Program Notes
Guest speakers: Adi Khavous, Jenifer Dumpert, Brett Greene, and Pol Cosineau
Date this lecture was recorded: 920 Psilocybin Mushroom Day 2015
This week you’ll hear stories recorded live at Psymposia Stories Montreal from 920 Psilocybin Mushroom Day 2015.
Adi Khavous: A nomadic street artist’s first time taking mushrooms.
Jenifer Dumpert: One dream researcher’s story about Santa, drugs, and elves.
Brett Greene: A howling tale of a Jeremiah in the wilderness kind of head trip.
Pol Cosineau: The life changing drug experience of a man who well prepared himself for the voyage.
Today’s program is hosted by Lex Pelger, engineered by Matt Payne, intro music by Joey Whipp, outro music by California Smile, produced by Brian Normand.
**
If you like this show, want to see more, or want to help Lex get a new mic, consider supporting the Psymposia Team monthly on Patreon.
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The-Blue Dot Tour
To find more about the tour and if we’re visiting your city: https://www.psymposia.com/bluedottour
The Blue-Dot Tour is our two-month open-mic Psychedelic Stories road trip across the continent starting on the way to the Psymposia Stage Psychedelic Science 2017 in Oakland.
Our goal is to hit blue cities in red states that serve as such pressure cookers of activism, education, and art. But also blue cities in blue states, red towns in red states, purple villages in green states, and anywhere we can find a host from Mexico to Canada.
We’ll also be screening Robert Barnhart’s film ‘A New Understanding - the Science of Psilocybin.’
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004 - Psychedelic Science 2017
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Transcript
00:00:00 ►
Greetings from Cyberdelic Space, this is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic
00:00:23 ►
Salon 2, and I hope that you enjoyed last week’s edition of Salon 2,
00:00:28 ►
where Aliette Waldman spoke about her experience with microdosing LSD.
00:00:33 ►
I know that it certainly came in handy for me.
00:00:36 ►
You see, the day after I posted that interview, an old friend of mine called me.
00:00:42 ►
Now, he and I worked together over 30 years ago,
00:00:45 ►
but we’d only spoken on the telephone once since then. So you can imagine how surprised I was when
00:00:51 ►
after hearing his voice for the first time in so many years, he told me that the reason for his
00:00:56 ►
call was to find out if I knew anything about microdosing. Now how’s that for an interesting
00:01:03 ►
little coincidence? Now this week we are going to be
00:01:07 ►
treated to several psychedelic stories from some of our Canadian friends. At least I think that
00:01:13 ►
they’re Canadians since these stories were recorded in Montreal on Mushroom Day in 2015.
00:01:19 ►
Now I haven’t heard these stories yet myself but I’m really looking forward to listening to them with you.
00:01:32 ►
Lex Pelger will be introducing today’s podcast, and he’ll also tell you a little bit about Symposia’s Blue Dot Tour,
00:01:36 ►
which I hope that you’ll take the time to attend if it comes to a town near you.
00:01:42 ►
In fact, I plan on being at the San Diego event on April 27th myself, and maybe I’ll see you there.
00:01:45 ►
Now, here’s Lex.
00:01:57 ►
Hello, everybody. I’m Lex Pelger, host of Symposia, and welcome to the Psychedelic Salon 2.0.
00:02:01 ►
This week’s episode is something we hope to feature more and more of here,
00:02:04 ►
a selection of stories from one of our open mic storytelling nights. It’s also good timing because this is a week we are beginning the first leg of our Blue
00:02:08 ►
Dot Storytelling Tour across the continent. We will be in Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Athens,
00:02:15 ►
Austin, Boulder, Oakland, San Diego, and Los Angeles. And that’s just to get started. Since
00:02:21 ►
we want to make this tour accessible to everyone, most of the shows are free or pay what you will.
00:02:26 ►
So if you’re near any of those cities, come on out and meet the others.
00:02:29 ►
For more info, go to symposia.com.
00:02:34 ►
First, we hear from Adi Kaboos, a nomadic artist born in Tel Aviv,
00:02:38 ►
who tells a particularly visual story about his first time with mushrooms.
00:02:43 ►
Okay, I did copious amounts of mushrooms when I was younger,
00:02:49 ►
and I don’t remember much,
00:02:51 ►
but I think I would like to tell you about my first time.
00:03:00 ►
I just moved to California about half an hour away from Tijuana.
00:03:11 ►
I was living on a beach in a youth hostel that looked pretty bad.
00:03:16 ►
It was very cheap to live there, so it was just fine for me.
00:03:21 ►
Some of the friends, which I call them friends, but I actually don’t really know them,
00:03:23 ►
I just met them like a week ago, said,
00:03:26 ►
Adida, come have some mushrooms with us.
00:03:29 ►
And because I wanted to be cool, I said,
00:03:32 ►
sure, I do lots of mushrooms all the time.
00:03:33 ►
Come on, bring it.
00:03:36 ►
Not a good idea.
00:03:41 ►
So we tried, I think they were Hawaiian mushrooms. I ate them like candy.
00:03:41 ►
I think they were Hawaiian mushrooms.
00:03:44 ►
I ate them like candy.
00:03:49 ►
Try to hide the face when you eat the mushrooms.
00:03:50 ►
Like, yeah, I love it.
00:03:52 ►
Good taste.
00:03:54 ►
It’s fresh.
00:03:56 ►
I had no idea what I’m doing.
00:03:59 ►
We were about six people.
00:04:01 ►
Half of them were German.
00:04:03 ►
I think a Dutchman and an Australian.
00:04:05 ►
Everybody’s talking.
00:04:07 ►
The hostel’s right there on the beach.
00:04:10 ►
We go, sit down on the beach.
00:04:14 ►
Everybody starts slowly tripping out, and nothing’s happening to me.
00:04:17 ►
Half an hour passed by.
00:04:20 ►
The Germans go check some fire.
00:04:22 ►
Disappeared. I think the Australians start playing with a dog that went by. The
00:04:28 ►
others decided to go eat something. Still, I’m not feeling anything. I think an hour
00:04:34 ►
went by. I’m alone there on the sand. Sunset starts to come. I feel like something’s wrong
00:04:41 ►
with me because I should be tripping, but I don’t feel anything.
00:04:46 ►
So I’m bummed, sitting there, can’t find no one.
00:04:49 ►
It’s getting dark.
00:04:51 ►
Sadness falls upon me.
00:04:54 ►
And slowly I look at my feet, which are deep, stuck into the sand.
00:05:01 ►
And for some reason, I notice there’s snakes all around me.
00:05:06 ►
Under the sand.
00:05:09 ►
Moving.
00:05:10 ►
Slowly.
00:05:13 ►
I’m okay.
00:05:14 ►
I don’t think California beach have snakes.
00:05:17 ►
Definitely not 2,000 of them circling me.
00:05:22 ►
In a very mathematical pattern.
00:05:29 ►
So I decided to stand up and enjoy the show
00:05:34 ►
and at the same time freak the fuck out.
00:05:37 ►
I decided to go to a higher area,
00:05:40 ►
so there’s a pile of rocks behind me,
00:05:43 ►
so I go up.
00:05:43 ►
It’s about a meter or two, but
00:05:46 ►
I was able to see the beach in a better way. When I went on top of the pile of rocks, which
00:05:53 ►
took me forever to climb, even though later I found out it was about this high, and I’m not short, so… I look at the beach, I see the horizon,
00:06:11 ►
and the entire beach is moving with gazillion snakes.
00:06:18 ►
Obviously, my brain is telling me this could not be possible. The San Diego Zoo did not unleash
00:06:26 ►
20,000 snakes on the beach at this moment.
00:06:31 ►
So I took the time to see
00:06:34 ►
if something here is beyond me,
00:06:38 ►
beyond my reasoning.
00:06:40 ►
I noticed that the waves
00:06:42 ►
work extremely together with the waves.
00:06:47 ►
So as the water wave crashed, the ripple effect continued on the sand, hit the wall of the boardwalk and came back, as if it was underwater experience in sand.
00:07:05 ►
This was fantastic.
00:07:07 ►
It was super beautiful.
00:07:09 ►
I start to understand that everything is connected together.
00:07:13 ►
The sand is part of the ocean.
00:07:15 ►
It’s all part of the land.
00:07:17 ►
There’s waves, electromagnetics,
00:07:20 ►
things I don’t even know nothing about,
00:07:22 ►
made sense at that moment.
00:07:24 ►
I immediately wanted to find my friends to tell them, but no one was around.
00:07:30 ►
So I decided I have to go back to the hostel and find people to see this adventure that I’ve just discovered.
00:07:40 ►
The second that I climbed over the wall of the boardwalk, my feet touched cement.
00:07:47 ►
And everything went dark.
00:07:51 ►
Cement does not move.
00:07:53 ►
It is pretty cold.
00:07:55 ►
I became sad again.
00:07:58 ►
And even terrified because it was not as fun as walking on sand.
00:08:03 ►
I felt I was a part of earth.
00:08:05 ►
If you ever done mushrooms,
00:08:07 ►
you have this longing for nature.
00:08:10 ►
That does not happen when you go into a city.
00:08:13 ►
So I decided, like, I don’t like this.
00:08:17 ►
This is not moving.
00:08:19 ►
It’s not fun.
00:08:19 ►
There’s no snakes here.
00:08:23 ►
I’ll walk to the hostel, and I hope I’ll find the people I just met
00:08:29 ►
and hope that the adventure continues.
00:08:32 ►
I got lost.
00:08:35 ►
I went into a street which I thought was the street of the hostel.
00:08:38 ►
I was going completely the wrong way.
00:08:40 ►
And I started noticing a mathematical equation in the city. The streets were parallel.
00:08:50 ►
Cars were parallel. Buildings right next to each other in a very man-made form. And that
00:08:59 ►
really pissed me off. I remember that like, this is not fun. This is not organic. Like there,
00:09:05 ►
the ocean where things move. This, why would we make something like this? Nobody answered
00:09:12 ►
me because this was in my head. And as I kept walking, I stared at living rooms. And I love
00:09:23 ►
doing that. If you ever done that, you walk on the street
00:09:25 ►
and you imagine life
00:09:26 ►
inside that living room.
00:09:28 ►
And I saw a pattern there also.
00:09:30 ►
People watching television,
00:09:32 ►
people eating,
00:09:33 ►
people watching television,
00:09:35 ►
people eating,
00:09:36 ►
people eating,
00:09:37 ►
people watching television,
00:09:38 ►
people watching television while eating,
00:09:41 ►
somebody sleeping on the couch.
00:09:46 ►
I didn’t know how to digest it
00:09:49 ►
because these are scenes I’ve seen all the time.
00:09:52 ►
But I start to understand it like
00:09:54 ►
the search for entertainment and security
00:09:56 ►
has made us boxed environment man-made.
00:10:03 ►
The cars really pissed me off.
00:10:06 ►
I would hit them like,
00:10:07 ►
what is this metal beast?
00:10:11 ►
Surprisingly, I did not get arrested that day.
00:10:14 ►
It is California, so I think it was completely okay.
00:10:18 ►
Why would we build these machines of death?
00:10:21 ►
And why are they parked in a row
00:10:23 ►
and not in a nice swirly way slowly I started to
00:10:30 ►
understand I’m tripping really bad and I
00:10:33 ►
loved it but I was scared because I was
00:10:35 ►
lost I was surrounded in this concrete
00:10:37 ►
jungle which I found no passion no no
00:10:42 ►
desire to be in. So I decided I would just search the beach.
00:10:48 ►
So I kept on walking, and I made it back to the hostel.
00:10:53 ►
Obviously, there was nobody there,
00:10:55 ►
and after a while, I realized it took me two hours to get there,
00:10:59 ►
which is about 10 minutes walk from where I was.
00:11:03 ►
So I probably did every possible road around the hostel before getting there.
00:11:11 ►
The hostel is close to the beach, so I was like,
00:11:14 ►
okay, I’m going to get back to the beach and finish this trip
00:11:17 ►
because this was not fun.
00:11:18 ►
I need some fun back.
00:11:19 ►
I need some snakes.
00:11:21 ►
I went back to the beach, and the pattern, it took time but it came back.
00:11:29 ►
And slowly I decided to just sit there and let it calm down.
00:11:33 ►
It was my first time and I was really aware that I was full of shit.
00:11:38 ►
I should not have lied or tried to be cool.
00:11:41 ►
I was actually very happy being alone. At that moment I realized that the earth
00:11:46 ►
is connected, that we should always be part of nature. The water touched my feet and I looked,
00:11:53 ►
gazed into the stars and understand the entire universe back then. And that was it. The trip faded peacefully. I went back to the hostel and nothing was the same ever since.
00:12:08 ►
And that’s it.
00:12:10 ►
Enjoy your ride.
00:12:15 ►
Enjoy the ride.
00:12:17 ►
By the way, for any of you out there who want to come out of the psychedelic closet
00:12:20 ►
and share about your first time,
00:12:22 ►
go online and use the hashtag psychedelics because.
00:12:26 ►
It’s a social media campaign
00:12:28 ►
backed by all your favorite drug organizations,
00:12:30 ►
and we’re trying to get people to come out and share
00:12:33 ►
to normalize the use of psychedelics,
00:12:35 ►
the good, the bad, and the strange.
00:12:39 ►
Plus, Symposia is always looking for submissions
00:12:41 ►
of people’s personal experiences,
00:12:44 ►
especially those dark or difficult times where it might have taken you a while to realize what it was you learned.
00:12:49 ►
Because we believe our best teachers are each other.
00:12:53 ►
Next, we hear a story from our friend Jennifer Doompeyer.
00:12:57 ►
And if dreams interest you, you should see her experiments and research collected at urbandreamscape.com.
00:13:03 ►
My first ever job was also my best ever job.
00:13:08 ►
I was an elf, but I was not like a lame shopping mall elf.
00:13:14 ►
This was a cool elf gig.
00:13:17 ►
And it was at Casa Loma in Toronto,
00:13:20 ►
which is one of those castles that was brought over brick by brick from Europe.
00:13:26 ►
And the elf gig there was you were like a free-range elf.
00:13:30 ►
You were just supposed to be wandering around the castle
00:13:34 ►
and entertaining people and doing whatever.
00:13:37 ►
And to audition for this job, you had to come up with an elf persona
00:13:42 ►
and an elf shtick in your own elf costume.
00:13:47 ►
Mine was, I had this little mini skirt.
00:13:52 ►
I was a teenager. I was a little hacha elf.
00:13:54 ►
I had this mini skirt that was green felt and gold taffeta,
00:14:00 ►
gold lame and blue taffeta leaves,
00:14:03 ►
and this little gold chain mail shirt,
00:14:07 ►
and these elf boots that I made, which were great,
00:14:10 ►
or camel skin on the bottom with, you know, bells looped up.
00:14:14 ►
And I would teach children how to write their names in Tolkien elvish
00:14:20 ►
and do cartwheels and juggle.
00:14:24 ►
One of my other elves was this grateful dead dude,
00:14:29 ►
and he had this whole shtick, which maybe you have heard,
00:14:33 ►
about how Santa and the whole Christmas thing
00:14:37 ►
came from the Amanita Muscaria.
00:14:40 ►
So he had a traditional red and white elf costume. And his reasoning, and again, perhaps
00:14:48 ►
you’ve heard the story of the Amanita muscaria grows under pine trees. And the shaman who would
00:14:57 ►
take it would often dress in red and white as the mushroom was. It was given as a gift on the winter solstice,
00:15:08 ►
and the reindeer eat the mushrooms,
00:15:12 ►
and they would drink the reindeer piss,
00:15:16 ►
and so that’s flying reindeer.
00:15:19 ►
And so his thing was he would play the guitar for the kids
00:15:23 ►
and sing little songs, and in the place where they had all the snacks for the kids and sing little songs.
00:15:25 ►
In the place where they had all the snacks for the kids,
00:15:28 ►
he would make little signs that said,
00:15:30 ►
Magic Reindeer Juice, which he would leave up there.
00:15:35 ►
Our Santa was this guy named Chennai,
00:15:40 ►
which means grandfather in the Haida language.
00:15:44 ►
And Chennai spent a lot of the year
00:15:46 ►
living in what was then called the Queen Charlotte’s
00:15:49 ►
with the Haida
00:15:51 ►
participating in their sacraments
00:15:55 ►
and he was in a 40s swing band
00:15:58 ►
and during Christmas he would go and do Santa gigs
00:16:02 ►
because he had long white hair and a big white beard, and he was like a fat guy.
00:16:08 ►
You know, at the time, I remember thinking, really getting away with something.
00:16:12 ►
Geez, if only the management knew what freaks we were.
00:16:15 ►
In retrospect, I’m like, you know, they hired us all.
00:16:18 ►
Clearly, they knew what freaks we were.
00:16:21 ►
They must have been freaks themselves.
00:16:23 ►
If any of you have children, you know, like when you’re growing up,
00:16:26 ►
you think you’re, like, getting away with stuff.
00:16:28 ►
And now my friend’s children, and I’m like, yeah, your parents know.
00:16:31 ►
They’re just tracking it to make sure you’re, you know,
00:16:34 ►
sort of not going too far with it.
00:16:37 ►
The gig went from November to the end of December.
00:16:42 ►
And just before Christmas, Chennai said,
00:16:45 ►
okay, it’s time for the little elves to come
00:16:47 ►
and sit in my lap and get their Christmas presents.
00:16:51 ►
So I sat on Chennai’s lap,
00:16:53 ►
and Chennai gave me a chocolate.
00:16:56 ►
And it was not quite as big as a hockey puck,
00:16:58 ►
you know, it was a little smaller.
00:17:00 ►
And I thought, well, that’s very nice of him.
00:17:02 ►
I was there in the lunchroom,
00:17:04 ►
and I had eaten a quarter of my chocolate
00:17:07 ►
and I had it sitting on the table and Chennai came in and said,
00:17:11 ►
well, you’re not eating that now, are you?
00:17:13 ►
And so there had been a little communication cross.
00:17:17 ►
I had not realized that this was a mushroom chocolate that Chennai had given me
00:17:22 ►
as I was sitting there on his lap, ho, ho, ho.
00:17:29 ►
chocolate that Janai had given me as I was sitting there on his lap, ho, ho, ho. And I got very high.
00:17:37 ►
I still had half the day left to run around Casa Loma being like, you know, the sparkly elf.
00:17:48 ►
And so I ended up spending a lot of the day outside. And keep in mind, this is Toronto in the end of December.
00:17:50 ►
It was very snowy and very cold.
00:17:54 ►
And I’m in this little mini skirt with these little, you know, felt boots.
00:17:58 ►
But I was a wood elf, so I would, like, go and, like, hide in bushes. And there was a lot of windows.
00:18:00 ►
And then I would, like, run by the windows and wave at the kids and, you know,
00:18:03 ►
go hide in some more bushes
00:18:05 ►
and jump out at the tourists
00:18:07 ►
and occasionally come in and get warm and escape again.
00:18:14 ►
I think this story probably should end in some way
00:18:20 ►
of the great revelation of gift-giving or frostbite.
00:18:27 ►
But it really doesn’t.
00:18:29 ►
It really ends in something that I’m guessing a lot of us have done,
00:18:34 ►
which is manage to get through a day of work
00:18:37 ►
when you’re really way too high.
00:18:43 ►
It is a game I like playing now though
00:18:45 ►
when I’m at places and I’m watching people working
00:18:49 ►
which is like, are they way too high
00:18:52 ►
so now you all know
00:18:55 ►
and you can play my mushroom elf game
00:18:58 ►
thank you
00:18:59 ►
I never forgot about Jennifer’s game.
00:19:05 ►
And in fact, I encourage you to look around right now.
00:19:08 ►
Is there any chance that someone you’re looking at is way, way too high?
00:19:14 ►
You never do know.
00:19:16 ►
Hell, it could even be the person in the mirror.
00:19:20 ►
So for the next story, we’ll hear from a human being who, despite everything,
00:19:27 ►
ranks as one of my very favorites on the entire planet.
00:19:35 ►
He is a co-founder of Symposia, he is our chief in charge of chasing the wild geese, and he is my platonic life partner, Brett Green.
00:19:46 ►
He will share a story that, though I hate to admit it out loud, especially in front of him, did seem to strain the limits of materialistic rationalism. In any case, I can surely attest, for the part of the experience that I witnessed,
00:19:52 ►
he most certainly did resemble the prophet Jeremiah howling in the wilderness. Here’s Brett.
00:19:59 ►
Sometimes you go into communion with the mushroom
00:20:05 ►
and you have your intentions, you have your conscious intentions,
00:20:09 ►
you have your unconscious intentions.
00:20:13 ►
And sometimes what you realize is that the mushroom has its own intentions.
00:20:18 ►
And the intentions of the mushroom are mysterious.
00:20:22 ►
of the mushroom are mysterious.
00:20:27 ►
And you can try to solve the puzzle of what the mushroom is trying to get at
00:20:30 ►
and the work that you’ve done under the mushroom
00:20:33 ►
for years and years and years.
00:20:35 ►
And, you know, it’s this ever-evolving problem.
00:20:41 ►
And by problem, I mean, you know, a puzzle.
00:20:44 ►
A puzzle that evolves as you evolve.
00:20:47 ►
And that’s why I say, and a lot of other people agree,
00:20:52 ►
that the real work of what we’re doing here with psychedelics
00:20:57 ►
begins after the psychedelic.
00:21:00 ►
Because having the psychedelic experience, it’s great.
00:21:07 ►
But what changes society is not a lot of people on psychedelics.
00:21:12 ►
It’s a lot of people taking what they’ve learned from the psychedelics
00:21:16 ►
and bringing it into their lives and working with it and working with it every day.
00:21:20 ►
And that working with it, that integration is a process.
00:21:23 ►
and that working with it, that integration is a process.
00:21:30 ►
So my process has been crazy, like all of yours, I’m sure.
00:21:34 ►
It’s been beautiful. It’s been terrifying.
00:21:40 ►
It’s been hard work, and it’s been fantastic.
00:21:47 ►
But my process has also not just felt like my process it’s felt like really the process of my people
00:21:53 ►
my ancestors, my tribe
00:21:56 ►
so I am Jewish
00:21:58 ►
and one thing that we get from the psychedelic experience is this sense that we are all one, which is true,
00:22:11 ►
but we’re also ourselves.
00:22:15 ►
And in a lot of traditions you see the awareness that we are at once
00:22:22 ►
kind of the soul that’s occupying our body,
00:22:25 ►
but we’re also part of the greater soul.
00:22:28 ►
And the psychedelic experience brings these two souls into perspective.
00:22:32 ►
They kind of show you really the bigger picture and the smaller picture.
00:22:38 ►
They show you the great spirit and your spirit and vice versa.
00:22:47 ►
great spirit and your spirit and vice versa. And so my experience with the mushroom was one of being, let’s say, used by it not just for healing for myself, but in my experience
00:22:57 ►
it was healing of an ancestral quality. And I’ve spent a long time after the story that I’m going to
00:23:09 ►
tell you happened trying to speak with other people that kind of could give me some kind
00:23:16 ►
of, I don’t know, comfort or any kind of knowing about maybe what I went through because it
00:23:23 ►
any kind of knowing about maybe what I went through because it was very confusing.
00:23:26 ►
And so here’s what I went through.
00:23:30 ►
I went to an ayahuasca ceremony.
00:23:32 ►
This is about maybe three and a half years ago.
00:23:38 ►
And I went into the ayahuasca ceremony
00:23:40 ►
with the idea of being open.
00:23:45 ►
And that was my intention going in.
00:23:47 ►
And with the intention of being open, I also had some other intentions,
00:23:54 ►
which was to kind of get rid of some things that were hanging around me
00:23:57 ►
that I didn’t want, habits of mine, predilections of mine,
00:24:02 ►
things that were driving me towards destructive behavior
00:24:07 ►
and that were keeping me from being less free,
00:24:11 ►
from having less free will.
00:24:14 ►
And so what I did going into the ayahuasca ceremony
00:24:18 ►
was to ask for me to become aware
00:24:22 ►
and to ask for guidance and freedom from these things that I didn’t
00:24:30 ►
need anymore, things that I didn’t want.
00:24:33 ►
And at some point in the ayahuasca ceremony, after I had drank the ayahuasca, they had
00:24:39 ►
sealed the room from evil spirits, from anything that would impede on the room.
00:24:46 ►
And I knew that they would seal the room,
00:24:48 ►
but unfortunately while they sealed the room, I was in the bathroom purging.
00:24:53 ►
That’s one of the things that happens when you take ayahuasca sometimes
00:24:57 ►
is the purge gets messy.
00:25:00 ►
And they had knocked on the bathroom door and they said,
00:25:03 ►
hey, we’re sealing the room.
00:25:05 ►
You should come out.
00:25:06 ►
And I said, I can’t.
00:25:07 ►
I made a mess, which was true.
00:25:09 ►
I had made a mess.
00:25:10 ►
And they said, oh, we’ll take care of it.
00:25:12 ►
We’ll clean it up.
00:25:13 ►
But I was too ashamed by my mess,
00:25:15 ►
so I had to do the cleaning up.
00:25:17 ►
And as a result, I was sealed out of the room
00:25:19 ►
so that when I came back to lie down,
00:25:22 ►
I was sealed from the group, sealed from the circle.
00:25:26 ►
I sat on the couch and I was attacked by terror, by terrifying visions.
00:25:34 ►
And specifically, I saw the history of my people, the Jewish people,
00:25:40 ►
from the perspective of the Nazis, from the perspective of Hitler.
00:25:45 ►
I saw myself as a Jew as the lowest form of creation.
00:25:49 ►
I saw what I knew so many people around the world saw
00:25:54 ►
when they thought about Jews and thought about me.
00:25:57 ►
I saw myself as a disgusting, despicable parasite
00:26:02 ►
and something that needed to be healed.
00:26:09 ►
I didn’t quite know how to heal, so I had to keep drinking.
00:26:14 ►
And I had eight cups of ayahuasca that night to keep drinking and drinking and drinking to find out how I could save myself.
00:26:18 ►
And finally, in the last cup, it was water.
00:26:22 ►
And I blessed the water and I asked the water be the light of Christ.
00:26:28 ►
And by the light of Christ, I don’t mean, you know, the symbol of Jesus. I don’t mean
00:26:33 ►
Jesus, the person, I don’t mean anything necessarily physical. What I mean is the light,
00:26:39 ►
pure white light of, of healing. And it was that moment that I chose a light path, that I knew that I would be
00:26:50 ►
able to recognize both the unity of all that is, but that I would choose the path of light.
00:26:58 ►
And the path of light is easier to choose than it is to follow.
00:27:13 ►
And so, you know, as all of us know, farewell, you experience these great things, you experience these profundities, you experience light, and then you can spend your whole life chasing
00:27:18 ►
it.
00:27:19 ►
And we do spend our whole lives chasing it.
00:27:21 ►
And one of the ways that we keep it in is to keep asking for it,
00:27:25 ►
to keep looking for it, to keep bringing it to us.
00:27:28 ►
And that’s the work of this medicine that we need to continue to do.
00:27:34 ►
But for me, that experience was enough for a while for psychedelics.
00:27:40 ►
And I got out of that experience not sure how to interpret it,
00:27:44 ►
And I got out of that experience not sure how to interpret it,
00:27:50 ►
not sure how to interpret the fact that I had essentially seen the history of my people from the perspective of the Nazis
00:27:57 ►
as if it was made by James Cameron or Cecil B. DeMille
00:28:01 ►
or any of the great filmmakers that They had the greatest production values,
00:28:06 ►
the unlimited budget of the imagination.
00:28:09 ►
It was as vivid as it gets, and it was believable.
00:28:13 ►
And I left that not knowing what to make of it,
00:28:16 ►
not knowing how to integrate it.
00:28:19 ►
And so it was about a year and a half later,
00:28:23 ►
it was on my birthday, it was my 30th birthday,
00:28:28 ►
and myself and Lex Pelger and my friend Cynthia went to a state park called Borderlands State
00:28:40 ►
Park, which I think is significant, Borderlands, right?
00:28:44 ►
It’s the border between maybe one world
00:28:47 ►
and the next. And I ate seven grams of mushrooms. And I really didn’t have an intention set.
00:29:10 ►
intention set. But what happened to me that day is still something I’m working with, but it was different than all the other experiences. It was different than ayahuasca. It was different
00:29:15 ►
than any other trip I’d had. And the reason it was different is because on that day, my
00:29:22 ►
experience was that I was possessed by some kind of medicine man. And I experienced
00:29:29 ►
all of the pain and the suffering of everybody that died in the camps in the Holocaust. I
00:29:36 ►
experienced all of the hate, all of the rage at how this could happen, and all of the suffering of my people,
00:29:46 ►
and how that suffering isn’t just belonging to one person, or one tribe, or one group,
00:29:54 ►
but it belongs to all of us.
00:29:55 ►
It’s all of us to own, and we need to go through it.
00:29:58 ►
It’s like it’s in the atmosphere, and we need to take it in,
00:30:03 ►
and we need to transform it in and we need to transform it
00:30:05 ►
in an alchemical type of process
00:30:08 ►
where we take it in
00:30:09 ►
and so I took it in and I sobbed for three hours
00:30:13 ►
and I cried for three hours
00:30:15 ►
and then I emerged
00:30:17 ►
singing this language that I had never heard before
00:30:23 ►
knowing these songs,
00:30:27 ►
being given this understanding
00:30:30 ►
that certain plants could be communicated with in certain ways.
00:30:36 ►
And it concluded with me singing a song,
00:30:39 ►
holding a staff and walking in a circle,
00:30:42 ►
demanding that it rained.
00:30:44 ►
It was a beautiful, beautiful day.
00:30:47 ►
I remember Lex was very angry.
00:30:51 ►
He said, oh, it’s such a nice day out.
00:30:54 ►
Don’t make it rain.
00:30:55 ►
I said, no, it has to rain.
00:30:59 ►
I couldn’t figure out necessarily why it had to rain,
00:31:04 ►
but I was singing this Icaro
00:31:06 ►
and chanting and holding my stick
00:31:12 ►
like Jeremiah in the wilderness was how Lex described it.
00:31:18 ►
And I was shouting at the sky because it wasn’t raining immediately.
00:31:22 ►
And Lex was filming me at the time,
00:31:25 ►
and I turned to the camera and I said,
00:31:28 ►
I’m going to prove that reality is malleable.
00:31:31 ►
I’m going to summon a storm.
00:31:34 ►
Anyway, after 10 minutes of walking in this circle
00:31:37 ►
and shouting at the sky, I got quite frustrated
00:31:39 ►
that nature didn’t comply and that there wasn’t a storm.
00:31:45 ►
But beyond that, it was getting late,
00:31:47 ►
and so we started walking off out of the park.
00:31:56 ►
Anyway, about five minutes later, these two guys on a golf cart,
00:32:01 ►
they couldn’t have been more than like 18,
00:32:02 ►
they probably had this summer job,
00:32:10 ►
you know, minding the park. They pulled up to us and they said, you guys have to leave.
00:32:19 ►
My first thought was, oh, they must have heard all this lunacy happening, all the screaming and singing and chanting. And they must have figured two guys probably, a few guys lost their minds
00:32:27 ►
and we need to kick them out of here so that the families around here could appreciate
00:32:34 ►
the park for what it’s meant to be appreciated for.
00:32:39 ►
And just to kind of humor myself, I said, well, why do we have to leave?
00:32:44 ►
And just to kind of humor myself, I said, well, why do we have to leave?
00:32:51 ►
And they said, well, there’s a severe weather storm warning for this entire area that just came out of nowhere.
00:33:02 ►
So about two minutes later, we walked to this clearing and we look past the expanse. It’s this enormous field next to this nice mansion.
00:33:08 ►
And the sky is as dark as I’d ever seen it before.
00:33:14 ►
And it rained like crazy.
00:33:20 ►
And I knew that if I went out into that field and lay down,
00:33:24 ►
I would be struck by lightning.
00:33:27 ►
So I didn’t.
00:33:30 ►
Which, you know, I have mixed feelings about.
00:33:37 ►
Now, I’ve told that story to some people,
00:33:42 ►
and they think that, oh, clearly, you know, I think that I can control the weather with these things
00:33:48 ►
and that makes me crazy because that’s impossible.
00:33:52 ►
And I’ve talked to other people that, you know,
00:33:55 ►
try to interpret it from kind of an analytical psychology perspective, right?
00:34:00 ►
That it’s this story with these obvious synchronicities and there’s all this mythical
00:34:05 ►
material in there that sheds light on my consciousness. And I’ve talked to other people
00:34:13 ►
who are in the shamanic world and they say, oh yeah, you just, you know, you were using elementals
00:34:20 ►
and magic and the elementals, they don’t really have a conscience.
00:34:26 ►
So, you know, you summon them and maybe, you know,
00:34:29 ►
oh, I know this guy and he summoned lightning
00:34:32 ►
and it burned down somebody’s house.
00:34:34 ►
So these things aren’t, you know, really nice to mess with.
00:34:39 ►
And, you know, all these people are right
00:34:42 ►
and all these people are not right.
00:34:46 ►
And what do I think happened?
00:34:50 ►
I think that reality is really the convergence of what we think it is and what happens to us.
00:35:00 ►
And that’s the lesson, I think, with using these things.
00:35:06 ►
Is that, really, we don’t know what lurks in our unconscious.
00:35:14 ►
We barely know what we’re conscious of.
00:35:18 ►
And we also don’t know how we connect to the whole
00:35:21 ►
and how the whole works its way through us, the individual self.
00:35:27 ►
But that there is an interplay, that there is something that we are tapping into. Maybe
00:35:33 ►
we become like a beacon for all the information that exists in the entire cosmos. that somehow while I am Brett Green, I’m also part of the space-time continuum
00:35:51 ►
and that it’s that space-time fabric that we’re all a part of that makes us one, that
00:35:58 ►
we are always both who we are as individuals and the bigger picture at once.
00:36:04 ►
both who we are as individuals and the bigger picture it wants.
00:36:09 ►
So when we’re doing this work,
00:36:16 ►
keep in mind that we’re doing it for everyone,
00:36:19 ►
as well as ourselves.
00:36:34 ►
And the reason why that’s important is because until everyone is free, then no one is free.
00:36:40 ►
Until everyone finds peace, there is no peace to be had.
00:36:43 ►
Thank you. Our last story comes from Paul Cuisino, who spent much time ready himself for
00:36:52 ►
his life-changing trip, and then even more time to integrate it into his life. It’s an insightful
00:36:58 ►
story about finding your model and finding your map. My story starts with a terrible event and that was a broken wedding.
00:37:09 ►
I had been in a relationship for eight years. I was building my dream life and I had gone to
00:37:14 ►
university, had gone in accounting designation, worked for international firms and then I thought
00:37:20 ►
well logical steps, you get the house, somehow you get married. That’s part of the plan.
00:37:25 ►
And then we were already talking about having kids. And I didn’t know anything else, and I thought
00:37:30 ►
that was going to make me happy. And suddenly, that relationship fell apart a few months before
00:37:37 ►
the wedding, and then that threw me into a financial disaster. I had just bought a house. I was single income. And when you’re in those
00:37:46 ►
types of businesses at first, they don’t actually pay you that well. They just promise you that
00:37:51 ►
you’re going to make a lot of money. So I started struggling internally. And I also didn’t have any
00:37:57 ►
beliefs. I thought we’re just atoms, matter, flash, you die. that’s pretty much it. So I was searching for myself.
00:38:06 ►
I was miserable.
00:38:07 ►
That had been my only relationship with a woman.
00:38:11 ►
And then my brother kept telling me,
00:38:13 ►
Paul, you got to listen, you got to listen.
00:38:15 ►
I’m like, listen to what?
00:38:16 ►
He’s like, there’s this guy, Joe Rogan.
00:38:18 ►
I’m like, Joe Rogan, who is that guy?
00:38:21 ►
And he’s like, oh yeah, he does stuff with the UFC, he’s a comedian.
00:38:24 ►
I’m like, okay, Jeff, I don’t want anything to do is that guy? And he’s like, oh, yeah, like he does stuff with the UFC. He’s a comedian. I’m like, okay, like Jeff.
00:38:26 ►
Like I don’t want anything to do with that guy, especially because I was an accountant.
00:38:30 ►
You know, I had like that tie, that nice suit.
00:38:32 ►
I was going at the tailor, having all that custom made.
00:38:34 ►
I’m like, that’s just the nuts.
00:38:36 ►
Like I don’t want to listen to him.
00:38:37 ►
So he pestered me for a year for me to listen to Joe Rogan.
00:38:41 ►
And then I’m like, okay, I’m going to listen to that guy.
00:38:46 ►
listen to Joe Rogan. And then I’m like, okay, I’m going to listen to that guy. So as I was listening to the podcast, eventually he said, the mushroom changes everything. He’s like, everyone should
00:38:51 ►
take mushrooms. I’m like, what is he talking about? And as he was going into the experience that
00:38:57 ►
himself had had with the mushroom and his guests, I was thinking back of high school and I had used
00:39:03 ►
it once for recreational purposes,
00:39:06 ►
and somehow that had made my girlfriend quit smoking. I’m like, what was up with that? You
00:39:11 ►
know, maybe that guy Joe Rogan has something that is of value. So I kind of like put that aside,
00:39:18 ►
but it was digging at my brain, and then I ended up in this used bookstore, and I found the Psychedelic Guide to the Book of the Dead, as well as a copy of the Book of the Dead from Tibet.
00:39:30 ►
And I was getting curious about philosophy, but I was like, how can these two things get together?
00:39:38 ►
And then somehow I was sent a podcast to the psychedelic salon with Lorenzo. And I was like, why would I
00:39:49 ►
listen to that podcast? And then it was again, that podcasting thing coming into my life. And
00:39:54 ►
that friend talked to me for about a month and says, you got to listen to Lorenzo. So I listened
00:39:59 ►
to Lorenzo. And then he had a guest talk about Timothy Leary.
00:40:07 ►
I’m like, wow, that’s a fascinating guy.
00:40:09 ►
And he had gone to Harvard, and because of that for me,
00:40:11 ►
he had a bit more credibility.
00:40:15 ►
So what I ended up doing is go back to that store,
00:40:18 ►
I bought those books, and then I started reading it. And I was fascinated.
00:40:20 ►
And I was not only fascinated because, one,
00:40:23 ►
they were kind of like going hand in hand, although I didn’t understand the Book of the Dead, it was talking about all these different wrathful deities.
00:40:31 ►
And for me, I was focusing on the second bardo, which for them is the realm of karmic visions.
00:40:37 ►
And that’s tied to all of the stuff that you fear, everything that you’re pulled into.
00:40:42 ►
And I thought, that can’t exist.
00:40:45 ►
There’s no way that those realms can exist.
00:40:48 ►
And I had such a critical mind that I went on a mission to disprove that all that was crap.
00:40:54 ►
I’m like, these guys are all crazy.
00:40:57 ►
And now I know why Timothy Leary ended up going to jail.
00:41:01 ►
But I took it seriously.
00:41:03 ►
Because the only way that I would know being the accountant is if
00:41:07 ►
I could have reasonable assurance that my test was good. So then I read the whole thing twice
00:41:13 ►
and I prepared myself for my first serious mushroom experience. And I told my brother,
00:41:20 ►
you got to leave the house and I’m going to be doing this in pitch black.
00:41:25 ►
I was following some of Terrence’s advice.
00:41:27 ►
So I already became lunatic, I think.
00:41:30 ►
I had taped all the windows underneath my door.
00:41:35 ►
I put a blanket, make sure there’s not a single piece of light that was going in there.
00:41:39 ►
And I was reciting these mantras to guide me through the three different bardos.
00:41:43 ►
And really it was dissolve the ego.
00:41:47 ►
So you can see how that can be good to start your journey with.
00:41:51 ►
And then the other one was embrace the experiences and the visions.
00:41:56 ►
Because I really wanted them to come, and I was kind of afraid if it actually happened to be terrified,
00:42:01 ►
like it was talking about in those books.
00:42:03 ►
And then the other one was do nothing.
00:42:07 ►
And this one has been my mantra that I kept.
00:42:09 ►
Out of all of them, I really like the do nothing approach.
00:42:13 ►
I find whenever the boat gets rocked, just don’t do anything
00:42:16 ►
and it ends up becoming fine eventually.
00:42:19 ►
So I’m reciting those mantras and I’m seeing them for about two hours
00:42:23 ►
or what seemed like two hours.
00:42:24 ►
I’m like, see, told you, nothing happened.
00:42:26 ►
Like, I can leave my room now.
00:42:29 ►
Everything’s fine, you know.
00:42:30 ►
And I’m just about to get out of my bed.
00:42:33 ►
And then, did something happen?
00:42:38 ►
And then I’m like, no, but why am I wondering?
00:42:40 ►
And then lightning bolt.
00:42:42 ►
And then that totally flashed in my whole body. This huge
00:42:46 ►
lightning, this ray of pure light. But it was so short. I’m like, nope. I don’t think anything
00:42:54 ►
happened. And then again, lightning bolt. Whoa. Okay, wait, no. Something definitely is happening
00:43:01 ►
here. I’m freaking out. Why did I do it? This is crazy. So then I attempt
00:43:06 ►
to get out of my bed. I’m like, oh, I can’t move my body. No, what’s going on? So as I’m getting
00:43:11 ►
stuck with that, I’m like, wait, wait, wait. You wanted to do this. This is the clear light. It’s
00:43:16 ►
what they were talking about in the first part. Oh, this thing actually exists. So now I’m getting
00:43:19 ►
excited. And it says, no, don’t react. Don’t react. Don’t get excited. So then I like, okay,
00:43:24 ►
excited. And it says, no, don’t react. Don’t react. Don’t get excited. So then I like, okay,
00:43:31 ►
take a deep breath. And then as I was easing into it, I had that flash of light for what seemed to be maybe three seconds. It felt like the three longest seconds of my life. Completely dissolved.
00:43:38 ►
But what followed after that is what I was not prepared for. Rivers of blood, bones everywhere, and then I’m like
00:43:48 ►
trying to open my eyes. I’m bleeding from my face, and I’m like, what is going on? And then I kept
00:43:54 ►
seeing all these women everywhere, and for me, I realized today that that had to do with that
00:44:00 ►
eight-year-long relationship, that deep wound. And in the second bardo, when you talk
00:44:05 ►
about the karmic visions, it has a lot to do with what you’re being pulled towards or what you’re
00:44:10 ►
afraid or you don’t want. And that was obviously a topic in my life. That was part of why I was
00:44:15 ►
there at that time. But then it was like vampire-like woman. And these started like ripping
00:44:21 ►
at my flesh and stuff. And I’m like, man, this is painful.
00:44:26 ►
Like, I thought it was just an illusion.
00:44:28 ►
It was a vision or something.
00:44:29 ►
But it actually hurt.
00:44:35 ►
So as I was going through that dismemberment process, I’m just like, okay, embrace the vision.
00:44:37 ►
Embrace the vision.
00:44:39 ►
Embrace the vision.
00:44:47 ►
And it actually was able to, like, I was able to relax into it and allowed him to slowly tear me to pieces.
00:44:53 ►
Then the next phase is the reintegration phase, which was tied to the third bardo.
00:44:59 ►
And here they say that you get to actually choose a different path for yourself as you become reincarnated of some sort.
00:45:11 ►
Now, because I had been torn to pieces, I started believing it by then. And I tried to move my body in the room, and I was flashing in between that realm of these gods and these demons.
00:45:13 ►
There was no peaceful deities in my vision.
00:45:16 ►
So in the book they talked about them, they never showed up for mine.
00:45:21 ►
So as I’m going between those two, I’m able to move my body, and I’m like,
00:45:25 ►
Oh, I really got to go to the washroom. Why didn’t I think of this? I’m like, I had no really got to go to the washroom. Why didn’t I think of this?
00:45:28 ►
I’m like, I had no way to actually go to the washroom.
00:45:29 ►
I didn’t know where the door was.
00:45:30 ►
It was pitch black.
00:45:32 ►
I’m like, do I just do it in my bed?
00:45:38 ►
So as I’m figuring all that out, then I’m like, oh, wait, maybe I can just see.
00:45:40 ►
And then it started having light in my room.
00:45:42 ►
And then I’m like, well, the washroom is just there. So I kind of like opened up a portal of some sort
00:45:45 ►
through the wood, went to the washroom
00:45:47 ►
and then I realized that I was able to like move the wood
00:45:50 ►
and I was like, what is this?
00:45:53 ►
Is this actually happening?
00:45:54 ►
But then I remembered what I had been reading in the text
00:45:57 ►
and it says that when you’re doing that reintegration,
00:45:59 ►
you can have manifestation of powers,
00:46:02 ►
whether they’re real or they’re not,
00:46:03 ►
but Timothy O’Leary and Ram Dass and Ralph Metzer
00:46:07 ►
in the psychedelic experience were talking about,
00:46:09 ►
well, don’t use those powers.
00:46:12 ►
It’s not going to help you with your reincarnation.
00:46:15 ►
So then I decided to go back in my bed, start breathing,
00:46:18 ►
and that’s when I was able to see a universe being created.
00:46:23 ►
Now, I don’t know if that was how I was perceiving
00:46:26 ►
the creation of the universe or not,
00:46:28 ►
but I was seeing star systems being created.
00:46:31 ►
And then I saw planet Earth be created,
00:46:33 ►
and I saw my body.
00:46:35 ►
And that’s when I started envisioning
00:46:37 ►
a new life for myself.
00:46:38 ►
And I was actually able to see myself in nature.
00:46:43 ►
I had a new partner.
00:46:44 ►
I wasn’t working in that accounting job. And all
00:46:46 ►
those different things happened. And then it’s kind of like I fudged in my body and everything
00:46:52 ►
stopped. I was like, I’m sober now? And there was like no transition point between that last piece
00:47:00 ►
of creation and being sober. So I didn’t fully understand how that happened,
00:47:06 ►
but then I thought, well, maybe like when you’re being born, that’s kind of what happens, right?
00:47:11 ►
You’re going through that struggle, the bird canal and all that. But then eventually when you take
00:47:15 ►
that first piece of like that first bread of air, then that’s your reality now. So I guess you’re
00:47:20 ►
sober of some sort. But my whole life was changed as a result of that experience
00:47:26 ►
because I wasn’t able to continue on the path that I had been doing.
00:47:30 ►
Now I had to go back and work for these accounting firms.
00:47:34 ►
And by then I had actually worked for an international satellite company.
00:47:37 ►
And a few months later, there was a documentary on Vice about one of the shareholders.
00:47:43 ►
And he was a despicable human being.
00:47:46 ►
Like, the worst atrocities I had ever heard of,
00:47:50 ►
he had on film, and it was like a special vice documentary.
00:47:53 ►
So I’m going back in the office,
00:47:55 ►
and then I’m thinking, well, this is kind of like
00:47:57 ►
that ratful deity experience thing that had showed up.
00:48:02 ►
And it was for real.
00:48:03 ►
So my boss actually called me in
00:48:05 ►
her office and she says, Paul, like, what’s going on? And I’m, I’m shaking, you know, I’m like,
00:48:11 ►
and then she’s like, what’s going on? And I said, well, like, I just saw a documentary about the
00:48:16 ►
shareholder and I was talking about it. And she said, don’t worry about that. You’re just the
00:48:20 ►
accountants. Oh, what do you mean? I’m just the accountant? Like, why do you want me to stay if I’m not actually doing anything?
00:48:28 ►
And then it just got into the weirdest conversation ever.
00:48:32 ►
So then I started developing agoraphobia.
00:48:35 ►
And things got really intense.
00:48:37 ►
I couldn’t go outside.
00:48:38 ►
I couldn’t even touch my skin.
00:48:39 ►
I had all these issues coming up.
00:48:41 ►
And I started hearing about the ayahuasca experience through the Joe
00:48:47 ►
Rogan Experience Podcast. And I got this book from a journalist, Peter Gorman, and he was talking
00:48:53 ►
about how he went in the Amazon. And he went about in the same years that Terrence McKenna
00:48:58 ►
had gone in the Amazon. And I thought, well, maybe this is the place that I need to learn about what
00:49:03 ►
just happened to me with that book of the dead, like that self-experimentation.
00:49:08 ►
But I was still holding on to my old truths, kind of like when you’re navigating those bardos.
00:49:13 ►
So I was clinging on to what I thought was my path to happiness, and I decided to apply to law school for McGill instead.
00:49:20 ►
And then when I got my acceptance letter, I literally started puking.
00:49:24 ►
Like I was puking my guts out.
00:49:26 ►
I’m like, well, this is supposed to be a great moment.
00:49:28 ►
So that same night, I called Peter and I said, I want to go to the Amazon.
00:49:33 ►
Just this random guy.
00:49:34 ►
And then he says, okay, I’m organizing a trip.
00:49:37 ►
So I gave him money.
00:49:39 ►
I bought a trip to Peru, a plane ticket.
00:49:41 ►
And then I ended up traveling down the Amazon, quit my job, left everything
00:49:45 ►
behind, spent like four months there. And then that completely changed my life. And when I came
00:49:52 ►
back, obviously I had to earn some kind of income. And for me, I started working for a not-for-profit.
00:49:58 ►
But then I started doing these trainings on the side to start working more with these altered
00:50:02 ►
states and integration. And I think that integration was something that was important because I had done so much work in
00:50:09 ►
the Amazon that for the first six months, I actually was not functional in society. Like,
00:50:14 ►
I just couldn’t relate. And once I found mentors, and for me it was through the bread work,
00:50:20 ►
through the native wisdom traditions of here, then that allowed me to shape and create what I wanted to do with my life.
00:50:26 ►
And now what I’ve done as a result
00:50:29 ►
of that psychedelic experience is I help people
00:50:32 ►
that are entrepreneurs that have these awesome ideas,
00:50:35 ►
so I’m using that finance background that I used to hate,
00:50:39 ►
because once I was going through that transformation,
00:50:41 ►
I couldn’t stand it, did something good
00:50:44 ►
by associating with
00:50:45 ►
people that are making a positive difference. And I also bring them in the Amazon to work with the
00:50:51 ►
shaman that changed my life. So that can help them get all those ideas out there. So that’s like a
00:50:56 ►
model of bringing the psychedelic experience to make meaningful changes in our society. And what
00:51:03 ►
I want to take away from this story, one is that you never
00:51:06 ►
know what can happen when you take the mushroom, okay? Like for me, they said like you were going
00:51:11 ►
to be like a partner, a shareholder, all that. I was going for the money. This isn’t exactly,
00:51:16 ►
like I mean this wasn’t part of it, okay? This was not part of the gig. But the second one is I invite
00:51:21 ►
people to consider using different maps to navigate the experience. Because
00:51:25 ►
I don’t know if that was a bias that I created because of the Book of the Dead, but it certainly
00:51:32 ►
had a strong influence from my experience, and it gave me a way to understand what was happening
00:51:39 ►
when it was happening. Because if I hadn’t read that, and then I started having these vampire-like women tearing my flesh away,
00:51:46 ►
I think I might have called someone and said, I need medical help.
00:51:50 ►
And that, for one, was a big piece in being able to go through that experience.
00:51:55 ►
Now, I’m not saying the Book of the Dead is what you need to use.
00:51:57 ►
There’s a lot of models now with transpersonal psychology.
00:52:02 ►
There’s also the Book of Tao you might work with.
00:52:04 ►
Some people even I know work with the Bible.
00:52:07 ►
Or you can work with a more academic
00:52:08 ►
or a more spiritual model.
00:52:10 ►
And I don’t really care
00:52:12 ►
because I don’t know what the answer is.
00:52:14 ►
And my life changed so much
00:52:15 ►
between just 24 hours of time.
00:52:19 ►
And then now it’s been keeping changing
00:52:22 ►
that I don’t exactly know what is the truth.
00:52:24 ►
But I think that if we’re seeking, we’re going to find an answer that is able to make us happy and to be in good health.
00:52:32 ►
And the proof of that is that I’m here tonight, while back then, like two hours ago when it wasn’t actually opened,
00:52:39 ►
I would have freaked out just walking on the streets in Montreal.
00:52:43 ►
Like I was here in like 2011,
00:52:46 ►
and a guy literally just talked to me on the side of the street,
00:52:49 ►
and I jumped because I was so scared.
00:52:51 ►
And this whole journey was like a five-year transformation.
00:52:55 ►
But I do believe that the mushrooms, when they’re used with intention,
00:52:59 ►
and that you have a model to work with, can change your life.
00:53:03 ►
And I think that everyone here can benefit from it,
00:53:06 ►
either directly or indirectly, if they’re open to the idea. Thanks.
00:53:16 ►
That’s it for our stories this week. Thanks to Lorenzo for allowing us to contribute. And
00:53:21 ►
remember, if you’d like to see symposia stories in your town, just let us know
00:53:25 ►
and we’ll do our best
00:53:26 ►
to make it happen.
00:53:27 ►
Seeking stories will travel.
00:53:32 ►
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00:53:34 ►
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00:53:35 ►
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00:53:37 ►
To say thank you,
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00:53:44 ►
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00:53:47 ►
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00:53:51 ►
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00:53:56 ►
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00:54:02 ►
A special thanks to Matt Payne, who engineered the sound,
00:54:06 ►
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00:54:09 ►
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