129 - The Imagination and the Environment

Program Notes

Guest speaker: Erik Davis

[NOTE: All quotes below are by Erik Davis.]

“The imagination is a key, and pivotal interface, between human beings and the natural world.”

“Any kind of restorative, sustainable renewal of our planet has to exist on the imaginal realm as well as the realm of technical solutions, political developments, and technological fixes. It’s a multi-dimensional problem.”

“So the imagination is really the core, the source, the matrix of our multi-dimensional experience.”

“The creative imagination functions in a different way than religious beliefs allow us to engage with.”

“If we’re into integration now, with science and technology, that means that we can’t avoid that skeptical voice [of scientific, existential materialism]. We have engage and learn to integrate that skeptical voice as well. [To think] it’s our job to just say ‘No. Those science people they don’t understand. They’re locked in rationality. It’s actually this mystical world, this magical world’, is a profound failure, in my opinion, of our role. And the more we go into loosy-goosy mystic New Age stuff as a concretized belief system, rather than as an open, playful world that adds richness to our lives the way that poetry does, or the way that religious imagery does, drawing us to those higher realms but holding them lightly so that we can still engage a skeptical materialist, for me, that’s what integration means.”

“The new paradigm is that there’s not a paradigm.”

Erik Davis’ Web Site: Techgnosis

Transcript

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Greetings from cyberdelic space.

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This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the psychedelic salon.

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So, how are you today?

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I wish I could say that I’m back up to full speed, but this cold and flu just won’t let me go.

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Thus, the delay in getting this week’s program out to you.

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And I know that many of our fellow saloners have also been fighting the flu,

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and I sincerely hope that everyone, including me, I might

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add, hope all of us recover soon.

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We’ve got kind of a long program today, but before I jump into it, I want to give a huge

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thank you to some people who have made donations to the salon recently, and they are Dr. Laura,

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Garth A., and our old friend and frequent donor, A Dime Short,

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who is going to continue being A Dime Short if he keeps this up.

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I really appreciate all of your help in keeping these podcasts winging their way

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to thousands of people in over a hundred countries.

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Your donations are the backbone of the program,

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and you can rest assured that you’re doing more than your part

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in supporting our psychedelic community.

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So thank you, one and all.

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Our talk today comes from Eric Davis, and it is the plialogue he conducted at the 2007 Burning Man Festival.

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As you know, Eric has been a featured speaker here in the salon on several occasions,

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and I should point out that if you’ve never had the opportunity to hear Eric in person, you should definitely go out of your way to do so. Thank you. www.technosis.com of our fellow Saloners will track him down and attend one of those talks and send us a report on the current state of Eric’s thinking.

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In the plilogue we’re about to hear, which Eric titled The Imagination and the Environment,

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one of the things he points out is the obvious, yet seldom thought about fact that the future

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doesn’t just happen, it’s created.

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And you and I, along with over 6 billion other humans,

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are directly involved in creating a small piece of that future. And when you think of

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it that way, particularly if you’re thinking about the future of your grandchildren, all

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of a sudden our responsibility as thinking beings to help create a better future for

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our species becomes quite clear. Now I have to warn you ahead of time that there is one spot in this recording

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where the sound quality drops way down to barely listenable.

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And after hearing that, I booted up the DVD of the talk that John sent me

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to make sure we didn’t just have a problem in lifting the sound from the video.

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But that’s the way it is in the original video recording.

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And looking at it, I noticed that the tapestry behind Eric is blowing all over the place,

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which means that there was some bad weather outside at the time.

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But the problem seems to be in the feed from the mixing board.

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And if I remember correctly, what happened was that we lost power to the generator,

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and so the sound system went down, and John had to switch to the built-in microphone on his camera

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so you’re going to hear it much like those who were there at the time heard

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it and that means there’s a lot of wind in the background that makes it a little

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hard to hear at times what is pretty amazing when you think about it though

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is that even when we lost power and even when the storm intensified, Eric never missed a beat.

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And there are very few people who can perform under conditions like that.

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So a big thank you goes out to Eric, who is a real professional in every sense of the word.

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Fortunately, these problems only last for about five minutes, so the entire recording isn’t that way, but

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I think that what Eric had to say that day is important enough for us to bear with the

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sound problems and pull out some of the ideas he presented that afternoon.

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If you’ve been hanging around the psychedelic salon for a while now, you already know that

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almost all of our Burning Man lectures have some kind of technical problems, and at first

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that was driving me crazy.

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But now I’ve come to accept the fact that the gods of the playa

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simply aren’t willing to let us have an easy time of it.

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And please don’t think that I added some strange musical background

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about halfway through Eric’s talk.

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What you’re hearing is actually coming from the camp next to us.

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The bottom line here is that maybe Burning Man isn’t the right place to hold these talks after all. Thank you. At last year’s burn, we had a professional recording deck along with two mp3 recording backups, and yet none of them actually worked.

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But without being asked, John set up his video recorder and recorded all of the plylogs.

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All but his own, of course, which is a terrible tragedy because of the importance of his talk.

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Hopefully, we’ll be able to recreate it one day.

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But, as his time permits, John has been stripping the audio from these videos for us to use here in the salon.

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And without him stepping in to fill our technological gap, all would have been lost.

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So, please help me in thanking John Hanna.

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And not just for today’s podcast, but for everything he does, every day, to further the cause of our

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community.

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Now let’s return to the playa at the 2007 Burning Man Festival and join our little group

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in the big yurt at the Pod Cluster as I introduce Eric Davis.

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Some of you have been here a couple days and know kind of what we’re doing, that basically

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this year we decided that we wanted to go back to our original idea of sort of the vibe at the end of the pool at the Sean Ka Hotel after the Entheobotany seminars and encourage more intimate discussions.

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And we’ve been very pleased to know that most of our speakers who last year were speaking to a crowd of 1,000 have agreed to come out and speak to a more intimate gathering.

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And Eric Davis, who is here now, is – without Eric, we would never have had the Palenque Norte Lectures.

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When I came up with the idea in 2003, he was the first guy I contacted.

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And he said, well, that’s kind of crazy.

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I think I’ll give it a try.

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And because I got Eric on board, the other people all signed up.

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So Eric has had a lot to do with this.

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He came to my mind, my notice first, through Terrence McKenna.

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I was telling Terrence about a book I was writing, and he said,

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well, you shouldn’t write anymore until you read Technosis by Eric Davis.

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And I did, and he was right, and I cited it in there.

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So he has a new book out that came out last year called Visionary State

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that has some of the most beautiful photography you’ve seen

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that’s only surpassed by the prose that accompanies it.

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So a couple of great books.

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So if you would please help me welcome Eric Davis.

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So I guess we have about an hour here,

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and I want to thank Lorenzo, as always,

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for really initiating these talk spaces on the Playa.

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And even more than that, recognizing, in my opinion, what’s a little bit missing about the larger traditional lecture spaces that have kind of ballooned in the years since he started Palenque Norte.

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In my experience, and this is just my experience, the satisfying talks

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I’ve given here have always been small and interactive, and that the larger ones, I’ve done

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a couple larger ones, they’re too much like the outside world for me. So I was very happy this

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year to have an opportunity to still do this, which is kind of like my gift or my, you know,

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offering to the playa, but in a way that I find much more simpatico.

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I love dialogue.

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I love guided conversation.

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So probably what I’m going to do is talk for, I don’t know, 20 minutes, half hour, roughly

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around that time, and then open it up, probably more like 20 minutes.

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And I don’t have anything planned at all.

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Out of the thin air, I pulled the idea of nature and the imagination,

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and I said, well, that’s vague enough

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that I’ll be able to come up with something before.

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And in the outside world,

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I try to not prepare my talks too much,

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just sketch out a few notes,

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a few ideas of places I want to go.

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But I usually have a fairly good idea beforehand

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of what I’m doing,

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but because it’s the playa and I’m crispy as hell and it doesn’t really matter and I’m with all of you, I’m, you know, just going to riff a little bit.

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Talk about just some things that have been on my mind.

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And if it seems sometimes a little tangential, I hope that the connections will pop up eventually.

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up eventually. The whole matter of the imagination in the environment, I think, is a really key discussion on a number of different levels. And I’m going to try to talk about a couple

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different dimensions of it. But I want to throw out the basic thesis, and then I’ll

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talk about the terms or whatever. Which is that the imagination, and I’ll talk more about

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what I mean by that, that the imagination is a key and pivotal interface between human beings and the natural world. That understanding,

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appreciating, nurturing the creative imagination, learning how it works, diving into it, pulling back from it is part of the way in which

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we weave ourselves into the world

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and that any kind of restorative, sustainable

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renewal of our planet

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has to exist on the imaginal realm

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as well as the realm of technical solutions

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political developments technological technological fixes,

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all sorts, you know, it’s a multidimensional problem.

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So that’s one aspect of it.

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And the other thing I want to talk about, though, is kind of almost the opposite side of it,

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is that I see, particularly in the sort of, whatever you want to call it,

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progressive, new age, psychedelic, entheo, neo-pagan, freak, eco-movement thing,

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this hydra-headed, glorious green beast,

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that there are some fundamental errors that people make repeatedly that have to do with the imagination

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that I think get in the way and that are even harmful in the extreme, but

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in the near term are confusing.

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And that basically has to do with taking the imagination and the works of the imagination

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and the experiences of the imagination too seriously, to taking them too literally, taking

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them too concretely.

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And I think it’s an error that comes up for very

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understandable reasons, but has, I think, a lot of problems with it. So those are the basic kind of

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zones where I’m going to go to. And I’m going to go back and talk about the imagination,

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what I mean by the imagination. In a way, it’s a kind of unfair term because we all sort of use it,

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but we don’t really have a sense of what it means. And it’s one of those words or concepts that people have projected any number of different

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definitions on.

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And in some ways, I like to keep that open.

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I don’t mean one thing by the imagination.

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I mean many things by the imagination, from the point of which you say, oh, no, that’s

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just your imagination, meaning it’s not real.

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You’re hallucinating it.

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You’re projecting it to a kind of romantic idea of the imagination.

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You know, when the romantic poets emerged in the early 19th century,

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Blake and Coleridge and Wordsworth in the English language.

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But the whole romantic movement was an extremely important 19th century development

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in European thought and culture.

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And one of the ways of explaining what happened with the Romantic movement

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was that it was a reaction to scientism.

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It was a reaction to the over-rationality of the Enlightenment.

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The Enlightenment comes along and says,

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hey man, we’re figuring out this science stuff.

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Human reason is pretty cool.

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We don’t actually need to accept the inherited

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structures of medieval reality,

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whether it’s the church,

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or princes,

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or, you know,

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old medicine that doesn’t work,

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old science that doesn’t work, that all

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of these things can be changed

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in an essentially secular

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or anti-Christian way,

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in many ways,

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that these things can be challenged because we have reason and we have the ability to build systems and science

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and to be clear about why things happen.

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And it’s really that idealistic movement of the Enlightenment

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that gets going the modern world, modernity,

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the world that we live in, the world of capitalism,

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the world of technology, the world of electronic media, that all kind of emerges from the matrix of the Enlightenment.

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The Romantic movement in the 19th century was kind of a reaction to this.

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And one of the key elements of it was this great emotional feeling about nature.

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feeling about nature so that what you find in a lot of romantic art and literature and philosophy is an idea about nature that is more mystical more poetic not particularly rational so it’s

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this tremendous resource inside of the western tradition inside of our own euro-american Euro-American background that kind of lays the groundwork for this engagement with nature

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through the imagination. So what more can we say about the imagination? So now I’ve said it’s like

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that on a simple level where you see something that’s not there, you visualize something that’s

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not there. Then it’s this whole kind of cultural movement. Well, then there’s a kind of deeper way of talking about it, too.

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Immanuel Kant, who was a key philosopher of the Enlightenment,

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had an idea that the imagination is the faculty in us

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that synthesizes the multiple modalities of perception and conception into a single reality.

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So even though we have all these different senses,

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taste and touch and sight and sound,

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and then we have all these different cognitive dimensions as well,

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we more or less perceive something like a synthetic world,

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a unified world.

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We’re all part of a flow of all of these things happening together.

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And he said the imagination was that human faculty

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that allows all those different dimensions of experience and perception

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to cohere into something like our experience.

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So the imagination is really the core, the source,

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the matrix of our multidimensional experience.

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And the part about this that I really like

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is that the imagination is synthetic. I don’t

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mean synthetic like artificial. I mean that it synthesizes. It brings together different dimensions

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and different modalities into something like a whole, to something like an image or an idea

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that can draw in these different aspects of being. So that’s another important aspect of the imagination.

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And finally, I want to talk about something that I could call the creative imagination.

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And here’s where we really get into stuff that’s, I think, key about spirituality,

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about psychedelic experience, about non-ordinary experience,

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and in ways that I think are really important right now in terms of environment,

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in terms of the development of media and such. So what do I mean by the creative imagination?

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What do I mean by the creative imagination? Well, we can think about something like,

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what is a work of great imagination? What’s something, like, what do you think of, like,

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that has extraordinary imagination to it? Moby Dick, sure. Lord of the Rings.

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What’s that?

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Moby Dick.

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Yeah, exactly.

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You know, it’s very Burning Man.

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In fact, one of the ways of talking about Burning Man is that it is this explosion of the creative imagination

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on all these different levels.

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You know, every camp, every image,

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all these masks, all these art cars,

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it’s stimulating this kind of immense world

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of the collective imagination.

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You know, Jung might talk about it in terms of archetypal symbolism or the archetypal imagination,

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that part of our minds that are not personal but work on that larger level of myths and dreams.

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You know, sometimes you have dreams that are really ordinary and you’re just kind of wandering the city and you’re anxious

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and you can’t get something done and somebody takes something from you and those are just kind of

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very ego scatter dreams and then you have these other dreams that maybe the colors are clearer

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maybe there’s more of a myth structure to them you feel like you’ve actually encountered something

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you see a being you you go to a magical world these are kind of the signatures of this larger

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world of the creative imagination which you can think about in Jungian terms. But I want to keep it more open. I want to keep it more creative.

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And that’s kind of my key idea here, is that the creative imagination is incredibly important

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in our personal lives, in our visualization of a possible future or possible futures,

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in our understanding and experience of spirituality, but that it’s creative, like we say creativity,

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like with music, like with art, like with poetry,

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not like religion.

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Or rather, there’s an aspect of religion

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that is like the creative imagination,

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but only an aspect.

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And then in one way of even describing

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what happens with religion

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is that the creative imagination

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becomes concretized and dogmatized into a system.

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And then people use it as a fixed model of reality to guide their senses of what’s going on.

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I think that in some ways this can be very helpful. I think in some ways we all do this,

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even if we think of ourselves as being secular or open-minded or not religious at all.

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if we think of ourselves as being secular or open-minded or not religious at all.

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At the same time, I think that what I’m just saying is the fundamental error I see with a lot of this culture,

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is that people are plugged into all these sources of the creative imagination,

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whether it’s ayahuasca, different myth systems, different spiritual practices from parts of the world,

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even this, this is a myth system.

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This isn’t reality.

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It’s a work of the creative imagination,

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but not in the sense that it’s just illusion.

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Not in the sense that it’s just something somebody made up one day

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and everybody believed it.

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It’s that the creative imagination

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functions in a different way

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than religious beliefs allow us to engage with.

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And that’s kind of the key message about how to engage this world.

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So what’s a good example of this?

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Let’s take the current growth, a really remarkable growth of ayahuasca religion.

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And I say ayahuasca religion.

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One of the fascinating things about the introduction of ayahuasca into the West is how much it has kept a hold of an essentially religious or ritual framework.

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You know, unlike mushrooms, unlike LSD, which had those dimensions, people took them in those ways and continue to take them in those ways.

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But for many people, the encounter with these substances has to, you know substances is in a very random situation.

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It’s a Burning Man.

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It’s at a Grateful Dead show.

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It’s with a bunch of your friends when you’re 15 in a field somewhere.

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Ayahuasca is different.

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Ayahuasca comes with it, packaged with it, if you will, a kind of ritual structure that has the potential to become an actual religious formation.

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an actual religious formation.

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But to me,

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it’s really, really, really important to make that distinction

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between the creative ritual

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and the religious formation,

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the way that things become religion.

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So what’s an example?

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What’s an example?

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So you have, you know,

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you go to an ayahuasca ceremony

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from the deepest heart intention.

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You want to clean your life

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so that you can become a channel for light and for improving the world. And you go and you have whatever, an encounter

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with a snake being, or you have an encounter with the jungle. You have an encounter with the

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sort of creative other world of light beings, whatever it is. Now, that’s great. That’s amazing.

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What juice. It’s like having one of those dreams that you wake up with and you feel like you’ve actually learned something, that you’ve actually changed.

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How remarkable that you can just have an experience that changes you like that.

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But then it’s the next day. You’re back in the world. What do you do with that?

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How do you concretize that? How do you bring that into your life? How do you integrate that into your life?

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And one of the things I’m saying is I think there’s that whole integration thing is difficult. People want to integrate

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with it around an answer.

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What do I do? Who am I? What is the nature of reality? But I don’t think it works that

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way. I don’t think the creative imagination will provide that. I very much mean the realms

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one encounters in its altered states, whether through meditation, whether through trance work,

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whether through vision questing,

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whether through entheogens, in any situation.

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The material you encounter there is of the stuff of the imaginary.

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It is both full of meaning and full of imagery,

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full of history and tradition

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and the patterns of human thought and human experiences,

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but it is also guilty.

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It’s also pixie dust.

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It’s also very wrong.

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It’s not what you think it is.

00:21:53 ►

And by trying to concretize into a belief structure,

00:21:58 ►

into a way of organizing your life,

00:22:00 ►

I think that sometimes, not always,

00:22:02 ►

but sometimes we trip over it, we make a mistake.

00:22:06 ►

And one of the ways of thinking about the mistake is that we want it to be, again, one single reality.

00:22:12 ►

We want a single explanation.

00:22:14 ►

When the reality is, the reality is multidimensional.

00:22:18 ►

We strive for integration.

00:22:20 ►

We strive for coherence.

00:22:21 ►

The coherence and integration are not in the field entirely.

00:22:25 ►

Parts of it are. Parts of it are.

00:22:26 ►

Parts of it are a chaos, a multiplicity,

00:22:29 ►

many different perspectives commingling, crossing each other.

00:22:32 ►

And we move between them.

00:22:34 ►

We move against them.

00:22:36 ►

We’re, you know, Burning Man.

00:22:37 ►

You can talk about it from a purely economic perspective.

00:22:40 ►

It’s very obvious that this whole thing is being transformed because of money.

00:22:49 ►

You know, living in the kind of culture we do, we are encouraged and we have the capability of seeing everything we do in terms of consumption and money.

00:22:53 ►

Everything.

00:22:53 ►

Everything.

00:22:54 ►

But that’s not the only reality.

00:22:56 ►

That’s not the only thing that’s going on.

00:22:58 ►

And you can go up layers and layers.

00:23:00 ►

Anthropology, politics, personal experience.

00:23:02 ►

And you get these different models.

00:23:04 ►

And then it’s like, what do we do with that?

00:23:06 ►

We want integration.

00:23:08 ►

We desperately want integration.

00:23:11 ►

And that’s part of what we do, I think, is to integrate.

00:23:13 ►

But we also embrace chaos.

00:23:15 ►

We also live with ambiguity and uncertainty.

00:23:19 ►

And we will always live with ambiguity and uncertainty

00:23:22 ►

as long as we are in an even remotely human world. I think the other

00:23:26 ►

realms are full of ambiguity

00:23:28 ►

and uncertainty. One of my strongest

00:23:30 ►

sort of

00:23:31 ►

visions of the

00:23:34 ►

other world was that

00:23:35 ►

a common science fiction story

00:23:38 ►

that you come across is itself a good sign

00:23:40 ►

that these spiritual and mystical

00:23:42 ►

experiences sometimes seem a lot like

00:23:44 ►

science fiction, like fantasy, like the stuff of the human imagination, not necessarily

00:23:50 ►

reality. One of these visions was like, you know, the Earth is just about to become conscious

00:23:55 ►

and all these interdimensional beings are hovering around the planet and, you know,

00:24:01 ►

they’re watching us go through this gestation process and we’re going to be born into this new cosmic consciousness.

00:24:07 ►

But that cosmic consciousness,

00:24:08 ►

actually it’s kind of a lot like Burning Man.

00:24:10 ►

It’s full of all these weird characters

00:24:12 ►

who have their own stories about reality,

00:24:14 ►

their own perspectives,

00:24:15 ►

and they’re trying to draw you into their trip.

00:24:17 ►

You want to go with these people

00:24:18 ►

and maybe you just need to make alliances.

00:24:20 ►

It’s a tricky world.

00:24:21 ►

You don’t get the answer.

00:24:22 ►

You don’t go,

00:24:23 ►

Ah, now I’ve achieved God consciousness and we can just drift off into eternity. It actually continues to be a tricky world. You don’t get the answer. You don’t go, ah, now I’ve achieved God consciousness

00:24:25 ►

and we can just drift off

00:24:26 ►

from eternity.

00:24:27 ►

It’s actually,

00:24:28 ►

it continues to be

00:24:29 ►

the same world

00:24:29 ►

of difference and ambiguity,

00:24:31 ►

multiplicity,

00:24:32 ►

and that that’s what

00:24:33 ►

the shamanic world is about.

00:24:35 ►

The shamanic world

00:24:35 ►

is not about encountering

00:24:37 ►

the great goddess

00:24:37 ►

who’s going to give you

00:24:38 ►

the message

00:24:38 ►

about what you should do.

00:24:40 ►

The entry in that realm

00:24:42 ►

is to become accustomed

00:24:43 ►

to the way that multiplicity and ambiguity

00:24:47 ►

and different ways of looking at the world are manifest on that level as well as this

00:24:51 ►

level. There’s a great, great story that Michael

00:24:54 ►

Werner tells. Michael Werner was an anthropologist, straight anthropologist, went to Colombia,

00:25:00 ►

Venezuela, I’m blowing it, but he studied at the Jibaro. So I don’t know where the Jibaro is.

00:25:06 ►

They’re in Ecuador.

00:25:07 ►

They’re in Ecuador.

00:25:08 ►

Okay, so he’s studying with the Jibaro.

00:25:11 ►

And he’s a young guy.

00:25:14 ►

He has his first ayahuasca experience.

00:25:17 ►

And during his ayahuasca experience, he encounters these tall, evil, black-winged bat creatures

00:25:26 ►

who say, ah, yes, we are the lords of the realm.

00:25:31 ►

Praise fealty to us.

00:25:33 ►

And he was freaked out, freaked out.

00:25:35 ►

He wakes up the next day, whatever, a couple days later, a week later,

00:25:39 ►

he runs into some missionaries.

00:25:40 ►

And he tells them his story.

00:25:43 ►

And they’re like, yeah, man, that’s devil stuff.

00:25:46 ►

You’re entering into the realm of devils,

00:25:48 ►

and you are seeing the fallen angels.

00:25:50 ►

The fallen angels rule that world.

00:25:52 ►

That’s one reality.

00:25:53 ►

That’s one aspect of the creative imagination.

00:25:56 ►

Never think that Christianity is weak

00:25:58 ►

on the imagination. Not at all.

00:26:00 ►

The astral realms are full

00:26:01 ►

of all of the forms

00:26:03 ►

of human culture and imagination.

00:26:06 ►

So anyway, he gets this down low and he’s like pretty freaked out, right?

00:26:09 ►

It’s kind of intense, kind of intense.

00:26:10 ►

So then he goes to the shaman and he’s like, yeah, you know,

00:26:13 ►

I met these black winged bat demons who said they rule the realm.

00:26:18 ►

And he goes, oh, those guys?

00:26:21 ►

Ah, they’re always saying that.

00:26:24 ►

So right there you see that difference, you know?

00:26:27 ►

You see that difference.

00:26:28 ►

For the shaman, there are just some characters

00:26:30 ►

that are in this multidimensional realm,

00:26:33 ►

and what you learn as a shaman is a kind of amoral,

00:26:36 ►

not a good, not a bad,

00:26:38 ►

but an amoral way of moving through

00:26:40 ►

and engaging this very complicated world

00:26:44 ►

with many things that are going on.

00:26:45 ►

And I’m happy to stop here for the sir over there.

00:26:49 ►

Do you want to get him on a mic?

00:26:51 ►

We’re trying to get the generator going.

00:26:53 ►

Oh, okay.

00:26:57 ►

All right, pause as we have a question.

00:27:05 ►

Hello.

00:27:07 ►

Hi, I’m Steve.

00:27:09 ►

I’m trying to understand.

00:27:10 ►

Are you suggesting that in the imaginal world,

00:27:13 ►

these experiences,

00:27:15 ►

there is no real progression?

00:27:18 ►

There is no real…

00:27:20 ►

Like, for instance,

00:27:21 ►

if you go into different traditions,

00:27:22 ►

they talk about evolutionary stages of development

00:27:25 ►

the Kabbalah talks about levels of the angels and so on

00:27:30 ►

are you proposing that in this imaginal world

00:27:34 ►

there is not in fact a real game going on

00:27:37 ►

for the evolution of the human spirit and soul

00:27:39 ►

or is it possible there is something real going on

00:27:43 ►

and that all roads lead to Rome, so to speak,

00:27:46 ►

and there is a process that, for lack of a better word, we might call the attainment of enlightenment?

00:27:53 ►

Great question. Great question.

00:27:54 ►

What I want to do with that question is just show, like I feel that I ask the questions the same way like you know is this just a constructs of our consciousness

00:28:06 ►

because we’re programmed apes with culture and so we think in symbols and ideas and so in these

00:28:14 ►

realms our own you know programming is kind of fed back to us in this intensified state that we

00:28:20 ►

misidentify as spiritual or mystical or true and on the other hand you say but what if

00:28:27 ►

it’s real i mean what if it’s like real like all of this stuff that we’re encountering is an

00:28:31 ►

invitation to progress and to evolve and what i’m trying to encourage is a space in between those

00:28:37 ►

two it’s a space of holding lightly the claims of these other realms. And part of that comes about not because I don’t think that there are ways

00:28:48 ►

that the imaginal world leads you to evolve, to grow, to encounter one realm

00:28:55 ►

and then move on to another realm, like the idea of the bardo,

00:28:59 ►

or the idea of Dante’s Inferno, or the idea of levels in the Kabbalistic system.

00:29:05 ►

Well, let’s just say

00:29:06 ►

the true unity of all of…

00:29:09 ►

The true unity of humanity,

00:29:11 ►

the unity of the universe,

00:29:14 ►

the eternity of non-being,

00:29:17 ►

these things that we can read about

00:29:19 ►

in different traditions

00:29:20 ►

and if we’re fortunate enough

00:29:22 ►

have moments to glimpse them.

00:29:24 ►

Right, yes.

00:29:25 ►

Is there reality is what I’m asking right i i guess uh in a way that actually brings up a slightly different

00:29:31 ►

question which is that i think a lot of times in because of uh for a lot of good reasons that we

00:29:36 ►

have a sort of inclination to seek that that unity that sense of of uh the oneness beyond beyond

00:29:43 ►

form that’s eternal and that you know some systems place a great deal of emphasis oneness beyond, beyond form, that’s eternal.

00:29:48 ►

And that some systems place a great deal of emphasis on that,

00:29:51 ►

Hindu tantra in many ways.

00:29:57 ►

But the imaginal realm is kind of a different, it’s a median, it’s a middle place.

00:29:58 ►

It’s not the same as what I’m talking about. No, it’s not the same as what you’re talking about.

00:30:01 ►

I think that what you’re raising are, in a way, it’s a different discussion.

00:30:04 ►

you’re talking about. I think that what you’re raising are, in a way, it’s a different discussion.

00:30:11 ►

And it’s more difficult, in a way, to get rap language around some of the things you’re talking about. And I do believe that the imagination is, again, an interface to those

00:30:17 ►

dimensions that are so beyond normal human consciousness that we’re not really able to

00:30:22 ►

get our hands on them. But we can get our hands on Kuan Yin.

00:30:25 ►

We can get our hands on a rainbow bodhisattva.

00:30:28 ►

We can see a tanka on an image integrated into our visual imagination and use that or

00:30:36 ►

have that arise inside our minds as a guide.

00:30:39 ►

And that in many ways what these traditions are doing are training our imaginations in

00:30:44 ►

order to be able to engage with this world.

00:30:47 ►

My personal, I won’t even say hunch, I won’t say belief,

00:30:51 ►

but my operating story is that all of that material becomes remarkably available to us when we pass.

00:31:01 ►

I don’t know this.

00:31:03 ►

Perhaps when we die, we simply snuff out. But I want to suggest

00:31:06 ►

something to you that I think is profound, which is that, take again, you know, there’s this

00:31:12 ►

multidimensional reality. We have to look at things from multiple perspectives, where there’s

00:31:16 ►

mystical oneness, where there are bat-winged demons, and where there’s just meat and DNA.

00:31:22 ►

And where there’s just meat and DNA.

00:31:24 ►

Sorry guys, nothing.

00:31:25 ►

It’s just science.

00:31:33 ►

We’re a rock in an empty, meaningless universe that’s just spitting through its reiterations. Which to me is as a strong message I get from the other realms as religious or more spiritual messages.

00:31:40 ►

I also get an aimless creativity that is both remarkably fecund and empty and meaningless.

00:31:46 ►

That may be saying something about my personal background, but that’s partly what I see.

00:31:51 ►

So we have to look from that perspective too. And that’s one of the things, if we’re into

00:31:54 ►

integration, if we’re into integration right now with science and technology, that means that we

00:32:01 ►

can’t avoid that skeptical voice. We have to engage and learn to integrate that skeptical voice as well.

00:32:08 ►

It’s our job to just say, no, those science people, they don’t understand.

00:32:12 ►

They’re locked in rationality.

00:32:13 ►

It’s actually this mystical world, this magical world, is a profound failure, in my opinion, of our role.

00:32:19 ►

And the more we go into loosey-goosey mystic new age stuff as a concretized belief system rather than as an open

00:32:27 ►

playful world that that adds richness to our lives the way that poetry does or the way that

00:32:33 ►

religious imagery does drawing us to those higher realms but holding them lightly so that we can

00:32:38 ►

still engage a skeptical materialist for me that’s what integration means. So let’s take this model. The hard model is

00:32:46 ►

you die. You’re just a meat machine. You go down. When your brain stops working, that’s it. But,

00:32:52 ►

but what happens when the brain dies? I mean, what does that feel like? I mean, presumably something

00:32:59 ►

feels like something, unless we’re completely blotto, that something feels like something unless we’re completely blotto that something feels like something when

00:33:05 ►

that brain goes so let’s just suggest as an operating possibility that we do just dies

00:33:11 ►

as you know dna robots but on the way down on the way down the entire apocalyptic revelatory

00:33:19 ►

expression explosion of all of consciousness and creation occurs to us individually. Each person’s

00:33:27 ►

death is the last judgment, is the final revelation, is the injection into the multidimensional cosmic

00:33:34 ►

field. And that part of what, and maybe at the end there is some spark that passes on, I cannot say.

00:33:40 ►

But in a way it doesn’t matter. I mean, don’t you want to be ready for that don’t you want to

00:33:45 ►

be like okay ready to ride let’s check this out let’s see what we can do as we shut down or as we

00:33:52 ►

you know hurdle into these dimensions and that even something like burning man is very much about

00:33:58 ►

that it’s bardo training you know you don’t there’s all these portals you don’t know what to

00:34:03 ►

go there are these blinky lights and these strange creatures.

00:34:06 ►

And, you know, what am I motivated by?

00:34:08 ►

Am I hungry?

00:34:09 ►

Am I fearful?

00:34:10 ►

Am I on a dark trip because I lost my lover along the way and I don’t know what’s going on?

00:34:14 ►

Or am I able to ride?

00:34:16 ►

Am I able to engage the people who are on an individual level?

00:34:19 ►

Ah, this person, I’m going to hang with them.

00:34:21 ►

I’m going to have a resonant connection with this person or this place is what’s drawing me. What is the intuition that draws you into those things?

00:34:29 ►

And so for me, this way of looking at death is for me a personal, and I’m not suggesting it for

00:34:37 ►

you, a personal solution to the problem of religious and spiritual practice. Because I

00:34:43 ►

don’t care if it’s not true. I don’t care if it’s not true I

00:34:45 ►

don’t care if it’s just a belief system the skeptic to me is like sorry guy I

00:34:50 ►

mean maybe it maybe I’m wrong but why not why not prepare for that last 12

00:34:55 ►

seconds or 20 seconds or minute and a half the of the entire universe going up

00:35:00 ►

in some explosive remarkable you know wonder so for me that is a way of

00:35:04 ►

integrating these different dimensions

00:35:07 ►

about religion, about mystical experience,

00:35:09 ►

and about the reality of scientific explanation,

00:35:12 ►

the reality of the tremendously productive engine of creation

00:35:17 ►

that is technology and science,

00:35:19 ►

that is exploding at remarkable rates,

00:35:22 ►

and that will continue to drastically transform our material experiences

00:35:26 ►

unless we just go down in a pile of embers.

00:35:31 ►

So that, to me, is this expression about the creative imagination.

00:35:35 ►

And I know I’ve been going on a little bit, and I’ll do one more little final link,

00:35:38 ►

which is to bring it back into the question of ecology and environment,

00:35:42 ►

which is really, in many ways, what we’re doing this year.

00:35:45 ►

I’d love it if some of the questions or people’s comments,

00:35:48 ►

I’d love to hear people’s comments about the green theme this year.

00:35:51 ►

I’d love to be able to riff on that,

00:35:53 ►

because it’s something we’ve all shared together,

00:35:55 ►

we all have our perspectives on,

00:35:57 ►

and I think it’s a really, this question of environment and imagination and creativity

00:36:01 ►

is a really interesting way to look at this year.

00:36:05 ►

But what I want to say is that just as the tantric deity, the bodhisattva, can be seen as a kind of interface,

00:36:11 ►

almost like a visual interface panel that you’re navigating in order to engage these higher realms

00:36:17 ►

that are very difficult for human beings to experience directly,

00:36:21 ►

that so too does the imagination offer us an interface with the earth, just

00:36:26 ►

the earth, the material earth.

00:36:28 ►

We grow up in the earth as, you know, post-apes evolving, and as culture evolves, as we learn

00:36:34 ►

to sort of separate ourselves in this weird way from nature, so that even if we question

00:36:39 ►

the terms, we can all existentially recognize the difference between nature and human civilization.

00:36:47 ►

We might go, oh yeah, ultimately it’s all one thing. It’s just like ants building an

00:36:49 ►

anthill. Maybe. But I think that all of us have a sense that there’s some kind of tension

00:36:54 ►

there. There’s some kind of difference. But as human culture became created, it’s being

00:36:59 ►

created absolutely in the context of nature, of the flows and patterns of weather

00:37:05 ►

and animals and beasts and life and death and smoke

00:37:08 ►

and clouds and dust and the whole material reality.

00:37:13 ►

And that much of what we yearn for

00:37:14 ►

and why we turn to paganism,

00:37:16 ►

why we turn to entheogenic experience,

00:37:19 ►

why we turn to fantasy literature,

00:37:21 ►

why we turn to all of these things

00:37:24 ►

is because we have

00:37:25 ►

a longing to restore that interface, that connection between human culture and nature.

00:37:32 ►

You’re not going to get the great goddess telling you what you’re going to do.

00:37:34 ►

What you’re going to do is stir up this big witch’s brew of the imagination, icons, images,

00:37:42 ►

strange synchronicities, weird patterns at the edge of your field of vision

00:37:46 ►

maybe even crop circles but don’t go around thinking the crop circles are real and made by

00:37:53 ►

higher consciousnesses that are here to do x or y or whatever the guy who’s telling you about crop

00:37:58 ►

circles thinks see the crop circle as this expression of the creative imagination, that interplace between

00:38:06 ►

human culture and nature, between our minds and souls and the greater cosmos.

00:38:12 ►

For me, that perspective gives you a lightness that avoids some problems, which we can talk

00:38:19 ►

about if you want, but also opens us up for the multidimensionality of things, not to seek a single answer or

00:38:26 ►

a resolution, but to be able to be comfortable in that space of multidimensional realities

00:38:32 ►

with the image, with all of this tremendous kind of richness, a kind of poetic approach

00:38:38 ►

rather than a religious one.

00:38:40 ►

And I think that approach is the way that is most likely to allow us to integrate these higher dimensions, mystical dimensions, imaginary dimensions, full-on religious experiences, whatever you want to talk about it.

00:38:53 ►

They will allow us to integrate it into the larger world, the world of media, the world of technology, the world of tremendous pressure, tremendous change, tremendous terrifying things going on.

00:39:03 ►

Tremendous change, tremendous terrifying things going on,

00:39:05 ►

rather than going off in our own bubble and saying,

00:39:07 ►

okay, well now I’ve got my answer,

00:39:09 ►

and it’s about this other way of looking at the world.

00:39:12 ►

But to throw ourselves back into the chaos and in the stew with this deeper, richer sense of a collective imaginative force.

00:39:19 ►

So I think I’ll stop there.

00:39:20 ►

I try to throw a bunch of stuff out there

00:39:22 ►

so that people get all juiced up and start talking.

00:39:34 ►

Questions, queries, comments?

00:39:43 ►

Green man, what do you think? Dumb? Cool? What about burning the man? Let’s get the obvious stuff. Burning the man. How’d you feel?

00:39:45 ►

Were you here Monday night?

00:39:47 ►

What did that do for you?

00:39:50 ►

Nobody.

00:39:51 ►

All right.

00:39:53 ►

What’s that?

00:39:55 ►

Definitely.

00:39:56 ►

Yeah.

00:40:02 ►

Yeah.

00:40:03 ►

There’s a very interesting way of, you know, again, this is just my opinion,

00:40:08 ►

but a way in which what to me Burning Man is about really fundamentally has been misunderstood by the theme

00:40:17 ►

and more particularly the rhetoric around, you know, the green ecology industrial development that we see here.

00:40:27 ►

And so here’s the basic idea,

00:40:29 ►

that Burning Man is essentially about useless expenditure,

00:40:36 ►

excess, waste.

00:40:39 ►

We’re like, oh no, wait, oh wait, that’s not green,

00:40:41 ►

that’s not eco, that’s not what we’re about now.

00:40:42 ►

And you’re like, that’s a good impulse.

00:40:44 ►

It’s a healthy impulse.

00:40:46 ►

But it also ignores to me something profound about human societies

00:40:50 ►

through all situations that is both delicious and delightful

00:40:56 ►

and very dangerous and scary and weird.

00:40:59 ►

And what that is, is the idea that in human culture,

00:41:03 ►

there’s always kind of an excessive force.

00:41:06 ►

There’s like too much desire or too much productivity.

00:41:10 ►

There’s an excess in our evolution.

00:41:14 ►

We’re moving forward, we’re constantly changing, and there’s kind of a too muchness.

00:41:18 ►

And we don’t know what to do with it.

00:41:19 ►

We can’t just sit with it.

00:41:21 ►

So we have to burn it.

00:41:22 ►

We have to destroy it.

00:41:24 ►

We have to burn it. We have to destroy it. We have to sacrifice it.

00:41:26 ►

And this is the deep meaning of sacrifice.

00:41:29 ►

That sacrifice is more important than the gods.

00:41:33 ►

Some anthropologists even say,

00:41:35 ►

we invented gods to explain why we sacrifice.

00:41:39 ►

Why we take things that are of value and use,

00:41:41 ►

that we either find that are rare,

00:41:44 ►

that we put human labor in,

00:41:45 ►

and destroy them in a festival of joy and Dionysian excess.

00:41:51 ►

Why do we keep doing that?

00:41:52 ►

And if we don’t do it old school style, you know, dancing around a fire,

00:41:56 ►

guy with horns comes out, gets a little kinky, whatever it might be.

00:42:01 ►

If we don’t do it that way we do it with war or we do it with the absolute

00:42:06 ►

insane pressure on all of us individually that that is laid upon us by you know consumer capitalism

00:42:13 ►

where we’re constantly consuming in this like endlessly excessive way and that one way of

00:42:18 ►

talking about why capitalism won and why it works is because it is the system of production

00:42:27 ►

and reality transformation that is most keyed to this need neurotic mad glorious

00:42:34 ►

to expend uselessly to have too much and not to know what to do with our too much

00:42:41 ►

and so what happens out here what happens out here, what grows out here,

00:42:46 ►

what has grown out here throughout the entirety of the festival,

00:42:48 ►

not just in recent years,

00:42:50 ►

is this incredible waste.

00:42:54 ►

You know, hundreds and hundreds

00:42:56 ►

of thousands of dollars

00:42:58 ►

burned, spent,

00:43:01 ►

in this goofy, hedonistic,

00:43:03 ►

you know, tacky, amusing, kind of empty, kind of crass, kind of glorious festival of madness and craziness and human creativity.

00:43:15 ►

And so, great. I think that’s one of the things we’re doing here.

00:43:18 ►

And the difficulty of that is what’s glorious about it.

00:43:23 ►

The way that we have to look at it and go,

00:43:25 ►

God, this is kind of absurd.

00:43:27 ►

I can’t believe I just spent a month preparing for this crazy thing

00:43:31 ►

and all this money, and then I come out here,

00:43:33 ►

and it’s like, what am I doing?

00:43:34 ►

That is part of the lesson of it.

00:43:38 ►

That’s the transmission of it.

00:43:39 ►

And that comes when we look at this green theme.

00:43:41 ►

So the problem with the green theme to me

00:43:43 ►

is that it does not acknowledge that dimension of uselessness, of unhelpfulness.

00:43:50 ►

It wants to capture the creative energy here and say, no, no, this can all go and create solutions for the sustainability infected with all of that idea

00:44:05 ►

and all that fear and anxiety that’s called up,

00:44:08 ►

that we want some technological solution,

00:44:10 ►

we want to change the economy,

00:44:11 ►

we want to take capitalism and make it green and sustainable,

00:44:14 ►

and all these things.

00:44:15 ►

Yeah, we all share that, and I recognize that.

00:44:18 ►

I think it does have to happen.

00:44:19 ►

It’s obviously something we need to do.

00:44:22 ►

But again, reality is multidimensional.

00:44:24 ►

And one of the other things we do is to deal in a healthy way with useless expenditure,

00:44:30 ►

like the Northwest Indians who practice potlatch.

00:44:34 ►

You know, they came from a very, the Northwest Indians were really rich

00:44:38 ►

as far as, you know, people in the pre-money world were.

00:44:41 ►

They could kick back, reach down in the stream, get a bunch of salmon. The

00:44:46 ►

weather’s nice. It’s very fecund. There’s copper. There’s a lot of good stuff around there. It

00:44:51 ►

doesn’t take them too much work to become wealthy. But what do they do with all this wealth? Well,

00:44:55 ►

they develop this system of the potlatch where you go and you destroy your wealth magnificently

00:45:02 ►

in an almost a kind of game with other people who have wealth.

00:45:06 ►

Like I gave you this amazingly expensive, you know, copper icon or I destroyed it in

00:45:13 ►

your name or I, you know, have a hundred deer, you know, we eat it all at once.

00:45:19 ►

I eat all my wealth at once.

00:45:20 ►

And now in a sense, you’re obliged in an almost competitive economy to outdo

00:45:25 ►

me. This is what we do. This is what we do. We’re always kind of pushing it a little bit. Oh, look

00:45:31 ►

what they did. Oh, look what I did. I’m going to do the next year. This is going to be this.

00:45:33 ►

It’s this kind of glorious game, both of sort of creative competition and a personal glorious

00:45:42 ►

expenditure. How can I take my, whatever resources I can

00:45:46 ►

or the resources of friends of mine

00:45:48 ►

who actually make money

00:45:49 ►

and like hook up

00:45:50 ►

and do it in an amazing way?

00:45:53 ►

And that to me is just

00:45:53 ►

a profoundly important thing

00:45:55 ►

to figure out other ways

00:45:57 ►

of doing that creative excess

00:45:58 ►

other than war, you know,

00:46:01 ►

and terribly manipulative popular culture

00:46:03 ►

and consumerism and all the other ways we

00:46:07 ►

practice sort of useless expenditure. And so there’s something really, I find a little hollow

00:46:13 ►

about the attempt to kind of plug this culture into a productive, efficient, economically sustainable new culture of eco-transformation,

00:46:28 ►

which again, I’m for that.

00:46:31 ►

I think it’s great.

00:46:32 ►

But if we think that that’s all we’re doing,

00:46:34 ►

I think we’re not only missing something,

00:46:36 ►

but we’re also letting in too much of that logic,

00:46:40 ►

too much of that corporate logic.

00:46:42 ►

So I’m kind of a little old school on this one.

00:46:45 ►

You know, I’m like, well, you know,

00:46:46 ►

well, this is all corporations anyway.

00:46:48 ►

I heard Larry Harvey and Brian Doherty

00:46:51 ►

were talking about the green thing.

00:46:52 ►

It’s like, look, we’re all imbricated

00:46:54 ►

in corporate culture anyway.

00:46:55 ►

All our cars and our water and our food,

00:46:57 ►

it all comes through corporations.

00:46:58 ►

It’s like, yeah, that’s just one dimension of reality.

00:47:01 ►

You know, there’s another dimension

00:47:02 ►

in which we’re creating on the fly

00:47:04 ►

some kind of other space where something else is allowed to happen that doesn’t have a reason.

00:47:10 ►

Capitalism, there’s always a reason. I can create the most bizarre, weird, freaky, countercultural

00:47:15 ►

circus, totally crazy. I put it on the road. I want to brand it. I want to have a revenue stream

00:47:20 ►

off it. That’s fine. That’s what we do. That’s the world we live in. I’m not saying that that’s

00:47:24 ►

bad or evil and we have to like destroy capitalism by, by no

00:47:27 ►

means get, get me wrong on that one, but we make an error when we think that that’s all

00:47:32 ►

that’s, that’s going on. And so I, I’m, it’s kind of interesting to see how that works.

00:47:37 ►

You know, you have the green man and then you have the, the crude awakening, you know,

00:47:41 ►

this like Derek that’s going to like destroy an extraordinary amount of fuel tonight.

00:47:46 ►

You know, yay.

00:47:48 ►

Glorious.

00:47:49 ►

You know, sorry.

00:47:50 ►

You know, it’s.

00:47:52 ►

Yeah, Eric, I’ve been thinking about this Green Man thing because I remember last year when they announced it, everybody, you know, the buzz went around because they announced it early.

00:48:00 ►

And everybody said, well, that might be interesting.

00:48:02 ►

How are we going to do that?

00:48:03 ►

And then later on, they announced they announced the trade show out there.

00:48:07 ►

And like most people, I thought, oh, there’s a slippery slope, you know.

00:48:11 ►

And until I saw the trade show, which is slightly below the quality of a good high school science fair, you know,

00:48:16 ►

or a bad high school science fair, you know.

00:48:19 ►

So I was really, really relieved to see there wasn’t much out there.

00:48:23 ►

And, you know, every year the theme is controversial.

00:48:26 ►

Half the people don’t follow it and have to.

00:48:28 ►

And I’ve never seen such a controversial theme where everybody thought, boy, that’s really good, that’s good, good.

00:48:34 ►

And I’ve never seen more people ignore it.

00:48:36 ►

To me, it seems like there’s no theme this year except the man’s not blue neon, you know, which is fine with me.

00:48:43 ►

Because, you know, I think fine with me because, you know,

00:48:45 ►

I think it’s kind of absurd to say this is a green event.

00:48:51 ►

However, you know, we are at the first time someone’s been arrested for arson in Black Rock City.

00:48:56 ►

So there is some history made here anyhow.

00:49:00 ►

But it didn’t seem like a green event to me.

00:49:04 ►

Any comments at the edge i’m just

00:49:06 ►

going to say it’s sort of in the same line that you’re saying about people kind of misunderstanding

00:49:11 ►

what burning man’s about um that the general public or the people who wouldn’t come to burning

00:49:17 ►

man might view look at it and view it as this uh horrible waste that it’s just a horrible waste.

00:49:31 ►

Sometimes I’ve heard, you know, I think Alex Gray said to me something when he first had heard about the festival is, well, do they have to burn the art?

00:49:37 ►

And there’s that struggle with wanting to create

00:49:41 ►

and not wanting to destroy what’s being created,

00:49:45 ►

but this festival is about both of those things,

00:49:49 ►

and it is honoring the destructive in a very healthy way.

00:49:55 ►

And somebody the other night on the plaza said to me,

00:49:57 ►

my friend Coco said to me that Bushco and the governments,

00:50:02 ►

they’ve got their Burning Man also,

00:50:07 ►

but the difference is they’re really burning people

00:50:08 ►

when they’re dropping bombs on countries

00:50:11 ►

and that’s the unhealthy way

00:50:13 ►

and so if we have this

00:50:15 ►

inherent

00:50:15 ►

human need

00:50:18 ►

to be destructive

00:50:21 ►

it seems really

00:50:23 ►

really good and reasonable

00:50:24 ►

to have it be a symbolic destructiveness

00:50:26 ►

rather than an actual

00:50:28 ►

destructiveness, and that

00:50:30 ►

that of anything

00:50:31 ►

is kind of the most life-affirming

00:50:34 ►

and quote-unquote green

00:50:36 ►

part about

00:50:38 ►

this festival, is that

00:50:39 ►

we’re not actually killing

00:50:42 ►

people through celebrating the

00:50:44 ►

destructiveness

00:50:45 ►

or killing plants or killing, you know, we’re doing a little harm to the environment, sure.

00:50:51 ►

Yeah, I think that’s great. Great comments.

00:50:54 ►

Anything else? Yeah?

00:51:00 ►

The on switch.

00:51:03 ►

I guess the term in my mind is efficiency.

00:51:06 ►

I really appreciate these do-it-yourself tents, for example, that have to survive in these rugged conditions.

00:51:15 ►

And somehow I have been appreciating this interest in the green man to take it to the next level in this most extraordinary, say, celebrating the technocratic opportunities

00:51:28 ►

that the genius that comes here can offer in terms of techniques that improve our efficiency,

00:51:36 ►

our elegance, as we bring our water, we bring our power.

00:51:39 ►

Why not do it better?

00:51:40 ►

I learned from the people distributing the solar, I don’t know the company name, so we don’t need to name it, that Burning Man was using all these diesel generators

00:51:51 ►

and way, way overkill, you know, just using, tapping 10% of the power they were bringing

00:51:57 ►

on and yet burning all the diesel, just totally unnecessary. And I do think Burning Man is a smart, bright, creative place.

00:52:06 ►

So why not work on it on that engineering level?

00:52:11 ►

Yeah, I totally agree with you.

00:52:13 ►

Again, it’s a really hard thing to wrap your head around

00:52:16 ►

because that is part of why we come back as well

00:52:19 ►

is that all of the practical problems that we face

00:52:22 ►

and this competitive need in a way to improve them.

00:52:26 ►

And I mean that in the best sense, not like, oh, I want to beat them, but like, God, they did it well.

00:52:30 ►

I want to do that.

00:52:31 ►

We all have that feeling.

00:52:32 ►

Oh, I didn’t bring this.

00:52:33 ►

That person had this widget or that solution to this little technical fix.

00:52:36 ►

And, yeah, you can ramp that up in a way that it is being ramped up in an extraordinary way and to bring in that kind of logic.

00:52:43 ►

ramped up in an extraordinary way and to bring in that kind of logic.

00:52:49 ►

The problem I have is that when you are not conscious of what is introduced, when that process, that feedback loop becomes, I’m not going to use the word commodified, I’m just

00:52:55 ►

going to talk about when it becomes intimately linked with money and companies.

00:53:03 ►

And we all have our own relationships to corporate logic.

00:53:06 ►

We’re all parasites in some sense.

00:53:09 ►

Some of us work deep within it,

00:53:11 ►

and we make our compromises,

00:53:13 ►

and we find our soul in the ways we do.

00:53:15 ►

Some of people here work very far away from it

00:53:18 ►

and can afford on one level to be dismissive of it,

00:53:22 ►

but can generally not afford a lot of other things

00:53:25 ►

because they work outside of that economy. And the Burning Man is a remarkable, very,

00:53:30 ►

very unusual blend of people with tons of money and people with very little money. And that’s one

00:53:36 ►

of the key dimensions about the festival. People don’t talk about very much. You could call it

00:53:40 ►

class. It’s not quite the right term. It’s more about like economic style or lifestyle and you

00:53:46 ►

know it’s always not always but it’s since the mid-90s when uh you know internet entrepreneurs

00:53:51 ►

started to come out here it’s always been a place both of this kind of technological people who are

00:53:55 ►

in this technological exodus incredible creativity inventiveness coming out and interfacing with like

00:54:01 ►

you know weird meth heads from you know minnesota who like drink beer and ride bikes all the time and don’t want to work.

00:54:08 ►

You know, and that dimension is really key.

00:54:10 ►

And what I think was, what I felt was missing in this kind of embrace, more open embrace, was an acknowledgement that there’s something really classist in that as well.

00:54:22 ►

That even though, you know though entrepreneurial capitalism allows anybody to start

00:54:26 ►

a company, anyone with a good idea, it doesn’t really work that way. That’s not how class works.

00:54:31 ►

That’s not how capitalism keeps its own going. Yes, it can happen, but it often doesn’t happen.

00:54:38 ►

It can happen with art too. You have a total outsider character, starts making amazing stuff,

00:54:42 ►

it catches on, they’re able to make a good living off of it.

00:54:45 ►

Great, you know, no problem there.

00:54:46 ►

But there’s also a lot of people who are never, ever going to enter into that economy.

00:54:51 ►

And that part of the kind of instinctive revulsion I think a lot of people felt towards the trade show

00:54:58 ►

was that it was kind of silencing, demarking, segregating people who are comfortable with entrepreneurial capitalism

00:55:08 ►

and the logic of it, the extraordinary transformative power of it.

00:55:12 ►

And I totally support that and agree with it.

00:55:15 ►

But I feel like I’m kind of here for the other side,

00:55:19 ►

for the sense that something is being marginalized and something is being lost by sort of offering that route as kind of the way dish to develop amazing solutions that can spread virally through the Internet, through networks of small, you know,

00:55:48 ►

ethically conscious, you know, companies.

00:55:53 ►

Great.

00:55:53 ►

No problem.

00:55:54 ►

But there’s something outside of the efficient logic of capitalism.

00:56:02 ►

And, you know, this is like a real, a really profound question

00:56:05 ►

when you talk about

00:56:05 ►

environmental activism.

00:56:07 ►

Okay, there are tons of people

00:56:09 ►

in the world who are just,

00:56:10 ►

that’s their number one goal.

00:56:11 ►

They’re like,

00:56:12 ►

we are screwed

00:56:13 ►

and all of my efforts

00:56:14 ►

are going to be towards

00:56:16 ►

making the situation better.

00:56:19 ►

But what’s funny is

00:56:20 ►

if you look at like

00:56:21 ►

how those people think

00:56:22 ►

about the world,

00:56:23 ►

they’re in some ways

00:56:24 ►

extraordinarily contradictory. On the one hand, you have people is if you look at like how those people think about the world they’re in some ways extraordinarily

00:56:25 ►

contradictory on the one hand you have people who are essentially scientific and technocratic

00:56:32 ►

who see it as a technical problem to be solved with technologies with new bureaucratic structures

00:56:39 ►

new you know uh all sorts of mechanisms in order to engage the fundamental problem that’s going on.

00:56:47 ►

This is a view that says, well, I’ll say the other thing first.

00:56:50 ►

On the other side, we have a kind of profoundly spiritual or at least cultural attempt to create a culture of ecology,

00:57:01 ►

whether that’s through alternative medicine or through organic food

00:57:05 ►

or through a sort of multi-dimensional, almost poetic relationship with the world, with nature,

00:57:11 ►

with animals, with the spirits of the old ones, with ancient ways, with old traditions,

00:57:16 ►

and to bring those things back alive as a way to create a more environmentally sustainable

00:57:21 ►

or environmentally conscious, ecologically focused way of seeing the world.

00:57:27 ►

And in some ways, in some fundamental ways,

00:57:30 ►

those two approaches are very divergent.

00:57:34 ►

And they’re divergent in a way that’s sometimes unhelpful

00:57:36 ►

for the environmental movement.

00:57:38 ►

Because there are people, tons of people with power

00:57:40 ►

in the skeptical, scientific, technocratic world

00:57:43 ►

who are like, keep that woo-woo

00:57:46 ►

stuff far far away from me as possible i’m not going to be engaging you with on that level you

00:57:51 ►

know and on the other side if there is not a creative rich uh sustaining nurturing culture

00:57:59 ►

that gives us a framework to encourage us to do these healthier things and to engage with more environmentally

00:58:07 ►

sustainable techniques and approaches, then I don’t think it’s going to work very well.

00:58:12 ►

Or if it does, it looks like some kind of creepy UN green fascism stuff, which is definitely

00:58:16 ►

a possibility.

00:58:18 ►

So both of those things have to happen.

00:58:21 ►

And so that’s a good expression of the place that the imagination really plays a

00:58:27 ►

major role. When is the imagination appropriate and when is it not appropriate? And some of

00:58:32 ►

the best organizations and the best companies and the best individuals who are out there

00:58:36 ►

working, I mean people with tremendous productivity and intelligence, on the same time they’re

00:58:41 ►

able to interface with that rational technocratic reality speaking only about solutions, about efficiency

00:58:47 ►

and then on another dimension you realize that they’re plugged into

00:58:50 ►

the ancient circle of 13 moon grandmothers or whatever it is

00:58:54 ►

some deep mythic structure that gives them the soul strength

00:58:58 ►

to be able to deal with this world

00:58:59 ►

and that Burning Man is trying to do its own version of that integration

00:59:04 ►

so maybe you have some ideas on integration that Burning Man is trying to do its own version of that integration.

00:59:09 ►

So maybe you have some ideas on integration.

00:59:12 ►

What can we do to resolve this dilemma,

00:59:17 ►

this green dilemma that we have here on the playa this year?

00:59:20 ►

Yeah, that’s a tough one. I tend to not, it’s not that I don’t think in terms of solutions exactly, but I

00:59:25 ►

more feel like what I do is to kind of articulate these dynamics, articulate these tensions

00:59:32 ►

and pulls in multiple directions. Because the way I look at it is there’s tons of people

00:59:37 ►

with solutions, specific technical solutions. There’s tons of people who have an answer,

00:59:41 ►

who have an agenda, who have like, I want to, you know. And if I have an agenda, it’s only to like coax you into like my confusion, my attempt to move between different models of reality that don’t quite cohere.

00:59:54 ►

But my sense is that that’s sort of what we do. That’s our leaky boat.

00:59:57 ►

You know, I had a great professor in college who was also, you know, a Christianian preacher but a radical black um you know radical

01:00:05 ►

democrat and he just talked about we’re like in a leaky boat we’re going across the river boats

01:00:10 ►

leaking we’re pouring water bailing the boat that that’s it you know it’s like you know life is like

01:00:16 ►

there’s a zen guy talks about it too life is like you know swimming across a river and getting

01:00:21 ►

halfway and then drowning you know and so i i And so I’m a little solution or whatever.

01:00:28 ►

It’s to engage and recognize the different dimensions

01:00:32 ►

and to begin to integrate them such that we can in our own experience,

01:00:37 ►

in our own desire, culturally and individually, to integrate them.

01:00:41 ►

But it doesn’t necessarily have an obvious solution.

01:00:41 ►

to integrate them.

01:00:45 ►

But it doesn’t necessarily have an obvious solution.

01:00:52 ►

It may be for some that 2012 is a very important, inspiring myth,

01:00:55 ►

but that’s obviously not going to be the mechanism for mass transformation in our culture.

01:01:00 ►

So it’s holding these things lightly

01:01:02 ►

and becoming comfortable with

01:01:05 ►

moving in that multidimensional space.

01:01:07 ►

As I’ve been looking around the playa, it seems like we’re really doing our best to

01:01:12 ►

use up all the oil as fast as we can. So if we do that, that’ll eliminate a lot of waste.

01:01:17 ►

Yeah, I mean, and that’s a good way also, I mean, that’s the kind of almost apocalyptic

01:01:21 ►

dimension of it, which is like, look, we’re going in this direction we’re just let’s rage it i mean you get like the idea of like oh we’re going to

01:01:29 ►

conserve and conserve and conserve it’s like it’s much worse than that

01:01:32 ►

yeah The paradigm is already there. We just have to look at all of that in the long term.

01:01:46 ►

We live in a quarantine.

01:01:47 ►

Yeah.

01:01:47 ►

We use it up.

01:01:48 ►

We have no more choices.

01:01:50 ►

We’ll have to figure it out. Right.

01:01:51 ►

And something will happen.

01:01:52 ►

Yeah.

01:01:53 ►

You know?

01:01:54 ►

But I love that idea.

01:01:55 ►

I’m glad you brought that up about we want to create the new paradigm.

01:01:59 ►

We want to hear what the new paradigm is.

01:02:02 ►

Yeah, exactly.

01:02:03 ►

And for me, I approach that

01:02:06 ►

because I am a real heady person

01:02:07 ►

and I think about concepts,

01:02:09 ►

I think about paradigms.

01:02:10 ►

My experience of that problem

01:02:12 ►

is that the new paradigm

01:02:14 ►

is that there’s not a paradigm.

01:02:16 ►

Ah, you know,

01:02:18 ►

oh, how do I navigate that?

01:02:19 ►

Wait, wait, I need a method.

01:02:20 ►

I need a system,

01:02:21 ►

a way to control this confusion, this ambiguity, these multiple dimensions.

01:02:27 ►

And so for me, it’s like becoming accustomed with that because at a deep level, I do believe in flow.

01:02:33 ►

I do believe that there is this kind of Tao moving through even the most chaotic and fucked up situations.

01:02:39 ►

But you don’t get there by going, this is the Tao.

01:02:42 ►

The Tao is to, you know, conserve and live in this kind of lifestyle.

01:02:46 ►

It’s much subtler and

01:02:47 ►

more grand than that.

01:02:49 ►

I really appreciate that.

01:02:52 ►

What’s that?

01:02:56 ►

How are we doing at the time?

01:02:58 ►

Actually, I didn’t see Mark

01:02:59 ►

come in yet, so you’re free to go

01:03:02 ►

as long as you’d like.

01:03:03 ►

As long as the questions flow.

01:03:05 ►

I’m happy. We’ll let Eric go when you guys are free. As long as the questions flow, you know.

01:03:06 ►

I’m happy.

01:03:14 ►

Maybe, since I still have the microphone, I’d like to do a song for you all.

01:03:25 ►

So, I mean, I’m interested in this notion of flow and just going with it.

01:03:32 ►

But maybe the evidence perhaps is there that we are getting into that apocalyptic place.

01:03:37 ►

So does that mean we just work with accepting that we may well push ourselves out before we manage to get through to that point that we don’t have more choices and carry on?

01:03:43 ►

We may just blip out, right?

01:03:46 ►

And we just say, all right, that might happen.

01:03:48 ►

Yeah, for me, I can’t really, well, any kind of, go ahead.

01:03:55 ►

I guess fundamentally I wonder, do we actually try and make a choice to navigate towards survival,

01:04:02 ►

to navigate towards survival,

01:04:05 ►

which is in our organic structure,

01:04:08 ►

you know, in terms of an evolutionary piece that the universe is taking us towards, you know.

01:04:11 ►

Yeah, I think…

01:04:12 ►

If indeed we have some choice point…

01:04:14 ►

I think that’s going to happen anyway.

01:04:15 ►

I mean, that’s the thing,

01:04:16 ►

is that just by the nature of human beings,

01:04:18 ►

by the nature of their desire to continue,

01:04:20 ►

by, you know, like the glorious worship of babies,

01:04:24 ►

you know, it’s like… What babies, you know, it’s like,

01:04:25 ►

what’s, you know, it’s like, because we just instinctively want that forward progression,

01:04:31 ►

that those desires and needs will manifest solutions to the problem in a variety of ways,

01:04:36 ►

some of which are very inspiring and progressive, some of which are evil, nasty answers for an elite,

01:04:43 ►

you know, and there’s plenty of elite solutions

01:04:45 ►

to this problem that involve die-offs

01:04:47 ►

of massive populations.

01:04:48 ►

Not intentionally, necessarily.

01:04:49 ►

I’m not speaking conspiracy theory.

01:04:51 ►

I just meaning recognizing in a triage way

01:04:54 ►

that a lot of shit is going to go down

01:04:55 ►

and that the best way to keep humanity going

01:04:58 ►

are much more focused ways of distributing resources.

01:05:03 ►

So there’s going to be all sorts of solutions on that level, I believe.

01:05:08 ►

And so what I’m kind of suggesting is almost a way to work with that condition, to work

01:05:13 ►

with that situation.

01:05:14 ►

Like, you know, again, it’s the same kind of thing of thinking about it as like Bardo

01:05:18 ►

run-through.

01:05:19 ►

And maybe what we’re all offered here is a kind of collective Bardo run-through.

01:05:24 ►

Maybe what we’re all offered here is a kind of collective Bardo run through.

01:05:30 ►

And it might look like coming out the other side or eking by with our leaky boat.

01:05:35 ►

Oh, we got new ways of sucking the water out of the leaky boat as we go forward with our leaky boat.

01:05:41 ►

And that it ends up being not that different, even if it looks totally transformed from the inside.

01:05:45 ►

And, you know, I don’t know, but it’s almost more like,

01:05:49 ►

I think some people are drawn towards extraordinary technical solutions.

01:05:52 ►

I know most of my friends are technological kind of people,

01:05:55 ►

and I think that there’s types of folks who are going to do that.

01:05:56 ►

It’s not exactly what I do.

01:05:59 ►

So I feel like I’m in that system,

01:06:03 ►

but offering something a little bit different to keep the richness there,

01:06:07 ►

to keep that larger poem alive,

01:06:11 ►

and to not have it all collapse into a kind of controlled efficiency driven by a purely survival kind of logic.

01:06:16 ►

It may be the case that that’s really what we’re supposed to be doing now.

01:06:20 ►

But, you know, for me, it has to have that deeper dimension.

01:06:23 ►

but for me, it has to have that deeper dimension.

01:06:32 ►

A question is emerging.

01:06:33 ►

Have the microphone.

01:06:38 ►

I’m not sure exactly how much of a question,

01:06:39 ►

how much of a comment,

01:06:41 ►

and how much of just sort of an opinion seeking.

01:06:44 ►

But you mentioned sacrifice a little bit earlier,

01:06:46 ►

and there is something, I mean,

01:06:48 ►

both in the Northwest culture and in the Abraham story of sacrificing the child,

01:06:52 ►

the sacrificing in Vegas of the money at the roulette table.

01:06:57 ►

I’m not exactly sure where I’m going,

01:06:58 ►

but there’s some parallels

01:06:59 ►

between all of those different things

01:07:01 ►

that the art is sacrificed Monday,

01:07:05 ►

the man being sacrificed prematurely perhaps,

01:07:09 ►

but he was saved by the hand of man,

01:07:12 ►

the hand of the firefighters 30 minutes later.

01:07:16 ►

So I’m not exactly, I’m just sort of like commenting through this.

01:07:19 ►

Sure, I mean, we can talk just a little bit more about sacrifice.

01:07:22 ►

I mean, one way of looking at the development

01:07:25 ►

or the evolution of human religion

01:07:27 ►

is to look at it as an evolution of sacrifice.

01:07:30 ►

And that what you do at the beginning

01:07:32 ►

is you kill a living being.

01:07:34 ►

You know, an animal, maybe a human being.

01:07:37 ►

And that as you evolve,

01:07:39 ►

you realize that the sacrificial logic

01:07:41 ►

can be expressed in subtler ways.

01:07:44 ►

And that that’s sort of what happens.

01:07:45 ►

So that’s what you have with the Abrahamic tradition,

01:07:48 ►

is that once they sacrificed actual animals,

01:07:51 ►

and they ate the animals,

01:07:52 ►

but at this point we don’t need to do that anymore.

01:07:55 ►

It’s not because God has changed,

01:07:57 ►

it’s because history,

01:07:57 ►

because we’ve learned another way of doing that.

01:07:59 ►

The I Ching probably comes out of the subtle evolution of sacrifice because what they used to do was to burn.

01:08:09 ►

Like what you do is you put a sacrifice to the gods, an animal, maybe a turtle, maybe maybe, you know, a beast of the field.

01:08:17 ►

And then you were like, well, did it work? The gods like it or not? Well, how are we going to know?

01:08:21 ►

Well, they’re going to send us a sign. what oh let’s read the cracks on the bones so there’s these enormous stores of tortoise shells from you know

01:08:30 ►

early in early china that are the records with little marks that become kind of the origins of

01:08:36 ►

chinese language commenting on the natural scratches in these tortoise shells of beings

01:08:42 ►

that they’ve sacrificed and then they you can again see where I’m going.

01:08:46 ►

The evolution is that, wait, if what we really want is to communicate with the gods,

01:08:51 ►

why do we need to do it by killing this turtle?

01:08:54 ►

Why don’t we just find some way of generating these symbols,

01:08:57 ►

which are also numbers in the I Ching?

01:09:00 ►

And so what we end up getting in the I Ching is a way to generate numbers

01:09:03 ►

as a sacrificial relationship to the gods.

01:09:06 ►

It’s just that we don’t need to do it with animals anymore.

01:09:09 ►

So that’s the same idea I started out with, is that there’s always this need for a sacrificial relationship, but we do it in different ways.

01:09:17 ►

Human cultures find different solutions to the problem, one of which is war.

01:09:22 ►

And so we are continuous.

01:09:24 ►

It is appropriate to see Vegas that way. It is

01:09:27 ►

appropriate to look at Hollywood that way. We may not like that form. We may want to change it,

01:09:32 ►

but it is participating in a similar logic to us, even if it looks really alien or weird.

01:09:43 ►

Anything else? Comments, questions, queries? anything else comments questions queries oh there’s one right over here okay

01:09:49 ►

i think i think there’s something about uh the zeitgeist of the times uh and environmentalism

01:09:58 ►

and being green if you look at the the simpsons movie it’s got a green and even anti-government theme.

01:10:06 ►

Evan and Almighty, you know, it’s like, oh, the government’s got a conspiracy.

01:10:09 ►

We know this, but until the higher-ups actually change what they’re doing, how are our actions going to affect this?

01:10:19 ►

Oh, yeah, it’s definitely percolating all out there.

01:10:21 ►

I mean, the whole media space is transforming tremendously,

01:10:30 ►

which is another reason to take this encouragement to take the imagination at once more seriously and more lightly,

01:10:34 ►

is that that’s what we do with media.

01:10:36 ►

With media, we create concretized, largely electronic ways

01:10:41 ►

of collectivizing the imagination with a certain point of focus.

01:10:44 ►

We all have Star Wars in there.

01:10:47 ►

It serves the function

01:10:49 ►

that myths did in an earlier age.

01:10:51 ►

And that the zone of media

01:10:52 ►

with all of its crazy stories

01:10:54 ►

and all its absurdity and all its crass stuff,

01:10:56 ►

that is partly this kind of

01:10:58 ►

technological imagination.

01:11:00 ►

Not the same as a spiritual imagination,

01:11:02 ►

but a kind of mirror of it.

01:11:04 ►

So that looking at media and working in media, I work in media or on the edges of it, is one of the ways

01:11:10 ►

that we kind of engage and learn to play with these imaginative entities and that that process

01:11:16 ►

and the feedback loop between media realities and memes and ideas and human culture is getting

01:11:22 ►

faster and faster and faster and faster to the point that our ideas and images about the way the world works are going to more directly create

01:11:31 ►

constructs that do that.

01:11:33 ►

And we see that all over the place.

01:11:34 ►

The fact that you can go onto a computer and do a CAD diagram of an object and press a

01:11:40 ►

button and print it out into a plastic shape in 10 minutes is a symbol or an expression of a much deeper process of reality creation.

01:11:50 ►

In a way, this is an answer to Jacob’s question.

01:11:52 ►

That yes, if we are involved in a positive feedback loop of reality creation,

01:11:58 ►

let’s create solutions.

01:12:00 ►

Let’s do something good.

01:12:01 ►

Let’s think really hard about how to do this well.

01:12:04 ►

Absolutely. Let’s do something good. Let’s create. Let’s think really hard about how to do this. Well, absolutely. You know, and that’s part of the role that that media plays in this in this transformation.

01:12:13 ►

Any other questions or comments? You got a mic right there.

01:12:19 ►

So I’m sitting up again. Thank you.

01:12:21 ►

So I’m sitting up again. Thank you.

01:12:26 ►

The notion of the green man and fecundity,

01:12:30 ►

the excess that nature always provides us,

01:12:33 ►

and one of the things that we often miss is that virtually anything that comes into creation

01:12:35 ►

is also destroyed or changes into something else.

01:12:44 ►

And the… Let me get this out here. There is this notion of generosity,

01:12:53 ►

which is one of the pillars in Buddhism, one of the three major pieces, generosity, concentration and ethical behavior.

01:13:06 ►

Sometimes generosity is seen as one of the pieces of ethical behavior,

01:13:10 ►

but it’s also separated out as a pillar in and of itself.

01:13:14 ►

And as a practice, the giving away of things,

01:13:18 ►

which we’re talking about a lot here is the gift culture,

01:13:22 ►

immediately pulls the veil away from these things that we think are ours and think

01:13:27 ►

they are somehow worthy.

01:13:29 ►

And there’s the notion that when we give something away, we can never lose it.

01:13:38 ►

Whereas if we try to hold something, we can.

01:13:50 ►

something, we can. And when they talk about developing merit, good deeds, you know, behaving well, doing things that are nice to people, the northern Indian Himalayan tradition always

01:13:59 ►

makes a point of quickly dedicating that merit to all beings because then we can’t lose it.

01:14:07 ►

You know, if we fuck up,

01:14:09 ►

then we’re right kind of back where we started.

01:14:11 ►

But as long as we’ve given it away,

01:14:13 ►

it’s something that we can’t lose.

01:14:15 ►

One of the notions I have about this whole,

01:14:18 ►

and this is only my second year here,

01:14:20 ►

but one of the most beautiful parts

01:14:23 ►

of this whole gift of this thing happening is this notion that really none of us have to do this.

01:14:29 ►

This really is sort of an essential, almost mythic act of generosity on so many parts.

01:14:40 ►

And just as any intention isn’t going to be completely pure, as long as we’re in samsaric realms,

01:14:47 ►

it’s always going to have ego involvement.

01:14:49 ►

It’s going to be, you know, can I give this up and have people think better of me?

01:14:55 ►

But even in the impure offering of things,

01:14:58 ►

there is always that part that has more deeply understood

01:15:02 ►

that the essential nature of this stuff

01:15:06 ►

is that it isn’t ours.

01:15:07 ►

Even these bodies

01:15:08 ►

aren’t ours.

01:15:11 ►

Just a comment.

01:15:13 ►

No, it’s a beautiful comment.

01:15:14 ►

Thank you so much.

01:15:16 ►

I think

01:15:16 ►

just one idea

01:15:18 ►

to make an interesting connection

01:15:20 ►

is to see the relationship

01:15:22 ►

between generosity

01:15:23 ►

or a gift economy although generosity

01:15:26 ►

is a better term because it’s a little bit more open and sacrifice that in that same idea of

01:15:31 ►

refining sacrifice rather than taking all your all your you know thing and burning it for the gods

01:15:39 ►

is you give it to other people and that that in a way and then that that recognition that pulling the veil back is like the violence in it except the violence is no longer against the animal that

01:15:50 ►

you’re sacrificing it’s against your own egoic attachment oh look ah oh oh what was that that was

01:15:57 ►

the pain that was the cut of the knife across the throat of that attachment uh and that there is

01:16:04 ►

this relationship between…

01:16:05 ►

And for me, experiencing generosity,

01:16:08 ►

encouraging it myself,

01:16:09 ►

and I’m no whiz-bang at it,

01:16:10 ►

but doing that,

01:16:12 ►

it’s actually been easier for me to grok it

01:16:14 ►

as sacrifice than as generosity sometimes.

01:16:17 ►

Because generosity is like,

01:16:18 ►

oh, do I feel that good?

01:16:20 ►

Am I that good a guy?

01:16:21 ►

I mean, sometimes I can really be there.

01:16:22 ►

But a lot of times,

01:16:23 ►

there’s a lot of resistance and fear.

01:16:24 ►

But if I’m like, cut, sacrifice, just see what happens when you

01:16:29 ►

throw it out there, then it bounces back in a different way. So I think there’s a real intimate

01:16:33 ►

connection there. And I’m really glad you brought that up as another layer of a way of talking about

01:16:38 ►

what we do out here, not just useless expenditure, but the generosity is, from a selfish point of view, useless expenditure.

01:16:46 ►

Because if we’re coming from an ego place, then we don’t expend our wealth. We hold on to it.

01:16:51 ►

So to do it uselessly, through generosity, through glorious consumption or whatever,

01:16:57 ►

through demonstration, through spectacle, is a way of getting at that sacrificial logic,

01:17:02 ►

which is clearly one of the ways we evolve, culturally, individually,

01:17:05 ►

as we move into our, you know,

01:17:07 ►

as we go through life.

01:17:10 ►

Can I make one more comment on that?

01:17:14 ►

This notion of generosity in Southeast Asia

01:17:18 ►

is always taken as a practice.

01:17:22 ►

And one of the things about generosity

01:17:24 ►

is that it doesn’t create harm to others or self and that’s

01:17:29 ►

where you get the difference like this popular notion about codependence where people give away

01:17:35 ►

things to cause great harm to themselves and i used to be asked when i was part of a large

01:17:41 ►

meditation practice tradition where the teachings were always given without cost.

01:17:47 ►

So there was the opportunity to offer something or not.

01:17:51 ►

And people would always come up and say,

01:17:52 ►

well, how much should I offer?

01:17:54 ►

And I said, there isn’t a set amount.

01:17:56 ►

And they said, well, like, is there a sliding scale?

01:17:58 ►

And I said, well, no, it’s not a sliding scale either,

01:18:00 ►

which, of course, is what we experience here.

01:18:03 ►

It’s not that, you know that I bring seven gallons of water

01:18:06 ►

because I have a good income. But the piece where it’s a practice and the piece where it’s the

01:18:12 ►

balance is I would suggest that people then maybe offer a little bit more than they’re inclined to.

01:18:20 ►

If when you go home and you feel that you’ve harmed yourself somehow, your kid can’t eat or the house gets mortgaged

01:18:27 ►

or you just can’t rest because you feel like you’ve done it too much,

01:18:31 ►

then you pull back.

01:18:33 ►

And if you give too little, then you kind of feel a little sort of constricted

01:18:36 ►

and your heart isn’t open.

01:18:38 ►

The first part feels like sacrifice.

01:18:42 ►

The second part feels like selfishness.

01:18:44 ►

And it’s a moving target, just like with everything else.

01:18:48 ►

And I think there’s great liberation in playing with that little edge of how much can you give away

01:18:56 ►

and be really open-hearted and happy.

01:19:00 ►

Well, great.

01:19:01 ►

That seems like a good place to end.

01:19:03 ►

And I want to thank you so much. This was amazing.

01:19:06 ►

Really, really love it.

01:19:07 ►

And I appreciate all of you coming here and sharing your attention and your questions.

01:19:12 ►

And moving on to more.

01:19:14 ►

All right. Thanks.

01:19:15 ►

And we’ve got to thank you, Eric.

01:19:16 ►

Thank you so much for being a part of this.

01:19:18 ►

We appreciate it.

01:19:22 ►

You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon,

01:19:24 ►

where people are changing their lives one thought at a time.

01:19:28 ►

And as you might suspect, many of the people who go to Burning Man also find the thoughts they gathered there have helped to change their lives.

01:19:36 ►

Also, I think this is a perfect example of what we were trying to achieve with these pliologues,

01:19:42 ►

where the talk began with an investigation of the concept of imagination and progressed to a critique of what we actually might be

01:19:50 ►

up to on that dusty playa.

01:19:52 ►

It was a wide-ranging discussion indeed.

01:19:56 ►

And the ideas keep coming, at least for me.

01:19:59 ►

For example, when Eric was talking just now about the fantastic growth of what he terms

01:20:04 ►

the ayahuasca religion,

01:20:06 ►

I was reminded of a conversation I had a couple of days ago with a physician friend of mine

01:20:11 ►

who told me that a recent episode of the edgy cartoon program The Simpsons

01:20:16 ►

featured an ayahuasca experience by the lead character Homer.

01:20:20 ►

Apparently they covered it as the ingestion of some powerful chili peppers,

01:20:24 ►

Apparently they covered it as the ingestion of some powerful chili peppers,

01:20:31 ►

but he said the graphics, colors, and lessons Homer learned were without a doubt an ayahuasca experience.

01:20:38 ►

Just think back ten years and think about how many people you know who already knew about the vine back then.

01:20:44 ►

My guess is that not many of your straight friends had a clue about it, and probably still don’t know of it.

01:20:46 ►

But now, when you talk about it,

01:20:49 ►

you can point to several movies and even to The Simpsons.

01:20:54 ►

Personally, I don’t think this is a coincidence or an accident or anything like that.

01:20:58 ►

My personal belief is that the spirit of Lady Ayahuasca is very intentionally infiltrating the consciousness of millions of unsuspecting people.

01:21:05 ►

At least that’s my hope.

01:21:07 ►

Another thing that Eric did in this plialogue, I think,

01:21:10 ►

is that he gave a brilliant explanation of the psychology behind the Burning Man Festival,

01:21:16 ►

which now prompts me to say a little something about this upcoming festival this year.

01:21:21 ►

First of all, if you’ve never been there or only been there once, I highly recommend giving it a try, if you have the time and resources to do so, that is.

01:21:32 ►

But as you know, it is very expensive and time-consuming in that you have to spend weeks and weeks and weeks of preparation before heading to the playa.

01:21:41 ►

In fact, being a serious burner can almost take over your life, and I know

01:21:46 ►

it has done that to me a few times. But what I need to tell you about this year’s upcoming festival

01:21:52 ►

is that I won’t be able to attend myself. There are several reasons for this decision to skip

01:21:57 ►

the burn this year, and I’ll explain them in future podcasts, but the primary reason has to

01:22:03 ►

do with my health. As you may have suspected,

01:22:06 ►

the reason for this week’s podcast being late and coming out was that I had a second bout of the

01:22:12 ►

flu that hit me in the past 10 days. Apparently, my respiratory system still hasn’t rebounded from

01:22:18 ►

the pneumonia that laid me low last fall. As much as I hate to admit it, well, my body just doesn’t spring back like it once did.

01:22:26 ►

And so I’m going to be ultra cautious for a while and avoid things like airplanes,

01:22:31 ►

crowded public spaces, and that insidious dust that gets into everything, particularly your lungs,

01:22:38 ►

that burning man. As I said, there are other reasons for me passing on the festival this year,

01:22:43 ►

but the thought of breathing playa dust for a week has been the final straw in my decision-making process.

01:22:50 ►

I realize that quite a few of our fellow salonners have been looking forward to us all getting together on the playa this coming August,

01:22:57 ►

and I sincerely apologize for not being able to make it myself.

01:23:02 ►

I do intend to keep you informed as to where you’ll be able to connect with our fellow salonners,

01:23:07 ►

and I already know about two potential theme camps where that can take place.

01:23:12 ►

I hope this doesn’t discourage anyone who is thinking about going to Burning Man this year,

01:23:17 ►

but let’s face it, I don’t think anyone should commit to going to Burning Man just to get to meet someone.

01:23:22 ►

It’s a huge commitment on your part to go there,

01:23:25 ►

and so you’d better have a whole bag full of reasons

01:23:27 ►

before setting out in that direction.

01:23:29 ►

And then I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

01:23:32 ►

Now let’s get to a little news from our fellow salonners.

01:23:36 ►

First of all, let me send a big thank you to everyone

01:23:38 ►

who has been participating in our psychedelicsalon.org blog.

01:23:43 ►

Just since the last time we were together here in cyberdelic space,

01:23:46 ►

there have been comments posted by Ido, Lama2, DR Purple, DR Laura,

01:23:53 ►

Dervish Mad Whirler, Synthom, Brandom, Tor25, Sean, Barry F., Tree Wisdom, and ErockX1,

01:24:01 ►

who has also distributed several thousand flyers advertising the salon. Hey, thanks a lot, ErockX1, who has also distributed several thousand flyers advertising the salon.

01:24:06 ►

Hey, thanks a lot, ErockX1.

01:24:09 ►

Many of the comments our fellow salonners have posted are actually essays concerning topics in recent podcasts.

01:24:16 ►

So far, there have been over 240 comments posted by some of the more than 150 registered users.

01:24:23 ►

And over on our forum on thegrowreport.com,

01:24:26 ►

there are close to 600 posts and 55 threads.

01:24:30 ►

And wait until you check them out.

01:24:32 ►

The topics range from a discussion of the psychedelic nature of the world of Warcraft

01:24:37 ►

to the strange death of Orange Sunshine.

01:24:40 ►

So thank you all for keeping the discussion of these podcasts going

01:24:43 ►

with some lively and thought-provoking ideas.

01:24:47 ►

On the email front, there are several messages that have made it through my gauntlet of spam filters and caught my attention,

01:24:54 ►

with things that I think all of our fellow salonners might appreciate.

01:24:58 ►

First of all, there was this message from James M., who said, among other things,

01:25:03 ►

I’m glad you are including a bit from Timothy Leary.

01:25:07 ►

I find it quite bizarre that some folks involved in the psychedelic scene

01:25:11 ►

would not know who he is, or at least have heard one of his talks

01:25:15 ►

or read one of his books.

01:25:16 ►

I don’t agree with most of what he has to say,

01:25:19 ►

but he certainly has a consistent vision.

01:25:21 ►

I am more of a Ram Dass fellow myself.

01:25:24 ►

I would like to hear from Eric Davis if possible.

01:25:27 ►

I quite enjoy hearing one of the podcasts featuring him.

01:25:30 ►

And also, I liked his final interview with Terrence McKenna.

01:25:33 ►

I find him to be a bit more level-headed than some others, Terrence included.

01:25:38 ►

Well, you got your wish today, James, so thanks for mentioning that.

01:25:43 ►

And James goes on,

01:25:42 ►

your wish today, James, so thanks for mentioning that.

01:25:47 ►

And James goes on, to expand on the level-headed idea,

01:25:51 ►

I think it needs to be said more that anything powerful is dangerous, including sacred medicines. This sort of talk

01:25:56 ►

is swept under the rug much of the time as it undermines the cause

01:26:00 ►

to some degree and makes it seem like they, those fighting the war

01:26:04 ►

on drugs, are right.

01:26:06 ►

But I have seen many people who go down the wrong path, abusing powerful drugs and becoming

01:26:10 ►

paranoid and delusional.

01:26:12 ►

As Terrence might jokingly suggest, not everyone can do that as well as him.

01:26:17 ►

I don’t know where such talk is to be placed in the context of the salon, but I felt it

01:26:22 ►

needed to be said, as I know I’m very skeptical of miracle claims.

01:26:27 ►

I’m sure you and most of your speakers are as well,

01:26:30 ►

but it is not mentioned very much just how wrong things can go.

01:26:34 ►

That’s really an excellent comment, James,

01:26:37 ►

and you are right that many of us, myself included,

01:26:41 ►

often sweep aside the dangers associated with psychedelic medicines

01:26:45 ►

when they aren’t properly used.

01:26:48 ►

The world has been littered with psychedelic casualties,

01:26:51 ►

including celebrities like Pink Floyd’s co-founder Sid Barrett.

01:26:56 ►

But there are less well-known casualties as well.

01:26:59 ►

Like the two friends of mine who died within six months of one another a couple years ago,

01:27:04 ►

both of them were in their 40s and had a significant amount of experience with these substances.

01:27:09 ►

Yet they both died due to accidents while improperly using these medicines.

01:27:15 ►

And a new potential danger has recently been called to my attention,

01:27:19 ►

and that is how an online association with psychedelics may have a negative impact on your future career

01:27:25 ►

should you decide to play in the straight default world. Once your name is connected to this work in

01:27:32 ►

one or more online forums, it’ll be nearly impossible to get Google to forget about it,

01:27:38 ►

even if you delete those references. Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m still very much a proponent of

01:27:44 ►

psychedelics, and I firmly believe that they and they alone hold the key to the future survival of our species.

01:27:51 ►

But you should keep in mind that a commitment to this path can definitely close off other avenues for you.

01:27:57 ►

In my own case, I once had a nice career as a motivational speaker for corporate gatherings.

01:28:03 ►

career as a motivational speaker for corporate gatherings.

01:28:09 ►

But once I gave my psychedelic thinking talk at the 2001 MindStates conference, my agent dropped me like a hot potato, and I never again was invited to speak at one of these

01:28:13 ►

events.

01:28:14 ►

So be sure that you know what the consequences may be before you get too far out in front

01:28:19 ►

with your connection to the psychedelic community.

01:28:22 ►

Not everybody needs to be so upfront as I’ve decided to be,

01:28:26 ►

and that’s great, because we also need a lot of people in deep cover,

01:28:31 ►

where they can spread the word to those who are still laboring in darkness.

01:28:35 ►

At least that’s my romantic way of thinking about all of this.

01:28:39 ►

And that is one of the reasons I only mention our donors by their first name or cyber handle,

01:28:44 ►

which is what most people use to post comments, That is one of the reasons I only mention our donors by their first name or cyber handle,

01:28:50 ►

which is what most people use to post comments, like this one from Dervish Mad Whirler.

01:28:51 ►

Cool name, by the way.

01:28:56 ►

The Dervish has the following to say about Dr. Timothy Leary.

01:29:01 ►

So now I kind of feel sorry for the man, and sorry for me just dismissing him.

01:29:06 ►

But I still think that the insights that Leary had are just implications of the knowledge gained by tripping. For me, the light shone a bit more on Terence, may he rest in peace,

01:29:12 ►

because Terence McKenna has kind of taken the lessons of the trip to a more elevated level,

01:29:18 ►

not just the level of freeing your mind and becoming aware and all that jazz,

01:29:22 ►

but to actually use this awareness to create,

01:29:25 ►

in the morphogenic field of man, a new paradigm, as he so aptly named that. Those were things I

01:29:32 ►

was doing myself before I knew Terence’s work, and am still doing today. What my point is,

01:29:37 ►

is that we completely miss the point of these two minds if we keep thinking that what they

01:29:42 ►

incited is better or higher than we ourselves can

01:29:45 ►

intuit.

01:29:46 ►

The brilliance of those two lies in the exploration of their own minds.

01:29:51 ►

Their work should only incite us to become even more brilliant, to let in and through

01:29:57 ►

more light.

01:29:58 ►

I, without trying to diminish these people’s achievements, reckon myself to be an equal,

01:30:03 ►

at least of Dr. Leary and Terrence McKenna.

01:30:06 ►

And I am sure that most of the Saloners are that too.

01:30:10 ►

That is very well said, Dervish.

01:30:12 ►

And if you read through the comments and posts on our various forums,

01:30:15 ►

I think you will come to the same conclusion as Dervish and I have.

01:30:19 ►

And that is that many of our fellow Saloners

01:30:22 ►

are in the same league as Terrence and Tim,

01:30:24 ►

which ultimately is a great compliment to both of them That is that many of our fellow salonners are in the same league as Terrence and Tim,

01:30:31 ►

which ultimately is a great compliment to both of them and to all of the other elders who have paved the way for us.

01:30:37 ►

After listening to the 1964 Leary talk, followed by the 1995 McKenna talk,

01:30:43 ►

it is quite obvious that psychedelic thinking has come a long way in those three decades. And so it’s only natural to expect that the evolution of our human consciousness

01:30:48 ►

should continue to evolve and add a rapid clip.

01:30:51 ►

I often get the question of who do I think is the next Terence McKenna?

01:30:55 ►

And my answer, after giving it considerable thought, is that person is you.

01:31:00 ►

You and all of the other members of the psychedelic community

01:31:04 ►

who continue to push these thoughts to even greater heights.

01:31:08 ►

Another message I received recently came from my good friend Zoe Seven.

01:31:13 ►

Here’s what he had to say.

01:31:14 ►

Hey Lorenzo, Happy New Year.

01:31:17 ►

I was finally happy with a concept for my www.backfromthevoid.com website,

01:31:23 ►

so it is now online.

01:31:25 ►

In the About the Book section,

01:31:27 ►

I explain to my readers and potential readers

01:31:30 ►

why I went from

01:31:31 ►

entheogens to conspiracies,

01:31:34 ►

as well as where I’m at today.

01:31:36 ►

And any feedback

01:31:37 ►

or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

01:31:40 ►

In my new blog, I will

01:31:42 ►

write similar stuff to what I wrote in the blurb

01:31:44 ►

about what’s going on in the world and where all of this might be going.

01:31:48 ►

I have some info on my new site. Check it out, especially the Palladian and Cassiopeians channelings and what they said 10 years ago or more and which is happening today.

01:31:59 ►

Take care and let’s keep in touch. Peace, Zoe.

01:32:02 ►

Thank you for that, Zoe.

01:32:02 ►

and let’s keep in touch. Peace, Zoe.

01:32:03 ►

Thank you for that, Zoe.

01:32:09 ►

Another message I received came from a comment by N8 when he or she joined the Planque Norte mailing list.

01:32:14 ►

And I guess I should mention here again that I haven’t been able to keep that list active,

01:32:18 ►

so you won’t be receiving any emails from it, I’m afraid.

01:32:21 ►

But in this case, that old forum provided a path for these

01:32:25 ►

thoughts to reach me.

01:32:27 ►

And this is what N8 had to say.

01:32:29 ►

I was wondering why you were hesitant to post any lectures by Tim.

01:32:33 ►

He is a pioneer, and although the pressure may have gotten to him around that summer

01:32:37 ►

of love period, I think that he really made a lot of progress in understanding what psychedelic

01:32:42 ►

agents are about.

01:32:43 ►

I also think that he used the powers of light to tap into some darker areas

01:32:48 ►

of our collective unconscious. His attempts to become, as

01:32:51 ►

Bill Burroughs put it, Johnny Acid Seed, were misdirected.

01:32:56 ►

I think that his wholesale commercialization of LSD to the general

01:33:00 ►

public was a little bit of a revenge tactic, but honestly,

01:33:04 ►

it worked.

01:33:10 ►

The power structure said, we are afraid of things that you are making our culture understand about itself, so they took away the legal status.

01:33:13 ►

His unconscious response must have been something along the lines of, if you truly fear love

01:33:19 ►

and understanding that much, then you are going to really have something to fear when

01:33:23 ►

my work is done here.

01:33:24 ►

Then he turned on the world, which, however irresponsible it really have something to fear when my work is done here. Then he turned

01:33:25 ►

on the world, which, however irresponsible it may have been, it did in fact change the cultural

01:33:31 ►

landscape in an undeniable way. Well, that’s a very good point, N8, and I’ll comment further on

01:33:37 ►

my thinking about the good Dr. Leary in the next podcast, which will be another talk from the Leary

01:33:42 ►

Archive. And N8, sometime in the next week or so, I’ll get a chance to check out some of the

01:33:48 ►

amazing work you are doing. Thanks for sending those links.

01:33:52 ►

And one last thing. I just now realized

01:33:56 ►

that I haven’t posted the program notes for last week’s podcast, number 128.

01:34:00 ►

The reason I mention this is that quite a few of our fellow

01:34:04 ►

salonners aren’t subscribed to our channel via iTunes, Yahoo, Google, or one of the other aggregators.

01:34:10 ►

And that means that they don’t know when a new podcast is posted until I get around to posting the program notes with a link to the podcast file.

01:34:19 ►

Normally I get the notes up posted within a day or so of publishing the podcast via the RSS feed.

01:34:26 ►

But in cases like this, there sometimes can be a big gap.

01:34:29 ►

So if you want to be sure to know whenever a new program is available,

01:34:33 ►

the best way is to subscribe to our channel.

01:34:36 ►

And you don’t have to enable automatic downloading in case that was bothering you.

01:34:40 ►

In fact, I use manual download in iTunes and only download podcasts when I’m ready to listen to them.

01:34:47 ►

That way they don’t pile up on my hard drive when I’m not yet ready for them.

01:34:51 ►

So if you aren’t already subscribed, you might want to do so by clicking on the RSS feed link either at matrixmasters.com slash podcast or at psychedelicsalon.org.

01:35:03 ►

The same RSS feed link is in both places.

01:35:07 ►

And if you’re using iTunes, you can just search their store for Psychedelic Salon, scroll

01:35:13 ►

down to the podcast section, and there you’ll find a link for your free subscription to

01:35:17 ►

these podcasts.

01:35:19 ►

Well, that’s about all I have the energy for this week.

01:35:22 ►

In fact, my nose is stopping up, as you can probably tell, so I’ll have to get going.

01:35:26 ►

But I’ll do my best to get the next program out a little earlier in the coming week.

01:35:32 ►

And before I go, I want to mention that this and all of the podcasts from the Psychedelic Salon

01:35:36 ►

are protected under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 3.0 license.

01:35:42 ►

And if you have any questions about that, just click the Creative Commons link

01:35:46 ►

at the bottom of the Psychedelic Salon webpage

01:35:48 ►

at www.psychedelicsalon.org.

01:35:52 ►

And that’s also where you’re going to find

01:35:54 ►

the program notes for these podcasts.

01:35:56 ►

Once I get them posted, that is.

01:35:59 ►

Anyway, for now, this is Lorenzo

01:36:02 ►

signing off from Cyberdelic Space.

01:36:05 ►

Be well, my friends.

⚗️ alembic

Explorer

129 - The Imagination and the Environment

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Program Notes

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