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>> One of the more important and forgotten aspects

of psychedelic experiences is the shadow side of all people,

all events, and life itself.

The side of the coin less involved

with profound visuals, "aha" moments, and inner healing,

and more involved with hidden aspects

of the psyche, misguided, or under-educated use,

and even malicious intent.

Since the dawn of time, it's in the shadows that

lurk the predators and blind spots that have timelessly

intimidated humanity.

Some steer clear of the darkness and keep safe.

Others use the dark to cover their hidden agendas.

And a rare few venture into the dark shadows to bring light.

A tool that has been used since the dawn of art

and human expression to illuminate the darkness

is the judicious use of psychedelic plants.

But these plants are tools that can

be used for the light, the dark, and every gradient in-between.

So, what do psychedelic researchers and experience

psychonauts suggest for newcomers when considering

a plant-medicine experience?

>> I'm the faculty advisor for the psychedelic club at Naropa

University, where I teach herbal medicine.

And there's a concern that a lot of young people

are taking these substances and maybe

having a difficult or dangerous experience.

And personally, I think that when

you're doing these substances at a concert with thousands

of people and very loud music that may not have the highest

intentions, it might be music that's

coming from a place of ego and only junk food and alcohol

being served.

I see that as something that's going to not give you

a deep personal experience.

>> For me, I try to avoid festivals and concerts

in general when I'm on psychedelics.

I don't think that I get a lot of deep inner work done

when there's music blaring and a light show and all of that.

It can be fun.

It's not that I never do it, but it

can be a little overwhelming for a lot of people, I think,

or just not productive.

>> And you have to choose if you want to use the full potential

of psychedelics or if you want to play kind of psychedelic

roulette.

People have taken it under a lot of lousy circumstances,

of course.

The raves that people go and get it--

they don't know what they are taking,

how much they are taking.

They know they're doing something illegal,

the police can come--

just a lousiest possible setting I can imagine.

>> In the 1950s around London, wild Bohemian parties called

the raves began popping up in youth culture.

Their evolution moved through the psychedelic craze

of the '60s.

And once the '80s rolled around, drugs and dancing

became the mantra.

These raves have been the setting

for many psychedelic experiences gone wrong.

The music is typified by monotonous drums

and catchy hooks that go for extended amounts of time

to afford people long soundscapes upon which

to dance.

Others claim it's a revival of shamanic trance rhythms taught

to our elders by the plants.

Newer renditions of these scenes seem

less interested in community bonding and prayer

and more into recreational drug use.

However, there is also a resurgence of ceremony, prayer,

and oneness once you leave the typical rave scene

and enter festivals like Burning Man, Boom, Lucidity, Envision,

Spirit Weavers, and Symbiosis.

But as culture moves farther away from our shamanic past,

the safe containers for psychedelic journeys

are less understood by our youth.

>> A couple of years ago, I went to a Shpongle concert.

I was signing books.

It was in Austin.

And I smelled more DMT coming from the dance floor

than I smelled pot.

So, afterwards, I asked Simon Posford, one of the Shpongle

members, about that.

I said, well, I smelled more DMT than marijuana from the floor.

Does that happen?

He said, yeah, it seems to happen.

So, there's a lot of people smoking DMT at dance events.

And I asked one kid that I was signing a book for,

what was the deal on the dance floor.

He described that you would smoke a small amount

on the dance floor and it would just kind of enhance

your sensory experience.

And if you wanted the full-on DMT effect,

you would go outside, or you stay along

the wall of the hall, kind of out of the way.

>> Some believe that just as our ancestors had no rulebook

for the responsible use of psychedelics,

the youth today are finding their own ways to explore

the depths of consciousness while remaining in modern-style

gatherings.

But perhaps the biggest difference

is traditional ceremonies included

only those participants that the shaman would allow.

Today, anyone with any intention is just

a ticket fee and a few travel arrangements

away from being in your space, in your sphere of influence,

and therefore, in your psychedelic journey.

But gathering together for music, dance,

and psychedelic journeys is not new.

In ancient Greece, the Dionysia festivals

were a time for people to gather, dance, and sing, even

perform plays and partake in psychoactive herbs infused

in alcohol.

Across the Atlantic in present-day Mexico City,

the Aztecs worshiped the god of dance, pleasure, joy,

and psychoactive plants, named Xochipilli.

It's hard to know how safe the set and setting were

at these ancient festivals.

But we know they were highly celebrated as opportunities

to depart from daily labor.

So, in these moments when thousands of people

are unleashing their day-to-day stressors

onto the same patch of land, at the same time,

just like modern music festivals,

is there more in the air than meets the eye?

Modern-day regression therapist and healer,

Marion Boon explains the dangers of uncontained ceremonies.

>> What I do as an advanced-regression therapist

is postmodern shamanism, because we are doing, in fact,

similar of the shaman approach.

But we teach our client to go there under the right guidance.

So, when I'm opening up at a trance festival,

and thousands of people are doing the same,

and we go trance, trance and open up,

there is always some shadow that can enter.

And when you are hurt inside, you

will attract a similar kind of hurt from somebody else.

That is seen as darkness.

That is seen as shadow.

So, to work with this is what ancient shamanism does.

They have the courage, and the tools,

and techniques, and the focus to go into the darkness.

That doesn't allow fear.

There is no fear.

There is light to gain in the darkness.

And that light has to be retrieved.

That's a soul retrieval.

>> There hasn't been enough medical research to make any

scientific claims regarding the dangers of psychedelic journeys

around thousands of strangers.

But postmodern shamans see the damaging effects

and pick up the slack where modern health care lacks.

And the best methods seem to be the empowerment of others

to understand and engage with their own healing

by listening to their own words, and therefore,

their own subconscious.

>> The client is the expert of life--

not me.

My client is.

They only took the wrong exit on the highway.

And I am indicating how to go back.

But you cannot go back by ignoring the mistakes.

You go back by going into your mistake,

seeing how did it happen, regression in time,

back to where you still are good, onto the future,

and back on track.

And that's why it's so exciting, because it works.

People may say, I'm so sad.

I'm so sad.

My mother died, and I can't handle it.

Under the sadness is anger.

She went too soon.

She was supposed to stay here.

I'm so angry.

I'm all alone.

So, under anger is loneliness.

And then we go for the loneliness.

And we find inner children and probably past lives

where you have lost soul parts that need to be retrieved.

They can go there themselves.

So, when they leave, the side-effect

is they feel empowered, because they did it.

Of course, I guide them.

That's my job, but the client does it.

And that is the big difference in the postmodern shamanism,

as I use the term, as opposed to the shaman who travels for you.

>> By educating people about the energetic anomalies that are

yet to be scientifically proven, this calls them to rise

to the occasion of acknowledging just how much we don't know.

Once this is acknowledged, receptivity and sensitivity

to psychic phenomena can be addressed.

This is the first step to safeguarding

against life's shadow elements.

However, there is also the flip side of this coin.

Those who are overly fascinated by the world of psychedelics,

yet naive to the landscape, are in danger of delusion,

and vulnerable to the shadows that lurk therein.

It is believed by mystics, as well as some psychotherapists,

that people can be hypnotized by forces that work through them.

And it is believed that these individuals become

driven to climb corporate ladders

or inject themselves into positions of power.

As ayahuasca tourism is growing, newbies

are fascinated with medicine work

and believe they will be the next shaman.

Medicine worker, Boa Cowee has seen

many accounts of this naivety in ayahuasca communities.

>> It's kind of crazy.

In shaman, it's become almost a dirty word in a way.

People start doing medicine or maybe

drink ayahuasca for the first time,

and they want to become a shaman.

I've even met people who have never drank ayahuasca who said,

I'm going to become a shaman.

I'm going down to Peru, and I'm going to be that.

And drinking ayahuasca does not make you a shaman.

Working with your spirit helpers,

working with your people can make you a shaman.

But it takes so it takes a long time.

It takes five to seven years to get to that point.

And it's diets, yes, it's wisdom, it's learning.

But what happens is this psychic dredging.

And when you get to that point, you are that hollow bone.

You're that clear person that can be there

without judgment for somebody.

And people who are just drinking ayahuasca for the first time--

so what happens is that people are going down there,

and they're drinking ayahuasca.

They think that they're going to be the one that's

going to be the shaman.

But there is no relationship-building, there's

no association, there's no giving back.

Their ego gets inflamed, and they

think that they're the ones that are doing it.

And even if they are, the medicine

will teach you that you don't work like that.

The medicine works through you.

You are that hollow bone.

And to get to that point, it takes a long time.

>> The "hollow bone" is a term to represent the space

an authentic healer or facilitator must cultivate

within themselves--

an attentive presence with a focus on the illness

being healed rather than the appearance it takes on.

Being a hollow bone means to leave fear, excitement,

urgency, unnecessary judgment, astonishment, and even

hope, out of the equation.

The healer understands they are equivalent

to an electrical current that closes the loop in order

for universal currents of life to flow freely to the ones

seeking healing.

In this way, healing is not seen as being

done from one healthy person to a sick one.

Rather, illness is the result of disconnection

from the flow of life.

So, the dangers of psychedelic plants

is in their power to connect or disconnect you,

depending on the set and setting.

>> Set and setting is of paramount importance.

There's nothing more important.

I have seen also people 20 years in a back ward

because they bad a trip, which was also poorly handled

by psychiatrists.

They're given a big dose of tranquilizers in the middle

and then put on maintenance dosages

to make sure that the experience will never complete itself.

And there are people who get stuck in that in-between place.

>> Not only can the improper use of psychedelics lead

to psychological illness, but those who are genetically

predisposed to mental illness find that psychedelic plants

may cause the issue to surface.

>> In our studies, we screen out people that have any kind

of mental illness, psychosis in the family,

first-degree relatives just to prevent precipitation of sort

of an acute psychosis.

There are people out there--

you probably met them, we've all met them--

who, you look at that guy, and if you would think of them

taking a psychedelic, you go, that person should never

take a psychedelic.

They're just not all there.

There are people with bipolar disorder,

schizoaffective disorders, things

like that-- shouldn't be taking these,

because they're powerful psychoactive drugs.

Schizophrenia typically hits late adolescence, early

adulthood.

This is a time when a lot of kids

are experimenting with drugs.

And I get cases from email every once

in a while, where someone has taken a drug

and clearly, they've become schizophrenic.

And they go, did the drug do this to my son?

Did the drug do this to my daughter?

And what I say is, probably, this

would have happened anyway, because they're

at the right age.

And typically, stress will produce an onset of psychosis.

>> Psychedelic plants open the user up to far more unfiltered

information, and therefore, is akin to sending more

electricity to a light bulb.

Those with predispositions to mental illness

are perhaps unable to handle the sudden influx

of new experience.

And eventually, they burn out.

Even those without mental health issues

are at the risk of hidden dangers of psychedelic plants.

>> Some of the unknown dangers that psychedelics can have

for newcomers would include, being overly excited about it,

overly excited about the life-transforming nature of it,

having done it once, and then wanting to do it again

and again.

And regular use like that, overuse, is unhealthy.

And not a lot of people talk about that

in the psychedelic community, particularly

in like recreational settings.

They're non-addictive, generally speaking.

So, people think that they're always safe to use.

But there can be moments where you've

had fun every time you've taken them hanging out with friends,

and then all of a sudden, you take it one time,

and you drop into a space that you had no idea existed

and weren't prepared for.

And those can cause mental-health crises.

And in uncontained settings, the dangers

would be having the police called,

or trying to intervene unskillfully

in a situation that may look really weird,

but isn't dangerous in itself.

There are also people who use these medicines in unsafe ways

intentionally--

practitioners that might not have the best intentions

either to get money from someone or to manipulate them

emotionally, psychologically.

>> So, it only takes about a year--

not even-- to become a brujo, a witch, a witch doctor.

Somebody who practices sorcery can actually

really hurt somebody just by thinking about it.

>> "Brujo" is the Spanish word for witch, or magician.

There are benevolent brujas and white witches

that are basically shamans and medicine workers.

But in some ayahuasca circles, "brujo"

refers to a dark or black witch, meaning

they use the same medicine or methods as shamans,

but with deception, ill will, and harmful intent to gain

power over others.

But how are the newcomers to plant medicine

supposed to identify the ulterior motives of shamans

before deciding with whom to do ceremony?

>> I don't know if there is any way to spot somebody that you

can say, well, this guy is a brujo.

And I should not be here.

And you have to hang out with them for a while

before you really know that.

One sign, I think, in the context of Peru is

if they're putting toé, if they're putting Brugmansia

into their brew, that's a bad sign,

because Brugmansia is a drug of power.

And they use it sometimes by itself to essentially

make you very confused and very susceptible to suggestion.

>> Toé-- is from the Brugmansia of flowers of the Solanaceae

family, better known as angel's trumpets, Datura,

or thorn apple.

These contain scopolamine, which is a tropane alkaloid that

causes extreme suggestibility, and even paralysis, which

has been used in dark circles to convince people to give them

money, unwittingly accept sexual advances,

or even to induce harm.

There are accounts of young women from around the world

traveling to South America for ayahuasca

and waking up after being drugged and taken advantage of.

Even though these situations are not the norm,

it is important to know that dark magic

or deceitful medicine work exists.

The best advice from those deeply invested in healing

with plant medicine is to do your homework.

Travel with friends.

And use your intuition about the people you meet

and the situations you fall into.

And remember that the best dark magicians

will be the best at disguising their intentions

and getting close under the guise of friendship or wisdom.

But when the invisible forces you're experiencing

seem too great to withstand, remember that even

the most powerful shadows are obliterated

by the smallest hint of light.

>> We are more than meets the eye, especially--

and usually our limited sensory world of the third dimension--

that we often, unless we can see spirits--

there are some individuals-- but most of us

are limited in our five senses until we

take a psychedelic or something happens

that opens up our perception.

But in that moment where we might be having a difficult

time, people from the beginning of time have found that there

are other energies that exist that we cannot necessarily see,

but that exist nonetheless, and that if we asked

for their help, that they can guide us and assist us.

In some cultures, we call them the angels.

Or it could be Michael or Gabriel.

Or it could be even Yahshua or Buddha in some cultures.

In the Native American, it might be the spirit

of the bear or the elk.

>> Spirit guides, angels, patriarchs,

and matriarchs from timeless myths--

all of them serve the same purpose.

Human consciousness is free of all form,

yet becomes most powerful in this world when it's given form

to work through.

This is how our limited minds grasp unlimited power

and give it direction.

No matter which guides or helpers we choose,

the importance is to acknowledge that we, too, all of us

are capable of directing consciousness

for harm or protection.

And psychedelic plants amplify this innate power.

So, how is it that the same plants can be used

for two polar opposite results?

>> I now have the feeling that science,

current materialistic science, no matter how sophisticated,

is naive if it does not include these hidden dimensions

of reality.

We had years ago, a wonderful conference where

Humphrey Osmond was present.

And he addressed this issue.

And he said, can you imagine a discussion about a knife?

Is the knife this very diabolical weapon,

or is it a useful tool?

And imagine that you would have a debate where

one of these persons who would be present

would be Chief of New York Police who would be talking

about all the murders that were committed in back lanes in New

York City.

And you would have the Surgeon General

who would say, wait a minute.

With the right kind of training, you can do fantastic things

with a knife.

And you would have a housewife who

would be thinking about it as a tool

to cut salami or a vegetable.

And you would have an artist who would think about carving

beautiful things from wood.

That we would understand that we are not

talking about the knife.

The knife is a tool that can be used in many different ways.

And the same with psychedelics-- there are used for healing.

They are used for inducing spiritual experiences.

But they're also used by the military--

horrible experiments.

The CIA-- including experiments on our own population

and in San Francisco and so on.

I have tremendous awe and respect

for what psychedelics can do on both sides, depending

on the set and setting, depending how they are used.

They are powerful tools.

Aside from dark magicians or medicine workers

using these plants as personal power moves,

it must be noted that psychedelics

have been used by governments experimenting

on their own people.

In the mid-1900s, the Central Intelligence Agency

was fascinated with psychedelics for mind control,

as well as other wartime tactics and began

conducting experiments on soldiers and college students.

Then on August 16 of 1951, the town of Pont-Saint-Esprit

was dosed with LSD.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- The CIA funded Fort Detrick to an experiment

there involving aerosol LSD sprayed in the small village.

That affected 500 people in that village.

There were three suicides.

And about 40 people were carted off to a nearby insane asylum

as a result of that experiment.

[END PLAYBACK]

>> Although much of these accounts can be frightening

to accept, by taking a sobering look at human behavior

throughout the ages, we shouldn't be surprised that

those with ill intentions will seek advanced means of getting

what they wish.

So, the way forward, in a safe and intelligent manner,

is to understand the protections we have available to us.

The power of psychedelics to open the mind

to new information is not simply to make the world look

better than it is.

It's to address the shadow side of all life.

In Buddhism, there are three steps to truly honoring

the whole of existence.

First is right sight.

Second is right understanding.

And thirdly is right action.

Even though action is the way to bring change into this world,

that action will always be polluted

if you do not see the world as it truly is.

And if you don't see it clearly, understanding it is impossible.

Psychedelics help achieve this goal.

They don't spoon-feed us the answers,

but they do dismantle unhealthy beliefs that muddy our vision.

They offer new perspectives to worldviews.

And because of this, a new and more relevant

understanding of the actual world we live in

can organically assemble itself.

So, how did the spiritual traditions

of the ancient past view and deal with the shadow side?

>> Well, the concept of the shadow side and the way that

you talk about it is big in many different cultures.

I think, as it relates to yoga, it tends to be talked about

in a kind of new-agey way, that from my experience,

from the traditional yoga standpoint,

I would say that the shadow side is more this idea

of the unconscious or the subconscious--

the idea of Samskara.

In yoga, the word "Samskara" means a habit or a pattern.

It's like this deep, grooved pathway

that we just tend to fall into.

The mannerisms that we do, the way that we speak,

the emotional habits that we have,

the things that we keep having show up in our life over,

and over, and over again, we're like,

how am I still in the same thing--

that's a Samskara.

It's this it's almost like we're being ruled by another force.

But in yoga, we would say that we're just being

ruled by our unconscious self.

>> It might seem that if the shadow side is merely our own

subconscious mind, then other individuals or entities cannot

penetrate this realm and complicate our experience.

However, it was postulated by Carl Gustav Jung

that there is a collective, unconscious realm

that all people share.

If this is true, the landscape of the unconscious

would be a shared territory that other sentient beings can

use to enter other subconscious minds, meaning that the yoga

perspective might fit perfectly with psychic attacks reported

by shamanic and spiritual practitioners.

Even though there is currently no technology

to verify the existence of these realms,

countless people are still imbibing

psychedelic substances, entering the unknown,

and coming back with tales of spirits and entities

with all kinds of motives.

University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist Dr. Andrew

Newberg has been studying the relationship of brain function

and states of consciousness.

He found that the parietal lobe of the brain in Tibetan

Buddhist monks becomes deactivated while

in meditation.

This area of the brain is said to be

responsible for giving us a sense of our orientation

in time and space.

So, as meditation causes this brain region to go offline,

the sensation of leaving the body and the suspension of time

ensues.

Dr. Newberg has called this the "neurotheological model."

In other words, brain function is the phenomenon

which gives rise to mystical or religious-type experiences.

However, some believe that mystical events

are not caused by the brain, but simply correlated.

Symptoms in the brain are seeing at the same time

as the experience.

So, if there are really shadow entities

with their own capacity to think,

or if these are just unknown compartments

of human intelligence, what communication mechanism

allows us to become aware of them at all?

Ancient and shamanic cultures may have proposed the idea

that through cycles of time and in vibrations of matter,

these may account for all phenomena and the unity

between our individual conscious minds and the Universal Mind.

>> Many indigenous cultures had an idea that the basis of all

of manifested creation is either sound, or certain geometries,

or certain frequency patterns-- certain numbers.

And the Mayans and the Aztecs--

they encoded this into not only their calendar,

but in their system of how they structure their society.

And they recognize that our body is a set of vibrations.

Our part is pulsing, our breath, our brain waves,

every cell of our body is vibrating.

And then we have all the rhythms.

And if they knew that there was a certain set of frequencies

that were the fabric, that just these certain notes or numbers

were what we encoded into our system of culture, then

we would be in harmony with the cosmos.

They would even use breathing practices,

along with meditation and intention,

to align themselves with these patterns.

And from this, they would achieve

altered or expanded states.

This is where yogis, just like other shamanic traditions,

actually start to use sound.

So, there's an understanding that sound is vibration

and that vibration is at the essence of everything.

And usually, our awareness is caught in all this noise

and sound of the outside world.

So, as we sit, we breathe, we start to draw awareness in,

and then we focus the awareness on something--

one-pointed concentration.

So, we work with quieting the mind, withdrawing the senses,

and merging with and resting in this place of awareness that

is beyond just the ups and downs of the mind and the emotion.

And while both are real--

because your mind still exists, your emotions still exist,

they're never going to go away--

we just start to step away from that

that's our only identification.

>> There are some that say identifying with darkness

and shadow is the way we hand over power to it.

But the traditional practices that

have survived thousands of years acknowledge

that the shadow side is a phenomena that

will never go away.

It's merely the way that light works

in a world of objects and form.

Day fades to night, and light goes into hiding.

The daily activity falls into sleep.

And waking consciousness goes dormant.

Light touches a leaf and casts a shadow.

These are natural and beautiful phenomena.

And when all is said and done, the dark aspects of life

are our greatest teachers.

The sages and adepts of times long ago,

as well as wise gurus and savants today,

have only one thing to say when they

peek behind the veil of their own mind

and see the darkness of the world.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling attention to my blindness

and giving me the gift of right sight

so that I may rightly understand what lurks in the shadows

and act in love and protection of all life.

Up next, join us as we shed light

on the expanded states of consciousness in the dream

state and what this can teach us about psychedelic experiences.