Radio 3Fourteen - The Psilocybin Solution vs. Elite Psychedelic Psyops

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 This is Radio 314 on the Red Ice Radio Network.

00:01:00.000 He was compelled to write a number of unorthodox books, including The Psilocybin Solution and Darwin's Unfinished Business.

00:01:11.060 He also wrote and directed two documentaries, Manna and Metanoia.

00:01:15.040 Welcome, Simon. How are you?

00:01:17.320 Yeah, I'm good.

00:01:18.760 Hey, I found an interesting sync, by the way, for you.

00:01:21.180 You published your film Metanoia on YouTube.

00:01:23.600 That was on March 14, which is Pi Day, which is also my birthday, which is also why I called this radio show 314.

00:01:32.360 Oh, right.

00:01:32.860 So, you have a psych background, right?

00:01:36.780 A what?

00:01:37.420 A psych background.

00:01:38.920 A psychology background.

00:01:41.260 Yes.

00:01:42.180 So, did you study…

00:01:43.240 Is that what you mean, a psychology background?

00:01:45.120 Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean.

00:01:46.480 Yeah.

00:01:46.880 Yes, I studied…

00:01:48.100 I got a degree in psychology from University College London, long, long time ago, in the last century.

00:01:55.000 So, did you study psychedelic therapy in school by any chance?

00:01:59.140 No, I didn't.

00:02:00.260 But I did…

00:02:01.280 In my third year dissertation, my…

00:02:03.700 It was partly about the psychedelic experience, so…

00:02:07.900 I bet your teachers love that, huh?

00:02:10.220 Well, I got a first for the dissertation, so I must have had something in there that was quite interesting.

00:02:15.980 Well, before we talk about the psilocybin solution, maybe you can tell us about the difficulties of getting the book published.

00:02:22.940 Oh, what?

00:02:23.480 Yeah, the fact that it took about 200 years to get it published.

00:02:27.160 Yeah.

00:02:27.620 It took a long time.

00:02:29.000 It was a long time in coming.

00:02:30.500 I started work on it.

00:02:33.560 Well, no, it's embarrassing.

00:02:35.680 Maybe I shouldn't talk about it.

00:02:37.140 It's so embarrassing because I used to hear tales of people spending five years writing a book,

00:02:42.660 and it just seemed inconceivable that someone could spend that long.

00:02:45.580 But it took me about 15 years to get it published.

00:02:50.100 I went through about three literary agents.

00:02:52.980 I rewrote it millions of times.

00:02:55.640 I kept getting new interview material.

00:02:57.960 There's a lot of quite radical ideas in there pertaining to consciousness and the connection between…

00:03:05.620 or the relationship between consciousness and neurochemistry.

00:03:10.520 And I honed the ideas.

00:03:12.260 And, yeah, it took 15 years to get it published, which is an absurdly long time.

00:03:17.920 But it shows that if you do persevere with something, you can get it published.

00:03:22.700 You know, you can get there in the end.

00:03:25.140 That's right.

00:03:25.720 Yes.

00:03:25.940 You're also a Gaia-philiac.

00:03:28.000 So I hung in there.

00:03:29.800 You know, I never gave up.

00:03:32.780 So you're also a Gaia-philiac.

00:03:34.900 So what do you think about Agenda 21, which is pushing for humans to be rounded up into the cities living in apartments?

00:03:41.560 What's that?

00:03:42.620 Say that again. 0.71

00:03:43.460 Are you familiar with Agenda 21?

00:03:45.560 I'm not familiar with Agenda 21.

00:03:47.520 Okay.

00:03:47.920 Well, you need to research this because basically it's the UN is pushing for Agenda 21, which is about, you know, climate change and changing different things for the environment, for the health of the environment.

00:03:59.300 And one of those things is rounding people up out of the rural areas and into the cities living in apartments because it's better for the environment.

00:04:11.220 Well, I wouldn't be able to comment on that.

00:04:13.200 I mean, I think the majority – I mean, there are megacities now.

00:04:18.560 They're actually defined as megacities because so many people live in them.

00:04:23.720 Yeah.

00:04:24.080 I mean, I don't know.

00:04:24.740 It raises the question of how best to manage 7 billion people.

00:04:30.500 7 billion people is a lot of people and growing.

00:04:34.020 The population is growing.

00:04:35.620 Yeah.

00:04:36.260 Yeah. 0.87

00:04:36.820 Well, it's as though some of humanity are self-haters viewing themselves and others as a parasite.

00:04:41.900 But there's got to be a balance between nature and human civilization.

00:04:45.500 So what have we missed?

00:04:46.320 Well, we've – one thing that I bang on a lot about is the fact that we don't live in harmonious accord with the larger biospherical system in which we're embedded.

00:05:04.820 And that – the biosphere is our life support system.

00:05:09.320 And it's interesting that something like eco – you're familiar with ecosystem services?

00:05:14.960 Yes.

00:05:15.280 The phrase ecosystem services, that was a way of – it was a scientific way of highlighting the important role that the biosphere or Gaia plays in supporting not just human life but all life on Earth.

00:05:31.000 The temperature control, the salinity of the ocean, water cycles and all this kind of thing, carbon sequestration and all this kind of thing.

00:05:42.900 It's not widely known about because when we – this is the thing with cities is they're like cocoons.

00:05:48.500 And we go about our business totally oblivious to the larger environment that supports us.

00:05:56.220 So it's like we've just lost touch with Mother Earth, with Pachamama. 0.82

00:06:03.660 And so the way forward – and, you know, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see this.

00:06:08.660 The way forward is we have to live in harmony with the larger biosphere.

00:06:14.260 And that means understanding how the biosphere works and learning from – this is why I think the biomimicry movement is good.

00:06:23.160 And they're on the right track because they're looking to nature for solutions to various problems of living.

00:06:31.920 And that needs to be expanded, that kind of biomimicry movement, that ethos needs – that's – my work is partly about that.

00:06:42.660 So in answer to your original question about humanity and the Earth, we have to live in harmony with the larger biospherical system.

00:06:50.820 And that means attuning ourselves once again to the biosphere and to the way the biosphere works and getting back to our roots and realizing that we can't just go off. 0.93

00:07:03.640 You know, in the latest music video I made, I said at one point in there that I felt that mankind has had its head up its own ass for too long. 0.72

00:07:14.480 And we need to take our collective head out – mankind needs to take its head out of its ass and look to the larger system that we've cut ourselves off from. 0.98

00:07:28.380 And that is the biosphere and beyond. 0.97

00:07:31.200 So how do we become –

00:07:32.040 And we can learn from nature.

00:07:33.900 This is the whole thing.

00:07:34.960 Nature is not mute.

00:07:36.720 The way – you hear about sustainable living everywhere now.

00:07:40.920 It's become a buzzword.

00:07:42.200 All businesses are jumping on the bandwagon.

00:07:46.420 Nature has learned sustainability because life on Earth has existed for almost four billion years.

00:07:52.720 Rainforests can sustain themselves with millions of species healthily for millions of years.

00:07:59.040 Nature has learned that life itself has learned the art of sustainable living.

00:08:04.020 So the sooner we get back in harmony with nature and learn from nature, we're not – you know, you often hear the phrase that we're – even Lovelock mentioned this, that we're stewards of the Earth.

00:08:15.320 We're not stewards of Gaia.

00:08:17.700 We're pupils, you know.

00:08:19.780 We should be pupils.

00:08:21.900 And this is why I think the mushroom – I'm interested in the mushroom because that – well, that's another story, I guess.

00:08:26.500 But that brings you – that can bring you in close communion with the biosphere.

00:08:30.840 And I definitely want to get into that.

00:08:32.280 But I first want to ask you, how do we become so disconnected from the Earth if humans come from the Earth? 0.88

00:08:39.200 I guess it's – well, right now, if I'm talking – if I think about my own experience, it's cities.

00:08:47.300 It's living in a city and just being surrounded by man-made symbols, man-made information, man-made – it's all – we've surrounded ourselves in a sort of – like a sort of pseudo reality.

00:09:04.980 And we've – it comes with the territory.

00:09:07.660 If you live in a city, you just walk on concrete everywhere.

00:09:11.680 You may never see a tree.

00:09:12.780 You don't even notice the sky.

00:09:14.560 The only time you realize – if you live in a big city like London or New York or whatever, the only time you realize you're in a living biosphere is if – like I said in my metanoia films, if it rains heavily or it's really windy.

00:09:29.760 But people don't – you know, they step outside of their apartment, go straight into a car, drive to work, get into an office.

00:09:34.960 They said the biosphere doesn't exist.

00:09:37.040 You don't know you're part of the biosphere.

00:09:40.340 Now, that's the problem with living in a city and being immersed in trivial media and shopping malls and all this kind of thing.

00:09:48.980 You don't – people don't even use the word biosphere.

00:09:52.700 In fact, it's quite a newly invented word.

00:09:57.360 So, we're – it's very important that we become aware of the larger life support system that is Spaceship Earth.

00:10:07.480 And the government can't make claims to owning all these natural resources, which according to Agenda 21 for our sustainability, they could even have claims to rainwater.

00:10:16.080 I mean, there's some places around the world right now where it's illegal to collect rainwater.

00:10:19.920 Can you believe that?

00:10:21.160 Yeah, well, it's illegal to eat these mushrooms like that as well, isn't it?

00:10:25.960 Well, many –

00:10:26.720 There's nothing surprising there, you know.

00:10:28.640 No, that's true.

00:10:30.340 People in authority are strange.

00:10:33.580 So, many speak of humanity going through a shift in consciousness.

00:10:36.380 Do you think Gaia is also going through some frequency changes and becoming something else right now?

00:10:41.860 Well, I don't know.

00:10:42.520 I wouldn't use terminology like frequency changes, but we're part of Gaia.

00:10:46.520 We're part of nature, but our problem – I mean, we are nature, but our problem is that we're disconnected from it.

00:10:55.060 So, I think we're – it's – we're going – we're going through an immature adolescent – we're not a mature species yet.

00:11:04.000 But, and I think we're going through – you know, like when you go through puberty, it takes a number of years, and they can be quite stressful and weird.

00:11:11.980 You know, adolescence are weird.

00:11:14.420 I think it's the same with humanity.

00:11:16.260 It takes, you know, maybe centuries for this to pass – to grow up.

00:11:24.340 We're being forced to – with climate change now and 7 billion people, we're – and peak oil and all this kind of thing.

00:11:30.680 We're being forced to re-evaluate and grow up, which is not a bad thing.

00:11:35.180 It's – the system itself is forcing that upon us.

00:11:37.960 So, that's why you've got millions of people interested in the Zeitgeist movement and the Venus Project and people looking for new values and all this kind of thing.

00:11:46.660 Because the information – the information – I'm a great believer that there's information within the biospherical system to heal itself.

00:11:55.740 Just like your body, if you cut yourself, you have all the information and all the parts in there for your body to heal itself, right?

00:12:02.640 It needs all the right bits to come together and your body knows how to heal itself.

00:12:07.260 I think that's the same principle holds for the biosphere.

00:12:10.800 All the information – and I include human culture as part of the biosphere – all the information necessary for the healing is within the system.

00:12:18.580 Hey, what do you think of the Venus Project?

00:12:22.060 Oh, well, I mean, I was – I got to visit Jack Fresco.

00:12:26.840 I was with a film crew and we went and interviewed him back in 2010.

00:12:34.380 We met Peter Joseph, the whole Zeitgeist thing as well.

00:12:37.700 So, I've been through all that and come out of all that.

00:12:43.200 Yeah, he's a very nice – he's a great guy.

00:12:45.760 He's interesting because he's – well, he's 96 now.

00:12:50.060 Yeah, he speaks some great truths.

00:12:53.400 He's an interesting guy.

00:12:55.880 I actually asked him when I was there, Florida, at his place, whether he'd ever – he doesn't have much of an interest in consciousness. 0.94

00:13:05.240 They think – Roxanne Meadows and Jack think that any talk of – any spiritual issues and anything to do with consciousness or mindfulness, spiritual pursuits, they think that's all mental masturbation. 0.92

00:13:17.000 Uh-oh. 0.77

00:13:17.680 And he's got lots of behaviorism books in his little pod there, the place where he lives.

00:13:23.700 So, he's much more interested in external changing – no, yeah, changing cities and external changes.

00:13:30.820 I think it's internal change, which is the most important thing.

00:13:35.040 Value changes and how we conceive of nature and our role in nature and this kind of thing.

00:13:40.380 So, I think it's internal inner change has to sort of come first and then there will be change in culture.

00:13:45.700 But I did actually ask him at one point whether he'd ever had a psychedelic experience and he hadn't.

00:13:54.820 So, he hasn't explored every aspect of reality.

00:13:59.300 Well, and according to you, the psychoactive mushroom is the antidote to combat the ecological damage, right?

00:14:05.420 No, I'd never say anything like that.

00:14:09.620 No, no, I don't want to make out. 1.00

00:14:12.380 I mean, often people – it's not – it's one – it's a – what the mushroom is is a potential tool.

00:14:19.800 It's a potential catalyst.

00:14:21.300 It's the eco-psychological impact of the mushroom that I'm most interested in and it can get you to perceive nature with new eyes and it has a tremendous eco-psychological impact.

00:14:37.060 And I think it's the same with ayahuasca and I think that's their main virtue is their catalyst for change, particularly change in our attitudes towards life on earth.

00:14:46.940 So, how far back does the use of psilocybin go?

00:14:53.900 Well, as far as I know, thousands of years.

00:14:56.760 I mean, it was used – the mushroom was used in Mesoamerica, the Aztecs and the Maya.

00:15:03.740 And so, thousands of years as far as we know.

00:15:07.240 And if we get to the heart of the psilocybin experience, what is the message?

00:15:13.460 Well, it's interesting.

00:15:14.620 I was listening to – someone posted a Terence McKenna clip on my Facebook wall today or a few – yesterday, I think.

00:15:23.740 And I listened to it this afternoon and he said something that – I mean, I don't listen to McKenna so much.

00:15:31.920 I went through – I listened to all of his stuff, you know, like 10 years ago, I went through all of his stuff.

00:15:40.160 So, I've heard most of his stuff.

00:15:42.100 But he said a really interesting – I mean, he's a great guy.

00:15:44.360 He's a tremendous influence on my own work.

00:15:46.540 But he said one of the – he said, and I agree with him, that one of the most important things about psychedelics like psilocybin is this concept of unity.

00:15:57.840 And if you look at research, scientific research that's been done into, say, the psilocybin experience and where they interview people,

00:16:10.340 because obviously you can't see what's going on in someone's head whilst they're having the experience.

00:16:14.660 But you can give them – what the scientific method does is you give questionnaires and then you gather data and you look for commonalities in the experience.

00:16:22.960 And one of the things that crops up again and again is a common aspect of the psilocybin experience is the feeling of – the interconnectedness of all things becomes apparent.

00:16:36.980 And I think that in itself, it sounds like a simple thing, but I think it's a very virtuous thing.

00:16:43.840 I mean, it's an intellectual – it's an idea you hear a lot about.

00:16:47.440 People say, yeah, everything's connected.

00:16:48.840 But with psilocybin, you really – you perceive it directly, that everything is part of one interconnected fluidic stuff.

00:16:57.380 And to have that overwhelming insight where you actually see it, you see it, I think that's a very powerful thing and that will have a big impact.

00:17:08.660 Well, another figure that a lot of people see, and I've seen it before on my experience, Jesus tends to show off for many during the psilocybin experience and aliens.

00:17:19.240 So what's that about?

00:17:21.280 Well, I think this is the way – I have a kind of Jungian approach to this.

00:17:26.300 I think it's the – well, Terence McKenna used to call it the other, that you confront the other.

00:17:32.920 There's a feeling – the psilocybin experience can lead to a feeling – an I-thou relationship with a tutorial other.

00:17:44.300 You feel like you're in the presence of a higher intelligence.

00:17:47.420 And I think that that higher intelligence is part of the psyche, is part of the unconscious coming into conscious awareness, and it will present itself to you according to your unique configuration of your psyche.

00:18:06.220 So if you're a very religious person, you know, you'll have a conversation with Jesus.

00:18:12.080 So there have been people on taking ayahuasca who don't see jaguars or massive anacondas or anything.

00:18:18.940 They'll see Jesus.

00:18:20.900 And I guess if you're a Muslim, you'd see Allah or speak to Muhammad or something.

00:18:25.780 So it's the way – it's like – you know that film Contact?

00:18:32.020 Yep.

00:18:32.780 With Jodie – was it Jodie Foster?

00:18:34.700 Yeah.

00:18:35.060 Yeah, Jodie Foster, the Carl Sagan novel.

00:18:37.300 In that, this alien intelligence, if you recall, the way it presents itself to her is in the form of her father.

00:18:46.440 Remember that bit where she meets at the end?

00:18:48.620 I think that's what the psyche is doing.

00:18:51.180 It's – in my book, The Psilocybin Solution, I talk about that it's almost like there are local dialects according to the way your cultural upbringing

00:19:00.540 and all the sort of icons and themes that are within your psyche or within your unconscious.

00:19:07.460 So if you're very religious, you might see Jesus.

00:19:10.220 If you're very interested in nature and Gaia and you take them out in nature, then you might see, you know, animals and trees and what have you.

00:19:22.040 So can fungi or other psychoactive plants also be tricksters?

00:19:25.160 I mean, can plant consciousness kind of mess with you?

00:19:27.100 I've never thought that, no.

00:19:30.880 No?

00:19:31.320 I think – I think – no, no.

00:19:34.300 That's – well, no, that's never occurred to me.

00:19:37.580 Okay.

00:19:37.820 I think maybe you – maybe you can – I don't know.

00:19:44.200 That's a lie, actually, because I often think cannabis is like a trickster sometimes.

00:19:47.960 Yeah, they can be sneaky.

00:19:49.580 But I don't think it's – I don't see it as a plant spirit that's there like an entity that's tricking you.

00:19:55.380 I think it's – there are – I would go down a psychological explanation for that.

00:20:02.320 Parts of the psyche maybe that are disconnected.

00:20:05.200 So like maybe paranoia or a bad trip that's all just yourself amplified basically when you focus on it?

00:20:12.300 Well, psychedelic means mind manifesting.

00:20:14.980 That's what the term psychedelic means, mind manifesting.

00:20:19.600 And so what it's doing is that you've got to remember that your unconscious is vast.

00:20:26.020 Think of all the people you've met, all the places you've been, all the experiences you've had, all the remarkable experiences you've had, all the horrific experience.

00:20:34.840 You know, all your – and that unconscious, it's not like a static retrieval system.

00:20:40.920 It's like a living thing and it's – because it's unconscious, it's not in your conscious awareness.

00:20:47.240 When you take a psychedelic and also during dreams and maybe other altered states, your parts of the unconscious come into conscious awareness.

00:20:57.820 And if you – a bad – I mean, Terence McKenna used to say that a bad trip was where you're being forced to learn quicker than you're used to learning.

00:21:05.020 So basically unfinished business, I call it unfinished business, particularly relationship issues.

00:21:12.160 I think life really is all about relationships, everything.

00:21:15.640 Reality is made of relationships.

00:21:17.820 And we all have difficult relationships, yeah?

00:21:20.200 We all carry difficult, unfinished business, loose ends, relationships that aren't optimized, let's say, or aren't as harmonious as they could be.

00:21:29.800 Stressed relationships and all this kind of thing.

00:21:31.780 It all comes into conscious awareness when you take a psychedelic.

00:21:35.760 And so that can be – because you're being – that's why they're used in therapy.

00:21:40.120 And that can be – and that's why they used to use LSD in their 50s to treat alcoholics, you know, to force them to confront these problems in their psyche.

00:21:51.380 So it's – you're forced to confront all this and that's why it can be – so a bad trip is really when you're – it's you.

00:21:57.820 There's nothing – there's this – sometimes you get the feeling that people think there's something bad in the actual molecule.

00:22:04.020 Like the molecule is a wicked molecule because there's – it's got demons in there and bad things, you know.

00:22:09.500 It's you.

00:22:10.380 It's you.

00:22:11.060 You're being – you're exposing yourself to your essence and to all the stuff that's beneath conscious awareness.

00:22:18.680 So what realm is that?

00:22:20.920 Is that an astral realm that it opens us up to or is it beyond the astral realm?

00:22:27.420 I don't – again, you're using language that I'm not familiar with using.

00:22:31.460 So I don't know – I don't know what the astral realm is.

00:22:34.400 There's a – there are psychological realms.

00:22:38.660 I know that within the psyche and they're – they have dynamics of their own.

00:22:44.180 And it's like – I think these visions that you get with psilocybin, these fantastical, transcendental, powerful, symbolic visions, I think that's the operation.

00:22:57.480 What psilocybin is doing is it's bringing – it's potentiating like a higher language aspect of the psyche.

00:23:05.100 So you're going into – Jung talked about archetypes, but you're going into – it's akin to another dimension of consciousness where there are huge ideas, huge themes, and that's why it seems alien-esque because it is like another dimension.

00:23:23.020 But I think it's part of – it's something we're – it's not something apart from us.

00:23:26.680 It's part of the human – it's what we're – it's part – it's the depths of the human psyche.

00:23:35.020 It's part of consciousness.

00:23:37.720 There's so much there we don't even understand yet.

00:23:40.160 So, yep, many layers.

00:23:41.080 Nobody does.

00:23:42.000 They're all – McKenna rightly said that all our theories about the psychedelic experience or the psilocybin experience are provisional.

00:23:50.080 Even what I've written in the psilocybin solution, I don't know if I still agree with what I wrote in there.

00:23:54.840 They're provisional ideas.

00:23:56.680 And it's every time you do the thing, if you haven't – if you've gone for six months or 12 months without taking psilocybin, it will surprise you when you take it because it's not like anything else.

00:24:07.580 We don't have language to describe it.

00:24:10.660 But there is something going on there.

00:24:12.540 It feels extremely important and significant.

00:24:16.700 So is the experience different if we grow them in the wild versus – or we pick them in the wild versus growing them at home?

00:24:24.480 Well, this is the thing with my work.

00:24:26.340 I keep going on.

00:24:27.320 I keep saying that I suffer from chronic biophilia brought on by the mushroom.

00:24:32.060 When I first – my mushroom fever period was in 1992, shortly after I discovered Terence McKenna.

00:24:39.500 And I did psilocybin a lot, and that was just in my room in this house I was living in.

00:24:44.340 And I used to follow his instructions, you know, lie down in the dark and have visions and this kind of thing.

00:24:48.800 And years later in the mid to late 90s, I started going on epic treks around the most gorgeous areas of the UK, which that means the Lake District and Snowdonia.

00:25:01.560 They're absolutely stunningly beautiful wilderness areas in the UK.

00:25:04.860 And I was picking with this guy I call a guru.

00:25:08.920 And I was collecting mushrooms out there, and we were camping wild style, far away from civilization.

00:25:17.760 You know, I think it was Socrates who said that nothing interesting happens beyond the city walls.

00:25:22.880 He was wrong about that.

00:25:23.960 Lots of interesting things happen beyond the city wall.

00:25:26.020 So we were out in the wilderness picking mushrooms, psilocybin mushrooms that grow in this country.

00:25:32.740 And I think when you take them out in nature, as opposed to the McKenna thing about being indoors, lights out, eyes shut, that's virtuous and you have an interesting time.

00:25:43.620 But you also have a fascinating time if you're out in the wilderness and you really – it can be absolutely extraordinary.

00:25:50.420 If you're in a beautiful oak forest campfire and milky way above you, it's absolutely stunning, but dangerously stunning because it can induce this chronic biophilia, which is what I suffer from.

00:26:07.260 Chronic biophilia and chronic gyophilia, very serious conditions.

00:26:13.740 There's also many biblical references to what many say could be psychedelics, such as John Allegro's mushroom cult theory.

00:26:19.440 Are you familiar with that?

00:26:21.640 Well, how can I not be familiar with that when I had to plow through that Jan Irvin's two-hour – I don't know what to call it.

00:26:30.820 Yeah, can we get on to this?

00:26:32.200 I've got to get it out of my system.

00:26:33.680 Yeah, sure.

00:26:34.560 It's always Red Ice Radio's fault.

00:26:38.500 That's right.

00:26:39.120 Let me just let the audience know.

00:26:40.520 We had Jan Irvin on Red Ice Radio and he pointed out Gordon Watson's involvement with the CIA,

00:26:45.480 claiming that the psychedelic hippie movement was a psyop and provides a window into how the elites run their mind control systems.

00:26:53.080 So would you like to comment on that?

00:26:54.980 Yeah, well, I'd rather not.

00:26:58.080 I listened to Jan Irvin's two-hour diatribe last night.

00:27:03.980 I put it off for a long time because I didn't want to listen to it because it's just going to be horrible.

00:27:08.600 And I listened to it and – all right.

00:27:11.800 Now, first of all, let me – I could say a lot.

00:27:14.260 Let me just say about John Allegro.

00:27:16.640 These are my honest opinions about John.

00:27:19.780 This is what I know about John Allegro and his sacred mushroom in the cross and all that kind of thing.

00:27:26.340 I – one of the first – a long, long time ago, before I started looking for mushrooms,

00:27:31.380 at the point where I was learning about mushrooms and decided I'd go and look for them,

00:27:35.820 I got a copy of John Allegro's book, The Sacred Mushroom in the Cross, from this local library.

00:27:41.520 This was about – a long time ago, about 1985.

00:27:44.960 I then started – I couldn't understand his book.

00:27:47.740 It was too academic.

00:27:48.840 But I started to – I read about these fly agaric mushrooms.

00:27:52.200 I then went out and looked for them for months.

00:27:54.380 And then I found fly agaric mushrooms in abundance in this haynolt forest in the outskirts of London.

00:28:02.600 So this is going back to, like, 1985.

00:28:04.540 And I bought shopping bags full of them back to this flat I was staying in with these punk rockers.

00:28:10.340 We were in, like, a punk band.

00:28:12.740 And I tried every conceivable way of ingesting these fly agaric mushrooms.

00:28:18.720 I dried the caps.

00:28:20.320 I mixed them with milk.

00:28:21.560 I dried them in an oven.

00:28:22.940 I dried them slowly.

00:28:23.880 I tried every single possible way.

00:28:26.860 So keen was I to get an effect.

00:28:29.500 And I got no effect whatsoever.

00:28:32.100 I heard you're supposed to drink your pee, like, eat them and then drink your pee, and then you get an effect.

00:28:36.620 That was a Siberian thing.

00:28:38.320 They said that because the active ingredient, which I think is muscamol, passes through your system.

00:28:44.040 And so your urine will be psychoactive.

00:28:46.200 So that's where that comes from.

00:28:50.660 So that was my first exposure.

00:28:52.180 I then got Allegro's book again.

00:28:55.400 I don't know.

00:28:55.900 I got it from a second-hand bookshop about five years ago.

00:28:59.800 Just tried to read it again.

00:29:01.040 And again, unless you're a philologist and you're an expert on languages, it's an intractable book.

00:29:06.820 I just couldn't, you know, understand it.

00:29:08.760 It's a sort of book for philologists and language experts.

00:29:13.040 But I've never – I suspected, and I'm not alone here.

00:29:20.100 I always suspected that he was a sensationalist.

00:29:24.320 And the fact that he, as other people have pointed out, the fact that he published – it first got published in a newspaper called The Sunday Mirror in, I think, 1970. 0.91

00:29:34.820 And that's a rubbish newspaper, you know.

00:29:37.260 It's not a highbrow newspaper. 0.90

00:29:39.900 And he would have got paid a lot of money because they serialized it over sort of eight issues or something.

00:29:45.140 And it's a sensational book to say that Christianity was the fly – you know, Jesus was the fly agaric mushroom.

00:29:50.840 It's so, so sensational.

00:29:53.640 But sensational equals book sales, you know.

00:29:56.860 If you want to sell millions of books, you write a sensational book, you know.

00:30:01.580 But here's the thing, right.

00:30:03.600 Here's my – this is the nub of it.

00:30:08.880 If you – on YouTube, there is a film of John Allegro.

00:30:16.240 It's about a 15-minute interview with him.

00:30:18.480 I think it's from 1976.

00:30:21.000 It's an interview with John Allegro where they're talking about this fly agaric mushroom.

00:30:24.400 Was he Jesus?

00:30:25.180 Was it Jesus?

00:30:26.500 And all this kind of thing.

00:30:28.180 In that film, there is a tell.

00:30:30.880 Now, you know what a tell is?

00:30:32.500 You know when people play – in my opinion, it's a tell.

00:30:35.400 You know when people play poker?

00:30:37.520 Yes.

00:30:38.060 You know a tell in poker?

00:30:39.520 Yes.

00:30:40.380 You know, if you've got a bad hand and you're bluffing, you might scratch your nose or something.

00:30:45.000 You know, you've got a tell.

00:30:45.800 Give it away.

00:30:46.320 A good poker player will spot your tell.

00:30:48.280 You're giving the game away through a tell.

00:30:51.000 Here's another example of a tell.

00:30:53.340 It's that numbskull – what's he called? 0.89

00:30:58.500 The spoonbender guy.

00:31:00.500 The guy who bends spoons.

00:31:02.360 Uri Geller.

00:31:03.100 Okay.

00:31:03.340 Now, Uri Geller made a career on pretending that he could bend spoons.

00:31:08.160 Yeah.

00:31:08.300 I mean, it's just an illusion as James Randi.

00:31:10.720 It's a cheap trick.

00:31:13.880 You know, it's an illusion that magicians can do.

00:31:16.940 But he made his career on bending – you know, his mysterious – now, he's got the fact that he never wanted to admit that he'd, you know, conned people.

00:31:27.700 And his tell is the fact that about – I don't know, about five – because I detest people like Uri Geller.

00:31:32.760 About five years ago, he started calling himself – he stopped saying he had paranormal abilities and mystical powers and called himself a mystifier.

00:31:41.840 Now, that's a tell.

00:31:43.080 Because what he's saying is, yes, I trick people and it's not real.

00:31:46.060 But I can't admit it fully.

00:31:48.260 I'll just change the way I describe myself.

00:31:50.540 So, he calls himself a mystifier.

00:31:52.180 He mystifies people.

00:31:53.480 That's a tell.

00:31:54.880 Yes?

00:31:55.340 He's giving the game away. 0.97

00:31:57.020 He just doesn't want to fully admit that he's a bullshitter. 0.93

00:31:59.880 Right. 0.95

00:32:00.300 Now, back to the Allegro thing.

00:32:01.800 You go on YouTube, watch that 1976 interview with Allegro.

00:32:08.380 And there's a – in my opinion, there's a tell in there.

00:32:10.520 Because at one point they – now, bear in mind that he's written this book saying that Jesus was this flyogaric mushroom.

00:32:19.220 That's a massive claim.

00:32:21.320 That flyogaric mushroom must be phenomenal in terms – it must make psilocybin – the psilocybin mushroom look trivial in comparison.

00:32:30.940 This must be a divinely powerful, supremely powerful mushroom.

00:32:34.620 I didn't get any effect when I tried it.

00:32:37.280 And I don't think Ward Gordon Wasson – even Wasson admitted that the psychoactivity is a bit questionable.

00:32:45.740 It's not even classed as a psychedelic muskemol, the active ingredient.

00:32:49.000 It's classed as a sedative or hypnotic.

00:32:53.300 It's not in the same league as psilocybin.

00:32:54.960 Anyway, imagine that this – Allegro wrote this book saying that the whole Christian religion and God – it all came back to this flyogaric mushroom.

00:33:03.320 Now, in 1976, when they interviewed him, it was legal, that mushroom.

00:33:08.680 It still is legal to consume.

00:33:10.660 Yeah.

00:33:10.880 But yet, when the interviewers asked him, have you ever taken this mushroom?

00:33:16.120 This is the tell.

00:33:17.300 He laughed.

00:33:18.140 He sort of got nervous.

00:33:19.780 He sort of laughed nervously.

00:33:21.020 Oh, no, no.

00:33:21.600 I would never take that.

00:33:22.740 They're strong or something.

00:33:24.200 That's the acid test.

00:33:25.320 If you're going to say that this thing is at the heart of Christianity and it's legal to take and they grow within 10 miles of where you live because he lived in Britain, you're going to take it. 0.99

00:33:39.860 That's the acid test.

00:33:42.300 You take it.

00:33:43.460 You go and see it's the acid test.

00:33:45.600 And the fact that he didn't, it's absurd.

00:33:48.360 It's like someone writing a book proclaiming that some – ayahuasca is the greatest thing in the world or something and they've never tried it.

00:33:57.380 You know, you've got to try the thing and the fact that he – it's a tell.

00:34:01.640 So I think my opinion is the same as Jonathan Ott and probably a lot of others, a lot of other critics is he was a sensationalist.

00:34:09.060 I don't even think he believed it himself.

00:34:10.640 And, of course, Jan Irvin has – he's now – he's republished the book.

00:34:16.180 So he's like he's given over to that guy now.

00:34:20.500 So he's got to follow that path through.

00:34:23.380 So that's why he's coming out of all this scarred.

00:34:27.660 That two-hour thing, it was the worst.

00:34:29.860 It was like trawling through mud.

00:34:31.720 You know, I can't believe – I can't believe – I saw that he'd raised $3,000 to make this film about this wacky theory that Gordon Wasson was part of the CIA.

00:34:50.580 It's just so absurd.

00:34:52.400 Why is it absurd to you?

00:34:54.620 Look, I've – when I wrote the psilocybin solution, I read – there's about – in the index, there's about five – if you want to –

00:35:01.700 know about a guy and get a feeling for someone, then – and they're an author, then read their books.

00:35:08.720 I've read most of Gordon Wasson's books, and he wrote – he published lots of papers.

00:35:15.360 And he was a scholar, you know, and he wrote really, really good – like his – yeah, this is – well, almost unforgivable.

00:35:23.160 Jesus said – I think Jesus was a teacher.

00:35:26.980 You know, Christ means awakened ones.

00:35:28.640 So I side with Morris Nichols, who suggested that – and Gurdjieff, who suggested that Jesus came from an esoteric school that taught self-knowledge.

00:35:39.640 But Jesus taught to forgive, and I guess that's – it stops you having chips on your shoulder.

00:35:45.780 What Jan Irvin said was – what he did at one point was almost, almost unforgivable.

00:35:51.900 He quoted Gordon Wasson about how Gordon Wasson discovered this mycophobia and mycophilia with his Russian wife, that she – she had a tradition of liking mushrooms, and he was an Anglo-Saxon who didn't like mushrooms.

00:36:04.360 And the way he – Jan Irvin was reading, was quoting Wasson in this horrible voice to poke fun, and that's a terrible thing, because Gordon Wasson wrote some really good scholarly works.

00:36:19.140 And I'm indebted to Gordon Wasson, as a lot of people are in the – who are interested in the history of psilocybin.

00:36:25.940 I mean, his scholarly work is first class, and so I'm – you know, someone has to speak up.

00:36:32.240 It was awful listening to that.

00:36:34.600 It's almost unforgivable, you know.

00:36:36.160 I don't know why he came – you know.

00:36:38.160 But, yeah, the – all right, I did write some notes down, all right.

00:36:42.460 He went on about the Century Club saying it was a front for the – a front for the CIA.

00:36:49.920 Well, I mean, it – and then I think he said he got – he got letters, the secretary there, because it's still – you can check on Wikipedia.

00:36:58.380 The club's still there.

00:36:59.660 It's for literary, social – wealthy people, you know.

00:37:03.700 You can get – they sent him letters or something, or records, you know.

00:37:07.840 What are we – to conclude that the CIA have got really lax security, that all these records, you can just get copies of letters from them.

00:37:17.160 What else?

00:37:17.900 You know, I wrote down that this $3,000 that Jan Irvin raised, I'd love it if some people started up a Kickstarter project to stop Jan Irvin.

00:37:30.440 Let me put that out there. 0.97

00:37:31.660 Anyone out there listening, maybe 99.9% of your audience are really behind Jan Irvin and thinking, who the fuck is this British guy talking here, you know.

00:37:41.220 But if there's anyone out there who'd like to see Jan Irvin's project stop, then start a Kickstarter thing to stop – raise money to stop Jan Irvin's –

00:37:51.540 But you have to admit that the CIA does have a history of using psychedelics for nefarious purposes.

00:37:57.420 Yeah.

00:37:58.820 Yeah.

00:37:59.520 No, it's not.

00:38:00.060 Wasson knew about it.

00:38:01.480 He got his second – it's well known that Wasson's second trip to Mexico was funded by the – I mention this in my book – was funded by the Geschwister Fund, which were a CIA organization.

00:38:12.580 And they sent a chemist out there under the guise of being an anthropologist or something.

00:38:17.220 He had no empathy whatsoever.

00:38:18.940 He had a horrible time on the mushroom, which is good.

00:38:22.940 And that's because the CIA were interested in psilocybin to see if it could be used as a truth drug.

00:38:27.860 But it can't.

00:38:29.520 So they – you know, you can't be used as a truth drug or anything.

00:38:32.440 So they gave up their quest on it.

00:38:34.840 So, you know, I'm not denying MKUltra or that they gave LSD to unsuspecting prisoners or soldiers or whatever. 0.58

00:38:42.380 But all the other stuff is – we have a word for it.

00:38:47.800 Jan Irvin's two-hour diatribe can be – there's a single word in the English language that sums up his whole two hours.

00:38:55.400 And that word is bollocks.

00:38:57.900 Well, there you go.

00:38:58.820 So Wasson's book, this first book that Gordon Wasson – the idea that – it's just so absurd.

00:39:04.740 This was all a sort of contrived cover.

00:39:07.600 Wasson's first book, Mushrooms, Russia and History, which was published in 1957, he only met – he only met – and I had the honor of reading it because it's a really rare book and I read it at the British Library.

00:39:20.560 It's – there are only 500 books made.

00:39:22.800 You know, it's a genuine – it's a – you read that book and you realize that this is someone very interested in the history of – the cultural history of mushrooms, in particular psychoactive mushrooms.

00:39:36.000 And then the last chapter is about his psilocybin experiences.

00:39:40.640 And then he – he then went on, after he retired from J.P. Morgan Bank, he went on to write a number of important scholarly books about psilocybin.

00:39:52.000 So his work is very important and Jan Irving's just – I do not blame – I mean, he contacted – he contacted Wasson's family about the archives or something and they didn't – I can't blame them to – for wanting to keep him at arm's length, you know.

00:40:11.580 I don't know what – I don't know what made – what's governing.

00:40:16.000 I don't know whether Jan Irving knows it's bollocks or he actually believes it. 1.00

00:40:20.640 And he's got this stupid thing on his – on his site, this brain program. 0.99

00:40:26.300 He's got a chart with Gordon Wasson in the middle, all these lines leading out to Hitler and the JFK assassination. 0.99

00:40:33.120 I'm surprised he didn't have links to Genghis Khan and Stalin and maybe Gordon Wasson was involved in the HIV virus and maybe Gordon Wasson is behind earthquakes or something, you know.

00:40:45.620 It's just absurd, absolutely absurd and it just mess – it dirties the whole psychedelic movement.

00:40:52.600 It tarnishes it, you know.

00:40:54.640 Are you somebody who's into – 0.99

00:40:55.840 It's absolutely, expletively ridiculous. 0.99

00:40:59.440 Are you somebody who's into conspiracy? 0.98

00:41:00.840 What's going on about – I didn't – how absurd can this get?

00:41:04.700 He then started talking about the Asarlene Institute or whatever it's called, that sort of new age where all these new age people come.

00:41:11.180 He mentioned Alan Watts and then mentioned Alan Watts had a handler.

00:41:18.100 That is – there aren't words for how crass that is.

00:41:22.380 You go on – you look at – there's some wonderful, wonderful audio clips of Alan Watts.

00:41:28.320 He was a wonderful chap.

00:41:30.060 There's really great wisdom there. 0.99

00:41:32.180 And the idea that he had a handler, a CIA handler is just fucking crass. 0.78

00:41:39.240 Are you someone who's normally into conspiracy or you kind of shrug that off? 0.86

00:41:42.580 There's only one conspiracy that we should really, really, really, really be concerned about and it leaves all the other conspiracies behind.

00:41:51.060 But people don't want to know about it and they think I'm crazy.

00:41:53.500 That's the conspiracy of nature or the whole system of the universe, the forces of nature, the laws of nature to self-organize on every single scale and to self-organize life into existence.

00:42:10.320 And then to evolve life to the point of consciousness so that we can be – we, you've got this – in this privileged position where we are the universe waking up to itself.

00:42:19.680 That's a big conspiracy.

00:42:21.480 That's a conspiracy that I'm interested in.

00:42:24.320 Not these – idea of – look, my Metanoia film, right?

00:42:31.420 Yes.

00:42:32.040 Which I'd spent years making that film.

00:42:34.140 I did all the music and everything. 1.00

00:42:35.420 Some – this is how stupid some people are now. 0.99

00:42:39.940 Someone commented on there. 1.00

00:42:42.700 Someone said to me on this huge – on this Metanoia thing.

00:42:45.980 He said, oh, Simon G. Powell, I thought you were the real deal.

00:42:49.400 And then you mentioned about population control.

00:42:51.940 And then this person then suggested that I was part of some sort of elite or something, you know.

00:42:58.080 All I mentioned at the end, it was just a casual thing.

00:43:01.320 At the end of the film, I was saying that – I said we need a new relationship with nature.

00:43:06.120 We need new, clean, renewable energy and population control.

00:43:09.600 I didn't mean rounding people up and shooting them Nazi style.

00:43:13.500 I meant that population is an issue because there's an optimum carrying capacity of the earth, you know.

00:43:19.480 Well, a lot of times –

00:43:20.440 It's an issue to be talked about population.

00:43:23.100 There's a lot –

00:43:23.700 I think a lot of times –

00:43:24.500 Every time we bring new people into existence, they use a lot of resources, you know.

00:43:28.700 But the fact that this person thought that I was part of some shadowy elite.

00:43:34.800 Yeah, people can reach far.

00:43:35.820 Someone rightly said. 0.92

00:43:37.380 Someone rightly answered.

00:43:38.840 They gave a quote from – I think it was Thomas Kuhn, the philosopher Thomas Kuhn.

00:43:43.820 And Thomas Kuhn rightly, I think, said that it's –

00:43:48.300 In the old days, when your crops failed or your house fell apart or you got ill, you'd blame demons, yeah.

00:43:54.220 You'd say there was demons or there was an angry god or some witch had put a hex on me.

00:43:59.900 That's just – that superstitious nonsense has just now been replaced by these shadowy groups.

00:44:05.580 You know, there's groups of bankers meeting in temples under the ground with their trousers rolled up.

00:44:11.440 Oh, but Simon, you need to do some research and there is quite a bit of that going on.

00:44:16.880 But if you're not researching into it, you're not seeing it.

00:44:21.520 Nobody knows what – Terence McKetter had it right when he said nobody's in control.

00:44:25.960 Nobody knows what's happening.

00:44:27.780 The Big Bang, you know the Big Bang theory, this idea that there was this creative event 14 billion years ago.

00:44:34.380 The big – that creative explosion is still happening.

00:44:38.140 Life is part of that.

00:44:39.340 Consciousness is part of that.

00:44:41.440 Nobody knows what is happening. 0.95

00:44:43.760 Something incredible is happening because here we are and we're conscious beings on this fucking incredible biosphere. 0.51

00:44:50.580 Nobody's controlling that, not people. 0.96

00:44:53.560 It's bigger than – bigger than people.

00:44:56.440 Yeah, well, ultimately the only thing someone could control is your consciousness. 1.00

00:44:59.680 It's crap. 1.00

00:45:02.360 Yes, there are bad people. 1.00

00:45:03.960 People get obsessed with money and power and they do bad things.

00:45:07.100 History has always been like that.

00:45:10.040 It's just getting out of hand now. 0.99

00:45:11.840 Everything's a fucking conspiracy. 0.98

00:45:13.960 So if humans keep up on the bad track, you know, disconnected from nature and the soul, what will we evolve into then? 0.99

00:45:21.360 Sorry, I'm sorry.

00:45:22.540 I'm just looking at the notes just seeing if there's anything else I want to say. 0.79

00:45:25.600 Yeah, let me just say one more thing about his ridiculous diatribe.

00:45:33.020 The whole point of the psilocybin thing – and his organization is called Gnostic Media. 0.53

00:45:39.700 I mean, Gnosticism is all about knowledge, direct knowledge, and that's what the mushroom can give you.

00:45:45.020 The whole point of the mushroom is not history and all this kind of thing.

00:45:51.020 It's the actual experience itself, higher states of consciousness.

00:45:55.520 Everything else is beside the point.

00:45:57.720 Everything else is looking the wrong way.

00:45:59.680 Psilocybin is a tremendous natural resource because it empowers you.

00:46:07.180 That's what we should be talking about.

00:46:08.920 It's the actual experience.

00:46:10.180 It's a shame McKenna's dead, you know. 0.79

00:46:11.960 It's the actual experience and all this crap that people like Jan Irvin's coming out with and you've got some responsibility because you broadcast him. 0.92

00:46:22.480 It just muddies the water.

00:46:24.500 The psilocybin experience itself will empower you and that's what we should be looking to and talking about and making something of.

00:46:33.160 So did you go through Jan's entire article?

00:46:37.620 No.

00:46:38.100 I listened to the two-hour thing.

00:46:40.040 I went to – I saw another video of him and I flicked through before his – an overview of the thing.

00:46:48.420 Okay. 0.98

00:46:48.800 Look, I think – I might be wrong, but I think I've got a good sense of bullshit. 0.98

00:46:56.860 I really believe that. 0.99

00:46:58.040 The older I get, I think I can detect bullshit. 0.98

00:47:01.420 I think I've got a good – it's just my opinion. 0.98

00:47:04.000 I can't prove it. 0.98

00:47:04.880 It would be quite difficult to prove it, but I think I can detect bullshit. 0.99

00:47:08.100 And there's lots of bullshit ideas about that. 0.99

00:47:10.300 You don't pursue every single wacky idea you come across. 1.00

00:47:14.160 And it's just bullshit. 0.98

00:47:15.780 I know because I've – well, I don't know. 0.99

00:47:18.160 I know as – I'm as convinced as convinced can be.

00:47:21.540 Having read – like I said, that thing about Allegro, the tell and all that, what I said about Allegro and having read Gordon Wasson's work, he was – you know, his life, the latter part of his life was dedicated to unearthing the use of psilocybin in Mesoamerican culture.

00:47:46.780 Well, at the end of the day, if you get something good out of it, I guess that's all that really matters.

00:47:50.920 Well, that's what I'm saying, is the experience is the most important thing.

00:47:57.060 So, if humans keep up on the bad track we're on, disconnected from nature and the soul, what will we evolve into?

00:48:03.220 Well, we won't.

00:48:04.100 We'll go down the pan like the dinosaurs.

00:48:06.480 Nature – you know, I've tried to introduce this new – people have heard of the survivor, the fittest.

00:48:13.080 In my book, Darwin's Unfinished Business, and in my Metanoia film, I talk about the survival of that which makes sense.

00:48:20.860 What that means is that nature will only preserve, in the long run, sensible behavior.

00:48:28.500 A sensible behavior means you behave in a way that fits in with the larger environment, which is the larger web of life.

00:48:38.060 If we continue – if human culture continues to not make sense within the larger context, then it will be pruned away.

00:48:49.980 Do you think maybe Mother Nature will have a big depopulation event, wipe out a bunch of humans, maybe leave some?

00:48:56.940 Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

00:48:58.860 But we won't – we can't carry on in this business as usual, cannot carry on indefinitely.

00:49:05.840 So, speaking of psilocybin, should everyone try it?

00:49:11.680 No, I wouldn't advocate everyone.

00:49:13.900 No, you should be over 35 and you should have a science degree or an art degree.

00:49:19.040 Are you joking?

00:49:20.280 I'm covering myself.

00:49:24.260 No, they're not for everyone.

00:49:26.240 I mean, you have to – no, it's for everyone.

00:49:30.000 No, if you want to – they should – what you need.

00:49:34.260 I recently went to – back in April, I went to this forum in America.

00:49:40.880 It was partly about the near-death experience, but they also had psilocybin researchers there who have done it.

00:49:46.960 You know the latest John Hopkins research?

00:49:49.080 They're giving psilocybin to people dying from cancer and this kind of thing.

00:49:52.540 And I met all the main psilocybin researchers and I think there's a general agreement and I've been pushing this for, I don't know, maybe the last six months or so in interviews and stuff.

00:50:04.840 What we need – because at the moment, people – for instance, there's an interest in ayahuasca and people who've got the money are going all the way out to Peru to take ayahuasca and have these therapeutic experiences.

00:50:14.460 Not everyone can afford to go all the way to Peru to take ayahuasca.

00:50:18.000 What we need – I call them revitalization centers.

00:50:21.960 We need places within culture all over Europe and America where people can go and have a guided – so what I'm saying to you, should everyone – everyone should have the opportunity to take them in a civilized fashion.

00:50:37.740 There are ayahuasca churches actually in America.

00:50:40.620 There's one in Bendorian I know about.

00:50:42.060 Right. Well, that's good.

00:50:44.860 So I had another question for you.

00:50:46.660 People sometimes refer to our Earth as living in a matrix or a virtual reality.

00:50:51.460 As a nature lover, how would you answer that?

00:50:53.520 Is that just another effect of consciousness or is there some kind of truth to that?

00:50:59.040 What, like we live in a simulation?

00:51:00.920 Yeah.

00:51:02.060 Well, yeah, I've come across this idea before and the first thing I think about when people say we must – you know, there was some scientific theory.

00:51:09.680 I can't remember the nitty-gritty of it, but the gist of it was that there were certain things about the universe that showed that we must be living in a simulation.

00:51:20.620 Well, I guess like the fine-tuning of the laws of nature and the forces of nature if you want to avoid a multiple universe thing.

00:51:27.340 So the conclusion was we must be living in a sort of a simulation that's been crafted by some really highly advanced intelligence or whatever.

00:51:37.220 The problem with that is it's just pushing the buck because the beings who made that simulation, they'd have to reach the same conclusion, wouldn't they?

00:51:46.440 So you just keep – you're getting into an infinite regress.

00:51:51.320 So it doesn't explain anything.

00:51:53.500 So I don't buy it.

00:51:54.420 It doesn't explain anything.

00:51:55.340 The mystery – all my work – all my work is about the notion that this intelligence that everybody's – people are longing for this higher intelligence, right?

00:52:07.220 And they see it as – a lot of people are looking for a UFO and there's all this fascination with looking at – staring at pixels on, you know, grainy films and stuff and looking to the stars, waiting for some whirling disc to come out.

00:52:22.000 And, you know, people are longing.

00:52:24.360 There's an emptiness in people and they're looking for this higher intelligence in the form of a UFO or whatever.

00:52:30.400 But all my work, you know, for good or for ill, all my work at the current time, I'm saying that this intelligence that we're looking for, this higher intelligence, it's part of nature.

00:52:42.900 You know, McKenna had lots of ideas.

00:52:46.320 You know, he was a very sane man because he used to entertain ideas.

00:52:51.820 You know, he didn't say this is the truth.

00:52:53.080 He would entertain ideas and say that their ideas, as I said earlier, that they were provisional.

00:52:57.480 He pointed out once that these big telescopes in Arecibo looking for alien messages and things, you know, psilocybin mushrooms are growing on the ground around them, you know.

00:53:10.100 So it's closer than we think, this intelligence.

00:53:12.700 And like, yeah, I wrote an article about this on Reality Sandwich.

00:53:15.680 I pointed out that if we received a signal from another, you know, galaxy or whatever, another star, solar system, and it had a sequence of numbers that were the Fibonacci sequence.

00:53:28.960 You know the Fibonacci sequence?

00:53:30.480 I think it's one, two, three, five, eight.

00:53:34.460 There's this, you know, it's a mathematical, well, a famous mathematical sequence.

00:53:37.600 If we received a message that had the Fibonacci sequence in it, just like if it was the numbers of pi, we'd say, yes, this is an intelligence.

00:53:47.160 Well, the Fibonacci sequence occurs in nature, you know, it occurs in sunflowers and the design of certain plants and kind of thing.

00:53:54.100 But people don't, people do not perceive intelligence within nature.

00:54:00.460 I do.

00:54:00.800 I think that evolution is a naturally intelligent process.

00:54:04.940 I think that nature is, I think it's a kind of unconscious intelligence that's becoming conscious.

00:54:10.980 Well, I think it's interesting that animals have instincts about their survival that humans don't have.

00:54:15.460 So it always begs for the question, you know, has our DNA truly been toyed with somewhere along the line?

00:54:22.120 I know you're probably not into the ancient alien question, but, you know, it's there.

00:54:25.520 It's passing the buck again to say that if you're not looking at the right place, it's like saying that everything else in the web of life is sort of a bit dull and we can explain it all.

00:54:39.440 But when it comes to the human genome, something must have interfered with all the whole.

00:54:45.220 Think about the genetic code.

00:54:47.380 It came into existence naturally, they say.

00:54:50.060 It's a natural part of the physics and chemistry.

00:54:53.960 It emerged over time, the genetic code.

00:54:57.060 Now, it's a code.

00:54:58.900 People should raise their eyebrows about that, should immediately suggest to me that nature is a naturally intelligent system, that all these, it's fulfilling a function.

00:55:12.560 So to pass the buck and say, well, there must have been aliens came, you're just passing the buck because they must have evolved on a planet as well.

00:55:21.460 The real mystery is nature itself, the laws of nature, the forces of nature and the creative, the sheer creative genius of nature.

00:55:34.160 It's got this creative power to evolve a single cell bacterium for three and a half billion years ago into a conscious being like a homo sapiens.

00:55:45.880 You know, that's the real amazing thing.

00:55:49.560 And to just, to then go into aliens, you're just passing the buck because those aliens would have to explain their existence as well.

00:55:58.340 And the mystery, as I say, the mystery is the whole cosmos, is the whole system of nature.

00:56:05.700 I guess it's interesting, though, because if we're consciousness, we can have a whole lot of things going on.

00:56:12.920 I always say everything can and probably is happening because we are here dreaming, we're experiencing.

00:56:20.020 So things could be going on, maybe not in your world, but maybe for someone else, you know?

00:56:25.460 Yeah.

00:56:25.820 And the thing about DNA that's interesting is you can rewrite it, so it's not hopeless, even if that was the case.

00:56:33.500 Say that again?

00:56:34.760 I said the thing about DNA is you can rewrite it based on your belief, so even if that was the case, it's not the end of the world.

00:56:42.320 Maybe that's part of our evolution, just having to step up.

00:56:45.500 Maybe there are actually factors that kind of intervene in the game to get us to step it up a bit.

00:56:51.080 You never know.

00:56:51.560 Well, I had this last psilocybin experience I had very recently.

00:56:58.440 Well, a number of interesting things.

00:57:02.580 I've said before when I talk about natural intelligence that anything is possible with natural intelligence.

00:57:08.440 So maybe that fits in with what, you know.

00:57:10.400 I'm saying that there is an intelligence to nature, that nature is an intelligently configured system, right?

00:57:18.360 That life and consciousness are functions or unfolding expressions of this intelligence.

00:57:25.240 Right.

00:57:25.820 So natural intelligence, it could do anything.

00:57:29.600 Anything that's possible is possible.

00:57:31.960 Anyway, this is a psilocybin experience I had recently.

00:57:35.780 Two interesting things.

00:57:37.060 One, well, this has to do with this thing I call the sacred pattern.

00:57:41.220 I'm not going to go into that now because that's a whole new thing.

00:57:43.800 I see this – I've been studying this pattern that becomes perceivable on psilocybin.

00:57:52.300 It covers all surfaces.

00:57:54.440 I'm finding it really fascinating.

00:57:55.880 It's one of the things I'm really interested about psilocybin at the moment.

00:57:59.000 That's another story.

00:58:00.940 I'm writing about it in this book I'm working on.

00:58:02.760 And the other thing was interesting is this pattern was on – I saw it on – you can see it on your hands and on your skin and stuff.

00:58:09.880 And it's in the environment.

00:58:11.880 I could imagine – this thought went through my mind that there's an idea in evolutionary biology.

00:58:19.600 There's this thing called punctuated equilibria.

00:58:23.760 The idea is that evolution isn't this gradual thing.

00:58:26.460 There are periods where there's rapid evolution, punctuated equilibria, it's called.

00:58:33.720 But it's still over thousands and millions of years.

00:58:37.280 It might be that things happen.

00:58:41.040 It might be that the web of life changes in ways we don't understand yet.

00:58:45.420 There might be rapid morphological changes or something.

00:58:50.520 I imagined this when I was under psilocybin.

00:58:53.460 I could just imagine – you know, it's a bit like – you know, have you seen that movie, An American Werewolf in London?

00:58:59.380 No, I haven't watched that one yet.

00:59:01.860 Oh, it's a classic.

00:59:02.720 It's like 1981, I think.

00:59:04.680 And it didn't use CGI for the transformations for this guy.

00:59:09.160 I'll say, you should check it out on YouTube.

00:59:10.940 Okay.

00:59:12.780 The transformations of this guy into a wolf, they didn't use CGI.

00:59:17.360 They actually used – I don't know what they're called.

00:59:20.040 Special effects, you know, models and what have you.

00:59:24.160 This was before – 1981, before they did CGI.

00:59:27.560 And, you know, it was a scary change because this guy changes into a wolf.

00:59:31.680 But I just – under psilocybin, I just imagined that life might shift in ways we don't understand quite rapidly.

00:59:38.800 Because DNA – DNA is an amazing – this is the thing is DNA is an amazing, really amazing thing.

00:59:47.600 I always say to people that people are fascinated by crop circles, but the actual wheat, the wheat plant itself is far more interesting in terms of nanotech inside plants.

00:59:59.960 You know, the ribosomes, which convert DNA into proteins, it's technology all the way.

01:00:05.380 You know, it's a really sophisticated – life is a really ultra-sophisticated technology.

01:00:09.980 And there are error-checking mechanisms in DNA as well.

01:00:13.040 You know, DNA is like an alien technology in that it's extremely sophisticated and clever and smart.

01:00:19.740 So there are all sorts of things that life could probably do that we don't understand yet.

01:00:24.920 And I wonder how long this manifestation of consciousness will last because it won't be Earth maybe next time and it will be something else.

01:00:33.940 Yeah, who knows?

01:00:35.660 Well, thank you so much for speaking with me today.

01:00:37.680 It's been a wild ride.

01:00:39.200 Yeah, yeah.

01:00:40.680 I hope it's of interest to your listeners.

01:00:43.700 Tell us about your website, books, etc.

01:00:46.040 SimonGPowell.com, two books out, Psilocybin Solution and more recently Darwin's Unfinished Business.

01:00:57.980 Nobody knows about me.

01:00:59.860 Two films on YouTube you can watch for free, Manor.

01:01:03.740 If you search YouTube for Psilocybin, my Manor film normally comes up number one or number two.

01:01:13.240 So you can watch that on there, although it's an old film.

01:01:16.720 It's like 10 years old.

01:01:19.180 And then there's another film I make called Metanoia, slightly better production value.

01:01:25.380 That's on there as well.

01:01:26.860 And yeah, I'm trying to get a project.

01:01:28.840 I'm trying to get funds together to make a third film about the biosphere.

01:01:33.160 Nice.

01:01:33.960 It's all part of my chronic biophilia, see.

01:01:36.120 I suffer, so it's the mushroom did it.

01:01:39.120 The mushroom led me down this path.

01:01:43.760 It's always my defense.

01:01:45.000 If I come up with, I get a lot of stick and criticism for my, these notions of natural intelligence.

01:01:51.360 And I can always fall back on the fact that it's the mushroom did it all.

01:01:55.280 So what does your family say about this?

01:01:56.620 Are they supportive?

01:01:57.360 Yeah, I think they sort of smile and they put up with it, you know.

01:02:03.500 You don't spike any salads with special mushrooms on the holidays?

01:02:08.400 I'd never spike anyone.

01:02:10.300 It's the worst thing to spike someone.

01:02:12.480 Oh yeah, I was joking.

01:02:14.380 Also, you're a musician, so I'm going to leave everyone with a song from your film soundtrack.

01:02:18.240 Until next time, relax and take it easy.

01:02:21.300 Okay, cheers.

01:02:22.080 Cheers.

01:02:22.180 Cheers.

01:02:22.240 Cheers.

01:02:27.360 Cheers.

01:02:52.340 Cheers.

01:02:53.360 Cheers.

01:02:57.360 Thank you.

01:03:27.360 Thank you.

01:03:57.360 Thank you.

01:04:27.360 Thank you.

01:04:57.360 Thank you.

01:05:27.360 Thank you.

01:05:57.360 Thank you.

01:06:27.360 Thank you.

01:06:57.360 Thank you.

Radio 3Fourteen - September 12, 2012

The Psilocybin Solution vs. Elite Psychedelic Psyops

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