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In this episode Joel and Antonia talk about using psychedelics as tools for personal growth.
In this podcast you’ll find:
- Riff Tracks – Reefer Madness
- Marijuana and Cannabis have been the butt of a lot of misinformation.
- Drugs are like anything that can have painful consequences in the wrong hands.
- We would like to have a conversation in an attempt to shift some perspectives on this topic.
- The opiate epidemic is ruining lives. These are not banned drugs. Doctors prescribe these opiates and people are abusing them.
- Any time you take a substance into your body, there is a risk of abuse. Whether it is tobacco, alcohol, or an opioid.
- The United States categorizes drugs as legal and illegal.
- We want to talk about substances that we can use as tools for personal growth and behavior change.
- When you open yourself up to tools that can alter your mind or body, you should be cautious.
- Seek help if you are abusing a substance.
- We shouldn’t fight drug use by criminalizing it.
- There is a handful of psychotropics that have interesting results.
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Timothy Leary – a proponent of LSD – “You have to have the right set and setting or you will have a useless experience.”
- Set is mindset. How are you going into it? How have you prepared your mind and body?
- Setting is your environment. Context. The people around you.
- What you can do with LSD you can also do with meditation. But the difference is you can walk across the US, or you can fly in a jet plane.
- Meditation will get you there, but it takes longer.
- LSD should be used for personal growth. Not a party drug. If someone has a bad experience, what were their set and setting?
- LSD removes the filters that define our worldview. Sensory filters that stabilize the world. Like sight.
- Saccadic masking – blindness our brain covers over.
- Trip indicates you are going someplace. You can bring back souvenirs from trips.
- A lot of intention and time goes into a trip.
- Detoxify from toxic food. Journal. Meditate. Get your mind into the right space.
- Don’t take this experience lightly.
- Studies have indicated that LSD can be very helpful for people dealing with PTSD.
- It is irresponsible not to use it in medical research.
- Hollywood and religion don’t often depict substance accurately.
- Have respect for substance, but don’t fear it.
- Anything that grows from the ground should not be feared.
- Gateway drugs are gateway drugs because of the people that demonize everything.
- So, when a kid tries something tame and realizes they were lied to about its harmful effects, they move onto more harmful substances assuming they were lied to about them too.
- 25 or older. The brain doesn’t stop forming until 25. So, if these substances were legalized there should still be age limits.
- LSD in the U.S. is considered Schedule 1 – which means it is of no value, including in medical research.
- That designation should be reassessed.
- Most people can’t have a mature conversation around this.
- Some gifts can be given to you if you use these psychotropics responsibly.
- MDMA – the chemical found in ecstasy – Dumps serotonin and dopamine into the system.
- Souvenir – Massive compassion for human race.
- Psilocybin mushroom souvenir – everything around us is just pure energy. We tell stories about everything we do.
- Releasing attachment to the mundane.
- Lose a sense of all the narratives you tell and get a sense of your life and everything that happens on a DNA level.
- You continue the script from previous generations and pass it on to future generations.
- If you want to experiment with these things, make sure you have the right set and setting. Take special care with anything that can be addictive.
- MDMA requires caution. When it dumps the serotonin and dopamine into the system, there is a limited number of times you can do that before you burn out the receptors in your brain.
- We aren’t advocating drugs, but we want to open up a conversation about it.
- Talk openly about these things and consider that the stories we believe may not be true.
- We can’t encourage you to do something illegal. At least we can start using these things in medical research.
- Cannabis is considered Schedule 1 and its medical benefits are widely known.
- We are advocating open dialogue.
- We are advocating profound experiences.
- There are ways to have these peak experiences that don’t mean illegal substances – ayahuasca is not illegal if it’s used religiously.
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DMT is Schedule 1.
- Look up Spirit Molecule on Youtube
- DMT is found in everything, not just plants.
- Right before we die, our brain prepares for death by dumping DMT into our system. So, near death experiences when people see God or see the light is really a DMT trip. Many die in a hospital where they are anesthetized and deprived of this important near death trip.
- Apparently, nature thinks DMT has some medical use.
- We should re-evaluate whether these things have some medical merit.
- Be open to talking about things. Why should we avoid subjects just because we always have?
- Make wise decisions for yourself.
- Consider different technologies.
- See things from different perspectives.
- A lot of ego transcendence work can be facilitated by occasional use of psychotropics.
- You can get emotionally and psychologically addicted to these drugs. So care and responsibility must be taken.
- Don’t act like these substances are no big deal. But there’s no reason to fear them.
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25 comments
A great podcast and a worthy topic. Appreciate you both stepping in where others fear to tread, so to speak.
Great comment above Antonia, on how the concept and limited definitions of control get so distorted by those with agendas. Who then in turn use them to control.
A narrow view will always have more hard and fast definitions and limits. A wider view makes it obvious just how little one (or anyone else) really knows.
Interestingly, my religious background itself was about control. It was the only path to truth and enlightenment, which in retrospect seemed very convenient for it.
There are a lot of belief systems that claim to be the best or only way to enlightenment. For my money, I’m far more suspicious of the ones that demonize other paths (i.e. present all other avenues as counterfeit while itself stays guileless) than the ones that come with clear warning labels, acknowledging their own limitations (such as psychotropics).
As mentioned in the podcast, all of the experiences we discuss utilize psychotropics that have zero addictive properties. I’ve personally never felt corrupted in spirit or requiring continued use to experience true joy. The religion of my youth, however, was quite addictive and actively discouraged any feelings of joy not directly associated with it.
I feel pretty comfortable talking about the topic having experienced both sides of the coin.
A
My Christian religion teaches it’s all about control. When you give your control to an outside substance, you give up your agency, and are hence, not accountable. But the substance affecting you is, so you really are, though it’s not really you. So drugs displace your accountability.
Drugs are a counterfeit to intentional enlightenment that can otherwise be found through faith, repentance, hope, good works, serving others (a huge “trip”), charity, and being in nourishing places that grow your individual spirit—and so much more that Christian religions espouse. Yes, drugs are easier to accomplish such enlightenment, but your spirit is damaged because it was essentially ignored such that personal enlightenment inherently becomes more difficult to maintain in life without the counterfeit to joy (drugs).
INTJ here. I really enjoyed the conversation. I started meditating about 10 years ago. I was fortunate to have studied with experienced meditation teachers who were part of an ashram. I never considered myself a devotee of the ashram’s guru, but benefited greatly from his teachings and his presence. I experienced a lot of what some of my friends have described during their LSD and mushroom trips while I was meditating. If you’re fortunate enough to be around someone who is considered enlightened and vibrating at a much higher energetic level than your average person, your consciousness will be greatly enhanced and reality altered in such a way where nothing is the same anymore. You’ll be a very different person. That was my experience anyway.
As for intentional experimentation with psychotropics, I never have. But I want to. Antonia, do the mediation retreats you went on still go on?
Thanks for the podcast!
Wonderful insights and Understanding of societies more taboo subjects, Your first hand experiences and outcomes on a personal level are inspiring and highly educating,this is one of the most lucid and profound podcasts i have the pleasure to listen to,Period! You are both to be Congratulated!!.