TrueLife - Simon van der Els - The Psychedelic Singularity

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

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/🎙️🎙️🎙️ In a world teetering between the old and the emergent, Simon Van Der Rls stands as a beacon for the transformative. A scientist-turned-seeker, Simon bridges the fragmented domains of biology, molecular microbiology, and the metaphysical, unraveling the delicate threads of humanity’s great Metacrisis. His work explores the intersections of philosophy, neuroscience, shamanic healing, and the psychedelic renaissance, offering an invitation to heal not by doing, but by perceiving wholeness.Simon challenges the paradigms that measure value in metrics and efficiencies, daring to ask: What if the true worth lies in the unquantifiable—our ability to hold space, to witness, to make whole? As a practitioner of “whole-ing,” Simon engages in profound journeys into the energetic fields of those who seek him, unveiling stuck patterns, reclaiming the lost, and tuning hearts to their guiding stars. Drawing inspiration from David Bohm’s notions of fragmentation, Iain McGilchrist’s exploration of the divided brain, and the ancient shamanic traditions, Simon’s work is an emergent synthesis of science, spirit, and soul.In these strange times of planetary upheaval, Simon embodies the spirit of the homo imaginalis—the human poised to reimagine what it means to heal, connect, and evolve.Questions for SimonMetacrisis and Societal Evolution 1. You’ve mentioned the Metacrisis as a central focus. How do you perceive humanity’s collective “stuckness,” and where do you think the most significant shifts will—or must—occur? 2. What is the role of psychedelics in helping humanity transition from fragmented to whole systems of thought and action? 3. Byung-Chul Han speaks of the ‘burnout society.’ How do you see the modern emphasis on productivity intersecting with our need for rest, contemplation, and healing? 4. What insights can we take from the psychedelic renaissance to address the ecological and spiritual crises of our time?Shamanic Practices and Healing 5. You describe your work as “whole-ing.” How does this differ from traditional notions of healing, and what does it reveal about the nature of human suffering? 6. How do you navigate skepticism about practices like shamanic healing, especially in a world heavily grounded in materialist science? 7. Can you explain the concept of the body as a “tuning fork”? How do you attune yourself to another’s energy field, and what does this reveal about the interconnectedness of all beings? 8. What patterns do you commonly see in those who feel “stuck,” and how can others begin to address these patterns themselves?Philosophy, Neuroscience, and Psychedelics 9. Iain McGilchrist writes about the divided brain and its implications for culture. How do you see the left-right brain dynamic playing out in the current Metacrisis? 10. How can the poetic language required to discuss quantum or psychedelic experiences help us rethink societal narratives and values? 11. Do you believe the use of altered states—whether through meditation, psychedelics, or shamanic practices—is essential for humanity’s next evolutionary step? 12. What does Byung-Chul Han’s idea of ‘re-wilding’ mean to you, and how might it manifest in healing both individuals and societies?Personal Philosophy and Life’s Purpose 13. You’ve mentioned the question, “Why am I here, and what am I here to bring?” How do you personally grapple with that question, and what answers have emerged for you? 14. How do you reconcile the tension between working within existing systems and flowing energy into emerging, less defined ones? 15. If “earning a living” is a flawed notion, how do you envision a future where people’s worth isn’t tied to drudgery or arbitrary metrics? 16. What is your view on the role of sensitivity—emotional, physical, and spiritual—in guiding human evolution?Vision for the Future 17. What would a society built on principles of wholeness, interconnectedness, and “whole-ing” look like? 18. What advice would you offer to those searching for their niche in these “strange times”? 19. How can the youth, unburdened by the idea of ‘earning a living,’ lead the charge toward more meaningful, connected lives? 20. If you could leave humanity with one question to ponder as we navigate this period of upheaval, what would it be?Chrysovore’s LamentWe are the chrysovores, devourers of our own decay,Feasting on the husks of who we were yesterday,For what is the self but a cocoon of spent dreams,Tattered by winds of truth, unraveling at the seams?The chrysalis whispers: “Do not mourn me, child,For my brittle walls were built to be defiled.Tear through my skin, this paper-thin disguise;I am not your prison, but your wings in disguise.”Through the kaleidoscope of the psychedelic dawn,We see the cosmos woven where our blinders were drawn.A thousand selves fractal into infinity’s spine,Each shard a reflection, each moment divine.In the heart of the singularity, time folds like a plea,A Möbius strip of becoming, unbound and free.The spectacle of society crumbles like ash,As we rise from the wreckage, unbound by the past.For suffering is the alchemy, the crucible’s glow,Burning away all that we think we know.The chrysovore eats the lies we once held dear,Digesting the old to make the new clear.Homo-imaginalas: we emerge, soft and raw,Wings of thought stretching to the universal law.Not humans as fragments, but as cells of the same,An organism of love with no need for shame.The answers were never hidden, just unclaimed,Scattered like stars in a cosmos unnamed.We ate the husks, we drank the pain,And from that banquet, new worlds we gain.So let us chrysovore, unafraid of the feast,Consuming our fears, transforming the least.The husk is not loss but the bridge to the core,A passage through which we become so much more.Now the future beckons, vast and untamed,With a language reborn and our hearts reclaimed.No longer bound to the chrysalis of yore,We are homo-imaginalas—forever and more.

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 hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. The wind is at your back.

I have with me a friend of the show, a friend of mine who's been on the show a few times before. Let me just give you this introduction for those of you who may be wondering. For those of you who may be seeking. In a world teetering between the old and the emergent, Simon van derrell stands as a beacon for the transformative. A scientist turned seeker, Simon bridges the fragmented domains of biology, molecular microbiology, metaphysical, unraveling the delicate threads of humanity's great metacrisis. His work explores the intersections of philosophy, neuroscience, shamanic healing, and the psychedelic renaissance, offering an invitation to heal not by doing, but by perceiving wholeness. Simon challenges the paradigms

that measure value in metrics and efficiencies, daring to ask, what if the true worth lies in the unquantifiable, our ability to hold space, to witness, to make whole, as a particular, as a practitioner of holing, Simon engages in profound journeys into the energetic fields of those who seek him, unveiling stuck patterns, reclaiming the lost, and tuning hearts to their guiding stars, drawing inspiration from David Bowman's notions of fragmentation, Ian McGilchrist's exploration of the divided brain and the ancient shamanic traditions. Simon's work is an emergent synthesis of science, spirit, and soul. In these strange times of planetary upheaval, Simon embodies the spirit of the homo imaginalis, the human poise to reimagine what it means to heal, connect, and evolve.

Simon, thank you so much for being here today. How are you? Again, man. Again with this introduction. Holy shit. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah.

And I've seen the title is psychedelic singularity. It's like, am I the psychedelic singularity? I don't know what we're in for. But no, I'm doing good, George. Thank you for the wonderful. introduction. That's great. You outdone yourself again. Well, I can't help it. I always read all the things that you got going up. And it's so refreshing, but so sort of mysterious on some levels. And I always find myself, it's a lot of your work reminds me of Ian McGilchrist where I got to stop for

a minute and reread it. You know what I mean by that? I'm like, okay, what's Simon saying right here? Oh, yeah. Like the recent post with Buckminster Fuller and talking about where are we going with jobs and this idea that we need to keep ourselves busy. Like, all of this information is right in front of us, man. I feel like we're on the cusp of a giant change. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's, yeah, thanks. Yeah, I also have the sense that we are in this process of big changes.

Right. Or at least chaos. We're in amidst chaos. And I think what I attempt to do with my writing, and I'm at the moment still writing on LinkedIn, I might want to do more a sub-stack. But I'm a bit of a, the problem, there's this balance between the perfectionism

and the sort of, well, how I, the training in academia and how rigid everything has to be. And at the same time, why I like writing on LinkedIn is because I just write what's there at the moment. And that's how I like to do most things. So I don't have to think about it too long. Because if I start thinking about it too long, and brooding on it too long,

it already turns still. It's like you're taking a glass and you're putting it down in a stream. And then if you drink at that moment, it's a nice, refreshing cold water. But if you then are like, I might have to sit with this for a bit. And you put it away, it probably starts to rot at some point.

And then if you then still have to drink it, it will just be disgusting. I try to avoid doing that. Yeah, it's true. It's interesting. You know, in our last conversation, we were talking a bit about the metacrisis and the central focus. But how have you seen that kind of playing out?

Are you still focusing a lot on the meta crisis? Or are you seeing some sort of splits? Nice. Yeah, I think I think I've drawn in the matter crisis more to my self, I think. So how does the matter crisis express itself within my consciousness, within how I am in the world, how I show up, how I behave, what kind of things are important to me?

So I try to pull it a bit more close, but from that perspective, I also try to see the patterns in what the effect is of the meta crisis. I'm less interested, let's say, in the material side of the meta crisis. Like all this work on energy materials and supply chains and biodiversity, climate, these things. I think I'm more interested in the psychospiritual side of things. and what kind of effect it has on our individual consciousness. So I'm trying to sort of use myself as a study subject there.

And also in the collective, what do we see happening in the collective? And I try to make sense of that. And it's probably as much part of a, I think, a self-soothing process to try to remain sane as far as one can be sane in a time like this, as it's just general interest. It's just fascinating, I think, the times that we are living in. And probably terrifying in both the bad sense and in the, let's say, the exciting sense. Yeah, I agree. When I see all these giant ideas about, like, saving the planet and the MetaChrist, we've got to transfer this energy.

like it just seems so daunting. I can't help, but like, how does that apply to my life? And much like you, I start thinking about my life. Okay, well, how do, what is my climate like? What is the climate in my family like? Like, how do I navigate this storm of everything failing around me? And you can't help but see the patterns there. Like when you look at your life, you can see your own metacrisis.

And I think that for me, that's where psychedelics kind of came in. They sort of gave me this compass on some level, or at least the ability to look at look around and navigate the environment. Like, okay, just take some deep breaths. What is his shame doing over here? Jesus, shame. What is this shame thing? Well, I got to get rid of this thing.

And like, but it really helps you navigate it, right? How have you noticed psychedelic sort of hope when you navigate this internal esoteric struggle? Nice. Yeah, in different ways and different compounds. Yeah. So I think in our previous conversations, I talked a bit about, sort of my way into it. And I think psilocybin with psychoactive truffles played a big role for me in sort of reorienting

and reconnecting to myself and then to the larger self. Right. The local woods, other people around me. Just, yeah, it helps a lot with the sort of emotional, yeah, maturing process in being allowed to, or being capable to sit. with heavy emotion for longer periods of time or to have it transform you. So still, psilocybin every now and then with low doses. So it's more of a microdosing or mini dosing kind of thing.

So for during the week. But in this ceremonial setting, I've been working more with cacao recently. Cacao is being a very nice, heartwarming, heart opening plant medicine. And working together with Blue Lotus, Blue Lotus extract is very, very interesting for me. So that has been a, by now I've called it a staple in sort of my medicine cabinet. And also I've been working with cannabis more in a sort of more shamanic sense. which has been interesting because well, I come from the Netherlands. I studied in a life scientist university.

I had friends who grew their own weeds, outdoors, indoors. So during my studies, yeah, okay, we smoked a lot of weeds. But that was very much in a recreational sense. I never had a lot of difficulty with it concerning my studies or work, these kind of things. It never became really like a problem for me. But I did notice after a period of smoking weed that I, instead of sort of anxiety reducing, which I think I was self-medicating, but wasn't really aware that I was doing that. It became anxiety increasing. So I had like sweaty palms, heart rate going up, a bit paranoid. And so I quit. And then I got into the PhD process.

And so I didn't do it for like, I don't know, like eight years or something. But recently I reencounter it. Specifically with a with a tincture. So it's like a whole plant extract in oil. And so you take like four drops or something. And it's a very, it's comparable to edibles, I think. But really. Yeah, really interesting journeys on that.

Very conducive for, yeah, the type of energetic inquiry that I now often practice. But it gives me the chance to do it on myself instead of doing it on other people. I often have difficulty putting the, making the time and putting the lens on myself. So it has been very helpful for that. Yeah. Do you feel like you're going through like a rite of passage sometimes, Simon? And when I look back at both of our shared, like our relationship and where we are in life, you know, and I see that you've moved from, you know, sort of the academic side into going out and directly working with people in a field that's sort of novel. You know, and it's interesting to me.

I'm curious. Like, first off, what does that feel like? Is that a right of passage for you moving into something different? And two, what does that feel like from going and working and exploring your inner self to going out and sharing these ideas and working one on one with. with people or in group sometimes. Yeah, nice. Again, nice, nice question. I think the shift from working the,

doing the academic work. So I was doing, yeah, molecular biology, genome engineering, these kind of stuff. So it was very super cognitive, very abstracted. And I did enjoy working with other scientists. So I collaborated a lot.

And that was already something that I took most joy out. of also supervising students and working directly with them, their learning journey. So I always already had this sense of I actually want to work with people. And it doesn't matter that much what then the thing is that we're doing. And I enjoyed the puzzle aspect a lot. But I've noticed that the switch that I've made, so I haven't been in a lab for now like probably it's now like five years or something and I'm not thinking I'm going to go back anytime soon. Maybe I will go into a more improvisational lab and do some work with plant medicine. That might be something that I'm interested in, but let's say not in the capacity in which I worked. But yeah, making the switch to

working directly with people and aiding them in their life's process in their, their journey, that has been incredibly rewarding and very much feels like a homecoming. So it's, because it's, it engages my heart way more than I could put or that I was able to back then to put in my research. There were a moment of course where I was very also a heart motivated and fascinated with the work that I did. But now if I work with people, it's very, it's, it's super intimate, very moving. Oh, yeah, and the switch or the switch, the transitionary period of being a seeker is first your personal rock bottom, let's say. Yep.

And then in the framework of the wilderness guide that I enjoy reading, this Bill Plotkin, he talks about soul-centric development. And he has a very, how you say, a very holistic view of things, but also, deep, very influenced by deep ecology. So, and that's, that's a, a, let's say, a branch of philosophy that I enjoy and that matches with sort of the shamanic practice. And he talks about how during soul initiation, so after adolescence, you go out, you are sent out into the wild, let's say, to, well, more or less, like the hero's journey. He describes it differently, but it's, it's, it has similar of themes. It's to visit the underworld and die, let's say. The all the lesson dies and the adult moves out. But before that happens, you have to have an encounter with soul, how he calls it,

soul with a capital S, and he uses a sort of ecological frame for it. So he says that it's a, your soul is an ecological niche. So it's your place in the world or in the cosmos, where you receive the most energy, let's say. So like organisms, that inhabit a certain niche. If they're right in their spot, what they take in is the most nutritious for them and also what they shed out is the most nutritious for their environment.

So finding one's soul is finding one's place in the world or finding one's niche, once role. And I think that's the journey that I've been on and I'm still integrating. But after that's, stage. He says that like, this is initiation and then after you're a sort of beginning adult. And the beginning adult is, he describes it with a beautiful term. He calls it the artisan at the wellspring. And so you've found the wellspring, which is your soul's image, which is your

gift or your niche, what your energy you're coming to share with the world. And the artisanal part is there to figure out how am I going to share this gift? And so your, your, your soul's it might be for some people that a profession fits perfectly with what they're here to do, like becoming a doctor or a nurse or musician. But for some of us, it's a bit less clear, and that has always been from me the case. So it's more about figuring out, okay, and what are the ways in which I can show up and share my, share my gifts or share my talent with the world in ways that I feed, I nourish those around me, but also I am nourished in return.

Yeah. I love it. It's super inspiring to see, like, both of us speak to lots of different people in in the fields we work in. And I'm very fortunate. I get to speak to a lot of people that are, some people are building new novel drug designs. And I talk to a lot of people in the PTSD community that are working in these labs and working in these set and settings that are pretty rigid.

And I'd nothing but love for all of them. But it's, to me, I'm super stoked when I get to talk to you. see this sort of this I guess the best way to describe it is to look back to the Arthorian sort of myth of myth

of the Holy Grail comes to mind where all the knights are sitting at the round table and the grail shows up to them and they're like you must find me and so they all go out into the forest but each individual must enter the forest and the darkest place possible for them and they cut their own path like and that's what i see simon when i see what you've done and see where you're at and i read like the progress you're doing that you post about like it's super

inspiring for me to see you spend all this time in this lab and you're like you know what i think there's a different way for me i'm going to try this and you go and you talk about all the people that you're talking to sitting under the forest what you're learning with the different plants you're studying with like it's really it's awesome and i'm super stoked that you're doing it and it's i'm just curious man like what what are you learning when you sit with these other people are you learning as much about yourself when you sit with other people yeah yes short answer there there is that's the thing with the the healing process so i've been um so it's been in about a year i think since we last chat or even longer and i've been doing

this shamanic training now for one and a half years which is way more focused on so it's without plant medicine so it's a it's a it's on a inca tradition um yeah the main focus for shamanic healing is first healing oneself so if you want to be a channel for healing you have to have us let's say as few dirt within the within the prism as possible because then the light shines through easier and if you have less uh let's say unresolved shadow ego parts that might might take a hold of what you're wanting to do and then are using it for their own benefit yeah that's that's yeah you try to make sure that that doesn't happen so you're trying to show up as as clear as possible for the process someone else is doing and it's always

the case that someone else is doing the healing the person is doing the healing and energy that is received and sent through is not mine but I'm being conduit for things And that has been fascinating to step into that space. And now also blending that with, well, my relationship or my practice with different plant medicines to see how these parts of me interact. And then bringing together with that this, well, this intellectual part or the academic analytical part of me

that also wants to make sense of things. That also tries to make maps and understand like, okay, how is this working? What am I doing? Because with the shamanic work, you're constantly surprised at how things happen. And you open certain doors and certain experiences happen. And it's, yeah, it's amazing in that sense.

So it's a great source of wonder for me. Yeah. And when you do processes with people, if they come to you a specific, questions on parts in their lives or things that they want to release or they're carrying trauma with them. Oftentimes what I do is I or how I mainly work is through my own body. So I mirror people either online or if I'm in person, if they're in the Netherlands, then right next to them. So I try to synchronize, let's say, my being with them.

so that any ripples that disturb that surface is information. So I just try to create tune in to what they are experiencing. And then in that tuning in become very sensitive to minor changes. So imagery, for instance. So nothing is random then. So if I'm talking to someone and they're explaining about a event that they experienced or ancestral pain or I'm constantly looking for, okay, where does this, where's the origin of this thing?

What's the package there? What's the information? And so anything that changes is information. And either I store it for myself or I share or I share like, okay, if you're talking about this, how's your lower stomach feeling? Because I'm, if they're already talking like for a minute about the theme, And my body is, my stomach is constricting heavily.

Then I'm like, okay, that's probably something to do with whatever you're talking about. So let's have a look. And often, often the people that I work with, often their themes resonate with my own themes. So with my own healing process. So it's again, then it also makes it possible for me to journey with them to where they are. I think a big part of healing work has to do with, well, having done your own healing. And I read somewhere the, like the wounded healer archetype, it's better to heal from your scars than from your open wounds. Because then there's this big chance of your own coping mechanisms or your own, yeah, ways how you delude yourself or how you try to escape.

You'll start projecting them on the other person. And that's the last thing that you want to do, especially if people are very vulnerable and sensitive and in their own process. So that's also a big motivator to keep undergoing processes myself with other people that I train with or do solo journeys and these kind of things. But yeah, the themes are, yeah, of course we can talk about how everything is one. We're all part of tuned into the collective human consciousness and all these kind of things. So it's different skills of experience. But in the end, indeed, the themes are all the same. Or at least they're super recognizable, these archetypical themes.

So, yeah. I think we're touching on the wholen that you describe in a lot of the things that you write about. Like whether it's the Youngian mirror or whether it's the frequencies at which we vibrate that we recognize in the other. But maybe you could talk a little bit more. about this holing like is that i mean i mean maybe you could just you could unpack that for some people who may not be familiar with that process yeah so the the um the word healing at the moment in its etymology comes from to make whole uh so the the the older world and in in dutch it's healing uh and hill that's the sort of the a hole is a whole

heal as a healing and hailing it's the same word so to make something whole or to heal something is exactly the same word and so for me that kind of sparked an interest to um well have a have a look at the concept and uh very early in my journey i i was reading david booms work and his conversations with jidu khrishnamurti the mystic and they both have a very well David Bowman was a quantum field theorist, very brilliant. It was a student of Einstein. I can highly recommend reading some of his work. It's on quantum field theory.

The chapters with math, you can just skip. He also says that. I'm not a mathematician at all. So for me, this is only like I just try to intuitively read and I get some imagery. But yeah, don't ask me for the calculations. But as I started reading it, he describes a whole universe or how the, how you say, he talks about an implicit and an explicit order. And the explicit order is the reality that we exist in or that we sort of are currently sort of operating on, which is the unfolded reality. So the explicit is the unfolded.

And the implicit is the folded reality. And that makes it possible for, well, everything to be connected. And at the same time, we experience it as not. These are, yeah, all, let's say, high, vague concepts. And of course, a lot of spiritual traditions and also in the new age. And, well, let's say the more rigorous scientific fields. they have theories about this. But I mainly hook into the concept of healing and that wholeness is a state that everything

is or that it's already in. So everything is already whole, is already healed. And why things aren't healed is when they are perturbed by, for instance, trauma and something becomes fragmented. So a part of us gets shunted. If we're talking about humans, a part of us can. that shunted out of our perception of who we are, the moment we are traumatized, depending on, well, what the origin of the trauma is, but we construct a fragment, or we try to build up a

persona from fragmented parts, because it's very difficult to perceive ourselves as whole or what we fully are. And that's, I think, the journey that every human goes on. We start probably from wholeness as we incarnate into a baby into a body and then slowly we gain sort of control or at least we become incarnated into this sort of space suit that we're in and then we kind of lose our memory of where we're from because the density of matter makes it difficult to remember all that the information of where we're coming from or what we are this energetic field and then slowly blood surely we yeah we build up a sort of fragmented ego but we yeah it's probably also built up from parts but yeah it's it's a journey towards um see yeah seeing the the wholeness of things

the wholeness of persons the wholeness of nature the wholeness in everything and i think for a that is what healing is and that is also that is also that let's say my main philosophy when I work with people, it's you start from the position that there's nothing wrong with someone. There's nothing wrong. At the worst case, someone is confused. Confused about who they are, what they, often what they should be or what they have to be.

And it's about calling in these lost parts that we might lost contact with. And seeing if you can re-orient oneself to, see the wholeness. And that's, I think, also the practice of working with people is try to see them as whole as possible. Because also in that act of seeing someone's gestalt or seeing the things that they might not see from themselves is already calling those parts to the surface, is already calling those parts back into conscious awareness. And in that sense, it doesn't matter too much if they are the one seeing it or if I'm the one seeing it. Because at a certain moment that the boundary just blends. Man, it makes a lot of sense to me. I, on some level, begin thinking about the evolution of awareness,

but maybe it's not evolution of awareness at all. It's just sort of remembering that you are aware of these things. Like the way you spoke about calling it back to you, like that makes a lot of sense when you, it's almost like when you buy a new car you see that car everywhere when you get a new shirt you see that shirt everywhere when you become aware that you do this that you have this pattern you see it everywhere you know it's it's it's it's it's always there you're just read or you're discovering it on some of it oh yeah there's let me just take the cover off of this

and i can see it from what it is i want to it's i want to i want to include our friend benjamin george your shout out to benjamin george he's got some incredible new stuff on the horizon um i can't wait to test out these new things he has going he says existence is founded upon information. The fundamental mechanism of action for interacting information is a toroidal field. It is through interacting fields of

troidal information in which the quantum nature of this arises and so up up through atomic to our perceived reality. The collective movement of all things in the universe is reflected back to us like ripples in the pond. Poetic in a way.

Nice. If I'm correct, the toroidal, that's the that this movement right i think so the the the torres yeah well it's like the double helix yeah yeah or it's like or like the planet and the magnetic field of the planet and the the heliosphere of the sun these kind of things oh interesting yeah thanks for sharing it's um like what when you speak yeah go ahead yeah i was just thinking about about the, yeah, so before I was doing more, or before I was practicing more, the shamanism, I was already doing sort of inner development, life coaching, systemic work with people,

constellation work. And a big motivator for me with the shamanic work was a, because it offers a way more subtle, but at the same time, more direct. direct way of interacting with people and interacting with what they are carrying with them. And that also alludes to the comments just now with yeah, that it's information, energetic fields. Yeah. Yeah, you're working with, let's say a way fuller picture when you're looking at someone. For instance, if I, I've had moments where I work with someone and they're talking about a certain pattern that repeats itself in their life. Yeah.

And I just try to notice what I notice. And my attention is constantly drawn to, for instance, something above their left shoulder. There's nothing there as in physically. But as they're talking, I'm just constantly being drawn there. Yeah. So I let them talk for a bit. And then I, then I'll say like, okay, can we have a, can we see if we can interact with whatever is there?

And then you guide the attention there and you start feeling around, for instance, with your hands and then all of something you notice or you tap into something of the field. And my trainer also calls the double clicking. So you're almost like you're double clicking a map and it poop opens. So you're double clicking that folder and they're talking about this pattern. So you double clicking it and all of a sudden the emotions are there, the memories are there. And then, well, then you can start accessing it and moving through it. You can also make representations of a map, of a folder like that. You can make it physical outdoors and then directly interact on it like that.

Yeah. So it's a very, I've, it's funny because my, because of my background, I was atheistic for a long time and very skeptical, a lot of things, even though I did psychedelics when I was 16. Right. My framework was completely different. And I could be a bit allergic to like grant claims out of sort of new agey kind of theory.

I still can be a bit allergic to that. But in these kind of experiences, it truly feels that the mind is the limiting factor. So really if you, for certain things, if you leave at least the door open for the potential or the possibility of something being related to ancestral pain, for instance, or past life, parallel life kind of things, or that it's a collective wound. Often that creates the space for something to unfold. Because if you're believing that, for instance,

every pain, everything that you carry is your responsibility. And it's also your fault, for instance. If these kind of conditions are there, then it becomes often very difficult to unravel them because people are holding on to holding onto it because they have a i've also had this experience because you have a i think a limited view of who you are yeah yeah it makes a lot of sense i i see this pattern and i like i am i'm trying to navigate it in a way like there's a lot of talk of trauma and in some ways it feels like trauma-tastic. You know what I mean? Like we make our trauma fantastic. Like, hey, look at my trauma. Look at this thing over here. Everybody would you feel bad for me? You know, and like on some level, I feel like, are we at this place where everyone is sort of coming to the idea of like, okay, maybe I'm not where I want to be because I have this generational trauma. Or maybe I'm not

where I want to be because I have unrealistic expectation. Or maybe I'm not where I want to be and, you know, fill in the blank. But. do you think that there is sort of an evolution of awareness when it comes to trauma? And you know, you see it in psychedelics, like psychedelics used for trauma. It's like this giant medical container that we're in. Like, what's your thoughts on that? Yeah. The image that comes up for me, and this is also something that I try to operate under.

I'm fairly inspired by sort of more post-humanistic thought. So I'm no scholar, but I did a lot of sort of out-dedictical reading. I'm very interested in other ways of perceiving the human, other ways than the individualistic framework that we operate in. Because I think a large part of the issues of the time is this fragmented view on reality, this fragmented view of everything on who we are, individuals who what the collective is what the world is what the cosmos is um so that demands other ways of feeling other ways of perceiving so seeing not necessarily with the eyes but seeing as a

as a sensing and with multigenerational trauma i'm interested in taking the perspective of individual humans so you and i all individual humans being part of a body and that body makes up the human so as a planetary organ organism and i would say a planetary organ of the yeah of gaia the same that we can call the amazon the lungs of the earth these kind of concepts what if we take that seriously so um that we see the human with a capital organism as a gestalt um consciousness. So I think we talk about collective consciousness, collective unconscious, and that our cells or our bodies are individual cells within that body. And that is marching through time, right? Just like our skin cells, they die within, or I don't actually know. I know

that our gut cells, for instance, some of our gut lining is renewed within a day. So they go through a day and that's their lifetime. Yeah, it's the shape. ship of what is it the ship of these is that yeah yeah exactly but that's on the global human organismal skill and then you can think like okay i i am born into a into a body from a from a mother who is connected all the way back to the beginning of life and that human organism has been homo sapiens has been estimated around for 200 what 300 000 years yeah give or take We in our lifetime, we remember, our body stores memory and is conditioned to respond in a certain way to certain memories. So we burn, when we are children, we might burn our hands on the stove or we fall off something.

And we get, we get our scars. But we also store that memory within us. And not just in the neurons, I think. I think memory is stored all across the body on a different, different way. But so when we talk about multi-generational trauma and also about personal trauma, I think it helps a lot to widen the perspective of what is the self, what is the self made out of,

but also what is the content of the self. I think we as a, what I try to operate on is that the self is a conscious field. and in general, my body is part of myself. That is where my awareness is, and I consider that myself. But if I go working on a shed or I try to build something with wood and hammer and nails, if I'm holding the hammer, the hammer becomes a sort of extension of my body. So it becomes partially part of myself.

So I think the self is a very flexible concept that can encompass a lot of different things. And I think that one of the main things that shamanism, I think, is a very anarchistic tradition of different types of practices and what you can call it. It's playing around with what is the self and what do you feel with the contents of the self. So shape shifting or astral travel. or extending the self to incorporate the non-human and to gain information from to ask questions to the non-man or ask questions to another human is shape shift into their consciousness, start reading, feeling. Yeah. So these are these are I think when it comes to a multi-generational trauma it feels very much a it helps for me to

see it as a collective thing. It also lowers the load of that you are the one that has to carry or that inherited a lot of heavy, heavy shit. It puts away the blame. We don't have to go into the past. Look at the stories. Who was to blame? Whose fault is this?

It's not interesting at all. The interesting thing is to experience, to feel and to transmute. So what are the lessons there? It's I sometimes feel like the human is also a a species that is probably capable of metamorphosis as similar as insects too. And maybe we became a swarm global organism similar to akin to a caterpillar

by acquiring all these lessons, all this biomass, becoming larger, larger, larger, we're worth 8.8 billion or close to 9 billion. That's a massive increase. If we look at the time scale in which that happened. And so maybe there's this, like you said at the beginning, maybe we are in this, or maybe I feel that we are in this state of potential transformation to new forms of being. And that the collective trauma consciousness or the collective consciousness about trauma is a necessary step for the decontextualization of the human body.

And I mean the human as a collective. So losing the shape of the global industrial society or this large scale way of doing things, modernity maybe. And becoming aware of the trauma that probably fueled a lot of the behavior and got us to where we are, or at least there's a lot of flag posts of learning. Yeah, we integrate those lessons, transmute them, and then potentially, well, become lighter and have more, that's a freedom of movement and then see how the cells reorient themselves into, yeah, something else.

Homo imaginative. That's him it. Homo imaginalis. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's so, Simon has really, really well said.

And as you're talking about that, like, you know, I have this visual of, of all this necessary trauma, which you hate to think about it being necessary. You hate to think about all these horrible things happening because they became the fuel for what got us to where we are.

You know, whether you use the metaphor of the caterpillar or a swarm of locusts, that, you know, their body's changed and they swarm on the fields and they consume everything. It was just debauched. And then they change form again when the, you know, planets align or when the weather is right or when they have, you know,

created enough of what is necessary to transform. But yeah, I can't help but see us in that metamorphosis. Maybe we should all be reading Ovid again and reading a little bit more about metamorphosis. But, you know, I see it, man. I feel that when I look at my mom and I look at. look at my daughter and I look at myself, like you can really see some giant shifts that have happened. And it makes you start guessing like, well, where does the blame go? Well, maybe there is no blame. Maybe these were all necessary things. And then when you think about it from that angle,

forgiveness is something that flows to the surface where there was this pain and this anger of like, how dare they did that? How don't they know? How dare they did that to me to like, oh, man, look at my daughter. Like it was necessary. It was necessary. This. pain that I felt, someone had to go through it. And that was my lot. And I got it. And it wasn't easy. But you know what?

I'm better because of it. And maybe I can go out and now I have this rare gift to see people that are going through it. Maybe I should be reaching out to those people that I see around the cusp of it. I can help them. You know, it's kind of beautiful in a way. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And it means we're going into a better spot, I think. I mean, if you, if you can see it, like it looks like chaos. It looks like, look, we're on the verge of this nuclear war, but are we really? Or is this what eating through the detritus looks like? Is that is that what it looks like? Is this what it looks like, I think?

That this is us as a new form eating through the detritus. Yeah. Yeah, and it's it's both, probably. So I think there's, it's so multi-layered in the amount of different ways of, of interpreting. And I think we can get, I have to think about, I saw this interview with Ian McGilchrist and now I have to think of his name. One of the co-founders of the Dark Mountain Project, Dougold Hein. Maybe I'm mispronouncing his name, British man. And the title of the talk is, the world is not a problem. And that is super interesting because he, yeah, he's talking to

Eam and Gilchrist about the left hemisphere's sort of stickiness to seeing the world as a set of problems and holding it in a certain way in a certain reality and keeping it in that reality. Well, we all have that experience. When you have a shitty day or something really bad happened to you or you can be locked in a certain way of seeing the world. So I've had depressive episodes. And then it's, it's incredibly difficult to see, see the world in any other way. And it sees and it looks very true. It's like, I'm, I'm right.

When you say, oh, this is shit and this is going bad and blah, blah, the old Dumer frame. Yeah. You can be 100% right. But at the same time, there might be other views that are also 100% right and that you're just looking at a very small part of reality. And then extrapolating from that part and seeing the whole as the same as that part. So that demands this way of being humble. It demands letting go of certainty of saying like, no, this way of seeing it is correct. It asks this more flexible way of seeing things.

And that helps as well in the process of seeing oneself, not only the world, but also your own processes. And it helps also with grace and with forgiveness. and also not knowing and keeping that open. Especially if there are a lot of, let's say, collective frameworks, political frameworks or in another set, maybe ideological frameworks that are moved around and mass amplified because we are in the information age, it helps to discern a bit because if, if the world becomes collapsed into sort of dichotomies or frameworks,

it's either this or it's either that and you have to pick one and be part of the right, be part of the guys that get it. It, it, it fuels dogmatism and it fuels division. And it's also a delusional way of seeing things. And at the same time, We also are I can't help, but dream about what does this mean? What and then not hopefully not dream and become so enamored with my own ways of thinking that I hold it and then say, yeah, this is what it is. But then let it go again. Have a bit of grace. But it's it's fun to do the more poetic.

And I would say the the shamanic of being very fluid with, with your. ideas and how you see the world because that allows you to move into different points of view. And then, yeah, looking at climate change. Yeah, I'm, for instance, I'm following the, the projections that indeed a planet that is warming most likely four degrees than what we are currently at, probably yeah, that's going to be a big mess. We as species and ecosystems will have to adapt to that. And at the same time, we don't know. It's probably the end of the world, but it's the end.

It doesn't mean that there's no beginning of another world and after. Yeah. So it's the end of the world how we know it. But yeah, let's not fully close the door already and say like, this is what it's going to be like. Yeah. It's like sitting on the sinking Titanic and then just looking out and I go like, you know what we'll close the doors have another champagne and well this this was it

because yeah we don't know yeah it's so it's interesting to think about the the idea of like apocalyptic thinking on some level like it's it's contagious and it's it's interesting and fasting at the same time but when you start thinking about how long we've been here it's sort of of bewildering to think that we would, that you and I would just happen to be on Earth when there is a, when the world ends. Like, the world's going to end. Probably not. Like, you and I will both get a front row seat to our own apocalypse.

But to be here when the apocalypse for the world happens is kind of, kind of arrogant to think, like, probably not. Probably not. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I can't help but shake the idea that maybe what we're living through is sort of the unrealized dreams and expectations of a large class of people that are dying. Like when you look at the boomer class around the world, like so many of this particular

class are moving on to whatever comes next. Some begrudgingly kicking and fighting the whole way. Like, no, I must hold on to this idea. It's important. Don't you know? And it is for them. And I'm not, I'm not downplaying it. But like, you can see this sort of brittle ideas of rigidness that like they're going to break man and it's it's both full of knowledge it's sad it's hopeful it's all these things but what do you think about maybe what we're seeing is sort of the death of unrealized dreams from a generation of people dying yeah as you as you say that i it feels like it's becoming winter so if the if the collective human uh or let's say the biosphere is a garden the season is shifting.

And I'm seeing these brittle, let's say, these sort of these brittle plants that turn brown and that are, yeah, well, it's an end. And if we look at the metrics, I think that there is also a large intergenerational wealth gap. Or at least I know that in the US, it's definitely the case. but I think in the Netherlands as well. That also says something, right? That maybe wealth is then locked in a certain parts of the body, in certain organs which are being, sort of having difficulty letting go.

Because for instance, I think many trees, they sort of self-fertilize in a sense, or they fertilize for their offspring when they drop all their leaves. So they cover the forest floor and that's food again. And those nutrients get recycled, upcycled and become available for the life within the soils. And that's in the again, it's beneficial for the tree,

but also for the offspring of the tree. And when that cycle doesn't happen or it's being stifled or there's a lot of difficulty letting go, yeah, then you see young people struggling. And I think young people aren't doing great, mental health wise. Yeah. Or at least the metrics are saying such things.

Yeah, I think everybody's feeling it. Let's say the, the same is if you have an inflamed wound in your toe, you'll get a fever and your whole body is feeling it. So it doesn't matter where the, where exactly the wounding is happening. but it reverberates throughout the whole system. And I think the planet or the biosphere is being wounded quite a bit. And the human is part of the biosphere. And the humans are also being wounded for quite a bit.

I think in the violence of this economic system that we're part of. So, yeah, I think everybody's feeling it. And then there's a lot of death terror, a lot of fear of death, especially if you're getting closer to that age. Yeah, yeah, it's a, I think a collective, I heard it or I saw it talked about and written about as a collective initiation process. So it's a maturation of the species.

And same as the Plotkin, Bill Plotkin's framework. It's a late adolescence and then you're, tossed out into the wilds or you go into a ritual in which the boy dies and the man arises or the girl dies and the woman arises. So probably we're, I feel it like this that we are collectively in this kind of process. And maybe even the Gaia, the planet is in this process with us as a expression or as a part of that. So in that sense, the planet is also very young. The planet is just figuring it out with this naked ape that has the skills of remembering the past

and being quite good at projecting into the future. So that's a whole new skill. And then having it completely terraform or completely shape the face of the planet in such a way. It's a wild time to be alive, the amount of power that we wield. Yeah. It's, for me, it's heartwarming to think. Thanks for sharing that. I have never thought about it from that aspect of the planet is sort of in its own right of passage.

And if we can, I tend to believe you don't come into this word. You come out of it. And if the case is that the planet is maturing in a way, so too are we maturing in a way. And you see this sort of, you know, I've spoken a bit about a new awareness emerging. Like it makes sense, you know, and all of a sudden with the awareness of the planet, you have this explosion of large language models. Well, what's language but a way to transfer knowledge to people?

And on some levels, when I think of these, this technology that can be frightening, like I see this sort of transcendence. I talked to Zoltar Istvan yesterday, who's like the really big into transhumanism. And we had this fascinating agreement that wasn't necessarily about us merging with machines, but sort of biohacking our way into a better world. And when you think about transhumanism and technology in that sense of psychedelics, like, yeah, maybe this whole confluence is coming together and we are about to take that next step. You know, each step reveals the next step.

And like all of these technology coming together can be very freeing as much as it can be Orwellian, right? Do you have any thoughts on this sort of new technological emergence? Nice, nice. Yeah, yeah, this is a topic that I think about and that I have my different ways of perceiving. Yeah. I think I'm a bit biased towards sort of form of loveism. I think I, I totally. I have a bit of a I also have issues with just trying to stay sane with the amount of

digital technology screen time and digital hygiene and then I just get fed out sometimes. I'm like why do I have to self-police with these sort of I call it parasitical technologies. Yeah. So there's a lot of power being wielded and I think a lot of of misalignment of this power towards, I'd call it not sanguine or not helpful or healthy goals, not life aligned. And so too, I can, I think transhumanism is like a quite broad spectrum. There are different, different takes on it. Whenever I detect a death version in it and a wish to overcome death either through melt, replacing the body with a body that can be

rebuilt endlessly or uploading consciousness to a computer or to whatever else, creating a techno singularity of a god. I get a bit not skeptical, but I also, I'm curious as to what is speaking them, if those are unresolved shadow parts, if someone is talking from their own fear of death and seeing that blown up as a collective fear of death. And I'm wishing to create a alternative where death can be escaped. That feels very, because death is an essential part of existence in this cosmos. Everything dies. And at the same time, when something is dying, something else is feeding on it.

So as we were talking about, for instance, the older generations, who might have issues with letting go. Them not letting go and giving back has an influence on those things that might feed of that death. And there are different ways of how things can die. I think we as humans see that as very violent and bad mostly, more a lot of, that's a cultural narrative. But you can also have, you have for instance, octopus mothers that, guard their eggs until they hatch and then they die,

making sort of, I think they give their body to their young to eat on. You can have trees that very slowly lose limbs one by one, and then in that sense are giving back to their environment. So if we think about dying is a process, and if transhumanism is death, the state of death a virgin, I don't know if death is,

is even a state of being. But if it's about avoiding that state, I think they also start avoiding the process of dying. And while dying is probably something that is incredibly important, it's a teacher probably death. Yeah. So that's a bit my take on that side of the technological advance and transhumanism and these kind of things.

Well, at the same time, I also understand that there is potential for, for instance, biohacking and well, yeah, that is a branch of shamanism, of course, inducing altered states of being or optimizing ones of physiology. And I think that we are, I think we talked about that probably last time, but most likely we are as modern subjects living in civilization, eating mostly. food produced by bio industry, these kind of things, soil depletion. We are probably living quite malnourished in a sense. And missing vital micronutrients are, as the soils are, as the soil health is declining, so too is our microbiome or gut microbiome declining. And that is an organ in our body. And we've only become aware of our gut microbeceryme.

biome only recently. So to get good samples, probably you need to go back into the fossil record, but I don't know if you can gather. We don't have examples of what does the healthy human gut look like and how exotic is that. And of course, research I think is being done in comparing the gut GI tract of various indigenous cultures who are still living in a, well, It is all difficult to romanticize these things. But I would say living in a fairly traditional way, as we can expect,

that for the majority of the history of our species, we've lived as a hunter, hunter, or at least a species that doesn't live in a industrial, skilled cityscape. So comparing the GI tracks and the composition of the gut, between those. But yeah, I'm skeptical about all the transhumanists melding with technology and with AI and these kind of things because I worry about the misalignment of a lot of the

why these things are created and with what speed they are created. And also. what unconscious drives are motivating the actors. It's the same that the internet is also a large mirror of the collective human consciousness and a lot of shadow projection that takes place on internet. And I see AI is a sort of accelerant of that. So I'm a bit ambivalent and it's also personal. I just don't have that much interest.

In it, I notice I'm not getting very excited with technological advance. I think I get more excited about, yeah, developments in wisdom, human wisdom development, my personal insight and more, let's say, interior work, more the spiritual. Yeah. Yeah. Those are phenomenal points. I found myself biting into the idea. as you were talking about the microbiome in our gut, and that takes me to the ideas of

nutrients. There's neurotransmitters in the gut. A few years back, I had a really cool discussion with Dennis McKenna about neurotransmitters in the gut, and like, what does that mean? You know, we talk about the 5H2A receptor, but what about, what does it mean? What happens in the gut? What about the receptors down there? And he's like, we don't know, George.

We don't know what's happening there. And if you start thinking about that, our diet. has a fundamental shift on our consciousness. And that takes me to books like Jeremy Narby's Cosmic Serpent, where he talks about the indigenous people talking to plants. You know, maybe not like having a full conversation in English, but being aware of what that plant is signaling to you

via the shape of its leaves and the markings on it. Like there's real awareness and real information transfer that happens between that human and the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom. And if we don't have a fundamental nutrient, healthy gut biom, we're missing all that. We just have these blinders on. Like, don't pay attention to that. And maybe that's why when you have a bunch of mushrooms, you're like, whoa, this plant,

I'm talking to this plant in a way. And people think you're bananas, but you are in some way exchanging information with that plant, right? I love it, man. It blows my mind. And I feel like I'm in a constant state of awe sometimes. And people are like, this guy does way too many mushrooms, man. Well, describe too many.

too many for what yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no man I I that's definitely a large motivating part for me as well to take shamanism seriously yeah that's also what drew me is you can have this perspective that there are living cultures in the world who operate on a very different ontology on a very different way of what is real yes so coming from the Western tradition and also the being trained in the in the scientific tradition and just the framework that we operate in, the splits between mind and matter, already the split between humans and nature.

That doesn't happen in a lot of indigenous cultures. There is no word for nature. So there is no inherent division already. And if you don't see yourself as a almost hermetically sealed organism operating within a hostile environment that has to keep structural integrity. If you can open the barriers between what you consider self, that it goes further than just the space suit that you're wearing and that you're also, if you're touching a tree,

that you allow your consciousness to melt with the tree or with water or with the sea or with the elements, with everything, you can do this. Yeah, you can start communicating with the whole field, with everything that's conscious. It might be not be intelligent, but it is most likely conscious or its intelligence shows itself in a completely different way.

And yeah, for me, that's incredibly exciting because that indeed also makes the... I have to think back on that quote that I think McKenna quotes, a lot of people quote, it's like the universe is not only stranger than we can imagine, it's much stranger than we can imagine.

can imagine. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the whole thing. So if it's, if everything is potentially a portal from which you can learn or which you can communicate with or make contact with. Yeah. That makes, that makes living a lot of more exciting all of a sudden.

And I heard this theory somewhere that, because you touched upon that as well with the blinders, It's that the highly individualized subject, as we are operating on within modern society, how we are now, that's almost a, that is a prerequisite for a society like this to function. So we have to be thinking that we are atomized individuals that live in a world of objects instead of other living subjects. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't be able to do much of the actions that we do during the day.

If you, the moment you eat meat, or let's say you go build a house and you're going to use wood for it. If you are constantly aware of how everything is living, how everything is alive in different ways, you would have to treat it with way more humility and respect and love than we are currently doing. And, well, say what you want about, so eating meat. There are many, many reasons not to eat industrially, industrially grown meat because the sheer colossal size of the suffering that's being generated there is mind boggling. And I think that that's also problem of the times that we're living in.

We have to constantly, we have to live blinkered or we have to keep some information out of our framework because otherwise we won't function or I want function. Let's talk about myself. Yeah. And this more. I also heard, I think I heard Vanessa Andreaati talk about this with Naja on the Entangled Life podcast was great episode with the Entangled Life. I think that's it. That there's this theory that we're living in a very dopaminergic society. And it's also what McGilchrist talks about.

The left hemisphere is more dopaminergic in its wiring or the main neurotransmitter. And that's the, what would happen if we switch more to a serotonogic, serotonergic framework? So these, these, you talked about psychedelics and how they operate on serotonin receptors. Yeah. Or they stimulate connectivity. They stimulate connections. So making more relations. And I think we, that has been my experience as well.

I think my, the depression that I experienced was mainly one of loneliness and existential threat. And by reconnecting and having the aid of these kind of compounds, which would aid my brain, let's say, and maybe my gut as well. Yeah. In finding novel connections, while at the same time immersing myself in environments which I want to connect with. So in this case, it was loved ones and forests and rivers. It sort of opens up the being.

way more. And that I think is a way healthier way of being, but it's also more painful. Because you're more connected to everything. Yeah. You're feeling more of the pain. But at a certain point, you might be so depressed and depressed is a repression of emotion that you prefer to feel something instead of nothing. And then maybe first it's a lot of grief, pain, anger, sadness. But yeah, then the heart starts breathing again. And then you can also experience. joy, love, let's say the more colorful or the more, let's say, the things that make life worth living. And I think in that sense, biohacking or paying more attention to these kind of things is very valuable. I think it will have a large, even the sense that a lot of people drink multiple cups of coffee a day or people smoke.

So you're taking plant medicine. You're taking tobacco and you're taking cacao or you're taking coffee or you're eating a lot of chocolate. So cacao. Yeah. That's plant medicine that you're taking. Well, maybe then expand that to taking a couple, let's say one gram of dried mushrooms on a Sunday morning and going out for a stroll with the family or something. Yeah. Probably that's very, very healthy.

I can't, like, I think of mycelium and the way it grows and what you just explained about making connections. Like, I can't help but see like the human mycelium. And you're right. Like it does feel painful in the beginning because you're building these new roadways. You're building these new maps. And when I, when I apply my consumption of plant medicine, primarily, you know, psilocybin over the last few years has fundamentally transformed my life. to building more meaningful connections and getting rid of the connections that I thought I had to have that I was thriving on. Maybe the dope, you know, the, the, the, the dopamogenic ideas of like, I gotta have more money.

I've got to have more this thing. You know, it's almost like the actions of like a, like, like a substance abuse problem in a way. we were living our life. And we start looking at maybe the more mycelium route. We're like, look, I'm going to make these new connections. Like, I have fundamentally changed so many of my connection. Like, my connection with you started back then. And now we were having this discussion. And we're halfway across the planet.

Like, we have built this awesome friendship and relationship that stretches through the internet and, like, making these cognitive connections and having these, you know, and so many cool people like that, I can't help but. see exactly what you were describing about moving into a more serotonogic, I don't think I'm present right, but like that kind of connectivity. And what does that mean if more of us can do that? If more of us can create, then consume. And that gets us back to the other metaphors we were talking about like the caterpillar or the locust. Like we're stopping the consuming and beginning the creating, which is more for everybody. You know, when everybody becomes a creator, there's an abundance

out there. There is prices come down and there's more for everybody and a better life. I'm really hopeful for that. I see it and I want to help fuel that fire, man. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you on that one. Yeah. How do you reconcile the tension between working within existing systems and flowing energy into emerging less defined ones? poo yeah that's uh yeah you took that from a recent poster right nice yeah that's that has been difficult or difficult yeah i think that has been a um a journey that almost everyone goes on in a way of finding their place within the world but it's i think both more difficult

and even more easy now Because the places are shifting. The world as an ecosystem is changing, culture is changing. So what maybe your spot yesterday might change tomorrow or is different today. So it's asking of me that I'm in movement and that I orient myself towards what feels most real and fruitful to me. And that demands courage. and letting things go and there's all you're confronted with all the stuff. The moment you say like, okay, I want to, I want to follow my heart.

You'll be presented with all the reasons why you're not doing that just yet. So you're, you're being presented with all the things where you're holding the handbrake yourself. So where are all the things that inhibit you from doing that? And yeah, it's been a been a sort of. Rough journey doing that and continuously orienting and having to reorient oneself. Because if you're in that transformational process, I've changed so much within these last couple of years that what I thought I would do two years back is already completely different concept than what I'm thinking now.

And then having to think about how to monetize this. And I don't like that concept. I don't like that we're all operating within a market economy and that every aspect. and that every aspect of life has to be monetized. Yeah, I, I, I don't, I sometimes say this. Of course, I'm aware that on some places I'm, I'm deluding myself or I'm not just seeing things right, but we're human.

But I'm thinking like, I have no interest in running a company. I don't give, I don't care about business. I do care about doing interesting and very worthwhile work with people. Yeah. That's what I want to do. And I would ideally earn enough from that. So I have my rent and my food. And I can do some fun things every now and then or continue to develop.

But yeah, not to monetize what I say or what I do. Here's this cool new method. And I call it blah, blah, trademark. All this shit. It's not interesting at all to me. me. So it has been also a humbling journey of letting go of old forms or thinking like, okay, how. Yeah. What does life look like or what does like what would life have to look like? And it's like that. I don't know. I'm figuring out what it is to be a Dutch

shamam, which I've already no clue what I don't know figuring it out as we go. I love it. It takes courage, man. Like I, so many of the most interesting people I know are discovering who they are. And like, I think that's part of the process. You know, when you trap yourself into this mindset of, how do I monetize this? You immediately fall into the trap of letting the algorithm lead you along instead of you creating. The moment, it's, it's, it's, it's, I struggle with it too. Like I, the moment you start, you allow yourself to let the idea of monetization creep in is the moment you become.

become less interesting. Right? Because it demands abstraction. It demands that you take something and then you create a box around it and you say, this is the method that I sell. It's like my little rat maze that I let people run through. And you take it out of the living system. So what you can do is, of course, create or see if you can monetize presence.

see if you can monetize emergence. So that's hence. I also sometimes use the word facilitator. So I like holding ceremony with space. Yeah. A ceremonial space with people to facilitate emergent developments in their awareness, in their consciousness. So you put people in altered states, either induced by chemically with men or just by creating

a certain state. You can also induce. an altered state by having good dialogue, by creating the space to actually listen to other people, to listen, feel with them, these kind of things. And in that sense, you can monetize your presence. But yeah, try doing marketing for that. Yeah. I know we're kind of coming up on the close here. I wanted to get into some of the ideas about like the lecos and the maps and the trials and the tribulations that seem to be coming out of trying to monetize clinical you know you have these clinical trials so that you can monetize but it seems like there's all this messy human emotion that gets involved in there and like things don't work out and now you got to throw the trial out and like but that might have to be a conversation for another day because we only have a few more minutes man but um yeah what what what what are you most excited about simon coming up i mean you you have had an incredible journey and it's I'm very thankful to get to get to play a part by watching it and seeing and talking to you.

What are you most excited about for the upcoming future here? Nice. Nice, George. And I'm often very excited about just having having conversation such as these is something that gives me a lot of joy because there's, there's emergence here. And I'm excited about the end of this year. And stepping into the next year, I'm doing more with my personal practice, my healing practice, working with people across the world. And as my training deepens my abilities of doing proper work with people, also deepen. It becomes way more, I call it magical in a sense.

So the type of experiences that I'm having both with people and on my own are consistently evolving and deepening. So I think, yeah, it's giving me more and more joy thinking about the future in how I'm going to collaborate and also solo create new spaces where I can, yeah, go on expedition with people, let's say, to move towards healing. And also with the joy that that entails, does it all have to be very heavy-handed and sad? Yeah, so that part, that's something that I'm really excited about. Or I, it's just so enjoyable to also now my relationship with psychedelics and doing it more in a ceremonial setting. I'm meeting more interesting people who also do energetic work and collaborating with them in the space like that. That's also something that's very special because it becomes less and less journeying becomes less. and less a thing of, okay, I take the medicine and I just see if I get sucker punched into, I don't know what, and then just undergoing the whole thing.

And it becomes more and more co-creative space where I am moved by the medicine and moved by the experience where I can actually shape it as well. So do energetic work, become more aware of what is going on, navigating that space, saying like, okay, we're going to see if we're going to can travel to this place. If you're traveling by yourself, just lying down knowing that, okay, my left hip, there's bad shit stored. Let's go into the left hip. And then just being able to do that instead of having the experience be a role of the dice. And often, of course, you can, you, it's like to do a planet.

a hike you you kind of you're planning the destination but maybe the weather is completely different than everything changes yeah yeah you're coming with a good enough map that you can influence what you're doing and um in the absence of a dutch or in the absence of a rich local tradition of shamanic plant medicine work i'm having to figure it out a bit by myself and uh learn from Yeah, practitioners who come from other cultures. And that has been also very fun because that's also very non-dogmatic and free, playful and humbling. So yeah, that's that's great. And I and another thing.

Conversation as a transformative experience, I've been experimenting as well with channeling or at least taking, taking objects of interest, subjects of interest, going into an altered state and sort of allowing the words to pass through and seeing what kind of terrain you come into them and then is having a very interesting experiences and words open up. And I've been thinking about how to, yeah. It has been showing in my writing. But a lot of it is so esoteric and strange that I haven't found a good enough or a format I'm happy with yet. So I probably have to just start trying things, making drawings, maybe making poems.

And just sort of getting the creative energy going and creating from what I'm tapped into or investigating. Yeah, I think it's wonderful. I find myself on a very similar journey in so many ways. Simon, I've been gracious with your time. Super stoked to talk to you. We shouldn't have to go this long without a conversation like this, man. I miss talking to you. I feel better after I talk to you, man.

And I'm super stoked to see other things you're doing. Where can people find you, man? Like, if they hear this conversation and they're like, I'm in the Netherlands. I want to talk to Simon. Or maybe they're in Canada or something. How can they find and reach out to you? Yeah, so at the moment, my LinkedIn is sort of the only social media thing that I use. I also am on substack, haven't written anything yet, but I can be found there.

And otherwise, my email is just my name and then at gmail.com. So people can also email me if they're interested in having a conversation or whatever, scheduling a session. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, fantastic. Everybody within the sound of my voice, go down to the show notes, click on the LinkedIn profile down. Then I'll attach it. And if you enjoyed our conversation, we chat to Simon yourself. He's a phenomenal individual. And I think he is leading the way in a lot of different ways. So that's all we got. Hang on briefly afterwards, Simon. But to everybody out there that participated. Thank you so much for hanging out with us. That's all we got. Aloha.