Recent Comments

I agree with Rick on this point: " Rightly so, the psychedelic code of honor is absolutely against cooperation with the police by providing information against others for matters that should not even be crimes in the first place. John and others did so and violated this code of honor."

I happen to have served over 9 years for making LSD and other suchness as the result of a "common informer" or any other way you want to say a spineless turd without the courage to be responsible for their own actions and not lay it on someone else's table. Of course, I can have compassion for the weak AND I'll never trust them again with such matters. Hindsight is awesome.

The real issue remains, Leonard is still serving not one but TWO life sentences, as if one wouldn't deter others from following his footsteps and make a molecule most of us "entheogenista rebels" revere. I was lucky, I served less than a decade. Or said another way, I served about 1/4 of my life sentence to date.

As for EntheoCorp, what a fucking stab in the heart of so many who strive for an integrated entheogenic life. On that count too, to use the proper English, John is a cunt.

As for forgiveness, the guy who snitched on me, he's done killed himself. Like I said in my Halperngate II contribution, "I forgive him and indeed will always love him. Whilst I could not ever visualize myself in his position, I can empathize." Hardly an extreme attitude! At least I am alive. Leonard may never see the outside of the prison walls until he dies.

And that hurts!

Fiat lux!

Cx

Jake. They are a tool. They are not supposed to be used all the time carelessly, or without some homework. I understand all that. My problem is that the show has been talking about the tools in a negative way. You're dislike to psychedelics comes off somewhat strong. I take them very infrequently and always take set and setting into consideration. Psychedelics have provided the most beautiful, ecstatic and wonderful experiences for me. Listening to this show I would never know they are capable of doing such things. Some people use hammers to bang nails and build a house, some a swing set, some bang others toe. Psychedelics are exactly what you make of them.

All them wannabes at New Zealand need to stop bangin sets they dnt even know about, im from long beach N trust me gang bangin is dying down now

Armchair hypothesizing that James mayhave good background to provide some constructive criticism on... or not...

As someone who experiences a low grade tinnitus, I've bought about this phenomena in the past. I wonder if a mechanism might have been missed in the normal nerve damage etyology offered. I know you have taken an interest in sensory processing and neural noise. You may have heard about this perceptual phenomenon whereby a vague or pixilated image is made much more clear by the introduction of some visual "white noise" this effect is as shocking as the change blindness effect when first encountered... anyone interested can easily confirm it with appropriate search on interweb. So, I wonder if there isn't a noise aspect in sound processing that also enhances acuity. Definitely life tends to take a useful

evolved mechanism and find multiple applications for it... so on these grounds at least it is not ruled out. Another suggestive observations is that hearing damage often causes tinnitus. But what if its a compensatory response to hearing
loss and not just a side effect of nerve damagë. For this to be
likely, the response would have to be one utilized (perhaps its
modulated up and down according to ambient sound environment) in normal hearing. A mechanism that only kicks in w damage is a less likely adaptation... anyway. Its a testable question, but not one I'm likely to pursue experimentally. I wonder if there is anything known that would discount or support this idea???

While I'm discussing sensory noise: I've also long wondered about point like white light spots that swarm in my field of view when I pause to notice them by opening and relaxing my gaze on the sky. They seem to almost dimple the visual field where they appear. They move rapidly and in all directions and they take curving paths but seem to disappear after moving only a few degrees of visual arc. If conditions are just right the sky can possitively swarm with these points of light. Never had anyone confirm nor explain this experience... and I've asked... maybe I just have a noisy noggin;)

I do all this on phone and can't edit or look back. Sometimes I f-up as a result. Hope I've made sense
Have a great day now!

Ill drop in with a quickie comment.
Good to hear from you two. Made me reflect on they real reason I ever entered the stream of an alternative culture (more like dipped toe in maybe). It was all about restoring a contact. Inchoate, stumbling all along the way, but it was the wish or felt need to bring together two aspects of my experience. These are the mental/personality faculty (this gets a lot guff from the groovy side of society, but the mind is also our vehicle for creativity, humor, and the only and natural way to manage ourselves in life) and the bodily, the life of sensation and feeling that is other obviously real side of our lives.

That contact is the thing we all look for, but we (I) mostly do like Mullah Nassrudin and look for the lost key under the streetlight where we can see clearly instead of in the house where we lost it. And we forget entirely where we left it...

The alt society is the effort to remember that...

Trips are just trips unless they point you toward home!
Love to you all!

Now I'm gonna go do something!

Thanks for the response. I've always felt like religion has something to teach everyone, including atheists. I want to pick up a copy of the book on monasticism you mentioned. I get frustrated with the militant atheists because I've had plenty of mystical/spiritial experiences that helped me feel more connected and guys like Dawkins dismiss these experiences outright. Seems a little shortsighted to me.

Hey guys, glad everyone enjoyed the podcast this week, always love and appreciate the comments, intellectually stimulating. I'm just going to address a few things but not everything in the comments (have to save something for a youtube video or podcast haha), and I'll let James address what you all have written to him.

Thesunwasnoman: Thanks for the love, glad you've been listening, hope you continue to do so, we always appreciate the support. We're not really crapping on psychedelics, I just offer a different opinion. I see them as a tool, if you see that as downplaying them I apologize, but that's not what I'm trying to do is all, just attempting to illustrate a point.

Chris: Glad you enjoyed the show. I am not an atheist, and to get a full grasp on my metaphysical beliefs would take quite a bit of explanation, to much to explain here, but feel free to contact me via email or if enough are interested I could make a video on it. In my personal life I practice Western Christianity, with a pantheistic view, taking particular interest and practice in the monastic tradition (Benedictine, Coptic, Cistercian, Carthusian, etc.) but really respect and believe there is truth in many mystical traditions. My opinion is that one must be chosen and practiced in order to achieve something. I can pull all sorts of information and such from different mystic traditions and things like that and try to apply them to your life, it tends to end up a little messy and off center. That's my main area of study is Western and near eastern mysticism, mainly Christianity, early mystery cults, gnosticism, etc. It's just where my roots are, and where I feel compelled to research and practice, and of course as everyone has experiences as do I, but it would take to long to go into those.

Eugene: I'm assuming you've read the Will to Believe by William James? Very interesting book, can't disagree with what you've said, since I've said it on the podcast myself, the only thing we KNOW is that we exist in the present moment as a consciousness system. Interesting about your meditative retreats, I'd be interested in hearing more about them. I've never gone to far eastern methods, mainly near eastern (Coptic, Greek Orthodox, etc.) and Western (Benedictine, Cistercian, etc.) but I'd be interested in exploring that area at least academically if not practically.

Hope everyone is well, thanks for commenting and listening. If there's something you want to hear, or you have a suggestion or anything like that, feel free to contact us through the contact form on the website, both James and I get it. Thanks again everyone, hear from you soon!

I think discussing psychedelic chemists, would be even better if discussing with a psychedelic chemist :)

Casey Hardison got out this summer after serving 9 years for LSD (and DMT, 2C-B, etc) manufacture. Great podcast guest he would make, methinks.

[link]

Great show guys; thanks for engaging in these fun discussions. Here are my comments to three points brought up in your dialogue:
1) What is Real? I approach this topic with a simple question. In this very moment, what is the only thing that I know for certain, without any inch of doubt. What is real beyond any thought, argument, concept, or belief? What I come up with when I ask myself this question is that the only thing I know is real for certain in this moment is that I AM, I exist in this moment in time. That is it. Everything else is a deduction, a thought process, a belief. Even material reality has been demonstrated by neuroscience to be a relative reconstruction of individual brains. As every brain and nervous system is constructed slightly differently, every individuals 'reality' is slightly different. And then if you take a completely different nervous system, say that of a bat or a snake, we can deduce that their 'reality' looks completely different than that of a humans. Each brain reconstructs what is 'out there' within the limited parameters of its structure. And James mentioned, we perceive the slightest sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum, 1% actually, the rest is totally invisible to us (our instruments merely translate and reduce the information into numbers so that our brains can conceptualize it). This relativity of reality is at the hardware level, but then you have the relativity at the software level; a Marxist view of the world is different than a Catholic view, is different than a physicists view, is different from a Republicans view, etc...What is real? Being itself is the only indisputable primary reality; everything else is an afterthought, a reconstruction, and therefore relative. And our 'material reality' turns out to be 99.99% empty space, a vast vacuum with probabilities that manifest and actualize as solid only as they interact with the appropriate hardware--our brain.
2) In response to Jake, I agree that the monastic setting is an ideal place to reduce external stimuli in order to explore the deeper dimension of Being. At least twice a year I do a ten day silent vipassana meditation retreat. Total silence for ten days with nothing more then meditation will definitely calm the surface mind-chatter, and allow one to explore that deep dimensions of pure Being, pure Consciousness that I argued in the first part as the only REALITY that requires no proof, no validation, and dare I say no science or philosophy; Pure experience.
3) I was slightly confused by Jame's comment that there is "no fixing." As a programmer James, people come to you with something that does not work, and you help them fix it. You brake an arm, and the doctor fixes it. As a psychotherapist, people come to me with psych issues (they are suicidal, so depressed they cant get out of bed, so anxious they don't leave their house, etc) with their corresponding neural programs. My work is not to " fix" them, but to help them rewire their brain, reprogram their mind so that they can lead healthy, productive, happy lives as defined by THEM. Healing is not a destination, its a journey, akin to growth, maturation, development, and evolution. And finally, for me psychedelics showed me the way to freedom and expanded consciousness; then I had to walk the path (for me that meant meditation, yoga, etc.) Anyways, sorry for the long post...just fun to engage other minds. Peace

Great show guys. Really appreciate the honest talk on psychedelics. I used to think tripping all the time was a smart idea, but without proper integration, things start to take a toll on the body and mind. Responsibility is key when working with any tool. Proper dose for what you want out of the experience is real important

Jake, I like how you respect the mystical traditions. Do you consider yourself an atheist? I use the word atheist in its most basic sense as non belief in metaphysical beings. Possibly a pantheist?

It's so disgustingly shocking and so out in the open, as the best kept secrets are. Some of the state's best love entertainers have been MK handlers and victims themselves like Bob Hope and Marilyn Monroe: [link]

Been listening since day 1. Love you guys. Seems like the show is crapping on psychedelics though more and more.

Nicely said, James: "ayahuasca ... a viral memetic package"! Fx

Dave! Dave! Dave's not here! Fx

We have visited koh panghan at 2009, we were told and prepared in advance to avoid any contact with drugs there and heard the snitching stories etc. so we generally decided to make an alcohol holiday. After a few days we've noticed that next to our hotel on the mountain top is a bar AKA mushroom mouintain. since we've found out about it we went to smoke there every day, it really made the Island much more similar to paradise :)
After hearing alot of people talking about the shroom shakes and their "mellow" effect, me and my friend decided to share 1 shake just to get the idea. fyi it was noon and the day of the full moon party.
anyway, after that we went to our hotel and chilled a bit, waiting for the unknown. After some time laying on the bed and staring at the wooden ceiling which was covered with moving light stripes from the light that was moving because of the wind, I could notice that the ceiling was starting to breath, deep breathing..up and down, while I was enjoying that, my friend also started to see some stuff. out of that breathing buddha appeared, the one with the pointy hat. It was very interesting..we had a 6 hour trip I believe, with colors and everything. when we arrived to the party it just couldnt compare to our experience that we just had. Since than Im telling everybody that ask me about the party that its crappy..btw the half moon party rocks.
dont buy anything outside of the connected bars! And dont take anything with you! once I bought some weed from some guy on the street on some alley, suddenly some other dude came out of nowhere and grabbed my arm, luckily I managed to get out of his grip and run to my hotel, where I hided a few hours..not cool
anyway the shake was very excellent. I recommend it. If u do it, be calm, be ready for surprises and just enjoy what youre seeing instead of thinking about it, dont worry it will go away :)
and most important do it with the right people. Enjoy

Hi Davey, this book is worth checking out because it was written by a man who was fully immersed in (and applying ) the scientific materialism of western medicine. His extensive experiences in the "spirit world" while his cerebral cortex was shut down as externally observed by his colleagues parallels the accounts of most world spiritual traditions. What his experience corroborates to, I believe, is evidence supporting the structure of consciousness itself: a structure that has been extensively mapped by the world mystical traditions and more recently within the field of transpersonal psychology. The word "spirit realm" is just a word that refers to something in the subjective, inner realm of human experience. It's as good a word as any, completely outside the realm of objective, sensory-dependent empirical science. It's irrelevant for the person having that experience to hear the materialist dismiss the experience as a mere by product of shifting neourochemestry; subjectively it is as real an experience as riding the city bus. Besides, the bus ride and the adventures in the "spirit realm" can both be measured by looking at brain activity . Why is one more "real" than he other? Both experiences can be consensually validated.

Hi. This comment is in response to Eugene's reference to "proof of heaven" I just want to ask: does this book contain evidence that was externally corroborated. This is the only evidence that could provide proof of the coexistence, commingling of these two worlds. Because I never found that kind of evidence, I stopped looking several years ago. Life has proceeded quite nicely in the absence of that quest. But if you say he has this kind of evidence, I'd want to che k it out. You know, this is the same kind of test we can put to the content of dosed communications. Basically I am convinced by the evidence for weak but verifiable psi effects. A few personal experiences have offered evidence for this too. This doesn't however make the case for a spirit world or of a personal persistence after death yada yada yada. We

sometimes search for a miracle only to miss the most obvoious one, and the only one we need... the fact of being. A miracle is a phenomenon that would seem to defy the laws of reality.

THIS STUFF IS NOT WEED. in fact it is the farthest thing from it. "legal weed" yeah right.. more like "LEGAL DEATH". I had never smoked before in my life. one night i was over at a friends house he claimed he had "weed" we smoked it. the second i hit that bong I saw BLACK. i'm not saying i passed out or fell on the ground, i simply blacked out standing up for God knows how long. the moment i could start to see again i ran to my friends begging for help. help me, i'm dying i said. call the cops. call my mom. i'm going to die. help me. my "friends" laughed. they took videos of me dying laughing at what i was going through. my heart has never beat so fast in my entire life. my vision was almost like seeing life in a flip book. everything moving so fast but at the same time flickering into focus. i couldn't walk. my friends just stood there, they didn't care what happened to me. I couldn't breathe. I have never felt so close to death in my life. I could feel death taking over me. i felt possessed. even now writing this my hands are shaking and my heart is racing. it's been a week and I still remember everything perfectly. I took a drug test to figure out what i smoked. everything came back negative. my friends wouldn't tell me what i smoked. in fact while i was freaking out telling them i was going to die they tried to make me smoke more of it. but thats when my brother told me chemicals don't show up on drug tests. and after looking into it further i found out it was k2. this stuff is not a joke. stop being ignorant. I almost died that night, I should have. but luckily I somehow managed to call my mom and she came and picked me up. I have panic attacks a lot now when I think about that night.

I have had many experiences with the San Pedro. What they cooked up in the movie looked terribly weak. That piece they had is also a lot less than what I would have used for 5 people.

I really enjoy this podcast. I like the stuff about mysticism and neuroscience. Psychedelics are always an interesting topic of discussion and the conspiracy theories are fun as long as you can argue both sides. I really liked James' take on the "gun" theory and how the gun manufacturers instead of the government, are the one's who really gain anything from shootings.
Keep on truckin'