Psychedelic Salon

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Tim Scully Tim Scully & Nick Sandcirca 2015Photo: @headsnews PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: October 12, 2019. [NOTE: All quotations are by Tim Scully.] "The LSD experience doesn't really carry a message with it. It's an amplifier. And it's much more dependent on set and setting than I believed at first. I should have paid more attention to what people like Tim Leary and Ralph Metzner had been saying." "It also slowly became clear, from observing my friends who'd taken a lot of acid, and some of whom were still behaving like assholes, that taking LSD was not a cure for being an asshole." "I think that maybe Huxley might have been right. Huxley wanted to turn the world on from the top down." "I still think it's much better, if you're going to take a substantial dose of a psychedelic, to do it in a quiet, calm, controlled environment, preferably with a very limited number of people present." Stuff Stoners Like Tim Scully Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speakers: Tania and Greg Manning PROGRAM NOTES: This lecture was recorded live in the salon on October 21, 2019. Today's podcast features what I hope will be the first of many more visits with Tania and Greg Manning. In addition to assisting Sasha Shulgin during the final years of his life, they continue working with Ann Shulgin to preserve the laboratory and other effects of her's and Sasha's life and work. In this initial conversation with "Sasha's Sidekicks", we reminisce about the Shulgins' first Burning Man experience and the Mind States conferences. Additionally, Tania reads some of Sasha's unpublished writing in which he talks about his relationship with Albert Hofmann, including an interesting anecdote about their favorite drugs, and Greg gives an emotional description of the peaceful final day of Sasha's life. Shulgin Research Institute Sasha Shulgin's Joke Book Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

A Video Podcast Today we feature our first video podcast from the Psychedelic Salon. Our normal audio podcast features the audio portion of this short documentary. However, the best way to experience this program is to watch the video version, which you may also download in various formats. Free Leonard Pickard PROGRAM NOTES: Guest speakers: David Luke, Ben Sessa, Mark McCloud, Julian Vayne, Michael Dupler, Gregory Sams, Carlo Rovelli, Nese Devenot, Shane Mauss, and Dr. David Nutt These interviews were recorded in 2019. In preparation of the audio edition of Leonard Pickard's The Rose of Paracelsus, Kat Lakey has traveled far and wide while gathering recordings from friends of Leonard's, all of whom have volunteered to read and record a chapter for this project. After meeting with some of these volunteers, Kat also recorded brief interviews with them. These interviews are presented in this video podcast. Some of these people, such as Nese Devenot, and Dr. David Nutt, have appeared before in the Psychedelic Salon. Also included in the interviews in today's podcast are Dr. Carlo Rovelli, David Luke, Ben Sessa, Mark McCloud, Julian Vayne, Gregory Sams, Shane Mauss, and attorney Michael Dupler. During the months ahead you will also hear each of them read one of the chapters from The Rose of Paracelsus. In case you missed it, here is an overview of this project. The Rose Garden (001) - Introduction Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speakers: Bruce Damer and Charlie Grob Terence McKenna's logo, Bruce Damer's flight suit, Lorenzo and Charlie Grob PROGRAM NOTES: These lectures were recorded on Orcas Island during March of 2019.] This podcast features two interviews that I conducted last March at the Orcas Island Convergence. The first is a conversation that I had with Dr. Bruce Damer, and that is followed by my interview with Dr. Charlie Grob. Between them, their scientific inquiries span a wide range of inquiries. Bruce, with his work for NASA and his research into the origins of life, works with mega issues. And Charlie, whose human research work includes studies using MDMA, psilocybin, and ayahuasca, works with human-sized issues. "I think a lot of people don't realize it, but in the fifties and into the early sixties psychedelic research was the cutting edge of psychiatry." -Dr. Charles Grob Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Bruce Damer's Website Bruce Damer's Patreon Page Charlie Grob - Publications Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: October 2, 1992. [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] "The best way to do drugs is to take very challenging doses rarely. I used to say to my groups, if you haven't taken enough that you think you may have done too much, then you did too little." "Death by astonishment is a real danger in [psychedelic] places. I mean, these places are not simply strange, or amazing, or highly peculiar. They are absolutely confounding." "True spirituality is a very here and now matter. One should visit the sick and imprisoned, clothe the naked, bury the dead, care for orphans, feed the hungry. That's what the spiritual life is about. It's very down to Earth, straightforward." "In terms of suggesting you are a more spiritually advanced person if you take psychedelics. I don't really see any evidence for that." "It's too hard for the ego-maniac to take psychedelics. The egoist will turn away from it, will have such bad trips that they will put it down." "I think history is a state of chemical deprivation that allows ancient animal patterns of behavior that degrade and confuse us to re-emerge and stabilize themselves." "Ancestor is a tremendously sanitized term for dead people." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments by H.P. Albarelli Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Terence McKenna Photo by Kyle Nieber on Unsplash PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] "Often in what I say there is, if not the fact of contradiction, then the appearance of contradiction. This is because, to my mind, life is complicated enough to admit of contradiction." "The great thing about the rational program of science is, pushed far enough, it reveals the irrational foundations of nature. And that's really what the crisis in science now is." "The human imagination, married to technology, has become a force too powerful to be unleashed within the fragile ecosystem of this planet. So we must either carry ourselves elsewhere, or the planet's homeostatic drive to preserve ordinary biology will eliminate us." "The notion of intoxication is an incredibly culture-bound idea." "What 'psychedelic' means to me is, in structural terms, a very small number of compounds all based on indoles. The indole hallucinogens are the true psychedelics." "I prefer to believe that [mind is] coming from the outside. That mind is a field into which we dip the dipstick of observation, but it's not being generated in the neurons of the brain." "We're living in a fool's paradise, trapped inside the assumptions of linear materialism and rationalism." "I think that the greatest disservice that science has done to humankind is the marginalizing of our own importance." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Terence McKenna Photo by Brandon Green on Unsplash PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: July 17, 1998. [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] "You really can't understand the future without the psychedelic experience. History seems to be becoming more and more psychedelic." "We have all made too many sacrifices in the name of fitting ourselves into the culture we find around us through the circumstances of our destiny." "[Culture is a] toxic environment that one needs to negotiate with great care." "Domestication and civilization are curiously intertwined concepts." "A society has to be incredibly confident of its first premises to allow its citizens to habitually and regularly explore altered states of consciousness." "The entire Internet- computer-revolution rides on the backs of people who were taking LSD in the Sixties. People have expressed horror at this idea and then taken opinion polls at various professional gatherings, such as Sigraph and Comdex, and gatherings like that, and have this insight confirmed overwhelmingly. The entire post-1950s edifice of information transfer and replication technology was created by psychedelic people, and it's serving them very well, as well as the corporate elite." "Only the expansive, the generous, the psychedelic are going to be left standing when all of this stuff is sorted out, if it is ever sorted out." "The shaman is the one who is allowed to know how the culture is wired under the board. Everyone else stands out bathed in the glow of the big screen of cultural values, but the shaman are the people who actually understand the reasons for these performances, myths, and rituals." "We are trying to build, not a class of shamans but a shamanic culture. In other words a culture, and I think there has never been a culture of this type on the planet, a culture that actually lived in the light of the fourth dimension." "No human being has greater insight into your circumstance than you do." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Susan Hess Logeais Lorenzo and Susan Hess Logeais in the Live Salon PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: September 16, 2019. Today podcast is a recording from last Monday evening's Live Salon with Susan Hess Logeais, the producer/director of a feature length film about Dr. Stan Grof. The film is titled "The Way of the Psychonaut" and presents Dr. Grof's work with some stunning graphics and effects. Even if you are already quite familiar with the life and work of Stan Grof, I am sure that you will learn even more when you see this documentary. TRAILER: The Way of the Psychonaut WEBSITE: Documentary project featuring psychedelic psychotherapy pioneer Stanislav Grof Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View  by Richard Tarnas The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View  by Richard Tarnas Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Timothy Leary PROGRAM NOTES: Dates when these interviews were recorded: 1973 and 1992. [NOTE: All quotations are by Timothy Leary.] "The best philosophers often end up in prison. ... Most of the men that I model myself after have been lucky if they just got away with being in prison for their ideas." "I have no more to do with drugs that Einstein has to do with the atomic bomb." "I based my entire life on Socrates. He's the guy that caused all the troubles in history. His motto was, 'The aim of human life is to know thyself.' And this is very subversive." "As soon as I studied books about Socrates, I realized that [philosophy] is a dangerous profession because you're teaching people to question authority. I realized that this job which I was going to undertake, the corrupting of the minds of youth, pays poorly, it gets you in serious difficulty with authorities." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Skip E. Lowe Obituary Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Alan Watts Alan Watts PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Alan Watts.] "The Bodhisattva returns into the world, that means he has discovered that you don't have to go anywhere to find Nirvana. Nirvana is where you are, provided you don't object to it." "But the main thing [about death] is the attitude that death is as positive as birth and should be a matter for rejoicing because death is the symbol of the liberation." "The ordinary world and the Nirvana world they are the same worlds. But what makes the difference is the point of view." "Everything you know is remembered." "Always surround death with joyous rites because this is an opportunity for the greatest of all experiences when you can finally let go because you know there's nothing else to do." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option The Imperfectionists Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] "If you insist on, I don't want to use the word 'abusing' it, but if you insist on using psychedelics frequently, at high doses back-to-back, you will unlock your way into a set of assumptions, and perceptions, and feelings that not very many people can follow you into. And then the question is have you gone into a spiritual domain or have you just fallen off the track? And it's hard to tell, and maybe it can happen both ways." "What does it mean if it becomes harder and harder to take these things? Does it mean you're getting out of balance? Does it mean you're just getting older? Where should the blame be put, and what can you do about it." "Maybe [the psychedelic community is] a special slice. First of all, it is a monkey brain that we're operating with here. Nowhere is it writ large that it can actually encompass 'the truth'. Why should it? . . . So then, if you're into these consciousness-expanding techniques, whether it's just paying attention, or using psychedelic drugs, or something else, then you actually get to a place where there is an abyss of knowing." "Nowhere is it writ that the universe should be rationally apprehendable." "Abstract expressionism, all of these things, Freudianism, Jung, National Socialist, it's all anti-reasonable. From the point of view of the 19th Century we don't have to worry about madness, we are mad, every last one of us. We've so thoroughly imbibed the values of modernity that we are incomprehensible to our own past." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Paul Stamets Lorenzo and Paul StametsOrcas IslandMarch 2019 PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: March 21, 2019. [NOTE: All quotations are by Paul Stamets.] "As we reach down and we find a mushroom, we have a Eureka moment that as we touch the mushroom we are touching a portal into an underground network of wisdom." "In a single cubic inch of soil there can be more than eight miles of mycelium." "Mushrooms had their form well before we had ours. These are ancestral organisms. These are not just miscellaneous little fungi growing on the ground. These are elders. These are ancient individuals. These are bastions of knowledge. Encyclopedic in their history of evolution." "[Consuming psilocybin mushrooms] would be a shared community experience. And it wouldn't happen one time. It wouldn't happen ten times. It would happen millions upon millions upon millions of times over millions of years. Circumstantially, you cannot deny the possibility that the constant ingestion of magic mushrooms would have an impact on the evolution of human consciousness." Books by Paul Stamets Fungi Perfecti Makers of Host Defense Mushrooms Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Mushroom Stones Paul Stamets' Mushroom Stones A young Paul Stamets Breitenbush Mushroom FestivalHalloween 1999 Lorenzo is on the bus! Microdosing Foumula  

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Robert Anton Wilson Robert Anton Wilson PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: December 1988. [NOTE: All quotations are by Robert Anton Wilson.] "Anything that becomes a cliche eventually makes people stupid." "You've gotta deal with the future because that is where you are going to be spending the rest of your life." "Most of human history shows that we only do things the intelligent way only after we have tried every possible stupid way and found out that none of them worked." "I see interest disappearing, along with rent, in the next several years." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Rick Strassman Joseph Levy Escapes Death PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: August 5, 2019. Today's podcast features a conversation with Dr. Rick Strassman, author of DMT The Spirit Molecule that took place last Monday evening in the Live Salon. During this wide-ranging interview Dr. Strassman discussed DMT, psilocybin, Gary Fisher, science, medicine, psychedelic research, mysticism, and the Bible. Joseph Levy Escapes Death by Rick Strassman Rick Strassman MD, author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule Interviewed by Graham Hancock Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Bruce Damer Lorenzo and Bruce, who is wearing his "spiritual flight suit". PROGRAM NOTES: Date this conversation was recorded: July 29, 2019. Today's podcast features a conversation with Dr. Bruce Damer that was held last week in our live salon. Although Bruce has made over 30 appearances on these podcasts, it has been a year and a half since he has been back to bring us up to speed on his latest activities, which include a recent presentation at the IONS conference, participation in the selection of the next Mars landing site, his origin of live research in the Outback, and the Shulgin Chip. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Bruce Damer's Patreon Page Bruce Damer's Home Page Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Erik Davis PROGRAM NOTES: Date this conversation was recorded: July 22, 2019. In today's podcast we listen in on a live salon conversation with author Erik Davis, who is an author, podcaster, award-winning journalist, and popular speaker. Erik was also instrumental in establishing the Palenque Norte Lectures at Burning Man, which eventually led to these podcasts from the Psychedelic Salon. In 1999, Terence McKenna first brought Erik to my attention, and it has been a fascinating intellectual ride for me to follow his work since then. In this conversation, among several other topics, Erik talks about his new book, High Weirdness, which explores the work of Robert Anton Wilson, Phillip K. Dick, and Terence McKenna as they strode through the 60s, 70s, and into our future. Erik Davis' Techgnosis High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies by Erik Davis Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Paul Krassner Paul Krassner Obituary  

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Daniel McQueen Daniel McQueen PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: July 15, 2019. Today's podcast features a conversation from our live salon last week with Daniel McQueen. Several weeks ago we heard from Dr. Andrew Gallimore, who co-authored a paper with Dr. Rick Strassman regarding ways in which to extend an NN-DMT experience through an IV drip. Today we hear from Daniel McQueen, who is the founder of Medicinal Mindfulness and is a leader of the extended DMT research project that is based on the paper by Gallimore and Strassman. During our conversation, Daniel described the preparation and training that is now underway as a small group of psychonaughts prepare for a systematic exploration of the state of mind we experience while under the influence of DMT. DMTx Medical Mindfulness Psychotherapy & Psychedelic Consultation Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Mike Sapiro Dr. Mike Sapiro PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: July 8, 2019. Today's podcast features a conversation that I had with Dr. Mike Sapiro who is a clinical psychologist, meditation teacher and former Buddhist monk. He is the founder of Maitri House Yoga and a Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. His work integrates psychology, noetic sciences, nondual and Buddhist meditation, and social justice in the service of awakening. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Dr. Mike Sapiro's website Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speakers: Levi Barker and Gary Cook PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: July 1, 2019 Today's podcast features a recording from last week's live Monday night salon. Our guests were Levi Barker and Gary Cook who called in from the Iboga Wellness Center in Costa Rica. Levi Barker is a trained Iboga Provider in the Missoka Bwiti tradition and was trained to serve the medicine by Tenth Generation Bwiti Shaman Moughenda Mikala. The Iboga Wellness Center was founded by Gary Cook, and it is the longest-running shamanic Iboga retreat center in the Western Hemisphere. One of the topics we discuss concerns the different ways in which the plant iboga is used in healing compared with ways in which ibogaine, one of eleven active alkaloids in iboga, is used to heal opoid and other addictions. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Levi Barker website Iboga Retreat In Costa Rica Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com Guest speaker: Robert Anton Wilson Robert Anton Wilson PROGRAM NOTES: This talk was recorded in December of 1988. Robert Anton Wilson's talks have always been a favorite of mine. How could I not like listening to someone who says things like, "Not even Kafka dreamed up the idea of a government inspecting the urine of its citizens." In today's podcast we hear his take, back in December of 1988, on the changes that have begun to enter our lives as a result of the proliferation of personal computers and the Internet. Since this talk was given four years before the introduction of the World Wide Web, it is surprising at how relevant it remains yet today. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Two new interviews with Lorenzo on other podcasts Charmers Podcast Episode 4: Lorenzo Hagerty From Notre Dame to Burning Man and Beyond Download free copies of Lorenzo's latest books