410 - Women and Psychedelics, a Discussion

Program Notes

Guest speakers: Shonagh Home & Nese Devnot

Today’s podcast features a perspective of the psychedelic community that sometimes gets ignored, a woman’s point of view. Shonagh Home is joined by Nese Devenot in a wide-ranging conversation about not only womens’ roles in the community, but also how they are often perceived as second-class members of our community in many ways. While I am convinced that it is only the rare male psychonaught who is always a jerk, some of us have inadvertently slipped into jerkiness from time to time. This conversation may be just what us men need to hear.

Shonagh Home
is an author, teacher, shamanic practitioner and doting beekeeper. Her offerings focus on the cultivation of our intuition, creativity and the essential awareness of our personal shadow. Her shamanic work with the sacred mushroom informs both her teaching and her private practice.
She is author of the books,
‘Ix Chel Wisdom: 7 Teachings from the Mayan Sacred Feminine,’
‘Love and Spirit Medicine,’
and the upcoming, ‘Honeybee Wisdom: A Modern Melissae Speaks.’

Website: www.shonaghhome.com

Contact: shonagh.home (at) comcast (dot) net

Neşe Devenot
is a founder the Psychedemia psychedelics conference and a PhD Candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studies and teaches psychedelic philosophy and the literature of chemical self-experimentation.

Website: https://upenn.academia.edu/ndevenot
Contact: ndevenot (at) sas (dot) upenn (dot) edu

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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This is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.

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And in a few minutes we’re going to listen in on a conversation that I wish I’d heard 20 or more years ago.

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It’s a conversation between Shona Holm, Lily Kay Ross, and Ne’Shea Deveno.

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Actually it took place early this summer and my hope was to get it out to you sooner, but alas, life got in

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our way for a bit, which I’m sure also happens to you from time to time.

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As I was previewing our conversation, I couldn’t help but to think about some other women who

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were also important leaders in our community.

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You can read about them yourself in the wonderful book titled Sisters of the Extreme, Women

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Writing on the Drug Experience. The book

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is edited by Cynthia Palmer and Michael Horowitz, two names that every psychonaut should know.

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And in their collection, you’ll find the works and stories of almost a hundred women whose

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lives were in one way or another influenced by psychoactive medicines. While you might expect

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to find stories about the Delphic Oracle and Cleopatra

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and Nefertiti, people like that in ancient history, you may be surprised to read about

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women like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Sand, Sarah Bernhardt, Louisa May Alcott, Edith Wharton,

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Edith Piaf, Maya Angelou, Margaret Mead, Nina Graboldi, and Ann Shulgin, just to name a few.

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And I expect that in future books like this,

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you’re also going to be able to read about the three women who are with us here today in the salon.

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I think that perhaps many of my men friends here in the salon

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are going to be more than a little surprised at how us men,

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without even realizing what we’re doing,

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can sometimes act very much like the jerks in the default tea party world do.

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They do it as a matter of course, and we do it because we’re not paying attention, I think.

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So let’s listen as these brave women express a few of the thoughts that us, well, us guys don’t like to entertain.

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You know us, our two most feared words from our significant other are, let’s talk.

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You know us, our two most feared words from our significant other are, let’s talk.

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And I am Shauna Holm, and I am here with Lily K. Ross and Neshea Deveno,

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and we’re going to have a good old conversation here among three women in the psychedelic community who would like to express our opinions about a few things and let this kind of free flow.

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And I have been wanting to do this for some time, so I’m just so excited for this.

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And I am going to pass my hat to Neshe first,

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and we’ll just each of us give a little brief introduction as

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to who we are, and then we’ll launch into our conversation.

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So I’ll hand it over to you, Nishay.

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Thanks.

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So I am a graduate student working on my PhD in comparative literature at the University

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of Pennsylvania.

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I’ve been here for five years now,

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and I’m working on my dissertation.

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I’m also a co-founder of the Psychedemia Psychedelics Conference

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that was held at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012,

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and hopefully another psychedemia will be coming in the near future.

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Lily?

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Hello.

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I hope there’s another psychedemia event in the future, Nishay.

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So my name is Lily, and I have just graduated with my Master’s in Divinity from the Harvard Divinity School.

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And I’m still living in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I’ve done a lot of work sort of studying the contemporary global phenomenon of ayahuasca use and tourism and healing work. And in general, my interest

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in psychedelics, I think, falls under a larger umbrella for me of my interest in the alleviation of suffering

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and ways to approach that and accomplish that.

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And I think psychedelics are a powerful way to do that.

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So that’s kind of at this point where I’m at in this field.

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I’ll add something just about my work as well since I didn’t go into it.

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As I mentioned, I’m in a comparative literature program and I’m studying psychedelic philosophy

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and psychedelic culture within that.

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Comparative literature is a very flexible humanities field, so I can reference different

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texts and trip reports depending on what I want to do and there’s not any pushback

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against that.

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And so my work really has been trying to develop psychedelic studies within the communities

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because, as we know, there’s this big scientific push in the medical world right now with a

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resurgence of research, but there’s not a tremendous amount of work thinking about the implications of psychedelics for,

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you know, humanity and consciousness in the humanities now.

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So that’s what I’m working on.

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Excellent.

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Yeah.

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And for myself, I have written a book called Love and Spirit Medicine,

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have written a book called Love and Spirit Medicine, which chronicles my own journey with the psilocybin mushroom, where I was working with that on a monthly basis, very

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shamanically, and at the same time searching for books that detailed a woman’s experience

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and not actually as sort of an academic telling,

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but a very deeply personal telling.

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I wanted to hear what do these medicines do?

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What is their impact on your life?

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So I wrote that book, and I’m working on my third book right now on the honeybee, and

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I’m a shamanic practitioner in the Pacific Northwest and also a public speaker and a teacher.

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So, yeah, so this is a really beautiful trio of women here.

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So let’s get into our discussion here and let us begin by talking about what it is like for each of us to be women in this modern psychedelic culture.

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So maybe we’ll start with you, Lily.

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Oh, goodness.

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We’re starting with me, eh?

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Yeah, you know, it’s been a very, very interesting journey.

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I came into this culture, this sort of psychedelic culture, which is a really

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broad term.

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I mean, there’s a lot of subcultures within this kind of larger umbrella that we refer

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to as psychedelic culture.

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I came into this kind of milieu when I was 20, about, maybe a little bit younger.

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So it’s been about eight years.

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a little bit younger. So it’s been about eight years. And my own identity has been really formed throughout that time. And the forming of my identity as a human being and as a woman

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has been very much shaped by my involvement in psychedelic culture. At this point, I would say that I’ve learned a lot about how it is to be a professional woman in a male-dominated field.

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Granted, most fields are male-dominated.

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The psychedelic field seems to be maybe a little more male-dominated than a lot of other fields right now,

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which I find interesting because the psychedelic culture also seems to really state and restate the narrative that it is very cutting edge and

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really pushing the boundaries on so many fronts, and yet the sort of gender front seems to

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be lagging in so many ways.

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So I’ve had a lot of personal encounters in the culture with a number of different members who are

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male that have just left me very challenged and very frustrated and very, at times, very

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angry at what feels like a sort of normative oppression, oppressing environment, actually.

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So it’s been really, really challenging, and it’s also been very illuminating

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and has taught me a tremendous amount about, you know, more mainstream American culture

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and how it relates to women because there’s so many parallels between those two things.

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parallels between those two things. And the psychedelic women that I know are some of the most, you know, compassionate and educated and knowledgeable and wonderful women that I’ve

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ever met. And so it’s a really complex kind of question with a lot of different elements to it. Yeah, yeah, it absolutely is.

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It’s many layered.

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And when you speak of the oppression that you feel,

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could you elaborate a bit on that with the guys?

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Where are you going with that?

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Yeah, well, it depends on the context, you know, and what it is that people conceive of as psychedelic culture.

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For instance, there’s this transformational festival culture that is very, very popular and gaining a lot of momentum internationally.

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And I think a lot of people in that particular subculture identify as psychedelic users or psychedelic people.

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people in that particular subculture identify as psychedelic users or psychedelic people.

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And I see a tremendous amount of sexualization and objectification of women.

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I encounter in my own sort of interactions with a lot of people what feels like sort of, I don’t know, in this moment it’s kind of hard to name, but there is a way in which I feel people resisting my sort of empowered identity and self as an educated woman with a powerful voice who talks about sexuality

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and also talks about a lot of other issues as well, I experience a lot of pushback against that.

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Within the psychedelic community?

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Oh, totally, yeah.

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You know, like if I don’t really go to festivals, I don’t really do much of that at this point in my work

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and in my personal life.

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But when I do show up in those communities, I find that there is, you know,

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I feel like I’m always having to resist being pigeonholed or pushed into this sexualized,

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objectified identity that I find very unsettling and very limiting to who I am

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and, frankly, what I have to offer as a human being.

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You know, I had a conversation, to give an example,

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I had a conversation with a male member of the community that I was organizing an event with,

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and I was saying to him, you know,

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an event with, and I was saying to him, you know, I find the objectification and sexualization of women in the subculture to be very unsettling, and his response to me was, well, you know,

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that you sound just like angry to me, and I think it’s great that, you know, women are

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really into the sexual, you know, expression.

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I think it’s really empowering.

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And I just kind of scratched my head like, oh, my gosh, you really don’t get this.

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Like, women’s empowerment in its genuine form has absolutely nothing to do with what you think is empowering.

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You know, like, why do you have the final say, you know,

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and why are you kind of pushing back against something that I’m saying I find unsettling?

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I’m not necessarily asking you to agree with it, but you don’t have to, like, the fact that you think it’s empowering is not a stopping point to our conversation, you know.

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Are you speaking to the sexual empowerment?

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Is that what you’re saying?

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Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah, that there’s more than just the sexual empowerment.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, there’s a lot more than that.

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And yet that’s something that I feel myself and see a lot of women pushing against, you know,

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or kind of feeling like we’re up against.

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It’s also just really hard to get our voices in there, you know.

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It’s hard to find the platforms and find the spaces to speak as a woman.

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It’s not as easy for women as it is for men.

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There just aren’t the same amount of spaces.

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And multiple times I have found myself invited to participate in events where I am the only

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woman or I am in the minority of women who are speaking or participating in that kind

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of way.

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And I, every time I feel like the token woman.

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And it’s just, it’s like, what?

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I thought we were supposed to be a radical subculture.

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Like, what’s going on here?

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Yes, it does make one wonder.

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Well, we’re going to come back to this.

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I want to get to Nishay, and Nishay, ask you that same question, and then I’ll also speak to it, and then the three of us can really roll on this.

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So, yeah.

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I’m just going to start with one response to something that Lily said.

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It made me think of there was a talk in 2012 at Poincare Norte, which is a psychedelic

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speaker series at Burning Man.

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And the talk was given by Dr. Maddy Corbin.

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I believe she’s also spoken at the Women’s Visionary Congress.

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But her talk was called The Politics of Knowledge in the Psychedelic Sciences.

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And in the description, she mentions that she describes herself as a feminist scholar

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committed to liberatory politics,

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and she works a lot within women’s studies.

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And in the talk, if I remember correctly, because I watched it a while ago,

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she mentioned that when she brings up these kind of political feminist issues for psychedelic audiences,

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a lot of people are resistant to that and see it as kind of

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like a turnoff or a bummer or it’s something that, you know, it’s not fun to think about

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like difficult topics that are hard to maneuver through.

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But I think that they’re very important to be having those conversations even though

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they’re not like the sort of thing that you want to be doing at a festival, you know, to have fun.

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Does that make sense?

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Mm-hmm.

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And then to get into myself, I started working publicly with psychedelics when, in about

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in 2010. Before that I was interested in them

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intellectually but I didn’t know that I could be open about my interest and so I it wasn’t until

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I learned that these conferences were going on like the MAPS conferences on Horizons in New York

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City that I realized that I could sort of come out with

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my interests in a more explicit way.

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And early on, I also kind of experienced the early finishing with this token woman speaker,

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which also, I mean, was a good, it opened up doors for me that would not have been there

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necessarily otherwise. So, for example, I received a – Mass had put out a call on behalf of Entheogenesis Australis,

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Australis EGA in Australia.

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They put on conferences every once in a while, and they – the year before I came, I spoke in 2011. In 2010, there were, I think, 50 men speakers to one woman speaker.

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And at the end, even though the audience was mixed, and that’s typically what you’ll find,

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it’s not just men who are going to the conferences that are male-dominated.

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And so a woman at the end stood up and said, what’s going on here?

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Like, why is this such a huge disparity?

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And so a woman at the end stood up and said, what’s going on here?

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Like, why is this such a huge disparity?

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And then as a result of that kind of controversy, they made a huge push for the subsequent year to find women speakers.

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And so I, you know, I was invited to come from the United States. I was offered to help significantly with my transportation.

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And so between the conference and my

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permit I was able to cover

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the trip there and

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this is a when I got to

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Australia there was a

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flyer for the conference

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and so there was

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a full program but there was also a smaller

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program that had

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the kind of like featured speakers

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and I knew basically the feature smaller program that had the kind of, like, featured speakers.

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And I knew basically the featured just from, you know, being familiar with their work and their kind of, like, famous figures within the community.

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And then there was a picture of me on this featured flyer, you know, this, like, you

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know, just a few years into grad school, you know, women. And so, you know, it was because I think they needed to have more balance on their public

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front that there were some women.

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But the fact that they needed to get me all the way from the United States, which is really

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far away, and that year there were still only seven to something like 50 men, even the year

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where they were explicitly trying to make this push to get more women speakers.

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And something else that I’ve noticed regarding that is there seems to be this frustration

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kind of with women.

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People have been posing.

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It’s not that there aren’t as many women speakers.

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It’s like something that people are pretty, a lot of people notice that.

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It’s not subtle.

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But at the same time, the people who are putting these events on usually say that they are open to women coming

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and they invite women, but women just don’t want to talk and women just don’t necessarily want to get on the stage.

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And I think that there’s this kind of disconnect between

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women, like, feeling comfortable participating in certain ways and the kinds of platforms that

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are available. Because I don’t think that women just only want to talk about women’s issues.

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I don’t think that women only want to lead workshops, which is what I’ve heard a lot,

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that the men want to speak on stage and the women are more community-oriented and want to participate in things.

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But that’s one of the explanations that I’ve heard offered to explain.

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One other thing I have to mention for my own story is that I recently, last year,

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became a mom for the first time to Ellis, who is almost a year, just a few weeks away from being a year old.

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And I noticed that that had a really big impact on my public sort of projection of my work and my interest. pregnant and became a mother, I was very active on Facebook and, you know, Twitter and that kind

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of thing with putting out research and, you know, commenting on current events and things like that.

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And so a lot of people knew of me just from, you know, following my work online. But then when I

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had a baby, and this was especially affected because we were relying on milk donations

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from women who we didn’t know, and I felt very self-conscious about being so public

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with my interests because I was afraid that if people, you know, this is in retrospect,

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I kind of realized that this happened.

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I was worried that women who saw what I was working on, like,

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wouldn’t be as enthusiastic about sharing their milk with us. So, you know, that might have just

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been in my head, but in retrospect, I did notice that it had a big impact on my sort of interaction

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with the outside world and the internet in the past year. Yeah, of course. Well, that’s something to think about. And also

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even, I think it’s a factor in terms

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of how many women want to put their voice in the pot here, as it were,

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because many of them are mothers. And

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so there are numerous reasons there for maybe wanting to keep

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it on the down low in terms of their participation in these conferences.

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That said, that’s one way to look at it.

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And then another, though, is that I just, you know,

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came back from the Women’s Visionary Congress my second year in a row,

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and gosh, there were plenty of women there who were fantastic speakers

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who had quite a lot to contribute to the discussion,

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and they were fascinating.

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And I will just say from my own personal experience,

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I am not a recreational user of substances, and I barely drink,

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and I’m very new to the psychedelic community.

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My approach came from my own seven, eight years of very dedicated shamanic work,

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and my approach to the medicine was done ceremonially, ritually, at night, in the dark, lying down,

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eyes closed.

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I mean, it was very, very interior and very shamanic.

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And so that’s also, you know, when I kind of look around, I’m like, all right, where

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are more of these medicine women?

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You know, where are these mystical medicine women who have so much of their wisdom to contribute.

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And no, it’s not academic.

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They’re not in the field of medicine.

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They’re not in the field of psychiatry.

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They are carrying what I think is a lineage that I know I carry as well.

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And that is that plant medicines have long been the domain of women.

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And we have a pattern through our history of women being marginalized.

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And there’s a wonderful book by Barbara Tedlock, PhD, called The Woman in the Shaman’s Body, and she goes into this exploring how, of course, the majority

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of archaeologists and anthropologists were men, and they had their biases at the time.

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And also people commenting and writing about these cultures were priests, missionaries,

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and the women in those shamanic communities, the shaman that women have traditionally

00:24:10 ►

excelled.

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And saying this, I’m not, I actually do not identify myself as a feminist.

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I think we all have to get our shit together, as it were.

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And so I don’t want to sort of alienate the guys

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I’m simply speaking to what we’ve been

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dealing with for several centuries

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and beyond

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and we’ve got the Catholic Church

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who just waged absolute

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murderous war

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against medicine women

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and wiped them out

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particularly the older women I will say

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in fact those are the women they went out, particularly the older women, I will say. In fact, those are the women they went after first, were the older women.

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And then in the middle of the, gosh, it was 1900s, I think, the AMA waged quite a vicious

00:24:55 ►

campaign against midwives to fully discredit them, which was a very long-held traditional

00:25:01 ►

woman’s medicine practice.

00:25:03 ►

Got them well out of the way,

00:25:05 ►

and now everyone gives birth in a hospital,

00:25:10 ►

and we don’t need to visit that discussion,

00:25:13 ►

but I have noticed this, and I see,

00:25:15 ►

huh, once again, I am noticing in the psychedelic community,

00:25:19 ►

as you’re saying, Lily,

00:25:20 ►

seems to be so forward-thinking and so open-minded,

00:25:24 ►

and yet we look at these conferences, and we see all these guys speaking,

00:25:30 ►

and mostly sort of white guys who are sort of decorated with their degrees.

00:25:35 ►

And I wonder in my head if they are endeavoring,

00:25:40 ►

I mean, they’re clearly endeavoring to validate these plant medicines and these other substances that have a great deal to offer society.

00:25:52 ►

But part of me sort of scratches my head and I think, hmm, I wonder if, you know, the actual medicine women and the whole mystical side of this, ooh, that’s being kept away.

00:26:02 ►

Let’s keep those ones out of the discussion because they will invalidate

00:26:06 ►

what we are trying to do.

00:26:08 ►

And I

00:26:09 ►

really feel that and it’s not

00:26:12 ►

so subtle.

00:26:14 ►

And I wonder to myself, you know,

00:26:15 ►

you have the 13 grandmothers and I’m like,

00:26:17 ►

where’s, you know, Donia Julieta?

00:26:20 ►

You know, Grandma Julieta,

00:26:21 ►

why is she not speaking? Yeah, I know she doesn’t speak

00:26:24 ►

English, but get an interpreter.

00:26:25 ►

I’ll sit there for hours listening to that woman and pour out her wisdom, you know,

00:26:30 ►

of how she works with the medicine and what it has done for her

00:26:34 ►

and the people who come to her for her help.

00:26:38 ►

And this is what I am wanting to hear more of and for myself endeavoring to, you know, bring my voice to the table

00:26:47 ►

and share a bit of my experience with that as well.

00:26:52 ►

But, you know, we have all these amazing medicine women around the globe.

00:26:57 ►

You’ve got to dig a little bit, but my goodness, they’re there.

00:27:00 ►

They’re doing fine, fine work, and they have a lot to say.

00:27:03 ►

They’re doing fine, fine work, and they have a lot to say.

00:27:10 ►

And it does not sort of fit in with the psychiatric model or the medical model.

00:27:12 ►

I think it goes far deeper.

00:27:15 ►

And, yeah, go on.

00:27:16 ►

Someone’s going to say something. Well, yeah, this is so interesting, and this is something that I had the opportunity to really take up for a time in my own graduate studies,

00:27:26 ►

which is that, you know, what we’re talking about are very subversive ways of knowing, right?

00:27:33 ►

So we’re talking about ways of knowing and ways of learning

00:27:36 ►

and ways of encountering meaningful information that is considered to be very threatening to sort of normative ideas of what knowledge is or is supposed to be.

00:27:51 ►

So kind of what I mean by that is there is a narrative that legitimate knowledge is knowledge that is produced within,

00:27:59 ►

often within the scientific method and framework and methodology.

00:28:04 ►

within the scientific method and framework and methodology.

00:28:13 ►

And it comes out of, you know, these accredited research institutions of enduring reputation.

00:28:15 ►

I mean, it’s sort of this ivory tower.

00:28:19 ►

Well, the walls of that ivory tower, I think, are the narrative,

00:28:27 ►

is the narrative that only that kind of knowledge counts and other kinds of knowledge don’t count.

00:28:32 ►

And so, you know, you have this phenomenon to this day where you have anthropologists that, you know, walk out the door of the ivory tower and they go out into the world and they encounter these people who have these wild practices

00:28:38 ►

and these wild ways of learning about the world.

00:28:41 ►

And then they kind of document it and they analyze it and perform some crazy reduction to it.

00:28:48 ►

And then they end up with some kind of theory that is oftentimes a really impoverished attempt at a mistranslation of this deep cultural tradition

00:29:01 ►

and knowledge and way of even approaching knowledge and the production of

00:29:05 ►

knowledge right so which is you know went to take that then and talk about it specifically in the

00:29:11 ►

context of the psychedelic community i think in general when you start talking about mystical

00:29:17 ►

experiences as a meaningful part of people’s lives you’re already venturing into territory

00:29:23 ►

that is so subversive and so, in some ways,

00:29:27 ►

just kind of illegitimate within this knowledge system that we have.

00:29:31 ►

And then you take it a step further and you say that mystical state was induced by a chemical

00:29:35 ►

or by a plant, and suddenly it’s just like, well, that’s out the window.

00:29:39 ►

That just doesn’t even count anymore, you know?

00:29:43 ►

So to really examine that and to say, actually, these other voices do matter,

00:29:49 ►

and there is a rich and growing sort of corner of academic discourse that is aimed at really actually, I think,

00:29:59 ►

carving out that kind of space so that these other voices and these other ways of relating to and constructing

00:30:06 ►

knowledge can really be heard and can really be learned from and can be taken seriously

00:30:11 ►

alongside things like, you know, the scientific method or other ways of constructing and finding

00:30:18 ►

and producing knowledge.

00:30:20 ►

Yes.

00:30:20 ►

Yeah.

00:30:21 ►

I’m really glad you brought that up.

00:30:22 ►

And it made me think, because basically the crux of what I’m doing with my dissertation, which is coming at psychedelics from sort of the Western philosophical canon and literary canon.

00:30:49 ►

to show how there are these other ways of knowing from within the philosophy that is espoused in academia.

00:30:56 ►

So while I’m not myself doing that work of going into these other frames,

00:31:03 ►

I’m trying to work towards making it so that communication or dialogue is more accessible between these different knowledge systems,

00:31:06 ►

or at least respect on the most fundamental level.

00:31:10 ►

Yeah, that’s so important.

00:31:14 ►

I really see that feminine piece has been cast out, and it’s been cast out.

00:31:19 ►

It didn’t happen this century.

00:31:21 ►

It happened maybe 1,400 years ago,

00:31:26 ►

happened this century. It happened maybe 1400 years ago. And it’s never really been able to make much of a comeback until I think we stand a shot at this at this point. And that is a wisdom.

00:31:36 ►

I was so glad that you spoke, Lily, to the sort of gilded ivory tower of knowledge that is acceptable, and yet there’s so much more out there.

00:31:50 ►

And I have been studying a little bit of Goethe, and he was, I didn’t just write Faust, and

00:31:56 ►

he was obviously a very gifted poet and writer, but he was also a scientist and a botanist,

00:32:01 ►

and he understood that there was an animating force.

00:32:06 ►

There were animating forces behind everything, everything.

00:32:12 ►

Whereas material science, you know, the modern science,

00:32:16 ►

it will reduce everything down to the smallest part.

00:32:20 ►

And if it can’t see it, it is dismissed altogether.

00:32:24 ►

And this is the other piece, too,

00:32:25 ►

with these plant medicines. I think, okay, fine, guys, you can distill it down to, oh, it’s

00:32:31 ►

psilocin and it’s this and this, that’s great. But a Gertian scientific mind would, of course,

00:32:38 ►

understand, oh, no, no, no, dear, this is a great mystery, and you can distill it all you want.

00:32:45 ►

There is an animating force behind that plant, and it is a mystery that you will never, we will never know.

00:32:52 ►

Let’s have a little humility, which I think women really can bring to the table as well,

00:33:01 ►

and a very deep respect for what this is and for what this really does activate

00:33:06 ►

within the human soul.

00:33:09 ►

These medicines are very much a portal, and we live in a culture that is spiritually impoverished.

00:33:16 ►

It is grossly superficial.

00:33:19 ►

There is nothing of any meaning in this culture, and I have two girls, 13 and 16.

00:33:25 ►

I can tell you, I hear the music.

00:33:28 ►

I see what they are exposed to,

00:33:31 ►

as much as I try to curb that with some success.

00:33:36 ►

But it is mighty pathetic.

00:33:39 ►

And so this voice, this sacred feminine medicine voice

00:33:44 ►

that women bring to the table, I think actually people are hungry for it, hungry for it.

00:33:52 ►

And I see the success of the Women’s Visionary Congress and see just the reaction of the audience to these women and what they bring.

00:34:01 ►

And even they, I know, would love to have even more medicine

00:34:05 ►

women bring that in as well. Because I see almost a self-conscious piece in some of these women,

00:34:12 ►

you know, and it’s totally understandable in that they almost feel like they’ve got to sort of

00:34:17 ►

validate themselves with, you know, certain, you know, degrees or whatever. Otherwise, it’s like,

00:34:24 ►

who’s going to take them seriously? I mean, that’s sort of certain, you know, degrees or whatever. Otherwise, it’s like who’s going to take them seriously.

00:34:25 ►

I mean, that’s sort of the platform that I think has been sort of set up for us.

00:34:30 ►

Part of what strikes me as so interesting about all of this is the need to feel legitimized or legitimate,

00:34:48 ►

legitimized or legitimate, which I think, and I’m sort of, I’m riffing a little bit here because I haven’t thought this through yet, but it just kind of, it seems like a

00:34:51 ►

powerful idea because I think ultimately what we are aiming for is not to be right, but

00:34:59 ►

to be understood.

00:35:03 ►

And not, I mean, you know, the degree to which a human can understand another human is kind of a mysterious and ambiguous thing and is argued in many directions.

00:35:10 ►

So it’s not even about, like, this, like, accurate understanding.

00:35:26 ►

to have a voice that is listened to within and beyond one’s own community, to be able to meaningfully participate in these different conversations and bring in, you know, I mean,

00:35:36 ►

the way that I approach it is that my relationship to, in some instances, in some conversations,

00:35:43 ►

my relationship to psychedelic materials and the things that I have learned through that relationship will kind of come

00:35:50 ►

into conversation and I’ll kind of put it on the table like one of the things I’ve learned

00:35:55 ►

is this.

00:35:56 ►

And it’s not that the whole conversation is about psychedelics, but it’s a way of saying,

00:36:01 ►

you know, this is something I have learned from this work,

00:36:05 ►

and it belongs in this conversation and it deserves to be heard alongside something that was learned in a classroom

00:36:13 ►

or alongside something that was learned, you know, in some other kind of setting, if that makes sense.

00:36:20 ►

Yep, yep.

00:36:21 ►

And I ask also the whole legitimate piece, legitimate for who? Legitimate for what?

00:36:28 ►

You know, I mean, I think also because I have not been a part of this community, I kind of, I don’t know, I kind of just feel like I’m my own person.

00:36:38 ►

I can sort of think for myself, and I’ve got a little something to put to the pot, and then I want to hear from other people.

00:36:44 ►

and I’ve got a little something to put to the pot, and then I want to hear from other people.

00:36:50 ►

And I really sort of don’t care who sort of considers me quote-unquote legitimate or not.

00:36:57 ►

I don’t know, also the whole sort of PC thing, you know, being, you know, I mean, that’s just being correct for politics.

00:36:59 ►

No, I’m not a body politic.

00:37:14 ►

You know, I’m an individual, and I want to hear from other individuals who can think for themselves and reason and bring their good wisdom to the table and not worry about having to be sort of self-conscious and, you know, validate anything, you know.

00:37:18 ►

Let’s just sort of hear what you have to say. And, yeah, there’s a lot of, I have noticed, sort of posturing here at the, you know,

00:37:26 ►

a couple of other conferences that I’ve attended, just noting that.

00:37:33 ►

So would you ideally like to see anyone who wants to speak be able to get on the podium,

00:37:42 ►

regardless of their kind of recent experience?

00:37:47 ►

Well, not no, but I mean, you know, there’s a lot of sort of outrageousness as well.

00:37:52 ►

What I’d really like to see is, I think the three of us agree on this, is more women’s

00:37:57 ►

voices.

00:37:57 ►

And what I want to hear from really is more of these medicine women, these women, you know, shamanic women who are working with these

00:38:07 ►

medicines, particularly with other people.

00:38:11 ►

I mean, you know, we’re getting some very exciting studies, of course, from the medical

00:38:16 ►

psychiatric community on what these medicines do.

00:38:18 ►

But, you know, I’m interested also in the actual sort of human, you know, telling of what those experiences have been.

00:38:28 ►

Do you know what I’m saying?

00:38:30 ►

Yeah, definitely.

00:38:32 ►

Yeah, and we’re not getting enough of that.

00:38:34 ►

And I think that, you know, in addition to that, I think there should also be more women

00:38:41 ►

who are, you know, theorizing maybe more speculatively and not, you know, I think

00:38:47 ►

there’s like, there’s a, there’s a complete avoidance of the medicine women. And then even

00:38:52 ►

within the, you know, legitimate science world, there aren’t, you know, there are dramatically

00:38:59 ►

fewer women than men. And I feel like both sides need to be addressed. I agree. I agree. Two things. One’s just a

00:39:08 ►

brief comment just to kind of specify for some of our listeners just the point

00:39:12 ►

that, you know, generally the subjects of

00:39:15 ►

anthropological research and ethnobotanical research in the

00:39:19 ►

psychedelic field has been done with male shamans. There’s been almost none

00:39:24 ►

done with female shamans. There’s been almost none done with female shamans.

00:39:25 ►

So there’s a need for researchers to be in collaboration with these people,

00:39:30 ►

and then there’s also these women,

00:39:31 ►

and also a need for these women’s voices to just simply be heard if they want

00:39:36 ►

to be heard, you know, because a lot of them, as far as I know,

00:39:40 ►

are also pretty adamant about staying underground and staying fairly

00:39:44 ►

inaccessible for their own personal reasons.

00:39:48 ►

The other thing, Nishay, I wanted to ask you this, which is, you know,

00:39:53 ►

since you have a background and training in, you know, things like critical thinking and things like that, I wondered if you could kind of speak to, you know, what you think of some

00:40:07 ►

of the more far out or less robust, perhaps, ideas that seem to gain a lot of momentum

00:40:17 ►

in the psychedelic culture and what you think the role of the potential benefit and some

00:40:24 ►

of the potential harm that’s done by critical thinking in this community?

00:40:30 ►

Well, that’s, I guess, a big question.

00:40:33 ►

Well, I know, I mean, for example, like Terrence McKenna has an outsized presence in, I think,

00:40:40 ►

psychedelic philosophy within the psychedelic culture.

00:40:44 ►

And, you know, and for good within the psychedelic culture.

00:40:47 ►

And, you know, and for good reason, I would say.

00:40:53 ►

But there’s also perhaps like an over-reliance on some of his formulations at the expense of sort of thinking things through more deeply

00:40:58 ►

or expounding upon certain topics.

00:41:02 ►

But can you like kind of like give an example of the kind of issues

00:41:07 ►

that you are thinking of?

00:41:09 ►

Yeah, I mean, I’m thinking, like, outside of the academic discourse and, like, the more

00:41:13 ►

popular discourse, there seems to be people that they don’t seem to have any training in critical thinking at all and therefore seem to ascribe to really – how do I even say this?

00:41:32 ►

It’s kind of hard to put words around.

00:41:34 ►

But it’s like, you know, even just bringing up a phrase like critical thinking, I know that there are people out there that would be like, well, critical thinking is critical and criticism is bad.

00:41:42 ►

So we’re not going to do that.

00:41:43 ►

Like, we’re going to just

00:41:45 ►

agree with each other incessantly. Do you see kind of what I’m saying? Yeah. And I mean, I think,

00:41:54 ►

you know, this is probably not exactly what you’re referring to, but just as an example of

00:41:58 ►

lack of critical thinking, or thinking deeply about something the the issue of the pineal glands role of dmt

00:42:06 ►

because like within whenever i encounter someone in a conversation with dmt 90 percent of the time

00:42:14 ►

if not higher the person will mention oh that’s from your pineal gland it’s released when you die

00:42:21 ►

and they’re stated as facts but they’re’re not facts, and it’s just this

00:42:25 ►

kind of in-group, you know, circulated idea that isn’t, you know, isn’t confirmed and isn’t, you

00:42:33 ►

know, but it’s so widespread that within the culture, it kind of has taken on a life of its

00:42:37 ►

own, and that’s, you know, it’s different from other conceptual things, because it’s a, you know,

00:42:42 ►

scientific fact, but I think it’s an illustration of

00:42:45 ►

the ways that ideas tend to stick and get circulated, even if they’re not the only possibility.

00:42:53 ►

Well said.

00:42:55 ►

But have you noticed specific ideas that seem to be kind of complacently circulated?

00:43:03 ►

Oh, that’s a can of worms, baby.

00:43:09 ►

You know, I mean, there’s something about a lot of psychedelic culture has a lot of

00:43:14 ►

overlaps with sort of pop spirituality and psychology and some of this kind of stuff.

00:43:21 ►

And so right now a really popular idea that I see in the broader community

00:43:27 ►

is this idea, for instance, that you create your own reality

00:43:31 ►

and manifest your destiny in some way, which, I mean,

00:43:37 ►

I’ve heard people use that phrase, manifest your destiny,

00:43:39 ►

which I’m just like, do you not know that that’s like a really serious throwback to a colonial narrative that led to the genocide of millions of people?

00:43:49 ►

It’s definitely, even in America today, it’s the same kind of rationale that a lot of conservative Republicans will use to not help the poor.

00:44:00 ►

It’s because those people, they somehow deserve that.

00:44:04 ►

That’s the type of

00:44:05 ►

person they are, that they created that state of poverty for themselves. And so it’s not,

00:44:11 ►

you know, it’s disrespecting them to try to help them. And that’s, I mean, it’s a very

00:44:15 ►

dangerous idea because it allows people to not act and not try to change things when,

00:44:22 ►

you know, that’s in their power. And it leads to, I’ve seen this myself just in my own experience and my own story,

00:44:29 ►

I mean, it leads to a lot of very insidious victim blame.

00:44:33 ►

Plus, there’s no room for God in that narrative, as far as I know.

00:44:37 ►

You know, if you create your own reality truly, then there’s no room for some holy other in that larger, yeah, I mean, it’s a really pervasive idea and a

00:44:53 ►

lot of people are really resistant to having it critiqued and there is a certain religiosity

00:44:58 ►

and sort of a whole host of profound spiritual convictions that seem to be, a lot of people

00:45:04 ►

assume to be held by the whole psychedelic community.

00:45:07 ►

And that way, like, there’s sort of this religious movement aspect to it.

00:45:13 ►

And yet, people really don’t want, you know, they rally against, you know, organized religion

00:45:21 ►

and fundamentalism and this and that, when, you know, one of the

00:45:26 ►

things that a lot of those religious traditions have built into their structure is a rigorous

00:45:30 ►

tradition of critique and of thinking through and of theology and of, you know, trying to

00:45:38 ►

see how it is that ideas work or don’t work in lived life.

00:45:43 ►

work or don’t work in lived life.

00:45:50 ►

And there isn’t a robust theological tradition or anything of that sort or tradition of criticism or self-critique within the psychedelic community.

00:45:54 ►

And so these ideas, they kind of, they just get so popularized and so blown out of proportion.

00:46:07 ►

And they’re ideas that I find problematic and very hard to take seriously.

00:46:12 ►

And so, you know, it’s a whole can of worms.

00:46:17 ►

Well, I mean, the psychedelic community is a pretty darn loosely knit group, wouldn’t you say?

00:46:22 ►

I mean, there are many, many sort of

00:46:26 ►

subcultures of that. And, and, and it seems, you know, we’ve got the whole 60s piece, too, of this

00:46:32 ►

whole sort of reaction against, you know, anything organized. And, and yet, you know, there are some,

00:46:43 ►

I don’t know, I like these, there’s lineages,

00:46:46 ►

and we don’t really have lineages in the psychedelic community either.

00:46:51 ►

I mean, if you’re, you know, lucky enough to find your way to, you know,

00:46:54 ►

a very honorable and decent ayahuasca shaman or an honorable and decent mushroom shaman,

00:47:00 ►

you know, perhaps you can, you know, establish yourself within that lineage. But I

00:47:06 ►

know, you know, that you will find that there are certain structures, or shall we say moral codes,

00:47:14 ►

and I find that morals, that’s like a dirty word these days. And I actually want to speak to that

00:47:20 ►

real quick, too, because I looked that up. One of my favorite dictionaries is Webster’s 1828. I really prefer the older books and it is interesting by the way if you are looking

00:47:29 ►

up a word and then you want to look in sort of the later dictionaries and you can see how that

00:47:34 ►

word kind of tends to morph and change but just real quick I looked up moral number seven under

00:47:41 ►

that in the Webster’s 1828 says in general, moral denotes something which respects

00:47:46 ►

the conduct of

00:47:47 ►

men and their relations as

00:47:49 ►

social beings whose actions

00:47:52 ►

have a bearing on each other’s

00:47:54 ►

rights and happiness and

00:47:56 ►

are therefore right or wrong, virtuous

00:47:58 ►

or vicious, as moral character,

00:48:00 ►

moral views, moral knowledge, moral

00:48:02 ►

sentiments, moral maxims,

00:48:04 ►

on and on.

00:48:09 ►

Or moral denotes something which respects the intellectual powers of man as distinct from his physical powers.

00:48:11 ►

Thus we speak of moral evidence, moral arguments, on and on.

00:48:15 ►

But anyway, I just think that is something to think about as well

00:48:18 ►

because one thing I also, when you’re talking about these sort of new age pieces

00:48:22 ►

that are making their way through these crowds,

00:48:25 ►

there’s this sort of anything goes kind of mentality.

00:48:28 ►

And, oh, we won’t judge.

00:48:30 ►

It’s all good.

00:48:31 ►

It’s all, you know, and then create your reality and all this kind of thing.

00:48:35 ►

And I think, well, but, you know, there is, you know, right and wrong.

00:48:41 ►

And, yes, of course, that can be very subjective but

00:48:45 ►

I think you know when you are

00:48:47 ►

delving into the spiritual

00:48:50 ►

in this way I think it becomes

00:48:52 ►

very

00:48:53 ►

apparent and that is something to pay

00:48:56 ►

attention to as well like let’s get

00:48:58 ►

a little bit of structure here

00:48:59 ►

it doesn’t mean we have to all

00:49:02 ►

become you know

00:49:03 ►

monks here but let’s you know, monks here.

00:49:05 ►

But let’s, you know, so for me, for instance, with the way that I approach the medicine,

00:49:10 ►

and I am actually very candid about my work with that medicine for my own self,

00:49:15 ►

but I do follow my own structures here.

00:49:20 ►

In other words, you know, you’re not going to see me, you know, tripping my brains out at a big party.

00:49:25 ►

And, you know, sorry if people take that like I’m judging, but I am saying for me that’s not working.

00:49:31 ►

That’s not how I approach the medicine.

00:49:33 ►

And what I would like to see is more of a little more attention paid to the ritual approach to these medicines

00:49:49 ►

to go into a very deep and profound experience.

00:49:54 ►

And yes, yeah, yeah, you can do that without that,

00:49:57 ►

but I find it quite elevating for me and also have sort of a full body, not a reaction, but like a

00:50:08 ►

full body no, shall we say, to kind of screwing around

00:50:11 ►

with that. I actually take it very seriously.

00:50:19 ►

Lily, I think

00:50:20 ►

you posted an article a few weeks ago about

00:50:23 ►

the significance of ritual with psychedelics

00:50:27 ►

and how and the impact of losing ritual with psychedelic use.

00:50:32 ►

Do you happen to remember that article?

00:50:35 ►

Nope.

00:50:37 ►

Well, no, I did.

00:50:38 ►

I posted an article that I had actually written on Ellison Journal that was about party culture and how

00:50:46 ►

that, and drug use and party culture and how that interfaces in different ways with sacramental

00:50:54 ►

use and medicinal use.

00:50:56 ►

Do tell.

00:50:57 ►

Let’s hear it, Lily.

00:50:59 ►

Elaborate.

00:51:00 ►

Oh, God.

00:51:01 ►

Well, what to even say about it now? You know, the article was really interesting. I know some people really dug it and some people really did not. And the intention behind it was to really stir the pot. So I see it as actually really a more nuanced issue than what I actually gave voice to a side of the spectrum and give a perspective that I just hadn’t heard spoken before,

00:51:27 ►

which is that, you know, people are, many times at festivals,

00:51:34 ►

I hear people talking about their decision to take drugs recreationally as this kind of sacred shamanic healing journey or some combination of those kinds of buzzwords that kind of sacralize this recreational drug use.

00:51:50 ►

And what I was kind of making a push for is to say, actually, there is a difference between showing up to a research facility

00:51:58 ►

or showing up to some kind of sacred and contained ritual context with a significant amount of preparation and integration work,

00:52:10 ►

and taking drugs at a party.

00:52:12 ►

There’s a difference between those things.

00:52:14 ►

And I’m not saying that taking drugs at a party and using drugs recreationally is a bad thing.

00:52:19 ►

I’m not telling people to change their behavior.

00:52:22 ►

That’s not my place to stay.

00:52:22 ►

telling people to change their behavior.

00:52:23 ►

That’s not my place to stay.

00:52:32 ►

But I think that people need to – I would encourage people to really think about the names that they give to these experiences because the way that I have been taught – I didn’t say this in the article,

00:52:36 ►

but the way that I have been taught to approach the sacred is that the sacred is something that demands a tremendous amount of respect

00:52:42 ►

and preparation to approach.

00:52:44 ►

that demands a tremendous amount of respect and preparation to approach,

00:52:50 ►

and it’s desecrating to call recreational use sacred use.

00:52:55 ►

It’s also, you know, we talked about legitimacy a little while ago in this conversation, and I think that, you know, the move to paint recreational use as sacred actually flies in the face of a desire to just kind

00:53:07 ►

of normalize recreational drug use as a meaningful part of people’s lives, you know?

00:53:14 ►

We don’t have to call it sacred for it to be beneficial to people or for it to be meaningful

00:53:20 ►

to people or for it to be, you know, any of these other things. We actually, I think, in some ways do a disservice to the effort to kind of normalize different forms of drug use

00:53:31 ►

by doing that and end up conflating all of these categories,

00:53:36 ►

which I think is actually really useful for them to be distinct.

00:53:39 ►

I don’t think any of them, sacred, medicinal, recreational,

00:53:41 ►

I don’t think any of them are inherently better than the others.

00:53:45 ►

But I think it’s really valuable to kind of see them as different and give them different names.

00:53:54 ►

And one thing I wanted to mention that bears on this and the last few things we were talking about

00:53:59 ►

is I’ve been reading a really phenomenal book these past few weeks about Patrick Lundberg called Psychedelia, An Ancient Culture, A Modern Way of Life.

00:54:09 ►

And in the introduction, the first chapter to that book,

00:54:12 ►

he talks about how he felt like one of the possible shortcomings of the 60s

00:54:20 ►

was a tendency for otherwise very smart, savvy, intellectual people

00:54:27 ►

to latch on to the first metaphor or the first explanation that fit the situation.

00:54:35 ►

And he described how psychedelics have a tendency to bounce back at you,

00:54:41 ►

your assumptions coming into it.

00:54:43 ►

And so there’s this kind of circular process

00:54:45 ►

where you make up your mind about what the experience means and what your relationship

00:54:52 ►

to the experience is, and then it kind of reinforces that for you. But in this book,

00:54:58 ►

he was suggesting that we, you know, try to very rigorously, you knowously remain as unattached to particular interpretations of the experience

00:55:09 ►

in order to kind of dwell in that space of not knowing and being open to something that

00:55:17 ►

we haven’t already conceived from our past experience.

00:55:20 ►

And I think that that, you know, it relates to the issue of these circulated memes among various strands of the culture, because if we’re all kind of reinforcing one way of looking at it, then I think it’s potentially limiting what we can get out of the experience.

00:55:37 ►

Highly.

00:55:38 ►

I agree. I tend to look at these, well, I really like to sort of work with an experience,

00:55:45 ►

but I work with it often like it is a dream so that it speaks,

00:55:50 ►

the experience speaks to me in metaphor, which I find really, really helpful, really useful,

00:55:56 ►

because I also do a lot of dream work.

00:55:58 ►

I find dreams to be amazing and hugely helpful.

00:56:01 ►

And so an experience with the medicine is a very intense version of that.

00:56:11 ►

And I also think that these medicines and the deep psyche speak in symbolism, metaphor.

00:56:20 ►

So I’m glad you you brought that forth

00:56:25 ►

because yeah

00:56:26 ►

and I don’t think there’s

00:56:27 ►

and also there’s so many ways to sort of

00:56:31 ►

look

00:56:32 ►

I don’t think there’s any sort of one way

00:56:34 ►

you can look at an experience

00:56:36 ►

because they are as unique as the individual

00:56:38 ►

working with the substance

00:56:40 ►

right so

00:56:41 ►

it could be all manner of things

00:56:44 ►

you know you could locate a spirit and

00:56:47 ►

have a very important discussion with that spirit who’s going to give you a teaching, or it could

00:56:53 ►

be, you know, something that is brought forth from your past that you have a deeper awareness of,

00:56:58 ►

I mean, any number of things, right? And so there are numerous approaches as you integrate that experience moving forward.

00:57:09 ►

But I like the dream piece.

00:57:11 ►

I really do see these as extraordinary dream work and metaphor.

00:57:19 ►

It’s really deep stuff, and I love what both of you are saying.

00:57:23 ►

It’s really deep stuff, and I love what both of you are saying.

00:57:32 ►

Nishay, you’re not toward this rigorous practice of not knowing, cultivating. For me, it’s been very valuable to cultivate a tolerance for ambiguity,

00:57:38 ►

but also to cultivate a tolerance for simultaneous contradictory truth.

00:57:49 ►

tolerance for simultaneous contradictory truth. And to be able to say there are multiple truths here and I’m just unsettled by the notion of absolute truth in general. I just don’t

00:57:59 ►

see much, I see more harm than good often coming from convictions of absolute truth, in my opinion.

00:58:08 ►

And so I kind of stay away from that, which means that, you know, this idea of like really

00:58:13 ►

holding paradox and really putting those pieces together and just kind of being able to hold

00:58:20 ►

it and being able to have a tolerance for life being messy and not all of the puzzle pieces fitting together and realizing that like that’s kind of awesome it’s interesting it’s

00:58:32 ►

fascinating and pieces are always kind of moving and isn’t that fascinating you know I mean it

00:58:37 ►

certainly becomes a very rich intellectual exercise that has lived implications for how people kind of engage with their lives.

00:58:49 ►

I think it’s really affected how I engage with my own life.

00:58:53 ►

I see intellectual exercise and a heart opening as well.

00:58:59 ►

Because one thing I have noticed with the guys from a number of these books that I was

00:59:04 ►

reading in the beginning is I was thinking,

00:59:06 ►

huh, these guys are really making this quite an intellectual exercise.

00:59:09 ►

And I see the joy of that, but that it is also tremendously heart-opening as well.

00:59:17 ►

I mean, I really think from where I come from with the mushroom is that it is heart medicine in a very profound way.

00:59:29 ►

And in speaking to truths, I do actually have a guide in terms of maybe we call it absolutes.

00:59:38 ►

I don’t know.

00:59:39 ►

But I always look to the legal maxims, the maxims of law, which go way, way, way back.

00:59:47 ►

And so they’re listed in the back of the Bouvier’s law book.

00:59:53 ►

And I will often look to those for a little guidance when I need it.

01:00:00 ►

Because I find those, it’s more like old wisdoms, old, old wisdoms.

01:00:04 ►

And they make rational sense. because I find those, it’s more like old wisdoms, old, old wisdoms, you know, and they’re,

01:00:07 ►

they make rational sense, you know, like you hear something and you’re like, huh,

01:00:10 ►

of course, that makes perfect sense, you know, so to me that feels like, like a truth.

01:00:18 ►

So, just putting that forth.

01:00:21 ►

And I actually just found that ritual article.

01:00:25 ►

So the case, I’m just going to briefly mention it.

01:00:28 ►

It’s also on Elephant Journal, it turns out.

01:00:30 ►

It’s by Daniel Moeller, and it’s called An Agonizing Reappraisal,

01:00:35 ►

A Letter to the New Spirituality.

01:00:38 ►

And so in it, he talks about the importance of ritual

01:00:41 ►

and how in so many ways that ritual has disappeared from, you know,

01:00:46 ►

use of this in a lot of contexts.

01:00:48 ►

But he suggests that, and I’ll quote from it just briefly, he says,

01:00:53 ►

ritual establishes a rhythm of participation between self and other so that relationship can ensue.

01:00:59 ►

Ritual controls the experience one encounters when engaging in healing work in non-ordinary reality.

01:01:06 ►

It allows context for a situation the waking consciousness of the mind is normally unable

01:01:11 ►

to process and account for. And I really like that idea that it’s kind of like creating

01:01:17 ►

a virtual medium that, you know, different orders of, you know, intelligence or consciousness

01:01:23 ►

or, you know, can perhaps meet and dialogue.

01:01:27 ►

Yeah, well, I think, you know, what you’re doing with ritual is you are giving a little announcement to the deep psyche, you know,

01:01:35 ►

that this is an elevated piece now.

01:01:38 ►

You know, we are leaving the mundane and we’re entering elevated territory here, you know, so we’re bringing sort of

01:01:48 ►

everything to the table with that piece and then it colors the experience, I find, quite

01:01:58 ►

nicely.

01:02:01 ►

I wanted to jump back to something that Nishe said earlier and bring it back around for a moment, this question of what it’s like to be women in the psychedelic culture.

01:02:12 ►

Because to me, that is pretty closely connected to the question of what does it mean to be a woman in America today?

01:02:22 ►

I see them as very similar questions.

01:02:25 ►

And something that Nishay and I have discussed briefly before has to do with just how difficult

01:02:35 ►

it is for women to stand up and speak.

01:02:37 ►

What is that?

01:02:39 ►

What is that?

01:02:39 ►

What’s going on there?

01:02:41 ►

I don’t really apprehend it in fullness, but I think about it a lot the

01:02:48 ►

more that I put my own work out and share my own voice in different platforms and different

01:02:53 ►

mediums because I find myself constantly, not so much now, but there was a long period

01:03:00 ►

of time when I would almost daily come up against this fierce voice that would say,

01:03:08 ►

what is it that you possibly have to say, woman?

01:03:12 ►

Like, what do you have to contribute to this larger conversation?

01:03:17 ►

Why should anyone listen to you?

01:03:20 ►

And I would love to know if men have that experience.

01:03:24 ►

I’ve never talked to a man who was like, oh, yeah, I go through that too.

01:03:29 ►

When I talk to my male friends who are in different positions of power

01:03:33 ►

and public figurehood and authority, they tend to say, oh, you know,

01:03:38 ►

the shadow for me or, like, the work for me is really staying humble

01:03:42 ►

and watching my ego and making sure it doesn’t get inflated.

01:03:47 ►

And there’s this assumption because the male voice is the dominant voice, but that’s the issue we’re all up against.

01:03:54 ►

When actually, for me, as a woman, I feel that I’ve been pretty strongly enculturated in different ways to believe that I don’t have a voice and I don’t have anything worthwhile

01:04:05 ►

to say.

01:04:06 ►

And so I fight against that and it’s in the face of that that I speak, you know.

01:04:11 ►

And so what’s, I mean, what’s that really about?

01:04:15 ►

Do other women have that kind of experience?

01:04:18 ►

Does that perhaps account for why it is that there’s still this incredible imbalance in terms of the representation of women’s voices in the psychedelic community.

01:04:30 ►

Ooh, Nishay, you want to take that one?

01:04:33 ►

Sure.

01:04:34 ►

Well, just, I mean, with my own, I definitely identify with what you’re describing of your own experience. And I have really pushed myself to, you know, to speak as much as I can and to

01:04:51 ►

put my voice out there because I feel that it’s important to do so. But I definitely have

01:04:58 ►

a lot of resistance to speaking in public and getting up on a podium and a stage and being watched by lots of people.

01:05:08 ►

And I am curious if that’s something, you know, how prevalent that is for men to encounter.

01:05:17 ►

And I also noticed just listening to some of my talks from like a few years ago,

01:05:28 ►

like a few years ago, I sometimes compensate for being so nervous by sounding almost like,

01:05:35 ►

almost, I don’t know, harsh or overconfident, but it’s just a kind of coping mechanism to deal with that underlying, you know, uncertainty. And so that’s one thing I’m trying to work on now is,

01:05:42 ►

you know, not allowing the nervousness to affect the presentation

01:05:48 ►

of my ideas as much as possible.

01:05:51 ►

I have found for myself, I must say, when I spoke last year at the Women’s Visionary

01:05:58 ►

Congress, again, this was new to me, and I had given talks before to smaller groups but also somewhat uninitiated so that

01:06:09 ►

when I went to speak at the Women’s Visionary Congress, I was incredibly beside myself with

01:06:16 ►

nervousness because I thought, well, you know, my experiences will probably be just old hat

01:06:23 ►

to these people because, again, you know, I wasn’t really familiar with the community.

01:06:29 ►

And so I gave this talk, and it was not at my best.

01:06:34 ►

I was far, far, far too nervous.

01:06:36 ►

But what I learned after I gave that talk was, gosh,

01:06:39 ►

I actually do have something to put in the pot here, you know.

01:06:44 ►

And so I’ve been able to relax,

01:06:46 ►

and I have also found the key also is to inject some humor into your talk, and just humor

01:06:54 ►

about myself as well, and that helps so much, because people love to laugh. They respond to humor. So if we can bring that kind of levity into our talks

01:07:10 ►

and just sort of that lightness about ourselves,

01:07:12 ►

I will just say for me, that has helped me so much.

01:07:15 ►

And I think the guys that you are talking to, Lily,

01:07:18 ►

of course are the guys who are just naturally good at public speaking.

01:07:23 ►

And then there are plenty, plenty of guys who are terrified.

01:07:26 ►

You couldn’t pay them enough.

01:07:28 ►

No way.

01:07:29 ►

For a host of different reasons, right?

01:07:31 ►

Insecurity and low self-worth and just plain shyness, whatever.

01:07:35 ►

No way would they get up on that stage.

01:07:39 ►

And yet the guys who can, absolutely, they, you know, there seems to be, you know, they’re very, very well received.

01:07:46 ►

And we are in a culture that, you know, really highlights that.

01:07:52 ►

It is a patriarchal culture.

01:07:53 ►

It still very much is.

01:07:56 ►

So, yeah.

01:07:58 ►

Well, one of the things I’m thinking as I’m hearing each of you speak is that over the course of the last few years,

01:08:07 ►

I’ve landed on this discovery that I absolutely love public speaking. I find it to be invigorating

01:08:14 ►

and I feel very much at home when I’m doing it, which is really, really interesting. And

01:08:20 ►

that doesn’t mean I don’t feel nervous sometimes or feel a kind of pressure with it.

01:08:25 ►

And part of that is because I’m very confident in my ideas,

01:08:29 ►

and part of the reason I’m confident in my ideas is because they’re always changing.

01:08:33 ►

So I can get up there and I can say something, and I’m willing to, you know,

01:08:37 ►

have a conversation or be asked a question and really reevaluate what it is that I’ve just said.

01:08:44 ►

You know, I welcome that.

01:08:46 ►

So I’m not necessarily trying to get it right in a certain way.

01:08:50 ►

But there’s also a way in which, you know, this talk I gave a few weeks ago at UMass Amherst

01:08:55 ►

on sex, drugs, and power, talking about sexual abuse in the psychedelic community,

01:09:00 ►

I had a certain air, at least internally, of ferocity around the issue because it’s an issue that I think is so tremendously important and I feel so protective of my sisters within this community and other women within this community whose lives and well-being are endangered by some of this behavior, right?

01:09:26 ►

And I felt very confident and very full getting up there and kind of doing that.

01:09:30 ►

And, you know, it’s funny because part of the – something that I – some feedback that I’ve gotten

01:09:39 ►

or just in the way that people have related to me around that particular talk.

01:09:47 ►

For the most part, you know, it seems like it has been really well received.

01:09:51 ►

But there’s a way in which, you know, people read into that confidence as though and tell a story about, you know, oh, that woman’s ego, you know,

01:10:08 ►

whereas I don’t think that they necessarily tell that story when it’s a man

01:10:12 ►

because they’re more used to seeing men in that position.

01:10:15 ►

When a woman gets up and speaks with a tremendous amount of, you know,

01:10:20 ►

firmness or conviction in her voice, you know, suddenly that’s,

01:10:25 ►

there’s, we call that other names that maybe aren’t as kind, you know?

01:10:32 ►

Yeah, I’ve actually, I’ve also experienced some of that.

01:10:34 ►

I mean, it’s not the main reception to my work,

01:10:37 ►

but I definitely have, like, encountered that.

01:10:41 ►

You know what?

01:10:42 ►

Oh, I was going to say,

01:10:43 ►

I think we just need to keep getting up there with all that

01:10:47 ►

empowerment

01:10:48 ►

and that precious

01:10:51 ►

information and all of that light

01:10:53 ►

and just keep speaking

01:10:54 ►

and the rest of it be damned

01:10:57 ►

you know I mean if that’s their reaction

01:10:59 ►

that’s their reaction

01:11:00 ►

but it must not

01:11:02 ►

keep women

01:11:04 ►

from getting up there

01:11:07 ►

and sharing the very important piece that they have to offer here.

01:11:13 ►

You know, I mean, I just kind of feel like, you know what, if that’s what it is,

01:11:16 ►

I don’t give a shit.

01:11:17 ►

I don’t.

01:11:18 ►

You know, I either was asked to speak or I offered to speak and I share

01:11:23 ►

and if they’re going to have that reaction, they’re going to have that reaction.

01:11:26 ►

But in my estimate, the more women who do get up and the three of us, I think, in our own way,

01:11:34 ►

give other women permission to do that, you know, that sort of see us and say,

01:11:39 ►

well, geez, maybe I should just kind of go for it, you know, and do that.

01:11:43 ►

So we just keep doing that.

01:11:43 ►

Maybe I should just kind of go for it, you know, and do that.

01:11:44 ►

So we just keep doing that.

01:11:50 ►

And then eventually, perhaps, that dissipates or not.

01:11:54 ►

Yeah, I think you’re right.

01:11:55 ►

I mean, we just keep doing it.

01:11:56 ►

I mean, that’s what we do.

01:11:57 ►

We keep doing it.

01:11:58 ►

We keep speaking.

01:12:00 ►

And we keep learning.

01:12:01 ►

And we keep growing.

01:12:03 ►

I mean, what else is there to do?

01:12:06 ►

And that’s a rich path, I think, in and of itself, you know.

01:12:12 ►

And in a certain way, it’s like I find it, personally,

01:12:14 ►

I find it helpful to talk about some of these things and relate together around some of these things

01:12:16 ►

because it helps me have more courage

01:12:21 ►

and it helps me to understand, you know, what it is that I’m working against in a certain way or what it is that I’m defying by having a strong voice, you know.

01:12:38 ►

Well, yeah.

01:12:39 ►

I mean, people will always throw their spears.

01:12:43 ►

They will.

01:12:42 ►

I mean, people will always throw their spears.

01:12:43 ►

They will.

01:12:51 ►

And the little talk that I have on psychedelic salon, I heard from so many people and wonderful letters.

01:12:58 ►

And then I got a heat letter, a heat letter that I couldn’t even read to the end, but then had to realize, okay, this is part of it.

01:13:01 ►

This is part of it.

01:13:03 ►

You put yourself out there, and there are some that will throw their spears,

01:13:07 ►

and they’ll use some pretty mean language while they’re at it.

01:13:13 ►

And that is not new.

01:13:16 ►

This is just a human experience.

01:13:19 ►

And so I think that part of this is just that courage

01:13:23 ►

and that commitment and that dedication to the message that you are bringing and the hope to, you know, create a dialogue with other people.

01:13:35 ►

And you just keep putting yourself out there like that and, you know, sort of let that other stuff go because it’s not going to go away, I really don’t think, unfortunately, you know.

01:13:50 ►

But then, of course, as I know you have discovered, there are so many, many people who are just

01:13:56 ►

so thrilled to receive what you have to offer, really, really thrilled. You know? And you have no idea the

01:14:05 ►

ripple effect of

01:14:08 ►

your words and your

01:14:09 ►

actions, especially

01:14:11 ►

in doing what we three are

01:14:13 ►

doing in our own unique ways. There is

01:14:16 ►

an incredible ripple.

01:14:19 ►

So, you know,

01:14:20 ►

not to be underestimated

01:14:22 ►

and yes, community

01:14:23 ►

among ourselves is very important to bounce ideas off each other.

01:14:28 ►

And yeah, whatever, give each other a call and say, look, I got the worst letter.

01:14:33 ►

I can’t even tell you, you know, and sort of, you know, hopefully laugh that off and let that go and keep going.

01:14:42 ►

I mean, that is essential, essential that we, you know, support

01:14:45 ►

each other and look out for each other. And also, you know, it just, just, just all of what’s

01:14:53 ►

involved with that. It’s essential. It’s essential within an environment that maybe is not always

01:14:59 ►

going to be so supportive. Any, any parting, parting words, Lily? Oh, can we hear from Nishay first? Yes, yes.

01:15:12 ►

Well, I definitely think that the more conversations like this that happen, the better. Because

01:15:21 ►

as Lily mentioned just a moment ago, you know, being able to really think explicitly about these issues and the potential challenges and looking past the superficial threats is definitely very encouraging and I think will help me the next time that I am speaking out in front of a group of people. And so, you know, I think that’s definitely kind of a gift to be able to share these ideas.

01:15:50 ►

And so I wanted to thank you both for that.

01:15:53 ►

Thank you, Ms. Shea.

01:15:55 ►

And thank you, Lily.

01:15:57 ►

Yeah, this is wonderful.

01:16:00 ►

I mean, I think we’ve begun something here.

01:16:03 ►

And I would very much like to do more of this.

01:16:10 ►

There’s quite a lot to talk to, and we’ve just sort of barely covered it with this conversation.

01:16:17 ►

And, Lily, my God, I definitely want to pick both your brains more when we get off the phone here.

01:16:26 ►

So, yeah, for sure.

01:16:28 ►

Yeah, one thing I do want to add as kind of closing words is a quotation from a writer named Parker Palmer.

01:16:35 ►

Are either of you familiar with his work?

01:16:37 ►

No.

01:16:39 ►

He’s very much a teacher and just a brilliant human being.

01:16:44 ►

a teacher and just a brilliant human being.

01:16:51 ►

And so he has a quotation from a book called The Courage to Teach where he says,

01:16:58 ►

When a movement goes public, not only does it have a chance to influence others with its values,

01:17:03 ►

but it also meets challenges that compel it to check and correct its values.

01:17:28 ►

There is so much soul force in making the decision to live an undivided life Thank you. maximize light is to expose the movements to public critique and to take that critique seriously.

01:17:31 ►

Wow. Bravo. Beautiful.

01:17:33 ►

Thank you.

01:17:37 ►

This has been a pleasure, and it’s wonderful to get to talk about these things.

01:17:48 ►

And hopefully for the women listening and the men listening, there’s some insight and inspiration. And by all means, all of us are, I think, you know, very accessible and very interested in hearing from people and keeping the conversation going, eh?

01:17:54 ►

Definitely.

01:17:56 ►

Yeah.

01:17:57 ►

Thank you both so much.

01:17:58 ►

This was an honor, really an honor to converse with such incredible, intelligent women of

01:18:04 ►

such heart. Thank you both so, so much. Yeah, thank you. an honor to converse with such incredible, intelligent women of such

01:18:05 ►

heart. Thank you both so, so much.

01:18:08 ►

Thank you.

01:18:09 ►

Thank you.

01:18:10 ►

Have a great weekend. We’ll talk soon.

01:18:13 ►

Okay. Thank you. Bye.

01:18:15 ►

You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon,

01:18:18 ►

where people are changing their lives

01:18:19 ►

one thought at a time.

01:18:22 ►

And thank you too, Shona.

01:18:24 ►

I really appreciate your taking the time to organize this conversation,

01:18:28 ►

and I am sure that I’m passing along the thoughts of everyone else here in the salon

01:18:32 ►

when I say that I hope that this is only the first of a great many of conversations like that

01:18:37 ►

that I’ll get to play here in the salon.

01:18:40 ►

Now, as much as I dislike having to mention this,

01:18:44 ►

I have to admit that I was shocked to learn that Shona had received a hate letter after her previous appearance here in the salon.

01:18:50 ►

First of all, with the sole exception of Terrence McKenna, I’ve had more requests for another talk by Shona than for any other speaker we’ve had here in the salon.

01:18:59 ►

So it really surprises me to hear that she received a hateful letter from someone in the salon.

01:19:04 ►

So it really surprises me to hear that she received a hateful letter from someone in the salon.

01:19:12 ►

One of the things that I so admire about you and our other fellow salonners is that when someone disagrees with the speaker or with me,

01:19:18 ►

they’ve always been civil in the way they pointed out, or almost always, when they pointed out what they thought were our errors.

01:19:25 ►

There’s nothing wrong with disagreements about issues, but by name-calling and other hateful ways of expressing oneself,

01:19:30 ►

well, that person, to me at least, is no longer someone I want to welcome here in the salon.

01:19:37 ►

I’ve received a few of those letters myself, and even as thick-skinned as I am, I must admit they hurt.

01:19:43 ►

So, if you feel inclined to make a personal attack on somebody simply because you disagree with them,

01:19:46 ►

well, then you’re probably listening to the wrong podcast.

01:19:49 ►

Discussion and disagreement are fine.

01:19:54 ►

In fact, they’re quite necessary, as long as the discussion remains civil and not personal.

01:19:56 ►

Enough said.

01:20:02 ►

Now, while there were quite a number of issues that these wonderful women addressed, about the only one that I feel qualified to talk about is when near the end there was a discussion Thank you. were on almost everybody’s short list, the fear of speaking in public was the number

01:20:25 ►

one fear of the vast majority, over 90% of the people that were asked, said speaking

01:20:31 ►

in public was their number one fear.

01:20:33 ►

Just ask your friends and see if that isn’t so with them.

01:20:36 ►

Actually, that’s one of the reasons, way back in the 70s, I became a motivational speaker.

01:20:41 ►

When I decided to leave the practice of law for a more enjoyable occupation, I became a motivational speaker. When I decided to leave the practice of law for a more enjoyable occupation,

01:20:47 ►

I became, for a few years at least, a so-called motivational speaker.

01:20:51 ►

And for a while, I always opened with a line saying how nervous I was.

01:20:56 ►

Not only was that true, it also immediately brought the audience to my side

01:21:00 ►

because they were saying to themselves, well, better him up there than me.

01:21:05 ►

So my advice to you, whether man or woman, if you always want to have a skill that people

01:21:11 ►

are willing to pay you for, find something that most other people don’t want to do.

01:21:15 ►

And if you look around with that thought in mind, you will most likely come to the same

01:21:19 ►

conclusion that I did.

01:21:21 ►

Public speaking is a heck of a lot easier than cleaning out porta-potties,

01:21:25 ►

detasseling corn, picking cucumbers, or doing some of the other jobs that most of us try to avoid.

01:21:32 ►

Having had some of those other distasteful jobs, I found that public speaking is the best choice

01:21:38 ►

for me. Maybe you should look into it yourself. Perhaps the dearth of women speaking at psychedelic

01:21:43 ►

conferences has something to

01:21:45 ►

do with the normal human hesitancy of speaking in public as much as it does with the fact

01:21:50 ►

that most of the conferences are organized by men. And while I’m on the subject of public

01:21:57 ►

speaking, I want to tell you about the upcoming Palenque Norte lecture series that is going

01:22:02 ►

to be held at this year’s Burning Man Festival. In 2003, the first year of the Palenque Norte lecture series that is going to be held at this year’s Burning Man Festival.

01:22:10 ►

In 2003, the first year of the Palenque Norte lectures, there were eight talks.

01:22:14 ►

This year, there are going to be, well, around 30 or so.

01:22:19 ►

And amazingly, two speakers from that first year are going to be back again this year.

01:22:22 ►

I’m talking about Daniel Pinchbeck and Bruce Dahmer.

01:22:28 ►

And kicking off the lectures this year will be Annie Oak, co-founder of the Women’s Visionary Congress.

01:22:32 ►

And her talk is one I’m really looking forward to with great anticipation.

01:22:35 ►

It’s titled, How to Party Hard Over 50.

01:22:47 ►

That same afternoon, Katie Tomlinson, who is the founder of the Greeners Association for Psychedelic Studies at the Evergreen State College,

01:22:50 ►

is going to be speaking about building a psychedelic student movement.

01:22:58 ►

I won’t list all of the speakers right now, but you can go to PlanqueNorte.com and click on the 2014 schedule,

01:23:04 ►

where you’ll also see that John Gilmore, who is the co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation,

01:23:08 ►

is going to be available for an hour-long Q&A session.

01:23:10 ►

That’s something I’d like to be at.

01:23:15 ►

I’d also like to compliment everyone involved in arranging for the speakers this year.

01:23:18 ►

As you just heard, it’s not unusual at a large conference to find that men speakers greatly outnumber the women.

01:23:22 ►

Unfortunately, well, that’s still true with Planque Norte.

01:23:25 ►

However, the ratio this year is only three men for every one woman speaker, which is

01:23:30 ►

still a ways away from our first year. You can hear something coming now, can’t you?

01:23:37 ►

You see, in that year, there were 17 speakers, nine of whom were women. But, of course, being a man who has kissed the Blarney Stone twice,

01:23:47 ►

I’m probably fudging a little bit more than I should.

01:23:50 ►

While the numbers are accurate, they don’t actually reflect the time that the speakers had for their talks.

01:23:56 ►

Because 7 of the women were on a panel where, for 2 hours, we were treated to what they called the real vagina monologues. That

01:24:05 ►

was a classic panel I have to tell you.

01:24:08 ►

And by the way the other two women that

01:24:11 ►

year were Alison Gray and her daughter

01:24:12 ►

Zena. So while I can’t claim that the

01:24:15 ►

Plancky Nortes have always been

01:24:17 ►

perfectly balanced, at least I can tell

01:24:20 ►

you that our hearts have always been in

01:24:22 ►

the right place. And for now this is Lorenzo signing off from Cyberdelic Space.

01:24:27 ►

Be well, my friends.

⚗️ alembic

Explorer

410 - Women and Psychedelics, a Discussion

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Program Notes

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