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near rescue? Who or what do you think god is? How is our conception me put another way of god change throughout history lesson With an easy one lex so It? Is god? Well, god is a thought, god is an idea, but its reference is to that which is beyond thinking beyond our ability to even can

steve and beyond the categories of being and non being. So how do we talk about that? To talk about? It is almost to get it wrong right. So a Joe Campbell famously said that any god that is not transparent to transcendence is like an idolatry, because it's just a mental construct and it can't possibly speak to the incomprehensible. So we use poetic language, we say the being of beings, the and the infinite life energy of the universe. The the mystery of transcendence boundless life, unqualified business, but it doesn't quite get to the point, I think that if there's any great insight from mysticism, it's that you and I participate with god in a very real way, lex Friedman here in austin, Texas. That

in the here and now to touch that eternal principle, another way to refer to god to touch that eternal principle within ourselves is to participate with, with divinity in some way, so not an external force, but that divine sense within so there's some aspect on which, god is a part of us. So one is a thing we can describe. This represents all of the mystery. This is outside our ability to comprehend and the same time, some all the thing this inside of us also. The ultimate paradox- met mixed of of magdeburg thirteenth century german mystic. Maybe the first german mystic says that the day of her spirit, awakening was the day that she saw and knew that she saw god and all things and all things in god, and so we

and say it is by the way, without apology or lightweight theology, or vapid speculation or even heresy. You know we can. We can talk about this, including within the abraham fades. The mystical core of these faiths all talk about the encounter of divinity within that's what I explore. The mortality gave it that this notion of techniques archaic techniques in some cases of ecstasy that allow that experience of the eternal principle to actually rise up in our consciousness. We were still here as flesh and blood beings, there's some sense in which our conception of god, though,. Is conjured up by our own mind and so are creating god like aren't we the gods their creating the idea of god they if we're not. When we talk about god,

aren't we playing with ideas that are created by ai or our mind, and thereby we are the creator, not god. This is a very kind of cyclical question, but in some sense I mean that, ah. if god is the thing that represents the mystery all around us, contrast that, with our conception of god, do talk, a bottom is more a creation of our minds. It's not the mysteries are struggled to comfort.

And the mystery, and therefore we are creating the god in terms of the god that we were talking about in this conversation or in general. If that makes any sense, it makes no sense whatsoever, but this is this- is this is the eternal mystery? This is why it is so difficult to talk about, and yet it could be the very centre of our beings, in view punish odds, speak about us, as the creators about us is god's. It's a very different creation myth, but the god of your body sheds in this great verse, talks about pouring themselves themselves into creation? Indeed, I have become this creation, says god and there's a great line verily here she who knows this becomes in this creation, a creator so yeah I mean just our ability to engage in meditation. Our ability to to think about this stuff is

Thirdly, our divine nature. This is what the humanist were talking about and in the renaissance, by the way, and that it's not so much learning putting dots together having arguments with each other over learnt books. It's it's a process of unlearned is what some of the mystical traditions talk about on learning all these thoughts, emotions, traumas and x, currencies that have gone into the fast construction of our fast self that, behind all these layers, like peeling back, the onion is a part of us that, once you can identify that begins to look a little bit different. In other words, it's one thing to foster a relationship with god. It's a very different thing to identify, as god and I mean that, quite literally, without being heretical, you can you can find this in the mystery traditions, Q, expenditures,

you mean a human being can can embody god, that is his book incarnational theology that you can find in any any christian mystic, but you can find it in the mystical

of his slum in and judaism as well, so roomy, for example, the great the great sofie mystic talks about. If you could get rid of yourself, just get rid of yourself just once the secret of secrets would open to you that the face of the unknown would appear on the perception of your consciousness. Lamb rabbi, laurens cushioned or a modern day, contemporary mystic talks about a because this stuff does continue. There's a continuity to poetry, hairs! Incredible! So well, listen, listen! Sarah! By cushion her, he says that the emptying of self hood allows the soul to attach to true reality and encompasses. The true reality is, was called the divine nothingness.

I yin, and so I like the adage that all atheists and mystics both essentially believe in nothing, except that the mystics spell it with a capital n, the divine nothing and then I'll, give you meister Eckhart and another medieval christian mystic. He says that and if you could not yourself write the same concept, if you could not yourself for just an instant, indeed, I say less than instant. You would possess all so again, you're seeing the same thing in sufiism, kabul, ism, christian mysticism. The way to identify with the divine is to peel back these layers and attempt to discover pure awareness. If we look at the universe from a physics perspective- or you know, I am a computer science person. So if

The universe is a is a computer there's some sense that god, the creator of the universe or just the computer itself doesn't know what the heck is going to happen. He just kind of creates some basic rules and runs the thing. So there is some element in which you can conceive of humans or conscious beings are intelligent beings as a as a tool that creator uses to understand itself himself. Do I do think that's a perspective that we could or useful to take on god. There is basically the universe created humans to understand itself. He doesn't actually, No, the fourth thing he needs the human trains figure out the puzzle so that, in contrast to the unlearned together

getting out of the way that we talked about it's more like no. We need the human figure out this puzzle. While we have no answers to this, which is why philosophers still have jobs if they have jobs at all, but I mean they're, so the physicist take a look at this. Have you seen the article that came out. I think it was this month in the journal of cosmology and asked her particle physics. lands? Are the bio centres theory the idea that the universe comes into being through our observation? Read the whole, the god equation, so not just in quantum mechanics but in general relativity the idea that that we, The universe moment by moment, which is kind of mine blowing, gets into ideas of simulation. Okay. So that's how the physicists, at least some of them might look at it. You can also look back to the medieval christian mystics. Meister Eckhardt once again says that the I, with which I see, god is the same. I that sees me right so one site, one knowledge, one love

and another mind blowing concept, but this is this is why the arts and poetry and music are so important, because, although I love astroparticle physics, it's another to kind of hear this, the same message across time, yeah the simulation thing elsa Actually looking this morning at the video games, just the statistics having video games- and I saw that the two top video games in terms of ours played. Is fortnight and world of warcraft, and I saw that is a hundred forty. billion hours billion hours have been plate of those games at the lower videogame yeah, but that that's very sophisticated worlds being created, especially in the world of warcraft. It's a mass of online roleplaying game shifting characters there together of creating a world, but they in themselves are also developing.

these items in their grow like their little humans like this complicated societies. Therefore never goals are striving and so on. and it's we're creating a universe within our universe and for now it's kind of an it's, a basic sort of constraint, version of our more richer earth, like civilization, but it's conceivable that you know that we are. This thing on earth is a kind of video. aim that somebody else's playing the game? You can see some video games upon video is being created that, and this is something I think a lot about, not from philosophical perspective, but practically how fun does this video game have to be for us to let go of the silly pursuits in this I need space that will live in and fully just stay in while stay in water warcraft stay in the video game for full time. To think about that, for an engineering perspective, I'm like is there going to be

time when this video game is actual real life for us, and then the creatures inside the video game there'll be just borrowing our consciousness for sort of to ground themselves or refer to us as the gods right, like won't we'd, become the gods This conversation is not going how well, I think about this- a lot from in oak Zella video games, I wonder more and more of us is covert times a living, the digital world. You can think about twitter and all those kinds of things you could do think about clubhouse people using just voice. communicate, will icons serving a digital space. He could see more and more will be moving in the digital space and let go of this physical space and then the the remnants of the the ancients that created the video game

it's that nobody centuries from now will even remember those will be the gods and then it'll be gods upon gods being created. This is the kind of stuff I think about, but as it is that any at all useful to you to this thought, exp camera to the simulation, basically the fabric of our reality. How did it come to be? What is running this things that useful, or is it ultimately the project of understanding? God of understanding? Myth is the project that centers on the human on the human mind for you, hmm, we seem to be at the center of this divine dance, which which sounds awfully anthropocentric, but the ancients thought about this to mean the concept in sanskrit of lila that the point behind it existence is this play or it's ultimately playful, this divine dance. It gets awfully complicated in the gnostic neoplatonic schools. These

chains of being from godhead down to us right now. Some invisible right and we're gonna get into terrans mckenna territory later on, but we can start now by talking about discarnate entities and arc, funds and aliens and archetypes I mean there is a world where turns Mckenna does meet plato and narcissism quite kindly in that. That's in the this invisible college right. The m the end the whole world with which we seem to have some kind of symbiosis that has a higher intent, maybe even a purpose or play in mind for us, so I mean the these ideas come across when you've had a heroic dose of mushrooms and they also pop up in the ancient philosophical literature. This idea of our cons, who you know the the puppet masters, can controlling us flesh and blood beings, and it's all a it's all a cosmic dance and there are no answers to this first whore the organs. Second, what is this world? Where

If the economy is plato, do me in the space of ideas, or are we talking about some kind of world that connects all consciousness throughout human history? I think through different techniques. It is, you know, I think, What about I think Gordon was is the meeting point of the two, so so gordon watson, who I do talk about in the book, was this J p morgan bank. returned s, know my colleges and he's largely credit it with the rediscovery of suicide and containing mushrooms, which kind of gave rise to the pop psychedelic revolution of the nineteen sixties. He visited maria sabena down in mexico. In his wake, went bob Dylan led zepplin, the stones and everybody else, and the way he describes his civil servant. Experience is a bit stream,

because he thinks of plato right and he says that, whereas our ordinary reality is kind of this imperfect view of things, Gordon Wasson felt that on mushrooms he was spying, the archetypes and he talks about plato, and he writes about the archetypes in this famous article. That's released and nineteen fifty seven in life magazine and so a well read individual from the mid twentieth century has his premier psychedelic experience and outcomes plato, because what was witnessing, was so sharp, so brilliant, so detailed in some sense more real than real. This noetic sense that William James talks about that, when you can something more real than real these discarnate entities. These images this these visionary motifs your tempted to believe that you ve tapped into the truest nature.

and the underlying structure of the cosmos and that's difficult to escape from whether your plato or terence mckenna or gordon watson caught him between who talk about this being in touch with something there's more real than real, and let's just go straight. There too, mckenna before returned to the bigger picture say: he's talked about the what does it self healing machine know self self, transforming self transforming machine elves during his dim t travels- and I start to redoubling- who also had different travels through this hyperspace, they're all seem to be travelling in the same spaceships different locations. Then there is the sense in which these seem to be travelling through whatever and run off its through space time or something else to meet, something that is more real, then reopen. I woke he say about this dm two experience of bar terrorist mckenna, but

poetry he used, but maybe more specifically about this place a day seemed all travel to. So the big question is this: is real. Is it really more real than real, the ancient philosophers risking the same question and their means of attempting to answer that was by dying? So if you ask Plato the definition of philosophy, he will say that to practice it in the right. Way is to practice dying and being dead, and many people describe the psychedelic experience and sort of near death. Experience terms, and the encountering of all this visual imagery tends to be something that is off described as more real than real. So has terence talk about this, so I was just listening to the trial august, which folks should look up somewhere between nineteen, eighty, nine and ninety ninety terran sits down with his friends ralph, abraham and rupert sheltering at essen, and there trying to figure out

the meaning of these discarnate entities, and these nonhuman intelligences and tyrants develops a taxonomy for how to analyze this, and he says number one there either semi physical but kind of elusive, so think of the big foot or the yeti, or things like this beings that exists somewhere between mythology and zoology, which is isn't really appropriate here. So so option number two he says: is the mental drivers so many good line so good webpages somewhere, but you mister. Jesus, you always is our parents mckenna. Take no credit for this. out your combining you're, like the jimi hendrix, I will use the blue scale.

But he still he still create something new in the music. It played a my guide, the whole we're going into mix a libyan right now, so so option number two- and this is this: what this is, what a terence costs for the mental us reductionist approach- and this is this- is pure mckenna, poetry. He says that these beings could be autonomous. Fragments of psychic energy that have temporarily escaped the controlling power of the ego, so in union sense is that these would just be pure projections. The projections of schizophrenia in some cases, so their centrally unreal and the third option The most tantalizing is that their both nonphysical but autonomous, in other words, they actually exist in some kind of real place in some kind of real space, and then

We can have congress with them. There is communication, it talks about the whisperings of the demon artificers and that its just possible that our meetings with these beings have coaxed the humans, she's into self expression, in a very real way that at different times in history Our relationships with these semi autonomous beings may actually guide the species. Now this is high speculation and parents and ralph and rupert wind up talking about the early modern period and the scientific enlightenment net. Even some, unlike descartes reports, a dream in which he came face to face with an angel who said that conquest of nature, is to be achieved through measure and number so so even the hard minded materialist lick like day card is confronting these discarding

entities John d in the sixteenth century, the high magician of Elizabeth in court he reports decades worth of, but we would save extra terrestrial to me. creation or enter dimensional communication, and you can find instances of this throughout history, including among the priests of cracks and peter Kingsley rights. Quite a bit about this, but I'll say that until your next question. Well, first of all, we don't seem to understand from where intelligence came forward, honest and from where life came from on earth. but that we can come into existence base of chemistry in biology of good theories about the origins of life on earth, but the origins of intelligent life that, as is a giant mystery in there's some sense

in which means I dunno. If you know the movie two thousand one a space odyssey, but it does seem that there's like important throughout human history throughout life on earth, there's important phase shifts of physics. Something happened where there's big lie. They could be something coincidental like fire and learning how to cook meet nor those gaza things. But it feels like that could be other things, and I think this at the core of your work is exploring with those things could be dessert. Is it possible touched by your rogue enough? Why is it a famous entirely possible? Is it possible that psychedelic acts have in fact contributed of of being an important source of those face shift throughout human history of the intellect, basically steering the intellectual development and growth of human cells?

if it's a hypothesis worth investigating how about that view, and- and maybe- and maybe not psychedelic enough themselves, but I think our whole conversations kind of wrapped up in these none ordinary states of awareness. We start by talking about god, which is something on ordinary, an expansive, and I think that as you as you trace the intervention of divinity, if that's the case throughout History. You have to bump up against the irrational and more say, ellie idea, the great scholar of of religions and fellow Romanian said that The history of religions essentially constitutes the point of intersection between metaphysics and biology right, so that we are biological beings who do interact with our planet with the with the natural kingdom, and you would think that, as you know, early archaic ecologists, we would have figured out what plants work which fungi don't.

and developed, maybe language around them, and so this is. This is another one and mckenna is speculative, but very interesting hypotheses the stone ape theory is it? Is it possible that psychedelic were involved in one of the several leaps forward? He mentioned the word leap, Jared diamond talks about the great leap forward, sixty thousand years ago the species have been around for a couple hundred thousand years. All of a sudden, the cave paintings appears all of a sudden there's a facelift. Something like that happen millions of years ago- and I love the way pastimes talks about this. It would be the ingestion of perhaps eliciting containing guy, millions and millions of times. For millions and millions of years, so it's not just a one time event that cascades, but it's this it's the accumulation of psychedelic experience in that its really difficult to test that ip

This is, but I've been talking with a pale. You enter Paul just in south africa, my friendly burger about ways that we might test for this, and so lee amongst many things, is this national geographic explore he's the pale you anthropologists paleo anthropologists at the Firstly, with waters friend, he's famous, amongst other things, for the discovery of previously undiscovered hominids. They come when the lady. And there is an interesting point so now, lady, is this archaic, hominid morphological e archaic, but it dates to about three hundred thousand years ago.

which is very strange and what's even more strange about homo naledi at the rising star cave system there in south africa is that Lee believes he's discovered the first by pupil, ape deliberately disposing of it's dead, and so there is a recognition of self mortality and the practicing of rituals around death, we're talking about burial, and if you have burials, says Lee and an archaic hominid three hundred thousand years ago, Maybe you have language, and I mention that because Terence mckenna was obsessed with language in the stone age theory that

the ingestion of suicide and in addition to enhancing visual acuity, perhaps facilitating sexual arousal leads to proto language now, isn't it interesting? This could be entirely a coincidence that the largest sound inventory of any language is the coin son of botswana, namibia. They have something like a hundred and sixty four continents and forty four vowels english by comparison has about forty five. So I dont know what to make of this. But what you find? and in that part of the world is very, very complex language language that could be an inheritance language that could be incredibly archaic. Together with this recognition of self mortality and I totally burger. We say when you looking at universals like that language around all human populations, the recognition of self mortality, the contemplation of death. Just maybe you have farmer,

energy, and so maybe we can go out and test for this using gas from photography, mass spectrometry proteome ex technology that doesn't even exist, but maybe we can actually test the stones ape theory to figure out once and for Well, if there's any merit there, can you just linger little bit on the pharmacology tools like how? How would you, how would it be possible say something about what was being ingested so so so long ago. That's what I asked DR berger, so Lee has discovered in the dental calculus nice of archaic, hominids, dental calculus. I, like the evidence of their diet, and you might not believe how old this was, but in in sidi bou astrolabe, the guests a deeper? They found evidence of city of his diet going back two million years, so through things like fido lists, which are essentially fossilize plant tissue, they found evidence

said, Inga was eating bark and leaves, and grasses and fruits and palm so no psychedelic to speak of. But it just goes to show that, through things like dental microwave analysis and other techniques that we're still developing, we can actually figure out what the diet was at the time a fast forward to fifty thousand years ago. There's another study out of elsie their own cave and twenty twelve, which found that neanderthals again preceding our species. Fifty thousand years ago were ingesting yarrow in camera meal, which had been identified as medicinal, so again, not psychedelic her psychoactive, but we kind of have the beginnings of the technology in this. That was nine years ago to begin figuring out the ancestral diet of of these hominids. Presumably there could be a way to figure

Well, it's not just diet but which are have psychoactive elements to them, so whether you're chewing it with a year smoking it. Whether I may I dunno what licking it. I dunno if there's any kind of ways through the dental calculus to figure out which exact substances were being consumed. Is it possible to figure out whether psychedelic substances are being consumed by looking a human behavior. I guess that organise burials or cave paintings nervous it s a little bit of a stretch to say like what is asleep comfort, but it's not it's not so so so. Just last fall as a matter of fact, so that that notions been out there while the idea that hallucinogens and the ritual consumption of hallucinogens were somehow related to the great leap forward were somehow related to the initial cape and graham Hancock wrote a beautiful book about this called supernatural which in many ways like sent me down this rapid, hold back in two thousand,

seven and so, but even at the time when he was running that in the year subsequent, it was still kind of seen as a cookie idea. Last fall numb. Interestingly enough, the first archeo chemical data for the ritual consumption of psychedelic associated with cave art was finally published its it's not that ancient it's only about four five hundred years ago, but it came from the pin, we'll cave a to match, shape in california and what they found were datura quid slight. These chewed up you mentioned. Have they ingested these chewed up quits like these, these bunches of datura, which contain these very powerful chopin alkaloids in what was believed to be some kind of two mash and

the asian sites. So we can say that there is a national archeo chemical data for the consumption of psychedelic in cave art, and so, where else might we find this? Are there are a lot of archeo chemist in the world like his? This is as fast eying is through chemistry, through biology through physics. Whatever would like all the disciplines, we one day, computer science, we apply those tools. The study, not the data of today, but the data of the past, but are we talking about, doesn't here. I like a hard as prom relative to how many people are taking it on just as aside little tangent were probably talking more dozens than hundreds, I spent many years trying to track down and argue chemist who would talk to me. There were a couple pat mcgovern at the university of pennsylvania and then my friend andrew co, at mit, which you

know something about andrew really. You know on his own time on his own dime has been good during the data for this organic residue analysis. He has once called the open arc a project which is this online open source repository for this data. Never been a centre for this no university has stood up a dedicated centre, a team really, which is what you need of archeo chemist, looking stuff about mean, even despite that, there have been some remarkable discoveries over the past ten twenty years. It still. Discipline very much in its infancy, maybe its becoming a toddler, but as the technology gets better and cheaper, I hope you'll, see more morocco chemist joining the fine here and Andrew fastening. His works, thus ay, but also I just because of because a your work I came across and a few emails Patrick Mcgovern, whose basically origin com you? So he has a center? I guess that's

does by a molecular archaeology at your pen, he's the author of a bunch of books, one of which is ancient bruce sousa collar of beer and wine and like ancient alcohol, which is facing the enforced, even just alcohol, but he s legs. Alcohol with the genetic, energetic properties as well, but sitting in full, as a russian sassy too, are to think about the influence of alcohol and the development of human civilization throughout its history is. Is there something can come? and on alcohol or in general Patrick's work that I was in I would have to u inspiring our kind of added to your conception of human history. His work with some of the first hard scientific data

I saw for the ritual consumption of ease and toxic. Hence I dont think he's ever found the hard and fast data fur for psychedelic, but what he turned me onto was this idea that alcohol or beer and wine specifically could have been used as vehicles for the administration of second, that that's where it all started. For me, just just the notion that Ancient beer and ancient wine is very very different from what we drink today that, typically there they were cocktails. There were often fortified and mixed with different fruits, berries herbs, plants even fungi over time, because this was all in the absence of distilled liquor right. There is no hard alcohol, even in russia. Before may be twelfth century. It was in europe, maybe a bit earlier, but the that the concept of distillation just didn't exist, and so you know to pack a punch

in a rather than just drank a kind of water down budweiser. These people were interested in fortifying these beverages, with whatever they could find in nature and and pat his credit found some of the initial data. For these you could say spiked wines, in spite beers, now with anything overtly psychedelic, but just the fact that in the sixteenth century bc at a grave circle. A in my son, I there's this minoan ritual cocktail of beer. Mixed with wine. Mixed with meat is very interesting and even more interesting that you find that across the aegean in gordian at king midas, his tomb read the same kind of ritual cocktail which pat and sam at the door fish head brewery resurrected as the midas touch. So I'm in the so that we can go back, find this data resurrected in some cases Twenty eight hundred years later, I found pretty exciting ten years ago, yet bringing back for research but as

fascinating that before putting these ideas and will return to I returned to ideas of psychedelic infused wine. Goojje is pretty fascinating, but to step back and just kind of look at your work with the the book immortality. What is the story? The this book I knew, would get there eventually lex yeah it's a non linear path. Somehow we were talking about simulation and the universe is a computer, that's creating video games in wow and fortnite, but we out there and will return always that if an insane philosophical- but are you book metallic you? What was the stories and they eat on his books who woody, which part of human history studying rights? Of that? That's that's await a phrase it so it's you know it's my twelve year search for the hard scientific data for the ritual.

Of psychedelic in classical antiquity, so we're talking about amongst the ancient greeks and romans and the paleo christians. I saw the generations that would give birth the largest religion, the roads ever known, christianity, today with two and a half billion people. The big question for me is you know why Psychedelic actually involve. There was a lot written about this in the sixties, John marco allegro. The book that I follow was published in nineteen. Seventy eight before I was born the road to a loses by gordon watson who we talked about already albert hoffman, who famously discovers lsd or synthesizers it from got an call rock who is still a professor of classics at boston, a city, the only surviving member of that renegade trio and now eighty five years old. So this this all predates us. But what was lacking sixty seven. These eighties nineties, I think, was some of this technology.

and in the hard scientific data. Now, for years and years I went out to the archeo botanists and the archeo chemist around the world, and I asked a very basic question is, any evidence for psychedelic and class quantico and the answer would almost invite really come back. No, I'm talking to an addition to pat. He put me in touch with HANS peter sticker in germany, tanya valid multi in such a difference? I in ITALY I went all over the place asking question and getting the same answer back time and again, and so the is essentially my my search for that data and the eventual uncovering of to what I think are key pieces of data. One data when data point how's the ritual use of a psychedelic beer in classical?

equality, and I bury a what today's spain and the other shows what looks like a kind of psychedelic wine just outside pompey from the first century, a d at the right place at the right time when the earliest christians were showing up in ITALY. Again. These are early steps in the search for evidence in the space, but speaking of early christians, what role do you think psychedelic infused wine could have played in the life of the age? I won't be clever in the life of Jesus Christ. I've been recently that- and I hope this doesn't sound obscurantists, but I think it's impossible to understand. Jesus and the birth of christianity in the absence of ancient

and I ll give you a very specific example. Why think that's the case? You can read the entire new testament in ancient greek and not once will you ever find a reference? to alcohol, because there was no word in ancient greek for alcohol. The way the word sounds I'll call. It comes at semitic, it comes from the arabic Landmines to enliven refresh, probably comes from coal, kayo, H, l, so these powdered metallic that were used and how chemical governments and cosmetic, so again, that's much later in time, more using alchemy, distillation, etc. In the first century, a d, the power of wine wasn't necessarily tied to alcohol right fermented, grapes the way we think about wine today, so pat miguel

and found some of that early organic data for wine being mixed with with beer and with meat. But if you look at the literature from the first century, a d discourteous, for example, he writes this this massive treatise. At the exact same time, the gospels are being written and I a score of ease in just one of his books talks about fifty six detailed recipes for spiking wine with all kinds of things like salvia and hellebore, and frankincense and myrrh the spice perfumes, but also more dangerous. Things like henbane and mandrake, which he says in greek, can be fatal with just one cupful and in book for seventy four of his matera, america. He talks about black night, shade, producing fun to see us all aid ice, none not unpleasant visions. What today, we would say psychedelic, so just looking at the literature and the kind of literature that even most classicist, I didn't really learn it. An underground

I came across discourteous later, but just a basic look at the literature supports what mcgovern has been testing, which is the fact that wine was routinely mix What different compounds his first name, by the way that language affects our conception of the tools? We used to understand the world psych. Will I get you, See wine because can see if they're not called drugs These economic egon, maybe refrain see them in terms of their rolling on us thinking about the world that is changing the war. The foolish thing that language has that power. But what language was used understand line at the time, so we're talking about a greek speaking world right. So you know Jesus is born and does his public ministry in the holy land but think about the early church think about where the church takes root in nepal. The greatest

endless of the time rights, basically, half the new testament, he's writing letters in greek to greek speakers in places like corinth in greece or filippi defunct city just north of the island of fast us or he's writing to folks in what today is turkey, the colossians, the galatians? He writes letters to the romans. These are greek speakers in these pockets. These hull, nick pockets, all around the ancient mediterranean and for them again ignore discourteous, ignore pet mcgovern's work to them. To think about, wine was to think about a mixed I mixed potion, and so the word one us in ancient greek does show up in the new testament,

but there was another word to describe wine and it exists for like a thousand years before, during and after the life of Jesus, the word used for wine is far muck on, which obviously gives us the word pharmacy. It means drug, so in greek, a greek speaker would actually used the word drug to refer to wine roof, Scott, all the clock, This is talks about this as a as a ritualistic formula. They understood wine as this compound beverage, a drug against grief medicinal elixir,

that could either harm or he'll or just maybe a sacrament? To put you in touch with wine gods, all new, clearly religion and myth, but religion, very much so has survived much like dreams has like an imagery component like your kind of going outside the visual constraints of physical space where you can have very specific conceptions of what things look like, and you kind of use your imagination to stretch beyond the world as we know it, and the things that are tried to get in such a thing them more real than real. What role do these tools do? These farmer cons have in trying to stimulate the imagery of religion? I didn t have a sense that dumb, never critical role

here or is it just a bunch of different factors that are utilised amongst different tools, are utilised construct, the symmetry This is not even or its image you toronto knowledge? Is it more expensive ideas? That's is to religion. No, I think the wine is absolutely essential, and so, if, if it's impossible, I understand paleo christianity. In the absence of ancient greek, I think it's equally difficult in the absence of the sacred pharmacopeia or wine itself right, just just think about wine at the time, and I think that the ancient greek audience would have heard that in a very different way. Must and so the referring to it may be as a fatima khan, but the followers of dionysus which precedes Jesus and in some cases the story of Jesus is kind of a recapitulation of the mysteries of dionysus. But when you think about dionysus and may be from your highschool mythology, you think about him as the god of theatre or the got a wine which is typically what it is

or the god of ecstasy- and you know again dionysus- is not the god of alcohol. There's no concept of of fermented grapes, the power of dionysus and the ability to commune with dinosaurs through his blood and before christianity, the blood of dine isis is equated to his wine. The sacramental drinking of the wine was interpreted classicist read about this, including walter burkhard. It was interpreted as consuming the god himself in order to become one with the god. This is where we get the idea of enthusiasm, because the language matters enthusiasm to be filled with the spirit of the god, so that you became identified with diagnosis and acquired his divine powers. Now, how does it happen again? Is not the god of alcohol. He is the god of wine, but he's really the god of madame

and delirium and frenzy and his principal followers are women. There called the mine ads and the way they get in touch with him is through the consumption of this Sacramento wine. Even at the theatre of dine isis separate from his outdoor churches, there was a wine serve their called lemme, and this is the wine that gives birth to hollywood, I mean the ancient hollywood. Was there at the theatre of die nice as this is where comedy. tragedy in poetry: music come from, but rather than a hot I'm going to beer what they drink at the theatre of diagnosis was this wine called fema, which means pounded or rubbed, and professor rough talks about? Maybe it was the drugs that were rubbed into this theatrical beverage to help the play come alive, some man. This is seen as a positive thing as they like a creative journey. It's not it's, not it's then what is it? The and learning getting out of the way kind of thing is: is that how soon

or is it more like entertaining escape from life that is suffering I think I gotta I gotta inject a little modern. Does the esky into the old existential despair, and maybe it's a maybe it's a bit of that. We can't say that there was in recreational drinking happier and the greeks also had this impose yeah, and they also were just getting hammered in some cases there. But when it comes to the rights of diagnosis, what you see. There is some

the creation of these states of awareness in which, again you identify with the god to become the god. There's there's the offer gi. There is the consumption of divinity in order to become divinity right back to how we started the conversation right. So if we stop conceiving of god as something exterior to us, but that the mystery of being itself is the mystery of your being and the mystery of my being that the way to encounter that is through the sacramento theology that you drink, the actual blood of this great god to become that god and there is a place for this in ancient greek society, so drinking wine is drink in the blood of done. Isis do think Jesus is an actual physical person. They exist in history or is it an idea that aim to to life through the consumption of wine and

kinds of rituals. So this is where I face my excommunication, depending how I answer this. If you I mean you're, you're, you're, playing with fire, and why with this nomination by the way here, so I, aye aye shy away from that controversy in the book, I'm perfectly willing to accept Jesus as a historical personage near we have the multiples city of sources, although it's a declaration after his death, but we have the eucharist described in the four gospels we have it being described by Paul in first corinthians But when you read John, it does read a bit differently than the other gospels, and in book? I rely a lot on the scholarship of Dennis mcdonald, who writes a fabulous book cod The danish gospel- and this is again why the greek matters, because, once you start to analyze the greek johns gospel, it seems to be applied,

intention of Jesus very much in the guise of diagnosis. The most obvious example is the wedding canna right, that only occurs in johns gospel, the famous transformation of water into wine, not again too greek speaker of the first century. They would have known about the greek district of ellis on the peloponnese and in Alice awry the epiphany every january, the priests of die nice would deposit these water basins empty basins in the temple of diagnosis that return the next morning and find the magically filled wine now on the island of undresses even more interesting around the same epiphany date, the god's gift day, ds theodosius the wine would emanate from the temple and run like a river for a week, and you can. Google, the bar in all of the andrea means a wonderful painting by titian which hang

The bravo and you'll see a river of wine behind these people have a great time. This exists for centuries and centuries before the wedding, canna and before Jesus begins his public ministry, with what the scholars call the signature miracle of dionysus, it would not have been lost on the greek audience that that something very specific is being communicated here, what's being communicated that you just might find in early. christianity. What you hold strong too in these mysteries of diagnosis that you may have inherited from your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents for centuries there was a perfectly good religion. They were perfectly good mystery cults in the ancient, greek and roman worlds, and here comes this new untested illegal cult

illegal of a dozen or so illiterate day, laborers that go on to convert the empire and a few hundred years. The answer to that extraordinary growth is not psychedelic, sir, but I do think it's visionary experiences and I do think it's this continuity from the pagan world into early christianity. So what part emissions idea dear interesting with, I think he said, sam. It's of I guess millions of people over millions of years, kind of vat consuming they practising a ritual or a habit of some sort. This idea of rituals is kind of interesting. Again you mentioned called was the role of ritual consumption? Of some of these substances are just ritual practice of anything in the intellectual growth of particular

If the people are societies. So again, I would say it is the the centerpiece of ancient life, not just the mysteries of dionysus, which we've only talked a bit about, but the mysteries of eleusis were probably the most famous and longest lasting of these greek mystery rites, and I mean just to put it in simple terms. The best definition for a mystery religion, as the name implies, is something secret. The right move from the greek means to to shut the iser or to shut the mouth. To keep quiet about this stuff. You were always teasing details from the ark logical and the lira record and we're gonna just grabbing at these at these secrets, but elusiveness, which survives for like two thousand years into the christian period from about fifteen hundred bc to the fourth century. A d of its kind of this, this centrepiece of greek life, cicero, the great roman statesmen, calls what was happy

at a the most exceptional and divine thing that athens ever produced, so not democracy, the arts and sciences or philosophy, but the vis that was encountered at elusive, perhaps through the ritual consumption of a potent psychedelic over hundreds and hundreds of years, thousands and thousands, millions of initiates pilgrims who would walk from athens to eleusis to encounter this vision and it seems to have been not just an important part of greek life, but the thing that made life livable such that as these mysteries are about to be exterminated by the newly christianize roman empire. There is this passage in the ancient literature that talks about these. In the absence of these mysteries life becomes unlivable, ibm us is their ways you can and you write about the mysteries of elusive and their ways. You can convert that into words. Why

Those are so important to them. more importantly, any other invention to them wise. It's such a source of meaning to life so from what we can reconstruct. They would make that pilgrimage thirteen miles north west of athens, it's to confront their mortality. Remember we were talking about homo naledi and in south africa, this recognition of self mortality and the the deliberate disposal of the dead and plato talks about the the real practice of philosophy being the the death and dying process. So in some senses he went to eleusis to die and to experience a death before your death. We talked about this with turns mckenna, as well as the how the psychedelic state seems to share something in common with the near death, her out of body experiences. Are these ecstatic experiences whether through wine or beer or otherwise. You went to elucidate to die anyway.

Said that only those who had witnessed this vision whenever vision was to be witnessing in diameter sanctuary it essentially vouchsafed you, the afterlife that only those who went there became immortal. cicero says that. Aren't you know at that point you essentially live. If more joy and die with a better hope, can ask you a question about this human contention with death, this a confrontation of death. That seems to be at the core of things and I dunno how deep to the core, but it seems to be a central element of the human can and what do you think about earnest becker and those guys that put to death at the wheel, the warm at the core. As the main thing. the main create like this confrontation of our own mortality for throbbing, in Gender were mortal and then confronting the terror of it.

the fear of it as the creative like trying to escape the fear of death as the creative force of The society sake. The reason would do anything is because running away from our death, scared do find some of that to be HU first of all, as somebody who works in the mere looks you yourself in your own, as a human being to which is looking aside it today and three at this whole big spread of human history and all the cool stuff we ve created, including the mysteries of illicit. I wonder what life would look like in the absence of the fear of our mortality. I wonder how we interact with one another if there was relatively little or no fear of death. I really do when it comes to Becker's, work and others if the ancients were known for anything. It was running to death. There was the opposite in fact, dying before dying,

Is the immortal two key by the way is not psychedelic spun when I, when I refer to this key, I'm referring to this notion, that's preserved in greek, on authorities between bethany than the baton, these old done bethany ass. If you d before you die? You won't die when you die. Some reason, the ancients prized that experience and we talked about the mistakes of of surface em in kabul, ism and christian mysticism, where you have this, the same self nodding this death before death, the divine nothingness right for some reason: the mystic saints visionaries, an ancient philosophers. They ran to death and the one message I wanted to try and communicate with this book. how they viewed life, that it can only be fully experienced fully embodied in the wake of a really intense, perhaps terrifying. Utterly transformational encounter with death so running today.

not running away from death. You talk about Aldous huxley, and mine changers. So if we look at the history, where are the ancients were running to death? And may using summer performance. Enhancing the comecon to run more effective, Why was there and now were using like a tools of my society, whether this psychological, sociological or gets pharmaceutical to run away from this concession swear, How do you see is a hopeful future for human civilization, like which If all of these kinds of societies are asking flavors how'd, you create the perfect ice cream flavour. What is the future of religious experience of psychedelic experience of until

actual journeys are facing death running away from death. Would you hope that looks like, and what kind of idea should will look to? My next point will be entitled performance and hands for my gun figure copyright, a fifth yeah- I like it- but that's that's a historical view of what's what in that book? Would you suggest in one of the last chapter, is about the future of this? Of this process will hucks huxley has to stop you in it. He stopped me in my tracks out as huxley, so in nineteen fifty eight he pens this. This opt out of sorts. and it just it reads incredibly preshent, because I really do think in many ways as the fog of the war, drugs ending and, finally lifting that we were, we ve kind of comfort, full circle back to the late nineteenth fifties, which

it sounds strange, it'll make more sense when you hear what huxley set about psychedelic send. So he was looking for to a revival of religion, which is why I subtitle the book, the religion with no name an end to him to huxley this. This. This revival would come about through televangelist. Stick. Mass meetings are photogenic clergyman, as he says, but he points to the biochemical discoveries such as we have today that would allow for large numbers of men and women to achieve a radical self transcendence and a deeper understanding of the nature of things, in other words, that this revival, religion, he says, would be a revolution in our That's comes along and says that there is there's nothing more dangerous to authority than a popular outbreak of mysticism, but I think this is what huxley was pointing to, and he talks about religion in these terms, about being less about symbols and returning to a sense of x,

periods and intuition and huxley says that he envisions religion which gives rise to every day mysticism, and he talks about something that would and gird, everyday rationality, everyday tasks and duties and every day human relationships, in other words, religion, has to mean something, and these these altered states of awareness that we seem to be able to pay Use quite easily inside the lab at hopkins and why you and elsewhere with silicide, been. I think this is kind of part of huxley's prediction about a time when we would have legal access, safe access, efficacious access to this material that would allow for insight in an afternoon and what do you do when millions of people can become mistakes in an afternoon, so psychedelic, so cyber in my business,

the practical way of having these kinds of maybe could be termed religious experiences and then made people partaken of those experiences and then like evolving. This collective intelligence thing. We've got going on. That's the debts of the practice of religion, or should we look is trying for, as opposed to kind of operating the space of ideas actually prank, sing, it knew you mention enough, their religion were no name. The use of these tools is era. simple way. To summarize religion, put our previous discussion about god biscuit covering the got inside If I give you a very complicated definition of religion and then we talk about a more simplified, let's stood so them the them complicated we can get on this is is the anthropologist clifford geared, but I think it's worth defining our terms when we're talking about

god and religion so religion, I e g or from the latin means to bind back so to bind us back to some meaningful tradition to bind us back to the source. Here's a mouthful from clifford gilts, in religion. He defines as a set of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long lasting moods and motivations by formulating consent, have a general order of existence and clothing. Those conceptions in such an aura of factuality that those moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic. Which is complex? What does that mean that religion has to make? You feel something these moods and motivations, but Can't just do that in the way that sex does that for us or or sports, or ultimate fighting or the world cup, or going to a concert. So we get all that emotion in these exe

It is like that, but that a motion has to be concomitant to a deep existential insight that answers this question for you in the morning. I know I'm here No, why humans are here, I think I know, what the meaning of life is that's what religions and if you fine that meaning in science than that's your religion in that's fine. to be more honest about that. If, if you're a piss, logical model, is weighing facts and figures. Think that's why you're here on this planet and you deep, meaning, that's ok, religion is the thing that makes you feel right has the aura of factual. It just makes you feel, like you know that point behind existence, in other words, I think it comes down to experience like Joe Campbell was talking about like out as huxley mentions about experience and intuition. I think this is how we connect to god make you.

I feel, like you understand the world I mean, so that's that's kind of bigger than science that includes size, but it's bigger getting. What is real, I do think there is an absolute reality. There were kind of striving towards understanding, or is it all just conjured up in our minds as whole cut a point we together create the these realities and play with them and dance, to somehow derived meaning from those realities and its ultimately, not like very deep plea integrate into its. They come into atoms of space time. Another easy question: lex. Maybe you have the kind of when you're thinking about. Emotion, making a concrete

something that feels real. You have to start asking like what is real. It's a it's something that you know. Ben Shapiro. Has this saying of facts? Don't care about your feelings? I was always uncommon the ball was with us. I mean he's being spiffy whatever, but ass I was. I was uncovered was somehow the first that the hubris of thinking that humans can have like a arrive at the absolute truth when he means which would I assume he means by facts like things that are a convertible and then somehow deriding feelings like feelings are not important to me like. the whole thing is reality. The facts for even my fax is reality

feelings are reality like the entire human experiences reality? All these consciousness is somehow interacting together, make up making up random crap and together agreeing the wall gorgeous same colors, reading for one for bottom of the other football team or countries all those things that three that's real, because we have agreed that its real in the same way its meaning. In that same way, religion is a set of ideas that gives us meaning, but- no real if it is really difficult for from as a scientist that finds comfort the physics understanding of the universe of physics. I love physics of computer science. It makes me feel like everything is perfectly understandable, and then I look at humans

totally, not understandable. It's like a giant mess, but as part of the beauty, a good is love. What the hell is love is certainly not like we're done hacked. Can this be the procreate? Does it feel something bigger than that so low it took him purely evolution. Biologists perspective is missing. The is not missing. It's only capturing a part of the picture I saw it just keeps making me asking: what is real could act as a human is very human centric. It does certainly feel like a part. A big part of what is real is all the fixed up. My mind makes up the admit me again, I guess is there's something you could say from our discussions about the tools of secondary

it's about our discussion on religion, of what israel of what is reality. These are largely unanswerable questions, but we should nevertheless drive to answer them. That's the whole point of the human experience and I think is one way and religion is another, and I think there is actually a sphere where they intersects. You know, there's a way for religion to be observable, testable, repeatable, fast, viable. When I look at the ancient mysteries that that's what I find a thing, I find people exploring alternate states of consciousness and arriving at conclusions based on that exploration and deriving deep mean from that which yes, our feelings and emotions and very hard to quantify. But nonetheless these are the three. That govern our lives? I mean, I don't know apparent. Wasn't motivated by there by the love of their children. Everything I do at forty years old now is pretty much inspired by my love for my two daughters, and I can't prove to you that I love them. I can say

I can show you behavior but very hard for me to weigh and measure that, so not everything is so reducible to this quantifiable reality. And yet I also love science and and I love the historical process of wing this data. I love the chemist, I love the biology and and for me I think this was the message of the ancient greeks and I think this is the world in which paleo christianity was born. I think there is this this meeting ground between science and religion and which allow for the, if not the discovery, then at least the the near identification of the ultimate reality, which is another way to describe god right this being beings to transcendent

story. So speaking of god, he mentioned to me offline you're, worrying that the most sophisticated clothing choice of the elite intellectuals, like you mentioned, SAM Harris, was wearing a hoodie. This is the sam Harris hoodie. He starting a trend. is starting? A trend is a new religion. You could even say it's a ritual, it's a ritual practice of ai intellectuals, of searching for meaning. So there's the quite a fascinating debate. The he was for time still known as one of the sort of new age atheists? There is kind of explore the roller religious society and other all sides and on the other side another kind of powerhouse intellectual, his jordan pearson, who in sometimes for my taste of a bit too poetic of ways, is exploring that

of religion, and they had these interesting debates that, I think, will continue about the role of religious society. Or for Jordan there's all these flaws with religion, but there is a lot of value to be discovered amidst the the rituals, their traditions, the practice, where we conceive of each other because of the ideas that religion, propagates and then, Four sam says that everything, Religion is basically gets in the way of For fully realising our human potential, which is deeply scientific Rational and some of them were surrounded by mystery. Calling that mystery, god is getting in the way understanding that mystery. What do you think about? this debate of

the role of religious society. We should continue having this debate. I talked to Jordan a couple weeks ago, as a matter of fact, and out of the box ass, the other excellent it'll be out soon, and so you know he and I are that go by the way it was, it was incredible. Call rock the professor joined us as a matter of fact for one of his rare public appearances, so beautiful we went, we went deep and joy, is very well read. Obviously, on the psychedelic literature he had just had rolling griffiths from hopkins on the podcast. And it's one of rowan's figures that Jordan. I again just like that. The language of outer huxley it's hard to move past the following statistic: over the past twenty years of the modern study of silver Simon Roland will tell you that about three and four of their volunteers: walk away from their single dose of suicide and high dose.

saying it was among the most meaningful experiences of their entire lives. If not the most meaningful and Jordan says at the: u, I what would you do with that? How do we ve been? How do we, synthesize that, and you know here we are quantifying the the qualifier, will the unquantifiable and and yet these these compounds have dramatic effects on people's lives. and they walk away. Feeling like they're, more loving more compassionate and the science of all talks about the the welling up of cooperation and resource sharing and kindness, and all the strange things from the single chemical intervention, which seems to reduce us to automata, as if enlightenment can be flipped on, like a switch and yet there it is there's the data, and I don't see how you walk away from that. I mean I completely understand sam's position, but I think there is there

reading of religion, particularly the mystical core of of the big face, and especially these ancient mystery cults, which do so again to those moods and motivations, creating this aura of factual d, that these volunteers never walk away from permanently transformed, just like the ancient mysteries and part of this, perhaps language, though, we need to continue to evolve language in in how we conceive of the processes may be. Religion has a bunch of baggage associated with it. That is good to let go of, or perhaps not I dunno, he did look good. This is connected to a previous part. Of our conversation is the importance of language. In this whole

I think well, that's how I start my book with one of these volunteers from the n y. U suicide and experiments this. This woman, dyna dyna, baser who's an atheist and she still describes herself as an atheist, and yet, as one of these three and four people who walked away from this experiment transformed she says that her experience of silicide Bin was like being bathed in god's love, I'm an atheist, and I ask her why she uses the word god. Why not the love of the cause laws or the universe or mother nature, and she says, will frankly you know, we don't know about any of this stuff than that. God makes sense to me. She still an atheist, but it's the way she describes them. Kind of like the way your mother's love must have felt when you were a baby, yeah there's a there's, a kind of I liked the way einstein used his god, god doesn't play dice as a poetry. There is a humility that you don't know what the hell is going on. There's a humor to it, I'm a huge fan of she lay more more of just kind of

having a big old laugh at the absurdity of this world in this life, as presented nicely by means on twitter kinda thing: I need it. Is the sense in which we want to be playing with these words and not take them so serious and being little but light hearted and explore. Let me ask a box russia, and why you two were fined fascinating, is How much amazing researchers speaking of science right studying the effects of sir Simon studying the effects of very psychedelic, same dna on the human mind right now for helping people, but I'm hoping there will be studies soon at hopkins and elsewhere that allow people that are kind of more quote unquote. Creed is right.

are people that don't have a particular demon they're trying to warn, through the have a problem they're trying to work through, but more like to see. What can I find if I utilised psychedelic sport is there something you could say that is exciting to as promising about the future what currency is gone, but also the future psychedelic research yak and in us, where the healthy, normally Healthy normally, nor for the right words, because normal doesn't feel healthy, does it feel like a good term in normal? Does it get out all pretty messed up and wore a weird. So while those with ontological axed in that case under eight, then maybe they'll be a future dsm, qualification, the air and then there is no doubt, that things like suicide in india may are? You are useful for thing like anxiety, depression and of life, distress, ptsd, alcoholism, you name it and its largely because of the clinical.

Search that empty? I may and suicide, and will probably be legal and some FDA regulated way in the next five years, but I mean again, I start the first page of my book with this question: why why do psychedelic work across all these different conditions and the best that I could find This is the meaning right, tony bosses, and why you talks about suicide and, for example, as meaning making medicine, which is interesting because it puts it somewhere between a therapeutic and again this this ontological instigator. What is it about psychedelics that creates these mystical experiences or mystical like experiences? You can call them emotional breakthroughs. You can call them moments of all. I I do think we get locked up in the language and were somewhere between science and religion here and including, legally so, the f D, a is one,

out to this. What excites me about psychedelic says the first amendment. What is this kind of mean for religion, the freedom of religion being the first thing, that's mentioned in the first amendment before freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, ousting here america's known for anything. It's it's a refuge for religious pioneers, and so we already have the native american church brazilian spawned churches that are using psychedelic. But what would happen imagine if judaism or christianity or islam, or to begin incorporating the very ritual, very secret and discreet use of psychedelics as part of their liturgy, so not replacing the sunday eucharist in the case of christianity, but a part of the extra extra credit dimension of the fish credit and then we can in practice, figure out how essential it is. It could be a minor thing. It could be a major thing that that's another thing. I wanted to kind of ask you, as I recently split the fact that I'm eating a huge amount of meat am getting

No I'm lobby is actually as of two days ago, started this long road to training for dear god, is the training back to come? Not getting back to competing. Injustice of the fund is over, but I also but you can fasting, and there was a very strong in almost like have a host energetic aspect of fasting was because it was especially cause. It was a seventy two hour fast vs, I more common fast. They do, which is twenty four hours. You know, and a bunch of people talk about throughout history, about the value of fasting in having these kind of visual, these kind of intellectual it is also there's meditation. Some harris with the hoodie did. Do you ever since that time? Those other rituals are fast thing of meditation, it may be other things. Could the could be

as the censure more central to the religious experience as psychedelics? Yes, if not- and this is going to sound weird- but maybe not if, if more so- and I look at psychedelics as a catalyst for spiritual investigation, not as the superficial means to an end- I I I think their their value is in kind of serving as a google maps for the kingdom of Heaven. Rum like this also round ass, a teacher said that when it when he was, was offered psychedelic that it'll it'll get you in the room with Jesus, but it won't keep you there

good idea- and I think that's all well and good. But what, if you don't know where the houses in the first place? What if you ve, never had a mystical experience? What, if what if religion is and ask them unto you would, if you hate god would have all these words mean nothing to you and they probably do for many many people and is perfectly understandable. I think that we ve lost the coordinates to these irrational states again that were prized throughout integrity and that continue to be prized by the mystical communities, even in big organise religion that just doesn't filter out that much and so second x and my mind, help orient

our minds, bodies and souls towards the irrational right. We talked about mckenna's, invisible world. That seems to have this symbiosis with our own and perhaps has this higher intent for us, and he could very well just you know, take catalogue of your dreams right and that would do it too, but second Alex seemed to be particularly fast, acting and particularly potent and very reliable, especially in the clinical studies, and so I looked at them as as biochemical discoveries like like huxley did. Maybe it's once in your life or infrequently right, but maybe that's the beginning of a genuine introspection and a lie. Well examined, as the ancients always instructed us yeah. It does similar in the research this. The effectiveness of psychedelics always comes with the integration where you use it, just like you said as a catalyst for thinking through stuff. It's not it's not going to be

I don't even of Google maps. Or maybe maybe, Google maps is the right analogy, but it doesn't do the driving, for you is that you still have to do the driving. I just kind of gives you the directions. So after you come come down from the trip or whatever he starts to drive. there's other tools airconditioning. We ve been talking about the sun, the psychological level, but there's also neuroscience for speculative each color like go past The skull into the brain with neurons firing, there's ideas, bring computer interfaces, foresaw, there's a whole field in your size. That zooming in studying the firing of the brain, the firing of the euro in the brain of a how from those

neurons emerges all the things that we think that make a seaman. That's a fast. They aspersion the human mind that that's, of course, where the psychedelic have the chemical, the by chemical effects on those neurons, there's ideas of grain computer, faces, which, if you look at especially when your link is doing with his long term vision of the army I scan your link. They do, they hope to expand, because it was your hat there This is back to the humor and the internet thing the the the wizard hat that expands the capabilities. The capacity of the human mind. Do you think there's something there or is is the human mind

infinitely complex that more quite a long way away from expanding the capabilities of the human mind through technology verses, something like psychedelic. I wonder how towns mecca. What answer that question? No, he looked to shamans as kind of the the scientists the high magicians of the higher cake passed and the far flung future. not going to discount you know more about ai than I do so, I'm not going to discounted, but I do think that ai paired, with the sacred recovery right and the archaeology of consciousness, and these and these states, these archaic techniques, have ecstasy that were practice across time. I think that's a winning combination and no part of what I do in the book is just I try and lay out the set and setting that's often talk about psychedelics, I mean so

maybe psychedelic send the right a environments, gonna work. I think it probably work a lot better with that myth and ritual incorporated. So the reason elusive worked for tooth. Thousand years and let's assume the psychedelic hypothesis, has the merit to it, but I think the reason at work is because you were born into a mythology. You were born into a story, about diameter and per seventy, and you wait at your entire life to meet them in the flesh, so you aren't just preparing for a few months. It was a lifetime of expectation, anticipation, ritual preparation and, in fact, some of the early church. Fathers made fun of the greeks for essentially just piquing people's curiosity and revving up

anticipation, which has something to do with the outcome by the way, but in other words, I think we need to create a new mythology around this. I don't think you you pop into a laboratory. I don't think you pop into a retreat center and from one day to the next. I think that in my own case, I feel like I've been preparing twelve years for psychedelics and I'm still preparing, including in today's conversation I'm learning new things and I'm unwilling to explore it together with a the computer interface, but I do think ritual is is a gigantic part of this and even mckenna, we would say that all paraphrasing by saying that, if, if you met someone who didn't know where they were between the years nineteen. Ninety five and two thousand five. You would describe them as a fairly damaged person and yet who among us knows what was happening in western civilization between nine hundred and thirteen hundred, let alone five hundred years ago. So this is in many ways the profit of the psychedelic renaissance.

Saying that history has lessons- and I dont think they're superficial lessons- I think it cuts to the very core of how and why western civilization came to be born here, but that that his three can be learned, tat systems and I do love the idea of a whether it's the brink appear interfaces or without intrusive is without direct reading of the neurons and more sort of interactive experience of the robot that you can have an ai system that steers your psychedelic experience. That helps you sort of what, when you take a heroic dose of society, for example, help steer. You steer your mind, say just the right things, and you could say that kind of thing with that is. It is totally open problem. I would say you talk about,

in setting this? The interesting thing about the johns hopkins is: are you create a comfortable environment, a safe environment, more allow then? If you take a herald like a large dose of sir Simon they, you can trust that everything he's safe. Then you can really allow the expression in your mind, but then you don't know from a psychotherapy perspective of like during that trip what a human should say to steer that trip, like that's a totally open set of problems and, in some sense, probably throughout history. Those rituals you've figured out what are the right things to say to each other exactly how to collaborate, and maybe, if you can turn into an optimization problem, hey. I could figure that out much much quicker, I'm with you so elusive was known for three things that illegal manner the drama, the deck numa. The things said, the things done the thing shown

you can pack that all into your eye, interface amend lex friedman, eleanor I propose them in and then try to get it through the I'll be at mit. I mean there there's a certain sense in which I definitely wanted to explore. Psychedelics I mean in in my personal life, but also more rigorously as a scientist and have to push that forward, and especially in the air space, and if it is a diff how to do that dance when there's grey areas of legality and others causa things and dancing around them. Some of that is language as some of that it's what we socially or a conceive of as as drugs or not and you're, right that perhaps we can reframe it as religious experiences all those kinds of things. It is fascinating because it feels like there's a bunch,

tools before us that were used by the ancients that we're not utilizing for exploring the human mind and that we very well could be in a rigorous scientific way in a safe way and thus fascinating. There's this interesting period of time in the twentieth century of lsd use that many of the people doing research on psychedelics, now kind of have their roots in that history? I mentioned that talked to rick Darwin. He is one of those people and there's this interesting story of of creators that I used lsd or other drugs to help them what do you make of the idea of somebody that can keasey who wrote one flew over the cuckoo's nest in part under the influence of lsd, like what do you make of the use of

psychedelic to maximize the creative potential human mind is this sum is: is it as a crutch? Yours is actually are an effective tool. Ocean spore, one person's crutch might be another's bungee cord, I know that depends on that mine, yeah. Think about Paul mccartney. I mean we might not have some of the better beatles music in the absence of lsd and would it sir Paul say in nineteen sixty seven when he was asked about his use, lsd. He said that he recognized the dangers inherent in it, but that he did.

with a very specific, very deliberate purpose in mind. He wanted to find the answer to what life is all about, and I'm not sure what sir Paul is doing this week, but he's probably not doing lsd. Speaking back to my theory about these, these substances being catalyze users of spirit, introspection, it came along at a time in their life when I think they were ripe for specially George harrison. We recommend the martens cassese documentary about about towards Harrison. You first Then I think it was exactly the way we to investigate it, which is well might expand or is this is what psychedelic stew right that that which makes manifest the contents of the mind in the absence of an experienced like that, and it can be in a three day fast. They can be laying down the cave it. It can be in ritual chanting. It can be a sun sundance, but

the absence of that kind of experience at the right time in your life. It may otherwise be very difficult to find entrance to that kingdom of Heaven, which I do think is here now getting right back to the very beginning if we are actually to participate and that eternal principle. How and when waving meets him out when he said that god is dead, so there the sense that religion is fading from society. And there's a key german. It can of wrote about it. What do you think he met her, the cranky german, who knew a lot about dionysus by the way Why I like him? certainly there some truth to the mortality of god. I think gallop put out a study on a couple months ago,

church membership is now officially in the minority and the united states at forty seven percent. According to the most recent poll, that number was closer to seventy percent only twenty years ago, so we're living through something they were living through: the unchanging of america and its the rise of the spiritual but not religious. You know the the inheritor of all traditions, but the slave to non there's arise in the unofficially it at the nuns. I think it was like one third of millennials, it's pretty much higher now that don't affiliate with any religion. So in that sense, god is absolutely dead, but maybe not the god- that we were trying to define at the very beginning. Oh nietzsche, also look forward to the ogre mench, which would be a fully realised his team in being that, despite the death of god did not fall into nihilism, a morality, existential despair of that great german stuff

There are some commentators who talk about this eternal recurrence that just maybe by incorporating some of these techniques, not necessarily doctrine and dogma, but I would say the techniques of antiquity and again did she writes a lot about the euro in reality of dying isis having its place in society. If, if anything, these biochemical discoveries, I think point us back. They put him back to diagnosis and their responsible incorporation of the irrational into our otherwise society of rational people and are cause if ever since the there'll be kind of just comment. Is you plied that there'll be maybe the god of old, is dying. They'll, be a rebirth of different kinds of god. Just keep happy thought history. I do think there will be it I wear. I will be the gods look too, but the other than the super intelligent. Those kinds of things

There's a little bit of an inkling of religious longing for meaning in the way people conceive of aliens currently at it. I mean I talked to a bunch of people about your foes, the hippies and aliens and so to me is very interesting for perhaps different reasons cause I'm just, I look up to the stars and its incredibly humbling to me to think that there's trillions of intelligent, elliot civilizations out there, which to me seems likely or not perhaps not entirely and perhaps just alien life, and actually also that we don't even understand what must have been allegiant or do understand what must be alive. The timescale, the spatial skill which patterns. Of atoms conform in a way that you call life is just could be way weirder than

we can imagine as uncertainly and certainly way different than human life to that's me, humbling and size. It's almost like the simulation in considering the world. A simulation thinking of aliens to me is a useful thought. Experiment Like what would aliens look like if they visited? How would we know how do we communicate with them? How'd we send signals to them. if they're already here the end I don't see them how's that possible. That seems to me actually likely that would just be too self center and too dumb to see them authority here anyway. Ah, but so that's kind of the almost the the the pragmatic, the engineering, the the physics sense of aliens, also kind of a longing to connect with other, and

elegant beings out there, both the fear and the excitement of that has kind of a religious aspect, to it sure and fine, fascinating and in the right context. When you remove the scepticism of government from that is actually a full longing idea. What do you see this kind interesting, alias as it all connected to your study of religion, so you're the first person to ask me about aliens in eight months, so it looks like I'm gone on the record and the cowards I'll drop some j on heineken you so heinrich involved and product bluebooks, famously says in nineteen six. he six. When the long awaited solution to the. U S, problem comes and we're, assuming that you have to have something to do with aliens, but

when the long awaited solution comes. I I believe it will prove to be not merely the next small step in the march of science, but a mighty and unexpected quantum leap. in other words, I do not think that we're dealing with flesh blood beings in nuts and bolts crafts. I think it's way way more complicated than that and if anything it takes me back to the ancient world. It takes me back. to this invisible college of beings of apparent higher and ten. It takes me to the geniuses and the muses, so the first doc in western civilization, homers homers ethics. They begin invoking an alien. They invoke amused on the morning. A bamboo sap pollute the reinhold messner. Bala. Tell me oh muse, about the man so homer is an inventing poetry, he's channeling, poetry, epic, poetry, for

alien intelligence, maybe that intelligence has felt a little on recognised in recent years. Trying to show up in human recognizable forms the muses trying to give that little hints of a of its existence. Yeah me I I have a I've been saying I I r c sort of I don't believe this, but I think about this. Whether alien, like muses, a great example where the aliens could be thoughts ideas we have are the aliens or cautiousness itself is the methods by which areas communicate with us. I find this very liberating to expand our conception of what intelligent beings are. You would like you in janes. julian jaynes writes a great book, the origins of consciousness in them

down of the bi communal, mind. It's this this theory that the aid in greek mine was very different from ours and that when they heard the muses her or the gods and goddesses for that matter. They would hear them as voices in the head and here it as an internal god figure offering commands which they couldn't ignore, so where they walking schizophrenia and might be one way to talk about it before the breakdown of the bi communal, mind It's it's a provocative theory largely untenable, but when you're reading, ancient greek and latin for that matter, you can't read it very long how bumping up against these discarded entities they're everywhere and they they survived, they they persist across time, which has even stranger just in the form of other things, my daughter's like, like ferries and nomes and elves, but I and Mckenna loves this, the sylphs and the boulder grinders in the sky.

it's in the genes and elemental every society has them. It seems to be fairly universal and they largely existing in folklore mythology. This is what jacques fillet writes about, so wonderfully We gotta been sneaking around it but let me ask you from yours from everything we ve been talking about. How do you think about consciousness Is it. Fun little trick that the human mind does, or is it somehow fundamental to this whole thing? So this three how a lump of jelly inside our craniums that can contemplate the vastness of interstellar space can contemplate the meaning of infinity and

Can contemplate itself contemplating on the meaning of infinity that peculiar self recursive quality that we call self awareness? So this is the hard problem right. This is this: is the unknowable the unknown? At least I don't know I have, I have no good answer for that. Aside from you, think that somehow deeply fundamental to the human experience, or is it just a trick, so you have like same, as has really been make me think about this. Is a new coin? free one illusion. The interesting thing about sam is it's not just the philosophical little chat it with him

what free will? He really says? He experiences the lack of free will like his able to you, know large parts of the day to feel like he has no free will in that same way. Now he thinks that consciousness is not Fusion is you know that is the real thing, but at the same time, more almost like a damn, almost more like cautious This seems to be a little bit of an illusion in the sense that, like it feels like me, this is a robotics ai. I perspective but physic in that same with sam steps outside of

lying like he has an agency feeling like as a free. Well, I feel like we should be able to step outside of having a consciousness so that that, from my perspective, maybe that's a hope of perspective for trying to engineer catch this, but you think cautious. This isn't like at the core of this, or is it just the just like language or almost like a thing we build on top. A much deeper human, the things that makes us human I dont know. I am attracted to lenses notion of bio centralism. I mean it's difficult to walk away from the double slip. Experiment, not wondering why we seem capable of collapsing that quantum way function is very, very weird giving rise to even weirder ideas about superposition and spooky action at a distance and things that mit guys,

no love better than me, but I it seems to me fundamental maybe consciousness is- is the fundamental thing I mean weirdly some of these ancient inhibitory practices. I talked about Peter kingsley before so he's not a proponent of ancient psychedelic use, but is a proponent of these ancient rites of incubation that were practiced by pythagoras parm entities and pedigrees other pre soak radix, and so what were they doing? They were trying to get in touch with the consciousness. They were entering into suspended states of animation and in these cave, like settings, pythagoras had built one in his basement and would lie down motionless apparently for long periods of time and when I think they were trying to do and was tap. Two and trying to answer this question in their own, you could call it a scientific way actually less religion than science and and what they would discover or try to discover was a state of awareness that is somehow beyond life and death beyond. waking and dreaming where you can

aware of the senses, but also in touch with another reality. At the exact same time. What kingsley calls sensation that I think is definitely worth exploring Why, in the way, I hope to explore as by trying to build it, everybody uses the tools they have. What no, I do also hope psychedelics could help. So how do you build that? I'm curious. That is one hundred certain. This is a there's, a lot of things that could say here, but let me put simply is, I believe, Tat, you can go a long way, building caught towards building cautiousness by trying to fake consciousness fake italy. Make it as an engineering approach, I think, will work for consciousness. If you seemed satisfied with that, I'm

Satisfied with that, because I know how deeply unsatisfied others are, but just wait so I don't know what to say most most. The the topic of consciousness is mostly handled by philosophers, curly and that's great philosophers, a wonderful and good at what they do. I'm not a philosopher I'm an engineer and I think the approach there is quite different. I think. Falling in love is different, then try to have a gas conversation about what is love. You know I

I think the engineering effort is just fundamentally different than the philosophical effort, and I too have a says that cautiousness can be engineered even before it is understood by the philosophers. So I think there's a bunch of things like that in this world that could be engineer before their understood. I think the intelligence is one such thing, I think will be, will will be able to engineer super intelligent beings before were able to understand the human mind. That's I may lose There is less there's a lot of intuition to unpack. There are why that is, but as it stands, does perhaps my engineering optimum, a an engineer at the country which I operate consciousness is easy to build hard to understand. Ok, other books are movies in your life, long

a recently that had a big impact on you. You were you ve, a metallic he's exceptionally well researched remodelled. she read as I cannot even imagine so is there something in those in that in those in europe? others through the land of language that stuck with you. There is a special impact, for I mentioned a couple of them, but so I knew nothing about psychedelic before two thousand seven and it was in hearing about some of the first suicide and expense said hopkins and then shortly thereafter I went down this rabbit home and so the first, that of recommendations all kind of fit in that time. Peered in my life, two thousand seven thousand eight. It started with jerry in rb, the cosmic serpent dna. The origins of knowledge. There was a total impulse by at the barn

noble on sixth avenue in new york and wound up introducing me to supernatural by gram, hancock that that convinced me that there was a long story to psychedelic that he tried to prove in that book and that we're still trying to prove. I mentioned the connection between ritual psychedelic acts. in cave art- and this is the the neuro psychological model that was first proposed by David Lewis, Williams at the university of witwatersrand, the same university where the burger is by the way in south africa. So these ideas are old, and but what graham did in that book is just it's. It's well worth your time. It's well worth a few reads, actually, because it was after that that I discovered breaking open the head by Daniel pinchbeck and and and a lot a lot of other books that just kind of blew

I mind what is a break open the head about, so it's it's. It's Daniels, romp through contemporary chauvinism and to his very well told experiences with everything from Phyllis I've into a burger being initiated by the treaties, and it was the first time I'd read any first hand. Accounts aside from german army any first hand accounts, but by a new yorker by the way about the potential for these. These compounds that that I've been ignoring for farmers long obviously, and so that's when I started revisiting the road to a loses and looking through the anthropological, You're reading everything gordon watson had ever written that call roc had written and it said down a pretty weird rabbit hole until I found Peter kingsley. What's my second recommendation, so so Peter again. It is not a fan of the psychedelic hypothesis, but what he does is, I think, expose

The value of the irrational to the ancient greeks, especially the pre socratic, syria talking a lie in god, and these entangled philosophical questions. The best I can read kingsley is that western civilization, is a product of a gift from the goddess per seventy, and this is not a hippie. This is this is a pretty gold standard. Classicist went on to write a couple of books. One is in the dark places of wisdom and the other is reality. What better way to title your book, where he talks about these ancient techniques for exploring the irrational. The same thing cholera was talking about after compiling all this data and the road to elusive rock says that the biggest challenge is trying to convince his colleagues, in the late nineteenth seventies that the ancient greeks, and indeed some of the most famous and intelligent among them, could enter

I know so fully into rationality, simply thing niches, talking about as expiration of diagnosis and Oh, I think Kingsley just stands apart as no one of those books reality that my life was never quite the same after reading them. We talked about three pond jelly, that is able to conceive of the entirety of farm. Fabric, a reality in the universe and everything oh also, this mortality woody thing is the meaning of it all was the meaning of life. Some is a three pound jelly able to answer that

no no, but I can plagiarize Joseph Campbell, which is which is good enough. Joe Joe Campbell says that did I dont think what we're looking for is a meaning of life. I think what we're looking for or is an experience of being alive so that the experiences we have on the purely physical plain have residences within that are those of our innermost being and reality. You talked about the true reality: absolute truth: these are all contracts and I think they're they're construction. That are made day by day and acquire this aura of factual, aldi, member and clifford geared says definition of a religion, raw just faking it until we make it- and I think a lot of that have to do with moods and motivations and feelings and emotions, which is not to discredit, facts and figures, but I think that meaning, meaning making is a very subjective process that is not only difficult to talk about the difficult, the core.

if I experienced as a primary versus select the actual subjective experience is primary too. The meaning making process verses like some kind of rigorous analysis of like having an algorithm that runs in computing and then finally spit self. Forty two well this this is how families are core, it tell me more about my wife and I fell in love and made babies. We didn't we didn't type up and excel sheet and figure out the best way to go about this That's what I've been doing? Nothing! That's! Why I'm single big too many excelsis when we say falling in love right, we say, fall in love. What does that mean to fall in love? You are surrendering to an intelligence and that that that is beyond us. You could say a godlike intelligence, Richard Rohr, the franciscan friar. I meant

and in the universal christ he writes a lot about how the the vine for you, as is, is often encounter. In the other. In fact, how could it be? Otherwise? This is. This is bedrock sacramento theology that you find the guide in the things in your life as well. You should that that's the proving ground for identifying ass god, rather than chris relationship with god, and so I think that these irrational states that play a big role, irrational I don't think there's a better way to end it than on the topic of love. Brian. Thank you so much for a brilliant exposition of history and the poetry. I really appreciate you are talking midday. I love you lex.

How are you do thanks for listening to this conversation, prime, your rescue, a thank you to inside tracker. Give well- and I indeed and master class check them out in a description to support this podcast and now let me leave you so words from terence mckenna about psychedelic party was psychedelic. Do is they d condition you from cultural values? This is what makes us such a political, hot potato. Since all culture is a kind of congo came, the most dangerous candy can hand out is one which cost people to start questioning the rules of the game? Thank you for listening. I hope this here next time,