Psychedelic Salon

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] “Now all that stands between us and some kind of angelic completion of some sort is the dark side of ourselves and the unpaid bills of the historical process.” “I am a resolute optimist of a very complicated sort.” “If you have […]

Guest speaker: Lorenzo   THE FUND DRIVE HAS COME TO AN END AND THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR MAKING IT SUCCESSFUL   PROGRAM NOTES: It has been one year since our last fund raising effort, which means that the time has come once again to see if there is enough support for these podcasts to keep […]

Guest speakers: Yalila Espinoza & Shonagh Home PROGRAM NOTES: Today we feature a conversation about psychedelics, sexuality, and the dark side of ayahuasca tourism. The conversation is between two highly experienced medicine women, Shonagh Home and Yalila Espinoza, Ph.D. Yalila’s Ph.D. studies and diverse training in Integrating Sexuality & Spirituality have inspired her to create […]

Guest speakers: Marian Goodell & John Gilmore PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Marian Goodell.] “I don't think Burning Man is the solution. I think that we are a really powerful gravitational force, and mixed with other cultures and other groups, that's what's powerful.” “The biggest problem I think Burning Man has is translating what people think is Burning Man into what really is Burning Man.” “I want people to see Burning Man as really a state of mind in their heart.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Burning Man Website

Guest speaker: Marina Korsakova PROGRAM NOTES: Today's podcast features the 2014 Palenque Norte Lecture given by Dr. Marina Korsakova. Marina is a professional pianist and scholar in music cognition. Her research is focused on emotional responses to music and on the perception of melodic transformation. Currently, Marina teaches Music Cognition at Touro College. She performs regularly as a member of Union City Chamber Players, and she is an author of books and scientific papers. Her latest book, “Music as Magical Journey: A Story of Tonal Gravity, Melodic Objects, and Motion in Tonal Space,” makes a friendly introduction into the science of music. COMMENTS by Marina Korsakova When giving my talk, I was not always clear about important points. Below are some elucidations and corrections. 7:05 When saying a “low level of music perception” I meant the low level of consciousness, which is required for processing the melodic elements that make music. 10:35 Vibration of a string (and an air column) generates

Guest speaker: Bernardo Kastrup PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Bernardo Kastrup.] “It is not the mind that is in the body. It is the other way around. It's the body that is in the mind.” “In the same way that there is nothing to a whirlpool but water, I claim there is nothing to a brain-body system but consciousness.” “The psychedelic trance allows us to 'see the stars at noon' because it simply eclipses the sun of egoic-awareness. It reduces the obfuscation and allows us to see more.” “I believe that the key insight from the psychedelic experience, the key metaphysical insight about it, is not what the nature of the psychedelic realm is. In fact, I think the key insight is about the nature of our everyday reality.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Bernardo Kastrup's Web Site Why Materialism Is Baloney: How true skeptics know there is no death and fathom answers to life, the universe, and everything by Bernardo Kastrup Bernardo Kastrup's Youtu

Guest speaker: Rak Razam PROGRAM NOTES: Today's podcast features Rak Razam's 2014 Palenque Norte Lecture, which was originally titled “Cosmic Consciousness To Convergence: Activating the Species.” As you can see, I have shortened it to a phrase that Rak used in his talk, “Consciousness Browsers,” which is an excellent way to describe the psychedelic experience. During his talk, Rak ranges from a discussion of his research into the shamanic use of ayahuasca, to black holes, consciousness as a bit torrent, and the concept of a species swarm. One of my favorite quotes from this talk is: “The heroic thing really is doing what needs to be done, or discovering something of value, and bringing it back and sharing it with the tribe.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option RakRazam.com Ayahuasca Awakenings healing retreats If you've read the book or seen the film, you'll know that 'Aya: Awakenings' takes you on a journey of shamanic discovery into the heart of the Amazon a

Guest speakers: Katie Tomlinson & Rachel Hope PROGRAM NOTES: Today's podcast features two of the Palenque Norte Lectures that were given at Burning Man in 2014. The first talk is by Katie Tomlinson, founder of GAPS, the psychedelic student organization at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. For anyone interested in establishing student groups on other campuses this talk has some great pointers for you . Following Katie's talk we hear Rick Doblin, the founder of MAPS, introduce Rachel Hope, a participant in one of the MDMA studies sponsored by his organization. Rachel tells her amazing story of a very long struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and how the treatment being perfected by Dr. Michael Mithoefer and his wife Annie has cured her of PTSD. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option The Evergreen State College The Secret Chief Revealed By Myron J. Stolaroff MIT scientist links autism to Monsanto’s Roundup and predicts HALF of U.S. children will b

Guest speaker: Tom Barbalet PROGRAM NOTES: Today's podcast features a conversation between fellow podcaster Tom Barbalet and his guest. Their discussion centers on what we have all come to think of as that voice in our head. As you will hear, it may not be anything like what you think it is. As Tom's guest says, “The idea for me is really very simple, break the identification with the voice in your head. It's not who you are. It's just your language machine. And you'll be in a much better position to evaluate your experience and formulate new actions if you language machine isn't filling your head with a bunch of stupid, really bad ideas.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Stone Ape podcast Stone Ape Facebook group

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] “I sort of see [cannabis] as the pilot light of Gian consciousness.] “The danger is [in using psychedelic drugs], just to put it out there, is madness.” “LSD is different. LSD is like psychoanalytical Drano. It's not a personality.” “Matter is simply a concept. The world is made of language.” “If you're truly psychedelic the difference between living and dying is quite immaterial. No pun intended.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option The Union: The Business Behind Getting High Directed by Brett Harvey The Hasheesh Eater & The Poem of Hashish By Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Charles Baudelaire

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] “History is anomalous, and there is no way to get used to it.” “The miracle of our predicament is not how long everything has been in place but how brief it all has been.” “Each stage of cosmic development proceeded more quickly than the stage which preceded it.” “A singularity is a place where the rules are broken. A miracle is a singularity.” “That's part of the nature of a fractal cosmos, nothing is utterly unannounced.” “History is a series of approximations of the final singularity.” “I believe in extraterrestrials, but I believe that real extraterrestrials are so peculiar that the job is to recognize them.” “So when you look at the eschaton what you see, strangely enough, is your own face.” “The things I encounter that I call elves or gnomes, it's just a gloss. I mean, they're small, and they have the archetype. They're more like leprechauns, and this maybe raises a racial issue.” Download MP3 PCs –

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] “After you fiddle with psilocybin for a while the question of whether or not there is an alien intelligence becomes moot.” “We are embedding ourselves in a matrix of silicone and glass.” “ We are beginning to embed ourselves into a cultural membrane of some sort.” “What is happening is a globalizing of intelligence.” “The reductionists who want to say these drugs just perturb the brain I don't think have taken enough of these things.” “Our problem is that we are in denial of our circumstance.” “I think psilocybin three or four times a year definitely means that you are a psychedelic person. For sure it means that your every waking moment is informed and transformed by your relationship to this stuff. It doesn't take very much because it's a way of thinking.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn /* Conf

Guest speakers: Lorenzo Hagerty & Chris Hedges PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Chris Hedges.] “I think when we speak today about American values what we're really speaking about are corporate-instilled values.” “When you spend over a decade brutalizing people, people become brutal.” “You can't use the word 'liberty' when your government watches you 24 hours a day. That's the relationship of a master and a slave.” “There is no difference between a night raid in Oakland and a night raid in Falluja . . . none!” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Hedges v. Obama U.S. Drones kill more people than ISIS: Chris Hedges A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn Industrial Workers of the World A Union For All Workers COINTELPRO

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] “Once you encounter [the psychedelic experience] you see that this is an aspect or an activity as informing of what it means to be human as something as inimical to our nature as sexuality.” “What we lack is the will to change our minds.” “WE are the anomalous factor in the natural world.” “I think part of what being psychedelic is about, the real shock of psychedelics comes from the realization of the relativity of cultural positions.” “Dissolution of boundary is somehow the precondition for understanding reality.” “The truth about reality is that nowhere is it writ large that monkeys should be able to elicit the final understanding of it.” “No theory of consciousness is going to be worth anything that doesn't come to terms with the perturbation of consciousness by drugs.” “This is how I think of mind, that put through the crucible of the psychedelic experience, and I use this kind of alchemical terminolog

Guest speaker: John Gilmore PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by John Gilmore.] “I thank medical marijuana for breaking down social resistance to recreational marijuana.” “In medical marijuana states it was the gay community that developed political skills in working for their own liberation that then applied those skills to liberate marijuana in a medical context in the aids fight. Those people blazed a trail for us.” “I think encouraging courage among people who are in the know to actually say what they know is a way to have positive social change. It's a way that the powerful are vulnerable to the ordinary people.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option HTTPS Everywhere HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox, Chrome, and Opera extension that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure. Encrypt the web: Install HTTPS Everywhere today. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counte

Guest speakers: Shonagh Home & Diana Reed Slattery PROGRAM NOTES: Today's podcast features a conversation between Shonagh Home and Diana Reed Slattery who is a practicing xenolinguist and psychonaut. She has been investigating linguistic phenomena in the psychedelic sphere for over 15 years. Her website, Psychedelics & Language, details this research. Her science fiction novel, The Maze Game, tells the story of one such language, Glide. Her latest book, Xenolinguistics: Psychedelics, Language, and the Evolution of Consciousness comes out in January, 2015, from North Atlantic Press. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Shonagh Home is a teacher, shamanic practitioner, and the author of ‘Ix Chel Wisdom: 7 Teachings from the Mayan Sacred Feminine,’ ‘Love and Spirit Medicine,’ and the upcoming, ‘Honeybee Wisdom: A Modern Melissae Speaks.’ Website: www.shonaghhome.com Contact: shonagh.home (at) comcast (dot) net

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] “Everything appears to me to be authored, in some strange way. And I wonder if this is not the spreading assumption of the psychedelic illusion/delusion/revelation that life is in fact art.” “[This legendary Amazonian substance is] a cybernetic transdimentional medium of some sort that is generated out of the mysteries of the physiology of the human body.” “You may miss the end of the world, but you definitely are going to have a front row seat for the end of your world.” “Capitalism is not a human being. Capitalism is a Moloch, a god, a god of bloody sacrifice that sees human beings as ants” “Capitalism is a gun pointed at the head of global civilization.” “The only frontier now left to exploit is not a frontier in space but a frontier in time. We steal the future from our children by plunging massively deeper and deeper into debt.” “We cannot evolve faster than our language. The edge of being is the edge

Guest speaker: Niles Heckman PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Niles Heckman.] “The visual component of the psychedelic experience is for the most part the final frontier for what computer graphics still have yet to replicate faithfully.” “Art isn't really important unless it helps you grow in creating it, or it helps others grow through its consumption.” “Computer graphics are, and will continue to be, the tool used to visualize what is essentially unlanguageable.” “It's really fascinating that indigenous people have essentially been uploading themselves to much more advanced organic realms for potentially thousands of years, if not more, seeing imagery that's much more complex than what you can see in a Hollywood summer blockbuster today.” “Psychedelic experiences, whether real or future replicated, if done responsibly, aren't negative escapism but could be a true awakening process for more people, because we are not human beings that can have spiritual experiences, we are spiritual beings

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] “The world is magic, not a little bit, one hundred percent. Every atom from one end of this cosmos to the other is magic, magic, magic.” “Fate has chosen you to hear about [DMT]. . . . If you now go ahead and live in your mundane, stock portfolio, BMW existence, it's because you're making a choice.” “To go from birth to the grave without ever encountering DMT is to my mind like going from birth to the grave without ever having a sexual experience. It means you skated through life. You never got it!” “We're accepting a kind of society where millions and millions of people have very simple thoughts and spend all their time in a larval state imbibing manufactured data streams that come to them over the boob tube. This is not a pretty picture, actually. I mean these people are not entirely human beings.” [A shaman] “is a creature of the Interzone. And this is the power of shaman, that they can come and go from the

Guest speaker: Grover Norquist PROGRAM NOTES: The final speaker at the 2014 Palenque Norte Lectures, which are held at Burning Man each year, was Grover Norquist. According to Wikipedia, “... he is an American political advocate who is founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, an organization that opposes all tax increases and a co-founder of the Islamic Free Market Institute. A libertarian-leaning Republican, he is the primary promoter of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.” While to those who haven't yet had an opportunity to attend Burning Man, his attendance at such an event may seem unlikely, in the extensive Q&A that followed his brief talk, it is quite evident that he has many admirers on the playa. I think that you will be fascinated as he very candidly discusses not just tax matters but also touches on what he thinks about Burning Man itself, as well as his position regarding psychedelics, legalizing cannabis, and mandatory minimum sentencing. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Ma