The Plant Medicine For PTSD Podcast

47. Jason Grechanik - What Tobacco Shows You That Ayahuasca Won't

• Dr. David Zwoboda

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Most people in the West think of medicine as something you swallow to make a symptom go away. Jason Grechanik has spent more than a decade in the Peruvian Amazon learning a completely different definition. A trained tabaquero who apprenticed in the tradition of tobacco and spent years at the Temple of the Way of Light, Jason now guides people through dietas, the long, solitary, food-restricted apprenticeships with a single plant that the tradition considers the real source of healing.

In this nearly two-hour conversation, we go far past the usual psychedelic talking points. We get into why a Westerner serving medicine after a single ceremony is a red flag, what brujeria actually is and how a healer with good intentions still becomes one, where evil comes from, and why the hero of every culture's oldest story has to walk into a cave and face himself. 

We also talk about microdosing as its own kind of dieta, why these plants are spreading across the West right now, and what tobacco, the most feared and misunderstood plant in the Amazon, is actually for.

If you care about trauma healing, plant medicine, integration, or just the deeper question of why any of this works at all, this one rewards a slow listen. Jason did the decade in the jungle so the rest of us could get the download.

Guest Bio

Jason Grechanik is a tabaquero, a practitioner who works with tobacco as a sacred master plant, trained in an Amazonian lineage. He spent years in Peru, including at the Temple of the Way of Light, one of the best-known ayahuasca centers in the world, before apprenticing directly under a tabaquero. For roughly a decade he has worked alongside his colleague Morav, guiding people through both in-person and remote dietas, the focused, food-restricted apprenticeships with a single plant or tree. He now works between the Sacred Valley of Peru and abroad, and hosts his own podcast, The Universe Within.


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SPEAKER_02

So there are some episodes of this podcast where I have no idea what I say, honestly, during the episodes in retrospect, you know, Cordy listens to them or people talk to me about them. And I'm like, oh yeah, that sounds smart. I've no idea. Like it just kind of happens and passes out of my mind. Uh this is an episode, as I said to Jason at the end there, I'm really excited to listen back to this. Um, because honestly, I I did very little preparation beforehand a lot of times with guests. I will meet with them and we'll kind of map out the direction that the episode will go in. And that wasn't the case here. All that I knew was that Jason is somebody with a lot of experience in the ayahuasca space, that he's somebody that guides other folks on dietas, which you're gonna hear us talk quite a bit about. And he's a brown belt in jujitsu, so it's always nice to have someone with that shared language. And I was, I mean, I'm I'm always kind of aware when I do these episodes, you guys, that it's a little bit of a dance, if you will, where my job is to ask the guest questions that are interesting for you, the listener, to listen to. But with Jason today, this felt a little bit different where I didn't want to just ask him basic stuff because he's been in this world for so long and has so much experience. Um, be like, you know, meeting a really skilled jujitsu guy and being like, teach, teach me the fundamentals of guard just for the purpose of educating the audience that's there watching you. So I don't know, that that analogy is probably stupid. The point being, there's a lot of stuff that we're gonna talk about in this episode that you might have no idea what the fuck we're talking about for a while. And I I thought about giving like this really elaborate intro where I explain his background and I explain more about plant dieta's. If you listen to my episode with uh Kat Courtney, we talked quite a bit about them. So Jason does similar kinds of work. And I mean, you you may have even heard me talk how we focus less and less now on the big medicine experiences. Um, I have tons of stories from us running ayahuasca retreats that I've never probably even shared here. So we do talk a little bit about my tobacco dieta. We talk a little bit about the various indigenous lineages that Jason has learned from. Um, but more than anything, and perhaps more than Jason even thought I would, we get it very like metaphysical, very philosophical uh about how the universe works and good and evil and who or what God is. And I really appreciate Jason's perspectives on never wanting to just tell people what they should think. But you'll also hear me a few times almost try to pin him down on what he actually believes because I'm talking to him. I'm interested to hear what he has to say. And he has a very interesting way of skirting around those questions, very often not even really answering anything related to what I asked him, but I could listen to him speak for a long time. And very often, honestly, I felt at a bit of a loss of words in what to say in response. Again, trying to be aware that like I'm not just talking to fill dead space or ask questions just for the sake of asking questions. So I really enjoyed this talk with Jason. Like I said, I'm really excited to listen back to it. I had a few thoughts in response to some of the stuff he was saying that I didn't even voice in the moment, but I thought it was really interesting what you'll hear him say at the very end. I kind of asked him about the mechanism of action of healing. He talks about how plant medicines are simultaneously such a foreign element. And yet when we're in those spaces, it can feel so familiar to us. And he even spoke about the pharmacology of them. I thought it's so funny that like these all of these medicines, these drugs, ayahuasca, ketamine, ibogaine, mushrooms, whatever, they only have an effect on our bodies because our bodies have the receptors for them. And that's such an interesting thing to think about, this like symbiotic relationship between us as organisms and all these things that grow around us. So I really enjoyed this conversation with Jason. I really hope that you will as well. And if you do feel called to the kind of work that he does, I would definitely encourage you to check him out. He has a podcast as well called The Universe Within. You can find him on Instagram or his website will be in the description of the episode here. And maybe your path will lead you to doing a dieta with him sometime in the future. So that's enough of my preamble. I hope you enjoy this episode. I'm always curious how you describe yourself and your work. You know, if you were introducing yourself or providing like a professional bio, because you've had such a long career in this and so many different interests. And obviously the work that you do has evolved over time, I imagine, as your relationship with the plants has evolved. So, how do you speak about yourself now and your work? How do you kind of categorize it? What's what's the elevator pitch that kind of summarizes things for you now?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, again, thank you. Thank you for having me on. Um it's interesting. It's probably one of these fields where in general we don't have to have a title or or describe what we do. And it was always very interesting because I spent a long time in Peru and I would often fly back to the US where I'm from. And very often you have to put like your profession or what you were doing. And it was always this kind of hair-raising, you know, moment because a lot of what I was doing of I was working in Peru at an ayahuasca center, and obviously in Peru it's not illegal, but in the US it is. So it was always a bit kind of a bit of a nervous energy. And and it was always an interesting thing because I I never really did have a title. I think so much of this work doesn't really translate into our cultures. And it's one of the interesting things, even as this kind of quote-unquote psychedelic renaissance is re-emerging in in Western culture. Even then, the these things like plant medicine, like even that word, it it's it's put into a very specific field because we we decide or see medicine as something pharmacological that's purely chemical, physical. Um, and and that's uh it's not a wrong understanding of medicine, but it's a very particular way of looking at medicine. Or we put it in more of a psychological field that that um you know, someone who works with these things is somehow in the realm of psychology or something. And traditionally, you know, even if you look very loosely, the this kind of umbrella term of of shamanism. I mean, shaman it comes from this root word, which means to know. And before we started the recording, I was saying that I spent a long time in the Peruvian Amazon working with a group of people called the Shpibo-Kanibo people. And they become very well known for ayahuasca, although they work with a pharmacopia of plants in the jungle. But one of their classes of, again, whatever you want to call it, healers, doctors, um, and but people who specifically work with ayahuasca, in their language, ayahuasca is called Uni, and someone who works with that is called an Unaya. And and that translates as a wisdom keeper. So it's the same etymological root of the word shaman. And even if you think of maybe some of our traditions that are closer to our own, like the Celts, the Druids were their priests or their shamans, and and that word also Dhru, it means truth or wisdom. It was someone who had knowledge, someone who understood truth. And so, you know, for me, I think that's that's actually the deeper root behind ultimately someone who carries these plants is that's ultimately what they're pointing towards. And so it's kind of difficult to have a name for that. You know, to some degree, what we work on is we are doctors. A lot of people come to us for very specific physical ailments, which we work on. To some degree, we are psychologists because a lot of people come to us for mental emotional distress and anxiety and depression and trauma. And um, and a lot of people come to us because they feel lost. And I think that's more in the realm of spirit, because they would say ultimately that's the root of the human suffering, which is that we've forgotten who we are and where we come from. And so part of our work is through the knowledge that the experiential knowledge that we've garnered through through our experiences of these plants, helping people to connect to that knowledge because it's seen that that knowledge is power, and that knowledge ultimately can help people to heal on the physical level, the mental, emotional level, and the spiritual level. You know, very loosely the tradition mostly that I practice kind of under the umbrella of now, which is through the medium of tobacco, which I would imagine we'll we'll speak about, which may sound strange to some of your audience. Um, but in the Amazon, it in in many places of the Americas, tobacco was considered the first medicine, and in many cultures, even the primary, the most powerful, the most sacred medicine. But it's in that same class of plants like like ayahuasca. And so in Spanish, someone who works with tobacco is called a tabero. And so I would say loosely, that's often what people would maybe refer. If if people are specifically referring to me, it would be a tobaquero. Um, in the same way, if someone is predominantly working with ayahuasca, they'd be an ayahuasquero. But even that's it, it's kind of limiting because even so many people when they even when they reach out to us initially, they're like, Well, I want to work with tobacco. And we do a lot of work with tobacco. Tobacco is like the gateway, the portal, but it's really a gateway to the entire plant kingdom. And so we're working with many, many plants, which we we hold a very deep, deep reverence to.

SPEAKER_02

A lot of people I feel like would recommend that folks do not start with a tobacco dieta. Do you agree with that? And why is that kind of a common belief?

SPEAKER_00

Honestly, I I I I've never heard that before.

SPEAKER_02

Um I think it's because maybe it has this connotation of being such a particularly difficult dieta, which for our listeners, we can explain. They've heard me talk tangentially about this and seen me smoke my pipe on every episode practically. So there's some basic working knowledge. But uh that's that's kind of always what I've heard is that um the tobacco dieta is seen as such a difficult thing to get into. And so people are advised to not begin there. But I asked because that was and it remains the only dieta I've actually ever done. And I I have often thought also similar to you, like I don't know why people have that belief. Um, so it's interesting you've never even heard that. That's all that I've ever heard from the circles that I've been in.

SPEAKER_00

Interestingly, now that you say that, I I do remember uh some of my first exposure to plant medicine, and and I do remember hearing that uh more from a a Western person, although when I kind of inquired more deeply from the actual people who were carrying that medicine, I I never did hear that. I mean, there is there's many ways of doing a dieta, and and so it's hard to speak in in kind of very broad or very general terms. Um, usually, you know, one thing that may kind of give that credence or more weight, what you say, is that in some cultures, doing a tobacco doing a dieta of something like tobacco or any master plant would be a very long process. And so it may not be recommended right off the bat because you may be getting yourself into something that that you have no intention of completing, and and that can be seen as as kind of detrimental because then you're going back on your word, you're you're you're crossing your dieta, it could be said. But um it's a master plant, and so obviously it it commands a lot of respect. And so, yes, there there are ways of working or traditions where you would start with smaller plants or or shorter dietas and then over time build up to doing something bigger. But even with the tobacco dieta, there there are there's different ways of doing that. It can be for a shorter amount of time, it can be a prolonged apprenticeship. So it really depends on how you're how you're working with it. You know, for ourselves, for example, for for many people, we actually do start them on tobacco. It's it's a it's a relatively short dieta, it's seven days, but it's quite intense. It's drinking those medicines every day. And the reason we we work that way is because we're working via the medium of tobacco, then that person has that connection with with that plant. And then the subsequent dietas they do. Yeah, it really helps to amplify and deepen that connection. Having said that, there are there are definitely people um where tobacco would be counterindicated, like any plant, and and in those cases you would need to start them on something else.

SPEAKER_02

I laughed as you said that because I just had a distinct I could taste the tobacco juice going down again. Hard to forget. Good times. So man, you have uh you've been working in this space, as you said, for more than a decade and doing uh have have do you even keep track of how many dietas you've done? Uh is it not even worth counting anymore for you, right? It's just pure life now.

SPEAKER_00

It's it it's maybe something personal to me. Uh, you know, I I I remember there was a lot of things, even when I was working at the Temple of the Way of Light, um, which is a a big ayahuasca center. And there was a lot of things that just never really resonated. And one of those was kind of people who kept tallies on their ceremonies. And uh for me it it never really seemed that important because you know, someone can have one ceremony that's very profound, and someone can have ten ceremonies that are that are not so profound. And so much depends on the person. And that's not something I think in our modern times we like to admit so much. We we have this very egalitarian view, but who you are, what you bring, your intention, uh, how much you've you've suffered or sacrificed or what you've done in your life has a huge impact on on what's going to happen. So for me, that was never so important. And it and it also kind of continued to to Dietas as well. I mean, so yeah, I'm not sure. I mean we we've been working now for myself and my colleague uh Morav, who I work with. We've uh maybe uh like you said, 10 years we've been working now. Um we probably we we started doing, I don't know, a few diets a year that quickly turned into probably four, five, six now, eight even we do a year. So it you know, it's it quite a quite a few.

SPEAKER_02

So suffice to say, you've been in this space for a long time. Um what do you make of the rise in popularity of this stuff? Because you've seen this entire landscape change so much over the last decade. And a lot of it's good, but a lot of it's bad, not just in terms of the exploitation of indigenous folks and things like that, but also just maybe some people having access to the medicine who shouldn't or aren't quite ready for it. And nowadays, I think everyone that I encounter has heard a podcast with Joe Rogan or Sean Ryan or something, especially Ibogain nowadays is really like having its moment in the sun. If you kind of take a step back and just look at this as like a societal trend, do you feel like this is a good thing? Is it bad? Is it is it neutral? It just is part of the cycle. Like what do you make of this on a societal or like a cultural level that this stuff is kind of stepping into the the spotlight of the culture now?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's a good question. I uh I would say in an absolute sense, it's good and that you know reality that it's always good and that and that it is. It it's as a very beautiful woman named Byron Cady said, if you fight reality you you lose, but but only 100% of the time. Um in that sense it's good, or you could say neutral. I mean, it is what it is. Again, it's very difficult to fight something that that's happening and something that has a lot of momentum behind it. Um I think the best we can do is always uh again to try and have wisdom, to try and have better understanding, to do things in better ways, to to to to honor the past, which is really, really important. Uh you know, we were speaking a little before we started about uh jujitsu, which I think is so interesting. And, you know, even I think we both called it Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is you know fascinating because that's how it was usually referred to, although now it's probably loosely more just jujitsu or even American jujitsu. But you know, even the roots of that, I mean, it came to Brazil from Japan, where what was just called jiu-jitsu, but if you trace it back further than that, it probably came from China, and some people even trace it back to India. So these things are always changing, they're always evolving, and and and knowledge is knowledge.

SPEAKER_02

Um I I love that you invoke jujitsu here because like every ancient civilization has some form of a grappling culture and some form of entheogenic culture, some sort of sacred medicine, like the the mysteries of ancient Greece. It's just it's fascinating to me how those are two constants in human civilization. They invent some form of the dumpling in the culinary field, they invent some form of grappling, and they have some form of altering their consciousness. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, I just think that that parallel is so funny.

SPEAKER_00

No, not not at all. Uh, I mean, it was very interesting because even when I was working at the temple, I noticed there was a lot of, again, from from more Western people, there was a lot of resistance to martial arts as as if they were somehow less spiritual. But the should be bo themselves. I mean, that that was part of their culture. They they wrestled, they grapple, just like you said, it's part of almost every culture. And it it was something that was done ceremonially. Um, you know, even they they they they knife fought. Um the idea was to cut the back of the the opponent's head. And um so um, you know, to answer your question, uh I think it's natural that that these plants are spreading. You know, part of the reason they're spreading is because we did law, we we we lost them. I mean, you often hear this idea that these plants are here to help us remember, and and and that's a very indigenous cosmovision. I one of my teachers, his name is Amika, he comes from a group of people called the Tubu and the Colombian Amazon. They have these prophecies, and and they say their origin story was that even eons ago, humans were suffering. And interestingly, very specifically from the star system Sirius, these Syrian beings heeded this call of the suffering of humanity, and they descended the 12 dimensions of time and space on this primordial Anaconda canoe. And on this canoe, they brought with them all of these master plants. And they said these plants are here to help us to remember because ultimately that suffering originates because we've forgotten who we are and where we come from. And so I I think in in the Western world we we've done amazing things. You know, we I think we also live in this interesting time where we really like to degrade ourselves and flagellate ourselves in the Western world, which is, you know, of course, it's always good to reflect and to see where we've gone astray, but to never forget the good things, like like in any culture, it's it's very, very important. Um, but I think one of the things in the West that we have forgotten are our origin stories and and and a connection to spirit. And to the to the degree that we've forgotten those things, again, who we are, we're we're suffering. And and I I think because we have lost for the most part these traditions in our own cultures, we've had to go to cultures who've still maintain those traditions to somehow reconnect and and to re-spark that fire that's in us. And so I think it's very natural that these are spreading. And I think the reason that they're spreading, again, is not that they're they're better or worse, or or they're just they're they're still there and they're still very powerful traditions that are very still alive and still contain a lot of that power. And so it's natural that they're spreading in the same way that anything naturally wants to spread. Life wants to spread, life wants to propagate itself, and these plants are a reflection of that. And and that's the nature of plants, is we are in a symbiotic relationship with plants. Without plants, we would not exist. And that that's just a fact. So there's always a symbiotic relationship. And to the degree that humans suffer, I I think plants begin to move out to the degree that that plants begin to suffer, humans have to move out. I mean, we can even see that maybe on a more global scale. So there's always this dance. And so I think the reason these plants are moving out is because there's there's a very deep need. And so ultimately that's that's a good thing. But also, as you say, that there can be a lot of downsides to that. Um, from the very pragmatic level of, you know, probably where you're coming from in the US, um, you know, many pharmaceuticals you can't get without a prescription. And yet in many parts of the world you can. So which is better? Well, I don't know. It's it's a good question. Should things be open access? Should there be restrictions? Should there be regulations? Even as we see what's happening now is many of these substances are going into medical fields, going into psychological fields, which has a tremendous benefit. I mean, I'm I'm sure you've spoken about, for example, that the Johns Hopkins study with psilocybin. But I mean tremendous results. At the same time, if the only people who can work with those are psychologists or doctors, you cut out a tremendous amount of the wisdom, the healing potential of those plants, and you don't allow people who actually practice those in the way that they have been practiced for millennia to be able to practice. You have the the safety aspects, which is which is a real thing. I mean, that that happened with with marijuana. You know, many decades ago, marijuana was spoken of as super dangerous and it'll make you rape all the women and blah, blah, blah, or it'll make you just zonk out of society and not do anything. Obviously, all of that is not true. But then uh, you know, probably within the last 20 years, there was kind of this opposite that it's a panacea and there's absolutely no downside to marijuana. And that's also being shown to be not true. I mean, people do die from marijuana, usually not from the toxicology, but from psychosis or, you know, things that that happen under altered states. So in general, the efficacy and and the safety of holistic plants and natural medicine I think would be hard to argue against that it's far, far safer than pharmaceuticals. You know, pharmaceuticals, I think in the US alone kill hundreds of thousands of people now every year, even just in hospital settings. It's the third leading cause of death now in the U.S. That's not to say pharmaceuticals don't have their place, and it's not to say that they should be outlawed, but it's the same with plant medicine. And I think it's really important to talk about the dangers that the negative effects. And they can have a lot because it's not just physical medicine, it's not just the the toxicology. They're very deep tools of working on the mind, they're very deep tools of working on the spirit. And we don't even necessarily have the language to be able to understand those things or to discuss them. And many times I think we're opening, in a way, little Pandora's boxes for people where people can really get lost, and that really happens. And even that's part of our work, is sometimes trying to help people to come back from bad experiences that they've had elsewhere. And then there's also the very important point which you mentioned, which is kind of loosely this idea of cultural appropriation, which uh is true, but then there's also I think a lot of problematic aspects with with that idea as well, much like we were speaking of jujitsu. Like I don't think anyone cares that that you or I are practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Um, but it would be a similar thing, like we're we're appropriating that from a different culture. But uh, I think it's usually seen that that's normal, that's natural, there's an evolution of it, it's open, it's a it's a it's a free art. And and that's true. Um, and at the same time, there are very real issues. I mean, uh a good friend of mine whose name is Bill Park, he has a a not-for-profit in the Aprovian Amazon, and he spent a lot of time with the Matsis people. He continues to spend a lot of time with the Matsis, and he's done some amazing projects. Like he created a a Matseis book that's only in Matsis, their own language of all of the medicinal plants of uh of their people, so that they would always have that. And it's not even translated into Spanish or English, so there's kind of no way for it to go out. But you know, he often speaks about this idea that that a lot of pharmaceutical companies came in and they extracted a lot of the medicine of the matze, they they they made drugs from that, they've made probably millions, if not billions, of dollars, and the matze haven't seen a dime of that. And and I think anyone would see that that that's that's not good, that that's wrong. And then on top of that, you know, there is this aspect of like uh what does it mean to be a practitioner of something that that that's maybe outside of your culture? And and that's very complicated. Again, there's no easy answer to that. Um, and that's where I think having a lot of respect, a lot of reverence, uh, honoring that is very, very essential. And and that's definitely one thing that's that's being cut out in this kind of quote-unquote psychedelic renaissance.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, man. I I'm always very skeptical of a Westerner positioning themselves as someone who serves medicine, unless they can tell me, well, yes, I've spent a decade doing dietas and I studied under all of these indigenous tribes. I'm like, okay, maybe you have truly earned the right, so to speak, to serve that medicine. Because man, if there's one thing I have learned from facilitating the ayahuasca ceremonies that I've been a part of, it is that I will never be qualified to serve medicine to people because I will not devote a decade of my life to live in seclusion in the jungle doing dietas. Like that's just not my path. And having that appreciation, I am extraordinarily skeptical of people who say that they, you know, feel they've received a blessing to serve the medicine or what have you. I'm like, is that because the medicine told you one night in a ceremony or because you actually apprenticed for a decade? And that you have strike me as someone who truly has earned that right. And that's why we're sitting here talking and I say no to the dozens of crackpots that email me all the time to come on my podcast.

SPEAKER_00

So I I that phrase is always very tricky that that ayahuasca told me to do something.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my gosh, yeah, that's a major red flag anytime you hear that.

SPEAKER_00

But look, it's it's it's it's very tricky, and and I think everything you say is true. And and at the same time, that skepticism has to be used for all people because uh you know there's a lot of indigenous people, or you know, even in South America, it's it's very tricky because we often look at like all people as indigenous, and that's not true. There's many mestizo people or uh other people as well. And but but even you know, indigenous, there there's a lot of people who are operating not from a good place. Um, I mean, literally not from a good place with their intention. And and then there's many people just operating from a place of having a good intention, but they just haven't done proper training, and that that runs the gamut. And um, no, I'm glad yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I'm glad you brought that up because that would be like me saying any Brazilian person is qualified to teach jujitsu, or even any black belt is a good person. The amount of sexual assault allegations in the jiu-jitsu world, we know that that's not true. So can you speak to that for a moment? I don't mean to cause fears around ayahuasca, but it's true that there are folks with ill intentions. There are there's um I don't know what terms you would use or your teachers, but have you know heard people refer to as brujas, like witches essentially, who use these things for negative purposes, and then there's just people who are maybe unqualified. So, what would you have to say uh uh in terms of that? Um, maybe how people can find a reputable place or just things to be aware of. Again, not to just be sensationalist, but my wife has personal firsthand experience with um we could just say people with poor intentions, to to put it very nicely. So these things are very real.

SPEAKER_00

It's a good question. It's a it's a very, very big question. Uh I think one of the things uh that's very tricky for Western people um is it's very difficult to, you know, like anything. Imagine you were in Japan and you started learning about one of their traditions. Um it would be very difficult to fully understand that tradition if you also didn't have a context of the society and the culture and the history, it would still be a fairly limited uh point of view. And that's the same for these plant medicines. These plant medicines originated in a culture, in a time, in a place, in a society, in a worldview, in a cosmovision, and they're intricately related to those plants. And so it's very difficult to just kind of pull the plant out of that and start working with it in a way that doesn't acknowledge all of those things. And I think one of the probably the the one of the big differences in worldview that you mentioned is this idea, and I kind of alluded to it in the beginning of when we take these plants outside of their context and we put them in something, for example, like a psychological worldview or a psychiatric worldview, is in general in the West, and you know, this is maybe not absolutely true, but it's something that I've I've seen repeatedly, is that very often psychologists or psychiatrists, because of their cosmovision, because of their training, will put any experience that arises in their client that's simply a reflection of something that's happening within them. Um their dream space, their their unconscious. It's always some reflection of something that's happened to them in their past and in their subconscious. It's it's an archetype of something. That's not necessarily the case in a lot of these traditional or indigenous worldviews. They view the world as very relational, and that we as humans are just one part of a wide, wide web of life. And so we have relationships with animals, with spirits, with good spirits, with bad spirits, with the water, with the mountains, that all of these things have energy. And they would say that a lot of our sickness or ailments or our dis-ease can come from these relational aspects. And so it's not just necessarily like my disease is something that solely originates from within Jason, and all of my dreams are just solely a reflection of what happened in my life. Um and so, because of these relational aspects where it can be seen that that that energy comes from the outside. And again, that that's not a that's not a strange worldview. I mean, you know, imagine you were working in an office, and you know, you I don't know, there's 10 people in your office who are close colleagues of yours, and your buddy Joe, he starts saying, Hey, David, or he doesn't say to you, but he starts saying to everyone else, like this gossip of like, you know, David's not nice around women, or he's done these bad things, and none of those are true. But those seeds begin to implant in everyone else's mind. And then the way that they relate to you is going to be very different, and the energy that they relate to you is going to be very different. Almost like these little daggers, you could almost feel, even though you'd have no idea, like, why, why are these people? There's something is shifted in them. And over time, it could be seen that that can cause you illness, um, mental emotional illness, and eventually, if left unchecked for a long time, physical illness. So, in that way, in these traditional societies, again, what you were alluding to is this idea of brujos or brujas, brujeria, um, which is this idea that there can be people who have malintent towards us. And I would say that often falls into two categories. One is there are people who work with these plants in a way to harm people. Um, that could be something so simple. Like there's a whole field of like love magic, for example. And that may not sound like a bad thing, but if if I go to you, David, and you're a you're a plant medicine practitioner and I say, Hey, there's this woman that I really want her to fall in love with me. She's not falling in love with me, but I want you to make her fall in love with me. Maybe on the surface, that doesn't seem so bad, although it but if you look deeper into it, I'm hiring you to somehow affect her to do something that she actually doesn't want to do that that's going to benefit me. And there's a disease that begins to happen. There's a there's an imbalance that begins to happen. That would be seen as as buruya. I would say on the more the more general level, Buruhariya is actually seen as something which you also alluded to, which is this idea that you know, what I was speaking about earlier on, that these plants can give us a tremendous amount of knowledge and they can get us give us a tremendous amount of power. And with that knowledge, with that power, there's a great responsibility. If you think of like the seven deadly sins of Christianity, the lust and the greed and you know, all of these things, those are things that we have to work through and that ultimately become amplified, and our connection to those things become amplified. When we're working with people, that the same as a doctor or the same as a psychologist. That's why often in in the US, for example, and in many Western cultures, like a psychologist by law is not allowed to have a love relationship with their client because that's seen as crossing certain ethical boundaries. So, in this work, as you begin to have more power, as your word becomes more powerful, as your thoughts become more powerful, your intentions become more powerful, you have to be much more mindful of that. And if people haven't really done this, this personal work, this introspectal work or the dietas, the ceremonial work, then they can become very corrupted by that. And you see a lot of that. You see a lot in the realm, as you said, of sex, of lust, of, of money. I mean, money is a huge, huge thing that that causes people problems in this world. Um, and again, it's usually not coming from bad intention. It's not the person is a bad person or they want to harm their clients. It's just in the word they often use in Spanish is that they're mariado, they're dizzy. They become lost in the dizziness of life, they become lost in the the power of the lust or the greed or the fame or the the status that they have. And it can be very difficult to come out of that. And very often then bad things can come from that. And and so we have to be very mindful of that. How do you how do you go about kind of mitigating that? You know, I I I don't really know. I I think obviously having references, obviously being immersed in the culture. I mean, you know, this may not be a very popular opinion, but it it was just my observation when I was in the Amazon, for example. Um, and again, I'm not saying this should or shouldn't happen, but when I was in the Amazon, it would be very rare for a single woman to go to uh to a healer by herself. That almost never happened. She would always go with family, just because it was seen that that's always a potentiality and that she has to be mindful of that. Um so you know, there are ways you can mitigate that. Uh talking to people who've worked with that person, having testimonials, talking with them yourself. Um, as you said, uh do they have some lineage or are they just kind of some some charlatan? And it can be tough because a lot of this, again, we don't have a place in our worldview to kind of put this. So, you know, like there's above me, there's some degrees hanging, and but we don't have that for a plant medicine practitioner or whatever you want to call it. There's no school. And and again, kind of talking to this idea of the psychedelic renaissance, if we have that, then we also face a risk of really losing something by having that, because then it's some system that can completely disregard so many things. So it's very difficult. But in that way, you know, if you went to a doctor in the West, you would you would want them to have a degree. You would probably maybe it was a friend's recommendation, or you would go to them once in a in a kind of consultation aspect. Do you get a good feel of them? Do you do do you resonate with what they say? You know, all of those things can be applied. And and, you know, ultimately working with someone and and and seeing how you feel. Like, do you feel good with them? Do you feel better? That's a super important point, you know, which which I think sometimes gets ignored. Like this very simple idea of the proof is in the pudding, like, are you better after? And if you're not, then maybe not they're not even a bad practitioner, but they're they're they're not, at least in that moment, probably good for you.

SPEAKER_02

Right. And as you said, even just trusting your intuition about someone, I think modern society disconnects us so immensely from our intuition, from our ability to actually feel what is coming up inside of us, and we just override that with logic or or hope half the time. It's interesting to me what you shared, how a bruja maybe doesn't even have bad intentions to begin with, but there's something like impure within them that becomes magnified and dizzy Mariado with the power that they that they get. We can share more, I'll share more a little bit more, maybe about my dieta. That was one of the biggest things that was actually shown to me by the tobacco was the work that I still had to do if I was going to succeed in a position of leadership or being a spiritual guide to other people. Like quite frankly, it showed me the lust that I still had. Um, those were the majority of the visions that I actually had um in my dreams with that medicine. So I was just it was interesting that you brought that up because I was like, oh, this is precisely what I think that the the dietto was revealing to me was that like I still had work to do in a few of those regards.

SPEAKER_00

So it's that was very, very good medicine for that. And it's very good, you know, uh, for me that you were able to see that because that's that's also what separates the wheat and the chaff. You know, many people can see also in ayahuasca, but tobacco tends to be much more direct and much more clear.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_00

What do you do with that? Because it's easy to to to not take that and change your light, but but to have the humility to say, okay, that this is real, this is true, that that's a huge, huge part. That that's the first step of any any healing or wisdom journey.

SPEAKER_02

So far, every everything I could say I've received from tobacco in terms of this was a clear communication, a clear vision, a clear message. Because obviously there's the protection, there's there's various other things you get from it. Um, it's always been along those lines of hey, I'm really proud of you. You're doing great, but don't forget about this thing over here. You're not done with this yet. That's always been the the vibe of the message that I've gotten from it. So I I have uh I do really want to hear about your work and what that actually looks like. I have one more very broad, open-ended question for you first, because you you expressed your gratitude for coming on the show, and I I appreciate that. But really, I was very excited to speak to you because for one thing, you're someone who's been in this space a lot longer than I have, so I appreciate you have a lot to teach. Um, you're a brown belt, I'm a blue belt, so there's respect there, obviously. But as I said before, you know, I've I've done one dieta, and if I explain it to you, you might even say, like, yeah, that doesn't even really count based on all the other factors that were going on there. I've been a part of I don't know, maybe a dozen ceremonies that or a dozen retreats that we've helped to organize. So you strike me as someone that I have a lot to learn from. So I I appreciate you answering my very difficult to answer questions as I try to walk the line between performance for my audience and me just selfishly asking you questions. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02

One thing that I want to get your opinion on. So the work that I do now primarily focuses on microdosing with mushrooms. And I talk about it as being neutral. I say that the mushrooms are not inherently a net positive thing, but rather they're uh people describe it as a non-specific amplifier. So if you're in a healing setting, ideally it amplifies that healing. If you wake up from a nightmare and scroll TikTok while you drink coffee in the morning, it's gonna turbocharge your anxiety. Like it's not necessarily making things better. Do you believe that that is true across the board for plant medicines? Or do you believe that some are inherently positive? Like is ayahuasca purely a beneficial, benevolent spirit, or is it also kind of neutral and it's up to us to use it as a tool for that healing? What do you think about that concept broadly?

SPEAKER_00

It's a good question. Um I think for me it it goes back to that idea that you said of like what are my thoughts on the psychedelic renaissance? And uh, you know, ultimately it's it's good in an ultimate sense, but but again, it it's neutral. You know, those for me are actually interchangeable in a way. Um the the the plant there was a woman, um I I I want to say Kathleen Harris, but I I I think I'm getting maybe her mixed up. But she was actually uh Terrence McKenna's wife, and she said um very beautifully that because she was speaking about marijuana, and that there's often in the ayahuasca world this idea that the marijuana is kind of sticky or it has this jealous energy, and and um you know she she said very beautifully that that marijuana doesn't have that, but the human mind has that, and and I think that's that's very true. Um these plants are, as you said, that they're neutral in the sense that that what you bring to them uh has a big has a big um impact. They're good in the sense that they ultimately are medicine, that they are their goal is to try and heal us, like all medicine. Um, an apple is good, a cherry is good, uh, the coca leaf is good, um all of these things. Tobacco is good, ayahuasca is good. But as you said, there's a lot of factors that can turn a medicine into poison. As the famous Swiss physician Perakelsis said, the difference between medicine and poison is in the dose. And that's very true. And even that is a somewhat limited, I think, worldview. But he was speaking more pharmacologically. So with tobacco, in the wrong dose, it can kill you. In the correct dose, it's medicine. Ayahuasca in the wrong dose can kill you. In the correct dose, it's medicine. But all of those things that you said are very true. And that's why traditionally these plants weren't just handed out, or they weren't just taught to everyone, like, oh, this is how you make it and just go for it. It was, it was in a ceremonial space with ritual and preparation and stories and the spoken word and dance and song, because all of those things were seen as creating the environment to allow that to be a medicine. You know, we we often speak about the terrain, like the the microbiome, that that that terrain has to be proper so that so that we can be healthy. If there's imbalance or dysbiosis in there, then there's going to be disease. Um, I think it's a very similar thing. It's not about like eradicating parasites or killing everything in there, it's about bringing it into balance. And so all of these things that you do, and traditionally in the Amazon, that was often referred to as dieta, um, because you would create the circumstance to allow that plant or the admixture of plants to become medicine, and that that was seen as something fundamental. You know, it was interesting. I uh I think I mentioned this in a podcast I was just interviewed on, but very often when I would sit around and speak with the Shpibo who I was working with, people would often ask like a question, like, Well, you know, this person has this ailment, like uh irritable bowel syndrome or hernia or heart disease, like what plant is good for it? And usually the answer was more like dieta. Dieta is what's good for it. But we wanted to know the specific thing, is if all if we just took that, then the ailment would go away. But you know, it was seen that the dieta was was fundamental. And of course, there are plants that are you know used for very specific ailments, but that the the terrain, the dieta, the the way that it was worked with is essential for creating that healing environment. And so, like you say, you know, if these plants are taken out of context or in with people or in ways, if you're drinking coffee and you're looking at very bad information coming in, that will amplify that 100%, a hundred percent. And then that's not going to be beneficial for you.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. It's a very Western view of there must be a one-to-one match. If I have this ailment, this is the medication that I take for it. And even in my first ayahuasca retreat, I drank the medicine, some time went by, and I was like, How strange is it that I don't feel anything? I took a drug. Where is the effect? There should be an effect on my neurochemistry. And you'll appreciate this. You know, it's it's funny, man. Speaking to somebody else who's done ayahuasca, been in this space, you can say things that you just nod your head. You're like, Of course, of course, that's how this works. You explain that to an average, normal American person, they look at you like you're crazy. A voice entered my head clear as day and just said, We're not drugs and we're tired of people thinking that. And I was like, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to offend anybody here. I don't know how this works yet.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um that's where the cosmovision is so important. I uh I remember a guy who I interviewed, he's he's a French guy um who has a center in Mexico who works with ayahuasca. He he spent many years at uh Ni Reda, which is a very good um ayahuasca center with Diri Carlo. I think he was his first student. He said very beautifully, and I had never uh kind of put it or thought about it in those ways. Um But he he he he said this idea that you can never separate consciousness from cosmovision. And that's that that really that really hit me. That's very, very true. You know, who we are, how we see the world, the essence of who we are is directly tied to our cosmovision. And you know, this may sound kind of like a spiritual woo-woo way of looking at the world, but what you believe in creates your reality. It literally is the framework, much like the microbiome that sets the stage to what's possible. So if that's what we believe, that you know, taking one substance will cure us, that actually has a tremendous benefit to it. But I would imagine as science is already showing and science will continue to show, that's a very limited worldview, and that there's a lot more behind it.

SPEAKER_02

You just for our listeners define the term cosmovision. You keep saying that and I keep nodding, but I want to make sure that I understand what you even mean and make sure the listener does. So, what is that?

SPEAKER_00

It's it's a Spanish word, and yes, I I use it a lot, um, maybe, maybe too much, but uh, I think worldview it would be the best way to translate that. Literally how we see the world. Um do we see the mountain as alive, or do we see it as something that's inanimate? And that's going to affect um how we interact in the world. Do I see water as something that has an energy to it, or is it just hydrating me with H2O? Or is there is there something that can be carried in the water that's knowledge, that's information, and that when I take that on, that's also affecting how I am, who I am. Um that that origin story that I mentioned of the two boom, is that is that a reality? Like, is that possible that that there could be other beings in a different star system that could have heard our call of suffering? You know, for most people, even that idea of the primordial Anaconda canoe, most people, yeah, I think even very Aerudite or educated people would say, well, that that's just that's just a metaphor, that's a myth. I think we live in a fascinating time where a lot of these myths were so-called metaphors, and even in ancient cultures, we're really having to reshift what we think is is real and and not real. Um every every culture around the world has said that there have been very, very advanced civilizations before us that had different causes, you know, maybe not advanced in the same way we are, but potentially even more advanced or less advanced, but the thing cycle. And so, you know, uh part of those seven deadly sins, and you hear a lot about this in the Greeks, is the thing that really causes all of these cataclysms, all of these demises of civilizations is hubris. It's this idea that we think we know. And you know, that that ultimately causes a great demise. And being open to possibility, being open to curiosity, to learning, much like a child is, that's uh, I think a much healthier place to be.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I I agree with you. Thinking that we understand things is a very dangerous place to be. Even with modern medicine, you know, I'm a doctor of physical therapy, we study pharmacology a little bit. When you start looking at medications, you learn about mechanisms of action of how things work. We actually don't understand very much at all. Everything has a proposed mechanism of action, which means this is our best guess at what we think is going on. And people don't like to realize that and then try to apply that to something like the ayahuasca or the myriad of other plants that we work with. In the most recent retreat that we facilitated, I remember drinking the medicine, time goes by, helping people out. And I had an experience, and I I thought to myself, oh, I I I'm just starting to understand how this stuff might work. And that was, as we talked about before, counting ceremonies doesn't really matter, but probably drank the medicine close to a hundred times, maybe. And I'm like, oh, I think maybe I get this a little bit. That's that's like being the white belt, and then you hit the side control escape for the first time, and you're like, oh, I just did jujitsu. Like, that's what this is about. So talk to me about your work now, Jason. How were you what what drew you so much to the tobacco specifically? And and what do you do with that now? How do you serve that to people, or how do you help people with that plant?

SPEAKER_00

I think it's been something that's just happened very organically. It was never something that I even when I originally came to the Peruvian Amazon, it was it was for my own healing, it was for my own curiosity, my own journey of life. I ended up getting invited to come back and start working, which was quite amazing. But even that, it was never an idea of actually working in that field. Even when I started apprenticing with this uh Tabacero, um, there was never any idea. I mean, that that seemed so foreign to me. I mean, it was such a strange world. He's kind of a strange guy, uh, probably in the same way I'm kind of a strange guy. Like it just seemed very foreign. I mean, sitting and serving someone that. I mean, I it was it was such a struggle for me to even do it. Um, I to be around that uh all the time, it never even crossed my mind. But it uh if I had to look back, I think it was at some point towards the end of that apprenticeship. And you know, this is kind of going back maybe on what I said, but but I I received this very clear message that it somehow I needed to share that knowledge. Um and again, going back to this word of Cosmovision or Worldview, the the only thing that kind of came to mind was, well, maybe I need to write a book about it or make a documentary about it. I remember at some point I even bought some like kind of very um primitive camera gear to do that, and and it never happened. It was just it eventually got destroyed being in the Peruvian Amazon, like like everything does. Um But slowly what started happening, and it was very interesting because even I remember my first tobacco dieta was very similar. Like I couldn't put my finger on it of like what I had learned or what had changed. But I did realize very quickly after that that something significant had changed, and and I could even see it in those around me. So it was, it was, it was a very similar thing. I I just found myself, yeah, I was still working. I went back to the Temple, the way of the light. I was working. Um, and slowly I just found people coming to me asking, hey, can you give me a tobacco ceremony? Can you cleanse me? Or I'm curious about this medicine. Or and I I just, you know, I felt like I'd still really no idea what I was doing. But uh I said, okay, I I trusted in my teacher because he he did give me that permission and encouragement too. And it was, it was even quite like uh, you know, scary in a way in the beginning, because I I really had no, even though I had been trained and it just everything seemed quite foreign in that way. But but I slowly started doing that, and people more people came, and then uh someone wanted dieta, and I gave, and then more people, and then I I made this decision to to begin working with with my current colleague who we've been working together for a long time now, who's who's a woman. And that was one of the things that that really drew me to the to the Temple of the Way of the Light originally, was that they worked with with female healers, and um, and again, I I'm not sure exactly why, but at that point of my life that that really resonated with me to experience that. And having worked there for a long time in the facilitation role, um working with both female and male healers or doctors, again, plant medicine practitioners, I really saw real power in that, uh a real power um with having both of those polarities, the energies of those. Um so I started working with Morav and and and then we we just continued that work of doing ceremonies and then dieta. And eventually we we kind of dropped ceremonies just to concentrate on the dieta because we found that that work to be more profound. I think it was a better use of our energy. Um, and and that's now become my main work, uh, you know, and again, it was never something I set out to be. I I also often use the analogy of jujitsu, and it's like I think it would be very strange to set off doing jujitsu to become a jujitsu teacher. Like that would be weird. Like, if you don't know jujitsu, how could you ever want to be a teacher if you don't even know the art? But you know, eventually it's a similar thing. Like, I'm sure even as a bluebelt, some people have come to you and they're like, hey, you know, David, you do this move really well, you submitted me. Can you show me how to do it? And then in that moment, you become a teacher. Like um you may not know it, or of course that move's not a perfection as it will never be, but you you you show them something and and they gain something from that, you gain something from that. Um and and in that way, I think it progresses very naturally, and that's what happened. And so now, you know, luckily, I I guess by by grace, that's that's become our our main work is is yeah, we're working with working with plants and particularly trees through through the medium of tobacco.

SPEAKER_02

It's interesting that you've kind of naturally fell away from doing the ceremonies. And I feel like this is I don't want to say that it should be, because I I actually the whole thing about the word should, that there's a lot of judgment inherent in that word. Um but I feel like that is often a good path that people walk, where the more medicine they do, the less they're actually drawn to the big medicine ceremonies, and the more they're drawn to just cultivating the quiet inside of us to be able to hear the met the lessons, and we don't need to be smacked in the face with it by drinking a cup of ayahuasca or taking five grams of mushrooms. So, again, just for the purposes of understanding, can you explain exactly what you're referring to when you say dieta? Because obviously there's the dieta just before a retreat, but then there's the dietas that you guys are doing. So explain that just so I can understand exactly what it is that you actually do with folks.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it was this idea that I mentioned when I when I was speaking to the Shibibo that they would often say that the power of the medicine came from the dieta and not solely from the plant itself. You know, I I think there's many ways to think of dieta. Um, many cultures actually have dieta. It could be going off into a mountain or a vision quest is a dieta, or going into a cave and meditating or fasting for long periods of time. All of these are forms of dieta. Um, but usually in the Amazon, what's loosely referred to as a dieta has a few common characteristics. And again, the length, the form, the specificities can can vary. Um, but one, it's it's setting aside a specific time of your life to go into a very focused, intentioned relationship with one particular plant. That time can can vary, but I'd say anywhere from seven days on the short end to one year on the long end. Um, sometimes that can be broken up, like sometimes these dietas of one year can be broken up into a few pieces potentially. And in that time, you're working with a human, a teacher who also has a connection to that medicine, who's helping to forge that connection, to dose it, much like a doctor who's dosing, who's prescribing the plant, you know, looking at your ailment, diagnosing you, um, coming to you, speaking to you. Um, a lot of the work happens in the dream space. That's really where it's said that the plants communicate to us. Um, it involves a process usually of either fasting or severely restricting the intake of food. And again, for shorter periods of time, you can restrict more for longer periods of time to a to a lesser degree. So it could be seven days of not eating anything, or it could be three weeks of eating small amounts of food. Um one, there's a very literal effect of that, which is, you know, and I'm sure a lot of your audience is familiar with this idea of like elimination diets. When you basically eliminate everything, you're probably going to get healthier because you're not putting in things to your body that could potentially be causing adverse effects. So you're having what could be described as a very clean dieta or a very like food, very clean food that's coming into you. Very simple. No spice, no fat, no salt. It's basically just giving you enough energy to be able to have the strength to meet the medicine. It's also weakening your body, which is quite interesting because it's seen in that weaker state that this healing effect can actually be amplified. And again, if you think about the last time you've been sick or had the flu, you naturally begin to fast and your body naturally becomes very weak, but also very open, and a very big healing begins to take place. Um, it involves the cutting out of all stimuli. So no reading books, no listening to music, no phone, no TV, no nothing, no musical instruments usually. It's literally just you and your thoughts. Because it's seen that anything we take in from the outside then becomes medicine in a way. It becomes part of the dieta. That's where our mind is focusing. So I don't want to listen to music because it's actually seen that these plants have their own music. I don't want to be looking at something because then, you know, what I'm looking at on the screen is what my dieta is. That's that's where my mind is. That's where my intention is.

SPEAKER_02

You linger on that point just a little bit longer. Why is that important? Because I I can appreciate cutting out the food, uh, even making your body weaker, I'd say it helps with the surrender aspect of it too. So why is it important that we're not even reading things or listening to things? Why is that part of it?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I'd say twofold. One, you know, one, especially in this day and age, uh, our phone is probably for the vast majority of people, a huge addiction. It's a huge addiction. You know, and again, if you look at it physiologically, all of the dopamine changes and everything that's going on. So just simply cutting that out, you don't have to do anything else, cutting that out for a week. You'll probably start to feel a lot better. Um, but you know, even traditionally, where we didn't have phones or anything, uh, you know, like a book or something, because it's that same idea. People do diet, for example, a book. Like people have dieted the Bible, for example. So every day instead of ingesting a plant, you would read the Bible. And then that's what your dress is about, because that's what's going into you. That's the sacrament, that's the medicine that's going into you. And so that's what you're sitting with, that's what's living inside of your body. But if you're working with the plant, then you want the only thing that's going into your body being that plant. And again, the the the reason behind that is because these plants, they communicate to us and they communicate to us in a very subtle language. And so these grosser energies, these heavier energies, not in a negative way, but just in a in a physical way, if that's sitting with us, then it weighs down that that more subtle energy. And so by being completely open, by just being with ourselves, we give ourselves that chance, that perception, that, you know, almost a meditative space to fully be aware and to begin to listen to those very faint songs, those very faint sounds of the song, those very faint messages, those little patterns in the back of our mind, which we've ignored for a long time because we found so many ways to just cover them up with so many things we're doing. But when we remove that, we begin to see, you know, even from a more Western scientific point of view, like we were speaking earlier, the the neurogenesis, the neuroplasticity, all of these things are running in the background, whether we're conscious of them or not. And so we begin to communicate with this plant, and that may sound strange. Um, but again, you know, if you were to give someone a big enough dose of ayahuasca or eboga, that wouldn't be a very strange worldview. Um so, but again, also as you said, these dietas do tend to be more subtle. Um, so the plants that we're working with tend not to have huge effects, like they're not super, you know, um psychoactive substances, which is why we would will would often add in something like tobacco or or ayahuasca, because that allows us to amplify that connection to spirit, it allows us to open in an even different, uh deeper way. So we use it very specifically to amplify that connection, to deepen it, so that those messages can be heard, they can be seen. Because again, it's we're not working in a way which is often called like green medicine, where again, I have a hernia, so I take a specific plant that has a chemical that's good for that hernia. It's seen that that hernia has a root that's not purely physical. There's something mental emotional that also potentially allowed that. Now, it could be purely physical, but usually when people are coming to Dieta, what they're coming with is chronic ailments. Like if you break your leg, yes, probably you need to go to a hospital and have it stitched up and the bones fuse. But what we're talking about are chronic ailments. And those are very rarely purely physical. And so there's some psychosomatic, some something on the mind, the emotional level that's also out of balance. And in these traditional systems, it's seen that there's even a level above that, which is the spiritual realm. And that's why in all of these cosmovisions, these worldviews, they speak of these three realms: the spirit realm, the lived realm, the underworld, past, present, future, the body, the mind, the spirit. So these plants are ultimately helping us to connect to that realm of spirit. And I think what that really means is again this idea of helping us to remember who we are and where we come from, and to be taught by these plants, because this idea of having the power of these plants, that power is something that's very real. And that's why it requires responsibility. So if you're shown part of the root cause of your ailment, then you have the power to begin to be able to change that. And that's a huge power, that's a huge gift. But it also then requires some responsibility, which is then what the plants ask of us. So to be able to be in communion with these plants so that they are able to impart with us that wisdom so that we then can become our own healers and we can become the masters of our lives. And in Spanish, they often use this word manear, which means to drive. And so it's learning how to drive, learning how to manage our lives. And in in the East, they speak of yoga. It means to yoke, to steer, to steer the bull. And it's the same thing. We have to learn how to steer our lives so that we stay in symbiosis rather than dysbiosis, the bull going too far to the left, going too far to the right. So that would loosely be what a diet is.

SPEAKER_02

Um would it be would it be fair to say that the restrictive practices, not eating, not consuming certain things, all of that work is kind of trying to turn down the background noise in our minds. And then the other plants or the other tools like the tobacco or like the ayahuasca are almost turning up the volume on the voices or the messages that we want to be hearing. So what are those messages? Or like where do those come from? You you spoke earlier at the outset about truth, like the root word between behind shamanism and even druidism. So what what are those messages or where do those come from? Are those from the plants? Are those from the spiritual realm that the plants are conveying to us? How does that fit into the cosmovision?

SPEAKER_00

It's a very good question. Um, I think what you say is true and not exactly because also we don't want to turn down like what would be considered the bad voices. We actually want to amplify those too. Um, very often in dieta it can feel like we're going mad or the mind can be racing because we have to we have to sit with all of these thoughts that are actually inside of it.

SPEAKER_02

We're not trying to just turn down the volume on what we might valence as bad, but rather turn down the volume on the distractions that keep us from actually seeing those things.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Yeah. To the second part of your question, that depends on your cosmovision.

SPEAKER_02

I'm asking you, Jason.

SPEAKER_00

Um you know, and and and I find that's where it it's actually, you know, part uh I find my work is not necessarily to give people answers. There's a beautiful, I'm sure you're familiar with with this book um called The Tao Ta Qing. It was probably the first and most significant book that I ever read.

SPEAKER_02

And a lot of what you've shared so far has been very Taoist flavored, so this makes sense.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I'm I'm gonna bastardize how this is translated. Um but they speak of the um the archetypal, they would say the sage king, the the the ruler, which again can mean many different things depending on our cosmovision. Your your audience is probably gonna hate me for using that word so much. Take a shot every time it says cosmovision. Um but the sage king, you know, they would they would say the worst is the one who who rules by fear. It's an effective way. Like you can look at COVID even as an example. Like fear has a huge, huge ability to shape the world. They would say the the kind of next worst or best, uh, I guess moving up the ladder would be the one who rules by by order, by kind of dictation of okay, David, you do this, and hey, you do this, and you have to do this. And it's not by fear, but it's by by by dictation. Um the next best is the the ruler who's loved. And we we would think that maybe that would be the highest, but it's actually not. And they would say the highest is the one who's actually not loved, but it's the one who allows everything to happen and empowers the people to think and to believe that they've done it themselves. And uh I think there's a lot of truth to that. Um, and uh I I bring that up because I think my role as a guide or whatever we want to call it is not to tell people like this is what you should think or this is my cosmovision. It's to empower people to find those answers for themselves. What I can say is there are different, even indigenous cosmovisions of the question you ask. Some would say that there's only one spirit, that it's God, and all plants are simply a manifestation of that. Um, I would say that's probably the worldview of my main teacher. Um, you would say all plants are simply gateways to God. They work in slightly different ways, but they're all a manifestation of that. Others would say spirits in the sense that every spirit has its own personality, it's an archetype of something. You know, all of this begins to become a little bit tricky. Um, and even I think something that's often mistranslated or misunderstood is even if you look of something like Hinduism or the Vedanta uh origins, the Vedas, you know, it was often said that Hinduism was like a polytheistic religion, but it's not at all. It's a monotheistic religion. You have Brahma and the absolute, and then you have the three manifestations of that Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the sustainer, and Shiva, the destroyer. And this is what I was saying: this this archetypal three-tiered system is very common all over the world. And then from that, you have many, many manifestations of what could be said or spirits. And I think that's another way of looking that all of these plants are some incarnation, some manifestation of that. And again, even from our own culture, like our Christianity has become somewhat watered down. But when you go to the more orthodox uh traditions, the older traditions, they're full of angels, they're full of spirits, they're full of demons, they're full of archetypal battles of all sorts of forces, and you have all sorts of levels of beings, of spirits, of angels, of demigods, of Jesus, of God itself, of the Holy Spirit. So, you know, I think that's another way of looking at it. And and you know, ultimately it's good that you're asking, and I think it's very important that that you know, part of this work is again finding those answers for ourselves, because then it's not dogma. Well, then it doesn't matter whether Jason said it or the Buddha said it, or the and I'm not comparing myself to them, but or the Pope says it or your yoga teacher says it or your psychologist says it. It doesn't matter. Like you found that, and again, this is coming back to that idea that you said to be true, and no one can take that away from you. It doesn't matter if science says it's different because science can change in five years, 10 years. It doesn't matter if someone else said it, you know it to be true because you've experienced it to be true.

SPEAKER_02

So I not not that you need my endorsement or that this should mean anything to you, but I really appreciate your answer. And it tells me that you're one of the good people out there to work with, that your job is not to tell people what to think or what those answers are. I see my job because it as you were explaining a dieta earlier, I'm realizing I don't want to be hubristic and apply that term where it doesn't belong, but that is along the lines of what we do with people over the span of six months with microdosing with mushrooms. I think you could describe it as a dieta of mushrooms because we are working on cutting out so many other things alongside it. But my point being, I view my job, I can teach people a handful of tactical things. Let's install some app blockers on your phone. I can teach you some basics of meditation and mindfulness and can teach you how to journal. But beyond that, my job is to help people ask better questions of themselves because I believe they have the answers in there. They're just not focusing on asking the right questions. So we get quiet enough to hear the answers, both good and bad. What you were describing before of almost feeling like people are going crazy in a dieta. We take the lens of younggi and shadow work, but it can be very destabilizing and you can feel like you're going crazy when you start questioning every aspect of your identity and really looking at those shadows. So I really appreciate that answer, Jason. Um, and I love that you invoked both the Vedas and Orthodox Christianity. So for a long time, I would have identified myself as a um practitioner of Bhakti Yoga. So a lot of my views were based in the Bhagavad Gita, primarily because I found it to be true, right? I read that and then I compared it to my psychedelic experiences and my worldviews, and I was like, I guess this is real. It so far it matches up. And then I a couple of mushroom journeys ago on five grams of mushrooms, literally just laying there for five hours, seeing nothing but the face of Christ on the cross being crucified with his crown of thorns. And I said, Okay, mushrooms, message received. I'll go look at Christianity now. That is a pretty clear, uh, pretty clear nudge in that direction. And it's it's funny again, because it I think you're spot on that Hinduism is really not polytheistic. There is the one true God and his many emanations, and I don't think that's that different than the Holy Trinity, which my friend Seb would probably have an aneurysm hearing me say as an Eastern Orthodox Catholic. But I I really feel like there are so many similarities there. So I am gonna ask you this question again. Now that we have this very beautiful disclaimer that it's not your role to tell people, but you are my interview guest, and I want to know your thoughts again as someone more experienced than me. Because one day we were at a retreat and I asked my my teacher Noe, I wonder if this is your experience too, Jason. I think the Shipibo, the the folks that I've met so far, they have such a matter-of-fact way of speaking that to our American ear borders on just being rude, but it's just like so blunt, and that's just how they communicate. So I asked him, I was like, Noe, so we believe that the ayahuasca is this benevolent spirit, it's here to help us, to teach us, to help us to heal, right? And he's like, Yes. I was like, doesn't that imply the existence of evil spirits then? If there's good, there must be evil. And he looked at me like I was a fucking idiot. And he's like, Yes. And I was like, Well, how do we protect ourselves from that, Noah? And again, he looked at me like, have I taught you nothing, David? And he's like, That's why we have our pipe and our agua de florida and our palasanto and all these other things that we use to protect us. So again, I am asking you about your cosmovision. What is the evil then? What are those negative forces or those dark spirits that are out there? Is that my understanding of the Christian lens is that that evil is real, but God also allows it. Like there is only the extent of the evil that Jesus allows to be there. Other viewpoints, like um Zoroastrianism, there's almost an equal struggle of good versus evil. And uh again, I appreciate each person's cosmovision has to be different. But what have the plants shown you so far? What's your experience been?

SPEAKER_00

I think like I uh I I said earlier, if you were to give someone a big enough dose of ayahuasca or bogue or any any big plant it very well could shatter their worldview. Now you wouldn't want to do that because that very well would would probably lead to to psychosis, so the that wouldn't be that would go against the Hippocratic oath. Um and and this happens again. I mean, this does happen. I mean, people do do go into psychosis uh from from working with with some plants. In in these in these traditional systems, like in the Amazon, as you said, the they do speak about things in terms of polarity. And and again, not just in the Amazon, all over the world. I mean, even in Taoism, that the Tao gave birth to the one, the one gave birth to the two. The two is the polarity. We we exist because of polarity. I think very often in these kind of spiritual circles, that gets ignored, that everything is is good and great and rainbows and unicorns. But again, if you were to really work for prolonged periods of time with something like ayahuasca or any plant, you're going to find yourself in very dark places battling things and uh fighting things, uh, being confronted by by energies that terrify you. And is that simply a reflection of everything inside? It could be. I think it's also very unwise to, you know, I think there's often a hesitancy for people to name that which is evil in this idea of almost being politically correct or trying to be very careful with their words. Um if you go to the Amazon and you get too close to a Mother Jaguar's cub, there will be no hesitancy. She will kill you in an instant. And they'll I would imagine, and again, this is what I would imagine, but there would be no remorse for that. Because that's life. That's life-protecting life. That's life that that the natural desire of life to continue to grow, to evolve, to flower, to bloom. But that that what we could see as as violence in a way is is an inherent part of life. And and I also think anyone who's done this work for a while, if you are a practitioner, uh I'll give you another example. We when we were working at the Temple of the Way of Light, we had a group come down of psychologists, psychiatrists, and the Shpibo, I mean, they said it jokingly, but they were they were 100% serious. They said they had never seen a group with so much trauma. And these were supposed to be the same people, the healthy people. Um, when you work in this these fields, you will encounter a lot of trauma. You will encounter the dark side of humanity. Um, you'll hear, see, feel, experience somatically, energetically, a very, very dark side of humanity. Um, you know, we live also in a very safe time in the world, even though sometimes we we don't realize that. But you know, people like I think Stephen Pinker have done excellent research on that. Uh, you know, we live in a in an amazing time in terms of of safety, of comfort. Um, people idealize the Amazon as if it was some like long flowing hair, everyone was living in peace. No, it was a warring, warring society. That's part of their worldview. Uh, a lot of cannibalism, for example. Um, and and not even to say that that's that's wrong or good or bad, but just it's a reality. You know, I think we've been very shielded from war in the societies we come from. Um, you know, I think to experience that is truly hell. You know, I think even doing jujitsu, we get some glimpse of that. Like, because you can feel that when you're on top of someone, strangling someone, you can feel that primal sense in you. And and and you can feel you're not so far from potentially being able to take someone's life. And but even that is a very controlled environment. And if you were to amplify that to a real world situation, it's it's violent, you know, the violence that can happen of rape, of murder.

SPEAKER_02

It's I want to be careful conflating my experience of jujitsu because I guarantee you there are people listening to this in this audience who have taken lives before. And I don't want to pretend that I have any idea what that's like.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. And and and all of that is is real. And and and again, we we have to be able to recognize that. You have to work with that. How can you heal someone if you don't exist if you don't acknowledge that that exists? Um, how can you heal or or administer to people healing plans if you don't understand what they're going through? And that doesn't mean you have to experience that, but at least energetically to understand that. Um and so all of this is reality. And you know, I'm saying this because again, of this nature of duality, of of of good and bad, uh, light and dark. Uh so you know, in in terms of evil, where does that come from? I think it's a struggle as old as humanity, which is why we'll never be able to leave it behind. Even if you look at these kind of classic symbols of the yin and the yang, there's always the seed in the other one. There's always that seed inside of us of the devil, of if that's your worldview, or of pure evil. You know, we all, you know, people look at Hitler and they're like, well, he was pure evil. And it that used to drive me uh insane as a as a kid, because I was like, well, that doesn't make sense. Like he was a human being, he was a child at some point, like he was just born evil. That that doesn't make any sense. It it completely takes away power and volition of people. What happened that would make someone do that? And and only by understanding those correlations, those causations by by finding root causes can you ever heal anything? And that's very true for us. And I think part of this work is a very deep journey into our own evil, into our own darkness. And that's actually the archetypal hero's journey. All over the world you you have these these stories of the hero who who leaves his home and he's too small or too fat or not not enough, and he has to go through all these trials and tribulations. And eventually he or she ends up in the cave, the the darkest of places. And ultimately he has to confront the dragon. The dragon is interesting because it's the winged serpent. It's the serpent that represents all four of the directions or the elements. But the etymology of serpent, it means light, and it's the light that's reflected back. And so ultimately the hero's journey is going into the darkness and looking in the mirror, having that light reflected back at us. And as you said, that can be a terrifying journey. You know, even as you were describing the this kind of idea of what can arise in these workshops or these dietas you're running, of almost this frenetic psychotic energy. We all carry that. It's very rare that human beings are willing to go into that. And again, this may be kind of a long-winded answer to your question, but I think evil arises from those who are not willing to go into that because then that's able to control them. Even if you think in a Christian sense, I mean, who who was who was the devil or whatever you you want to call him? It was God's closest angel. It was the angel who refused to leave God's side. So I think there's this again duality to things where it's very important there that we're willing to name what is good and what is not good. And this is part of truth, because truth entails that which is not true, that which is untrue. Truth doesn't exist without acknowledging naming that which is untrue. Um, and and that's that's very, very important. Um and so in our own journey, being able to acknowledge that, being able to name that, that's also the part of the path of archetypally a healer or a doctor, which differs from maybe a more Western psychological worldview, or more in the West, the clinician or the psychologist's role is to be completely removed from the experience, to just observe, to just either the person in these more traditional approaches of the shaman or the healer. He's literally calling in the energies that he sees to be filled in the person that are good, life-giving energies, and he's removing the energies that are bad, that are detrimental, that can go against the energy of life. And you kind of have to have that. differentiation and that's also what can separate the good practitioners from practitioners. At the same time, conversely, there's this very interesting kind of infinity or order thing where even the nature of evil something that is usually self-graduating. If you take something that I would hope we can all acknowledge as evil, which is something like that a feeling if we take something to the extreme. And I think if someone can't acknowledge that that's evil that's a big red flag. That's a huge red flag. In the same way that the mama jaguar she will she will kill anyone who who becomes anywhere near her cub. No problems ask, no problems. So one naming that that's evil at the same time almost all of the time those people were abuse themselves and and that's the sad kind of paradox of all of this. So at the same time we we have to be able to have very clear naming of no of that's evil that's bad. I I will fight to the death to protect that child even if that means killing that person. And at the same time to have the capacity to to be able to potentially heal that person. And and that's a very very hard paradox for people to be able to hold both of those things at the same time.

SPEAKER_02

Any response that I have to that is just performative. That's just yes. Are you familiar with a uh music artist named Akira the Don? I'm not known he takes lectures and cuts them into music and um a lot of them are with people like Terrence McKenna or Alan Watts. A lot of it's Taoist stuff. There's one song called The Sound of the Rain Needs No Translation. And that's what I'm reminded of here where any response that I could come up with to that it would sound very intellectual and good to expound on what you just said but I feel like you pretty much just encapsulated everything that there is to say the duality of it the perpetuating nature of it the balance between like forgiveness and justice as you said where maybe we could try to take someone who's been hurt like this and who even would hurt others and we can hope that they could be healed. I always joke but I'm not really joking. I believe in second chances I believe in forgiveness and I also believe in the death penalty per pedophiles they can get a second chance in their next incarnation. And another thing that my tobacco dieta did for me just as you said was it made me profoundly aware of that darkness. And I believe it was for the purpose of being better situated to help other people heal on the other side of it. Because as you said how can you help someone navigate something that you're not even aware of so that was another big thing that the the the medicine gave to me and again in this space we work with a lot of veterans a lot of first responders I know someone intimately right now who I can't say too much about but is working on we call it counter child trafficking efforts. So going directly into the darkest places of the internet and the darkest places of the world to try to have an impact on that. And she's also someone who's worked with ayahuasca in the past so these are when I'm asking you your thoughts on the cosmovision of where evil comes from that's because I'm someone who struggles to make sense of this and someone that the medicine and that God is fortunately put in a position where I'm supposed to be a leader for other people I'm supposed to help them figure it out. Ah fuck man I don't know have you read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy I think you'd enjoy that I was reminded of that when you're sharing about evil he I'll butcher the quote but there's a line in there it basically says before man was war existed waiting for its most perfect practitioner to come into being and it kind of speaks to just that existence of evil I think is presupposes the existence of man who is its perfect practitioner. You mentioned something about the etymology of the word serpent and I nodded as if I was familiar with that. Can you explain that some more I've never heard that it's interesting about the light being reflected in the darkness. I mean that's again the shadow work it's like holding up a mirror to your own darkness to see it. Uh can you talk to me more about that element of the hero's journey because I I've not heard that before that's very interesting yeah you know that that that's where I think um that's where I think etymology is so fascinating.

SPEAKER_00

Fascinating man you know and we we lose so much we we take words so lightly and there there's so much built into to words um you know the the these are these are common symbols that you see everywhere uh it's from again you can take a shot one cosmovision the Christian cosmovision the the the the the tempter the but the one again talking about evil or good and evil the the one who tempts eve of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil it's also the the symbol of of our our our medical field the the caduceas and snake staff yeah the snake staff it's that the Yakumama it's the symbol of ayahuasca the the primordial yeah yeah so uh you know there's a lot that that I think we we forget and and that's why these symbols and archetypes are so important and and and there's so much built into them um you know even and this is probably a a huge subject that there would be an entire other podcast but even you know even what we take to be something like the Bible or the the the canical the the canon that the the four books of the Bible that's still one interpretation. I mean you have much older lineages like the the Sumerian lineage lineages which speak of very similar stories and yet they have a very different interpretation of that that actually you know God wasn't like a benevolent being necessarily in that you had kind of these demiurges and you had competing gods and you had gods that that embodied more of evil gods that embodied more of good gods that helped humanity to flourish and to to procreate gods that were trying to destroy humanity um it's a fascinating subject you know I I think we could probably speak for hours about it but but the serpent is very very powerful it's a very powerful symbol all over the world um and and I think the more people look into that and and kind of again find their own information and dig into that it's it's very very fascinating. But you know again that that's that's why I think etymology is really important you know the these words like dragon and serpent and like like what do they mean? Why why is it a dragon in the cave? Why is it a serpent in the cave? Why isn't it a gorilla or a tiger and of it there's a very particular reason and it and it's usually it's usually much deeper than than the surface level interpretation of it.

SPEAKER_02

My daughter is two and a half she's fascinated with dragons right now I have this encyclopedia of world mythology that she asks me every day to look at she's like we look at the special book data because I teach her to respect this book. It's a very nice book and she just wants to see pictures of dragons and she has a little sword and she says I'm a brave warrior. It's amazing and just a I'm also fascinated with etymology and so my wife is Austrian so German is her first language. We're both fluent in Spanish and obviously English is basically just a bastardization of Latin plus a whole lot of German roots so it's so interesting when I learn a German word and I can see the equivalent in English and then the equivalent Spanish word and my daughter's growing up to speak all three there is no question for you there it's just me bragging about my trilingual daughter I guess.

SPEAKER_00

So you know I think that's one of the beautiful things about you know uh kind of looping back to to the beginning of the conversation that the that's part of the the archetypal hero's journey is is leaving your home, going out into the world, experiencing other cultures because ultimately those those things those experiences begin to to re-fortify this aspect of who you are and where you come from and they deepen that knowledge. And even shamanically even in the Amazon like um it was a very common practice where people would leave their tribe their village to go to another shaman to learn that knowledge because it was seen as something that was very very vital and that that is that is as humans that's how we grow that's how we evolve so I I think it's actually a really really beautiful point you know because all of those things begin to deepen our own understanding much like mixed martial arts you know tying it back to to to to martial arts like it you know if you practice any one art like it's beautiful but it's going to have limitations and if you can add other forms or styles it it opens up a world and it ultimately teaches you more deeply about your own practice about your own art.

SPEAKER_02

This podcast we rebranded it to be more you know does what it says on the box plant medicine for PTSD podcast right but um it used to be called the way broadly because when you know the way broadly you see it in all things sometimes I want to bring that back and just talk about whatever.

SPEAKER_00

So I think is that's correct.

SPEAKER_02

Um how are we doing on time for you, sir?

SPEAKER_00

We've been going for an hour and a half already do you have to be out of here any certain time probably it's like 545 my time maybe by like six six fifteen okay I also have a I have a young son now and he's gonna start uh going crazy if I'm away too long.

SPEAKER_02

Oh yeah awesome um so I've really barely asked you about your actual work um why do people come to you like what are the indications to use the the medical term for like what are the things that people get from these dietas or perhaps what are they looking for compared to what they actually get on the other side because that's not always the same.

SPEAKER_00

I would say again those three levels the the physical the mental emotional and the spiritual probably the I would say probably the least reason come is the physical. Certainly people come because they have physical ailments almost everyone has some physical ailment but that's usually not the primary reason. Although sometimes it is it could be something that they've tried many different things, practices, ways and they're not getting success. But I think most of the people who come to us they also probably already realize that there's some mental emotional component behind that which they're also trying to work on and that they think the plants can help to give them insight on that I think the primary reason people people come and they probably don't even realize it is for this spiritual connection because I I think there is a there's a longing there's a there's a suffering that that people have and not even something that's so easy to put into words or to some universal symptom but there's a deep longing that people have um sometimes people come just simply through recommendations or they they I don't know like this they they hear and they like something I say but most of the people we work with are returning and and I would say the the thing that then they come with is the the the benefit that they feel the connection they feel I I think a lot of people describe this this awakening this this embodying the the wisdom of of these plants the the benefit they feel in their life the the sense of aliveness the sense that that there's more potentialities that there's more to to their life to the universe than than they thought was existed in in their previous way of thinking um so again it it can vary widely um but but those I I think are the main reasons. And and then some uh the I guess the the final thing is some people come to us because we also a number of years ago began uh to start to train people and so some people come to us simply because they also feel called to somehow do this work. I think very few in the end like do the work in the way we do it but they they incorporate it into their lives somehow maybe they're a massage practitioner or they're a psychiatrist and that wisdom the tools the techniques that they've learned along the way from all of these plants they've worked with they're they're able to amplify their work. And that there's been some who now kind of carry on the way we're working as well.

SPEAKER_02

And so you I know that you do some of these things in person.

SPEAKER_00

You have some retreats I think I saw you have something coming up in Ireland which is awesome but then some of it is online or remotely as well right where you're kind of just guiding people through dietas only worked in in person through through physical dietas and um usually the way we work is like seven eight days uh then we'll take like a day of rest and then maybe we'll do two or three of those so people could come potentially for like a month and and be dieting the the majority of that time or people can come for one week or two weeks. You know a lot is also what what is someone's capability like we also live in a world where taking a month off especially if you have family or work can be very challenging. Recently and and it was something that we maybe this happened last year or maybe it was two years ago we we did the first remote yet it was something we always realized was a potentiality because a lot of our work is remote you know this may sound strange and this is probably a maybe a whole nother podcast but even when we're working with people a lot of our work happens for example in the dream space um certainly the the speaking or the being with someone has has an effect but more so it's the energetic work it's the work when we're not physically with that person. So we already knew that that was possible um and then but but it it just it never manifested like we we still wanted to be present with people could can create a container and an environment and but then we started having a few students who were were already very open very sensitive who weren't able to to come to us and and we kind of mutually came to this idea of working remotely we we really didn't know how effective it would be would it work would it be the same and um we were really surprised with the results and and we found it to be just as effective the person needs to have a certain openness a certain sensitivity usually it's with people we've worked with before although we do take new people as well but um maybe they've had another practice or or something that that that we feel will allow them to connect. So yeah we we originally were just based in Peru we also began being invited to to work abroad so we were working in the US we worked in the Middle East in Europe um so we we travel a few times a year also now with me with my family we're we're trying to figure where we're going to plant our roots so that that will also depend. But yeah we we run physical diets probably four or five times a year and then another four times a year we run remote dietas.

SPEAKER_02

It's awesome and I I I completely agree as someone who runs an online healing program there's quite a bit that's possible remotely. And yeah having a family throws a wrench into the retreat logistics um does our daughter learned to crawl during that tobacco dieta where we were also facilitating back-to-back retreats which is why I said maybe this wasn't a true dieta because there was a so much going on at the same time but that was part of that experience for us. What what kind of plants are people dieting when you work remotely is it these Amazonian things because I I spoke to someone else a while ago who was telling me about Western diets like just with you know standard plants if you will things that grow in in America or Canada Yeah so we we were trained in an in an Amazonian lineage so all of the plants we worked with were from the Amazon again tobacco is the medium that we use to connect people to so we're almost always working with tobacco through through ingesting it.

SPEAKER_00

And again very very important that no one tries that on their own because it it can be very very toxic even deadly if if if not taken correctly but through the ingesting of tobacco um and then mixed with a particular plant or tree that someone is dieting to again form a relationship with that tree. So usually when you're dieting you're dieting a tree trees tend to be the the big teachers especially in this Amazonian cosmovision where you do need strength and protection and knowledge and the ability to traverse these three dimensions and trees also very archetypally represent that the trunk, the roots, the the branches. But trees are seen as very, very powerful teachers, protectors, a lot of medicine I mean even the first pharmaceutical aspirin it was derived from salicin, salicylic acid which was was found in the willow tree. So trees have a long history of medicine the Buddha received his enlightenment under the allegedly the Bodhi tree although I saw a very interesting article that proposed it might have actually been the Iahuma tree which is an Amazonian tree that you also find in Asia. Eventually we we left the Amazon to an area called the Sacred Valley of Peru, which isn't that far distance wise I mean it's I don't know a couple hundred kilometers maybe but because of the way Peru the landscape is where the Amazonian basin goes into the Andes and then comes back down it's a big journey to get there. It's completely different and completely different flora and fauna. So a lot of the trees we worked with weren't were no longer local um and so we started kind of exploring some of the local trees although we were still like it was still relatively easy to to work with the Amazonian trees. And then as we started traveling um and for me it was it was very beautiful going back to New York because I I lived in New York for a long time and being in the woods there and very powerful work. At the same time I I was I remember sitting on on the deck of this place we were we were working at one day and just seeing all of these beautiful trees and these trees that I was familiar with oaks and poplars and black walnuts and elders and hawthorn and just being almost overcome by this feeling of sadness that that these trees were just waiting to to be used in in the same way in this more experiential way and and that we had really been gifted this this technology this this this tradition this wisdom of being able to help people connect to to trees in a very particular way and so then we we began this this kind of bridging and this um this remembering of ourselves of using our our techniques our tools to first connect ourselves and then to the guests we work with who predominantly are coming from Europe or the US or you know European cultures. And so giving people also the opportunity not only to connect Amazonian trees because some people still do want that and that that's still a big part of our our arsenal our tools the medicine we're very connected with but also beginning to to integrate and to bring in these European trees which have huge medicines. I mean you you look at like the Celtic traditions which was at one point all over Europe and you know that's where the Druids come from they were their wisdom keepers they're their truth keepers and you know it's a little controversial but many people would argue that even that language the Ogum language every letter of that alphabet corresponds to of all things a tree. So the oak tree is the letter D, der or dur, and that's where the English word comes from and it's the entrance, the entrance to the house was traditionally made of of oak and spiritually it's an entrance to to the other world or you know hawthorn means fear and awe and it incorporates this aspect of the spirit world of the fairy world of this duality of boundaries and protections and you know the the elder the in Scandinavia the Hildemur in the Celtic it's the Ruis and um you know very long tradition of of working with the elder for all sorts of remedies. I mean still you go to the pharmacy and you find elder syrup for for colds or people drink elder tea um beverages and sorry elder flour Beverages. And still, you know, we also started working, as you said, in Ireland. And it was very beautiful because all of those trees are still there. There's still a lot of that lore and myth, and people who still have connections, and people who, in their own way, communicate with spirits or fairies, or have certain rites or rituals of how to pass by a tree or how to harvest it or what not to do around it. And so some of that is still very alive in a way that I think in in a lot of the West we we've lost. So for us, it's been also a process of remembering, of remembering our own roots through this beautiful gift we've been given of this Amazonian technology, but then beginning to form something new, which is also part of the I mentioned this guy Amika from the Colombian Amazon. And that that's part of the the tubu prophecy that we're actually living in a the time of what they would call as the Dirdo Amasa, the children of the new dawn. And it's the people who can take the medicine of the four directions and bridge them to create a new Maloka, a new earth. And you know, even when I heard that, I it didn't click. But now that we've been doing that work, I I also can see that that you know, hopefully to some very tiny degree, we're we're helping to keep alive that prophecy.

SPEAKER_02

I have a new appreciation for trees just hearing you speak, man. Here in Mexico, there's something called the Chechen tree and the Chacum tree. And Chechen, it's uh similar to poison ivy. And so it's the resin of this tree carries this toxin. It's the same exact thing found in poison ivy and poison oak. And always within arm's reach of that tree, you can find the chacum tree growing, which its bark contains a natural remedy for that toxin. And my daughter now can point out, she'll walk by and she'll go, medicine tree dada, because she got she touched the black sap one time, and we went and collected some bark and made it into medicine, and she gave it to all of her stuffed animals too. Uh, I wonder, I'm probably reaching too far here, but I've recently gotten into woodworking with hand tools, and I wonder if there's something to be said about Jesus as a carpenter working with felled trees.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. I would say none of those things are coincidence.

unknown

No.

SPEAKER_00

You know, yeah, that that may be my own personal bias or law. But um you're making me interested in these tree dietas, man.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

This is fascinating. In the same way that Buddha, I don't think it was a coincidence that he received his enlightenment under a tree, or Moses received revelation under the fumes of a burning acacia tree. It's these things have a reason they're there. They're they're not random.

SPEAKER_02

So I've been talking to you for almost two hours and I've barely asked you about tobacco at all. Can you speak to me about your practices with it now, or perhaps what you teach people? Um, you know, I have the experience of my dieta it's actually interesting. I used to use hope quite a bit and had almost like a turning point where my body seems to have rejected it. But I smoke my pipe a fair amount. Uh, unfortunately, not with Peruvian Mapacho anymore, but just the strongest blend of tobacco I could find to mimic the potency of the actual mopacho. So, what is your relationship with it like now? How do you use it or how do you recommend that people use it? Perhaps that's too broad of a question because it should fit into a dieta, but no, not at all.

SPEAKER_00

I so one, I I I I I'm I think I'm in a place where I never recommend people work with anything. Uh I think all of these things are a very personal call. Um, all of these plants, they're they're they're medicines, they're tools, and and to really understand them, uh, why are you using it? What are the stories? What are the mythologies behind them? What are the practices, the rites, the rituals? But if something is resonating with you, then there's probably something in you which is beginning to be called to that plant. Um as I was saying, tobacco was the most widely used medicine plant in all of the Americas. Um, you know, certain cultures maybe venerated some plants, but but on the whole, that was the most widely used medicine plant. Um, the way we primarily work with tobacco is through ingesting it to amplify the effects of specific plants or trees that we're working with in dieta. Um, so tobacco is an amazing cleanser, it's an amazing cleanser of the body, it's an amazing cleanser of the mind, it's an amazing um bridge to the realm of spirit. It's why, in a lot of Amazonian traditions, there's this idea of kind of uh tobacco being the grandfather plant, um uh not in a masculine sense. I think that's more of kind of the Christian imposition of God being a man and therefore tobacco is the first plant, therefore tobacco is the the grandfather. But um like the the weitoto or the bora, they would say that that God, I I think in in their cosmovision they they call it buinaima, that buinaima gave tobacco to humans so that humans could dream, like buinaima dreamt the universe into creation. And this is a very common archetype of tobacco, which is that it allows us to dream um and and dream in a way that's that's connected, that's bridged. It's also why tobacco is often referred to as the plant of the shaman, and the shaman is the one who has a foot in both worlds, and so is able to have a foot in the spirit realm realm, to receive information, knowledge, the boon archetypally of the hero's journey, and then to take that and to bring it back to embody it and to share it with his or her people. And so tobacco was seen as that bridge. Um, it's why it's also said that in in almost every tradition in the Amazon, almost always when you're working with plants, even with ayahuasca, you're still working with tobacco because it's seen that tobacco is food for the spirits. It it helps to connect, to call in uh these spirits, it helps to cleanse your body, to protect yourself. So there's many ways it can be worked with. It's it's very versatile, even you know, you mentioned hop A, which is like a powder that can be inhaled or snuffed. It can be inhaled through a liquid form, it can be eaten in a powdered form, it can be eaten as just the leaf, it can be licked as a paste, it can be ingested as a liquid, it can be applied topically, it can be smoked, it can be taken as an enema. So there's many ways that it can be worked with, and all of those produce different effects. So it's very, very versatile. That's part of the reason I think it's considered a master plant, is that you know, technically, even if tobacco was the only plant you had, you could probably potentially cure anything with it. Um so that's the way we're working with it. We're working with it to connect people more deeply to tobacco itself, and then subsequently to the plant kingdom via the medium of tobacco. You know, personally, that that's that's our work. We we we personally work a lot with our pipes, much like you're you're smoking a pipe, that becomes one of our main tools. Um so yeah, it's mainly the main ways we're working is through the ingestion and through the smoking of it.

SPEAKER_02

I had three handmade pipes from my maestro confiscated from me at an airport in Mexico City, and now I have this sad little corncob pipe that I smoke instead. That was a painful day, man.

SPEAKER_00

Um Mexico is is quite strict about tobacco. We uh I also ran into some issues with in Mexico.

SPEAKER_02

Depends what airport. Uh sometimes there's too many National Guard people standing around and they feel like they have to justify their job by giving you a hard time. That's been my experience so far. I have one last question and then I'll let you go do bathtime and bedtime with your little one over there. Again, extremely broad, open-ended question. But I I spoke of you know, the mechanism of action of drugs before and how we don't really understand these things. And a common thread kind of through every answer you've given me has been bringing things into balance and restoring harmony within one's spirit, under helping somebody understand what their purpose or their place is, because we as humans in modern society have forgotten that. So when you look at the healing power of plant medicines, be it ayahuasca and tobacco, be it ibogaine, be it even something like you know, ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA, whatever, what do you understand to be the mechanism of action of the healing that takes place? Why are these things actually helping us to heal? What is the underlying process, or what are these things doing for us beyond just ingesting the actual medicine itself?

SPEAKER_00

I would say for me, uh the story of of the two boo is very real. I I don't take it necessarily as a metaphor that these plants were divine gifts, um, and that they're helping us to remember uh on a more deep level who we are. And and that's that's how we all suffer. Um there's also fundamental aspects, even when we're working in dieta, there's fundamental pillars of the house that we're working on, and these are all relational aspects. So our relationship to our family, our relationship to our love partner, our relationship to our work, which also involves the realm of money. Um if these things are out of balance, we suffer. And and everyone comes from a family, everyone has a love relationship, whether it's a partner or God or themselves or you know, something, everyone has a relationship to work. And if we don't have work, we suffer. Um if you look at a Christian worldview that that that humans are made in God's image and God is the creator, then the biggest gift we have is this ability to create. And if we don't create, then we're not fulfilling our our spirit, our soul potential. And so that's very, very important. And we're all unique, we're all children of God in that way, and we all have an absolutely unique and individual way of doing that. So there's no necessarily right or wrong way of doing that. But if we don't do that, then there's something inside us that's that's dying, that's that's longing to express itself. Uh so this is uh this is a big part of uh of of the work. Um you know to answer your question, like what is the mechanism in which they're working? I think at the most fundamental level, it is this idea of remembering, of connecting, of of because when we go into the this what could loosely be described as the spirit realm, there's something that's very familiar about that. It's it's it's foreign, but also it's it's a coming home. And that may sound strange, but you know, if you have the opportunity to travel across the cosmos, there's something that's very familial about that. Um, it can be terrifying. Not to say it's easy, but there's something that begins to awaken in you. Um that's why I think all of these plants, pharmacologically, if you look at the kind of the chemical makeup of them, they're they're probably the most complex plants on earth, something like iboga or tobacco. I mean, we we have no idea what all is in them or how all of that is interacting or working synergistically. You know, we we kind of isolate this this one alkaloid, similar to ayahuasca, like the ayahuasca admixture of chakruna or whatever it is. We we say it's the DMT, but you can work with ayahuasca even without uh chakruna and still have very profound effects because there's all sorts of alkaloids that are very, very vital. So certainly these things are working pharmacologically. Certainly, I think that's the reason they're they're the most complex plants, is because they have this tremendous ability, almost something that's foreign in a way, which is, I think, part of this idea that they did originate from the stars. They have something that that can't even be necessarily understood or reduced with our human or our earth-based model. Um, and then I think also the mechanism in which they heal, which which we spoke about, which is very important, is the tradition, the ceremony, the ritual. That's a vital, vital part. You know, one of the very common things, for example, when people would come to the Temple of the Way of Light and the Amazon, is yes, they they received a huge healing from ayahuasca, from the plants they worked with, but they also relayed that the connection that they had to the healers was extremely healing. The connection they had to the facilitators was extremely healing, the connection they had to the Amazon itself, to the jungle, to the life was extremely healing. And the connection that they had to the other people was probably the biggest healing. Like doing something in community, doing something in a group setting, seeing the humanity of people, experiencing that is tremendously healing. And at the same time, when you take a different process, which is seemingly kind of on the other end of that, a dieta, which is completely solitary, completely isolating, there's something very healing about that, of that deep process inward, again, of kind of removing ourselves from from what we we consider to be normal. So all of these things are very healing, and and there's many, many, many mechanisms in which they're working. Uh, I think we'll never understand all of them. And and that's why also there's many different practitioners who specialize in different aspects. Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with working with psilocybin in a clinical setting. That can be very beneficial in the same way that working with ayahuasca in a in a ceremonial setting in the Peruvian Amazon is very beneficial. Or working with the Yawanawa ceremony where you're singing and dancing in the daylight with ayahuasca can be very beneficial. They're all different mechanisms of healing. Um, but you know beginning to understand, beginning to choose like what that mechanism is for for me, and beginning to learn the importance of that is, I think, also part of the gateway to to each of our healing.

SPEAKER_02

Jason, beautifully put. I could listen to you speak all day, man. Thank you so much for doing this with me. I really appreciate it. There's a this is um this is one of those episodes I am excited to re-listen to and uh discover new meaning behind each of your very long-winded answers as I as I go back into it. I love it, man. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I really appreciate it, and I really appreciate the work that you're doing with these people. They are uh they're very fortunate to have a guide like yourself helping them navigate those dietas. So are there any uh anything you'd like to touch on before we let you go? Anything to direct listeners to? I'll have all the relevant links and everything like that in the bio but or in the the description. But so anything you'd like to like ask of the listeners, anything that you would direct them to?

SPEAKER_00

I don't think so. Again, just you know, I I'm one person. If if if something resonated, take it. If if if I sound like a crazy person, uh there's probably truth to that as well. Um, you know, this this isn't uh a path for everyone. It it's not the most elevated or enlightened path. There's many, many paths. And you know, to again, I think as you very wisely put, uh listening to our intuition is is super, super important. It's something we we've really been cut off from. And um, and so always using that to guide you. And if you are interested in plants, using your intuition and allowing that to guide you, really doing your research, um, listening to your intuition and um and also knowing that it's natural to get hurt, to fall down, like that can also be part of the path. Hopefully we mitigate that to to huge degrees to where we do we don't end up in a in a bad way, but uh that can also be part of all of our processes. I mean, we were just speaking about kids. I mean, that's also how they learn is they fall down and they they hurt themselves and they get back up. But um yeah, it uh probably you'll you'll have all of the links. I mean, if people are interested in in my personal work, uh nicotina rustica.org, that's my site with all of my work. Um, it's it's the Latin name of tobacco um Instagram. Um I'm fairly active, or luckily I have someone doing that now for me. But um it's just my name at Jason Grichanik. And and then I have a podcast called The Universe Within, which is on pretty much all the platforms, YouTube, Apple, Spotify. So and hey man, thank you very much. This was this was a pleasure. Um likewise. The two hours flew by. Um you have a really uh I think good presence. The the the work you've done has really shown. And you have some very deep questions. Sometimes I I do these, and it as you said in the beginning, it can be kind of repeating the same things, but the way you were able to engage and draw out was uh was very good, and I think very much a sign of of your own work and evolution. So thank you. Whatever you're doing, keep it up. And I wish you the best, everybody.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you so much for listening again. Thank you to Jason for taking some time to sit down with us today. Um, this is gonna be an episode that I probably revisit and probably kick myself for not asking certain things or saying certain things and having them come out poorly or not drawing connections between his work and our work. Because actually, as I heard him speaking, I realized there are so many similarities between what we do with our integration program and what a dieta looks like. Not to say that it's the same thing. Obviously, there's differences, but just this idea of turning down the noise inside, not just turning down the negative, quote unquote, voices, but just the distractions and the chatter so that we can actually hear both the good and the bad things that are inside of us for the sake of integrating all of it. That's really what we are doing with our integration program, with our microdosing program. So if you are feeling drawn towards some of this work, maybe you feel called to get in touch with us, you can go to our website, becoming om.org, or shoot us a message on Instagram, or you can check out Jason at all of the links in the episode description here. So thank you again for listening. God bless you. See you next time.