TrueLife - The Voice in Your Head: Psychedelic Keys to Silence Illusions and Spark Rebellion

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Metacognition, thinking about thinking, the logos, auditory illusions, schizophrenia, and psychedelic drugs. Interested yet? This is a deep dive into human communication, evolution of language,  & possibly even the migration of the speech Center’s in the brain from the right hemisphere ( the king) to the left hemisphere (the emissary) One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. 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. Okay, so we left off on the Logos. We were talking about the voice, the logos. know, maybe something that the plants allow you to hear, or there's tons of stories about the logos. And one book that I read that I think is a must read for everybody that's interested in, the logos. This is this book by Julian James, the origin of consciousness and the breakdown of

the bicameral mind. I try to read 100 books a year, and I got to tell you that this is probably top five I've read in the last five years. Julian James was a psychology professor at Princeton in the 70s. And right around the time Chomsky was coming out with his ideas of how language is formed. You know, this is kind of an alternative theory. And it'll blow your mind. I mean, if you haven't read Julian James, you've got to get it. You've got to pick it up.

It's it'll open your eyes to a lot of things. A funny story. I was, I found myself on campus at, over at UH, and I ran into one of the big dogs in the language department. And I had walked into his office, and he had an amazing library. And so we were talking about books and language, and he had asked me if I had read Chomsky. I said, yeah, I have, and to which I replied, oh, have you read Tom Wolf's new book about

trying to take down his theory, and he said he did, and thought it was kind of snarky, which I agreed, and we had a little bit of a laugh. And then I had asked him if he had read this book, Julian James, the origin of consciousness and the breakdown of the bicameral mind. And he kind of stared at me for a minute. No, George, I've never heard of that book. And I told him, well, you know, I kind of think that this guy might have it right. You know, Chomsky's come on, one of the greatest minds around.

However, when it comes to language, I think this guy, Julian James, might have some points to score on him. And so I began telling him a little bit about what the book was about. And he was very interested. And I said, I'll bring you a copy. I have an extra copy. He says, no, I'll read it on them. I'll find it and that was on a Friday night I met him on Monday and he says George you got me in a lot of trouble my wife and I had stuff to do over the weekend but I got that darn book he said couldn't put it down blew my mind

you're right fascinating and for me it's always rewarding when I recommend a book to somebody and they read it and they're and they're blown away you know they're really blown away like they really read it and they're blown away it's just nice to share that same site same kind of insight with him. And so he's like, I just, I couldn't put it down. You know, my wife's yelling at me, hey, we got this stuff to do, but I couldn't put the book down in George. And so I, after we laughed a little bit, I, I said, so what do you think? I mean, you think that guy scored some points? You think there might be some holes in Chomsky's theories? And he goes, well, he changed his tone. He went from

being, laughing to, well, you know, this book that I read, just Julian James is very controversial. And I said, yeah, like Galileo or Copernicus. We started laughing, but I hope you guys get an opportunity to check it out. Let me tell you a little bit about it. First up, it's masterfully written. The guy was just, he's a genius. But he talks a lot about the logos, bringing it back full circle. And he talks about, you know, the Homeric verses.

you know they talk a lot about how Athena you know or they talk about the gods like Mars they heard you know I got angry and was time to go to war I heard Mars call to me or I was overcome with with rage you know and and whenever they they talk about these emotions or the God's coming to them they're talking about the God's speaking to them the animas I guess or you know, it's throughout, it's throughout all the old, old Homeric verses and Greek tragedies and a lot of people today believe that that is just a metaphor for emotions like anger or love or, you know, Aphrodite would be love and anger would be Mars and, you know, and when you read the Homeric verses today, people say, oh, well, this is clearly just a metaphor for him being filled with lust or being filled with anger.

or you know pick your poison but julian james makes a different claim he says that people actually heard those voices in their head and when you heard mars it was a voice in your head that told you it was time to fight which is similar to what we now call the fight or flight you know reaction um he goes on to talk about they've done experiments on people, you know, in the last, you know, since the 70s on, where they've stimulated the opposite side of the brain. You know, you have, you have Broca's area and Vernica's area, which are the speech centers of the brain. And they've hooked up electrodes to corresponding parts of the brain on the opposite side and stimulated them. And people were actually able to hear voices.

You know, if you think a little bit about how the brain works, you know, It's got obviously the frontal lobe and the different cortex, but there's corresponding, according to some literature, there's corresponding points on opposite sides of the brain. And Julian James believes that as we've evolved, that there used to be an area for speech on the opposite side of the brain, on the opposite lobe where vernicas area and Broca's area are. and it was those parts of the brain that would light up that would allow you to hear the logos and uh you know

maybe it could be that we've evolved to not use that part of our brain or for some reason you know that part of our brain is not being stimulated you know i i often wonder if maybe some of the the you know sylocybin or some of these neurotransmitters and the plants activate that particular part of the brain and that's what allows us to have these audio hallucinations and if it is what allows us to do that might might some of these audio hallucinations be you know telling us to do things that were told to some of the heroes in the in the tragedies i don't think that would be a bad thing there's quite a bit of heroic deeds and wisdom and intelligence that maybe we could be tapping into.

But it's fascinating. He goes on to talk about work he's done with schizophrenics. And he ties that to, you know, some of the questions he's asked these schizophrenics is, you know, do you hear voices? And the answer is, yes, I hear voices. And then the next question is, what is it about the voices that you hear in your head

that make you do some of the things you do? I'm sure most of you watching this, understand that. Sometimes schizophrenics are at real danger of hurting themselves or other people because they hear voices But not only do they hear voices, but they They do what those voices tell them to do and so one of the questions Julian James asked us why do you do that? Can't you just shut that voice off in your head? Can't you just tell that voice to hey knock it off or? I'm not gonna do what you say And he gives a description of a schizophrenic man that says you know

don't, people don't understand. You know, when you hear that voice, it's like someone being this close to you, you know, and saying, listen, I want you to go do this thing and it never stops. You could run away, but it's still right there in your head. And it makes me think of, you know, in today's world, if someone gets this close to you,

you're probably either fighting or you're telling a secret. But if you heard a voice in your head, imagine someone being that close to you, whole time and not being able to get away from them until you did what that voice told you to do. And when they've put these people into the fMRIs, they could see that same spot that Julian Jane's theorized was activating where the logos might, the corresponding area in Broca's area and Veracca's area. They could see that in the FMRI that that particular part of the brain was lighting up. And it's such a fascinating idea.

And like I said, I'm not a doctor or, you know, I enjoy reading and I enjoy listening to these stories and telling them to you guys and I hope you find them interesting. But it all fits together, you know, whether it's Terrence McKenna or Julian James or Jeremy Narby. And I'll be going over quite a few more books to try and weave you through this wandering road of, you know, psychedelic behavior and what can be happening. It just fits in with our motif of language and how it can be different and, you know, the linguistic pathways that we can take to make a better world. But for now, that is this book right here, Julian James, The Origin of Consciousness. It's fascinating. It also goes on to talk a little bit more about, you know, the cutting of the corpus callosum and some of the experiments they've done with people that have epileptic seizure. and what happens when you cut the corpus callosum.

It's a fascinating read. I hope everybody here takes the time to read this book because it'll blow your mind. So that's what we've got so far. And we've kind of covered a little bit of Terrence McKinnon, Jeremy Narby, and Julian Janes. And we're going to continue our adventure down the world of psychedelics and language

and some other cool stories. fit some zen in here in a little while and looking forward to getting my first comment and hearing what you guys have to say. Super stoked to be doing this and, you know, even if nobody watches this, I love reading books and I love telling stories about books and I hope to reach people that like to read books. So I hope you guys are having a great day. Loa.