Psychedelic Salon

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 co

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

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, eccentri

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 experie

Guest speaker: Dr. Preet Chopra PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 02:56 Preet describes the study he is working on at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center where he and Dr. Charles Grob are giving psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) to end-stage cancer patients who are also suffering from anxiety. 05:17 A description of the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the study. 11:01 Preet takes us through a typical session with a study participant. 12:04 "According to some of the research that was done before prohibition, it was found that people who had more internal experiences were more likely to get the psychological intervention we’re going for with this." 24:03 "In my treatments as a psychiatrist I’ve never treated a psychedelic addiction. I’ve treated a lot of addicts who are addicted to a lot of stuff and who also used psychedelics, but that [psychedelic addiction] has never come into my emergency room or office." 29:39 "I think it’s kind of ridiculous to be a scientist and a

Guest speakers: George Greer and Requa Tolbert PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 06:30George talks about how they began to use MDMA in their work. 07:37 "We didn’t want it to get in the newspapers, because we knew that because it felt good it would eventually get out on the street and be made illegal … as it was." 08:30 How people were screened before they could be treated with MDMA. . . . "Where are you pointed?" 10:01 "The purpose for taking it [MDMA] really is the most important thing, more important than the drug even." 12:41 Requa describes the formal structure of a therapeutic MDMA session as developed by Leo Zeff, "The Secret Chief". 16:30 George reads the 18th century prayer that Leo Zeff recommended using before a healing MDMA session. 23:57 "My idea is that MDMA decreases fear, the neurological experience of fear. So if you have a thought that would normally be frightening to you that would make you anxious and tense up and be defensive and push it away, that reaction just

Guest speaker: Michael Mithoefer PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 06:19 Michael tells a little about how his study came about and its current status. 08:27 Michael describes the screening, preparation, and flow of the experience for qualified participants. 11:56 "We were able to go back, retroactively, and offer MDMA to everybody that had gotten [only] the placebo so far." 14:06 "Everybody who’s gotten MDMA has had a significant improvement, either temporarily or sustained. More than half, the majority of people have had a very dramatic and sustained improvement." 18:35 "This is a pilot study, and we’re not really looking to prove efficacy. We’re looking to prove we can work safely with these subjects, and it has at least has a strong trend toward being effective." 22:48 A discussion about the neurotoxicity of MDMA. 23:12 "There is still a question about neurotixicity (or at least decreases in some neuro functions) with heavy recreational use. It looks like there probably is some ef

Guest speaker: Bruce Damer PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 05:29 Bruce tells the story of the first and only Terence McKenna workshop that was held in a virtual world in cyberspace. 07:00 The story of the bizarre dreams Terence McKenna was having in the weeks before his first major seizure. 08:32 Bruce tells of Terence saying, "It’s all about love," a few days before he died. "Terence said, ‘The whole psychedelic movement, it’s about love. It’s not about all this other stuff. It’s about love.’ " 13:20 "It seems as though the universe is a sort of self-contained thing that never loses any information." 18:34 An epiphany about DNA. 21:09 "What if the universe, like Chris Langton’s brain, is gradually booting up an awareness of itself, and why would it do this?" 29:07 Universe2, the second phase of this universe. 30:19 "All events that happened in the past and that will happen in the future are happening at once. What you’re living in is a mesh. . . . Everything is happening at once

Guest speaker: Myron Stolaroff PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 03:48 Myron Stolaroff: “After I’d had LSD, there wasn’t anything that could come anywhere close to it. That was the most remarkable thing in my whole life.” 04:34 Myron talks about his meetings with Aldous Huxley. 07:39 Myron talks about Meduna’s mixture, carbogen. 09:42 Myron explains what a carbogen experience was like. 16:15 Why some people don’t seem to have a positive experience with psychedelics. 18:21 The importance of using psychedelics in small, supportive groups. 19:48 Myron discusses his favorite psychedelic substances. 20:37 Myron talks about Duncan Blewett 24:01Some thoughts about using music during a psychedelic experience. 25:05 Myron’s advice to psychonaughts. 28:20 Myron talks about his relationship with Timothy Leary. 31:00 Myron tells the story of removing Leary from the board of directors of the Institute for Advance Study. 33:30 Myron tells of his fist meeting with Dr. Albert Hofmann. Download

Guest speakers: Jean and Myron Stolaroff PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 04:53Jean Stolaroff:Tells the story of how she first became involved with psychedelic medicines. 07:50 Myron Stolaroff: Tells how Death Valley came to be a favorite location for taking acid trips. 09:20 Myron tells some stories about Al Hubbard and Death Valley. 10:24 Myron tells of an acit trip in Death Valley that he had with Willis Harman and Al Hubbard. 15:56 Jean: “I knew I’d get a lot of fringe benefits from marrying Myron.” 17:10 Jean and Myron discuss 2C-E, “One of the very best.” 18:31 Jean and Myron discuss compounds they have no desire to ever try again. 21:33 Myron talking about 2C-B and how some substances react in unexpected ways with people. 25:14 Myron describes his first LSD experience, which took place in Canada on April 12, 1956. 35:18 Myron talks about Gerald Heard’s influence on his decision to try LSD. 37:30 Myron describes his first carbogen experience. 39:53 Myron describes the prep

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 03:08 Terence McKenna: “Another way of thinking of it (the Knot of Eternity) is it’s the nexus of connectivity. It’s a place where everything is cotangent, as the mathematicians say. Everything is connected, and I think that’s the place we are growing toward.” 07:30 Ralph Abraham: “If a present moment is between a past that’s familiar and a future which is completely different, then that’s a very special moment.” 10:18 Rupert Sheldrake: Begins a brief explanation of his theory of morphic resonance. 16:08 Terence: “The great successful conspiracies, the Catholic church, capitalism, the Communist Party of China, Zionism, these things don’t call themselves conspiracies. They call themselves historical social movements." 17:07 Terence: "The task of discerning shit from Shinola looms very large at the end of history." 20:52 Ralph: Tells about the experience he and Rupert had in a crop circle

Guest speaker: Daniel Siebert PROGRAM NOTES: 05:44 Daniel tells the story about finding a Salvia plant at a Terence McKenna lecture. 12:06 He describes the traditional Mazatec way of taking Salvia divinorum. 24:39 Daniel talks about the various categories of experiences that are possible through the use of Salvia Divinorum. 25:25 "One of the more common types of experiences people have is often people have visions of places that are reminiscent of early childhood, places like school playgrounds or the back yard of their parents’ house where they lived when they were six or seven years old." 28:49 Daniel talks about his isolation of the active ingredient in Salvia Divinorum. 31:51 "In general, when taken in the traditional fashion of chewing the leaves, the effects are gentle, the onset is gradual, the experience is enriching and it can be utilized in a very controlled, directed, conscientious manner." 43:18 Daniel talks about the varying amounts of time a Salvia experience can last depending upon d

Guest speaker: Matt Pallamary PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 12:18 Matt provides some background information about his wild youth. 20:37 Some thoughts about what at what age it is best to begin deeply exploring one’s consciousness through the use of sacred medicines. 21:31 "This is one of the key tenants of shamanism, all you can ultimately go on is your own experience." 23:40 "I want to stress that there are a lot of substances that are not good. Crystal meth, bad. Obviously, heroin, bad. Crack cocaine, bad." 30:30 The discussion turns to shamanism. 32:33 "The medicines teach you to learn how to connect with your heart, and to follow your heart instead of your head, because your heart is actually a superior ‘brain’." 34:23 Matt talks about the course of shamanism study he has been pursuing. 37:44 "The absolute best thing you can do for yourself, and for everybody, for the universe, for the cosmos, for the race, for humanity, truly the absolute best thing you can do for everybody,

Guest speakers: Amanda Feilding and Mark Pesce PROGRAM NOTES: Amanda Feilding (Minutes : Seconds into program) 05:30 "Britain is America’s greatest ally in all the dreadful things it is doing at the moment, the war on terror and the war on drugs. And without Britain America would feel isolated." 07:12 Amanda discusses the new scale for drugs that is being proposed in the UK. 09:37 "Present drug policy simply doesn’t work, and indeed it is the policy which is causing most of the damages." 10:45 "My particular interest is in separating the psychedelics and marijuana from the rest of the drugs." 13:34 "We at the Beckley Foundation have decided to do some reports which will tell the truth. Because the United Nations report doesn’t tell the truth. It tells what the Americans want to hear." 14:18 "At the last Beckley Foundation Seminar, which was held at the House of Lords in London, we had the top of drug policy of the United Nations and of the EU. . . . and the United Nations man agreed with me that the

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 07:58 Terence McKenna: "People should be allowed to let the apocalypse happen, not make it happen." 09:35 Rupert Sheldrake: "I would say that the Big Bang cosmology, which is an apolocyptic vision of history, with an explosive beginning and therefore implying an explosive end, is a kind of projection of this Judeo-Christian model of history. It’s not just confined to churches and synagogs. It’s the myth which encloses our entire scientific world view, which has grown up within this Judeo-Christian matrix." 12:35 Terence: "This is not paranoia. Paranoia? The Earth is on fire, haven’t you heard? There’s no reason to worry about being too paranoid. You can lift your foot off that pedal. It’s OK. You can go with that intuition now. The planet is on fire." 18:38 Terence: "So much is happening. Everything is knitting together. It cannot be stopped. There will be cellular technology and human-ma

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 02:31 Terence McKenna: “[The apocalypse] seems to be the unique, unifying thread throughout the Western religions Most insistently of all religious systems on Earth, it is the Western systems that have insisted on appointing an end to their world.” 05:07 Terence: “At the folkloric level, the attractor of the end of the world is very strong.” 07:47 Terence: “And these religions, which have anticipated this thing in this rather crude end of the world scenario are somehow on to something, something that is, I think, a message that is coming from the biological level, if you will, about the inherent instability of the world.” 12:14 Terence: “If in fact the concrescence is upon us then really all we can do is chat about it as it comes down around our ears over the next 25 years.” 14:37 Terence: “I think we’re standing on the lip of a hyperdimensional volcano of some sort, toward which all history

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 02:39 Rupert Sheldrake: “The other side of this is the reform of the existing professions.” 05:24 Ralph Abraham: “Somehow there would have to be a miracle to get the whole system onto a new track.. And the revascularization aspect that we are mostly longing for might never happen. We need to trigger it.” 07:37 Rupert: “I’m thinking of a pioneering experiment in a limited area.” 08:55 Ralph: “How could we possibly attract an eighteen year old to a workshop? What would be necessary?” [Terence McKenna] “You have to talk about psychedelic drugs.” 11:13 Rupert: [describing his concept of a series of workshop initiations] “To get there you have to be recommended by someone who’s been here, and therefore there’s a much greater sense of initiation into this world. The fact is, a lot of teenagers may not know that this world exists, or if they do they have a totally distorted view.” 17:11 Ralph:

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 03:15 Rupert Sheldrake: “The present educational system mimics the initiation process and indeed is a kind of initiation process.” 07:18 Rupert: “And indeed it is the scientific priesthood envisaged by Bacon in the scientific world, the academic model and the priestly role as the higher initiates in running and ordering society, the more-educated.” 08:40 Rupert: “You can see this whole new frame of mind being introduced in the entire third world through UNESCO and through educational things. And the first step is literacy, you’ve got to have them reading and writing, because then you can get it across that what’s in books is actually more important than what you feel or experience.” 21:09 Terence McKenna: “The education system of the future should have a tremendous focus on history.” 22:53 Terence: “Part of reforming education has to be to teach people that history is a system of int

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 07:18 Rupert Sheldrake: “If there were to be a true Mother Earth religion develop, it would obviously have priestesses rather than priests because its central figure was a goddess. It would be relating human life to the Earth, first and foremost . . . it wouldn’t have much emphasis on the stars or the heavens.” 08:49 Terence McKenna: “But if this Anima Mundi thing got going, this is not a fine tuning of Christianity this is, at last, the overthrow of it. . . . no more this patriarchal, masculine, dominator thing that has descended down through monotheism.” 13:36 Terence: “Why not psychedelicize and sacrilize green politics? . . . Science and green politics can be sacrilized through the psychedelic experience.” 14:33 Terence: “I think that green politics, what makes it so wishy-washy, is its lack of a forthright metaphysics. . . . A green party that used a mystical language, a psychedeli

Guest speakers: Terence McKenna, Ralph Abraham, and Rupert Sheldrake PROGRAM NOTES: (Minutes : Seconds into program) 03:48 Ralph Abraham: "So eventually the 60s happened, and probably my first experience that I would now identify as a real religious experience was the experience of LSD." 07:17 Ralph: "What’s gone wrong in the world now is a loss of connection to the sacred within and without organized religion." 13:30 Ralph: "The revascularization of music, I think, is very important. If I had to point to a single factor that I thought was destroying society faster than any other I think it would be evil music." 18:28 Ralph: "The value of getting the true partnership into the church would mean that we then wouldn’t have to replace the church just because it had been on the wrong track for 5,000 years." 18:48 Terence McKenna: "But isn’t this a little like trying to reform the Soviet Union and keeping the Communist Party around? I think the momentum of these institutions makes them hard to reform." 23:2