WEBVTT 00:33.970 --> 00:39.110 topic today is hallucinogens and culture. We're going to examine the way that various 00:39.110 --> 00:44.370 cultures throughout the planet have been influenced in their social and cultural and intellectual 00:44.370 --> 00:50.450 development by hallucinogenic substances in the food chain. With me in the studio is Terence 00:50.450 --> 00:57.050 McKenna, author, lecturer, explorer, and philosopher. Terence is the co-author with his brother 00:57.050 --> 01:02.970 Dennis McKenna of a book called The Invisible Landscape, Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching. 01:02.970 --> 01:08.830 He's also the co-author of Psilocybin, Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide. He is the author of a 01:08.830 --> 01:14.690 computer program called Time Wave Zero, and he's the co-founder and president of an organization 01:14.690 --> 01:22.290 called Botanical Dimensions, which devotes itself to saving botanical plants used in shamanistic 01:22.290 --> 01:27.490 traditions throughout the world. Welcome, Terence. It's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to 01:27.490 --> 01:32.610 have you here. I think a good starting point for our discussion would be the ancient Vedic 01:32.610 --> 01:32.950 culture. 01:32.970 --> 01:38.470 of India, one of the world's great and one of the world's earliest religions. The Rig 01:38.470 --> 01:44.870 Veda is considered by all scholars, I think, to be one of the most beautiful composite 01:44.870 --> 01:49.990 of religious hymns and deep philosophical discussions. And yet, when one reads the 01:49.990 --> 01:56.530 Rig Veda carefully, one discovers an enormous emphasis on a mysterious, apparently hallucinogenic 01:56.530 --> 02:02.850 substance called Soma. Yes, you're quite right. The ninth mandala of the Rig Veda 02:02.970 --> 02:10.950 is entirely devoted to singing the praises of Soma. And yet, we do not know what Soma is 02:10.950 --> 02:18.130 or was. R. Gordon Wasson spent a considerable portion of his life researching this problem 02:18.130 --> 02:26.550 and reached the conclusion that Soma was Amanita muscaria, a mushroom that is symbiotic to 02:26.550 --> 02:31.590 pine and birch trees throughout much of the North Temperate Zone. 02:31.590 --> 02:32.590 However, 02:32.970 --> 02:41.590 scholars have cast doubt on his identification of Soma. Nevertheless, what we learn from 02:41.590 --> 02:50.210 Wasson's scholarship is that plants with hallucinogenic chemical principles in them have had an enormous 02:50.210 --> 02:57.650 impact on shaping the psychology of various cultures, both preliterate and literate, throughout 02:57.650 --> 02:58.650 the world. 02:58.650 --> 03:02.930 It seems quite clear that the references to Soma in the Rig Veda were not 03:02.930 --> 03:10.850 really symbolic. They refer to some actual plant substance. 03:10.850 --> 03:14.930 Oh, yes, definitely. Some sort of plant substance was prepared and ingested by a priesthood, 03:14.930 --> 03:22.570 who then used the ecstatic experience induced by that plant as the basis for all of their 03:22.570 --> 03:29.730 metaphysical and philosophical speculations on the nature of the universe. The case of 03:29.730 --> 03:29.870 Soma is by no means unique. More importantly, the 03:29.870 --> 03:30.590 report says that the Soma of Blu Mata is a pulses of the same species of plant with some 03:30.590 --> 03:30.710 lemonade-like qualities such as theklowzina, indium, and this is how it is. However, the 03:30.710 --> 03:30.930 word play is one that has not yet been widely used by the Russianavia. 03:30.930 --> 03:31.670 If you were to say that the Soma was not related to anything in the world as the Indus-Gilrubin 03:31.670 --> 03:31.830 was, you'd need to be curious. But the Soma of Blu Mata is in fact a metaphor for his Population. 03:31.830 --> 03:41.830 My own field of interest was the Amazon Basin, where we don't have a great written literature, 03:41.830 --> 03:51.830 but we do have an extensive oral tradition and a tradition of hallucinogenic plant use that persists to the present day. 03:51.830 --> 03:56.830 Well, I think most notable in South America is the drug ayahuasca. 03:56.830 --> 04:05.830 Yes, ayahuasca is perhaps the world's largest and most thriving psychedelic religion. 04:05.830 --> 04:13.830 It touches the lives of millions of mestizos and Indians in the basin. 04:13.830 --> 04:20.830 It is a combinatory drug, which makes it especially interesting to pharmacologists, 04:20.830 --> 04:26.830 because its two principal ingredients are themselves inactive, 04:26.830 --> 04:29.830 except in the presence of each other. 04:29.830 --> 04:37.830 So, what we have in the case of ayahuasca is an example of a highly evolved folk pharmacology. 04:37.830 --> 04:43.830 And how a discovery like this was ever made in the first place 04:43.830 --> 04:48.830 is one of the challenging questions that anthropologists have to deal with. 04:48.830 --> 04:52.830 After all, in a square mile of Amazonian rainforest, 04:52.830 --> 04:56.830 it is not unusual to encounter 50,000 different species. 04:56.830 --> 04:59.830 It is a distinct species of plants. 04:59.830 --> 05:05.830 How then did these so-called primitive or preliterate people 05:05.830 --> 05:12.830 make the connection between the combining of the bark of one with the leaves of another, 05:12.830 --> 05:20.830 boiled and put through a number of procedures to produce an intense visionary hallucinogen? 05:20.830 --> 05:25.830 This is an extremely interesting and, to this day, unanswered question. 05:25.830 --> 05:28.830 Is it the case that, I believe it was the German chemist 05:28.830 --> 05:34.830 who isolated the chemical active ingredient in ayahuasca, 05:34.830 --> 05:36.830 originally named it telepathine? 05:36.830 --> 05:38.830 Yes, that's right. 05:38.830 --> 05:45.830 Based on field reports of the states of group mind induced by ayahuasca, 05:45.830 --> 05:47.830 which is also called ya-he, 05:47.830 --> 05:51.830 he felt it was fitting to name it telepathine. 05:51.830 --> 05:55.830 Now, the rules of scientific nomenclature 05:55.830 --> 06:02.830 are such that the first name of a compound is always given precedent. 06:02.830 --> 06:06.830 And about 20 years after it was named telepathine, 06:06.830 --> 06:11.830 it was realized that the identical compound had been isolated 06:11.830 --> 06:16.830 around the turn of the century from the giant Syrian roo, 06:16.830 --> 06:20.830 Pergamon harmala, and named harmine. 06:20.830 --> 06:23.830 So today, the active ingredients of ayahuasca 06:23.830 --> 06:25.830 are known as harmine, 06:25.830 --> 06:26.830 harmaline, 06:26.830 --> 06:28.830 and tetrahydroharman. 06:28.830 --> 06:30.830 But your point is well taken. 06:30.830 --> 06:37.830 What struck the early explorers and ethnographers into the Amazon basin 06:37.830 --> 06:43.830 was the fact that the people seemed to be taking this plant preparation 06:43.830 --> 06:50.830 in order to undergo states of community group-mindedness. 06:50.830 --> 06:54.830 And during these intoxicating intervals, 06:54.830 --> 07:00.830 social plans relative to migration, hunting, and warfare 07:00.830 --> 07:04.830 were undertaken by the elders of the tribe. 07:04.830 --> 07:10.830 And though the name has been changed to the more innocuous harmine, 07:10.830 --> 07:14.830 nevertheless, there's a continued persistence of the feeling 07:14.830 --> 07:22.830 that telepathic and group mind states are induced by this particular plant mixture. 07:22.830 --> 07:25.830 And it's particularly interesting in the light of the fact 07:25.830 --> 07:30.830 that the chemical constituents which make it go 07:30.830 --> 07:34.830 are in fact found endogenously in the human brain. 07:34.830 --> 07:38.830 These are not exotic compounds from the point of view 07:38.830 --> 07:41.830 of ordinary human brain chemistry. 07:41.830 --> 07:44.830 So there is a suggestion there 07:44.830 --> 07:49.830 that manipulation of neurohumeral compounds, 07:49.830 --> 07:52.830 brain neurotransmitters and that sort of thing, 07:52.830 --> 08:00.830 may in fact open the door to untapped areas of human potential. 08:00.830 --> 08:03.830 I would imagine that many of our viewers have seen the movie 08:03.830 --> 08:07.830 The Emerald Forest, which seems to deal with the use of substances 08:07.830 --> 08:10.830 of this sort in the Amazon culture. 08:10.830 --> 08:15.830 Yes, John Borman did a wonderful job with that movie. 08:15.830 --> 08:19.830 He was portraying the use of epina snuff. 08:19.830 --> 08:22.830 That's a hallucinogenic substance 08:22.830 --> 08:24.830 in the drug complex that occurs 08:24.830 --> 08:27.830 in the eastern part of the Amazon drainage 08:27.830 --> 08:30.830 and in rural Venezuela. 08:30.830 --> 08:35.830 Epina contains DMT 08:35.830 --> 08:40.830 and is blown up the nostrils by a cooperative friend 08:40.830 --> 08:45.830 and induces an intense state of hallucinogenesis. 08:45.830 --> 08:48.830 Yes, that was, I think, most people's first exposure 08:48.830 --> 08:51.830 to the real richness of the 08:51.830 --> 08:55.830 visionary pharmacopoeia that does exist in the Amazon. 08:55.830 --> 08:58.830 And there's also the suggestion there then, I guess, 08:58.830 --> 09:02.830 that DMT would trigger telepathic-like experiences 09:02.830 --> 09:04.830 or clairvoyant types of experiences. 09:04.830 --> 09:05.830 That's right. 09:05.830 --> 09:11.830 And DMT is also a product of endogenous human metabolism. 09:11.830 --> 09:16.830 It's interesting that the most intense of the hallucinogens, 09:16.830 --> 09:18.830 DMT, which you mentioned, 09:18.830 --> 09:21.830 are the ones which are most closely related 09:21.830 --> 09:23.830 to our own brain chemistry. 09:23.830 --> 09:28.830 So far from these compounds being alien to the brain 09:28.830 --> 09:31.830 or being an insult to the physical brain, 09:31.830 --> 09:35.830 what they really represent are the shifting of ratios 09:35.830 --> 09:39.830 of compounds already present in the ordinary brain. 09:39.830 --> 09:42.830 Well, DMT, I believe, is dimethyltryptophan. 09:42.830 --> 09:43.830 Tryptamine. 09:43.830 --> 09:44.830 Tryptamine. 09:44.830 --> 09:45.830 That's right. 09:45.830 --> 09:46.830 Tryptamine. 09:46.830 --> 09:49.830 It's related to the protein tryptophan, is it not? 09:49.830 --> 09:51.830 It's related to the protein. 09:51.830 --> 09:55.830 The protein tryptophan, it's also related to serotonin. 09:55.830 --> 09:59.830 Serotonin is a neurotransmitter which occurs in all life 09:59.830 --> 10:03.830 and is most concentrated in the higher primates 10:03.830 --> 10:06.830 and most concentrated there in man. 10:06.830 --> 10:09.830 It is 5-hydroxytryptamine, 10:09.830 --> 10:15.830 while DMT is, as you mentioned, NN, dimethyltryptamine. 10:15.830 --> 10:18.830 So there is a very close structural affinity 10:18.830 --> 10:20.830 between this extremely potent 10:20.830 --> 10:22.830 and exotic hallucinogen 10:22.830 --> 10:25.830 and the very common basis 10:25.830 --> 10:28.830 for ordinary consciousness, serotonin. 10:28.830 --> 10:30.830 That's correct. 10:30.830 --> 10:32.830 Now, other cultures around the world 10:32.830 --> 10:35.830 have also used other types of substances. 10:35.830 --> 10:37.830 I think it might be interesting to talk, 10:37.830 --> 10:39.830 at least briefly, about alcohol, 10:39.830 --> 10:42.830 which is referred to so often in the Bible, for example. 10:42.830 --> 10:43.830 Yes. 10:43.830 --> 10:45.830 Well, we tend in our culture 10:45.830 --> 10:49.830 to make a radical distinction between drugs 10:49.830 --> 10:53.830 and foods with what we call spices 10:53.830 --> 10:56.830 sort of falling somewhere in the middle. 10:56.830 --> 11:00.830 In point of fact, a culture is what it eats, 11:00.830 --> 11:03.830 and an individual's personality 11:03.830 --> 11:07.830 is often largely a reflection of their diet. 11:07.830 --> 11:10.830 There has not been a human culture 11:10.830 --> 11:13.830 that did not bear upon it 11:13.830 --> 11:17.830 the stamp of its relationship to certain plants 11:17.830 --> 11:19.830 which altered the individual's 11:19.830 --> 11:21.830 individual and mass psyche. 11:21.830 --> 11:24.830 We can think of numerous examples. 11:24.830 --> 11:27.830 The influence, for instance, of sugar 11:27.830 --> 11:30.830 on the growth of 19th century mercantilism 11:30.830 --> 11:32.830 or the way in which the British 11:32.830 --> 11:37.830 manipulated opium policy in the Far East 11:37.830 --> 11:40.830 or, as you mentioned, alcohol, 11:40.830 --> 11:43.830 which has always been the drug of choice 11:43.830 --> 11:45.830 in Western culture. 11:45.830 --> 11:49.830 Who can imagine modern industrial office culture 11:49.830 --> 11:51.830 without coffee? 11:51.830 --> 11:56.830 These are major drug dependencies 11:56.830 --> 11:58.830 that have placed their stamp 11:58.830 --> 12:01.830 on the lives of millions and millions of people. 12:01.830 --> 12:03.830 It's simply that we choose 12:03.830 --> 12:06.830 to linguistically define it in such a way 12:06.830 --> 12:08.830 that the effect is not something 12:08.830 --> 12:10.830 most people are cognizant of. 12:10.830 --> 12:13.830 I think coffee is a very interesting example 12:13.830 --> 12:16.830 because when it was first introduced into our culture, 12:16.830 --> 12:18.830 as I understand it, it was considered 12:18.830 --> 12:20.830 virtually a hallucinogenic drug. 12:20.830 --> 12:21.830 Oh, yes. 12:21.830 --> 12:24.830 When coffee was first introduced into Western culture, 12:24.830 --> 12:28.830 it was associated with certain establishments 12:28.830 --> 12:33.830 where loose women and loud music were available 12:33.830 --> 12:36.830 and the bohemian literati would gather 12:36.830 --> 12:39.830 and drink coffee and talk into the night 12:39.830 --> 12:43.830 and it was considered quite a risqué thing 12:43.830 --> 12:45.830 to be involved with. That's right. 12:45.830 --> 12:48.830 And wasn't tobacco also viewed that way? 12:48.830 --> 12:52.830 Yes, tobacco is a very similar case. 12:52.830 --> 12:55.830 The anthropologist Eduardo Luna 12:55.830 --> 12:57.830 has pointed out that tobacco, 12:57.830 --> 13:01.830 which had a history of millennia of use 13:01.830 --> 13:03.830 in the New World, 13:03.830 --> 13:05.830 was within a hundred years 13:05.830 --> 13:08.830 of being introduced into Europe 13:08.830 --> 13:09.830 through Portugal, 13:09.830 --> 13:12.830 was being buried in the graves 13:12.830 --> 13:16.830 of subarctic Lapland shamans. 13:16.830 --> 13:17.830 So it shows 13:17.830 --> 13:19.830 how the character of a drug 13:19.830 --> 13:22.830 is quickly discerned by a culture, 13:22.830 --> 13:24.830 even a culture that is encountering 13:24.830 --> 13:28.830 that plant or that drug for the first time. 13:28.830 --> 13:31.830 It wouldn't be fair really to talk about drugs 13:31.830 --> 13:34.830 without mentioning socially 13:34.830 --> 13:37.830 what has happened in Western culture, 13:37.830 --> 13:39.830 particularly during the 60s and early 70s 13:39.830 --> 13:42.830 when there was quite a wave of psychedelic drug use. 13:42.830 --> 13:44.830 Yes, that's right. 13:44.830 --> 13:46.830 Following upon the discovery of LSD, 13:46.830 --> 13:49.830 by Albert Hoffman in the late 30s, 13:49.830 --> 13:51.830 and then the writing on the subject 13:51.830 --> 13:53.830 of the psychedelic experience 13:53.830 --> 13:55.830 that was done by Aldous Huxley, 13:55.830 --> 13:58.830 Metzner and others, 13:58.830 --> 14:02.830 it became a fad of the self-exploring 14:02.830 --> 14:05.830 youth culture of the 60s 14:05.830 --> 14:07.830 to be involved with these things. 14:07.830 --> 14:11.830 This was during a time of great social upheaval 14:11.830 --> 14:13.830 for other reasons, 14:13.830 --> 14:15.830 and the end product of that 14:15.830 --> 14:18.830 historical episode was 14:18.830 --> 14:20.830 the complete suppression 14:20.830 --> 14:23.830 of the study of psychedelic drugs, 14:23.830 --> 14:25.830 and in my opinion, 14:25.830 --> 14:26.830 to the great detriment 14:26.830 --> 14:29.830 of the development of psychology. 14:29.830 --> 14:34.830 I feel that potentially psychedelic drugs 14:34.830 --> 14:36.830 could be for psychology 14:36.830 --> 14:38.830 what the telescope became 14:38.830 --> 14:40.830 for the science of astronomy. 14:40.830 --> 14:44.830 The problem with the psychedelics is 14:44.830 --> 14:50.830 that they dissolve cultural programming 14:50.830 --> 14:53.830 and hence inherently have 14:53.830 --> 14:57.830 a political charge about them. 14:57.830 --> 15:00.830 You see, culture is the product 15:00.830 --> 15:04.830 of the unperturbed human mind. 15:04.830 --> 15:06.830 The human mind unperturbed 15:06.830 --> 15:09.830 through the medium of language 15:09.830 --> 15:12.830 erects institutions and social structures 15:12.830 --> 15:14.830 into which it then 15:14.830 --> 15:16.830 secretes itself 15:16.830 --> 15:20.830 and sort of lives in a private Idaho. 15:20.830 --> 15:23.830 A psychedelic drug will dissolve 15:23.830 --> 15:26.830 these linguistic and cultural assumptions. 15:26.830 --> 15:30.830 It is a perturbation of the mind, 15:30.830 --> 15:32.830 and the perturbed mind 15:32.830 --> 15:35.830 is a mind in the act of rediscovering 15:35.830 --> 15:39.830 the nature that lies outside of culture. 15:39.830 --> 15:43.830 So this tension between cultural values 15:43.830 --> 15:45.830 and what we might call, 15:45.830 --> 15:48.830 for want of a better word, reality, 15:48.830 --> 15:51.830 creates a tension between institutions 15:51.830 --> 15:54.830 and the users of these substances. 15:54.830 --> 15:56.830 It's as if our culture, 15:56.830 --> 15:57.830 if I understand you right, 15:57.830 --> 16:00.830 acts as a filter between our minds 16:00.830 --> 16:03.830 and direct experience of reality, 16:03.830 --> 16:05.830 and the drugs somehow blow away 16:05.830 --> 16:07.830 that crust of culture 16:07.830 --> 16:10.830 and allow more of a direct agnostic experience. 16:10.830 --> 16:11.830 That's right, 16:11.830 --> 16:13.830 and the business of culture 16:13.830 --> 16:14.830 in any culture 16:14.830 --> 16:17.830 is to perpetuate its cultural models, 16:17.830 --> 16:21.830 and if the hallucinogenic plants 16:21.830 --> 16:22.830 have not been integrated 16:22.830 --> 16:24.830 into the cultural model, 16:24.830 --> 16:26.830 then they are definitely seen 16:26.830 --> 16:28.830 as dangerous forces 16:28.830 --> 16:33.830 for an unpredictable sort of social change. 16:33.830 --> 16:35.830 Now, if the hallucinogenic plants 16:35.830 --> 16:37.830 have been integrated 16:37.830 --> 16:39.830 into the cultural model, 16:39.830 --> 16:41.830 this is not then a problem, 16:41.830 --> 16:42.830 and this is the case 16:42.830 --> 16:44.830 with shamanism. 16:44.830 --> 16:50.830 Shamanism is the culturally sanctified institution 16:50.830 --> 16:54.830 of inner exploration 16:54.830 --> 16:57.830 via psychoactive plants. 16:57.830 --> 17:00.830 Where psychoactive plants are not present, 17:00.830 --> 17:02.830 shamanic institutions 17:02.830 --> 17:04.830 tend to become vitiated, 17:04.830 --> 17:08.830 to rely on ritual or ordeals 17:08.830 --> 17:12.830 or other methods of elucidating 17:12.830 --> 17:15.830 these ecstatic states. 17:15.830 --> 17:16.830 But to my mind, 17:16.830 --> 17:18.830 and this is a great argument 17:18.830 --> 17:20.830 which rages in anthropology, 17:20.830 --> 17:22.830 to my mind, 17:22.830 --> 17:25.830 and I'm in agreement with Wasson here, 17:25.830 --> 17:27.830 the hallucinogenic plants 17:27.830 --> 17:29.830 are the sine qua non 17:29.830 --> 17:32.830 for an active shamanism. 17:32.830 --> 17:33.830 For authentic shamanism. 17:33.830 --> 17:35.830 An authentic shamanism. 17:35.830 --> 17:36.830 That's right. 17:36.830 --> 17:37.830 Now, Mercier Lyade, 17:37.830 --> 17:40.830 who is the great commentator on shamanism, 17:40.830 --> 17:43.830 took an entirely different point of view 17:43.830 --> 17:45.830 and said that reliance 17:45.830 --> 17:48.830 on what he called narcotics 17:48.830 --> 17:51.830 was a decadent phase of shamanism. 17:51.830 --> 17:53.830 But if we examine 17:53.830 --> 17:56.830 Lyade's personal history, 17:56.830 --> 17:58.830 I think it can be clearly seen 17:58.830 --> 17:59.830 that this was simply 17:59.830 --> 18:01.830 the cultural myopia 18:01.830 --> 18:03.830 of a European scholar 18:03.830 --> 18:06.830 in the great 19th century model. 18:06.830 --> 18:07.830 Sort of still under the sway 18:07.830 --> 18:09.830 of a Victorian sense of 18:09.830 --> 18:11.830 morality. 18:11.830 --> 18:12.830 Yes. 18:12.830 --> 18:14.830 Sort of taking the point of, 18:14.830 --> 18:16.830 the superior point of view 18:16.830 --> 18:18.830 that while these are primitive people, 18:18.830 --> 18:20.830 surely our greater 18:20.830 --> 18:22.830 epistemological sophistication 18:22.830 --> 18:25.830 puts us in a position to judge them. 18:25.830 --> 18:26.830 You have the same controversy, 18:26.830 --> 18:27.830 don't you now, 18:27.830 --> 18:29.830 within the Hindu tradition 18:29.830 --> 18:32.830 where many gurus say no drugs 18:32.830 --> 18:34.830 and are denying, I suppose, 18:34.830 --> 18:37.830 the tradition of the Rig Veda 18:37.830 --> 18:39.830 which we spoke of earlier. 18:39.830 --> 18:42.830 That's absolutely correct. 18:42.830 --> 18:43.830 The Mahabharata, 18:43.830 --> 18:46.830 which is the central core text 18:46.830 --> 18:49.830 of late reformed Hinduism, 18:49.830 --> 18:52.830 explicitly forbids mushrooms 18:52.830 --> 18:54.830 to the Brahmin class. 18:54.830 --> 18:57.830 They are a forbidden food. 18:57.830 --> 18:59.830 But in ethnography, 18:59.830 --> 19:02.830 we're taught that a taboo 19:02.830 --> 19:04.830 usually indicates a previous 19:04.830 --> 19:07.830 involvement and fascination. 19:07.830 --> 19:09.830 And in fact, 19:09.830 --> 19:12.830 the early Hinduism of the Vedic phase 19:12.830 --> 19:15.830 was definitely more analogous 19:15.830 --> 19:18.830 to the hallucinogenic shamanism 19:18.830 --> 19:20.830 of the Amazon basin 19:20.830 --> 19:23.830 than it is to the extremely stratified 19:23.830 --> 19:26.830 Hinduism of modern India. 19:26.830 --> 19:28.830 Do you find the use of drugs 19:28.830 --> 19:29.830 of this type, 19:29.830 --> 19:30.830 hallucinogenic drugs, 19:30.830 --> 19:31.830 in the tantric traditions, 19:31.830 --> 19:33.830 the traditions that deliberately 19:33.830 --> 19:35.830 use taboos in order to inculcate 19:35.830 --> 19:37.830 higher states of awareness? 19:37.830 --> 19:39.830 Yes. 19:39.830 --> 19:41.830 Well, when you go to India, 19:41.830 --> 19:43.830 you discover that the one thing 19:43.830 --> 19:45.830 that is not stressed in Hinduism 19:45.830 --> 19:48.830 as it is exported to the West 19:48.830 --> 19:51.830 is the immense reliance on cannabis. 19:51.830 --> 19:53.830 Hashish, ganja, 19:53.830 --> 19:57.830 is the staple of these sadhus. 19:57.830 --> 20:00.830 This is a fact of their daily life 20:00.830 --> 20:02.830 that they are relying on this 20:02.830 --> 20:06.830 for a constantly reinforced contact 20:06.830 --> 20:09.830 with the transcendental dimension 20:09.830 --> 20:10.830 of religion. 20:10.830 --> 20:12.830 You know, I think it's interesting 20:12.830 --> 20:13.830 how you referred earlier 20:13.830 --> 20:16.830 to the shamanistic religions 20:16.830 --> 20:18.830 as being the ones that really have 20:18.830 --> 20:20.830 sanctified the use of these drugs 20:20.830 --> 20:22.830 for religious purposes. 20:22.830 --> 20:23.830 And yet we find 20:23.830 --> 20:25.830 in our Western tradition, 20:25.830 --> 20:27.830 Christianity has come and in effect 20:27.830 --> 20:29.830 labeled these sorts of things 20:29.830 --> 20:30.830 as diabolic. 20:30.830 --> 20:33.830 For example, drugs, I believe, 20:33.830 --> 20:36.830 were used amongst various witchcraft groups 20:36.830 --> 20:38.830 that were persecuted by the church. 20:38.830 --> 20:40.830 That's right. 20:40.830 --> 20:42.830 However, the church was concerned 20:42.830 --> 20:46.830 that the magic of the witches 20:46.830 --> 20:49.830 be seen as real, number one, 20:49.830 --> 20:52.830 and number two, entirely caused 20:52.830 --> 20:55.830 by the agency of the devil himself. 20:55.830 --> 20:57.830 And so the church downplayed 20:57.830 --> 21:01.830 the operational role that plants had 21:01.830 --> 21:03.830 in inducing these states 21:03.830 --> 21:05.830 because, after all, 21:05.830 --> 21:08.830 if the devil cannot lead you astray, 21:08.830 --> 21:10.830 without the use of plants, 21:10.830 --> 21:12.830 why, what kind of devil is it? 21:12.830 --> 21:15.830 So in our own historical tradition, 21:15.830 --> 21:18.830 there is a curious blindness 21:18.830 --> 21:21.830 to the efficacy of hallucinogenic plants. 21:21.830 --> 21:23.830 I have heard, for example, 21:23.830 --> 21:25.830 that, you know, the old story 21:25.830 --> 21:27.830 of witches using toad skins 21:27.830 --> 21:28.830 in their brews, 21:28.830 --> 21:30.830 that there's a drug called bufotinine, 21:30.830 --> 21:32.830 which is a hallucinogenic 21:32.830 --> 21:34.830 that comes from the skin of toads. 21:34.830 --> 21:36.830 Well, there was excitement 21:36.830 --> 21:37.830 about bufotinine 21:37.830 --> 21:39.830 in the mid-60s. 21:39.830 --> 21:40.830 It was later shown 21:40.830 --> 21:42.830 to be non-psychoactive. 21:42.830 --> 21:43.830 However, since then, 21:43.830 --> 21:45.830 toads have been found, 21:45.830 --> 21:48.830 which do secrete DMT-like compounds. 21:48.830 --> 21:49.830 And it's fairly clear 21:49.830 --> 21:51.830 that the cauldron chemistry 21:51.830 --> 21:52.830 of the witches, 21:52.830 --> 21:55.830 which relied on datura, hellebore, 21:55.830 --> 21:58.830 monkshood, henbane, 21:58.830 --> 21:59.830 these sorts of plants, 21:59.830 --> 22:03.830 was a powerful visionary chemistry. 22:03.830 --> 22:06.830 Although these compounds, 22:06.830 --> 22:08.830 the tropane alkaloids 22:08.830 --> 22:10.830 that occur in those plants, 22:10.830 --> 22:13.830 tend to be more delirious 22:13.830 --> 22:14.830 and confusants 22:14.830 --> 22:16.830 than what I call 22:16.830 --> 22:19.830 the classical psychedelic compounds, 22:19.830 --> 22:22.830 which are more the tryptamines 22:22.830 --> 22:24.830 and the beta-carbolines. 22:24.830 --> 22:26.830 There are many chemical compounds 22:26.830 --> 22:30.830 in nature which are psychoactive, 22:30.830 --> 22:33.830 but a much narrower spectrum 22:33.830 --> 22:34.830 of these compounds 22:34.830 --> 22:36.830 are truly what we call 22:36.830 --> 22:40.830 psychedelic or mind-manifesting. 22:40.830 --> 22:42.830 Now, other than the obvious 22:42.830 --> 22:44.830 spiritual and religious implications 22:44.830 --> 22:46.830 which we see again and again 22:46.830 --> 22:47.830 in different cultures, 22:47.830 --> 22:49.830 even in, I suppose we should mention, 22:49.830 --> 22:50.830 the Native American church 22:50.830 --> 22:53.830 and their use of peyote, 22:53.830 --> 22:55.830 what are the other kinds 22:55.830 --> 22:57.830 of cultural developments 22:57.830 --> 22:58.830 that we can trace 22:58.830 --> 23:00.830 to the use of these drugs? 23:00.830 --> 23:02.830 Well, I think the most profound 23:02.830 --> 23:04.830 cultural development is 23:04.830 --> 23:05.830 it is possible to make 23:05.830 --> 23:09.830 the case that language itself 23:09.830 --> 23:12.830 is an ability that was coaxed 23:12.830 --> 23:17.830 out of an evolving primate species 23:17.830 --> 23:19.830 by virtue of the fact 23:19.830 --> 23:22.830 that there were hallucinogenic plants 23:22.830 --> 23:25.830 in the diet of that creature. 23:25.830 --> 23:27.830 You see, psilocybin has been shown 23:27.830 --> 23:30.830 in low doses to actually increase 23:30.830 --> 23:32.830 visual acuity. 23:32.830 --> 23:34.830 Well, at the stage of evolution, 23:34.830 --> 23:37.830 where human beings encountered 23:37.830 --> 23:39.830 psilocybin mushrooms, 23:39.830 --> 23:43.830 we were essentially baboon-like, 23:43.830 --> 23:45.830 pack-hunting hordes 23:45.830 --> 23:48.830 of veldt-living creatures in Africa. 23:48.830 --> 23:50.830 In that situation, 23:50.830 --> 23:52.830 a compound which increases 23:52.830 --> 23:54.830 visual acuity will give 23:54.830 --> 23:56.830 a tremendous adaptive advantage 23:56.830 --> 23:58.830 to the animals that are 23:58.830 --> 24:00.830 including it in their diet, 24:00.830 --> 24:02.830 and those animals not including it 24:02.830 --> 24:04.830 in their diet will be able 24:04.830 --> 24:06.830 to be quickly eliminated 24:06.830 --> 24:08.830 by the process of natural selection 24:08.830 --> 24:11.830 from the evolutionary scenario. 24:11.830 --> 24:13.830 So it's possible to argue 24:13.830 --> 24:17.830 that this mind-manifesting quality 24:17.830 --> 24:20.830 of the psychedelics actually conferred 24:20.830 --> 24:24.830 an evolutionary advantage 24:24.830 --> 24:26.830 on certain primates 24:26.830 --> 24:28.830 who then were able to bootstrap 24:28.830 --> 24:31.830 themselves to higher and higher states 24:31.830 --> 24:34.830 of reflective self-awareness. 24:34.830 --> 24:36.830 This may lie behind 24:36.830 --> 24:39.830 the very early coincidence 24:39.830 --> 24:44.830 of cattle, goddesses, and mushrooms 24:44.830 --> 24:47.830 in the apparent obsessions 24:47.830 --> 24:49.830 of early man as reflected 24:49.830 --> 24:51.830 by the cave paintings 24:51.830 --> 24:53.830 on the Algerian plateau 24:53.830 --> 24:56.830 and in southern France and Spain. 24:56.830 --> 24:58.830 We always find the notion 24:58.830 --> 25:02.830 of the mystery circa 18,000 years ago 25:02.830 --> 25:04.830 connected with the idea 25:04.830 --> 25:06.830 of cattle, and we always find 25:06.830 --> 25:08.830 the cattle connected with the notion 25:08.830 --> 25:10.830 of the great goddess. 25:10.830 --> 25:12.830 Now it may be that the hidden 25:12.830 --> 25:15.830 and third member of this trinity 25:15.830 --> 25:17.830 was a hallucinogenic mushroom 25:17.830 --> 25:18.830 of some sort. 25:18.830 --> 25:20.830 We've got only about two minutes left, 25:20.830 --> 25:22.830 but I wonder what the connection, 25:22.830 --> 25:23.830 I don't quite see it, 25:23.830 --> 25:24.830 between the mushroom, 25:24.830 --> 25:26.830 the cattle, and the goddess. 25:26.830 --> 25:28.830 The mushrooms grow in the manure 25:28.830 --> 25:32.830 of the cattle when the hunting packs 25:32.830 --> 25:34.830 of early primates 25:34.830 --> 25:37.830 followed along behind the cattle. 25:37.830 --> 25:39.830 They inevitably encountered 25:39.830 --> 25:42.830 the mushroom, ate it, 25:42.830 --> 25:46.830 had their visual skills thereby increased, 25:46.830 --> 25:49.830 bred more readily, therefore, 25:49.830 --> 25:50.830 and survived more easily 25:50.830 --> 25:53.830 than their non-mushroom-eating cousins. 25:53.830 --> 25:55.830 And so the eating of mushrooms 25:55.830 --> 25:58.830 and the development of higher 25:58.830 --> 26:00.830 aspects of consciousness, 26:00.830 --> 26:02.830 including self-reflection, 26:02.830 --> 26:04.830 were thereby enforced 26:04.830 --> 26:06.830 leading to the conclusion 26:06.830 --> 26:07.830 that it was actually 26:07.830 --> 26:09.830 a symbiotic relationship 26:09.830 --> 26:11.830 between early primates 26:11.830 --> 26:13.830 and these hallucinogenic plants 26:13.830 --> 26:16.830 that laid the basis for the appearance 26:16.830 --> 26:19.830 of what we call human beings. 26:19.830 --> 26:20.830 Well, Terence McKenna, 26:20.830 --> 26:22.830 this is a very interesting discussion. 26:22.830 --> 26:23.830 You seem to be suggesting 26:23.830 --> 26:25.830 that our evolution, I suppose, 26:25.830 --> 26:26.830 from the animal kingdom 26:26.830 --> 26:28.830 into the human kingdom itself 26:28.830 --> 26:30.830 was catalyzed or triggered 26:30.830 --> 26:31.830 by our encounter 26:31.830 --> 26:33.830 with these hallucinogenics. 26:33.830 --> 26:36.830 Yes, we are an ape 26:36.830 --> 26:38.830 with a symbiotic relationship 26:38.830 --> 26:39.830 to a mushroom, 26:39.830 --> 26:41.830 and that has given us 26:41.830 --> 26:44.830 self-reflection, language, religion, 26:44.830 --> 26:46.830 and all the spectrum of effects 26:46.830 --> 26:48.830 that flow from these things. 26:48.830 --> 26:50.830 Yeah, and one can only wonder 26:50.830 --> 26:52.830 how these hallucinogens might affect 26:52.830 --> 26:54.830 our future evolution as well. 26:54.830 --> 26:56.830 They have brought us to this point, 26:56.830 --> 26:58.830 and as we make our relationship 26:58.830 --> 26:59.830 to them conscious, 26:59.830 --> 27:01.830 we may be able to take control 27:01.830 --> 27:03.830 of our future evolution as well. 27:03.830 --> 27:04.830 That's the very path. 27:04.830 --> 27:05.830 Terence McKenna, 27:05.830 --> 27:07.830 thank you very much for being with me. 27:07.830 --> 27:09.830 It was a pleasure. 27:09.830 --> 27:10.830 For me, too. 27:10.830 --> 27:12.830 And thank you very much 27:12.830 --> 27:14.830 for being with us.