Dangerous Wisdom

How can Buddhist philosophy empower us to work more skillfully with the medicines of our world—including psychedelic medicines like DMT, LSD, MDMA, and others?

This contemplation was inspired in part by the surge of interest in psychedelic medicines in the past decade or so, and also in part by the dialogue I had with Rick Strassman, author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule, and DMT and the Soul of Prophecy. Rick found himself turning away from Buddhist philosophy as a framework for modeling and working with psychedelic experiences. While I applaud his work to show how the Hebrew Bible can help support working with psychedelic medicines, I disagree with his suggestions that Buddhist philosophy doesn’t provide every bit as skillful a support for us.

In this contemplation we begin to consider the relevance of Buddhist philosophy for maximizing the benefits psychedelic—or any other medicines—offer us. Whether we work with horse medicine, forest medicine, the medicine of music, the medicine of dance, or any one of the psychedelic medicines, we will find profound guidance in Buddhist philosophy for realizing the fullest potentials of our path of healing and transformative insight.

After we lay out some juicy philosophical reflections in this and a following contemplation, we will consider a kind of philosopher’s guide to working with the medicines of our world. What are the practices we should have in place as we approach the work we need to do to heal self and world at the same time?

A dialogue on the wisdom, love, and beauty of DMT with Rick Strassman, author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule, DMT and the Soul of Prophecy, and The Psychedelic Handbook.

Leia Friedwoman is a psychedelic integration facilitator, a trainee in restorative and transformative approaches to conflict, and the host of a podcast called The Psychedologist: Consciousness Positive Radio. Leia holds her permaculture design certificate from Starhawk’s Earth Activist Training, a program that emphasizes social permaculture and spirituality in activism.

In this dialogue, we touch on a wide range of subjects related to psychedelics and the soul.

You can learn more about Leia at thepsychedologist.com

The megafire narrative . . . Wherever you live, you likely depend on forest ecologies. Even though the western U.S. has gotten a lot of press for wildfires, fire affects us all, forest integrity affects us all, and ecological ignorance affects us all.

In this dialogue with Chad Hanson, forest ecologist and director of the John Muir Project, we confront the megafire myths and the bad science done in the name of forest ecology. Chad's book, Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate (University of Kentucky Press), serves as the framework for our dialogue.

This is a wonderful book, and I highly recommend it. It reads like a great mystery tale, and Chad gets to the bottom of the downright dastardly intrigues that perpetuate and sow seeds of ecological ignorance while putting us all at risk.

This dialogue covers some of the most important ideas in the book, and it serves as an excellent way to begin to heal from unskillful views and limited perceptions. You're in for a treat.

Derrick Jensen brings his unique style of dangerous wisdom to a dialogue about the bright green lies of the mainstream environmental movement. We can think of that movement as an attempt to establish solar-powered samsara, solar-powered suffering, or even solar-powered insanity.

We need to get beyond this style of consciousness, but to do that we first have to confront our situation with clarity. Derrick Jensen is the author of more than 25 books, including most recently Bright Green Lies, which he co-wrote with Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert.

UFOs, UAPs, Alien Abduction Experiences…What can they tell us about the nature of reality, the nature of mind, and the mind of Nature? How can we relate to these experiences as a call to journey into mystery and discover deeper truths about ourselves and the vast Cosmos? We can learn a lot just by dropping the dualistic notion that these experiences are either literal “space creatures,” or they are a matter of delusion, deception, hallucination, superstition.

In this episode, we consider UFO and abduction experiences as the mystery itself trying to get our attention, inviting us into the superness of Nature, and our own superness too.  

UFOs have become more widely accepted as presenting an exceptional set of phenomena that defy our currently available science and technology. Abduction experiences are both vividly real for those who undergo them, and far more widespread than many of us might guess. This is a set of phenomena worth learning about.

What is the great field of new discoveries? Where will the truly paradigm-shifting breakthroughs come from?

The great psychologist and philosopher William James invites us to see how our next big breakthrough will come from what we now see as noise in the data, as impossible, as absurd.

In this suggestion, James joins a vast group of philosophers who understand the true spiritual meaning of the impossible. He also points us directly at a vast collection of data that right now doesn’t fit in the paradigms that rule the science of the dominant culture. 

James himself became one such datum, one such gift to our possible transformation. But it terrified him. Together, we will try to understand why, and what it all means for our mutual insight, mutual liberation, and mutual health and healing.

With a little help from Aldous Huxley, we embrace the fact that love is the soul’s compass as we journey the landscape of mystery. We need that love to acknowledge our fear, and to rouse the great passion needed to understand (and wonderstand) reality.

When we look around and see conflict, aggression, and injustice, to what degree can we attribute it not merely to fear, but to fear of reality? And how can we begin to turn toward a reality we may unconsciously fear?

As Aldous Huxley pointed out: When we look at water, nothing about it tells us it’s made up of two gasses. Why would we guess that water is made of stuff that appears as gasses in ordinary conditions?

Our spiritual life is like this. We use our minds all the time, but we don’t know the nature of our mind or the nature of reality. We need education, and we need the tremendous energy of a meditative mind, a passionate mind and heart, in order to experiment in ways conducive to insight.

Wisdom and love can bring us profound revelations about ourselves, our world, the nature of reality, and the meaning of life. But a special kind of fear—sometimes conscious, but mostly operating unconsciously—can keep those revelations at bay.

Do we put up scarecrows to keep away reality, intimacy, and wonder—perhaps even magic?

In this contemplation we inquire into this spiritual or existential fear and the challenges it presents. It's active in our lives and in our world, right here and right now. Facing it can empower and liberate us and our world at the same time. Time to take down the scarecrows, embrace the mystery, and let the magic start to work.