⚗️ alembic

Search

SearchSearch

579 - Meditation and Psychedelics

Aug 14, 2018, 64 min read

Program Notes

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com
https://www.patreon.com/lorenzohagerty
Guest speaker: Myron Stolaroff

Myron Stolaroff meditating in the morning

Date this lecture was recorded: November 22, 1997

[NOTE: All quotations are by Myron Stolaroff

“To me, one of the really great mysteries of our time is how we can have something as valuable as psychedelics and yet have our government, and the public-at-large, have such an absolutely twisted view of it.”

“As for myself, I’m on record as saying that LSD is the greatest discovery that man ever made.”

“I have a lot of friends who are always telling me about all kinds of nutrients. Gosh, there are things that are really, really helpful. But I want to tell you that the thing that helps more than anything is a good psychedelic experience.”

Are psychedelics useful in the practice of Buddhism?
by Myron J, Stolaroff
Journal of Humanistic Psychology
Vol. 39 No. 1 Winter 1999
Pp. 60-80
Jon Hanna’s Mind States YouTube Channel

Download a free copy of Lorenzo’s latest book
The Chronicles of Lorenzo - Volume 1

Previous Episode

578 - 1) Enemies of Freedom & 2) Life After Death

Next Episode

050 - Lancaster Stories

Similar Episodes

Transcript

00:00:00 ►

Greetings from cyberdelic space, this is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon. And I’m pleased today to begin by thanking Justin E., Ian W., and Joel L.

00:00:31 ►

for their direct donations to the salon to help offset some of the expenses associated with these podcasts.

00:00:38 ►

And also thanks goes out to my new Patreon supporters, Christian S., Cecilia P., and Lucas T., whose monthly donations,

00:00:47 ►

combined with those of a hundred or so other fellow salonners, are helping to keep the

00:00:52 ►

lights on here in the salon as well. So, thank you one and all.

00:00:57 ►

Now, today’s program is one that’s quite special to me. It is the 1997 talk that Myron Stolaroff delivered at the very first MindStates conference.

00:01:08 ►

Now, if you’re a long-time listener here in the salon, well, then you’re already familiar with Myron’s very significant contributions to both psychedelic research and to the world of audio technology as well.

00:01:20 ►

But for our newcomers here, let me just give you a few headlines.

00:01:23 ►

But for our newcomers here, let me just give you a few headlines.

00:01:28 ►

Before becoming involved in the world of psychedelics,

00:01:34 ►

Myron Stolaroff was the co-designer of the Ampex Model 200A reel-to-reel tape recorder,

00:01:38 ►

which, after receiving funding from Bing Crosby,

00:01:43 ►

became the first commercial reel-to-reel tape recorder available to the public at large.

00:01:49 ►

In essence, the march of history that has led to today’s world of digital audio recording,

00:01:53 ►

well, that march began with a little tape deck that Myron co-designed.

00:01:58 ►

So, the next time you’re listening to your favorite music on your portable player,

00:02:01 ►

give a little nod of thanks to Myron Stolarov.

00:02:06 ►

Of course, here in the salon, we know Myron for something else. Because anyone who’s read T-Call or P-Call, Sasha Shulgin’s massive index of psychedelic molecules, well,

00:02:12 ►

the first thing you most likely read were the trip reports in the back of the book.

00:02:17 ►

And Myron not only participated in most of those experiences, he also interviewed all of the other

00:02:23 ►

participants and wrote the detailed

00:02:25 ►

reports, the ones that served as a basis for Sasha’s trip comments in the back of his books.

00:02:31 ►

Additionally, in 1960, Myron launched the International Foundation for Advanced Study

00:02:37 ►

in Menlo Park. Interestingly, many of the big names of the early personal computer revolution

00:02:44 ►

were also participants in the psychedelic research that took place at Menlo Park.

00:02:49 ►

In all, there were 350 participants in that guided psychedelic research.

00:02:55 ►

So, if you add up all of the group experiences that Myron racked up during the research for PCOL and T-COL,

00:03:07 ►

research for PCOL and T-COL, plus the 350 trips at Menlo Park, and the almost countless small group experiences that Myron led for friends like me, well, my guess is that he personally

00:03:13 ►

participated in researching and guiding more psychedelic experiences than all of the federally

00:03:20 ►

approved research collectively that’s taken place in the United States since 1990.

00:03:26 ►

Myron Stolaroff was a giant of an elder, and we really owe a great deal to him.

00:03:31 ►

Now, the talk that I’m about to play for you was posted on YouTube by John Hanna,

00:03:37 ►

who was also the producer of the Mind States conferences.

00:03:40 ►

Recently, John told me that he’s in the process of going through the hundreds of hours of video that he’s recorded over the years

00:03:47 ►

And he intends to post them to his YouTube channel

00:03:51 ►

And I’ll link to that in today’s program notes, which you can find at psychedelicsalon.com

00:03:56 ►

But for me, this talk is doubly interesting because I was fortunate to have had many visits with Myron

00:04:03 ►

Where he talked about ways in which

00:04:05 ►

psychedelics could become aids in a Buddhist meditation practice.

00:04:10 ►

So getting to listen to this, his first public discussion of this work, was a real treat.

00:04:16 ►

And now I’m going to join you and listen to it once again.

00:04:23 ►

Thank you for that introduction.

00:04:25 ►

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here.

00:04:29 ►

My wife, Jean, and I live in a rather remote area,

00:04:33 ►

and we don’t run into very many people during the week.

00:04:37 ►

Unfortunately, a lot of them we do run into

00:04:39 ►

who don’t necessarily share our interests.

00:04:43 ►

So it’s just great to be here with a room full of people,

00:04:46 ►

of like-minded people.

00:04:47 ►

So this is great.

00:04:48 ►

So thank you.

00:04:51 ►

Applause

00:04:52 ►

To me, one of the really great mysteries of our time

00:05:00 ►

is how we can have something as valuable as psychedelics

00:05:04 ►

and yet have our government

00:05:06 ►

and the public at large have such an absolutely twisted view of it.

00:05:13 ►

For myself, I’m on record as saying that LSD was the greatest discovery that man ever made.

00:05:30 ►

that man ever made. And I said that quite a long time ago, maybe 40 years or so, and certainly nothing has happened to change my mind. As a matter of fact, it’s just been

00:05:34 ►

reconfirmed over and over again. But for me, well, the reason that I said that is because as you all know here

00:05:46 ►

LSD allows you to explore your mind

00:05:50 ►

and there’s nothing greater in the universe than mind

00:05:53 ►

so obviously if that’s true

00:05:56 ►

then anything which gives us access to mind

00:05:59 ►

to learn more about it and to learn how to use it

00:06:02 ►

has got to be one of the greatest tools available,

00:06:05 ►

or the greatest tool available.

00:06:08 ►

For myself, one of the main things that I found,

00:06:13 ►

I came into this world with a very, very painful birth experience,

00:06:17 ►

and I think I resented that for decades.

00:06:20 ►

It took me an awful long time to get over the resentment of having to come through and all that pain.

00:06:27 ►

And I also found that I repressed a great deal of anger,

00:06:33 ►

because it was hard for me to be honest with people and say what I really thought and felt,

00:06:38 ►

and this created self-hatred, which piled up anger.

00:06:42 ►

So I spent a lot of time getting rid of repressed anger.

00:06:48 ►

It took me a long time to really genuinely listen to other people

00:06:53 ►

because I was wrapped up in myself and wrapped up in my head most of the time.

00:06:59 ►

And it’s been a great joy to open up and really become more aware of others,

00:07:04 ►

to listen carefully to them, which

00:07:06 ►

I incidentally learned primarily through Ann Shulgin, who you’re going to hear later this

00:07:10 ►

afternoon. And I think I learned a lot about learning to love, and that, of course, is

00:07:19 ►

extremely satisfying. But I think probably greater than anything, I found that God is absolutely, utterly real.

00:07:28 ►

In fact, probably the only reality.

00:07:31 ►

And that this world was created in the most unfathomable, magnificent love.

00:07:38 ►

And that we can all learn to discover and enter into that and be that.

00:07:44 ►

And that’s the hope for all of us.

00:07:56 ►

Now, there are a lot of reasons why psychedelics are so controversial,

00:08:01 ►

and I never tire of thinking about it or discussing it with other people.

00:08:06 ►

And you heard a lot about it this morning.

00:08:09 ►

Both speakers this morning pointed out a number of reasons.

00:08:13 ►

And I’m just going to mention three here right now.

00:08:17 ►

In Western civilization, I think there isn’t any question that science is God,

00:08:23 ►

and most people follow our scientists.

00:08:26 ►

And unfortunately, our mainstream scientists decided quite some time ago

00:08:31 ►

that if you couldn’t measure it, it wasn’t science.

00:08:35 ►

So this has left out a great, great deal of things that are really very important,

00:08:40 ►

like consciousness, awareness, feeling, and even spirit. And psychedelics, as probably

00:08:50 ►

most of you in this room know, open the door to discovering all of those things in greater

00:08:55 ►

depth and with greater understanding. But we humans are sort of queer in some ways.

00:09:04 ►

We learn things and we get invested in them

00:09:07 ►

and then our status depends on them.

00:09:09 ►

So we don’t like to give them up for other things that come along.

00:09:13 ►

And in fact, the other things that come along

00:09:14 ►

sometimes seem as quite threatening.

00:09:17 ►

So this reductionist materialistic approach

00:09:21 ►

I think is highly responsible

00:09:24 ►

for the lack of understanding

00:09:25 ►

of psychedelics among

00:09:27 ►

scientists, many of

00:09:30 ►

our mainstream scientists anyway

00:09:31 ►

and some of our government officials.

00:09:35 ►

One of the wonders is of course

00:09:37 ►

is that psychedelics do

00:09:39 ►

open up all of these areas for greater

00:09:41 ►

understanding.

00:09:43 ►

Another reason that psychedelics may not be popular,

00:09:48 ►

and this is a point that I want to emphasize over and over and over again.

00:09:53 ►

I’ll probably mention it several times during my talk.

00:09:56 ►

But if you want to get the most out of a psychedelic experience,

00:10:00 ►

you have to be honest.

00:10:03 ►

And you know the kind of world we live in.

00:10:06 ►

Our own nation is, what, running close to $6 trillion in debt.

00:10:10 ►

You can hardly believe what our politicians tell us,

00:10:13 ►

since they’re mainly interested in getting elected.

00:10:16 ►

We see evidence of all kinds of irrationality,

00:10:21 ►

of violating basic life principles,

00:10:24 ►

such as simply honoring and respecting each other.

00:10:28 ►

So a lot of people simply don’t want to look at things directly and squarely and acknowledge them.

00:10:36 ►

But another reason is that all of us carry within us what Jung so aptly called the shadow.

00:10:44 ►

And the shadow material are all those things we don’t like about ourselves or about life,

00:10:49 ►

and we stuff them away with this powerful mechanism that the mind has

00:10:53 ►

so that we are totally unaware of them.

00:10:56 ►

And in a good psychedelic experience,

00:11:00 ►

and I’ll go into a little bit more detail on this a little later,

00:11:04 ►

psychedelics do open up the unconscious mind,

00:11:07 ►

and our shadow material begins to be revealed.

00:11:11 ►

Now, for most of us, the things that went in to make the shadow

00:11:15 ►

occurred very early in our life,

00:11:17 ►

and at the current time of our life, with more maturity and more understanding,

00:11:22 ►

we would benefit a great deal by learning what this shadow material is

00:11:27 ►

and how it’s adversely affecting our life.

00:11:31 ►

But a lot of it is painful.

00:11:34 ►

A lot of it shows that the way that we are functioning is wrong,

00:11:40 ►

and we don’t welcome it.

00:11:42 ►

And consequently, many people try to prevent gaining this knowledge,

00:11:48 ►

and resisting is painful.

00:11:50 ►

And the more you resist in a psychedelic experience,

00:11:53 ►

again, I’m sure most of you know, it gets more and more uncomfortable.

00:11:58 ►

And it can even be so bad with some people that they go into psychotic reactions

00:12:03 ►

to avoid looking at the

00:12:05 ►

material that’s coming up. And this is what led to our medical profession doing these

00:12:10 ►

things, psychotomimetics. But it’s very advantageous to learn this shadow material because it takes

00:12:18 ►

energy to hold it down. And if you let it surface and you resolve it, you free that energy,

00:12:25 ►

and you have more energy available for life.

00:12:27 ►

You find that also as you release the burden of this repressed material,

00:12:37 ►

you have more access to your real resources, your awareness grows, your creativity grows,

00:12:44 ►

so there’s a great deal of merit in doing this

00:12:46 ►

so it’s very helpful if you can be honest

00:12:49 ►

and let the experience flow

00:12:50 ►

the third thing that I’m going to talk about

00:12:55 ►

is the reason for the controversy

00:12:57 ►

there’s a lot of our

00:13:00 ►

again a lot of our mainstream scientists

00:13:02 ►

and other people are very fixed in the allopathic view of medicine.

00:13:10 ►

And they tend to look at psychedelics as a drug that does something to you.

00:13:15 ►

It produces weird visions.

00:13:17 ►

It produces bright lights or God only knows what.

00:13:21 ►

But somehow the drug is doing this.

00:13:23 ►

only knows what, but somehow the drug is doing this.

00:13:27 ►

And again, those of you who understand these things know that that’s not an appropriate way to look at them at all.

00:13:33 ►

What psychedelics do, they’re openers, and they’re facilitators,

00:13:38 ►

and they allow us to do a lot of these things.

00:13:43 ►

So consequently, at least, I don’t claim to be a lot of these things. So consequently, at least,

00:13:46 ►

I don’t claim to be a scholar.

00:13:48 ►

There’s a lot of material that I haven’t read.

00:13:51 ►

But I have not noticed anywhere in the literature

00:13:55 ►

that there is a concept of the trained user.

00:14:00 ►

Because if these are openers and facilitators,

00:14:04 ►

it seems very logical that you should be able to learn how to use them more and more effectively,

00:14:10 ►

learn more and more about using them,

00:14:13 ►

and consequently become more and more skilled and become a trained user.

00:14:19 ►

So one of my personal objectives is to try to get this concept into the literature

00:14:25 ►

to get people to recognize these things more for what they are.

00:14:31 ►

So a lot of what I’m going to say is going to talk about what is a trained user and how do you become one.

00:14:42 ►

But before I do that, just so we’re all on common ground,

00:14:47 ►

I’m going to describe a little bit about what psychedelics do.

00:14:51 ►

I hope this isn’t boring to you because I think most of you know most of this already.

00:14:57 ►

And from what I’ve seen so far, I’m sure there are a lot of you that have explored

00:15:02 ►

with a much greater range and much greater depth than I.

00:15:07 ►

But I will go over this just as a way of sort of pulling our minds together

00:15:11 ►

so we can focus on the same things as I bring up certain issues.

00:15:17 ►

But one of the things that psychedelics do, it has a way of dissolving mindsets. The mind is very powerful,

00:15:29 ►

and we can focus our minds in such a way that we can make some things appear as though they’re

00:15:37 ►

really true, even though they’re not. And hypnotism is a very good example of what can be done with the mind. And I like

00:15:47 ►

to quote from Charles Tart’s book, Waking Up, where he claims we’re all in a state of

00:15:54 ►

mass hypnosis, which I think is pretty true. And one of the examples he gives with a good hypnotic subject,

00:16:06 ►

that you can take a rag and soak it with ammonia,

00:16:10 ►

and you can tell the subject that he’s going to put this up to your nose,

00:16:14 ►

and you can inhale deeply, but you won’t smell anything.

00:16:19 ►

So he does this, the person inhales deeply, and sure enough, he doesn’t smell anything.

00:16:24 ►

If you or I did it, we’d just burn the hell out of our nose and lungs.

00:16:27 ►

It would be a very painful experience.

00:16:30 ►

But sometimes we forget, I think, from these examples of hypnotism,

00:16:34 ►

just how powerful the mind is.

00:16:37 ►

So psychedelics can dissolve these kinds of mindsets.

00:16:43 ►

And one of the most powerful mindsets that we have

00:16:46 ►

is the ability to make things unconscious.

00:16:50 ►

And one of the things I’ve been impressed with

00:16:52 ►

in my work over the years,

00:16:56 ►

you know, when we start talking about the unconscious

00:16:59 ►

and it gets to be kind of a buzzword

00:17:02 ►

and everybody’s talking about it,

00:17:03 ►

then we get to think that we really know what the unconscious is.

00:17:08 ►

But I’m here to tell you that if it’s unconscious, you do not have a clue.

00:17:16 ►

I mean, that’s what unconscious means.

00:17:19 ►

You absolutely do not know.

00:17:22 ►

And it’s a real surprise when it comes up.

00:17:31 ►

And so this, again, just reviewing a large range of experience,

00:17:39 ►

and, you know, this involves some 35 years of exploration, both with myself and people that I know closely,

00:17:51 ►

and research subjects, and with a wide range of materials.

00:17:56 ►

You know, if you live long enough, that’s really about the greatest asset I have here, I think.

00:18:01 ►

I’ve lived longer than most of you.

00:18:04 ►

And so you get a chance to see how all these things shake out as time goes on.

00:18:09 ►

And anyway, as I look at all those experiences and what has happened,

00:18:16 ►

I come to feel that probably one of the most important things that psychedelics do

00:18:23 ►

is open the door to the unconscious mind. And when you do that,

00:18:27 ►

you run into a great many things. And I’m going to greatly oversimplify here, because mind is really

00:18:33 ►

infinite. And there’s so many aspects and so many ranges. And so I don’t want to be too simplistic,

00:18:42 ►

but I just want to touch on a few things that we can discuss further.

00:18:47 ►

But first, you run into feelings that have been repressed, and you run into values that have been repressed.

00:18:54 ►

You discover that you’ve been operating out of certain kinds of values, but you didn’t even know that you held.

00:19:01 ►

And the same for desires.

00:19:03 ►

that you’ve held, and the same for desires.

00:19:10 ►

We’ve repressed powerful hurts and betrayals.

00:19:15 ►

Another thing that happens as our unconscious material is released,

00:19:20 ►

that we discover that in many areas we’ve behaved inappropriately,

00:19:24 ►

like in my case, often don’t listen,

00:19:27 ►

don’t acknowledge the other person enough,

00:19:29 ►

don’t pay enough attention to communication,

00:19:34 ►

and that really everyone, the core of everyone is divine,

00:19:39 ►

and we really need to acknowledge this in each other,

00:19:43 ►

and the way we often behave, we don’t do that.

00:19:46 ►

And this comes to light and can be understood.

00:19:54 ►

Other aspects of the mind, and here we get into the more positive things,

00:19:58 ►

but there’s an area of the mind from which intuition comes.

00:20:03 ►

There’s an area from which creativity comes, and these things can be opened up.

00:20:07 ►

One of the amazing things with psychedelics, and particularly some of them, like ayahuasca,

00:20:10 ►

is unbelievable, the kind of imagery that comes.

00:20:14 ►

And it’s almost incomprehensible to contemplate what the source of all that is.

00:20:20 ►

And then finally, the most important experiences of all is to discover that Jung was right.

00:20:29 ►

He said that we have a real self, which I’ll call here the authentic self.

00:20:35 ►

And this is a fantastic discovery, that beyond our ego and our individual personality,

00:20:41 ►

we are this enormous self that’s related to absolutely everything in the universe.

00:20:48 ►

And at the core of our being is the source of this universal love and unending wisdom.

00:20:57 ►

And this is essentially the mystical experience that’s been reported in most of the major

00:21:03 ►

traditions. This is really the peak

00:21:06 ►

experience. This is about the ultimate that Anne can achieve, is to discover this aspect

00:21:14 ►

of himself and the fact that he really is, he or she really is one with the whole universe.

00:21:23 ►

Anne dissolving these mindsets makes all of the things I’ve just discussed available.

00:21:29 ►

So, in that case, what’s the problem in becoming a trained user? Well, I think if you look

00:21:38 ►

over the list, you can see that there are a number of things there that sound very attractive.

00:21:43 ►

We’d like to open up our creativity. We’d like to open up our creativity.

00:21:45 ►

We’d like to open up our intuition.

00:21:48 ►

We’d like to have this profound mystical experience.

00:21:52 ►

But at the same time, we’re opening up all this other repressed material.

00:22:00 ►

And so it turns out that if you open yourself with the psychedelic and hope to get these vaster dimensions, you find that they’re often hidden behind the repressed material, and this repressed material is demanding attention.

00:22:18 ►

So in a lot of cases, you can’t even focus your mind on these other areas until this repressed

00:22:26 ►

material is discharged. So I’d like to define then what a trained user is. A trained user

00:22:35 ►

is one who’s learned to hold his mind perfectly still, absolutely quietly still, without thought.

00:22:42 ►

absolutely quietly still without thought.

00:22:46 ►

And when you do this then,

00:22:48 ►

wherever you focus attention,

00:22:50 ►

you can hold your attention completely steadily on the object.

00:22:54 ►

And if you’re able to do that,

00:22:57 ►

what you find

00:22:58 ►

is that the object of your attention

00:23:02 ►

will begin to unfold

00:23:04 ►

if you’re patient, if you’re patient, if you detach, if you’re open.

00:23:09 ►

As you look at a thought, a concept, or a physical object,

00:23:14 ►

you will begin to see it in more and more dimensions and more and more aspects.

00:23:18 ►

And this is what a trained user can do.

00:23:21 ►

And I think you can see that if you can do this,

00:23:24 ►

there’s no limit to what

00:23:25 ►

you can learn, because anything that you look at, you can begin to explore in more and more

00:23:31 ►

dimensions. And really, what stops us, you know, it’s almost like they say about prayer,

00:23:40 ►

be careful what you ask for, But I have found in psychedelic experiences

00:23:46 ►

that I think prayer really, really works.

00:23:49 ►

And then later on you find out,

00:23:51 ►

well, gee whiz, it’s not working.

00:23:53 ►

And when you look at it,

00:23:54 ►

at least when I’ve looked at it,

00:23:55 ►

what I’ve found is, yeah, it’s working.

00:23:57 ►

I just didn’t want to see the answer.

00:24:01 ►

Because there are a lot of unconscious repressions.

00:24:06 ►

There are defenses, areas that we don’t want to open up.

00:24:10 ►

So the more that we can open ourselves and clear up these unconscious areas,

00:24:16 ►

the more ability we will have to quiet our mind and hold our mind steady

00:24:21 ►

and use our mind as a learning tool.

00:24:25 ►

Now, as you go through this process,

00:24:27 ►

if you agree that you want to have the experience of just simply releasing to the experience

00:24:33 ►

and discharging this material and taking what comes,

00:24:38 ►

you go through a stage of progressions.

00:24:42 ►

And I think this was beautifully written by Willis Harmon in a paper that we wrote in 1962,

00:24:50 ►

The Psychedelic Experience, A New Concept in Psychotherapy.

00:24:54 ►

And he described three stages.

00:24:57 ►

The first stage is the evasive stage.

00:25:01 ►

It’s the first start getting into the experience.

00:25:04 ►

The ego really resists the information that’s coming. evasive stage. It’s first start getting into the experience.

00:25:06 ►

The ego really resists the information that’s coming.

00:25:09 ►

And

00:25:09 ►

depending on how invested you are

00:25:12 ►

in maintaining the self-image

00:25:14 ►

you’ve created,

00:25:15 ►

the more you hold on to it,

00:25:18 ►

the more uncomfortable it is

00:25:20 ►

as new material tries to insert

00:25:22 ►

itself. And

00:25:23 ►

people can experience nausea.

00:25:26 ►

People can experience muscular discomfort.

00:25:29 ►

The imagery can be very peculiar,

00:25:32 ►

plastic tubes and things

00:25:34 ►

and drawings that don’t seem to have

00:25:38 ►

any particular meaning or anything.

00:25:41 ►

But if you release to this

00:25:43 ►

and allow yourself to keep going, after a while

00:25:47 ►

you get into a new stage, which is called the symbolic stage. Now, I’m not saying that

00:25:54 ►

you’re going to go through all these three stages in a single experience, but if you’re

00:26:00 ►

committed to this work and you want to continue, excuse me, if you want to continue, you will

00:26:05 ►

eventually progress through these three stages. So the next stage is the symbolic stage. So

00:26:12 ►

you find the imagery turning to things like landscapes and people, and it can begin to

00:26:20 ►

get very beautiful and peaceful, but you begin to notice that as you watch

00:26:26 ►

the people and what they’re doing and their activities, you begin to see yourself in all

00:26:31 ►

these different situations. You begin to find out that you’re learning a great, great deal

00:26:37 ►

about yourself because you’re seeing a lot of your inner self projected out there in

00:26:42 ►

the symbolic imagery. So this is a very useful part of the experience where you can learn a great deal.

00:26:50 ►

As you continue that and continue to flow with the experience and allow the discharge

00:26:59 ►

of material to continue, which takes form really in imagery.

00:27:07 ►

continue, which takes form really in imagery. As long as imagery is flowing, it’s usually the accompaniment of things being released in your inner psyche. So if you simply allow

00:27:13 ►

that process to proceed, sooner or later that will begin to clear up and you will enter

00:27:20 ►

the stage of what Harmon called the stage of immediate perception.

00:27:33 ►

In this stage, hallucinations stop, the imagery stops, you look out at the world, and you see it just as it is, except tremendously enhanced with light, beauty, and charged with

00:27:40 ►

meaning.

00:27:41 ►

But you know, things have stopped moving, a tree is a tree, and the sky is a sky, and

00:27:45 ►

the cloud is a cloud, but with a richness that you’ve never before apprehended. And

00:27:52 ►

it’s that when you reach this stage, where you can look directly out at things, you’ve

00:28:00 ►

reached the stage which the trained user is trying to accomplish.

00:28:07 ►

Now, there are several other things besides just simply releasing to the experience, as I’ve described.

00:28:15 ►

There are things you can do to accelerate this process of reaching the stage of holding the mind quiet.

00:28:23 ►

One of the things that I found useful,

00:28:27 ►

both with myself and others,

00:28:29 ►

there’s a value in using low doses.

00:28:32 ►

I’m not saying replace high doses.

00:28:37 ►

But there’s value at times in using low doses

00:28:40 ►

because a lot of people don’t like low doses

00:28:43 ►

because when you take a low dose,

00:28:46 ►

very often the experience gets uncomfortable, and people don’t like these uncomfortable

00:28:50 ►

feelings, so what they like to do is take a lot more substance and sort of rocket themselves

00:28:57 ►

out into the outer dimensions, into the transpersonal, which is fine, the transpersonal experience is certainly unbeatable

00:29:05 ►

but when you do that

00:29:07 ►

when you do that

00:29:13 ►

after you come back

00:29:14 ►

it turns out that with a lot of us

00:29:16 ►

the experience fades

00:29:20 ►

and you’re still stuck with these same old things

00:29:22 ►

that you vaulted over

00:29:24 ►

and one way to deal with these same old things that you vaulted over.

00:29:28 ►

And one way to deal with that is to take lower doses,

00:29:33 ►

and if you’re having uncomfortable experiences, accept it.

00:29:36 ►

Focus on them, breathe through them,

00:29:40 ►

and if you give them your attention and stick with them,

00:29:41 ►

they will resolve themselves.

00:29:47 ►

And when they do, you’ve discharged the driving force behind them and you’ve freed yourself.

00:29:49 ►

And you find that after the experience,

00:29:52 ►

you feel you’ve made a real gain

00:29:53 ►

that stays with you.

00:29:56 ►

And you feel a great deal better

00:29:58 ►

for having done that work.

00:30:01 ►

So I find it’s very useful to do that

00:30:03 ►

from time to time.

00:30:06 ►

Another thing that’s very helpful is to take advantage of the tremendous lore and wisdom of Buddhism,

00:30:14 ►

who’ve really developed a great number of methods for training and disciplining the mind.

00:30:21 ►

My own path has been following a teacher in Tibetan Buddhist meditation,

00:30:29 ►

and this I have personally found has been very helpful.

00:30:35 ►

There are a number of practices that are used,

00:30:39 ►

but one of the best for developing mental stability

00:30:42 ►

is pure and simple breath awareness.

00:30:45 ►

By simply holding your attention on the breath, and the technique that worked best for me and

00:30:51 ►

for a number of people who were sharing the same retreats, is just simply focusing on

00:30:57 ►

the nostrils and becoming aware of the air moving in through the nostrils. Try to feel

00:31:03 ►

the passage of air. Try to feel the air

00:31:06 ►

moving over your lips. And just keeping your focus of attention there. And the same on

00:31:10 ►

the outbreath. And it’s a very simple exercise. Sounds boring, but it has a rich payoff. You’ll

00:31:20 ►

find as you’re doing this, especially if you’re a novice, that it’s very difficult to hold your attention there

00:31:25 ►

and not have thoughts go through your mind.

00:31:28 ►

But you simply acknowledge them and dismiss them.

00:31:31 ►

And as soon as you can, get back to focusing on the breath.

00:31:37 ►

And you’ll find that when you’ve been able to do this for a 10 or 15-minute study,

00:31:43 ►

you begin to find an inner peace developing. And

00:31:47 ►

as this continues, it will in time grow to euphoria, and in time it will even grow to

00:31:54 ►

bliss. And the fact that you’ve been able to hold the mind steady means that you have

00:32:02 ►

developed stability, and when you develop stability,

00:32:06 ►

that opens the road to clarity. And the same kind of clarity I’m talking about when you

00:32:11 ►

can focus under a psychedelic on an object and hold your attention on it and have it

00:32:17 ►

reveal itself. I’ll mention the two main obstacles to this kind of mind discipline.

00:32:24 ►

the two main obstacles to this kind of mind discipline.

00:32:29 ►

The two obstacles are grasping and aversion.

00:32:33 ►

By grasping what is meant,

00:32:36 ►

and if you do this practice,

00:32:39 ►

you’re going to discover that you do this a lot.

00:32:44 ►

But this is the effort to change things to try to make reality

00:32:45 ►

what you want it to be

00:32:47 ►

and I think you’ll find that most of us

00:32:49 ►

have a lot invested in that

00:32:51 ►

we really do a lot

00:32:52 ►

to make things come out just exactly as we want

00:32:55 ►

and

00:32:56 ►

even after I discharged

00:32:59 ►

a really major

00:33:01 ►

major dynamic of grasping

00:33:03 ►

I found under that that there were more and more subtle levels

00:33:06 ►

and more and more subtle levels.

00:33:09 ►

But eventually, as you learn not to grasp,

00:33:13 ►

you do reach this point where you can hold the mind still,

00:33:17 ►

and it’s very rewarding.

00:33:20 ►

The other thing that you have to overcome is aversion.

00:33:24 ►

The other thing that you have to overcome is aversion.

00:33:32 ►

And this is the result of the fact that when you hold your mind perfectly still,

00:33:39 ►

I mentioned before that when you develop stability, you get the peace and the calm, and of course that’s very nice.

00:33:41 ►

But also when you’re holding your mind still, you’re opening the door to your own unconscious.

00:33:46 ►

So your repressed material can come up.

00:33:49 ►

And that’s as it should be.

00:33:50 ►

You want to allow it to come up, accept it, acknowledge it,

00:33:55 ►

and let it move along and not get involved in it.

00:33:58 ►

But sometimes this repressed material is very painful.

00:34:02 ►

So you find that you have defensive mechanisms

00:34:04 ►

which prevent it from coming up, and that is very painful. So you find that you have defensive mechanisms which prevent

00:34:05 ►

it from coming up, and that is aversion. So if you can overcome aversion and simply allow

00:34:13 ►

the material to come up and be discharged, then you see what I’ve been describing is

00:34:18 ►

really the same thing as releasing to a psychedelic experience. So in a way, it does accomplish the same result.

00:34:28 ►

It takes more practice, more discipline,

00:34:30 ►

a longer period of time.

00:34:33 ►

But it is a way of enhancing your growth toward stability.

00:34:39 ►

Now, if you really do develop stability,

00:34:41 ►

you will be able to hold your mind perfectly still.

00:34:45 ►

And if you hold your mind perfectly still, you will see that you become aware of other levels of reality.

00:34:52 ►

And I like to call this creating the empty space that God can enter. When you can hold

00:34:58 ►

your mind absolutely still, which is not easy. You only have to try it a few seconds to find out how difficult it is,

00:35:07 ►

unless you’ve already gotten practice in this.

00:35:10 ►

But when you hold your mind perfectly still,

00:35:13 ►

the actual presence can begin to be felt,

00:35:16 ►

and it’s a marvelous experience,

00:35:18 ►

and it opens the door to a great, great many things.

00:35:22 ►

So that’s the trained user and some of the key ways of getting there.

00:35:27 ►

And now I’d like to talk a little bit

00:35:30 ►

about deepening and developing your meditation practice

00:35:34 ►

if this is something that you’re interested in.

00:35:38 ►

And I’ve already mentioned

00:35:41 ►

that this is an important discipline

00:35:43 ►

for developing mental stability.

00:35:46 ►

And what you find is that as you develop mental stability,

00:35:51 ►

your psychedelic experiences become more and more rewarding

00:35:54 ►

because you’re able to stay focused on the things that are really important

00:35:58 ►

to contribute the most to your psychedelic experience.

00:36:02 ►

On the other hand, the use of psychedelics in an appropriate manner

00:36:07 ►

is very, very useful to accelerating

00:36:11 ►

and deepening the practice of meditation.

00:36:15 ►

Now, if you’re going to do this,

00:36:17 ►

I think it’s fairly obvious that

00:36:20 ►

you have to do this with a low dose of psychedelics

00:36:23 ►

because if you take a large dose and a whole lot of things are happening,

00:36:30 ►

you’re being propelled into outer space, or all kinds of imagery is passing through,

00:36:35 ►

obviously you’re not going to be able to hold your mind still.

00:36:39 ►

So you do need to use a moderate dose.

00:36:42 ►

you do need to use a moderate dose.

00:36:48 ►

One of the best substances that I personally found to do this kind of practice for deepening meditation practice

00:36:53 ►

is 2C-B.

00:36:55 ►

It’s short-acting.

00:36:58 ►

It’s not real pushy like some of the others,

00:37:01 ►

like LSD, for example.

00:37:04 ►

And somehow, you know, this is fairly subjective.

00:37:09 ►

I don’t have any real way to know that it’s true,

00:37:11 ►

but it seems like it really leaves you in a better place at the end of the day.

00:37:16 ►

But others work.

00:37:18 ►

If you’re going to use LSD, I’d say the dose level should be about 25 to 50 micrograms,

00:37:25 ►

I’d say the dose level should be about 25 to 50 micrograms, depending on how much it takes for you to get a full-blown experience.

00:37:33 ►

2CT2, 2CT7 are excellent vehicles.

00:37:39 ►

I spend a lot of time with the phenethylamines, like them very much, find them very useful.

00:37:45 ►

They’re not as pushy as LSD, and so they lend themselves well to this kind of practice.

00:37:53 ►

They’re about 10 milligrams, I think, would be an appropriate dose.

00:37:57 ►

Now, here’s the advantages of practicing meditation while under the influence.

00:38:03 ►

of practicing meditation while under the influence.

00:38:06 ►

First of all, there is some opening,

00:38:13 ►

and you will notice that as the psychedelic takes effect,

00:38:16 ►

that your awareness does grow,

00:38:19 ►

and you become more and more aware of what’s happening.

00:38:22 ►

And if you’re practicing meditation,

00:38:34 ►

you can begin to see that there are very subtle things that you do that either interfere with the practice, interfere with deepening it, or else accelerate the practice and make it more rewarding.

00:38:46 ►

So you’re just opening up a dimension of being able to be more aware of the different things you’re doing within yourself that affect the meditation practice.

00:38:52 ►

So it helps you learn more rapidly the more appropriate things to do. Sort of like learning biofeedback.

00:38:57 ►

One of the other advantages of using the low dose of psychedelic,

00:39:01 ►

a low dose of psychedelic.

00:39:07 ►

The fact that it is doing some releasing is bringing more material into awareness,

00:39:11 ►

and it makes it harder to hold your focus.

00:39:16 ►

So actually what this does,

00:39:18 ►

it gives you a chance to explore and learn

00:39:22 ►

that you do have resources within you

00:39:26 ►

which are stronger than you might have imagined

00:39:29 ►

and that these resources are strong enough

00:39:32 ►

to begin to control this accelerated flow of imagery

00:39:38 ►

or whatever that’s coming from the psychedelic

00:39:40 ►

so that you can learn to hold your mind steady in spite of this extra activity.

00:39:49 ►

And what this means is that you’re developing additional volition, which is a very great

00:39:57 ►

asset, and you’re learning more about your own inner strength. But developing this volition, I like to call developing a God muscle,

00:40:12 ►

that you’re learning more and more how to use your resources

00:40:15 ►

to accomplish the stability required to deepen your meditation practice.

00:40:21 ►

And I think I’ve mentioned, but I’ll repeat it,

00:40:23 ►

that as you develop this mental stability,

00:40:27 ►

it does indeed enhance your psychedelic experiences and allows you to go deeper in them. So they’re

00:40:36 ►

mutually reinforcing. And one of the advantages of learning to deepen your meditation with psychedelics in this way

00:40:46 ►

is you find that there is a great carryover,

00:40:52 ►

that when you deepen the experience while you’re under the influence,

00:40:58 ►

that you can reach just about the same proficiency in your ordinary practice. So it’s almost like making a step function increase in your effectiveness in carrying out the practice.

00:41:11 ►

But I have to say that from my own experience,

00:41:16 ►

the ultimate best thing that works is to find where, in a psychedelic experience,

00:41:24 ►

to find that place where a psychedelic experience,

00:41:28 ►

to find that place where you’re tuned in to the inner teacher.

00:41:33 ►

And I think more and more you learn to find that there is a specific place to hold your attention where you’re tuned in to the source of what’s happening.

00:41:39 ►

And if you can simply stay with that, regardless of whatever happens,

00:41:44 ►

be committed to maintaining that relationship,

00:41:48 ►

that’s where the most rewarding experiences happen.

00:41:52 ►

At least that’s from my experience.

00:41:55 ►

Now I’d like to say a few words about forestalling aging.

00:41:59 ►

I’m 77 years old, and I’m here to tell you that there are a lot of things about getting old that are not very comfortable.

00:42:10 ►

The things that bother me the most, I find that I get tired more easily, that mental activity dulls off.

00:42:21 ►

I like to exercise and climb mountains, but I find my muscles are much more sore and stiff.

00:42:29 ►

And I find arthritic symptoms develop.

00:42:34 ►

And there are ways that you can help these things.

00:42:40 ►

One of the things comes from the way you lead your life.

00:42:46 ►

And I find that honesty and responsibility are of great help

00:42:50 ►

because a lot of things that make me tired are sort of what I guess Erhard Werner would call uncompleted cycles.

00:42:58 ►

You decide that you’re going to do certain things and then you don’t do them.

00:43:02 ►

And I find in me that that sort of hangs as a

00:43:05 ►

psychic weight and that when you finally get around and do them, that weight is removed.

00:43:10 ►

So it’s another way of being honest really is to carry out your intentions. In my life,

00:43:21 ►

exercise is extremely important and I think we’re blessed to live near the mountains.

00:43:26 ►

I find climbing up into the mountains extremely rewarding, both for the physical beauty, but also for the effect on the body.

00:43:34 ►

And I have a lot of friends who are always telling me about all kinds of nutrients.

00:43:39 ►

Gosh, there are things that are really, really helpful.

00:43:42 ►

But I want to tell you that the thing that helps more than anything

00:43:46 ►

is a good psychedelic experience.

00:44:01 ►

I found that all those symptoms that I described can all disappear.

00:44:11 ►

Because what’s happening is you reach down and tap the life force.

00:44:16 ►

And as this life force is released into your body, it’s healing.

00:44:21 ►

It’s rejuvenating.

00:44:23 ►

And I don’t know anything that does it better.

00:44:28 ►

One thing that I do want to say about it,

00:44:31 ►

and one thing that I learned

00:44:36 ►

through some very dramatic advice from my inner self,

00:44:41 ►

is that there is a trap in using psychedelic experiences to

00:44:48 ►

solve your problems. Because it’s so easy, and I did this for a long time, it’s so easy

00:44:54 ►

when you get tired or loaded up or uncomfortable to have another experience. And they are rejuvenating

00:45:01 ►

and they produce a lot of clarity, but I found that in myself it wasn’t too many weeks before I was back in the same place again.

00:45:10 ►

And what really helps is to realize that the things that drag you down

00:45:16 ►

are the things you’re not really confronting and dealing with in life.

00:45:20 ►

And if you make up your mind to deal with those things and resolve them, you can

00:45:26 ►

maintain the state of being. So I have a rule for myself, which is, first of all, to realize

00:45:36 ►

how really blessed and wonderful the psychedelic experience is, and how fortunate we are to have this available

00:45:45 ►

and to have these marvelous areas of the psyche and the mind available to us,

00:45:52 ►

the wonder and beauty that we can learn to see around us.

00:45:57 ►

And this needs to be fully honored.

00:46:00 ►

And one of the ways you honor it is by taking what you learn

00:46:04 ►

and putting it into effect in your life.

00:46:07 ►

And I have found that doing my best to do this, I still find that there are times when another experience seems to be fruitful.

00:46:17 ►

And I find if I’ve really done my homework, if I’ve really tried to bring these things into effect in my life, then the next experience is much, much better.

00:46:27 ►

So that’s worked very well for me, and I’ve become very aware of it.

00:46:32 ►

And it’s also true that as you deepen your meditation,

00:46:38 ►

you find that you’re doing the same thing.

00:46:40 ►

You’re tapping that inner core.

00:46:43 ►

You’re tapping the inner light.

00:46:44 ►

It is rejuvenating, it is healing,

00:46:48 ►

and after a while you find that more and more you can replicate

00:46:52 ►

what’s going on with psychedelics with your meditation practice.

00:46:57 ►

And it’s extremely rewarding because there’s a wonderful feeling that comes with that.

00:47:02 ►

Because somehow it feels to me like it’s more mine,

00:47:06 ►

that I’ve done this, it feels good, I’m able to stay there,

00:47:10 ►

and furthermore, I’ve learned when things do get bad or uncomfortable,

00:47:16 ►

I’ve learned more how to deal with it on the spot

00:47:19 ►

and not have to turn to an experience to resolve it.

00:47:23 ►

And I found that very satisfying.

00:47:27 ►

So I hope that this has been helpful

00:47:31 ►

and I wish you well in your own explorations.

00:47:35 ►

And I hope that we can meet in the kingdom of God

00:47:39 ►

where the experience is fantastic love

00:47:43 ►

and incredible beauty

00:47:45 ►

and the oneness that we all share.

00:47:47 ►

Thank you very much.

00:48:20 ►

Thank you.

00:48:20 ►

Thank you.

00:48:24 ►

There is a little time for questions,

00:48:30 ►

and I really love answering questions more than talking, so yes.

00:48:35 ►

I just want to say thank you, thank you.

00:48:38 ►

Thank you.

00:48:38 ►

Thank you.

00:48:41 ►

Back in the 60s when I had the great high doses and then I kind of let it go,

00:48:48 ►

I got involved in Tibetan meditation and Vipassana on and off for 25 years.

00:48:55 ►

I just recently started with this low-dose thing.

00:48:59 ►

I was in a

00:49:05 ►

10 day

00:49:06 ►

and about the 7th day

00:49:10 ►

I took 50

00:49:11 ►

milligrams of

00:49:13 ►

MDMA

00:49:15 ►

one

00:49:16 ►

and I learned from the psychedelic

00:49:20 ►

I learned about it

00:49:21 ►

I taught how to meditate

00:49:22 ►

in my meditation I learned how to work with this psychedelic.

00:49:26 ►

I just thank you very much for saying yes to what I’ve discovered.

00:49:34 ►

Thank you very much for confirming it

00:49:36 ►

because one of the tragedies of our time with our drug laws,

00:49:40 ►

you can’t carry on more research.

00:49:42 ►

And if it weren’t for the drug laws and we were free to do research,

00:49:46 ►

I’d be very happy to spend the rest of my life in researching this particular aspect of psychedelics,

00:49:53 ►

of how can you deepen your meditation practice,

00:49:55 ►

so you can have this state as a permanent state.

00:49:59 ►

There are some people I know that say,

00:50:01 ►

Oh my God, you know, you’re reaching too high.

00:50:03 ►

It’s just not in the cards.

00:50:05 ►

But that is not so.

00:50:07 ►

That is not so.

00:50:08 ►

And it’s just delightful and wonderful to be able to get into these states and maintain them.

00:50:13 ►

So I hope more of you will seek it out.

00:50:18 ►

I would just say that for me, it’s beginning to happen in my life.

00:50:21 ►

It’s beginning to happen where it kind of flows along in the everyday

00:50:26 ►

life you employ of me.

00:50:28 ►

Thank you.

00:50:29 ►

That’s great.

00:50:30 ►

Yes?

00:50:31 ►

Thank you so much, Myron.

00:50:33 ►

For about 30 years, I’ve had these dual paths

00:50:35 ►

of meditation and the theogenic path.

00:50:38 ►

And it’s a never-ending

00:50:40 ►

discovery.

00:50:42 ►

In the people I associate with,

00:50:44 ►

a lot of people I encounter,

00:50:46 ►

they either are for meditation

00:50:48 ►

and in so being may be opposed to substances

00:50:52 ►

and on the other hand people encourage that path

00:50:56 ►

and meditation is or isn’t a part of it.

00:51:01 ►

But one of the things I’ve found

00:51:03 ►

is for meditators who have not adopted the

00:51:06 ►

theogens in any way, this repressed material is an obstacle to not only experiencing the

00:51:11 ►

bliss of meditation, but allowing meditation to be a consistent avenue or path in their

00:51:16 ►

lives. And your encouragement of the lower doses and the patience that you yourself embody

00:51:22 ►

in working through repressed material.

00:51:26 ►

I just, you’re a hero of mine, and I just want to thank you very, very much.

00:51:40 ►

Josh, I don’t know how much of this I could take.

00:51:44 ►

Thank you very much.

00:51:46 ►

But while you brought up that subject,

00:51:48 ►

one of the things that really moved me

00:51:50 ►

was in the fall issue, 1996,

00:51:56 ►

of the Tibetan, not the Tibetan,

00:51:58 ►

but the Buddhist magazine, Tricycle.

00:52:01 ►

Many of you may know they devoted that issue to psychedelics,

00:52:04 ►

and the responses

00:52:06 ►

were all over the map. There were a number of people that found psychedelics very helpful.

00:52:11 ►

There are others that thought that it was absolutely destructive of their practice and

00:52:14 ►

had no use whatever. And I really couldn’t sit still with that. So I’ve written a paper,

00:52:28 ►

So I’ve written a paper, and the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, I think, is accepting it. It’s current to accepting revisions that they’ve asked for and that I’ve made.

00:52:38 ►

But unfortunately, it’ll take about a year before that appears.

00:52:42 ►

But I deal a lot with this issue that you brought up.

00:52:46 ►

It’s sad that just because people find a path, they have to reject other paths.

00:52:53 ►

God, if there’s anything we know from psychedelics, that there are so many paths,

00:52:57 ►

and every individual is different, and every individual needs to find his own path.

00:53:02 ►

The Buddha says this, that ultimately, no matter what you practice,

00:53:09 ►

ultimately you have to be guided by your own intuition.

00:53:13 ►

And that’s what really counts.

00:53:17 ►

Yes?

00:53:18 ►

Can you tell us about your new book?

00:53:22 ►

Sorry, can you tell us about your new book?

00:53:26 ►

Thank you, I’d like to.

00:53:31 ►

Well, I have to thank Anne and Sasha Shogun for this,

00:53:35 ►

for pointing it out that there was a gentleman

00:53:39 ►

who had done a great deal of work with psychedelic therapy

00:53:43 ►

and had developed a lot of new techniques and processes.

00:53:47 ►

And they knew that I was struggling to be a writer

00:53:50 ►

and looking for good things to write about,

00:53:52 ►

and they suggested that I write about him.

00:53:56 ►

So my wife, Jean, and I arranged to interview him,

00:54:01 ►

and he’s a remarkable human being,

00:54:03 ►

one of the most lovable human beings

00:54:05 ►

I’ve ever met. And we had the good fortune to spend a lot of time with him and he told

00:54:11 ►

us how he got started in the work, how he learned how to have subjects have good experiences.

00:54:25 ►

I think one of the things in the book that I’ve just got to share,

00:54:28 ►

because this really impressed me,

00:54:30 ►

in the course of our discussion,

00:54:32 ►

he said that in time,

00:54:35 ►

many, many people had come to him

00:54:37 ►

that had a large number of psychedelic experiences.

00:54:40 ►

Some of them had had 300,

00:54:42 ►

some as many as 500 experiences.

00:54:45 ►

And he said, to a man, to a man, they said that after they had their experience with him,

00:54:52 ►

they said, I never had an LSD experience before.

00:54:56 ►

So I think that gives you an idea of the person that he was and the effectiveness of his methods.

00:55:04 ►

He worked with a lot of different substances,

00:55:06 ►

found the ones that worked best. He developed the best way of doing a trip with an individual,

00:55:13 ►

and then he found it was very helpful to have groups share experiences, and there were a

00:55:19 ►

lot of things that had to be worked out to make that the most efficacious. So all of these things are covered in the book.

00:55:26 ►

And also we’ve tried to help a little bit by mentioning resources in the end of the book.

00:55:33 ►

And, of course, one of the problems with resources, there’s been an awful lot of material published,

00:55:38 ►

and a lot of the work was done by people who knew what they were doing,

00:55:41 ►

and a lot of the work was done by people who didn’t know what they were doing. In fact, as Hoffer, if you saw

00:55:46 ►

this BBC tape that was broadcast

00:55:48 ►

on Arts and Entertainment

00:55:50 ►

I think in September,

00:55:51 ►

and you saw Abram Hoffer, he pointed

00:55:54 ►

out one of his colleagues went

00:55:56 ►

to great length to prove that

00:55:57 ►

LSD could not cure alcoholics.

00:56:00 ►

So this is what you

00:56:02 ►

contend with, so I hope

00:56:03 ►

some of the guidelines there are helpful

00:56:05 ►

in evaluating the literature

00:56:07 ►

yes

00:56:10 ►

can you talk more about 2CB

00:56:13 ►

how’s that again

00:56:15 ►

can you talk more about 2CB

00:56:17 ►

how old it is

00:56:20 ►

I refer you to that marvelous book

00:56:23 ►

Tikal by the Shulgens.

00:56:27 ►

And there’s a chapter on it.

00:56:29 ►

And, of course, as he did with all of the substances that he developed,

00:56:36 ►

there are 179 formulas that are described in detail in the back of the book.

00:56:43 ►

And with each one, there’s a summary of the book and with each one there’s a

00:56:46 ►

summary of the results that were

00:56:47 ►

obtained with that particular substance

00:56:49 ►

and in my book

00:56:52 ►

Thanatos to Eros, the first

00:56:53 ►

book that I wrote

00:56:56 ►

I also have a chapter on

00:56:58 ►

2C-B and you might

00:57:00 ►

go to those sources

00:57:01 ►

and find more information

00:57:03 ►

yes

00:57:04 ►

I have a question I really respect your sharing with us go to those sources and find more information. Yes?

00:57:06 ►

I have a question.

00:57:10 ►

I really respect your sharing with us your wisdom and your long

00:57:12 ►

experience. And my

00:57:14 ►

question has to do with

00:57:15 ►

something analogous to psychotherapy

00:57:18 ►

and that some people

00:57:19 ►

benefit from a more meditative approach to

00:57:21 ►

psychotherapy at times.

00:57:23 ►

Others people do benefit from a more ecstatic or more Apollonian

00:57:27 ►

or Dionysian approach to psychotherapy. And that in terms of

00:57:32 ►

psychedelics, the same might be true, that there might be

00:57:35 ►

a multi-spectrum approach, a variety

00:57:40 ►

of different approaches that might be suitable for particular people

00:57:43 ►

or for the same person

00:57:45 ►

at particular times in their life. And that a purely meditative approach might be entirely

00:57:52 ►

fine for a person throughout that person’s lifespan, or it might also be the case that

00:57:58 ►

for that same person or for a number of people, some other approaches might also be beneficial.

00:58:06 ►

Now, is that a question?

00:58:08 ►

Well, I’m asking for your response to that.

00:58:13 ►

I don’t know if everyone heard him,

00:58:15 ►

and I’m not sure that I heard him really well,

00:58:18 ►

but I’ll feed it back and tell me if it’s right.

00:58:22 ►

But it’s what I said a little bit earlier.

00:58:25 ►

You know, we’re all different.

00:58:27 ►

And, well, for example, in the Buddhist tradition,

00:58:31 ►

mental stability is the first thing to acquire.

00:58:34 ►

And they have 40 different practices to develop mental stability

00:58:39 ►

because they recognize that everyone’s different

00:58:43 ►

and some things work well for one person and some for another.

00:58:47 ►

And this gentleman just stated that it’s true across the board.

00:58:52 ►

Some people can get more out of psychedelics,

00:58:54 ►

and maybe different ways of using psychedelics,

00:58:57 ►

and some people may benefit from meditation,

00:59:00 ►

and other people get very quickly bored with meditation

00:59:03 ►

and think it’s a waste of time.

00:59:06 ►

So the point is that there are a lot of different paths

00:59:09 ►

and a lot of different ways

00:59:11 ►

and the best thing is to read

00:59:15 ►

what different people have to offer

00:59:17 ►

and see what feels right to you

00:59:19 ►

and what appeals to you

00:59:20 ►

and pick your own path.

00:59:22 ►

I have a question that’s a little bit more praise.

00:59:25 ►

I’m 32 and I’m finding that people my age are

00:59:27 ►

starting to really close themselves off.

00:59:30 ►

They sort of want the white picket fence

00:59:32 ►

and the van in the house.

00:59:33 ►

That’s great, but it’s just

00:59:35 ►

really inspiring to hear somebody who’s

00:59:37 ►

older and

00:59:39 ►

who hasn’t done that.

00:59:41 ►

Because the biggest fear that I have is to be older

00:59:44 ►

and to look back and say, gosh, what a waste of time.

00:59:46 ►

And so it’s really great to see someone who’s, you know,

00:59:49 ►

sort of gone in the opposite direction

00:59:51 ►

from what I see as the standard here in America.

00:59:55 ►

Thank you.

00:59:55 ►

Thank you.

01:00:02 ►

Two more questions.

01:00:04 ►

Yes, over there.

01:00:06 ►

I really appreciate your talk to us today.

01:00:10 ►

And you mentioned the Journal of Humanistic Psychology article

01:00:14 ►

that you submitted to the journal.

01:00:17 ►

I was wondering if there’s anything else that you’ve written

01:00:21 ►

that contains most of or a lot of what you’ve said to us today

01:00:26 ►

because it’s something that I’d really recommend

01:00:29 ►

to just about anybody who is considering using psychedelics

01:00:34 ►

or starting out.

01:00:39 ►

There is a lot in that Journal of Humanistic Psychology,

01:00:44 ►

but at the same time there’s a lot that I thought about

01:00:48 ►

in preparation for this particular talk.

01:00:51 ►

A lot of what I said about the trained user I haven’t written before,

01:00:54 ►

although I’ve mentioned it.

01:00:56 ►

I mentioned it in an article that I wrote for Gnosis magazine,

01:01:02 ►

the issue Winter 1993,

01:01:06 ►

Using Psychedelics Wisely.

01:01:08 ►

I feel that that’s probably

01:01:10 ►

my best statement

01:01:11 ►

in a short period of time.

01:01:13 ►

I’ve tried to cover

01:01:14 ►

most of these points.

01:01:17 ►

But if Sasha gets his way,

01:01:21 ►

I’m going to have to get busy

01:01:22 ►

and write up more of this stuff.

01:01:24 ►

I was hoping I was getting old enough to retire more, but I don’t think he’s going to let me.

01:01:34 ►

Yes?

01:01:34 ►

Could you say something about how a beginner in psychedelics might find a guide, a therapist,

01:01:41 ►

someone to train them at the end of the year?

01:01:44 ►

a therapist, someone to train them at the university?

01:01:48 ►

Well, it’s a training on the university.

01:01:52 ►

That’s a difficult question because of the status of the law.

01:01:58 ►

And, you know, there are a number of these people around and available,

01:02:01 ►

but, you know, they can’t advertise themselves.

01:02:08 ►

You know, as a matter of fact, it’s even dangerous to talk to people if it turns out that they’re talking to the wrong person and he carries the word away and he’s in for it. So it’s very difficult and I think maybe the best thing to do is to come to groups

01:02:18 ►

like this and get to talking to people around and see what other people have experienced and who they know

01:02:25 ►

and what suggestions they might have.

01:02:29 ►

But this security problem is really, really touching.

01:02:35 ►

And it’s robbing us of a lot of information.

01:02:38 ►

That’s the sad part.

01:02:40 ►

You know, I don’t think it’s cutting down use very much.

01:02:43 ►

But what it has done is enormously increased ignorant use,

01:02:48 ►

because the information isn’t available to the people who really like to explore these things.

01:02:55 ►

So I just think that was number two, so that’s it.

01:02:57 ►

Thank you very much. You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon,

01:03:21 ►

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

01:03:24 ►

to the psychedelic salon where people are changing their lives one thought at a time.

01:03:30 ►

Of course, you know that I’m going to say something about that comment from the young woman who said that she appreciated Myron for, among other things, being old, or older,

01:03:37 ►

and still publicly speaking about psychedelics. Well, as I watched the video of this talk,

01:03:43 ►

I too thought of how great

01:03:45 ►

it was that an old guy like Myron was still up there doing his thing. And then

01:03:51 ►

I realized that when Myron gave this talk, he was only 10 months older than I

01:03:56 ►

am right now. So it’s nice to hear that us dusty old farts are still appreciated.

01:04:01 ►

Not that Myron was dusty, of course.

01:04:11 ►

Also, I want to connect with what Myron said about ways in which a good meditation practice can put a person into a state of bliss.

01:04:14 ►

Well, back when Myron was still living up in the high desert in Lone Pine,

01:04:18 ►

where his widow Jean still lives today,

01:04:21 ►

he began each day sitting on his outside deck,

01:04:24 ►

looking at the Sierra Nevada

01:04:26 ►

mountains and meditating. Now, when I stayed there with him and Gene, I usually got up early and

01:04:32 ►

took a hike among the giant boulders that littered the desert around their home. And by the time I

01:04:38 ►

returned to their house, I would see Myron sitting in a chair, wrapped in his old red robe, and meditating.

01:04:48 ►

When he would finish and come back into the house,

01:04:52 ►

there was no other way to describe the look on his face other than to say he was in a deep state of bliss.

01:04:55 ►

More than anything else, seeing Myron after he finished his morning meditation

01:05:00 ►

has convinced me of the worth of this practice.

01:05:03 ►

And if you’re interested in reading the

01:05:05 ►

article that Myron wrote for the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, the one that he titled

01:05:10 ►

Are Psychedelics Useful in the Practice of Buddhism? I put a link to that article on the

01:05:16 ►

salon’s website in today’s program notes. And I’ve also embedded a short video taken on a walk that

01:05:21 ►

I took with Myron and Jane, which will give you a little better idea of what life is like in their high desert home. Now, do you remember when, at one point,

01:05:31 ►

Myron said that the core of every person is divine? Well, when I heard him say that, I had to

01:05:38 ►

pause the recording to give that comment a little thought. You see, as a former Catholic, there are some buzzwords that can just

01:05:45 ►

tip me the wrong way. And the word divine is one of them, because it carries a connotation of,

01:05:52 ►

well, of another concept that most people call God. But if you think about that for a moment,

01:05:58 ►

well, that’s just a word too. Nonetheless, I think that I know exactly what Myron was talking about.

01:06:04 ►

Nonetheless, I think that I know exactly what Myron was talking about. You see, one time there was this very deep psychedelic experience that I had in which

01:06:11 ►

I saw a river of glowing light that was pouring up out of a deep well.

01:06:16 ►

Had I described it to Myron, I’m sure he would have confirmed that for me in fact it was

01:06:21 ►

a true mystical experience.

01:06:24 ►

And the truth is, my life has never been the same since that moment.

01:06:28 ►

You see, in just an instant, I realized that that river of light was, in fact, the core

01:06:34 ►

of my being.

01:06:36 ►

And it wasn’t light that was flowing.

01:06:38 ►

It was love, pure flowing love.

01:06:41 ►

And it was flowing through everyone and everything.

01:06:48 ►

The cosmos, I believe, at its core is simply love. So when people ask me if I believe in God, I have to say no if that implies that I

01:06:56 ►

believe in a supreme being of some sort. But what I do believe in is that there is a source of energy

01:07:02 ►

that flows through us all. It flows throughout

01:07:05 ►

the entire cosmos, and while some people call it God, I happen to believe that this all-encompassing

01:07:12 ►

energy field can be better described simply as love. And for now, this is Lorenzo signing off

01:07:20 ►

from Cyberdellic Space. Be well, my friends.

Graph View

Backlinks