Psychedelic Salon

Guest speakers: Ann and Sasha Shulgin PROGRAM NOTES: "It’s amazing what children don’t know their parents do." . . .Sasha "Let me tell you, MDMA is an extraordinary psychotherapeutic drug." . . . Ann "I really cannot conceive of a color test that would show positive with 2C-B or 2C-I in urine because the amounts there are so small." . . . Sasha "There are many, many things that are potentially active as psychedelics and have not been assayed, not been tasted. The whole art of taking an unknown compound and beginning to find out what it’s action is going to be sounds naively simple. You just start taking more and more of it until you turn on. But the truth is your turn-on may be a convulsion. It may be sedation. It may be all kinds of other types of action. So you have to sneak up on a new compound. So if you are at all considering looking at these kinds of things, I stress: Be extremely cautious if they have not been taken in humans before. Preliminary animal screening, to me, is worthless." . . . Sasha "The hypnotic trance state is, I believe, fully as good as any drug in opening those doors inside a person’s psyche, and I do believe that instead of risking legal problems, you should go to a good hypnotherapist and find out how to discover yourself that way." . . . Ann "Sasha usually tries to remind people that it isn’t the drug that is giving you an experience, whether it’s one of love or anything else. It is your own psyche, the drugs act as keys to the inner doors. I mean, DMT will definitely open a different door than mescaline, but it’s all still what’s inside you." . . . Ann Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Books by Ann and Sasha Shulgin:  Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story  Tihkal: The Continuation

Guest speaker: Dr. Timothy Leary PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: The following quotes are by Dr. Timothy Leary.] "When the big quake comes, be on the California side!" "So the concept that developed at Harvard, then at Millbrook, and later it seemed to have moved out to other places, was the concept of serial imprinting. That for thousands of years the smartest women and men have known that through manipulating your nervous system by getting high in any way that you can you can suspend the old imprints and have a chance to start a new reality." "Your theory of evolution is the key to your own personal development, or your understanding of what’s happening around you. . . . Your theory of evolution determines, really, what kind of a life you’re going to lead." "Evolution is not accidental." "Every time you put your tongue in the mouth of a loved one, or vice versa, you are exchanging more information in one second than all the Libraries of Congress in history." "You either believe in nothing whatsoever than chance, or you’re going to believe in a biological intelligence which knows that she’s doing." "The point here is, if you’re going to feel ’synced’ you’ve got to be in a place where there are people who share your reality." "The way evolution works is this, evolution never tries to change grown ups. . . . Look in the dictionary for the word ‘adult’. You’ll find the word ‘adult’ is the past participle of the word ‘to grow’." "We didn’t grow from the apes. We refused to become apes." "What happened in the 1960s was this, the time had come to avoid terminal adulthood. . . . A generation of young people simply refused to buy the adult image, the adult model." "One of the messages that I have right now, the message is this: I don’t advocate anything, but I urge you to think it over. I urge you at all costs to avoid terminal adulthood." "When you look at a map that has got those hours, those meridians, those aren’t hours, those are centuries." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: The following quotes are by Terence McKenna.] "One has, you know, a window of opportunity somewhere between zip and a hundred to solve, or understand, or penetrate, or appreciate, or come to terms with the conundrum of being, this amazing circumstance in which we find ourselves, both individually and collectively." "The intellectual tension that seems to work its way through this society almost like fat through meat is the tension between scientific reductionism and the deeply felt intuition of most people that there is a spiritual dimension, or a hidden dimension, or a transcendental dimension." "So the conclusion that I reach, visa vie the individual and civilization, is this: Culture is not our friend. Culture is not your friend. It’s not my friend. It’s a very uncomfortable set of accommodations that have been hammered out over time for the convenience of institutions." "Culturally defined reality is some kind of intelligence test, and those who are joining are failing the test." "The imagination is a dimension of non-local information." "And so, these are the things, the exploration of which, the singing about of which, makes us human beings. The exploration of the universe of the unseen is the business of human beings." "And what is shamanism but philosophy with a hands-on attitude. Philosophy not made around the camp fire, but philosophy based on the acquisition of extreme experience. That’s how you figure out what the world is, not by bicycling around in the burbs, but by forcing extreme experience." "What they [psychedelics] cause is what I’m advocating, a fundamental revaluation of cultural values, because culture as we’re practicing it currently is causing a lot of pain to a lot of people, and animals, and ecosystems, none of whom were ever allowed to vote on whether they wanted this process to go in this direction." "What is happening, I think, it’s really bigger than psychedelics, it’s bigger than human evolution. We are not making the waves in this ocean. We are corks, riding the waves of the ocean. But we are privileged, by perhaps chance alone, to occupy a unique moment in the history of the universe. A moment when the universe goes through some kind of self-transforming, evolutionary, inflationary expansion. That’s what’s happening." "This is what I believe: That we are not pushed from behind by the casual unfolding of historical necessity, but that we are in the grip of an attractor of some sort, which lies ahead of us in time." "The shaman is a person who is able to transcend the dimensional confines of cultural existence. . . . Only the shaman knows that culture is a game. Everyone else takes it seriously. That’s how he can do his magic." "There is no contradiction between technology and spirit. There is no contradiction between the search for intellectual integration and understanding and the psychedelic experience. There is no contradiction between ultra-advanced hyperspacial cyber culture and Paleolithic archaic culture. We have come to the end of our sojourn in matter. We have come to the end of our separateness." "There is a morphological enfoldment occurring on this planet. It is bringing forth some entirely new order of being. We are a privileged part of this." "The plants are the pipeline into the Gaian intention. It’s just not a coincidence that these plants carry this immense spiritual message. They are the pipeline of Gaian intentionality." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia PROGRAM NOTES: In this podcast we hear a talk given at the World Psychedelic Forum in Basel, Switzerland in March of 2008. The speaker is the one and only Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia, who has been a legendary figure in the psychedelic world since the early 1960s. Here is part of what Wikipedia has to say about Mountain Girl: Carolyn Adams, (born May 6, 1946),[1] later known as Mountain Girl and Carolyn Garcia, was a Merry Prankster and the wife of Jerry Garcia. After growing up near Poughkeepsie, New York, Adams met Neal Cassady in 1964; who introduced her to Kesey and his friends, one of whom gave her the name "Mountain Girl". Cassady took her to La Honda, Ken Kesey’s base of operations, where she quickly joined the inner circle of Pranksters and was romantically involved with Kesey, having a daughter by him named Sunshine.[2] The Grateful Dead song "Here Comes Sunshine" may or may not be an allusion to Adams’ and Kesey’s daughter (the Dead were fond of lyrics having double, often personal meanings). Before actually marrying in 1981, Jerry Garcia and Adams had two daughters.[1] Garcia and Mountain Girl ultimately divorced in 1994,[1] however, they remained personal friends right up until Garcia’s death a few months later. In her talk, Mountain Girl told many stories linking her time with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters to the evolution of the Grateful Dead and her life with Gerry Garcia and the rest of the band. This is perhaps one of the best encapsulations of The Sixties you will hear. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Daniel Pinchbeck PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: The following quotes are by Daniel Pinchbeck at the Playalogue he led on August 29, 2007 at the Burning Man Festival. This Playalogue was held in the big yurt at the PodCluster in Black Rock City.] "I think there is a lot of evidence that suggests we’re in this kind of very critical sort of evolutionary window for the human species." "I really do feel that one of the critical things that is happening at Burning Man is a kind of conscious and subconscious interrogation of gender and sexuality." "What we have to consider is that if sexuality is this infinite spectrum, and everybody is highly unique in their sexuality, then to just have a social construct of monogamy is going to lead to a lot of anger, and frustration, and hostility." "In a lot of non-Western tribal cultures there is a kind of like a basic happiness that people have. Our culture is all about the pursuit of happiness, but at the core there’s a basic, kind of, general sense of insatiability and unhappiness." "I don’t think that the nuclear family is the natural model, or good model, for raising a child. I think, actually, the tribal community is the proper model." "And I think one question is really like is there a fixed human nature. And if there isn’t a fixed human nature, which I think is quite possible, then we can kind of reconfigure relationship patterns, relationship models, in almost any way." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speakers: Dr. Timothy Leary and Eldridge Cleaver PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: The following quotes are by Dr. Timothy Leary.] "We know that typically the real changes in human nature, the changes in human politics and economics and society, are brought about by two things: By people who have a map or a vision or a model of where we’re going to go, these are the philosophers. And then the technicians, the people who get together the printing presses, or the compasses, or the high technology that can take us where we want to go." "Viewed in the 1930s, when Einstein came to America, he was considered as far out as a crack dealer." "Heisenberg taught us to take the universe very personally … in both senses of the word." "So who? Who’s gonna prepare a civilization of factory workers and farmers and people who haven’t even got the Model T Ford yet? Who’s gonna prepare them for an Einsteinian, relativistic, quantum physical, ever-changing, probabilistic universe? Who? Well you know who you can count on at every time in human history when we had to make a big philosophic lurch forward. Who always came to the front and saved the day and made us feel happy and comfortable with a new future? I’m talking about those friends of ours who have always been around when we needed them, the musicians, and the artists, and the poets, and the writers, and the bards, and the performers, and the storytellers, and, OK, the minstrels, the rock n’ rollers. Right! The actors, the script writers." "The whole 20th Century, to me, is the story of how artists and writers prepared us to be comfortable in a quantum-physical world." "We’re talking about a generation of people who, since the time they were born, have been inundate by data, electronic data. To the Baby Boomers and subsequent generations electronic data is the ocean they swim in." "Of course, everybody got down on the poor doctor [Benjamin Spock]. He was blamed for the excesses of the sixties, ha ha. I was glad to have him get blamed otherwise I would have gotten blamed." "The psychedelic pudding hit the fan in the sixties when the Spock kids hit high school and college, and they wanted a gourmet education, and they wanted connoisseur sex. … Gee, we said you’re the best, but we didn’t realize that you guys would take us seriously." "The Cyber Society is a society made up of individuals who think for themselves, linked up with other individuals who think for themselves." "The Sixties were the adolescence of the Baby Boom." Following the talk by Dr. Leary I play a short personal message from Eldrige Cleaver to Timothy Leary that was recorded on January 7, 1995. The message Cleaver was so intensely trying to convey to his friend, Tim Leary, was that he believed it was imperative that the U.S. elect a woman president in the year 2000. Unfortunately, neither of these two important historical figures are alive today, and thus we can only speculate as to what they would think about the state of affairs in 2008. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option KMO’S C-Realm Podcasts KMO’S Personal Blog The 4th International Amazonian Shamanism Conference "Flashbacks: An Autobiography"by Timothy Leary "The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time" by Hunter S. Thompson And by William Gibson: Neuromancer Mona Lisa Overdrive Count Zero

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna and Matt Pallamary NEW! ... Two of Matt Pallamary's books are now available on Kindle: Spirit Matters ... Kindle Edition Land Without Evil ...

Guest speaker: Alicia Danforth PROGRAM NOTES: Alicia Danforth, who is Dr. Charles Grob’s research assistant, leads a Playalogue at the 2007 Burning Man Festival. In this wide-ranging group conversation, Alicia skillfully guided our eclectic audience through the intricacies of FDA-approved psychedelic research. "I’m hoping to spark ideas in other people’s minds about what can be done to get a foothold in advancing psychedelic research." –Alicia Danforth "I tend to think of music [in a therapeutic psychedelic session] as a little boat you can hop on when you’re journeying and ride to wherever you need to go." –Alicia Danforth. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option ALSO SEE: Ecstasy : The Complete Guide : A Comprehensive Look at the Risks and Benefits of MDMA by Julie Holland, M.D.

Guest speaker: Dr. Timothy Leary PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotes below are by Dr. Timothy Leary.] "Psychedelic drugs are to the human mind today what the discovery of the microscope was to medicine and biological science three or four hundred years ago. Psychedelic drugs expand and speed up consciousness. They are going to bring about a tremendous change in our society, in our view of man and our way of life in the future." "When you take LSD you do go on a trip. It’s a voyage. It’s the most ancient voyage that man has ever known, the one beyond your mind and your current tribal situation into the incredible possibilities which lie inside. So it’s a fair statement to say an LSD voyage is a trip." "A chemical age is going to have a chemical sacrament." "Every great breakthrough in religion and science has always involved a new method of bringing into consciousness what you couldn’t see before, the telescope, the microscope. And you remember, the fellow that developed the telescope back in Florence a few hundred years ago got into the same sort of trouble with society that we’re in today. Any new instrument which opens up consciousness threatens the establishment." "It takes a long time to learn to use LSD. It’s no shortcut. It’s no instant mysticism. It’s no instant psychoanalysis. It’s tough, hard work." "Stay away from it unless you’re willing to take LSD in a state of grace for serious and important purposes." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Erik Davis PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotes below are by Erik Davis.] "The imagination is a key, and pivotal interface, between human beings and the natural world." "Any kind of restorative, sustainable renewal of our planet has to exist on the imaginal realm as well as the realm of technical solutions, political developments, and technological fixes. It’s a multi-dimensional problem." "So the imagination is really the core, the source, the matrix of our multi-dimensional experience." "The creative imagination functions in a different way than religious beliefs allow us to engage with." "If we’re into integration now, with science and technology, that means that we can’t avoid that skeptical voice [of scientific, existential materialism]. We have engage and learn to integrate that skeptical voice as well. [To think] it’s our job to just say ‘No. Those science people they don’t understand. They’re locked in rationality. It’s actually this mystical world, this magical world’, is a profound failure, in my opinion, of our role. And the more we go into loosy-goosy mystic New Age stuff as a concretized belief system, rather than as an open, playful world that adds richness to our lives the way that poetry does, or the way that religious imagery does, drawing us to those higher realms but holding them lightly so that we can still engage a skeptical materialist, for me, that’s what integration means." "The new paradigm is that there’s not a paradigm." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Erik Davis’ Web Site: Techgnosis