Program Notes
Guest speakers: Nese Devenot
Photo credit: Randy Mayfield
Today’s podcast features a conversation with Nese Devenot who pose a number of challenging questions. One of the issues they raise regards the reluctance of some of us in the psychedelic community to discuss some of the serious problems that arise out of a false sense of protecting the reputation of us all. Hopefully this will be the beginning of an ongoing discussion of this important topic.
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
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Transcript
00:00:00 ►
Greetings from cyberdelic space.
00:00:19 ►
This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.
00:00:23 ►
And today we’ll be listening to a conversation
00:00:26 ►
that I hope will spark a lively and widespread debate. While a number of topics will be discussed,
00:00:32 ►
the one that most resonates with me right now has to do with our community becoming
00:00:37 ►
more introspective and willing to air our dirty laundry in public. Now, what do I mean
00:00:43 ►
by that, you ask? Well, I think that it’ll become quite clear
00:00:47 ►
as we join Lily Kay Ross and Neche Debono,
00:00:51 ►
who suggest that we title this talk
00:00:54 ►
From the Margins,
00:00:56 ►
which I’ve modified to be
00:00:58 ►
A Conversation from the Margins.
00:01:00 ►
However, had they not suggested this title,
00:01:02 ►
I would have called it, It’s About Time.
00:01:06 ►
And by that, I mean it’s about time that we begin being more honest about things that take place in various shapes and forms in the worldwide psychedelic community.
00:01:15 ►
In other words, where are the cracks in this new society that we’re building?
00:01:20 ►
And how can we patch them up to prevent them from becoming a big issue in this so-called
00:01:25 ►
consciousness movement. Now after we listen to Lily and Neche, I’ll be back with a few more
00:01:31 ►
observations about things that these two interesting young women now are bringing to our attention.
00:01:37 ►
Welcome back to this week’s episode of Psychedelic Salon. I’m Lily Kay Ross and I’m joined today by the wonderful Nisheh Devano.
00:01:48 ►
And we have, it’s kind of come to our attention that there is a rather urgent need for
00:01:53 ►
conversation within the psychedelic community, whatever that phrase means, regarding power
00:02:02 ►
and structures of power and women’s issues.
00:02:06 ►
And so Nishay and I have been talking quite a bit in preparation for this podcast,
00:02:10 ►
but we’ve also really been paying attention to a number of conversations
00:02:15 ►
that we’ve been having privately over the weekend.
00:02:18 ►
Both of us were in New York City for the Wonderful Horizons Perspectives on Psychedelics Conference.
00:02:23 ►
for the wonderful Horizons Perspectives on Psychedelics Conference.
00:02:26 ►
So we have named this episode,
00:02:31 ►
Power in the Psychedelic Community, a note from the margins.
00:02:34 ►
So I will stop talking now. Nishay, would you like to say hello and introduce yourself?
00:02:38 ►
Yeah, hi.
00:02:39 ►
So my name is Nishay.
00:02:41 ►
I’m finishing my PhD in comparative literature at the University of Pennsylvania.
00:02:47 ►
I’m also teaching a drug wars class about the war on drugs and reading psychedelic literature.
00:02:53 ►
And I have been going to psychedelic conferences since 2010 pretty regularly.
00:02:59 ►
So it’s been interesting for me to see the development in the conferences over those years
00:03:06 ►
and also ways that they have stayed the same.
00:03:10 ►
Yeah, they’re definitely staying the same in a lot of ways and also changing in a lot of ways.
00:03:17 ►
And it seems like there’s some underground or peripheral conversations that are happening
00:03:23 ►
that are slowly making their way into the broader discourse,
00:03:28 ►
but they’re definitely taking their time to do so.
00:03:30 ►
Definitely. I know Catherine McLean, who presented at Horizons this past weekend,
00:03:48 ►
looking at the you know the speaker list that it is much more balanced in terms of you know gender representation than it was like a few years ago um and that there are also like openly
00:03:59 ►
gay individuals who are part of the you know the, the speaker lineup. So there are like, you know,
00:04:06 ►
hints of diversity, you know, kind of like coming into a more natural proportion. But at the same
00:04:15 ►
time, there’s also really dramatic lack of racial diversity and possibly even, you know,
00:04:26 ►
of racial diversity and possibly even socioeconomic diversity.
00:04:31 ►
So I think those things are definitely worth talking about.
00:04:36 ►
Yeah, and I will on that note just say a few words to introduce myself.
00:04:38 ►
I am Lily Ross.
00:04:45 ►
I have a Master’s of Divinity from Harvard where I spent a lot of time studying ethical, spiritual leadership.
00:04:52 ►
And much of my spiritual community sort of circles around psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness. And then I’m most interested right now at conversations at the
00:04:58 ►
intersection of sex, drugs, and power, and gender, because I think those are important parts of really any discourse, especially in our
00:05:08 ►
world where there are so many different kinds of injustices related to each of those things.
00:05:13 ►
So it’s really quite exciting to witness, as you’re pointing out, Neshe, how there is a greater
00:05:21 ►
representation happening at some of these conferences. There are more diverse voices being present, speaking for themselves.
00:05:30 ►
And, and again,
00:05:32 ►
these kinds of conversations that are bubbling up from the margins.
00:05:35 ►
Yeah, no, definitely. There’s so,
00:05:38 ►
but I’m interested in kind of the ways that that is not, you know,
00:05:44 ►
as I mentioned, like are there seem there seem to
00:05:48 ►
be some demographics that are still not as represented and perhaps also some thematic
00:05:57 ►
issues or you know research topics that are not represented and And I think that’s worth, you know, possibly commenting on that
00:06:08 ►
and, you know, publicly commenting on it just to draw attention to those issues
00:06:13 ►
and kind of ask why they’re not as represented.
00:06:18 ►
And do you have any thoughts on why the racial piece doesn’t seem to have made very much progress at all?
00:06:29 ►
That’s a really good question.
00:06:33 ►
The first thing that comes to my mind is the idea of tokenism.
00:06:38 ►
I’m often approached as a woman when people ask me to speak or to contribute something.
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I’m often approached as a woman, like oh we need we need more women and there’s a part of
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me that’s like oh I’m so glad that that that the issue of like having more
00:06:53 ►
perspectives present is is you know on this person’s mind and that they’re
00:06:58 ►
wanting to include that in their event but I also want my work to be recognized
00:07:01 ►
not just because I’m a woman but but because the work speaks for itself you know and so I often feel approached as the token woman and I bring this up in the
00:07:11 ►
case of talking about race in psychedelic discourse I mean I don’t know and I really
00:07:15 ►
can’t speak for those whose experience is different from mine obviously I would venture to guess that
00:07:21 ►
it has something to do with you know know, finding challenges in knowing how to
00:07:29 ►
approach different people with different kinds of backgrounds and perspectives. I mean, the
00:07:33 ►
psychedelic movement is very, you know, white, upper middle class, very privileged. Often, for a
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long time, the discourse has been completely dominated by males,
00:07:47 ►
which is interesting because there’s this whole, I mean, everybody’s everybody who’s everybody,
00:07:52 ►
but there’s a lot of talk about shamanism in the discourse and how groovy it is and Native peoples
00:07:58 ►
as having access to knowledge and life ways and perspectives that we seek after as spiritually impoverished white Americans.
00:08:10 ►
And yet there’s not a lot of Native voices in the discourse.
00:08:15 ►
So I’m really not sure.
00:08:17 ►
And I think, you know, maybe the way to do that is to begin making more efforts to to invite people. And I also think that just the idea
00:08:27 ►
of, you know, freedom of consciousness is such an inherently privileged idea. You know, and I think
00:08:37 ►
it’s really unrelatable to people who are facing much more tangible everyday forms of injustice
00:08:43 ►
than, you know, I mean, talking about
00:08:47 ►
the experience of people of color on the streets of Manhattan, with stop and frisk, and, you know,
00:08:53 ►
things like that, which are so much more kind of in your face than this war on consciousness.
00:08:58 ►
And I think that that discourse or that not that discourse, but that idea of like a war
00:09:02 ►
on consciousness, I think it’s alienating to people who are more interested in, say,
00:09:08 ►
where the war on drugs fits into issues with the prison industrial complex,
00:09:13 ►
for example.
00:09:15 ►
Definitely.
00:09:16 ►
There’s also a question of, you know,
00:09:19 ►
because there definitely are people in other kind of like cultural racial socioeconomic brackets that
00:09:29 ►
that are interested in these things like so there are people who might be interested if they weren’t
00:09:35 ►
consumed by working at a minimum wage job and providing for their families without government
00:09:41 ►
assistance but there are definitely also like pockets of
00:09:45 ►
people that are interested in these topics already from different communities and the question is i
00:09:52 ►
think one of the questions is how do you reach out to people that you’re not that are not in
00:09:59 ►
your immediate circle without it seeming like this kind of token gesture of like,
00:10:11 ►
oh, we want you to come just because you’re a black woman or whatever it is.
00:10:14 ►
Because we don’t want to objectify people.
00:10:19 ►
As you were saying, you don’t want to feel like you’re only invited to speak somewhere because you’re a woman and that if you were not a woman,
00:10:23 ►
your ideas would not be taken seriously.
00:10:26 ►
Right.
00:10:27 ►
Yeah, I think this is a really interesting thing.
00:10:30 ►
And one of the places that it takes my mind to is, one,
00:10:35 ►
the idea of psychedelic community in quotations.
00:10:38 ►
What on earth is it?
00:10:40 ►
And, B, how is it relating to not psychedelic community?
00:10:46 ►
You know? And B, how is it relating to not psychedelic community? Because something I tried to gesture toward in my first talk at Psychedemia years ago was that you look at the demographics of a conference and you have a lot of lay people and you have a lot of professionals and scholars and researchers and doctors.
00:11:02 ►
People are giving sort of spiritual power often over to, or like
00:11:07 ►
expecting enlightenment out of some of these psychedelic researchers who are humans like
00:11:10 ►
everybody else. They’re doing great work, and they’re totally human. And so there’s this
00:11:15 ►
interesting way in which, you know, there’s all kinds of flavors of psychedelia, just like there’s
00:11:22 ►
all these different flavors of Christianity, or of American, or of, you know, any kind of identity, there’s going to be
00:11:29 ►
sort of sub identities and sub categories within that. You know, there are people who are,
00:11:36 ►
are advocates for psychedelic use, whose use of psychedelics, like I would never,
00:11:43 ►
it would simply not be my way. And it wouldn’t be the way that I’ve been taught by my mentors and by my teachers.
00:11:49 ►
And they would very much probably say the same for me.
00:11:51 ►
Or maybe they’re totally against the idea of mentors and teachers to begin with and love psychedelics because it’s like this, you know, cutting edge, very, you know, individuated and non-h non hierarchical approach to creativity or spirituality or
00:12:08 ►
whatever it is that people are using these materials for. So, um, so the idea that it’s
00:12:14 ►
just one community, I just, I just don’t even know what that means, but it’s also a community,
00:12:20 ►
whatever it is, that’s very concerned with how it’s perceived by the rest of the world.
00:12:24 ►
whatever it is that’s very concerned with how it’s perceived by the rest of the world.
00:12:26 ►
Definitely.
00:12:33 ►
Yeah, because you do hear that phrase thrown around all the time at conferences and other kinds of gatherings, just the psychedelic community.
00:12:38 ►
You also find it in the psychedelic experience.
00:12:41 ►
I read that in books and articles a lot and it’s
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i’ve read also people saying that that’s a problematic phrase to use because it implies
00:12:51 ►
that there’s this kind of like fundamental experience that everybody accesses in a in a
00:12:58 ►
similar way which which i definitely don’t think is true and and when it comes up at conferences because a lot of a lot of conference
00:13:06 ►
speakers and researchers don’t you know either you know don’t feel comfortable divulging their
00:13:13 ►
psychedelic experiences or say that they don’t personally have experience but are just you know
00:13:20 ►
researchers and in that in that case like the psychedelic community might refer
00:13:26 ►
to people who who frequent conference conferences like so it might be kind of like shorthand for
00:13:31 ►
psychedelic conference community whereas like a rave kind of subculture that goes to music
00:13:38 ►
festivals and trips out in that context like might also use the phrase psychedelic community
00:13:44 ►
but be referring to
00:13:45 ►
something that’s very, very different. Right, right. And there’s actually, I think, some tension
00:13:50 ►
between those communities, you know, each one kind of maybe looking upon the other at different
00:13:57 ►
points saying, I don’t know if you’re doing it right. But also, there’s a way in which like,
00:14:03 ►
for instance, I see a lot in terms of like party culture and that kind of psychedelic community, people kind of taking research findings and ideas and theories and using them to legitimate recreational drug use.
00:14:20 ►
Definitely.
00:14:21 ►
Which is fascinating because it’s like, I mean mean they might as well be different substances the thing that you take on the dance floor um is it is a totally different thing than
00:14:30 ►
the thing that’s taken in the school of dentistry at nyu with blindfolds and ear shades where you’ve
00:14:36 ►
been preparing for weeks for a mystical experience to diminish end-of-. Like, there might as well be different drugs. Right. Perhaps. I don’t know.
00:14:48 ►
Also, you know, MAPS has this really interesting funding model and power to them, you know. I mean,
00:14:53 ►
they’re doing such phenomenal work. And part of the way that they get their funding is by really
00:15:00 ►
engaging people in this kind of sense of psychedelic community, which is very gathering
00:15:04 ►
and party-centric.
00:15:06 ►
And it’s not that the parties themselves raise money.
00:15:08 ►
It’s that the parties bring people together and provide a sense of community
00:15:11 ►
and raise up a sense of support so that people will then make, you know,
00:15:16 ►
moderate, small to moderate donations.
00:15:20 ►
And that’s how MAPS has raised millions and millions of dollars
00:15:23 ►
to see their research projects through.
00:15:25 ►
So in some ways, like, there are aspects of the research that very much bank on a sense of community,
00:15:31 ►
even if it’s an imagined community or a very transitory, brief kind of one night only in conjunction with a conference X, you know?
00:15:41 ►
Right, right.
00:15:43 ►
Yeah, it’s true and and maps is an interesting case because i know
00:15:47 ►
that they have experimented with reaching out to different kinds of people in different ways and
00:15:54 ►
there’s been this you know just overhearing conversation i think there’s been this
00:15:58 ►
definite tension between that kind of party psychedelic community and research community in an extended
00:16:09 ►
sense like not just people who because they want to appeal to people who fund scientific research
00:16:16 ►
period not just people who fund psychedelic science research and so i know that they
00:16:21 ►
experimented with kind of becoming more straight seeming or square seeming in order to appeal to those kind of like, you know, the broader research context. actually diminished because they were alienating their funding base which turns out to be
00:16:47 ►
people who are personally invested in psychedelics from their own you know experience in some cases
00:16:55 ►
party experiences so you have this really interesting somewhat bizarre you know
00:17:02 ►
juxtaposition that some of the mapsAPS conferences between these, you know, halls of visionary artwork and, you know, selling artwork, hosting these parties.
00:17:13 ►
And then on the other side, you have these, like, you know, rows of chairs and the, you know, PhD presenting the peer-reviewed, you know, journal article. So, and I was actually, I was interviewed at Psychedelic Science by a researcher at,
00:17:30 ►
what was it?
00:17:31 ►
No, I was a journalist with the Writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education, which is,
00:17:35 ►
you know, the probably most widespread higher education newspaper.
00:17:42 ►
And so it was interesting that they were covering it because you know it’s kind of
00:17:45 ►
this return of psychedelics to academia but um but she definitely noted that kind of strange
00:17:52 ►
coexistence because you don’t really find that at other science conferences really you know or like
00:17:58 ►
or like research conferences completely but while the funding is coming from the partiers there’s not really a way
00:18:06 ►
that you know people see to completely you know separate the the two spheres right right which
00:18:15 ►
in some ways to me like it it’s um this idea of like the image and the self-image of the
00:18:23 ►
psychedelic community,
00:18:25 ►
you know,
00:18:26 ►
their maps is experimentation with becoming more accessible to a non
00:18:30 ►
psychedelic audience.
00:18:32 ►
And then they’re,
00:18:34 ►
they’re kind of,
00:18:35 ►
you know,
00:18:35 ►
learning through that more about who their support base is.
00:18:41 ►
I’m like trying to find the right words and I’m having a hard time finding
00:18:44 ►
the right words for this.
00:18:47 ►
But psychedelia seems very concerned, I think, with how it’s perceived from the outside because there has been a sense of attack and a sense of judgment and a sense of being marginalized, feeling marginalized by mainstream culture for the last 50 years.
00:19:06 ►
And I think in some ways the movement has really taken that on.
00:19:10 ►
In some ways, I think, too, it’s detriment.
00:19:13 ►
So we end up talking about abuses of power that are happening within the psychedelic community
00:19:19 ►
or ways in which there’s some questions coming up about certain research protocols
00:19:24 ►
or there’s some political struggles or power struggles or there’s some questions coming up about certain research protocols, or there’s
00:19:25 ►
some political struggles or power struggles, or there’s some gender inequality. And it’s like,
00:19:30 ►
well, people are afraid to acknowledge any of those things because they’re, you know,
00:19:36 ►
whether it’s legitimate or not, they’re concerned about being perceived by the outside world
00:19:41 ►
as somehow, you know, it seems like all of these things become points of
00:19:46 ►
potential vulnerability and critique.
00:19:49 ►
Definitely.
00:19:51 ►
Yeah, and I think there’s this also this, along with that, this feeling of needing to
00:19:55 ►
present a united front of like, you know, we’re all in this together and everything
00:20:02 ►
is going great. And, you know, I think some people really feel that any kind of, you know, scar or, you know,
00:20:14 ►
part of that that’s not the smiley, happy aspect will, you know, diminish the whole
00:20:22 ►
and diminish the ability to, like like continue pressing out into kind of public
00:20:26 ►
awareness but i think that’s definitely a problematic stance to take i mean frankly
00:20:33 ►
anybody who is i think watching from the outside would be skeptical of a movement that couldn’t
00:20:40 ►
tolerate critique i mean what does it say? That somehow this movement that believes that at times makes the claim,
00:20:51 ►
maybe not the researchers, but maybe journalists or different characters
00:20:55 ►
who have a voice within the movement,
00:20:58 ►
make the claim that these materials is a panacea for the world’s problems
00:21:03 ►
and that if everybody in the world was more like us, for the world’s problems and that you know everybody in the world
00:21:06 ►
was more like us than than the world would be a better place and you know those kinds of those
00:21:11 ►
kinds of narratives which um are kind of problematic in and of themselves right um and it’s you know
00:21:19 ►
there are people who are really hurting in the world right now and that feel like they’ve tried everything
00:21:27 ►
that they know to to fix that feeling in themselves and then if they hear like oh well you just you
00:21:34 ►
know you go down to the amazon and you take this you know this brew and then all of a sudden your
00:21:40 ►
cancer is gone your anxiety is gone your headaches. You know, for people that are feeling really desperate already
00:21:47 ►
because of having to live with whatever, you know,
00:21:51 ►
whatever uncomfortable thing it is that they’re living with,
00:21:53 ►
that might be a little bit too, you know, seductive
00:21:58 ►
in the absence of any kind of, like, you know, rigorous, qualifying remarks.
00:22:05 ►
Right. Right. I mean, I think I made the point to you know, rigorous, qualifying remarks. Right, right.
00:22:06 ►
I mean, I think I made the point to you earlier, Neshe,
00:22:09 ►
that, you know, as long as the problem of sexual abuse in the Amazon,
00:22:14 ►
for example, by ayahuasqueros, which is ubiquitous,
00:22:18 ►
according to, you know, a few researchers and people I’ve talked to
00:22:22 ►
who have spent a lot of time in the Amazon,
00:22:24 ►
to leave that out of the story and to present this glimmering, sparkly, beautiful, glamorous,
00:22:30 ►
you know, this is the answer and everyone needs to do this. It does more, it’s beyond complacency.
00:22:37 ►
It’s actually facilitating abuse by making this shiny, perfect, beautiful invitation and endorsement.
00:22:47 ►
And I can’t go into much detail,
00:22:49 ►
but I spoke on the phone recently with a woman
00:22:51 ►
who underwent horrific, horrific treatment in the Amazon.
00:22:57 ►
When she came out of the forest,
00:22:59 ►
she weighed about 75 pounds and had to wear children’s clothes.
00:23:04 ►
She was basically held captive.
00:23:08 ►
You know, I mean, it’s like you start to hear these stories. I hear some of these stories.
00:23:12 ►
But the thing is, there’s also this layer, too, in terms of the Amazon. This is kind of an aside.
00:23:16 ►
But, you know, I’m out personally as a survivor of sexual violence by an ayahuasquero. And I
00:23:23 ►
understand the fear of shamanic retribution. And I think,
00:23:27 ►
honestly, it’s like, I’ve been amazed at how, you know, a lot of women come forward and they talk
00:23:32 ►
to me about abuse and we can talk about it, we can go there. But, you know, very few women have
00:23:39 ►
been willing to talk with me about shamanic abuse. Even some who’ve reached out. I mean,
00:23:43 ►
I’ve had a few reach out to me anonymously. And they don’t want me to know who they are. You know, they just because they’re
00:23:50 ►
afraid of the repercussions shamanically of speaking. And I think that’s something that
00:23:56 ►
has to be taken seriously. You know, if people want to take shamanism seriously and all of its romance and glory, that dark side has to be taken
00:24:06 ►
seriously too. So it’s a really sticky situation, especially when people are reluctant to speak,
00:24:15 ►
but also when people are reluctant to listen and when people are reluctant to create spaces for
00:24:21 ►
those conversations to be had, which is why those conversations are happening in
00:24:26 ►
the margins. A hundred percent. Yeah. But they are happening. That’s the amazing thing is that,
00:24:33 ►
you know, the people I talked to a lot of people who really have skin in the game and they really
00:24:37 ►
care about this work. Um, and, and they’re, they’re really concerned about these issues
00:24:43 ►
and want to see these issues, you know, brought to the fore and addressed in a broader way.
00:24:48 ►
And so I think there’s really actually a thirst and a hunger for that.
00:24:53 ►
And I’m hoping that people will, you know, find ways.
00:24:57 ►
I mean, you have obviously really been very courageous in organizing psychedemia and, you know, creating the space
00:25:05 ►
for people to come forward and speak who hadn’t really had that chance before.
00:25:10 ►
And you were courageous yourself for being able to bring up those subjects at psychedemia. Like,
00:25:16 ►
I heard from so many people in the, you know, years afterwards that referred back to like,
00:25:22 ►
oh, Lily’s talk there was, was you know she brought up so many
00:25:25 ►
things that you know i’d wanted to hear people talk about or that i’d been thinking about but
00:25:31 ►
i hadn’t heard anyone else talking about some of these like difficult like really like self
00:25:37 ►
reflective topics and so the fact that people responded so well to that you know i i definitely
00:25:44 ►
think that goes along to support
00:25:46 ►
what you’re saying about the thirst the thirst for more of that and I also think it’s a sign of
00:25:51 ►
maturity in any kind of community if you’re you’re willing and able to look the issues like in the
00:26:00 ►
face and want to get to the bottom of it and not just gloss over anything that is less than ideal.
00:26:07 ►
It’s like when you have those, a lot of the early psychedelic research was upon closer inspection,
00:26:14 ►
not taken seriously by other researchers because the inconvenient aspects, like the Marsh Chapel experiment,
00:26:26 ►
like the Marsh Chapel experiment, there was one of the people who had taken the psilocybin ended up, you know, having a hard time and running out of the church and going away,
00:26:32 ►
and they had to be, like, chased after.
00:26:34 ►
And that was just left out of the study that said, like, oh, all of these divinity students,
00:26:39 ►
like, had a mystical experience.
00:26:40 ►
Like, but what about that one person, you know?
00:26:42 ►
And so the fact that the early research
00:26:45 ►
a lot of the holes in it dealt with the this complete you know desire to like exercise
00:26:51 ►
anything that didn’t fit with a desired narrative I mean I feel like that alone should speak to the
00:26:57 ►
importance of not repeating that error wow amen I didn’t realize that panky had written that out of the study um because i’ve heard that
00:27:07 ►
story i just i just heard that that recently so i’m not sure of the exact details but i know that
00:27:15 ►
also with uh with uh timothy leary his recidivism study with prisoners who you know he claimed that
00:27:23 ►
people prisoners who had had these mushroom experiences
00:27:26 ►
were less likely to return to prison upon closer inspection like the data didn’t support that
00:27:33 ►
conclusion so it’s like this this investment in the smiling sunny narrative that’s actually
00:27:41 ►
making the you know the research be taken less seriously.
00:27:47 ►
I guess that in some ways, this is the nature of conflict of interest.
00:27:52 ►
Yeah, I definitely think that’s true.
00:27:56 ►
And you have a problem when there are these specific conferences and podcasts that you know in in many ways are a technology for
00:28:10 ►
the dissemination of like you know the cultural narrative and research narrative around these
00:28:17 ►
issues and the people that hold the keys to those technologies also control the way that information
00:28:24 ►
is circulating amongst different
00:28:26 ►
different researchers and different people who are interested in the topic so you know i’ve heard so
00:28:32 ►
many times people who want to bring up some of the harder issues some of the some of the stories that
00:28:38 ►
you know are less pretty and you know involve like asking and answering difficult questions. A lot of people
00:28:45 ►
say like, you know, well, that’s, that’s not the kind of talk that we want represented here.
00:28:51 ►
Yep. And, you know, when there’s only so many conferences and only so many podcasts that people
00:28:57 ►
go to and listen to, and, and, you know, if, if some of those major venues are resisting the topics because of, like, the other looking in, it’s like this, you know, half of it is for the purpose of the researchers and the know, and trying to get the ideas, like, you know, packaged and presented in a, you know, ingestible format.
00:29:34 ►
And, you know, because you don’t have that same problem at the Women’s Visionary Congress, which is intentionally, you know, a more private event it doesn’t put its talks up on the internet and it doesn’t you know
00:29:47 ►
it’s a more it’s more for the people who are there to talk to each other and so when you have this
00:29:55 ►
intentional like broadcasting I think for some people there’s this pressure to to curate out you know any of the unseemly elements that unseemly from
00:30:08 ►
their perspectives right which is amazing it’s like I mean this is maybe a poor analogy but it’s
00:30:14 ►
like you know have you ever been sort of falling in love with somebody that you think is really
00:30:19 ►
wonderful and then one day in some conversation they will allude to like a flaw that they have or a growth edge that they have that they are working on and they’re aware of it.
00:30:30 ►
And you just see them starting to kind of courageously, you know, work this thing in them through so that it’s no longer feels so that they no longer have to like struggle with it in the same way.
00:30:42 ►
Whatever it is, like that acknowledgement of imperfection is so attractive. You know, it’s like, that’s the
00:30:49 ►
surefire way to, you know, move the like, I’m kind of fallen to like, Oh my God, I love you.
00:30:55 ►
Even like friend love, you know, it’s just like, it’s like, it’s so impressive when,
00:30:59 ►
when people can really reflect on themselves and, and take action in that kind of a way.
00:31:08 ►
It’s also that someone will see the flaws.
00:31:14 ►
It’s like you can’t keep up a smiling face to all people at all times.
00:31:20 ►
And if you’re not the one who is stepping up and trying to, like, figure out some of the things that you’re doing, some of your behaviors that aren’t working in your or your community’s best interest, if you’re not the one doing that work, someone else is going to see that that stuff is going on and that you’re not dealing with it, that you don’t want to talk about it.
00:31:43 ►
that you’re not dealing with it, that you don’t want to talk about it.
00:31:48 ►
And it’s not very, you know, if you have a problem and you’re willing to talk about it,
00:31:53 ►
like in a relationship even, you know, if you’re having some kind of ongoing issue with a friend or a significant other, if they’re not willing to talk about it with you, it’s
00:31:59 ►
really, you know, the amount of hope at finding a way through that like diminishes rapidly so it’s like even if you
00:32:07 ►
have a problem if you’re willing to talk about it and face it and not kind of cow away from the
00:32:13 ►
parts of it that you don’t like you know I mean that’s how you do the work of becoming like a more
00:32:19 ►
you know self-aware and actualized person right well and Well, and it’s funny, it’s like, isn’t I
00:32:27 ►
mean, I don’t know, there is no universal psychedelic experience. I think that’s a really
00:32:32 ►
important point to make and to hold to. That being said, I think, you know, one of the things I’ve
00:32:41 ►
really learned from my work with different materials over many years now is to have the courage to turn towards what’s difficult and to go to the places where there’s resistance and find softening and to give voice to the things of which I am most afraid and in some cases most ashamed.
00:32:59 ►
That to me is the nature of the work.
00:33:03 ►
That’s part of why these materials are magical.
00:33:06 ►
It’s like you want to work with healing PTSD.
00:33:10 ►
It’s like, you know, I think one of the ways that that works is creating a physical and psychological state of being
00:33:17 ►
that’s conducive to difficult material coming to the surface and being kind of properly metabolized and released and integrated into
00:33:27 ►
memory and into consciousness.
00:33:30 ►
You know, psilocybin mushrooms in the case of end of life anxiety, just taking a guess
00:33:34 ►
here, but it’s like the idea is not to skirt around the thing of which a person is afraid,
00:33:40 ►
you know, people are afraid, which would be death.
00:33:41 ►
The idea is to say, well, there’s death and it’s looking me in the, and I’m going to keep looking it in the face. And now I’m going to
00:33:47 ►
put some mushrooms in my mouth, or in this case, a psilocybin pill, and, and I’m going to really
00:33:52 ►
just be with it, you know, and maybe that experience is really challenging. Maybe that
00:33:56 ►
experience is really easy and opening and ecstatic and blissful, and it probably a combination of
00:34:01 ►
both and everywhere in between. But that’s the nature of the work.
00:34:06 ►
It’s like at a certain point, I think, you know,
00:34:09 ►
we have to take our focus off of the power of the states themselves
00:34:13 ►
and really look at the ways in which we carry the teachings of those states
00:34:17 ►
into our lives as, you know, people who are psychedelic people
00:34:22 ►
but are also more than psychedelic people.
00:34:24 ►
You know, like I’m a psychedelic woman, but I’m also a lot of other things.
00:34:28 ►
Right. expanding our horizons and expanding ourselves into what comes beyond that,
00:34:47 ►
which I think your word maturation was just gorgeous.
00:34:50 ►
Yes.
00:34:52 ►
Yeah, no, and it’s something that I think we need to go through, you know,
00:35:00 ►
in order to become, like, more dynamic in the kinds of research questions we’re asking
00:35:07 ►
and the kinds of, you know, people we’re talking to and views we’re incorporating.
00:35:14 ►
And I think that it really needs to be gone through to send a message to the wider public
00:35:20 ►
that, you know, we’re not, we still think that despite the darkest, most, you know, difficult
00:35:29 ►
parts of, you know, anything touching on the psychedelic, you know, experience, psychedelic
00:35:35 ►
experiences. So I really think that there’s something powerful in the statement that
00:35:42 ►
psychedelics, there’s something beautiful and worthwhile and worth
00:35:46 ►
fighting for and protecting in the study and use of psychedelics despite the reality of all
00:35:54 ►
the darker parts and all of the you know the uglier aspects of the use and the experience of it because it kind of speaks powerfully
00:36:05 ►
in a way to how powerful
00:36:08 ►
and how positive it can be
00:36:10 ►
and I think the darker parts
00:36:12 ►
are something that can be worked through
00:36:14 ►
and addressed
00:36:15 ►
and that someone’s going to notice
00:36:19 ►
the darker parts
00:36:20 ►
even if we’re not pointing them out
00:36:22 ►
and those people might not be
00:36:24 ►
sympathetic to the positive
00:36:26 ►
aspects and so if it’s someone who’s really outspoken against psychedelics that’s the one
00:36:32 ►
that’s taking the lead and talking about the darker aspect that doesn’t look very good I think
00:36:38 ►
for the the researchers and the people who are trying to argue for the positive aspects.
00:36:48 ►
And, you know, in conversation a few times,
00:36:53 ►
I’ve been, like, alluding to the whole pedophilia story with Penn State University because they had their football team
00:36:58 ►
and then they had their assistant coach was caught, you know,
00:37:03 ►
involved in pedophilia, and they told the coach and they told the school president.
00:37:07 ►
And they wanted to, you know, protect the team and present a united front and kind of like, you know, brush everything under the rug.
00:37:16 ►
But guess what?
00:37:17 ►
It came out.
00:37:18 ►
And it looked really, really bad.
00:37:29 ►
So it’s like maybe in the short term, you know, ignoring things might, you know, in a false way kind of provide this protection. But in the longer term, it actually is like the opposite.
00:37:34 ►
It completely works against what you’re trying to achieve.
00:37:38 ►
I think that’s a wonderful example and a wonderful point. I’ve actually quoted you more than once since you
00:37:45 ►
brought that idea and that story to my attention at Horizons. Because I think it really gets at
00:37:52 ►
the issue, you know, there’s always a million reasons to stay silent, you know, protecting
00:37:59 ►
institutions, protecting something that someone cares about, protecting abusers, you know.
00:38:07 ►
Oftentimes, there’s a dynamic where you have a victim and you have an abuser, and then law
00:38:12 ►
enforcement shows up at the door, and the dynamic takes a turn, you know, so that the law enforcement
00:38:18 ►
is now the abuser and the, when they should be the protector, they’re the abuser, the person who
00:38:26 ►
was abusing another person becomes the victim, and the victim becomes the protector of who was
00:38:32 ►
formerly their abuser, you know. So there’s always a gajillion reasons to stay silent about these
00:38:37 ►
things. And I have, you know, for myself been really seriously, you know, examining my own
00:38:44 ►
story and how and why to tell it and so on,
00:38:46 ►
and if I should tell it. And I’ve heard some incredibly compelling cases for, you know,
00:38:52 ►
why I should not. But it seems that none of those cases stand up to the kind of story that you’re saying, you know, that you’re telling about Penn State.
00:39:08 ►
Because ultimately, brushing things under the rug, eventually the rug is full of freaking bumps.
00:39:15 ►
And somebody trips and falls, and they pick it up, and oh my God, look at all this abuse.
00:39:21 ►
You know?
00:39:21 ►
That’s right.
00:39:22 ►
Like, whoa, where did that come from?
00:39:25 ►
Well, we all knew it was there all along,
00:39:26 ►
but we were sweeping it under the rug
00:39:28 ►
because that was easier than opening the door
00:39:30 ►
and sweeping it out.
00:39:32 ►
Yeah.
00:39:32 ►
Ay, ay, ay.
00:39:35 ►
And then there’s also the question,
00:39:37 ►
there’s the innocent, or innocent in quotes,
00:39:40 ►
there’s the sort of, you know,
00:39:43 ►
there’s the one who sweeps it under the rug because they’re afraid.
00:39:48 ►
But then there’s also people that are a little bit more intentional about it and that are kind of controlling what information gets out at the conferences.
00:39:57 ►
And I think, you know, maybe don’t have the best motivations for why they’re including some things and why they’re not including other things.
00:40:08 ►
And, you know, what to do in cases where people aren’t, because I think there are some people that you could talk to and say,
00:40:16 ►
these are the reasons why I think that we should be presenting this material.
00:40:20 ►
And then there are other people that would not even be willing to have the conversation.
00:40:28 ►
They have their mind made out up they have their own kind of like agenda that they’re trying to push and they’re not like willing to consider other perspectives and what
00:40:35 ►
do you do when people like that are controlling have the keys to some of these technologies of, you know, disseminating information.
00:40:45 ►
Like, how do you, you know, start a renegade blog, a renegade platform, you know, conference, podcast?
00:40:54 ►
I mean, happily, Lorenzo is very encouraging with, you know, the kinds of materials that, you know,
00:41:01 ►
go out through the psychedelic salon.
00:41:03 ►
that go out through the psychedelic salon,
00:41:06 ►
but there are other pretty major venues that are not open to discussing a lot of the issues
00:41:11 ►
we’ve been talking about.
00:41:14 ►
Yeah, and that’s the conundrum in some ways,
00:41:21 ►
or that’s the issue.
00:41:24 ►
And I think there’s
00:41:25 ►
something to be said for creating alternatives and finding avenues where there are avenues.
00:41:30 ►
But I think there’s also something to be said about like, you know, and it’s almost like something I
00:41:36 ►
want to say just to psychedelia more broadly, it’s like, we can talk about this stuff, these values,
00:41:41 ►
these teachings, the magic of these medicines until the cows come home.
00:41:46 ►
But it’s only when we’re actually living into them that people start paying attention,
00:41:52 ►
you know, in this sort of, what’s this person’s secret? What have they got going on? Because like,
00:41:58 ►
whatever they’re doing seems to be working, you know, that compels people to get interested.
00:42:06 ►
seems to be working, you know, that compels people to get interested. And I think there’s something about, you know, just realizing that there is a thirst in the psychedelic community,
00:42:11 ►
as there is a thirst in the American community for real talk. Yeah, for honesty.
00:42:20 ►
Totally. Even when, you know, it feels like dangerous, you know, dangerous, people love it and they thrive off of it and they’re moved by it.
00:42:31 ►
I think just continuing to find ways to bring those conversations to the public and to people and just doing it for the people that are interested in catching on and, and who are kind of like, Oh, finally somebody said it,
00:42:45 ►
you know?
00:42:47 ►
I mean,
00:42:47 ►
that’s such a good feeling when that happens.
00:42:49 ►
And,
00:42:49 ►
and hopefully eventually,
00:42:51 ►
you know,
00:42:52 ►
these,
00:42:52 ►
uh,
00:42:53 ►
these venues where,
00:42:55 ►
you know,
00:42:55 ►
other voices are unwelcome or simply not afforded space,
00:43:02 ►
um,
00:43:02 ►
we’ll catch on or else they’ll just become obsolete.
00:43:07 ►
You know?
00:43:09 ►
Yeah, I definitely hear that.
00:43:12 ►
But then I think that there’s another layer to the issue, which is that, like, there’s
00:43:18 ►
topics about, you know, the Amazon and shamanism that are not pretty, you know, and there’s
00:43:24 ►
the question of how to bring that are not pretty, you know, and there’s the question of how
00:43:25 ►
to bring that more into open conversation. But then there’s the related question about what to
00:43:31 ►
do when there are people in the United States or like, you know, the local psychedelic research
00:43:37 ►
community that are, you know, have histories of, you know, sexual abuse or, you know, making women feel inferior
00:43:48 ►
or less welcome or, you know, just talking down to them. It’s like, what do you do when there
00:43:54 ►
are people who are visible and who are making decisions that are impacting the way that
00:43:59 ►
knowledge is being disseminated? Because it’s like, that’s a whole other kind of can of worms in terms of how do you
00:44:05 ►
how do you publicize that because I feel like not publicizing it in any way does exactly what we
00:44:12 ►
were talking about you know being implicit in the abuses in the Amazon does it’s like if we
00:44:18 ►
if we don’t say anything then it’s just going to continue. And there are some figures that I’ve
00:44:26 ►
had so many separate conversations with other people, and everybody has a story of something
00:44:32 ►
horrible that happened in exchange with that person. And luckily, like the people that I’ve
00:44:37 ►
talked to are strong enough and motivated enough that they’re not going to be swayed by patently
00:44:43 ►
misogynistic or, you know, otherwise,
00:44:46 ►
like comments from someone that’s, you know, exterior, but, you know, there could very well
00:44:51 ►
be people who are drawn to some of these conferences, some of these gatherings, who don’t
00:44:55 ►
know, because I talked to, for example, at Horizons, I talked to people who meet, you know,
00:45:00 ►
because I’m relatively local in Philly to New York City, but I’ve heard, I heard from people who
00:45:04 ►
made pilgrimages there, who likeimages there who live very far away.
00:45:08 ►
And it was a really meaningful thing that they were coming out to this conference to share in this work and in this community.
00:45:15 ►
And what happens if there’s someone who really wants to get involved and is really excited and enthusiastic?
00:45:22 ►
And what if they’re confronted with that kind of
00:45:25 ►
reaction from someone or that kind of like put down, you know, and do we let that keep going?
00:45:31 ►
Absolutely. This is such an important point. This is such an important point. And, you know,
00:45:38 ►
I think you and I are in interesting positions because we are women and we are educated and we are on our way deeper and deeper into sort of the central powers of what some call psychedelic community.
00:45:53 ►
And also, oh, sorry.
00:45:55 ►
Well, I was just going to say we have voices, we have amplified voices.
00:46:00 ►
Because there’s also the other level of like we both have Ivy League degrees you know it’s like
00:46:06 ►
that that gives us this level of power that other people like don’t have absolutely well and and a
00:46:13 ►
sense of personal empowerment too but but the issue I also want to point to is like that you
00:46:19 ►
know in some ways when it comes to these issues, we’re, I think, limited in what we can say
00:46:28 ►
publicly, because we, you and I both, I think, want to keep speaking, you know, and, and finding
00:46:37 ►
ways, measured ways of, of, you know, getting this word out there, it presents a really unique
00:46:44 ►
challenge, because it’s like,
00:46:46 ►
you know, I don’t want that to be the last thing I say that anybody’s listening to.
00:46:51 ►
Um, and I’m not sure that it would be, but you know, that’s part of the, that’s part of the
00:46:56 ►
threat and part of the narrative. I think that, um, that, you know, cause abusers are completely
00:47:02 ►
reliant on silence. That’s what they rely on to do what
00:47:07 ►
they do, you know, so it’s like, on the one hand, it’s like, well, to just break through that and,
00:47:12 ►
you know, name names or to, you know, I mean, there’s definitely a strong impulse to do that.
00:47:17 ►
And I can see like the potential blowback, you know, and so it just it’s difficult to navigate, which is, you know,
00:47:27 ►
I’m so glad that we’re at least opening the door for further conversation now in this manner of
00:47:32 ►
just like, acknowledging some of the issues. And ultimately, I think it’s just important,
00:47:38 ►
if nothing else, that our listeners and ourselves as we move forward continue to keep alive talks in the margins
00:47:46 ►
and trust that those talks will and are making their way into the broader discourse
00:47:54 ►
and the more public conversation.
00:47:56 ►
I don’t know. What do you think?
00:47:59 ►
Well, that phrase, like, trust that it will, might, you know, also discourage some people from taking action
00:48:08 ►
because they might like assume that someone else like because everyone’s whispering it
00:48:12 ►
someone else will move it forward you know and that that could be dangerous depending on
00:48:20 ►
you know that whether or not it kind of instills a complacency.
00:48:28 ►
That is a vital and essential point.
00:48:30 ►
Yeah.
00:48:42 ►
And what you were saying about, you know, the kind of the threat of burning bridges, you know, and ostracizing people in power in the psychedelic research community there’s also i’ve heard stories of explicit
00:48:46 ►
threats from people who say who say to like junior researchers or people interested in going into
00:48:53 ►
research that if you tell people about me in this way like i will make sure that you do not have a
00:49:02 ►
job in this field like i have heard that you know, but verbatim, not even an implicit worry.
00:49:11 ►
So maybe, I mean, maybe as the conversations and the margins amplify, and, you know, if
00:49:17 ►
we can encourage more of that, maybe it’ll trickle up to someone who doesn’t care about the blowback and is a little bit more
00:49:29 ►
securely situated in their career. And, you know, maybe they might take the initiative,
00:49:37 ►
but I’m not, I’m not sure. I don’t know that there’s any kind of like,
00:49:42 ►
very obvious way to address this.
00:49:46 ►
Yeah.
00:49:49 ►
You know, I think two things come to my mind.
00:49:52 ►
And the first is that, you know,
00:49:55 ►
partially it’s important to at least have the conversations become very robust in the margins
00:49:57 ►
so that by the time they’re out in public,
00:50:01 ►
they’re robust statements that can withstand
00:50:04 ►
whatever blowback or critique
00:50:05 ►
might come from it.
00:50:07 ►
And so that there’s actually an established network of support among individuals who care
00:50:13 ►
about the issue and care about the person or persons who are coming forward to speak.
00:50:17 ►
You know, I think being organized in that way is a really powerful thing.
00:50:23 ►
And I think it’s an effective thing. The other point,
00:50:27 ►
oh, keep going. I mean, the other point I was going to make is just that ultimately,
00:50:32 ►
you know, when all is said and done, these things do have to be said sooner than later,
00:50:37 ►
partially because, you know, skirting around the issue and talking about it without going all the way
00:50:45 ►
does actually just re-inscribe the very power
00:50:48 ►
that we’re talking about wanting to dismantle, you know,
00:50:51 ►
and actually makes true by silence, you know,
00:50:56 ►
the fact that this person or these people
00:50:59 ►
or these individuals with power can get away with this shit
00:51:02 ►
because we’ll talk about it, but we won’t actually
00:51:05 ►
name them.
00:51:06 ►
Right.
00:51:07 ►
Yeah.
00:51:07 ►
And, you know, I think that there’s, it is very pressing because I know, like I’ve talked
00:51:12 ►
to people that feel like really smart, you know, motivated people that don’t want to
00:51:19 ►
go to certain events or like participate in, you know, research discourse because they’ve had really uncomfortable
00:51:27 ►
run-ins with people and if if those people that are talking down to other people and making them
00:51:34 ►
feel unwelcome are causing other people to leave the community at their expense like that’s a really
00:51:41 ►
really big problem in my, especially if it’s
00:51:45 ►
younger people that want or would be interested in potentially making a career for themselves
00:51:50 ►
in psychedelic research, if those people are being turned away, that’s, that’s really bad.
00:51:56 ►
It’s really bad. It’s really bad. Yeah, there are moments when, as you know, I have considered being one of those people who turns and walks away. And, you know, it’s a real challenge. It’s a real challenge. And it’s happening. I mean, we’re not speculating at this point. Like, it’s happening. Like, we are losing young researchers and we are turning people off and turning people away. That’s something that is actually happening.
00:52:26 ►
It’s not just pie in the sky.
00:52:30 ►
I mean, so, I mean,
00:52:31 ►
it is kind of fortuitous to have this like kind of podcast platform because it
00:52:38 ►
is a way to bring, you know,
00:52:40 ►
these margin conversations possibly to a wider audience, or maybe people who have,
00:52:46 ►
like, their own stories that they’ve, like, not shared with people might feel like stepping
00:52:50 ►
forward and saying some things since they realize that they’re not alone. Because some of these
00:52:55 ►
people that, you know, they make people feel like they’re stupid, like they’re, you know,
00:53:00 ►
they’re worthless, or they’re not as good as other people. And when people internalize
00:53:05 ►
that, they’re not gonna step forward and say, because they’ll say like, Oh, like, I’m, I’m not
00:53:11 ►
involved anymore, because I wasn’t good enough, or I wasn’t, you know, I didn’t have the right
00:53:17 ►
skill set or social connections, you know, and that that’s, you know, it’s really sad.
00:53:28 ►
actions, you know, and that’s, you know, it’s really sad. It’s so incredibly sad, you know,
00:53:33 ►
and I think it’s something that might be, I would venture to guess, it’s something that women are more susceptible to than men. I think men are very used to, you know, feeling that they have
00:53:38 ►
voice and they have value and they have worth kind of intrinsically. I think with women,
00:53:43 ►
I know for myself, I’m very public about this, you know, my, my speaking out about the things that I speak about, and really my speaking publicly at all, I often come up against voices of like, you know, this, this isn’t important. This doesn’t count, you don’t get to speak. And I think that that’s an experience that’s really common to a lot of women so to have that in any way like preyed upon or or fed from the outside so that it becomes a dominant inner
00:54:11 ►
narrative um you know that’s really paralyzing there’s a lot of women especially I think that
00:54:17 ►
are susceptible to it but there’s this other piece too about anger um which I’ve been you know
00:54:24 ►
thinking about a lot and And a friend of mine
00:54:26 ►
was reminding me yesterday that if you if you really know anything about love, then then you
00:54:31 ►
have to know anger, you know, because if you love something, or if you love someone that is suffering
00:54:36 ►
from some injustice, you can’t not be angry about it, you know, and still love the thing or still
00:54:42 ►
love the person. But you know, I was I found it or still love the person. But, you know, I was, I found it very
00:54:46 ►
interesting. One of the last talks at Horizons this weekend was an interesting presentation by
00:54:52 ►
Amber Lyon. And there was a point in the talk when somebody was asking, you know, about anger
00:54:57 ►
or something like that. And Amber’s response was a response that I think I’ve heard actually quite
00:55:01 ►
a few times before in different contexts of like, oh, you know, we’re supposed to transcend that and we’re supposed to, you know, operate
00:55:10 ►
from a place of love and inspire people that way because anger doesn’t work.
00:55:14 ►
And I just thought, well, there’s a couple issues there.
00:55:16 ►
The first is that basically every successful political movement that I know of has used
00:55:23 ►
anger very effectively as fuel for the fire. I don’t think anybody can
00:55:27 ►
talk about the civil rights movement without acknowledging that there was anger involved,
00:55:31 ►
you know. And I think that that’s incredibly important. And I think, you know, on another
00:55:37 ►
level, that idea that anger doesn’t count and that we don’t listen to it is just a way of taking
00:55:42 ►
emotional experience more broadly, which our society imagines as feminine and saying that that doesn’t count. It must be logical and
00:55:49 ►
rational and objective for people to listen, um, or love and lighty or convenient in some way.
00:55:57 ►
Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye. But the other issue too, is that, you know, because women,
00:56:02 ►
as far as I can see in my observations and study
00:56:05 ►
and research, you know, women tend to internalize anger in the form of depression. Um, and it
00:56:11 ►
functions to silence women, especially, you know, I think these belittling and demeaning
00:56:17 ►
interactions with persons in power, um, you know, the natural response is outrage and is anger. I feel angry about this. I really
00:56:26 ►
do. But I feel angry in a way that’s life giving. And the reason for that is because I have a voice
00:56:33 ►
and I’m not afraid to use it. You know, like if I didn’t feel that I had a voice and an outlet to
00:56:39 ►
speak these things and speak them honestly, I would probably explode or implode, you know, implode in the form of
00:56:47 ►
depression, actually. And that’s something that I spent a lot of my life doing. It’s been a process
00:56:51 ►
of claiming my voice and coming out of that. But, you know, I mean, this is this is real stuff.
00:56:57 ►
This is really real stuff. And I think it’s it’s going to be it’s part of, I think, how people are
00:57:04 ►
enculturated in America. So, of course, it impacts psychedelic culture and it’s going to be it’s part of i think how people are enculturated in america so of course
00:57:05 ►
it impacts psychedelic culture and it’s going to keep impacting us until we find you know avenues
00:57:11 ►
and outlets to speak and there are something that you know just came up that i think you know i
00:57:19 ►
would really like to to add to this conversation is that there’s also, I think, an issue with, like, you know,
00:57:28 ►
sociopathic type personalities being drawn to positions of power and then only being interested,
00:57:36 ►
like, you only have worth as a woman, as a young woman, to those people, if you are powerful and well-connected
00:57:45 ►
and therefore a source of power to them to be your friends or as a sexual object.
00:57:51 ►
And if you lack both of those things, you’re invisible.
00:57:56 ►
And I’ve seen that happen.
00:57:59 ►
I’ve seen it multiple times, and I’ve heard from other people
00:58:02 ►
who have also either seen or experienced that.
00:58:08 ►
Absolutely. Absolutely. In any case, a woman is an object through which power is obtained,
00:58:18 ►
you know, either by being a sexual object on the arm of person X or being an avenue for connection Y.
00:58:28 ►
Right. Right. And then the other thing I was going to say was that, like, imagine if,
00:58:35 ►
because there’s one thing that’s like, you know, removing the disrespect from the equation when,
00:58:42 ►
like, a young woman interested in the field speaks to someone
00:58:47 ►
in power in the field. Removing the disrespect is really important. But imagine if every one
00:58:52 ►
of those negative interactions was instead the person, you know, the young person being
00:58:58 ►
encouraged and honored and connected to other people who want to support them and encourage them.
00:59:05 ►
I mean, I think that that would really revolutionize the kind of, you know, momentum that the research community has.
00:59:15 ►
If, you know, everybody who stepped forward was, like, honored for their enthusiasm.
00:59:20 ►
But that’s just not happening right now.
00:59:24 ►
It’s got everything to do with i think
00:59:27 ►
a certain competitiveness and a certain i don’t know privileged elitism maybe i don’t i mean
00:59:33 ►
that’s just like the tip of the freaking iceberg but the point that you’re making i think is is
00:59:38 ►
incredibly incredibly important because i think that some people see the conferences as and i know you’ve talked about
00:59:46 ►
this before it’s like the speakers are the rock stars and then there’s the common folk that come
00:59:53 ►
from you know the larger you know public community and that you know it’s like they see it as like
01:00:02 ►
someone from the audience asking to come backstage.
01:00:06 ►
And some people are like, no way.
01:00:08 ►
Like, who are you to even be talking to me?
01:00:10 ►
I’m the rock star, you know, and that really should not.
01:00:13 ►
I think it has no place, you know, in the kind of conference settings or other settings, but it definitely exists there.
01:00:21 ►
Wow.
01:00:23 ►
Wow.
01:00:29 ►
wow wow well especially since like there is an archetype that uh i don’t think it’s really an archetype but there’s this like character that has been created by certain maybe more like popular
01:00:36 ►
members of the movement with amplified voices like not researchers but maybe writers and such of
01:00:42 ►
the shamanic rock star, you know, which is just
01:00:47 ►
like, I mean, people call themselves that they call themselves shamanic rock stars. It’s like,
01:00:53 ►
whoa, like, can we just get real for a second about like, what this I mean, isn’t the whole
01:00:59 ►
point of these materials to like, dissolve the ego and like like put the wellness of others and things larger than
01:01:06 ►
ourselves maybe before our own personal gain um and yet you know the i think the very essence of
01:01:14 ►
like the the notion of like a rock star is there’s a selfishness that comes with it there’s an
01:01:20 ►
inaccessibility that comes with it there’s a you know I’m the man or I’m the woman and I can
01:01:25 ►
get whatever I want and you know I mean there’s a very interesting character those rock stars
01:01:31 ►
I was just gonna say I’m not doing justice at all to to the complexity of that dynamic but
01:01:36 ►
but it is a dynamic and it’s popular in the party culture and it’s popular in the academic culture too. It’s showing its face.
01:01:50 ►
And I’ve seen some people that take on that rock star role,
01:01:52 ►
even in the conference setting.
01:01:55 ►
And then, you know, at the after party,
01:02:03 ►
they’re the cool ones that are like giving drugs to all the young kids.
01:02:05 ►
And, you know, that’s not a good thing
01:02:06 ►
to have that because it’s like if you’re taking on
01:02:08 ►
that rock star personality
01:02:10 ►
and it’s carrying over into
01:02:12 ►
partying like a rock star
01:02:14 ►
what kind of message does that send
01:02:16 ►
amen to that
01:02:19 ►
amen to that
01:02:21 ►
and these are all
01:02:22 ►
all of these things that we’ve been talking about it’s look down on Amen to that. So you’re trying to, you know, you know, make the psychedelic research movement less strong and less, you know, and that’s, it just is definitely, I’m glad that we’ve had this opportunity to at least touch on some of the issues because, like, for a few years, like, this is stuff that I’ve been, like, gradually thinking about and made me feel uncomfortable in myself over the years to
01:03:07 ►
notice things and not feel like I had a way to to voice like the the things that I’ve been noticing
01:03:14 ►
because it just didn’t it didn’t feel right to sit back while I was witnessing these like injustices
01:03:20 ►
and you know right right and I think you know we’re coming to you know, right. Right. And I think, you know, we’re coming to, you know,
01:03:26 ►
an hour here, so it’s probably good to wind down, but, but I think you’ve started to kind of open
01:03:32 ►
the door for acknowledging the real, the real thing that underscores this entire conversation.
01:03:40 ►
And that, in my opinion, is love. It’s love for this work. It’s love for this field.
01:03:46 ►
It’s love for whatever this culture or community is that calls itself psychedelic.
01:03:51 ►
You know, I feel like I would venture to speak for you and I both to say we love this so much
01:03:58 ►
that we want to see it done in the best way that it can. And we want to see it succeed.
01:04:03 ►
And we want to explore whatever it is
01:04:06 ►
we need to explore and reckon with what we need to reckon with so that this beautiful thing that
01:04:13 ►
we love so much can live on. Amen. Well, I suppose that concludes our broadcast for the day. Thanks
01:04:24 ►
so much to our listeners for listening in.
01:04:26 ►
And please, please, we want to hear from you.
01:04:29 ►
We want to know what you’re thinking.
01:04:30 ►
We want to hear your stories,
01:04:32 ►
and we want to encourage you to share them in whatever ways feel good to you.
01:04:37 ►
Nishay, do you want to say some parting words?
01:04:40 ►
Well, just I’ll add that on the salon listing,
01:04:43 ►
at least there’s contact information for both of us.
01:04:47 ►
So if you feel like reaching out, we would love to hear from you and continue this conversation.
01:04:55 ►
Absolutely. Absolutely.
01:04:57 ►
And that’s really what is going to keep this conversation alive,
01:05:01 ►
is people willing to reach out to each other and say hi and, you know,
01:05:05 ►
let us know what you’re thinking because that’s what’s needed.
01:05:10 ►
That’s what’s needed.
01:05:12 ►
All right.
01:05:13 ►
Be well, fellow travelers.
01:05:17 ►
We’ll talk to you soon.
01:05:18 ►
Onwards.
01:05:20 ►
You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon, where people are changing their lives one thought at a time.
01:05:27 ►
And as Neshea just said, if you go to the program notes for this podcast, which you can get to via psychedelicsalon.us,
01:05:34 ►
you will find ways in which you can contact both Lily and Neshea.
01:05:39 ►
And hopefully, if you have comments or questions, you’ll also make them known in our comments sections for these podcasts.
01:05:46 ►
While sometimes things get lost in my email inbox,
01:05:50 ►
all comments to our program notes have to be personally approved by me before they appear in the blog.
01:05:55 ►
So if you want to get my attention, you can always post a question in the comments sections.
01:06:00 ►
And even if I don’t reply, you can be 100% sure that I’ve at least read your comment or message.
01:06:07 ►
Now, before I forget it, I want to add my two cents about what was just said about speakers at some conferences acting like rock stars.
01:06:15 ►
First of all, that’s really too bad, and it doesn’t reflect well at all on the power of our psychedelic medicines to make us better people.
01:06:23 ►
on the power of our psychedelic medicines to make us better people.
01:06:27 ►
Obviously, simply ingesting a lot of drugs isn’t going to magically transform a jerk into a nice guy.
01:06:30 ►
It takes a lot of introspection and mental processing
01:06:33 ►
to transform a psychedelic experience into an experience that enhances one’s life.
01:06:39 ►
And for what it’s worth,
01:06:40 ►
not all of the celebrities on the psychedelic conference circuit
01:06:43 ►
are acting like rock stars.
01:06:45 ►
I think that the best example of that was found at the legendary and theobotany conferences
01:06:50 ►
that were held in Palenque for a number of years.
01:06:54 ►
For example, in 1999, the speakers included Ann and Sasha Shulgin, Paul Stamets, Terrence
01:07:01 ►
McKenna, Michael Bach, Manuel and Donna Torres, those names, when you look them up,
01:07:13 ►
you’re going to discover that back in 1999, these were the very top names in our community,
01:07:18 ►
and not a rock star among them.
01:07:21 ►
For seven days and nights, they joined the 80 or so participants in family
01:07:26 ►
style meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And in the evenings after the night’s lecture,
01:07:32 ►
the speakers and us participants would sit around the end of the pool or on our cabin porches in
01:07:37 ►
smaller groups, talking and passing a pipe around. I’m still somewhat amazed at all that transpired during those conferences,
01:07:46 ►
and today many of the women and men who are now giving presentations at our conferences
01:07:51 ►
were attendees at Plan K. It was a good model for a conference, and hopefully we can have more like
01:07:57 ►
it in the future. That said, the point that Nishay and Lily just brought up about these conferences being, well, kind of unaffordable for all but a few fortunate souls, well, it’s an important point.
01:08:10 ►
In my own case, I was 57 years old before I had enough disposable income for the first time in my adult life that I could attend a conference like this.
01:08:20 ►
And that’s one of the reasons that I started doing these podcasts.
01:08:22 ►
And that’s one of the reasons that I started doing these podcasts.
01:08:27 ►
I realized how fortunate I was to make it to Palenque, and I also realized that it continues to get more difficult each year
01:08:31 ►
to come up with the money to attend a conference or a festival.
01:08:35 ►
And so, we now have the marvels of podcasting
01:08:38 ►
to, well, to at least spread this information around a bit more.
01:08:42 ►
And I hope that I don’t need to point out that without you and some of your friends
01:08:46 ►
listening to these podcasts,
01:08:48 ►
well, there’d be no point in me posting them each week.
01:08:51 ►
So we’re all in this together, you know.
01:08:54 ►
I hope that in the interest of strengthening
01:08:57 ►
our little world here,
01:08:59 ►
that we’ll accept the challenge just laid down
01:09:02 ►
to begin openly discussing things
01:09:04 ►
about the psychedelic community
01:09:05 ►
that, well, that aren’t quite right and can use some fixing.
01:09:09 ►
For one thing, it’s been pointed out quite frequently that for far too long,
01:09:14 ►
the public face of our community has been largely that of white males.
01:09:18 ►
Fortunately, however, the deeper you connect with this community,
01:09:21 ►
the more you’ll discover that the situation isn’t quite as dire as it was 20 years ago.
01:09:27 ►
And as a grandfather whose five grandchildren include four girls, well, this topic is of more than just a passing interest to me.
01:09:36 ►
In fact, as I was listening to Neshea and Lily with you just now,
01:09:40 ►
I thought about the fact that by the time my granddaughters are in their 30s,
01:09:48 ►
Now, I thought about the fact that by the time my granddaughters are in their 30s, that Neshea and Lily will be two of the elders by then.
01:09:50 ►
Just as you will too, by the way.
01:09:55 ►
Don’t forget that fact. One day you are going to be an elder of this community.
01:09:58 ►
And it’s much easier to do than you may think.
01:10:02 ►
The main thing that it takes is, well, just live long.
01:10:06 ►
That means, of course, not taking any unnecessary risks or doing something really stupid.
01:10:09 ►
And I’ll have more to say about taking an honest inventory
01:10:12 ►
of our community in our next podcast.
01:10:15 ►
But even though it’s time to sign off right now,
01:10:18 ►
there’s one more topic that I need to cover real quickly.
01:10:20 ►
If you’ve been with us here in the salon for a while,
01:10:23 ►
you know that last March I did
01:10:25 ►
a little fundraiser, and for a premium, for a donation of $45 or more, I sent the donors a
01:10:31 ►
thumb drive with almost 16 gigabytes of audio files. At least I sent most of the donors their
01:10:36 ►
thumb drives. Unfortunately, there are still eight of them left to be sent, but I don’t have the
01:10:42 ►
addresses for these donors. So if you happen to be one of these kind souls, please send an email with your address on it to donations at matrixcast,
01:10:51 ►
that’s m-a-t-r-i-x-c-a-s-t, matrixcast.com, and I’ll send your thumb drive that contains the first
01:10:59 ►
400 podcasts from the salon, plus a 128 Terrence McKenna soundbites that I’ve collected.
01:11:05 ►
And I’ve collected them mainly for musicians who want to include a few words from Terrence in their work.
01:11:11 ►
But now those soundbites are also online for you to access as well.
01:11:16 ►
And you can find them on our program notes page, which you get to via psychedelicsalon.us.
01:11:21 ►
At the top menu is the word Extras.
01:11:24 ►
Click it and you’ll see a link for the
01:11:26 ►
sound bites, which I think we can have some fun with here. Now, except for a corny joke that I’m
01:11:32 ►
about to tell, we’re at the end of this podcast, so don’t feel badly about turning it off here.
01:11:38 ►
But if you’re still with me, here goes. This is really bad. I’m sure that you already know this
01:11:44 ►
old joke about a young man who
01:11:45 ►
was sent to prison and after the lights go out the first night there’s some shouting and the guy says
01:11:51 ►
57 and then he hears all the prisoners in the cell block laughing and a moment later somebody says
01:11:58 ►
73 and there’s more laughter and this goes on for a while longer and so he asks his cellmates what’s going on.
01:12:10 ►
Long story short here, the explanation is that there’s a joke book in the prison that everybody knows by heart, and each joke has a number.
01:12:14 ►
So at night, instead of telling the entire joke,
01:12:16 ►
they just shouted out the number to remind one another of it.
01:12:20 ►
And a few nights later, this new guy decides to join in,
01:12:23 ►
and so he shouts out, 79! But nobody laughs.
01:12:27 ►
And when he asked his cellmate why nobody laughed, the guy said, well, some people know how to tell a joke, and some don’t.
01:12:34 ►
Now, actually, I can string this joke out for several minutes when I’m in the mood, but luckily for you, I’m only using this joke as an illustration of what can be done with the Terrence McKenna soundbites.
01:12:46 ►
For example, if I string together the numbers 51, 73, 79, 94, 128, 62, and 7, here’s what we get.
01:12:58 ►
Killed by cow farts.
01:13:04 ►
Well, nobody said life wasn’t fraught with peril, right?
01:13:10 ►
Permission for heresy is never a bad idea.
01:13:13 ►
No religion in the West since Ur has been able to come to terms with the psychedelic experience because it mitigates male dominance hierarchy and
01:13:27 ►
all the other things that are the methods by which we do business well a single mistake
01:13:34 ►
would screw the pooch so a fortunate turn of phrase that I’ve picked up.
01:13:50 ►
The world just seems quite crazy at the moment.
01:13:53 ►
Because the fact of the matter is,
01:13:56 ►
nobody knows what’s going on.
01:13:58 ►
Nobody knows.
01:14:00 ►
Nobody has the faintest idea.
01:14:02 ►
The best guesses are lies.
01:14:07 ►
You may be sure of it. Now it’s your turn. If you come up with something interesting or fun by stringing these sound
01:14:15 ►
bites together, please post your list in the comments section for the sound bites page.
01:14:19 ►
And if this is something that enough of our fellow slaughters find interesting, I’ll post
01:14:23 ►
a few hundred more of these little gems that I’ve collected for you.
01:14:27 ►
And for now, this is Lorenzo, signing off from Cyberdelic Space.
01:14:31 ►
Be well my friends. Thank you.