Kind: captions
Language: en
ebook is a fascinating medicine because
you can have people addicted to heroin
decades long go through one treatment
lived in an ashram for two years the
jungle for a year you've done a lot of
drugs now I want to know what did you
learn from all of that that you would
bring back if you had a chance that your
sister unfortunately committed suicide
if you could take what you learned in
that time what would you tell her to try
to save her
good question
I think it's
the title of the book a dose of hope you
know there's always hope there's always
opportunity for growth
relief reconnection what so what given
the way that so talking about
psychedelics the way that you come at
that work
seems to be that people get well let me
ask are they coming from they're stuck
in a neurochemical pattern or are they
stuck in a frame of reference problem
where it's not even neurochemical it's
just the way that they think about
things I think it's both I think the
experiential side drives the
neurochemical side it's like the
software experience drives the hardware
experience and suffering is really
individual but it's also ubiquitous it's
kind of our dance with life so to speak
it's part of the contract when we come
in life's going to include suffering
uh and it happens individually and
collectively
and we are going through a massive
opportunity for growth and acceleration
and major transformation on a global
scale
so no one's immune to that level of
discomfort
but if you only had three minutes with
your sister
would it just be
hey there's hope because I have a
feeling that that will feel like
rhetoric to somebody in that space
how do you punch through like is what I
want to be true maybe different than
what is true what I want to be true is
that there's to your point about
suffering is ubiquitous but I think
there's probably also elements that are
universally understandable even if it's
not the exact same thing that we're
going through
and that I want there to be wisdom
that's being ascertained by the plant
medicine
that can be passed on do you think that
there is an amount of it that can be
metabolized by one person and shared
with another or is this only you have to
experience it again I think it's both
um the experiential sides necessary
otherwise it's just information
uh so what would you tell her that you
think would make her give it a shot I
think first and foremost we have to
connect anybody that's going through
that level of suffering and I've been
significantly depressed I've been
suicidally depressed
so I understand the
contemplation of cashing in the golden
ticket
and that generates a degree of empathy
and kind of like I can have a sense of
where you're at I mean everybody's
experiences individual so I can never
know exactly what that person is feeling
but if I can have some degree of
understanding and empathy and connection
then now we've got some commonality now
we can
have a relational experience
and so for me it's not so much imparting
information although that's part of my
Dharma so just because part of what why
I came back from the jungle is to be
able to be in the position of education
and advocacy of the right place for
medicine work not everybody's ready for
medicine work and it's not a Panacea
ultimately at the end of the day I don't
even think medicine work is here to fix
anything it's just here to reveal truth
and ideally to be able to show more
clearly what is our relationship with
suffering what's our relationship with
the events that lead to a particular
experience of suffering how can we
understand it and in order to understand
it and gain some more wisdom around it
oftentimes we need a little bit of space
space from it and that's sometimes what
the medicines help us do it's a great
space from the trauma it secretes yeah
like MDMA does that
all the medicines to a certain degree
will offer both a bit of the witness
perspective as well as with that
separation for just long enough because
they're they're neuro neuroplastic
agents in their egoplastic agents so
they allow the ego to relax a little bit
from the experience of suffering in
order to get that witness perspective
understand it a little bit
and then through that understanding then
to be able to if facilitated well go
into it and through it to the other side
so that there's healing and then there's
integration so it's not a bypass
like the medicine work is not here to
kind of bypass trauma and just get
straight to healing and everything's
fine
I think there's so much opportunity for
the growth of that person's kind of
evolutionary development so to speak to
be able to understand what created the
suffering in the first place
and then how those really intense
experiences are actually potential
catalysts for growth right most of our
best teachers are our most uncomfortable
experiences
and if we can why do you think that's
true the the uncomfortable experiences
they have a a way of slowing us down
and
helping us get present
and in such a fast-paced culture today
it's hard for people to get present the
beauty can do that ecstasy can do that
for sure like suffering isn't the only
way for learning is that the only way
for slowing down and and getting in
touch with who we are asking the deeper
questions about life
what is most important if I think about
like near-death experiences
there are consistent themes on those
kind of processes that people will go
through we could even talk about
potentially that medicine work is
depending on the medicine a bit of like
a small controlled near-death experience
it helps people slow down
understand the most important priorities
of life does it do that though in the
same mechanism is it a sense of Terror
dissolution of the ego in a way that is
death like or is it just that it slows
you down and gives you a witness
perspective again I think it's both it
really depends on the medicine
let's talk about the terror aspect so I
have a hypothesis so if I had three
minutes with your sister I've never done
psychedel I've micro dosed and we'll
talk about that later but I think it's
so wildly different than a macro dose my
gut instinct is to be different animals
but if I had three minutes with your
sister I've had people come to me and
ask like hey I'm I'm in a really dark
place or I know somebody that's in a
really dark place what should I do and
even though I've not done psychedelics
given what I've learned from Maps I will
tell people hey if you haven't tried
psychedelics you certainly haven't tried
everything and so you at least need to
give it a shot my outside Observer just
regurgitating what I've heard headline
reading assessment is that what it's
doing is disrupting your frame of
reference so violently that you have
nothing to Anchor onto during the
experience and because you become
completely unmoored you're now seeing
things from a radically different
perspective
in fact
there's the Sam Harris quote which you
I'm sure know uh but I find this this
quote more than anything makes me want
to try macro dosing uh psychedelics so
this was Sam Harris at a podcast after
doing the heroic dose of mushrooms so
it's five grams if I remember right uh
and he said the fact that there are
Landscapes of mind this vast lurking on
the other side of a mushroom is simply
Preposterous it's as though we lived in
a universe where if you just reached
into your right pocket with your left
hand rather than pulling out your wallet
you pull out the Andromeda Galaxy
and that to me is
is exactly like that feels like the
right description for what's happening
it just batters you out of the way that
you see the world
and as somebody who wants everyone to
understand that frame of reference is
everything the there is nothing either
good or bad but thinking makes it so and
so somebody who's on the precipice yes
there really is a neurological problem
it probably has to do with marinating
and negative thoughts a lot having a
frame of reference that makes you feel
like you will never experience Joy again
there will never be anything uplifting
or hopeful again it's all wrong that's
just a frame of reference and the reason
that mdma's psilocybin LSD whatever pick
your
um psychedelic of choice the reason it
works is for a brief moment 50 minutes
if it's DMT
six hours if it's psilocybin whatever
longer I know in some cases you are just
battered out of that frame of reference
it just doesn't exist anymore and so
you're you are forced to realize oh my
God I was trapped inside of a bubble
that I didn't realize was finite I
thought it simply was the truth and once
you're walloped out of that again I'm
using words not as somebody who's ever
used it but once you're pulled out of
that you now
have experienced that there are other
perspectives with which to view life
that's my gutancy that would be my
speech to your sister or anybody else
that's like on that so it's like hey
before you do any of that all you have
to do is take this little thing and
effectively be teleported to something
else might be worse but it'll show you
that there's difference
so let me respond on a few different
levels of what you mentioned if I had
three minutes with my sister or anybody
standing on the ledge ideally first and
foremost we make connection right
empathic so they trust you right
because otherwise they're not
maybe going to trust any recommendation
that I have moving forward
so connection
then to offer what you're describing a
potential solution
to alleviating momentarily that degree
of intensity so that they can understand
it heal it integrate it and become more
whole on the other side
so that's part of the framing around it
um
in regards to neurology and psychology
maybe we could call that hardware and
software
they're they're bi-directional but in
regards to trauma
the the psychological trauma because you
can have neurological trauma as well
head injuries will drive psychology so
that's a neurology driving psychology
kind of directional but what we're
talking about here is on the
psychological and emotional trauma side
where the psychology drives the
neurology to what you're describing
frames of mind that are driven by
neurochemical
Cascades and kind of like entrenched
beliefs so there's this
bi-directionality
where if we're offered a momentary pause
that egoplastic neuroplastic kind of
space that that Gap
widens a little bit and we can talk
specifically about MDMA and how it does
that and many of the other medicines
work very similar it doesn't have to be
a violent
reframe it can be a softer reframe it
can be an easier reframe
uh depending again on the medicines
Ayahuasca tends to be
both beautiful for many people and a
little confronting for many people what
are people confronted with usually it's
like whatever was just behind that veil
of knowing so like Sam describes and I
haven't heard that quote actually it's
kind of Genius instead of pulling out my
wallet now I see the Andromeda Galaxy
whatever was right behind the veil of
awareness
oftentimes it's subconscious material
that I didn't have access to maybe I was
too well defended to access that trauma
maybe it was too early for me to create
a narrative
like in that kind of in those formative
years in the three to five kind of year
window of life when we're just really
getting solidified with our beliefs
about ourselves and the world
the majority of kind of like the
psychological imprinting really starting
to solidify our blueprint for how we
move in the world
a lot of that is pre-verbal and
therefore it's hard to access even in
therapy because we haven't connected the
centers of the brain for language and
memory
so in therapy there's usually a gap that
people aren't able to access on their
own and oftentimes medicine work is able
to to reveal that just like hypnotherapy
would be able to reveal that whatever
was kind of right behind that veil of
awareness and sometimes that's kind of a
confronting process because we've
potentially
developed these really sophisticated ego
strategies to keep ourselves safe and
whatever was really significantly trauma
inducing at the time maybe we
conveniently wall that off and protected
ourselves against it
so in a loving container in a in a
therapeutic container that's why there's
a difference between working with
medicines in a recreational Space versus
in a clinical space or a therapeutic
space because in a therapeutic space the
intention is to go deep
to be able to look and get curious
to see what's behind the veil versus in
a recreational space it's usually to
uh have that ecstasis experience or that
um that celebration of life and both are
beautiful and important are we going for
celebration of life are we going really
to get under the hood and to see
how maybe yet we have not become whole
with all of our parts
the parts that we would have shamed
gilted
tucked away the things that we don't
want to put on our Instagram
or Facebook kind of you know
front-facing social media page
and when we get to bring all of those
parts back and we get to bring all of
the things that maybe we weren't
comfortable with or proud of or
or
didn't even know we were disconnected
from Once those become more kind of
in in front of our awareness now we can
work with it and see okay what is that
here to teach me how does that hear to
grow me
how does that help me become more of a
full person with with all my
shortcomings and misgivings and can I
learn to appreciate all of it can I
actually learn to love all of myself
that's actually possible and yet in our
culture it's harder than ever
because we have these ideas about what
success is and who we need to be in
order to get the love and adoration that
all of us want so I hear you
describing psychedelics and one word
comes to mind tell me if this is if you
were going to sum up the way that
psychedelics give you a dose of Hope is
it integration I think integration is an
excellent term I think there are other
ways that I might describe that process
of becoming whole
an integrated person is a whole person
and integration
to your point using a very sophisticated
term integration is where
the medicine work becomes real it's
taking the peak experience and making it
like real and and implemented in the
day-to-day to try to put a hypothesis to
what you're saying it sounds like okay
people become fragmented because
something happens young old doesn't
matter but something happens
you create emotional defenses so that
you don't have to deal with that but the
way that we do that is by Walling it off
or closing ourself off from the outside
so I'm going to try I'm thinking out
loud here so bear with me but um I
recently had a breakthrough with my wife
where I realized that I had developed a
tool that was helping me in business
which is that I could completely kill
off emotion and just deal with something
like what are the facts and how do we
get to the desired outcome and she kept
saying I don't have my husband and I
could not make sense of that phrase
because I was so proud of my ability to
do that so I'm like this is amazing this
is giving me everything that I want
except I'm getting this weird signal
from one part of my life but she didn't
have words I could understand
and so finally I was like what could she
possibly mean and what I settled on that
seemed to click into place for her is
that I was no longer when I would go
into that mode I was no longer
broadcasting or receiving love and so I
was like oh word okay now I get what
you're saying like I'm I'm doing
something that's actually really
effective on one front but it becomes a
a Walling off to to compartmentalize my
thinking to make sure that I'm not
confounding the issue of what the
business needs I had learned don't make
this decision based on emotion make it
Based on data really effective but it
put me in a position where she could
just feel me getting harder it's
probably the right way to describe it so
okay I put defenses up that's one way
that we then separate ourselves we
become disintegrated in that way I'm not
integrated with my wife or integrated
with a part of myself that's
broadcasting and receiving love has its
function and by the way I actually think
it's useful to be able to step into that
mode but then there are other ways where
we're blocking ourselves from ourself
where it's like hey I don't know how to
deal with that and so I'm going to put
it in a box I'm going to lock that box
and I'm going to pretend that that
doesn't exist so it might be distraction
it might be drug use whatever but people
find ways to never confront that thing
and it's it's like a little demon in a
box that's been closed but the box is
still moving and uh so
that's disintegration now I honestly
don't know if there's more but listening
to you it feels like
that's the problem you've become
disintegrated in some way
and the the Psychedelic is going to help
you unlock that trunk whether you want
to or not the thing that you need to
deal with is going to pop up
but I want to know what dealing with it
is if it's integration then I understand
meaning I have to in some way integrate
that into my narrative about who I am
and how I move through the world if it
isn't integration or it isn't just
integration then I don't understand yeah
good question so you're kind of wanting
to know what's the value
like what is actually like one of the
questions I wrote down that I wanted to
ask you is when somebody is guiding you
what are they doing what are they what
words are they saying are they like
you're gonna be okay are they like hey
there's it there's a dark presence in
the room right yes go towards it like
what's what does it mean and those
pieces will help me understand
what is the thing that happens to us
that makes psychedelics necessary and
why do psychedelics work so facilitation
is oftentimes about being a guide and
not doing the work for somebody or even
trying to rescue them from the work
so it may not be my or the facilitator's
job to say you're going to be okay
unless that's necessary because the
person is in such fear
that they're having a hard time
regulating their own system in order to
be present to the work that's here
and so if if somebody's standing on a
Ledge it may be time to say
find your breath
let's just slow things down
come back into presence I've got you
this is a safe space
and and can we just get to a place of
Regulation
just bringing it down a little bit and
if that helps to say
it's going to be okay
I know it hurts I know this has got
going into the emergency room with a a
broken arm that didn't heal well you
know it's kind of like a spiral fracture
and it's deformed a bit you're gonna
have to re-break that
it's like I know that's gonna hurt I got
you it's a part of the process
it's not always going to be this way you
know some some words of kindness some
words of Hope
but there's a fine dance there with not
wanting to necessarily rescue the person
from their discomfort
because like one of my teachers said to
me a long time ago rescuing somebody
from their suffering may just be robbing
them of their greatest teacher
because what do they need to learn
it's really is it integration or or is
it something different the truth is
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description alright my friend back to
today's episode I'm hesitant to say it's
all about integration
um
because integration is is more of like
an endpoint
in that moment I think it's more around
truth
and seeing does that mean to you seeing
the larger aspect
because sometimes when we're in trauma
it really Narrows our Focus
like suffering can do that can narrow
the focus it's like being so in the
trees we can't see the forest and when
you say the truth do you mean to be able
to see something from a broader
perspective from a broader perspective
and again this is part of what the
medicine work can do and other practices
too
medicine work is just one tool in the
toolkit it's not a Panacea and as as
mentioned not everybody's ready for
medicine work and part of the Alchemy
too is to understand which medicine to
work with which person
at what stage of their development in
the midst of everything else they're
going through not everybody will respond
equally to a given medicine at a given
dose at a given time so that's part of
the Alchemy
and then to
frame it as a process of self-discovery
and self-awareness
so to be able to have a little bit of a
pause or a little bit of momentary kind
of space from the suffering to be able
to see that larger truth perspective or
that larger wisdom perspective
sometimes it happens immediately
oftentimes it does and sometimes it
happens over time
and it may not necessarily be like the
truth shows up and you know kind of
gives you your life
Dharma path and tells you everything
that hasn't gotten people that don't
know Dharma is that a synonym for fate
um no it's more like your gift purpose
okay like what you hear to offer and
provide the word like the gift that
you've come into
to offer the world that's only your gift
to offer
sometimes it's just about feeling
what hasn't been felt
and it may have a narrative and it may
not it may have a story and it may not
it may just be like
we need to have a cathartic process
engaged
sometimes the body is holding the trauma
in a pre-verbal state
and that maybe that was around
grief and anguish and sadness and loss
or confusion and Annihilation like Mom
and Dad
being
are kind of like pedestals and kind of
you know God figures
perhaps they weren't able to love us in
the most compassionate caring safe way
because they were dealing with their own
things so that that can feel really
confusing or perhaps something happened
and there was a loss and I wasn't able
to not only agree that I wasn't able to
cut you know rage against it rage
against that thing that happened ask all
the questions you know get get messy
with it sometimes it's just about
feeling that process so oftentimes it's
not necessarily an intellectual process
it can be
but in my experience both happen
kind of equally important
because the true the traumas connected
to some kind of energetic
and so if I can understand the truth
around it wonderful
because now I can engage it now I can
learn from it but if I'm if I'm only
going for the truth I'm only going for
the information I try and bypass the
feeling of it
then I might not be moving it through to
a process of resolution
it's like the in the energetic or the
emotionality of it comes up and it's
uncomfortable and I'm like I don't want
to deal with that I just want to get the
truth
then I'm still fighting against that
thing that I walled off in the first
place
it's interesting is there such a thing
as letting go of an emotion or do you
think that we have to embody it to
process it and be done with it I think
it's more of the latter
I think it's it's not if we try and Let
It Go without processing it again it's a
bypass it's like oh I don't want this
thing I just want to let it go let's
process another word for go through it
yeah
be present with what's here
find a way initially that's why part of
the preparation and and kind of like the
building of a Readiness for experience
is to help somebody self-regulate
initially
how do they come back to Center in the
midst of Challenge and and stress
many people don't know how or we're not
really taught that
breath work is really helpful
mindfulness
can be helpful although sometimes
mindfulness is kind of
just uh a title for trying to get
present with what is but if you're
asking somebody who's stuck in trauma to
get present with trauma then you're just
recapitulating the trauma
so it's it's a way okay can we find a
way to help regulate the nervous system
the body in the midst of the psyche
being willing to
get intimate with something that was
highly uncomfortable have you ever had a
brutal time on the Psychedelic yeah for
sure like are we talking starting to
panic kind of brutal time
there were times when I experienced
panic in the midst of medicine what did
you do
breathed just came back was that just to
find something here and now that takes
your mind off of whatever's causing the
Panic no it's it's for me it's a way to
get Center in the midst of it it's like
if I'm hitting you know a big wave
there's so much there can be so much
energy that's starting to get unlocked
there can be so much kind of like a
Reclamation of a lot of energetic input
that I was walled off from that can feel
like
a lot to handle
a lot to be present with and so if I can
if I can in the midst of feeling all of
that energy if I can come back to breath
because that's usually the first thing
that gets cut off when we start to get a
little freaky or a little challenged and
overwhelmed as we cut off our breath
okay so can I come back can I just first
and foremost be aware
that we're starting to redline come back
to breath and then work on deepening the
breath widening the breath slowing it
down the breath conscious breath
practice is the best and most efficient
way to regulate the nervous system and
when you're having a moment like this I
don't know how much you're willing to
share but by all means give us as many
details as you're good with yeah but
like is there a jaguar in the room
that's about to bite you are you
literally reliving a trauma where it's
like both psychologically and physically
I feel like I'm back in that moment yeah
good questions uh all the above's
happened reliving trauma
that I knew and reliving trauma that I
didn't know I didn't know where it was
coming how does it manifest
like if you if it's something pre-verbal
it doesn't come to you in pictures and
you're actually seeing the thing or does
it manifest like
um an archetypal that's not the right
word but it gets us close enough like
something like like it shows up as a
snake but it really just represents evil
yeah
that all can happen
um I haven't had visions of what we
might call like Spirit helpers or some
people would use the term totems and
that could be like a jaguar
condor
uh a bat a raven
the the the evil quote unquote demon
coming at me uh I haven't had those kind
of visions that are overwhelming and
freaky
mine have been more along the lines of
like the trans-personal collective
trauma
and what I mean by that is like I'll
just give you one example and this was
when I was living in the jungle and I
was going through deep dietos and a lot
of a lot of work in isolation with
Ayahuasca because I was on an
apprenticeship path and
and the medicine that I was working with
particularly is is known for kind of
opening up the psychic space and getting
in touch with like the collective
um what Peter Russell might call like
the no sphere or the wet sphere or sorry
Peter Russell would call the the global
brain uh deshardan would describe it as
a no sphere it's like no o sphere yeah
the group Collective mind
um Rupert sheldrick would call a bit
like the morphic field and that all
species have a group field
so like just a bit of a bite
Side Story real quick so Sony and I were
just down in Thailand recently hadn't
been there in a long time had the
opportunity to dive I hadn't dove in
four years or no 20 years 24 years
and so I'm down there with Fish And I'm
watching
you know what I've been hearing more and
more particularly with Rupert
sheldrick's work on morphic field and
morphic resonance the group field and
all these schools of Fisher you know
they're they're turning instantaneously
as a part of a larger kind of group
field mind and so each species has this
group field mind
and then to bring it back to the story
we're talking about
there was an there was a time there was
an experience that I had in the midst of
Ayahuasca uh in the maloka in the kind
of the temple space powerful experience
beautiful
the ceremony came to conclusion I went
back to my tombow or my Hut and I'm
laying in the hammock and usually with
Ayahuasca work for me I'd end up staying
awake till dawn so there's usually like
this 2 A.M to 6 a.m just window of just
silence and meditation which is really
beautiful I love that kind of quiet
space
and I'm in my hammock
and somewhere around three four in the
morning
plus or minus
um I start feeling this this
really heavy intense for lack of a
better term dark black energy
coming up my this surrounding the soles
of my feet
and then gradually working its way all
the way at my body
and over the course of probably four to
five minutes so long enough to get a
little freaky with it like what the hell
hell is this I've never experienced
anything like this before
was like I was slowly being lowered into
just the pit of nasty goo
and then it comes up and kind of like
you know wraps around my head and I'm
just
okay well this is the ride we're about
to go on finding breath and finding just
can I Surrender into this while I'm
still pretty freaked out
and then as it kind of like you know
envelops my face and hits my forehead
I just saw
um
the best as I can describe the
the collective
pain
and
human to Human
suffering that we have imparted on one
another
so genocide rape torture child torture
child molestation
just that
butchering is just
all in my Visionary space just like
right here not only see if I could feel
it
super overwhelming
because I'm thinking like and that went
on until dawn
so for like I don't know
90 minutes two hours or something felt
like a lifetime
and then when Dawn came just
slowly washed away
and so in that moment I'm thinking like
is this my stuff I've never even seen
this stuff or thought about this stuff
where's this coming from
and
in that moment
and those moments over that you know the
course of that time I find myself
holding my breath and can I come back to
my breath and can I be present and as
much as I try and wall that away it's
just here it's like it's like my eyelids
were you know glued open and I'm just
watching the screen of Butchery
and I didn't know what to make of that
so you're actually seeing images of all
this horrendous stuff yeah and I don't
know what to make of that
and
the next ceremony wasn't for two more
days
and so I'm just like for two days just
thinking like what the heck was that
I'm not sure I want to go back to
ceremony if that's going to happen again
um but I was committed to a d at the
this process of an isolation where you
were working with one primary teacher
plant
and next ceremony comes and okay let's
see what is here I mean with trepidation
let's see what's here and so same
process go in a ceremony in the maloka
ayahuasca ceremony concludes nothing
major happening ceremony go back to my
Hut in my tombow in my hammock
and around the same time probably 3 A.M
same process happens but this time the
feeling tone is totally different
starts with the soles of my feet works
all the way at my body comes back around
my head hits me in the forehead but the
feeling tone is light
it's effervescent
it's like
feathers and butterflies and joy and
and when it hits my forehead the
Visionary space opens up and it was the
complete compliment
it was like Jesus ministry
it was like watching healing and Grace
sunsets new Dawns child being birthed
into the world angels singing it was
like the whole compliment and it was
just so radically
kind of confusing but also exhilarating
and and curious making
and then about the same time
at dawn it kind of resolves
so both of those just two days apart
were like the complementary experience
of what we have
the opportunity to be a part of because
we have free will Choice how am I going
to use this one precious life where do I
devote my energy how do I want to
experience my life and how do I want to
engage with with the rest of my brothers
and sisters all having their own shared
experience of living
and so we we're capable of all of it
Hitler on one side Jesus on the other
and you could you know there's there's a
Litany of names on both of those sides
and so I just offer that because we
don't necessarily know what's going to
happen in the medicine space and I was
deep in Iowa work
and and that was after a couple of
hundred ceremonies
and so I offered that that's not going
to be
you know if it took a thousand people
through a medicine space I doubt
anything like that would happen except
to maybe one or two
for whatever reason we don't ever know
what's going to happen in the medicine
space but
if we can Avail ourselves to recognize
that we are the complementary totality
of human potential on both sides of the
equation
then when we go through that process the
Veil
gets like like in The Wizard of Oz the
curtain comes back and you see the
wizard or you see that thing or whatever
those things were from the subconscious
that are here for us
that are here to support our Evolution
because that's why we come into a body
is to evolve our understanding about
ourselves and our understanding about
life
all of it's here to support that
Evolution and sometimes it's really
uncomfortable
and sometimes it's really intense but
whatever you went through there is a way
through
and that's the facilitation and the
facilitator's jobs to be able to hold
that container and sometimes that means
intervening if somebody's standing on
the ledge and they really need a
lifeline
great I can be there
or you know the facilitator can be there
it's kind of like the facilitator's job
is
one of my teachers would say the
facilitator's job is to be the waiter
you know just serving the main course
and saying like you know do you need
anything else with that do you need some
extra ketchup or water or a new napkin
um or sometimes it's being a sherpa and
helping the person up the mountain and
if you have a load that's really hard to
carry then I'll carry that load for you
for a little while but I'm not here to
do your work for you or save you from
what your work is my my job is to try
and create as much safety in the
container
so that the person can be present with
whatever comes up
and then through that kind of process of
self-discovery if we can stay with it
for long enough and the maps trials are
also three sessions so it's not like one
session is a one and done for people
that don't know what's Maps
multi-disciplinary Association for
psychedelic studies
Rick doblin founder of that organization
non-profits they've been around for 35
years maybe 40 years principally
promoting
the legalization of mdma's supported
psychotherapy
and their success rate is phenomenal
MDMA Psychotherapy for PTSD
post-traumatic stress disorder like
veterans coming off of the battlefield
and still re-experiencing it or anybody
going through a really intense process
my sister had PTSD
and so many people do have PTSD that's
why there is hope you know we're working
as best we can towards legalization as
rapidly as we can because people are
still dying
knowing that this therapeutic is
available which is still a travesty
that's taking so long but it's it's in
motion
and sort of just bring it back to that
one example I mentioned that the maps
studies are for multiple sessions not
just a one and done so we don't expect
that
just one session is gonna like fix
everything or it's even just going to
give the person enough space so that
they can go on with their life usually
it happens that way usually the first
sessions is enough to kind of like back
off the ledge if somebody's on the ledge
and then it's a process and so we see
what's revealed each time
honor that
work through it consolidate it integrate
it to your point in your word integrate
it integrate our understanding around it
but the maps trials too it's not just
MDMA therap it's not just MDMA in
isolation it's MDMA therapy
it's with a psychotherapist it's with a
guide a facilitator
and
the when we have a foundation of trust
and connection
when we have the understanding and
appreciation that we're gonna we're
gonna look under the hood we're going to
do our best to bring all of our parts
home
we're going to honor whatever comes into
the space and we're going to work
through it
when when all of that is kind of set as
the foundation along with
self-regulation
safety kind of a Cadence of the the
process so a person kind of knows what
to expect
then the medicine work is just to
catalyze and kind of like accentuate the
therapeutic relationship in the
therapeutic process medicines are just
catalysts so they stimulate the process
to be a bit more efficient and a bit
more effective but the medicine doesn't
do anything
by itself to quote unquote fix the
situation I think they they help to
clarify the truth of if it's trauma or
whatever that kind of uncomfortable
thing was or is or how it's still
working in our lives or whatever we've
been disconnected from like catalyze
that currency it's a term that I use
kind of like with this work is we get
current with a lot of the stuff that's
been unresolved in the back
in the back of our own minds and the
subconscious
bring that forward
work through a process of
discovery and then towards healing and
then towards integration I need to begin
categorizing this stuff so I can
understand it better now you quoted
somebody I forget their name I have a
feeling you'll remember this is a
paraphrase but we need experiential
spirituality not intellectual religion
nice yeah so it's uh I understand that
I'm sort of dragging you into
intellectual religion territory but it
will really help me to to understand
sort of what is breaking and what we're
trying to fix so I I am very curious so
you refer to it as a plant teacher
but my view on it is that the plants
basically have come up with a mechanism
they can't run so they've come up with a
mechanism to effectively poison the
things that try to eat it as basically
as a way of saying [ __ ] off
um
do you think that that's happening and
we just re-contextualize and go out you
might be trying to tell me to get lost
but there's actually something really
useful here or
is there really something where you
think it has a specific and message yeah
much better way of saying a specific
intention
intention and intelligence
and an intelligence that might be in
service to an intention
so Stan Groff was the one who offered
that kind of wisdom um it's important to
not only have an intellectual religion
I think it's helpful to have an
intellectual religion like to understand
like Buddhism is not necessarily a
religion it's more of a spiritual
practice but it's very much about
understanding the intellect and the
nature of life and suffering and how we
work through a process of self-discovery
with our minds to be able to come into
state of
peace joy and happiness so there's an
intellectual understanding of religious
context that can be helpful but we also
have to have an experiential
spirituality
an experience of spirit experience of
some kind of divinity some kind of
connection with the source of Life
otherwise what's it all for why are we
here
and why would we have an inclination
towards
Divinity if Divinity didn't exist
oh well let's get into that because I
have a potential answer for you okay
great so let me let me pause because I
want to come back to the second part of
your last question yep
so if I'm talking about plants I think
it's helpful to distinguish between
natural medicines and synthetic
medicines
natural medicines
psilocybin
cannabis
Ayahuasca peyote San Pedro
five Meo DMT from the Cerner and
desotoad Ebola
and synthetics ketamine MDMA LSD
and in a variety of different analogs
similar to each of those
natural medicines have evolved with an
intelligence
with some kind of earth-based wisdom
like the book
um The Secret Life of trees
the things that we wouldn't necessarily
see because of the way our nervous
systems work and the speed of our
nervous systems
we might not necessarily see the
communication between plants but it
happens or other species
and there's an earth-based intelligence
that's built around
[Music]
what we might and I think there's a
Buddhist term but Joanna Macy kind of
coined this and she was one of the like
mothers of ecotherapy
is this dependent code Rising like
everything evolves in Synergy and
complementarity to one another
over thousands and millions of years
we've evolved with this complementarity
all life is important because it's
evolved as such
and as such the natural medicines have
this earth-based intelligence kind of
programmed into them just by the nature
of being earth-based
that is an imparted intelligence that
can become imbued in the medicine state
not always but frequently so if you have
somebody going through Ayahuasca process
or a psilocybin process or cannabis
process oftentimes there's an experience
in working with those medicines of a
reconnection with nature
and an appreciation where we have a
really important role on this floating
water rock that we all call home to kind
of Steward it in a good way we're the
most creative creatures
with this vast intelligence sometimes we
use it well and sometimes we don't we
constantly make a lot of decisions
against our own Survival so I don't know
if that necessarily makes us the
smartest one but we're certainly the
most creative
and we have these sophisticated levels
of
resiliency that we can co-create in the
midst of challenge new experiences and
new Solutions just like these amazing
problem-solving machines
nature is too but we have this like
special kind of
knack for it
so the natural medicines can imbue that
with our reconnection with earth-based
intelligence
the synthetics don't
tend to do that as frequently they can
because it's important for us to
remember our correlationality
the fact that each of us is sharing this
one life just from different lenses and
experiences
but because of causes and conditions
and and kind of how like how we came in
with our own Persona and and character
there's never going to be another time
Bill you there would never be another
Dan Engel before or to come I mean
there's a radical level of uniqueness
it's helpful to recognize that so that
we can have a shared
um appreciation
and ideally reverence and
respect and responsibility the
generations to come so that this whole
thing continues to propagate because if
it's just about us in this one life then
why keep it going
and so the synthetic medicines the ones
that I mentioned they can oftentimes
imbue that more like downward Focus
um but it's not built in as as directly
as the natural medicine so if I'm
talking about a plant medicine
it's also helpful to recognize that if
we're talking about medicine work in
general
it might be more
um accurate to just talk about it from
my perspective about medicine work in
general versus just plant medicine
because the synthetics have very strong
therapeutic
potential as well they tend to be more
kind of what would be described as like
constructionable or directionable
um because they don't have that kind of
like earth-based intelligence built in I
can construct or kind of preempt
an idea about what's going to happen and
oftentimes it does happen this is
oftentimes seen in the LSD trials
meaning that you can control the trip
more no it's more like if somebody is
going through an LSD session and they
think it's going to be a hard session
oftentimes it's a hard session
if they think it's going to be a light
session they're going to go meet God
then oftentimes that kind of like
expectancy is revealed and that won't
work with Ayahuasca or something like
that it can but it typically doesn't
like what I uh particularly
um if you were in a thousand ceremonies
and you made an attention every single
time what was what you thought was going
to happen might happen a handful of
times just like trying to predict a
dream so what's the intention going back
to the idea if it's a plant teacher uh
that there is intentionality to it what
is the intention I think it's don't eat
me you think it's
you think it's don't eat meat eat me I
think plants are trying to it's
interesting so as I was researching you
I thought okay every species has has to
choose on an evolutionary time scale but
they have to choose what path am I going
to take right so your typical animal is
going to be mostly
um
it's imprinted in their DNA so they're
going to do things by Instinct and one
horse is going to be like another horse
is going to be like another horse so you
come out 20 minutes later you can do all
the things that a horse is going to do
humans on the other hand ride on the
back of culture so
um depending on when and where you're
born you're going to be able to adapt
that so Steve Jobs in the modern era
makes the Iphone Steve Jobs 2000 years
ago would not obviously have been
dreaming in Vain about the iPhone would
have been something completely different
um
so I was thinking okay are the plants as
a strategy are they saying oh I'm going
to make a toxin so that people will
leave me alone or like so is wheat the
most successful plant of all time has
wheat actually domesticated US versus US
domesticating wheat there's actually a
really interesting argument to be made
that wheat domesticated us since it's
now the most prolific plant on Earth and
we have built our houses in a way that
we can take care of it and raise it well
and get it everything that it needs work
around the clock on its schedule it's
pretty crazy so
was that wheat's evolutionary strategy
was to hook humans not knowingly but
just as an evolutionary strategy and
then is it that psychedelics are like
hey I'll become meaningful to you uh and
maybe in the beginning it started out as
a poison but over time it became oh wow
like people are really protecting I've
actually heard you talk about we have to
be careful not to let these plants get
diminished so that they're no longer in
their natural habitat and all that and
so I thought oh my God like they've
convinced you to take care of it so it's
like was that the evolutionary strategy
which were then and again I believe in
the blind watchmaker where it's not like
the plants like oh let me think about
the best way to manipulate a human it's
just that's that ends up being the thing
that works and that's why people grow it
and cultivate it and all that stuff but
that's the angle I come at it from do
you come at it from that the plant has a
knowing intention like it's a plant
conscious with a knowing intention or is
it just sort of blind watchmaker I
believe
at work yeah good question I think it's
probably somewhere in the middle they
have Consciousness but it's different
Consciousness than we have so it's hard
to
transpose our direct awareness into that
um field
but that field is present
so plants will also Orient to survival
do they get bummed out when things don't
go their way
um it's a level of consciousness
right so rocks we can make the argument
rocks are sentient they there's an
there's an intelligence like most of our
computer chips are made of quartz
there's an intelligence that's going to
be imbued
plants have intelligence
animals have intelligence humans have
intelligence
do dogs get bummed out when their
masters don't come home or die yep
different level of sadness or maybe an
expression of sadness then a human might
but still sad
do plants have that same level of
connection
to the humans
good question
I do believe there is a relationality
to all species on the planet because
we've all co-arised together
I do think to your point that there are
defense mechanisms because we're all
built for survival
but we're also oriented towards growth
and evolution
it's the thing that keeps this whole
living ecosystem propagating and moving
forward because we do evolve over time
and we have these primary needs at times
that can be a little
um
disparate or going in different
directions our need for safety and
survival and our need for growth and
evolution
and I think all ecosystems share that
same base binary
differential and kind of uh inclination
and so if we bring it back to medicine
work that's oftentimes a framing
that's helpful
like whatever comes into the space that
feels really freaking scary and maybe we
want to hold that down because of
survival
maybe that's actually part of our growth
and our evolution
is to get current with that is to bring
that close and to learn from it and grow
through it
so as to become more mature more whole
and ultimately more in service to a
shared ecosystem
do you think there's a universal meaning
to life
well that's a good question
I like the nature of your questions
um I do believe we're here to learn and
grow
so that's the purpose
I think that's the ultimate purpose and
was that put into motion by a deity
including having the like if we're just
talking about from the human perspective
if we're here to have a human experience
I do believe that growth and evolution
is our primary drive because everything
in the universe evolves consistently
what do you mean by it it evolves
everything is is in the process of like
in a darwinian evolutionary sense
I wouldn't use just that kind of like
singular conception I think there's
truth there but I don't think that's the
whole truth
now if if we're going to look at it from
a transpersonal lens
then we might get into the conversation
of soul
yeah I don't want to get too lost but
I'm trying to understand what your
organizing principle is so I can sum up
my organizing principle in a single word
physics now I don't know what put the
physics in motion I'm perfectly happy
for it to have been a what would seem
like to me a completely disinterested
deity but isn't that curious to you
isn't what curious what put this whole
thing in motion it's the most
interestin