1
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The views presented in this documentary are solely the personal opinions and views of
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the creators and directors of this film.
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We assume no liability for your actions based on the content of this video.
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Do not promote the use of any substances and assume no responsibility for actions taken.
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Please do your own research for legality in your area.
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Always consult a physician before ingesting any substance or making any changes to your
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current health regime.
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As you contemplate your reality through your eye, the window of your perception, your
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world gathers its elemental senses to mirror your awareness.
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The truth of creation gazes back at you.
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Most of us think that we behave for reasons that we understand, but most of our behavior
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is actually governed by unconscious forces.
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Now the psychedelic plans can manifest what's in the unconscious mind.
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What you will bring out of you will save you.
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People's minds are opening and we are seeing this rapid evolution in consciousness that's
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rate.
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So you're about to watch a documentary about plant medicines and psychedelics.
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Just a few short years ago, my entire perspective towards them was shattered and then reconstructed
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in a whole new light.
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And my intention of making this film is to share the other side of the story with you.
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So where does the journey begin?
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You know, life has its ups and downs and in a period of my life where I felt totally
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lost, unsure, I started searching for answers.
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And where does one search for answers?
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The Bible, spiritual texts, family and friends, elders, psychiatrist maybe, or of course
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the trusted Google.
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That's where I usually like to go.
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So one night I was doing a YouTube, I was watching something like Alan Watts.
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In the comments section, someone referenced the name Terrence McKenna.
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It was as if that actual comment was directed directly at me.
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I could have been the only one who saw it.
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And what it said was, if you really want to have your mind blown, you have to look up
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Terrence McKenna.
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So I quickly entered his name into a Google search and hit enter.
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And I didn't realize at the time, but that search alone right there changed my entire
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life.
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Within a couple hours, I had ordered all of his books.
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He spoke in such a way that just sort of caught my attention in a way that had never
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been before.
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So within the span of a couple of weeks, I'd made up my mind.
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I would be traveling solo to South America to partake in my first ever ayahuasca experience.
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Little did I know how profound the experience would be.
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When I went there, I was envisioning addicts, maybe some trippers, maybe some punk metal
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type enthusiasts, you know, a lot of hippie type people.
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But when I got there, it was quite the contrary.
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There were doctors, you know, lawyers, professionals, artists, authors, athletes.
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It was a mix of everybody.
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And I realized that everyone was there for a different reason.
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You know, I was there because I was a seeker.
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Other people were going through trauma.
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And it was really interesting to see that, wow, there's so much depth to this one thing
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that ties us all in common.
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So now I needed answers.
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You know, I had so many questions.
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And that's what really spawned me to make this documentary.
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More than anything, I really wanted to know if we as human beings were meant to have
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altered states of consciousness.
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So after I sat there with all these incredible people, meeting them for the first time,
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with all these questions racing through my mind, the main one that stuck out was, had
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we been psyched out?
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Throughout this film, you'll see just a few examples of the relentless propaganda attack
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on psychedelics and plant medicines that has gone on for almost a century now, which is
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a continuing war that has gone on for much, much, much longer.
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The reasons, loneliness and fear, boredom, and a desire for the new and the unknown.
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Some have used these drugs to journey into the uncharted tunnels of the mind in search
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of medical and scientific truth.
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Please look behind the curtain just for kicks.
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This emergence into consciousness was triggered by our ancestors' encounters with visionary
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plants and the beginning of shamanism.
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If you analyze the cave art, there's not time to go into the details here, but there are
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so many details that make it clear that this was an art of altered states of consciousness,
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of visions, and that plants like the Amanita muscaria mushroom or psilocybin mushrooms
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appear to have been directly connected with this sudden and radical change.
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When we originally created the historical timeline for this documentary, we realized
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it could be a documentary in itself.
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We condensed it to a very simplified version.
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It was difficult to pinpoint the origin of many of the psychedelics and plant medicines
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in this movie.
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In this timeline, the farther back we go into history, the more guesswork and theorizing
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we have to do.
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Whereas we get closer to modern day, more evidence is readily available.
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Please keep in mind that these dates are based on what is currently known and new discoveries
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can potentially push these dates back indefinitely.
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Take for example the aboga plant from Africa.
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Traditions say it has been used since the beginning of time and actually represents
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the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
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I find this interesting because they are not the only ones who have made this suggestion.
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The Egyptians representation of the tree of life was the acacia tree known to have
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contained DMT, one of the most powerful psychedelics known to man.
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And interestingly enough, many scholars believe that this same bush, the acacia, was also
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the burning bush in the story of Moses when he had visions of God that came to him on
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the mountain.
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In the Adam and Eve story, could the forbidden fruit have been the Amanita muscaria mushroom?
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Terrence McKenna was a supporter of this theory.
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The mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing, fruiting body of a fungus.
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Throughout the bible there are many passages and references that can easily be interpreted
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as psychedelic in suggestion simply by re-analyzing a few simple words.
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Fruiting body of a fungus?
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Forbidden fruit?
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Another theory that Terrence McKenna postulated was that the food of the gods, the psychedelic
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plants, were actually what caused man to evolve into the current human beings we are today.
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Over a 2 million year period our brains doubled in size.
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Current theories suggest that we evolved through a change in our diet which was primarily due
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to meat consumption.
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However, there are many carnivorous animals that have not evolved and there are primates
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like the chimpanzee that do eat their fair share of meat and have yet to evolve as well.
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During that 2 million year span, various droughts and changing climates caused the
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forests to recede and many of the lower primates ventured out of the jungles onto the grassy
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plains in search for food.
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While searching for bugs under cow dung patties, they would find magic mushrooms, the consumption
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of which would lead to cognitive advances within these primates and potentially lead
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to an evolution into the current homo sapiens we are today.
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This is what has been come to known as the stoned ape theory.
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Where we start to see a little more concrete evidence is in the various cave paintings
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found throughout the world.
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Some dating back as far as 40,000 years have shown various references to the possibilities
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of psychedelic or antigen use.
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Things such as geometric waves coming from the minds of the various indigenous peoples
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and even things as clear as mushroom heads were found painted on the walls of these caves.
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Around 15,000 BC we find evidence of cannabis cultivation which throughout history after
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this is pretty much found throughout the world.
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We also start to see psychedelic mushroom cultivation at this time.
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Around 4,000 BC evidence of Siberian shamanism who used the amniotomascara mushroom in their
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rituals was discovered.
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In 3000 BC in Egypt we see references to the blue lotus flower, a known psychedelic plant
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as well as a plant called mandrake also known for its psychedelic properties.
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At the same time the first evidence is found of the use of ayahuasca in the Amazon as
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well as peyote and other mind-altering cacti throughout the rest of the Americas.
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By this time cannabis cultivation is in full swing in China used as both fibre and medicine.
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Just after 2000 BC the mysteries became wildly popular in Greece and after four days of
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fasting a substance called kaikyan was ingested that led to profound visions and deep understandings
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of life and death.
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Around the same time roughly 1500 BC the Rig Vedas are written in India talking about a
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plant god named Soma.
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A lot of the knowledge around Soma had been lost throughout history however it is believed
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to be a psychedelic drink of some kind known for increasing awareness, imparting mystical
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experiences, poetic inspiration and even immortality.
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Some say that Soma may have been made from psychedelic mushrooms and be the reason why
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the cow is considered so holy as the mushrooms grow directly out of the cow dung.
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Around 1000 BC stones carved into mushrooms are found all over the Mesoamerican cultures
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including the omeks, inkas and mayans.
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The Aztecs called these mushrooms Tionanactical which literally means flesh of the gods.
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Around the 4th century AD is where things get bad for our psychedelics.
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Christianity became the legal religion of the Roman state and all other beliefs were
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condemned.
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Over the next 1000 years or so we witness the dark ages and the crusades where numerous
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people were killed for not being Christian and most of their traditions destroyed.
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This continued right through the 1500s where European colonizers destroyed the Aztec Empire
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and many other North American indigenous traditions and people.
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It took a while for psychedelics to resurface simply due to the stigma surrounding them.
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Most people who used them considered warlocks, witches or crazy.
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In 1938 LSD was discovered and by the 1950s was being studied heavily by many organizations
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including the CIA.
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A huge turning point was in 1957 when Life magazine published an article on psychedelics
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and instantaneously boosted their popularity.
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The 60s ushered in a new age of widespread psychedelic use before the American government
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shuts them down totally in the 70s and declares the war on drugs.
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All scientific studies are put on a standstill.
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In the last few decades it seems that psychedelics are re-emerging out of the shadows and we
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are witnessing a psychedelic renaissance.
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Many people are starting to see the true nature of these plant medicines and have been drawn
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towards them for one reason or another.
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Does it make sense that something that has been used throughout history be vilified and
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as they have been today?
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In the 60s they really were used in dysfunctional ways and created a lot of suffering and that
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covered their possible therapeutic use.
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It's very much like the sources of Pantis Phenomena.
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You get something very powerful but whether it's beneficial or whether it's harmful depends
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on who's using it and for what purpose.
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In the 60s they were very often used in negative ways because they weren't under the guidance
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of experience and wisdom.
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Well before I took psychedelics ever we have to go pretty far back into the 60s because
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my brother and I were really children of the 60s and we were influenced by the social
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movements around especially LSD.
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LSD was the catalytic psychedelic of that era much as ayahuasca is now.
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So we knew that these things were there but very few people had access to them.
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After Walson's articles about the magic mushroom cults in Mexico came out, that actually predated
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the 60s.
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His article in Life magazine in 1957 is I think one of the big events that really brought
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psychedelics into mass awareness.
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Life magazine was on the kitchen table of every house in America practically and everybody
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was pushing, everybody was exploring about what is this new phenomenon of psychedelics
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and what does this really mean.
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They hadn't been around long enough for people to really get a negative impression yet even
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though the government and the media was doing their best to kind of show it in a negative
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light and eventually it was but at the time there was just a lot of curiosity about it.
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The whole idea of consciousness expansion was even kind of a new cultural meme at that
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time and so they weren't really stigmatized in the mid 60s.
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They were catalysts for change and institutions like governments and educational institutions
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and religion don't like change.
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The women's movement, the environmental movement, the anti-war movement, all of these things
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were directly influenced by psychedelics.
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At critical junctures in human history, psychedelics have always been part of it and continue to
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be part of it.
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I don't think they're for everybody.
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I think what happened in the 60s is that too many people started doing them without
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any respect for them, without any knowledge, without any context and the society wasn't
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ready for so many people.
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The society was still very adolescent.
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What I saw was this massive crackdown that not only criminalized psychedelics but stopped
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all the scientific research all over the world.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to summarize for you the meeting that I have just had
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with bipartisan leaders.
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America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.
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What exactly are these illegal substances called psychedelics anyways?
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Psychedelic defined is something that causes a hallucinogenic effect or causes an expansion
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of consciousness.
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Some of the psychedelics you may be familiar with are called LSD, ayahuasca, psilocybin
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like magic mushrooms, DMT, dimethyltryptamine, mescaline, peyote, san Pedro cactus, and
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the list goes on.
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Even sometimes MDMA will be put in the same category.
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All of these and many more that I've just listed are classified as schedule one narcotics.
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Sometimes in these troubled days, the very thoughtlessness of youth has led to a living
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nightmare.
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Addiction to drugs, too often acquired with tragic carelessness, may take control of a
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life and force actions not dreamed of before.
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To these addicts, life's only work is to find money for drugs.
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In their desperation, no means is to follow.
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The most restrictive drug classification is a schedule one substance.
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Schedule one substance is no recognized medical use, potentially dangerous, highly subject
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to abuse or addiction.
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In other words, no redeeming value at all.
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Okay, a little bit of health news for you.
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A single dose of psychedelic magic mushrooms can make people with severe anxiety and depression
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feel better for months.
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Doctors with New York University and Johns Hopkins University performed independent
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tests with the illegal ingredient psilocybin.
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They found it helped cancer patients relax and ease anxiety and depression in 80% of
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the patients studied.
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In some cases, the effects lasted for months.
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There is a great arbitrariness in the definition of what should be legal and what isn't.
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So the example I often give is that of opiate use versus cigarette smoking.
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Cigarette smoking is far more harmful in terms of its health impact and its destruction
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of human life.
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In other words, give me 100 people who smoke and 100 people who use opiates.
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As long as they don't overdose, those 100 with the opiates will be far healthier 30
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years later than if they smoked cigarettes.
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And many more of them will be alive.
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So which is the more harmful substance?
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No question.
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It's okay to go and get drunk because that gives you a little break and then next day
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despite your hangover you can get back to your job, you know.
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Or it's okay for a big pharma to prescribe all kinds of consciousness altering drugs
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to deal with often invented psychological issues such as depression or hyperactivity
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disorder.
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These accepted consciousness altering substances like alcohol, like the pharmaceutical drugs,
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they actually in a way underpin the alert problem solving state of consciousness.
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But psychedelics don't.
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Psychedelics lead to questioning about everything, about ourselves, about our place in the world
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and about social structures.
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And this is something that the dominated powers in our society don't want to see happen.
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So I was trying to find out how many people were dying of overdose and on these psychedelic
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substances and it was very hard to find.
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The numbers were so low it was hard to even find data on them.
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In this chart here you'll see the amount of deaths caused by different sources of substances
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and psychedelics were not even big enough to get a blip on the list.
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They didn't even make it on the radar.
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One other thing that is really really interesting point to mention is that more people die
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annually from drug related offenses that they're incarcerated for and then executed for then
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actually die overdosing on you know things like cannabis and psychedelics in the first
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place.
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The number of studies that are now out there that are showing the benefits for you know
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emotional, physical, mental are growing in number every every single month and it's
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very very promising to see where the future might go with this stuff.
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So I was curious to see what were the effects not only on the user but also on society.
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It just so happened that a guy by the name of David, Professor David J. Nutt had already
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done this exact study and he ranked all the narcotics and substances on a scale of 0 to
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100 and basically 100 being the worst and 0 being the best.
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The one that scored the highest was alcohol at a number of 72 and things like LSD scored
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7, MDMA scored only a 9 and psilocybin was a 6 showing that the relative I guess dangers
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to people and the people around them was relatively low.
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Most people aren't aware but in 2001 Portugal decriminalized all drugs.
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Their drug induced mortality rate went from one of the highest to one of the lowest in
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the world and in addition to that an amazing side effect was that their overall crime rate
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reduced significantly as well.
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More and more people are saying this war on drugs is fundamentally wasteful, racist, is
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focused on building prisons instead of building schools and so I think there will be a general
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switch in society towards public health rather than criminal justice approaches to the problems
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of drug abuse because legalization will not solve all the problems of drug abuse.
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It just solves the problems of the criminalization and prohibition just the same way that the
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legalization of alcohol and ending alcohol prohibition hasn't solved all alcohol problems.
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But ibogaine which is another substance that is really dramatically and powerfully useful
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in the treatment of opiate addiction in fact it's quite astonishing what it can do but
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somebody did approach the pharmaceutical companies so I heard with ibogaine and they were not
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interested because why would they be interested in the substance that a person would only
21:39.280 --> 21:42.280
use once or twice and their addiction is finished.
21:42.280 --> 21:46.960
They're not sure to make methadone or other substances that you have to take daily for
21:46.960 --> 21:47.960
the rest of your life.
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In fact we so freaked out the DEA because they had no idea that MDMA was used therapeutically
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only ecstasy was all that they were aware of so when this group of doctors from Harvard
21:58.400 --> 22:04.240
Medical School and elsewhere were on this petition that I filed with DEA we took them
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totally by surprise and then when the hearings started happening and we were getting this
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major media with all these religious people talking they just didn't know what to do
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and they panicked and so they put MDMA they criminalized it in an emergency basis while
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the hearings were still going on and eventually we won the hearing.
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The DEA Administrative Law Judge said that MDMA should stay legal for therapy it should
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be illegal for recreational use but legal for therapy.
22:32.460 --> 22:38.440
So there's definitely a prohibition that has been going on with hallucinogens any
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type of substance that alters the mood or alters the mind and these prohibitions as
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much as they may be looked at as the government or the man enforcing rules upon us and whether
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they may be arbitrary or not there's a lot of talk about keeping hallucinogens out of
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the hands of people making them illegal passing legislation to make it very difficult and
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punitive when you get caught with hallucinogens.
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A culture like that of course you're going to find people saying that they don't want
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us thinking and using the they as whatever forces they may be.
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That's what government is all about it's about that gray area and finding the balance between
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protecting the people and not cracking down too hard and imposing rule on everything in life.
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Now I'm no science major but I found it quite interesting that the molecular structure
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of most of the psychedelic compounds was very similar to the endogenous neurotransmitters
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things like serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine.
24:12.820 --> 24:17.860
The other thing that's quite interesting is that DMT the mother of all psychedelics dimethyltryptamine
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is found within our own brains in our pineal gland.
24:20.740 --> 24:26.740
They say it's released during dreams potentially at birth and death and even in near-death
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experiences.
24:28.260 --> 24:33.420
Now the psychedelic experience can be joyous and ecstatic and it can also be scary and
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challenging you know but every experience is different for every single person and even
24:38.020 --> 24:41.580
every experience that you have within yourself can be different every single time.
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Do they make possible creative achievement and a more valid and intense perception or
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do they merely substitute an unreal fantasy world for the sometimes harsh facts of reality?
25:08.500 --> 25:12.860
Oh yes I think that I experience things much more intensely now.
25:12.860 --> 25:17.700
I felt this warm fire shoot up the right side of my body and it like just filled me with
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this warmth and then I look off in the distance and emerging out of the darkness are these
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purple and green beams that look like aurora borealis like they look like northern lights
25:27.500 --> 25:32.540
and they start waving towards me and so these beams of light then wrap themselves around
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me and I look down and it's just like I'm covered in northern lights which is pretty
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cool and the beams then roll me over onto my left side into the fetal position and I'm
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lying there feeling the most comforting deep powerful maternal presence that I've ever
25:47.700 --> 25:53.620
encountered and it was so like nurturing and comforting and no discredit to my own mother
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but this was the greatest mother in all the universe and I knew that and so I'm about
25:58.340 --> 26:05.340
to close my eyes and then boom I hear this soa soa wah wah and it's the shaman or mohanes
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singing what they call ikaros they claim that it's a song that they channel from higher
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powers and it's not really of their own creation and they use it to guide those who drink
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the ayahuasca through their experience and as he's singing it these orange and blue
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shapes are emanating from his mouth and just like expanding across the room and just filling
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my entire perceptual field like this gigantic cloud at that point these three beings flow
26:30.020 --> 26:35.020
into the right side of my perceptual field and I called them humanoids they were about
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two and a half feet tall and all three of them were just expressing love and it was
26:39.180 --> 26:43.700
all telepathic like they were just like imparting it to me and like filling me with it they
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start showing me all these lessons about love and just loving all things and for example
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love being that it's allowing all beings to make their own choices as I started encountering
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more and more of these spirits I recognized that they were infinite and it was like peering
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into a night sky and you see stars and then you notice that there are stars beyond the
27:03.560 --> 27:07.740
stars so it was like there were spirits beyond the spirits and I was navigating this realm
27:07.740 --> 27:12.260
and my consciousness and like beyond my consciousness too it was separate from me and it was just
27:12.260 --> 27:17.220
like I was swimming in a sea of spirits in every direction I looked it was infinite so
27:17.220 --> 27:25.540
psychedelics are really interesting because they take you within and without in a in a
27:25.540 --> 27:30.300
way that you don't normally experience it's kind of a mystery actually because just from
27:30.300 --> 27:35.900
the very basis that anytime you take a psychedelic you really have no idea where you're going
27:35.980 --> 27:40.260
to end up which is why it's so important that if you're going to do it that you do
27:40.260 --> 27:45.820
it in a really good environment and among people that have a lot of love and respect
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for you and so where do you go I mean you go you you go into everything you go into
27:51.780 --> 27:58.680
yourself and into into the environment around you more so than you normally experience
27:58.680 --> 28:02.380
so it's really quite a remarkable experience from that perspective it's always going to
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be different but it's always going to be unique but of course the biggest thing is really just to
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be safe about it no matter what the environment is just as important as what substance you end
28:13.220 --> 28:20.140
up taking and at the end of the day it really is about an a truly in-depth exploration of the self
28:20.140 --> 28:25.260
yeah man that's the purpose of ayahuasca to go into the unconscious that the person who gets
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scared just means they have fear it's not that ayahuasca cause fear it's that they already have
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fear that ayahuasca has taken them into so what what they you know describe as a bad trip is their
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inability to integrate what ayahuasca is showing them which is their unconscious which is their
28:42.900 --> 28:48.060
fear which is their shadow so if they've come to ayahuasca to feel light and love and you're not
28:48.060 --> 28:53.420
ready to drink ayahuasca because that's not what life is life is certainly at the part of life
28:53.420 --> 28:58.420
there is light and love but that's not all there all there is there's also shadow and the shadow
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is our teacher so if you come to ayahuasca you have to be absolutely committed to learning from
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your shadow otherwise you are gonna have challenging experiences that's the purpose of
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ayahuasca that's the way the indigenous people have used ayahuasca it's a tool to become more
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conscious so that fear comes up now you're conscious of the fear that's not a bad thing
29:18.940 --> 29:24.500
that's a great thing but you have to be ready to work with it and integrate it I was actually
29:24.660 --> 29:32.660
in Boracay in the Philippines and a girl from from Brooklyn who was a shaman knew we were
29:32.660 --> 29:38.940
friends and she knew my problem she actually tried to work on me before and she saw on Facebook I
29:38.940 --> 29:44.900
was there and she was going to a retreat in Cebu and she stopped in at me and she said hey there's
29:44.900 --> 29:49.700
this there's this guy that I knew who was just like you as a matter of fact he was even worse
29:49.700 --> 29:56.260
and I found that hard to believe but she said he was even worse and he went to do this plant
29:56.260 --> 30:00.500
medicine and that did the plant medicine one time and he changed his life and I thought you know
30:00.500 --> 30:07.180
what I tried everything else I'm scared shit of doing plant medicine I'm scared to death of you
30:07.180 --> 30:12.780
know some kind of crazy trip or something like this I said I'm scared to do it but I'm done it's my
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last chance the way this medicine works it's a little bit different he gives you the medicine
30:17.620 --> 30:22.460
and then gives you a blindfold and he taps you on the tip of the head and tells you when you can
30:22.460 --> 30:27.420
says when do you tell me when you see my finger and I'm about to say well I can't see your finger
30:27.420 --> 30:31.900
because I have this blindfold I see your finger all of a sudden I saw the dude's finger and I'm
30:31.900 --> 30:38.100
like I have a blindfold on I know I have a blindfold on I'm not in Kansas anymore this is I didn't even
30:38.100 --> 30:44.140
really believe in God I was in church every day in my life but I didn't really believe in God I God
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for me was a side bet in case shit went wrong like if it was I genuflected here and there and
30:49.940 --> 30:54.580
said some prayers just in case it was real I had no feeling towards it so all of a sudden I'm
30:54.580 --> 30:59.260
looking and I see this guy's hand and he says look at the ceiling I look at the ceiling he goes look
30:59.260 --> 31:03.980
and I see the ceiling look through the ceiling and I looked through the ceiling and he said do you
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see stars I said yeah he said jump to a star and I jumped to a star and I was flying and I'm like
31:10.360 --> 31:15.120
what the hell is going on here he said look to your left you see the moon nice look to my left
31:15.120 --> 31:22.120
I see the moon he said go to it so I went to the moon and and I couldn't slow down and I dove
31:22.120 --> 31:26.320
into the moon and my feet were sticking out of the moon there's a truth the whole time you're
31:26.320 --> 31:30.240
talking to the shaman telling him what's going on and he's telling you what to do so you have
31:30.240 --> 31:34.420
these things on this experience has happened to you like I guess like virtual reality this is
31:34.420 --> 31:39.520
happening to you yet I'm hearing him and communicating with him so I'm in both places right so he says
31:39.560 --> 31:44.880
I said what's my first because you give him ten questions he writes him down I said why am I so
31:44.880 --> 31:49.920
effed up that was my first question all of a sudden my soul turns into the three-year-old me
31:49.920 --> 31:56.560
he's holding my hand I'm walking a baby into a house and as soon as I get around the house I can
31:56.560 --> 32:02.120
smell food it smells like turkey there's Bing Crosby music playing there's snow outside it's
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like around Christmas there's a Christmas tree I smell pine pine needles and shit right and and I
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get the immediate feeling that shit's not right and and so I go with the kid and I see a stain
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that I made item I would never remember making a stain at two years old but when I saw it with my
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kid with my me I go holy shit I did that I remember doing that and then making the stain
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right on the wall it was a cranberry juice stain on the wall and so we walk in to the thing and
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we're going to this coat closet and he's telling me where to go like point and as soon as I see
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the coat closet I know things are going to get probably worse at this point I open the coat
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closet and my grandfather has his penis all over me as a as a kid the three-year-old boy and so
32:48.520 --> 32:53.120
I'm like oh well to me that explained a lot of things I'm like well that that's why I'm so crazy
32:53.120 --> 32:58.560
that's why I can't connect with women that's why I can't connect with dudes I can't really connect
32:58.560 --> 33:05.880
it's weird it's like you know I was so shut down right so it was the best night of my life so the
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thing is this so I found out what was wrong with me and I was just in such awe the whole time so
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like it was a crazy crazy thing and then the next day I no longer wanted quit smoking cigarettes I
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I could drink I was drinking ten drinks a day I could drink two drinks and not drink another drink
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I could I wanted to start eating better I wanted to do these things and not that I was trying to
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do them I just wanted to do them I something in me changed the human brain after all is made
33:39.040 --> 33:47.280
for thinking not fumigating it's hardly a tinker toy for experimenting with drugs this has been
33:47.280 --> 33:53.400
the public service message of the American Medical Association and your local station it's extremely
33:53.400 --> 34:01.520
hard to speak about the experiences of psychedelics or plant medicines to somebody who has no
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experience the best way to describe an ayahuasca experience or a mushroom experience is to take
34:07.680 --> 34:16.200
the tea or to take the mushroom all right because so much of the experience is inexpressible is
34:16.200 --> 34:23.120
ineffable which is why we spend so much time coming up with language for these things although
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it's very difficult to describe what a psychedelic vision looks like there have been artists who
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have been able to recreate somewhat accurate depictions of these visions I also found it
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quite interesting when I heard about a guy by the name of Sean Thornton Sean was an artist
34:36.860 --> 34:41.360
who had pineal gland cancer that's the gland responsible for the production of DMT within our brains
34:41.360 --> 34:50.840
now these mental effects to the confirmed LSD user to the evangelist if you will are felt to
34:50.840 --> 34:59.000
be religious and beautiful and godlike perhaps because they expect them to be
34:59.000 --> 35:07.880
realistically speaking they are nothing more nor less than a period of insanity
35:20.840 --> 35:37.480
so where does spirituality come into all this can you have a spiritual experience through a
35:37.480 --> 35:42.800
psychedelic the question was of such great curiosity that Harvard actually conducted
35:42.800 --> 35:47.280
two experiments one of them called a good Friday experiment the other was a done by
35:47.480 --> 35:52.240
named Walter Panky they concluded that yes you could have a spiritual experience through
35:52.240 --> 35:57.200
the use of psychedelics and not only that it also lasted a very long time after the experiment
35:57.200 --> 36:03.480
had taken place I read a book by Robert Mueller and he was the Assistant Secretary General of
36:03.480 --> 36:08.640
the United Nations and the book was called New Genesis shaping a global spirituality
36:08.640 --> 36:13.920
so it was a brilliant book and I wrote him a letter and I said I really was moved by your
36:14.000 --> 36:19.560
book but you don't have a word about psychedelics and I so I wrote to Robert Mueller and I told
36:19.560 --> 36:26.520
him about the good Friday experiment and I said right now MDMA is a psychedelic drug I'd learned
36:26.520 --> 36:32.600
about it in 82 and 84 it was still legal and I said it's still legal and would you be willing
36:32.600 --> 36:38.760
to help open the door to psychedelic research a college undergraduate gets this letter from the
36:38.760 --> 36:44.280
Assistant Secretary General the United Nations and he said you understood me perfectly and I do
36:44.280 --> 36:49.640
think that psychedelics could be helpful and I will help you to try to bring back psychedelic
36:49.640 --> 36:55.080
research and here's a bunch of people who are in the spiritual traditions that I'd be interested
36:55.080 --> 37:01.480
to know what they have to say and so I kind of read between the lines and I heard him say mail
37:01.480 --> 37:09.760
them MDMA so this was brother David Steindlrost who's a Roman Catholic monk Vanya Palmer who was
37:09.760 --> 37:15.040
head of the Zen community in Switzerland Wayne Teasdale a Catholic monk Rabbi Zalman Chakar who
37:15.040 --> 37:21.440
was an Orthodox rabbi so MDMA was legal so I mailed them MDMA and they one of them brother
37:21.440 --> 37:26.960
David Steindlrost took it in the monastery other people took it in their religious practices and
37:26.960 --> 37:31.760
then they wrote back to Robert Mueller that yeah MDMA really can be helpful so that kind of
37:31.760 --> 37:38.480
confirmed for me this theory of social change that if people can have experiences of spirituality
37:38.480 --> 37:46.120
mysticism whether by psychedelics or not other means are fine too that is a strategy towards
37:46.120 --> 37:51.080
peace and that reaffirmed my commitment to bringing psychedelics back and trying to mainstream them
37:52.040 --> 37:59.480
people are not finding meaningful experience within our culture meaningful spiritual experience
37:59.480 --> 38:06.200
within our culture people have a longing for that there are many people from traditional faiths
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whether they be you let's say of the monotheistic variety the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism
38:14.280 --> 38:21.840
Islam who have participated in ayahuasca ceremonies and have found that it has deepened their faith
38:21.840 --> 38:32.720
right because it has given them a direct personal experience of who knows what the Virgin Mary Jesus
38:32.720 --> 38:41.360
different saints or just a feeling of being embraced by the Holy Spirit in fact some people
38:41.360 --> 38:48.800
have said that all major religious traditions have at their root a psychedelic beginning
38:48.800 --> 38:55.280
God created the brain in such a way to be able to communicate with us and this goes a long way
38:55.280 --> 39:06.760
in explaining you know why there is for example DMT in the brain that it helps mediate the visions
39:07.120 --> 39:13.600
which God uses to communicate certain information to us and you know that information
39:14.400 --> 39:20.160
can be evolutionarily useful or not it might be psychologically useful or not
39:20.160 --> 39:25.200
one of the things that they have been used for for thousands of years is to help people have
39:25.200 --> 39:30.640
spiritual experiences and the essence of the spiritual experience is a sense of unity a sense
39:30.680 --> 39:37.000
that we're all connected the sense that there's one larger system you know on the planet in the
39:37.000 --> 39:42.680
universe and that if you can feel that then people that are different from you are actually more
39:42.680 --> 39:47.880
similar to you than different that we're all part of the human family and if you can identify as
39:47.880 --> 39:56.040
part of the human family instead of my country my religion my race my gender my sexual orientation
39:56.080 --> 40:01.960
all these different ways that we subdivide ourselves that if people could have a deeper
40:01.960 --> 40:08.040
connection to life itself to the planet to everybody that then that would be the ground
40:08.040 --> 40:15.560
at which peace could be made the unesco charter says that since wars begin in the minds of men
40:15.560 --> 40:19.960
it's in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed
40:26.040 --> 40:35.960
so
40:49.880 --> 40:55.240
this dmt that's inside of our brains this natural psychedelic i was really curious you know how do
40:55.240 --> 41:01.640
we access it so i went on a quest i started exploring different methods you know i tried
41:01.640 --> 41:06.840
meditating i did crazy breathing techniques i went to go train with wim hoff and learn his breathing
41:06.840 --> 41:12.600
techniques and we jumped in frozen lakes and i went out into the cold i also participated in
41:12.600 --> 41:18.760
inipi ceremonies native american sweat lodges at one point i went on a fast for 55 days i lost
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over 40 pounds and at some point during that fast i would not eat or drink water so i dry
41:25.320 --> 41:31.320
fasted for up to 100 hours straight and on this quest i reached many different altered states of
41:31.320 --> 41:36.440
consciousness nowhere near where i had reached with ayahuasca or any of the psychedelics
41:36.440 --> 41:39.640
but um there was something there but it just wasn't exactly the same
41:42.040 --> 41:46.760
here's how i would explain the difference between taking a plant medicine or any medicine
41:46.760 --> 41:52.200
in order to open yourself up and doing it through breathing and movement you know by the way
41:52.200 --> 42:01.560
shamans have been using breathing and movement and dance drumming boom boom boom boom boom boom
42:01.560 --> 42:09.400
boom rattles they've been using sound and movement in order to alter their states of
42:09.400 --> 42:14.040
consciousness so that they could receive information about how to heal others from the
42:14.040 --> 42:18.760
very beginning and that's not to say that plant medicines weren't a part of it but that is to say
42:18.760 --> 42:24.760
that they also understood and took great care to get into the intelligence of the body by opening
42:24.760 --> 42:29.880
it up with vibration movement and breathing in order to get the information in order to expand
42:29.880 --> 42:34.520
you know when you take the medicine and boom you're waking up the things well shamans have
42:34.520 --> 42:43.320
been doing that for generations with just movement breathing and vibration sound so i was able to
42:43.320 --> 42:50.280
experience that first i was able to experience opening up through movement breathing sound
42:51.720 --> 42:58.120
in the same way that a shaman would in that way and i had my experience i had my evolution i had
42:58.120 --> 43:04.040
all the gifts that were available to me many of which sound a lot like what people who have used
43:04.040 --> 43:12.760
met plant medicine experience and describe which are the visions which are the downloads of insight
43:12.760 --> 43:20.200
which are the dreams that show up days and weeks afterwards all of a sudden it's almost like
43:20.200 --> 43:25.160
there is a you know it's interesting that i go here there's an opening a third eye opening and
43:26.520 --> 43:30.120
you start seeing things that you couldn't see before the insights are there
43:31.880 --> 43:38.360
by using bioenergetics active breathing active meditation over the course of
43:39.000 --> 43:47.720
three years it had been a process for me where slowly i'm opening up to states of consciousness
43:47.720 --> 43:55.240
slowly i'm tippy-toeing into different dimensions slowly i'm receiving the right information for me
43:55.240 --> 44:02.840
at the right time for my evolution over the course of years it's a process to this point where i got
44:02.840 --> 44:06.440
you know at this point i could change my state of consciousness now with just a little bit of
44:06.440 --> 44:10.840
drumming a little bit of yelling and acting out and then i could work i could work myself into
44:10.840 --> 44:19.240
that type of state when i experienced the plant medicine and when i speak to people who use it
44:20.680 --> 44:27.480
it's like going from walking around to waking up instantly as opposed to
44:28.280 --> 44:33.400
walking around and slowly waking up to yourself one way i like to describe the difference between
44:33.400 --> 44:41.960
the two is active meditation and bioenergetics is like if you can imagine you're in a block of ice
44:41.960 --> 44:49.720
we're all frozen in our block of ice active breathing is like the sun slowly melting and
44:49.720 --> 44:54.520
you know you're starting to move a little bit you get a little bit more motility and as you begin to
44:54.520 --> 45:02.440
the ice melts and you begin to open up and then you become alive the plant medicine is like you're
45:02.440 --> 45:09.560
in that same block of ice and someone takes a sledgehammer and goes bang and cracks you wide open
45:10.120 --> 45:16.920
that's why a lot of people end up going a little crazy because they're not prepared for it i would
45:16.920 --> 45:23.160
say if you're going to use plant medicine begin with months of meditation first that way you're
45:23.160 --> 45:28.120
familiar with the emotions that are going to arise a lot of people when they take that plant medicine
45:29.080 --> 45:34.200
there's fear there's there's uncontrollable sobbing there's all this emotional reaction
45:34.200 --> 45:37.880
that they don't know where it's coming from but it's been trapped in their body they're just open
45:37.880 --> 45:45.160
to it now and it can be very scary but if you use active meditation you get in touch with your body
45:45.160 --> 45:52.360
and the way i'm describing now over the course of a few months first you will begin to open up slowly
45:52.440 --> 45:58.840
and process a lot of the junk that's laying on the surface first so that when you do take the
45:58.840 --> 46:06.840
plant medicine there will be a greater opportunity for a a more enlightening experience so when i
46:06.840 --> 46:13.000
started doing breath work i started to notice that we could access certain states of mind
46:13.000 --> 46:18.760
and certain states of consciousness that normally wouldn't be able to be achieved by just a natural
46:18.760 --> 46:23.560
practice and that i could achieve them pretty easily and pretty effectively what i find really
46:23.560 --> 46:28.120
interesting about this is that i've been teaching this stuff all over the world and i've been meeting
46:28.120 --> 46:33.000
so many people from so many different practices and a lot of times they tell me when i do the
46:33.000 --> 46:38.840
breath work with them and it's important you can't just hyperventilate and dive into this stuff it's
46:38.840 --> 46:44.360
very important to do this in a in a proper setting in a safe way with proper guidance but whenever i
46:44.360 --> 46:51.240
do this with people and they get into this state a lot of times afterwards they say things to me
46:51.240 --> 46:56.200
like oh i've been i've been on an ayahuasca journey and i've had a very similar experience
46:56.200 --> 47:00.920
or somebody says i've had an lsd experience and this was a very similar thing or they said
47:02.360 --> 47:10.040
i have been in a sensory deprivation tank for so many hours and they had a similar experience
47:10.040 --> 47:16.280
a lot of times we refer to this kind of breathing as dmt breathing and this simply has to do with
47:17.000 --> 47:22.360
the shared experiences with people of which they know that they've had dmt in their system so with
47:22.360 --> 47:27.640
ayahuasca or even like smoking actual dmt and people would describe these experiences and these
47:27.640 --> 47:34.120
would be extremely similar so the kind of things that people see the kind of revelations that they
47:34.120 --> 47:39.240
have the kind of connection they feel to the universe or whatever you want to call it
47:41.000 --> 47:47.720
but also the kind of change that they would feel in their daily life afterwards so during those
47:47.720 --> 47:52.920
very deep breathing sessions people afterwards would say a long time afterwards would say it's
47:52.920 --> 47:59.400
changed me in a profound way in a very similar way as to what people say when they use dmt
48:00.280 --> 48:07.000
meditation drumming ecstatic dance sensory deprivation tanks sound healing therapies
48:07.000 --> 48:13.000
all have been known or reported to create alter states of consciousness similar to a dmt or
48:13.000 --> 48:22.680
psychedelic experience so what did i find out after trying all these different modalities
48:22.680 --> 48:26.840
trying to you know access alter states of consciousness i got to some pretty interesting
48:26.920 --> 48:33.000
places but nowhere close to where i had been on psychedelics maybe i need to try them a little
48:33.000 --> 48:37.320
longer or dedicate myself a little bit more sometimes some of these practices practices
48:37.320 --> 48:42.520
might take 10 20 or 30 years to achieve those states of what they might describe as enlightenment
48:42.520 --> 48:48.120
or nirvana but one thing is for certain is that it seems like we're all climbing up different
48:48.120 --> 48:53.720
sides of a pyramid trying to get to that top to that state that altered state and you know maybe
48:54.520 --> 48:57.880
the psychedelics is the shortcut maybe it's just a faster way to get to that same place
48:58.440 --> 49:03.320
some guys who have gone the other route said that once they did try psychedelics it did take
49:03.320 --> 49:07.640
them to a similar state that they had achieved through either meditating or breath work so i
49:07.640 --> 49:21.560
think we are going to the same place we're just taking a different route
49:23.720 --> 49:43.560
so transformation you know the effects of psychedelics on people sometimes are so profound
49:44.280 --> 49:47.560
that it's almost like nothing short of a miracle
49:47.560 --> 49:53.960
so people who have been in such a dark place for so long whether it's with addiction depression
49:53.960 --> 49:59.880
anxiety you name it and in one night or in just a couple of sessions their lives change forever
49:59.880 --> 50:04.120
some people say they got more in one night of a plant medicine ceremony than they had in 30
50:04.120 --> 50:12.120
years of psychotherapy or with a psychiatrist i came to canada in 2000 so basically didn't speak
50:12.200 --> 50:20.920
um during the week it wasn't easy so i was growing up with my mom in toronto and i
50:22.280 --> 50:29.000
i would have visitation with my father i remember probably taking my first drink from him when i
50:29.000 --> 50:34.200
was about seven or eight around there it was oftentimes when i was with him where i was in
50:34.200 --> 50:40.920
unsafe situations if i took a sip of his drink or sometimes he would just give me a little brandy
50:40.920 --> 50:47.080
that it would put me at ease and comfort my mom worked hard to support us my dad wasn't there
50:47.080 --> 50:55.240
for us financially and so i was put with a lot of babysitters i was uh sexual abuse issues and
50:55.240 --> 51:03.000
feeling really really really unsafe i'd always sort of had a sensitive body but i was um fully
51:03.000 --> 51:13.720
functional i had been working a lot i worked at harvard medical school one day i woke up and i was
51:13.720 --> 51:23.000
in incredible pain and i i would say that the day before that in a way was the last day of my life
51:23.800 --> 51:31.480
i couldn't get out of bed because of the pain i had gone to a series of very top doctors i
51:31.480 --> 51:37.080
was sent to sent to specialist after specialist and they kept making predictions
51:38.280 --> 51:44.760
and they kept coming out wrong someone said to me you have to be your own doctor at one point and
51:44.760 --> 51:50.120
so i started doing my own research and they took a blood test and they filled it they checked
51:50.120 --> 51:56.680
almost every box on on the list and i i asked the rheumatologist can we check for scleroderma
51:56.680 --> 52:01.720
because luckily unlike a lot of these other diseases there's a there's a test for it and
52:01.720 --> 52:08.840
after six months i found my own diagnosis which is scleroderma an autoimmune disease which
52:10.680 --> 52:14.280
hardens the connective tissue in your body which holds your body together
52:16.200 --> 52:21.960
so i slowly turned into a mummy about three years down the road of hard work and
52:22.920 --> 52:28.360
you know virtually imbalanced lifestyle it's work work work study study study
52:29.320 --> 52:35.960
one night it all exploded i basically woke up in the morning about five a.m and it's just like
52:35.960 --> 52:41.320
feeling so bizarre and weird and it's like everything was spinning around i basically
52:41.960 --> 52:47.720
was losing my breath so later on i realized there was a severe panic attack i didn't know what to
52:47.720 --> 52:53.800
make of it it's basically it was so overwhelming and then basically that shifted everything in my
52:53.800 --> 53:00.680
life i lost sleep completely the anxiety attacks were going one after another like an avalanche
53:00.680 --> 53:06.120
day after day suffering during the day not sleeping during the night thinking the craziest thoughts
53:06.120 --> 53:10.600
like they would just the thoughts were coming by themselves you know things really started
53:10.600 --> 53:16.920
getting weird you know i started my blood pressure dropped like 60 to 80 my my pulse went up over
53:16.920 --> 53:23.000
100 always tired and not being able to relax or sleep or anything finally i just realized yeah i
53:23.000 --> 53:27.320
need to go to the doctor and it's interesting oddly enough the doctor looked at me and like said
53:27.320 --> 53:32.840
you're fine you're just going like many people are going through stress it's like you know many
53:32.840 --> 53:37.080
immigrants do go through that but everything is fine with you you just you know need to
53:37.720 --> 53:43.000
get it together he didn't offer me anything he didn't offer me any counseling he didn't offer me
53:43.000 --> 53:48.200
anything at all it's like i left the office virtually with the same knowledge that i entered
53:48.200 --> 53:54.600
the office i just realized that i no longer can can can support life i can no longer be in a family
53:55.240 --> 53:59.880
so i i declared to my wife that i'm leaving that we need to separate because it's taking
53:59.880 --> 54:06.440
too much on me i i totally started losing it started getting to all sorts of conflicts at work
54:06.440 --> 54:11.640
they let me go i worked for the bank for four four years you know very good good place you know went
54:11.640 --> 54:18.200
for welfare and started getting food from salvation arm and if you know any notion of what it
54:18.200 --> 54:23.400
is to be out of your mind that that was what i was it's like a mental hospital you know people
54:23.400 --> 54:30.280
are there they're walking but you know lights are there but nobody's home i found myself by age 11
54:30.920 --> 54:36.120
going sneaking into the bar and pouring a little bit of this and a little bit of that then i
54:36.120 --> 54:43.560
started with weed and that got into cocaine came back to toronto and was introduced to was looking
54:43.560 --> 54:48.680
to score cocaine and was introduced to heroin and that was really that i would say is my drug of
54:48.680 --> 54:54.680
choice everything else went went by the wayside like i didn't wasn't interested anymore in alcohol
54:54.680 --> 55:02.040
and cocaine as my addiction progressed and it was very easy for me to slip into prostitution i was
55:02.040 --> 55:07.880
not high functioning definitely not that was my primary relationship 100 was my relationship with
55:07.880 --> 55:15.800
my drug i could only facilitate that by having relationships that made that possible school ended
55:15.800 --> 55:25.560
everything ended and that became my life it ended up uh me getting arrested and i got put on
55:25.560 --> 55:35.880
methadone being in methadone clinics for like 17 18 years i didn't really see anybody getting
55:35.880 --> 55:41.640
off of it with it is widely prescribed and i didn't see anybody getting off of it without going back on
55:42.280 --> 55:49.320
some kind of either prescription opiate or or street you know drug they were going to do a
55:49.800 --> 55:56.920
a year-long thing for me which was uh like four months to three months to to build me up to a
55:56.920 --> 56:02.440
place that would hold me and then keep me there for six months and then three months to take me
56:02.440 --> 56:08.920
off of it it keeps the the user in in an active form of addiction because you have to wake up
56:08.920 --> 56:16.520
every morning and take it to feel to feel normal that one year turned into many many many years
56:16.520 --> 56:21.320
with addiction you have to be at a point of readiness and most people are forced
56:21.880 --> 56:26.280
into going on methadone because they can't afford their drug anymore or they're in legal
56:26.280 --> 56:31.800
trouble or they're going to lose their child so it's not them making a conscious decision that
56:31.800 --> 56:38.040
you know what i've reached a point of willingness and readiness and and this is the way that i can
56:38.040 --> 56:48.360
get to clarity i've been clean and sober since august 11th 2005 besides the methadone i got off
56:48.360 --> 56:55.560
street drugs and alcohol from what i understand you get maybe 10 years maximum to live and it's
56:55.560 --> 57:03.240
a very painful way to go i was in tremendous pain and i was bedridden i traveled by stretcher by
57:03.240 --> 57:11.000
ambulance for three to four years and i was told that there was no hope i think at one point i was
57:11.000 --> 57:17.400
taking 32 pills a day i knew i was going to die i was very close to death for a very long time
57:17.400 --> 57:23.480
and the pain was was tremendous i didn't sleep for maybe two years even tucking in a sheet was
57:23.480 --> 57:29.640
too much weight so i was sort of like a cadaver and they would just lay the sheet over me i
57:29.640 --> 57:36.760
contacted a place in the united states with nurses who will sit with you while you euthanize
57:36.760 --> 57:41.400
they won't help you that's not legal but they'll be in the room with you while you do it so i was
57:41.400 --> 57:47.880
really looking for a hail mary pass at that point i started to look actively for help
57:49.320 --> 57:54.040
outside the medical establishment so i i started because i'm a software development i do a lot
57:54.040 --> 57:58.840
of internet so internet is like home for me so i started browsing i started finding people
57:59.720 --> 58:06.600
with similar stories and then then i i met a lady who became my friend my girlfriend
58:06.600 --> 58:17.640
nasalie so she introduced me to uh to uh canada's and that was to me the first point that that
58:17.640 --> 58:25.560
that i actually learned that that there is hope because after i tried it i fell asleep
58:26.520 --> 58:35.160
after about four or five years of insomnia all i needed from for my doctor whom i talked to
58:35.160 --> 58:42.680
five years previous to that experience the doctor who has been trained to understand human humans
58:42.680 --> 58:49.000
to relieve them from their suffering did not talk to me about the existence of healing cannabis
58:49.080 --> 58:57.560
healing cannabis which is known to heal stress the insomnia and then i had to go through all the
58:57.560 --> 59:03.720
conflict to lose my family to lose everything my job in order to meet that lady who is not a
59:03.720 --> 59:10.840
doctor at all he doesn't even have a bachelor education but she gave me the gift of cannabis
59:10.840 --> 59:18.200
and i fell asleep at that point i thought that i was clean like i thought that i had my life
59:18.200 --> 59:23.640
changed so much i went to a like my 13th treatment center all this time they're saying
59:23.640 --> 59:27.960
they're bringing doctors into all these places to prescribe me my methadone and i'm saying well
59:27.960 --> 59:33.560
maybe i should start tapering my methadone lisa are you kidding just look look where you've come
59:33.560 --> 59:38.600
from look what you've done just think of this as your insulin like you know this is just your
59:38.600 --> 59:44.280
medication this is prescribed and this is your medication and like just be grateful for where
59:44.280 --> 59:49.320
you've come from you know you're a miracle so i met my husband in 12 step rooms he's recovering
59:49.320 --> 59:55.080
addict alcoholic as well and my now husband and we became really good friends i met him when i
59:55.080 --> 59:59.480
first got out of treatment we were friends for years and and we ended up getting married and
59:59.480 --> 01:00:06.760
once we were married i started like a pretty heavy duty taper of methadone and it took me to a place
01:00:06.840 --> 01:00:16.200
of psychotic breaks like it just my brain was saying it's been too many years and my brain my
01:00:16.200 --> 01:00:23.880
body my soul my spirit was just absolute havoc i started listening to some podcasts with a man
01:00:23.880 --> 01:00:31.800
named dr christopher ryan and he was the first clear intelligent voice that that really articulated
01:00:31.800 --> 01:00:40.200
using psychedelics in another way in a medicinal way because i had only ever viewed it in in the
01:00:40.200 --> 01:00:45.720
typical way that our society treats it where i wasn't very interested in that so i reached out
01:00:45.720 --> 01:00:51.720
to chris and chris said i don't know you very well so i'm reluctant to suggest this but if i
01:00:51.720 --> 01:00:59.480
were in your position i would i would probably do ayahuasca i couldn't get to peru i couldn't even
01:00:59.480 --> 01:01:06.440
get from my bed to my commode about a foot away from my bed without help i managed to
01:01:07.720 --> 01:01:16.600
to acquire ayahuasca i had spoken with a dr gov or mate who has had patients with scleroderma
01:01:16.600 --> 01:01:25.000
before and he was able to give me some advice to help me stay as safe as possible while i was doing
01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:32.840
it but i just i couldn't move i was reaching out to uh like all different doctors head of psychiatry
01:01:32.840 --> 01:01:37.880
here head of addictions at this hospital and they were all telling me the same thing well you're on
01:01:37.880 --> 01:01:43.800
a smaller dose don't taper anymore please just like lisa please covet covet your recovery you
01:01:43.800 --> 01:01:51.080
know covet how far you've come and i i knew that i couldn't i couldn't do it i couldn't wake up
01:01:51.080 --> 01:01:58.440
every morning and have to take something and besides that i was nuts i was suicidal
01:01:59.720 --> 01:02:04.760
so my husband was reaching out to absolutely everybody and his father's a doctor his brother's
01:02:04.760 --> 01:02:10.520
a doctor they were reaching out and somebody told them about gabo or mate in one week three
01:02:10.520 --> 01:02:15.640
people gave us his book the realm of the hungry ghost and i'd seen so many doctors like i've been
01:02:15.640 --> 01:02:21.640
to so many specialists and western medicine was just kept giving me the same message just stay
01:02:21.640 --> 01:02:27.480
just stay and he doesn't talk about psychedelics in his book at all but what i heard was a different
01:02:27.480 --> 01:02:34.360
compassion from him like maybe but i still didn't reach out to him my husband sent him an email
01:02:34.360 --> 01:02:39.000
and said please help my wife she's gonna die she's come so far he happened to be in toronto a few
01:02:39.000 --> 01:02:46.760
days later i met with him and he listened to my whole story in quite a lot of details and very
01:02:46.760 --> 01:02:50.760
little and at the end he said i think i have a way that you can save your own life so a couple
01:02:50.760 --> 01:02:57.480
of months later i went to mexico and i did my first ayahuasca ceremony with ayahuasca i realized
01:02:57.480 --> 01:03:02.680
that that i finally found the teacher that i needed in life the ayahuasca knocked on my heart
01:03:03.400 --> 01:03:11.160
a lot of a lot of things of the mind the mind just just shut down the mind just was after that
01:03:11.160 --> 01:03:20.120
night was quiet it became quiet it stopped rumbling about about small things about about
01:03:20.120 --> 01:03:26.120
whatever it was rumbling before about you know unreasonable things endless stories and scenarios
01:03:26.120 --> 01:03:33.080
it eliminated all panic attacks so i have no panic attacks anymore i have no anxiety anymore
01:03:34.120 --> 01:03:41.400
i don't even know how it's possible for me now to have them it's it's not something that that
01:03:41.400 --> 01:03:47.560
somebody takes a book and reads about it with this mind and makes some kind of conclusions
01:03:47.560 --> 01:03:53.960
logical conclusions it's not about that it's it's a direct experiential learning
01:03:54.920 --> 01:04:02.360
what can i say and that's where the real life changing began it's not an escape everything i
01:04:02.360 --> 01:04:09.240
used was to numb and to escape any plant medicine any plant teaching is going to teach you truth
01:04:09.880 --> 01:04:19.960
and clarity and connection and it's the exact opposite of what i was seeking for so many years
01:04:19.960 --> 01:04:27.960
you can come back from the pain that you've been running from you can stop running this has helped
01:04:27.960 --> 01:04:35.480
me do it i have liver disease i have hepatitis c and i've never been treated for it ayahuasca
01:04:35.480 --> 01:04:42.200
brought my counts right down to from very high to in the normal average range of a healthy
01:04:42.200 --> 01:04:48.440
human being you know i also didn't have my menstruation cycle for 20 years and they said
01:04:48.440 --> 01:04:54.040
to me like you're perimenopausal like it's not coming back don't you know don't worry about it
01:04:54.040 --> 01:04:59.720
kind of a thing working with a shaman and he said to me after a ceremony he said lisa you have three
01:04:59.720 --> 01:05:05.160
spirits in your womb and you have to release them and i said three spirits he said did you ever
01:05:05.160 --> 01:05:11.480
have any abortions and i said yes i had two and he said no i think you had three and i'm like
01:05:12.200 --> 01:05:18.920
okay dave i had two but anyways he said i need you over these next few ceremonies to really
01:05:18.920 --> 01:05:26.360
prey on it and like every day meditate and and tell them why you couldn't parent them and why
01:05:26.360 --> 01:05:32.360
you had to do what you did and the place that you were in when you did it and try and like let them
01:05:32.360 --> 01:05:38.920
be at peace and go he said i think after they leave your period could come back and i was just
01:05:38.920 --> 01:05:43.000
looking at him i had just started ayahuasca and started working with the shaman and i was like
01:05:44.040 --> 01:05:48.520
okay and then i'm just hearing my addiction specialist voice like lisa just trust just
01:05:48.520 --> 01:05:55.560
trust just trust just trust and i'm like okay so i worked on this over a two-week period i did about
01:05:55.560 --> 01:06:03.000
10 ceremonies i'd done nine ceremonies i was leaving the next morning from mexico at 7 30 am
01:06:03.000 --> 01:06:08.760
water taxi and he came to me and he said lisa we worked really hard he said we need to do
01:06:08.760 --> 01:06:12.360
one more ceremony tonight i'm gonna have a private ceremony for you there's still one
01:06:12.360 --> 01:06:18.120
release that has to happen i was like i can't do it i can't i can't i gotta go back to my life
01:06:18.120 --> 01:06:23.960
tomorrow and there's absolutely no way well i ended up trusting and doing this last ceremony
01:06:25.160 --> 01:06:31.640
and after the ceremony he said okay our work is done and i was flying home on the plane and after
01:06:31.640 --> 01:06:38.920
20 years of no cycle i went to the washroom and i had my period and i've had it ever since
01:06:39.720 --> 01:06:45.720
so i came home and i told my mom the story and i told her the story exactly and i said but i
01:06:45.720 --> 01:06:50.280
only had two abortions she said no lisa don't you don't remember at the very end you had three
01:06:52.280 --> 01:07:00.920
talk about trust i tried it for the first time at the end of 2013 and the first time i drank
01:07:01.720 --> 01:07:09.480
i could stand up and walk and the pain was gone it was just gone i threw up a lot it was very
01:07:09.480 --> 01:07:15.320
painful it was very violent but it was very difficult to do it alone after two years
01:07:16.680 --> 01:07:26.200
i was well enough to travel and finally get to a real shaman and and i've been working with
01:07:26.280 --> 01:07:32.600
with him since december so about six months i i was so used to being numbed i had no relationship
01:07:32.600 --> 01:07:38.040
with my body i had no relationship with my spirit like i was just
01:07:41.000 --> 01:07:52.600
vacant and ayahuasca showed me who i am who i was meant to be reconnected me
01:07:53.320 --> 01:08:01.640
with myself my soul my life force like that flame that was always flickering inside of me
01:08:01.640 --> 01:08:11.960
as much as i tried to snub it out and i tried hard it like brought it to a full burning torch
01:08:12.600 --> 01:08:19.400
and the beauty of ayahuasca is after i've had the a painful painful time it shows me
01:08:20.120 --> 01:08:26.040
the most incredible light that i didn't even know existed and light and connection so i would
01:08:26.040 --> 01:08:33.000
say that's what it is connection it's connection with my physical body my emotional body without
01:08:33.000 --> 01:08:42.360
question knowing that i'm connected to something bigger greater without any doubt like i have no
01:08:42.360 --> 01:08:50.120
doubt now so maybe it was a rebirth thing because it was like i know i'm part of something bigger
01:08:51.400 --> 01:08:58.280
well any type of healing including ayahuasca where you know true healing i'm not talking taking
01:08:58.280 --> 01:09:04.440
the symptoms away by medication or surgery true healing the number one takes time and
01:09:04.520 --> 01:09:09.960
is a transformation so ayahuasca will go into the root of
01:09:13.080 --> 01:09:20.680
the the illness and it's all always tied in some type of trauma that we hold it's not actually
01:09:20.680 --> 01:09:26.920
complicated healing it's about getting in touch with what's present in your body now what you
01:09:26.920 --> 01:09:32.600
hold from decades prior or you know years prior and it's just a matter of letting that go
01:09:33.400 --> 01:09:38.520
but we hold it we hold it you know and we resist it my colleagues my medical colleagues would say
01:09:38.520 --> 01:09:46.440
well that's an anecdotal piece of evidence doesn't mean anything yes it's anecdotal there's no long
01:09:46.440 --> 01:09:53.480
term controlled studies of ayahuasca in between the scleroderma how could there possibly be
01:09:53.480 --> 01:10:00.680
when it's an illegal substance but there are other stories like this plenty of them and i happen to
01:10:00.680 --> 01:10:06.680
believe in the power of human experience and i know i've seen it i've seen it with other conditions
01:10:06.680 --> 01:10:11.720
i've treated people with severe inflammatory bowel disease who get off their medications
01:10:12.280 --> 01:10:17.960
after the ayahuasca experience i know people with rheumatoid arthritis whose doctors have given up
01:10:17.960 --> 01:10:24.920
on them who are off medications yes these are anecdotes but at least it means that we should
01:10:24.920 --> 01:10:31.000
be taking them seriously and studying it in my opinion and i would also say according to
01:10:31.800 --> 01:10:41.000
very well established research evidence all chronic illnesses with the exception of a few very few
01:10:41.000 --> 01:10:46.920
genetically determined ones all chronic illnesses whether it's mental illness like
01:10:47.640 --> 01:10:56.760
ADHD which i've been diagnosed with or addiction or depression or psychosis or the physical
01:10:56.760 --> 01:11:02.920
illnesses like the autoimmune conditions cancer and so on they're all relatable early childhood
01:11:02.920 --> 01:11:09.000
emotional loss and their consequences and there's more and more evidence about that and not only
01:11:09.640 --> 01:11:18.600
early childhood but even what happens in utero so it also means that if you can understand the
01:11:18.600 --> 01:11:25.400
connections and we have the tremendous literature now showing the not the connection but the unity
01:11:25.400 --> 01:11:33.960
of mind and body a recent study out of virginia just last week about turns out that the brain is
01:11:33.960 --> 01:11:38.600
totally connected to the immune system the emotions are connected to the immune system
01:11:38.600 --> 01:11:45.720
now that's not new but it was big news because people didn't know about it but again more more
01:11:45.720 --> 01:11:53.320
proof thousands of research articles so that given that the emotional system and the immune system
01:11:53.320 --> 01:12:01.080
and the nervous system and the hormonal apparatus form one unit it would be stupid to suppose
01:12:01.720 --> 01:12:06.600
that emotional experiences have no impact on our physiology so i also noticed through some of the
01:12:06.600 --> 01:12:10.600
studies i was looking at that at the root of all disease there's something called inflammation
01:12:10.600 --> 01:12:16.120
some studies were showing that there's inflammation and depression are linked some studies are also
01:12:16.120 --> 01:12:21.160
showing that emotional trauma and inflammation are linked and there's also a bunch of studies
01:12:21.160 --> 01:12:27.000
that show that psychedelics have anti-inflammatory properties there seems to be a link but what is it
01:12:27.000 --> 01:12:32.600
does inflammation cause things like anxiety depression and maybe physical ailments or is
01:12:32.600 --> 01:12:38.760
it a symptom of them could there be an emotional link for example could emotional trauma cause
01:12:38.760 --> 01:12:44.600
inflammation then it slowly manifests into emotional mental and physical sickness like anxiety
01:12:44.600 --> 01:12:50.440
depression or even disease could it be possible then that psychedelics could potentially heal
01:12:50.440 --> 01:12:56.200
these emotional wounds and potentially also reduce and reverse inflammation i feel a lot
01:12:56.200 --> 01:13:00.360
more research needs to be done in this area
01:13:18.040 --> 01:13:24.600
the influence of psychedelics on modern society is profound but goes relatively unseen it is said
01:13:24.680 --> 01:13:31.960
that silicon valley was sort of inspired or founded with a psychedelic influence behind it
01:13:31.960 --> 01:13:39.160
in the 60s 50s guys like steve jobs said that you know taking lsd was a profound experience one of
01:13:39.160 --> 01:13:43.560
the most important things in my life lsd shows you that there's another side to the coin you
01:13:43.560 --> 01:13:48.120
can't remember when it wears off but you know it it reinforced my sense of what was important
01:13:48.120 --> 01:13:52.200
creating great things instead of making money putting things back into the stream of history
01:13:52.200 --> 01:13:57.960
and of human consciousness as much as i could other discoveries like dna and the polymers chain
01:13:57.960 --> 01:14:04.840
reaction were attributed to experiences with lsd and even bands like jimmy hendrix or the beetles
01:14:04.840 --> 01:14:08.440
totally revolutionized their sound you know through their experiences with psychedelics
01:14:09.480 --> 01:14:17.000
hallucinogens seem to play the role of breaking down our perception with reality
01:14:17.000 --> 01:14:22.040
that relationship is something that we don't even see because it's a part of the way that
01:14:22.040 --> 01:14:28.600
we operate and a lot of the times our reactions aren't as obvious to us we feel that they're
01:14:29.320 --> 01:14:35.320
brought on because of the specific circumstances when really those specific circumstances in our
01:14:35.320 --> 01:14:41.160
lives they just allow for the right conditions for us to express ourselves exactly the way
01:14:41.160 --> 01:14:46.920
that we are feeling in that moment or something that might be building up over time so taking
01:14:46.920 --> 01:14:57.240
something like mushrooms or san pedro ayahuasca you name it anything that dmt you know breaks down
01:14:57.240 --> 01:15:04.120
the the typical way we see things and opens up new patterns new ways of seeing you listen to music
01:15:04.120 --> 01:15:08.760
on lsd you're going to notice different things in songs that you've heard hundreds of times
01:15:08.760 --> 01:15:15.080
films you'll pick up on different things people's facial quirks that you never notice they make all
01:15:15.080 --> 01:15:21.480
the time you'll start noticing how weird your cat might be is it just because i'm on mushrooms
01:15:21.480 --> 01:15:26.440
you know these types of things start to occur to you so you start questioning a lot of the most
01:15:26.440 --> 01:15:35.640
deeply held beliefs and concepts that we hold about reality in general now the caveat to all this is
01:15:36.280 --> 01:15:42.840
doing it responsibly doing it medicinally possibly shamanically has to do with something that serves
01:15:42.840 --> 01:15:49.640
the greater good and you you'd find a hard time serving the greater good if you don't even understand
01:15:49.640 --> 01:15:54.360
the patterns that are deeply rooted in you that do not serve you and possibly harm you the chronic
01:15:55.000 --> 01:16:01.080
addictions anything that we do habitually rather than intentionally science has not
01:16:02.440 --> 01:16:10.440
has not explained what consciousness is it can describe certain aspects of it but explain it
01:16:10.440 --> 01:16:16.600
it cannot do so maybe the brain is more like a receiver or a transceiver of consciousness right
01:16:16.600 --> 01:16:22.920
now we don't know and and it's an area that needs deep investigation and you know what we've got the
01:16:22.920 --> 01:16:29.160
tools to do we've got the psychedelics there there is there is no more efficient way to put
01:16:29.160 --> 01:16:34.920
somebody into a deeply altered state of consciousness and to explore what that state of consciousness
01:16:34.920 --> 01:16:41.960
really means and something like dimethyltryptamine dmt you know it's a very powerful force and right
01:16:41.960 --> 01:16:48.520
now our society is refusing to investigate it's refusing to use psychedelics as a modality for
01:16:48.520 --> 01:16:53.080
investigating the mystery of consciousness and that's a great mistake and that comes out of the
01:16:53.080 --> 01:16:58.840
idiotic and monstrous war on drugs gradually science is looking into new research with
01:16:58.840 --> 01:17:03.960
psychedelics looking at their therapeutic potential but the next big step is to use
01:17:03.960 --> 01:17:09.720
psychedelics to investigate the mystery of consciousness itself the larger picture i think the
01:17:10.760 --> 01:17:15.640
role that psychedelics will play in neuroscience and understanding how our brain works and
01:17:15.640 --> 01:17:21.080
psychotherapy understanding more healing technologies and in developing a global spirituality and helping
01:17:21.080 --> 01:17:28.040
people be more appreciative of other people who are different and and more aware of our commonality
01:17:28.840 --> 01:17:34.440
that all of that will be developing and so i'm very hopeful for the the future and think that
01:17:34.440 --> 01:17:39.160
the incorporation and the mainstreaming of psychedelics into society will play a major role
01:17:39.160 --> 01:17:45.720
in healing spirituality recreation creativity and cultural and human survival if psychedelics
01:17:45.720 --> 01:17:52.760
do become you know accepted for for use in our society i think that's where you're going to
01:17:52.760 --> 01:17:56.440
know eventually i think there should be centers where people can go
01:17:57.080 --> 01:18:02.440
to have these experiences and they won't look like hospitals they'll look like spas
01:18:03.080 --> 01:18:09.720
you know you go for a weekend to take psychedelics with mom and the kids and you have a wonderful
01:18:09.720 --> 01:18:16.920
weekend you come out and you're a more evolved and wiser person yeah in an ideal world we would drop
01:18:16.920 --> 01:18:24.760
this western arrogance that we know better we would realize that as much as we've achieved
01:18:25.560 --> 01:18:36.200
with western technology and science we've also lost a lot and what we've lost are deep wisdoms
01:18:37.080 --> 01:18:43.320
developed and lived by aboriginal peoples and we would drop the idea that there's only one way of
01:18:43.320 --> 01:18:49.800
looking at things and we would allow ourselves to explore other modalities to be justified be
01:18:49.800 --> 01:18:55.960
proud of what we know and to be humble about what we don't know i think that we live in a culture
01:18:55.960 --> 01:19:06.200
of ptsd and we're always trying to soothe our symptoms i just sort of see that that we just
01:19:06.200 --> 01:19:18.040
got it all wrong i i was in a a white hospital room with sanitized you know airplane cabin air
01:19:18.040 --> 01:19:27.640
for a very long time and um and really you need nature um and i think that's
01:19:28.600 --> 01:19:36.120
that there's an arrogance in in the west of thinking that we humans can do nature better
01:19:36.120 --> 01:19:41.160
than nature can so the story i'd been told ended up being far different from the reality i'd
01:19:41.160 --> 01:19:45.800
experienced in this last couple years once i started exploring psychedelics and this whole
01:19:45.800 --> 01:19:51.720
other world and you know it made me made me think you know were we supposed to you know have this
01:19:51.880 --> 01:19:58.120
experiences have this relationship with plant medicines and psychedelics and if we were you
01:19:58.120 --> 01:20:02.600
know what happened how did we get disconnected was there was it intentional were we severed from
01:20:02.600 --> 01:20:07.240
this relationship on purpose or did it just happen and are we then experiencing a deficiency
01:20:07.800 --> 01:20:12.840
you know and i think that the state of the world and a lot of people on a personal level feel
01:20:12.840 --> 01:20:17.560
all this chaos and disconnection and you know it only makes sense that something like psychedelics
01:20:17.560 --> 01:20:23.080
can help to heal both the individual and the world if taken in the right context
01:20:24.040 --> 01:20:28.920
and people have the opportunity to take it in a place where there is no fear of being caught for
01:20:29.480 --> 01:20:34.600
legality reasons and you know there's there are centers opening up now where people can have these
01:20:34.600 --> 01:20:40.920
experiences so you know there is a promising sort of light at the end of the tunnel and i feel that
01:20:40.920 --> 01:20:45.800
the world will be a better place if more people can have these experiences i don't find it a
01:20:45.800 --> 01:20:49.320
coincidence that ayahuasca is coming out of the jungle and spread across the world
01:20:49.320 --> 01:20:55.000
and iboga out of africa is now spreading across the world the disconnected world we live in is
01:20:55.000 --> 01:21:00.520
starving for reconnection not only have they been used safely for thousands of years they really
01:21:00.520 --> 01:21:05.240
don't fit the illegal status requirements most of them fall under they have shown immense potential
01:21:05.240 --> 01:21:09.720
for spiritual growth and have support from the spiritual community as well they also create an
01:21:09.720 --> 01:21:14.200
experience that has transformed the lives of many is it time to reconsider the role of plant
01:21:14.200 --> 01:21:18.920
medicines and psychedelics in our society is it time to at least allow people to have the
01:21:18.920 --> 01:21:23.560
freedom to choose for themselves the right to explore their own consciousness is it time for
01:21:23.560 --> 01:21:33.720
truth it is not too much to say that in your hands lies the possibility of averting other
01:21:33.720 --> 01:21:40.120
tragedies like we must work on tiringly so that our children are obliged to learn the truth
01:21:40.920 --> 01:21:46.600
because it is only through knowledge that we can safely protect them failing this
01:21:47.320 --> 01:22:08.040
the next tragedy may be that of your daughter or your son or yours or yours or yours
01:22:10.120 --> 01:22:20.040
so
01:22:40.120 --> 01:22:50.040
so
01:23:10.120 --> 01:23:20.040
so
01:23:40.120 --> 01:23:50.040
so
01:23:57.080 --> 01:24:04.040
so
01:24:10.120 --> 01:24:16.040
so
01:24:16.200 --> 01:24:21.000
thank you guys so much for watching psyched out i really think that you know with more awareness
01:24:21.000 --> 01:24:26.040
around the subject of psychedelics it'll become more mainstream and a lot more money and research
01:24:26.040 --> 01:24:30.680
will get to go into it so that we can really find out the full potential that it has you know
01:24:30.680 --> 01:24:36.040
whether it's for health whether it's for physical health mental health creativity you know the sky
01:24:36.040 --> 01:24:40.920
is the limits in my opinion so thanks for watching guys please share with your friends
01:24:40.920 --> 01:24:46.920
help spread the word so we can raise awareness about plant medicines and psychedelics peace