Speaker 1: Hello, folks, it's Chuck here. It's Saturday, and that means
Speaker 1: it's time for a Saturday Select episode curated this week
Speaker 1: by What. This one goes all the way back to
Speaker 1: December eleven, and that's about ayahuasca. We love doing our
Speaker 1: episodes on various weird drugs and this is no exception.
Speaker 1: So check out how ayahuasca works right now. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hold on and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Brian, there's Jerry over there, and
Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know. The poor attempts at
Speaker 1: Spanish edition and yet another drug cast mm hmm, covering
Speaker 1: all the drugs everybody, one by one, and this one
Speaker 1: is Aaska. We'll have to do one just specifically on
Speaker 1: d m T sometime too, all right, because there you
Speaker 1: know it's the d m T is the base of ayahuasca,
Speaker 1: but it's different. I mean, there's other stuff going on
Speaker 1: with ayahuasca that d MT doesn't have them. Spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: DMT is its own thing for sure, from what I
Speaker 1: can tell. Yeah, okay, so it's agreed then, Chuck, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you just ruined this whole episode. Oh sorry, well
Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning then. Uh yeah, ayahuasca
Speaker 1: it has a bunch of different names. And this is
Speaker 1: something I didn't know because I'm a dummy. I didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about ayahuasca except to use it as jokes.
Speaker 1: You know. It's been sort of a running punch line, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to forgive me, I'm on ayahuasca,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. I got you. But uh, I
Speaker 1: thought it was that was the name of like a plant,
Speaker 1: and it was one planted ayahuasca sort of like what's
Speaker 1: the what's the other plant? The corn? Yeah, just sort
Speaker 1: of like corn um No, the one that like, you know,
Speaker 1: the doors took the meal. Yeah, mescaline, yeah, but that's
Speaker 1: not the plant. What's the plant is mescal in the
Speaker 1: plant to what a peyote? That's right, But that's the
Speaker 1: mescaline buttons on a peyote plant, right, which we haven't
Speaker 1: covered yet. We should do want a peyote? Bam, another
Speaker 1: drug cast come and at you. But ayahuasca is not
Speaker 1: the name of a plant. Uh. It is actually a
Speaker 1: concoction made from a couple of different plants. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And originally it was just one plant actually known as
Speaker 1: the vine of death. Yeah, oh, let's see what we
Speaker 1: can do. Okay, you did the time wasting throat. Clear
Speaker 1: that move. It's stalling. So if you go and drink
Speaker 1: ayahuasca today, you're probably getting one that's a combination of
Speaker 1: a plant called psycho Tria voritas. I think I got
Speaker 1: that and a vine known as banistereopsis copy C A
Speaker 1: p I so Psychotria veritas and bareness. Man, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of letters in that one. Yeah. But if it's
Speaker 1: it's pronounced like it looks ye banistereopsis, you got it
Speaker 1: all right? Copy right? And that one, the second one,
Speaker 1: the copy is the vine. Correct, that's the o g
Speaker 1: ayahuasca ingredient, the vine of death. And this is I
Speaker 1: guess we haven't even really said. We've danced around it.
Speaker 1: It is a a drug concoction that they have been taking,
Speaker 1: um since who knows when, but since before Europeans arrived
Speaker 1: in the New World, A long long time in South America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and specifically they think it have originated among the Napo
Speaker 1: Runa tribe in Ecuador, right, but it's spread throughout the
Speaker 1: Amazon basin and today if you are a well to
Speaker 1: do tech worker who makes your way down to South America.
Speaker 1: You're probably going to go to Peru to check out
Speaker 1: your ayahuasca trip. Yeah, this became a thing, weirdly, uh
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley. Uh, if you were a young, rich
Speaker 1: entrepreneur in Silicon Valley that has a couple of hit
Speaker 1: apps on your hand, it became a thing to throw
Speaker 1: on your hoodie and travel to South America to take
Speaker 1: part in an ayahuasca ceremony. Yep, and I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I know what happens is one
Speaker 1: one dude does that and then says, bro, you gotta
Speaker 1: do this right a late night conversation, a burning man
Speaker 1: opens the Absolutely, that's how it went now and then
Speaker 1: before you know it, it's a thing. Right. You know,
Speaker 1: there's some kids in Silicon Valley being like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, are they making fun of us right now?
Speaker 1: And then they feel that that hood that they've never
Speaker 1: even put over their head itching their neck and they're
Speaker 1: stupid stereotypes being true. Oh man, At any rate, ayahuasca yes, so, um,
Speaker 1: it did start out as a traditional thing, but there's like,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole popularity that grew among Westerners traveling
Speaker 1: down to South America for whatever reason. I'm sure um
Speaker 1: for vision quests for fun a drug they hadn't tried yet.
Speaker 1: Who cares. There's a lot of reasons that people travel
Speaker 1: down to South America to partake in this UM. Certainly
Speaker 1: most of them not nefarious or dumb. UM. Probably a
Speaker 1: lot of the reasons were great. But the the influx
Speaker 1: of Westerners and Western money has radically altered ayahuasca and
Speaker 1: in the Sarah premonies and rites and the people who
Speaker 1: perform ayahuasca ceremonies just over there, like the last ten
Speaker 1: or so years, dramatically. Yeah, one might even say that
Speaker 1: the western white man has ruined the whole thing. I
Speaker 1: think that there's I think it's been commercialized, but that
Speaker 1: there are still very much um. The the original or
Speaker 1: the real deal is protected in many ways by by
Speaker 1: the people who are like, yeah, you guys, go drink
Speaker 1: it over there. We've got our thing going on over here.
Speaker 1: And in fact, there's at least two churches in the
Speaker 1: United States that practice ayahuasca diets UM that that are
Speaker 1: real deal religions as far as the Supreme Courts concerned, UM,
Speaker 1: that clearly show that there are there is real, legit
Speaker 1: ayahuasca ceremonies being practiced throughout the world. I think both
Speaker 1: of them are are from Brazil. Yeah. In two thousand six,
Speaker 1: h the Supreme Court said that, uh, the n I
Speaker 1: Oh Do vegetal U d V was a legit religion
Speaker 1: and they are in fact from Brazil Christian spiritualists about
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand UH adherents all over the world. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the literal translation of that religion is the Union of
Speaker 1: the Plants, right, So it's like a plant religion and
Speaker 1: aahuasca is at the center of this. Uh. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: other one is a Christian syncretism like Santo. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: one is like, um, they incorporate not just indigenous Brazilian
Speaker 1: and South American beliefs, but also some African indigenous beliefs,
Speaker 1: are folk beliefs as well. Like it's it's a whole um,
Speaker 1: very big inclusive pantheon that that is centered around visions
Speaker 1: from ayahuasca and like an ayahuasca sacrament. It's pretty interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Both protected in the United States by law now that
Speaker 1: this is part of this plant concoction as part of
Speaker 1: their religion. They cannot be arrested for doing this because
Speaker 1: the legalities of it. Is is is technically illegal? Um,
Speaker 1: it's a little great whether or not the actual plant
Speaker 1: is illegal? Is that right? Yeah? Supposedly the plants themselves
Speaker 1: are not illegal. It's the combination or the brew made
Speaker 1: from them that's illegal. That's what I saw. I don't
Speaker 1: know that that's necessarily true. And I would guess if
Speaker 1: the plants are still legal now, they won't be in
Speaker 1: two three years, because you know, why why make it legal?
Speaker 1: Why let it be legal? Yeah? Something people get enjoyment
Speaker 1: for it comes from the earth. Let's outlawed. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't know if enjoyment is quite the right word though,
Speaker 1: from the way that um the Grabster puts it that
Speaker 1: the an ayahuasca trip is not necessarily fun. It's a
Speaker 1: harrowing psychological, spiritual journey that you're undertaking. All right, let's
Speaker 1: take a break, okay, alright, let see you getting excited
Speaker 1: over there. Uh, And we'll talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about d m T and kind of what's going on
Speaker 1: in your body physiologically right after this. Alright, So d
Speaker 1: m T, which you mentioned at the onset, the the
Speaker 1: one part of this concoction, the p veritas contains d
Speaker 1: M t. You're gonna pronounce that. Oh, yes, it's methyl
Speaker 1: trip to me. Oh look at you just rolls off
Speaker 1: the tongue now, doesn't it. Uh. So this is something
Speaker 1: not exclusive to p verritas. It's found in a bunch
Speaker 1: of psychedelic substances, and this is something that can cause hallucinations,
Speaker 1: perhaps changes in your perception, your state of consciousness, your
Speaker 1: sense of self, which will really get into it has
Speaker 1: a lot to do with the ayahuasca journey. Um. However,
Speaker 1: if you just eat the d M t UM, it's
Speaker 1: not gonna have this this kind of effect on you because, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's an enzyme called uh monoamine oxidase, and that's gonna
Speaker 1: break it down your in your digestive system before it
Speaker 1: gets absorbed. So you have to combine it with this
Speaker 1: copy vine which prevents the uptake of it. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: copy vine has an alkaloid called harmala alkaloid, and harmalines
Speaker 1: are psychotropic and of themselves, which is why the the
Speaker 1: copy vine alone used to just be ayahuasca. But the
Speaker 1: fact that it prevents um your your the monoamine oxidase
Speaker 1: to break down the d M t it allows your
Speaker 1: body to absorb it all of a sudden you're tripping balls,
Speaker 1: although I hear it's not all of a sudden. I
Speaker 1: think it's it takes a good thirty minutes to come on,
Speaker 1: and then it takes like a supplementary boost um an
Speaker 1: hour or so later to to really bring on like
Speaker 1: the kind of transcendent experience that people are looking for
Speaker 1: when they take ayahuasca. So you've got the you've got
Speaker 1: the d m T being absorbed. That's the one to
Speaker 1: punch right. You've got the d MT itself, and then
Speaker 1: you've got the plant that allows the d m T
Speaker 1: to be absorbed. And when you put those two things together,
Speaker 1: the p veritas and the B copy, that's what the
Speaker 1: that's the ayahuasca that you read about and vice that's
Speaker 1: what they're talking about. Yeah, and these you know, this
Speaker 1: is administered by a shaman um someone who ideally as
Speaker 1: a shaman that knows what they're doing. And there's sometimes
Speaker 1: there are other plants that are brewed in there as well,
Speaker 1: but uh not always, And sometimes it's brewed separately and
Speaker 1: then combined later. Sometimes times it all depends on which
Speaker 1: shaman you go to, of what the ritual is like.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you're included as part of it. Um. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: like a thick liquid t sometimes it's a paste. It's
Speaker 1: been described. No matter what it is, it seems like
Speaker 1: around the horn. Everybody says it tastes awful, so awful
Speaker 1: that that you can very easily throw up, which is
Speaker 1: something that's pretty common with the um. With an ayahuasca experiences.
Speaker 1: I didn't get that from the From the taste, though,
Speaker 1: I got that that that was like, once it's in
Speaker 1: your body, it makes you nauseous and you throw up, right,
Speaker 1: But like, oh, this taste so bad, I'm gonna puke
Speaker 1: it up. No, No, because then it wouldn't be in
Speaker 1: your body long enough to be absorbed. Right. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: I think the taste and the memory of the taste,
Speaker 1: combined with the nausea is enough to throw up. But
Speaker 1: the whether whether you do throw up or not, it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily like you're going to throw up there the
Speaker 1: the point, one of the points of an eye ahuasca
Speaker 1: ceremony is to throw up. You're meant to throw up um,
Speaker 1: and you're you will actually be forced into this either
Speaker 1: if you don't do it from the ayahuasca. You may
Speaker 1: also be given something like tobacco juice like a water
Speaker 1: with tobacco that's soaked in it for a while, and
Speaker 1: you'll be told to drink that so that you will
Speaker 1: throw up. Because this idea of purging, whether it's throwing
Speaker 1: up or diarrhea, is a very frequent side effective iahuaca,
Speaker 1: very frequent. Um. You are you are meant to be
Speaker 1: purging your your body, and it's meant to be this
Speaker 1: kind of symbolic spiritual purge of your ego, of all
Speaker 1: the nastiness, of all the horrible nous that's a part
Speaker 1: of you. You're getting it out as part of the
Speaker 1: trip and as the trip sets in. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: taste has been described. The New York Times has said
Speaker 1: it's like a um muddy herbal taste. Uh. Someone from
Speaker 1: vox dot com took it a gun named Shaun Illing.
Speaker 1: He described it as a cup of motor oil diluted
Speaker 1: with a splash of water. So I read, I read
Speaker 1: it's almost as gross as a Neco wafer. I don't
Speaker 1: think i've ever had anco wafer? Good on you have?
Speaker 1: You know what? Am I crazy? What are they not?
Speaker 1: Go wafers like old timey kind of like chalky candy
Speaker 1: that comes in a role you've seen them. Probably you've
Speaker 1: seen them in my old timey candy days exactly. I'm
Speaker 1: sure I did. Uh So all right, I guess we
Speaker 1: should talk a little bit about uh, Like you said, um,
Speaker 1: it's orange. It's origins in the Napo River basin by
Speaker 1: this Runa tribe like you said, Uh, And it's called
Speaker 1: the Vine of Death or the mother Vine. This copy
Speaker 1: and they think that early on they may have just
Speaker 1: taken this copy by itself, right, because the brew it's
Speaker 1: got the harmlins in it that's not only an m
Speaker 1: A o I but also has like its own kind
Speaker 1: of psychoactive stuff going on. So that was the original Iowa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we have written accounts from like the seventeen hundreds
Speaker 1: when Jesuits would go to the Amazon to try and
Speaker 1: you know, christianize folks and trip balls. Yeah, because I'm
Speaker 1: sure the entry was like whoa, and that's it. Did
Speaker 1: you hear about the guy that was just killed the missionary? Yes?
Speaker 1: On setting Ali's sent in All Island. Yeah, he it's
Speaker 1: like something from a movie. He went at first and
Speaker 1: a child shot an arrow through a bible that he
Speaker 1: was holding. Apparently I hadn't heard about that. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: he had. He went back a few times and was
Speaker 1: like journaling about it and said he basically like held
Speaker 1: up his Bible. It's like something from a movie and
Speaker 1: an arrow was shot through it. And I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: if that is not like, if you believe in God,
Speaker 1: that's a sign from God. Well you you remember the
Speaker 1: turnaround the man in the whole episode we talked about them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were the ones that like you, like everyone knew
Speaker 1: you just don't go anywhere near him and did some
Speaker 1: fishermen and killed like years a few years back, and
Speaker 1: this guy I guess had tried um. He decided he
Speaker 1: was going to be the one. Yeah. I don't actually
Speaker 1: know enough about the story, but he clearly was trying
Speaker 1: to jane access to them. Yeah. Yeah, he was trying
Speaker 1: to spread the word of Jesus and paid like you're
Speaker 1: not supposed it's illegal, I think, to even trespass there.
Speaker 1: But he paid people sort of under the table to
Speaker 1: take him there, and they did so, and those people
Speaker 1: were arrested and his family is saying, you need to
Speaker 1: let these people go because he like really wanted to
Speaker 1: do this. I see. It's very interesting. Yeah it is.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, but I just like that sounds like something
Speaker 1: you would make up from a movie, like shooting an
Speaker 1: arrow through the Bible they're holding up, you know. Uh
Speaker 1: So we got a little sidetrack, but we were talking
Speaker 1: about the Jesuits like having this on record in the
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds when they went and they were like, hey,
Speaker 1: there's something going down down here. That's very interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And even William S. Burrows wrote the Yahee Letters in
Speaker 1: three and it was about his experience with the Aahuascar vine.
Speaker 1: And apparently they the practitioners at the time knew, um
Speaker 1: well into the to the the twentieth century, that you
Speaker 1: could combine it with the p veritis fine and and
Speaker 1: have a completely different experience. But that wasn't necessarily the point.
Speaker 1: That was like an optional ceremony you could perform. But
Speaker 1: the most, the most widespread and traditional ceremony was just
Speaker 1: the vine of death, right. Yeah. And then at some
Speaker 1: point somebody started putting him together and word about this
Speaker 1: got out, and the mid two thousand's is when it
Speaker 1: just ayahuasca like kind of hit the public consciousness in
Speaker 1: the West. Yeah. I mean in the sixties, of course,
Speaker 1: uh in in certain uh you know, subcultures in America.
Speaker 1: They knew about it because of william S Burrows and
Speaker 1: people seeking out you know, things like peyote and all
Speaker 1: kinds of psychedelic experiences, but it definitely was not sort
Speaker 1: of in the stream until you know, not not too
Speaker 1: long ago. And even still I think even at the
Speaker 1: time it was strictly the harm alines and and just
Speaker 1: the the vine that was being used, the copy vine.
Speaker 1: It wasn't. It wasn't. Somebody started putting it together frequently
Speaker 1: with the the veritas plant, and that's when it became
Speaker 1: hugely popular. Yeah, so popular now that there is ayahuasca
Speaker 1: tourism big time like going on in South America. And
Speaker 1: uh said the central part is Peru's uh a room
Speaker 1: bomba valley. And if you, I mean, if you were
Speaker 1: going down for an ayahuasca experience like a spiritual quest,
Speaker 1: is is the reason you're going down there? I don't
Speaker 1: fault you for that at all, um, But you have
Speaker 1: to understand the the You have to do your research.
Speaker 1: You can't just show up in South America and be like,
Speaker 1: all right, somebody give me some ayahuasca. Because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of um in scrupulous and nefarious outfits that
Speaker 1: have come up to to take advantage explicitly of that
Speaker 1: kind of Western tourist, the ill informed Western tourist who
Speaker 1: is going to have a horrible, terrible trip and not
Speaker 1: going to get the spiritual experience you're looking for. Um So,
Speaker 1: you have to do your research because there are some
Speaker 1: legitimate ayahuasca outfits in South America, but you, um, they're
Speaker 1: they're not going to take you if you just show
Speaker 1: up down there, and you're gonna end up in some
Speaker 1: some in a bad situation. Yeah for sure. Um So,
Speaker 1: taking part in one of these ceremonies, let's say you
Speaker 1: do find like a legit shaman who's willing to take
Speaker 1: your American dollars or whatever, however you're paying your gold
Speaker 1: en gets and drink its. Uh, it's still it's sort
Speaker 1: of funny. It all goes back to Burrows with the
Speaker 1: set and setting thing, which is what he famously preached
Speaker 1: about any psychic dellic experience is to really put a
Speaker 1: lot of thought into the set in the setting where
Speaker 1: you're gonna do this, so it goes well for you.
Speaker 1: Um So, as this uh concoction is being brewed, like
Speaker 1: I said before, sometimes you're taking part in this and
Speaker 1: helping to mash it up and brew the t um.
Speaker 1: But what they're really trying to do is, um, the
Speaker 1: whole ceremony isn't just like for show. It's it's all
Speaker 1: part of the thing to get you settled in and
Speaker 1: focused on kind of the right things going in, Like
Speaker 1: what do you want to accomplish here, what do you
Speaker 1: want to find out about yourself? What questions do you
Speaker 1: have about yourself? And really get into that that frame
Speaker 1: of mind as they hand you your puke bucket. Although
Speaker 1: I would recommend bringing your own, Oh yeah, I hadn't
Speaker 1: thought about that. I would not want to reused puke bucket.
Speaker 1: Good lord. I hadn't even considered that it would be
Speaker 1: by O B for me, So um yeah, I can
Speaker 1: just totally see how as a as a Westerner, you
Speaker 1: would just be like, come on, we don't need the
Speaker 1: ceremony stuff. Let's just give me the good stuff. But that,
Speaker 1: like you said, that's the point is to ease you
Speaker 1: into it, to get your mind and body prepared for this,
Speaker 1: this enormous trip you're about to go on, because if
Speaker 1: you just get dropped right in the middle of it
Speaker 1: without any kind of preparation or without any kind of assistance,
Speaker 1: you're going to lose your marbles pretty pretty well. UM.
Speaker 1: So that that is a big part of going on
Speaker 1: an ayahuasca journey is is having somebody who's competent, trained
Speaker 1: and UM, empathetic and willing to stay there with you,
Speaker 1: to prepare you, to stay with you, to keep an
Speaker 1: eye on you. You need to be monitored. You can't
Speaker 1: be up and like just running off into the jungle
Speaker 1: by yourself, because terrible things are going to happen to
Speaker 1: you in that situation. UM. And then to help you
Speaker 1: afterward as well, and from from some of the preliminary
Speaker 1: research that's starting to come in, if you undertake an
Speaker 1: ayahuasca journey, I guess is that it's the best word
Speaker 1: I can come up with. UM. Under the right setting,
Speaker 1: under the right guidance, with the right support, both pre
Speaker 1: during and after, it can have profound effects on your
Speaker 1: spirituality and your sense of connectedness to the universe. It
Speaker 1: can also possibly help you with UM with diagnosed mental
Speaker 1: illness as well. Yeah, well we'll get to the illness
Speaker 1: part mental illness part at the end, but UM, just
Speaker 1: your standard sort of truth seeker, let's say, okay, UM,
Speaker 1: it's very much tight into like what the and ideal
Speaker 1: conditions and like the sixties and seventies with Ellis and
Speaker 1: Guess beyond, but the LSD experience and that. Uh, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of talk in the sixties about the
Speaker 1: ego and every you know, hip musician and in the
Speaker 1: United States talked about stripping away the ego, from Brian
Speaker 1: Wilson to the Mamas and the Papa's too, you know
Speaker 1: Neil Young. Uh is stripping away that ego of self basically,
Speaker 1: which which means kind of getting outside yourself to the
Speaker 1: point where, uh, you're not looking at the world around
Speaker 1: you and how it affects you, but there there is
Speaker 1: no you. There is no It's a loss of self
Speaker 1: such that's so profound that you can only see the
Speaker 1: world and people around you as they exist in reality. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's it's a pretty sort of deep, trippy thing to
Speaker 1: try and describe in words on a podcast, But I
Speaker 1: think that's sort of the general thing is is uh
Speaker 1: washing that ego down to where it's not around anymore
Speaker 1: and you get like a true sense of the world
Speaker 1: around you, like for the maybe for the first time. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the the ego in and of itself isn't a
Speaker 1: bad thing like it's it's they think that it developed
Speaker 1: among animals. Is a like, that's your sense of self awareness.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that leads you to want to preserve
Speaker 1: your own life, to get away from danger, to realize that, like,
Speaker 1: you can die because there is a you, right, It's
Speaker 1: a very basic thing. Um. The problem is is in humans,
Speaker 1: as we've evolved, our ego has also evolved, and it
Speaker 1: can get to a point where it's unhealthy. It's kind
Speaker 1: of toxic. It can help you develop bad, bad relationships,
Speaker 1: people don't want to be around you. It can also
Speaker 1: affect your self esteem if your egos underdeveloped. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of problems that can go wrong with the ego,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of people who prescribe psychedelics to
Speaker 1: deal with that kind of thing say, psychedelics strip away
Speaker 1: the ego. And now that we've gotten to the point
Speaker 1: where where we are advanced enough as a civilization that
Speaker 1: we can give people acid and put them in the
Speaker 1: an MRI machine, the Wonder machine and watch what happens,
Speaker 1: we've shown that, Yes, it seems like the the areas
Speaker 1: that are responsible for generating the ego, don't they get
Speaker 1: kind of turned off while you're under the influence of psychedelics,
Speaker 1: and it allows you to connect, to see outside of yourself,
Speaker 1: to see that you are connected with all of this
Speaker 1: other stuff. So this whole ego depletion or ego stripping, UM,
Speaker 1: it's a major component of not just ayahuasca but all psychedelics.
Speaker 1: But it is a big it's a big reason why
Speaker 1: people undertake ayahuasca UM journeys. Again. But get this, Siss,
Speaker 1: there was something I hadn't realized before, Chuck, So that
Speaker 1: from those m r I studies, they found that, UM,
Speaker 1: there's something called the default mode network, which is the
Speaker 1: thing that keeps your body humming and keeps your It's
Speaker 1: the part of your brain that's going while you're not
Speaker 1: thinking right, And they found that when the default mode
Speaker 1: network is suppressed and your frontal cortex is activated, that's
Speaker 1: when it seems that your um, your ego is at
Speaker 1: the least, it's when your egos turned off and you're
Speaker 1: free to connect with the universe or whatever. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: that default mode network is a very primitive part of
Speaker 1: our brain. It's a very primitive system of our brain,
Speaker 1: and it kind of suggests in a way that the
Speaker 1: loss of ego is something that we may eventually evolve to.
Speaker 1: Isn't that cool? Because if your frontal cortex is what's
Speaker 1: being activated in your default mode network is inactivated, that's
Speaker 1: like your ancient brain and your evolved brain. One's activated
Speaker 1: and one's one's suppressed and your egos gone. That that
Speaker 1: says to me like, well, yeah, if we keep evolving
Speaker 1: a frontal cortex, I wonder if we'll lose our ego
Speaker 1: at some point, or at least it will be radically altered. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I thought so too. Yeah, so what can happen? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, like like any sort of psychedelic trip, it's
Speaker 1: going to be completely um singular to the person that's
Speaker 1: doing it. There is no across the board sort of
Speaker 1: sweeping statements you can make. But um, you strip away
Speaker 1: that ego and anything can happen. From feeling connected to
Speaker 1: the more connected to the universe or the earth or
Speaker 1: the tree, or leaning against or maybe the father that
Speaker 1: passed away when you were a child that you didn't
Speaker 1: have a relationship with, or the loved one that you
Speaker 1: currently have a toxic relationship with. You can feel sort
Speaker 1: of a not imaginary but it is in your mind,
Speaker 1: but a bond and that they're not like right there
Speaker 1: in front of you, Um, just new understandings of relationships
Speaker 1: that may be complicated or toxic in your life, right exactly,
Speaker 1: like you're you're you're seeing them in a different way
Speaker 1: because of the ego loss. Yeah, yeah, I think that's fascinating. Um.
Speaker 1: And like you said, it is symbolic death of the ego,
Speaker 1: which is why that vomiting is important. Like in theory,
Speaker 1: I guess you're you're vomiting up that ego and then
Speaker 1: it's go time. Um. Apparently you can hallucinate your death. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like you said before, it's not often looked at
Speaker 1: it's like, hey man, this is this is gonna be
Speaker 1: a great time. Um. But at the same time, I
Speaker 1: think it's also typically not like looked at as like
Speaker 1: some horror show that you're about to undergo. Um, although
Speaker 1: it can be. But it's just a profound emotional and
Speaker 1: psychological experience exactly. I've never done it, I mean either,
Speaker 1: but this is from researching it, right exactly, which is
Speaker 1: like we've never been to the sun either. But we
Speaker 1: talked about that. Yeah, that went great. Actually, now that
Speaker 1: you mentioned it, should use a different example. Uh, let's
Speaker 1: take another break, and then we'll talk about what you
Speaker 1: kind of teased earlier with um uh ahuashka and how
Speaker 1: it could be used to treat addiction or PTSD or
Speaker 1: other mental illnesses. Right after this, Okay, Chuck, So we're
Speaker 1: back and we're talking about using ayahuasca as a tool
Speaker 1: like taking that experience of being outside of yourself have
Speaker 1: connected to the rest of the universe of reevaluating your
Speaker 1: life in a lot of ways to cure mental illness UM.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that it's been I guess
Speaker 1: some studies have actually shown like now this this actually
Speaker 1: works is to treat addiction um, whether it's cigarettes or
Speaker 1: booze or drugs or whatever, that that you can undergo
Speaker 1: an ayahuasca ceremony. People have and have come out on
Speaker 1: the other side like I'm good, I don't need that
Speaker 1: the cigarettes or booze or drugs or whatever. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: one of the one of the suggestions for what's going
Speaker 1: on with this that I saw is that you are
Speaker 1: actually healing the psychic damage that's causing you to self
Speaker 1: medicate in the first place, something probably from your past,
Speaker 1: and then so you with with that need to self
Speaker 1: medicate you don't have necessarily the desire to drink or
Speaker 1: smoke cigarettes or whatever that you used to, which is
Speaker 1: a different model of addiction that's kind of starting to
Speaker 1: gain a little bit of traction, but is also very
Speaker 1: controversial because it makes it sound like addiction is a choice,
Speaker 1: but you're self medicating, You're choosing to do all those
Speaker 1: drugs and like throw your life away because of some
Speaker 1: psychic trauma. But there there does seem to be a
Speaker 1: camp in in medicine that is saying like this actually
Speaker 1: might have legs. It kind of makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 1: and from what I can tell, those ayahuasca studies kind
Speaker 1: of are a checkmark in that view's favor. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that can work in conjunction with the other piece,
Speaker 1: which is removing that ego. Even if it's for whatever
Speaker 1: how many hours that you're undergoing this trip um could
Speaker 1: just simply disrupt that. You know, you often hear about
Speaker 1: addiction being like this sort of cycle, like a cyclical
Speaker 1: thing um, and even just disrupting that sick coal path
Speaker 1: of that circular path um can be enough to sort
Speaker 1: of get you on the off ramp, uh from using Yeah,
Speaker 1: get you on the off ramp gets you yeah, on
Speaker 1: the off ramp. Yes, that's how you said, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then eventually off that off ramp onto a nice
Speaker 1: chill side street. Yeah, and maybe a nice drive into
Speaker 1: the country past a few cows and then sleep. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had a at a therapist one time that talked
Speaker 1: about getting off of the highway. It was a metaphor
Speaker 1: that actually worked for me. But like choosing to get
Speaker 1: off the highway when certain things were happening, and sometimes
Speaker 1: something that simple is just kind of clicks in, like, oh,
Speaker 1: if I notice something's going on, I'm speeding down the
Speaker 1: highway towards the badness, and just get on that exit
Speaker 1: ramp and now I'm in my neighborhood. I'm hanging out
Speaker 1: with cows in a nice pasture. PTSD is another specifically,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times with military PTSD UM
Speaker 1: they've been, you know, using psychedelics more and more in
Speaker 1: Ayahuasca is no stranger to this treatment, and UM, while
Speaker 1: it is not a magic pill, they are doing some
Speaker 1: studies on this and it seems like, uh, and like
Speaker 1: with all these is tough to get funding for these
Speaker 1: kind of studies sometimes, but it does seem like it's
Speaker 1: gaining more ground in the medical community to try out
Speaker 1: these kind of experiments. Well, they're trying, like how to
Speaker 1: get some of these studies underway in the United States,
Speaker 1: but because ayahuasca is considered a Schedule one drug, which
Speaker 1: is the the worst, most nefarious drugs of all, UM,
Speaker 1: they can't. They just I don't think there's been a
Speaker 1: single study in the US. But fortunately they can just
Speaker 1: go down to South America and do the best they
Speaker 1: can with some of the Ayahuascar centers that are down there,
Speaker 1: and they're like, again, there are some legitimate Ayahuascar centers
Speaker 1: that take Western tourists for ayahuasca journeys. UM, and some
Speaker 1: groups are are going down their departner with those centers
Speaker 1: to study people, and some of the people they're trying
Speaker 1: to study our PTSD patients, and they think that if
Speaker 1: ayahuasca is helping people with PTSD, which it seems to be,
Speaker 1: it's it's basically negative exposure therapy where you're dredging up
Speaker 1: all of those worst, your worst memories that are causing
Speaker 1: your PTSD, which is bringing them to the surface and
Speaker 1: allowing your awareness to kind of shine a light on
Speaker 1: them and say, okay, I'm going to recategorize these now
Speaker 1: and they're not being categorized as bad and and frightening
Speaker 1: as they were before. It's not as traumatic as as
Speaker 1: they were originally categorized. Yeah, and and specifically in this
Speaker 1: study that you're thinking about, is uh Or talking about
Speaker 1: his combat veterans suffering from PTSD and it's the Temple
Speaker 1: of the Way of Light uh And the Amazon has
Speaker 1: partnered with a group in Spain and the UK, the
Speaker 1: International Center for Ethnobotanical Research and Service and PANE and
Speaker 1: then the Beckley Foundation in the UK, and they're treating
Speaker 1: close to six combat veterans a year and it says
Speaker 1: it's the largest psychedelic study um ever undertaken. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. Yeah, I know that they're using um
Speaker 1: M d M A to treat PTSD as well. And
Speaker 1: then I can't remember the name of that one treatment.
Speaker 1: But remember you like follow a pen with your eyes
Speaker 1: while you're going over your worst memory, and it it
Speaker 1: recategorizes the memories, is less scary. I want to remember
Speaker 1: that one. Yeah, I can't remember what we talked about
Speaker 1: it And but that apparently works really well too, so
Speaker 1: without the vomiting, that's a big part of it though,
Speaker 1: my friend just bring your own bucket. Uh. Problems with ayahuasca. Um,
Speaker 1: it is not generally toxic and you would have to
Speaker 1: take so much ayahuasca sort of like when we were
Speaker 1: talking about marijuana, Like is there even a lethal dose?
Speaker 1: Can you even say that? Because the lethal dose apparently
Speaker 1: for aguasca is twenty times what you had normally taken
Speaker 1: a typical ceremony. Uh as the grabster put it, or
Speaker 1: uh he might have been quoting someone, but it's uh,
Speaker 1: could could anyone even choke this much of that down? Right? Probably? Not?
Speaker 1: Is that even possible? But there have been I mean,
Speaker 1: there have been some deaths that have been related to ayahuasca,
Speaker 1: and and when you dig a little deeper you find like, oh,
Speaker 1: it wasn't actually the ayahuasca directly that caused this, but
Speaker 1: the people would not have died had they not been
Speaker 1: in South America on the ayahuasca journey, right. Yeah, There's
Speaker 1: this one guy who, um who died in I believe
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen. He was an American, you know, he's British,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, and his name was Henry Miller. And he
Speaker 1: died on the way to the hospital because he gone
Speaker 1: kind of non responsive and the Iowa squeros Ia Iowa square. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, um that took him to the hospital, had
Speaker 1: him on a motorcycle. He fell off the motorcycle and
Speaker 1: died of a head injury on the way to the hospital.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't the ayahuasca that killed him. But he
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been on the motorcycle in the first place
Speaker 1: had he not been on this aahuasca trip. So the
Speaker 1: shorthand and the headlines is a man dies from ayahuasca. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There have been some other cases where like people would
Speaker 1: be having a bad trip and maybe attack someone else
Speaker 1: and that would lead to like violence or death or
Speaker 1: just this year in two thousand eighteen in Peru, um
Speaker 1: an eighty one year old shaman woman was shot and killed. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then a Canadian man was murdered for revenge for
Speaker 1: that killing. But supposedly this had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: like being under the influence, but it was some sort
Speaker 1: of dispute that happened during this this whole conflict. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The woman was named Olivia are Avalo and she was
Speaker 1: the spiritual mother of Peru's second largest indigenous tribe, the
Speaker 1: Shapebo Canibo. And this guy, this Canadian guy named Sebastian
Speaker 1: Woodruff shot and killed her, allegedly because um her son
Speaker 1: owed him money. He was there to learn ayahuasca and
Speaker 1: I guess he didn't feel like he'd gotten his money's worth,
Speaker 1: so he killed her. He killed this this woman, the shaman,
Speaker 1: the spiritual leader of the second largest tribe in in Peru,
Speaker 1: and he was Canadian. Yes, yeah, I know it was surprising,
Speaker 1: not a very Canadian thing to do. No, it really wasn't.
Speaker 1: But the the whole thing really revealed the problems that
Speaker 1: that have been developing from this ayahuasca tourism. First, this
Speaker 1: guy was down there and wanted to learn about ayahuasca
Speaker 1: so he could take it back to Canada and appropriate
Speaker 1: this culture. There's problem one. Two, he didn't get his
Speaker 1: money's worth, so he shot and killed the woman who
Speaker 1: was supposed to be teaching him. It's a big problem
Speaker 1: as well. But then also between the Iowa squeros and
Speaker 1: the practitioners who are are hosting these tourists, and then
Speaker 1: the governments of the countries that they're hosting them in.
Speaker 1: There's tensions there as well. Because this village said there's
Speaker 1: police everywhere. The police never come here, but then a
Speaker 1: Canadian man goes missing and now our village is overrun
Speaker 1: with with police, like, what's the what's going on here? Um,
Speaker 1: So there's there's a lot of tension that's being there's
Speaker 1: a lot of simmering tension that's being heated by this
Speaker 1: this Western ayahuasca tourism, and um, it's kind of largely
Speaker 1: in part because it's unregulated, but also because a lot
Speaker 1: of people going down there don't have respect for what
Speaker 1: they're doing. And then also a lot of the people
Speaker 1: who are popping up as Iowa squaros don't have any
Speaker 1: respect for what they're doing either. So the the respect
Speaker 1: that's been given to this this tradition for so many
Speaker 1: hundreds or thousands of years being lost, and then on
Speaker 1: top of that, the ayahuasca that they're they're drinking is
Speaker 1: so wildly more potent than what traditionally is all those
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of years, you know, the Jesuits version
Speaker 1: of ayahuasca. Um. That's really kind of I think fueling
Speaker 1: this kind of recklessness that's that's becoming part and parcel
Speaker 1: with ayahuasca used down in South America. Yeah, because some
Speaker 1: of these areas are are poor and so all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, it becomes a hip thing for uh, Westerners
Speaker 1: with money to come down there with cold hard cash.
Speaker 1: And then, like you said, they're appropriating their culture. So
Speaker 1: that's one strike. But then to appeal to these people
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, they're not as like, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't want to freak people out maybe by being
Speaker 1: too traditional, so we're gonna westernize our own methods a bit.
Speaker 1: So and let's say, let's get a website going uh
Speaker 1: and then we'll be the go to for when they
Speaker 1: come down here. So then they're undermining their own culture. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's just sort of becoming a big mess. It
Speaker 1: sounds like yeah. And again I think like if you're
Speaker 1: going down there, like whether you're Western or um Asian
Speaker 1: or whoever you are, if you're going down for a
Speaker 1: vision quest, that's not that's not what's being you know,
Speaker 1: brought out as as the fault. The fault is if
Speaker 1: you're if you're going down there because it's hip or
Speaker 1: because you just want to party, or because a friend
Speaker 1: did it, um, and you're not you're not being respectful
Speaker 1: of it. Then that's where the the issue seems to
Speaker 1: be arising from ayahuasca anything else you know. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there is one thing that we didn't cover, um, that
Speaker 1: that can happen because the copy vine is a m
Speaker 1: AO inhibitor. There's a lot of other things, um that
Speaker 1: can actually kill you that are pretty normal, like interactions.
Speaker 1: You can have drug interactions with things as normal as
Speaker 1: chocolate because the um monoamine oxidase typically breaks these things down. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if it's being inhibited so that the ayahuasca can work,
Speaker 1: it's effects you if you eat chocolate, your toast. And
Speaker 1: one of the other things that that it can do
Speaker 1: is so the motto the m A O ies prevent
Speaker 1: your serotonin from being taken up. And that's how d
Speaker 1: m T acts on the brain. It goes into where
Speaker 1: serotonin receptors normally fit and just says, let's party, right. Um.
Speaker 1: So with all this extra serotonin floating around, if you
Speaker 1: also happen to be on an s s r I
Speaker 1: as serotonin reuptake inhibitor, uh, you've got too much serotonin.
Speaker 1: You can go into what's called serotonin shock. This is
Speaker 1: where the diarrhea comes in. That's one of the um
Speaker 1: the symptoms of serotonin shock. But that's one of the
Speaker 1: mild symptoms. You can also have seizures. You your heart
Speaker 1: can also stop, and you can die from having too
Speaker 1: much serotonin flooding your brain. So that's that is a
Speaker 1: direct way you can die from ayahuasca. But it's not
Speaker 1: from the hallucinogen, uh the aspect of it. It's from
Speaker 1: the M A O I. So when they're when they
Speaker 1: show up from uh the Silicon Valley and they say
Speaker 1: they're translating in there, like, hey, bro, he wants to
Speaker 1: know if you've got anything, if you've had anything in
Speaker 1: your body. And then you're like, no, just mine my
Speaker 1: Selexa and a wolf down at Toblaron on the way up,
Speaker 1: way over. I'm good, let's do this. Let's skip the ceremony.
Speaker 1: Just let me drink that stuff, right you just yeah,
Speaker 1: you mash the shaman's face out of your way, like
Speaker 1: get out of here. Just give me that. I know.
Speaker 1: I know why we haven't been selling tickets in Seattle
Speaker 1: so much. Oh no, we love that's not Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right. I mean well San Francisco to we love.
Speaker 1: We love all people. We love all of you, everybody.
Speaker 1: We love all potential ticket buyers are egos are are
Speaker 1: down in the pits. Uh. If you want to know
Speaker 1: more about ayahuasca, man, do some research. Uh. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of it out there, so do it. Um. And
Speaker 1: since I said that, it's time for a listener mail, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this short and sweet. But we did
Speaker 1: get an answer to something ing. Uh remember in the
Speaker 1: fire Trucks episode, you could not remember that game and
Speaker 1: we got everything from sim City to uh civilization. Yeah,
Speaker 1: none of them were right. But our friend, our new pal,
Speaker 1: Mike man Goba, Mike says this, guys that just listened
Speaker 1: to the fire Twuks episode and also shout out to
Speaker 1: two things. All the people who wrote in and spelled
Speaker 1: at fire Twucks. Yeah, and then all the firefighters. We
Speaker 1: heard from a lot of firefighters and they all, every
Speaker 1: single one of them said, yep, it's chili. Josh did
Speaker 1: not overstate the chili thing. Yeah, And they're all very
Speaker 1: nice and said, you guys got most of this right. Um.
Speaker 1: Anytime it's something really specific like that, we're gonna get
Speaker 1: some stuff wrong. But they're like, you guys did a
Speaker 1: good job. And one of them even had a joke
Speaker 1: that said, if you're at a party, how do you
Speaker 1: know if there's a firefighter there, and the answer is, Oh,
Speaker 1: don't worry, they'll tell you that was from a firefighter.
Speaker 1: So I guess they have a sting game about it.
Speaker 1: Uh So, anyway, guys listening to the fire TALKX episode,
Speaker 1: and he talked about the old game that burns buildings
Speaker 1: to the ground if you don't have the fire station,
Speaker 1: and that game is called Pharaoh. Yes, Pharaoh yep e
Speaker 1: h a r a o h yep, you're building an
Speaker 1: Egyptian civilization camp. And he said it's an expansion game,
Speaker 1: the expansion games called Cleopatra, and it was one of
Speaker 1: my favorite games, which I still play today. Keep up
Speaker 1: the chatter, Mike Man, go thanks a lot, Mike, That's
Speaker 1: exactly what it was, and never in a million years
Speaker 1: would have remembered that, but it was. Indeed, Goes uh
Speaker 1: oh is that what we're calling him? Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Goes. Well, if you want to be
Speaker 1: like Gobs and rescue us by reminding me of something
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was, or just correcting my syntax,
Speaker 1: you can get in touch with us. We're all over
Speaker 1: social You can find those links at stuff you should
Speaker 1: Know dot com and you can just send us an email,
Speaker 1: wrap it ups to get on the bottom, and send
Speaker 1: it off to Stuff Podcast superbs dot com. H Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
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