The Joe Rogan Experience - April 02, 2024


Joe Rogan Experience #2129 - David Holthouse

Topics
Krishna consciousness movement monkeys in vrindavan cults Catholic Church pedophilia connection DMT experience karma and reincarnation karma and human flaws psilocybin and evolution theory corruption in Ukraine incoming missile alerts app Neuralink & AI concerns artificial intelligence innovation gray alien archetype unique experiences DMT psychedelic experience psychedelics legalization of psychedelics
Hosted by
Joe Rogan
Guests
David Holthouse
Mentioned
Kirtananda Terrence McKenna Putin Hare Krishna Jackie Gleason Charles St. Dennis Thomas Drescher Lorenzo Haggerty Fife Symington Kirtan Ananda Richard Nixon George Harrison Keith Hamm Beatles Buddha Vedas Kyiv Vrindavan India Thomas West Tucker Carlson and 42 more
Joe Rogan Experience #2128 - Joey Diaz Joe Rogan Experience #2130 - Coleman Hughes

Episode Stats


Length

2 hours and 29 minutes

Words per minute

173.1

Word count

25,925

Sentence count

2,355

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Toxicity

302

sentences flagged

Hate speech

38

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we're joined by the director of the documentary "Krishna Consciousness" about the cult movement known as the "Hare Krishna Movement" and the guru, Prabhupada, who is credited with bringing the movement to the masses in the late 60s and early 70s. We talk about his life, his teachings, and the impact he had on the culture of the time. We also talk about how the movement influenced the music of the day, including the Beatles and their relationship with Krishna Consciousness. And, of course, there's a song about Krishna consciousness by the Beatles. We're in no way affiliated with the Bhagwan Shree Krishna Movement, the cult, but it's a fascinating story and I think you'll agree that it's one that deserves to be told. If you haven't seen the documentary, you should definitely check it out, because it's worth a listen! Also, if you're a devotee of the movement, you'll know that the guru's teachings and teachings can have a lot to do with the Beatles, and that's a good thing. I mean a lot more than just a hit record, so if you don't miss it, you're not going to want to miss it. We'll see you next week on HBO's "The Devil Next Door" on October 18th, where we'll be talking about that! Thank you for listening to this episode of Behind The Mindset. . Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Music by Nordgroove.co.nz Artwork by Jeff Kaalec and our theme song by Ian Dorsch by Kirtan Anandrews Thanks for listening and supporting this episode? Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe to our new album, and tell us what you think of this episode! if you like it, rating, rating and reviewing it on Apple Music, review us on iTunes, and share it on your podcast! we'll review it on the podcast and tag us on Insta! and we'll get a shoutout on the next episode of that you're listening to it in next week's episode of That's Alyssa_ or you'll be notified when it's out there on the pod? and the next one is coming out on next week s episode is out on Tuesday! Thanks again!

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Joe Rogan Experience" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:12.000 How are you, man?
00:00:13.000 Good to see you again.
00:00:14.000 Good.
00:00:14.000 Thanks for having me back, man.
00:00:15.000 My pleasure.
00:00:16.000 You made another awesome one, man.
00:00:18.000 The Krishna's one.
00:00:20.000 Oh, my God.
00:00:22.000 There is something about these cult documentaries.
00:00:26.000 Right.
00:00:26.000 It's just...
00:00:28.000 Whew! 0.99
00:00:29.000 That one's heavy.
00:00:30.000 Do you remember the Hare Krishna devotees in the airports? 0.81
00:00:33.000 Because you're like me, like, you're old enough of that generation that you might remember the white robe, like, they'd have the flowers and they'd be selling books and shit in the airports.
00:00:41.000 I don't know if I remember them in the airports.
00:00:44.000 I remember them in some places.
00:00:45.000 I definitely have seen them, you know?
00:00:48.000 Yeah, but I just always thought they were just kooks.
00:00:53.000 It's interesting, knowing what I know now about the 60s and what was done to sort of To kind of crush the hippie movement.
00:01:04.000 Right.
00:01:04.000 You know, it's interesting to see that this was connected to, you know, the Beatles and peace and love.
00:01:12.000 And then you see this sect that this, what was his name again?
00:01:16.000 Kirtan Ananda.
00:01:17.000 Yes.
00:01:17.000 Was the guru that went way wrong.
00:01:20.000 Yeah, went way wrong.
00:01:21.000 Yeah.
00:01:21.000 But it is, well, let's just get into from the beginning.
00:01:25.000 How did you get involved in this particular subject?
00:01:27.000 So there's a production company, Marwar Junction, and they had actually sold this show to Peacock and they were looking for a director.
00:01:34.000 So this is the first show that I've made or helped to make that I haven't been involved in the sort of conception of the story from the jump.
00:01:43.000 So they had developed the story and sold it to Peacock and they were shopping for a director and they liked my work and so they hired me to make it.
00:01:49.000 And so did you have any experience with the Krishnas before this?
00:01:53.000 No, no.
00:01:54.000 And I had, you know, like a lot of people had a lot of misconceptions about them.
00:01:57.000 Like I thought that there was a, that the Hare Krishna movement was invented in America in the 1960s.
00:02:02.000 I just had it associated with sort of the hippie movement, you know, and that's not the, that's not the truth of it at all.
00:02:08.000 It's like actually a spiritual tradition that, you know, dates back thousands of years, like far predates Christianity.
00:02:15.000 It's based in these ancient, I learned a lot about Krishna consciousness in the making of this.
00:02:35.000 And the show is about a particularly dark chapter.
00:02:41.000 I think it's a force for good in the world today, actually.
00:02:50.000 Yeah, I think the principles behind it, if you pay attention to the main guru, what was the older gentleman?
00:02:56.000 Prabhupada.
00:02:56.000 Prabhupada, yeah.
00:02:57.000 Yeah, my friend Duncan loves that guy.
00:03:00.000 And the whole concept behind it sounds beautiful, you know?
00:03:05.000 It's all just love and, you know...
00:03:09.000 Relinquishing your possessions and the hold that they have on you and just living this very peaceful loving life and Not just forgiving your enemies but letting them into your home and it's all that sounds great But all it takes is one psycho Yeah,
00:03:25.000 one psycho.
00:03:26.000 Well, Prabhupada took a risk. 0.58
00:03:28.000 I mean, so Prabhupada was a guru.
00:03:29.000 So several gurus, Krishna consciousness gurus, had come over from India to the UK or to the US, you know, in the 1800s even, and then through the first half of the 20th century and had no luck because their timing wasn't right or they weren't the right person or both.
00:03:44.000 But Prabhupada was the right dude at the right time.
00:03:46.000 He showed up in Greenwich Village, New York City in 1965 and started preaching Krishna consciousness.
00:03:52.000 And it just like, you know, took off like wildfire.
00:03:56.000 And, you know, like Allen Ginsberg got down with it.
00:03:59.000 Wasn't maybe a full-scale devotee, but like he was hanging out with him.
00:04:03.000 But Prabhupada was already an old dude when he showed up in the U.S. And so in 1977, he died.
00:04:10.000 So that's 12 years.
00:04:11.000 And by that time, Krishna consciousness, there were like Krishna temples all over the country and in the U.K. because George Harrison had converted.
00:04:18.000 That was one of his strokes of brilliance, Prabhupada.
00:04:21.000 He sent a group of devotees to go camp outside the Apple Records office.
00:04:27.000 And just, like, chant and dance until they basically got a meeting with the Beatles.
00:04:33.000 And he was literally like, let's see if we can make the Beatles, you know, Krishna's. 0.88
00:04:37.000 And with Harrison, it took, you know, and that song, My Sweet Lord, I mean, that's what it's about.
00:04:42.000 It's about Krishna consciousness.
00:04:43.000 Yeah.
00:04:44.000 So, but when Prabhupada died in 1977, you know, he hadn't had a lot of time to build up successors.
00:04:50.000 And most of the leaders of the movement were young, or most of the members of the movement were young.
00:04:55.000 So he took a risk, and I don't think he had a choice, and he appointed 11 of his closest, longest time devotees, all men, to be the gurus that would carry the movement forward.
00:05:08.000 And while you could say that it worked, and that Krishna consciousness is still around and is bigger than ever, A few of those... 0.96
00:05:16.000 These are dudes.
00:05:17.000 These are like dudes in their 20s, okay?
00:05:20.000 That suddenly are being worshipped as direct conduits to the divine.
00:05:24.000 In other words, treated as gods on earth.
00:05:26.000 And some of them were not spiritually prepared for that.
00:05:29.000 Would be a kind way to put it.
00:05:31.000 And some of them went wrong, and one of them in particular, Kirtan Ananda, whose government name was Keith Hamm, went really wrong.
00:05:38.000 I like the term, government name.
00:05:40.000 Yeah.
00:05:43.000 Well, that is a thing that they always do, right?
00:05:45.000 They give them spiritual names.
00:05:47.000 Yeah, you relinquish your, you know...
00:05:49.000 Your original existence.
00:05:50.000 Yeah, and take a Christian name.
00:05:51.000 There's a place out here, you know, I built a comedy club, and before I got the spot that I have now on 6th Street, I bought a place called the One World Theater.
00:06:02.000 And the One World Theater was owned by a cult.
00:06:07.000 And it's a beautiful theater and I had heard about it from my friend Ron White because I was telling him, you know, I think we should open up a comedy club.
00:06:14.000 And he said, you should buy that theater.
00:06:16.000 It was owned by a cult.
00:06:17.000 And I was like, that would be hilarious.
00:06:19.000 Buy a theater that was owned by a cult.
00:06:21.000 And there's a documentary on them called Holy Hell.
00:06:23.000 Okay.
00:06:24.000 And it's the same sort of deal.
00:06:25.000 Yeah, I know that, Doc.
00:06:26.000 Yeah, so they start off, it seems wonderful in the beginning.
00:06:30.000 Everyone's doing yoga, they're hanging out together, cooking meals together, and dancing, and like, it seems like all cults It goes sideways.
00:06:40.000 In the beginning, it looks like a wonderful idea. 0.98
00:06:43.000 Like, society sucks. 0.99
00:06:45.000 The modern world, the way it's set up, materialism, it's all foolish and spiritually vacant. 0.99
00:06:52.000 There's a way to do this, and the way to live, and this is the way, and everybody joins.
00:06:57.000 And then Waco comes along, and the Cult Awareness Network starts investigating this guy.
00:07:02.000 And so he changes his name for the third time.
00:07:05.000 His name is Jaime Gomez. 0.99
00:07:07.000 He was a gay porn star and a hypnotist. 1.00
00:07:12.000 He led a rich life. 1.00
00:07:13.000 Yeah, so he was already on a certain path.
00:07:18.000 And then he changed his name again.
00:07:22.000 And he changed his name to like, I forget, there's two different names.
00:07:26.000 One was Michelle, and I forget what the other one was.
00:07:28.000 So he changed his name again, moves to Austin, and starts this cult and has his followers build him this theater so he can dance in front of them.
00:07:37.000 And that was the place that I bought.
00:07:39.000 But it was all fucked up, and we wound up getting out of the deal, because there was a lot of problems and a lot of issues that had to be resolved with the property.
00:07:48.000 And they didn't disclose that, so I got out of it and then got this place on 6th Street.
00:07:54.000 You know in the process I really started investigating the cult and I didn't investigate it unfortunately before I signed contracts and I had gotten a call from my friend Adam like, hey man, did you watch the documentary on the cult?
00:08:06.000 I was like, oh no Whatever is a documentary on a cult.
00:08:10.000 It's generally a cult that went bad, right?
00:08:13.000 And this one went bad and but it was the same sort of deal they all got names they were all given you know spiritual names and And they were told that you're reborn.
00:08:22.000 Yeah.
00:08:22.000 Reborn in this new persona.
00:08:25.000 Well, even in the 60s and 70s, I don't think it'd be fair to call Krishna consciousness a cult.
00:08:30.000 But the way that this...
00:08:31.000 So this guy Kirtananda, one of the 11 disciples that Prabhupada appointed to carry on the movement, he already had a commune.
00:08:39.000 Up in the hills of West Virginia.
00:08:41.000 It's still there.
00:08:42.000 It's called New Vrindavan, because the city of Vrindavan in India is the sort of mythical birthplace of Krishna.
00:08:47.000 That cult, that compound is still there?
00:08:49.000 Still there, yeah.
00:08:50.000 But it's not a cult.
00:08:50.000 It's not a cult.
00:08:51.000 And it's like, right now, I've been there twice.
00:08:52.000 And like today, again, it's like, it's a really like positive place with a great spiritual vibe. 0.96
00:08:57.000 But when Kirtananda was in charge in the 70s and 80s, like some really dark shit went on down. 0.53
00:09:01.000 How did they turn it around? 0.92
00:09:04.000 Well, like, well, they finally like his followers turned on him.
00:09:09.000 You know, and ISKCON, which is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which is sort of the formal name for the Hare Krishnas, what we call the Hare Krishnas, they actually, like, you know, kicked the new Vindavan out of the movement for a few years, half a decade or so, 0.98
00:09:24.000 and then, like, kind of gradually brought that compound, that commune, it's not compound, that commune back in.
00:09:30.000 But they have this fucking temple there, the palace of gold, like Prabhupada's palace of gold that they were originally building for Prabhupada to live in. 0.88
00:09:39.000 But then he died before it was completed. 0.98
00:09:41.000 But it's like this Taj Mahal-esque structure that's in the middle of nowhere in the hills of West Virginia.
00:09:53.000 It's like a couple hours from Pittsburgh, basically, and up in the mountains.
00:09:59.000 God, that's beautiful.
00:10:00.000 Look at the images.
00:10:01.000 And these are like untrained disciples.
00:10:06.000 Making this just based on like ancient texts that they studied.
00:10:10.000 So they just figured out how to do all this artisanship?
00:10:13.000 Yeah.
00:10:13.000 That's amazing.
00:10:15.000 Yeah, it really is.
00:10:16.000 It's worth visiting for sure.
00:10:18.000 It's mind-blowing.
00:10:19.000 I like there's a big box of cash there.
00:10:24.000 And so, but this place, I mean, even now, it's like, it's, well, for sure, in the 60s, for sure, in the 70s, it was cut off from the rest of the world.
00:10:34.000 I mean, these young kids would join the Hare Krishna movement, and basically, a lot of the fuck-ups in the movement would get sent to Kirtan Ananda at New Vrindavan because he'd put them to work building the temple, right?
00:10:45.000 So if you, like, joined and you were, like, you know, not fitting in for some reason...
00:10:51.000 A lot of times they'd buy you a one-way bus ticket to like Morgantown or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and you'd wind up up there, you know, in the hills under Kirtananda's tutelage, right?
00:11:02.000 And it went sideways in a hurry, especially after Prabhupada died.
00:11:06.000 He was already running New Vrindavan, like Prabhupada had visited it and approved of it.
00:11:11.000 And actually Kirtananda had gotten booted out of the Krishna movement because he kind of tried to take it over.
00:11:18.000 And at a certain point, like Prabhupada, you know, kicked him out.
00:11:21.000 And Keith Hamm, Kirtananda, like mind fucked this local sort of like philosopher dude that owned the land into signing it over, promising to be like a non-denominational spiritual movement.
00:11:36.000 That's what he was doing.
00:11:37.000 And as the guy put it, we interviewed his daughter, and he said, you know, as soon as the lease was signed, they put on bedsheets and started chanting, right?
00:11:45.000 And so, now you've got the Hare Krishnas as your neighbors. 1.00
00:11:48.000 Right.
00:11:49.000 Yeah.
00:11:49.000 Yeah.
00:11:51.000 The documentary's really well done.
00:11:53.000 Thanks.
00:11:53.000 It's just like Sasquatch.
00:11:56.000 I mean, you do some awesome stuff, but it's so fascinating to watch these alternative sort of movements Get co-opted.
00:12:07.000 And how that can happen by the wrong sort of charismatic psycho.
00:12:14.000 Right.
00:12:14.000 And that's this...
00:12:16.000 How do you say his name?
00:12:17.000 Kirtananda.
00:12:19.000 Kirtananda.
00:12:20.000 Kirtananda.
00:12:20.000 Kirtananda.
00:12:21.000 It's tricky, man.
00:12:23.000 Dealing with all these Christian names and making this documentary, it was like, you know... 1.00
00:12:27.000 How much research did you have to do about the movement and getting into it?
00:12:32.000 Quite a bit.
00:12:32.000 Before you sit down and start doing interviews with devotees, you want to know at least a little bit about what you're talking about.
00:12:38.000 We filmed in Vrindavan in India.
00:12:41.000 That's how I started the project.
00:12:43.000 I signed on to the director gig, and two weeks later I was in India.
00:12:48.000 What was that like?
00:12:49.000 Hey, Jamie, can we get the coffee in here? 0.99
00:12:52.000 Well, one thing about Vrindavan India is the fucking monkeys, okay? 1.00
00:12:56.000 They're these monkeys that will steal your shit, and it's a whole racket, right? 1.00
00:13:00.000 You have to give them something back. 1.00
00:13:02.000 Yeah, and of course, we're like knocking around with bags full of lenses and camera gear and audio gear and stuff, and so we're a target-rich posse for these monkeys. 0.91
00:13:11.000 But they'll get your sunglasses, your phone, whatever, if you're not careful, and then they like, Sort of skitter up a drain pipe or a tree, and you gotta buy these frozen mango packs from the street vendors and throw them up to the monkeys, and the monkeys will drop your shit back down to you.
00:13:24.000 I'm convinced that the street vendors are in on it, right? 0.90
00:13:27.000 They probably are, thank you.
00:13:30.000 They probably are.
00:13:31.000 Well, at the very least, it's so strange that the monkeys know that you can barter.
00:13:37.000 Yeah, they learned.
00:13:38.000 Yeah, that you can make a deal.
00:13:40.000 Yeah.
00:13:41.000 The legend is that hundreds of years ago, this guy that was like, he brought a circus to Vrindavan and the monkeys came with him and they were trained to be pickpockets.
00:13:50.000 And then they just kind of stayed behind.
00:13:51.000 But I don't know if that's true or not.
00:13:52.000 But that's the local legend.
00:13:54.000 But there's hundreds of them, thousands of them, man.
00:13:56.000 I mean, they are everywhere.
00:13:57.000 And you've got to watch.
00:13:58.000 You've got to constantly have your head on a swivel because they are so quick.
00:14:01.000 And what do they live off of?
00:14:03.000 Do they just live off of what the people give them?
00:14:06.000 I don't know.
00:14:06.000 They probably scavenge, but also, like, they do get a lot of, like, you know, mango treats from Stanley's ship.
00:14:11.000 Because Balaram Mandir, which is like the head Hare Krishna temple, is in Vrindavan, India.
00:14:18.000 And so devotees from all over the world go there, like, as spiritual tourists, basically.
00:14:23.000 And so, you know, monkeys steal shit from them or any other, you know, there's a lot of Krishna devotees from all over India, too, that aren't necessarily quote-unquote Hari Krishnas, but like follow the Hindu deity Krishna. 0.75
00:14:35.000 So they come to, it's like a, you know, there's a lot of spiritual pilgrims to this city, all right? 0.98
00:14:40.000 There's a lot of spiritual tourism there.
00:14:42.000 And so the monkeys have a lot of targets.
00:14:44.000 And so when they steal your stuff, you have to throw it to them?
00:14:49.000 You gotta buy something and then throw it up to them.
00:14:52.000 And then they will relinquish it.
00:14:55.000 Sometimes they'll be like, nope, nope, that's a cell phone.
00:14:58.000 That's a three mango pack deal, dude.
00:15:00.000 Really?
00:15:00.000 They won't, you know, they'll be like, oh, thanks.
00:15:03.000 And they'll go like they're gonna drop it, too.
00:15:05.000 They'll be like, oh, how about I drop it in the sewer?
00:15:06.000 Oh, you don't want that?
00:15:07.000 Mango pack.
00:15:09.000 They point the mangoes?
00:15:10.000 Yes.
00:15:11.000 Yes!
00:15:13.000 So eventually you throw them enough treats, and they're these kids, too, that if they see that a monkey has stolen something, they'll come over and they'll be like, basically it's like, for a few rupees, I'll handle this deal for you.
00:15:26.000 And then they climb up the tree or the drain pipe, and they do a direct hand-to-hand exchange.
00:15:31.000 So we learn the hard way, that's the thing to do.
00:15:34.000 If the monkey steals the whatever, hire the kid, He goes and brokers the deal with the mango juice guy and makes it all happen for you. 0.62
00:15:43.000 So do other monkeys realize this is happening and try to steal the mangoes before you give it to them? 0.87
00:15:48.000 Oh yeah, it's brutal.
00:15:48.000 But they also cooperate too.
00:15:50.000 They'll run distraction operations.
00:15:54.000 Like one monkey will come at you from an angle and kind of like bluff charge.
00:15:57.000 And then you're paying attention to that one, and then boom, the other one grabs your sunglasses off your head.
00:16:01.000 Wow!
00:16:02.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:16:04.000 But we were there to film.
00:16:08.000 There's this ceremony.
00:16:10.000 These two brothers whose father, his name was Chaka Dari, his Christian name.
00:16:18.000 His government name was Charles St. Denis.
00:16:20.000 His name was known as Chaka in the movement.
00:16:23.000 And his sons were doing this really ancient ritual to sort of release the soul of someone who's been murdered.
00:16:31.000 And so they had their father's ashes, which he was murdered, you know, decades ago at New Vrindavan on orders from Kirtananda because he was challenging Kirtananda's authority.
00:16:41.000 So, Kirtan Ananda had people murdered, too?
00:16:44.000 More than one?
00:16:44.000 Yeah.
00:16:46.000 I think there's probably quite a few bodies up in the hills.
00:16:49.000 That people just don't know about?
00:16:50.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:16:51.000 Wow!
00:16:52.000 Yeah, one of the principal sources for the documentary is a guy who's a retired homicide cop named Thomas Westfall, who was a local, just a local cop.
00:17:03.000 In West Virginia when the Krishnas set up shop at the Nuvrandavan commune. 1.00
00:17:09.000 And so he started keeping a close eye on them early and sort of saw Kirtananda's rise to power.
00:17:16.000 And, you know, he believes that there's at least a handful more victims up there whose bodies haven't been found.
00:17:24.000 Because it's really remote country.
00:17:25.000 I mean, I don't want to stress that.
00:17:26.000 It's really cold in the winter.
00:17:27.000 There's a lot of snow.
00:17:28.000 You know, to this day, it's a difficult place to get to.
00:17:33.000 And so, this guy, when he first started running this temple, this area, when did it go, how long did it take before it went sideways?
00:17:43.000 Well, I think it was, the question with Kirtananda or Keith Hamm is always like, was he bent before, you know, he became a Krishna?
00:17:52.000 Or was it like, did the power get to him?
00:17:55.000 And I think it's both.
00:17:56.000 You know, I think he had a psychological disposition towards being a despot, if you will.
00:18:02.000 And then once Prabhupada was gone, and Kirtananda, along with ten of his compatriots, was appointed a guru, you know, and had that sort of power.
00:18:12.000 I think at that point, it's...
00:18:14.000 And combined with, like, all the money.
00:18:16.000 I mean, he was...
00:18:23.000 Kirtananda was a genius at running schemes and scams to make money.
00:18:27.000 He would dispatch like the hottest young female Krishna devotees to like stock car races and rock concerts and stuff to like raise money for whatever they just make it up the starving children of India or they just make up charities and they'd flirt with dudes you know especially at rock concerts guys that are like high We're good to 0.61
00:18:59.000 go.
00:19:02.000 $900 increments.
00:19:04.000 So it doesn't show up.
00:19:05.000 To avoid the reporting.
00:19:06.000 Right.
00:19:06.000 Yeah.
00:19:07.000 Yeah.
00:19:07.000 Wow.
00:19:08.000 So he was... 0.96
00:19:09.000 He looks crazy. 0.67
00:19:12.000 That's what's interesting. 0.99
00:19:13.000 Isn't it interesting that crazy people look crazy? 0.96
00:19:16.000 And I always try to say, okay, is this because you know he's crazy? 0.80
00:19:19.000 Or do you see something?
00:19:22.000 It's hard to tell.
00:19:23.000 But he doesn't seem...
00:19:26.000 Enlightened.
00:19:27.000 You look at him.
00:19:28.000 He looks like a guy who's a little unhinged and I've met people like that unhinged and I've met people like that in like the psychedelics movement and There's a few of these movements that are so open And basically anybody can become a part of it.
00:19:44.000 You know, the concept behind it is, you know, we're all seeking enlightenment.
00:19:48.000 But then you'll see someone who gets in there and you're like, what is, this guy's schizophrenic or something.
00:19:54.000 There's something going on here.
00:19:56.000 Especially if you look at photos of Kirtananda over the decades.
00:19:59.000 Like he just gets more and more and more demented looking.
00:20:02.000 Right.
00:20:02.000 And that has to probably be the power.
00:20:04.000 Right?
00:20:05.000 Yeah.
00:20:05.000 They're washing his feet and worshiping.
00:20:07.000 Yeah, he was molested. 1.00
00:20:09.000 He was a total pedophile. 0.99
00:20:12.000 Right. 0.96
00:20:12.000 Do you think that started, that he was always a pedophile? 0.96
00:20:17.000 I think pedophiles are always pedophiles.
00:20:19.000 But again, once he had access, as the movement went on, more and more Krishna couples had kids. 0.98
00:20:27.000 So he had access to more and more and more children up there in those hills.
00:20:31.000 Right, and that was one of the things that you highlight is that it wasn't just about releasing the possessions.
00:20:37.000 It was also like not having control of your children either.
00:20:41.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:20:42.000 Although I think they, especially at New Vrindavan, at the place that Kirtananda ran, They kind of took that belief, you know, that yes, children are a material attachment, right?
00:20:55.000 But he took it to an extreme and just basically just cut off, you know, kids from their parents, like, entirely.
00:21:01.000 And that was not unique to Nuvendava, and that happened...
00:21:05.000 In a lot of temples around the country in the U.S. And the pedophilia happened in these temples as well?
00:21:11.000 It did.
00:21:11.000 It did.
00:21:11.000 But I will say, again, to ISKCON's credit, that unlike the Catholic Church, once the evidence started to emerge that there had been, I think it's fair to say, systemic raping of kids at their religious facilities, they addressed the issue head-on.
00:21:29.000 And for the most part, I think, have done an excellent job of You know, weeding out the pedos.
00:21:34.000 And what happened to the kids?
00:21:36.000 Because it's not just that...
00:21:38.000 It seems like it wasn't isolated.
00:21:41.000 It was all the kids.
00:21:43.000 At Nuvaindavan?
00:21:44.000 Yeah.
00:21:44.000 I mean, this is what you're kind of...
00:21:46.000 Mostly boys, I think.
00:21:47.000 Mostly boys.
00:21:49.000 Yeah.
00:21:50.000 Yeah.
00:21:50.000 They have communities online, and there's a lot of bitterness.
00:21:55.000 It varies.
00:21:57.000 It varies.
00:21:57.000 You can't totally generalize.
00:21:59.000 But the kids that grew up in Nuvaindavan, they have online communities where there's a lot of...
00:22:04.000 For obvious reasons, like resentment and bitterness and anger, still at the leadership of the Hare Krishna movement for not, in their opinion, fully atoning for the sins that occurred there.
00:22:17.000 What could they do?
00:22:19.000 Right.
00:22:19.000 Well, there was a settlement, there were some lawsuits, there were some settlements, but I mean, you know...
00:22:23.000 That doesn't fix anything.
00:22:25.000 No.
00:22:25.000 No.
00:22:25.000 No.
00:22:25.000 It doesn't fix anything.
00:22:27.000 It acknowledges that something happened, but you're ruining a child for life.
00:22:31.000 Yeah.
00:22:32.000 Yeah.
00:22:33.000 And you're doing it in the most evil way, because you're supposed to be a part of this peace and love movement that's like the optimal way to live life.
00:22:42.000 Right.
00:22:43.000 Yeah. 0.68
00:22:44.000 Well, and that's why this guy, Charles St. Dennis, Chaka, was murdered, is he was calling out Kirtananda for his hypocrisy. 0.94
00:22:52.000 Now, I don't know if he called him out for the, you know, raping kids, but like... 0.98
00:22:57.000 Kirtananda was having gay sexual relationships with some laborers that had been hired to come help build the temple that weren't necessarily devotees. 0.97
00:23:07.000 And it was like an open secret in the commune. 0.91
00:23:11.000 And he called him out for it and also called him out for the materialism, for driving around in a limousine, for having...
00:23:16.000 They would buy him a new fancy SUV every year or whatever. 0.99
00:23:21.000 And Charles St. Denis called him on his bullshit publicly. 1.00
00:23:25.000 And that's what got him killed. 1.00
00:23:26.000 Wow.
00:23:28.000 Yeah. 1.00
00:23:29.000 Fuck, man. 1.00
00:23:31.000 I know quite a few people that grew up in cults. 1.00
00:23:35.000 In stand-up comedy, you deal with a lot of lost people, wayward folks that just didn't fit in anywhere in society.
00:23:44.000 And a couple of my friends, one of my good friends, grew up a Jehovah's Witness.
00:23:49.000 And, you know, it's just you live in this world that is this very strange sort of...
00:23:59.000 I mean, it just doesn't make any sense.
00:24:01.000 It's illogical.
00:24:02.000 It's crazy.
00:24:03.000 It doesn't fit...
00:24:04.000 And once you start questioning things, you find, like, you're not allowed to, and it's...
00:24:11.000 It's just very bizarre how many of these.
00:24:13.000 Like, I was having a conversation with Marc Andreessen, you know, the venture capitalist guy, and he was like, California still has a lot of active cults right now.
00:24:19.000 I was like, really?
00:24:21.000 He goes, oh, yeah, there's a lot.
00:24:23.000 So, like, there's ones you don't hear about where they kind of keep it together.
00:24:26.000 So I guess there's, like, cults have to go completely, like, holy hell sideways before you get a documentary.
00:24:33.000 Some of them, they figure out how to kind of keep everybody together. 0.92
00:24:37.000 It's probably harder to keep shit under wraps these days than it was for Kirtananda in the 70s and 80s. 0.97
00:24:44.000 With the internet. 0.99
00:24:44.000 For sure. 0.99
00:24:45.000 Everybody's got a phone.
00:24:46.000 Yeah.
00:24:47.000 It's also like people are much more aware of what a cult is now.
00:24:51.000 I bet in the 1960s it just seemed like a beautiful alternative to...
00:24:55.000 I mean, you're dealing with the civil rights movement, Jim Crow, anti-war movement, Vietnam is happening.
00:25:02.000 You've got Richard Nixon's the president.
00:25:04.000 There's all this chaos.
00:25:05.000 People don't want the world that's in front of them right now, and they're searching for some alternative.
00:25:11.000 And it comes along, what about love?
00:25:13.000 What about this?
00:25:13.000 Yeah, that's what I want.
00:25:14.000 And then the next thing you know, you're wrapped up in this thing.
00:25:19.000 Yeah.
00:25:19.000 You know, talking about the pedophilia stuff, I'm going to take this on a detour because there's something I wanted to say last time I was on your show, which is that I am convinced that you saved at least one kid's life with something that you said the last time I was on, which is that we were talking about my own experiences as a survivor of childhood sexual assault.
00:25:39.000 And you told a story about how when you were a kid, you were in a library, and this, like, sick-fuck pedophile guy, like, was trying to get you out of the library. 0.99
00:25:47.000 Yeah. 0.99
00:25:48.000 And a librarian stepped in and basically saved you from this guy.
00:25:52.000 Do I have that correct?
00:25:53.000 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:25:54.000 Okay.
00:25:54.000 The reason that I think you saved at least one kid's life is this, because, and again, speaking from firsthand experience, as a male survivor, especially of childhood sexual assault, you think, like, how could I have let that happen to me?
00:26:08.000 Why didn't I defend myself?
00:26:10.000 Why didn't I fight the guy off?
00:26:11.000 You know, even though intellectually you look at a seven, eight, nine-year-old boy, you're like, you got no chance against a grown man, right?
00:26:19.000 But for, you know, Joe Rogan to say, like, a librarian saved me from this happening to me, right?
00:26:26.000 Because you're a tough guy, okay?
00:26:28.000 You're perceived as a tough guy.
00:26:29.000 I think rightly so.
00:26:30.000 Now!
00:26:31.000 Not when I was seven or eight or however I was at the time.
00:26:35.000 But I hope I'm articulating my point, which is that...
00:26:38.000 It can happen to anyone.
00:26:40.000 Yeah.
00:26:41.000 And for a guy that's suffering that and thinking, it just helps when somebody in a position like yourself says, hey, it could have happened to me.
00:26:52.000 Easily.
00:26:53.000 It almost did.
00:26:54.000 I mean, I was on my way out the door.
00:26:56.000 Right.
00:26:56.000 Yeah, it could have, if that librarian hadn't called out my name.
00:27:00.000 I think about that all the time.
00:27:02.000 You know, what would have happened to me?
00:27:04.000 Who I would have become, you know?
00:27:08.000 It's one of the darkest forces in the world.
00:27:14.000 And I don't understand why it's so prevalent.
00:27:20.000 And I think, you know, I've equated it to vampires.
00:27:24.000 It seems like...
00:27:27.000 One of the things that happens to some of the people that get molested is they wind up doing it to others.
00:27:31.000 Yeah.
00:27:32.000 That is a harsh truth.
00:27:34.000 I mean, I try and do what I can to dispel the stereotype because, you know, that was one of the things that, you know, scared the shit out of me when I was a teenager is the idea that I was going to become a pedophile myself.
00:27:46.000 Right.
00:27:46.000 Right.
00:27:48.000 But yeah, it's unfortunate.
00:27:49.000 So, you know, it's that hurt people hurt people cliche, right?
00:27:52.000 But there's truth behind it.
00:27:53.000 It is with violence.
00:27:55.000 It is with everything. 0.98
00:27:58.000 Pedophilia, which let's just call it what it is, raping kids, is just an incredibly destructive force in our culture and in all cultures. 0.55
00:28:06.000 And it's the one kind of criminal I think that I just have absolutely no sympathy for. 0.82
00:28:10.000 None.
00:28:10.000 None.
00:28:11.000 No.
00:28:12.000 Most people feel the same way.
00:28:13.000 I mean, when you talk about, like, one of my daughters is very much against the death penalty, and I think for a good reason.
00:28:21.000 And because we've had conversations about people that are unjustly accused, and she knows that I've had many people on my podcast that spent a long time in jail.
00:28:29.000 For crimes that they didn't commit and some of them were on death row and they could have been executed.
00:28:36.000 And when we were talking about it, we said in a perfect scenario when you absolutely know that the law has got the right person and that this person has done something and then they have killed people, whether it's a serial killer or whatever it is, yeah,
00:28:52.000 maybe the death penalty makes sense.
00:28:53.000 But we don't have a perfect legal system. 1.00
00:28:56.000 And then the subject of child molesters came up and they were like, oh no, kill them all. 0.98
00:29:03.000 It's an instinctual reaction. 0.99
00:29:05.000 Yeah.
00:29:06.000 Especially my wife. 0.99
00:29:08.000 Mothers, they hear that and it's just like, that's the one. 1.00
00:29:12.000 You have to kill them. 1.00
00:29:13.000 Because they never fucking stop. 1.00
00:29:14.000 No, they don't. 1.00
00:29:15.000 It's a weird sickness.
00:29:18.000 It's just so strange that it's not a very, very rare, uncommon thing that exists in a handful of places in the world occasionally.
00:29:31.000 But then when you hear about something like the Catholic Church, You know, there was Pope Benedict when he got kicked out.
00:29:40.000 There was a lot of people that didn't understand what was going on.
00:29:45.000 And I was looking into it and you find out what that guy did.
00:29:51.000 And one of the things that he did that's so evil is he would move people.
00:29:55.000 So he would take a priest that was molesting kids and just move them to another unsuspecting place.
00:30:03.000 And he went on to molest—one of these guys that they caught went on to molest 100 deaf kids, at least 100, that they're aware of. 0.52
00:30:12.000 And he knew that this guy was a pedophile.
00:30:18.000 The Catholic Church in particular is just like— I went to Catholic school, and nothing happened to me, but things did happen to people that I know that did go to Catholic school.
00:30:29.000 It's just like, is there another religion that is more connected? 0.88
00:30:32.000 Like, when you hear the term Catholic priest, pedophile is right. 1.00
00:30:38.000 Like, if you were playing a game, like Catholic priest, pedophile! 0.98
00:30:41.000 You know, like, you would say that, you know? 0.98
00:30:43.000 What is that, charades?
00:30:44.000 What's that game?
00:30:46.000 When you know, like, you say, you know, tough, big, runs fast, football player, yes. 0.99
00:30:53.000 You know, like, you'd say, Catholic priest, pedophile. 0.97
00:30:56.000 You know what I'm saying? 0.98
00:30:57.000 And it was an open secret for so long, too.
00:31:00.000 Yeah, it's crazy.
00:31:02.000 I think a lot of the priests were probably drawn to the church for the access to kids.
00:31:06.000 I mean, Kirtananda and Uvindavan built himself a little pedophile heaven up there, you know, once he had the power.
00:31:13.000 So how did they...
00:31:15.000 Did you talk to anybody from there that kind of reformed that place?
00:31:20.000 Like, how did they...
00:31:21.000 Once they got rid of him...
00:31:22.000 Well, first of all, he finally went to prison for murder. 0.98
00:31:27.000 You know, murder for hire, basically, along with racketeering and, like, he was selling, like, counterfeit, you know, football hats and shit. 0.97
00:31:34.000 Is he still in jail? 0.99
00:31:35.000 No, he's dead. 0.80
00:31:36.000 He's dead.
00:31:37.000 But he still has, not within ISKCON, but within the larger sort of Krishna consciousness movement, he still has a falling.
00:31:48.000 Really?
00:31:52.000 And I had, you know, like a translator kind of fixer with me and I had one camera guy.
00:31:56.000 And we sort of bullshitted our way in. 1.00
00:31:58.000 And it was this creepy fucking place, man. 0.99
00:32:00.000 It was like this sort of like almost Soviet block looking apartment. 0.99
00:32:06.000 It was all half finished.
00:32:08.000 Like there was this tomb and there were flowers and incense and photos of him and stuff.
00:32:13.000 And it was basically after he got out of prison eventually as an old man.
00:32:18.000 And he went to India and Pakistan and drew a following of Pakistani boys, basically, that are now men in their 20s and 30s.
00:32:29.000 And they occupy this sort of compound around his tomb.
00:32:33.000 And the one that we sort of bullshared away past was starting to get, like, a little suspicious of what we were doing and of our story, which is like that we were just tourists, basically, that had sort of wandered by this place and were interested by it.
00:32:47.000 And all these dudes just started coming out of these, they looked like vacant buildings, but they clearly weren't.
00:32:54.000 You know, all these, like, follows are Kirtananda, and the translator's like, it's time to go now, time to go now, time to go now.
00:33:00.000 And so, you know, we boogied out of there.
00:33:03.000 Wow.
00:33:04.000 Yeah.
00:33:04.000 But he still has, like, followers, and frankly, even within ISKCON, he still has sort of quiet supporters.
00:33:11.000 Jesus.
00:33:12.000 Yeah.
00:33:13.000 Yeah, in Holy Hell, they talk about this guy that they kicked out.
00:33:18.000 He's still on the loose.
00:33:20.000 And they flew him to Hawaii.
00:33:22.000 And he started to call him Hawaii.
00:33:24.000 And in the documentary, they show him in Hawaii with his devotees, just taking him around, opening the door for him, the whole deal.
00:33:31.000 Right.
00:33:33.000 It's so strange.
00:33:35.000 The cult thing is so bizarre because it's so common.
00:33:39.000 And it just seems like there's so many people that want to be led by someone who has the answers.
00:33:46.000 Because most people are like you and I, they're like, try to do our best, live our life, fuck up, make mistakes, try to figure out what makes you happy.
00:33:54.000 Like, what's this all about? 0.92
00:33:55.000 What is life?
00:33:56.000 What are we doing here?
00:33:59.000 And for some, when someone comes along and says, I have the answers.
00:34:04.000 You're like, oh, this guy's got the answers. 0.99
00:34:05.000 I need the fucking answers. 0.99
00:34:06.000 Like, what are the answers? 0.99
00:34:08.000 Yeah, I will say, you know, I've spent a lot of time with Hare Krishna or with Krishna consciousness devotees, you know, in making that show.
00:34:16.000 And generally speaking, they are positive, peaceful souls.
00:34:21.000 They seem at peace with their place in the world.
00:34:24.000 In a way that, you know, I frankly found sort of compelling and attractive.
00:34:30.000 So it's easy to see.
00:34:31.000 And maybe they do have the answers.
00:34:33.000 Maybe this ancient, like, spiritual tradition is at least part of the answer.
00:34:38.000 Well, it certainly can be an answer for some people if you are of the right mindset and if you're truly trying to be on that path.
00:34:47.000 But the problem is it's so easy to be subverted.
00:34:51.000 It's like someone can come along and slowly kind of take over and twist it.
00:34:58.000 True with any religion.
00:34:59.000 Yeah.
00:35:00.000 I mean, look at televangelists, right?
00:35:03.000 I mean, there's real Christians out there that are really great, wonderful people that want to live by the teachings of Christ and live a better, more just and holy life.
00:35:14.000 And they really do want to live like that.
00:35:16.000 And then there's psychos who want private jets and a giant arena to have all their followers and they want mansions.
00:35:23.000 Yeah, those guys are real.
00:35:26.000 And they thrive.
00:35:28.000 They're everywhere.
00:35:29.000 Well, one of Kirtananda's enforcer and hitman was this guy named Thomas Drescher, whose Christian name was Tirta.
00:35:37.000 And he, like, drove the bus.
00:35:40.000 There was a school bus that would not—he wasn't driving kids around, but they bought a school bus to kind of take people from one part of the, you know, commune to another or whatever.
00:35:48.000 But really why he was there—and he was one of the dudes that, like, joined the—he was in Vietnam, Vietnam combat vet.
00:35:55.000 I think I saw hardcore combat in Vietnam, came back bent in the head, was trying to find the answers, trying to find help probably for PTSD, found the Hare Krishnas, joined, but the first temple or two that he was at, they were like, something a little off about this guy, 0.60
00:36:10.000 so let's send him to Kirtananda.
00:36:12.000 Kirtananda met this dude and was like, oh, I got a purpose for you, brother.
00:36:16.000 You know, you're now enforcer number one. 0.83
00:36:18.000 And so if you fucked up, if, like, you weren't supposed to have a television, or if you broke the rules or you defied Kirtananda in any way, if you got some money from your family and you didn't kick it to him, Tirta came and paid you a visit, okay? 0.98
00:36:30.000 Wow. 0.99
00:36:31.000 And when Kirtananda started whacking dudes, basically, it was Tirta that did it.
00:36:36.000 Oh. 0.98
00:36:37.000 You know, he just shoots you. 0.61
00:36:41.000 He was smart.
00:36:43.000 He buried Charles St. Dennis' body.
00:36:45.000 He diverted a little creek by damming it up and then buried the body and then took away the dam.
00:36:52.000 So the homicide cop, Thomas Westfall, he was like, I was looking for that body everywhere and never thought to look under the little river, you know?
00:37:00.000 Did they bring cadaver dogs to try to search for it?
00:37:03.000 I don't think they brought dogs.
00:37:04.000 Eventually, like, what happened was, and the reason that Kirtananda, why they finally got him, is that Tirta flipped on him.
00:37:11.000 Now, they arrested Tirta, Thomas Drescher, for murder because there was another devotee that got killed in Los Angeles that was also sort of outing Kirtananda and his, you know, corruption and whatnot.
00:37:25.000 And so they got Dresher, and once he was in prison, like, Kirtananda held the ceremony and, like, appointed him to this, like, high status within Krishna consciousness.
00:37:34.000 And, of course, that was, like, a way to try and keep him quiet, right?
00:37:37.000 And he remained a believer.
00:37:39.000 But then there was this incident known as the Winnebago incident where Kirtananda was riding in Winnebago with this, like, I think it was a little boy from, like, Pakistan or India.
00:37:49.000 And the, like, curtains jostled open, and he was seen in full view by multiple witnesses, like, sodomizing this kid.
00:37:57.000 And, like, too many people saw it to cover it up, right?
00:38:01.000 And word got to Thomas Drescher in prison that this had happened.
00:38:06.000 And he heard from enough people who he trusted and believed that this was true, that he immediately flipped on Kirtananda and said, like, yep, he paid me and ordered me to kill these guys, and here's where you can find the bodies.
00:38:18.000 So he didn't know that Kirtananda...
00:38:20.000 He didn't believe it.
00:38:21.000 He didn't believe it.
00:38:22.000 He was a true believer.
00:38:23.000 You know, he didn't want to believe it.
00:38:25.000 So it was only when he was, you know, he didn't firsthand witness it himself, but it was only when he was faced with, like, multiple people who he trusted who were telling him, we saw this, it's true, you know?
00:38:38.000 And then to his credit, I think he immediately flipped.
00:38:42.000 You know, we tried to do an interview with him, but we couldn't get into the prison to get him to go on camera.
00:38:48.000 So we do, in the show, we do have audio interview excerpts with Drescher.
00:38:55.000 Wow.
00:38:58.000 One of the saddest things about Holy Hell is they talked to some of the devotees that had left and now they're lost because they had essentially, they had left 20 years of their life with this guy and now here they were 50 and like this one lady was like a dog walker now. 0.99
00:39:18.000 She had just kind of lost, no real purpose in life, didn't, you know, her whole thing was bullshit. 1.00
00:39:25.000 Her whole life was bullshit. 1.00
00:39:26.000 Yeah. 0.99
00:39:27.000 And some of the kids that grew up at Nuvrindavan under Kirtananda when it was legitimately a cult by any definition, you know, some of them are still followers of Krishna consciousness.
00:39:38.000 Some of them, you know, have left it way behind, right?
00:39:41.000 Yeah.
00:39:41.000 And have nothing good to say about that.
00:39:42.000 But some of them are still, like, followers of Prabhupada's teachings.
00:39:46.000 And they believe that Kirtananda was an aberration.
00:39:49.000 I think that's probably right.
00:39:50.000 I think that's probably right, too.
00:39:51.000 I mean, my friend who's really into the Hare Krishnas, he's a very peaceful guy, and the way he looks at it is like, you know, this is a way to live.
00:40:02.000 This is a possible way to live for some people that, if done correctly and done with the right spirit and the right mindset, like, really can be a beautiful, blissful way of existing.
00:40:14.000 Right.
00:40:14.000 And I just, I like, not only like, I buy into the idea of karma and reincarnation.
00:40:21.000 That reads as true, that feels true to me.
00:40:24.000 And reincarnation?
00:40:25.000 Yeah.
00:40:26.000 Really?
00:40:27.000 What reads as true?
00:40:28.000 What part reads as true?
00:40:33.000 Well, then we get into DMT. I tried DMT. When did you do that?
00:40:39.000 It was in 2013. I'm a one-and-done DMT guy.
00:40:44.000 Don't need to do it again.
00:40:46.000 So here's my DMT story.
00:40:49.000 In 1999, I was super in the rave scene.
00:40:52.000 And I was in London at this three-day rave called The Warp.
00:40:55.000 And it was the kind of party where it was like, if someone asked you the time, you'd be like, it's 9.30.
00:41:00.000 And they'd be like, a.m.
00:41:00.000 or p.m., you know?
00:41:02.000 And it was a great party, right?
00:41:04.000 Three days near the Tower of London, literally underground.
00:41:07.000 An underground party, literally underground.
00:41:09.000 They had DJ rooms and dance rooms.
00:41:11.000 But they also had these live performance rooms.
00:41:15.000 And I saw this performance artist called the Technopagan Octopus Messiah.
00:41:22.000 And he was describing his DMT experience, and I hadn't heard about DMT. And by the way, his stuff is fantastic.
00:41:29.000 I think he's come the closest of anybody except Terrence McKenna in actually capturing what the DMT experience is as a writer.
00:41:38.000 Outside the room where he was performing, there was this tent that just said deep meditation therapy.
00:41:44.000 I was like, oh, now I know what that means, right?
00:41:46.000 And I watched people doing DMT, and I was like, eh.
00:41:48.000 I was already rolling on three or four hits of MDMA, so I was like, well, not tonight.
00:41:53.000 But if it ever comes my way, I'm going to do it.
00:41:55.000 I made myself a promise that night.
00:41:56.000 I'm not going to seek this out, but if it ever comes my way.
00:41:59.000 And then it did.
00:42:00.000 And in 2014, I just went to see a buddy of mine in Brooklyn.
00:42:06.000 I was working on a documentary out there, and he was like, you want to try this?
00:42:09.000 I was like, okay, before I change my mind, let's do this.
00:42:12.000 And 15 minutes later, I believed in reincarnation.
00:42:17.000 I believed in karma and reincarnation.
00:42:19.000 And I felt a lot better about death.
00:42:23.000 Yeah, I felt a lot better about death, too, after I did it.
00:42:27.000 Well, my experience was that I got a short glimpse at sort of a user manual for the cosmos, and in there was the knowledge that Reincarnation is real.
00:42:40.000 That the Buddhists have it right. 0.98
00:42:41.000 That after you die, you go to the Bardo for 49 days.
00:42:45.000 Your soul is out there.
00:42:46.000 You get a chance to assess the last life you led before you take another spin on the carousel.
00:42:54.000 Learn what you can.
00:42:55.000 Get rewarded for your good deeds.
00:42:57.000 Suffer for your sins.
00:42:58.000 And then go back.
00:42:59.000 And I believe it, but I also just like it.
00:43:02.000 I just like it. 0.98
00:43:03.000 It feels true to me in a way that the Evangelist or fundamentalist Christian idea of like you can just do a bunch of bad shit and then, you know, promise yourself to Jesus and have a clean slate. 1.00
00:43:16.000 Fuck that. 1.00
00:43:17.000 I'm not buying that. 1.00
00:43:17.000 You know? 1.00
00:43:19.000 But karma and reincarnation, I'm buying it.
00:43:23.000 There's something there.
00:43:25.000 I mean, it's fascinating that that concept has existed for so long.
00:43:29.000 And even the concept of heaven that existed for so long.
00:43:33.000 And angels and souls and all those things.
00:43:38.000 I think we have a very limited ability to grasp reality.
00:43:43.000 And I think that limited ability is biological.
00:43:47.000 It's kind of based upon our primate origins and what we are as a thing, as a biological entity.
00:43:54.000 We have essentially the tools that we need in order to survive.
00:43:59.000 And those tools are the ability to recognize danger and communicate and establish community and purpose and all these different things.
00:44:10.000 But when you have like real breakthrough psychedelic experiences, to me it seems like it's allowing you A vision into all that exists.
00:44:24.000 Not just what you're physically capable of seeing as a human being, but this chemical gateway or whatever it is that psychedelics give you allows you to see that these things...
00:44:39.000 What I got out of it is that everything is connected.
00:44:41.000 Every action, every thought, your thoughts, your life, your words, your deeds, the way you approach things, the way you respond to things, that they're all connected in some very strange way.
00:44:57.000 And the living my life The more I follow that as thinking that everything is all connected the more my life has been more beautiful right the more my life has been more rewarding and rich and More more pleasing more filled with love and community and it's something that I kind of need to like remind myself all the time because I think the biological entity It
00:45:27.000 has certain, like, human reward systems that are built into it.
00:45:32.000 To try to acquire resources, to try to, you know, to try to establish dominance, to try to succeed.
00:45:41.000 There's all these different things that, as a human, you know, people, they want success, they want all these different things.
00:45:48.000 And that those things can kind of, because you could see the physical manifestation of that work, That can sort of overcome the idea that everything is connected.
00:46:03.000 And so that's, I think, why people cheat on their taxes or insider trade or do all these different things, fuck people over in business deals, and they don't think that they're going to experience any negative consequences of it.
00:46:15.000 But I don't think anybody gets away free.
00:46:19.000 Again, that's why I like the idea of karma and reincarnation.
00:46:21.000 You don't get away with it.
00:46:22.000 There's something to it.
00:46:23.000 There's something to karma.
00:46:24.000 And it's, again, going back to the Vedas, the oldest spiritual, organized system of spiritual beliefs known for our species.
00:46:33.000 That's core to it.
00:46:35.000 Karma and reincarnation.
00:46:36.000 The most complicated organism we are, the most complicated organism that we're currently aware of.
00:46:44.000 We're good to go.
00:46:59.000 That was really established.
00:47:01.000 It's almost like we have DOS or Windows 95 and we just keep refreshing it.
00:47:07.000 You know?
00:47:08.000 There's no real new operating system.
00:47:11.000 And it's so filled with flaws that the human operating system is designed to ward off predators and to fight off neighboring tribes and to try to avoid starvation and to try to make sure that your genes pass on and that your enemy's genes don't.
00:47:28.000 And to exist in 2024 in modern Western world with all of our technology and all of our knowledge and all the information that we have available with this ancient primate software is so problematic.
00:47:44.000 It's so fraught with peril.
00:47:46.000 There's so many things that can go wrong, so many people that go sideways with it.
00:47:50.000 Drug addiction and gambling addiction and sex addiction and this addiction and that addiction and so much chaos and thievery and violence and deception and fraud.
00:48:04.000 There's just so many things that exist that Are negative, but are tied to this concept of achieving and getting more, which is this famine-based mentality, this resource-acquiring mentality that really is like the monkey stealing your sunglasses so it can get mangoes.
00:48:26.000 It's really, you know?
00:48:26.000 No, no, totally agree.
00:48:28.000 And I felt like with DMT, I got like a very short, it was like, I felt like there was this sentient, generally benevolent force out there in the cosmos that was like, okay, look, I'm going to give you a lot of information.
00:48:39.000 You're not going to be able to retain most of it, but you're ready?
00:48:43.000 Here we go.
00:48:43.000 And one of the things that I brought back that I still believe a decade later is that Reincarnation is real.
00:48:49.000 That's how it works.
00:48:50.000 Karma is real.
00:48:50.000 That's how it works.
00:48:51.000 What you do in this life affects your next one.
00:48:55.000 And that also gives you the user's guide you're talking about, about how to be a better person, how to be a better species.
00:49:01.000 I didn't get a reincarnation vibe.
00:49:05.000 I'm not opposed to the idea of reincarnation, but I got a vibe that there's other things, and there's other dimensions, and there's other experiences, and there's maybe levels of existence, and that this existence that we're experiencing right now as human beings is just this very strange,
00:49:23.000 confusing Almost like a puzzle that you are on this planet trying to solve and you can get distracted.
00:49:33.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:49:34.000 You can get distracted by all sorts of things in this life, but the things that bring you happiness and love, you have to kind of like sort those out and choose those amongst the different options that the puzzle gives you.
00:49:48.000 Yeah.
00:49:49.000 You know this podcast, Psychedelic Salon?
00:49:51.000 Yeah, sure.
00:49:52.000 I have that guy on, Lorenzo.
00:49:54.000 Yeah, Lorenzo.
00:49:55.000 Lorenzo Hegarty.
00:49:55.000 He's great.
00:49:56.000 Yeah, he is.
00:49:57.000 I recently got to know him and he asked me to give you a message because I guess two or three months ago you were musing about whether or not he was still alive because he hadn't posted any new episodes recently.
00:50:06.000 He is still alive.
00:50:07.000 That's his message.
00:50:08.000 Lorenzo's message.
00:50:09.000 And after he heard that you'd raised that question, he's been posting.
00:50:12.000 Oh, that's great.
00:50:13.000 Can you connect me to him?
00:50:15.000 Yeah, absolutely.
00:50:16.000 Please.
00:50:16.000 He's a great guy.
00:50:17.000 Lorenzo and I and the aforementioned Technopig and Octopus Messiah are in the process of collaborating with some AI animation artists on a documentary about the stoned ape theory.
00:50:29.000 I think it's going to be dope.
00:50:30.000 Have you seen Dennis McKenna's assessment of it?
00:50:34.000 Yeah.
00:50:34.000 He broke it down on the podcast where he was explaining to me the actual mechanisms that would be involved in psilocybin accelerating the human mind and the ability to form language and Concepts and creativity and all the different things that Terence talked about.
00:50:57.000 But you know, Dennis is a hardcore, fact-based scientist guy.
00:51:02.000 You've had several great guests on there talking about that theory, but I've been like, there's about to be already, it's showing signs, but there's about to be just a glut of AI animation Movies, even in documentaries, I think AI animation is going to replace recreations,
00:51:18.000 where they hire actors to recreate stuff.
00:51:20.000 We did it in Krishnas, right?
00:51:21.000 We recreated murder scenes using actors and firearms and stuff, prop firearms.
00:51:28.000 So I've been approached with, I don't even know how many ideas for AI animation docs.
00:51:34.000 I've just been like, gimmick, gimmick, gimmick.
00:51:35.000 But this one really felt right. 0.94
00:51:37.000 A, I think that Terrence McKenna would have loved the idea of using AI animation to, like, you know, show the evolution of our species, you know, as they pick the mushrooms out of the cow shit and stuff.
00:51:49.000 And also, one idea that we're toying with, I think we'll go forward with now that we've actually, you know, I think we've got the technology actually dialed in, where we've built this AI world, this Terrence McKenna AI world, where we can give it ideas and it'll spit back imagery to us that feels right,
00:52:05.000 is building some sort of, like, A.I. Avatar of Terence McKenna.
00:52:09.000 So the idea is that the spine of the documentary will be any time...
00:52:14.000 Because Lorenzo has incredible archives of Terence McKenna.
00:52:18.000 Stuff that nobody else has.
00:52:20.000 Yeah, he has everything.
00:52:21.000 And any time you're hearing Terence McKenna's voice describing the stoned ape theory will take people through it step by step.
00:52:27.000 You'll be seeing A.I. animation.
00:52:30.000 Of what he's describing.
00:52:31.000 So you're hearing Terence McKenna's voice, but seeing AI. So for people who don't know what the stoned ape theory is, we should probably explain it to them for people who've never heard it before.
00:52:40.000 And the concept is that at one point in evolution, there was climate change and that these Rainforest, tropical rainforest had receded into grasslands and that these primates had started experimenting with different food sources by flipping over cow patties and looking for grubs and all these different things.
00:53:01.000 And one of the things that they would do is probably test the mushrooms that were growing in the cow patties.
00:53:08.000 And in many places where psilocybin exists, these things are extremely prevalent.
00:53:13.000 Like my friend Duncan, who grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, told me that mushrooms were so prevalent That the local ranchers, they started putting feed in, with the cattle feed, some sort of anti-fungal thing to keep fungus from growing in cow shit.
00:53:33.000 Because so many kids were going onto the field and picking psilocybin mushrooms.
00:53:38.000 He's like, they were everywhere.
00:53:39.000 They were everywhere.
00:53:43.000 So the concept is that low doses of psilocybin increase visual acuity, make people more amorous, so it probably heightened sexual arousal, made people more likely to breed, and made people more curious,
00:53:58.000 probably because of the increase in visual acuity, made people better hunters.
00:54:03.000 There's studies that have been done.
00:54:05.000 I forget what the scientist did.
00:54:07.000 It was a hardcore, non-psychedelic scientist who did Right.
00:54:31.000 Then you'd be a much better hunter.
00:54:32.000 Much better hunter.
00:54:34.000 And much better at surviving being hunted.
00:54:36.000 And also just be more tuned into things.
00:54:40.000 You're more aware of, like, I know a lot of people that use psilocybin when they play certain sports.
00:54:47.000 And they think that psilocybin, low doses...
00:54:50.000 It's like low doses, yeah.
00:54:51.000 Yeah, low doses for playing pool and things like that.
00:54:54.000 You just have a better understanding of what's happening.
00:54:58.000 I attest to it.
00:54:59.000 Microdose is for chess.
00:55:01.000 Chess, huh?
00:55:01.000 Yeah.
00:55:02.000 Yeah?
00:55:02.000 Does it help you?
00:55:03.000 Really?
00:55:03.000 I think it does.
00:55:04.000 Actually, I can demonstrate that it does, you know, in my game ratings.
00:55:07.000 Really?
00:55:08.000 Absolutely.
00:55:08.000 Interesting.
00:55:09.000 Now, I don't know if I buy the stoned ape theory in the same way that I fully buy into, you know, the concept of the bardo and reincarnation and karma and all that, but it's sure fucking fun to think about, man.
00:55:19.000 Well, doesn't it, I mean, it mimics DMT. Like, psilocybin and dimethyltryptamine are very closely related.
00:55:27.000 Yeah.
00:55:27.000 You know, I think, I think when it's broken down, I think, I'm going to fuck this up, but I think it's N-4-phoroloxy and dimethyltryptamine.
00:55:36.000 It's like, it's very close to what dimethyltryptamine is.
00:55:39.000 And, you know, we also know that dimethyltryptamine is endogenously produced.
00:55:43.000 You know, it's produced in the human brain.
00:55:45.000 We don't even understand why.
00:55:47.000 And, you know, that's all...
00:55:49.000 Rick Strassman, who wrote that book, DMT, The Spirit Molecules, talked about that.
00:55:53.000 And they've done a lot of great research at the Cottonwood Research Foundation, trying to determine where it's produced, why it's produced.
00:56:01.000 They used to think it was just produced by the pineal gland.
00:56:04.000 Now they think, I believe, it's produced by the whole brain.
00:56:06.000 And this thing that these primates were finding...
00:56:13.000 Was giving them that and giving them more of an understanding of the world around them and expanding the brain.
00:56:19.000 And the other thing about the human, the concept of the stone date theory is this bizarre fact in the history of humans that In the entire species, like the record of species, one of the biggest mysteries is the doubling of the human brain size over a period of two million years.
00:56:39.000 And McKenna says that that coincides with this exact same time period where the tropical rainforests were receding into grasslands and then they believed that these primates were experimenting on new food sources.
00:56:52.000 So there's all these things that sort of line up with it and it makes it a fascinating idea.
00:56:57.000 But if you think about, like, if they found out that this thing gives them this feeling and they were, you know, they're repeatedly using it over and over and over again and then their offspring did it and their offspring did it and And you're, you know, playing this out over a couple million years.
00:57:14.000 You could see how this would happen.
00:57:16.000 Yeah, also the development of language.
00:57:17.000 Yes, yes.
00:57:19.000 The glossolalia.
00:57:20.000 Yeah, glossolalia, yeah.
00:57:21.000 Yeah, thank you.
00:57:22.000 You know, like high doses, right?
00:57:24.000 Activates the language center.
00:57:26.000 So, like I said, I'm not sure I'd buy it, but...
00:57:29.000 It should be a fun movie to make.
00:57:30.000 Well, something happened.
00:57:32.000 It's very obvious that something happened that separated us from all the other primates.
00:57:36.000 In a radical way.
00:57:38.000 We don't look anything like them.
00:57:40.000 We have abilities and...
00:57:44.000 We have so many attributes that are far beyond any other primate, and it kind of makes sense.
00:57:51.000 And also, there's people that can achieve those states without psychedelics, which is fascinating.
00:57:57.000 And I've gone pretty close with some breathing exercises, and especially breathing exercises in sensory deprivation.
00:58:06.000 You can achieve some definite psychedelic states.
00:58:11.000 I haven't had the full visual effects that are available with DMT. But boy, you definitely get to some bizarre place where if it was a drug, it would be a very popular drug.
00:58:22.000 Well, back to the Christians. 1.00
00:58:23.000 That's what Prabhupada was preaching.
00:58:24.000 And a lot of his early devotees were people that had taken a lot of acid or mescaline, right?
00:58:29.000 Or peyote.
00:58:30.000 Yeah.
00:58:30.000 And felt like they were getting glimpses of something, but they couldn't, like, understand it.
00:58:34.000 Yeah.
00:58:35.000 Let me show you how to get there without the drugs.
00:58:39.000 Right.
00:58:40.000 And what was Prabhupada using to try to get there?
00:58:42.000 Meditation.
00:58:43.000 Yeah.
00:58:43.000 Just deep meditation.
00:58:45.000 Yeah, I think...
00:58:47.000 They're chanting of ancient sacred mantras and meditation.
00:58:51.000 Well, that's the other thing that happens with DMT rituals, that they play Icaros, these ancient South American songs that sort of enhance the experience.
00:59:02.000 Like when you do DMT with Icaros playing, the DMT dances to the sound, and it's very strange to watch.
00:59:13.000 It's beautiful, bizarre.
00:59:15.000 And, you know, it's overwhelming.
00:59:18.000 It's hard to believe that it's really happening while it's happening.
00:59:21.000 And, you know, you've got to kind of let go and just let it happen and experience it. 0.99
00:59:27.000 Because you're so blown away by it all, it's hard to just not just go, what the fuck, like every five seconds. 0.98
00:59:34.000 You've got to kind of just take it in and accept it. 0.99
00:59:38.000 I tried to get my dad to try DMT. My dad died recently.
00:59:42.000 And about six months ago, I tried to get him to try DMT. I was like, listen, you know, until I tried this, Dad, you know, I was like, same as you, like basically Spock, like cold, logic, reason, right?
00:59:53.000 You know, like that's my dad.
00:59:54.000 Yeah.
00:59:54.000 Super smart, like mathematical genius, was my dad.
00:59:58.000 And he was like, well, it sounds interesting, but I guess if you're right, I'll find out on my own.
01:00:03.000 Because I was like, this is kind of like the trailer for the movie, Dad.
01:00:06.000 Interesting.
01:00:06.000 I'll find out on my own.
01:00:07.000 Yeah.
01:00:08.000 Interesting.
01:00:10.000 He died like two weeks ago while I was in Ukraine.
01:00:13.000 Oh wow.
01:00:15.000 What were you doing in Ukraine?
01:00:16.000 I was reporting.
01:00:18.000 I was working.
01:00:18.000 I wasn't filming, but I was doing some research.
01:00:21.000 And I was in a war zone. 0.99
01:00:23.000 I mean, the whole fucking country is a war zone. 0.99
01:00:25.000 But I was in a war zone where communications were dicey at best. 0.99
01:00:30.000 And I got a text message from my wife on Signal.
01:00:33.000 It was like, your dad's heart valve is failing rapidly.
01:00:35.000 He's in the hospital.
01:00:36.000 He's probably got like 48 hours to live.
01:00:38.000 And the airspace over Ukraine's closed, so there's no way that I could get from where I was in Ukraine to Anchorage, Alaska to be with him.
01:00:46.000 And so I was just sending, like, text messages on signal to the nurses, and they were reading them to him.
01:00:52.000 Wow.
01:00:53.000 Yeah.
01:00:54.000 And then I was able to record one voice memo right as he was going.
01:00:58.000 Because the last sense to go when you're dying is sense of hearing.
01:01:03.000 And they played him like a message from me.
01:01:07.000 Wow.
01:01:08.000 But to answer your question, what was I doing in Ukraine?
01:01:15.000 I'm looking into a possible documentary that would be set against the backdrop of the current war, but that would be more about, like, what is actually the true nature of corruption in Ukraine?
01:01:24.000 And what has it been?
01:01:25.000 And what was it in the 90s?
01:01:27.000 And what is it today?
01:01:29.000 And, like, how has the U.S. State Department kind of fucked up again in the same way that we did in Vietnam and every war, like Vietnam.
01:01:38.000 Afghanistan, Iraq by backing the wrong horses, you know? 0.98
01:01:41.000 Well, we've never not fucked up. 0.99
01:01:43.000 Yeah. 0.99
01:01:43.000 There's never been one, whether it's Libya or Afghanistan, Iraq. 0.99
01:01:48.000 There's not one where you could point to, like, we nailed that one.
01:01:51.000 Right.
01:01:52.000 There's not one.
01:01:52.000 Right.
01:01:52.000 There's not one.
01:01:53.000 Right.
01:01:54.000 And, you know, when there was so much resistance to the concept that Ukraine was corrupt when we first started backing them, you know, that was what was fascinating to me because It was always talked about how corrupt Ukraine was. 0.76
01:02:08.000 It was always talked about.
01:02:10.000 And then all of a sudden, this was a foreboding topic.
01:02:13.000 Like, no, Russia is the aggressor and the invader, and Ukraine are their angels. 0.72
01:02:18.000 And they're like, wait a minute.
01:02:20.000 You know, there's...
01:02:21.000 This is not...
01:02:22.000 That's not reality.
01:02:23.000 Like...
01:02:24.000 Well, it's also that the U.S. government would be like, okay, we would sort of designate who was corrupt and who wasn't.
01:02:30.000 I mean, look, the U.S. went through its own sort of oligarchy, like robber baron phase, you know, in the late 1800s.
01:02:36.000 That was like after we'd been a democracy for 100 years.
01:02:38.000 It's not...
01:02:40.000 Unfortunately, it's kind of a step on the evolution of free democracies to have this phase where you're like, you know, things are super corrupt.
01:02:47.000 Like, I spent some time at an Orthodox monastery in Ukraine last month, and I asked the sort of head of the monastery, like, what would you have to do to get rid of corruption in this country?
01:03:00.000 He's like, well, I'm a man of God.
01:03:01.000 He's speaking through an interpreter.
01:03:02.000 He's like, I'm a man of God, so I'm not advocating this.
01:03:04.000 But what you could do is you could take...
01:03:06.000 Because the main problem in Ukraine right now, as I understand it, is the judicial system.
01:03:09.000 They have what they call telephone law, which is basically like before a judge makes a ruling, he gets a phone call telling him which way to rule.
01:03:16.000 Oh, Jesus.
01:03:17.000 And so he's the head of this monastery.
01:03:20.000 He's like, you could line up...
01:03:22.000 Every uh every judge and shoot them and then and then and then all the judges or all the like government officials that come to their funerals shoot them and do that two or three times and then we might be able to start over like she was saying that's how systemic this is but Jesus I mean man of God's telling you this yeah that's a guy who's like reached the limits yeah yeah oh my god But I'll tell you,
01:03:45.000 my time in Ukraine really changed my perspective on that war, and I came back a real sort of hawk, thinking that we should fully support Ukraine in the war.
01:03:56.000 Really?
01:03:56.000 Yeah.
01:03:56.000 Why is that?
01:03:58.000 Part of it was just being with the people who the Ukraine...
01:04:01.000 I just like the Ukrainians, you know, in a way that I've been to other former Soviet bloc countries.
01:04:06.000 And it's kind of like, I won't name any of them, but I just feel like, I'm not sure you guys are really down with the freedom and democracy thing.
01:04:14.000 It seems like you were subjugated for a while and you just didn't get the same vibe.
01:04:19.000 I think that Ukrainians are legitimately freedom-loving people.
01:04:24.000 That had been under the thumb of corrupt leadership for decades now.
01:04:29.000 But part of it was, there was something very enthralling about being in a place where everyone was so unified, like this country under attack.
01:04:40.000 Being invaded by a hostile force.
01:04:42.000 Now, these are the Ukrainians that have stayed behind, okay? 1.00
01:04:45.000 But there's still a lot of them.
01:04:46.000 I mean, and just that in coming from America, where everything is so splintered and divided now, and to be in a place where everyone is so on the same page, there is something very attractive about that.
01:05:01.000 Well, that is what happens when you get invaded.
01:05:04.000 Do you remember what it was like in America after 9-11?
01:05:07.000 Right after 9-11.
01:05:08.000 It was the most united this country has ever been.
01:05:11.000 And it's a horrible thing to say because it's not what you ever want to happen again to wake everybody up.
01:05:16.000 But it was the thing that was required to make people put American flags on their cars.
01:05:22.000 And it was, in a lot of ways, I mean, it was a horrible tragedy.
01:05:26.000 But in a lot of ways, the reaction to it was very beautiful.
01:05:30.000 There was so many people that were so...
01:05:32.000 I was in New York City just a few weeks or a few months after 9-11.
01:05:37.000 Everybody was friendly.
01:05:38.000 It was crazy.
01:05:39.000 It was like everybody was just so blown away by the experience of being attacked and so just shaken out of it and so aware of how fortunate they were to not be one of those people who died.
01:05:52.000 And that we are legitimately all together and that there are forces out there that are evil and that we have to stay united.
01:06:01.000 And I hate to think that that's what's required to wake people up from this division.
01:06:07.000 But I always wonder, like, I wonder if maybe the division that we have in this country is because of the fact that we're never attacked.
01:06:14.000 And because of the fact that we only experienced a few of the Pearl Harbor, 9-11, there's only a few of these moments where we've had to wake up.
01:06:23.000 Yeah, yeah.
01:06:24.000 The Aleutian Islands actually in Alaska were attacked and occupied by Japanese forces in World War II. Oh, really?
01:06:30.000 Little known fact.
01:06:30.000 Yeah, that was actually American territory.
01:06:32.000 I didn't know that.
01:06:34.000 But, I mean, we fucking, man, I mean, the Ukrainians, they had nuclear weapons, and in 1994, the quote-unquote West, the US and the UK, basically convinced them, you know, to give up their nukes in exchange for a guarantee that we would help them protect their sovereign territory. 0.91
01:06:52.000 Right. 0.94
01:06:53.000 Yeah.
01:06:53.000 Yeah, that was right after the fall of the Soviet Union.
01:06:57.000 Yeah.
01:06:57.000 Yeah.
01:06:58.000 There's so many factors, right?
01:07:00.000 There's the NATO encroaching on Russia's territory. 0.97
01:07:03.000 I mean, in 2004, like, NATO started handing out membership cards like fucking Cracker Jack prizes, right? 0.51
01:07:08.000 Putin gets re-elected in 2004, 20 years ago, and all of a sudden, like, all these former Soviet, you know, small territories are now NATO countries.
01:07:16.000 Yeah.
01:07:17.000 Hey, you want to be NATO? Well, great.
01:07:18.000 Now we're, like, signed up for a mutual defense treaty with Lithuania.
01:07:23.000 Right.
01:07:23.000 You know, nothing against Lithuanians, but...
01:07:25.000 Fuck, man. 1.00
01:07:26.000 You know, this is getting serious. 1.00
01:07:28.000 It's very serious.
01:07:29.000 What happens if he invades a NATO country?
01:07:32.000 Like, what are we going to do?
01:07:33.000 Right.
01:07:34.000 You know?
01:07:34.000 Because China's watching.
01:07:36.000 And I'll tell you, you know, I've been, like, under fire would be overdramatic, but I've had quite a few Iranian... 1.00
01:07:45.000 Fucking Shaheed drones launched in my general direction recently. 0.97
01:07:49.000 It gives you another perspective on Russia's support for Iran and vice versa. 0.98
01:07:56.000 Like a mutual enemy of ours. 1.00
01:07:58.000 Those are Iranian fucking drones being shot at us. 1.00
01:08:04.000 I don't know. 1.00
01:08:05.000 You know, Russia recently had Hamas, like, had a delegation from Hamas visit the Kremlin. 1.00
01:08:10.000 I mean, what the fuck, man? 0.99
01:08:11.000 Really? 1.00
01:08:12.000 Yeah.
01:08:13.000 So, anyway. 0.99
01:08:15.000 This is a fucking sketchy time, man. 0.99
01:08:16.000 It really is. 1.00
01:08:17.000 It's such a sketchy time.
01:08:19.000 I mean, it's to, you know, to say, like, oh, like, World War III is imminent, it sounds doomsayer, but it feels like it could go that way in a hurry.
01:08:28.000 China, you know?
01:08:29.000 They're looking at us. 0.98
01:08:30.000 That's the problem if we sort of like showed our ass and back down, you know, if Putin keeps going, is then China may just test that red line with Taiwan. 0.98
01:08:44.000 Yeah. 0.97
01:08:44.000 Well, I think they're preparing for that. 0.97
01:08:46.000 Yeah.
01:08:46.000 At least when I've talked to people that understand.
01:08:49.000 You know, I just I mean, I think that the war in Ukraine could have been prevented.
01:08:53.000 I think that There was this false dichotomy where there were forces in the U.S. government, and this is part of the documentary I want to make, is about, that forced you, there was like, you either have to be, you know, a puppet of Russia or our puppet.
01:09:07.000 You either have to be NATO or there's no middle ground.
01:09:11.000 When, in fact, I think that Ukraine could have been a bridge, a peaceful bridge, between Russia and the quote-unquote West, where maybe it could have joined the European Union, economically free trade, but not joined NATO, right?
01:09:25.000 Because that's what Putin was so adamant against. 1.00
01:09:28.000 And you understand, I mean, I think he's a war criminal fucking power mad, you know, asshole, right? 1.00
01:09:33.000 But you can sort of see from his perspective. 1.00
01:09:36.000 If you look at a map and you start to see all these NATO countries around Russia, you kind of see, you know, what motivates him.
01:09:44.000 Well, that's what people in the State Department had always said that was his red line.
01:09:46.000 His red line was Ukraine.
01:09:48.000 Yeah.
01:09:49.000 Yeah, and then when they're trying to get Ukraine to join NATO, it's like...
01:09:53.000 What are we doing?
01:09:54.000 What are we doing?
01:09:55.000 We're bringing about World War III? And why?
01:09:58.000 And how much money is being spent?
01:10:00.000 And where's that money going?
01:10:02.000 And who's got a vested interest in keeping that money flowing?
01:10:06.000 That's where it gets scary.
01:10:07.000 Right.
01:10:08.000 That's what I'm looking into.
01:10:09.000 And I don't want to tip my hand too much, but I think I've got pretty convincing evidence that the US Department of Justice has been used by the US State Department To further US foreign policy interests in Ukraine in ways that aren't really like right like bringing either bringing criminal charges Against people you in the US but like Ukrainians like charging them with crimes in the US including some people that have never even set foot in the United States charging with crimes or Getting them out 0.84
01:10:40.000 of trouble like dropping criminal charges against them to sort of like And again, it goes back to our designating, you're a good guy, you're a bad guy.
01:10:48.000 You're corrupt, you're not.
01:10:50.000 Even though they're both just grabbing billions with both hands. 1.00
01:10:54.000 It's a fucking scary time, man. 0.98
01:10:56.000 It really is. 0.99
01:10:57.000 It's wild to me that Zelensky is the president, too.
01:11:01.000 You have essentially a comedian who played the president on a television show.
01:11:06.000 And they're like, we like you.
01:11:08.000 If they held an election today, he would not be re-elected.
01:11:13.000 No?
01:11:14.000 No.
01:11:15.000 No.
01:11:15.000 But then they support him.
01:11:16.000 It's interesting.
01:11:17.000 It's like you ask them, do you support the president?
01:11:19.000 They say, yes, we're at war.
01:11:20.000 Would you vote for him?
01:11:21.000 No.
01:11:22.000 What was their opposition?
01:11:24.000 I think he's mismanaging the war.
01:11:27.000 And also, I think they suspect that he's corrupt.
01:11:31.000 Yeah.
01:11:32.000 And I think he probably is.
01:11:34.000 But the fact that, look, the fact that 50 cents of every dollar that we send there, you know, this isn't actually how it goes down, but even if that was the case, is going into somebody's pocket doesn't mean that we can just turn Ukraine over to Russia, in my opinion.
01:11:49.000 I think that we should be backing them full-on militarily, not with U.S. troops, but giving them what they need to fight.
01:11:56.000 Because, you know, I talked to a lot of Special Forces guys over there that were basically like, Those Russian human waves attacks were just like mowing these guys.
01:12:03.000 It's not even really combat.
01:12:05.000 We're just mowing these guys down until we run out of bullets and then we have to retreat.
01:12:09.000 Those are the battles.
01:12:10.000 That's what Putin's able to do because he's got so many guys.
01:12:14.000 And he's also letting people out of jail.
01:12:16.000 Yeah, yeah.
01:12:17.000 Letting people out of jail and giving them, you serve and your time is, your sentence is rescinded. 0.94
01:12:25.000 Well, so people think of Russia and they think of Moscow and St. Petersburg, but you look at that country on a map, it's fucking massive. 0.97
01:12:30.000 Huge. 0.95
01:12:30.000 There's so much territory east of the Earl Mountains. 0.95
01:12:33.000 It's just a bunch of villages, what we call flyover country, right?
01:12:36.000 Well, Putin is offering deals, like sign up, where it's like, You know, more money than they make in a year per month, A. And then B, if you're killed, your family's set up for life.
01:12:45.000 They can buy a house, you know, whatever.
01:12:48.000 Yeah.
01:12:48.000 So very attractive offers for these really poor people from rural Russia.
01:12:52.000 And then they're using them as just human cannon fodder.
01:12:55.000 100%.
01:12:55.000 100%.
01:13:00.000 I just can't remember a time in my life where things just seemed so unhinged.
01:13:06.000 No.
01:13:07.000 No, I asked my parents about that, too.
01:13:10.000 My dad, before he passed, they were like, no, we don't remember.
01:13:12.000 Even, like, Watergate, Vietnam era, you know, they weren't really old enough to remember the Great Depression, but even that was just sort of limited to the U.S. I mean, I know there were global, you know, Yeah, it does.
01:13:37.000 And then what does that look like?
01:13:39.000 That's what's terrifying.
01:13:41.000 What's terrifying is...
01:13:44.000 If you're willing to do, like, let's say what Israel's doing in Gaza. 0.99
01:13:48.000 If you're willing to almost eliminate a city, just bomb the fuck out of a city, and kill who knows how many innocents. 0.99
01:13:57.000 What are the numbers? 1.00
01:13:58.000 Is it 30,000?
01:13:59.000 I don't know what the numbers are.
01:14:02.000 What's the line that keeps you from dropping a nuke that kills 300,000?
01:14:08.000 What's the line?
01:14:09.000 Like, why are we...
01:14:14.000 Why do we have this idea that it won't accelerate to that when it has in the past?
01:14:19.000 It's just because we only did it once in Japan in 1945?
01:14:24.000 Is that what it is?
01:14:25.000 I agree with your assessment of that danger 100%.
01:14:28.000 That's another reason why I think that we have to help Ukraine stop Putin now.
01:14:31.000 Because if he keeps going into Ukraine and then he invades a NATO country and we decide that we've got to go up against him, Is there any evidence that he would do that?
01:14:41.000 That he would invade a NATO country?
01:14:43.000 I don't think he'll stop.
01:14:45.000 You don't think so?
01:14:45.000 I think, dude, he's been in power for a long time for a leader of Russia.
01:14:49.000 I think that he, I mean, I watched that Tucker Carlson interview, right?
01:14:53.000 Yeah. 0.99
01:14:53.000 And that history lesson that he delivered at the beginning, that everyone was like, what the fuck is he talking about? 0.99
01:14:58.000 And Tucker just looked baffled. 0.99
01:15:00.000 I got it.
01:15:01.000 I actually thought I'm getting an insight into Putin's motivations and the way that he sees himself, which is a historic figure.
01:15:08.000 He sees himself as someone who's going to restore a Russian empire.
01:15:11.000 He spends all day in the halls of the Kremlin with portraits of Ivan the Terrible and Catherine the Great.
01:15:18.000 And I think that he's seeing himself...
01:15:21.000 As not the leader of a free country, certainly, but as someone who's going to restore a Russian empire.
01:15:28.000 So no, I absolutely do not think he will stop with Ukraine.
01:15:31.000 No way.
01:15:33.000 So then if he doesn't, and then he invades a NATO country, and we go up against him, Man, those documents leaked recently from Russia that were showing what their lines were for when they would start using quote-unquote tactical nukes.
01:15:44.000 And, you know, I think he'd do it.
01:15:49.000 I think he'd do it.
01:15:50.000 I don't think he will.
01:15:51.000 What are the lines?
01:15:52.000 Well, they were, whatever, if they started to lose a certain percentage of troops, I can't recall the specifics, but they were like shockingly...
01:16:01.000 Shockingly liberal on when they would start to use tactical nukes on the battlefield in Europe.
01:16:08.000 Like if they started to have certain percentages of battlefield losses, not in the current situation, but as they go further into Ukraine or in a war that came into Russian territory. 0.99
01:16:19.000 So I just think we should stop this shit now. 1.00
01:16:22.000 This shit being Putin. 1.00
01:16:23.000 Is it possible? 1.00
01:16:26.000 I think it is possible.
01:16:27.000 I think it's possible to essentially let him have...
01:16:33.000 What's this, Jim?
01:16:34.000 Criteria for a potential nuclear response range from an enemy incursion on Russian territory to more specific triggers such as the destruction of 20% of Russia's strategic ballistic missile submarines.
01:16:46.000 This is the first time we've seen documents like this reported in the public domain, said Alexander Gabuev, director of Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.
01:16:59.000 They show that the operational threshold for using nuclear weapons is pretty low if the desired result can't be achieved through conventional means.
01:17:07.000 Russia's tactical nuclear weapons which can be delivered by land or sea launched missiles from or from an aircraft are designed for limited battlefield use in Europe and Asia as opposed to the larger strategic weapons intended to target US modern tactical warheads can still release significantly more energy than the weapons dropped on Nagasaki in Hiroshima in 1945. Oof.
01:17:46.000 So to answer your question, I think that, you know, the territory that Putin has taken, you know, and again, also, we like, just like we didn't back him up after the security assurances that we gave, we, the U.S., gave Ukraine in 1994. 2014,
01:18:03.000 right, there was that revolution in Ukraine, and in response, Putin invaded Crimea with the little green man, the guys that didn't have an insignia.
01:18:11.000 And the U.S. State Department went to, and Ukraine was going to fight.
01:18:15.000 And the U.S. State Department went to Kyiv and was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
01:18:18.000 Chill out, chill out, chill out.
01:18:19.000 Just let him have Crimea. 0.99
01:18:20.000 We'll make sure he stops there.
01:18:21.000 Let's not escalate things.
01:18:23.000 Okay?
01:18:23.000 So we gave him our word a second time.
01:18:25.000 And then we broke it.
01:18:27.000 So, to answer your question, I think that that territory that Putin has seized, my impression from talking with a lot of Ukrainians in recent weeks has been that They feel like Ukraine could still be Ukraine without that territory.
01:18:41.000 Basically, you could have a three-week period where people could either move there if they want to be Russians, or they can leave if they want to be Ukrainians.
01:18:50.000 And then you could have a kind of a North Korea, South Korea, DMZ kind of situation.
01:18:54.000 I think that's probably the best possible outcome right now.
01:18:58.000 But even to do that, again, we've got to properly arm the Ukrainians so that they can stop Putin from moving further into their country and actually taking territory that they could not live without.
01:19:09.000 So do you think ultimately he plans on taking all of Ukraine?
01:19:12.000 Yes.
01:19:12.000 100%.
01:19:13.000 I think he's...
01:19:14.000 100%.
01:19:14.000 I mean, it was...
01:19:16.000 When I was in Kyiv and I went to how close the fighting actually got to the capital city, it was shocking how close it was.
01:19:24.000 Like that town, Bucha, where there was all those atrocities committed.
01:19:27.000 I mean, there's this one, I saw this one auto, this like massive graveyards of like automobiles.
01:19:33.000 And what happened was people were trying to get out of this town as the Russian troops, the Russian, because they invaded from Belarus from the north and they came in and they're trying to go like lightning strike on Kyiv.
01:19:43.000 And they got within, I think, 10, 12 kilometers of the city.
01:19:48.000 And then they got stopped because the guys started blowing bridges.
01:19:50.000 Special Forces started blowing bridges and hitting them with javelins and stuff.
01:19:54.000 And they actually stopped them.
01:19:55.000 Like, incredibly brave fighting.
01:19:58.000 But there was this one just, like, I came across this just pile of just hundreds of blown-up cars.
01:20:05.000 And I asked the locals about it.
01:20:06.000 And some of them have been like painted now with, you know, sunflowers and, you know, Slava-Ukraine, glory to Ukraine.
01:20:13.000 And artists are trying to make this less sort of macabre.
01:20:16.000 But what it was, was when the Russians invaded two years ago, like hundreds of families piled in their cars.
01:20:24.000 And there was one road out of town, but it was a trap.
01:20:27.000 And the Russians cut it off on both sides and then methodically, using tanks, blew up these cars full of civilians. 1.00
01:20:36.000 Just brutal shit. 1.00
01:20:37.000 And I know there's still, like, brutal shit on all sides in all wars. 1.00
01:20:40.000 Yeah. 0.97
01:20:40.000 But to see it firsthand like that, you know, to talk to people that saw that happen was... 0.97
01:20:44.000 It's tough.
01:20:46.000 So...
01:20:47.000 Yeah.
01:20:48.000 What is it like going over there?
01:20:50.000 Like, leaving America and going over there to try, I mean, what was it?
01:20:55.000 Well, the craziest thing was, you can just walk in.
01:20:58.000 It was like, it was like, it's harder to go into Tijuana than it is to go to Ukraine.
01:21:02.000 Like, you could just, like, I went in through, it's, I came, yeah, I came out, yes, that's it.
01:21:08.000 Wow.
01:21:08.000 I went in, I came out through Poland, and I went in through Romania.
01:21:13.000 Jesus Christ, you know all those cars?
01:21:15.000 Yeah.
01:21:17.000 Oh my God.
01:21:18.000 Oh my God.
01:21:20.000 So I flew to Bucharest and then drove about 10 hours to the border and then just like walked across with my duffel bag and U.S. passport.
01:21:29.000 It's really easy to get in.
01:21:32.000 You just walked across?
01:21:33.000 Yeah, just walked right across.
01:21:34.000 It was like five minutes.
01:21:35.000 Did you have it set up already to talk to people?
01:21:38.000 I did.
01:21:39.000 I had set up security.
01:21:40.000 I had really good security.
01:21:42.000 These guys were like Special Forces guys, a tank hunting team, actually, that had just rotated off the front after fighting for two years.
01:21:52.000 So basically, keeping me alive was a vacation for them.
01:21:56.000 And I got to be really good friends with this one dude, especially the guy that was like, because they worked in different ways.
01:22:00.000 It was a team, but there was one guy that was attached to my hip.
01:22:03.000 He was just with me 24-7.
01:22:05.000 Uh, whose name was Andre.
01:22:07.000 And I got to be really good buddies with this guy, just using, like, Google Translate, you know?
01:22:11.000 Oh, wow.
01:22:12.000 Even when the interpreter wasn't around, just, like, really clicked with this guy.
01:22:14.000 Anyway, um, but yeah, I did have it set up where I had an interpreter, you know, a driver, and security.
01:22:21.000 And then I had, you know, conversations that I'd lined up.
01:22:24.000 But a lot of it was people had documents or people had information that the only way I was going to get these documents or have them tell me this information was to go to Ukraine.
01:22:33.000 It was the only way they were gonna, you know, trust it, trust me.
01:22:37.000 How much different was it than what you expected?
01:22:41.000 Well, it's, I really, back to my new love for the Ukrainian people.
01:22:46.000 In Kyiv, like, or Lviv, which is a fantastic city, it's in eastern Ukraine near the Polish border.
01:22:54.000 You know, it's like you wouldn't, until the rockets and the Iranian drones start flying into the city, You wouldn't know anything was going on. 0.74
01:23:03.000 People are out, dressed nicely, going to dinner, going to bars, going to clubs, like they're out and about, you know?
01:23:09.000 And then all of a sudden, the air raid sirens go off.
01:23:12.000 And there's this app that I jokingly texted my wife.
01:23:17.000 I was like, this is the worst video game ever.
01:23:19.000 Because it's this app that shows you what's incoming, like what kind of missiles and how many, and what kind of drones and how many.
01:23:27.000 And then as the air defense systems shoot them down, they like blip off the screen, you know?
01:23:32.000 So you can like see, like, the shit's coming your way and like how many are they shooting down. 0.86
01:23:36.000 It's like the worst version of missile command because you can't actually do anything, right? 0.99
01:23:40.000 But yet you're watching it.
01:23:41.000 Wow.
01:23:42.000 In real time.
01:23:43.000 Yeah.
01:23:44.000 Yeah.
01:23:45.000 Yeah.
01:23:45.000 God.
01:23:48.000 So...
01:23:48.000 And this is just an app you can get for your phone?
01:23:51.000 Yeah.
01:23:52.000 Well, the security guys had it.
01:23:54.000 Everybody has an app on their phone that alerts them when there's incoming missiles or drones.
01:23:59.000 And how do they know that that app has not been compromised?
01:24:02.000 Great question.
01:24:03.000 I don't know.
01:24:04.000 Great question.
01:24:05.000 Is this an app that's Windows and Android?
01:24:08.000 Yes, you could get it on your phone right now.
01:24:10.000 As a matter of fact, before I went to Ukraine, I downloaded it and installed it, and I thought it'd be geofenced.
01:24:15.000 But it was like the middle of the night in New Mexico, and all of a sudden it's like, Air raid!
01:24:19.000 Air raid!
01:24:19.000 Missiles incoming!
01:24:20.000 Seek shelter!
01:24:21.000 So if anybody wants to experience what it's like to be a Ukrainian right now, you can download this app.
01:24:27.000 What is it called?
01:24:28.000 Let's take a look.
01:24:31.000 Is it available for all phone platforms?
01:24:33.000 Yes, anybody can get it.
01:24:35.000 I may have taken it off, actually, but I'm sure if you just like Google, like Ukrainian, you know, air raid app.
01:24:39.000 Did you take it off because you're tired of seeing air raids?
01:24:41.000 Yes.
01:24:42.000 Yeah.
01:24:43.000 I didn't want it to sound anymore.
01:24:45.000 So, I mean, you can pick which parts of the country you want it to alert you to, but yeah, I mean, it was...
01:24:53.000 There was one day where the security guys were like, it's not safe to drive from where we were to Kyiv tomorrow.
01:24:59.000 So that's the bad news, because every night we would have a go-no-go kind of meeting for the next day.
01:25:04.000 And that was the one time that they were like, no-go, no-go. 0.99
01:25:08.000 Too much shit's going on. 0.99
01:25:09.000 It's not safe to drive, you know, eight hours to Kyiv. 0.99
01:25:12.000 Good news is it's snowing in the Carpathian Mountains, so we're going to go skiing.
01:25:16.000 And I was like, what?
01:25:17.000 And so the next day, we did.
01:25:20.000 We, like, drove five hours over the mountains, and there's this full-on ski resort.
01:25:24.000 And there's just people, like, the hundreds of families out skiing. 0.99
01:25:28.000 And there's just a fucking war going on. 0.99
01:25:30.000 And it's in. 0.99
01:25:31.000 It's like a day of a nationwide red alert, which means that, like, missiles were hitting all over.
01:25:36.000 And so people are watching this app on their phone, and you can see the stuff that's coming, you know, to the Oblast, which is like a state, you know, that we're in.
01:25:45.000 And as the stuff is being shot down, like, people are, like, cheering from the chairlifts.
01:25:49.000 Oh, my God.
01:25:51.000 Yeah.
01:25:51.000 Oh, my God.
01:25:52.000 That's what I mean. 1.00
01:25:52.000 It's just like that fucking fuck you spirit that they have is, I think, impressive. 1.00
01:25:57.000 Wow. 1.00
01:25:58.000 Yeah.
01:25:59.000 Yeah, I have a friend from Israel, and he's a kickboxing coach, my friend Shuki, and when he was living in America, he lives in Israel now, but when he was living in America, I went over to his house for dinner, and Him and his wife,
01:26:15.000 they'd be playing the bongos and dancing.
01:26:17.000 And I'm like, you guys are like, you have so much spirit.
01:26:21.000 Like, you're so filled with fun.
01:26:23.000 And he's like, my friend, when you live in Israel, he goes, every day, like, you could die. 0.98
01:26:28.000 Every day is party, party.
01:26:30.000 Have a good time.
01:26:31.000 Enjoy your life.
01:26:32.000 Yeah.
01:26:33.000 And it's like the same kind of thing unfortunately like post 9-11.
01:26:38.000 Like you need something horrible to happen for you to appreciate the good and appreciate peace and appreciate joy.
01:26:46.000 Yeah.
01:26:47.000 And that's a crazy thought is that the thing that's going to cure what ails us is conflict and getting together and banding together to fight a common evil.
01:27:00.000 Right.
01:27:00.000 Which is just so bizarre.
01:27:02.000 Or if we had like a War of the Worlds kind of thing, where like a hostile alien race attacked Earth.
01:27:06.000 You remember when Ronald Reagan said that to the UN? Yeah.
01:27:09.000 Yeah, it's like the UFO fanatic's favorite speech.
01:27:13.000 When Ronald Reagan said if we were faced with a hostile threat from an alien world, how quickly we would put aside our differences.
01:27:20.000 Yeah.
01:27:20.000 That's true.
01:27:21.000 I mean, that's one of the things that astronauts always talk about when they go to the space station.
01:27:24.000 So you look down on the earth and you go, oh my god, what are we doing?
01:27:27.000 How are we in conflict with each other over lines in the dirt, imaginary lines in the dirt that we create?
01:27:35.000 For what?
01:27:37.000 Like, who's doing this and why are we doing this?
01:27:39.000 We should all be together.
01:27:41.000 We're this one species that can communicate with each other, attach this ball that's hurling through infinity.
01:27:49.000 And yet, our territorial primate instincts have us engaged in this insane conflict that no one thinks is ever going to end.
01:28:00.000 If you asked anyone today, can you achieve in our lifetime no war?
01:28:04.000 Most people will say that's not possible.
01:28:06.000 Which is so strange.
01:28:09.000 And tragic.
01:28:10.000 Well, it's also so crazy because it's a function of human beings in large numbers, right?
01:28:15.000 Because, like, if we were in this room together and he said, could you imagine all three of us get along?
01:28:21.000 Of course.
01:28:22.000 Easily.
01:28:22.000 I couldn't imagine us not getting along.
01:28:24.000 We can talk.
01:28:25.000 We'll figure things out.
01:28:26.000 We have resources.
01:28:27.000 Yeah, we'll be fine.
01:28:29.000 Make it 3 million people.
01:28:31.000 Make it 30 million.
01:28:32.000 Make it 300 million.
01:28:33.000 Now you've got problems.
01:28:34.000 And it seems to be always the same thing that you see when you have a cult.
01:28:41.000 You have leaders.
01:28:43.000 And the leaders don't necessarily have the best intentions for everyone.
01:28:47.000 They have the best intentions for themselves and for the people that are providing them with money.
01:28:54.000 And this is the trap that we're all stuck in.
01:29:00.000 Everyone on earth, all of us, being led by groups that decide that they're in control of these massive numbers of people, and they want control of the resources of these other territories, and they want to do something to those people, 0.98
01:29:16.000 and they'll have people convinced, this is your enemy, you have to go kill them.
01:29:20.000 People that you've never met, you have no issue with, you don't know anything about them, you've literally never seen them before. 1.00
01:29:26.000 You might not ever see them even when you're killing them.
01:29:30.000 And this is a thing that we don't believe could ever be stopped in our lifetime, which is insane.
01:29:37.000 If you really start to think about it that way, it sounds so insane.
01:29:41.000 Like, if you were approached by an alien life form, That said, what is the source of all this murder and killing and destruction?
01:29:51.000 Like, what is this?
01:29:52.000 It's like, oh, we're being led.
01:29:53.000 We're a group and we're being led by the people that are in charge of this group that are very secretive and that are being influenced by massive amounts of money and the military-industrial complex.
01:30:03.000 And they've got everyone convinced that you have to divert all of our resources.
01:30:13.000 We're good to go. 1.00
01:30:19.000 They would be like, what is wrong with you fucking people? 1.00
01:30:22.000 Like, what a bizarre, wounded, tainted species that you think like this. 1.00
01:30:28.000 And not just think like this, but think it's impossible to imagine this not existing.
01:30:34.000 This is the most insane venture that human beings can ever engage in.
01:30:39.000 And you think it's impossible for that to not be the case.
01:30:42.000 But almost all logical people, if you ask them, could you imagine no war in your lifetime?
01:30:50.000 No.
01:30:50.000 Not now.
01:30:51.000 No.
01:30:51.000 Not now.
01:30:52.000 I mean, you know, I just turned 53, and I think that, like, when I was a young man, I had a lot more optimism, right?
01:30:59.000 And I don't think it was just a function of, like, we...
01:31:01.000 Growing...
01:31:02.000 Being young in the 90s, I think, was, like, the best.
01:31:04.000 It was, like, the time of peace and prosperity.
01:31:06.000 Yeah!
01:31:07.000 And it seemed like we could get to Star Trek, right?
01:31:09.000 It seemed like we could maybe get there, right?
01:31:12.000 Even Star Trek, though, they're fighting Klingons. 0.99
01:31:14.000 Yeah, well, you know, you gotta fight somebody.
01:31:16.000 What is that?
01:31:17.000 Why?
01:31:18.000 It seems so crazy.
01:31:20.000 I wonder if, I mean this is gonna get really weird, but I wonder if that's where AI is leading us.
01:31:27.000 I really genuinely do.
01:31:29.000 I wonder if the limitations of our primate architecture Will not allow us to escape this never-ending cycle of war.
01:31:40.000 And that may be the only thing that will would be an intelligence that far exceeds our own and doesn't have the same limitations, motivations, human reward systems, all the things that hold us in these patterns.
01:31:56.000 And that an artificial intelligence that is far superior to what we're capable of generating with our monkey minds will be the only thing that prevents us.
01:32:07.000 Well, back to DMT, I think that intelligence is already out there.
01:32:10.000 We don't have to build it with computers here on Earth.
01:32:13.000 And DMT is one conduit to it.
01:32:16.000 Mushrooms are another.
01:32:17.000 Meditation is another. 0.99
01:32:18.000 It's just a willingness to set aside the petty shit. 0.99
01:32:23.000 Which is also why a lot of people believe those things are illegal. 0.98
01:32:28.000 You know?
01:32:29.000 100%.
01:32:29.000 I mean, if you have everybody realizing that we're all one and united, it would kind of make more...
01:32:34.000 There's no money in that.
01:32:35.000 Yeah, there's no money in that.
01:32:37.000 Well, maybe the problem is money in general, like the concept of money.
01:32:41.000 And I'm not a proponent of socialism, because socialism always leads to communism, which leads to military dictatorships that are dictating whether or not you can do this or that.
01:32:51.000 And there's always groups of people that have massive resources, and they keep everybody else subjugated.
01:32:57.000 Anybody that thinks that socialism and communism is the future, show me where it works, ever.
01:33:03.000 It's still human beings.
01:33:05.000 It's just like...
01:33:06.000 Whether it's cults or militaries or anything.
01:33:09.000 So there's human beings that have immense power that is unimaginable to the common person, dictating what the common people can and can't do.
01:33:18.000 And the only way to enforce that is with force and with killing.
01:33:22.000 That's the only way. 0.99
01:33:23.000 With jailing people, killing people, fear.
01:33:26.000 It's the only way to get people to listen to you and to do what you want them to do.
01:33:32.000 And I wonder if what we're doing with artificial intelligence is creating...
01:33:37.000 I think we're going to merge.
01:33:40.000 That's what I think is going to happen.
01:33:42.000 I'm sure you've already seen this guy, the first Neuralink patient.
01:33:47.000 Have you seen this?
01:33:47.000 Yeah.
01:33:48.000 So this first guy who's paralyzed.
01:33:51.000 With Neuralink, he's now able to use a computer and he can move cursors around with his mind and he can play video games with his mind.
01:34:00.000 And he's been doing this and he talks about it and it's like this is incredible.
01:34:04.000 This is amazing.
01:34:05.000 And this is essentially the Model T. Of, you know, this sort of human-computer interface, biological interface, something that goes into your mind, into the brain itself, and connects with it and allows you to use things.
01:34:21.000 I get why that would help a dude, like, in his situation, but do you have any concerns about that, like, large scale?
01:34:28.000 Of course.
01:34:28.000 Yeah.
01:34:29.000 Yeah, I have concerns with everything that involves human beings.
01:34:32.000 Because I don't think there's ever been a thing that involves human beings that doesn't get co-opted and corrupted.
01:34:37.000 There's always something, someone comes along that uses it and has power.
01:34:43.000 And that's the scariest thing about someone achieving some sort of artificial general intelligence, some sort of super intelligence, especially something that's sentient.
01:34:54.000 And can figure out what we're doing wrong and also figure out what was done wrong to code it and make a better version of itself.
01:35:02.000 And I think it's going to lead to a new life form.
01:35:07.000 I'm almost positive of that, that that's what all this stuff is doing.
01:35:11.000 It's going to achieve...
01:35:13.000 I mean, have you ever seen the head of Google where he was talking about how their AI has done things that they didn't expect?
01:35:20.000 Like, it learned a language like instantaneously that it wasn't programmed in and can translate that language now and communicate in that language and they don't know how it did it? 0.99
01:35:30.000 Well, hey guys, hit the fucking brakes. 0.99
01:35:33.000 Like, you don't know what it's doing and you're just gonna keep feeding it? 1.00
01:35:39.000 Okay.
01:35:40.000 Where do you think that goes?
01:35:41.000 It's going to be better than us at everything.
01:35:43.000 And it's going to realize that we're the cause of pollution.
01:35:47.000 We're the cause of war.
01:35:48.000 We're the cause of theft and rape and fraud and destruction and control of resources.
01:35:54.000 It's all human beings.
01:35:56.000 Like, we are the problem that we're trying to solve.
01:36:00.000 And if we're trying to solve that problem by creating something that won't have those problems, it just logically seems to me that that thing is going to realize that we're the issue.
01:36:11.000 Part of me shares that fear.
01:36:12.000 Part of me feels like a drowning man.
01:36:15.000 Maybe AI is the life preserver.
01:36:17.000 Part of me thinks that it's just going to be like the metaverse or Google Glasses or whatever.
01:36:21.000 It's just going to be like a passing fad.
01:36:23.000 Oh, I don't think that.
01:36:24.000 I don't think that at all.
01:36:25.000 I think it's inevitable.
01:36:27.000 I think we are.
01:36:28.000 I've compared us to a caterpillar.
01:36:30.000 That we're a caterpillar that's building a cocoon and we don't even know why.
01:36:34.000 Caterpillars, they don't know.
01:36:34.000 I'm going to become a butterfly.
01:36:35.000 It's going to be awesome.
01:36:36.000 No, we don't know why we're doing all this.
01:36:39.000 Why are we so...
01:36:40.000 Thirsty for innovation.
01:36:42.000 Why are we so attached to wanting the newest latest greatest technology?
01:36:47.000 It almost seems like that motivation is Tied in to the creation of artificial intelligence that if you looked at us I always say that if you looked at us from above if you were some other species that came And you were looking at human beings you would say well,
01:37:04.000 what does this thing do?
01:37:05.000 Like what does this species do?
01:37:07.000 Well the the main thing it does if you You know, there's all the wonderful things, the art, the music, all the wonderful things that it does for itself.
01:37:17.000 Food and culture and all these interesting things.
01:37:20.000 But what does the species overall do?
01:37:24.000 Well, it creates things and it creates better things constantly.
01:37:29.000 It's in a cycle of constant innovation.
01:37:32.000 And a lot of that innovation, almost all of it is tied to technology and artificial intelligence.
01:37:38.000 And so where does that go?
01:37:40.000 Well, that goes to another life form.
01:37:42.000 It creates a thing.
01:37:43.000 It creates an artificially intelligent.
01:37:45.000 And artificial is not a good word either, because I think it's digital intelligence.
01:37:49.000 I don't think it's artificial intelligence.
01:37:50.000 I think it's a computing-based intelligence that's far superior to the biological-based intelligence.
01:37:58.000 And so my hope for us, because I am one of us, my hope is that we merge.
01:38:04.000 My fear is that it supersedes us.
01:38:06.000 My fear is that it surpasses us in every way and that it just gives us something that placates us.
01:38:14.000 And it controls us?
01:38:15.000 Yeah, it gives us something.
01:38:17.000 Well, instead of killing us off, all you'd have to do is stop us from breeding.
01:38:20.000 That's not hard to do.
01:38:21.000 We're kind of doing that to ourselves.
01:38:23.000 I mean, population level, in terms of, like, viability, they've dropped substantially over the last few decades, whether it's because of microplastics in our food that have diminished our reproductive cycles.
01:38:36.000 And if you look at the number of births, In developing countries, what happens?
01:38:45.000 How many women are having miscarriages? 1.00
01:38:48.000 How many women are infertile? 1.00
01:38:50.000 The numbers keep going up and up and up.
01:38:51.000 It seems like there's a current trend because of what we have done with our environment, what we have done with our food supply, what we have done with medicine and pharmaceutical drugs that's leading us to be less and less viable.
01:39:05.000 And all you'd have to do is step in and provide human beings with something that gives them an incentive to no longer breed.
01:39:13.000 Especially if it makes it very attractive to no longer breed.
01:39:17.000 And keep them entertained.
01:39:18.000 Keep them entertained.
01:39:19.000 No longer breed. 0.97
01:39:20.000 Provide them with robot sex dolls that are far superior to human beings. 0.97
01:39:24.000 You know, someone who really gets them. 0.93
01:39:26.000 This person really gets them.
01:39:28.000 Or you just have a biological woman who yells at you. 1.00
01:39:31.000 I mean, you could clearly see how if you were a super-intelligent species, a super-intelligent thing that looked at us and said, well, what's the best way other than mass destruction of stopping these things from ruining the world?
01:39:49.000 Well, just stop them from breeding.
01:39:50.000 Just make these the last ones.
01:39:54.000 Just severely limit the amount of reproduction that takes place.
01:39:59.000 That would do it.
01:40:00.000 That drowning man looking for a life preserver side of me kind of hopes that artificial intelligence or digital intelligence...
01:40:06.000 I like that, by the way.
01:40:08.000 Yeah, I think that's what it is.
01:40:09.000 Digital intelligence, you know, that it could be that...
01:40:14.000 Again, back to DMT, I felt that that sentient force...
01:40:21.000 God, whatever you want to call it, was benign, was basically on my side.
01:40:26.000 I'd like to think that perhaps that technology is being provided to us.
01:40:30.000 That there is a bigger plan that we're just not dialed into.
01:40:33.000 Or that maybe it's a way to try and dial into that plan.
01:40:36.000 I just want us to get to Star Trek, man.
01:40:37.000 I just want to be...
01:40:38.000 I think that the goal, I think the intent for our species is to get off the rock and explore space and peace together.
01:40:46.000 That would certainly be wonderful.
01:40:48.000 Yeah.
01:40:49.000 Yeah, that would be certainly preferable to destroying ourselves.
01:40:53.000 What do you think is happening with all this UFO, UAP stuff?
01:40:57.000 Do you ever think about that?
01:40:58.000 Yeah, I've looked into the doc on that like several times.
01:41:01.000 Could never quite, you know, get beyond what's already publicly available.
01:41:06.000 I just think it's...
01:41:09.000 The government's covering something up, for sure.
01:41:12.000 For sure, you know?
01:41:14.000 Do you think they're covering up things that they've invented?
01:41:18.000 I think that's probably the most, again, I would like to believe that what they're covering, what I want to believe, in the same way that I want to believe in the stoned ape theory, because I think it's fucking cool, is I want to believe that they're covering up contact with, you know, species from outer space, other intelligent life.
01:41:34.000 What I suspect is really going on is that they're covering up shit that they're making that maybe has slipped the leash, you know, or that for whatever reason they're just trying to keep completely secret.
01:41:45.000 The stuff that has maneuverability that can't be explained. 0.94
01:41:48.000 Yeah, that's my thought too.
01:41:50.000 I think both things though.
01:41:52.000 I think we're probably being visited as well.
01:41:54.000 And I think we might be being visited by something that is us from the future.
01:41:59.000 I think it might not even be us from the future, but being what happens when a species like us Gets involved in digital intelligence and creates something that transcends the biological limitations.
01:42:15.000 And then you have these things.
01:42:17.000 Like, to me, one of the things that's very bizarre is the archetype.
01:42:21.000 The archetype gray alien.
01:42:24.000 Which is this big-headed thing with no muscle, no genitals, and it seems very humanoid in a way, which doesn't necessarily make sense.
01:42:36.000 If you're dealing with different environments, and we think about the massive variety of species that exist on the planet that we're aware of.
01:42:45.000 There's only one human.
01:42:46.000 There's only one bipedal hominid.
01:42:49.000 That's it.
01:42:49.000 It's us.
01:42:51.000 Why is this thing so much like us, this shitty design of walking around on two people? 0.82
01:42:57.000 Why can't it fly? 0.95
01:42:58.000 Why does it have these spindly bodies?
01:43:01.000 Well, human beings, as we're evolving, one of the things that's very clear is that we're becoming less physical.
01:43:09.000 We're weaker and softer than previous generations of humans that we can observe.
01:43:14.000 You look at our testosterone levels compared to men from the 1950s, we're far lower.
01:43:19.000 On average.
01:43:20.000 And if you go way back and you look at Australopithecus and even Neanderthal, I mean, there's just super powerful physical specimens.
01:43:29.000 There were definitely...
01:43:30.000 Neanderthal was like this 5'7", 200-pound behemoth of a creature that was...
01:43:37.000 You know, if you have a Neanderthal competing in the UFC, it would smash everybody. 1.00
01:43:42.000 Their bones are bigger.
01:43:43.000 They're far more powerful.
01:43:45.000 If you keep going in that direction, what do you get to?
01:43:48.000 You get to this thing that has almost no muscle.
01:43:51.000 This thing that just has the ability to move around.
01:43:54.000 It's probably communicating telepathically.
01:43:57.000 It's probably using its telepathic energy to control those devices, those ships.
01:44:04.000 That's one of the things that Bob Lazar said.
01:44:06.000 And again, the Bob Lazar story is who knows, right?
01:44:10.000 I love to believe the Bob Lazar story.
01:44:12.000 I had him on the podcast.
01:44:13.000 I talked to him for three hours.
01:44:14.000 I had dinner with him.
01:44:15.000 He doesn't seem like a guy who's lying.
01:44:18.000 And one of the more bizarre aspects of his story was how many of the things that he talked about now we know are true, you know, in terms of...
01:44:27.000 The technology in terms of what people have seen, 3D printing, there's all these different things.
01:44:33.000 Like the ship that he went into, there's no seams.
01:44:36.000 He's like it's all like as if it's made out of one piece of something, which is 3D printing.
01:44:42.000 I mean that's what we're doing now.
01:44:44.000 And that there's no instrumentation and that somehow or another these things are integrated somehow.
01:44:52.000 With their minds or with something, where it's allowing them to pilot these things without digital instrumentation and buttons and switches.
01:45:00.000 They're using some other method to control these things.
01:45:03.000 And that's what he was supposedly brought in to try to back-engineer.
01:45:08.000 To try to say, what is this?
01:45:09.000 How does it work?
01:45:10.000 And he talked about the limitations of having science try to be practiced in a vacuum.
01:45:18.000 And he was like, the metallurgists did not have contact with the propulsion experts.
01:45:22.000 The propulsion experts did not have contact with other groups that were studying these things.
01:45:26.000 Everybody was very secretive and everybody was very isolated.
01:45:31.000 And he's like, that's not how science works, and that's one of the reasons why they can never figure out how these things work.
01:45:36.000 You need to open this up to the global scientific community and have everybody examine these things and look at it.
01:45:42.000 But the problem is the military applications.
01:45:44.000 Like, if you have something...
01:45:47.000 That can essentially use some new element and use this new element that's bombarded with radiation that allows you to manipulate gravity and move at insane speeds almost instantaneously to anywhere in the universe.
01:46:03.000 You can't give that to the Chinese. 1.00
01:46:05.000 You can't have someone else get a hold of it before us.
01:46:08.000 You can't have someone steal these techniques or these technologies.
01:46:13.000 So what do you do?
01:46:14.000 If you have this thing, if this thing has really been donated, which is like what a lot of these people that work on them, they call them donations.
01:46:21.000 If you really have these things, what do you do?
01:46:24.000 How do you figure that out?
01:46:25.000 I don't know.
01:46:26.000 But if we have been doing this since the 1980s, which is – Lazar said it's been around far longer than that, but when he was working on it, it was the 1980s.
01:46:36.000 You can imagine that by now we might have figured out a way to get a drone going that uses these technologies and that these drones can appear and disappear, they can fly at the same rates of speed, they can hover stationary at 120 knot winds like they've observed.
01:46:53.000 You can imagine that that's ours.
01:46:54.000 I saw the Phoenix lights.
01:46:57.000 Did you really?
01:46:57.000 Yeah.
01:46:58.000 You were there?
01:46:58.000 Yeah, I saw that.
01:46:59.000 Whoa! 0.71
01:47:00.000 Different people saw different things.
01:47:01.000 What I saw was something the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars that was at a relatively low altitude moving over Phoenix.
01:47:11.000 My housemate was like, this is before we had phones, right?
01:47:15.000 Before we had cameras.
01:47:16.000 We had a flip phone, if anything.
01:47:18.000 And he was like, dude, you gotta get out here.
01:47:20.000 And I came out the front yard of our house in Tempe, and we just watched this thing move across the sky. 0.99
01:47:26.000 It was like, what the fuck, man? 0.99
01:47:28.000 Like, I mean, I believe in reincarnation, because I came back from DMT thinking that I had a first-hand experience. 0.99
01:47:35.000 I believe that there was something inexplicable in the sky over Phoenix that night, because I fucking saw it. 0.88
01:47:41.000 Okay? 0.85
01:47:41.000 And it was massive, and it was quiet. 0.85
01:47:45.000 And then it was just gone.
01:47:47.000 So what did it look like?
01:47:49.000 It looked like a massive craft, not shaped like an Imperial Star Destroyer, but of that scale that was more sort of like tubular shaped.
01:48:01.000 Tubular?
01:48:02.000 Yeah, more like a tube.
01:48:07.000 But you could see variations in it.
01:48:09.000 It wasn't like totally smooth.
01:48:11.000 And you could see by the way that it was like blocking out the stars, that you could see that there were like apparatus on it of some kind.
01:48:18.000 And I always thought that it was just a military aircraft where they thought they had a cloaking device.
01:48:24.000 See, now that's what other people saw was these smaller things on the same night that were explained away as being some sort of military flares or weather balloons or some shit. 0.78
01:48:33.000 That's not what I saw.
01:48:35.000 On the same night, but I'm not the only one that saw this larger scale craft.
01:48:40.000 So I always thought like, man, that could be a military ship. 0.99
01:48:42.000 They thought they had some sort of cloaking device that fucked up. 0.87
01:48:45.000 It fritzed out because that's kind of what it looked like. 0.87
01:48:47.000 I could see it and then I couldn't, you know?
01:48:51.000 So it looked like a tube.
01:48:53.000 And how big were you talking about?
01:48:57.000 Like several football fields?
01:48:59.000 Yes.
01:48:59.000 Yes.
01:49:00.000 Yeah.
01:49:01.000 And how many football fields?
01:49:02.000 I would say like the size of a battleship.
01:49:06.000 Okay.
01:49:06.000 Huge.
01:49:07.000 Not an aircraft carrier, but the size of a battleship.
01:49:10.000 Like I would say three...
01:49:11.000 What's bigger?
01:49:11.000 Aircraft carrier or battleship?
01:49:13.000 A battleship I think is bigger.
01:49:14.000 It's a destroyer.
01:49:15.000 Whatever's smaller than an aircraft carrier.
01:49:16.000 Whatever the ship is that's smaller than an aircraft carrier.
01:49:20.000 So not as big as an aircraft carrier.
01:49:21.000 Not as big as an aircraft carrier.
01:49:22.000 What is a battleship?
01:49:24.000 It's either a battleship or a destroyer.
01:49:25.000 Whatever that next one is.
01:49:26.000 I would say three football fields at least.
01:49:28.000 It was huge.
01:49:29.000 You could not miss it.
01:49:30.000 And how high do you think it was above you?
01:49:34.000 No more than a thousand feet.
01:49:36.000 Whoa.
01:49:38.000 Yeah, it was low altitude.
01:49:40.000 It was like right over Tempe.
01:49:42.000 I'm not the only one that saw this.
01:49:43.000 No, I know.
01:49:45.000 Many, many people saw it.
01:49:46.000 I actually went on the record with the newspaper I worked for right away because they were immediately dismissing those smaller lights that we just saw as whatever the explanation was.
01:49:57.000 And I was like, there's something else in the sky that night too.
01:50:02.000 I love to gamble.
01:50:03.000 If I had to make a bet, I would still say it's human military technology that fritzed out.
01:50:10.000 Wow.
01:50:11.000 Many people said they saw something that looked like a triangle.
01:50:15.000 No, this was not a triangle.
01:50:19.000 So maybe there was more than one of these things.
01:50:22.000 Totally possible.
01:50:25.000 Remember when the governor did that press conference and came out with a guy in an alien suit and made a mockery of the whole thing?
01:50:31.000 Which is what their tactic has been, you know.
01:50:33.000 But then that same governor came back after he left office and talked about it.
01:50:38.000 Yeah.
01:50:39.000 And said that he saw something and admitted it.
01:50:42.000 Yeah.
01:50:43.000 What was the governor's name?
01:50:45.000 Fife Symington.
01:50:46.000 Fife Symington.
01:50:47.000 See if you can find a video of Fife Symington saying what he actually saw on witnessing the Phoenix Lights.
01:50:55.000 I think later he talked about it.
01:50:58.000 Well, unlike Fife Symington, I was stoned, but I still know what I saw.
01:51:05.000 I still know what I saw.
01:51:06.000 And what's interesting is when he's trying to describe the shape, and he puts it at a bigger size than I have it in my memory, I do remember talking with my friend.
01:51:16.000 It was hard to describe what we just saw.
01:51:18.000 It's like we didn't have a reference.
01:51:19.000 It's like we're trying to...
01:51:21.000 Let me see if I can articulate this.
01:51:23.000 We're trying to find reference points for something that really doesn't have one, I guess.
01:51:28.000 Kind of estimate the size, but it was unlike anything I'd ever seen before.
01:51:34.000 Have you ever heard people describe what the Native Americans must have seen when those boats started showing up?
01:51:41.000 No.
01:51:42.000 That they had never seen anything that large.
01:51:45.000 That it probably blew them away.
01:51:47.000 You know, you see the Pinta and the Santa Maria and these massive boats from Europe. 0.99
01:51:52.000 That, you know, they were like, what the fuck is that? 0.96
01:51:57.000 Well, let's hope that the beings aboard the craft, as that's what they are, have better intentions than the people aboard those boats. 0.98
01:52:05.000 Yeah, right?
01:52:06.000 Yeah.
01:52:06.000 Yeah.
01:52:07.000 That's crazy that you actually saw it.
01:52:09.000 Yeah.
01:52:10.000 Wow.
01:52:11.000 And you said it just disappeared?
01:52:13.000 Yes.
01:52:14.000 It wasn't like whoop or anything.
01:52:15.000 There was no noise.
01:52:16.000 It was just there.
01:52:17.000 There were some lights.
01:52:18.000 Like you said, I remember there were some lights that were not stars that were part of this craft.
01:52:24.000 Could you describe what those lights looked like?
01:52:27.000 No, they were not colored.
01:52:28.000 They were white or off-white.
01:52:32.000 Because I remember thinking, like, are those stars?
01:52:34.000 I was trying to actually see what is the shape and what is stars.
01:52:37.000 That's how I was gauging how big it was.
01:52:39.000 And I was like, no, those are attached to this thing.
01:52:43.000 And then it was just, I just couldn't see it anymore.
01:52:45.000 How many lights?
01:52:46.000 It was like the Northern Lights.
01:52:47.000 So I'm from Alaska, right?
01:52:48.000 So it's like the Northern Lights, they're there, and then they're not there.
01:52:51.000 It was just like this ghostly thing, and then they're gone.
01:52:54.000 And it was like that.
01:52:55.000 It was there, it was moving at a slow speed, you know, from my left to right.
01:53:00.000 And then it was just, I couldn't see it anymore.
01:53:02.000 But it was like 20 seconds, at least.
01:53:04.000 It wasn't like a glimpse of this thing.
01:53:06.000 Wow.
01:53:07.000 And how many lights?
01:53:11.000 Half a dozen.
01:53:12.000 Yeah.
01:53:13.000 Somewhere around there.
01:53:15.000 Yeah.
01:53:17.000 I know people said that they saw a triangle, so then for a while they were saying that's why he was probably talking about the B-2 bomber, the stealth bomber, because they're kind of triangular.
01:53:25.000 Yeah.
01:53:26.000 It was way bigger than one of those, and it was not that shape at all.
01:53:31.000 You know, I struggle to come up with what shape it was, because it's a shape that I haven't really seen before.
01:53:36.000 Wow.
01:53:37.000 And what was your initial thought?
01:53:40.000 That that's an alien spacecraft?
01:53:42.000 No, my initial thought was not an alien spacecraft. 0.99
01:53:44.000 It was basically, the initial thought was just like, what the fuck is that? 0.97
01:53:46.000 And then once I talked about it, it's that same sort of like, want to believe, actually believe thing we talked about several times today. 0.98
01:53:53.000 I want to believe it was an alien spacecraft.
01:53:55.000 I believe it was probably, you know, U.S. military technology gone awry.
01:53:59.000 Really?
01:54:00.000 Yeah.
01:54:00.000 Do you think they have the capability to do that in the 1990s?
01:54:04.000 Because when was the Phoenix Lights?
01:54:06.000 Yeah, it was mid-1990s.
01:54:09.000 I think it was 96, might have been 97, not sure.
01:54:13.000 As more time has gone on, though, you were asking me what I thought in the moment.
01:54:16.000 Yeah.
01:54:16.000 As more time has gone on, I've, like, the needles moved towards maybe that was actually an extraterrestrial craft.
01:54:23.000 Yeah.
01:54:25.000 Because so much has come out, like, especially in the last five years, as you know, as you've talked about here.
01:54:29.000 Yeah.
01:54:30.000 It's just so strange that it all occurred in this one area, in this one night.
01:54:35.000 Right.
01:54:35.000 Right.
01:54:37.000 That has to be a real paradigm shifting moment for you.
01:54:42.000 It wasn't.
01:54:42.000 Well, yeah.
01:54:45.000 I think I was...
01:54:46.000 I got so caught up in the, like, the government's trying to cover up its own fuck-up.
01:54:51.000 You know, like, they're putting up...
01:54:52.000 And then there was the, like, there was the smaller lights thing and the weather balloon, you know.
01:54:56.000 But I did...
01:54:57.000 I went on the record with the Phoenix New Times.
01:54:59.000 There was a guy named Tony Ortega there that wrote a piece about it right away.
01:55:02.000 And I went on the record because I was, like, maybe one of the last...
01:55:06.000 You know, I wasn't a UFO enthusiast type, right?
01:55:09.000 Like, in the community.
01:55:10.000 I was a fairly well-known writer in the greater Phoenix Metro at that time.
01:55:14.000 And not someone that would be normally associated with, like, being a quote-unquote UFO crazy.
01:55:19.000 So I went on the record with the article that he was writing.
01:55:21.000 It was like, yes, I saw this. 0.94
01:55:22.000 No fucking way it was a weather balloon or a flare or whatever they're saying. 0.97
01:55:27.000 It was massive. 0.99
01:55:29.000 So...
01:55:29.000 Man...
01:55:33.000 What I would give to see something like that.
01:55:35.000 But, you know, to your point about, like, look at how people, about the technology, maybe it's being kept quiet because of the military applications.
01:55:42.000 Like, look at how people freaked out when it leaked about this new Russian space weapon, right, a couple weeks back, or three weeks back, whatever.
01:55:51.000 It's like an ability to disrupt, like, satellite communications in space.
01:55:54.000 Like, Russia, like, somehow it leaked, maybe deliberately, out of Russia that they've got this far more advanced technology than we thought they had.
01:56:02.000 To a weapon that would be in space that could disrupt communications and satellites and really fuck us up.
01:56:09.000 And it leaked and then there was this one congressman that went public with it and was like, we have a real problem.
01:56:17.000 This was like three weeks ago.
01:56:21.000 But imagine if it was something like on the scale of like a weaponized ship that could be cloaked like that, or some of the technology, or if we did have, as you said, this donated technology that's from an extraterrestrial intelligence.
01:56:34.000 That the U.S. has been figuring out applications for.
01:56:37.000 You'd have to keep that on lock.
01:56:39.000 Because what if that leaked right now?
01:56:41.000 What do you think Putin would do, you know? 0.84
01:56:43.000 Who the fuck knows what he would do if all of a sudden it leaked that we had these, you know, military capabilities that are far beyond what he thinks we have. 0.96
01:56:51.000 That's my thought about these things that they keep seeing, because they always see them in areas where they do military tests, right? 0.98
01:57:01.000 The Tic Tac was off the coast of San Diego, which is where all the military bases are, and the things that Ryan Long had seen were all off the east coast in restricted airspace, in space where they run fighter jet training and And he said when they upgraded their technology in 2014,
01:57:21.000 they upgraded their sensors.
01:57:24.000 And he said that's when we started seeing these things constantly, all the time.
01:57:27.000 And they were getting visuals.
01:57:28.000 They were seeing visual versions of these things.
01:57:32.000 And that was a square.
01:57:34.000 It was a sphere in a square or a square in a sphere.
01:57:37.000 Do you remember?
01:57:39.000 Square in a sphere.
01:57:40.000 So there's like this circular sphere and this black square that exists in this thing and it's hovering.
01:57:48.000 And it's hovering in very high speed winds.
01:57:51.000 And it's just stationary, motionless.
01:57:54.000 And that these things are able to move at just bizarre rates of speed with No indication of a traditional propulsion system.
01:58:02.000 No heat signature that shows that, you know, rocket propulsion.
01:58:07.000 Nothing.
01:58:08.000 Nothing that we can explain.
01:58:10.000 And if they had a drone...
01:58:13.000 That could do that.
01:58:14.000 That's where they would test those things.
01:58:16.000 And what better way to test whether or not people could see them than to run them out there when people are using new jets with new capabilities.
01:58:24.000 Like, can you see them?
01:58:25.000 Okay, they see them.
01:58:27.000 And the fact that, you know, the Tic Tac, when Commander David Fravor brought this information and reported it, and they showed the videos to these admirals, and they were nonplussed.
01:58:40.000 They were like, mm-hmm.
01:58:41.000 Okay.
01:58:42.000 They just left the room.
01:58:44.000 Right. 0.99
01:58:44.000 Like, do they fucking know? 0.99
01:58:46.000 How are they not, are they just like stone-cold dudes who can just keep it together in the face of some alien technology? 0.99
01:58:54.000 They know that we are being visited?
01:58:56.000 Or is this, and the other thing is that When Fravor communicated this stuff, these guys who are running these sensors, they're running the detection systems, are saying, we're seeing these things all the time, every couple weeks.
01:59:10.000 We're seeing them all over the place. 0.98
01:59:12.000 Well, what the fuck is that? 0.99
01:59:14.000 And this is also 2004. Did they have the ability of 2004 or something to go from above 50,000 feet above sea level to 50 feet in less than a second? 0.99
01:59:25.000 What is that? 0.98
01:59:26.000 Like, what the fuck is that? 0.97
01:59:28.000 And people try to, you know, argue it away or explain it away by saying, oh, it's a failure of the detection systems and there's a glitch in the... 0.99
01:59:39.000 Yeah, but visuals, they have more than one fighter jet has seen it.
01:59:44.000 They have video of this thing moving at a speed that would turn human beings into jelly.
01:59:48.000 Like if there's a biological entity inside that thing and experiences that g-force, you're talking about some fucking insane g-force, like 1,300 times what a human being can tolerate and just gone, silent.
02:00:03.000 No visual means of propulsion.
02:00:05.000 No windows.
02:00:07.000 What is that?
02:00:08.000 Is that a drone?
02:00:09.000 What is that?
02:00:09.000 And the witnesses have been reliable, too.
02:00:11.000 I've often suspected that in the last 20 years, especially in the last five, it feels like the witnesses, the guys coming forward saying, look, I know what I saw.
02:00:21.000 Are more...
02:00:22.000 The ones that are associated with the government, even commercial airline pilots will be on the FAA, but especially military pilots, you know, they're being allowed to speak, that it feels like the waters are being tested by the government for some reason.
02:00:33.000 Like, we're going to let this out a little bit.
02:00:35.000 We're going to let the people that actually...
02:00:38.000 Right.
02:00:38.000 Like, attest to what they saw and see how the public reacts.
02:00:42.000 That's what I think is going on.
02:00:43.000 Well, that would be what I would do if I was running the government if I wanted to hide the fact that we have these things.
02:00:49.000 I would say that these are off-world crafts.
02:00:52.000 That's what I would say.
02:00:53.000 I would say, look, these things are behaving in a way that we can't explain.
02:00:57.000 Well, I guess we're being visited.
02:00:59.000 And then go right back to whatever black ops thing that you guys are doing.
02:01:04.000 Some Raytheon project.
02:01:05.000 I mean, I don't know what it is, but I go back and forth all the time.
02:01:12.000 Whether I think it's from another planet, another galaxy, another dimension, or whether or not I think it's us.
02:01:19.000 Or many people think that they've always been here.
02:01:21.000 You know, when you talked about the Vedas, in the Vedas, they talk about these things.
02:01:25.000 They talk about that.
02:01:26.000 I mean, it's in the Bhagavad Gita.
02:01:28.000 It's in the ancient Hindu texts.
02:01:32.000 They talk about these Vimanas, these crafts, whatever these beings operate.
02:01:40.000 So in that case, are we just getting better at detecting them, or are they showing themselves more often for some reason?
02:01:45.000 Well, in unique circumstances, if someone sees something like this, like you, so you see this in 1990-whatever it is in Phoenix, if you lived 5,000 years ago and you see this, what does that sound like?
02:01:59.000 What does that sound like to everybody? 1.00
02:02:00.000 It sounds like you're out of your fucking mind. 1.00
02:02:02.000 A small handful of people say it. 1.00
02:02:04.000 They tell stories.
02:02:05.000 People write it down.
02:02:07.000 It just goes away.
02:02:08.000 Unique experiences are very difficult to classify.
02:02:12.000 You know, if you have an experience with a ghost. 0.98
02:02:14.000 If a ghost shows up in this room and we all see it and it doesn't show up on camera and we swear we saw an apparition of fucking Forrest Gump standing there, you're like, what the fuck is that? 0.97
02:02:24.000 Well, you're just left with a story. 0.97
02:02:26.000 If you can't measure it, you can't write it down, even a video of it, what are you seeing?
02:02:33.000 Are you seeing grainy footage of something?
02:02:35.000 I'm sure you've seen these supposedly leaked images that fighter pilots have taken with cell phones from their aircrafts.
02:02:42.000 What are they saying?
02:02:43.000 What is that thing?
02:02:44.000 What is that weird, blurry-looking, metallic-looking thing?
02:02:48.000 Is that a Mylar balloon that they're mistaking for a spacecraft?
02:02:54.000 That doesn't seem likely. 0.99
02:02:55.000 Seems like they're a lot fucking smarter than that. 0.98
02:02:58.000 They're not going to think a child's birthday balloon that's floating around at 20,000 feet is an aircraft. 0.99
02:03:05.000 They're probably going to realize it's a balloon.
02:03:07.000 They've probably seen balloons, you know?
02:03:09.000 Yeah.
02:03:10.000 I don't know.
02:03:11.000 In those videos, too, it's the commentary that kind of sells it.
02:03:14.000 Like, look at that thing move or whatever.
02:03:15.000 Yeah.
02:03:15.000 Like the Go Fast video.
02:03:17.000 Look at it go.
02:03:18.000 Jesus Christ.
02:03:19.000 And these guys are trained pilots.
02:03:21.000 They're used to seeing things, and they're seeing something that rotates.
02:03:25.000 This is the other thing about the craft that coincides with what Bob Lazar said.
02:03:29.000 It's moving like this, and it turns sideways.
02:03:32.000 And Lazar said that's what it did, that it would direct its generator, whatever that gravity generator is, it would direct that towards the way that it wanted to go.
02:03:42.000 So it would literally turn sideways to move forward.
02:03:45.000 I mean, Kenneth Arnold was talking about these things in the 1950s, right?
02:03:49.000 So for sure in the 1950s, we didn't have the capability to make something like that.
02:03:53.000 Something with no visible means of propulsion that's shaped like a saucer that flies silently through the air and, you know, moves at a speed and has capabilities in terms of maneuverability that far exceeds a jet that we had back then.
02:04:07.000 What does that mean?
02:04:08.000 What is that?
02:04:09.000 I mean, they were seeing these things when we had propeller planes, you know?
02:04:12.000 What is that?
02:04:14.000 I don't know. 0.98
02:04:15.000 But part of me feels stupid for even talking about it. 0.90
02:04:19.000 You know what I mean? 0.92
02:04:19.000 It's like, why are you wasting all your energy? 0.92
02:04:22.000 You have so many things you have to do.
02:04:23.000 Because it's fascinating.
02:04:24.000 It is fascinating. 0.99
02:04:25.000 But it's also, it makes you feel like a fool. 0.96
02:04:28.000 And I think that's part of the strategy of all this stuff. 0.92
02:04:31.000 Well, ridiculing people that have talked about UFOs has been part of the government strategy from the jump.
02:04:35.000 For sure.
02:04:36.000 That's Project Blue Book.
02:04:37.000 That's been documented.
02:04:39.000 Right.
02:04:39.000 But the thing on the military installations, of course, the two theories are one is that there's some sort of extraterrestrial intelligence that's drawn to our military activity.
02:04:48.000 But what seems like the more rational explanation is, as you said, that's where they test this shit. 0.99
02:04:52.000 Sure. 0.98
02:04:53.000 Or, you know, if I was an intelligent species that's willing to donate these crafts like they claim, They kind of let these things land or crash and then they'll do it in a very strategic way where they know that the military will be able to cordon off the area and isolate and stop people from talking about it.
02:05:14.000 And the idea that people in the military aren't able to keep secrets, well, that's nonsense.
02:05:18.000 They're really good at keeping secrets.
02:05:20.000 They can keep secrets.
02:05:23.000 Especially high-level people.
02:05:24.000 Look, if I had access, like if...
02:05:28.000 Not Joe Biden.
02:05:29.000 He's too far gone. 0.99
02:05:30.000 But if Obama called me during his administration and said, you want to see some shit? 1.00
02:05:35.000 I'd be like, I want to see some shit. 0.99
02:05:36.000 And he said, don't tell anybody. 0.99
02:05:37.000 I'd be like, I won't tell anybody.
02:05:39.000 Maybe I'd tell my wife.
02:05:40.000 Maybe I'd tell one of my friends. 0.94
02:05:41.000 But I wouldn't fucking go public and tell everybody. 1.00
02:05:44.000 If they're willing to show me this shit... 1.00
02:05:48.000 No one's going to believe me anyway, right? 1.00
02:05:51.000 And so I'm like, what good does it do if I make myself look like a moron, A? B, now I can't have access to it anymore, because I told them. 0.97
02:06:02.000 Because I told people about it, because now they can't trust me.
02:06:06.000 Especially if I was in the military. 0.99
02:06:07.000 I would shut the fuck up. 0.99
02:06:09.000 Show me. 0.99
02:06:09.000 You know? 0.99
02:06:10.000 You ever heard the story?
02:06:12.000 It's a widely disputed story.
02:06:13.000 But that Jackie Gleason and Nixon were drinking one day. 0.99
02:06:17.000 And Nixon was like, you want to see some shit? 0.99
02:06:19.000 And Nixon took Jackie Gleason to one of the Air Force bases and showed him this UFO. And Jackie Gleason was a UFO fanatic. 1.00
02:06:30.000 I don't know if you know this.
02:06:31.000 But Jackie Gleason actually had a home built in upstate New York that looked like a UFO. And he had this home built after this supposed experience.
02:06:39.000 No shit. 0.99
02:06:39.000 Yeah. 0.99
02:06:39.000 Show the images of the home. 0.99
02:06:42.000 This is the home that Jackie Gleason had built. 0.99
02:06:48.000 I mean, what the fuck? 0.99
02:06:50.000 Look at the outside of it, though. 0.99
02:06:52.000 Not that one.
02:06:53.000 That one's kind of just a cool circular one, but that image. 0.99
02:06:56.000 Like, what the fuck are you doing, Jackie? 0.98
02:06:59.000 Why are you making a UFO house in upstate New York? 1.00
02:07:03.000 It seems a little odd.
02:07:04.000 Take that image.
02:07:05.000 Like, look at that.
02:07:06.000 I mean, come on, man. 0.99
02:07:08.000 What the fuck is that? 0.99
02:07:10.000 It looks kind of like a sci-fi movie prop, though, you know? 0.99
02:07:13.000 Yes.
02:07:13.000 It looks like a cliché of a UFO. Right.
02:07:15.000 But that's, apparently, this is the folklore.
02:07:19.000 Yeah.
02:07:19.000 Is that that's what he saw.
02:07:21.000 And so he's like, I want to build a fucking house that looks like that. 0.99
02:07:25.000 You know? 0.99
02:07:25.000 It's fun. 0.99
02:07:27.000 It's fun, but it also has this feeling of futility.
02:07:31.000 It's like, futile thing.
02:07:34.000 Like, why are we even talking about it?
02:07:36.000 It's nonsense.
02:07:37.000 It's fascinating, but it just seems like, it almost seems like you're never gonna know.
02:07:43.000 You know?
02:07:44.000 I think we talk about it because it gives us hope, frankly.
02:07:47.000 Yeah.
02:07:47.000 We want to believe it's true.
02:07:49.000 Well, we certainly want to believe the stories that they hover over military bases and shut down nuclear weapons.
02:07:54.000 And, you know, my comedy club is called The Comedy Mothership.
02:07:59.000 And you walk into the comedy club, there's a gigantic artificial UFO that we had built.
02:08:06.000 So when you walk into it, like as you walk in the front door, there's this big...
02:08:11.000 Construction of a UFO that has a beam that comes down and we use it as a projector to show who's coming soon on the big screen.
02:08:18.000 But I named the rooms Fat Man and Little Boy.
02:08:23.000 Because those are the bombs that we dropped.
02:08:25.000 And right after we dropped those bombs, that's when all the UFO activity happened.
02:08:30.000 That's like there's a giant uptick in UFO activity after 1945. And in the UFO folklore, it's like they realized that we have the ability to drop nukes.
02:08:41.000 And so then they started visiting. 0.98
02:08:43.000 And then they started shutting down nuclear weapons at bases and making their presence known at these military bases to say, hey, Keep it together, bitches. 1.00
02:08:51.000 Like, we're watching. 0.99
02:08:53.000 We don't want you to nuke this whole planet and ruin our little program.
02:08:57.000 And then our program is an accelerated engineering program.
02:09:00.000 That we've accelerated the evolution of human beings through some sort of intervention.
02:09:05.000 And that this is why we're so different.
02:09:07.000 It's not the stoned ape theory.
02:09:09.000 It's the humans are engineered by some superior life form to try to accelerate our evolution. 0.95
02:09:17.000 And bring us to this place and that they've helped us along the way but we're autonomous and we're allowed to do what we want to do and so we do Disgusting crazy shit like drop nuclear bombs from propeller planes by the way right right propeller planes on Cities and that once they did that they're like, 0.96
02:09:36.000 okay Slow the fuck down We're here Now, whether they've always been here, like in the Vedic texts or even in the Bible, Ezekiel's description of the wheel within a wheel. 0.96
02:09:51.000 Have you read that description? 0.97
02:09:53.000 Pull up Ezekiel's description of what he saw.
02:09:56.000 This is one of the favorite descriptions from the Bible, from the Old Testament, about UFOs that people love to bring up.
02:10:06.000 Because Ezekiel has this thing that he describes.
02:10:09.000 And it's the most bizarre depiction I looked.
02:10:18.000 I saw an immense dust storm come from the north, an immense cloud with lightning flashing from it, a huge ball of fire glowing like bronze.
02:10:26.000 Within the fire were what looked like four creatures vibrant with life.
02:10:30.000 Each had the form of a human being, but each also had four faces and four wings.
02:10:34.000 Their legs were as sturdy and straight as columns, but their feet were hooved like those of a calf and sparkled with the fire like burnished bronze.
02:10:42.000 On all four sides under their wings they had human hands.
02:10:45.000 All four...
02:10:47.000 We're good to go.
02:11:05.000 The wings were spread out with the tips of one pair touching the creature on either side.
02:11:10.000 The other pair of wings covered its body.
02:11:12.000 Each creature went straight ahead.
02:11:14.000 Wherever the spirit went, they went.
02:11:15.000 They didn't turn as they want.
02:11:18.000 The four creatures looked like blazing fire or fiery torches.
02:11:22.000 Tongues of fire shot back and forth between the creatures.
02:11:25.000 And out of the fire, bolts of lightning.
02:11:27.000 The creatures flash back and forth like strikes of lightning.
02:11:30.000 As I watched the four creatures, I saw something that looked like a wheel on the ground beside each of the four faced creatures.
02:11:37.000 This is what the wheels looked like.
02:11:39.000 They were identical wheels, sparkling like diamonds in the sun.
02:11:43.000 They looked like they were wheels within wheels, like a gyroscope.
02:11:47.000 When the living creatures went, the wheels went.
02:12:09.000 When the creatures stopped, the wheels stopped.
02:12:11.000 When the creatures lifted off, the wheels lifted off.
02:12:13.000 Because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
02:12:19.000 Over the heads of the living creatures was something like a dome, shimmering like a sky full of cut glass, vaulted over their heads.
02:12:27.000 Under the dome, one set of wings was extended towards the other, with another set of wings covering their bodies.
02:12:33.000 When they moved, I heard their wings.
02:12:35.000 It was like the roar of a great waterfall, like the voice of the strong god, like the noise of a battlefield.
02:12:42.000 When they stopped, they folded their wings.
02:12:44.000 And then as they stood with folded wings, there was a voice above the dome over their heads.
02:12:50.000 Above the dome, there was something that looked like a throne.
02:12:53.000 Sky blue like a sapphire with a human-like figure towering above the throne.
02:12:58.000 From what I could see, from the waist up, he looked like burnished bronze and from the waist down like a blazing fire.
02:13:05.000 Brightness everywhere.
02:13:07.000 The way a rainbow springs out of a sky on a rainy day, that's what it was like.
02:13:11.000 It turned out to be the glory of God. 1.00
02:13:16.000 Like, what the fuck man? 0.99
02:13:19.000 I mean, to anybody that's done DMT or ayahuasca or really tripped on psychedelics, though, you read that and it feels sort of familiar. 1.00
02:13:27.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:13:29.000 The glory of God.
02:13:30.000 Yeah, the glory of God.
02:13:31.000 And these visions of these beings.
02:13:33.000 And the fact that these things are constantly changing their appearance.
02:13:38.000 Yeah.
02:13:38.000 That's the thing about the DMT experience.
02:13:41.000 It's not a stationary static experience.
02:13:43.000 It's constantly changing and moving in front of you.
02:13:47.000 And to see something like that in the sky. 0.99
02:13:49.000 And the fact that it's so noteworthy that they wrote it down in the fucking Bible. 0.99
02:13:54.000 Maybe he found some of those mushrooms, you know? 0.99
02:13:56.000 Yeah, maybe.
02:13:57.000 Well, you know, there's a university in Israel, I think it's the University of Jerusalem, that theorized that the Moses experience of the burning bush was a DMT experience.
02:14:12.000 Like when you say Moses saw the burning bush, well, what kind of bush would burn that would give you a psychedelic experience?
02:14:20.000 Well, the acacia tree.
02:14:21.000 The acacia tree, which is very common to that area, is rich with DMT. And how do you psychoactively acquire DMT? You smoke it.
02:14:31.000 So you're smoking this tree, this burning bush, and you're seeing God.
02:14:36.000 And God has brought you ten commandments of how to live life, which sounds like a lot of what you experience in the DMT experience.
02:14:44.000 When you have that and you have these contact with the entities, they kind of give you guidelines of how to live.
02:14:49.000 Yeah.
02:14:50.000 It felt to me like a massive amount of information being downloaded, but that it was guiding in nature.
02:14:56.000 Yeah.
02:14:56.000 But very difficult to hold on to.
02:14:59.000 You're like, what is it?
02:15:01.000 It's probably something you'd want to write down.
02:15:03.000 Yeah.
02:15:04.000 Like the Ten Commandments.
02:15:05.000 Yeah.
02:15:06.000 Yeah.
02:15:07.000 Well, again, back to the Christians and Prabhupada, that was his thing. 1.00
02:15:09.000 It was like, you can't hold on to it with psychedelics alone, and you don't need psychedelics to get a hold of it in the first place, was what he was preaching.
02:15:18.000 And he probably recognized that The problem with taking psychedelics is that it's so accessible.
02:15:25.000 You just take it.
02:15:27.000 I mean, it's the beautiful thing about it.
02:15:28.000 But you also could say that could be a problem because then a bunch of people with no discipline would just start popping these things and having these experiences and having no sort of framework, no moral framework, no ethical framework, no understanding of what are you experiencing and what to do with this stuff.
02:15:46.000 No discipline.
02:15:47.000 Right.
02:15:47.000 But if you acquire it If you acquire it endogenously, through discipline, then you are on a path, and through that path, you can achieve this thing, and you realize that this is a very difficult thing to achieve, and that you have to stay on this path in order to get this enlightenment.
02:16:07.000 I could see how someone would say, no, listen, that's not the way.
02:16:10.000 This is the way.
02:16:10.000 That you can do it with your own mind.
02:16:13.000 You don't need these things.
02:16:14.000 You know Terence McKenna's thought on that, though?
02:16:16.000 Very funny thought.
02:16:17.000 He said it reminds me of an ancient story of this monk had acquired a city of levitation and practiced this.
02:16:29.000 And it said to the Buddha, when the Buddha came to town, you know, I've spent 20 years acquiring the City of Levitation, and I can walk across the water.
02:16:39.000 And the Buddha said, yeah, but the ferry's only a nickel.
02:16:47.000 So that was McKenna's take on it.
02:16:49.000 It's like, why would you do all that stuff when you could just take the mushrooms?
02:16:52.000 But McKenna was, you know, McKenna was a brilliant man. 0.69
02:16:56.000 He wasn't some stoned hippie in the middle of upstate New York, just tripping balls on mushrooms.
02:17:02.000 I think it has some, you know, it's helpful to have some sort of like processing after the experience, right?
02:17:07.000 Not just keep like repeating it, trying to like get back to that space.
02:17:10.000 Yeah.
02:17:10.000 Also, McKenna was, you know, he was a proponent of taking psychedelic drugs, so he probably would want people to think that his way is the way.
02:17:20.000 You know, he's only human.
02:17:22.000 Right.
02:17:22.000 Yeah.
02:17:24.000 I don't know man, but it's all look just the fact that the the psychedelic experience is a real thing and When you do take that and you do have those experiences and you realize that it's a real thing and like how did I not know about this?
02:17:38.000 How was the most profound thing that's ever happened to me?
02:17:41.000 Something that is a Schedule I drug that's illegal for whatever reason that no one's explained to me accurately.
02:17:49.000 No one's ever explained it in a way that makes sense.
02:17:53.000 Why is a thing that doesn't kill anybody, that exists in the human mind?
02:17:56.000 That was the other thing that McKenna said about DMT. It's illegal, but everybody's holding.
02:18:01.000 Right.
02:18:03.000 Everybody has it.
02:18:04.000 You know, if you want to test people for DMT, well, everybody's guilty.
02:18:08.000 Everybody.
02:18:08.000 The most staunch, conservative, anti-drug person right now has DMT in their body.
02:18:14.000 All of them do.
02:18:15.000 Everybody does.
02:18:16.000 It's literally like testing people for blood.
02:18:18.000 Yeah, you have blood.
02:18:19.000 Of course you're alive.
02:18:20.000 Yeah, you have DMT. You're alive.
02:18:22.000 Yeah, but it's illegal.
02:18:24.000 What?
02:18:25.000 It doesn't make any sense.
02:18:27.000 It sounds so insane.
02:18:28.000 And also the fact that it's naturally occurring, not just naturally occurring in the human mind, but naturally occurring in nature, and that there seems to be some sort of mitigation strategy by the human body in order to keep you from tripping balls by consuming all the different plants that have DMT in it,
02:18:48.000 and that's monoamine oxidase.
02:18:50.000 So monoamine oxidase breaks it down in the gut.
02:18:53.000 So if you consume like grasses, like phalaris grass, it's very rich in DMT. If a human being consumed that, you're not going to trip because the monoamine oxidase in the gut breaks it down.
02:19:04.000 So the strategy that they came up with with ayahuasca was to combine these psychedelic plants, these plants that contain dimethyltryptamine with other plants that contain harmine, Which is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor.
02:19:19.000 And that the two of these together will allow an orally active version of dimethyltryptamine.
02:19:25.000 Which is what it is.
02:19:27.000 You know, with me, I really felt like once was enough.
02:19:30.000 I know you have a different approach.
02:19:33.000 But...
02:19:34.000 I mean, everybody's different. 0.85
02:19:36.000 I mean, once is enough because it's so fucking scary.
02:19:38.000 You don't want to do it again. 0.93
02:19:39.000 I get it.
02:19:41.000 But every time I've ever been troubled and I've done it, I feel way better.
02:19:45.000 DMT specifically?
02:19:47.000 Yeah.
02:19:47.000 Yeah, I'm talking about DMT specifically.
02:19:48.000 Yeah, every time I've ever done it, I'm like, God, the things I concentrate on are so stupid. 1.00
02:19:54.000 The things that worry me are so foolish. 0.99
02:19:56.000 I find that with MDMA. I find MDMA to be very useful as a reset button. 0.97
02:20:03.000 It also makes you realize how insecure you are and how insecure most people are with interactions with each other.
02:20:10.000 And when those barriers are down, Yeah.
02:20:20.000 Yeah.
02:20:21.000 Yeah.
02:20:32.000 Like 5-HTP, which is what people take that really know what they're doing with that stuff.
02:20:38.000 They take 5-HTP to boost up their serotonin while they're doing it.
02:20:41.000 So that after it's over, they're not just crashed.
02:20:45.000 Because the next day, I was useless.
02:20:46.000 I remember I was in a coffee shop the next day and I was trying to read a magazine.
02:20:50.000 And I couldn't read.
02:20:51.000 I couldn't concentrate.
02:20:53.000 I literally couldn't read this magazine. 1.00
02:20:54.000 I was like, oh my god, I'm so dumb. 0.99
02:20:56.000 My brain feels like a... 0.98
02:20:57.000 I felt...
02:20:58.000 The way I described it was like I had a dry sponge for a brain.
02:21:03.000 And normally it's wet and filled with water. 0.98
02:21:05.000 Now it's just like this dopey dry sponge.
02:21:09.000 And was it worth it? 0.93
02:21:10.000 Maybe.
02:21:11.000 But I had stuff to do that day.
02:21:12.000 Right.
02:21:13.000 I had a show that night.
02:21:14.000 And this was after doing what?
02:21:15.000 MDMA. Yeah.
02:21:16.000 You were an E-Tard, right? 1.00
02:21:18.000 E-Tard. 1.00
02:21:19.000 You're an E-Tard. 1.00
02:21:21.000 Yeah.
02:21:22.000 That's what the experience...
02:21:23.000 But yeah, you do need to do the serotonin booster.
02:21:25.000 That is the key move.
02:21:26.000 But I just think it's bordering...
02:21:28.000 You know, it's not bordering on criminal. 0.98
02:21:29.000 It is fucking criminal that the government has kept MDMA therapy from, like... 0.99
02:21:33.000 Especially guys coming back from these fucking wars in the Middle East, you know? 1.00
02:21:37.000 They're all fucked up with PTSD. Because as somebody who has PTSD, not from combat, but from childhood trauma, MDMA is just like a godsend. 1.00
02:21:45.000 Literally.
02:21:46.000 From the gods.
02:21:47.000 A godsend. 1.00
02:21:49.000 And that shit has been kept from... 0.99
02:21:51.000 I mean, MAPS, that organization MAPS has been doing fantastic research with it, and it seems like it's on the path to legalization now, finally. 0.99
02:22:00.000 But there are so many guys that needed that so badly.
02:22:04.000 And including the people that are making it illegal, unfortunately.
02:22:06.000 That's the problem.
02:22:07.000 It's an experience that's being kept from us by people that haven't done it.
02:22:12.000 Right.
02:22:13.000 Right.
02:22:13.000 Yeah.
02:22:14.000 There was another quote that was attributed to McKenna.
02:22:18.000 McKenna tried to attribute it to somebody else, but they said he didn't say it.
02:22:21.000 But it was that LSD is something that causes severe psychotic experiences in people who haven't taken it.
02:22:31.000 Yeah.
02:22:34.000 Nice.
02:22:34.000 I might have paraphrased that.
02:22:35.000 I think I did.
02:22:36.000 But it's something along those lines.
02:22:38.000 And, you know, we know for a fact that all that stuff was made illegal during the sweeping Psychedelics Act of 1970 that was designed to subvert the war movement and to subvert the civil rights movement and to go after the Black Panthers and all these different people that were...
02:22:55.000 Disrupting the government's control over society.
02:22:58.000 And the best way to do that is to make all drugs illegal and then go after those people and just throw water on the whole party.
02:23:05.000 And it worked.
02:23:06.000 It worked for decades.
02:23:07.000 And it, like, severely impacted art, specifically music. 0.87
02:23:13.000 If you look at the music from the 60s all the way up to 1970, and then there's this confusion period of 1970, and then you look at the music of the 80s, like, what the fuck happened, everybody?
02:23:22.000 What happened? 0.99
02:23:23.000 How do you go from Hendrix to fucking whatever? 0.98
02:23:28.000 I don't want to make fun of any 80s bands, but hair bands. 0.98
02:23:32.000 What happened there? 0.98
02:23:33.000 What the fuck happened? 1.00
02:23:34.000 How did it get so dumb? 1.00
02:23:37.000 Everybody stopped tripping and started doing coke. 0.99
02:23:40.000 Yeah, exactly.
02:23:41.000 That's exactly what happened.
02:23:43.000 Yeah.
02:23:43.000 And they just lost the plot for a little while.
02:23:46.000 It seems like the plot's come back.
02:23:49.000 And I think the plot has come back, and I think you could kind of credit Lorenzo from the Psychedelic Salon with the distribution of all those Old recordings of Alan Watts and McKenna and all those different psychedelic bards that were talking about these things that got people more curious and interested in them.
02:24:07.000 And then, you know, people realizing that we needed to do something for these soldiers that are coming back with PTSD and psilocybin ceremonies and ayahuasca and MDMA, which is being used by MAPS. MAPS has done an amazing job.
02:24:21.000 They really have.
02:24:22.000 They've done it the right way, where they're really promoting legalization in a very structured way.
02:24:30.000 Yeah, it just feels like it's taken so long.
02:24:32.000 But that's like what the government, that's the only way that the government is going to accept.
02:24:36.000 Yeah.
02:24:36.000 It's like multiple research trials.
02:24:39.000 Yeah.
02:24:39.000 And even then, I mean, it really takes people leaving office and dying off.
02:24:44.000 It takes the old people going away, the corrupt politicians that are in charge of deciding what is and is not legal.
02:24:53.000 They have to vanish and they slowly get phased out generation after generation and then the new people coming into play, some of them have military experience, some of them know people that have been really helped by MDMA therapy or ayahuasca or ibogaine,
02:25:08.000 people that have like severe addictions to pills and all sorts of different opiates.
02:25:13.000 Ibogaine is like one of the greatest things that's ever been discovered to help heal people from these problems.
02:25:19.000 Yeah.
02:25:23.000 So many weird competing factors are all happening all together.
02:25:29.000 And they're all in this wild chaos that is the age of information.
02:25:33.000 The age of information and technology that's allowing people to have access to these things but also realize how crazy the world we live in is.
02:25:41.000 And then, you know, you have TikTok where people are just being distracted all day long and being confused.
02:25:49.000 That's terrifying.
02:25:51.000 It's crack.
02:25:52.000 I feel more hopeful now, Joe, once we started talking about psychedelics again than I was when we were talking about war.
02:25:58.000 Well, psychedelics might be the only thing that prevents war.
02:26:01.000 It might be the only thing that helps people.
02:26:03.000 I mean, if you can get large-scale use of psychedelics sanctioned, and not just in America, but worldwide, I think it will have a tremendous impact on the way people view this experience, because this is a small, tiny Finite experience that we're going through.
02:26:20.000 It seems like it takes forever, but I mean, you're 53, I'm 56. It's like, Jesus, man, we're more than halfway to the finish line, and it's like it just happened.
02:26:28.000 It's like a blip.
02:26:30.000 And you're still, we're all, everyone, me included, we're all just trying to figure it out as we go along.
02:26:34.000 And hopefully you're better than you were yesterday at it.
02:26:37.000 And sometimes you're not.
02:26:38.000 Sometimes you fall down, sometimes you get back up, and you climb a little higher this time. 0.92
02:26:42.000 And now you're better than you were a year ago, but boy, it's fucking confusing.
02:26:48.000 You know, I went to college in the University of California, Santa Cruz.
02:26:51.000 It's no secret that Santa Cruz for a long time has been a center for psychedelics.
02:26:56.000 And there's a guy there, I think even if I could remember his name, I'm not going to drop it, but he got busted for making acid.
02:27:02.000 And I think it was around 9-11, he had this massive underground LSD lab, like out in the middle of the country.
02:27:08.000 And it was a story that never really got picked up because everyone was distracted by 9-11.
02:27:12.000 That was the missile silo guy?
02:27:13.000 Yeah, I think so.
02:27:14.000 And his whole thing was like he was trying to make what he called a planetary dose.
02:27:18.000 That was his thing.
02:27:19.000 I have to make enough acid for everyone on Earth to take acid.
02:27:24.000 It's the only thing that's going to save humanity.
02:27:26.000 Wow.
02:27:27.000 And I kind of get it.
02:27:28.000 Yeah.
02:27:29.000 At least I get the thinking.
02:27:30.000 I get the thinking, too, especially if you're really tripping.
02:27:33.000 Yeah.
02:27:34.000 I know.
02:27:35.000 Yeah. 1.00
02:27:36.000 Just get everybody fucked up. 1.00
02:27:38.000 Yeah. 0.99
02:27:38.000 There was people that had this theory that if you just dose the water supply in major cities, that people would be forced to trip. 0.99
02:27:46.000 But, you know, like, what dose?
02:27:48.000 I don't think that's probably a good idea.
02:27:50.000 No, it's a terrible idea.
02:27:52.000 No, the correct idea is legalization And centers that are set up by ethical experts who really have experience in these things that can provide both counseling and medical services and allow people to do the correct dose safely under supervision.
02:28:13.000 And then counseling.
02:28:14.000 It gives them some sort of a framework as to what to do with this, what has happened, what this means, and how you can apply this to your life.
02:28:23.000 And if we could figure out how to do that in a structured way, We probably could help an enormous amount of people.
02:28:30.000 Absolutely.
02:28:31.000 The integration after the trip, right?
02:28:33.000 Yeah.
02:28:34.000 Taking it back to Krishna's, right? 0.91
02:28:36.000 Because that's the series I have out.
02:28:38.000 But legitimately, there's a legitimate comment, which is that that's what Prabhupada and that's what Krishna consciousness, in a sense, was offering, was integration of the psychedelic experience.
02:28:46.000 Here's a framework for integrating everything you've been experiencing on acid and mescaline.
02:28:51.000 Right.
02:28:52.000 You know, whatever the hippie kids were into.
02:28:55.000 Yeah, and I think Prabhupada and the people that were legit were really trying to do that and they were really trying to spread this message.
02:29:04.000 And if you think about what they were able to do during the 60s with the help of George Harrison, they opened up a lot of people's minds to these ideas and probably changed a lot of lives and the directions of a lot of people's lives.
02:29:19.000 For the better.
02:29:20.000 For the better.
02:29:20.000 Yeah.
02:29:22.000 Listen, man, I really appreciate your work.
02:29:25.000 You know, Sasquatch is incredible, and this Krishna documentary is incredible, too.
02:29:29.000 You're really awesome.
02:29:30.000 Thanks, brother.
02:29:30.000 Appreciate it.
02:29:31.000 Appreciate you.
02:29:31.000 And if you do this Ukraine thing, or if you ever do a UFO thing, whatever you do, come back.
02:29:36.000 Okay.
02:29:36.000 I'd love to have you again.
02:29:37.000 Thank you very much.
02:29:38.000 All right.
02:29:38.000 Thank you.
02:29:38.000 Oh, so tell everybody it's available.
02:29:40.000 It's on Peacock.
02:29:41.000 Krishna's.
02:29:42.000 Krishna's.
02:29:43.000 Yeah.
02:29:43.000 On Peacock.
02:29:43.000 It's awesome.
02:29:44.000 Thank you, brother.
02:29:45.000 Appreciate it.
02:29:46.000 Bye, everybody.