TrueLife - Spiritual Reality - Alternate States of Consciousness

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

“things” to the age of “non-things.” More and more people are migrating from the earth we live on and under the stars to google earth and the cloud. This migration is fundamentally changing our relationship with the felt presence of the other. I feel like this age of information, has been, is attempting to supplant “virtual reality” in place of “Spiritual Reality” It is this “Spiritual Reality” that I would like to get perspective on. 1.) Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester. Check out her “about” section on the link below https://www.linkedin.com/in/revdrjessica-rochester 2.) 2.) Dr. David A. Salomon, Director Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity https://davidsalomonblog.wordpress.com/ 3.) Benjamin C George Author of “No Absolutes: A Framework for life” https://benjamincgeorge.com/ 4.) George Monty - TrueLife Media https://linktr.ee/TrueLifepodcast

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. Hears 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 Seraphini. 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. Everyone is here today. Thank you for spending some time with us. We have an amazing show.

We have Dr. David Solomon. We're going to get some introductions here in a moment. We also have Dr. Jessica Rochester. And without any further ado, I am going to allow these two beautiful individuals to introduce themselves. We'll start with you, Dr. David Solomon. Could you introduce yourself for people who may not know who you are? Sure. Thanks, George.

Thanks for having me on. Thanks for having me back. It's always good to be on with you. I am currently the director of undergraduate research and creative activity at Christopher Newport University in Newport, Virginia. I'm not sitting on the beach in Wales, which is where my backdrop is. I wish I were. That's my favorite go-to place. I have been a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature, religion, and culture for more than 30 years now.

Written a bunch of books. My most recent book is on The Seven Deadly Sins. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Fantastic. We're so happy to have you. Dr. Jessica Rochester, would you be so kind? is to introduce yourself to the listening audience. Thank you, first of all, for having me today, and it's lovely to share the show with Dr. David.

And I am an ordained interfaith minister. I'm the madrina of a Santo Dami church here in Montreal that I founded 25 years ago. We're in our 25th anniversary. We're also in the fifth year of celebrating a legalization, a challenge that took 17 years of working with Health Canada and other branches. of the government to achieve the first exemption for a, what they call psychedelics, what we call anthogens and sacred plants in Canada. So it was kind of a life mission and part of an important part of my journey. I'm also a transpersonal counselor.

I trained in the work of, I trained with Stanisloff, I trained in the worker of Dr. Roberto Asagioli. So I've been working in for about 40 years, private practice and teaching. and in working in non-ordinary states of consciousness based on my own spiritual journeys, my own interest, and what all my clients were encountering and trying to make sense of. So I recently published two books, if people are interested, Aiawaska Awakening, and these books are guidebooks. It's a guide to self-discovery, self-mastry, and self-care.

I put these books together based on everything that I was doing, working with students and workshop attendance and members of my congregation and information. First of all, the cartography, what people, I believe, need to understand about what am I exploring in the non-ardinary states, these vast dimensions that are the collective unconscious. And what am I encountering and what's within me, what's mine, and what's part of the oneness of all things. That is really well done. I'm excited to talk to both of you today. And before we start the show, I just want the people listening to understand. I think we're going to have not only an enjoyable conversation, but a fascinating conversation because both of these doctors are experts in their fields, from the ideas of mysticism to states of consciousness to spirituality.

And I'm going to go ahead and begin right here with you, Dr. Jessica Rochester. I wanted to jump right into this idea of spirituality. When I say spirituality, what does that mean to you? Well, that's a big question. It is huge. And it's a good one. And probably it's one of those existential questions that people throughout their life are constantly revisiting. And as we go through the stages of the life, the different stages of life, kind of decade by decade and life passage by life passage, we develop a different understanding of what spirituality is.

Is there a hard and fast definition? You know, possibly if we were to look in a dictionary, we'd find one. Does it adequately describe the internal experience that we have of there's so many different memes for this, the nomeness, the oneness, the cosmos, that sense of me that is the little me and then the larger me that seems connected to everything. And is that what we're going to call spiritual or spirituality? Is it a spirituality and experience? Or is it a practice?

Or is it somehow both? Is it what I, you know, I'm going to reach into my Buddhism? Is it who I am and what I do and how I manifest? Not sure if I've answered your question. It is. It is. Like you said, it's a very big question. And I think that there are a lot of answers.

and everyone may have their own answer and their own idea of it. And I just love the idea that we're getting it out here and trying to figure out, you know, how do we really get our arms around this? Dr. David, when I say spirituality to you, as someone who has an incredible background in European mysticism and religion, when I say spirituality, what is it that you think about? Yeah, I mean, for me, it oftentimes is what it is not. So when I deal with this question with students with my undergraduates, oftentimes it's making the distinction between spirituality and religion or spirituality and theology

and talking about the fact that one can be a very spiritual person and not be religious in the least. And so really looking at the ways in which the spiritual is trying to tap into, as Dr. Jessica just mentioned, you know, the Jungian phrase, the collective unconscious, sort of, you know, tapping into that thing that makes us all human, what is it that makes us human? And that is very different from religion, which is an organized artifact that is created by human beings, and it is certainly very different from theology, but we can go there another time or later. But it oftentimes, you know, when I teach a course of spirituality and mysticism, And it really is a soup to nuts starts back in the Greeks and then just goes forward chronologically.

It's a very, a very sort of superficial survey, if you will, because it is an introductory course for undergraduates. But I always say to them on the first day of class that if you took this course because you saw Jesus in a tortilla last night, this is for you. That's not what we're doing. you know and the academic study of this and the academic thinking about this these areas is very different from the the kind of personal experiential take that some people have now you can blend the two to be sure I mean in george as you know I mean in my work I mean I talk a lot about my own personal experiences and how they relate to what I'm thinking about but I think the problem is when we get the the line too blurred there, it becomes difficult to talk about these topics in any kind of objective way, which is really what I think many people are craving. Yeah, I would agree. Those are really great points to bring up.

You know, quite often we hear people in science talk about the subjectivity of experiences. And, you know, it's a great point because I would love to get into this idea of science and spirituality. Dr. Jessica, it seems to me that there has been a wedge driven between science and spirituality. However, when we look back to some of the times that came before, it seems that science and spirituality were, you know, the opposite sides of the same coin. And in an odd way, it's almost as if we're seeing them being rejoined today, like this world of, I was going to say specific. I can't get the right word out. Excuse me. Specificity. yet thank you so much maybe even specialization for george he's in he's in the hawaii sun hasn't even

come up out there yet it is early so i guess my question dr jessica is this idea or is this a renaissance or a bringing together this time we're in do you see a remergence of science and spirituality coming back together well fingers crossed i'm hoping okay i you know i'm sure that there's a a group of us, a percentage of us of the human race who hope for harmony. And harmony being something that you can live in a moment by moment, but it can also be a goal that you can work towards, right, with your fellow travelers. And so we can see that these things happen kind of in waves.

And if we're wise, we learn what interrupts, okay? And we can, what interrupts the harmony? what gets in the way of science and spirituality coming together. And if we look at that, we can always see that it's the lower unconscious of the human experience. It's the need for power, for money, for glory, for, you know, that narcissistic kind of modern view that everything, I need to have it and I need to own it and I need to make it mine. and this innate territorialism that exists within all of us that when not understood, when we don't make an effort to understand our lower unconscious and our instincts and all of these things that we're hardwired with and come to terms with them and learn how to

manage them, then they will act out. And we see this in societies, we see this in individuals, we see this everywhere. And this is where religions went wrong when they took the teachings of great teachers, and they took the life stories of great teachers, and they turned them into dogma. Dogma that then people, sadly, turned into tight, rigid belief systems, which then got turned into, you know, you don't believe this, you die. Okay, and we get to take all your money and your, you know, land and everything else you owned. And so we see this repeated over and over through the history of the human race.

And who is, you know, who are the usual suspects is human lower unconscious drives that greed and competitiveness and territorialism. And it's interesting to see Dr. David agreeing. Yes. I think here's some similar thoughts on this is where does this go wrong? And how can we somehow overcome that? that so that science can walk with and meet spirituality. And we can see that it's been trying to happen throughout all of the centuries,

you know, but, you know, like we put Galileo under house arrest. And I mean, a satioli was under house arrest and, you know, one of the elders in my line, Alex Polari was under, you know, was imprisoned for political and spiritual beliefs. So you look at this and And it just keeps repeating. What can we do to change this? I think you're right.

And I think that it's not only greed, but it's also the drive for power and to exert authority over others. Right. And so that creation, I think you're right, that that transformation of taking the life stories of, let's say, the Buddha. Or even though Buddhism has tried to stay away from this, it's difficult. Or Jesus. and turn them into dogma is a way of controlling other people. Yes. And I think, you know, one of the analogies that you made when you started speaking just a minute ago, I thought it was really great because it really defines what spirituality is.

You talked about us all as travelers. And spirituality really is a journey. That's what spirituality is. That's maybe one of the best ways to define it, that it is a journey. But I think you're right, you know, this for centuries, there's been this sort of, conflict between science and spirituality, between the scientific and the spiritual. And we see it even in the mystics of the Middle Ages. I'm thinking about somebody like Hildegarde of Bingham.

Hildegarde of Bingham was a brilliant, brilliant botanist and knew everything about plants. I mean, it was just incredible, plants, herbs, unbelievable. And it's interesting that we've almost come full circle because here we are in the 21st century now. And that's what people are doing again. You know, there's this meme on the internet about antibiotics, right? You know, take this root, you know, well, no, don't take this root. That's evil, right? Take this drug instead.

And now we're back to take this root again. And so it's almost come around, you know, 180 degrees. We've returned to where we started. She would have been, she was a medicine woman. She was. She was a medicine woman. She was a garden of being. She was.

You know, she understood herbs and for healing and apparently had her own herb garden and knew which plants could do what. And, you know, there's plants that heal. There's plants that kill. So there's there's a there's these are apprenticeship paths. And that's also a large part of it. Um, you know, is people, people want instant enlightenment. People want, um, they want a five minute something. that's going to, they want a pill that's going to make it's better. Western civilization is

deeply addicted to, I want it and I want it now. And the thought of, you know, Anne Wilson Sheafs when society is an addict, if you're not, if you're familiar with her work, and we have to look at it like that and with compassion. You know, it's so easy to point the finger and judge, but, hey, I'm looking at myself. I'm part of Western civilization too. So we have to take this seriously. And if I change me, then that's the best thing I can do to try and support others into positive changes to live what I'm what I'm trying to teach, you know. And so we see that there's there's these paths, spirituality, a journey, yes, but it's it's a life one. Jack Cornfield, one of my teachers and who I've staffed with in retreats. His work is wonderful for those

of you who don't know it. He says enlightenment, it's the journey. It's not a place of arrival. It's that moment by moment. What it is, it's enlightened activity. In other words, in this moment, are my thoughts, my words, and my actions full of light. Are they, will they bring light? Will they shed light on whatever this moment is? Now, that's not easy to do. Let's be honest. True spiritual paths, if we're going to really let our spirituality unfold, these are apprenticeship paths. You're going to be doing it for the rest of your life. life the same way an artist is always working on the art a musician is always his name slipped my mind famous world famous celloist was being in your mom yeah and thank you in in in his 80s and i think it was your mom and if it's not his story but somebody else or maybe public public assaults so he was asked you know he was in his 80s and he was asked you know do you do you do you still practice and he says, oh, yes, I practice every day. And he says, really? The interview says, really? And the table says, yes, and I actually think I'm starting to approve. So this is true spirituality is

I think I'm starting to get somewhere. I'm realizing how little I know that what I know is a grain of sand, which is the reverse of, you know, Western civilizations. I know everything. Yeah. Well, it's looking at life as a process, right, and not focusing on product. And that's something which is rather anti-Western, right? I mean, we are trained to look at, you know, eyes on the prize, right? You know, we're going after something. We're going after the brass ring. We're looking to get something. And if we look at it more as a process, as a journey, and this is where I, I mean, I teach a course on Jungian archetypes, and I do a lot with Young. And, you know, this is right out of Young is this whole idea that you may not make it to the goal. It may not reach it. You know, it's funny my students will say, you know, well, do you think that that Young ever experienced individuation? And I say, probably not because, I mean, he doesn't really make it clear in his last work that he has, you know, gone over the mountaintop.

as a case may be. And my students are just horrified at that. And they're like, well, why would you work at all this if you're not going to achieve it? Because they're so ingrained with the idea that, you know, you work towards a goal and you get something. Right. I mean, it's the trophy generation, right? Where, you know, you achieve something and you have to get something as a result, something tangible. And life doesn't always work that way.

It's a great point. You know, and it brings up this other idea. Like those are great points. And I just want to ask you, what I'm hearing in here is this idea that suffering is kind of the journey. And I think spirituality addresses suffering. We're in the West and even in science. It seems to deny that suffering is something worthwhile. It seems to turn its head, turn its focus away from suffering, where spirituality is trying to explain to you that suffering is,

is the thing that's going to get you where you need to go. Dr. Jessica, what is your take on this idea of suffering and spirituality? Well, you know, so many things pop into my mind. You know, the four great truths of the Buddha, you know, life is difficult. No one escapes illness or suffering. We all age. We all die. You know, these are, you know, four pillars of the foundation of understanding life.

if you don't get that. You know, and we all have our nose pressed up the first one and don't like it. Life is difficult. We don't want life to be difficult. In Western civilization, we're spoiled. You know, first to put my hand up and say, yes, I'm spoiled.

I turn my top. I have water. I can drink. I flick a switch. I have electricity. I can see and use my computer. We're so spoiled when we take it for granted. You know, we forget that life is difficult.

so when difficult things come along, we aren't prepared for them. Nothing. And in our civilization, we're trying to protect our children, and we're trying to give them only good and beautiful and wonderful experiences and protect them from, you know, we pretty up aging or we disappear at somewhere. We pretty up suffering. You know, it's like the Buddha's early years when he's held imprisoned in the palace because his parents don't want him to see suffering, death, illness, poverty, the things that are,

but while we're sitting here, there are people around the world who don't have water, who don't have food, who don't have safety, who don't have shelter. And that's the reality. And how do we teach our children to have gratitude for all the good things that we have, but not to take them for granted? And that's not easy to do. And if you aren't living, if you don't have those principles in your life, principles of gratitude and not taking things for granted, if they're not there in your life, how do you teach them to your children? Yeah, it's very difficult.

And I think that's one of the real balancing acts as a parent in the West, which is the only way I can speak to it because that's all I'm familiar with being a parent in the West, is balancing that protection with. the danger of insulation and isolation and, you know, ending up, you know, locking the child up, as the Buddhist parents did early on in his life to protect him. I think that the reality that life is suffering is difficult and is something which some people know rationally and intellectually, but they don't really understand it. And if you forgive me, let me tell a quick story. When I taught in South Dakota, I taught in Western South Dakota at the university for five years at the beginning of my career. And one of the requirements by the state was that students who were going to become elementary school teachers had to go through this at the time.

They were calling it multicultural training, you know, just back in the very early 2000s. And the way that they thought that we were going to accomplish that is we would send the kids down to the Lakota reservation at Pine Ridge to be exposed to another culture. Because for anybody who is not aware, a lot of those Indian reservations are very, themselves are very isolated and insulated and intentionally so. On their part, they don't deal with the outside very much. So we would load these kids, almost all white, rather privileged kids, onto a school bus and then send them down to Pine Ridge for the day. And it became a ritual every year that when we did that, there were several of us on the faculty who would be there when we saw them off in the morning and then we would be there when they arrived back in the afternoon. and the difference in their, just their emotional state, I will never forget one young woman getting off of us at the end of the day and looking at me and she looked like she'd just seen a ghost. And I said, what's up? And she said, I had no idea there was poverty like that. And it was this slap in the face that, yes, there is suffering.

and seeing it in this real visceral way, you know, as I say, we know it intellectually, but that doesn't mean anything because as Dr. Jessica says, I, you know, I have tap water every day. I can turn on the electricity. I'm going to watch my football game this afternoon. You know, I mean, everything is just wonderful. But there are people who really do suffer. And I think that for many of us, we don't really understand what that is. And that is the fault of our Western culture, which has increasingly made things being easy and fast the touchstone of existence. If it's the least bit difficult, I mean, you know, and I mean, just look at things the way they are today. I had a colleague years ago, she had a little boy, and he, he

They were watching TV. And for some reason, I don't know why. A new commercial came on for the Dean Martin Roasts, if we remember those. They were selling tapes of the Dean Martin Roasts. He thought at the age of three years old, these things were just the funniest things he'd ever seen. Of course, he didn't understand anything that was going on. But I guess it was rather slapstickish, and he thought it was just so funny. He convinced his mother, he said, we got to buy these.

So she acquiesced and she called the number And this is the early days of the internet And ordered the tapes And she hung up the phone and he said, okay, let's go And she said, where? He said, out to the mailbox Because he just expected that they were going to be there Immediately

Because that's the kind of culture that we live in And I just think that that example Is just a perfect example of how you know, we look at delay, and I think, you know, Dr. Jessica was talking about this with this trial journey. We look at the, we look at delay as equivalent to suffering. Oh, I can't have this now. Oh, my God, is that just awful? I'm just horrible. I can't have this now. I have to wait, you know, because Amazon Prime isn't going to deliver until tomorrow. Oh, oh, well, that, you know, I'm always amazed when things show up so fast.

You know, there's, are you familiar with the fathers of the desert? No, absolutely. Yeah, I assumed you would be. So one of their principles is the ability to delay gratification. Right. And these are, you know, these core principles that we can talk about are so profound. It doesn't matter if they were, you know, kind of sketched out 2,000 years ago, 6,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago. They are so relevant to today and the same core teachings.

They're not going to change a thousand years from today. They will be saying, oh, these core teachings are the same. Okay, life is difficult. You know, we all need to learn how to have the ability to delay gratification and develop the patience and respect and all of these qualities that we need to have. Looks like we have another. But in many ways, that's subject though, right? in many ways that's subjective because it's how you see it through your own lens.

Exactly. Right. So what's suffering to me is different from what's suffering to somebody else. Yes. And for that matter, what's suffering at a certain time in history is different from what it is at another time in history. I'm sorry, George. No problem. It's such a fascinating conversation.

I keep hearing points. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's beautiful. Oh, that's beautiful. We should talk about this. But before we continue our conversation, I wanted to introduce Benjamin George, aka Mr. Wizard. Benjamin, we're here with Dr. David and Dr. Jessica. And I'm confident that Benjamin can jump, and he's one of us in that he has the ability

to quickly follow and understand. So Benjamin, thanks for being here today. And since you are just popping in right now, I have a question that's aimed for you, my friend. All right. So as you were able to jump in here, we began talking a little bit about suffering. and what it means to you and experiencing it that. So let me just pass that off to you.

And your idea, when I say suffering and spirituality, how do you think those two things are connected? Very intimately, typically. In my experience, I would say my suffering led me down the path of spirituality. And it was just one of those. I came at it from a very different perspective. I was raised in the church and then shortly after I became kind of involved in technology and science and process. I left that path and was, you know, very much a systems guy and, you know,

trying to figure the world out from that perspective. And in doing so, you know, it led me to, you know, a theory of information. It led me to the philosophy of my book. And through that whole experience, all of a sudden I found myself back on a spiritual. path and that and that whole you know that whole process was in in some instances a very strong long path of suffering you know due to choices i made obviously many of them but also because of the world and that's kind of where the philosophy was born to kind of you know take that idea and how do you know how do you remove suffering from somebody's life? How do you allow them to take that step through suffering?

And that's where kind of the philosophy of no absolutes, in part, was born from. It's interesting. And you know, let me shift gears for a moment here. And, hey, Ben, can you turn the gain on your mic a little bit? I think it's, I think it might be your, nice. Or let me just try it. this. I'm sorry. Okay, that's better. I just put on that side. So, Dr. Jessica, I want to talk about states, alternative states, especially spirituality. When I think, I'm sorry, I'm having a difficult

time getting this question out here. The concept of transitions from normalcy to alternate states of consciousness. I know that's a big question and a big topic, but I think that you have the ability to kind of move us down that path. So when I say to you the concept of transition, what is this transition from normalcy to alternate states of consciousness? Okay. So I teach this a lot. This is one of my favorite topics. And those of you who are interested, there's plenty of videos on my, on my website. I offer all the videos free of charge for educational purposes, because I really want people to try and understand this in the largest audience possible.

First of all, consciousness. Scientists are still trying to figure out what consciousness is. And I address this in volume one of ayahuasca awakening. Consciousness like we have to understand that it's a continuum and its awareness back into kind of Buddhism and other practices. It is awareness. Our awareness of where we are, what we are, what we're experiencing. So that's, you know, when we're driving our car, all of our focuses on driving the car, as it should be.

Okay, we shouldn't be smoking a cigarette, eating a hamburger, drinking, a coffee talking on the phone. All right. I have this whole rap I do with my granddaughters about safe driving that includes this whole hilarious wrap about that, you know. And so our focus goes on what we're doing. So if we're doing, if we're writing a paper, let's say, you know, some of us are marking papers, okay? Then our focus is very clearly on one thing. So we're bringing, we have as human beings, we have this awareness, and we have the ability to focus our awareness.

That's vastly different from what is consciousness. Okay, so we need to, awareness is how we focus our consciousness. Like you have a camera where you put the lens and how you focus on an image that you're looking at to be able to take your photograph. Okay. So consciousness is something that exists. on a continuum. Our awareness of consciousness is something that is like the weather or the seasons. It's constantly changing. Moment by moment, we may have a little twinge in our knee,

and then all our awareness goes to the twinge in the knee, right? Okay, we may have awareness of, oh, I forgot I need to do that. Okay? And so it's, how do we distinguish between awareness and consciousness? So we put that down for a moment, and we come back to the, you know, because everybody knows it to try and define consciousness or non-ordinary states of consciousness is, again, the flip side. We can say lots of words about consciousness and non-ordinary states of consciousness, but that's all it is, is a whole lot of talking, trying to really define it. What we need to do is experience it.

We really need to experience it. So non-ordinary states of consciousness are indigenous to being human. We have them all the time. We have them all the time. we can have them almost anywhere. You can be sitting on the metro or you can be sitting on the top of a mountain. And you can have a shift in your experience of your own consciousness. And so your consciousness can expand.

Now, we have to remember that the human body is a filtering mechanism. We don't smell like a dog and see like a hawk. And, you know, all of our senses are designed so that our human experience can do what it needs to do for survival, right? The same way a dog does what it does, a dolphin, a hawk, you know, choose whatever, an ant. Okay. Their bodies are filtering mechanisms, and yet you go past that. Okay, so we hear and a range, we see an arrange, all of this is in volume two, okay?

The circle of wholeness. We hear, see, smell in a range, because can you imagine having our awareness slash consciousness so that we could experience everything, smell everything, see everything, hear everything, we'd go cuckoo in within seconds because the incoming stimuli would be overwhelming. Simply overwhelming, our brain would not be able to sort it out. So we then find that our brains, the same way the computers that we're sitting in front of and communicating, and they are not, I'm not actually in the computer, okay, neither are you. you and the computer and the systems, okay, are simply there as transmissions of information.

And so if we look at our brain as being a transmitter of consciousness rather than the source of consciousness, I think that that's the model that I'm more comfortable with. I'm not saying it's the end all and be all and the only truth and let's now set up an altar and light candles on it. What I am saying is that's the definition that works for me right now, okay, and it's been working for a while, is that the brain is the mediator, the transmitter of consciousness. But then so is our heart chakra. Okay, so it's all our whole chakra body. Once you start really looking into these things, it's simple and it's complex, all at the same moment. So the true non-ordinary states of consciousness, as we move along the continuum of non-ordinary states,

then you do need to be seated or lying down because if you were entering into, for example, the sacrament we work with, the Santo Daini, or most people will know is ayahuasca. Okay, but ours is only the two plants. It's very specific as there's no admixtures in our sacrament. So when we take that, we're in ritual. We are certainly not driving our car or hanging out in our kitchen or in a just go somewhere. Absolutely not. We are in a ritual.

Rituals that have been created to create physical safety, psychological safety, and spiritual safety, in which the very deep and profound experiences that can come from the awakening of or expanding of consciousness, that is then the non-ordinary, you're not driving a car in this state, allows for people to access things within themselves. It's like if you look at the back of your hand, here's your skin. If you look at it, it looks like one thing. Take a microscope looks like something completely different. So the more known ordinary state or look out, go outside at night,

and look at the stars, and then look at the photographs that we get back from the Hubble telescope or the VLT with the very large telescopes. And you go, wow, you know, the naked eyes never. going to see that. So that's those are some analogies about non-ardinary states. Again, I probably haven't even touched answering the question. I'm sure that Dr. David and Mr. Wizard can jump in with some more add-ins on. Dr. Jessica, let me ask you something because you mentioned, I like that idea of talking about consciousness. The brain is a transmitter of consciousness. Is that, do I get that right? Yeah, a mediator. A mediator. And the problem, of course, for many people,

people is, and again, we're mired in the West because that's where we are, is they, that doesn't work because they want something tangible, right? The scientific, rational 21st century mind wants to be able to point to the spot and say, that's where it is. And that's why, you know, the faculty psychology is somebody like Thomas Aquinas and then as it developed later on, was so attractive because, oh, well, this part of the brain is responsible for my feelings of lust, right? And I could point right to it and understand that scientifically, well, pseudoscientifically. And when you start to talk about consciousness as being something that's less tangible and more of an abstraction, that's where a lot of people have a real problem.

And it's the same thing when we start discussing the nature of faith. Yes. Right? When we look at religious traditions and spiritual traditions and talk about the nature of faith and what faith is and how some people's faith can be so incredibly strong and just a part of who they are. I mean, a woman I knew growing up. I marveled at her faith. I never could understand that. I still don't understand the power of her faith, how strong her faith was. I admired her for it, but it baffled me. And I think consciousness is part of that too. You know, if you can access those alternate states of

consciousness. And, you know, I've experienced some of this in my life with through, I mean, as I say, when I was out in South Dakota, going to sweat lodges and experiencing in way, I remember, you know, in the 1980s doing the isolation tanks down in the village in New York City. And it was all about, you know, accessing that other way of existing. But I think the, the sort of the kick in the pants comes in the fact that, You got to come back. You can't stay there. We want to stay there.

It's like what we talk about. We talk about mystical experiences, right? If you have a mystical experience, that's what you want to be. But isn't that what we call death? If we look at the eastern models of reincarnation, where the soul reincarnates, you know, and again, these are models, and people believe what they want to believe. But if we look at, and if we've had, if we've touched into experiences,

polytropic breath work, Stan Groff's work, profound possibilities of exploring within yourself without mediating through substances or sacred plants, okay? And, you know, this accessing these other realms, you know, there's many of us who believe, well, that's what happens when you die. You just leave this body behind and then this little. For people who've had encounters of experiencing past lives, people who have had experiences in their life of connections with the deceased,

with their ancestors, with loved ones who've passed. I mean, there's so much research on this. We can't ignore it. But there's glimpses, aren't they? Their glimpses, they're moments. They're not sustained. I don't think they can be a gain. Right.

how to function in real life. Exactly. I had an experience, I'll share it very briefly, and I'd be interested in both Mr. Wizard and such a cute name, and Dr. David, in kind of your understanding of this. I had an experience. I've had profound spiritual experiences since I'm a child, so my journey, all my explorations through different religions

and spiritual traditions and in the ashrams and with the Buddhists and in the trainings and the trans personal world and all my academic studies and everything that's been the thrust towards understanding myself. Okay, all of it. It's been my spiritual journey unfolding. But a lot of my experience have not been mediated by even the last 25 years, by 26 years of working with our sacrament. Most of them were just spontaneous. So one of my experiences was that I was starting to fall asleep. It was night and I was starting to fall asleep. And I felt my vibration change.

So I was lying flat on my back in my bed. And my vibration, my husband was beside me fast asleep already. And I felt my vibration change. And I felt as if I was ascending. And I'd had these experiences before. I felt as if I was ascending into the light. And I became absolutely one with the light. It was a familiar and always terrifying, awe-inspiring, awe-inspiring.

experience, you have that mix of tremendous fear in there. It's automatic because it's like what they say about the old prophets. They felt like they were dead. And in that moment, my mind crept in, and I felt like I was on the ceiling of heaven and kind of plastered up in this light where everything was unity, oneness. And something in my mind spoke up and said, what is beyond this? And the voice, you know what I mean by the voice, answered me and said,

as long as you're still connected to your human body, you don't know. You can't know. It was as simple as that. It's like, okay, we're sending you back now. And you're asking too many questions. Okay, back. How's my sound now, George? That sounds, it sounds, that does sound.

There's not a whole lot of background, but it sounds better. Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to. chime in terms of, I like to classify consciousness as a transceiver, both a transmitter and a receiver, right? And I just wanted to touch on that. I could go back into that, but we kind of moved on. Your story brought up a similar story for me, Doctor. And when I had, I was in a dream state, and I died in that dream state. Now, everything I knew to that point, you can't die in the dream, right? You know, things kind of go black and people wake up is the typical kind of articulated experience.

But everything went white for me. And I was similar to you. I was in just a, I was completely enveloped in light. And then upon waking up, I ended up, I wasn't able to move for about five to seven minutes. My whole body was just in, you know, this tingling and I couldn't really actually feel my extremities. And so, you know, back to what we were talking or what you guys were talking about in terms of, you know, having that ability to, you know, be in those states and then transcend and bring them back, you know, it was one of those things where I was so far away in that state that I completely lost any sort of kind of physical control over my body. And it took a while to recover. But it was such a, it was such a profound experience because it wasn't, you know, there was no fear attached to it. It was, it was like, oh my goodness. I died. That's what it felt like. And then I was and then I came back and I was thrust back and I woke up and it's just like, wow, fascinating. So when you said that, it triggered that memory for me. These are regular normal human experiences. People are often shy to share them in our culture particularly because they get laughed at. They get me fun of. They get discounted. Or, unfortunately,

Fortunately, you get diagnosed, okay? And especially if your experience has been profound enough that it now takes you into what we call spiritual emergency rather than spiritual emergence. Spiritual emergence is like the gradual awakening where you can work with what's arising. Spiritual emergencies when it comes up in a great big volcanic heave and you can't function in your everyday life very well

because there's too much happening on the internal level. And that sadly in our, again, I address all of this set of books. And that sadly is what happens far too much in our culture. In older cultures, they would take care of the person. They would understand the person had had a profound experience. The shaman would start thinking, hmm, maybe this is my next apprentice. Okay, obviously, if they can access the other realms, they have a gift of being able to learn how to do the shaman's walk,

one foot in that realm, one foot in this realm, which our culture does, has no idea how to help people integrate that. And this is one of, you know, maybe Dr. David and Mr. Wizard, you can jump in on this, but George, I was hoping today we were also going to address what's happening with psychedelics and Nphigens in our culture, how people are grabbing them as instant cures or, you know, take this and your depression's gone and take this and your anxiety's gone and all that jazz where that's completely, you know, the opposite of everything that I learned in transpersonal psychology, which is there's something inside of you that you need to discover or learn to be able to understand why you're anxious and what that depression is about and depression can be useful because it becomes the next step in understanding ourself and addressing what's happening in our life. It makes perfect sense, and I think it's a perfect segue into this idea of the reality in which we live. I had written down that I think that the Western culture we live in, and this is going to

move us under the world of psychedelics and the world of spirituality and how they intertwined. But I think the public sees this area of spirituality and psychedelics as not only as unscientific, but is alien and menacing, alien in its connection to Eastern thought and menacing in its potential for social disruption withdrawal. And so I want to, I believe that the world of medicine today doesn't solve problems. They solve symptoms. The world of medicine today doesn't really care about getting in and removing that block, removing that trauma. What they care about is putting a patch on it so that you can continue to live in trauma.

I think spirituality and psychedelics being a part of getting in touch with spirituality allows you to figure out what that problem is if you're willing to do the work, but it allows you to find out what that problem is and then begin working towards it. And I think that that is what we're beginning to see today with psychedelics is this. I almost feel like psychedelics are a Trojan horse into medicine. It's allowing, right? It seems like, okay, here's this thing that's been around forever. And now it's going to come into medicine and allow the people administering the quote-unquote health to become healthy people. What do you think about that, Dr. Jessica?

The idea of psychedelics potentially being a Trojan horse into medicine. Okay. Well, first of all, I have to say the word said about, kind of, I don't, I'm not so comfortable with the generalization. I think that I know so many, I have so many colleagues who are brilliant physicians, brilliant psychiatrists, brilliant doctors working in their field. So if I can, and forgive me for saying this, just feel I need to give them a voice and who are, who works so hard. And, you know, I've had all kinds of, I'm cancer survivor, I've had different, all kinds of medical things happen, and taking care of some in this

moment, I have wonderful doctors. So, yes, there are some doctors who just say to take a veil and go away. I think maybe you're referring to more, you know, if we're talking about all doctors in general, I have to say, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, keep up the good work. However, there exists in psychiatry and psychology. This particular, you know, there's a percentage. There's a percentage, the same way there is in accountants and dentists and every other, you know, kind of occupation. and profession. There are people who just have their set idea of what works and they're not going to get out of that box. We have to understand that, again, that box is very well structured

by industry. Let's take a long, fully breath and just simply say industry and the pharmaceutical industry has a huge hand in this. And as an example, many years ago, I mean, I've lectured at all the hospitals and I was lecturing up at the Allen Memorial to all the psychiatrists. And, you know, they were coming and going as their call beepers would go off and whoever was on call. And when we came to the question period, one doctor said, I came in late because I was on call and I didn't know even who you are. But I want to know, this was so refreshing. This is the first time in two years that we've had a speaker who was not a pharmaceutical rep.

So that's the core. That's of the core is we have to look at how do we navigate in a world where industry plays and money plays such a large role in what doctors learn, what is happening in medical school. Now, certainly what's happening in psychiatry. People want answers for suffering. Everybody, I mean, you know, we don't like pain. Okay, whether it's emotional pain or physical pain. None of us like pain. Can we learn how to manage it?

Yes. Would it be wonderful if we were taught breathing techniques and relaxation techniques and herbal remedies and changing our diet and, you know, physiotherapy and exercise and all those wonderful things that help with emotional and physical pain? That's not where our medical system's at. Okay. Did I answer your question, at least in part? And the problem is, and I like the distinction that you make.

I mean, yeah, I mean, it's dangerous. I mean, I think it was, you know, William Blake said, you know, all general relations are bad, including this one. So, you know, it's, it's, the problem really surfaced when Western medicine got mixed up with something called capitalism, right, and became a business. I mean, you talk about big pharma. I mean, it's discussed what's going on. And so I think that that's part and parcel of it. I mean, I remember the first time that I went to go see a so-called naturopath when I was in graduate school.

And I was stunned that he sat with me and talked to me for an hour and a half. I'd never had a physician do that in my entire life. It's mind-blowing to me. It makes me, we talked earlier about goal orientation and process orientation. It seems like modern medicine has more of a goal orientation on an end. tinged with consumption, like this idea of goals and consumption have seemed to be what the West has moved on, where maybe this idea of spirituality is more of a process. And that gets us into the idea of suffering and healing. Healing seems more of a process and goals seem more of a, you know, more of a consumptive process. And I think that's what big pharma is. It's like this, it's this melding together of consuming, which is a mindset as well as a, as, as, a goal-oriented process. But what do you think, David, about the idea of goal orientation versus process orientation?

Well, I mean, as Dr. Jessica said, I mean, you know, much of what Western medicine tends to treat is symptoms. Right. We don't look at the source of pain and suffering. We look at just putting a band-aid over things so it can continue on. And, of course, you know, Big Pharma has just, I mean, loves that because you're going to continue to take meds. You're going to continue to pass. One of the most frightening ideas that I've read in the recent time is the idea that we cure cancer easily. But if we do it, what is that is that going to mean for our structure or economic structure? So much of which is looped into what now has

become a cancer industry, right, between big pharma and the medical industry. And it's just, it's, it's, it's mind-blowing to think about what would, what, what it will look like if and when we find the cure for cancer, so-called. What will that do? I mean, it will really transform us as a, as a species. But it's also going to transform our culture and our society in, in tremendous. ways. I mean, I'm too young to have lived through the polio vaccine and what went on with that. But I'm sure that that was something similar. Well, do you actually think, you know, I'm not sure where we are on time on the show now, George. You're the clockkeeper on this, I guess. But, you know, I'm a lot older than you guys on the show.

I'm 73 today. It happens to be my birthday, and it's kind of had a birthday. Happy birthday. Thank you so much. And so I remember, I remember before television. I, you know, I've seen a lot of changes that my mom is 101 years old. I was just speaking to her before. So there's, you know, there's been a lot of changes in the last hundred years. I personally think I don't think that they're ever going to find a cure. They think they continue to find better treatments.

And I think that that cancer is something that they find cancer everywhere they do autopsies and they do examinations. they find cancer reviewer. I think it's just part of being human. And I think that if we're really healthy and well, then our body is able to take care of those little mutations that happen from time to time. And if we're not well,

or if we have some genetic factors that just load us in a certain way, you know, these are things that they're finding out. And it's been my belief that, you know, as I said, I've lectured in all of the local hospitals here and wherever I get invited whoever people are interested in trying to have a broader perspective on things and I think that if we can support our doctors on even on an individual basis by giving them the positive feedback and telling them listen I realize that you know I'm

going to change my diet because I need to lose that extra whatever it is weight or you know I'm going to start an exercise program or can you send me to a nutritionist can you advise me to go you know, somewhere. So we need to, instead of going in, I have an ouchy, can you fix it? Because we've trained our doctors to, I have an ouchy, can you fix it? Okay. Instead of, I have an ouchy, and I would like to learn how I can work with that ouchy, okay? What can I do? And all my doctors know this about me. They know that I'm going to say, okay, well, what can I do? I don't want to just take, you know, this. I'm going to take the least amount of your medication that I need to to manage the situation until I can space it or not take it

at all. I'm grateful for antibiotics. I'm grateful to the pharmaceutical industry immensely. Thank you for the anesthetic when I've needed surgeries instead of like a piece of wood between my teeth and maybe a bottle of rum or something. Thank you for the general anesthetic. And for all the skills and everything that they have. I have all the gratitude for that. Thank you to the pharmaceutical industry. But I don't want to give you too much power. And we have to take responsibility, which we, as a people, I don't think we do, because again, we go in. I have an out-she. Give me something to make it go away. Instead of, I have an out-chee, help me understand how I can work with the ouchy. Maybe I need to have a postural correction, or maybe I need to take up an exercise program, or need to work with stress

management, or maybe I need to get a divorce or change my job or go back to school. And that's going and fix my ouchy. And I think a lot of this stems from, when George touched on it earlier, you know, especially in the West, we have this just robust system of consumerism. And when you factor that into, you know, now medicine kind of has a central capitalistic component, which you touched on, you know, I think that kind of paints the picture for the world that we inhabit today and what we see and why people have these reactions to this. why a lot of people, you know, are looking at psychedelics is, hey, I can go have a, you know,

a ketamine retreat and all of a sudden I'm cured. You know, I think this all kind of plays together. And I think, you know, to George's point, a little bit of the Trojan horse, you know, I think we're going to see the next steps in this kind of be, you will have two paths that kind of a birch. You're going to have a lot of these kind of retreat things that are going to be the promise of cures and fix all. and fix my ouchy please. And then I think we're going to continue to see another growing path, which is more in alignment to the spirituality side of things where, you know,

it is taking the reflection in the black mirror. It is doing work. It is walking down the path. It is, you know, figuring out what can I do that helps, you know, fix my ouchy, you know, what steps do I have to do? What sort of exercise do I have to do? What sort of nutritional changes must I do? And I think, you know, we've talked about it in other podcasts, but, you know, everybody has the idea that things are cyclical.

And I think, you know, things are cyclical up until the point that that's basically bringing you back to that point where if it's letting you know that, I'm sorry, my volume keeps messing up on this. I don't know why. But it brings you back to the point of, again, you're repeating these processes. and those are the moments, I think, are inflection points where, these are inflection points where if we can make these changes, if we can have these reflections, that's where we get to move up in a helical process. And that's where the growth comes from.

I would call it even a bit pretentiously the path to enlighten. Speaking to what Dr. Jessica was talking, that earlier, we go back to the noble truth that life is suffering, I mean, many people just have this complete aversion to that idea. So, you know, if I, and I love our, our collective discussion of the Awees, right? I mean, you know, if I've got an Awee, I just, I want to fix because I don't want to suffer. Life shouldn't be suffering. I don't want to suffer at all. And so that, that sort of drive to get the magic pill. right i mean you know people go and they don't want to do the work and i think they don't want to do the work

if it's if it's if it's if it's a physical alley or if it's a psychological alley right that the psychological ali they just you know give me this annex i'll be fine right give me that instead of doing the work and doing the work which is something which you know so many therapists like to talk about you know you've got to be willing to do the work And it is. It is a very active involvement in your own suffering. You have to go down deep into that in order to understand it. And that is, A, incredibly difficult. B, it can be terrifying.

And C, it is not going to happen overnight. It's going to take a while. And we live in, you know, the instant culture where, you know, I'm going out to the mailbox. Where are my tapes? Right? I just ordered them. That's beautiful.

I want to read a quick passage that I think ties together this idea of suffering, the idea of medicine, the idea of mysticism, and the accounts of someone from long ago. And I think it ties together just so much of what we're talking about. And so if you'll just allow me a moment here, I think everybody will enjoy this. And I'd like to get your guys' opinion on this. I saw an angel close to me.

on my left side in bodily form. This I am not accustomed to see unless very rarely. Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision, such as I have spoken of before. It was our Lord's will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature

and most beautiful, his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels who seemed to be all of fire. They must be those whom we call cherubim. I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and pierce my very entrails.

When he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love for God. The pain was so great that it made me moan, and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily but spiritual, though the body has its share in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of love so sweet, which now takes place between the soul and God, and I pray God of His goodness to make Him experience it who may think that I am.

line. That's from St. Teresa. And she's just having this cherubim thrust this spear into her heart. And I think about the psychedelic experience. I think about death. And I think about suffering when I read that passage. And if anyone has been lucky enough to see that piece by

Bernini, like you can just see in her face this ecstasy of pain. And I think that that sums up so much of the suffering and the psychedelic experience and what people must go through in order to be okay with death and okay with suffering. And so Dr. Jessica Rochester, I would love to get your opinion on this idea of psychedelics,

this idea of suffering, this idea of medicine. And might these spiritual states be something that we must learn to confront death? Well, yes. Yes, yes, too all. Yes, in as many words, you know what, I was listening to your reading. and thank you for sharing that. And, you know, for the people in the listening audience or watching audience who are shuddering at the thought of it.

And then there's both of us that, yeah, I've had that experience. You know, what I want to do is I want to share my Bichina, my Bishina, she passed about five years ago now, but she was an extremely well-known medium and psychic in the Santo Daini-Umbanda line. many generations in her family, umbrana priestesses, and a very extremely gifted woman and one of my teachers. And she always would say, you know, it's so interesting. She says, around the world, they're the same beings, but they wear a slightly different outfit,

and they have a slightly different name. So it's, you know, it's, it's old groom here, and it's St. George there, and, you know, and the, you know, the archangel, St. Michael, it just has a different name and a different outfit. And so these profoundly powerful beings, okay, these guardians of the light, these profound beings that we can encounter in non-ordinary states of consciousness, whether they are spontaneous, whether they are activated by illness or accident or giving birth, you'd be surprised how many women give birth and have profound, apart from everything else that's going on, have these profound moments either during or during or just. just after and then fall into a depression because they don't know how to integrate it, right? So we have these experiences and then what do we do with them? What do we do with them? How do they change our life?

Isn't that what it's really about? When we have, you know, that what she experienced St. Teresa, that would be considered a shamanic extraction in shamanism. what she was experiencing. You just take the slightly different setting and culture, and this is a classic shamanic extraction in which a being, however the being appears to you, goes into your physical space

and starts extracting and removing things that are, and I've had this happen to me spontaneously, and, of course, in works when we're taking our sacrament, where you actually have the experience of something being removed, you or something being being changed. I remember a long time ago now many, many years ago, being sitting quietly in a work. And it was actually a mastery walked into the work.

And he stood beside me and he kind of put his hand in my head. He rearranged something. And I'm sitting there absolutely frozen thinking, am I imagining this is this happening? What is, you know, just kind of paralyzed by the experience. he just rearranged something, looked at me and walked off. Okay. And I've accounted him a couple of times.

Once I was laid out in a work, I mean, it just like that, he said to me, lie down. And again, this was decades ago, lie down. Okay, I wasn't, thank God, leading the work, but it was, I was visiting friends and what have you. So I lay down and opened up. And again, I felt as you walk in and he stood. he just stood in my first chakra and he looked down at me and he said this is grounded got it walked away and it's like how do I live with that now this is grounded messery what's you mean by that you know and these profound experiences they change your life if if you don't work with them and allow

them to inform how you're going to be with them and how you're going to integrate them and let them become part of your everyday life, then I believe that you become ill on some level. That blocked energy, that unintegration, that not taking the teachings and working with them, it will lead to some kind of malaise somewhere. So again, I'm not sure if I answered your question. It was beautiful. I think it answered it really well. And I love the stories. I love the experience.

And I think that the listening audience and everybody here is wildly excited to hear about it. And thank you for sharing it. It's really fun for me. And David, if I asked you about that passage and spirituality, what would be, what comes to your mind when you hear that? Well, I mean, as Dr. Jessica was speaking and mentioning the fact that a lot of women have these experiences at, at childbirth, I think about somebody like Marjorie Kemp, to the medieval mystics, a woman who had, I believe, was 14 children, and experienced, you know, incredible suffering after the birth of many of those children,

which she appears to have interpreted as spiritual experience, but our doubting Western minds look and say, well, there's something wrong with you. You know, I think about, we mentioned Holy Garda Bing and earlier. There have been some recent studies in the medical journals in the last 20 years where they've gone back and looked at her writing and try to analyze her experiences from a particularly medical perspective to try to explain away what was wrong. And one of the one of the classic explanations I remember that came out was an article published. in a medical journal that said, well, Helicorne Bingham didn't have mystical experiences. She had migraine headaches.

You know, look at the illuminations and the way that she paints, the pain of God coming into her head. Those are migraine headaches. You know, recently explanations that Marjorie Kemp, when she fell incredibly ill and almost died, probably had appendicitis, given what she was describing. But again, it's this obsession that we have in the West with, we have to explain it away.

It can't be something that is ineffable. It can't be an experience that is spiritual because that's just a lot of hogwash. We have to understand everything rationally. And so if you have some kind of experience like that, as Dr. Jessica mentioned, you know, you get diagnosed, right? You get diagnosed. You get a manual definition, you know, definition, you know, something from the, from the DSM gets put on your, you know, stamped on your file so that, you know, and why is that?

Well, again, we're back with the big medicine, right? I mean, so health insurance will pay for your therapy, right? So we'll explain it away. We couldn't just write on there that, well, you seem to have had a spiritual experience. You know, Blue Cross is not going to pay for that. It's fascinating to think about. To your point, sorry, sorry, George, but you know, to a couple of your points, Dr. David, thank you for sharing that. And yes, how do we help? Those of us who have spiritual,

first of all, she may have had appendicitance, but that doesn't cancel out. And, you know, you may have been having migraines, but that doesn't cancel out that she was also having spiritual experience. Exactly. You have to be in either or. You can have an illness or a condition and still have spiritual experiences and sometimes it's the illness that becomes the opportunity for spirituality to open the same way losing your job or getting a divorce or some unhappy accident or something like that becomes the doorway through which you go in which you develop aspects of yourself that

are needed on, you know, Camp Joseph Campbell's work, the hero's journey, is probably the penultimate description of the spiritual journey. It's the hero or heroine's journey. And along the way we have companions. And along the way we have to meet the dragon in the forest. And there's trolls under the bridge. And there's always that evil nemesis that we have to face down and come to terms, whether it's the Darth Vader or the wicked witch.

And whatever form that appears to us in our life, we have to be willing to face it. you know, because nobody... I like the idea that the suffering can be a portal to access that. I mean, and again, you know, because I started my career working on the medieval mystics, I think about Julianne of Norwich, right? Julian of Norwich, who was very ill, bedridden, and Jesus comes and sits down at the end of her bed and has a chat with her. And you say, well, what the heck is going on here?

Well, I mean, it's her suffering that a lot of her. allowed access to that. There's a wonderful Larry Darcy story. Sorry, sorry. No, please, please, go ahead. He had the idea to write a book, but he was so busy he kept putting it on one side. And Larry, if I get it wrong, you'll forgive me.

And so then he had, his back went out and basically got to be almost immobilized for a big chunk of period of time, like six months, or a year where he was basically flat on his back until, you know, after feeling, you know, that first piece where you just feel sorry for yourself, okay? And we need to allow that, but we don't want to indulge in it, and we don't want to set up a tent and live there, okay? That's a place to go through. It's not, it's like I always say to people when you're going through a dark passage. You don't set up your tent next to the seed law's soul, okay? It's a place to honor,

send light to, and keep walking. So, I see this lying there and he got over the, the feeling sorry for myself stage, he realized, oh, maybe now's the time I can write that book. And he did. Okay?

And he wrote this magnificent book on prayer. How perfect. How perfect. It blows my mind. And there's so many threads that I want to pull on right here, but I'm going to pull on this one right here.

This, it seems that in the spiritual experience, be it through suffering, be it through psychedelics, or be it through trauma. we're becoming more aware of the active imagery at the periphery of thought. And I don't think you can access that unless you have some sort of trauma, some sort of suffering. But I'm curious about this imagery at the periphery.

I thought it seems to tie into, it is almost ineffable. And it seems to tie in with why people are afraid to let, to talk about spirituality, Why people have a difficult time explaining spiritual experiences to people. The same way you have a difficult time explaining this imagery at the periphery of thought. And a lot of times in spiritual experiences or psychedelic experience, we get to a point where words and language fails. But might that be like an evolution? Might that be something that the human condition is working towards to be better?

Does that kind of make sense? What do you think about that, Mr. Wizard? No, I think it makes sense. You know, I think there's, and it ties back into the hero's journey, and it ties back into, you know, what we were speaking of before. And that periphery is, you know, it does become an effortable. And typically, I would say, you know, there is some sort of suffering involved in getting to that stage. But, you know, philosophy is kind of the school of thought that we kind of have created to explore these things, right?

And in modern times, you know, you can't explore these things, otherwise you get diagnosed often. It's just very recently that we're able to have these types of conversations out in, you know, much more in a public sphere. And I think that journey is going to lead us to find the words to be able to describe these experiences. experiences at a greater detail and find the meaning of them and find, you know, the purpose of this experience. But that the whole bit, the whole idea that these things exist on the periphery and that they are ineffable, right? And so how do we describe them? How do we, how do we put them into some kind of human language, whatever we mean by language? And I think about Jung's red book, right? Look at the red book, right? much of which is just absolutely baffling to anybody other than Young himself, right?

I mean, you look at it, you're like, what the heck is going on here? Show pages that to students, and they're just like, what? What is that? And I think that there's a way in which certain people, Young being one of them, are trying to express what that looks like. but it doesn't look like anything that we can understand. There's no there's no there's no way to decrypt it. And that can be very frustrating, right? You know, I mean, if you if you look at the red book

and look at the English translation of the red book, it's interesting. I doubt the translation captures every essence of what's in the book, the same way that is, Mr. Wizard's talking about philosophy. You know, when I study and teach German philosophers, it's always interesting because in English translations of German philosophers, the translators are always including, at points,

the original German word in parentheses, as if to say, we really can't translate this, but here you go. Because there's some of these terms that just you can't translate. You can't translate those experiences. How about if we become comfortable, that there are no words. Wow. You know, that's where we need to get to.

That there are no words. You know, I don't know if anybody else online is the scuba diver, but, you know, try and, you know, I'm, I used to, I don't so much anymore, but I used to scuba dive. I adored it. And there's a whole world under there. Now, try to imagine describing underwater, deep underwater on coral reefs and what you're seeing,

to somebody who lives, a young person who lives out in the desert somewhere, you know, close to the edge, let's say a Morocco close to the edge of the Sahara Desert, out in the Atlas Mountains somewhere. Because the only water they've seen comes from a well, you know, or a spring. They have no concept of what the ocean would be like. How do you describe that? So I think we can just simply do our best. You know, we say, what do you say about the ocean? It's blue. It's wet.

It's noisy. Have you got it yet? what you're describing reminds me of the gods must be crazy yeah the gods must be crazy so you know I think that we just need to accept that maybe that's not how it works and stop trying to make it work like that and and just you know it's like the people who describe the taste of wine you know it's got a fruity under tone

or something well it's not helpful it's just still a whole bunch of work but it doesn't give me the experience, you know. And so the things that we deeply know, try to describe love. Try to describe loss. You know, what you can do is, I think this is Jack Cornfield story, can I tell it because it's a real beaut. Okay, so, you know, choose any teacher you want who's sitting in there and go and sit, let's make him a Zen master, sitting in his garden and in a small village and,

and meditating and into the garden walks a woman. And she said, Master, my child has died, and I know you have the power to heal. So can you bring my daughter back to life? Can you bring my child back to life? So he breathes in and he takes home and he says, okay, I'll do that for you,

but you have to do something for me. Anything. Master, anything. I want you to go and bring me one grain of rice from the house where grief has not visited. I don't do that. I'll be back. probably today, right?

Okay, time passes. Time passes, time passes, a year passes. Master sitting, meditating in the garden, and he looks up and there's the woman. And he says, oh, you've brought me the grain of rice, and she says, no green of rice. But in the year of sharing my story, my grief is healed. So her going and sharing her grief

with people who had experienced grief, that's why support groups are so helpful. We need to share. People who have had profound spiritual experiences have problems in our culture because they need to speak to people who've had profound spiritual experiences. When I was having mine as a young teenager, the only solace I had at that point, bringing raised Anglican and in Montreal at that point

where there was no spirituality per se was reading the Old Testament and the experience of the prophets and saying to myself, Well, they didn't think they were crazy. So maybe I'm not crazy with what I experienced. You know, heaven parting me, seeing things. And so the same way, people who have grief need to share with people who've experienced grief. Not trying to explain their grief to someone who hasn't lost someone. You can't do it.

Okay? And so people who have profound spiritual experiences, they need to share those with people who've had profound spiritual experiences. And that's, I think, the only way it's going to work. That's beautiful. That is beautiful. Thank you for that. It hits home in a lot of ways. I don't have any words, too.

And that's the definition of irony. What a rewarding conversation this is. I'm so thankful for everybody being here. Thank you for this. I'm not sure which way to yank the wheel here. but let me ask you this at what point does at what point does contemplation become an alternate state of consciousness David do you want to take that one I'm stuck Dr. David would you like to take that one um that's an interesting question I don't know um I don't know that I would talk about it as an altered state of

consciousness I would talk about it as a higher state of consciousness, that the act of contemplation and being a contemplative person brings you to a higher state of consciousness, a higher state of awareness, and more of a... being more in touch with what it means to be human. I mean, I will often, you know, sort of force my students into this state because, I mean, there is no room for contemplation today, right?

I mean, life moves too fast. And contemplation requires time. And you got to slow down. And they just, they don't do that. And so it's very difficult. I mean, I was reading something the other day for one of my classes. that I'm teaching this summer. And it's a mildly difficult text, but it's not ridiculous.

You just need to spend some time with it. But I'm really concerned that my students, that's not the way they work anymore. They don't spend time with anything. It's just, let's just get right through it. And so the importance of taking those moments to reflect on existence to contemplate are really important. I mean, you know, example, I mean, you know,

because I work in higher ed, right? I mean, we are moving towards electronic books for everything, right? Personally, I hate them. And so students, they rarely go into the library and use physical books in the library anymore. Well, one of the courses that I teach is a course that I call Hamilton hyperspace. It's a course on writing and technology. And one of the first assignment, that I give them is I give each student a card, an index card, and I've gone through the library and written down call numbers of different books on each card. I try to align it with what they say their major is. And I ask them to go to that shelf, find the book that they have the call number for, and then not only look at that book, but look at all the books that are on that shelf around it.

And take them off the shelf, look at them, thumb through them, smell them, feel it. really look at them. And every year when I do this assignment, it's intriguing the way that students react to this because it requires that they slow down a little bit. And look at something that they wouldn't normally have looked at. You know, I talk with them about the importance of serendipity. Right.

I mean, you're going to find something that you're going to enjoy that you didn't even know existed. Isn't that great? But that's not going to happen if you are going through it like a bowl and a china shop, which is the way that most young people exist today. That's the way that our culture is encouraging people to be. I don't know if that answers your question, George. It's a beautiful answer. I'm thankful, and it makes me think things.

I would like to ask, excuse me, Dr. Jessica, I would like to ask you this same sort of question. Maybe it's true or maybe it doesn't true, but just your opinion on it is, At what point does deep contemplation become an alternate state of consciousness? Depends on the person. I think that that's already, again, looking at a continuum, okay? A continuum, whichever way you want it to go.

It's moment by moment, you know, anywhere you are, you're going to have those gentle shifts or abrupt shifts in your consciousness level or your awareness level. And so I don't think that we can put it so much on a scale like a, you know, a pedometer, you know, or, you know, in your car. Okay, now I'm going 30 kilometers. Now I'm going 40 kilometers. Now I'm going 50 kilometers. Okay.

And now, whoops, I just broke the, you know, the sound barrier. So at what point, you know, now I'm out in space. I don't think that we want to be able to physicalize it. We want to be able to describe it in a way that we're comfortable with, that then we can kind of control. I think, you know, many people have, you know, have from Ken Wilbur to, particularly like Holger Calvates, you know, his little ladder up of consciousness,

all the different kind of, you know, now it's beginning to be altered, You know, goes all the way up to cosmic consciousness. And we have to remember these are just models. I've got models in diagrams in my books, and they're just there to be helpful. One thing Stan Groff taught us was, the map is not the territory. Okay? Get it. The map is not the territory.

Because in the beginning, you're so busy with the map, you're so excited about the new cartography. that you want to keep putting the, you want to make the territory fit into the map. And it won't. The map, the cartography, is simply a guide. It's there to be useful to you. It's there for you to use. But it's not the territory when you're in it. You're in it.

It's like being the only woman here, I can say this, and you guys are just going to have to listen to it. It's like all those preparation for giving birth classes, those Lameese classes, but I don't know if you guys have children or you've been present at a birth. And it's an experience, right? It's an incredible one. Okay, but you take all these classes where, you know, you need to breathe and puff and do all of these things and what the midwife is going to do and the doctor is going to do and you go in.

Okay, that's the map. Okay. The territory is when you're actually there with the contrast. actions, okay? And all you can think of is it's almost useless. It's almost useless. Because somebody has to keep reminding you to do that, there's some vague muscle memory that helps you go back into it.

So I'm not discouraging anybody from doing it. I'm encouraging you, please do it. But don't get distressed, you know, if you, you know, What I found most helpful was after, you know, older women telling me you might reach a point in the delivery where you don't want to be there. And it's like, bam, when I hit that place, it was like, oh, that was one of the most important things. They don't teach you that in the Le Mace classes. They don't teach you that, that you might reach a point where you think, this is overwhelming. I don't want to be here anymore.

You know, there's nothing I can do, you know. And so all maps are just maps and words are just words. And it's the experience, the vital living experience that each person has. And those of us who've had them, all I think that we can do is try and point the way. These are the things that helped me, learning to meditate. You know, regular exercise, good nutrition, get your sleep, don't have any electronics in your bedroom, find time for quiet time, you know, put your work in perspective. You're having a relationship problem.

Hey, go to couples therapy. Do your work, you know. All we can do is point to these things help me and here's some good maps. Now, trust your inner wisdom. How many processes and how many, you know, in how many therapists offices are you going to hear these words? You have inner wisdom. you have inner spirit. All I'm going to do is try and help you learn to access that and trust it and get it strong.

Let it be the most well-developed muscle in your body, you know, that spiritual muscle, that kind of psychological muscle of confidence in your own inner wisdom. That is, it's really well said. It brings me to this idea of maps and territories and boundaries. And I want to share a quick anecdotal story of me when, I had had a pretty deep experience a while back, and I was coming out of this experience, and I decided I needed to get downstairs and get a glass of water. So it was all dark in my house, and I was coming downstairs, and I was feeling around.

And I had a, like a dout, like a closet dowel by my door. And for some reason, I had picked it up, and I was using that to feel around, like, okay, where am I going here? And I took the stick, and I was like, okay, well, there's the wall over there because it's really dark, and I'm coming out of this disorienting experience. And as I was feeling around with the stick, like I had this idea of like, wow, my awareness extends through this stick. And I can feel the wall the same way I can with my hand.

That's the wall. Now that I'm touching the stick with the wall, I can feel the wall. Hey, the walls open. And I felt like there was no boundaries. I felt like once I extended my awareness into an inanimate object, that object became part of me. It was such a profound experience because to this day, When I see stuff now, I realize that I can infuse that thing with my awareness and it becomes part of me.

Like, it's such an interesting concept, this idea of boundaries. And, like, sometimes it can be so limiting to think of ourselves as ourselves. But I think it can also be incredibly empowering to know that your awareness can extend into everything around you if you're willing to infuse it in there. Dr. David, what, is that just craziness? or what do you think about extending your awareness into other things? Well, I mean, it certainly is in keeping with everything we're talking about today, about augmented reality and the really incredible work that's being done in prosthetics for human beings.

And the ways in which these new prosthetic limbs become part of you, and your awareness is extended into them. So I think it, you know, I mean, I'm thinking about the work that's being done by Dean Kamen in Deca Labs with the Luke arm, right? Which they've been working on for decades, which is a new prosthetic arm. And it's sort of amazing work with this.

And it becomes a part of the person. It isn't, they don't think about it as a separate, artificial limb because it has the ability to become a part of you. It taps into your nervous system and your muscular and the way that you operate. And it's just intriguing. Intriguing. Dr. Jessica, I'm wondering. So if we take this idea of using a stick to feel things and understanding that that is part of you

once you pick it up. Sometimes I think that if, if, I'll just run with this exercise. And I think that once you realize, okay, I picked up these scissors and now I can feel the desk around me. I think you can extend that all the way into other people. And this kind of gets into Dr. David and I talk about the young A and archetypes. But I think that that your awareness extends into other people. Like, that's how you recognize things in other people about yourself. Sometimes when I see someone that's angry. I'm like, that's me. I'm angry like that. That's exactly what I do. Or if I see something do something, maybe I'll see my daughter pick up something and, you know, take a little butterfly. I pick it off the ground. I'm like, oh, that's beautiful. Hey, I do that. But I think you can see

your own awareness or recognize yourself and other people. And I'm wondering, what is your take on that? Dr. Jessica? Oh, there's so many different directions. We can go. This competition is so interesting. I'm trying to keep my fingers count, you know, okay, talk about this or this or this as you were sharing your stories. Well, first of all, you know, the first thing about boundaries. You know, a lot has been written about boundaries. It's essential to understand where I end and where you begin.

And I think that there's a lot of respect that needs to come in. That we learn to respect ourselves and what's in my psychic space and my body and my thoughts and my opinions and not just dump them on everybody else and that everybody else has their space and their thoughts and their beliefs and their opinions and so that's a whole other conversation you know about respecting boundaries and understanding what's mine and what's not mine and what's yours and and things like that so that's one conversation the the and then there is no boundary okay that we all merge and we're all connected and that deeper level that you know in my bones is

the phosphorus from the when the stars were forming and you know everything that's ever existed is all every time I breathe in I'm breathing in you know wind that was in China four days ago is now in Montreal so especially if there's a strong westerly growing we're we share everything we share the environment we're part of it you know we are the stuff the stars are made of and so there's no boundary and yes there are very important boundaries and and learning about that is essential. We need to teach our children about that, about touching and taking, and, you know, and then we get into this whole thing of beyond what's mine and yours, what do we share and what's ours, and, you know, all that stuff. But let's come down to something that you said about others being

the mirror for us. This is absolutely true. Others, we all can see in others' reflections, and there's entire psychology schools based on this, okay? And how, and how. And how, you know, to manage our own projections that we don't just project it out onto other people and our transference and our countertransference and all of these things that speak to those conscious unconscious mechanisms that exist between us and then there's that very deep profound thing that exists in creatures where facial expressions whether it's a dog or it's a gorilla or whatever it is, it's the facial expressions and the energy behind it all, that we can sense this. So on a consciousness level, what are we sensing?

And then we come to kind of sort of circle back to boundaries, but even more so, that every true spiritual teacher will say, be very careful what you put your energy into. Be careful what you extend your energy into. Because first of all, when you're doing that, you can lose a little bit of your energy and a little bit of yourself. So you don't want to make too much of a habit of doing that. Then there is working in spiritual work. For example, I would never go and take someone's working feather or Maraca or musical instrument or something.

Because in our tradition, we don't touch. We would ask if we could see or if somebody offers us to what have you. But we don't touch. In ritual, we don't touch anything that people would. we're working with ritually and spiritually. These are, whether it's their crystals, their feathers, their seashells, the Maraca, their musical instrument, whatever it is, their prayer books. We understand that those are the ritual things that they're working with, and so we don't

go touching them and extending ourselves into it. The other thing in the sidelinae, which is also you will find in many other traditions, is we don't stare at people. We don't deliberately, if you're familiar with Rupert Sheldrke, you probably have his wonderful work, if you aren't, please go out and buy his books. Dogs that know when their owners are coming home. He's the British biologist and another one, the sense of being stared at. And this is why snipers who can be like a thousand meters away from you,

they can't actually stare at you through their, what's it called? I forgot. Yes, the scope. Yes, the scope, thank you. Because the person will immediately turn around and look exactly where you are. Now, what is all that about? Okay, it's so fascinating how we can extend our awareness and how that is received. You can be in a football stadium and you can spot someone.

You'll feel if somebody's looking at you. That sense of being stared at. And so we need to be mindful of that, especially if we're in a situation where people are in ritual or they're meditating or we have to. ask yourself, why are we doing this? Why are we looking into someone's space? Why are we looking into someone's psychic space if they haven't asked us to? In mediumship work, you have to ask somebody to look into your space. You have to give me permission, please. I ask you and I give you permission to look into my space and see if there's something that you feel to tell me or to work with. And so it's a fascinating study.

that we're, I think, only just beginning, thank God there's research. Thank God for the Robert Cheldricks and others of his kind, who we're trying to do research and trying to understand these things so that we can understand ourselves better and also what works with other people. Where it's invasive to get into someone else's space, what is our intention? You know, there's that working in the middle in shamanism,

Dr. David, you're going to know this. There's working in the middle world where shamans will deliberately project themselves to try and do something dark to someone because of competitiveness or ill will. And so how do we understand all of these things? How do we work with them? It reminds me of some stories in Castaneda's work where he talks about the different shaman and how there is this level of competition and this dark energy between them. That's fascinating, the idea of space. make sense. It would make sense to me why in today's world of self, maybe not self-help, but the people that go to get help, you know, they're not giving permission to people to look

into them. And sometimes the therapist is just kind of evasively looking into them. And that would be a, that would be a violation of self. So you probably wouldn't get the help you wanted if someone was just reaching into your space and peering at you. And it just seems, I've never really heard it explained the way you explained it and how this particular, you know, space that we hold, whether it's a ritualistic item or whether it's something we're working with, how disrespectful it can be for someone to come over and touch it or take it or it's fascinating to think to think about. Benjamin, what is your ideas about some of the stuff we're talking about here? Can you hear me? I can. Okay. I've been trying to, I haven't been piping up because

my, and it's doing. So I apologize for the sound stuff. I think, yeah, I think, you know, from my perspective, there's a lot to be said about, it's going again. I don't want to, I don't want to really mess up the conversation with the bad sound. So I'll just, I'll step out. I'll let you guys finish up. I'm sorry. I apologize, everybody.

You're an amazing man, Benjamin. I love your opinion, and I'm super thankful you're here. We'll figure it all out. David, let me jump over here to you in this idea of space and this idea of someone staring at us and is feeling that. It's so visceral sometimes. Like, have you ever had that experience? And what do you think about it when you have that experience? Yeah.

Well, I mean, the one experience that I had had most recently was I had decided to go back to synagogue on the high holy days. I was raised Jewish. And I went and I was there for the Yom Kippur service. And I was standing in the congregation and we were praying. And all of a sudden, in that space, I heard my grandmother over my shoulder talking to me, calling to me. So much, it was so real that I remember, I mean, I stopped. turned around to look because I my grandma has been dead since 1976 um I go convinced that that she was there and it was just so real and it was very um it was

I mean it was that combination of frightening and awful in the true meaning of that word full of awe and um and just baffling I just I was so just marveled at this possibility. I mean, I was very close to my grandmother. She was a big part of my Jewish heritage. And so it made sense that she was there. I still don't understand that experience. I've looked back on it many times,

and I still haven't been able to figure it out. But a lot of that has to do with, you know, and stop me, George, if I'm misinterpreting what you're saying here, But the connection between space and spirituality, right? And the fact that you do need to have the correct, and correct is the wrong word there, but the appropriate space in which to have that kind of an experience. It's why, you know, in many Native American traditions,

you know, the young boy is sent up into the mountains to have a vision quest, right? I mean, because that's the space where that is to occur. And for a lot of practicing Christians, they are tied into the idea that the physical building of the church is where that occurs. Whereas for so many other traditions, it's not connected with a space. You can commune with the divine and have that spiritual experience wherever you are, because it lives within you.

It's not something that occurs externally. And so some of that is, as Dr. Jessica knows, of course, you know, the distinction between in very broad strokes, Western religion and Eastern religion, right? Western religion prays to a divinity, whereas Eastern religion, it's looking within, right? I mean, you know, in an Eastern religious tradition, You know, you want something, you don't pray to the Buddha, right?

You don't pray to a divity because I want something. You want something to look within and make it happen. You have the power to do that as an individual. And so much of Western religion is focused on that external, the external validation of the divine, the external fulfillment of my wishes is going to be made by a divinity rather than understanding that I have the power as a human being to make those changes. You know, I mean, I always say, you know, at a real basic level, the difference is, right? I mean, in Western religion, you pray for help in many Eastern traditions.

The attitude is, well, you want help? Help yourself, right? Don't wait for somebody else to do it. And that's why, you know, I'm so enamored with some of the therapeutic practices, particularly in Jungian analysis where, you know, it's about, I mean, you're going to do the work, right, as the patient. the the clinician is there to facilitate and maybe sort of show you the direction and say, okay, yeah, that door is over there. But you're the one who's going to have to open it.

You know, I mean, Dr. Jessica alluded to one of my favorite things earlier when she mentioned Darth Vader and there's that, you know, that wonderful scene in the Empire Strikes Back, which George and I have talked about before, where, you know, Yoda, Luke discovers that the cave, of the underground cave. And he's curious what's under there, what's down there? And Yoda says, well, I don't think you're ready to go in there. And he says, oh, I'm going. And he's going to take his weapons.

And Yoda says, you know, your weapons won't do any good in there. And he goes into that cave. And it's essentially, you know, if you're doing the Jungian archetype, it's the shadow self that he has to go through. And what does he see when he finally gets through? Well, he sees Darth Bain. and he has to battle Darth Vader.

And in this imagined experience, Luke slices Dark Vader's head off and the head rolls on the ground. And then the mass dissolves and the face is actually Luke's. Because what he's had to cope with is his own shadow self.

And so that, you know, but being ready to do that, I mean, you know, and not to belaborate, because for some people will say, oh, well, that's a silly science fiction movie. You know, that's only taken place on Degaba. Right? I mean, you've got to go there.

And Joseph Campbell was the advisor to the first three films that were made, and then he passed away. And in their foolishness, they did not ask. There's so many other wonderful mythologists. And I mean, Angelus Arienne would have been a perfect pick, for example, who could have done the advising. And that's why none of the other films, reached into our unconscious and grabbed us the way the first three did because of Joseph Campbell's work and facing the shadow and finding ourselves and really doing the hero's journey.

And you know what you you you touch on we've touched on so many things today that have so much deep meaning and power. And I think that, you know, I just want to capture a couple of thoughts that that I hope that will resonate for our listeners, which is, you know, Dr. David, you've been talking about the difference between East and West and how, you know, in the East, in the Eastern traditions, first of all, those of you who are familiar with them, there's temples everywhere, and at every crossroads

and everything you'll find a little tiny candle and a flower and an offering of fruit and, you know, This goes back into ancient traditions of people offering to nature and offering to all of the aspects of nature from which we benefit. And so we can see that the beliefs of people understanding our unity and the oneness. And it is this that kind of made the split. We can actually almost pinpoint when the body was handed to physicians. and the spirit or soul was handed to the clergy and the mind was handed to the psychiatrists

and the psychologists and that breaking down of the human wholeness all I have to say pretty much with good intentions. People wanting to, you know, I like to believe the best where the best can be and I also want to acknowledge all the wonderful people through and working now, doing their hardest to try and build better maps of the human psyche and trying to understand and doing their works as therapists and everything else.

And, you know, I just want to acknowledge all of the excellent work that has happening and has been happening and that is we're standing on the shoulders of it. That's all we're doing is we're taking maybe that tiny little sonometer forward from all the work that's been done. And there's a piece that we're kind of not addressing here. We're kind of saying, well, Western civilization and traditional, you know, and we're looking at the patriarchal religions. And what did Joseph Campbell say the only problem with Jehovah is he thought he was God? Okay. I really love that quote. You know, I love lots of his, but that's one of You know, the angry warrior, jealous God that needed to strengthen the tribal people,

that archetype that they needed the warrior archetype at that time because of everything that they'd experienced and were experiencing around them. And then they made that jealous, you know, no gods before me, warrior male archetype. They made that into God, okay? And it's rippled right through until now. but let's touch the holy sacred cow of Western civilization for a moment. Dare I get my wrist slapped by a few through social media later. Let's talk about New Age nonsense.

Okay. Let's talk about what I call New Age nonsense, okay? I remember having a conversation with my machine. I read about it and I wrote it in there somewhere. And I say to her, you know, please, what is your take on what's happening now? where thinking positive moved and where some core simple truths, okay, have moved from where co-creators with the universe and what's happening to, I create the universe. And I'll have to do this slap up a picture of a BMW on my refrigerator and just affirm that.

And okay, so all of this, what I call it, fantasy addiction, New Age nonsense, but it's a very strong belief system that people have and they're appalled. Like I should be, well, I'm creating it. I mean, I had clients who came to me. Well, I must have created my cancer because it gets very, very distorted. So maybe Sheena said to me, the first thing she did was go, oh, my God, please forgive them. Their misunderstanding of the basic truth. How could they misunderstand this so badly?

How is it possible? You know, please, you know, send them light and let's pray for them. You know, that's her take on it. Please, this is so dangerous. She said, this is a dangerous trap of falling into where people try to take spirituality and take one or two greens of truth from it and then they materialize it. And it becomes a trap of darkness in which they get held. Does this make sense what I'm saying?

Absolutely. So, as I say, I'm sure that I'm going to, I'll be offending a few people by saying this. It's not my intention to offend, okay? It's my intention to awaken. Wake up, wake up, wake up. Sometimes it's just your genetic predisposition that's caused you to have this, or, you know, something that's been way out of your, way out of your spear, but now work with it in a way.

And so what are you pleased, the two of you? What is, what's your take on what I'm calling new age nonsense as a belief system? Yeah, I mean, I've always talked about new age religion as being a smorgasbord, right? I mean, it just takes the things that you like from a variety of different traditions and throws them into a stew pot. But I think you're right. I mean, one of the things that's really driving it is a kind of consumerism. materialist mentality, which is just so

dangerous. I see it as this I almost see it as as an attack. Like I think that there's this you know, this pornographic,

uninterrupted presence of the visible. It's just forcing you. Look over here. Look at this. Go look over here. Look at this. And it's, it's almost like a being that doesn't want you to take time to contemplate what is true. And I know true is a weird thing to talk about, but I think some things are true enough.

And one thing that is true enough is that contemplation and suffering go together to make you a better person. I believe that I can tell by talking to both you that both you have probably been through some profound tragedies in your life. And I think that this new age nonsense is for people who have either never integrated any sort of suffering or have never been through real suffering. I don't think that you can be part of this new, the new age nonsense. You see through it when you've been through suffering.

And I think it's something that attracts people that want to be part of something bigger, but don't want to go through the suffering that haven't done the work. So I see it as an attack and it is nonsense, but people are searching and they're attracted to these shiny objects of new age. because they, maybe they haven't had people in their life that have shown them a pathway or maybe they don't want to get close to something real because it hurts them. And so they opt for something shiny. They opt for this new age stuff.

And there's, there's plenty of people out there that are peddling it. And so I see it as an attack, I guess, this new age nonsense. Does that make sense? Well, it, it's an, it's an attack on spiritual reality, maybe. I mean, I don't actually, attack isn't perhaps the word I would use. I would use the word distraction. I like that. Yeah, distraction rather than an attack.

Again, a model that I work is, you know, the Rumble strip on highways. It's that kind of strip that they put that makes your car shake. And it's just not people, if they fall asleep, it hopefully wakes them up so they don't gear off the road. So on those long highways, they have the rumble strips. They figure if you can make your way around town without meeting rumble strips. So I use that example of rumble strips. I use that as in the Santo Dami tradition, we have that in these hierarchies of beings, there are beings that are kind of tricksters.

And this is a game from the shamanic groups, the Amazonic, that there are trickster entities and really anybody who doesn't believe that there's trickster entities just hasn't been awake enough to realize that they've been tricked okay so simple as that you have to have a sense of humor with this don't take it like like deathly seriously and get weird about it um but you have to have this with a sense of humor and see it that these kind of tricky little things that that take us out of awakeness into illusion are there, they're like a rumble strip, they're there to wake us up. It's like, hey, are you paying attention? If not, I'm just going to take you off the road.

You know, one thing that I've asked students, and again, I ask in the book, which is, why do we assume that spirituality wouldn't have tests? Just answer me that one. Everything in life has tests. We go to school. We get tested on. we want to learn to swim. There's swimming tests.

There's driving tests to drive a car. There's tests everywhere for everything. Okay. We take medical tests to see if our health is good. Why would we assume that there are not? Spiritual tests. Of course they're spiritual tests and spiritual challenges. Anybody who's truly in walking on the path in any one of the spiritual traditions

will tell you, yeah, I'm tested. And if you keep a sense, of humor about it, if you keep your heart open about it, if you keep some humility, that's something that's lacking in our culture, is simple humbleness, right? The ability to say, wow, I think I screwed up there and made a mistake or, you know, that's not working. I've been doing that. That's not quite working. I think I better tweak that to make it work better. So if we keep humbleness and humility and, you know, these are the fathers of the desert, we're back to them again. That's one of their principal.

Fulses humility, prayer, humility, the ability to resist temptation, i.e., the ability to, you know, avoid temptation in one language is easily translatable into a language that we feel comfortable, right? So we see all of these things, and of course we're tested, and those tests will come in many, many different shapes and forms. people should just realize that that's the reality. What do you think, Dr. David? Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, the importance of the test, the spiritual test, I think, is a really good idea, is a really interesting idea.

It's a vital part of the journey, right? I mean, it allows you to move from one stage to the next if we're going to go with, you know, Joseph Campbell, again, the hero's journey, right? I mean, the test allows you to progress. And you can fail a test and still learn something, you know, I say as a professor. And too often, of course, students think, well, I fail the test. That means I didn't learn anything.

Well, no, that's not what that means. You know, now you learn something. You just didn't learn what you needed to learn to move to the next stage. take what you learned, go back. It's that sort of, you know, okay, we're not going to allow you to go one step forward. So take two steps back now and look at it again. Look at it with new eyes, given the experience that you've had and the fact that you didn't pass the test. It's a really important part of the journey is the test, to be sure.

And unfortunately, because we're not taught this in our culture, unless we really seek it out, okay, unless we're lucky that we find a therapist or a life coach or a psychiatrist or what have you, who tells us that, okay, this is part of life, and these are some basics. And we will face these challenges, and this is where we develop compassion or patience or steadfastness or what we call Firmisa.

In the Sintu, I mean, it's called Firmisa, firmness, okay? Groundedness, firmness, being firm in what we're doing. And once we're to understand the concept of Firmisa, then we apply it everywhere in life. Then we come Firmesa in our life, in our relationships, how we deal with our finances,

with our work, our careers, our studies, our family, our community, nature. We find this, and kind of an enlightened And Firmiza is what we aim for, you know, bringing light into you. Let's it shine wherever I go. Just as important, though, as the test is the importance of failure.

I mean, you have to experience failure. Yes. If all you do is succeed. That's not possible. It's not possible. How many, you know, if we look at great inventors and all we can think of, oh, he invented the light bulb, going to vend of the steam. And then you look at how many patents they took out and how many failures they had.

You know, this is fascinating to look at how many failures. And every time that experiment did not work, they learned something. You know, and then you have, was it Apollo 13 where they had a problem with in the capsule that they had to solve? And so the NASA team takes a boardroom and a big table. They throw all the parts that are kind of maybe not disposable but reusable. And they put everything on the table. This is what we've got.

And take the brightest minds and say, okay, we have to fix the problem. And we can't say, well, if we only had another inch of this, so we had a button of that and we had a millimeter of this, we don't have that. This is all we've got to work with. I love that, you know, that example of how the team will pull together to take what they've got. And they don't have anything that isn't on the table.

If it's not on the table, we haven't got it to work with. And sometimes we have a life experience that just is that. We can't say a way. There's something I give to students where I talk about the importance of working on drafts and not fearing failure. And the thing that I give them says 27 publishers rejected Dr. Seuss's first book before it was finally published. Carrie Stephen King's first book was rejected. by 30 publishers before he threw it in the trash. His wife fished it out,

encouraging him to resubmit it. And then I tell them, you know, they don't understand the value of failure. There's a great TED talk by J.K. Rowling called the fringe benefits of failure. And I tell them that, you know, she may have heard of her. She wrote some books about this kid wizard.

You know, so to understand the benefits of experience and experience isn't always positive. Yes, it can be painful. And it can be scary and we can certainly reach that. I don't want to be here place. You know, and that's an important part of me. You know, we talked about it earlier.

The I don't want to be here. This is too hard or too difficult or it's too scary. Once we understand that every single one of us have that inside of us, that that's a place inside that we can visit. Again, you don't set up tent there. Okay. And for some people, it can be the size of a grain of sand. They're having a root canal.

They might visit that place, so I don't want to be here. Okay, so we can all relate to that place. You know, there's an accident and you're stuck on the bridge because some fool decided in impatience to change lanes. And you're stuck on the bridge for three hours in the middle of a snowstorm. I don't want to be here. Now, how do you work with that piece? For some people, as I said, it's a green of sand.

It'll pop up from time to time. be able to manage it. For some people, it's a bowling ball that they carry around inside of them their whole life. Now, how do we, you know, this whole thrust bringing it back to, it's been a fascinating journey of conversations today. And again, I'm absolutely lost on what time we close. I'm going to start. And it's like, does this go on the whole day?

Because I have family commitments. But anyway, it's a joy to be with you. Yeah, and have all these wonderful conversations about so many things. And let's bring it back for a moment to anthogenes and psychedelics. And if I didn't say this before, because I forget, you know, psychedelics being those substances which are created in the laboratory, anthogens being plants, sacred plants, used in ritual, in heritage, traditions, et cetera. And so just to kind of make that distinction. And how are they getting swept up in what's happening today?

And some of you may know that I worked with a national team, a committee, something called Anthogens and Psychedelics in Canada, proposal for a new paradigm. We published in the Journal of Psychology last year. And we've had many meetings with people in senior people in Health Canada. or the Office of Control Substances and conversations with various MPs who were very the focus of that. And any of you were interested in reading the paper, you can get it off my website, a PDF off my website, or go to the Journal of Canadian Journal of Psychology.

But the thrust of the conversation is this, is unfortunately what's happening because of regulation. First of all, anthogens and psychedelics are lumped altogether as substances. Okay, and so I've spent, I now have a 22-year relationship with the Office of Control substances. Wonderful. I have the deepest of respect for them. Wonderful people. Very open to the science, to the research, to understanding, you know, it's, I really thank them and acknowledge them. Okay. The political side is a little bit different, okay? because for a lot of people who are in politics, this is scary. I think Dr. David, you said that it's scary for a lot of people up in the political realm.

First of all, it's the optics. How does this show up? I can't be the first person to stand out and say, this is a good thing, and they need more research, understandably so. So we focus on our concerns of risks and benefits and the necessity for education, for credentialing. Okay, what's that look like? We're just asking questions.

What does it look like? What does it look like? People are developing all these training programs and teaching programs and everything. Are they in alignment with? And if so, what kind of credentialing do they offer? And if so, what are their ethics? I mean, I've written three codes of ethics for different situations and worked with the team on this is the kind of ethics code

that would be necessary for non-ordinary states of consciousness, which is quite different from just a regular, you know, it has the same things, but there's some differences added to it. And then how do we have all the voices? We advised a National Advisory Council in which all the voices sit down because one of our concerns is this, the kind of biomedical industry for profit model is what is coming up front because they have the money to back the lobbying of the politics. they have the money to do that.

Whereas the people in education and me in a heritage tradition, I did that to get our exemption. I don't fundraise to do that and work with the government. But where is this headed? Because it looks like right now the biomedical model in, you know, backed by for-profit industry is really pulling ahead. And I totally believe that they are an important part of the conversation, but they can't be the only voices.

What about access, diversity, accessibility? What about indigenous voices and ways of knowing? All those voices need to be included, especially since it's a lot of their communities that are being worked with and heritage traditions, all the sacred plants. It can't just go into that one pot and have that one model come out the other end.

Is this making some sense what I'm saying? Absolutely. I think it's at the forefront of the conversation. And I think now is an opportune time because right now you're laying the foundation for what's going to happen in the future. You're laying the arteries of how the blood is going to flow through the system. And so I know it's your birthday, Dr. Jessica. Happy birthday. I don't want to keep you too long. I know you got family obligations. And I just want both of you to know, Dr. David and Dr. Jessica, this has been a fascinating conversation. I feel like I've got to learn. a lot and I really respect both of your backgrounds and the wisdom and I really enjoy learning. So I'm truly thankful for both of you spending some time with me today. And I guess I'll start with Dr. David Solomon. What, where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? So my website is David A. Solomon.com and that's Solomon S-A-L-O-M-M-O-N, not like the

although I aspire, you know. You've got to have aspirations. So David A. Solomon.com, and you can find my links in my books and my blog and other media appearances and my consulting there. What am I excited about that's coming up? It's the end of the semester, which is always a nice thing. And we are next Sunday going to take a 10-day. I hear people do this occasionally.

It's something called a vacation. I'm really not familiar with it. But we're going to take a 10-day vacation, and I guess you're supposed to enjoy it. So I hope I'm going to take a drive up to my old haunting grounds in New York and then up into Massachusetts. So I'm really excited. I'm looking forward to that.

And looking forward to the beginning of a new year. It's going to be a good one. And I just want to say for people listening, Dr. David Solomon's last book, The Seven Deadly Sins, is a fascinating read. It's, it's so well footnoted and he's such an articulate speaker and I I really enjoy getting to talk to you, David. And your, your understanding of mysticism is mystifying to me. So I'm so thankful for that. Dr. Jessica, I have a copy. I got a hard copy of your book, the version one right here. For people that are watching, you can see what the book

looks like here. I've only begun to work my way through it. And it's amazing. In the introduction, It's said that the book chooses you. And I feel like I'm just getting information given to me right now. That's so beautiful. And I'm really thankful for your time. I feel like I got to learn a lot. And even though this is our first time talking, I'm really looking forward to some other talks that we're going to have.

Well, we get into the crux of your book. And thank you for what you're doing. You're doing a lot of amazing work. And I hope that this particular interview gets onto the radar of many people because you're a beautiful person. and what you're saying is incredibly insightful, and I learn a lot. That being said, where can people find you? What you got coming up and what are you excited about? Okay. People can find me through my website.

One of the things that happens is that we have our church website, which is santodiami.comi. And anybody who's looking for our church, they need to be very patient, which is, again, a feeling in our culture that we don't have so much. They need to be patient. We're a small church. We do have visitor screening and the visitor screening under our regulations, both in Brazil and in Canada, there are medical conditions and medications that are contraindicated for our sacrament. So people also have to understand that, that it is not us. We are doing what is the wisest thing we believe for each person by screening carefully.

We are not a therapy center, our church. So I'm going to talk about me and our church is two separate things. okay yes I'm the madrina there and the founder there and all that jazz but we are not a therapy center i and our church we're often flooded by people who are read about you know healings and therapies and they're contacting us because they have addictions they want to recover from or severe depression what have you we don't treat we are a spiritual center and and we pray we sing we meditate yes there's a healing areas during the works where people if they need to to lie down the sacrament is strong.

People can have difficult and deep passages, but we are not a therapy center. Okay, so that just needs to be made really clear with great respect to anybody who wants to contact us. Personally, people can find me on my own personal website, and no, that is not a shortcut to the church, so please don't try that one on me because many people do. And it's R.E.V.DR, Jessica, Rochester,

so Rev. Doctor Jessica Rochester.com. And I offer a lot of videos and audios, as I said, free of charge for educational purposes. What am I looking forward to? Well, I'm looking forward to a lot of things. I'm looking forward to today to my family event, being with my family, my beloved children and their families and my grandchildren, and speaking to the rest of my family all over England. and I'm looking forward, George, to we've booked two sessions later on in December.

We're going to do volume one in one session, volume two, and another session. That's kind of fun. And it is our 25th anniversary. So next weekend we did last weekend, and then the next weekend our church has a very celebratory event in which we will be as part of our festival and the calendar where we, We dance and sing a lot of hymns. I know that sounds a little crazy that it's profoundly teaching. What I first learned in dancing in the Santadaini, dancing and singing is you learn everything you need to do,

learn pretty much about your own self and your boundaries in your space and about how to be in your space and we call it in the current because we're dancing together, you see? Anybody wants to understand that, just kind of Google it We'll see videos of Santo Dami churches and people dancing. We adapted the uniform, by the way, for the women. Because we're an independent church, so that's all on our website too. But it's about being in the current one and creating something together

and creating a profound, beautiful opening for the light to work through us and in us. and I believe that that is what happens in all heart-centered spiritual rituals, regardless of what place, whether you're in a sweat lodger, whether you're in the synagogue. I loved Dr. David's the story of your grandmother coming to visit you.

I bet she hangs out in the synagogue a lot, especially on high hall. And she was thrilled to see you there. So what a lovely blessing. And I just really want to support you to don't don't share your story other than where people have also met their ancestors and they'll go oh yes yes i understand me too i met an ancestor so it's like when mr anew met the buddha and the astral and he came back and he went oh yes Buddhism i get it it's such a beautiful time i'm really thankful um to everybody watching i please

take time, the links will be in the show notes, take time to investigate both of these incredible individuals, read their books and reach out to them and more than that, live your life to the fullest and live your life full of love and try to make everyone around you better. I've always found it be a pretty good way to try to live your life out. So that's what we got for today. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for spending time with us. I really appreciate everybody being here, and that's what we got for today. Aloha, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you.