WEBVTT 00:42.830 --> 00:59.720 Perturbing your brain in another dimension. First of all, there are many aliens haunting the popular mind at the moment 01:00.340 --> 01:04.080 For instance, let's go through the four generic classes of aliens. Okay 01:04.080 --> 01:08.320 The Pleiadians, the Arcturians, the Zeta Reticulans and the Grays, all right? 01:08.320 --> 01:12.800 And the Pleiadians are all white light. Evidently Maui is filled with Pleiadians, all right? 01:12.800 --> 01:19.420 The Arcturians are sort of more mischievous, but basically good. The Zeta Reticulans are the ones who probe the people. 01:19.420 --> 01:23.420 Who also have the alien voice inside the mushroom. 01:23.420 --> 01:26.420 So you've got two nice species and two evil species. 01:26.420 --> 01:32.420 And if you think about it, and authors have written about this, the way we used to think about the spirit world of angels and demons 01:32.420 --> 01:38.420 has roughly been transposed into modern, quasi-scientific language, into what we think of the alien. 01:38.420 --> 01:48.420 You know, people are so alienated from their own soul, that when they meet their soul, they think it comes from another star system. 01:48.420 --> 02:05.330 Beyond the expectations of linear reality, under the stimulation of psychedelic substances, we find that the world appears very much like Aboriginal people say it is. 02:05.330 --> 02:13.330 It's a world of spirits, invisible forces, languages of power, intuitive revelation. 02:13.330 --> 02:19.330 The logic of a virtual world is closer to the logic of the dream, time, and the magical state of being. 02:19.330 --> 02:28.330 For thousands of years, we've had virtual reality. Once you have language, language is the technology for the creation of virtual reality. 02:28.330 --> 02:34.330 I mean VR for a number of things, but I think that's one of the direct functions of VR is to act as this catalyst. 02:34.330 --> 02:41.330 In the same way that psychedelic drugs can act as a catalyst, or some sort of visionary or shamanic experience can act as a catalyst. 02:41.330 --> 02:51.330 When you take mushrooms, it's the equivalent of taking a certain piece of software and running it on an operating system. 02:51.330 --> 03:02.330 Imagine the shaman sitting around the campfire telling the old stories, and everybody follows him in, and it's dark, and they see the pictures in their mind. 03:02.330 --> 03:07.330 This is virtual reality, run by its voice-directed VR. 03:07.330 --> 03:11.330 So you think language is the way we see? 03:11.330 --> 03:15.330 Yes, language is the way we are. It is the way we are. 03:15.330 --> 03:21.330 We are linguistic creatures first and foremost. Language shapes the world. All of magic works by language. 03:21.330 --> 03:24.330 Computers work by language. 03:24.330 --> 03:30.330 You mean the stew of information in which the world is slowly being boiled? 03:30.330 --> 03:37.330 Virtual reality is like magical reality in the sense that you can cast a spell and change the world. 03:37.330 --> 03:41.330 That spell might be written in C++ or Java, but it's no different. 03:41.330 --> 03:48.330 While we're on this idea of changing the world with a spell or a code, do you consider yourself a shaman? 03:51.730 --> 03:55.730 The shaman is the person who knows how the world really works. 03:55.730 --> 03:58.730 If you know how the world really works, you're a shaman. 03:58.730 --> 04:04.730 If you don't know how the world really works, then you're a citizen of some culture. 04:05.730 --> 04:09.680 What's your definition of a shaman? 04:09.680 --> 04:12.680 I've got a couple. Certainly one is Terence's definition. 04:12.680 --> 04:15.680 Someone who's been to the eschaton and looked it in the eye and is not so worried about it. 04:15.680 --> 04:19.680 Now, for you that don't know what the eschaton is, it's kind of the end. 04:19.680 --> 04:32.800 The shaman is the guy who is permitted to look under the board because he's been to the end and because he's been to the other side. 04:32.800 --> 04:33.800 What is the end? 04:33.800 --> 04:45.800 It's the impending climax of what we think of as human civilization, although I would argue it's probably the organization of life on earth, into a global self-awareness. 04:45.800 --> 04:49.800 The eschaton does not contain category. It does not contain boundary. 04:49.800 --> 04:53.800 The eschaton cannot be described in words. It's one of those things. 04:53.800 --> 04:56.800 If you could describe it in words, you would be after the eschaton. 04:56.800 --> 05:00.800 It's as if humanity is struggling to find a new word. 05:00.800 --> 05:02.800 And the root of that word is love. I know that. 05:02.800 --> 05:05.800 But the word itself has not been spoken yet. 05:05.800 --> 05:08.800 And that word, when it's spoken, changes the way we think. 05:08.800 --> 05:09.800 And that word, when it's spoken, changes the way we think.