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Speaker 1: Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm

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Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of our

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Speaker 1: discussion of psychedelics with a special focus on psilocybin mushrooms.

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Speaker 1: Um So, in the last episode, if you haven't heard

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Speaker 1: that yet, you should probably go back and listen to

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Speaker 1: that one first. That's where we lay the groundwork for

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Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff we're talking about today. Where

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Speaker 1: we ended up talking about a little bit about the

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Speaker 1: history of psychedelics, about where we stand in that history,

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Speaker 1: which will explore more over the next couple of episodes.

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Speaker 1: We talked about a lot of the common features of

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Speaker 1: the psychedelic experience and what those reported features have in

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Speaker 1: common with, say, what William James described as the mystical

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Speaker 1: experience or the religious experience. So we talked about like

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Speaker 1: the ideas of the psychedelic experience being ineffable or hard

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Speaker 1: to put into words, often having this quality of veridicality

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Speaker 1: or the noetic quality, seeming like it isn't just an experience,

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Speaker 1: but that it's somehow imparts true information do you? Right?

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Speaker 1: And then we also just talked about in general terms

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Speaker 1: like what is a drug? What what does this term

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Speaker 1: drug mean? Why do we apply it to some substances

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Speaker 1: that have a physiological effect on us and not to others?

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Speaker 1: And then what indeed is a psychedelic and uh and

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Speaker 1: again all those properties that we typically associate with the

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Speaker 1: psychedelic experience. Right. And one of the funny things is

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Speaker 1: when I was growing up, I thought of drugs as

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Speaker 1: one class of things that are all equally bad, um

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Speaker 1: and you know, all equally scary. And of course this

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Speaker 1: was you know, United States drug policy conditioning as it

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Speaker 1: filtered through into the education system. Uh. And in in

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Speaker 1: a way you can kind of understand, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: you want kids to be aware of the dangers of

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Speaker 1: messing with addictive substances. You don't want kids trying out, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, heroin or cocaine or even tobacco. Really you know,

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Speaker 1: like yeah, I mean as a as a father, I

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Speaker 1: totally get that. But then all these other things get

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Speaker 1: lumped in with that stuff, right. And yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: we could certainly a lot has been said, a lot

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Speaker 1: has been written, and we could probably spend a whole

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Speaker 1: time just dissecting the war on drugs and what what

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Speaker 1: didn't work, um, and just sort of some of the

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Speaker 1: problematic aspects of the messaging. Uh, because I remember growing

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Speaker 1: up and going to these like the dare rallies at school. Um.

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Speaker 1: This is like like a a US educational outreach program

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Speaker 1: um to keep kids off of drugs. And and there

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Speaker 1: was this it did feel like drugs were just the enemy.

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Speaker 1: And then anything else you might be take, like there

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Speaker 1: was medication. Drugs certainly wasn't something that would a term

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Speaker 1: that would be used to describe Thailand all or anything. Um.

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Speaker 1: But but yeah, and in doing this you end up

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Speaker 1: like like just vilifying all these substances, uh, and in

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Speaker 1: making and also perhaps making them more appealing in a

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Speaker 1: certain sense, you know, because you're telling all these kids

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Speaker 1: know this is dark, dangerous stuff, don't and near the

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Speaker 1: dark magic um of drugs. And and at the same

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Speaker 1: time it can lead to this false impression that drugs

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Speaker 1: were a product of the nineteen sixties, or at least

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Speaker 1: of the or the mid twentieth century, that we had

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Speaker 1: like a time before drugs. And then suddenly, h here come, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, here comes the psychedelic counterculture. Here comes the marijuana. Marijuana,

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Speaker 1: of course came in earlier. Uh. The same can be

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Speaker 1: said of cocaine uh and UH and opium and uh

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Speaker 1: and so forth. But but still there's you could easily

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Speaker 1: get this false idea in your head that these were

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Speaker 1: products of modern society. There were new modern problems, and

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Speaker 1: certainly there are versions of these substances that were modern,

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Speaker 1: and problems that they introduced were thoroughly modern. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: for for instance, you know, things like when you start

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Speaker 1: talking about like crack cocaine or you start talking about heroin, um.

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Speaker 1: You know, those are the more modern twists on on

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Speaker 1: very old organisms, you know, going back to the poppy

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Speaker 1: seed or the coca plant. Yeah, and even referring to

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Speaker 1: the more psychedelic substances, not say like opium based alkaloids

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Speaker 1: or something like that. But uh, you know, psilocybin and

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Speaker 1: l sc LSD was in a way kind of invented.

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Speaker 1: It is a compound that was isolated from the urgad

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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty eight, I think it was, and then

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Speaker 1: first you know, Albert Hofmann figured out what it was

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties, so that was kind of new.

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Speaker 1: But psychedelics in general were not new, It's certainly been around.

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Speaker 1: They've been used by humans for hundreds or thousands of years. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean we're talking about organisms. We're talking about species

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Speaker 1: that evolved to thrive in our world. And um, you know,

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Speaker 1: take psilocybin for instance. Again, it's found in some two

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Speaker 1: hundred different varieties of a two hundred different species of mushrooms,

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Speaker 1: and um, exactly why they have these properties is still

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Speaker 1: something that scientists or are looking into. But according to

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Speaker 1: a two thousand eighteen study from Ohio State University UH

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Speaker 1: the psychedelic properties of pilocybin containing mushrooms, it may have

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Speaker 1: evolved as an app a tight suppressant to deter insects

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Speaker 1: that frequented the the animal dung from which the mushrooms grew,

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Speaker 1: which is which is interesting, Yeah, because that is that's

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Speaker 1: not even a quality of the psychedelic experience that we

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Speaker 1: even touched on in the previous episode. But there is

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Speaker 1: an appetite suppressant that is taking place as well. So

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Speaker 1: maybe a lot of the classic effects that we identify

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Speaker 1: as psychedelic are merely byproducts of the of the compounds

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Speaker 1: that the primary evolutionary purpose of which is an appetite

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Speaker 1: suppressant that that's just hypothesis. Right. With the hypothesis, it's

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Speaker 1: still still an open question. But but yeah, there's no

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Speaker 1: such things as LSD. Munchie's right, I mean, there are

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Speaker 1: funny enough that there are much weirder hypothesis, I mean,

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Speaker 1: much weirder ones that a lot of the In the

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Speaker 1: last episode we talked about the people with the sort

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Speaker 1: of mico centric worldview who come to see you know,

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Speaker 1: like Terrence McKenna and the people who come to see mushrooms.

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Speaker 1: Is some in some way kind of secretly running the world,

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Speaker 1: and some of these people, you know, they'll get into

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Speaker 1: ideas of how, well, really the reason that psilocybin exists,

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Speaker 1: you know, this compound has these effects on us, is

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Speaker 1: that evolved as some kind of communication mechanism where the

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Speaker 1: mush you know, the fungus world is trying to break

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Speaker 1: through to us because we're the like dominant moving species

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Speaker 1: that controls energy and ecosystems, and it's trying to get

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Speaker 1: through to us and open our minds to its priorities.

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Speaker 1: It's it's interesting. Now, certainly we're not going to get

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Speaker 1: into the question of whether psilocybin containing mushrooms are gods

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Speaker 1: or whether they're conscious or whether they're conscious. Well, actually,

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Speaker 1: I think maybe Edward Ocone might have something to say

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Speaker 1: about that, but he does, uh yeah, and we'll touch

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Speaker 1: on that a little later. But even but I don't

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Speaker 1: want to associate him too much with this um with

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Speaker 1: right with the you know, the sort of more extreme

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Speaker 1: version of this. But in terms of just associating psilocymon

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Speaker 1: and psychedelics with gods, there's nothing new about that. We'll

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Speaker 1: get into that as we go here. One of the

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Speaker 1: connections that mckinna makes in his stone and Ape hypothesis

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Speaker 1: is that since you have psilocybin growing out of the

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Speaker 1: dung of verbivores, namely a cattle, this would have been

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Speaker 1: something they would have become obvious to people's that were

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Speaker 1: rearing cattle in the ancient world, and then it would

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Speaker 1: have traveled with them as they brought their cattle with them.

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Speaker 1: And he makes a case I'm not sure exactly how

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Speaker 1: strong it is for the various cattle gods of antiquity, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, the sort of you know, horned gods, the

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Speaker 1: golden calf. Yeah, part of their association is with the

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Speaker 1: psilocybin mushrooms that would have been almost like the milk

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Speaker 1: of the animal. Like the animal produces meat, the animal

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Speaker 1: produces milk. The animal produces this substance that allows us

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Speaker 1: to engage in a mystic experience. That's an interesting potential

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Speaker 1: ecological relationship. I mean the same way that zoonotic diseases

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Speaker 1: follow human civilization where they've got domesticated animals, right, because

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Speaker 1: they're in close proximity to certain domesticated animals, the diseases

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Speaker 1: that affect those animals have a greater likely of jumping

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Speaker 1: over into you know, into the human strains, right. Um.

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Speaker 1: But you could say the same thing about things that

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Speaker 1: are not diseases but other follow on organisms, for example,

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Speaker 1: psilocybin mushrooms right right. Yeah. Now, to be clear, I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, as we're discussing the show before, I think

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Speaker 1: it's always um too tempting to try and point to

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Speaker 1: a single thing as being like the prime motivator in

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Speaker 1: the creation of mythologies and the genesis of gods and

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Speaker 1: so um. You know, I'm kind I'm open to the

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Speaker 1: idea that psilocybin could have played a role in the

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Speaker 1: character of some of these guys. And we do see

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Speaker 1: specific gods as we'll discussed that have clear iconography associated

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Speaker 1: with psychedelic substances, but of course there are there's so

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Speaker 1: many other processes going on in the generation of divine

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Speaker 1: entities in the human mind. Well, one interesting question, at

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Speaker 1: least interesting to me, is the question of why did

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Speaker 1: we start taking these substances. Clearly, the use of psilocybin

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Speaker 1: goes way back into history, and we'll talk sort of

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Speaker 1: about the natural and cultural story of of psilocybin, especially

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Speaker 1: in a in a bit, But like why what benefit

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Speaker 1: biologically would there have been to doing this? I mean,

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Speaker 1: is it something that humans do just as a sort

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Speaker 1: of like byproduct of the way their brains work, and

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Speaker 1: there is no real biological benefit or is there a

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Speaker 1: biological benefit that maybe we don't fully recognize. Is there

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Speaker 1: an adaptive reason to take psychedelic drugs? Yeah, because a

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Speaker 1: lot of times we think of these substances as being

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Speaker 1: especially in the Western context, you know, purely recreational, purely

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Speaker 1: even hedonistic, and that's not what we're seeing out of

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Speaker 1: the especially the more recent studies and even the studies

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Speaker 1: of the nineteen fifties and sixties. And it's also not

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Speaker 1: what we see in traditional societies that use them, there

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Speaker 1: was an attempt and these were used very seriously as

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Speaker 1: a means of solving problems and uh, communing with the

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Speaker 1: mystical world, etcetera. Yeah, that's exactly right, and and so

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Speaker 1: you can I mean, one thing that automatically sticks out

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Speaker 1: there for me is that if there is some kind

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Speaker 1: of adaptive value to these things, it could have some

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Speaker 1: kind of uh, you know, social reinforcement role. Right, You know,

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Speaker 1: this is a common kind of thing. You say, what

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Speaker 1: is the value of X cultural practice? Very often you

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Speaker 1: could say, well, maybe it's strength and strengthen social bonds

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Speaker 1: in some way, you know, helps groups work together better. Um,

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Speaker 1: it helps them share information and bond better, so they're

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Speaker 1: more effective as a hunting team or something like that.

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Speaker 1: So that's a possibility, but we don't know that's the case.

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Speaker 1: But another way of thinking about it is, could we

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Speaker 1: better understand the uses of psychedelics and humans and the

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Speaker 1: reasons for those uses by looking at the effects of

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Speaker 1: psychedelics in other animals. Uh So, for one thing, there

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Speaker 1: are some people in the world that actually gives psychedelic

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Speaker 1: drugs to domestic animals for ritual and practical purposes. And

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Speaker 1: there's one example I came across the I thought was

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Speaker 1: a really interesting study. This is a study by Bradley

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Speaker 1: Bennett and Rokyo Alarcon called Hunting and Hallucinogens the use

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Speaker 1: of psychoactive and other plants to improve the hunting ability

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Speaker 1: of dogs. So this is giving psychedelic substances to animals

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Speaker 1: with a purpose that's it's not research related, but also

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Speaker 1: not um purely recreational like some of these videos you

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Speaker 1: see of say, squirrels allegedly consuming psychedelic mushrooms. Right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so this would be something parallel to an adaptive value

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Speaker 1: in a hunting scenario. And so this paper was in

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Speaker 1: the Journal of ethno Pharmacology in two thousand fifteen. So

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Speaker 1: the authors here looked at the use of psychoactive substances

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Speaker 1: by two tribes in South America, the Shuar and the

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Speaker 1: Quechua of Ecuador, who are reported to give hallucinogenic plants

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Speaker 1: to their hunting dogs in order to improve their hunting ability.

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Speaker 1: And the authors find that this practice is prevalent and

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Speaker 1: they think it's likely adaptive. Now, what good would it

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Speaker 1: do to give a hunting dog a hallucinogen, right, it

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Speaker 1: seemed to me if you didn't think too deeply about it,

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Speaker 1: that just seems counterproductive. Right, It's going to make the

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Speaker 1: dog distracted, probably less effective, right. Yeah. The idea is

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Speaker 1: that what it would would alter its perception of reality.

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Speaker 1: But doesn't it need a fine tune perception of reality

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Speaker 1: in order to do it's hunting exactly? But the authors

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Speaker 1: quote hypothesize that hallucinogenic plants alter perception in hunting dogs

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Speaker 1: by diminishing extraneous signals and by enhancing sensory perception, most

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Speaker 1: likely old faction, or the sense of smell that is

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Speaker 1: directly involved in the detection and capture of game. Now

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Speaker 1: this is interesting because we always have to recognize that

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Speaker 1: a dog is a far more uh, smell based creature

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Speaker 1: than than we can really almost more, it's more more

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Speaker 1: smell based than we can imagine, Like, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: we're such a visual species and uh and certainly, uh,

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Speaker 1: psychedelics are going to alter the sense of smell. And

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Speaker 1: we discussed that briefly last time, Like you, smells may change,

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Speaker 1: smells may seem strange, and imagine that in a creature

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Speaker 1: for whom smell is this really rich means of sensing

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Speaker 1: the external world. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think in

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Speaker 1: the same way that the psychedelic experience is often ineffable.

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Speaker 1: There's this quality to it that you can't describe once

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Speaker 1: it's over and communicate to other people. I think probably

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Speaker 1: the sense experience of other kinds of animals, animals like dogs,

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Speaker 1: is probably ineffable and and un understandable from our point

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Speaker 1: of view, Like there's no way for you to picture

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Speaker 1: or put yourself into the level of chemo sensitivity of

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Speaker 1: a dog there, you know, their level of engagement with

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Speaker 1: all of the chemical signals going on around them that

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Speaker 1: we only get this tiny, blunt, faint kind of whiff

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Speaker 1: of um and and so. Yeah, so that's obviously an

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Speaker 1: important part of their hunting perception. But of course they

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Speaker 1: have other senses to They've got hearing and smell and

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Speaker 1: all that. So maybe what's going on again, we don't

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Speaker 1: know this, This is just what the author's hypothesize, you know.

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Speaker 1: In the last episode, we talked about how one of

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Speaker 1: the common reported effects of taking psilocybin as a holy

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Speaker 1: synogen is the experience of heightened perceptions, like you know,

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Speaker 1: colors might seem more more vivid or brighter, or you

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Speaker 1: might feel like you have in a more cute sense

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Speaker 1: of hearing. Um, it's hard for me to imagine that,

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Speaker 1: like the you know, you actually have greater resolution in

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Speaker 1: your eyeballs for sight, But there might be something going

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Speaker 1: on in the brain where suddenly more power is devoted

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Speaker 1: to noticing detail in what you see or something like that. Um,

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Speaker 1: And so you can imagine maybe the same news true

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Speaker 1: in these hunting dogs. Maybe you know, brainpower gets sort

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Speaker 1: of reorganized in a way where there's new levels of

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Speaker 1: attention to detail and smell that would normally be dedicated

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Speaker 1: to other senses or other distracting mental processes. But then again,

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Speaker 1: we don't know that's the case. That's just interesting possibility

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Speaker 1: for what's going on here. If this is in fact adaptive,

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Speaker 1: which the authors think it probably is. Uh. The author

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Speaker 1: is also right, this is funny that quote. If this

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Speaker 1: is true, plant substances might also enhance the ability of

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Speaker 1: dogs to detect explosive drugs, human remains, and other targets

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Speaker 1: for which they are valued. So so the drug dogs

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Speaker 1: will now be given will be given drugs. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is interesting and a possible future in which let's say,

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Speaker 1: explosive sniffing dogs will be micro dosing um or or

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Speaker 1: perhaps macro dosing in order to find what they're looking for. Uh.

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Speaker 1: We do want to stress that we are not encouraging

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Speaker 1: anyone out there to uh take a psychedelic substance an

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Speaker 1: attempt to carry out any particular tasks in their life.

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Speaker 1: UM No. We're also not encouraging people to dose their

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Speaker 1: pets or domestic animals with substances you might not know

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Speaker 1: the effects of. I mean, that's just not advisable. But this,

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Speaker 1: this does remind me, of course, micro dosing is this

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Speaker 1: is what's supposed to trend and like Silicon Valley and

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Speaker 1: so forth, where take a little bit less a little

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Speaker 1: bit of some sort of psychedelic in order to give

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Speaker 1: you with what some supposed slide edge of whatever your

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Speaker 1: coding job happens to be, etcetera. And uh and I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I even't looked at the research on that

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Speaker 1: to see if there is any research on that to

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Speaker 1: say exactly how that holds up. Um, but it does.

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Speaker 1: It does remind me of a recent Saturday Night Live

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Speaker 1: sketch and which there was a there's a film reviewer

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Speaker 1: who appears on Weekend Update who instead of micro dosing

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Speaker 1: to go review films as macro dosing. So he's taking

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Speaker 1: like a colossal amount of psychedelics and then going and

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Speaker 1: seeing just whatever the Hollywood films of the day happened

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Speaker 1: to be and then having these just crazy um reviews

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Speaker 1: of them. I recommend everybody check that out. I haven't

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Speaker 1: seen that one now. I think something that's interesting about

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Speaker 1: this hunting dog study, though, is that it it kind

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Speaker 1: of like roughly falls in line with some of the

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Speaker 1: arguments the McKenna maide back in ninete and Food of

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Speaker 1: the Gods for psilocybin aiding humanities ancestors along three different levels.

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Speaker 1: So but but one of the key areas is that

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Speaker 1: he was pointing to the work of psycho pharmacologist Roland L.

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Speaker 1: Fisher uh saying, quote, small amounts of psilocybin consumed with

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Speaker 1: no awareness of its psycho activity while in the general

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Speaker 1: act of browsing for food and perhaps later consumed consciously

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Speaker 1: in part a noticeable increase in visual acuity, especially edge detection.

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Speaker 1: As visual acuity is at a premium among hunter gatherers.

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Speaker 1: The discovery of the equivalent of quote chemical binoculars could

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Speaker 1: not fail to have an impact on the hunting and

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Speaker 1: gathering success of those individuals who availed themselves of this advantage.

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Speaker 1: That's interesting, yeah, yeah, um. And and he also argues

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Speaker 1: that at higher doses, restlessness and sexual arousal would have

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Speaker 1: played a role. And then finally shamanistic ecstasy would have

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Speaker 1: would have of course been an important part and it

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Speaker 1: clearly was an important part of the use of psychedelics

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Speaker 1: early people. Now I'm not I'm not saying that this

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Speaker 1: paper really backs up McKenna in any meaningful way here.

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Speaker 1: And I'm also not sure if his interpretation of Fisher's

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Speaker 1: work is completely fair or if he's leaning into his

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Speaker 1: assumptions on this. But you know, if if psilocybin makes

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Speaker 1: a hunting dog slightly better at hunting, or a hunter

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Speaker 1: gather slightly better at their thing, then I think this

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Speaker 1: is kind of interesting. I mean that the same case

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Speaker 1: can can and is made for natural substances that work

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Speaker 1: as stimulants, which of course are widely used through human culture.

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Speaker 1: And uh, you know, for every employee out there who's

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Speaker 1: not micro dosing with psilocybin, everybody else is micro or

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Speaker 1: macro dosing with caffeine, ultra dosing on or um. Goodness.

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Speaker 1: I remember hearing tales of like the older newsrooms where

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Speaker 1: a cigarette met was a was a request where someone

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Speaker 1: would be like working on a deadline and they're drinking

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Speaker 1: coffee and they need somebody to actually like stick the

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Speaker 1: cigarette in their mouth to give something and light it

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Speaker 1: up for them so they can have the the nicotine

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Speaker 1: rush to finish their job. Or even the cliche of

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Speaker 1: the use of cocaine in business in Wall Street. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: or and before that, the you know heard tales of

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Speaker 1: you know of labors, you know, being depending on cocaine

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Speaker 1: back back in the day as being like a primary

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Speaker 1: mean of just getting through the labor of the day.

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Speaker 1: And of course in the armed forces of centuries you

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Speaker 1: see a lot of use of stimulants. Certainly we've talked

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Speaker 1: about this in the show before. The use of stimulants

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Speaker 1: by the Nazis during the Second World War was pretty extensive,

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Speaker 1: especially in the Liftwaffe, and and today you still see

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Speaker 1: variants various stimulants that are designed for you some long

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Speaker 1: flights in military context. All right, well, I think maybe

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Speaker 1: we should take a break, and then when we come back,

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Speaker 1: we will talk a little bit about animals self administration

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Speaker 1: of hallucinogens. Alright, we're back. So before we get into

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Speaker 1: the self administration of psychedelics by animals, it's just a

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Speaker 1: quick reminder that animals in general I have are known

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Speaker 1: to make use of various chemicals in their environment. It

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Speaker 1: may be something more internal, like a poison dart frog

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Speaker 1: acquiring its toxicity via the plants that it consumes, or

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Speaker 1: it could be something like lemurs that take a centipede,

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Speaker 1: crush it, and spread the the toxicity of the of

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Speaker 1: of this species on their fur, presumably to keep insects away.

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Speaker 1: So there are plenty of cases like that where it's

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Speaker 1: either a more complex part of the creatures physiology or

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Speaker 1: it is something that they are doing almost like tool

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Speaker 1: use of the toxins in their environment. Great example of

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Speaker 1: this I remember from our Squirrels episodes was the ground squirrel. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I think some western United States or

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Speaker 1: western North American ground squirrel has a strategy for avoiding

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Speaker 1: its rattlesnake predators, which is finding discarded rattlesnake skins after

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Speaker 1: the snake sheds its skin, chewing that up and rubbing

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Speaker 1: it all over its body and the bodies of its young. Wow. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's brilliant. But so these are all, you know, self

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Speaker 1: administrations of of chemicals by animals. So would animals take

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Speaker 1: psychedelic drugs given the opportunity do Do they just seek

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Speaker 1: these things out and consume them voluntarily? It's one thing

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Speaker 1: if maybe an animal consumes a hallucinogen by accident, you know,

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Speaker 1: because it's just there's a psychedelic compound in their environment

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Speaker 1: and they happen to eat it while they're foraging, versus

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Speaker 1: behaviors were it really does seem like they're actively seeking

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Speaker 1: it out and after they have the experience once try

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Speaker 1: to repeat it. Have you ever seen the movie The Bear? No,

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Speaker 1: I haven't, so I forget the French director's name he

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Speaker 1: directed the original, or the name of the rose Um.

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Speaker 1: But but The Bear I remember as being a very

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Speaker 1: fun film about this this bear, using lots of like

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Speaker 1: real bears used in the film. But there's a sequence

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Speaker 1: in which the bear eats a psychedelic mushroom and has

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Speaker 1: a psychedelic experience and it's pretty wonderful of you. If

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Speaker 1: you don't see the whole movie, I recommend everyone check

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Speaker 1: out that sequence on like YouTube if it's still out there. Well,

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Speaker 1: the Bear would not be alone in the animal kingdom,

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Speaker 1: it turns out. So there is a paper that I

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Speaker 1: want to refer to here from the International Journal of Addictions.

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Speaker 1: This is from nineteen seventy three, so a lot of

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Speaker 1: thinking about drugs has changed since then, but this does

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Speaker 1: document some like recorded animal behaviors that are pretty interesting.

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Speaker 1: So this is called an the Logical Search for Self

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Speaker 1: Administration of Hallucinogens by Ronald K. Siegel, And so it's

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Speaker 1: been reported previously by Wasson in nineteen sixty eight, who

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Speaker 1: will learn a bit more about later in the episode,

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Speaker 1: that reindeer often self administer hallucinogenic mushrooms known as Amanita

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Speaker 1: muscaria or fly A garic. And they will find these

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Speaker 1: mushrooms when they're available and they will eat them. So

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Speaker 1: if you've never seen what these look like, they're worth

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Speaker 1: looking up. They're kind of the classic like toadstool looking mushroom,

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of the red and white spotted cap uh.

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Speaker 1: And the reindeer are also known, interestingly to try to

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Speaker 1: ingest the urine of humans who have been consuming this

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Speaker 1: same species of mushroom for psychedelic purposes. Wasson wrote in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight quote when human urine or mushrooms are

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Speaker 1: in the vicinity, the half domesticated beasts become unmanageable. All

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Speaker 1: reindeer folk know of these two addictions. Reindeer like men

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Speaker 1: suffer or joy profound mental disturbances after eating the fly agaric.

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Speaker 1: So Segell writes that the normal diet of a reindeer

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Speaker 1: is almost entirely composed of lichens, and so you know,

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Speaker 1: lightlife in the tundra can be gastronomically boring sometimes, but

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Speaker 1: they do also appear to have this strong instinct toward

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Speaker 1: the consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms and the human urine containing

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Speaker 1: the active metabolites of the same mushroom. So, according to Siegel,

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Speaker 1: the Chukchi people of the eastern Arctic Russia region the

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Speaker 1: Chukchi Peninsula sometimes take fly agaric intentionally, which leads to

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Speaker 1: quote elation, sedation, colored visions, and hallucinations, and the reindeer

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00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 1: who can acquire these compounds through raw mushrooms or human

426
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:48,400
Speaker 1: urine quote become just as drunk and have just as

427
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,160
Speaker 1: great a thirst. At night, they are noisy and keep

428
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:54,080
Speaker 1: running around the tints in the expectation of being given

429
00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:56,880
Speaker 1: the long four fluid and when some is spilled out

430
00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:00,160
Speaker 1: in the snow, they start quarreling, tearing away from each other.

431
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:02,880
Speaker 1: The clumps of snow moistened with it. And that's another

432
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:07,040
Speaker 1: quote from Wasson. One report quote stresses the passion of

433
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:10,119
Speaker 1: the reindeer for human urine is so intense that it

434
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 1: is likely to make it dangerous to relieve oneself in

435
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:17,719
Speaker 1: the open when there are reindeer around. There's also some

436
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 1: scant evidence that reindeer who ingest these compounds subsequently isolate

437
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:24,480
Speaker 1: themselves from the herd. But again the evidence here is

438
00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 1: not clear uh, and self isolating behavior could have other

439
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:31,280
Speaker 1: causes that this lines up with other observations that seagull makes. Yeah,

440
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:35,359
Speaker 1: Wasson did a lot of work regarding fly agaric uh

441
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 1: and this was, you know, an extremely ancient shamanistic and

442
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:42,040
Speaker 1: toxican that was used by the uh Tunguska tribes of

443
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 1: ancient Siberia. And he even presented it as a potential

444
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 1: candidate for soma. Somos is mystical substance that was consumed

445
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:54,679
Speaker 1: in Vadic India and uh and it's been interpreted, Uh,

446
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:57,919
Speaker 1: nobody's quite sure what exactly it was, but it's in

447
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:02,679
Speaker 1: it's been interpreted as having been hume, cannabis or got uh.

448
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:06,040
Speaker 1: If fedra is a strong candidate, they often see discussed.

449
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 1: And then sometimes the cases made for psilocybin as well. Uh,

450
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:13,720
Speaker 1: and it may have been different substances at different times too,

451
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:16,720
Speaker 1: that's always important to keep in mind. H McKenna of

452
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:19,439
Speaker 1: course makes an argument in his book for psilocybin and

453
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:21,399
Speaker 1: that it spends a lot of time. He spends a

454
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: lot of time with that. But but some is certainly

455
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:26,240
Speaker 1: a fascinating substance to try and unravel because it was

456
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: an important Indo European substances, again described in the Vedas.

457
00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 1: It was also seems to be the same thing as

458
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:38,640
Speaker 1: a homa, which was an important pres Oroastrian substance in Persia,

459
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:41,439
Speaker 1: and it was attributed with all sorts of mystical and

460
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 1: curative properties. It was quote the pillar of the world

461
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: and uh. And some still make a case for psychedelic

462
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:51,439
Speaker 1: substances being in play here, while others are kind of

463
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 1: strongly in the ephedra realm, so seeing it more as

464
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 1: like a purely a stimulant. Yeah, that's interesting and honestly,

465
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: I really did not know much about liegaric before before

466
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 1: looking at this. So oh yeah, there's uh if I

467
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: recall correctly, there are even people who make interesting commentary

468
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 1: about Santa Claus and flying reindeer in relation to this.

469
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 1: I've read about this. Yeah, the myth of the flying

470
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:18,680
Speaker 1: reindeer comes from them eating these mushrooms or eating the

471
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: urine of people who have eaten the mushrooms and loosening

472
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:24,959
Speaker 1: the bonds of Earth's gravity. So Segel actually looks at

473
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,199
Speaker 1: a number of other recorded patterns of self administration of

474
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 1: psychoactive substances and animals. In another example he gives is

475
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: the mongoose, which has been reported to seek out hallucinogenic

476
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 1: toads and other prey containing potentially psychoactive compounds during hunting,

477
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,479
Speaker 1: even when other prey are available. To read this quote,

478
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 1: some mongooses in the West Indies and the Hawaiian Islands

479
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: apparently ingest Buffo Marina's toads, which I should add um

480
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 1: are now known as the Rinella Marina toads, the cane toad,

481
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 1: the scourge of Australia, which we've talked about in a

482
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 1: recent episode about anibalism or almost cannibalism, because apparently these toads,

483
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:05,719
Speaker 1: uh you know, the they like to eat their own

484
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 1: tadpoles and juveniles. But these toads, quote contain the hallucinogen bouffattenine,

485
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 1: and to continue this phenomenon is something of a mystery,

486
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: since other toads as well as other natural prey, are

487
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 1: more abundant in these regions. While it is not known

488
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 1: if there are psychoactive effects resulting from such ingestions, the

489
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 1: mongoose goes out of its way to ingest a variety

490
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:32,439
Speaker 1: of psychoactive compounds and poisons, including the poison bulb of

491
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: scorpions and the sting which he quotes another author, which

492
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 1: it seems to consider a bond bush. That's interesting considering

493
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 1: you know that the mongoose is invasive. It was introduced

494
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 1: to Hawaii as well as you know, other other places

495
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:51,920
Speaker 1: such as the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, etcetera. And then the

496
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 1: cane toade as well. Right, yeah, the cane toade, I

497
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 1: think is originally native to South America, primarily um And

498
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: and that's not it were all of the potential animal

499
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 1: self administrations of psychedelic compounds that have been recorded by

500
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:07,880
Speaker 1: you know, people observing animal behavior. Just a few quick

501
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: notes mentioned In a little article in the Pharmaceutical Journal

502
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:12,879
Speaker 1: in two thousand ten by Andrew Haynes, which has a

503
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 1: truly horrible title that I'm not going to read and

504
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: I'm gonna assume was assigned by like a web editor,

505
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: it mentioned something about animal junkies. Yeah, well it was

506
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: a different time, Okay. So a few examples mentioned here

507
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 1: are apparently that big horn sheep of the Canadian Rockies

508
00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 1: apparently seek out and consume psychoactive lin quote in scraping

509
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 1: it off the rock surface, they can wear their teeth

510
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 1: down to the gums. Uh. And in the rainforests of

511
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,479
Speaker 1: South America, apparently jaguars are known to sometimes not on

512
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 1: the roots and bark of the yaga plant, which is

513
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: this is the plant that is from which the d

514
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 1: m T has has derived. Yeah, it's the plant used

515
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 1: in the making of ayawascate, and the jaguars apparently tend

516
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: to so. After they gnaw on this plant, they have

517
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 1: been recorded acting playful and kind of kitten ish uh.

518
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: And some wild animals in Africa, including boars porcupines, some

519
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: primates like man drills, are known to dig up and

520
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 1: eat the hallucinogenic roots of the aboga plant. I love

521
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: that the idea of a jaguar consuming this and just

522
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: kind of being it's almost like it's eating cat and

523
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 1: up for something. It's just a little playful where when

524
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 1: the jaguar is considered such a spiritual animal in the

525
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: traditions of like Amazonian people, and it's like it's the

526
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 1: kind of spirit that you would perhaps encounter while on

527
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: an ahuasca journey. Well, this has even been hypothesize. This

528
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 1: is certainly not known, but it's been speculated that maybe

529
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 1: the consumption of ayahuasca as a sacred right came from

530
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 1: observing the jaguar doing this, and so like the ideas

531
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 1: that you know, the jaguar is this powerful spiritual beast

532
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: and that its behaviors might have been copied by humans. Yeah,

533
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: this center This is something important we didn't mentioned in

534
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: the first episode. We talked about humans gradually figuring out

535
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,959
Speaker 1: what they could eat and what they couldn't eat. Of course, uh,

536
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 1: humans can also look to see what other animals are

537
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 1: capable of eating, which is not always a definite sign

538
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: that you should eat it. There are things that animals

539
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: can eat in certain species can eat that we absolutely cannot.

540
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 1: They might have different enzymes and stuff that we don't.

541
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: But then again, if you see an animal completely avoiding

542
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 1: a particular substance, you know, that might be a clear

543
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 1: sign that you should avoid it as well, or perhaps

544
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: that the magic of cooking is necessary in order to

545
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 1: harness it. And then if you see some sort of

546
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: peculiar behavior taking place after an animal consumes something, well

547
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: maybe more study is required. Now, just the fact that

548
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 1: an animal will self administer a drug is clearly not

549
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 1: evidence that that drug is a good thing or a

550
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:45,719
Speaker 1: healthy thing for that animal to consume. Right, I mean,

551
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: we've all seen our pets consume things, right that that,

552
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's making a

553
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: wise choice, and it's an environment or I think about

554
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: the their lab studies where you know, mice lab mice

555
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 1: will have the option to sell off administer addictive drugs.

556
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: You know, they can self administer morphine or whatever, and

557
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: sometimes this is used in studies to figure out how

558
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 1: to break addictions, like what kinds of opportunities when offered

559
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: to mice, will be more attractive to mice than just

560
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 1: trying to self administer more doses of morphine. Right, But

561
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: then again, you know we're talking about like morphine uh

562
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 1: in like a drip or something, right, which is not

563
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 1: not something that would encounter in the natural world obviously,

564
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 1: and and also any of them. And to be I

565
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: just want to say I used morphine as a just

566
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 1: an example there. I don't remember what exactly the compound

567
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: was they study, but it's something like that, right. Well,

568
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 1: it seems like a lot of those studies do use

569
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: synthetic drug compounds. So it's not like say we put

570
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: we put a mouse in a you know, a small

571
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: ecosphere with some psychedelic mushrooms and just see to see

572
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 1: just how much you would eat, you know it, something

573
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: like that. It tends to be like a drip of

574
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 1: some sort of synthetic version, some artificial substance that's created

575
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:03,280
Speaker 1: from a naturally occurring uh substance. But yeah, so the

576
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 1: question is like, with these psychedelics, self administration of psychedelics

577
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 1: by animals, why do they do it? Why do they

578
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,960
Speaker 1: seek hallucinogenic substances? It would seem in many cases to

579
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 1: be maladaptive. Now, we do have the one hypothesis already

580
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: that there are perhaps ways in which some psychedelic compounds

581
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: could alter brain function in a way that heightened sensory perception.

582
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 1: Maybe it helps in hunting by making you know, by

583
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:31,800
Speaker 1: giving you stronger attention to your old factory senses, and

584
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,960
Speaker 1: makes you better at sniffing out prey. That's possibility, you know,

585
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: it's also possible. I've seen some authors speculate that maybe

586
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: they consume these substances out of some equivalent to the

587
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 1: human experience of boredom. You know, they're they're seeking novel experiences,

588
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,520
Speaker 1: which does that is a drive. The general drive to

589
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:50,400
Speaker 1: seek novel experiences is something that has in some cases

590
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 1: an evolutionary purpose. We've talked on the show before about neophilia, right,

591
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 1: the the idea of like animals that seek novel experiences

592
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 1: or go toward unfamiliar objects may often more often put

593
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: themselves at risk of danger, but they also set themselves

594
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 1: up for bigger rewards. So if you're in a your

595
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 1: a raccoon living in a city, and you approach an

596
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 1: unfamiliar object in a parking lot, it could be full

597
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 1: of milkshake, it could be full of fries, but it

598
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: also could kill you, you know, so it's sort of

599
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:21,840
Speaker 1: like a higher stakes way of playing the life game.

600
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: You know, you get bigger risks bigger rewards. Yeah. And

601
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: of course another example, just a quick one to throw

602
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 1: it is a is just the obvious consumption of of

603
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 1: of overripe fruit, which in which fermentation has taken place,

604
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: and you essentially have naturally occurring alcohol. Not the synthetic

605
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:43,480
Speaker 1: version of this that we have today. Uh, you know

606
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 1: anytime you go to you know, pick up beer or

607
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 1: wine or hard liquor what have you, but just the

608
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: fermented fruit that animals do still do eat when they

609
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 1: when they find it. Well, I don't know what are

610
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: that some I mean those are still made by fermentation,

611
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: right what you're talking about beer and wine? Beer and wine?

612
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: Is there something going on there? I don't know about

613
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:06,479
Speaker 1: I thought it was still fermentation was the process by

614
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,760
Speaker 1: which the alcohol was generated. Yeah, but it's it's different

615
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 1: than than the fruit, like you know, it's it is,

616
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:15,239
Speaker 1: that's true. You're not eating the grape right, Like, Yeah,

617
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:19,320
Speaker 1: there's a Basically we've taken the naturally occurring um fermentation

618
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 1: process and these fruits and we have we have harnessed

619
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 1: it and uh, we've we we've learned how to how

620
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:30,200
Speaker 1: to concentrate it. So like a bottle ever clear is

621
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: a rather different scenario compared to just some you know,

622
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 1: some fermented fruit that's so littered on the ground beneath

623
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: the tree. Yeah, and alcohol is clearly a case where

624
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:43,839
Speaker 1: animals will often have often been observed self administering drug. Now,

625
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:47,439
Speaker 1: we don't usually think of alcohol as psychedelic, it's not really,

626
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:50,960
Speaker 1: but but like you know, elephants will seek out fermented fruits,

627
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: some primates will, it's a common thing. Um. Uh, there's

628
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:58,920
Speaker 1: another question, is I guess this is sort of similar

629
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 1: to the thing about um seeking novel experiences as a

630
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: as a certain instinct, especially and maybe mammal brains. I'm

631
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: sure some probably some bird brains to write, you know,

632
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 1: but what if there's some drive and maybe like some

633
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 1: mammal brains and some bird brains that seeks altered states

634
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:19,360
Speaker 1: states of consciousness is a form of what's known in

635
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 1: some of the literature is deep patterning. There's a tendency

636
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:26,960
Speaker 1: toward habit breaking that is made possible by some of

637
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 1: these drugs, which I think we'll get into more of

638
00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 1: the research about that in the next episode. And that's

639
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:35,399
Speaker 1: a very important therapeutic use of it. Uh. I mean,

640
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 1: a lot of the early research on the use of

641
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: psychedelics in a therapeutic setting was about say, breaking addictions. Um.

642
00:35:41,719 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: And that's a form of habit breaking or deep patterning

643
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:48,279
Speaker 1: of of mental processes or mental behaviors. Uh. And I

644
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 1: wonder if it's possible there is some kind of instinct

645
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: for that in other animal minds, not just in human brains,

646
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 1: a tendency to seek out chemicals that allow you to

647
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:01,760
Speaker 1: adapt to new ways of doing things. Could this actually

648
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:05,359
Speaker 1: be a drive that's selected for Again, that's speculative, but

649
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: it's interesting to consider. But maybe we should get into

650
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:12,720
Speaker 1: the history of human use here of these substances. Yeah,

651
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 1: con certainly human use of psychedelics does go back to

652
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:18,600
Speaker 1: ancient and prehistoric times like that is that that is

653
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:24,360
Speaker 1: universally accepted. Uh. You know the key stuff substances mentioned previously.

654
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 1: It can be found across the continents, and a humans travel,

655
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:30,000
Speaker 1: they continue to encounter new species as well. I mean,

656
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:31,960
Speaker 1: they're parts of the world where there does seem to

657
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:35,319
Speaker 1: be more of a concentration of them, such as you know,

658
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 1: Mezzo in South America. Uh. But you do find psychedelic

659
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 1: substances all over the place. I mean, I think Michael

660
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 1: Pollen in his book how to change your mind, which

661
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:46,960
Speaker 1: we mentioned in the last episode and is one of

662
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: our major sources here, which is fantastic. It is wonderful. Um.

663
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:53,760
Speaker 1: You know, he argues, I'm not sure if he's correct,

664
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:57,759
Speaker 1: but he argues that basically pretty much every culture in

665
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:03,920
Speaker 1: the world, how as some kind of tradition of using

666
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:08,200
Speaker 1: compounds from natural plants and substances to alter consciousness, with

667
00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:12,280
Speaker 1: pretty much the only exception being some Arctic people's because

668
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:15,920
Speaker 1: they didn't nothing like that grew around there, right. But

669
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:18,919
Speaker 1: but even then, I mean, we have the Siberian use

670
00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:22,960
Speaker 1: of the uh the fly agarics uh so see, and

671
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: then the other side of that being like to what

672
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: extent did they stick with it? To what did did

673
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 1: they lose the substance, did the substance fallout a favor? Uh?

674
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:32,840
Speaker 1: That sort of thing, you know, some of that we

675
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: saw with with some example. But uh, I was reading

676
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:39,840
Speaker 1: around about this, uh in the aforementioned sources. But also

677
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 1: I picked up a book off and turned to on

678
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 1: our other show, Invention, which is the seventy grade Inventions

679
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 1: of the Ancient World. It's the classic. Yes, it's really good.

680
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:51,799
Speaker 1: It's written by Brian and Fagan, who is just a

681
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: you know, an authority in ancient technology and ancient invention,

682
00:37:56,520 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: and it provides just overviews of various um cultural inventions,

683
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,840
Speaker 1: technological inventions, etcetera. And Uh. One of the chapters he

684
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:08,640
Speaker 1: writes UM with Richard Rudgley, who is an author of

685
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 1: several books on the history of psychedelic substances and and

686
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:17,359
Speaker 1: other substances in human culture, and they point out that

687
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:21,840
Speaker 1: basically without written reports to go on, you know, with

688
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: truly ancient people, we we tend to have to look

689
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:29,240
Speaker 1: for three types of evidence for the consumption of drugs

690
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 1: or some sort of psychedelic substance, right, because how do

691
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 1: we know what they were taking? Right? So we have

692
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:37,880
Speaker 1: to look first of all for botanical remains associated with barrels,

693
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:40,880
Speaker 1: burials or or agriculture. So, you know, a kid, do

694
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:45,800
Speaker 1: we find the botanical remains of say cannabis, uh, inside

695
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: of a tomb or you know, among the arch archaeological

696
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 1: remains of an agricultural site. The next thing we look

697
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 1: for is artifacts to contain residues. Uh, So is there

698
00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 1: a residue of, say, cannabis in this device? And then

699
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: clearly if if the device itself looks like it was

700
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: clearly used for the consumption of drugs, such as a pipe,

701
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 1: which you know some of you might be saying, well,

702
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 1: pipe could be used for just a tobacco, Well, bingo

703
00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:15,759
Speaker 1: tobacco also a drug, so that counts. Uh. And then

704
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 1: of course artistic motifs that depict mind altering plants or

705
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 1: fung gui that is another big one, though I will

706
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 1: say a complication there is that very often with the

707
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 1: artistic motifs there's an argument about exactly what they represent.

708
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:31,359
Speaker 1: Like there are people who make the case that there

709
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: are stone age cave paintings that indicate the consumption of

710
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 1: psilocybin mushrooms, but I think that's not that's not clear.

711
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 1: Not everybody agrees on what's being represented there, right, And

712
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:45,320
Speaker 1: you get into complex issues with symbolism too. I mean, basically,

713
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 1: you could you could have something that looks like a

714
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:50,839
Speaker 1: mushroom and an ancient work, and one side might say, well,

715
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 1: that's a mushroom. The other side might say that is

716
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 1: a fallus, and then others might say, well, this could

717
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 1: be very much be both, And then what does that

718
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,800
Speaker 1: say that the fallus in the the mushroom are combined

719
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 1: in the same artistic tradition, etcetera. But for instance, just

720
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:07,840
Speaker 1: to put you to drive home some of the periods

721
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 1: of time we're talking about here. Um, we know that

722
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 1: domesticated opium pops up in the sixth millennium b C

723
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:18,719
Speaker 1: in the Western Mediterranean based on Neolithic burial sites. And

724
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:22,799
Speaker 1: then a cannabis pipe cup dates back to the third

725
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 1: millennium BC in Central Asia. And then we have peyote

726
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 1: cactus imagery and what is now Mexico and Texas from

727
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: three thousand to four thousand years ago. We also know

728
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:37,280
Speaker 1: that the Aztecs used multiple different psychoactive plants for shamanistic purposes,

729
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 1: drawing on the long traditional usage of these substances by

730
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 1: other peoples of Mezzo and South America. And then there are,

731
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:47,840
Speaker 1: for instance, the statues of the aztect god Zochupeli, that

732
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:52,239
Speaker 1: clearly feature the motif of psychoactive plants. Yeah, Zochipele is

733
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:54,879
Speaker 1: an interesting figure. I was gonna say something a bit

734
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:57,359
Speaker 1: about him later, but I guess maybe I'll mention it now.

735
00:40:57,600 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk a good bit about the use of

736
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:03,239
Speaker 1: psilocybin mush hims in Mesoamerica. But psilocybin mushrooms are not

737
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: the only psychoactive substances that were used by the Mesoamericans

738
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 1: and their religions such as the Aztecs. Plenty of other

739
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: plants played a role as well. And this as to

740
00:41:11,640 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: god zoch peally, his name means something like the prince

741
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 1: of flowers, which is great, but he's been suggested by

742
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:22,360
Speaker 1: several scholars as sort of the embodiment of a number

743
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 1: of sacred and theogenic plants known to the Aztecs, including

744
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: you know, everything like morning glory and tobacco, and a

745
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:33,440
Speaker 1: number of flowers and trees that have some degree or

746
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:36,399
Speaker 1: another of psychoactive compounds in them. I'll throw in real

747
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 1: quick just to summarize, though. Fagan and Rudgley uh point

748
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:44,160
Speaker 1: out that psychedelic substances are quote both deeply embedded in

749
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:48,280
Speaker 1: many cultures in prehistoric and ancient Eurasia and intimately bound

750
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:51,839
Speaker 1: up with their ceremonial and religious life, and that also

751
00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 1: likewise in the America's it was quote both prevalent and ancient. Yeah,

752
00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:59,480
Speaker 1: I think that's clear, and that's an interesting thing, which

753
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:02,360
Speaker 1: you know, we were talking about the drug war mentality earlier.

754
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 1: You know, one thing I remember when I was growing

755
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: up was that there was a clear cultural antagonism between

756
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:13,000
Speaker 1: drug use on one hand and religious authority on the

757
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:15,320
Speaker 1: other hand. It seemed like one of the main things,

758
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 1: one of the main cultural messages I remember hearing from

759
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: religious authorities in America, I guess, which would primarily be

760
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 1: you know, Christian authorities, was against the use of drugs,

761
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: which is at a surface level kind of counterintuitive because

762
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 1: on you know, the use of psychedelic substances goes so

763
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: far back in religious history with you know, many of

764
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:40,719
Speaker 1: the religions of the world. And because we talked about

765
00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 1: in the last episode, a very common response to people

766
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: taking psychoactive substances is not saying like, well, well now

767
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 1: I'm going to discard my religion and just throw myself

768
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 1: fully into secular modernity and become an atheist or something. No,

769
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 1: it tends more often to encourage people to think more spiritually,

770
00:42:57,120 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: to be to be more believing in some thing beyond

771
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:05,320
Speaker 1: the material world. Yeah. Absolutely. Um. You know, this also

772
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:07,320
Speaker 1: reminds me to that, you know, growing up in the

773
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: with the War of drugs mentality is that when you

774
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:15,720
Speaker 1: did learn about religions, modern religions that incorporate, uh, some

775
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:19,759
Speaker 1: drug it it felt like shocking. Like the first time

776
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: you heard about the Rastafari faith. Uh, you know, you

777
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:27,280
Speaker 1: were like, whoa, they smoke cannabis as part of their

778
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: their faith. You know that that seems shocking. Or you

779
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 1: hear about traditional um Native American groups that would utilize

780
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 1: substances like say pioty and and that would seem shocking,

781
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 1: And of course it shouldn't because again, all these different

782
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:45,960
Speaker 1: traditional and ancient religions seem to have been rooted at

783
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,840
Speaker 1: least in part in these substances. Yeah, i'd say non

784
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:53,800
Speaker 1: drug based religions or the exception, not the rule historically. Um.

785
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:56,400
Speaker 1: But then again, I mean, I think at a deeper

786
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:59,919
Speaker 1: level of analysis, you can kind of see why there's

787
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 1: been that conflict between say, you know, especially a culturally

788
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:08,960
Speaker 1: dominant religious authority and the use of psychedelic substances, even

789
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:13,239
Speaker 1: though they might encourage general spiritual feelings and beliefs. I

790
00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:16,600
Speaker 1: think in some cases, the religious condemnation of psychedelic use

791
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 1: might be rooted in the antiheterodoxy sort of impulse, you know,

792
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 1: meaning like you don't want people thinking they've received new

793
00:44:25,200 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: information from God or the gods. You know, you don't

794
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:31,320
Speaker 1: want people thinking that like, wait, you know, the dogmas

795
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:33,720
Speaker 1: of my church aren't aren't all there is there, there's

796
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 1: I'm getting new messages things are doing, because then you

797
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 1: can't control doctrine. Like a common feature I guess of

798
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:42,680
Speaker 1: of monotheistic religion today is to sort of have a

799
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 1: set law and to say, okay, we you know, we

800
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:47,800
Speaker 1: we have received all of the revelations and the rules

801
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 1: and the communications from the divine in the past, and

802
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 1: now everything is locked down and there will be you know,

803
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:55,279
Speaker 1: the phone lines are cut. There is no further revelation,

804
00:44:55,440 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 1: right if God is still speaking. That can be a

805
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:01,359
Speaker 1: dangerous thing to some people, especially the people that are

806
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:04,239
Speaker 1: in a position of power. But it also seems like

807
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that is more of a risk

808
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 1: if your religion has drifted away from the sorts of experiences,

809
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 1: you know, drug related or otherwise that enable that kind

810
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 1: of experience. You know. So we'll get into an example

811
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 1: of that, I think in a bit. But then again,

812
00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 1: even without you know, drugs at all, I mean, heresies

813
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 1: are always an issue to some sort of established religion.

814
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 1: Somebody is going to come along that has a new

815
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:32,879
Speaker 1: vision of how this faith should work, how it's going

816
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:36,720
Speaker 1: to work with a uh, with with society, with culture,

817
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: with the individual, and that is always going to be

818
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: dangerous to to somebody. Yeah, and I'd say maybe one

819
00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: other reason you can see the religious opposition to drug

820
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: use is probably just something more rooted in what we

821
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:51,240
Speaker 1: were talking about at the beginning of episode of the episode,

822
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 1: which is like a failure to make crucial distinctions between

823
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 1: the the effects of these different compounds and how they

824
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 1: play out in culture and in people's lives. Like I

825
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: can understand why if you have a religion that's trying

826
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:06,839
Speaker 1: to encourage social orderliness, why it might be against say

827
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 1: the consumption of alcohol. You know, like alcohol is is

828
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: just crime fuel? Alcohol is this like hugely this the

829
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 1: substance which you know, despite it, I enjoy having a

830
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:20,839
Speaker 1: beer or cocktail or something. But you can understand why

831
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:23,600
Speaker 1: the temperance movement arose. You know, people were seeing like

832
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:27,960
Speaker 1: alcohols it's running rampant through the culture, and in some

833
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:30,800
Speaker 1: ways it still is. Yeah, it is a very destructive force.

834
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 1: Another issue, of course, is you know we taught described

835
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 1: pre we talked about previously the description of these substances

836
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:39,799
Speaker 1: as being boundary dissolving, and a lot of times boundaries

837
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:43,600
Speaker 1: are very important in an organized religion, the boundary between

838
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:47,320
Speaker 1: the the n group in the outsider, the boundaries between

839
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:52,880
Speaker 1: particular casts or divisions within a particular religious group. And

840
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:56,640
Speaker 1: so yeah, to the people controlling the religion, the people,

841
00:46:57,000 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 1: uh you know, in the upper echelhon of the religion,

842
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:04,239
Speaker 1: boundary dissolution could be dangerous. Yeah. I can absolutely see

843
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:06,279
Speaker 1: that in the same way that you might view alcohol

844
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 1: in as crime fuel. Psychedelics are in some ways heterodoxy

845
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:15,759
Speaker 1: fuel or just general questioning and uh, dissolution of of

846
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 1: established order fuel. Yeah. The way mc kenna put it

847
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 1: to any the sans a lot of time talking about

848
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: um cooperative societies and then the dominator societies, and his

849
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:31,600
Speaker 1: critique was that alcohol is like the the ideal drug

850
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 1: of a dominator society, that those that and along with stimulants. Yeah. Well,

851
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:37,400
Speaker 1: I think we should take a quick break and when

852
00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 1: we come back we can discuss a little more of

853
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 1: the more recent history of psilocybin mushrooms, especially in meso America.

854
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. Alright, we're back. We're we're looking

855
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:50,680
Speaker 1: to meso America now, which again is a is a

856
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:52,840
Speaker 1: part of the world where you see so many different

857
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 1: powerful psychedelic substances. Really, some of the most powerful naturally

858
00:47:56,440 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 1: occurring psychedelic substances on Earth can be found in this

859
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 1: part of the world. And of course this is also

860
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: part of the world with a very uh complex and

861
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 1: bloody history. Uh and uh and where we see this

862
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:13,279
Speaker 1: prime clashing of cultures as a Western colonialism enters the picture. Yeah,

863
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:15,799
Speaker 1: exactly right. So the my collegist Paul Statements, we were

864
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:19,160
Speaker 1: talking about how far back uh the use of psychedelic

865
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:22,640
Speaker 1: substances goes. In his book Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World,

866
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 1: Statements argues that the sacramental use of psychoactive mushrooms goes

867
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:30,800
Speaker 1: back at least seven thousand years, probably extends into Paleolithic times.

868
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 1: We don't know exactly for sure, but one of the

869
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:36,640
Speaker 1: most well documented religious uses of psychedelic mushrooms is the

870
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: apparently long running use in Mexico and Central America of

871
00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:44,319
Speaker 1: a species of peloscopy now believed to be a Pelosopy

872
00:48:44,360 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 1: Mexicana that was then known to the Aztecs as Teo

873
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 1: Nana coadle, which was historically translated as God's flesh. But

874
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:55,520
Speaker 1: I've also seen translated I think more recently and simply

875
00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:58,720
Speaker 1: as the god mushroom. So there might be some blurring

876
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:00,800
Speaker 1: of the line there where there are word means flesh

877
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: or mushroom, there might be some overlap there, but we

878
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:07,280
Speaker 1: don't know exactly how far back The use of solosities

879
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:10,400
Speaker 1: among the Meso Americans goes earlier. You mentioned you know

880
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:14,200
Speaker 1: the art motifs as one clue, and there are archaeological

881
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:17,560
Speaker 1: artifacts found in Central America, I think primarily in Guatemala,

882
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,719
Speaker 1: now known as the mushroom Stones, and these are attributed

883
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:25,920
Speaker 1: to the Mayan civilization. They depict humans, animals, and gods

884
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:30,839
Speaker 1: as sort of hybrid mushroom beings with mushrooms stems and

885
00:49:30,920 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 1: caps erupting up out of their bodies, kind of like

886
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:37,320
Speaker 1: the lowand Men's you know the lionman statuette from Europe

887
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:40,520
Speaker 1: showing the humanoid figure with the lion's head, showing early

888
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 1: ideation about monsters and fantasy hybrids. Except this would be

889
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:46,080
Speaker 1: like the fungus minch. Oh wow, this is like in

890
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:49,279
Speaker 1: indentons and dragons. This would be the Makonids, which are

891
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:51,839
Speaker 1: the mushroom people of the under dark. Oh, what what's

892
00:49:51,840 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: that movie you you were telling me about a long

893
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 1: time ago. It was like matanga mushroom horror film about

894
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:02,720
Speaker 1: these human annoyed mushrooms and this infection that turns people

895
00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:06,359
Speaker 1: into mushrooms shandling mushroom creatures. Oh yeah, they're they're Also

896
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:09,360
Speaker 1: that's a central conceit of the setting of the video

897
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:13,920
Speaker 1: game The Last of Us, which court Aceps invades humans. Uh.

898
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:16,279
Speaker 1: But anyway, this is a slightly different thing because it's

899
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 1: not showing like fungus erupting as a as a disease

900
00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:21,440
Speaker 1: out of people, but more like they are these uh,

901
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 1: these fungus beings that seem I don't know. They're generally

902
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:27,960
Speaker 1: depicted as kind of like serene and like this is

903
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 1: a good thing. We don't know exactly what these ancient

904
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 1: mushrooms don't signify, but many scholars have interpreted them as

905
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:37,960
Speaker 1: reflections of the religious significance of psychedelic mushrooms for the

906
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:42,440
Speaker 1: Mayan culture and so much of the world became aware

907
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:45,520
Speaker 1: of the existence and use of psychedelic mushrooms during the

908
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:48,319
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties due to the work of people like the

909
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:52,759
Speaker 1: biologist Richard E. Shaltis, who studied indigenous people's uses of

910
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 1: psychoactive plants, especially in Mexico and in the Amazon Basin,

911
00:50:56,680 --> 00:51:00,000
Speaker 1: and public widespread awareness of the uses of psychedelic musho

912
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:04,040
Speaker 1: rooms in southern Mexico, specifically to Nana Coadle owes a

913
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:09,160
Speaker 1: lot to an article published in Life magazine in May

914
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:13,319
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven written by a then vice president of

915
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:18,760
Speaker 1: JP Morgan, the the investment bank and financial services company UH.

916
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 1: This vice president of JP Morgan was named R. Gordon Wasson,

917
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:25,440
Speaker 1: who was also a mycologist. He and his wife were

918
00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 1: both very interested in mushrooms UH, and he happened to

919
00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 1: be a mushroom enthusiast. I think he was pushing a

920
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:34,680
Speaker 1: kind of personal theory that mushrooms were the genesis of

921
00:51:34,719 --> 00:51:38,799
Speaker 1: all religions and spiritual beliefs. But this article from Life

922
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 1: magazine in nineteen fifty seven was called the Discovery of

923
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:45,279
Speaker 1: Mushrooms that Caused Strange Visions, and then also with the

924
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:48,560
Speaker 1: title seeking the Magic Mushroom. I think one was the

925
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 1: cover title and one was on the article. But I

926
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:54,959
Speaker 1: want to stress again that despite the magazine editor's word

927
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 1: choice there of the discovery of mushrooms that caused Strange Visions,

928
00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 1: Wasson did not in any way actually discover psilocybin mushrooms.

929
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:06,360
Speaker 1: They were known to the indigenous peoples of Mexico and

930
00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 1: Central America for hundreds or thousands of years. Uh, they

931
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:12,600
Speaker 1: just weren't widely known about in many other cultures in

932
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:15,520
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. Beyond that. Now, I think it is

933
00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:19,000
Speaker 1: important to note too that people like Wasson and Schultz, Uh,

934
00:52:19,040 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 1: these were a different breed of professional like so so

935
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:23,600
Speaker 1: much of the time, when when we think about the

936
00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:27,920
Speaker 1: emergence of psychedelics, we think of unfairly we think of

937
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:31,120
Speaker 1: Timothy Leary and or even you know, we think more

938
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 1: in like a nineties context, we think of Terence McKenna.

939
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:36,920
Speaker 1: People were more uh you know, embody ements of counterculture,

940
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:40,360
Speaker 1: and that is not what these individuals were about. In fact,

941
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 1: I believe it was it was Wasson who really did

942
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:48,279
Speaker 1: not like what he saw in the counterculture. Uh, you know,

943
00:52:48,280 --> 00:52:50,360
Speaker 1: he was kind of anti hippie. Oh. I don't know,

944
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:53,480
Speaker 1: but I'm not surprised. Weren't you saying something about McKenna

945
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 1: talking about salts? Oh yeah, yeah. He he pointed out

946
00:52:56,200 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 1: that Schultz was pretty much the complete opposite of someone

947
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:00,560
Speaker 1: like Timothy Leary, that he, you know, he was a

948
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 1: botanist and a scientist, uh and he was at Harvard

949
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:06,839
Speaker 1: at the same time while Leary was approaching psychedelics from

950
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:10,839
Speaker 1: a social science perspective, but also with arguably far less

951
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:13,680
Speaker 1: dedication to the rigors of scientific investigation and with a

952
00:53:13,719 --> 00:53:18,280
Speaker 1: strong inclination towards celebrities, celebrity and the trappings of guru.

953
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: But Schultz's was also highly influential on a whole range

954
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:25,280
Speaker 1: of people, including EO. Wilson, but also people like William Burrows.

955
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:29,200
Speaker 1: That's interesting again that the just the the impact of

956
00:53:29,239 --> 00:53:33,319
Speaker 1: their work is essential when you consider like all strains

957
00:53:33,440 --> 00:53:38,680
Speaker 1: of knowledge and interest in psychedelic substances. Well, so one

958
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:42,520
Speaker 1: question you might have is like if there were people's

959
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:46,319
Speaker 1: of especially like Southern Mexico and Whaka, who were practicing

960
00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:52,440
Speaker 1: the religious use of psilocybin mushrooms. Um this question of

961
00:53:52,480 --> 00:53:55,120
Speaker 1: like why didn't more people outside of the region know

962
00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 1: about this? And I think there's a very good reason

963
00:53:57,560 --> 00:53:59,960
Speaker 1: actually why some of the indigenous peoples of southern Mexico

964
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:03,359
Speaker 1: would keep these mushrooms and their uses a secret, as

965
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:06,759
Speaker 1: a sort of underground parallel ritual to the Catholicism that

966
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:09,120
Speaker 1: took hold of the region beginning in the sixteenth century,

967
00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:12,600
Speaker 1: and that reason was psychedelic mushrooms in their religious uses

968
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 1: had been brutally persecuted hundreds of years before by the

969
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 1: Christian conquistadors in what the ethnobotanist Jonathan Ott has called

970
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:25,319
Speaker 1: the pharmacratic Inquisition UH. Basically, when the Spanish attacked and

971
00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 1: began to colonize Mexico and Central America under Cortes in

972
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:33,320
Speaker 1: the early sixteenth century, the Catholic missionaries among them became

973
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:38,120
Speaker 1: aware that some parts of Aztec religion relied on the

974
00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 1: consumption of fung guide that allowed the Aztecs to actually

975
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 1: see and receive guidance from their gods, and so these

976
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:48,560
Speaker 1: ritual feasts of the too Nana Coadle would sometimes be

977
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:51,200
Speaker 1: used for the purposes of divination where you try to

978
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:54,280
Speaker 1: like receive guidance from the gods, or for other purposes

979
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:58,120
Speaker 1: like ritual healing. And the mushroom rights were witnessed and

980
00:54:58,160 --> 00:55:02,360
Speaker 1: described by a Spanish francis and friar named Bernardino de Sahagun.

981
00:55:02,719 --> 00:55:06,319
Speaker 1: This is a section of de Sahagoon's work that is

982
00:55:06,320 --> 00:55:10,319
Speaker 1: also quoted in Pollen Quote. These they ate before dawn

983
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:13,840
Speaker 1: with honey, and they also drank cocaw before dawn. The

984
00:55:13,920 --> 00:55:16,400
Speaker 1: mushrooms they ate with honey, and when they began to

985
00:55:16,440 --> 00:55:19,439
Speaker 1: get heated from them, they began to dance, and some

986
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:22,560
Speaker 1: sang and some wept. Some cared not to sing, but

987
00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:25,640
Speaker 1: would sit down in their rooms and stayed there pensive like.

988
00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:28,400
Speaker 1: And some saw in a vision that they were dying,

989
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:30,719
Speaker 1: and they wept, And others saw in a vision that

990
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:33,719
Speaker 1: some wild beast was eating them. Others saw in a

991
00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:37,000
Speaker 1: vision that they were taking captives in war. Others saw

992
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:39,279
Speaker 1: in a vision that they were to commit adultery and

993
00:55:39,320 --> 00:55:42,279
Speaker 1: that their heads were to be bashed in there for then,

994
00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:45,280
Speaker 1: when the drunkenness of the mushrooms had passed, they spoke

995
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:48,280
Speaker 1: one with another about their visions that they had seen.

996
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:52,240
Speaker 1: Oh wow. I also love the mention of the honey,

997
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 1: because I think there's sort of two avenues here. Like

998
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:57,279
Speaker 1: one is that, of course, uh, some many of these

999
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 1: psychedelic sceptance, especially the mushrooms, are pungent in their taste,

1000
00:56:01,239 --> 00:56:02,879
Speaker 1: and there's something you know, I didn't need a mask

1001
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:05,239
Speaker 1: it in somewhere or another. But also I've read how

1002
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:10,520
Speaker 1: honey could have been used traditionally to preserve u psychedelic substances,

1003
00:56:10,520 --> 00:56:14,600
Speaker 1: particularly mushrooms, and that you and that even there's this

1004
00:56:14,680 --> 00:56:18,680
Speaker 1: idea that certain need traditions arose out of that um,

1005
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:21,560
Speaker 1: which of course is the fermentation process with the honey

1006
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:24,640
Speaker 1: to produce an alcoholic beverage. Yeah, that's interesting. I had

1007
00:56:24,880 --> 00:56:28,000
Speaker 1: had not heard that, But so you might expect what

1008
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 1: the Catholic reaction of this is. In fact, I bet

1009
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:33,279
Speaker 1: something some of this reaction is coming through even in

1010
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:37,000
Speaker 1: the way that Bernardino de Sagoon describes these experiences, because

1011
00:56:37,040 --> 00:56:39,960
Speaker 1: you notice he tends to emphasize what he thinks are

1012
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:43,680
Speaker 1: at least like negative hallucinogenic experiences about war and about

1013
00:56:43,719 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 1: death and and about being eaten by an animal. The

1014
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:49,200
Speaker 1: Catholic missionaries viewed the Aztec consumption of this and other

1015
00:56:49,200 --> 00:56:53,120
Speaker 1: psychedelic plants as a form of depraved pagan idolatry that

1016
00:56:53,160 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 1: needed to be wiped from the face of the earth.

1017
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:57,839
Speaker 1: It's basically the same anti psychedelic messaging that you saw

1018
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:01,239
Speaker 1: in the sixties, right, the same like the kids are

1019
00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:04,440
Speaker 1: taking this and they're having bad trips and forcing themselves

1020
00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:07,200
Speaker 1: through key holes. They're picking up the axe and going

1021
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:10,920
Speaker 1: going after you know, the grandparents. Right, they're confusing a

1022
00:57:10,960 --> 00:57:14,200
Speaker 1: baby with a basketball and raising the basketball as their

1023
00:57:14,239 --> 00:57:18,560
Speaker 1: own and uh and creating a college fund for the basketball.

1024
00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:23,880
Speaker 1: Clearly this this has to be stopped. Yeah, so it's

1025
00:57:23,920 --> 00:57:26,680
Speaker 1: exactly right. So yeah, the the Catholic missionaries wrote that

1026
00:57:26,720 --> 00:57:29,440
Speaker 1: they believe the consumption of Tonana Coddle was away for

1027
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:33,000
Speaker 1: the Aztecs to receive messages from the devil and from demons.

1028
00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:36,240
Speaker 1: And of course it must have seemed especially perverse to

1029
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:39,959
Speaker 1: the to the missionary mindset that at the at the time,

1030
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: the Aztec priests would have been understood to be eating

1031
00:57:42,560 --> 00:57:45,960
Speaker 1: this thing called God's flesh, given the parallels to the

1032
00:57:46,000 --> 00:57:48,280
Speaker 1: Catholic right of holy communion, in which you would eat

1033
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:51,040
Speaker 1: bread and drink wine representing the flesh and the blood

1034
00:57:51,040 --> 00:57:54,160
Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ. So the Catholic missionaries tried to put

1035
00:57:54,200 --> 00:57:57,320
Speaker 1: down the ceremonies of the selosities, and they encouraged the

1036
00:57:57,360 --> 00:58:01,240
Speaker 1: substitution of what Jonathan Ought referred to seemingly by contrast

1037
00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:05,880
Speaker 1: as the placebo sacraments of the Catholic Eucharist. But fortunately,

1038
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:09,520
Speaker 1: despite the persecution by the Catholic colonizers, these mushroom rituals

1039
00:58:09,560 --> 00:58:13,000
Speaker 1: did continue in secret through to the modern day, especially

1040
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:16,280
Speaker 1: in more remote and mountainous regions like in southern Mexico

1041
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:19,240
Speaker 1: and Mohaka. Now, questions of how they use these substances

1042
00:58:19,240 --> 00:58:21,480
Speaker 1: were used as a fascinating subject unto itself, and when

1043
00:58:21,520 --> 00:58:24,240
Speaker 1: we're you know, not gonna have time to fully examine.

1044
00:58:24,280 --> 00:58:26,600
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole books have been written describing this.

1045
00:58:26,760 --> 00:58:30,080
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, you know, it's basically the idea is that

1046
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: set and setting would again be of primary importance here. Yeah,

1047
00:58:33,960 --> 00:58:35,680
Speaker 1: we talked about that in the last episode. But the

1048
00:58:35,720 --> 00:58:38,800
Speaker 1: importance of the surroundings and the mindset going in right,

1049
00:58:39,160 --> 00:58:41,920
Speaker 1: and then some of the more fat fascinating examples that

1050
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:44,520
Speaker 1: we see in the Amazon, you know, where ayahuasca is

1051
00:58:44,560 --> 00:58:49,440
Speaker 1: brewed from the the aga vine, uh, etcetera. Uh. But

1052
00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:52,360
Speaker 1: you know, they also turned to other substances as well

1053
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:54,960
Speaker 1: as what and they also turned to dreams in the

1054
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:58,200
Speaker 1: shamanistic practice, which I think is interesting as well. Like

1055
00:58:58,760 --> 00:59:01,960
Speaker 1: it's not like these were the that these substances were

1056
00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:04,560
Speaker 1: the only tool that was utilized. They would also refer

1057
00:59:04,600 --> 00:59:08,040
Speaker 1: to dreams and then and in terms of the shamanistic

1058
00:59:08,160 --> 00:59:11,480
Speaker 1: use of the substances themselves, it's you might think that

1059
00:59:11,560 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 1: such practices would simply involve a shaman giving you a substance,

1060
00:59:14,720 --> 00:59:17,160
Speaker 1: guiding you through the experience to help you with your problem.

1061
00:59:17,480 --> 00:59:19,360
Speaker 1: And this is true. This is what you would see.

1062
00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:21,800
Speaker 1: And you see this reflected in the Western uh some

1063
00:59:21,880 --> 00:59:24,120
Speaker 1: of the Western research that will be discussing later. You

1064
00:59:24,160 --> 00:59:26,960
Speaker 1: see it in some of the you know, the counterculture

1065
00:59:26,960 --> 00:59:31,040
Speaker 1: and underground uses of it. But in the classic scenarios

1066
00:59:31,080 --> 00:59:33,840
Speaker 1: that the shaman was sometimes the one to ingest the

1067
00:59:33,880 --> 00:59:38,720
Speaker 1: substance alone and solve your problem for you, which seems

1068
00:59:38,760 --> 00:59:42,160
Speaker 1: kind of counterproductive or counterintuitive at first, right the idea

1069
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:43,960
Speaker 1: that you would you would go to the shaman and

1070
00:59:43,960 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 1: the shaman would take a psychedelic in order to help

1071
00:59:47,360 --> 00:59:49,920
Speaker 1: you with your problem, and you wouldn't take anything. But

1072
00:59:50,040 --> 00:59:52,560
Speaker 1: this could well be the case in some of these situations.

1073
00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:55,920
Speaker 1: You know that the shaman would step outside of of

1074
00:59:55,960 --> 00:59:59,680
Speaker 1: their own self uh in order to tackle your problem

1075
00:59:59,760 --> 01:00:02,280
Speaker 1: head on and help you solve it. Yeah, exactly so.

1076
01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:04,840
Speaker 1: So to finish the story, in the nineteen fifties, this

1077
01:00:04,920 --> 01:00:07,960
Speaker 1: Jp Morgan Banker we mentioned right our Gordon Wasson. He

1078
01:00:08,080 --> 01:00:11,080
Speaker 1: traveled to Wahaka in Mexico and he met with an

1079
01:00:11,080 --> 01:00:16,000
Speaker 1: experienced psiloscopy shaman known as a curandera or which meants

1080
01:00:16,040 --> 01:00:19,960
Speaker 1: like a healer named Maria Sabina, who allowed him to

1081
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:23,600
Speaker 1: participate in a psilocybin healing and divination ritual known as

1082
01:00:23,640 --> 01:00:27,360
Speaker 1: a vilada to the Mazo tech people, and Wasson wrote

1083
01:00:27,400 --> 01:00:29,920
Speaker 1: about this experience in that Life magazine article we mentioned

1084
01:00:29,960 --> 01:00:34,280
Speaker 1: inteen fifty seven, and subsequently scientific interest in the mushroom skyrocketed.

1085
01:00:34,320 --> 01:00:36,840
Speaker 1: People eventually sent samples of the fruiting bodies of the

1086
01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:40,520
Speaker 1: mushrooms to Albert Hoffman, the man who first isolated LSD

1087
01:00:40,640 --> 01:00:43,080
Speaker 1: twenty five from urghot rye and discovered its effects the

1088
01:00:43,120 --> 01:00:46,760
Speaker 1: decade before, and Huffman and colleagues were able to isolate

1089
01:00:46,800 --> 01:00:50,320
Speaker 1: the psychoactive compounds in the mushroom, and of course Hoffman

1090
01:00:50,400 --> 01:00:53,160
Speaker 1: had to try some out himself, and for a while

1091
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: before the anti counterculture backlash and the drug war crackdown,

1092
01:00:56,760 --> 01:01:01,000
Speaker 1: psilocybin was researched by psychologists psychiatrists as a potential tool

1093
01:01:01,080 --> 01:01:05,480
Speaker 1: for understanding human cognition, expanding consciousness, and treating addiction and

1094
01:01:05,560 --> 01:01:08,400
Speaker 1: mental illness. But of course then came the dark days

1095
01:01:08,480 --> 01:01:11,600
Speaker 1: right beginning in the nineteen seventies, where the association of

1096
01:01:11,600 --> 01:01:15,360
Speaker 1: psilocybin with hippie culture and recreational drug use created this

1097
01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:19,000
Speaker 1: stigma around research. Legal barriers went up that made research

1098
01:01:19,040 --> 01:01:22,720
Speaker 1: more practically difficult, and a lot of mainstream research attention

1099
01:01:22,760 --> 01:01:26,760
Speaker 1: just turned away from psilocybin in particular, uh and psychedelics

1100
01:01:26,760 --> 01:01:29,040
Speaker 1: in general. And I guess that's where we'll have to

1101
01:01:29,040 --> 01:01:31,760
Speaker 1: stop for this time until we come back next time. Yeah,

1102
01:01:31,800 --> 01:01:34,560
Speaker 1: so the journey continues. The trip is not over. It

1103
01:01:34,600 --> 01:01:39,320
Speaker 1: will continue in episode three of this journey. So in

1104
01:01:39,360 --> 01:01:41,200
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you want to check out more episodes

1105
01:01:41,200 --> 01:01:43,960
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, check out past episodes

1106
01:01:43,960 --> 01:01:46,920
Speaker 1: that have dealt with psychedelics, uh, such as the Timothy

1107
01:01:47,000 --> 01:01:51,280
Speaker 1: Leary episode, the John C. Lily episodes, or some of

1108
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:53,960
Speaker 1: these other episodes we've alluded to. You'll find them there.

1109
01:01:54,000 --> 01:01:55,960
Speaker 1: That's the mother ship Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1110
01:01:55,960 --> 01:01:57,720
Speaker 1: And if you want to support the show, the best

1111
01:01:57,760 --> 01:02:00,440
Speaker 1: thing you can do is to tell your friends about us,

1112
01:02:00,560 --> 01:02:02,560
Speaker 1: and also rate and review us wherever you have the

1113
01:02:02,560 --> 01:02:04,800
Speaker 1: power to do so. So, I don't know how you

1114
01:02:04,840 --> 01:02:07,120
Speaker 1: listen to your podcasts. Maybe if you find them carved

1115
01:02:07,120 --> 01:02:09,240
Speaker 1: into a piece of wood. Uh, you know, may you

1116
01:02:09,280 --> 01:02:11,640
Speaker 1: probably get them through some sort of service online or

1117
01:02:11,720 --> 01:02:14,600
Speaker 1: on your phone wherever it is. H leave us some

1118
01:02:14,680 --> 01:02:17,240
Speaker 1: stars leave a nice review. It really helps us out

1119
01:02:17,520 --> 01:02:21,360
Speaker 1: huge thanks as always to our audio producer, Maya Cole.

1120
01:02:21,720 --> 01:02:23,280
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1121
01:02:23,280 --> 01:02:25,960
Speaker 1: with feedback about this episode or any other, to suggest

1122
01:02:25,960 --> 01:02:27,920
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1123
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:31,160
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1124
01:02:31,200 --> 01:02:42,440
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1125
01:02:42,440 --> 01:02:44,800
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more

1126
01:02:44,840 --> 01:02:47,240
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

1127
01:02:47,400 --> 01:03:00,520
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Basically,

1128
01:03:00,840 --> 01:03:05,560
Speaker 1: this duty propa