This week's show is with Daniel Pinchbeck. Daniel Pinchbeck is the New York Times bestselling author of Breaking Open the Head, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, How Soon Is Now, and When Plants Dream (with Sophia Roklhin).

He hosted the talk show Mind Shift on Gaia TV and was featured in the 2010 documentary, 2012: Time for Change. He has written for many publications including The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Wired, Dazed & Confused, Purple, and ArtForum. He is the director of Liminal.news, an online course platform, and publishes a regular newsletter, Danielpinchbeck.substack.com .

In this conversation, Daniel and I explored the fascinating topic of DMT, (N, N-Dimethyltryptamine) also known as the Spirit Molecule. We covered what DMT is, its history and research that's been done about it, and how Daniel sees its role in human consciousness and the challenges of the world today.

I'd love to know what YOU think about this week's show. Let's carry on the conversation… please leave a comment below.

What you'll learn from this episode:

• Daniel described the two schools of thought around the use of psychedelics, one ceremonial and one purely focused on their medical use, given the wider benefits of modern humans reclaiming our connection to nature and to the ancient practice of ceremony and ritual, if you're listening to this show then you don't need to choose between those options - you can have both!
• I loved what Daniel said about the ways that different spiritual traditions have practices such as darkness immersion and meditation that open humans to the kinds of experiences that taking DMT can create... ultimately all of these practices appear to be giving us an experience of reality beyond that of our ordinary human consciousness
• There's a renaissance in the use of DMT in its various forms happening now and we're discovering uses and benefits in all kinds of fields - as Daniel said, this could be akin to the period in which we discovered electricity and how to harness it

Resources and stuff that we spoke about

• Daniel's Official Newsletter

Thank you for listening!

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Thank you! Lian & Jonathan