Program Notes
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Guest speaker: Kim Hewitt
Date this lecture was recorded: September 2018
Dr. Kim Hewitt talks about her research into the history of psychedelics and their current manifestations. Her most recent academic paper is on psychedelic feminism.
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Transcript
00:00:00 ►
Greetings from cyberdelic space, this is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in Psychedelic Salon
00:00:23 ►
2.0.
00:00:24 ►
And today we’ve got two audio treats
00:00:27 ►
to listen to. The first one comes from Lex Pelger, who interviewed Dr. Kim Hewitt, who
00:00:33 ►
talks about her research into the history of psychedelics and their current manifestations.
00:00:38 ►
And her most recent academic paper is on psychedelic feminism. Then following Lex’s interview with Dr. Hewitt, I’ll be back and
00:00:47 ►
play a recording of a brief conversation that I had with Dan Abella, who is the producer of a
00:00:52 ►
week-long psychedelic event that will take place in New York City at the beginning of next month.
00:00:58 ►
So now here’s Lex, who will introduce the first part of today’s podcast.
00:01:02 ►
who will introduce the first part of today’s podcast.
00:01:11 ►
I’m Lex Pelger, and this is the Psychedelic Salon 2.0.
00:01:17 ►
Today we get to enjoy an interview from Dr. Kim Hewitt,
00:01:20 ►
who is one of my very favorite academics focusing on the questions and the history around the psychedelic experience.
00:01:24 ►
Not only an excellent writer of peer-reviewed research papers, I’ve also gotten a chance
00:01:28 ►
to see her in the classroom, and she’s a great teacher as well.
00:01:31 ►
We’ll hear about what brought her to being a professor of history and culture, and her
00:01:35 ►
most recent work around psychedelic feminism.
00:01:39 ►
By the way, Dr. Hewitt’s research involves interviews of people who participate in the
00:01:44 ►
world she studies.
00:01:45 ►
If you’d like to share your own experience to help her work, you’ll be helping out the whole community.
00:01:50 ►
To participate, the strict research protocol is that you send her a text message stating your interest in being interviewed, but not stating your name.
00:01:59 ►
According to the IRB, she is not allowed to know your name.
00:02:02 ►
Her U.S. number is 512-825-4904.
00:02:09 ►
And I’ll put that number in the episode notes as well.
00:02:12 ►
So please participate, but please don’t send her your name.
00:02:17 ►
Also, we have two announcements from Friends of the Salon.
00:02:20 ►
One is from Dr. Bruce Dahmer, who will be doing a webinar for STAND, which stands for
00:02:25 ►
Science and Non-Duality. The first webinar starts on September 30th and spans the next four Sundays.
00:02:31 ►
In his free-flowing style, he’ll be covering the ignition of the cosmos, the origin of life,
00:02:36 ►
our own evolution, and the future of the human civilization. The cost is $100 for four 90-minute sessions.
00:02:51 ►
The other announcement comes from Kat Lakey, who also contributes episodes to Salon 2.0.
00:02:58 ►
She is helping an ayahuasca center in Peru called Grandma’s House, and she put together an Indiegogo campaign for them.
00:03:04 ►
She made the video and is working hard to help this retreat center who offers traditional ceremonial work.
00:03:09 ►
To learn more about Grandma’s House or to donate, please click the link in the episode notes.
00:03:20 ►
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the show. And I’m very happy to be here with my friend Kim Hewitt.
00:03:25 ►
Hi. Hey. I guess my first question is, did you always know you wanted to be a historian? Oh my gosh, no. In fact, I don’t actually consider myself a historian.
00:03:32 ►
My doctorate is in American Studies, and so I think of myself as a cultural studies person,
00:03:37 ►
which in my mind is much sexier than a historian. Sorry, all the historians out there.
00:03:47 ►
you’re the historian. Sorry, all the historians out there. Yeah, I just heard Samuel Johnson apparently said, God, don’t talk to me about Punic Wars. Don’t talk to me about history.
00:03:52 ►
Give me gossip. That’s where the secret is. Well, because gossip is stories and stories tell us
00:03:58 ►
how people live and what they believe in and, you know, how they structure their lives. And history, you know, when I teach
00:04:07 ►
history, because I do have to teach history, I often tell my students, and you know, most students
00:04:11 ►
don’t enjoy history, most people don’t. And I really believe it’s because it’s been taught in
00:04:16 ►
a way that wasn’t any fun, because it’s been taught as this timeline. And I tell my students,
00:04:23 ►
history is about understanding why things happened the way
00:04:26 ►
they did, because they could have happened in a million ways, but why did they happen
00:04:31 ►
the way they did happen? And then the rest is all interpretation and telling stories about it.
00:04:37 ►
What stories do you want to tell about those events that happened, and how can you support
00:04:41 ►
it with evidence? So, you know, that would be my version of what history is.
00:04:46 ►
And so when you were younger, do you remember a specific piece of history that first captured your attention like that?
00:04:53 ►
Where it’s like, wow, this wasn’t written in stone. This could have been anything.
00:05:10 ►
Actually, you know, it’s interesting. I would say I came to my academic career in two perhaps unusual ways.
00:05:30 ►
Actually, I was driving across country when I was maybe 21 and had the good fortune to, oh, you know, have the kinds of adventures you have on road trips, like breaking down and living in somebody’s garage for a while while the car gets fixed and meeting a lot of different people. And I also fell in love with the land. You know, Colorado is gorgeous. Utah is gorgeous. The California coast is gorgeous.
00:05:36 ►
And as I kept meeting people and seeing what amazed me about America, which, you know,
00:05:42 ►
was the people and the immense variety of people and land.
00:05:46 ►
I decided to try to figure it out and try to understand it politically, economically,
00:05:51 ►
culturally. And that’s what brought me to the field of American studies.
00:05:57 ►
And then when I got to graduate school, my friend was visiting early, early on when I was in the
00:06:01 ►
master’s program. I was in graduate school at the
00:06:05 ►
University of Texas in Austin. And I was telling her that I had no idea what I would write my
00:06:10 ►
master’s thesis on. And we had been talking about how Austin seemed to be a mecca of body modification.
00:06:17 ►
And kiddingly, I said to her, maybe I’ll write it on tattoos. And that’s exactly what I did.
00:06:26 ►
I’ll write it on tattoos. And that’s exactly what I did. Because you can do those kinds of things in cultural studies. You know, why, why was tattooing becoming so popular? Why was body modification and
00:06:33 ►
piercing becoming not just so popular, but also incredibly creative in the 90s. And so, to me,
00:06:41 ►
it’s a great example of cultural studies and how you can do something interdisciplinary with cultural studies.
00:06:47 ►
Combines, you know, some psychology, some anthropology, contemporary ethnography.
00:06:53 ►
And I had a blast.
00:06:54 ►
And that laid a foundation for me for my kind of lifelong fascination with the mind-body connection and how people express their spirituality through the mind-body
00:07:05 ►
connection and that mystery of consciousness. My early work in understanding body modification,
00:07:14 ►
you know, I came to understand the ways people use pain to alter consciousness.
00:07:20 ►
And this whole exploration of non-ordinary consciousness through pain and also rituals
00:07:26 ►
and the way people use pain as part of healing rituals.
00:07:31 ►
Um, and I would say that, you know, that early work really started laying a foundation for
00:07:36 ►
me for my interest in psychedelics and a wider interest in consciousness.
00:07:40 ►
Harness the needle to get to that same kind of dissociated state somehow.
00:07:46 ►
Right, absolutely.
00:07:49 ►
It’s kind of subversive and it’s kind of fun and it’s an exploration and it’s definitely on the fringes.
00:07:59 ►
Although it’s a lot more acceptable now.
00:08:01 ►
20 years later, everybody’s got a tattoo.
00:08:05 ►
What was it like to be working on a project like that in the 90s?
00:08:10 ►
Oh, it was fun. Yeah, especially in Austin. Austin was so full of amazing piercing salons
00:08:17 ►
and tattooing salons and people really doing cutting edge, you know, body implants and
00:08:21 ►
very interesting stuff going on then.
00:08:26 ►
And so what did the final thesis look like?
00:08:28 ►
What were you trying to say about the scene and what you found there?
00:08:34 ►
So I took a really interdisciplinary approach and kind of folded some psych theory in with
00:08:41 ►
theories about initiation rituals.
00:08:48 ►
psych theory in with theories about initiation rituals. And yeah, kind of, I came to this conclusion that many people who are becoming, you know, like practicing body modification,
00:08:58 ►
especially the more extreme forms, were really hungry for initiation rituals.
00:09:07 ►
And it seemed to me to be a signal that there was really something lacking in our society.
00:09:13 ►
You know, we had kind of become a really white bread, bland society that did not offer people a lot of role models,
00:09:21 ►
especially when it came to spirituality or integrating their entire selves,
00:09:28 ►
right? And in a lot of ways, I feel like the rituals that a lot of these people created about,
00:09:34 ►
you know, with body modification were expressing a desire to integrate their whole selves and use
00:09:40 ►
their bodies to do that, right? These somatic practices that were bringing them all together.
00:09:50 ►
You know, other societies have been doing this forever.
00:09:52 ►
You know, other societies have initiation rituals where people get scarred
00:09:56 ►
or people get tattooed or various piercings as part of a way to almost literally
00:10:04 ►
bring a human being into being and into that
00:10:07 ►
social culture. And in our society, it’s a fringe practice because we don’t have any
00:10:15 ►
socially, you know, we don’t have any mainstream rituals to do that.
00:10:19 ►
What’s it like to be to write about this? What’s your approach to writing
00:10:23 ►
these academic papers after talking to write about this? What’s your approach to writing these academic papers after
00:10:26 ►
talking to so many people? Oh, what a nice question. You know, I think of myself
00:10:35 ►
as a listener. And, you know, there’s so many different ways of collecting
00:10:48 ►
And, you know, there’s so many different ways of collecting evidence and creating a story and interpretation.
00:10:53 ►
And my favorite way is to listen and hear what
00:11:07 ►
is being told to me and hear the patterns of what people are saying. And not to judge them,
00:11:16 ►
right? It’s not that I’m here to say, well, this story is true and that story is true. Oh,
00:11:20 ►
what this woman told me is right. It’s to hear how do people create the meaning in their experiences?
00:11:28 ►
You know, what do they see?
00:11:29 ►
How do they interpret what they’re doing?
00:11:31 ►
What do they think they’re doing?
00:11:33 ►
For example, when they go to a psychedelic medicine retreat or take plant medicines.
00:11:40 ►
And so, again, I feel like that early work really helped me lay a foundation for that because that’s what I did.
00:11:44 ►
Listening to people about what meaning did they give their tattooing and piercing.
00:11:49 ►
And now I’m kind of following that same kind of ethnography, I guess, methodology of what stories are being told to me.
00:11:58 ►
You know, what am I – I just – it’s almost like I see myself as an antenna.
00:12:02 ►
What am I picking up?
00:12:02 ►
I just, it’s almost like I see myself as an antenna.
00:12:03 ►
What am I picking up?
00:12:06 ►
You know, I’m just here to pick up all the signals and then see what patterns come out of that.
00:12:11 ►
Is that what enables you to be teaching
00:12:13 ►
in so many different directions
00:12:15 ►
is that the patterns keep reoccurring?
00:12:18 ►
Because I’m looking here at the list,
00:12:20 ►
just a short list of the classes
00:12:21 ►
that you’ve taught from your CV.
00:12:23 ►
Madness in American History, History of the Body, Women’s Social History, Violence in American Cinema, which seems especially intriguing, and Post-War America, Sex, Psyche, and Politics.
00:12:35 ►
I mean, that’s such a wide breadth of what makes up this country, along with all the other classes you taught.
00:12:41 ►
And so it really becomes a pattern recognition process.
00:12:48 ►
I’d like to think of it that way.
00:12:50 ►
I would unfortunately say with my teaching,
00:12:54 ►
it’s fairly fragmented
00:12:55 ►
because what the academy demands of me
00:12:58 ►
is not necessarily of my choosing.
00:13:05 ►
I mean, I’ve developed, you know,
00:13:06 ►
very interesting classes
00:13:07 ►
that hopefully fit my interests,
00:13:09 ►
but, you know, they’re often dictated
00:13:13 ►
by what the university needs me to teach
00:13:16 ►
and fill a certain American history requirement.
00:13:20 ►
So, yeah, maybe I’ve yet to see
00:13:22 ►
some of those bigger patterns with that.
00:13:25 ►
You know, yeah. So yeah, maybe I’ve yet to see some of those bigger patterns with that.
00:13:34 ►
So you’re teaching now at Empire State, and you even have a class on the history of the war on drugs. And I was curious to hear more about what it’s like to teach that class in a city that is the cannabis arrest capital of the planet for a while and of the country still, I believe.
00:13:45 ►
Oh my gosh, that is one of my favorite classes to teach, especially when I teach it at the
00:13:49 ►
Brooklyn unit of Empire State College, because I get such a beautiful variety of students
00:13:54 ►
who bring such a lovely variety of viewpoints to the class.
00:13:59 ►
I literally get students enrolled in the class who confess that they’ve been drug dealers.
00:14:05 ►
I get ex-offenders enrolled in the class.
00:14:07 ►
I had a narcotics detective enrolled in the class once.
00:14:11 ►
I have people who work in the substance abuse field.
00:14:14 ►
I have people who’ve been addicts.
00:14:16 ►
And they all bring this little piece, a little viewpoint to this very broad topic, you know, the war on drugs.
00:14:27 ►
broad topic, you know, the war on drugs, what is the role of these supposedly illicit substances in our society, and the very different ways people use them, and the different attitudes about
00:14:33 ►
laws, and where, you know, should they be legal? Shouldn’t they be legal? How harmful are they?
00:14:39 ►
And so, that’s one of my favorite classes, because there’s such great discussion.
00:14:43 ►
So that’s one of my favorite classes because there’s such great discussion.
00:15:00 ►
And often it’s almost like I don’t even have to say anything because, you know, if somebody makes a certain kind of comment about what addiction is, a student who has been addicted to heroin can step up and say, well, let me tell you what it was like for me.
00:15:06 ►
And so it’s and I think that’s what education should be. We all have these amazing experiences to share with each other. And although that’s not the only way to learn, it’s a really
00:15:12 ►
valuable way to learn when it makes it real for students. And they get to actually meet somebody
00:15:17 ►
who’s worked in narcotics for the New York City Police Department, and somebody who works in
00:15:22 ►
substance abuse, rehabilitating people.
00:15:26 ►
Wow. And so how does this inform your own work to have all of these
00:15:29 ►
great sources that actually are coming to you?
00:15:37 ►
That’s a good question. I mean, again, I guess I would say I really see my, one of my abilities is to be able to listen for the whole and synthesize the
00:15:51 ►
pieces that are being brought to me and realize that not,
00:15:56 ►
no one of them is the whole story,
00:15:59 ►
but to bring them into conversation with each other, to me is what a liberal education should be,
00:16:07 ►
and also how we all come to a deeper understanding of the world and of each other and what it means to be human.
00:16:15 ►
With that listening, how did your interest in the cultural history of LSD come about?
00:16:24 ►
history of LSD come about? A few years into graduate school,
00:16:35 ►
I experienced what for me was just a life-changing event. My older brother was diagnosed bipolar and experienced a tremendous amount of difficulty for a couple years. He was homeless.
00:16:42 ►
He was in and out of psychiatric hospitals. And then he healed himself. And for me, this just, my whole world changed.
00:16:51 ►
You know, I mean, literally my whole world fell apart. And I realized I had to dig a lot deeper
00:16:57 ►
into understanding consciousness and specifically what we call normal, right?
00:17:05 ►
That he had been diagnosed with a mental illness was one thing.
00:17:10 ►
I wasn’t really willing to accept a diagnosis as the final word, right?
00:17:17 ►
I really wanted to understand what does that even mean?
00:17:20 ►
Because, you know, and as I teach a class in this,
00:17:23 ►
what we consider mental illness has changed.
00:17:26 ►
It’s always changing according to cultural values.
00:17:30 ►
And as I spent hours and hours and hours in the library, the University of Texas has a great library, reading everything I could going back decades in mental health journals. And I began to see in the 1950s, all these articles about research with
00:17:47 ►
LSD and therapy and mental health and research about schizophrenia and LSD. And these ideas,
00:17:56 ►
just, I became fascinated with this early research. And the more I read, the more I realized,
00:18:24 ►
And the more I read, the more I realized, and this was 20 some years ago, it seemed to me there was an untold story of why did this promising substance that was generating immense amounts of research that seemed to say that LSD-assisted therapy could really help people, Why did that substance become illegal? And that’s what I ended
00:18:27 ►
up writing my dissertation on. And it’s a funny little story. Interesting. So I said that was
00:18:34 ►
about 25 years ago when I sent it off to a publisher at the time, the response I got back,
00:18:41 ►
it went out for peer review and the reviewer whom I have no idea who it was, it’s all blind, basically wrote back and said, this author is biased.
00:18:51 ►
She’s being too positive.
00:18:54 ►
You know, all this can’t possibly be true.
00:18:56 ►
Where’s the dark side?
00:18:58 ►
Because we know that psychedelics are very dangerous.
00:19:01 ►
So she hasn’t done her research.
00:19:03 ►
She’s only presenting the positive side.
00:19:06 ►
And come to find out some 20 some years later, so much of that early research is getting
00:19:12 ►
reconfirmed. That positive side I was showing is exactly what’s being re-researched today,
00:19:20 ►
a lot of it. So it’s unfortunate. I feel like even that – the bias has now changed, which is wonderful, but unfortunately that dissertation never got published because even at the time, I feel like there was a lot of bias against saying, what? These substances aren’t – they’re just dangerous. They can’t possibly be as good as all that research showed.
00:19:42 ►
Wow, never published. What a shame.
00:19:47 ►
Actually, there’s another funny story.
00:19:48 ►
I don’t know if you want to include this in the podcast,
00:19:50 ►
but I interviewed for a job at a university in Turkey
00:19:53 ►
when I first graduated.
00:19:56 ►
And they were initially very excited about my research
00:20:00 ►
and the story of drug policy and LSD.
00:20:03 ►
And then a student on their campus got busted for LSD.
00:20:09 ►
And they literally called me and they said, we’re sorry.
00:20:12 ►
We can’t, we just can’t hire you.
00:20:15 ►
It really would look bad because we just had the student get arrested
00:20:18 ►
and I’m sorry, but no, no.
00:20:22 ►
So I’m just glad I got a job.
00:20:24 ►
Thank you, Empire State College, for hiring me.
00:20:31 ►
It’s fascinating how personal life led to this story.
00:20:37 ►
And you’ve mentioned before with your brother taking his own life,
00:20:44 ►
that’s also something that you’ve heard about
00:20:46 ►
in other luminaries of the psychedelic world.
00:20:50 ►
Oh, yeah.
00:20:50 ►
I was fascinated when I started reading
00:20:53 ►
about Aldous Huxley.
00:20:56 ►
And he was one of my intellectual heroes.
00:20:59 ►
When he was young, I think it was 14,
00:21:02 ►
his older brother killed himself.
00:21:06 ►
Timothy Leary’s first wife killed herself. And I’ve often wondered, you know, is this one of those events that kind of pushes so
00:21:15 ►
many people toward trying to fit themselves into a bigger meaning, like really deeply questioning
00:21:23 ►
the meaning of life? And why are we here? You know,
00:21:26 ►
why do we suffer? Why do some people choose to end their suffering with death? And can psychedelics
00:21:34 ►
help us understand any of that? You know, I don’t know, but I do find it really an interesting
00:21:41 ►
coincidence that many of these people experienced the suicide of a loved
00:21:45 ►
one. And your work around this was actually, I believe, the first work I ever read from you.
00:21:51 ►
Your publication, Rehabilitating LSD History in Post-War America, Dilworth Wayne Woolley and the
00:21:57 ►
Serotonin Hypothesis of Mental Illness. Can you talk a little bit about that publication and its
00:22:02 ►
importance in neurochemistry and psychedelics?
00:22:07 ►
Oh, thank you so much for mentioning that.
00:22:16 ►
Yeah, I spent some time up at the Rockefeller Center Archives in Tarrytown, New York, because there was a chemist who had worked there in the 50s and early 60s who, you know, this is before psychotropic drugs were
00:22:31 ►
popular, right? We just began to use them in the late 50s in America. And nobody really understood
00:22:38 ►
the biochemistry of mental illness. Of course, we still don’t. But at the time, we weren’t even,
00:22:45 ►
of mental illness. Of course, we still don’t. But at the time, we weren’t even, we had many wacky theories about what mental illness was. And Dilworth Wayne Woolley, this incredibly promising
00:22:52 ►
chemist, began realizing, simply looking at molecular structures, that the LSD molecule was very similar to the serotonin molecule.
00:23:06 ►
And he made that connection. And very early, 1962, I believe it was,
00:23:13 ►
well, that’s when he published a book. He published his first papers in the late 50s,
00:23:18 ►
proposed a theory that mental illness was a serotonin dysfunction. And he realized that by looking at the molecule
00:23:25 ►
of LSD and saying, wow, well, if that can change somebody’s consciousness,
00:23:31 ►
this other molecule that looks very similar, serotonin, maybe that has something to do with
00:23:37 ►
mental illness. And it really was one of the very early biochemical theories about mental illness.
00:23:46 ►
And, you know, it’s gotten very little attention. I mean, you know,
00:23:49 ►
I was glad to publish a small paper about it because he was quite a smart chemist.
00:23:57 ►
He died in 1966 and maybe that’s why there wasn’t much more written about him,
00:24:01 ►
but his research definitely sparked some other research.
00:24:05 ►
And it’s a time period when the field of biochemistry was growing. And of course,
00:24:10 ►
out of that comes psychopharmacology. And you can draw a direct line literally from his research
00:24:17 ►
up through biochemical theories to the development of Prozac. So it’s interesting to think of that
00:24:24 ►
little role LSD plays in that history of psychopharmacology.
00:24:28 ►
Can you tell us more about your new publication, Psychedelic Feminism,
00:24:32 ►
A Radical Approach to Psychedelic Consciousness?
00:24:35 ►
Yeah.
00:24:50 ►
I began reading some various French feminism theory and publications.
00:25:07 ►
And as I read their descriptions of feminism, because it’s a very, very different view than American feminism, in the back of my mind, it was almost like this little voice just kept saying, wow, they are describing the psychedelic realm. You know, this all-embracing
00:25:14 ►
realm, a symbolic realm, not based on gender, right? Not based on this is what women are and this is what men are.
00:25:27 ►
But a way they describe the world as feminine is everything that’s been excluded
00:25:34 ►
from our modern society and what eco-feminists and some of the early feminists, French feminists would call the logic of domination.
00:25:49 ►
You know, and instead embracing what would otherwise be labeled irrational, embracing emotional, embracing intuitive, embracing fluidity, embracing the mystery of not knowing. You know, as opposed to a logic of domination
00:26:08 ►
in the Western world and the modern capitalist world that says, well, we value efficiency and
00:26:18 ►
linearity and hierarchy and production. You know, we want an outcome. We want to see that it’s rational and
00:26:27 ►
empirical. And I thought about this for a long time before I started writing about it,
00:26:35 ►
because I really felt like it spoke to a core of many psychedelic experiences.
00:26:52 ►
a core of many psychedelic experiences that, again, I feel like people are hungering for in their lives.
00:27:02 ►
I feel that people almost instinctively realize that logic of domination is not nurturing us.
00:27:06 ►
And in fact, it is excluding people and it’s detrimental.
00:27:13 ►
It’s fascinating to hear about the French ideas on feminism. I was wondering if you could give a small summary of the other two major threads of feminism you talk about as, in the context of
00:27:21 ►
a psychedelic feminism, ecofeminism and third wave feminism.
00:27:27 ►
Mm-hmm.
00:27:28 ►
Yes.
00:27:29 ►
And I need to bring that up to answer your question
00:27:32 ►
to kind of explain a little bit about how that wraps into psychedelic feminism.
00:27:38 ►
So these ideas of this French feminist about the symbolic meanings of feminism
00:27:43 ►
knit together with ecofeminism, which talks about
00:27:48 ►
our connection with nature as one of the most fundamental ways that the logic of domination
00:27:56 ►
has separated us, right? That it separated us from nature. And that deep down, if we can reconnect with nature, we’re reconnecting with the nature of ourselves and literally the wild within us, right?
00:28:11 ►
And again, all the stuff that, you know, we’ve excluded.
00:28:15 ►
And actually to bring mental illness back in, right, this is almost what’s at the core of diagnosis.
00:28:23 ►
What is normal?
00:28:24 ►
Well, normal is rational. Normal is
00:28:26 ►
consensus reality. And if you don’t fit in, maybe you’re diagnosed schizophrenic. So to get back in
00:28:33 ►
touch with a certain wildness, right, that reconnects us to nature and beyond is a core
00:28:42 ►
of ecofeminism. Third wave feminism is also just less ideologically rigid
00:28:48 ►
than kind of second wave feminism. You know, they’re willing to be more fluid. They’re willing
00:28:52 ►
to be more, embrace contradictions and embrace multiple identities and make room for questions
00:29:02 ►
that can’t even really be answered about identity and how, quote,
00:29:06 ►
the world should be, right?
00:29:07 ►
Maybe there is no one way the world should be.
00:29:10 ►
Maybe there are stories people tell.
00:29:13 ►
And so third wave feminism also embraces personal narrative as a way to avoid duality, right?
00:29:20 ►
Why split the world into here’s right, here’s wrong, when really all we have are experiences.
00:29:48 ►
at an organization called Cosmic Sister to specifically fund women to go to Peru to embark on ayahuasca retreats. And she uses the term psychedelic feminism to talk about how psychedelic
00:29:56 ►
work empowers women. And I think that’s absolutely correct. And I was really interested in expanding that idea. Like, okay, that’s great. Now let’s talk about how it empowers women. Like, what are women saying about how it empowers them? What are their stories?
00:30:29 ►
these kinds of feminism and really flesh out what psychedelic feminism could be and is developing into.
00:30:33 ►
So you jumped in and started listening.
00:30:35 ►
So I started listening.
00:30:38 ►
Yeah. And the more I listened, you know, I realized that I do feel like my initial impulse was correct. I mean, I’m not done my research yet, right? It’s still evolving. And yet, this idea that it’s really not gender-based, you know, there may be unique ways women work with psychedelic substances and unique pieces, especially if it’s an all-woman’s retreat, which was where I initially started.
00:31:30 ►
very similar kinds of consciousness and enter into these different ways of being.
00:31:34 ►
You know, I’m sure a lot of your listeners will be familiar with Bill Richard’s work. You know, when somebody has an experience of unitive consciousness and feels that interconnection,
00:31:43 ►
that’s not based in gender. That helps shift a whole worldview.
00:31:50 ►
Or as one of the women I interviewed said, once you’ve seen behind the veil and seen that we’re
00:31:56 ►
all connected, there is no going back. And I feel like that’s a very important shift,
00:32:02 ►
which is a core of all psychedelic experiences.
00:32:07 ►
And I would even say psychedelic feminism is the core of a psychedelic experience.
00:32:14 ►
Which is not to say that everybody who works with a psychedelic substance is going to have a certain kind of experience.
00:32:22 ►
And yet the possibility exists.
00:32:28 ►
have a certain kind of experience and yet the possibility exists so it’s more the idea that the the core of psychedelic experience is is feminine for its openness as an idea as a feeling
00:32:36 ►
archetype yes openness would be a lovely way to put it right it’s that openness and fluidity and questioning of many of the values that we’ve taken for granted.
00:32:49 ►
You know, does there even have to be a hierarchy?
00:32:51 ►
Why?
00:32:52 ►
You know, do human beings have to dominate nature?
00:32:56 ►
Why?
00:32:57 ►
You know, do we have to value human life above the environment?
00:33:08 ►
environment. If you begin to feel interrelated, I think you begin questioning all of these things that are kind of the machine our society runs on. And so to me, psychedelic feminism is
00:33:17 ►
also an intense challenge to the patriarchy. And again, I don’t say that as a masculine, you know, it’s not about men versus
00:33:25 ►
women. It’s about a system that has created these divisions and a deep value system that I feel we
00:33:36 ►
are beginning to question. I feel many people are beginning to question that value system these days and realize, you know, if we don’t value the earth,
00:33:47 ►
if we don’t value relationships and connections with other human beings and all things,
00:33:53 ►
we’ve gone astray and we’re destroying ourselves.
00:34:00 ►
The one hard part of it for me is it seems like the same kind of hierarchies and patterns build up around the psychedelic world, whether it be in the depths of a jungle or in the the boudoirs of Seattle or New York.
00:34:17 ►
And you and you still have this kind of ugliness that floats around next to any piece of power.
00:34:20 ►
um,
00:34:23 ►
ugliness that floats around next to any piece of power.
00:34:26 ►
And I know one,
00:34:27 ►
one old driver said,
00:34:27 ►
yeah,
00:34:28 ►
if you take a,
00:34:29 ►
if you’re an asshole and you take psychedelics,
00:34:31 ►
it allows you to be a psychedelic asshole.
00:34:33 ►
Right.
00:34:34 ►
Right.
00:34:37 ►
Well,
00:34:40 ►
and psychedelic substances are very complicated. They’re not Western medicines that solve a certain physiological condition or problem.
00:34:50 ►
They’re, of course, very related to what is the intention with which they’re taken? What is the
00:34:56 ►
context? And how does somebody take that experience and put it into practice, right? It’s, you know, it’s one thing for anybody to say,
00:35:09 ►
oh, I had this great psychedelic experience. I worked with plant medicines and I understood,
00:35:15 ►
you know, my place in the cosmos. Okay, cool. And what are you going to do with that,
00:35:22 ►
right? How are you going to, how are you going to work to make the world a better place with that revelation? I was just reading this morning this great essay by Jay Sevelius in shakruna.net about social justice. You know, how do all these psychedelic experiences translate into social justice? Right? How does it help people question what’s being left out?
00:35:47 ►
Who’s being left out? How does it help people re-envision beyond themselves?
00:35:55 ►
And actually that’s maybe my next section of my research. You know, the idea of, um,
00:36:01 ►
on the experience of an expanded self is really common in a psychedelic experience.
00:36:06 ►
Okay, how do people put that into practice in their daily lives when they transcend their own individual ego?
00:36:15 ►
It might feel great, might not.
00:36:18 ►
But what matters is how do they put it into practice the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year to re-envision a
00:36:26 ►
world that is interconnected. And for me, this is also a spiritual question. And many of the
00:36:35 ►
women I’ve interviewed emphasize that their work with psychedelics is often within a spiritual context. They want to grow personally, and they want to grow spiritually.
00:36:49 ►
What did you learn as you talked to different women about women-only psychedelic experiences and how they felt differently and how the rituals went and what it was like?
00:37:22 ►
Oh my gosh, so many things. Yeah, it’s been fascinating talking to women and then my anticipation also in a lot of these retreats and ceremonies. Again, you know, it’s not wholly different from how men do this. And I would love to embark on, you know, how in the world can I get a little view of men’s retreats. I’d love that. But many women do seem to say,
00:37:27 ►
I guess two factors at least seem to be a bit unique, that many women feel a need for safe
00:37:38 ►
space for women. And unfortunately, yes, there are people, whether they be, you know, in the U.S. or in other countries that use the vulnerability of a psychedelic experience and their power as a facilitator to impose themselves on women, right? And there have been cases of sexual abuse and, you know, daunting stories.
00:38:06 ►
We don’t really know how widespread it is, but it’s, even if it’s only once or twice, it’s too
00:38:12 ►
much. And so when women valuable piece for many women.
00:38:36 ►
Secondly, a lot of women and facilitators often talk about a playfulness that women seem to bring to the sphere,
00:38:47 ►
that when it’s only women, they often find it more,
00:38:52 ►
the whole retreat is more spontaneous and more fluid and more intuitive, actually.
00:39:00 ►
You know, they may have a certain agenda laid out, but it just doesn’t happen that way.
00:39:04 ►
You know, it’s, they’ve learned to just go with the flow. And again, I don’t know how different
00:39:10 ►
that is from men-only retreats because they’re, you know, I don’t know if it’s a gender-based
00:39:14 ►
thing. I just know what people have told me. We’re using the terms men and women here. And
00:39:22 ►
what about for the queer folks who find themselves somewhere on a sliding scale
00:39:27 ►
between or on a different scale entirely um how have you seen those uh complexities of gender and
00:39:35 ►
sexuality embraced by these spots where they’re trying to create a safe container but also
00:39:40 ►
i’m sure want to be open and open-minded.
00:39:48 ►
Yeah. Oh, another great question.
00:39:55 ►
And I really wish there was more attention to this question in the psychedelic community and in psychedelic research.
00:40:13 ►
I have – unfortunately, I have not interviewed a lot of either non-binary people or, you know, most of the people I’ve interviewed identify as straight women.
00:40:15 ►
And I will add straight, white, middle class women.
00:40:26 ►
And I feel like there is so much more work to be done with other, you know, I think all these identities are fluid and we’re beginning to recognize that in society. And I wish there was more attention paid to how is work being done by
00:40:34 ►
other individuals who have other identities. I would admit, I don’t know a ton about that.
00:40:39 ►
I haven’t gotten to that yet. I hope I do. I hope I can.
00:40:47 ►
Yeah. I just, I fear it’s another blind spot out there, the psychedelic community where we could be more open and do things.
00:40:52 ►
Yeah. You know, it’s funny. I was, I was thinking the other day about William Burroughs,
00:40:56 ►
Yahé letters when he went to Peru and drank ayahuasca and he talks about turning into
00:41:01 ►
other races and other genders and his ayahuasca experience.
00:41:06 ►
And again, a psychedelic experience has the potential to break down all those dualities.
00:41:16 ►
And I think it’s a rich area that we can all learn a lot from.
00:41:21 ►
What did the women say about the lessons they take away and the way they,
00:41:28 ►
as you said earlier, the Houston Smith quote fits well of, we’re not looking for a bright flash
00:41:35 ►
of illumination. We’re looking for a steady abiding candle of light. And so what kind of
00:41:43 ►
lessons did you hear that people really got a
00:41:45 ►
chance to bring home and fundamentally change how they were living? I would say one of the
00:41:55 ►
biggest pieces is that so many women through their work with psychedelic substances and it’s a whole variety, right? I was
00:42:11 ►
really looking at a broad spectrum of ayahuasca, LSD, MDMA, right? I understand that is in some
00:42:18 ►
ways problematic because they are different substances and yet a lot of the work is often similar.
00:42:27 ►
And a lot of women talk about being empowered as women.
00:42:31 ►
And again, I don’t think this is necessarily unique to women.
00:42:35 ►
I don’t think it’s a gender thing.
00:42:37 ►
And yet I do think it’s particularly important for anybody, women or other people who have not felt empowered in their lives,
00:42:48 ►
right? That live in a culture that has not handed them, you know, a high place in the power
00:42:54 ►
structure. So I’ve heard amazing stories. I mean, literally, it may sound like a small shift,
00:43:01 ►
but women who say, you know, I had this experience and I kept working
00:43:07 ►
with it and I felt more confident in myself and my own ability to find answers within myself and
00:43:16 ►
listen to my inner voice and my own intuition. And I stopped being so afraid of my ex-husband.
00:43:24 ►
I was finally able to stand up to him,
00:43:26 ►
you know, maybe about a child custody issue or selling the house. And I’m thrilled that I hear
00:43:35 ►
these stories of how women put these lessons into practice in their daily lives, that it makes a
00:43:42 ►
difference for them in their relationships, at their jobs, with their families, that they feel they can be more authentic and feel bigger,
00:43:52 ►
feel they are more able to make their own way in the world and create their own realities.
00:44:02 ►
It’s a big thing for a lot of women I speak with.
00:44:06 ►
And it’s one of the really important points
00:44:08 ►
I feel like comes out of your publication
00:44:12 ►
is the dearth of representation
00:44:14 ►
of women as psychedelic explorers
00:44:17 ►
instead of being the good girls gone bad
00:44:21 ►
or trivializing it.
00:44:24 ►
There just aren’t that many great books out there
00:44:27 ►
about all of these amazing female writers and artists pushing the envelope.
00:44:35 ►
And doing research and taking part as healers and pioneers of exploration.
00:44:42 ►
Indeed.
00:44:42 ►
And in fact, if someone was listening and wanted to learn more, do you have a couple of favorite books that you would recommend for people who want to learn more about women in psychedelics and the history?
00:44:53 ►
You know, one book I’ve loved is called Sisters of the Extreme.
00:44:57 ►
I don’t remember the editors offhand, but it’s a kind of compendium of women’s experiences.
00:45:06 ►
I’m not thinking of anything else offhand.
00:45:10 ►
There’s another book called Daughters of Aquarius,
00:45:12 ►
which is about women in the 60s,
00:45:14 ►
which again, you’d think there would be
00:45:16 ►
a lot more attention paid to
00:45:17 ►
the countercultural women in the 60s,
00:45:20 ►
but there’s not even that much attention paid to them.
00:45:23 ►
You know, it really signals
00:45:24 ►
how women have, you know, how women’s stories have been left out of history.
00:45:31 ►
Yeah, especially the Women of the Extremes book is just – because it’s simply the writings from the women is what I feel like makes it so powerful.
00:45:47 ►
like makes it so powerful and you know thinkers like ann shulgin and kat harrison uh they’re better deeper thinkers on this stuff than almost anybody out there you know certainly the people
00:45:52 ►
are on stage all the time you know and all the a lot of the researchers doing the very basic
00:45:56 ►
research you know that it’s not the right mindset for this and something about that not female but
00:46:03 ►
feminine mindset around this i I mean, I,
00:46:05 ►
it does make sense what you’re saying. I feel it. Well, I would also add, you know, I am all for
00:46:14 ►
the amazing research that is being done now at Johns Hopkins and NYU. And, you know, it’s very
00:46:21 ►
important to get empirical evidence to convince the medical establishment and convince the mainstream that these are valuable substances, you know, when used carefully.
00:46:33 ►
And yet, I also feel there’s a really important voice to be heard in the underground.
00:46:39 ►
And it’s a difficult voice to record because, you know, it’s still illegal to work with these substances in the
00:46:46 ►
U.S. You know, by nature, you have to be, you know, you have to, you know, I had to jump through a lot
00:46:54 ►
of hoops to get IRB approval. Of course, I want to maintain privacy and confidentiality for all
00:47:00 ►
the women I interview. And yet, it’s almost as if those voices from the underground
00:47:07 ►
have the freedom to do and say whatever they want, because there are no strictures of the
00:47:17 ►
institution, right? And, you know, even I have found it a bit frustrating, some of the methodology
00:47:23 ►
I’ve had to stick with in the protocols
00:47:25 ►
you know
00:47:26 ►
I feel that pressure of the patriarchy
00:47:28 ►
like here’s how you have to do your research
00:47:30 ►
in order for it to be considered
00:47:32 ►
respectable
00:47:33 ►
and that’s fine
00:47:37 ►
but
00:47:38 ►
there’s a whole world out there
00:47:40 ►
in the underground
00:47:41 ►
that is experimenting and going into realms
00:47:44 ►
and producing
00:47:47 ►
amazing amounts of narratives. And we can learn so much from that,
00:47:54 ►
in addition to all the empirical valid institutionally sponsored research.
00:48:02 ►
That was one of the last questions I wanted to ask was if we could get
00:48:06 ►
you an IRB approval for anything and a nice healthy grant for travel, where would you most
00:48:14 ►
like to be able to get access to? You know, for your next round of research, what kind of
00:48:19 ►
communities and spots would you like to see where people are gathering?
00:48:27 ►
Wow.
00:48:30 ►
I think in my wildest dreams, I would go to Mongolia.
00:48:35 ►
You know, I would love to see how women shaman in Mongolia are doing their work.
00:48:42 ►
Because I think also cross-cultural is very important.
00:48:46 ►
And there are a lot of questions, certainly, especially working with plant medicines, you know, how are they being adopted and adapted into the U.S.?
00:48:54 ►
You know, are they being appropriated? Are they being used respectfully? Are other traditions
00:48:59 ►
being viewed respectfully? It’s a very important issue and cross-cultural research is really important.
00:49:08 ►
So yeah, I would love to be able to do more traveling outside the U.S.
00:49:15 ►
as well as continue looking at the underground in the U.S. because I feel like there’s a
00:49:19 ►
ton of valuable, interesting stuff going on here.
00:49:22 ►
Yeah, it must be fascinating to see the scenes that you got to see
00:49:26 ►
during this research. I really appreciate in your article that you included a run through of what a
00:49:33 ►
true psychedelic feminist retreat looked like and what people went through there.
00:49:40 ►
I was curious about kind of the array of psychoactives that were there.
00:49:45 ►
What did you see the most of in terms of what resonated with the people you were interviewing?
00:49:54 ►
You know, I have a theory that different people really do resonate with different substances.
00:50:03 ►
You know, for some people it’s mushrooms and they just,
00:50:08 ►
they take mushrooms in their home. I mean, I learned, I actually, I learned this early on
00:50:13 ►
as I was learning about substances. You know, there are people who the first time they do
00:50:18 ►
heroin, they say, I felt right for the first time in my life, I felt right. And clearly there’s something about their
00:50:26 ►
physiology, their psychology, their spirituality, you know, it’s mysterious. They have a certain
00:50:32 ►
kinship with that substance, right? I’m not saying it’s good or bad. I’m simply saying
00:50:37 ►
people often recognize, right? They have a flash of recognition. You know, for some people it’s LSD, for some people it’s
00:50:46 ►
mushrooms, for some people it’s ecstasy or MDMA, for some people it’s ayahuasca. You know,
00:50:54 ►
other people drink ayahuasca, nothing happens. And they say, eh, you know, it’s not my thing.
00:50:59 ►
It’s not my plant to work with. So my theory is that it’s really different for everybody and people have different resonances.
00:51:06 ►
That’s a really good word for it.
00:51:09 ►
There’s a theory by the drug writer, Victor Pellevin.
00:51:13 ►
Not so much a theory, it’s just a line he threw out because he’s a crazy drug writer
00:51:16 ►
that your first experience of drugs and sex will forever flavor the rest.
00:51:22 ►
And so whenever it goes right that first time, you’ll never forget and you always kind of
00:51:26 ►
want to repeat that one forever.
00:51:31 ►
Yeah, there’s something about humans, you know, their neurology does tend to imprint
00:51:35 ►
certain things, although it’s a bit mysterious why certain people imprint certain things
00:51:40 ►
and other people don’t.
00:51:43 ►
You know, I’ve been reading a ton about trauma also to
00:51:45 ►
understand because a lot of the psychedelic work, people find it very valuable for healing trauma,
00:51:53 ►
past trauma. And it’s super interesting to find that some people can have experiences
00:51:58 ►
that made a deep, deep impression on them. And other people have similar experiences and it really makes very little impression.
00:52:07 ►
So I feel it’s always really important
00:52:11 ►
to keep a kind of psychocultural biological model in mind
00:52:16 ►
that it’s never one factor.
00:52:19 ►
It’s never just biology.
00:52:20 ►
It’s never just psychology.
00:52:21 ►
It’s never just the cultural moment.
00:52:24 ►
It’s the interplay between all of those things, the dialogue that happens. And we can throw in spirituality also, certainly.
00:52:44 ►
with or without training, is the screening for trauma.
00:52:47 ►
Because I do think it’s very true these can be so powerful for trauma.
00:52:53 ►
But for very deep trauma, you need someone who knows how to hold that space. And to have someone show up at a ceremony can be so damaging.
00:52:59 ►
Did you see much in the way of pre-screening and watching for that
00:53:03 ►
and trying to make sure everyone’s –
00:53:06 ►
the psychotropic medicines they’re already taking were okay
00:53:10 ►
and that their mental state was okay.
00:53:13 ►
Oh, I think you are absolutely right to point out that this is important.
00:53:18 ►
And especially in the underground,
00:53:22 ►
I feel some people are more diligent than others.
00:53:28 ►
And, you know, another, actually another book that’s been very influential for me was Rachel Harris’s Listening to Ayahuasca.
00:53:33 ►
And she describes some concerns about the work really nicely. You know, it is important to work in a context where certainly the facilitators are experienced,
00:53:50 ►
know what they’re doing, know the risks involved, because of course there are risks.
00:53:55 ►
You know, just like there are risks with psychotherapy, just like there are risks with any medical
00:54:00 ►
procedure, there are risks with psychedelic work.
00:54:03 ►
And those questions about what medications are
00:54:06 ►
you on? Can there be interactions? What is your past history of trauma? What are you working with?
00:54:12 ►
What’s your spiritual practice? That’s a really important one. Do you have a practice that can
00:54:18 ►
support you as you integrate this work into your life? do you have a community that can support you as you move forward and try to incorporate this work into your life?
00:54:30 ►
Those are really important questions.
00:54:33 ►
Yeah, and they really speak to the need for wise access to these drugs.
00:54:47 ►
these drugs. I don’t know, do you, I was wondering if you had any theories for, if you were put in charge of how these things might be allowed to be distributed, if you’d have any thoughts on
00:54:51 ►
the rules and regulations of psychedelics in a sane society, if you were allowed to be put in
00:54:57 ►
charge of Huxley’s Island, if you had any ideas how it would look.
00:55:03 ►
That is not actually something I’ve thought through yet,
00:55:06 ►
simply because I’m not…
00:55:08 ►
I haven’t come to my own conclusions yet
00:55:10 ►
about any kind of end point.
00:55:14 ►
Maybe there is an end point. I don’t know.
00:55:16 ►
I’m not even wholly convinced the world’s going to continue
00:55:20 ►
as it is in the next few decades,
00:55:22 ►
and maybe that’s okay.
00:55:24 ►
as it is in the next few decades, and maybe that’s okay.
00:55:31 ►
I like the idea of an awakening consciousness and people becoming aware of their interconnection
00:55:36 ►
and really the importance of choosing to move through the world
00:55:43 ►
from a place of love.
00:55:44 ►
the importance of choosing to move through the world from a place of love.
00:55:50 ►
And yet, I’m one puny little human here.
00:55:52 ►
What in the world would make me think I know the answer?
00:55:54 ►
I don’t know.
00:55:57 ►
You know, it’s… I hope the collective voice can come up with something wise.
00:56:01 ►
Excellent answer.
00:56:03 ►
And so, for the last question, if the world does keep continuing on decently for a couple decades, what strands of research are you most excited about pursuing? for personal and spiritual growth. I would love to expand that to men so I can see how the stories compare.
00:56:30 ►
I would like to dig deeper
00:56:33 ►
into literally the creation of consciousness
00:56:37 ►
and how consciousness is enculturated.
00:56:44 ►
Again, my interest in individuals changing their worldview and their
00:56:52 ►
consciousness is linked to how is that going to play out on a cultural level?
00:57:00 ►
I’m all for individuals awakening, and yet I feel it’s really important for us to not stop there.
00:57:10 ►
I feel it’s important for us to start re-envisioning what world do we want to create?
00:57:15 ►
What world do we want to live in?
00:57:18 ►
So again, I’m not, I don’t think I have the answer,
00:57:21 ►
but I think it’s important for us as a we, as a collaboration, to start really carefully considering how do we move forward and re-envision a world in which we’re all interconnected and care about each other and the earth.
00:57:40 ►
Amen.
00:57:41 ►
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us and talking about more about
00:57:45 ►
your work. Thank you. Yeah, I really wanted to say thank you. It’s so nice to have somebody
00:57:50 ►
interested and asking great questions and listening. So thank you. All right. Dr. Kim Hewitt,
00:57:55 ►
you can find the work online and we’ll put some links to the best stuff that we can in the episode
00:58:01 ►
notes. And thank you so much for your work and for talking with us.
00:58:05 ►
Yeah, thank you.
00:58:14 ►
And now here is some information about an interesting series
00:58:15 ►
of psychedelic events in Manhattan
00:58:17 ►
that will take place
00:58:18 ►
during the first seven days
00:58:19 ►
of October 2018.
00:58:21 ►
And if you’re within driving distance
00:58:23 ►
of the city at that time, my guess is
00:58:26 ►
that you’ll want to attend at least one of these events. Maybe it’ll be the one on October 3rd,
00:58:31 ►
the Wednesday night session that features Dennis McKenna and Robert Barnhart as speakers.
00:58:36 ►
So if you’re interested in meeting these two elders, well, that would be a perfect place to do
00:58:41 ►
so. Now here’s our conversation about the New York Psychedelic
00:58:45 ►
Film and Music Festival. Tell me about the festival that’s about to take place here in
00:58:51 ►
New York City. Right. It’s a festival that’s going to run for seven days, from Monday through
00:58:58 ►
Sunday. And it focuses on films, lectures, music.
00:59:07 ►
It covers a full gamut of the psychedelic experience,
00:59:10 ►
not necessarily only confined to ingestibles,
00:59:16 ►
but also films and music, anything that alters one’s consciousness.
00:59:22 ►
So we’re trying to pass a wide net out there
00:59:26 ►
to really pick up those who are interested
00:59:28 ►
in altering their consciousness,
00:59:31 ►
either through music, art, film, or psychedelics.
00:59:35 ►
Yeah, you know, looking at your schedule,
00:59:38 ►
I think we should let people know
00:59:39 ►
that this isn’t quite the kind of a schedule
00:59:42 ►
like a normal festival where you’d go and camp
00:59:44 ►
and spend the whole week there.
00:59:46 ►
You’ve got this at various times.
00:59:48 ►
So this is sort of like a working person’s festival that you don’t have to quit your job to go to it.
00:59:52 ►
Is that right?
00:59:53 ►
Exactly.
00:59:54 ►
That’s how we wanted to set it up, especially if you’re in the tri-state area where you have limited time.
00:59:59 ►
We structure in such a way that you could actually go and at least attend one of those functions during the week,
01:00:07 ►
and not the opening feature documentary shot through on Monday,
01:00:13 ►
or maybe if you have a little more time on Saturday.
01:00:16 ►
So we kind of work around people’s schedule.
01:00:18 ►
Not everybody’s got time to take off a whole week, or even a few days these days.
01:00:23 ►
Time is a valuable commodity, So we work around that.
01:00:27 ►
I think that’s a really great idea. You know, I just, last weekend,
01:00:30 ►
I was up in Washington on Orcas Island at their music and arts festival.
01:00:36 ►
And, you know, that’s, that’s, it was incredible experience.
01:00:39 ►
It’s really wonderful to meet new people.
01:00:41 ►
And the nice thing about these festivals,
01:00:43 ►
whether it’s where you have to go
01:00:45 ►
somewhere in camp or whether it can be in the city where you can attend without so much expense and
01:00:50 ►
time involvement nonetheless you you’re in an environment with people who kind of are in the
01:00:56 ►
same mind state as you you know you they’re like thinking people so it’s much easier I think to
01:01:02 ►
find the others and strike up a friendship with these things.
01:01:05 ►
Is that what you found?
01:01:07 ►
Sure.
01:01:08 ►
I mean, the whole idea is to – well, New York is not known for psychedelics.
01:01:13 ►
I mean, there are pockets of psychedelic activity.
01:01:19 ►
But it’s not exactly a psychedelic town.
01:01:22 ►
I mean, you’re more likely to find people who are into this maybe in Vermont or Maine or even Milwaukee or even California.
01:01:30 ►
So New York is very much a corporate town.
01:01:31 ►
But I do think there are cells of psychedelia, whether it be in Brooklyn or Manhattan or the Bronx or Staten Island or even New Jersey.
01:01:44 ►
Well, you know, I’m wondering, how did you get the courage to do this?
01:01:48 ►
I’ve got several friends who are event producers,
01:01:51 ►
and, you know, you’ve got to put money up front and all that.
01:01:54 ►
What caused you to take the plunge on this?
01:01:57 ►
Well, you know, I met Dennis.
01:02:02 ►
I actually do another festival.
01:02:04 ►
I’ve been doing sort of a science fiction festival called the Philip K. Dick Festival.
01:02:09 ►
I’ve been doing this for the past seven years.
01:02:12 ►
So back in February, I met Dennis.
01:02:16 ►
We showed one of his documentaries called The Shaman and the Scientist.
01:02:22 ►
And during the course of our conversation, he suggested that we do a festival here in New York City.
01:02:27 ►
At first, I was very reluctant, thinking New York, psychedelics,
01:02:32 ►
it’s like, I don’t know, it’s like a water, an oil water.
01:02:36 ►
You know, they don’t mix too well.
01:02:37 ►
But he insisted that there is a very, there’s a strong nascent community.
01:02:43 ►
And I thought about it.
01:02:45 ►
And then I came across a few books, including the newest one, the bestseller.
01:02:52 ►
Why do I forget the name of the gentleman?
01:02:55 ►
The professor from Berkeley.
01:02:57 ►
Who’s How to Think.
01:03:01 ►
This is a new bestseller in psychedelics.
01:03:04 ►
And I thought, well, maybe it’s worth taking a shot
01:03:06 ►
so fortunately I have
01:03:08 ►
the generosity of a lot of
01:03:10 ►
these sponsors
01:03:12 ►
that are offering
01:03:14 ►
their space such as the
01:03:16 ►
assemblage or the
01:03:18 ►
museum of the moving image
01:03:20 ►
so that’s really cutting down significantly
01:03:22 ►
on a front
01:03:23 ►
front line investment.
01:03:26 ►
And we ought to put in a plug for Herbamonte.
01:03:29 ►
I see they’re your sponsor, and I use Herbamonte.
01:03:31 ►
I think it’s great.
01:03:32 ►
Oh, absolutely.
01:03:34 ►
So we’ll definitely have Herbamonte a couple nights, actually.
01:03:38 ►
We’ll be serving it, and hopefully that will get people alert and focused on the night’s activities.
01:03:44 ►
get people alert and focused on the night’s activities.
01:03:47 ►
Now, from the people that listen to my podcast,
01:03:50 ►
they will know Dennis McKenna for sure.
01:03:52 ►
They may not know about Robert Barnhart.
01:03:54 ►
You want to talk about him a little bit?
01:04:00 ►
Well, Robert sent me a documentary called A New Understanding. And he was, along with Dennis, is a member of the Hefter Institute.
01:04:06 ►
and he was, along with Dennis, is a member of the Hefter Institute, and he was instrumental in descheduling psilocybin from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2, which now it automatically
01:04:15 ►
is open to more medicinal research.
01:04:19 ►
I mean, clearly all Schedule 1 substances are regarded as, from the point of view of, I guess, the government,
01:04:27 ►
there is no research, no funding.
01:04:31 ►
There’s no medicinal value, so it’s really tough to get approval for that.
01:04:36 ►
I also know that I believe Robert Bernhardt’s also on the board of directors of MAPS, which
01:04:40 ►
will be interesting.
01:04:42 ►
That, exactly. So he’s very influential. And we’ll definitely
01:04:45 ►
have him and Dennis on Thursday at the assemblage, Thursday, October 4th. It will be an evening with
01:04:55 ►
Dennis McKenna and Robert Barnhart. And let me let me just say a word right now that that I don’t
01:05:00 ►
know Robert, but I know Dennis. And before and after the presentation, he’s such a nice guy.
01:05:06 ►
If you’ve ever wanted to meet one of the McKenna brothers, there’s only one left.
01:05:09 ►
And this would be a great opportunity if you’re anywhere near Manhattan to get in there and see him.
01:05:13 ►
And, you know, he’d be happy to sit down and talk with you.
01:05:15 ►
He’s just a regular guy.
01:05:18 ►
Well, he’s one of those people who really walks his talk.
01:05:22 ►
Yeah.
01:05:21 ►
who really walks his talk.
01:05:26 ►
I mean, I’ve ran across people in psychedelics who extol the virtues of the DMT experience,
01:05:31 ►
but yet I find that they’re very much ego-driven
01:05:33 ►
and control freaks.
01:05:35 ►
So I thought you have to walk your talk in this business,
01:05:38 ►
especially in psychedelics.
01:05:40 ►
I mean, it’s okay if you’re an academic
01:05:41 ►
or if you’re a businessman and be ego-driven,
01:05:45 ►
but if you’re promoting an expanded view of consciousness that is not so much subject to left-brain limitations,
01:05:53 ►
I think the person should become a role model, and Dennis is the perfect role model.
01:05:58 ►
He’s such a good guy, very easygoing, very helpful.
01:06:02 ►
If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have, we wouldn’t be doing this festival.
01:06:05 ►
But that should be a great presentation.
01:06:07 ►
And that’s on Thursday, October 4th, correct?
01:06:12 ►
Exactly.
01:06:13 ►
And by the way, if you can get a recording of it,
01:06:17 ►
I’d love to play it here in the salon.
01:06:19 ►
So people will realize where it came from.
01:06:23 ►
And maybe by next year or two, we can get you even a larger audience.
01:06:28 ►
Absolutely.
01:06:29 ►
I definitely want to make sure I have one for you and for our own YouTube channel.
01:06:37 ►
And you might want to say a little bit about the music that’s going to be on at least three nights, I know.
01:06:44 ►
Exactly.
01:06:44 ►
So on Tuesday, well, let’s start out with Wednesday.
01:06:49 ►
A friend of mine reached out to me
01:06:51 ►
and told me that he knows Simon Boswell.
01:06:55 ►
And for those who are not familiar,
01:06:56 ►
they may be familiar with the films he’s scored.
01:06:58 ►
These are films that are sort of the paramount psychedelic films
01:07:02 ►
of the 80s and 90s.
01:07:04 ►
These include Sancta Sangre by Alejandro Todorovsky,
01:07:09 ►
Hackers, Hardware by Richard Stanley,
01:07:16 ►
even films by Danny Boyle.
01:07:21 ►
And he’s even worked for the Vatican.
01:07:23 ►
So Dario
01:07:25 ►
Gento. So,
01:07:27 ►
Simon is a very, very
01:07:29 ►
talented composer
01:07:30 ►
and this is his first
01:07:32 ►
U.S.
01:07:35 ►
appearance.
01:07:36 ►
When will he be appearing?
01:07:39 ►
He will be appearing
01:07:40 ►
Wednesday at
01:07:43 ►
10 o’clock at the Mercury L wednesday october 3rd at the
01:07:49 ►
mercury lounge in new york city and that would be a great place to go find the others i’ll tell you
01:07:54 ►
that well absolutely i mean he’s he’s one of a kind and uh he’s coming all the way from england
01:08:00 ►
with his band and it’s a it’s a privilege to have him open for us at the festival.
01:08:06 ►
You know, I also want to compliment you on including documentaries in your film listings.
01:08:13 ►
At the Imagine Festival I was just at, the documentary filmmakers that were there
01:08:20 ►
and they premiered their, well it wasn’t a premiere, but they showed their new film, Metamorphosis,
01:08:26 ►
but they’re the people that did the documentary called Occupy Love
01:08:30 ►
that I think a lot of us have seen that documented the Occupy movement.
01:08:35 ►
And so I think it’s really great that we’re getting psychedelic filmmakers
01:08:40 ►
not just doing creative and artistic artistic films but documentaries as well and
01:08:45 ►
that are pulling a lot of our history together and you have science fiction as well right
01:08:49 ►
we had yes we have science fiction we have science fiction mostly on saturday at the
01:08:55 ►
producers club uh we have three blocks of uh well actually two blocks of science fiction
01:09:01 ►
two two-hour blocks of science fiction and uh and uh of science fiction and Sacerdotal of Horror.
01:09:06 ►
So that’s also
01:09:08 ►
going to be a
01:09:09 ►
big splash.
01:09:11 ►
The documentary
01:09:13 ►
figures very prominently
01:09:15 ►
in our festival. We’re starting out with
01:09:18 ►
Luke Cote’s
01:09:20 ►
documentary
01:09:21 ►
called From Shock to Awe.
01:09:24 ►
We’re just an East Coast premiere.
01:09:27 ►
And it basically follows a few veterans who are suffering from PTSD,
01:09:38 ►
and they go to South America.
01:09:41 ►
One thing I think undergoes ayahuasca, an ayahuasca ceremony. And the
01:09:47 ►
other, I think it works with MDMA. Both of them recovered completely from complex PTSD,
01:09:56 ►
which is what they had. You know, at the festival I just came from, there were a number of military
01:10:04 ►
veterans there.
01:10:05 ►
And I really connected with a young man who was an Iraqi war veteran because I’m a Vietnam veteran.
01:10:10 ►
And I was able to use some of these medicines to really get back to centerline myself.
01:10:17 ►
And here’s a guy, different generation, different war from Kentucky.
01:10:22 ►
And he and I were like, I were like new best friends.
01:10:26 ►
And so these type of festivals bring people together that you normally wouldn’t kind of bump into,
01:10:32 ►
and I think it’s really important to stretch out a little bit and get to some of these in-person events.
01:10:38 ►
The Internet is great.
01:10:39 ►
Podcasting is wonderful, but you just can’t beat the person-to-person.
01:10:43 ►
They’re live.
01:10:45 ►
Exactly.
01:10:45 ►
In fact, on the subject of veterans, I’m actually doing a stage production of a play called Timothy X’s Psychedelic Journey from PTSD to Wellness.
01:10:58 ►
And one of the actors has actually served two tours of duty in Afghanistan.
01:11:04 ►
He’s a Marine.
01:11:05 ►
He’s going to be playing one of the roles. this is gonna be this is gonna be a live uh play correct a live play yes
01:11:11 ►
wow and this will also be this will also take place at the producers club so one of the actors
01:11:17 ►
um is uh it’s an afghan uh vet tutors marine and the other one is, well, he’s not a vet.
01:11:27 ►
His father and grandfather served in,
01:11:31 ►
his grandfather in World War II and his father in,
01:11:34 ►
I think it was in Iraq, I think Gulf War veterans.
01:11:39 ►
How can people go about finding out where it is
01:11:43 ►
and getting a ticket, things like that?
01:11:46 ►
Well, the best way to do this is to go to our website.
01:11:51 ►
And the name of the website is Psychedelic Film and Music Festival.
01:11:58 ►
And I’ll put a link to that in our program notes that this little conversation appears in, too.
01:12:05 ►
And some of these events are uh rsvp you don’t even have to pay like the play is actually uh uh it’s rsvp
01:12:12 ►
some of the events at cervantes so we’re making it so that the people there is absolutely no
01:12:18 ►
excuse for people not to want to attend now people some people sometimes have limited budgets or so on. We’re creating a structure that
01:12:26 ►
anyone should, who is interested in the psychedelic world, be able to attend with no issues.
01:12:34 ►
Yeah, and you know, instead of an airplane ride, it’s a subway ride for a lot of people, and
01:12:39 ►
well, we’re the New Jersey area, and all you can get in and by a train. So I think you’ve got a, the right location. And you know, I, while you,
01:12:46 ►
you say psychedelic, uh, New York city, isn’t real psychedelic,
01:12:50 ►
but of course that’s where Alex and Alison gray lived in Brooklyn for many,
01:12:53 ►
many years. And, uh, I’ve got, I’ve got a couple,
01:12:56 ►
I’ve got a friend lives in Manhattan who’s a long time psychedelic.
01:13:00 ►
And so, uh,
01:13:01 ►
I will be talking to him and some of my other friends and hope i can
01:13:05 ►
get a few of them out there to uh sort of show the colors for the psychedelic community because
01:13:10 ►
i think i think you’ve got a big underground community there in new york city and and in
01:13:14 ►
the boroughs that uh they don’t come out too often because you know there’s always the the issues
01:13:20 ►
yeah absolutely they’re there it’s just that they’re hard to reach.
01:13:25 ►
Right.
01:13:26 ►
They’re just different boroughs.
01:13:30 ►
And I think the real challenge in New York City is the skyrocketing real estate.
01:13:38 ►
Right.
01:13:39 ►
And that’s always a challenge to put together any event in this city because anything you do, it costs a lot of money,
01:13:46 ►
and it’s very hard to get any kind of freebies these days.
01:13:50 ►
But we worked around that.
01:13:52 ►
Fortunately, a lot of the people who supported us,
01:13:54 ►
they give us their space, and we’re working with them
01:13:57 ►
and making sure that the events are successful.
01:14:01 ►
Well, Dan, I really enjoyed talking to you.
01:14:04 ►
I’m going to get this
01:14:05 ►
out on a podcast next Tuesday. And I’m going to put it on the front end of the first of the
01:14:13 ►
Palenque Norte talks from this year. And I’m not quite sure who that’s going to be, but it’s going
01:14:17 ►
to be whoever had the most number of downloads last year. So I’ll put it on my most popular
01:14:22 ►
speaker there. And hopefully we’ll get a few
01:14:25 ►
more, a few of our fellow salonners from the Psychedelic Salon there, and if you get any
01:14:30 ►
interesting thing recorded that you think would work here in the salon, well, once you
01:14:35 ►
finish your event, I’ll have you come back here, and you can actually introduce the talk
01:14:40 ►
if we have one that we can play.
01:14:41 ►
That would be a lot of fun.
01:14:43 ►
Absolutely.
01:14:45 ►
to talk if we have one that we can play that would be a lot of fun absolutely i mean this is this will be in a it’s an event for every taste i mean whether from psychedelics to music to art to
01:14:51 ►
performance art to surrealism to magical realism all sorts that attempt to really connect with our
01:14:57 ►
with that part of us we’re just wiser and smarter so um hopefully uh people will get the message.
01:15:06 ►
And then if this takes off,
01:15:11 ►
we might be able to do a little tour of the country at the Touring Festival.
01:15:13 ►
That would be,
01:15:15 ►
that would be really cool to do that.
01:15:15 ►
And,
01:15:16 ►
you know,
01:15:21 ►
I hope you have a very successful event and I look forward to you and I connecting sometime here in the future,
01:15:23 ►
not too distant future.
01:15:24 ►
Well, thank you, Lorenzo.
01:15:27 ►
And I will definitely look forward to sending you that recorded version of
01:15:33 ►
Dennis and Robert.
01:15:35 ►
And then just maybe the beginning of something really great.
01:15:38 ►
Yeah.
01:15:39 ►
Yeah.
01:15:40 ►
Well, I really appreciate your work.
01:15:42 ►
It’s a risk.
01:15:43 ►
And I thank you for doing it well thank
01:15:46 ►
you and uh let’s let hope we can meet up meet again and take it from there i’m sure we will and
01:15:52 ►
namaste Thank you.