WEBVTT 01:09.900 --> 01:20.280 in Eucharist promises a lot and delivers very little. You have to believe. Faith is not necessary 01:20.280 --> 01:26.740 to experience what psychedelics have to teach. You don't have to believe. You can be as skeptical as 01:26.740 --> 02:03.730 you want. The famous ethnologist, Merciliade, called it the archaic techniques of ecstasy. 02:04.630 --> 02:11.250 And it certainly is archaic in the sense that it's probably our oldest religion. 02:11.250 --> 02:19.650 But it's much more than a religion. It's actually a set of practices for achieving altered states 02:19.650 --> 02:25.830 of consciousness, whether with the use of drugs or the use of other kinds of techniques like 02:25.830 --> 02:36.710 ecstatic drumming and sometimes self-flagellation or sometimes different types of physical stress. 02:36.710 --> 02:41.110 But the basic idea of shamanism is to achieve an altered state of consciousness. 02:41.250 --> 02:50.050 And not simply to have the experience, the shaman actually uses the altered state to access 02:50.050 --> 03:00.730 a transpersonal realm, a realm of spirits or supernatural forces, which can maybe be allies 03:00.730 --> 03:10.690 of some kind, which he or she can manipulate, communicate with, obtain information from to help 03:11.250 --> 03:15.650 their, the community, or an individual. 03:15.650 --> 03:25.330 Shamans are medicine men, I guess, in western parlance. And they, so shamanism is what shamans do. 03:25.330 --> 03:34.250 They beat drums, they take drugs, they dance, and they try to cure, they cure people or they attempt to 03:34.250 --> 03:41.110 cure people. They interpret dreams, they find lost objects. 03:41.250 --> 03:51.370 It harkens back to a time when things like psychotherapy and medicine and magic and religion and all of these 03:51.370 --> 03:59.170 things weren't even, you know, fully formed concepts. So the shaman kind of combines all of these roles 03:59.170 --> 04:09.450 of, he's a priest or, and a doctor and a psychotherapist and also often a poet and an artist and someone 04:09.450 --> 04:10.650 that gives expression to the concept. 04:10.650 --> 04:11.050 So, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, 04:11.050 --> 04:14.410 cultural, you know, myth of the culture. 04:14.410 --> 04:18.770 So he's a, like he was saying, he, and that... 04:18.770 --> 04:23.210 It's, it should be clear, there are shamanesses as well or shaman, women 04:23.210 --> 04:27.910 shamans, it's not a gender specific kind of thing. 04:27.910 --> 04:37.590 But, but the figure of the shaman is a, you know, important spiritual figure in 04:37.590 --> 04:40.450 these nontraditional societies, in these traditional societies. 04:40.450 --> 04:48.170 traditional societies, in these indigenous societies, respected and a little bit feared, 04:48.170 --> 04:53.510 you know, because the shaman is the odd person, the shaman is the person who is in direct 04:53.510 --> 05:00.270 contact with the transpersonal and is kind of the interface for the culture and the rest 05:00.270 --> 05:01.490 of the people. 05:01.490 --> 05:08.010 He or she is the person that gets to actually dialogue and travel in these realms and they 05:08.010 --> 05:16.510 often use psychotropic plants to do this, not invariably, but quite often. 05:16.510 --> 05:23.730 It's quite clear that different kinds of hallucinogenic plants and substances were used, including 05:23.730 --> 05:25.170 from the Bufo toad. 05:25.170 --> 05:30.130 Peter I did some examination of this among the Olmec people, so this is before the classic 05:30.130 --> 05:34.490 Maya civilization, back around 1200 BC. 05:34.490 --> 05:37.990 And the Bufo toad can be the kind of a... 05:37.990 --> 05:52.210 A 5-MeO-DMT can be extracted from the glands on the shoulder of the toad. 05:52.210 --> 05:57.710 You know, there's another compound out there called bufotinine, which was first discovered 05:57.710 --> 06:00.430 in frog skin, actually. 06:00.430 --> 06:07.970 And it's got some kind of psychoactivity, it's a little hard to really pin that down. 06:07.970 --> 06:14.330 It's a naturally occurring, you know, tryptamine as well, though, it's found in blood and brain 06:14.330 --> 06:19.070 and cerebrospinal fluid and urine, any body fluid in animals in which it's been looked 06:19.070 --> 06:20.070 for. 06:20.070 --> 06:27.430 So, they were clearly using psilocybin mushrooms, they were clearly using the 5-MeO-DMT extracted 06:27.430 --> 06:33.050 from the Bufo toad, and possibly a more close analog of DMT itself. 06:33.050 --> 06:41.150 I mean, there's some discussion around the difference between 5-MeO-DMT and regular DMT, 06:41.150 --> 06:43.210 but actually modern explorers... 06:43.210 --> 06:44.210 Yeah. 06:44.330 --> 06:51.330 ...with these substances have reported that there are qualitatively different experiences, 06:51.330 --> 06:55.830 but both can be pretty soul-shaking. 06:55.830 --> 07:02.030 So I think within this context, then, you had a whole array of other hallucinogenic 07:02.030 --> 07:04.530 plants being used, the morning glory. 07:04.530 --> 07:11.830 The Mazatec Indians today, when Gordon Wasson visited the Mazatec and Miche regions of Oaxaca 07:11.830 --> 07:13.070 in the 1950s... 07:13.070 --> 07:14.070 Yeah. 07:14.070 --> 07:20.810 ...it started this whole revolution in understanding the scope and the depth of the sacred plants 07:20.810 --> 07:22.250 that were being used. 07:22.250 --> 07:30.750 So you have salvia divinorum, for example, is a plant that was used by the Mazatec Indians, 07:30.750 --> 07:32.810 and it's still used today. 07:32.810 --> 07:39.490 That's also where the sacred mushroom cult, the psilocybin mushroom cult, was rediscovered, 07:39.490 --> 07:43.450 a place where the sacred mushroom cult apparently survived up until modern times. 07:44.070 --> 07:52.250 Part of the fear that society at large has of psychedelic drugs is that the only framework 07:52.250 --> 07:58.410 that we have to process these experiences through in Western culture is that of competitive 07:58.410 --> 08:00.070 drinking. 08:00.070 --> 08:05.350 Competitive drinking is sort of the standard that we use to measure what it's like to alter 08:05.350 --> 08:11.790 consciousness, and I think the shamanistic perspective or shamanistic worldview can give 08:11.790 --> 08:13.070 us a new perspective. 08:13.070 --> 08:14.070 Yeah. 08:14.070 --> 08:25.350 The shamanic perspective essentially would say that drugs are not the ideal way to alter 08:25.350 --> 08:30.530 your consciousness, and you shouldn't alter your consciousness with any of these types 08:30.530 --> 08:35.350 of substance until you at least first master altering your consciousness through other 08:35.350 --> 08:41.990 means, such as the use of drums, dancing, paying attention to your dreams. 08:41.990 --> 08:44.070 There's all sorts of different ways of attaining altered consciousness. 08:44.070 --> 08:50.130 Go to the United States, through plants and drugs, through trance, meditation, hypnosis, 08:50.130 --> 08:58.030 drumming, starvation, fasting, un-exhaustive exercise, all kinds of things. 08:58.030 --> 08:59.670 Yeah. 08:59.670 --> 09:05.210 And in terms of an entheogen, what I would define as an entheogen, I'm not fond of the 09:05.210 --> 09:13.970 term, because it kind of requires that you have a belief in theos, which is god or divinity, 09:13.970 --> 09:29.320 I think that the term psychedelic is just a bit more descriptive of what these drugs or plants, you know, do or what they manifest. 09:31.320 --> 09:34.320 You know, psychedelic means, you know, mind manifesting, mind manifesting. 09:34.320 --> 09:47.320 And, you know, one could argue that the phenomena one encounters on a psychedelic drug experience are either internally generated or are externally independent and freestanding. 09:48.320 --> 10:00.320 I think it still kind of dispenses with theological problems that are accompanied by calling a drug something that generates, you know, divinity within, if you don't believe in divinity. 10:01.320 --> 10:03.320 It means God within, generating God within. 10:04.320 --> 10:12.320 And inside theos, God and gen, generate, so that which generates God inside a person. 10:13.320 --> 10:22.320 So, and it's a class of drugs, formerly called psychedelic, but it's a way of sort of softening the bad press of the word psychedelic. 10:23.320 --> 10:30.320 And especially it's to separate it from sort of the party aspect of taking a drug and going crazy, 10:31.320 --> 10:33.320 and showing that these drugs exist. 10:34.320 --> 10:38.320 And these drugs have a spiritual side to them, if you can find it. 10:39.320 --> 10:43.320 A term that I prefer is shamanic plant or shamanic medicine. 10:44.320 --> 10:56.320 Because it's a plant, a psychoactive plant, usually a psychedelic or a hallucinogen, that is used in one of these shamanic traditions, right? 10:57.320 --> 10:59.320 So it's appropriate to call it a shamanic medicine. 10:59.320 --> 11:09.320 Although the same, the very same plant and the very same substance could be not shamanic if you're not using it in a shamanic context. 11:10.320 --> 11:17.320 If you're using it recreationally or taking it in a rave or some other situation, it's not really a shamanic medicine anymore. 11:18.320 --> 11:26.320 It's still the same substance, but if you're talking about substances that are used specifically sort of in this shamanic context, then I like shamanic medicine. 11:26.320 --> 11:33.320 I have problems with the term entheogen, although I know that it's gotten, you know, more popular. 11:34.320 --> 11:43.320 After Karl Ruck, who was a classicist, and Jonathan Ott and some other people proposed it as an alternative to hallucinogen. 11:44.320 --> 11:53.320 Entheogen means manifesting the God within, entheos, within and God. 11:54.320 --> 11:55.320 And that's fine. 11:56.320 --> 11:57.320 But they don't always do that. 11:58.320 --> 12:04.320 I don't like the word because I'm a Buddhist and I don't believe in gods, you know. 12:05.320 --> 12:11.320 So, you know, it's, to me, it's something which helps you to reach your full potential. 12:12.320 --> 12:16.320 You don't need to introduce the idea of God. 12:17.320 --> 12:24.320 I like the term because I have turned very mystical, you know, since taking LSD. 12:24.320 --> 12:29.320 And so my outlook is more skewed in that direction. 12:30.320 --> 12:42.430 I think that what Groff said was that it was a non-specific amplifier of your mental states. 12:43.430 --> 12:55.430 The psychedelic or hallucinogen or fantastica, you know, the psychotomimetic, you know, all of these qualities. 12:56.430 --> 13:04.430 That have been ascribed to the same class of sacraments that we now refer to as entheogens. 13:05.430 --> 13:16.430 I think it's closer for me to the ultimate purpose for which these substances can be used. 13:17.430 --> 13:23.430 The capacity for the human being to experience infinite love. 13:23.430 --> 13:26.430 And total self-forgiveness. 13:27.430 --> 13:47.010 A sense of deep interconnectedness with the planet and with all people and with the cosmos. 13:48.010 --> 13:52.010 This plasticity of our identity. 13:53.010 --> 13:59.010 And helping us to see into realms that 14:00.010 --> 14:01.010 perhaps 14:03.010 --> 14:04.010 are both ancient 14:05.010 --> 14:08.010 because they're the archetypal divine imagination 14:09.010 --> 14:10.010 and they're ever fresh. 14:11.010 --> 14:16.010 You know, because it is transcendental presence that is the creator. 14:17.010 --> 14:18.010 The artist. 14:19.010 --> 14:21.010 The cosmic artist, you know. 14:22.010 --> 14:23.010 Entheogen. 14:24.010 --> 14:25.010 It means connecting with God. 14:27.010 --> 14:28.010 I've been searching for God all my life. 14:29.010 --> 14:31.010 I was a practicing Catholic for many, many years. 14:32.010 --> 14:38.010 And you would think that psychedelics, you know, being mind manifesting, 14:38.010 --> 14:40.010 would show you the God you've been worshipping. 14:41.010 --> 14:43.010 The closest I ever got to God was that, 14:43.010 --> 14:45.010 Hey, Nick, you're God. 14:45.010 --> 14:51.010 You're an aspect of divinity that's looking out at this. 14:51.010 --> 14:53.010 You know, a little spy for God. 14:54.010 --> 14:56.010 And so enjoy it. 14:56.010 --> 14:57.010 I said, well, that's a twist. 14:57.010 --> 14:59.010 I've been looking for a God outside me. 14:59.010 --> 15:01.010 And here I learned that I'm one of God. 15:01.010 --> 15:05.010 And that I'm one of God's apostles in a way. 15:05.010 --> 15:06.010 What a surprise. 15:08.010 --> 15:10.010 So that's what I learned from psychedelics. 15:11.010 --> 15:13.010 At least that's a hypothesis. 15:14.010 --> 15:15.010 So pay attention. 15:15.010 --> 15:16.010 You know, that was the message. 15:16.010 --> 15:17.010 Pay attention, Nick. 15:17.010 --> 15:19.010 You're collecting data for God. 15:20.010 --> 15:23.010 Look with God's eyes upon the world. 15:23.010 --> 15:25.010 So the term hallucinogen is inaccurate. 15:25.010 --> 15:29.010 The term psychotomimetic is inaccurate. 15:29.010 --> 15:30.010 The term entheogen is inaccurate. 15:31.010 --> 15:34.010 It's, you know, it all depends on circumstances. 15:34.010 --> 15:38.610 My personal preference is I like psychedelic. 15:38.610 --> 15:44.610 Because even though the term carries all this cultural baggage, 15:44.610 --> 15:46.610 you know, and everything's psychedelic, 15:46.610 --> 15:52.610 that's kind of something left over from the 60s. 15:52.610 --> 15:56.610 But in the strict sense, psychedelic means mind manifesting. 15:56.610 --> 15:59.610 And I like the term because it leaves it open. 15:59.610 --> 16:01.610 I mean, these substances certainly manifest the mind. 16:01.610 --> 16:04.610 They manifest the mind in some aspect. 16:04.610 --> 16:08.610 And we don't have, you know, we don't have any argument with that. 16:08.610 --> 16:13.610 But how they manifest it, you know, depends on the set and setting. 16:13.610 --> 16:20.610 And like these other terms, you know, sort of are more specifically related to set and setting. 16:20.610 --> 16:28.610 And they also show how difficult it is to really linguistically kind of put this in a box, 16:28.610 --> 16:30.610 you know, characterize what they do. 16:31.610 --> 16:33.610 You know, sometimes they're mystical. 16:33.610 --> 16:38.610 Sometimes they're induced psychosis. 16:38.610 --> 16:41.610 Sometimes they don't do much of anything at all, you know. 16:41.610 --> 16:44.610 But they always manifest the mind in some way. 16:44.610 --> 16:49.610 So I like psychedelic if it could just be divorced from, you know, 16:49.610 --> 16:52.610 all the connotations that it's come to have in our culture. 16:52.610 --> 17:11.580 I think it's almost inevitable that psychedelics have been playing a part 17:12.580 --> 17:16.580 in religious, mystical experiences since the beginning of time. 17:16.580 --> 17:23.580 They are a powerful way for human beings to blow their little egos out of the water 17:23.580 --> 17:25.580 and contact the divine. 17:25.580 --> 17:28.580 I mean, one thing, you know, the whole of spirituality has its roots, 17:28.580 --> 17:30.580 ancient roots, in the shamanic traditions. 17:30.580 --> 17:32.580 We still have those traditions. 17:32.580 --> 17:38.580 And a huge number of them are based on whatever the indigenous psychedelic happens to be in that area. 17:38.580 --> 17:41.580 Because what could be more natural than you pick up a mushroom or something like that, 17:41.580 --> 17:44.580 you ingest it, and my God, you're having visions. 17:44.580 --> 17:46.580 You're seeing life in a new way. 17:46.580 --> 17:48.580 You're seeing through the appearances. 17:48.580 --> 17:50.580 You have a greater understanding, or at least your, your, 17:50.580 --> 17:54.580 the confines of your common sense understanding has exploded. 17:54.580 --> 17:56.580 And it's transformational. 17:56.580 --> 18:00.580 They elicit a whole spectrum of psychological effects. 18:00.580 --> 18:07.580 Probably the ones that people find most interesting as far as alterations of consciousness. 18:07.580 --> 18:10.580 They have profound perceptual effects, emotional effects, 18:10.580 --> 18:12.580 cognitive effects. 18:12.580 --> 18:21.580 They have effects on your sense of self and on your relationship to your body and to your will. 18:21.580 --> 18:26.580 You know, so they kind of cut across the entire spectrum of human consciousness. 18:26.580 --> 18:32.580 It's rare that people rush to repeat it, you know, over and over again regularly. 18:32.580 --> 18:39.580 It's not that you have a craving to take the drug. 18:39.580 --> 18:44.580 You have a curiosity about the experience. 18:44.580 --> 18:50.580 And you often have to overcome your reluctance to take the drug in order to have that. 18:50.580 --> 18:54.580 You see this with ayahuasca very strongly. 18:54.580 --> 19:03.580 You know, if you drink lots of ayahuasca, you actually develop a physiological aversion syndrome. 19:03.580 --> 19:08.580 You know, and this is well known where, with other substances, 19:08.580 --> 19:11.580 where it tastes so bad and you get sick and all that. 19:11.580 --> 19:16.580 And you actually, you know, really don't want to consume it, you know. 19:16.580 --> 19:18.580 But you do. 19:18.580 --> 19:21.580 And somehow you always get it down. 19:21.580 --> 19:24.580 And you're always glad you did. 19:24.580 --> 19:30.580 You know, because you overcome the aversion and you learn so much from it. 19:30.580 --> 19:34.580 You know, but it's definitely not addicting. 19:34.580 --> 19:36.580 Quite the opposite. 19:36.580 --> 19:38.580 I think it is possible for people. 19:38.580 --> 19:43.580 To have an abusive relationship with a psychedelic drug. 19:43.580 --> 19:47.580 Although compared to the other drugs of abuse. 19:47.580 --> 19:50.580 That's certainly a lot less common. 19:50.580 --> 19:58.580 For example, the kinds of relationships that most people have with heroin or alcohol or tobacco. 19:58.580 --> 20:01.580 Those kinds of drugs. 20:01.580 --> 20:06.580 You know, psychedelics, as a rule anyway, tend to be taken sparingly. 20:06.580 --> 20:09.580 You know, once a week, once a month, once a year. 20:09.580 --> 20:11.580 As opposed to daily. 20:11.580 --> 20:17.580 And in fact, in the case of most of the classical psychedelic drugs. 20:17.580 --> 20:20.580 Like LSD, psilocybin, DMT. 20:20.580 --> 20:24.580 If you take them regularly, you quickly develop tolerance. 20:24.580 --> 20:27.580 And you stop responding. 20:27.580 --> 20:35.580 Especially strongly after the second or third day that you take a psychedelic drug. 20:36.580 --> 20:39.580 That's not quite the case with DMT. 20:39.580 --> 20:43.580 But, you know, the debilitating effects of DMT. 20:43.580 --> 20:47.580 You know, tend to limit its repetitive habitual use as well. 20:47.580 --> 20:50.580 No, there's no evidence that antigen are addictive. 20:50.580 --> 20:55.580 I mean, ayahuasca or mushrooms or peyote are definitely. 20:55.580 --> 20:57.580 Or iboga are definitely not addictive substances. 20:57.580 --> 21:01.580 I mean, you can take them and not take them again for years. 21:01.580 --> 21:03.580 I mean, they can be a little bit psychologically addictive. 21:03.580 --> 21:04.580 Like any experience. 21:04.580 --> 21:05.580 If somebody really loves it. 21:05.580 --> 21:08.580 They may want to go back and have the experience again and again. 21:08.580 --> 21:14.580 But generally, you really don't find abusive patterns with people who make use of these substances. 21:14.580 --> 21:18.580 Look in your own pharmacopoeia, you know. 21:18.580 --> 21:21.580 Look at the drugs that you're taking. 21:21.580 --> 21:25.580 And note their side effects. 21:25.580 --> 21:32.580 And how many people a year have died from inhaling marijuana. 21:32.580 --> 21:34.580 Goose egg. 21:34.580 --> 21:48.650 Now, look at how many people die from drinking alcohol. 21:48.650 --> 21:51.650 You know, you've got hundreds and thousands of people. 21:51.650 --> 22:01.650 You've got the people who are completely distraught over the alcohol addiction and things like this. 22:01.650 --> 22:06.650 It's countless billions of dollars and millions of lives. 22:06.650 --> 22:11.650 Or, you know, think of the people that get creamed when the drunk driver, you know, hurts someone. 22:12.650 --> 22:24.420 So there's so many repercussions that are much worse with alcohol and yet it's legal. 22:24.420 --> 22:35.420 And so the idiocy of our current position on cannabis is really sad. 22:35.420 --> 22:46.420 But my prayer is that the grassroots movement will continue to show its obvious advantage. 22:46.420 --> 22:49.420 To our culture. 22:49.420 --> 22:52.420 By a kind of strict integration. 22:52.420 --> 22:54.420 And taxing. 22:54.420 --> 23:02.420 And, you know, so making it a legally available substance. 23:02.420 --> 23:12.420 Which I think would also make us a little more willing to note the importance of the entheogens. 23:12.420 --> 23:15.420 Because in a sense, it's a mild entheogen. 23:15.420 --> 23:16.420 Cannabis. 23:16.420 --> 23:36.390 Cannabis. 23:36.390 --> 23:37.390 Cannabis. 23:37.390 --> 23:38.390 Cannabis. 23:38.390 --> 23:39.390 Cannabis. 23:39.390 --> 23:40.390 Cannabis. 23:40.390 --> 23:41.390 Cannabis. 23:41.390 --> 23:43.390 At the same time, we've conflated them with other substances like heroin, and speed, and cocaine. 23:43.390 --> 23:52.390 Which are more addictive, more artificial, where we've taken, in the case of heroin and cocaine, 23:52.390 --> 23:57.390 we took naturally occurring plant substances but then we did a chemical process to them 23:57.390 --> 24:01.390 to, kind of, amp up the active component and separate it. 24:01.390 --> 24:03.390 So I have a friend, Morgan is an herbalist. 24:03.390 --> 24:04.390 And he makes a distinction. 24:04.390 --> 24:08.630 makes a distinction between, you know, the whole plant medicine approach that 24:08.630 --> 24:14.590 indigenous people were mostly, you know, using and our kind of attitude of just 24:14.590 --> 24:19.690 isolating the agent that causes a certain reaction and then amplifying 24:19.690 --> 24:24.670 that effect so that it leads to addictive patterns. A culture is what it 24:24.670 --> 24:32.110 eats and an individual's personality is often largely a reflection of their diet. 24:32.110 --> 24:40.330 There has not been a human culture that did not bear upon it the stamp of its 24:40.330 --> 24:45.630 relationship to certain plants which altered the individual and mass psyche. 24:45.630 --> 24:52.150 We can think of numerous examples. The influence, for instance, of sugar on the 24:52.150 --> 24:58.610 growth of 19th century mercantilism or the way in which the British manipulated 24:58.610 --> 25:01.910 opium policy in the Far East. 25:01.910 --> 25:08.930 Or, as you mentioned, alcohol, which has always been the drug of choice in Western 25:08.930 --> 25:15.430 culture. Who can imagine modern industrial office culture without coffee? 25:15.430 --> 25:24.090 These are major drug dependencies that have placed their stamp on the lives of 25:24.090 --> 25:29.210 millions and millions of people. It's simply that we choose to linguistically 25:29.210 --> 25:31.890 define it in such a way that the 25:31.890 --> 25:36.310 effect is not something most people are cognizant of. 25:36.310 --> 25:44.550 It's funny that all of these things are lumped under one label, drugs. I come 25:44.550 --> 25:51.870 from a sort of a peasant family. Both my parents were farmers and were just 25:51.870 --> 25:56.670 immigrants basically. And when my mother found out that I was in California that 25:56.670 --> 26:01.870 I took drugs, it broke her heart. And there was no way that I could 26:01.870 --> 26:08.530 explain to her what it was I was doing. Because that word drug just had such an impact on her 26:08.530 --> 26:14.710 mind that it was about the worst thing her firstborn son could ever do. 26:14.710 --> 26:19.530 It was one of the saddest things of my life that I could not explain to mom what it was 26:19.530 --> 26:25.350 I was doing. Mom was a very religious person. She went to Catholic church every day. I could 26:25.350 --> 26:30.350 not find a way to tell her that I was doing the same thing that she was doing. 26:31.870 --> 26:37.550 And I still, you know, would not know how to tell mom, you know, what the difference 26:37.550 --> 26:44.550 was between her going to church and me taking entheogens, searching for God through chemicals. 26:54.570 --> 27:00.790 There's no such thing as a bad drug, right? Because a drug is just a drug. It's a substance 27:00.790 --> 27:07.090 with certain properties. It has no moral qualities. The only thing that has moral qualities is 27:07.090 --> 27:09.170 human behavior. 27:09.170 --> 27:10.110 And there is lots of 27:10.110 --> 27:16.010 bad human behavior with respect to drugs. And there's lots of bad human behavior with 27:16.010 --> 27:21.810 respect to all kinds of things. And good human behavior, too. I mean, again, this comes 27:21.810 --> 27:28.170 back to the context. So the whole war on drugs idea and the idea, you know, it has 27:28.170 --> 27:33.790 nothing to do with protecting people from toxic substances, you know. If that were 27:33.790 --> 27:39.790 the purpose of the war on drugs, tobacco and alcohol, you know, would be prohibited. Tomorrow, 27:40.110 --> 27:45.690 and yet the structure of the law, not that prohibition would do any good, and I'm not 27:45.690 --> 27:52.550 advocating that, right? But if that were really the agenda for drug control, they would say, 27:52.550 --> 27:56.670 well, these are clearly the most harmful drugs. These are the ones that are killing 27:56.670 --> 28:03.010 the most people. So they should be strictly regulated. But in fact, the way the law is 28:03.010 --> 28:17.500 set up, the FDA is not even allowed to classify tobacco and alcohol as a drug. 28:17.600 --> 28:23.780 There are these science fiction cliches like, there is some knowledge man should not know. 28:23.780 --> 28:30.520 So probably, there are probably horrible things like huge devils or places where you shouldn't 28:30.520 --> 28:38.320 go. You know, viruses that would kill all life on Earth or huge, like, things that 28:38.320 --> 28:44.600 make the atomic bomb. There's terrible things. So what does our, our society has a right 28:44.600 --> 28:47.320 to make those things not investigatable by science. 28:47.600 --> 28:53.600 They're too dangerous. So our society decides that among those things is marijuana. That 28:53.600 --> 28:59.340 scientists should not be able to explore marijuana and MDMA and LSD and these certain molecules 28:59.340 --> 29:05.400 because there are things men should not know. And I think that's, as a scientist, that's 29:05.400 --> 29:13.260 laughable. And as I often like to say, I got my degree in nuclear physics and I like to 29:13.260 --> 29:16.780 say, if they trusted me with plutonium, why not LSD? 29:17.600 --> 29:24.500 My gosh. So this makes no sense. So, okay, if that's, if the war on drugs is not about 29:24.500 --> 29:32.700 protecting people from harmful substances, what is it about? Why are all these substances 29:32.700 --> 29:44.020 illegal? It's about control. And ultimately, it's about control of what people can think. 29:44.020 --> 29:49.960 And it's the control of experience. It's essentially the state arrogating itself 29:49.960 --> 29:57.320 to the point where it says, you know, certain states of consciousness are allowed and other 29:57.320 --> 30:02.780 states of consciousness are not allowed. And that's really what it comes down to. This 30:02.780 --> 30:13.400 is about cognitive liberty. 30:13.400 --> 30:19.580 There are these, you know, plants that have these molecules that humans may have used 30:19.580 --> 30:25.900 for thousands of years that produce visions and so on and are often considered to be healing. 30:25.900 --> 30:27.800 In our cultures, we've demonized some of these substances. 30:27.800 --> 30:32.800 And made them illegal, which I would consider to be unfortunate. 30:32.800 --> 30:40.600 It's the state saying, you know, don't go there because if you take this in theogen 30:40.600 --> 30:47.740 or you take this psychedelic, you're going to have funny ideas. And funny ideas are very 30:47.740 --> 30:55.080 dangerous, especially if they don't fit in with, you know, what we're saying should be, 30:55.080 --> 30:57.760 you know, kind of the accepted cultural zeitgeist. 30:57.800 --> 31:06.420 So, that's the danger of psychedelics is they actually cause people to question the 31:06.420 --> 31:14.520 cultural paradigms and say, well, you know, maybe this is not consistent with, you know, 31:14.520 --> 31:21.260 maybe the revelations of psychedelics are not consistent with what Hollywood and Wall 31:21.260 --> 31:27.360 Street and the government and Main Street and, you know, religions and all these institutions 31:27.360 --> 31:27.800 are describing. 31:27.800 --> 31:35.580 So, the war on drugs is really a war on consciousness and who's allowed to think what. 31:35.580 --> 31:43.260 More importantly, I personally don't believe that anybody has the right to tell you what 31:43.260 --> 31:47.920 to do with your own body or what thoughts that you can think. That if you do not have 31:47.920 --> 31:54.660 the freedom to decide what happens to your own body and your own mind, that you really 31:54.660 --> 31:57.360 don't have freedom at its most basic level. 31:57.360 --> 32:11.650 You know, I think it's really ridiculous that they won't allow terminal cancer patients 32:11.650 --> 32:14.890 to take whatever fucking drug they want. I mean, you can't argue it's going to be, if 32:14.890 --> 32:21.950 you're going to die anyway, why can't you take any drug you like? And the extension 32:21.950 --> 32:25.990 of that is once you pass a certain age, I don't know quite what that age should be, 32:25.990 --> 32:30.450 you should be able to do anything you fucking want to your body without being prosecuted. 32:30.450 --> 32:34.770 So scientists and old people should have free access to any drugs they want. 32:35.430 --> 32:44.010 I think I qualify in both camps. I don't even think that's enlightened. I think that's 32:44.010 --> 32:49.050 common sense. An enlightened society would take a look at these drugs objectively and 32:49.050 --> 32:57.990 say which ones can help promote and do we want a society based on alcohol and cocaine 32:57.990 --> 33:04.510 or do you want a society based on LSD, MDMA, ayahuasca? Which of the drugs are we going 33:04.510 --> 33:04.950 to promote? 33:05.430 --> 33:12.430 Our society has picked for some reason the absolute worst drugs to make as its standards. 33:29.400 --> 33:35.740 Potentially psychedelic drugs could be for psychology what the telescope became for 33:35.740 --> 33:38.260 the science of astronomy. 33:38.260 --> 33:45.260 In the right setting, with the right kind of psychotherapy support or religious support 33:45.780 --> 33:48.700 or whatever the context of the support is. 33:50.560 --> 33:54.860 Most importantly, what the person's intention is, 33:54.860 --> 33:58.520 when they take it, if they're an addict or an alcoholic, 33:58.520 --> 34:01.500 they can take ayahuasca, they can take peyote, 34:01.500 --> 34:03.600 they can take these substances, 34:03.600 --> 34:08.500 and it will definitely help them to get over that. 34:08.500 --> 34:11.160 And in the case of something like ibogaine, 34:11.160 --> 34:12.880 it's even more specific. 34:12.880 --> 34:15.340 I mean, there's other things going on with ibogaine 34:15.340 --> 34:18.600 that might interrupt the addiction syndrome 34:18.600 --> 34:20.800 on a physical level. 34:20.800 --> 34:23.840 For many people, actually, who were alcoholics 34:23.840 --> 34:27.000 and things like that, many have been cured 34:27.000 --> 34:29.480 by their use of psychedelics. 34:29.480 --> 34:34.480 So in some ways, it's the opposite of addiction. 34:35.380 --> 34:38.700 Entheogens actually are almost the opposite 34:38.700 --> 34:42.280 of an addicting drug, in that sometimes a person 34:42.280 --> 34:44.260 will only take an entheogen once 34:44.260 --> 34:47.040 and have a very powerful experience 34:47.040 --> 34:48.340 and actually be freed 34:48.340 --> 34:51.000 from some other addictions or habits 34:51.000 --> 34:52.740 that he or she might have. 34:53.960 --> 34:57.680 And in fact, in some ibogaine research, 34:57.680 --> 34:59.580 an African drug called ibogaine, 34:59.580 --> 35:04.580 people are being taken off of heroin and alcohol 35:04.820 --> 35:20.890 with some good success, where other methods have failed. 35:20.890 --> 35:25.090 I discovered ibogaine pretty much 11 years ago 35:26.030 --> 35:29.110 on the internet back home to a friend of mine, 35:29.110 --> 35:29.830 who was a drug addict. 35:29.830 --> 35:32.670 He was the first young man who was addicted to ibogaine. 35:32.670 --> 35:35.670 He was taking ibogaine, which I gave a treatment. 35:35.670 --> 35:40.670 It was in an area of the area addicted. 35:41.090 --> 35:43.750 So I treat him with the roots, 35:43.750 --> 35:46.730 because I never used ibogaine for the detox. 35:47.910 --> 35:50.050 No, I always use a straight root. 35:51.410 --> 35:53.430 So when he went back to his country, 35:53.430 --> 35:54.570 that's how he learned about ibogaine, 35:54.570 --> 35:56.070 and he sent me an email. 35:56.070 --> 35:58.710 I'm like, wow, that's very interesting. 35:58.710 --> 35:59.530 So ibogaine is a, 35:59.530 --> 36:08.140 an extraction from Iboga. So he take the rooty stuff, he do the extraction and it 36:08.140 --> 36:14.540 became the first like a total Acoid. Ibogaine is very effective at treating 36:14.540 --> 36:20.200 certain kinds of addiction, opiates, methamphetamines, cocaine and alcohol. 36:20.200 --> 36:26.560 Ibogaine has five different therapies that we basically became aware in their 36:26.560 --> 36:31.840 use. One is in an initiatory, an initiatory aspect which is the 36:31.840 --> 36:37.420 psycho-spiritual where you get into the deepening dreaming aspects but you have 36:37.420 --> 36:42.160 no active addiction in the body. The second is for physical healing, things 36:42.160 --> 36:48.280 like herpes, asthma, lung problems, blocked energies in the system, scar 36:48.280 --> 36:53.980 tissue. Then there is also a mental treatment for disabilities around 36:53.980 --> 36:56.400 depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, trauma, 36:56.400 --> 36:56.540 anxiety, depression, depression, trauma, anxiety, depression, trauma, 36:56.540 --> 37:02.000 sexual abuse. Then there's a reset therapy that we do with alcohol, cocaine 37:02.000 --> 37:07.000 and methamphetamine. We separate that because those those substances need to 37:07.000 --> 37:12.260 be out of the body for 24 to 72 hours prior to treatment. And then there's 37:12.260 --> 37:18.080 opiate. And in opiate detox we can begin 12 hours after last administering of an 37:18.080 --> 37:22.340 opiate and within 45 minutes it will completely control any symptoms of 37:22.340 --> 37:26.380 withdrawals. I even do 37:26.380 --> 37:35.000 the healing for let's say for women who want to have kids. And let's say they try 37:35.000 --> 37:40.580 in hospital, you know, and the doctor there say, you know, you can't have kids anymore. 37:40.580 --> 37:44.060 But the woman is normal. It's like nothing is missing in her tummy. Why she can't have 37:44.060 --> 37:59.680 kids? How do you do healing of that Ebola? Something that's been discovered recently 37:59.680 --> 38:06.200 by Dr. Deborah Mash and others is that there is a new neurotransmitter created in the brain 38:06.200 --> 38:15.520 after taking ibogaine called norebogaine. And it can stay in your system for up to four months. 38:15.520 --> 38:22.360 And that's the substance that they theorize is continually working on your 38:22.360 --> 38:29.640 psyche to make that reduction of cravings stay in place. So that, you know, 38:29.640 --> 38:35.540 over the long term you have time to break out of that cycle of addiction and 38:35.540 --> 38:36.180 become 38:36.200 --> 38:39.320 a new person. Not only is 38:39.320 --> 38:42.580 it address the symptoms of withdrawals and discomfort, 38:42.580 --> 38:47.360 but it also works in the craving center of the mind. So the individual, by the time 38:47.360 --> 38:51.120 they've completed treatment, has no desire whatsoever 38:51.120 --> 38:54.320 within a 10 days to two week period to touch opiates. 38:54.320 --> 38:59.420 See, that's pretty much the reason why I'm here in the West. I didn't just decide to come here. 38:59.420 --> 39:03.520 I love my country and we're really peaceful there. 39:03.520 --> 39:06.160 Life is also great like here in Mexico. 39:06.200 --> 39:14.520 You know, I would not just like leave my people, whatever I was doing, my family, just to come 39:14.520 --> 39:17.060 here to hang out. 39:17.060 --> 39:22.260 I had a call from the Spirit to spray the woods the word of the word iboga. 39:22.260 --> 39:25.880 Which is like talking with Ibogaine. 39:25.880 --> 39:34.770 To spray in the world cause it's not just for Africans. It's for anybody who needs it. 39:34.770 --> 39:37.850 If it was just up to me I would just say, 39:38.250 --> 39:44.890 let's go from city to city clean up the streets clean up the houses you know we're gonna find 39:44.890 --> 39:51.690 those guys you know with drug addict we're gonna find them and heal them all because that's the 39:51.690 --> 40:00.490 only way this that iboga and and abogan is a last call for anybody we really want to get help 40:01.050 --> 40:06.890 you don't have to spend like thousands and thousands of dollars or or spend months in a 40:06.890 --> 40:12.970 clinic rehab and go back tomorrow and using the drugs no it takes just a couple days to get here 40:12.970 --> 40:19.370 and i'm ready to do you know to do that to have anybody wants to take it just one decision that's 40:19.370 --> 40:26.090 it that's all it takes but the thing is i've also known many people who take a lot of psychedelics 40:26.090 --> 40:33.770 and they're heroin addicts they're alcoholics it hasn't helped them a bit so you know honesty 40:34.890 --> 40:36.810 behooves me to say that this is not 40:36.890 --> 40:43.610 a miracle cure for addiction all these things can do is like open up an opportunity for the person 40:43.610 --> 40:51.370 to examine their lives and resolve to change if that's what they want to do but it won't 40:51.370 --> 41:00.330 compel them to change you know it's not going to force anybody off off drugs um so you know 41:01.530 --> 41:06.250 it's like a lot of other techniques for treating addiction talk therapy or 41:06.890 --> 41:14.730 whatever they work in some people and not in other people since it's illegal in the united 41:14.730 --> 41:22.970 states the only options that an addict has is to go out of the country or to do it illegally 41:22.970 --> 41:27.450 in the united states and there are some people in the united states who are treating addicts 41:28.010 --> 41:34.330 illegally you know they're breaking the law by healing these people however most people 41:36.890 --> 41:39.450 are not sick they're not going to be treated the way they should be they're not going to be 41:39.450 --> 41:41.930 treated they're not going to be treated the way they should be and that's why i'm so excited 41:41.930 --> 41:47.210 about the idea of taking ibogaine and the other countries to take ibogaine i personally i went to 41:47.770 --> 41:53.690 mexico around the puerto vallarta area with a organization called awakeninginthedream.com 41:54.730 --> 42:01.050 and that was a great experience for me and the people there were super nice and it was in a 42:01.050 --> 42:06.010 setting that i think was beneficial to the ibogaine experience in other words it wasn't in a clinic it 42:06.010 --> 42:13.650 completely safe um but there are several clinics in mexico doing this some of them are just right 42:13.650 --> 42:17.830 across the border in tijuana and there's lots of clinics around the world that will take your money 42:17.830 --> 42:22.990 and give you ibogaine they've never taken ibogaine they don't know anything about drug addiction and 42:22.990 --> 42:27.290 they have no idea what that individual is going through in that process you know and that just 42:27.290 --> 42:32.190 frightens the hell out of me i mean in comparison to what the model in the united states this is 42:32.190 --> 42:40.090 not a return visit um a revolving door therapy house we're hoping you can come here once get rid 42:40.090 --> 42:44.250 of that addiction and when you come back again to do more work with the ibogaine if it benefited you 42:44.250 --> 42:48.650 you know without an addiction in the body because then you can go to the next level and then you 42:48.650 --> 42:54.390 work to the next level and this could be a real supportive you know this isn't like going to 42:54.390 --> 42:58.910 meetings every day and believing that you're never going to be anything less than what you are 42:58.910 --> 43:01.810 this confirms that you are no longer 43:01.810 --> 43:02.070 you 43:02.190 --> 43:15.120 in the body energetically there is no physical addiction existing in the system it enables them 43:15.120 --> 43:24.840 to release from the addictive need actually they found themselves after their trips 43:24.840 --> 43:34.640 without the desire for junk and they were all shocked you know like oh my god this is a 43:34.640 --> 43:37.780 you know because they were like waiting for the other shoe to drop 43:37.780 --> 43:38.080 uh 43:38.080 --> 43:45.540 but then they actually felt like wow i am not hooked you know so there was something immediately 43:45.540 --> 43:53.120 uh engaging about it on the other hand it was also very psychologically challenging to begin 43:53.120 --> 44:00.640 with uh and you know it took one into a very deep inner world you maybe you were going to face some 44:00.640 --> 44:07.400 of the shadows that has uh been part of your addictive process this really 44:07.400 --> 44:10.580 sort of crosses over into the shamanic use 44:10.580 --> 44:19.800 of these things i mean the shaman is a person who learns through discipline to navigate in these 44:19.800 --> 44:29.440 realms and this is the realm of you know he learns to pass through both ways through the 44:29.440 --> 44:31.600 doors that the dead pass daily um i think that's high doses of uh psychedelic 44:31.600 --> 44:32.200 uh and i think that's a very powerful way to be able to take on thatē˜¤ 44:32.200 --> 44:33.320 ability to do what he wants um but you know i think it's a very powerful way to be able to take on 44:33.320 --> 44:37.360 i think the other way around um so i think that when we go back to this uh level of uh 44:37.400 --> 44:42.260 or something like DMT is very close, probably. 44:42.460 --> 44:45.240 I mean, I've never had a near-death experience. 44:45.500 --> 44:51.520 I hope never to have one until I'm actually dying, you know. 44:51.520 --> 44:56.920 But people who have had them say that they're very similar to high doses of DMT. 44:57.660 --> 45:04.640 And there's even reason to think that the DMT, which our own bodies make, 45:04.640 --> 45:07.780 may be involved in the near-death experience. 45:08.160 --> 45:14.380 That, you know, in the state of stress on the mind and body that is produced when you're dying, 45:15.180 --> 45:23.500 it's not inconceivable that your brain releases a massive flood of DMT and you have this experience. 45:23.900 --> 45:27.320 But all this still is mostly within the realm of speculation. 45:27.600 --> 45:34.520 We still don't really know enough about the normal concentrations of DMT in the body. 45:34.640 --> 45:40.540 And what situations increase it, and in what sorts of conditions the levels are decreased. 45:49.930 --> 45:51.930 Where is DMT found in nature? 45:51.930 --> 45:57.530 Well, a better question would be, where is it not found in nature? 45:59.530 --> 46:02.290 I mean, this is really interesting to me. 46:02.430 --> 46:09.410 The fact that DMT is so ubiquitous in nature. 46:13.250 --> 46:22.410 It is, from the chemical standpoint, structurally, it's the simplest of the psychedelics. 46:22.410 --> 46:24.790 It's a very, very simple compound. 46:25.630 --> 46:31.450 And in terms of biochemistry, it's only two steps away from tryptophan. 46:32.530 --> 46:34.250 Tryptophan is an amino acid. 46:34.670 --> 46:37.250 It's one of the essential amino acids. 46:38.130 --> 46:40.070 So it is universal. 46:40.470 --> 46:43.070 All living things have tryptophan. 46:44.070 --> 46:48.870 Now, not all living things have DMT, probably. 46:49.170 --> 46:59.370 But the enzymes that convert tryptophan to DMT, there are two main enzymes in this process, are also universal. 46:59.370 --> 47:02.790 I mean, I don't know how chemical we want to get here. 47:02.970 --> 47:11.490 But the basic idea is that there's an enzyme that takes off the acid group of the amino acid. 47:11.490 --> 47:13.170 So it turns it from an amino. 47:13.250 --> 47:21.970 And then there's another enzyme that puts methyl groups onto the amines. 47:21.970 --> 47:30.350 So you get, first you get tryptophan, and then you get tryptamine, and then you get dimethyltryptamine, which is what DMT is. 47:30.870 --> 47:33.970 And this goes on, I think, very commonly. 47:34.890 --> 47:37.630 Well, these enzymes are certainly common. 47:37.790 --> 47:41.610 I mean, they're common in all cells, practically. 47:42.110 --> 47:43.070 Do all organisms have DMT? 47:43.070 --> 47:44.630 Do all organisms contain DMT? 47:44.850 --> 47:49.830 I think it's possible that all organisms might contain traces of DMT. 47:50.490 --> 47:53.630 There are many plants that contain DMT. 47:53.630 --> 47:56.490 We know of at least a couple hundred. 47:57.510 --> 47:59.190 And that's only because we've looked. 47:59.670 --> 48:02.490 You know, there are probably thousands of plants. 48:02.710 --> 48:10.090 In fact, my suspicion is that because tryptophan is so easily converted to DMT, 48:10.510 --> 48:12.630 I think if you went out with a sufficient amount of DMT, 48:12.630 --> 48:12.690 I think if you went out with a sufficient amount of DMT, 48:12.690 --> 48:17.290 a sufficiently sensitive instrument, mass spectrometer or whatever, 48:17.790 --> 48:20.570 and just started sampling plants at random 48:20.570 --> 48:26.270 and shoving those through your gas chromatograph or whatever you're using, 48:26.650 --> 48:30.950 you would find traces of DMT in every plant. 48:32.010 --> 48:37.290 And you would also find it, we know it's very widespread in animals, too. 48:37.290 --> 48:42.350 So we know it's in amphibians, we know it's in mammals, including us. 48:42.690 --> 48:45.550 We know it's in marine organisms. 48:46.150 --> 48:47.310 We know it's in fish. 48:48.890 --> 48:54.630 So it's, yeah, it's odd that, well, maybe it's not odd. 48:55.270 --> 48:58.670 It's just a fact of nature that it's all over the place. 48:59.350 --> 49:05.830 And probably is about as close to being universal as anything is. 49:05.950 --> 49:08.110 It's also related to serotonin. 49:08.750 --> 49:12.250 Serotonin is a neurotransmitter which occurs in all life forms. 49:12.250 --> 49:16.790 It occurs in all life and is most concentrated in the higher primates 49:16.790 --> 49:19.550 and most concentrated there in man. 49:20.070 --> 49:22.250 It is 5-hydroxytryptamine, 49:23.450 --> 49:28.390 while DMT is, as you mentioned, NN-dimethyltryptamine. 49:28.890 --> 49:31.930 So there is a very close structural affinity 49:31.930 --> 49:36.250 between this extremely potent and exotic hallucinogen 49:36.250 --> 49:42.230 and the very common basis for ordinary consciousness, serotonin. 49:42.250 --> 49:47.810 DMT and phybotoxy-DMT and even beta-carbolines, 49:48.410 --> 49:52.730 which are the other component of the ayahuasca combination, 49:53.470 --> 49:58.590 do occur in the human brain and may occur in other places in the human body, 49:58.750 --> 50:04.010 in the adrenal glands, for instance, probably in the gut. 50:05.550 --> 50:10.170 But they definitely occur in the human brain, 50:10.830 --> 50:12.070 especially in the pineal gland. 50:12.070 --> 50:12.150 Especially in the pineal gland. 50:12.150 --> 50:12.230 Especially in the pineal gland. 50:12.230 --> 50:12.250 Especially in the pineal gland. 50:12.250 --> 50:25.210 There are other forms of DMT other than the smokable kind. 50:25.330 --> 50:31.230 In fact, those other forms are the more traditionally used forms of DMT, 50:31.510 --> 50:32.730 such as ayahuasca. 50:33.550 --> 50:39.430 Ayahuasca is remarkable because, as you probably know, 50:39.710 --> 50:44.970 it's combined from these two distinct plant species. 50:44.970 --> 50:48.970 Its two principal ingredients are themselves inactive, 50:48.970 --> 50:52.950 except in the presence of each other. 50:53.590 --> 50:56.630 So what we have in the case of ayahuasca 50:56.630 --> 51:01.170 is an example of a highly evolved folk pharmacology. 51:01.930 --> 51:07.150 And how a discovery like this was ever made in the first place 51:07.150 --> 51:11.910 is one of the challenging questions that anthropologists have to deal with. 51:12.370 --> 51:15.890 After all, in a square mile of Amazonian rainforest, 51:15.890 --> 51:18.950 it is not unusual to encounter 50,000 people, 51:18.950 --> 51:22.170 50,000 distinct species of plants. 51:22.690 --> 51:28.590 How then did these so-called primitive or preliterate people 51:28.590 --> 51:34.050 make the connection between the combining of the bark of one 51:34.050 --> 51:35.690 with the leaves of another, 51:36.250 --> 51:38.650 boiled and put through a number of procedures 51:38.650 --> 51:43.250 to produce an intense visionary hallucinogen? 51:43.250 --> 51:48.570 This is an extremely interesting and, to this day, unanswered question. 51:48.950 --> 51:51.750 It tastes horrible, by the way. 51:51.750 --> 51:52.690 It tastes... 51:52.690 --> 51:59.090 My version of what it tastes like is 52:01.990 --> 52:05.930 maybe four-day-old espresso 52:05.930 --> 52:10.770 that someone had put out a cigarette in 52:12.150 --> 52:13.990 with a dash of lemon. 52:15.690 --> 52:18.690 And so you gag it down, and... 52:18.950 --> 52:28.550 Then, after a while, your mind starts to have a plasticity and an openness, 52:28.550 --> 52:32.130 and it remains that way for about four or five hours, 52:32.130 --> 52:35.470 which can be quite beautiful. 52:35.470 --> 52:42.130 If you've seen any of the tapestries of the Inner Mind Cathedral 52:42.130 --> 52:46.390 in the DMT state, 52:46.390 --> 52:48.790 that extends it for hours. 52:48.790 --> 52:52.790 So it's kind of a shame not to take ayahuasca 52:52.790 --> 52:54.790 if you're going to do DMT, 52:54.790 --> 53:02.790 because, geez, you can extend the journey to several hours. 53:02.790 --> 53:04.790 Well, DMT is a tryptamine. 53:04.790 --> 53:06.790 So is LSD. 53:06.790 --> 53:10.790 LSD is a laboratory invention. 53:10.790 --> 53:16.790 It's a chemical modification of an ergot alkaloid. 53:16.790 --> 53:18.790 But in terms of their... 53:18.790 --> 53:21.790 You know, pharmacology, they're quite similar. 53:21.790 --> 53:26.790 They both impact certain kinds of serotonin receptors in the brain, 53:26.790 --> 53:32.790 through which most people propose that these drugs have their effects. 53:32.790 --> 53:33.790 You know, the... 53:33.790 --> 53:38.790 I would say the main difference is that DMT is quite short-acting, 53:38.790 --> 53:40.790 and LSD is quite long-acting. 53:40.790 --> 53:43.790 But in terms of the... 53:43.790 --> 53:46.790 On the spectrum of effects, 53:46.790 --> 53:47.790 they're quite comparable, 53:47.790 --> 53:50.790 in terms of the perceptual and emotional 53:50.790 --> 53:56.790 and the cognitive responses to consuming the drug or the compound. 53:56.790 --> 54:02.790 Also, DMT is a compound that is found in all kinds of animals and plants, 54:02.790 --> 54:05.790 and LSD isn't a natural product. 54:05.790 --> 54:11.160 It isn't found in the animal kingdom or the plant kingdom. 54:11.160 --> 54:14.160 In ayahuasca, the effects of DMT begin a lot slower, 54:14.160 --> 54:17.160 probably within a half hour, maybe an hour, 54:17.160 --> 54:20.160 and they peak in around two to three hours, 54:20.160 --> 54:26.160 and they're usually resolved between around six hours or so. 54:26.160 --> 54:30.160 So even though it's a slower effect, 54:30.160 --> 54:33.160 the quality of the response is the same. 54:33.160 --> 54:38.160 LSD was always a bit of a commitment, 54:38.160 --> 54:41.160 because you've got at least eight hours 54:41.160 --> 54:44.160 that you're committed to this altered state, 54:44.160 --> 54:46.160 and so you have to arrange your life, 54:46.160 --> 54:48.160 wisely, to support that. 54:48.160 --> 54:52.160 And this is just a little more manageable, I think, 54:52.160 --> 54:54.160 in some ways. 54:54.160 --> 54:56.160 It's also very clean and very clear, 54:56.160 --> 54:59.160 and you don't feel any body load afterward. 54:59.160 --> 55:01.160 You feel uplifted. 55:01.160 --> 55:03.160 You feel, like, vitalized. 55:03.160 --> 55:05.160 You feel like you need less sleep, you know? 55:05.160 --> 55:11.160 And you feel that you've addressed yourself on a deep level. 55:11.160 --> 55:15.160 A lot of deep issues came up for me. 55:15.160 --> 55:19.160 Yeah, well, I've had experiences with ayahuasca and ibogaine. 55:19.160 --> 55:22.160 They've been very profound and important experiences in my life. 55:22.160 --> 55:27.160 And they've helped me, I feel, to grow on many levels. 55:27.160 --> 55:29.160 I've written about them extensively in my books, 55:29.160 --> 55:33.160 Breaking Open the Head and 2012, The Return of Quetzalcoatl. 55:33.160 --> 55:37.160 I feel like they gave me insights into my personal psychology, 55:37.160 --> 55:40.160 visions about better paths to take. 55:40.160 --> 55:43.160 They kind of acted as kind of antidepressants 55:43.160 --> 55:45.160 that lifted my spirits up. 55:45.160 --> 55:49.160 Made me see these other layers or possibilities of reality. 55:49.160 --> 55:51.160 So they've been very important experiences for me. 55:51.160 --> 56:23.800 Telepathic and group mind states are induced 56:23.800 --> 56:26.800 by this particular plant mixture. 56:26.800 --> 56:29.800 And it's particularly interesting in the light of the fact 56:29.800 --> 56:34.800 that the chemical constituents which make it go 56:34.800 --> 56:38.800 are in fact found endogenously in the human brain. 56:38.800 --> 56:42.800 These are not exotic compounds from the point of view 56:42.800 --> 56:45.800 of ordinary human brain chemistry. 56:45.800 --> 56:50.800 So there is a suggestion there that manipulation 56:50.800 --> 56:55.800 of neurohumeral compounds, brain neurotransmitters 56:55.800 --> 56:59.800 and that sort of thing may in fact open the door 56:59.800 --> 57:04.800 to untapped areas of human potential. 57:04.800 --> 57:08.800 One of the games my brother liked to play with the mushrooms 57:08.800 --> 57:11.800 was, you know, in this dialogue situation, 57:11.800 --> 57:13.800 he was always saying, 57:13.800 --> 57:17.800 tell me something I can't possibly know, right? 57:17.800 --> 57:21.800 And that will validate that it's not me, you know, 57:21.800 --> 57:23.800 that this is coming from. 57:23.800 --> 57:25.800 I don't know that he ever succeeded in getting it. 57:25.800 --> 57:29.800 It's very cagey, you know, they're very tricky that way. 57:29.800 --> 57:33.800 It's, you know, but occasionally they do seem to tell people 57:33.800 --> 57:36.800 things that they can't possibly know 57:36.800 --> 57:40.800 or that they've never thought about in quite that way. 57:40.800 --> 57:44.800 Now it's come out, for example, that, you know, 57:44.800 --> 57:48.800 Crick's insight into the structure of DNA 57:48.800 --> 57:51.800 was assisted by LSD, you know, 57:51.800 --> 57:55.800 and he reluctantly but finally admitted 57:55.800 --> 57:57.800 that that was a big influence. 57:57.800 --> 58:01.800 And many computer scientists, you know, Steve Jobs has said 58:01.800 --> 58:05.800 LSD's been very useful for his creativity. 58:05.800 --> 58:13.290 Terry Mullis, the Nobel Prize winner 58:13.290 --> 58:17.290 who figured out the PCR chain reaction 58:17.290 --> 58:20.290 has been quite upfront about it. 58:20.290 --> 58:32.640 LSD gave him the ability to get down with the molecules 58:32.640 --> 58:34.640 and see what's happening. 58:34.640 --> 58:36.640 In some sense, there is a communication. 58:36.640 --> 58:39.640 In some sense, the question isn't even valid 58:39.640 --> 58:45.640 because where do the boundaries between the self and the world exist? 58:45.640 --> 58:47.640 You know, we're not really separate. 58:47.640 --> 58:51.640 I mean, we're part of this information field. 58:51.640 --> 58:55.640 And, you know, this notion that consciousness, 58:55.640 --> 59:00.640 I mean, I do think that consciousness does, 59:00.640 --> 59:04.640 it's like a property of the continuum. 59:04.640 --> 59:07.640 It's like the old physical physicist concept 59:07.640 --> 59:09.640 of the ether or something. 59:09.640 --> 59:12.640 It kind of permeates everything. 59:12.640 --> 59:17.640 And it's not really localized in the human brain 59:17.640 --> 59:20.640 or necessarily even generated by the human brain. 59:20.640 --> 59:23.640 Why does the brain require DMT for normal function 59:23.640 --> 59:27.640 if, you know, this is indeed true? 59:27.640 --> 59:29.640 Yeah, and it's hard to say. 59:29.640 --> 59:32.640 I mean, I think that perhaps one of the functions 59:32.640 --> 59:35.640 of ordinary levels of DMT is kind of like a, 59:35.640 --> 59:38.640 you know, kind of reality thermostat. 59:38.640 --> 59:41.640 If you have a certain kind of narrow window 59:41.640 --> 59:45.640 of levels of DMT in the brain, 59:45.640 --> 59:49.640 it maintains this ordinary level of, you know, perceptual, 59:49.640 --> 59:52.640 you know, consensus reality that most of us live in. 59:52.640 --> 59:55.640 You know, kind of like the endo-matrix in a way, 59:55.640 --> 59:58.640 as opposed to like an externally applied, you know, 59:58.640 --> 01:00:01.640 psychological or, you know, consciousness kind of matrix 01:00:01.640 --> 01:00:03.640 like in the movie. 01:00:03.640 --> 01:00:06.640 You know, this is one that's internally generated. 01:00:06.640 --> 01:00:08.640 But it may be that the brain is a place 01:00:08.640 --> 01:00:12.640 where it becomes focused and concentrated. 01:00:12.640 --> 01:00:15.640 You know, the brain may be as much a receiver 01:00:15.640 --> 01:00:19.640 of the signal as it is a generator of the signal. 01:00:19.640 --> 01:00:22.640 You know, nobody can really say, 01:00:22.640 --> 01:00:27.640 but that model in some ways appeals more to me 01:00:27.640 --> 01:00:30.640 than the notion that it's all coming from the brain. 01:00:30.640 --> 01:00:33.640 The brain is more like a node, you know, 01:00:33.640 --> 01:00:37.640 and there's this sort of field of consciousness 01:00:37.640 --> 01:00:39.640 that permeates everything, 01:00:39.640 --> 01:00:42.640 and to a certain degree, everything is conscious. 01:00:42.640 --> 01:00:48.640 I think of the shaman as entering into this net of being 01:00:48.640 --> 01:00:51.640 in the higher worlds, in the heaven worlds, 01:00:51.640 --> 01:00:54.640 and that's why I've personified the net of being, 01:00:54.640 --> 01:00:56.640 this painting behind us, 01:00:56.640 --> 01:00:59.640 as this continuum of heads 01:00:59.640 --> 01:01:03.640 interlocking infinitely in all directions, 01:01:03.640 --> 01:01:08.640 because that points to being as a continuum, 01:01:08.640 --> 01:01:13.640 as a network, in a sense, to an infinite realm. 01:01:13.640 --> 01:01:18.640 And this is a part of the deep fabric of our being, I think. 01:01:18.640 --> 01:01:24.640 Because we sense ourselves as souls related to many. 01:01:24.640 --> 01:01:27.640 There is this everyday world, 01:01:27.640 --> 01:01:31.640 but you can be in a place where there is no you 01:01:31.640 --> 01:01:34.640 and still perceive the world. 01:01:34.640 --> 01:01:35.640 That scared me. 01:01:35.640 --> 01:01:37.640 Losing my ego was the scariest thing, 01:01:37.640 --> 01:01:39.640 and I still don't like it. 01:01:39.640 --> 01:01:42.640 A profound state which may be reached 01:01:42.640 --> 01:01:45.640 by use of these entheogens, psychedelics, hallucinogens, 01:01:45.640 --> 01:01:47.640 whatever you're going to call them, 01:01:47.640 --> 01:01:52.640 which is known as ego loss or ego death. 01:01:52.640 --> 01:01:59.640 Unfortunately, subsequent to the coinage of this term, 01:01:59.640 --> 01:02:03.640 ego has come to be used in a completely other sense. 01:02:03.640 --> 01:02:07.640 It has been used in the sense of pride. 01:02:07.640 --> 01:02:11.640 And that is not what ego death is about. 01:02:11.640 --> 01:02:16.640 Ego death would mean you lose your sense of I for good. 01:02:16.640 --> 01:02:17.640 And that's not what happens. 01:02:17.640 --> 01:02:21.640 They mean a temporary suspension of the ego, 01:02:21.640 --> 01:02:24.640 when ego death is spoken of. 01:02:24.640 --> 01:02:30.640 Ego death means the death of you as a concept, 01:02:30.640 --> 01:02:36.640 whereas we walk around thinking of ourselves as things. 01:02:36.640 --> 01:02:40.640 We think of, I am sitting in the chair. 01:02:40.640 --> 01:02:42.640 Therefore, you know, I am a thing. 01:02:42.640 --> 01:02:44.640 The chair is a thing. 01:02:44.640 --> 01:02:49.640 When we reach the realm of ego death, 01:02:49.640 --> 01:02:54.640 or ego dissolution, or whatever you're going to call it, 01:02:54.640 --> 01:02:58.640 there is no longer any perceived boundary 01:02:58.640 --> 01:03:01.640 between oneself and the chair. 01:03:01.640 --> 01:03:08.310 In this state, there are no things. 01:03:08.310 --> 01:03:12.310 There is just one continuous experience. 01:03:12.310 --> 01:03:15.310 In some sense, all of experience 01:03:15.310 --> 01:03:18.310 is an illusion, you know. 01:03:18.310 --> 01:03:21.310 Everything that we experience in the here and now 01:03:21.310 --> 01:03:25.310 and our state of being is a hallucination, 01:03:25.310 --> 01:03:30.310 an elaborate hallucination that our brains construct. 01:03:30.310 --> 01:03:33.310 We happen to call it consensus reality. 01:03:33.310 --> 01:03:37.310 But it's still, I mean, physics tells us that, 01:03:37.310 --> 01:03:41.310 you know, the picture of reality that we build 01:03:41.310 --> 01:03:44.310 so that we can navigate through the world, 01:03:44.310 --> 01:03:47.310 and not step in front of buses and stuff like that 01:03:47.310 --> 01:03:49.310 and do all those, you know, 01:03:49.310 --> 01:03:52.310 the world doesn't really look like this at all. 01:03:52.310 --> 01:03:57.310 You know, the brain constructs a model of reality 01:03:57.310 --> 01:04:00.310 that more or less maps onto reality. 01:04:00.310 --> 01:04:03.310 It's good enough that we can survive. 01:04:03.310 --> 01:04:08.310 But we're focused in a kind of, you know, 01:04:08.310 --> 01:04:13.310 constricted dimensional awareness of reality. 01:04:13.310 --> 01:04:17.310 And, you know, for safety reasons mostly, you know, 01:04:17.310 --> 01:04:20.310 and we don't necessarily want to know 01:04:20.310 --> 01:04:23.310 that we are actual one consciousness 01:04:23.310 --> 01:04:27.310 with all beings and things at all times. 01:04:27.310 --> 01:04:30.310 So, nevertheless, those dimensions 01:04:30.310 --> 01:04:33.310 are all open to our being. 01:04:33.310 --> 01:04:35.310 You know, we have a complete freedom 01:04:35.310 --> 01:04:38.310 of the continuum of being. 01:04:38.310 --> 01:04:40.310 If we change the nature, you know, 01:04:40.310 --> 01:04:43.310 we have the model and we have the real world out here 01:04:43.310 --> 01:04:46.310 and we have the sensory neural interface 01:04:46.310 --> 01:04:48.310 that's taking this information in, 01:04:48.310 --> 01:04:51.310 interpreting it, and giving us the model. 01:04:51.310 --> 01:04:56.310 If we change the nature of the sensory neural interface 01:04:56.310 --> 01:04:58.310 a little or a lot, 01:04:58.310 --> 01:05:02.310 if we substitute, say, DMT for serotonin, 01:05:02.310 --> 01:05:05.310 you know, the model of the world that we get 01:05:05.310 --> 01:05:07.310 changes radically. 01:05:07.310 --> 01:05:10.310 And who's to say that that's any less valid 01:05:10.310 --> 01:05:12.310 than the model that, you know, 01:05:12.310 --> 01:05:15.310 the brain constructs for, you know, 01:05:15.310 --> 01:05:17.310 for everyday purposes? 01:05:17.310 --> 01:05:20.310 So this idea that, you know, 01:05:20.310 --> 01:05:23.310 I mean, it's all illusion. 01:05:23.310 --> 01:05:25.310 It's all hallucination. 01:05:25.310 --> 01:05:27.310 That's what experience is, you know. 01:05:27.310 --> 01:05:30.310 I mean, that's why in some ways 01:05:30.310 --> 01:05:32.310 I sometimes get a little impatient 01:05:32.310 --> 01:05:35.310 with people that say, you know, 01:05:35.310 --> 01:05:38.310 well, a drug experience cannot possibly have 01:05:38.310 --> 01:05:41.310 any spiritual validity. 01:05:41.310 --> 01:05:44.310 Well, I'm here to tell you that all experience 01:05:44.310 --> 01:05:47.310 is a drug experience, you know. 01:05:47.310 --> 01:05:49.310 We're all on drugs all the time, 01:05:49.310 --> 01:05:53.310 largely because we're made of drugs, you know. 01:05:53.310 --> 01:05:56.310 And that's what drives us, you know. 01:05:56.310 --> 01:06:00.310 Experience is, you know, sort of the, 01:06:00.310 --> 01:06:04.310 what issues out of this biochemical process 01:06:04.310 --> 01:06:07.310 of, you know, all these neurotransmitters 01:06:07.310 --> 01:06:10.310 and hormones moving around our brain. 01:06:10.310 --> 01:06:13.310 I mean, it's drugs. 01:06:13.310 --> 01:06:15.310 We've gotten very stuck on the idea 01:06:15.310 --> 01:06:17.310 that, like, we're conscious and sentient 01:06:17.310 --> 01:06:20.310 and, you know, intelligent and have knowledge 01:06:20.310 --> 01:06:22.310 and that nothing else in the world of nature 01:06:22.310 --> 01:06:24.310 really is like that. 01:06:24.310 --> 01:06:26.310 But actually, you know, we're a very young 01:06:26.310 --> 01:06:27.310 experiment on the planet. 01:06:27.310 --> 01:06:29.310 We're a young species. 01:06:29.310 --> 01:06:31.310 And the plant world has been around 01:06:31.310 --> 01:06:32.310 for a really long time. 01:06:32.310 --> 01:06:35.310 The fungus world even longer than that. 01:06:35.310 --> 01:06:37.310 And they've developed, you know, 01:06:37.310 --> 01:06:40.310 symbiotic meshworks 01:06:40.310 --> 01:06:42.310 of species interrelationship, 01:06:42.310 --> 01:06:45.310 very complicated diplomacy, 01:06:45.310 --> 01:06:47.310 interspecies diplomacy. 01:06:47.310 --> 01:06:49.310 And it may be that certain plants 01:06:49.310 --> 01:06:51.310 have been kind of anointed 01:06:51.310 --> 01:06:54.310 or given the role to be the diplomats 01:06:54.310 --> 01:06:56.310 and the teachers who work with 01:06:56.310 --> 01:06:58.310 the human species to help us 01:06:58.310 --> 01:07:00.310 to see if we can evolve 01:07:00.310 --> 01:07:02.310 to be less destructive 01:07:02.310 --> 01:07:05.310 before we sort of just lose our shit 01:07:05.310 --> 01:07:07.310 and top off the biosphere. 01:07:07.310 --> 01:07:09.310 Maybe the ubiquity of DMT is, 01:07:10.310 --> 01:07:13.310 you know, signature of consciousness in nature 01:07:13.310 --> 01:07:16.310 or nature sending a message to, 01:07:16.310 --> 01:07:19.310 you know, the big-brained stupid primates, 01:07:19.310 --> 01:07:21.310 you know, wake up, look around. 01:07:21.310 --> 01:07:23.310 It's everywhere. 01:07:23.310 --> 01:07:26.310 You know, mind is everywhere. 01:07:26.310 --> 01:07:28.310 I think that their message is, 01:07:28.310 --> 01:07:30.310 wake up, dummy, you know, 01:07:30.310 --> 01:07:33.310 before you kill us all here, 01:07:33.310 --> 01:07:35.310 on one hand. 01:07:35.310 --> 01:07:37.310 And the other hand, they're saying, 01:07:37.310 --> 01:07:39.310 wake up to your own divinity. 01:07:39.310 --> 01:07:44.310 Wake up to your higher capacities. 01:07:44.310 --> 01:07:46.310 So they're talking to us every day, 01:07:46.310 --> 01:07:47.310 which is true. 01:07:47.310 --> 01:07:50.970 But no, we don't, we're not listening 01:07:50.970 --> 01:07:52.970 because it's like when you get up in the morning, 01:07:52.970 --> 01:07:53.970 you go straight to work, 01:07:53.970 --> 01:07:55.970 you work after, after, after, you know, 01:07:55.970 --> 01:07:57.970 your day, you get off, you go home, 01:07:57.970 --> 01:07:59.970 or you stop at the restaurant, 01:07:59.970 --> 01:08:00.970 eat a good meal and go home. 01:08:00.970 --> 01:08:01.970 That's it, you go to sleep. 01:08:01.970 --> 01:08:06.920 Next day, you do the same thing. 01:08:06.920 --> 01:08:08.920 So to answer your question, 01:08:08.920 --> 01:08:11.920 herbs, our spirit talking to us every day. 01:08:11.920 --> 01:08:12.920 Just be ready. 01:08:12.920 --> 01:08:14.920 And to, you know, to know, 01:08:14.920 --> 01:08:15.920 what is it? 01:08:15.920 --> 01:08:17.920 What is it trying to tell me? 01:08:17.920 --> 01:08:19.920 I mean, you have these experiences 01:08:19.920 --> 01:08:22.920 and you seem to have a communication, right? 01:08:22.920 --> 01:08:26.920 And very often they present themselves 01:08:26.920 --> 01:08:28.920 as an intelligence, 01:08:28.920 --> 01:08:31.920 something outside yourself, you know, 01:08:31.920 --> 01:08:33.920 and you're communicating with it. 01:08:33.920 --> 01:08:35.920 You're having a dialogue 01:08:35.920 --> 01:08:39.920 or some feeling of, you know, 01:08:39.920 --> 01:08:42.920 an other that you're interacting with. 01:08:42.920 --> 01:08:47.920 Whether it is a illusion or not, 01:08:47.920 --> 01:08:49.920 it's hard to, 01:08:49.920 --> 01:08:53.920 it's really hard to know. 01:08:53.920 --> 01:09:08.440 Psychedelics sort of make people aware 01:09:08.440 --> 01:09:11.440 of realms that are less material, 01:09:11.440 --> 01:09:14.440 you know, that the real sort of, 01:09:14.440 --> 01:09:17.440 the really rewarding experiences 01:09:17.440 --> 01:09:21.440 are not necessarily what Wall Street 01:09:21.440 --> 01:09:23.440 or Madison Avenue or Hollywood 01:09:23.440 --> 01:09:24.440 wants to be. 01:09:24.440 --> 01:09:26.440 What they want is to deliver to you. 01:09:26.440 --> 01:09:27.440 I mean, they, 01:09:27.440 --> 01:09:28.440 those experiences, 01:09:28.440 --> 01:09:31.440 and they're synthetic experiences 01:09:31.440 --> 01:09:33.440 just as much as a drug experience 01:09:33.440 --> 01:09:35.440 is a synthetic experience. 01:09:35.440 --> 01:09:37.440 But they're usually tied with some 01:09:37.440 --> 01:09:40.440 consumerist, you know, agenda. 01:09:40.440 --> 01:09:42.440 And, I mean, 01:09:42.440 --> 01:09:45.440 this is part of the, 01:09:45.440 --> 01:09:46.440 the sort of the, 01:09:46.440 --> 01:09:49.440 the inconsistent attitude of, 01:09:49.440 --> 01:09:50.440 of society. 01:09:50.440 --> 01:09:53.440 I mean, they want they, 01:09:53.440 --> 01:09:55.440 I don't know, 01:09:55.440 --> 01:09:57.440 the corporate hegemony or whatever. 01:09:57.440 --> 01:10:00.440 I mean, they want people to be addicted to things. 01:10:00.440 --> 01:10:03.440 They want people to consume things. 01:10:03.440 --> 01:10:05.440 Not necessarily to drugs, 01:10:05.440 --> 01:10:06.440 but drugs will do. 01:10:06.440 --> 01:10:08.440 I mean, they want people to drink 01:10:08.440 --> 01:10:10.440 and smoke and all these things, 01:10:10.440 --> 01:10:11.440 you know, 01:10:11.440 --> 01:10:12.440 and they, 01:10:12.440 --> 01:10:14.440 and they want people to be addicted to their, 01:10:14.440 --> 01:10:18.440 to their cars and computers 01:10:18.440 --> 01:10:20.440 and TV and all that. 01:10:20.440 --> 01:10:21.440 So, you know, 01:10:21.440 --> 01:10:22.440 a lot of what it's about 01:10:22.440 --> 01:10:27.440 is kind of keeping people entertained 01:10:27.440 --> 01:10:30.440 and focused on these sort of corporate, 01:10:30.440 --> 01:10:32.940 corporately massaged, 01:10:32.940 --> 01:10:35.940 corporately created versions of, 01:10:35.940 --> 01:10:36.940 of reality. 01:10:36.940 --> 01:10:44.860 The business of culture, 01:10:44.860 --> 01:10:45.860 any culture, 01:10:45.860 --> 01:10:49.860 is to perpetuate its cultural models. 01:10:49.860 --> 01:10:52.860 And if the hallucinogenic plants 01:10:52.860 --> 01:10:55.860 have not been integrated into the cultural model, 01:10:55.860 --> 01:10:58.860 then they are definitely seen 01:10:58.860 --> 01:11:00.860 as dangerous forces 01:11:00.860 --> 01:11:04.860 for an unpredictable sort of social change. 01:11:04.860 --> 01:11:07.860 Now, if the hallucinogenic plants 01:11:07.860 --> 01:11:10.860 have been integrated into the cultural model, 01:11:10.860 --> 01:11:12.860 this is not then a problem. 01:11:12.860 --> 01:11:15.860 And this is the case with shamanism. 01:11:15.860 --> 01:11:22.860 Shamanism is the culturally sanctified institution 01:11:22.860 --> 01:11:26.860 of inner exploration 01:11:26.860 --> 01:11:28.860 via psychoactive, 01:11:28.860 --> 01:11:30.860 psychoactive plants. 01:11:30.860 --> 01:11:33.860 Where psychoactive plants are not present, 01:11:33.860 --> 01:11:37.860 shamanic institutions tend to become vitiated, 01:11:37.860 --> 01:11:41.860 to rely on ritual or ordeals 01:11:41.860 --> 01:11:44.860 or other methods of eluciting, 01:11:44.860 --> 01:11:47.860 eliciting these ecstatic states. 01:11:47.860 --> 01:11:50.860 Well, the contemporary artist, 01:11:50.860 --> 01:11:51.860 therefore, 01:11:51.860 --> 01:11:54.860 has felt a great kinship with the shaman 01:11:54.860 --> 01:11:57.860 because the archetype of the contemporary artist 01:11:57.860 --> 01:12:00.860 is that they stand askance from 01:12:00.860 --> 01:12:05.860 or ajar from conventional culture. 01:12:05.860 --> 01:12:07.860 And therefore, 01:12:07.860 --> 01:12:10.860 these are the creative artists, we hope, 01:12:10.860 --> 01:12:13.860 therefore they contribute 01:12:13.860 --> 01:12:18.860 a different perspective on ourselves 01:12:18.860 --> 01:12:21.860 and something that we can learn from. 01:12:21.860 --> 01:12:23.860 And I think that 01:12:23.860 --> 01:12:26.860 that's part of the role of sacred art, 01:12:26.860 --> 01:12:27.860 ultimately, 01:12:27.860 --> 01:12:32.860 is to show us a higher model of what we can be 01:12:32.860 --> 01:12:37.860 so that we're pulled toward our highest potential 01:12:37.860 --> 01:12:40.860 rather than having our negative 01:12:40.860 --> 01:12:45.860 or materialist sense reinforced. 01:12:45.860 --> 01:12:49.860 We get that through a lot of our other materialist 01:12:49.860 --> 01:12:51.860 and very rational culture. 01:12:51.860 --> 01:12:55.860 And theogens are inherently 01:12:55.860 --> 01:12:58.860 threatening to the culture. 01:12:58.860 --> 01:13:01.860 I mean, that's, I think, one reason that 01:13:01.860 --> 01:13:03.860 they're brutally suppressed, 01:13:03.860 --> 01:13:06.860 both when capitalist cultures 01:13:06.860 --> 01:13:07.860 or dominant cultures 01:13:07.860 --> 01:13:09.860 come on indigenous cultures. 01:13:09.860 --> 01:13:11.860 You know, they're usually bringing 01:13:11.860 --> 01:13:13.860 another religion, an outside religion, 01:13:13.860 --> 01:13:16.860 Christianity or whatever, 01:13:16.860 --> 01:13:19.860 usually incompatible with the indigenous practices. 01:13:19.860 --> 01:13:20.860 So that's the first thing to go 01:13:20.860 --> 01:13:22.860 and the first thing to be attacked. 01:13:22.860 --> 01:13:24.860 And along with that goes the knowledge 01:13:24.860 --> 01:13:26.860 of these plants. 01:13:26.860 --> 01:13:28.860 The church was concerned that 01:13:28.860 --> 01:13:31.860 the magic of the witches 01:13:31.860 --> 01:13:34.860 be seen as real, number one, 01:13:34.860 --> 01:13:37.860 and number two, entirely caused 01:13:37.860 --> 01:13:40.860 by the agency of the devil himself. 01:13:40.860 --> 01:13:43.860 And so the church downplayed 01:13:43.860 --> 01:13:47.860 the operational role that plants had 01:13:47.860 --> 01:13:49.860 in inducing these states 01:13:49.860 --> 01:13:51.860 because, after all, if the devil 01:13:51.860 --> 01:13:53.860 cannot lead you astray 01:13:53.860 --> 01:13:55.860 without the use of plants, 01:13:55.860 --> 01:13:58.860 why, what kind of devil is it? 01:13:58.860 --> 01:14:01.860 So in our own historical tradition, 01:14:01.860 --> 01:14:03.860 there is a curious blindness 01:14:03.860 --> 01:14:07.860 to the efficacy of hallucinogenic plants. 01:14:07.860 --> 01:14:08.860 You know, it is possible 01:14:08.860 --> 01:14:10.860 that as the visionary experience 01:14:10.860 --> 01:14:12.860 becomes more acceptable 01:14:12.860 --> 01:14:15.860 in our contemporary postmodern culture, 01:14:15.860 --> 01:14:18.860 more and more people may gravitate 01:14:18.860 --> 01:14:20.860 to those types of experience. 01:14:20.860 --> 01:14:22.860 And at the same time, we can already see 01:14:22.860 --> 01:14:24.860 that the traditional religious structures 01:14:24.860 --> 01:14:26.860 are in a lot of trouble. 01:14:26.860 --> 01:14:29.860 They're causing a lot of trouble in the world. 01:14:29.860 --> 01:14:31.860 It probably would be beneficial 01:14:31.860 --> 01:14:34.860 for there to be a kind of consciousness evolution 01:14:34.860 --> 01:14:37.860 out of fundamentalist belief systems. 01:14:37.860 --> 01:14:39.860 And, you know, I think that 01:14:39.860 --> 01:14:41.860 the shamanic experience might be helpful 01:14:41.860 --> 01:14:43.860 in that evolutionary process. 01:14:43.860 --> 01:14:46.860 As institutions, what they have in common is 01:14:46.860 --> 01:14:50.860 they discourage individual thought 01:14:50.860 --> 01:14:53.860 and they discourage critical thinking 01:14:53.860 --> 01:14:58.860 and they discourage questions, questioning. 01:14:58.860 --> 01:15:01.860 They encourage that, 01:15:01.860 --> 01:15:05.860 okay, here is a body of beliefs 01:15:05.860 --> 01:15:08.860 or cultural norms or, you know, 01:15:08.860 --> 01:15:11.860 largely accepted beliefs 01:15:11.860 --> 01:15:14.860 and you're just supposed to accept it. 01:15:14.860 --> 01:15:16.860 You know, don't ask questions. 01:15:16.860 --> 01:15:18.860 Sit down and shut up. 01:15:18.860 --> 01:15:19.860 You know, accept it 01:15:19.860 --> 01:15:20.860 and integrate it 01:15:20.860 --> 01:15:24.860 and be a good, you know, citizen, consumer, 01:15:24.860 --> 01:15:28.860 whatever role is decided. 01:15:28.860 --> 01:15:30.860 And theogens are inherently threatening 01:15:30.860 --> 01:15:32.860 because they enable people 01:15:32.860 --> 01:15:35.860 or sometimes they compel people to reject that. 01:15:35.860 --> 01:15:38.860 You know, and say, well, maybe there's more to life 01:15:38.860 --> 01:15:41.860 than, you know, working in a cubicle 01:15:41.860 --> 01:15:44.860 for some faceless corporation 01:15:44.860 --> 01:15:47.860 so I can, you know, not have health insurance 01:15:47.860 --> 01:15:48.860 and die sick 01:15:48.860 --> 01:15:50.860 and, you know, without a pension 01:15:50.860 --> 01:15:54.860 and, you know, and just spend my time with that. 01:15:54.860 --> 01:15:58.860 Maybe it encourages people to, you know, 01:15:58.860 --> 01:16:03.860 look for different purposes in life than that. 01:16:03.860 --> 01:16:06.860 So that's really, I think, what's going on. 01:16:06.860 --> 01:16:09.860 The problem with the psychedelics 01:16:09.860 --> 01:16:15.860 is that they dissolve cultural programming 01:16:15.860 --> 01:16:18.860 and hence, inherently, 01:16:18.860 --> 01:16:23.860 have a political charge about them. 01:16:23.860 --> 01:16:27.860 And actually, that's the weakness, you know, 01:16:27.860 --> 01:16:33.860 of what I am sort of beginning to call the death culture, 01:16:33.860 --> 01:16:35.860 you know. 01:16:35.860 --> 01:16:39.860 And these things then actually become, 01:16:39.860 --> 01:16:42.860 in a sense, our own bioweapons. 01:16:42.860 --> 01:16:45.860 Or if we're on the other side of this divide, 01:16:45.860 --> 01:16:47.860 then these plants, 01:16:47.860 --> 01:16:50.860 you know, especially the plants, 01:16:50.860 --> 01:16:53.860 become very dangerous in this context. 01:16:53.860 --> 01:16:55.860 You know, they're trying to suppress them, 01:16:55.860 --> 01:16:57.860 but you can't suppress them. 01:16:57.860 --> 01:16:59.860 And they're, you know, 01:16:59.860 --> 01:17:02.860 they're ways of changing hearts and minds, 01:17:02.860 --> 01:17:06.860 so they are definitely very, very dangerous. 01:17:06.860 --> 01:17:09.860 But they can be used in a creative way 01:17:09.860 --> 01:17:15.860 to counteract kind of the toxic message 01:17:15.860 --> 01:17:20.860 that the mainstream culture puts out. 01:17:20.860 --> 01:17:23.860 I put a lot of time into making sacred art 01:17:23.860 --> 01:17:28.860 in order to download the shamanic 01:17:28.860 --> 01:17:32.860 and theogenic and meditative 01:17:32.860 --> 01:17:37.860 and, you know, just grace and dream 01:17:37.860 --> 01:17:40.860 and shamanic journey 01:17:40.860 --> 01:17:43.860 and all of these kinds of modes 01:17:43.860 --> 01:17:49.860 of and highly rational thinking about 01:17:49.860 --> 01:17:52.860 philosophically what are the implications 01:17:52.860 --> 01:17:55.860 of the worldview that I'm expressing 01:17:55.860 --> 01:17:56.860 and things like that. 01:17:56.860 --> 01:17:58.860 Because for me, 01:17:58.860 --> 01:18:02.860 the artist, perhaps at their best, 01:18:02.860 --> 01:18:05.860 could be, I love that word, 01:18:05.860 --> 01:18:06.860 scintilla. 01:18:06.860 --> 01:18:08.860 You know, Terence always used, 01:18:08.860 --> 01:18:12.860 could be the scintilla of evolving consciousness. 01:18:12.860 --> 01:18:16.860 As we all can be, you know. 01:18:16.860 --> 01:18:19.860 But they could express it visually. 01:18:19.860 --> 01:18:37.090 And in fact, there are images 01:18:37.090 --> 01:18:40.090 that appear to be of the fly agaric mushroom 01:18:40.090 --> 01:18:42.090 in some early Christian art. 01:18:42.090 --> 01:18:46.090 The fresco at Plain Corral 01:18:46.090 --> 01:18:48.090 is one example of this. 01:18:48.090 --> 01:18:58.600 And it appears to be Adam and Eve 01:18:58.600 --> 01:19:01.600 standing next to this big fly agaric mushroom 01:19:01.600 --> 01:19:04.600 that has sprouts coming off of it. 01:19:04.600 --> 01:19:06.600 It's not depicted in a way 01:19:06.600 --> 01:19:08.600 exactly the way a fly agaric grows, 01:19:08.600 --> 01:19:11.600 but the stalk is there 01:19:11.600 --> 01:19:13.600 and the cap of the mushroom 01:19:13.600 --> 01:19:16.600 and it has white flecks on top. 01:19:16.600 --> 01:19:17.600 It looks very much like 01:19:17.600 --> 01:19:19.600 an Amanita muscaria mushroom. 01:19:19.600 --> 01:19:21.600 Now this has been debated by art scholars 01:19:21.600 --> 01:19:23.600 saying that no, this is just the style 01:19:23.600 --> 01:19:25.600 that was used, a figurative style, 01:19:25.600 --> 01:19:27.600 a way to paint trees. 01:19:27.600 --> 01:19:29.600 Why though, you have to ask, 01:19:29.600 --> 01:19:31.600 would you start painting trees 01:19:31.600 --> 01:19:33.600 that looked like mushrooms? 01:19:33.600 --> 01:19:36.600 Unless perhaps you were trying to get across 01:19:36.600 --> 01:19:42.130 another message in that painting. 01:19:42.130 --> 01:19:45.130 The ceiling of the Hildesheim Cathedral in Germany, 01:19:45.130 --> 01:19:50.240 painted I think in 1100 this era, 01:19:50.240 --> 01:19:52.240 there's a striking image similar, 01:19:52.240 --> 01:19:54.240 very similar to the Plain Corral fresco 01:19:54.240 --> 01:19:57.240 of Adam and Eve again standing 01:19:57.240 --> 01:20:02.240 not next to a tree like Amanita, 01:20:02.240 --> 01:20:05.240 but standing in front of what looks like 01:20:05.240 --> 01:20:08.240 a fly agaric cap behind them, 01:20:08.240 --> 01:20:11.240 tilted on so it's facing the viewer. 01:20:11.240 --> 01:20:12.240 So it's round like this 01:20:12.240 --> 01:20:14.240 and Adam and Eve are standing in front of it. 01:20:14.240 --> 01:20:16.240 Not only is it perfectly round 01:20:16.240 --> 01:20:18.240 like an Amanita cap, 01:20:18.240 --> 01:20:23.240 not only does it have white spots, 01:20:23.240 --> 01:20:25.240 these actually are silver spots 01:20:25.240 --> 01:20:27.240 spread out over like the veil remnants, 01:20:27.240 --> 01:20:30.240 white veil remnants on an Amanita cap, 01:20:30.240 --> 01:20:34.240 but these are actually metallic hemispheres, 01:20:34.240 --> 01:20:36.240 silver metallic hemispheres 01:20:36.240 --> 01:20:38.240 that are attached to the painting. 01:20:38.240 --> 01:20:40.240 So they're actually raised bumps 01:20:40.240 --> 01:20:43.240 just like you'll find on the cap of a mushroom. 01:20:43.240 --> 01:20:46.240 The veil remnants are white flecks 01:20:46.240 --> 01:20:48.240 that can even be removed. 01:20:48.240 --> 01:20:51.240 So this was, in my opinion, 01:20:51.240 --> 01:20:55.240 this was an intentional clue 01:20:55.240 --> 01:20:59.240 by the artist to show people 01:20:59.240 --> 01:21:01.240 what was really being shown here, 01:21:01.240 --> 01:21:04.240 what the fruit of the Garden of Eden 01:21:04.240 --> 01:21:07.240 really was according to the artist 01:21:07.240 --> 01:21:09.240 and according to Allegro 01:21:09.240 --> 01:21:11.240 and Wasson as well, 01:21:11.240 --> 01:21:13.240 that the fruit of the Garden of Eden 01:21:13.240 --> 01:21:16.240 was in fact the fly agaric mushroom. 01:21:16.240 --> 01:21:18.240 It's just such a damn attractive mushroom, 01:21:18.240 --> 01:21:20.240 I have to say. 01:21:20.240 --> 01:21:23.240 It distinguishes itself by its beauty. 01:21:23.240 --> 01:21:27.880 I can't think of a more beautiful mushroom, really. 01:21:27.880 --> 01:21:29.880 At the same time, 01:21:29.880 --> 01:21:32.880 I can think of one that takes you a lot higher 01:21:32.880 --> 01:21:37.880 in terms of its psychedelic potency 01:21:37.880 --> 01:21:39.880 and entheogenic potential. 01:21:39.880 --> 01:21:43.880 I've never had much of a holy experience 01:21:43.880 --> 01:21:45.880 on an amanita. 01:21:45.880 --> 01:21:49.880 It was slightly more of a deliriant 01:21:49.880 --> 01:21:51.880 and a body wank 01:21:51.880 --> 01:21:55.880 than a, you know, 01:21:55.880 --> 01:21:57.880 something that would elevate you 01:21:57.880 --> 01:21:59.880 to the heavenly spheres, you know. 01:21:59.880 --> 01:22:02.880 It's the iconic mushroom in a sense. 01:22:02.880 --> 01:22:04.880 I mean, it's the archetypal mushroom 01:22:04.880 --> 01:22:06.880 that goes way, way back 01:22:06.880 --> 01:22:08.880 to at least the Paleolithic. 01:22:08.880 --> 01:22:11.880 We know that Siberian shamanism 01:22:11.880 --> 01:22:15.880 is where the whole thing is thought to have originated 01:22:15.880 --> 01:22:17.880 and that that was... 01:22:17.880 --> 01:22:21.880 a lot of that constellated around amanita. 01:22:21.880 --> 01:22:23.880 And, you know, 01:22:23.880 --> 01:22:27.880 the classic shamanic motifs 01:22:27.880 --> 01:22:31.880 of the ascending the world tree 01:22:31.880 --> 01:22:33.880 and having the axis mundi 01:22:33.880 --> 01:22:36.880 that links the celestial and the earthly 01:22:36.880 --> 01:22:38.880 and the underground realms 01:22:38.880 --> 01:22:40.880 and in Siberian shamanism, 01:22:40.880 --> 01:22:42.880 this is often depicted as a mushroom. 01:22:42.880 --> 01:22:45.880 I've encountered the amanita muscaria mushroom 01:22:45.880 --> 01:22:47.880 and its symbolism 01:22:47.880 --> 01:22:49.880 actually in the material 01:22:49.880 --> 01:22:51.880 around the Finnish Kalevala, 01:22:51.880 --> 01:22:54.880 the national epic of Finland. 01:22:54.880 --> 01:22:56.880 It was collected together 01:22:56.880 --> 01:22:59.880 as an oral tradition in the 19th century 01:22:59.880 --> 01:23:02.880 and was called the Kalevala. 01:23:02.880 --> 01:23:04.880 And it's the ancient legends of Finland. 01:23:04.880 --> 01:23:06.880 And there's an artifact or an idea 01:23:06.880 --> 01:23:08.880 or a concept in the Kalevala 01:23:08.880 --> 01:23:10.880 called the sampo. 01:23:10.880 --> 01:23:13.880 And the sampo is kind of this magic mill 01:23:13.880 --> 01:23:16.880 that's capable of producing anything you wish. 01:23:16.880 --> 01:23:18.880 And it's really a cosmological metaphor 01:23:18.880 --> 01:23:21.880 for the starry sky centered on the pole star. 01:23:21.880 --> 01:23:24.880 And the stars are called the ciphered cover, 01:23:24.880 --> 01:23:28.880 so it's envisioned as this huge sort of umbrella-like thing 01:23:28.880 --> 01:23:32.880 that spins slowly with the central axis coming down. 01:23:32.880 --> 01:23:34.880 So it's also a huge image 01:23:34.880 --> 01:23:36.880 of the amanita muscaria mushroom. 01:23:36.880 --> 01:23:39.880 As a cosmological metaphor. 01:23:39.880 --> 01:23:41.880 Muscimol, 01:23:41.880 --> 01:23:44.880 which is the active, 01:23:44.880 --> 01:23:47.880 main psychoactive principle in amanita muscaria, 01:23:47.880 --> 01:23:50.880 is a very potent GABA agonist. 01:23:50.880 --> 01:23:53.880 So it interacts specifically with these receptors 01:23:53.880 --> 01:23:55.880 and not much, 01:23:55.880 --> 01:23:57.880 not at all with the serotonin receptors, 01:23:57.880 --> 01:23:59.880 except possibly indirectly. 01:23:59.880 --> 01:24:02.880 So how can amanita muscaria 01:24:02.880 --> 01:24:06.880 produce these transcendent experiences 01:24:06.880 --> 01:24:13.250 and there are several possible answers. 01:24:13.250 --> 01:24:15.250 Maybe they don't. 01:24:15.250 --> 01:24:18.250 I personally am not familiar enough 01:24:18.250 --> 01:24:21.250 with amanita muscaria to say that they do. 01:24:21.250 --> 01:24:25.250 My own experience with amanita was very limited 01:24:25.250 --> 01:24:28.250 because I didn't enjoy it. 01:24:28.250 --> 01:24:30.250 But I also, 01:24:30.250 --> 01:24:33.250 it didn't seem like a transcendent experience at all. 01:24:33.250 --> 01:24:36.250 It seemed like a cheap drunk in a way. 01:24:36.250 --> 01:24:37.250 But I, 01:24:37.250 --> 01:24:39.250 dealt with, 01:24:39.250 --> 01:24:40.250 you know, 01:24:40.250 --> 01:24:42.250 I was eating fresh mushrooms 01:24:42.250 --> 01:24:46.250 and it's almost always taken dry. 01:24:46.250 --> 01:24:50.250 I think there's a great deal of chemical variation 01:24:50.250 --> 01:24:52.250 in the mushrooms, 01:24:52.250 --> 01:24:53.250 both geographically. 01:24:53.250 --> 01:24:54.250 There are many, 01:24:54.250 --> 01:24:56.250 there's geographic variation. 01:24:56.250 --> 01:24:59.250 The mushrooms in the Himalayas and in Siberia 01:24:59.250 --> 01:25:02.250 may not be the same as the ones in Colorado, 01:25:02.250 --> 01:25:05.250 just from a chemical angle. 01:25:05.250 --> 01:25:06.250 There's, 01:25:06.250 --> 01:25:08.250 you know, 01:25:08.250 --> 01:25:10.250 so there are many chemical races, 01:25:10.250 --> 01:25:11.250 you know, 01:25:11.250 --> 01:25:12.250 of these mushrooms. 01:25:12.250 --> 01:25:15.250 Some of them may contain true psychedelics. 01:25:15.250 --> 01:25:18.250 Some of them may contain tryptamines 01:25:18.250 --> 01:25:20.250 and or beta-carbolines. 01:25:20.250 --> 01:25:22.250 There is some evidence that they do, 01:25:22.250 --> 01:25:24.250 these DMT and this kind of thing, 01:25:24.250 --> 01:25:27.250 do show up in some of these things, 01:25:27.250 --> 01:25:29.250 some of these amanitas. 01:25:31.250 --> 01:25:34.250 It's a complicated picture. 01:25:34.250 --> 01:25:36.250 Nobody has sorted out, 01:25:36.250 --> 01:25:37.250 you know, 01:25:37.250 --> 01:25:38.250 I mean, 01:25:38.250 --> 01:25:40.250 somebody really needs to go through 01:25:40.250 --> 01:25:41.250 and do two things. 01:25:41.250 --> 01:25:44.250 They need to collect mushrooms 01:25:44.250 --> 01:25:47.250 very carefully from different parts of the world 01:25:47.250 --> 01:25:49.250 and do chemical profiles 01:25:49.250 --> 01:25:53.250 to see if they can define a chemical race 01:25:53.250 --> 01:25:55.250 or are there certain races that are high 01:25:55.250 --> 01:25:57.250 in these tryptamines. 01:25:57.250 --> 01:25:58.250 They also, 01:25:58.250 --> 01:26:00.250 someone also needs to look at the way 01:26:00.250 --> 01:26:02.250 that they're prepared 01:26:02.250 --> 01:26:04.250 because I think 01:26:04.250 --> 01:26:06.250 I've talked with people 01:26:06.250 --> 01:26:08.250 and you have two probably 01:26:08.250 --> 01:26:10.250 who insist 01:26:10.250 --> 01:26:13.250 that they are really very psychedelic 01:26:13.250 --> 01:26:15.250 but you have to dry them a certain way 01:26:15.250 --> 01:26:17.250 and they have to be dried over a fire, 01:26:17.250 --> 01:26:18.250 they have to be, 01:26:18.250 --> 01:26:19.250 you know, 01:26:19.250 --> 01:26:21.250 and the fresh mushrooms 01:26:21.250 --> 01:26:22.250 don't get it, 01:26:22.250 --> 01:26:23.250 you know. 01:26:24.250 --> 01:26:25.250 The phyagaric mushroom, 01:26:25.250 --> 01:26:26.250 unlike, say, 01:26:26.250 --> 01:26:27.250 psilocybe species, 01:26:27.250 --> 01:26:29.250 the psilocybin mushroom, 01:26:29.250 --> 01:26:32.250 where you can pretty much rely on, 01:26:32.250 --> 01:26:33.250 you can go by weight 01:26:33.250 --> 01:26:35.250 on if you can take the mushroom, 01:26:35.250 --> 01:26:36.250 a certain amount will give you 01:26:36.250 --> 01:26:38.250 pretty much a certain experience, 01:26:38.250 --> 01:26:39.250 level of experience. 01:26:39.250 --> 01:26:40.250 With the phyagaric, 01:26:40.250 --> 01:26:42.250 you have no such guarantee. 01:26:42.250 --> 01:26:43.250 You can have a mushroom 01:26:43.250 --> 01:26:45.250 as big as a dinner plate 01:26:45.250 --> 01:26:48.250 that will give you virtually no experience at all 01:26:48.250 --> 01:26:53.250 or you can have one much smaller 01:26:53.250 --> 01:26:55.250 that can knock your socks off, 01:26:55.250 --> 01:26:57.250 metaphorically speaking. 01:26:57.250 --> 01:26:59.250 It's because the mushroom contains 01:26:59.250 --> 01:27:00.250 both muscimol, 01:27:00.250 --> 01:27:02.250 which is the active ingredient, 01:27:02.250 --> 01:27:04.250 and a substance called 01:27:04.250 --> 01:27:05.250 ebotenic acid, 01:27:05.250 --> 01:27:09.250 which is far, far less active 01:27:09.250 --> 01:27:11.250 but much more toxic. 01:27:11.250 --> 01:27:13.250 Once it reaches your liver, 01:27:13.250 --> 01:27:16.250 the liver starts dismantling it 01:27:16.250 --> 01:27:17.250 and the first thing it does 01:27:17.250 --> 01:27:19.250 is a decarboxylation process 01:27:19.250 --> 01:27:21.250 which turns it into muscimol 01:27:21.250 --> 01:27:23.250 and then it excretes it. 01:27:23.250 --> 01:27:25.250 So you can actually, 01:27:25.250 --> 01:27:27.250 depending on the amount of ebotenic acid 01:27:27.250 --> 01:27:30.250 in the initial sample, 01:27:30.250 --> 01:27:33.250 you can actually excrete 01:27:33.250 --> 01:27:36.250 more of the active principle, muscimol, 01:27:36.250 --> 01:27:38.250 than you ate. 01:27:38.250 --> 01:27:43.250 And so if you were to pass on 01:27:43.250 --> 01:27:45.250 your urine to somebody else, 01:27:45.250 --> 01:27:48.250 he'd get higher than you did. 01:27:48.250 --> 01:27:50.250 Purely because, 01:27:50.250 --> 01:27:51.250 and of course he'll pass on 01:27:51.250 --> 01:27:52.250 some ebotenic acid too, 01:27:52.250 --> 01:27:55.250 which he will metabolize into muscimol. 01:27:55.250 --> 01:27:56.250 And so in Siberia, 01:27:56.250 --> 01:27:59.250 this is passed from person to person, 01:27:59.250 --> 01:28:01.250 rather than being recycled. 01:28:01.250 --> 01:28:03.250 And they get, 01:28:03.250 --> 01:28:05.250 five or six people high 01:28:05.250 --> 01:28:07.250 on the same mushroom. 01:28:07.250 --> 01:28:09.250 This is very important. 01:28:09.250 --> 01:28:12.250 This may be the secret of Amanita 01:28:12.250 --> 01:28:14.250 because it seems to me, 01:28:14.250 --> 01:28:16.250 from what you were saying, 01:28:16.250 --> 01:28:19.250 that it's not simply that it goes through, 01:28:19.250 --> 01:28:21.250 there's a filtering, 01:28:21.250 --> 01:28:24.250 there's a detoxification process. 01:28:24.250 --> 01:28:27.250 So the first collection 01:28:27.250 --> 01:28:29.250 after you eat it 01:28:29.250 --> 01:28:33.250 has probably got a lot of things 01:28:33.250 --> 01:28:36.250 cleaned out of it 01:28:36.250 --> 01:28:39.250 that might make for an uncomfortable trip. 01:28:39.250 --> 01:28:42.250 It may also, 01:28:42.250 --> 01:28:46.630 I mean this is pure speculation, 01:28:46.630 --> 01:28:48.630 but it's possible that 01:28:48.630 --> 01:28:50.630 some of the downstream effects 01:28:50.630 --> 01:28:52.630 of taking these GABA agonists, 01:28:52.630 --> 01:28:54.630 which is what the Amanita, 01:28:54.630 --> 01:28:57.630 it might induce the production 01:28:57.630 --> 01:28:59.630 of endogenous tryptamines, 01:28:59.630 --> 01:29:02.630 DMT plus beta-carbolines, 01:29:02.630 --> 01:29:03.630 so that the person 01:29:03.630 --> 01:29:06.630 who ate that urine 01:29:06.630 --> 01:29:08.630 or drank that urine 01:29:08.630 --> 01:29:10.630 after this process 01:29:10.630 --> 01:29:13.630 might be getting a lot of things 01:29:13.630 --> 01:29:15.630 that is not in the mushrooms, 01:29:15.630 --> 01:29:18.630 but actually secondary metabolites 01:29:18.630 --> 01:29:20.630 that are produced 01:29:20.630 --> 01:29:23.630 by the eating of the mushrooms. 01:29:23.630 --> 01:29:24.630 So you get the mushrooms, 01:29:24.630 --> 01:29:26.630 you eat the mushrooms, 01:29:26.630 --> 01:29:28.630 and you get all these feedback loops happening 01:29:28.630 --> 01:29:31.630 and you get possibly things 01:29:31.630 --> 01:29:33.630 excreted in the urine. 01:29:33.630 --> 01:29:35.630 Possibly these tryptamines 01:29:35.630 --> 01:29:37.630 and beta-carbolines. 01:29:37.630 --> 01:29:39.630 I don't know that this is possible, 01:29:39.630 --> 01:29:42.630 but it's completely reasonable to speculate. 01:29:42.630 --> 01:29:45.630 There is actually a Tibetan text 01:29:45.630 --> 01:29:47.630 which is a retelling 01:29:47.630 --> 01:29:51.630 of the Hindu myth 01:29:51.630 --> 01:29:54.630 of how Amrita was first made 01:29:54.630 --> 01:29:56.630 by churning the ocean. 01:29:56.630 --> 01:29:58.630 But in the Tibetan version, 01:29:58.630 --> 01:30:00.630 the Bodhisattva 01:30:00.630 --> 01:30:02.630 who's supposed to be looking after the Amrita, 01:30:02.630 --> 01:30:05.630 doesn't look after it very well 01:30:05.630 --> 01:30:07.630 and this demon comes along 01:30:07.630 --> 01:30:09.630 and steals it. 01:30:09.630 --> 01:30:12.630 And he doesn't just drink it all, 01:30:12.630 --> 01:30:13.630 he drinks it 01:30:13.630 --> 01:30:14.630 and replaces it 01:30:14.630 --> 01:30:16.630 with his own urine. 01:30:16.630 --> 01:30:22.630 And then the Buddhas 01:30:22.630 --> 01:30:24.630 decide that the Bodhisattva, 01:30:24.630 --> 01:30:25.630 Vajrapani, 01:30:25.630 --> 01:30:27.630 who was looking after it, 01:30:27.630 --> 01:30:30.630 should drink the urine. 01:30:30.630 --> 01:30:31.630 And he does. 01:30:31.630 --> 01:30:35.630 And he becomes dark blue, 01:30:35.630 --> 01:30:37.630 surrounded by flames 01:30:37.630 --> 01:30:39.630 and ornamented with snakes. 01:30:39.630 --> 01:30:56.560 Stepping out. 01:30:56.560 --> 01:30:59.560 That's what the mystical experience is. 01:30:59.560 --> 01:31:01.560 It's one of ecstasy. 01:31:01.560 --> 01:31:05.560 And whilst it's difficult to look at the, 01:31:05.560 --> 01:31:07.560 specifically the Gnostic and Pagan initiations 01:31:07.560 --> 01:31:09.560 and go, oh, this was what was used. 01:31:09.560 --> 01:31:10.560 We don't have that. 01:31:10.560 --> 01:31:11.560 We can guess. 01:31:11.560 --> 01:31:13.560 What we do know is that an initiation, 01:31:13.560 --> 01:31:14.560 well, first of all, the word, 01:31:14.560 --> 01:31:16.560 certainly in the Greek word that gets used, 01:31:16.560 --> 01:31:18.560 doesn't mean, like our word, 01:31:18.560 --> 01:31:20.560 the start of something. 01:31:20.560 --> 01:31:21.560 It comes from telos 01:31:21.560 --> 01:31:22.560 and it means kind of a glimpse 01:31:22.560 --> 01:31:24.560 of the end of something. 01:31:24.560 --> 01:31:25.560 So what's happening to you 01:31:25.560 --> 01:31:27.560 in an initiation 01:31:27.560 --> 01:31:30.560 is that you're getting an experience 01:31:30.560 --> 01:31:32.560 of where you're going. 01:31:32.560 --> 01:31:34.560 So you, oh, 01:31:34.560 --> 01:31:35.560 and then you come back 01:31:35.560 --> 01:31:36.560 and then you make the journey 01:31:36.560 --> 01:31:37.560 back to that place 01:31:37.560 --> 01:31:40.560 and you're finding it in yourself. 01:31:40.560 --> 01:31:41.560 Now, one of the things 01:31:41.560 --> 01:31:44.560 that psychedelics does 01:31:44.560 --> 01:31:45.560 is it gives you a glimpse 01:31:45.560 --> 01:31:47.560 of something which has been 01:31:47.560 --> 01:31:48.560 kind of given to you 01:31:48.560 --> 01:31:50.560 from the outside in. 01:31:50.560 --> 01:31:51.560 You've needed to ingest this thing 01:31:51.560 --> 01:31:52.560 and something's happened 01:31:52.560 --> 01:31:54.560 to your consciousness. 01:31:54.560 --> 01:31:56.560 It's a very powerful way of doing that. 01:31:56.560 --> 01:31:57.560 So the idea that you could have 01:31:57.560 --> 01:32:00.560 an initiation, a glimpse of the end 01:32:00.560 --> 01:32:03.560 through something which is taken into you 01:32:03.560 --> 01:32:04.560 through psychedelics 01:32:04.560 --> 01:32:05.560 or also through the influence 01:32:05.560 --> 01:32:07.560 of a teacher or a ritual 01:32:07.560 --> 01:32:08.560 or maybe all of it, 01:32:08.560 --> 01:32:09.560 and then you're on the journey 01:32:09.560 --> 01:32:11.560 to find that in yourself 01:32:11.560 --> 01:32:14.560 because it's already in you. 01:32:14.560 --> 01:32:15.560 That's what I think's going on. 01:32:15.560 --> 01:32:17.560 One way or another. 01:32:17.560 --> 01:32:18.560 It may be the case 01:32:18.560 --> 01:32:20.560 that there were mystery traditions 01:32:20.560 --> 01:32:23.560 that made use of psychedelics. 01:32:23.560 --> 01:32:25.560 And so, you know, 01:32:25.560 --> 01:32:27.560 we've lost track 01:32:27.560 --> 01:32:29.560 in our official history 01:32:29.560 --> 01:32:31.560 of what that use was 01:32:31.560 --> 01:32:32.560 and what went on. 01:32:32.560 --> 01:32:33.560 You know, we don't know 01:32:33.560 --> 01:32:34.560 what they were doing in Egypt. 01:32:34.560 --> 01:32:36.560 We don't know what the Jews were doing 01:32:36.560 --> 01:32:37.560 in Sinai. 01:32:37.560 --> 01:32:39.560 You know, so there's a lot of 01:32:39.560 --> 01:32:44.560 kind of alternative archaeology 01:32:44.560 --> 01:32:45.560 and anthropology, 01:32:45.560 --> 01:32:46.560 sort of tries to work through 01:32:46.560 --> 01:32:48.560 these possibilities. 01:32:48.560 --> 01:32:51.560 And it may be that early Christianity 01:32:51.560 --> 01:32:53.560 had, you know, 01:32:53.560 --> 01:32:55.560 aspects of a mushroom cult, 01:32:55.560 --> 01:32:57.560 you know, that may have appeared 01:32:57.560 --> 01:32:58.560 in these artworks, 01:32:58.560 --> 01:33:00.560 which definitely are, you know, 01:33:00.560 --> 01:33:01.560 some of them really are 01:33:01.560 --> 01:33:03.560 very suggestive of mushrooms. 01:33:03.560 --> 01:33:19.740 However, I think that sometimes 01:33:19.740 --> 01:33:20.740 there's a tendency 01:33:20.740 --> 01:33:21.740 in the psychedelic community 01:33:21.740 --> 01:33:25.740 to almost become like, you know, 01:33:25.740 --> 01:33:28.740 entheogenic fundamentalists 01:33:28.740 --> 01:33:30.740 and think that all visionary experience, 01:33:30.740 --> 01:33:31.740 you know, was mediated 01:33:31.740 --> 01:33:33.740 by the psychedelic plants 01:33:33.740 --> 01:33:35.740 and that the origin of all religions 01:33:35.740 --> 01:33:38.740 was based in, you know, 01:33:38.740 --> 01:33:41.740 the experience of using these substances. 01:33:41.740 --> 01:33:43.740 And it may be the case. 01:33:43.740 --> 01:33:44.740 We just don't know. 01:33:44.740 --> 01:33:45.740 And it may not be the case 01:33:45.740 --> 01:33:46.740 because people have 01:33:46.740 --> 01:33:48.740 visionary experiences, you know, 01:33:48.740 --> 01:33:49.740 without psychedelics. 01:33:49.740 --> 01:33:53.740 I mean, diet, you know, fasting, drumming. 01:33:53.740 --> 01:33:54.740 You know, there are all sorts. 01:33:54.740 --> 01:33:55.740 There's a whole range. 01:33:55.740 --> 01:33:56.740 You know, yoga. 01:33:56.740 --> 01:33:57.740 There's a whole range 01:33:57.740 --> 01:33:58.740 of types of experiences 01:33:58.740 --> 01:34:02.740 that produce mystical visions, 01:34:02.740 --> 01:34:04.740 sense of unity with the cosmos. 01:34:04.740 --> 01:34:06.740 So I'm a little resistant 01:34:06.740 --> 01:34:08.740 to a strain that I often encounter 01:34:08.740 --> 01:34:10.740 in the psychedelic underground 01:34:10.740 --> 01:34:13.740 of like kind of fundamentalism 01:34:13.740 --> 01:34:15.740 around these experiences. 01:34:15.740 --> 01:34:16.740 They were the origin 01:34:16.740 --> 01:34:19.740 of all genuine religion or whatever. 01:34:19.740 --> 01:34:22.740 So, but they probably played 01:34:22.740 --> 01:34:23.740 more of a part 01:34:23.740 --> 01:34:25.740 than the official story 01:34:25.740 --> 01:34:26.740 gives credit to. 01:34:27.740 --> 01:34:31.740 When religions come in contact 01:34:31.740 --> 01:34:33.740 with a real mystery, you know, 01:34:33.740 --> 01:34:36.740 with a really numinous thing, 01:34:36.740 --> 01:34:39.740 they don't like that 01:34:39.740 --> 01:34:40.740 because numinous things 01:34:40.740 --> 01:34:43.740 are inherently dangerous and threatening. 01:34:43.740 --> 01:34:45.740 And a lot of religion has to do 01:34:45.740 --> 01:34:48.740 with controlling people. 01:34:48.740 --> 01:34:50.740 And, you know, there needs to be 01:34:50.740 --> 01:34:52.740 a distance between God 01:34:52.740 --> 01:34:56.740 or the numinous archetype, 01:34:56.740 --> 01:34:59.740 whatever that is, and the people. 01:34:59.740 --> 01:35:02.740 And that's usually the priestly hierarchy 01:35:02.740 --> 01:35:04.740 and the, you know, 01:35:04.740 --> 01:35:06.740 the infrastructure around that 01:35:06.740 --> 01:35:10.740 and, you know, the sort of infrastructure 01:35:10.740 --> 01:35:13.740 that filters the message. 01:35:13.740 --> 01:35:15.740 One of the things that stood out 01:35:15.740 --> 01:35:16.740 in my research in Christianity 01:35:16.740 --> 01:35:19.740 was the use of the Eucharist. 01:35:19.740 --> 01:35:22.740 That is, going back to the Last Supper 01:35:22.740 --> 01:35:24.740 and Jesus' purported words at the time 01:35:24.740 --> 01:35:26.740 when he dipped the bread 01:35:26.740 --> 01:35:27.740 and said, 01:35:27.740 --> 01:35:29.740 This is my body. 01:35:29.740 --> 01:35:30.740 Eat it and have life in you. 01:35:30.740 --> 01:35:31.740 Unless you eat this, 01:35:31.740 --> 01:35:33.740 you will not have life in you. 01:35:33.740 --> 01:35:34.740 This is my blood. 01:35:34.740 --> 01:35:37.740 And he handed the cup of supposed wine 01:35:37.740 --> 01:35:38.740 and said, 01:35:38.740 --> 01:35:39.740 This is my blood, 01:35:39.740 --> 01:35:41.740 and unless you drink this blood, 01:35:41.740 --> 01:35:43.740 you will not have life in you. 01:35:43.740 --> 01:35:44.740 Unless you eat my body 01:35:44.740 --> 01:35:45.740 and drink my blood, 01:35:45.740 --> 01:35:46.740 you will not have life in you. 01:35:46.740 --> 01:35:48.740 And this is stressed over and over, 01:35:48.740 --> 01:35:49.740 especially in John, 01:35:49.740 --> 01:35:51.740 the book of John in the New Testament. 01:35:51.740 --> 01:35:55.400 So what could this mean? 01:35:55.400 --> 01:35:57.400 Is this all mere symbol? 01:35:57.400 --> 01:36:03.400 Why degrade, 01:36:03.400 --> 01:36:05.400 ostensibly degrade, 01:36:05.400 --> 01:36:08.400 a high spiritual experience 01:36:08.400 --> 01:36:11.400 by likening it to eating the flesh and blood 01:36:11.400 --> 01:36:13.400 of another human being? 01:36:13.400 --> 01:36:16.400 That seems counterintuitive 01:36:16.400 --> 01:36:19.400 and completely beside the point. 01:36:19.400 --> 01:36:22.400 Unless these were symbols 01:36:22.400 --> 01:36:25.400 for something else, 01:36:25.400 --> 01:36:27.400 for another substance. 01:36:27.400 --> 01:36:31.400 The Christian Eucharist promises a lot 01:36:31.400 --> 01:36:33.400 and delivers very little 01:36:33.400 --> 01:36:34.400 in terms of, 01:36:34.400 --> 01:36:35.400 you know, 01:36:35.400 --> 01:36:36.400 in other words, 01:36:36.400 --> 01:36:37.400 you have to believe 01:36:37.400 --> 01:36:42.400 to get much out of the Christian Eucharist. 01:36:42.400 --> 01:36:44.400 And if you believe, 01:36:44.400 --> 01:36:46.400 then you may get, 01:36:46.400 --> 01:36:47.400 I mean, 01:36:47.400 --> 01:36:49.400 you won't get a psychedelic experience, 01:36:49.400 --> 01:36:51.400 but you will get something, 01:36:51.400 --> 01:36:52.400 you know, 01:36:52.400 --> 01:36:53.400 an affirmation of faith 01:36:53.400 --> 01:36:55.400 or a feeling that you're, 01:36:55.400 --> 01:36:56.400 you know, 01:36:56.400 --> 01:36:58.400 in communication with the Creator. 01:36:58.400 --> 01:36:59.400 I mean, frankly, 01:36:59.400 --> 01:37:00.400 to be honest, 01:37:00.400 --> 01:37:01.400 I don't believe. 01:37:01.400 --> 01:37:03.400 I mean, I was raised Catholic, 01:37:03.400 --> 01:37:08.400 but it never made any sense to me. 01:37:08.400 --> 01:37:10.400 And so I don't believe. 01:37:10.400 --> 01:37:11.400 So I can't really tell you 01:37:11.400 --> 01:37:13.400 what a devout Christian gets 01:37:13.400 --> 01:37:15.400 from the Eucharist. 01:37:15.400 --> 01:37:19.400 What's different about psychedelics is 01:37:19.400 --> 01:37:21.400 they do deliver something. 01:37:21.400 --> 01:37:24.400 They deliver an experience 01:37:24.400 --> 01:37:25.400 if they're taken 01:37:25.400 --> 01:37:27.400 in the right set and setting. 01:37:27.400 --> 01:37:28.400 And I think one of the main things 01:37:28.400 --> 01:37:31.400 that sets them aside from, 01:37:31.400 --> 01:37:32.400 or that distinguishes them 01:37:32.400 --> 01:37:34.400 from the Eucharist is 01:37:34.400 --> 01:37:36.400 you don't have to believe, 01:37:36.400 --> 01:37:37.400 you know. 01:37:37.400 --> 01:37:38.400 In fact, 01:37:38.400 --> 01:37:40.400 I tell people 01:37:40.400 --> 01:37:42.400 faith is not necessary, 01:37:42.400 --> 01:37:43.400 you know, 01:37:43.400 --> 01:37:44.400 to experience 01:37:44.400 --> 01:37:46.400 what psychedelics have to teach. 01:37:46.400 --> 01:37:48.400 In fact, that's an impediment. 01:37:48.400 --> 01:37:49.400 Get rid of your faith. 01:37:49.400 --> 01:37:51.400 Approach it like a scientist, 01:37:51.400 --> 01:37:53.400 you know. 01:37:53.400 --> 01:37:54.400 You don't have to believe. 01:37:54.400 --> 01:37:56.400 You can be as skeptical as you want. 01:37:56.400 --> 01:37:58.400 You can take the substance in, 01:37:58.400 --> 01:38:00.400 you can experience it, 01:38:00.400 --> 01:38:02.400 and you can make your own judgments 01:38:02.400 --> 01:38:04.400 what it's about. 01:38:04.400 --> 01:38:07.400 If Paul and other people are 01:38:07.400 --> 01:38:10.400 eating the body of the God 01:38:10.400 --> 01:38:13.400 and having an incredible visionary... 01:38:13.400 --> 01:38:15.400 I mean, Paul says, again, 01:38:15.400 --> 01:38:18.400 it just completely contradicts 01:38:18.400 --> 01:38:19.400 the idea of a historical Jesus, 01:38:19.400 --> 01:38:20.400 because he says, 01:38:20.400 --> 01:38:22.400 everything I know about Jesus 01:38:22.400 --> 01:38:24.400 came to me by revelation. 01:38:24.400 --> 01:38:26.400 Where is this coming from? 01:38:26.400 --> 01:38:28.400 What is the source of his experiences? 01:38:28.400 --> 01:38:30.400 I wouldn't be at all surprised. 01:38:30.400 --> 01:38:31.400 I mean, 01:38:31.400 --> 01:38:32.400 a chap called John Allegra 01:38:32.400 --> 01:38:33.400 many years ago 01:38:33.400 --> 01:38:34.400 wrote a book, 01:38:34.400 --> 01:38:35.400 The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, 01:38:35.400 --> 01:38:38.400 which was about precisely this. 01:38:38.400 --> 01:38:49.040 He believes that 01:38:49.040 --> 01:38:50.040 the cultic meal 01:38:50.040 --> 01:38:51.040 of sharing the book 01:38:51.040 --> 01:38:53.040 was people getting together 01:38:53.040 --> 01:38:55.040 and eating some psychoactive 01:38:55.040 --> 01:38:56.040 substance together 01:38:56.040 --> 01:38:58.040 and having revelations 01:38:58.040 --> 01:39:00.040 of the Holy Spirit, 01:39:00.040 --> 01:39:01.040 what have you. 01:39:01.040 --> 01:39:03.040 So, I'm open 01:39:03.040 --> 01:39:05.040 to any investigations 01:39:05.040 --> 01:39:07.040 and whatever evidence comes up. 01:39:07.040 --> 01:39:08.040 I think it's, 01:39:08.040 --> 01:39:09.040 through personal experience, 01:39:09.040 --> 01:39:10.040 myself, 01:39:10.040 --> 01:39:14.040 one of the most powerful ways 01:39:14.040 --> 01:39:15.040 to... 01:39:15.040 --> 01:39:17.040 Well, Aldous Huxley himself 01:39:17.040 --> 01:39:20.040 went in, is it Heaven and Hell? 01:39:20.040 --> 01:39:21.040 Doors of Perception. 01:39:21.040 --> 01:39:22.040 Doors of Perception. 01:39:22.040 --> 01:39:24.040 When he looks at the bamboo chair, 01:39:24.040 --> 01:39:25.040 I think it is, 01:39:25.040 --> 01:39:26.040 and he says, 01:39:26.040 --> 01:39:27.040 I suddenly... 01:39:27.040 --> 01:39:28.040 And this is a man 01:39:28.040 --> 01:39:29.040 who spent his entire life 01:39:29.040 --> 01:39:31.040 writing about 01:39:31.040 --> 01:39:32.040 the religious traditions 01:39:32.040 --> 01:39:33.040 of the world, 01:39:33.040 --> 01:39:34.040 the mystical traditions 01:39:34.040 --> 01:39:35.040 of the world, 01:39:35.040 --> 01:39:36.040 but he never actually 01:39:36.040 --> 01:39:37.040 had any experience. 01:39:37.040 --> 01:39:38.040 And here he was 01:39:38.040 --> 01:39:39.040 on Meskinen, 01:39:39.040 --> 01:39:40.040 I believe, 01:39:40.040 --> 01:39:41.040 looking at this chair 01:39:41.040 --> 01:39:42.040 suffused with light 01:39:42.040 --> 01:39:43.040 and he says, 01:39:43.040 --> 01:39:44.040 hear all these words 01:39:44.040 --> 01:39:46.040 that people had used before, 01:39:46.040 --> 01:39:47.040 like grace 01:39:47.040 --> 01:39:48.040 and all these... 01:39:48.040 --> 01:39:49.040 Suddenly, 01:39:49.040 --> 01:39:50.040 I was having that experience. 01:39:50.040 --> 01:39:52.040 Alan Watts, the same. 01:39:52.040 --> 01:39:54.040 Again, a great scholar, 01:39:54.040 --> 01:39:55.040 actually had the experience 01:39:55.040 --> 01:39:56.040 in this way. 01:39:56.040 --> 01:39:57.040 So, if that's happening 01:39:57.040 --> 01:39:58.040 to people today, 01:39:58.040 --> 01:40:00.040 I think we can safely assume 01:40:00.040 --> 01:40:01.040 it's been happening to people 01:40:01.040 --> 01:40:02.040 for a very, very long time. 01:40:02.040 --> 01:40:03.040 Yeah. 01:40:03.040 --> 01:40:04.040 I think that the world 01:40:04.040 --> 01:40:06.040 is a universal human dispensation 01:40:06.040 --> 01:40:07.040 wherever people live 01:40:07.040 --> 01:40:08.040 in connection 01:40:08.040 --> 01:40:09.040 with their native land. 01:40:09.040 --> 01:40:11.040 It doesn't have to be 01:40:11.040 --> 01:40:12.040 through plants either. 01:40:12.040 --> 01:40:13.040 There are tribes 01:40:13.040 --> 01:40:14.040 that don't use plants 01:40:14.040 --> 01:40:15.040 that just do 01:40:15.040 --> 01:40:18.040 all-night ceremonies, 01:40:18.040 --> 01:40:19.040 ritualistic drumming. 01:40:19.040 --> 01:40:20.040 There are all sorts 01:40:20.040 --> 01:40:21.040 of different ways 01:40:21.040 --> 01:40:22.040 to get people 01:40:22.040 --> 01:40:23.040 into altered states. 01:40:23.040 --> 01:40:24.040 And actually, 01:40:24.040 --> 01:40:25.040 we're learning more and more 01:40:25.040 --> 01:40:27.040 about brainwave patterns 01:40:27.040 --> 01:40:28.040 and theta states 01:40:28.040 --> 01:40:29.040 and alpha states 01:40:29.040 --> 01:40:30.040 and so on. 01:40:30.040 --> 01:40:31.040 So, yeah, 01:40:31.040 --> 01:40:32.040 and I think that 01:40:32.040 --> 01:40:36.040 as Andrew Weil talks about, 01:40:36.040 --> 01:40:38.040 the desire, 01:40:38.040 --> 01:40:39.040 almost the necessity 01:40:39.040 --> 01:40:40.040 for people to change 01:40:40.040 --> 01:40:41.040 their consciousness 01:40:41.040 --> 01:40:42.040 and experience 01:40:42.040 --> 01:40:43.040 other states of consciousness 01:40:43.040 --> 01:40:44.040 seems to be very basic 01:40:44.040 --> 01:40:46.040 to our human nature. 01:40:46.040 --> 01:40:48.040 And if people aren't given 01:40:48.040 --> 01:40:50.040 constructive and creative outlets 01:40:50.040 --> 01:40:52.040 for those types of experience, 01:40:52.040 --> 01:40:54.040 they'll choose destructive 01:40:54.040 --> 01:40:55.040 and negative ones 01:40:55.040 --> 01:40:57.040 just because it's almost natural 01:40:57.040 --> 01:40:59.040 that we would want to have 01:40:59.040 --> 01:41:00.040 different types of 01:41:00.040 --> 01:41:01.040 consciousness experience. 01:41:01.040 --> 01:41:05.040 Anybody's experience, 01:41:05.040 --> 01:41:06.040 their subjective, 01:41:06.040 --> 01:41:07.040 personal experience 01:41:07.040 --> 01:41:09.040 of the mystical 01:41:09.040 --> 01:41:11.040 has to be considered valid 01:41:11.040 --> 01:41:12.040 in some respect. 01:41:12.040 --> 01:41:13.040 They may have 01:41:13.040 --> 01:41:16.040 a different terministic screen 01:41:16.040 --> 01:41:17.040 of a set of words 01:41:17.040 --> 01:41:18.040 that they use 01:41:18.040 --> 01:41:19.040 to describe 01:41:19.040 --> 01:41:21.040 these mystical experiences. 01:41:21.040 --> 01:41:22.040 And maybe sometimes 01:41:22.040 --> 01:41:24.040 we don't always agree with those 01:41:24.040 --> 01:41:25.040 because of the baggage 01:41:25.040 --> 01:41:27.040 that's associated with them. 01:41:27.040 --> 01:41:28.040 But we still have to be open 01:41:28.040 --> 01:41:30.040 to the truth 01:41:30.040 --> 01:41:31.040 from those experiences. 01:41:31.040 --> 01:41:33.040 Before we completely 01:41:33.040 --> 01:41:35.040 just throw the baby out 01:41:35.040 --> 01:41:36.040 with the bath water. 01:41:36.040 --> 01:41:38.040 A mystical experience 01:41:38.040 --> 01:41:40.040 by any means whatsoever, 01:41:40.040 --> 01:41:41.040 you know. 01:41:41.040 --> 01:41:42.040 And if you can do 01:41:42.040 --> 01:41:44.040 Sufi dancing 01:41:44.040 --> 01:41:46.040 and attain a state 01:41:46.040 --> 01:41:48.040 of mystic bliss 01:41:48.040 --> 01:41:50.040 by finding your center 01:41:50.040 --> 01:41:51.040 and having a, 01:41:51.040 --> 01:41:53.040 being a vortex, 01:41:53.040 --> 01:41:55.040 like a gyroscope of being, 01:41:55.040 --> 01:41:57.040 you know. 01:41:57.040 --> 01:41:59.040 I think there are numerous ways 01:41:59.040 --> 01:42:00.040 that people sort of, 01:42:00.040 --> 01:42:02.040 sort of align themselves 01:42:02.040 --> 01:42:06.040 with this mystic reality. 01:42:06.040 --> 01:42:08.040 But I happen to think 01:42:08.040 --> 01:42:09.040 that entheogens 01:42:09.040 --> 01:42:11.040 and psychedelics 01:42:11.040 --> 01:42:16.040 are a powerful way 01:42:16.040 --> 01:42:19.040 that could more safely 01:42:19.040 --> 01:42:23.040 be integrated into, 01:42:23.040 --> 01:42:25.040 you know, 01:42:25.040 --> 01:42:30.320 sort of initiatory experiences 01:42:30.320 --> 01:42:34.320 that people call into their lives 01:42:34.320 --> 01:42:35.320 and stuff. 01:42:35.320 --> 01:42:40.960 And I think that the usefulness 01:42:40.960 --> 01:42:42.960 of the substances 01:42:42.960 --> 01:42:44.960 may eventually, 01:42:44.960 --> 01:42:47.960 as if humanity can evolve itself 01:42:47.960 --> 01:42:49.960 and mature itself, 01:42:49.960 --> 01:42:52.960 there may be an application 01:42:52.960 --> 01:42:53.960 in the future 01:42:53.960 --> 01:42:56.960 for these substances. 01:42:56.960 --> 01:43:05.830 And it's that ability 01:43:05.830 --> 01:43:07.830 to take what works 01:43:07.830 --> 01:43:08.830 and leave behind. 01:43:08.830 --> 01:43:09.830 That's what the evolution 01:43:09.830 --> 01:43:11.830 of culture is. 01:43:11.830 --> 01:43:13.830 But you don't abandon the past. 01:43:13.830 --> 01:43:14.830 All the beautiful music 01:43:14.830 --> 01:43:15.830 and the buildings 01:43:15.830 --> 01:43:16.830 and the traditions, 01:43:16.830 --> 01:43:19.830 we just see it differently. 01:43:19.830 --> 01:43:21.830 When the Spanish Inquisition 01:43:21.830 --> 01:43:23.830 got to the New World 01:43:23.830 --> 01:43:25.830 and they found these Aztecs, 01:43:25.830 --> 01:43:26.830 you know, 01:43:26.830 --> 01:43:28.830 eating mushrooms 01:43:28.830 --> 01:43:30.830 and having a jolly old time 01:43:30.830 --> 01:43:32.830 and having these ecstatic experiences 01:43:32.830 --> 01:43:33.830 and all that, 01:43:33.830 --> 01:43:34.830 I mean, 01:43:34.830 --> 01:43:36.830 as if that wasn't bad enough. 01:43:36.830 --> 01:43:37.830 But then they were calling it 01:43:37.830 --> 01:43:40.830 the flesh of the gods. 01:43:40.830 --> 01:43:42.830 Te anana cotl 01:43:42.830 --> 01:43:43.830 was the Aztec term 01:43:43.830 --> 01:43:44.830 for the mushrooms, 01:43:44.830 --> 01:43:46.830 which meant flesh of the gods. 01:43:46.830 --> 01:43:48.830 And this just enraged 01:43:48.830 --> 01:43:50.830 the clerics. 01:43:50.830 --> 01:43:51.830 And they just, 01:43:51.830 --> 01:43:52.830 you know, 01:43:52.830 --> 01:43:54.830 this was like so blasphemous, 01:43:54.830 --> 01:43:56.830 it couldn't be tolerated. 01:43:56.830 --> 01:43:57.830 And so they really, 01:43:57.830 --> 01:43:58.830 you know, 01:43:58.830 --> 01:44:01.830 reacted more brutally 01:44:01.830 --> 01:44:04.830 than they might have otherwise reacted 01:44:04.830 --> 01:44:05.830 to try to suppress this thing. 01:44:05.830 --> 01:44:06.830 Because, you know, 01:44:06.830 --> 01:44:07.830 we just couldn't, 01:44:07.830 --> 01:44:08.830 they just couldn't have 01:44:08.830 --> 01:44:09.830 this kind of thing. 01:44:09.830 --> 01:44:12.830 The parallels were too striking. 01:44:12.830 --> 01:44:15.830 And their Eucharist didn't do much 01:44:15.830 --> 01:44:17.830 and the Aztec Eucharist, 01:44:17.830 --> 01:44:18.830 you know, 01:44:18.830 --> 01:44:19.830 delivered big time. 01:44:19.830 --> 01:44:20.830 So that was another reason 01:44:20.830 --> 01:44:23.830 why it had to be suppressed. 01:44:23.830 --> 01:44:25.830 With the communion 01:44:25.830 --> 01:44:26.830 where you take the wine 01:44:26.830 --> 01:44:28.830 and the bread, 01:44:28.830 --> 01:44:30.830 it works with people 01:44:30.830 --> 01:44:32.830 because it's done 01:44:32.830 --> 01:44:34.830 in a ritual context. 01:44:34.830 --> 01:44:35.830 People do have profound experiences, 01:44:35.830 --> 01:44:37.830 but I think very often, 01:44:37.830 --> 01:44:38.830 certainly over time, 01:44:38.830 --> 01:44:39.830 you know, 01:44:39.830 --> 01:44:41.830 it's a bit of a let down really. 01:44:41.830 --> 01:44:44.830 What is probably the case originally 01:44:44.830 --> 01:44:45.830 is that the wine would have been 01:44:45.830 --> 01:44:47.830 suffused with something. 01:44:47.830 --> 01:44:49.830 And also that the bread itself, 01:44:49.830 --> 01:44:53.830 there's a psychedelic fungi. 01:44:53.830 --> 01:44:55.830 Well that's where LSD is synthesized 01:44:55.830 --> 01:44:57.830 from ergot of rye. 01:44:57.830 --> 01:44:59.830 And they believe that at certain points 01:44:59.830 --> 01:45:02.830 when the bread was infected 01:45:02.830 --> 01:45:03.830 and the medieval 01:45:03.830 --> 01:45:04.830 St. Vitus dance, 01:45:04.830 --> 01:45:05.830 for example, 01:45:05.830 --> 01:45:09.830 if the fungus has attacked the crop 01:45:09.830 --> 01:45:11.830 before it's turned into bread, 01:45:11.830 --> 01:45:14.830 the bread itself becomes psychedelic. 01:45:14.830 --> 01:45:16.830 And there were many eruptions 01:45:16.830 --> 01:45:17.830 in the Middle Ages, 01:45:17.830 --> 01:45:19.830 in particularly damp summers 01:45:19.830 --> 01:45:21.830 when the ergot would flourish, 01:45:21.830 --> 01:45:24.830 when people would go kind of crazy. 01:45:24.830 --> 01:45:26.830 If Jesus, say, 01:45:26.830 --> 01:45:28.830 were a shaman 01:45:28.830 --> 01:45:30.830 or a hierophant, 01:45:30.830 --> 01:45:32.830 which in the Greek term 01:45:32.830 --> 01:45:33.830 is what he was, 01:45:33.830 --> 01:45:34.830 a revealer of the mysteries, 01:45:34.830 --> 01:45:35.830 and he had a mystery. 01:45:35.830 --> 01:45:36.830 He said, 01:45:36.830 --> 01:45:37.830 I have a mystery. 01:45:37.830 --> 01:45:38.830 And he reveals his mystery 01:45:38.830 --> 01:45:40.830 to whom he chooses. 01:45:40.830 --> 01:45:41.830 Well, 01:45:41.830 --> 01:45:42.830 so he acted like a shaman 01:45:42.830 --> 01:45:44.830 and perhaps even a higher stage, 01:45:44.830 --> 01:45:45.830 higher than a shaman 01:45:45.830 --> 01:45:48.830 because shamans aren't necessarily spiritual 01:45:48.830 --> 01:45:49.830 in my understanding 01:45:49.830 --> 01:45:51.830 and often aren't. 01:45:51.830 --> 01:45:54.830 But Jesus' mission 01:45:54.830 --> 01:45:56.830 was intensely spiritual 01:45:56.830 --> 01:45:59.830 and he wanted to take people to heaven 01:45:59.830 --> 01:46:00.830 because he said, 01:46:00.830 --> 01:46:01.830 where I go, you will go also. 01:46:01.830 --> 01:46:02.830 The things I do, 01:46:02.830 --> 01:46:03.830 you will do also 01:46:03.830 --> 01:46:07.830 and greater things even than I do. 01:46:07.830 --> 01:46:11.830 So the fact that you could take this mushroom, 01:46:11.830 --> 01:46:14.830 this flesh and blood like mushroom, 01:46:14.830 --> 01:46:17.830 and ascend to a heaven of light 01:46:17.830 --> 01:46:20.830 and love and bliss 01:46:20.830 --> 01:46:25.830 makes a very literal connection for me 01:46:25.830 --> 01:46:26.830 to Christianity 01:46:26.830 --> 01:46:28.830 and to the secret message 01:46:28.830 --> 01:46:30.830 that I think Jesus was handing out, 01:46:30.830 --> 01:46:31.830 not to the mass, 01:46:31.830 --> 01:46:32.830 not to the masses, 01:46:32.830 --> 01:46:38.670 but to the inner circle. 01:46:38.670 --> 01:46:39.670 And this is the problem 01:46:39.670 --> 01:46:42.670 with the ancient pagan mysteries in general. 01:46:42.670 --> 01:46:44.670 They were mysteries. 01:46:44.670 --> 01:46:46.670 Everybody who participated 01:46:46.670 --> 01:46:47.670 was sworn to secrecy. 01:46:47.670 --> 01:46:48.670 And what's incredible, 01:46:48.670 --> 01:46:49.670 the mysteries of Eleusis 01:46:49.670 --> 01:46:51.670 were celebrated for a thousand years 01:46:51.670 --> 01:46:52.670 in the Greek world. 01:46:52.670 --> 01:46:53.670 Many people, 01:46:53.670 --> 01:46:54.670 Roman emperors, 01:46:54.670 --> 01:46:55.670 Cicero, 01:46:55.670 --> 01:46:56.670 Seneca, 01:46:56.670 --> 01:46:57.670 all the greats 01:46:57.670 --> 01:46:58.670 were initiates. 01:46:58.670 --> 01:47:01.670 None of them broke their oath 01:47:01.670 --> 01:47:03.670 and told us what happened. 01:47:03.670 --> 01:47:05.670 But we know 01:47:05.670 --> 01:47:08.670 that initiates drank a drink 01:47:08.670 --> 01:47:11.670 before they began on the sacred way to Eleusis, 01:47:11.670 --> 01:47:14.670 which was a painful purgatorial process. 01:47:14.670 --> 01:47:17.670 They were beaten by people with rods. 01:47:17.670 --> 01:47:19.670 It was meant to be 01:47:19.670 --> 01:47:22.670 a visceral physical experience. 01:47:22.670 --> 01:47:26.670 And it was certainly heightened by fasting. 01:47:26.670 --> 01:47:27.670 So whatever, 01:47:27.670 --> 01:47:28.670 if they did take anything then, 01:47:28.670 --> 01:47:32.670 we know that that would have been intensified 01:47:32.670 --> 01:47:33.670 because it always is 01:47:33.670 --> 01:47:35.670 when you fast beforehand. 01:47:35.670 --> 01:47:40.670 Archaeologists have found opium pipes at Eleusis. 01:47:40.670 --> 01:47:42.670 So we've got enough hints to know. 01:47:42.670 --> 01:47:45.670 And the ancients were master pharmacopoeists. 01:47:45.670 --> 01:47:47.670 They knew all of the intoxicated. 01:47:47.670 --> 01:47:48.670 And as Tim says, 01:47:48.670 --> 01:47:50.670 it came out of the shamanic tradition. 01:47:50.670 --> 01:47:52.670 In the heart of the Greek mysteries, 01:47:52.670 --> 01:47:53.670 you know, 01:47:53.670 --> 01:47:55.670 the cradle of Western civilization, 01:47:55.670 --> 01:47:58.670 there was the Eleusinian mystery cult, 01:47:58.670 --> 01:47:59.670 you know. 01:47:59.670 --> 01:48:03.670 And you had the enactment of, 01:48:03.670 --> 01:48:04.670 I guess, 01:48:04.670 --> 01:48:06.670 Demeter and Persephone 01:48:06.670 --> 01:48:09.670 and all this going into the underworld. 01:48:09.670 --> 01:48:12.670 And then at the height of this 01:48:12.670 --> 01:48:15.670 maybe six-day ceremony or something, 01:48:15.670 --> 01:48:18.670 they took a psychedelic, 01:48:18.670 --> 01:48:21.670 which they called the kykeon. 01:48:21.670 --> 01:48:22.670 There is an illustration. 01:48:22.670 --> 01:48:27.670 It's used on Robert Graves' Greek myths, 01:48:27.670 --> 01:48:29.670 which is one maenad 01:48:29.670 --> 01:48:32.670 who were the female followers of Dionysus 01:48:32.670 --> 01:48:33.670 holding up a mushroom. 01:48:33.670 --> 01:48:34.670 That's true. 01:48:34.670 --> 01:48:35.670 Yeah. 01:48:35.670 --> 01:48:36.670 So there are numerous hints 01:48:36.670 --> 01:48:37.670 that this was going on. 01:48:37.670 --> 01:48:39.670 I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's... 01:48:39.670 --> 01:48:40.670 I'd go further. 01:48:40.670 --> 01:48:41.670 I'd say, 01:48:41.670 --> 01:48:42.670 really, 01:48:42.670 --> 01:48:43.670 I'd be surprised if it wasn't true. 01:48:43.670 --> 01:48:44.670 Yeah. 01:48:44.670 --> 01:48:45.670 What we can't say 01:48:45.670 --> 01:48:46.670 and the reason that Peter and I 01:48:46.670 --> 01:48:48.670 haven't pushed it in our research 01:48:48.670 --> 01:48:50.670 is because if you're coming out and saying, 01:48:50.670 --> 01:48:51.670 Jesus doesn't exist, 01:48:51.670 --> 01:48:54.670 it's such a confronting thing for most people 01:48:54.670 --> 01:48:56.670 that we've tried to keep to everything 01:48:56.670 --> 01:48:59.670 we can absolutely meticulously back up. 01:48:59.670 --> 01:49:01.670 But here is another possibility 01:49:01.670 --> 01:49:02.670 which others have looked into 01:49:02.670 --> 01:49:03.670 much more deeply than we have. 01:49:03.670 --> 01:49:05.670 And yet, really, 01:49:05.670 --> 01:49:07.670 it would be such a surprise 01:49:07.670 --> 01:49:11.670 to see such a powerfully transformative process going on 01:49:11.670 --> 01:49:13.670 that didn't draw on this in some way 01:49:13.670 --> 01:49:15.670 because they didn't have the same taboos 01:49:15.670 --> 01:49:18.670 which we've now got around changing consciousness. 01:49:18.670 --> 01:49:19.670 Yeah. 01:49:19.670 --> 01:49:23.670 And now you can look at, like, 01:49:23.670 --> 01:49:27.670 Socrates' whole allegory of the cave 01:49:27.670 --> 01:49:29.670 and things like that 01:49:29.670 --> 01:49:30.670 and you can, you know, 01:49:30.670 --> 01:49:31.670 where people say, 01:49:31.670 --> 01:49:35.670 where people were just being in their cave 01:49:35.670 --> 01:49:36.670 and noticing the shadows 01:49:36.670 --> 01:49:38.670 and thinking that was the world 01:49:38.670 --> 01:49:40.670 and then somebody turned around 01:49:40.670 --> 01:49:41.670 and they went outside 01:49:41.670 --> 01:49:43.670 and they saw the sun 01:49:43.670 --> 01:49:44.670 and, you know, it's like, 01:49:44.670 --> 01:49:46.670 oh, my God, he came back 01:49:46.670 --> 01:49:51.670 and wanted to tell all of his friends about it 01:49:51.670 --> 01:49:54.670 and they absolutely wouldn't look toward the light, 01:49:54.670 --> 01:49:56.670 you know, no matter what he did. 01:49:56.670 --> 01:49:58.670 You know, they just wanted to stay entranced 01:49:58.670 --> 01:49:59.670 in their shadow worlds. 01:49:59.670 --> 01:50:00.670 We are in this cave. 01:50:00.670 --> 01:50:03.670 We are watching shadows on the wall 01:50:03.670 --> 01:50:05.670 and mistaking them for reality 01:50:05.670 --> 01:50:07.670 whilst the true source of light 01:50:07.670 --> 01:50:09.670 is from the mouth of the cave. 01:50:09.670 --> 01:50:12.670 And Plato even says what would happen 01:50:12.670 --> 01:50:14.670 if a wise person came from the sunlight 01:50:14.670 --> 01:50:16.670 into the cave and said to people, 01:50:16.670 --> 01:50:18.670 look, you're just looking at shadows. 01:50:18.670 --> 01:50:20.670 This is not the real world. 01:50:20.670 --> 01:50:22.670 And then he says they would probably kill him. 01:50:22.670 --> 01:50:24.670 So they say basically that's what happens 01:50:24.670 --> 01:50:26.670 with the mystic, you know, 01:50:26.670 --> 01:50:29.670 and they've seen the light 01:50:29.670 --> 01:50:31.670 in a sense, 01:50:31.670 --> 01:50:35.670 and they're trying to tell their brothers and sisters, 01:50:35.670 --> 01:50:37.670 you know, about the reality 01:50:37.670 --> 01:50:44.670 of their own sort of higher dimensions. 01:50:44.670 --> 01:50:46.670 The way to understand religion 01:50:46.670 --> 01:50:48.670 is you've gone from 01:50:48.670 --> 01:50:50.670 a powerfully transformative event 01:50:50.670 --> 01:50:52.670 where you would take these psychoactives 01:50:52.670 --> 01:50:54.670 in a ritual context, 01:50:54.670 --> 01:50:57.670 probably alongside some sort of ritual death, 01:50:57.670 --> 01:50:58.670 and 01:50:58.670 --> 01:51:00.670 your state of consciousness 01:51:00.670 --> 01:51:02.670 would be utterly transformed 01:51:02.670 --> 01:51:03.670 to 01:51:03.670 --> 01:51:05.670 a little bit of white wafer 01:51:05.670 --> 01:51:08.670 and some tiny sip of wine 01:51:08.670 --> 01:51:10.670 in a context where you're going to go back 01:51:10.670 --> 01:51:11.670 and sing... 01:51:11.670 --> 01:51:13.670 Well, I think it must always be the function 01:51:13.670 --> 01:51:15.670 of organised religion 01:51:15.670 --> 01:51:16.670 to neuter, 01:51:16.670 --> 01:51:18.670 to emasculate 01:51:18.670 --> 01:51:19.670 the mystical experience. 01:51:19.670 --> 01:51:21.670 Because what you don't want 01:51:21.670 --> 01:51:24.670 is people having their own access 01:51:24.670 --> 01:51:25.670 to the divine. 01:51:25.670 --> 01:51:27.670 So if people are taking the divine 01:51:27.670 --> 01:51:30.670 and then having their own personal act, 01:51:30.670 --> 01:51:32.670 they don't need you. 01:51:32.670 --> 01:51:34.670 The whole point of organised religion 01:51:34.670 --> 01:51:36.670 is to mediate the divine. 01:51:36.670 --> 01:51:39.670 They are the intermediaries 01:51:39.670 --> 01:51:42.670 between you and God. 01:51:42.670 --> 01:51:44.670 That's the way organised religion works. 01:51:44.670 --> 01:51:45.670 So it must always... 01:51:45.670 --> 01:51:47.670 And I think it happened in Hinduism with Soma. 01:51:47.670 --> 01:51:49.670 We were looking at the 01:51:49.670 --> 01:51:53.670 fly agaric mushroom 01:51:53.670 --> 01:51:56.670 at which Gordon Wasson believed was 01:51:56.670 --> 01:51:58.670 the 01:51:58.670 --> 01:52:00.670 Soma. 01:52:00.670 --> 01:52:02.670 But at any rate, 01:52:02.670 --> 01:52:04.670 whatever Soma is, 01:52:04.670 --> 01:52:06.670 and I don't believe it's the 01:52:06.670 --> 01:52:08.670 Muscimol. 01:52:08.670 --> 01:52:10.670 I really don't. 01:52:10.670 --> 01:52:12.670 I believe it's more like psilocybin. 01:52:12.670 --> 01:52:14.670 Or Steve Hager has even said 01:52:14.670 --> 01:52:16.670 it's cannabis. 01:52:16.670 --> 01:52:18.670 If you read about it, 01:52:18.670 --> 01:52:20.670 it's obviously cannabis. 01:52:20.670 --> 01:52:21.670 So at any rate, 01:52:21.670 --> 01:52:23.670 it was some kind of psychedelic. 01:52:23.670 --> 01:52:26.670 And it was a 01:52:26.670 --> 01:52:30.670 way for 01:52:30.670 --> 01:52:32.670 them to basically 01:52:32.670 --> 01:52:36.670 make contact with the divine. 01:52:36.670 --> 01:52:39.670 The ninth mandala of the Rig Veda 01:52:39.670 --> 01:52:41.670 is entirely devoted to singing 01:52:41.670 --> 01:52:43.670 the praises of Soma. 01:52:43.670 --> 01:52:45.670 And yet we do not know 01:52:45.670 --> 01:52:48.670 what Soma is or was. 01:52:48.670 --> 01:52:50.670 Our Gordon Wasson spent 01:52:50.670 --> 01:52:52.670 a considerable portion of his life 01:52:52.670 --> 01:52:54.670 researching this problem 01:52:54.670 --> 01:52:56.670 and reached the conclusion that 01:52:56.670 --> 01:52:58.670 Soma was 01:52:58.670 --> 01:53:00.670 Amanita muscaria, 01:53:00.670 --> 01:53:02.670 a mushroom that is symbiotic 01:53:02.670 --> 01:53:04.670 to pine and birch trees 01:53:04.670 --> 01:53:06.670 throughout much of the 01:53:06.670 --> 01:53:08.670 North Temperate Zone. 01:53:08.670 --> 01:53:10.670 However, 01:53:10.670 --> 01:53:12.670 scholars have cast doubt 01:53:12.670 --> 01:53:14.670 on his identification of Soma. 01:53:14.670 --> 01:53:16.670 It's quite possible that 01:53:16.670 --> 01:53:18.670 there were several 01:53:18.670 --> 01:53:21.670 different psychoactive plants 01:53:21.670 --> 01:53:25.670 used in sacramental forms 01:53:25.670 --> 01:53:27.670 in ancient India. 01:53:27.670 --> 01:53:29.670 In the most 01:53:29.670 --> 01:53:31.670 developed forms 01:53:31.670 --> 01:53:34.670 of Vajrayana Buddhism, 01:53:34.670 --> 01:53:37.670 the amrita that was used 01:53:37.670 --> 01:53:39.670 was called pancha amrita, 01:53:39.670 --> 01:53:43.670 which means the fivefold amrita. 01:53:43.670 --> 01:53:46.670 So there were five separate plants, 01:53:46.670 --> 01:53:48.670 I think. 01:53:48.670 --> 01:53:50.670 In the literature, 01:53:50.670 --> 01:53:51.670 in the scriptures, 01:53:51.670 --> 01:53:54.670 we're told of five different meats. 01:53:54.670 --> 01:53:56.670 Horse, 01:53:56.670 --> 01:53:57.670 cow, 01:53:57.670 --> 01:53:59.670 dog, 01:53:59.670 --> 01:54:00.670 elephant, 01:54:00.670 --> 01:54:01.670 and man, 01:54:01.670 --> 01:54:03.670 the great meat. 01:54:05.670 --> 01:54:07.670 But, 01:54:07.670 --> 01:54:09.670 I believe that these were different 01:54:09.670 --> 01:54:11.670 plants. 01:54:11.670 --> 01:54:13.670 And that when you 01:54:13.670 --> 01:54:15.670 had the fivefold 01:54:15.670 --> 01:54:17.670 elixir 01:54:17.670 --> 01:54:18.670 to drink, 01:54:18.670 --> 01:54:20.670 and you also ate, 01:54:20.670 --> 01:54:22.670 in ritual context, 01:54:22.670 --> 01:54:24.670 ate a bite of the 01:54:24.670 --> 01:54:25.670 five meats, 01:54:25.670 --> 01:54:27.670 I think that was really 01:54:27.670 --> 01:54:28.670 drinking a concoction 01:54:28.670 --> 01:54:30.670 of five different plants 01:54:30.670 --> 01:54:31.670 and eating a little 01:54:31.670 --> 01:54:33.670 of the raw plant. 01:54:33.670 --> 01:54:37.670 And I believe 01:54:37.670 --> 01:54:39.670 that they were 01:54:39.670 --> 01:54:41.670 all different psychoactives. 01:54:41.670 --> 01:54:43.670 Some sort of plant substance 01:54:43.670 --> 01:54:44.670 was prepared 01:54:44.670 --> 01:54:45.670 and ingested 01:54:45.670 --> 01:54:47.670 by a priesthood 01:54:47.670 --> 01:54:48.670 who then used 01:54:48.670 --> 01:54:50.670 the ecstatic experience 01:54:50.670 --> 01:54:52.670 induced by that plant 01:54:52.670 --> 01:54:53.670 as the basis 01:54:53.670 --> 01:54:55.670 for all of their 01:54:55.670 --> 01:54:56.670 metaphysical 01:54:56.670 --> 01:54:58.670 and philosophical speculations 01:54:58.670 --> 01:54:59.670 on the nature 01:54:59.670 --> 01:55:01.670 of the universe. 01:55:01.670 --> 01:55:02.670 If you read the Rigveda, 01:55:02.670 --> 01:55:03.670 all the Vedic hymns, 01:55:03.670 --> 01:55:04.670 out of a thousand, 01:55:04.670 --> 01:55:06.670 I think 990 01:55:06.670 --> 01:55:08.670 are hymns to Soma. 01:55:08.670 --> 01:55:10.670 It is the blood of the gods, 01:55:10.670 --> 01:55:12.670 it's the vision of eternity, 01:55:12.670 --> 01:55:13.670 it's the white gleaming 01:55:13.670 --> 01:55:14.670 swan of eternity. 01:55:14.670 --> 01:55:15.670 It's like, 01:55:15.670 --> 01:55:16.670 but now in Hindu culture, 01:55:16.670 --> 01:55:18.670 Soma is just a milky drink. 01:55:18.670 --> 01:55:20.670 And I think the same process 01:55:20.670 --> 01:55:21.670 has gone on. 01:55:21.670 --> 01:55:22.670 People have realized 01:55:22.670 --> 01:55:23.670 if you want to actually 01:55:23.670 --> 01:55:25.670 control people, 01:55:25.670 --> 01:55:26.670 you have to shut down 01:55:26.670 --> 01:55:27.670 their access. 01:55:27.670 --> 01:55:28.670 And it's certainly what happened 01:55:28.670 --> 01:55:30.670 with Gnosticism. 01:55:30.670 --> 01:55:31.670 Gnosticism said, 01:55:31.670 --> 01:55:33.670 no, God is in you. 01:55:33.670 --> 01:55:34.670 Like Paul said, 01:55:34.670 --> 01:55:36.670 Christ is in you. 01:55:36.670 --> 01:55:37.670 That's fatal 01:55:37.670 --> 01:55:38.670 for organized religion 01:55:38.670 --> 01:55:39.670 because then everybody 01:55:39.670 --> 01:55:40.670 can have their own 01:55:40.670 --> 01:55:41.670 personal relationship 01:55:41.670 --> 01:55:42.670 with Christ. 01:55:42.670 --> 01:55:43.670 Why do I need to go to church 01:55:43.670 --> 01:55:45.670 to experience Christ? 01:55:45.670 --> 01:56:11.570 I can do it on my own. 01:56:11.570 --> 01:56:12.570 We are somehow told 01:56:12.570 --> 01:56:14.570 we are infantilized. 01:56:14.570 --> 01:56:15.570 We're told, 01:56:15.570 --> 01:56:16.570 you know, 01:56:16.570 --> 01:56:17.570 to wander around 01:56:17.570 --> 01:56:20.330 within the 01:56:20.330 --> 01:56:24.660 of ordinary 01:56:24.660 --> 01:56:56.510 over here if you want. 01:56:56.510 --> 01:56:57.510 Society is oppressed 01:56:57.510 --> 01:56:58.510 as any society 01:56:58.510 --> 01:56:59.510 in the past.