In A Perfect World

Image: Andy Thomas Are psychedelics and entheogens medicines and/or spiritual tools for consciousness expansion? Can they be culture jammed by Big Pharma into commodified weapons of mass control, a soma for the masses? Find out the answers as experiential journalist Rak Razam moderates a panel discussion at Entheogenesis Australis, Melbourne, Dec 2010, starring MAPS President Rick Doblin (Medical Association of Psychedelic Studies), Steven Bright, Australian psychologist and addictions researcher, Jasen, a practitioner using Ibogaine to break addiction and Dr. Anna Kokavec, a psychologist from La Trobe University. As Western culture is increasingly over-medicated, will psychedelics simply get commodified as they are absorbed? Will there be an arms race for psychedelics as they are patented and become part of medical "fashion"? How will the financial underpinnings of the medical industry affect medical psychedelics and the business they are entering? As John Halpern's Entheogen Corporation ™ has show

In which experiential journalist Rak Razam does his best to digest the ultra-dense, even imploding infometrics of new paradigm physics guru Dan Winter over lunch in Mullumbimby… How does an electrical universe and "implosion science" create self-organizing DNA, gravity and the plasma consciousness of life? What is the fractal nature of reality and what can the sacred geometry underlying nature tell us about life, death, the beyond and our mission here on earth? What is LOVE and how can we phase-lock ourselves and the species into a love frequency? Is the sun having an orgasm? Listen as Dan downloads critical survival memes for the upcoming cosmic shift and tells us how to attune our energetics through correct bliss frequencies, gestalt consciousness, EMP-free tribal living and sacred spaces to maximise our transformation into a galactic species. But how does Stonehenge, Shakespeare, Enki's iPhone and the possibility of extraterrestrial contact and intervention through history tie into all this? Hold onto your

What is consciousness, and where does it come from? In this provocative lecture given at EntheoGenesis Australis in Dec, 2010, experiential journalist Rak Razam discusses the nature of consciousness that is underpinning the current global shamanic resurgence and planetary awakening. As Richard Maurice Bucke said in his influential book from the turn of the 20th century, Cosmic Consciousness is a heightened perception of awareness above and beyond normal consciousness, illustrated through figures from history like the Buddha and others who claimed to have experienced mystic states. But what about the widespread shamanic ability indigenous and now the West is experiencing that often gives glimpses of this cosmic connection? What larger species vectors can be drawn from the rising tide of consciousness across the planet and the history books? Is the once sporadic peaking of consciousness in the genepool now a species-wide activation? Like a cosmic season, are we entering the summer of the soul, the tide of ga

Experiential journalist Rak Razam experiences the "kiss of the kambo", the Brazilian Phyllomedusa Bicolor frog which secretes the most powerful toxin in the Amazon rainforest. Used by indigenous peoples throughout Peru and Brazil as a purgative, the poison of the frog is wooed by singing to the amphibian, and its peptide secretions are then burned into the skin to promote a full-body flush death and rebirth. Known as "ordeal medicine", the kambo ritual is still used today in the Amazonian jungles as a body and consciousness sharpening tool, and is now following in the trail of plant medicines like ayahuasca as an initiation for Westerners. In this rare interview with Brazilian practitioner Oruam, Razam discovers the secrets of the "vaccine of the forest", its lineage, medical usage and spiritual emergence as one of the next wave of shamanic modalities... This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Experiential journalist Rak Razam interviews Dan Schreiber, Australia's answer to Terence McKenna, a grand intellectual thinker and the founder of Starseed Gardens in the Byron Bay Shire. In this epic, far-reaching conversation Schreiber explores the heart-mind-pineal relationship of consciousness and shares his experiences learning from tribal peoples across the globe. What is the entheogenic connection between the Amazon and the Outback, ayahuasca cosmovision and the Dreamtime at the End of Time? Learn the secrets of the Australian cane toad–and its DMT/ bufotenine secretions–as Schreiber explains its role as an activator for the tryptamine-acacia fields across Australia. How does the devic world under the surface of nature itself fuel the current flowering of planetary consciousness? Schreiber describes the cascading role of entheogens shaping planetary culture to the tipping point we are now living through, and the whole-systems theory of Gaian "galactivation" as we remember our personal and collective aw

Experiential journalist Rak Razam interviews Hal Lucius, High Priest of consciousness with the Temple of Awakening Divinity, a travelling medicine space using 5-MEO-DMT as its active psychedelic eucharist. Lucius draws upon his past as a ceremonial magician in the Crowley/ Golden Dawn Alchemical Hermetic tradition to anchor this syncretic entheogenic church turning on the West Coast with a "complete dissolution of egoic consciousness". The Church claims a 95% success rate inducing a +4 on the Shulgin state with returning parishioners going into the godspace each time. But what are the dangers and logistics of a mystical-religious experience outsourced to an external catalyst? What are the benefits? Lucius posits that by changing the individual, the collective changes as well, and that the collective awakening is then part of the quickening of the paradigm change we are now experiencing. Is this the next wave of entheo-based gnostic religion? Hallaleuh, brothers and sisters! This work is licensed under

with Mitch Schultz, director of The Spirit Molecule DVD On the road in Peru with Mitch Schultz, who talks about the making of his documentary The Spirit Molecule, based on the Rick Strassman book of the same name, and why he was driven to make an independent documentary about DMT. In 2002 Schultz had his first experience with dimethyltryptamine and the entities therein: nothing would ever be the same. Schultz convinced Dr. Rick Strassman to lend his story and credibility as the narrative backbone of the documentary, studying DMT in controlled medical conditions with legal patients under the auspices of the US government from 1990-1995. Why has nature seeded DMT throughout most living things: as a strategic neurotransmitter, a language for nature to communicate within itself? What is the value of contact experiences with entities in innerspace? How can film communicate a glimpse of the DMT realm and how ready are mainstream audiences for it? Join experiential journalist Rak Razam and filmmaker Mitch Schultz i

Experiential journalist Rak Razam interviews Englishman Tom Askew, who is bridging the worlds of indigenous shamanism with 21st Century techno-shamanism... Tom is a certified SCENAR practicioner: The SCENAR stands for Self-Controlled Energy Neuro Adaptive Regulator and is a Russian device invented in the 1970s as a secret military project for Cosmonauts to use instead of drugs for healing and to prevent illness... The SCENAR sends electromagnetic pulses that mimic the bodies own frequencies to an affected area and tricks the brain to send natural healing chemicals like serotonin and neuro-peptides. It also works on healing emotional and energetic illness, and Tom has used it on shamans and his third eye! It works, so well it has since been taken up for use by all paramedics in the Ukraine, by doctors in Germany and in almost 60 countries across the world. But what are the ramifications on this, and such techno-healing devices, outsourcing our own healing abilities? Is this the "killer-app" for medicine? For

Experiential journalist Rak Razam is interviewed by anthropologist Robin Rodd from James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, on all things ayahuasca, Down Under. What are the cultural uses of ayahuasca in Australia and how does it relate to other entheo cultures in South America and elsewhere in the world? Without an unbroken shamanic lineage, Aussiehuasqueros have had to stitch their shamanic practice from multiple sources, sometimes united in a cultural synergy for group shamanizing. The hybridization of not just ayahuasca, but of Amazonian shamanism itself is potent in the Australian counterculture as it births a new hybrid modality suited to the conditions on the land. But what of the cultural archetypes, do they remain the same? How do Australian aboriginal spirits and energies affect the mix? Is there something activating in the vibrational frequency of the Australian Land itself, its songlines and energetic grid, and how does all of this tie into other indigenous prophecies of these changing tim

Experiential journalist Rak Razam interviews Steve Beyer, author of the recent compendium Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon. Beyer tells of his beginnings as a wilderness survival enthusiast that led him into the world of Amazonian shamanism–and sorcery, the dark side of the shamanic world. Beyer explores the ideas of healing and harming and the relationship between the two: the magic phlegm for protection, the mariri, virotes and magic darts, attack sorcery and the dangers the West faces by absorbing a "shamanism lite" for its spiritual practice. Beyer posits that the plants and the spirits in them can be used for dark as well as the light. And while ayahuasca can reveal an infinite landscape within, are we putting too much emphasis on the interface instead of ourselves? As Westerners quest solely for visions and transformation with plants like ayahuasca – what Beyer calls the the "pink neon buffalo" syndrome, are we focusing too narrowly on a tragic cosmovison? Thi

In our first bilingual episode, experiential journalist Rak Razam interviews Mancoluto of the Chimbre Shamanic center in Puerto Maldornado, Peru. Mancoluto claims to be one of only five master shamans in the world and descendant from the legendary Chavin shamanic civilization that existed for 100,000 years in Peru, long before the Incas. Listen as Mancoluto recounts the secret history of Antediluvian times and the shamanic connection to Atlantis, Lemeria, and back through the stars... This controversial interview explores human concepts of "love" versus higher universal powers the beings Mancoluto believes possess; our inter-dimensional nature; and Mancoluto's plans to catalyze "future humans" with these higher abilities those with the right genetic heritage once possessed in ancient times, and is now becoming available to us all... With translation and additional comments by Rob Velez, Director of Chimbre and Nick Heyming. Original photo by Tom Askew. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attrib

A live sonic adventure with our amphibian allies in Rak's backyard on Mt. Jerusalem, with housemates Steve and Joseph Wap Norton... *Warning* - there's a lot of experimental frog talk in the first ten minutes, literally, before we get to the deep semantics... In which the experiential podcaster talks to the frogs and explores sonic modes of interspecies symbiosis... Vibratory consciousness underlies our reality as with Peruvian icaros and the idea that we can *sing* objects into existence... How does sound affect consciousness? What is the primary level of language-vibration and how do words really work? Why do names have power? Why has our language been desacralized and lost that original power? Beyond theta level consciousness, the sound of the insects and the amphibians channels the divine song, the song of creation that unites us all. Listen... beyond the sonic fooling around, if you get over the start, the language of the frogs will reveal all... This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attrib

with Robert Forte Just who does take psychedelics in the 21st century, after the lockdown of consciousness post 9/11? What role does the psychedelic community still offer as an activist movement? Psychedelic academic and author Robert Forte cuts to the chase by proposing that the medicinal resurgence of psychedelics obscures their real purpose as an anti-war, expansion of consciousness and creativity movement. Forte explores how psychedelics permit the illusion of America as a free state instead of a failed state, and the origins of the war on drugs and the Nixon-Leary struggle for the soul of a generation... Were avant guard psychologists of the late 50s and early 60s like Frank Barron and Tim Leary "assassin bees of consciousness", aware of the mass mind-control operation on America? And what lessons can we learn from such models, strategically using the mind-expansion psychedelics provide to best re-engineer the psychedelic movement into the future? Be provoked by this controversial discussion with ex

At the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference 2010 with experiential journalist Rak Razam: * Stan Grof divulges his personal history in the Checkoslovakian psychedelic scene of the 1950s and his first trip in 1956; psychedelic therapy, his LSD research in America and his disappointment at the discarding of years of scientific data; his subsequent founding of holotropic breathwork and its ability to alter consciousness; and his thoughts on the current wave of psychedelic research in some ways going over old ground... Stan advocates the technologies of the sacred as part of healing and a network of centers to support the exploration of consciousness in a supported environment... * Nick Sand, famed LSD chemist who developed "Orange Sunshine" tells of his part in the acid movement of the sixties and beyond in a sizzling conversation... Sand trained with Mazatec mushroom shamaness Maria Sabina and received his first illuminations in cosmic glossalalia with her, deciding to first synthesize psilocybin... When that

At the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference 2010 with experiential journalist Rak Razam: * In perhaps his last public interview, Sasha Shulgin shares his thoughts on the future of psychedelics and the repositioning of 'drugs' in culture; the thrill of the chase in exploring virginal molecular landscapes and bringing back chemical maps; rules for safe ingestion and active levels of compounds... and the revelation of the most potent drug there is... * Carolyn (Adams) Garcia, aka Mountain Girl tells of her time in the boys club of the Merry Pranksters, hanging with Neal Cassady and Ken Kesey, and the gender politics of being the only girl with a motorbike for a thousand miles around La Honda in the early 60s... From the Pranksters to the Grateful Dead, and her marriage to Jerry Garcia, Mountain Girl has always been an integral part of the hippie tribe. Here she reveals the lessons of the infamous Acid Tests, the failure of "group mind", and her advice for women entering the psychedelic scene... * Alex and Al

At the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference 2010 with experiential journalist Rak Razam: * Rick Doblin talks about the almost 25-year history of MAPS, the Multi-Disciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies, the "end of the beginning of the Psychedelic Renaissance" and why Western culture is now ready for the psychedelic experience and a global spirituality. Rick discusses the return of the 60s elders and the new psychedelic generation, the spiritual approach to entheogens paralleling the medical psy-resurgence, the need to turn on, tune in and stay in the culture as we integrate the numinous, and much more... * Charles Grob outlines some of his landmark studies with entheogenic medicine, including the ayahuasca research of the early 1990s on serotonin-platelet rejuvenation after regular ayahuasca usage and the current cultural uptake; MDMA tests on volunteers and the difference between man-made and indigenous medicines; and psilocybin with late-stage cancer patients treating anxiety. Sacred medicines all

A rollicking interview with James Oroc, author of the Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad. In which experiential journalist Rak Razam delves into the secret history of DMT from Stephen Szara's experiments in the 1950s, William Burroughs (whom Oroc calls the "Godfather of DMT") and his radical break with English language caused by his DMT experiences ("language is a virus") through to the lower language bardos of the DMT realm where the golden code of meaning manifests. Oroc hypotheizes about the relationship between consciousness and language and the Zero Point Field and recognizing oneness within God. Is 5-MeO-DMT a tool to help us experience on the inside what quantum physics explains on the outside – non-local experiences of the "whiteout" or plenum of energy that lies within? Is 5-MeO-DMT specifically designed to be a sacred template or will it become the "next big thing", full circle from the 60s? Oroc and Razam trade maps of the 5-MeO-DMT space and attempt to tranlinguisticize the

A seminal interview with Dennis McKenna, Ph.D on the evolution of ayahuasca and the entheogenic movement and the imminent tipping point on planet earth the movement parallels. In which experiential journalist Rak Razam quizzes Dennis on his role as a scientist and a leading ayahuasca researcher, while Dennis waxes lyrical on bio-piracy, the proliferating business of shamanism in Peru and around the world, and the urgent need for integration of the plant teacher experience in people's everyday lives to truly make a difference. Is the sacrament of ayahuasca becoming commercialized? As pharmahuasca – and the startling development of ayahuasca in a pill form – spreads beyond the vine itself, is the wisdom of globaluasca transcending its Gaian roots to connect with a new generation without the plant dogma? Is the future a religious, compartmentalized Entheogenic Evangelism? Or will lodges transform into "psychedelic monasteries" training plant Jedis? Its been ten years now since Dennis' brother Terence passed on,

A 'pillow talk' about the ayahuasca movement conducted the morning after a journey into the infinite with Lara Star, a moderator from the ayahuasca.com forums... In which Lara and experiential journalist Rak Razam discuss Haoma (Syrian Rue) and the branching of the pure Amazonian tradition with the Middle Eastern mystic experience of "haomauasca". If ayahuasca is the "Madre", then Syrian Rue is the Prince, a warrior spirit, Lara suggests, kissing cousins from the same tree, the One Tree that host different plant devas in an overall family. Lara trained with the Peruvian Q'eros shaman Armundo who trained her in the cosmovision of the Andes under San Padro, mescilito and ayahuasca. Here she discusses the ayahuasca.com forums as part of the global shift and an infinite library of initiates awakening. Different shamans initiate and play different roles to different energy needs but Lara says the point is to get people switched on, and if they're not switched on they need to die and be reborn, opening back up to

A lecture given on March 17, 2010 to the Sydney cell of the Evolver network as part of its community "spore" discussion on the future of psychedelics. In which experiential journalist Rak Razam discusses the state of psychedelic culture, where it came from in modern times with the advent of LSD in 1943, the legacy of alchemist Albert Hofmann, and why the psychedelic movement is so important to a sustainable future. Acid opened the mind in the 60s, ecstasy opened the heart in the 80s, and in the 21st century ayahuasca and entheogenic plant sacraments are opening the soul of the West, guiding us back to a cooperative Gaian partnership. As the "second wave of ayahuasca shamanism" sweeps the world in a slo-mo r-evolution, the psychedelic movement is reaching out to the elder indigenous cultures around the world to bridge the gap of our own psychic and spiritual understanding, and is becoming a global entheogenic movement. Can this new wave reach a critical mass of its own understanding, as well as a purity of int