TrueLife - Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester & Dr. Sandra Dreisbach -Ethical Challenges in the Contemporary Use of Entheogens and Psychedelics

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/https://www.revdrjessicarochester.com/http://www.sandradreisbach.com/https://www.epicpsychedelic.com/Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester is the Madrinha and President of Céu do Montréal, a Santo Daime (Ayahuasca) Church she founded in 1997 in Montréal, Canada.She is a transpersonal counselor, she trained in the work of Dr. Roberto Assagioli and trained with Dr. Stanislav Grof.She worked with Health Canada from 2000 until 2017 to achieve an Section 56 Exemption to import and serve the Santo DaimeSacrament (Ayahuasca).She is an ordained Interfaith Minister with a Doctorate in Divinity.From 1986 to 2018 she has been a workshop leader, teacher, and in private practice.She is the author of Ayahuasca Awakening A Guide to Self-Discovery, Self-Mastery and Self-Care, Volume One and Two.She continues to lecture on consciousness, non-ordinary states of consciousness, self-discovery, spiritual development, health and well-being and personal transformationDr. Sandra DreisbachPsychedelic Ethicist, MA, PhD in PhilosophySandra is an Ethicist and Psychedelic Ethics specialist with a MA, Phd in Philosophy exploring Ethical Decision Making and Moral Psychology. She is an Ethics Advisor active in Psychedelic Integration, Education and Advocacy as well as a Psychedelic community leader of the Santa Cruz Psychedelic Society and EPIC (Ethical Psychedelic International Community).Meet Our GuestSandra also teaches Bioethics at University of California, Santa Cruz for the Biomolecular Engineering and Philosophy Departments, has worked for many years in the tech industry primarily at Apple, and is a Reiki Master in two lineages.Sandra focuses on listening and uplifting the voices and values of the Psychedelic Community especially the disenfranchised with the heart space intention of compassion and love. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearist through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I am so excited to be here today. We have two incredible people in the world of psychedelics. And if you are as enthralled as I am about learning about this space, and if you are thankful to be alive right now,

because you realize how much times are changing, then you were going to be so excited to listen to this podcast. We have with us. First, we have, I will introduce Dr. Jessica, Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester. She is an ordained interfaith minister with a doctorate in divinity, a trans-personal counselor. She trained in the work of Dr. Roberto Sagioli and trained with Dr. Stanislaf Grav from 1986 to 2018.

She's been a workshop leader, a teacher in private practice. She is also a lecture on consciousness, non-ordinary states of consciousness, self-discovery, spiritual development, personal transformation. She is also the incredible Mahadrana and president of the coup de Montreal and Santo Daini Church. She founded in 1997 in Montreal, Canada from 2001 to 2017. She's so much more than that.

and you're going to learn all about her. However, we have an equally incredible woman that's also sharing some space with us. Dr. Sandra Dreisbach. She's an ethicist, a psychedelic ethics specialist with a master's and a doctorate in philosophy, exploring ethical decision-making and moral psychology, an ethics advisor, active in psychedelic education, integration, and advocacy,

a leader in the Santa Cruz psychedelic society, as well as one of the incredible co-founders of Epic, which everyone should check out. She is also a teacher in bioethics, worked in the tech industry, and is a riki master in two lineages. I think it's important to say that Dr. Jessica Rochester is also the incredible author of a series of books called Ayahuasca Awakening's. And I apologize for leaving so much more out. But I would be here all day if I read all of your accolades, lady. Thank you so much for being here.

How are you today? Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, a real pleasure. Always a pleasure. Fantastic. So with, let me, let me start this conversation this way. The two of you have really accomplished a lot in your life. So maybe I'll start with you, Dr. Jessica, Dr. Jessica.

How did your relationship with Dr. Sanders-Drives back come into fruition? Well, just one of those lovely synchronicities. I, you know, LinkedIn is about 10 years ago, more or less. A couple of colleagues' clients had said to me, you should go on LinkedIn, you know. It's more of a business thing. I'm really not good with social media. I'm really quite old school. I'd rather sit down with people and have a conversation.

I don't get a lot of this stuff on social media. How can you have 2,000 friends with people you never met? You're not sure if that's really them. Okay? So I'm really kind of from another era on this, you know, whereas I love recently I heard an indigenous elder say that a relationship is built on a thousand cups of tea. Okay? And I kind of agree with that.

You know, there's acquaintances and then there's friends and then there's colleagues and, you know, then there's the human species, you know. So it was through LinkedIn and I do not remember if I reached out to her, she reached out to me. I have absolutely no memory. It was just a few months ago that we kind of connected and we both said, oh, wow, I love what you're doing. Okay, it looks like we have some things in common even with our kind of different backgrounds. different education and training and life experiences, we had so much in common. And then we met and talked, and it became hilarious. I don't know how you want to share here, Dr. Sandra, but it became hilarious.

We have the same astrological signs. There were so many things that were absolutely identical. Never mind all the differences. There was this wonderful balance of what was, you know, in alignment. And so I said to her, we have to talk together about athletes. And I mean, I bug my friend, George Monty, to see if he can host us together so we can do this. So that's fascinating. How we met.

And Dr. Sandra, you have an incredible background in ethics. Was it sort of like finding a long lost sister when you found Dr. Jessica Rochester? Well, I feel like we have more cups of tea to go. Yeah. We'll see. Yeah. But I love that story. I love that, that that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, we'll feel like.

wisdom, you know, because I often will tell people like, we're friends first and everything else is extra because, like, I really want to ground it in that sort of relationship. But it's so beautiful and so powerful and amazing when you find that the cups of tea are overflowing naturally, you know. And so I'm really excited about this beginning friendship and where it's going to lead. That's, it's, I am excited to. I think it's really going to be the beginning of some very interesting, emerging. emerging ideas. And I think that we're on the forefront of that. And I think we're very fortunate, but it's also very challenging to be where we are right now because there's this whole world

kind of reemerging. And I'm sure that there's people who have come before us who have figured it out, but it's up to us to kind of reinterpret it and try to give it our own spin on there. And I'm curious, you two incredible women have had a conversation about ethics in the world of psychedelics. And I'm wondering, Dr. Sandra, if you could just kind of start us off. Like when you think about ethical behavior and psychedelics and some of the challenges that are happening on the forefront. What do you think about? It's funny. When you ask me that question in this moment, and it's going to sound very self-centered,

but it's like I think about me and I think about my relationship. And I think, you know, because for me it's very important to ground ethics in the personal in your own personal relationship and your own personal journey and your own personal relationships with the plant medicines and and spiritually. And so that's what comes up. So it's first and foremost about what work am I doing, what's rising for me? And so even if I'm looking more outwards, I recognize that I'm also looking inwards at the same time. That is really well said.

Dr. Jessica Rochester, what is some of your ideas that you see on the forefront of psychedelics and theogens and ethics? Well, you know, to reach back, you know, it's a great question and, you know, hope there's going to be lots more along those lines that we can talk about today. So what seemed important to me was and continues to be. I've now written three codes of ethics. One co-wrote with our team when we were writing and then publishing in the research we did, anthogenes and psychedelics in Canada proposals for a new parliaments. paradigm is, you know, this came out of conversations that I had with colleagues where my main concern was the ethics. But taking the step back, let's look at when did ethics code start

and how did they evolve? Where did they come from? And this is the part that really gets me interested, okay? And we can look and we can see nearly 4,000 years ago there's recorded evidence in ancient Egypt, Samaria, you know, take it back. Greek, ancient Greeks, of course, with their philosophers. Of course, Dr. Sandra's going to be able to possibly bring in pieces around that, having studied philosophy. But we can see that, you know, because for humans and there's human behavior and words, actions, deeds, et cetera, and intentions are always

either questionable. Okay, so we need to have some agreement as how we're going to conduct ourselves. So some things are laws and other things are. code of ethics and they meet and they join and there's I've tried to always explain to people there's there's lines ethics and then in our contemporary situation there's ethics that can get breached and then it can move continue to move until it's a civil issue and then it becomes a criminal issue okay so there's radiations in this so we see there's deep root in civilizations and cultures where people struggled with trying to address

what we're calling ethics, you know. And then what's really fascinating is you turn that coin over, and then you see what were people doing with sacred plants for the last many thousand years? How did they manage it? They didn't have codes of ethics, you know. They weren't sitting around philosophying as to what laws they could draw up around this. What were they doing and how were they handling it? So the roots in my tradition, which is the one I really only feel I can speak with any even small measure of authority is my personal tradition, which is santaecidemi, the roots is aewa of scarrid. And so in my study and research of the roots of my tradition, it's very clear to me how

the sacred plants were always in the hands of the medicine men and women and the shamans. And that this was an accepted part of a community and tribal kind of spoken unspoken agreement. in which people were recognized as being the medicine man or woman and the shamaness, or the shamaness, based on how they conducted themselves. Nobody marched into the middle of the circle in front of the sacred fire and said, by the way, I'm your new shaman, okay? These things just don't happen. They'd be laughed at.

It's like, go, go sit down. We all know you're a fisherman or you're a carver or, you know, you're a cook. You're a great cook, but you're certainly not the shaman. And so people grew into these roles, often from young childhood. And that was the norm, as the elders would notice the characteristics of the young children and say this one's going to be a great warrior. Look, he fights everything. And this one's going to be a wonderful whatever, carve her,

because look how she always is taking the wood and carving it. And then there's the one that's already being able to read energy and guess what somebody needs. And so everything's changed now. And so we have these old systems that have their own wisdom and their own, you know, deep traditions and understanding and evolutions over thousands of years. And here we are now.

What have we got? Yes, it needs to. Your question is terrific. How do we bring all of that wisdom into today? That's a challenge. It is a challenge. I'm sure Dr. Sandry, so I just want to premise this to, or us would like to say that in this conversation, at any point in time, if you want to move it in a certain direction, please feel free. It's a free-flowing conversation. And I am very able to grab the steering wheel, but you two are probably better drivers than me of more experienced driving. So feel free to grab the wheel if you need it. That means- You're not afraid of women drivers then. You know what? I come from a line of strong women. I find it, I find it attractive and warm.

and I find it very helpful to learn from people who know more than me, regardless of what construct they seem to be in today. So thank you for that. I'm curious, Dr. Sandra, you know, when I think about shaman and philosopher kings, and I know you have a background of philosophy, I'm often reminded of the plant kingdom because I think of cannabis, sativa, and indica, in some places, split off from each other. And so now you have these philosopher kings, like back in the classical teachings.

and Dr. Jessica Rochester is talking about shaman on some level, aren't those two entities similar? Well, that's a pretty deep question. I mean, well, first of all, I should mention, you know, since we were talking about Queen Queens here, you know, there were flaws for queens and kings in terms of Plato's Republic. He recognized both, you know, and he was really unique in his time period for actually recognizing that women had that same ability or authority. And it's interesting because a lot of people bring up the, um, and Mysteries schools or going even deeper into the Oracle Adelphi.

And Aristotle himself was going there and saw the women in that sense, who were then translated by priests of the time, who would go into an altered state of consciousness, some debate about what means and ways. And they actually had words carved on the entryway to come into the Oracle of Delphi. And the first one many people know is to know thyself. Another one was everything in moderation. But if you think about when you're trying to seek wisdom,

that sort of shamanic lineages happened in all schools, all traditions, all lineages, all cultures throughout the world. And this brings me back already between my original conversation with Jessica, which was, you know, we realized we had a similar lineage. And I've studied more in terms of, trying to recapture the lineages that, you know, I've been cut off from from colonialization to, you know, Celtic, Gaelic and Germanic, you know, traditions, but also even looking at what have I been taught from a Western perspective from philosophy and looking deeper, right? At the time

period that you mentioned with the sort of Plato, Plato, if you know about, we went Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. And Socrates, actually, I should correct, I think I said Aristotle earlier, Socrates was the one who went to seek, and actually it was actually one of his students who went to seek the Oracle Delphine asked who was the wisest, right? And the Delphi Oracle apparently said at the time that he was. And he was pondering that. He's like, well, how is it that they thought that I was the wisest?

And he realized the only thing that, the only reason that it could possibly be is that he knew that he didn't know. That he knew the limits of, you know, you could even say wisdom or of the mind or of our own. humanity or his own seeking. And he was a philosopher who in his own time wrote nothing down. What we know of him, we know from Plato. And he would go around talking to people and having conversations, that sort of Socratic dialogue technique that I definitely deeply appreciate. But I'm also deeply appreciate that at the time of the Oracle Delphi, people from around the

world of that time would go seek the Oracle before they went to war, before they made major decisions and and there was a shamanic lineage there. How much of it remains is a good question. But I think all of us, if we look back deep enough, we can find that history. That is really well said. Thank you for that. I'm curious to get both of your opinions on the it seems like the more we move forward, the more we can look back to the past to find ways that worked. And we find ourselves now in this world where whether it's, it's just, if you look at the corporate world or governance, it's kind of a mirror of ourselves. Like we're all guilty, right? We're all guilty of the tragedies that are unfolding in front of us. And so it's up to the individual,

I think, in order to become the best version of ourselves to move this whole thing forward. And I think that's the way out. But it's very difficult. It's very difficult for people today to stand up in the face of authority because you may lose things. You have this attachment to fear. And so the question I would like to pose to both of you is, what do you think is the relationship between the current psychedelic renaissance and fear? I'd like to start with you first, Dr. Jessica Rochester. Okay. Hold your thought and ask your question. I really want to jump off something that Dr. Sanders said. Okay? Yes, please. Because thank you so much. That was such a delicious wrap of philosophy one quite every word and at any rate what I think is a big part of it and this may

partially answer your question is as as kind of the modern ages came and and different things developed and science took its place and and then there was this division and it's something that i speak about and i've written about where we have this division between the body the mind and the soul Okay, and Western civilization did that to a large degree, kind of formalized that division because the church had staked out, you know, the main European churches, which were mostly kind of Christian. And they staked out their territory. Okay, we own the soul. And the doctor says, well, wait a minute, we own the body. And then there's emerging science.

Okay, the philosophers had been around forever that psychiatry and psychology were got on board much later. Okay. Those are much more recent, you know, professionals and, you know, with different maps from philosophy, but overlapping in many ways. And so it's that division where we kind of got our wholeness, the wholeness of me with me. that my mind and my body are connected and my soul and they're all intertwined and one and we can talk about them, you know, to as separate, but they aren't separate. And so how do we have a conversation with the language that is always inclusive of the unique, you know, individuality of each person at the same time, the oneness? And so this is about inventing a language that we can discuss with each other these principles because otherwise it gets lost and we fall into our little mental constructs and then we want to pack everything into its neat little box so this belongs to psychiatry and this belongs to that and this belongs to that and therefore we can't kind of have a say

on it and until until we go back to some of those old traditions you know the the circles around the sacred fire where you hold the talking stick and where you get to share your your thoughts and everything gets listened to and included. And how do we do that now? What does that look like? Stan Groff always taught us that we have to build a bridge between science and spirituality. And he really believed that transpersonal psychology

was going to be part of that bridge, not the only piece of it, but it was going to be a good part of that bridge or helping to develop a language and a model that would be sufficient to embrace everybody to be able to talk together. So I have no idea if I answered your question. Absolutely. Ask it again. Okay, perfect.

Absolutely. I admire the idea of the archaic revival of coming back to a place before we went out of bounds or before we became so divided. And I like the way that you brought about this idea of division. and I think you spelled it out really well and you showed a path. Dr. Sandra, what do you think about what Dr. Rochester said? You know, I could talk forever to, yeah. And of course, you're here too. I mean, like, you know, I'm just a talker, okay?

Maybe I should, maybe we should admit my own fears here. I love it. But, you know, I think it's definitely true. I mean, Western, you know, mindset, I mean, everything, to me, energetically speaking, has the sort of yen and the young, right? You know, the, what's good about it is also going to be the shadow, which will interplay into your fear aspect here. Right.

So like the strength of analytical thinking and rational thinking is that is the ability to help us order, recognize, you know, and you can even argue a certain amount of control, like, you know, drawing between the lines, you know, there's a beauty to that, but then there's a lack of freedom in that too, right? So the same thing that's the strength of like maybe dividing up the body into specializations. And you're the knee specialist. You're the heart specialist. You know, it's like, well, who's the human specialist?

Right? That sort of holistic is end up lost in the parts. And a lot of, you know, Eastern traditions kept that sense of holisticness. But getting back to the strength and the weakness is like, well, if you emphasize the parts and the divisions, you may have knowledge or deeper knowledge of a particular aspects of that piece, right? even myself and focusing on ethics, like, well, there's some depth of knowledge I have from those Western traditions, but there's like, well, what am I missing? It's very much an analytical tradition. And so when I graduated, then I was seeking for wholeness and for deeper spiritual

meaning. And similarly, if we think about what does fear have to do with any of this? You know, I mean, I'll even sometimes tell my kids, you know, we all have our strengths and we all have our weaknesses. And that's part of what makes us human. And if we're living in our authentic selves, then our natural strength should come forward. And by working, getting also something Jessica was mentioning about working together, working in community, interrelationship is where we're actually in our biggest strength. We can recognize our individual roles or responsibilities or our strengths. But we need to also recognize our weaknesses and our fears in as much as we're we recognize our loves and our passions.

And I think one of the things that psychedelic space does really well, at least in recognizing as important, is doing what we call shadow work. And you don't have to call it, you know, the dark shadow people sometimes let's talk about golden shadow, right? That you're all your potentiality and your ability and your giftings you can be afraid of just as much as you can be afraid of, you know, being abused or being harmed or something else, right?

Other fears that arise. and psychedelic or transpersonal states, as Jessica brings up, you know, there's lots of ways to get there. You don't need to have psychological plant medicines to develop those relationships. And even pulling back to what we were talking about earlier about, you know, shamanic lineages and people being identified as being maybe more highly sensitive or being more energetic or having, you know, a certain gifting, right? Like one's maybe seen as sort of an aptitude or interest in like, physical activity in a particular way, like the athlete or something like that,

versus someone who's seen as like, well, the sensitive child would have been identified as the shaman, right? And our culture in some sense has been disconnected from that sense of wholeness and what we're learning now and what the gift psychedelics can bring us back into and right relationship can give us getting back into ethics is recognizing, the strength by looking at our weaknesses and the weakness are looking only at our strengths and the wisdom that is found in all traditions and how we actually really are better when we don't just look at the one and the many, but the many in the one as well. That was beautiful.

There's a lot of points in there that kind of ring true to the world I see emerging or the world that we see re-emerging. And if we were to just keep driving down this road and we continue to move into this world of ethics and psychedelics and theogens, it seems to me what we're driving towards is this concept of the relationship between fear and money. Because I see that being a giant stop on the road to psychedelics. I see people with patents. I see other people that are over trying to add different molecules to different things. And if I put on my my hat of just observer, I'm not really fearful.

I think that psychedelics is going to teach people that we need to realign our values. And right now money seems to be the thing we use as a barometer for values. But that's so not true. Like it's we need to realign values. And I think psychedelics is doing that. I think that we're going to see this the same way that the high. and mushrooms when you grow and they grow together. So too is our ideas of money coming together. But it's scary at first. And it brings us back to fear. And so I know that was kind of a shotgun

out the back door right there. It's right. I mean, like, let's just be honest. Are you afraid of money? I mean, is your money and your wallet going to come out and attack you in the middle of the night? You know, it's not. It's really not. You know, but so, you know, even in terms of corporatization or privatization or colonialism or, you know, what are the fears? What are we really afraid of? And if you ask me, we're afraid of ourselves. Right. Right. And we already know the harms that we've already caused and we're getting to know them

deeper, whether we're talking about, I know I've mentioned colonialism, lots of different times, but it's part of our own history since we're all, you know, white Western peeps here. You know, owning even like the experience of sexism, racism, you know, privilege and how that's shown up. And one of the ways we've, you know, symbolized that, you know, we don't have the language like Jessica was saying, you know, this metaphor is stories, analogies, money is a metaphor or a way of representing that sort of that other fear about that's within ourselves and that we see in our world reflected in us, right, in that sense of mirroring. And if we really, I mean, people are concerned because we already know we've caused harm to first peoples, to medicine keepers, they are not being honored. They're not the leaders of this movement.

They're frankly not. And it's not because they shouldn't be. But we're already still recognizing that we're in, not in right relationship. And part of that healing and looking at the shadows of all of it isn't just. fears, it's what we don't want to look at. Wherever you're gazing, you're also knowing where you're not gazing. And now we're, I think, psychedelics and plant medicines in this work in this space is encouraging us to look at the shadows of capitalism, the shadows of what has, you know, the privilege of, of

what, or putting, you know, reason on a pedestal. There's, you know, that takes us away from our heart space. It disconnects us from nature. It disconnects us from ourselves. And I think in a sense of some of what you're indicating earlier, we're being drawn and being led in my mind, in a spiritual way, back to reconnection and right relationship. You know, you're speaking about fear and you asked a question about fear.

And, you know, I love all the things you just shared and totally agree with them. And just to take a little larger step back, you know, is that in my spiritual practice, of over 50 years and 27 years now in the Santo Dimei, what I came to understand is the deepest fear is having all revealed to us. For most people, the deepest fear is to return to the divine. Because knowing that, you know, everybody, we all kind of project onto the divine, whatever story we've been taught, whatever story we believe, whatever customs we've been, you know, exposed to. And our fear of inadequacy, our fear of having failed, our fear of our mistakes, our fear of

everything we've shoved into the, under the rug and in the closet, you know, that we will be unworthy in front of what and who we believe the divine to be. But that lies in the core of our idea of separateness. I love that Einstein quote of, it's an illusion. what's separate? You know, the collective unconscious and I are one, okay? Everything's one. The separateness is an illusion, but it's a really good illusion.

You know, it's great. It's got most of us believing it. And we have to want to change that mind step so that we can step into, you know, this is something in the Santo Daini that we're always kind of, it's always coming up. People drink and, oh, I have. had this Marvel experience, I saw all these visions, and you know, that's, that's the falling in love stage. Okay.

And then there's the marriage. Okay. I deal with all of the aliens. Rainbow and unicorns and, you know. It's so true. And so all of a sudden we're seeing ourselves from a completely different perspective. And, and, you know, this is all part of in, you know, you can read it on our website on our church website that the dami helps us to see the best of ourselves at the same time in this very

profoundly neutral calm you know compassionate way it shows us all our flaws and our mistakes and our errors and it's not this angry jehovah style god that's shaking or this kind of catholic version of uh-uh up to hell okay peter at the gates okay where are you going not near. So all of those stories are really powerful and they've gone in deep. And what happens when we actually move into non-ordinary states of consciousness by whatever means, meditation, sacred plants, what have you, is what we find is something completely different.

We have to pass through our own judgment. That the toughest judge in the universe is quite at home inside of me. Okay. And it's making a new relationship with our inner judge, making a new relationship with our beliefs and our perceptions about who we are and the reality of the world. And then, you know, this is where sacred plants and psychedelics, if they are not within the framework of ethical guidelines,

then that's where everything can fall apart. And so why are ethical codes necessary for work in non-ordinary states of consciousness? Even more so for us to understand them in contemporary use and how they're being used currently than how they were used in indigenous traditions and philosophical traditions. And so I want to tell a quick story that in, I'd come to the central daimy.

I had done training with Jack Cornfield, the American Buddhist teacher, and mainly in part with the work that he was doing, the Stan Groff during my training. So I staffed at retreats and what fabulous teachers, Jack Cornfield. Anyway, so he published this book, which I highly encourage all our listeners to find. and read. And it's after the ecstasy, the laundry. And he, you know, this was written in 19, 2009, 2000, somewhere around there. Okay. And of course, as soon as it was off the press, I bought a copy, read it. And then in it, he says, if you've joined a spiritual tradition that doesn't have a code of ethics, write your own and take it to the elders and explain that in our modern cultures,

our civilization, we actually have to have ethics codes. But what existed in their traditions for the Rinpoche's and the gurus and the shamans, what existed in their tribal context, in their community, once you pluck them out and bring them into our culture, then there has to be that language so that anybody picking up the teachings and everything that we're in a different setting now, okay? Guru went home, the Rumpet went home, you know? And how do we take those teachings and bring them into work culture? So I called them up and I said, I've written a code of ethics.

Did I send it to you? Please, Jack. And so he says, yeah, hey, yeah, yeah, send it. So he did. And I said, he wrote back and he says, I don't think you left anything out. I don't think he added anything that doesn't need, you know, doesn't need to be there. Best of luck, let me know how it goes. And so I highly encourage.

And then Kylia Taylor, she wrote a book called The Ethics of Caring. She was one of my training supervisors when I was training decades and decades ago when I was in the training with Stan Graw. And she had just published that book. I was in the process of publishing it when I was in the training with her shortly thereafter. And it is an excellent book that addresses, you know, ethics specific to non-ordinary states of consciousness and how much a greater sense of sensitivity to. all the regular things that are in the codes, but because of the heightened awareness and the susceptibility of individuals in non-ordinary states, that the setting has to be extremely aware

of what they're doing and how they're doing it and what they're bringing in. Yeah. I answered your question. Better than I could have possibly imagined. Thank you for that. Dr. Senator, if you were going to continue that part of the conversation, what would you add to that? Well, I would say that yes and. Which is something we like to see in the second old space and also an impromptu.

But I mean, the idea being like one thing I'd like to bring up now because a lot of communities do have ethics codes. And there's a couple of different challenges. And I do love Kaila's book, by the way, when I give her recognition. And she was one of the people, at least in a Western mindset, where it brings a lot of these sort of ethos to light. And it's the fact that first of all, I like to say that it should be a living document, not a dead document. Yes.

Right? And we're changing. We're always reflecting. There's new situations, things that you couldn't have foreseen when you originally wrote the document. And you have a living group of community of people. And, you know, they're not dead. I mean, like, you know, not that we don't want to include the living dead.

I mean, in the sense of not zombies, but in the sense that I mean, spiritually, I recognize that they're all with us. But so there's that. Also, one way I like to talk about it too is like, you know, your code, you know, is supposed to be a way, like having like a mission statement or a value statement. It's a way to indicate what your North Star is that what are your values? What is guiding, right? If the codes are like the boundaries, the boundaries or the, you know, people talk about like, well, you should set healthy boundaries in your life or in your relationships. And one thing that always grifts me on that is that, well, you got to understand that those

boundaries are set by your values. Like if you're, if you care about honesty and being an integrity, then guess what your boundary is? You know, then if someone is being disrespectful or dishonest or not an integrity or establishing if it's an integrity like, you know, Jessica, you know, it wouldn't be an integrity. for me to serve ayahuasca, right? So, you know, that would be a boundary for me, right? And so the codes actually is a way literally codifying what those boundaries are based on some sort of central ground or North Star or compass of value. But that doesn't, the codes don't necessarily tell you and neither does the value in and of itself tell you how to navigate. If we're a ship sailing in the middle of the

night in the Pacific or Atlantic or wherever seas you may be traveling, your internal seas. of consciousness, right? It helps to know what that is before you go in, that set, that intention, that mindset that Jessica is also bringing up, also what other people are bringing in. But it's also important to know, you know, well, how do you navigate it when you're there? How do you use that compass and make use of that North Star to guide your path? How do you support people in a community with one person gets sick, who shows up to man that part of the rope? Right? Because that's, you know, we're human.

And this is the other piece I'd like to bring up too is there's a sense sometimes that we should, ethics means that we're just supposed to be perfect. And if anything, I would say, you know, it's quite the contrary. It's a commitment to being an integrity in recognizing that we're not. And having a North Star doesn't mean you're always going to be on perfect North or magnetic North. It means that you're going towards it. And it's funny, I don't always bring up biblical references, but like sin, the origin of the word sin has to do with missing the mark. If you think about a target, hitting the bull's eye would be the mark.

People being born in sin in terms of, you know, one way of interpreting this information is to say that we're not at 100%. We're not going to hit the bullseye because we're human, we're perfect. And it's not to say and to condemn us for being human. And we don't yell at the baby for falling down when they're learning to walk, right? We recognize that they're learning to walk. And that stumbling is part of the process. And so in the same sense, our codes and our value systems and our communities should be creating more space and more compassion and love for the fact that our own humanity and grow with us. And I often look to nature to help inspire me for that.

You know, nature helps to support one another. And interrelationship is where we all thrive. If we have weeds or things that, you know, create separation, we tend not to survive as well if we don't recognize that we're really in an interdependency within another. Back to what Jessica's bring up the beginning. This illusion of separateness is very much true. Yeah, that's really well said. Totally, totally loving. You know, the North Star and the navigating in the sensual domain, we talk about it being like a boat.

and there's the captain and the crew and everybody has their duties and their responsibilities and we work together because we all know our places and what our responsibilities are when the boat sets off okay and guided by the North Star and yet you know you can think you've gone out with okay you went out with a tide okay but then you know what's going to change when the waves are going to get big and it's the navigating And, you know, so it's a, it's often a analogy that is used in the Santo Daini that you have to know how to navigate through the darkness and the storms. And this is a big problem with people who, you know, George and I have talked many times about, you know, some of the things we're touching on now. And how do you navigate in the darkness and the storms? And if you don't have the North Star and you don't have a compass, because you have an establishment. established what the North Star is and you thought you didn't need a compass, okay, for whatever reason. So these kind of pop-up shamans and these instant psychedelic guides and stuff

who don't have, who don't have a foundation, this is how I see it. I'm not intending to it to be anything but an educational process where we all look into ourselves. You just said it would be out of integrity or something to the effect of it would be out of integrity for me to attempt to serve ayahuasca. And I bow to this. I bow to this, this wisdom of knowing, this wisdom of knowing that I, there's three states, there is what I know, I know, I know how to drive a car, I do not know how to fly a plane, okay? So there's what I know, I know, there's what I know, I don't know, I just said it, I do not know how. And then there's what I don't know, I don't know. and that place is something you know you referred to it when you were speaking about you know ancient

greek philosophers and socrates and it was like yeah you're you've got that job because you are willing to embrace that you don't know and and that speaks to a great wisdom that are kind of western civilization egos there's not a lot of space for that and the the power heart hierarchies that we've developed and the role models that Western civilization has chosen and this idea that you were speaking to about perfection, this is a really important thing. Thank you for bringing it up because that's a big deal in our culture, this perfect, you know, the perfect look, the perfect car, the perfect lifestyle, the perfect job, you know, the perfect love. Let's not go down that road.

And what a trip up that one is in non-ordinary states of consciousness. Look at all of the, you know, that's been created when attraction turns into something else. So, you know, this idea of needing to be perfect. I happen to have a dress that says on it perfectly imperfect. I love it. Yeah. And so how do we, how do we embrace our humanity ethically? And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and I think, it's a big issue in, in our culture. And, you know, we're probably a lot more to say about fear. But, you know, and I think that shame is a big issue in our culture. simply because of how things have evolved in which we have not been addressing, we haven't had a space for a dialogue, for a discussion about what shame really is

and how to we all hide the things that we're ashamed of. You know, that's what we're kind of taught. I think probably one of the books that I found most of, helpful that I would, you know, through the decades, recommend people with John Bradshaw's book, if you don't know. Oh, I know, Brush. Yeah. Fabulous.

Healing the shame that binds you. And what I loved about it is he says, often it's not even our shame. We're carrying somebody else's shame and sexual shame because granddad was an alcoholic or, you know, our auntie, somebody or other did this and we were, you know. So how society used shame to. control and manage things that was deemed other. So if you weren't from my religion, then that your religion is bad. If you weren't from my ethnicity then. So all of these divisions and the load of shame that has come with, you know, needs to be an

important part of the conversation. It brings up an interesting point. Like if we see that the best predictor of future behavior is past relevant behavior. And we bring it back to this idea of ships or shame. Like, you know, usually when ships show up, it's a pretty bad thing that happens. You know, if we look back to history, when a ship full of people show up, it's probably not good for the indigenous people. And that, you know, if we just tie that back, I think that ties back to shame generational trauma. And, you know, the history seems to be, The best predictor of the future of the future tends to be past relevant behavior. So if we see shame, we see ships showing up and conquering things,

like why wouldn't that happen again in the psychedelic community? It does. Yeah. Who are the pirates? Who are the pirates? Go ahead. Go ahead. I mean, I think, I think, if anything,

you know, when she, when you bring up, shame made me think about vulnerability, you know, and even authenticity and a willingness. And I think one of the gifts of journeys, of deeper journeys and being vulnerable in community, whether it's a community of yourself or another or a larger community, that it's a willingness to, it's, again, we're coming back. did that shadow work to the fears to the shame? Like, you know, where did that come from? Is this mine? You know, which part do I own? Which part of my, you know, what part, you know, if like I'm working through a fear, like I have, I've had, in terms of doing my own internal work, you know, I've had fear of

of being angry because I'm supposed to be a good girl. I even got a PhD in it. I worked really hard. You are literally seeing some of my shadows and vulnerability. But it's like, you know, the same element, like you can go into the high vibration or the low vibration of it, right? Like the good aspect or the, you know, good, you know, but it is, you know, well, you know, to try and be an integrity, to have a good character, to be virtuous, to be willing to be vulnerable at the right times, right? And learning that discernment, that wisdom piece, gosh, you're going to bring up Greek philosophers again for me. Why did all the Greeks getting some credit today? But like Aristotle talked about virtue as being the sort of mean between two extremes of vice, one vice of success and one vice

of deficiency. So, for instance, courage, you know, that virtue of courage is having the wisdom of discernment to know and to work on because Aristotle also recognized that we were human this element too that you may be born let's say maybe you're more courageous or maybe you're more cowardly by by a certain nature or nurtured didn't even matter to him to an extent but through habit through practice you can work towards the virtue but a deficiency would be like total absence of that trait which would be cowardice or a total presence or overly presence like the excess would be audaciousness. You're jumping off a cliff without even looking if there's water there, right?

You know, or the lemming mindset you're just following, right? That's not real bravery. That's the absence or a certain blindness. But wisdom is, you know, that people say, having the fear and doing it anyway. But knowing and having that wisdom of the virtue of what makes it courageous. It's like I know I'm being vulnerable right now. I know I'm taking a risk right now, but it's more important for me to be vulnerable and to risk that possible shame because it's important.

If I'm not willing to do it, how can anyone else do the same? Or how can I heal this shame in my family or this experience or how, you know, since Jessica and I also happen to be two women, you know, how sexism has affected us and how intergenerationally, how has that been shifted? I could have judgment for my ancestors or women before me. But like, you know, understanding the wisdom that they brought and how I'm able to go forward because of what they were able to conquer and work through and be vulnerable with and not be ashamed when people told them to be ashamed. And going forward, what do I hope from my daughter who happens to be transgender, right? And her definition of femininity and being brave and courageous and not being ashamed because she doesn't

have a biological body that defines her in that particular way and what that meant to be a woman, you know, in our time, right? So, so it's just really beautiful. I love this topic and I'll let someone else make a comment now. And I also noticing there's some comments in here about laws being the consequence of failure of ethical systems, especially of scale. I think that's an interesting question. Yeah, I can put it up here. Dr. Jessica, do you want to address the, the, what Dr. Dreisbach had to say? Yes, you know, the sharing is so deep and rich, and there's so many possible ways to jump from it.

You were speaking about vulnerability and the fear of being vulnerable. And this is universal. And some people will cover it up with being arrogant, and some people cover it up with taking space, and some people cover it up with all these different, you know, tactics that we use to protect our vulnerability. And what you were saying is in the end, you know, I'm going to quote a dear friend of mine who, such a beloved colleague, unfortunately, passed from illness about two decades go now. We used to spend every Sunday lunch, almost every Sunday lunch together.

We'd head down to Chinatown. We'd order up our favorite food. And we'd sit. We always had the same corner table out near a window in our favorite Chinese food. restaurant in Chinatown here in Montreal. And we'd go for a late lunch. We'd hit just after the lunch cross so we could have kind of privacy to talk. And we would spend a good two to three hours sitting there just hashing over various challenges

that we faced in our private practices, our teaching our work and stuff like that. And one thing that he said that was such a great gift was people make the mistake about vulnerability. They don't understand that when you're willing to go. go to your most vulnerable place, you find there the place of greatest strength. And I am so grateful for that teaching that he shared with me. And it has stayed with me. I have shared it. I have passed it on.

Here, take this nugget of gold, make it yours. And I don't own it. It's for everyone. And it has helped me that, knowing that if I am willing to be, go to that place that in this moment feels really scary and breathe and open, then it will become a place of strength for me. Why? Because it returns me to authenticity. It restores my dignity. Hey, people, I don't, I see so much in our culture. I'm so sorry, this is going to sound very judgmental. And okay, I own it. It is. But I don't see a lot of dignity. When I do see it,

I want to stand up and applaud. Okay. There seems to be a lack of dignity. I don't know how else to describe it. So are laws the consequence of the failure of ethical systems, especially at scale? Well, if I think I understand the question, I think that laws were developed out of ethical, philosophical discussions.

Okay? And if we look at when the first ethical codes went into place, it was actually just after the Second World War of the Nuremberg trials. I'm not talking about the ancient ones that we were talking about, philosophical codes and things that are written on the Sumerian tablets. And I'm talking about modern codes, okay? That codes of conduct were started to be really codified and put into place around many issues, and it became evident that these were needed.

And I love what you said about dead documents and a living document, documents. I actually wrote it down. And because this is what I told everybody about the documents in our churches, these are living, and they need to, you know, they will evolve. And I feel like I am forever reviewing. It's more than frequently than annually, our administration. administrators guidelines, our members guidelines, there's something else pops up and we sit down and scratch our heads and I draft something. We all review it. Yeah, it needs to be included and reissue. And so, yes, these things do need to be evolving. And any time you take, you know, there's nothing wrong with, let's say, the Ten Commandments, okay? But the Ten Commandments didn't address a whole lot of things that were happening then that needed to be addressed. Okay. So, you know, it is what it is.

So laws, are they a failure of ethical systems? I think it's a failure of human dialogue. And in which people who are in the world of laws, my daughter is a lawyer. She's now a federal judge. So I've been exposed to lots of my work in legalization with Health Canada. I have friends who joke asking me when I'm going to get my honorary law degree. I don't think ever.

I had to immerse myself in so many aspects of the law. And I see that there's a complete lack of dialogue. And part of that is just the reality is everybody is so busy trying to focus on, you know, focus on, you know, the knee specialists and the shoulder specialist. I had a torn rotator cup a year. I had to see an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in shoulders. He doesn't do knees. specialist and shoulders. What I had, I had a torn meniscus.

I had absolutely marvelous physician, surgeon, orthopedic surgeon, who only does knees? Okay? And so that's the reality. So you have lawyers, you know, I watch my daughter. She's so specialized in her field. And, you know, she would say, mom, don't ask me anything about, you know, divorces or this or that. Because this is my area of, this is my area of expertise. So what happened is we have so much knowledge and so much stuff that we have to sort through and learn.

I think that that has been an important part of understanding why things got so separated. And we can say, okay, that's a reality. But where does the dialogue happen? So if we can bring it back into anthogen, psychedelics, and ethics, looking at the clock, what can we say about if let's imagine the three of us are sitting. Let's take something really tangible and work with an exercise. Can I propose that? Let's see that the three of us are sitting in a circle with some other,

it doesn't matter how many people, but they're all new in the field of psychedelics, so from different backgrounds, they're all interested in doing psychedelic therapy, or starting a business or opening a clinic. What would the three of us say? Can I throw that out? Well, what would you say first? Well, what would I say first? His welcome and thank you so much for your open-mindedness.

Can we all think in a moment and meditate and maybe say a non-denominational prayer and set our intention as to what this dialogue is about? That it isn't about one group of people trying to impose or in control because that's been a conversation that's happened a lot that I see happening in various conferences and chat boxes in LinkedIn or what have you is that some people are pointing fingers, you're trying to control the industry,

no, you're trying to control the industry, know these things should be in place, know these things should be. Okay, how do we have a larger conversation? So let's imagine we're in that larger conversation. What are we setting out? For me, it would be each of you speak as to what you see as being the passion

that is taking you into the, this field and what experiences education or knowledge do you feel you would be bringing to this field? And what do you feel that you would need? Would you need something more, learn something more, have something more in the environment, colleagues, what have you? What else would you need so that the possibility of higher good would come from your practice? That's what I think I would be asking. in the ceremony or the larger conversation that more of the

I mean I mean I got to say we lit the candle instead of prayer let's see what I can hit here in this last few minutes first to address the the question that the person like I think part of a yes and to what Jessica was bringing up earlier I also want to bring up the fact that if they're designed for scale that's we should understand that they're made for scale that they're not made for the interpersonal

Right? And so the limits of the system are the construct in which it was created. It's the shadow of that. So that's part of the reason. And I wouldn't, and I would also disagree with the premise that that laws are, again, like not a, not a consequence of a failure of ethical systems. They're actually often a structured way of codifying on what we believe as individuals. And back to the person in the ceremony, as well as to the larger space, that, Well, first my instinct was to say, like, well, you can choose not to be here. Given them the freedom of autonomy to recognize that they, that's their sovereignty that I want to recognize and that make sure it's still an alignment for them. But back on terms of ethical systems and values that we're having in this conversation, it's really important for me for individuals to bring into their awareness what they value and that they have their own internal guidance that can help connect them to that. So to seek that out first. Wow.

Really well said. That was really well said. I don't know if I could, how dare you, I have to follow something like that. What would you say in this ceremony? I would start with our connection to patterns. I would say that I would try to bring in the idea that as the earth spins, it breathes and it expands and it contracts. Our breath expands and contracts.

our life even expands and contracts. And I think that that is a place where we can begin for us to see ourselves as a similar energy. And then we can move forward from there. Like I said, how dare I have to follow that? That's all I got. I love that. There's actually traditions that say, as, as, what is it, Indra? As Indra breeze out universes are formed, you know, and then breeze the people.

And then they die and are reborn in every single moment. So appreciate the universes and co-creation we've had together today. This was amazing. And I feel like we just kind of scratched the surface. I'm hopeful we can come back and continue to have our conversation because I think we could have taken it in a lot of different directions. But I really want to say to both of you, I really appreciate what you're doing. I'm thankful that you're here speaking with me and I feel honored to get to host both of you on this platform. I wish you all the greatest success.

And I'm looking forward to our future conversations before I let you go. I usually sum up the show with each individual talking about where they can be found, what they're doing and what they're excited about. So I'd like to start first off with you, Dr. Dreisbeck. Where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? You can find me on the epic psychedelic site. I work in community and I always try and uplift that work. You can always look at my name.

I'm never great about my own website. I'm working on that. It's my growth edge. What I'm excited about is this. You know, conversations in being a community and sharing love and support for one another. That's what excites me is working in community. So thank you for being in community. me both of you. Yeah, pleasure's all mine. Dr. Jessica Rochester, where can people find you?

What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Well, people can find me through my website, Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester, and I'm an offer on my website a lot of videos and audio's free for educational purposes. I highly encourage people if you're interested in this work to have a look at my books and see if they talk to you and if they do, you know, my joy, my joy. And, you know, what am I excited about? I love these conversations. It's a great joy for me to, when we were doing that research project on, you know, anthogenes and psychedelics in Canada, the joy was working with some already well-known and

beloved colleagues. And then it kind of blew open. And all of a sudden there were all these other people who threw this one and that one and this one and that one or who heard about it and contacted us saying, hey, I heard that you're working on this. I'd love to jump in. And what happened was this network of wonderful people who are all interested in really assuring the next step here is a healthy one, is a fair one. one interested in sustainability of this. And we're all clear on the distinction between entheogens and psychedelics.

Equity, availability for all, credentialing, education, ethics that we're all in the same page with these conversations. And again, it's a living page. It's something that is evolving as people come in and ask more questions and bring contributions. And so it's a wonderful moment. And if we can navigate through with wisdom and enough people in the community who are really interested in what's for the higher good of the larger community here, not just what, how's my personal clinic going to do? Or how's my personal practice going to do?

Or how good am I going to look on that talk show? You know, we need to own. okay, this is all part of us. And we all have this inside of us. It's all there. But we have to have a sense of humor about it. And be willing to own it and take responsibility for it and not let those parts of us make our decisions. Okay, that's the thing that, you know, I don't want my inner trial to make my life decisions.

Okay, my squirrel brat. So it's life has so much beauty. On the other side, there's so much difficulty. and I think that what is the core, I'm hoping, you know, the message I give when I'm speaking publicly and people ask me, I say the plants are giving a message. It's in the introduction to my books. The plants are simply speaking through me. This isn't my message. I feel that this is their message. It has nothing, it has everything to do with me personally and nothing to do with me personally, which is please everybody wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, when you're

eyes, see what's happening with Mother Earth, see what's happening to our planet, and do what you can do. Do what you can do. Awaken your consciousness. Awaken, awaken, awaken, and turn again to love yourself, the divine, nature, and community, and find a way to serve it. I love that. Thank you for that. I feel like goosebumps. Thank you. Appreciate. Ladies, I really enjoyed every part of this. And again, I just want to say how thankful I am. I really feel like the message being put out by both of you is resonating with a lot of people. And I hope you know how thankful the community is to you.

So with that being said, I know I'm keeping you longer than the hour. I really appreciate coming over. And if you hang on for just one more second, I'm going to end the broadcast here. But I wanted to speak for you real briefly after this. So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining the True Life podcast. Please go to the show notes and reach out. to both of these incredible individuals, it will make your life a little bit better if you take time to read what they're saying. That's all I got for today. Aloha. Mahalo.