Taylor Marie - Psychonaut

Full transcript: Taylor Marie on London Real

8:31 US or at Xbrain here in the UK. Now, down to business. Our guest today is Miss Taylor Marie. She is a self-described psychonaut who’s posted lots of videos on YouTube about her experiences with ayahuasca, DMT and the Big Daddy ibogaine, which I have no experience with. You’re moving to Peru in a matter of days with your partner.

8:51 You’re going to open up your own alternative Healing Center. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to London Real. Thank you. Yeah, I’m really excited to be here.

8:58 Is it true this is your first time in London? Well, I drove through London once, but I’ve never actually gotten out of the car, so technically yes, it’s my first time stepping foot. Okay, and how now, and you’re coming from North Wales, right? Yes. Now, if you had to describe to an American or a Canadian the difference between, say, North Wales and London, like what would be the GE geographies, you know?

9:19 North Wales, it’s like I tell everyone, it’s like fairy tale land, you know? There’s like all these, like, rolling hills and beautiful scenery. And I noticed, you know, as soon as you get into England it’s just a flat, and the, yeah, the city I mean, it’s obviously city. I mean, it’s, I don’t know. Yeah, England’s terribly flat.

9:37 What I used to I used to fly helicopters. I was trying to get my helicopter pilot’s license, and I used to fly right outside just under Heathrow airspace, and when you get, I got lost once alone in a helicopter. That’s really not a good feeling. Like really not a good feeling. I was singing to myself.

9:54 I think like a third-year, think third grader I was like, I wish they all could be California girls. But the thing is, there’s no topography, so there’s no mountains, there’s no rivers, and so when you get lost, like, you can’t see anything. You can see train tracks and maybe a few highways, but people in England forget what hills are. So I will go to Wales I’ve never been there in 12 years. I know I’m going to get a lot of Welsh hate, that I haven’t been there, but if you guys have any suggestions of where I should go for my first mountain visit in Wales, please hit me up.

10:23 And you too, as well. Yeah, okay. I want to hear about you, your journey. It’s really weird I, when I hear people’s names, like your name, from like different sources, is when I finally think they should come on the show. It’s really weird, and I’m really weird how I choose people, and a few different people had mentioned your name over the last few months, and I checked you out, and I really liked your point of view.

10:44 Your videos, you seem to be thinking a lot about what you’re talking about. You tweeted out something the other day that you said, you know, I think you said that you know something about psychedelics being trendy, and how you didn’t really know if those were working together. I want to ask you more about that, but how did you come on this journey? I think you had an ayahuasca experience a little while ago. What happened, and what was Taylor Marie like before that happened?

11:08 Well, I was on the path to becoming an actress, actually, for film and television. I, that was like my thing. I wanted to do it. I wanted to, like, get into Hollywood, that kind of thing. Wow.

11:20 I’m from Toronto area, Brampton, but yeah, I heard about ayahuasca on one of Joe Rogan’s podcasts. This was August of 2011. Me too. And as soon as I heard the word ayahuasca, I was just immediately hooked. I was like, what is that?

11:39 So I immediately, you know, went online, started researching it, and I just knew right away that one day I didn’t know when I would go to the jungle and try it for myself. And you had no other psychedelic experiences before this? When I was 15, I did LSD. It wasn’t very good, but, you know, and I’ve tried other things as well, experimented in high school, but not really with psychedelics. Okay.

12:01 So do you think a 15-year-old can process what LSD does to their head? We’ll talk about that later. Yeah, so Rogan planted the seed. Was it Aubrey Marcus that talked about it? It was.

12:11 Okay, yeah. Me too, me too. It took me, I think, 18 months from when Aubrey talked about it to where I had my first experience. So goddamn Aubrey. I wonder how many thousands of people tried ayahuasca because of him?

12:23 So probably lots. Yeah. So months later you were in the jungles? Literally two months after I heard about it. I got an offer to go to Ecuador for free.

12:33 It was out of the blue, completely random. Nobody even knew that I wanted to go to Ecuador, so that was, you know, manifestation at its finest, I think. So I went in December for 18 days, spent 5 days in the jungle, did two ayahuasca ceremonies, and when I went home, just a couple weeks, you know, after coming home, I had this huge, like, epiphany in my living room, and I was alone, no one there to talk to. So I kind of just turned my laptop on, turned the webcam on and started recording.

13:03 And that’s my first YouTube video. When was this? This was February, the beginning of February 2012. Okay, all right, almost two years ago. Yeah, okay.

13:13 And so yeah, that video that I posted is like the moment where I decided that I didn’t want to act anymore, and that I needed. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do. I thought I would, you know, go back to apprentice and be a shaman. You know, things have obviously changed a bit, but yeah, I just decided right then and there that I would go back to the jungle. Okay, and did you go back?

13:36 I did, in May. Okay. Again, things sort of just happened. Bunch of synchronicities. I met people, the right people, and ended up going to Peru for a month.

13:47 I don’t remember how many ceremonies I did in that month, but quite a few. And then after that I went home again, recorded another video, and that’s just kind of how my video thing started rolling. Okay. How old are you? I’m 23.

14:05 So you’re 23, so you were 22 when you first went down there? 21, yeah, okay. I mean, I know you’re going to be opening the center down here, and a lot of people ask me all the time where they should go, and they’re not, they’re worried about, you know, the safety, and they’re worried about the ayahuasca tourism that’s that started. Were you ever worried, you know, as a, you know, young female, about your safety? Did you go with people or in Ecuador?

14:29 I went with my roommate, who’s another female, and her friend, who’s a male. So I did feel there were times where I was kind of nervous, ’cause me and Danny, my roommate, we had to be alone for quite a bit until we got with, met up with our other friend, so there were times where you know, I felt a bit sketchy, but as long as you, you know, stay smart, you keep your belongings on you, you’re fine. And what did your family say and your friends say before and after?

14:59 ‘Cause this is always interesting, ’cause I had my own experiences with this. My dad threatened to stop me at the airport with police. Go damn, so he was not happy on the way there. Well, before, like days before I was going to go, he was like, you can’t do this, I’m going to call the police. I’m like, Dad, I’m 21, you can’t really do that, but yeah, he wasn’t very happy.

15:20 My mom was kind of on the fence about it. She was excited that you know, she likes that I’m adventurous and stuff, and she wants me to go get out there, but at the same time, you know, her motherly instincts were kicking in. But she’s always been more open to what I’m doing than my dad. The rest of my family are just kind of like, okay. And when you got back, what was how was the relationships after that?

15:44 They didn’t really change that much. They have now, but yeah, when I first got back from the jungle, they were kind of just relieved, I guess, that I came home safe. They weren’t really that interested in anything that I had to say, but you know, it kind of, it changed over time. It’s interesting what happened, ’cause when I was going to do it, we did it on the show, and so We started London Real in October 2011, and then we went and did it in March, and so, like, two or 3 months out, my girlfriend was like, not very happy about it, and then like a week before it was just like all this resistance, resistance, resistance.

16:18 And then after I got back, they were like, wow, you know, you’re so much nicer than you used to be, and I was like, wait a second, I’m always nice. And then like 3 months later, I remember an argument, and they were like, you haven’t changed, you know. And a few people have told me they they’ve had that experience as well, where people are hesitant and then they’re relieved, and then they’re like, you’re just back to the same old douchebag again. Do, do you have, do you see any of that cycle and reactions you get from people?

16:44 Well, I mean, I don’t know. It’s kind of hard. Like, I’ve seen, you know, the changes in myself kind of do this, because when you’re in the jungle and you’re in that kind of lifestyle, you do strip off a lot of, I don’t even know how to word it, a lot of baggage and crap. And then when you come back into, like, this kind of society, like a city, it kind of builds up again over time, and I don’t know, it’s, I don’t even remember your question. I forgot it as well, but no, it’s funny ’cause you come out of one of those ceremonies and you know you’ve seen the light, you’ve seen the errors of your ways.

17:27 You make all these changes you’re going to make. I equate it to almost dying in a plane accident and when you’re going down, and you’re going down, and you’re about to hit the ground, and you’re thinking that you want to hug your kids and tell your best friend that you really love them and apologize for that, and then you get home and you’re this changed person, and then like a couple weeks later you’re back to your same habits, the same tension, and you kind of fit back into what you were doing before, but you’re a little different. And then I would I would argue, and I don’t know if you would say each subsequent ceremony maybe gets you kind of to a better place.

17:58 It does. I mean, it does build up, and you do have to do some work after you do the ceremonies. You can’t just kind of do it and then go, like, just put it to the side and think that it’s going to do all the work for you behind the scenes. It really is something that you need to keep on top of. How do you do that?

18:14 ‘Cause, because I really want to know how you do that. Do you have to write down a list of things you’re going to change? I don’t, you know, I, I’ll be honest and say that I haven’t really kept on top of it as much as I would have liked. Okay. And I’ve also been, you know, dabbling in other things as well, so the ayahuasca focus has kind of died off a bit which I do want to, you know, fully get back into once I’m in Peru.

18:41 But yeah, I’m, I think you know, a lot of people say meditation helps. I’m not really one for meditation. I kind of have weird I don’t know. I’m just, I’m a bit weird about it, as in what it’s very difficult to do or try to keep your mind quiet. Well, it’s kind of been ruined for me a little bit from the whole spiritual, like hippie, kind of fake.

19:05 Do you know what I’m trying to? I think I know what you’re talking about. So everyone’s meditating now and everyone’s telling, trend, kind of thing, and I know that it’s kind of silly of me to to not do it because of this silly trend, but because it has been being used for many thousands of years. Yeah, yeah. But it’s just something that I have to get over in myself.

19:26 Okay, you don’t want to be another medic meditator basic. Like, I don’t want to be a meditator. Okay. Meditation takes a lot of discipline, you know. I I used to be twice a day, back to once a day now, but it’s, like, harder than you think.

19:39 It’s easy to blow off. It’s the first thing that goes, you know, when you get to crunch time and you have things to do. The silly thing is my very first time meditating. I had an out-of-body experience, and I don’t know why that didn’t kind of keep me on it. Do you know what I mean?

19:56 It’s very backwards in my brain, but okay. So ayahuasca was February and May last year. You know, where did you go from there when it comes to kind of the psychonautic journey? Did you want to continue to explore things, or had you kind of had enough of that? No, I definitely wanted to explore more.

20:14 When I came back from Peru for, yeah, after May, the month I spent in May, came back home and was very much, I was very restless when I got back home. I wanted to, you know, go again, and I decided to, you know, keep making my videos, and I had a lot of attention from them, and people were asking me to take them on retreats, and so I had enough people asking me that I kind of just started to organize retreats, and so I organized my first retreat for October of that, of 2012, and, you know, I booked my tickets and I went down and I did this retreat, and it was awesome, and I ended up staying in Peru for 6 months. I did two or three retreats, I think, and the rest of the time I just explored and did whatever.

21:04 Wow, what’s that like? What’s Peru like to live there, not just to go away for a retreat? It’s awesome. I mean, it’s very, very different from anywhere else I’ve been. Well, Iquitos especially, it’s very, I don’t even really know how, it’s almost like you know when you try to describe a psychedelic trip and you can’t really find the words for it?

21:27 That’s what go to Iquitos is like for me. There’s so many different kinds of people there, and a lot of people are, you know, there for the real ayahuasca thing, and then there’s, you know, the other group, which are kind of the ayahuasca tourists, who kind of just don’t really, they kind of stay on the surface of what ayahuasca is, whereas, you know, the other route kind of dives in deeper. let me ask you about something really quickly, ’cause ayahuasca tourism has become really big. I I know you’ve come out and said this isn’t like going to Disneyland.

21:56 You don’t just hit the ayahuasca on your St too, you know, Machu Picchu and all that stuff. And, you know, I’ve done my three ayahuasca ceremonies right here in London, perhaps in this room. And so once you drink the brew, and, as a human, does it matter where you are, whether you’re a tourist or whether you’re in for the real deal, or whether I’m here in London? I mean, aren’t those experiences always going to be intense and on their own? Sorry, say that one more time.

22:23 I mean it’s opposed to, if someone goes down there with the mindset of, I’m just going to go through Peru, and I’m going to drink ayahuasca, as opposed to someone who goes down and says this is going to be a submersive experience where I’m going to go in wholeheartedly, and this is my, you know, one mission for two weeks, or I don’t even go to the jungle and I do it here in London. Ultimately, once you ingest this, you know, psychoactive substance, aren’t you really going to all have a very similar experience? No.

22:47 Okay, good answer. Tell me what. No, there have been times where you know I’ve drunk, I’ve had the brew, and I won’t even have any visions or any experience at all. I’ll just sit there and you know, kind of, I’m just left to kind of think, well, what the heck happened, even after a second cup I’ve heard of that before. You think that’s a mental block?

23:05 I, you know, a lot of people say it’s the spirit of the plant, not, you know, giving you the experience because of, either, you didn’t go in with the right intentions or it’s just not your day for ceremony. I, I personally, I do believe that it could be a mental block as well. I found that, you know, when I didn’t have the experiences that I wanted, it was because I wanted so bad to have big experiences, right? And so, you know, it was kind of opposite. I’ve definitely found that where I’m like, I’m going to go in for a big one and I’m going to sort this problem out in my life, and it’s like, no, no, no, we’re going to go on a different little trip today.

23:49 Yeah, it’s probably not where you want to go. So I’ve definitely found some of that, but okay, all right, so you think, I mean, obviously the big thing about ayahuasca is the diet, and then the intentions, and you have to be really serious about it. And I had a couple friends of mine that went in for the ceremony, and I remember one gentleman who I was like, this diet is serious, man. I mean, like, you’ve got to take it seriously, and he was like, you know, I got a big bachelor weekend the weekend before I’m going to go, and I was like, dude that’s really disrespectful to the ayahuasca, and I’m not even that spiritual guy, or maybe I am.

24:17 I was like, that’s not cool, and I do think it’s very important to go in very mentally focused and to take that seriously, to show that you’re ready to go in, right? Do you have different, you know, the diet thing? I don’t personally do anymore I did. Here’s why I don’t. When I spent my month in Peru, I, you know, I did, I did the diet every single day for the whole month.

24:42 And I actually started it beforehand, I think it was 2 weeks before I left. So, you know, no salt, no sugar, no spices, no fats, no oils. It was very bland and really hard. It is very, very diff. No caffeine, no alcohol, no nothing.

24:57 Yeah, it’s really hard. Yeah, and I found that it was very hard to focus in ceremony because I was always thinking about my stomach. I was always hungry. I was very weak, very tired. I would have visions of food in ceremony, so it was very It just took away all my focus on what I really wanted to focus on.

25:18 I also lost a lot of weight. Yeah. I was already underweight to begin with, so losing more weight was just not good. I think I went back home about 96 lbs, which is just not healthy at all. Right.

25:30 And so when I did go back to Peru in October, and I didn’t, you know, I did the diet again for a while, and then just decided that I couldn’t. And when I, you know, I found that when I just ate normally my visions were a lot stronger, vivid. I could focus. You know, I wasn’t gurgling. My stomach wasn’t gurgling in ceremony, and it was a lot, you know, it was a lot better for me.

25:56 What’s normally for you? I mean, are you going back to, like, you know, McDonald’s or what’s normal? ‘Cause you might already have a fairly clean diet and you don’t know it, right? No. My diet’s not very clean, to be honest.

26:05 I had McDonald’s before I came here. Jesus. Yeah, how Did you? It was only a WAP, but anyway. No, I mean, I didn’t stuff my face with like junk food and stuff.

26:17 Oops. It’s good sound. I’m, it’s interesting, because we had Dan Hardy in here, who’s a UFC fighter, and he had a few questions about the diet as well, and now that I’ve done it three times and I’ve also had some ibogaine experiences where I fast only that day, and, and I think the thing is with the ayahuasca diet, it’s probably been passed down for thousands of years, right? And it’s kind of like this old wives’ tale, like don’t do this, you know, and you really wonder the science behind some of this stuff.

26:42 Like, I get some of it I get, like, the sugar and the gluten and maybe some crazy spices, but, like, I don’t get other things that probably are still going to be all right. And everyone who goes down to an ayahuasca ceremony loses massive amounts of weight like, if you’re doing the ayahuasca ceremonies and doing the diet, then it’s not sustainable. You will probably starve, right? Yeah. Well I’ve actually asked a few shamans about the diet, and they really don’t know anything about it.

27:09 It’s what I’ve heard is that it was brought in by Westerners. Interesting. What it is, really, is, you know, traditionally in the jungle they don’t eat the kind of things that we do. You know, they don’t have access to it, you know. They have rice, they’ve got fish, you know, yuca, just plain simple things, not because it wasn’t meant to be eaten before ayahuasca.

27:31 It was just because there wasn’t any access to it, so when the Westerners came in they sort of took that on and made it a diet sort of thing. But I mean, there are certain foods that do need to be avoided because of the reaction that they have with the, I think it’s with the MAOIs. Okay, like what there’s cheese, there’s red meat, red wine, or alcohol in general, really, chocolate. What else was there? I don’t remember the other ones.

28:00 Okay, so when you go on your retreats and you take people down, you kind of give them that advice? Do you say do the diet, or do you tell people the first time to do a diet or do you just kind of say avoid these foods? Well, when I was doing the retreats, I did follow, tell them to follow the diet because it was the center’s rules anyway. I mean, they didn’t have food other than what was allowed on the diet anyway. But when people come to my center that I’ll be starting, it’s up to them okay.

28:27 I think there’s some kind of discipline in the diet that’s good too. I think, especially for first-timers, where it’s like, okay, if you want to do this, you have to kind of sacrifice something to show yourself that you’re ready to take this, because so many people in this crazy city will be happy to take any pill or any liquid if it’s going to potentially make their life better. So it’s like you have to make a sacrifice, and a lot of people find a week’s diet to be a pretty heavy sacrifice.

28:50 So sometimes, and also the other thing I wrote in my first and only blog about ayahuasca is that since you’re thinking about food and drink probably every few minutes in your life, then you think about your ayahuasca ceremony like every minute of the day for a week, and I think it’s built in as a mental preparation process. That’s my theory. So, but, you know, if I would go back again, I think I would do a heavy diet. Not my first one was 10 days, and then my first one was eight days.

29:15 I would probably just eat intelligently and then do something for three or four days, you know, and I think my last ceremony I did that you know. So all right, so all right. So that’s the ayahuasca. What, where did you go next? You, I know you’ve had some experiences with DMT and ibogaine.

29:28 I don’t know if you’ve had any psilocybin experiences, or what was like your, your process after that? Well, I tried mushrooms the first time, before. When was it? I think it was in March of 2012, so before I went to Peru again, and that was a huge one. It was really intense Do you know how much you did?

29:50 Well, my boyfriend at the time made a tea he put seven grams in the tea and then we split it between us. Okay. And it was very, very dark and I had an ego death on that one. Okay. Was, do you think it was too much?

30:10 No. Okay, so Terence McKenna, for any newbies out there, has always said take, take large doses infrequently. That’s what he always says to do. He says to do in your, in your flat alone in the dark on, like, a weekend where you take your phones off the receiver, back in the day. So, actually, my two experiences were exactly what you said, 3.58 g, 3.52 g in a tea that hits you really fast.

30:33 I mean, I could feel mine in about 20 22 minutes or something. It was just like really intense. I could say more powerful than some of my ayahuasca experiences but I always wonder about what five grams would do. I mean, do you think there’s a difference when you get up to those levels? Definitely.

30:49 Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how much I’ve done. I don’t think I’ve gotten around to five grams, but yeah, I’m sure there’s definitely a huge difference in the experience between three and a half and five. Yeah, jeez. I don’t know.

31:01 I don’t know where that would be. What, what did you find different about your psilocybin an experience as opposed to your ayahuasca? Well, the energy is just completely different. You know, there’s a spirit involved with ayahuasca, which I always feel, and sort of almost like a motherly kind of vibe with it. You do feel that.

31:19 Okay. Yeah. But it’s, it’s all, it’s a very tough love vibe as well, where psilocybin, I don’t know if I have really felt any sort of, like, spiritual. Well, no, it is very spiritual for me, but I mean, in the terms of, like, spirits being present. Yeah, I don’t know.

31:39 I haven’t had enough experience with psilocybin to really judge, say, yet. Yeah. How many psilocybin experiences have you had? Well, I’ve had two, no, three, with cubensis, and I just had my first few liberty cap experiences that I went picking. I went picking in the mountains.

31:59 And, okay, did those, was that noticeably different? Yeah. The cubensis, for me, I enjoy them more. The liberty caps have a very dark tone to them for me. Okay.

32:11 You mentioned ego death. For people that don’t know, can you explain what that means? Well, yeah, basically, it’s when you kind of lose your self. You know, your personality, your, sometimes you even forget your name or who you are. It’s just your pure spirit you know.

32:29 You have no judgments or opinions, or you’re just one with everything, in yourself, and not questioning everything and judging everything and putting it through your mental filter. Yeah, and for people that have never had any of these experiences that say to you, Taylor, why would you ever do this to yourself? What do you tell them Well, you know, I’ve always been interested in these kinds of, you know, I’ve always been interested in the mind ever since I was a kid, and I love exploring.

32:57 I love traveling. You know, I just started traveling the world and as well as, you know, the other worlds around us, and it’s almost, you know, I compare it to extreme sports. Like, why do people do the crazy things they do? You know, crazy kayaking and stuff like that. It’s, it’s the same to me, it’s, you know, it’s not, well, it’s not just a sport either.

33:17 It’s, I do it for fun, and I also do it for personal growth, spiritual growth, just, you know, exploration. And do you get restless if you’ve gone, like, certain number of months and you haven’t had, like, a heavy psychedelic experience, do you feel like you need to kind of remind yourself what’s important or get your brain to back to a core level at all? No I don’t get restless at all between trips. I mean, I don’t, it’s not something that I like need to do all the time, or, you know, I’m not dependent on it.

33:49 Cuz even without psychedelics I tend to go off on my own, you know, in my own mind, and I’m always, you know, thinking about everything. Okay, I just, I do, to be quite honest with you, and I noticed, like, in myself, if like just basic things, like if I’m getting upset at the line at the, you know, at the grocery store I’m just like, what’s wrong with you? You know, because after my ayahuasca experience I’m not, and I’m appreciating all these wonderful things around me, but I find if I get to a point where I’m just getting short with people or getting you know, you know, not happy about this.

34:22 I’m like, you know, maybe it’s time I should go back in and remind myself of what’s important in my life or go in and maybe battle some of my own little demons, because and I don’t know. Maybe I’m projecting too much on the psychedelic substances, but I find I need to do that. Yeah. well, it’s actually interesting you say that, because a lot of the times when I do get to that point like you were saying, you know, like I, that I’m noticing, that I’m, you know, getting restless or not restless, but you know, judging people or just doing things that I had previously kind of gotten rid of with psychedelics.

34:54 The psychedelics just kind of find me at the right time, do you know what I mean? It’s not like I go out and search for them to kind of fix that problem. It just kind of happens on its own. Okay, interesting. I had a filmmaker here named Alexander Ward.

35:07 We had him here like a year ago. Originally he did some ayahuasca film making, and then him and I did a big episode on DMT, and it’s funny as I look back on it now, I was like, I haven’t done ayahuasca this year, and then if I go back through it’s like, wait a second you did DMT 4 months later, and then you did psilocybin and 3 months and 3 months, and it’s, it is like I find some way to kind of cleanse this spirit. Then at the same time, like, I don’t, I really worry about people that are always trying to get back to the ayahuasca, and I don’t know if you’ve met people like this, or maybe it’s not even our place to judge, but I think there’s also some people that really want to always be in that other sphere.

35:44 What do you think about that? Well, I mean, it’s not good. Well, okay, for me anyway, I don’t think I would. I don’t think it would be very good to be in that space all the time, because, you know, we live in this reality. You need to ground yourself, and I’ve actually had a personal experience with tripping too much in too short of amount of time, where I felt like my, like, both worlds were sort of mushing together.

36:14 Okay, what, like, back-to-back experiences over days, that kind of thing? Well, no, not that close, but I mean close enough. Okay. That I started to kind of question this reality, you know, not really sure if I was dreaming sometimes, or I think you definitely need to space out trips and ground yourself between them, and not just go on a trip because it’s available or anything like that. You just make sure that you’re ready, or I need to make sure that I’m ready before my next trip anyway.

36:45 Okay, is this reality that we’re in right now? No, what is it? No, I’m just all right, and what I just want to go back to the ayahuasca tourism a little bit. it’s funny when we first did our first show, I used to work in banking for like 10 years, and before the ayahuasca show I was like, okay, this is you never getting a job again in banking again, because now you’re going to publicly come out and say you did this psychedelic, and if you ever want to go back, you’re going to have to be approved by the Financial Services Authority, blah blah blah blah, and then the more that I get to know it, I’m like, you know, every housewife in Notting Hill is probably doing this, and so like, has ayahuasca become trendy now?

37:23 Has it become where like this is the thing to do? Also, since ayahuasca is a bit more novel than like LSD, which has so many stigmas, and mushrooms are the magic mushrooms, and now ayahuasca is new to a lot of people. Do you find that a lot of people are going to that as kind of, I don’t know, the solution to their problems? That’s a lot of questions I just asked you. Well, I see it two ways.

37:47 I’m really glad that ayahuasca is getting out to a lot of people. I feel like it’s sort of like ayahuasca is a vine, right? And the way vines work, you know, grow, is, you know, they grow and they spread over huge amounts of distance or whatever. So I feel like that’s kind of what the vine is doing through people, and connecting people all around the world. There are a lot of people who genuinely want to go and work with the medicine to change themselves, or to, you know, to heal.

38:20 And then, you know, I think there’s also people who just want to go and do it for the novelty. I mean, I don’t know if that’s necessarily a bad thing, because I’m sure, I mean, I don’t know. Ayahuasca will find people who are ready to take it when they’re ready to take it. I don’t know where I got, see what you mean. I think I see what you mean.

38:51 It’s like, and I see what you’re saying, but I think I guess people taking ayahuasca can never hurt the situation. Like, I think it could help anyone no matter what their motivations are. Yeah. I mean, eventually it would, sort of, even if they’re drinking it just to trip their heads off or whatever. I think eventually, down the line, you know, it does plant a seed, and they will sort of have a realization and kind of take it more seriously.

39:15 Or, yeah, I mean, I think any kind of ego crushing or empathy building psychedelic can just in long-term help people, but it’s definitely interesting if you’re not mentally ready for it. I went to an stem like six or seven years ago, before anything about this stuff, and of course ingested some mushrooms and had a horrible time, cuz I didn’t know what was going on, and my ego was definitely not ready to be messed with, and I didn’t get a lot out of it, cuz I didn’t know what it was doing. I didn’t know, I’m sure it changed me in some way, but now when I go in I’m like, okay, here we go.

39:43 We kind of know what we’re getting into. We know to listen. We know to not fight it, and that kind of thing, and so I think I’m getting a little more out of it. I’ve been doing psilocybin the last couple times. I haven’t touched ayahuasca now in a year, and I definitely agree, is a different energy there.

39:55 I think I was looking from mother ayahuasca my first ayahuasca experience, and I was hoping she was going to be there, and she wasn’t there, but there was some other kind of entity there, but it wasn’t as motherly. It was still a lot of big lessons, and some big stuff happening, but it was definitely different, and I found that the ayahuasca effects lasted longer, you know, I found, like, six weeks later I’m still having introspective moments. The psilocybin and I must say, like, even a couple weeks later I was trying to remember what it taught me, and I was like, what didn’t I have to do?

40:24 Something didn’t have to change my life, as opposed to I was actually like affecting that change, right? Actually, what I found interesting, just in the last few weeks is, I did psilocybin after a DMT experience, and the psilocybin actually acted as a tool to help me remember a lot of my DMT, and sort of it helped me to see it from different perspectives. And yeah, so I think s happen would be really good to do after your ayahuasca experiences to kind of help bring in, you know, memories from it or realizations, things like that.

40:58 For me anyway, I don’t know if that would work for everybody. Or Alexander Ward said when he smoked his DMT he went right in. Back to the middle of his ayahuasca session, he had had like eight months earlier, like just right back to the same kind visions. So yeah, and I had similar things, you know, I some maternal figures and stuff, you know, with my DMT. Let’s talk about ibogaine quickly.

41:21 Not quickly, but let’s talk about it. It’s something that, it’s funny enough, it’s legal in this country, isn’t it? Because it’s not on the United Nations, you know, Class A drug list that DMT is, which is part of ayahuasca. It’s West African. You can probably tell me a bit more about it.

41:37 You’ve had some experiences, it. What was it like? It’s pretty scary. It scares me. It’s actually not as scary as I’ve read about, you know.

41:46 I found it very calming. When did you try it, and what were the circumstances, and why? When was it? It wasn’t too long ago, maybe, a month and a half, two months ago Okay. I tried it because it was offered, not just because it was offered to me, but, you know, I had been thinking about doing it for quite a while, and there were a few things that I wanted to kind of sort out in my head, you know, dealing with fears and stuff.

42:17 And I was told that the ibogaine would be really good for that. And I also tried it because it’s just one of those things that I really want to do in my life. It’s on the list, right? Yeah, it was on the list. So, yeah, I did it at a friend’s house in Wales.

42:33 It was just me and my partner doing it. Is it powder that you drink, or was it in capsules? So it was the ibogaine plus the actual ground-up iboga root in capsules, so we did like half and half, kind of thing. Okay. And was it a big dose you took?

42:52 Did you know how much to take? Well, the guy who was giving it to us, a friend of mine. He’s been administering it, and he was kind of dosing it out. I don’t remember the exact dose I had. I think I wrote it on my YouTube video where I talk about it, but it was a pretty average dose.

43:13 Okay. And it was just absolutely, it’s a stunning trip. It’s not very psychedelic, like, you know, how most psychedelic trips have kind of like colors and waves and stuff, and patterns. This was more of like HDTV pictures kind of showing up in your head. It took me straight to Africa.

43:36 That’s crazy. Yeah, I was seeing, you know, all these tribes people, you know, and they were coming in to look at my face, and they’re really interested in who I was. And what if you never knew iboga came from Africa? Do you think you’d have those same visions? I don’t know.

43:50 Okay, I think I would, to be honest, cuz it’s just, it was so much a part of it, but, yeah, to be honest I don’t remember a lot of the experience. It’s very long. I think it was about 24 hours, that we were long, yeah, and it was a pretty much maintained steadily for that amount of time, or did it peak after a certain number of hours? I couldn’t tell you. And you weren’t sleeping or anything?

44:18 No, no, no, not. Okay. And were you just immobilize? Yeah, it’s very hard to walk on. Unfortunately I had to use the bathroom like so many times during it, so I was like you know, wobbling and stuff to the bathroom, but for the most part you’re just laying down.

44:31 You want to you know, have a really comfy spot to lay in, pillows, blankets. There was also music playing that was like bu te Tribe music that was going on, which really, it was really just set the mood, I guess. Okay, in the dark? Yeah, it was in the dark. Any talking?

44:51 A little bit. Yeah, I mean it’s not something that you’re almost straight in your head, but you’re seeing visions and your body is kind of f***ed, but it’s very, you can talk on it. You can hold a normal conversation on it, you know. Yeah. But yeah, just very, very interesting stuff.

45:14 Okay, so 24 hours, and then I watched one of your videos, you said you had kind of visual trails for like 5 days afterwards that would freak a lot of people out if you told that yeah. That was really weird. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. So like when I would move my eyes, it would kind of just go for days afterwards, for days. You scared?

45:35 Not really. I mean, it was kind of cool, but I wasn’t too worried. It kind of trailed off a bit, you know, for the first two days it was there constantly, and then after that it was there in the morning when I would wake up for about an hour, and then it would stop, and then once it got dark at night they would come back until I went to bed. Wow. Yeah, it was really weird.

45:54 Okay, and have you been able to process that whole experience did you get some things out of it? Other things also, I’ve heard it’s a very masculine energy. Did you get that feeling? Yeah, I did get that, like stern masculine energy, or I don’t know. No, just stern masculine.

46:08 Just very fatherly. Logical, you know. It kind of just told you how it was. Whereas ayahuasca kind of, you know, has metaphors, and we’ll show you something that doesn’t really mean that thing. You kind of have to figure it out, whereas ibogaine was just like, this is how it is, and bang bang bang, kind of thing.

46:28 But, yeah, for me it worked out. Quite a few fears in my mind. I was starting to get really paranoid about things. like I was saying before, with my, you know, tripping too much in a short amount of time, it sort of brought in paranoia and anxieties and stuff, and the ibogaine sort of kicked that out. Which is really good.

46:49 Yeah, it’s not something that I’ve fully processed yet, and I would like to do it again. I think I will have the opportunity to in January. So, okay, what are your thoughts on group ceremonies? I mean, obviously when you go to Peru. I think most of the ceremonies are in these big groups.

47:05 I’ve done always individual ones or one with just one other person in the room, and that definitely suits me, but I’ve got my own issues when it comes to being social. But what do you do? What do you think? Where’s the place when it comes to other people or not? Well, I don’t agree with how some centers have so many people in one ceremony.

47:23 For me I think the maximum would be six, and the reason is because, you know, the shaman generally, you know, they make sacred space, and they hold it throughout the whole ceremony, and they’re also individually looking into people in the ceremony and, you know, healing certain parts. And with a group of more than, you know, six, it’s just too chaotic. It’s too much for one shaman to do. So yeah, the less people in ceremony the better. Also with you know, big groups, you’ve got all these energies swirling around, and it’s really hard to focus sometimes, and you know, some people be crying, and you know, laughing, some people talk, or it’s just too chaotic.

48:04 I think for me it can be too distracting sometimes. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I did my first ceremony, we with another person in the room, and I found it really distracting, like, as in, I completely just came right back to the present, and I couldn’t you know, focus, and I was just like, yeah, so I can’t imagine with, you know, 30, 32 strangers. You know, but I’ve also heard it can be really powerful having that group dynamic, you know? Right.

48:26 Well, I haven’t really. I haven’t done a ceremony that big. I think the biggest I’ve done was on December 21st, 2012, with about 16 people in one room and it wasn’t too bad. I mean, everyone there was pretty serious about, you know, why they were there, and stuff, and so they kind of, you know, they kept quiet throughout the whole thing. But I think a bunch of like first-timers in one room, would just, I wouldn’t want to do that.

48:50 It could ruin the experience right. Yeah. Okay, so you’re off to Peru soon. That’s a big move, Taylor. You know, you’re living large in North Wales enjoying the beautiful winter.

49:00 But like, this is a big move. You guys are, you’re moving, you’re going to create your own healing center. Why you doing this? You know, a lot of people wouldn’t make this move. It’s just something I feel like that I meant to do.

49:14 It all sort of happened very. I don’t even, it just kind of all these synchronicities happened, and I met all the right people, and it’s just sort of become this huge thing. you know, I sort of, when I went to Peru in May of 2012, I sort of was thinking about it would be cool to do a healing center, but I would want a partner to do it with. And my boyfriend at the time, I sort of thought that’s kind of what would happen with him, but that didn’t work out thankfully.

49:50 And so when I went back to Peru in October I met my partner now, who he does a lot of healing work, and you know, both of us together just kind of said it would be the most perfect thing. You know, we both wanted to live in Peru and, you know, do the healing work, and it just kind of worked out perfectly, and I already have experience with all the, like, the administrative stuff, and it just sort of happened. Okay, and what will be different about your center?

50:24 Well, we’re not going to be a retreat center. so we’re not going to be, you know, offering packages like most centers do. So our thing will be kind of individual ceremonies, like people can drop in when they want. Staying with us is optional, like, or accommodation is optional, if you want to stay with us? Cool.

50:46 If not, you can stay in town if you’d like. Basically, you know, I don’t exactly know yet how it’s going to work for, like, booking wise. But yeah, I mean, it’s an alternative to doing retreats, cuz a lot of people, you know, don’t really want to be stuck in a certain group, you know doing planned out activities and stuff like that, and plus the retreats are really expensive. So we’re going to be donation based. We’re obviously going to charge just to cover our minimum costs, and then people can make donations on top of that if they’d like.

51:18 So it’s definitely cheaper option and more free, you know. We’re also going to be offering a lot of different plant medicines. We’re going to be doing ayahuasca traditionally and in every which way we can think of, just to, you know, experiment. What do you mean by that? What would be the different ways?

51:34 Well, there’s different ad mixtures you can put in it, so we’re going to have like an ayahuasca menu, basically, so you can do like straight ayahuasca, or you can have it with this plant or this plant or this plant, or you can have it in capsules so that you don’t have to drink it. That kind, crazy, sounds like an espresso of I. Sounds like something like in a short itch, you know, hipster bar, which I guess you’re probably trying not to, what don’t you like about the ayahuasca tourism in Peru?

51:58 Like, what are the things you see that are just red flags Well, personally, what I found with it is it’s very, there’s just so many things. Okay, just start with one thing Okay. Well, the diet thing. Okay. I think people should have the freedom to choose whether they want to stick to the diet or not.

52:20 So that’s one thing about our center that’s good, is, you know, he can do the diet or not. Are most centers, are they pretty hardcore about it? Like, you have to do this or you can’t come in? Or, well, I don’t think it’s, you kind of have to do it, but it’s sort of part of the thing, you know. I don’t think they would offer food that isn’t part of the diet.

52:38 Also, the sort of activities thing. I’m not really one for group activities. Me neither, but then again, I hear it’s all part of the experience. So, but it’s, that’s part of like a retreat experience. I mean, it’s not really part of an ayahuasca thing, you know I mean, like, yeah, I do.

52:56 But I mean, it’s great. Like, if people want to go on a retreat and experience the jungle and that kind of stuff, then, you know, by all means do it. But if you just want to work with ayahuasca, then just work with ayahuasca. You don’t have to do anything else. Okay.

53:07 So diet, you don’t want to be like militant about the diet. You want to offer just a ceremony if that’s what they want. What else don’t you like, or what else do you want to do slightly different? Well, the aftercare is important. I think.

53:19 You know, with, I can’t really speak for all, you know, about all centers. I’ve only been to a couple and I don’t want to say that all retreat centers are like this, but from the ones that I’ve been to. They kind of just give you the medicine and you’re on your own, sort of thing. Whereas with our center, we’re going to be there, you know, and if you want to talk about things, we’re there to talk, and I think that’s really important, because, you know, it’s always good to talk things out, and if you don’t understand something about an experience, you know, generally, if you do talk about it with people, you can kind of get there on your own, or have other people’s opinions.

53:56 And what are your thoughts on the shamans in Peru? I mean, I was, I had a female shaman in my times, and I’m really glad I did, just cuz I think the female energy was really important, but, you know, I’ve heard mixed things. I’ve heard, you know, it’s a, it can be a very macho thing. You obviously hear all the horror stories about the rapes and the killings down there, which are very small, but still people talk about them. What are your thoughts on that?

54:16 What do you tell people when they ask you about that? Well, you’ve just got to be like, when you go and look for a shaman, I mean, you’ve got to be smart about it, you know. Find out what his background is, and use your gut feelings, like, you know, if you don’t feel right about someone, then don’t drink with them, kind of thing. There are a lot of shaman who say that they’re shaman and they haven’t even really done any sort of training. But yeah, I mean, it’s not hard to find a good shaman.

54:45 You just got to know where to look, sort of thing. And, okay, what are your thoughts on DMT? Is it something that you think is like part of a regimen for you a part of your exploration? And what do you think, do you think it gets abused at all, or or what are your thoughts in general? Oh, I’m sure it does get abused.

55:03 Do you think because it’s easily accessible and it’s such a quick high. Do you think it gets abused more than, say, ayahuasca? Well, I don’t know how easy it is to find, to be honest. I mean, I have a lot of people always emailing me, kind of asking me where to get it. It’s so hard to find, kind of thing.

55:20 But I mean, yeah, I’m sure a lot of people do just do it just to kind of, you know, have a crazy trip and stuff. And those people need to be careful, because it can really tear your head off. And you can be left really, you know, scared. And I’ve had experiences where, you know, afterwards I’ve, you know, I’m still scared to do DMT again, to be honest, really. I know that I will eventually, but right now it’s something that I don’t want to think about, because the last one that I had was so huge and so deep, and I’m still having, you know, memories come up about it and realizations and stuff, and I think, when was it?

56:02 I did it, two months ago maybe, and what happened? Well, it was a big one. I don’t smoke it. I can’t smoke it. so I had to do it intravenous, which is safe, you know.

56:19 I’m clean about it. It’s not like a junky sort of thing. So, and why can’t you smoke it? I waste it. I’m not a smoker, so I immediately cough.

56:29 And yeah, it’s tricky. I had a hard time the first time. Well, I’ve only done it once for that show, but I didn’t. I screwed up the first time, cuz I like, I just, you know, it’s harsh, you know. It’s really hard to keep in and stuff, and so, you know, I wanted to have a full breakthrough experience, and so that was the only way to do it for me.

56:46 Wow, okay. So you mix it into a solution or and then intravenous, yeah. And you took, I think you put it on your report, was it like certain 70 mg or 78? It was 68. Okay, but if you’re doing intravenous as opposed to smoking it, is there like a huge difference of what you should do?

57:02 Cuz when you smoke it you don’t get a lot of it. In how did you know that was the dose you needed? Well, I’m not the one that is in charge of that. It’s my partner who, okay, who does that kind of stuff. So cuz one thing about smoking that made me feel good, and that you hear everyone say, is that it’s almost self-regulating, because like I’ve took that fourth pole and Alexander was like, do it, do it, do it.

57:21 And I did it, and then I broke through, but if I didn’t, I wasn’t going to get there. But you, I couldn’t have done the fifth, because I wasn’t around for the fifth. I was somewhere else. So that was the one thing that it kind of, what I liked about the intravenous is that I don’t have a choice, right? Okay, is that I’m going, you know, whether I like it or not, I’m going.

57:38 Okay. So yeah, it’s instant, you know, just shot through a tunnel, kind of thing. I had no you know, I completely left this reality. I don’t really remember the trip in order. So much went on, and I’m still, you know, there’s still big chunks of it that I don’t remember.

57:59 But did you want me to like go through what remember, if you want to? Well, I’ll talk about a couple things that were really interesting. I felt, well, there was this one part where, you know, I was laying in this kind of hospital bed thing in this black room that was covered in all these, like, geometric patterns, and there were these DMT beings, all like standing around me and it was terrifying. I had either, I felt like I had either just died or was just born.

58:29 I couldn’t tell the difference. And I knew that, you know, these beings around me were sort of making sure that I was like okay, sort of thing. They were checking me out and sort of checking my vitals, kind of thing. So that was really weird, but it was safe. They weren’t terrorizing you?

58:48 Yeah, it was safe. I mean, I felt completely taken care of. And you know, they weren’t malicious or anything. An interest one, that a memory that just came back To me a couple days ago, I was again laying on this table, and you know, all these beings around me in this colorful room with all these patterns and stuff, and all I could hear was this kind of like dial up modem noise, but like really sped up and like really, like just crazy fast, and you know, all the beings around me were, it looked like they were spewing out this like technicolored.

59:26 I don’t even know how to describe it it was just all these shapes and stuff, and it was going into my body or my spirit, you know, my body was kind of twitching and stuff, and my eyes were wide open, my mouth was wide open, and what it felt like was I was being, information was being downloaded into me, and yeah, that was just really really amazing. Terrifying at all? No, not really. Okay. I mean it was strange.

59:58 There’s nothing normal about it. So it does have kind of like an odd vibe to it, but no, I didn’t feel like I was in any danger or anything. How long were you under for? I think the entire thing lasted about 20 minutes and I was gone for maybe 10. And then when it came back around, it was, you know, still I was still in it, but and that was your first property Mt experience, cuz before when you tried to smoke it, it just didn’t.

1:00:25 I mean I had an IV before, but it was a lower dose and I still had kind of one foot in this reality. Okay, didn’t go as far, but those things you described to me don’t sound necessarily like super terrifying but you also said you’re hesitant to go back. Why? Well, there was a part of it where I thought I had lost my mind. I was in this like Spirit soup, I call it.

1:00:44 I was just this like blob stuck in this Blobby stuff, just moving around, and I thought that, that’s what my mind had become, and I kept repeating this thing over and over and over and over and over, and it was just, I don’t know, it just terrified me. And, when I came back around, I thought there were paramedics in the room. I thought something had gone completely wrong. I could feel them touching me. I could, you know, I could see them, they look like people, you know, with doctor stuff on and whatever.

1:01:19 Wow. But they eventually vanished and I saw more DMT beings in the room. There was one like sitting on the bed holding my arm, which I could feel, but you know they made me feel really safe, and you call them DMT beings? Yeah, I don’t know what else to call them. Never gingerbread man, that’s also another thing that I call them.

1:01:39 Okay. Now anyone listening will be like, oh my gosh, Taylor, you’re crazy. I mean these are like serious experiences. You have a lot of balls, I will say that But and then and then but and a lot of people who have never tried these things will say, you know, they can’t imagine why you would do something like that. So what do you, what would you say?

1:01:56 Well, you know like I said before, I love to experience and explore, and I really do feel like it does. It changes me as a person. From these DMT experiences, I’ve noticed that my understanding of the universe has changed a lot, where you know, when I would think about the universe before, it was just kind of all these questions in my head, whereas now it’s just sort of like all these answers in my head, and I don’t know how to describe that it’s just really, there’s a lot more clarity in my mind about it.

1:02:31 I don’t know, I just, it’s just that makes sense to me. And are you processing a lot of what you saw in the DMT, or do you think it’s just so subconscious that you don’t know what all these things meant, or you think you just. Well, the processing you know is done subconsciously, and then you will get realizations that you can, that aren’t, you know, that come into your conscious mind. It happens over a long time. I mean I did this months ago, and it’s still, you know, I had a memory come in just the other day, you know, and it’s DMT will call you back when you’re ready for it as well.

1:03:07 Okay. So you know, my fear towards it is a good thing, because I think if I went and did it too soon without having the previous one processed fully, it would just kind of mess things up a bit. Okay, interesting, interesting. I did it that one time, and I found it very interesting, and I was somewhere else, but when I got back, I just didn’t get. I didn’t get the lessons that I got in ayahuasca and ayahuasca.

1:03:30 I got these very like, you know, you need to figure this out, you need to treat this person better, you need to do this, and it was really distinct, and with the DMT I just had some not as many as you, but some pretty crazy visuals that I think maybe Pro I was processing, you know, subconsciously, and so that was my take on it, but that’s my one take, you know. So I think everyone has a very different thoughts on DMT, and also if it’s your very first psychedelic experience, I think it can be very different than if you tried other things before, and maybe it is a great, do you think it’s a very good first for people to do the DMT first? Is it less of a time commitment, or is that really not the point?

1:04:06 I mean, I always tell people that you can’t really prepare for it, so I mean you can do all the psychedelics you want, but DMT is just something else. Like it’s not, you’re not going to be ready for it ever. Would I suggest people doing it for the first psychedelic? I don’t think so. Okay.

1:04:22 Just because even though you can’t prepare for it, it’s something that could scare you off of anything, you know what I mean? If you’re not ready for it, you know, you could do DMT wanting to do mushrooms later on, and it could sort of ruin that for you. So yeah true, true. Do you listen to much Terence McKenna? I don’t, just because I don’t have access to YouTube.

1:04:45 Okay, there’s a good show. There’s a good podcast called Psychedelic Salon, by a guy, by Lorenzo Hagerty, and he reproduces a lot of old Terence McKenna lectures, and it’s pretty fascinating stuff to listen, you know, before, during, after. I usually listen to it after like an ayahuasca experience, or even a ceremony is pretty powerful, but one thing he always says is these big doses, and I was just curious how you felt about low dose psychedelics, like, and the last thing I want to do is tell someone how to consume their psychedelics, because that’s kind of the whole point of, like, us being able to experiment with these substances, because everyone’s been telling us we can’t do these things.

1:05:17 So the last thing I want to do is tell someone they shouldn’t take mushrooms when they go to a rock concert. But what are your thoughts of, like, low doses in different enir as opposed to in kind in ceremony, like when I do my psilocybin, quite honestly, it’s a ceremony it’s me that got the candles. I’m alone and I do this thing. So, well, I don’t really have much experience with low doses. Taylor just skips right to the big doses.

1:05:41 You know, I do want to start micro doing. I would like to start micro doing psilocybin, as well as LSD. I’ve heard that if you micro do LSD and teach yourself languages, it really helps with that. What’s micro? Like micro is when you take such a small amount that you don’t really notice it.

1:06:00 Okay, you don’t really get many, like much effects from it. 0.1 grams or something like that. Yeah, I don’t really know the doses right now, but yeah, it’s interesting, cuz like I said we had a, you know, UFC fighter in here, and he talked about, cuz, you know, in low doses, as we know that they can, you know, improve your visual acuity and a bunch of other things. He’s a fighter, and he’s been curious about taking, like, low doses when he fights, right?

1:06:23 But no reports back yet. Also, I don’t, you know, those would pass drug tests too, which is a funny thing, you know, whether other substances wouldn’t. So all right, so not many low doses for you. Just a couple more questions. What are your thoughts on the Silk Road?

1:06:36 Do you wish it did it still existed? Do you think it’s something that’s just going to exist over time and do you think it’s a good resource? Just, what are your thoughts? I’ve never used it. Never seen it never.

1:06:46 I don’t really know much about it to be honest. Yeah, no good answer. Fair enough. There’s a lot of people out there who don’t have, you know, don’t know people that know people, or don’t have supplies, can find like getting some of the stuff to be next to them possible, you know, and it’s funny because if you contact your local drug dealer, like they don’t want to sell you any of this stuff, because these aren’t like recurring addictive drug it’s not a very good business to sell mushrooms, cuz you might not see the person for 3 months, right?

1:07:13 As opposed to, if you’re going to sell them, you know, Coke and heroin, you might see them more sooner. So it’s funny cuz I think it’s hard, and I get emails. You get emails all the time. People are like, where can I get this stuff here the her and there. So yeah, no, I was curious.

1:07:26 I think the Silk Road offered that opportunity, but it’s gone, but I think it’s going to come back, you know, at some point. What do you think you’re going to be doing someday? I mean, do you, I know you do those videos on YouTube. I’m sure people want to get your opinion a lot. Obviously you’re here.

1:07:39 Do you like being kind of a psychedelic spokesperson or do you hate that title or that role? I mean, I didn’t plan this, you know. I didn’t plan this either. I had no idea that this, welcome to the club, yeah, I didn’t know that this is what would come out of it. It’s weird, you know, when you type ayahuasca in and Google my videos, like, right there, it’s just like I’ve become like the ayahuasca chick or something.

1:08:01 You have, and there are a lot of ayahuasca chicks out there, so yeah, like I don’t want to be seen as, you know, a lot of people will email me with all these questions thinking that I’m some expert, and I’m not. You know, all I do is, you know, I make my videos about my experiences. You know, I have my opinions on certain things, but you know, I don’t really want to be seen as some sort of guru or, you know, expert or anything like that. You talk about, I mean, that’s the thing with your videos.

1:08:30 You talk about your experiences. You’re not really like lecturing or preaching. You’re just saying this is what happened to me, and this is what it felt like, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. That’s basically what I do, and I don’t want to tell anybody what to do.

1:08:40 You know, I think it’s good for people to find their own way, and you know, a lot of the times people will email me, you know, asking me for all this advice and stuff, and a lot of the times I’ll just tell them the best. You know, you’re your own, you’re your best teacher. You need to do what you feel is right within yourself. You know, if you’re constantly asking people, you know, what you should do or for advice and stuff, you’re never going to be able to do these things on your own, and you’re always going to be looking for other people to, you know, help you along, and I found with myself, the moment that I started to just do what I wanted to do and listen to my, you know, my gut instincts and my heart.

1:09:16 That’s when, you know, my life just sort of became amazing and things, you know, sort, just sort of started working out for me, and yeah, I think you really got to just do things on your own. Do you have certain friends or family where you did, you ever say to them, you know, you should look into this? What? When I first started on this path, I was very much like, you know, trying to you know, sending emails to my family like, look at this, you know, check this out, this is awesome.

1:09:43 I realized very soon that you can’t do that kind of thing, because, you know, the moment you tell somebody to do something, they’re immediately not going to do it or even look into it. So people really do need to just kind of to find these things on their own. You know, there’s ways to plant seeds, but you know, I don’t think preaching is a very good thing to do. Yeah, I know. I think it’s normal for anyone after their first ceremony to go out and tell everyone this is going to fix all their problems, and they can see everything that’s wrong with them.

1:10:11 But funny enough, my last s saing experience, it told me that I should take more of an active role with like those five people that are close to me, in trying to introduce them to this. This is really weird because before I mean, I do this show and I talk about it, but I talk a lot about a lot of other things, and so it was like, okay, if you want to come ask me, come ask me, if you don’t, don’t. But like my last thing is someone said, you know, you really should get those few close people and help them facilitate it and say, look, and not force them, but just say, look, we can do this.

1:10:38 Then if you want, you know, that was weird. Of course that was weeks ago, so now it’s gone. I always ask people that are here, the same few questions, and I’m going to adjust the age slightly for you, since you’re a little bit younger than some of our guests, but this is it. If you can make a phone call, to let’s say, this 17-year-old Taylor and give that young lady a bit of advice, what would you tell her, or what would you tell her to do or not to do? I know it’s a weird one.

1:11:07 Yeah. You know, it’s funny because when I was 17 you know, looking back, there’s so many things that you know I probably shouldn’t have done or done differently, but at the same time, if I had changed, if I changed anything I may not be here, you know. So I guess I could make a phone call and, you know, say to not be such a diva at times, cuz I was. This was when I was still acting and stuff, and I did kind of get pretty diva-ish, but I mean other than that, I think I did things pretty well.

1:11:41 Do you wish you would had found the psychedelics sooner? No, I think I found them at the perfect time. Okay. Yeah. On that same note, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

1:11:53 Oh, mhm. These aren’t easy questions. No best advice I’ve ever received. God, I don’t know. Nothing, nothing for I know Okay, I’ll skip to the last one.

1:12:06 You know, to the 20-year-old that’s listening out there, men and women and I’m sure you have like both as fans of yours, you know, that watch your videos and they’re really curious about this stuff, and don’t know what to do. They don’t know if they should quit their job and go to Peru or, you know, go take some smoke, some DMT this weekend, like what advice do you give them? They must ask you lots of questions, but you know they must come to you for answers.

1:12:28 What do you tell them? Right well, a lot of people, you know, do message me saying that, you know, they want to quit their jobs and go and become a shaman, and I mean that’s great, but not everybody can go and, you know, just become a shaman. In reality, I think the best thing for people who, you know, feel like they want to make a big change in their life is to just kind of, I don’t want to say do what I did, but at the same time, it kind of worked out for me.

1:12:56 So basically what I did was I realized what I didn’t want to do in my life, and I stopped doing it, you know, and that can be hard for a lot of people, but if if you feel like it’s the right thing, then just do it. So you stopped what pursuing acting career? There was you know, there was the acting. There was normal jobs, you know. I’ve always hated working, and just always told myself that I wanted to work for myself, and I did.

1:13:24 You know, I quit whatever little jobs I had and started my own thing. Yeah, I mean it can be hard to kind of figure out what you want to do you know, and I didn’t really, when I quit the acting, I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do exactly. I just knew what I didn’t want to do, so I think once you stop doing what you don’t want to do, it kind of leads you to realizing what you do want to do. Kind of thing. That’s good advice, actually.

1:13:49 I’ve asked that question like over 100 times, and I haven’t heard that one before. That’s good, so affects some change in your life, like choose the things that you know you shouldn’t be doing and actually stop doing them. Yeah I guess that could mean a variety of things. Bad relationships, yeah, bad jobs, bad habits, and it can be really scary but a lot of the times I found that the more the scarier something was, the more benefits it had, you know if I, so if it was really scary to stop one thing and I did stop it, then the benefits were just like massive.

1:14:18 If that makes sense. No, it totally makes sense. What 33-year-old Taylor, what are you going to be doing in 10 years time? Are you going to be like down in Peru with like six kids running around and like, you know, all these different centers everywhere, or like what’s happening? Do you think, I don’t know.

1:14:33 I don’t plan. You know, that’s another thing, is don’t make plans, cuz it’s better to just kind of go with the flow of life, and I might still be doing The Healing Center thing. I don’t know. I might be traveling around. Who knows okay good.

1:14:49 I like that. If people want to find out about your Healing Center, if people want to make donations to your Healing Center, you know, watch your YouTube videos, what’s the best way for them to do all that? Well I’ve got all my information about The Healing Center on our GoFundMe page, which is our fundraising, so it’s, you, me, to, like, it’s www.gofundme.com alternative Healing Center. Okay, there’ll be a link on the bottom of the YouTube description, so and you know, if anyone has any questions, they can always email me.

1:15:19 It’s [email protected]. I’ve got a Facebook page and Twitter if you want to like and follow, and a big YouTube channel, yeah, and my YouTube channel, yeah, which you might have seen. So okay, so they can do that, and then when do you think you’ll be up and running next year if people want to come down and do ceremonies with you, because I get asked all the time where people should go, right? Well, the thing is, when we get to Peru, we’re going to be able to start doing our ceremonies right away.

1:15:44 Luckily we have a temporary place in the jungle that our friend owns, so we’ll be doing that until we find our land and actually start building our Center. So, if people want to come and do ceremonies, they can contact me. I don’t know when the actual Center is going to be built, but they can come down there and do ceremonies with you as of like January, right? Yeah. Well, December, actually.

1:16:06 I have a mailing list that I’m going to be sending out a newsletter, kind of letting people know costs and accommodation style and how to book and all that kind of thing. So, fantastic. I’m so glad you came. Thanks for making the trip down, you know, from North Wales. Yeah, thanks for having me.

1:16:21 It was really awesome, crazy. I mean, I you know, it’s just cool to see like people that are doing what they want to do and actually, you know, doing things. You know, it’s one thing to make videos, and I know that’s not easy, that’s what I do, but to go and actually start your own Center and to actually go live the life that you’re talking about is big. I don’t see a lot of people do it. So, I wish you all the luck.

1:16:40 It sounds like you got all this positive energy going on, and like positive things are going to happen. So yeah, maybe I’ll come down there and drink some ayahuasca with you, definitely one of these days. So, awesome. If you want to, if you’re listening to us on iTunes and you want to see both of our pretty faces, we’re on YouTube channel London Real. There’ll be links below on this video to get to Taylor’s Channel.

1:16:59 Please go give her some donations so the center can get up and running. I like the whole vibe of what you’re doing. I like the a la carte menu. You know, that’s kind of cool. I like the fact that it’s not too rigid.

1:17:10 I’ve had some questions about the diet myself, so it’s kind of nice to see that there is a different take, and it doesn’t have to be one specific way. You know, definitely. So, that’s awesome. As we say at London Real, it’s about the journey. I wish you well on yours, and all the best.

1:17:25 Thank you. All right, take care. Awesome, cool.