Psychedelic Salon

Guest speaker: Gary Fisher PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 04:20 Gary tells about his encounter with an extraterrestrial. 07:11 Stories of another encounter with otherworldly entities, this time in the desert. 09:40 The story about a man who always longed for a UFO experience. 11:36 Gary tells why he thinks extraterrestrials are visiting the Earth. 14:33 Gary tells the story of when Timothy Leary was driving him to their compound in Mexico, and Gary suddenly had an intuition that reflected back to both a psilocybin experience and a past life experience. 17:07 Gary Fisher: "In the esoteric world those are called ’sleeping karmas’, and you’ll run into a person who’s happy all the time, everything goes well for them. They don’t have any hysterics in their life, and they’re having sleeping karma. They just come in to relax." 18:15 Gary tells the story of his Caribbean adventure with Tim Leary and company. 26:55 Beginning of a discussion about Alan Watts and the time he went to Mexico for a psychedelic mushroom session with Maria Sabina and ended up getting married to Mary Jane on the spur of the moment. 29:46 Gary Fisher: "At one dinner this very proper lady said, ‘Well Doctor Watts, what do you hope to gain from your next experience with LSD?’, and Alan said, ‘Another book!’ " 35:29 We begin a brief discussion of Tim Leary. . . . Gary Fisher: "Well, he was a drunken Irishman with a silver tongue. . . . He wanted to be rich, and he wanted to be famous. Those were his two goals in life." 44:26 Gary discusses several issues relating to the age at which it may be appropriate to begin using psychedelics. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Gary Fisher PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) Our conversation began by looking at photos of some of Gary’s former students, patients, and famous friends. 13:12 We begin a discussion of Gary’s work in the 1960s with severely emotionally disturbed children suffering from variants of childhood schizophrenia and infantile autism who he treated with LSD and psilocybin. 16:36 Al Hubbard is discussed 18:23 Gary Fisher: "All our model was from Hubbard, because Hubbard was the guy who taught my brother-in-law and Duncan Blewett. . . . He was the father of all this stuff. . . . He was the one who introduced Osmond and Hoffer to this whole approach." 25:45 Gary provides more details about his work with the severely disturbed children, beginning with the story of Nancy’s nearly miraculous improvement after being treated with LSD. 35:59 Gary describes the deplorable conditions in the public hospital wards where severely disturbed children were being held. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option THE LINKS BELOW will take you to several articles by Dr. Fisher that have been posted on the Web stie of the Albert Hofmann Foundationin The Gary Fisher Collection: Treatment of Childhood Schizophrenia Utilizing LSD and Psilocybin by Gary Fisher, Ph.D. A Note of the Successful Outcome of a Single Dose LSD Experience in a Patient Suffering from Grand Mal Epilepsy Gary Fisher, Ph.D. Some Comments Concerning Dosage Levels Of Psychedelic Compounds For Psychotherapeutic Experiences [Print-friendly copy] by Gary Fisher, Ph.D. Death, Identity, and Creativity by Gary Fisher, Ph.D. Successful Outcome of a Single LSD Treatment in a Chronically Dysfunctional Man by Gary Fisher, Ph.D. The Psychotherapeutic Use Of Psychodysleptic Drugs by Gary Fisher, Ph.D. and Joyce Martin M.D. Psychotherapy for the Dying: Principles and Illustrative Cases with Special Reference to the use of LSD by Gary Fisher, Ph.D.; Assistant Professor, Division of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, School of Public Health. University of California, Los Angeles Counter-Transference Issues in Psychedelic Psychotherapy by Gary Fisher, PH.D

Guest speaker: Charles S. Grob, M.D. PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 03:20 Charlie talks about how he got into psychedelic research. 07:47 Charlie: "My interest has always been in studying the potential therapeutic effects of MDMA. I’ve always had concerns about use and abuse of the recreationally drug ecstasy. Now early on in the history of this drug, ecstasy was almost always MDMA, but over the years there has been more and more drug substitutions, to the point where now with ecstasy I think there’s less reliability in regards to it being the drug you think it is than for any other drug I’m aware of." 09:25 Charlie describes the process of obtaining approval to conduct clinical research using psychedelic drugs. 16:29 Charlie:"If you have some ambition to work in this area you have to develop certain character qualities, like having a lot of patience and persistence." 18:13 Charlie discusses the relative merits of MDMA vs. psilocybin in the treatment of end stage cancer patients who are also suffering from anxiety. 22:33 Charlie: "So MDMA might turn out to be a very valuable compound to use with a chronic PTSD patient group, but in a medically ill group, over the years I began to question that and decided that psilocybin would be significantly safer." 20:43 Charlie begins his discussion of the human safety study of MDMA that he conducted. 23:03 Charlie: "A relative risk in regards to recreational use of MDMA is that a lot of people are oblivious to the fact that different drugs can interact with one another, and people who may have medical conditions, on medication, who then take ecstasy, which is often, though not always, MDMA, that there may be a drug-drug interaction which can cause injurious effects." 28:50 Lorenzo changes the subject by asking, "What do you tell your kids other than ‘just say no’?" . . . Charlie: "Often the most helpful thing you can do is simply be honest, and to provide the young people with the information we know today." 29:28 Charlie explains ways that the street drug ecstasy can cause significant medical problems when not properly used. 34:11 Charlie talks about the work done my Humphry Osmand, Abram Hoffer, Duncan Blewett, and others in Canada when they successfully treated and cured alcoholics using LSD as a catalyst that changing their lives. 36:17 Charlie: "It seems to me there are some very interesting implications here for Osmand’s old work with alcoholics as well as some of our more recent observations with the ayahuasca church as well as others who have observed a similar process in the Native American Peyote Church." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Jon Hanna PROGRAM NOTES: Jon Hanna enjoying an energy dring while visiting the Shulgins.Photo credit: Marc Franklin (Lordnose) (c) 2007 (Minutes : Seconds into program) 06:19 Jon tells about starting the publication of The Psychedelic Resource List. 08:32 Lorenzo and Jon discuss articles in the current issue of Entheogen Review, including "DMT for the Masses" and "Security Issues in the Underground". 13:14 Jon talks about the problem of mis-labeling of botanicals that are sold on the Internet. 18:29 The discussion turns to security issues in the psychedelic community. 23:33 Halperngate and John Halpern as a DEA snitch discussed at Burning Man. 28:08 Jon Hanna: "Kind of the Golden Rule in our community is ‘Thou shallt not snitch.’ That’s the glue, the trust, that holds us all together as a community." 31:54 Jon talks about his current research into energy drinks. 46:11 The horrors of a $6.57 a day energy drink habit?!? 50:06 Jon reads the warning label on an energy drink can 1:04:46 Jon raves about the apocalyptic visionary painter,Joe Coleman. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Mind States Conferences (click) Psychedelic Resource List by Jon Hanna Essays Discussed in this Podcast "Halperngate" "Halperngate II" "The Bad Shaman Meets the Wayward Doc"   "Bogus Kratom Market Exposed" Psychedelic Shamanism by Jim DeKorne

Guest speakers: Rupert Sheldrake, Ralph Abraham, and Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 04:38 Rupert Sheldrake: quot;The primary metaphor is the magnetic field, that’s what gives you the sense of a field. But if you look at the type of physics that would be appropriate for describing these fields it would not be magnitism, it’s quantum field theory. 07:23 Ralph Abraham:"I’m extremely suspicious of the application of quantum mechanical concepts in the arena of psychology, consciousness, sociology, and so on. To me that’s much fuzzier than the face on Mars." 12:28 Terence McKenna: "Part of the problem is that physical models break down when prosecuted to quantum mechanical levels." 21:15 Ralph begins his explanation of the physics of the nimbus, otherwise known as a halo. 30:47 Terence: "The more successful psychoanalytic theories, it seems to me, are the least mathmatically driven, and depend really on this mysterious business that we call the gifted therapist." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speakers: Rupert Sheldrake, Ralph Abraham, and Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 05:25 Rupert Sheldrake: "And so in human family groups we’d expect the same kind of morphic fields [as in other animal family groups]. . . . It would mean that family fields, with their morphic fields, would have a kind of memory from the families that contributed to them. The father’s and mother’s families of origin would come together in a family." 12:12 Rupert: "Whatever the merits or demerits of [Bert] Hellinger’s system, which I think is very interesting and apparently very effective, the idea of making models of the family field seems to me something that one could address in a more general sense." 20:29 Terence McKenna: "The family thing works because people really are complex chemical systems with genetic affinity." 22:16 Rupert: "There are amazing cases where young people commit suicide in a way that mimics the unacknowledged death of an ancestor, like suicide by drowning when an ancestor one or two generations before have committed suicide by drowning, but they’ve never been told about it because it was never acknowledged. And you get these extraordinary patterns that repeat." 26:58 Rupert: "We don’t have adequate models for these family systems, nor the influence of ancestors within them, which my interest in morphic resonance makes me very keen on." 49:27 Rupert (describing an indigenous belief): "But you have to be on good terms with the ancestors. And what being on good terms, above all, means acknowledging them. . . . that you name and acknowledge the key ancestors, you acknowledge all the dead in your lineage. And if you miss anyone out they’re going to be angry, and if they’re angry that means trouble." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Myron Stolaroff PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program)   02:29 Myron Stolarofftalks about writing "The Secret Chief", a biography of Leo Zeff. 06:06Lorenzodescribes Dr. Michael Mitthoefer’s research where he is using MDMA to treat victims of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). 12:52 Myron tells how he strikes up conversations about psychedelics with strangers he meets while traveling. 18:00 Myron: "The DEA, they’ve been the toughest ones. To a man they’re really refuting these things with all the power that they have, and they’re not interested in learning anything about them. They’re not interested in learning if anything [positive] is possible." 25:31 Myron: "Even though it’s painful, you’re much better off, if you’re willing to experience the pain, be with it and let it go, because once it breaks through and is gone you’re at a whole new level." 30:51 Myron: "And so you try to pretend that it’s [pain] not there, but it is there. And as long as it’s there it’s going to control you." 35:32 Myron: "I used the phrase ‘worked on that’, and the working is not really struggling and trying to make things happen. It isn’t that at all. What it is is learning to just be still, to just let everything go, just absolutely be still and let our hearts open." 54:43 Myron tells about instigating, along with Al Hubbard, the meeting between Alan Watts and Timothy Leary. 58:31 Myron (in a conversation with Timothy Leary)"I don’t have it in my heart to tell you not to do what you’re doing, but, really, what you’re doing isn’t going in the right direction." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option  "The Secret Chief Revealed" by Myron Stolaroff  "Thantos To Eros" by Myron Stolaroff

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 05:25 Rupert Sheldrake describes how one could go about creating a "consumer’s report" for odd-ball theories. 06:23Terence McKenna:"Ninety-five percent of the scientists who have rejected astrology cannot cast a natal horoscope, and that the ability to actually cast a horoscope never seemed to be required of these high-toned scientific critics of astrology. It was something they felt perfectly free to dismiss without understanding." 07:26 Ralph Abraham: "Well, the hypothesis of causative formation, of course, favors deeper fluff. . . . The thing about astrology is that people say it works. An argument could be made that even though the Zodiacal reference frame that it is based on no longer has any basis in the sky that it works because people believe in it, and because it is in the N-field, and that because it’s deeper fluff, basically." 08:27 Ralph: "I think it could be that scientific research, done according to the best principles, has a greater weight in impressing itself upon the morphogenic field." 12:53 Rupert: "This internalization of the use of blind techniques has, in fact, gone farthest in parapsychology, where 85% of experiments are double blind in recent journals. In medicine and psychology where everyone pays lip service to blind techniques, in practice the number of blind papers, or double blind, is in the region of six to seven percent of all published papers in the top journals." 17:09 Terence: "Well, speculation and skepticism begin to sound like novelty and habit. So maybe these things are just counter-flows in the intellectual life of the culture that redress each other. And though we do have certain long-running forms of fuzz, it does tend to correct itself over time." 19:47 Rupert: "The fact is that in the mainstream of our culture skepticism reigns supreme." 22:27 Terence:"New kinds of people are making their voices heard, people from outside the male patriarchal, usual membership in the club." 25:34 Rupert: "In most walks of life skepticism is normal. We expect it in politics, courts of law, etc." 27:30 Rupert: "[Science] is the only universal system which is not open to the normal processes of challenge from competing points of view, having to justify itself in terms of evidence." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Also mentioned in this podcast Cross-cultural Medical Ethnobotany by Nat Bletter The Ayahuasca Monologues with Jonathan Philips, Jamye Waxman, Bill Kennedy, Daniel Pinchbeck, and Nat Bletter

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 02:09 Terence McKenna: "Somehow as a part of the agenda of political correctness it has become not entirely acceptable to criticize, or demand substantial evidence, or expect people, when advancing their speculations, to make, what used to be called, old fashioned sense." 04:10 Terence: "These phenomenon, which we know exist, and which we find rich in implication, would simply not be allowed as objects of discourse, they would be ruled out of order. So there’s something wrong on one level with what’s called empiricism, skepticism, positivism, it has different names." 08:09 Terence:"[Empherical science] is a coarse-grained view of nature, and what it mitigates against seeing are the very things that feed the progress of science, which is the unassimilated phenomenon, the unusual data, the peculiar result of an experiment." 11:04 Terence: "What I have a problem with is unanchored, eccentric revelations." 13:39 Terence: "Nonlocality, accepted, permits some of the things we’re interested in." 15:26 Rupert Sheldrake: "Weirdness and cults and most of the phenomenon you’ve named are phenomenon of Hawaii and California. When you live in England, things take on a rather different perspective. There’s a general level of popular skepticism, such that the general tone of an English pub is one of sort of skepticism." Terence: "Well, but aren’t crop circles, and Graham Hancock all homegrown British phenomenon?" 20:33 Rupert: "There is the possibility to return to a more common sense approach, common sense of the British pub type, and probably of standard American kind too, will often deal quite satisfactorily with the probono proctologists from outer space." 21:59 Terence: "You speak from your knowledge of the calculus and world history, and this person speaks from their latest transmission from fallen Atlantis. And this is all placed on an equal footing, and it’s crazy-making, and it also guarantees the trivialness of the entire enterprise. I just don’t think any revolution in human history can be made by fluff-heads." 23:49 Ralph Abraham: "In other words, there is no simple measuring stick of simplicity." 23:49 Ralph says he wishes we could create a measuring stick to measure the truth of something and then goes on to describe how one could be designed. 31:31 Terence: "The history of alchemy is far older than the history of science. It has always been in existence. It’s thinkers have always evolved and adumbrated their field of concern. So that’s one kind of fluff. Fluff with punch, because it has historical continuity." 34:51 Ralph: "The problem with this ’strict parent’ approach to fluff, is that some important discoveries may be shuttled aside." 39:13 Terence: "What we have to legitimize is critical discussion. So that when someone stands up and starts talking about the face on Mars people behave as they apparently behave in British pubs and just stand up and say, ‘Malarkey mate.’And force people to experience a critical deconstruction of their ideas." 48:13 Rupert: "If [scientific research] priorities were set by popular opinion, pet research would be at the top of the biological agenda, not the sequencing of more proteins, the cloning of more sheep to help the biotechnology industry. But instead, pet research isn’t even on the agenda. So it’s set by a small elite who bear no relation in their interests to the voters in a democracy who actually provide the money." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Matt Pallamary PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 04:48 Matt: "Ayahuasca doesn’t hide anything. . . . It can amplify perceptions, but it can also amplify fears or shadow aspects of yourself, the dark you’ve been avoiding. Ayahuasca has an intelligence to it that seeks out your fear and exploits it, and it’s a wonderful teaching tool." 08:39 Matt explains how the ayahuasca brew is made. 10:19 The legend of how ayahuasca was first discovered. 15:44 Preparation for an ayahuasca experience, beginning with the diet and what prescription medicines to avoid before the journey. 17:56 Details about the ayahuasca diet. 26:03 Lorenzo: "While this is true of all psychoactive substances, medicine like ayahuasca is sort of like nitroglycerine. You have to handle it with care." 27:16 Matt: "What it comes down to, ultimately, is that you have to respect it, and you have to respect its innate intelligence. That’s why, generally speaking, the closer you stick to the diet the better experience you have." 29:51 Tips for planning a trip to the Amazon for an ayahuasca experience. 32:19 Matt: "There’s a lot of responsibility that goes with this, because it’s a very powerful plant. And one of the things that I learned is that power, power in and of itself, is neutral, but the intention you put behind the power is what makes things happen." 33:58 Matt: "It has to come down, ultimately, to integrity. Integrity is the core of everything." 34:41 A discussion of chemical analogues to ayahuasca. 38:49 Matt: "It’s made to be done in a circle, and in a circle you join the energy collectively as a group. So if one particular person in the group is getting healed, everyone in the group is helping to heal that person." 39:58 Matt: "I heard it said once that ayahuasca is the river, and the icaros and songs and things are the boats that carry you on the journey." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Where to find podcasts mentioned in this program: The Cannabis Podcast Network This is where you will find the DopeCast, The Sounds of World Wide Weed, Story Time With Lefty, Zandor’s Grow Report, and Psychonautica Also, don’t miss The C-Realm podcast hosted by KMO. Books mentioned in this podcast Psychedelic Shamanism: The Cultivation, Preparation & Shamanic Use of Psychoactive Plants by Jim DeKorne Land ithout Evil by Matthew J. Pallamary Matt Pallamary’s Web Site