this process, but what I find is that

a curious betrayal has occurred in science, that with the rise of capitalism and industrialism,

science has actually become, uh, has allowed assumptions to be made that betrayed its original intent.

And, what I mean by that is, uh, modern science relies on statistical analysis of data, you know, measure ten times, add the values, divide by ten,

and this tells you how much rain is falling, how much voltage is flowing through a wire, something like that.

Uh, this, uh, approach to phenomena mitigates against unusual phenomena.

Inevitably.

Because they are statistically insignificant.

That's the phrase that is actually used.

So, I, we can talk about this in detail.

I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but I think you see my implication.

That the method of statistical analysis, true, produces general formalizations of nature's mechanisms and wonderful products,

which can be sold and patented and so forth.

But, it's a coarse-grained view of nature, and what it mitigates against seeing are the very things which feed the progress of science,

which is the unassimilated phenomena, the unusual data, the peculiar result of an experiment.

So, looking at that then, I said, well, where are we in the history of science where this happened and how was it before?

And you may wish to correct me a hundred years either way, but I'm very interested in sort of, uh, bringing back and re-appreciating William of Ockham,

who, aside from the things I'm saying about him here, which are very nice, also had a notion, uh, not much appreciated,

of what he called unlimited progress.

And it comes very close to novelty theories, belief that the universe progresses unto merging, emerging with the nature of God.

But the thing about Ockham that bears on all this is, of course, his famous razor, which simply says,

it's been interpreted in many ways, but hypotheses should not be multiplied without necessity.

Or, to put it more simply, the simplest explanation of any phenomena should be preferred until found inadequate.

Explanation should not be complexified beyond the demands of the problem against which it's being brought to bear.

So, what I'm feeling is, if we abandon statistical analysis of nature and realize that probably the assumption of temporal invariance

that that assumes about the underlying fields of nature is, in fact, a cheerful assumption, untested and unprovable.

So, we should get rid, in my hypothetical reformation of epistemological dialogue,

we should get rid of statistical analysis.

We should dial science back to the late medieval period of Ockham.

And we should do science that way.

And applying Ockham's razor, we are quickly able to cut away the underbrush

that these peripheral and alternative people have brought to the table.

Some of it's good.

Things like hypnotism, acupuncture, nutrition therapy, rational approaches to telepathy, clairvoyance.

None of this is what I have a problem with.

I don't have a problem with people proposing new models of nature.

What I have a problem with is unanchored, eccentric revelations taking their place at the table.

The channelings from the Palabians, for example.

The Sichunite reconstruction of the ancient Near Eastern archeology.

The Arguellian distortion of the Mayan accomplishment.

I find these things pernicious and easily dealt with if we use Ockham's razor.

But when we go too far into statistical analysis of nature,

then we begin to cut away at our own beliefs and assumptions about nature.

Yours, Rupert, of the morphogenetic field.

Mine, of novelty theory.

And there must be some aspect of all this that would threaten you, Ralph,

if extremely empiricist and positivist criteria were brought to bear.

In other words, we've all been called soft in our time.

But in fact, I think our softness indicates a failure of science.

Science has hoared itself to the marketplace and to technology.

And interesting high-order phenomena like societies, economic crashes, complex system behavior

is going to remain forever blurred in our understanding as long as we rely on statistical analysis.

It's a tool that had its place.

But to hold onto it indefinitely is going to retard mathematics' ability to give a deeper account of nature.

A perfect example of this, and then I'll stop, would be the enshrinement of the so-called uncertainty principle in physics throughout the 20th century.

You know, the supposed great bridge between science and mysticism.

Well, it turns out it's just malarkey.

There is no uncertainty principle.

David Bohm's formulation of quantum physics gives perfect knowledge of velocity and position without ambiguity.

It calls forth the notion of non-locality.

That's why the Heisenberg formulation was preferred.

But again, non-locality accepted permits some of the things we're interested in.

Telepathy, information from other worlds arriving via the morphogenetic field, and so forth and so on.

So, I haven't been maybe as rabble-rousing as you expected by naming in turn various heresies to be consigned to the flames,

but I do think there are too many loose heads in our canoe,

and that no revolution of human thought that I'm aware of succeeded through fuzzy thinking.

Well, I've certainly got a lot to say about all that.

Very interesting.

I think that the, first of all, we have to see that there's a regional problem here,

that scepticism and ockermism and so on are carrying different social balances in different parts of the world.

You live in Hawaii and visit places like Maui quite frequently.

Ralph lives right here in Santa Cruz, California, where you only have to mention the name to anyone in England who knows California at all.

And they immediately say, oh yeah, where all the old hippies hang out.

And it's the kind of, it's a totally alternative place.

And as we've seen in our joint appearances in Santa Cruz, there's a level of weirdness among some of the theories people have,

and the crank obsessions they follow, which from outside the perspective of the West Coast,

most people would recognize as typically California.

There's a kind of level of weirdness and cults and these, I mean most of the phenomena you've named,

a phenomena of Hawaii and California.

When you live in England, things take on a rather different perspective.

There's a general level of popular scepticism, such as that the general tone of an English pub is one of sort of scepticism.

Well, there aren't crop circles and Graham Hancock all homegrown British phenomena?

They are, but every single one of them in any single pub where it's debated would always have sceptics in the discussion.

You're never going to have a kind of thing where you have all believers, except in small crank societies of true believers, which exist.

But the thing is, the general cultural tone is one of scepticism.

And so the need for a great deal more of scepticism doesn't feel quite so urgent if you live in London as it does if you live in Hawaii or California.

That's my first point.

But secondly, I think that the scientific scepticism you talk about is indeed a serious threat,

and I think that's done more than anything to drive science in this direction.

It's a kind of dogmatic scepticism that rules out at any cost weird phenomena like telepathy, non-locality, etc.

And so to rule those out, you have to say that a lot of phenomena don't really exist, like telepathy and stuff.

And if non-locality happens, it's just a peculiarity of the details of quantum theory.

The statistical anomaly gets rid of all problems.

So you can take these points of view, but the sceptical, those kind of dogmatic sceptics,

who I find myself confronted with quite often, the sceptical enquirer crowd, who are on my case whenever they can be,

because they've classified me with the pro-brono promptologists from distant star systems.

So the thing is, I've had the experience of being put in that category by sceptics, including the editor of Nature.

And the sceptics in Britain who regularly appear, and good for a quote any time by the press,

my old friend, Professor Lewis Walpert, at any moment, and to any journalist, several times a year will say,

can't take this kind of thing so seriously.

And then last year, when he said, but Professor Walpert, don't you think you should keep an open mind about some of these things?

He says, not so open that your brain drops out.

So that kind of sceptic has done a great deal to force science into this narrow thinking mould.

It's forced the investigation of telepathy into more and more ridiculously detailed and unrealistic parapsychology-land experiments,

seeking to provide the statistical proof of regularities.

However, what I've found is with the staring experiments and with the psychic pet experiments,

one can achieve results, positive results, which fit with all this normal statistical thing.

They're repeatable, positive, they meet all these statistical criteria.

They're not evanescent phenomena like human synchronicities.

These are regularities of nature.

So the old-style statistical approach can actually take us much further, I think.

I'm using old-style statistical methods in my own research

because I don't want to change both the content and the style at the same time.

I want to show that by the old methods, these are valid criteria.

So they're valid phenomena.

They actually happen and you can prove them in the old-style scientific way.

But I do agree that the kind of discussion we have in science doesn't need to have all these things.

What I like most, I think my most heroic example in the kind of thing I do,

is none other than the great, late Charles Darwin.

And like most other biologists, I greatly admire him.

But what I see in him and admire is different from what others admire.

I like the way he draws on information from non-professionals, plant breeders, pigeon fanciers, horse trainers,

cabbage breeders, rose planters and specialists, horticulturalists.

He draws on all these people's experience, colonial explorers,

sailors who tell of feral peaks on remote islands and how they've gone wild and so forth.

All this is what Darwin draws on and he discusses it in a common sense way.

There's no statistical test, chi-squared test, 5% levels of probability.

It's wonderful science.

It draws on experience and treats it in the light of common sense using rules of evidence.

But without rigid statistical test, rigid methods.

And it's wonderful science.

He discovered a great deal.

He'd never heard of 5% levels of probability.

And yet it's great science.

So, I think that there is a possibility to return to a more common sense approach.

And common sense of the British pub type and probably of standard American kind too,

will often deal quite satisfactorily with the pro-brainu proctomagists from outer space.

Anyone who claimed that in the British pub would be,

this would be the butt of a great deal of humour within minutes.

No pun intended.

Yes.

Well, let me just say about that, there is a political problem.

You're right.

Though the British have this reputation in America for being the epitome of politeness,

actually in a British pub people are willing to blow the whistle on what they perceive as absurdity.

Five jokes.

Yes.

Always with humour.

In the new age, it is utterly humourless.

And the reigning paradigm of political correctness demands that you treat all of these testimonies

and bits of news with complete equanimity.

And it's thought to be rather out of sorts to suggest that anybody shouldn't be taken seriously.

The belief is that truth can't be known.

And so all there is is opinions.

So, you know, you speak from your knowledge of the calculus and world history,

and this person speaks from their latest transmission from fallen Atlantis,

and this is all placed on an equal footing.

And it's crazy-making, and it also guarantees the trivialness of the entire enterprise.

I mean, I just don't think any revolution in human history can be made by fluff heads.

Well, I think we, in order to understand what you're saying, I have to really try to figure out what a fluff head is.

Yes.

This is the crux.

I like your historical approach, as we agree that science is rather in a bad place now.

We can look back, find where it went wrong, go back there, start over again.

This is exactly what fundamentalists do.

Our ethics are gone.

We're going to go back to the first speeches of Muhammad or something.

So, William of Ockham, I feel uncomfortable with his idea of simplicity.

I mean, the modern form is probably Komal-Gorov's measure of complexity, which would be given a data set.

What is the length in bytes of the smallest computer program that can approximate the data set within epsilon or something like that?

And the problem with this, technically speaking, is that last year's technology would give a Komal-Gorov measure of this much.

This year's technology would give a much smaller measure, because we've learned a new trick of building models.

Or it may only depend upon the computer language, more or less, that's used to build a model.

So, in other words, there is no simple measuring stick of simplicity.

And given three explanations, we're not sure what is the simplest one.

There's no mathematics that could really be applied.

It becomes a subjective judgment.

And therefore, I think that this whole question works.

I think that you've suggested a one-dimensional scale of fluff headness within a fluff scale,

where down at this end, we have what even Walpert thinks is okay.

And over at that end, we have the test that can be applied to Pleiadians to see if they're real or not.

So, in this scale, I think you've marked two points.

There's the point at which you think to the right of this is too fluffy and to the left is okay.

And then there's another point where science agrees it's okay.

You see that you're ruling out, like the channeling, no, but the telepathy, okay.

But Walpert says the morphogenetic fields is not okay, but DNA is okay.

So, I'm thinking of these two points that you described as being on some linear scale of fluffness.

And I'm thinking that this entire scale of fluffness is not, I mean, you'd like to appeal to mathematics

and to some kind of real science, that there is a real science, that the community or the religion of science

has gotten off the track of the real science, and that there, this is what bothers me.

And I wish that this were true, but I have no faith in it, that there is somewhere in the sky

or in the deepest bowels of the earth, a measuring stick, where we could somehow measure the truth of something,

even if it's just a degree of truth, as, you know, in chaos logic, you don't have true and false.

You have a truth as a percentage between zero and a hundred percent.

And is only, chaos logic would be a good alternative for you.

The truth of a proposition, let's say, a formal logic, like Zeno's paradox, is only a temporal assessment,

but it is the input of the measuring stick of truth, after which we get another measurement.

You see, so now, under what we know so far, it's 60 percent true.

Now, we assume that it's 60 percent true, that's the input to another assessment,

when we find out it's 66 percent true.

Without the input of another assessment, then it's 64 percent true.

Hopefully, this process of successive judgments, which could be regarded as the history of science

from the past through William and Malcolm on into the infinite future, would converge on something.

But in chaotic logic, it doesn't converge, because certain kind of propositions,

which are circular in a way, like Zeno's paradox, they, in circling around,

they have a chaotic attractor, and so they're always giving different results, never settles down.

It gives a dense set of estimates between zero and a hundred percent.

And from this perspective, which is the successor of Aristotelian logic,

which served science up until the year 1985 or something,

you can't have a clear measuring stick of truth, and you can't have a clear scale of fluff.

And so, the attempt to make something perfectly clear might be doomed to failure.

We understand it, then, as something psychological.

So I just want to give a... I'm applying Ludwig Fleck here to you.

And Ludwig Fleck is the founder of the sociology of science,

where you sort of do Freudian analysis of the scientific community as a social...

as a flock of sheep, as it were.

And with... like in the 60s, we were, as parents, very libertine with our children.

Now we see those children have drawn up, and my children are having children,

and they're having much stricter.

And there's the idea that in successive generations,

people are more or less strict with their children.

And I think they're more or less strict about fluff also.

So the fluff scale is actually a sociological aspect of a given culture or civilization,

which fluctuates wildly in time.

And I think that this is just one of many theories for you personally.

And maybe we are also affected by this, that as we age,

and then we are in contact with young people,

and then we are receiving input from them,

as far as the morphogenetic sequence of a fluff scale is concerned,

that we're affected by them, and we're becoming a little more critical, you see.

So then we become critical of ourselves, in a way,

because a decade ago we were more open.

So our fluff scale is changing, and therefore we have to rearrange all our social grid,

that some people that were previously okay are not too fluffy for us,

and their brains have fallen out.

Well, let me say a couple of things about this.

First of all, I think I agree with almost everything you say.

On the end of pointing out that its truth is a very difficult thing to assess,

you didn't mention Kurt Gödel.

But certainly his proof that no formal system produces all true statements,

shows that even ordinary arithmetic is subject to debate,

and represents a kind of circularity.

So, on one...

...

And I completely agree with you that truth is a very complicated concept.

And why shouldn't it be?

It's motivated thinkers since thinking began.

And we as yet have no certain index for it.

You mentioned that you thought my approach was one-dimensional,

and I agreed from your example.

But much of your criticism was couched in the vocabulary of symbolic logic,

analytical deconstruction.

Here's a way we might go at this.

Agreeing that it's a messy problem,

let's agree that the solution may also be somewhat messy.

So, for instance, we perhaps need to talk about kinds of fluff.

I immediately identify two kinds of fluff.

One is unscientific speculation,

persistent throughout history,

and with a consistent provenance.

How do you religion?

Well, mythology.

I wasn't going to attack religion.

I was thinking of more marginal ideas,

but religion is a good example.

I was going to suggest alchemy.

Alchemy believes certain things about matter,

which science absolutely abhors and rejects.

The history of alchemy is far older than the history of science.

It has always been in existence.

Its thinkers have always evolved

and adumbrated their field of concerns.

So that's one kind of fluff.

Fluff with punch,

because it has historical continuity.

But what are we to make of someone who brings to the idea

a complete cosmological model

generated in the past ten years

by themselves alone?

They never read Plato.

They know no mathematics.

They never read the Bible.

They never read Wittgenstein.

They just got it all in one download.

And it is, on the face of it, preposterous.

It's a faith that tells you that vegetables lose their auric fields

unless peeled with wooden implements,

that major earth changes have already happened

but are invisible to most people,

that there are only 100 real people alive on the planet anyway.

Everyone else is a simulacrum from another dimension.

In other words, preposterous on the face of it,

historyless, idiosyncratic,

and utterly unanchored to any body of previous human thought,

sanctioned or unsanctioned.

So the question before us is,

how do we distinguish all these books

from one that superficially might appear to be a genre,

the invisible landscape?

How do we make a division

between the invisible landscape on the one hand

and the rest on the other hand?

Well, I think the invisible landscape,

the category of the invisible landscape

is I Ching commentary.

I'm writing one right now.

Well, they've been,

the I Ching is a legitimate object of speculative discourse,

has been since pre-Han time.

Okay, so let's say we accept a two-dimensional model for fluff,

where there's deeper fluff,

like I Ching commentaries,

and more superficial fluff,

like the entire manifest universe

is the circulation of a single electron.

Let's use the Urantia book as an example.

So in this case,

Oh, the pattern we were given last night,

a spiral form of the base.

I have one here.

Made as wire.

So I think that I'll give you a point here

in that Occam's razor is intuitively a good way

to describe this new dimension,

the simpler and more complicated explanations

for an effect which, as a matter of fact,

not established.

So this is my worry about the anti-fluff posture

that you now project in public and so on.

I'm just sympathetic with a lot of things,

and we're worried greatly about the pattern.

And the problem with this strict parent approach to fluff

is that some important discoveries

may be shuttled aside,

as Wolfert shoves aside Rupert's idea

of the morphogenetic field.

What is it that science hates?

Besides Rupert,

science hates homeopathy,

acupuncture,

or alternative medicine altogether.

Science hates cold fusion.

I mean, there are certain things to say,

well, you know,

too open-minded.

To even think about being too open-minded,

too much in conflict.

So a lot of things would have been missed.

You think of these paradigm shifts

of the past of science.

For example, the Continental Drift

or the Ice Ages, I can see.

You know, this was a really terrific discovery

of mountain climbing guides

of the Ice Age,

which is that we don't take for granted,

rejected by science for 30 or 40 years,

and is one of the few successful examples

of a paradigm shift in science.

This scientific community is so...

I've never even thought of it as a paradigm shift.

Oh, it's a terrific story.

I have to tell in great detail

in my book, Pascay Aros,

including a heroic picture

of Agassiz himself.

He was taken into the mountains

by these peritone,

a mountain climbing guide,

said, look here,

these are mountains,

the limestone mountains.

What are these clumps of granite doing here?

They've been brought here

from over there

where we know where the granite is.

You mentioned 30 or 40 years, Ralph.

I think one way of thinking about this problem

is some school of fluff

should be given a certain amount of time

to advance their agenda.

It's very messy.

But if after 20, 30, 40 years

they've gotten nowhere,

they should not lose their place

in the discourse

or move to the back of the room

or something.

And I think this should be applied

to science as well.

For example,

science has been beating its breast

since 1950

about how they were about to elucidate

the mechanism of memory.

I think it's time

to just pull the plug on that.

You've had 50 years

to flail at this

with every tool available

and you have zilch

to show for it.

Similarly,

if the flying,

the people who believe aliens

from other star systems

are visiting this planet

with great plans for mankind,

they've been running that rift

since 1947.

It's time for them

to lower their voices

and let other people

have something to say.

For maybe a century or two,

why are you so tight?

Because if there is

no progress,

there are other fields

have created

multiple revolutions

in the same timescape.

Progress is very subtle.

So while looking for memory

endgreens in the brain,

they didn't find them,

but they did figure out

how to do a certain kind

of surgery

so that if you have a tumor

or something,

they can do a really good job

of helping you out.

So...

Well, I would challenge you

to make a list

of spin-off effects

from the New Age

that have eased

the suffering of mankind.

I mean, there have been a few

backscratchers

and some nutritional supplements

and a mantra or two.

But in terms of the money

consumed,

the lives distorted,

the hype

that we've all had to put up with,

the...

But we feel nervous

about the censorship.

I think, okay,

if we were the

National Science Foundation

and we'd been funding

channelers for years

hoping that they would find

gold in South America,

I mean, we might

withdraw our funding

at this point,

but we can't make it

illegal somehow

for them to channel.

No, no.

What we have to legitimize

is critical discussion

so that when someone

stands up

and starts talking about

the face on Mars,

people behave

as they apparently behave

in British pubs

and just stand up

and say,

malarkey, mate!

And, you know,

force people

to experience

a critical deconstruction

of their ideas.

The face on Mars thing

is a perfect example.

Here in, what, 76,

Voyager sends

a low-resolution image

might be a face.

All of these

self-promoting

so-called

ex-NASA scientists,

I mean,

when I hear the phrase

ex-NASA scientists

in the New Age,

I reach for my revolver.

So all of these

ex-NASA scientists

gather around,

proclaim this thing,

an alien artifact.

When the first Mars orbiter

fails at orbital injection

around Mars,

they scream conspiracy.

Mankind isn't ready

for the truth.

Eighteen months later,

the second Martian orbiter

goes into orbit

flawlessly.

NASA,

responding to the

previous hullabaloo,

actually moves

this site up

in its photographic agenda,

photographs it

exactly under the conditions

these people say

it must be photographed on.

It's clearly

an eroded

Mesa,

part of the Martian landscape,

no different

from any other.

And immediately,

the face on Mars

people scream

that the data

has been tampered with,

that all kinds

of terrible things

have gone on.

One guy sent me

email saying,

well,

there isn't a face

on Mars,

but there will be

in the future.

And someone else

wrote me

and said,

well,

obviously,

the aliens wouldn't

leave an artifact.

The face on Mars

is cleverly disguised

as an eroded Mesa.

Well,

I agree,

but I'm not sure

that it's good

to rant against

the face on Mars

because there's

no way

by William of Alchem

or whatever

that you could have

ruled out the possibility

that there was really

a pocket watch

on Mars.

And now,

in fact,

they do,

like,

there's life

here and there.

There's water

on the moon.

There's a pocket watch

on Mars.

There's not a face

on Mars,

but there's something

that nobody suspected

that was found

by going there.

So my fear

is that by

drawing the line

too tight

that many discoveries

will be

missed.

They'll be missed.

And that a certain

amount of

open-mindedness

is necessary

to,

for novelty

to come in

and to nourish

the evolution

of the collective

mind.

And I've got an answer

to this,

a political answer,

because however much

we choose to make

criteria or define

what,

we'd have no power

whatever to enforce

them unless

we were on a funding

committee of the

National Science

Foundation or the

government or the

British Medical

Research Council,

or we were an

editor of a prominent

journal like

Nature or Science

and so forth.

Under those conditions,

through controlling

grants or through

controlling editorial

policies of major

journals,

you really shape and

influence the science

community.

You are the ones

that draw the line

about what papers

are published in

Nature.

People like Sir John

Maddox,

who opposed my work,

declared in public,

in an editorial,

this work,

seemingly scientific,

by someone with

seeming scientific

credentials,

etc.,

was actually outside

the possible area

of rational

scientific discourse.

So there was a

line drawn,

put on an index.

So there are people

who do that,

but we're not in

those positions,

nor are people

in those positions

very likely to listen

to what we say.

So the

realistic question

is how,

in fact,

does all this work

and how politically

could the system

be reformed?

Here I rely on

a book by

a dissident

Cambridge biochemist

who wrote a book

called

The Economic Laws

of Scientific Research

and his name

I forget,

but I remember it.

But anyway,

in this book

he shows that

if you look at

the structure

of scientific research

funding,

you find that

in the 19th century

when there was

a great deal

of scientific creativity

and originality

in both Britain

and America,

there was

a great diversity

of sources

of funding.

There was very

little public money

in science,

practically none.

And it came

from innovators,

companies that

needed to do

the science

in order to make

the chemicals

and stuff.

No one was

going to tell them

or give them

they had to do this.

Engineering research,

a study of the

Adam Smith's study

of the Industrial

Revolution

in Lancashire

found that

the improvements

in spinning jennies

and steam-driven

machinery came

not from experts,

not from

mathematicians,

but it was mostly

done by

literate technicians

who were improving

the machines

that they ran

and understood

from day to day,

the mechanics.

And this innovation

was mechanic.

New technology

came from

old technology,

science had

nothing to do with it.

He showed

if you study

the history

of technology,

most of it,

most new technologies

were in this way.

Science was funded

by a diversity

of bodies

and was quite diverse.

On the continent

in Germany

and France

where they had

centrally state

controlled policies

in the 19th century,

the universities

were funded

by the state

and there was

a ministry

of science

and they had

central institutes.

It was highly

professionalised

and institutionalised

with professors

with great power.

In Britain

science in universities

and now

after the

Second World War

the biggest change

happened after

the Second World War

when people

like Van Amar

Bush

got the idea

of a military

industrial complex

with big science

huge government

funding

for defence

research

which linked

in the universities

to a huge

government funded

programme of research

and then

with the

National Science

Foundation

this model

was extended

to medicine

but the

primary one

was the military

research budget

billions and

dollars

driving research

in laboratories

Los Alamos

Lawrence Livermore

and so forth

all around the

United States

and in the

major contracts

with universities

then you have

a centralised

system of science

funding

through

we have it

in Britain

through research

councils

central government

research councils

which define

spending for

engineering research

sociology research

medical research

who gets

the grants

and these

are run

by small

committees

of professors

and expats

you know

people like

Edward Teller

were on these

committees

and they decide

the science

funding

the structure

of what's

permitted

and funded

through the

whole system

this imposes

a kind of

monopoly control

a kind of

uniformity

of thought

which is

the enemy

of deviant

thinking

that doesn't

fit within

that system

however well

or badly

the lines

are drawn

you can't

do anything

that's not

within the

central

the only

answer

to this

he suggests

because he's

an Adam

Smith

follower

is not

to follow

Bacon's

idea

which is

Francis Bacon's

vision

of central

government

spending

an academy

of scientists

state

owned

like a sort

of state

priesthood

of scientists

and then

they think

of new

ideas

which then

go to

the mechanics

to turn

into new

technologies

and science

fuels this

progress

he shows

that in fact

technology fuels

technology

science hasn't

got that much

to do with it

if you look

at different

science spending

in different

advanced countries

pure science

as such

has not

that much

to do with it

but the pure

science people

have to do it

on the centralised

funding programme

in accordance

with defence

aims

the war

against cancer

AIDS

you know

all the great

agendas

set by centralised

science

molecular biology

and biotechnology

now taking over

the life sciences

the only answer

in practice

is a free market

answer

whether you

abolish

or greatly

reduce central

government spending

science is then

paid for

in accordance

with enough

lobby

any interest

group

that's got

enough

lobbying

power

would vie

for it

there's a huge

organic

consuming

community

they'd lobby

for money

to be spent

on organic

farming

research

and at the

present it

gets practically

nothing

because it's

not part of

a central

agricultural

research programme

geared towards

Monsanto

chemicals

and so forth

so if you

in fact

this central

monopolistic

legacy

of the

Baconian heritage

which is really

what he was

the Lord

Chancellor of

England

it's an old

style

monarchical

church and

state

top down

hierarchical

structure

run by a

small elite

accountable to

nobody

who's

these

priorities

were set

by popular

opinion

pet research

would be

top of the

biological

agenda

not the

sequencing

of more

proteins

the cloning

of more

sheep

to help

the biotechnology

industry

but instead

pet research

isn't even

on the

agenda

so it's

set by a

small elite

who bear

no relation

in their

interest

to the

voters

in a

democracy

who actually

provide the

money

but on

the other

hand

you would

have

then

the

astronomical

budget

would be

entirely

spent

looking

for UFOs

no it

wouldn't

because if

you had

you would

give

you'd have

some kind

of funding

agency

which would

get matching

grants to

organizations

if a new

fair organization

applies for

a grant

for UFO

research

you'd have

a sort

of advanced

funding agency

which could

fund this

country

if you had

a central

funding agency

it would

be

either

have

many

more

subdivisions

or

sub-offices

or would

have a

great

deal

more

less

hierarchical

structure

it would

be done

on a

regional

basis

a state

basis

anything

to allow

for quirkiness

and deviation

and multiplicity

of decision

making

but all

of these

would be

answerable

if you

got a

grant

for your

UFO

project

for five

years

you've

got $50,000

a year

for five

years or

something

at the

end of

the five

years

you submit

a report

and this

is published

in scientific

journals

which are

open to

this kind

of thing

like the

Journal

of Scientific

Exploration

it will

publish

scientific

papers

on the

face

on Mars

but anyone

can write

in and say

why they

think this

isn't good

enough

evidence

and the

debates

there in

the

journal

and you

can see

both

scientists

they do

this

they've

done

the

face

on Mars

then the

new

evidence

someone

publishes

a new

picture

the new

evidence

the face

on Mars

and the

person

who wrote

the original

can write

a reply

but for

most people

a kind

of new

consensus

we've developed

that there

isn't much

in it

well one

of the

things

I've noticed

in talking

to people

about these

problems

is that

pseudoscience

is very

difficult

for most

people

to discern

in other

words

if you

dig into

the face

on Mars

problem

you'll

find

all kinds

of articles

with pretentious

titles

higher

dimensional

reconstructions

of the

data

so that

before

the

spacecraft

arrived

we

supposedly

had

terrain

models

of what

it was

going to

see

based

on

extrapolation

of the

early

data

and

inevitably

these

people

are

all

PhDs

and

they

use

these

technical

languages

very

adroitly

so

you know

along with

the idea

that there

should be

some kind

continuity

and I

agreed

diversifying

the

hierarchical

spending

patterns

would help

the other

thing is

there needs

to be

some way

of

and this

has never

been done

in science

because I

guess it

was never

necessary

because the

collegial

atmosphere

was self

policing

but there

should be

a way

of looking

at the

messenger

I'm not

very keen

on your

messenger

point

because it

leads to

ad hominem

arguments

you see

the classic

thing you

should avoid

in proper

rational discourse

traditionally

is ad hominem

arguments

attacking the

messenger

and not the

message

and ad hominem

attacks

where people

who say

things that

you don't

like

they can be

destroyed by

smear campaigns

like Randy

trying to

smear Geller

or Geller

hitting back

by saying

Randy is a

pederast

and a

pedophile

and a

totally

dishonest

and

disreputable

character

pervert

and so

on

and this

kind of

ad hominem

argument

is all

too

common

in

practice

when

Randy

attacks

Geller

on the

ad hominem

grounds

look at

the

messenger

a guy

who

did cheap

music hall

acts

in Israel

and stuff

and then

comes

he's just

a showman

he hits

back

you see

but that's

where you

get

with

ad hominem

arguments

you get

Geller

and Randy

is supposed

to be a

rationalist

well

it's a

problem

I mean

I would

like to

know

these

things

about

someone

I was

debating

but I

agree

with you

it's not

a valid

point

to bring

forward

but if

for example

you're

dealing

with the

supposed

guru

but you

know

that he's

done

time

for

fraud

embezzlement

and

auto

theft

I think

that in

a debate

about

his

theology

that would

not be

proper

to bring

forward

but on

the other

hand

you certainly

would want

to know

that

yes

but it

is

a venue

you get

the kind

of

the worst

kind

of

prairie

and

popular

press

ad

hominem

attack

where anyone

in public

life

immediately

they're going

to find

out if

they've got

mistresses

or legitimate

children

and blaze

the stuff

all over

the papers

that means

that people

in public

life

politicians

and so

on

the slightest

sexual

affair

etc

now becomes

enormous

I mean

Clinton

no one

outside

America

can believe

this fascination

with whether

or not

there's no

fascination

72%

of the people

would like

to get

on with it

you see

it's a slow

moving

coup d'etat

driven by

religious

maniacs

of the

external

I don't

think it's

a religious

mania

I think

there's

some kind

of

this

kind

of

ad

hominem

business

it's

the stuff

of popular

TV

the press

etc

there's

too much

of it

in the

modern

world

would mean

you don't

believe

that's

capable

I think

I mean

the monopolistic

control of

the financing

of scientific

research

worldwide

is bad

and it's

important

and so on

nevertheless

the National

Science Foundation

does rely

on the

judgment

of these

peer reviewers

and group

of experts

and so on

finally

is there

opinions

that direct

the flow

of money

and that

would also

be true

if

there was

no central

control

and had

every

industry

financing

its own

research

actually

there is

that

you get

more

opinions

in the

cat food

industry

there are

two or three

companies

that are

outstanding

for their

research

on the

dietary

needs

of cats

and dogs

and they

do this

research

industry

model

it still

exists

to a

degree

and even

in those

companies

there is

a group

of people

who are

deciding

how to

spend

their

money

and maybe

they are

influenced

by the

criminal

records

of some

of the

researchers

and so on

but finally

it is the

opinion

of any

even a

person

in the

street

with a

dollar

to give

to the

Martin

Times

or something

it is

a question

of opinion

and that is

where

Ludwig

Fleck

comes in

the sociology

of science

these journals

are important

what you can

publish

that is

why we

do not

like

censorship

people should

at least

be able

to voice

their

theory

about

the face

on Mars

or whatever

the pattern

and so on

so it is

I think

very important

who can

publish

and not

publish

in

magazines

like

Magical

Blunt

and even

if we

aren't

on

committees

of the

National

Science

Foundation

if we

do speak

and give

opinions

about

these

magazines

and so on

then we are

affecting

their

editorial

policies

how do

they decide

whether to

publish

or not

the hope

that there

is some

measuring stick

of truth

that you

could be

clear-headed

like to use

like Aristotelian's

logic or something

you want to be

clear-headed

it's very hard

to distinguish

we do not

have a science

as a matter

of fact

that allows

us to

distinguish

one theory

versus another

Occam's

razor

or any

other way

we don't

have

finally

we're

going to

use our

intuition

and we

may take

into account

arguments

ad hominem

while

doing so

secretly

of course

and while

saying the

opposite

we nevertheless

consider the

gender

and so

on

so I

don't

this is

what's

worried me

about things

like crop

circles

the pattern

and so

on

I do not

stand up

and speak

against them

because I

do not

trust my

own bias

against them

it could be

true

a face

on Mars

could be

discovered

a channel

containing

a quartz

crystal

watch

could be

found

under the

left paw

of the

sphinx

I mean

I'm not

sure

that these

claims are

not true

I think

they're not

very simple

there's some

things that

aren't

interesting

I don't

care if

there's

a face

on Mars

or not

I do

think

the age

of the

chopped

pyramid

is kind

of an

interesting

question

because

the whole

skeleton

of history

Newton wrote

a book

called

the

chronology

of ancient

kingdoms

amended

to be

getting

the

chronology

of the

Old Testament

into the

proper order

and so on

well I think

we're all

interested

in these

things

the thing

is not

to be led

astray

by people

who have

for whatever

reason

a different

notion of

evidence

a different

notion of

truth

than we do

well

the medical

profession

I think

that

you know

it's based

on good

science

and so

on

now I

believe

in vitamin

C

I don't

believe

in it

but I

have

I take

vitamin C

I took

some

today

ten years

ago

my doctor

the best

doctor

convergence

of

opinion

enough

consensus

really

that he

could have

faith in

and among

the people

who are

to question

authority

that's

something

that is

making the

conversation

difficult

and it

has to

do

I'm sorry

to have

to cut

this

off

right

here

but

we're

already

a little

over

the

one

hour

time

limit

I

try

to

impose

on

these

podcasts

and as I

mentioned in the

beginning of this

program I'm going to

keep my own

comments to a

minimum and get the

rest of this

trial log out to

you in the next

couple of days

there are only

about 30

minutes or so

left in this

conversation about

skepticism but

there are several

comments from our

fellow salonners that

I think are

important and I

don't want to

just squeeze them in

in a hurry here so

I'll get to those

comments and the

rest of this

trial log and I'll

get them out in a

separate podcast as

soon as I can

in the time I have

left however I do

want to thank our

fellow salonners

Terry, Corey,

Patricia and

Adam all of whom

sent in donation in

the past couple of

weeks it's

incredibly wonderful of

you all to do that and

I want you to know

that your gifts will

reach a lot of people

because they're going to

be used 100% in

support of these

podcasts so

many thousands of

fellow salonners the

world over also

thank you for your

support of the

psychedelic salon

without you guys and

the others who have

sent in donations to

help with equipment and

hosting expenses I

might have given up

doing this a long time

ago but the fact that

so many of you feel so

strongly about these

podcasts that you send

some of your hard

earned cash this way

well it brings tears to

my eyes to know that

you care that much

it really does and I'm

also talking about all

of you who have told

your friends about

these podcasts too

you know each each

week hundreds of new

you

listeners join us it's quite amazing really to see how much interest there is in the area of

consciousness expansion i don't know where we're going with these podcasts but i do know that it's

a very enjoyable ride at least for me and so thank all of you for your kind words and support and

in particular thank you again terry cory patricia and adam who are among the salon's staunchest

supporters it's good to know you're here with us in cyberdelic space and as always before i go i

should mention that this and all of the podcasts from the psychedelic salon are protected under the

creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike 2.5 license if you have any questions about

that you can click on the creative commons link at the bottom of the psychedelic salon web page which

you can find at matrixmasters.com slash podcasts and if you still have any questions about that or

anything else just send them to lorenzo at matrixmasters.com thanks again to my good friends

jacques cordell and wells who collectively go by the name chatul hayuk for letting us hear your music

here in the salon and thanks again to ralph abraham not only for participating in these amazing

conversations but who also provided the recordings for me to use in these podcasts and thank you again

to bruce damer who not only made the arrangements for the use of ralph's tapes but uh who also stayed

up with me for several nights as we digitized them so uh hey thanks again bruce and for now this is

lorenzo signing off from cyberdelic space i'll be back with you soon but uh until then be well my friends

greetings from cyberdelic space this is lorenzo and i'm your host here in the psychedelic salon

well i hope you haven't given up on me getting a podcast out this week and to be perfectly honest

i didn't think i'd get this one out myself i've been kind of under the weather so to speak ever since

hosting my last program and once the pain and agony part was over i was left with practically no energy

and i've been kind of lethargic these past few days so when i finally fired up my computer and

logged into the net this morning it wasn't with the expectation that i'd get a podcast out today

but then i checked my email and i had a whole bunch of wonderful emails from some of our fellow saloners

waiting for me and on top of that i discovered that several of you have very generously made donations

to keep these podcasts coming and so now i'm fired up once again and i'll keep them coming so my thanks

go out to all of you who have written and especially to janice gate creative james h jason h john m michael

better known as a dime short william r and bailey otherwise known as beaded bohemian and i also want to

thank yarov i hope i'm pronouncing your name correctly yarov uh sent a donation last february

and while i thanked him in an email i don't think i remembered to mention him in one of the programs

sorry about that yarov i very much appreciate your support in fact the generosity of all of you

touches me deeply so much in fact that you have succeeded in restoring my energy to the point where i

once again feel like coming back here to the salon to be with so many of my good friends

i guess one of my motivational issues is that there's so much to talk about regarding some of

the comments our fellow saloners have sent in that i just kind of keep putting off recording this week's

program until i feel more like talking for a while so i'm going to get back up to speed and stages and

by that i mean i'm right now going to take the easy route and play the second tape from the june 8th

trialogue with terence mckenna ralph abraham and rupert sheldrake the tape runs about an hour and 20

minutes but i'm only going to play part of it right now and then i'll finish it off in a shorter

supplemental podcast in a few days where hopefully i'll quit procrastinating and also read some of

the interesting emails i've been receiving so let's get to it and join the merry trialoggers in yet

another of their famous conversations monday june 8 1998 jewish in the afternoon trialogue number two

okay family fields i'm interested as you know in the fields of social groups flocks of birds schools

of fish and packs of wolves groups of human beings and i think all of these have morphic fields and i

think that the morphic fields underlying schools of fish flocks of birds insect colonies help organize

the movements of the different animals within them and the ones in packs of wolves enable them to

keep in contact with each other over many miles i think these fields underlie the telepathic bonds

between wolf and wolf or between separated animals and other separated animals and the same things

apply in the human realm telepathy mainly occurs in the human realm between mothers and daughters

sons parents children close friends lovers and the great majority of spontaneous telepathic cases do not

involve guessing xeno cards in darkened rooms but rather feeling of a sense of emergency by a mother

she calls home and the child's had an accident someone feeling a sudden disturbance and suddenly flash

about somebody feeling they're in great distress or some sense of alarm it turns out they've died

this kind of thing this is true of dogs and cats too it's mostly to do with these sorts of feelings

that telepathy's involved emergencies alarms and so forth rather than with the transfer of

visual information for its own sake anyway these fields i think underlie all social groups

and in the dog and owner thing i'm looking at the fields between pets and their owners but when we

look at human families these fields should also be at work in the human family to be a classic example

of a social field in chimpanzee groups in horse groups these live as family groups usually and

female with children and an associated male sometimes young males they're free of the social group in many

species they do but they're very often family based groups horse groups usually no more than about five

in wild and feral horses and wolf packs are usually female with her clumps and a male and then some sort

of grown up more grown up wolves but in their family groups and so in human family groups we'd expect the

same kind of morphic field now this is rather a general and abstract kind of consideration

uh but it would mean that family fields with their morphic fields would have a kind of memory from

the families that contributed to them the father and mother's families of origin would come together

in a family you'd have the the husband and wife the father and mother they you've got a fusion of

always a fusion of family fields coming together into a given family one with their histories

and patterns and in fact a whole science or therapy or practice of family fields has been worked out in

recent years in germany by what i think the most interesting therapeutic um person i've come across

for a long time uh bert hellinger have you heard of hellinger no h-e-l-l-i-n-g-e-r hellinger's work is

extremely well known in germany and has a large influence and there's a great deal of interest in

his work he has people following his methods and so on hellinger used to be a benedictine

he then went or perhaps as a benedictine went to africa where he spent a long time living with the

zulu and although he says this isn't the direct influence on his therapy the sense of the ancestral

connection that the zulu have the more traditional people have the role of the ancestors

is a major part of his therapy

anyway he does he i've been to one of his things in london and i'm meeting him again soon and i've

become quite friendly with him and his followers because the main theory they use to try and

understand what's going on in these family fields is morphogenetic fields morphic fields they think

the different theories or models they think he's a therapist of human families yes human families

um that they think this is the most appropriate kind of model you need a field that links the

members of the group together and there has to be a kind of memory in it that's what they want and

that's what their family fields are and morphic fields are that i mean there may be other fields

that could perhaps give the same effect but anyway so that's why i i was interested in their work and

and their interests in mind and i have been to that and i've been very impressed by and telling this

work how it works is that you have somebody comes and they present their problem they tell

handling it this is done in a group with a lot of people in the kind of audience and they say what

their problem is and what why they're upset or disturbed or something and then he asked them to

constellate their family field and what that means is that they he asked them your mother your father

how many brothers and sisters and so forth then he says now please pick anyone to be your mother

and they pick someone from your names pick anyone to be your father they pick them

your brothers and so on but the members of their primary family

and their family of origin and then he asked them to arrange them

in order put place them

and when they play on the stage sitting in chairs and sort of tableau and stand on this is like a tableau

yes and when they do that you get the most interesting things you see how some people are

placed close to each other facing each other some are placed on the periphery sort of facing away

from the rest of the family and these people can make models each one is completely different and

quite surprising these models i saw two or three days of this and a whole series of different family

models and you see these extraordinary patterns uh which immediately for the person there this is their

best representation of the the family field from the family they come from but when you see this

there's a whole gestalt like a snapshot of a system of relationship who's close together who's

further away who's facing who who's related to whom and um sometimes this is so obviously sort of

dispersed and not in relationship but then the question is how did if that one's right out there

facing their back to the rest you know what's happened why are they there not sort of closer to the others

and what dynamics are involved in this whole family group and in order to understand that he often has

to go to the family of origin as the father or the mother in the family field so then he'd ask the

person to constellate the father's family field for example and then you know there's they pick

someone to be the father and then if the father had two three brothers the brothers and the father

parent and they have to put them where they were they and sometimes they don't know that well so

they have to guess but they constate this field and it often turns out that the pattern in that first

family field and mirrored in the second one you can see you can just see it in front of you

you know similar patterns uh it sometimes happens that something extraordinary happened in the first

field say for example an uncle drowned as a as a boy you know a 10 year old boy in that family was

killed drowned in a pond and then they have they often leave them out and then he then says was there

anybody in this family that died as a child or that died at birth quite often they say yes he says find

someone put them in and very often the whole imbalance in the field is rectified when the

missing member is put in even if it's say somebody committed suicide or a child that died in infancy

in a previous family field unacknowledged members of the group cause grave distortions to the system

and his method by putting them in creates a whole field so that can be rearranged he then rearranges

these fields by so what would happen if sensei was brought in he asked the person bring them into

there bring them into there and then in the father's field uh ask them to acknowledge the

child that died and put them in and then the child they they say we acknowledge you the people

actually say we acknowledge you and then they put the child that died in the right order of

children right in their place between the first born the second born the third born because the order

of birth has a huge impact on these fields and the number of siblings so here you have a system

practically used by hellinger and his followers a fascinating thing and when you see these missing

members in the field constitution then that the family of origin of the person that field is sort

of readjusted to see a whole field pattern and their role within the field pattern is incredibly

therapeutic and releasing for a lot of people they see that a lot of problems they thought were just

their problems are actually their relations to this whole field of interaction in the family

so they take seriously a field model of this process and with these sort of tableau representations

one can see this and so that made me think whatever the merits or demerits of having a system which I

think is very interesting apparently very effective the idea of making models of family fields seems to me

something that one could address in a more general sense because there would be certain patterns of

dynamics you'd expect if you have a family consisting of mother father and then one child the simplest

one is two three four five what kinds of flows of energies some of this would be kind of common sense

in eldest children and in relation to second children most people have had two children say that the

oldest ones were more trouble as babies how to deal with the younger ones somehow much easier to get on

there but then you get this kind of rivalries going up sibling rivalries and so on then families more

complex family fields where you have stepfathers or stepbrothers stepbrothers and sisters then you get

on his stage that you get these very complicated family fields and what happens in those in real life

those are common nowadays so one could make certain models of these fields one could also see how the

balance the balance of energies if you have a field model like this you take someone who's in the model

move them further away in whatever space he models in and turn them to face out from the rest of the family

what kind of dynamics happens there with the rest of them what happens to them in any group into which

they enter some of any new family they form how what effect does this have one could perhaps model this kind of

thing so i wanted to suggest that maybe it's possible to make this family field thing more scientific

investigate it further make models and in some way perhaps come up with tests or empirical studies that could

further the science or investigation of family fields

well that certainly sounds very interesting i'm not sure i understand to what degree the use of the word

field is justified here and uh do do they think of uh like an extended

spatial field like the gravitational field or something is associated with with the family and the

individuals have a field like vibrating aura or something or does it just mean the field in a general

sense that could be described uh let us say just by giving for any two individuals in the family some

strength of the connection plus or minus or something that would be represented in the tableau when the

actors are placed on the stage uh by the geographical distance to them or something so that bringing

one member in closer would correspond in this model to just strengthening the community the bandwidth of the

communication channel or the positivity of the regard or some other like simple parameter that would be a

more of a connectionist model with like a um undirected graph with nodes and links and so on

is it like links between the people could be just represented by a number or would it be essential in

order to understand the experiences of helmer to actually have a kind of extended three-dimensional

spatial field around each individual that has memory and so on well maybe a connectionist thing with nodes would

be an adequate model but then you could say that what can the connections the nodes you could just sort of

draw a line around the whole thing say this was a set of connections or something which would be

perhaps just a different way of trying to model the field um you see the connections in so far as you

draw it say there's a connection a b and it has a given strength you're presupposing an invisible bond

between people that would work when the other person was in the next room at the very least and

therefore you're proposing a bond which whose reality is not physical in the normal sense it may be

mental emotional uh psychic i mean whatever word you choose but it's not sort of smell touch

hearing i mean those are involved if you're in the same room and so the really advantage of the

field model is it frees you up from thinking that the connections must be normal face-to-face

communication but then they can still exist even if you're apart i see so the the family field

of the flock the school and so on is this kind of a extrapolation backwards of psychic pets into more

of the psychic bonds in the wild well i think that the bonds even between them for the family you know

when people go away and they're that they they want like me i mean i'm attached to my family so

from here i fear the strong need to ring up my children to speak to me as they go into bed even

though i'm six thousand miles away that bond is a straight strong bond for me and so and for most

people if they're nearest these bonds are not severed by getting on an airplane so whatever model you

have is the connections the connections have to be of such a nature that they still persist

well i'm suggesting to whatever the model is to have the same model as the model we have for

the psychic pets because ethologists which is a therapist like the animal equivalent of hellinger

that analyze cats for example they describe the relationship of the cat to the owner person as

a form of the relation of the cat to the cat's mother that's been replaced the cats even as they

age regardless of themselves as kittens as it were with the owner as the mother cat the way they play and

rub against you and so on are derived behaviors from what um the cat version of hellinger would

describe as the family field on the cat yes level and and therefore if we are as we have been uh been

thinking about mathematical models for the the field uh that describes the attachment of the cat and owner

when we would be tempted to use the same model for the family field in the human family for example

or flutter sheep and so on and that would be then uh some kind of well telepathy is the word i think

or a non-specific uh communication channel between the people or animals at a distance

yes although telepathic communications wouldn't need to be passing between the tools and maybe a

connectionist model would be fine yeah as long as you leave open the nature of the connection

so that the connection is it doesn't have to be presupposed to depend on normal sensory communication

you probably didn't know in a in a neural net if you took one and it was capable of say parsing

natural speech or something and then you took one of the nodes out or broke one of the connections and

wouldn't be able to do that anymore so this uh the connectionist model might be adequate for uh modeling

this having a strategy of bringing in the missing sibling or something replacing the node and the

connections which make a functional unit yes or what happened what would have happened as well before the

sibling died the family field had a different structure because it included that sibling if the

that the death of the sibling changes the field but his point is unless it's acknowledged and unless

in some sense the ancestors are acknowledged and unless the dead siblings acknowledged and recognized

within the field their presence within the field is recognized their unrecognized presence can cause

terrible distances so some used to recognizing a kind of virtual node in the field let's see how that

would be i don't know how to model that how could that be important that what is what is this

recognition consist of so you are a fish okay now you recognize you as a fish is it would they're coupled

oscillators and the family thing works because people really are complex chemical systems

with genetic affinities you could even suppose a kind of physical mechanism they are coupled oscillators

that impart their waveform to the local space which encounters the waveforms of these other oscillators

which are very similar to them physically more similar to them than any other person or thing

and so there's a kind of entrainment often the things are these feeling toned something has happened to someone or i should call it

something so it indicates they are like coupled oscillators so the recognition the non-recognition means

well the oscillators are coupled and therefore this one is and then it's not understood because you're not aware of my father's

sister carrie died when he was young so she was never even a person she was not real

if i had um interactions with a place in some structure or say our family field where she belonged

but i didn't acknowledge it then i would always be confused about what's going on in my life something like that

yes because the whole structure of the family field is you see that if it had or you see there's a kind

of memory in these fields and so that the fields and the dynamics of the field are influenced by the

memory oh i see it yes of the person who was there but no longer there and so the memory is actually

working in the dynamics of the field because all these fields have this kind of memory but if you

don't recognize it so you don't understand what's really going on in the interactions and you're always in

the dark as to why certain puzzling conflicts or whatever or suicides there are cases where amazing

cases where you get members of families young people commit suicide in a way that mimics the

unacknowledged death of an ancestor like suicide by drowning when an ancestor of one or two generations

before has committed suicide by joining but they've never been told about it because it's never acknowledged

and you get these extraordinary patterns that repeat sometimes literal ones like that other times sort

of morphed ones maybe we have to think of um different models for the same thing so that there'd be a

model like a connectionist diagram of a family as it were and then there's another drawing for

the family as i see it and that if i haven't acknowledged my aunt kerry then in my model of

the family there's nothing there that's right uh but in this other model of actual interactions

so it is there maybe you need a a directive graph where the channel between you and me for example

would have two lines one going that way as when i speak or send you a message and another one going

this way yes they'd have to do the connections would have to have sort of directed both directions so

there could be in the case of a family member who's not acknowledged that there's a directed line from

that one to me because i'm receiving but not knowing yes and then i'm sending nothing back because i'm

not acknowledging yes so that the acknowledgement of a missing family member would just consist of

the addition into the model of one link that's right that would be enough and in his in his therapeutic

workshop where he does this for the family and the whole therapy of the particular person they

last half an hour three quarters of a mile with constellating these fields and then in these things

he he asked the person to come say that the members of the family have there's somebody representing

them you see in the family field there's somebody standing in for themselves they're sitting outside

it with him oh so say that it was your family field you choose someone to represent you oh i see so

there'd be ralph in there and so you're sitting back telling you now see ralph in relation to us from

outside and then you see how it's remodeling it's remodeling yes and then you see the other ones and

he readjusts the field and puts in the absent members and then he asked the members actually

standing there to acknowledge the unacknowledged ones or whatever and then he asked you to go and stand

in the position of ralph in this remodeled field and turn to the unacknowledged one and say you were

my aunt i acknowledge you and turn to the others and so on and experience that new constellation from

within and this has a dramatically dramatically changing effect on family fields it brings them

to consciousness it recognizes these things and the acknowledgement is done and it changes them

so any model of the fields you see would have meaning the kind of thing you were saying is to

apply you turn the model of the field so as you have a map of it's perceived today and if you're able

to bring about the remodel or at least bring your model of the field into much more into place connection

with what the field actually is or was then this has a therapeutic effect this is the opposite of

institutional therapy where people go into a corporation for example which has um an actual

structure and then the directors have the model and instead of changing the model fit of actuality

they change the actuality to fit the model yes but they're in a company where you've got you can

actually have a more board model of flow diagram i mean it's sort of artificial organizations

but family organizations um although there's a kind of archetypal model like the nuclear family

model or something like that although there are sort of idealized models socially approved and recognized

each family is different and which is different in its own way to paraphrase Tolstoy

every happy family is the same but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

um so there's a sense out of shape as it were yes the field is somehow distorted or whatever

so his his um model any model were made would have to take into account those two things so it's a

question of how far can one just say well this is an interesting therapy it's just one among many and

it's just this is its particular trip but how far can one take says the idea that family dynamics are not

an arbitrary invention of having there an obvious reality and we don't have adequate models for these

family systems nor the influence of ancestors within them which my interest in morfitt resonance makes me

very keen on the fact that there must be this historical memory habit dimension well then the network

can be extended indefinitely it's simply that people outside the family but in the neighborhood

uh or in the past are weekly coupled important teachers in primary school yes things like that

sort of thing they're weakly coupled yes yes and then you can have you can have the way that a given

you could then extend this arnold mendel is the person who's pioneered this model in different in

non-family groups are you familiar with this one i am you know arnold mendel but in his book the year one

he talks about the modeling of social groups how you have a social group and that each social

group is a kind of organism and therefore there'll be different roles taken up by different people

within the group and in lots of groups for example there will tend to be somebody who's a grumbler

or a complainer and who sort of focuses and vocalizes the sort of grumble takes on the role of

of making complaints which other people

you

and the group might be too shy or too restrained to make,

but somehow they haven't made.

And then they can also project onto the grumbler

a kind of negativity or hostility.

This is a dynamic that happens within groups.

And quite often, if one grumbler leaves the group or is expelled,

someone else has to take on that role of being a grumbler.

So he has a kind of field theory, what I'd call a field.

I don't know if he calls it a field theory,

but I'd call it a field theory of groups,

which is less interesting than Hellinger's

in the sense that Hellinger has this family dimension,

this time dimension, with innumerable examples.

He has hundreds of videos of his doing this with different family groups.

You can see one after another of these groups before your eyes in video.

They're very interesting.

But Mendel is a more abstract theory based on him working with groups

in therapy sessions or in town meetings or workshops.

We've got 30 people for a few days.

It doesn't have the same kind of historical depth,

but it's still dealing with the same kind of Greek model.

Well, the idea of memory, then,

Hellinger's interest in memory in the field concept

has to do with having the ancestors in the tableau.

Is that right?

Yes.

Well, how do you understand the influence

of an acknowledged or unacknowledged ancestor generation

or two back on this part of the family unit

that consists of the currently living members?

How do you understand that?

If it was, say, two generations back,

you've never met them?

What's the difference?

How do you understand it?

Well, because, say, when you have a partner,

you get married or not married,

it's the case may be,

you have children.

You then have a family field.

And assuming the parents are together,

your expectations of the way you've behaved your children,

no one's ever trained you how to raise children.

You've never mentioned at school.

So, how do you know how to treat your kids?

Well, the only model you've got

is either looking at friends doing this,

or the one that runs deepest for you

is what happened in your own family.

And so, you bring to the situation

a kind of memory of the whole dynamics

of your family of origin.

And the same goes for your wife

or your partner or the mother of the children.

She brings to it the dynamics

from her whole family of origin.

You then, you and she then

have different expectations

of how the family is going to work.

Because you've got two different kind of fields.

And she may expect quite different things of you

and of the way you treat the children

and of the kids

than you expect of her and of the kids.

And this can either lead to some kind of compromise.

In fact, over time,

somehow it has to accommodate in some way.

But it can also lead to a lot of conflicts.

They're different models and expectations.

So, you bring these fields with you

as it were unconsciously

because they're the fields

in which you were in that group there

with the sort of field pattern.

You're now in a new family group.

And you helped.

You bring that field pattern in

and it sort of fuses with that of your partner.

But that's the only thing.

You can learn from other models.

You can know other families.

You can live with other groups.

So, basically,

you bring it with you.

So, then, do you think cross-cultural marriages

are more fraught

than marriages within class

and cultural domains?

Well, that would be an empirical question.

You know, one would predict

that there would be certain kinds of problems.

Say you take marriages

between English people and Indians

or Pakistanis.

Then, you could do a model,

the Hellinger-type model

of the Indian family field.

You know, you could interview Indians,

look at Indian family structures.

They'd probably have quite different

sort of expectations

and field patterns

from the people from nuclear families

growing up in suburbs

in England or America.

And, if that's the case,

you could actually predict

what would happen

when you put these two,

what kinds of conflicts

are likely to result,

what kinds of expectations

the man and woman

from these different kinds of backgrounds

are going to have within this.

And, you could talk to people

who deal in marriage counselling

with mixed marriages

and see whether these are, indeed,

the kinds of recurrent problems

they encounter.

So, you could,

by talking to sociologists,

social workers,

and people who actually deal

with dysfunctional families

of various kinds,

or functional families,

you could,

this would be an empirical study

on family dynamics

from different backgrounds.

So, you could actually approach it all.

You could make models

and you could actually test them

because there's all different kinds

of families and fields

coming together.

So, I think the model, then,

of the family field

would have to consist of more

than the nodes

and the connections

and so on.

The creation of the tableau

with the patient

with the director

includes not only

where the actors are standing

but also which direction

they're facing.

Yes.

And, maybe their posture

or any kind of

body language representation,

facial expression,

things like that.

Yes.

Well, it doesn't usually,

it can involve posture.

Because when we think

of animal behaviour

in the sense of

how you raise your children

and so on,

there are many, many attributes

of a node,

an individual member

of the family

and their attitude

of servitude

or their willingness

to sacrifice, compromise

and all these things

that we know

varies from culture

to culture

and so on.

They're called the roles

of the division

of labour

of the mother

and father

and so on.

The father drives

the other species

of birds

away from the nest

and so on.

So, some kind

of modelling

or even simple representation

of these behaviours

would have to be attached

otherwise

the model would be

too simple

to really indicate

the difference

between different generations

and people

from different families

coming from different

family groups

marrying and so on.

Yes, well,

it might help.

The geometry

wouldn't be enough.

Well, it might help

in starting these models

with different species

of birds,

for example,

where you've got

more standardised patterns

and where you can

actually observe

what happens

because there is

a division of labour

with birds

and say a gander

will defend

the nest

of the goose

and young.

Some birds

play it in cuckoos

do it a totally

different way,

of course,

baby cuckoos

like a pathology

in the nest

of other birds.

So,

there are all

different patterns

among birds

in the division

of labour

but they're fairly

consistent

within the species.

So,

if one had a model

that would work

for these,

the family fields

are more complicated.

Human family situations

are far more complicated

than those

of many animals

and the beauty

of looking at

bird families

is that you could have

20, 30 different

kinds

of behaviour

already documented

by naturalists

the family life

of different birds

the number of little birds

they have

the way they teach

and fly

whether they have

social groups

or not

like flocks

some birds

have flocks

some don't

there'd be a lot

of scope

anyone who could

come up

with a good model

would have a large

amount of natural

history at their feet

as territory

to explore

with this modelling

technique

because right now

the kinds of models

that ethologists

have

of groups

are not terrible

well their focus

has been distorted

by the Richard Dawkins

type people

where it's all

the selfish genes

and it's seen as

individual competition

and struggle

and maybe that perspective

has something to offer

to this modelling process

but it hasn't

led to any

kind of emphasis

or

attempts to model

the dynamics

of these groups

very effectively

the other thing

you have to take

into consideration

is

a family

is an organism

evolving

through time

the arrangement

the tableau

is a snapshot

in time

it also

I mean

one could assume

it's the patient

or the client's

relationship

to their family

at the present moment

but on the other hand

if you're going to bring

in ancestors

is the

is the ancestor

influencing the field

as a child

as a middle-aged person

as an elderly person

did their influence

on the field

change through time

and then

there seems to be

sort of a

dichotomy

there's a static

now

but it's being

modified

by a shifting

past

as these ancestors

exert

differing influences

on the situation

depending on

where

in their own

life history

they are

yes

and in

in some

tribal cultures

like the

Sura

in India

this is the kind

of thing

ancestors

made the role

of the ancestors

actually been

documented by

anthropologists

there's a whole

body of

anthropological

data here

there's the

Sura

where

my friend

Piers Vitebsky

was an anthropologist

and I visited him

in the field

in Bihar

no in Orissa

in Karakut district

of Orissa

he was living

in the Sura village

he was living

with the Shema

and they had

a whole

very complicated

doctrine

about what

happened to you

when you died

say you died

by suicide

you went to the sun

if you died

of smallpox

you went to a kind

of leopard spirit

and there were

so there were

different groups

and the ancestors

who died of that

all went to the same

place so you were with

them and you wanted

to get the living

into your group

when they died

rather than

someone else

because you wanted

to be with them

so you were always

competing death

spirits

different modes of death

containing ancestors

competing for the living

and the best way

to deal with this

is to make peace

with them

and to make offerings

every year

there's these buffalo

sacrifices

for the ancestors

so if you give blood

and appease the ancestors

then they'll be happier

and they won't feel

so medium

they're not going to

try and grab you

so much

so you buy them off

but after two

or three generations

their individual identity

their names

begin to fade

and they're

sort of liberated

over time

from that

sort of obsessive thing

until the souls

are sort of set free

at which time

they become butterflies

so when you see

butterflies

flying around

you in the forest

from the village

these are the liberated

souls of distant ancestors

whose influence

is no longer

particularly important

in this whole economy

of death

and recruitment

well this is the memory

model for the

conspiracy theorists

yes

except that there's

lots of different

it is like a competing

it's not so much

conspiracy

well there are

sort of competing

conspiracies

yes

and there are

certain stones

you can trip over

in the forest

there are certain

ones that catch

people who stumble

and make you stumble

in the forest

but you have to be

on good terms

with the ancestors

and what being

on good terms

with them

above all

means acknowledging

it means in a

sacrifice

of blood

that you name

and acknowledge

the key ancestors

you acknowledge

all the dead

in your lineage

and if you miss

anyone up

they're going to be

angry

and if they're

angry

that means

trouble

so this is

their cosmology

and the way

they see it

and each tribe

each group

has its own

theory of the

ancestors

the Japanese

and Chinese

especially the

Chinese

have an elaborate

sense of the

world importance

of the ancestors

with all these

offerings they make

of paper houses

and what not

and I think

one

if one were looking

at this empirically

in the human realm

maybe one would

perhaps have

models for

different species

of birds

but coming back

to the human realm

to compare the

dynamics which

you could do

partly from

anthropology

and partly

from modern

sociology

of say

Chinese families

typical Chinese

families

where there's a

high degree

of acknowledgement

of the ancestors

with modern

American families

or western

families

fragmented

dissociated

chaotic

where there's a

very low degree

of acknowledgement

of the ancestors

and see what

kinds of patterns

occur there

and then you

could look at

Chinese Americans

who may have

abandoned all the

ancestors worship

thing and just

assimilated to

mainstream American

society

do they have

particular qualities

or do they just

become like

Americans

they stumble a lot

they must

because a lot of

angry ancestors

were accustomed

to a great

real

well you'd

expect that

you see

but maybe they

go on

acknowledging them

a lot of

the Chinese

are very

traditional

so

you know

there's a whole

field of research

here

the role of

the ancestors

because every

culture has its

own way of

dealing with them

and its own

way of acknowledging

them

and in the

Christian tradition

the festival of

all Hallows

and all Souls

Halloween is the

eve of all Hallows

November the 1st

and all Souls

day November the 2nd

is when requiem

masses are offered

for all the dead

all the departed

in which you can

particularly

hand in the names

of particular

ancestors

or the particular

people don't

have their names

read out of the

requiem mass

so I do this

myself

so there's an

acknowledged social

form in our

culture for

acknowledging and

naming the

ancestors in a

traditional ceremony

so there are

great variations

in our own

culture between

the degree to

which people

within different

families and

traditions

acknowledge the

ancestors

the Roman

Catholics do it

more than the

Protestants

because of this

phenomenon of

requiem masses

and the

observance of

all Souls

day which

Protestants

don't observe

so it's a

rich field for

investigation you

see in

sociology

anthropology

multi-building

etc but as

yet more or less

unexplored

do you think

these ideas could

be extrapolated

to non-human

families with

any degree of

that you would

learn anything

useful

yes it

would have to

be exactly

the same

perhaps simpler

like bird

families

maybe all

the behaviors

that we

could quantify

are ones that

mythologists had

been traditionally

observing and

they might have

missed a lot of

things like the

role of the

ancestors among

birds I don't

think they ever

noticed

was the

ancestor

acknowledge

are there

any bird

families with

three generations

and I guess

you could ask

what is a

family does

an insect

come have a

family

well termite

certainly does

on the

social scale

yes but for

instance well

the social group

it wouldn't have

to be a family

whatever group

that you can

observe that

you observe a

school of fish

you might not

know the

ancestry of the

kinship diagram

but if you

could quantify

the observables

whatever

ethologists

observe about

birds

the gander

is aggressive

and attacks

other birds

so that would

be a number

from one to

ten of

aggression

then the

mother

nourishes

by going

getting food

treated up

spitting in

their mouths

and being

nourished

is another

parameter

so whatever

the ethologists

observe more

or less

defines the

model that

they have of

bird groups

or families

and likewise

whatever

species have

been observed

i don't think

there is any

mathematical

modeling effort

that's been

going on

among ethologists

or anthropologists

for that matter

but really

this theory

is saying

that it's

genetic

similarity

that

engages on

the strength

of the bond

or

it may or

may not

so twins

would then

be in a

special position

well they are

in a special

position

as traditionally

acknowledged

and revealed

by modern

twin research

they are

but genetic

similarity

is you see

but the

mother and

the father

the children

have a genetic

similarity

to the mother

and the father

the mother

and the father

have no

necessary

genetic

similarity

and it's

also possible

for members

of a pack

of wolves

you know

groups

and exogamy

marrying to

a group

outside the

familiar group

is the rule

rather than

the exception

so although

you so

that one

at least

one member

of the group

the father

or the mother

is going to have

a different

unrelated

genetic nature

so it's not

a necessary

feature of

these bonds

to have genetic

similarity

they may or

may not have

it and

it may be

they're stronger

in the social

insects

where you've

got all these

casts of workers

derived from

the queen

and sharing

half the

genes

of their

sisters

with each

other

they have

a great

many genes

in common

yes

this may give

a kind of

more telepathic

type connection

between them

but

I wouldn't put

genetics as

our key

it's not going

to help us

much in this

particular

so can you

imagine a

strong link

between a

person

and

their great

grandfather's

second wife

to whom

they have

other than

that

oh no

if it's

the second

wife

it would

be

relatively

irrelevant

and

Hellinger

if one was

doing this

modelling

one would

look at

what he

thinks

it's

the family

of origin

what would

matter

is the

time

when your

great

grandfather

was

born

his family

of origin

it may

later include

when he's

his father

marrying

again

or something

but it

would be

the origin

field

and these

later ones

have

relatively

small

effect

so

you know

they've

already got

their ideas

about what

weightings

you'd give

to these

different

people

but the

difference

between

birds

and people

is that

the general

pattern

of a bird

family

is given

instinctively

it's by

a morphic

field

I would say

with such

a deep

and strong

morphic resonance

you've got

a kind

of basic

pattern

that the

whole species

lies within

and if

you have

a deviant

family

subsequent

ones

would get

morphic

resonance

from their

own

deviant

family

of origin

but they'd

also get

resonance

from sort

of a huge

runoff

in creative

family life

now in the

human world

where there's

no genetically

determined

family structure

because it's

cultural

and a great

little human

cultural

evolution

is sort

of decoupled

from genetics

it's the

difference

between

Italian

and English

families

and American

families

and stuff

and families

in New

England

and California

is not

particularly

genetic

it's cultural

and the fact

that families

have changed

through divorce

etc etc

over the last

hundred years

much smaller

family sizes

hundred years ago

most of our

ancestors would

have had six

seven siblings

minded

now you've

got much

smaller nuclear

families

higher rates

of divorce

it's changing

so it's not

genetic

it's much

too quick

so genetics

doesn't really

help us

much

and that's

why in the

human realm

the only

model that

you can rely

on is not

a genetically

inherited model

because we

don't have that

whereas animals

do

but there's

the cultural

experience in

which you grew

up and the

cultural models

around you

so that's

why I think

that although

one could

have a certain

class of

models that

would handle

human families

and bad families

the human one

is always going

to be much

more complicated

much more

complicated

because you

have to model

the cultures

as well

so maybe

birds are

easier because

they're monocultural

in a sense

but culture

is also

simpler

but once a

class of models

had been built

up in one

field it

would be a

matter of

extending it

to the end

wouldn't it

yes that's

why it would

be easiest

to start

with the

simplest models

simplest

cases

and then

easily

extrapolate

upward

into human

species

and eventually

to whales

and so on

is it a

metaphor

I hate to

cut this

off right

here

but my

energy levels

are running

low

and so

I'm going

to call

it a day

for now

but I'll

get the

remaining

part of

this

trialogue

out as

soon as

I can

hopefully

in the

next few

days

I haven't

heard the

end of this

conversation

yet myself

but already

Rupert has

given me a lot

to think about

along the

lines of

family

morphogenic

fields

in fact

it may

even open

up a whole

new line

of dialogue

between my

cousins

and myself

at least

I hope

it will

while I'm

thinking of

it I

want to

say something

about the

sound quality

in some

of these

podcasts

believe it

or not

I actually

do edit

the talks

I play

and in

some cases

I've even

been successful

in cleaning

up the

sound

significantly

but there

are some

instances

like today's

trialogue

that were

recorded

with a

hum in

them

and as

hard as

I tried

I wasn't

able to

remove

that hum

without

causing a

little

I decided

the hum

was less

annoying

than the

voice

changes

and left

it just

as it

was

recorded

I also

know

that there

are among

us here

in the

salon

quite a few

audio

experts

like

Brian

and John

H

and I

sincerely

appreciate

your offers

of help

and that

goes to

all of you

who have

written

to offer

technical

assistance

my

problem

is

that I've

got kind

of a tiger

by the tail

here and

I don't

want to

let go

until I

fully

understand

my exit

strategy

the tiger

of course

is the

psychedelic

salon

and to

be honest

I never

really gave

any thought

to having

much of

an audience

and so

I figured

it was

a nice

hobby

that I

could

drop

if I

ever

got

tired

of

you

writers

out

there

know

how

easy

it

is

to

find

something

to

do

other

than

to

do

what

you

came

here

to do

and

I

do

realize

that

if I'm

ever

going to get

back to work

on my new

book

I'm going

to have

to figure

a way

to offload

some of the

back-end

work involved

in these

podcasts

and maintaining

several

websites

so

I've

been

working

on a

long-range

plan

to

turn

the

salon

into

more

of

a

community

project

which

of course

would

allow us

to bring

in more

of the

work

being

done

by

many

of

our

regulars

here

in

the

salon

my

reason

for

mentioning

this

right

now

is

that

I

know

some

of

you

are

getting

frustrated

at

going

here

you

know

when

I'm

recording

these

podcasts

I

really

do

feel

like

I'm

sitting

there

beside

you

and

having

a

conversation

and I

don't

want

to

do

anything

that

will

change

that

feeling

for

me

because

if

this

becomes

a

job

or

something

I'm

not

wanting

to

do

most

of

the

time

well

then

figure

out

how

to

continue

growing

our

connections

and

exchanging

ideas

among

the

worldwide

psychedelic

community

and

sometime

after

this

year's

burning

man

festival

where

I

hope

to

kick

around

some

of

these

ideas

in

person

with

you

I'll

let

all

of

you

volunteers

and

potential

volunteers

know

what

I've

come

up

with

once

we

get

back

from

the

burn

and

we'll

figure

out

how

all

of

you

can

become

more

involved

long

term

survival

and

that

is

the

hope

that

comes

from

increasing

our

understanding

of

psychedelic

substances

well

that's

a

little

heavier

note

than

I

planned

on

ending

on

but

I

know

that

you're

okay

and

hey

be

well

my

friend

now

before

I

go

I

want

to

mention

as

always

that

this

and

all

of

the

podcasts

from

the

psychedelic

salon

are

protected

under

the

creative

commons

attribution

non-commercial

share like

2.5

license

and if

you have

suggestions

about

these

podcasts

well

just

send

them

to

lorenzo

at

matrix

masters

dot com

and

thanks

again

to

Jacques

Cordell

and

Wells

otherwise

known as

Chateau

Hayuk

for the

use of

your

music

here

in

the

salon

and

a

big

thank

you

again

to

Janice

Gate

creative

James

Jason

John

M

a

dime

short

Yarev

and

William

this

one

being

here

I

really

enjoy

the

time

we

spend

together

here

each

week

and

I

know

that

you

probably

feel

the

same

way

so

for

now

this

is

Lorenzo

signing

off

from

cyberdelic

space

be well

my