Psychedelic Salon

Guest speaker: Charles S. Grob, M.D. PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 03:20 Charlie talks about how he got into psychedelic research. 07:47 Charlie: "My interest has always been in studying the potential therapeutic effects of MDMA. I’ve always had concerns about use and abuse of the recreationally drug ecstasy. Now early on in the history of this drug, ecstasy was almost always MDMA, but over the years there has been more and more drug substitutions, to the point where now with ecstasy I think there’s less reliability in regards to it being the drug you think it is than for any other drug I’m aware of." 09:25 Charlie describes the process of obtaining approval to conduct clinical research using psychedelic drugs. 16:29 Charlie:"If you have some ambition to work in this area you have to develop certain character qualities, like having a lot of patience and persistence." 18:13 Charlie discusses the relative merits of MDMA vs. psilocybin in the treatment of end stage cancer patients who are also suffering from anxiety. 22:33 Charlie: "So MDMA might turn out to be a very valuable compound to use with a chronic PTSD patient group, but in a medically ill group, over the years I began to question that and decided that psilocybin would be significantly safer." 20:43 Charlie begins his discussion of the human safety study of MDMA that he conducted. 23:03 Charlie: "A relative risk in regards to recreational use of MDMA is that a lot of people are oblivious to the fact that different drugs can interact with one another, and people who may have medical conditions, on medication, who then take ecstasy, which is often, though not always, MDMA, that there may be a drug-drug interaction which can cause injurious effects." 28:50 Lorenzo changes the subject by asking, "What do you tell your kids other than ‘just say no’?" . . . Charlie: "Often the most helpful thing you can do is simply be honest, and to provide the young people with the information we know today." 29:28 Charlie explains ways that the street drug ecstasy can cause significant medical problems when not properly used. 34:11 Charlie talks about the work done my Humphry Osmand, Abram Hoffer, Duncan Blewett, and others in Canada when they successfully treated and cured alcoholics using LSD as a catalyst that changing their lives. 36:17 Charlie: "It seems to me there are some very interesting implications here for Osmand’s old work with alcoholics as well as some of our more recent observations with the ayahuasca church as well as others who have observed a similar process in the Native American Peyote Church." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Jon Hanna PROGRAM NOTES: Jon Hanna enjoying an energy dring while visiting the Shulgins.Photo credit: Marc Franklin (Lordnose) (c) 2007 (Minutes : Seconds into program) 06:19 Jon tells about starting the publication of The Psychedelic Resource List. 08:32 Lorenzo and Jon discuss articles in the current issue of Entheogen Review, including "DMT for the Masses" and "Security Issues in the Underground". 13:14 Jon talks about the problem of mis-labeling of botanicals that are sold on the Internet. 18:29 The discussion turns to security issues in the psychedelic community. 23:33 Halperngate and John Halpern as a DEA snitch discussed at Burning Man. 28:08 Jon Hanna: "Kind of the Golden Rule in our community is ‘Thou shallt not snitch.’ That’s the glue, the trust, that holds us all together as a community." 31:54 Jon talks about his current research into energy drinks. 46:11 The horrors of a $6.57 a day energy drink habit?!? 50:06 Jon reads the warning label on an energy drink can 1:04:46 Jon raves about the apocalyptic visionary painter,Joe Coleman. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Mind States Conferences (click) Psychedelic Resource List by Jon Hanna Essays Discussed in this Podcast "Halperngate" "Halperngate II" "The Bad Shaman Meets the Wayward Doc"   "Bogus Kratom Market Exposed" Psychedelic Shamanism by Jim DeKorne

Guest speakers: Rupert Sheldrake, Ralph Abraham, and Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 04:38 Rupert Sheldrake: quot;The primary metaphor is the magnetic field, that’s what gives you the sense of a field. But if you look at the type of physics that would be appropriate for describing these fields it would not be magnitism, it’s quantum field theory. 07:23 Ralph Abraham:"I’m extremely suspicious of the application of quantum mechanical concepts in the arena of psychology, consciousness, sociology, and so on. To me that’s much fuzzier than the face on Mars." 12:28 Terence McKenna: "Part of the problem is that physical models break down when prosecuted to quantum mechanical levels." 21:15 Ralph begins his explanation of the physics of the nimbus, otherwise known as a halo. 30:47 Terence: "The more successful psychoanalytic theories, it seems to me, are the least mathmatically driven, and depend really on this mysterious business that we call the gifted therapist." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speakers: Rupert Sheldrake, Ralph Abraham, and Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 05:25 Rupert Sheldrake: "And so in human family groups we’d expect the same kind of morphic fields [as in other animal family groups]. . . . It would mean that family fields, with their morphic fields, would have a kind of memory from the families that contributed to them. The father’s and mother’s families of origin would come together in a family." 12:12 Rupert: "Whatever the merits or demerits of [Bert] Hellinger’s system, which I think is very interesting and apparently very effective, the idea of making models of the family field seems to me something that one could address in a more general sense." 20:29 Terence McKenna: "The family thing works because people really are complex chemical systems with genetic affinity." 22:16 Rupert: "There are amazing cases where young people commit suicide in a way that mimics the unacknowledged death of an ancestor, like suicide by drowning when an ancestor one or two generations before have committed suicide by drowning, but they’ve never been told about it because it was never acknowledged. And you get these extraordinary patterns that repeat." 26:58 Rupert: "We don’t have adequate models for these family systems, nor the influence of ancestors within them, which my interest in morphic resonance makes me very keen on." 49:27 Rupert (describing an indigenous belief): "But you have to be on good terms with the ancestors. And what being on good terms, above all, means acknowledging them. . . . that you name and acknowledge the key ancestors, you acknowledge all the dead in your lineage. And if you miss anyone out they’re going to be angry, and if they’re angry that means trouble." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Myron Stolaroff PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program)   02:29 Myron Stolarofftalks about writing "The Secret Chief", a biography of Leo Zeff. 06:06Lorenzodescribes Dr. Michael Mitthoefer’s research where he is using MDMA to treat victims of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). 12:52 Myron tells how he strikes up conversations about psychedelics with strangers he meets while traveling. 18:00 Myron: "The DEA, they’ve been the toughest ones. To a man they’re really refuting these things with all the power that they have, and they’re not interested in learning anything about them. They’re not interested in learning if anything [positive] is possible." 25:31 Myron: "Even though it’s painful, you’re much better off, if you’re willing to experience the pain, be with it and let it go, because once it breaks through and is gone you’re at a whole new level." 30:51 Myron: "And so you try to pretend that it’s [pain] not there, but it is there. And as long as it’s there it’s going to control you." 35:32 Myron: "I used the phrase ‘worked on that’, and the working is not really struggling and trying to make things happen. It isn’t that at all. What it is is learning to just be still, to just let everything go, just absolutely be still and let our hearts open." 54:43 Myron tells about instigating, along with Al Hubbard, the meeting between Alan Watts and Timothy Leary. 58:31 Myron (in a conversation with Timothy Leary)"I don’t have it in my heart to tell you not to do what you’re doing, but, really, what you’re doing isn’t going in the right direction." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option  "The Secret Chief Revealed" by Myron Stolaroff  "Thantos To Eros" by Myron Stolaroff

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 05:25 Rupert Sheldrake describes how one could go about creating a "consumer’s report" for odd-ball theories. 06:23Terence McKenna:"Ninety-five percent of the scientists who have rejected astrology cannot cast a natal horoscope, and that the ability to actually cast a horoscope never seemed to be required of these high-toned scientific critics of astrology. It was something they felt perfectly free to dismiss without understanding." 07:26 Ralph Abraham: "Well, the hypothesis of causative formation, of course, favors deeper fluff. . . . The thing about astrology is that people say it works. An argument could be made that even though the Zodiacal reference frame that it is based on no longer has any basis in the sky that it works because people believe in it, and because it is in the N-field, and that because it’s deeper fluff, basically." 08:27 Ralph: "I think it could be that scientific research, done according to the best principles, has a greater weight in impressing itself upon the morphogenic field." 12:53 Rupert: "This internalization of the use of blind techniques has, in fact, gone farthest in parapsychology, where 85% of experiments are double blind in recent journals. In medicine and psychology where everyone pays lip service to blind techniques, in practice the number of blind papers, or double blind, is in the region of six to seven percent of all published papers in the top journals." 17:09 Terence: "Well, speculation and skepticism begin to sound like novelty and habit. So maybe these things are just counter-flows in the intellectual life of the culture that redress each other. And though we do have certain long-running forms of fuzz, it does tend to correct itself over time." 19:47 Rupert: "The fact is that in the mainstream of our culture skepticism reigns supreme." 22:27 Terence:"New kinds of people are making their voices heard, people from outside the male patriarchal, usual membership in the club." 25:34 Rupert: "In most walks of life skepticism is normal. We expect it in politics, courts of law, etc." 27:30 Rupert: "[Science] is the only universal system which is not open to the normal processes of challenge from competing points of view, having to justify itself in terms of evidence." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Also mentioned in this podcast Cross-cultural Medical Ethnobotany by Nat Bletter The Ayahuasca Monologues with Jonathan Philips, Jamye Waxman, Bill Kennedy, Daniel Pinchbeck, and Nat Bletter

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 02:09 Terence McKenna: "Somehow as a part of the agenda of political correctness it has become not entirely acceptable to criticize, or demand substantial evidence, or expect people, when advancing their speculations, to make, what used to be called, old fashioned sense." 04:10 Terence: "These phenomenon, which we know exist, and which we find rich in implication, would simply not be allowed as objects of discourse, they would be ruled out of order. So there’s something wrong on one level with what’s called empiricism, skepticism, positivism, it has different names." 08:09 Terence:"[Empherical science] is a coarse-grained view of nature, and what it mitigates against seeing are the very things that feed the progress of science, which is the unassimilated phenomenon, the unusual data, the peculiar result of an experiment." 11:04 Terence: "What I have a problem with is unanchored, eccentric revelations." 13:39 Terence: "Nonlocality, accepted, permits some of the things we’re interested in." 15:26 Rupert Sheldrake: "Weirdness and cults and most of the phenomenon you’ve named are phenomenon of Hawaii and California. When you live in England, things take on a rather different perspective. There’s a general level of popular skepticism, such that the general tone of an English pub is one of sort of skepticism." Terence: "Well, but aren’t crop circles, and Graham Hancock all homegrown British phenomenon?" 20:33 Rupert: "There is the possibility to return to a more common sense approach, common sense of the British pub type, and probably of standard American kind too, will often deal quite satisfactorily with the probono proctologists from outer space." 21:59 Terence: "You speak from your knowledge of the calculus and world history, and this person speaks from their latest transmission from fallen Atlantis. And this is all placed on an equal footing, and it’s crazy-making, and it also guarantees the trivialness of the entire enterprise. I just don’t think any revolution in human history can be made by fluff-heads." 23:49 Ralph Abraham: "In other words, there is no simple measuring stick of simplicity." 23:49 Ralph says he wishes we could create a measuring stick to measure the truth of something and then goes on to describe how one could be designed. 31:31 Terence: "The history of alchemy is far older than the history of science. It has always been in existence. It’s thinkers have always evolved and adumbrated their field of concern. So that’s one kind of fluff. Fluff with punch, because it has historical continuity." 34:51 Ralph: "The problem with this ’strict parent’ approach to fluff, is that some important discoveries may be shuttled aside." 39:13 Terence: "What we have to legitimize is critical discussion. So that when someone stands up and starts talking about the face on Mars people behave as they apparently behave in British pubs and just stand up and say, ‘Malarkey mate.’And force people to experience a critical deconstruction of their ideas." 48:13 Rupert: "If [scientific research] priorities were set by popular opinion, pet research would be at the top of the biological agenda, not the sequencing of more proteins, the cloning of more sheep to help the biotechnology industry. But instead, pet research isn’t even on the agenda. So it’s set by a small elite who bear no relation in their interests to the voters in a democracy who actually provide the money." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Matt Pallamary PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 04:48 Matt: "Ayahuasca doesn’t hide anything. . . . It can amplify perceptions, but it can also amplify fears or shadow aspects of yourself, the dark you’ve been avoiding. Ayahuasca has an intelligence to it that seeks out your fear and exploits it, and it’s a wonderful teaching tool." 08:39 Matt explains how the ayahuasca brew is made. 10:19 The legend of how ayahuasca was first discovered. 15:44 Preparation for an ayahuasca experience, beginning with the diet and what prescription medicines to avoid before the journey. 17:56 Details about the ayahuasca diet. 26:03 Lorenzo: "While this is true of all psychoactive substances, medicine like ayahuasca is sort of like nitroglycerine. You have to handle it with care." 27:16 Matt: "What it comes down to, ultimately, is that you have to respect it, and you have to respect its innate intelligence. That’s why, generally speaking, the closer you stick to the diet the better experience you have." 29:51 Tips for planning a trip to the Amazon for an ayahuasca experience. 32:19 Matt: "There’s a lot of responsibility that goes with this, because it’s a very powerful plant. And one of the things that I learned is that power, power in and of itself, is neutral, but the intention you put behind the power is what makes things happen." 33:58 Matt: "It has to come down, ultimately, to integrity. Integrity is the core of everything." 34:41 A discussion of chemical analogues to ayahuasca. 38:49 Matt: "It’s made to be done in a circle, and in a circle you join the energy collectively as a group. So if one particular person in the group is getting healed, everyone in the group is helping to heal that person." 39:58 Matt: "I heard it said once that ayahuasca is the river, and the icaros and songs and things are the boats that carry you on the journey." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Where to find podcasts mentioned in this program: The Cannabis Podcast Network This is where you will find the DopeCast, The Sounds of World Wide Weed, Story Time With Lefty, Zandor’s Grow Report, and Psychonautica Also, don’t miss The C-Realm podcast hosted by KMO. Books mentioned in this podcast Psychedelic Shamanism: The Cultivation, Preparation & Shamanic Use of Psychoactive Plants by Jim DeKorne Land ithout Evil by Matthew J. Pallamary Matt Pallamary’s Web Site

Guest speaker: Dr. Preet Chopra PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 02:56 Preet describes the study he is working on at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center where he and Dr. Charles Grob are giving psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) to end-stage cancer patients who are also suffering from anxiety. 05:17 A description of the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the study. 11:01 Preet takes us through a typical session with a study participant. 12:04 "According to some of the research that was done before prohibition, it was found that people who had more internal experiences were more likely to get the psychological intervention we’re going for with this." 24:03 "In my treatments as a psychiatrist I’ve never treated a psychedelic addiction. I’ve treated a lot of addicts who are addicted to a lot of stuff and who also used psychedelics, but that [psychedelic addiction] has never come into my emergency room or office." 29:39 "I think it’s kind of ridiculous to be a scientist and a doctor and not investigate and try to understand how we can use these tools in a Western culture safely." 36:11 "I think that ultimately the true wisdom about these plants comes from shamanic tradition, however, in today’s Western society people will often come to a psychiatrist to address the issue that in a different tribal kind of society they would seek out the shaman." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Mentioned in this podcast "Counter-Transference Issues in Psychedelic Psychotherapy" by Gary Fisher, PH.D Additional papers by Gary Fisher, Ph.D.

Guest speakers: George Greer and Requa Tolbert PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 06:30George talks about how they began to use MDMA in their work. 07:37 "We didn’t want it to get in the newspapers, because we knew that because it felt good it would eventually get out on the street and be made illegal … as it was." 08:30 How people were screened before they could be treated with MDMA. . . . "Where are you pointed?" 10:01 "The purpose for taking it [MDMA] really is the most important thing, more important than the drug even." 12:41 Requa describes the formal structure of a therapeutic MDMA session as developed by Leo Zeff, "The Secret Chief". 16:30 George reads the 18th century prayer that Leo Zeff recommended using before a healing MDMA session. 23:57 "My idea is that MDMA decreases fear, the neurological experience of fear. So if you have a thought that would normally be frightening to you that would make you anxious and tense up and be defensive and push it away, that reaction just is blocked." 30:47 "Women seem to be more sensitive [to MDMA] independent of size . . . actually some research has been done showing women are more sensitive milligrams per kilogram. In Switzerland they found this." 32:33 George describes the work of Dr. Arthur Hastings who used hypnotherapy with former MDMA users to bring back the experience of their medicine session. 33:52 A discussion of beta-blockers. 34:43 "I think that MDMA would be excellent for people who are afraid of dying and afraid of death." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Abstracts of papers by Greer and Tolbert "Subjective reports of the effects of MDMA in a clinical setting" "The Therapeutic Use of MDMA" "A method of conducting therapeutic sessions with MDMA"

Guest speaker: Michael Mithoefer PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 06:19 Michael tells a little about how his study came about and its current status. 08:27 Michael describes the screening, preparation, and flow of the experience for qualified participants. 11:56 "We were able to go back, retroactively, and offer MDMA to everybody that had gotten [only] the placebo so far." 14:06 "Everybody who’s gotten MDMA has had a significant improvement, either temporarily or sustained. More than half, the majority of people have had a very dramatic and sustained improvement." 18:35 "This is a pilot study, and we’re not really looking to prove efficacy. We’re looking to prove we can work safely with these subjects, and it has at least has a strong trend toward being effective." 22:48 A discussion about the neurotoxicity of MDMA. 23:12 "There is still a question about neurotixicity (or at least decreases in some neuro functions) with heavy recreational use. It looks like there probably is some effect, although that is still controversial. . . . It looks like [using MDMA] less than 50 times there is no effect. It is still not known if there is an effect higher than that." 28:31 "The question is about how sustainable is the effect. It really looks like, for some people, two sessions is enough to really, significantly heal PTSD." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Bruce Damer PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 05:29 Bruce tells the story of the first and only Terence McKenna workshop that was held in a virtual world in cyberspace. 07:00 The story of the bizarre dreams Terence McKenna was having in the weeks before his first major seizure. 08:32 Bruce tells of Terence saying, "It’s all about love," a few days before he died. "Terence said, ‘The whole psychedelic movement, it’s about love. It’s not about all this other stuff. It’s about love.’ " 13:20 "It seems as though the universe is a sort of self-contained thing that never loses any information." 18:34 An epiphany about DNA. 21:09 "What if the universe, like Chris Langton’s brain, is gradually booting up an awareness of itself, and why would it do this?" 29:07 Universe2, the second phase of this universe. 30:19 "All events that happened in the past and that will happen in the future are happening at once. What you’re living in is a mesh. . . . Everything is happening at once." 33:19 "Why does the universe create human beings?" . . . and what about these amazing brains we have? Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option   Bruce Damer’s Web site Photo credits: www.damer.com

Guest speaker: Myron Stolaroff PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 03:48 Myron Stolaroff: “After I’d had LSD, there wasn’t anything that could come anywhere close to it. That was the most remarkable thing in my whole life.” 04:34 Myron talks about his meetings with Aldous Huxley. 07:39 Myron talks about Meduna’s mixture, carbogen. 09:42 Myron explains what a carbogen experience was like. 16:15 Why some people don’t seem to have a positive experience with psychedelics. 18:21 The importance of using psychedelics in small, supportive groups. 19:48 Myron discusses his favorite psychedelic substances. 20:37 Myron talks about Duncan Blewett 24:01Some thoughts about using music during a psychedelic experience. 25:05 Myron’s advice to psychonaughts. 28:20 Myron talks about his relationship with Timothy Leary. 31:00 Myron tells the story of removing Leary from the board of directors of the Institute for Advance Study. 33:30 Myron tells of his fist meeting with Dr. Albert Hofmann. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Books by Myron Stolaroff LSD manual mentioned in this podcast HANDBOOK FOR THE THERAPEUTIC USE OF LYSERGIC ACID DIETHYLAMIDE-25 INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP PROCEDURES by D.B. BLEWETT, Ph.D. and N. CHWELOS, M.D.

Guest speakers: Jean and Myron Stolaroff PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 04:53Jean Stolaroff:Tells the story of how she first became involved with psychedelic medicines. 07:50 Myron Stolaroff: Tells how Death Valley came to be a favorite location for taking acid trips. 09:20 Myron tells some stories about Al Hubbard and Death Valley. 10:24 Myron tells of an acit trip in Death Valley that he had with Willis Harman and Al Hubbard. 15:56 Jean: “I knew I’d get a lot of fringe benefits from marrying Myron.” 17:10 Jean and Myron discuss 2C-E, “One of the very best.” 18:31 Jean and Myron discuss compounds they have no desire to ever try again. 21:33 Myron talking about 2C-B and how some substances react in unexpected ways with people. 25:14 Myron describes his first LSD experience, which took place in Canada on April 12, 1956. 35:18 Myron talks about Gerald Heard’s influence on his decision to try LSD. 37:30 Myron describes his first carbogen experience. 39:53 Myron describes the preparation that was required of participants in the Menlo Park work. 47:11 Myrondescribes how he first became involved in meditation practices. 54:42 Myron: “You know, if you’re going to work with these materials, meditation is a marvelous supporter because as you use the materials you open your consciousness more, and that opens your meditation more. So then your meditation becomes more effective and more fulfilling. So it’s a growing process.” 59:58 Myron: “And the only way that you can keep developing and learning more, and getting into higher levels of consciousness, is by really exerting yourself and learning to use everything that shows up when you do have these experiences.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 03:08 Terence McKenna: “Another way of thinking of it (the Knot of Eternity) is it’s the nexus of connectivity. It’s a place where everything is cotangent, as the mathematicians say. Everything is connected, and I think that’s the place we are growing toward.” 07:30 Ralph Abraham: “If a present moment is between a past that’s familiar and a future which is completely different, then that’s a very special moment.” 10:18 Rupert Sheldrake: Begins a brief explanation of his theory of morphic resonance. 16:08 Terence: “The great successful conspiracies, the Catholic church, capitalism, the Communist Party of China, Zionism, these things don’t call themselves conspiracies. They call themselves historical social movements." 17:07 Terence: "The task of discerning shit from Shinola looms very large at the end of history." 20:52 Ralph: Tells about the experience he and Rupert had in a crop circle. 23:53 Rupert: Tells about being arrested while inspecting a crop circle. 27:33 Terence: "I think we’re going to have to come to terms with as the world moves toward this concrescence of novelty is that it gives off spurious reflections of itself." 28:54 Terence: "The truth will be beautiful, and it will be simple. And it will be persuasive to those who doubt it. So don’t get into some closed loop of viviology. Make the truth seduce you. Don’t be thereby seduced by error." 31:10 Rupert: Talks about ley lines. 33:49 Terence gives an update on his current thinking about the Timewave (Novelty Theory). 34:17 Terence: "We have created social institutions such as consumer capitalism that are so unfriendly to our innate humaness that they are actually redesigning us, these social systems, to be more brutal, less caring, more acquisitive, more fetishistic, than we naturally would be. And, again, the antidote to this is an awareness of your immediate environment and the tricks that are being run on you and the ways in which we are being manipulated. Man is not bad. Humanity is not flawed. What is flawed are ideologies and social systems that distort humaness for purposes usually of commerce or conquest. . . . Culture is an intelligence test." 42:47 Rupert: "I think that the suppression of ritual forms of violence can lead to an outbreak of sacrificial killings by crazed maniacs." 43:20 Terence: "Well, it’s not a good idea to fear anything. Technology is prostheses. Technology is tools. We’ve always been defined by our tools. There is nothing about us that would be human if it weren’t for our tools. Language is a tool. The cutting edge is a tool. Social organization is a tool. . . . Shamanism is simply a technology." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Daniel Siebert PROGRAM NOTES: 05:44 Daniel tells the story about finding a Salvia plant at a Terence McKenna lecture. 12:06 He describes the traditional Mazatec way of taking Salvia divinorum. 24:39 Daniel talks about the various categories of experiences that are possible through the use of Salvia Divinorum. 25:25 "One of the more common types of experiences people have is often people have visions of places that are reminiscent of early childhood, places like school playgrounds or the back yard of their parents’ house where they lived when they were six or seven years old." 28:49 Daniel talks about his isolation of the active ingredient in Salvia Divinorum. 31:51 "In general, when taken in the traditional fashion of chewing the leaves, the effects are gentle, the onset is gradual, the experience is enriching and it can be utilized in a very controlled, directed, conscientious manner." 43:18 Daniel talks about the varying amounts of time a Salvia experience can last depending upon dosage and method of use. 50:40 A discussion about the current legal status of Salvia. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Daniel Siebert’s Web site www.SageWisdom.org "Salvia divinorum and Salvinorin A: new pharmacologic findings" (PDF file) by Daniel J. Siebert Legal Status Of Salvia divinorum The Sage Wisdom Salvia Shop

Guest speaker: Matt Pallamary PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 12:18 Matt provides some background information about his wild youth. 20:37 Some thoughts about what at what age it is best to begin deeply exploring one’s consciousness through the use of sacred medicines. 21:31 "This is one of the key tenants of shamanism, all you can ultimately go on is your own experience." 23:40 "I want to stress that there are a lot of substances that are not good. Crystal meth, bad. Obviously, heroin, bad. Crack cocaine, bad." 30:30 The discussion turns to shamanism. 32:33 "The medicines teach you to learn how to connect with your heart, and to follow your heart instead of your head, because your heart is actually a superior ‘brain’." 34:23 Matt talks about the course of shamanism study he has been pursuing. 37:44 "The absolute best thing you can do for yourself, and for everybody, for the universe, for the cosmos, for the race, for humanity, truly the absolute best thing you can do for everybody, is to work on yourself and heal yourself. Because when you heal yourself you heal part of the collective, and you begin to realize that everybody around you is a mirror. Because we are all one" 39:28 Matt explains the difference between shamanism and organized religion. . . . "Shamanism, on the other hand, is based on experiential knowledge. Period." 43:31 "Ayahuasca has a way of finding your deepest fears and bringing them out. So when you do it within a sacred circle that’s protected with a good intention, then those parts of you that you’ve been terrified of will come out, and you can deal with them more on your own terms." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Matt Palamary’s Web site (mattpallamary.com) Books mentioned in this podcast: Land Without Evil   Food of the Gods

Guest speakers: Amanda Feilding and Mark Pesce PROGRAM NOTES: Amanda Feilding (Minutes : Seconds into program) 05:30 "Britain is America’s greatest ally in all the dreadful things it is doing at the moment, the war on terror and the war on drugs. And without Britain America would feel isolated." 07:12 Amanda discusses the new scale for drugs that is being proposed in the UK. 09:37 "Present drug policy simply doesn’t work, and indeed it is the policy which is causing most of the damages." 10:45 "My particular interest is in separating the psychedelics and marijuana from the rest of the drugs." 13:34 "We at the Beckley Foundation have decided to do some reports which will tell the truth. Because the United Nations report doesn’t tell the truth. It tells what the Americans want to hear." 14:18 "At the last Beckley Foundation Seminar, which was held at the House of Lords in London, we had the top of drug policy of the United Nations and of the EU. . . . and the United Nations man agreed with me that the regulations on psychedelics should be altered." 16:30 "At the moment it’s not illegal to do research on controlled substances, but no one does it because it’s not good for grant funding, or careers." 19:52 Amanda begins her description of the brain imaging work that is being done with high-level meditation. 25:03 "In my opinion, to experience getting high means that you see a bit of you from higher up the mountain with a greatly enlarged area of simultaneous association of the neurons. So you get more far-reaching associations." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Amanda’s Web site: The Beckley Foundation Mark Pesce (Minutes : Seconds into program) 28:34 Mark Pesce: Talks about the Eschaton, the impending end of everything. "Knowing your expiration date is a very big thing." . . . but on what do you base your beliefs? 31:10 "Does the knowledge that there’s just a little bit more than six years left on the civilizational clock drive any individual that you have ever met anywhere? Have we seen anyone abandon their attachments and prepare themselves for this presumed, inevitable end?" 34:33 "What he [Terence McKenna] said [about 2012] was . . . take this and test it. . . . And I think his greatest disappointment was that so few people actually took that challenge." 36:36 "I have had enough of this [focus on 2012 being the end of history]." 36:54"I have often equated the Eschaton with the idea of technological singularity." 39:10 "What I would say is that there is no such thing as artificial intelligence. There is only intelligence, whether it is vegetable, or animal, or mineral, all intelligence is one." 41:16 "Wikipedia is the first identifiable artifact of the age of hyper-intelligence. It is the collective, and collective knowledge, of a billion human minds. It’s not artificial intelligence. It’s just intelligence." Mark’s Web site: MarkPesce.com Photos taken at the 2006 Burning Man festival by Lorenzo . . . more of Lorenzo’s Burning Man photos

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 07:58 Terence McKenna: "People should be allowed to let the apocalypse happen, not make it happen." 09:35 Rupert Sheldrake: "I would say that the Big Bang cosmology, which is an apolocyptic vision of history, with an explosive beginning and therefore implying an explosive end, is a kind of projection of this Judeo-Christian model of history. It’s not just confined to churches and synagogs. It’s the myth which encloses our entire scientific world view, which has grown up within this Judeo-Christian matrix." 12:35 Terence: "This is not paranoia. Paranoia? The Earth is on fire, haven’t you heard? There’s no reason to worry about being too paranoid. You can lift your foot off that pedal. It’s OK. You can go with that intuition now. The planet is on fire." 18:38 Terence: "So much is happening. Everything is knitting together. It cannot be stopped. There will be cellular technology and human-machine interface and uploading and downloading of clones of people and memories and places. The boundries are disolving into some kind of techno-biological informational soup of intentionality." 19:12 Terence: "It’s incomprehensible what is happening on this planet. It is like the metamorphosis that goes on inside a crysalisis, excpt this is a planet that is having its forests liquified, its oceans boiled, its populations moved, its genes streaming in all directions with all these exotic toxins mixed in. It isn’t for death that it’s moving. It’s moving towards some kind of other thing, not death." 22:20 Rupert Sheldrake: "Assuming that human consciousness doesn’t simply become extinguished at death, we have the question of what happens when millions of people die together. . . . an extraordinary flux of souls" 27:31 Terence: "We don’t know what life is for or what death is for." 28:13 Rupert: "If the state of being after death is like dreaming without being able to wake up, so that when we die we’re captured in the realm of our dreams, we pass through this tunnel, and we enter a realm which is more like the realm of dreams than the life of waking experience, that there is indeed a post-mortal life in such a form, a form glimpsed in dreams in some kinds of psychedelic epxerience where the barrier that is penetrated may be like the membrane or barrier that we penetrate at death and may therefore be akin to near death experiences, which I think DMT probably is." 30:28 Rupert: "It’s an interesting question as to why the apocolypse is such a strong attractor." 36:12 Rupert: "It seems to us unlikely, given our old-fashioned cosmological view, that anything that happens on Earth would affect the rest of the cosmos. But if lots of Earths were synchronized [through morphogenic fields] then we do indeed begin to get the sense of the possible cosmic apolypotic." 38:28 Terence: "We have to believe that the universe is stranger than we can suppose, and that’s the way, by avoiding closure and keeping that in front of us I think we will not go far wrong." 44:23 Terence: "The middle name of chaos is opportunity." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 02:31 Terence McKenna: “[The apocalypse] seems to be the unique, unifying thread throughout the Western religions Most insistently of all religious systems on Earth, it is the Western systems that have insisted on appointing an end to their world.” 05:07 Terence: “At the folkloric level, the attractor of the end of the world is very strong.” 07:47 Terence: “And these religions, which have anticipated this thing in this rather crude end of the world scenario are somehow on to something, something that is, I think, a message that is coming from the biological level, if you will, about the inherent instability of the world.” 12:14 Terence: “If in fact the concrescence is upon us then really all we can do is chat about it as it comes down around our ears over the next 25 years.” 14:37 Terence: “I think we’re standing on the lip of a hyperdimensional volcano of some sort, toward which all history is being poured at a great rate.” 29:34 Terence: “So then I thought, my god, we’re not inventing time travel here, what we’re inventing is a god whistle.” 36:01 Terence: “You see, the presence of minds is the signifier of nearby singularity.” 37:22 Ralph Abraham: “The only thing is, that from the morphogenic field point of view there are quite a number of people believing Saint John the Divine, now that I have to take seriously.” . . . Terence: “He felt a quaking in the force, that’s all, but it’s up to cooler heads to figure out what this quaking is.” 38:10 Ralph: “The present extinction is the eighth largest [as determined in 1989] catastrophes of the planet in its lifetime. And that’s happening now. So we are in something that big, and to be the biggest one it would be the apocalypse.” 38:10 Terence: “So that’s why you don’t need John the Divine to tell you there’s an apocalypse underway.”  39:49 Ralph: “It does seem to me that the ecological catastrophe is the appropriate interpretation of the apocalyptic vision at the present time.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option The book that Terence McKenna referred to in this podcast is: “Faster Than Light: Superluminal Loopholes in Physics” by Nick Herbert