#136 - Daniel Pinchbeck (Part 1)

[0] The J -Rogan Experience.

[1] We're going to get crazy.

[2] Taking a long ride down some of my favorite schools of thought with this guy here.

[3] Daniel Pinchbeck is an author, if you'd never heard of him.

[4] He's got a great book called Breaking Open the Head.

[5] And another one called 2012, The Return of Quetzal -Quaddle.

[6] Is that how I, do I say it right?

[7] Good enough.

[8] Good enough, close enough.

[9] Quetzel -Quatel.

[10] And just an all -around fascinating dude.

[11] Thanks for coming by, man. I'm sorry you got stuck in traffic, but it's almost appropriate because you're sort of a little bit of a doom and gloom end of civilization sort of a dude, and there's a giant power outage in L .A. that fuck traffic upside down.

[12] Well, yeah, now that I know that, I feel better about the situation.

[13] Yeah.

[14] Do you, though?

[15] Oh, finally.

[16] Some apocalyptic shit's happening.

[17] And while I'm here, perfect.

[18] In New York, we just had a hurricane and an earthquake in one week.

[19] Yeah.

[20] I moved here when the earthquake happened.

[21] I moved here only like a month after the earthquake and 94 happened, and it was this feeling of humility in L .A. that I liked.

[22] Like, when I first got here, I was like, people who seemed kind of shook up, but they seemed pretty friendly, you know, sort of almost like, you know, any sort of a natural disaster does to any big group of people.

[23] You know, they, what are you doing there, buddy?

[24] I'm looking at your alpha brain.

[25] You want some?

[26] What is it?

[27] It's on neutropics.

[28] It's vitamins for cognitive function.

[29] Sure, why not?

[30] Maybe it'll get brighter.

[31] Yes, one point five million people.

[32] I don't have power right now.

[33] I think it was the last in Los Angeles right now, which is kind of crazy.

[34] Yeah, it is crazy.

[35] I mean, that's a lot of fucking people.

[36] We sell those.

[37] I'll get your bottle of those things, man. We just started putting those out on it .com, on n -n -n -it .com.

[38] And what it is, is there's a lot of different things that people take to improve mental function, and we just put the highest ingredients together and started selling it.

[39] Nice.

[40] It's fascinating stuff, man. The science of it is a little sketchy.

[41] A lot of people call bullshit.

[42] But I think it works.

[43] It works for me, man. Even if it's just a placebo effect, I'll take all the lies that you tell me if I believe them.

[44] It seems like it works to me, too.

[45] Well, the dreams are, no question.

[46] You take them and you have this fucking, these crazy, vivid, memorable dreams.

[47] It's very unusual.

[48] And supposedly it's because of coline.

[49] Is that how you say it?

[50] Is that the nutrient?

[51] I believe it's called coline.

[52] But apparently it's known to stimulate dreams.

[53] It gives you fucking weird, creepy memorable dreams.

[54] I got a weird dream about a werewolf and a gorilla having sex And I was trying to be quiet and get out of the room Before they realized I was there I was there I was last night I was laying in bed I was looking up your books on Amazon And the one cover he has is so trippy I actually spent a good time just scrolling up and down on my browser Just looking at the Which one?

[55] Breaking open the head?

[56] I think so yeah the one that has the mushroom in the middle And then it's just like it was fucking awesome That's how stone it was last time Dude, you're here when this is, what if this really was going down, like right now in Los Angeles?

[57] Are you prepared?

[58] Because I know you're a big 2012 advocate, and I've talked to you about.

[59] Well, I'm just out of Burning Man, so at least I have my flashlight and a camelback.

[60] Did you just leave Burning Man?

[61] Yeah, three days ago.

[62] Wow.

[63] How was it?

[64] It was great.

[65] Now, you're like my age, right?

[66] 45.

[67] I'm 44.

[68] Are you not tired of those crazy hippies yet?

[69] The really, really nutty ones?

[70] No, you know, whatever.

[71] I mean, I like the whole scene.

[72] I mean, it's all sorts of genius people there, actually.

[73] Yes, extraordinary, like not just hippies, but the heads of all the technology companies.

[74] I had a debate with some Google exec who's a yoga practitioner.

[75] And, you know, I have lots of great conversations around there.

[76] I mean, it's all the, you know, the psychedelic community.

[77] I spend a lot of time with this woman who runs the Women's Visionary Congress and my friend John Perry Barler who wrote lyrics for the Grateful Dead and started Electronic Freedom Foundation.

[78] It's actually an amazing, you know, brain trillions.

[79] trust of human oddities and eccentric fossils.

[80] I believe that, but there's also a lot of douchebags, and you've got to wade through them.

[81] And what you are is like this figurehead for this psychedelic movement in sort of a lot of ways.

[82] So you must get a lot of crackpots.

[83] And when I say douchebags, it's not their fault.

[84] I didn't have a lot of crazy people.

[85] Honestly, I actually didn't have one douchebag experience, and a lot of people did come up to me, and who had read my books or seen the film, and people were extremely like respectful and actually kind of like moving like people so many people told me that the books had affected them or impacted their lives or whatever I mean every dead show I've ever been to or any fish show I've ever been to that it's never been douchebags even though you would think there would be a shitload of douchebags everyone has like this positive vibe to them so everyone even if there are a douchebag they still have like this underlining yeah I'm like a happy and love I want to give you love and positive energy it seems like the whole scene and stuff like so I think so I think you're like Cartman right now I'm just I lived in Boulder for a while became very terrified of hippies.

[86] You're very East Coast.

[87] I was so hippie before.

[88] I was like so down with it.

[89] And you're around them for a while.

[90] I'm like, God, so many people are fucking crazy.

[91] You know?

[92] Everybody's crazy.

[93] You know, there's Republicans are crazy.

[94] Right -wing Christians are crazy.

[95] I mean, you look at the Republican convention.

[96] You look at these speeches, these debates they're having.

[97] It's like one nutty fucking person after a nutty person.

[98] I mean, this fucking, the guy from California, the guy from Massachusetts, rather, Mitt and Romney, he's a Mormon.

[99] I mean, at a certain point in time, you've got to go, come on, man, really?

[100] You believe that Joseph Smith, this 14 -year -old kid, found these golden tablets with the lost works of Jesus, and only you could read them because you had a magic rock, really?

[101] Right?

[102] At a certain point in time, I mean, how is a guy like that allowed to even run for president?

[103] Yeah.

[104] If there's certain things that you believe, do you think that there should be a line that, like, someone can put his side and go, come on, man, this is crazy.

[105] It would be very hard to draw that line at this point.

[106] I mean, people, you know, believing in the Bible and so on, it's hard enough.

[107] Well, how about the 6 ,000 -year people?

[108] The people that really believe the Earth is 6 ,000 years old.

[109] There's a lot of them.

[110] Sarah Palin.

[111] She really believes that.

[112] A lot of people do.

[113] I think you learned from that movie Red State that, like, everybody, there's this big center of the world that's really crazy.

[114] And, like, fucking, they believe crazy shit.

[115] Like, you can't even, I just watch that Wild Whites of West Virginia.

[116] Oh, yeah.

[117] Those people believe probably things that you would be amazed.

[118] I don't think they're thinking about that.

[119] They're just pill -people, pill -popping people and partiers.

[120] Have you seen that?

[121] The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia?

[122] Nope.

[123] It's a fascinating yet terrifying documentary that Johnny Knoxville put together about this family in West Virginia that's completely crazy.

[124] All they're just constantly committing crimes and selling pills and going on rampages and get arrested.

[125] It's just a fascinating family that's just not living by the rules that you or I live by you know burning man was sold out this year and it's just like I think the first time that it was ever sold out did it seem like overly crowded or did it seem like why did they even put a limit well they don't have a control over that it's the Bureau of Land Management I think it's actually because it counts as a city it's only allowed to go to grow 3 % per year so it was growing from 51 to 54 ,000 or something like that right something like that so so yeah I mean it could easily go up to 75 or 100 ,000 in terms of the space there I mean, they can just keep adding avenues and expanding it and so on.

[126] Did you see any awesome art?

[127] Did you see any, like, wow, they took it to the next level type of shit this year?

[128] Yeah, there were some beautiful stuff.

[129] There was a huge model of the Trojan horse, which 300 Greeks and white togas dragged through the gates.

[130] Then they blew it up in spectacular fashion on Friday night.

[131] There was lots of fun stuff.

[132] Oh, that sounds pretty fucking bad.

[133] I want to go so bad.

[134] I talked about it maybe 20 podcasts ago, like I was thinking about going.

[135] And I'm mad at myself for not going.

[136] My perceptions are always just going to be some really cool people but just going to wade through some knuckleheads to get to them.

[137] But you're sounding like it's not that way.

[138] You're sounding like it's pretty positive overall.

[139] Yeah, I mean, I'm, you know, I still like it.

[140] Still like it.

[141] What if December 21st, 2012 is the big day, and that's, you know, etched in stone and a lot of people's ideas about a lot of the shit that you write about and a lot of the shit that people think of about the coming of the next age?

[142] if it rolls around and nothing happens then what?

[143] Right on.

[144] Yeah, well I mean once again actually people would have to look at whatever I said and read about it.

[145] I never particularly said that anything was going to happen.

[146] Absolutely true.

[147] Yes.

[148] I mean you absolutely have not.

[149] On the other hand it seems to me that it's super clear that we're in you know like the middle of a transformation that you know we can see now the global economy is buckling the planetary ecology is also buckling.

[150] We've hit peak oil a lot of the resources are in in serious depletion.

[151] So, yeah, we're faced with an end game for the current global civilization that we're in.

[152] Is that peak oil thing been clearly established?

[153] Yeah, it's been very clearly established.

[154] So everyone agrees it's not a debated thing?

[155] Well, I mean, of course, there's some debate and there's some disinformation.

[156] There's a lot of money involved.

[157] But if you look at what the main geologists talk about, and, you know, I mean, it's a prediction that was made back in the 70s even.

[158] And that's why they're trying to get this oil in Canada that this big protests have been happening on the White House lawn where Darrell Hannah got arrested, one of the NASA's top climate scientists got arrested, and they're protesting this extraction, which is apparently incredibly inefficient.

[159] Yeah, of course, but it's why we are, you know, in wars in, you know, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and, you know, why we're trying to hold down the, you know, our access to the remaining resources.

[160] But, yeah, so I never anticipated in anything exactly what happened on December 21st, 2000.

[161] although it certainly might, but I think that, you know, what we need to do and what I tried to do in my work up to this point is really try to take a big step back and look at our situation and factor in all sorts of stuff that, you know, the modern worldview is not really factoring in, which for me includes shamanism, you know, the DMT experience, psychic experience in general, you know, the kind of psychic capacities that actually many people are aware of that happen all the time, whether it's synchronistic.

[162] or telepathy and so we were on the phone today we talked to talk to you about it like I was picking up your I picked up my phone and I was going through the contacts to find your number and the phone rang and it was you I love that shit that's that's as creepy as it gets what are the there's a lot of minutes in the day man more and more the order I get to how do you know what I'm calling you man there's a lot of goddamn minutes in the day and what was the last time I fucking called you I mean yeah you were supposed to be on the podcast today and we had emailed each other about it but we hadn't talked on the phone the long ass time that's a weird coincidence Right.

[163] Well, I mean, you can say that it's weird and creepy, but then you kind of get past that point and you just kind of integrate it.

[164] And it's like, okay, somehow there's actually, you know, one consciousness that's kind of working through all of us.

[165] And, you know, as time moves on in this period, it seems like those synchronicities are speeding up and our, you know, psychic capacities are somehow intensifying.

[166] But I will say that my one idea I'm working on for December 21, 2012, is to utilize the date because now there's so much popular focus on it to create a kind of global event, which would be a kind of spectacle.

[167] I'm working with composers and a team from Cirque to Soleil, and they're kind of putting together a concept for a show that would kind of celebrate humans' evolution, you know, humanity's evolution to this present point, and then ending with a synchronized peace meditation, kind of global focus on unity, with the idea that you could take the energy for that, you know, that's pointed towards that day, and there's so much fear around it, and anxiety, and trepidating, and actually make it into like the most awesome thing possible where it's like, well, look where we've arrived at and look at our opportunities now to make a shift and a jump into a new form of planetary civilization.

[168] Well, this is the clearest time in human history where the common person, any person, really, has a direct influence over an incredible amount of people with viral information, with videos, and with anything that you write that really resonates with people, you can hit an amazing amount of people now.

[169] So a guy like you could get in touch with a bunch of other people could do exactly the same thing and a ripple effect can go on and it can hit millions and millions easy.

[170] There's never been an opportunity to do anything like that.

[171] Yeah, I mean, we totally love to have you involved with our Unified Earth project.

[172] I would love to.

[173] Sure.

[174] She'd do it at Sea World.

[175] Sure.

[176] Search to say, I'm down.

[177] Actually, we're actually working with I love that.

[178] It's awesome to watch.

[179] At the moment, we're actually in negotiation with the Mexican government to use Chichenica which is considered by the Mayans to be the heart of the Mayan world.

[180] You know what would be the shit, dude?

[181] A Toby Keith concert at Chichenica.

[182] the most ironic thing of all time.

[183] Toby King's like this super ra -rah -rah American country music singer.

[184] He's like, Saddam, I'll kick your ass.

[185] You know, he's like one of those guys.

[186] But he's got a good singer.

[187] I mean, he's got good songs.

[188] But they're just, some of them are like real knucklehead, rah, rah, raw, I just think him on the fucking pyramids playing a concert might be one of the most ironic things of all time.

[189] Get you at the pyramids.

[190] Tell you about how awesome America is.

[191] You could love it or leave it.

[192] He had a good song about smoking weed with Willie Nelson, though.

[193] He's got good music.

[194] He's got good music.

[195] I just think it would be funny.

[196] It would be funny.

[197] Yeah, I'm scared of Chichen It, though.

[198] Don't ever forget that dream, Joe.

[199] You write that dream down right now.

[200] Well, it's on the internet now.

[201] We can draw this dream for you.

[202] You're right.

[203] Boy, should never stop dreaming.

[204] Don't ever stop.

[205] I think, as you do, that things are moving in a certain direction.

[206] And I wonder how much people steer it, you know?

[207] How much things like this steer it?

[208] How much communication online steers it?

[209] Because it seems to me this is the only time where people have been able to sort of merge in this way globally on their own and do it on a regular basis.

[210] People are addicted to just going on Twitter, addicted to communicating with people on message boards and on Facebook.

[211] There's an interconnectivity that's never existed before.

[212] So an idea, the idea of a hive mind, like, influenced by anyone is way different now than it's ever been in human history, as far as we know, right?

[213] Absolutely.

[214] It's an amazing time.

[215] Yeah, for sure.

[216] I mean, one idea that a lot of different people are kind of moving towards this idea that maybe humanity is on the verge of transitioning into being kind of like a superorganism, you know, that we're kind of like coming to awareness of ourselves as a singular being in a sense, you know, and then we can, you know, begin to act more symbiotically rather than like parasitically or aggressively.

[217] There was a really fascinating article recently written on creativity and how people are always praising creativity and looking forward to getting new and.

[218] creative ideas, but that other people's creativity actually makes people uncomfortable.

[219] It makes people uncomfortable and uneasy, and the idea that someone had come up with these ideas that they didn't, you know?

[220] And, you know, you wonder if, like, the really powerful push towards fundamentalism, the really powerful push towards the 6 ,000 -year -old earth kind of shit, you know, and follow the Bible kind of shit, is really the same thing as someone trying to confine creativity.

[221] They're trying to confine enlightenment the same reason.

[222] I guess my feeling is basically, you know, we live in a culture where there's, you know, basically people are being indoctrinated not to think.

[223] They're being indoctrinated by the media, the mainstream culture, by the education system, to be ignorant, to not question, to not develop their independent capacity of thoughts.

[224] Are you, okay, but you're saying this from the education system or are you saying this from the media?

[225] Yeah, yeah, from both, I think.

[226] Okay, but the media does not make you dumb, right?

[227] Oh, yes, it does.

[228] The media makes people incredibly stupid.

[229] It makes you dumb?

[230] Me?

[231] You can't watch CNN and become red - I don't watch that stuff, but I mean - But if you did, you think it would affect you?

[232] Yeah, if I'm in a hotel room and I watch that stuff for a couple of days, I feel like I'm having a lobotomy.

[233] Whoa, really?

[234] Is there CNN?

[235] Yeah, of course.

[236] You can't just see it as a program?

[237] No, all these things are, from my perspective, they're basically kind of holding the mass consciousness the planetary consciousness at a certain low level or low frequency, you know, where it's, you know, passive, consumerist, fear -based, you know, there's this violent activity, very disjointed.

[238] It creates a lot of frustration and anxiety.

[239] There's no deeper analysis.

[240] There's no attempt to create like a coherent, you know, understanding of what's happening in any sense.

[241] I could see your point that maybe perhaps it isn't used to its utmost abilities or the capabilities that we would have for it.

[242] But I don't think that it's not a good form.

[243] of entertainment.

[244] I don't think it has to be either or.

[245] I feel like you can sit home and watch a fucking silly TV show and it doesn't hurt you.

[246] I mean, I think this idea that we're helpless to media constantly bombarding us with these images and ideals and that we have to accept them.

[247] I think that's silly.

[248] And I think that honestly with the internet, you look at the society that's growing out of the internet, look at movements like anonymous, look at shit like things that have never happened before, these giant groups moving forward and taking down websites and taking down companies that they feel have acted unjustly.

[249] No one's ever been able to do something like that before, and that's Stevie if you want it.

[250] You're going to have some coffee.

[251] Thanks.

[252] Yeah, well, I mean, so we have two things, a number of things are happening simultaneously, and that's another thing that's very interesting about our time, is that things are getting pretty complicated.

[253] Now, one problem with television in general is that it's designed to reduce everything into tiny little sound, You know, when Lincoln and Jefferson debated in the 1860s, the debates lasted eight hours, you know.

[254] When we have a debate on TV, each person gets like 36 seconds for this response, 22 seconds.

[255] We're basically used to everything being spoon -fed and dumbed down to an absolute level of stupidity.

[256] You know, and basically the problem is that because our scenario on the planet is very complex at this point, we actually need to be able to, you know, articulate and analyze at a much deeper level.

[257] You know, so yes, we have two things going on.

[258] We have the one -directional mass media, which I really am convinced is basically a kind of lobotomy machine that anesthetizes people into an ultimate state of idiocy and consumer's passivity.

[259] And then we have the development of this new interactive media, which is having profound effects, and we'll continue to have profound effects.

[260] And if you go look at the history of media, every time there's a new form of media that's very powerful, it transforms the society, the political system, the government, government changes everything.

[261] You know, you could never have had an empire until you had a written code of laws that could be distributed to the borders and beyond.

[262] You could never have had a modern representational democracy, nation state, unless you had the printing press, which distributed enough materials that everybody could participate in civic dialogues.

[263] Now with this interactive technology potentially points towards a much deeper transition in our political and social paradigm, potentially towards a wave.

[264] from centralized control hierarchy to more of a kind of distributed or direct democracy.

[265] And interconnectedness as human beings in general.

[266] It's never, no one's been this close to this many people just through online communication.

[267] No one has ever had that kind of an influence before by such a wide variety of people and ideas, you know, all coming at you.

[268] Sure, and look how incredibly new it is.

[269] I mean, we're just adapting.

[270] We're just like treading water, trying to catch up with this force that our culture has unleashed.

[271] And it's good Or is it just, is it, is it awesome?

[272] Well, if you love change, it's great.

[273] I mean, if you're somebody who heads Warner Records, you're probably scratching your head at this point.

[274] The most fascinating conversation, yeah, right.

[275] I had the most fascinating conversation with a guy I was trying to say that Google was bad and the idea of the internet search is bad.

[276] I go, why?

[277] He goes, because, you know, it used to be if you wanted knowledge, you had to go look for it.

[278] I was like, wow, that might be the craziest fucking thing I've ever heard.

[279] You think it should be hard to find that shit?

[280] It should be hard.

[281] You should have to go to a library and look up the right book.

[282] It should take hours.

[283] No, you should be able to save your phone.

[284] That's very much like people who talk about, you shouldn't take a psychedelia because it's like a shortcut to the mystical experience.

[285] Right.

[286] And of course the answer to that is like, you know, what's wrong with a shortcut?

[287] If I'm trying to get somewhere, am I going to go like all around and like a circuitous boring route?

[288] Or am I going to just take the friggin' shortcut?

[289] That reminds me of a joke that Terence McKenna used to say that some guy practiced a city of levitation for 40 years and figured out finally had a float.

[290] And he came up to the Buddha and he said, master, I can walk across the water.

[291] And the Buddha said, but the ferry's only a nickel.

[292] You know, I mean, take the fucking mushroom.

[293] Take a chance, dude.

[294] Take a shortcut.

[295] Not only that, the idea that you are independent from nature and that you don't need some help in any way.

[296] I mean, you're constantly getting help from nutrients and vitamins and protein and all these different things that you absorb through nature.

[297] But then when it comes to this that you think may or may not do something to your mind, you're not, you know, I can get there naturally.

[298] Yeah, yeah.

[299] Well, to get back to the Google search, I mean, yeah.

[300] I mean, I think that, you know, the fact that we now have so much knowledge and information, you know, at our disposal is an extraordinary thing, you know, but then the question is still, how do we manage that?

[301] What do we do with it?

[302] And what type of, you know, society can we, you know, pull ourselves into?

[303] Because at the moment, what we have is not going to last very much longer.

[304] I like what you said, pull, pull ourselves into, because it's really, it's going to have to be that because it's going to have to pull away from the system that we have now.

[305] I mean, especially the financial system.

[306] We've learned from.

[307] when Ron Paul wanted the audits of the bailouts and people found out how many trillions of dollars had been sent into this whole idea of bailouts and where this tax dollars went.

[308] I think a lot of people became really disillusions and disenfranchised and had no connection to it.

[309] You know what I mean?

[310] I mean, when it happened, did it make any sense to you?

[311] When you were hearing about the bailouts, did any of that make any sense to you?

[312] I don't pay attention to any of that.

[313] It seems like a system you can't fix.

[314] So it seems like, you know, it almost feels like trying to go against the machine that's currently in place is so intangible.

[315] It's like so gigantic.

[316] The financial system is completely and utterly corrupt and unrecognizable.

[317] It's impossible to understand.

[318] Right.

[319] Well, that's like a bunch of the work I've been doing over the last few years.

[320] I mean, in the film, actually we interviewed you for the film, but we didn't end up using your interview.

[321] We just couldn't somehow splice it in.

[322] People put it online in 2012 Time for Change.

[323] And we interviewed this guy, Bernard Liatar, who was an economist.

[324] He was one of the architects of the Euro.

[325] He wrote a great book called The Future of Money.

[326] And in that book, he, and in our film, also he discussed how the financial system is broken.

[327] It really doesn't matter at this point who you put in control because it's still just like a car with no brakes.

[328] But that actually we're going to have to reinvent instruments for exchanging value that actually have fundamentally different value systems connected to them.

[329] So, for instance, he proposes a currency, which he closes the terra that has a negative interest charge.

[330] So it's a new trading currency, a global trading currency that's indexed not to just a virtual abstraction like our money currently is, but actually is indexed to a basket of real -world goods and resources that decline in value over time, because most things do.

[331] So the longer you held on to a terra, the less it would be worth.

[332] So instead of a gold standard, it would be based on a bunch of different valuable things?

[333] Exactly, a bundle of resources that include fuel and wheat and processed food.

[334] and unprocessed goods and so on.

[335] And as a summation of all of that, it would actually decline in value.

[336] It would have what's called a demurage charge.

[337] So when people got a bunch of these tariffs through some business deal, rather than seeking to hoard them or hold on to them, that wouldn't work.

[338] So they would be best used by putting them back in a circulation, by sharing them or whatever.

[339] So that's Leotard's concept, and one of many concepts.

[340] We're actually publishing a book through my company of Alver called Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein.

[341] It's actually already up on, it's out on the internet and you can get copies.

[342] But he actually puts together a whole paradigm looking at the inevitability of the financial system, breaking down, and really seeing that rather than just having one monopoly of a value exchanging instrument like money that's controlled by private banking interests, you could really create a whole ecology of different ways of exchanging value that would be used for different purposes.

[343] Do you think that the government would ever allow something like that to actually take place?

[344] I mean, it almost seems like trying to create a government inside a government.

[345] Well, I mean, it's happened before.

[346] For instance, in the Depression, they reissued a lot of local currencies, and it was also done in the 19th century, obviously.

[347] I read about a town in North Carolina or South Carolina that's trying to do that right now.

[348] Exactly.

[349] Well, I think that's definitely going to be on the horizon because people are not going to be able to use this.

[350] Yeah, it was a small town, and they had their own currency in this town, and there was a debate about its legality.

[351] And in fact, if you look at the bankruptcy of the government and the effects of peak oil and, all those other stuff going on, the capacity of the federal government to intervene and to metal may actually become radically reduced in the next years, because there's just not going to be the money available for that kind of endless effort.

[352] Damn.

[353] My face is melting.

[354] Thinking about what he's saying?

[355] Yeah, it was just like so much information I'm thinking about right now.

[356] Well, you know, is it possible that none of this will actually have?

[357] that will sort of stumble into the finish line?

[358] No, it's not possible.

[359] It's not possible.

[360] It's not possible.

[361] So you think it's absolutely 100 % that the society that we currently enjoy is going to collapse?

[362] Absolutely.

[363] 100%.

[364] I mean, it's obvious.

[365] What kind of a time frame you can have in it?

[366] You know, could be a year, could be 10 or 15 years.

[367] But the point is to recognize that, you know, we're in it now.

[368] I mean, that, you know, our faith in capitalism, you know, capitalism is a system that has an inherent instability to it.

[369] And basically, what it requires is constantly new markets.

[370] that need to be turned into money.

[371] So you can keep the dynamism.

[372] That you can keep the debt growing and you keep extending the credit.

[373] But I think what we're going to realize soon enough is that capitalism was not a final system.

[374] It was a transitional system.

[375] We don't know what that transition is into yet.

[376] But capitalism is like an adolescent system.

[377] It's like aggressive, compulsive, competitive.

[378] You know, at a certain point, you have to shift into maturity and adulthood and you have to let go of some of that adolescent compulsion.

[379] How important is psychoso?

[380] psychedelics in this equation because the best tool, in my opinion, to sort of calm down that those instincts, those competitive, super hyperaggressive instincts is psychedelics and it's one of the most illegal things.

[381] No, I haven't.

[382] You should try it.

[383] You think that really helped?

[384] Yeah, it's awesome.

[385] It's funny because it makes me violent when I watch it.

[386] Really?

[387] Yeah.

[388] It's so fun.

[389] So I think that psychedelics have tremendous value.

[390] I mean, but you know, people always say that I'm an advocate of psychedelics and I suppose it's true to a certain extent, but I also feel that it's a individual decision.

[391] They're not for everybody, and obviously they're still illegal and frowned upon in our society.

[392] But the fact is that one of the values of psychedelics is they kind of decondition you from your present state of consciousness and your kind of social ideology and belief system.

[393] You know, there's a kind of peeling away.

[394] I remember the first time I took mushrooms, one of the first experiences I had was going to a deli and buying something with money and just finding it totally ludicrous, that our culture invested so much belief in these wrinkly, brown, ugly pieces of paper, you know, and that everybody was kind of so disconnected from their present experience and focused on the sports or the stock ticker or all this crap, for my opinion.

[395] So I think that peeling away back to a kind of, you know, phenomenal logical, as they say, level of just presence of being, that's a very powerful thing.

[396] And we tend, you know, as humans, it's very easy for us to get lost in abstractions and concepts.

[397] And we take, and then we believe in our concepts.

[398] We think that they're real.

[399] So the psychedelics can break that investment we've made and all these things that we think are real that are just abstractions and concepts.

[400] Does it have to be either or?

[401] Can you enjoy a good movie and still be a person who believes that we're evolving as a consciousness and that we are in an adolescent state of evolution and somehow or another, we're in a transitionary period?

[402] But can't you just enjoy the X -Men?

[403] I love the X -Men.

[404] You love the X -Men?

[405] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[406] You love the X -Men?

[407] So that's cool, movies are cool?

[408] Just tell me what's cool.

[409] Movies are cool, but TV's not.

[410] Do you ever see Walking Dead?

[411] It's a pretty fucking good show, man. There's zombies and these people trying to survive.

[412] It's fucking fun.

[413] Sometimes I like to sit in front of something and watch some shit that somebody created that's supposed to be entertained me. I don't think it has to cut your capacity for thinking and reason and logic and original thought.

[414] I don't think it has to.

[415] I think it could just be fun to watch.

[416] I think a lot of people are conditioned by it.

[417] A lot of people are weak, but a lot of people fucking eat cheeseburgers all day and become 700 pounds.

[418] Well, I mean, you know, I'm not like in a, you know, I don't judge.

[419] You enjoy whatever you want to enjoy.

[420] I don't really care.

[421] I mean, personally, you know, what I like are kind of, when I get excited now about popular narratives, it's more because I see in them the seeds of part of this transformation that's underway.

[422] Now, for instance, if you look at like a lot of the most archetypally huge stories that our culture keeps telling us, which includes the mutant, you know, the X -Men, Harry Potter, you you know, Lord of the Ring, well, Lord of the Rings for a certain extent, but Star Wars, let's say, Avatar, the story that's repeated over and over again is there's like this hero's journey, and as part of that hero's journey, there has to be a learning to use our psychic faculties.

[423] You know, so, you know, the Matrix.

[424] He's trying to tell us we're all superheroes, dude.

[425] Yeah, so if you look at mutants, they're going to this academy, they have to learn how to master these paranormal gifts.

[426] You know, Harry Potter, you have to learn to cast your spells, Star Wars, you have to use the force.

[427] You know, I actually, the more that I've thought about it, and the more of my own experiences have kind of echoed, you know, some of these things, I think that these stories are so powerful because they represent a kind of yearning that people have for a kind of initiatory training and extrasensory perception.

[428] And that is something that our society, you know, has rigorously denied us, you know.

[429] And I think if you look at like what happens to you when you're like an adolescent, like let's say you're 15, 20 years old, you know, you have this beginning.

[430] And when you're a young teenager, you have this tremendous sense of expectations.

[431] You're like waiting for some transformative thing to happen to you, and then it doesn't happen.

[432] And so instead, you accept a lot of basically crappy degraded substitutes, like dulling entertainment, like, you know, watching athletes do this and that or whatever, you know, rather than having gone through something that you always just know is missing, but then the culture kind of like hides it from you.

[433] And I think that that thing that's missing from our culture is this direct initiatory process.

[434] How is the culture hiding it from you, though?

[435] I think the culture, the water sort of seeks its own level on a lot of these things, and a lot of people just get lazy and don't look for it.

[436] And this culture that's opening up right now, experiences now are being detailed and talked about that people could never understand before.

[437] The connection that people have together through the Internet now, there's never been anything like this before.

[438] I don't think it's getting dumber.

[439] I think there's always going to be a certain amount of dumb people.

[440] I think there's always going to be a certain amount of people that smoke cigarettes.

[441] I think we, I just stopped actually recently, which was very exciting.

[442] Did you really?

[443] You smoke cigarettes.

[444] I know.

[445] Is that pathetic?

[446] Wow.

[447] Just for, you're such a smart guy.

[448] I know, I know.

[449] What the fuck is that?

[450] I know.

[451] I apologize.

[452] That's what a ruthless drug.

[453] He doesn't get it.

[454] No, I do get it.

[455] I swear to God, I get it.

[456] I swear to God I get it.

[457] I want to start fucking putting cigarettes.

[458] I fuck with you because I love you because one of my best friends, but I get it.

[459] Actually, it was through ayahuasca that I started also, to be honest.

[460] because there's a whole relationship between ayahuasca shamanism and the Amazon and tobacco.

[461] Right.

[462] That's when I first started smoking.

[463] They blow tobacco on you, right?

[464] They do, and it's also, there's something about tobacco and ayahuasca that are very synergetic together.

[465] I mean, tobacco is considered a very important power plant.

[466] You try the hatch first?

[467] Why didn't you try cigars?

[468] We can get natural tobacco.

[469] Yeah, natural tobacco, I tried, yeah.

[470] Cigars are way better for you.

[471] I mean, they're probably not the best thing for you, but they're better for you than cigarettes.

[472] Yeah.

[473] It's all the chemicals in cigarettes that are related to its bitch.

[474] I spoke like natural American spirits.

[475] I mean, I stayed at least at that level.

[476] That shit seems like it hurts me more, though.

[477] Like, when I do natural spirits, it's like the next day I'm coughing up black things.

[478] Because it's not giving you any numbing power.

[479] It's like cigar or something.

[480] There's 590 fucking ingredients and cigarettes.

[481] Yeah.

[482] That, by the way, that are usually made to make us hit better.

[483] Did anybody really go over all those 590?

[484] You know, a lobbyist, right?

[485] You know, who the fuck went over all those ingredients and made sure that they're all cool?

[486] People are dying half a million a year.

[487] in America alone directly related to cigarette smoking.

[488] What you were saying though, a lot of people probably I think also feel like they did accomplish what they wanted in life.

[489] Like I think that seems like it seems almost negative that you say it like that because like I talk to my dad, he's like fuck yeah, this is exactly what I wanted to do with my life.

[490] I love my life.

[491] I'm happy.

[492] I'm married.

[493] That's kind of rare though, dude.

[494] Don't you think your dad's pretty smart?

[495] No, I think I mean, unless I think that's just a negative look.

[496] I think a lot of people like what they do.

[497] I mean, there is definitely a great job though.

[498] You got easy job.

[499] No, no, I'm not talking about me at all.

[500] I'm not talking about me at all.

[501] I'm talking about my mom, my dad.

[502] Like, everyone I grew up around with, they all liked what they did.

[503] Well, you might have been lucky, and you grew up in the Midwest, and you grew up in a different time.

[504] I'm offering you is like, you know, my way of thinking about it.

[505] Your way of thinking might be different.

[506] Oh, no, no, no. My personal, you know, experience growing up was like, you know, I thought there would be this amazing thing that would happen as you've got to do something to have those things, man. You've got to, you know, I've always said that there should be some sort of a right of manhood, a right of, it doesn't have to be even a manhood thing attached to something manly or aggressive.

[507] I mean, to finding your character, finding your limitations, doing something extraordinary.

[508] Yeah, well, I mean, you know, some of the thinkers that I wrote about in my books talked about how cultures need to have some type of initiatory ritual.

[509] And if they don't have it consciously constructed, it'll end up being unconsciously, you know, destructive.

[510] It'll happen through war or through destruction of environment or something.

[511] So one theory that I have about the, you know, quote unquote, 2012 or this transition that we're in is that it's almost on an unconscious level, you know, humanity has not been able to change its behavior, right?

[512] So it's like it's on an unconscious level we're kind of willing ourselves into a state of catastrophe to bring about an initiation and thereby a transformation of consciousness.

[513] 100 % sure?

[514] Of that?

[515] That's 94%.

[516] That's strong, man. That's very strong.

[517] Those are strong words.

[518] Who knows what the fuck is going to happen?

[519] That's what I say.

[520] I say it could be some sort of a meteor impact or it could be some sort of a sky net thing.

[521] I do believe that something is absolutely going to happen.

[522] It just seems to me that things are moving at such a furious pace that it just can't last.

[523] And I think it's a natural cycle, man. I really do.

[524] I think the reason why we're having all these natural disasters is that's a part of a natural cycle too.

[525] Yeah, but if you talk to my grandfather about TVs, he was like, wow, this is crazy.

[526] TV was invented.

[527] You could see TV where you know, they probably, it's just us living our life and then around a certain age where we grow up to a certain point where we're like, yeah, it's fucking spinning out of control.

[528] Back in the 40s, it's probably like Charlie Chaplin thought it was spinning out of control.

[529] That is possible, but it also could be that human beings, even though we love to think of ourselves as being separate from all the other things in this world, we are a natural thing.

[530] And even though we have plastic fucking cars and glass, lenses for our fucking cell phones we are still a natural thing and we are subject to the natural cycles of this earth, of this superorganism of the universe itself and even when we see crazy weather patterns and wild crazy shit there could easily also be crazy cultural patterns and that culture even though we can create it and we do have control of it it may be very well a natural movement as natural as your evolution from baby to adulthood it could be a natural thing Could be would be we've published some Could be woobies Make me want to fucking choke a bit?

[531] But that's a good one man On the web magazine, I like that, I've That's a shirt.

[532] A web magazine that I run reality sandwich And we've been publishing some excerpts Which is not Mac friendly, by the way, I want you to know that.

[533] I don't know if you know that.

[534] Both of these computers, I tried to go to your website today and just search my name obviously first, but then Joe Rogan's name and both of them kept on crashing my browser.

[535] I don't know.

[536] I've never had that problem.

[537] Really?

[538] Google Chrome, check it on that.

[539] Do you use one of those old Macs?

[540] the trackball?

[541] No, I used to Newmeck.

[542] Remember those trackballs in the center of it?

[543] Anyway, we published a few pieces by a German scientist.

[544] The guy Dieter Brouser wrote a book called Revolution 2012, and he's one of a bunch of people who are arguing that a lot of what's happening has to do with changes that are taking place throughout the whole solar system, that have to do with the sun changing, that actually the electromagnetic environment of the Earth is shifting.

[545] What is supposed to be the galactic alignment on December 21st, 2012?

[546] Because I've heard Neil Tyson, who I very much respect, who is that?

[547] Who Poot?

[548] He's a scientist.

[549] very famous internet scientist not internet scientist I shouldn't say he's a fucking he's a scholar of a very well respected I believe he's an astrophysicist or something along those lines but super super brilliant guy he pooh -pooed that there was any alignment whatsoever he said it's a constant thing that that alignment that same alignment happens all the time he's like you know the fact that everyone's making it out the December 21st 2012 was the first time that this happens in 25 ,000 years he's like that's nonsense and he's I believe he knows more than I do Well, he probably knows more than you do, too.

[550] Yeah, for sure.

[551] So, I mean, I can just give you my little interpretation.

[552] I mean, my understanding is that it's simply an obstacle alignment, which means there's no particular reason that we would know of.

[553] That would be such a tremendous transformative thing, where the winter solstice sun rises within the dark rift at the center of the Milky Way.

[554] So in a sense, it's an eclipse of the center of the Milky Way by the sun on the winter solstice, on that particular date.

[555] So that date had a lot of significance for them.

[556] it was like the key moment in the year and they considered the sun to be the first father and they saw the dark rift at the center of the Milky Way as the cosmic mother or they also called it apparently a black hole which is interesting is only in the last like 15 years that our astronomers discover there is a huge black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

[557] Well they know that there's actually a supermassive black hole in the center of every single galaxy and that that supermassive black hole is one half of one percent of the mass of every galaxy so if you have a giant galaxy it's a much bigger black hole and they even have There's the first photograph they've ever taken of a black hole eating a black hole.

[558] It's fucking crazy.