Psychedelic Salon

Guest speakers: Ram Das, Terence McKenna, and Angeles Arrien PROGRAM NOTES: “The thing that seemed to me so important about the psychedelic experience was that it happened to me. I wasn't reading John Chrysostom or Meister Eckhart. And so I assumed that I am a very ordinary person, therefore, if it happened to me it could happen to anyone.” --Terence McKenna “Psychedelics are a miracle, yes. They may not be the only miracle. I think they may have already done what they were to do. I think what is done is so much more powerful than anybody recognizes.” --Ram Das "I see all this destruction as just the process of transformation. The question is whether we'll keep it together in the process of transformation.” --Ram Das "So I really see the psychedelics as directly intervening in the core process, which is running us over the edge, which is our inability to connect with the consequences of what we're doing.” --Ram Das [Speaking of the Sixties: “The fact that they noticed us was because we were busy making statements, instead of just being it.” --Ram Das [McKenna] “So it isn't enough to just say, the system will take care of itself?” [Ram Das] “Well I am part of the system that is taking care of itself.” “I lead a continuous paradox that suffering stinks and suffering's great. And I live with both of those all the time.” --Ram Das “To me, the most amazing the most amazing transformation in my lifetime is not the revolution of the Sixties but the counter revolution of the Seventies, where they managed to put the cuckoo clock back together again” --Terence McKenna “I think that the crisis that came to Marxism is coming now to the RepubliCrat oligarchy in America.” --Terence McKenna “No more do we create cultural artifacts that are simply our furniture, but now it's our thoughts, our values, are embodied in this [digital] stuff.” --Terence McKenna Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Signs of Life: The Five Universal Shapes and How to Use Them By Angeles Arrien World Council of Indigenous Peoples

Guest speaker: Bruce Damer PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Bruce Damer.] “I think it's clear to everyone on the left, the right, the center, every walk of life, that we have to undo a mess that's been created, a tangled mess. And we have to remake the System. There's no way to reform the System. We must re-do it.” “If you put out a powerful vision, the universe just lines up the stones and the pebbles and allows you to walk toward it. As long as you're pure in that vision and you really vision it, and you really share it, it's amazing how these things come to pass.” “Silicon Valley and its progeny have reinvented the world, and [the tools they have created] are now the tools by which we will reinvent politics and the economy.” “The Occupy Movement is like the tip of an iceberg, but underneath the water is 95% of the volume of the discontent and of the volume of the powerful organizing.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option The Radical Remake Wiki Bruce Damer's Web Site The DigiBarn Computer Museum Indian Man, Jadav "Molai" Payeng, Single-Handedly Plants A 1,360 Acre Forest In Assam The Joe Rogan Experience

Guest speaker: Timothy Leary PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Timothy Leary.] “I don't even use the word 'United States'. If there is such a thing I'm not a part of it. I'm not an American, I'm a Californian, and maybe I'm a Southern Californian.” “I think any sensible person would do this, but since my 70s I have been planning, thinking about, my dying, because that's going to be the climax, the final going away party. And you can't believe the taboo when you start talking about how you're going to die and the ways of dying. You'll easily clear the cocktail party. No one wants to talk to you.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Archive of Timothy Leary in the Psychedelic Salon The Timothy Leary Archives Timothy Leary in Wikipedia

Guest speaker: Joanna Harcourt-Smith PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Joanna Harcourt-Smith.] “In my childhood, and in those [wealthy] circles, I never encountered compassion. If I ever encountered compassion it was from someone who was serving these people. And I wondered why that is. And this man said to me, 'Well, you see, the very, very rich have to kill compassion in their children. Every child is born innately compassionate, but they have to kill compassion in their children so that they don't give it [great wealth] away.' I mean, how could we own most of what is if we had compassion?” “Human beings have a right to change their consciousness, and it is unconscionable and absolutely wrong for any government or any person to stand in the way of someone choosing to change their consciousness.” “Once the System has you in their clutches there are no laws.” “A lot of times myth is stronger than reality. The mythological story endures. The personal story doesn't really make it, and some people are myths in their own lifetimes. Timothy Leary is one of these people.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: James Fadiman We are saddened to report that long time friend of the salon and psychedelic research pioneer extraordinaire, Gary Fisher has gone on to his next adventure. Archive of podcasts featuring Gary Fisher The Gary Fisher Page PROGRAM NOTES: “There is so much more psychedelic use in this country than any of us, even those of us who think we know a lot, are aware of. . . . According to [the government], 23 million Americans have used LSD since it became illegal. And that figure, because I've been tracking it, goes up 600,000 a year, pretty much rain or shine. So there's 600,000 people this year who are going to be taking, and that just deals with LSD, that doesn't deal with ecstasy or ayahuasca or anything else. But there's this growing, continual large number of people, and they tend to be better educated and brighter, and we do have research on that. So what I'm doing a lot with this book is say, 'Hey, it's OK to admit what is true, which is the person next to you at your work probably had some acid in their background just as you did.” -James Fadiman Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option JamesFadiman.com The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys By James Fadiman The Other Side of Haight: A Novel ENTHEOGUIDE.NET Meeting the Divine Within A Manual for Voyagers and Guides and Supplemental Information EROWID.ORG Documenting the Complex Relationship Between Humans and Psychoactives BOOKS By Matt Pallamary Myron Stolaroff and Gary Fisher talk about the legendary Al Hubbard

Guest speaker Bruce Damer takes us on a mental voyage around the solar system and shares a fascinating story of his encounter with a dodgy character. He discusses the complexities of the financial system and highlights nature's superior technology. The podcast also explores the significance of visions, reflections on the time wave theory, preserving psychedelic history, increased surveillance, Facebook's role, and the controversy of black bloc tactics.

Guest speaker: Lorenzo PROGRAM NOTES: Today's podcast picks up with the third section of the workshop that Bruce Damer and I led on January 28th. This section features my second presentation of the day in which I try to live up to the advanced billing for the workshop which read: “Lorenzo will take us from 2013 into the emerging era of cyber-enhanced humans, immersed in a meme-space stranger than we can suppose.” In the Occupy segment of the podcast I feature an interview with and a talk by Chris Hedges, including his criticism of the Black Bloc hooligans who are doing their best to destroy the Occupy Movement. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST Art by Randal Roberts (who provided the art for this podcast) Description of the elements in “Fawkes” by Randal Roberts Video of today's podcast What You Should Know About 2012: Answers to 13 Questions by John Hoopes, Ph.D.

Guest speaker: Bruce Damer PROGRAM NOTES: In today’s podcast we pick up with the next part of a workshop that was held on January 28, 2012 titled “Terence McKenna: Beyond 2012”. This section features Bruce Damer, who begins with his “Ode to Terence” [ In the Occupy segment I begin with a recap of what went down in Washington, D.C. the day of the eviction from McPherson Square. Also, I play a series of short audio clips. The first one is of a young man from San Diego who was speaking at the General Assembly that was held in the middle of K Street in Washington the evening after the McPhearson eviction. And while this segment also ends with a call to the barricades from Chris Hedges in different interview, between those two Hedges segments I play a three minute pep talk that Tony Benn gave to some of the occupiers in London the other day. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Links Mentioned In This Podcast The Adult Autism and MDMA/Ecstasy Study

Guest speakers: Bruce Damer and Lorenzo Hagerty PROGRAM NOTES: Today's podcast features the first of the recordings from last weekend's workshop (titled “Terence McKenna: Beyond 2012”) that Bruce Damer and Lorenzo led in the Los Angeles area on January 28, 2012. In addition to Lorenzo's remarks and some comments by those in attendance, three videos created by Bruce Damer were shown. Those videos are embedded below. The second part of the podcast is the Occupy Movement update, which features a conversation between Lawrence Lessig and Chris Hedges. During the course of their conversation they debate the relative merits of pushing for a Constitutional Convention verses non-violent civil disobedience. Also included is a sound bite from one of OccupyFreedomLA's live video feeds in which a speaker addresses the actions now being taken by those who are suffering from the foreclosure epidemic that is facing so many people in the U.S. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Video of the first session of the workshop Books mentioned in this podcast Land Without Evil: A Novel By Matthew J. Pallamary Death of the Liberal Class By Chris Hedges Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It By Lawrence Lessig OCCUPY SEGMENT: “The Occupy Movement seems deeply rational for not engaging in normal politics, because normal politics gets us Barack Obama.” -Lawrence Lessig “All of the correctives to American democracy came through movements that never achieved formal political power.” -Chris Hedges “Which in my mind means the system is not reformable but will have to be pushed aside. And I think in that sense the Occupy Movement is, in sort of classical terms, correctly defined as a revolutionary movement.” -Chris Hedges “The legislative branches, both at the state and the federal level, are wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporate state.” -Chris Hedges “But this is a moment, this is more the French Revolution moment. This is a moment when everything is falling apart at the same time, and it's another reason to be pushing on every front at the same time.” -Lawrence Lessig This is the YouTube video from which I extracted some of the audio for this podcast.

Guest speakers: Douglas Rushkoff, Antero Alli, Tiffany Lee Brown, and Joseph Matheny PROGRAM NOTES: The featured audio that I play in this podcast is part of a two-CD collection produced by Joe Matheny and given to the salon to podcast by the distributor, The Original Falcon Press, which you can find via originalfalcon.com. The voices you will here are those of: Douglas Rushkoff, Antero Alli, Tiffany Lee Brown, and Joseph Matheny. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option For the Occupy Segment, I first play a few minutes that I've taken from a three hour interview that Chris Hedges gave on CSPAN 2 on the first day of this year, and in it you will hear this Pulitzer Prize winning journalist explain how corporate personhood isn't just a threat to American Democracy, it is a threat to humanity itself. . . . Following that, I play a short speech for you that Senator Bernie Sanders gave on the Senate floor as he introduced an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will strip personhood from corporations. After those two kind of heavy duty pieces. I lighten it up with a two minute clip of country music star Willie Nelson and his wife reading a poem that he wrote about the Occupy Movement. Finally, I close with a song that was written and is sung by a young man from Salt Lake City named Noel. And this is from a YouTube video I found where Noel was singing on Day 1 of the Occupy Salt Lake City street theater. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ow4lxtzBlqw Books and links mentioned in this podcast “The Terence McKenna Experience” a new film by Ken Adams Pyramid Eclipse, a Symbiosis Gathering RAW week at boingboing.net A few random quotes from Robert Anton Wilson "A monopoly on the means of communication may define a ruling elite more precisely than the celebrated Marxian formula of monopoly in the means of production." "An Enlightened Master is ideal only if your goal is to become a Benighted Slave." "Belief is the death of intelligence." "Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil." "Horror is the natural reaction to the last 5,000 years of history." "Most of our ancestors were not perfect ladies and gentlemen. The majority of them weren't even mammals." "Nobody sees the obvious, nobody observes the ordinary. There are more miracles in a square yard of earth than in all the fables of the Church." “On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.” “Only the madman is absolutely sure.” “The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization.” “The border between the Real and the Unreal is not fixed, but just marks the last place where rival gangs of shamans fought each other to a standstill.” “The Right's view of government and the Left's view of big business are both correct.” “You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you.” “Of course I'm crazy, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.”