The Joe Rogan Experience - #498 - Aubrey Marcus

Episode Date: May 11, 2014

Aubrey Marcus is writer, entrepreneur, and adventurer. Some of his writings and experiences can be found on his website, WarriorPoet.us, as well as links to his latest venture, Onnit Labs.

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It's the most ridiculous thing ever. You can grow it in Canada and sell it in Canada and you can buy it and bring it back to America, but you cannot grow it in America. It's so fucking dumb. It's like if you had a cousin that was a criminal and because of it, you weren't allowed to vote. It's that dumb. It really is, right? I mean, that's like a good analogy um but the honor academy is really fascinating there's so much cool shit there from uh there's videos with me working out with aubrey and we're demonstrating different exercises and and techniques um there's just a slew of cool shit at the uh on an academy and we're continuing to add to it all the time on it is continuing to grow when we find cool There's just a slew of cool shit at the Onnit Academy. And we're continuing to add to it all the time.

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But go to Onnit, O-N-N-I-T. Get your freak on and use the code word Rogan. Save 10% off any and all supplements. All right. Aubrey Marcus is back from Peru. He was riding the wizard's tail. And he's got stories for us. Uh-oh.

Here we go. Hit it. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. And all my friends that have done drugs. And almost all of them have. You're the most dedicated at these return visits to exotic locations for mind-expanding, horizon-expanding experiences. And you're back again.

I'm back. Do you plan these out? How far in advance? Yeah. This one, sometimes it's a long time. Sometimes something just comes up. And this time was one of those times. An acquaintance who I met through actually the Aboga world,

he had gone down here and done this huachuma experience, which is the original way that you describe San Pedro before it got Catholicized from the missionaries who came in and freaked out that the native people were doing these ceremonies with this San Pedro cactus, which is what we call. But it originally comes from this 4,000-year-old recipe from the Chavin people, which was like the peak of pre-Andean consciousness. And so I heard about these ceremonies going on, and I hadn't had any experience with that medicine. And I was like, fuck it, I'm in. I got to explore this,

see what this is like, see what this unique tool is good for. So San Pedro is peyote. Peyote is masculine. Peyote is a different cactus. Really? Yeah. So peyote is a different cactus, similarly related in mechanism of action. But it's a little bit sterner.

It's a little bit harsher. They describe the difference, you know, if one's going to whack you on the head, peyote's more of a hammer and San Pedro's more of a heavy feather. Yeah, exactly. Like a wiffle bat. Heavy feather. But it can be pretty intense work too, as I'll describe. But yeah, slightly different cactuses. And obviously the peyote came up through the North American tradition more frequently. And then the San Pedro huachuma was carried up through the North American tradition more frequently. And then the San Pedro huachuma was carried on through the South American tradition. Wow.

So this place that you're going to in Peru, is this like a center? Is this an organized, regular place that people go to? I didn't know that there was these places online that are like Yelp for ayahuasca retreats. They rate them with stars. It's so bizarre. Someone sent me a tweet saying something about because of your spreading the word, look at all these different things that are out there.

So I click on the link. I'm like, alright, what is this? It's like fucking 50 different ayahuasca retreats that all have websites. Yeah. And they're all yelped and reviewed and five-star, four-star. It's fucking crazy. You need these kind of review systems, especially if they're of integrity, because this is pretty powerful medicine.

You're dealing with internal processes that are very intense. Ayahuasca alone is a very powerful MAOI, which can interact with a lot of things with your health, but it's also dealing with, you know, very deep spiritual, you know, issues, traumas that you may have, things like that. So getting a really good shaman, a real master is so key. So having good review systems and, and really even better is knowing people that have been there and talking to people from experience and finding them that way because they're popping up just to make money. And just because you're a shaman and just because you have ayahuasca doesn't mean you have any integrity at all. Yeah, Amber Lyon was telling us about a shaman that was feeling her up. Yep, yep.

And there's all kinds of crazy stories like that. I mean, shamans just charge the money, give you the brew, which is a brew maybe they didn't even make it themselves. They just bought it in a market. Maybe they put a bunch of towe, which is datura, in there. And so you're getting more of like that Batman 1 hallucination instead of like a really powerful DMT experience. It's a lot of things that are going on there that are not great. that are going on there that are not great. But if you get to a real ayahuasquero and a real center with really good medicine,

obviously, as I've described in previous journeys, it can be incredibly powerful. So this is your newest, your latest. You're just back from it. Yeah. You just returned how long ago? A week. A week ago. Yeah.

How fucked up were you? As fucked up in the most beautiful way possible. I mean, this to me, this was the one. This was the one. This was the one. This was the single greatest thing for me that I've done. And I've done, you know, I've told all these stories, the ayahuasca, the aboga, riding the back of a dragon, seeing the flotillas of snakes popping into the eighth dimension, doing, you know, exploring this advent calendar of past souls on a boat, all of these crazy stories, nothing was as dramatically, positively impactful as this experience down there.

And it was a combination, not only of the medicine, but of the integrity of the place. And of course, being held by Gandalf, the white wizard himself, which was something I was surprised at. You know, I expected him. I didn't have any expectations, really. And I was really just blown away by what they had going on there. What do you mean by Gandalf the White Wizard himself? Like, you actually met Gandalf? If there was a Gandalf, like, if that myth, I hung out with him for eight days,

and he's my homeboy. So is this something – I'm not sure if you're joking around. Like, did you actually have hallucinations that you were hanging out with Gandalf? No, just describing that kind of benevolent, friendly, slightly humorous archetype. Someone who has access to great power but can just sit around and smoke a pipe with you and tell stories. Or when he's timed for work, he can step up and do some pretty amazing things. I'll kind of probably get through into the story. But it just really follows that archetype to a T.

Obviously, no direct links to Gandalf. So explain. You take this stuff, and when you take it, how long does it take before it kicks in? Sure. What is it similar to? Yeah, well, I'll tell the whole story in succession here, and we'll get to it. And, you know, the first part of any of these medicine journeys is you set your intent to do it. And then once that happens, the process already begins.

You can talk to a lot of the different teachers about this. As soon as you set your intent to do some of this work, some stuff starts to come up. And there'll be, you know, some of your dark material that'll start to come up as if it's almost getting ready to surface. And then there'll be a serious amount of resistance, like what Steven Pressfield says, when you go from something, you know, something lower to a higher place, there's going to be intense resistance. And for me, it was the fact that I was going down to the lower Amazon in rainy season, which means there's going to be fucking mosquitoes everywhere. And I hate mosquitoes and I'm a bit paranoid about things like malaria. So it freaked me out and I almost canceled like the last minute, but ultimately

looking back, you see that that was like, that was my resistance. Yeah, exactly. And that's going to come up for everybody. Anybody listening who sets their intent to do this, you're going to find at the 11th hour, some serious resistance, some fears, some material that's going to come up. That's going to tell you, nah, don't do this shit, but that's normal. You can heed it or not. Life is a series of choices, but expect resistance to come for that. So that's what came to me. And I got down there and I'd been going through some, some personal stuff. My first time, um, single and alone in 13 years, I just split up with my partner. She's great, but went that way. I had some other,

a lot of stress and, you know, we've been pushing pretty hard. So when I got there into, into Peru, I was seriously ready for something, you know, and I didn't know what. I didn't really do that much research on the Huachuma, honestly. Usually I really read trip reports. I go to a place like Erewid and I look and I read. And I didn't really know shit. I just knew I was going down there and I was like, whatever. Something good is hopefully going to happen. But I was still, I arrived there. So you get into, go into Lima, spent the night in Lima, take the flight into Iquitos. Iquitos is one of the largest cities that has no roads to it. The only way to get to Iquitos is by plane or by boat.

It's kind of an interesting place. How many people live there? 500,000. Whoa. Yeah. 500,000 people and there's no roads? Uh-uh. It's like a jungle town.

There's a lot of what you would call in Thailand, you call them tuk-tuks, those little bikes 500,000 people and there's no roads? Uh-uh. And it's like a jungle town. There's a lot of what you would call in Thailand, you call them tuk-tuks, those little bikes that have a big backseat, motorized bikes, and just kind of a sprawling, really dirty, stinky place. So you cruise through that place,

and then we met up with Don Howard, who runs the center down there, the Spirit Quest Center and he's got the the long white hair and a big friendly smile so as soon as I saw him I was like okay American yeah he so he's Kentucky born uh the grandson of a root doctor a Kentucky root doctor which is like an old natural medicine doctor and a half Native American as well so his journey just to just to talk briefly about, I learned kind of on the boat ride, because we hop in a boat to go to the center, because his center's on 200 acres in the

jungle that he's been preserving. So his journey at 19, he got called to start working with peyote and went and did the kind of traditional Native American as with his ancestry, that kind of path to do peyote ceremonies for about 20 years, both with himself and with, you know, leading other people. And then he got called to go down to South America and start working with the San Pedro cactus, the huachuma, and got kind of initiated into the Chavin way, which is a C-H-A-V-I-N, and understood, you know, kind of the old recipes, the old ways that they used to make the medicine. And not only with the huachuma, but the vilca, which is the second medicine that we did.

And the vilca is the most potent DMT experience on the fucking planet. Like nothing else, and I've done many of the other ways, can come close to that. It's a combination of NN DMT, 5-MeO DMT, and bufotinine, and you snuff it through your nose. But I'll go through that story. That was kind of the grand fucking finale of this whole thing. And it launches you so much farther than even ayahuasca or anything else that I've done. So he got a call to start working with those medicines along with ayahuasca down in the jungle and had been doing that for 30 years. So he'd had 50 years of experience working with these plant medicines. And as you could imagine, that's a long time to, you know, to be on the path and just be following, um, trying to heal as many people as possible and show them the, show them the medicine. So awesome guy. And someone

that usually with these shamans, they don't speak English. So you kind of get a vibe from them and then you do the medicine and it's all kind of magic. With him, not only is he leading the ceremony in that way, you can just sit around and bullshit with him. Talk to him about crazy females that tried to take him to the dark side and all kinds of these stories that you would find from a guy like if you're hanging out with Gandalf in the fucking Shire and eating supper and smoking his crazy dragon pipe. It had that kind of feel to it when you get there. So I get in, I get into the jungle and it's a really beautiful place. The ceremonial hut has ayahuasca vines that are growing along the hut and encircling the whole hut, which is pretty amazing to see.

And then everything is all screened in. It's kind of like a nice rustic wood. As I said, it's on 200 acres. So we go into this screened-in place, but I'm still extra paranoid. So I set up my mosquito net, and I'm completely doused in bug spray, like just wet with bug spray, because I'm still super paranoid. And so we get in there and, you know, end up talking, go through the initiation, get to a pretty good degree of

comfort. And we're going to do the medicine the next day. And that night I was just, I couldn't sleep at all. I was exhausted, but I still couldn't sleep because I was just so concerned about like a lot of stuff was coming up for me, a lot of emotions and stuff and, and worry about this, these bugs and this malaria thing, which was made worse by, of course, another kind of test that came up. Somebody who was there said, oh, did you hear about those two cases of malaria that just showed up recently? I was like, why do you got to fucking tell me that? All the things, you volunteer that information. But of course, that's what came up. So that was an opportunity for me to really work on these

fears and paranoias, which for me, my greatest fear is that fear of suffering, some fear of some illness that I wouldn't be able to beat. Death, I'd seen in my other experiences what the other side kind of felt like. And I was like, well, that would suck. I don't want to die. I obviously have a lot of stuff to do and I love life. Life's amazing. A lot of stuff to do. But the fear of suffering i never really kicked that kick that fear so i was just sitting there and finally like four in the morning the jungle's just loud loud as shit anyway just the cicadas and you know birds and these um crazy

other jungle rodents that are in the trees making honking noises and all kinds of stuff i mean really really loud i think and are you the like the hut that you're in does it have open windows yeah so it's all just screened in windows so it's wide open to the jungle and we're just nestled in the jungle so like when you go to the bathroom and you turn the light on you find giant fucking things crawling on the windows and stuff on the outside part hopefully not the inside part because they haven't got through the screens but yeah anything attracted to the light will be you know kind of stuck to the screen door looking at you big ass fucking dog-sized bugs right yeah you're in the jungle and there's everything was nice no hot water no showers in the room but you know

everything else was pretty nice no obviously air or heat or anything so anyways four in the morning i'm draped in this mosquito net and i finally you know i'm finally like i get this idea in my head and the phrase trust the mud comes into my head it's just like just trust the mud and with that final thought i was able to finally get some sleep trust the mud trust the mud and i guess to me that was just a metaphor of the mud being the jungle itself you know and the mud being what's me you know what's inside me this flesh this life this everything all being connected just just trust it trust the mud trust that it's not gonna fuck me up trust that some mosquito is not gonna come in or some millipede's not gonna crawl up my butthole and sting me and i'm

never going to shit again whatever other fears that i had and you hear the stories too like don't pee in the water because then this this fish will crawl up your urethra and spread its spines and explode your dick it does happen no it does happen so you have all of these crazy scary stuff that you hear about this and that can you can really freak yourself out doing that. But again, so finally four in the morning, say, trust the mud, fuck it. I'm going to, I'm going to go, go through with this next day, wake up feeling a little better, but I feel like, like a, like a sick person, you know, when you go to the doctor and you're super healthy and you're going to get your blood drawn, you get that kind of anticipation before the prick, you know, of the needle prick. It's like, ah, it's going to, for me, I was like, I just fucking need this so bad. Like I wasn't even nervous before doing this new, completely

new psychedelic, which is crazy unusual. Anytime, even if I take like a small dose of mushrooms, you get those butterflies in your stomach. Like, oh shit, I'm about to jump. I didn't even have that. I just felt like a sick person going to get some medicine. So we get in there to the ceremonial hut and laid out is what's called the Masada. And that's a key part of the Wachuma ceremony is this kind of mesa that they set up. And on it is these six skulls, three female shamans, three male shamans. They're actual human skulls and set up. And then there's jaguar skulls. And then there's artifacts spanning all the way back to Chavin, which is 4,000 years old. There's a piece of the moon that's on this altar.

How did they get a piece of the moon? In doing the medicine, you interact with a lot of people who've done and collected a variety of things. And one of the things after you're done is you feel compelled to give something back to what you've for what you've received so a lot of these most of these are just gifts that have been accumulated over 50 years of of work i don't know exactly where that piece came from but somebody had that given to them whatever and then they say holy shit you changed my life here's this fucking piece of the moon maybe it wasn't a piece of the moon but it was given as a piece of the moon which is just basically the same yeah basically the same who knows but anyways a lot i mean the skulls were real the jaguar skulls the all this and

they have a big centerpiece in the altar called the lanson and that's like an ancient kind of chavin um central pillar which acts as like the center of this altar uh called the axis mundi which you know transforms kind of into ceremonially into like the center of the center of the universe is what that's supposed to be so we're sitting there and and he's uh he starts going around and the medicine the san pedro is the liquid medicine i didn't even know if it was liquid if i was going to chew it i had really had no fucking idea what was going on. I knew that it operated on the same serotonin receptors that mushrooms and some of these other things, 5-HT2A serotonin receptors. I kind of knew a little bit of the mechanism of action, but I didn't really know anything other than that.

And he starts going around the room and he's got you know kind of a warm smile he's cracking a few jokes and to me that's the best sign of any good shaman is that he's willing to like crack a few jokes and stay relaxed like the ones that are shady and the ones that are weird are the ones that are like being shaman like watch me play shaman everybody be silent like a yoga teacher that insists on chanting. Yeah, exactly. Sounds really goofy. Exactly.

Like the ones that are really comfortable in the medicine, this is just what they fucking do. They can crack a joke. It's not going to affect anything. It's not going to make you think less of them or them do the work any less. And it's not going to stop the dragon. It's not going to stop the dragon.

Not going to stop Gandalf. So anyway, so he opens up these things, and it's actually covered in the skins of the San Pedro cactus, these little vessels. And he starts looking around the room and he'll look at you and look at you for like five seconds and then, you know, kind of get a, get a read on you and then pour a certain amount into a cup. So I was seeing, and he's pouring little, little bits in the cup. And for me, I wanted to project, you know, like, give me the fucking mother load dose, but I decided I was just going to trust what he was going to do. So eventually, you know, I watch everybody drink and it looks like they're drinking maybe two ounces based on what he's pouring. And he gets to me and I just

bust out a huge smile, you know, and I was like, all right, let's, let's do this. I was like, really? I don't know. At that moment, I was just really looking forward to it and he got a big smile and he pours me up just a full mug not quite full but at least six ounces of this liquid and i didn't know what it tasted like so i had nothing to do so you get up to the altar he blows a little the mapacho which is the nicotine rustica um tobacco in this large joint looking thing. And that's kind of a cleansing plant. It's just kind of ceremonially used to cleanse the space and cleanse your, your energy before you do it. And I get the cup and it takes, you know, it's six ounces. So it takes like five, six gulps and it's pretty bad. You know, it's thin, it's thinner than ayahuasca.

It's kind of ruddy, kind of red. Um, but it's pretty, pretty potent. It has that kind of bitter, herby, tonicky kind of thing, but it wasn't, it wasn't so terrible. I ended up thinking, oh, that's not so terrible. And then he has one of his assistants, uh, bring some lemonade to wash it down. And apparently the lemonade has good electrolytes. So you drink that throughout the day on this. So drink the lemonade. And I'm thinking like usual ceremonies, you just kind of sit around and stuff happens. You see stuff. And I was like, all right, well, settling in, we're going to sit around.

No, not what the plan was. So he goes, all right, everybody, meet me out at the front. We're going to take a little boat ride to some of my friends in the jungle. We're going to bring them some mosquito nets, one of the local tribes. I was like, what the fuck? We just took a bunch of drugs. You're going to make us get in a boat and go tracing through the jungle. I was like, all right, I guess that's, I guess that's what the plan is. So we get all our stuff and meet out in the front and, uh, everybody starts getting really kind of chatty in this first part. And he tells us that doing wachuma is like living a lifetime in a day, is what he says. Like the medicine is going to change and that the first

part is going to be very exuberant and may even result in uncontrollable hilarity, you know, in the first part. Like, all right. And then it'll change from there. And the theme of this one was the serpent masada, the water masada, which is a very kind of fluid. The idea is to, you know, be like the water, be very fluid, be very close to the, close to the earth. And, and that's the idea for this. So everybody's kind of getting chatty and then we hop in the boat and we, you know, we cruise around and you can start to feel that energy start to build very psilocybony, you know, we cruise around and you can start to feel that energy start to build. Very psilocybiny, you know, as that kind of, you feel something start to come on and you want to stretch out your spine because there's some energy coming up through you. And we start to feel that in the boat.

But then by the time we landed on this little inlet and you're cruising through the jungle. It's in these rivers. And it's crazy because you'd have no idea how they know where they're going. Cause they're going through these like small little openings in the mangroves and the trees and, but whatever, 35 minutes later, we end up in this really isolated landing. It looks like nothing. And these little bare chested children come out and run out to meet us. And we hop off the boat. And by that point, we could tell something something very different was starting to happen like really like coils of energy were like pulsing through our bodies and it felt so fucking ridiculously good that it's like indescribably good like like full body kind of orgasmic little typhoons of energy, like just pulsing through where you

want to kind of stretch. You don't know if you want to run. You don't know if you can just, it's like almost hard to contain it. And then from the mental side of things, everything just starts to open up like the most beautiful, we just landed in the most beautiful place in the whole universe. You know, you just start to look around and it it has this kind of looks similar but the lighting is a little bit different and it's just kind of glowing to you like you just landed in fucking pandora on avatar world you know and the only way i can describe the feeling of that was this some combination of like the best mdma like what mdma wished it could be in its ultimate form, and a bunch of mushrooms at the same time, just smashed together. So you had this kind of energetic side from the

mushrooms and this kind of visionary clarity and this just pure ecstasy of, I feel so fucking great that I can't even stand it, you know, which was not at all what I expected from the medicine. You know, I was expecting something much more visionary, kind of head down visions, stuff like that. So we get out there, we start interacting with the tribe, the kids come and then the little kids start playing with people in our group. And the kids, you know, because Don Howard only brings the Westerners out there to this tribe when they're blasted on Lachuma. You know, the whole tribe thinks that we're the coolest fucking nation of people ever, ever in the history of the universe. Cause we're just fucking like hugging everybody. We're like super excited, you know, and we're just looking around in this forest and it's just beautiful.

Like everything is beautiful. Like they bring out these little bananas for us and we look at them like, Oh fuck, that looks good. And then we take a banana and you have a bite and it's like, it's the most amazing banana I've ever had. Like everything is so fresh, almost as if you've never tried or done anything ever before in your life. And you've just been, and everything is new. You know, like if you hug your friend and we had had some good friends down there, or hug one of the people in the tribe, it just feels like this amazing connection you have with them. It just tickles with excitement. And if you eat a banana, it's like the best tasting thing you've ever had ever before.

And so they come and they meet us. And the men were off in the jungle doing some work. So it was just the women from the tribe. And they start playing some songs and leading us around and some dances and we're stomping around and they have a few like handcrafts that they had made and we're cruising around and um you know we picked up a few things to kind of support the tribe dropped off the um dropped off the mosquito nets i I got this little thing. I got you something. I don't know why I got you this, but this is a rattly mane that has pink dolphins on it.

So I don't know. Wow. I don't know why, but this is yours. Awesome. From there. That's pretty dope. Yeah. So it's carved from like a bean pod that's local there in the jungle.

Well, I'm a big fan of dolphins. Yeah. Maybe that's why. Maybe that's why the big dolphin called you. So anyway, so we're hanging out there and, and at that point I started, you know, we actually, we had a, we had a crew there with us. It was documenting this, um, which we'll get to see at some point when this comes out, but they were asking, you know, about, well, how do you feel? What about all the things you were worried about? And it wasn't at that point, like I had any solutions to the problems that I was concerned with. It was just that all of it was meaningless because life was so fucking beautiful and so good.

I didn't have to figure out any of these problems and worries and concerns, loneliness, fears, everything. It was just such an overwhelming feeling of everything was so amazingly good that it just didn't matter you know it's like we're alive and that's enough you know every breath was so amazingly positive and and such a gift to be in that you couldn't even worry about something else and that was kind of the nature of that first little stop off in the jungle and um really cool but then it started so we're there for a couple hours and just laughing and having fun and screwing around and and thinking about things and smiling and eating little snacks like like the banana and then it starts to get dusk and so we go into another boat ride and slowly before that it happened, kind of the hilarity of things and

everything started, the energy started to drop. And I remembered back to what he was saying, how the medicine's going to change. And certainly that's when it started to change. Everything kind of got quieter and a little bit, you know, still very powerful, but in a different way. Kind of that ecstatic energy where you felt like you had to run around or had to stretch or had to do something just to release this energy that was in your body. That kind of started to die away. And so we're at dusk on this boat ride and the way that the shadows were, it was like very difficult to distinguish between the jungle and the reflection on the water. So we're cruising in this canoe and it looks like we're cruising right through the divide between, you know, air and water. Everything is just really difficult to discern what we're doing. It's a really kind of cool visual effect, obviously

made stronger by the Wachuma. And I start to have my first visions from this experience. And I start to have visions of just what I identified as the true nature of life and that kind of feminine life-giving birthing energy. And it was just this crazy ecstatic vision of life within life within life, like looking at a human, not only as a person, but then a collection of cells filled with bacteria, filled with parasites, filled with life, just teeming all the way down to the level of the flagella that are moving around like, you know, and then there was visions of the octopus tentacles flowing and changing colors and visions of every, even in the dirt, the dirt itself was alive with different bacteria and

insects and things. And everywhere you look, there was just life bursting through every seam. And with that, I saw three women with these long, venomous fingernails, big, voluptuous tits and amber skin and amber hair, dark, dark eyes. And you could see the venom dripping from their nails. And they're smiling at me and waving me forward, three of them, waving me forward like this. And it was the most irresistible sight I've ever seen, just this life everywhere, tentacles. of that extreme life-giving material feminine energy was what was completely irresistible to the other force, which is that life force, that source, the non-creation consciousness that has no form

and seeks order in all things. And so this polarity of masculine and feminine were just irresistibly attracted to each other. And that's what made the balance between the earth. And the phrase, which I still don't really understand, but I kept saying it over and over in my head, was that existence is the ecstasy of dichotomy. And I think what that means is just that balance

between this life-giving, feminine, succulent, seductive, sexy, ecstatic, chaotic presence of the feminine, and the other dichotomy of consciousness itself, which has none of those attributes, none of those physical attributes. But that's what existence is. It's that dichotomy of both of those put together. What about the venom? We think of venom as evil, but that's just part of this visceral life-death cycle, you know. Things burst forth, things die. The venom is this kind of chaotic, seductive element that is, that's all a part of it. Like, it's not separate. It's not like

this part is good, you know, and this part is bad. It just all comes forth naturally without any choice. So the venom and a banana are really the same thing, just manifested in a different way. So all of it was what was irresistible. It wasn't just the good parts. Even these women with these venomed nails were completely irresistible to the place that I was in, which was this very kind of consciousness, spiritually centered place, and that was completely irresistible to the place that I was in, which was this very kind of consciousness, spiritually centered place. And that was completely irresistible to me.

And I could see how it would be to consciousness itself, you know, because that's the dichotomy that creates this, the polarity and the interesting parts of life. So we get finally, everybody was silent on this boat ride. We took it a little bit slower. So it took us about 45 minutes to go back. And then my friend Daniel was there, actually the guy who recommended it,

right before we pulled up. He's like, man, that was like the best sex I've ever had. And all of us just fucking crack up because that's exactly what it was like. I think very similar visions of just this entering this weird, sexy, seductive world. And so this dolphin thing came from those people? Yeah, it came from those people. They make them and they sell them or something? Mm-hmm.

Wow. Yeah. It feels crazy. Yeah. Like listening to your story and holding on to this thing? Yeah. Thanks for bringing this, man. Yeah, you're welcome, brother.

It's really cool. You're welcome. It's really cool. Yeah. So anyways, we get back and then he's like well meet me back in the maloca which is the ceremonial hut um to meet me back in the loca for the night ceremony and the maloca is all lit with you know these different candles um you know kind of splayed out in the whole um you know the whole mesa if you want to actually

bring up a picture of that because it it's almost impossible to describe, um, what this actually looks like. Uh, it's pretty, pretty incredible. There's some at night and you'll see the candles and you'll see this Mesa table. And we're just kind of waiting there and waiting for Don Howard to come in. And everybody was kind of getting cleaned up cause we're sweaty from the day. People took showers and, which was a little weird cause you're still, you're pretty fucking blasted at this point is this it right here yeah that's that's it that's a different night there's another night kind of front on um first because some other pictures that are kind of front on but that's the table that was that was the second night but anyway so um i'm waiting for him and there's these mapacho cigarettes on the altar and I wanted to smoke one. I was, you know,

kind of interested in doing that, but for some reason I felt weird just grabbing it off the altar without giving anything back to the altar, even though he'd been passing them out. Yes. That's, that's what it looks like kind of from behind. Um, but it was, but so I'd look through my bag and I was like, well, I got to give something to get this mapacho. And I don't know why I'm sure it would have been fine with Don Howard, but that's just really what I felt at that moment. And so I looked through my bag and I had a little stick of cinnamon that I used to light and burn and smells nice. So I was like, okay, that seems fair. So I put the cinnamon up there and I took the mapacho. And then I think to myself, ah, well, I got to light it. Well,

there's a bunch of candles in front of me, but for some reason, I didn't even feel right taking a light from those candles without asking first. So I asked the candles, I asked the candles, I said, do you mind if I borrowed some fire? And just clear as another voice, as if I was talking to somebody else over here to my right, it says, sure, because you're going to give me some smoke. And I go, uh-huh. Yep. You're right. So I go and I, there's a candle here to my left and I, you know, light it a little bit from there. And then there was another candle all the way to my right. And I asked, I was like, ah, can I have some fire there? He's like, yeah, sure. So I light it a little bit more. It still wasn't fully quite lit, you know? And so there was a candle in the middle and without thinking, I just went to go light from a candle in the middle. And without thinking, I just went

to go light from the candle in the middle. Didn't ask, just didn't even, it was kind of unconscious. And inexplicably, when I did that, the smoke just blasted me in the eyes, like straight up into my eyes and it really stung. And I heard the voice come back and say, even when it's fair, make sure to ask permission. And it was the fucking craziest thing. And what it was, was it was teaching me the principle of reciprocity is what is one of the biggest fundamental core teachings of the Shavine people. And the idea is that even if you don't have anything to give, at least give your gratitude. And that's one of the core reasons and ways that we've gotten off from these kind of old teachings in that

whatever you do, there's a give and take. When you take an animal, at the very least, give your gratitude for the gift of that animal. When you take, it could be a vegetable, just say a little, thanks for that. And as the earth in general, you know, providing a home, providing us a place, materials, the principle of reciprocity would be to do your part to protect that, or at the very least, just be grateful for what you've kind of got. And that in itself, that gratitude is enough, you know. But it was funny how that kind of came up in this kind of very back and forth verbal teaching from this altar. And this really silly thing, I mean, it's mapacho and fire, you know, but that was kind of the example that it used to kind of drive that point home. And really, you know, stuck with me and as

something that, you know, I'll always remember like, all right, you know, the give and take of things is something much older and more sacred than even just an idea that we right, you know, the give and take of things is something much older and more sacred than even just an idea that we have. You know, there's like, that is a fundamental principle that should be abided by. That's something that you feel too. You know, you feel like when you see someone who doesn't tip, you know, you get this, this weird feeling when you're with them, you know, that's, or someone who is in a similar vein, rude to someone who's in the service profession, who's trying to be kind to them, and they recognize this imbalance because the person's trying very hard to be nice to them so they feel like they can be shitty to them. You see that as an observer, you know, as an outsider watching that. It's very uncomfortable.

It's like you're seeing imbalance. You're feeling imbalance. Yeah. Or someone throwing the cigarette butt right on the ground. So common. Yeah. Incredibly common. And that's the exact feeling that you get from that is that this is a person that's

not in tune. And amazingly so, it seems to be the majority of people that smoke cigarettes in their cars throw them out the window. Yeah. I don't know if it's a majority. I shouldn't say the majority. I haven't done a survey. But I should say a large number., throw them out the window. I don't know if it's a majority. I shouldn't say the majority. I haven't done a survey, but I should say a large number.

I see it all the time. I see it. I've counted eight Priuses so far that I've seen that throw cigarettes out the window, which I find particularly ironic. Right. Just an environmentally conscious car with a cigarette flying out the window.

Right. Wow. Then it makes you wonder why they chose that environmentally conscious car. For auditions. Yeah, exactly. So they can look cool. Exactly.

Yeah, that feeling of the balance, the reciprocity, just the being aware of the give and take of things, that's a very important principle. It's very important for me. I'm very, very sensitive to that. It's one of the most important take of things. That's a very important principle. It's very important for me. I'm very, very sensitive to that. It's one of the most important things to me. Yeah, and you're right in line with the very core teachings of the Shavine people, and that was it.

And then they used to give free... So the Shavine was not a race. It was a collection of individuals that came out of the jungle, collection of shamans and healers and teachers, set up shop in Shavineavin which is an actual location but it wasn't racially organized and they had no hierarchical structure which freaks archaeologists out because they keep trying to look for it well who's the king well there was no king it was like the fucking round table

and they can't they can't understand that and they would give ceremonies of the wachuma and the vilka to any of the pilgrims that kind of came and the idea of the Wachuma and the Vilca to any of the pilgrims that kind of came. And the idea was the pilgrim brings a gift, whatever they have. Sometimes they have no gift and it's just their gratitude, but many times it was actual gifts that would come. And that's kind of how the society worked based upon, you know, simply that principle of reciprocity. You know, eventually it died out and it was carried on by a couple other traditions, a couple other places like the Mochi and things. But from that point,

then other things started to creep in, hierarchy, power, militarism, etc. Even the Incas, which people credit as this great, highly civilized people, which they were to a great degree, but they were still fully militarized and, you know, kind of, they took over, they overwhelmed the whole surrounding area with a military force, different than the Chavin. But they're just more typical to what was going on in the times. The Chavin was a really kind of unique, unique situation that they had. And like I said, their core principle there was that principle of reciprocity and guidance from these two really powerful medicines. Wow. So the night ceremony.

The night ceremony, yeah. So we get in there, and the first part of the night ceremony, on his altar, on his table, he has these ancient whistling vessels that are somewhere between 500 to 2,500 years old. And they're like these clay vessels. Some are jaguars. Mine was a toucan. Some, one of them was life and death as friends together. And there's these amazing artifacts. What does it look like, life and death as friends?

So one is this skeleton, and the other is this voluptuous woman. And they're holding each other like this, and as life and death as friends. And all of these vessels, and you blow through the top and it creates a really unique um whistling sound and so he asked us all to the altar and he says well why don't we try to wake this up a little bit you know and he always has that kind of wry smile because he knows he understates what's what's going to happen so we all start blowing on these whistles and together you, it sounds discordant at first, but then ultimately it locks into this frequency that feels like it's going through your entire, like just penetrating straight through your head. Like you're not even listening to it. It's just wiping you clean of any kind of frequency that you might have.

clean of any kind of frequency that you might have, like a really strong, like resonant sound that just goes straight through your whole body, which was kind of a cool experience in itself. And what they used it for was that, you know, aligning, you know, just kind of sound and frequency and getting you basically back to that clean slate so that anything you have going on in your head, maybe you got a song stuck in your head maybe you've got a song stuck in your head, maybe you've got a beat stuck in your head, maybe you've got some latent programs kind of going on, it just kind of wipes straight through. And a cool experience, nothing crazy more profound than that, but just kind of awesome to be a part of this,

blowing these vessels that have been used for this purpose, like ancient consciousness technology, 2,000 years old from the Mochi people and some other people. That's something, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but that's something that seems to resonate in a lot of these ancient shamanic cultures is the need for music, the need for song, songs that carry you through ceremonies, songs that take you through whether it's a mushroom ceremony or ayahuasca, the ayahuasqueros and their icaros, those songs that take you through, whether it's a mushroom ceremony or ayahuasca, the ayahuasqueros and their icaros, those songs that they sing. What is there when you talk to

them about that? What's the connection? The icaros are kind of their own special thing, but almost every single shamanic tradition has rattles. And Don Howard had rattles too. His rattles were a little different than these ones but they talk about breaking up you know for them they can see these energetic forces and for them they talk about the rattles breaking up this kind of frequency field around you and kind of recalibrating it to a certain degree so the rattles are used completely ubiquitously. And then there's other things like singing bowls, which you'd find in Tibet. And in Peru, they had

the whistling vessels and other things that make kind of other shrill sounds. And then of course, there's the drums, which make a beat good for dancing or good for that. The Icaros themselves are just these songs that the plants teach you and are very kind of DMT oriented as, um, as I kind of found out, cause I found myself singing one of these songs out of the fucking blue when I was snorting the Vilca, but we'll get to that in, in sequence. Um, but yeah, it, it kind of just breaks up the auditory field. Uh, and also in a lot of cultures that calls in, announces basically the helper spirits to come and the allies to come like, hey, here we are, you know, come find us is another reason. But I don't know, I can't see that stuff. I mean, I just know it kind of sounds good and it puts me in a good mood

and it feels good, but it takes one of those other seers to experience it. And I don't like speculating on things that I haven't experienced. And they don't actually like talking about things that you can't experience. And that's the difference between a religion and shamanism is they don't tell you shit. They show you everything. You know, if they can't show you, they just, they won't tell you, you know, it's like, this is, this is truth and you have to go find it for yourself. You know, whereas religions by and large are like, here's for yourself. Whereas religions, by and large, are like,

here's the truth, it's written down in this book, you better follow it whether it makes sense or not or we'll burn you or kill you. Well, they have something real. All that stuff's unnecessary when you can ride the dragon. Right. It really is completely unnecessary. Exactly.

Because everybody, you get to that same conclusion. Different people to different degrees but it's reproducible and it's reproducible in every individual so you don't need to go talking about it and you don't have to believe in it no, there's nothing that you have to believe in other than just what you've experienced yourself

and that's the beauty of this kind of work I'm going too sober to hear this beautiful so then the next part of that ceremony the last part, was to snort this liquid out of what's called a cingalo, which is this giant steak. And it's a liquid preparation that they pour in the tip of it.

And it was a combination of the Florida water, tobacco, some more huachuma, and a few other plants in this thing. And so you get up there and it's this big steak and you kind of tip it into one nostril. Yeah, I have a little bit. You tip it into one nostril. And you tip it into the other nostril. And then it fills your body it fills your body with, uh,

with this kind of fiery kind of lightning sensation that you feel. And it's almost like, you know, you're just holding onto the stake cause it's burning as it's going down this liquid that you just tilted and down your mouth, but it didn't have any kind of great physical psychodynamic effects other than just to kind of like really align you with the altar. And, um, so there, so there at the altar, not too much happened, but one of the interesting things was I was the first one to go and I was waiting for Don Howard to tell me like when my experience was up, you know, cause I'm up there at the altar, everybody's watching me. And one of the great things about how he worked is throughout the whole session, he never did that. When you had your turn to go up, he would never tell you

like, okay, you're done. He just completely trusted you that you would move and you would do take action at the right time. And I really appreciated that. And that to me, you know, instilled a great degree of trust in him which is something that I haven't had immensely in in a lot of people is this ultimate trust that he's got this thing kind of figured out and you get that from the trust that he puts in each other individual it's kind of this interesting thing so I'm sitting, and really the only takeaway from that for me was, you know, a communication with the altar that said, basically I said to the altar, I said, you know, I'm going to protect you. And the altar, you know, I could hear it again clear as day and said, I'll protect you too. And that was kind of the end of that encounter.

And I looked back, and Don Howard smiled, and I gave him back the stake. And everybody went around the circle and that kind of closed off night one the end of the serpent masada night one of three nobody tripped nobody freaked out i mean tripped by nobody like had a bad experience with this that is the danger of going down there on one of these retreats right that you might go with a loon you might go with some crazy person that can't handle the ride. So he goes through these extensive questionnaires that he reviews for anybody coming down. And he says he's pretty good at weeding out the loons that are going to come. He says it just comes through in the writing and how they answer the questions.

Do you ask them to answer essays? Yeah. So they're writing extensive amounts about their intent, about their life, about their experiences, blah, blah, blah. And so he says he's pretty good at filtering that out. But, of course, some people who are pathological can fool him. And it's happened before where he gets in those situations. But you don't want to go down there and fuck with Gandalf. It's just you're not going to come out a winner.

Why is it I always have to ask what happens when things go wrong? That's my question. You notice that? I'm like in some ways I'm a theorist in things going horribly wrong. So I'm looking at this. I'm like this all sounds beautiful. What could be unbeautiful about it? Oh, you go down there with a dickhead.

Yeah, for sure. And he said he's had that happen. He's had that happen where someone came down and intentionally tried to undermine the ceremonies. I didn't go into what that was. But then he's there. And not only is it him, he's got two other shamans there as well, indigenous shamans. Not only is it him, he's got two other shamans there as well, indigenous shamans. This guy, Don Robert, who's a Banco Curandero, which is the equivalent of like the coral belt in jiu-jitsu or something like that.

There's only like a couple in the world who've been bestowed this great ayahuasquero honor, you know. So Banco Curandero, Don Robert, and his wife, Doña Ocho, who's another like really badass shaman. So you have like the wizard council there. So they're able to really work with some stuff and make an impact. I wonder what happens to those people. If they are a crazy person, they wind up doing those drugs. Can you imagine if you found out you could snap somebody back to earth? Like you could have someone who's completely sociopathic, give them some of this, and they develop empathy.

I mean, is that possible? You always write off sociopaths. But is it possible that could ever be cured? I mean, I don't understand the human mind enough from a scientific standpoint. The medicine is, and Don Howard was really forthright about this, that the medicine by itself is neither going to do good nor bad without the intent of the user. Because the intent of the user, you can use this medicine for, you know, brujo, bruja, sorcery, you know, is what they call it. Sorcery. To what extent that means, you know, that is, but basically by saying that, he's saying you could use that to get your own power. Right.

Kind of like the shaman who Amber talks about where, you know, to them, that's the dark side. So, sorcery is kind of a weird word because they're not, like, making weird shit happen. Although, there's some weird stories. But really using it for your own power. Mm-hmm. The weird stories, though, you have to take into account they're told you by people tripping their fucking balls off. Yeah, blasted. So, I'm sure you think that shit went down. Yeah, totally. though you have to take into account they're told you by people tripping their balls off yeah i'm sure you think that shit went down yeah totally you're not a liar i'm not saying you're a liar

but god damn you have to sort of include that and the nocebo effect of believing something terrible happened is strong we were on opie and anthony once and um we there was a woman that they have who's a regular on the show she comes on on all the time and they call her Stalker Patty. And we gave Stalker Patty a Listerine breast strip and told her that it was drugs. And this girl, I mean, I don't know how much of it was an act. I don't know how much of it was. She's not like mentally completely there, but she was acting like she was tripping her fucking balls off. She just ate the strongest pot brownie in the world, and she was just clinging to the earth trying to stay on.

And Ari had his balls out. Ari decided to take his balls out and stand next to her and pretend that his balls weren't out. And we all pretended his balls weren't out. So his balls were hanging out of his zipper. And she's like oh my god and everyone's like what this you know she's like oh my god you guys got me there's a drug i'm on a drug like she really believed it yeah just because of the the effect of telling someone that they've i mean how many people that get hit with the holy spirit when when you see those people, they start speaking in tongues. Sure.

Would they do that? I mean, would they really be doing that if someone hadn't sort of pressured them, someone had put in their head that that's possible? I mean, in a vacuum. How many people are really going to do that? It seems like they only do that if there's a bunch of other people around them that are doing the same thing. The power of suggestion takes over. And then you really believe it. Like the Lord is talking through you in gibberish.

Like hypnotists. There's that hypnotist kind of idea that the more people who are there and the more people who are watching, the easier it is to hypnotize you. Because of the whole dynamic and the other people and the power of suggestion. Yeah, absolutely. That plays a part. I've seen that happen. I've seen a lot of people get hypnotized because I had a friend who was a hypnotist. There was a guy named Frank Santos, who was a comedian in Rhode Island, and he was a dirty hypnotist. He used to do a show at Stitches. And his son is actually apparently a hypnotist too. I think it's Frank Sano's Jr. I just got a tweet for him. His dad was a super nice guy and employed me actually way back in the day at a

comedy club. Cool. Hooked me up when I was just starting to headline. But I watched this guy dozens of times over several years i watched him and we would all watch like comics would come from like if we knew frank sanos was doing a show like at nix we would go across town drive over just to watch because it was you couldn't believe it was real you would watch these people and all of a sudden they believe they're having sex with madonna guys would come in their pants like they would be having sex on stage and they'd come in their pants. And you would have a thing that he would say to women and they would have an orgasm. So he could say it, I'm going to touch you on the head and I'm going to say creamy, cream filled donut or something.

He would come up with a name, whatever he wanted to say. Should be that. If it's not that, it should be that. I'm making that up. His son's probably like, he never fucking said that. My point is, he would have like, would say, abracadabra. And he would touch someone on the forehead, and the woman would just go, oh my god. And people would be dying laughing.

Women would be embarrassed. And there's people that would be convinced that they're naked. Like, oh my god. They have their clothes on. They're convinced they're naked. There's people that were convinced that everyone in the audience was naked. I mean, they were looking around and laughing, and they really were. It's like it was really working.

It wasn't that they were acting. There was something weird going on. And he knew when people were under and when they weren't. People would try to fake it. They would be on stage with him, and he would look at them. I'm like, nope, nope, sir. You got to go. No, no, no.

I'm hypnotized. And he was like, no, you're not. No, you're not. It's not going to work with you. And he would just shuffle them off and the ones that it would work on those the ones he did it on yeah super interesting dynamic the mind is so incredibly powerful that that is one of the main reasons why it's super difficult to take someone's word in account of of an event sure when someone starts talking about an event, like something that happened, you know, whether it's watching a car accident, you know, being participating in an accident, how much of

what you actually see in any sort of traumatic circumstance are you really, really collecting? Like, say if, like, an asteroid was to slam into the ocean near Long Beach and kill, like, a fucking hundred,000 people. And you were there and you saw something happen. You saw it hit the water. How many people are really going to recount that correctly? Unless you watch the video, your version of the events could vary wildly.

I mean, you could be off by hours. If you don't talk to anybody, false cell phones go down. Your version of it, if no one's videotaping it, we never get a chance to see it. Who knows what versions we're going to get? We're going to get a hundred different versions, different timelines. It's one of the things that people, I think, connect to a lot of ideas of conspiracy. People say, oh, if all these people told this story, how much of it could be a lie? There's another option.

It's not how much of it is a lie. It's how much of it are people who are just dwelling on crazy shit until it becomes real in their own head, and then they have these stories, and their stories coincide. Well, there's a part of the brain they call the simulator, and that's what makes you, like think of some weird fucked up food combination like uh cinnamon mayonnaise right no one's ever had cinnamon mayonnaise probably someone's eating it right now where they're going bitch the fuck are you saying but you used it you

use the simulator to give you an a very accurate idea of what cinnamon mayonnaise tastes like and that's a very part valuable part of evolution but if you're using the simulator constantly enough it's almost going to be like oh yeah i had cinnamon mayonnaise you know if like you you thought about that and then for 10 years down the road oh shit wait i actually never actually had cinnamon mayonnaise you know well they have done that with people they've implanted fake memories and in like on in a strategic sense they've done it in some sort of another way with mice. They've figured out a way to implant some memories in mice, some weird artificial memories.

I believe, and if I'm butchering this, I apologize. I'm obviously not a scientist. But I believe that what they've accomplished so far is they've attained this rudimentary ability to introduce artificial thoughts, at least in concept, and at least in concept on a less complex mind as humans. But they can do it through tactics with a person,

through counseling. If someone particularly tries to bend your mind and bend your version of the past over a long series of things and reinforces it with your friendship and alienates you when you don't follow the script. It's like watching Homeland. Yeah, sure, sure. It's what churches do as well.

If you don't agree with their dogma and their doctrine, you'll get a lot of rejection. But if you do agree, you'll get a lot of acceptance. you'll get a lot of rejection, but if you do agree, you'll get a lot of acceptance. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why really, it's really weird what they decide to be upset about. You know, like I'm watching all these people that are freaking out about this gay guy that just got drafted into the NFL, right? First openly gay guy. And I'm seeing it on both sides.

You know, I'm seeing people saying this is an amazing thing. And then I'm also seeing people saying, you know, hey, why doesn't he just fucking keep it to himself? No one gives a shit. We're not homophobic. We just don't want to hear it. It's fascinating to see. It's like to what is it about this that people are connecting with religion? Because there's so much crazy shit about religion

that no one's freaking out. Why isn't everybody freaking out about tattoos? Because it's pretty goddamn clear you're not supposed to get tattoos. Why isn't everybody freaking out about piercing? You're not supposed to get pierced. All that is in the, why are you dwelling on the gay thing? Why is the gay thing the number one thing? What about shellfish?

Where's the outrage at the fish markets? Where's the protest? What the fish markets where's the protest where people what is really going on here it's just this this masculine story that's been told i mean you got to figure somewhere between the stats are like in germany it's 10 and in other places it's two percent but a certain percentage of men are gay yeah they're just gay yeah and this really good number of those are just fighting it, just barely hanging on. And then there's this story that's out that if you are that way, then you're not a man, you're not a full man. And so this kind of fear of not being a full man

is imprinted in us. And then the combination of that mixed with these people who are desperately fighting it because they really can or are barely hanging on. It creates these crazy scenarios. I hope that it bounces out to the point where you can goof on gay guys without worry about being labeled as homophobic. Like they're on the menu for being goofed on. about being labeled as homophobic. They're on the menu for being goofed on. It's like, if you say anything, if you joke around about gay people,

oh, his homophobic comments. Was that what it was? Are you sure? Because I think there's some gay people that do some creepy shit. It's not negative against gays. But I have a gay friend, or a friend who's friends with a gay guy more. I know the guy, but my friend really who's friends with a gay guy more.

I know the guy, but my friend really knows him. And the gay guy keeps trying to fuck him. And, you know, he's like stuck in this situation like, man, I can't be friends with this fucking guy anymore. Like I thought I was going to be open minded. And then you realize somewhere along the line, oh, this is a dude. Oh, he's a dude. And so he's like just like a guy friend that hangs around with your girlfriend. You don't trust that motherfucker.

Yeah. Yeah, you don't trust his gay guy that's hanging around with you. A straight guy hanging around with a hot lesbian. He likes to fuck guys. He's going to want to fuck you. If you're a guy, it's okay. There's nothing wrong with it, but you've got to be real careful if you're a dude and you're in one of those situations. This guy won't leave him alone.

So it's like ruining his head. He associates that guy now instead of being with his friend. It's being his friend that says crazy shit when he has a couple of drinks in him. He's trying psychological warfare on him. He's trying to say things like, look, no one is born gay. You choose to be gay. Because once you try it, you really start pitching this fucking... He's working on your implanting ideas strategy. He's just working his pimp game.

He's working his pimp game strong. He's just flexing on my poor friend. And if you started to do a joke about that, that would be widely considered homophobic you know widely considered it's like gay men get a pass on all the douchiness that comes along with being a man you know i mean weird women we all possess douchiness it's not gender specific we all sort of have things i mean we're. I mean, we're all working out life. We're all working out life from the,

the information that was given to us, but people didn't know what the fuck they were doing. We are working out life based on what we figured out over the course of our lifetime. And we had to de-learn and de-program a lot of shit that was talked to us. A lot of nonsense that was spoken in our ears. And reinforced every fucking which way you look. The movies, the songs, the unconscious people. Pressure from your own parents, man.

Sure. Pressure from your own parents has got to be one of the weirdest things. You know, there's people that never recover from that shit. I have friends that whatever fucking weirdness their parents put on them, they're just voodoo-ified. They just don't have any confidence. They don't have any ability to be themselves. That's an interesting thing when you look at world religions.

It's the heredity and region is the absolute hands down number one deciding factor about what religion you are. Yeah. If it was like you're just finding the truth, you know, and you're looking at everything and finding the truth, it'd be fucking interspersed everywhere. But really what it is is just you're in an area and that's what's fucking taught to you and that's the story. And so that's why you're in that religion. It's not that that's the best one. It's just that's the one that's been fucking taught to you.

Eddie Bravo and I both had very similar childhood revelations and we were having a conversation one day about the moment we realized there was more than one religion. Like that's how we, we both kind of realized it was bullshit. Like I found out about Jews. My uncle married a Jew, a nice Jewish woman and, um, converted, went through the whole rigmarole. And I, I was, I didn't understand what was going on. I was six years old, you know? And so they had explained it to me. They said, well, you know, Uncle Sal, Uncle Sal, that's who it was, is going to change religions.

And we were like, okay, like, what does that mean? Well, he's going to become Jewish. So he's going to have to go through this whole ceremony and learn a bunch of things. You know, how to learn about the religion. Like, you have to take lessons with a rabbi. I was like, what is Jewish? They're like, well, some people that have a different religion than ours.

You can masturbate more, you can't eat bacon, but pretty much similar. It was just the idea that there was another religion. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Do they have the same God? Then shit got weird. I started asking questions like that. They have the same God? Yeah, the God essentially is the same God. Then shit got weird. I started asking questions like that. They have the same God. Yeah, the God essentially is the same,

but they believe in Jesus. They just don't believe he's the Messiah. They don't believe in the resurrection. You're like, well, what the fuck is going on? They're right there, and Uncle Sal's going to marry one of these crazy people? What are you talking about? I thought we figured this all out.

When I was six, I guess, five, six, whatever it was, which was first grade, I guess it was six. I went through one of the biggest changes in my entire life as far as my understanding of the world around me. And it was caused by one year of Catholic school. and being in that school, seeing the darkness of that place and all the evil of those fucking people and all the kids who were just like constricted and yelled at in that place. I knew, I knew it was bullshit.

I was like this and Uncle Sal together. Okay, the whole thing's nonsense. And that was like realizing when I was six, I was like, Jesus, this bad word to use, Jesus, figure of speech folks. All I was thinking was six, I was like, Jesus, this bad word to use, Jesus, figure of speech, folks. All I was thinking was like, oh my God, this world is run by crazy people. Like I was given birth into a land that's filled with people that are operating on momentum and the momentum of like one of the craziest fucking stories of all time. It's a goddamn zombie story. And everyone is on this momentum of this zombie

story to the point where the men aren't fucking and the women are wearing penguin outfits and everybody's beating kids. And I'm like, what are you guys doing? What is this? So, and then what they, what was really bad about it though, is not that they were just doing that, but how aggressively their mission was to spread it by death by baby by whatever fucking means possible you squash everything and that's what kind of swept through peru you know they were doing these wachuma ceremonies the missionaries come through and see it and they're like no no no we can't have that you know they're accessing higher truth finding reproducible you know knowledge about the universe through consciousness no we

can't have that but they also couldn't completely squash it out so they kind of reconstructed the ceremony renamed the medicine from wachuma which came from the plant spirit wachuman i think is how you say it and called it san pedro and of course saint peter is the person who holds the keys to heaven i guess that's who you hang out with right before you walk through the pearly gates or whatever. So, and then in renaming that, they allowed it to kind of still exist, but they completely Catholicized the whole thing. They changed the nature of the altar. It became more religio-centric and then reconstructed the nature of the ceremony.

So it was like communing with St peter and taking a glimpse through the gates of heaven so they changed the whole framework of the the ceremony and kind of watered down the medicine a little bit and then used it in their own for their own religious purposes and that way it kind of changed the whole nature of of what this was which was these guys and if you look at the keystone of art for the chavin people it's this tapestry called the Estella Ramundi. And it's this dude just fucking head up, heart forward, holding two stocks of wachuma, turning into a jaguar with snuff coming down his nose like,

woo! I need that as a tattoo. Yeah, totally. Totally. If you want to look up Estella, E-S-T-E-L-L-A, Raimondi, R-A-I-M-O-N-D-I. Yeah, pull that up. That needs to be a t-shirt. Yeah.

It should be an Onnit t-shirt. It's badass. Put that alongside the zombie Onnit t-shirt and the chip Onnit t-shirt. So that was the old way. And I'll tell you in a little bit on the third ceremony why the jaguar was the most sacred animal because I had a an experience with that so to go to the second one though the second one is the earth ceremony and by this this is day five and i started to go through kind of a detox because you're eating very very clean no sugar no dairy no wheat um the medicine itself is very detoxifying and i had you know been drinking and whatever eating crap and doing the normal kind of entertaining thing.

I mean, I still eat pretty good for obviously a normal person. But good enough, bad enough that I was going through a detox. So I really felt like shit in the jungle on day four and five. So we go into the earth masada. And I'm really kind of dreading it because I'm like not feeling good at all. That is a wild ass fucking, would you call that a pictograph? What would you call that? Yeah, well, it's actually carved in stone and that's a relief of it.

If you want to look, you can find the one that's actually in stone. Holy shit. Yeah, so there's the one that's actually carved in stone. So that's 4,000 years old. So those are wachuma stalks that he has there. If you scroll down in his hands, see him holding on to those things? And he's transforming into a jaguar there and all of these different layers of communion with snakes coming off it

all the way going all the way up to the sky god damn that is dope that is badass wow this is fascinating man yeah so this is a completely different branch of the whole psychedelic food chain absolutely wow and completely under known because it's everybody knows it is san pedro which is this kind of watered down catholicized ritual and medicine because i was down there with some people who had done san pedro before and they're like yeah it's pretty cool yeah it's cool felt good but this was a fucking much different ball game like Like the way he prepares it, the way the whole ritual is, is a totally different game.

I want to meet this dude who's from Kentucky who lives in the jungle. You got to meet him. What a cat. You will meet him. He's amazing. He's awesome. I just love that there's people like that out there that are just living these very wild lives.

It's so different than anything that we have locked into our heads is acceptable you know but it's it's hard to let go of the idea but the it really is right there in front of your face it doesn't matter what you do you just do what you want to do like you should do what you want to do because we're all just gonna die anyway we live and we die and just got to accept that it's hard as fuck to do. And in between are just a bunch of choices. And that, that was, now I'm getting to that. Cause that was one of the key teachings of this thing is just life is just a series of choices. So anyways, I go, I do this, the earth Masada medicine, and it's a much smaller cup. He looks at me and I'm looking a little fucking shady at this point. Like, I don't have that same big smile.

I manage some kind of smile. Pours me about half as much medicine. And then we're going to take another boat ride, go to see another tribe out in the deeper in the heart of the jungle. So I take it and immediately I'm just nauseous as fuck, like nauseous to death. Not enough to actually make me puke, but it's just pretty brutal. So we hop in the boat and we're cruising down the boat. And where I'm sitting in the boat is like, I'm getting all this spray. It was a windy day. I'm getting a spray in my face. And I'm thinking about like monsters inside of me, about the fucking parasites in the Amazon.

I'm nauseous as shit. I want to puke, but I don't want to puke because I know if I puke, I have to open my mouth and then the water's going to get in my mouth, and then I thought I was going to get parasites. So I'm in this, like, locked into this hell, just getting wet. My eyes locked closed. My mouth locked closed, just nauseous, like really nauseous for like 45 minutes. And so we arrive on this place, and I seem to be the only one feeling like this. Everybody else is fucking cracking jokes, and they feel great. So we arrive at this place, and it's this this entry in the jungle and they're like wow how

beautiful i'm like it's fucking not beautiful i see this noni tree and if you ever had noni fruit it's really kind of a nasty fruit it's good when they make it in health preparation but it's all rotting on the ground and it smells like like a jockstrap stuffed with cheese that's been sitting out in the sun for eternity, just baking and microwaving over and over again. I know that smell. That's a really good description of that smell. I just kind of like that, right?

Like a funky, ball sweaty. Yeah, ball sweat and cheese. And there's pigs cruising around, and it's hot, just sweltering fucking hot, and there's bugs everywhere. And I'm just in this little hell, and everybody's like, wow sweltering fucking hot. And there's bugs everywhere. And I'm just in like this little hell. And everybody's like, wow, look at the jungle. I'm like, fuck this jungle. I'm like, just not feeling it.

And everybody's on this walk. So we're walking to this tribe, we're on the walk. And they're in this kind of jubilant, kind of like I was the day before. But whatever reason, I got locked in this bad kind of space. And I realized, I had a key realization that I was feeling pain at that point. I was in pain. I was nauseous. I was unhappy. And so in my world, I was closed off and I didn't want to give anybody a hug. I didn't give a fuck about the jungle. I

didn't care about the earth. I was so focused on me because of my own pain. And I realized at that point, that's what most of us are like. We're in some kind of pain. Sometimes it's physical pain. Sometimes it's emotional pain. Sometimes it's this other pain. And when you're in pain, it's hard to give a fuck about anybody but yourself. Your natural instinct is to kind of cover up and be like, you know, I'm fucking hurting. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. So you look at like all these YouTube comments. That's a key indicator to me that those people are in pain. You know, that's why they're closed off. That's why they're attacking deep inside somewhere. You know, there's some pain. Undoubtedly, undoubtedly. And that pain forces more people to reject them because that sort of negative energy that they give off

forces more people to shun them, which sort of reinforces their bad opinion of people. Yep. And it's in this cycle. And so while I appreciated that kind of message as I was walking through, I was still like, fuck this. I hoped it would be over when it was got there. So anyways, we get to this clearing in the jungle and these beautiful tribal people show up, but I'm just like kind of shifting nervously from side to side. Everybody else is off exploring, finding like jungle snail shells and collecting them, adding to their collection. And they bring out this fruit and I'm like too paranoid to eat the fruit. And so all these different opportunities, these choices come, like they bring out these jungle pears, right? And it's this like weird thing that I've never had. Half like an like an apple half like a pear and everybody's like orgasming over this thing but i'm thinking like what do they wash this with like what's going on so i i like nibbled like a piece that i thought was safe and like didn't touch it you know and so that was like one choice and me not eating that i felt even worse like i felt more isolated

i felt more different than everybody i was like i'm a fucking weirdo everybody's feeling great and so i started to get more and more isolated and different things would come up and an opportunity to walk in here and, you know, experience this part of the forest. I was like, fuck that. There's probably bugs there. So locked in this place and I just got worse and worse and worse. And it was like the universe was providing me these opportunities to do something. And I kept failing to pass the test. Till finally,

I see this tree that is pretty, you know, looks pretty good for climbing. I'm like, I'm going to climb this tree. And I'm thinking about it forever. And I was like, how am I going to get up there? I'm still, I'm pretty blasted. And I see a big spider in the nook of the tree, which is going to be my original path. I'm like, oh, fuck, there's a fucking spider up there. I'm not going to be able to climb it. But then I realized at that point, I was like, all right, this is a test. I really want to climb this tree. I can fucking figure it out. The spider's not going to bite me. And so I figured out and easy is like super easy. I just like hop a few branches and I get up in the tree. And then for the first time that in that whole session, that whole ceremony, I felt like I passed a little test.

Like I did something that I was supposed to do. I made a choice that would lead to my happiness. So I started to feel a little bit better, but then we go back up to the tribe and they start dancing around. And, you know, I really had this strong urge to take my shoes off and just kind of dance around because I had these big hiking shoes are all muddy and stuff. And, but I didn't do it because I was worried about the mosquitoes. Well, little did I know, I found out later, the mosquitoes were fucking biting me through my shoes anyways. So I might as well. They were biting you through your shoes. Through the webbing of my shoes.

They lit me up through my shoes. Oh, my God. So I would have been better off taking my shoes off and dancing around in the mud anyways. But anyways, I failed that test again. But I kind of get the game. Like, all right, I get it. You're presented with tests. You can either pass them or fail them. Life is kind of a series of choices, but I'm happy when we're leaving the jungle. I'm like, thank God we're getting out

of here. I just basically took a beating from my own mind the whole time I was there. And as it was in doing that, it was one of the most challenging times I've ever worked with the medicine because, you know, even Iboga, which feels like hell, I mean, it with the medicine because, you know, even a boga, which feels like hell, I mean, it's literal hell. All you really are doing is just completely surrendering to that hell. You just lie on your back like, okay, hell, come on. This one is such an active medicine that you're presented with these challenges and asked to do things in a much more active way, which is great. But if you start getting on the wrong side of it, it can be really challenging because you, you have nothing to, you know, stop your mind from

really running rampage other than just this kind of gentle guidance. So tough experience in the heart of the jungle. We get to the canoe. I'm starting to feel a little better. I at least passed one test and I climbed the tree. So I was like, oh, at least I did that. You know, so we get there and again, it starts to be dusk and that's when the vision start. And, um, then that was probably where I got my most, uh, one of my most powerful visions. So I closed my eyes and I just bury my hands on my head and my hands. And, um, immediately I see this demonic face that was made up of fires that were burning and it's demonic face full of fires. And then I noticed that it's plastics that are burning in the fires.

And I looked at that. I'm like, oh shit. And then I see that laid out on the skin of, uh, what feels like a woman. And it didn't have all the all the features but i could see like the jungle was this woman's you know pubic bush you know like this life coming out of her armpits and her and her you know vagina was all this like jungle and in her hair was the desert and her skin was like the plains and the different things were the mountains and i got this real feeling of all right i guess i get it i'm looking at the earth mother, but then the fires

were burning all over her skin. And there was oil that was being drawn out. Like, like someone was taking big syringes, like a malevolent doctor was pulling oil out of her skin and then adding it more to the fire and the fires kept burning. And it was this kind of this horrific image of this, you know, almost rape of this beautiful mother earth that was presented to me. And so I couldn't really shake it. And I'm, and I'm looking and I'm, I, you know, I start to tear up a little bit and I say, you know, fuck, I mean, how can I help? What can I do? What can I do? And then again, just like with the altar, like a really clear voice comes and answers me. And she says, we don't have an environmental problem. We have a consciousness problem. It's like you work on the

consciousness and I'll take care of the rest. And the way she said, I'll take care of the rest. I'll never forget that because it had such fucking strength. Like, you know, please, like, do your best. Work on the consciousness. But don't worry about the other shit. Like, I'm going to protect myself one way or the other. Wow. Kind of a really powerful moment.

And then what I saw there is what she showed me or what I saw was people, you know, I would touch somebody. And there was a bunch of people. And they would just be kind of running around all haphazard. Like kind of just doing these robotic motions in circles, like a windup toy that was just haywire that was off balance or something. And I would reach out and touch one of these people and a light would turn on in their head. And instead of being moving around randomly, they would just stop and then look around. And then they would touch another one of these wind up humans and they would stop and look around. And then slowly it started to connect. And what it was showing was the spread of consciousness. You know, you turn one person who's just locked in their own fears and pain and worries and patterns and, you know, help show them consciousness. And then they'll do

the same to somebody else. And that's how this problem is going to be solved. And then all around the world, that just kind of, all of these lights started going off in people's heads and connected. And I got this image of the utopia that the world could be, where we as sentient humans, you know, kind of aligned through consciousness are working you know to help prolong life for as long as possible it's going to take a little time but i think within probably the next 20 years we're going to see a completely different version of culture yeah i really believe that i think that's that wave of touching people and spreading it out it's already happened yeah i see it i feel it it's online it's moving in

a way that's just never had an opportunity to move like this before the ideas that got passed word to mouth by fucking hippies and poets and the beat players of the 1960s the what they were so terrified of what they squashed you know the acid and marijuana movement what they squashed they didn't have a way of communicating back then they didn't have this fucking thing this is the craziest shit of all time this this internet in conjunction with this newfound awareness of these psychedelic experiences and the lessons that can be learned from these psychedelic states with it's the there's a wave of a change in consciousness that i've personally experienced. I know it. It's not an imaginary thing.

I mean, yeah, there's people that are holding back. There's people that are still angry or still critical or still scared. And I kind of feel for them. You're not realizing what's going on here. You can be pessimistic. You can get it into your head if you really choose to that the world is this terrible place of awful people. And it's more likely that there's just a momentum going on that was created by people who didn't know what the fuck was going on. And we're awake.

We woke up like we're on a spaceship that's headed towards an asteroid or something. We woke up going, okay, who's flying this thing? Are you guys flying? You're not flying. Okay. How much food do we have? How much gas is in this fucking thing? Yeah, totally.

Can we turn this thing around? Where's the brakes? How is it? Why are we moving in this direction? Is there a reason we're moving in this direction? Has anybody thought this through? Especially when you consider, I mean, the Republican right-wing side. Like there was a very interesting thing recently.

Bill Nye, the science guy, who's just a brilliant public speaker when it comes to defending science, was on the show. And on the show, he got called a science bully or something like that. a science bully or something like that, or they were talking about science bullying because they were talking about him talking about global warming being affected by human beings, that it's pretty much a general consensus of scientists that human activity and the carbon footprint of human beings has affected global warming. And then the other guy was like, well, first of all, I think his attitude was like, we don't know exactly what it's doing, and what you're saying, like these regulations

could harm business. Like that guy for sure doesn't do mushrooms. No. Because if he had ever done mushrooms, he would realize like that is, you just said a crazy thing. You just said, we need to make money,

so we'll keep poisoning the earth to make money. I mean, I know you didn't say it that way, but that's essentially the equals. If you put them in a mathematical computation, what you're saying is, even if it does poison the atmosphere, we need it because we need the jobs. And your considerations of the idea that regulating something that's poisoning the very earth we live on, that that could be somehow controversial because that poisoning is profitable. Not we need to find other things that are profitable to substitute it. Like, yes, this is obviously something we need to stop. We need to find a substitution.

No, no, no, no, no. You could be harming business. That same mind that can put together that screen that's showing you the HD version of those people having that ridiculous argument, that same technology, that technology is, there is a reason to figure it out. They wanted and needed a reason to figure out how to make this gigantic LCD screen with incredible resolution and just vibrant, crystal clear colors. They wanted to figure out how to do that. If they wanted to figure out how to get rid of the garbage that's in the ocean, that giant patch of swirling, deteriorating garbage, if there was like an

incredible amount of need to do that, if people decided to focus all their scientific aspirations on fixing all the problems on Earth in a profitable manner, it would be the biggest industry of all time. It would be giant. We would run out of polluted places because we'd be like, shit, we used up all the polluted places. Right. Because we figured out some new awesome shit that turns pollution into clean air that gives you enlightenment. that turns pollution into clean air that gives you enlightenment. We found some new air that will let you read each other's minds and you make it by burning out nuclear fuel rods and some sort of a hygienic process with dirty ocean water,

purifies the ocean water. I mean, they would come up with something. Some fucking super egghead would come up with some awesome shit and they would figure it out. The key is just the consciousness has to come first exactly human innovation is insane we send video through the sky okay we're fucking sending pictures to each other on a regular basis you know you can call them dick pics but what that is is magic that shit is fucking magic we're sending magic to each other and that and that figure it out ultimately that is one of the thing that's the one thing that humans can do that dolphins couldn't do or any

other of these creatures can't do on earth let's say something fucked up was gonna happen to earth like we saw a big asteroid coming in 25 years oh god it's humans who could figure some shit out to like that fucking movie armageddon blow that thing thing up, split it in two, I don't know, dematerialize it, whatever the fuck had happened. Time machine. Yeah. Just keep going back in time to five minutes before it hits. We have the opportunity, potentially, to use technology to protect the Earth and humanity at large. And that's what I think all of this whole technological thing why it's good and why

it's necessary otherwise we're just completely at the mercy of these other forces i think the problem is is that as albert einstein said it's become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity like both of those things were supposed to ride together like homeboys you know a motorcycle and a fucking sidecar, both of them right together. And that shit got split off by these oppressive forces, state forces and religious forces that have kind of gone through and kicked out any of these knowledge centers, made illegal any of these knowledge plants, and reinforced this crazy idea of putting business above something like the earth. That is absolutely, totally possible. But there's other options too.

And one of the weirdest ones to me is that this all has to be in place in order to move forward with this process that's going on right now, this process with people connecting with technology. That all these forces, they seem to be moving i mean when you when you move warfare what you move is extreme versions of technology that's the most important thing like that was the biggest part of the space race people said oh they put so much money into

that that was unnecessary do you know how much military like how many options they got that they didn't have before because of the space race, just the innovation of materials and the rocketry, understanding of what they can get away with, flying things into orbit and shit, that's never going to stop, man. That's not going to stop. It just is what people do. And sometimes people need a push to do it.

And along the way, they have to do battle with evil. And along the way, they have to do battle with evil. And along the way, they have to do battle with suppression. Like for the gay people to get married in 2014 to cheering throngs makes it all the more sweet because it was rejected for so long. And I'm not saying there's anything good about that rejection. There's certainly not. But I almost think that it all has to be there like that. And that we're in this process of becoming something different we're learning about the flaws of staying what we are that this relying entirely on the flesh relying entirely on these animal instincts that we may or may not think are beneficial we have this connection with them we don't want to separate we don't want to separate from jealousy we

don't want to separate from emotion we don't want to be a fucking computer program but that might be inevitable what we call technology it might be a life form it might be a life form that we're giving birth to that we are just some weird worm that becomes a butterfly but we don't know it yet and so we're just push push push it and we're fuck gay marriage and pollute the air. We're lighting plastic on fire and stealing copper pipes out of abandoned buildings. I mean, we're the weirdest fucking thing

that's ever existed, ever. And all along the way, we're working on technology. All along the way. You can take the dumbest motherfucker out there and he's holding on to a Samsung Galaxy S5. You know, all along the way, we're giving birth to artificial intelligence. I really like your idea of needing that resistance, you know, and I think that's, there's a great, great wisdom in that.

And that the fact that things maybe are exactly as they're supposed to be, you know. Sometimes I think they are. Yeah. And that's a, that's definitely a cool thought. And then the other thing about technology is the point that i try to make as often as possible is um these medicines that's exactly what the fuck they are is their technology yeah so it's alcohol that's technology too yeah you know like all every every one of these things is a technology yeah alcohol it's causes this kind of blood somebody figured some stuff out shot of whiskey equals this broke it down for you really simply.

Right. It's right there in front of you. And for people to, people, you have all these labels and memes and ideas and the propaganda and bullshit that goes to it. Just look at everything as technology. Alcohol is a technology. Methamphetamines are a technology. Watch humans is a technology.

But what can that technology reproducibly get? Well, with meth, it can get you to clean your fucking house and see fucking goblins and freak out and become a stripper. So that's reproducible on meth. Like what's reproducible on wachuma? What's reproducible on ayahuasca? And you start to see patterns of how this technology can be utilized. And just taking an objective look at that, yeah, it's not a panacea. It's not going to do everything for everybody. Nothing is.

Nothing is. It's just a technology. It's like a phone. You can call somebody a bitch on the phone or you can tell them that you love them and that you'll be there by their side forever. It's just fucking technology. Yeah, it's just a means to communicate with.

Yeah, that's so true. And that these ideas or this idea of an entheogen or what we would call a drug being a technology and being a method of enlightening or a method of opening yourself up to a whole new dimension of possibility like just a world that you step into it and now your values have changed like you're you're a different person your values your ideas of human beings in general all those change and they change in this really drastic way that's kind of unavoidable you know you just even if you become a dick and you get mad that the mosquitoes are stinging your feet you're still you know you're you're who you are is not who you would have been in those same exact frustrating circumstances three years ago four years ago five years ago a month ago nor will i ever be again i think it was on you know when you came on my

podcast that i said that quote you know no man ever steps into the same river twice for he's not the same man and it's not the same river you know and and that's the case with these psychedelic experiences even more so you know it's because who you come there in general, that metaphor works is we're always changing situations, always changing, but you go through one of these ceremonies and you just have this overwhelming feeling that the person that you were prior to doing it is not the person that you've become nor the person that you will be. I mean, that's going to continue to change. But things shift in a really dramatic way that can be incredibly powerfully positive. Yeah. And I think that the word is out. People are telling people now. It's starting to spread

back and forth. I mean, it's not just stories on the internet. I'm hearing people tell their friends that, you know, hey, we got together and we did this and, you know, it changed my life. And I mean, I hear it on a regular basis. And it's reaching different areas. I was hanging out with the Chicago Blackhawks, the hockey team. And these are hockey players. They're from Canada and farm towns. They've been bashing each other into boards and skating around on the ice. Not the people you'd expect who'd ever even heard the word ayahuasca. But somehow I got in the conversation that i'd done a bunch of ayahuasca experiences and you have these guys like oh i heard about that that sounds awesome i really want to go do that you're like what the fuck how do you even know

about this so it's reaching this kind of critical mass which is really exciting huge in the mma world yeah i know a dude who's a shaman who's a trainer I don't think he wants to I probably doesn't want him to mention his name but he's a legit shaman he's a cool dude, you have conversations with him and you look in this dude's eyes like, oh you've seen some shit he puts on ayahuasca ceremonies

for MMA fighters he'll take them for a retreat in the mountains they have this spot that he goes to and he cooks up the ayahuasca. He thinks it's important for being a fighter. He thinks that a fighter, to really truly get in tune with who he is as a man, that a psychedelic experience like an ayahuasca experience will get rid of all that extra baggage he's carrying around,

that he doesn't need, and it'll allow you to perform as an unhindered soul. I mean, you may not even want to continue MMA anymore. That's the other problem with it. You do something like ayahuasca, there's a very real possibility that you don't ever want to hurt anybody again. And I think that's a fear that a lot of people have, that they don't want to give up these things. But it's just your own mind's truth.

It's not like ayahuasca is telling you that as ayahuasca. It's just allowing you to think about something in a certain way. So don't be afraid of that shit. I used to be, I mean, this is going to be a ridiculous statement. And in prefacing it, I have to just admit, I know it sounds ridiculous even to me. But when I was first starting doing comedy, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't on the path of enlightenment. Because if I was on the path to be enlightened I saw it fucking up my comedy right I mean it's a total ridiculous thought I mean it sounds like

a cop-out for not trying to be more enlightened but it was a legitimate thought like I was like I was thinking about all the people that I think are really funny and what kind of fun what is their comedy what kind of comedy do I do I like that they do and it's all this like crazy ridiculous drunken you know these tirades and stories that were just the most ridiculous sexual escapades those are the guys that i thought were the most hilarious and i'm like well there's no you gotta drink like you can't like you can't be you can't be doing yoga and eating vegetables like you have to drink to be this funny like this is a totally different thing and i remember thinking that there was no way um that you could be like on the path like even thinking about enlightenment

and still be funny that i think the the way to think about that you me is, and I think part of this experience opened it up, is being on that path to enlightenment and restricting yourself from drinking or having to be in a certain way is kind of like that shaman that's playing shaman. Like the truly enlightened individual can decide, and I think the Toltecs had a word for it. They called it your controlled folly. You can decide to get wasted and do something like like that but do it in a conscious way i mean obviously doing something to hurt somebody that's probably going to be a problem yeah of course but you can choose to be whatever you want to be you don't have to be a fucking raw vegan meditating every day yoga kind of kind of person unless that's what you want to be like you can still choose yeah and it's still a path with heart and i think that's what the true enlightenment is and will be it's

not going to be playing enlightenment it's just going to be being there and deciding yeah we're going down this fucking jack daniels hole today and we're going to see what's on the other side of it well that's why there's a big issue with people who are trying to combat what they seem to be a negative, like a negative behavior, negative attitude, hate, maybe perhaps that they're combating it with hate. Yep. It's like, it's the total incorrect approach. Like if you, if you're faced with, with something that hates you, mock it. Yeah.

You know, don't hate, don't actually be angry. Point out what's, mock it. Yeah. You know? All right. Don't hate. Don't actually be angry. Point out what's ridiculous about it. Yeah. And if you can point out what's ridiculous about it successfully, it can't even be ignored by the subject of your ridicule. Yeah. That's the beauty of it.

You can't ignore it. If someone shuts you down and makes fun of you, and it's in a really funny way, and you look really stupid, like, oh, my God, I do do that. You know? If someone, by the way, is like, we do that you know if someone by the way is he like we always do the callen by the way he goes oh fuck i do that he knows he does it yeah you know that's that's i mean that's a bad example but that's when you're when you're trying to stop hateful angry behavior the tendency is always to meet it with a more hateful, angry behavior, the tendency is always to meet it with a more hateful, more angry response.

It's almost like instinct. But there's strength in forgiving people. And there's strength in having a frustration and anger towards something and then just completely letting it go. Yeah. And there's a freedom in that where you realize, like, oh, that was a choice, oh, that was a choice.

That was a choice. I was hanging on to this. How many guys do you know that you had maybe a disagreement with or a beef with or you were worried about running into them? Like, oh, my God, this better not get physical. This guy better not swing at me or something. But then when you got there, you maybe said something that explained your side a little better

and he said something that explained his side and then you hug like you shake hands and you hug and you and then what a relief that is what a great feeling that is when it's just like it neutralized this acid you've been keeping in this little vial inside your body you know especially when it's just a misconception and when you can enlighten that person or you can clarify what was really going on or what you had to do or why you fucked up. That's a nice feeling when people just abandon the idea of being enemies. But it makes you feel like, what is keeping us from doing this all the time? And one thing that I had, I mean, I've had a few experiences that were pretty changing to me, but one of them that I didn't expect was ecstasy.

Doing ecstasy, I didn't think it was going to change me very much. I thought it was just going to be a party drug. We're going to do some ecstasy and hold hands. I was holding my friend's hand, a dude's hand. We're rubbing fingers together. This was the most ridiculous thing ever. It would be so homo erotic or so gay. You know, if we did that in a regular basis, if we're holding hands,

it better be a joke involved, you know, but when you're on ecstasy, it felt totally normal. And then I remember thinking after it was over, like, I know he's not gay and I'm not gay, like, but how come in normal life, I would never let that happen? But in this state of ecstasy when you're on MDMA, it's totally cool. Hugging your friends is totally cool, and it's completely non-sexual. And it made me think, like, man, we're really insecure in, like, the strangest ways. And that we don't even recognize as being insecure. Sexually insecure, physically insecure, mentally mentally insecure insecure as to whether or not people really like you there's people out there that are living their lives wondering if

people actually like them or if they're just pretending to like them they're going to turn on them at any moment yeah i mean they're going through life flinching yeah you know and these these experiences that was one of the things with with the watuma too i mean just hugging somebody who you don't even hardly fucking know yeah but it's just another human being and it's like at the end of the ceremony night you know just like hey that was that was cool you feel like you feel this connection with that human being and it's it's so weird that we become dull and we close ourself off to all of these possible expressions that are available and these medicines are a great way to

kind of open that up yeah you know well they are technology and they have been used by people we know including yourself to positive benefit to a positive result and that's just something you can't ignore anymore you can't just tell people they can't do it because you said. You can't just do that. It doesn't make any sense. The only reason why this shit is not in the United States of America, first of all, it's holding back our freedom. Okay?

It is. It's holding back our freedom. The most sacred freedom we have. Yeah, freedom of consciousness. The only reason why human beings figured out anything is because they had the freedom to experiment. That's the only reason why human beings figured out anything is because they had the freedom to experiment. That's the only reason why language was invented. If you weren't allowed to say, how about we fucking make A equals A? Can we do that?

A is this. You know, the only reason why anybody was allowed to do that is because you had freedom to express yourself, freedom to try things, and whether trying that thing is creating a language or whether it's figuring out that psychedelic medicines allow you to get a better grip on your ego and how much your insecurity and the futility of life itself becomes a focal point instead of life. The futility of life becomes your focal point. Oh, what's the point? There's not a point, but it's going on right now and you're blowing it, son.

You're blowing it. It's like Angelo Dund to sugar ray leonard before he came out to knock out tommy hearns you're blowing it son yeah you're going through your whole life flinching yeah very wise brother very well flinching and being angry at people i mean i'm saying that angry yeah that's that's the key and then that's out there now though it is the secret's out i mean i didn't invent it it's fucking four thousand years old you got a got a dude holding the fucking watchuma stock in his head up and his heart forward and that's actually so to close out the earth ceremony they all of the chavin you know spiritual figures they're jag they're turning into jaguars and they're heads up.

I didn't really understand that. And Gandalf doesn't, you know, Don Howard doesn't really tell you things. He lets you try to figure it out. So we go through and the night of the earth ceremony was his kind of big clearing night where he's working on trying to clear the energies out of different people, much like an ayahuasca would. So it gets to be my turn and uh and he you know he whispers he comes behind me and he says uh he says you're pure shavin brother

heart to heart and i was like all right and i could just feel this kind of warmth and and intensity and what he was saying and he starts rattling his rattles and a feather and he starts doing it on my chest and i'm just sitting there and for about 30 seconds nothing's happening and then I noticed my chest starts to lift like more and more until my chest is so far forward that I'm not consciously doing this at all my chest is so far forward that I can't help but tilt my head up to the sky and I realized at that point what the message of that was, was that so often we lead with the cerebral part of our mind, just thinking constantly, thinking, thinking, thinking. But really, the best way to do it is to lead with your heart, lead with that deeper

knowledge that doesn't require the magnificent calculator that we have, because it is a magnificent calculator. It's great for computing, innovating, things like that. But to chart the course for yourself, for your friends, for humanity, charting that with that deeper, you know, empathetic intelligence that you have at your core center, which you call, we call heart, you know, whatever you want to call that. That's the way to really lead. And he was able to kind of get that through my head and help me understand what all these, you know, graphics, these tapestries were without ever having to say a single word. And that's, you know, some of the

cool things about working with a real master like Don Howard is he could have told me that, yeah, they all have their head up because their heart forward their heads connecting with source and their hearts leading the way well he doesn't have to say that you know he can just kind of you know use the rattles use the feathers you look at it and you just feel it so you don't need a whole narrative exactly narration of the events it's pretty clear what's going on yeah you know you just tap in and that same truth that hit them 4,000 years ago will hit you. Ooh, that's so crazy. And it was fucking awesome. Awesome.

Do you believe that you experience, you co-experience other people's trips? Do you believe that trips are contained? Like that was one of the ideas that McKenna had about any psychedelic, that when you're taking it, you're not just imbibing in this one psychedelic. You're actually experiencing all the trips of all the people who've ever done it, that there's a shared space that the trips live in. And what you're doing is literally or figuratively connecting to some sort of another dimension. I feel like that because I feel like there's a spirit of the plant.

Now, I will say with non-plant medicines, which I've done a couple, I actually told some of those stories in the last podcast, I did not feel that with non-plant medicines, and I haven't had a good experience. And I know there's a lot of people like Rick. Smoking DMT? Well, that comes from extracted from a plant. You can get synthetic.

They do like 5-MeO, have you ever done that? Right. I haven't done any synthetic. Everything I've done is from the, extracted from bark. So, I don't know. I mean, but with the plant medicines, I feel like you're connecting to, you're jumping in a lake that has been there and has a resonance and everybody else who swam in that lake and left their stink in the water, their beautiful stink, whatever you want to call it, you're connected with that whole experience and it has an intrinsic nature. Sorry, and here's something to consider too when you bring up this whole idea

of what is synthetic and what is natural. The reality is everything on Earth comes from Earth. So it is all natural in a certain sense. It has just been manipulated by human beings the real question becomes is that not natural because it seems like we manipulate everything around us you know when bees make honey they're manipulating things i mean we manipulate every goddamn thing we get a hold of and it doesn't is it really natural if a bee made it it seems like that bee just sort of fucking concocted so maybe maybe it's just that

that lake you know so the lsd lake got formed by albert hoffman and whatever the 30s or whatever so it's like it's like 80 years old right so it doesn't have a lot of essence to it doesn't have a lot of spirit i believe it probably does have a spirit and maybe in 3 000 years that lsd spirit will be strong as fuck and the communal experience of all that will be there but when you're doing something that's grown and been alive and been in existence it's had way longer to just kind of feel and collect the energy of everybody else that's been there well that's when it makes sense that's when it makes sense that it would have these experiences in it because the idea being that when you're consuming a psychedelic, and this is, by the way, if I'm butchering this, I'm so sorry.

But when you're consuming a psychedelic, the idea is that you are becoming one with it. That during that digestive process, process, I sound cooler and smarter. Process, process, I wish I was Canadian. Process. I say process. I sound cooler and smarter. Process. Process.

I wish I was Canadian. Process. As you're saying it, I guess it would be English more than Canadian, that this somehow or another, when it connects to your bloodstream, when it passes the blood-brain barrier, whether it's psilocybin or whether it's any of these other psychedelic compounds that you take in, that during that trip, that what's actually happening is you're changing your frequency and your your mind you whatever you call your consciousness goes to another place what happens in the place where it's at while it's happening is that well

they're all connected the idea that you have to be in another dimension your mind's another dimension your body's here that doesn't make any. It does make sense because they're all – it's a big, crazy soup. Yeah. But it's a soup that seems like you can only access certain areas of it when you hit this certain frequency that you get by imbibing these plant cocktails. And whether they're synthetic because they're based on the plants or whether it's the actual plant itself, what you're doing is you're tapping into that next door neighbor. You're just stealing cable from that guy. You're like using his electricity like, whoa. I mean, it's almost like that.

You go into the next door neighbor dimension. I agree. And all bets are off. I kind of look at it like you're a shish kebab and you're going through an onion. And so all of you and all the potentials are that whole shish kebab. It's all aligned. Yeah, an infinite onion of infinite layers. And doing these medicines just move your consciousness, which is like a dot on that shish kebab, move it up and down through those different layers.

And that's really kind of what you're doing but you're still connected you're still that one you know infinite shish kabob on a fucking infinite piercing an infinite onion that is what your consciousness is just kind of sliding up and down oh my god that is what you're doing yeah the idea that you can somehow or another in midlife alter and change. Like that sounds ridiculous to people, but is it less ridiculous that you could run into someone and they just lost 80 pounds? I mean, what happened to that guy? If you're telling me that guy didn't make a drastic change in the path of his life, whether it's figuratively or whether it's an actual drastic change, like

what you're seeing from that guy is that his reality and his future changed. His reality was he's a fat fuck. He eats donuts. He's going to die fat. And then boom, he starts hiking. And then boom, he starts drinking water every day and he quits all the soda. And boom, he starts eating fresh vegetables. And then boom, he starts fucking lifting weights

and working out he does jiu-jitsu he loses 70 fucking pounds he becomes a blue belt he's you know though that's a different human yeah like that is a guy how are those in the same world and how many of those little changes that happen during the day pro and con are this constant river shifting thing and the idea that time is this linear thing and you're going to get to 65 and you're going to get a 401k back and you'll have social security and you're going to go into a box. Life of the unconscious robot versus that life lived on the bleeding fucking edge of free will. And that was what my last ceremony was about.

The bleeding edge of free will. The Air Masada. The bleeding edge of free will. Yeah. That was it. I got a band. Yeah. Goada. The Bleeding Edge of Free Will. I gotta piss. Yeah, go piss. That'd be the greatest name for a punk band ever. The Bleeding Edge of Free Will.

And then we could solve the debate as to who the number one fucking drummer of all time is, Jamie. That shit has erupted on Twitter. People are apparently very upset at the choices in drummers. People take their number one drummer of all time seriously. For folks asking, we're probably going to wind up doing one of those podcasts again

that we did last night, the Fight Companion. While the UFC fights were going on, we got drunk, and me, Brendan Shaw, Brian Callen, and Aubrey watched the fights and just talked. It was one of the most fun podcasts ever. It was awesome. Because it was a podcast plus awesome fights. It was a combination because it really did flow like a podcast.

It was like subjects came up. We talked shit to each other. Brian gave out some disinformation. It was totally like a regular podcast. And on top of it, there were awesome fights going on. So to the folks that asked, yes, we're definitely going to do that again. I had a great time. It was a fresh thing.

And it made me think, man, I might like doing that more than I like doing the UFC. I don't want to say it, but it might have been better because I could talk shit and be completely free with my language. We were talking about the fight podcast last night. It was one of the most fun fight-watching events ever because we got to just talk, hang out, have fun, laugh, joke. Brendan Schaub told us all the various ways in which he's shit himself. Do you want to shit yourself?

No. I fucking love that dude. He's funny, man. He says some funny shit. He cracks me up. He's a nice fucking guy too, man. It's a real pleasure when you meet someone and the more you know them,

the more they constantly surprise and delight you with what they have to say. Shabba's awesome. He's aces in my book. He's a funny guy. A lot of people give him a hard time because he's real confident. But guess what? He's a goddamn professional mixed martial arts fighter

If he wasn't that arrogant and confident he would be you know, I would really be suggesting he try something different All right. This is not for you. You have to be a crazy person to do that job And he knows it and he's acting like a crazy person You know, it's just like there's certain versions of the crazy person that people don't like to see. They don't like to see the cocky, crazy person. But it's the authenticity of it that makes it real. I mean, cocky can be an act. It can be that, I got a big old truck with big old tires because I have a little tiny dick kind of mentality, you know?

Is there anyone out there? I would think that if you have a big old truck and big old tires, girls would be like, come on, let me see that dick. You know, like you want to put as least attention to your dick as possible. You would want like an old on, let me see that dick. You know, like you got to, you wanted to put call, at least attention to your dick as possible. You would want like an old golf, a VW Golf. If you had a little dick, you just would not want to peacock it out so strong. That's just my feelings. You think that the word would be out, but I don't know.

I don't know. I've never looked at the dick of a man with big tires. Maybe next time. Hey, homework for everybody next time. Next time I see a dude with big tires, I'm like, come on, son. Whip that shit out. Let me take a look at it. What happened?

All right, Bleeding Edge of Free Will. It's a great name for a band, by the way. I like it. I like it. Anybody wants to take it, go ahead. Take it. I got no trademark on that. It's a great name for a band.

So final ceremony, the Air Masada. And I know I have a vague idea that I'm going to do something called Vilca, but I have no idea. That's going to come in the night. Um, but anyway, so we get there and I'm feeling fucking great. You know, we had a, the good end of the ceremony that, you know, kind of lead with the heart. I ended up sleeping well at night, felt great. The next day was writing, everything's good. Um, so we go to the air ceremony and, and I'm, I'm really feeling like a million bucks as opposed to the last time prior to that. And he looks at me and before he pours anything, he gives you like a long look.

And, you know, I gave that same big old smile from the first day and he gave a huge smile back. And he starts pouring and he just fills the cup to the brim, to the fucking brim. And I'm like, oh, my God, like at least eight ounces of this fucking of this wachuma. And it's funny because it seems like it gets harder every time you take it because even watching like don robert this banco curandero shaman i mean he chokes it down because he does the wachuma with us he chokes it down like you know because your body is like oh god here we go again on this fucking crazy roller coaster into the cosmos. But anyways, I choke it down and right away, like the nausea is not there and I'm just starting to feel good. Not in that same kind of uncontrollable way as the first day, but just in this really kind of positive, good momentum kind of way. And I had brought a, I started playing this

Native American flute and i'm not very good at it so i was super self-conscious the whole time about playing it because there's nowhere to do it privately and everybody would listen and i kind of suck i mean i'm okay but it bothers you to suck at a flute well just to like play it and have everybody listen i don't know i was self-conscious about it you know because i'm not good i guess but anyways at this medicine i was like i'm starting this fucking test game off. Because last time I failed like every test in the heart of the jungle on my second ceremony. I was like, this time I made a vow to myself. I'm like, I'm going to pass every fucking test. So we go there and we take the medicine, all good.

We get ready and we're going to go on a long hike this time instead of a boat ride. So we have some time. And I brought the flute out and I started playing the flute and i could tell as i was playing it yeah i'm not great but people kind of dug it because i was playing it as authentically and as good as i possibly can and so that kind of for me started off this first ceremony in the right way like i made a choice to go grab the flute and i played it and it just felt good to not be worried about that shit anymore are you telling me you're starting a band is this how you break it are you you going to be the new Jethro Tull? I'm bringing the flute back. Jethro Tull was right all along.

I have two instruments that I can kind of play. It's a flute and a didgeridoo, and they don't go together at all. They're perfect. What are you talking about? They just need the right mixture of drugs. The right mixture of drugs and the flute and the diggeridoo is exactly what you want to hear. Yeah, that's true. do is exactly what you want to hear. Boi-o-mo-a-o-m-o-a. Yeah, it's true.

So the prerequisite for the whole audience will just be to be blasted on something. Yeah, a Paul Revere type, you know, one of those real patriotic from back when. Those are the only instruments they had. Like that kind of a tune. And boi-o-mo-a-o-m-o-a it would just highlight the absurdity of our dimension totally totally all right well i'll keep that in mind yeah so we're scared of the flu so we start on this on this nature walk and um you know i kind of get the game that there's going to be tests presented and you pass them you feel good you don't pass them you feel like shit so we're walking through i'm already not stressed about the bugs i got my you know instead of this big shirt and all

this crap all over me i'm just kind of in a tank top i got bug spray and i'm not trying to be a fucking hero but i'm way less stressed about it and we're walking along and we have this native guide along with us and i see this really long black millipede uh and it's all this spin hundred spindly legs all knuckly and writhing in this weird pattern normally that would freak me the fuck out so i see it and i point it out to the guide and she picks it up and lets it crawl in her hand and i think to myself oh fuck this is a test like i gotta let this thing crawl on me to like pass this that's so ridiculous you do not need to do that you need me to go with you next time you go to the jungle and go hey bro how high are you you're about to let a fucking bug that you don't know anything

about crawl on you because you think the universe has a test for you the only you're in the bug's house the only reason i thought i was safe is because this guy did it but anyways at that point deep with the woo-woo on this episode at that point i had to i had to let it crawl on me and so i did i let it crawl on me. And so I did. I let it crawl on me. Did you ask any questions about its toxicity or what it eats? No, the guy didn't speak English. So she was just. So anyways, but it worked out.

It fucking worked out. So I was good there. And I felt good afterward. I was like, okay, I conquered that little fear. And then we had another chance to eat some cacao pods. And last time I passed on the cacao pods and last time i passed out in the i passed on the cacao pods because i was worried you know i hadn't washed my hands and blah blah blah i was all worried about all this shit did you have like a howie

mandel type thing like well i kind of did yeah like that was kind of like that was me not trusting the mud i was worried about the malaria i was worried about the mosquitoes i was worried about so that was it so on this third on this third session you know the cacao pod comes like all right it's another fucking opportunity to just not be stressed and eat like all the rest of the people so you dig your fingers in this kind of gooey placenta-y fruit and then pull out this pod it's like kind of like an embryo it's really weird and uh popped it in my mouth and it was great tasted Tasted delicious. I could kind of feel a little burst of energy from the cocoa. And I was like, all right, sweet. So I'm off to a good start.

We're headed up to the altar. And I start to realize that life is just a series of these choices. And you can either let, you know, fears that you've had prevent you from doing this, like Howie Mandel, like constantly living in a world where he's afraid of all kinds of shit and that's making him choose this thing over this thing. Or you can kind of go the other way and choose not to be afraid of those things. Yeah, recognize when there is danger. I'm not saying don't recognize danger, but to separate the fear from danger, which will allow you a broader spectrum of choices, which will give you gifts of things like the ability to eat a cacao pod fresh out of the jungle when you're blasted on wachuma which is something i was afraid of doing

the last time but i wasn't afraid of this time so what were you afraid of like taking in a parasite or something yeah something like that some kind of germs that are on my hand i don't fuck is that really common does that happen to a lot of people down there like what are the uh i mean you hear stories but i don't know what in relation to how many people go down there, those stories. You know, I don't know the statistics, and obviously there's some risk, but there's also, you know, tons of people who are going through,

a bunch of people in our group that did it and were fine, a bunch of people go down there all the time and do it and they're fine. It's not like, if a lot of people were getting sick from that, they'd cut that out of the program. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's like people worry about it and they worry about malaria. Like maybe, yeah, but do you know how many fucking people are going down there? Yeah.

There's a lot of goddamn people going down there on a regular. Justin Wren, he is the UFC fighter that went down there. You guys sent him a bunch of stuff. He's into Alpha Brain and he's the one who's got that Fight for the Forgotten charity for the people of the Congo. And he got crazy sick down there. He got some sort of horrible jungle bug. Yeah. I mean, typhoid fever or something like that, something nutty like that.

Dengue fever. Whatever. Yeah, it might have been that. Whatever it was, he was on death's door. Like, really fucked him up. You got to be careful. And some places are worse than others. Peru is in that kind of, that still happens,'s door. Really fucked him up. You got to be careful. In some places, it's worse than others. Peru is in that kind of, that still happens, but it's still pretty benign, and especially

in this area. That's a scary thing. When you're around a bug that can kill people, like a flu that feels like a flu that's so much more powerful than anything you've experienced before, you're like, oh shit, I might not get out of this one. That's what I was terrified of. And that's what was the resistance that almost prevented me from having what I will credit as the greatest week of my life. Um, it almost stopped me from doing it. And obviously it's a week out

and I'm healthy as fuck. And, you know, I made, you know, I assuredly the absolute right choice and it worked out. But, but again, so that was kind of the message that you just have a bunch of these choices and accurately assessing danger versus your fears and everything that you pile on top is the key. So we're approaching like the place we're going to do the afternoon, you know, landing spot, which is this kind of sky deck overlooking the jungle. And I wanted to take my shoes off as I walked up there. So I just fucking did it. I took my shoes off, didn't worry about the mosquitoes. And that felt great. Just feeling the grass and the mud on my feet. It was a short walk. So there wasn't any crazy shit going on in the, in the brush or anything I had to worry about. We get up there and, um, I go to lie down and I had taken again,

I had taken the most what you might have taken at any point ever. So I'm more blasted than I have been the whole trip because I got eight ounces instead of six. So I'm more blasted than I have been the whole trip because I got eight ounces instead of six. And I go to lie down and I'm pondering this idea of choice a lot and fears and, you know, feeling pretty good because everything that's happened, I was past these tests and I see this little ant crawling towards me to my right hand side. And I look and I go, fuck, there's an ant coming. And so I totally broke my train of thought, stood straight up. fuck, there's an ant coming. And so I totally broke my train of thought, stood straight up. And then I looked back at that ant and I just realized, holy shit, I just let that little fucking ant have the power over me to make me sit up, lose my train of consciousness and completely

move on his behalf. And it wasn't like a deadly poisonous ant. It was just an ant. And then I thought to myself, how many other of these little things that are truly ants in our existence, fears, worries, paranoias, relationships that you feel crunchy about in a certain way. Crunchy. Like something that's uncomfortable to you in a situation or that you're projecting and your simulator is worried about. is worried about. These little things that when in reality are no more than these ants, which are harmless, cause you to make, to choose actions that aren't in your best interest, you know? And we, because we give them power, we give them the power over us to make us move. They do have power. Well, I think it's what we were discussing before that it relates to this is that you truly can't appreciate your freedom unless you're in some sort of a struggle to maintain it. It's a very strange thing. And that these things that you're saying

have this power over us, we give them this power. They're also causing massive amounts of self-examination and assessments of why there's this conflict in the first place. When you're conscious. Yes. There's lessons to be learned in conflict in that you realize the futility of conflict. And I think without those lessons, when people are trying to nerf the world and avoid all the conflicts, we lose the actual lessons that are available in these life experiences. These lessons of understanding the repercussions of shitty behavior, understanding

what true violence is really all about, understanding how it can be turned around, understanding watching guys hug it out after they have a fist fight for fucking 10 minutes and respect each other for it. I'm not saying you should do that, but there's a reality of them hugging it out. They're like, okay, well on a microcosm this works like why can't this work for the whole human race because if we go to war

there's no hugging you know but sometimes after you duke it out with each other you realize how ridiculous it is and that's better than war you know and people who would think that that's savagery or that don't understand and like we have to stop all this horrible shit that's going on. We should definitely encourage everyone to be nice. But along the way, the errors are where we're going to learn. And it's an integral part of developing human consciousness. It's a very important part. The conflict is there so that you can learn from it.

It's not there so that it shapes your life And defines your future though And that's where people get fucked up That's where bullying is so horrible Because it gives them an equation That they can't emotionally solve They're left in this deficit that they feel It's futile

They can't pull out of it And then they go into a funk and a depression And it's because somewhere along the line Someone almost, in a way you could say, stole their freedom, stole their happiness. They took it from them. They took it from them with an act. And I think we kind of recognize that as human beings.

This is why rapists get beaten up in prison. I mean, why do they go after child molesters in prison with such vicious, vicious attacks? Because they recognize... Yeah, you took something sacred. But ultimately, you have the choice, all of these people, however difficult it may be, to take that freedom back. And whether you can do it, maybe you can't do it in action.

Maybe you're going to be subject to somebody doing something bad to you. But you can always decide, and I'm not saying it's fucking easy, not saying I can do it, whatever. But you can always decide how you let that affect you, whether that's simply an impetus of pain or whether that deeply changes you and is suffering. And you see that accounts from different people who've handled POW camps. They're stuck in the fucking POW camp. You can't escape. And for some people, or in Auschwitz, you see different survivors talking about different things. Some of them, it was pure suffering and they took every single fiber of their humanity from these people. And some people were able to make a choice that all they're doing

is creating pain, but I'm going to keep my own sacred autonomy of what my feelings towards that are going to be. And at the very end, that's the ultimate choice that we always have is maybe we can't control the input that's coming in, but we can control our attitude towards it. And that's the last thing that nobody can take from us. And most importantly, we can control our output and our output is someone else's input. And that's something that a lot of people ignore or are not aware of when they're doing something that ultimately winds up being very damaging to themselves. They're not aware of the fact that your output is someone else's input. And if you put something out that's a negative, it's not going to come back a positive ever. It's just not.

It doesn't work that way. If you put out a negative, a negative that attacks a negative just creates more negative. It's just the only way it works. And sometimes it's the only way. That's the other problem with being a human being. Sometimes you're walking down an alley and there's a bunch of people that are going to fuck with you. And there's nothing you can do about it. You could either let them beat you up.

You could fight. You could run. But you're going to have to deal with a real live situation. So there's no black or white in this crazy world. It's not everything that happens to you manifested with your imagination and your intent. No. But a lot yes you know it's not everything no but what a lot of it is how much work can you get done in your

lifetime to make sure that less people experience bad things in their lifetimes that is a real ripple and that ripple effect is happening right now from someone listening to this gare run fucking deed from listening to your story listening to your depictions, coinciding them with their own instincts and feelings, maybe a few experiences they've had, and then choosing an ethic. And that idea and that choice of choosing an ethic can change the future,

can change the experiences that people have. If you look back on history and you look back at the horrific things that the Romans did and the Spartans did and all these people did when they were going to war with some other people, if you look back at just the mounds of awful stories that we could just go back and find out

about all the different slayings that the Mongol Empire took part in, that the Romans took part in that the I mean just over and over and over again throughout history all these horrific terrifying acts of humanity and and think about what it would be like if we didn't know about those think about what if they happen and we didn't learn think about what what well it's terrible that they happen. It is definitely terrible, but that we know that that can happen ever

is important. It's important that we know that this whole thing is just this chaotic scramble for recognition of the state of consciousness we're in. It's chaotic scramble. What's going on?

This is my land. That's my pussy. This is my goal. Oh, my heart's turnt. Boom. And then start all over again. And then new bodies and your genes pass on to another new meat vehicle that's carrying consciousness. And it tries to deal with all the stupid shit that you taught it. And like, oh my God, this motherfucker was wrong about almost everything. And now my heart stops. Boom. And then you hope that you taught your kids a little something so they can, like my dad was semi-retarded most of his life but he told me when he started getting older he realized the maze

and he saw that the the puzzle was ridiculous because there's no solution and in the moment the this is the key the key is staying in the moment and then he died and then you remember that from the jump so you go through life it's like kua chang cane with a you know a modern day cell phone and you just try to figure figure out your interaction with all these people. But we're a part of this crazy ripple. It just doesn't seem like it because we're in it. It doesn't seem like it because we're a part of it because it's just life to us. It's, you know, what happens today?

Well, I get up in the morning, I turn on my computer, and I find out what's happening in the world. Where's the news stories? That's what I do. But what is that? What is anything that you do in life? What are any of these patterns that you follow? What are any of these things you do? It's just consciousness expressing itself, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on and trying to make some sort of an account of all the things that are going on around you all the time because there's so many of them. And then, so all of these things that seem to happen automatically until you find a point where you get to that

ultimate stillness. And you can do that in a float tank. You can do that in a medicine journey. You can do that in good meditation or even yoga. But in order to properly chart your course at any level, you have to find that stillness. But then the next level beyond that was right where I'm at here in this story. So Don Howard comes over to me and he starts, you know, doing his thing, asked me to kneel and he starts using the feather over my head. And I could feel like a weird transformation happening in my body, this kind of invincibility that I started to feel at that moment. feel at that moment. And it was this strange kind of feeling of, I was kind of crouched over the top of the jungle and I started to feel like kind of like a rumble in my throat, almost like a growl. And I could feel like my toes start to grip in. And it was almost like I was transforming myself then into this big cat that was out looking over the jungle and had absolutely no fear. big cat that was out looking over the jungle and had absolutely no fear. You know, nothing, the mosquitoes couldn't hurt me. My other fears wouldn't bother me. Death was no threat. You know,

like nothing at that very moment, you know, could actually harm me. And I realized at that bleeding edge of invincibility, at that bleeding edge of fearlessness, not that a bullet couldn't kill me, I'm not trying to be crazy, but how I felt then, you know, was completely without fear for the very first time in my life. Absolutely nothing scared me. And at that point that I realized that was the only time I've ever had complete free will. Because only at the very edge of your fearlessness is nothing pushing, pulling you, prodding you. You know, you have no attachments to anything because you're not afraid of losing anything because losing anything wouldn't hurt you. You know, you're completely fearless at that. I was completely fearless at that point. And that was the very first time I had complete free will. And that feeling is something

I'll never forget, you know? And I realized that all of these people that talk about the determinism of life, oh, it's genetics, oh, it's environment. Oh, it's, you know, there's a place that you can get to where you have absolute choice. And maybe you can't stay there. Not saying that I'm like that now. I mean, but I can remember that fucking place and I can remember being completely 100% fearless and knowing that I could choose anything I wanted in my life and it would be my authentic choice, not pushed or prodded by any other factor. And that was perhaps the greatest gift I've ever gotten in my life. And one of the reasons why this trip was maybe the best thing I've ever done. That's some deep shit, son. Yeah. I'm all, I'm taking it all in right now.

That's some deep shit. Indeed. That conversation is very puzzling to me. And I've heard people say that it's very simple. It's very simple. Free will doesn't exist. It's very simple. It can be proven. It can be proven by tests. Then how come you decided to go on a diet?

What happened there? I know this is a retarded version of the actual events. And I know that they're scientifically proved in some form or fashion that your decisions are decided for you before you ever decide them. Not buying it. I don't know how the fuck you know when someone decided it. A part of their brain was lit up or an impulse and you know that that represents consciousness to 100 extent that you know that that's not the origin of the very thought itself

that it comes in ripples and affects different states of the mind at different times in the decision like are you absolutely sure i do not believe that the the the data is like that conclusive yet and from what i experienced I can fucking tell you with assurity, I would put anything on the line that that is fucking nonsense. By the way, I have no idea what I'm talking about. I know nothing about neuroscience. So everything I say might be

frustrating to you. Six seconds before a choice, something triggers in the brain. How is that possible? There's some choices that you make immediately. They're less than six seconds. It doesn't make any sense. Do you want to eat shit? No. What is that?? There's some choices that you make immediately. They're less than six seconds. It doesn't make any sense. Do you want to eat shit? No.

What is that? Is that free will? No, there's no free will. Come on, son. From what I experienced, there is fucking free will. And robbing people of that, robbing is one of the things that are the most detrimental. I think it's a semantics argument. Because I the idea of is there completely free will? Well, then what is it? What are you saying when you're saying free will? I mean, are you free of emotional baggage? Are you free of memory? Are you free of genetic memory, fears, all sorts of phobias that may or may not have been passed down through your fucking DNA and you don't even know why you're crazy about them? Are you free of all that? Not necessarily. But can you decide, you know what? Fuck this, man. I don't like this shit. I need to get my fucking life in order. Can you make a choice? Write something down, make a choice. What is that? That's not free will. I don't understand it. I don't understand your argument. I can understand what you're saying about there's some things going on in the brain that determine decisions before the person believes they decided, before they actually have consciously realized they decided.

But isn't that like how a decision works? I mean, obviously, and I keep qualifying this, but I am almost retarded. But if you're having this sort of conversation about anything else other than the human mind, like if it was about a computer program, it'd be pretty traceable. You'd be able to trace the code. You'd be able to see where the sequence takes place. Where's the variation? What's going on where you could watch this deviation or this path? But with the human mind, like, God damn, there's a lot going on in being a person and making decisions, changing your mind. What's changing your mind?

The thing that these neuroscientists are failing to recognize is there is a human mind. By the way, that's a meme. The thing these neuroscientists are failing to recognize, that'll be a meme. Well, I think maybe some of them do, but I firmly believe, and I've experienced this, that there is the mind,

and then there's another thing called consciousness. And that consciousness, it works through the mind and it's interconnected with it but it isn't just the mind and it's the consciousness aspect of you where the free will resides so the neurologist neuroscientist may be able to prove via the mind all of these different facts but the consciousness is ineffable i am i have a not subject to tests i have a similar take on it but slightly different, in that I do believe that the issue might be in just labeling it something with these feeble human words. I think that might be the issue in calling something consciousness at all. I think whatever it is that you experience in the psychedelic state, you're not qualified to describe and you're not qualified to cast a judgment on what

revelations that your little puny mind makes when you're over there because you're in the face of something that's so impossible to believe, so impossible for the imagination to conjure up, that it defies all your silly little words. So when you start saying things like, you know, we start using consciousness in a sense that we use it to sort of lay down a scaffolding of ideas so I can understand what you're talking about. But I don't know what that means. And I don't think anybody does. That's why someone who's been doing it for 50 years isn't going to try and tell you. Exactly.

They just have to show you. Yeah, they don't need to like, this is consciousness, but this is the soul. Hey, man, I'm not sure you're right you know i think the whole thing might be together yeah you know that we have these ideas of lave this is the human brain and guess what the human brain is touching the whole thing the human brain directly touches the center of the fucking universe do you know why because there's no empty space even in a vacuum there's stuff out there there's dark matter there's there's fucking air on earth there's no empty space. Even in a vacuum, there's stuff out there. There's dark matter. There's fucking air on Earth.

There's a direct connection between something, some atom, some object, some physical, some gas. Something connects everything. This idea of space is a really relative concept. And if you really look at it, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're at the bottom of the universe, which is an ocean. It's an infinite ocean. The idea that there's all this air. No, it's just different stuff.

Like, it's still all connected. The whole thing is a big soup. The whole thing. And you don't get away from the big soup. The ecstasy of dichotomy. Yeah, I mean, there's some gaps in the cheese here and there, but ultimately it's all connected. It's all connected.

Spiraled like a, you know, I mean, look, you can look at a fucking sponge and you could say, is that thing connected? Well, I mean, so there's a lot of holes in it. Yeah, this is a fucking, it's connected. There's a beginning and an end. Shut up, stupid. You get it wet, the whole thing's getting wet.

It's fucking connected. It doesn't matter any holes are in there. That's you and the universe. That's you and the universe are like a fucking sponge. Like, you're not getting away with anything. Your brain, your consciousness, your mind, they're all the same thing. It's all the universe.

We just have compartmentalized our biology in these very specific ways in our attempt to understand what the fuck is going on as we wake up at the front wheel of this spaceship as it hurls into the sky. Like, what is it? Okay, this is the brain. Agreed? Okay, it's all the brain. The brain is independent of the spinal cord. And when the spinal cord is severed, the brain can no longer communicate.

Agreed. Agreed. And we figure out how this little biological creature works. Well, this creature is just a reacting part of the soup of the universe, slowly getting to try to understand itself during this very brief, finite, and obscure existence that's a part of the infinity. And it's all just popping off while you're trying to figure it out as it's happening.

That's us, man. Indeed. Indeed. Well, I want to tell the story of the Vilca because that's the final thing. This is the DMT snuff. So we leave the thing. Three days of the other. Yep.

So this is the same night. So this is the same night. So I leave the temple. I felt myself feeling like a big cat and that feeling of fearlessness, bleeding edge of free will, that experience go down. I'm feeling just fucking amazing at this point. I'm like, wow, this is awesome. But I know we're going to do the Vilca. And the way Don Howard described it is, he says, you know, tonight we get a chance to go home. And he just said it just like that. And he didn't need to say much more than that, but you knew that it was, he's like, if you do it right, you'd go home. And I was like, whoa, all right. And at this point I had just such immense faith in what he was doing

that I was like, all right, this is going to be pretty significant. So walking into the hut, I put into practice what I'd learned up there. And usually on the way to the hut, I was like someone, you know, scurrying from one foxhole to the other. Cause I was worried about mosquitoes, but I was like, I'm going to just walk into this fucking hut at my pace when I want to. I'm not going to let the mosquitoes bother me. And little choices like that were already ways that I was putting into practice this knowledge that I got, which is why I love the wachuma so much. So I take my time, walk into the hut, take a seat, and he brings out the snuff tray and the snuff um tube basically but the snuff tube is not just a normal snuff tube it's a four thousand year old what looks like a human

metatarsal bone like a bone from the knuckle bone from your foot that's hollowed down the center that the chavin people themselves had used to snuff the vilca some 3,500 years ago. And the tray itself that held the, the, uh, the vilca was 3,500 years old used for exactly that purpose. And he smiles to us and he says, now this thing is used. It's not new. And he just kind of smiles and we chuckle a little bit. And still at the very edge of doing this most intense DMT experience, he's got a little chuckle and a laugh. And that was one of the beautiful things of this. So anyways, this guy goes performing.

He's kind of struggling with it and having a challenging time. And he finally gets some down. And then after you do it, you're supposed to go to your room. How do they get it up your nose? So you put the – so yeah, I'll tell it when I'm going. So I hop up there, and I look at it it and it's hollowed straight down the middle. I don't know how they do this without a drill, but it's like this, you know, I guess they had something they just twisted until they went through. Probably like when they start a fire.

Yeah, totally. Take a stick. So it's like a knuckle bone, but it's longer and it's hollowed straight down the center of it. And so you put the knuckle in your nose one knuckle in your nose and then the other knuckle has been cut off in a certain way that lays flat in the tray and then it's this bunch of brown powder that's all in there and you basically just in one nostril and then in the other nostril as as hard as you can go and so he gets up there and he and he gives it to me i put

it in my you know i got a big nose so that helped out i think so i stick the knuckle in my nose and i just take a rip in one nostril take a huge rip in the other nostril and at that point i mean it burned like hell but it more than that it felt like you ever watched the old highlander when he cut someone's head off and he was like absorbing the soul of a vanquished foe? It was like the most incredible power like coursing through me. I was like, whoa, like just shaking, like lightning struck me. I was really crazy feeling. So it's a painful feeling and at the same time, it's burning at the same time, intense DMT trip.

Yeah. Well, not yet. So it didn't kick in the DMT part, but just something electric happened. Like I just got hit with lightning. Like my body knew like, oh fuck, like something crazy is going to happen. So Don Howard just looks at me and he knew I got a bunch of it. So he goes, you better go to your room and just kind of said that with a smile. And like, I take off out of the hut and I go to the room and everybody else is going

to go. So I start lying down in the bed. It completely dark i got a blindfold on and um you know the snuff still kind of burning a little bit and then a pretty familiar dmt experience starts to happen that kind of chrysanthemum of energy except it's way fucking thicker than i've ever seen it i'm used to like seeing it in above me in this kind of thing, but this was completely through me. Like it wasn't like I was looking at it. Like I was it.

I was this nexus of energy and lights and spider web. And there was really no separation between me and it, which is an experience that I've never had. I've always kind of known myself and then this other, and I was able to kind of look at the other as myself. This, I was like, oh fuck, I am becoming this thing. I am not really myself anymore. Except occasionally things would happen to my body. I'd be like, okay, body's still there, but it was in this weird, like it was in another room or something like that. So that happens and I kind of pass through that section. And then I find myself in this, you know, that whole nexus of light, the chrysanthemum, whatever that DMT thing

is gone. And I find myself in this room with a bunch of different spirits. And one is like this hairy hippopotamus looking frog man with a staff. And then there's these other figures in hoods. And then there's these figures all around me. And I feel like I'm in this neighborhood bar and everybody's kind of looking at me like, the fuck are you doing here? You don't belong here. So I say, I say, you know, if it's in the greatest good, if anybody wants to speak with

me, you know, please do so. And all the spirits just kind of look at me like not not in a mean way but just like man i ain't got shit for you so i'm sitting there for a second and then i say grandma here and uh and so um you know I was really close with my grandma. She's on my tattoo here. And I asked her, I said, Grandma, are you here? And to my left, she started approaching in the most familiar, you know, way that I remember her probably from when I was, you know, 10 or 12 in that kind of form. I remember the clothes she was wearing and her face and now everything was. And she said, hey, Aubrey. And in her voice.

And I held out my hand, my left hand, and she grabbed a hold of my hand, and I could feel it just like her same weathered hand used to be when I would hold her hand as a kid. And we started talking, and we talked for a few minutes. And then, you know, said we loved each other. And I said, Grandma, I got to go now. She said, Yeah, I know. And I let go. And she left.

And then I started the process of coming back into my body. But how real that moment was, you know? I mean, you could say it's all in my mind and it's a projection of my grandma, but I could feel her fucking hand. I could hear her voice, and I know what she said to me. And it doesn't matter what anybody wants to try and explain that you know that was my grandma you know that was her well this is a very touchy subject for people because people love

calling bullshit on these kind of stories yeah but this is what's really important it doesn't matter whether or not it was a hallucination or whether it was actually your grandmother is the exact same experience it still is that experience it was that is what, is the exact same experience. It still is that experience. It was. That is what's really crazy about a psychedelic is that it may be able to bring your grandmother to you. It might really be able to do that. That might be real.

It might be a hallucination, but it's the same experience as if your grandmother came to you. That's a really weird thing for people to adjust to, that the idea that there's more than one possibility going on here and the idea that you don't have to debunk this like you don't have to debunk something first of all that you haven't personally experienced and two that it doesn't matter like the debunking is not important it's very important not to get caught up in some crazy woo woo cult like-like faith healer nonsense.

You're right. But if you really don't believe him, take it yourself. And until then, shut your mouth. I understand you're trying to be all scientific and everything, and I understand that I take offense with these pseudo-scientific explanations. What can be easily explained by modern science the workings of the human mind i don't think so i don't think we finish i don't think we've even dipped our toes into what the fuck being a conscious entity in the universe really truly yes i don't think we have and so for anybody you know i i didn't have any of this kind of kind of

unfinished business or anything it was just an amazing opportunity to connect with her you know, I, I didn't have any of this kind of kind of unfinished business or anything. It was just an amazing opportunity to connect with her, you know, but for me, the change, the truth of that experience, you know, for someone who did have, and not that this happens to everybody and this is reproducible and you go in with this expectation, I'm going to do Vilka and talk to my dead relative who I wanted to say, I love you too. That may happen. It may not. So don't go with expectations. But for me, this is my experience, and this is what happened to me in this Vilca ceremony. The idea that that... See, when people say, is it reproducible?

Yes and no. DMT is reproducibly ridiculous. But if you think that the exact same experience is reproducible, what you are ignorant of is the catalog of possible events. Stop and think of that. The catalog of possible events is infinite. And the universe of DMT dimension, the DMT experience, when you tap into that, what it really truly represents is something you had no idea you could ever even think up if you're just thinking it up. You had no idea it was there.

And it becomes infinitely more complex the more you pay attention to it. And it's never ending. And it can change constantly. And saying this in my little feeble attempt at using human language to describe this experience is so useless. It's so silly. But the point is that along the way, you realize that, yeah, you could probably reproduce it, but it doesn't matter because it's not the same thing for a tenth of a second. Every tenth of a second, it's a new thing. An impossible new thing like okay now i understand

well there's these colors and there's these chat oh what the fuck is this oh what is this this is a new thing right this isn't even possible this can't be real oh my god this is crazier than that this is and it just keeps going and it never stops it's kind you can't catch up you can't you can never catalog catalog at all you can never say well we've got a very clear catalog of the possible effects of being on dimethyltryptamine and oh you went to page 54 yeah there's no page 54 bitch yeah it just doesn't it doesn't end it's an infinite book you don't have it in your head you don't have the database you don't have it's like you know an ant trying to figure out how a satellite works. It doesn't matter.

It's just fucking so out of your world. If it falls out of the sky and hits you in the head, it's the only time you should ever worry about it. Until then, carry on. Totally. You're not ready. And so the cool part with the smoking of the DMT, it's kind of this in and out.

This was stretched out over 40 minutes, and it was a long way kind of back from that. You could maybe call that the peak. A lot of other things happened. And actually, one of the things that I have going on in these psychedelic experiences is I have kind of like a recorder almost. It's like a shred of consciousness that I—consciousness is another weird word to use—but a shred of mental capacity that I keep open to record this and store this information. One of the reasons why I can tell these stories. I remember as I was coming back from that place, I could feel that thing. It was almost like knowing that these microphones are on or something. You

just have an awareness that it's on. And I remember consciously being like, I got to shut this off now. And so for the first time in any of these psychedelic experiences, there's a good period that I don't even recall and I couldn't even talk about here. But what I can recall is as I was coming back even closer, I could see a lot of these attachments onto my body as I was kind of from a bird's eye view. Different things, different relationships, different other things that had attachments to this form or attachments to this idea or attachments to that. And I just was able to just clear them all away and just kind of move through with my breath and my hand and, and just kind of cut all these little hooks that were in my body.

And then just found myself coming back in and just marveling at the magic of this machine that we have, you know, like hands that could squeeze mine yeah yeah exactly exactly you got you got hands and a tongue that you could move around i remember moving around my tongue toes that wiggle and in that process i remember i started singing uh like a like an ikaro like a little song like total nonsense gibberish but it just started to come out and i was singing that as i was getting back into my body and uh i remember i was still singing and maybe i was singing a little loud and i saw this vision of this woman in this like kind of crystal-y gown comes up and she smiles at

me and then puts her finger to my lips like hey shush that's a great way when you're tripping yeah so uh did you want to talk to her more no she was just there to tell me to shush. That's a great way when you're tripping. Yeah. Did you want to talk to her more? No, she was just there to tell me to shush. I was like, okay, I'll shush now. So he's a chick. Yeah. Again, it's the yin and yang. Yeah.

You know, the alfalfa had a fucking shitty group of friends. That He-Man Woman-Haters Club in Little Rascals? It's terrible. Bullshit. He didn't want to be there. He didn't want to be in the He-Man Woman-Haters Club. We could all get along. But the way I stopped shushing us.

This is how the hut got built, bitch. I'm excited about it. So, yes, I get back in my body, and then I walk back into the hut. I was one of the first to do the snuffs. I was one of the first back. And I sat, and he asked me to sit in his chair and look at the altar. And I remember just looking at the altar and just kind of merging with one with the center of the altar

and realizing that the core of my center, that kind of that principle of non-duality that you talked about, touching every part of the universe, the core of my being really started to merge with the core of that, the non-zone in the middle. And I just felt unbelievably connected with the entire universe at that point,

realizing that within me is that same connection as within that and and then that was pretty much the uh the wrap of the ceremony you know we uh we all got kind of back in and candles burned out and uh had a feast ate some cayman some alligator uh at the end of that night and i think cayman uh the cayman's a crocodile right is it cayman is there a difference between the way alligator tastes and crocodile? No, caiman tastes delicious. It's kind of like a tougher chicken. But anyway, so we finished that off and go have a feast.

And there we go. And really the last kind of words from Don Howard is he told me as I was leaving, he said, you know, it's Renaissance time. And that's what he believes. It's time for a new renaissance spiritual and responsible consciousness renaissance and he's out there johnny apple seeding this motherfucker yeah he's been holding it down for 50 years waiting for waiting for word to get critical mass i think it's out there do you think it's critical mass now no it's getting there though what do you experience what's

the difference in your life since uh you know you feel like you've been exposed to these ideas? So now at this point, I have the roadmap back anytime I get in a weird situation. I'm not immune to fears and I'm not immune to worries and concerns, but now I can see them and I can choose and I can almost say, okay, I recognize you. I see you coming. But I also remember a truth so much deeper that I felt. And while you may pester me for a moment, I'm going to find my way back to that eventually because I felt it. I saw it. I chose to be that way. And for me, because of how active this whole

ceremony was, knowing my way back to that feeling of fearlessness, knowing my way back to that connection with the center of the universe and the lessons about reciprocity and all of these things i just have the fucking roadmap to find my way out of any kind of maze or worry or concern or situation you know they're still going to come up they're still going to kick my ass occasionally you know resistance is still going to get a foothold every now and then and win for an hour win for a day win, win for a week. I don't know. But I'll kick its ass eventually because I've found the way and I've seen what is capable for me and what I want to be. As you get older, do you find less and less battles with that shit and more and more and more smooth sailing?

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I do. I mean, like everyone, experience similar moments of malcontent or similar moments of a lack of ambition. You know, I find a way to fight them back. And I think that one of the big things that I keep harping on and that we harp on a lot on it is take care of your meat wagon. Fuck yeah. It has a big effect on how your meat wagon. It has a big effect on how your brain works.

It has a big effect. The other day, I did a kettlebell workout. I did chin-ups with a weight vest on and ankle weights. And then I did 10 rounds of the heavy bag while the fights were going on. So I did renegade rows with the kettlebells. I did alternating cleans. I did clean presses. And then I did these weighted chin-ups.

And then I just had a ruthless, savage bag workout. And after all that shit was done, you couldn't bother me. It's not possible. Anything you would say, I would find curious. Like, you could be like, you fucking douchebag. And you could say something totally mean to me. And I be like well you got an issue i don't know what it is but i'm not really interested i gotta go see you like you you have a bank of bullshit in your body and if you could blow that out in the gym man and this that's a lesson if you want to talk about

something that i need to learn over and over and over and over again, although I know it, although I've espoused it, I still need to see it in action because sometimes your ego and your body get a little tricky and you take a few days off, take two, three days off. Like I'm fine. I don't need to work out. I don't need to, I'm busy right now. I'm handling everything very calmly. You don't even realize like you're on the verge. You're on the verge of stepping into that new or that next sort of vibration, that a little bit more hostile vibration. You could pull that back. You could easily pull that back. But if you don't do that, if you never do that, if you never take care of your meat wagon, boy, you don't know, man, you don't know. I was high as fuck after that workout. After that workout, I was high.

I was floating. I was filled with endorphins. Everything was beautiful. I went outside. I sat down in the backyard and watched my chickens run around. The world was filled with love. I might as well have been smoking weed. I'm serious.

I was high as fuck, just stretching. It's got to be similar to like psychedelic effects of yoga when you're just completely stressed relieved and then stretching out and just taking in nature it was gorgeous it was beautiful it's just like a drug man and people who don't exercise that option just do it it's not about it's not a lot of people worry that it's about the way you look and it's about vanity. And they don't want to be misconstrued as being vain or they don't want to compete. They don't want to acknowledge the fact that being physically attractive or sexually attractive is beneficial because then it will hold weight over them and then they'll judge themselves on not chasing after that so they sort

of take pride in being a fat fuck or joke around about you know you know being lazy and this some of those people are my favorite human beings on the planet but the reality of it is if you took better care of your meat wagon you'd have a funner ride fuck yeah your shocks would be better your system would run smoother you get better miles to the gallon it doesn't fucking break down the highways much it's a completely different experience just force yourself at the bare minimum do enough to keep your body out of pain do some yoga just it's not hard i mean it is hard but it's not hard to find a place to do it it's not hard to find a video online just fucking just do that try it please get out of pain then get out of fear and then you have a chance to connect to that you know

that other whatever that other is but the first steps you got to take care of the base root you know you got to get your body right anthony bourdain started doing jujitsu at 57 years old his wife and kid got him into jujitsu because his kid is five and his kid's like really getting into jujitsu so he's like holy shit i guess kid's, like, really getting into jiu-jitsu. So he's like, holy shit. I guess his kid is older than five now, but close, somewhere in that range. His kid's really getting into jiu-jitsu. And his wife is quite a badass.

Like, she's, like, really obsessed with it. She trains daily. And so now he's fucking training. There's all these pictures of him training. He's got a stripe on his white belt. He's doing arm bars and shit. His cardio's improved. And Octavia Bourdain, I don't know what the source

of it is, like where you can find it online, but if you Google it, she wrote an article about Anthony Bourdain getting into shape and doing jiu-jitsu. It's awesome. It's a fascinating article. First of all, she's a really fucking good writer. I mean, I always knew she was smart. She's very interesting, but I didn't know how good her writing is.

It's very interesting. It's like, I really like it. It's a was smart. She's very interesting, but I didn't know how good her writing is. It's very interesting. It's like I really like it. It's a great style. It's an enviable style of writing. Like, whoa, she's got some skills. So she's documenting him as like a test study. It's obvious who he is. It's obvious, but she's talking 57-year-old man, was a frequent smoker until he was 38, and is done.

She names off all the different drugs and how little exercise he gets and all these different things it's really fun if you get a chance check it out but good on anthony bourdain man good for him i love someone who's willing to take a chance at 57 years old and learn something new exercising is exercising his right to free will yeah yeah apparently she doesn't drill with him because she says he gets fucking too intense he just fucking too intense. He just fucking gets crazy. He's trying to, you know, that guy's got a little bit of PTSD. He's seen some fucking shit on his show.

He'll throw shit out of you. He gets a little amped up, man. Well, we ran out of time. It's another fucking awesome podcast, though. A lot of fun. Beautiful. Remember that last time you were worried that we were going to run out of things to talk about? Yeah, that was silly. Isn't that hilarious?

That was silly. That's funny. Did that come up at all in the psychedelic experience? It didn't because I kind of figured that, but it would have if I'd had that thought. I've been like, that was a silly thought. But all those little, those are just ants. Those are ants that you can choose to give you power. You can choose to be like, that's a fucking ant. But like ants, you need them or the world's going to fucking fall apart. That's what's really crazy about the whole thing you really can't eradicate any of it it's impossible we're all gonna be humans and just enjoy this shit right here not my dick i'm not pointing to my dick i mean this life is what i'm saying enjoy what's around you right now what you you're experiencing right now. And I think that whether science can determine that free will is an illusion because of your circumstances, your genetics, your life experiences, that's all well and good.

But it's not empowering to whoever's listening to this and it is actually affecting you. You, whoever that is that hears that, me saying you, you whatever you can alter this thing you have it yeah i don't know why you can alter it i don't know but but i've done it you can do it there's nothing special about me i'm just a normal human being i can do it you can do it we can all do it and that's what your shaman friend is johnny appleseed into the world. Indeed. Out of a fucking crazy place in the jungle in the middle of nowhere that you have to fly into. Yeah.

Indeed. If you want any more information on that, I wrote this all up in a 26-page book. Oh, shit. E-book with articles and stuff. It's all on my warriorpoet.us book. Damn, you wrote a 26-page book about this? Yeah, it's like...

Holy shit. Yeah, it's... Wow. The days that I wasn't doing ceremony, I was writing about it. Who was filming this for you? Did you hire someone to go down there? Yes, we got a badass crew. We got Mitch Schultz from DMT, The Spirit Molecule. Oh, I love Mitch. And then we had...

I gotta have Mitch on the podcast. We had Donald Schultz who's this crazy wildlife guy. I think I talked to you about him. He's in the Saving the Rhinos and done a bunch of shit like that. And then we had one of Mitch's main film guys there. I would love to talk to one of those Saving the Rhinos guys and see how they feel

about those weird camps that they have in Africa. Donald knows all about it. He's been there a couple times. He's got some crazy fucking stories shot at by sniper rifles from the hunters

and crazy shit going on. Yeah, I would love to talk to him and get his perspective. I had Louis Theroux on the podcast, and he spent a good deal of time down in one of those camps. It's one of the most fascinating documentaries that he put out. It was all about this contradictory world,

these African hunting camps. Really fascinating. If you get a chance to watch it, first of all, Louis Theroux, if you don't know who he is, just Google him. I don't want to tell you how to spell it because I'll fuck it up, but figure it out, bitch. Suggested spelling. Louis spelled Louis, and he did some fantastic documentaries on the Westboro Baptist Church, the God hates fags guy who holds up those signs at funerals and shit.

That was incredibly fascinating. But this was one of his more fascinating ones. The contradictory nature of these hunting camps is that because of these hunting camps, these animals are more healthy, their populations are healthier than they've ever been. But people are hunting them, and they're hunting them inside cages,

and everybody else is. People are freaking out. And it's a real complex freakout because I can see both sides. I can see the size of the people that are running the hunting camp because they are, in fact, making these animals safer, giving them a value, and then also the money spent is making sure that their populations will stay steady and strong. But they're going to be hunted.

You see, that's crazy. You're fencing them in, and then dudes are coming in from out of state with one reason, to shoot these fucking animals. But that's where you get the money to keep the animals alive. Like, whoo! That is the universe in a fucking nutshell.

Donald grew up in South Africa, so if he comes on or whatever, you have a conversation with him, he's got a lot of opinions on that. I won't steal his thunder. I need to hear them. I would love to hear them. Yeah, for sure.

The Louis Thoreau documentary was goddamn incredible. I would love to hear someone who's trying to save those animals what it's like. If you really pay attention to a really good documentary on Africa, like there's a great BBC series called The Congo. The diversity of life there is so stunning that it's almost like you're watching something that's a window in a forgotten time when these animals existed because they don't seem like they should exist.

They seem so fantastic and almost mythical, like these shoebill birds, these gigantic birds with this enormous long beak thing that looks like a giant, like a canoe coming out of its face. And it's like five feet tall and it's prehistoric. And there's fish that climb out of the water and walk till they get to the next pond and dive in. There's antelopes that have evolved to swim underwater and eat fish. They have an antelope that eats fish, man. It can swim underwater 100 yards. It's in the antelope family.

There's rhinos and elephants that are trapped inside this rainforest because the grasslands turn into a rainforest and all these plains animals just got stuck there. So you see these herds of gazelles running through swamps. It's madness. I mean, Africa is fucking incredible. And that somehow or another, those animals are in jeopardy. The gorillas that come down off the mountains, you see them walk through these little dirt roads, walk across these dirt roads, and a family and the male gorillas looking out. They're wild. These are wild gorillas. Today in 2014,

like, we have to do something to save those fucking things. I mean, I don't necessarily think it's keep them in fences and shoot arrows out of them either.

I mean, I think this, this is a, this is a crazy thing. Like, you have the most incredible diversity of life,

of exotic life in the world all coming from the place where life, human life, apparently was originated. the world, all coming from the place where life, human life, apparently was originated. And when people are conscious, they'll want to enjoy those things because it's part of the fucking magic of this crazy blue rock that we're on, you know?

It is. And as soon as SeaWorld gets shut down, the next thing is zoos. Take your kids to the zoo now. Get in there while you can. Get in there while you can. There won't be zoos in the future, folks. We're going to realize how gross that is. All right. Ladies and gentlemen,

this has been fun. It's always fun. We appreciate very much all the love that we get at Twitter, comedy shows, just the vibe that we're all riding on. Like we said, there's hiccups along the way. There's lots of negativity.

But there's lessons to be learned in all of those for me for you for all of us and uh i think one of the most important things about having these kind of conversations you get to highlight these things and we all get to think of these things together and we all get to acknowledge that these are you know we're all experiencing life in this weird strange figure it out as you go along style you know don't be too harsh on people, bitches. Get it together. Try to be nice. Be good to your brothers and sisters and the earth.

Be good to your brothers and sisters and the earth. And on that note, thank you to LegalZoom. Go to LegalZoom.com. Use the code word ROGAN in the referral box and save yourself some money. And thanks also to Onnit.com. Go to O-N-N-I-T. Use the code word ROGAN and save 10 off any and all supplements we got a podcast filled week ladies and gentlemen including late night episode 500

it will take place tuesday night at 9 p.m with the great doug stanhope and the great tom rhodes oh good googly moogly. Maybe possibly the greatest drunk podcast of all will be this Tuesday night. And you have to look forward to that. Alright, we love you. Much love, everybody. Take care. Big kiss. Peace. Mwah. Mwah. Thank you.