what’s up guys such an amazing episode
here with dr. Dennis McKenna we spent
some time just going through his life
and the life of his brother and their
adventures or misadventures I really
enjoyed this conversation so hopefully
you do too please pick up a copy of dr.
McKenna’s book you can find the link to
that below if you enjoy what we’re doing
at HSP please donate it helps us cover
the server costs please also subscribe
to our YouTube channel follow us on
Twitter at the human XP and if you’re
feeling extra generous leave us a review
on stitcher and iTunes thank you so much
for listening amazing episode thanks
guys
[Music]the human experience is joining the
Brotherhood of the screaming abyss as we
welcome my guest mr. Dennis McKenna mr.
McKenna it’s an honor to have you here
sir welcome to hxp Thank You Savior it’s
a pleasure to be here sir you are in the
Holy Trinity of psychedelic researchers
for me to interview so yeah I really
appreciate it I for the people that
don’t know what you do or who you are
can you just give us a brief
introduction well I I’m an earth no
pharmacologist
and that’s a person who studies
basically the use of medicinal plants or
you know in indigenous cultures not
necessarily restricted to that but
that’s kind of a thumbnail definition
and as you probably already know and
your listeners already know my own
specialty in that area has been
psychedelic plants and fungi especially
ayahuasca I’ve worked I did my PhD
thesis on on the chemistry and botany
and pharmacology of ayahuasca so that
makes me a thud I am a doctor but I
don’t care you can call me mr. doesn’t
matter
I’m informal but so that’s that’s been
what I’ve been studying and been
passionate about really for well over 30
years because you know if your listeners
are familiar with my story of my the
story of my brother and me then you know
that we first went to South America in
search of exotic hallucinogens in 1971
so I’ve been at this a long time we went
down there not you know thinking that we
knew what we were looking for thinking
that we knew a lot more than we actually
did and you know and really we had not
clue what we were getting into but I
guess that’s how you know real
adventures happened I mean if you if if
what you expect happens then it’s not
really an adventure yeah yeah I
definitely like to get into your trip
down there a bit more later in the
conversation but to start things off how
did you become first become interested
in the properties of psychedelic
compounds whereas they’re a single event
that turned you on to them or was it
more of a gradual thing well it was it
was it was not a single event exactly
but you know I I grew up in the 60s and
you know my teenage years coincided
exactly with the 60s I was I was 10 in
19 in 1960 and I was 20 and in night in
in 1970 so you know and that was the era
of the counterculture so Terence and I
were both quite immersed in the
counterculture in some ways we were
certainly fascinated by by psychedelics
and Terence was four years older than me
living in Berkeley at the time and going
to school so and I was still stuck in
this small town in Colorado kind of
waiting for you know postcards from the
edge in a sense I mean i felt quite hard
done by that terrence got to be at the
center of the of the cultural fur bat
and i was you know still isolated but he
would come home at Christmas time and
then the summers and so on and and bring
stories of what was going on out in the
wider world and bring bring drugs
actually the starti started with
cannabis I got my first introduction to
cannabis in 1966 and then when and then
in 1960
seven which was kind of a banner year in
the in the counter cultural movement the
Summer of Love in San Francisco I went
to Berkeley with a friend of mine and we
stayed at Terrance’s place various
places around the Bay Area for some
weeks and that’s when we had our first
encounter with LSD or my first encounter
and I guess the the thing that really
got us interested in this to the point
where we dedicated our lives to it was
was our early encounters with DMT DMT
was not around much it was actually
quite rare in those days but you could
get it
Terrace was able to get it by working
the matrix and different connections or
whatever and when TMT got on our radar
we were just astounded both of us and we
decided that you know this is too big to
ignore
we’d had LSD we’d had mescaline and we
had things like that there were no
mushrooms around in those days but we
had those two and they were interesting
but DMT was a seemed of a whole other
magnitude a whole other order of
strangeness and you know as I I told
people many times it wasn’t simply the
the most interesting drug that we’d ever
encountered it was the most interesting
thing that we’d ever encountered you
know in our entire lives and and so we
we thought well you know we we’ve got to
go after this this is a true mystery so
we I mean I guess we imbued with a bit
of romanticism we were both young in
those days we were you know restless and
we wanted to push the envelope in
whatever ways we could so when we
encountered DMT and then later when we
learned that it’s a component of many of
these indigenous psychedelics used in
South America we thought well
you know we’ve got to go we’ve got to go
after it so that’s what led us to go
there in 1971 and if you’ve read The
Invisible if you’ve read true loose
Nations which is my brother wrote about
our trip down there or the Brotherhood
of the screaming abyss which I wrote
recently as a memoir of our whole life
but the expedition to lot rarer plays a
big part of it you know and then and
then also the other book that deals with
it is the invisible landscape which was
our attempt to that would came out first
actually and that was our attempt to in
some ways rationalize or explain not
very well what had happened to us down
there and what what ideas and concepts
we came back with which were you know a
number of peculiar notions about time
and the nature of reality and and many
other things yeah definitely do you
still use it psychedelic compounds yes
yes I do
I take ayahuasca on a pretty regular
basis usually I go to South America to
do that
so yeah ayahuasca you know at the time
it wasn’t really in our purview at all
but later when I returned to South
America ten years later in 1981 that
ayahuasca was the was the focus of my
thesis research and so I got to know
about ayahuasca you know within a
traditional cultural context at that
time and it’s been an important teacher
and medicine for me ever since it’s it’s
it’s a it’s an ally for sure that and
mushrooms which which I still do take
not as much as ayahuasca but enough to
check in you know I haven’t I haven’t
really left these things behind so I
guess that means I’m
hard-headed didn’t haven’t got the
message yet or you know or the dialogue
is ongoing I mean I still learned from
these experiences and you know yes was
there was there a pivotal moment in
which you decided to make a sort of
scientific career out of this and move
beyond a casual spiritual interest uh
yeah yeah I would say so
well I again the experiment at luxury or
was really pivotal in that you know when
we went to lecture era in search of this
this orally active form of DMT called
Kouhei which was a preparation used by
the way Toto Indians primarily we went
we had experienced DMT in in the Bayer
in Berkeley in the 60s but I don’t know
if you know how it’s taken it it smoked
the freebase is smoked and when you do
it that way it’s astonishing it’s
overwhelming
but it’s also very short you know only
lasts maybe 20 minutes at the outside
and it’s very hard to bring anything
back from it other than the fact that
yeah it was astonishing and amazing and
moving but you can’t say much more about
it and so we we had this idea that if we
could spend a longer time in that
dimension we might be able to learn more
about it and bring more information back
that was useful so when we had learned
about when we stumbled on this paper by
our Ixchel teas who was the famous
harvard ethno botanist well-known and in
those circles is kind of the father of
ethnobotany
and the world’s expert at the time on
hallucinogenic plants we stumbled on
this paper that he wrote called the rola
as
orally active howís Imogen and Verona is
a genus of trees in the Nutmeg family
not that that matters but in a genus of
trees that they extract the the the SAP
essentially they extract the SAP from
these trees which are loaded with DMT
and five methoxy DMT and in some tribes
like the yanomamö tribe they prepare
them as snuffs so they you know they
gripe they pout they dry the the resins
down they drive the SAP down mix it with
ashes powder it and they take it as a
snuff this other preparation was not
that it was it was it was made from rola
resin but instead of powdering it into a
fine powder they actually made a paste
out of it which was which was then
orally ingested in the form of little
little pills or little bonuses of this
sticky resin now the reason that’s
important is the DMT is not orally
active you have to which is why you have
to take it as a snuff or in the case of
synthetic DMT it’s usually smoked in a
freebase form because if you take it
orally it’s destroyed by enzymes in the
gut called monoamine oxidase inhibitors
and these are there in order to protect
from exactly this kind of thing you know
toxic amines in the diet it’s probably
an evolutionary reflection of that that
that has grown up but if you go around
the gut if you take it as a snuff for
you taking it by smoking it it doesn’t
go through that so it’s active but it’s
still very short acting so the oral
activity prolongs it because you’ve got
you change what they call the
pharmacokinetics of it it takes instead
of 10 or 15 minutes it takes four or
five hours to
– you know to metabolize so it’s a very
different experience and and much more
you know much more of a learning
experience in some way and that’s the
basis of ayahuasca that’s the basic
formulation of ayahuasca is a
combination of two plants one of which
contains DMT the other contains a group
of alkaloids called beta-carboline that
are very strong inhibitors of this
enzyme monoamine oxidase so if you boil
these two things up together and take it
it becomes a little it becomes a strong
hallucinogenic brew if you if you took
the DMT plant by itself and drank it
nothing would happen because it would be
destroyed by Mao so I mean have you have
you ever questioned your sanity at all
through this I mean I know that some of
these experiences are pretty intense all
the time some would say I’m I’m wacko
now but yeah I mean I guess if you mean
during the experiences yeah yeah
definitely
there are moments when you begin to
wonder if you’re losing it for sure if
they’re if they’re extremely intense I
have at times but you know as you do it
you sort of get a little more accustomed
to it even though even though the
experiences are astonishing and very
intense you do you know you learn you
learn to navigate in the territory and
you kind of know what to what to expect
you know so you’re the focus rarely
becomes on you know the two the two
major concerns one am I going to am I
ever coming back and two am I going to
die
you know and well so far so good
it’s I have neither died nor lost it
completely and you know there there are
things you can do to kind of keep your
Center I guess keep your balance in
these altered states and experience
helps you know IIIi don’t know exactly
if your audience is is sophisticated
about psychedelics are knowledgeable
about it or not so I would say they are
okay that’s good
so so so they will they will know about
they will know about the importance of
sentence setting right yes and the M dos
there are basically three key variables
with psychedelics set setting and dose
and the setting is is the setting it’s
it’s where you do it the circumstances
that you that you do it under and you
know to assure a good outcome of a trip
you have to pay a lot of attention to
the right setting once you have the
setting appropriate you know and
depending on what you want it could be
various things but you know the
important thing is that there be a
structure to it and I think that’s
that’s really an important aspect of the
role of ritual in in these experiences
it helps guide it it helps it provides a
you know a context in which it can
happen I mean you you can take
psychedelics outside of a group setting
you can take it without a shaman all
these things you can just lock yourself
in a room and do it by yourself and
that’s fine but that’s gonna be a
different kind of experience than if
it’s a if it takes place in a ritual
context with music and with the shaman
sort of guiding the situation so setting
is important and then the set is the
other important variable and that’s
that’s basically what you bring to it
who you are every
thing you’ve learned up to that point
what you expect to get out of this your
intention for taking it you know it
calls for some some introspection and
some thinking about why am I doing this
and and what are what what benefit do I
hope to you know realize from having
this experience and of course the more
you know about virtually everything the
more you will get out of it you know
kind of just like any other experience
you know that the more you know the
richer the richer life is so you know my
brother told me for example before I had
taken LSD said wait until you have read
psychology and alchemy by CG young
before you take LSD
you know you’ll learn a lot more you’ll
appreciate a lot more if you’ve read
that book well of course I ignored him I
mean I took LSD you know but later I
read psychology and now Camille I I
could see what he was saying you know I
mean it made a certain amount of sense
if you haven’t read that book it’s it’s
well worth looking into it’s it’s it’s
really a very psychedelic book yeah yeah
you know there’s there’s kind of an
interesting relationship between you and
your brother kind of a rivalry I mean
would you say that there is it seemed
like at the beginning of it he kind of
tormented you a lot I mean you wrote
about this in your book yes well I don’t
think any more than other siblings do I
mean siblings you know we were we were
just far enough apart actually it’s
probably good we were four years apart
in age you know so we were so close that
we were constantly together or
constantly in competition but it did
happen I don’t think that our sibling
rivalries were any worse than anybody
else’s I I think it’s a totally normal
thing his
creativity of imagination you know in
terms of thinking of exotic and novel
ways to make my life miserable that may
have been a little different than most
normal people he was very creative that
way you know but but I got I got my my
hits in too you know I I mean I don’t
know if you have if you’ve had seemed
siblings if you have a younger brother
you probably know how this goes on you
know so yeah that was that was early odd
but then later you know we sort of
evolved out of all that and we became
friends and and colleagues really and
sort of fellow explorers on this path
you know terrence introduced me up to a
lot of these things but i wasn’t only a
follower you know I brought my own sort
of chops to it and and that was that was
really a big factor in terms of I think
our you know our evolving beyond this
this simple sibling rivalry you know was
the fact that he found he found that I
was into some cool stuff too it wasn’t
just him and he could appreciate it and
I could certainly appreciate what he was
doing so we we discovered mutual
interests and and this all happened you
know around the time that I was you know
in our you know maybe the period from
the time that I was about eight to
twelve or so and then when I was twelve
Terrence left you know he was he
finished high school in California so
you know much of my life I was
essentially an only child with you know
my brother on the west coast and oddly
enough when he was on the west coast you
know we got along a lot better
I mean it it you know it worked out that
way was there was there ever something
that you felt like Terrence just
couldn’t understand or anything that he
challenged got challenged with in what
you know in regards you know in regards
to I don’t know psychedelics or just
something that he was maybe working on
that he felt that he just didn’t
couldn’t get a grasp on well I guess the
one thing maybe that that would fit that
his you know when when we came back from
LA era he he at Lotterer he was
downloaded or uh you know channeled this
whole idea about the time wave which you
know if there was an artifact of any
kind or an insight or a discovery that
came out of our misadventure a lot sure
era the time wave was certainly one of
those things and it was a mathematical
system based on the each King that
purported to describe the structure of
time yeah he was getting into novelty
theory and time we zero there all of all
of those things you know and later in
life when he was working on this I think
he you know I mean I in some ways I’m a
critic of the time Wi-Fi I was always
very skeptical about it whether it
really described those things whether
you even could describe those things I
was willing to accept the premise that
you know the basic premise that time did
have a structure and that novelty does
exist a bit aggresses you know into
reality this is this is pure white heady
in metaphysics basically I disagreed
with him
that I think the basic idea was sound
but I disagreed with him that the notion
that the time wave really described the
structure of time and that you know
given that it could be used to predict
events and as it turned out it wasn’t
you know it wasn’t so good for that
nothing really happened in 2012 nothing
really happened in 2012 and and 2012 was
just one of several dates that was the
whole conundrum with the time wave zero
how do you lay those that energy wave
across time where do you postulate the
beginning and the end point it’s hard to
know there’s no mathematical way to
evaluate novelty and this was an attempt
to do that but my criticism of his
approach was that it was always based on
just subjective interpretation you know
I mean I had to two problems with the
time wave one was he was the only person
who could who could interpret it right
because because the interpretation was
subjective and he was unable to state
what would disprove it you know what
would be the the criterion or the piece
of evidence that would completely sort
of invalidate the theory and he would
never go there he would never he was
unable to define it and theories if if
they want to you know if they want to
qualify for that name a theory has to
state what disproves it what what will
overturn it or at least not you know in
science which is kind of the game we’re
playing here you know you never prove
theories you can only disprove them you
know there’s no because theories are not
settled matters I mean if you look at
cosmology for example or physics you
know Einstein’s theories of relativity
are pretty accepted
they are they come as close you know as
possible to approve in theory and left
and the scientific community that thinks
about these things is pretty comfortable
with Einstein’s general a special theory
of relativity but you always have to
keep the door open that next week or
tomorrow or a hundred years from now
we’ll make a discovery that will
completely overturn those theories you
know or make it necessary to modify them
in a radical way so that they’re not
really those theories anymore
that science is it’s best you know
science develops theories they develop
models and hypotheses about the way the
world works about certain phenomena and
then if it’s honest with itself which
you know it often is because science is
a whole lot of things it doesn’t it
doesn’t happen in a pure vacuum as
perhaps ideally it should but assuming
that it does so science develops models
it develops hypotheses and then and then
you try like hell to disprove them you
know that’s the way it works you try to
say what does this theory not explain
mm-hmm and that was the problem with the
time wave he could not articulate what
would invalidate the theory so it’s not
a theory it is it’s an idea it’s a model
but is the model supported by evidence
probably not you know and and eventually
you know I mean there were various you
know ways that you could examine the
theory to try to figure out if there was
something there but a lot of it in him
in his case had to do with the endpoint
and finally he got around to defining
this endpoint as December 21st 2012 for
various reasons it wasn’t only that it
happened to coincide with the end of the
Mayan calendar
I mean that was that actually came a bit
later after he had postulated an
endpoint close to that date but not
exactly that date so you know after
looking at cycles of multiple billions
of years he figured well you know we’re
within a few days of this very important
date so let’s you know that’s a probably
it right the Mayans had this intuition
from a completely different perspective
you know but as we now know three years
later actually not much happened on
December 21st 2012 yeah
much to everyone’s disappointment you
know I mean I I was hoping believe me
but I wasn’t really expecting much what
did you what did you think would happen
I mean what would you call that all the
speculations you know I mean if you just
base it on the time way the idea was
that this ingression of novelty you know
into the continuum of would just
accelerate to a point where you actually
where the density of novelty was was so
high that you were essentially in a
singularity you know we we didn’t know
what would happen it would be some sort
of collapse really of the space-time
continuum it’s it’s it’s what happened
when when you come to the end of time I
mean you know but who knows cuz well
it’s never it’s never happened yeah and
in that sense it probably never will
happen so you know it was it’s very
difficult to predict the end of the
world you know it’s almost always you’re
gonna be disappointed or if you do or if
you do don’t give a specific date well
is it open as possible yeah exactly and
in that sense in that sense I think that
the theory is valid in a certain sense I
think you don’t need the time wave I
think we all share a certain sense that
things are accelerating and they’re
getting stranger and stranger
and you know I mean all you have to do
is look around you know and if you try
and think back how the world is today
versus how it was even even 10 or 15
years ago things are much stranger and
they do you know events do seem to be
accelerating now whatever that means
whether that’s an effect of the internet
and the instantaneous communication that
we have whether you know the global
network is is in some way you know
becoming conscious is is waking up to
itself that was that was one of the
scenarios that we tossed around as to
what happened
maybe that’s happening you know I don’t
know I don’t know I I do think in a
sense that you know in broad conception
overall the theory was right in that you
know this the novelty the density of
novelty is increasing but to you know to
to tie it to a specific date I think
that was an error and it doesn’t work
that way novelty does not ingress into
the continuum in that way you know there
are events which are certainly novel and
Terence was fond of talking about you
know the example was the detonation of
the atomic bomb over Hiroshima
that was certainly a novel event but
what about all the events that had to
happen in order to lead up to that they
were much quieter but they were key
events ranging from the you know the
point when Einstein thinking about the
nature of space-time and and so on
thought up the equations that that
postulated that it would be possible to
build an atomic bomb or something like
that convert matter into energy and then
all the research with the Manhattan
Project the research on
on nuclear fission that went on with
Oppenheimer and Fermi s group in Chicago
these were all novel events too but
nobody noticed because they were
happening in the background and then
when the bomb finally exploded that was
the novel event but you know it was
certainly a novel event but it wasn’t
the novel of him so his idea was that
the novelty kind of explodes into
history you know and and my idea is sort
of that it leaks into history and you
know nobody notices until until you go
down and the basement is flooded do you
know that kind of thing if that makes
sense yeah yeah it really does you know
your your experiment up Lohr era was
probably the one of the most interesting
things I’ve ever read can you get a
little bit more into that I mean you’re
trying to create a fourth dimensional
superconductive thing with mushrooms and
ayahuasca and other things how does that
occur how does that occur well you know
you’re you’re going into an area where
it’s difficult to discuss it and not
that I don’t want to discuss it but
that’s one reason that I wrote my book
was so that I wouldn’t have to keep
explaining okay because it’s hard to
explain it it’s hard to reconstruct it
because it was so confusing at the time
you know and and so I wrote the book so
that I would have a an opportunity to
sit down without people having any
expectation and explain to myself what
happened or reflect on it and try to
unpack it and split it you know and so I
have like they’re about three or four
chapters in the book that is basically
about all of that stuff because you know
there’s no doubt that our trip to Luxur
and our attempt to do this thing
whatever it was was a pivotal occurrence
in both of our life
Sabine I mean Terrence and my life in
some way can be defined as prelature era
and post luxury Wow and we were only 20
I was 20 he was 24 when he went to watch
your era so most of it has been post
luxury era and a lot of it has been
reflecting on you know I mean our lives
have been lived out in the light of that
just very peculiar adventure that
experience that we that we sort of you
know we got in way over our heads I mean
I mean we had no idea really what we
were getting into you know so I I don’t
want to get into it because it’s hard
it’s hard to explain people have to read
the book yeah we’ll just we’ll just get
people to go read the book yeah yeah I
mean why but why why the Brotherhood of
the screaming abyss where’d that come
from
all that I can tell you well the
Brotherhood of the screaming abyss
harkens back to our common interest in
science fiction when we were teenagers
and one of the writers that we were
fascinated by was HP Lovecraft and I
don’t know if you’re familiar with
Lovecraft but he was a horror writer and
that in the 20s and he was always
talking about you know the the you know
the the the Unspeakables gibbering
horrors from beyond the stars and and
all this stuff you know I mean I mean
the beauty of and the genius of
Lovecraft is that he wrote this
extremely scary science fiction novels
science fiction horror I mean I would
say he’s probably that the inventor of
that genre a science fiction horror and
a lot of it was about aliens and other
dimensions and all that but it was
always you know the gibbering abysus of
cosmic space he never actually described
very clearly what these things were he
left that to your imagination you know
but so when we were when we were going
to South America
in quest of in quest of this secret you
know which we thought was this exotic
Watoto hallucinogen but actually there
was a secret but that wasn’t it you know
as we found out later but we we
described ourselves as the Brotherhood
of the screaming abyss basically and in
in in a nod to HP Lovecraft it was it
was tongue in cheek right I mean we we
didn’t really take it that seriously but
we I mean we took it seriously but we
also had a certain sense of humor about
it and that was that was it
do you think do you think the 21st
century needs people like Terence
Mckenna figure a figure heading this
movement the psychedelic movement well
obviously not you know because he’s been
gone for 15 years you know which is
amazing when I stopped to reflect on
that it was 15 years ago this month that
he passed on you know and the
psychedelic movement is more active and
vibrant today than it ever was in his
day you know but I would say also that
it it does need Terence
and it has Terence you know I mean he’s
got this he’s achieved this kind of
immortality you know with all of his
writings and all of his talks on the web
and so on they’re all still out there
and and there is timely today as they
ever were that’s the amazing thing I get
so many young people telling me how much
of an influence on their thinking that
he was you know and they always say oh
and you too of course
but actually it’s Terence you know it’s
just five he woke up a lot of young
people and still does because because he
was you know he was really at the height
of his career
like in the early 90s maybe 92 93 94 he
was really out there a lot of the folks
that come up to me or people that sign
up for my classes they were you know
they were they were in diapers at that
point you know but or you know quite
young so as they grew up and became
adolescence and then young young adults
they discovered Terrence’s ideas and
writings and they were influential on on
them and and so many people have told me
you know ever I feel like everything
I’ve learned I owe to Terence so so
that’s a wonderful thing
yeah yeah this is this is kind of a big
question and if if at all possible in
could you put into words what is what is
your belief about the shape or truth of
our reality well you know I can always
take the scientific cop-out you know
which is which is you know always a safe
place to retreat to when you don’t know
the answer but the answer is we don’t
know the answer you know I mean science
is great because you can always say well
you know we could suspend judgment and
that is the the essence of the
scientific stamps you can always say we
do not have enough data to really answer
this question more data you know more
data is needed to resolve this question
and of course in the way that science is
practiced these days you quickly follow
up oh yes we need more data and and by
the way we need more funding and we need
you know all the things that science
runs on these days but it’s okay to say
that we have an incomplete picture of
reality you know which we do if you just
looked around science is very very good
at dissecting and defining very small
segments of reality but it’s not so good
at putting everything together into a
whole picture
a coherent picture of reality and then
you have the problem also which is one
thing that psychedelics certainly teach
you they they teach you a lot of things
but one thing they clearly teach you is
that really we are immersed in the
hallucination all the time
you know if consciousness itself is a
reflection of a neurochemical brain
state of some kind and you know is it
real is is what we see on psychedelics
real versus what we see in quote-unquote
normal consciousness real I think
neither one is that real you know both
of them are aspects of this model of
reality that we create that our brain
creates and it’s it’s necessary for it
to do that otherwise we you know it
would be a bloomin buzzing confusion a
lot of what the brain does is it takes
the raw data muff experience you know
which which physics tells us if we
believe our instruments that external
reality doesn’t look anything like we
experience reality everything is energy
and vibrations of you know it’s a
quantum it’s a it’s it’s a quantum state
well that’s not how we experience
reality most of the time you know most
of the time even on psychedelics reality
has a certain coherence to it so I think
the answer is again the answer is we
don’t totally know but I I think that
very much the you know the the we we
live inside of a hallucination that our
brains create or you know we’re the
producers directors and the stars of our
own movie you know and we call it the
reality story and everyone has their own
but they’re close enough that you know
there’s something called consensus
reality but
you know it’s still a collective
hallucination in some ways nobody knows
what the fundamental nature of reality
is because whatever it is whatever comes
to us from the outside comes to us
through this sensory neural gated system
if you will its filtered and it makes
sense
I mean it’s filtered and and
reconstructed so that it does make sense
this is a lot of what the brain does hmm
am I making sense yeah yeah absolutely
yeah I mean so this is this is you know
this is one reason psychedelics are so
interested and and particularly DMT I
think because in certain cases DMT kind
of lets you step out of that framework
and you get to look at reality in in the
raw if you will it’s like you can it’s
like you can turn the circuit board over
you know and see how this thing is wired
this reality machine you know and then
and you see oh okay this is how it works
right
normally you don’t get to do that you
don’t get to look at the nuts and bolts
of it so DMT gives you a few minutes
where you can actually look at reality
unfiltered which is why it’s so you know
so overwhelming and so fascinating you
can actually see the machinery that’s
generating this reality hallucinate
should you do you think that these
shamanic type experiences hallucinations
have an objective reality do they kind
of coincide with what we experience here
I think that this is the $64,000
question I think that we cannot really
answer that question and and I’m not
even sure it’s the right question you
know in other words when you start
bandying about these terms like is it
real is it not real is it inside is it
outside
and are there other dimensions that you
can access or is this all just a
hallucination you know these are all
charged terms and they encourage fuzzy
thinking I mean I’m not sure it’s
possible to think clearly about those
four for me to say well okay you take
ayahuasca and I see you know these
places these entities of all that and
people say well it’s just a
hallucination or is this just a
hallucination and the key word there is
just right because what’s implied there
is well if it’s just a hallucination it
has no value and it has no reality right
but I submit to you that what we
experience in normal waking
consciousness that’s also just a
hallucination you know it but it is but
you know we need to get the word just
out of it because yes it’s a
hallucination it is what it is it does
have value it’s something you experience
so you know this is basically this is
phenomenology which says you know we
take phenomena on their on their face
you know there may be nothing behind a
phenomenon but we experience so you know
a shaman goes into these altered states
encounters all of these entities and and
gets information and travels in these
worlds and so on and for that person he
he entered he or she interacts with
those entities in those places as though
they were real you know and so they may
as well be real right I mean that that’s
the that’s the thing you know if it
looks like a duck and walks like a duck
and quacks like a duck it’s it’s
probably a duck you know and it’s that
idea doesn’t really
provide any perspective on it to say
well it’s just a hallucination because
every moment of waking consciousness is
a dream it is a hallucination do you
think that culturally we are moving
towards a better attitude towards
psychedelic compounds oh yeah I don’t
think there’s any question that we are I
mean what’s happened in the last five
years for various reasons I think both
scientific discoveries and you know the
rising popularity of ayahuasca the whole
ayahuasca tourism thing the media the
fact that you know good science is being
done on on some of these compounds and
we’re seeing that they do have benefits
you know I mean they they have benefits
in the medical sense that can satisfy
you know the hardest knows more most
reductionist person who may not be
sympathetic to you know all this wolf
stuff but it’s hard to argue that okay
this person took psilocybin and you know
stopped smoking there or something like
that and there’s evidence accumulating
that they have definite benefits for
people and so so that’s kind of the
admission price if if psychedelics are
going to be respectable you’ve got to
show that they’re good for something you
know not just to have you know these
experiences again that there’s nothing
wrong with those experience that’s
that’s a reflection of our culture’s
tendency to devalue these things to say
well there’s there’s no legitimacy
there’s no value in an inner experience
you know now of course Eastern the
Eastern mind Eastern philosophy would
say there is nothing but inner
experience and you know but I think in
the West I think if you can say these
these compounds have uses they have
applications they can be used to treat
PTSD they can be used to interrupt a
dick
they can be used for you know and help
people with existential anxiety at the
end of life all of these different
medical applications that we’re seeing
emerge so then it’s like okay well
they’re respectable they’re it’s okay
they’re not so terrible you know and in
the meantime we’ve you know a lot of the
reason this is coming out is because
we’ve had you know 40 years to get used
to them 40 years to learn about that
well since they you know I mean even
longer but but in the sense that you
know there was a big backlash against
them at the end of the 60s and nobody
knew what they were they were complete
and they were completely terrifying so
to the governments and the reason they
were terrifying to the governments is
that they didn’t understand them and
people would take them and they would
have all these unconventional ideas you
know which governments don’t like like
maybe I don’t want to spend the rest of
my life working in a cubicle for example
or maybe I don’t want to go over to
Vietnam and kill these people you know
why should I so psychedelics were
dangerous in that era and they still are
for much the same reason you know not
that they’re dangerous drugs they give
you dangerous ideas and ideas that don’t
conform with the you know the accepted
norms of what’s what are always
threatening to government’s institutions
governments and religions especially I
would say and you know it was it was the
the impulse to control and try and stuff
the genie back in the box in the bottle
that led to this prohibition it was a
kind of a yeah I mean it was unfortunate
because it also shut down all the
research that was going on at that time
which was quite promising so you know
then it took 30 or 40 years to circle
all the way back and see this research
activated yeah now that’s happening so
yeah I think that attitudes societal
attitudes are definitely much more
positive these days yeah I know you’re
connected with the Hector Research
Institute and the there’s the Maps
Institute which is they’re both making
large progress in this realm I mean
we’re we’re approaching the end here and
so I’ve got an interesting question I
mean is there is there anything that you
would kind of go back in time and tell
your younger self
well tell my younger self oh gosh I
don’t know it’s hard to know that’s a
tough one
I’m not sure no I I don’t really have I
don’t really have regrets I guess if I
was gonna tell myself my younger self
anything I would I would say in terms of
my academic and professional interests
you know it sounds odd for me to say it
but I would say be more specialized you
know one of my problem is as an academic
is I’m so interdisciplinary that I don’t
fit in anywhere and you know I’ve worked
in neuroscience and I’ve done postdocs
in neuroscience but then the question is
well you’re a botanist what are you
doing in neuroscience and then the
botanist say well you know you’re a
pharmacologist what are you doing in
botany and so in a way my interests have
been so diverse that I have never really
specialized but in some ways I feel like
maybe I could have been more effective
if I had specialized if I become a
medicinal chemist or a psychiatrist or
something like that
maybe I didn’t have the discipline to go
through that and and and reach those
points but I mean it’s a tricky thing I
you know I have friends I have
colleagues in the Heffner Institute and
elsewhere who you know they have gone
through
that they have but they’ve always kept
their interest in psychedelics kind of
on the back burners but they never lose
it you know but to go through these
professions and acquire the you know the
professional status that you have to
have you know institutions do their best
to brainwash you and you know by the
time you get through it you’ve forgotten
about why you start you know you’ve
forgotten about the motivations that led
you to undertake this and and then you
know you’re just boring and it hasn’t
happened to be but it hasn’t it hasn’t
been good for my professional
advancement either particularly so but I
you know I have no regrets I I feel
privileged to be part of the Hefner
Institute and I worked with great
colleagues so you know life is what it
is I appreciate that answer what what so
what does the future hold for you sir I
mean what is there any new project or
avenues of research that you’re kind of
getting into yeah
various things I have been doing a lot
of retreats in South America lately with
ayahuasca where I basically I work with
the center there yeah that it’s it’s not
an ayahuasca center exactly but I mean
they do other things as well it’s kind
of a tourist Lodge kind of thing but
they do do they allow ayahuasca retreats
maybe once or twice a year and I’ve
found a shaman that they introduced me
to that I really like this guy and I
like working with them so I’ve been
bringing people down there to have these
retreats and it’s very interesting and
rewarding to see people come down and
have these amazing transformative
experiences and the
Impulse be the scientist my impulse is
well that that would be enough but being
a scientist my impulses let’s do some
science around this let’s do some some
clinical studies the thing with
ayahuasca is you you know for various
reasons you you probably are not going
to see clinical studies with ayahuasca
done in the States because it doesn’t
fit into the paradigm you could do it
with MDMA you could do it with suicide
band you can do these things they the
FDA is okay with synthetic substances
they’re not so receptive to plant
preparations and ayahuasca is
quintessentially an herbal medicine so
it’s hard to do clinical studies in the
States for various reasons because of
this I mean for one thing there’s you
know it’s it’s the same Kevin Durham
that faces cannabis research there is no
authorized source of ayahuasca you know
there isn’t a government licensed
ayahuasca grower you know so you can’t
get the material you know and it’s kind
of like cannabis where you know the only
legitimate source of cannabis medicine
is is National Institute on Drug Abuse
they control the supply for clinical
studies and generally the weed that they
have is pretty much garbage you know so
it’s hard to carry out you know a good
study and what I’ve been saying is well
why do we need to work within that fda
box why don’t we just go to Peru and do
these clinical studies so in the in the
future and probably in the fairly near
future that’s what we’re going to do we
have a perfect venue to do it we have a
very good practitioner we have
connections with medical people in Peru
and also we’ve got hefter and all that
so I think we’re going to do some
clinical studies down there in the next
few years you know one of the problems
is what are we going to screen for what
are
what are we going to look to treat yeah
and of the spectrum of possible
you know therapeutic targets and there
is no ideal one you know it’s hard to
decide is it going to be addiction is it
going to be
PTSD is it going to be you know hospice
end-of-life I mean these are what
Hefner’s investigating now but how do
you shift that down to Peru and and do a
different medicine and is it even
necessary you know so yes we’ll see how
it out what the outcome is in a couple
of years well mr. McKenna I really
appreciate you making the time where can
people find your work they can buy the
book off Amazon brother you know the
Brotherhood of the screaming abyss and
then they have a website of the same
name without the be so just Brotherhood
of the screaming at viscom you can order
the book there and and give a signed
copy so that’s that’s useful I don’t
charge for the signature yeah you can
just order the book from there or you
can get it off Amazon I have to my
inventory on Amazon is getting low I
intend to send another bunch to them so
there should be there should be plenty
on Amazon that those two things are the
easiest way to to get my book and the
rest of it is just out there you know
put my name into YouTube and all kinds
of stuff comes up well you heard it here
guys thank you so much for listening
this is the human experience my name is
Xavier and my guest mr. Dennis McKenna
thank you so much for being here Dennis
it was a pleasure we will see you guys
next week Thanks