WEBVTT

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As summer passed, we journeyed to Prague, Czechoslovakia, to attend the International

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Transpersonal Conference, a meeting of philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, writers, ecologists,

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and thinkers on global subjects. Throughout the conference, we were able to track down

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and interview some of the movers and shakers whose ideas and hopes will shape the new millennium.

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Prague was a fitting venue for this meeting. Poised as it is at the center of European

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crisis and promise, it is a metaphor for the transformation of the planet and of human

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psychology that must take place if we are to provide a sane future for our children.

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I'm standing in the center of one of Central Europe's most beautiful and mysterious cities.

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This is Prague, Czechoslovakia, and I'm Terence McKenna.

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We're here to meet with some of the world's most outstanding thinkers to discuss science,

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spirituality, and the mounting global crisis. And it's fitting that we should meet in this,

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the capital of ancient Bohemia, for Prague and Bohemia have always stood for intellectual

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innovation, chance-taking, and the life of ideas. In the Jugendstil splendor of one

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of Prague's most famous concerts we're here to welcome Mr. Tej. Mr. Tej, I'm glad to

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be here with you today. Please, take a seat.

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Mr. Tej, I'm Terence McKenna. I'm Terence McKenna. I'm Terence McKenna. I'm Terence McKenna.

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I'm Terence McKenna. I'm Terence McKenna. I'm Terence McKenna. I'm Terence McKenna.

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halls, we encountered Richard Alpert and persuaded him to have lunch with us. Alpert, who now calls

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himself Ram Dass, is one of the most enduring figures from the American cultural upheaval of

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the 1960s. Alpert, whose career reaches from Harvard University to the plains of the Punjab,

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has transformed himself into a spokesman for humanities ignored and downtrodden.

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And Ralph Abraham was sitting across the table watching me have this conversation. And when

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Dr. Steiger left, Ralph leaned over to me and he said, so you see, Terrence, the mushroom is telling

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you that it can reach out and touch you anywhere. And I thought that was amazing.

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Yeah. Well, anytime you would like to or feel you'd have the time to guide me through anything

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at all, I'd be happy to be your...

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Oh, and...

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Excuse me, sir. You are not the famous Terrence Mushroom McKenna? That is you, my friend, I am aware of?

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It is.

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That's him.

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It is.

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Oh, how wonderful.

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It is.

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Yes. Pleased to welcome you on our Bohemian Highway. I especially bring you very good

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black coffee and espresso. If you may tell me, who is the attractive elderly gentleman

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you brought on your side on your companionship here?

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This is Mr. Doss.

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Oh, the M.S. Doss, yes?

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No, the Ralph Abraham.

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Oh.

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The Ram Doss.

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Oh, the C.D. Ram.

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The C.D. Ram, yes.

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C.D. Ram Doss.

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The L.S.D. Doss.

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The L.S.D. Doss.

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L.S.D. Doss.

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Yes, the one, yes.

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Oh, wonderful. Take this, it will be making you very Bohemian. And so, this...

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I am so happy to be in your fair country.

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Oh, my country, very fair and happy to have the L.S.D. experience. You know...

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What is your name? What is your name?

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My name is Waiter.

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Waiter.

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How do you do, Waiter? A pleasure.

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Yes. See you, Waiter. Okay. See you, Waiter.

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See you, Waiter.

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See you, Waiter.

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Yes, okay.

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You don't think there's any...

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It would...

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It needs the external form of the mushroom.

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It would never have happened for me. I only argue from my own experience.

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Yes, but you and I were both so thick in crap when it had... You know, that's why we needed it.

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Well, but there are a few others out there. We didn't corner the market on being thick in crap.

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Yes, but I'm talking about somebody like a Ramana Maharshi or somebody like that.

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Oh, well, these people...

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You know, I mean, there are people...

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Sure.

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But the idea is not to come up with something that the best among us can make hay with, but a democratic, something which addresses the species.

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The thing that seemed to me so important about the psychedelic experience was that it happened to me.

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I wasn't reading John Chrysostom or Meister Eckhart.

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Exactly.

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Of course those guys...

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Right on. It happened to me. It happened to me. Yes.

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And so I assume that I am a very ordinary person. Therefore, if it happened to me, it could happen to anyone. And that's really something...

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That's the question of all. You know, there's a set of assumptions there. One, that you're a very ordinary person.

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And whether the same chemical given to a dozen people would bring about eleven other people like this...

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A similar experience.

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And I think it would be not... The outcome would be very different.

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And that's... I keep getting cast into an evolution of consciousness model about individuals.

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Because there's such marked individual differences as to...

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Three people come before my guru. One completely goes...

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And the other two get a chapati.

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And people take psilocybin and they... Some go like that, and they go like that, and some go like that.

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Well, don't you think a good metaphor for it would be sexuality?

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Yes.

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Apparently, there are some people who can kind of take it or leave it.

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And others of us, it rears its ugly head with great presence.

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Yet, everybody has to come to terms with it.

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I notice as I get older, I move from one of these categories to the other.

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It leaves so much space in my life. I don't know what to do with my free time.

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I hope it never happens to me.

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Just clinging.

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Just clinging.

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No, just aspiring to cling.

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Actually, I live the life of an ascetic.

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It's my aspirations that are pulling me down.

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Well, see, the great... The nice thing about this evolutionary argument

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is that you can sort of make the snake take its tail in its mouth.

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Exactly. It does.

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Because the escape is not into some science fiction future.

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No.

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It's into an archaic recursion of some sort.

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We once knew everything we need to know.

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So what we are trying to find out is lost knowledge, not new knowledge.

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And if you direct people back toward 10,000, 20,000 years ago,

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they see a kind of completion.

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That an open-ended future is...

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It seems to me it's a confusing thing to use time in that way

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because it makes the artifacts of that period seem to be valued

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as opposed to the artifacts of this period.

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It seems to me that I... You call it not science fiction,

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but science fiction can also be very compassionate.

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It can be very historically relevant.

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It doesn't have to be... It's just using a different set of artifacts to work with.

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So...

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Well, for instance, I see most of what's happened in the 20th century

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as being unconsciously driven by this fascination with the archaic.

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Fascination with the archaic?

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Yes, I mean...

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Wow, that was... Of all the things I predicted you'd say, it wasn't that.

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Tell me...

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Well, for instance, impressionism deconstructs the hard image of realism

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and gives you a feeling-toned thing.

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Which is very antithetical to Victorian, Edwardian thought.

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Then Freud and Jung describe different aspects of the unconscious.

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But to do it, Freud has to talk about repressed, primitive sexual imaginings.

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Jung talks about folklore, fairy tales, and mythology.

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Meanwhile, the Dadaists and the Surrealists are saying we have to break up the linear expectations

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of the bourgeois mind.

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And then you get Jackson Pollock and those people who say the image itself has to be thrown out.

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And then, to my mind, the psychedelic thing in the 60s,

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based on rock and roll and a boundary-dissolving psychedelic,

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we, almost by a random walk, are finding our way toward shamanism, tribalism, nomadism,

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go beyond the isms to find out, tell me, what we're really finding.

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We're finding a world made out of mind rather than stuff.

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Right, okay, we're finding a world made out of mind.

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Every time you describe which mind you find, that's just a limiting condition.

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I mean, if we just find the thing of mind-created stuff, live in that, then what happens?

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Well, I mean, there is a transcendental dimension beyond language.

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It's just hard as hell to talk about it.

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But if you live in it and talk from there, then the forms that it will manifest in

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become just the forms it manifests in.

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It's nothing more or less than that.

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So you mean you download the unspeakable into language and let the chips fall where they may?

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Well, they don't fall where they may.

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They fall in a perfectly harmonious pattern.

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Well, that's...

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Well, that's them falling where they may.

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Where they may, where they will.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Well, so what I'm hearing from you is you have a very strong sense of the pattern.

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Strong enough that your limited, necessarily limited personal viewpoint doesn't tend to get in the way.

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You can always push the reset to hope button and then you hope, almost on principle.

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Trump has said to me, stand halfway between hope and hopelessness.

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I thought that was very useful.

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And is that...

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Eh?

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No.

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What is it?

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It's awe.

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It's awe.

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It's the ecstasy of total horror and total beauty at the same moment.

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That's what I feel again and again.

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That's when I'm with somebody dying of AIDS.

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My God, my heart's breaking.

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It's horrible.

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It's a ghastly social ostracization.

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This, that, opportunistic illness and everything.

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And there's another part of me that's giggling.

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And I can hardly handle the multifrenia of it all.

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The sense of the perfection of it all and the beauty of the moment and the horrible shit of it.

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Well, it all is spun together.

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Is that because you feel confident that the self is somehow indestructible?

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Or because you don't even ask that question?

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You've got to watch the words indestructible because that has a time dimension.

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I mean, I think that awareness is.

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But for example, do you think this is the stage upon which all acts are performed?

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Or that we move up and down many levels?

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No, this is one of the stages.

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Oh, the infinite number of...

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Probably infinite number.

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Because I just look into two minds and I see two different ones.

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And those are all on just this one.

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No, I feel like...

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Like I have this friend, Emanuel, you know, this spook that has no body.

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And Emanuel's two lines to me were,

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Death is absolutely safe, first thing.

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That's a very profound statement.

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And the next thing he said, it was like taking out the tight shoe.

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And then I said to him,

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Emanuel, what am I doing here?

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Who made this error?

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What am I doing on this plane?

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He said, you're in school.

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Why don't you try taking the curriculum?

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And the curriculum is?

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Life.

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Any life?

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It means the exploration of the clinging of mind within the world of projected form.

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So the exploring life.

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It's the exploring life with the...

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It's purposive in the sense of returning back into the dark.

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To the Garden of Eden.

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It's a return.

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There is a return metaphor underlying all of it.

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And I'm sure you're asked this all the time.

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So am I.

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Maybe we give different answers.

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Do you think that this can be done without psychedelics fast enough to have an impact on the global situation?

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I could conceive that it could be.

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You asked do I think.

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I don't really have an opinion whether it will or won't.

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But I could see it go either way.

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Like John Seed said to me, it's too late as far as the rainforest is concerned.

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He says the inertia is too great in the whole system.

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It's too late.

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So I said, okay, John.

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I mean, it was the first time somebody said it to me just like that.

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He said, it would take a miracle.

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I said, oh, that threw me back on whatever that was.

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And then he said, but after all, he said, we came up out of the ocean and came onto land.

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He said, we have quite a lineage of miracles.

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I wouldn't underestimate us.

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That was a nice one.

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Well, so my question to you is, are psychedelics a miracle?

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Psychedelics are a miracle, yes.

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They may not be the only miracle.

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Are they the miracle we need?

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I don't know that.

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I don't know that.

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I think they may have already done what they were to do.

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Really?

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That's interesting.

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I've never heard anybody say that.

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I think what is done is so much more powerful than anybody yet recognizes.

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See, I see that all is destructive.

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All is destruction.

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It's just the process of transformation.

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The question is whether we keep it together in the process of transformation.

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And that's why all I'm interested in doing is becoming a person and helping others become a person

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who in the process of the dramatic stuff will keep some equanimity and keep some love and some presence in that process.

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But psychedelics may play a role in that.

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So you're right.

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That comes back to your question.

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Well, see, my assumption is...

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In trying to think about thousands of psychedelic trips rather than just mine, what they seem to do generically is they seem to dissolve boundaries.

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Yes.

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And the ego is in the business of creating, maintaining, and defending boundaries.

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So I really see the psychedelics as directly intervening in the core process which is running us over the edge,

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which is our inability to emotionally...

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...to connect with the consequences of what we're doing.

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If for a single moment we could feel what we're doing, we would stop.

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I understand.

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But we do not.

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It's interesting because you take images that all of us know of the girl running down the street naked in Cambodia or something like that.

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And we say that wasn't strong enough.

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It won the Life of the Year Award.

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But it wasn't strong enough.

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It didn't stop everybody and say, holy shit, what are we doing here?

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So what would be strong enough to do that?

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And you say, well, psychedelics.

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But that's in a one-on-one thing.

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I mean, we're talking major game players at this moment.

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I mean, put China into your computer.

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How do you deal with that?

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I mean, either you're spraying it or it's water or it's some other level of consciousness that does it.

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There is a certain level of trauma that's possible that can soften the ground.

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Not Three Mile Island and not Chernobyl.

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I mean, I don't want to create this with my mind.

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But I can imagine a certain trauma like in Marin when they ran out of water.

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It was interesting.

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Suddenly all the ego barriers and everything and neighbors were talking.

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We'd never even met each other.

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People were taking showers together.

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Yeah, exactly.

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The process was happening.

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I'm sure marriages, babies were conceived.

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Everything as a result of that trauma, of that denial.

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So a massive, significant trauma.

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I just got to tell you one scary image.

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There's a saint in India who lived up to about 1930, I think or something.

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And one of his devotees said to me, one night he was sort of looking off into the distance.

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He said, there'll come a time, he said, when you'll walk five miles.

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And he said, you'll sight the light from a fire of another person.

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And you'll be so happy to know another person exists.

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Quite a prediction.

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Isn't that quite a prediction?

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It's in there.

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It's just in there somewhere.

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Interesting.

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Yes, well, I agree.

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I think that what's going to happen is that...

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Gentlemen, everything is fine with the evolution of coffee and consciousness.

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No, it's very good with you two.

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You have come just at the right time.

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Yes, I have.

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How did you know?

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You tuned into a higher level.

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A higher level.

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A higher level.

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A higher level, very high, yes.

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I eat Bohemian mushroom soup today, you know?

19:47.120 --> 19:49.120
We were just talking about that.

19:49.120 --> 19:50.120
Oh, yes.

19:50.120 --> 19:52.120
You like Bohemian mushroom soup?

19:52.120 --> 19:53.120
I like mushroom.

19:53.120 --> 19:55.120
Let me sprinkle liberally some water on your chalice, sir.

19:55.120 --> 19:56.120
Oh, please.

19:56.120 --> 19:58.120
Liberally sprinkle his chalice.

19:58.120 --> 19:59.120
Yes.

19:59.120 --> 20:00.120
For sure.

20:00.120 --> 20:02.120
I am a chalice, so it's fine if you wish to.

20:02.120 --> 20:05.120
Oh, I know you by your true name.

20:05.120 --> 20:06.120
You're Mr. Chalice, sir.

20:06.120 --> 20:07.120
Yes.

20:07.120 --> 20:08.120
Very good.

20:08.120 --> 20:09.120
You also some water in your...

20:09.120 --> 20:10.120
Please.

20:10.120 --> 20:11.120
Thank you very much.

20:11.120 --> 20:12.120
Thank you very much.

20:12.120 --> 20:15.120
Let me put this here and have fun with the shaman strudel.

20:15.120 --> 20:16.120
Bohemian very good.

20:16.120 --> 20:17.120
Thank you very much.

20:17.120 --> 20:19.120
You call when things are getting dangerous.

20:19.120 --> 20:20.120
I'll call you.

20:20.120 --> 20:21.120
I'll be right back.

20:21.120 --> 20:22.120
Not to worry.

20:22.120 --> 20:23.120
Good, good.

20:23.120 --> 20:30.030
Can I ask you a personal question?

20:30.030 --> 20:31.030
You can ask me anything you'd like, Terence.

20:31.030 --> 20:33.030
It's not a personal question to you.

20:33.030 --> 20:36.030
It's a personal question from me.

20:36.030 --> 20:43.030
How do you like having the projection of special identity constantly laid on you?

20:43.030 --> 20:44.030
It's a sadhana.

20:44.030 --> 20:46.660
It's my practice.

20:46.660 --> 20:47.660
That's a good answer.

20:47.660 --> 20:48.660
Although you didn't say how you liked it.

20:48.660 --> 20:49.660
I like it to the capacity I have to transpose it.

20:49.660 --> 20:50.660
If I can't...

20:50.660 --> 20:51.660
I mean, sometimes these are going very fast.

20:51.660 --> 20:52.660
And to just keep it transposed, then I love it.

20:52.660 --> 20:53.660
I love it.

20:53.660 --> 21:01.000
It's like a fire.

21:01.000 --> 21:02.000
If the minute I start to lose it, it's a fucking drag.

21:02.000 --> 21:03.000
It really is.

21:03.000 --> 21:04.000
Because, I mean, you know, I don't know.

21:04.000 --> 21:05.000
I don't know.

21:05.000 --> 21:06.000
I don't know.

21:06.000 --> 21:07.000
I don't know.

21:07.000 --> 21:08.000
I don't know.

21:08.000 --> 21:09.000
I don't know.

21:09.000 --> 21:10.000
I don't know.

21:10.000 --> 21:11.000
I don't know.

21:11.000 --> 21:12.000
I don't know.

21:12.000 --> 21:13.000
I don't know.

21:13.000 --> 21:14.000
I don't know.

21:14.000 --> 21:15.000
I don't know.

21:15.000 --> 21:16.000
I don't know.

21:16.000 --> 21:17.000
It's a fucking drag.

21:17.000 --> 21:18.000
It really is.

21:18.000 --> 21:27.340
Because, I mean, you know, I was in a situation in Miami where all these women with blue eyes

21:27.340 --> 21:31.400
and curfewed hair were grabbing at the buttons of my jacket.

21:31.400 --> 21:33.920
And I thought, oh, I don't want this.

21:33.920 --> 21:36.640
Whatever this life is, I don't want to be part of this.

21:36.640 --> 21:37.640
This is...

21:37.640 --> 21:39.240
They eat your flesh, finally.

21:39.240 --> 21:40.240
Sure.

21:40.240 --> 21:41.240
And...

21:41.240 --> 21:44.860
But I realized at any time, I can walk away from it.

21:44.860 --> 21:45.860
And it's my...

21:45.860 --> 21:48.140
You know, I'm a free agent.

21:48.140 --> 21:54.460
So do you never get in a situation where you say, gee, I'd like to do X, but Ram Dass would

21:54.460 --> 21:57.240
never do that?

21:57.240 --> 22:03.100
My stock and trade, or my coinage, is in sharing just those predicaments publicly.

22:03.100 --> 22:06.720
See, I've turned it into, right?

22:06.720 --> 22:07.720
You've managed to...

22:07.720 --> 22:12.100
But public confession is the subtlest form of wasterling.

22:12.100 --> 22:15.100
Of wasterling, yes.

22:15.100 --> 22:15.620
It's...

22:15.860 --> 22:16.860
I do it myself.

22:16.860 --> 22:17.860
I say, I'm not a good guy.

22:17.860 --> 22:18.860
Don't follow me.

22:18.860 --> 22:19.860
I'm a bad guy.

22:19.860 --> 22:20.860
Then I leave the stage and say, now I can really be a bad guy.

22:20.860 --> 22:21.860
I don't see my holy pictures.

22:21.860 --> 22:22.860
That's one of my lines in my lecture.

22:22.860 --> 22:23.860
I don't...

22:23.860 --> 22:24.860
I'll tell you, you're all...

22:24.860 --> 22:25.860
I only see the stuff that would disturb me as inside myself.

22:25.860 --> 22:26.860
It has nothing to do with out there.

22:26.860 --> 22:27.860
Out there is just being what it is.

22:27.860 --> 22:28.860
And I'm responding with my own stuff.

22:28.860 --> 22:29.860
And I'm doing it myself.

22:29.860 --> 22:30.860
I'm not a good guy.

22:30.860 --> 22:31.860
I'm a bad guy.

22:31.860 --> 22:32.860
I'm a bad guy.

22:32.860 --> 22:37.060
And I leave the stage and say, now I can really be a bad guy.

22:37.060 --> 22:38.060
I go and see my holy pictures.

22:38.060 --> 22:39.060
That's one of my lines in my lecture.

22:39.060 --> 22:40.060
I don't...

22:40.060 --> 22:41.060
I don't see the stuff that would disturb me as inside myself.

22:41.060 --> 22:42.060
It has nothing to do with out there.

22:42.060 --> 22:43.060
Out there is just being what it is.

22:43.060 --> 22:44.060
And I'm responding with my own stuff.

22:44.060 --> 22:45.060
And if my stuff is my enemy, it's going to get too much for me.

22:45.060 --> 22:46.060
And if it isn't, you know, it depends on how much I can consume it, joyfully participate

22:46.060 --> 22:47.060
in it, passionately, all of it.

22:47.060 --> 22:48.060
Well, you've sort of achieved a unique synthesis.

22:48.060 --> 22:49.060
I mean, you're almost a secular holy man, because I don't think people...

22:49.060 --> 22:50.060
I don't care much about what you do.

22:50.060 --> 22:51.060
I don't care much about what you do.

22:51.060 --> 22:52.060
I don't care much about what you do.

22:52.060 --> 22:53.060
I don't care much about what you do.

22:53.060 --> 22:54.060
I don't care much about what you do.

22:54.060 --> 22:55.060
I don't care much about what you do.

22:55.060 --> 22:56.060
I don't care much about what you do.

23:10.060 --> 23:11.060
I don't care much about what you do.

23:11.060 --> 23:13.160
I don't care much about who you believe or who you light candles to.

23:13.160 --> 23:21.200
Basically, I think I heard you describe yourself once as a kind man, and you've gotten incredible

23:21.200 --> 23:23.580
mileage out of that because there are so few.

23:23.580 --> 23:24.580
It's far out.

23:24.580 --> 23:25.580
Right?

23:25.580 --> 23:26.580
Yeah.

23:26.580 --> 23:27.580
Yeah.

23:27.580 --> 23:28.580
I mean, this is...

23:28.580 --> 23:33.580
Well, when you talked about coming back into the boundarylessness, to me, that's

23:33.580 --> 23:37.540
the whole quality of compassion, has that boundarylessness to it.

23:37.540 --> 23:40.000
It's that your suffering's my suffering and your joy's my suffering.

23:40.000 --> 23:45.280
and you are me and here we are and if you hurt feel i'm responding to your hurt not because i'm

23:45.280 --> 23:50.960
a good guy and you're needful just because here is this is suffering and this is the response to

23:50.960 --> 23:56.400
suffering and we're both part of the same thing and that's the way i like to play it from that's

23:56.400 --> 24:01.840
to me it's like riding a wave it's the joy of just being part of the force of compassion

24:03.600 --> 24:07.040
well when when you look you mentioned in your talk the other night

24:07.040 --> 24:17.370
since some people think the 90s are going to be a second turn of the spiral i observed the

24:17.370 --> 24:25.450
60s as a spear-carrying 14 year old i was down in the masses what were the mistakes that are

24:25.450 --> 24:37.600
avoidable than if there's a second chance they're inevitably going to be avoided the first mistake

24:37.600 --> 24:42.720
was idealism the first mistake and the mistake was thinking that because you had seen it

24:43.120 --> 24:47.200
you could just go like that and everybody else would see it and you could just say it's all love

24:47.200 --> 24:54.720
and then everybody would love i mean that was it was a naivete it was naivete it was not working

24:54.720 --> 25:03.360
on ourselves deeply enough to be without the clinging of mind that made us try to use it it's

25:03.360 --> 25:09.840
it was our lurking righteousness that got in our way can you make a revolution though without an

25:09.840 --> 25:12.960
inner righteousness that's exactly

25:13.120 --> 25:17.840
that's the far-out question of where would the action come from and there's this line in buddhism

25:17.840 --> 25:25.680
says out of emptiness arises compassion and what i experience is that there is a way in which i can

25:25.680 --> 25:34.320
sit down in front of a truck or feed a person or go make love or go surf and there is an appropriateness

25:34.320 --> 25:41.760
in every one of those acts and for me to hear that i've really got to shut up and my my work is to keep shutting up

25:43.120 --> 26:03.600
and i just want to get out of here so that i can sit down and meditate for a moment and just

26:03.600 --> 26:10.400
get a fresh breath and just tell the world about me so you're not going to let it go

26:10.400 --> 26:11.440
um

26:11.440 --> 26:11.840
uh

26:11.840 --> 26:12.240
uh

26:12.240 --> 26:12.560
uh

26:12.560 --> 26:13.040
uh

26:13.040 --> 26:13.100
uh

26:13.120 --> 26:16.920
and the general was outraged about this one monk

26:16.920 --> 26:19.260
and he gets up and he goes to the monastery

26:19.260 --> 26:21.400
and he pushes open the doors of the monastery

26:21.400 --> 26:23.040
and he walks into the courtyard

26:23.040 --> 26:24.980
and there's the monk standing in the middle of the courtyard

26:24.980 --> 26:27.120
and he walks up to him and he says

26:27.120 --> 26:30.100
don't you know who I am?

26:30.780 --> 26:34.460
I could take my sword and run it through your belly

26:34.460 --> 26:36.080
without blinking an eye

26:36.080 --> 26:39.420
and don't you know who I am?

26:40.000 --> 26:42.920
I could have your sword run through my belly

26:42.920 --> 26:44.380
without blinking an eye

26:44.380 --> 26:47.320
that's great

26:47.320 --> 26:51.080
that's the place from which revolutions can heal

26:51.080 --> 26:54.240
rather than just starting the cycle all over again

26:54.240 --> 26:58.040
then this is the place we never found in the 60s

26:58.040 --> 26:59.700
I mean I've always said

26:59.700 --> 27:03.060
we reduced it to revolution

27:03.060 --> 27:05.460
although we had the taste of evolution

27:05.460 --> 27:06.840
we reduced it to revolution

27:06.840 --> 27:09.440
well and the day they came with machine guns

27:09.440 --> 27:11.900
we didn't stand like that monk

27:11.900 --> 27:12.760
everybody said

27:12.760 --> 27:12.900
well

27:12.900 --> 27:12.920
well

27:12.920 --> 27:12.940
and the day they came with machine guns

27:12.940 --> 27:15.640
oh my god you could get killed playing this game

27:15.640 --> 27:19.880
and I flew to Laos and India for three years

27:19.880 --> 27:22.140
but already we had produced the they

27:22.140 --> 27:24.000
by being so busy being we

27:24.000 --> 27:25.200
true

27:25.200 --> 27:27.300
because so that they even noticed we

27:27.300 --> 27:29.180
the fact that they noticed us

27:29.180 --> 27:31.120
was because we were busy being

27:31.120 --> 27:33.660
we were busy making statements

27:33.660 --> 27:34.920
instead of just being it

27:34.920 --> 27:38.860
so maybe I mean this is just occurring to me

27:38.860 --> 27:40.880
that being in a place like Prague

27:40.880 --> 27:42.900
the real thing we have to do

27:42.900 --> 27:44.180
to learn here

27:44.180 --> 27:46.940
is how to make velvet revolutions

27:46.940 --> 27:48.380
not a confrontation

27:48.380 --> 27:49.340
exactly right

27:49.340 --> 27:50.540
exactly right

27:50.540 --> 27:52.220
that's why I admire Havel so much

27:52.220 --> 27:54.380
that's why he's way up there in my

27:54.380 --> 27:58.140
because he's a compassionate leader

27:58.140 --> 27:59.980
he's got wisdom not just knowledge

27:59.980 --> 28:01.140
he is tuned

28:01.140 --> 28:04.660
there's a quality of his heart that feels present

28:04.660 --> 28:06.220
and he said in this op-ed article

28:06.220 --> 28:07.780
I just read his letter last month

28:07.780 --> 28:08.720
I've read it too

28:08.720 --> 28:10.900
and you know at one point he said

28:10.900 --> 28:12.740
he said we have to do this

28:12.740 --> 28:15.040
we have to allow the naturalness to come back

28:15.040 --> 28:16.380
the personal stuff

28:16.380 --> 28:17.380
the hearts

28:17.380 --> 28:20.840
I mean he was right there with all of the

28:20.840 --> 28:21.840
do you see

28:21.840 --> 28:23.740
I mean I don't want to put you on the spot

28:23.740 --> 28:26.420
but I don't let me preface it by saying

28:26.420 --> 28:30.340
do you see anybody who could play that role

28:30.340 --> 28:36.280
for the millions of kids in England and the United States

28:36.280 --> 28:39.020
who are now asking where do we go from here

28:42.740 --> 28:51.240
is that good or bad

28:51.240 --> 28:56.040
I guess the situation hasn't demanded the emergence of that being it

28:56.040 --> 28:58.020
of those kinds of kids

28:58.020 --> 29:00.280
it can't be anybody that comes forward and says I'm it

29:00.280 --> 29:02.180
oh no it has to be someone who

29:02.180 --> 29:03.080
but the situation

29:03.080 --> 29:04.300
you're in demand

29:04.300 --> 29:05.400
the formation

29:05.400 --> 29:06.620
I mean you watch this

29:06.620 --> 29:08.180
does the man make the time

29:08.180 --> 29:09.100
out of the time make the man

29:09.100 --> 29:10.480
you know and you can feel how

29:10.480 --> 29:12.560
what took a certain person

29:12.560 --> 29:12.700
to make the man make the man

29:12.700 --> 29:12.720
to make the man make the man

29:12.720 --> 29:13.660
20 years

29:13.660 --> 29:15.220
like to ride a bicycle

29:15.220 --> 29:16.840
somebody later on

29:16.840 --> 29:18.460
can ride a bicycle like that

29:18.460 --> 29:19.900
because the whole culture rides bicycles

29:19.900 --> 29:20.960
there's some like

29:20.960 --> 29:22.980
process where

29:22.980 --> 29:25.820
the situation emerged where the person has to come forward

29:25.820 --> 29:26.940
and they're just forced out

29:26.940 --> 29:28.760
I mean I go and I look at all the

29:28.760 --> 29:30.940
senators that are running for this or that

29:30.940 --> 29:32.260
and I go to breakfast with them

29:32.260 --> 29:32.860
and I listen

29:32.860 --> 29:33.560
and I tune

29:33.560 --> 29:35.180
and Jerry Brown I hung out with

29:35.180 --> 29:35.900
and I said you know

29:35.900 --> 29:37.480
he's got interesting ideas

29:37.480 --> 29:38.660
but there's a

29:38.660 --> 29:39.520
his heart

29:39.520 --> 29:41.100
my god he's got work to do

29:41.100 --> 29:41.820
this poor guy

29:41.820 --> 29:42.680
he's suffering

29:42.680 --> 29:43.680
he's suffering

29:43.680 --> 29:45.200
and I just keep

29:45.200 --> 29:45.800
I love him

29:45.800 --> 29:47.960
and I want those ideas out

29:47.960 --> 29:50.000
but I want him to work on himself

29:50.000 --> 29:50.500
you know

29:50.500 --> 29:52.360
and so I don't see

29:52.360 --> 29:55.500
do you really care in terms of political terms

29:55.500 --> 29:59.360
whether Jerry Brown makes himself palatable to an electorate

29:59.360 --> 30:03.960
I care because I worked with the Mayan widows in Guatemala

30:03.960 --> 30:06.120
and I feel like I'm representing them

30:06.120 --> 30:07.660
and our government

30:07.660 --> 30:10.320
our administration's policies

30:10.320 --> 30:11.780
are killing them

30:11.780 --> 30:12.620
and their children and their children are killing them

30:12.620 --> 30:13.460
and their husbands

30:13.460 --> 30:16.520
and some way I've got to play my part

30:16.520 --> 30:18.120
as a member of a society

30:18.120 --> 30:21.040
that is imposing so much suffering on so many people

30:21.040 --> 30:22.380
I can't just walk away and say

30:22.380 --> 30:24.340
oh I'm helping the nice Mayans

30:24.340 --> 30:26.180
I've also got to realize I'm an American citizen

30:26.180 --> 30:27.240
that's hurting the Mayans

30:27.240 --> 30:28.740
and I've got to play both games

30:28.740 --> 30:30.200
to change one

30:30.200 --> 30:32.080
one way and to do the other thing

30:32.080 --> 30:36.160
so there's a kind of

30:36.160 --> 30:37.900
not to go egghead here

30:37.900 --> 30:41.060
but a kind of coincidencia positorem

30:41.060 --> 30:41.620
because on one level what you're saying is that

30:41.620 --> 30:42.620
there's a kind of not to go egghead here but a kind of coincidencia positorem because on one level what you're saying is that

30:42.620 --> 30:44.580
it's alright

30:44.580 --> 30:46.020
don't worry

30:46.020 --> 30:52.940
and on another level you clearly are involved in a search for defining your role

30:52.940 --> 30:53.900
your

30:53.900 --> 30:56.160
where you would do some good

30:56.160 --> 30:58.000
optimum judo move

30:58.000 --> 30:59.640
optimum judo move

30:59.640 --> 31:02.080
so it isn't enough to just say

31:02.080 --> 31:03.720
the system will take care of itself

31:03.720 --> 31:05.160
but I am part of the system

31:05.160 --> 31:07.400
that is taking care of itself

31:07.400 --> 31:11.460
so it's a sense of acting without acting through self

31:11.460 --> 31:12.460
so it's a sense of acting without acting through self

31:12.460 --> 31:16.860
identified with the actor and not being identified with the fruits of the action that's i mean to me

31:16.860 --> 31:22.140
that my one of my basic texts is the bhagavad-gita and those are the two injunctions and i really

31:22.140 --> 31:26.700
hear those and they're very weird how you do an act when you're not identified with being the

31:26.700 --> 31:35.740
actor and you're not attached to fruits i mean i leave this this funny continuous paradox that

31:35.740 --> 31:42.300
suffering stinks and sufferings grace and i live with both of those all the time well i don't i

31:42.300 --> 31:47.580
think most people do i think most people have made it taken a position oh that suffering is

31:47.580 --> 31:52.940
bad they hate it they want to keep it away that it's grace that it's you know lovely well and

31:52.940 --> 31:59.740
then the great masses of people never really draw the distinction because for them suffering is like

31:59.740 --> 32:05.260
air and water it's life it's like it comes with it it's like burying the many children you bear

32:05.260 --> 32:11.420
that's why i found in the villages in india less suffering than i found around the middle class in

32:11.420 --> 32:11.900
america

32:12.620 --> 32:18.460
certainly less whining well less preoccupation with their with what they don't have

32:19.980 --> 32:24.940
well they have a philosophy of reincarnation that must sustain them there is something else that's

32:24.940 --> 32:30.300
feeding them where we have a philosophy of you know if you don't get it now you never will

32:34.300 --> 32:40.780
we threw out in the councils of nicaea trent and constantinople just the thing that would have

32:40.780 --> 32:42.300
healed but we didn't

32:42.300 --> 32:48.060
it so that the church could have power over well i think it was frederick nietzsche who said there

32:48.060 --> 32:55.340
was only one christian and they crucified him yes exactly oh god that's so good it's such a good

32:55.340 --> 33:02.700
life it comes now have you been waiting for me because i'm the waiter i need to wait we've been

33:02.700 --> 33:07.100
looking everywhere for you sir i'm sorry i've been waiting for the hearing now but that was

33:07.100 --> 33:12.220
somewhere else well that can i help you here a bit sir you can help us here and you can

33:12.300 --> 33:18.220
help us now very good i'll i'll help you here i hope you enjoy my conversation no i mean

33:18.780 --> 33:25.020
do we get a check or is this all on the house no no i am the czech i am the czech this is prague my

33:25.020 --> 33:32.700
sir god is everywhere but czechland is here you know okay i keep one more bottle for you

33:34.700 --> 33:46.710
hold it and i'm not in the here and now in the somewhere else maybe later but see you well my you

33:46.710 --> 33:53.670
know i was asking you what did we do wrong in the 60s one thing that i has occurred to me and i

33:53.670 --> 34:01.750
certainly felt it with my friends was we assumed it would go on forever we had no notion of window

34:01.750 --> 34:07.750
of opportunity yes we just thought we'd blown the doors off the hinges and they would never be put

34:07.750 --> 34:15.350
back on yeah to me the most amazing transformation in my lifetime is not the revolution of the 60s

34:16.710 --> 34:24.150
but the revolution of the 70s where they managed to put the cuckoo clock back together again even

34:24.150 --> 34:29.750
though we'd kicked it all over the day that's what i'm see you keep thinking there was that

34:29.750 --> 34:35.670
opportunity in a close and i think it happened then and all of those 70s and 80s and all that

34:35.670 --> 34:41.350
was this kind of reverberation to this process and that i'm here and you're here and we're about

34:41.350 --> 34:45.750
still here it's the 90s and i got a lot of people that you know i talk now

34:46.870 --> 34:53.430
i don't like to talk about outer space but part of the reason is there was one time i was here in

34:53.990 --> 34:59.590
america and i look at my audiences and they they've never taken dope they've never they've

34:59.590 --> 35:04.150
never read a holy eastern holy books or anything and i just say the same stuff i was saying in

35:04.150 --> 35:10.870
the 60s that i was saying to people with flowers and big pupils and these people in the middle of

35:10.870 --> 35:16.230
you know they're coisted nice people and they're going and i think far out look it happened and i

35:16.230 --> 35:16.550
was looking the other way well that's true and that's how it's happened so i'm sure you've accessed poop

35:16.710 --> 35:21.730
where you're looking for the resonance of a person to come forth that speaks from that consciousness

35:21.730 --> 35:29.790
with the assurance of the truth of it right now that's what i think why all this business of a

35:29.790 --> 35:36.710
christ figure i mean i see what how seductive it is but how we we've gotten very cynical because

35:36.710 --> 35:48.820
we've projected into such a person a purpose instead of just that light forming out of the

35:48.820 --> 35:54.280
needs of the moment to create that light to which because i find if i speak from a true enough for a

35:54.280 --> 36:02.500
moment when i can do it from a true enough place in my heart it it reduces the paranoia the subtle

36:02.500 --> 36:07.840
veils of paranoia in another person they don't i don't do it to them it just falls away because

36:07.840 --> 36:13.980
they test they're testing and they don't get from me anything that says like that and i just watch

36:13.980 --> 36:18.700
them like a flower and that and i think boy

36:18.700 --> 36:18.800
you

36:19.320 --> 36:25.120
i give a lot to just be that instrument you know that's worth well that's a great role that's worth

36:25.120 --> 36:29.860
what's but there's a role for everyone else that's the role for that's the role that's what i said to

36:29.860 --> 36:36.780
the ita i said you know just don't talk about it exemplify it let's be it do it well you know

36:36.780 --> 36:45.360
blake said a wonderful thing he said if i can get it right if the truth can be told so as to be

36:45.360 --> 36:48.700
understood it will be believed

36:48.820 --> 36:54.780
right exactly exactly so all you have to do is i say yes exactly when can you say it's simply enough is it

36:54.780 --> 37:00.840
only reset in silence simply enough or are there words or is the music or is there

37:00.840 --> 37:11.800
there's words there's music there's silence there's gesture because you know it's always going to exceed ones grass see my

37:15.240 --> 37:18.520
mantra is the gandhi line my life is my message that yes as you said that every it's very good that's very good of you you're very good

37:18.820 --> 37:30.320
every level i think i'm at a little lower level because i'm very aware that

37:32.320 --> 37:39.920
i have to struggle to have my luck to say my life is my message i would almost rather say

37:39.920 --> 37:44.720
my message is my message please don't look at my life because i'm a fallible human being and

37:44.720 --> 37:50.400
i'm constantly but you see how that weakens your message you see how that quality has

37:50.960 --> 37:56.480
means that the message doesn't come from the the root the central if you're there's a way in which

37:56.480 --> 38:03.840
it waffles true and that's the thing i i really can't once i saw the possibility of that i said

38:03.840 --> 38:10.640
why waffle what is worth holding on to that's worth waffling about well i once said to leo

38:10.640 --> 38:19.760
seth i'm sure you knew leo i said to him in a meeting uh i said leo you're you're finished

38:19.760 --> 38:20.400
you're complete you're you're finished finished for leo leo and the consequences they don't tell

38:20.400 --> 38:25.340
Completed. You're baked. Me, I'm half-baked.

38:26.760 --> 38:30.380
And I hope that the rest of my life will finish the baking process.

38:30.380 --> 38:32.900
But you're not half-baked. That's what's interesting.

38:33.120 --> 38:36.000
I mean, when you and I talk, you and I hear each other perfectly.

38:37.020 --> 38:39.620
Truth. And so where are we hearing each other from?

38:40.000 --> 38:43.220
I mean, then we each play our game the way we play our game, you know,

38:43.220 --> 38:44.980
and you can play your game saying, I'm half-baked.

38:45.440 --> 38:47.340
That's your strategy if you choose.

38:47.340 --> 38:49.280
It's a mercurial strategy.

38:49.700 --> 38:50.160
Yes, I understand.

38:50.400 --> 38:53.980
But here's to mercurius.

38:58.720 --> 39:04.800
You have somehow been able to survive the gauntlet of American media

39:04.800 --> 39:12.380
in a way that your colleagues and comrade-in-arms didn't seem to.

39:12.380 --> 39:16.700
They either had to step away from their leader role

39:16.700 --> 39:20.380
or they transmuted it into some lesser thing.

39:20.400 --> 39:30.400
So now Allen Ginsberg is poet laureate, Tim Leary keeps the club scene in Los Angeles interesting.

39:30.400 --> 39:31.400
He's the Socrates of the L.A. club scene.

39:31.400 --> 39:36.400
Yes. But you, in a sense, never backed down, never retooled.

39:36.400 --> 39:42.400
You were also not first among equals back in the original thing.

39:42.400 --> 39:46.400
But when all is said and done, I was always the second.

39:46.400 --> 39:48.400
In a way, it's like birds.

39:48.400 --> 39:49.400
If you say, just because you're a bird, you're a bird.

39:50.400 --> 39:53.400
If you're behind the lead bird, you don't have to do much.

39:53.400 --> 39:55.400
You're just kind of riding along on the...

39:55.400 --> 40:00.400
Well, and Ralph tells me to be third is the real good position.

40:00.400 --> 40:03.400
It's like being the young prince.

40:03.400 --> 40:05.400
You won't ever be king.

40:05.400 --> 40:08.400
Actually, it was only until about five years ago.

40:08.400 --> 40:13.400
In the past five years, they've stopped introducing me as Tim Leary's partner.

40:13.400 --> 40:14.400
Right.

40:14.400 --> 40:16.400
Which, I mean, I think that was great.

40:16.400 --> 40:19.400
I see him as one of my first teachers, great teachers.

40:19.400 --> 40:19.700
Uh-huh.

40:19.700 --> 40:24.700
And, uh, but I don't have the fun for me.

40:24.700 --> 40:27.700
He says, I have no model of myself.

40:27.700 --> 40:29.700
I mean, I don't know who I am.

40:29.700 --> 40:33.700
I don't know whether I'm an anachronism from the 60s or I'm just about to happen.

40:33.700 --> 40:34.700
A prophet to be.

40:34.700 --> 40:36.700
Yes, I have no idea, and I don't care.

40:36.700 --> 40:37.700
That's what I saw.

40:37.700 --> 40:44.700
Because either of them, all the things you get in either way are a drag, and they're beautiful, equally.

40:44.700 --> 40:46.700
No, well, I think you're a prophet to be.

40:46.700 --> 40:47.700
I think we all are.

40:47.700 --> 40:48.700
I think we all are, yes.

40:48.700 --> 40:54.700
You know, as Bilbo Baggins once said, the greatest adventure still lies ahead.

40:54.700 --> 40:55.700
I believe that.

40:55.700 --> 40:56.700
I do, too.

40:56.700 --> 40:58.700
I'll believe that when they lower my box.

40:58.700 --> 40:59.700
I'll believe that.

40:59.700 --> 41:00.700
I do, too.

41:00.700 --> 41:01.700
I do, too.

41:01.700 --> 41:02.700
Exactly.

41:02.700 --> 41:03.700
Good.

41:03.700 --> 41:04.700
Exactly.

41:04.700 --> 41:05.700
Well, thanks for coming by.

41:05.700 --> 41:06.700
I'm sure you had many, many demands on you.

41:06.700 --> 41:07.700
Thank you.

41:07.700 --> 41:08.700
It was a pleasure.

41:08.700 --> 41:09.700
Pleasure.

41:09.700 --> 41:10.700
I was afraid of you up until now.

41:10.700 --> 41:11.700
Now I'm delighted to be with you.

41:11.700 --> 41:12.700
No, no.

41:12.700 --> 41:13.700
Don't be afraid of me.

41:13.700 --> 41:14.700
The people who are afraid of me don't know me.

41:14.700 --> 41:15.700
No.

41:15.700 --> 41:16.700
Or they know me better than you ever will.

41:16.700 --> 41:17.700
I know.

41:17.700 --> 41:29.060
Angela Sarian is an anthropologist and workshop leader from California who brings the unique

41:29.060 --> 41:35.640
perspective of her Basque ancestors to the formulation of a new discipline which I would

41:35.640 --> 41:40.220
call neo-shamanic anthropology.

41:40.220 --> 41:43.560
So there you have it, as the king said to Mozart.

41:43.560 --> 41:44.560
Yes.

41:44.560 --> 41:49.560
Yes, as the caterpillar on top of the mushroom said, who are you?

41:49.560 --> 42:01.560
Well, so I looked over your newsletter, and it looks like sort of a neo-shamanism

42:01.560 --> 42:09.870
was the category that you are now defining in your public talks.

42:09.870 --> 42:10.870
Is that right?

42:10.870 --> 42:11.870
Yeah.

42:11.870 --> 42:17.870
I'm doing a lot of that, but mostly universals, what we all have in common, finding those

42:17.870 --> 42:20.370
basic roots, which then take us back to...

42:20.370 --> 42:21.370
What do you mean, take us back to indigenous cultures?

42:21.370 --> 42:22.370
Archetypes.

42:22.370 --> 42:23.370
Archetypes.

42:23.370 --> 42:24.370
Uh-huh.

42:24.370 --> 42:25.370
Especially the archetype of the warrior, and the healer, and the teacher, and the

42:25.370 --> 42:26.370
visionary.

42:26.370 --> 42:27.370
Those are the four that the shamanic or indigenous cultures really focus upon.

42:27.370 --> 42:28.370
Well, so you're genuinely in the mainstream of the archaic revival.

42:28.370 --> 42:29.370
I never thought about it that way, Terrance.

42:29.370 --> 42:30.370
Well, actually, I'm sort of saying that you're in the mainstream of the archaic

42:30.370 --> 42:31.370
revival.

42:31.370 --> 42:32.370
You're in the mainstream of the archaic revival.

42:32.370 --> 42:33.370
Yes.

42:33.370 --> 42:34.370
Yes.

42:34.370 --> 42:35.370
Yes.

42:35.370 --> 42:36.370
Yes.

42:36.370 --> 42:37.370
Yes.

42:37.370 --> 42:38.370
Yes.

42:38.370 --> 42:39.370
Yes.

42:39.370 --> 42:40.370
Yes.

42:40.370 --> 42:41.370
Yes.

42:41.370 --> 42:42.370
Yes.

42:42.370 --> 42:43.370
Yes.

42:43.370 --> 42:44.370
Yes.

42:44.370 --> 42:45.370
Yes.

42:45.370 --> 42:46.370
Yes.

42:46.370 --> 42:47.370
Yes.

42:47.370 --> 42:48.370
Yes.

42:48.370 --> 42:49.370
Yes.

42:49.370 --> 42:50.370
Yes.

42:50.370 --> 42:51.370
Yes.

42:51.370 --> 42:52.370
Yes.

42:52.370 --> 42:53.370
Yes.

42:53.370 --> 42:54.370
Yes.

42:54.370 --> 42:55.370
Yes.

42:55.370 --> 42:56.370
Yes.

42:56.370 --> 42:57.370
Yes.

42:57.370 --> 42:58.370
Yes.

42:58.370 --> 42:59.370
Yes.

42:59.370 --> 43:00.370
Yes.

43:00.370 --> 43:01.370
Yes.

43:01.370 --> 43:02.370
Yes.

43:02.370 --> 43:13.370
But, possibly, when we talk about shamanism, some of our intellectual

43:13.370 --> 43:14.370
goals, our culture, we think about the church.

43:14.370 --> 43:15.370
It sounds like we're talking that worship should be remembered.

43:15.370 --> 43:16.370
Yes, exactly.

43:16.370 --> 43:17.370
Yes.

43:17.370 --> 43:18.370
Yes.

43:18.370 --> 43:19.370
Yes.

43:19.370 --> 43:25.070
you can the Renaissance went through a rebirth of classicism probably without

43:25.070 --> 43:30.430
ever really articulating that that's what was happening but I think this

43:30.430 --> 43:38.710
shamanic or Aboriginal ecological feminine partnership impulse is now

43:38.710 --> 43:46.470
pretty explicit so that's what I mean yeah well I think that I love the title

43:46.470 --> 43:52.250
like archaic revival because at the same time what's coming up is everyone

43:52.250 --> 43:58.470
talking about a new world order and yet in order to understand what constitutes

43:58.470 --> 44:04.230
a new world order we need to take a look at what the current world order is and

44:04.230 --> 44:11.250
so we really have essentially four worlds we have the industrialized first

44:11.250 --> 44:16.450
world and we have the the socialist block which would be the second

44:16.450 --> 44:21.010
world and we have the third world countries which are really the

44:21.010 --> 44:25.930
developing countries like Brazil but the fourth world is really the aboriginal

44:25.930 --> 44:34.750
indigenous cultures that that are within cultures but don't have the same kind of

44:34.750 --> 44:42.650
rights and the first three worlds say that the land belongs to the people but

44:42.650 --> 44:46.390
the fourth world said says that the people belong to the

44:46.390 --> 44:46.430
land they belong to the people and the fourth world says that the people belong to the land they belong to the people and we have

44:46.430 --> 44:55.950
land and so that people belonging to the land is really an archetype it's your archaic revival

44:56.750 --> 45:06.910
but it's getting back to nature and owning those roots brings up that revival which is the shift

45:06.910 --> 45:14.190
that we're going to need to make in order to do the new world orders to get the people back to

45:14.190 --> 45:20.190
the land well it's too bad that there's no place in the world where that aboriginal

45:21.150 --> 45:29.470
position is in a governing position starting for the first time in the last three years

45:29.470 --> 45:38.270
is the establishment of the world indigenous council and this summer in july is the first

45:38.270 --> 45:44.030
time that there will actually be a vote to have a seat on the united nations where

45:44.190 --> 45:51.950
will be representatives from each of the world indigenous peoples and so that's i'm real hopeful

45:51.950 --> 45:59.950
really you mean every amazonian tribe could potentially have a delegate or that they

45:59.950 --> 46:06.510
themselves could could have a council and vote who would be their best representatives as a

46:06.510 --> 46:13.550
bioregional well you know it always the there's some phrase in latin i can't remember what it is

46:14.190 --> 46:21.310
but it means that he who does not expand his borders will have his land taken by somebody

46:21.310 --> 46:27.630
else and this was the theory that drove colonization in south america all of these

46:27.630 --> 46:37.310
countries like peru colombia ecuador venezuela actually encroach on a vast aboriginal core

46:37.310 --> 46:43.390
of that continent which should be self-governing yeah and were it self-governing it would be

46:44.190 --> 46:48.750
self-generating and given up on some of the indigenous nations and so i think that's

46:48.750 --> 46:53.550
something that is certainly a really big challenge and i think it's a really big force

46:53.550 --> 46:59.790
i think it's tremendous for us huge force yeah it's amazing that i really think that

47:00.590 --> 47:06.110
for the last 20 years there's been this whole east west bridging but we're really starting in

47:06.110 --> 47:11.790
the last five years to this north-south kind of bridging and i i really feel that

47:14.190 --> 47:18.770
The northern force would be Europe, Russia, Canada,

47:18.930 --> 47:25.030
but the whole southern force is like Africa, Asia, and the Latin American countries.

47:25.030 --> 47:32.070
So that whole force, those two forces really coming together.

47:32.070 --> 47:39.750
So even though you're a spiritual teacher, you talk global politics like a State Department second string.

47:40.230 --> 47:41.390
I do, I do.

47:41.390 --> 47:52.550
I was thinking about the grandparents of the planet being the old Asian cultures and all the Pacific Rim,

47:52.550 --> 47:57.690
and then the exciting thing that's happening in Europe for the first time in history,

47:57.830 --> 48:02.590
that 11 countries are coming together to form a European coalition,

48:02.850 --> 48:08.910
that it puts the child of the planet, which is like America or the United States,

48:09.550 --> 48:11.350
which is so based on a...

48:11.390 --> 48:15.430
a hero myth or a heroine myth and fierce independence,

48:15.430 --> 48:23.450
that the call in the next 50 years is for Americans to learn about community,

48:24.010 --> 48:27.750
which indigenous societies and the grandparents of the planet,

48:27.950 --> 48:31.750
the old Asian cultures and now the parents of the planet,

48:32.210 --> 48:36.690
really modeling teamwork and collaboration and community,

48:37.050 --> 48:41.210
is that America is going to need to really learn,

48:41.390 --> 48:44.930
about collaboration and community and cooperation.

48:44.930 --> 48:51.710
And in order to do that, then there's going to need to be the going back to what would be the archaic revival,

48:52.050 --> 48:59.690
or that beginning to shift so that there can be a new world order where that fourth world is addressed.

49:00.430 --> 49:09.770
Well, don't you think sort of what's happening is that people have a very strong local sense of place, loyalty.

49:09.770 --> 49:10.270
That's true.

49:10.270 --> 49:11.370
And then they are...

49:11.390 --> 49:14.550
forming a planetary loyalty.

49:14.550 --> 49:18.230
But in a way, all the levels in between are dissolving.

49:18.230 --> 49:20.810
So people don't think of themselves as Americans.

49:20.810 --> 49:26.210
They think of themselves as Northern Californians and earthlings, sort of like that.

49:26.210 --> 49:35.210
But in a way, federal Europe, which is no longer a sure thing, you know, because of these recent developments,

49:35.210 --> 49:37.210
goes against that.

49:37.210 --> 49:41.170
I sort of think maybe McLuhan was right.

49:41.390 --> 49:51.390
And that there is going to be a kind of electronic feudalization where many more small states will emerge.

49:51.390 --> 49:58.390
And the reason detra for the nation-state appears to be slowly disappearing.

49:58.390 --> 50:09.390
And the states, I think the crisis that came to Marxism is coming now for the republic-crat oligarchy in America.

50:09.390 --> 50:10.390
I think you're right.

50:10.390 --> 50:10.890
Thank you.

50:11.390 --> 50:24.390
I think there's a terrific shift of power that's going on that out of maybe the hierarchical types of power to people power.

50:24.390 --> 50:34.390
And I see two major forces contributing to that, which is one, the computer or the electronic,

50:34.390 --> 50:40.390
because it's people-based, individual-based, bringing the power back to the individual.

50:40.390 --> 50:49.390
And also free enterprise, rather than capitalism or communism.

50:49.390 --> 50:53.390
There's that middle road coming in.

50:53.390 --> 50:57.390
So I think that when we take a look cross-culturally at the three kinds of power,

50:57.390 --> 51:02.390
or the power of presence, or the power of communication, or the power of position,

51:02.390 --> 51:09.390
the willingness to take a stand, is that it's going to be very important to see how those shifts of power

51:09.390 --> 51:14.390
really are going back to empowerment of the people.

51:14.390 --> 51:19.390
So what are you looking toward in the future, personally and globally?

51:19.390 --> 51:29.390
I've been doing a lot with taking a look at what's found that's similar in all art globally,

51:29.390 --> 51:38.390
because I feel that what humanity consistently creates in art is really reinforcing deep,

51:38.390 --> 51:41.390
spiritual processes.

51:41.390 --> 51:49.390
And so what I've found is that there are five shapes that are found consistently in all art globally.

51:49.390 --> 51:57.390
And one is the circle, and the other is the cross, like the plus sign, the equidistant cross,

51:57.390 --> 52:01.390
and the triangle, and the square, and the spiral.

52:01.390 --> 52:07.390
And you can see them all here in Prague, everywhere you go.

52:07.390 --> 52:15.390
In Prague, everywhere you look, I mean, in all the decor are those shapes repeated over and over and over again.

52:15.390 --> 52:22.390
So I began to look cross-culturally to see if cultures attributed the same meaning to those shapes,

52:22.390 --> 52:28.390
and found that 92% of all the cultures attribute the same meaning to the circle,

52:28.390 --> 52:36.390
which is the process of individuation, or to the cross, relatedness, and interconnection, and interface,

52:36.390 --> 52:42.390
and the square, stability, and foundation setting, and the...

52:42.390 --> 52:48.390
So does this imply a genetic syntax of form, or something like that?

52:48.390 --> 53:02.390
I think that it's part of the archaic revival in that there would be a cellular, deeply cellular imprinting of some kind.

53:02.390 --> 53:03.390
Well, that's what I mean by genetic.

53:03.390 --> 53:05.390
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I really do.

53:06.390 --> 53:12.390
The triangle being the visionary, or searching, seeking, questing process,

53:12.390 --> 53:14.390
or the planning, dreaming process,

53:14.390 --> 53:22.390
and the spiral being the need for variety, or the need for change, or growth and evolution.

53:22.390 --> 53:25.390
So it's been really wonderful.

53:25.390 --> 53:30.390
It's part of a new book that's coming out called Signs of Life,

53:30.390 --> 53:35.390
and showing how those images come up in all of the continents,

53:35.390 --> 53:42.390
and are also found in literature and poetry, and put all that together in one place.

53:42.390 --> 53:46.390
So do you spend much time thinking about the future?

53:46.390 --> 53:48.390
I do, I do.

53:48.390 --> 53:50.390
What's your take on...

53:50.390 --> 53:59.390
I think that it's exciting for me to think that we're being called in the next 50 years to our own creative fire,

53:59.390 --> 54:05.890
that we all have salvation myths, and we all have doomsday myths,

54:05.890 --> 54:12.890
but there's a whole body of myths in mythology that have been totally overlooked

54:12.890 --> 54:16.890
that I think we're being called to, which are creation myths.

54:16.890 --> 54:24.890
And what are the creation myths but stories about how to build new worlds internally and externally.

54:24.890 --> 54:30.890
And I think that for 2,000 years we've done the polarity dance,

54:30.890 --> 54:34.890
and we're moving into a both-and world rather than an either-or world.

54:34.890 --> 54:45.890
And I'm excited about the future, that if we can really move into the wisdom of the plant kingdom,

54:45.890 --> 54:53.890
and if we can move into the deep wisdom of nature as a mirror of our own nature,

54:53.890 --> 55:03.300
and remember our creative fire, I think it will be a wonderful time in history.

55:03.300 --> 55:05.300
I'm so glad I was born at the time I was born,

55:05.300 --> 55:09.300
I was born to be a part of this evolutionary renaissance.

55:09.300 --> 55:11.300
How do you see it happening?

55:11.300 --> 55:17.300
I mean, do you see a breakthrough with technology or an abandonment of technology?

55:17.300 --> 55:20.300
Do you see pharmacological engineering?

55:20.300 --> 55:22.300
Do you see new religions?

55:22.300 --> 55:24.300
Do you see...

55:24.300 --> 55:30.300
In other words, it's easy to hope but very hard to get the details in focus.

55:30.300 --> 55:31.300
Yeah.

55:31.300 --> 55:32.300
Yeah.

55:32.300 --> 55:34.300
I think that...

55:34.300 --> 55:46.300
What I see is that there'll be both the bridging of the natural and the technological...

55:46.300 --> 55:52.300
So a more cellular technology, a more organic infrastructure.

55:52.300 --> 55:53.300
Yes, for sure.

55:53.300 --> 56:00.300
And I think that computers are here to teach us about those organic structures.

56:00.300 --> 56:02.300
I think that's quite true.

56:02.300 --> 56:09.300
We're learning different kinds of systems to really see what are the inherent systems

56:09.300 --> 56:12.300
within nature and within our own nature.

56:12.300 --> 56:21.300
So to the degree that we can mirror nature, we can re-spiritualize, re-humanize technology

56:21.300 --> 56:23.300
and interpersonal relations.

56:23.300 --> 56:24.300
Yeah.

56:24.300 --> 56:25.300
Which will be wonderful.

56:25.300 --> 56:27.300
Well, I come right down the line on that.

56:27.300 --> 56:28.300
Yeah.

56:28.300 --> 56:29.300
Yeah.

56:29.300 --> 56:34.300
I think that the psychedelics are just simply the best catalyst, but anything which works

56:34.300 --> 56:36.300
should be pushed to the limit.

56:36.300 --> 56:37.300
To that.

56:37.300 --> 56:38.300
Yeah, absolutely.

56:38.300 --> 56:39.300
Absolutely.

56:39.300 --> 56:48.300
And I don't know, I was just thinking that somehow we've got to think about possibilities.

56:48.300 --> 56:57.300
I was thinking about in the Rosicrucian era, which is very close here to Prague, is that

56:57.300 --> 56:58.300
they would often say you can kill...

56:58.300 --> 57:03.300
They would often say you can count the seeds in an apple, but you can't count the apples

57:03.300 --> 57:04.300
in a seed.

57:04.300 --> 57:14.300
And I think we're moving in that era where we really think of the possibilities and the

57:14.300 --> 57:19.300
seeds that we have been planting or the fact that computers are teaching us about instant

57:19.300 --> 57:27.300
feedback or instant response and acknowledgement and that the power of acknowledgement and

57:27.300 --> 57:28.300
feedback.

57:28.300 --> 57:35.300
That's why children are, in many ways, know that instinctively that they're mesmerized

57:35.300 --> 57:43.300
by that they can get a yes or no or go back or fatal error or whatever it might be.

57:43.300 --> 57:48.300
Well, it's a kind of explicit hard wiring of our own unconscious.

57:48.300 --> 57:49.300
Yeah.

57:49.300 --> 57:55.300
No more do we create cultural artifacts that are simply our furniture, but now our thoughts...

57:55.300 --> 57:56.300
Yes.

57:56.300 --> 57:57.300
... are values...

57:57.300 --> 57:58.300
Yes.

57:58.300 --> 58:06.300
embodied in this stuff. Yeah, it's very exciting. Yeah, it really is.

58:06.300 --> 58:18.300
I envision a future world where people are nomadic, aboriginal, physically perfect, living basically naked,

58:18.300 --> 58:24.300
but if you were inside one of these people's minds, you would see that when they close their eyes,

58:24.300 --> 58:34.300
there are menus hanging in space, that the culture has been shrunk down to something rather like a contact lens,

58:34.300 --> 58:40.300
which is in the forefront of their eyelid, and they look into culture by closing their eyes.

58:40.300 --> 58:46.300
And when they open their eyes, nature in her radiance is all around.

58:46.300 --> 58:49.300
Yeah, absolutely.

58:49.300 --> 58:51.300
Well, it's great talking to you.

58:51.300 --> 01:00:16.760
The skyline of modern Prague.

01:00:16.760 --> 01:00:28.760
In the 16th century, this city became an alchemical center and figured in one of the most interesting episodes in the evolution of European thought.

01:00:28.760 --> 01:00:37.760
Rudolf II ruled from here in a court of great extravagance, and upon the death of the old emperor,

01:00:37.760 --> 01:00:43.760
the princes of the Northern League met to choose from among themselves a successor.

01:00:43.760 --> 01:00:46.760
Their choice was Frederick the Elector Palatine.

01:00:46.760 --> 01:00:49.760
Who held court at Heidelberg.

01:00:49.760 --> 01:00:54.760
Frederick was all that a young prince of the Northern League could hope to be.

01:00:54.760 --> 01:00:59.760
Surrounded by brilliant courtiers, married to a daughter of the King of England,

01:00:59.760 --> 01:01:04.760
he represented the alchemical hopes of Catholic Europe.

01:01:04.760 --> 01:01:10.760
And in the fall of 1619, having been recently chosen emperor,

01:01:10.760 --> 01:01:13.760
he moved his court from Heidelberg to Prague,

01:01:13.760 --> 01:01:17.760
bringing with him some of the most brilliant occult minds of the era.

01:01:17.760 --> 01:01:24.760
Johannes Andrei, Count Michael Meyer, the alchemical printer Theodore de Bry.

01:01:24.760 --> 01:01:35.040
But the reign of the Winter King and Queen, as this incident is called, was not to last.

01:01:35.040 --> 01:01:44.040
But the alchemical fantasies of Frederick the Elector Palatine of Bohemia and his queen were destined to fail.

01:01:44.040 --> 01:01:50.040
Well, by the early spring of 1620, a local bishop had raised an army

01:01:50.040 --> 01:01:55.040
and had been joined by Habsburg troops who laid siege to Prague.

01:01:55.040 --> 01:01:59.040
And that siege, after a number of weeks, succeeded.

01:01:59.040 --> 01:02:03.040
Among those taking part in the siege was a young French soldier

01:02:03.040 --> 01:02:08.040
who had been wenching and traveling across Europe in the style of the times,

01:02:08.040 --> 01:02:10.040
René Descartes,

01:02:10.040 --> 01:02:14.040
destined to be the founder of modern scientific material.

01:02:14.040 --> 01:02:19.040
I like to think that perhaps Descartes actually encountered

01:02:19.040 --> 01:02:23.040
his beckonor, Michael Meyer, prince of alchemists,

01:02:23.040 --> 01:02:28.040
in the confused situation that prevailed when Prague fell.

01:02:28.040 --> 01:02:31.040
For Meyer was lost in the siege of Prague,

01:02:31.040 --> 01:02:34.040
never to be heard from again.

01:02:34.040 --> 01:02:39.040
It's instances like this in the history of European thought

01:02:39.040 --> 01:02:42.040
that have inspired a group of American thinkers

01:02:42.040 --> 01:02:44.040
to form the Bohemian Institute

01:02:44.040 --> 01:02:46.040
of Prague,

01:02:46.040 --> 01:02:50.040
a think tank, theater group, and video production center

01:02:50.040 --> 01:02:53.040
to be established here in Prague

01:02:53.040 --> 01:02:57.040
and to celebrate the occult and spiritual heritage

01:02:57.040 --> 01:02:59.040
of this great city,

01:02:59.040 --> 01:03:04.040
a city which, had its alchemical visions been completed,

01:03:04.040 --> 01:03:09.700
modernity would have been a far different affair.

01:03:09.700 --> 01:03:12.700
Alchemy is an ancient art,

01:03:12.700 --> 01:03:14.700
one of the magical arts

01:03:14.700 --> 01:03:18.700
associated with dyeing and the gilding of metals

01:03:18.700 --> 01:03:22.700
and tracing its origins back to ancient Egypt.

01:03:22.700 --> 01:03:25.700
But its modern culmination is here,

01:03:25.700 --> 01:03:27.700
in the city of Prague,

01:03:27.700 --> 01:03:29.700
where in the 16th century,

01:03:29.700 --> 01:03:33.700
under the patronage of the Emperor Rudolf,

01:03:33.700 --> 01:03:35.700
the great alchemists of Europe

01:03:35.700 --> 01:03:38.700
gathered and pursued their art.

01:03:38.700 --> 01:03:39.700
Including Kepler.

01:03:39.700 --> 01:03:41.700
Including Kepler.

01:03:41.700 --> 01:03:44.700
Alchemy is more than a technique

01:03:44.700 --> 01:03:48.700
for the conversion of base metals into gold.

01:03:48.700 --> 01:03:50.700
It is the culminating metaphor

01:03:50.700 --> 01:03:55.700
in the search for a union of spirit and matter.

01:03:55.700 --> 01:03:58.700
And whether or not this union was ever achieved

01:03:58.700 --> 01:04:02.700
is as mysterious as much of the rest of this ancient city.

01:04:02.700 --> 01:04:05.700
But whatever the success of the alchemists,

01:04:05.700 --> 01:04:07.700
they provide us with a metaphor

01:04:07.700 --> 01:04:09.700
for spiritual transformation

01:04:09.700 --> 01:04:12.700
that is extraordinarily applicable

01:04:12.700 --> 01:04:14.700
in the modern era.

01:04:14.700 --> 01:04:15.700
It was for this reason

01:04:15.700 --> 01:04:18.700
that the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung

01:04:18.700 --> 01:04:21.700
made alchemical motifs

01:04:21.700 --> 01:04:25.700
as important a part of his theory of the unconscious

01:04:25.700 --> 01:04:29.700
as the contents of dreams or folklore.

01:04:29.700 --> 01:04:33.700
You see, before modern science,

01:04:33.700 --> 01:04:37.700
the separation between observer and observed

01:04:37.700 --> 01:04:39.700
was more naively understood

01:04:39.700 --> 01:04:41.700
than in our own world.

01:04:41.700 --> 01:04:43.700
And the alchemist,

01:04:43.700 --> 01:04:45.700
staring into the swirling content

01:04:45.700 --> 01:04:48.700
of his retorts and his alembics,

01:04:48.700 --> 01:04:51.700
was seeing in his own imagination

01:04:51.700 --> 01:04:55.700
not the processes of natural chemistry,

01:04:55.700 --> 01:04:59.700
but an intermingling of psychological processes

01:04:59.700 --> 01:05:01.700
and material processes

01:05:01.700 --> 01:05:04.700
in a domain of epistemic confusion

01:05:04.700 --> 01:05:07.700
that we have grown distant from.

01:05:07.700 --> 01:05:08.700
Nevertheless,

01:05:08.700 --> 01:05:11.700
the legacy of our own science

01:05:11.700 --> 01:05:14.700
is one of pollution of the earth,

01:05:14.700 --> 01:05:17.700
toxification of the oceans.

01:05:17.700 --> 01:05:19.700
Something has been lost

01:05:19.700 --> 01:05:22.700
from the Western vision of nature

01:05:22.700 --> 01:05:25.700
by the exclusion of the notion of spirit.

01:05:25.700 --> 01:05:27.700
And it's fitting that in an effort

01:05:27.700 --> 01:05:30.700
to recapture that lost something,

01:05:30.700 --> 01:05:33.700
we return to Prague,

01:05:33.700 --> 01:05:36.700
the center of European occult thinking

01:05:36.700 --> 01:05:38.700
and a beacon to all

01:05:38.700 --> 01:05:41.700
the future thinking on these matters.

01:05:41.700 --> 01:06:01.490
Well, Ken, you've certainly spent

01:06:01.490 --> 01:06:06.490
a number of years on these questions.

01:06:06.490 --> 01:06:09.490
I'm talking with Dr. Kenneth Ring.

01:06:09.490 --> 01:06:12.490
We're in the Prague Botanical Gardens.

01:06:12.490 --> 01:06:16.490
Dr. Ring is the author of The Omega Project

01:06:16.490 --> 01:06:18.490
and is the world's leading expert

01:06:18.490 --> 01:06:21.490
on the near-death experience.

01:06:21.490 --> 01:06:23.490
Ken, I know recently

01:06:23.490 --> 01:06:25.490
you've been interested in UFOs.

01:06:25.490 --> 01:06:28.490
How did you get from UFOs

01:06:28.490 --> 01:06:31.490
or from near-death experiences to UFOs?

01:06:31.490 --> 01:06:33.490
That seems quite a leap.

01:06:33.490 --> 01:06:36.490
Well, on one perhaps mistaken day,

01:06:36.490 --> 01:06:38.490
I picked up a copy of Whitley Strieber's book,

01:06:38.490 --> 01:06:39.490
Communion,

01:06:39.490 --> 01:06:40.490
came out some years ago.

01:06:40.490 --> 01:06:42.490
And though I had no interest in,

01:06:42.490 --> 01:06:44.490
in fact, an aversion to UFO studies,

01:06:44.490 --> 01:06:46.490
I found that some of those effects

01:06:46.490 --> 01:06:48.490
that he was talking about,

01:06:48.490 --> 01:06:49.490
of those experiences,

01:06:49.490 --> 01:06:50.490
seemed very reminiscent

01:06:50.490 --> 01:06:52.490
of those that followed NDEs.

01:06:52.490 --> 01:06:54.490
And so I wanted to explore the connection.

01:06:54.490 --> 01:06:56.490
Why do you think

01:06:56.490 --> 01:06:58.490
that these abduction phenomena

01:06:58.490 --> 01:07:00.490
never happen to

01:07:00.490 --> 01:07:03.490
what I would call smart people?

01:07:03.490 --> 01:07:05.490
In other words, it's always some poor soul

01:07:05.490 --> 01:07:07.490
who lives in a trailer park

01:07:07.490 --> 01:07:08.490
who has this happen.

01:07:08.490 --> 01:07:09.490
No, I don't think so.

01:07:09.490 --> 01:07:11.490
I think that there are people

01:07:11.490 --> 01:07:12.490
who have these experiences

01:07:12.490 --> 01:07:14.490
that come from the pretty wide swath

01:07:14.490 --> 01:07:17.490
of the social register up and down.

01:07:17.490 --> 01:07:19.490
What I found in my studies

01:07:19.490 --> 01:07:20.490
is that actually the people

01:07:20.490 --> 01:07:22.490
who are prone to these experiences

01:07:22.490 --> 01:07:24.490
are folks with a troubled mind,

01:07:24.490 --> 01:07:25.490
a troubled background.

01:07:25.490 --> 01:07:26.490
They have,

01:07:26.490 --> 01:07:28.490
they often report traumatic childhoods.

01:07:28.490 --> 01:07:30.490
They report sexual abuse,

01:07:30.490 --> 01:07:32.490
stressful childhoods.

01:07:32.490 --> 01:07:33.490
They're people who,

01:07:33.490 --> 01:07:34.490
even as children,

01:07:34.490 --> 01:07:35.490
seem to be susceptible,

01:07:35.490 --> 01:07:36.490
not to fantasy,

01:07:36.490 --> 01:07:39.490
but to alternate realities.

01:07:39.490 --> 01:07:40.490
That's, they're,

01:07:40.490 --> 01:07:42.490
not everybody is equally likely

01:07:42.490 --> 01:07:44.490
to have this kind of experience.

01:07:44.490 --> 01:07:45.490
I don't think these folks

01:07:45.490 --> 01:07:46.490
are pathological

01:07:46.490 --> 01:07:47.490
or come from some particular

01:07:47.490 --> 01:07:48.490
social stratum,

01:07:48.490 --> 01:07:50.490
but they have particular kinds

01:07:50.490 --> 01:07:52.490
of psychological characteristics

01:07:52.490 --> 01:07:53.490
that predispose them

01:07:53.490 --> 01:07:54.490
to have these experiences.

01:07:54.490 --> 01:07:58.490
How do you relate this phenomenon

01:07:58.490 --> 01:08:00.490
to your own field of expertise,

01:08:00.490 --> 01:08:02.490
which is the near-death experience?

01:08:02.490 --> 01:08:04.490
What I found is the,

01:08:04.490 --> 01:08:06.490
if you look at the phenomena themselves,

01:08:06.490 --> 01:08:08.490
they seem extremely different

01:08:08.490 --> 01:08:11.490
in terms of their feature surfaces.

01:08:11.490 --> 01:08:15.490
You look at the near-death experience,

01:08:15.490 --> 01:08:17.490
it's a very blissful experience,

01:08:17.490 --> 01:08:18.490
it's very beautiful.

01:08:18.490 --> 01:08:20.490
People have very many positive things

01:08:20.490 --> 01:08:21.490
to say about it.

01:08:21.490 --> 01:08:23.490
You look at the abduction experience,

01:08:23.490 --> 01:08:25.490
people are traumatized by it,

01:08:25.490 --> 01:08:26.490
deeply frightened,

01:08:26.490 --> 01:08:27.490
disturbed by it.

01:08:27.490 --> 01:08:29.490
They seem at antipodes.

01:08:29.490 --> 01:08:30.490
But if you look at the structure

01:08:30.490 --> 01:08:32.490
of these experiences,

01:08:32.490 --> 01:08:34.490
the structure is the same.

01:08:34.490 --> 01:08:35.490
They have the structure

01:08:35.490 --> 01:08:36.490
of shamanic journeys,

01:08:36.490 --> 01:08:37.490
of initiations.

01:08:37.490 --> 01:08:39.490
You're taken from the ordinary world,

01:08:39.490 --> 01:08:40.490
you're taken to another world,

01:08:40.490 --> 01:08:41.490
you learn things,

01:08:41.490 --> 01:08:43.490
you are transformed in that world,

01:08:43.490 --> 01:08:44.490
and you bring back

01:08:44.490 --> 01:08:45.490
those transformations with you.

01:08:45.490 --> 01:08:47.490
What I found was that

01:08:47.490 --> 01:08:49.490
the same kind of background

01:08:49.490 --> 01:08:50.490
that's typical for people

01:08:50.490 --> 01:08:52.490
that report UFO encounters,

01:08:52.490 --> 01:08:53.490
not limited to,

01:08:53.490 --> 01:08:54.490
but including abductions,

01:08:54.490 --> 01:08:56.490
is exactly the same kind of profile

01:08:56.490 --> 01:08:57.490
that you find for people

01:08:57.490 --> 01:08:58.490
that have had NDEs,

01:08:58.490 --> 01:09:00.490
near-death experiences.

01:09:00.490 --> 01:09:01.490
Same kind of person

01:09:01.490 --> 01:09:02.490
is prone to them.

01:09:02.490 --> 01:09:03.490
So I talk about

01:09:03.490 --> 01:09:05.490
an encounter-prone personality

01:09:05.490 --> 01:09:06.490
who's susceptible or vulnerable

01:09:06.490 --> 01:09:08.490
to these kinds of experiences

01:09:08.490 --> 01:09:09.490
more than the average person.

01:09:09.490 --> 01:09:11.490
But the key thing

01:09:11.490 --> 01:09:12.490
that relates these two phenomena,

01:09:12.490 --> 01:09:14.490
and perhaps others like them,

01:09:14.490 --> 01:09:15.490
are the transformations

01:09:15.490 --> 01:09:16.490
that tend to take place

01:09:16.490 --> 01:09:18.490
in the lives of people afterward.

01:09:18.490 --> 01:09:21.490
People with both kinds of experiences

01:09:21.490 --> 01:09:22.490
say afterward,

01:09:22.490 --> 01:09:24.490
they're more appreciative of life,

01:09:24.490 --> 01:09:26.490
more appreciative of nature,

01:09:26.490 --> 01:09:29.490
they have a deeper feeling of self-worth,

01:09:29.490 --> 01:09:31.490
they are more compassionate individuals,

01:09:31.490 --> 01:09:32.490
or less materialistic,

01:09:32.490 --> 01:09:34.490
they're more spiritual,

01:09:34.490 --> 01:09:36.490
and not necessarily more religious.

01:09:36.490 --> 01:09:37.490
In fact, they may be less religious,

01:09:37.490 --> 01:09:39.490
but they're more spiritual,

01:09:39.490 --> 01:09:40.490
they're more psychic,

01:09:40.490 --> 01:09:41.490
they're more intuitive.

01:09:41.490 --> 01:09:43.490
What seems to be the outcome

01:09:43.490 --> 01:09:45.490
of these experiences

01:09:45.490 --> 01:09:47.490
is however different

01:09:47.490 --> 01:09:49.490
the experiences themselves may be

01:09:49.490 --> 01:09:50.490
and their content,

01:09:50.490 --> 01:09:51.490
the effect is the same.

01:09:51.490 --> 01:09:52.490
So,

01:09:52.490 --> 01:09:53.490
you go through an ordeal

01:09:53.490 --> 01:09:55.490
of either nearly dying

01:09:55.490 --> 01:09:57.490
or the shock of a UFO encounter,

01:09:57.490 --> 01:09:59.490
and you're changed by that experience.

01:09:59.490 --> 01:10:00.490
Like Nietzsche said,

01:10:00.490 --> 01:10:01.490
that which doesn't kill me

01:10:01.490 --> 01:10:02.490
makes me stronger.

01:10:02.490 --> 01:10:04.490
These people are stronger spiritually,

01:10:04.490 --> 01:10:06.490
they seem to function at higher levels

01:10:06.490 --> 01:10:08.490
of intuitive understanding,

01:10:08.490 --> 01:10:09.490
of psychic awareness.

01:10:09.490 --> 01:10:11.490
It's an expanding experience for both.

01:10:11.490 --> 01:10:13.490
Well, is there...

01:10:13.490 --> 01:10:15.490
It's interesting

01:10:15.490 --> 01:10:17.490
that the personality profile

01:10:17.490 --> 01:10:18.490
is the same,

01:10:18.490 --> 01:10:19.490
but in one case

01:10:19.490 --> 01:10:21.490
the reaction is positive,

01:10:21.490 --> 01:10:23.490
but the other negative.

01:10:23.490 --> 01:10:25.490
Do people have near-death experiences

01:10:25.490 --> 01:10:27.490
without coming near to death?

01:10:27.490 --> 01:10:28.490
Sure.

01:10:28.490 --> 01:10:29.490
There are lots of ways.

01:10:29.490 --> 01:10:30.490
I think the near-death experience

01:10:30.490 --> 01:10:31.490
is misleading

01:10:31.490 --> 01:10:32.490
because it implies

01:10:32.490 --> 01:10:33.490
there's something unique

01:10:33.490 --> 01:10:35.490
that happens at the point

01:10:35.490 --> 01:10:36.490
of physical death

01:10:36.490 --> 01:10:38.490
or when people enter clinical death,

01:10:38.490 --> 01:10:39.490
and that's not true.

01:10:39.490 --> 01:10:40.490
There are many different pathways

01:10:40.490 --> 01:10:41.490
that lead to essentially

01:10:41.490 --> 01:10:42.490
the same experiences

01:10:42.490 --> 01:10:44.490
without having to throw yourself

01:10:44.490 --> 01:10:45.490
under the tires

01:10:45.490 --> 01:10:47.490
of the nearest oncoming truck.

01:10:47.490 --> 01:10:48.490
Many different ways

01:10:48.490 --> 01:10:50.490
to get into this kind of experience.

01:10:50.490 --> 01:10:53.490
So relate it a little bit

01:10:53.490 --> 01:10:56.490
to the psychedelic experience.

01:10:56.490 --> 01:10:57.490
I'd be happy to.

01:10:57.490 --> 01:10:58.490
I think that...

01:10:58.490 --> 01:11:00.490
I've talked with a lot of people,

01:11:00.490 --> 01:11:01.490
I'm sure you've talked to many more,

01:11:01.490 --> 01:11:04.490
who have had high-dose LSD sessions

01:11:04.490 --> 01:11:06.490
or other kinds of psychedelic sessions

01:11:06.490 --> 01:11:07.490
who have told me, in effect,

01:11:07.490 --> 01:11:09.490
well, I never came close to death,

01:11:09.490 --> 01:11:10.490
but I know exactly what you mean

01:11:10.490 --> 01:11:11.490
when you talk about

01:11:11.490 --> 01:11:12.490
a near-death experience

01:11:12.490 --> 01:11:14.490
because I've had the same thing.

01:11:14.490 --> 01:11:15.490
The out-of-body experience,

01:11:15.490 --> 01:11:16.490
the feeling of moving into

01:11:16.490 --> 01:11:19.490
a beautiful, radiant, illuminated space,

01:11:19.490 --> 01:11:20.490
the sense of being

01:11:20.490 --> 01:11:22.490
flooded with total universal knowledge,

01:11:22.490 --> 01:11:24.490
of being transformed in the instant

01:11:24.490 --> 01:11:26.490
and bringing that transformation back.

01:11:26.490 --> 01:11:29.490
To me, it's like the light

01:11:29.490 --> 01:11:30.490
or spiritual reality

01:11:30.490 --> 01:11:32.490
or whatever this thing may be called

01:11:32.490 --> 01:11:34.490
is available all the time.

01:11:34.490 --> 01:11:36.490
There are just different access routes to it.

01:11:36.490 --> 01:11:38.490
The psychedelic is clearly one aspect,

01:11:38.490 --> 01:11:41.490
one route that leads to that destination.

01:11:41.490 --> 01:11:43.490
The near-death experience is another.

01:11:43.490 --> 01:11:45.490
People following a spiritual path

01:11:45.490 --> 01:11:46.490
and deeply committed to it

01:11:46.490 --> 01:11:48.490
could have the same kind of revelation,

01:11:48.490 --> 01:11:49.490
the same kinds of insights.

01:11:49.490 --> 01:11:50.490
So I think that

01:11:50.490 --> 01:11:53.490
it's a question of equifinality,

01:11:53.490 --> 01:11:54.490
many different pathways

01:11:54.490 --> 01:11:56.490
leading to the same destination

01:11:56.490 --> 01:11:58.490
and the same transformative effects.

01:11:58.490 --> 01:11:59.490
That's what I think is important

01:11:59.490 --> 01:12:01.490
about those experiences.

01:12:01.490 --> 01:12:04.490
Well, now we've had psychedelic experiences

01:12:04.490 --> 01:12:06.490
and near-death experiences,

01:12:06.490 --> 01:12:08.490
presumably for millennia.

01:12:08.490 --> 01:12:11.490
Is this abduction thing new

01:12:11.490 --> 01:12:14.490
or are we just getting the old stuff

01:12:14.490 --> 01:12:17.490
repackaged in a funny way?

01:12:17.490 --> 01:12:19.490
Well, I think that it's related

01:12:19.490 --> 01:12:22.490
to things that have always happened to humankind.

01:12:22.490 --> 01:12:25.490
Interaction with the invisible world of spirits.

01:12:25.490 --> 01:12:26.490
Your phrase, I think,

01:12:26.490 --> 01:12:27.490
was sylphs of the air,

01:12:27.490 --> 01:12:30.490
the elementals, the fairies.

01:12:30.490 --> 01:12:32.490
Folklore, I think,

01:12:32.490 --> 01:12:33.490
is certainly related

01:12:33.490 --> 01:12:35.490
to this particular phenomenon.

01:12:35.490 --> 01:12:36.490
However, even among folklorists

01:12:36.490 --> 01:12:38.490
like Eddie Bullard, for example,

01:12:38.490 --> 01:12:40.490
who's the one who's looked into this most closely

01:12:40.490 --> 01:12:41.490
from the standpoint

01:12:41.490 --> 01:12:43.490
of the UFO abduction phenomenon,

01:12:43.490 --> 01:12:46.490
there seem to be aspects of this experience

01:12:46.490 --> 01:12:48.490
that make it

01:12:49.490 --> 01:12:51.490
unique onto itself,

01:12:51.490 --> 01:12:53.490
make it similar

01:12:53.490 --> 01:12:56.490
to the folkloric experiences of former times.

01:12:56.490 --> 01:12:59.490
And yet it's in a kind of technological gloss.

01:12:59.490 --> 01:13:01.490
I think maybe because the alien

01:13:01.490 --> 01:13:03.490
is kind of the mythic archetype of our time,

01:13:03.490 --> 01:13:05.490
it's not fashionable to see angels

01:13:05.490 --> 01:13:07.490
and spirits and demons anymore.

01:13:07.490 --> 01:13:09.490
But, you know, the myth of the extraterrestrial

01:13:09.490 --> 01:13:11.490
is everywhere you look.

01:13:11.490 --> 01:13:13.490
And so I think in a way

01:13:13.490 --> 01:13:14.490
this particular kind of archetype

01:13:14.490 --> 01:13:16.490
has been clothed in the imagery

01:13:16.490 --> 01:13:18.490
and the kind of space-age technology

01:13:18.490 --> 01:13:20.490
and talk and so on

01:13:20.490 --> 01:13:22.490
that's characteristic of our own time.

01:13:22.490 --> 01:13:23.490
So I think there's something unique to it

01:13:23.490 --> 01:13:25.490
and something that relates to, you know,

01:13:25.490 --> 01:13:28.490
the folkloric experiences of former times too.

01:13:28.490 --> 01:13:30.490
Because contact between the invisible world

01:13:30.490 --> 01:13:31.490
and the physical world,

01:13:31.490 --> 01:13:34.490
that's probably as old as man is old.

01:13:34.490 --> 01:13:35.490
But you're...

01:13:35.490 --> 01:13:37.490
Essentially it sounds as though

01:13:37.490 --> 01:13:42.490
you're fundamentally a psychologist

01:13:42.490 --> 01:13:46.490
in that you don't take this at face value.

01:13:46.490 --> 01:13:47.490
No.

01:13:47.490 --> 01:13:50.490
I don't take these as literal experiences

01:13:50.490 --> 01:13:53.490
of an incursion into physical space-time reality

01:13:53.490 --> 01:13:55.490
of little beings from other places

01:13:55.490 --> 01:13:57.490
that have come to do nasty things to people.

01:13:57.490 --> 01:14:00.490
That, oddly enough, it seems odd to me,

01:14:00.490 --> 01:14:02.490
seems to be the dominant view

01:14:02.490 --> 01:14:04.490
of American ufologists.

01:14:04.490 --> 01:14:05.490
I'm not a ufologist.

01:14:05.490 --> 01:14:07.490
As you say, I'm a psychologist.

01:14:07.490 --> 01:14:09.490
In Europe, I think the interpretation

01:14:09.490 --> 01:14:10.490
is quite different.

01:14:10.490 --> 01:14:12.490
I don't take these experiences as literal,

01:14:12.490 --> 01:14:14.490
but I take them as real

01:14:14.490 --> 01:14:16.490
within an alternate reality,

01:14:16.490 --> 01:14:19.490
within what Henri Corbin calls an imaginal realm.

01:14:19.490 --> 01:14:21.490
They're real enough, you know,

01:14:21.490 --> 01:14:22.490
people, for example,

01:14:22.490 --> 01:14:24.490
people who have near-death experiences

01:14:24.490 --> 01:14:25.490
will say things like,

01:14:25.490 --> 01:14:27.490
this experience was more real to me

01:14:27.490 --> 01:14:30.490
than you and I sitting here talking about it is real.

01:14:30.490 --> 01:14:32.490
It's more real than life itself.

01:14:32.490 --> 01:14:34.490
There is a reality to these experiences,

01:14:34.490 --> 01:14:36.490
but I think it's a profound mistake

01:14:36.490 --> 01:14:37.490
to think it's the same thing

01:14:37.490 --> 01:14:39.490
as space-time ordinary sensory world reality.

01:14:39.490 --> 01:14:41.490
So what you're saying is that

01:14:41.490 --> 01:14:43.490
these are symbolic constructs.

01:14:43.490 --> 01:14:44.490
Yes.

01:14:44.490 --> 01:14:46.490
There's a symbolic aspect to them.

01:14:46.490 --> 01:14:47.490
I think the important thing,

01:14:47.490 --> 01:14:48.490
you know,

01:14:48.490 --> 01:14:49.490
I think there are two attitudes

01:14:49.490 --> 01:14:51.490
toward the UFO question.

01:14:51.490 --> 01:14:52.490
It's a mystery,

01:14:52.490 --> 01:14:53.490
but there are two types of mysteries.

01:14:53.490 --> 01:14:55.490
There are mysteries like in detective stories

01:14:55.490 --> 01:14:57.490
that beg for some kind of solution

01:14:57.490 --> 01:14:58.490
and you only feel satisfaction

01:14:58.490 --> 01:15:00.490
when the solution at the end is revealed

01:15:00.490 --> 01:15:01.490
and all the reasons given.

01:15:01.490 --> 01:15:02.490
Then there are mysteries

01:15:02.490 --> 01:15:04.490
that are meant to be explored.

01:15:04.490 --> 01:15:05.490
True mysteries.

01:15:05.490 --> 01:15:06.490
Yes.

01:15:06.490 --> 01:15:07.490
True mysteries.

01:15:07.490 --> 01:15:09.490
And these mysteries beg for exploration,

01:15:09.490 --> 01:15:10.490
not for explanation,

01:15:10.490 --> 01:15:11.490
if I can put it that way.

01:15:11.490 --> 01:15:13.490
And the UFO seems to me,

01:15:13.490 --> 01:15:14.490
the UFO phenomenon

01:15:14.490 --> 01:15:16.490
is the second category of mysteries.

01:15:16.490 --> 01:15:17.490
That's why I personally

01:15:17.490 --> 01:15:18.490
and perhaps temperamentally

01:15:18.490 --> 01:15:20.490
I'm opposed to the idea

01:15:20.490 --> 01:15:21.490
of trying to package it

01:15:21.490 --> 01:15:23.490
as though it were something as simple

01:15:23.490 --> 01:15:24.490
as other beings,

01:15:24.490 --> 01:15:26.490
however amazing that would be in itself,

01:15:26.490 --> 01:15:28.490
other beings coming from other places

01:15:28.490 --> 01:15:30.490
in the galaxy to invade

01:15:30.490 --> 01:15:32.490
or to have some contact in human affairs.

01:15:32.490 --> 01:15:33.490
I think the mystery is likely

01:15:33.490 --> 01:15:35.490
to be much more profound than that.

01:15:35.490 --> 01:15:37.490
And another thing,

01:15:37.490 --> 01:15:38.490
if I may say that,

01:15:38.490 --> 01:15:39.490
I think hooks together

01:15:39.490 --> 01:15:40.490
the near-death experience

01:15:40.490 --> 01:15:42.490
with the UFO experience,

01:15:42.490 --> 01:15:44.490
whatever its basis may be,

01:15:44.490 --> 01:15:45.490
is when people come out

01:15:45.490 --> 01:15:46.490
of these experiences

01:15:46.490 --> 01:15:48.490
and have worked it through,

01:15:48.490 --> 01:15:50.490
they come to have a worldview

01:15:50.490 --> 01:15:52.490
that is very similar to one another

01:15:52.490 --> 01:15:53.490
and is very similar

01:15:53.490 --> 01:15:54.490
to what's being talked about

01:15:54.490 --> 01:15:56.490
all the time at this conference,

01:15:56.490 --> 01:15:58.490
and that's an ecological worldview.

01:15:58.490 --> 01:16:01.490
The heightening of ecological sensitivity,

01:16:01.490 --> 01:16:03.490
the increase of concern

01:16:03.490 --> 01:16:04.490
with the welfare of the planet

01:16:04.490 --> 01:16:07.490
is one thing that unites these two people,

01:16:07.490 --> 01:16:08.490
even though they have

01:16:08.490 --> 01:16:10.490
these very disparate experiences.

01:16:10.490 --> 01:16:11.490
What they say

01:16:11.490 --> 01:16:12.490
about what they've learned

01:16:12.490 --> 01:16:13.490
from these experiences,

01:16:13.490 --> 01:16:15.490
what the meaning of these experiences

01:16:15.490 --> 01:16:16.490
for them is,

01:16:16.490 --> 01:16:18.490
is that the fate of the Earth

01:16:18.490 --> 01:16:19.490
is in our hands

01:16:19.490 --> 01:16:20.490
and we'd better wake up

01:16:20.490 --> 01:16:22.490
to do something about it very quick.

01:16:22.490 --> 01:16:24.490
So I see these experiences

01:16:24.490 --> 01:16:26.490
perhaps being orchestrated by,

01:16:26.490 --> 01:16:28.490
I think this is similar to your view,

01:16:28.490 --> 01:16:29.490
perhaps a planetary mind,

01:16:29.490 --> 01:16:30.490
an overmind,

01:16:30.490 --> 01:16:32.490
a mind at large,

01:16:32.490 --> 01:16:33.490
which is in some sense

01:16:33.490 --> 01:16:36.490
the expression of our deepest yearnings

01:16:36.490 --> 01:16:38.490
and perhaps our deepest fears

01:16:38.490 --> 01:16:39.490
that are feeding back

01:16:39.490 --> 01:16:41.490
these kinds of experiences

01:16:41.490 --> 01:16:42.490
in the form of

01:16:42.490 --> 01:16:43.490
kind of archetypal experiences,

01:16:43.490 --> 01:16:45.490
archetypal images,

01:16:45.490 --> 01:16:46.490
so as to impress people

01:16:46.490 --> 01:16:48.490
who might not otherwise be impressed

01:16:48.490 --> 01:16:50.490
to take the kind of action necessary

01:16:50.490 --> 01:16:52.490
to correct the direction

01:16:52.490 --> 01:16:54.490
in which the Earth is heading.

01:16:54.490 --> 01:16:56.490
So it's a kind of confoundment.

01:16:56.490 --> 01:16:57.490
It is.

01:16:57.490 --> 01:17:00.490
Its purpose is to be inexplicable.

01:17:00.490 --> 01:17:01.490
Exactly.

01:17:01.490 --> 01:17:03.490
That's exactly how I conclude my book.

01:17:03.490 --> 01:17:05.490
I say the point of these experiences

01:17:05.490 --> 01:17:06.490
is to be baffled by them,

01:17:06.490 --> 01:17:09.490
almost as though they're a kind of a con

01:17:09.490 --> 01:17:11.490
that we're not meant to solve,

01:17:11.490 --> 01:17:13.490
but we're meant to kind of chew over

01:17:13.490 --> 01:17:15.490
until our rational mind cracks

01:17:15.490 --> 01:17:17.490
and we begin to think in entirely new ways

01:17:17.490 --> 01:17:19.490
and hopefully act in entirely new ways.

01:17:19.490 --> 01:17:22.490
So it's a way of keeping us from closure.

01:17:22.490 --> 01:17:23.490
Exactly.

01:17:23.490 --> 01:17:25.490
It's sort of a deconstruction phenomenon,

01:17:25.490 --> 01:17:26.490
you could even say.

01:17:26.490 --> 01:17:27.490
It's saying to us,

01:17:27.490 --> 01:17:29.490
the world is not so simple

01:17:29.490 --> 01:17:32.490
as you might choose to suppose.

01:17:32.490 --> 01:17:33.490
Exactly so.

01:17:33.490 --> 01:17:47.430
We're going to be talking

01:17:47.430 --> 01:17:49.430
with Rupert Sheldrake,

01:17:49.430 --> 01:17:51.430
one of Britain's most controversial

01:17:51.430 --> 01:17:53.430
natural scientists.

01:17:53.430 --> 01:17:55.430
Sheldrake is the proponent

01:17:55.430 --> 01:17:56.430
of a theory called

01:17:56.430 --> 01:17:58.430
Morphic Resonance.

01:17:58.430 --> 01:18:01.430
He believes that the presence of the past

01:18:01.430 --> 01:18:04.430
actually impinges on processes

01:18:04.430 --> 01:18:07.430
in the present and the future.

01:18:07.430 --> 01:18:08.430
In other words,

01:18:08.430 --> 01:18:10.430
our world is as it is

01:18:10.430 --> 01:18:13.430
because of how it once was.

01:18:13.430 --> 01:18:15.430
This is not a genetic theory,

01:18:15.430 --> 01:18:18.430
not a theory of natural selection,

01:18:18.430 --> 01:18:20.430
but a field theory

01:18:20.430 --> 01:18:23.430
which holds that actions

01:18:23.430 --> 01:18:25.430
and situations in the past

01:18:25.430 --> 01:18:27.430
are able through the mere act

01:18:27.430 --> 01:18:29.430
of having happened

01:18:29.430 --> 01:18:33.430
to shape future and present events.

01:18:36.430 --> 01:18:38.430
Rupert, this immense Baroque building

01:18:38.430 --> 01:18:41.430
is the Museum of Natural History in Prague

01:18:41.430 --> 01:18:43.430
and I wanted to bring you here

01:18:43.430 --> 01:18:44.430
because I thought it would be

01:18:44.430 --> 01:18:46.430
an appropriate place

01:18:46.430 --> 01:18:48.430
to discuss your ideas

01:18:48.430 --> 01:18:49.430
because after all,

01:18:49.430 --> 01:18:51.430
a museum is a kind of archive

01:18:51.430 --> 01:18:53.430
of morphology.

01:18:53.430 --> 01:18:54.430
Exactly.

01:18:54.430 --> 01:18:56.430
These stuffed animals and skeletons

01:18:56.430 --> 01:18:58.430
are like photographs,

01:18:58.430 --> 01:19:00.430
snapshots of forms frozen.

01:19:00.430 --> 01:19:02.430
But of course each animal behaves

01:19:02.430 --> 01:19:03.430
and moves.

01:19:03.430 --> 01:19:05.430
Each animal develops as an embryo

01:19:05.430 --> 01:19:06.430
to its adult form

01:19:06.430 --> 01:19:08.430
and each one evolves.

01:19:08.430 --> 01:19:10.430
So it's triply dynamic.

01:19:10.430 --> 01:19:13.430
We have to reconstruct that in our minds.

01:19:13.430 --> 01:19:15.430
But the whole thing really is

01:19:15.430 --> 01:19:16.430
a reflection, I think,

01:19:16.430 --> 01:19:19.430
of the memory behind each species.

01:19:19.430 --> 01:19:21.430
Each species is the repository

01:19:21.430 --> 01:19:23.430
of an entire process of memory.

01:19:23.430 --> 01:19:26.430
Well, now this is the part of your thinking

01:19:26.430 --> 01:19:30.430
which goes well beyond orthodox theoretical biology.

01:19:30.430 --> 01:19:32.430
Say a bit more about that.

01:19:32.430 --> 01:19:35.430
Well, the orthodox view is that

01:19:35.430 --> 01:19:37.430
all these amazing forms

01:19:37.430 --> 01:19:39.430
and all the behavior and instincts

01:19:39.430 --> 01:19:41.430
that the animals expressed

01:19:41.430 --> 01:19:43.430
were all coded in the chemical genes.

01:19:43.430 --> 01:19:45.430
So a materialist theory.

01:19:45.430 --> 01:19:47.430
That's a materialist theory.

01:19:47.430 --> 01:19:50.430
I think it goes far beyond that

01:19:50.430 --> 01:19:52.430
and involves a memory

01:19:52.430 --> 01:19:53.430
a memory of instincts,

01:19:53.430 --> 01:19:54.430
a memory of behavior,

01:19:54.430 --> 01:19:56.430
a memory of form.

01:19:56.430 --> 01:19:58.430
That is not materially based.

01:19:58.430 --> 01:20:00.430
Not materially based.

01:20:00.430 --> 01:20:01.430
A collective memory

01:20:01.430 --> 01:20:03.430
on which each species draws.

01:20:03.430 --> 01:20:04.430
So here we are

01:20:04.430 --> 01:20:06.430
in the hall of paleontology.

01:20:06.430 --> 01:20:08.430
This is sort of the archive

01:20:08.430 --> 01:20:10.430
of all these morphogenetic forms

01:20:10.430 --> 01:20:13.430
that have persisted through time.

01:20:13.430 --> 01:20:16.430
Can you say how your notions

01:20:16.430 --> 01:20:18.430
go beyond Darwinian

01:20:18.430 --> 01:20:21.430
and Mendelian genetics

01:20:21.430 --> 01:20:24.430
and evolutionary theory?

01:20:24.430 --> 01:20:27.430
Well, I agree with the conventional theory

01:20:27.430 --> 01:20:28.430
that there are genes

01:20:28.430 --> 01:20:30.430
that are important in inheritance.

01:20:30.430 --> 01:20:31.430
They give each organism

01:20:31.430 --> 01:20:33.430
the chemicals it needs.

01:20:33.430 --> 01:20:36.430
But as well as that,

01:20:36.430 --> 01:20:38.430
you see there's the morphic fields,

01:20:38.430 --> 01:20:40.430
the organizing fields of these forms.

01:20:40.430 --> 01:20:43.430
And the forms

01:20:43.430 --> 01:20:46.430
like we see in these shapes here

01:20:46.430 --> 01:20:48.430
are all determined by the fields.

01:20:48.430 --> 01:20:50.430
They determine the way organisms develop.

01:20:50.430 --> 01:20:53.430
These are all extinct types.

01:20:53.430 --> 01:20:56.430
And I would say that the memory

01:20:56.430 --> 01:20:58.430
is not only inherent in the species

01:20:58.430 --> 01:20:59.430
while they're alive.

01:20:59.430 --> 01:21:01.430
Even after they're dead,

01:21:01.430 --> 01:21:03.430
even after they're extinct,

01:21:03.430 --> 01:21:05.430
the world is still filled with,

01:21:05.430 --> 01:21:07.430
as it were, the ghosts of extinct species,

01:21:07.430 --> 01:21:10.430
memories of species that no longer exist.

01:21:10.430 --> 01:21:13.430
So the memories of evolution

01:21:13.430 --> 01:21:14.430
are cumulative.

01:21:14.430 --> 01:21:16.430
They build up.

01:21:16.430 --> 01:21:18.430
And sometimes we see

01:21:18.430 --> 01:21:20.430
in the course of evolution,

01:21:20.430 --> 01:21:23.430
extinct forms of shellfish, for example,

01:21:23.430 --> 01:21:26.430
come back again after 10, 20 million years.

01:21:26.430 --> 01:21:28.430
These are called evolutionary iterations,

01:21:28.430 --> 01:21:30.430
evolutionary repeats.

01:21:30.430 --> 01:21:33.430
And they're explained in terms of atavism,

01:21:33.430 --> 01:21:36.430
the recapturing of ancient memories.

01:21:36.430 --> 01:21:38.430
But in a sense, you're saying

01:21:38.430 --> 01:21:40.430
that after the species is extinct

01:21:40.430 --> 01:21:42.430
but the fossil form lives on,

01:21:42.430 --> 01:21:45.430
then it is somehow a catalyst

01:21:45.430 --> 01:21:48.430
to this recursion of form.

01:21:48.430 --> 01:21:49.430
There's an entire memory

01:21:49.430 --> 01:21:50.430
built into nature.

01:21:50.430 --> 01:21:51.430
The world is, as it were,

01:21:51.430 --> 01:21:54.430
haunted by the ghosts of extinct species.

01:21:54.430 --> 01:21:57.430
Each species is influenced by

01:21:57.430 --> 01:21:59.430
all the past members of its species,

01:21:59.430 --> 01:22:01.430
but behind that,

01:22:01.430 --> 01:22:03.430
all the forms that have gone before,

01:22:03.430 --> 01:22:04.430
which is why,

01:22:04.430 --> 01:22:06.430
in the course of embryonic development,

01:22:06.430 --> 01:22:10.430
we see echoes of the embryonic forms

01:22:10.430 --> 01:22:12.430
of remote ancestors,

01:22:12.430 --> 01:22:13.430
the way that we developed

01:22:13.430 --> 01:22:14.430
through a fish-like stage

01:22:14.430 --> 01:22:17.430
with gill slits and so on.

01:22:17.430 --> 01:22:19.430
But in a case like that,

01:22:19.430 --> 01:22:23.430
then how is it possible

01:22:23.430 --> 01:22:26.430
for new form to emerge at all?

01:22:26.430 --> 01:22:29.430
Well, this is where novelty comes in.

01:22:29.430 --> 01:22:31.430
Well, no one can account for novelty

01:22:31.430 --> 01:22:33.430
except perhaps yourself.

01:22:35.430 --> 01:22:37.430
To say that it's blind chance,

01:22:37.430 --> 01:22:38.430
as the conventional view,

01:22:38.430 --> 01:22:40.430
tells us very little, almost nothing.

01:22:40.430 --> 01:22:42.430
It's really just simply saying

01:22:42.430 --> 01:22:44.430
novelty is unintelligible.

01:22:44.430 --> 01:22:46.430
There are different ways of thinking of it.

01:22:46.430 --> 01:22:49.430
The founders of paleontology,

01:22:49.430 --> 01:22:50.430
like Cuvier,

01:22:50.430 --> 01:22:52.430
the great fossil pioneers,

01:22:52.430 --> 01:22:55.430
the pioneers of this kind of museum,

01:22:55.430 --> 01:22:57.430
had thought that they were all reflections

01:22:57.430 --> 01:22:59.430
of platonic archetypal forms,

01:22:59.430 --> 01:23:01.430
timeless forms.

01:23:03.430 --> 01:23:05.430
That wouldn't really explain creativity.

01:23:05.430 --> 01:23:09.430
It would simply say they were pre-existing forms

01:23:09.430 --> 01:23:11.430
that were merely manifested.

01:23:11.430 --> 01:23:13.430
Other people would think of creativity

01:23:13.430 --> 01:23:15.430
as going on as evolution proceeds.

01:23:15.430 --> 01:23:18.430
So a bird like this didn't exist at one time.

01:23:18.430 --> 01:23:20.430
Then, usually by a sudden jump,

01:23:20.430 --> 01:23:21.430
it would appear.

01:23:21.430 --> 01:23:23.430
And then, through repetition,

01:23:23.430 --> 01:23:25.430
would become increasingly habitual,

01:23:25.430 --> 01:23:26.430
then become extinct.

01:23:26.430 --> 01:23:28.430
And the potential habits,

01:23:28.430 --> 01:23:30.430
the memory would persist in nature,

01:23:30.430 --> 01:23:32.430
although it wouldn't be expressed.

01:23:32.430 --> 01:23:34.430
Well, tell me this.

01:23:34.430 --> 01:23:38.430
Do you think that a person holding this point of view

01:23:38.430 --> 01:23:41.430
has a license for more optimism

01:23:41.430 --> 01:23:43.430
than people who are trying to operate

01:23:43.430 --> 01:23:46.430
in the ordinary scientific paradigm?

01:23:46.430 --> 01:23:47.430
In other words,

01:23:47.430 --> 01:23:52.430
how does this idea reflect back into the dilemma

01:23:52.430 --> 01:23:54.430
of the human world

01:23:54.430 --> 01:23:57.430
here at the brink of the third millennium?

01:23:58.430 --> 01:24:01.430
Well, several ways.

01:24:01.430 --> 01:24:05.430
Firstly, this theory leaves the nature of creativity open.

01:24:05.430 --> 01:24:06.430
It may be blind chance,

01:24:06.430 --> 01:24:08.430
but it could be anything else as well.

01:24:08.430 --> 01:24:10.430
You know, there could be a directing intelligence.

01:24:10.430 --> 01:24:12.430
All we know is that new things appear.

01:24:12.430 --> 01:24:14.430
We don't know how they appear.

01:24:14.430 --> 01:24:17.430
Secondly, it tells us that

01:24:17.430 --> 01:24:19.430
habit is a very important principle in nature,

01:24:19.430 --> 01:24:21.430
and it makes us aware of the importance

01:24:21.430 --> 01:24:24.430
of our own habits, personal and cultural.

01:24:24.430 --> 01:24:26.430
But thirdly, the theory tells us

01:24:26.430 --> 01:24:28.430
that when new things happen,

01:24:28.430 --> 01:24:29.430
by morphic resonance,

01:24:29.430 --> 01:24:31.430
they can spread around the world

01:24:31.430 --> 01:24:32.430
much more quickly

01:24:32.430 --> 01:24:34.430
than they might otherwise be able to.

01:24:34.430 --> 01:24:37.430
And this could be a ground for optimism.

01:24:37.430 --> 01:24:39.430
It means that change can happen faster

01:24:39.430 --> 01:24:41.430
than we might otherwise believe.

01:24:41.430 --> 01:24:43.430
And change, fast change,

01:24:43.430 --> 01:24:45.430
seems to be very necessary

01:24:45.430 --> 01:24:46.430
if we're to survive.

01:24:46.430 --> 01:24:48.430
So what you're saying is

01:24:48.430 --> 01:24:50.430
we don't have to rely on mechanisms

01:24:50.430 --> 01:24:52.430
like cultural diffusion

01:24:52.430 --> 01:24:54.430
or direct communication.

01:24:54.430 --> 01:24:56.430
These new concepts,

01:24:56.430 --> 01:24:57.430
new paradigms,

01:24:57.430 --> 01:24:59.430
are in the air, as it were.

01:24:59.430 --> 01:25:00.430
Yes.

01:25:00.430 --> 01:25:01.430
And of course,

01:25:01.430 --> 01:25:03.430
we all know about modern telecommunications,

01:25:03.430 --> 01:25:05.430
you know, modern mass media.

01:25:05.430 --> 01:25:07.430
But morphic resonance means that new attitudes,

01:25:07.430 --> 01:25:09.430
new patterns of behavior

01:25:09.430 --> 01:25:11.430
can spread much quicker

01:25:11.430 --> 01:25:13.430
than one might otherwise have thought.

01:25:13.430 --> 01:25:15.430
Well, tell me this, then.

01:25:15.430 --> 01:25:19.430
How is the theory of morphic resonance doing?

01:25:19.430 --> 01:25:22.430
Is it behaving according to its own

01:25:22.430 --> 01:25:24.430
predicted trajectory,

01:25:24.430 --> 01:25:27.430
or is it meeting unexpected resistance?

01:25:27.430 --> 01:25:30.430
It's meeting expected resistance.

01:25:32.430 --> 01:25:33.430
I see.

01:25:33.430 --> 01:25:37.430
But the idea certainly seems to be catching on.

01:25:37.430 --> 01:25:39.430
I mean, there's a sense in which

01:25:39.430 --> 01:25:41.430
this idea of a kind of habit

01:25:41.430 --> 01:25:42.430
appeals to people.

01:25:42.430 --> 01:25:44.430
You know, people...

01:25:44.430 --> 01:25:45.430
It makes sense,

01:25:45.430 --> 01:25:47.430
the idea of a collective memory.

01:25:47.430 --> 01:25:48.430
The idea that what we learn

01:25:48.430 --> 01:25:50.430
is like a kind of remembering

01:25:50.430 --> 01:25:51.430
of what others have learned

01:25:51.430 --> 01:25:53.430
is intuitively plausible to me

01:25:53.430 --> 01:25:55.430
and to many other people.

01:25:55.430 --> 01:25:56.430
And I would say the...

01:25:56.430 --> 01:25:59.430
Certainly the idea is getting easier to explain

01:25:59.430 --> 01:26:01.430
than it was when I first thought of it.

01:26:01.430 --> 01:26:03.430
Well, I've heard it said

01:26:03.430 --> 01:26:05.430
that it very elegantly and neatly

01:26:05.430 --> 01:26:08.430
solves problems which are

01:26:08.430 --> 01:26:12.430
uninsoluble by any other means in biology.

01:26:12.430 --> 01:26:13.430
Could you just name

01:26:13.430 --> 01:26:15.430
a couple of these areas

01:26:15.430 --> 01:26:19.430
where it makes clarity out of chaos?

01:26:19.430 --> 01:26:20.430
Well, there are many.

01:26:20.430 --> 01:26:23.430
One is the development of form in embryos,

01:26:23.430 --> 01:26:25.430
the way that a bird like this

01:26:25.430 --> 01:26:27.430
could grow from an egg.

01:26:27.430 --> 01:26:30.430
And how any organism develops from an egg

01:26:30.430 --> 01:26:32.430
is a great mystery.

01:26:32.430 --> 01:26:34.430
And the idea of morphogenetic fields,

01:26:34.430 --> 01:26:35.430
form-shaping fields,

01:26:35.430 --> 01:26:37.430
is the basis of the whole theory.

01:26:37.430 --> 01:26:40.430
That's what I started from.

01:26:40.430 --> 01:26:42.430
And so it helps to explain

01:26:42.430 --> 01:26:44.430
the problem of form.

01:26:44.430 --> 01:26:45.430
It helps to explain

01:26:45.430 --> 01:26:48.430
the inheritance of instincts as well,

01:26:48.430 --> 01:26:49.430
how new patterns of behavior

01:26:49.430 --> 01:26:51.430
develop and spread.

01:26:51.430 --> 01:26:52.430
So these are two of the areas

01:26:52.430 --> 01:26:55.430
that it helps...

01:26:55.430 --> 01:26:59.430
So is it the non-material presupposition

01:26:59.430 --> 01:27:01.430
that makes it so difficult

01:27:01.430 --> 01:27:03.430
for orthodox science

01:27:03.430 --> 01:27:06.430
to accept this into its canon?

01:27:06.430 --> 01:27:08.430
Yes, it's the idea of

01:27:08.430 --> 01:27:11.430
a kind of non-material memory

01:27:11.430 --> 01:27:13.430
on which each member of the species draws

01:27:13.430 --> 01:27:16.430
and in turn to which it contributes.

01:27:16.430 --> 01:27:17.430
It's very like Jung's idea

01:27:17.430 --> 01:27:19.430
of the collective unconscious.

01:27:19.430 --> 01:27:21.430
This is an idea that's in one form

01:27:21.430 --> 01:27:24.430
familiar to people already.

01:27:24.430 --> 01:27:27.430
But because modern science is steeped

01:27:27.430 --> 01:27:31.430
in a kind of materialistic way of thinking,

01:27:31.430 --> 01:27:35.430
the idea that everything has to involve material

01:27:35.430 --> 01:27:37.430
and material transfer

01:27:37.430 --> 01:27:39.430
is very important for a lot of scientists.

01:27:39.430 --> 01:27:41.430
Of course, in the light of modern physics,

01:27:41.430 --> 01:27:43.430
it's a very old-fashioned idea.

01:27:43.430 --> 01:27:45.430
To get a television program

01:27:45.430 --> 01:27:47.430
from the transmitting station

01:27:47.430 --> 01:27:48.430
to the receiving set

01:27:48.430 --> 01:27:49.430
doesn't involve couriers

01:27:49.430 --> 01:27:52.430
carrying cans of videotape.

01:27:52.430 --> 01:27:55.430
It goes through as vibrations through a field.

01:27:55.430 --> 01:27:57.430
And I think that radio and television

01:27:57.430 --> 01:28:00.430
have broken us out in our everyday thinking

01:28:00.430 --> 01:28:03.430
from the 19th century materialistic paradigm

01:28:03.430 --> 01:28:06.430
because fields and vibratory connections

01:28:06.430 --> 01:28:07.430
through fields

01:28:07.430 --> 01:28:10.430
are now the stuff of everyday life.

01:28:10.430 --> 01:28:12.430
And the idea that all forms of information transfer

01:28:12.430 --> 01:28:13.430
have to involve material

01:28:13.430 --> 01:28:15.430
is no longer tenable.

01:28:15.430 --> 01:28:17.430
But many people's scientific thinking,

01:28:17.430 --> 01:28:19.430
including that of many scientists,

01:28:19.430 --> 01:28:23.430
is still locked into a kind of 19th century materialism.

01:28:23.430 --> 01:28:26.430
Well, probably because the theory of genetics

01:28:26.430 --> 01:28:28.430
has been so successful

01:28:28.430 --> 01:28:31.430
and it is a theory of material particles,

01:28:31.430 --> 01:28:33.430
it sounds as though biology

01:28:33.430 --> 01:28:37.430
has been dragging its feet somewhat behind physics

01:28:37.430 --> 01:28:39.430
in terms of its acceptance of fields

01:28:39.430 --> 01:28:41.430
and its acceptance of field theory.

01:28:41.430 --> 01:28:44.430
Well, modern neo-Darwinian theory

01:28:44.430 --> 01:28:48.430
is based on the discoveries of geneticists in the 1910s

01:28:48.430 --> 01:28:51.430
and following Mendel in the 1850s and 60s.

01:28:51.430 --> 01:28:55.430
And it's based on old-style atomistic particulate theory.

01:28:55.430 --> 01:28:57.430
The whole basic way of thinking

01:28:57.430 --> 01:29:00.430
was formed long before quantum theory came into being.

01:29:00.430 --> 01:29:02.430
It takes almost no account

01:29:02.430 --> 01:29:04.430
of modern developments in physics.

01:29:04.430 --> 01:29:07.430
It takes almost no account of modern cosmology.

01:29:07.430 --> 01:29:09.430
The idea that the laws of nature

01:29:09.430 --> 01:29:11.430
could evolve along with the cosmos.

01:29:11.430 --> 01:29:15.430
It's locked into an earlier form of classical physics.

01:29:15.430 --> 01:29:17.430
And I think that what I'm suggesting

01:29:17.430 --> 01:29:19.430
is much more in accordance

01:29:19.430 --> 01:29:22.430
with the modern spirit of physics.

01:29:22.430 --> 01:29:24.430
Whereas most of biology is still an attempt

01:29:24.430 --> 01:29:27.430
to reduce the phenomena of life to high school physics,

01:29:27.430 --> 01:29:29.430
which is essentially classical physics

01:29:29.430 --> 01:29:31.430
of the 19th century time.

01:29:31.430 --> 01:29:33.430
Well, essentially you're attempting

01:29:33.430 --> 01:29:35.430
to go beyond reductionism, it sounds.

01:29:35.430 --> 01:29:37.430
Yes, I think so.

01:29:37.430 --> 01:29:39.430
And what are your expectations

01:29:39.430 --> 01:29:41.430
for success?

01:29:41.430 --> 01:29:42.430
In other words,

01:29:42.430 --> 01:29:44.430
are there experimental strategies

01:29:44.430 --> 01:29:47.430
which are supporting this point of view?

01:29:47.430 --> 01:29:49.430
Or is it largely theory?

01:29:49.430 --> 01:29:51.430
Where do you stand with it?

01:29:51.430 --> 01:29:53.430
Well, experiments are going on

01:29:53.430 --> 01:29:55.430
in the realm of morphic resonance,

01:29:55.430 --> 01:29:58.430
principally in the realm of behavior at the moment.

01:29:58.430 --> 01:30:00.430
Animal behavior, human behavior.

01:30:00.430 --> 01:30:02.430
But the theory applies to crystals

01:30:02.430 --> 01:30:05.430
as well as to plants and animals.

01:30:05.430 --> 01:30:07.430
And chemical tests

01:30:07.430 --> 01:30:09.430
are some of the most potential

01:30:09.430 --> 01:30:11.430
and potentially exciting.

01:30:11.430 --> 01:30:13.430
I'm doing some work on crystal forms

01:30:13.430 --> 01:30:15.430
and crystal phenomena.

01:30:15.430 --> 01:30:18.430
The main experiments there in the human realm,

01:30:18.430 --> 01:30:20.430
so far they've been very encouraging.

01:30:20.430 --> 01:30:22.430
They suggest that people can learn more quickly

01:30:22.430 --> 01:30:24.430
what others have already learned.

01:30:24.430 --> 01:30:26.430
And that's also the area where

01:30:26.430 --> 01:30:29.430
the theory could be most immediately applied.

01:30:29.430 --> 01:30:31.430
For example, in education.

01:30:31.430 --> 01:30:33.430
Well, the theory seems to imply

01:30:33.430 --> 01:30:36.430
that its own correctness depends largely

01:30:36.430 --> 01:30:39.430
on its being heard and repeated.

01:30:39.430 --> 01:30:41.430
Well, the theory implies

01:30:41.430 --> 01:30:43.430
that the more it's heard and repeated,

01:30:43.430 --> 01:30:45.430
the easier it will be for people

01:30:45.430 --> 01:30:47.430
to grasp the theory,

01:30:47.430 --> 01:30:49.430
to understand it.

01:30:49.430 --> 01:30:51.430
Yes, that's true.

01:30:51.430 --> 01:30:53.430
And so it seems to be.

01:30:53.430 --> 01:30:55.430
So it seems to be.

01:30:55.430 --> 01:31:03.030
We're in Prague's Museum of Natural History

01:31:03.030 --> 01:31:06.030
talking with Jill Purse of London, England.

01:31:06.030 --> 01:31:11.030
Jill is an expert in Mongolian overtonal chanting.

01:31:11.030 --> 01:31:15.030
So, Jill, tell me something about your work.

01:31:15.030 --> 01:31:17.030
What I'm trying to...

01:31:17.030 --> 01:31:19.030
I like to think that to re-enchant

01:31:19.030 --> 01:31:21.030
means to make magical through chanting.

01:31:21.030 --> 01:31:23.030
And what has happened to our society

01:31:23.030 --> 01:31:25.030
is we've become disenchanted,

01:31:25.030 --> 01:31:27.030
which literally means that we've stopped chanting.

01:31:27.030 --> 01:31:29.030
And this has been a gradual process

01:31:29.030 --> 01:31:31.030
in what we call the developed Western society.

01:31:31.030 --> 01:31:33.030
The more developed our society,

01:31:33.030 --> 01:31:35.030
the less we chant and sing.

01:31:35.030 --> 01:31:37.030
And chanting is a very powerful way of healing

01:31:37.030 --> 01:31:39.030
and a way of tuning ourselves with ourselves,

01:31:39.030 --> 01:31:41.030
with our environment, with our family,

01:31:41.030 --> 01:31:44.030
with the sacred place, with the sacred time,

01:31:44.030 --> 01:31:47.030
keeping us in tune with all our environment and with God.

01:31:47.030 --> 01:31:49.030
And we stopped doing that.

01:31:49.030 --> 01:31:51.030
We started to stop doing that

01:31:51.030 --> 01:31:53.030
when we stopped believing in God,

01:31:53.030 --> 01:31:56.030
when we started measuring things in the 17th century.

01:31:56.030 --> 01:31:58.030
And we found that it was...

01:31:58.030 --> 01:32:00.030
It felt better and we felt we had more control

01:32:00.030 --> 01:32:02.030
by measuring than we did by chanting

01:32:02.030 --> 01:32:04.030
and by praising God,

01:32:04.030 --> 01:32:06.030
by petitioning God,

01:32:06.030 --> 01:32:08.030
and by participating with God,

01:32:08.030 --> 01:32:10.030
which are the three ways that we've always

01:32:10.030 --> 01:32:12.030
made a reciprocal relationship

01:32:12.030 --> 01:32:14.030
with he or she

01:32:14.030 --> 01:32:17.030
who seem to be in control of our life and destiny.

01:32:17.030 --> 01:32:19.030
And when we stopped doing that,

01:32:19.030 --> 01:32:22.030
we stopped doing that because we felt that counting

01:32:22.030 --> 01:32:24.030
gave us a greater sense of control of our environment

01:32:24.030 --> 01:32:26.030
and meant that we ourselves

01:32:26.030 --> 01:32:28.030
had a greater chance of survival.

01:32:28.030 --> 01:32:33.030
But why this particular central Asian shamanic approach to it?

01:32:33.030 --> 01:32:36.030
Well, what's happened now is that we've come back...

01:32:36.030 --> 01:32:38.030
What we've found is that science,

01:32:38.030 --> 01:32:39.030
since the 17th century,

01:32:39.030 --> 01:32:41.030
the development of science and the direction of science

01:32:41.030 --> 01:32:43.030
has, quite apart from...

01:32:43.030 --> 01:32:46.030
quite far from giving us the control

01:32:46.030 --> 01:32:47.030
that we thought it was,

01:32:47.030 --> 01:32:50.030
it's led us in an unprecedented way

01:32:50.030 --> 01:32:53.030
to be, and only through science,

01:32:53.030 --> 01:32:56.030
to be less in control of our environment

01:32:56.030 --> 01:32:58.030
than ever anyone has ever been.

01:32:58.030 --> 01:33:01.030
We have never been in such a dangerous situation.

01:33:01.030 --> 01:33:02.030
We have never been so vulnerable.

01:33:02.030 --> 01:33:04.030
And this is entirely because of science.

01:33:04.030 --> 01:33:07.030
And so all the control that we thought we were gaining

01:33:07.030 --> 01:33:10.030
has actually turned out to be quite the reverse.

01:33:10.030 --> 01:33:12.030
And so we are completely out of control.

01:33:12.030 --> 01:33:14.030
And so we again have to find out how do we do it.

01:33:14.030 --> 01:33:17.030
If science has failed, what other ways may succeed?

01:33:17.030 --> 01:33:19.030
What other ways can we again create

01:33:19.030 --> 01:33:23.030
a reciprocal relationship with this great and powerful force?

01:33:23.030 --> 01:33:25.030
And so we have to look at the old traditions

01:33:25.030 --> 01:33:28.030
and do we go back to being good Christians,

01:33:28.030 --> 01:33:32.030
good Hindus, good Muslims, good Jews,

01:33:32.030 --> 01:33:36.030
or do we try and, if we're a Hindu, become a Muslim,

01:33:36.030 --> 01:33:38.030
if we're a Buddhist, become a Christian,

01:33:38.030 --> 01:33:39.030
if we're a Christian, become a...

01:33:39.030 --> 01:33:41.030
Or do we try and reinvent it all?

01:33:41.030 --> 01:33:44.030
The problem really is what song do we sing?

01:33:44.030 --> 01:33:48.030
And so what I've tried to do is to find a way of chanting

01:33:48.030 --> 01:33:49.030
which is deeply cultural.

01:33:49.030 --> 01:33:52.030
It comes from Central Asia, and in particular, Mongolia.

01:33:52.030 --> 01:33:56.030
But what I think is so extraordinary about this way of chanting

01:33:56.030 --> 01:33:59.030
is that it deals with sound, with the harmonics of sound,

01:33:59.030 --> 01:34:03.030
which is a way not of culturally dividing the octave,

01:34:03.030 --> 01:34:08.030
which is what all other forms of music have as their central core,

01:34:08.030 --> 01:34:10.030
which is that if you divide the octave, this is a cultural affair.

01:34:10.030 --> 01:34:11.030
How do you divide it?

01:34:11.030 --> 01:34:12.030
How do you do it?

01:34:12.030 --> 01:34:14.030
It differs whether you're Indian or whether you're Western.

01:34:14.030 --> 01:34:18.030
But what this is based on is based on the harmonic series,

01:34:18.030 --> 01:34:22.030
which is simply a way of making our own geometry audible.

01:34:22.030 --> 01:34:26.030
It's a way of allowing us to hear, in a sonorous way, our own structure.

01:34:26.030 --> 01:34:28.030
And this is a profound recognition.

01:34:28.030 --> 01:34:32.030
It's a profound remembering, because we are hearing what we are.

01:34:32.030 --> 01:34:37.030
So it's a kind of organic music or organic sound.

01:34:37.030 --> 01:34:38.030
Absolutely.

01:34:38.030 --> 01:34:40.030
It's the most organic sound,

01:34:40.030 --> 01:34:43.030
and we're making audible our biology.

01:34:43.030 --> 01:34:47.030
Well, I brought you here to this wonderful Baroque room

01:34:47.030 --> 01:34:53.030
because I was hoping that perhaps you would honor us with an example of this,

01:34:53.030 --> 01:34:56.030
since I'm sure it's easier to hear than to describe.

01:34:56.030 --> 01:34:57.030
Yes.

01:34:57.030 --> 01:34:58.030
Do you think you're up for that?

01:34:58.030 --> 01:34:59.030
Yes.

01:34:59.030 --> 01:35:00.030
Okay, my dear.

01:35:00.030 --> 01:35:14.190
Please, have a go at it.

01:35:14.190 --> 01:37:06.430
A transplanted Yorkshireman lives in Washington State, USA.

01:37:06.430 --> 01:37:07.430
He is a published poet

01:37:07.430 --> 01:37:11.430
and a performer of his own poetry and the poetry of others.

01:37:11.430 --> 01:37:16.430
His work reflects a special sensitivity to the ecological crisis

01:37:16.430 --> 01:37:20.430
and the problem of a burgeoning planetary population.

01:37:20.430 --> 01:37:34.710
You mentioned this concept, the ecological imagination.

01:37:34.710 --> 01:37:35.710
Yes.

01:37:35.710 --> 01:37:38.710
So obviously this is sort of the distillate for you.

01:37:38.710 --> 01:37:39.710
Yes.

01:37:39.710 --> 01:37:40.710
Some of your thinking.

01:37:40.710 --> 01:37:41.710
Yes.

01:37:41.710 --> 01:37:42.710
So say something about it.

01:37:42.710 --> 01:37:43.710
What is it exactly?

01:37:43.710 --> 01:37:45.710
Well, it's an imagination where the image itself

01:37:45.710 --> 01:37:50.710
has many different realities constellated within it.

01:37:50.710 --> 01:37:53.710
It isn't an image that you're trying to impose on the world.

01:37:53.710 --> 01:37:56.710
It's an image that's received after you've remained quiet

01:37:56.710 --> 01:38:00.710
and you're willing to pay attention to the miracle of creation as it is.

01:38:00.710 --> 01:38:04.710
Now, that miracle may take the form of despair and alienation

01:38:04.710 --> 01:38:07.710
as it has over the last 60 years, but you pay attention to it.

01:38:07.710 --> 01:38:10.710
You know, we live in a monocultural society

01:38:10.710 --> 01:38:13.710
where you plant wheat in one field

01:38:13.710 --> 01:38:15.710
and you spray down on either side,

01:38:15.710 --> 01:38:17.710
and you get one crop.

01:38:17.710 --> 01:38:21.710
And the soil, which comes from the same root as the word soul,

01:38:21.710 --> 01:38:22.710
suffers as a result.

01:38:22.710 --> 01:38:25.710
You know, in the eastern Palouse of Washington State,

01:38:25.710 --> 01:38:28.710
they've lost 25 to 50 feet of topsoil

01:38:28.710 --> 01:38:32.710
through intensive mining, almost mining agriculture.

01:38:32.710 --> 01:38:35.710
You know, here we are in the botanic gardens in Prague

01:38:35.710 --> 01:38:38.710
where plants have been brought from all over the world.

01:38:38.710 --> 01:38:42.710
In some ways, it's a wish by humanity to recreate the beauty

01:38:42.710 --> 01:38:45.710
and imagination of the rainforest.

01:38:45.710 --> 01:38:50.710
Or of an ecology where things fit together exquisitely.

01:38:50.710 --> 01:38:53.710
And we have this inside us.

01:38:53.710 --> 01:38:57.710
We have this patterning, this understanding

01:38:57.710 --> 01:39:00.710
that the world fits together absolutely exquisitely

01:39:00.710 --> 01:39:03.710
and we have a possibility of fitting together, too.

01:39:03.710 --> 01:39:06.710
So the poet remains silent, looks out at the world,

01:39:06.710 --> 01:39:08.710
receives all the images that come in

01:39:08.710 --> 01:39:11.710
and tries to say the one word that represents the whole ecology

01:39:11.710 --> 01:39:13.710
of everything that is received.

01:39:13.710 --> 01:39:18.710
And hopefully will give birth to that world in the word, in the line.

01:39:18.710 --> 01:39:23.710
This suggests somehow that the word is made flesh.

01:39:23.710 --> 01:39:27.710
Or in your metaphor, the flesh is made word.

01:39:27.710 --> 01:39:30.710
Yes, or the word is made ecology.

01:39:30.710 --> 01:39:32.710
The word is made ecology.

01:39:32.710 --> 01:39:35.710
Well, so this is an aesthetic of nature,

01:39:35.710 --> 01:39:38.710
almost Emersonian in its scope.

01:39:38.710 --> 01:39:41.710
This is a far cry from futurism

01:39:41.710 --> 01:39:43.710
or the glorification of nature.

01:39:43.710 --> 01:39:48.710
The technological that a lot of 20th century poetics has been about.

01:39:48.710 --> 01:39:49.710
Yes.

01:39:49.710 --> 01:39:54.710
Do you see yourself as a part of a conservative impulse in poetry

01:39:54.710 --> 01:39:57.710
or a reforming impulse?

01:39:57.710 --> 01:39:59.710
How does that work?

01:39:59.710 --> 01:40:01.710
No, I don't see it as being conservative.

01:40:01.710 --> 01:40:07.710
It may be looked at that way from the areas of art

01:40:07.710 --> 01:40:10.710
which say Andy Warhol inhabited

01:40:10.710 --> 01:40:12.710
where the whole emphasis was on the latest wave.

01:40:12.710 --> 01:40:15.710
The latest wave that was breaking on the shore.

01:40:15.710 --> 01:40:16.710
Fashion.

01:40:16.710 --> 01:40:17.710
Yes, fashion.

01:40:17.710 --> 01:40:19.710
And the whole sea that was behind each wave

01:40:19.710 --> 01:40:21.710
as it came upon the shore was ignored.

01:40:21.710 --> 01:40:24.710
And so I think what there is now is a resting back,

01:40:24.710 --> 01:40:29.710
a swimming out, a diving down into that sea

01:40:29.710 --> 01:40:31.710
to reestablish our eldership.

01:40:31.710 --> 01:40:33.710
I think much of what's happening in the 20th century

01:40:33.710 --> 01:40:35.710
is a reestablishment of eldership.

01:40:35.710 --> 01:40:37.710
I mean, here we are in Prague.

01:40:37.710 --> 01:40:40.710
Prague has been asleep almost like Rip Van Winkle

01:40:40.710 --> 01:40:42.710
for the last 40 years.

01:40:42.710 --> 01:40:45.710
Anyway, 40 years, possibly longer.

01:40:45.710 --> 01:40:46.710
And it's awaking again.

01:40:46.710 --> 01:40:47.710
It's awaking.

01:40:47.710 --> 01:40:50.710
And there's so much awaking in the world today.

01:40:50.710 --> 01:40:53.710
And I think poetry has always been the art

01:40:53.710 --> 01:40:56.710
where you remind people of what life is about

01:40:56.710 --> 01:40:58.710
and what is essential to it

01:40:58.710 --> 01:41:01.710
and what, as Pericles said,

01:41:01.710 --> 01:41:04.710
what is sweet and what is terrible about life,

01:41:04.710 --> 01:41:06.710
that you have to know both those things.

01:41:06.710 --> 01:41:08.710
And the poet ignores neither.

01:41:08.710 --> 01:41:10.710
So hopefully it's not the kind of conservatism

01:41:10.710 --> 01:41:12.710
where you're trying to go back to some identity

01:41:12.710 --> 01:41:15.710
or some hygienic Rousseauistic past

01:41:15.710 --> 01:41:17.710
where everyone can gather under one oak tree

01:41:17.710 --> 01:41:19.710
and discuss the problems of the village.

01:41:19.710 --> 01:41:24.710
That's never going to happen.

01:41:24.710 --> 01:41:27.710
But the poet neither, he does not hide

01:41:27.710 --> 01:41:30.710
or she does not hide the beauty of life

01:41:30.710 --> 01:41:32.710
and does not hide the alienation.

01:41:32.710 --> 01:41:34.710
You know, this century we've had tremendous emphasis

01:41:34.710 --> 01:41:37.710
on looking into the cracked mirror of alienation

01:41:37.710 --> 01:41:40.710
and saying, look at where we are.

01:41:40.710 --> 01:41:43.710
And the wasteland was all about that.

01:41:43.710 --> 01:41:45.710
But there's another side to it, too.

01:41:45.710 --> 01:41:47.710
You can only do that for so long,

01:41:47.710 --> 01:41:49.710
otherwise you have no more impetus to go on.

01:41:49.710 --> 01:41:50.710
But there has to be...

01:41:50.710 --> 01:41:51.710
Here, let's go up here.

01:41:51.710 --> 01:41:53.710
There has to be some kind of healing.

01:41:53.710 --> 01:42:00.710
There can only be so much of this existential angst and...

01:42:00.710 --> 01:42:03.710
Well, you see, Sartre, he came up to a tree, you said,

01:42:03.710 --> 01:42:06.710
and he put his finger on the tree and he said,

01:42:06.710 --> 01:42:09.710
life is absurd because I cannot understand that tree,

01:42:09.710 --> 01:42:13.710
I cannot become, I cannot get my soul into that tree.

01:42:13.710 --> 01:42:16.710
Well, the Zen patriarchs have been talking about this

01:42:16.710 --> 01:42:18.710
for 1,500 years.

01:42:18.710 --> 01:42:22.710
And you weren't supposed to get your consciousness into the tree.

01:42:22.710 --> 01:42:25.710
You were supposed to pay such tremendous attention to the tree

01:42:25.710 --> 01:42:27.710
that it came to find you.

01:42:27.710 --> 01:42:30.710
Yes, Sartre said nature is mute,

01:42:30.710 --> 01:42:34.710
which is to me one of the most amazing statements

01:42:34.710 --> 01:42:37.710
any 20th century philosopher has made

01:42:37.710 --> 01:42:39.710
in terms of defining

01:42:39.710 --> 01:42:40.710
alienation.

01:42:40.710 --> 01:42:42.710
I think that would have to be it.

01:42:42.710 --> 01:42:44.710
Well, I don't think the French have been very successful

01:42:44.710 --> 01:42:47.710
with their philosophers over 350 years.

01:42:47.710 --> 01:42:53.710
Well, they are welded to materialism.

01:42:53.710 --> 01:42:57.710
Well, so at this conference there's been a lot of talk about hope.

01:42:57.710 --> 01:43:00.710
Where do the poets come down?

01:43:00.710 --> 01:43:05.710
Are you singing a funeral dirge for a world passing away

01:43:05.710 --> 01:43:09.710
or is this the bright birth of the new young prince?

01:43:09.710 --> 01:43:14.710
Well, hopefully neither in some ways

01:43:14.710 --> 01:43:18.710
because you simply have to speak life as it is.

01:43:18.710 --> 01:43:20.710
So at this time we're speaking tremendous change.

01:43:20.710 --> 01:43:23.710
We're speaking the stakes are very high.

01:43:23.710 --> 01:43:24.710
You can fail in life.

01:43:24.710 --> 01:43:27.710
An individual human being can fail in life.

01:43:27.710 --> 01:43:29.710
A species can fail in life.

01:43:29.710 --> 01:43:32.710
I mean, in some ways we always live out our destiny

01:43:32.710 --> 01:43:34.710
no matter what we do.

01:43:34.710 --> 01:43:36.710
It just depends what level you want to live out that destiny.

01:43:36.710 --> 01:43:38.710
Do you want to live out your destiny on the level of frustration?

01:43:38.710 --> 01:43:40.710
Yes, you can do that.

01:43:40.710 --> 01:43:42.710
Or do you want to step further and deeper into it?

01:43:42.710 --> 01:43:45.710
So poetry always says the stakes are very high

01:43:45.710 --> 01:43:49.710
and it relies on the fact that life itself is magnificent.

01:43:49.710 --> 01:43:52.710
You speak about the magnificence of life

01:43:52.710 --> 01:43:54.710
not in a Pollyannish sense

01:43:54.710 --> 01:43:56.710
or in a sense in which you're going to ignore

01:43:56.710 --> 01:43:59.710
all the difficulties and terrible beauties of life

01:43:59.710 --> 01:44:03.710
but in the sense that it's magnificent because you can fail at it.

01:44:03.710 --> 01:44:05.710
And we as a species can fail.

01:44:05.710 --> 01:44:07.710
So the hope of the poet is that you can

01:44:08.710 --> 01:44:10.710
speak to the magnificence of life

01:44:10.710 --> 01:44:12.710
such that people will be reminded

01:44:12.710 --> 01:44:14.710
that life is magnificent

01:44:14.710 --> 01:44:16.710
and you can fail at it

01:44:16.710 --> 01:44:18.710
and the stakes are very, very high.

01:44:18.710 --> 01:44:20.710
The stakes are your life.

01:44:20.710 --> 01:44:23.710
So that's almost a bardic manifesto.

01:44:23.710 --> 01:44:27.710
Do you feel moved to speak some poetry?

01:44:27.710 --> 01:44:29.710
Will move from talking about poetry

01:44:29.710 --> 01:44:31.710
to speaking poetry?

01:44:31.710 --> 01:44:32.710
Yes.

01:44:32.710 --> 01:44:34.710
Well, we spoke about the tree earlier

01:44:34.710 --> 01:44:36.710
and having the world come and find you.

01:44:36.710 --> 01:44:37.710
And...

01:44:38.710 --> 01:44:40.710
I'm reminded of a very simple poem.

01:44:40.710 --> 01:44:42.710
This is a very powerful poem for me.

01:44:42.710 --> 01:44:44.710
It's a teaching story actually

01:44:44.710 --> 01:44:47.710
out of the Northwest Indian tradition

01:44:47.710 --> 01:44:52.710
where the story is there to tell a young boy or girl

01:44:52.710 --> 01:44:55.710
what to do when they're lost in the forest

01:44:55.710 --> 01:44:57.710
or to answer the question.

01:44:57.710 --> 01:44:59.710
You know, when the young boy or girl asks the question

01:44:59.710 --> 01:45:00.710
what do I do when I'm lost in the forest?

01:45:00.710 --> 01:45:02.710
The elder tells the story.

01:45:02.710 --> 01:45:04.710
It's been rendered into marvelous modern English

01:45:04.710 --> 01:45:05.710
by David Waggoner

01:45:05.710 --> 01:45:07.710
who has the chair of poetry at the University of Washington.

01:45:08.710 --> 01:45:11.710
In the Northwest United States.

01:45:11.710 --> 01:45:14.710
And it's a very simple poem called Lost.

01:45:14.710 --> 01:45:16.710
And here it says...

01:45:16.710 --> 01:45:18.710
It says take the burden off your shoulders basically.

01:45:18.710 --> 01:45:20.710
The story only says so.

01:45:20.710 --> 01:45:22.710
The young boy or girl says to the elder

01:45:22.710 --> 01:45:24.710
what do I do when I'm lost in the forest?

01:45:24.710 --> 01:45:26.710
And the elder says stand still.

01:45:26.710 --> 01:45:30.710
The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost.

01:45:30.710 --> 01:45:32.710
Stand still.

01:45:32.710 --> 01:45:34.710
The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost.

01:45:34.710 --> 01:45:37.710
Wherever you are is called here.

01:45:37.710 --> 01:45:40.710
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger

01:45:40.710 --> 01:45:42.710
must ask permission to know it and be known.

01:45:42.710 --> 01:45:43.710
Listen.

01:45:43.710 --> 01:45:44.710
Listen.

01:45:44.710 --> 01:45:45.710
The forest breathes.

01:45:45.710 --> 01:45:48.710
It whispers I have made this place around you.

01:45:48.710 --> 01:45:51.710
If you leave it you may come back again saying here.

01:45:51.710 --> 01:45:52.710
Saying here.

01:45:52.710 --> 01:45:54.710
If you leave it you may come back again saying here.

01:45:54.710 --> 01:45:56.710
No two trees are the same to raven.

01:45:56.710 --> 01:45:59.710
No two branches are the same to ram.

01:45:59.710 --> 01:46:02.710
If what a tree or a branch does is lost on you

01:46:02.710 --> 01:46:04.710
then you are surely lost.

01:46:04.710 --> 01:46:06.710
If what a tree or a branch does is lost on you

01:46:06.710 --> 01:46:08.710
then you are surely lost.

01:46:08.710 --> 01:46:09.710
Stand still.

01:46:09.710 --> 01:46:11.710
The forest knows where you are.

01:46:11.710 --> 01:46:14.710
You must let it find you.

01:46:14.710 --> 01:46:22.420
Alexander Shulgin, Sasha to his friends,

01:46:22.420 --> 01:46:27.420
is nothing less than the godfather of psychopharmacology,

01:46:27.420 --> 01:46:31.420
an expert on the cyclicized phenylethylamines,

01:46:31.420 --> 01:46:38.420
that is, psychoactive compounds useful in the emotional recovery of traumatic events.

01:46:38.420 --> 01:46:40.420
Shulgin has given his life

01:46:40.420 --> 01:46:44.420
to the study of the pharmacology of the psychedelic experience.

01:46:44.420 --> 01:46:46.420
In Prague, he told me,

01:46:46.420 --> 01:46:49.420
greater frontiers lie ahead.

01:46:49.420 --> 01:46:53.420
The next lost continent to be explored by Alexander Shulgin,

01:46:53.420 --> 01:46:56.420
the psychoactive tryptamines.

01:46:56.420 --> 01:46:59.420
Sasha suggested that I join him

01:46:59.420 --> 01:47:02.420
for a stroll among the graves

01:47:02.420 --> 01:47:06.420
of the cemetery of the Jewish ghetto of Prague,

01:47:06.420 --> 01:47:09.420
Europe's oldest ghetto.

01:47:09.420 --> 01:47:12.420
There, walking among the stones,

01:47:12.420 --> 01:47:16.420
we reminisced and speculated about the history

01:47:16.420 --> 01:47:19.420
and the future of psychopharmacology.

01:47:19.420 --> 01:47:24.700
What do you make of your Russian colleagues here?

01:47:24.700 --> 01:47:26.700
I'm fascinated by what he's doing

01:47:26.700 --> 01:47:29.700
and I'm intrigued by his ability

01:47:29.700 --> 01:47:32.700
to get out what he is doing into the West

01:47:32.700 --> 01:47:34.700
because the status of a physician in Russia

01:47:34.700 --> 01:47:37.700
is not what we have come to respect in the West.

01:47:37.700 --> 01:47:39.700
You're talking about Yevgeny Kropensky?

01:47:39.700 --> 01:47:42.700
I imagine you don't view ketamine with...

01:47:42.700 --> 01:47:44.700
Well, how do you view ketamine?

01:47:44.700 --> 01:47:47.700
It's an anesthetic

01:47:47.700 --> 01:47:49.700
and it's a dissociative thing

01:47:49.700 --> 01:47:51.700
and it puts me out of body.

01:47:51.700 --> 01:47:52.700
It's very dissociative.

01:47:52.700 --> 01:47:54.700
It puts me out of mind.

01:47:54.700 --> 01:47:55.700
Just you're away

01:47:55.700 --> 01:47:58.700
and I, frankly, with a full bladder like being here.

01:47:58.700 --> 01:48:02.700
And you suddenly realize that someone has a full bladder

01:48:02.700 --> 01:48:05.700
and at only one intellectual level you realize it's you.

01:48:05.700 --> 01:48:06.700
Yes.

01:48:06.700 --> 01:48:08.700
No, it's so subtle.

01:48:09.700 --> 01:48:11.700
It seriously disassociated me

01:48:11.700 --> 01:48:13.700
that I felt it was a great victory

01:48:13.700 --> 01:48:17.700
when I finally realized that this was a drug.

01:48:17.700 --> 01:48:20.700
For a long time I couldn't figure out what it was

01:48:20.700 --> 01:48:23.700
or who was even asking the question.

01:48:23.700 --> 01:48:25.700
They kept calling it vitamin K

01:48:25.700 --> 01:48:27.700
which is a fascinating euphemism

01:48:27.700 --> 01:48:30.700
for allowing it to have some semblance of a food-addictive

01:48:30.700 --> 01:48:32.700
or a dietary supplement.

01:48:32.700 --> 01:48:35.700
But I had the interesting pleasure of being

01:48:35.700 --> 01:48:38.700
back at a big company in the East.

01:48:38.700 --> 01:48:41.700
The day they had bought the rights to distribute ketamine.

01:48:41.700 --> 01:48:42.700
And I informed them,

01:48:42.700 --> 01:48:45.700
you do realize that ketamine is being made by Park Davis

01:48:45.700 --> 01:48:47.700
and shipped off to Mexico

01:48:47.700 --> 01:48:50.700
and it's imported in gallon, not gallon, but liter bottles

01:48:50.700 --> 01:48:52.700
all with a percentage of preservatives

01:48:52.700 --> 01:48:55.700
and comes right back into California in the trunk of the car.

01:48:55.700 --> 01:48:57.700
And they were shocked.

01:48:57.700 --> 01:48:59.700
They did not know there was any abuse whatsoever.

01:48:59.700 --> 01:49:01.700
Never could have conceived of human abuse.

01:49:01.700 --> 01:49:03.700
Oh, about 20 years ago

01:49:03.700 --> 01:49:07.700
there was a class of compounds called quinucleidines.

01:49:08.700 --> 01:49:10.700
And for about three or four years

01:49:10.700 --> 01:49:12.700
I just noticed that there was no publishing

01:49:12.700 --> 01:49:14.700
in the Russian literature whatsoever

01:49:14.700 --> 01:49:16.700
on the area of quinucleidines.

01:49:16.700 --> 01:49:18.700
Then all of a sudden the Russian literature

01:49:18.700 --> 01:49:20.700
started publishing.

01:49:20.700 --> 01:49:23.700
And then we went into a sort of a gap.

01:49:23.700 --> 01:49:25.700
And then quinucleidine benzate,

01:49:25.700 --> 01:49:28.700
which is one of the most potent of the anticholinergics,

01:49:28.700 --> 01:49:30.700
was suddenly revealed that the Russians

01:49:30.700 --> 01:49:32.700
were working on it as a chemical warfare agent

01:49:32.700 --> 01:49:34.700
and then we were working on it as a defense

01:49:34.700 --> 01:49:36.700
against their chemical warfare agent.

01:49:36.700 --> 01:49:37.700
Uh-huh.

01:49:37.700 --> 01:49:38.700
10, 20 micrograms.

01:49:38.700 --> 01:49:40.700
10, 20 micrograms?

01:49:40.700 --> 01:49:41.700
Yes.

01:49:41.700 --> 01:49:43.700
It makes you really wonky.

01:49:43.700 --> 01:49:44.700
It's like atropine.

01:49:44.700 --> 01:49:46.700
Delusion, confusion.

01:49:46.700 --> 01:49:47.700
Uh-huh.

01:49:47.700 --> 01:49:49.700
But they design these fantastic bombs

01:49:49.700 --> 01:49:51.700
that they can explode

01:49:51.700 --> 01:49:54.700
and send out millions of little hypodermic needles.

01:49:54.700 --> 01:49:56.700
And so they don't have to worry about

01:49:56.700 --> 01:49:58.700
wind blowing it down, wind or upwind.

01:49:58.700 --> 01:50:00.700
So it's essentially a chemical cluster bomb.

01:50:00.700 --> 01:50:02.700
Cluster bomb, but with little hypodermic needles.

01:50:02.700 --> 01:50:04.700
Yeah, I'm telling you.

01:50:04.700 --> 01:50:06.700
So that's probably in the inventory.

01:50:06.700 --> 01:50:08.700
It's already in the inventory.

01:50:08.700 --> 01:50:09.700
Uh-huh.

01:50:09.700 --> 01:50:11.700
Well, someone mentioned to me

01:50:11.700 --> 01:50:14.700
that you had expressed interest now

01:50:14.700 --> 01:50:16.700
that you felt you had sort of done

01:50:16.700 --> 01:50:18.700
the work you wanted to do

01:50:18.700 --> 01:50:20.700
with cyclosized phenylethylamines

01:50:20.700 --> 01:50:23.700
and that you were going back to looking at tryptamines.

01:50:23.700 --> 01:50:24.700
Very much so.

01:50:24.700 --> 01:50:26.700
That's the other side of the coin.

01:50:26.700 --> 01:50:28.700
It's as rich and unexplored an area

01:50:28.700 --> 01:50:31.700
as the phenylethylamines were 20 years ago.

01:50:31.700 --> 01:50:34.700
So are you going to illuminate it for us?

01:50:34.700 --> 01:50:35.700
Oh, absolutely.

01:50:35.700 --> 01:50:37.700
There's a t-butyl, t-butylmethyl,

01:50:37.700 --> 01:50:39.700
isopropylmethyl is well known,

01:50:39.700 --> 01:50:41.700
but the secondary butylmethyl is not known.

01:50:41.700 --> 01:50:43.700
They're all active by smoking.

01:50:43.700 --> 01:50:44.700
Uh-huh.

01:50:44.700 --> 01:50:46.700
And what, are they, could you,

01:50:46.700 --> 01:50:49.700
in a blind test, pick one out from another?

01:50:49.700 --> 01:50:50.700
Or are they sort of...

01:50:50.700 --> 01:50:51.700
Don't know yet.

01:50:51.700 --> 01:50:52.700
I don't know yet.

01:50:52.700 --> 01:50:53.700
I doubt it somehow.

01:50:53.700 --> 01:50:54.700
I think they're all going to be fast,

01:50:54.700 --> 01:50:56.700
impactful and all very much like DMT.

01:50:56.700 --> 01:50:59.700
Duration-wise or presentation-wise?

01:50:59.700 --> 01:51:02.700
Duration-wise, probably, perhaps a little bit more potent.

01:51:02.700 --> 01:51:03.700
A little bit more potent.

01:51:03.700 --> 01:51:04.700
Yeah.

01:51:04.700 --> 01:51:05.700
DMT is not that, that off-fired potent.

01:51:05.700 --> 01:51:07.700
It takes, you know, 10, 20, 50, no more,

01:51:07.700 --> 01:51:08.700
50, 100 milligrams.

01:51:08.700 --> 01:51:10.700
50 to 70 milligrams.

01:51:10.700 --> 01:51:11.700
And some of these we're getting into,

01:51:11.700 --> 01:51:13.700
maybe at 30, 20 to 30 milligrams,

01:51:13.700 --> 01:51:15.700
but not active or active.

01:51:15.700 --> 01:51:18.700
You have to get up to a certain degree of shrubbery

01:51:18.700 --> 01:51:20.700
on the nitrogen to get a raw activity.

01:51:20.700 --> 01:51:22.700
And how many of these compounds

01:51:22.700 --> 01:51:24.700
do you imagine there are that are simple variants?

01:51:24.700 --> 01:51:28.700
Casually, you can make 30, 40, 50.

01:51:28.700 --> 01:51:32.720
Why do you suppose it is

01:51:32.720 --> 01:51:35.720
that this fast-acting,

01:51:35.720 --> 01:51:37.720
easily manufactured,

01:51:37.720 --> 01:51:40.720
spectacular hallucinogen

01:51:40.720 --> 01:51:44.720
is so rarely met in the underground?

01:51:44.720 --> 01:51:48.340
I don't know.

01:51:48.340 --> 01:51:49.340
I have heard that there is,

01:51:49.340 --> 01:51:51.340
it's there in some quantity.

01:51:51.340 --> 01:51:53.340
I heard about a seizure in Boston,

01:51:53.340 --> 01:51:55.340
I believe it was of ayahuasca,

01:51:55.340 --> 01:51:56.340
and they seized it on the basis

01:51:56.340 --> 01:51:58.340
that it contained DMT.

01:51:58.340 --> 01:51:59.340
Right.

01:51:59.340 --> 01:52:02.340
That was the Santo Daime people from Brazil.

01:52:02.340 --> 01:52:04.340
But, you know, we live in a society

01:52:04.340 --> 01:52:07.340
where people jump out of airplanes

01:52:07.340 --> 01:52:10.340
and hang by bungee cords over bridges,

01:52:10.340 --> 01:52:13.340
and DMT, which is always described

01:52:13.340 --> 01:52:16.340
as an easy synthesis,

01:52:16.340 --> 01:52:18.340
is just not there.

01:52:18.340 --> 01:52:24.340
It violates one of these economic laws,

01:52:24.340 --> 01:52:29.340
Gresham or Graham or somebody.

01:52:29.340 --> 01:52:32.340
Something that I've always wanted to ask you,

01:52:32.340 --> 01:52:35.340
which is, unlike me,

01:52:35.340 --> 01:52:37.340
you seem remarkable

01:52:37.340 --> 01:52:39.340
and incredibly resistant

01:52:39.340 --> 01:52:43.340
to what I call the implication.

01:52:43.340 --> 01:52:46.340
I mean, how can you just do these things

01:52:46.340 --> 01:52:47.340
over and over again

01:52:47.340 --> 01:52:50.340
and not be nutty as a fruitcake?

01:52:50.340 --> 01:52:51.340
So?

01:52:51.340 --> 01:52:52.340
Well, are you?

01:52:52.340 --> 01:52:53.340
I think so.

01:52:53.340 --> 01:52:54.340
Are you?

01:52:54.340 --> 01:52:56.340
I think I relaxed it in the event.

01:52:56.340 --> 01:52:57.340
But unlike me,

01:52:57.340 --> 01:52:58.340
you don't feel the need

01:52:58.340 --> 01:53:01.340
to rave about that aspect of it.

01:53:01.340 --> 01:53:02.340
Not particularly.

01:53:02.340 --> 01:53:05.340
I'd rather quietly stay half in the closet

01:53:05.340 --> 01:53:07.340
and continue doing what I'm doing.

01:53:07.340 --> 01:53:09.340
But you do,

01:53:09.340 --> 01:53:10.340
you've probably seen

01:53:10.340 --> 01:53:13.340
more uncharted internal landscape

01:53:13.340 --> 01:53:16.340
than half of mankind put together.

01:53:16.340 --> 01:53:19.340
I mean, that would not be an immodest claim.

01:53:19.340 --> 01:53:21.340
They're a little bit charted now.

01:53:21.340 --> 01:53:23.340
Well, a very little bit.

01:53:23.340 --> 01:53:24.340
Very little, that's right.

01:53:24.340 --> 01:53:25.340
But the seeds are there

01:53:25.340 --> 01:53:27.340
to be used by anyone else.

01:53:27.340 --> 01:53:28.340
That's the reason for the book,

01:53:28.340 --> 01:53:30.340
just to get it all recorded

01:53:30.340 --> 01:53:32.340
into a documented form.

01:53:32.340 --> 01:53:35.340
But it always puzzles me.

01:53:35.340 --> 01:53:38.340
I think Hoffman and Wasson

01:53:38.340 --> 01:53:40.340
and certainly to some degree Schultes,

01:53:40.340 --> 01:53:42.340
to some degree you,

01:53:42.340 --> 01:53:44.340
everybody says,

01:53:44.340 --> 01:53:46.340
well, I'm just a humble botanist

01:53:46.340 --> 01:53:49.340
or I'm just a hardworking workbench chemist.

01:53:49.340 --> 01:53:52.340
Nobody wants to actually say

01:53:52.340 --> 01:53:56.340
this must be very, very important

01:53:56.340 --> 01:54:00.340
because it's so uniquely

01:54:00.340 --> 01:54:02.340
beyond ordinary expectation.

01:54:02.340 --> 01:54:04.340
Yes, but the importance

01:54:04.340 --> 01:54:05.340
is it's going to take a long time

01:54:05.340 --> 01:54:07.340
to realize what you can't build

01:54:07.340 --> 01:54:08.340
without the tools

01:54:08.340 --> 01:54:10.340
and you have to have the tools

01:54:10.340 --> 01:54:11.340
and these are the tools

01:54:11.340 --> 01:54:12.340
that allow the building to be done.

01:54:12.340 --> 01:54:13.340
I'm not a builder.

01:54:13.340 --> 01:54:15.340
I'm a toolmaker.

01:54:15.340 --> 01:54:17.340
And that's probably one of the reasons

01:54:17.340 --> 01:54:18.340
I have not described

01:54:18.340 --> 01:54:19.340
a lot of landscapes

01:54:19.340 --> 01:54:22.340
other than something different.

01:54:22.340 --> 01:54:24.340
If we could compare it

01:54:24.340 --> 01:54:29.340
to the invention of the telescope,

01:54:29.340 --> 01:54:31.340
probably within 50 years

01:54:31.340 --> 01:54:34.340
of the invention of the telescope,

01:54:34.340 --> 01:54:37.340
the major solar system

01:54:37.340 --> 01:54:40.340
new paradigms were put in place.

01:54:40.340 --> 01:54:43.340
This seems very elusive.

01:54:43.340 --> 01:54:46.340
It seems hard for us to go beyond

01:54:46.340 --> 01:54:48.340
simply saying it exists,

01:54:48.340 --> 01:54:50.340
it's really far out

01:54:50.340 --> 01:54:53.340
and then we sort of fall silent.

01:54:53.340 --> 01:54:55.340
What do you think about that?

01:54:55.340 --> 01:54:57.340
I think the silence is in part imposed upon us

01:54:57.340 --> 01:55:01.340
by a very unsympathetic authority body

01:55:01.340 --> 01:55:03.340
and maybe it's just as well

01:55:03.340 --> 01:55:05.340
that way a lot of work can be done

01:55:05.340 --> 01:55:07.340
and sort of recorded for posterity.

01:55:07.340 --> 01:55:09.340
And the time the pendulums swing,

01:55:09.340 --> 01:55:10.340
they will swing back

01:55:10.340 --> 01:55:11.340
and the time will come

01:55:11.340 --> 01:55:14.340
when this work will be used,

01:55:14.340 --> 01:55:18.340
research will be done with these tools.

01:55:18.340 --> 01:55:22.340
Well obviously you believe in it strongly.

01:55:22.340 --> 01:55:24.340
What would you say to a critic

01:55:24.340 --> 01:55:26.340
who said,

01:55:26.340 --> 01:55:28.340
what's so great about this?

01:55:28.340 --> 01:55:30.340
Are you and your friends

01:55:30.340 --> 01:55:32.340
in any significant way

01:55:32.340 --> 01:55:35.340
different from the rest of humanity?

01:55:35.340 --> 01:55:36.340
No.

01:55:36.340 --> 01:55:37.340
And I don't see why it would be critical

01:55:37.340 --> 01:55:39.340
I'm not offending him.

01:55:39.340 --> 01:55:41.340
I can see no way in which I'm offending him.

01:55:41.340 --> 01:55:45.340
I'm quietly doing my little alchemist thing at home.

01:55:45.340 --> 01:55:47.340
But you really must think

01:55:47.340 --> 01:55:49.340
that it does make a difference.

01:55:49.340 --> 01:55:50.340
I think it does.

01:55:50.340 --> 01:55:51.340
I think it will.

01:55:51.340 --> 01:55:52.340
It will.

01:55:52.340 --> 01:55:54.340
I don't think it does now.

01:55:54.340 --> 01:55:58.340
So we really are cursed with being pioneers.

01:55:58.340 --> 01:55:59.340
Yeah.

01:55:59.340 --> 01:56:01.340
It's not so bad.

01:56:01.340 --> 01:56:02.340
It has a nice...

01:56:02.340 --> 01:56:04.340
I mean they'll hang your picture

01:56:04.340 --> 01:56:06.340
in the main hall years hence

01:56:06.340 --> 01:56:07.340
and say,

01:56:07.340 --> 01:56:09.340
these were giants.

01:56:09.340 --> 01:56:10.340
I would rather have my picture

01:56:10.340 --> 01:56:12.340
hanging in the main hall

01:56:12.340 --> 01:56:14.340
than me hanging in the main hall.

01:56:14.340 --> 01:56:16.340
Well some people manage both.

01:56:16.340 --> 01:56:17.340
Both.

01:56:17.340 --> 01:56:20.340
And you may end up that way too.

01:56:20.340 --> 01:56:21.340
Oh well.

01:56:21.340 --> 01:56:22.340
It's a short happy life.

01:56:22.340 --> 01:56:23.340
It's kind of neat.

01:56:23.340 --> 01:56:25.340
But this is your territory too.

01:56:25.340 --> 01:56:26.340
What's your feeling?

01:56:26.340 --> 01:56:29.340
Do you feel that that's a fair...

01:56:29.340 --> 01:56:30.340
I think that...

01:56:30.340 --> 01:56:33.340
I think that I am always

01:56:33.340 --> 01:56:36.340
from the very first psychedelic experience

01:56:36.340 --> 01:56:38.340
had the uncanny intuition

01:56:38.340 --> 01:56:43.340
that yes this has been around for 50,000 years

01:56:43.340 --> 01:56:47.340
but it's somehow going to be critically important

01:56:47.340 --> 01:56:49.340
in our lifetime

01:56:49.340 --> 01:56:53.340
that we will need it for something.

01:56:53.340 --> 01:56:57.340
Maybe just to think our way out of the mess

01:56:57.340 --> 01:56:59.340
that we're getting into.

01:56:59.340 --> 01:57:02.340
But if it's needed we have it.

01:57:02.340 --> 01:57:03.340
Yes.

01:57:03.340 --> 01:57:04.340
That's the beauty.

01:57:04.340 --> 01:57:05.340
The tool is there

01:57:05.340 --> 01:57:07.340
for the time when the need is obvious.

01:57:07.340 --> 01:57:09.340
And this may be our lifetime.

01:57:09.340 --> 01:57:11.340
So essentially what you're doing

01:57:11.340 --> 01:57:14.340
is you're placing tools on the shelf.

01:57:14.340 --> 01:57:16.340
Screwdrivers for screws

01:57:16.340 --> 01:57:18.340
that haven't been invented yet.

01:57:18.340 --> 01:57:19.340
Exactly that.

01:57:19.340 --> 01:57:20.340
Except it's a good tool.

01:57:20.340 --> 01:57:22.340
It's use will depend upon someone

01:57:22.340 --> 01:57:27.340
who has that particular view of need.

01:57:27.340 --> 01:57:28.340
Well it's...

01:57:28.340 --> 01:57:30.340
It's a wonderful thing.

01:57:30.340 --> 01:57:33.340
Where do you hope to be

01:57:33.340 --> 01:57:36.340
in 10 years or so with all of this?

01:57:36.340 --> 01:57:38.340
Probably starting on a third book.

01:57:40.340 --> 01:57:41.340
Do you think...

01:57:41.340 --> 01:57:44.340
I know you're working on a book about legalization and...

01:57:44.340 --> 01:57:45.340
Not actually.

01:57:45.340 --> 01:57:46.340
I'm working with a group

01:57:46.340 --> 01:57:50.340
who's more or less funded

01:57:50.340 --> 01:57:52.340
to make arguments that would be raised...

01:57:52.340 --> 01:57:54.340
to address arguments that would be raised

01:57:54.340 --> 01:57:55.340
in the legalization process.

01:57:55.340 --> 01:57:57.340
What would be the answer of how drugs would be legalized?

01:57:57.340 --> 01:57:59.340
How would they be made available?

01:57:59.340 --> 01:58:00.340
Should it be in the open supermarket?

01:58:00.340 --> 01:58:03.340
Should it be under some sort of governmental control?

01:58:03.340 --> 01:58:04.340
And it's a research...

01:58:04.340 --> 01:58:06.340
More than that, a policy group...

01:58:06.340 --> 01:58:07.340
Studies.

01:58:07.340 --> 01:58:08.340
Setting up for that.

01:58:08.340 --> 01:58:12.340
I think it's futile in the present state.

01:58:12.340 --> 01:58:14.340
In terms of practical impact?

01:58:14.340 --> 01:58:16.340
I don't think anyone's going to seriously entertain legalization.

01:58:16.340 --> 01:58:17.340
So it's a...

01:58:17.340 --> 01:58:19.340
It may be a fuel process,

01:58:19.340 --> 01:58:20.340
but it's a fun process.

01:58:20.340 --> 01:58:21.340
Because in the process

01:58:21.340 --> 01:58:24.340
you begin evaluating your own relationship

01:58:24.340 --> 01:58:26.340
with drug law, drug regulation, drug control.

01:58:27.340 --> 01:58:30.340
If you were in charge of it,

01:58:30.340 --> 01:58:32.340
how do you see it happening?

01:58:32.340 --> 01:58:34.340
I mean, are there drugs you would keep legal?

01:58:34.340 --> 01:58:37.340
Or do you think it should be...

01:58:37.340 --> 01:58:39.340
What I would do if I were running...

01:58:39.340 --> 01:58:40.340
I would keep certain laws

01:58:40.340 --> 01:58:42.340
that would protect people of innocence.

01:58:42.340 --> 01:58:45.340
I would have absolutely no drugs with children

01:58:45.340 --> 01:58:47.340
who are of too young an age.

01:58:47.340 --> 01:58:48.340
God knows what they're called.

01:58:48.340 --> 01:58:50.340
Maybe 16, 18, 21.

01:58:50.340 --> 01:58:51.340
Maybe alcohol-mining.

01:58:51.340 --> 01:58:52.340
Right.

01:58:52.340 --> 01:58:54.340
Absolutely unallowed giving drugs

01:58:54.340 --> 01:58:56.340
to anyone without their consent.

01:58:56.340 --> 01:58:57.340
But...

01:58:57.340 --> 01:58:58.340
Sure.

01:58:58.340 --> 01:58:59.340
Informed consent.

01:58:59.340 --> 01:59:00.340
Knowledge, education.

01:59:00.340 --> 01:59:02.340
I would make absolutely available

01:59:02.340 --> 01:59:05.340
at all levels of propaganda,

01:59:05.340 --> 01:59:06.340
restrictions,

01:59:06.340 --> 01:59:08.340
information that is factual about drugs.

01:59:08.340 --> 01:59:10.340
Then I'd open the drug store.

01:59:10.340 --> 01:59:11.340
And you people,

01:59:11.340 --> 01:59:12.340
would they overuse?

01:59:12.340 --> 01:59:13.340
Maybe.

01:59:13.340 --> 01:59:15.340
But I think that would very quickly

01:59:15.340 --> 01:59:16.340
dampen itself out

01:59:16.340 --> 01:59:18.340
to maybe about what we have now.

01:59:18.340 --> 01:59:20.340
But you would remove the criminality,

01:59:20.340 --> 01:59:22.340
remove the violence,

01:59:22.340 --> 01:59:25.340
remove the entire social disruptiveness

01:59:25.340 --> 01:59:26.340
that these drug laws have caused.

01:59:26.340 --> 01:59:29.340
Would you encourage the government

01:59:29.340 --> 01:59:33.340
to see these drugs as a vehicle

01:59:33.340 --> 01:59:35.340
for gaining tax revenue?

01:59:35.340 --> 01:59:36.340
Or do you think the government

01:59:36.340 --> 01:59:38.340
should stay off that?

01:59:38.340 --> 01:59:41.340
Probably some tax revenue would be valid

01:59:41.340 --> 01:59:43.340
as with other drugs of abuse,

01:59:43.340 --> 01:59:44.340
other things of abuse.

01:59:44.340 --> 01:59:46.340
Similarly to alcohol and tobacco.

01:59:46.340 --> 01:59:47.340
It's a good model

01:59:47.340 --> 01:59:48.340
and perhaps it's a valid one.

01:59:48.340 --> 01:59:50.340
Well, that's pretty much

01:59:50.340 --> 01:59:52.340
what I suggested in my book.

01:59:52.340 --> 01:59:53.340
But I agree with you

01:59:53.340 --> 01:59:55.340
that it's easy to sit down

01:59:55.340 --> 01:59:57.340
and come up with a fine plan

01:59:57.340 --> 01:59:59.340
overcoming the political hurdles

01:59:59.340 --> 02:00:00.340
of an American...

02:00:00.340 --> 02:00:01.340
Too many people have too much

02:00:01.340 --> 02:00:02.340
to benefit on the laws

02:00:02.340 --> 02:00:03.340
being what they are

02:00:03.340 --> 02:00:05.340
and even becoming more intense.

02:00:05.340 --> 02:00:08.340
And until you change that motivation,

02:00:08.340 --> 02:00:10.340
that reward...

02:00:10.340 --> 02:00:12.340
Yes, well, the most cynical

02:00:12.340 --> 02:00:14.340
and the most naive people in America

02:00:14.340 --> 02:00:17.340
are keeping the drug problem going.

02:00:17.340 --> 02:00:19.340
The most cynical by dealing

02:00:19.340 --> 02:00:20.340
and importing drugs

02:00:20.340 --> 02:00:21.340
and the most naive

02:00:21.340 --> 02:00:25.340
through the kind of Christian terror

02:00:25.340 --> 02:00:26.340
of...

02:00:26.340 --> 02:00:27.340
Look at the monstrous industries

02:00:27.340 --> 02:00:29.340
that have been built up with it.

02:00:29.340 --> 02:00:31.340
The drug urine screening, shameful.

02:00:31.340 --> 02:00:32.340
Right.

02:00:32.340 --> 02:00:34.340
But they're multi-billion dollar things.

02:00:34.340 --> 02:00:35.340
This kit, that GCMS,

02:00:35.340 --> 02:00:36.340
this instrumentation,

02:00:36.340 --> 02:00:37.340
these people who make

02:00:37.340 --> 02:00:39.340
little wax urine bottles.

02:00:39.340 --> 02:00:40.340
It's becoming...

02:00:40.340 --> 02:00:41.340
There's no justification

02:00:41.340 --> 02:00:42.340
for urine screening

02:00:42.340 --> 02:00:44.340
at any time of anyone

02:00:44.340 --> 02:00:45.340
under any circumstance

02:00:45.340 --> 02:00:46.340
on a random basis.

02:00:46.340 --> 02:00:48.340
Well, and the notion

02:00:48.340 --> 02:00:50.340
that in a democratic society

02:00:50.340 --> 02:00:51.340
people would get into

02:00:51.340 --> 02:00:52.340
that kind of thing

02:00:52.340 --> 02:00:53.340
is incredible, I think.

02:00:53.340 --> 02:00:54.340
It's completely contrary

02:00:54.340 --> 02:00:55.340
to the point

02:00:55.340 --> 02:00:56.340
of the principles

02:00:56.340 --> 02:00:57.340
of our society.

02:00:57.340 --> 02:00:58.340
The assumption of innocence.

02:00:58.340 --> 02:00:59.340
We blew it

02:00:59.340 --> 02:01:00.340
because it's not in the Constitution.

02:01:00.340 --> 02:01:01.340
Right.

02:01:01.340 --> 02:01:02.340
It should have been in it,

02:01:02.340 --> 02:01:03.340
but it wasn't.

02:01:03.340 --> 02:01:04.340
Right.

02:01:04.340 --> 02:01:05.340
But taking a urine sample

02:01:05.340 --> 02:01:06.340
on a random basis

02:01:06.340 --> 02:01:07.340
is an assumption of guilt.

02:01:07.340 --> 02:01:08.340
Well, but what is

02:01:08.340 --> 02:01:09.340
in the Bill of Rights

02:01:09.340 --> 02:01:10.340
is life, liberty,

02:01:10.340 --> 02:01:11.340
and the pursuit of happiness.

02:01:11.340 --> 02:01:12.340
Declaration of Independence.

02:01:12.340 --> 02:01:13.340
Declaration of Independence.

02:01:13.340 --> 02:01:14.340
But that could be used

02:01:14.340 --> 02:01:15.340
as a sufficient basis for...

02:01:15.340 --> 02:01:16.340
It should be.

02:01:16.340 --> 02:01:17.340
That should be part...

02:01:17.340 --> 02:01:18.340
It's a form of self-image.

02:01:18.340 --> 02:01:19.340
And we should maintain it

02:01:19.340 --> 02:01:20.340
as such.

02:01:20.340 --> 02:01:21.340
Yeah, well,

02:01:21.340 --> 02:01:22.340
the first thing that goes

02:01:22.340 --> 02:01:24.340
when society

02:01:24.340 --> 02:01:26.340
hits the wall

02:01:26.340 --> 02:01:27.340
is democracy.