WEBVTT

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I'd like to say I'm delighted to be here and I want to thank Lucius and Dieter for all the hard work and planning that's gone into the organization of this stellar event.

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It's wonderful to see so many old friends here.

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Usually I have to travel at least as far as California to see many of the people that are here, so it's great to see them in a new venue and it's great to make so many new friends.

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This is a rather amazing group.

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You know, I'm always amused when I come to events like this because a conference that is supposedly devoted to substances

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that dissolve the ego.

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It's interesting to see that probably some of the largest egos in the known universe are drawn into these types of events.

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We all have a lot of work to do on the ego front, no doubt about it, and we have the tools to do that.

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Among the crowd there are undoubtedly a number of candidates.

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For the new messiah.

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And I can't wait to see who will be crucified first because the line forms on the left.

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I was invited to join but I said if nominated I shall not run and if elected I shall not serve.

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But seriously, I am very happy, honored, and humbled, but not much.

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To be invited to this gathering because this is a seminal event in psychedelics and we're all here because of this common interest.

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Yesterday I had the great honor and pleasure to meet with another one of our Hefter board members,

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the director of the Zurich Hefter.

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Dr. Franz Wollenweider.

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He is probably one of the world's leading researchers in consciousness research in the world,

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if not the leading researcher.

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And he kindly took us to visit Dr. Albert Hoffman in his home.

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We had a wonderful two-hour visit.

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And after that we went by car from Dr. Wollenweider's home,

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to Zurich, to this psychiatric hospital where Dr. Wollenweider's research is conducted.

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And they're using these molecular probes, these psychedelic drugs, as the key tools.

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They are working at the mind-matter interface.

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And they are making some wonderful discoveries.

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And it's this enormously hypertrophied,

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and complicated human brain,

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the generator of ideas of everything that we know or experience or think we know,

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that makes us humans, that makes us different from the primates.

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On an evolutionary and historic time scale,

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it's this hypertrophied human brain that's got us into the mess that we're in.

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You know, on the ecological and societal and political front.

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And so it's important to understand how we got here.

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And it's the only thing that's going to get us out of the mess that we're in.

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Our ideas, creativity and thought.

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At the end of the day, we're still monkeys.

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As ayahuasca tells me again and again,

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every time I check in with it,

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which is pretty often,

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you monkeys only think you're running the show.

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And I think that's an important lesson.

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That's maybe the primary lesson.

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We need to remain humble.

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And while we come to a forum like this,

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to celebrate how much we know,

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it's important to remain humble,

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and to remember always how little we know.

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Because for every discovery that we make,

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for every constellation of understanding,

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there's an infinity of things that we have yet to understand.

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I see we're on the frontiers of neuroscience.

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Every science is always on its own frontiers.

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But I don't see any end to the frontier here that there is to explore.

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It is indeed as large as the known universe,

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and it may not be different from the known universe.

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So it's a very exciting time to be alive,

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to be engaged in this research,

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and to understand it.

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The study of psychedelics is inherently interdisciplinary.

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And it is one of the few areas

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of academic research that crosses over

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into virtually all activities of human culture.

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From anthropology, to chemistry,

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to neuroscience, to philosophy,

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to religion, metaphysics, you name it.

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Psychedelics touches on all of these things.

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So it is inherently a holistic subject.

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It is in fact the subject of ourselves.

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It's not about drugs.

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It's about us.

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We're trying to understand ourselves.

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We're trying to understand how we got to this situation.

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And I think that within this group,

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drawn here either because you're involved in this research,

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or you're fascinated by it,

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or you have your own personal reasons

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for being interested in psychedelics,

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there are different ways to approach this understanding.

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I'm fond of telling my students sometimes

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there's no such thing as a bad drug.

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But there are plenty of ways that human behavior

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with respect to drugs can be very, very bad.

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And by the same token,

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human behavior with respect to drugs

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can be very, very good.

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And we can use them for tools,

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for understanding,

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to improve the human condition,

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to make us a better species,

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to increase our reverence for nature,

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and hopefully to motivate us

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to save the planet,

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because we're not separate from it.

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We're all in the same boat.

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And if psychedelics have any message

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for us as a species,

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because ultimately these compounds,

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whether created in the laboratory

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or coming from the natural kingdom,

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they all ultimately harken back to the natural world.

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And in some ways you can think of these compounds,

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these sacred substances,

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as molecular messages from Gaia,

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from the community,

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from the biospheric community of consciousness,

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to our species,

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which has gotten a little bit out of control.

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And we've gotten a little bit full of ourselves.

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And we need to pause and think

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how we're going to,

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if not fix it,

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at least not break it.

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We don't know what the real significance of psychedelics is,

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because our species has only been exploring this

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for, oh no, the last 60,000 years.

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That's a blink in evolutionary time.

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And it's an unfolding process.

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But I said, you know,

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one analogy I like that occurred to me once

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in a state of inspiration or not,

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I said, you know, psychedelics are kind of like

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a starship that's crashed in the jungle.

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And we're a swarm of monkeys

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that have come upon this thing.

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And we have no idea what it is.

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But we're distracted by the pretty lights.

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You know, it's very nice.

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We can break off pieces of it and wave it around.

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And it does things like cure diseases

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and that kind of stuff.

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And we said, oh, well, that's what it's for.

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You know, that's great.

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We can cure many of the ills that plague mankind,

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humanity, I should say.

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And that's kind of the era that we're at now.

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We're trying to understand how can we utilize,

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if you will, this alien technology

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that nature has given us.

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But where I think it's leading

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is into the transition of the post-human,

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you know, post-historical era.

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And where that will go,

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Gaia only knows.

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Thank you very much.

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That make them different,

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that make them more affecting.

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I mean, this comes up, for example,

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you know, which with all the myth

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and all the hype around Amanita muscaria,

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you'd think this would be a mega hallucinogenic.

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But when you actually take it,

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it's pretty disappointing.

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You know, I mean, it's not that interesting.

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I mean, you know, after the chills,

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after the sweating,

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after the nausea,

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after the, you know,

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blurred vision and all that,

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you might get a transient feeling

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like you've drunk some cheap wine,

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you know,

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for a week or twenty minutes.

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You know, not my idea of a transcendent experience.

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But there are ways to,

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people say if it's dried a certain way,

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then it may be different.

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There's a whole issue about chemical races

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of Amanita muscaria.

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There's indications that some of the Himalayan ones

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may actually have tryptamines

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and psilocybin-like things in them.

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Then there's the whole issue about metabolism

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because traditionally in Siberia,

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they take it and then they piss it out

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and they take it again.

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For the woman, no?

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The woman takes it?

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I think the men drink the piss from the woman.

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That's probably it.

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Usually the women do the hard work, right?

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Yeah.

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And they take it out.

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And it turns out this may be very important

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because that cleans it up

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and in some ways potentizes the acting principle

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and detoxifies some of the interfering things.

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That may be very important.

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I'm waiting to hear the report of somebody that,

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like Jonathan,

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I don't know if he's done that,

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but some brave,

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psychonaut like that

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who does these things very carefully

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and keeps careful records

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to report on that.

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What's it like when you eat it?

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What's it like when you take the same mushroom

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and eat it and drink your piss?

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That may seem,

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well, we have cultural squeamishness about that,

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but drinking piss is not that,

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it's not dangerous.

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There are people who drink it for therapy.

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Urine therapy.

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Yeah, urine therapy.

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I'm not into it.

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But there's an interesting video out there

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on the net someplace.

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It's called the Pharmacratic Inquisition.

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And actually Jonathan Ott has written a book

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by the same name,

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but he did not produce this video.

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But a lot of what this Pharmacratic Inquisition is about

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is it's about aminata muscaria.

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And very interesting video.

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And they talk about this business

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about how you have to piss it out.

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And apparently you can keep doing this.

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You can recycle it maybe up to five times.

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Dennis.

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Yeah.

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Is there any danger in taking iboga

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if you're not using other drugs?

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I heard a few cases of people dying from iboga,

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but was that because they then overdosed on heroin?

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Oh, here's the expert.

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No.

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She works at the clinic.

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Yes, I do need the intake and screening.

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So you were asking if the danger is

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the risks around...

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The alleged death cases for iboga.

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Right.

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But then Daniel was saying

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the shaman there were encouraging to eat a lot,

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not using a scale,

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not using any kind of measurement.

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Well, I mean, that's iboga.

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We use ibogaine.

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Right.

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Okay.

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That's much safer.

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Well, I mean, the dose...

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Yeah, the dose is much easier to control

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than eating iboga.

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I don't know about eating iboga.

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I've never been to Africa.

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I mean...

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But you do drug screens.

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Yes.

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And I think the main thing is that they...

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We do...

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People not be on opiates, they have to what?

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Yeah.

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They have to be off short-acting opiates for 12 hours

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and off long-acting opiates for 24 hours.

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We can't treat people who are on antidepressant medications.

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We can't treat people who are on...

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Most medications contraindicate with ibogaine.

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Even MDMA, I think?

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Oh, sure.

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You wouldn't want it.

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Absolutely.

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Yes.

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You know, what we strive...

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It's an MDMA.

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You can do candy flipping with ibogaine.

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No.

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Ibogaine should not be mixed with any other substance.

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No.

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Right.

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No.

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And the same may be said of ayahuasca.

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No SSRIs.

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Yes.

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It should not be mixed with MDMA.

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I'm aware of people that do, but I think they're asking for trouble.

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It shouldn't be mixed with anything.

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I mean, it can be mixed with other...

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Tryptamine.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I don't advocate other...

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Other tryptamine.

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I know people that mix it with mushrooms, but I don't advocate that.

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Right.

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I think, you know, in a way there's something to be said for being purist.

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If you want to take an orally active tryptamine, you could take ayahuasca or you could take

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mushrooms.

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They're both orally active tryptamines.

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You don't need to add mushrooms to ayahuasca to make it stronger.

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You need to drink more.

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You know.

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Right.

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it's not getting you there you just need to have a booster now in my case I can't

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take a booster because I immediately throw up so I just try to drink enough

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to begin with you mentioned you you're about yourself that you're taking a lot

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of ayahuasca or retinol often that you use it often but when okay but it's not

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like every week or no no I would though if I probably not every week I take it

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easily I could do it once a month and that's probably about the right amount

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for me but I don't do that I do it I tend to go you know maybe six months and

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then I'll go for a weekend someplace and do it three or four times you know in

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succession and that's how it works for me that's why these

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things like at wasiwaska are really very good because you're in a place where

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you have a chance to take it and then you skip a day and then you can take it

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and wasiwaska you might do ayahuasca as much as six times in a 12-day session

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each session builds on the last one I mean not only is it not totally washed

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out but you're processing the information every time and I think

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that's really therapeutic

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master plants other plants are combined if not at wasiwaska right not yes

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generally in that's right there are other plants that you can diet with if

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you're gonna seriously try to like study as a prince of shaman or something you

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have to do this diet there are these many other medicinal plants so which may

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not even be overtly psychoactive but they do things they

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tune your body to make it you know possible to to become an ayahuasquero to

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use the medicine better they kind of work together they work together it's

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it's just a part of the practice you know eat right

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when you don't take a substance for a long time when you take the first it's

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likely your body is fighting with the substance and after maybe one day you

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feel more comfortable and taking more I think you have to prepare your body

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because that's the first thing if you take one alphanier and I take something

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and I I don't feel comfortable when I take the food that's that's the best and

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after I can go up that's one of the benefits of these multiple sessions of ayahuasca because

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the first session with you the toxic you might not do much more than just throw up

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you know and you'll feel better and then the next one you could begin but I think if

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you try only the first you don't have a good opinion of a substance because your body is

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all the time fighting with that not always because my first ayahuasca experience was

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but you think you take one first time I used it and yeah you probably look like

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a pretty healthy guy you probably eat well I'll bet you get lots of exercise I own a health food

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store so yes second time I took ayahuasca in Rio with the UDV I went you know it was when we

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were down there for that conference and I come from you know this

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states and I've been eating crappy food and all this stuff plus I was jet lagged

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tired you know just screwed up I threw up for six hours straight you know I felt great the next day