WEBVTT

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can hardly believe I'm here. I made it past the Camaro raffle. I survived the offer for

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reconstructive cosmetic surgery. And I've had my smart drugs for this evening, so glad

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to be here. Well, until a few minutes ago, I thought that this was a 45-minute gig, so

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you get to see Grace under pressure this evening. Actually, I'm kidding. It doesn't matter how

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long it goes. We could never get to the bottom of this stuff, nor would we wish to, I think.

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By coincidence, merely, I became 45.

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Yesterday. So, sort of a good moment to do some summing up. So, in thinking about this talk and

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knowing, as I did, who would be here, I thought that I would sort of orient the theme toward

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distilling the psychedelic mind, which is a way of talking about the psychedelic mind,

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but also trying to

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consider the amount of money you paid for this session, give you the entire schtick in one fell swoop,

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so that you would never have to attend a Terence McKenna lecture or workshop again.

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You could just move past that, turn the page on that kind of thing in your life.

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.

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.

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.

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Well, I think it's coming together for me. I don't know whether it's writing these books. It was a

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very nice introduction here tonight, and the whammy in it was, after 25 years of being ignored by

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straight publishers, or publishers of any sort for that matter, it appears that I'm on the brink of

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entering the marketplace, if not the mainstream.

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.

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So, with your help and word-of-mouth advertising,

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maybe I can continue to meet my mortgage obligations.

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Okay, let's cut to the chase.

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Enough of the obligatory clowning around.

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The psychedelic question in the society

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just seems to refuse to go away.

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It sort of can't be swallowed and can't be spat up.

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And so society just sort of runs around

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knocking into walls and kicking its feet in the air.

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And this has been the situation that we've been in

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for at least 30 years now.

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And as a person who has spent

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a great deal of time and effort

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and a great deal of time in the underground,

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I've observed with amazement

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the persistence of the counter-cultural agenda

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to alter consciousness.

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And like many of you, I came to it in the 60s

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when the basic argument in favor of altered states of consciousness

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were almost entirely narcissistic,

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deep in self.

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And I certainly think that this was a valid place to begin.

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But after 30 years of having the psychedelic issue

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on the social network,

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on the social network,

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on the social network,

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on the social network,

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on the social network,

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on the social network,

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on the social network,

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on the social agenda,

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at times hailed as a universal panacea,

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at times demonized as a scourge from hell,

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but never quite silenced,

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never moved out of the public eye,

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I've reached a number of conclusions about this.

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And I thought it would be interesting tonight,

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I guess because of my recent birthday or something,

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to sort of try and,

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to sort of try and,

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to sort of try and distill all this and sum it up

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and put it in front of you in terms of what is psychedelic shamanism?

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Why should people like ourselves who live in high density

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electronic culture, why should we care about this?

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What does it say about our future?

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What does it say about us as a group?

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And what techniques are there that we each,

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And what techniques are there that we each,

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And what techniques are there that we each,

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on our own, can bring to bear on this question?

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So with your help,

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hold me to the straight and narrow,

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I'd like to make my way through this agenda this evening,

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and talk about these various aspects of what,

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to my mind, is the most astonishing facet of reality.

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I mean, maybe sex is pressing hard in the second position,

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but these two things run neck and neck

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as aspects of the mystery of what it is to be human.

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And believe me, human psychedelic experiences

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and human sexual experiences are orders of magnitude

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removed from anything going on in the animal realm.

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These things are set apart.

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They are not separate from the rest of being,

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because what we bring to them is mind.

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This is what we pour into the sexuality of human beings

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that makes it unique.

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This is what we pour in to the contemplation

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of our own experience.

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Mind is a focus that is lacking,

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at least its expression in the unique form

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that we experience it, is lacking.

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It is lacking in the rest of nature.

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And I believe that the persistence

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of the psychedelic experience within the social agenda

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has to do with the fact that it actually addresses

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something basic in human beings.

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I mean, it may seem like a radical proposition to say,

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but it's not.

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I don't say that to a white, high-tech,

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industrial democracy audience,

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because we are the people who have drifted furthest

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from this birthright.

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And I would like to suggest to you this evening

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that much of the civilization that we have created

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has been achieved based on a direct denial

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of the psychedelic experience,

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and all that it implies.

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Our humanness, our connection to the rest of nature,

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our connection into the feminine,

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our place in nature.

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Because for the Western mind,

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we have no fixed place in nature.

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Our place is ours to define.

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We are, from the point of view of the cultural machinery

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that empowers us,

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completely free to become,

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to be whatever we want to be.

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Now, the problem with that prescription is

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that in Western culture,

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what that means is permission to express ego,

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permission to profligately use and destroy resources,

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permission to set aside the political agendas

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of outclasses and outgroups.

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This untrammeled expression of will

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outside the context of nature

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has turned us into a kind of Frankenstein's monster at best,

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a toxic force in the body of the Gaian world soul at worst.

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And I believe that our origin

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and our future culmination,

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and our present happiness,

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all can be secured, understood, illuminated, and expanded

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only if we're willing to look at our relationship,

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not only to altered states of consciousness,

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but to the mind behind nature.

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Because that's really what this is all about, to my mind.

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What these psychedelics do,

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what these psychedelics do,

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what these psychedelics are empowering,

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or conveying, or revealing,

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depending on, you know, how you come at it,

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what they are showing us is that we are not alone upon this planet.

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We are not alone in the universe of mind.

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And I realize this is a soft audience to preach this in,

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because there are probably people within the sound of my words

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who sincerely believe they were once citizens of Zeta Reticuli.

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You know, when the jar is so leaky,

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it's hard to know where to put the water.

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But I come to this as a show-me kind of guy.

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And so, though my conclusions may sound as flaky,

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as anybody else's,

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it was hard for me to get this flaky.

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I didn't embrace it.

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I was forced to it.

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And this method works, you see.

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I mean, there are two ways to get flaky.

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You can just get flaky,

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which takes no effort at all, you know.

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I mean, you just announce you're a walk-in,

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start eating wheatgrass juice,

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and, you know, tithe to Maitreya.

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Or you can get flaky by testing the edges,

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by stretching the envelope of being.

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And this works for the most hard-headed among us.

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The aerospace insurance adjuster mentality

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is...

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not only who I'm speaking to,

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but who I feel I represent.

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Because...

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No kidding, really.

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At age 18,

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I was a Marxist,

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an existentialist,

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I had ambitions in the field of aeronautical engineering,

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so forth and so on.

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And I discovered,

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that you can take that kind of a mentality

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out into the theater of real experience,

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and you can come back a space bunny

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just like everybody else.

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So what that means, then,

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is that a straight person,

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and I speak as someone from the 60s

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with apologies to all our gay friends

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who later appropriated that word,

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because when I say straight,

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I mean un-stoned.

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A straight person is not a guardian

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of truth or probity.

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A straight person is simply

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a frightened proto-flake.

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You see?

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I always think,

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and most of you have heard me say this,

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but when we get off on this subject,

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I always think about the wonderful thing Tim Leary said,

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years ago.

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He said it so many years ago,

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that when I told him

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how much I admired him for saying it,

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he didn't remember that he'd said it.

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But the man once said,

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wait till I give the wine,

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LSD is a drug which causes,

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occasionally causes psychotic behavior

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in people who have not taken it.

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You see?

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And I certainly saw this.

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I mean, I saw my parents become violently psychotic

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from not taking LSD.

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And so my point is,

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and I make it in a forum like this,

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because here we have so much permission for belief.

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I mean, you want to believe in,

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you know, channeling from beyond the grave?

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Fine, no problem.

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You want to believe in the healing power

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of nematodes, hematodes, hematite,

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you name it, we've got it all.

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Really, I think that

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the spirit of childlike, untrammeled curiosity

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is what we're striving for.

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Not the anal retentive rational person.

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Not the I'll go for anything,

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channeling flake.

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But an attitude of,

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we don't have to look far for miracles

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because they're all around us.

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Everything is astonishing.

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The universe on its surface

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is alive with mystery.

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Well, how do we make our way toward that?

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When we live in a culture,

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practice a life,

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practice a language,

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embody a philosophy, scientific rationalism,

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which is entirely designed

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to suck wonder out of reality,

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to turn everything into shades of gray,

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to subvert all hope

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that lies outside the realm of

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career accomplishment and material possession.

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Well, the way that we can overcome this

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is through a personal acting out

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of what I have been calling now

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for several years,

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the archaic revival.

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And I want to talk about that

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a little bit this evening

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because I think it,

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you know, however much we may kid around

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about the new age,

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it is an important aspect

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of what is going on.

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Its triviality is rooted in the side of it

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which is ungrounded,

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ephemeral,

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and self-promoting.

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But it springs from a fairly profound

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and deep sense

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that things are not all right

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in this society.

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I think that I first encountered

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the phrase new age

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in the writings of Helen Petrovna Blavatsky.

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She wrote in the 20s.

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I read her in the 50s.

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The new age has been with us

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for a long time,

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so long that there's nothing new about it.

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And in fact,

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the reason I call it the archaic revival

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is because I think we can understand

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this movement

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if instead of accentuating

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what about it that is new,

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novel,

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and never before seen,

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instead we emphasize

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that this is a profoundly

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conservative impulse.

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A conservative impulse

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that would set the hair of George Bush

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and his skull and bones buddies

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standing on end.

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Because when we talk about conservative,

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we're not talking about returning

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to the era of Eisenhower.

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We're talking about returning

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to the era of Isis,

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Asarte,

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the great horned goddess

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of the high paleolithic.

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In other words,

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this program

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of material civilization,

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exteriorization

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of ideas into matter

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through first alchemy and magic

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and then science and industry.

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This process is coming to an end.

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One way or another.

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We are either going to plant ourselves

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and most of the rest of the life

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on this planet

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by blindly pursuing this cultural model

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until we run it right over the edge

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into the apocalypse

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or from the genes,

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from the bones,

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from the oceans,

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from the forests,

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from the glaciers.

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There is going to have to come

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a turning point,

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a change,

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a revulsion so profound

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that it allows us

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by the tens of millions

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to change how we think about reality,

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to change how we live.

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And I have ended up an advocate

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for the psychedelic experience

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not because I think it's easy,

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not because I think it's surefire,

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but because I think

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it's the only game in town,

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the only chance left.

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If we had a thousand years,

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if we had 500 years,

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maybe propaganda,

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messages on boxes of cereal,

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photographs on cartons of milk,

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I don't know,

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something might do it.

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But we don't have 500 years.

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We must come to a screeching halt now

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because we are barreling toward

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the brink of ruin.

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And the only thing

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that I have ever seen

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that turned anybody around

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on the dime

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was psychedelics.

21:11.870 --> 21:13.870
You know?

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The talking cures

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invented by Freud and Jung

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at the beginning of this century.

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It takes years.

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Sometimes it never happens.

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The body work that came along behind that

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with Wilhelm Reich and others,

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Feldenkrais and so forth,

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Ida Roth,

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all of this brings it

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into the theater of the body.

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At least now we understand

21:46.530 --> 21:48.530
it's a body-mind system.

21:48.530 --> 21:50.530
It's not a disembodied voice

21:50.530 --> 21:52.530
lying on a couch speaking.

21:52.530 --> 21:53.530
You know?

21:53.530 --> 21:56.530
But it seems so obvious.

21:56.530 --> 21:58.530
What we're trying to do

21:58.530 --> 22:00.530
is perturb the mind.

22:00.530 --> 22:03.530
We want to perturb the mind

22:03.530 --> 22:04.530
so that we can then

22:04.530 --> 22:06.530
see it differently.

22:06.530 --> 22:08.530
So that it may see

22:08.530 --> 22:10.530
and be seen differently.

22:10.530 --> 22:12.530
Well, the mind rests

22:12.530 --> 22:15.530
on a foundation of chemical machinery.

22:15.530 --> 22:17.530
We're not saying the mind

22:17.530 --> 22:19.530
is chemical machinery.

22:19.530 --> 22:21.530
We're saying the mind rests

22:21.530 --> 22:24.530
on a foundation of chemical machinery.

22:24.530 --> 22:27.530
So if you want to perturb the mind,

22:27.530 --> 22:29.530
you don't go to the talking.

22:29.530 --> 22:31.530
You don't go to the deep tissue.

22:31.530 --> 22:34.530
All of this has efficacy.

22:34.530 --> 22:36.530
But it is necessary

22:36.530 --> 22:40.530
but not sufficient by itself.

22:40.530 --> 22:43.530
For there to be a sufficiency of method,

22:43.530 --> 22:46.530
there must be an initial perturbation

22:46.530 --> 22:47.530
of the mind.

22:47.530 --> 22:49.530
And this comes about

22:49.530 --> 22:50.530
through the use

22:50.530 --> 22:52.530
of psychedelic plants.

22:52.530 --> 22:53.530
This is not something

22:53.530 --> 22:56.530
that was discovered post-LSD

22:56.530 --> 22:59.530
in Manhattan by psychiatrists

22:59.530 --> 23:02.530
or in Prague or Berlin or at Esalen.

23:02.530 --> 23:06.530
This is a truth 25,000, 50,000,

23:06.530 --> 23:08.530
100,000 years old.

23:08.530 --> 23:12.530
This is how it's always been done.

23:12.530 --> 23:18.530
Only in the last 6,000 years

23:18.530 --> 23:20.530
on the European continent

23:20.530 --> 23:22.530
and those civilizations

23:22.530 --> 23:24.530
that are the children of Europe

23:24.530 --> 23:27.530
has there been any other approach

23:27.530 --> 23:29.530
to these problems.

23:29.530 --> 23:32.530
Well, and what the other approach,

23:32.530 --> 23:34.530
linear thought,

23:34.530 --> 23:36.530
the phonetic alphabet,

23:36.530 --> 23:38.530
science, mathematical abstraction,

23:38.530 --> 23:40.530
so forth and so on,

23:40.530 --> 23:42.530
what these other approaches

23:42.530 --> 23:44.530
have brought us is

23:44.530 --> 23:48.530
toxicity, pollution,

23:48.530 --> 23:50.530
mutation,

23:50.530 --> 23:52.530
catastrophe,

23:52.530 --> 23:53.530
revolution,

23:53.530 --> 23:54.530
death,

23:54.530 --> 23:55.530
and yes, friends,

23:55.530 --> 23:58.530
even unhappiness.

23:58.530 --> 24:00.530
It hasn't worked.

24:00.530 --> 24:02.530
Western civilization

24:02.530 --> 24:04.530
is now crowing over the fact

24:04.530 --> 24:07.530
that the only opposition it ever had,

24:07.530 --> 24:08.530
which was Marxism,

24:08.530 --> 24:11.530
a pathetic weak sister,

24:11.530 --> 24:14.530
has now collapsed upon itself.

24:14.530 --> 24:16.530
Well, there should be

24:16.530 --> 24:19.530
no congratulation in that,

24:19.530 --> 24:21.530
because the contradictions

24:21.530 --> 24:23.530
which undid Marxism

24:23.530 --> 24:28.530
lie in wait to undo this society as well.

24:28.530 --> 24:31.530
Both societies are materialistic.

24:31.530 --> 24:37.160
Both societies define human beings

24:37.160 --> 24:40.160
and treat them as things.

24:40.160 --> 24:43.160
And the fact of the matter is

24:43.160 --> 24:45.160
Western civilization at this moment

24:45.160 --> 24:47.160
is a loaded gun

24:47.160 --> 24:50.160
pointed at the head of this planet.

24:50.160 --> 24:52.160
And we,

24:52.160 --> 24:54.160
for all our pretensions

24:54.160 --> 24:56.160
to a sensitivity

24:56.160 --> 24:58.160
to the presence of vitamin C

24:58.160 --> 25:00.160
or zinc in our diet

25:00.160 --> 25:02.160
or all the rest of this malarkey,

25:02.160 --> 25:04.160
we are the major

25:04.160 --> 25:06.160
prevaricators

25:06.160 --> 25:08.160
of this situation.

25:08.160 --> 25:12.160
So a certain obligation

25:12.160 --> 25:15.160
rests upon us.

25:15.160 --> 25:17.160
And I think we're meeting

25:17.160 --> 25:19.160
this obligation.

25:19.160 --> 25:21.160
I wouldn't say we're doing a great job

25:21.160 --> 25:23.160
or a terrible job.

25:23.160 --> 25:25.160
I think we're functioning

25:25.160 --> 25:28.160
at approximately a B plus level.

25:28.160 --> 25:30.160
You see, I mean,

25:30.160 --> 25:34.160
human life is so ephemeral.

25:34.160 --> 25:36.160
I mean, a person,

25:36.160 --> 25:38.160
a person who lives 70 or 80 years

25:38.160 --> 25:40.160
is really as ephemeral

25:40.160 --> 25:42.160
as a mayfly or something.

25:42.160 --> 25:44.160
I mean, it's not long enough

25:44.160 --> 25:47.160
to get the full picture.

25:47.160 --> 25:48.160
For instance,

25:48.160 --> 25:50.160
many of you,

25:50.160 --> 25:52.160
by virtue of not having spent

25:52.160 --> 25:53.160
a great deal of time

25:53.160 --> 25:55.160
thinking about it,

25:55.160 --> 25:57.160
probably don't realize

25:57.160 --> 26:00.160
that this psychedelic

26:00.160 --> 26:04.160
plant shamanism option,

26:04.160 --> 26:06.160
this is not something

26:06.160 --> 26:08.160
that Western civilization

26:08.160 --> 26:11.160
has grappled with for centuries

26:11.160 --> 26:13.160
and come to terms with

26:13.160 --> 26:16.160
and found the proper pigeon hole for

26:16.160 --> 26:17.160
and put aside.

26:17.160 --> 26:19.160
Not at all, my friends.

26:19.160 --> 26:21.160
The fact of the matter is

26:21.160 --> 26:24.160
all of this information

26:24.160 --> 26:26.160
about psychedelics

26:26.160 --> 26:29.160
has arrived in Western society

26:29.160 --> 26:32.160
in the last hundred years.

26:32.160 --> 26:35.160
And we have to say hundred years

26:35.160 --> 26:37.160
because we want to include

26:37.160 --> 26:39.160
things like mescaline,

26:39.160 --> 26:42.160
1895-98,

26:42.160 --> 26:45.160
it began to be studied in Germany,

26:45.160 --> 26:47.160
and things like ibogaine,

26:47.160 --> 26:49.160
which was known toward the end

26:49.160 --> 26:50.160
of the last century,

26:50.160 --> 26:51.160
but which has had virtually

26:51.160 --> 26:54.160
zilch impact on American

26:54.160 --> 26:57.160
psychedelic populations.

26:57.160 --> 26:59.160
So we have to say

26:59.160 --> 27:00.160
the psychedelic option

27:00.160 --> 27:02.160
has only been an object

27:02.160 --> 27:05.160
of the Western mind's curiosity

27:05.160 --> 27:08.160
for approximately a hundred years.

27:08.160 --> 27:11.160
But really, 90% of that

27:11.160 --> 27:15.160
occurred in the last 50 years.

27:15.160 --> 27:17.160
As many of you know,

27:17.160 --> 27:20.160
I am a great fan

27:20.160 --> 27:24.160
and spokesman for psilocybin,

27:24.160 --> 27:26.160
for the mushrooms.

27:26.160 --> 27:30.160
The mushrooms that I am so stoked on

27:30.160 --> 27:34.160
were discovered in 1953

27:34.160 --> 27:37.160
by Gordon and Valentina Wasson

27:37.160 --> 27:38.160
in Watla,

27:38.160 --> 27:40.160
discovered in 53,

27:40.160 --> 27:43.160
made absolutely schedule one

27:43.160 --> 27:46.160
illegal in 1966.

27:47.160 --> 27:50.160
15 years was the window

27:50.160 --> 27:52.160
in which Western civilization

27:52.160 --> 27:55.160
had to study this compound

27:55.160 --> 27:57.160
and figure out what it was for.

27:57.160 --> 28:00.160
And they were just beginning

28:00.160 --> 28:03.160
to focus upon it

28:03.160 --> 28:05.160
when it was made illegal.

28:05.160 --> 28:08.160
LSD discovered in 37,

28:08.160 --> 28:10.160
not brought into the scientific literature

28:10.160 --> 28:12.160
until 48,

28:12.160 --> 28:14.160
not generally available

28:14.160 --> 28:17.160
even in the laboratory until 1950.

28:17.160 --> 28:20.160
Made totally illegal in 1966.

28:20.160 --> 28:23.160
16 year window.

28:23.160 --> 28:25.160
Think about the fact

28:25.160 --> 28:28.160
that when LSD was legal,

28:28.160 --> 28:31.160
psychiatrists,

28:31.160 --> 28:33.160
professional researchers

28:33.160 --> 28:35.160
were consistently reporting

28:35.160 --> 28:38.160
cures of chronic alcoholism

28:38.160 --> 28:42.160
with one 500 gamma dose.

28:42.160 --> 28:44.160
One dose.

28:44.160 --> 28:47.160
Cure like a 50%

28:47.160 --> 28:50.160
cure rate without recidivism

28:50.160 --> 28:52.160
for chronic alcoholism.

28:52.160 --> 28:55.160
Spectacular findings

28:55.160 --> 28:57.160
were being reported.

28:57.160 --> 28:59.160
When LSD swept through

28:59.160 --> 29:01.160
the scientific community,

29:01.160 --> 29:04.160
for pharmacologists,

29:04.160 --> 29:05.160
psychotherapists,

29:05.160 --> 29:06.160
psychiatrists,

29:06.160 --> 29:08.160
it had the same kind of

29:08.160 --> 29:11.160
excitement and feeling of breakthrough

29:11.160 --> 29:14.160
that the splitting of the atom had

29:14.160 --> 29:15.160
for the physicists,

29:15.160 --> 29:17.160
for the physics community,

29:17.160 --> 29:19.160
in the late 30s.

29:19.160 --> 29:22.160
Well, science we are told

29:22.160 --> 29:25.160
is this absolutely impartial

29:25.160 --> 29:28.160
godlike body of knowledge

29:28.160 --> 29:31.160
prosecuted by great men

29:31.160 --> 29:33.160
and it will fearlessly send

29:33.160 --> 29:35.160
its questing mind

29:35.160 --> 29:37.160
into any situation

29:37.160 --> 29:39.160
or environment.

29:39.160 --> 29:42.160
This is a mental discipline

29:42.160 --> 29:44.160
so dispassionate

29:44.160 --> 29:46.160
that it sees nothing at all wrong

29:46.160 --> 29:49.160
with strapping monkeys into apparatus

29:49.160 --> 29:51.160
and hurling them into walls

29:51.160 --> 29:53.160
at 70 miles an hour

29:53.160 --> 29:55.160
to study traumatic injuries.

29:55.160 --> 29:58.160
This is a discipline so unflinching

29:58.160 --> 30:00.160
in its pursuit of truth

30:00.160 --> 30:03.160
that it will design tiny television cameras

30:03.160 --> 30:06.160
to be implanted in plastic penises

30:06.160 --> 30:08.160
so that we can see the changes

30:08.160 --> 30:11.160
in the color of the vaginal wall

30:11.160 --> 30:13.160
as it approaches orgasm.

30:13.160 --> 30:15.160
I mean, these guys are unstinting

30:15.160 --> 30:18.160
in their devotion to truth

30:18.160 --> 30:20.160
in any form.

30:20.160 --> 30:23.160
And yet, and yet,

30:23.160 --> 30:25.160
for 30 years,

30:25.160 --> 30:28.160
science has accepted

30:28.160 --> 30:32.160
government's refusal

30:32.160 --> 30:35.160
to allow science to look

30:35.160 --> 30:37.160
at the potential impact

30:37.160 --> 30:39.160
of psychedelic plants and compounds

30:39.160 --> 30:41.160
on human consciousness,

30:41.160 --> 30:43.160
on chronic alcoholism,

30:43.160 --> 30:45.160
on schizophrenia,

30:45.160 --> 30:46.160
on depression,

30:46.160 --> 30:48.160
on autism,

30:48.160 --> 30:51.160
on learning disorders,

30:51.160 --> 30:53.160
on dyslexias,

30:53.160 --> 30:57.160
on memory enhancements,

30:57.160 --> 30:59.160
so forth and so on.

30:59.160 --> 31:02.160
This, to me, is obscene.

31:02.160 --> 31:05.160
The future is mental.

31:05.160 --> 31:07.160
Figure it out.

31:07.160 --> 31:11.160
If the mind does not loom large

31:11.160 --> 31:14.160
in the future history of this species,

31:14.160 --> 31:16.160
then what the hell kind of future

31:16.160 --> 31:18.160
is it going to be?

31:18.160 --> 31:21.160
I mean, this is our crowning glory,

31:21.160 --> 31:24.160
our aesthetic sensitivities,

31:24.160 --> 31:27.160
our ability to create values

31:27.160 --> 31:30.160
that are not simply based on

31:30.160 --> 31:31.160
the next meal,

31:31.160 --> 31:33.160
the next sexual encounter,

31:33.160 --> 31:37.160
the next empowering social move,

31:37.160 --> 31:41.160
but an ability to create social values

31:41.160 --> 31:44.160
based on creating a model

31:44.160 --> 31:46.160
of a viable future environment

31:46.160 --> 31:48.160
for children,

31:48.160 --> 31:52.160
creating a viable present environment

31:52.160 --> 31:55.160
for the less fortunate among us,

31:55.160 --> 31:59.160
creating a social safety net

31:59.160 --> 32:02.160
so that the more maladaptive of us

32:02.160 --> 32:05.160
are not reduced to living under bridges

32:05.160 --> 32:08.160
and in abandoned automobiles.

32:08.160 --> 32:10.160
I mean, these are the things

32:10.160 --> 32:13.160
which set us above the apes.

32:13.160 --> 32:15.160
These are the things which take us

32:15.160 --> 32:18.160
out of the context of organic nature

32:18.160 --> 32:20.160
and make it seem as though,

32:20.160 --> 32:22.160
hey, there actually are

32:22.160 --> 32:25.160
some transcendental values

32:25.160 --> 32:27.160
being maximized here.

32:27.160 --> 32:30.160
There actually is something going on

32:30.160 --> 32:33.160
within the human family

32:33.160 --> 32:35.160
that if it were to be lost,

32:35.160 --> 32:37.160
fumbled away,

32:37.160 --> 32:40.160
compromised or destroyed,

32:40.160 --> 32:43.160
the universe would be a poorer,

32:43.160 --> 32:48.160
truly a poorer place for it.

32:48.160 --> 32:53.160
And I think we take our humanness

32:53.160 --> 32:55.160
too much for granted.

32:55.160 --> 32:59.160
I don't think we realize

32:59.160 --> 33:03.160
how nasty, brutish and short

33:03.160 --> 33:06.160
most of life has been

33:06.160 --> 33:08.160
over the centuries

33:08.160 --> 33:10.160
and how really only

33:10.160 --> 33:13.160
within the confines of the 20th century

33:13.160 --> 33:19.160
has a level of comfort

33:19.160 --> 33:22.160
and food availability

33:22.160 --> 33:24.160
and shelter

33:24.160 --> 33:27.160
and basic creature needs

33:27.160 --> 33:30.160
been met to the point where

33:30.160 --> 33:32.160
most people can begin to lead

33:32.160 --> 33:34.160
the philosophical life

33:34.160 --> 33:36.160
that previously was the privilege

33:36.160 --> 33:40.160
of emperors, kings, great courts.

33:40.160 --> 33:43.160
Now we all indulge in

33:43.160 --> 33:45.160
and challenge ourselves.

33:45.160 --> 33:47.160
We all have the philosopher king's

33:47.160 --> 33:49.160
point of view.

33:49.160 --> 33:52.160
We all have a model of history,

33:52.160 --> 33:54.160
a model of the future.

33:54.160 --> 33:57.160
And we all feel capable of

33:57.160 --> 34:00.160
stepping into the shoes of our leaders

34:00.160 --> 34:03.160
and discharging that responsibility.

34:03.160 --> 34:05.160
Well, in order to do that,

34:05.160 --> 34:09.160
I think we need to overcome

34:09.160 --> 34:11.160
our amnesia

34:11.160 --> 34:14.160
about how we got to this place.

34:14.160 --> 34:16.160
I don't see...

34:16.160 --> 34:19.160
You see, what science would have you believe

34:19.160 --> 34:22.160
and explicitly implies

34:22.160 --> 34:25.160
is that we are an aberration.

34:25.160 --> 34:28.160
Here over here you have nature,

34:28.160 --> 34:30.160
the beautiful rainforests,

34:30.160 --> 34:33.160
the wonderful coral reefs,

34:33.160 --> 34:35.160
the cemetery of the hummingbird,

34:35.160 --> 34:38.160
the sea urchin and the butterfly.

34:38.160 --> 34:40.160
And here you have us,

34:40.160 --> 34:45.160
grimy, tawdry, polluting, ugly,

34:45.160 --> 34:48.160
driven, in equilibrium,

34:48.160 --> 34:50.160
in disequilibrium, in denial.

34:50.160 --> 34:52.160
I don't believe that.

34:52.160 --> 34:55.160
I believe that this kind of thinking

34:55.160 --> 34:59.160
that breaks humanity

34:59.160 --> 35:02.160
away from the rest of nature

35:02.160 --> 35:07.160
is the first of the great disempowering myths

35:07.160 --> 35:09.160
by which the Western mind

35:09.160 --> 35:11.160
has enslaved itself.

35:11.160 --> 35:15.160
And we are not outside of nature.

35:15.160 --> 35:20.160
We are not a runaway toxic process.

35:20.160 --> 35:22.160
We are not a mutation.

35:22.160 --> 35:26.160
We are in fact that part of nature

35:26.160 --> 35:31.160
which has been deputized for a purpose.

35:31.160 --> 35:36.160
We are the energy-gathering aspect

35:36.160 --> 35:38.160
of the Gaian mind.

35:38.160 --> 35:43.160
We are the language-forming capacity

35:43.160 --> 35:46.160
of nature herself.

35:46.160 --> 35:48.160
You may know the concept

35:48.160 --> 35:51.160
of a catalyst in chemistry.

35:51.160 --> 35:53.160
A catalyst is something which

35:53.160 --> 35:56.160
when you stir it into a chemical reaction,

35:56.160 --> 35:59.160
the reaction proceeds more quickly.

35:59.160 --> 36:03.160
But the catalyst itself is not destroyed.

36:03.160 --> 36:05.160
And this is what I think we are.

36:05.160 --> 36:08.160
We are a strategy.

36:08.160 --> 36:11.160
On the part of the Gaian mind

36:11.160 --> 36:14.160
to produce an effect

36:14.160 --> 36:18.160
that would otherwise take much, much longer

36:18.160 --> 36:19.160
to produce.

36:19.160 --> 36:22.160
The main effect

36:22.160 --> 36:24.160
of the presence of human life

36:24.160 --> 36:25.160
on this planet

36:25.160 --> 36:28.160
has been to vastly accelerate

36:28.160 --> 36:32.160
the speed at which nature

36:32.160 --> 36:37.160
is able to creatively express herself.

36:37.160 --> 36:40.160
And I would like to believe

36:40.160 --> 36:46.160
that this fragile, fragile thing

36:46.160 --> 36:48.160
which we call humanness,

36:48.160 --> 36:50.160
which is nothing more than

36:50.160 --> 36:53.160
a set of interlocking ideas

36:53.160 --> 36:55.160
which we share.

36:55.160 --> 36:59.160
Ideas about caring and responsibility

36:59.160 --> 37:02.160
and generations yet unborn

37:02.160 --> 37:05.160
and obligation to the integrity of the earth

37:05.160 --> 37:06.160
and so forth and so on.

37:06.160 --> 37:08.160
I would like to believe

37:08.160 --> 37:11.160
that these things arose in us

37:11.160 --> 37:16.160
in a very, very brief window of opportunity.

37:16.160 --> 37:21.160
As you may or may not know,

37:21.160 --> 37:24.160
there is a lot of talk about

37:24.160 --> 37:27.160
the relationship between the masculine

37:27.160 --> 37:29.160
and the feminine in human beings

37:29.160 --> 37:32.160
and gender issues and so forth and so on.

37:32.160 --> 37:35.160
Well, if you go back

37:35.160 --> 37:40.490
into the primate line,

37:40.490 --> 37:43.490
what you discover is

37:43.490 --> 37:47.490
primates always have dominance hierarchies

37:47.490 --> 37:49.490
occupied by males.

37:49.490 --> 37:53.490
This is the bad news part of the thing.

37:53.490 --> 37:56.490
You see, it isn't that we are a perversion

37:56.490 --> 37:59.490
of the primate program.

37:59.490 --> 38:02.490
At this point, we exemplify it

38:02.490 --> 38:05.490
right down the line.

38:05.490 --> 38:07.490
But clear back to square one,

38:07.490 --> 38:10.490
you get squirrel monkeys.

38:10.490 --> 38:14.490
You get male dominance hierarchies.

38:14.490 --> 38:16.490
Why is this?

38:16.490 --> 38:19.490
And why then is it even an issue for us?

38:19.490 --> 38:22.490
Why don't we just blindly accept it?

38:22.490 --> 38:25.490
I mean, there isn't a woman's liberation movement

38:25.490 --> 38:28.490
among termite societies

38:28.490 --> 38:31.490
or, you know, among reindeer herds.

38:31.490 --> 38:35.490
So why are we so discomforted

38:35.490 --> 38:38.490
by our attitudes toward each other?

38:38.490 --> 38:41.490
Well, I believe it's because

38:41.490 --> 38:44.490
we actually created,

38:44.490 --> 38:47.490
at a certain point in our history,

38:47.490 --> 38:50.490
a kind of paradise.

38:50.490 --> 38:53.490
We actually solved all the problems

38:53.490 --> 38:56.490
which now bedevil us

38:56.490 --> 39:01.490
twenty to fifteen thousand years ago.

39:01.490 --> 39:03.490
And how this happened,

39:03.490 --> 39:06.490
and half of you, I hope, are amazed,

39:06.490 --> 39:08.490
and the other half will groan

39:08.490 --> 39:11.490
because you've heard it so many times before,

39:11.490 --> 39:16.490
what happened is an evolutionary synergy

39:16.490 --> 39:19.490
that occurred on the plains of Africa

39:19.490 --> 39:22.490
sometime over the last hundred thousand years.

39:22.490 --> 39:27.490
It's that as the African continent dried up,

39:27.490 --> 39:30.490
our remote primate ancestors

39:30.490 --> 39:32.490
were forced out of the trees

39:32.490 --> 39:35.490
and onto the African grassland

39:35.490 --> 39:38.490
where they were in an environment

39:38.490 --> 39:42.490
completely different from the kind of environment

39:42.490 --> 39:45.490
that our ancestors had been living in

39:45.490 --> 39:47.490
for millions of years.

39:47.490 --> 39:50.490
Gone were the fruit-filled bowers

39:50.490 --> 39:54.490
of the climaxed canopy of the rainforest.

39:54.490 --> 39:57.490
And instead, what there was

39:57.490 --> 40:00.490
was a grassland

40:00.490 --> 40:02.490
with very little vegetation

40:02.490 --> 40:04.490
and little cover,

40:04.490 --> 40:08.490
a very restricted flora and fauna,

40:08.490 --> 40:10.490
and into that grassland

40:10.490 --> 40:13.490
pour these hungry, displaced,

40:13.490 --> 40:18.490
dispossessed, formerly fruititarian primates.

40:18.490 --> 40:22.490
When a species gets under that kind of pressure,

40:22.490 --> 40:25.490
it must make a choice

40:25.490 --> 40:30.490
between extinction or dietary expansion.

40:30.490 --> 40:32.490
Many, many species

40:32.490 --> 40:34.490
choose extinction.

40:34.490 --> 40:37.490
This is an interesting thing about animal species.

40:37.490 --> 40:41.490
Most animal species eat one or two foods

40:41.490 --> 40:44.490
that they are very tightly focused in on.

40:44.490 --> 40:46.490
The reason for this,

40:46.490 --> 40:49.490
if you're not an evolutionary biologist,

40:49.490 --> 40:54.490
is it's a strategy for avoiding mutation.

40:54.490 --> 40:58.490
You see, all plants produce,

40:58.490 --> 41:02.490
have a tendency to protect themselves from predation

41:02.490 --> 41:07.490
by producing toxins, mutagens, poisons,

41:07.490 --> 41:09.490
is what we're talking about here.

41:09.490 --> 41:12.490
So an animal species will evolve

41:12.490 --> 41:16.490
a preference for just one or two food sources,

41:16.490 --> 41:19.490
and then it can hold its exposure

41:19.490 --> 41:22.490
to mutagenic agents to a minimum.

41:22.490 --> 41:24.490
Now, our species,

41:24.490 --> 41:29.490
when we moved into that African grassland situation,

41:29.490 --> 41:32.490
were plastic enough

41:32.490 --> 41:34.490
malleable enough

41:34.490 --> 41:36.490
that we decided, no, by God,

41:36.490 --> 41:39.490
we're not going to go to extinction

41:39.490 --> 41:43.490
because of the absence of papayas in this situation.

41:43.490 --> 41:46.490
We're going to test other foods.

41:46.490 --> 41:50.490
And we began testing other foods in that environment,

41:50.490 --> 41:53.490
and that immediately swelled

41:53.490 --> 41:56.490
the number of mutant strains

41:56.490 --> 41:59.490
in the human population.

41:59.490 --> 42:02.490
Now, in this grassland environment,

42:02.490 --> 42:05.490
the number of new foods to be tested

42:05.490 --> 42:07.490
was somewhat limited,

42:07.490 --> 42:10.490
and the most spectacular and obvious

42:10.490 --> 42:13.490
of the unfamiliar food sources

42:13.490 --> 42:15.490
in this environment

42:15.490 --> 42:18.490
were the psilocybin mushrooms

42:18.490 --> 42:21.490
seen to be growing in the cow pies

42:21.490 --> 42:24.490
of the many different kinds of

42:24.490 --> 42:26.490
cattle-like ungulate animals

42:26.490 --> 42:30.490
growing up in that environment.

42:30.490 --> 42:32.490
And if you've ever been to the tribes,

42:32.490 --> 42:36.490
and seen the Stropharia cubensis mushroom

42:36.490 --> 42:38.490
in its natural habitat,

42:38.490 --> 42:40.490
you can't miss it.

42:40.490 --> 42:43.490
It's the most spectacular thing going on.

42:43.490 --> 42:46.490
I mean, you walk out into a Colombian pasture

42:46.490 --> 42:49.490
after a few days of mist and rain,

42:49.490 --> 42:51.490
and these mushrooms,

42:51.490 --> 42:54.490
the size of dinner plates,

42:54.490 --> 42:57.490
will be scattered across the environment.

42:57.490 --> 43:01.490
Now, when I was in Kenya in the late 60s,

43:01.490 --> 43:04.490
I observed baboon troops

43:04.490 --> 43:07.490
and their food-gathering behavior,

43:07.490 --> 43:09.490
and what they were into

43:09.490 --> 43:11.490
was running around frantically

43:11.490 --> 43:14.490
looking for cow flops

43:14.490 --> 43:17.490
and then flipping them over,

43:17.490 --> 43:20.490
looking for beetle grubs

43:20.490 --> 43:22.490
or carrion beetles.

43:22.490 --> 43:25.490
You see, they understood that the cow flop

43:25.490 --> 43:28.490
great phrase, huh?

43:28.490 --> 43:30.490
The fecal deposit

43:30.490 --> 43:33.490
of the ungulate animal

43:33.490 --> 43:37.490
was a vector for protein,

43:37.490 --> 43:38.490
insect protein.

43:38.490 --> 43:40.490
This was a likely place to find

43:40.490 --> 43:43.490
carrion beetles, worms, and what have you,

43:43.490 --> 43:45.490
and of course, the mushroom.

43:45.490 --> 43:48.490
Well, when you observe how

43:48.490 --> 43:50.490
primates react

43:50.490 --> 43:53.490
when they're testing a food,

43:53.490 --> 43:54.490
they're very careful

43:54.490 --> 43:56.490
and they're very conscientious.

43:56.490 --> 43:59.490
A baboon will take a suspect

43:59.490 --> 44:01.490
potential food source,

44:01.490 --> 44:03.490
take a leaf,

44:03.490 --> 44:05.490
put it in their mouth,

44:05.490 --> 44:06.490
just hold it there,

44:06.490 --> 44:08.490
no chewing, no nothing,

44:08.490 --> 44:09.490
put it in their mouth,

44:09.490 --> 44:11.490
wait 30 seconds,

44:11.490 --> 44:12.490
chew,

44:12.490 --> 44:14.490
wait,

44:14.490 --> 44:15.490
and then either spit it out

44:15.490 --> 44:17.490
or swallow,

44:17.490 --> 44:20.490
and if swallowed, then begin to eat.

44:20.490 --> 44:25.490
Well, I believe that this encounter

44:25.490 --> 44:27.490
with the psilocybin mushroom

44:27.490 --> 44:29.490
and in the course of

44:29.490 --> 44:30.490
this workshop,

44:30.490 --> 44:32.490
maybe in the question and answer period,

44:32.490 --> 44:33.490
we'll get to this,

44:33.490 --> 44:37.490
but psilocybin has unique properties

44:37.490 --> 44:39.490
which set us up

44:39.490 --> 44:41.490
for a sudden,

44:41.490 --> 44:43.490
enormous evolutionary

44:43.490 --> 44:45.490
kick in the pants.

44:45.490 --> 44:47.490
And we can talk among ourselves

44:47.490 --> 44:50.490
about whether this was just blind coincidence,

44:50.490 --> 44:52.490
good old chance,

44:52.490 --> 44:54.490
and aren't we fortunate for it,

44:54.490 --> 44:57.490
or whether benign extraterrestrials

44:57.490 --> 44:59.490
operating from their

44:59.490 --> 45:02.490
base on zeta reticuli were,

45:02.490 --> 45:04.490
you know, we can save that for you.

45:04.490 --> 45:07.490
We don't have to get rid of it.

45:09.490 --> 45:11.490
Whether it was those

45:11.490 --> 45:13.490
shifty zeta reticulites

45:13.490 --> 45:16.490
or blind chance,

45:16.490 --> 45:18.490
whatever the force was,

45:18.490 --> 45:20.490
the exposure to psilocybin has

45:20.490 --> 45:24.490
three reinforcing consequences

45:24.490 --> 45:27.490
that are of tremendous importance

45:27.490 --> 45:29.490
for understanding

45:29.490 --> 45:31.490
human evolution.

45:31.490 --> 45:34.490
And they are as follows.

45:34.490 --> 45:38.490
Psilocybin in very low doses,

45:38.490 --> 45:40.490
doses so low that if you had taken

45:40.490 --> 45:41.490
this amount,

45:41.490 --> 45:43.490
you would not feel it

45:43.490 --> 45:45.490
or you would be just slightly antsy.

45:45.490 --> 45:46.490
In other words,

45:46.490 --> 45:48.490
very low doses of psilocybin

45:48.490 --> 45:51.490
actually increase visual acuity.

45:51.490 --> 45:54.490
It means it improves your vision

45:54.490 --> 45:57.490
with this stuff.

45:57.490 --> 45:58.490
Well, again,

45:58.490 --> 46:01.490
you don't have to be a rocket scientist

46:01.490 --> 46:03.490
or an evolutionary biologist

46:03.490 --> 46:05.490
to figure out that if there's a plant

46:05.490 --> 46:06.490
in the environment

46:06.490 --> 46:08.490
and you're a hunting animal

46:08.490 --> 46:11.490
and this plant improves vision,

46:11.490 --> 46:14.490
you're going to be a better hunting animal

46:14.490 --> 46:18.490
if you include this plant in your diet.

46:18.490 --> 46:21.490
And this is precisely what happened.

46:21.490 --> 46:24.490
Early human or proto-hominid hunters

46:24.490 --> 46:27.490
accepted psilocybin into their diet.

46:27.490 --> 46:29.490
It made them better hunters.

46:29.490 --> 46:31.490
Being a better hunter means

46:31.490 --> 46:35.490
being more successful at obtaining food.

46:35.490 --> 46:38.490
Being more successful at obtaining food

46:38.490 --> 46:40.490
means more of your children

46:40.490 --> 46:44.490
reach reproductive age themselves.

46:44.490 --> 46:46.490
And so you outbreed

46:46.490 --> 46:49.490
the non-psilocybin-using portion

46:49.490 --> 46:51.490
of the population.

46:51.490 --> 46:54.490
Simple enough, right?

46:54.490 --> 46:56.490
On the next level,

46:56.490 --> 46:59.490
remember I said this was a three-step process

46:59.490 --> 47:02.490
where each step reinforces the other.

47:02.490 --> 47:06.490
At slightly higher doses of psilocybin,

47:06.490 --> 47:09.490
you get what's called CNS arousal,

47:09.490 --> 47:12.490
central nervous system arousal.

47:12.490 --> 47:15.490
Well, now arousal is just what it sounds like.

47:15.490 --> 47:18.490
It's not only restlessness and alertness,

47:18.490 --> 47:23.490
but it's also a kind of horny,

47:23.490 --> 47:26.490
diffuse energy.

47:26.490 --> 47:30.490
It inclineth one's thoughts

47:30.490 --> 47:32.490
to the boudoir,

47:32.490 --> 47:35.490
is what I'm trying to say here.

47:35.490 --> 47:37.490
And so you get what primatologists

47:37.490 --> 47:40.490
and anthropologists charmingly describe

47:40.490 --> 47:42.490
as more frequent instances

47:42.490 --> 47:45.490
of successful copulation.

47:45.490 --> 47:48.490
And so what successful copulation means is,

47:48.490 --> 47:51.490
again, a factor feeding in

47:51.490 --> 47:55.490
to more children of the psilocybin-using,

47:55.490 --> 48:00.490
animals reaching reproductive age themselves.

48:00.490 --> 48:02.490
And then finally and thirdly,

48:02.490 --> 48:05.490
beyond visual acuity,

48:05.490 --> 48:09.490
beyond sexual arousal,

48:09.490 --> 48:14.490
is the full-blown psychedelic tremendum,

48:14.490 --> 48:19.490
the full-blown religious revelation

48:19.490 --> 48:23.490
that goes with the mushroom experience,

48:23.490 --> 48:26.490
a revelation of such depth and breadth

48:26.490 --> 48:29.490
that we, 20,000 years later,

48:29.490 --> 48:32.490
with all our epistemic sophistication

48:32.490 --> 48:35.490
and our parallel processing computers

48:35.490 --> 48:37.490
and all this other malarkey,

48:37.490 --> 48:39.490
are completely in awe of,

48:39.490 --> 48:43.490
completely unable to come to terms with.

48:43.490 --> 48:46.490
Well, this higher dose of psilocybin

48:46.490 --> 48:50.490
was usually experienced in the context

48:50.490 --> 48:53.490
of the middle-range dose of psilocybin,

48:53.490 --> 48:56.490
so it went on in an atmosphere

48:56.490 --> 49:03.490
of group religious ecstasy and orgy.

49:03.490 --> 49:06.490
I mean, that's just how it happened, folks.

49:06.490 --> 49:11.490
Orgy was a part of human sexuality

49:11.490 --> 49:14.490
before the invention of agriculture.

49:14.490 --> 49:16.490
I'm absolutely convinced of it.

49:16.490 --> 49:21.490
You see, the growth of the human intellect

49:21.490 --> 49:23.490
over evolutionary spans of time

49:23.490 --> 49:27.490
is a kind of conquest of dimensionality.

49:27.490 --> 49:30.490
And the conquest of dimensionality

49:30.490 --> 49:33.490
that gave us agriculture

49:33.490 --> 49:37.490
unfortunately gave us male dominance

49:37.490 --> 49:39.490
and patriarchy.

49:39.490 --> 49:44.490
And the reason for this is not far to seek.

49:44.490 --> 49:50.490
A new intellectual horizon of cause and effect

49:50.490 --> 49:52.490
was being explored.

49:52.490 --> 49:55.490
Women, who were the gatherers

49:55.490 --> 49:58.490
in the hunter-gatherer equation,

49:58.490 --> 50:01.490
were realizing for the first time

50:01.490 --> 50:05.490
the causal relationship that exists

50:05.490 --> 50:11.490
between burying a half-eaten meal over here

50:11.490 --> 50:15.490
and coming back a year later

50:15.490 --> 50:18.490
on your annual nomadic peregrination

50:18.490 --> 50:21.490
and discovering food plants,

50:21.490 --> 50:23.490
growing where you buried

50:23.490 --> 50:26.490
your uneaten meal of a year ago.

50:26.490 --> 50:27.490
In other words,

50:27.490 --> 50:31.490
women came to understand the relationship

50:31.490 --> 50:33.490
between the act of planting

50:33.490 --> 50:36.490
and the appearance of usable food plants

50:36.490 --> 50:38.490
sometime later.

50:38.490 --> 50:41.490
At the same time that this was going on,

50:41.490 --> 50:45.490
men were making the connection

50:45.490 --> 50:49.490
between the fact that the sex act

50:49.490 --> 50:52.490
had something to do with the fact

50:52.490 --> 50:54.490
that nine months later,

50:54.490 --> 50:58.490
a woman would bear a child.

50:58.490 --> 51:01.490
And in a way, this was the beginning

51:01.490 --> 51:05.490
of the straight lockstep march into hell.

51:08.490 --> 51:13.490
Because once men had this notion

51:13.490 --> 51:16.490
of male paternity,

51:16.490 --> 51:18.490
male paternity,

51:18.490 --> 51:21.490
it became more important to know

51:21.490 --> 51:23.490
who your children were

51:23.490 --> 51:26.490
than it was to participate

51:26.490 --> 51:32.490
in the orgiastic, group-minded bonding

51:32.490 --> 51:34.490
that had previously occurred.

51:34.490 --> 51:36.490
And once you have the notion

51:36.490 --> 51:40.490
of my child, my child,

51:40.490 --> 51:44.490
then it moves naturally to my woman,

51:44.490 --> 51:47.490
my weapons, my food,

51:47.490 --> 51:52.490
my hunting ground, my everything.

51:52.490 --> 51:55.490
The recognition of male paternity

51:55.490 --> 51:58.490
gave permission for the growth of ego.

51:58.490 --> 52:03.490
And ego, and this was all a continuous thought,

52:03.490 --> 52:05.490
those of you who doubted,

52:05.490 --> 52:08.490
this was all a continuous thought.

52:08.490 --> 52:10.490
Ego is our problem.

52:10.490 --> 52:13.490
And we always had it

52:13.490 --> 52:15.490
when we were squirrel monkeys,

52:15.490 --> 52:16.490
howler monkeys, proboscis,

52:16.490 --> 52:19.490
proboscis monkeys, and all that.

52:19.490 --> 52:21.490
We only lost it

52:21.490 --> 52:25.490
in that very brief window of opportunity,

52:25.490 --> 52:29.490
maybe 20, maybe 30, 40 thousand years long,

52:29.490 --> 52:33.490
when, as we evolved into the grassland,

52:33.490 --> 52:36.490
we included in our diet

52:36.490 --> 52:39.490
essentially a drug which corrected

52:39.490 --> 52:42.490
our primate nature.

52:42.490 --> 52:45.490
A drug which suppressed

52:45.490 --> 52:48.490
the expression of male dominance.

52:48.490 --> 52:51.490
A drug which promoted

52:51.490 --> 52:54.490
an orgiastic sexual style

52:54.490 --> 52:57.490
that promoted group values.

52:57.490 --> 52:59.490
Because you see,

52:59.490 --> 53:01.490
and this is the point to my mind

53:01.490 --> 53:03.490
about psychedelics,

53:03.490 --> 53:05.490
what they do,

53:05.490 --> 53:08.490
not, you know, my trip or your trip,

53:08.490 --> 53:11.490
which we could spend hours trading stories about,

53:11.490 --> 53:13.490
but when you try and talk about

53:13.490 --> 53:16.490
what is the effect of the psychedelic experience,

53:16.490 --> 53:18.490
not one or two of them,

53:18.490 --> 53:20.490
but a hundred thousand of them,

53:20.490 --> 53:23.490
what generalizations can we make?

53:23.490 --> 53:27.490
The generalization that I have found most powerful is

53:27.490 --> 53:32.490
the psychedelic experience dissolves boundaries.

53:32.490 --> 53:34.490
That's what it does.

53:34.490 --> 53:39.490
And boundaries are what chain,

53:39.490 --> 53:42.490
diminish, define,

53:42.490 --> 53:45.490
and degrade us.

53:45.490 --> 53:48.490
And we are always creating them.

53:48.490 --> 53:50.490
And we are always struggling

53:50.490 --> 53:52.490
with dissolving them.

53:52.490 --> 53:54.490
And the ultimate boundary

53:54.490 --> 53:56.490
is this belief

53:56.490 --> 53:58.490
in the sanctity of the ego

53:58.490 --> 54:01.490
versus everything else

54:01.490 --> 54:03.490
in the cosmos.

54:03.490 --> 54:05.490
And I believe that this,

54:05.490 --> 54:07.490
that the ego arose

54:07.490 --> 54:10.490
in a context of language,

54:10.490 --> 54:12.490
culture, religion,

54:12.490 --> 54:13.490
and so forth,

54:13.490 --> 54:15.490
simply because

54:15.490 --> 54:18.490
we evolved in the African grassland

54:18.490 --> 54:20.490
and the climate itself

54:20.490 --> 54:22.490
underwent changes

54:22.490 --> 54:26.490
that eventually placed the mushroom out of reach.

54:26.490 --> 54:28.490
And this is why

54:28.490 --> 54:31.490
the fall into history.

54:31.490 --> 54:34.490
This is what that Genesis story

54:34.490 --> 54:35.490
about the,

54:35.490 --> 54:38.490
that I call history's first drug bust,

54:38.490 --> 54:41.490
this is what it's about.

54:41.490 --> 54:43.490
I mean, isn't it a little peculiar

54:43.490 --> 54:46.490
that the Ur myth of our culture

54:46.490 --> 54:48.490
opens with a drug bust?

54:48.490 --> 54:50.490
It's the story of a woman,

54:50.490 --> 54:52.490
right, those bad women,

54:52.490 --> 54:56.490
a woman who corrupts her roommate

54:56.490 --> 54:59.490
and then they both get kicked out.

54:59.490 --> 55:02.490
They break the lease, essentially,

55:02.490 --> 55:04.490
and they both get kicked out.

55:04.490 --> 55:06.490
And where they get kicked out of

55:06.490 --> 55:08.490
is into history.

55:08.490 --> 55:11.490
And I believe that the Genesis story

55:11.490 --> 55:14.490
definitely told and created

55:14.490 --> 55:17.490
at a time when patriarchy was on a roll

55:17.490 --> 55:21.490
is a memory of this break

55:21.490 --> 55:23.490
with this orgiastic,

55:23.490 --> 55:25.490
goddess-centered,

55:25.490 --> 55:26.490
nomadic,

55:26.490 --> 55:28.490
cattle-oriented,

55:28.490 --> 55:31.490
mushroom-using

55:31.490 --> 55:34.490
form of human pastoralism.

55:34.490 --> 55:37.490
Now, notice in this scenario

55:37.490 --> 55:40.490
that there are no villains, per se,

55:40.490 --> 55:45.490
the planet began to get dry,

55:45.490 --> 55:47.490
and that's what broke up

55:47.490 --> 55:49.490
this arboreal,

55:49.490 --> 55:52.490
papaya-oriented paradise

55:52.490 --> 55:54.490
in the treetops

55:54.490 --> 55:56.490
where everybody was male-dominated

55:56.490 --> 55:58.490
and mindless as a tomato

55:58.490 --> 56:00.490
but having a good time.

56:00.490 --> 56:03.490
The drying of the African continent

56:03.490 --> 56:06.490
broke that party up,

56:06.490 --> 56:09.490
created a mixed ecology

56:09.490 --> 56:12.490
of forest and grassland

56:12.490 --> 56:15.490
into which the primates then evolved

56:15.490 --> 56:18.490
this fascinating relationship

56:18.490 --> 56:20.490
with the cattle, you see.

56:20.490 --> 56:24.490
And much of what I say here

56:24.490 --> 56:27.490
is orthodox evolutionary theory.

56:27.490 --> 56:29.490
It's just the part about psilocybin

56:29.490 --> 56:31.490
that nobody else will touch

56:31.490 --> 56:33.490
with a ten-foot pole.

56:33.490 --> 56:38.490
But moving out into the grassland,

56:38.490 --> 56:40.490
testing foods,

56:40.490 --> 56:43.490
accepting psilocybin into the diet,

56:43.490 --> 56:46.490
and then creating,

56:46.490 --> 56:49.490
based on the interruption

56:49.490 --> 56:52.490
of the natural, natural tendency

56:52.490 --> 56:54.490
toward male dominance,

56:54.490 --> 56:57.490
it was fixed 50,000 years ago.

56:57.490 --> 57:00.490
A pharmacological intervention

57:00.490 --> 57:02.490
on the entire species

57:02.490 --> 57:04.490
created then a situation

57:04.490 --> 57:06.490
of partnership.

57:06.490 --> 57:07.490
The women were

57:07.490 --> 57:09.490
the gatherers.

57:09.490 --> 57:11.490
The men were the hunters.

57:11.490 --> 57:13.490
This had to do with

57:13.490 --> 57:16.490
promotion of different body types

57:16.490 --> 57:18.490
that had already taken,

57:18.490 --> 57:20.490
was already well established

57:20.490 --> 57:21.490
in these primates.

57:21.490 --> 57:22.490
I mean, you get this

57:22.490 --> 57:23.490
throughout the primates.

57:23.490 --> 57:25.490
The large male,

57:25.490 --> 57:26.490
barrel-chested,

57:26.490 --> 57:29.490
the more diminutive female,

57:29.490 --> 57:31.490
and the females more,

57:31.490 --> 57:34.490
largely more social than the male.

57:34.490 --> 57:36.490
The males hunt.

57:36.490 --> 57:39.490
And in the proto-hominid situation,

57:39.490 --> 57:41.490
this was certainly true.

57:41.490 --> 57:43.490
And hunting, as you know,

57:43.490 --> 57:44.490
if you've ever done it,

57:44.490 --> 57:46.490
places a great premium

57:46.490 --> 57:49.490
on stoic waiting.

57:49.490 --> 57:51.490
That's the hunter's job,

57:51.490 --> 57:53.490
is to sit down

57:53.490 --> 57:55.490
and keep your mouth shut

57:55.490 --> 57:58.490
and watch silently

57:58.490 --> 58:01.490
until it's time to make your move

58:01.490 --> 58:04.490
and then move ruthlessly,

58:04.490 --> 58:06.490
without question,

58:06.490 --> 58:09.490
you know, with attention.

58:09.490 --> 58:12.490
Women had a completely different set

58:12.490 --> 58:15.490
of pressures and constraints on them.

58:15.490 --> 58:17.490
As gatherers,

58:17.490 --> 58:20.490
it was very important for women

58:20.490 --> 58:22.490
to be able to communicate

58:22.490 --> 58:25.490
extraordinarily subtle

58:25.490 --> 58:28.490
aspects of the material world

58:28.490 --> 58:30.490
to each other.

58:30.490 --> 58:32.490
So that a woman

58:32.490 --> 58:35.490
needs to be able to say

58:35.490 --> 58:37.490
when she comes into camp

58:37.490 --> 58:40.490
with the apron full of nuts,

58:40.490 --> 58:43.490
I got these

58:43.490 --> 58:45.490
near the waterfall

58:45.490 --> 58:47.490
by the bush

58:47.490 --> 58:49.490
with the small yellow leaves

58:49.490 --> 58:51.490
with the waxy flowers

58:51.490 --> 58:53.490
and the red berries

58:53.490 --> 58:56.490
that has the dry grass underneath it.

58:56.490 --> 58:58.490
In other words,

58:58.490 --> 59:00.490
for a gatherer,

59:00.490 --> 59:02.490
there is tremendous premium put

59:02.490 --> 59:04.490
on being able to describe

59:04.490 --> 59:05.490
your environment.

59:05.490 --> 59:07.490
You must be able to communicate

59:07.490 --> 59:08.490
because a woman

59:08.490 --> 59:10.490
who makes a food find

59:10.490 --> 59:12.490
can only bring back to camp

59:12.490 --> 59:14.490
as much food as she can carry.

59:14.490 --> 59:16.490
But if she can communicate

59:16.490 --> 59:17.490
to her sisters

59:17.490 --> 59:19.490
what is going on,

59:19.490 --> 59:21.490
then no problem.

59:21.490 --> 59:23.490
So language, I believe,

59:23.490 --> 59:25.490
largely evolved

59:25.490 --> 59:28.490
as a prerogative of women.

59:28.490 --> 59:31.490
And this stoicism

59:31.490 --> 59:32.490
and

59:34.490 --> 59:36.490
ability to

59:36.490 --> 59:39.490
tolerate uncomfortable conditions

59:39.490 --> 59:42.490
was evolved by men.

59:42.490 --> 59:50.860
All of this, I think,

59:50.860 --> 59:52.860
would have been fine.

59:52.860 --> 59:53.860
It could have gone on

59:53.860 --> 59:55.860
for millions of years

59:55.860 --> 59:57.860
in this climaxed situation.

59:57.860 --> 01:00:00.860
The orgies were lunar,

01:00:00.860 --> 01:00:01.860
meaning they probably occurred

01:00:01.860 --> 01:00:02.860
every two weeks

01:00:02.860 --> 01:00:05.860
or at most every 28 days.

01:00:05.860 --> 01:00:07.860
That means every 28 days

01:00:07.860 --> 01:00:09.860
every member of this society

01:00:09.860 --> 01:00:11.860
was completely dissolving

01:00:11.860 --> 01:00:13.860
any psychic structures

01:00:13.860 --> 01:00:14.860
that may have arisen

01:00:14.860 --> 01:00:16.860
in the previous 28 days.

01:00:16.860 --> 01:00:17.860
And then everybody was

01:00:17.860 --> 01:00:19.860
sitting on each other's bones

01:00:19.860 --> 01:00:20.860
in a big heap.

01:00:20.860 --> 01:00:22.860
And you can imagine

01:00:22.860 --> 01:00:24.860
the boundary-dissolving impact

01:00:24.860 --> 01:00:26.860
that something like that

01:00:26.860 --> 01:00:28.860
would have.

01:00:28.860 --> 01:00:31.860
Why then, if it was so wonderful,

01:00:31.860 --> 01:00:33.860
didn't we just stick with it?

01:00:33.860 --> 01:00:35.860
Why the descent into,

01:00:35.860 --> 01:00:37.860
you know, the hell

01:00:37.860 --> 01:00:39.860
of Pee Wee Herman,

01:00:39.860 --> 01:00:40.860
and Richard Nixon,

01:00:40.860 --> 01:00:43.860
and all of the stuff?

01:00:43.860 --> 01:00:45.860
Well, the same culprit

01:00:45.860 --> 01:00:48.860
that created that happy story

01:00:48.860 --> 01:00:51.860
destroyed that happy scenario.

01:00:51.860 --> 01:00:53.860
And that is the continued drying up

01:00:53.860 --> 01:00:55.860
of the planet.

01:00:55.860 --> 01:00:56.860
And that's what we get

01:00:56.860 --> 01:00:58.860
in that Genesis story.

01:00:58.860 --> 01:00:59.860
Remember at the end

01:00:59.860 --> 01:01:00.860
of the Genesis story,

01:01:00.860 --> 01:01:01.860
it says,

01:01:01.860 --> 01:01:03.860
and God set an angel

01:01:03.860 --> 01:01:05.860
at the eastern gate of Eden

01:01:05.860 --> 01:01:07.860
with a flaming sword

01:01:07.860 --> 01:01:09.860
so that Adam and his children

01:01:09.860 --> 01:01:11.860
could not find their way back

01:01:11.860 --> 01:01:13.860
into paradise.

01:01:13.860 --> 01:01:14.860
That's the memory

01:01:14.860 --> 01:01:17.860
of the Saharan sun

01:01:17.860 --> 01:01:20.860
scorching off the African veldt

01:01:20.860 --> 01:01:23.860
and forcing those mushroom-using

01:01:23.860 --> 01:01:25.860
pastoralists to settle

01:01:25.860 --> 01:01:26.860
in the Nile Valley

01:01:26.860 --> 01:01:30.860
and set up permanent settlements

01:01:30.860 --> 01:01:33.860
and begin thinking about kingship,

01:01:33.860 --> 01:01:36.860
large-scale agricultural projects,

01:01:36.860 --> 01:01:38.860
and so forth and so on.

01:01:38.860 --> 01:01:40.860
And what happened,

01:01:40.860 --> 01:01:41.860
it was not as simple

01:01:41.860 --> 01:01:43.860
as that may have made it seem,

01:01:43.860 --> 01:01:45.860
you see.

01:01:45.860 --> 01:01:49.520
This is really the theme

01:01:49.520 --> 01:01:50.520
of this book

01:01:50.520 --> 01:01:51.520
that I wrote for Bantam,

01:01:51.520 --> 01:01:54.520
is the theme that cultures

01:01:54.520 --> 01:01:57.520
wear drugs like clothing,

01:01:57.520 --> 01:01:59.520
and they're never aware of it.

01:01:59.520 --> 01:02:01.520
They just feel naked

01:02:01.520 --> 01:02:04.520
without their particular drug.

01:02:04.520 --> 01:02:06.520
And the clothing may differ.

01:02:06.520 --> 01:02:08.520
You know, one culture feels

01:02:08.520 --> 01:02:09.520
fully dressed

01:02:09.520 --> 01:02:12.520
in penis sheaths and war paint.

01:02:12.520 --> 01:02:15.520
Another culture isn't fully dressed

01:02:15.520 --> 01:02:18.520
unless the gown is by Dior.

01:02:18.520 --> 01:02:20.520
So there are different styles

01:02:20.520 --> 01:02:21.520
of clothing,

01:02:21.520 --> 01:02:22.520
and there are different styles

01:02:22.520 --> 01:02:23.520
of mental clothing

01:02:23.520 --> 01:02:25.520
in the form of drugs.

01:02:25.520 --> 01:02:27.520
And these drugs promote

01:02:27.520 --> 01:02:30.520
different kinds of cultural values.

01:02:30.520 --> 01:02:31.520
And what happened

01:02:31.520 --> 01:02:33.520
in this African situation

01:02:33.520 --> 01:02:35.520
was a tragedy that in a way

01:02:35.520 --> 01:02:37.520
we have seen enacted

01:02:37.520 --> 01:02:38.520
in microcosm

01:02:38.520 --> 01:02:41.520
in our own society.

01:02:41.520 --> 01:02:44.520
It was that at a certain point

01:02:44.520 --> 01:02:47.520
everything was perfect.

01:02:47.520 --> 01:02:50.520
The monthly orgies,

01:02:50.520 --> 01:02:52.520
the suppression of ego,

01:02:52.520 --> 01:02:55.520
the group values,

01:02:55.520 --> 01:02:59.520
the recent invention of language

01:02:59.520 --> 01:03:01.520
was making food gathering

01:03:01.520 --> 01:03:03.520
easy for women,

01:03:03.520 --> 01:03:05.520
the abundant game

01:03:05.520 --> 01:03:07.520
was making hunting easy for men,

01:03:07.520 --> 01:03:08.520
so forth.

01:03:08.520 --> 01:03:09.520
And so on.

01:03:09.520 --> 01:03:12.520
But this drying of the African continent

01:03:12.520 --> 01:03:14.520
didn't halt there.

01:03:14.520 --> 01:03:16.520
It continued.

01:03:16.520 --> 01:03:17.520
And pretty soon

01:03:17.520 --> 01:03:19.520
there were problems.

01:03:19.520 --> 01:03:21.520
Less game.

01:03:21.520 --> 01:03:23.520
Less to be gathered.

01:03:23.520 --> 01:03:26.520
And most important for my theory,

01:03:26.520 --> 01:03:28.520
fewer mushrooms.

01:03:28.520 --> 01:03:31.520
And when there became fewer mushrooms,

01:03:31.520 --> 01:03:35.520
then there were two possibilities.

01:03:35.520 --> 01:03:38.520
You could have your mushroom

01:03:38.520 --> 01:03:41.520
orgies less frequently.

01:03:41.520 --> 01:03:43.520
Or you could create

01:03:43.520 --> 01:03:45.520
some kind of technology

01:03:45.520 --> 01:03:47.520
for preserving the mushrooms

01:03:47.520 --> 01:03:48.520
so that when you found

01:03:48.520 --> 01:03:49.520
a lot of them

01:03:49.520 --> 01:03:51.520
you could save some of them

01:03:51.520 --> 01:03:52.520
for dry spells.

01:03:52.520 --> 01:03:55.520
Literally for dry spells.

01:03:55.520 --> 01:03:58.520
Now the problem with this strategy

01:03:58.520 --> 01:03:59.520
is that in a world

01:03:59.520 --> 01:04:02.520
without refrigeration

01:04:02.520 --> 01:04:05.520
the strategy

01:04:05.520 --> 01:04:07.520
which aboriginal people

01:04:07.520 --> 01:04:09.520
in Australia,

01:04:09.520 --> 01:04:10.520
in the Amazon basin,

01:04:10.520 --> 01:04:12.520
the strategy which aboriginal people

01:04:12.520 --> 01:04:13.520
tend toward

01:04:13.520 --> 01:04:15.520
when they want to preserve

01:04:15.520 --> 01:04:17.520
some delicate food

01:04:17.520 --> 01:04:21.520
is they invariably go for honey.

01:04:21.520 --> 01:04:22.520
Honey.

01:04:22.520 --> 01:04:24.520
This is why some of you may know

01:04:24.520 --> 01:04:26.520
that the Romans ate

01:04:26.520 --> 01:04:28.520
hummingbird's tongues

01:04:28.520 --> 01:04:29.520
pickled in honey.

01:04:29.520 --> 01:04:31.520
It isn't because honey

01:04:31.520 --> 01:04:32.520
was the preferred medium

01:04:32.520 --> 01:04:34.520
for pickling hummingbird's tongues.

01:04:34.520 --> 01:04:36.520
It was because that's a way

01:04:36.520 --> 01:04:39.520
of preserving delicate food.

01:04:39.520 --> 01:04:42.520
The problem with honey

01:04:42.520 --> 01:04:45.520
is honey itself

01:04:45.520 --> 01:04:47.520
can ferment

01:04:47.520 --> 01:04:50.520
into a psychoactive compound.

01:04:50.520 --> 01:04:53.520
Honey changes into mead.

01:04:53.520 --> 01:04:57.520
Mead is a form of crude alcohol.

01:04:57.520 --> 01:04:59.520
The impact

01:04:59.520 --> 01:05:01.520
on a goddess worshipping

01:05:01.520 --> 01:05:03.520
orgiastic,

01:05:03.520 --> 01:05:05.520
non-hierarchical,

01:05:05.520 --> 01:05:09.520
non-male dominant culture

01:05:09.520 --> 01:05:11.520
of switching over

01:05:11.520 --> 01:05:15.520
to the use of alcohol

01:05:15.520 --> 01:05:18.520
is absolutely devastating.

01:05:18.520 --> 01:05:19.520
In the same way

01:05:19.520 --> 01:05:20.520
that I told you

01:05:20.520 --> 01:05:22.520
what psilocybin did,

01:05:22.520 --> 01:05:23.520
improves visual acuity,

01:05:23.520 --> 01:05:25.520
promotes sexual activity,

01:05:25.520 --> 01:05:28.520
delivers a religious experience,

01:05:28.520 --> 01:05:29.520
we can talk about

01:05:29.520 --> 01:05:31.520
what alcohol does.

01:05:31.520 --> 01:05:33.520
It lowers sensitivity

01:05:33.520 --> 01:05:35.520
to social cueing.

01:05:35.520 --> 01:05:37.520
At the same time

01:05:37.520 --> 01:05:39.520
that it gives an empowered sense

01:05:39.520 --> 01:05:41.520
of ego.

01:05:41.520 --> 01:05:42.520
In other words,

01:05:42.520 --> 01:05:44.520
it makes you into a jerk.

01:05:47.520 --> 01:05:49.520
It gives you the courage

01:05:49.520 --> 01:05:51.520
to say and do

01:05:51.520 --> 01:05:54.520
what if you are a decent person

01:05:54.520 --> 01:05:56.520
you would otherwise never say

01:05:56.520 --> 01:05:58.520
and never do.

01:05:58.520 --> 01:06:00.520
It turns each one of us

01:06:00.520 --> 01:06:02.520
into a Clarence Thomas.

01:06:02.520 --> 01:06:04.520
This is not what's needed.

01:06:05.520 --> 01:06:07.520
Boo.

01:06:07.520 --> 01:06:08.520
Yes.

01:06:08.520 --> 01:06:09.520
No.

01:06:09.520 --> 01:06:10.520
Who knows?

01:06:10.520 --> 01:06:12.520
Who is Clarence Thomas?

01:06:15.520 --> 01:06:17.520
And time and time again

01:06:17.520 --> 01:06:18.520
in human history

01:06:18.520 --> 01:06:20.520
these kinds of synergies

01:06:20.520 --> 01:06:22.520
have been enacted.

01:06:22.520 --> 01:06:24.520
Well,

01:06:24.520 --> 01:06:26.520
I want to say more about it.

01:06:26.520 --> 01:06:29.520
That isn't the whole story.

01:06:29.520 --> 01:06:31.520
That could be the whole story.

01:06:31.520 --> 01:06:33.520
I mean there's enough in that

01:06:33.520 --> 01:06:35.520
for it to be the whole story.

01:06:35.520 --> 01:06:37.520
In other words,

01:06:37.520 --> 01:06:39.520
if it's true that the mushroom

01:06:39.520 --> 01:06:45.520
you know, suppresses male dominance

01:06:45.520 --> 01:06:48.520
if it in fact promotes communal values

01:06:48.520 --> 01:06:49.520
and so forth

01:06:49.520 --> 01:06:51.520
then what a wonderful thing it must be.

01:06:51.520 --> 01:06:53.520
And we can leave it there.

01:06:53.520 --> 01:06:56.520
But that's only a small part

01:06:56.520 --> 01:06:57.520
of the story.

01:06:57.520 --> 01:06:59.520
The real story is

01:06:59.520 --> 01:07:03.520
what is so wonderful about it

01:07:03.520 --> 01:07:05.520
since it's a mental experience.

01:07:05.520 --> 01:07:07.520
What is so wonderful about it

01:07:07.520 --> 01:07:09.520
that it could halt

01:07:09.520 --> 01:07:11.520
the human tendency

01:07:11.520 --> 01:07:13.520
to devolve

01:07:13.520 --> 01:07:15.520
into these counterproductive forms

01:07:15.520 --> 01:07:17.520
and lifestyles?

01:07:17.520 --> 01:07:18.520
Well,

01:07:18.520 --> 01:07:20.520
what is so great about it

01:07:20.520 --> 01:07:22.520
is that it is nothing less than

01:07:22.520 --> 01:07:25.520
half of the intellectual universe.

01:07:25.520 --> 01:07:27.520
It is

01:07:27.520 --> 01:07:29.520
what I call the connection

01:07:29.520 --> 01:07:31.520
to the Gaian mind.

01:07:31.520 --> 01:07:35.890
In other words,

01:07:35.890 --> 01:07:36.890
to this point,

01:07:36.890 --> 01:07:37.890
what I've said is

01:07:37.890 --> 01:07:39.890
could be imputed to be

01:07:39.890 --> 01:07:40.890
just talk about

01:07:40.890 --> 01:07:43.890
a superb psychedelic drug.

01:07:43.890 --> 01:07:44.890
And so they're saying,

01:07:44.890 --> 01:07:45.890
oh well,

01:07:45.890 --> 01:07:47.890
so this guy advocates

01:07:47.890 --> 01:07:49.890
the use of a superb psychedelic drug.

01:07:49.890 --> 01:07:52.890
Seems reasonable or unreasonable

01:07:52.890 --> 01:07:53.890
depending on

01:07:53.890 --> 01:07:55.890
where you went to church.

01:07:55.890 --> 01:08:00.890
But it's not that paradigm challenging.

01:08:00.890 --> 01:08:03.890
But what is paradigm challenging

01:08:03.890 --> 01:08:05.890
is the content

01:08:05.890 --> 01:08:07.890
of the experience.

01:08:07.890 --> 01:08:09.890
The content of the experience

01:08:09.890 --> 01:08:13.890
is completely mind-boggling,

01:08:13.890 --> 01:08:15.890
completely befuddling.

01:08:15.890 --> 01:08:17.890
I don't know what we're going to do

01:08:17.890 --> 01:08:19.890
with the content of the experience

01:08:19.890 --> 01:08:23.890
because fully gotten out

01:08:23.890 --> 01:08:25.890
and fully discussed

01:08:25.890 --> 01:08:27.890
and fully realized,

01:08:27.890 --> 01:08:29.890
it's not going to leave

01:08:29.890 --> 01:08:31.890
one brick upon another

01:08:31.890 --> 01:08:34.890
in the cheerfully naive edifice

01:08:34.890 --> 01:08:37.890
that our half-baked civilization

01:08:37.890 --> 01:08:40.890
has erected as universal truth.

01:08:40.890 --> 01:08:41.890
We're not going to...

01:08:41.890 --> 01:08:42.890
It's not...

01:08:42.890 --> 01:08:43.890
Science is not going to be able

01:08:43.890 --> 01:08:46.890
to survive the encounter

01:08:46.890 --> 01:08:48.890
with the psychedelic experience

01:08:48.890 --> 01:08:51.890
because it is not an encounter

01:08:51.890 --> 01:08:54.890
with the Freudian,

01:08:54.890 --> 01:08:56.890
you know, the repressed memories

01:08:56.890 --> 01:08:59.890
of your miserable and battered childhood

01:08:59.890 --> 01:09:01.890
or whatever it is you went through.

01:09:01.890 --> 01:09:03.890
And it isn't even an encounter

01:09:03.890 --> 01:09:05.890
with the miserable memories

01:09:05.890 --> 01:09:07.890
of the battered childhood

01:09:07.890 --> 01:09:08.890
of the human species

01:09:08.890 --> 01:09:10.890
that we all went through

01:09:10.890 --> 01:09:12.890
a la Carl Jung.

01:09:12.890 --> 01:09:15.890
That is all there.

01:09:15.890 --> 01:09:17.890
But that's in the hallway

01:09:17.890 --> 01:09:19.890
where you hang your hat

01:09:19.890 --> 01:09:20.890
and the antechamber

01:09:20.890 --> 01:09:22.890
where they take your coat.

01:09:22.890 --> 01:09:24.890
The main event, folks,

01:09:24.890 --> 01:09:26.890
doesn't even have anything to do

01:09:26.890 --> 01:09:29.890
with the psychology of human beings.

01:09:29.890 --> 01:09:32.890
The main event is another dimension.

01:09:32.890 --> 01:09:35.890
A dimension so bizarre,

01:09:35.890 --> 01:09:37.890
so titanically peculiar,

01:09:37.890 --> 01:09:38.890
so strange,

01:09:38.890 --> 01:09:41.890
so unanticipated by our language,

01:09:41.890 --> 01:09:43.890
our history, our literature,

01:09:43.890 --> 01:09:45.890
that it is literally

01:09:45.890 --> 01:09:49.890
like the discovery of another world.

01:09:49.890 --> 01:09:56.300
And there's life in that world.

01:09:56.300 --> 01:09:58.300
Now, a funny thing

01:09:58.300 --> 01:10:00.300
about discovering new worlds

01:10:00.300 --> 01:10:02.300
is that you usually,

01:10:02.300 --> 01:10:04.300
when you get the new world,

01:10:04.300 --> 01:10:05.300
all mapped out,

01:10:05.300 --> 01:10:06.300
you usually discover

01:10:06.300 --> 01:10:09.300
that there's somebody living there.

01:10:09.300 --> 01:10:10.300
And for them,

01:10:10.300 --> 01:10:12.300
it's not the new world at all.

01:10:12.300 --> 01:10:13.300
And, you know,

01:10:13.300 --> 01:10:15.300
you haven't discovered anything.

01:10:15.300 --> 01:10:16.300
You've just shown up

01:10:16.300 --> 01:10:19.300
in the middle of their scene

01:10:19.300 --> 01:10:22.300
with a distorted wrap,

01:10:22.300 --> 01:10:24.300
sort of like Christopher Columbus.

01:10:24.300 --> 01:10:26.300
And this is what we find

01:10:26.300 --> 01:10:29.300
with the psychedelics.

01:10:29.300 --> 01:10:32.300
And this is why shamanism

01:10:32.300 --> 01:10:34.300
becomes, to my mind,

01:10:34.300 --> 01:10:37.300
the bridge to understanding

01:10:37.300 --> 01:10:39.300
what this archaic revival

01:10:39.300 --> 01:10:41.300
is all about.

01:10:41.300 --> 01:10:44.300
The shamanic hallucinogens

01:10:44.300 --> 01:10:51.300
are the meat of the thing,

01:10:51.300 --> 01:10:53.300
the pith essence,

01:10:53.300 --> 01:10:55.300
the center of the mandala.

01:10:55.300 --> 01:10:59.300
But the bridge into that

01:10:59.300 --> 01:11:02.300
is the effects

01:11:02.300 --> 01:11:04.300
that these things have.

01:11:04.300 --> 01:11:06.300
The content,

01:11:06.300 --> 01:11:07.300
the experiences

01:11:07.300 --> 01:11:08.300
that we can language

01:11:08.300 --> 01:11:10.300
and tell each other about.

01:11:10.300 --> 01:11:13.300
And what we are discovering

01:11:13.300 --> 01:11:14.300
through shamanism,

01:11:14.300 --> 01:11:15.300
through looking at it,

01:11:15.300 --> 01:11:17.300
not through the condescending eyes

01:11:17.300 --> 01:11:19.300
of the white man

01:11:19.300 --> 01:11:20.300
who is just impressed

01:11:20.300 --> 01:11:23.300
by the incredibly droll quaintness

01:11:23.300 --> 01:11:25.300
of whatever these brown-skinned people

01:11:25.300 --> 01:11:26.300
have dreamed up.

01:11:26.300 --> 01:11:28.300
Not that,

01:11:28.300 --> 01:11:30.300
but through a realization

01:11:30.300 --> 01:11:32.300
that we are sick

01:11:32.300 --> 01:11:33.300
and no doctor

01:11:33.300 --> 01:11:35.300
can cure us

01:11:35.300 --> 01:11:36.300
because we are not

01:11:36.300 --> 01:11:38.300
that kind of sick.

01:11:38.300 --> 01:11:40.300
It's soul sickness.

01:11:40.300 --> 01:11:41.300
I mean it has to be

01:11:41.300 --> 01:11:43.300
soul sickness.

01:11:43.300 --> 01:11:44.300
When you see stuff

01:11:44.300 --> 01:11:47.300
like Chernobyl

01:11:47.300 --> 01:11:49.300
or the Kuwaiti oil fields

01:11:49.300 --> 01:11:51.300
or the Hanford nuclear

01:11:51.300 --> 01:11:53.300
reservation in Washington,

01:11:53.300 --> 01:11:54.300
when you realize

01:11:54.300 --> 01:11:56.300
what this really means,

01:11:56.300 --> 01:11:57.300
then you realize

01:11:57.300 --> 01:12:00.300
this is a mad species.

01:12:00.300 --> 01:12:02.300
This is a terminally depraved

01:12:02.300 --> 01:12:04.300
species.

01:12:04.300 --> 01:12:06.300
And what is required

01:12:06.300 --> 01:12:08.300
is a return

01:12:08.300 --> 01:12:09.300
to a model

01:12:09.300 --> 01:12:11.300
that can heal.

01:12:11.300 --> 01:12:13.300
And this is what shamanism

01:12:13.300 --> 01:12:15.300
has always been about.

01:12:15.300 --> 01:12:16.300
And we have not

01:12:16.300 --> 01:12:18.300
recognized it

01:12:18.300 --> 01:12:20.300
because the part

01:12:20.300 --> 01:12:21.300
of the human being

01:12:21.300 --> 01:12:23.300
which shamanism addresses,

01:12:23.300 --> 01:12:24.300
which is the soul

01:12:24.300 --> 01:12:25.300
and the spirit,

01:12:25.300 --> 01:12:28.300
we have a 500 year old tradition

01:12:28.300 --> 01:12:29.300
that denies

01:12:29.300 --> 01:12:31.300
that there are such things.

01:12:31.300 --> 01:12:32.300
So for us,

01:12:32.300 --> 01:12:35.300
it's absurd shamanism.

01:12:35.300 --> 01:12:37.300
It is, you know,

01:12:37.300 --> 01:12:39.300
painted rattles,

01:12:39.300 --> 01:12:41.300
guys dancing around

01:12:41.300 --> 01:12:42.300
in the middle of the night,

01:12:42.300 --> 01:12:45.300
blowing perfumed water around

01:12:45.300 --> 01:12:46.300
and smoking too much tobacco.

01:12:46.300 --> 01:12:48.300
That's shamanism for us

01:12:48.300 --> 01:12:50.300
because we cannot see

01:12:50.300 --> 01:12:54.300
with the eyes that understand.

01:12:54.300 --> 01:12:55.300
When we do,

01:12:55.300 --> 01:12:57.300
what we realize is

01:12:57.300 --> 01:13:00.300
that half of our mind

01:13:00.300 --> 01:13:02.300
has been taken away.

01:13:02.300 --> 01:13:04.300
from us.

01:13:04.300 --> 01:13:05.300
That yes,

01:13:05.300 --> 01:13:07.300
the human body

01:13:07.300 --> 01:13:11.300
protrudes into profane space

01:13:11.300 --> 01:13:16.300
as 120 to 350 pounds of meat

01:13:16.300 --> 01:13:18.300
somewhere in the universe.

01:13:18.300 --> 01:13:20.300
But that isn't

01:13:20.300 --> 01:13:23.300
the domain of humanness.

01:13:23.300 --> 01:13:25.300
The true domain of humanness

01:13:25.300 --> 01:13:27.300
is inclusive of that

01:13:27.300 --> 01:13:30.300
and much, much more

01:13:30.300 --> 01:13:31.300
because the true domain

01:13:31.300 --> 01:13:33.300
of humanness

01:13:33.300 --> 01:13:34.300
is a domain

01:13:34.300 --> 01:13:37.300
that honors the mind

01:13:37.300 --> 01:13:40.300
as self

01:13:40.300 --> 01:13:42.300
and as landscape.

01:13:42.300 --> 01:13:43.300
I mean,

01:13:43.300 --> 01:13:45.300
you are a creature

01:13:45.300 --> 01:13:48.300
loose in a landscape of meaning

01:13:48.300 --> 01:13:50.300
and you are

01:13:50.300 --> 01:13:53.300
that landscape of meaning.

01:13:53.300 --> 01:13:56.300
And by losing contact with this,

01:13:56.300 --> 01:14:00.300
we have become essentially

01:14:00.300 --> 01:14:02.300
pathological,

01:14:02.300 --> 01:14:04.300
very needy.

01:14:04.300 --> 01:14:06.300
This is a typical pattern

01:14:06.300 --> 01:14:08.300
in a person

01:14:08.300 --> 01:14:11.300
with an abused childhood.

01:14:11.300 --> 01:14:14.300
They become very, very needy,

01:14:14.300 --> 01:14:16.300
very thing-oriented,

01:14:16.300 --> 01:14:18.300
very security-conscious,

01:14:18.300 --> 01:14:20.300
very anxious.

01:14:20.300 --> 01:14:22.300
This is a picture

01:14:22.300 --> 01:14:24.300
of us and our psychology.

01:14:24.300 --> 01:14:26.300
And we have,

01:14:26.300 --> 01:14:28.300
we are so deep in

01:14:28.300 --> 01:14:30.300
to the historical nightmare

01:14:30.300 --> 01:14:32.300
that we can't ever remember

01:14:32.300 --> 01:14:34.300
any other way

01:14:34.300 --> 01:14:36.300
of doing business.

01:14:36.300 --> 01:14:38.300
And we know we're messed up.

01:14:38.300 --> 01:14:40.300
We know we're unhappy.

01:14:40.300 --> 01:14:43.300
But what's to be done?

01:14:43.300 --> 01:14:44.300
You know, I mean,

01:14:44.300 --> 01:14:46.300
we have a million minor fixes

01:14:46.300 --> 01:14:48.300
and people peddling

01:14:48.300 --> 01:14:49.300
all of these things.

01:14:49.300 --> 01:14:50.300
I mean, you've just been

01:14:50.300 --> 01:14:51.300
through the aisles.

01:14:51.300 --> 01:14:53.300
You know what I'm talking about.

01:14:53.300 --> 01:14:55.300
But somehow,

01:14:55.300 --> 01:14:57.300
salvation itself becomes

01:14:57.300 --> 01:14:59.300
an impediment to salvation.

01:14:59.300 --> 01:15:00.300
I mean, once you see

01:15:00.300 --> 01:15:02.300
500 forms of salvation

01:15:02.300 --> 01:15:03.300
being sold at prices

01:15:03.300 --> 01:15:05.300
you can't afford,

01:15:05.300 --> 01:15:07.300
the very notion of salvation

01:15:07.300 --> 01:15:09.300
becomes obscene.

01:15:09.300 --> 01:15:10.300
You know, it becomes

01:15:10.300 --> 01:15:12.300
one more layer

01:15:12.300 --> 01:15:15.300
in the obscene layering

01:15:15.300 --> 01:15:17.300
that takes meaning out of life

01:15:17.300 --> 01:15:19.300
and disempowers us

01:15:19.300 --> 01:15:20.300
and turns us into

01:15:20.300 --> 01:15:22.300
a subscription customer.

01:15:22.300 --> 01:15:23.300
That seems to be

01:15:23.300 --> 01:15:26.300
how we always are being forced

01:15:26.300 --> 01:15:27.300
to end up.

01:15:27.300 --> 01:15:29.300
Well, the only way

01:15:29.300 --> 01:15:32.300
out of this, I think,

01:15:32.300 --> 01:15:34.300
is to...

01:15:34.300 --> 01:15:36.300
It takes courage

01:15:36.300 --> 01:15:38.300
because you have to turn

01:15:38.300 --> 01:15:40.300
your back on your culture

01:15:40.300 --> 01:15:43.300
in the most profound sense there is.

01:15:43.300 --> 01:15:44.300
Because there are many ways

01:15:44.300 --> 01:15:47.300
to turn your back on your culture.

01:15:47.300 --> 01:15:50.300
I mean, if everyone's wearing gray,

01:15:50.300 --> 01:15:52.300
you can wear green.

01:15:52.300 --> 01:15:54.300
That's one way to turn your back

01:15:54.300 --> 01:15:55.300
on a culture.

01:15:55.300 --> 01:15:56.300
But another way

01:15:56.300 --> 01:15:58.300
is to break its laws.

01:15:58.300 --> 01:16:00.300
Now, that's a little more serious

01:16:00.300 --> 01:16:01.300
and, you know,

01:16:01.300 --> 01:16:05.300
brings in big philosophical issues.

01:16:05.300 --> 01:16:06.300
But in fact,

01:16:06.300 --> 01:16:09.300
the culture is an enormous arrow

01:16:09.300 --> 01:16:10.300
pointing,

01:16:10.300 --> 01:16:12.300
go this way.

01:16:12.300 --> 01:16:15.300
And you know what lies that way?

01:16:15.300 --> 01:16:16.300
Impoverishment,

01:16:16.300 --> 01:16:17.300
madness,

01:16:17.300 --> 01:16:19.300
degradation and death.

01:16:19.300 --> 01:16:21.300
That's where the culture's pointing.

01:16:21.300 --> 01:16:22.300
You can see it.

01:16:22.300 --> 01:16:23.300
You can see it.

01:16:23.300 --> 01:16:27.300
Just look where we're headed.

01:16:27.300 --> 01:16:29.300
If everyone on Earth aspires

01:16:29.300 --> 01:16:31.300
to the kind of lifestyle

01:16:31.300 --> 01:16:33.300
that you people can enjoy

01:16:33.300 --> 01:16:35.300
by virtue of having paid the money

01:16:35.300 --> 01:16:37.300
to be at a scene like this,

01:16:37.300 --> 01:16:39.300
there isn't enough glass, metal and plastic

01:16:39.300 --> 01:16:41.300
in the planet

01:16:41.300 --> 01:16:43.300
to make that many

01:16:43.300 --> 01:16:47.300
celicas and jaguars

01:16:47.300 --> 01:16:50.300
and bluebirds and snowbirds

01:16:50.300 --> 01:16:52.300
and all the rest of this crap.

01:16:52.300 --> 01:16:55.300
So what is needed is

01:16:55.300 --> 01:16:57.300
an awakening

01:16:57.300 --> 01:16:59.300
and a awakening.

01:16:59.300 --> 01:17:03.300
Now, I mentioned earlier in this talk

01:17:03.300 --> 01:17:05.300
that in the 50s,

01:17:05.300 --> 01:17:08.300
before they interfered with LSD research,

01:17:08.300 --> 01:17:10.300
they were curing chronic alcoholism

01:17:10.300 --> 01:17:15.300
with a single 500 gamma dose of LSD.

01:17:15.300 --> 01:17:17.300
Well now, for heaven's sake,

01:17:17.300 --> 01:17:19.300
nobody is suggesting

01:17:19.300 --> 01:17:23.300
that LSD is a cure for alcoholism.

01:17:23.300 --> 01:17:25.300
That, to me, is absurd.

01:17:25.300 --> 01:17:27.300
It's not a cure for alcoholism.

01:17:27.300 --> 01:17:31.300
It's a cure for stupidity.

01:17:31.300 --> 01:17:35.300
And a person who is killing themselves

01:17:35.300 --> 01:17:38.300
by drinking themselves to death

01:17:38.300 --> 01:17:40.300
takes 500 mics of LSD

01:17:40.300 --> 01:17:41.300
and says,

01:17:41.300 --> 01:17:45.300
what a stupid person I am.

01:17:45.300 --> 01:17:47.300
I'm killing myself.

01:17:47.300 --> 01:17:50.300
And so then they look at their behavior

01:17:50.300 --> 01:17:53.300
and they cease that behavior.

01:17:53.300 --> 01:17:57.300
And this is what has to be

01:17:57.300 --> 01:17:59.300
done on a societal scale.

01:17:59.300 --> 01:18:02.300
And it is not as difficult

01:18:02.300 --> 01:18:05.300
as we may wish to be assured

01:18:05.300 --> 01:18:07.300
by the establishment.

01:18:07.300 --> 01:18:09.300
The whole falderal

01:18:09.300 --> 01:18:11.300
and hoopty-doo

01:18:11.300 --> 01:18:13.300
about the 1960s was

01:18:13.300 --> 01:18:17.300
that the crypto-fascist

01:18:17.300 --> 01:18:19.300
bullshit agenda

01:18:19.300 --> 01:18:22.300
was damn near overthrown

01:18:22.300 --> 01:18:26.300
by a bunch of 19 and 20 year olds

01:18:26.300 --> 01:18:28.300
on campuses scattered around

01:18:28.300 --> 01:18:30.300
the high-tech world.

01:18:30.300 --> 01:18:34.300
The male-dominant agenda

01:18:34.300 --> 01:18:36.300
is so fragile

01:18:36.300 --> 01:18:38.300
that any competitor

01:18:38.300 --> 01:18:42.300
is felt as a deadly foe.

01:18:42.300 --> 01:18:44.300
And the fact that these ideas

01:18:44.300 --> 01:18:46.300
will not die

01:18:46.300 --> 01:18:48.300
in spite of the fact that,

01:18:48.300 --> 01:18:50.300
you know, they've raised the price

01:18:50.300 --> 01:18:52.300
of an ounce of weed from $15

01:18:52.300 --> 01:18:54.300
to $500.

01:18:54.300 --> 01:18:56.300
They've made the price

01:18:56.300 --> 01:18:58.300
of a pinch for growing weed

01:18:58.300 --> 01:19:00.300
from a slap on the wrist

01:19:00.300 --> 01:19:02.300
to lose everything you ever owned

01:19:02.300 --> 01:19:04.300
or dreamed of owning.

01:19:04.300 --> 01:19:07.300
And they cannot push it

01:19:07.300 --> 01:19:09.300
into extinction.

01:19:09.300 --> 01:19:11.300
It's because it's so much older

01:19:11.300 --> 01:19:13.300
than their con game.

01:19:13.300 --> 01:19:16.300
They've invented their con game

01:19:16.300 --> 01:19:19.300
post-Sphinx or something.

01:19:19.300 --> 01:19:21.300
And we're talking about

01:19:21.300 --> 01:19:23.300
a reality that reaches back

01:19:23.300 --> 01:19:26.300
15, 25, 30,000 years.

01:19:26.300 --> 01:19:28.300
And it's a reality.

01:19:28.300 --> 01:19:30.300
So far, I've only spoken...

01:19:30.300 --> 01:19:32.300
I keep trying to get to this subject,

01:19:32.300 --> 01:19:33.300
but I won't let myself

01:19:33.300 --> 01:19:34.300
for some reason.

01:19:34.300 --> 01:19:36.300
So far, I've spoken of it

01:19:36.300 --> 01:19:38.300
as boundary dissolving,

01:19:38.300 --> 01:19:40.300
promoting group sexual activity,

01:19:40.300 --> 01:19:42.300
this and that and the other thing.

01:19:42.300 --> 01:19:45.300
But those are like generalizations.

01:19:45.300 --> 01:19:48.300
What is really interesting

01:19:48.300 --> 01:19:50.300
about the psychedelic experience

01:19:50.300 --> 01:19:53.300
is it shows you a mental universe

01:19:53.300 --> 01:19:56.300
that you not only never see,

01:19:56.300 --> 01:19:58.300
suspected existed,

01:19:58.300 --> 01:20:01.300
but that you could not have suspected existed.

01:20:01.300 --> 01:20:04.300
I don't think there's another way to it.

01:20:04.300 --> 01:20:08.300
I mean, I'm not ready to categorically say

01:20:08.300 --> 01:20:10.300
there's no other way to it.

01:20:10.300 --> 01:20:11.300
And occasionally,

01:20:11.300 --> 01:20:13.300
especially at gatherings like this,

01:20:13.300 --> 01:20:15.300
people grab me and assure me

01:20:15.300 --> 01:20:17.300
there are other ways to it.

01:20:17.300 --> 01:20:19.300
And they say, you know,

01:20:19.300 --> 01:20:20.300
if you just...

01:20:20.300 --> 01:20:22.300
I want you to meet Babaji.

01:20:22.300 --> 01:20:25.300
He's as good as psilocybin.

01:20:25.300 --> 01:20:26.300
Oh, really?

01:20:26.300 --> 01:20:29.300
I want to meet this man.

01:20:32.300 --> 01:20:35.300
Because...

01:20:35.300 --> 01:20:37.710
I mean, I...

01:20:37.710 --> 01:20:39.710
Let me say a little bit more about this.

01:20:39.710 --> 01:20:41.710
I would like to believe

01:20:41.710 --> 01:20:42.710
that in principle,

01:20:42.710 --> 01:20:44.710
you could get to these places

01:20:44.710 --> 01:20:46.710
on the natch.

01:20:46.710 --> 01:20:49.710
Only in principle, however,

01:20:49.710 --> 01:20:51.710
because if some people say,

01:20:51.710 --> 01:20:52.710
well, you know,

01:20:52.710 --> 01:20:53.710
these things you describe

01:20:53.710 --> 01:20:55.710
on DMT and psilocybin,

01:20:55.710 --> 01:20:56.710
I can show you

01:20:56.710 --> 01:20:58.710
how to do that naturally.

01:20:58.710 --> 01:21:00.710
No, thank you.

01:21:00.710 --> 01:21:01.710
Are you kidding?

01:21:01.710 --> 01:21:04.710
Thank God I have the drug

01:21:04.710 --> 01:21:07.710
as a kind of marker

01:21:07.710 --> 01:21:08.710
so that I know

01:21:08.710 --> 01:21:10.710
when I'm getting close to that stuff.

01:21:10.710 --> 01:21:12.710
If I woke up one morning

01:21:12.710 --> 01:21:13.710
in that place

01:21:13.710 --> 01:21:15.710
and I couldn't tell myself

01:21:15.710 --> 01:21:17.710
I'd taken mushrooms,

01:21:17.710 --> 01:21:19.710
I would define myself

01:21:19.710 --> 01:21:22.710
as seriously discombobulated

01:21:22.710 --> 01:21:24.710
and wait to see what happens.

01:21:24.710 --> 01:21:25.710
You know?

01:21:25.710 --> 01:21:27.710
And people say,

01:21:27.710 --> 01:21:28.710
well, don't you think

01:21:28.710 --> 01:21:29.710
you ought to be able

01:21:29.710 --> 01:21:31.710
to do it by yourself?

01:21:31.710 --> 01:21:33.710
And I love this question

01:21:33.710 --> 01:21:36.710
because the answer is

01:21:36.710 --> 01:21:40.710
you can't do it by yourself.

01:21:40.710 --> 01:21:42.710
That's the entire message

01:21:42.710 --> 01:21:44.710
of the last 10,000 years

01:21:44.710 --> 01:21:45.710
of human history.

01:21:45.710 --> 01:21:47.710
The self is insufficient.

01:21:47.710 --> 01:21:51.710
The ego will not suffice.

01:21:51.710 --> 01:21:53.710
The only way you're ever

01:21:53.710 --> 01:21:54.710
going to get anywhere

01:21:54.710 --> 01:21:58.710
is you must humble yourself

01:21:58.710 --> 01:22:00.710
to the point where you admit

01:22:00.710 --> 01:22:02.710
that you can't do it

01:22:02.710 --> 01:22:03.710
unless you have help

01:22:03.710 --> 01:22:06.710
from someone whose idea of home

01:22:06.710 --> 01:22:09.710
is a cow flop.

01:22:09.710 --> 01:22:13.710
If you're willing to humble yourself

01:22:13.710 --> 01:22:19.710
to that degree,

01:22:19.710 --> 01:22:26.720
then maybe we can get somewhere.

01:22:26.720 --> 01:22:30.720
The content of the psychedelic experience

01:22:30.720 --> 01:22:35.720
is, I believe,

01:22:35.720 --> 01:22:42.390
relating to that

01:22:42.390 --> 01:22:44.390
is the sum total

01:22:44.390 --> 01:22:46.390
of our humanness.

01:22:46.390 --> 01:22:48.390
And I think,

01:22:48.390 --> 01:22:51.390
based on experience,

01:22:51.390 --> 01:22:55.390
that there is a certain amount

01:22:55.390 --> 01:22:58.390
of leakage from the future

01:22:58.390 --> 01:23:01.390
backward into the past.

01:23:01.390 --> 01:23:04.390
And that many of the phenomena

01:23:04.390 --> 01:23:06.390
that are being interpreted

01:23:06.390 --> 01:23:09.390
as past lives

01:23:09.390 --> 01:23:11.390
and reincarnation

01:23:11.390 --> 01:23:13.390
and channeling

01:23:13.390 --> 01:23:15.390
and regression this

01:23:15.390 --> 01:23:17.390
and clairvoyant that,

01:23:17.390 --> 01:23:19.390
all this has to do with

01:23:19.390 --> 01:23:20.390
a misunderstanding about

01:23:20.390 --> 01:23:23.390
how causality actually works.

01:23:23.390 --> 01:23:26.390
That all of the impressions

01:23:26.390 --> 01:23:28.390
upon which people are building

01:23:28.390 --> 01:23:30.390
these models, channeling,

01:23:30.390 --> 01:23:33.390
and spirit guides

01:23:33.390 --> 01:23:35.390
and reincarnation and so forth,

01:23:35.390 --> 01:23:37.390
the material upon which

01:23:37.390 --> 01:23:39.390
these models are being built

01:23:39.390 --> 01:23:41.390
is real.

01:23:41.390 --> 01:23:43.390
But the models that are being built

01:23:43.390 --> 01:23:47.390
are tremendous compressions

01:23:47.390 --> 01:23:51.390
of the reality of the situation.

01:23:51.390 --> 01:23:53.390
I mean, when someone tells me

01:23:53.390 --> 01:23:55.390
that they experienced

01:23:55.390 --> 01:23:57.390
a past life regression

01:23:57.390 --> 01:23:59.390
and that they were a butcher

01:23:59.390 --> 01:24:01.390
in 13th century Florence,

01:24:01.390 --> 01:24:03.390
I always think to myself,

01:24:03.390 --> 01:24:05.390
but you were a butcher

01:24:05.390 --> 01:24:08.390
in 13th century everywhere.

01:24:08.390 --> 01:24:10.390
And you were a butcher

01:24:10.390 --> 01:24:12.390
in 14th century everywhere.

01:24:12.390 --> 01:24:15.390
I mean, once the connection

01:24:15.390 --> 01:24:16.390
is opened,

01:24:16.390 --> 01:24:18.390
the connection is not particular.

01:24:18.390 --> 01:24:21.390
The connection is general.

01:24:21.390 --> 01:24:25.390
It is all reality

01:24:25.390 --> 01:24:27.390
is who you are.

01:24:27.390 --> 01:24:29.390
All reality is where you are.

01:24:29.390 --> 01:24:31.390
And where you've been.

01:24:31.390 --> 01:24:33.390
And where you will be.

01:24:33.390 --> 01:24:37.390
And two things,

01:24:37.390 --> 01:24:40.390
two things are operating

01:24:40.390 --> 01:24:43.390
in the hidden dimension

01:24:43.390 --> 01:24:45.390
of the human mind.

01:24:45.390 --> 01:24:48.390
One of them is what I call

01:24:48.390 --> 01:24:50.390
the Gaian Mind.

01:24:50.390 --> 01:24:54.390
And this is being imaged

01:24:54.390 --> 01:24:56.390
in this society

01:24:56.390 --> 01:24:58.390
as the rebirth

01:24:58.390 --> 01:25:01.390
of a kind of goddess.

01:25:01.390 --> 01:25:03.390
People are realizing

01:25:03.390 --> 01:25:04.390
on different levels

01:25:04.390 --> 01:25:05.390
and at different levels

01:25:05.390 --> 01:25:07.390
of sophistication

01:25:07.390 --> 01:25:09.390
that the energy of being

01:25:09.390 --> 01:25:11.390
can be imaged

01:25:11.390 --> 01:25:17.390
as a female entelechy,

01:25:17.390 --> 01:25:20.390
an enclosing, nurturing,

01:25:20.390 --> 01:25:23.390
caring, forgiving

01:25:23.390 --> 01:25:26.390
kind of entelechy.

01:25:26.390 --> 01:25:28.390
And this is what

01:25:28.390 --> 01:25:31.390
psychedelic shamanism

01:25:31.390 --> 01:25:33.390
has always been about.

01:25:33.390 --> 01:25:34.390
It's about a connection

01:25:34.390 --> 01:25:36.390
to the Gaian Mind.

01:25:36.390 --> 01:25:38.390
And this gives you,

01:25:38.390 --> 01:25:40.390
obviously,

01:25:40.390 --> 01:25:42.390
a tremendous sense

01:25:42.390 --> 01:25:43.390
of being embedded

01:25:43.390 --> 01:25:46.390
in a larger coherency

01:25:46.390 --> 01:25:48.390
than merely the coherency

01:25:48.390 --> 01:25:50.390
of your own small life.

01:25:50.390 --> 01:25:53.390
And that's very empowering.

01:25:53.390 --> 01:25:57.390
But it's not the general

01:25:57.390 --> 01:25:59.390
sense of things

01:25:59.390 --> 01:26:01.390
that this Gaian Mind imparts

01:26:01.390 --> 01:26:03.390
that is really, to me,

01:26:03.390 --> 01:26:05.390
the interesting part.

01:26:05.390 --> 01:26:07.390
It's that the Gaian Mind

01:26:07.390 --> 01:26:09.390
is a real mind.

01:26:09.390 --> 01:26:11.390
It has information.

01:26:11.390 --> 01:26:13.390
It can tell you things

01:26:13.390 --> 01:26:15.390
of the most specific

01:26:15.390 --> 01:26:18.390
and personally important sort.

01:26:18.390 --> 01:26:21.390
This is, it tells you

01:26:21.390 --> 01:26:24.390
where the game has gone.

01:26:24.390 --> 01:26:26.390
It tells you

01:26:26.390 --> 01:26:29.390
who poisoned the well.

01:26:29.390 --> 01:26:31.390
It tells you

01:26:31.390 --> 01:26:35.390
who raped so-and-so.

01:26:35.390 --> 01:26:37.390
It tells you

01:26:37.390 --> 01:26:40.390
why person X

01:26:40.390 --> 01:26:43.390
is ill and unable to get well.

01:26:43.390 --> 01:26:44.390
In other words,

01:26:44.390 --> 01:26:46.390
the Gaian Mind is

01:26:46.390 --> 01:26:48.390
the database

01:26:48.390 --> 01:26:50.390
that all shamans

01:26:50.390 --> 01:26:52.390
seek to connect to

01:26:52.390 --> 01:26:54.390
in the act of curing,

01:26:54.390 --> 01:26:56.390
in the act of functioning

01:26:56.390 --> 01:26:59.390
as doctors for their society.

01:26:59.390 --> 01:27:01.390
They get a connection

01:27:01.390 --> 01:27:03.390
to the Gaian Mind.

01:27:03.390 --> 01:27:05.390
And again, at this point,

01:27:05.390 --> 01:27:07.390
I feel like I have to remind you,

01:27:07.390 --> 01:27:11.390
I come to this as a skeptic,

01:27:11.390 --> 01:27:13.390
as a sneerer.

01:27:13.390 --> 01:27:15.390
I mean, I have no time

01:27:15.390 --> 01:27:17.390
for this stuff

01:27:17.390 --> 01:27:19.390
unless it's real.

01:27:19.390 --> 01:27:21.390
It happens to be real.

01:27:21.390 --> 01:27:24.390
You have to take psilocybin,

01:27:24.390 --> 01:27:25.390
as far as I can tell,

01:27:25.390 --> 01:27:26.390
to encounter it,

01:27:26.390 --> 01:27:27.390
at least if you have

01:27:27.390 --> 01:27:29.390
the kind of lumpen neurophysiology

01:27:29.390 --> 01:27:31.390
that I have.

01:27:31.390 --> 01:27:33.390
I mean, I've never been with

01:27:33.390 --> 01:27:37.390
the etheric crowd, you know.

01:27:37.390 --> 01:27:41.390
But this Gaian empowerment

01:27:41.390 --> 01:27:44.390
is what allowed these societies

01:27:44.390 --> 01:27:47.390
to live without technology,

01:27:47.390 --> 01:27:49.390
without modern medicine,

01:27:49.390 --> 01:27:52.390
without remote sensing devices,

01:27:52.390 --> 01:27:54.390
without any of the

01:27:54.390 --> 01:27:57.390
appurtenances of technology

01:27:57.390 --> 01:28:00.390
that we take for granted.

01:28:00.390 --> 01:28:02.390
And we have lost

01:28:02.390 --> 01:28:04.390
this connection.

01:28:04.390 --> 01:28:06.390
We can't even imagine it.

01:28:06.390 --> 01:28:08.390
If someone were to begin talking

01:28:08.390 --> 01:28:09.390
about how the Earth

01:28:09.390 --> 01:28:10.390
was speaking to them

01:28:10.390 --> 01:28:12.390
and giving them messages

01:28:12.390 --> 01:28:14.390
about how to live,

01:28:14.390 --> 01:28:16.390
you instinctively can sense

01:28:16.390 --> 01:28:17.390
this is something to be

01:28:17.390 --> 01:28:19.390
very, very careful with.

01:28:19.390 --> 01:28:20.390
You give that rap

01:28:20.390 --> 01:28:21.390
to the wrong person

01:28:21.390 --> 01:28:23.390
and they'll drop a net over you

01:28:23.390 --> 01:28:25.390
and you'll find yourself

01:28:25.390 --> 01:28:26.390
stuffing envelopes

01:28:26.390 --> 01:28:28.390
for a convalescent home

01:28:28.390 --> 01:28:29.390
or something.

01:28:30.390 --> 01:28:32.390
Okay, so that's part of it.

01:28:32.390 --> 01:28:35.390
The Gaian mind.

01:28:35.390 --> 01:28:37.390
And it is this feminine,

01:28:37.390 --> 01:28:40.390
nurturing, enfolding thing.

01:28:40.390 --> 01:28:42.390
It's the mind of nature itself.

01:28:42.390 --> 01:28:44.390
It is really our own mind,

01:28:44.390 --> 01:28:47.390
but extending then away from

01:28:47.390 --> 01:28:49.390
this possessive notion

01:28:49.390 --> 01:28:50.390
of our mind

01:28:50.390 --> 01:28:52.390
back into the general concept

01:28:52.390 --> 01:28:53.390
of mind.

01:28:53.390 --> 01:28:54.390
The mind itself.

01:28:54.390 --> 01:29:01.700
And then the other pole

01:29:01.700 --> 01:29:03.700
or the other motif

01:29:03.700 --> 01:29:06.700
encountered in this situation

01:29:06.700 --> 01:29:13.400
is trickier to envision.

01:29:13.400 --> 01:29:16.400
I call it the transcendental object

01:29:16.400 --> 01:29:19.840
at the end of time.

01:29:19.840 --> 01:29:22.840
This, if we were, you know,

01:29:22.840 --> 01:29:25.840
fanatically symmetrical model makers,

01:29:25.840 --> 01:29:26.840
then we would assign

01:29:26.840 --> 01:29:29.840
a kind of masculine value to this.

01:29:29.840 --> 01:29:31.840
But I'm not particularly into that.

01:29:31.840 --> 01:29:33.840
I just see it as the transcendental object

01:29:33.840 --> 01:29:34.840
at the end of time.

01:29:34.840 --> 01:29:36.840
But what it is,

01:29:36.840 --> 01:29:39.840
is it's a kind of attractor.

01:29:39.840 --> 01:29:43.840
And we're not accustomed to thinking

01:29:43.840 --> 01:29:45.840
of the historical situation

01:29:45.840 --> 01:29:47.840
as being under the influence

01:29:47.840 --> 01:29:49.840
of an attractor.

01:29:49.840 --> 01:29:51.840
We inherit our belief

01:29:51.840 --> 01:29:53.840
that history is being pushed

01:29:53.840 --> 01:29:55.840
rather than pulled.

01:29:55.840 --> 01:29:57.840
We inherit this idea

01:29:57.840 --> 01:29:59.840
from the 19th century

01:29:59.840 --> 01:30:02.840
when the theory of evolution

01:30:02.840 --> 01:30:04.840
was elaborated.

01:30:04.840 --> 01:30:09.840
These 19th century British atheists

01:30:09.840 --> 01:30:11.840
who were creating the theory of evolution

01:30:11.840 --> 01:30:13.840
were so horrified

01:30:13.840 --> 01:30:15.840
by the power of deism,

01:30:15.840 --> 01:30:18.840
meaning the belief in God per se,

01:30:18.840 --> 01:30:20.840
that they constructed

01:30:20.840 --> 01:30:22.840
a theory of evolution

01:30:22.840 --> 01:30:24.840
where everything is pushed

01:30:24.840 --> 01:30:25.840
from behind.

01:30:25.840 --> 01:30:27.840
In Darwinian evolution,

01:30:27.840 --> 01:30:28.840
there is no purpose.

01:30:28.840 --> 01:30:30.840
A good Darwinist

01:30:30.840 --> 01:30:32.840
never lets the word purpose

01:30:32.840 --> 01:30:34.840
cross his lips.

01:30:34.840 --> 01:30:36.840
A good Darwinist knows

01:30:36.840 --> 01:30:38.840
that things just happen randomly

01:30:38.840 --> 01:30:40.840
and then natural selection

01:30:40.840 --> 01:30:42.840
makes its selection

01:30:42.840 --> 01:30:44.840
and then you get whatever you get.

01:30:44.840 --> 01:30:48.840
And this is understandable

01:30:48.840 --> 01:30:50.840
in the intellectual atmosphere

01:30:50.840 --> 01:30:51.840
of the 19th century

01:30:51.840 --> 01:30:52.840
that they would want

01:30:52.840 --> 01:30:53.840
to get away from that.

01:30:53.840 --> 01:30:55.840
The problem is

01:30:55.840 --> 01:30:57.840
we have matured now

01:30:57.840 --> 01:31:00.840
beyond the simple atheism

01:31:00.840 --> 01:31:02.840
of the 19th century

01:31:02.840 --> 01:31:05.840
and it is now very reasonable,

01:31:05.840 --> 01:31:08.840
sanctioned by mathematics

01:31:08.840 --> 01:31:10.840
and dynamics

01:31:10.840 --> 01:31:12.840
and so forth and so on,

01:31:12.840 --> 01:31:14.840
it is now very reasonable

01:31:14.840 --> 01:31:18.840
to speak of an attractor.

01:31:18.840 --> 01:31:20.840
And this is...

01:31:20.840 --> 01:31:22.840
I'm also a little nervous

01:31:22.840 --> 01:31:23.840
to talk about this

01:31:23.840 --> 01:31:25.840
because part of what I do

01:31:25.840 --> 01:31:27.840
is I popularize.

01:31:27.840 --> 01:31:28.840
I tell you things

01:31:28.840 --> 01:31:30.840
which you should know yourself

01:31:30.840 --> 01:31:32.840
or which you could know yourself

01:31:32.840 --> 01:31:33.840
if you would but go to

01:31:33.840 --> 01:31:35.840
a decent medical library

01:31:35.840 --> 01:31:36.840
and spend the time

01:31:36.840 --> 01:31:38.840
to look up all this botanical

01:31:38.840 --> 01:31:41.840
and pharmacological data.

01:31:41.840 --> 01:31:43.840
So I'm like a clearing house.

01:31:43.840 --> 01:31:45.840
But then there's another thing

01:31:45.840 --> 01:31:46.840
which I do

01:31:46.840 --> 01:31:48.840
which I'm a little more nervous

01:31:48.840 --> 01:31:49.840
and touchy about

01:31:49.840 --> 01:31:52.840
which is I tell you what I think.

01:31:52.840 --> 01:31:55.840
And it's just what I think.

01:31:55.840 --> 01:31:58.840
It has exactly that much weight

01:31:58.840 --> 01:32:00.840
behind it which is like zip.

01:32:00.840 --> 01:32:01.840
You know?

01:32:01.840 --> 01:32:03.840
I mean you don't have to believe this.

01:32:03.840 --> 01:32:05.840
Why should you?

01:32:05.840 --> 01:32:08.840
But based on 25 years

01:32:08.840 --> 01:32:10.840
of fiddling with this stuff

01:32:10.840 --> 01:32:12.840
and then doing a lot of reading

01:32:12.840 --> 01:32:14.840
and head scratching,

01:32:14.840 --> 01:32:16.840
I've come to the conclusion

01:32:16.840 --> 01:32:23.600
that there is a transcendental object

01:32:23.600 --> 01:32:26.600
ahead of us in time.

01:32:26.600 --> 01:32:28.600
You can call it God.

01:32:28.600 --> 01:32:30.600
You can call it Jesus.

01:32:30.600 --> 01:32:32.600
You can call it Her.

01:32:32.600 --> 01:32:34.600
You can call it flying saucers

01:32:34.600 --> 01:32:36.600
from Zeta Reticuli.

01:32:36.600 --> 01:32:37.600
Or the Pleiades.

01:32:37.600 --> 01:32:39.600
I want to get all factions here.

01:32:39.600 --> 01:32:42.600
Or Zenebel Ganubi,

01:32:42.600 --> 01:32:45.600
my favorite stellar origin point.

01:32:45.600 --> 01:32:48.600
But whatever you call it,

01:32:48.600 --> 01:32:51.600
it's an attractor.

01:32:51.600 --> 01:32:52.600
It lies ahead of us

01:32:52.600 --> 01:32:54.600
in the future.

01:32:54.600 --> 01:32:56.600
And all of human history

01:32:56.600 --> 01:32:58.600
is being channeled toward it.

01:32:58.600 --> 01:33:00.600
Pulled toward it.

01:33:00.600 --> 01:33:03.600
And I see the entire history

01:33:03.600 --> 01:33:04.600
of the universe

01:33:04.600 --> 01:33:08.600
as the history of a journey

01:33:08.600 --> 01:33:11.600
across a landscape of energy

01:33:11.600 --> 01:33:15.600
and matter toward union

01:33:15.600 --> 01:33:18.600
with this transcendental object.

01:33:18.600 --> 01:33:21.600
And I have a theory of history.

01:33:21.600 --> 01:33:23.600
Not the mathematical one.

01:33:23.600 --> 01:33:25.600
Don't bolt for the door.

01:33:25.600 --> 01:33:26.600
No.

01:33:26.600 --> 01:33:28.600
This will be a cocktail party version

01:33:28.600 --> 01:33:30.600
of the theory of history.

01:33:30.600 --> 01:33:32.600
I have a theory of history

01:33:32.600 --> 01:33:35.600
which is the universe

01:33:35.600 --> 01:33:38.600
is a novelty-producing

01:33:38.600 --> 01:33:41.600
and conserving engine

01:33:41.600 --> 01:33:43.600
of some sort.

01:33:43.600 --> 01:33:45.600
That's what we're inside, folks.

01:33:45.600 --> 01:33:49.600
A novelty-making machine.

01:33:49.600 --> 01:33:51.600
Now, what do I mean by novelty?

01:33:51.600 --> 01:33:52.600
People say,

01:33:52.600 --> 01:33:54.600
you mean like little plastic bugs

01:33:54.600 --> 01:33:57.600
and puzzles inside plastic capsules.

01:33:57.600 --> 01:33:59.600
Is that what you mean by novelty?

01:33:59.600 --> 01:34:01.600
No, you idiot.

01:34:01.600 --> 01:34:02.600
Of course not.

01:34:05.600 --> 01:34:06.600
By novelty,

01:34:06.600 --> 01:34:10.600
I mean something that has never been seen before.

01:34:10.600 --> 01:34:12.600
Something unique.

01:34:12.600 --> 01:34:15.600
The new connection.

01:34:15.600 --> 01:34:17.600
I always think of the symbolist poet

01:34:17.600 --> 01:34:19.600
L'Entremont

01:34:19.600 --> 01:34:20.600
who said,

01:34:20.600 --> 01:34:23.600
I am fascinated

01:34:23.600 --> 01:34:25.600
by the kind of beauty

01:34:25.600 --> 01:34:28.600
that arises when a bicycle

01:34:28.600 --> 01:34:31.600
meets a sewing machine

01:34:31.600 --> 01:34:33.600
on an operating table.

01:34:33.600 --> 01:34:36.600
Now that's novelty, folks.

01:34:36.600 --> 01:34:39.600
Because you just don't get that every day.

01:34:39.600 --> 01:34:44.600
So, the universe is a novelty-producing engine.

01:34:44.600 --> 01:34:47.600
It not only produces novelty

01:34:47.600 --> 01:34:50.600
but it then preserves it

01:34:50.600 --> 01:34:52.600
and builds upon it.

01:34:52.600 --> 01:34:55.600
So, if we now look at

01:34:55.600 --> 01:34:59.600
the story which science tells us,

01:34:59.600 --> 01:35:01.600
and it's an interesting story, by the way,

01:35:01.600 --> 01:35:03.600
if you think I say things

01:35:03.600 --> 01:35:05.600
which are highly unlikely,

01:35:05.600 --> 01:35:08.600
notice that I do not ask you to believe

01:35:08.600 --> 01:35:10.600
that the universe sprang from

01:35:10.600 --> 01:35:13.600
a point of matter smaller than a proton

01:35:13.600 --> 01:35:15.600
in a single instant.

01:35:15.600 --> 01:35:18.600
This is the position of science.

01:35:18.600 --> 01:35:22.600
This is the limit case for credibility.

01:35:22.600 --> 01:35:25.600
I mean, if you can believe that,

01:35:25.600 --> 01:35:28.600
what in the world would you balk at

01:35:28.600 --> 01:35:30.600
for crying out loud?

01:35:30.600 --> 01:35:34.600
I mean, that is the limit case for credibility.

01:35:34.600 --> 01:35:37.600
So, science tells us

01:35:37.600 --> 01:35:39.600
that the universe sprang from nothing

01:35:39.600 --> 01:35:41.600
in a single instant

01:35:41.600 --> 01:35:44.600
and that it was very hot.

01:35:44.600 --> 01:35:46.600
Very hot.

01:35:46.600 --> 01:35:49.600
So, there were no molecules

01:35:49.600 --> 01:35:52.600
such as you and I are made out of.

01:35:52.600 --> 01:35:54.600
There were no atoms

01:35:54.600 --> 01:35:57.600
such as lead and gold and water

01:35:57.600 --> 01:35:59.600
are made out of.

01:35:59.600 --> 01:36:02.600
There was only a pure plasma

01:36:02.600 --> 01:36:04.600
of electrons.

01:36:04.600 --> 01:36:05.600
That was all.

01:36:05.600 --> 01:36:07.600
And the physics of that universe

01:36:07.600 --> 01:36:09.600
were incredibly simple.

01:36:09.600 --> 01:36:12.600
There were the pure plasma physics

01:36:12.600 --> 01:36:15.600
unhindered by any other fields of any sort.

01:36:15.600 --> 01:36:18.600
Well, the universe then cooled.

01:36:18.600 --> 01:36:20.600
And as it cooled,

01:36:20.600 --> 01:36:23.600
lo and behold, at a certain point,

01:36:23.600 --> 01:36:27.600
electrons were able to fall into stable orbits

01:36:27.600 --> 01:36:29.600
around atomic nuclei.

01:36:29.600 --> 01:36:32.600
And at that point,

01:36:32.600 --> 01:36:35.600
atomic systems formed.

01:36:35.600 --> 01:36:37.600
And a whole new kind of chemistry

01:36:37.600 --> 01:36:40.600
comes into being.

01:36:40.600 --> 01:36:42.600
Further cooling.

01:36:42.600 --> 01:36:44.600
Millions of years pass.

01:36:44.600 --> 01:36:47.600
Then we get the carbon molecule

01:36:47.600 --> 01:36:49.600
cooked out of new stars.

01:36:49.600 --> 01:36:52.600
It has a six-valent structure

01:36:52.600 --> 01:36:56.600
so that we get organic molecules.

01:36:56.600 --> 01:36:58.600
Well, then, quickly,

01:36:58.600 --> 01:37:01.600
we get long-chain polymers.

01:37:01.600 --> 01:37:02.600
Very quickly, then,

01:37:02.600 --> 01:37:05.600
long-chain polymers that can copy themselves.

01:37:05.600 --> 01:37:09.600
And that becomes primitive life.

01:37:09.600 --> 01:37:11.600
And at that point,

01:37:11.600 --> 01:37:14.600
you then get complex life.

01:37:14.600 --> 01:37:16.600
And then, sexuality,

01:37:16.600 --> 01:37:17.600
meaning gene mixing,

01:37:17.600 --> 01:37:19.600
as opposed to the previous thing,

01:37:19.600 --> 01:37:21.600
which was vegetated,

01:37:21.600 --> 01:37:24.600
like making cuttings from plants.

01:37:24.600 --> 01:37:26.600
Well, do you see what's happening?

01:37:26.600 --> 01:37:28.600
At each successive stage,

01:37:28.600 --> 01:37:30.600
the previous level of complexity

01:37:30.600 --> 01:37:32.600
is not only retained,

01:37:32.600 --> 01:37:35.600
but used to build upon

01:37:35.600 --> 01:37:38.600
toward the next level of complexity.

01:37:38.600 --> 01:37:43.600
Well, the wonderful thing about this cosmology is

01:37:43.600 --> 01:37:45.600
that instead of human beings

01:37:45.600 --> 01:37:47.600
being like mute witnesses

01:37:47.600 --> 01:37:50.600
to the grandeur of Jehovah's creation

01:37:50.600 --> 01:37:52.600
or some kind of trip like that,

01:37:52.600 --> 01:37:55.600
instead, you discover,

01:37:55.600 --> 01:37:57.600
aha, human beings are important.

01:37:57.600 --> 01:37:59.600
We are more novel

01:37:59.600 --> 01:38:02.600
than anything else in nature.

01:38:02.600 --> 01:38:05.600
And we, 20th century human beings,

01:38:05.600 --> 01:38:08.600
are more novel, more interconnected,

01:38:08.600 --> 01:38:10.600
more complex and in possession

01:38:10.600 --> 01:38:12.600
of more and different kinds of knowledge

01:38:12.600 --> 01:38:15.600
than most, notice most,

01:38:15.600 --> 01:38:18.600
of the people who preceded us.

01:38:18.600 --> 01:38:22.600
So this growing toward complexity

01:38:22.600 --> 01:38:25.600
seems to be what the universe is all about.

01:38:25.600 --> 01:38:28.600
Now, it doesn't go on

01:38:28.600 --> 01:38:30.600
for hundreds of millions of years

01:38:30.600 --> 01:38:31.600
into the future,

01:38:31.600 --> 01:38:33.600
because as you can see,

01:38:33.600 --> 01:38:35.600
each successive stage

01:38:35.600 --> 01:38:39.600
has preceded more quickly

01:38:39.600 --> 01:38:41.600
than the stage before it.

01:38:41.600 --> 01:38:43.600
So now,

01:38:43.600 --> 01:38:45.600
we are in what I call

01:38:45.600 --> 01:38:47.600
the short epochs.

01:38:47.600 --> 01:38:49.600
We are in periods of time

01:38:49.600 --> 01:38:51.600
where more change goes on

01:38:51.600 --> 01:38:53.600
in a 10-year period

01:38:53.600 --> 01:38:57.600
than went on in a million-year period

01:38:57.600 --> 01:38:59.600
near the birth of the universe.

01:38:59.600 --> 01:39:02.600
We are living in the complex,

01:39:02.600 --> 01:39:04.600
novel end of things.

01:39:04.600 --> 01:39:06.600
And that complexity

01:39:06.600 --> 01:39:07.600
and that novelty,

01:39:07.600 --> 01:39:09.600
which we experience

01:39:09.600 --> 01:39:11.600
as tremendous stress in our lives,

01:39:11.600 --> 01:39:14.600
ushers into the transcendental object

01:39:14.600 --> 01:39:16.600
at the end of time,

01:39:16.600 --> 01:39:19.600
not that far in the future.

01:39:19.600 --> 01:39:21.600
And we,

01:39:21.600 --> 01:39:23.600
as psychedelic people,

01:39:23.600 --> 01:39:26.600
have an obligation upon ourselves

01:39:26.600 --> 01:39:28.600
to anticipate

01:39:28.600 --> 01:39:30.600
and to help realize

01:39:30.600 --> 01:39:32.600
this future.

01:39:32.600 --> 01:39:35.600
It is upon us.

01:39:35.600 --> 01:39:37.600
Every messiah,

01:39:37.600 --> 01:39:40.600
every religious ontology,

01:39:40.600 --> 01:39:43.600
every manager

01:39:43.600 --> 01:39:46.600
of every booth at this exhibit

01:39:46.600 --> 01:39:48.600
is reflecting

01:39:48.600 --> 01:39:52.600
a distorted scintilla

01:39:52.600 --> 01:39:54.600
of the spiritual reality

01:39:54.600 --> 01:39:56.600
of the transcendental object

01:39:56.600 --> 01:39:58.600
at the end of time.

01:39:58.600 --> 01:39:59.600
Every one of us

01:39:59.600 --> 01:40:01.600
is a particularized

01:40:01.600 --> 01:40:04.600
and distorted image

01:40:04.600 --> 01:40:07.600
of this transcendental object

01:40:07.600 --> 01:40:09.600
into which we are being dissolved.

01:40:09.600 --> 01:40:11.600
Into which global culture

01:40:11.600 --> 01:40:14.600
is being dissolved.

01:40:14.600 --> 01:40:16.600
So...

01:40:20.990 --> 01:40:22.990
Well, so what?

01:40:23.990 --> 01:40:31.560
So we can cut into this cycle

01:40:31.560 --> 01:40:32.560
at any point.

01:40:32.560 --> 01:40:34.560
We can become aware of it.

01:40:34.560 --> 01:40:35.560
We can become part of it.

01:40:35.560 --> 01:40:37.560
We can deny it.

01:40:37.560 --> 01:40:39.560
There is no loss

01:40:39.560 --> 01:40:40.560
in the circuit.

01:40:40.560 --> 01:40:42.560
There is no blame.

01:40:42.560 --> 01:40:43.560
Becoming, then,

01:40:43.560 --> 01:40:45.560
what psychedelic means is

01:40:45.560 --> 01:40:46.560
it means

01:40:46.560 --> 01:40:49.560
claiming this dimension

01:40:49.560 --> 01:40:50.560
as your own.

01:40:50.560 --> 01:40:51.560
You know, Plato said

01:40:51.560 --> 01:40:53.560
time is the moving image

01:40:53.560 --> 01:40:55.560
of eternity.

01:40:55.560 --> 01:40:57.560
That moving image of eternity

01:40:57.560 --> 01:40:59.560
can be beheld

01:40:59.560 --> 01:41:01.560
in the silent darkness of the mind

01:41:01.560 --> 01:41:04.560
on five grams of psilocybin.

01:41:04.560 --> 01:41:06.560
And if you think

01:41:06.560 --> 01:41:08.560
the universe is mundane,

01:41:08.560 --> 01:41:10.560
if you think there are no more

01:41:10.560 --> 01:41:11.560
frontiers to cross,

01:41:11.560 --> 01:41:14.560
no more adventures to be had,

01:41:14.560 --> 01:41:15.560
I'm telling you,

01:41:15.560 --> 01:41:18.560
you can turn your living room

01:41:18.560 --> 01:41:21.560
into the bridge of Magellan's ship

01:41:21.560 --> 01:41:24.560
on a long Saturday evening

01:41:24.560 --> 01:41:26.560
with five grams of psilocybin

01:41:26.560 --> 01:41:28.560
in silent darkness.

01:41:28.560 --> 01:41:29.560
We are living

01:41:29.560 --> 01:41:31.560
in the most empowering age

01:41:31.560 --> 01:41:32.560
in human history

01:41:32.560 --> 01:41:34.560
because all of the energy

01:41:34.560 --> 01:41:36.560
of the ancestors,

01:41:36.560 --> 01:41:38.560
not only the human ancestors,

01:41:38.560 --> 01:41:39.560
but our animal,

01:41:39.560 --> 01:41:40.560
our primate ancestors,

01:41:40.560 --> 01:41:42.560
all of that energy

01:41:42.560 --> 01:41:43.560
pours into,

01:41:43.560 --> 01:41:44.560
is focused into,

01:41:44.560 --> 01:41:47.560
this moment.

01:41:47.560 --> 01:41:50.560
We are the transition generation.

01:41:50.560 --> 01:41:53.560
We have one foot in matter

01:41:53.560 --> 01:41:56.560
and one foot in hyperspace.

01:41:56.560 --> 01:41:58.560
And we can redeem

01:41:58.560 --> 01:42:00.560
the trust

01:42:00.560 --> 01:42:02.560
of thousands of years.

01:42:02.560 --> 01:42:04.560
All of the horror

01:42:04.560 --> 01:42:05.560
of history

01:42:05.560 --> 01:42:07.560
can be redeemed

01:42:07.560 --> 01:42:10.560
if we don't drop the ball.

01:42:10.560 --> 01:42:12.560
Every pogrom,

01:42:12.560 --> 01:42:13.560
every

01:42:13.560 --> 01:42:16.560
every instance of racial,

01:42:16.560 --> 01:42:17.560
sexual,

01:42:17.560 --> 01:42:19.560
or minority persecution

01:42:19.560 --> 01:42:21.560
can be redeemed

01:42:21.560 --> 01:42:23.560
if we give

01:42:23.560 --> 01:42:25.560
the human adventure meaning.

01:42:25.560 --> 01:42:27.560
And we give it meaning

01:42:27.560 --> 01:42:28.560
by discovering

01:42:28.560 --> 01:42:30.560
the totality

01:42:30.560 --> 01:42:32.560
within ourselves

01:42:32.560 --> 01:42:34.560
and then exemplifying it

01:42:34.560 --> 01:42:36.560
for each other.

01:42:36.560 --> 01:42:39.560
And this dissolves boundaries,

01:42:39.560 --> 01:42:41.560
empowers the weak,

01:42:41.560 --> 01:42:42.560
uh,

01:42:42.560 --> 01:42:44.560
enlightens the strong,

01:42:44.560 --> 01:42:46.560
and brings hope to all.

01:42:46.560 --> 01:42:48.560
And it can only be done

01:42:48.560 --> 01:42:50.560
if we accept

01:42:50.560 --> 01:42:52.560
the gifts which nature

01:42:52.560 --> 01:42:54.560
has offered us.

01:42:54.560 --> 01:42:56.560
Thank you very, very much.