The Proud American Podcast with Sean and Cass

(upbeat music)

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity.

This is synchronicity. (upbeat music)

Welcome to synchronicity. My guests this week are Sean Dunn and Cass Greener from the Very Eight Podcast on MindPod Network. Have I mentioned MindPod Network lately? I probably haven't 'cause I really haven't been focusing on it, but guess what? My dear friend Nathan continues. Every month the podcasts are aggregated and put up on the site and I know based on the donations that come into MindPod Network, not many, but enough to make it worthwhile for me to not to be like, "This is stupid, I'm not gonna do this anymore." A site that is actually people enjoy and they like all the stuff put together.

So that's going on. So yeah, this week we have Sean and Cass. I stopped by their place in Brooklyn. It was a great time. I did a double dose in the city. I recorded another podcast with Michael Donovan. That one's very interesting. These are like two sides of the coin. It was done in the same day. You'll get a real taste of what my experience was in New York the other day. This is a long podcast that's fun. It's just a regular old conversation. At first, I honestly forgot whose podcast this was. It was just such a conversation. I was like, "I guess yeah, that's mine." Totally forgot. It's just having fun with my friends.

So that's what this is. We definitely get into Jordan Peterson. You're gonna hear Jordan Peterson come up a few different times on this podcast. Love talking about Jordan Peterson and finding out people's opinions. You will hear ours pretty clearly in this podcast and subsequent podcast. It's just one of those questions that is a polarizing thing for most people, which I find very interesting. It's a certain type of energy surrounding that, which we directly address in this. So that's pretty fun. We talk about whole other shit. Communism, socialism, capitalism, psychedelics, revolution. I don't really fully remember just so much awesome stuff in this one.

I know you guys are gonna enjoy it because I have been re-listening to it and I just recorded it yesterday. So that's a good sign. If I can listen to myself have a conversation again that soon after, good stuff. So that's it. Thank you to Patreon patrons. You continue to support the show. Really, you offset, let me say this very clearly and this is cool to me. If anything else, the costs of running the show, very not a lot, like 200 bucks a month, tops are covered completely by all the patrons of this show. That's really fucking cool. So I really appreciate that. I have truthfully, this is a confession and this is one of the reasons I haven't been totally actively tuning into MindPod Network as a business entity.

There are many reasons for that. But one of them is I've stopped paying attention to statistics and measurements related to social media, analytics, if it's a business project, I'm doing it for a client or something, of course. I'll pay attention and they have to analyze that for my own projects and creative projects. This is something I actually learned from Sean and Cass really because I think their ethos regarding their podcast is one of the coolest things. They're like, yeah, we don't really care. And they genuinely don't care. And shit seems to work out for them just fine. And I think that's a real trusting part and they trust in their ability and their just belief that the universe is gonna provide to them, which sounds really wooey.

But in a weird way, it tends to work out. And I've noticed that myself, even just in making commitments in terms of creativity to myself that external stuff starts to happen. And that shouldn't be surprising. Talk about this stuff all the time. It still surprises me. Whenever synchronicity is something like, this shit still surprises me. So it's not something that really fades just because you have awareness of it. So that's pretty cool. What else was I talking about? I don't know. Fun episode, enjoy yourself. Enjoy the weather if it's getting nice by you. If not, enjoy that, if you can. All right.

I will see you at the end of this episode. Here is Sean Dunn and Cass Greener from The Very Eight Podcast. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) There's some websites, but I ended up getting this one from Etsy.

Oh.

Yeah.

It's really cool.

It's like a 14 inch log, and you just leave it outside, and it does its thing. Or you could have it inside, and it does its thing, but.

And in like a closet or something.

Yeah. And they say if you dip it in cold water for 12 to 24 hours, you can mimic the--

This is really cool.

Environment of winter, and get it to flower more often. I don't know if that's the right terminology, but yeah, bloom, I don't know.

My sister's been taking, my sister with epilepsy has been taking lion's main mushrooms every day because they're really anti-inflammatory, like healing mushroom.

This is the thing.

But it's expensive.

Mushrooms are like the new, not the new, but there's a mushroom meme going on that's been percolating obviously for a very long time, but it seems incredibly prominent right now. It's good, I'm glad that it's helping, because like I, what did I take, Rishi? I do a Rishi thing.

That helps really give her that.

Yeah, it's really, 'cause they're like really interesting organisms. I think a lot of people think they come from outer space. I don't know if that theory has any validity.

I kind of think that seems kind of like it.

Like it's, well, I mean, mushrooms totally change Casa and I's life.

Yeah.

And it felt like something not of this earth. You know, obviously the realms of consciousness you get pushed into felt not of this earth. And you know, the first time we ever took mushrooms, psychedelic mushrooms, I had no clue what the psychedelic realm was or anything like that. We smoked a lot of weed, but we had no idea. And next thing you know, this stuff is like telling us messages very specific to our world that we needed to carry out to appease it.

What does it, did you take that for?

I would probably guess an eighth, any. I heard of your heroic dose, which you did. I unintentionally, I didn't know who Terrence McKenna was in college. And I took routinely seven to 10 grams of mushrooms.

Whoa, oh geez, why would you do that again?

I, okay, well, what happened with the mushrooms was is you hit a point where it kind of normalized, like, okay, so this was the situation. I had a roommate who I knew from back home, who I moved in with. This is after getting switched from a previous roommate who was just like this Colorado kid who used to tell people he was a virgin in college. So girls would sleep with him. Definitely wasn't, like probably a Veneros. Like just like total douchebag, knock, wool guy.

What a move.

So I know, I was like, dude, he's like, yeah.

That works.

Apparently, he was a friend.

I don't need to use a condom, so.

This was my first freshman roommate. So this is my first roommate, moved out with him, moved in with this other roommate who I knew from kind of a weird dude. And he immediately fell in line with like the shadiest of shady people who one of them was this drug dealer who was like had ketamine, like we're like 18 in Boston. This dude has like powder, he's cooking up ketamine upstairs and I'm like, what the fuck, how did you meet this guy? Anyway, he one day comes in with this huge industrial-sized trash bag of, I don't know what. And he's like, oh, thanks for letting us do this here. I'm like, what?

What are you talking about? And he's like, yeah, just like take as much as you can carry. So I was like, what? And I was like, what? And I open it up and just pack to the brim of mushrooms, psychedelic mushrooms, insane. So I was like, okay, I know, I'm like gonna waste this opportunity. So I grab like legitimately, I don't know, half a pound, like a lot of dried mushrooms, like a lot, enough. And so me and my friends, you know, for the next like, I don't know about time during that time period, so I did a lot of mushrooms. So like, that's how I ended up scaling up into like, all right, I'm gonna do like seven grams.

I'm gonna do this cap that weighs five grams plus this other shit. So it normalized at a certain point, but I lost that. I remember doing mushrooms after that and it was just like heavy doses, like, you know, I'd do like a 16th, you know, a little over a gram and I'd be rocked like back in the day. So I think it was just like a period, especially in my life where those worlds were merging so regularly that it wasn't that I was desensitized to it. Just like my conception of the world wasn't that different than what it would be like and if you were on mushrooms. And that's LSD for us right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that happened to me too.

Five to seven grams though is like so much. Like I just feel like, I mean, I did five grams and I was like, I don't know, I was having crazy hallucinations. The peaks are, but like mushrooms for me always lasted a lot shorter than LSD. I would basically be tripping 18 hours, 12 hours. Mushrooms, like hour seven, six.

Oh, they're gone. I'm smoking maybe being like, oh yeah, I don't really feel

That's true and even on the highest of doses.

Yeah, and it's pretty quick. It's a pretty regular like, okay, we're up. We feel them coming up and then we're having this really, yeah, the carpet's breathing. I forget I have to breathe at a certain point. The crazy shit happens and the lessons and the what, but you know, after that, it is kind of a drift back into normalcy, so to speak, where I remember LSD, that merging, you know, and various levels on the spectrum would just, you know, there's no difference anymore. Like that's what I think it was. It's just like a little, and I used to tell people that when they were tripping and it freaked some people out.

I was like, you don't really need the acid. Like you don't need it. Like I get it, but like it's the same thing. Like that's the whole thing. I used to tell that Maharaj story before I even knew the fucking list. So I am.

About how we took the 900 micrograms or the 1200.

And didn't feel anything. And the, you know, I found that to be a profound parable before I even knew who any of those people were, just because I was like, yeah, that kind of lines up with my initial psychedelic experiences also in Boston when I was 15. You know, I was just like, oh, this is actually what's going on. Like this is closer to what's going on than what I thought. Like I know at least now that what I thought was going on is definitely not the whole picture. So I think the more you kind of penetrate that, it's helpful. You know, I do think that's a really valuable state. And I see people who can reliably go there and integrate that into this world.

Quote unquote as a skill set. That's why I think microdosing is so big right now.

Yeah, I've definitely thought of it as like a skill I've developed over the pet. Well, we took acid for the first time three years ago and how much, 300 micrograms, and it was pretty far out.

Is this one?

Yeah, yeah, that's 10. Okay, 10 micrograms. But yeah, I mean, when we first took the acid, I remember that being a really, really profound thing, like almost eerie feeling of like, this is very peaceful. This is very familiar, like yeah.

Oh yeah, I remember one of the first things I said was like, is this before after acid? Like I hadn't even, I couldn't, time was like, wait, have I done this before? I've of course done this before, wait, what?

Yeah, yeah. But to your point, I had read Be Here Now and those stories about named Krolli Baba. And like, I was like, while it makes sense to me, because, you know, having that firmly fixed of an eye on God, of course you're gonna start to, you know, feel that way. I was, I hadn't, I couldn't relate with it. And I was like, that's something to strive for, and that's been the work over the last three years, is I feel like we've just integrated much more of the psychedelics into our life without having to take them all the time, but just being better people, being more mindful people, our meditations are much deeper, they're consistent.

We haven't missed, God, we never miss meditating twice a day for four years. And it started with the mushrooms. You know, like the opposite made.

Well, we hear people say that a lot of people are like, "Oh, I need to meditate more." Like, even like people like yourself, I'm like, "I don't even say that anymore." I've given up the aspiration to meditate somewhat in the hopes that when I have it, I'll do it.

So you don't even feel like doing it?

No, because like, if I feel like doing it, it's rare that I'll reliably put it aside. Like, nah, I'm not gonna do that. I just don't think to do it. If I was coming up a lot and I was like, "I'm not gonna do that." I'd probably do it. 'Cause then I'd be like, "Oh, I'm clearly resisting something there." Also, again, to people were talking before, I didn't have any fucking time. Like, I know that sounds crazy, but I mean like--

You need time.

In my regular life, and I can meditate two, three minutes a day, I can't meditate when I smoke weed, I can't do it. It doesn't mean that I'm, you know, that's why I don't meditate. It's that my mind needs a certain level of baseline, kind of normalcy for lack, it's not normalcy, but just like not a lot of stuff going on. When I like to smoke, I like to have thoughts and thinking, you know, creativity and all of those things. That's why I don't smoke. I also need space around that to achieve that baseline. When I'm stressed out, the idea of trying to meditate and I know that's probably the best time, it's just like can't.

It just like, it doesn't feel like I have the space to sit down, and I really do think that is an environment that you could be able to theoretically meditate anywhere, but like creating in a nice environment for yourself.

I think you have high standards for your meditation. And it's like--

Maybe.

I don't know for me, I'm like, I can't not do it because it's just such a crucial recharge. Like even if I just spend the whole time with my mind going crazy, like just like watching it go crazy, I mean, that's everything.

I have not found the place where that brings me some added benefit into my practical life yet. I think it's probably just due to my own impatience more than anything else.

I wonder if it's like a personality trailer. Are you more of an extroverted person?

That's absolutely not. I'm incredibly introverted. I'm an extroverted introvert, meaning in a social situation I can seem very extroverted and get along with anyone, but truthfully, I'm most happy by myself, creating something, whether it's pleasant or not, like having that, that's like what I prefer to do. I'm a homebody. So I like that, but you know, yeah. Yeah, meditation has been, I've done it regularly too. It's just something that, man, when I'm stressed out, I can't. It's not like I enjoy like, oh, there's my mind. It's like, ah, I'm particularly agitated and this is uncomfortable, it probably should lean in.

Yeah, it's one of those things like acid, it became the first time we did it, the first time we ever meditated, you know, we do TM 'cause we just didn't even know where to start early again, so we just went over and took these classes and they teach you on the first day and you start repeating a mantra in your head and all of a sudden 20 minutes later, you come out of it, you know, somebody comes over and they're like, okay, cool, that was it. I was like, they're like, yeah, I'm like, that felt like two minutes and also I feel incredible. I'm never not doing that, I'm never not doing that. Like, that's, you know, like, holy shit, I needed that so badly, you know.

What's your mantra, now you have to tell me your secret mantra, no, I know, that's the secret. (laughing) Maybe you just got a really good one, you guys just got a really good one.

Well, Cass actually had a hard time the first couple days and it was repeating herself up. (laughing) And it's hard to get into a groove.

I still have a hard time, I'll be honest. Sometimes I do a whole meditation, I don't even touch my mantra once. And it's like, well, I know other techniques which is like breathing or loving kindness, meditation.

Yeah, that was my favorite. I was down with the loving, I should do that one again. That one I actually really like.

Yeah, and that's the whole thing. Like once you have a foundation for your practice, like for us, it's TM, then we decorate it with so many other things. Now we're like, yeah, fuck it, let's do some chanting, let's do breathing like this.

I deal with that. - In addition to it and what we've noticed is, I think for me, it's a focus thing, when we're meditating and we're doing it right and everything's good, there's just much more focus in our life and we played on a dark team, competitively.

Bullseye? - Bullseye?

Well, and the funny thing is we micro-dosed every single week, so I couldn't even tell you if the micro-dosed helped or not. We didn't-- - There's no faith that was fun. - Yeah, but we did do it testing it without meditating a couple times and those were our worst weeks.

Mm, no focus, like the focus wasn't there.

It makes everything easier, I feel like.

Yeah, it makes things easier.

I don't know, life can feel particularly hard to me sometimes, but if I just like--

I wonder-- - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, all the evidence does line up that it is a good thing to do. There are both people, I also, you guys know, I have a weird relationship with the mindfulness scene in general, just meditation, which is throwing the baby out with the bath water in some respect and I don't, that's why I don't think this is nonsense. Yeah. - We don't listen to any of it. Like, whatever people are preaching out there, I don't even know, I have no idea what the experts are.

Well, that's why you guys-- - You guys, what they're doing, special cases.

We're like in a little bit of a bubble, we took mushrooms and it compelled us to want to nurture the path back to that oneness and meditation seems like a way we could do that on the natch and now we have other ways of doing it, but meditation's never gonna, never not gonna be a part of it. And, you know, it doesn't make us better or more disciplined or anything like that. It's just like, I literally desperately needed that. I couldn't take psychedelics-- - Right.

If we didn't have meditation.

Why haven't? - You know, like, I really, really would not fuck with those realms unless I had more access to them on my day-to-day.

So it's so great about psychedelics 'cause I feel like I live my life in order to honor what my experience on psychedelics will be and I try to have a psychedelic experience that will honor my life, you know? So both of them kind of inform each other.

That's a very profound thing that I'm gonna have to listen to again to really unpack. That's super, that's a really practical way of integrating two different sides to some experience.

And it's a great practical way to live a life of service, you know, you're honoring yourself and your experience and, you know, you're trying to keep it on a certain level in your day-to-day so that when you go to take these psychedelic trips and go really far out that, you know, there's a tether.

Yeah. - There.

And then when you do go really far out, you wanna go really far out so you know what the deep end is like.

I just know how crazy it is when you forget to breathe and I'm just not interested in that.

I tricked that's what I was saying when I did mushrooms in college. I convinced myself I didn't know how to breathe. Literally, I was like, whoa, and I don't, and it was probably, yeah, in real time, it was probably like four seconds. In my mind, I'm like, oh my God, I'm dying. Like, I don't know how to do this anymore. I was like, okay, it's like someone probably didn't notice it looking at me, I'm just spewing something.

Mm-hmm. - Yeah, yeah.

We've been listening to, you ever listen to Robert Anton Wilson or Rita and his stuff?

So funny, of course.

Yeah, yeah.

It's in capital Paris. Okay, you realize I just, I've been jogging again with my newfound time.

Well, that's great. That's as good as a meditation, man.

Oh, I love it. And it's so hard now because I hadn't done it in a while and I love it. I've been listening to, I'm pointing at my phone, Robert Anton Wilson explains everything.

Oh yeah, oh, critical listening.

What's so interesting about it is, it was recorded, I think, like 2000 or something like that.

Sounds like you're talking about now. Like, it is, and it's one of those things you realize, like, holy shit, he penetrated enough to be able to speak about anything, even if it's the most culturally political, specific time period thing that is so timeless that is just incredible. I didn't discover him until I went to the beach last year. I'm going to again soon. Right when Sirius was visible, I listened to Cosmic Trigger for the first time and he was talking about a point in his life in Cosmic Trigger where shit was just going bad. Like, he had, you know, left this job at Playboy. Like, shit was going bad and I was in such a similar position that the beach and I'm like, and Sirius was there in the old books about Sirius.

I was like, what the fuck? So I love Robert Anton Wilson.

Oh my God, he's some sort of prophet. It was like, it was such a relief when we found him. Remember that feeling like, oh God.

Like, I needed another chosen father to enter my world right now.

So good.

Yeah, yeah. The one that we really love is the acceleration of knowledge, which I think is within the Robert Anton Wilson explains anything, I think one of the parts is called the acceleration of knowledge.

Yeah.

That one all, you know, and he has this way of doing it kind of in like a George Carlin way. Very loose in conversational New York, you know, hanging out. And but what he's doing is like in that process, he's piercing the veil and then burning the veil and melting your face.

So awesome.

In a very simple, like in a matter of fact, kind of slow pace.

Oh, that's great.

I'm with a little sense of humor about it.

Yeah, amazing. I got a little tangential, little parenthetical, like, oh, and by the way, and I was like, when I listen to him, I'm like jotting shit down and fucking have million tabs open, trying to just catch all these references because, Manny, I mean, he's on McKenna's level in terms of that, well read.

Here's the thing. I love McKenna. I don't take most of what McKenna says all that seriously. The vast majority of it I take, and some of this is because, you know, they're, I don't, I haven't taken psychedelics at macro dose in almost 10 years. So I have no pejorative experience.

Come hang out Saturday night.

We're moon gathering.

What do you guys take on the phone?

Oh, I have, we'll talk about that. But towards the end of his life, the last 10, 15 years, he wasn't taking psychedelics, which doesn't mean anything to me in terms of, we should take him seriously or not seriously. But I think so many people put what he said towards the beginning, and even in the end, when he was just whimsically saying stuff, which is why I love Terence McKenna. He's one of my favorite people. The eloquence of which he offers ideas, novel ideas, is like my favorite thing. It's like,

It's what paved the way for this, what we're doing.

I can't, I couldn't imagine anyone better to like, squire that in. So like, Robert Anton Wilson, the reason I put him above McKenna is, there is a groundedness level of his experiences growing up, also with a family, with a wife that is very relatable to people like me who--

New York Irish Catholic. I mean, come on, there you go.

There you go, right? Which is like weirdly when I hear him tell him like, man, this guy sounds like a Jewish guy too. Like it's this very interesting way about him, but there's this practicality, and this looseness about life, and watching someone go through the householder's role, and play that dance. I think it's fucking cool, because I think a lot of people think that, you know, when you get married, or you have a kid, or relationship, that kind of dies down, and like, you know, the magic can be lost, and that's just bullshit. Like, it's hilarious to me that you mentioned Robert Anton Wilson, because there's, you know, obviously as you know, he talks about synchronicities very often, and he's like, "Listen, the more--"

What is he called? It's a secret cosmic control center. The more you prod that shit, the more they pop up, so it's funny how he, himself, has become kind of a meme for synchronicity, and operates those up, which, yeah.

Well, the reason that we keep taking psychedelics is to prod that control center for us, and like, I mean, to me, for us, I would say it's important that we keep doing this. It's important that we keep doing this work with psychedelics, and continue it, hopefully for the rest of our lives.

I really appreciate Michael Pollan who's going around, who did the omnivore stilemma. He's going around saying, like, you know, everyone should be doing this on their birthday, like a check-in.

Once a year.

Once a year.

A check-in.

I think that is incredibly wise advice.

Well, I mean, what we have to do is culturally pave the way for that, and we've noticed it in the four years we've been doing psychedelics, and we started this podcast because of the mushrooms and everything. We've noticed it go from something you literally can't bring up around your family to something the most conservative people in your family are coming up to you saying.

So do you know how to get mushrooms?

It's like crypto.

Yes, it kind of, yeah, yeah.

Oh, there's connection there. We don't have to get into it, but no, I agree. The fact the Pollan book, that's crazy. I don't think people realize how big of a deal that will be in the future, and we look back and be like, oh, that was a big turning tipping point for this because our parents all knew who Michael Pollan is, there are people who watch Netflix on his cook special, he's well known. The Omnivores Dilemma, very profound book. This is gonna hit a lot of people. I didn't know he's advocating for a once a year annual check-in. I think he was saying that shit.

He was saying that shit on Stephen Colbert.

Talk about mainstream.

Which, and we're not marveling that this is some profound thing to do. We're marveling that this is getting out to mainstream.

That's like, finally.

Yeah, I'm curious to see what the impact will be.

Well, it'll be the same impact we hope to have with this podcast is like the de-stigmatization and normalization, so people can consider psychedelic healing because I think what people who aren't having a tough go at mentally don't consider is what it's really like for people who are dealing with anxiety and PTSD and debilitating depression or all this stuff that can be dealt with through psychedelics.

And it's currently being dealt with drugs that don't work and are actually very harmful.

Yeah, yeah, so it's just like we need to have that shift culturally within ourselves and say no, this is important, like the way, when I look at it and when I look at the studies and the statistics, especially with marijuana and psilocybin, I'm like, holy shit, this country isn't having a mental health problem, it's having a mushroom deficiency. You know, like people need, we need these mushrooms. We need, we've needed this all along. We've relied on these things probably until the past, blink of an eye in human history. We've relied on these things to guide us to help us know ourselves. And I think that's what Michael Pollan is really going to help people understand what this book is like.

This is a way of getting to know who you are again that cuts through all the cultural programming. This is a way to get to know who you are again and that's where the healing starts, yeah.

It's a political revolution in the making because it'll be like the war on consciousness which Graham Hancock talks so beautifully about but that's what people are gonna continue to realize like with marijuana, like wait, I'm not allowed to do this.

Let me play the Robert Anton Wilson chaos magician here for a second. I mean, I agree, no, I couldn't possibly agree more. And maybe just 'cause I listened to him speak about this stuff, it does seem like there are plenty of opposing forces where I, we're in New York right now. We live in a, what is thought of a very liberal state, a very blue state. No, it's not. There's some of the strictest laws for marijuana in this state relative to the entire East coast. It's the marijuana arrest capital of the world.

It's insane. And New Jersey is about to legalize. Massachusetts is legalized Vermont, New Hampshire. So it seems like, but they're fucking fighting it tooth and nail. So to me, if marijuana is being fought this far, which is the dumbest of fights, it's just like a dumb fight, not even if you think, unless you think it's actually really just killing people at an alarming rate, that's the only reason if you thought that somehow it brings in revenue, it makes people gentler, kindler, it can make people deal with their issues. You don't have to do it. It's not compulsory. We're not saying you have to smoke weed.

If they're fighting that so hard, it does even on the flip side of the pollen stuff, wonder like, you know, Robert Anton Wilson is talking about it. We take it for granted at this point. It seems like corporations and special interests like truthfully run the shit and cryptocurrency here has really helped expose this layer for me because it's like, oh man, these people who I thought were like fighting the good fight, some of them like, oh no.

Well, here's what it all comes down to. This is a paragraph from Michael Palm's book. And this speaks to what you were just saying. The pharmaceutical drug industry, whose 10 largest companies all publicly owned, earned around $440 billion in revenue in 2014, when global revenue of legal drugs exceeded one trillion for the first time, would lose probably tens to eventually hundreds of billions of dollars annually if psychedelics became legal. Because hundreds of millions of people could then cheaply and effectively and sustainably, instead of expensively, ineffectively, toxically, and fatal, relieve and/or treat depression, anxiety, addiction, pain, inflammation, insomnia, nausea, epilepsy, cancer, asthma, dementia, arthritis, fibromyalgia, cluster headaches, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, Tourette, and other problems with cannabis, psilocybin, DMT, Salvia, LSD, Mescalin, and Ibogaine.

As users of psychedelics have known or suspected for millennia, aboriginals have known for tens to hundreds of millennia, and science has begun to confirm since the 50s in two main waves of research, the second beginning in 2006 at Johns Hopkins and New York University.

Yeah, I mean, his gamble, that's awesome.

Well, I mean, that's what it all comes down to. These companies know exactly what's going on, and they're gonna lose hundreds of billions of dollars.

That's my point. And Michael Pawn's gamble and what we're excited about potentially is that information and knowledge will liberate this shackle. I would say I'm probably less optimistic of psychedelics being legalized in the near future than I was probably like two or three years ago, specifically because of what seems like people are having a hard time discerning between relatively plain truths about the world now. This is such a nebulous, and even we would admit, sometimes a psychedelic experience, if we didn't have the experiences we had and weren't the people we were, would probably not be pleasant or even necessarily beneficial if someone didn't want to confront and face some of those things.

So it puts it in a category that I think is behind some of these other things that we have to like, I think we have a better chance of loosening like the prison industrial complex potentially, which is very powerful too. I don't think it's powerful as a pharmaceutical company, so I'd be interested to see that. But you know, I think subversively, this book has the cultural like mimatic power to like really do what we're talking about. I think if enough people, maybe it is just that people don't know in power positions that this could help their dying loved one or someone going through a difficult experience, or it could be they do know, but they also know that, you know, the system also supports their life as they know it.

So I don't know, it's an interesting dance that's being played out.

People need to get serious and demand this shit because what do you guys do for political stuff? I'm thinking about this. I got Fosso up there and he's a Republican.

Oh. - He's just like, my county is both duchesses leaning both ways. It's slowly turning blue, but this dude's like a dick. He's supported every like bad Trump thing that he's done.

Yeah.

I'm gonna vote.

But what do you do?

Are you in a Trump county?

Yes. - Just a duchess vote for Trump.

Yes, by like 4%.

Holy shit.

Dude, it's-- - New York Starbucks.

Because like seriously, that's not far outside New York City, man.

Columbia County right up there, I think, go to two. Like you see Confederate flags in various places.

No, I know, it's bizarre.

They have Redneck accent up there.

You know, it's so weird. - You're like, what the fuck? Hey man, how you doing? I'm from motherfucking Hudson, New York.

Yeah. - It's like, what?

Yeah, man.

It's weird.

But no, we're radicals when it comes to that stuff. You know, we're, I guess, politically aligned with the socialists, but more ideal, ideologically aligned with communism.

My communism. I don't know anymore because my ideas, like I liked Bernie Sanders when that was happening.

Hell yeah.

But after getting involved in cryptocurrency stuff, I've unfortunately, I don't agree with a lot of everyone's opinion, they're libertarians and libertarians, I think have their own kind of weird white male bent that doesn't really make a lot of sense for everyone. However, there is some very disturbing patterns of everyone in the political realm of basically that they don't actually get this shit done, that they're saying should be done, not because people aren't letting them do it, but because it doesn't work. It doesn't make sense. Not that saying like we shouldn't have free medical care for everyone, but that the systems that they're doing, they full well know is more a vehicle for them rising through the ranks than actually promoting change.

'Cause if someone stood up and it's like, fuck this, my whole platform is legalized weed, that's all I'm gonna campaign for, they'd be gone. So that's kind of like, that's why I say like, what do, I don't know what to do. I'm not running for politics.

Well, first of all, we have to vote in the primaries if you can vote in the Democratic primaries.

Next, next.

Yeah, vote for Cynthia Nixon because she's running on legalization.

I know, I'm voting for her.

And she's running on dismantling the, you know.

Well fuck for as long as.

Cuomo is a dick.

He's the worst.

Sheaves in wolf and sheep's clothing.

And you know what, the thing is, his dad was the governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, when I was growing up, he wasn't that bad of a guy.

That's what I hear.

He wasn't that bad of a governor, he wasn't that bad of a guy. I met him, I hung out with him, I did some interviews and stuff with him, but he's a good man, who's principled. His son, Andrew Cuomo, I can't even, I could go on a two hour rant about how this guy's the fucking pits.

The game's so dirty, and if you're in the game, you're playing pretty much.

Most more people don't, that's where maybe this has more power than we're talking about, but 'cause subversively people, I think a lot of smart people are like, why would I get into politics? But then does there need to be the noble torch-carrying person who does get in and takes one for the team? I don't know, because it does still have such a massive impact on our day-to-day lives, whether we realize it or not, whether we're tuning in, it's not, I don't mean we wake up like old government, but like the subtle things that connect the person down the street. These things are really, their consciousness is very much affected by this stuff.

So it's just this weird kind of like, what do you do in terms of social action? It seems like the polarization that immediately happens with any stance you take is just like, I don't know where you guys stand on gun control. I don't think banning all guns solves whatever problem this is. I don't like guns, I don't mind guns. And when you do that, who does it inevitably come down on? Minority communities. Who does it inevitably is the victims of that kind of thing? Who gets their guns taken? Who gets disarmed? The people that need it the most really when it comes down to it. Like actual protection in dangerous situations that aren't their own creative.

I think the move is enforcement of me. Do you guys ever, do tune in Jordan Peterson, Jim? No, but YouTube certainly wants me to. My whole thing, my whole algorithm. It's algorithmic, okay. It's just like, fuck you. Because you're a white and you're a guy. And they think you need Daddy to tell you what's going to do. Maybe if you listen, because you listen to Joe Rogan. Yeah, maybe because I click on Joe Rogan clips. Oh god, this guy is very interesting. Jordan Peterson. There's two characters right now who I am not fascinated with, but I note their poll on people's psyches on a mass level. One is Jordan Peterson.

Who's an idiot? Just let's be clearly. I don't know. Let's just sidestep that all thing. I mean, he's a ding dong and has a seemingly good enough intellectual grasp on uni and concepts. He doesn't know shit. He's a dipshit. He creeps me out first and foremost, 'cause he describes himself as a traditionalist. And that couldn't be further away from the way I look at things. And the way things should be a traditionalist. Fuck you. What he means is, he's an idiot. At the other is Kanye West. Who I love, who many people don't like that I love. Or think that I'm crazy. To me, Jordan Peterson is this person who has clearly figured out how to not manipulate, but gain attention and awareness through the channels that exist.

It's a very clever, highly verbal, intellectual word, but I think that works for our online culture and for how people wanna hear things debated. And this perspective happens to lean to a demographic that has money, whether it's their parents or their own to support that type of whatever it is. I also know some really smart people, my friend Adam Sommer, who runs the Exploring Astrology Podcast, which is great and is pretty damn fucking woo-woo, really finds Jordan Peterson compelling. So there's something else there that is something, Oh, I couldn't agree more. And he hates Kanye West. I'm like, oh, what's going on?

The reason Kanye is so interesting, Kanye is a mystic. Kanye is not someone who has any control over any logical, as far as I can tell, any logical reasoning capability relative to the rest of the world, when he has a thought, he thinks it's the first time anyone has ever had that thought and everyone needs to know about it. Like, truly, you see it. It's like, if he's just acid with someone and they're like, we got like, what if this isn't real? It's like, yes. Dude, I hate doing acid with those kind of people. I happen. Anyone else realizing that we're made of love? You know, it's like, calm down.

We're all having our own thing. That was me for three months, by the way. If you hated that, imagine just the person who came around that's all they would talk about 24/7.

Oh, I'm fine with that. That's kind of how we are, but I can't handle the during the trip of people being like, can I just take everyone into exactly what I'm going through, right?

No, no, no.

It'd be like getting to narrate your dream in real time. It's like, just stop.

No, no, no, no, no.

You know, speaking of Kanye, that I think probably the most compelling documentary I've seen all year was the extended cut of when he went into TMZ Live.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Holy shit.

That was good, right? You're a document, you know?

Good.

Human moment.

Thank you, thank you.

And what a real cultural moment.

Thank you.

And when that guy confronts him and says Kanye, man, you're off.

You're what the fuck is going on?

You're off here. It's wild, it's so real.

That's why I love--

He's a mystic.

He's crambling to compensate, and like, he doesn't know what to do.

He doesn't know, that's why I love it. Kanye, people wanna think that they wanna be mad at Kanye 'cause he's dumb related to shit that you're asking this dude who, you know, lost his mom, is at a level of fame that almost no one can understand. Almost no one, there are very few people who can understand that level of fame, and I put him higher than just like other regular, like acting and cultural fame. When there's a piece of music that's timeless, they can get played over and over again, and that pattern is, that's really quite amazing.

You're in there, you know.

Yeah, and his music is truly incredible, which leads me to the mystic thing. So I don't think he's just like this, and every description I've heard of him, Jay-Z on Dave Letterman thing was pretty cool when I talk about Kanye 'cause he's like, yeah, Kanye would just like jump on the table and start yelling shit, and they're like, "Kani, get the fuck out of the matter with you." 'Cause he's just like nuts, he's like a kid, and I think he's thrust into like this very difficult position, and people don't take that into consideration 'cause they think he's Kanye, and he should take it, and he should know better, and it's like, "Nah, he's like, this is what the fuck is going on."

He's the highly creative person who luckily can channel that into music for us to hear, 'cause otherwise he'd probably be on the streets and we don't know what the fuck this is. Definitely like, but I don't think he's crazy crazy. I just think that people have a hard time seeing what he's putting out, and I think if you get it, he's incredibly enjoyable, and of course needs to be like, G-checked and be like, dude, slavery wasn't a choice, what the fuck you talking about.

He brings people out of their little shells though, 'cause then people go around being like, "Oh yeah, I agree with Kanye on that."

See, I like, and that's the energy, that's the Jordan Peterson energy that I think is a cultural meme right now, and it's weird 'cause I don't know how to relate to that.

The Jordan Peterson thing scares the shit out of me.

Really?

Oh, and I mean, in a way, in a way, you know, like these crypto kids we know, they love 'em, they worship 'em.

They worship 'em.

Gary. - You know, and I'm just like, why? Like, I don't feel like listening to all this guy's lectures to find out what it is you like about him, but if you wanna know about archetypes and this and that, like, there's just much fucking cooler people like Joseph Campbell, who you could listen to, or Robert Anton Wilson, or Marie Louise von Franz, who he'll never bring up because he's a fucking idiot, and that was, Jung could not have done. First of all, anyone who's red Jung, anyone who's really fucking red Jung, they know a very plain, simple truth. The dude was a shitty fucking writer. He didn't know how to write.

He was overly complex in every fucking thought he ever had. He was not a, and this was also part of his training where he was his era, his culture. Marie Louise von Franz, who was his primary translator, wrote on fairy tales, myth. Ironically, they, or interestingly, played kind of inverted roles energy-wise. She was kind of like more logical, and analytic, and masculine in that sense, and he was more like, already, and like drawing shit, and like, doing weird things and having crazy experiences, but she was able to write very eloquently on a ton of shit. And like, she synthesized a lot of his work and put it into like, very clear terms.

Equally complex, and not like, easy, light reading, but like, much better. And like, Jordan Peterson's not gonna mention her.

I mean, and that's the thing. And when these crypto kids, or anyone that's worshiping this guy, denies that it's about anything, but further justification for their like bigotry.

It's so, what is your point, right now?

It's like, no, I really like the way he talks about archetypes and mythologies. And it's like, really?

Really?

Or do you like him yelling at transgender people? Or do you like him owning lives? You know, like, get the fuck out of here. There's these huge industries right now that are, really, really sucking people in, and convincing them that liberals, and liberal-minded people are their issue. And Jordan Peterson is like, some sort, like he comes along.

It's the pipe, Piper.

Yeah, yeah.

Dude, he's the, his lobster thing. Everyone quotes this shit to me. And I'm like, I saw a really good video. Have you had Jason Loub on? You can never link up with him. I think he's an ally. He's awesome. But he posted some video of this trans woman post, what's her name? God, I can't remember it. But she just had this really concise, hilarious takedown of Jordan Peterson. And she focused on the lobster thing. That just came to mind. The lobster thing is the dumbest thing ever, because they're lobsters, and to draw on a hierarchical society that are lobsters and not people. Like, that's-

What's the lobster thing? I don't know the lobster thing.

Okay. Do you wanna explain it?

Okay, so the lobster thing is basically that they fall, their serotonin increases when they dominate other lobsters, and that's their society, and that's how things should work. And it creates a balance in the lobster society. So he gets the lobster cake. That's what all these people think.

It's like, again-

It's an example of why the patriarchy works, and that's it taking place in nature.

When things aren't the women are chaos, and if the chaos are to tell you that women are chaos,

I'm sorry to tell you that women are chaos.

And it's just like, man, I don't know.

Last grasp of like white male supremacy.

Hopefully.

I hope it's a last grasp.

I just, it's a clever one, is what it is, though, because-

Well, 'cause it sucked in people that I think otherwise think of themselves as progressively minded.

And I think there are things that he says that probably have, I remember someone mentioned Jordan Peterson to me two or three years ago, and they were like, you should have him on the podcast, and I sent him an email 'cause I didn't know he was. You know what I mean, I gotta think back. And then I think like a month later, the whole shit happened at a university or something like that. And so then I had watched some of his videos, and I was like, what? I was like, that's fine. Like it didn't speak to me. It didn't was like, oh my God, this is amazing. But it was like, maybe some truth in something out there.

So I'm sure there's some hours of stuff, of course, he's gonna hit on something every now and then. It's like, he's just fucking going on and on and on for hours and hours and hours.

Yeah.

But his alignment with the vault right is fucking disturbing.

Well, he would say, he's very clever. He's just kind of a dick, and here's my overall summation. Maybe this is a wrong analysis of him. And I have watched some of his videos, and I have read some of what he writes, and I've watched debates. I just think he's kind of angry. He seems like he's a hurt. Yeah. A boy who thinks that this restores some types of cosmic justice in people's lives, and it's like, dude, you're Freuding it up. You're conflating your personal experience for your archetype has broken through. See that shit. You're now famous. You should be able to fucking see this thing as busted out from your unconscious, and you're projecting it over, and you're casting this fucking shadow over yourself and all these other people.

But note, you're just gonna have these gone fucking eyes and tired existence. I read this profile of him. It sounds horrible.

These stupid suits that make it seem like he's from a hundred years ago. God, the poor fucking guy.

Yeah. So I don't know.

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's where the compassion comes in. God, what it must be like to be him. The scrambling constantly.

It's the one who likes him. Like that that's what you want to hear. That's what you need to hear.

Yeah, it's a pretty, it's easy, I guess, is what it is. That's what it is. It's 12 simple rules. That's what you need. It's just one of those rules happens to be women aren't that important.

Yeah, no big deal. We'll stick that one in there.

It'll just, it's so funny 'cause it's just gonna make men and so many men less and less appealing. Like this, these feelings of entitlement that, I mean, I just, I saw headlines this morning about how upstate New York parents sue 30 year old son to get out of the fucking warehouse.

Yeah, I saw that too. Wouldn't be getting fed the same shit. I saw that too. Can you imagine? I was thinking about the court battle of like having a stand on the opposite side as your parents be like, no, I demand I stand.

Oh my God.

Whoa, dude.

I just think like the battle lines that are being drawn are really, really disturbing and the solutions and the, what an enforced monogamy and all of this type of stuff.

I must have tuned out before it. What's important?

That was an enforced monogamy is what Jordan Peterson thinks is like.

Enforced?

Yeah, it's really, it's really, really strange language. He thinks that's what's gonna be the solution to all this violence and.

It's mean spirited, it seems at worst. And I think at best it's just insensitive. And I think it's hard to assume that he doesn't, he's smart, he's not dumb.

No, absolutely.

So it's smart people typically can identify negative things that they're doing, they can just maybe ignore them. And I think that's probably unfortunate. And I think you also like, he's making a fuckload of money right now. He may just have a nut he wants to reach. And then he's like, all right, let me flip the script, I changed this. The 13th rule is be nice to women, you know? Like, who knows?

He's exploiting a culture we already have. We already have a rape culture pretty much.

It's bad.

Yeah, he's just a symptom of it. He's not the problem, and that's the whole thing. Like, what we can learn from him is look at his followers and look what they're talking about and what their concerns are. And, you know, what are the circumstances that led to that, to this situation where there is a such thing as incels, involuntary celibates, and, you know, these angry, these cultures of misogyny that are, that are voluntary celibates.

Have you heard about the incels?

No, I mean, I feel like, tell me about them, because it's just, no, I'm surprised if anything that I'm turning you on to this.

No, I don't know people who are incel.

It's a new thing, it's a new group. Yeah, it's a new group, they're huge followers of Jordan Peterson, but they're in--

Well, shit, they're not fucking waves no good.

Yeah, they're the people who want, you know--

Yeah, sex.

For some monogamy, they want women to be--

I feel like they're entitled to a certain amount of sex.

Yeah, as Jordan Peterson says, and he's quoted as saying, as he wants women to be more conscientious and agreeable.

So they're just mad that they were born like a hundred years too late. They're just typing-- - Yeah, where they can't get away with rape, fuck this shit.

Well, I think there's just such a lack of purpose in our society, and I think that's kind of a symptom of capitalism, and I think ultimately these are victims of capitalism, and thus not having a collaborative society where people have purpose and things that they do, that they can be proud of, and attract mates by doing these sort of things, and find their right mate because they're doing something they care about, and they're meeting people who also care about that same thing, and like, I don't know.

I guess you do. What happens to the people who-- this is what people usually ask. I agree, I couldn't agree more. What happens to the people who don't find bad, or in this incarnation are slated to have a more difficult experience, and where do they fit in, because I think that's unfortunately what a lot of people don't admit. And my overall point with this is, if anyone is going through that experience, you change it. That's how it works, you change it. There's no one's gonna do this for you. That's the Jordan Peterson myth that people want, oh, daddy's gonna tell you what to do, and then shit'll work out, not how it works.

Embrace the fucking chaos, embrace the feminine shit where you don't know what the fuck is gonna happen, you can get obliterated, you can get reborn, who the fuck knows? Embrace that, don't think there's some simple blueprint that's gonna improve your life on a real substantial level, 'cause if there was, we would've found it. Jordan Peterson would've fucking found it, do you know what I mean? Einstein, someone's slightly smart, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. The culture is, I hear people being bored a lot, which I've never had that problem. It's like, how are you bored? We're of a different generation, you know?

I think it's people that are younger than us that don't--

500 channels of a TV simulation.

Yeah, that's a great song, listen to Choking Victim, 500 channels, that's a great punk song that describes the whole situation we're talking about right now.

We have our entertainment spoon fed to us, our easy access food spoon fed.

Yeah, everything, everything, and now we have jackasses like Jordan Peterson's feeding us a set of values that happens to fit perfectly with the angry young white man narrative.

That crypto shit is interesting, like that intersection of crypto kids into Jordan Peterson, I hadn't thought of that.

Oh, it makes perfect sense to me.

Of course it does, yeah.

Like, I don't know what you think about the culture, but the only thing that's bubbling up to the mainstream is how ridiculously decadent they're being and the language-- - No, that was block stream. So that was consensus, this conference that just happened.

But it just feels like Silicon Valley all over it.

It is, those people are more-- - There's a bunch of pros with a bunch of money who are trying to make a new culture.

That's exactly what it is.

And it's great, they party at One Oak with Snoop, it's that. Like, you get it, like you laugh, you get it. I retweeted that chick 'cause I was like, this is so funny, I've been at One Oak, like that I've smoked once at One Oak, like I know exactly. If that's what they're aspiring to, those people are idiots. Meanwhile, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, since they had that little get together which everyone thought would shoot everything out, shit's gone down, those are morons. Those are people who probably already got in or have big enough positions where even if it doesn't go up, they could still do that shit.

Those people are idiots and they unfortunately give the majority of crypto a bad name 'cause that's what people identify, that culture. But that's the same culture Jordan Peterson we're talking about, I guess. That is what dominates our media landscape which is kind of a curated perspective we're getting of things, which is the Robert Anton Wilson thing, that we're only getting spoon fed, the majority of this stuff, even if we think we're not. We're getting the same algorithms, what do we see, the 30 year old?

He calls it, everyone has their own reality tunnel.

Yeah.

And there's really nothing you can do about that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting time.

The most interesting.

It seems like it.

The most interesting. I mean, at least in my life. At least in my life, I thought of things were wild and crazy back in 2000.

It was so not crazy when we were kids.

Well, it's also just happening so fast.

Yeah, that's the thing. That's what Robert Anton Wilson talks about in the acceleration of knowledge.

Yeah.

You know, how far it took the human race to get from one point to one point, and then this point to the next, and it just keeps accelerating to the point where he left off that lecture in the 80s, and he's talking about how we're doubling our knowledge.

Yeah, yeah.

Every year. Now it's gotta be happening every day.

Minute.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A doubling of the knowledge that the human species possesses.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder what level of evolution, or the evolution we're at right now. And I also just, you know, to zoom out even more, wonder what context this may kind of like, illusory existence function is, relative to our collective lives. Like I think individually we, that's our job to figure out what we're here for and do, but like collectively, it seems like there are some broad themes that need to be dealt with.

I wonder in our lives if we'll see substantial change. I mean, I guess we already have in some regards.

I mean, we have, I think about this a lot, 'cause it seems like right now it's like an opportunity. I mean, 'cause I think, you know, what I'm talking about is the collapse of the American Empire. We're witnessing it in kind of this slow-motion train wreck. We don't wanna acknowledge it kind of way.

Well, yeah.

And it's apparent in so many ways in the way we don't take care of people here. At all.

At all. And we got a gun to the world's head. And there's only so long you can rule with a gun to the world's head. So I think we're witnessing the collapse of the American Empire and it's like, what would replace this? What is going to bubble up?

Jordan Peterson.

Yes.

Yeah, weird fucking tribalism. Like scariest.

I don't know. It's like, I guess it's up to the kids. It's out of our, we're retired in our 30s.

This is honestly what I, this is what I tell my parents all the time. They're like, no, it's gonna be up to you. And I'm like, oh, no, no, no, you guys don't realize how old I am. I'm 36. It's up to people way younger.

Hasn't that kick that candle.

And everything that we're saying right now that seems like, oh, whoa, huge stoner revelation. It's so baked into their being that they're woke on a level that we couldn't even, if we inhabited their consciousness for a second, we'd be like, whoa.

The question is that what percentage of them, because like we were saying, like Robert Anton Wilson says, everyone's in their own bubble. We're getting our own social media feeds. We're getting our own news sources. We're getting our own educations. Everything's different. So there's gonna be different extremes of people. And it's going to, like, I don't know, we're not gonna be able to find the truth. That'd be funny.

See, that to me is what's interesting is that there's no necessary, there's no guarantee that any of this stuff of walls into something more comprehensive or cohesive. But I think what happens is, that there are nodes that can be pulled off. And for like interest, this is like the whole SoulPod rhombos thing, which I do think is wise. And it seems accurate when you meet certain people, that like you figure out how you make an impact for yourself and like a limited scope. That's why when I was asking politically what you do, I've never had the thought like, you know what? I'm gonna run for office.

That's what I'm gonna do. Like that's it. I have had the thought like, okay, if I find enough people who are kind of thinking like I'm due, like there's probably only a finite amount of resources that that many people would need to do something. And I'm meeting people, that server that I created is now like 80% sustainable, psychedelic, indigenous culture, like insane ways of thinking that are far beyond what I could come up. Like I literally don't understand what most of these people are talking about, but like very plugged in members. I'm doing a podcast with another one. This shit is happening.

Like that shit is happening. And I think it happened with the tech people too, in the 2000s, a lot of those people who accumulated a lot of wealth and maintained it through the bubble and everything, started thinking like this too. And I think that's where the psychedelics fits back in because a lot of that culture is kind of plugged in. To me, I would hope, I don't know if it's accurate, and I have a segue here for this, that psychedelics have a positive impact on people becoming more compassionate de facto.

No, not necessarily.

That is where, that I say, we don't know if this thing is gonna come together.

Have you guys done five MEO DMT?

No, I think the one we do, what's the other one.

And then DMT.

That's what we do.

Have you tried to get five, listen to the podcast I did with this dude. Someone I know is going to do that with the toad. They do the extract, which is like much more of it necessary, but the five MEO DMT shit is wild. I've never done it, but it's like a hundred times stronger than DMT.

Wow, I cannot imagine anything bigger than DMT could be.

I bring it up for a couple reasons. One is, it sounds like everyone who does it reliably, and there's some mythology behind it that the people who found it purposely left it out of all literature because they didn't want the government to ban it and they didn't ban it until 2011. But it's so profound that they didn't want anyone to know, but apparently the reliable experience is God. Like no one's coming back and be like, "Oh, what was that?" They're like, "God, whatever you want to call it, God." Interesting made me really peek up about it. However, the guy I spoke to about it, Martin, who I really think is a very nice guy, was talking about non-people awareness, had a very large ego, like just any blue in my mind that someone could have this reliable, he basically had then idolized fighting the DMT as the thing, the only real thing, and that was his whole contention.

I'm like, "Dude, how do you not see like, "you're the thing?" I was like, "This whole cosmology that you worked up," and I had a couple people hit me up, and I'm like, "Dude, I'm glad you brought that up," 'cause it was like, "It wasn't making sense to me," he was talking about this thing, and I'm like, "Well, are you enlightened?" Like, "Did you hit it?" So it's very interesting to me because I think there are times where you can take psychedelics, depending on your circumstances, your affinity for Jordan Peterson or not, where it just doesn't have that shifting impact.

Absolutely.

And that to me is, you know, does the Michael Pollan book, for the people who do the annual check-ins, just justify their belief in someone like Jordan Peterson, 'cause they just came into an arc-type?

It depends, I think like I went into LSD, well, I came out of LSD, a communist, but, you know, and it wasn't--

You prayed that on a poster.

You were-- - But you were.

It's really fine, but it actually just made me remember that I was a real revolutionary, and I probably have been for thousands of incarnations, and it just woke me up to that in this critical moment. So, you know, for every one of you, that's probably worth people who are just like, "Yeah, it's not for me." I agree.

But it started with an empathetic thing, it started with that flooding back into my world.

I feel like it has to do a little bit with dosage, too, because there's definitely times where like, I mean, we did 300 our first time, and actually for that-- - 300 micrograms.

I'm really grateful, even though it's like crazy, and it wouldn't necessarily be something I'd recommend, but I have a lot of gratitude that that's how we did it, because so much of it was so undeniable, and I was like revealed so much that it took a long time to integrate, but when I've done 100 mics, I'm like, "Oh, my ego is so here," you know? Like, I'm dancing with my ego in a different way where there can be a little bit of a reinforcement happening, and because I've gone so far, and I knew kind of what it's about, I was like, "I'm not gonna play that game "as much as I probably would if I was, you know, "doing 100 mics for the first time, "and that really being my only experience."

The 100 micrograms is like when you can grab your ego, and you think like, "Oh, my ego is gonna be "what gets me through this, the stories I think about me," and that's what I think the ego is, is like your story of you.

I got something to come back to. Don't worry, I can be in this place, but I got something to come back to.

And if you somehow get through that 12 hours, white knuckle into your ego, yeah, it could come back out more reinforced, but that's a fucking tough trip. Most people wanna have a good time and wanna just let go, and for me, that was so profound. It's just like, "Oh, that thing, I don't need it. "You shed it, and then there's still you." And it's like this more pure, less scared version of you, and I'm like, "That's what I wanna take into the future. "That's what I wanna integrate into my life."

Well, you know, what I think it is also is like, it doesn't necessarily make you a better person, but it heals trauma, and by healing a lot of the things that we do that are hurtful to other people have to do with traumas that we have, you know, so.

That's a really good point. The healing trauma, I mean, I think that, I think we're in a traumatized culture, an individual and culturally-

Capitalism is trauma.

Well, being born is trauma, like the actual birth is even trauma.

Yeah, when you get down to that.

I think capitalism is bad. What are we defining capitalism as?

Hyper competition, this is what we're in right now.

Yeah, that's no good, I agree.

I agree.

'Cause it separates us, and it makes everybody suspicious and paranoid and weird.

The counter-argument would be then things wouldn't get improved, and we'd have the bread lines, you know what I mean?

Yeah, that's a really, but that's a lame argument.

And I'm not putting anything.

It's not based on anything, because there's never been communism. It's never actually taken place, you know? And what socialism is, is us using the current system and changing laws to redistribute wealth, and communism is like, when you've done socialism for long enough, and you don't need laws or hierarchies or anything like that, it's just, it's the opposite of hyper competition, it's hyper-cooperation, it's baked into who we are.

It's probably only gonna happen in response to extreme conditions.

Yes, of course, does a military fit in?

A military, yeah.

Fuck no, hell fucking no. No way, no, like these are the first things we need to do is abolish the police state. Abolish the police, abolish the military.

Well, any of these systems that say that we have an enemy, you know, if you look at what happened in Holy Mountain or Holy Hell, are like, what are these communes that happen? And where they go wrong is they start arming themselves with guns, having some perceived enemy.

The otherization.

And you manifest. - And you manifest it.

Yeah, you manifest it, and you manifest your enemies, and you manifest the conflict.

And it horseshoes around from something that was very free and open to something that has completely fascism.

That does happen though, because I think there are evidences.

I'm only speaking like this 'cause I literally just listen to the Robert Anton Wilson, the conspiracy stuff. And I'm not a big conspiracy guy, but I find it compelling that he's right. If you read any account of history, all fucking conspiracies, like literally the whole thing is, there was this conspiracy to throw over this conspiracy, and I'm back and it's like, oh shit, yeah, like, it makes sense. And then if you just think about human interactions, the most noblest abump among us in a year will probably lie hundreds of times, about totally silly little different things. It's just like a fact of life.

Whether it's just to a stranger on the street, how's your day going or having a shitty day, you see. Whatever you wanna classify as lies, it happens. So I think there is some level of conspiratorial work. I tend to fall in the category though, that it just, the organization level to maintain something, I think these systems, when we're defining capitalism, that operating system has been out of control. You're totally right, it's a pride, it's dying. We need something to replace it. I wonder what that is that helps us do it, because as much as I agree, we shouldn't have military, we shouldn't be perceiving other people as against us.

Unless there's 100% consensus on that, then there will always be an argument that that's a fallacy. Not agreeing with that, but that is a valid argument from someone else saying, well, if there's that one person, they fucking stab everyone else, like, that's not a good society to live in. So how do we bridge where we are as a society now, which is in the United States, at least like hyper-aggressive, critical, polarized, into something that's more nurturing, welcoming.

For me, like we're seeing it unfold, it's happening very naturally. It's what I call right now, we're in a situation called the Great Humbling. Everything's coming to the surface, how awful we are, our bankrupt values, the whole thing, it's all coming out, how we treat people, and now it's all reported. Everybody's a little reporter with their cell phone, and everyone can tell stories and film the police brutality, and film the murders and film all this stuff, and we're living in the Great Humbling, and I think we're--

That's such a good term, the Great Humbling.

And I think what comes on the heels of that is the Great Healing, and that's where psychedelics really come in, and having ended the drug war, we're gonna let psychedelics come back into the mix, people get to know each other, we break the shackles of being owned by the 1%, and everybody working their asses off, God knows fucking what, and we start drawing back, drawing back, apologizing to the world, being the world innovators, and healing, and humble.

All right, how do you teach?

I couldn't, you know me.

We do it through education.

How do you do it to crypto bros? Teach crypto bros, how do you teach someone like crypto bros? No, that's because it's so--

It's not.

Anachronistic to some, that's why I bring it up. That's why Jordan Peterson interests me so much, because I recognize how distant that line of thinking is from my own, not in like a, yeah, I necessarily think these people are idiots for believing that, but I question how they can, how do you communicate with people like that?

A guy who wants a Lamborghini on the roof of his apartment?

Yeah.

How do I tell him you'd be better off serving our community with that money?

Yeah, yeah, how do we do that? Not like we have to do it in one fell swoop, like you have a conversation, and he's like, "Oh, I get it, of course, let me sell this Lamborghini "and start doing it." But I mean, what is the path towards that?

We have to incentivize that stuff, and not just in our laws, but in our social contracts. Kindness has to be the thing, the reason people have friends, the reason, like cultural currency become acts of kindness, acts of generosity, giving it away. Those are the people we should be holding in higher guard, not the people that hoard it and hoard their wealth.

I wanted a cryptocurrency that did that, was the only time I had an idea for a cryptocurrency which the way it would work is, I don't have the exact mechanism, but by giving it away, more was generated and there would be a mechanism that burned amounts so it wouldn't be like an infinite supply, which is just inflation. I have none of the specs worked out, but something that just did incentivize people too, because like people in our server, if they make a lot, like they're people that are very pot committed, we already talk about it. Like you need to have plans for different things. This isn't just so we can be like the shittiest, rich people ever have lambos on our roof.

I wonder how we get to the point where that culture, that permeates and is seen as the apex of like Western materialism culture, a lambo on the roof.

That's so crazy, it's just so silly, 'cause it's such like a ridiculous symbol.

We were witness to a very serious conversation about how are we gonna get it up there? Is this what we want?

I mean, at that point, I don't know, I'd probably have to interject myself into the conversation, not in like a nasty way at all, but just be like, are you guys really, like what? Like where did you grow up?

It's just so easy to categorize this type of thinking as like hippie, communist, get the fuck out of here. I don't wanna think about that. I don't wanna let, like it's been, this type of thinking has been, you know, eradicated in a lot of ways, you know, from normal everyday conversation. Giving it away is like, while we worship Jesus, we don't really wanna be like him. You know, that's what Jesus would have done.

You know, and what really wants to be like, Jesus is the harsh reality. I live like Jesus for a little bit. It's a very rude awakening into how the world actually works.

But it's also a beautiful awakening.

Oh, amazing, it was the best period of my life. But again, if everyone else isn't playing along, you end up into Jesus. That's not a good ending for Jesus if you wanna be in the world.

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I mean, these are the things I try to think about. I think I'm somewhere in between trying to figure out where creativity and financial liberty intersect for the majority of people or enough people to make a change. That seems to be my area of focus right now because we need, as many people are with lambos on the roof, we need people with like $15 million, $20 million, $20 million being like, hey, I know you're about your shit and you've been talking about doing this really fucking cool thing that has benefit for the world. I'm gonna, no questions asked, if you fuck it up, I don't care, don't make your life worse with it.

I trust you enough to do that, boom. That shit happens. There are billionaires out there doing that for people and it's probably having a positive impact on what's up.

I think we gotta get away from that mentality that the capitalists and the ultra fucking rich billionaires are gonna save us if they just themselves redistribute their wealth. They're not going to. They're gonna have to take it by force.

But that's how my force goes to question.

Well, first you try through laws and then you do it through revolution and we've seen, we're very capable of that and we're armed for it. And like all I'm saying is if we educate people properly, we're not gonna need the military that we have. We're not gonna, like who are these crooks? Who are these people running our country?

What's gonna happen first, I think, is because we're finding that the government is now in a state of such incompetence. We are giving it over to corporations and it's gonna be more direct. It's not gonna be like they have to pay off, you know, or use lobbyists or pay off politicians. It'll just be like, oh yeah, well, Amazon's done right by us. We get our products in time. You know, we love whoever we talk to Alexa and let's hand it all over.

Amazon's more powerful than certain countries.

Yeah, this should be disturbing. We shouldn't say, oh, what if Jeff Bezos would do this, that and the other thing? No, why don't we demand as people universal basic income so we can be artists, so we can sow good seeds for the next generations?

How do we demand that?

Demand universal basic income. We start doing it on a very local level. There's places that are doing it. Alaska does it. Alaska gives money to its citizens because they have so much revenue from their oil.

I think Fort Worth, Texas does it too.

There's a town in California doing it, you know. You start to figure out ways slowly but surely to redistribute the world.

You got to get the wealth though, right?

Fuck yeah.

Well, I think it's just finding out that it's better for everyone if we house the homeless. You know, these are people who can be a part of our society and if we just give people a little.

I couldn't agree.

And then just take that idea further and you end up at universal basic income.

Yeah.

I agree. I always wonder about the bridges and how the roads are actually.

We gotta fight.

We gotta fight.

We gotta fight.

Because the money exists, the wealth exists, and we gotta get over to, as Cass tells me when I'm freaking out in my personal life, get over to an abundance model.

Yeah, yeah, no, I find.

We have the same freakouts, apparently.

Yeah.

Dude, I mean, I think that's, and this is the whole thing. And if we weren't such a man of high moral character, we might be into Jordan Peterson because it's stressful as fuck to be a man and have to fucking be financially responsible.

It's very stressful.

And you know, trying to bring a family into this world and trying to do the right thing.

It doesn't, it's unnecessary, here's the thing. It's not that it's stressful. You need to have stress in your life. You need to have things that kind of, what I would define as healthy, shaping character building stress, not in the Jordan Peterson way, but some level of uncomfortability to make you do something you might not do otherwise. That's okay. Unnecessarily imposing artificial limits on people's ability to earn a living wage and raise a family, is cockamamie.

That's what we're doing.

My whole thing is, so I'm not settled on this, but I still, my bet is on cryptocurrency to leverage the people who have taken advantage of a system and created a system to extract wealth from people and make them buy into this weird system that we are in, I think that's a decent way to pull enough wealth from there. That's the war that I see.

Oh yeah, I mean, it's one of many battles within the bigger war, the war for the future of humanity. Are we gonna get free, or are we gonna stay enslaved?

How do we do because politics is, you just said it, it's infected. It's 100% of world.

Is this the main thing in a fucking service? Do you need a president, I don't.

No, no, it's not the fuck.

But you and I are probably considered far radicals and believing that we probably don't need a president.

That's fine, that's fine. Everyone will come around to these ideas. These ideas will seem center 10 years from now.

You think 10 years?

Yeah, man, yeah.

Man, I wanna live in your world.

I'm telling you, because my world is going around this country and seeing the most desperate situations.

That's true, that's true.

We're living, and we're watching our brothers and sisters fucking die.

But it led to Trump too, in some regard, right?

It did, it did, and we've talked to people, man, I had this crazy conversation with a guy. This conversation's gonna be in my next movie.

Cool.

Went up to this guy who had one leg and he was begging on the side of the BQE, and I was like, what's your story? And he said, it was just a one minute conversation. He said, I got an infection, I went to the doctor, they fucked up, they amputated my leg, lost my job because of it, end up living in my car doing this now. And I was like, wow, and he goes, but fuck them, I voted for Trump. And then he just walks off with his son.

Yeah, you know me?

Because he's been fucked so hard by this country that that was the biggest fucking win that he could ever imagine. And he's not as informed, he's living in his car and having a fucking get by day to day. He's not as informed about the high level corruption and all that stuff.

He doesn't need to be though.

Trump was just a symbol of fuck you.

But that's my point. I think fuck you.

And that's why I respect it, you know, in that moment, I was like, I get it, I get it, I don't, I would never do it myself, but I get what these people were doing, they're scared shitless, they've been fucked, they've been put through it by this country.

They believe in when he says, we're gonna drain the swamp though, rather than it just be the swamp.

That's my point, that's my point, is with this nebulous thing that now we call the truth, which used to be relatively easy to identify, like don't lie, you know, publicly, and contradict yourself in a bad stupid way, don't do that, aren't really held to any of those same, you know, seems anywhere, this is why someone like Jordan Peterson proliferates so much, his media, because he hedges this stupid line where it makes him seem by being just not like the worst of the worst, and kind of justifying it intellectually, that he's somehow moderate, or like not that stupid, or not that bad, so I don't know, the war on truth is something that I didn't really anticipate.

I thought the internet would make it somewhat easier to find truth, and I think in some ways it is, but you have to cultivate that like bullshit detector, which might be a privilege, we don't know.

It is, well I mean I think that poverty is truth, and that cuts through no matter what anyone's telling you, no matter what politicians say, and what poverty is truth, and a lot more people are living in it, and this is the only country in the whole world where people go bankrupt from having something go wrong with their health, and what about the way we live here in America would help somebody have a healthy life, like it only drives them to an early death, and you know, all I'm saying is none of its serve does, and it's all based on faith, we have faith that we're gonna vote for these people, and they're gonna go to Washington and do our bidding, they're all doing the bidding of the corporations, they're all doing the same game, it's a fake, the whole thing's fake, the two parties, they're the same fucking thing, and it would be so easy, and I realized this on acid, it's all based on faith, we just believe this, we believe this thing, so we all put our money into it, 60% of our taxes go to keeping a gun to the world's head, and not taking care of our own, we can decide to not believe in that anymore, like the teachers are doing, the people could do that, in general, we could have a general strike, that would change things, we could change the whole system, we could take everything down and start over.

People are not ready, I don't think we're at that point.

No, we're not, we're little brats, because we're hypnotized with our comfort, but the whole thing is, when you're really walking the walk through this country, and you're seeing some third world shit go on here in America, it's disturbing, and for me I can't put the genie back in the bottle, I can't unsee that stuff, and then say, oh no, I'm fine, whatever, I'll just keep accumulating well, if I'm like, no, fuck this, man, we gotta turn this shit around, we gotta start caring about each other.

That's the most important.

We gotta start caring about each other, and not give a fucking $1.5 trillion gift to the donor class.

But that is what continues to happen, because the rules are sufficiently set up to enable that. So the quite--

Who made those rules?

No, no, fuck the rules.

Oh, of course, no, and the truth is, the constitution is against, like, there's nothing in the constitution, it's like, yeah, corporations should have undue influence on that, like, that's specifically not in there. So it's not-- - The constitution was written by a fucking bunch of white men, crooks, 55 guys that were all landowners, I don't think we should believe in that, they weren't the people by any means, like, they should question every one of those motherfuckers.

Alexander Hamilton was pretty sweet. He didn't write it, he didn't write it, he came afterwards, fairness, he came afterwards, and he wasn't born in this country, but he's pretty sweet. Yeah, I know, I know exactly how you feel, I--

I don't believe in this country anymore.

I actually still-- - I believe in the people more than ever, and that's why I can spout this stuff, because I think we'll all wake up to it.

Oh, yeah, okay, here's what we--

I don't believe in the American Empire, I don't believe in what we stand for.

What do you think, Cass?

Can we pause it? - Yeah.

Yeah, Cass.

I think that we're gonna see heaven and hell no matter where we go, and whatever direction this goes in, and I hope that we can all live more harmoniously, especially within this country, and especially globally. And I personally think that has to do with tearing down borders and boundaries in our own hearts, and the walls that we have between each other, the walls that we have between our families, our communities, our countries, and seeing ourselves all as more, not only in harmony, but in a oneness, in a recognizing in each other who we really are. And I think that's a place that we can get to.

I do, however, think it will be met with an equal amount of hell.

Yeah.

Yeah.

'Cause I think that there's just, I trust in the balance of the universe, and I don't know, it doesn't make me strive to not want to be better--

Yeah, totally.

Optimistic about where we're going, but--

Do you believe in the America, Noah?

The America, no. I barely believe in the Noah, do you know what I mean?

Yeah, it's true, yeah. Like I, obviously, as a practical matter, I think the United States, the more I found out about its history, really, through Alexander Hamilton, was pretty fucking cool, at one point. The founders of it, like Jefferson, for the most, Washington, listen, Washington, who a lot of people want to shit on, 'cause he was one of the founding fathers, he freed every one of his slaves as soon as he died, and he had them primarily because he was kind of embedded into a financial, like this is his life. If he had freed them what was going on, we never would have had this country. Good shit wouldn't happen at some point down the timeline.

Unfortunately, it was continuing a tradition of pretty ruthless, bloodlust, just super aggressive, patriarchal dominance, which is not good. So I don't really believe in the idea of America and the United States. I think without borders, it would be a lot better if we recognize each other as human beings, which I think is why New York is so nice in a lot of ways, is it is in some ways borderless, even though it's inside the United States, there's so many different cultures and people you can meet from economic backgrounds and places in the world that like, you get a better idea that this, your little slice of the world isn't the whole thing.

So yeah, I think that we're gonna move towards something, but I also see the entrenched system as being way more powerful than people think it is in terms of that even if the people theoretically and technically have the ability to rise up and overthrow something like this, the bottom line of what the radical differences in their lives to them would seem like they would have to do for the majority of people is something most people won't do.

It's not desperate enough.

It's not desperate enough. And I don't think it's gonna get to the point of desperation 'cause I think the other hedge of that is that we do marginally make increases as society and culture that so maybe it goes back to like this hellish kind of not great place, but we've made a higher low and a certain point. And I think that's kind of what I think at this point. And I think I don't envision, it could happen. There's a lot of things that didn't envision, but I don't envision a United States not existing in our lifetime, which means that if it does exist, it probably is gonna be some type of permutation of what exists now, which, you know, if it evolves into a vehicle where the only stuff we're bombarding people with is like, be a better person, be a better person, like, maybe that's like some weird kind of authoritarian regime.

What kind of like what Germany's had to do post World War II?

Yeah, like be a better country, don't be, well, you know, in Germany still has a wing of people who don't want any immigrants in there and are, you know.

Well, yeah, of course, but I mean, they like remind people about those sort of things.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I mean, so I think that the United States has the potential to do that because the other cool thing about the United States is some of those cultures that were oppressed and continue to be oppressed, continue to germinate and figure out their own freedoms that are inherent upon them. And that makes this country a more complicated but potentially better web of, you know, places to be a beacon for change and hope. So I don't know. - Yeah.

Who fuck knows, man?

Well, some things are really easy. It's end the wars and burn the prisons and, you know, feed the homeless and house the homeless.

I think people should care about that more. I think it's a meme and like a line of thought that should probably proliferate, especially if people have the means to do it because it's an easy thing to do. Like if something flashes across your screen and you can trust the person who's been posting it about whether it's a personal or, you know, demographic, geographic disaster or something, donate like nine bucks. That's what I do, just nine dollars. Like you don't have to be a hero about it. And it's not about the praise. It's just like, all right, if I can spare this shit regularly, hopefully it has some impact.

And then that also inevitably leads you to being a little more concerned about what you're potentially looking at in the world. So it's a vehicle for that too. So, all right. All right, this is a long podcast.

How are we in 23? - We did it.

We did it. - Did we do it?

Yes. - I'm a proud American.

Yep, the proud American podcast here.

That's a roaring name, we do have to do this.

Thanks guys. - Thanks for having us.

Thanks. - All right. Peace. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Sean and Cass, they're the greatest. Go check them out, verifyatepodcast, varyate.tv, sign up for their newsletter, it's actually pretty cool. They, it's something you wouldn't mind getting in your inbox, to be honest, I don't mind getting it and I hate email, so yeah, Patrick Nemcke continues to be the man when speaking of patrons, makes up a large share of that donation amount and I appreciate it, appreciate the support, man. Everyone else, you're cool too. Don't worry, I got love for you too. Thanks for listening to the show, I'll see you next week. I got a ton, not a ton, I have enough episodes in the can that they will be coming in regularly, so stay tuned for that and a lot of in-person ones.

I'm trying to make, put a premium on the in-person ones, I really enjoy those and I think they're just a magnitude a little bit higher, notch it on the other ones 'cause sometimes that's how you do it, but I just really enjoy getting together with people. Okay, that's it, I'll see you next week.

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