Psychedelic Salon

Guest speaker: Dr. Rachel Harris Lorenzo, Bryan, Lex, Mateo, & Mike on the Blue Dot Tour stop in San Diego PROGRAM NOTES: We sit down with Dr. Rachel Harris who collected countless anecdotes of people's work with ayahuasca and condensed them into the excellent book: Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety. If you enjoy the work of Psymposia, come join the Blue Dot Tour or consider supporting our Patreon. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: August 10, 1998 [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] "This always comes up in the discussion about are psychedelics spiritual. Or is it legitimate and coherent to talk about psychedelics as a part of a spiritual path, or a moral path, or a path to enlightenment. I've always said I wasn't ready to make that claim." "The strange thing about the spiritual quest, or the quest for understanding whether it's spiritual or not, is how endangered it is by answers, as I said, by closure." "The truth doesn't require your cooperation to exist, but illusion does." "Bad trips make bad sex look like no problem, which is an amazing thing to achieve." "It's very hard not to be a creature of your own time." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option Nick Sand on the Salon Nick Sand Obituary Lorenzo's Patreon Site

Guest speaker: Various PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: April 11, 2017 Today's program features some stories that the Psymposia Team recorded in Athens, Georgia on their Blue Dot Tour. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Dennis McKenna & Lex Pelger Dennis McKennaPsychedelic Researcher PROGRAM NOTES: Lex talks with Dennis McKenna about the upcoming ESPD50 conference: the Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs 50th Anniversary Symposium Lex also announces Psymposia's first sale on Patreon & asks for your help to keep bringing people together online & offline. Perks include hemp Psymposia shirts, blotter art & print editions from Lex's graphic novel series on the cannabinoids. Psymposia's contributions to the Psychedelic Salon 2.0 are hosted by Lex Pelger, engineered by Matt Payne, intro music made by Joey Whipp, outro music played by California Smile & this episode is produced by Brian Normand. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

  This program has been deleted by request of the speakers.  

Guest speaker: Brad Burge Psymposia at Psychedelic Science 2017 PROGRAM NOTES: Today's podcast features Brad Burge, the director of communications for MAPS, who tells us more about the upcoming 6-day conference in Oakland, CA: Psychedelic Science 2017. ** In the "Free Marketplace" at Psychedelic Science 2017 Psymposia will be hosting our stage ten hours a day. You can see the schedule and watch the livestream here. ** Today’s podcast is hosted by Lex Pelger, engineered by Matt Payne, intro music by Joey Whipp, outro music by California Smile, produced by Brian Normand. ** If you like this show, want to see more, or want to help Lex get a new mic, consider supporting the Psymposia Team monthly on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/psymposia Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speakers: Adi Khavous, Jenifer Dumpert, Brett Greene, and Pol Cosineau PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: 920 Psilocybin Mushroom Day 2015 This week you’ll hear stories recorded live at Psymposia Stories Montreal from 920 Psilocybin Mushroom Day 2015. Adi Khavous: A nomadic street artist’s first time taking mushrooms. Jenifer Dumpert: One dream researcher’s story about Santa, drugs, and elves. Brett Greene: A howling tale of a Jeremiah in the wilderness kind of head trip. Pol Cosineau: The life changing drug experience of a man who well prepared himself for the voyage. Today's program is hosted by Lex Pelger, engineered by Matt Payne, intro music by Joey Whipp, outro music by California Smile, produced by Brian Normand. ** If you like this show, want to see more, or want to help Lex get a new mic, consider supporting the Psymposia Team monthly on Patreon. ** The-Blue Dot Tour To find more about the tour and if we’re visiting your city: https://www.psymposia.com/bluedottour The Blue-Dot Tour is our two-month open-mic Psychedelic Stories road trip across the continent starting on the way to the Psymposia Stage Psychedelic Science 2017 in Oakland. Our goal is to hit blue cities in red states that serve as such pressure cookers of activism, education, and art. But also blue cities in blue states, red towns in red states, purple villages in green states, and anywhere we can find a host from Mexico to Canada. We’ll also be screening Robert Barnhart's film 'A New Understanding - the Science of Psilocybin.' Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna Alex Grey painting in his Manhattan studio Photo credit: Bill Radacinski PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: August 7, 1998 Today's podcast continues with a series of lectures given by Terence McKenna at the Esalen Institute in early August 1998. It begins with Terence discussing ways in which he sees art evolving. Eventually he transitions into a discussion about the growth of the Internet and the possibility of it becoming a super intelligent entity of some kind. Along the way he touches on science fiction, time, consciousness, Bell's Theorem, and complex systems. Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Ayelet Waldman PROGRAM NOTES: Today brings us the first of the Salon2 podcasts, and it is hosted by Lex Pelger, who I have asked to tell you a little about what his psychedelic clan is up to. After Lex's introduction of the Psymposia Team, he will be interviewing Ayelet Waldman about her new book titled "A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life". Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna A Sequel to DreamLand PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: August 6, 1998 Today's podcast features an August 6, 1998 talk about Salvia Divinorum given by Terence McKenna at the Esalen Institute. In addition to many interesting facts that Terence presents about Salvia, he tells how Daniel Siebert became the first person to identify the active ingredient of the plant, which eventually led to its widespread use today. In addition to discussing Salvia, Terence also touches on: Ibogaine, magic mushrooms, psychedelic plants, Australia's psychoactive plants, DMT, Greek mystery religions, Datura, LSD, War on Drugs, and language. "I've not done the pure [salvinorin A] compound. It's somewhat scary. One thing that's scary about it is it creates a profound break with reality. The person who is intoxicated totally loses touch with this world, and unlike people on DMT, or ketamine, or some other short-acting psychoactive or dissociative, they won't stay still. People tend to move around and be active, which is a real pain for the sitter. . . . The protocol for dealing with this is the 'tie 'em to a tree' protocol." -Terence McKenna Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option U.S. State Laws regarding Salvia Divinorum Legal status of Salvia Divinorum worldwide

Guest speaker: Lorenzo PROGRAM NOTES: This is the first of the Psychedelic Salon 2.0 podcasts. It is a very short program that answers the following questions: 1. How did the idea of Salon 2.0 come about? 2. Where did the ideas for how Salon2 will work come from? 3. How much input and control will Lorenzo have in selecting the new programs? 4. How do you provide feedback as to format (lectures, interviews, conversations), etc. 5. Psymposia's Blue-Dot tour Psymposia Blue-Dot Tour Information Currently Scheduled Cities 4/06/17 Boston, MA 4/07/17 Philadelphia, PA 4/08/17 Lancaster, PA 4/09/17 Baltimore, MD 4/11/17 Athens, GA 4/13/17 Austin, TX 4/15/17 Boulder, CO 4/21-23/17 Psychedelic Science in Oakland, CA 4/26/17 Los Angeles, CA 4/27/17 San Diego, CA Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: August 4,1998 [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna "The nation state is now on the ropes. It's being replaced by something else, the world's one thousand companies, the world corporate state." "The interesting thing about the world corporate state is it has no real moral agenda. It only wants to pick your pocket, which when you think of what's been peddled in the ideological market place in the 20th Century, somebody who only wants to pick your pocket is a welcome and humane addition to the rogues gallery. So I think that fairly quickly, more and more drugs will be legalized and even drug taking encouraged because there's a great deal of money to be made." "So all of these things [adverse reactions to drugs] should just be treated as neurotic responses to the problem of being, and if people want therapy or anti-depressants, or whatever they want to get over this hump should be given to them. But to criminalize this is not to do any favor to the victims. It's simply to turn it into a racket for all kinds of underworld and marginal institutions." "What all these things [psychedelic substances] have in common is that without any great danger to body and mind they produce a profound transformation of consciousness, the processing of language, the way in which we model the world and relate to the past. And do they impact on cultural conditioning? You bet your booties they do, because what they do, essentially, is return you to some primal, per-cultural state of conditioning where the animal body and the unacculturated inputs of perception are directly experienced. This is a model of the psychedelic experience." "Is culture good or bad? Well, I'm coming slowly to the conclusion that, I'm not sure it's bad, but it's certainly a damn nuisance. It's a limitation, is what it is." "The problem is these [world] cultures create less than a full expression of human potential." "To the degree that we are integrated into our culture we are not ourselves." "Could we end up spending most of our disposable income on code rather than fabricated steel, aluminum, glass, and plastic?" "So it's going to be technology, or catastrophe, or fascism. These are the choices, because, of course, because fascism, you know, can just order the liquidation of everybody under five feet, or everybody with brown eyes, or whatever. But the consequences of fascism are the complete distortion and subjugation of the human spirit. When we talk about survival of the human species we're not talking about at-any-cost or under any circumstances. If humanness does not survive with the human species then we're no more than another cannibal ape with a bigger club in the hand." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: August 4, 1998 [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] "A certain portion of my audience is flakier than I am comfortable with." "The whole point with psychedelics was to cut through the programming and the cant, and the propaganda of culture to true truth, real reality, not to just initiate an era of intellectual permissiveness where everything in the spiritual marketplace was placed on the same pedestal as Euclidean geometry." "It offends me that psychedelic people are susceptible to this [New Age thinking], because it seems to me that we're the last people who should be susceptible to this. We have no need of spiritual illusions because we have access to spiritual realities through the substances and the plants. So why should we, least of all why should we, buy in to all these unanchored, wholly, fluffed-headed ideas that are being pushed in the spiritual marketplace?" "If you're intelligent and you live past forty you will outgrow your culture. Some people may do it sooner, but you have to be a complete idiot to just buy-in at fifty-five, at sixty, at seventy-five. At eighty what are you still going to be doing, expressing homophobic views, voting Republican, and worrying about the A, B, and C's of phony reality? Most people get to a place where they just see it's a bunch of crap." "It looks to me like ideology is one of these neonatal behaviors that culture downloads on us. In other words, belief is for kids. It's a fairy tale. Marxism is no different than belief in the Easter Bunny. Probability theory is no different than a belief in the Easter Bunny. Everybody needs to get a grip on the uncertainty of the intellectual enterprise." "So the way to live with a human mind in the world is not to believe things, that's childish. It's undignified. The thing to do is to build models." Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option This Week in Psychedelics with David Wilder

Guest speakers: Rupert Sheldrake and Joseph Chilton Pearce PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: August 28, 1993 Today's podcast features a conversation that was held on August 28, 1993 between Rupert Sheldrake, the originator of the Morphic Resonance theory, and Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of many books including The Crack in the Cosmic Egg and other works investigating the brain, the mind, and consciousness. As their discussion proceeds they explore the concept that, as observers, WE actually are creating reality. Their conclusion to this often explored area of quantum physics is that, no, WE don't create the physical world. Rather, we are largely the recipients of it and our job is to learn how to participate with it and go along with it.   Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option The Crack in the Cosmic Egg: New Constructs of Mind and Reality by Joseph Chilton Pearce, Thom Hartmann Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science (2nd Edition with Update on Results) by Rupert Sheldrake Very Ape Podcasts Episode Thirty-Nine: Acid Heads w/ Bill Radacinski Episode Twenty-One: Cops for Pot w/ Howard 'Cowboy' Wooldridge

Guest speaker: Robert Anton Wilson PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: February 1982 [NOTE: All quotations are by Robert Anton Wilson.] "The belief in certitude, I suspect, is a primate habit." "One thing I want to make absolutely clear is that almost all pessimism results from watching what the government is doing. . . . because the government is the last place that important change is registered. And so if you're looking at the government you're looking at the past." "Certitude only belongs to those people who own just one encyclopedia."   Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Lorenzo PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: January 30, 2017 In today's podcast Lorenzo explains how he came to his decision to not vote in last year's presidential election. He begins by quoting part of a poem by William Butler Yeats which read: Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. And by changing a single word in the final two lines of that poem, it would conclude: And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Washington to be born? Full Text (PDF) of Lorenzo's remarks Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option "Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole" by Jack Lukeman from his new CD, Magic Days

Guest speaker: John Gilmore - - Francis Huxley 1923 - 2016 - - Photo: The Guardian PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: August 2016 [NOTE: All quotations are by John Gilmore.] “Don't buy Apple products when they lock you into only using software that Apple approves of. It's really straightforward. It's like, don't buy food that poisons you. Don't buy from companies that try to control you.” [In response to whether one can get their information back from Facebook.] “I don't think there will be a way if you voluntarily hand over your data to a huge corporation that does not have your interest at heart. For you to get the data back, no, I don't think there will be a way.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) HTTPS Everywhere NO SCRIPT Addon PRIVACY BADGER Francis Huxley obituary Anthropologist fascinated by shamanism, myths and religious rites who strove to protect indigenous peoples.

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: September 1990 [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] “The payoff [of psychedelic experiences] is being able to design our way toward a more humane culture.” “And I think that's how we have to act. We have to each choose a small area and then act in that limited area with all the existential commitments we can muster. But not with anxiety.” “Anybody who thinks that you can save the world by setting it on fire is going to be sadly disabused.” “Politics without responsibility IS fascism.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: September 1990 [NOTE: All quotations are by Terence McKenna.] “It's really true that the world at any moment could come completely and utterly apart. Have you seen that happen?” “The whole impetus for my career is to convince myself that somebody else has seen the same thing, and that they can't believe it either.” “The one thing they tell you it isn't, it is! It is! It is made of magic, anything can happen.” “There's nothing holding any of us back from becoming unrecognizable, not only to our friends and loved ones, but to ourselves.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option More Joy Less Pain: The Life of Peter Gorman A documentary film about Peter Gorman by James Michael McCoy.

Guest speaker: Terence McKenna PROGRAM NOTES: Date this lecture was recorded: September 1990 In today's talk from a September 1990 workshop, Terence McKenna explains that when speaking about the DMT state he says that what he calls self-dribbling basketballs “are like crystalline, jeweled, semi-see-through, opaque, movemented things, which look like sculptures, but you can tell while you're looking at them they're actually sentences. And the sentences are saying themselves in some weird way.” That should give you something to think about the next time you come out of a DMT reverie. He also goes on a little riff about why drugs have specific “identities” in the way they present themselves, as well as giving some advice about how best to choose your drugs. [The following quotations are by Terence McKenna.] “This crisis in the Soviet Union and in the East Bloc countries, which was presented as a crisis of Marxism, is actually a crisis of centralized institutional control everywhere, and a lot of America's assumptions will be swept away.” “The thing about Czechoslovakia is that if you scratch a Czech you get a Celt.” Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option “Shamans of the Global Village”