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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Edelman and this is Psychoactive, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the

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Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any

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Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of I Heart Media,

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Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heed, as

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Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not

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Speaker 1: even represent my own. And nothing contained in this show

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Speaker 1: should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use

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Speaker 1: any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. Today's show is

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Speaker 1: about i ahuasca and needed to do this one for

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Speaker 1: quite a while. And there's a whole wide world of

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Speaker 1: experts to call on in this area these days because

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Speaker 1: iahuanska has become such a thing. You know, a psycholic

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Speaker 1: plan medicine from South America prim early Amazon area. But

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Speaker 1: today I have one of the world's great experts on

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Speaker 1: this who has been a scholar and an activist for

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Speaker 1: twenty years. Her name is Billibate. She's Brazilian. She's an

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Speaker 1: anthropologist PhD. Anthropology. Grew up in Brazil, but she's also

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Speaker 1: taught in Mexico and currently lives in the United States. Now,

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Speaker 1: she's worked with Rick Dobbin's organization MAPS as the public

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Speaker 1: Education and Culture specialist. She's been affiliated with other academic institutions,

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Speaker 1: but her main gig for US four or five years

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Speaker 1: is she founded and directs an organization called Chakruna, which

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Speaker 1: is really one of the outstanding organizations working on ayahuasca

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Speaker 1: and other plant medicines in the world. So be a

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Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining me on Psychoactive. Thank you

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Speaker 1: for having me Ethan, who have been following your work

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Speaker 1: for a long time. It's an honor to be here

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Speaker 1: with you today. I trying to think back. I think

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Speaker 1: we first met. Maybe it was in Sal Paulo, Brazil,

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Speaker 1: fifteen years ago. I think I was given a talk

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Speaker 1: at the law school down there and you end up

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Speaker 1: coming to lunch with me and the professors or whatever.

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Speaker 1: And then since that time, I've seen you a Drug

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Speaker 1: Policy Alliance events, I've seen you all over the place,

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Speaker 1: and really just recently earlier this summer, we crossed past

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Speaker 1: in Mexico City at the conference of the Alcohol and

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Speaker 1: Drug Historian Society, which is fascinating, and you were one

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Speaker 1: of the keynote speakers there. So you know, your reputation

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Speaker 1: just keeps growing, and I have tremendous admiration for the

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Speaker 1: work that you're doing. So let's dive into this. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the first question I gotta ask you is why have

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Speaker 1: you How did you land up on devoting really, I

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Speaker 1: guess all of your adult life so far to ayahuasca

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Speaker 1: and plan medicine. Thank you for the common Actually I

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Speaker 1: met you in the United States. I remember well distinctively

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Speaker 1: because you were the first person that I came up

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Speaker 1: with a little brochure and caught your attention when you

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Speaker 1: were super busy running the dp A conference in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and seven, and I wrote a little project and

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Speaker 1: I said that I had a dream to have a

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Speaker 1: nonprofit in the United States. And you sat down and

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Speaker 1: you looked at it with like cybor guys, and three

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Speaker 1: seconds read everything and gave me like five words of advice,

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Speaker 1: tapped my shoulder, said good luck, and said some positive

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Speaker 1: things and ran off to the next business meeting with

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Speaker 1: all the in your glory in your times in the

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Speaker 1: dp A running the whole show. And so it's so

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Speaker 1: great for me. This is two thousand and seven, and

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Speaker 1: then cut to two thousand and twenty two, and I

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Speaker 1: do have a nonprofit in the United States, and I

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Speaker 1: did receive your encouragement, and it does feel like a

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Speaker 1: dream come true for me. So that means I get

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Speaker 1: to feel a little bit proud of what you're doing.

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Speaker 1: I didn't even realize that part of it, but that's

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Speaker 1: pretty cool. So yes, so tell it gold back. You should.

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Speaker 1: You should definitely feel proud. And you know, I've been

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Speaker 1: realizing that how influential those conferences were for me. And

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Speaker 1: it was at that conference that I also met Rick

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Speaker 1: Doblin and started to volunteer for MAPS, which I did

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Speaker 1: for ten years. And the d p A definitely helped

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Speaker 1: a lot of young scholars and activists in Latin America

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Speaker 1: do this bridge with the United States because we're kind

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Speaker 1: of isolated, you know, in Mexico, Brazil, it's hard to

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Speaker 1: come to the English speaking world, and that conference really

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Speaker 1: played a role for a lot of us to get

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Speaker 1: to know contexts and explore connections. I started this work

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Speaker 1: really out of personal interest, basically because I took sacred

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Speaker 1: plants and you you said hallucinogens were not antie that term,

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Speaker 1: but we kind of preferred to use sacred plants or

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Speaker 1: plant medicines or psychedelic plant medicines or sacred medicines medicines.

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Speaker 1: The idea of hallucinogen gives a bit the impression that

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Speaker 1: it's some kind of fake. Yeah, I'm sorry, I really

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Speaker 1: said I see as it working out of mouth. I

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Speaker 1: really got that popped out from an old part of

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Speaker 1: my brain. Like hallucinogens, there's not really the term of

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Speaker 1: art now. It is psychedelics or plant medicines or those

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Speaker 1: two in combinations. Sorry about that, no problem, I mean

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Speaker 1: they are just words after all. But we're like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we have a lot of respect for these plants that

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Speaker 1: are very influential, so we use other terms. But I

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Speaker 1: had personal experiences that were pretty influential in my early twenties.

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Speaker 1: I tried mushrooms in Mexico and peyote, and also tried

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Speaker 1: L S D. And when I was twenty five or

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Speaker 1: twenty six, tried aahuaska in Brazil and it was I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of us have this feeling that it's

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Speaker 1: like arriving home somehow, that you just get in touch

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Speaker 1: with this reality that feels so incredibly familiar and so

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Speaker 1: sacred and so profound and so inspiring, and that gives

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Speaker 1: you a kind of sense of comfort of belonging to

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Speaker 1: something bigger than yourself, and to kind of fitting into

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Speaker 1: this magic and mystery that is being alive and the

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Speaker 1: gratitude of having a body, having a spirit, having a soul,

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Speaker 1: and being here in this journey of so much uncertainty

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Speaker 1: towards what there is after us and just somehow gives

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Speaker 1: this profound feeling of some kind of existential belonging. And

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Speaker 1: so for me it has been really a personal journey

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Speaker 1: that then inspired my intellectual curiosity as a kind of

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Speaker 1: organic move that departs from this personal interests. Well, so

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Speaker 1: let me ask you this, and let's just go backward

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Speaker 1: for those in our audience who really don't know much

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Speaker 1: about Ayahuaska. I mean I introduced it by saying it

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Speaker 1: is this plant medicine, the psychedelic that comes from the

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Speaker 1: Amazonian region, which presumably means parts of Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia,

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Speaker 1: and I guess it maybe borders a little bit. It

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Speaker 1: must be little parts of Venezuela or Bolivia where you

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Speaker 1: can also probably find it. But just say a little

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Speaker 1: more about you know, what do we know about its history?

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Speaker 1: I mean, do we know if the use goes back

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Speaker 1: hundreds of years or thousands of years. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think Westerners only became aware of it in the mid

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century. But what's known from historians and others and

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Speaker 1: anthropologists when they look back at the history of this. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So ayahuasca is a combination normally of two plants, although

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Speaker 1: there is a variation of different admixtures plants that you

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Speaker 1: can add to ayahuasca. Normally, it's the combination what a

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Speaker 1: lot of people know of bunny steadiopsiska coppy, so that's

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Speaker 1: the vine and Cicotira viddis that is the leaf or

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Speaker 1: a shrub that you use the leaf. So traditionally for

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Speaker 1: Amazonian indigenous people, the vine is kind of the base

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Speaker 1: of ayahuaska. And then you can add different admixture plants.

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Speaker 1: So Cicotia is chakurna. That's why we named our nonprofit

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Speaker 1: after Ayawuaska. It's a tribute to Ayahuaska, which is our

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Speaker 1: plant teacher. And it's used across different countries of the Amazon,

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Speaker 1: and I think you have named all of them correctly

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Speaker 1: by different indigenous people. It's not very clear when it's

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Speaker 1: used started, and there is a lot of controversy around that.

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Speaker 1: I mean traditionally people were saying that this was used

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Speaker 1: for thousands of years, of five thousand years, and then

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Speaker 1: this information has been disputed. Then there is some more

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Speaker 1: recent archaeological evidence. But anyhow, it's not exactly known, and

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Speaker 1: there isn't a day that people across the border identify.

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Speaker 1: So one way to name let me ask you this.

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Speaker 1: You know, when I think about like you can see

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Speaker 1: you know, there's a little statuette of people with the

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Speaker 1: bulge of the coca leaf in their cheek going back

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Speaker 1: thousands of years, right, or you have archaeologists who find

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Speaker 1: cannabis in people's bodies or their pouches that are dug up.

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Speaker 1: You know, there are thousands of years old. There was

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Speaker 1: a news article not long ago about evidence of ayahuasca

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Speaker 1: and also I think coca being found in the bodies

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Speaker 1: of children who have been sacrificed in inca ceremonies. Um,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, five hundred years or so something like that.

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Speaker 1: But so far as we know, is that the oldest

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Speaker 1: archaeological evidence that we have of the use. Yeah, as

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Speaker 1: I said, it's kind of disputed. We have published an

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Speaker 1: article in our site by Georgio Sammarini talking about the

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Speaker 1: fake news of the antiquity of ayahuasca. It's not as clear.

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Speaker 1: For example, some pedro or peyote have more clear archaeological evidence.

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Speaker 1: A lot of these materials in the Amazon are not

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Speaker 1: really easy to track personally. I have chosen to use

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Speaker 1: the expression it has been used since immemorial times, and

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Speaker 1: I guess it's not really you know, relevant, exactly how

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Speaker 1: long it has been used. The fact is that it's

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Speaker 1: spread throughout the America's and it's considered a sacred plant

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Speaker 1: for different indigenous groups. I think in the mid eighties

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Speaker 1: there was an author that calculated that over seventy indigenous

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Speaker 1: groups used diahuasca. More recently, we published in our article

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Speaker 1: that an indigenous activist of Brazil mentioned there's a hundred

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Speaker 1: sixty groups, although that's also hard to classify exactly how many,

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Speaker 1: because the way that colonizers identified indigenous people and divided

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Speaker 1: them into different ethnic groups does not really match necessarily

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Speaker 1: the way these groups classify themselves, and they have also

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Speaker 1: changed names through history. So it's such a huge universe,

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Speaker 1: which plants, which groups for how long. All of this

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Speaker 1: is part of the incredible richness of the Ayahuasca culture.

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Speaker 1: What makes I think also the Aouaska a little different

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Speaker 1: from say peyote or philosophic mushrooms and things like that,

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Speaker 1: is that it requires putting together two distinct plants, right,

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Speaker 1: and there is now you just take the one or

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Speaker 1: take the other. If somebody had to figure out one

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Speaker 1: way or another, you had to combine these things in

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Speaker 1: order to unleash it's kind of special property. Is that right? Yes? Correct?

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Speaker 1: And that's also part of the fascination of Ayahuaska. Can

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Speaker 1: you imagine the millions of plants that exist on the

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Speaker 1: Amazon forest, and if this was done by error and trial,

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Speaker 1: how many attempts would there be to actually find this combination?

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Speaker 1: And considering one of the plants is not really active

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Speaker 1: orally by itself. When you ask indigenous people, how do

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Speaker 1: you know this? And how did you find this out?

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Speaker 1: And you know the answer they give, Right, do you

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Speaker 1: even know what is it? The plants taught me? I

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Speaker 1: thought you're gonna say that, right, that the plan spoke

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Speaker 1: to them. It raises the question whether or not, I mean,

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Speaker 1: we there's no way to know. I guess whether it

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Speaker 1: is the properties of the merger of these two plants

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Speaker 1: was first discovered by one tribe and then spread from there,

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Speaker 1: or whether it was sort of coincidentally discovered in different

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Speaker 1: parts of the Amazon over years by groups having nothing

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Speaker 1: to do with the other. Do we have any idea

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Speaker 1: which was true? Yeah, there's also controversies about that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I have published several books on Ihuaska, and we have

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Speaker 1: done that as well, like published or an article and

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Speaker 1: then later on some other person say something else, and

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Speaker 1: you also published that article. So it looks like it

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Speaker 1: came from the Columbian Amazon. But there's also a kind

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Speaker 1: of lack of clarity exactly where did it originate from.

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Speaker 1: And there's also some people trying to do some DNA

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Speaker 1: work to sort of pursue different vines. Also, something interesting

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Speaker 1: to consider, if you consider there's this whole boom and

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Speaker 1: this whole trendness around Ahuaska, is that there's actually not

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Speaker 1: a lot of botanical work done around the plant species itself.

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Speaker 1: They were identified, as you said, and I think it

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Speaker 1: was eighteen fifty nine or something. I look at eighteen

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Speaker 1: fifty one the Victorian naturalist Richard Spruce. That's by Spruce,

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Speaker 1: the first of the Westerners to uh come across this. Yes,

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Speaker 1: he identified the vine. More recently, some researchers in Brazil

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Speaker 1: have suggested that we need to reclassify the plant, that

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Speaker 1: there are also other species and variations. So there's also

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Speaker 1: that kind of depth to it, like if you go

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Speaker 1: to indigenous people and you're try to ask them, you know,

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Speaker 1: what is this vine or how many vines do you recognize?

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Speaker 1: And they'll tell you they'll recognize six or eight or

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Speaker 1: ten or fifteen or sixteen types. You know, this is

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Speaker 1: the red monkey one, this is the parrot one, this

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Speaker 1: is different names. And then you bring a botanist and

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Speaker 1: show it to them. They don't recognize necessarily the different fronts.

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Speaker 1: And so there is a challenge of like ethno medicine,

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Speaker 1: to identify exactly which types of vine. And there has

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Speaker 1: been a lot of exploration around different users and the

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Speaker 1: practice expanding a lot, but not so much on the

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Speaker 1: plants itself. So there's a lot of rich areas for

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Speaker 1: study and for inquiry, and there's it's a vibrant field

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Speaker 1: of study. And actually people are starting to do these

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Speaker 1: kinds of studies more and more. Now. When you say

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Speaker 1: the vine, I mean first I looked at photographs it

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Speaker 1: is it almost looks like a snake winding itself around

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Speaker 1: a tree from some of the photos I saw. But

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Speaker 1: when you say the vine, that's one of the two ingredients.

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Speaker 1: And is that the part that contains the drug d MT,

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Speaker 1: which I guess is the key psychoactive ingredient, or is

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Speaker 1: that the other one. No, that's the other one, that's

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Speaker 1: the sequatria or another admixture plants. Also, our western explanation

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Speaker 1: puts a kind of centrality into the d m T,

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Speaker 1: which is the visionary element, and it's only active orally

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Speaker 1: with the combination of the vine, the better carbulence. But

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Speaker 1: this doesn't also match indigenous explanations smoothly because traditionally the

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Speaker 1: base of ayahuasca is the vine. The vine is also

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Speaker 1: called ayahuasca, and so the preparation of ayahuaska and other

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Speaker 1: admixture plants is called ahuasca, and just the vine is

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Speaker 1: also called ayahuasca, and you add different admixtures, and for

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Speaker 1: us there has been a lot of emphasis on the

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Speaker 1: d MT, but the tradition is normally the base, the

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Speaker 1: central element is the vine. And there's also people that

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Speaker 1: have cooked just the vine itself and reported psychoactive effects,

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Speaker 1: which doesn't make a lot of sense. According to our theories.

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Speaker 1: So there's a lot of, you know, interesting and fascinating things. It's,

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Speaker 1: as they say, a science, the science of indigenous people,

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Speaker 1: a diahuasca diaouaska science. It's a study, it's a universe.

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Speaker 1: So basically, when I mean, I've done this a few times.

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Speaker 1: But when we drink that tea, the ayahuasca tea, which

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Speaker 1: I guess is the way it's typically consumed, Nobody's going

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Speaker 1: to drink that just for the taste. I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: oftentimes quite unappealing, at least I find it that way.

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Speaker 1: Maybe some people grow to like it. But it contains

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Speaker 1: these two basic ingredients. But obviously every concoction varies depending

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Speaker 1: upon the particular recipe, depending upon where it comes from.

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Speaker 1: So you're gonna have the core elements there, but it's

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Speaker 1: gonna vary quite a lot depending upon which reason of

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Speaker 1: the amazon is coming from. About how people are putting

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Speaker 1: it in. I imagine that different people who cook this

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Speaker 1: up put in different other little additional ingredients for one

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Speaker 1: reason or another. I mean, is that right. It's just

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Speaker 1: there's like no limit to the types of ayahuasca flavors

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Speaker 1: and taste, all sort of embellishing around that core mixture

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Speaker 1: of the two ingredients. Yes, true, as it seems to

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Speaker 1: have also been drinking some ayahuasca for a while, so

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Speaker 1: as you know, that taste can be pretty challenging and

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Speaker 1: it's part of like the personality, so to speak of ayahuaska.

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Speaker 1: It's part of the ayahuasca experience. And to feel that

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Speaker 1: taste that is this like kind of feels like visceral,

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Speaker 1: deep penetration of odors and textures that is part of

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Speaker 1: the kingdom of nature that we are normally not aware of.

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Speaker 1: It's hard to describe, but I have a lot of

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Speaker 1: respect for the taste of ahuaska. In Brazil, there's one

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Speaker 1: of the Ahuaska religions that they drink awaska then they

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Speaker 1: eat like a gum on top or some kind of

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Speaker 1: maybe orange or something to take off the taste. Different

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Speaker 1: people do that mint or whatever. I think it's part

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Speaker 1: of the experience and we should feel it and just

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Speaker 1: taste it and sit with it. And what you said

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Speaker 1: is correct depending on the soil, depending on the edge

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Speaker 1: of the ahuaska plant. And also there are rituals to

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Speaker 1: cook it, and there's different beliefs around it. The time

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Speaker 1: the proper time of harvesting, the proper time of cooking,

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Speaker 1: the proper time of planting, and different regions have different flavors.

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Speaker 1: One thing that is interesting is that it grows very

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Speaker 1: fast in Hawaii. In Hawaii, there's a whole culture of

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Speaker 1: growing ayahuasca. In the United States, of course, it's not

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Speaker 1: entirely above board, let's say. And then the ahuaska from

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Speaker 1: Hawaii is known to have kind of a sweeter taste.

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Speaker 1: And in the beginning, some people, at least in Brazil

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Speaker 1: and the Santa Dami religion, they were kind of a

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Speaker 1: little bit prejudiced against the Daimi or Ahuaska from Hawaii.

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Speaker 1: But with time it grew popularity and people learned to

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Speaker 1: appreciate more. And that's also this is interesting. So that's

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Speaker 1: more like the topics that I understand more is the

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Speaker 1: culture around it, and you know, people's beliefs, and that's

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Speaker 1: kind of thing that caught my attention for years. Uh huh.

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Speaker 1: So let me ask you this. We've done a lot

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Speaker 1: of episodes in Psycholo had Paul Stamit's talking about mushrooms

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Speaker 1: and all cyber mushrooms, and Mike Ja talking about peyote

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Speaker 1: and san pedro mescaline, and Michael Pollen was on and

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Speaker 1: you know, can't we tell the whole range. This is

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Speaker 1: the first one Aowaska. But I remember years ago one

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Speaker 1: of the other early researchers, going back to the eighties

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Speaker 1: or nineties in this field, I think it was it

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Speaker 1: was Charlie Grove, professor at U c l A. And

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Speaker 1: I think it was him who said that many people

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Speaker 1: regard ayahuasca as the queen of all the psychedelic plant medicines.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know if you would agree or use

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Speaker 1: that terminology, but there's a sense of ayahuaska having a

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Speaker 1: certain specialness that maybe from people outside I mean obviously

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Speaker 1: people Native American Church, you know, for them, peyote is

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Speaker 1: their sacrament, and we have that sort of thing. But

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Speaker 1: there's a kind of something special about ayahuaska that some

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Speaker 1: people sometimes see as transcending even the other plant medicines.

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Speaker 1: What do you think, Well, I'm kind of biased because,

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Speaker 1: as you said, you know, dedicated years of my life

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Speaker 1: to this subject. I drank ourawatska, and long story short,

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Speaker 1: I got completely fascinated and I thought that was it,

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Speaker 1: and I was kind of obsessed for twenty years. And

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Speaker 1: you had already done other substances, but tried other psychedelics. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it was it, you know, I thought that was it,

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Speaker 1: and I got really dedicated and I just wanted to

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Speaker 1: drink it and talk about it and think about it

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Speaker 1: and talk to people. And naturally I became an anthropologist

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Speaker 1: study in Ahuaska because I was so interested and I

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Speaker 1: just decided that I wanted to go to the Amazon

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Speaker 1: and visit the sources and go directly to the fields.

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Speaker 1: And for me it has been like my main ally

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Speaker 1: and friend. But I think that's you know, we have

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Speaker 1: to be careful with those kinds of things because there

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Speaker 1: isn't such a thing. You know, this is the one

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Speaker 1: or the best. I mean, this is the one for me,

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Speaker 1: or this is the one that now serves me better.

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Speaker 1: And this is a friend, this is an ally, this

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Speaker 1: is a teacher, this is a kindred spirit that I

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Speaker 1: am aligned with. And for different people, they have different tastes.

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Speaker 1: I'd like to think, and this is also your influence

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Speaker 1: that there is some analogy between drugs and foods, and

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Speaker 1: so different people have different needs and different tastes and

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Speaker 1: different body complexions and they are kind of from different groups.

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Speaker 1: So some people you go on a restaurant together and

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Speaker 1: each person who is going to have a certain combination

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Speaker 1: of foods on their plate, and that is the expression

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Speaker 1: of their being through the food. The same happens with drugs.

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Speaker 1: Each person is going to have some kind of better

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00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:27,480
Speaker 1: familiarity or friendship with certain kind of substances. So there's

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Speaker 1: people that just don't want I was and don't like

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Speaker 1: I was, or drink awaska once and feel that was

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Speaker 1: it and they never want to go again. There's other

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Speaker 1: people that don't want to drink at all, and then

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Speaker 1: there's some of us that drink it and you know,

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Speaker 1: never get tired of drinking it and start to walk

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Speaker 1: this path of following the teachings of ayahuasca. And so

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Speaker 1: I do think it's a very powerful and magnificent and

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Speaker 1: impressive substance. And I like to think that it has

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Speaker 1: some spiritual power, but I would be reluctant to say

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Speaker 1: that it's the queen of all substances. For one thing,

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Speaker 1: Tobacco in Amazonian shamanism is a very pervasive and strong substance.

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Speaker 1: Tobacco is used across the Americas in different countries and

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Speaker 1: accompanies Ahuaska or just by itself, So tobacco in many

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Speaker 1: ways it is predominant, but used in a way I

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Speaker 1: should be clear for audience that is essentially psychedelic taking

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Speaker 1: in a very potent form. That's not like people smoking

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Speaker 1: cigarettes arts. No, it's not cigarettes. It's the the plant itself.

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Speaker 1: And it's been used on multiple ways as well. You

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Speaker 1: can have paste, or you can have enemas, or you

380
00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:41,360
Speaker 1: can smoke it inhale it through different combinations with different plants.

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Speaker 1: So tobacco is very varied and also has different meanings.

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Speaker 1: It can be used in rituals but also kind of

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Speaker 1: as a social lubricant. So there's many different plants. And

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Speaker 1: also I don't use the word psychedelic exactly, but psychoactive

385
00:21:56,359 --> 00:21:59,159
Speaker 1: for sure. This is also part of the challenge, like

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Speaker 1: the very catagor gtories that we have to describe the

387
00:22:02,280 --> 00:22:08,120
Speaker 1: substances don't necessarily mirror traditional indigenous ways of describing them

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00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:11,040
Speaker 1: because we kind of tend to separate them into these

389
00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:15,199
Speaker 1: boxes like is this medical or is this recreational? Is

390
00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:21,040
Speaker 1: this sacred? Is this profane? Is this nutrition? Is this identity?

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00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:25,480
Speaker 1: We separate the uses of substances in two different categories

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Speaker 1: and different schedules of drugs, and that's not how traditionally

393
00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:34,800
Speaker 1: shamanism operates, and there's a lot of blurrening of categories

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Speaker 1: between what is healing or sociality, or identity or medicine,

395
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Speaker 1: and these things get mixed together, and so it's hard

396
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Speaker 1: to express and talk about those things in our terms.

397
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Speaker 1: And I have been interested in trying to find out

398
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:55,840
Speaker 1: there's other classifications of substances, which I think teach us

399
00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:00,480
Speaker 1: also about how to think reality. They teach us how

400
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:03,800
Speaker 1: to think our own categories and our own paradigms. And

401
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:06,639
Speaker 1: through the study of these plants and these cultures, we

402
00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:09,560
Speaker 1: can revisit our own values and our own ways of

403
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Speaker 1: understanding the world. That's what I find it so interesting

404
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:18,080
Speaker 1: and endless in terms of knowledge. A few things. One

405
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:20,679
Speaker 1: is I know that interst I mean both of what

406
00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:23,919
Speaker 1: I've read and then also my own personal experience. But

407
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:26,320
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I did ayahuasca there was

408
00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:29,439
Speaker 1: a telepathic element to it, and that's something I've read

409
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:31,960
Speaker 1: a fair bit about about people under the influence of

410
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 1: ayahuasca envisioning feeling themselves present at a place very physically

411
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Speaker 1: distant from where they actually are, having a conversation or

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Speaker 1: being a witness to something. And I wonder, is that

413
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Speaker 1: you think that's somewhat of a unique element for ayahuasca

414
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:48,879
Speaker 1: for many people, or you think it goes across all

415
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:51,639
Speaker 1: the psychedelics. Well, I know that one of the first

416
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 1: terms that was used to describe aahuaska by the earlier

417
00:23:56,080 --> 00:24:01,199
Speaker 1: researchers was calling it telepatine. So this idea that it

418
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:05,960
Speaker 1: does have telepathic elements to it has been described in

419
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:08,959
Speaker 1: the literature. A lot of things have been reported, like,

420
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:14,160
Speaker 1: for example, people finding lost objects or even having access

421
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 1: to information that they were looking for and they didn't know.

422
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:21,400
Speaker 1: There's also this other phenomenon that is common on shamanism

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00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:26,080
Speaker 1: that would be like this kind of confession. Let's say

424
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:29,199
Speaker 1: somebody has been cheating on their partner and then they

425
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 1: drink ayahuaska and you know, they just confess or something

426
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:36,679
Speaker 1: like this ability to show the truth, or somebody that

427
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:41,359
Speaker 1: stole something and other people drink ayawaska and see who

428
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:45,720
Speaker 1: was the thief, or narrate that they visit cities they

429
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: have never been to and describe in detail roots to

430
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 1: get from one place to another that is the root.

431
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:55,919
Speaker 1: And why do you know that? Because I saw it

432
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 1: in ayahuasca, So I know that this is something that

433
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 1: there is a large amount of reports. I don't know

434
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:07,359
Speaker 1: exactly the equivalent for peyote or psilocybin, but I have

435
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 1: the impression from my readings and publications that this kind

436
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:15,360
Speaker 1: of phenomena is common to this sort of substance that

437
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 1: comes with this idea of the general principle is that

438
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 1: this reality that we see is apparent. It's the surface,

439
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:27,120
Speaker 1: let's say, it's the material world that we have hold off.

440
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 1: And when you take the substances, you're able to do

441
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: a transit and somehow get access to this invisible world,

442
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:39,120
Speaker 1: this world of the ancestors, or of the spirits of

443
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: the dead people, the world beyond the spiritual world, the

444
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,199
Speaker 1: invisible world, and somehow have a chance to do a

445
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: trance that get you in touch, and then you get

446
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 1: in touch with this other reality that in fact guides

447
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,840
Speaker 1: the material and apparent reality. And then you're gett in

448
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 1: touch with the essence of this reality that is the

449
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: material one, and this other world, this invistible world. There's

450
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: also a world that has agency and that is alive,

451
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 1: and that has the plant spirits. They are plant spirits.

452
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 1: They have intention, they have agency, they have personalities, they

453
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 1: have intentionality, they have subjectivity, and you're able to communicate

454
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:26,639
Speaker 1: with those plants and learn about this intelligence. And then

455
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:28,919
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other things that go together with

456
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: all of this that it's kind of complicated and dance

457
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: this Different classifications of nature and culture are common to

458
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:42,120
Speaker 1: different Marindan modalities, so I don't think that's just exclusive

459
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:47,439
Speaker 1: to ayahuasca, but there's similar reports variations. There's also the

460
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: association with seeing the jaguar. Right, you read all these

461
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: reports that people taking Iowa's can seeing the jaguar. What

462
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:55,119
Speaker 1: do you make of that whole phenomenon. Is it just

463
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 1: purely about drug setting setting and that the idea was

464
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 1: planted there before? Although you hear of reports, people have

465
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: never heard of any association between ayahuaska and seeing the

466
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:06,440
Speaker 1: jaguar during the visions, but who see it? Nonetheless, what's

467
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 1: your view? Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I've been studying

468
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 1: this for twenty five years, and frankly there's times that

469
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 1: I still think that I didn't leave the first grade.

470
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: I don't know what to make of it. It's very complicated.

471
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 1: I try not to answer all things, and I study

472
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: cultural things. It's okay if everybody sees jaguars, it's fine,

473
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:30,200
Speaker 1: or everybody sees palaces, it's interesting, it's mind blowing, But

474
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 1: what does that mean? It's the palace that I'm seeing

475
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:36,760
Speaker 1: the same palace that an indigenous person is seeing or

476
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know a singer that is like

477
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 1: a person in the Middle East saw a palace. Is

478
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: that the same palace that I'm seeing in What does

479
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:48,680
Speaker 1: that palace mean to that person? A lot of punel groups,

480
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: they will say, when you drink aiawuaska and then you

481
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:56,400
Speaker 1: see at the beginning maybe this geometrical patterns, and then

482
00:27:56,720 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 1: like neuroscientists and researchers will of a certain explanation and say,

483
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,760
Speaker 1: well that's your no, your eye and this and that

484
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,120
Speaker 1: and your brain, and they have those explanations. But if

485
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 1: you ask the s wheny queen person, he will say, well,

486
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 1: that is the color the design of the skin of

487
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:21,920
Speaker 1: this original snake that inhabited the world. That was ultimately

488
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:25,880
Speaker 1: how we got to be humans. This primordial snake I

489
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:28,720
Speaker 1: was it was a gift from the snakes to men.

490
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: And you're seeing the skin of the snakes. So if

491
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 1: you say, you know, you see a snake and a

492
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 1: hunny queensy a snake, it's not the same meaning so

493
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: I'm less interested in why is everybody seeing snakes, but

494
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: what the snakes mean on different cultural settings, and that

495
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 1: I really believe in anthropology for this, because it's not

496
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 1: the same for everybody, and so what one person sees

497
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 1: is interpreted differently in different cultures and has different meanings,

498
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 1: and there's a great amount of variation to all of that,

499
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: and there isn't just one Ayawaska culture. We'll be talking

500
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:24,719
Speaker 1: more after we hear this. Add One other thing I

501
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: think that's true ayahuasca is that it seems that when

502
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: comes across there is some of this, but relatively little

503
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 1: of the sort of casual use. You think about kids, teenagers,

504
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 1: people in twenties, you know, doing mushrooms, doing LSD, even

505
00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: sometimes doing mescal in or things like this, or kenemine

506
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 1: for that matter, doing it by himself with some friends.

507
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 1: It can be done casually, can also be done in

508
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 1: a very traditional setting, in a very spiritual setting, but

509
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 1: with ayahuasca, and I've read that there are some cases

510
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:54,720
Speaker 1: where people will use ayahuasca casually in some parts of

511
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: Latin America, but by and large, it seems that it's

512
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly done in groups settings where oftentimes with some type

513
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 1: of shame and shaman or a leader of some sort,

514
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: and with the idea that you need to treat this one,

515
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: this plant medicine, with particular respect, and that there is

516
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: a kind of quasi spiritual religious, communal element to it

517
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: that is true of the others, but that seems to

518
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 1: be much more so in the case of ayahuasca. Yes,

519
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I find this super interesting and

520
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: I have also used this argument to law enforcement. And

521
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 1: if if you think, like let's say, in Brazil carnival,

522
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: what happens a number of people that get drunk or

523
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 1: do something idiotic during carnival, It's thousands of people and

524
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 1: it's absolutely legal. And if you just think about parties

525
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: in the city a city I'm from, Saint Paulo, the

526
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 1: number of parties are bars that people go, and how

527
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 1: many people drink or get killed or have get into

528
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: a car accidents or ayahuasca you have people are using

529
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: it across the city in some follow today. I think

530
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: there must be at least like sixty or more rituals

531
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 1: every weekend, and people are using it in sacred ways,

532
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 1: in respectful ways, with certain kinds of controls, with certain

533
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: kind of parameters, and there's a whole protocol and etiquette

534
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: and culture around it. And it has spread through the

535
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 1: globe in this kind of way. So there has been

536
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: a diversification of number of rituals. The Ahuaska culture or

537
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: different lineages traditions adapt to different parts of the globe,

538
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 1: and in different parts of the globe there's different kinds

539
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 1: of rituals. So you go in the United States, you

540
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 1: can see a group of like American veterans, you know,

541
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: all men drinking Aahuaska together, and they hear certain kind

542
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: of music and do a certain kind of integration and

543
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 1: develop a certain kind of protocol that makes sense to them.

544
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 1: But it's very ritualistic. It's ceremonial. It has preparation, it

545
00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: has integration, it has some kind of screening, it has

546
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: some kind of culture around it, and people talk about it.

547
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 1: And then you go, you know, in the Middle East,

548
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: you have other kinds of Ahuaska rituals, and you have

549
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: had a Krishner communities using Ayahuaska, and you have millionaires

550
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 1: in l A hiring private Ahuaska facilitators to help them

551
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 1: think about their career and their investments and their creativity

552
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: and all kinds of things. And it always spread with

553
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 1: some kind of music, some kind of integration, some kind

554
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:31,719
Speaker 1: of doctrine or spiritual belief. This common idea that ayahuaska

555
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: is a plant, a teacher, a spirit plant, that it's

556
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: it can teach you, it can guide you, and that

557
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: you have to obey aahuaska's requests, that you have to

558
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 1: do certain kinds of diets, that you have to have

559
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 1: a certain kind of behavior before you drink it and

560
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 1: after you drink it, that you can't mix it with

561
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: other substances, that you need to have a sort of

562
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: reverence and respect. Yes, I completely agree to that this

563
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: is something interesting about aahuaska. That is, as an anthropologist

564
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 1: that I have seen the ability of aahuasca culture to

565
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:07,960
Speaker 1: mold and adapt and transform and combine to different settings.

566
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 1: And so different communities that have different kinds of beliefs

567
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 1: have been able to use ayahuasca and develop rituals that

568
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 1: make sense and help them study their religious traditions better

569
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 1: and also help people connect more to their own roots

570
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 1: and to their own identities. And so a lot of

571
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: people that have some kind of indigenous heritage or come

572
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 1: from Puerto Rico and is a brown person in Puerto

573
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 1: Rico that was brought up to think poorly of himself

574
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 1: because he's brown and because he's kind of indigenous, but

575
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 1: the family is trying to like clean it up and

576
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: make that person feel like white. And this person goes

577
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 1: to an ayahuasca ritual and sees the connections that they

578
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: have to the land and to their ancestors and to

579
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 1: their own sources and traditions and have try to rescue

580
00:33:57,320 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: those and get in touch with this. And this happens

581
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 1: with the indigenous people too, because it's very hard to

582
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 1: be indigenous in this contemporary world. And so, for example,

583
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:09,800
Speaker 1: there is an organization in acting in one of the

584
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: capitals of Brazil that has like a nonprofit space, educational

585
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: space that different indigenous people come to learn Portuguese or

586
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: math or accountability and studying the city and they do

587
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:27,760
Speaker 1: like intercultural rituals where they drink ayahuasca together and helps

588
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 1: them strengthen their cultural identity and become indigenous and be

589
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: indigenous and maintained that indigenity and develop it more So,

590
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:39,760
Speaker 1: this is also part of the beauty and the power

591
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: of ayahuasca. You know, sometimes when people ask me and

592
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:45,480
Speaker 1: you so, what's ayahuasca? And I'll ask him so have

593
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 1: you ever heard of peyote? And I'll say, yeah, you

594
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 1: know how it is used by the Native American church. Yeah, yeah,

595
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 1: I heard about that, right, And I say, well, this

596
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 1: is kind of an Amazonian version of payote. You know,

597
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 1: it's a kind of analogy. I used to explain it

598
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:58,839
Speaker 1: to some Americans who haven't heard of it. But one

599
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 1: of the things is in Brazil. Ill, right, you do

600
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: have these three what are they called synchronous churches, But

601
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: just explain a little bit about how that came about

602
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 1: it these I guess CLAUSEI Catholic. It's kind of integrating

603
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:15,640
Speaker 1: ayahuasca as a sacrament into sort of a Catholic church ceremony. Yeah.

604
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: These are we call them Brazilian Ayahuaska religions or Brazilian

605
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:25,200
Speaker 1: Ahuaska churches. The main ones are the Santo Daimi or

606
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 1: UDV and Barkinia and they are a combination of of

607
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 1: course indigenous Shamanism and Christian elements, and also European is

608
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:41,320
Speaker 1: a tericism that came to Brazil through the colonizers, and

609
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: some also offer Brazilian influences. And so each one has

610
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: a specific ritual and sets of beliefs, but on a

611
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:52,799
Speaker 1: larger scale. You could understand all of them as kind

612
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:57,799
Speaker 1: of a similar phenomena that has a strong Christian influence.

613
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 1: And the Brazilian state has recognized these groups as legitimate

614
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 1: religions and regulated the use of iohuaska in Brazil. There

615
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 1: has been a strong process of like twenty five years,

616
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 1: and the first regulations were in the early eighties and

617
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,759
Speaker 1: the last official resolution was in two thousand and ten.

618
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,879
Speaker 1: And it was a really strong and interesting process where

619
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:24,840
Speaker 1: representatives of the religions and scholars and academics and government

620
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 1: officials sat together and came to certain agreements on what

621
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: would be the most basic rules that are necessary to

622
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:37,080
Speaker 1: follow and sort of made a civil pact that those

623
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 1: groups would keep those users under control. And it was

624
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 1: interesting because the government officials that were studying this phenomena,

625
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:47,879
Speaker 1: they also some of them partaked in the rituals. That's

626
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:50,920
Speaker 1: the Brazilian magic. I would love it to happen in

627
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 1: the United States. It's happening though. We were talking about

628
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:58,480
Speaker 1: that later. But yeah, so that's a specific phenomenon. And

629
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 1: the you UDV and the Santo Diami have expanded to

630
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 1: the United States and they have gained the religious recognition

631
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: here in the United States. I think the UTV right,

632
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 1: there was a Supreme Court decision. I think it is

633
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:16,800
Speaker 1: nothing that recognized the First Amendment right of religion applied

634
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,719
Speaker 1: to the practice of UDV and I think opened up

635
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: the doors in the US at that time. Yes, the

636
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 1: UDV had that, and also the Santo Diamy in the

637
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:29,280
Speaker 1: state of Oregon, and then yes, some other branches throughout

638
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 1: the United States also got that recognition. And it's a

639
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:36,800
Speaker 1: bit of an interesting paradox because this religions in a

640
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 1: way fit more the Western sort of stereotype of a

641
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 1: religion and understanding that checked the boxes of you know,

642
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 1: both court expectations or i r. Rest ones of what

643
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:54,120
Speaker 1: a religion has to have, and as such it's easier

644
00:37:54,200 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: to classify them as churches than other uses that would

645
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:02,839
Speaker 1: be historically more old traditional, such as shamanism, that don't

646
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 1: have things like, you know, a main religious leader or

647
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: a main doctrine, or a main religious book or a

648
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:12,399
Speaker 1: religious calendar or catoch case. Well, I mean you also

649
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:15,320
Speaker 1: had a feeling when the Supreme Court justices were writing

650
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:17,839
Speaker 1: that decision they wanted to make sure they wanted opening

651
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,439
Speaker 1: up a Pandora's box because lots of people have tried

652
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:22,439
Speaker 1: to claim that they were part of a marijuana church,

653
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 1: and I think they were worried that if the arguments

654
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:28,279
Speaker 1: that they made to allow the UDV were to open ended,

655
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 1: it could lead to tens of millions of Americans claiming

656
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: the right to use psychedelic drugs for religious purposes. Now,

657
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:37,640
Speaker 1: you know, there's another thing. We oftentimes think about psycholic

658
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 1: drugs as being things that kind of open up our

659
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:43,560
Speaker 1: better side, right that that that are that makes us

660
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: more empathic, that makes us more generous, that you know,

661
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:49,279
Speaker 1: more insightful, all this sort of stuff. But I know,

662
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 1: I want to make two counterpoints to what I just said.

663
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 1: I remember there's two British Brazilian experts that I think

664
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,240
Speaker 1: you probably know both of them. One Anthony Henman, who's

665
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:01,760
Speaker 1: an ethnography anthropologist, and then there's Edward McGray, another British

666
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,840
Speaker 1: Brazilian who's been a professor in Salvador in Brazil. But

667
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 1: when dom I think it said to me, you know, Ethan,

668
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:09,359
Speaker 1: be careful about assuming these drugs always lead to good.

669
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 1: One of these guys made the point that under the

670
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:15,799
Speaker 1: military dictatorship in Brazil in the nineties sixties, I think

671
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 1: that you also had security officials, right, people who were

672
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:23,920
Speaker 1: engaged in torturing and killing suspected communists and radicals and

673
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 1: all this sort of stuff, who participated in their own

674
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: Ayahuascar ceremonies, and for them it became a way of

675
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: reinforcing them and doing these horrific jobs where they were

676
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:36,400
Speaker 1: torturing and killing people and then going home to their

677
00:39:36,440 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 1: wives and kids that night. And the second thing I

678
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:41,719
Speaker 1: think about is with the UDV more recently, which is

679
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:45,319
Speaker 1: the most orthodox of the Aohuascar based churches, and it's

680
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: anti homosexual, and it's highly sexist and women are supposed

681
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 1: to have only a limited role. And so what's your

682
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 1: thoughts about how this plays out in the church ceremonies.

683
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 1: Would you see the Santo Daimy things sort of a

684
00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 1: net positive in the world. Would you be much more

685
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: skeptical about the d V because of their values. What's

686
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:08,879
Speaker 1: your sense? Oh, my God, Ethan go for it? Well, uh,

687
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:12,360
Speaker 1: you know, I have been bummed out myself. I guess

688
00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 1: I was born and raised in Brazil that is very

689
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 1: patriarchal and very Catholic and very conservative, and you sort

690
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: of like go with the flow, right, because that's the

691
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: way things are, and as I moved to the United

692
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 1: States and became an immigrant in California, I was felt

693
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:32,560
Speaker 1: really empowered to come out as queer and kind of

694
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 1: openly talk about the fact that I have a wife

695
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 1: and speak my truth, and that has been really an

696
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 1: intense process. I sort of did a conference to celebrate

697
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,120
Speaker 1: coming out as queer because I met my partner in

698
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: a conference. So in two thousand and nineteen we did

699
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:50,920
Speaker 1: a big conference called Queering Psychedelics where I came out

700
00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 1: as queer, and you know, it was a tribute to

701
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 1: her because we had been together many years without me

702
00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 1: saying anythink in public, and in this conference. We also

703
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,960
Speaker 1: publish this article the next day after the conference because

704
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,840
Speaker 1: I wanted the conference to go well. We exposed the

705
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:10,239
Speaker 1: UDV has this document that is super anti gay and

706
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 1: saying all kinds of absurd claims like oh, this will

707
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: endanger the future of humanity and we have to be

708
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 1: careful as if the human race is almost about to

709
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:24,279
Speaker 1: get extinct. I have been denouncing. Also, there is one

710
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:29,280
Speaker 1: French leader that is based in the Proving Amazon, Jacques Mabie,

711
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: that has expressed very strong homophobic views and has all

712
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: kinds of strange things like exorcis rituals for the souls

713
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 1: of ambarted babies, and you know, has expressed support to Trump,

714
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:46,360
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of you know, complicated stuff in

715
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: the Aahuasca world. There's also some conspiracy theories that in

716
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,840
Speaker 1: the planet medicine community can get pretty ugly with the

717
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. So yes, it's very complicated and there is

718
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: a lot of division. And what we have to say

719
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:03,240
Speaker 1: about that is that Iwaska as part of the world

720
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 1: is not because you drink Aiauaska that you're gonna be

721
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:09,239
Speaker 1: all different. To put it like in a more shamanic

722
00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:13,359
Speaker 1: or spiritual lenses, there's everything in Ayahuaska. There's good and bad,

723
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: and you can take it into different directions. It can

724
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:20,800
Speaker 1: be kind of neutral. You can take aiahuaska and on

725
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 1: different angles, and you can have people drinking Ayahuaska to

726
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: have more power to seduce women, to gain more money,

727
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:32,320
Speaker 1: to have more domination over others. So it's really not

728
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:34,879
Speaker 1: a magical pill that you just drink it and then

729
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: all of a sudden we're all the same and we're

730
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:41,320
Speaker 1: all nice. And also people have different values about what

731
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 1: is good or bad, what is right or wrong, So

732
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:47,400
Speaker 1: maybe they don't think they're doing anything wrong. This basic

733
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: exercise of trying to have more empathy and seeing the

734
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:54,759
Speaker 1: world through the lenses of others, right, this ability to

735
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,839
Speaker 1: try to think how these things look on the other end.

736
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: And so I do think that it had as immense

737
00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:04,359
Speaker 1: tremendous healing. And the reason why I dedicated my whole

738
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 1: life to study ahuaska and that I have been on

739
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:09,799
Speaker 1: this field for twenty five years and published twenty five

740
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 1: books is not because I think that aahuaska is something

741
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 1: that is helping lunatics become more lunatic or greedy people

742
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:20,399
Speaker 1: become more rich, but rather because I think it does

743
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:23,520
Speaker 1: help a lot of people, and it does have incredible

744
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:27,799
Speaker 1: healing potentials, and I personally think I am a much

745
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:31,360
Speaker 1: better person. I actually think myself as a human because

746
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:34,800
Speaker 1: of ayahuasca. It really helped me become more human and

747
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:38,279
Speaker 1: have more sense of respect for being alive. And that's

748
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 1: why it's popular because it's helping a lot of people.

749
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: But look when it comes to the stuff, I mean,

750
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:44,959
Speaker 1: now you have, right, we know all the reports about

751
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: the spiritual benefits and this and people's life transformations, but

752
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:51,200
Speaker 1: there's now more and more studies including some that you know,

753
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:54,320
Speaker 1: give some people a Alaska, some people some form of placebo,

754
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:57,719
Speaker 1: which are finding all sorts of mental health benefits and

755
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: possibly even physical health benefits. So I came across a

756
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:03,879
Speaker 1: few of them, one saying that Ayahuaska could be help

757
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: on alleviating hard to treat depression, another one finding some

758
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 1: success in reducing suicidality. Another one that may help deal

759
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 1: with modern anxieties or especially in neuroticism negative emotionality. So

760
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 1: what can you tell us about the studies that are

761
00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 1: coming out now? They're being done by research scientists in

762
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 1: the same way that they're working with psilocybin and m

763
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: D M A. Well, I want to recommend people to

764
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:29,600
Speaker 1: buy our books, and I can share PDFs. They are

765
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:33,879
Speaker 1: sometimes expensive or inaccessible, but I'm always happy to share

766
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 1: materials for research and for non commercial use. So we

767
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:41,839
Speaker 1: published two different books on Iwaska, well actually three. One

768
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: is called Ahuaska Healing and Science, the other is called

769
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:48,320
Speaker 1: The Therapiltic Use of Ayahuasca, and another one is in

770
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:52,440
Speaker 1: Spanish Iouaska Salutes i wask In Health. And we have

771
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:55,919
Speaker 1: published different studies that study all these kinds of things.

772
00:44:56,360 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 1: So depression is one of the things that ahuaska has

773
00:44:59,239 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 1: been more you to anxiety, of course, and also to

774
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:08,920
Speaker 1: treat different drug related problems and alcohol related problems. That's

775
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:12,720
Speaker 1: another of the big uses of ahuasca. There's been research

776
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 1: for different ailments like eating disorders. There's also different kinds

777
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: of uses for grief or just in general as well being.

778
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:26,359
Speaker 1: That's also the betterment of people, let's say, not any

779
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 1: specific disease, but identity and psychological well being. My partner

780
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 1: has done her PhD about how ahuaska has helped gay

781
00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 1: and lesbian people cope with issues of you know, struggling

782
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:42,360
Speaker 1: issues of identity and self esteem and self love. So

783
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 1: there has been a lot of research on the potential

784
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:50,719
Speaker 1: benefits of ayahuaska for multiple things, for cessation to smoke tobacco.

785
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:55,000
Speaker 1: A little bit like ahuaska can adapt to different cultures

786
00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:59,760
Speaker 1: and and niches. It also has different utilities for different

787
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 1: kinds of diseases. When I wanted to publish our book

788
00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 1: with Springer, the first one I wanted to call it

789
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 1: the Therapeutic Uses of Ayahuaska, and Springer said, well, you

790
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:14,840
Speaker 1: know that's not very good because it's it's less strong.

791
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:18,360
Speaker 1: You should say the therapeutic use. It's more you know,

792
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 1: it gives a stronger message, but I said, well, that's

793
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 1: really not accurate because there's multiple uses. And again it's

794
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 1: part of this challenge of systems that I was talking before,

795
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 1: because the traditional concepts of disease involves the relationship of

796
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 1: one with oneself, with keen, with family, with the community,

797
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 1: with society at large, and with the world of the

798
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:44,279
Speaker 1: non humans, this invisible world. So disease is some kind

799
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:47,399
Speaker 1: of imbalance on all of those factors, and the way

800
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 1: to correct that, to bring health again, is to work

801
00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:54,480
Speaker 1: on all of those dimensions. And there's different kinds of

802
00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:57,759
Speaker 1: plants and different kinds of combinations, so it's a much

803
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 1: more holistic affair. And sometimes on Western thinking that is

804
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:07,319
Speaker 1: just like one pill for one specific disease, when traditionally,

805
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: among indigenous people traditional communities, the idea of disease involves

806
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: all of these other dimensions, and these plans are allies

807
00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 1: on rebuilding all of these relationships. So Auaska has multiple

808
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: uses as well, and it can't be pinned to one

809
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 1: single use. I do want to say, and I just

810
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 1: want to say this because I am an anthropologist and

811
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 1: we are kind of the underdog of the whole thing.

812
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:38,399
Speaker 1: I respect all those researches and I support all of them,

813
00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 1: and I have published the results of biomedical and health studies.

814
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:45,400
Speaker 1: But I really do think that this kind of phenomena

815
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:49,359
Speaker 1: it's important to study from a social science perspective as well,

816
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:52,120
Speaker 1: because a lot of things are not going to grasp

817
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 1: with those methodologists, and a lot of these research is

818
00:47:55,800 --> 00:47:59,840
Speaker 1: based on like applying formulas, you know, to measure the

819
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 1: from variables and have different questionnaires, and the whole way

820
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:08,840
Speaker 1: the research is done doesn't favor these other systems of knowledge,

821
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:12,480
Speaker 1: this traditional ways of knowledge and of knowing. So I

822
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:15,800
Speaker 1: think it's really important to have a role for the

823
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:20,160
Speaker 1: social scientists in the psychedelic renaissance. Well, it's also about

824
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 1: as these things as these drug psilocybin and d m

825
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 1: A and maybe others get quasi legalized but through the

826
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 1: FDA process and the European equivalent. It also speaks to

827
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 1: the importance of US continuing to allow access or at

828
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,799
Speaker 1: least not to clamp down any further on access outside

829
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 1: quasi medical channels, right but still apart from the research

830
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 1: channels that may ultimately lead to some forms of authorized

831
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 1: prescribing of ayahuasca. Apart from the religious ones. What's your

832
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 1: sense about the policy legal issue. Where do you go

833
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,279
Speaker 1: on the whole debate over regulation and legal regulation of

834
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:58,720
Speaker 1: this in this area, especially with ayahuasca. I just wanted

835
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:00,880
Speaker 1: to go a little bit back on something we were

836
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 1: talking about the scientific research. I mean, in many ways,

837
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:11,360
Speaker 1: all this scientific use or scientific experiments, it's really the

838
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:15,200
Speaker 1: outlier because people have been using this for thousands of

839
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:17,839
Speaker 1: you know, as we said, we don't know how long,

840
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:22,439
Speaker 1: but for generations and generations and generations. So I think

841
00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 1: there is this incredible paradox that is this incredible Western

842
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: arrogance that has to say you know. I was on

843
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 1: a TV with like a psychiatrist and it's like, well,

844
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:36,880
Speaker 1: we don't have enough evidence of safety for Ouryauaska And

845
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:40,239
Speaker 1: I'm like, maybe you don't, and you probably will not

846
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: recognize an Ahuaska vine if you see one in the forest,

847
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:47,719
Speaker 1: but that's not the parameter of reality for you to

848
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:50,320
Speaker 1: be saying that. I was also on this other with

849
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: Jeff Sabbat. I think this this debate and it's like, wow,

850
00:49:53,680 --> 00:49:56,279
Speaker 1: we should be very wary, you know, because these things

851
00:49:56,480 --> 00:50:00,480
Speaker 1: are incredibly dangerous. Maybe it's okay for some AMAZONI and people,

852
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 1: but that's not okay here in the United States, And

853
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 1: I said, well, actually, maybe are not hanging out on

854
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 1: the right crowd, because I know a lot of people

855
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 1: in the United States that do use these things, and

856
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 1: the sky is not following and reality goes on. And

857
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:19,320
Speaker 1: it's important to remember that this criteria of double blind

858
00:50:19,560 --> 00:50:23,640
Speaker 1: research was created, this idea of placebo and double blind

859
00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 1: research in the thirties and forties to experiment and analyze

860
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 1: new analogs, new substances that were created. And so in

861
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 1: many ways this doesn't apply for substances like aiawaska or

862
00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:40,759
Speaker 1: payor your psilocybin, where there is a huge evidence of

863
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:44,920
Speaker 1: us that trump's this kind of research. That's also my

864
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 1: strong feeling as an anthropologist that there is this incredible

865
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:51,839
Speaker 1: arrogance even now, you know in Oregon they're saying, well,

866
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 1: this kind of psilocybermercialm is okay, but not this other

867
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 1: kind because some people find some research about something. And

868
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:02,600
Speaker 1: that's the justification Asian when there's generations of views of

869
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:06,920
Speaker 1: these plants and they are considered not just important but central,

870
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:10,359
Speaker 1: so the very idea of being human and to why

871
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 1: we are here and what exists in life beyond and

872
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 1: they are central part of culture and identity and territory

873
00:51:19,120 --> 00:51:24,800
Speaker 1: and sociality and inter ethnic relationships and hunting, and like

874
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:30,320
Speaker 1: the cosmological ordering of the world. Why is the sky there,

875
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: Why is the sun there? Why is the moon there?

876
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:36,279
Speaker 1: Why are we here? What is time? So I think

877
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:39,680
Speaker 1: we really have to expand our minds. And to me,

878
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:43,879
Speaker 1: like the scientific research on this plant is like an

879
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:47,799
Speaker 1: exception and in many regards, you know, an exotic thing.

880
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 1: I personally don't feel very comfortable in taking drugs with

881
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:56,680
Speaker 1: medical doctors on hospitals. That's not my preference setting that

882
00:51:57,080 --> 00:51:59,400
Speaker 1: for me would be much more of an aggression to

883
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:02,520
Speaker 1: go to hospital to take a substance. I prefer to

884
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 1: go with shamans and people that have been doing this

885
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:08,200
Speaker 1: for a long time. And this idea that the traditional

886
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 1: users hold some knowledge and they have to be heard,

887
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:14,480
Speaker 1: and they have to be invited, and they have to

888
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 1: be respected, and they have to have a seat on

889
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 1: the table. So how do we translate all of this

890
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:24,239
Speaker 1: into actual policy. It's also a challenge, and it's part

891
00:52:24,280 --> 00:52:26,920
Speaker 1: of a conversation that we have to have a civil

892
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:31,239
Speaker 1: society inviting all of these groups to sit together and

893
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:35,719
Speaker 1: create regulations that are meaningful, and it's not a bunch

894
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:40,000
Speaker 1: of armchair bureaucrats from the d A or from the government,

895
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 1: or white medical biomedical psychiatrists and some sophisticated university that

896
00:52:46,160 --> 00:52:50,280
Speaker 1: is going to draw the rules for everybody. These conversations

897
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:54,279
Speaker 1: have to include traditional users of these substances and the

898
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:57,759
Speaker 1: populations that have been using them for a while. So

899
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:02,279
Speaker 1: I am an enthusiast of the religious and spiritual path

900
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:05,200
Speaker 1: and I think that we have a lot of potential

901
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:08,799
Speaker 1: of using this in ways that are meanful and community

902
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:13,239
Speaker 1: based and more holistic. And I support medical research. I

903
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:15,719
Speaker 1: am in favor of medical research. I'm not against it.

904
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 1: I think there's a space for that, but I am

905
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:21,360
Speaker 1: against the domination of the medical experts as the sole

906
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:28,080
Speaker 1: reference of knowledge around the use of drugs. Let's take

907
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:43,920
Speaker 1: a break here and go to an ad Apart from

908
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 1: all the spiritual mental health benefits, whether we define that

909
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:49,920
Speaker 1: in a medical sense or a broader kind of lacense,

910
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:53,680
Speaker 1: there's also some reports about the benefit of ayahuasca for

911
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:56,759
Speaker 1: physical health. Some suggestion that it could impact on the

912
00:53:56,880 --> 00:54:00,560
Speaker 1: gut microbiome and gut bacteria, that it may be helpful

913
00:54:00,600 --> 00:54:03,279
Speaker 1: with low grade inflammation, things like that, What can you

914
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:06,080
Speaker 1: tell us about that side of things with Alaska? I know,

915
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 1: superficially exactly these things that you say that, there's been

916
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: some research around Ahuaska for these purposes. I don't know

917
00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:17,279
Speaker 1: too much more. I do believe that that makes a

918
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:20,279
Speaker 1: lot of sense if you look back at shamanism. There's

919
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:24,920
Speaker 1: also reports that people use against Ahuaska against parasites. It

920
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:28,359
Speaker 1: is a form of purging. I don't know much more.

921
00:54:28,520 --> 00:54:32,760
Speaker 1: I know there's research also. This group of veterans, Heroic Hearts,

922
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:36,359
Speaker 1: was leading one of the research projects. They were doing

923
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 1: their fieldwork in Costa Rica, the organization that Jesse Gould

924
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:44,200
Speaker 1: started right yes, which is part this is so interesting

925
00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:46,760
Speaker 1: and it just speaks to the power of this vibrant

926
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:51,480
Speaker 1: culture because you have different veteran organizations, are different organizations

927
00:54:51,560 --> 00:54:54,480
Speaker 1: of users that are so enthusiastic about it that they

928
00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:58,080
Speaker 1: are also supporting research. Because a lot of this research

929
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:02,360
Speaker 1: doesn't get grants from NIGHT or other government agencies, but

930
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:06,080
Speaker 1: rather it is some kind of academic research, self funded,

931
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:09,480
Speaker 1: much as like MAPS has self funded the research of

932
00:55:09,840 --> 00:55:12,160
Speaker 1: m d m A for PTSD. A lot of this

933
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:17,440
Speaker 1: research on ahuasca is done through different nonprofits and research

934
00:55:17,600 --> 00:55:22,000
Speaker 1: organizations that do go fund me campaigns and try to

935
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:27,479
Speaker 1: fundraise to support I think everybody that is a true

936
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:32,000
Speaker 1: Aauaska follower and enthusiasts has this question that it just

937
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:35,759
Speaker 1: feels so wrong that this is illegal. I mean, have

938
00:55:35,880 --> 00:55:38,239
Speaker 1: you heard many stories or do you know of any

939
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:42,200
Speaker 1: research is trying to look into this potential healing, physically

940
00:55:42,320 --> 00:55:45,680
Speaker 1: healing value of aahuasca. Yes, totally. And I can tell

941
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:48,960
Speaker 1: you and you know this is sad and breaks my heart.

942
00:55:49,080 --> 00:55:52,120
Speaker 1: I have literally for twenty five years I received at

943
00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 1: least one e mail a day of somebody that has

944
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 1: some serious like health problem and that is looking for

945
00:55:59,280 --> 00:56:04,279
Speaker 1: ayahuasca as a treatment and an option, wanting some tip

946
00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 1: and some hope. And it's very challenging because I don't

947
00:56:07,680 --> 00:56:10,360
Speaker 1: really know how to help all of these people. But

948
00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:14,480
Speaker 1: that also makes me feel more encouraged to keep the

949
00:56:14,560 --> 00:56:18,520
Speaker 1: work of RUNA and you know, our publications and programs

950
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:22,440
Speaker 1: and conferences and different outreach and community work because there

951
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:25,319
Speaker 1: is so much need. I believe there is a term.

952
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:29,200
Speaker 1: This idea to be able to see your own organ

953
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:32,040
Speaker 1: bodies is something that is also reported in the literature.

954
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 1: I think I forgot the name. It's I believe it's

955
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:38,440
Speaker 1: something like autos copy. It's this ability to see your

956
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:42,000
Speaker 1: own organs, to sort of have this bird eye image

957
00:56:42,440 --> 00:56:45,239
Speaker 1: and look and see or do a scan of your

958
00:56:45,280 --> 00:56:50,720
Speaker 1: own organs. And also just like ahuaska showing two people

959
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:53,440
Speaker 1: that they have a tumor, are that they have a

960
00:56:53,560 --> 00:56:57,800
Speaker 1: certain pain and they go and they do exams and

961
00:56:57,920 --> 00:57:00,880
Speaker 1: they find that pain and they do find there was

962
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:04,839
Speaker 1: a problem. So this is something that does happen. I mean, ultimately,

963
00:57:05,080 --> 00:57:06,919
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are trying to find

964
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:11,319
Speaker 1: a case of remission of cancer or HIV. These are

965
00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:14,480
Speaker 1: that and like the case that's going to prove everything,

966
00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:19,040
Speaker 1: and that's hard as well to have. Theoretically somebody that

967
00:57:19,520 --> 00:57:22,560
Speaker 1: has the diagnoses and go to a medical doctor and

968
00:57:22,680 --> 00:57:25,800
Speaker 1: does all these tests and then drinks ahuaska and then kills.

969
00:57:25,960 --> 00:57:29,480
Speaker 1: I think those are the kinds of hard evidence to find.

970
00:57:30,040 --> 00:57:32,360
Speaker 1: It's not exactly the kind of work that I do.

971
00:57:32,720 --> 00:57:35,640
Speaker 1: But yes, I heard a lot of stories, but there's

972
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:39,200
Speaker 1: also stories of no success. And there's also irresponsible things

973
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:42,280
Speaker 1: like a family member that doesn't want the other family

974
00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:44,400
Speaker 1: member to go to the doctor but wants to go

975
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 1: to drink ayahuaska and then save that person, and that

976
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:50,560
Speaker 1: person doesn't get saved and dies and this can create

977
00:57:50,640 --> 00:57:53,840
Speaker 1: all kinds of liabilities. So there, you know, there's it's

978
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:57,440
Speaker 1: a challenge, and some people can become fanatical, and I

979
00:57:57,560 --> 00:58:01,360
Speaker 1: think we have to keep ours and I think there's

980
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:04,720
Speaker 1: a dangerous to find a panacea or a miracle cure

981
00:58:05,160 --> 00:58:09,720
Speaker 1: and stop forgetting about doctors and just go to drink

982
00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:12,760
Speaker 1: ahuaska and going to solve all your problems. I think

983
00:58:12,800 --> 00:58:16,320
Speaker 1: it's also important to make a distinction between healing the

984
00:58:16,520 --> 00:58:20,880
Speaker 1: disease and coming to an agreement with being sick and

985
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:25,000
Speaker 1: having a sort of feeling that's okay, and I'm gonna

986
00:58:25,120 --> 00:58:28,480
Speaker 1: die and I have this and come into terms with

987
00:58:28,640 --> 00:58:33,560
Speaker 1: that finitude of life and just learning and enjoining the

988
00:58:33,760 --> 00:58:36,880
Speaker 1: end that it's going to come. And there's ways to

989
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:40,440
Speaker 1: do this transition that are more smooth than others. And

990
00:58:40,560 --> 00:58:44,240
Speaker 1: I think that for this psychedelics can be extremely helpful

991
00:58:44,440 --> 00:58:48,160
Speaker 1: and bring a lot of comfort and a lot of support.

992
00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:52,400
Speaker 1: And I think that particularly for people that are terminally ill,

993
00:58:52,680 --> 00:58:57,400
Speaker 1: there's different, you know, evidence that this could be incredibly helpful. Again,

994
00:58:57,520 --> 00:59:00,800
Speaker 1: it depends on the physical conditions, because if you're completely

995
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:02,920
Speaker 1: ill and you can't like you're not going to be

996
00:59:03,040 --> 00:59:05,480
Speaker 1: easy to take something that is strong and it's going

997
00:59:05,560 --> 00:59:09,480
Speaker 1: to make you vomit, maybe severely, and so you know,

998
00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:12,040
Speaker 1: there's a lot of angles. You mentioned that you had

999
00:59:12,200 --> 00:59:15,080
Speaker 1: follow up effects. That's also something that people should pay

1000
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:18,800
Speaker 1: more attention to because after I wask a ceremonies, especially

1001
00:59:18,800 --> 00:59:20,680
Speaker 1: if you go like on a retreat or you do

1002
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:24,640
Speaker 1: a diet, you can have these benefits for weeks to come.

1003
00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:29,560
Speaker 1: Like people have other kinds of sensibility and perceive things

1004
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:32,720
Speaker 1: in different ways and also sometimes have different kinds of

1005
00:59:32,880 --> 00:59:36,800
Speaker 1: dreams or a whole feeling to them that is kind

1006
00:59:36,840 --> 00:59:41,160
Speaker 1: of novel. Again, in my personal experience, I have felt

1007
00:59:41,200 --> 00:59:43,840
Speaker 1: a lot of benefit and always when I come back

1008
00:59:43,880 --> 00:59:46,680
Speaker 1: from a diet or retreat, I can just feel my

1009
00:59:46,880 --> 00:59:51,080
Speaker 1: energy is entirely like reorganized, and I have this kind

1010
00:59:51,160 --> 00:59:54,800
Speaker 1: of protection, this feeling that I am under this alignment

1011
00:59:54,960 --> 00:59:58,919
Speaker 1: and special sense of things being in order in ways

1012
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:01,920
Speaker 1: that they were not before. And it's up to us

1013
01:00:02,400 --> 01:00:06,280
Speaker 1: to keep that going. And that's the famous integration or

1014
01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:10,360
Speaker 1: the famous homework or follow up. After you have your experiences,

1015
01:00:10,640 --> 01:00:14,800
Speaker 1: how are you going to keep that state and those

1016
01:00:14,960 --> 01:00:18,720
Speaker 1: learnings and those teachings and those blessings on ongoing terms

1017
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:21,600
Speaker 1: in your life, and how are you going to implement

1018
01:00:21,880 --> 01:00:24,080
Speaker 1: the things that you know you have to do that

1019
01:00:24,360 --> 01:00:27,280
Speaker 1: you're kind of frequently already new as a matter of fact,

1020
01:00:27,520 --> 01:00:30,080
Speaker 1: that are important for you to be doing, and they

1021
01:00:30,160 --> 01:00:34,280
Speaker 1: are friends to keep us in this path of development

1022
01:00:34,360 --> 01:00:38,000
Speaker 1: and growth and spiritual connection. Right So, being and looking

1023
01:00:38,120 --> 01:00:41,320
Speaker 1: over your website to Cluna dot net earlier, I saw

1024
01:00:41,480 --> 01:00:43,960
Speaker 1: your mission statement and you sort of summarize it before,

1025
01:00:44,080 --> 01:00:47,240
Speaker 1: but you say, we promote reciprocity in the psychedelic community

1026
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:50,320
Speaker 1: and support the protection of sacred plants and cultural tradition.

1027
01:00:50,440 --> 01:00:54,560
Speaker 1: We advanced psychedelic justice through curating critical conversations and uplifting

1028
01:00:54,600 --> 01:00:57,400
Speaker 1: the voices of women, queer people, indigenous people's, people of

1029
01:00:57,480 --> 01:00:59,720
Speaker 1: color in the Global South in the field of psychedelic

1030
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:01,520
Speaker 1: so aliance. And then I can see that a lot

1031
01:01:01,640 --> 01:01:04,000
Speaker 1: of the publications you're putting out in the events are

1032
01:01:04,080 --> 01:01:07,960
Speaker 1: really about helping people to do ayahuasca in a way

1033
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:12,040
Speaker 1: that's both responsible for themselves and shows respect for both

1034
01:01:12,120 --> 01:01:15,440
Speaker 1: the indigenous communities and sources in the traditions. This one

1035
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:19,240
Speaker 1: it's called the commodification of ayahuasca. How can we do better?

1036
01:01:19,400 --> 01:01:20,960
Speaker 1: And you open it up and This is gonna be

1037
01:01:21,160 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 1: in the form of the question to you, whether you're

1038
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:26,280
Speaker 1: a first timer or a seasoned veteran of these traditions,

1039
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:29,320
Speaker 1: whether you're investing in an expensive Western retreat center in

1040
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:32,280
Speaker 1: South or Central America, opening up a new local circle

1041
01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:35,080
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area, thinking of moving abroad to become

1042
01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:38,400
Speaker 1: a facilitator in a retreat center, starting a new transnational

1043
01:01:38,560 --> 01:01:42,000
Speaker 1: chapter of Brazilian Ayahuaska religion in the global North, visiting

1044
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:44,280
Speaker 1: a local cure and Darrow in their house, Surfing the

1045
01:01:44,360 --> 01:01:47,280
Speaker 1: internet to pick a location for your experience, partaking in

1046
01:01:47,360 --> 01:01:50,440
Speaker 1: a ceremony with a traveling Brazilian indigenous group where an

1047
01:01:50,480 --> 01:01:54,120
Speaker 1: itinerant ceremonial leader trying to make a living. We encourage

1048
01:01:54,160 --> 01:01:57,439
Speaker 1: you to explore these fourteen questions with us and help

1049
01:01:57,560 --> 01:02:01,040
Speaker 1: ensure the future responsible Ayahuaska you around the world. What

1050
01:02:01,160 --> 01:02:04,760
Speaker 1: are some of those key questions for people, whether they're

1051
01:02:04,760 --> 01:02:07,080
Speaker 1: in the first time or or thinking in the ways

1052
01:02:07,120 --> 01:02:09,440
Speaker 1: that you put out there, What are the pivotal questions

1053
01:02:09,520 --> 01:02:11,480
Speaker 1: that you want people to have in mind. Yeah, I'm

1054
01:02:11,480 --> 01:02:14,720
Speaker 1: glad you're asking that, because, as you said, and you

1055
01:02:14,800 --> 01:02:17,160
Speaker 1: mentioned the name of the title of our event, the

1056
01:02:17,280 --> 01:02:19,720
Speaker 1: genie is coming out of the bottle. The genie is

1057
01:02:19,760 --> 01:02:21,640
Speaker 1: out of the bottle, whether we like it or not,

1058
01:02:22,000 --> 01:02:26,560
Speaker 1: whether we're cool with it or not. Ayahuaska uses expanding globally.

1059
01:02:27,080 --> 01:02:29,640
Speaker 1: I think i'd dare to say that, you know, in

1060
01:02:29,720 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: every single city of America there's an Ayahuaska ritual. I mean,

1061
01:02:32,960 --> 01:02:34,919
Speaker 1: we don't know, because it's hard to know these kinds

1062
01:02:34,920 --> 01:02:38,800
Speaker 1: of things, but it's so spread and throughout the whole globe,

1063
01:02:38,920 --> 01:02:44,640
Speaker 1: China and South Africa and Asia, in South America, it's everywhere.

1064
01:02:44,800 --> 01:02:47,280
Speaker 1: So whether we like it or not, it's happening. And

1065
01:02:47,440 --> 01:02:50,680
Speaker 1: so we have a kind of pragmatic approach in Chakrina.

1066
01:02:51,240 --> 01:02:55,440
Speaker 1: This globalization is happening. It's not a moral judgment. Is

1067
01:02:55,520 --> 01:02:58,280
Speaker 1: this right or wrong? Because guess what, you can say

1068
01:02:58,360 --> 01:03:01,480
Speaker 1: whatever you want, it's not going to stop people from

1069
01:03:01,880 --> 01:03:05,280
Speaker 1: drinking ayahuasca. They are drinking it. So the work we're

1070
01:03:05,320 --> 01:03:08,120
Speaker 1: trying to do into Kruna is real. Some kind of

1071
01:03:08,240 --> 01:03:14,320
Speaker 1: creating safeguards, community safeguards to soften this impact of globalization,

1072
01:03:14,600 --> 01:03:18,400
Speaker 1: some kind of harm reduction towards the globalization of ayahuasca,

1073
01:03:18,680 --> 01:03:22,880
Speaker 1: and creating ways that this expansion can be done in

1074
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:25,920
Speaker 1: more mindful ways than one of the initiatives has to

1075
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:29,120
Speaker 1: do with our guide for Sexual Abuse. We're trying to

1076
01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:33,560
Speaker 1: raise awareness around the topic of sexual abuse that can

1077
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:37,280
Speaker 1: be quite prevalent in ayahuasca circles. We also published the

1078
01:03:37,400 --> 01:03:41,920
Speaker 1: document that is helping Ayahuaska communities in the United States

1079
01:03:42,360 --> 01:03:47,040
Speaker 1: to better organize themselves as churches as communities. So, how

1080
01:03:47,120 --> 01:03:50,080
Speaker 1: do you keep track of your sacrament? How do you started,

1081
01:03:50,200 --> 01:03:54,160
Speaker 1: how do you transport it? What kinds of waivers liabilities?

1082
01:03:54,280 --> 01:03:56,400
Speaker 1: Do you have to pay taxes? Do you have to

1083
01:03:56,560 --> 01:03:59,200
Speaker 1: keep the information of the people that drink with you?

1084
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:02,760
Speaker 1: Do have to measure how many leaders you're consumed? Do

1085
01:04:02,880 --> 01:04:06,240
Speaker 1: you have some sort of registration of the beliefs the

1086
01:04:06,360 --> 01:04:09,640
Speaker 1: spiritual doctrine of your group? So that is what we

1087
01:04:09,760 --> 01:04:13,600
Speaker 1: call some legal harm reduction in terms of the commodification

1088
01:04:13,720 --> 01:04:19,880
Speaker 1: of ayahuasca. We encourage this Ayahuaska contemporary global citizen attending

1089
01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:23,160
Speaker 1: hybrid places all over the world to kind of ask

1090
01:04:23,280 --> 01:04:26,560
Speaker 1: some questions on the use he's doing. Where is the

1091
01:04:26,680 --> 01:04:30,160
Speaker 1: Zayahuaska coming from? Does this group have any project that

1092
01:04:30,320 --> 01:04:34,560
Speaker 1: involves the conservation of ayahuasca. Does the group that is

1093
01:04:34,680 --> 01:04:38,360
Speaker 1: creating this ziahuasca has any kind of partnership with local

1094
01:04:38,400 --> 01:04:42,800
Speaker 1: Indigenous people. Are this local indigenous people recognized? Is their

1095
01:04:42,960 --> 01:04:46,160
Speaker 1: name to the ethnic group or to the region they're at?

1096
01:04:46,640 --> 01:04:49,360
Speaker 1: Do you know the language of the people that you're

1097
01:04:49,400 --> 01:04:52,320
Speaker 1: going to visit? Are you getting informed? Where are these

1098
01:04:52,400 --> 01:04:56,280
Speaker 1: people used and tokenized in a website that is geared,

1099
01:04:56,520 --> 01:04:59,640
Speaker 1: you know, mainly produced by a Western audience for a

1100
01:04:59,760 --> 01:05:03,680
Speaker 1: West their audience. And do these projects do this retreats

1101
01:05:03,840 --> 01:05:07,400
Speaker 1: or circles or communities, do they have any ways to

1102
01:05:07,640 --> 01:05:11,320
Speaker 1: give back? So we have also created this project called

1103
01:05:11,360 --> 01:05:14,800
Speaker 1: the Indigenous Resprose the Initiative of the Americas. That is

1104
01:05:14,880 --> 01:05:17,560
Speaker 1: one of our strongest programs that we have been doing

1105
01:05:17,640 --> 01:05:21,200
Speaker 1: for two years, which is a poll of twenty organizations

1106
01:05:21,320 --> 01:05:25,240
Speaker 1: that we partnered with in seven countries across the Americas.

1107
01:05:25,680 --> 01:05:30,200
Speaker 1: And we're suggesting people that engage in plant medicine ceremonies

1108
01:05:30,320 --> 01:05:33,680
Speaker 1: to think of the issue of reciprosity. How can we

1109
01:05:33,800 --> 01:05:37,640
Speaker 1: give back? And am I honoring the people that came

1110
01:05:37,720 --> 01:05:40,440
Speaker 1: before me and that are the true leaders of the

1111
01:05:40,480 --> 01:05:45,360
Speaker 1: psychedelic movements, not the scientists that started in the fifties

1112
01:05:45,480 --> 01:05:49,200
Speaker 1: or now, but those are the traditional founding leaders. And

1113
01:05:49,320 --> 01:05:52,640
Speaker 1: we are also you know, just creating a culture around

1114
01:05:52,720 --> 01:05:55,040
Speaker 1: these things. So we do a lot of events and

1115
01:05:55,200 --> 01:05:58,720
Speaker 1: publications and we're trying to create some kind of cultural

1116
01:05:58,840 --> 01:06:04,160
Speaker 1: legitimacy around the substances. Do you have vocabulary, where do

1117
01:06:04,280 --> 01:06:07,680
Speaker 1: you find information and how do you create this cultural

1118
01:06:07,800 --> 01:06:11,680
Speaker 1: legitimacy Because this is not just about this integration of

1119
01:06:11,800 --> 01:06:15,320
Speaker 1: these plants into the person's life and to their well

1120
01:06:15,400 --> 01:06:18,320
Speaker 1: being and their personality and self development, but as the

1121
01:06:18,440 --> 01:06:22,479
Speaker 1: integration of this traditions into our culture. So we're calling

1122
01:06:22,560 --> 01:06:25,400
Speaker 1: it some kind of cultural therapy, like we need to

1123
01:06:25,560 --> 01:06:28,600
Speaker 1: rethink of ways that we talk about these things. And

1124
01:06:28,880 --> 01:06:33,120
Speaker 1: the Chachrona Institute is trying to create this cultural conversations,

1125
01:06:33,240 --> 01:06:38,800
Speaker 1: so curating cultural conversations as plant medicines grow globally, but

1126
01:06:39,000 --> 01:06:43,040
Speaker 1: while doing that, trying to elevate platform and give visibility

1127
01:06:43,200 --> 01:06:47,120
Speaker 1: to voices of minorities, so to indigenous people too, people

1128
01:06:47,200 --> 01:06:50,920
Speaker 1: of color, to women, to queer people, two people from

1129
01:06:51,000 --> 01:06:53,480
Speaker 1: the global South well being, I should say, And looking

1130
01:06:53,560 --> 01:06:56,520
Speaker 1: over your website, I really was impressed because there's a

1131
01:06:56,640 --> 01:06:59,640
Speaker 1: lot of very nuanced discussion in there. There's a piece

1132
01:06:59,680 --> 01:07:01,880
Speaker 1: in there where you talk about the question is ayahuasca

1133
01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:04,240
Speaker 1: in danger? And the answer is well yes and no.

1134
01:07:04,480 --> 01:07:06,880
Speaker 1: If you go to some places like around i Quits

1135
01:07:07,000 --> 01:07:09,480
Speaker 1: and I think Peru, where there's at the center of

1136
01:07:09,600 --> 01:07:12,160
Speaker 1: ayahuasca based tourism, there actually is a risk of it

1137
01:07:12,280 --> 01:07:14,720
Speaker 1: being less and less available and being overharvested. If you

1138
01:07:14,760 --> 01:07:17,520
Speaker 1: go to parts of Colombia, not really an issue the phenomena.

1139
01:07:17,640 --> 01:07:19,480
Speaker 1: It's not just grown in the wild, but you know,

1140
01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:22,480
Speaker 1: ayahuasca is also being cultivated. So what you describe is

1141
01:07:22,520 --> 01:07:26,120
Speaker 1: a fairly nuanced portrait of being sensitive to what's going on.

1142
01:07:26,440 --> 01:07:28,200
Speaker 1: And I think the same thing with what's happening with

1143
01:07:28,280 --> 01:07:31,720
Speaker 1: indigenous communities there. As you point out, for some of them,

1144
01:07:32,080 --> 01:07:37,200
Speaker 1: this is injecting a very destructive element of kind of commodification, commercialization,

1145
01:07:37,360 --> 01:07:41,000
Speaker 1: competition for higher quality or for the ayahuasca higher prices,

1146
01:07:41,200 --> 01:07:43,600
Speaker 1: destruction of of of long term traditions. You know. On

1147
01:07:43,640 --> 01:07:46,320
Speaker 1: the other hand, it's also bringing in significant sources of

1148
01:07:46,400 --> 01:07:49,720
Speaker 1: revenue for these communities. It's introducing them to new possibilities.

1149
01:07:49,920 --> 01:07:53,040
Speaker 1: So it's a complex situation we're talking about. And I

1150
01:07:53,080 --> 01:07:57,040
Speaker 1: think Tracuna's voice in terms of representing especially voices of

1151
01:07:57,120 --> 01:08:00,440
Speaker 1: the indigenous, of the queer of this favorite pop relations

1152
01:08:00,680 --> 01:08:02,680
Speaker 1: is really impressive. And I'll tell you you're doing it

1153
01:08:02,880 --> 01:08:05,720
Speaker 1: in a thoughtful and nuanced way. I think your voice

1154
01:08:05,800 --> 01:08:08,120
Speaker 1: being out there, you're getting ever better. And I mean

1155
01:08:08,160 --> 01:08:10,600
Speaker 1: I've been following you now doing this for fifteen years.

1156
01:08:10,680 --> 01:08:12,960
Speaker 1: I've been watching you try to build this organization. You

1157
01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:16,000
Speaker 1: know you're really making a major contribution. So my final

1158
01:08:16,120 --> 01:08:18,800
Speaker 1: question is when you look forward, I mean, you've been

1159
01:08:18,840 --> 01:08:21,800
Speaker 1: working on this stuff for maybe twenty years, jumping forward

1160
01:08:21,840 --> 01:08:25,439
Speaker 1: another twenty years b to uh ayahuasca in the year

1161
01:08:25,640 --> 01:08:29,720
Speaker 1: twenty forty or twenty fifty. If you had to speculate

1162
01:08:29,840 --> 01:08:33,040
Speaker 1: or imagine, what are your predictions. Well, first of all,

1163
01:08:33,160 --> 01:08:35,960
Speaker 1: thank you for your kind words, and as I told

1164
01:08:36,000 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 1: you on different occasions, you have been an inspiration and

1165
01:08:39,160 --> 01:08:41,120
Speaker 1: of course for a lot of us in the drug

1166
01:08:41,240 --> 01:08:44,200
Speaker 1: reform movement. And so I also thank you so much

1167
01:08:44,360 --> 01:08:46,640
Speaker 1: for all your years of work, and I'm happy for

1168
01:08:46,760 --> 01:08:50,040
Speaker 1: you to be doing this podcast, which I know that

1169
01:08:50,160 --> 01:08:53,439
Speaker 1: you always have this double nature between your activist self

1170
01:08:53,600 --> 01:08:57,200
Speaker 1: and your scholar self. And now that you're a little

1171
01:08:57,200 --> 01:09:00,960
Speaker 1: bit older, not old, but rich, hired from the d

1172
01:09:01,080 --> 01:09:04,120
Speaker 1: p A, you can delve into being a good students.

1173
01:09:04,200 --> 01:09:07,519
Speaker 1: And I really appreciate all your questions. I don't know,

1174
01:09:08,120 --> 01:09:11,799
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to end in not such a great finaleg

1175
01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:14,160
Speaker 1: I guess I don't think a lot about that. I

1176
01:09:14,240 --> 01:09:16,920
Speaker 1: think that's one of the things about me that I

1177
01:09:17,000 --> 01:09:20,080
Speaker 1: don't really care where things are going or what's happening.

1178
01:09:20,200 --> 01:09:22,479
Speaker 1: Like I have my ideas of what I think is

1179
01:09:22,640 --> 01:09:24,760
Speaker 1: right and I think I should do, and I think

1180
01:09:24,840 --> 01:09:27,400
Speaker 1: all we can do is like kind of hope to

1181
01:09:27,520 --> 01:09:31,519
Speaker 1: give our contribution to stewart things in the correct way.

1182
01:09:32,240 --> 01:09:35,680
Speaker 1: So I am not all enthusiastic. I also have so

1183
01:09:35,880 --> 01:09:39,080
Speaker 1: I am this active director of the Chichroni Institute, and

1184
01:09:39,200 --> 01:09:41,560
Speaker 1: I have a part time job as public education and

1185
01:09:41,680 --> 01:09:46,280
Speaker 1: cultural specialist of Maps. At MAPS, they're super enthusiastic about mainstreaming,

1186
01:09:46,960 --> 01:09:48,960
Speaker 1: you know, M D M A and psychedelics. I am

1187
01:09:49,040 --> 01:09:53,000
Speaker 1: not on that mainstreaming wagon myself. I think these things

1188
01:09:53,040 --> 01:09:57,160
Speaker 1: are expanding and there's a continued interest. And to me,

1189
01:09:57,520 --> 01:10:01,120
Speaker 1: I'm not like more happy that more p drink Ayahuaska.

1190
01:10:01,240 --> 01:10:03,599
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to make more impact and more people

1191
01:10:03,720 --> 01:10:07,640
Speaker 1: have more access. I think this plants are not for everybody,

1192
01:10:08,040 --> 01:10:13,400
Speaker 1: and they're incredibly powerful and sacred and deep and meaningful,

1193
01:10:13,760 --> 01:10:17,200
Speaker 1: and those of ones, those of us that want to

1194
01:10:17,360 --> 01:10:19,839
Speaker 1: use it, and those of us that have felt touched,

1195
01:10:20,000 --> 01:10:23,799
Speaker 1: and those of us that have dreamed with the spirits

1196
01:10:23,840 --> 01:10:27,840
Speaker 1: of Ayahuaska and being in that space, visit that reality

1197
01:10:28,120 --> 01:10:31,639
Speaker 1: and resonated. We should have our rights, and we should

1198
01:10:31,680 --> 01:10:34,360
Speaker 1: be protected. We should never be put in jail, and

1199
01:10:34,520 --> 01:10:39,200
Speaker 1: we should have some recognition that there is something deeply

1200
01:10:39,400 --> 01:10:42,880
Speaker 1: noble and sacred about this path. And also we can't

1201
01:10:43,439 --> 01:10:46,760
Speaker 1: explore and abuse the people that taught us. There has

1202
01:10:46,840 --> 01:10:51,400
Speaker 1: been five years of colonization and Indigenous people continue to

1203
01:10:51,520 --> 01:10:55,400
Speaker 1: be incredibly kind and receiving a bunch of like desperate

1204
01:10:55,680 --> 01:11:00,080
Speaker 1: white Northerners full of anxieties in crisis, you know, with

1205
01:11:00,240 --> 01:11:04,160
Speaker 1: post modernity and job issues and money issues and health

1206
01:11:04,240 --> 01:11:06,960
Speaker 1: issues and all kinds of stories. And we're still visiting

1207
01:11:07,680 --> 01:11:10,439
Speaker 1: the Amazon, and they sit and they sing, and they

1208
01:11:10,520 --> 01:11:13,800
Speaker 1: heal and they teach us. And for that, I am

1209
01:11:13,920 --> 01:11:18,120
Speaker 1: extremely grateful. And I want to build paths of justice

1210
01:11:18,240 --> 01:11:22,160
Speaker 1: and resprosty towards Indigenous people. I want to build legal

1211
01:11:22,280 --> 01:11:26,920
Speaker 1: protections towards Ayahuasca users. I want to build protections for

1212
01:11:27,160 --> 01:11:31,680
Speaker 1: queer people not to be abused by homophobe leaders and

1213
01:11:32,080 --> 01:11:37,200
Speaker 1: extremely patriarchal organizations. I want to build safeguards for the

1214
01:11:37,320 --> 01:11:41,160
Speaker 1: conservation of the plant species, and I want to celebrate

1215
01:11:41,320 --> 01:11:44,559
Speaker 1: and to honor the beauty of these traditions. I want

1216
01:11:44,640 --> 01:11:49,760
Speaker 1: to create a culture of study, of research, of incredible

1217
01:11:50,200 --> 01:11:54,320
Speaker 1: intellectual knowledge around the traditions, because these plants are good

1218
01:11:54,360 --> 01:11:57,280
Speaker 1: not just to drink and to eat and to have

1219
01:11:58,120 --> 01:12:02,200
Speaker 1: transcendental experience. They're also grout for us to think, to

1220
01:12:02,360 --> 01:12:07,320
Speaker 1: think reality, to study, to have intellectual inspiration, to learn

1221
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:11,000
Speaker 1: about the ultimate mysteries about life. And they are great

1222
01:12:11,080 --> 01:12:14,839
Speaker 1: resources and companions for all of this. So we're engaged

1223
01:12:14,880 --> 01:12:20,759
Speaker 1: in education, We're engaged in restarosity. We're engaged in psychedelic justice,

1224
01:12:21,240 --> 01:12:24,960
Speaker 1: in talking about minorities and honoring the women and the

1225
01:12:25,080 --> 01:12:28,800
Speaker 1: elders and the people that came before us. Aguaska is

1226
01:12:28,840 --> 01:12:33,720
Speaker 1: our teacher and friend. Chikruna organization is named after Aguasca.

1227
01:12:34,280 --> 01:12:38,200
Speaker 1: It's an honor and a true pleasure to serve this path.

1228
01:12:38,400 --> 01:12:42,000
Speaker 1: It has been incredibly rewarding. And I word and forward,

1229
01:12:42,400 --> 01:12:45,400
Speaker 1: and I wording for so all of that day. I say, hallelujah,

1230
01:12:45,560 --> 01:12:48,880
Speaker 1: it sounds great. You're doing amazing stuff. So thank you

1231
01:12:49,040 --> 01:12:53,080
Speaker 1: ever so much for joining me on psycholaps. Thank you big, everybody.

1232
01:12:53,400 --> 01:13:02,280
Speaker 1: Bye bye. If you're enjoyed going Psychoactive, Please tell your

1233
01:13:02,320 --> 01:13:04,479
Speaker 1: friends about it, or you can write us a review

1234
01:13:04,560 --> 01:13:07,760
Speaker 1: at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. We

1235
01:13:07,920 --> 01:13:10,320
Speaker 1: love to hear from our listeners. If you'd like to

1236
01:13:10,400 --> 01:13:13,320
Speaker 1: share your own stories, comments and ideas, then leave us

1237
01:13:13,360 --> 01:13:17,479
Speaker 1: a message at one eight three three seven seven nine

1238
01:13:18,640 --> 01:13:23,320
Speaker 1: sixty that's eight three three psycho zero, or you can

1239
01:13:23,400 --> 01:13:27,120
Speaker 1: email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot com, or find

1240
01:13:27,160 --> 01:13:30,320
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Ethan Natalman. You can also find

1241
01:13:30,360 --> 01:13:34,559
Speaker 1: contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive is a production

1242
01:13:34,600 --> 01:13:38,080
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by

1243
01:13:38,120 --> 01:13:42,439
Speaker 1: me Ethan Naedelman. It's produced by Noham Osband and Josh Stain.

1244
01:13:42,760 --> 01:13:47,200
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus

1245
01:13:47,240 --> 01:13:50,760
Speaker 1: and Darren Aronofsky from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt

1246
01:13:50,800 --> 01:13:54,320
Speaker 1: Frederick from my Heart Radio, and me Ethan Nadelman. Our

1247
01:13:54,479 --> 01:13:58,040
Speaker 1: music is by Ari Blucien and a special thanks to

1248
01:13:58,160 --> 01:14:12,720
Speaker 1: a Brio s f Uca Grimshaw and Robert BB. Next

1249
01:14:12,800 --> 01:14:15,479
Speaker 1: week I'll be talking with one of America's best known

1250
01:14:15,560 --> 01:14:20,040
Speaker 1: progressive prosecutors. It's Chase A. Budan, the recently recalled District

1251
01:14:20,080 --> 01:14:24,000
Speaker 1: Attorney of San Francisco. I grew up visiting my own

1252
01:14:24,040 --> 01:14:27,400
Speaker 1: parents in prison. My earliest memories are waiting in lines

1253
01:14:28,040 --> 01:14:31,120
Speaker 1: at prison gates to go through metal detectors and to

1254
01:14:31,240 --> 01:14:33,479
Speaker 1: get searched, just to be able to see my parents,

1255
01:14:33,680 --> 01:14:35,280
Speaker 1: just to be able to give them hugs. So as

1256
01:14:35,320 --> 01:14:38,200
Speaker 1: long as I can remember, I've been impacted by and

1257
01:14:38,680 --> 01:14:43,120
Speaker 1: thinking about this country's response to crime and how we

1258
01:14:43,240 --> 01:14:46,960
Speaker 1: meet out punishment and what rehabilitation means. And I've been

1259
01:14:47,000 --> 01:14:51,000
Speaker 1: acutely aware of the tremendous carnage that the Warren drugs

1260
01:14:51,040 --> 01:14:53,200
Speaker 1: has left in its wake. And when I went to

1261
01:14:53,280 --> 01:14:55,000
Speaker 1: law school, I wanted to try to fight to change

1262
01:14:55,080 --> 01:14:58,680
Speaker 1: that system. Subscribe to Psycoactive now see it, don't miss it.