High Weirdness Part 2

Dom and I get into the first two figures of the Book High Weirdness by Eric Davis, the McKenna Brothers, Terence and Denis. There is on the one hand, the scientific desire for certainty, which we associate with third-person, "objective" verifiability. This sort of inquiry and knowing is inline with what modern neurobiology imagines as the evolutionary design of the brain as a "prediction machine." If we are prediction machines, inquiry is for the reduction of uncertainty in order that we might be able to manipulate and control our environment better to our advantage. However, there is on the other hand, the religious desire to encounter the "Other," or that which we cannot reduce to the categories of scientific understanding and which cannot be reduced to a mere projection of our own intention either. The McKenna brothers encapsulate these two competing, perhaps, contradictory drives to make familiar and / or to encounter what is truly other.

https://youtu.be/6jYvnYv9C7w

Intention without intention

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Hey Dom, going on, Marty? How you doing, man?

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Good to see you. Thanks for doing this with me again. Of course. Part two. Yep. Now we're on to the meat of the book. I guess we're past the pretty meaty introduction, frankly. Yeah. Like a lot of good background, but now we're into our main characters, and there are a few. And this one's got two together brothers, Terrence and Dennis McKinnah.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

And you said you hadn't really heard about them before now, but no, I think uh Timothy Leary overshadowed any other psychonaut in my mind, you know. I think like retroactively now I've definitely sifted through the internet and found a lot more people that knew him. And I think I told you uh my buddy when I was talking to him about the book, he knew exactly who they were and was giving me his interpretation. And yeah, but no, never heard of them until now.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yeah. And uh yeah, so just from uh Eric Davis's uh description of them, what is your general impression of the of the brothers McKinnah?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Oh, weird dudes.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Yeah, yeah, a bunch of relatable, like dudes you you you think you've you've met or tendencies that you've seen before.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

I I think they embody uh the guy that you say has done too much acid. You know, the guy walking down the street that you think is a little shifty, a little out there. Um I think he tuned in and never tuned out. I'd I'd say both of them, I think. Uh definitely looking back at older videos of uh Terrence. I mean, there's there's just something in those. You can see what people really like liked him because like he's just such a weirdo. Yeah, there's something in those big dark eyes that he can't escape from. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah. So this is uh high weirdness, baby. And these dudes embody it big time. So like it seems like you know, um, Terrence kind of like went all the way, like, including into like a sort of like I don't know if I would say like a full-on raving lunatic, but like he never gave up on some stuff that was like clearly fucked and off, and like his whole mind calendar time wave shit was like I don't know, not very fruitful. No, it didn't turn out to be.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

I think I was impressed that he continued his journey along those lines with pseudo math and pseudoscience. Yeah, yeah. I think I'm sure he was very invested and thought that he was going to crack the code, and yeah, I doubt he ever would have gotten closer than he would from the very beginning. I think he was closer in that moment than he was afterwards to experiencing any sort of truth or reality.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Yeah, yeah. Well, it was interesting towards the end of the of the section about uh then that Eric Davis kind of recounts some people who knew him who like kind of like to people's face would like admit he was like you know, gotten too far out there and it wasn't right or whatever, it was like pseudoscience or whatever, but then like they would find pretty much you know, anybody who really pushed him, like they would find some like getting pissed, like yeah, resistance, like no man, like you know, this stuff has you know, is gonna come true because it's whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there was some self-preservation, didn't want to be the pariah of an already weird group. I mean, imagine being the weirdest guy in the weirdest group, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

And I mean, just even the way he talks, like when you talk about videos, like I mean, you know, just being around skaters and younger skaters, like when I met at the skate park or whatever, like sometimes you I would roll up there and like want them to be talking about like some shit, Terrence McKinnon said. And it was this is like already way after he was dead, way after uh the whole My In Time calendar shit didn't happen. And like they were still kind of like fascinated by the guy, just because he's such he's like a Muppet or talks like Kermit the Frog or something. Like it's just like wow, this dude is like the epitome, like you said, of the stoner who just like went way too far. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Esoterica, like evolved to the tenth degree, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

He uh yeah, and then Dennis seemed to uh more robustly reject a lot of it in the end. Um and he's still alive, and I've seen interviews with him, but you know, it again there's still a little bit of ambiguity preserved, like, because it'll be like, no, there was something we were on to, but you know, some of the most intense, like, scientific jargon gets used by Dennis. Like, he's like, you know, has a big break, and we'll talk about that, but like it promotes all of these like throwing together scientific terms and scientific theories and papers that he'd read and just all kinds of stuff, and when he was in it, he was just like, Yeah, man, this is like I'm channeling like some other realm. This is truth, like there is this other who is speaking to me and like you know, like getting me to um I don't know, the next level of consciousness and all this kind of stuff, but like you know, it's I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

I think he operated as if someone as if someone does still within a trip where there's some sort of concept or trigger word that they resonate with, and then all of a sudden that is the truth, and then they retroactively try to prove it because it somehow resonates with them. And then I think they go all in on one thing, and then I mean I can relate to that, or I would read something, it would resonate to me on such a level and such an intensity that that would be the answer, like the singularity thing that I was looking for. And then immediately I would find something else and then dive into it with such intensity that that would now be the other thing is gone. And I think with his scientific, you know, like nature and the way that he would glob onto these, you know, papers that he would read. I don't think he did much of like accumulation of scientific knowledge, and then he would create a whole lot of theory based off you know, everything in its entirety. Um, I think he really liked um a few specific things, and then to like retroactively fit into his like worldview of reality, yeah, he would just like spew a bunch of jargon that sounded like it fit. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Yeah, so I think this kind of fits with the general trajectory of what we're trying to do, which is just like understand the way in which spiritual seeking you know comes from this genuine place, like this genuine desire to I mean, it it seems a little pompous, but you know, understand ultimate reality or whatever, but you know, but like but that it you know it so easily goes wrong. And uh just you know, for us and for me in particular, coming uh you know, to this conversation from the perspective of recovery, um, you know, I I've always enjoyed, and I I talked about it last time, probably talk don't talk about it too much, but the this young um Carl Jung's idea that like alcoholism uh specifically is this kind of like low-level spiritual seeking. And it this provides like a really interesting um juxtaposition because I think people think of tripping, especially this of the sort that these two did, as like heroic. So it's like there's nothing fucking low-level about it, you know, very courageous, yeah. That's right. They are the psychonauts, they get this like you know, super intense moniker or whatever. You know, they're exploring realms that nobody else dare to tread or whatever, so they're you know, they're completely edgelords on the edge or whatever. So um, you know, and there's a fascination. I admit that I had it too. You know, I wasn't fascinated enough to um you know be willing to go through like as many bad trips as uh you know, yeah. That that that was I couldn't I I couldn't do any of it.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

But like well, it makes sense for your skater culture where you know if they're edgelords and you know you're already sick of the mundane reality with yuppies, you know, controlling and running everything. I mean, they took the extreme to the extreme, so why wouldn't they be, you know, looked upon as you know greater than shit itself, I mean anything itself, you know?

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Yeah. Uh I mean and and what's interesting too, so they're coming, they're baby boomers, coming out of hippie culture. Uh they're they're from Colorado, but spent a lot of time, you know, in California, like not only at university, but like in the hippie culture or whatever, like hippie weirdos basically, tripping balls with everybody else, and like taking it to the step further, where you know, they're like tripping and then like hitting the DMT real hard and all that. I mean, just like crazy, crazy stuff. Yeah, and um what's interesting to me is that so much of it, and I I just think like you know, pot or marijuana is like so underrated in terms of like how intense it is, but like a lot they said you know, most of it really, you know, was a lot of like pot-fueled shit, you know, like they would get stoned, and you talk about stoner talk or stoner rap. Yeah, like that's like a lot of what it was. It was just like they were just really good at stoner talk, yeah, you know, yeah, and then kind of like bought their own bullshit, I I think, you know, in some ways. Like there is a certain enjoyment too of like getting, you know, baked or whatever, and then just like coming hard with all kind of like theory and ideas and stuff like that, and it sounds real good to you, you know, while you're doing it, but like you kind of wonder if it's got any applicability beyond that.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Yeah, I'm sure if you jotted it down and you know referenced it afterwards, I don't I wonder if you'd carry the same tune as you did while you were in that mind state, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Yeah, I mean the the whole journaling thing you were talking to me about, like is that is that really, you know, like what was it?

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Is it can is it conducive to like learning or you know moving anything forward? I don't think so. Um you're referencing, I told you, like me and my friends in later stages of like you know, tripping, we would always have a notebook and a pen, a pen and paper, you know, to record anything that we thought was revolutionary, because you know, you come out of it and you lose about 90% of everything you thought you found. So we said, okay, can we can we keep any of this, you know? And uh looking back later, it it was so fragmented and nonsensical that we didn't get anything out of it. So you were not it was effective psychonautical research or something. No, not effective at all. It became more of like a comedic relief. We're like, oh, like let's see how I thought this was important. Yeah, let's see how absurd we were in that moment, and we could like look at it back and be like, oh yeah, well well, a lot of it was what did you mean by this? And oh, I have no clue. You know, because it would be three or four word statements that we thought were so interconnected that we you know we would remember them as something, you know, important, but it would be four words strung together that didn't actually relate and that didn't lead to anything, you know. Yeah, like at all.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah. Well, um, so like I was pretty much just a straight drunk, but like I was like following a path I thought were um you know a lot of drunk writers, like having were able to, yeah, for example, we're are you know, like you know, I think in the end, like a lot of them just wound up being drunk. Bukowski for one, uh like or Dostoevsky for another, like these guys like were sort of glorified in my mind as like um and I mean so many of them you could go through as sort of like I don't know, like going into the pain and like coming back with like something to say about it profound. And like even me, like I go back now and look at Bukowski, and I just think it's very callo bullshit. He didn't get very far in this journey. There's some stuff that's kind of beautiful or whatever, but like, you know, and I feel the same way about like Hunter Thompson and um uh Burroughs is still pretty interesting to me, I have to say. But like but like I I don't know, like for different reasons than initially. Like, I I I kind of thought he was like really discovering stuff.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah, I think Hunter S. Thompson is one that definitely people look to as some god of drug use. You know, I remember Joe Rogan came out with his daily agenda and everything he did from the moment he woke up to the moment he went to bed, and I think people look at that as, yeah, again, like some heroic, courageous thing that he was doing to get to the bottom and offer good writing. His writing to me makes me just feel uncomfortable because I feel as if I am emerging or entering his head space. Yeah, yeah, and I don't want to be in Hunter S. Thompson's head, and I don't, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

I I used to want to, like, I mean, exactly this, exactly the same, exactly what you're saying. Like, but like when I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, like for the first time, I was like probably a teenage boy, or maybe maybe my twenties, and I was just like, this is awesome. Like, I want this. And then, like, you know, but like you don't get the fear, like at least I didn't until you like actually get the fear. Like, and like I got the fear even, you know, with just regular marijuana, so like I couldn't go much further. It was like the fear was just I'm just like a pussy, I guess. Like the fear, I could I can't I can't deal with any of the fear, so that's why I, you know, I'm just like a pussy alcoholic or whatever in the end. But like like the fear was just too much for me. And like uh back to skater culture, I remember rolling up, you know, as an older dude to the skate park, and um somebody was reading the um was reading Hunter Thompson's um uh what was he reading? The Hunter Thompson's uh uh Fear and Loathing, and it was like the drug list, the big long drug list or whatever. And it was a total bullshit lie. Yeah. Nobody like like did adrenaline, like pure adrenaline, like 50 billion pieces of acid and damn, you know, whatever the hell else. Yeah, like I mean in Coke and like I mean, it was just like the most unbelievable list of shit that was in a suitcase. And so, anyways, um, and then um they were like you know, hero worshipping this drug list. Like, this dude is awesome. Yeah, and I just remember thinking, like that sounds horrible, yeah. But if you're the older guy, like now guy, this is just bullshit, he's lying, this he didn't do all these drugs or whatever, and like he wasn't all that cool either. Like it was just kind of like you know, it would have been like old fuddy duddy dude, um, which I am, but you know, like it just like yeah, so I've had such a perspectival shift, and again, like I sort of like listening to Terrence talk, yeah, but I sort of just get annoyed as hell, like actually, and uh Dennis is a little more interesting because he still gives interviews and I've seen him talking recently, and I mean because he's at least he's got a little bit more of a nuanced perspective on things, but like man, like I I have such a sh perspectival shift on all that stuff now, and I really am trying throughout this podcast not to become the old fuddy duddy or whatever, but just like to to recognize that there was some actual searching going on in any of that. That it is silly when you look back at your notebook and you see like how stupid all of it was, and it believe me, I actually when I got sober, like had to get rid of all this shit I had written. Like, I had just volumes and volumes and volumes of crap that I just had to like, I couldn't look at it. Yeah, I shouldn't have done that probably, like, but like I had so I had that feeling of like this is just the the the the you know the idiocy of a of an idiot who's trying to you know imitate probably Bukowski mostly, and just like um you know failing like a poser basically.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Well, I think for me, I mean I feel uneasy when I'm listening or reading anything that feels as if they believe that they are some sort of guru. Yeah, because there's that confidence there that I think I lack in my experience with any sort of psychedelic experience to where, you know, we've talked about it before, where there's so much ambiguity in the experience and post that for anybody to come and give you this as a fact or uncertainty, I think that's what makes me unable to watch it, and that's why I get annoyed with it, because they're coming from such a I'm going to explain to you my experience, and I don't want it to resonate with you with you. I want it to shift how you feel about something or how you look at something. Yeah. Which I think is absurd. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Well, I mean, it is a kind of to me, uh, I'd think the best term for it. We talked about it before is religious psychosis. Um, and you know, like this psychotic state has its benefits. I again, I don't want to like we need it. We need to believe enough to get up out of the bed in the morning. You know what I mean? We need to like be in a state where we're willing to um participate, yeah. You know, believe enough in the world to like, you know, act as if it's real. So like, you know, that's important, and and act on our theories. Like, we can't we can't even live ideology free. Like, we have no idea how many ideologies get us up in the morning, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, like, yeah, there's a there's a sense in which there's a sort of liberation in destroying ideology. But I think the biggest mistake happens is like when people think like, oh now I don't have ideologies because I see clearly the truth. Yeah, and that's like the ultimate uh religious psychosis, I think. So I guess we just kind of get into uh you know how how theirs happened and like you know our thoughts around it. But um, you know, I I I think you know, mostly what's centered on in the book is like the early 1970s, and you know, they uh are coming out of like the hippie culture and you know in in San Francisco, California, you know, the epicenter of the whole thing, and they're um you know, exploring uh DMT natural sources of it. And um probably the biggest, you know, um or the most uh well-known episode, I should say, is the La Torrera uh instances uh that are talked about pretty extensively in the book. Yeah. Um so this is uh like we said last time, traveling to South America before it was a touristy thing to do. Um, although they were, from my perspective, still white spiritual tourists. Oh yeah. Yeah. But uh I it was interesting that one of the first like um psilocyidin sour sources that they found were these mushrooms growing out of cow patties, basically. Yeah. That like the that the the the indigenous people weren't into, and they were like taking a bunch of it. But like kind of interesting that um those psychedelics came from Europe because cows aren't native to South South America, and they mentioned that in the book as well, that like you know, that's like psilocybin is easy to get in England because of all the cow patties and other things as well. I guess it just kind of grows everywhere at mushrooms. Um, but it's not you know what they were in South America for, they were there for the DMT. So um, I mean, I don't know if you had any thoughts about that transition from if there is if if there is one, like uh well, I I would say marijuana, just like getting high, rapping, thinking your ideas are great, LSD, um, you know, probably, you know, for most people would find that kind of like a deeper trip. But like, I'm told that, for example, nowadays the uh you know THC levels are so high in this genetically you know engineered marijuana that like it's more likely to induce psychosis than LSD, from what I understand.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Yeah, I mean I think my reason or my interpretation of their reasoning behind elevating their psychedelic use was that they were trying to get to a more direct route to whatever they were looking for. I think they even reference, I think DMT was the one where it contends the monoamine monoamine oxidase inhibitor already within it, so they wouldn't have to take anything extra to get to that point. Like I think they kept substantiating their claims with I'm going to reach something by using this, and then they weren't using enough in their mind. Yeah. So they're like, okay, we need to use more, more intensity, more direct route to whatever truth we're looking for. I mean, I think also it's just a natural progression. I mean, when people reference marijuana as a gateway drug, that has back like that has basis, you know. I think that's right. Yeah, yeah. I think when you know when I first started smoking and it, you know, it it would reach a plateau in my mind where I I I used it up to as I used all of it up, and there's nothing left to gain from this. And then someone said, Hey man, you know, and um, you know, I have something that could bring you even higher. So then you just naturally elevate it. Um I think it was interesting that yeah, they went to South America specifically for a drug because I think it showed their intense uh you know commitment to whatever they believed that they were searching for. Um but yeah, I think marijuana on its own, uh yeah, is very psychoactive. I know, especially nowadays, um, if you take an edible or anything, ingest it, you know, your body breaks it down in a specific way to where it creates a certain type of THC and it Becomes like ten times more psychoactive than it is for just inhaling it. And I think people don't realize that, yeah, the the likelihood that you're entering a space that's more psychoactive than you believe it to be, you know, you're not just calming down and getting high with your buddies. You're entering some weird spaces. I mean, I remember some of the most important moments of not like telekinetic or like me talking to my friends, but like when I would smoke, I remember I would pick up on more subtle cues than I did with any other substance. Um, I would always say you could tell that when someone would be telling a story, you would see like an underlayer below it where you would reference their past and be like you just said that because of your family dynamic, and that's really interesting that I just picked up on that. Yeah. Or how many times have you been in a circle smoking with your buddies? Someone says something, and you turn to your friend that you are aligned with in that moment, and you both, without saying anything, know exactly what the other one's thinking. I mean, you get that sober too. You get you get that sober, but I think, yeah, with weed, that's one of the things that you know you you kind of link up with someone, and on LSD you do 100% too, where you're very easily linked up. I always say, like, people like, oh, you always have to have a trip, buddy. It's not because you know you feel safe with that person, but it's because you're aligned with that person in some weird way, to where you know, we've talked before where you can stagger your like dosing to where you're taking it at slightly different times, but usually you and one other person always lines up to where you feel like you're coming up, peaking, coming down at the exact same time. There's moments where um one of the most times I ever felt that I was uh out with these two girls and we were all on LSD, and me and this one just completely linked to the point where someone would say something, the other one would say something, or someone would walk by and we could just turn to each other, and I to this day believe that we knew exactly what the other one was thinking. And retroactively, I think we tried to go back and be like, Were you thinking this? And then she'd be like, Yeah, that was an insane moment, you know. Or you know, did this actually happen the way that I perceived it? Oh, yeah, like you know, that happened with me too, you know. I think even like shared hallucinations, I think are extremely um realistic. Um, and I think they're a hundred percent proven to be true. I've had so many experiences where you know I've seen something and you know I haven't really vocalized it, and afterwards I'll be like, hey, at this moment, um, what were you experiencing? And they're like, oh, like the same as you. And I've heard them say that, and I'm like, okay, but what does that mean? Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. And then they'll start to explain it, and I realize, oh yeah, and I don't know if that is like you know, the power of suggestion to some degree, to where you know, we were in a space together and the setting provoked some sort of hallucination, and then you know, us talking about it later made it true in the past, you know. Um, I think you know interesting, yeah. I think there, yeah, like us, we made it real, you know, like even though it might have not have happened in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Um that unknowability is so much a part of the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

I mean, because you were looking for, I mean, one of the ironic titles, I think it's of Terence's uh True Hallucinations. I don't remember if Dennis or Terence wrote that, but I mean the idea of this third person. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. So was Terence. I can't remember though. I can't remember. It doesn't matter. But anyways, like the uh the title there t says it all because there was this desire for this third person verifiability. Um where um I don't know the science background of both of them, but especially Dennis, like really comes in this desire for it to be independently verifiable to some degree. So this whatever true means here, um, like this really happened sort of a thing there. Some other instances were just fantastically interesting. The the mushroom thing and the key thing and the flying saucer thing come to mind. But like let's start with the with the mushroom thing. Your thoughts on I mean, well, I guess say what it is first a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

So they had a shared hallucination that a mushroom uh turned into a miniature globe or the earth um in itself, and they both were witness to that. I think Dennitz pointed it out first, and then Terrence shifted his view and saw it. Um yeah, I mean, I think there's some level of connection to where you kind of enter the same space with someone else that is tripping. Um I've told you before where I've been at various, you know, concerts or festivals or even in someone's basement, and I will think at someone, and they will like think at them, and they will turn around and kind of you know, it's like you know, that feeling where you think someone's watching you, or like how there's no actual stimuli to elude that there's someone behind you, but people can somehow pick up. That's right. No, that's a well-known phenomenon.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

If somebody's looking at you, people like somehow, even if they're not in there, spinocyte or periphery, even they can like they're directly behind them, people will know that somebody's looking at them.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

I think that's amplified on any psychedelic and just that one sensation to where you can look at someone that's tripping and they automatically will turn and look at you. And you can almost, in my mind, have these little conversations based off facial expressions, I'm sure, or you know, like eye movement. Um I think like they can kind of confirm whether or not like something's happening. Um, but yeah, shared hallucinations. I mean, I've had friends, you know. Uh, my one comes to mind where um he saw this girl sitting in his bedroom, and uh his girlfriend at the time uh woke up in the morning and was like, Hey, who was that girl you were talking to? Did you see her too? Yeah, and that he they went into this long discussion. I can't believe you saw her, what was she wearing, you know, and then they basically break down this figure that they saw in their lines, you know. Yeah, um, could it have been a conversation the night prior where they both somehow created this, you know, right figure, and then now later they're you know, oh my god, I didn't tell you about that at all, you know, verifying it with each other later. Um, it would be nice if Dennis and Terrence could have some outside verifiability, but as we talked about there It's just between the two. Yeah, their their two friends that they showed up with uh moved their campsite halfway through because I think they were a little tired of all the anti- you know, my the first experiment, I'm sure. Yeah, um I think we talked about the the key from their grandpa as um. You can explain that one.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Yeah, it was just like so they uh I guess it was Terrence, and I should say that Terrence enjoyed trickster figures. So, like he I mean he has a religious studies background, or he had a religious studies background. Like, so he was familiar with uh somebody who I was very familiar with, Mirse Iliati, for example, from the University of Chicago, um, and the whole history of esotericism, especially he knew Crowley and the Golden Dawn and uh all the way back to Blake and like all these kind of like um you know what he called freaks, and there was this discussion about like which term he associated with most a hippie, a freak, a head, or a fist or whatever. And he was and he was you know, he associated mostly with the term freak. Now I a head would kind of be like what people would think of when they thought of freaks, but I mean he clearly you know was very aware of like circus side circus sideshow freaks and like really like connected that to his to his whole like entourage and his like whole deal or whatever, and like especially his like fantastical storytelling. I mean, that's the one thing that he was great at. Like he was a great storyteller. I mean, those are good stories. I mean, like I said, I'm annoyed to some degree by a lot of the claims in them at this point, but if they were just like kind of fun storytelling, that would be great. And the key is a great example of that. It's like uh so it was this key um to um I don't know, something in his grandpa's house, maybe a lockbox, like a lockbox, and like they both him and you know and and and Dennis were aware of it. One of the two of them suggested to get some independent verifiability, like if they could manifest the key or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

Yeah, this was right around when they were feeling that like synchronous buzz between the two of them. Yeah, we gotta get into that. But yeah, like the so right. So, anyways, um And was it Dennis talking to his dead mother at this time?

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then uh and and somehow the key came up in all this madness.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

But like um Well, I think he was saying that he could break through to a plane to talk to his mother, yeah, and he could go forward or backward in his time. Oh, right, so like he could like go get the key and I think he was yeah, asking. I think Terrence asked Dennis if he could go get the key.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Yeah, like do you remember that key, yeah. Um, and so anyway, so um Dennis can't, but like Terrence, like being like the trickster, I guess, figure here, like opens his hand after like you know, they've realized they can't do it and he's got the key. Yeah. In the middle, in the middle of the Amazon. In the middle of the Amazon. Yeah, yeah. La Torrera, yeah. So it's just like great story, yeah, just awesome. But uh, for the fact that like it's a HP Lovecraft story, yeah. And like Terrence is very aware of HP Lovecraft and of the you know, this kind of theory that gets called uh by this more recent guy, Nick Land, hyperstition, but it but you know, Lovecraft didn't have that that that that term, but like, you know, it was definitely like and neither did the McKinnon's, but like it's definitely in line with this idea of manifesting um, you know, something that you know is um only imaginal. Um so like very much like Cthulhu, you know, this imaginal beast, like a lot of people, you know, started feeling like it was real, and then necro Necromicon, like exemplar gratis, the book now does exist, you know, like but like uh and it was you know just this prop and Lovecraft stories for a while. But it's like making something fictional, you know, like cross that threshold or whatever. I mean, and I mean the key figure in a lot of ways here is um really in religious studies, especially in you know, knowing that they read Iliade uh would be the shaman, you know, somebody crossing this liminal space into into like the another realm that's usually like very close or nearby, but like barred to us in this reality or whatever, and kind of opened up by the psychedelics or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Yeah, I enjoyed uh I think Terrence's interpretation of the modern-day shaman, how a true religious shaman has to use psychedelics, unless and if they don't, then they're just a charlatan. But what makes a true shaman is their introduction of psychedelics into their work, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Yeah, it was very much a part of religious theory at that time, is that like that's what gave shaman their vision.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Uh, or or some other ecstatic technology. So, like, I mean, you pretty much hear this today, so it could be like dance, like the whirling dervishes are an example, like you know, ecstatic dance, um you know, music, like trance-like states that induced by like rhythmic kind of like procedures, you know, in music, obviously the psychedelic substances that got consumed or whatever. Um, so there's like yeah, so there's like just like a whole bunch of theories around the shaman, and the shaman again was associated very much with the trickster figure. So, like reality itself in this way of thinking about the world is tricky. It it that it's not there, so like when if you like are doing this from a scientific perspective, like you know, the McKenna brothers were coming at this, well, like pseudo semi-scientific perspective at any rate, trying to f discover like like what reality is, ultimate reality, however you want to put this, and then you discover that it's like not solid at all, it's just like this shifty thing that that you cannot get uh and I think you explained like to me once too, like um you were talking about maybe somebody else, but like trying to get like um you know solid on like the DMT space. And I've read books about this too before, like people trying to keep the trip like like continuous and like trying to like get some independent verifiability to it where like people get into this DMT space and it's like um you know, this common place. And yeah, I mean I've heard it talked about like there's like this radio waiting room space, and then there's like this and then and then you know the one of the big common elements in this space is a trickster figure or multiple trickster figures that Dennis, I mean no, not Dennis, but Terrence, so aptly named the machine elves. Yeah. Um and it and I again you see this combination of the term machine elves between this mechanical, like you know, they're they're really into steady state, especially transistors. This is going to be a part of like their you know kind of syncretism between science and like psychedelia. And then you got the elves, and the elves is this trick, you know, traditional, the elvish folk, whatever from Celtic lore. These are like you know, trickster figures. I suppose, you know, when the Celts were eating, you know, these you know, magic mushrooms that are all over, you know, the British Isles, that um, you know, that's when they would encounter these elves, I would imagine, or whatever, but like maybe it was they would just encounter them otherwise, but they're but they're very hard to pin down, very dangerous figures.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Like it seemed like the machine elves in almost everybody's DMT space are like friendly dudes, um I think in my experience, like when the term machine or you know, technol technologic figures comes in, to me, I think that describes a like rigidity that you find in like some of these experiences. Um there are very machined edges to everything, it's very not artificial, but it seems um planned out. Interesting, yeah. Um, and you know, I I think I've entered expand on that. I've entered natural spaces within, let's say, like, you know, psilocybin, magic mushroom experiences where everything is very softened and flowy, and it feels like you're tapping more into the folklore side of the elves, you know. And then I think with more heavily direct substances such as LSD or DMT, there's almost a very like particular intention behind the design of the world that you enter. And I think it feels more curated towards the reality of something because it sounds, it feels like the space that you enter, liminal or not, was created for you to be there. You know? So I think that is maybe why it's like you machined, you know, it's like a factory. It's like a factory that was, you know, it was more intentionally created. It's not something that you like wandered upon that had already been in like base reality that we're in right now. You know, I think, you know, lower level like uh lower level like mushroom trips or uh marijuana, you know, it it it shifts your focus towards an a side of reality that you already experience. Or I think high dose LSD trips, DMT trips, even like MDA trips, um, you know, they take you to a more curated space, and I think when they say By whom? By others, by whom, you know, the observer, whoever you know, but it does feel it, it feels very different. I mean, I've always said when I'm on like uh, you know, or if I've ever experienced any psilocybin trip, I am myself, however, I am like looking through a lens of this mushroom. You know, I I am I'm me on this. However, when you're in an LSD trip or a DMT trip, you are not. You are in someone else's space. Wow. You know, it you know, you are no longer like but it's for you.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

So you have you're you've got both those things going on, is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Yeah, I mean it contradicts itself to where it's great. I'm gonna do it. It's someone else's space that you've happened to wander into. However, it does feel like it's for like you belong, you know? Okay. So you belong there, but it's not yours.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

Yeah. So uh is there any like uh on that on that really high dosage uh certain place, is there any of the of the fear that that that you get like it's fear the whole time. It's fear the whole time. I mean it's just so it's like really uncomfortable. Even though you feel like you belong, you know, it's you still feel this unbelievable fear or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

It's just uneasiness. I mean, I I think you know, I I said a lot of the you know, coming out of these high-dose trips, a lot of it's lost. But there's a few things that I've kept, and I think I mentioned it maybe on the last one or you to per you personally. But comfort was one that always stuck with me to the point where that was my password for like my student account for my email in college, you know, like it was comfort 23 or whatever, because that was so important. Yeah, because it was so important to me because some of these guys get into pills afterwards, like oxycons or whatever, because they just want to fucking chill out. Yeah, well, that's why people take any sort of benzo, they call them trip killers, because they want to feel that comfort again, because you're either too hot or too cold. You're you know, blankets are either perfect or they're become too much. Like there's a threshold, I think, for comfort that um when you're hallucinating you don't get. But yeah, there's always an uneasiness, and I think there's an anticipation because you don't know what's around the next corner. Um, so it's always like you're walking through a haunted house, and these really cool curated characters might come out and surprise you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't think you ever anticipate or see it coming. So there's yeah, there's a general uneasiness.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

So what's interesting is that there's a sense of belonging, like it's like was curated, uh, but like um, so maybe not belonging, but just like that it's it's it has something to do with you. Yeah. But it's not at the same time a projection from you. It is actually something curated by something outside of you. That's that's how it feels. I mean 100%.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Yeah. I mean, as I said, I've never given myself any kudos for the things that I've encountered while on these trips, you know. Yeah, yeah. I didn't say, wow, you are so creative. You know, I think there was some tapping into or dropping in on or um attuning to something that was prefabricated. And I think that prefabrication is you know a moniker for machinist, you know.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like they're yeah, they're like one of the first examples I know of. I mean, the other book that Eric Davis wrote was called Technosis, which is a combination of the tech side of things, of uh, in particular um transhumanism, I think Ray Kurzweil or some other person like that. Um, and then on the on the other hand is the humanism part, which is this obviously more organic sort of reality or whatever, and this sort of like combination of the two. You can think of like all kinds of like hybrid technologies, uh the you know, the cyborg type technologies we were talking about, Elon Musk's uh Neuralink, um, you know, like these things that are like machines designed to bring you to the higher realm or whatever. And so, as it's said in the book, and is clear about the like the mushroom thing, is that it's it at least it's some uh mapping on to this classical alchemical idea of the philosopher's stone, which is chemical, like this is like you know, this is kind of built into alchemistry in general, which is like there it is the it is where chemistry comes from. Like there's no question about it, but like out of that comes this sort of like purified form of like scientific chemistry that you know doesn't involve like all the hokey pokey crap that you know is associated with um you know the alchemical tradition or whatever, but like very quite famously, like most of Newton's work was not like his awesome calculus and color theory, most of it was alchemical in nature, like he was obsessed. Um, and so like in general, again, the idea of the philosopher's stone is like this totally purified um well, it's like his gem that would purify all base metals to like silver and gold and crap like that. Um, but like also in the name philosopher, you're seeing like these idea, level wisdom, like perhaps some like ultimate revelation or knowledge or whatever. So there is this quest for knowledge in the alchemical journey. Um, you know, you think about Dr. Faustus or some classic version of like a mad scientist, you know, who makes a pact with the devil in order to like um you know unlock all the secrets of reality or whatever. Um and then at the same time you have this um I don't know, there was actual chemistry going on. You could they could you can recreate this stuff with like in a lab and do a lot of this stuff or whatever. There was no like actual like I don't know um what there isn't that we know of to like make any metal into gold or whatever, which was like sort of like the one of the ultimate quests of it, which is sort of funny to me that it's just like quest like it can be metaphorically read as it was by Carl Jung and especially by one of his disciples. uh Hillman that um you know it was it's read metaphorically as this like quest for like you know um I don't know yeah wisdom purification of like the self or you know in in Jungian terminology individuation which means like becoming yourself or something like that through the integration of uh uh especially of the shadow and stuff like that um but like there's this really interesting version uh in alchemistry of what's called the Negreto which is like the radiance uh radiant darkness or radiant blackness that are the ultimate black beyond black so it's like there is something called um in alchemical uh procedures where you take like some base black color and then you blacken it further and it actually creates this like light well radiant blackness so it's not it doesn't it the double negation it's it is double negation but it's not into uh light it's into a radiant darkness and the McKinnon's this is what uh all this too much uh history religion's crap uh but the uh but the the the McKinnist talk about um so their machinic thing is they you know they were fascinated by the steady state mechanisms like in particular of the transistor yeah and the way a transistor channels uh into frequencies and they were super into this idea of resonance yeah uh and resonating so it's like this form of communication that's beyond language to them to the point where you know Dennis becomes a transistor and starts like bleeding out like really bizarro well yeah ectoplasm for sure because like there's yeah the obsidian I think you're talking about like obsidian ooze or obsidian ooze that's like be like it's somehow like again it is very reminiscent to me and just knowing that I know at least Terence had a background in the history of uh of of alchemistry that that um you know he might have been thinking but not consciously thinking of this like Negreto this like blackened beyond black you know substance double negated into blackness whatever so that I mean what's very interesting to me too history of religions wise is like one of the followers of a Neoplatonist uh Platinus who's um he wasn't a direct follower but he was a follower of a follower was uh this guy Pseudodionysus who's like considered the father of Christian mysticism and his idea of like um you know ultimate reality God was like this ultimate darkness like and there are a number of people that have had near-death experiences that report without being theologically trained so here's your you know like double blind or whatever yeah supposedly like you know like that you know ultimate reality is like this you know ultimate darkness that is like actually like perfect love at the same time like um you know whatever to that but like you can just kind of see how they weave uh science history religions kind of into their I don't know whole whole deal but like that this idea that they want to reach one the telekinesis kind of way of talking like this ultimate communication that's like wordless um and then you know that they that at least you know when Dennis screams I don't want to become an insect yeah like uh this this whole idea like I it's almost like I don't want to become a transistor at the same time it seems to be because I mean you think about the antenna of the insect as like these like tuners that like tune in you know and resonate or whatever they do I don't really know what they do but anyways that um but I think you know popularly like they have have this they have the same name antenna is like you know this thing we use to help our frequency or whatever but like the our amplify our frequency but anyways the uh he's saying to some degree is like if if I if I put it all together uh you know like I don't want to be this I don't want to be this transistor radio which is their version of a philosopher's stone like this I this machine that like channels the voice of the other and so like you know and there are other times when it was just ecstatic for him to be channeling the voice of the other so he's like you know writing down formulas and combining all kinds of scientific theories that he's heard before it just sounds like a bunch of science words and he's like admitted you know that like it was Dennis did you know Terrence never really came back from that but yeah I mean I'm sure with the transistor he's more afraid of being reduced to solely a transistor I mean the philosopher Sonan itself is reducing all of these you know materials into one or two options and I think if your fear is being reduced to only a channel or only a frequency I mean in lay in like lame terms I mean that is completely killing your ego and destroying who you are you are nothing more but you know something for a higher being to channel through.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

I think it sounds really nice because it gives you a s greater sense of purpose but at the same time it removes your individuality you know and it takes you to a place where you are nothing more mere than a outdated communication system. I think maybe their drive towards technology was due to them feeling outdated in terms of you know a technologic sense um but yeah the transistor radio I told you I think is extremely interesting because before I even knew what a transistor radio essentially was I related to that um because yeah you in high dose experiences you do hear a whirring a buzzing a you know a a almost like someone's holding down a walkie-talkie yeah and there's no one on the other end yeah but you know that there's someone listening there's someone out there and again that is completely psychotic state you know you are feeling like you are on the other end of a radio but I think yeah maybe they're searching for who's on the other end and they can't reach it. And then now they're just pissed because no one's picking up their interdimensional phone call. You know like nice yeah yeah but yeah I think it's funny uh yeah I think I told you uh while I was in school it was one of my behavioral neuroscience classes and it was about schizophrenics and one of the descriptions that they laid out it was a quote from a schizophrenic and the last half of it was all about this transistor radio state that they felt that they were in and that's what was communicating to them because I think you asked you know in a state of psychosis did I ever feel as if it was my own thoughts being heard from my own or was it some external source? Yeah yeah and I responded with I believed it was something external because it feels like you're getting you know there was something triggered there was something unlocked and now there's like someone on the other end. Yeah and you were getting input from them I didn't really give them input but they could give you input and I think it really relates back to just the psychotic state and how they were really lost in a bad a bad trip that they couldn't escape out of and they were trying to reduce it down to you know anything they could but you know I think Dennis especially failed in that two week period you know well he he was I mean there were he he became almost completely inarticulate um you know just like was thinking at any rate he was communicated just by like blurting out like bizarre mechanical described as mechanical frequencies like machine noises basically only imagine that's why the other two left I'm sure they were sick of it you know but I'm sure to him those frequencies that he was trying to mirror or match made complete and total total sense you know like um but yeah the exclamations I mean I can definitely relate to that in myself and others um you know I think it's very difficult to have a you know that's why when I was reading about their their you know um their raps that they had with each other I was like that's amazing their raps with each other yeah yeah yeah they're they're you know yeah rap yeah it's a very big important term for that yeah they're in tune their intern flow resonating yeah it's just resonance yeah yeah I wonder if they were actually saying anything though right you know was it all in their head that they were having this like you know because I know they also believe that they're you know they were spliced together genetically and became one being you know and therefore they became a lot more than brothers I would say but yeah um yeah I got lost.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

Well I mean just uh in that I mean speak a little bit more to you know your own experience with that sort of getting stuck and and and and you know not being able to get out of that state. I just like I mean I don't know was how was it how would you characterize it like that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_01 52:56

There's a few different experiences I can think of you know I said my my friends would yell the next at me for about a year because I got stuck into a thought loop and the only thing you know I didn't talk for an hour two hours on end and the only thing that I could exclaim at one point was the next and then I expected everyone just to understand what I was saying. You know because that was that was the epitome of that moment. And and uh in my thought it was you know I couldn't come up with the next thing and you know I could think Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and then I couldn't remember what was next. And then I would go back into it and then I'd go Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and then I couldn't remember what's next and then it would just keep going. Another time you know very not dissimilar to Dennis's I don't want to become an insect yeah I had a friend stand up once and exclaim for everyone to know that we're never going to see our families again. And all of us stared at him like what are you talking about? He didn't think anything happened to them or he didn't think anything happened you know like cataclysmically he just was so stuck that he thought he would never get out to see anyone outside of his life again. In that moment it was terrifying. I mean I'm sure more for him than any of us but for us it definitely took us out of whatever we were going through. But yeah I think those like you know language becomes extremely difficult because just as a trip you have so much to say there's so much to be taught and you just you're not conducive to all of that information all at one time. I mean as you said a lot of what makes someone human is that filtering out. Yeah you know like if we wanted to remove that creating a block yeah yeah I mean it's like how people you know always refer back to that old age old adage of you only use 10% of your brain which in reality you use most of it just not at the same time you know but people I would love to unlock like what would be possible if we were able to access it all at the same time I think there would be excruciating stuff very similar there would be excruciatingly painful I mean it would be I mean how much thank god for time so it rolls out yeah I mean especially nowadays I mean there's like I think a new age you know issue with stimuli where people are constantly overstimulated in one degree or the other and I think okay we'll take that you know magnify it a million times and then try to get comfortable I mean it's it's a crazy ask for anyone and I think that uncomfortability um breaches like it it there becomes a point where all you can do is talk and exclamation or talk and beeps and boops in some technological state because you can't focus on a specific thought for long enough to come up with any congruent sentence or you know conversation. Which is why yeah them having a very fluid conversation was very surprising to me. I mean I I wonder if a lot of what they said you know was something that they just imagined or locked into for a second.

SPEAKER_00 55:49

A lot of it was without I mean a lot of it was with words that was like a big thing. Yeah that's why they got popular I mean they weren't initially but like because Terrence could write yeah like like that and like that appealed to like the whole stoner like ethos of like rapping like just like you know the stream of consciousness flow or whatever tying together like every this that you know like that's you know that's an aspect of paranoia is pattern recognition. So like you know it can be good or bad like it obviously is quite overwhelming at times but reaching this point where you're not even articulating anything anymore you're just like whatever you want to call it like your bleeps and your bloops and your ohms and whatever else are just like you know the um I don't know you know machinic sounds of like the universe or something you know what I mean but like they have meaning in the moment but like you know when the trip is over they it's gone kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

I know in if if you've ever been in a large group of people all hallucinating tripping on LSD um there's a lot of like consensual moaning that occurs.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

Consensual moaning like between each other like do you consent to moan in my personal I guess not consensual but um like everyone kind of lets out these noises all together at the same time it's like being at a concert when there's the vast majority of people there hallucinating there'll be breaks in the music and then everyone kind of lets out a uh like at the same time and it really you know you kind of it it throws you off but it there there has to be yeah yeah yeah you can kind of see the uh appeal you know the dead were still playing when I was a teenage boy I went to a lot of dead concerts yeah and um you know I I kind of I liked it sometimes but like because a lot of times I was sober like um I could hear that the musicianship was falling apart a lot of times but everybody else was just like in some orgasm I mean think of like oneness like stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 57:58

I am the walrus oh I'm the Magman oh like like they're saying nonsense and is it like yeah lyrically or you know musically phenomenal no but like those breaking points it it must have hit everyone all at the same time and they just you know couldn't couldn't do anything except let out these yeah and so one of the things that this kind of leads to for them down in La Torrera is they can't get out of it.

SPEAKER_00 58:22

Or I don't even know if they're trying necessarily but it leads to like I think about six months or something like that of like continuous tripping if I remember or just an extended period. And there's this conversation about metabolism and about like how you know drugs are thought of as you know these things that get metabolized in the Western society and then it's over kind of a thing but it you know it wasn't over you know what I mean for for a long time and you know there was concern at some points although as concerned as Terrence could ever be I suppose which is not too concerned about but I mean maybe there was real concern about Dennis's mental health at one point because he couldn't talk for long long periods of time.

SPEAKER_01 59:03

So yeah I mean I I think the metabolism um is interesting because yeah it has to be gone at that point. Like there I don't think you could argue but they're still tripping balls somehow. I mean that's like you know people I remember one of the things when we were younger one of like the you know uh oh it's it gets stored in your cerebral spinal fluid so it's always with you you know that's why you can crack your back and then you start tripping you know but I think people like to believe that there's something still left in their body afterwards as an explanation for why they could have these you know persistent hallucinogenic disorders or a permatrip you know yeah um how do you I mean how do in general or in in specific how do people get out of them like eventually or oh I mean I think there's certain people that famously never did and I for me the most famous person is Sid Barrett in my generation would know about from Pink Floyd uh tripped and then never got back out of it. Yeah I mean I think there's there are scientific methods that people have attempted uh I know cooling your brain down a few degrees is supposed to shock it out of whatever situation but I think there I think it just has to dissipate. I mean I think you know Terrence discussed their belief that there is some trigger to where their body couldn't the MAO couldn't break down the tryptamine left in their body. So it's like this semi-scientific explanation or whatever yeah I think they have you know they they've correctly identified chemicals yeah but the relation that they have with their body or mind I think they haven't necessarily like made a strong argument for or this causes this they just um yeah I mean I think at one point you know I think one of the first experiences I had that was that was you know 48 I think it was almost up to 60 hours after an experience had ended it hadn't actually ended I had gone to bed woken up I had two veins running down my forehead for about two days independently verifiable veins or like I could see them very clearly you know my room independently verified other other people could see them. Yeah yeah yeah oh yeah uh I remember I woke up you know my college roommate looked at me and he's like dude what is going on you know and um that was that was definitely interesting going to classes still while having these two veins running down my forehead and trying to explain to people what they're from um but yeah I mean I I I think I told you you know one of my longest experiences was almost two years of having some sort of um you know impact from a psychedelic experience where um psychosis NOS was a term that was thrown out not otherwise specified you know due to yeah basically hey I think there's something going on supposedly that happens with dope a lot now like I mean marijuana my mom used to send me articles all the time about you know marijuana and its effects on psychotic states and um I think yeah I I think I I agree partly with the fact that there is something that triggers or something that as I think you said gets turned on that they can know it's a tran if the metaphor is a transistor. Yeah they yeah they got turned on and there's somehow they can't turn it off and I think that plays into their concept too of like the trip isn't the drug it's in your mind the tr the drug just activates the trip. Right yeah yeah so if the drug isn't necessarily what causes you to trip it just triggers what if that trigger never gets you know turned back off I mean I know we've said it a few times and I always love it because it's in a Beatles song but you know tune in tune out drop in drop out I just think people somehow they tune in and they can't really tune out.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

I don't know if yeah that's some sort of Timothy Leary's whole thing is tune in, turn on and drop out. Oh so I just misquoted it entirely no no the Beatles Beatles were you know Timothy you know Timothy Leary f I mean I don't well followers but they were certainly hung hung out with them whatnot. But like you know like so yeah so the the tune in is the the you know the radio metaphor there turn on so like you don't just you turn you don't just turn into the frequency you actually turn on to the frequency so like you become you know resonant with it and I mean it has this like key idea of resonance here um and then you know drop out like you know I was largely interpreted as like like drop out of society yeah yeah drop out of your normal ways of thinking about the world whatever yeah so yeah yeah I mean I think you know going back to our first discussion you know if that default mode network has completely tuned into something outside of itself I mean that's such a that's such a shift that I could see getting stuck on that frequency you know I mean we we talked again about the default mode network how it's a complete like like everything that you you know everything that you used prior has now become obsolete.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

So if you are like how could you crawl back to that m like network you were running before you know there's something that is preventing you. I don't know if it is something that got turned on but something's preventing you from coming back. And I think you know it's like we talked about before it's almost like a traumatic experience when you trip because the snap back to reality is intense. You can feel it in the back of your head like physically maybe you know maybe there's something that you know you're like oh my god you know so I think there's you know traumatic response that you know maybe the brain's just not ready to snap back to reality at that point you know reminds me hearing again I like have read a lot of near-death experience literature as well as psychedelic literature and like there is this snap back moment when people come back into their body and it's like yeah it's quite shocking. So I mean imagine an astral projection you know right yeah coming back and landing back into your body I mean how jarring would that be yeah it sucks too for a lot of people I mean I I just don't think that you know neuroplasticity is you know fat plastic fat plastic yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's not quite it's been stretched a little too thin and I think yeah people break I mean psychotic breaks are not anything that's abnormal and you know and that has scientific backing so why couldn't there be a psychotic break induced by you know psychedelic experience you know it wouldn't have to be a life event I guess a psych a psychedelic experience is like an ultimate life event so like why wouldn't that have the same weight as like a near death experience or loss of a family member you know I think it it it mirrors a lot of trauma um that is that is my experience that was my thing even like I said even with like a pot it's too much for me like it's just super fear like I mean I was like smoking the bullshit in the 90s or whatever I haven't you know smoked since college really and I never even did much then I mean how many people shift in their lifetime how many friends have you met that oh I used to smoke all the time and then there was some sort of shift that experien I haven't day and from that point on they don't get to the same place that they used to. I mean they you know it used to be all fun and they would and then now all of a sudden it in you know a lot of people experience self-doubt they start judging their life and the things that they used to like they kind of believe are now corny and it it really gives like this negative spin when they're stunned you know you can't talk to people you're uncomfortable in social situations. I mean what is that shift? Like why would there be a turning point you know and I think you find that on a lot of drugs like MDA or MDMA or even ketamine use a lot of people experience a shift where it just doesn't respond the same way. It's not that there's a buildup of it you know you could take you know vast breaks in between those things. So everything's been metabolized. It's not like it's compounding on itself but there is something that shifted and something that triggered that shift.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:50

Right yeah yeah so I mean the interplay because the idea here is play uh I mean between science which is like not about play supposedly it's about you know third person objectifiability repr reproducibility you know like whatever uh the idea though that that's the only way of being in the in the world um you know is kind of like my problem like on on that side because then it becomes its own religion it becomes its own religious psychosis frankly um and you know as if it could you know encompass and know all and everything you know like it's you know a version of the one more version of the quest for the philosopher's stone in a sense of like of ultimate knowing and and in some sense it's about control and dominance and all that kind of stuff as we know you know science tech science and technology have given us this incredible amount of control but then there's this other side and this is kind of what the McKinnon brothers tried to bring together which is this more playful trickster like undecidability ambiguity irreducible ambiguity um side of the thing and so um you know I think when we end here the uh idea of Terrence um having this situation where he um uh goes and gets into the I Ching really deeply and so he's like and the I Ching's weird because it's like I mean it's Eastern religion to some degree it's used for different things but again it's like its predictions are remind me of like any of the predictual predictions in Greek mythology of like the Oracle at Delphi they're super vague but there's but at the same time there's like all this this number this number stuff going on uh with and geometry going on with the Ai Ching and its predictions and like reading those predictions but like when you get it it's like super open to interpretation. But anyways he uses like some kind of weird math that he got out of that I can't remember uh it was his own thing to discover that it had a perfect overlap with the Mayan calendar yeah and I mean these are the kind of things that you just experience as true like oh I've made this incredible discovery and you know I guess the Mayan calendar if I if I understand and remembering correctly uh ended in 12 uh 2012. Now Terrence died well before that but like um so he didn't get to see the fact that it didn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:17

I don't I'm not yeah I would I I would imagine he would have been like I think the argument was that there was going to be an end of this reality. Oh okay um I don't know if he was ever saying that there was going to be a cataclysmic apocalypse. Oh I see but I think it was just the end of our reality as we experience it now. It's funny you hear that argument with COVID happening where I've seen it online especially lately where people believe that our reality actually ended in 2020 and we are all now in a in a new in a new because people don't feel the same. I mean it's I'm sure of a trauma response to being isolated and but you know everything's been different since then.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:54

Yeah right not only just the way that we operate financially or like as a society but like there's something that has shifted that we can't get back to where we were before and I think that's my interpretation of what the ending of the world was uh maybe it was more direct in that everything was going to end but um yeah I'm not because well history religion wise again like every failed apocalyptic prediction so every failed you know form of like and there's been a lot uh you know end of the world type theology um eschaton type stuff winds up getting interpreted differently when the actual world does it was like you know there was a very famous one uh in the United States um it was like an Irish prophet guy I think his last name was Darby right now I'm forgetting his name but uh mid uh 19th century so like 1850s like started preaching and like going around uh churches and preaching uh and end time stuff and it was like one of the first like real big ones in in the United States and the United States is like the land of uh end time predictions actually like it's it's been you know like there has been a love affair with the book of revelations here like none other um you know people have just like gone wild with those kind of prophecies and there's a number of religions that exist even today um that had to reinterpret completely reinterpret like their understanding of revelation but like not admit it at the same time yeah like they oh that was what we said we were saying all along kind of thing you know you know I mean so then well it did just not in the way that we initially said yeah so when this happened uh you know that we they people like it was like fit 1850s uh people sold their homes like apparently I don't know how many of them like went up to the rooftops and like the fur and like when it didn't happen the rapture didn't happen like he was like oh I I calculated it slightly wrong it's gonna happen like a couple like yeah months or something like that from now so then like again like you know some people were like oh you're full of shit and then other people were like oh you know this is gonna happen and you know this guy knows he's talking about he just made a little mistake well it's all good and so like you know again you know people like got up on their rooftops waited nothing happened and then um you know uh he kind of like clearly did not predict that correctly yeah but um you know then this prophetess um oh my gosh her name was um I'm gonna mess up the name but Ellen Smith maybe I don't know anyways she uh uh is like this key figure in um Seventh day Adventists um who still exist today theology and what she did basically was she reinterpreted uh you know the prophecies to being like oh yeah no the the the world ended but it was like this like spiritual kind of end and like you know like the temple in Jerusalem was re-established but like it was not the temple in the Jerusalem that's you know in Palestine it's the temple that was in Jerusalem uh in heaven or whatever like and so like the altar has been you know like re-established okay in heaven is just like this metaphysical thing so it's like this you know redoing and then you know seventh day Adventists were born out of that failed millennialism or whatever and then uh when Seventh day Adventists started getting out of the prediction business because like that shit kept going wrong or whatever um you know Book of Revelations was still a big part of their thing but like there was another break within them that became Jehovah's Witnesses where again there was I think that guy's name was Russell was like a World War I veteran um he predicted like World War I but he didn't call it that he predicted that the end of the world would come like in whenever World War I started I forgot 1914 or something like that and like and lo and behold world war one happened and it looked seemed to prove him right or whatever. But then he like said uh his last name was Russell I'm pretty sure anyways he he said like oh well the whole uh world is gonna end for real like and then they actually put out this book the Jehovah's Witnesses as they split from the Seventh day Adventists about this the um that said you know uh millions living now will never die because you know they were saying that like oh like this world is gonna end before all you know all these people die or whatever it's like coming soon or whatever. And there was like in Jehovah's Witnesses like you as Seventh day Adventists got out of like predicting actual dates and just got into like what is like generally like the way theology is now like it's just coming soon kind of a thing. Yeah like not giving an actual date but then like Jehovah's Witnesses um were still giving like dates like left and right and just being wrong and stuff. I mean and now again Jehovah's Witnesses has got gotten out of that because like Millions Living uh now will never die was like written in like 19 whatever 17 and um all those people are dead so um there aren't millions of people left yeah yeah uh or whatever and so and then and the rapture hasn't come or whatever so there's always this kind of reinterpretation and I'm sure I mean I'm not sure I don't know what Terrence would have done. I I wonder if he would have just been like okay I was wrong or whatever but like again towards the end of that chapter in the book like um Eric Davis was saying that you know people that were close to him said like yeah publicly he kind of said like this is is is a BS but like but like in another way if you pushed him on it you could tell he still thought it was real and like he was holding on to it like like he you know he kind of was kind of playing a game with it a little bit and he would actually get pissed like if you pushed him too far.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:30

Well I I think you know even if you get out of a psychotic state there's still going to be remnants of where you how you were in that. I mean me personally um I'll be in meetings um I will be in group uh you know in groups and I remember it used to really bother me if if I thought something inappropriate or a little edgy um and there was like a shift in like people's bodies or there's like a cough I would take that as oh they just like picked up like what I was thinking or what I was like you know and I I still sometimes if I'm in a quiet room and I think something and there's like a shift I think that is people almost like getting uncomfortable with what I just thought. Even though I don't walk around on a day-to-day basis thinking these things you know there's still something like that that I still sometimes you know am I picking up on a pattern here that uh you know still holds true you know like am I still getting that confirmation that what I originally or used to think you know still pertains you know yeah I think it's so so common even you know for people that have never experienced you know full blown psychosis or drug-induced psychosis or anything like that is just like this are the patterns that I'm seeing real or not?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:44

Yeah um and that's gonna be a really big um are the connections that I'm making real or not is like that's gonna be a big theme uh of religious experience uh particularly religious psychosis but just of any religious experience yeah and then um you know so like when we're talking about you know spiritual seeking it's a part of like the whole discourse because you know in a lot of churches you're gonna see like the guy who believes the most you know you think would be the winner of the the faith or whatever. But like most people in the church like that guy's never going to be on the board of elders because you know he's like a raving lunatic or whatever even though he's saying that he believes all the thing that we claim we believe. You know he like winning in the belief department but losing in like the the rest of you know the reality department or whatever. Anyways I forgot what that woman's name who like reinterpreted the uh failed rapture prediction in the 1850s was Ellen White was her name. Anyway um we'll wrap it up here just to say that one other legacy of uh of uh Terrence's um I don't know thought is the stoned ape thesis which I think is stuck around a little bit but I mean what's what it what's what's your thoughts on that or what is it and what's your thoughts on that I mean yeah it's definitely become popular sized um my understanding of it is that we are all descendants of apes who got their hands on psychedelic mushrooms and ate so many that they grew conscious and evolved to what we're and that's why we are the way we are now kind of I mean I think it's crude.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:18

I think it you know I think it takes two fun ideas and creates something out of it. I think it's interesting. I think it really kind of alleviates some of the pressure of uh who we are as people if we're just a bunch of stoned apes walking around with each other um without somehow we've continued to resonate with that higher level of consciousness that was opened by mushrooms.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:43

I mean there are examples supposedly of dogs like getting addicted to magic mushrooms and stuff like that that are around and like licking including like they're probably bullshit stories but licking toads and stuff like that just to like get high or whatever. Maybe they're elevating their doggy consciousness to the next level God only knows.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:04

Terrence especially um wanted to kind of humble society in a sense I know he talked about you know if you can humble yourself down to something that grows in cow cow shit you know like you know then then you can you know expand and you know get more of an understanding of why we're here and who we are you know I think he was probably tired of a lot of modern day you know egotistical controlling behavior and wanting to bring everyone down a notch. Yeah yeah and I think if a stoned ape theory um was able to bring down society at least to humble and be you know have a little humility for who we are and scope of the universe then he could throw anything out there. You know it didn't have to have scientific basis. Yeah so the only difference between us and chimpanzees is that we uh ate a lot of mushrooms and they didn't that's it that's it that that is a very A to B argument that uh you know doesn't need a whole lot of back there is a lot of like continual like controversy about like what is the difference why are we this different yeah I mean than the rest of the animal kingdom and so I think a religious background you know like why do we only put um true like like why are humans the anomaly?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:18

Why why are we the only ones that get this you know um yeah anyway awesome session Dominic thank you for doing this with me I really appreciate it uh next time we are on to uh Robert Anton Wilson and we're gonna see yet another example of some total bullshit that like comes to fruition in particular the Illuminati yeah uh so this is gonna be a lot of fun but well he but again he has a lot of good ideas that are actually useful that we can we can talk about and think about and then finally um the session after that PKD PKD so yeah I can't wait for this anyway