Psychedelic Salon

Guest speaker: Dr. Naughtilee

PROGRAM NOTES:

Today's program features the 2012 Palenque Norte Lecture that Dr. Naughtilee gave at the Burning Man Festival. Natalie is a Licensed Naturopathic Doctor in private practice in San Francisco. Naturopathic Medicine is a unique, holistic healthcare system that promotes a proactive, preventative approach to health and wellness, blending the science of modern medicine with the wisdom of the natural healing arts. In this engaging talk, and through interaction with her audience, Dr. Naughtilee discusses some of the foods, medicines, and poisons that we obtain from plants and helps us to better realize what a deep connection we humans have to the plant world.

Download

MP3

PCs – Right click, select option

Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Dr. Naughtilee

PROGRAM NOTES:

Today’s program features the 2012 Palenque Norte Lecture that Dr. Naughtilee gave at the Burning Man Festival. Natalie is a Licensed Naturopathic Doctor in private practice in San Francisco. Naturopathic Medicine is a unique, holistic healthcare system that promotes a proactive, preventative approach to health and wellness, blending the science of modern medicine with the wisdom of the natural healing arts. In this engaging talk, and through interaction with her audience, Dr. Naughtilee discusses some of the foods, medicines, and poisons that we obtain from plants and helps us to better realize what a deep connection we humans have to the plant world.

Download

MP3

PCs – Right click, select option

Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna

PROGRAM NOTES:

[NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.]

“Our best efforts are nothing more than half-completed stories told around the campfire. We don't actually know what our predicament is. We are up against a phenomenon which we can barely bring into focus in our cognitive sphere, and it's the phenomenon of our own existence”

“These religions that are so freighted with their own pomposity are no better than inspired guesses.”

“Science works its miracles by turning its enterprise into a kind of parlor game confined to the category matter and energy.”

“In other words, all these things you might cling to, Catholicism, democratic ideals, Hasidism, Marxism, Freudianism, all of these things are exposed [through use of psychedelics] as simply quaint cultural artifacts, tainted masks and rattles assembled by people of good intent but clearly not great grasp of the situation.”

“To date, the enterprise of thinking has moved us radically away from understanding anything.”

“For me, what all these years of psychedelic taking came to was a new model of how reality works, a new model of what the world is.”

“And what is the primary datum? It's the felt presence of immediate experience. In other words, being here now is the primary datum.”

“We need a metaphor that can contain the demon of the future that we have conjured into being.”

“Fine tuning the institutions built by powdered wig guys two hundred years ago is a long shot at holding the whole thing together.”

“Now, through the catalytic interaction with technology, the human species is getting set to redefine itself.” [Note: this comment was made a dozen years before the iPhone was released.]

“As I see it, Being, the Cosmos, whatever you want to call it, is a struggle between two implacable forces: Novelty on the one side and habit on the other side.”

“The sensory ratios that are being reinforced by the new electronic technology are like the sensory ratios that were in place fifteen thousand years ago. . . . Print imposes a condition on human mind which is now lifting.”

“History was an incredibly damaging experience, and now it's over . . . in a sense.”

“What was created by the era of the proper gentleman was excellent table manners and genocide over most of the surface of the planet.”

“To me, the psychedelic experience is the experience of trying to make sense of reality.”

“If psychedelics are, on any level, to be taken seriously as catalyzers or expanders of consciousness, then we need them, because it's an absence of consciousness that is making this historical transition so excruciating.”

Download

MP3

PCs – Right click, select option

Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

MAPS Psychedelic Science 2013 Conference

Books Mentioned in this podcast

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet

By Katie Hafner

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna

PROGRAM NOTES:

[NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.]

“Our best efforts are nothing more than half-completed stories told around the campfire. We don’t actually know what our predicament is. We are up against a phenomenon which we can barely bring into focus in our cognitive sphere, and it’s the phenomenon of our own existence”

“These religions that are so freighted with their own pomposity are no better than inspired guesses.”

“Science works its miracles by turning its enterprise into a kind of parlor game confined to the category matter and energy.”

“In other words, all these things you might cling to, Catholicism, democratic ideals, Hasidism, Marxism, Freudianism, all of these things are exposed [through use of psychedelics] as simply quaint cultural artifacts, tainted masks and rattles assembled by people of good intent but clearly not great grasp of the situation.”

“To date, the enterprise of thinking has moved us radically away from understanding anything.”

“For me, what all these years of psychedelic taking came to was a new model of how reality works, a new model of what the world is.”

“And what is the primary datum? It’s the felt presence of immediate experience. In other words, being here now is the primary datum.”

“We need a metaphor that can contain the demon of the future that we have conjured into being.”

“Fine tuning the institutions built by powdered wig guys two hundred years ago is a long shot at holding the whole thing together.”

“Now, through the catalytic interaction with technology, the human species is getting set to redefine itself.” [Note: this comment was made a dozen years before the iPhone was released.]

“As I see it, Being, the Cosmos, whatever you want to call it, is a struggle between two implacable forces: Novelty on the one side and habit on the other side.”

“The sensory ratios that are being reinforced by the new electronic technology are like the sensory ratios that were in place fifteen thousand years ago. . . . Print imposes a condition on human mind which is now lifting.”

“History was an incredibly damaging experience, and now it’s over . . . in a sense.”

“What was created by the era of the proper gentleman was excellent table manners and genocide over most of the surface of the planet.”

“To me, the psychedelic experience is the experience of trying to make sense of reality.”

“If psychedelics are, on any level, to be taken seriously as catalyzers or expanders of consciousness, then we need them, because it’s an absence of consciousness that is making this historical transition so excruciating.”

Download

MP3

PCs – Right click, select option

Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

MAPS Psychedelic Science 2013 Conference

Books Mentioned in this podcast

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet

By Katie Hafner

Guest speaker: Bruce Damer

/*

A brief history of Palenque Norte (video)

PROGRAM NOTES:

Bruce Damer takes the 2012 Palenque Norte audience at the Burning Man Festival on a far flung journey into what he calls his practice of "global multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-technic shamanism" where you "put yourself on the shelf" and dive deeply into the worlds of Pentagon think tanks, NASA mission designers, the tribal cultures of Pakistan, the Swiss, Egyptologists, IT professionals, and Christian Evangelicals, to come back with the true alchemical gold. With apologies to Terence McKenna, he says "there is no dominator culture" and that if we aren't careful we can collectively fall for cartoon epistemologies, chase chains of weaker and weaker claims, and become a victims of our own delusions, and fall prey to others' unsubstantiated theories. Bruce advises everyone to become their own best skeptic and develop "critical intelligence". If someone says something that strikes you as flaky or just doesn't feel right, Bruce suggests that you think it through before you pass on their meme.

Download

MP3

PCs – Right click, select option

Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Check out all of the projects Bruce talks about at his personal site at: www.damer.com

Dr. Bruce’s Levity Zone Podcast

Guest speaker: Bruce Damer

A brief history of Palenque Norte (video)

PROGRAM NOTES:

Bruce Damer takes the 2012 Palenque Norte audience at the Burning Man Festival on a far flung journey into what he calls his practice of “global multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-technic shamanism” where you “put yourself on the shelf” and dive deeply into the worlds of Pentagon think tanks, NASA mission designers, the tribal cultures of Pakistan, the Swiss, Egyptologists, IT professionals, and Christian Evangelicals, to come back with the true alchemical gold. With apologies to Terence McKenna, he says “there is no dominator culture” and that if we aren’t careful we can collectively fall for cartoon epistemologies, chase chains of weaker and weaker claims, and become a victims of our own delusions, and fall prey to others’ unsubstantiated theories. Bruce advises everyone to become their own best skeptic and develop “critical intelligence”. If someone says something that strikes you as flaky or just doesn’t feel right, Bruce suggests that you think it through before you pass on their meme.

Download

MP3

PCs – Right click, select option

Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Check out all of the projects Bruce talks about at his personal site at: www.damer.com

Dr. Bruce’s Levity Zone Podcast

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna

PROGRAM NOTES:

[NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.]

“We now know enough to fantasize realistically about what the alien would be like, and I think that this then sets up polarities in the collective psyche that previously we have only seen at the level of the individual.”

“By passing into the psychedelic phase, the space-faring phase, the entire species is passing into adolescence.”

“The question is being asked, 'Are we alone?' ” And though we now focus on that question we need to think beyond that to what if we're not alone? Then what becomes the next imperative question?”

“People are, in the confines of their own apartments, becoming Magellans of the interior world and reaching out to this alien thing and beginning to map it and bring back stories that can only be compared to the kind of stories that the chroniclers of the New World brought back to Spain at the close of the 15th century.”

“Actually, this is what has led us into this extremely alienated state, it's that we haven't demanded that the stories we tell ourselves about how the world works confirm our direct experience of how it works.”

“In the last eight years we have undergone like a second Neolithic revolution. The first Neolithic revolution was the invention of agriculture. The second Neolithic revolution was the invention of home fungus cultivation.” (from a November 1983 lecture)

“I don't think that mass drug taking is a good idea. But I think that we must have a deputized minority, a shamanic professional class if you will, whose job is to bring ideas out of the deep black water and show them off to the rest of us and perform for our culture some of the cultural functions that shaman perform in pre-literate cultures.”

“The word 'self' is as great a mystery as the word 'other'. It's just a polarity between two mysteries.”

“For all we know, we know nothing.”

“You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you is your understanding.”

Download

MP3

PCs – Right click, select option

Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Books mentioned in this podcast

Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now

by Douglas Rushkoff

Against the Grain [Kindle Edition]

Joris-Karl Huysmans (Author)

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna

PROGRAM NOTES:

[NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.]

“We now know enough to fantasize realistically about what the alien would be like, and I think that this then sets up polarities in the collective psyche that previously we have only seen at the level of the individual.”

“By passing into the psychedelic phase, the space-faring phase, the entire species is passing into adolescence.”

“The question is being asked, ‘Are we alone?’ ” And though we now focus on that question we need to think beyond that to what if we’re not alone? Then what becomes the next imperative question?”

“People are, in the confines of their own apartments, becoming Magellans of the interior world and reaching out to this alien thing and beginning to map it and bring back stories that can only be compared to the kind of stories that the chroniclers of the New World brought back to Spain at the close of the 15th century.”

“Actually, this is what has led us into this extremely alienated state, it’s that we haven’t demanded that the stories we tell ourselves about how the world works confirm our direct experience of how it works.”

“In the last eight years we have undergone like a second Neolithic revolution. The first Neolithic revolution was the invention of agriculture. The second Neolithic revolution was the invention of home fungus cultivation.” (from a November 1983 lecture)

“I don’t think that mass drug taking is a good idea. But I think that we must have a deputized minority, a shamanic professional class if you will, whose job is to bring ideas out of the deep black water and show them off to the rest of us and perform for our culture some of the cultural functions that shaman perform in pre-literate cultures.”

“The word ‘self’ is as great a mystery as the word ‘other’. It’s just a polarity between two mysteries.”

“For all we know, we know nothing.”

“You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you is your understanding.”

Download

MP3

PCs – Right click, select option

Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Books mentioned in this podcast

Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now

by Douglas Rushkoff

Against the Grain [Kindle Edition]

Joris-Karl Huysmans (Author)

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna

PROGRAM NOTES:

[NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.]

“I'm proposing on one level that hallucinogens be thought of as almost as social pheromones that regulate the rate at which language develops, and therefore regulate human culture generally.”

“Where psychedelics comes together with that is that it's going to require a transformation of human language and understanding to stop the momentum of the historical process, to halt nuclear proliferation, germ warfare, infantile 19th century politics, all these things. It cannot be accomplished through a frontal assault upon it by political means.”

“Transformation of language through psychedelic drugs is a central factor of the evolution of the social matrix of the rest of the century.” (quote from 1983)

“Tribalism is a social form which can exist at any level of technology. It's a complete illusion to associate it with low levels of technology. It is probably, in fact, a form of social organization second only to the family in its ability to endure.”

“I think there is a global commonality of understanding coming into being. And it is not necessarily fostered by institutions.”

“If I had to pick an ontological vision that was compatible with what I think these drugs are about, and with what I think is trying to happen, I would pick Taoism.”

“So it's [shamanism] a kind of a profession. It's almost like clergy. It's to be deputized by the society as an ecstatic for the purpose of introducing back into society the material that comes from the mystical voyage for purposes of cultural renewal.”

“The history of man that you don't know is what your unconscious is made out of.”

Download

MP3

PCs – Right click, select option

Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Books mentioned in this podcast

A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present

By Howard Zinn

Burr: A Novel

By Gore Vidal

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated

By Gore Vidal

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna

PROGRAM NOTES:

[NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.]

“I’m proposing on one level that hallucinogens be thought of as almost as social pheromones that regulate the rate at which language develops, and therefore regulate human culture generally.”

“Where psychedelics comes together with that is that it’s going to require a transformation of human language and understanding to stop the momentum of the historical process, to halt nuclear proliferation, germ warfare, infantile 19th century politics, all these things. It cannot be accomplished through a frontal assault upon it by political means.”

“Transformation of language through psychedelic drugs is a central factor of the evolution of the social matrix of the rest of the century.” (quote from 1983)

“Tribalism is a social form which can exist at any level of technology. It’s a complete illusion to associate it with low levels of technology. It is probably, in fact, a form of social organization second only to the family in its ability to endure.”

“I think there is a global commonality of understanding coming into being. And it is not necessarily fostered by institutions.”

“If I had to pick an ontological vision that was compatible with what I think these drugs are about, and with what I think is trying to happen, I would pick Taoism.”

“So it’s [shamanism] a kind of a profession. It’s almost like clergy. It’s to be deputized by the society as an ecstatic for the purpose of introducing back into society the material that comes from the mystical voyage for purposes of cultural renewal.”

“The history of man that you don’t know is what your unconscious is made out of.”

Download

MP3

PCs – Right click, select option

Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Books mentioned in this podcast

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present

By Howard Zinn

Burr: A Novel

By Gore Vidal

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated

By Gore Vidal