Full transcript: Reconnect Q&A on London Real
2:33 Brian Rose: This is London Real. I am Brian Rose, my guest today.
2:47 I was super excited for the world premiere of London Real’s fifth documentary feature film, Reconnect. This is about an 18 month journey I had with the Plant Medicine Ayahuasca and integrating those psychedelic experiences back into my life, into my family, into the business of London Real. And along the way I had help from so many people like Dennis McKenna, Sad Guru, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Gabor Mate and so many more. The premiere itself was an amazing event in London and we had Dr. Dennis McKenna there for a Q&A afterwards.
3:21 We went really deep on psychedelics, on global warming, on all aspects of things that were covered on the movie and I know you’re going to enjoy this incredible night as if you were there with us at the premiere and Dennis drops all sorts of incredible knowledge about psychedelics, the experience itself, how to have one and how it relates to us as humanity and the rest of the world. For more information about the movie itself, you can go to LondonReal.tv forward slash Reconnect but now sit back and enjoy this incredible experience that was the premiere and my amazing conversation with Dennis McKenna. Here you go. This is Brian Rose on your own personal journey of transformation.
4:06 Brian Rose: Why is it so hard, Dennis? Does anything worthwhile is hard?
4:12 Dennis McKenna: It’s hard because it forces you to get out of your comfort zone. And everyone, I think people, they like their comfort zone but you have to get out of it. That’s for the same reason that the psychedelics are challenging.
4:33 As we talked about, it demolishes, not demolishes but temporarily disables this default mode network that we create for ourselves. And another term for that is our comfort zone in a certain way. Our brains are designed to make the world, to interface with the world in a way that we can handle. And a lot of what our brains do in constructing this default mode, which is made up of sensory data, your memories, your expectations, your predictions about the future, about how things are going to be, you build up this sort of bubble.
5:20 And a lot of what the default mode network is, it’s about filtering things out. The brain is as much an organism for filtering things as it is for perception. That’s almost a more important function. Because if everything, if you were totally open all the time, like you are in psychedelics, well, you wouldn’t be very functional, right? So that’s why psychedelic experiences are a special thing.
5:58 That’s why the set and setting and all the parameters that you put around it are so important. It’s important to have a proper setting so that the set that you bring to it, and the set is you, the set is your mindset. It’s not just your intention. It’s everything you are. It’s your whole experience of life that you bring to this.
6:23 So it’s important to do this thoughtfully and pay attention to the setting so that you have the freedom to surrender. That’s the thing. That’s the big challenge of psychedelics. If you feel threatened, if you feel unsafe, obviously you’re not going to be able to relax into it and surrender because you’re concerned for your welfare. If you go into it with a well-crafted setting, if you want to put it that way, then you can feel better about surrendering to the experience.
7:09 You may be terrified, and that’s part of the experience because you’re out of your comfort zone. That’s the value of these things. They let you step outside your usual reference frame. You may be terrified, but if you’ve taken steps to plan for the experience, there’s a part of you that is reassuring. There’s a part of you that says, It’s okay, Brian. You’re all right. You can let go. You can let go. Just let it happen.
7:48 Resistance is futile. That’s the lesson, I think.
7:53 Brian Rose: And would you like to do an ayahuasca ceremony with Dan Pena?
7:58 Dennis McKenna: Would I want to do an ayahuasca ceremony with Dan Pena, the guy that yells a lot? I would love to.
8:07 Brian Rose: Really?
8:08 Dennis McKenna: I’m a little worried, actually. He might just kill us. No, I mean, I think that…
8:14 Brian Rose: But do you think, on a serious note, is there merit in doing that, do you think, in having some of these people have an ayahuasca ceremony?
8:25 Is that a potential solution, or is that a naive assumption?
8:31 Dennis McKenna: I don’t know. Would I want to do an ayahuasca ceremony with Donald Trump, for example? I don’t think so. The reason I don’t think so is I don’t think it would help him.
8:48 Brian Rose: Really?
8:49 Dennis McKenna: I think, I mean, a shaman that I respect a lot said, he told me, there are two kinds of people that I will not give ayahuasca to because it won’t help them. One is schizophrenics, and the reason is kind of obvious. If you have this genetic proclivity, it can push you over the edge. But the other is sociopaths, and I think that ayahuasca is, he said, it won’t help sociopaths because, in a sense, there’s no there there.
9:21 These people are so well-defended, they forgot that there isn’t even a core self. And so, not only are they estranged from the world, they’re estranged from themselves. But it could work. Ayahuasca can help some, but not everyone can.
9:38 Brian Rose: And we will be passing around microphones and just taking some questions from the audience, but we just wanted to do a Q&A here for maybe 30 or 40 minutes before we head out back to the reception area.
9:52 So, you know, Dennis, you have never seen that film. You’re kind of the star, the first half of it. What do you want people to take from watching something like this? What are the steps you want them to take after something like this?
10:06 Dennis McKenna: Gosh, that’s a call order.
10:07 I think this film is a call to consciousness and to re-understand our relationship with nature. I mean, that’s the core of the message. And the core of the message is we’re estranged from nature, and I watch my brothers say these things. So, looking at, and I’ve been saying the same things for myself for, you know, 18 years or whatever. And so the message really hasn’t changed.
10:40 But people have got to start taking this seriously, you know, whereas a species very well able to deny it. And again, as a species, we’re, you know, we’re protective of our comfort zone. But that can’t last. It’s not sustainable. We’ve reached a point now where we’re seeing the consequences of our neglect, of the lessons which we’ve known for 30 years or more.
11:10 We could have started 30 years ago anticipating what is happening now and taking steps to mitigate it. We didn’t do that. We’re not good at looking much past the next quarter. You know, we’re not good at looking 50 years into the future. So denial works to a certain extent.
11:32 But now we’re coming to the, we’re about to hit the wall. And it’s not going to be pretty. And I don’t know, I don’t have the answer. I don’t know. Maybe it’s not fair.
11:46 I mean, you don’t want to alarm people, but you want to alarm people enough to think about this.
11:52 Brian Rose: How much time do we have? You were on the show, the Zilli?
11:56 Dennis McKenna: Well, we were talking about this this morning. I mean, I think that 2020 is an important year.
12:02 The next decade is the most important decade our species may ever confront. Because I think at the end of the 20s, we will look back and we will either be able to say, we got this thing. We woke up. We made radical changes that will turn the ship around. It’ll take a long time.
12:30 I mean, even if we do wake up and do what we need to do, it’ll still take 30, 40 years for things to settle down. Or we’ll look back and say, it’s too late. We didn’t wake up. We didn’t integrate the lesson. And we’re doomed, basically.
12:51 I mean, it’s a terrible thing to think about. It’s certainly not a message I wish to propagate. I would like to think there is hope. But it’s got to be a realistic hope. But I think people need to accept that our lives have to change.
13:14 They have to change radically, and they have to change fast.
13:18 Brian Rose: And Gaia is going to live on either way, with or without us.
13:21 Dennis McKenna: Well, Gaia, if you mean by that, the community of living species, Gaia will survive. Life on Earth is going to survive. It may be radically changed.
13:30 It may be seriously impacted. But species on Earth have gone through extinction events before. 250 million years ago, whatever it is, the Triassic-Permian boundary, 98% of terrestrial species went extinct because of climate change, basically, volcanism, change in the solidities of the ocean and all this. And yet, of course, things survive. Life is tough.
14:06 But wiping that many species off the planet, what it did was it opened up an opportunity for them life to diversify and proliferate and flourish. But it played itself out over millions of years, hundreds of millions of years. We don’t think on that scale. Gaia thinks on that scale. Life works on that scale evolutionarily.
14:33 Our time frame is much shorter. Our perspective is much shorter.
14:41 The environmental changes that are happening now are going to make it tougher on life, but life will be able to survive. We may not be able to. We may not have the adaptability to do it. But I think the ability to deal with these problems does exist. But there has to be consensus emerge.
15:11 This is why I say, first, the monkeys have to wake up. But that’s the first step. Then we have to wise up. And we have to, by wise up, I mean that we have to become wise. We have to think about things in a very clever way, which we’ve not done before.
15:31 Our cleverness, we’re extremely clever as a species. We’re not very wise. We need to bring those things into congruence, into synchrony. And then we need to somehow create a global consensus. And this is the tough part.
15:51 How do you get us as a species to come together and realize there are things we can do to save the planet? But right now, the governments of the world, the governments, corporations, the institutions that you would expect to be responding to this are not. There’s no leadership. Look at environmental policy in the states, for example. I mean, not only do they not acknowledge that there is climate change and there’s an environmental crisis, they deny.
16:29 They say it’s a hoax, a hoax as California burns, as the sea levels rise. I mean, some joke, right?
16:38 Brian Rose: This is why you have those bad trips sometimes.
16:42 Dennis McKenna: Yes, I have these. I have these apocalyptic, and I think many people do on ayahuasca.
16:50 You don’t have to take ayahuasca to have dreams or to just have dark fantasies. All you have to do is read the newspaper. In fact, reading the newspaper probably contributes to that. And what do I do? Not read the newspaper?
17:10 Brian Rose: Well, maybe. Maybe that’s part of it. What’s it like watching your brother, Terrence, up there on the screen? My director, Luis, had a post-it note on his computer for the last year, and it said, Terrence is watching. So, no pressure, but we had him, we felt like we had to do both you and him justice with this film.
17:31 But what’s it like, I don’t know, to hear his voice and see him? To watch him on the screen? Yeah, and hear his voice.
17:42 Dennis McKenna: Well, whenever I see Terrence talk, I’m consistently amazed at how timely and very much now what he says is, because you have to remember these clips were made in the mid-90s, probably. And yet, it’s just as timely as if he had said it yesterday, even more so.
18:05 So, the man had the vision of the crisis that we faced, even back then. Nobody was listening then, nobody’s listening now. But I think more people are listening now. I do think that psychedelics are not the sole solution, they’re just the catalyst to wake up. Once you wake up, what do you do?
18:35 And you can imagine all sorts of potential solutions, but it takes a consensus to implement those solutions. Some of them are, it’s very hard to accept them.
18:53 We’re all here, we’re in cities where you can’t live without consuming. I’m not saying everybody can stop consuming, but frankly, I don’t know what the answer is. I think the psychedelics make us aware that there’s a problem. What we have to do as a species, which is a concept that we’re not even used to thinking about, that’s part of the problem. We think of ourselves as part of a society, a community, a tribe.
19:32 At bottom line is we’re all humans. We’re all species on this planet, and we’re all part of the natural environment, whether we recognize it or not. So, we have to recognize that really the plants are running things in the sense that they’re sustaining life on Earth. So, policies like burning down rainforests, maybe this is not such a good idea. It’s complicated, it’s complicated.
20:05 Brian Rose: We’re going to be passing around some microphones, so if anybody really wants a question, throw your hands up, and we’ll take a couple questions. Let me see. We’ve got microphones coming around here. Okay, let’s go with you, ma’am, there. If you could stand up and then just ask your question.
20:20 Yes, you. If you could stand up and then ask your question.
20:25 Audience member: Hello, hi. I would like to know if you have an advice. I’m about to go to Sultara, so I’d like you to give me an advice, because it’s going to be my first time in hallucinogenesis, so I’d like to know which would be your advice to take this journey in the best way as possible, as the first time ever.
20:48 Brian Rose: So, she’s about to have her first ayahuasca experience in Sultara, and she’s asking for advice for the first time. Okay.
21:00 Dennis McKenna: Well, as we were talking about, just be open to it. You know, if there’s a specific reason you’re taking it, maybe an intention, then focus on that. If you’re taking it to see what the territory is like, what it looks like, I mean, you can have a specific intention, but it’s also legitimate to say, my intention is to learn what I can’t. This is an opportunity to just open yourself. You will get the lesson that you need.
21:34 I mean, we say ayahuasca always gives you what you need, not necessarily what you want. Sometimes it gives you what you want. If that happens to coincide with what you need, great. But you’ll get the lesson that you need. So, in some ways, you can make it easier for yourself by just saying, I’m open to whatever there is to learn.
21:56 You know, and you have to trust. You have to trust the medicine. You have to trust yourself. This is really a dynamic that happens between you and the medicine. And all the medicine really does is facilitate what you bring to the table.
22:16 You know, that inner wisdom that you probably have, but you don’t know you have it. It helps you to see that.
22:24 Audience member: Thank you very much.
22:25 Brian Rose: Thank you. Second question.
22:27 Ernesto, just right here. Can you stand up, sir? Yeah. And as loud as you can. All right.
22:32 Audience member: I do tumor biology research and clinical application in Buenos Aires. And so I’ve been also experimenting with, you know, tools to enhance consciousness. I’ve been we’ve lost very recently Sasha Shulgin, Alexander Shulgin. And so my group has been aware of Terence’s work for two decades now. The stoned ape theory of, you know, the beginning of civilization made perfect sense with us.
23:08 So we have under control conditions, that means in the lab, a number of experiences with LSD. Ayahuasca, thank God for that. Thanks Swami Jesus for that. And particularly on the practical side, the MDMA, I was, you know, willing to ask you, I wanted to ask you, the methyl dioxymethamphetamine, ecstasy, you call it, right? Ecstasy.
23:33 Brian Rose: What’s the question?
23:35 Audience member: The question is, where is the research? How close are we? Is Ayahuasca the only tool we have? The thing is, are you aware of any progress?
23:47 Dennis McKenna: I’m certainly not.
23:49 Audience member: So MDMA seems to be the love molecule, to put it.
23:53 Dennis McKenna: Well, I think, I mean, you’re basically asking, where is the research with all these other substances? They all have their place, you know. I mean, Ayahuasca is not the only one.
24:08 People are interested in mushrooms. Mushrooms deliver much the same message. You know, MDMA is not a natural molecule, but that doesn’t mean it’s inferior. You know, it has its virtues. It’s, remember, it’s made by all natural organic chemists.
24:31 So in a certain way, it is a natural molecule. Anything we create is part of nature. I just think we have to carefully explore all of these things. LSD has its place, you know, things like Ibogaine also may be more specialized for addiction and that sort of thing. What I’m encouraged by is, it’s not that Ayahuasca is the only solution or, you know, mushrooms are the only solution.
25:02 It’s that finally there is a situation where there’s an openness toward exploring all of these medicines. Part of that is because especially mental health care doesn’t really work. Mental health care is over-reliant on what you might call psychopharmaceuticals, which don’t really get to the root of your problems. They tend to paper over your problems. So they don’t give you a chance to really dig deep into the traumas, the experiences that are the cause of your trauma.
25:44 Psychedelics can do that. They don’t fit into the conventional biomedical model. For one thing, they require intense therapy, an intense therapeutic situation, whether that’s, you know, in a traditional setting with a shaman or with a psychotherapist or whatever. But these are not ever going to be medicines where you can say, take two and call me in the morning. You know, it doesn’t work that way.
26:14 You have to, you know, you have to work these through and hopefully with someone that can help you, you know, in the experience and also integrate the experience. So that’s as important as the medicine itself.
26:30 Brian Rose: Yeah? Cool. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
26:34 Audience member: Dennis, how do you think we can have a conversation with, quote-unquote, the other side, you know? Because all I see out there is these two sides fighting and they never seem to start a conversation. I mean, how can we do that? Is our options only psychedelics and media?
26:53 Dennis McKenna: With the other side? You mean the non-psychadelic side?
26:57 Audience member: The people that don’t agree that we should treat nature the way that you do. The people that have other agendas that think in the quarter and things like that. I mean, they are people. They just don’t necessarily see the future the way you do. How can we start that conversation?
27:13 Brian Rose: We are. Yeah. What we’re trying to?
27:18 Dennis McKenna: Well, you know, I don’t know because there are many people who, you know, their mindset is, my mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with facts.
27:36 If people are not receptive to facts, then it’s very hard to have that kind of conversation. If you look at what is happening on the planetary scale, the fact is we’re in a heap of shit. You know, things are going down the tubes and they’re going down the tubes rapidly. That’s a fact. That’s not a supposition.
28:01 And so to start that conversation, you have to present people with, you know, some very uncomfortable realizations. And you can talk about climate change. You can talk about the impact. All you have to do is open the newspaper to see the effects of climate change. I mean, it’s more and more. This is what is being talked about.
28:25 I don’t know how you convince people who are not open to facts to be open to facts.
28:32 Brian Rose: Well, when you see the kids, I mean, like I was blown away. The kids are totally receptive to it. The kids know. The kids know what’s going on.
28:44 Dennis McKenna: But the kids, as a demographic, are not the people who control the levers of power. And finance. I mean, they will if they live long enough. You know, that’s trouble. But yes, I think I’m totally supportive of the extinction rebellion and all of these things.
29:04 The kids are far more awake than we do, than we are, you know, in a certain sense. And the kids, unfortunately, are going to have to live in this world that we create, that we are creating. And it’s very sad. They will not, it’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be easy.
29:29 And I, again, I just, I mean, it tears my heart. But I don’t know what to do, except you keep talking. You try to propagate the idea and see if there are solutions. And I think there are solutions. But it’s the consensus that we have to create.
29:56 There are solutions. Let’s talk about those. Let’s get a global consensus going about what we might do. Do we try to, you know, lift as much stuff off the planet as we can and reduce the impact? Or do we, you know, come to a conclusion that the use of fossil fuels will be declared a crime, you know? And do governments set out policies that, you know, within five years, ten years, fossil fuels will be prohibited?
30:37 You’re pushing back about very powerful lobbies and governments and so on. You know, the infrastructure that sustains our society is so much based on fossil fuels and petroleum and all this. So how do we, you know, without radically changing society and pulling our elbows in in a big way, how do we affect these changes? And, you know, you and I, I’m good at articulating the problems. I don’t know what the answers are. I don’t know what the answers are.
31:15 Maybe someone out here does have answers and someone out in that wider world, but they have to have a forum. They have to be listened to. And just getting the microphone is tough enough, you know?
31:30 Brian Rose: Let me take a couple more questions. Also, we did a two-hour show this morning, so there’s a lot more Dennis coming online soon.
31:39 Dennis McKenna: Surprised I’m even halfway coherent, frankly.
31:42 Brian Rose: I know. It’s impressive. And you crushed it this morning. It was your best show ever. I don’t know what you were on some gangster shit.
31:49 It was all good.
31:50 Brian Rose: All right. You, sir, right here in the front, if we could get this man a mike, just stand up and we’ll pass you that mike. All right.
31:58 Audience member: Thank you very much for your show and participation.
32:01 Dennis, I wonder what your thoughts are of the consequences and aftermath from the pure DMT experience in a therapeutic context. Do you think the experience does provide some tools in order to integrate and to apply, as Brian talks about in the practical worlds and so forth?
32:22 Brian Rose: So he’s asking about pure DMT in a therapeutic context. If that can give you some lessons. What, in contrast to ayahuasca, maybe is what you’re saying.
32:33 Audience member: Or in the same context. Or in the same context.
32:36 Dennis McKenna: So, yeah. We talked a little bit about that this morning, didn’t we? I mean, I think you can learn from all of these psychedelics.
32:44 You can have lessons from all of these psychedelics. DMT is, anybody who’s taken it, can’t fail to be impressed. I mean, it’s one of the most profound alterations of consciousness you can experience. The problem with it is that it’s so short. It is like, you know, so it’s hard to bring back anything other than astonishment.
33:15 Terrence used to say, the only way you can die from DMT is to die from astonishment. It certainly delivers that. What else it delivers is not so clear. I think that forms of DMT that are stretched out over time, like ayahuasca, like mushrooms. Mushrooms is also really a form of DMT.
33:39 Psilocybin, psilosome, very, very close to DMT. You need more time to have the experience so you can integrate it. DMT is like the fast-forward version, you know, of the roller coaster ride that you can get when you take ayahuasca where it’s stretched over four or five hours. More time to process it and integrate it and so on. What you get from DMT is, again, you just come back with a memory of that very intense experience.
34:13 But whether it brings much therapeutic value, I guess that depends on the person. I mean, I know many people are interested now in the towed medicine, the so-called towed medicine, which is 5-methoxy DMT. And that is also equally quick, but it seems to carry more therapeutic punch. Again, this is all to be investigated. You know, I mean, finally we’re reaching a point where we can, this research is encouraged and we can begin to look at these things.
34:51 You know, without too much fear of, number one, the legal prohibitions and number two, finally mainstream medicine is kind of getting interested enough in these things to investigate them, you know. So that’s the answer. We don’t know enough about DMT, basically.
35:11 Brian Rose: Cool. Thank you. Good answer.
35:13 Dennis McKenna: Thank you, Brian.
35:14 Brian Rose: Yes, sir. You stand up there. We’ll pass that microphone.
35:18 Dennis McKenna: I probably don’t need a microphone anyway.
35:20 Brian Rose: That’s why I won’t give you one anyways. It’ll help. We can record it later for legal reasons.
35:25 Audience member: Before I get into my question, first of all, thank you very fucking much. That was brilliant. So a big round of applause, everybody.
35:31 Thank you, Brian. Thank you, team. That was fantastic. Just a one key message, Brian. You said at the very start, you hope that we all take one key message home from that.
35:41 And something that I myself personally figured out probably five months ago, and that was when I found the guy, and that was Dan Pena. And what did Dan say in that documentary, which is quite funny because I’ve watched it time and time over and get myself. And that’s that he takes a mentee on who becomes the guy or girl, whoever. He doesn’t really quite know you or he doesn’t really say that. That goes on to save the world. And I know that is me.
36:04 I’ve known this vision for a long time. He said he was blonde, though. It’s a very bold statement to make. I know. He said he was blonde.
36:11 Sorry? In the interview, he said he was blonde. He was blonde. Oh, but he could be quite correct. Incorrect.
36:17 He can dye the hair. Okay. Yeah. So you think it’s you? I may change my hair. You don’t know.
36:21 Audience member: I’ve made a lot of changes in the last five years. Maybe I dye my hair.
36:24 Brian Rose: So you think it’s good. You? That’s good.
36:26 Brian Rose: What’s the question?
36:27 Audience member: The question is, before I get into the question, and you said as well a minute ago, Dennis, and that was about the fact that 2020 is the key year for the game changer of such in terms of what’s going to start this new revolution of saving the planet. Now, I know what the answer to that is, and that’s veganism. You’ve probably seen already, Brian, you talk about this a lot on your show. Veganism over the last 12 to 24 months has grown massive.
36:54 And that’s why as of tomorrow, I’m actually launching the world’s first vegan based social media. So I am the founder of a new revolutionary company. And not only that, of course, going into 2020, that is going to be the game changer. So the question for me to you, Dennis, is what is your thoughts on veganism towards being the first step of awakening and opening people to changing their mindset to saving this planet?
37:16 Brian Rose: Cool. Thank you for that.
37:17 You want me to translate? You got that. Yeah. Is veganism the first step to making this change or an important step to making this change?
37:28 Dennis McKenna: Veganism is an important step.
37:30 Yes, definitely. I don’t know if that’s the full solution, but it’s that kind of change that we have to accommodate to. We have to accept that. And that, again, forces people out of their comfort zone. There may be ways to get around that.
37:50 But you can’t argue that veganism will reduce the impact on the planet of raising meat, essentially, which consumes water, produces methane. I mean, it’s not a sustainable practice. So those sorts of things. And it’s interesting because you can’t, you know, government can’t come along and say, everybody’s got to be vegan. But you can make the choice to be vegan.
38:22 And you can explain and educate people about the advantages of doing that. Some will listen. And so it has to be something that comes from each person. You know, you make a personal choice. Sometimes you feel like making a personal choice.
38:41 You know, if just one individual does it, it doesn’t have much impact. If everybody does it, then it really does begin to make a difference. So I’m a big believer in education. It’s all about education.
38:58 Audience member: Are you vegan, Dennis?
39:00 Dennis McKenna: No.
39:01 Audience member: Sorry. Why not?
39:03 Dennis McKenna: Because I’m an inferior being. Look, I’m thinking about it.
39:13 Audience member: You’re thinking about it.
39:14 Dennis McKenna: I’m thinking about it. I don’t know if that’s going to get us there. No, that’s well, OK. Would you believe I eat much less meat than I used to?
39:22 I do believe that. OK.
39:23 Dennis McKenna: And you know, you kind of have a little bit of a negative footprint with everything you do. Right. We might let that one slide.
39:30 Brian Rose: All right, thank you very much. I just want to get a couple more questions.
39:34 Dennis McKenna: Don’t fault me for my non-veganism. Fault me for the huge carbon footprint I put in the world by coming to London. True.
39:41 Brian Rose: You know, I think you give enough back. We’re going to give you some more negative credits. Well, I hope so. I hope so. That bothers me.
39:47 Brian Rose: In the front row here, we’ll take a few more. And then we’ll take one up there. Flashing hands. Can we get a mic up there? OK.
39:53 And we’ll take two up there. After that, go ahead. Yes.
39:56 Audience member: Hi. So I love the documentary.
39:58 It’s amazing. But I’m a body intelligence coach. And I just want to see what is the place for the body in ayahuasca’s ceremony. Because I can see it takes you to the next level. It makes you connect to the higher self.
40:14 But what is the balance? Because we live in a 3D world. We live in a physical world. So how can we find the healthy balance between finding our higher self and the health of our body and living an empowered life? If you know what I mean.
40:32 Dennis McKenna: You have a very soft voice. I don’t know if you understand my question. I’m trying to understand the question. So you’re at what is the exact question? Because I don’t understand.
40:40 Audience member: So the question is, how can we reconnect with the body as well when we take ayahuasca? What is the place for the body when we experience the ceremony? Is it involved in all of this spiritual?
40:53 Brian Rose: So we’re talking about what happens with the mind in the ayahuasca ceremony. She’s asking, what about the body?
41:01 Since ultimately we have to be in the body for the connection later.
41:07 Dennis McKenna: Well, in the first place, the mind-body distinction that’s made is a false distinction. We are a mind and we are a brain. We’re in a body. So you can’t really separate those things.
41:22 Some psychedelics may be like mushrooms are more cerebral. And some psychedelics are like ayahuasca is more of a mind-body medicine in the sense that it has, you know, definite physical effects that you feel.
41:39 Brian Rose: That was actual audio from Dennis, by the way.
41:43 Dennis McKenna: What’s this?
41:44 Brian Rose: The purging audio. That was actually you.
41:47 Dennis McKenna: That was actually me? Well, I will tell you. I will tell you, I’m a champion Purge. You’re a champion Purge. I’m a champion Purge.
41:56 Brian Rose: Absolutely. You’re right next to me. I was like, oh my gosh. That’s actually Dennis. That’s why I have to excuse myself and go to the bathroom.
42:04 Dennis McKenna: I don’t want to frighten people when I purge. But you know, ayahuasca is chemically and pharmacologically more complex in a certain way than mushrooms. It has the effect on the mind, which is the tryptamines, the alkaloids, and all that. But many other things are going on with ayahuasca. I think it modulates the immune system, for example.
42:30 Probably it stimulates the immune system. It has, you know, physical effect. It makes you purge, right? Mushrooms usually don’t. Purging is a good thing.
42:42 Purging is a kind of catharsis. Sometimes I call ayahuasca cathartogem. And this act of physical purging is often associated with the mental cleansing as well. And in traditional contexts, it’s understood that purging is a cleansing process. And sometimes you don’t get there with mushrooms.
43:09 Sometimes you need ayahuasca to create that extra push. And so, you know, and certainly that’s a reaction of the body. But you can’t separate the two, you know. And so that’s what I would say. I would say, you know, it’s interesting in these conversations because I’m a big believer with ayahuasca in that it’s important to taste it.
43:42 It’s important to have that experience of tasting it, even though it’s incredibly a verse save, you know.
43:49 Brian Rose: Did you see him gag on the ayahuasca?
43:52 Dennis McKenna: Yeah, did you see how hard it was for me to get that down? Yeah, I was on camera, so I just took it like a champ. Right, you did, you did.
44:01 Every time I take it, it gets worse and worse, so it doesn’t go away. But that’s what medicine should be. It should be, you know, it should be not easy to get down. But, you know, this is one problem that I have when it comes to how do you study ayahuasca in a clinical setting, you know, and there’s a brilliant researcher in Spain, Jordy Reba, who’s done a lot of work on ayahuasca. I have a problem with it, though, because he uses freeze-dried ayahuasca that you put in capsules.
44:40 You get an effect, but you don’t taste it, and you have to taste it. I believe you have to taste it, and maybe even purge. You know, there are certain medicines that if you don’t taste, you don’t get the effect. As soon as this hits your tongue, it begins to work. And I think, you know, again, there should be studies on this, but I think that the way it interacts with the mind and body is quite different than something like mushrooms or LSD and these things that aren’t purgative, you know.
45:20 It’s a whole different aspect of the healing process.
45:24 Brian Rose: So I didn’t purge my first ceremony, and I actually, I don’t like purging, so I resist it, and I know that’s a stupid thing to do, but the second ceremony, I had no choice.
45:35 Dennis McKenna: Yeah, well, you can resist. I mean, if you need to purge, you’ll purge. You don’t have a choice.
45:41 You know, it’ll come.
45:43 Brian Rose: Purge like a champ on number two. Let me get one up there, Susan. Go ahead.
45:50 Audience member: Hi. Sorry, I lost my voice.
45:53 Thank you, Brian, for your courage and inspiration and bringing this movie to us, and thank you, Dennis, the brothers, for bringing all your knowledge and being a pioneer in this field. My question is to Dennis. I wonder what would Terence’s take on this as well, that I’ve been thinking lately. Is psychedelics also limited to our limited human brains? For example, the experiences that we have with the plant medicines, would you say they are also limited to our capacity, our perception, and our brain capacity?
46:38 Because I have this inherent intuition that we are limited as humans. What would you say on that? Really wonder?
46:47 Brian Rose: So are the psychedelics, are we limited because of our brains?
46:53 Audience member: Yeah, so we’re not really getting, we may be getting just glimpses of these experiences, but because as humans, we are limited in our brain capacity, maybe these psychedelics, we’re not really getting into full depth.
47:11 Brian Rose: I think the question is, could there be more happening with the psychedelics that we only pick up a certain amount because our brain is limited?
47:23 Audience member: Yes, correct.
47:25 Dennis McKenna: Well, I’m not sure how you answer that. I mean, our brains are limited.
47:31 Brian Rose: We talked about this on the show this morning, and Dennis said one thing.
47:37 He said a few things, a lot of really good things, but he said drugs inherently aren’t bad or good, and the drugs itself don’t do anything. It’s the drugs interacting with the human and the biology that creates something. In your mind, the biology experiences, other people agree it’s an entity. I think you don’t think that it’s an entity, although I know your thinking has changed on that. Maybe we could talk about that, because we talk about this mother ayahuasca, although you don’t hear us talk about that in the movie, because you have different language.
48:07 You think it’s the knowledge inside of you.
48:11 Dennis McKenna: Yeah, I think it’s this dynamic interaction between you and the medicine, and it doesn’t happen without that interaction, and I think today we were talking about how, in the discussion of how there’s no such thing as a good or bad drug, the good or the bad comes from human behavior. There’s nothing, I mean, good and evil is something that proceeds from our human hearts, and psychedelics are just a technology that can be used or misused like any other technology.
48:48 There is, in thinking about this, a tendency to project onto the drug a power that it doesn’t really have, and it’s natural. You can say ayahuasca told me, or I learned from the mushrooms, or we’re commonly used this kind of phraseology without thinking too much about it, because we perceive it as some external teacher or whatever.
49:15 Brian Rose: Well, you do learn from it. You do learn from it.
49:19 Dennis McKenna: Well, I think what they really do is they open doorways within yourself so that you can learn what you already know.
49:29 You just didn’t know you knew it. That’s kind of where my thinking has gone with it, that they are, they’re catalysts for you to learn from yourself. It’s all really coming from yourself, you know, what you can learn, and is it coming from outside? Outside, are there entities out there that are transmitting this wisdom? Well, maybe, maybe not, but you have to, you know, we use these words so carelessly we don’t think about it.
50:04 You know, like the entity that you encounter on DMT, for example, the tendency is to think, well, it’s out there. Well, what do you mean by out there, you know, when you consider there really is no inside or outside and, you know, it all gets very philosophically complicated to think about these things because, you know, we’re living in this reality hallucination that we create. Every iota of experience is a reflection on some level of your psychochemical brain state, you know.
50:47 So anything you experience is real because you experience it. It’s something that it’s real. Does it have objective reality? Well, that’s where the argument starts. You know, I think a famous UFO expert, J. Allen Hynek once said, and this stuck with me, he was an expert on UFOs.
51:12 He says, I don’t know if UFOs are real, but I know 100% that UFO experiences are real, and that’s of important distinction. So I think when it comes to the, you know, the source of these insights and so on, people like to say, well, she taught me, Madre Ayahuasca taught me, or the DMT entities. You know, the question is not what the source was. The question is, was it good information? And it really doesn’t matter where it came from.
51:47 If it’s good information, accept it for what it is.
51:50 Brian Rose: Amen. All right, we’re going to take one more question, and we’re going to wrap this up. We will be outside, and I’m going to get you home to bed at some point. So go ahead, yes, sir, you there.
52:02 Brian Rose: Give that man a mic. If you could stand up, please.
52:06 Audience member: Awesome. So my question is based around our own consciousness. So I feel like within the community now of psychedelics and the spiritual community that we’re starting to look to the plant medicines as help.
52:23 Now they are, because I do believe we’re in a virus. They’re like an antivirus. But do we need to be careful that our own illusions are clouding our perception of where we’re going? So we need to make sure that we’re putting foundation work in every single day and not just relying on ceremonies that are coming around every so often because we may go to an ayahuasca ceremony not fully knowing ourselves. So do you think it’s important to set some foundations in place every day trying to sort of let go of them illusions before we go to an ayahuasca ceremony?
53:03 Brian Rose: So I think it was a little similar to the question before of you’re saying how to prepare for that ayahuasca ceremony.
53:10 Audience member: Yeah, not setting the foundations in place is more important.
53:13 Brian Rose: Is there kind of work or foundation work or maybe meditation work you need to do before you go into the ceremony?
53:20 Dennis McKenna: Oh, yeah. I mean, all that’s helpful.
53:22 I think rather than say, oh, you must meditate before it. I think the important thing is that you approach it thoughtfully, you know, and you can educate yourself about what to expect. You know, you can go to sources like arrowwood.org, which is a wonderful online resource for information about psychoactive drugs of every conceivable kind. But their sections on psychedelics are very informative. They have a lot of good information.
53:54 I would say take time to read the trip reports, read whatever you want to, but don’t, that’s all useful. But don’t, you know, set expectations. Give yourself the permission to have your own unique experience. Don’t expect, well, my experience was not like this guy. I read about an arrowwood.
54:18 So mine is not valid. Your experience is totally valid for you. Yeah. You know, and that’s the important thing to remember. Again, that goes back to ayahuasca.
54:28 It gives you what you need, not what you want. And whatever it gives you is a gift. You can accept it. And I think it’s important to anticipate and prepare for the experience. More important is what happens after the experience.
54:51 You know, the real work begins, as Brian so well illustrated, you know, your work began after you came home. You know, the real work, your insights happened on the plane back to London, you know. And then I was very moved by that part of the movie where it was about your family. It was about these realizations, about the importance of your family, you know. And that’s really, you know, I don’t know.
55:26 Having those relationships is very important. That’s the beginning of the end of isolation. And because we’re such an isolated, we’re so isolated from each other in this society, our families, our kids become even more important, you know. And your family is wonderful. So, and you know that.
55:51 Brian Rose: Thank you, Dennis. I’m going to wrap this up. I just do want to say Dennis has recently opened his McKenna Academy, and you can actually go there. You can go to McKenna.academy to learn more about it. Sign up for his list.
56:08 He’s also going to be doing all sorts of amazing things in the future, retreats, education programs, everything. And we’ll be talking more about that on London Real. Also, we did an episode this morning, two hours, and he’s the best he’s ever been. I kid you not. And that’ll be out soon.
56:23 It’s probably on Facebook right now. And we also did an episode a few years ago. Also, what we plan on doing is releasing all the supplemental content around this film. And there is so much. So, full interviews with all the Sultara staff, full interview of me and Dennis walking through Hampstead Heath.
56:42 That was like three hours, actually. Just everything. And everything related. All the Sadguru stuff. Every guest that was there in this kind of a map.
56:51 So that’s going to probably be out probably in the next couple months as the team takes a break first and then gets back into that. Yeah. And definitely want to give a shout out to Dan and Melissa who created and run Sultara. In the back. There they are.
57:06 Stand up. Stand up again. Yeah. Yeah. So, they do an amazing job.
57:14 Dennis McKenna: Obviously, you can see the place there. It’s absolutely beautiful, but it’s more than that because their integration is really top notch.
57:23 Brian Rose: Yes. And that hero’s journal, it’s so powerful. Thank you for creating a vessel where these transformations can take place.
57:31 Dennis McKenna: Yeah. They’re really incredible down there and some really special people. And a lot of people have spent time there.
57:41 Brian Rose: Dennis goes back regularly. Dorian Yates goes back there a lot.
57:47 And it’s a really special place and you guys can all go find out more information and you have some information as well. And if you’re ever wondering what the big glass is that the shaman has, that one’s for Melissa, I hear. Is that so? I hear she’s like the big glass down because I was like… Is she resistant?
58:03 Dennis McKenna: I mean, when I saw that glass, I was like, are you joking? It was like… Oh yeah, you know.
58:08 Brian Rose: So, but yeah, they’re around if you want to have a conversation with them. But look, I really appreciate everybody coming tonight.
58:16 I appreciate everybody staying for the Q&A. The truth is there’s a lot of resources out there. If you have questions, pull the string and see where it takes you. I was talking with Dennis this morning and the very first time I heard the ayahuasca word was on a Joe Rokin episode maybe 10 years ago. And it took me 18 months to finally have my first ceremony and that was probably correct.
58:36 I was learning about it. Yeah. I was exploring and it was because I was interested and no one was trying to push me to do it.
58:43 Dennis McKenna: Yeah, you don’t have to do it on a deadline. You have to do it at the pace that is comfortable for you.
58:49 Yeah. It’s better to take your time and be more informed about it. There’s no rush for an individual. I mean, there’s a rush for us as a species to bring the medicine to as many people as we can. But people need to take time to come at it in their own way.
59:09 I mean, that’s one of the things about ayahuasca and these other things. They relate to us on a species level and they relate to us on an individual level, you know. So each person’s encounter with these medicines is uniquely theirs, you know. I think that’s important to acknowledge. Yeah.
59:30 Brian Rose: Very powerful. Dennis, we are very lucky to have you here. Thank you so much for traveling the world and giving these messages out and putting up with our nonsense of putting cameras in your face. We really appreciate it. It’s been a real honor being a part of this with you.
59:45 So thank you so much. I feel very honored. Give it up for this man.
59:49 Dennis McKenna: Thank you, Brian. Thank you.
59:50 Dennis McKenna: Give me a hug. Yeah.
1:00:00 Brian Rose: Thanks so much. Thank you so much, Dennis.
