Program Notes
Guest speaker: Matt Pallamary
(Minutes : Seconds into program)
04:48 Matt: “Ayahuasca doesn’t hide anything… . It can amplify perceptions, but it can also amplify fears or shadow aspects of yourself, the dark you’ve been avoiding. Ayahuasca has an intelligence to it that seeks out your fear and exploits it, and it’s a wonderful teaching tool.”
08:39 Matt explains how the ayahuasca brew is made.
10:19 The legend of how ayahuasca was first discovered.
15:44 Preparation for an ayahuasca experience, beginning with the diet and what prescription medicines to avoid before the journey.
17:56 Details about the ayahuasca diet.
26:03 Lorenzo: “While this is true of all psychoactive substances, medicine like ayahuasca is sort of like nitroglycerine. You have to handle it with care.”
27:16 Matt: “What it comes down to, ultimately, is that you have to respect it, and you have to respect its innate intelligence. That’s why, generally speaking, the closer you stick to the diet the better experience you have.”
29:51 Tips for planning a trip to the Amazon for an ayahuasca experience.
32:19 Matt: “There’s a lot of responsibility that goes with this, because it’s a very powerful plant. And one of the things that I learned is that power, power in and of itself, is neutral, but the intention you put behind the power is what makes things happen.”
33:58 Matt: “It has to come down, ultimately, to integrity. Integrity is the core of everything.”
34:41 A discussion of chemical analogues to ayahuasca.
38:49 Matt: “It’s made to be done in a circle, and in a circle you join the energy collectively as a group. So if one particular person in the group is getting healed, everyone in the group is helping to heal that person.”
39:58 Matt: “I heard it said once that ayahuasca is the river, and the icaros and songs and things are the boats that carry you on the journey.”
Where to find podcasts mentioned in this program:
The Cannabis Podcast Network This is where you will find the DopeCast, The Sounds of World Wide Weed, Story Time With Lefty, Zandor’s Grow Report, and Psychonautica
Also, don’t miss The C-Realm podcast hosted by KMO.
Books mentioned in this podcast
http://astore.amazon.com/matrixmasterscom/detail/1559501103Psychedelic Shamanism:
The Cultivation, Preparation
& Shamanic Use of Psychoactive Plants
by Jim DeKorne
Land ithout Evil by Matthew J. Pallamary
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Transcript
00:00:00 ►
Greetings from cyberdelic space.
00:00:21 ►
This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the psychedelic salon.
00:00:27 ►
So, were you one of the lucky ones who made it to Dope Stock in Amsterdam last week?
00:00:33 ►
Yesterday morning I listened to the podcast of that event, and it sounded like a good time was had by all.
00:00:39 ►
I’m sorry I couldn’t be there myself, but having been to Amsterdam a few times in the past,
00:00:46 ►
well, when I heard the chatter in the background and all the interesting conversations going on all around,
00:00:52 ►
well, I almost felt like I was right there with you guys.
00:00:56 ►
And by the way, I want to thank Bashful Daisy from Atlanta for giving the Psychedelic Salon a plug
00:01:03 ►
when she was being interviewed at one
00:01:05 ►
of the events taking place last Friday.
00:01:08 ►
In fact, Bashful Daisy also steered their conversation around to what turns out to be
00:01:14 ►
the topic of my podcast today, and that is the sacred and mystical brew called ayahuasca.
00:01:21 ►
And after I play today’s interview with Matt Pellimeri,
00:01:25 ►
I’ll circle back to the discussion they had in Amsterdam
00:01:27 ►
about this wonderful spirit teacher.
00:01:30 ►
As you know, if you’ve been listening to these podcasts
00:01:34 ►
for a few weeks at least,
00:01:36 ►
I received an email from James,
00:01:38 ►
who is part of a group that’s going to Ecuador next month
00:01:41 ►
to investigate Ayahuasca.
00:01:43 ►
And I use the word investigate
00:01:45 ►
because, as I understand it,
00:01:47 ►
this trip is actually
00:01:49 ►
accredited by the university.
00:01:52 ►
So, for any high school
00:01:53 ►
students out there
00:01:55 ►
who still haven’t decided where to go to college,
00:01:58 ►
well, you might want to look into
00:01:59 ►
the University of Colorado if this
00:02:01 ►
type of summer research program
00:02:04 ►
interests you.
00:02:05 ►
Anyway, James asked if I would spend a little more time talking about ayahuasca in a podcast
00:02:12 ►
or two before they leave on their trip.
00:02:15 ►
No pun intended, of course.
00:02:17 ►
And to those of you who wrote earlier to request the same thing, well, I haven’t been ignoring
00:02:23 ►
you.
00:02:23 ►
It’s just that I’m really quite good at procrastinating.
00:02:27 ►
And now that James and his friends have given me a deadline of sorts,
00:02:31 ►
I guess I’d better get to it.
00:02:34 ►
So I asked my friend Matt Palomary to stop by for another interview.
00:02:39 ►
You might remember Matt from podcast number 80,
00:02:42 ►
where we talked a lot about shamanism, but only touched on
00:02:45 ►
ayahuasca just briefly.
00:02:47 ►
So it also seemed right to begin with Mateo, because it was at an ayahuasca circle that
00:02:54 ►
he and I first met many years ago, way back into the last millennium.
00:03:00 ►
Unfortunately, I interviewed Matt a couple of weeks ago, and since then, several people
00:03:04 ►
have sent in questions that I should have asked him.
00:03:07 ►
So after I play this interview, I’ll try to answer a few of them myself.
00:03:11 ►
But first, let’s take a listen to a conversation that Matt Palomary and I had about Lady Ayahuasca.
00:03:18 ►
And yet remaining in the air.
00:03:28 ►
I’m sitting here at the kitchen table with my friend Matt Palamari,
00:03:30 ►
or Mateo, as a lot of us like to call him.
00:03:34 ►
And thanks for coming back here to the Psychedelic Salon.
00:03:39 ►
I want to let you know you’ve got a lot of fans that have joined us here around this table.
00:03:41 ►
And so, welcome back.
00:03:42 ►
Thank you.
00:03:48 ►
It’s nice to hear I have fans, because they are realizing, just like me, that I’m a legend in my own mind.
00:03:51 ►
Aren’t we all?
00:03:52 ►
Yes.
00:03:59 ►
Yeah, you know, I had told you when we had our last little chat that I’d like to get you back,
00:04:02 ►
but I didn’t mean to impose on you so soon.
00:04:05 ►
However, as I told you the other day,
00:04:09 ►
we’ve got some people heading off to the jungle in Ecuador for their first ayahuasca experience, many of them.
00:04:12 ►
And I’ve gotten dozens of others’ inquiries about ayahuasca.
00:04:17 ►
And I guess maybe the way I should do this is to kind of just say,
00:04:23 ►
okay, let’s pretend I’ve never had ayahuasca,
00:04:26 ►
as best as I can pretend that.
00:04:29 ►
And I’ll just try to ask you questions as if, what’s up?
00:04:33 ►
For example, how scary is this?
00:04:37 ►
Am I going to risk my sanity?
00:04:39 ►
What’s the whole deal with this stuff?
00:04:42 ►
Well, as one of my friends said,
00:04:44 ►
you can go to the agony and the ecstasy.
00:04:48 ►
Ayahuasca doesn’t hide anything.
00:04:51 ►
Some substances that you take are just amplifiers.
00:04:55 ►
Like LSD I read somewhere is an amplifier,
00:04:58 ►
and I think I agree with that.
00:05:00 ►
So it can amplify perceptions,
00:05:02 ►
but it can also amplify fears
00:05:03 ►
or shadow aspects of yourself,
00:05:06 ►
the dark that you’ve been avoiding.
00:05:09 ►
Ayahuasca has a particular intelligence to it
00:05:15 ►
that really seeks out the fear.
00:05:19 ►
It exploits it.
00:05:21 ►
And it’s a wonderful teaching tool.
00:05:24 ►
So I’ve been in some of the darkest hells exploits it. And it’s a wonderful teaching tool. So,
00:05:27 ►
I’ve been in some of the darkest hells beyond imaginable,
00:05:31 ►
and I’ve been in some of the most
00:05:32 ►
sublime and exquisite beauty,
00:05:35 ►
indescribable beauty,
00:05:36 ►
that is difficult to articulate.
00:05:40 ►
Beyond words.
00:05:41 ►
You know, you just said
00:05:42 ►
it has an intelligence all to itself.
00:05:46 ►
Do you want to say anything about that?
00:05:47 ►
Yeah, if anybody’s spent any time experimenting with altering their consciousness,
00:05:53 ►
some of us have made a lifetime of it,
00:05:57 ►
different things have different effects.
00:06:01 ►
You know, crack, coke, can, and amphetamines,
00:06:04 ►
they’re not healthy, they’re not good.
00:06:06 ►
They will really do bad things to you.
00:06:12 ►
Trust me on that.
00:06:13 ►
But if you’re taking psychedelics with conscious intent, you’ll find that different things
00:06:19 ►
can affect you in different ways. And some of them alter your consciousness
00:06:26 ►
in different ways.
00:06:27 ►
Even something like, say, 2C-B,
00:06:30 ►
where you can see nice colors and things like that.
00:06:33 ►
Digital, whatever, pastels.
00:06:37 ►
But that’s sort of the level of it.
00:06:40 ►
Whereas if you take mushrooms,
00:06:42 ►
they’ll take you places you may not want to
00:06:45 ►
go. They have an intelligence of their own, a spirit of their own. San Pedro cactus is
00:06:54 ►
Huachuma in Peru, in the Andes, and has a definitive spirit to it, just as peyote does.
00:07:01 ►
to it, just as peyote does.
00:07:03 ►
And in my humble opinion,
00:07:06 ►
and I think anybody who’s
00:07:08 ►
had any time or research or experience
00:07:10 ►
in the field of it, I think they would tend to
00:07:12 ►
agree that ayahuasca is
00:07:13 ►
considered the highest
00:07:15 ►
plant teacher of them all. Well, I won’t say that.
00:07:18 ►
Some of them might be.
00:07:20 ►
But it’s certainly
00:07:21 ►
up there, highly respected,
00:07:24 ►
and a long prehistoric tradition
00:07:27 ►
which is what appealed to me
00:07:29 ►
one of the strongest appeals it had to me
00:07:31 ►
why don’t you say a little something about
00:07:33 ►
how old the tradition is
00:07:35 ►
as far as we can determine right now
00:07:37 ►
well as I say it’s literally
00:07:39 ►
prehistoric
00:07:40 ►
it was used by numerous tribes
00:07:43 ►
in South America throughout the Amazon
00:07:44 ►
in you know It was used by numerous tribes in South America throughout the Amazon in hundreds of different
00:07:50 ►
ways, thousands of different ways, each tradition preparing it in its own way.
00:07:56 ►
And to think of the thousands of plants, and when you spend time in the jungle, I mean
00:08:00 ►
all sites look the same after a while, it really does. To figure out the combination of those two plants.
00:08:08 ►
Yeah, you might say something right here,
00:08:10 ►
because I don’t think everybody may know that
00:08:13 ►
while there’s a vine that goes by the name of ayahuasca,
00:08:18 ►
granuloceriopsis copia, I believe, something like that,
00:08:22 ►
but ayahuasca that is commonly referred to
00:08:25 ►
is actually a combination of plants.
00:08:28 ►
Do you want to go into that?
00:08:29 ►
Sure, I will.
00:08:29 ►
And I’ll touch on other things I know that interest you.
00:08:33 ►
Part of this ties in with the whole diet
00:08:35 ►
that goes around ayahuasca.
00:08:38 ►
And ayahuasca is made up primarily of two plants.
00:08:42 ►
One is the ayahuasca vine, Bonisteriopsis copy,
00:08:46 ►
which is a liana.
00:08:50 ►
And it contains beta-carbolines
00:08:54 ►
and MAO inhibitors.
00:08:56 ►
And the MAO inhibitor is monoamine oxidase,
00:08:59 ►
which is a digestive enzyme in the stomach.
00:09:03 ►
And if you ingest…
00:09:04 ►
Okay, the other plant is
00:09:05 ►
Psychotria viridis,
00:09:08 ►
otherwise known as Chacruna,
00:09:10 ►
and millions of other names,
00:09:12 ►
which contains DMT, which is
00:09:13 ►
psychoactive. But if you orally ingest
00:09:15 ►
the leaves by themselves,
00:09:19 ►
the
00:09:19 ►
enzymes in your
00:09:22 ►
stomach will digest the DMT before
00:09:23 ►
it can become orally active.
00:09:26 ►
It’s a monolamine oxidase.
00:09:30 ►
So the MAO inhibitor,
00:09:33 ►
you combine the MAO inhibitors within the ayahuasca vine
00:09:35 ►
combined with the chacruna leaves,
00:09:38 ►
which has the DMT.
00:09:40 ►
And when you mix them together
00:09:41 ►
in the right way, in the right proportion,
00:09:43 ►
and of course there are as many different proportions as there are chefs of the world,
00:09:49 ►
you get different brews with different effects and strengths and things of that nature.
00:09:55 ►
I know it’s been commented on a lot that out of the millions and billions of plant combinations
00:10:04 ►
that are possible in the jungle,
00:10:06 ►
how they could come down to just getting the right two plants
00:10:10 ►
so that the DMT is orally active.
00:10:13 ►
Are there legends down there about that,
00:10:15 ►
or is it just lost in the midst of time?
00:10:19 ►
There’s lots of legends.
00:10:20 ►
The one I always like is the one of an Indian
00:10:25 ►
woman of a tribe
00:10:28 ►
and forgive me
00:10:29 ►
because I can’t remember the tribe, but a jungle Indian
00:10:32 ►
woman
00:10:32 ►
was going down
00:10:35 ►
by the creek
00:10:37 ►
by the river every day and bathing
00:10:39 ►
herself in the shakruna
00:10:41 ►
leaves. And she just
00:10:43 ►
kept doing it every day.
00:10:45 ►
And finally, one day,
00:10:46 ►
this spirit of the plant appeared
00:10:48 ►
and said to her,
00:10:50 ►
why are you washing with me?
00:10:53 ►
And she said, I really like your scent
00:10:55 ►
and I like the way you make me feel.
00:10:57 ►
And so the shakruna spirit said,
00:11:01 ►
well, go and find the vine, the ayahuasca,
00:11:05 ►
and bring it to the men
00:11:07 ►
and show them to mix them.
00:11:11 ►
And that was how it started.
00:11:12 ►
That’s a nice story.
00:11:13 ►
Yeah, it’s a jungle myth.
00:11:14 ►
I mean, the point of me saying it is it’s prehistoric.
00:11:20 ►
Yeah, it’s really lost in time.
00:11:23 ►
It’s been from the beginning,
00:11:24 ►
but it’s interesting that there’s a real similarity of archetypal imagery that shows up in the ayahuasca visions.
00:11:33 ►
You know, you have like Pablo Amaringo is a master of capturing that.
00:11:38 ►
I read somewhere that even when they’ve given ayahuasca to Eskimos, they still come up with jungle imagery.
00:11:45 ►
Yes.
00:11:46 ►
Which I find is…
00:11:47 ►
Sure, that’s why I say archetypal imagery.
00:11:50 ►
Right.
00:11:50 ►
And spirits.
00:11:52 ►
You know, you have the myth.
00:11:53 ►
I just read the book you actually gave me as a gift,
00:11:56 ►
Supernatural by Graham Hancock.
00:11:59 ►
Tied in all the fairy mythologies
00:12:01 ►
and UFO and aliens and things,
00:12:03 ►
you know, and alien abductions with DMT experiences.
00:12:07 ►
And I’m like, yeah, I could see that.
00:12:12 ►
Especially after seeing my own version of spirits and fairies and things in the jungle.
00:12:19 ►
You know, it took me, I guess,
00:12:22 ►
maybe I guess I’d used ayahuasca a dozen times before I really saw my first vision.
00:12:27 ►
I was so disappointed in the beginning.
00:12:30 ►
I thought I was going to see these Pablo Amarillo paintings.
00:12:34 ►
And nothing happened other than just some fireworks until about the 12th, 13th time.
00:12:40 ►
All of a sudden, I could see the bas-relief.
00:12:42 ►
And now the visions are more than I really like, quite frankly.
00:12:49 ►
Maybe you want to say something about the experience.
00:12:52 ►
Before we get into the diet again,
00:12:56 ►
for some people, their expectations may be such and such,
00:13:01 ►
but the realization is going to be different.
00:13:03 ►
Kind of go through and experience
00:13:06 ►
one or two different kinds of
00:13:08 ►
ayahuasca experiences that you may have had.
00:13:10 ►
Maybe your first one, even.
00:13:13 ►
Okay, you got me thinking.
00:13:16 ►
I want to
00:13:17 ►
kind of address that.
00:13:19 ►
The question, I just say,
00:13:20 ►
my first ayahuasca experience
00:13:22 ►
was in a group of people
00:13:24 ►
and other people were doing other things.
00:13:28 ►
And I got talked into bringing a younger guy with me
00:13:31 ►
who wasn’t experienced as I had been led to believe.
00:13:33 ►
And I started getting into the zone
00:13:36 ►
and he really kind of got out of control.
00:13:40 ►
And I think because I’ve had enough experience with substances,
00:13:45 ►
I could focus in and I shut off my journey and took care of him.
00:13:50 ►
So I didn’t go very far, but I felt its effects.
00:13:55 ►
The second one was my first one by myself.
00:13:58 ►
It was amazing.
00:14:00 ►
I mean…
00:14:01 ►
I mean, totally by yourself?
00:14:02 ►
No, this is in a group, in a circle,
00:14:08 ►
with a Peruvian shaman.
00:14:12 ►
And it was kind of comical because everybody in the group
00:14:13 ►
was having these dark, horrible, hellish visions,
00:14:15 ►
and I was blissed out.
00:14:17 ►
And I was like, man, all these things.
00:14:19 ►
I mean, I turned into like a human Roman candle,
00:14:21 ►
and I saw geometric progressions of sacred geometry
00:14:25 ►
and I became Ganesha.
00:14:27 ►
I was like having fun
00:14:32 ►
and bouncing around
00:14:33 ►
and they had to come over
00:14:33 ►
and tell me to calm down
00:14:35 ►
because I was distributing
00:14:37 ►
all these people who were in hell.
00:14:40 ►
But when the ceremony was over,
00:14:45 ►
the shaman from Peru, who we know,
00:14:49 ►
came over to me and he kneeled down
00:14:52 ►
and he got right in my face, right in my eyes,
00:14:55 ►
and he says to me,
00:14:56 ►
The mother loves you.
00:15:00 ►
And I was hooked.
00:15:06 ►
I can see how that would happen.
00:15:08 ►
There began the love affair.
00:15:10 ►
Because they say that she calls you.
00:15:13 ►
And I’ve heard some really weird stories about that.
00:15:16 ►
Truly.
00:15:17 ►
One woman went to church.
00:15:18 ►
This lady went to church.
00:15:19 ►
I don’t want to get off track.
00:15:20 ►
She went to church.
00:15:21 ►
She was like a Christian lady
00:15:22 ►
and she asked for guidance and what to do
00:15:25 ►
and she was really thinking about ayahuasca
00:15:27 ►
and she said if I should do ayahuasca
00:15:29 ►
give me a sign
00:15:29 ►
and she went to church that day
00:15:31 ►
and believe it or not
00:15:33 ►
the preacher started talking about ayahuasca
00:15:34 ►
and she did it
00:15:37 ►
and it was the right thing
00:15:38 ►
it’s not for everybody
00:15:40 ►
you’ve got to be prepared to face some things
00:15:42 ►
let’s talk about the preparation
00:15:44 ►
going into it as well
00:15:47 ►
and coming out of it
00:15:48 ►
starting with the diet for example
00:15:50 ►
yeah the diet is important
00:15:51 ►
because it ties in with the chemical balance
00:15:53 ►
of your body and your system
00:15:56 ►
there are some
00:15:59 ►
antidepressants
00:16:02 ►
that are SSRIs
00:16:05 ►
serotonin reuptake inhibitor
00:16:07 ►
type
00:16:08 ►
that you shouldn’t be taking
00:16:10 ►
you shouldn’t because they also have
00:16:13 ►
an MAO
00:16:14 ►
effect
00:16:16 ►
so for argument’s sake you could take
00:16:18 ►
what we might consider to be
00:16:20 ►
a quarter of a dose
00:16:23 ►
of ayahuasca for somebody else
00:16:24 ►
could turn out to be taking eight doses for yourself
00:16:27 ►
because your brain and your physiological chemistry is off.
00:16:31 ►
So the reason of the diet is to put you into a physiological,
00:16:36 ►
physiochemical sort of state in your body to have a maximum effect
00:16:39 ►
because one of the things that ayahuasca does is it releases lots of serotonin.
00:16:46 ►
People who, I’ve had some intense visions where I’m twitching or flopping around
00:16:53 ►
or turning into a hummingbird or something.
00:16:54 ►
I was going to say a bumblebee or a hummingbird.
00:16:55 ►
Yeah, right, where my whole body’s moving.
00:16:58 ►
And I was doing some reading and they were saying that when the body really has high doses of,
00:17:02 ►
not high doses is the wrong word, but high serotonin levels
00:17:05 ►
where it sort of starts to get uncomfortable,
00:17:07 ►
it will twitch and move to sort of
00:17:09 ►
deal with the energy
00:17:12 ►
because it’s just a nervous system thing.
00:17:15 ►
So it’s like,
00:17:16 ►
so if you think shamanically,
00:17:17 ►
you’re just dealing with waves of energy.
00:17:20 ►
I’ve seen you buzz.
00:17:22 ►
Oh no, I’ve been,
00:17:23 ►
I’ve had the amazing
00:17:24 ►
condor and
00:17:26 ►
Hummingbird
00:17:26 ►
experiences.
00:17:28 ►
You know,
00:17:29 ►
shape-shifting,
00:17:30 ►
what would be
00:17:31 ►
called shape-shifting.
00:17:31 ►
Now, the diet
00:17:32 ►
itself, in fact,
00:17:33 ►
there’s a lot of
00:17:35 ►
places you can see
00:17:35 ►
the diet.
00:17:36 ►
One is in Jim
00:17:37 ►
DeCorn’s book,
00:17:38 ►
Psychedelic
00:17:39 ►
Shamanism, which
00:17:40 ►
is a really good
00:17:40 ►
book, by the way.
00:17:42 ►
I’ve got a letter
00:17:44 ►
here.
00:17:44 ►
Actually, it’s dated March 12, 1999.
00:17:47 ►
And they were planning for an ayahuasca session.
00:17:53 ►
And she has a list of things, you know, of course,
00:17:57 ►
amphetamines and other drugs, over-the-counter cold preparations.
00:18:01 ►
But essentially alcohol, dairy products, pickled things pickled things soy yeast products yeah
00:18:08 ►
are pretty well prohibited right yeah those are all those things spicy foods
00:18:14 ►
sugar as I mentioned that alcohol tomatoes because it’s like acid acidic
00:18:22 ►
cold anything cold.
00:18:28 ►
You want to keep your system gentle.
00:18:31 ►
And the diet, the actual diet is quite boring.
00:18:33 ►
It’s basic protein and carbs and that’s it.
00:18:37 ►
I mean, when I’ve done long-term diets in the jungle for 10 days,
00:18:42 ►
all you get is rice, oatmeal, quinoa, which is a grain,
00:18:45 ►
plantainos, baked or or boiled and they’re not ripe
00:18:46 ►
it tastes like cardboard
00:18:47 ►
and if you
00:18:48 ►
you know
00:18:48 ►
every like
00:18:49 ►
two or three days
00:18:50 ►
you might get a little
00:18:50 ►
piece of chicken or fish
00:18:51 ►
that’s it
00:18:51 ►
and none of it
00:18:52 ►
is seasoned very much
00:18:53 ►
no seasoned at all
00:18:55 ►
the oatmeal
00:18:55 ►
the grains
00:18:56 ►
it’s all just water
00:18:56 ►
in it
00:18:57 ►
that’s it
00:18:57 ►
no salt
00:18:59 ►
for ten days
00:19:00 ►
none of that
00:19:02 ►
why don’t you go through
00:19:02 ►
your whole jungle experience
00:19:04 ►
just like
00:19:04 ►
we got time for that
00:19:05 ►
yeah let’s go ahead
00:19:06 ►
let’s
00:19:07 ►
let’s get off the plane
00:19:08 ►
in Peru
00:19:09 ►
and go from there
00:19:10 ►
Lima
00:19:12 ►
nah
00:19:12 ►
well
00:19:13 ►
I don’t
00:19:14 ►
obviously I’m not going to
00:19:15 ►
say any locations
00:19:16 ►
but
00:19:16 ►
we go into the jungle
00:19:18 ►
to
00:19:19 ►
and
00:19:19 ►
we go to a town
00:19:22 ►
a good sized town
00:19:23 ►
that has an airport
00:19:24 ►
and then from there we go two hours down these pothole-y We go to a town, a good-sized town, that has an airport.
00:19:25 ►
And then from there we go two hours down these pothole-y, muddy roads, dirt roads,
00:19:32 ►
which are freeways just about there in the jungle, to a village.
00:19:38 ►
And then from that village we take canoes two hours upriver to a really beautiful spot in the Amazon. And so everybody
00:19:50 ►
has their own maloca, which is where you live. It’s a hut. And you’re by yourself. The next
00:19:57 ►
closest person is maybe 50 yards. And if you do it right, you don’t see anybody around you at all,
00:20:05 ►
which is what I always do.
00:20:06 ►
I always get out on the very edge.
00:20:07 ►
I had reserved the last one.
00:20:10 ►
There’s nothing,
00:20:12 ►
jungle on the other side.
00:20:13 ►
So it’s you in the jungle.
00:20:14 ►
Me in the jungle,
00:20:14 ►
on the edge,
00:20:15 ►
where I like it.
00:20:17 ►
So you spend 10 days
00:20:19 ►
and you’re on this very restricted diet,
00:20:21 ►
which I just basically said what it was.
00:20:24 ►
And you do ayahuasca every other night as a group.
00:20:30 ►
How big is your group usually?
00:20:32 ►
Typically, well, they vary in size.
00:20:33 ►
But let’s say average.
00:20:34 ►
The best size is about 14 to 15.
00:20:37 ►
Okay.
00:20:37 ►
That’s the best.
00:20:38 ►
But there have been bigger ones.
00:20:40 ►
And then you work with another plant, a healer plant.
00:20:45 ►
So you do…
00:20:46 ►
On the off days?
00:20:47 ►
Every day you’ll drink generally a pitcher of a tea
00:20:51 ►
made from this one plant,
00:20:53 ►
and then you do the ayahuasca.
00:20:54 ►
So each plant has a different interaction with the ayahuasca.
00:20:57 ►
It works on you in all kinds of different ways,
00:20:59 ►
physiologically, in your psyche, in your dreams.
00:21:01 ►
I mean, all these things.
00:21:02 ►
And how is that other plant determined
00:21:03 ►
that you’re going to work with?
00:21:04 ►
The shamans just do it.
00:21:07 ►
They check you out
00:21:08 ►
and kind of doing sort of an intuitive cast.
00:21:11 ►
There’s a lot of plants they’ll use
00:21:13 ►
for people the first time.
00:21:15 ►
Typically, people will get that one.
00:21:17 ►
And then the more experienced you get
00:21:18 ►
and the more you do,
00:21:19 ►
the more different plants you go through.
00:21:21 ►
And then as you go along,
00:21:23 ►
the plants are harder to do.
00:21:27 ►
The last couple I did were particularly difficult,
00:21:30 ►
although many of them were difficult in their own way.
00:21:32 ►
But the things I experienced and learned of myself
00:21:37 ►
were just quite incredible.
00:21:40 ►
The plants just take you to places during the day.
00:21:42 ►
You’re essentially a solitary experience.
00:21:45 ►
Well, this is the thing.
00:21:46 ►
You’re by yourself,
00:21:49 ►
except meeting for sessions every other night.
00:21:51 ►
They bring you your food.
00:21:53 ►
And you don’t have any routines,
00:21:55 ►
and so you’re up all night.
00:21:57 ►
You sleep on half the day.
00:21:59 ►
You’re right there on the river,
00:22:00 ►
so you can dunk yourself in the river.
00:22:02 ►
No soap, shampoo,
00:22:06 ►
deodorants, bug repellent, no scents
00:22:07 ►
or odors, toothpaste
00:22:08 ►
or anything at all.
00:22:11 ►
And you take a
00:22:11 ►
plant bath every
00:22:13 ►
day of a special
00:22:14 ►
plant.
00:22:15 ►
And then you eat
00:22:16 ►
this diet and, you
00:22:18 ►
know, often you,
00:22:20 ►
sometimes, you know,
00:22:21 ►
in ayahuasca
00:22:21 ►
sessions, you got
00:22:23 ►
it coming out of
00:22:23 ►
both ends.
00:22:27 ►
But you have really powerful
00:22:30 ►
so over time as you stay on the diet
00:22:32 ►
physically you get weaker
00:22:34 ►
but
00:22:35 ►
the boundaries between your conscious and your subconscious
00:22:40 ►
really start to blur
00:22:41 ►
and
00:22:42 ►
you have really amazing experiences.
00:22:48 ►
You have like telepathic experiences.
00:22:50 ►
One of the things that drew me to it years ago
00:22:52 ►
when I first read about it
00:22:53 ►
was when it was first discovered by,
00:22:55 ►
I think it was Richard Spruce in 1865,
00:22:57 ►
something like that.
00:22:58 ►
Don’t quote me on that
00:22:59 ►
because it’s probably not accurate,
00:23:01 ►
but anyway.
00:23:02 ►
They named it telepathy.
00:23:09 ►
And that’s something I wanted to explore among other things
00:23:10 ►
so
00:23:12 ►
now this last time didn’t you
00:23:15 ►
your alternative plant was also ayahuasca right?
00:23:19 ►
so what was that like?
00:23:20 ►
well that was intense
00:23:21 ►
I did five sessions and then okay I would do
00:23:28 ►
ayahuasca in the session at night and then they would come to me the next
00:23:32 ►
morning by myself and I would do a dose during the day by myself alone and then
00:23:40 ►
ayahuasca the next night, ayahuasca the next day, ayahuasca the next night. So it was eight days
00:23:45 ►
of one big long ayahuasca journey.
00:23:48 ►
And it was one of the hardest things I ever did.
00:23:53 ►
I’m in a process,
00:23:55 ►
I’m in a continual process of assimilation.
00:24:01 ►
So that really brought me deep into some things
00:24:03 ►
and showed me some things
00:24:04 ►
that I hadn’t seen before
00:24:05 ►
and I came out of it with a whole new perspective
00:24:07 ►
and I’ve been shifted up a gear
00:24:11 ►
don’t they do
00:24:15 ►
an initiation
00:24:18 ►
or I shouldn’t use that word
00:24:20 ►
but the Iowa Scaros who are born into the tradition,
00:24:26 ►
don’t they do like a month-long
00:24:28 ►
ayahuasca journey? Yeah, there’s all kinds of different ones.
00:24:31 ►
Yeah, there’s ones that’ll do
00:24:32 ►
a month straight ayahuasca
00:24:33 ►
every day. Some of them just
00:24:36 ►
do it every day, I think.
00:24:39 ►
But, you know, doing it every
00:24:40 ►
day can mean lots of things.
00:24:41 ►
I mean, I did some work with
00:24:44 ►
somebody a while back
00:24:45 ►
and for a while
00:24:46 ►
we would
00:24:46 ►
take like
00:24:47 ►
a teaspoon
00:24:48 ►
before bed
00:24:49 ►
and see
00:24:50 ►
what happened
00:24:51 ►
with dreaming.
00:24:52 ►
You know,
00:24:53 ►
things like that
00:24:54 ►
which come from
00:24:55 ►
different traditions.
00:24:56 ►
It wasn’t just
00:24:56 ►
what they do.
00:24:59 ►
So,
00:25:00 ►
it’s used
00:25:01 ►
in a lot of
00:25:01 ►
different ways
00:25:02 ►
in that respect.
00:25:05 ►
But, it really
00:25:07 ►
you want to talk about getting beat down
00:25:10 ►
I can imagine
00:25:12 ►
I can only imagine
00:25:13 ►
but I also had some really
00:25:15 ►
incredible sublime experiences
00:25:17 ►
so on that level I did the work
00:25:19 ►
and paid the dues and got the reward
00:25:21 ►
but it was not
00:25:23 ►
it was an ordeal
00:25:24 ►
ordeal is a good word It was an ordeal.
00:25:26 ►
Ordeal is a good word.
00:25:27 ►
It was an ordeal for sure.
00:25:29 ►
And then, you know, when I came back,
00:25:34 ►
it really took me a long time to get sort of readjusted.
00:25:36 ►
Get you all the pieces back together?
00:25:36 ►
Yeah.
00:25:40 ►
But I do have to say that it’s always for the better in the end.
00:25:41 ►
You know, when you suffer.
00:25:45 ►
Well, on the occasions where I’ve done back-to-back sessions,
00:25:48 ►
I’ve never done more than two days back-to-back,
00:25:51 ►
but I’ve been so surprised each time to see how different an ayahuasca session
00:25:54 ►
can be so close together.
00:25:56 ►
I know that when they’re months apart,
00:25:58 ►
they’re different,
00:25:58 ►
but just back-to-back sessions,
00:26:00 ►
I’ve found we’re like night and day apart sometimes.
00:26:03 ►
One of the things I’ve
00:26:05 ►
liked about it is that it’s totally unpredictable. I mean, I’ve had nights where I took big doses
00:26:11 ►
and it didn’t hurt to get anywhere. And then I’ve had nights where I took a really small
00:26:16 ►
dose and just got launched out of the frigging universe. You know what I mean? I know exactly
00:26:21 ►
what you mean. There are so many factors that come into play. Your physiological state,
00:26:26 ►
you know, there’s genetic predisposition
00:26:28 ►
to certain people.
00:26:29 ►
You know someone who took it numerous times
00:26:32 ►
and it just doesn’t affect them.
00:26:33 ►
That happens every once in a while.
00:26:37 ►
So there’s just a lot of things.
00:26:40 ►
I mean, you know,
00:26:40 ►
have you had a recent trauma in your life?
00:26:43 ►
Have you been doing, you know,
00:26:49 ►
10 grams of mushrooms every day for the last year?
00:26:50 ►
I mean, you know, you might be burned out.
00:26:52 ►
I mean, everybody’s different.
00:26:57 ►
So there’s a lot of sort of uncontrollable variables that come into play.
00:27:02 ►
I guess what you’re getting at is that while this is true of all psychoactive substances,
00:27:05 ►
medicine like ayahuasca is really sort of
00:27:06 ►
like nitroglycerin.
00:27:07 ►
You have to
00:27:07 ►
handle it with
00:27:08 ►
care.
00:27:09 ►
You have to.
00:27:09 ►
That’s good.
00:27:11 ►
Because, you
00:27:11 ►
know, what it
00:27:12 ►
comes down to
00:27:13 ►
ultimately is
00:27:14 ►
that you have
00:27:14 ►
to respect it.
00:27:16 ►
And you have
00:27:17 ►
to respect its
00:27:17 ►
innate intelligence.
00:27:19 ►
That’s why,
00:27:21 ►
generally speaking,
00:27:22 ►
the closer you
00:27:22 ►
stick to the
00:27:23 ►
diet, the
00:27:23 ►
better experience
00:27:24 ►
you have.
00:27:25 ►
And in the traditions, what they say, it’s because you’re respecting the plant, and so it’s respecting
00:27:29 ►
you back.
00:27:30 ►
Just like the whole issue of… I don’t want to get off track here, but the whole issue
00:27:36 ►
of the coca plant, like in Peru.
00:27:40 ►
In the traditions, they say that crack cocaine and all the bad stuff and heart attacks and stuff that happens to them
00:27:46 ►
is because you’ve disrespected the spirit of the plant.
00:27:49 ►
If you respect it, it’s one of the most healthy plants you can ingest in your whole life.
00:27:54 ►
It’s got a lot of good qualities.
00:27:55 ►
But the point is respecting the plant.
00:27:59 ►
I’ve heard that in, I may be wrong here,
00:28:02 ►
but I’ve heard that maybe in Santo Dime traditions that they smoke cannabis with ayahuasca.
00:28:08 ►
I think that’s true.
00:28:09 ►
I know people that participate in Santo Daime that do smoke cannabis.
00:28:15 ►
I don’t know if it’s general, but I know some people.
00:28:17 ►
So in the traditions that I have worked in,
00:28:21 ►
they say you shouldn’t be smoking cannabis
00:28:24 ►
because ayahuasca is considered feminine
00:28:27 ►
and she’s jealous.
00:28:31 ►
And you’re disrespecting me.
00:28:32 ►
If you’re messing around with that bitch,
00:28:34 ►
you’re disrespecting me.
00:28:36 ►
I’ll kick your ass.
00:28:37 ►
You know, man.
00:28:39 ►
And she will.
00:28:40 ►
Yeah.
00:28:40 ►
Yes, she’s capable of doing that, for sure.
00:28:42 ►
But the point is,
00:28:44 ►
if you go,
00:28:44 ►
in any experience, truly, if you go in any experience truly
00:28:46 ►
if you go into it with respect
00:28:48 ►
being open but not irresponsible
00:28:51 ►
and being with someone who you can trust
00:28:54 ►
to guide you and watch over you
00:28:56 ►
and any good shaman does a lot of protection work
00:28:59 ►
so that everything is there
00:29:02 ►
but it’s a remarkable tool for self-integration
00:29:07 ►
but it can be bumpy
00:29:10 ►
can be bumpy
00:29:12 ►
I know that
00:29:14 ►
one of the questions
00:29:16 ►
that I’m going to be asked
00:29:18 ►
is who are the good guys
00:29:21 ►
down in Peru
00:29:22 ►
how do I find a guide
00:29:24 ►
and I don’t want to be in the position of recommending who are the good guys down in Peru? How do I find a guide?
00:29:29 ►
And I don’t want to be in the position of recommending anybody specific because, for example, the people we know are pretty much booked years in advance.
00:29:35 ►
So I don’t want to get real specific about it,
00:29:38 ►
but what kind of questions should somebody be asking
00:29:41 ►
and what should they be looking for when they’re considering going to the Amazon for this experience?
00:29:48 ►
Well, the best and safest road, if you can find it,
00:29:52 ►
is to find somebody who’s been doing it and working with it.
00:29:57 ►
No, I’m not your person.
00:30:00 ►
And for me, I’ve been working with some groups,
00:30:04 ►
and I can’t say anything about, I’ve been sworn to secre groups and you know I can’t say anything
00:30:05 ►
about
00:30:05 ►
I’ve been sworn
00:30:06 ►
to secrecy
00:30:06 ►
because if I said
00:30:07 ►
anything
00:30:07 ►
I would have
00:30:08 ►
to kill you
00:30:09 ►
and if there’s
00:30:09 ►
all these people
00:30:10 ►
how am I going
00:30:10 ►
to find all you
00:30:11 ►
people
00:30:11 ►
this is too much
00:30:13 ►
but
00:30:15 ►
if you do
00:30:16 ►
some research
00:30:17 ►
you know like
00:30:18 ►
Shaman’s Drum
00:30:19 ►
magazine
00:30:20 ►
is
00:30:21 ►
they do a lot
00:30:23 ►
of stuff
00:30:23 ►
on ayahuasca
00:30:24 ►
and I think
00:30:25 ►
Arrowwood has
00:30:26 ►
considerable information
00:30:27 ►
and
00:30:29 ►
the best thing is to
00:30:31 ►
just
00:30:33 ►
ask around
00:30:35 ►
friends who know
00:30:35 ►
friends who know
00:30:36 ►
friends in communities
00:30:37 ►
to find out
00:30:38 ►
there might not be somebody
00:30:39 ►
who’s been
00:30:39 ►
doing the work
00:30:41 ►
for years
00:30:42 ►
I mean the first
00:30:42 ►
person I went to the jungle with
00:30:45 ►
at the time had been going there for like 18 years.
00:30:49 ►
And I’ve been working with these particular shamans
00:30:50 ►
for like five or six.
00:30:53 ►
You know, I guess probably one of the things
00:30:55 ►
I’d tell somebody is,
00:30:57 ►
I shouldn’t say I’d advise somebody,
00:31:00 ►
but in my own case,
00:31:02 ►
I personally wouldn’t spend the money
00:31:04 ►
and take the risks
00:31:05 ►
without having spoken with somebody that I already know in some way
00:31:09 ►
and respect who’s been with that particular Iowa general.
00:31:13 ►
Somebody’s already been there, so if they risk their neck or found out,
00:31:17 ►
you don’t have to be the brave explorer, nor should you be,
00:31:20 ►
because in a lot of places, there’s so much ayahuasca.
00:31:25 ►
I mean, ayahuasca is almost like
00:31:26 ►
Budweiser beers in the United States
00:31:28 ►
in some cultures.
00:31:29 ►
It’s just so much.
00:31:30 ►
It’s an everyday part of existence.
00:31:33 ►
So you can literally find the guy
00:31:35 ►
who’s walking down the dark alley
00:31:36 ►
going, hey man,
00:31:37 ►
you want some shit right here?
00:31:39 ►
And then there are sorcerers down there.
00:31:42 ►
And there are people with ill intent.
00:31:43 ►
There’s a story of a woman.
00:31:44 ►
She was caught up with these are sorcerers down there. And there are people with ill intent. There’s a story of a woman. She was caught up with these dark sorcerers.
00:31:49 ►
And this beautiful woman.
00:31:50 ►
And she thought she had found her jungle guru
00:31:52 ►
and gave herself into her hands.
00:31:54 ►
And she was basically like a slave.
00:31:57 ►
Running around the jungle with any clothes on.
00:32:00 ►
You know?
00:32:01 ►
Go do this to that guy.
00:32:02 ►
Go do this to this guy.
00:32:03 ►
This is your initiation.
00:32:04 ►
I mean
00:32:05 ►
it was
00:32:05 ►
it’s a bad juju
00:32:07 ►
there could be some dark sorcery
00:32:09 ►
you can go down
00:32:09 ►
and get caught
00:32:10 ►
and don’t
00:32:10 ►
whether you believe
00:32:11 ►
in sorcery or not
00:32:12 ►
you don’t want to get caught up
00:32:16 ►
in the wrong things
00:32:16 ►
there’s a lot of responsibility
00:32:18 ►
that goes with this
00:32:19 ►
because
00:32:19 ►
this is a very powerful plant
00:32:22 ►
and one of the things
00:32:23 ►
I learned is that
00:32:25 ►
power,
00:32:27 ►
power in and of itself
00:32:30 ►
is neutral.
00:32:34 ►
But the intention you put behind the power
00:32:36 ►
is what makes things happen.
00:32:40 ►
So you can take,
00:32:41 ►
as in anything,
00:32:42 ►
you know,
00:32:42 ►
MDMA,
00:32:44 ►
there’s, very easy to abuse.
00:32:49 ►
Tell me about it. I did it.
00:32:51 ►
That’s right. That’s what I’m saying.
00:32:53 ►
So you have to really have,
00:32:55 ►
getting back to the whole respect thing,
00:32:58 ►
you have to use common sense
00:33:01 ►
because if you get caught up in something like that,
00:33:05 ►
I’m sorry,
00:33:06 ►
and I don’t mean to sound mean,
00:33:07 ►
but you’re not playing
00:33:10 ►
with a full deck to start with.
00:33:11 ►
I mean, you don’t just walk up,
00:33:12 ►
oh, you’re wearing feathers in your hair,
00:33:14 ►
you’re the guru here,
00:33:16 ►
my whole existence is in your hands.
00:33:17 ►
You know what I mean?
00:33:18 ►
Yeah.
00:33:19 ►
Good people, you know,
00:33:20 ►
these people that I’ve worked with
00:33:22 ►
have done a lot,
00:33:22 ►
they’ve taught me a lot.
00:33:25 ►
They’ve done a lot of protection work that’s primary.
00:33:28 ►
Anybody who’s spent any time studying shamanism
00:33:30 ►
will tell you that one of the first things is protection.
00:33:35 ►
Because a lot of these things open you up.
00:33:40 ►
You’re opening yourself up.
00:33:42 ►
Well, what the hell are you opening yourself up to?
00:33:44 ►
You better be careful. You might be opening yourself up well what the hell are you opening yourself up to you better be careful
00:33:45 ►
you might be opening yourself up to the alien
00:33:48 ►
or something
00:33:49 ►
you know what I mean
00:33:50 ►
so
00:33:51 ►
it has to come down
00:33:55 ►
ultimately to integrity
00:33:57 ►
integrity is the core
00:33:59 ►
of everything
00:34:00 ►
yeah I’ve
00:34:03 ►
noticed myself
00:34:04 ►
on many occasions
00:34:06 ►
the importance of
00:34:08 ►
the skilled Iowa Scarrow who’s
00:34:10 ►
leading the circle in that
00:34:11 ►
sometimes the energy can just get
00:34:14 ►
so bumpy
00:34:15 ►
that everybody’s having a difficult time
00:34:17 ►
and then they magically can
00:34:19 ►
smooth it all out. But I think
00:34:22 ►
just as equally, a skilled Iowa
00:34:24 ►
Scarrow, if they were on the dark side
00:34:25 ►
could stir it up
00:34:26 ►
and
00:34:26 ►
oh yeah
00:34:27 ►
I’ve really heard
00:34:28 ►
some freaky stories
00:34:29 ►
and
00:34:30 ►
I’ve dealt with
00:34:32 ►
a couple of them
00:34:33 ►
anyway
00:34:35 ►
I don’t want to
00:34:35 ►
you know
00:34:36 ►
get off on a tangent
00:34:36 ►
I guess before we
00:34:38 ►
finish this
00:34:39 ►
one thing
00:34:40 ►
I know
00:34:41 ►
it’s available on the net
00:34:42 ►
and I don’t know
00:34:43 ►
that it’s Jonathan’s
00:34:44 ►
but it’s Farmer Waska oh god yeah’t know that it’s Jonathan’s but it’s Farmawaska
00:34:45 ►
oh god yeah we were talking about that
00:34:47 ►
we both had some experiences with that
00:34:50 ►
what’s your experience with Farmawaska
00:34:52 ►
I’ll tell you my experience with Farmawaska
00:34:53 ►
I think I probably had the same
00:34:54 ►
we probably got it from the same place
00:34:57 ►
probably same time same place almost
00:34:59 ►
but I did it with
00:35:00 ►
a friend and I spent
00:35:03 ►
the whole night on the toilet and it was just, and I spent the whole night on the toilet, and it was just like
00:35:06 ►
one long fart the whole night.
00:35:11 ►
Not something I want to repeat.
00:35:14 ►
So, you know, the thing it comes down to is a very specific, obviously, range of MAO inhibitors
00:35:21 ►
and what you ingest.
00:35:24 ►
of MAO inhibitors and what you ingest.
00:35:28 ►
So when they make it in the jungle the way they make it,
00:35:30 ►
the balance is correct.
00:35:32 ►
Even though if you’re puking and shitting,
00:35:33 ►
for them that’s a good thing.
00:35:37 ►
One of the things they call it is La Perdiga, the purge.
00:35:39 ►
Because it’s cleaning you out, and it does clean you out.
00:35:42 ►
I mean, it even has anti-parasitical properties.
00:35:45 ►
I’ve been amazed.
00:35:49 ►
In fact, just not too long ago,
00:35:53 ►
I’d really been on the diet faithfully,
00:35:55 ►
and I’d been fasting for almost 24 hours,
00:35:59 ►
and yet both nights in a row, I filled half a bucket.
00:36:00 ►
I don’t know where it all came from.
00:36:01 ►
I wasn’t even drinking much water.
00:36:03 ►
So it’s amazing what comes out.
00:36:05 ►
All those toxins just kind of come out.
00:36:08 ►
But I think this is another case. I mentioned
00:36:09 ►
this in a previous podcast
00:36:11 ►
that there’s always
00:36:13 ►
the debate between the plants versus
00:36:15 ►
just the chemicals. And I think in the
00:36:17 ►
case of ayahuasca is the
00:36:19 ►
one case for sure where
00:36:21 ►
I don’t think they have come close yet to
00:36:23 ►
finding the chemical equivalent.
00:36:27 ►
And I know that there was a lot of adjustments made on the Harmaline tablets and the amounts
00:36:32 ►
and that perhaps you could balance it out to where you would have a DMT experience of
00:36:37 ►
some kind, but I don’t think it would ever be considered an ayahuasca experience.
00:36:41 ►
There’s just too much tradition and too much else going on there, I think.
00:36:46 ►
You know, you think about it,
00:36:47 ►
there’s a lot of things like,
00:36:49 ►
okay, peyote contains mescaline.
00:36:52 ►
But there are other alkaloids in there
00:36:54 ►
that can have all kinds of different effects
00:36:58 ►
on the overall experience.
00:37:00 ►
But when you take the mescaline out,
00:37:03 ►
you’re only getting one particular essence of many essences,
00:37:07 ►
which you may not even have a conscious awareness of.
00:37:11 ►
It kind of goes back to the whole refining cocaine from a coca plant, same kind of a thing.
00:37:16 ►
That plant has incredible beneficial health qualities for you.
00:37:22 ►
I mean, it’s one of the most perfect foods in nature by itself.
00:37:24 ►
But when you take it and do it,
00:37:26 ►
just like shit, just like refined sugar.
00:37:29 ►
Refined sugar is the biggest poison of all,
00:37:31 ►
just about pretty much.
00:37:33 ►
Anyway, if you think about it,
00:37:35 ►
it gets back to the balance of sort of
00:37:37 ►
what’s natural for the body
00:37:38 ►
and what’s unnatural.
00:37:42 ►
I guess maybe just one last question here
00:37:44 ►
and then we’ll call it a day.
00:37:47 ►
What about doing it alone as opposed to doing it in a circle?
00:37:51 ►
I’ve never even considered doing it alone, but I know some people think about that.
00:37:55 ►
You mentioned taking a teaspoon at night, which isn’t really an ayahuasca ceremony.
00:37:59 ►
But to have a full-blown ayahuasca experience, do you think it’s possible to do that alone?
00:38:04 ►
I think you’re losing out, and I’ll tell you why.
00:38:06 ►
Because I did it.
00:38:07 ►
Don’t try this at home.
00:38:10 ►
But I got a good couple of healthy doses of ayahuasca,
00:38:16 ►
and I had taped my jungle sessions.
00:38:20 ►
And I sat alone one night and played my tapes.
00:38:24 ►
I drank a pretty good dose. And I sat alone one night and played my tapes. And drank a pretty good dose.
00:38:26 ►
And I got altered.
00:38:29 ►
But it didn’t go anywhere.
00:38:32 ►
So I went and took another good healthy shot.
00:38:35 ►
And it didn’t change anything.
00:38:38 ►
So I got a little altered.
00:38:41 ►
But my realization of that was that it’s made to be done in a circle.
00:38:47 ►
And I’ve been in lots of circles.
00:38:49 ►
And in the circle, you join the energy together collectively as a group.
00:38:57 ►
So that if one particular person is getting healed, everybody in the group is helping to heal that person.
00:39:02 ►
You have everybody working together for everybody kind of a thing.
00:39:06 ►
And you do have very distinctive telepathic experiences in that space.
00:39:10 ►
And I believe it’s because you’re connecting with your hearts.
00:39:15 ►
And ayahuasca is considered, in Peru, it’s considered feminine
00:39:18 ►
because it’s the right side of the brain, which is the intuitive,
00:39:21 ►
and the heart, which is what’s you know been locked out
00:39:25 ►
so
00:39:26 ►
when you get in a circle
00:39:27 ►
like that
00:39:28 ►
and connect with other people
00:39:29 ►
and you have
00:39:29 ►
a good leader
00:39:31 ►
in the group
00:39:32 ►
who is
00:39:33 ►
conducting the energy
00:39:35 ►
basically
00:39:36 ►
because that’s what it’s all about
00:39:37 ►
is moving energy
00:39:37 ►
it’s all about moving energy
00:39:38 ►
then
00:39:40 ►
you’ll have
00:39:43 ►
you know
00:39:44 ►
a good experience
00:39:46 ►
skilled ayahuasquero
00:39:47 ►
in other words
00:39:48 ►
somebody that
00:39:49 ►
yeah who leads you
00:39:50 ►
I don’t know how much more time we got
00:39:51 ►
but
00:39:52 ►
I heard it said once that
00:39:54 ►
ayahuasca is the river
00:39:56 ►
and the icaros
00:39:59 ►
and the songs
00:39:59 ►
and things
00:40:00 ►
are the boats
00:40:01 ►
that carry you on the journey
00:40:02 ►
I like that
00:40:04 ►
yeah
00:40:04 ►
so you have the two I like that yeah so you have
00:40:06 ►
the two
00:40:06 ►
component parts
00:40:07 ►
that go
00:40:08 ►
together
00:40:08 ►
yeah
00:40:09 ►
that’s
00:40:11 ►
beautiful
00:40:11 ►
is there
00:40:12 ►
anything else
00:40:12 ►
you’d like to
00:40:13 ►
leave our
00:40:14 ►
psychedelic
00:40:15 ►
salon with
00:40:15 ►
I know that
00:40:16 ►
there’s people
00:40:17 ►
all around the
00:40:18 ►
world that are
00:40:18 ►
listening to this
00:40:20 ►
from China
00:40:20 ►
to UK
00:40:22 ►
to Bangladesh
00:40:24 ►
we even have a download.
00:40:26 ►
Check out my website at mattpalamary.com.
00:40:30 ►
Better spell that.
00:40:31 ►
M-A-T-T-P-A-L-L-A-M as in Mary, A-R-Y.
00:40:36 ►
I love you all.
00:40:38 ►
I think we’ll call it a day there.
00:40:42 ►
Didn’t you like what Mateo said about Ayahuasca being a river
00:40:45 ►
and that the acaros are boats
00:40:47 ►
that carry you on your journey?
00:40:50 ►
The next time you take
00:40:51 ►
an Ayahuasca journey, that might be a
00:40:53 ►
good image to hold on to.
00:40:56 ►
I know that in my case, there have
00:40:57 ►
been many occasions when it
00:40:59 ►
was the thread of an acaro
00:41:02 ►
sung by our Ayahuasquero
00:41:03 ►
that I grabbed hold of
00:41:05 ►
and found my way back from some really strange places.
00:41:09 ►
And I guess that’s one of the main reasons I feel so strongly about
00:41:13 ►
only having this experience in the company of a trusted and skilled Iowa Scarrow.
00:41:18 ►
That said, I don’t want to make it sound too intimidating either,
00:41:22 ►
but after listening to the discussion from the
00:41:25 ►
Dope Stock podcast yesterday morning, and by the way, if you want to listen to that or any of the
00:41:31 ►
other great podcasts from the Cannabis Podcast Network, just go to dopefiend.co.uk or subscribe
00:41:39 ►
to the Dopecast through iTunes or some other aggregator. They’ve got a really good lineup of podcasters and programs,
00:41:46 ►
which reminds me, the happiest man on the planet,
00:41:50 ►
my friend Queer Ninja, seems to have gone missing lately.
00:41:53 ►
So if you hear this, Ninja, I hope you’re okay and just lying low for a bit.
00:41:58 ►
But we really do miss your vibe of peace on the sounds of the worldwide weed each week.
00:42:04 ►
vibe of peace on the sounds of the worldwide weed each week.
00:42:10 ►
Although my hat goes off to Zandor for a great Sounds of Weed podcast last week.
00:42:12 ►
I really enjoyed that one, Zandor.
00:42:17 ►
And while I’m at it, I guess I should also point out that their new Psychonautica podcast is really picking up speed.
00:42:20 ►
In the latest episode, co-host Max Freakout and a chemist friend of his went through a very detailed but quite simple method of extracting DMT from mimosa bark.
00:42:31 ►
And while I’ve read about that method several times before, hearing them discuss the details step by step was really fascinating.
00:42:40 ►
And it was Max, you might recall, who interviewed Daniel Siebert a week or so previously.
00:42:45 ►
And if you haven’t heard that interview and are still interested in more information about salvia divinorum, I highly recommend it.
00:42:53 ►
I think it really builds nicely on the one that I did here in the psychedelic salon with Daniel a month or so ago.
00:43:00 ►
And in fact, I learned quite a few new things myself thanks to Max’s expert questioning
00:43:06 ►
so you might want to check that out too
00:43:08 ►
and if you’re wondering if I’m getting paid to plug these guys shows
00:43:13 ►
no I’m not
00:43:14 ►
and they’re not getting paid to plug the psychedelic salon
00:43:17 ►
while we didn’t all get together and plan this in advance
00:43:21 ►
we all seem to be interested in doing our small part
00:43:24 ►
in helping human consciousness evolve a little
00:43:27 ►
by passing along any interesting information we come across.
00:43:32 ►
And while we aren’t all focused on exactly the same things,
00:43:35 ►
we do have a lot of mutual interests,
00:43:37 ►
and most importantly, we’re just like you and your friends.
00:43:41 ►
We like to share our stories and from time to time
00:43:44 ►
talk about some things that don’t always come up around the office water cooler. Thank you. I put links to all of these podcasts on the web page with the program notes for this show,
00:44:05 ►
which, of course, you can find at www.psychedelicsalon.org.
00:44:11 ►
I’m not sure exactly when this is going to be available,
00:44:15 ►
but KMO is also in the process of putting together a program that features Matt Palomary.
00:44:21 ►
And so I sent him an early copy of the interview that you just heard
00:44:24 ►
so that he could
00:44:25 ►
come up with a whole new set of questions. And during our email exchange, KMO offered to let me
00:44:32 ►
play a soundbite from his program that has just been posted today. And I think you’ll find that
00:44:38 ►
interesting as well, because this week’s episode, which is number 30, is titled Vine of the Soul,
00:44:48 ►
This week’s episode, which is number 30, is titled Vine of the Soul, which, as you know, is another name for ayahuasca.
00:44:55 ►
Now, after listening to the discussion about ayahuasca in the Dope Stock interviews yesterday morning,
00:45:08 ►
as I so long ago started talking about, and then thinking back to my first experiences with ayahuasca, it seems that the biggest issue in people’s minds when it comes to having the experience is the fact that there’s the possibility of purging, you know, throwing up, puking, whatever you want to call it.
00:45:15 ►
And that is a thought that most of us just can’t stand to think about.
00:45:20 ►
I know that before my first three or four ayahuasca journeys, it was also a big deal for me, too.
00:45:26 ►
And there really is no easy way around the issue.
00:45:29 ►
But what is impossible to explain is that as repulsive as it may be to think about being in a circle of a dozen or so people who are throwing up from time to time,
00:45:41 ►
it becomes so natural a part of the experience that after a while
00:45:45 ►
you don’t even have to think about it anymore.
00:45:48 ►
In fact, the next morning you sometimes have to stop and think back to even remember whether
00:45:53 ►
or not you purged.
00:45:55 ►
And while I probably don’t know many more than a hundred or so people who have used
00:46:00 ►
ayahuasca, not a single one of them has ever had anything bad at all to say about the purging experience.
00:46:07 ►
But now you don’t have to only take my word for it, because thanks to KMO,
00:46:14 ►
I’m going to play a short clip from an interview that he has with Alan Shoemaker about this very topic.
00:46:22 ►
There is another podcaster, his name is Lorenzo,
00:46:25 ►
and he does a show called
00:46:26 ►
The Psychedelic Salon,
00:46:28 ►
and he was talking about
00:46:29 ►
ayahuasca recently
00:46:30 ►
with a couple different guests
00:46:32 ►
and friends of his,
00:46:33 ►
one of which is Matt Palomary.
00:46:35 ►
I had asked you about Matt
00:46:36 ►
a couple days ago,
00:46:38 ►
and one thing that he said
00:46:40 ►
was that the purging on ayahuasca
00:46:43 ►
is very different from just throwing up. You get something awful out of your body, and he described the purging on ayahuasca is very different from just throwing up
00:46:46 ►
to get something awful out of your body.
00:46:48 ►
And he described the purge as a peak psychedelic experience
00:46:51 ►
which is not to be missed.
00:46:53 ►
Would you agree with that?
00:46:55 ►
Well, when I was working with my first teacher,
00:46:58 ►
Dr. Valentin Hampes, in the mountains of Ecuador,
00:47:01 ►
we were doing huachuma or San Pedro ceremonies.
00:47:05 ►
And always at some point during the ceremony, I go outside to purge.
00:47:11 ►
And one day I asked Valentine, is it necessary to purge every time you drink?
00:47:16 ►
He says, no, absolutely.
00:47:17 ►
If you can keep the medicine in your system, it’s just going to be better for you.
00:47:21 ►
From that time on, the next class I got, I talked to the
00:47:25 ►
medicine. I said, look, we are brothers, so stay with me. And for seven years, I didn’t
00:47:30 ►
purge. But having been in so many ceremonies and watching so many people purging and realizing
00:47:36 ►
what you can do by purging, not only releasing these things from your stomach in both directions,
00:47:42 ►
you can release a lot of frustrations
00:47:45 ►
and psychological things
00:47:48 ►
that have been pent up in your system
00:47:50 ►
if you are aware enough to know to do that.
00:47:53 ►
So, after seven years,
00:47:57 ►
I was kind of jealous, I would say,
00:47:59 ►
that I wanted to start purging again.
00:48:01 ►
And the next time I drank, I began purging.
00:48:02 ►
So, I’m still purging now.
00:48:04 ►
There is a thought that when you do the purge,
00:48:08 ►
it channels up from your lower chakras up to your higher chakras,
00:48:14 ►
and that’s bringing the medicine up into your blood-brain barrier faster.
00:48:20 ►
So that possibly the purge is an essential part to getting to what we’ll call a higher state
00:48:26 ►
under the influence of either ayahuasca or San Pedro.
00:48:30 ►
Well, if you recall from my visit there, purging was something that was very difficult for me.
00:48:36 ►
It was hard for me to let that stuff go,
00:48:38 ►
and even when I’d go out and stick my finger down my throat, I couldn’t really manage it.
00:48:43 ►
But then at the same time, I couldn’t hold
00:48:46 ►
down ayahuasca, so
00:48:47 ►
it’s a really
00:48:50 ►
difficult experience for people who haven’t done it.
00:48:53 ►
It’s
00:48:54 ►
certainly nothing approaching
00:48:56 ►
a recreational experience.
00:48:57 ►
I’ve heard so many people vocalizing
00:48:59 ►
as they’re vomiting,
00:49:01 ►
but really, professional
00:49:04 ►
vomiting, and I can speak from experience,
00:49:06 ►
requires no noise at all.
00:49:08 ►
The only thing you’d really hear would be the liquid hitting the plastic bucket
00:49:12 ►
or the ground in front of you.
00:49:13 ►
But you hear incredible noises,
00:49:15 ►
and I’m always fascinated at what’s going to come out of the next person
00:49:18 ►
that’s going to be vomiting.
00:49:19 ►
It’s fascinating.
00:49:20 ►
That’s a whole documentary right there.
00:49:23 ►
Well, that could certainly be a whole podcast, just the
00:49:26 ►
recording of
00:49:27 ►
a ceremony with the Icaros
00:49:30 ►
first, and then
00:49:30 ►
eventually the first of the
00:49:33 ►
people going out to purge, and then the next.
00:49:36 ►
And yes, people do vocalize a lot
00:49:38 ►
when they’re purging, and as I think about it, I did
00:49:40 ►
too. But the professional
00:49:42 ►
purger doesn’t scream
00:49:44 ►
about it, he just lets it all come out.
00:49:48 ►
Okay, I guess that’s about
00:49:50 ►
enough of that for today.
00:49:52 ►
But if you still want to
00:49:54 ►
know more about the psychedelic
00:49:55 ►
possibilities of purging, I
00:49:58 ►
recommend reading Dr. Andrew Weil’s
00:50:00 ►
book, The Marriage of Sun and Moon.
00:50:02 ►
And I think it’s the first
00:50:04 ►
chapter of that book that’s all about
00:50:05 ►
purging for you fans of the
00:50:08 ►
subject. Now,
00:50:09 ►
finally moving on, and
00:50:11 ►
by the way, thanks for still being here.
00:50:14 ►
I’m afraid that we might
00:50:15 ►
have lost a few of our fellow salonners
00:50:17 ►
without discussion, but
00:50:19 ►
for a true psychonaut like you, well,
00:50:22 ►
it’s just one more outlandish
00:50:24 ►
thing to think about.
00:50:25 ►
It certainly is outside of the box, that’s for sure.
00:50:29 ►
I’d like to move on to some of the other questions that I’ve received by email,
00:50:33 ►
but after looking at them again just now, even though I do have opinions about most of them,
00:50:39 ►
I realize I’m not the most highly qualified person to be answering them, I don’t think.
00:50:44 ►
I realize I’m not the most highly qualified person to be answering them, I don’t think.
00:50:47 ►
And I’m talking about questions like,
00:50:52 ►
is ayahuasca a good first psychedelic experience to have? And how do you form an intent to take into the experience with you?
00:50:57 ►
And what is this group mind thing I’ve heard about occurring in ayahuasca circles?
00:51:01 ►
Questions like those.
00:51:04 ►
Like I said, I’ve got some opinions on them,
00:51:06 ►
but what I’d like to do instead is I’m going to line up another expert or so
00:51:09 ►
and cover some of these questions in future podcasts.
00:51:13 ►
Hopefully I’ll get this done before the intrepid Colorado expedition lifts off.
00:51:19 ►
But as I mentioned, you can find more ayahuasca information
00:51:22 ►
on KMO’s Sea Realm episodes number 30 and also in his program number 4.
00:51:28 ►
And I’m sure that there are a lot of other good podcasts out there on the subject.
00:51:33 ►
So if you know of one of them, please let me know and I’ll pass that information along too.
00:51:39 ►
I’d like to change the subject now and ask our fellow slaughters who live in Australia to let me know if you’ve
00:51:46 ►
heard of a plant whose botanical name I’m not about to try to pronounce, but I’ll spell it for
00:51:52 ►
you. It’s S-Y-Z-G-I-U-M, and the second word is G-I-D-J-I-B-A-N-G. And to tell you the truth, just looking at that name makes me want to laugh,
00:52:07 ►
which is also one of the side effects of ingesting this plant.
00:52:13 ►
The common name, by the way, is, I think, is it Gigi Bong?
00:52:17 ►
G-E-J-E-B-O-N-G?
00:52:20 ►
Gigi Bong?
00:52:22 ►
But it’s the folk name that really caught my attention.
00:52:24 ►
It’s called Fairy Dream Flower
00:52:27 ►
Fairy Dream Flower
00:52:29 ►
I can’t find out much about it other than
00:52:32 ►
what was in an essay that Gary Fisher mailed to me the other day
00:52:36 ►
but according to this article
00:52:38 ►
the first recorded use of the herb
00:52:41 ►
dates back only to 1998
00:52:43 ►
but it kind of goes on to give details about the
00:52:47 ►
enchanting, intoxicating possibilities, and oh, there’s quotes a poem back that was published in 1867,
00:52:55 ►
and other ancient sources. I won’t bore you with all of the glowing trip reports that have come
00:53:01 ►
from people who inhaled a breath or two of this flower’s fragrance but i’ll give you a hint of what they thought by telling you the title of the article
00:53:09 ►
about it and don’t try to tell me that you wouldn’t put everything else aside and read this
00:53:14 ►
article right away too if it came in the mail because the title is is there sex after death
00:53:20 ►
and apparently the answer is yes but it helps if you’ve got a little
00:53:26 ►
fairy dream flower in your pillow.
00:53:28 ►
So, if any of you
00:53:29 ►
salonners down under know something about this,
00:53:32 ►
I’d love to hear more about it.
00:53:33 ►
Well, before I go, I
00:53:35 ►
should mention that this and all of the podcasts
00:53:38 ►
from the Psychedelic Salon are
00:53:39 ►
protected under a Creative Commons
00:53:41 ►
Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike
00:53:43 ►
2.5 license.
00:53:45 ►
If you have any questions about this, you can just click on the link at the bottom of the protected under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 2.5 license.
00:53:50 ►
If you have any questions about this, you can just click on the link at the bottom of the Psychedelic Salon webpage,
00:53:53 ►
which you can find a lot of different ways.
00:53:56 ►
Matrixmasters.com slash podcast is one way.
00:54:02 ►
And if you still have any questions, just send them to Lorenzo at Matrixmasters.com.
00:54:06 ►
Thanks again to my friends at Chateau Hayouk for the use of your music here in the salon,
00:54:08 ►
and also a big thank you to Mateo
00:54:10 ►
for stopping by and sharing a few more of his stories with us.
00:54:15 ►
And thank you for being with us again
00:54:16 ►
here in the psychedelic salon.
00:54:19 ►
And for now, this is Lorenzo
00:54:22 ►
signing off from the cyberdelic space.
00:54:25 ►
Be well, my friends.