WEBVTT - Psychedelics Playlist: The Manifested Mind, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:04.960 Welcome Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of I 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:14.000 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to Stuff 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.480 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.440 I'm Joe McCormick, and stay. I wanted to start with 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:22.200 one of those great naval gazers. Are you ready? Let's 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.320 do it? Okay? So the question is we know how 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.800 to describe what we see when we look at things. 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:30.560 You know, you can look at the room you're in 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.840 right now and write down the features, or you can 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.199 try to describe a great landscape that you remember from 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.040 some trip you took. But when somebody asks you to 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.320 look inside yourself, how do you begin to describe what 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.920 you see in your own mind? I mean, in a way, 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:50.680 you are forced to resort to metaphors. You know, we 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:53.720 talked about this a lot. They are like concrete metaphors 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.640 for abstract mental properties. And so maybe you think of 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.120 your mind if you you try to examine it as 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.160 something like a uh, you know, like a castle or building, 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:06.240 a solid landscape you can walk through that has features 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:08.280 you could describe, or maybe you think about it like 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.880 a weather pattern that's constantly transient and changing, or maybe 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.560 you can't really think of it in in comparison to 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:20.000 any physical object at all, in which case, how would 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:22.720 you ever even be able to describe what you're looking at? 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:25.880 And how different of a person would you be if 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:30.200 you had the tools to see more clearly what's inside 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.080 your own mind? Well, even in this we're using terms 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:37.679 of about about seeing in visualization and uh. And certainly 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:39.720 I think a lot of us fall back on cinematic 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:44.040 interpretations of the inner mind states and you know, identity 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:46.600 and who we are. But but there's you know, there's 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.720 more going on there. Like I I sometimes when I'm 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.080 more self conscious of what stays going to stay is 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:55.200 going on in my you know, default mode network, it 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.640 it won't even be visual Like my visual world will 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.160 be just wrapped up in whatever I doing, say driving 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.720 down the road. But it's uh, it's this non visual 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:08.040 world that is wrapped up in like voices of the 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.800 past and perceived you know, possible future. Would you like 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.120 to think about death and about all the ways in 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.880 which you have failed? Yeah, exactly that sort of thing, 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.240 you know, and that and they may be flashes of 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.520 visualizations in there, but but but often not, at least 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.079 in my case. Uh. And of course in all the 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.079 things concerning the the inner mind. This is going to 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.440 change from individual to individual. Yeah, totally. And so today 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.920 we are embarking on a multi part episode series that 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:36.920 we're gonna be doing here on stuff to blow your mind, 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:42.880 looking at the general topic of psychedelics and most specifically, 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:45.600 I think, with it with a strong focus on the 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:50.079 fungal domain there on, on psilocybin, mushrooms and related species 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.480 and compounds. Yeah. Yeah, not only about you know, to 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.520 our point earlier, not only about what they seem to 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:00.360 change in human perception and cognition, but what they reveal 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.040 about human perception and cognition, how they factor into our past, 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.280 how they factor into our present, and how they may 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.880 well factor into our future. Yeah, that's right now. I 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.120 think maybe one thing that has pushed us in this 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.720 direction is some books we've been reading recently, So maybe 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:15.679 we should mention them at the top. I know we've 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.919 both been reading, uh, Michael Pollen's most recent book, How 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:21.480 to Change Your Mind, which is all about psychedelics and 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:26.160 about uh, you know, the concept of spirituality and mental 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.600 life and why this is so elucidated by and associated 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.520 with psychedelic compounds. Right, and it is just an excellent book. 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:38.200 You know, It's gotten rave reviews for for for excellent reasons. 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:39.520 It's it's one of these where you can pick it 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:44.080 up without knowing anything really about psychedelic culture or you know, 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.440 or the you know, the nineteen sixties, or or or 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:49.680 botany and ethnobotany. You know, you don't really have to 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:52.160 have a background in any of these things. And Pollen, 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:54.680 as with his other major works, and it just really 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.520 walks you through. It adds in personal experiences and is 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:02.320 very much approaching it as an older individual who did 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.440 not have a lot of experiences with psychedelic substances. And 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.560 I think that's a very interesting and appropriate treatment because 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.360 a lot of what I've at least learned recently about 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.240 psychedelics makes it seem like psychedelics maybe of much greater 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:19.360 use and a much greater interest actually to older, more 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:23.720 mature people dealing with thoughts of life and death and 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:26.360 the meaning of life and all that than as say, 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.040 as it is often presented as sort of a party 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.800 drug to you know, experience by teenagers. Right, yeah, I 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.400 think I can't remember it was Paulin said this, or 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.720 who's quoting somebody else? Is saying that psychedelics are are 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:41.599 wasted on the young. It might have been Carl Young. 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.039 Was it Carl Young that said? Okay, maybe Paulin was 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:47.200 counting with quoting Young on that, but but yeah, I 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:49.400 can see there being an argument to that to a 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.840 certain extent. However, that's not to discount the possible benefits 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.960 to younger individuals as well. Um, but we'll get into 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:57.839 all that as we proceed. Well, I just think it 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.440 seems very plausible to me that it's actually much more 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.400 useful in general for older people to be given tools 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.159 to when they're doing that mental introspection, you know, looking 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:09.680 through the window into their own mind, to have the 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.880 tools to see more clearly what's inside and to go 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.160 in and move the furniture around right, or to sort 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.440 of knock the barnacles off the hull of the ship, 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:19.920 because that's that's one way of looking at it is 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.840 just the the younger vessel may have fewer barnacles or 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.520 or or at least for a lot of people, when 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:29.200 you were younger, perhaps you were fortunate enough, privileged enough 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.960 to not have that many psychic barnacles that need to 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:36.960 be dislodged, or could conceivably be dislodged, etcetera. Yeah. Uh, though, 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:39.599 despite everything we're saying right now, I also want to 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.400 make clear that our approach over these following episodes is 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.640 going to be mainly a sort of like descriptive and 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.920 and analytical discussion, not one where we are advocating any 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:51.919 sort of personal course of action. So we're not going 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:53.800 to tell you to take psychedelics. We're not going to 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.360 tell you not to take psychedelics. That that's not our goal. Instead, 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:59.360 we want to talk about what they can do and 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:03.279 what they mean. Right. But in addition to mentioning Poullen's book, 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.800 another important book that I haven't read but that you 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.960 have and I've read about is a book by Terrence 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.560 McKenna that I know you've been enjoying greatly, which I 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.440 think is out in uh maybe is uh you might say, 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:17.120 on less solid footing or a little squishy or territory, 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.320 but it's also very interesting. Well. Yeah, one thing about 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.320 about Fit of the Gods. First of all, it's book, 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.080 so a lot of time has passed since it came out. 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:30.239 And then also it is it is kind of a mixture, 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:35.520 you know, so McKenna, you know brings his background and ethnobotany, ecology, 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:39.479 and an understanding of shamanism uh into this uh this book, 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:45.080 and he's ultimately making a rather grand hypothesis that that 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.160 I'll talk about here in a bit. But yeah, I 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:50.200 feel like with With the Food of the Gods, one 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:51.880 has to be a little bit choosy and what what 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.279 you really like grab onto, But but he has a 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.559 lot of very interesting things to say, some wonderful insight 0:06:57.640 --> 0:06:59.600 that still stands up to this day. But it is 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:02.360 a book I think needs to be appreciated alongside aside 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:05.039 other sources, especially today. Well yeah, I mean, I think, 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:07.880 especially in the kind of perspective we tend to present 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:09.880 on the show, I feel like there's a lot of 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:13.520 great literature in the realm of psychedelia that falls into 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:17.280 this category where it's stuff written by people who are 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.040 genuine experts, who you know, really do know what they're 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.560 talking about in the realm of psych psychedelic compounds, the chemistry, 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.120 the botany, the cultural practices and all of that, and 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.800 have great things to say on those subjects, but then 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:32.760 also tend to be prone, I would say, much more 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.840 often than people in other subject domains to kind of 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:41.160 get out into highly speculative and even seemingly supernatural territory. Right, 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:44.280 So you have that tendency, but also just the you know, 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:49.320 the post nineteen sixties taboo aspect of the subject, where 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:52.400 for for as we'll discuss, for decades, uh, it was 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.760 not something that was in an accepted area of study. 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.760 It was left to the fringes and the counterculture, and 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:00.920 so there was a lot of baggage. Are you know 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.960 the both of those those things can sort of hurt 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:06.720 in individuals work in this area. But another sort of 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.560 compelling inspiration for these episodes is of when I attended 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:11.840 the recent World Science Festival in New York. There was 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.720 a panel on psychedelics as well. Oh yeah, when eduard O. 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:17.960 Cone was on. Yes, Cohne was on here. This is 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.280 where I learned about him and his work, plus a 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:23.200 few other individuals that will discuss as we proceed. So 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.000 obviously we've covered psychedelics and stuff to bliw your mind 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:30.960 numerous times in the past, discussing LSD, SO cybin as 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.560 well as such counterculture figures as tom As, Timothy Leary, 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.880 and John C. Lily, And we've we've been meaning to 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.400 come back to psychedelics for a deeper die for a while. 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.120 But one of the real reasons that we're reaching back 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:45.400 into the subject right now is that we are living 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:48.679 in a very exciting time as far as these substances 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:53.319 are concerned, because in research terms, in research terms, yeah, 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:57.199 because basically, these are substances that modern Western medicine explored 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:00.280 for a brief time in the mid twentie cent tree 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.520 and then and then, and when they were looking at them, um, 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:07.280 they were encountering many promising results indicating how they might 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:11.040 be used to treat addiction, address psychological problems, and even 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:15.560 unlock a better understanding of the human mind. But due 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:19.760 to political and societal pressures, uh, they were all in 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:24.560 turn declared illegal substances Schedule one drugs in the United States. 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.439 I think it was psilocybin. I think was made illegal 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:29.719 in the United States in nineteen sixty eight, and then 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:33.040 made a Schedule one substance in I think nineteen seventy. Yeah, 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:35.640 I believe that that was the timeline. And uh, and 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.760 of course this also in in you know, involved LSD 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.440 and various other substances. But basically the result was that 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.960 decades of potential explora floration were lost when modern science 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.520 had scarcely explored, you know, more than what ancient people's 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.760 understood about the substances involved, or you know, to a 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:59.320 certain extent, understood them less well, uh compared to ancient societies. So, 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.360 I mean we're talking three plus decades during which these 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:07.640 powerful substances were purely the domains of counterculture and illegal 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.040 activity in the West. You know, no nobody was studying 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.520 so well, there was some study, but it was sort 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:16.240 of driven underground or not taken very seriously in the 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.760 academic community, right. It was it was considered like risky 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.120 to propose, say a psilocybin study for a while. Yeah, 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:29.320 like if you're a pharmacologist, psychopharmacologists pursuing uh, psilocybin, it 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:32.240 could be a bad career move, right yeah. I mean, 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.280 so it was almost treated as if all of these 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.240 substances were dead ends, as if you know, would reach 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:38.720 the point where it was like, oh, well, this is 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.120 a this is just a poison that you know, for 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:43.360 that that some people are going to dangerously use for 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.480 recreational purposes, which you know, as as will explore, is 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.920 wrong in two ways, Like it's wrong in the historical 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.520 context when you see how substances like this have been 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.400 used for thousands of years and it's wrong on the 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.240 medical research front. Yeah, I mean one of the funny 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.400 things is, given our view of the very like square 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.800 buttoned up nineteen fifties, the nineteen fifties were relatively a 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:10.760 time of uh, you know, abundant research and permissiveness exploring 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:15.640 these topics. So yeah, there were some decades there, some 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:18.640 some pretty dry decades as far as psychedelic research was concerned. 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.920 But as we emerged from the nineteen nineties, the culture 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.359 began to shift and we began to see new experimentation 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.719 into how especially psilocybin could be used to treat specific conditions. 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:31.480 And you know, this is what we've covered in the 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.679 past on the show and what you've you've heard covered 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:35.840 a lot elsewhere. You know, the studies here and there 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.640 that reveal new potential and perhaps point the way for 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.400 greater and renewed study and even decriminalization at least for 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.720 clinical uses, you know, in study and studies if nothing else. 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:48.720 And so as Michael Pollen points out and how to 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.320 Change your Mind, you know, we're living in a true 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.640 renaissance of psychedelic study. And I don't think that's you know, 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.600 an overstatement to say that. I think, especially since around 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.120 the year two thousand six when there was a big 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.200 seminal research paper out about psilocybin that we will talk 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.079 about in detail in a later episode in the series. Right, 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:08.360 And I'm not and I'm not referring to say, like 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.760 what Colorado efforts in Colorado to decriminalize them for you know, 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.839 perhaps with with recreational usage in mind. Uh, you know, 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.959 I'm talking about like clinical uses. The potential benefits here 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:23.280 are profound, and if the trends of you know, continue here, 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:26.240 you know, modern medical science has a has a lot 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.720 to gain from it. You know, it's it's it's frustrating 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.480 to to think about those decades in which you know, 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.480 less was being done with them. But but you know, 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:37.920 we could have easily remained in kind of a dark 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.800 age and had several more decades in which these substances 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.120 of not being studied. So it's a remarkable time really. 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:46.920 All Right, Well, I think before we dive into especially 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.880 psilocybin the psychedelics in general, maybe we should do a 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.200 little foundation work because I know one thing that you 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:55.520 were talking to me about that Terence mckennag gets into 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:57.920 a good bit and in his work is the idea 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.120 of like what is a drug? What are drug and 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.120 what do people see as drugs? Yeah, yeah, he he 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.719 had a lot of great thoughts on this, on this 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.000 matter that I think I really good sort of disrupting 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.240 the sort of like mental concrete that ends up getting 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:14.520 embedded in our head regarding the different substances that we 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:17.160 take into our body. So yeah, let's I think we 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.360 should talk about like what a drug is, because, for instance, 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.199 if you look at just a basics, say Webster's definition, 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:26.640 a drug is a medicine or other substance which has 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:30.640 a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body. 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:35.200 Now how this certainly applies to say cocaine or ibuprofen. 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:39.960 It also applies to coffee and alcohol. It applies to melotonin, 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:45.760 herbal supplements, chocolate, tea, wheat, grass shots, camerameal, sugar, licorice, oatmeal, 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:48.720 you name it. Yeah, we were talking the other day, 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.800 I know about it. Was it was it melotonin supplements. 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:53.640 You were looking at that? Oh no, I heard uh 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:55.760 an ad on the radio for them. Yeah that we're 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.840 calling them drug free and all these drugs people take 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:01.680 that advertise themselves a drug free, which I think is 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.480 just I'm not sure what people mean by that. I 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:08.560 think they mean maybe like not containing synthetically or lab 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.199 isolated chemicals that you can't pronounce the names of. Yeah, 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:14.880 it's you know, all natural or something. Well. Yeah, it's 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:17.680 weird how we we use the term drug to sort 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:20.280 of refer to things that are either in the domain 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:22.880 of the illegal is in like the War on drugs, 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.800 or something that is in the domain of medical professionals. Yeah, 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.320 maybe something that requires a prescription is produced by the 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.120 pharmaceutical industry. Yeah, but yeah, I don't see any reason 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:36.800 why these all natural substances are not drugs. They certainly 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:38.600 are drugs. I mean, I'm doing drugs right now. I've 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:40.840 got my coffee cup next to me, And the whole 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:43.120 drug free thing kind of reminds me of like the 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:45.880 people who say I don't put any chemicals in my body. 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:48.520 I know what they're talking about, Like they you know, 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:51.360 they want to eat sort of like all natural whole foods. 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:53.560 You know, I I'll eat an apple. I'm not going 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.480 to eat an apple bar that was made in a 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.360 factory and has all these chemical ingredients listed that I 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.000 can't renounce. You know, I don't know what that stuff is, 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.480 so I mean I understand that. And of course you know, 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.760 there there are some reasons that you might in truth 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:11.040 want to avoid certain kinds of industrial food additives. But 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.720 the whole idea that you don't put any chemicals in 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.040 your body is ridiculous. Yeah, And and of course we're 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:18.440 not arguing that one should put everything into your body 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.280 by any means that you know. And ultimately we all 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.560 have to draw lines in the sand concerning the sort 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.240 of thing and those those lines may you know, not 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:28.600 make you know, a whole lot of sense if you 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:30.720 really analyze them. But I think one of the important 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:32.880 things is to be able to realize where we're drawing 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:35.120 the line in the sand, and where that line is 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.880 being drawn for us by you know, other other parties 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:42.080 in society. But anyway, this is one of the the 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:45.440 the ideas that Terence McKenna discusses and Food of the Gods, 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:49.080 and I think before we go any any further, I 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:51.760 should just go ahead and like summarize like what this 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.360 book is about. It's kind of about a lot of things, 0:15:54.440 --> 0:16:00.000 but but ultimately he has this central hypothesis that he's pushing. Um. 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:01.920 You know, he makes a passionate case for not only 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.880 humanities connection with psychedelic substances and the promise of their power, 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.080 but also with the notion that they played a role 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.560 in the emergence of consciousness. Yeah. Well, and sort of 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:16.520 like in language and and human intellectual abilities, right right, right, 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:21.160 UM's self reflection and language in particular. And Michael Paulan 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:23.240 actually mentions it in his book as well. He refers 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:28.200 to it as quote the epitome of all mico centric speculation. Right. Uh. 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.840 And really, you do encounter some people in this world 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:36.240 who maybe their enthusiasm for for psilocybin and the effects 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:41.160 of these psychoactive mushrooms or psychedelic mushrooms. Uh, you get 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:44.680 the sense that they have had such positive experiences with 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.400 them that it drives them to think about, you know, 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.800 mushrooms as a sort of like center of everything good 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:52.600 and holy in the world. I mean, in a way 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.800 that might be unfair. Maybe that's over psychologizing their their 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:58.840 hypotheses and points of view. But like for example, the 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.960 mycologist Pulse s Dame It's or Stammits who comes up 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.000 in Michael Pollan's book, who we've talked about on the 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:05.639 show before. I think we talked about him in our 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.800 Dune episode because I think he was friends with Frank Herbert. Yes, 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:10.520 I believe so. But you know, he's got a very 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.760 like mushrooms centric view of the world, where in a 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:16.720 way sort of mushrooms rule everything, and that the mushrooms 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:20.040 are like trying to communicate with us through these compounds 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:22.439 and all that, and mckennic kind of falls in this 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:26.359 category to he sort of like sees the mushroom regime 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:30.640 everywhere on Earth. Yeah, I think that's that's undeniable. At 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.240 the same time, I mean, he does make a very mean, 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:38.240 in a very robust case in this book. Again books, 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:40.880 so you know, a lot has happened since then. But 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.080 but as Michael Pollan also points out, you know, it's 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:47.439 ultimately not something that's not really susceptible to proof or disproof, 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.720 and ultimately McKinnon never really fills in the blanks on 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:54.439 how this would have actually affected biological evolution, right, So 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:56.879 you probably can't put a lot of stock in his 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.720 hypothesis being correct barring some other evidence that we're not 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.720 aware or yet. But basically you know, his idea is that, like, well, 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:08.440 humanity owes its mental and cognitive capacities to mushrooms because, 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:10.880 for example, I know, one of the arguments he adduces 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:17.120 is that because psilocybin, mushrooms caused the experience of synesthesia, 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.439 you know, the cross pollination of senses, so like colors 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:26.040 have sounds or or music has colors or whatever. You know, uh, 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.119 sounds have a taste or something. That this led to 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:33.200 the creation of language, because the language is a sort 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:35.800 of cross pollination between the idea of a sound and 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:38.560 the idea of a concept. And so this kind of 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.679 like uh, a mental boundary crossing that wouldn't have been 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:46.560 useful in animals, uh, suddenly is spurred by ingestion of 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:50.400 psychedelic substances in this case, I think psilocybin, and then 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.040 that leads to humans creating language. Again, I don't know 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.440 what the direct evidence for this would be. It's it's 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.960 like an interesting speculation, but I don't know how you 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.800 would prove it, right, Yeah, I think it. Ultimately you 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:05.119 would not be able to prove it or really disprove it, 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:06.720 and which makes it, I guess, kind of a safe 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.240 hypothesis in that regard, but also a hypothesis that will 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:14.680 probably never evolve beyond the hypothesis level. Yeah, this is 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.679 kind of stuck at the interesting speculation station. Yeah, and 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.680 it is interesting speculation. But anyway, I just want to 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:22.560 go ahead and describe what that is because I feel 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:25.200 like with McKinnes, especially depending on what you know about 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:27.439 him and his work, you might enter into it thinking 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:31.200 only about same machine elves and the time wave zero 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.320 and some of the the you know, the fringier things 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.400 that he discussed, the thing and you know, his discussion 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:39.280 two of things that he saw saying on d MT. 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:42.159 But but on the other hand, you know, he was 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:45.639 that was an accomplished ethnobotanist, and when he was talking 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.000 about about mushrooms, he certainly knew what he was talking about. 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.760 And uh, and he also just had a lot of 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.320 wonderful insight into just what was culturally going on and 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.000 had been going on at this point in time, especially 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.560 in the United States, concerning the separate of drugs. So 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.399 he points out that drug is a you know, is 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:06.680 at times an amorphous term that we used to apply 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:10.040 to certain substances, you know, especially if we want to 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:14.320 demonize one substance or elevate another exclusively to the domain 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:19.240 and control of medical professionals. But he writes this quote, 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:22.080 eating a plant or an animal is a way of 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.800 claiming its power, a way of assimilating its magic to 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.160 one's self. In the minds of preliterate people, the lines 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:33.720 between drugs, foods, and spices are rarely clearly drawn. The 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.720 shaman who gorges himself on chili peppers to raise inner 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.679 heat is hardly in a less altered state than the 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.879 nitrous oxide enthusiast after a long inhalation. In our perception 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.400 of flavor, in our pursuit of variety, in the sensation 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:51.240 of eating, we are markedly different from even our primate cousins. 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.720 Somewhere along the line, our new omnivorous eating habits and 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:58.119 our evolving brain, with its capacity to process sensory data, 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.920 were united in the happy no shin that food can 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:05.720 be experienced. Gastronomy was born, born to join pharmacology, which 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:09.040 must surely have preceded it, since maintenance of health through 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.520 regulation of diet is seen among many animals. That offers 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:14.520 you a little bit of a glimpse that you know. 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:18.080 McKenna has a fantastic way with words, and I think 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:20.960