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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,365 2 00:00:07,365 --> 00:00:10,311 [MUSIC PLAYING] 3 00:00:10,311 --> 00:00:19,660 4 00:00:19,660 --> 00:00:25,650 >> The mind, it's our link to consciousness, our thoughts, 5 00:00:25,650 --> 00:00:29,530 and as a byproduct, the expression of our soul-- 6 00:00:29,530 --> 00:00:34,050 that free and unfettered aspect of being human that no one else 7 00:00:34,050 --> 00:00:36,420 has jurisdiction over. 8 00:00:36,420 --> 00:00:40,410 But as easily as the mind expresses the depths within, 9 00:00:40,410 --> 00:00:44,190 it remains easily lured into a false reality where thoughts 10 00:00:44,190 --> 00:00:46,950 become the object of attention, and the source 11 00:00:46,950 --> 00:00:48,620 becomes forgotten. 12 00:00:48,620 --> 00:00:52,170 It is here where some scientists and philosophers believe 13 00:00:52,170 --> 00:00:55,650 we have lost the true reality and, in turn, 14 00:00:55,650 --> 00:00:58,590 become products of our environment and culture. 15 00:00:58,590 --> 00:01:01,320 And it wasn't until scientific study partnered 16 00:01:01,320 --> 00:01:03,720 with ancient rituals that they discovered 17 00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:06,750 that there might be a way to reconnect the soul and the mind 18 00:01:06,750 --> 00:01:09,050 more quickly and intimately. 19 00:01:09,050 --> 00:01:11,490 But are these just escapist tools? 20 00:01:11,490 --> 00:01:14,400 Or could they actually be a cure for the common human issue 21 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:16,230 on this planet-- 22 00:01:16,230 --> 00:01:17,084 the sleeping mind? 23 00:01:17,084 --> 00:01:19,500 >> I don't know which half is trying to get into the other 24 00:01:19,500 --> 00:01:20,300 half. 25 00:01:20,300 --> 00:01:24,080 But somehow or other, I seem to be going like that. 26 00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:28,698 >> Certainly you notice that there aren't these separations, 27 00:01:28,698 --> 00:01:31,954 that we are not on a separate island shouting across 28 00:01:31,954 --> 00:01:34,623 to somebody else and trying to hear what they're saying 29 00:01:34,623 --> 00:01:35,893 and misunderstanding them. 30 00:01:35,893 --> 00:01:37,820 Well, I mean that there are the colors 31 00:01:37,820 --> 00:01:41,280 and the beauties-- the designs, the beautiful way 32 00:01:41,280 --> 00:01:42,530 things appear. 33 00:01:42,530 --> 00:01:43,910 [STATIC] 34 00:01:43,910 --> 00:01:46,400 >> When it comes to drugs, please-- 35 00:01:46,400 --> 00:01:48,530 for yourselves, for your families, 36 00:01:48,530 --> 00:01:50,900 for your future and your country-- 37 00:01:50,900 --> 00:01:53,484 just say no. 38 00:01:53,484 --> 00:01:56,376 [APPLAUSE] 39 00:01:56,376 --> 00:01:57,830 40 00:01:57,830 --> 00:02:00,830 >> But what are these substances that have such a negative 41 00:02:00,830 --> 00:02:04,280 social view, and how did they come into the limelight? 42 00:02:04,280 --> 00:02:07,850 One specific drug that captured the hearts and minds 43 00:02:07,850 --> 00:02:10,250 of scientists and young adults started 44 00:02:10,250 --> 00:02:14,880 a particular investigation of the inner workings of the mind. 45 00:02:14,880 --> 00:02:19,880 As World War II was ending, Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman 46 00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:22,190 was investigating a migraine medicine 47 00:02:22,190 --> 00:02:25,940 and pulled an old vial off his shelf of LSD 25. 48 00:02:25,940 --> 00:02:29,450 His accidental dosage opened his eyes to a new experience 49 00:02:29,450 --> 00:02:31,370 that he wanted to share with the world, 50 00:02:31,370 --> 00:02:33,530 as he believed that this substance elicited 51 00:02:33,530 --> 00:02:36,500 a form of psychic loosening or opening. 52 00:02:36,500 --> 00:02:39,230 Czech psychiatrist Stanislav Grof 53 00:02:39,230 --> 00:02:42,230 believed that the psychic opening allowed experiences 54 00:02:42,230 --> 00:02:44,840 to resurface that go all the way back to birth 55 00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:46,730 and even pre-birth trauma. 56 00:02:46,730 --> 00:02:50,270 So he was willingly among the first to experiment with LSD 57 00:02:50,270 --> 00:02:52,760 to investigate what it does to the mind. 58 00:02:52,760 --> 00:02:55,460 >> Then I met Robert Hoffman quite a few times. 59 00:02:55,460 --> 00:02:56,530 He loved nature. 60 00:02:56,530 --> 00:03:01,790 He was taking small dosages of LSD in his garden 61 00:03:01,790 --> 00:03:03,870 until his death. 62 00:03:03,870 --> 00:03:10,100 And he said, I see the hand of God there. 63 00:03:10,100 --> 00:03:12,135 And if anybody thinks that the atoms can do it 64 00:03:12,135 --> 00:03:13,760 all by themselves, they just don't know 65 00:03:13,760 --> 00:03:15,530 what they are talking about. 66 00:03:15,530 --> 00:03:19,560 I was trained in Czechoslovakia when we had a Marxist regime. 67 00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:22,940 So I got the purest mentalistic doctrine you can imagine. 68 00:03:22,940 --> 00:03:26,270 And it was clear for me during graduation that, you know, 69 00:03:26,270 --> 00:03:29,320 the consciousness is the product of the neurophysiological 70 00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:30,470 processes in the brain. 71 00:03:30,470 --> 00:03:32,576 And when the body goes, the brain goes, 72 00:03:32,576 --> 00:03:33,950 and there goes the consciousness. 73 00:03:33,950 --> 00:03:36,150 And it was as simple as that. 74 00:03:36,150 --> 00:03:37,670 Now, I see it very differently. 75 00:03:37,670 --> 00:03:42,200 I realize we have absolutely no proof that consciousness 76 00:03:42,200 --> 00:03:44,850 is generated in the brain. 77 00:03:44,850 --> 00:03:47,720 Very few people realize this, including scientists. 78 00:03:47,720 --> 00:03:50,750 So those are tremendous contributions 79 00:03:50,750 --> 00:03:53,600 that psychedelics can bring. 80 00:03:53,600 --> 00:03:56,480 >> But the psychedelic experience wasn't something new 81 00:03:56,480 --> 00:03:58,310 when LSD hit the scene. 82 00:03:58,310 --> 00:04:00,770 Since the late 1800s, experiments 83 00:04:00,770 --> 00:04:03,380 were already being conducted on the psychedelic plants 84 00:04:03,380 --> 00:04:06,050 containing mescaline and psilocybin. 85 00:04:06,050 --> 00:04:09,200 Mescaline comes from the peyote and Wachuma cactus 86 00:04:09,200 --> 00:04:12,150 and is used in many Native American rituals. 87 00:04:12,150 --> 00:04:14,660 The Huichol mothers of Jalisco, Mexico 88 00:04:14,660 --> 00:04:16,970 would introduce peyote through breast milk 89 00:04:16,970 --> 00:04:20,209 and by chewing off bits and feeding them to their children. 90 00:04:20,209 --> 00:04:24,410 Even the Spanish chronicler Fray Bernardino de Sahagun reports 91 00:04:24,410 --> 00:04:27,140 that among the Chichimeca and Toltec peyote 92 00:04:27,140 --> 00:04:29,300 was being used at least 2,000 years 93 00:04:29,300 --> 00:04:31,970 before the European explorers arrived. 94 00:04:31,970 --> 00:04:34,130 Archaeological artifacts were found 95 00:04:34,130 --> 00:04:37,550 in a cave near the lower Pecos River region in Texas 96 00:04:37,550 --> 00:04:41,360 dating back to 3700 BC. 97 00:04:41,360 --> 00:04:44,200 In South America, in prehistory, the Chavin 98 00:04:44,200 --> 00:04:47,480 were using the Wachuma cactus in their own religious ceremonies. 99 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:50,170 100 00:04:50,170 --> 00:04:52,850 Wachuma has many different psychoactive compounds 101 00:04:52,850 --> 00:04:54,830 than peyote. 102 00:04:54,830 --> 00:04:59,490 So the experience is said to be slightly different. 103 00:04:59,490 --> 00:05:02,260 But the sacramental use of each were both used 104 00:05:02,260 --> 00:05:03,385 to connect with the Divine. 105 00:05:03,385 --> 00:05:06,380 106 00:05:06,380 --> 00:05:10,190 These cacti species are native to the Americas. 107 00:05:10,190 --> 00:05:12,440 Psilocybin is from a class of mushrooms 108 00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:15,770 and used by indigenous from nearly every continent. 109 00:05:15,770 --> 00:05:18,950 In Central and North America, we see mushroom imagery 110 00:05:18,950 --> 00:05:22,250 in many indigenous artifacts, such as the mushroom stones 111 00:05:22,250 --> 00:05:24,350 found in Highland Guatemala, which 112 00:05:24,350 --> 00:05:27,350 were used to grind mushrooms before their use. 113 00:05:27,350 --> 00:05:30,380 Some images refer to the Amanita muscaria mushroom, 114 00:05:30,380 --> 00:05:32,360 which isn't a classical psychedelic-- 115 00:05:32,360 --> 00:05:35,330 as it works on different neurotransmitter pathways-- 116 00:05:35,330 --> 00:05:37,470 but still is a psychoactive. 117 00:05:37,470 --> 00:05:40,700 The Olmec, Toltec, and Aztec imagery 118 00:05:40,700 --> 00:05:44,030 shows that the Americas once had a rich history of mushroom 119 00:05:44,030 --> 00:05:47,510 appreciation before the European settlers and missionaries 120 00:05:47,510 --> 00:05:49,070 resisted their use. 121 00:05:49,070 --> 00:05:51,740 Imagery in Siberia among the Chukotka 122 00:05:51,740 --> 00:05:53,630 appears in rock carvings. 123 00:05:53,630 --> 00:05:56,540 In Hindu imagery-- such as Lakshmi holding what 124 00:05:56,540 --> 00:05:59,900 appears to be mushrooms-- some have debated these images 125 00:05:59,900 --> 00:06:02,510 as misidentified everyday objects. 126 00:06:02,510 --> 00:06:05,540 But believers of the deep psychedelic and shamanic roots 127 00:06:05,540 --> 00:06:08,330 of almost every ancient culture and religion 128 00:06:08,330 --> 00:06:11,420 say that you'll even find references in the Bible. 129 00:06:11,420 --> 00:06:15,350 The King James Version of Exodus 16:14 130 00:06:15,350 --> 00:06:17,390 gives a description of manna that 131 00:06:17,390 --> 00:06:21,000 seems very similar to mushrooms in shape and location 132 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:23,450 and even the time of day that they appear. 133 00:06:23,450 --> 00:06:25,310 Even a modern look at the witch hunts 134 00:06:25,310 --> 00:06:27,710 and trials shows a deep appreciation 135 00:06:27,710 --> 00:06:30,410 for psychedelic and psychoactive plants 136 00:06:30,410 --> 00:06:33,260 that account for their tales of flying on broomsticks 137 00:06:33,260 --> 00:06:36,050 and shapeshifting into animals. 138 00:06:36,050 --> 00:06:39,350 There are too many to deny that psychedelic mushroom and cactus 139 00:06:39,350 --> 00:06:42,260 use were integral to many cultures worldwide. 140 00:06:42,260 --> 00:06:45,320 141 00:06:45,320 --> 00:06:48,920 Whatever the conquistadors of the New World were so afraid of 142 00:06:48,920 --> 00:06:51,590 seems to still be present as we fast forward 143 00:06:51,590 --> 00:06:53,900 to the end of the 1960s. 144 00:06:53,900 --> 00:06:57,230 The revival of psychedelic appreciation among young adults 145 00:06:57,230 --> 00:06:59,570 began affecting the national narrative, 146 00:06:59,570 --> 00:07:01,580 and anti-drug propaganda was beginning 147 00:07:01,580 --> 00:07:03,620 to lose its effectiveness. 148 00:07:03,620 --> 00:07:06,710 How would the world deal with this new problem-- 149 00:07:06,710 --> 00:07:08,660 people attempting to dissolve the reality 150 00:07:08,660 --> 00:07:11,060 constructs of culture? 151 00:07:11,060 --> 00:07:14,210 What would this mean for the rest of society? 152 00:07:14,210 --> 00:07:20,870 >> Psychedelics are the antidote to propaganda in some ways. 153 00:07:20,870 --> 00:07:24,980 They help you develop a mindset that sees through all that. 154 00:07:24,980 --> 00:07:29,780 That's the real reason they're considered dangerous, you know. 155 00:07:29,780 --> 00:07:34,610 As Terence said, psychedelics make you have funny ideas. 156 00:07:34,610 --> 00:07:38,890 But funny ideas are dangerous ideas, you know. 157 00:07:38,890 --> 00:07:40,810 So that's the reason psychedelics 158 00:07:40,810 --> 00:07:43,750 are prohibited, because they encourage 159 00:07:43,750 --> 00:07:46,880 you to think for yourself. 160 00:07:46,880 --> 00:07:49,550 >> You know, so the nation states act as though it's kind 161 00:07:49,550 --> 00:07:51,650 of normal to have wars. 162 00:07:51,650 --> 00:07:55,130 You know, go drop bombs on people, send in the troops-- 163 00:07:55,130 --> 00:07:56,550 it's kind of a normal thing to do. 164 00:07:56,550 --> 00:07:58,580 It's not a normal thing to do at all. 165 00:07:58,580 --> 00:08:01,550 It's a completely abnormal, aberrant, psychopathic thing 166 00:08:01,550 --> 00:08:02,727 to do. 167 00:08:02,727 --> 00:08:05,060 We shouldn't be going out there and killing other people 168 00:08:05,060 --> 00:08:07,460 for some sort of weird national goal. 169 00:08:07,460 --> 00:08:10,390 It's a terrible, terrible mistake that we're making. 170 00:08:10,390 --> 00:08:14,960 And now, the toys of war have become so big and so huge 171 00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:17,630 that they actually pose a threat to the whole future of-- 172 00:08:17,630 --> 00:08:19,970 to the whole future of humanity. 173 00:08:19,970 --> 00:08:22,670 >> The power of psychedelic plants for perceiving higher 174 00:08:22,670 --> 00:08:25,760 patterns and seeing through rhetoric led to a desperate 175 00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:28,970 reaction by superpowers, shutting down the collective 176 00:08:28,970 --> 00:08:32,570 memory of traditional indigenous practices and cutting off 177 00:08:32,570 --> 00:08:34,419 the public from legal use. 178 00:08:34,419 --> 00:08:36,440 Quickly, independent chemists were 179 00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:38,570 making slightly altered compounds which 180 00:08:38,570 --> 00:08:40,370 were technically not illegal. 181 00:08:40,370 --> 00:08:42,559 To combat this backdoor approach, 182 00:08:42,559 --> 00:08:45,350 the Analogue Act was passed, and the DEA 183 00:08:45,350 --> 00:08:48,110 was granted emergency scheduling power in which they 184 00:08:48,110 --> 00:08:50,370 could declare any substance illegal 185 00:08:50,370 --> 00:08:52,280 and may take up to a year to decide 186 00:08:52,280 --> 00:08:54,830 what schedule to class it as. 187 00:08:54,830 --> 00:08:57,530 Psychedelic plants and synthesized versions 188 00:08:57,530 --> 00:09:00,410 were put into Schedule I. This category proclaims 189 00:09:00,410 --> 00:09:02,000 the substance is highly addictive 190 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:04,670 and has no medicinal value. 191 00:09:04,670 --> 00:09:08,600 Was there any evidence for this claim, or was it a fear move? 192 00:09:08,600 --> 00:09:11,360 >> The classic psychedelics have been used for millennia really, 193 00:09:11,360 --> 00:09:14,630 if you think of mushrooms and peyote-- 194 00:09:14,630 --> 00:09:16,220 no evidence of toxicity. 195 00:09:16,220 --> 00:09:19,550 If you took heroic doses, I suppose you'd 196 00:09:19,550 --> 00:09:20,780 see increased blood pressure. 197 00:09:20,780 --> 00:09:22,790 But in the normal doses in the studies, 198 00:09:22,790 --> 00:09:24,410 you really don't see that happening. 199 00:09:24,410 --> 00:09:27,410 >> There is no craving to take them. 200 00:09:27,410 --> 00:09:30,546 As a matter of fact, they're anti-addictive, 201 00:09:30,546 --> 00:09:32,750 you know, in the sense that you often 202 00:09:32,750 --> 00:09:36,080 have to kind of screw your courage up to take them. 203 00:09:36,080 --> 00:09:39,290 >> The addictive qualities of psychedelics are non-existent. 204 00:09:39,290 --> 00:09:41,660 In fact, many of the psychedelic plants 205 00:09:41,660 --> 00:09:44,810 are used to quit highly addictive drugs like opiates. 206 00:09:44,810 --> 00:09:48,320 Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson reportedly 207 00:09:48,320 --> 00:09:51,320 used LSD to quit drinking in the 1950s 208 00:09:51,320 --> 00:09:54,500 at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles. 209 00:09:54,500 --> 00:09:58,190 >> Classic psychedelics-- like psilocybin, LSD, mescaline-- 210 00:09:58,190 --> 00:09:59,900 they're not addictive. 211 00:09:59,900 --> 00:10:01,700 Because they don't activate-- actually, 212 00:10:01,700 --> 00:10:05,360 the reward pathways in the brain involve dopamine. 213 00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:09,080 >> Psychedelic plants mimic the neurotransmitter serotonin, 214 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:12,110 and tolerance builds quickly at these receptor sites. 215 00:10:12,110 --> 00:10:14,690 Even those plants that don't build tolerance still 216 00:10:14,690 --> 00:10:16,640 eliminate themselves quickly and leave 217 00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:19,820 behind virtually no toxicity. 218 00:10:19,820 --> 00:10:22,610 They're also being shown to treat addiction rather than add 219 00:10:22,610 --> 00:10:23,786 to them. 220 00:10:23,786 --> 00:10:25,160 There are so many benefits coming 221 00:10:25,160 --> 00:10:27,350 to light from these substances that groups 222 00:10:27,350 --> 00:10:31,070 such as MAPS, Heffter, Beckley, and many others 223 00:10:31,070 --> 00:10:33,980 are organizing a science-based campaign to reverse 224 00:10:33,980 --> 00:10:34,970 the prohibition. 225 00:10:34,970 --> 00:10:36,920 Because the evidence is clear-- 226 00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:39,710 they are not addictive, and they have remarkable medicinal 227 00:10:39,710 --> 00:10:41,690 and therapeutic value. 228 00:10:41,690 --> 00:10:43,610 So the question remains-- 229 00:10:43,610 --> 00:10:47,570 why are highly addictive and toxic substances in Schedule II 230 00:10:47,570 --> 00:10:51,440 with widespread medicinal use, while these age-old plants-- 231 00:10:51,440 --> 00:10:53,660 with a safe and ceremonial history 232 00:10:53,660 --> 00:10:56,510 going back many thousands of years and no evidence 233 00:10:56,510 --> 00:10:58,580 to prove physiological harm-- 234 00:10:58,580 --> 00:11:00,740 are in Schedule I lockdown? 235 00:11:00,740 --> 00:11:04,640 Is it a war on drugs or a war on the mind? 236 00:11:04,640 --> 00:11:06,350 Why haven't the institutions that 237 00:11:06,350 --> 00:11:08,420 make these suggestions turned back 238 00:11:08,420 --> 00:11:11,510 to the original use of psychedelics, a return 239 00:11:11,510 --> 00:11:13,520 to Mother Earth for answers? 240 00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:15,980 >> The position that modern societies have taken 241 00:11:15,980 --> 00:11:18,320 on psychedelics-- we've demonized these substances. 242 00:11:18,320 --> 00:11:19,880 We've made them illegal. 243 00:11:19,880 --> 00:11:21,740 We've subjected people to harsh prison 244 00:11:21,740 --> 00:11:25,400 sentences if they are found and in possession of psychedelics. 245 00:11:25,400 --> 00:11:28,340 This is a terrible error that is being 246 00:11:28,340 --> 00:11:29,900 made in modern Western society. 247 00:11:29,900 --> 00:11:33,930 We are losing contact with our fundamental roots 248 00:11:33,930 --> 00:11:35,420 by doing that. 249 00:11:35,420 --> 00:11:40,360 >> Indigenous people have been their stewards. 250 00:11:40,360 --> 00:11:41,810 They've preserved the plants. 251 00:11:41,810 --> 00:11:44,850 They've preserved the practices in a certain way. 252 00:11:44,850 --> 00:11:47,830 But now all of a sudden psychedelics are going global, 253 00:11:47,830 --> 00:11:48,630 you know. 254 00:11:48,630 --> 00:11:52,910 And you get a phenomenon where ayahuasca is like taking 255 00:11:52,910 --> 00:11:54,640 over the world, you know. 256 00:11:54,640 --> 00:12:01,160 And a few years ago, mushrooms did something very similar. 257 00:12:01,160 --> 00:12:04,610 >> With all psychedelic plants, the traditional shamanic use 258 00:12:04,610 --> 00:12:08,461 of them nearly always includes a community and ritual setting. 259 00:12:08,461 --> 00:12:10,620 [SINGING] 260 00:12:10,620 --> 00:12:17,430 >> Shamanism is essentially a living tradition of alchemy 261 00:12:17,430 --> 00:12:24,760 that is not seeking the stone but has found the stone. 262 00:12:24,760 --> 00:12:28,977 >> A ritual simply means an arrangement of the certain 263 00:12:28,977 --> 00:12:31,740 setting for certain intentions. 264 00:12:31,740 --> 00:12:33,390 This would also be true, for example, 265 00:12:33,390 --> 00:12:37,590 of a Native American church peyote ceremony. 266 00:12:37,590 --> 00:12:39,512 They have the same kind of thing. 267 00:12:39,512 --> 00:12:40,470 It's a group of people. 268 00:12:40,470 --> 00:12:41,250 They know each other. 269 00:12:41,250 --> 00:12:41,870 Some of them are friends. 270 00:12:41,870 --> 00:12:42,800 Some of them are neighbors. 271 00:12:42,800 --> 00:12:44,130 Some of them may be invited. 272 00:12:44,130 --> 00:12:45,720 And they share the intentions. 273 00:12:45,720 --> 00:12:48,780 And then they have the traditional songs 274 00:12:48,780 --> 00:12:49,740 and invocations. 275 00:12:49,740 --> 00:12:52,470 They invoke the spirits. 276 00:12:52,470 --> 00:12:56,270 And that's completely different than the scientific study. 277 00:12:56,270 --> 00:12:58,676 There's no psychological discussion. 278 00:12:58,676 --> 00:13:00,050 It's not a modern Western system. 279 00:13:00,050 --> 00:13:03,840 280 00:13:03,840 --> 00:13:06,360 >> The shamanic cultures were very clear about this. 281 00:13:06,360 --> 00:13:09,090 They viewed the psychedelics as instruments 282 00:13:09,090 --> 00:13:11,230 that opened up the brain-- 283 00:13:11,230 --> 00:13:15,780 the mind-- to telepathy, to clairvoyance, to precognition, 284 00:13:15,780 --> 00:13:17,070 pre-sentience. 285 00:13:17,070 --> 00:13:20,060 And that ultimately it may be necessary to view 286 00:13:20,060 --> 00:13:23,370 the perceptions that occur under psychedelics as our brain 287 00:13:23,370 --> 00:13:25,685 basically tuning into a different channel 288 00:13:25,685 --> 00:13:27,810 and receiving information that we really don't know 289 00:13:27,810 --> 00:13:29,670 how to define at this point. 290 00:13:29,670 --> 00:13:32,540 291 00:13:32,540 --> 00:13:35,920 >> For roughly 20 years, across the world the prohibition held 292 00:13:35,920 --> 00:13:37,960 firm-- 293 00:13:37,960 --> 00:13:42,790 no public use, no medicinal use, not even 294 00:13:42,790 --> 00:13:45,550 research to back up the claims that placed these plants 295 00:13:45,550 --> 00:13:48,860 in the strictest category. 296 00:13:48,860 --> 00:13:51,890 The sleeping mind of the people seemingly fell deeper 297 00:13:51,890 --> 00:13:53,770 into consensus trance. 298 00:13:53,770 --> 00:13:56,300 It was as if the innate pattern recognition 299 00:13:56,300 --> 00:13:59,360 and problem-solving faculties of human consciousness 300 00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:01,670 were missing a critical ally, one 301 00:14:01,670 --> 00:14:04,910 that had been with us since the dawn of modern intelligence. 302 00:14:04,910 --> 00:14:08,600 It seemed that the propaganda campaign had worked. 303 00:14:08,600 --> 00:14:13,580 Then in 1990, Rick Strassmann a medical researcher specialized 304 00:14:13,580 --> 00:14:16,640 in psychiatry, applied for a federal grant 305 00:14:16,640 --> 00:14:20,060 to give dimethyltryptamine to volunteers to simply see 306 00:14:20,060 --> 00:14:21,920 what the effects might be. 307 00:14:21,920 --> 00:14:24,650 >> Well, so there was a group in Germany-- 308 00:14:24,650 --> 00:14:27,230 which got started around the same time 309 00:14:27,230 --> 00:14:29,100 or sooner than I did-- 310 00:14:29,100 --> 00:14:30,960 studying mescaline. 311 00:14:30,960 --> 00:14:34,490 But my DMT study was the first in the US 312 00:14:34,490 --> 00:14:40,400 and the first that used, you know, DMT in quite a while. 313 00:14:40,400 --> 00:14:42,200 It was pretty frustrating. 314 00:14:42,200 --> 00:14:44,630 I never really expected to succeed. 315 00:14:44,630 --> 00:14:48,650 And you know, I don't think many people did. 316 00:14:48,650 --> 00:14:51,800 >> Public opinion of any mind-altering substance tends 317 00:14:51,800 --> 00:14:54,350 to evoke the belief that the experience is simply what 318 00:14:54,350 --> 00:14:57,920 happens when the brain fails to function properly, 319 00:14:57,920 --> 00:15:01,340 as if the default state most of us spend time in is the proper 320 00:15:01,340 --> 00:15:03,950 state to operate from. 321 00:15:03,950 --> 00:15:07,880 However, even if this were true, when someone's brain becomes 322 00:15:07,880 --> 00:15:11,550 dysfunctional and then hours later returns to normal, 323 00:15:11,550 --> 00:15:14,420 how would that individual explain the experience? 324 00:15:14,420 --> 00:15:18,790 >> Well, I think the most striking part of the research-- 325 00:15:18,790 --> 00:15:22,070 and what I really wasn't expecting-- 326 00:15:22,070 --> 00:15:26,780 was the sense of reality that people returned with. 327 00:15:26,780 --> 00:15:29,900 They felt the experiences were more real than real. 328 00:15:29,900 --> 00:15:32,330 The importance of the feeling of more real 329 00:15:32,330 --> 00:15:34,790 than real is we make our decisions based 330 00:15:34,790 --> 00:15:37,400 on what we believe is real. 331 00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:39,740 You know, the outside world we're assuming is real. 332 00:15:39,740 --> 00:15:41,660 Our inner world is real. 333 00:15:41,660 --> 00:15:45,710 And we make decisions based on reality-- 334 00:15:45,710 --> 00:15:46,970 inner and outer. 335 00:15:46,970 --> 00:15:50,420 So if there's a state that feels more real than real, 336 00:15:50,420 --> 00:15:58,220 then do we make decisions based on the information there? 337 00:15:58,220 --> 00:16:01,250 >> What really is the bedrock of reality? 338 00:16:01,250 --> 00:16:03,110 Is the consensus world we typically 339 00:16:03,110 --> 00:16:06,830 operate from the more real one? 340 00:16:06,830 --> 00:16:09,230 Is this where we'll find the universal truths 341 00:16:09,230 --> 00:16:12,660 we seek to make life decisions from? 342 00:16:12,660 --> 00:16:14,540 Is it the psychedelic realm that some 343 00:16:14,540 --> 00:16:18,500 believe is more real than real? 344 00:16:18,500 --> 00:16:21,350 Perhaps it's neither, and they're both merely reference 345 00:16:21,350 --> 00:16:24,450 points, implying and pointing to the underlying universal 346 00:16:24,450 --> 00:16:28,760 truths, encouraging us to engage with our own truth-seeking 347 00:16:28,760 --> 00:16:32,990 impulse, our innate memory, and inner sense 348 00:16:32,990 --> 00:16:35,870 of our integral place within the fabric of reality, 349 00:16:35,870 --> 00:16:38,990 that we are all aspects of a singular phenomenon appearing 350 00:16:38,990 --> 00:16:40,760 as independent things. 351 00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:42,770 Even Taoists and Buddhists believe 352 00:16:42,770 --> 00:16:45,500 that the outer visible manifestations of life 353 00:16:45,500 --> 00:16:48,200 are the illusion of temporary garments cloaking 354 00:16:48,200 --> 00:16:51,800 universal and unchanging principles that inform, 355 00:16:51,800 --> 00:16:54,920 instruct, guide, and breathe life into all 356 00:16:54,920 --> 00:16:56,840 that we experience around us. 357 00:16:56,840 --> 00:16:59,480 So why do we experience the illusion at all? 358 00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:02,120 What mechanisms cause us to collectively share 359 00:17:02,120 --> 00:17:05,089 such a misleading perception of life and living? 360 00:17:05,089 --> 00:17:06,710 Perhaps we should take a deeper look 361 00:17:06,710 --> 00:17:09,589 at the physiological effects of the chemical compounds 362 00:17:09,589 --> 00:17:12,770 in these plants that the government feared so much. 363 00:17:12,770 --> 00:17:15,380 >> Classical psychedelics activate a type of brain 364 00:17:15,380 --> 00:17:19,194 serotonin receptor called the 5-HT2A receptor. 365 00:17:19,194 --> 00:17:20,569 And what that means in real terms 366 00:17:20,569 --> 00:17:22,352 is the cells become more sensitive. 367 00:17:22,352 --> 00:17:23,810 So what you're doing is really sort 368 00:17:23,810 --> 00:17:26,569 of ramping up the ability of these cortical cells 369 00:17:26,569 --> 00:17:30,170 to process information quickly and more effectively. 370 00:17:30,170 --> 00:17:32,670 There is an area in the brain stem called the locus 371 00:17:32,670 --> 00:17:34,800 coeruleus, the LC. 372 00:17:34,800 --> 00:17:37,100 It sends projections up to the cortex 373 00:17:37,100 --> 00:17:39,410 that release norepinephrine. 374 00:17:39,410 --> 00:17:41,600 And the locus coeruleus has been referred to 375 00:17:41,600 --> 00:17:43,770 as a novelty detector. 376 00:17:43,770 --> 00:17:47,090 So normally if you look at firing in the locus coeruleus, 377 00:17:47,090 --> 00:17:48,100 it fires in bursts. 378 00:17:48,100 --> 00:17:51,080 So it won't do anything, and then you'll see-- dzzz, dzzz-- 379 00:17:51,080 --> 00:17:52,620 bursts of firing. 380 00:17:52,620 --> 00:17:56,910 So what happens is psychedelics increase those bursts. 381 00:17:56,910 --> 00:17:59,000 So we can imagine if those bursts correspond 382 00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:01,770 to the locus coeruleus detecting some novelty, 383 00:18:01,770 --> 00:18:03,290 then maybe it looks more novelty. 384 00:18:03,290 --> 00:18:05,623 And I've used the analogy when people take a psychedelic 385 00:18:05,623 --> 00:18:07,599 and they look at, say, a flower it's 386 00:18:07,599 --> 00:18:09,390 as if they're seeing it for the first time. 387 00:18:09,390 --> 00:18:11,690 So it increases the sense of novelty. 388 00:18:11,690 --> 00:18:15,140 >> What would be the biological purpose of these plants causing 389 00:18:15,140 --> 00:18:18,530 humans to see the world as if it's new again? 390 00:18:18,530 --> 00:18:21,290 It is a well-known phenomena to be looking for something 391 00:18:21,290 --> 00:18:24,080 like your keys while they're in your hand or right 392 00:18:24,080 --> 00:18:26,900 in front of you, but you don't see them. 393 00:18:26,900 --> 00:18:28,400 Your eyes have even spotted them, 394 00:18:28,400 --> 00:18:31,070 but you don't acknowledge that you've seen them yet. 395 00:18:31,070 --> 00:18:33,710 Our perception works in pattern recognition, 396 00:18:33,710 --> 00:18:36,080 and this allows the world to become predictable 397 00:18:36,080 --> 00:18:38,660 so we can find a rhythm to operate within. 398 00:18:38,660 --> 00:18:40,910 These plants and their effect on the detection 399 00:18:40,910 --> 00:18:43,310 of new information from old patterns 400 00:18:43,310 --> 00:18:45,650 may be the direct cause of neurogenesis 401 00:18:45,650 --> 00:18:48,620 and neuroplasticity. 402 00:18:48,620 --> 00:18:51,740 It has been shown that these serotonergic plants initiate 403 00:18:51,740 --> 00:18:53,960 the growth of new brain cells, as well 404 00:18:53,960 --> 00:18:57,230 as new neural connections and patterns to emerge. 405 00:18:57,230 --> 00:18:59,690 Let's think of this less as a causation and more 406 00:18:59,690 --> 00:19:01,550 of a correlation. 407 00:19:01,550 --> 00:19:04,070 Neurogenesis and neuroplasticity could 408 00:19:04,070 --> 00:19:06,080 be occurring when authentic childlike 409 00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:07,760 learning is happening. 410 00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:09,740 The neural growth seems to happen 411 00:19:09,740 --> 00:19:13,010 most in the hippocampus, which regulates emotions and is 412 00:19:13,010 --> 00:19:15,670 involved in memory. 413 00:19:15,670 --> 00:19:18,340 A Psymposia.com article says new studies 414 00:19:18,340 --> 00:19:22,090 are showing that neurogenesis and the hippocampus activated 415 00:19:22,090 --> 00:19:25,270 by psychedelics might be a part of the acquisition 416 00:19:25,270 --> 00:19:28,091 of new behaviors and new pattern recognition. 417 00:19:28,091 --> 00:19:30,800 418 00:19:30,800 --> 00:19:33,410 With proper set, setting, and skill 419 00:19:33,410 --> 00:19:35,270 these changes in the brain may likely 420 00:19:35,270 --> 00:19:38,240 be why psychedelics have been so effective in treating 421 00:19:38,240 --> 00:19:42,230 post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression 422 00:19:42,230 --> 00:19:46,010 where other treatments have failed. 423 00:19:46,010 --> 00:19:49,070 Imagine for a moment that you were just born again 424 00:19:49,070 --> 00:19:51,500 or that all your memory has been put on hold, 425 00:19:51,500 --> 00:19:53,450 and you're seeing the world free and clear 426 00:19:53,450 --> 00:19:54,980 of cultural conditioning. 427 00:19:54,980 --> 00:19:58,100 Imagine all the explanations for what this world is 428 00:19:58,100 --> 00:20:01,700 and why it is the way it appears have been erased. 429 00:20:01,700 --> 00:20:04,580 Imagine you take a look at the people in your neighborhood, 430 00:20:04,580 --> 00:20:07,070 the animals in homes and in nature, 431 00:20:07,070 --> 00:20:10,190 the health of the oceans, forests, and communities. 432 00:20:10,190 --> 00:20:12,610 What questions would you begin formulating? 433 00:20:12,610 --> 00:20:15,260 And what role do you play in all of this? 434 00:20:15,260 --> 00:20:16,880 These are the questions one starts 435 00:20:16,880 --> 00:20:20,330 asking when introduced to the world of psychedelica. 436 00:20:20,330 --> 00:20:23,780 The mind begins asking broader, deeper, and more timeless 437 00:20:23,780 --> 00:20:25,010 questions. 438 00:20:25,010 --> 00:20:27,110 And perhaps this is what makes them so difficult 439 00:20:27,110 --> 00:20:29,020 to properly name. 440 00:20:29,020 --> 00:20:32,330 They allow new patterns to be recognized and new behaviors 441 00:20:32,330 --> 00:20:35,330 to be adopted, where most of what the Western world calls 442 00:20:35,330 --> 00:20:39,080 medicine tends to disengage or mask the symptoms while leaving 443 00:20:39,080 --> 00:20:41,100 the root cause untouched. 444 00:20:41,100 --> 00:20:44,810 >> And we even have another term, which is entheogens, 445 00:20:44,810 --> 00:20:48,170 for usually for the weaker, the amphetamine-related 446 00:20:48,170 --> 00:20:52,580 and so on, or something that awakens the God within. 447 00:20:52,580 --> 00:20:56,850 I myself prefer to call them like sacred psychedelics 448 00:20:56,850 --> 00:20:59,090 or sacred medicines. 449 00:20:59,090 --> 00:21:00,790 Because that's what they are. 450 00:21:00,790 --> 00:21:05,000 That's how the native cultures saw them, 451 00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:08,380 and I think it's accurate. 452 00:21:08,380 --> 00:21:11,560 >> It seems that these ancestral tribes understood the many 453 00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:13,570 healing qualities of these plants. 454 00:21:13,570 --> 00:21:15,490 The most profound effects seem to be 455 00:21:15,490 --> 00:21:19,150 the self-reflection people go through under their influence, 456 00:21:19,150 --> 00:21:21,190 the ability for these plants to confront you 457 00:21:21,190 --> 00:21:24,380 with your regrets and worries. 458 00:21:24,380 --> 00:21:28,070 Psychedelics help deconstruct old behavior patterns 459 00:21:28,070 --> 00:21:29,960 and build newer and healthier ones 460 00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:32,840 as seen from the creation of new neural pathways 461 00:21:32,840 --> 00:21:35,380 and the birth of new nerve cells, 462 00:21:35,380 --> 00:21:38,030 a quality long thought to be impossible shortly 463 00:21:38,030 --> 00:21:39,500 after childbirth. 464 00:21:39,500 --> 00:21:42,290 >> Very, very often, what the psychedelic experience will 465 00:21:42,290 --> 00:21:46,250 show you is the mistakes and errors that you've made 466 00:21:46,250 --> 00:21:50,632 in your life, where you have chosen the dark side rather 467 00:21:50,632 --> 00:21:51,590 than the side of light. 468 00:21:51,590 --> 00:21:53,570 Where you have chosen evil-- it may be very small, 469 00:21:53,570 --> 00:21:54,986 may be very large-- where you have 470 00:21:54,986 --> 00:21:56,510 chosen evil rather than good. 471 00:21:56,510 --> 00:22:00,110 >> Psychedelics can give you insights into how to be 472 00:22:00,110 --> 00:22:01,640 a better person. 473 00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:03,890 It won't make you a better person. 474 00:22:03,890 --> 00:22:08,660 And if you're a bad person, you may still be a bad person. 475 00:22:08,660 --> 00:22:11,000 >> Some of the most skeptical and evidence-dependent 476 00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:15,080 researchers speak very lucidly about a very tangible spectrum 477 00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:18,230 of benefits they have personally experienced from using these 478 00:22:18,230 --> 00:22:21,380 substances responsibly. 479 00:22:21,380 --> 00:22:24,140 >> One of the fundamental effects of psychedelics is 480 00:22:24,140 --> 00:22:27,770 to integrate material that is normally not accessible 481 00:22:27,770 --> 00:22:29,030 to consciousness. 482 00:22:29,030 --> 00:22:31,670 And the fundamental way in which psychedelics make this 483 00:22:31,670 --> 00:22:35,360 information available is by a destabilizing of what's called 484 00:22:35,360 --> 00:22:37,400 the default-mode network-- 485 00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:40,160 this part of the brain that integrates our sense of self, 486 00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:43,340 our autobiographical memories, and our reflection 487 00:22:43,340 --> 00:22:44,390 upon our lives. 488 00:22:44,390 --> 00:22:46,760 So basically, what's happening under psychedelics 489 00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:48,890 is a liberation of the parts of the brain-- 490 00:22:48,890 --> 00:22:52,270 that 80% or 90% of the brain that they say we don't use. 491 00:22:52,270 --> 00:22:55,100 I mean, we use it, but we're just not able to access it. 492 00:22:55,100 --> 00:22:58,160 Psychedelics give us access to that unconscious. 493 00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:02,150 >> The language facility in the brain is destabilized as well. 494 00:23:02,150 --> 00:23:05,270 So the combination of our self-identity and our language 495 00:23:05,270 --> 00:23:08,360 being put off-balance by simply ingesting a plant 496 00:23:08,360 --> 00:23:12,090 gives rise to the ineffability of the experience. 497 00:23:12,090 --> 00:23:16,100 Just as we see with any mystical or spiritual experience, 498 00:23:16,100 --> 00:23:18,800 words are not enough to communicate the magnitude 499 00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:20,590 of the experience. 500 00:23:20,590 --> 00:23:23,150 >> But the possibility has to be considered that what 501 00:23:23,150 --> 00:23:25,940 the psychedelics are doing is retuning the receiver wavelike 502 00:23:25,940 --> 00:23:29,000 of the brain and actually allowing us to gain access 503 00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:32,540 to the radical alternative realities-- 504 00:23:32,540 --> 00:23:34,160 parallel dimensions. 505 00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,340 >> We have the same situation in the television. 506 00:23:37,340 --> 00:23:40,290 We would laugh if somebody would study that set 507 00:23:40,290 --> 00:23:45,590 and go down to molecular level of the transistors 508 00:23:45,590 --> 00:23:48,930 and the wires and would believe that this gives you 509 00:23:48,930 --> 00:23:53,510 an explanation why you get a Mickey Mouse cartoon, 510 00:23:53,510 --> 00:23:56,630 you know, at 7 o'clock in the evening. 511 00:23:56,630 --> 00:23:59,900 >> If Stan and many researchers are correct in positing that 512 00:23:59,900 --> 00:24:03,530 consciousness is not generated by the brain but tuned 513 00:24:03,530 --> 00:24:07,250 into, what then are these psychedelic plants trying 514 00:24:07,250 --> 00:24:08,270 to show us? 515 00:24:08,270 --> 00:24:09,936 >> Across the range of the psychedelics, 516 00:24:09,936 --> 00:24:12,590 you can definitely say that there is a broad range 517 00:24:12,590 --> 00:24:14,210 of imagery that is common. 518 00:24:14,210 --> 00:24:17,720 Not everybody will have all those images all the time. 519 00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:20,450 Not everybody will agree on every single aspect of it. 520 00:24:20,450 --> 00:24:24,560 But it starts off with what I refer to as entoptic 521 00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:27,260 phenomena-- because they're considered as originating 522 00:24:27,260 --> 00:24:30,230 in the ocular system-- 523 00:24:30,230 --> 00:24:34,190 where you start seeing zigzag lines, and cross 524 00:24:34,190 --> 00:24:36,620 hatches, and geometrical patterns. 525 00:24:36,620 --> 00:24:40,970 Sometimes fantastically complex and elaborated mandalas 526 00:24:40,970 --> 00:24:43,790 appear in the geometry. 527 00:24:43,790 --> 00:24:47,000 Then there tends to be the sense of passing 528 00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:51,200 through a vortex of some kind into a seamlessly 529 00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:53,330 convincing parallel universe. 530 00:24:53,330 --> 00:24:55,490 >> Is this the same phenomena that humans have been 531 00:24:55,490 --> 00:24:58,880 experiencing since the time our ancestors were painting 532 00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:03,470 their visions in caves some 40,000 years ago? 533 00:25:03,470 --> 00:25:07,100 Were those entoptic images engrams and portals 534 00:25:07,100 --> 00:25:11,040 depicting a dimension that we are still tapping into today? 535 00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:13,220 What is this vision, and could it 536 00:25:13,220 --> 00:25:16,190 be some kind of collective consciousness of the human soul 537 00:25:16,190 --> 00:25:17,162 experience? 538 00:25:17,162 --> 00:25:18,620 >> It's important to keep in mind-- 539 00:25:18,620 --> 00:25:22,020 I'm not saying that this is the perception 540 00:25:22,020 --> 00:25:25,310 of alien transdimensional thing. 541 00:25:25,310 --> 00:25:28,280 It might just be a psychological construct. 542 00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:33,590 It might be the result of brain activity in certain areas 543 00:25:33,590 --> 00:25:35,760 in relationship to each other. 544 00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:38,690 In which case, they would still be as interesting 545 00:25:38,690 --> 00:25:40,240 as if they were anything else. 546 00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:45,050 >> If five or six artists, you know, were to walk around-- 547 00:25:45,050 --> 00:25:49,340 I don't know, New York or Boulder, Colorado-- 548 00:25:49,340 --> 00:25:52,070 and make some paintings, you could clearly 549 00:25:52,070 --> 00:25:53,257 see that the paintings-- 550 00:25:53,257 --> 00:25:55,340 each of the paintings might be slightly different. 551 00:25:55,340 --> 00:25:58,400 But you could see that they were of the same place. 552 00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,970 >> The botanist, author, and psychedelic psychonaut Terence 553 00:26:01,970 --> 00:26:04,950 McKenna relates the plant intelligence to that of Mother 554 00:26:04,950 --> 00:26:06,260 Earth. 555 00:26:06,260 --> 00:26:08,780 The ancient Greeks called it Gaia. 556 00:26:08,780 --> 00:26:11,720 >> The whole thing is an enzyme-driven process. 557 00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:14,390 We are like an organ of Gaia. 558 00:26:14,390 --> 00:26:21,020 We are the organ which binds and releases energy. 559 00:26:21,020 --> 00:26:22,470 I mean, a liver cell doesn't need 560 00:26:22,470 --> 00:26:26,930 to understand why it binds and releases enzymes of the liver. 561 00:26:26,930 --> 00:26:31,190 We bind and release energy for reasons perhaps never 562 00:26:31,190 --> 00:26:35,030 to be clear to us, but which place us 563 00:26:35,030 --> 00:26:39,530 firmly within the context of the Gaian mind. 564 00:26:39,530 --> 00:26:45,020 Suddenly, we come with an epigenetic capability. 565 00:26:45,020 --> 00:26:51,330 We write books, tell stories, dance, sing, carve, paint. 566 00:26:51,330 --> 00:26:53,420 These are not genetic processes. 567 00:26:53,420 --> 00:26:55,520 These are epigenetic processes. 568 00:26:55,520 --> 00:27:00,710 And they bind information and express the Gaian mind. 569 00:27:00,710 --> 00:27:02,630 >> The Gaian mind-- 570 00:27:02,630 --> 00:27:06,020 to many this idea doesn't fit within the context 571 00:27:06,020 --> 00:27:08,670 we've been given by Western culture. 572 00:27:08,670 --> 00:27:11,660 How could the rocks be considered alive? 573 00:27:11,660 --> 00:27:16,010 How could the bones in our body be considered the same? 574 00:27:16,010 --> 00:27:17,980 What does alive really mean? 575 00:27:17,980 --> 00:27:20,870 >> The Gaian mind is a real mind. 576 00:27:20,870 --> 00:27:23,520 Its messages are real messages. 577 00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:27,360 And our task-- through discipline, psychedelics, 578 00:27:27,360 --> 00:27:31,240 attention to detail, whatever we have going-- 579 00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:34,440 is to try and extract this message 580 00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:37,440 and eliminate ourselves from the message 581 00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:42,729 so that we then can see the face of the other. 582 00:27:42,729 --> 00:27:45,270 >> The other in this case would be the identity of that which 583 00:27:45,270 --> 00:27:47,400 is sending the message. 584 00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:49,770 Because we scarcely understand who and what 585 00:27:49,770 --> 00:27:53,100 we are, why we're even alive, and what we're 586 00:27:53,100 --> 00:27:56,820 meant to do with our time here, asking what the Gaian mind 587 00:27:56,820 --> 00:27:59,670 truly is might be premature. 588 00:27:59,670 --> 00:28:00,960 Could it be possible-- 589 00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,000 just like a human organism-- 590 00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,810 that plants communicate not only among themselves and to humans, 591 00:28:06,810 --> 00:28:08,940 but among all other species? 592 00:28:08,940 --> 00:28:11,730 Is this the collective consciousness of the planet? 593 00:28:11,730 --> 00:28:14,310 And is it possible the war on the mind is not 594 00:28:14,310 --> 00:28:18,430 limited to human minds but to the mind of the entire planet-- 595 00:28:18,430 --> 00:28:21,510 the plants, animals, humans, and more? 596 00:28:21,510 --> 00:28:25,350 >> Their message, or their interaction with us, 597 00:28:25,350 --> 00:28:28,630 might be very different than their interaction with a fungus 598 00:28:28,630 --> 00:28:29,490 or a bacterium. 599 00:28:29,490 --> 00:28:33,060 But they are in conversations with those things as well, 600 00:28:33,060 --> 00:28:33,860 you know. 601 00:28:33,860 --> 00:28:35,980 So the message varies. 602 00:28:35,980 --> 00:28:38,730 In other words, these are multi-- 603 00:28:38,730 --> 00:28:40,575 sort of multi-purpose molecules. 604 00:28:40,575 --> 00:28:44,340 >> Terence and Dennis McKenna are possibly the most notable 605 00:28:44,340 --> 00:28:48,540 pair of scientists and theorists on why these plants are here 606 00:28:48,540 --> 00:28:50,610 and what their greater purpose might be. 607 00:28:50,610 --> 00:28:54,600 Both have firm beliefs backed by a lifetime of investigation 608 00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:56,190 that these plants are here to serve 609 00:28:56,190 --> 00:28:59,820 the planet by those willing to listen to their place in it. 610 00:28:59,820 --> 00:29:03,210 >> I like to call them ambassadors from Gaia. 611 00:29:03,210 --> 00:29:08,430 You know, they happen to make these messenger molecules that 612 00:29:08,430 --> 00:29:14,100 are useful for communicating with the complex brains 613 00:29:14,100 --> 00:29:21,540 of these problematic apes that evolution has spawned. 614 00:29:21,540 --> 00:29:23,790 That would be us, you know? 615 00:29:23,790 --> 00:29:29,602 And we're the most dangerous thing to show up on the planet 616 00:29:29,602 --> 00:29:30,930 in-- 617 00:29:30,930 --> 00:29:32,580 who knows, depends on when you want 618 00:29:32,580 --> 00:29:36,360 to start counting-- but at least the last 100 million years. 619 00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:38,640 You know, because we have the potential 620 00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:43,960 to completely upset the apple cart by the technologies 621 00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:45,780 that we can manipulate. 622 00:29:45,780 --> 00:29:49,530 >> I mean, when you look what we have done to the Pacific Ocean, 623 00:29:49,530 --> 00:29:52,500 you know, what we are doing to the atmosphere, 624 00:29:52,500 --> 00:29:55,260 what we have done to water-- 625 00:29:55,260 --> 00:30:01,500 you know, things like the Mexican Gulf or the reactor, 626 00:30:01,500 --> 00:30:05,730 you know, from Chernobyl to the Japanese one-- 627 00:30:05,730 --> 00:30:07,420 we cannot do this for a very long time. 628 00:30:07,420 --> 00:30:09,270 We might not make it as a species. 629 00:30:09,270 --> 00:30:11,910 >> One of the other things we know about the world today is 630 00:30:11,910 --> 00:30:15,540 that we are living in the midst of a major ecological crisis. 631 00:30:15,540 --> 00:30:18,060 Some people talk about the fifth major extinction 632 00:30:18,060 --> 00:30:21,120 here on the planet being promoted by human activity. 633 00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:23,460 We don't have a compassionate relationship 634 00:30:23,460 --> 00:30:26,600 with our environment as a global society. 635 00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:30,480 >> If the ecological threat that we face is truly upon us, 636 00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:34,800 could the psychedelic plants be intervening on behalf of Gaia? 637 00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:39,420 >> So the Earth, I think, senses that we're-- it's in danger 638 00:30:39,420 --> 00:30:45,450 and is trying to get a message to us that we have to wake up. 639 00:30:45,450 --> 00:30:49,210 >> Are psychedelic plants here to introduce us to ourselves, 640 00:30:49,210 --> 00:30:52,080 to the shadow of our psyche and the ills that come from 641 00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:53,700 the sleeping mind? 642 00:30:53,700 --> 00:30:55,320 What if the greatest threat we face 643 00:30:55,320 --> 00:31:00,120 is not out there in the world of symptoms, but in here-- 644 00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:03,030 in the dark corners of individual psychology 645 00:31:03,030 --> 00:31:05,880 and its rippling effect into the masses? 646 00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:08,370 Since the dawn of time, psychedelic plants 647 00:31:08,370 --> 00:31:09,390 have been there. 648 00:31:09,390 --> 00:31:12,560 They've seen the horrors of the past and have always produced 649 00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,990 the medicine most needed by these dangerous minds, 650 00:31:15,990 --> 00:31:18,930 a class of compounds that-- when all is said and done-- 651 00:31:18,930 --> 00:31:22,200 offer us an honest look at ourselves. 652 00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:26,040 And from this new perspective, humility, compassion, 653 00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:28,980 and community bonding naturally emerge. 654 00:31:28,980 --> 00:31:31,050 Perhaps they confront us and give us 655 00:31:31,050 --> 00:31:34,660 the only medicine that may help us out of these dark times-- 656 00:31:34,660 --> 00:31:35,460 love. 657 00:31:35,460 --> 00:31:38,170 658 00:31:38,170 --> 00:31:41,100 And how far back can we trace the human psychedelic 659 00:31:41,100 --> 00:31:44,190 relationship? 660 00:31:44,190 --> 00:31:52,200 >> There is really an enormous wealth of evidence to suggest-- 661 00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:53,970 I would go beyond saying to suggest-- 662 00:31:53,970 --> 00:32:00,240 to prove that our ancestors, deep into prehistory, 663 00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:03,120 were using the kind of substances 664 00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:05,340 that we call psychedelics today. 665 00:32:05,340 --> 00:32:08,970 And these would be the natural psychedelics 666 00:32:08,970 --> 00:32:11,650 that are available from plants. 667 00:32:11,650 --> 00:32:15,790 These plants have played a fundamental role 668 00:32:15,790 --> 00:32:18,810 in the human story. 669 00:32:18,810 --> 00:32:22,350 >> But how have these plants shaped our human story? 670 00:32:22,350 --> 00:32:25,590 What evidence can be found that suggests at one time 671 00:32:25,590 --> 00:32:29,190 psychedelics were an accepted practice on the understanding 672 00:32:29,190 --> 00:32:30,600 of the universe? 673 00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:35,670 Mysteriously, in 1976, a Soviet archaeologist uncovered 674 00:32:35,670 --> 00:32:40,440 a 4,000-year-old temple complex in present day Turkmenistan. 675 00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:44,820 This complex has many rooms with stone vats coated with residue 676 00:32:44,820 --> 00:32:48,450 of cannabis, as well as poppy used to make opium, 677 00:32:48,450 --> 00:32:51,330 and ephedra used to make amphetamines. 678 00:32:51,330 --> 00:32:54,270 This must mean it was a facility to mass produce 679 00:32:54,270 --> 00:32:56,670 a hallucinogenic cocktail. 680 00:32:56,670 --> 00:32:59,670 Historians have suggested that this region was home 681 00:32:59,670 --> 00:33:04,140 to goat farmers that comingled with a nomadic horseback tribe 682 00:33:04,140 --> 00:33:07,470 and for the most part stayed quiet of conflict. 683 00:33:07,470 --> 00:33:09,150 Could this discovery hold the key 684 00:33:09,150 --> 00:33:12,960 to the ancient mystery of the fabled beverage of the gods? 685 00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:15,330 Has the evidence and long-lost ingredients 686 00:33:15,330 --> 00:33:19,500 of what the oldest Indian text, the Rigveda, called soma 687 00:33:19,500 --> 00:33:23,340 and the Persians called haoma finally come to light? 688 00:33:23,340 --> 00:33:26,770 Is this evidence of an ancient psychedelic society? 689 00:33:26,770 --> 00:33:30,030 And if so, where did they disappear to? 690 00:33:30,030 --> 00:33:33,120 Why has memory of this culture been erased? 691 00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:35,670 And could this be an ancient representation 692 00:33:35,670 --> 00:33:38,130 of humans going beyond the veil to see 693 00:33:38,130 --> 00:33:40,410 the collective consciousness? 694 00:33:40,410 --> 00:33:43,050 Up next, we will explore the shamanic route 695 00:33:43,050 --> 00:33:46,530 of humankind's relationship with psychedelic plants and altered 696 00:33:46,530 --> 00:33:49,280 states of consciousness. 697 00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:58,443 57300

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