Program Notes
Guest speakers: Allyson & Alex Grey plus Ralph Abraham
“Our parents were completely unprepared for the sixties … and for our behavior.” – Alex Grey
“[In drug education as it is practiced today] there is this kind of overriding mis-characterization of drugs, and an exaggeration of the problems that, marijuana especially, gives us.” –Alex Grey “And they contradict people’s own observations.“–Allyson Grey
“There are perils, and we have children and we want to protect them. So drugs can lead to terrible things as well.” –Allyson Grey
“Basically, you want to establish a bond with your children, and not to come in with total, preconceived notions about how they ought to behave. The idea is to listen and to establish a link of trust so that you can really be there for them, instead of alienating them. So you have to learn about these substances and the possible substances they’re using, so that you can be an informed assist for them.” –Alex Grey
“If you’ve already been lying to your kids about drugs, then why should they listen to you about anything, including the dangers of meth?” –Alex Grey
“If any of you haven’t gone a year and a half without any substances, it’s really a great experience. The altered state of sobriety is something Alex and I recommend.” –Allyson Grey
“This is what my mother taught me when it came to sex, and I applied it to drugs. Whenever a child asks a question you answer it, and you don’t tell them things they don’t want to know, or they’re not ready to know. But if they ask you something, you tell them honestly.” –Allyson Grey
“We’re part of an underground society, and that’s a heavy burden to place on a young mind if they’re not ready.” –Alex Grey
“The Connection Between Mathematics and the Logos”
Ralph Abraham tells the story of how he became involved with the psychedelic community and how psychedelic medicines informed his work and that of the generation who developed the personal computer among other achievements. In this trialogue, Ralph poses (and answers) the question,“Have psychedelics had an influence in the evolution of science, mathematics, the computer revolution, computer graphics, and so on?”
“We have to admit that mathematics has been reborn, and this rebirth is some kind of outcome of, apparently, the computer revolution and the psychedelic revolution, which took place concurrently, concomitantly, cooperatively in the 1960s.” –Ralph Abraham
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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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And no, there is nothing wrong with your MP3 player.
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What is a little different today is that I’ve finally purchased a good microphone.
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As you old-timers know, for the first couple of dozen podcasts, I was using a $12 headset mic.
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Then, once I figured out that I’d be doing these podcasts for a while, I upgraded to a $24 headset mic. Then once I figured out that I’d be doing these podcasts for a while, I upgraded
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to a $24 headset microphone. And that got me through podcast number 139. But here we are at
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number 140. And for the first time, you’re probably hearing what I really sound like.
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I can remember the first time KMO and I talked on the phone, and the first thing he said was that
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he was wondering what my voice actually sounded like, because it was different on most of the
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podcasts. Now, I still haven’t quite figured out the best way to use this new mic, which is a Rode
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Podcaster, by the way, and I suspect that it will take us all a little while to get used to the new
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sound. But one nice feature of this mic is that it has a jack for me to directly connect a headset to
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and hear what I sound like as I’m recording.
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And that means that hopefully you won’t get as many voice spikes from me when I get excited.
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So stay subscribed, and we’ll see how this works out in the weeks and months ahead.
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And I’m sure I’ll get some microphone-using advice from some of you,
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which I will appreciate and take to heart, I’m sure.
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Now, the first thing I’d like to do, using this new mic,
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is to thank two of our fellow salonners who sent in a donation this week.
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And they are Samantha P., and longtime supporter, frequent donor,
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and active participant on our Psychedelic Salon online forums,
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and is perhaps aptly named A Dime Short.
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So A Dime Short and Samantha, I thank you for your donations, and I’ll see that they’re used in support of these podcasts.
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I really appreciate your help.
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And please don’t feel like you need to make a donation to this salon.
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Just telling your friends about these podcasts is more than enough for you to do.
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Without any real planning or by design, our weekly get-togethers here in the cyberdelic space have grown into a sizable crowd.
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And so I was very pleased, but not completely surprised, that after I mentioned a few weeks ago that Dr. Grobe’s psilocybin study had run out of funds,
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well, some of our fellow salonners stepped up and made very large donations to keep it running.
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As a result, this past Saturday, Dr. Grobe and his partners, Dr. Preet Chopra and Alicia Danforth,
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successfully completed the last session with the final participant in the study.
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Before he left the hospital that day, Dr. Grobe, who everybody knows as Charlie,
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called and left the following message for us here in the psychedelic salon.
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Yeah, hello, this is Charlie Grove calling. I’m happy to announce that as of today, May 10th,
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we’ve treated our 12th and final patient for our psilocybin treatment of cancer anxiety.
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We would like to certainly thank our generous donors, including those who have given funds to the Hefter Research Institute,
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also the Betsy Gordon Foundation, and also the very generous donors who responded to the Psychedelic Salon podcast recently.
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And again, we’re delighted to be able to announce that we’ve successfully completed the study.
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The next step will be to do a thorough analysis of our data
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and then to write and submit a report and a new protocol back to the regulatory agencies requesting
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permission to extend the cancer anxiety study with a similar number of subjects but at a
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higher dose.
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So again, we’re very appreciative of the support we’ve had from the community, and we’ll be looking forward to speaking further on the analysis of our data.
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Thank you very much.
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Bye-bye now.
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And you can rest assured that as soon as Charlie’s report is final,
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he’ll stop by the salon and give us an early look at the results,
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as well as letting us hear a little bit about his protocol for the next phase of this important study.
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Now let’s get to the first of two talks I’m going to play for you today.
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The second one is a 20-minute introduction to a McKenna, Sheldrake, and Abraham trialogue,
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in which Ralph Abraham tells the story of the deep involvement
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psychedelics had on the math and computer revolutions of the 60s.
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But first, I’m going to play another talk from the recent World Psychedelic Forum held
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in Basel, Switzerland.
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Thanks to our friend and fellow salonner, Otto Weidel, and what he calls his brave little
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MP3 recorder, most of the English talks from that conference were posted via a thread on the Psychedelic Salon forum over at thegrowreport.com.
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And originally the only talk from that conference that I planned on podcasting was Mountain Girls Talk,
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which you heard in program number 135.
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The rest of the English language talks from that conference are being podcast by my friend Max Freakout each Friday on his excellent podcast, Psychonautica.
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In fact, Max’s program last Friday featured one of Dennis McKenna’s talks from that conference, and it’ll really blow you away, I think.
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Particularly when he mentions the fact that there are quite literally thousands of DMT-containing plants.
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he mentions the fact that there are quite literally thousands of DMT-containing plants.
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And then he goes on to talk about psychoactive frogs, snakes, and even fish and insects.
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If you’re still in school and thinking about getting into psychedelic research,
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well, I think Dennis’ talk will give you leads on a lot of different directions you could take for,
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particularly, graduate dissertations.
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Can you tell that I enjoyed that podcast?
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Well, you can find it at dopefiend.co.uk and along with many other good podcasts there.
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I think this one with Dennis is Psychonautica number 35.
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Now getting back to the talk I’m about to play, during the past year or so, I’ve received quite a few emails telling me how much they got out of podcasts seven and eight, which were titled Art, Love,
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Family, and Psychedelics. And that was from a Plinke Norte lecture at the 2003 Burning
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Man Festival. The topic was presented by Alex and Allison Gray and their daughter, Zena.
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So when I saw that Allison and Alex had given another family and psychedelics presentation at the Basel conference,
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I asked Max Freakout if he minded if I podcast that talk here in the salon, too.
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And, of course, Max had no problem with that.
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So here we are.
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The official program for that conference gave the title of their presentation as Psychedelic Families.
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What do We Tell the
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Children? And if you are of a psychedelic mindset and are a parent or grandparent, well,
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this is a very difficult question. What do we tell our children? In this day and age,
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that can be a difficult question to answer. So let’s listen to what Allison and Alex Gray
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have to say on this sensitive
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topic. The recording actually begins with Alex in mid-sentence, but I don’t think too
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much of the beginning of this talk was missed. Now, here are Allison and Alex Gray speaking
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one Sunday morning in 2008 in Basel, Switzerland.
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where drugs weren’t discussed at all.
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We had no discussion with our parents about drugs.
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And yet surrounding us on all sides were a variety of different kinds of things.
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My mother smoked.
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My mother smoked through three pregnancies.
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So did yours.
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Alcoholism sort of hovered in the background of both of our families.
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Although our parents weren’t alcoholics.
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But they took a drink, you know,
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socially. Only the
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legal drugs they used.
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Yeah.
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So they were
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completely unprepared for the 60s and for our behavior.
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This is another way of thinking about families. We’ve got two Aussies here.
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Ozzie and Harriet was the kind of family that I grew up with thinking this is the norm and this was kind of the American
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ideal of the happy family with its teenagers.
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And the Ozzy Osborne and the Osbournes present maybe an update of someone who’s been through the drug situation
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and is working it out with their kids and stuff like that.
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I think that what characterizes both of the families, obviously,
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is that they care about each other a lot.
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And even if the Osbournes are pretty eccentric by many standards,
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you can tell that there is love there as well.
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They stay together, which in this day and age is really quite something.
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And they are psychedelic families.
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So, you know, here, here.
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Yeah.
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So what’s the problem with drug education usually?
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And we’ll cover some of the ideas about drug education first off, is that there
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is this kind of overriding mischaracterization of the drugs and an exaggeration of the problems
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that marijuana especially gives us.
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And then they contradict people’s own observations,
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like if marijuana is not really going to kill you,
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then maybe cocaine won’t eat it or heroin won’t eat it.
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I don’t believe it.
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People told me that about marijuana.
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It wasn’t true.
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So why don’t I just try something else? I don’t believe what people told me that about marijuana, it wasn’t true, so why don’t I just try something else?
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I don’t believe what people tell me.
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Yeah, that’s a flaw from the beginning.
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And this was one of those campaigns,
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the ad campaigns that were very compelling to us,
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but because it mushes all sort of drugs together, it
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doesn’t really distinguish things. Certainly it doesn’t really give you any
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kind of distinction about the nature of entheogens as regards the nature of
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other substances, which are truly harmful.
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And it doesn’t distinguish between use and abuse.
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Yeah.
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So this is the kind of drug education that we’ve been living with in America, and the Reagan era’s Just Say No campaign.
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the Reagan era’s Just Say No campaign.
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And certainly it was admirable in terms of wanting to safeguard the lives and minds of the young. And it’s obviously been a parody through our culture as well,
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and parodied through our culture as well,
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and for very good reason,
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because it actually doesn’t work.
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What’s interesting, although the DARE program has admirable ideals about wanting to safeguard the young, part of it becomes these unmanageable kinds
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of promises that the unwitting young are kind of demanded to make. they’re enrolled in this idea that drugs are bad and good.
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And so then I pledge to lead a drug-free life.
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This is like one of the vows that they’re asked to make
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before really having an understanding about the true nature
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of the various kinds of substances.
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And so…
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And it’s a lie.
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It’s a lie.
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Because nobody’s going to leave…
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I mean, maybe Christian scientists,
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but very few people will lead
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a truly drug-free life.
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They’ll take over-the-counter medications
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and they’ll take prescription medications.
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They’ll use cigarettes and alcohol
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and still make this plunge.
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So that’s just a lie.
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Yeah, it has to do with these kind of inner conflicts and contradictions that end up as hypocrisy.
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And kids are fine-tuned to catch any kind of hypocrisy.
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are fine-tuned to catch any kind of hypocrisy. And that’s why in the follow-up studies,
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they found that it was actually worked against them,
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that this pledge became a gateway to abuse
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for many kids from the suburbs.
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And so there’s various myths about this kind of,
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that are part of the conventional drug education programs.
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They rely on the just say no.
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The experimentation, the myth that the experimentation with drugs is uncommon,
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that drug use is the same as drug abuse.
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Marijuana is a gateway drug to heroin and cocaine.
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And then the continued exaggeration of the risks.
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Looking at the realities,
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over 50% of high school seniors have experimented with the various kinds of drugs at some point
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in their lives.
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Over 41% used a drug during the past year and around 25% used in the last month.
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So this is also interesting because of the over exaggerations.
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Every hundred people who have tried marijuana, only one is a current user of cocaine.
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So what we’re looking for in terms of education is a kind of harm reduction approach and it distinguishes between use and abuse and a majority of drug use doesn’t lead to addiction or abuse.
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And most users of psychoactive substances control their intake.
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There’s a certain kind of ethics for using drugs, not to dose other people, not to use
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them during school, maybe at work, or in sports, or driving.
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These kinds of things seem obvious, but these should be.
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Well, these are the things that parents fear.
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I mean, that’s why I put that picture in there, that problem.
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I just couldn’t believe it.
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I mean, this is what we fear, really.
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There are perils, what we fear, really.
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There are perils, and we have children, and we want to protect them.
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So drugs can lead to terrible things as well.
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Yeah.
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And it’s just unrealistic to think that teenagers are going to avoid drugs when they’re trying to push the envelope of
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their identity, trying to discover who they are sexually and
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consciousness-wise. And so keeping kids safe should be the highest priority and a
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reality-based approach would provide honest and scientifically informed education on all the drugs,
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including the prescription medicines, like the antidepressants,
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whose kind of side effects can be suicide and mass murder,
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and mass murder, and then alcohol and tobacco and these other kinds of addictive substances that are a normal part of the routine, instead of demonizing the entheogens and other kinds
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of substances.
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Encouraging moderation, if experimentation persists and promoting
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an understanding of the legal and social kinds of consequences of drug use. And just putting
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the responsibility back on the person who’s using so that they really understand where
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person who’s using so that they really understand
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where they’re coming from
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and aren’t just being led along
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in a kind of a peer slipstream
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and things like that.
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So the safety first…
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Do you want to…
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No, no, please. Continue.
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Yeah, it’s just basically
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you want to establish a bond
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with your children
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and not to come in with total preconceived notions
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about how they ought to behave.
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The idea is to listen and to establish a link of trust
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so that you can really be there for them
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instead of alienating them.
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And so you have to learn about these substances
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and the possible substances that they’re using, you know,
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so that you can be an informed assist for them.
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You want to…
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Wait, I wanted to say one thing.
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I just wanted to remind people that, like, when you, you know,
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as parents we know that if we go ballistic about something, that is a signal to them, don’t talk about that anymore.
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So when you hear something that you don’t like, it’s almost counterintuitive not to let the lid fly off.
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But that’s kind of what we have to be as adults, is a listener.
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Because then they’ll come back and talk to you more about it.
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So that’s a really crucial time.
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Yeah.
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And it’s not easy to restrain yourself from
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when you have kids.
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I’m like, oh!
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Telling them how they should behave.
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when you had kids.
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I’m like, oh!
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Telling them how they should behave.
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And so this is kind of a funny thing,
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but basically you want to encourage whatever creative and physical activities
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your youngsters really want to explore.
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This is the one in the middle of what they’re doing when they have free time. It’s like, keep them busy between 3 and 6.
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That’s a good place.
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That’s a time when most teenagers are using drugs.
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That’s what we were reading.
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We were thinking about what else could they be doing? Well, yeah, we avoided the teen porn site.
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That’s what they could do.
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But the other thing is to actively engage in whatever kind of social life
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they have just as a leader in terms of the PTA
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and things that are part of their
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their peers parents and their teachers situation, you know, just get involved with their school Yeah, we were always the parents in the school setting of the teachers the PTA
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situation that kind of
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You know everybody looked at us like they knew, you know, you guys do drugs.
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But you know, we had some interesting points of view, so you have to be there and speak up,
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and be a reality check for the rest of the group in the straight back chairs.
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Yeah. And so also be willing to recognize if there’s a problem, you know.
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If the kids are struggling and they’re hooked,
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you have to be able to, if you have this bond of trust, you may be able to be there to be
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a support. Safety First is a great organization, and safetyfirst.org, they have a lot of literature and support. Yeah, I just wanted to ask.
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Martha, Marcia Rosenbaum is a terrific…
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This is not the newest version, but I would definitely go online if you’re a parent
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and download the PDF and take a look at it.
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This is the old one. I left the new one somewhere.
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But, you know, I just say, yeah, really, I mean, you want to be informed as a parent. Marsha Rosenbaum,
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by the way, works for Drug Policy Alliance. She’s one of us. So she goes around and talks
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to people about the reality-based approach. Yeah, PTA meetings. She’s an awesome lady.
00:22:32 ►
So this is one view of how states also can respect the parental authority, basically allowing them to make decisions about whether sharing a drink with their kids is okay.
00:22:40 ►
So this is instead of just an age limit on drinking and things like that.
00:22:49 ►
Well, this is interesting because we don’t want to discount
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that there are some substances like methamphetamine and stuff
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that if you get hooked can be completely self-destructive.
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So this is… There’s a difference.
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Yeah.
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This is what we fear.
00:23:09 ►
Yeah, and it’s the kind of thing that if you’ve already been lying to your kids about drugs,
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then why should they listen to you about anything, including the dangers of meth?
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So then in the West, there’s this condemnation of psychedelic use and
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nevertheless it continues to be used and by a significant proportion of teenagers
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and young adults from 18 to 25. So it’s interesting.
00:23:48 ►
I think that this is one of our biggest problems
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as entheogen users and as parents and things like that
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is that we’re lacking context
00:23:58 ►
for the use of the substances in a kind of sacred setting.
00:24:04 ►
But we can…
00:24:07 ►
And so there’s been a kind of social disintegration
00:24:10 ►
that sometimes follows the use of psychedelics.
00:24:14 ►
Just this past summer, we had two young friends
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who were 18 years old
00:24:20 ►
that went through a kind of, I don’t know, a break,
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a kind of almost schizophrenic break,
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because I think that they could have gotten through it
00:24:33 ►
if they had the proper kind of supportive setting,
00:24:38 ►
but they used the substances in social settings
00:24:43 ►
that weren’t really conducive to a spiritual emergence.
00:24:49 ►
And so they wound up in hospitals and have had continued problems.
00:24:56 ►
So I think this lack of a sacred context for the Western use of entheogens
00:25:01 ►
is a true area that we have to learn about and develop strategies to work
00:25:10 ►
with.
00:25:10 ►
In places like Brazil and the UDP, the adolescents in that society use ayahuasca in a very positive
00:25:26 ►
and life-enhancing way.
00:25:29 ►
It’s a way of also bonding with the group.
00:25:32 ►
We go through such alienation.
00:25:36 ►
In some ways, that’s really important to distinguish ourselves from our parents, but these substances can help us to overcome the divisiveness and face the inner problems directly.
00:25:49 ►
In the UDV, the pregnant mothers are encouraged to use the ayahuasca,
00:25:56 ►
and it’s used even during childbirth.
00:26:00 ►
The young children are given a little bit as they’re growing up until they’re able to use full service.
00:26:10 ►
I wanted to point out that one is the UDV Church and the other is Barquinha,
00:26:17 ►
but they’re all ayahuasca churches from down in Brazil.
00:26:21 ►
One of the indigenous tribes of Peru used the ayahuasca as part
00:26:27 ►
of their religious upbringing, and it’s a window to enlightenment, a portal to divination,
00:26:33 ►
and a teacher of plant and hunting and spiritual knowledge, a way of integrating also with
00:26:38 ►
their society. The Buiti initiate the young in their iboga ceremonies.
00:26:49 ►
And so this is another model, another way of looking at this sort of drug use as an initiation and a kind of rite of passage. In the Native American church, the teenagers are actively encouraged to take
00:27:10 ►
part in the ceremonies, in the all-night peyote use, and it integrates them into the tradition.
00:27:30 ►
into the tradition and the weechel I think have a fascinating kind of use of peyote. They also use during the pregnancy and childbirth and they start using the substances from around age six to eight.
00:27:52 ►
And it’s interesting that they believe that it should be used in kind of earlier childhood before they reach this age of understanding.
00:27:57 ►
And that is the…
00:28:01 ►
Oh, they say that they should have reached the age of understanding
00:28:06 ►
so they can verbally articulate their experience,
00:28:09 ►
but before the sort of sexual and other kinds of identity questions of teenagehood kind of click in.
00:28:21 ►
I can imagine that this keys them into their kind of tribal culture in an extraordinary
00:28:27 ►
way and they gain access to the imaginal worlds and this just becomes a permanent part of
00:28:34 ►
their world view.
00:28:35 ►
This is an initiation of course into their community. It’s like becoming part of your
00:28:41 ►
community, saying like you’re six years old, that you are part of us, you’re one of us.
00:28:47 ►
Yeah.
00:28:49 ►
Okay.
00:28:50 ►
So then in the book Island,
00:28:54 ►
Alison was mentioning that the Palanis
00:28:57 ►
have their own kind of ritual
00:29:00 ►
that involves climbing this perilous mountain
00:29:04 ►
and then being introduced to the
00:29:07 ►
moksha. And it’s put in a kind of symbolic way of your life and coming toward enlightenment.
00:29:15 ►
So it’s another initiatory rite, a way to use these substances in a way that’s respectful of their sacramental quality.
00:29:30 ►
And Coxley in Ireland is talking about how do we educate our children.
00:29:35 ►
You know, you don’t give them a chance of…
00:29:39 ►
Okay, never give children a chance of imagining that anything exists in isolation.
00:29:44 ►
Make it plain from the very beginning that all living is relationship show them relationships
00:29:46 ►
in the woods, in the fields
00:29:48 ►
in the ponds, in the streams
00:29:50 ►
and in the village and the country around it
00:29:52 ►
rub it in
00:29:53 ►
so
00:29:54 ►
that’s
00:29:57 ►
we have one more
00:29:59 ►
the happy
00:30:02 ►
happy study notes
00:30:03 ►
but
00:30:03 ►
yeah there we are Oh, ha! The happy… The happy psychedelic family. That’s what we’ve done.
00:30:06 ►
But, um, yeah.
00:30:08 ►
There we are.
00:30:10 ►
All-Americans, overfed psychedelic
00:30:12 ►
Japanese,
00:30:14 ►
deadheads, you know?
00:30:16 ►
Um, anyway,
00:30:18 ►
yeah, I, um,
00:30:20 ►
I wanted to
00:30:22 ►
be personal here and
00:30:24 ►
talk about our personal experience as parents.
00:30:27 ►
We have one daughter, as some of you already are aware, as she’s 19 years old.
00:30:35 ►
Alex and I, after 11 years of being together, happily doing our thing as artists,
00:30:45 ►
I introduced the idea that we should become parents, actually.
00:30:49 ►
I lobbied.
00:30:50 ►
I took Alex up a mountain in Woodstock, New York.
00:30:55 ►
We took MDMA, and I introduced that I said, if I recall,
00:31:02 ►
I regret to inform ourselves after 11 years,
00:31:05 ►
I regret to inform ourselves that I don’t want to do the life training without the parent training.
00:31:10 ►
I think the parent training is an important part of the life training.
00:31:14 ►
And we had thought we’d be child-free for a lifetime, but we, you know, like I was 34 years old,
00:31:19 ►
the clock was ticking, and I’m going, like, wait a minute,
00:31:22 ►
I really think the parent training is an important part of life.
00:31:24 ►
I don’t want to, you know, miss out on it.
00:31:26 ►
So Alex was down.
00:31:28 ►
He was, you know, he was in line.
00:31:30 ►
It seemed like a really good idea.
00:31:32 ►
Yeah, it was amazing.
00:31:34 ►
I think the perfect setting.
00:31:37 ►
Warm love.
00:31:39 ►
Top of a mountain, you know, hearts were open.
00:31:42 ►
And it was a beautiful autumn day around that
00:31:46 ►
little fire that we made. And Alex said, great, I think you’re right, I really agree, except
00:31:51 ►
that we’re really not ready because we were totally, we were performance artists that
00:31:59 ►
were going to parties every day, smoking, doing a lot of psychedelics, and really not
00:32:03 ►
living the life that we envisioned as being good parents.
00:32:06 ►
So out at Lobby initiated the idea that we should wait,
00:32:12 ►
that we should give ourselves this probationary period,
00:32:15 ►
a year was the original thought,
00:32:18 ►
that we would get our act together, make some money,
00:32:20 ►
because we thought money was so important.
00:32:22 ►
We learned later that it’s not that important, that children bring money. By the way, if any of you don’t have children,
00:32:31 ►
that’s the truism. But we should work and be abstinent. So we chose to be abstinent
00:32:39 ►
for a year, and it turned into a year and a half. After a year, we looked at our funds
00:32:43 ►
and our life, and we thought, let’s give ourselves another six months to have a conscious conception, which we did
00:32:51 ►
have a conscious conception. I really recommend that. I won’t go into that, but ask me about
00:32:55 ►
it or write to me about it another time. So we waited a year and a half absolutely with
00:33:02 ►
nothing. I think we maybe drank some coffee, but we didn’t use alcohol or smoke pot
00:33:08 ►
or use psychedelics for a year and a half.
00:33:10 ►
And believe me, if any of you haven’t gone for a year and a half without any substances,
00:33:15 ►
it’s really a great experience.
00:33:16 ►
The altered state of sobriety is something that Alex and I recommend.
00:33:22 ►
We’ve had several periods in our life where we’ve done that,
00:33:25 ►
and it really is a wonderfully altered…
00:33:28 ►
A drug fast.
00:33:29 ►
A drug fast, yeah.
00:33:31 ►
So we went for a year and a half through to the pregnancy,
00:33:38 ►
and then during pregnancy, and then through nursing,
00:33:42 ►
and now we’re just for eight months.
00:33:43 ►
And so through all of that, we were sober.
00:33:47 ►
Absolutely no substances at all, and it was fantastic.
00:33:51 ►
And I just didn’t want to take any chances.
00:33:54 ►
I was 34, 36 years old by then.
00:33:56 ►
You know, I just didn’t want to take any chances.
00:33:58 ►
And we got pregnant the first time we ever, the only time we ever tried.
00:34:03 ►
Every other time we tried not to. And so we did get pregnant that one time and had one child. We only had
00:34:10 ►
one. Terrence recommended that we not replace ourselves. He heard the elves telling him
00:34:15 ►
actually.
00:34:15 ►
Yeah. Let’s see. Terrence said, well, all this visionary stuff is really interesting,
00:34:22 ►
but can you tell me something really worthwhile and useful and something you know down to earth and
00:34:28 ►
the mushroom said have only one child you know that will it will make your
00:34:34 ►
lives easier and it will be less of We thought about it, but we never tried again
00:34:46 ►
and decided that the triangle configuration of our family was perfect for us.
00:34:52 ►
And so, yeah, so what did we do about drugs and teaching Zena about drugs?
00:34:58 ►
Well, you know, through those early years, we really, I mean,
00:35:03 ►
children just don’t like to have a lot of smoke around them,
00:35:06 ►
and you don’t really want to smoke on top of them.
00:35:08 ►
So we pretty much limited our use to when she wasn’t around.
00:35:13 ►
We didn’t, like, keep it from her, and we always answered her questions.
00:35:17 ►
This is what my mother taught me when it came to sex, and I applied it to drugs.
00:35:21 ►
Just whenever they ask a question, you answer it.
00:35:24 ►
And, you know, you don’t tell them the things that they don’t want to know
00:35:27 ►
or they’re not ready to know.
00:35:28 ►
But if they ask you something, you tell them honestly.
00:35:31 ►
I would never keep anything from Zina,
00:35:33 ►
and so she doesn’t keep all that much from me.
00:35:36 ►
I mean, I’m sure she keeps something.
00:35:37 ►
But, you know, we’ve been pretty open with each other through the years.
00:35:40 ►
And so we answered the questions.
00:35:44 ►
And then as time progressed well as we
00:35:47 ►
wanted to take a psychedelic we didn’t include her in that experience I mean
00:35:52 ►
for three reasons we would basically get a babysitter and we would go somewhere
00:35:56 ►
and do it elsewhere or we would make sure she was taken care of maybe she was
00:36:00 ►
visiting a friend or going to camp or something and then we would use
00:36:03 ►
psychedelics for three reasons one I didn’t want to we didn’t want to be
00:36:08 ►
weird around her like what if we acted a little strange and maybe she would think
00:36:12 ►
what’s going on with mom and dad you know and number two you know what if
00:36:17 ►
something happened you know what if something went on fire or she got hurt
00:36:21 ►
or she needed us to be completely available and present.
00:36:25 ►
And we weren’t.
00:36:26 ►
I would not want to blame it on the substance, on the Holy Sacrament.
00:36:31 ►
So the third reason is really personal and selfish that I don’t want to be worrying about
00:36:38 ►
Zena.
00:36:39 ►
I don’t want to be thinking about a young child when I’m having my own personal experience.
00:36:43 ►
It’s something that you do for your inner life and your partner life, if you do it with a partner.
00:36:49 ►
And so, for those reasons, we never tripped around Xena.
00:36:56 ►
And during, especially the years, like, say, between 8 and 12, they’re very rule conscious
00:37:04 ►
and very rule oriented oriented and they really understand
00:37:07 ►
about following the rules and not following the rules.
00:37:09 ►
And it is illegal what you’re doing and it scares them.
00:37:13 ►
So during that period our use was infrequent
00:37:18 ►
and I know friends, really close friends who were users
00:37:22 ►
that actually gave up the substance during that period,
00:37:26 ►
so they wouldn’t worry their children.
00:37:31 ►
They had just serious discussions with them, and the children were concerned about them getting caught, so they basically gave it up for a little while.
00:37:34 ►
It’s okay to give it up for a little while.
00:37:36 ►
You can always go back.
00:37:39 ►
The teaching that you’ve had is always there, so it actually will help you.
00:37:44 ►
teaching that you’ve had is always there, so it actually will help you.
00:37:50 ►
And so our use was infrequent during that period,
00:37:54 ►
and not so much around her, although we always were open with questions.
00:37:59 ►
She would come with us, though, to these psychedelic conferences.
00:38:00 ►
Yeah, definitely.
00:38:03 ►
And she had lunch with Dr. Hoffman. Well, she was like nine.
00:38:03 ►
And she had lunch with Dr. Hoffman.
00:38:04 ►
Well, she was like nine.
00:38:09 ►
And so it’s interesting, though,
00:38:14 ►
that she didn’t always put everything together.
00:38:16 ►
Alex would go out and do talks.
00:38:19 ►
I don’t know how many of you have seen him do his talk about his art, but it includes all the art that is influenced by psychedelics.
00:38:25 ►
And he discusses the influence and what he saw when he was under the influence.
00:38:30 ►
And Nina would be sitting in the front row when she was two,
00:38:32 ►
when she was four, when she was six,
00:38:34 ►
and she would hear these talks over and over again.
00:38:37 ►
And then when she was ten, I remember her saying to me one time
00:38:40 ►
walking down the street, she said,
00:38:41 ►
I know that you and dad do smoke marijuana,
00:38:45 ►
but that’s all. And I went, I just didn’t say anything. I mean, that’s all she really
00:38:52 ►
wanted to know. That’s what she had made up in her mind. Kind of like, well, I know there’s
00:38:56 ►
Santa Claus, you know, because I saw him. I mean, what do you say? No, there isn’t.
00:39:01 ►
You know, you don’t kill their fantasy, whatever it is. And so when she finally
00:39:05 ►
came around to understanding that that was part of our life, I mean, they only hear what
00:39:10 ►
they want to hear. So you only answer what they ask you. If she doesn’t ask a question,
00:39:14 ►
I didn’t answer it.
00:39:16 ►
At the same time, then, when those questions did come up, we had to address the idea that
00:39:23 ►
this is like the early Christians living in
00:39:26 ►
their spiritual lives in the catacombs and things. This is not something to discuss with
00:39:34 ►
your friends at school. This is not, unfortunately, you know, we’re part of an underground society. And that’s a heavy burden to place on a young mind
00:39:47 ►
if they’re not ready.
00:39:50 ►
But at the time that she seemed ready,
00:39:53 ►
we delivered that one too.
00:39:55 ►
But they also really appreciate
00:39:57 ►
that you confide in them like that.
00:40:00 ►
And they do keep a secret.
00:40:01 ►
They do keep it to themselves.
00:40:03 ►
We explained to her what could happen
00:40:05 ►
if she told her friends that we smoke pot.
00:40:08 ►
You know, they would not, you know,
00:40:10 ►
their parents might not let their children come to our house.
00:40:14 ►
So that was, you know, or something worse could happen.
00:40:17 ►
You know, they could come and take us away.
00:40:20 ►
Oh, we’ve got to go.
00:40:24 ►
You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon,
00:40:27 ►
where people are changing their lives
00:40:28 ►
one thought at a time.
00:40:35 ►
As you can tell,
00:40:36 ►
this group discussion was just getting off the ground
00:40:39 ►
when time ran out.
00:40:40 ►
But Alison told me that this led to
00:40:43 ►
an informal discussion for another couple of hours
00:40:46 ►
and they even had to finally cut that off in order to get to lunch.
00:40:50 ►
Obviously there is a need for much more discussion about this sensitive topic in our community
00:40:55 ►
and we are certainly fortunate to have Allison and Alex leading the charge here.
00:41:01 ►
I suspect that they are the kind of parents many of us would have liked to have
00:41:05 ►
been or would like to be. In my own case, I have to admit to being a real jerk about drugs until I
00:41:11 ►
finally tried them myself. Until then, my poor children had to put up with me parroting that
00:41:17 ►
stupid just say no line. So I’m very grateful to Allison and Alex for putting themselves on the
00:41:23 ►
line and speaking in public about this very important issue.
00:41:27 ►
Let’s face it, each generation seems to be a little bit more aware of the real world than their parents are.
00:41:33 ►
And once they catch us lying about something like cannabis, they may never trust us again.
00:41:39 ►
As a side note, by the way, we just now heard Alex mention Terrence McKenna’s proposal that each of us only reproduce once.
00:41:48 ►
And if you want to hear his proposal in greater detail, I believe it’s part of the McKenna talk that I podcast in program number 122.
00:41:56 ►
And how do you feel about Alex’s comparison of psychedelic families to early Christians living in the catacombs?
00:42:03 ►
psychedelic families to early Christians living in the catacombs.
00:42:09 ►
While I prefer to think of us as a Robin Hood-like band of merry outlaws,
00:42:12 ►
there is a ring of truth to the catacomb analogy.
00:42:17 ►
The underlying truth, of course, can be found in Ray and Anderson’s great book, The Cultural Creatives, where there are references to the psychedelic community
00:42:21 ►
as being among the core of the core cultural creatives.
00:42:26 ►
And now that we number in the many, many millions worldwide,
00:42:30 ►
our influence in all walks of life is finally beginning to be felt more clearly.
00:42:35 ►
Which brings me to the next short talk I want to play for you.
00:42:40 ►
As I mentioned earlier, it’s from a trialogue, only the second public one, by the way,
00:42:45 ►
that Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna, and Rupert Sheldrake held at Esalen sometime in 1992.
00:42:52 ►
And if I’m not mistaken, this was their first public trilogue since the publication of their first joint book,
00:42:59 ►
Trilogues at the Edge of the West.
00:43:01 ►
Their first session in this series of trilogues was actually held at night
00:43:06 ►
and consisted primarily of the workshop participants telling a little about themselves,
00:43:11 ►
along with a discussion of crop circles.
00:43:14 ►
And the reason I’m not taking your time with that today is that
00:43:16 ►
their crop circle discussion was significantly revised in later discussions,
00:43:21 ►
some of which I’ve already podcast.
00:43:23 ►
So right now I’m going to pick up with the first morning session.
00:43:27 ►
We begin with Ralph Abraham, and after he goes over a few housekeeping details,
00:43:33 ►
he tells what for me is the confirmation of something I’ve known for a long time.
00:43:38 ►
And that story is the story of how the personal computer revolution,
00:43:43 ►
the digital revolution, if you will, has been founded in a large part and sustained by members of the psychedelic community.
00:43:51 ►
Just like psychedelics brought you rock and roll, they have also brought you the digital age, complete with Internet-downloaded podcasts.
00:44:00 ►
This is certainly a fascinating story and important story, a historical story.
00:44:05 ►
And now we’re going to get to hear it told by one of its most influential protagonists, Ralph Abraham.
00:44:20 ►
Last night we spoke of our process, but we didn’t do it.
00:44:23 ►
Last night we spoke of our process, but we didn’t do it.
00:44:32 ►
So you know that this is only the second time that we have been trialoguing in public,
00:44:37 ►
but for many years we are trialoguing in private.
00:44:46 ►
And our plan here is to try to maintain our private process in public.
00:44:52 ►
So, whereas we are interested in your feedback eventually,
00:44:58 ►
what we would like to begin with is to have the space to proceed as we do in private to the degree that we can.
00:45:04 ►
as we do in private, to the degree that we can.
00:45:09 ►
And at the same time, of course,
00:45:14 ►
we can’t help but be conscious of the fact that you’re here,
00:45:16 ►
and we’ve tuned.
00:45:30 ►
So I would ask you, if you think of questions while we’re talking, to note them down, because we are interested to hear them eventually and to respond if we can, if time permits,
00:45:38 ►
later. For an hour or so, we’d like the space to perform like television to a passive audience,
00:45:51 ►
in spite of the fact that we are always complaining about this passive addiction.
00:46:00 ►
And that’s one of our so-called rules.
00:46:08 ►
We have some other ones that we’ve…
00:46:14 ►
Some other rules that we have evolved, or rules or methods of inducing an altered state,
00:46:23 ►
a joint state, the trilog mode.
00:46:27 ►
And this consists, the main step is kind of an induction.
00:46:34 ►
And so usually we have an induction process
00:46:36 ►
in which one person makes the call to the trilog mode.
00:46:44 ►
And in spite of what Terence said, I’m not going to do a dog and pony show, but I’m going
00:46:51 ►
to take my turn this morning at the induction, which’m now going to break them.
00:47:06 ►
And because you are here, we felt the need for a slightly longer induction.
00:47:16 ►
And what I’m going to do is try to set the stage not only for this morning’s uh trialogue but uh for the whole day
00:47:26 ►
so i’m going to uh there’s three steps then i’m going to tell a personal story
00:47:38 ►
then i’m going to show a video that lasts 10 minutes and then i’m going to show a video that lasts ten minutes.
00:47:50 ►
And then I’m going to do the induction for this morning’s trilogue,
00:47:53 ►
which will necessarily have to be really compressed.
00:48:01 ►
So we have developed some methods for the rapid induction of the trilogue state.
00:48:06 ►
I’m going to experiment with another shortcut to the induction process this morning, which of course, if I risk this, might fail.
00:48:15 ►
So the first story took place a year ago, and Terence and Rupert were involved in part of this story.
00:48:29 ►
I was sitting in my office with my secretary, Nina, about a year and a half ago.
00:48:35 ►
There was a knock on the door.
00:48:36 ►
She said, well, this is a friend of a friend of mine who wants to interview you.
00:48:39 ►
But I was very busy with the telephone and the correspondence and stuff.
00:48:43 ►
So he came and sat and I answered
00:48:45 ►
his questions without thinking. Later on, a month or so passed, a photographer arrived
00:48:53 ►
and I began to realize that I’d done something significant. I’d given an interview for GQ
00:48:59 ►
magazine. I called my children who know about such things and asked them what was GQ magazine, and they knew what it was and follow and read it to some extent.
00:49:11 ►
They live in Hollywood.
00:49:14 ►
I was in Italy when the magazine finally arrived on the stands.
00:49:21 ►
arrived on the stands.
00:49:24 ►
And of course I had notified my children,
00:49:25 ►
my mother, and everybody.
00:49:29 ►
I was very proud, in spite of my style of dress,
00:49:33 ►
that I had been the first one in our circle to actually be photographed for GQ.
00:49:39 ►
But I was shocked in Forenza
00:49:42 ►
to open the first page of the magazine
00:49:44 ►
and to see my picture occupying a large part of the first page,
00:49:50 ►
the table of contents page, where the heading says,
00:49:54 ►
Abraham sells drugs to mathematicians.
00:50:01 ►
And there were some other insulting things in the interview
00:50:05 ►
that as far as I could remember was largely fiction
00:50:08 ►
that occurred later on in the magazine.
00:50:11 ►
So I didn’t mention it to anybody.
00:50:13 ►
I came back to California,
00:50:14 ►
and I was very pleased that nobody mentioned it.
00:50:18 ►
Nobody had noticed.
00:50:19 ►
There were one or two phone calls,
00:50:20 ►
and I realized that nobody, after all, does read GQ.
00:50:28 ►
And if they do look at the pictures, they somehow overlooked mine. So I squeaked by and I was safe after all this dangerous
00:50:36 ►
pass being outed by GQ. Suddenly my peace was disturbed once again by a hundred phone calls
00:50:44 ►
in a single day
00:50:45 ►
asking what did I think of the article about me in the San Francisco Examiner
00:50:49 ►
or the Chronicle or the San Jose Mercury and so on.
00:50:53 ►
After all, the embers in the fire left by GQ had flamed up again.
00:50:59 ►
In the pen of a journalist, a woman who writes a computer column for the San Francisco Examiner,
00:51:06 ►
had received in her mailbox a copy of this article in GQ,
00:51:11 ►
in which Timothy Leary is quoted as saying,
00:51:15 ►
the Japanese go to Burma for teak and they go to California for novelty and creativity.
00:51:22 ►
Everybody knows that California has this resource
00:51:25 ►
thanks to psychedelics.
00:51:27 ►
And there again, it quoted me
00:51:30 ►
as the supplier of a scientific renaissance in the 1960s.
00:51:35 ►
And this columnist didn’t believe
00:51:39 ►
what was asserted by Timothy Leary and others
00:51:41 ►
in the GQ article,
00:51:42 ►
that the computer revolution
00:51:44 ►
and the computer
00:51:45 ►
graphic innovations of California had been built upon a psychedelic foundation. So she set out to
00:51:52 ►
prove that this story was false. She was about to go to SIGGRAPH, the largest gathering of
00:51:59 ►
computer graphic professionals in the world. Annually, somewhere in the United States,
00:52:03 ►
30,000 or so people gather, all of whom are vitally involved in the computer revolution. She thought she would
00:52:12 ►
set this heresy to rest by conducting a sample survey at SIGGRAPH a year ago in Las Vegas.
00:52:20 ►
She began her interviews at the airport the minute she stepped off the plane, and by the time she got back to her desk in San Francisco, had talked to 180 important professionals of the
00:52:30 ►
computer graphic field, all of whom answered yes to her question, do you take psychedelics, and is
00:52:37 ►
this important in your work? So her column syndicated in all these newspapers
00:52:46 ►
finally said that, and again, unfortunately,
00:52:50 ►
or kindly, remembered me.
00:52:52 ►
Shortly after this second accident in my story,
00:52:56 ►
I was in Hollyhock, the Esalen of the Far North,
00:53:00 ►
with Rupert and some others of you here.
00:53:04 ►
And I had a kind of psychotic break in the night.
00:53:07 ►
I couldn’t sleep and I was consumed with paranoid fantasy about this outage and what it would mean
00:53:13 ►
in my future career and the police at my door and so on. And I knew that my fears had kind of blown
00:53:22 ►
up unnecessarily, but I needed someone to talk to.
00:53:25 ►
The person I knew best there was Rupert, and he was very busy in council with various friends.
00:53:32 ►
But eventually I took Rupert aside and I confided to him this secret and all my fears.
00:53:40 ►
And his response, within a day or two, was to repeat the story to everybody in Canada.
00:53:52 ►
Well, assuring me that it’s good to be outed.
00:53:57 ►
And it would be good to come out.
00:54:02 ►
And to come out maybe in a best-selling book
00:54:05 ►
which Brockman, our agent, could sell
00:54:07 ►
and hawk for a huge royalty advance and so on.
00:54:11 ►
I tried thinking positively about this episode,
00:54:16 ►
but when I came home,
00:54:19 ►
I still felt nervous about it
00:54:22 ►
and I said no to many interviews
00:54:23 ►
from ABC News and the United Nations
00:54:28 ►
and other people who called to check out this significant story.
00:54:32 ►
I did not rise to the occasion, and so I’ve decided today, by popular request, to tell the truth.
00:54:42 ►
popular request to tell the truth.
00:54:53 ►
And this is perhaps relevant to our theme for today,
00:54:56 ►
different aspects of vision, and our theme this morning of psychedelics and mathematical vision.
00:55:02 ►
So it all began in 1967 when I was a professor of mathematics at Princeton, and one of my
00:55:08 ►
students turned me on to LSD.
00:55:12 ►
That led to my moving to California a year later and my meeting at UC Santa Cruz.
00:55:20 ►
A chemistry graduate student who is doing his Ph.D. thesis on the synthesis of DMT.
00:55:27 ►
He and I smoked up a large bottle of DMT in 1969,
00:55:32 ►
and that resulted in a kind of secret resolve
00:55:36 ►
which swerved my career to a search for the connections between mathematics and the experience of the logos,
00:55:47 ►
or what Terence calls the transcendent other.
00:55:52 ►
This hyper-dimensional space full of meaning and wisdom and beauty,
00:55:58 ►
which feels more real than ordinary reality
00:56:01 ►
and to which we have returned many times over the years
00:56:06 ►
for instruction and pleasure.
00:56:11 ►
And in the course of the next 20 years, there were various steps I took to explore this
00:56:19 ►
connection between mathematics and the logos.
00:56:22 ►
For example, I apprenticed myself to a neurophysiologist
00:56:25 ►
and tried to construct brain models
00:56:28 ►
made out of the basic objects of chaos theory.
00:56:33 ►
This was about the time that chaos theory was discovered
00:56:37 ►
by the scientific community,
00:56:39 ►
and the chaos revolution began in 1973.
00:56:44 ►
I built a vibrating fluid machine
00:56:47 ►
to visualize vibrations in transparent media
00:56:51 ►
because I felt on the basis of direct experience
00:56:53 ►
that the Hindu metaphor of vibrations
00:56:55 ►
was an important one, a valuable one,
00:56:58 ►
and therefore that we could learn more
00:57:01 ►
about consciousness, communication, resonance,
00:57:04 ►
and the emergence of form and pattern in the physical, communication, resonance, and the emergence of form and pattern
00:57:06 ►
in the physical, biological, social, and intellectual worlds through actually watching vibrations
00:57:13 ►
in transparent media, ordinarily invisible and making them visible.
00:57:19 ►
I was inspired by Hans Janie, an amateur scientist in Switzerland, a follower of Rudolf Steiner, who had built an ingenious gadget for rendering these
00:57:29 ►
transparent fluids visible. About this time we discovered in Santa Cruz
00:57:36 ►
computer graphics because the first affordable computer graphic terminals
00:57:40 ►
had appeared on the market. I started a project of teaching mathematics with computer
00:57:46 ►
graphics and eventually tried to simulate the mathematical models for neurophysiology
00:57:52 ►
and for vibrating fluids in computer programs with computer graphic displays.
00:58:00 ►
In this way evolved a new class of mathematical models called CDs, cellular dynamita.
00:58:08 ►
They are really especially appropriate mathematical object for modeling or trying to understand the brain, the mind, the visionary experience, and so on,
00:58:19 ►
as far, as close anyway as mathematics could come, to simulation of this experience.
00:58:28 ►
At the same time, other mathematicians,
00:58:33 ►
some of whom may have been recipients of my gifts in the 1960s,
00:58:38 ►
began their own experiments with computer graphics in different places
00:58:42 ►
and began to make films,
00:58:46 ►
experiments with computer graphics in different places and began to make films, which I used to show in annual film évoyance of this evening, later on, many years later, when I would be
00:58:56 ►
sitting in this theater watching a computer graphic film made by Tom Banchoff.
00:59:00 ►
You remember that?
00:59:05 ►
Eventually we were able to construct machines in Santa Cruz which could simulate these kind
00:59:10 ►
of mathematical models that I call CDs at a reasonable speed, first slowly and then
00:59:15 ►
faster and faster.
00:59:16 ►
And in 1989 I had a fantastic experience at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, where I was given
00:59:28 ►
access to, at that time, the fastest supercomputer, the MPP, the Massively Parallel Processor.
00:59:35 ►
And my CD model for the visual cortex had been programmed into this machine by the only
00:59:40 ►
person able to program it, and I was invited to come and view the result.
00:59:45 ►
And looking at the color screen of this supercomputer
00:59:49 ►
was like looking through the window at the future
00:59:53 ►
and seeing an excellent memory of a DMT vision,
01:00:02 ►
not only preceding a pace on the screen, but also going about
01:00:08 ►
a hundred times faster than a human experience, and also under the control of knobs which
01:00:14 ►
I could turn at the terminal.
01:00:17 ►
And so we immediately recorded this video, which I’d like to show you now. It lasts for ten minutes.
01:00:25 ►
It was recorded in 1989
01:00:27 ►
on the day of my first look
01:00:29 ►
through this window.
01:00:33 ►
So if you could turn this on.
01:00:36 ►
I don’t think you have to move very far.
01:00:38 ►
You could use this space,
01:00:40 ►
and it doesn’t require
01:00:44 ►
a perfect view of the screen.
01:00:46 ►
And then we’ll resume my story.
01:00:59 ►
Maybe we could lift up the Venetian blinds and turn up the lights now.
01:01:05 ►
Yes, we probably can.
01:01:10 ►
In fact, you can help yourself to the door.
01:01:16 ►
So returning to my story now, and, to my MPP year, 1989.
01:01:34 ►
And following this 20-year evolution and the recording of that video, we had two things that I’ll mention. One is the story with GQ and SIGGRAPH
01:01:48 ►
and the examiner that I’ve told you,
01:01:50 ►
which essentially poses the question, then,
01:01:54 ►
has psychedelic had an influence
01:01:57 ►
in the evolution of science, mathematics,
01:02:00 ►
the computer revolution, computer graphics, and so on?
01:02:03 ►
And the other event, computer graphics, and so on. And the other event, in 1990, we got to see,
01:02:08 ►
after I think the publication of a paper on this
01:02:13 ►
in the International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos,
01:02:16 ►
we saw an interesting article in the monthly notices of the American Mathematical Society,
01:02:21 ►
the largest union of research mathematicians in the world,
01:02:26 ►
which amazingly redefined mathematics, dropping number and geometrical spaces as relics of history
01:02:33 ►
and adopting a new definition of mathematics as the study of space-time pattern.
01:02:38 ►
This is not written by me.
01:02:40 ►
This is just in the pages of Science and the monthly notices of the American
01:02:45 ►
Mathematical Society. So we have to admit that mathematics has been reborn, and this
01:02:54 ►
rebirth is some kind of outcome, apparently, of the computer revolution and the psychedelic revolution, which took place concurrently, concomitantly, cooperatively in the 1960s.
01:03:12 ►
And I might mention a current event on this horizon.
01:03:18 ►
Redefining this material as an art medium,
01:03:21 ►
I’m going to be able to give a concert
01:03:25 ►
of this material played in real time
01:03:27 ►
with a genuine supercomputer in October
01:03:29 ►
in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine,
01:03:31 ►
the largest Gothic cathedral in the world.
01:03:35 ►
Well then, let’s come to our subject.
01:03:38 ►
And I don’t know if you gentlemen need to move up a little bit
01:03:41 ►
so that we can trilogue.
01:03:48 ►
Now I have to do, since I took so much time on a personal odyssey, I have to do to induce a trial log in one minute. And
01:03:56 ►
so this is a shortcut. What I want to do is just pose one or two questions and read one or two excerpts
01:04:10 ►
from some favorite books here.
01:04:13 ►
So we have to accept now, I think,
01:04:17 ►
mathematics either in the new definition
01:04:19 ►
or the old one.
01:04:21 ►
In the Renaissance cosmology of John Dee,
01:04:25 ►
mathematics is seen as the joint therapist
01:04:29 ►
of Father Sky and Mother Earth,
01:04:33 ►
or a kind of an intellectual,
01:04:36 ►
spiritual, elastic medium
01:04:38 ►
connecting up the heavenly realms
01:04:43 ►
and Gaia herself.
01:04:47 ►
That puts mathematics then on the same level as the Logos, the Holy Spirit.
01:04:53 ►
So let’s just consider that for the sake of discussion.
01:04:57 ►
And having seen it as a language of space-time pattern,
01:05:02 ►
let me ask you this, Terence and Rup.
01:05:09 ►
To what extent could the psychedelic vision of the Logos be externalized?
01:05:15 ►
Could it be externalized by any means, either by verbal descriptions, by computer simulations,
01:05:21 ►
by drawings of really inspired visionary artists?
01:05:27 ►
Or on the other hand, in what ways could possibly mathematical vision serve the spirit and extend
01:05:36 ►
the mind?
01:05:37 ►
Is there a role, in other words, for this kind of thing in our main concerns. And to give you a fast-forward into the answer,
01:05:48 ►
let me just read a couple of things here
01:05:50 ►
from Fruit of the Gods.
01:05:54 ►
Oh, good church.
01:05:58 ►
And Terence’s confessional chapter, chapter 15,
01:06:04 ►
a section called Art and the Revolution.
01:06:06 ►
He says,
01:06:07 ►
The archaic revival is a clarion call
01:06:10 ►
to recover our birthright,
01:06:12 ►
however uncomfortable that may make us.
01:06:15 ►
It is a call to realize that life lived
01:06:18 ►
in the absence of the psychedelic experience
01:06:20 ►
upon which primordial shamanism is based
01:06:23 ►
is life trivialized, life denied,
01:06:27 ►
life enslaved to the ego and its fear of disillusion in the mysterious matrix of feeling
01:06:32 ►
that is all around us. It is in the archaic revival that our transcendence of the historical
01:06:38 ►
dilemma actually lies. There is something more. It is now clear that new developments in many areas
01:06:47 ►
including mind-machine interfacing
01:06:51 ►
pharmacology of the synthetic variety
01:06:54 ►
and data storage imaging and retrieval techniques
01:06:59 ►
it is now clear that new developments in these areas
01:07:03 ►
are coalescing into the potential for
01:07:05 ►
a truly demonic or an angelic self-imaging of our culture.
01:07:12 ►
Do you remember, Daniel?
01:07:15 ►
I don’t know if you’ve tapped into chapter 15, Rup.
01:07:21 ►
Here’s another on then in the Rebirth of Nature
01:07:26 ►
the final paragraph
01:07:28 ►
of the entire book
01:07:30 ►
entitled
01:07:30 ►
A New Renaissance
01:07:31 ►
Rupert says
01:07:34 ►
as soon as we allow ourselves
01:07:36 ►
to think
01:07:37 ►
of the world
01:07:38 ►
as alive
01:07:39 ►
we recognize
01:07:40 ►
that a part of us
01:07:41 ►
knew this all along
01:07:43 ►
it is like
01:07:44 ►
emerging from winter into spring.
01:07:47 ►
We can begin to reconnect our mental life
01:07:50 ►
with our own direct intuitive experiences of nature.
01:07:54 ►
We can participate in the spirits of sacred places and times.
01:07:58 ►
We can see that we have much to learn from traditional societies
01:08:03 ►
who have never lost their sense of connection with the living world around them.
01:08:07 ►
We can acknowledge the animistic traditions of our ancestors,
01:08:12 ►
and we can begin to develop a richer understanding of human nature,
01:08:16 ►
shaped by tradition and collective memory, linked to the earth and the heavens,
01:08:21 ►
related to all forms of life, and consciously open to the creative power expressed in all evolution.
01:08:29 ►
We are reborn into a living world.
01:08:34 ►
I call down, then, the trilogue mode.
01:08:42 ►
Psychedelics and mathematical vision.
01:08:47 ►
I’m sorry to have to cut this off right here,
01:08:50 ►
but in order to keep this podcast from running excessively long,
01:08:53 ►
I’m going to save the next part of this trialogue for our next podcast.
01:08:58 ►
I will tell you, however, that the first person to respond to Ralph’s questions was Terrence.
01:09:04 ►
Now, I know that there are a few slaughters out there who are around my age
01:09:08 ►
and can remember the old Saturday matinee cliffhanger movies.
01:09:13 ►
You know, the last show always ended with the hero swinging on a vine with a girl in his arms,
01:09:18 ►
dozens of hungry crocodiles below, and then the vine snaps and cut.
01:09:23 ►
You had to come back the following week to learn that fortunately there was a small ledge just two feet below where the vine snapped.
01:09:30 ►
Saved again.
01:09:32 ►
But I don’t really mean for this to be one of those cliffhangers.
01:09:36 ►
It’s just that if I played the rest of this trilogue, we’d be here for another hour or so.
01:09:40 ►
And that really is too long for one of these podcasts.
01:09:43 ►
But I do promise to get the rest of this trilogue out in the next podcast as soon as I can.
01:09:50 ►
You know, just now when Ralph was talking about visually representing a psychedelic
01:09:55 ►
experience, I was reminded of a short video that one of our fellow salonners, Dylan, produced.
01:10:02 ►
There’s a link to it on the psychedelicsalon.org blog under the post,
01:10:06 ►
I think it’s titled, He Climbed In. And what I like about this video is that the images are
01:10:11 ►
very subdued, which allows you to focus on what I think is really excellent dialogue.
01:10:18 ►
I found the piece very compelling, and at times it reminded me of several different
01:10:22 ►
kinds of trips I’ve had. So well done, Dylan.
01:10:25 ►
I really enjoy your work.
01:10:28 ►
And one last thing I want to mention is a video that’s up on Google Video right now,
01:10:33 ►
and it’s titled American Drug War, The Last White Hope.
01:10:38 ►
And be sure that you add the last white hope in your search
01:10:41 ►
because there are other videos with the first part of that title.
01:10:45 ►
Of course, the fact that some of the faces in this documentary are those of people who have been our guests here in the salon makes me like it even more probably.
01:10:54 ►
So if you have time, you might want to check it out.
01:10:57 ►
I first learned that it was available online from a posting by Sancho23 on our forum at thegrowreport.com.
01:11:04 ►
from a posting by Sancho23 on our forum at thegirlreport.com.
01:11:10 ►
And that post was followed by a lot of additional commentary by several people,
01:11:13 ►
like Victoria Pandora and Adime Short and others.
01:11:18 ►
In fact, it was Adime Short’s comment about Gary Fisher being in the film that prompted me to watch the entire two-hour video in order to be sure not to miss him.
01:11:24 ►
Because I remember him telling me about the day the film crew shot the interview.
01:11:29 ►
Hopefully we’ll get him to tell that story someday.
01:11:33 ►
And one final thing I’d like to mention today is about our Planque Norte mailing list
01:11:38 ►
and our Planque Norte tribe at tribe.net.
01:11:41 ►
I’m sorry to say that I just don’t have the time to put into that project right now, and so
01:11:45 ►
the list is inactive, and it’s doubtful
01:11:48 ►
that there will be any
01:11:49 ►
Palenque Norte Plylogs at Burning Man this
01:11:52 ►
year, mainly because I’m not
01:11:54 ►
going to be able to make it myself.
01:11:56 ►
But I will keep you posted as the burn gets
01:11:58 ►
closer and let you know some of the theme
01:12:00 ►
camps who have fellow salonners among them.
01:12:02 ►
And if all goes well, you should
01:12:04 ►
be able to make some lifelong friends there this year.
01:12:07 ►
So stay tuned, or stay subscribed, I guess I should say.
01:12:12 ►
You do know, I hope, that subscriptions to this podcast through iTunes and other aggregators
01:12:17 ►
is free.
01:12:19 ►
Of course you know that.
01:12:20 ►
What am I thinking?
01:12:21 ►
Anyway, I do plan on bringing you some more information about this year’s festival in the months ahead.
01:12:27 ►
Well, I guess that’s about it for today.
01:12:30 ►
And as always, I want to close by saying that this and all of the podcasts from the Psychedelic Salon are available for your use under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Like 3.0 license.
01:12:41 ►
And if you have any questions about that, just click the creative commons link at the bottom of the psychedelic salon
01:12:46 ►
webpage,
01:12:47 ►
which you can find at psychedelic salon.org.
01:12:50 ►
And that’s also where you’ll find the program notes for these podcasts.
01:12:54 ►
And for now,
01:12:55 ►
this is Lorenzo signing off from cyberdelic space.
01:12:58 ►
Be well,
01:12:59 ►
my friends.