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