Entheogen Joe, Brad, Kevin

How much pot do you have to smoke to become a Senior Subject Matter Expert?
Controlled dosing and increased access to various methods of consuming cannabis has been a benefit of legalization, which has allowed entirely new populations of people to be introduced or re-introduced to it, including Kevin
Great resources available at leafly.com - start by checking out the Recent News section
Check out podcast ‘What Are You Smoking?’ Hosted by Will
Another benefit of legalization and increased access: the quality of cannabis products are higher than ever
More accessible formats of cannabis, like edibles, have in a sense pulled us out of the “dark ages of cannabis”, from the xenophobic associations of weed / drugs / drug paraphernalia / etc.
What new forms / formats of cannabis that have emerged over the past 5-10 are the most exciting?
Purported potential populace pleasing pro-pot politics
Will hangs with the Broken Lizard crew and Cheech Marin! Cannabis has been Will’s “number one networking tool”
Weed can bring people together, or bring people closer together - get high with your folks
This is an industry ripe with puns, a blessing and a curse; this brand humor doesn’t resonate with everyone
Cannabis: it’s fun, it can heal you, it’s a social justice issue
“If Trump gets re-elected, I’m moving to Cannabis.”
Thank you, Will, for hanging out and chatting with us!

This is a very special episode recorded live at Burning Man on Thursday, August 30, 2018, in front of a live audience!

And we now have awesome handmade rainbow Entheogen T-shirts for sale!

http://entheogenshow.com/shop/t-shirt

Part Three: The Road to Eleusis
Chapter 8 - Catch a Fire
Chapter 9 - Burning Down the House
Chapter 10 - Hedonic Engineering

Burning Man: it’s a unique thing, and hopefully Donald Trump doesn’t know it exists
How important is Burning Man after the event is over?
For the individual, it’s akin to the idea of an ayahuasca ceremony where people often say, “the real work is after the ceremony.” Integration of the inspiration is the “work”.
What about for the community or society at large? Burners without Borders, Black Rock Solar, and other indirect influences.
Mount Hugmore
Because Burning Man is so inaccessible and inhospitable, attendance requires effort, planning, and intention, which fosters a grateful and positive community.
Summit Series: ski trip for the ultra successful
Mindfulness: it’s big business!
Yoga is bigger than football
The internet is doomed to be a tool of hegemony
Consequentialism vs. Intentionalism
Social media’s ability to divide populations in half in order to increase the marketable population of consumers, even more effective than 24 hour cable news
The term “conspiracy theory” was invented by the CIA
Weapons designed to turn us all into masturbating monkeys
Hedonic Engineering: get high with intention, and on a schedule that works best for you
“After the ecstasy, the laundry.”
Wabi Sabi - Japanese concept that values transience and imperfection
“The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” - William Butler Yeats
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
- Leonard Cohen

Demystifying mystical experiences and the democratization of information, language, practices, and substances
Alexander Shulgin, the “Johnny Appleseed of Psychedelics”
Etymology of the phrase “hocus pocus” and its unexpectedly religious roots
Regarding communion, specifically, consuming the body of christ, “That’s not a nice thing to do to Jesus.” - Kevin
“I used to be a Catholic until I reached the age of reason.” - George Carlin
Someday soon you will be able to use a 3D printer to print your drugs at home- weighing the possible benefits and risks
What’s up with Landmark?
“Capitalism is one amplifier for different movements.” - Joe
Dangers of capitalism: proliferation of crap music and crap writing
Are there aspects of psychedelic experiences that are anti-capitalistic?
Sipping the soup of capitalism
“When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” - Abraham Maslow. How does this idea relate to capitalism? How does this idea relate to our neurobiology? “Every issue we encounter we try to solve by thinking.”
The gut-brain axis - do you know where most of your neurotransmitters are?
Farting in yoga class
Sugar addiction is addiction
How much sugar is in a two-liter bottle of Coca-cola? 216 grams of sugar = 54 dang teaspoons!
The Flow Dojo- get high on gravity! ...shake your snowglobe!
Inventory of animals’ psychedelic-seeking behaviors and their respective preferred substances
Closing montage of goats braying. You’re welcome.

This is Entheogen. Elevate the Conversation.

Today is November 5, 2017, and we are discussing Stealing Fire, a book by Steven Kotler & Jamie Wheal.

Find the notes and links for this and other episodes at EntheogenShow.com. Support us on Patreon with a small monthly contribution to help keep the show going. Follow us @EntheogenShow on Twitter and like EntheogenShow on FaceBook. Thanks for listening.

INTRODUCTION

In more contemporary terms, the Eleusinian Mysteries were an elaborate nine-day ritual designed to strip away standard frames of reference, profoundly alter consciousness, and unlock a heightened level of insight. Specifically, the mysteries combined a number of state-changing techniques—fasting, singing, dancing, drumming, costumes, dramatic storytelling, physical exhaustion, and kykeon (the substance Alcibiades stole for his party)—to induce a cathartic experience of death, rebirth, and “divine inspiration.”

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann and Harvard-trained classicist Carl Ruck argued that the barley in kykeon might have been tainted with an ergot fungus. This same fungus generates lysergic acid (LSA), a precursor to the LSD that Hofmann famously synthesized in his Sandoz pharmaceutical lab. — Excerpt from Stealing Fire

PART ONE - THE CASE FOR ECSTASIS

Chapter 1: What Is This Fire?
Chapter 2: Why It Matters
Chapter 3: Why We Missed It

“The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.” —David Foster Wallace

Entheogen’s take on the book: “We like it.”
Debate on how to pronounce the word ecstasis
Why does “fire” need to be stolen? Why does access to altered states need to be banned?
How the Navy SEALs train for dynamic subordination, another kind of altered state
Partying with Eric Schmidt at Burning Man
Finding “flow” and why it matters
Signature characteristics of ecstasis: selflessness, timelessness, effortlessness, richness (STER)
An examining of the word “pale”
The “state sanctioned triad” of mind altering substances: caffeine, nicotine, alcohol -- what makes these special? What ends does accepting these particular substances serve?
The institutions that create / endorse stigma: the church and the state
Are humans already cyborgs? What is truly “unnatural” anyway? If humans are beings of nature, is anything that humans create also natural?
How altered states are directly related to evolution of humans as well as certain plants and other animals (like French Bulldogs)
The current and historical balance of individualism vs. collectivism, and its impact on the proliferation and acceptance of certain types of altered states

Find the notes and links for this and other episodes at EntheogenShow.com. Sign up to receive an email when we release a new episode. Follow us @EntheogenShow on Twitter and like EntheogenShow on FaceBook. Thanks for listening.

It’s April 2, 2017, and we are talking with Dr. Rosalind Watts, Clinical Psychologist at Imperial College London, working alongside Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris.

Joe’s story of psilocybin on his first “date” with his now-wife, and psilocybin’s role in their engagement
The Couples Using Magic Mushrooms as Relationship Therapy
Kevin’s regular practice of taking psychedelic medicine with his wife
How Ros came to study psychedelic therapy after initially becoming disillusioned with the limits of talk therapy for the treatment of anxiety and depression; her initial skepticism about psychedelics based on their negative legacy
The importance of the patient-therapist relationship
Some guidelines from one of the father figures of psychedelic therapy, Bill Richards: “We prepare people to welcome whatever they may encounter – no picking and choosing. Sometimes you have to go through the dark night to get to the top of the mountain and the sunrise. If the inner dragon or monster appears, look him in the eye – go straight towards him. If you look the monster in the eye and go towards it, ask it what it wants – there’s always resolution, transformation, and new knowledge. When you run from it, you get into panic and paranoia, like a typical nightmare – and then you say, ‘I’ve had a bad trip.’”
Although psychedelics including psilocybin tend to be considered non-addictive, there are examples of people using them habitually
Ros mentions some examples of people in the psilocybin study for depression giving up addictions and habitual behavior
To help fund this important research, visit the Psychedelic Research Group at Imperial College London