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Psychedelics have
helped me build a cosmology.

It gives
you a sense of a wholeness

that you didn't even know
you could experience.

And just
transcending into that moment.

Made me realize

that there's more to life than
what my senses can pick up.

Contemplation
of what's beyond the ego.

We are living through

a global psychedelic renaissance,

with increasing mainstream
attention on scientific research

showing that psychedelic substances

have powerful therapeutic potential.

From MDMA and psilocybin now being used

as effective therapeutic agents

for treating trauma and anxiety,

ketamine or iboga are also now being used

to treat addictions and depression,

and we can also witness the
widespread popularization

of the Amazonian tea ayahuasca

that many people are taking

to experience deep spiritual healing.

I've been deeply involved

in the psychedelic community
for over two decades

as a facilitator of these medicines

and as the prime creator

of the DMT-ayahuasca smoking
blend known as Changa.

What I often think is missing

from the new psychedelic
medicine discourse

is that for most people,

the psychedelic experience is
typically a self-initiation

outside of the legal channels
or the medical model,

and perhaps it always has been.

Unfortunately, there is
surprisingly little guidance

about how to navigate the experience

beyond the typical psychotherapy model.

As the taboo around the subject fades,

we need a more honest discussion
of how to prepare oneself,

create a safe environment,

and to contextualize and integrate

these most powerful and
profound experiences

in the days and months afterwards.

I decided to capture
and distill the wisdom

from within the Australian
psychedelic community,

focusing on personal ruminations
and contemplative thought.

I also collected firsthand experiences

from people's very first
initiatory journeys,

powerful revelations, encounters
with beyond-human entities,

and visionary experiences

that sometimes leave even
more unanswered questions.

The people I interviewed
are from all walks of life.

They are scientists,
academics, psychotherapists,

business owners, artists, mothers,

and people from the corporate world.

For myself and the people
interviewed in this documentary,

psychedelics are not
just therapeutic tools

or one-size-fits all drugs.

They are transformative medicines
that open people's minds

to exploring the spiritual dimensions

and the mysteries of consciousness itself.

They are a portal for deep
and meaningful contemplations.

Well, I didn't even
know what tripping was.

I had no concept of it.

All my friend said is, "Oh, you trip."

And I'm like, "Trip?

I've been on holiday trips.

What's he talking about?"

I think I was maybe 14

when we went picking mushrooms

in a cow paddock

and chopped them all up and
then cooked them in rice,

vegetarian rice, and then ate them.

And we were absolutely
tripping, as you can imagine.

It was so joyful and so
exhilarating and so colorful

that it was impossible to explain it.

'Cause one of my other brothers was there,

and we had eaten all the rice,

so there was none left for him.

And so he's watching TV

and we're sitting and running
around the lounge room

and then looking at still
paintings in the rest of the house

and realizing that they
are just as animated

as the television,

because I'm now open to a whole
new perspective of reality.

And trying to tell him that, you know,

like this still image is
moving and makes as much sense

as the TV that you are
sitting there so engrossed in.

One of the other things I
remember from that experience

was the sun was rising,

and then lying in bed and then
the lights coming through.

And whatever music I
wanted or imagined to hear,

it sounded perfectly in my ears.

Pop music.

Ambient music.

Some silly cartoon.

And that was just an incredible,

beyond linguistic
experience that, you know,

obviously still to this day,

it has a powerful effect on me,

and I gained a deep level of
direct experience learning

from that experience or those experiences

during that, you know,

first time of having such a
positive mushroom experience

at sort of such a young age.

Yeah, yeah.

When I left school, I got a internship.

One day we were driving out
into Namadgi National Park,

and I turned to my friend and said,

"Where are we going today?

What are we doing?"

And he goes, "Oh, we're not
gonna work today, James."

And I said, "We're not?"

He said, "No."

He said, "What do you know about LSD?"

And so we dropped these sugar
cubes of acid in the car

and we went for this walk.

That experience broke down

the container of perspective space

and enabled me to see the
micro and macro layers

that make up the whole
of both consciousness,

but also of nature itself.

Watching the condensation
patterns in clouds,

becoming more acutely aware of the shapes

and fractal nature of fluid
dynamics to the naked eye

that normally were not apparent

in the normal state of consciousness.

And to me, this enabled me

to pierce a veil of
perception and understanding

and deepened my inquisition

into both the nature of consciousness

and also the nature of reality.

Yeah, that was my first
really deep experience,

and bizarrely, it was on a work day.

I've found over the years,

psychedelics for me have been

one of the most consistent
tools for self-growth

that I've had available to me.

In my late teens,

I was smoking a lot of pot
and I was quite dysfunctional.

I'd dropped out of school and, you know,

was just kind of kicking around.

At some point, I had some
psychedelic experiences

that really helped me
catalyze what I wanted to do

and how to go about doing that.

So I stopped smoking cigarettes,
I stopped smoking weed.

I went back to TAFE

and finished my high school qualifications

and then went to university after that.

Even now, like many years beyond that,

if I don't take some time out

to have some psychedelic experiences

maybe once or twice a
year every now and then,

then things that are
maybe in my blind spot,

like things that are
interfering with the way

that I want to be in the world,

the kind of relationships
that I want to have to people,

they might just grow into bigger problems.

And I've found drugs
like LSD, magic mushrooms

can kind of break down your normal ways

of thinking about yourself,

your normal ways of relating
to people and other experiences

in such a way that they
can kind of illuminate

these blind spots that we have

where we might not realize how
our behavior is manifesting

and how that's causing us problems.

You know, I think this
is one of the reasons

why psychedelic drugs can be useful

in the treatment of different addictions.

Essentially, my first
experiences were in the container

of the electronic music
culture and the doof

and a permissibility that
I could really go wild.

So I basically had a second childhood.

There's a certain personality
matrix we're born with

and that we are allowed

and is shaped by our culture, our peers,

our set and setting of the culture.

But when you have catalysts like LSD,

they allow you to step outside
the cultural box and the norm

and to play and to explore

and to create yourself anew.

And so, you know, I actually formed this,

I guess you'd call this
a performance troupe,

called the Barrel Full of Monkeys.

And we would go around
playing Barrel of Monkeys

on the edge of dance floors

with, like, totem tennis
and Twister and games,

and we would reinvigorate
this sense of play.

And I remember, like, electronic
music parties and Confest

and being, you know, in nature,

being on the banks of the
Murray, being in mud pits.

Those landscapes created
transformational opportunities

in that set and setting to grow.

So it's a great opportunity

to be given that freedom of expression.

And, you know, if I had have just been

potentially doing LSD in the streets,

it would've been a whole
different kettle of fish.

But to be amongst a community

which was about mind expansion,

and in fact encouraged
people to be creators

and to create from their
freedom of expression

and to be part of this
belonging of a tribe, you know?

It was part of the cultural tapestry

to express yourself to your
fullest and to give back.

It was a time and a place
that I dearly treasure.

My youngest son got into serious trouble

in New South Wales with magic mushroom.

So I thought, "Bugger it, I'm
gonna try magic mushrooms."

What I got was completely unexpected.

I took it at an odd time,
first thing in the morning.

The sun was only just coming up.

Now, I do understand a bit of
what Einstein says about time,

but it almost seemed to stop.

The thing that really interested me

was that I felt a presence.

Didn't actually see
anything to start with,

but I just felt that I was
surrounded by some entity.

And I'm basic agnostic,

but it really became a
spiritual experience.

So that was a bit of a shock,

to feel that there was something out there

that I'd been denying for a long time.

And I guess it was a bit
like a near-death experience.

It was more that I felt

that I was surrounded
by this shining life.

And once I let go of that,

then it became quite warm and comfortable,

surrounded by love, acceptance.

Well, you are what you are, you know?

During that experience,

I actually came across
the Rainbow Serpent.

And again, you know,
like I'm thinking, "What?

So there is a Rainbow Serpent, is there?"

It probably lasted an hour or so,

but there was no concept of time at all.

It could have been days.

It could have been just a few minutes.

But it was almost religious.

It was certainly spiritual.

Well, growing up in New Zealand,

we didn't have a lot of access

to psychedelics as a youngster,

which I'm actually quite
grateful of, to be honest.

I think my earliest experiences

would've been with psilocybin mushrooms

we picked on the peninsula at Otago,

around Dunedin University.

The first time I got to take
LSD was in the United States

when I was about 20.

And it was quite funny really,

because I had read a lot about acid

and I actually done American '60s

as a history class at university

and had read a great deal of
literature about that time,

so I was very curious.

It was in the winter in Wyoming,

and taking it was such
a different experience

to all the literature I'd read about it.

I couldn't believe the disparity.

I ended up running around
in the fields of snow,

basically screaming, "What, this is it?

This is acid?"

I was really astounded that
this vilified substance

I'd heard so much about
was actually so wonderful.

When I smoked 5-methoxy-DMT
for the first time,

I was a pretty hardened
scientific rationalist atheist.

And then after smoking,

I suddenly believed I'd had

an intimate relationship with the Godhead

and had actually had a
true mystical experience.

A dissolution into light,
that mysterium tremendum.

I spent the majority
of the next five years

putting together a worldview

that made sense of what
had happened to me.

I call it the greatest
intellectual adventure of my life,

contemplation of what's beyond the ego.

The most powerful experience

that I felt pulled me out of
the matrix with plant medicine

would have to be 5-MeO-DMT.

Up until then, even
though I played and sat

and explored with
mushrooms for a fair while,

like at least 10 years
before I sat with 5-MeO,

it really ripped me out, almost brutally.

Like it allowed me to all
the stuff that I dabbled with

and read about and studied at uni

in cosmology and metaphysics,

when I felt like I died on that
medicine and I disappeared,

the last thing I fully consciously
remember as this person,

'cause I believe I'm not
the same person I was

before I sat that ceremony.

I feel like I'm a
completely different person.

I remember inhaling it,
and as I'm going back,

then all of a sudden
there's just darkness.

As there was darkness,
I felt like I pixelated.

My body pixelated, my identity
pixelated into the Earth.

There was literally Mother Earth.

I fell back into her and I became her.

My identity disappeared,

my ego disappeared,

this Kate person disappeared.

I was consciousness itself.

I don't know how long I was there for,

I was just consciousness.

And then I got sucked back
through my entire life,

right back to when I was essentially born.

Then I started to come to,

then Kate started to come back,

and I remember, like, on
the ground and I was like,

I kept apologizing because
I didn't know where I was

or who I was or what was going on.

And at that stage then,

I guess a psychedelic
trip where I was here

and the trip was happening,

which I'd experienced
with LSD and mushrooms

many times before, happened.

And we were all connected and, you know,

the trees are beautiful,
similar to the cactus,

and that was all lovely.

And I saw hearts in the
trees and lungs in the trees

and I saw Mother Earth alive,

and that was the most poignant,

life-changing experience I've ever had,

because all of the things
that I had studied,

talked about that,

but up until then, I'd
never experienced it.

It was life-changing, completely.

Yes, whoa, wow.

I'd been ritually smoking
DMT for a long period of time.

This one evening after a period of maybe,

I think it was a week of
really flat-out work coding

and going absolutely bananas at work,

it was indicated to me
that I would be initiated,

where I was to be given

what I was told to be my inheritance.

What I did that night was
had taken LSD at the time,

I smoked DMT at a certain time after that.

I was doing things
according to instructions

that were intuitively coming to me

and following them to the letter.

And I laid down into the space.

It was what seemed to me like
an ecstatic party happening,

and it was centered around me.

The beings that I knew as my friends said,

"You know something that we know you know,

but that you've never told us."

I didn't know what that was at first,

but then it occurred to me.

It was a recognition of the fact

that in that moment I was Godhead.

And so I said, "I'm God."

And they were ecstatic from that point.

I was pushed on top of a pyramid.

And then I looked up, and as I got higher,

my face pushed through a veil

into another dimension again above that.

And I was flying counterclockwise

past what looked like
seven, I think seven orbs.

And I intuitively knew

this is where souls were
born from in hierarchy.

And as I was getting higher and higher,

I was seeing a cross at the top

and the cross was
radiating all the energy,

creating all of this dimension

and this experience that we are.

And as I got closer towards the cross,

I was forgetting my humanity,

but also becoming more and more infinite.

And I settled into an infinite white light

and had no recognition
of ever existing before.

No consciousness.

And then I found myself
coming back from that space.

And as I was coming back down,

I saw the cross and I
was looking at it going,

"Oh, I know that for some
reason," as it passed me,

and I looked it up,
went, "Oh, I know this.

Why do I know this?"

And I was coming back to my body

and parts of me were coming back to me.

You're a human, the Planet Earth, Sydney.

And then I landed back in my body.

Everything was still vibrating

with the energy of what I'd just learned,

saying, "This is God, this is God.

Looking at the walls, "This is God."

This is all God, all the time.

All the time.

Honestly, it changed my
life from that moment.

Clearly,

psychedelics are extremely powerful agents

which expand and challenge the limits

of ordinary human consciousness.

At times, people can have difficulty

integrating these
earth-shattering experiences

back into ordinary life.

The dimensions and doorways that are open

can be so real and expansive,

they can lead to profound changes
in one's entire cosmology.

Many of the stories in this
episode are cautionary tales.

They reveal the difficult
and sometimes messy process

that takes place whilst
confronting these truths.

Even though the results
are often positive,

the journey isn't always easy

and can involve many complications.

One time when I was living in Canada,

I was around 19, 20 years old,

I was experimenting
with a lot of mushrooms

and LSD at the time,

and I'd had a very strong
and profound experience

at this very small little
festival on a very small island

right at the top of the
archipelago of Vancouver Island.

And I was feeling quite brave
and sort of untouchable,

and I was offered a tab
of acid, and I took it.

Three, four hours went past
and there was no effect.

And so I took another one.

And then they both charged
into presence very quickly,

and it didn't stop for days.

And days.

And I got to a point where I
felt the edge of psychosis.

You know, nothing had ever lasted

for such a long time before.

This question came to my mind

of what if this thing doesn't stop?

What if this experience never ended?

I remember being terrified

that the lucidity of waking consciousness

that we experience on a day-to-day
basis would never return.

Despite the challenges
physically or mentally

that sometimes we encounter
when having these experiences,

sometimes the journey

back to normal consciousness or lucidity

is actually one of the greatest gifts,

because we're able to appreciate

how complex and beautiful it is in its,

in its basic or natural form,

and that it is not simple at all.

It is infinitely and
immensely complex to be lucid.

People not taking care

with the vulnerability of the experience

is probably one of the biggest downsides,

because it does make you quite vulnerable

and it can make you
suggestive to new ideas.

So if you're not creating

a safe, comfortable place
for people to have that

or for yourself to have that experience,

then, you know, there's
kind of risks there.

More psychological risks than
physical risks, I would think.

This experience that I had

began in the botanical
gardens with a friend

when we took quite a large dose

of psilocybin mushrooms on a blue moon,

somewhere in the realm

of six to nine dried grams of mushrooms.

Which, obviously,

should probably not be
done in a public space.

The moment that the kind
of drop fully emerged

was I was holding onto a piece of bamboo

in the bamboo forest.

And from my head down
to the base of my spine,

I received this shuddering sensation.

And I started to go into dialogue

with an amaranth plant
that was in front of me,

and they seemed really nice.

But then this other voice kind of emerged

from underneath the amaranth
and opened up into a vision.

And it seemed kind of like that DMT space,

for want of a better adjective,

with the lights turned down.

And this being called Enki
presented himself to me,

and he said, "We need you here."

I said, "I don't really like it here."

He said, "Yeah, but we need you here."

I said, "Yeah, but I don't like it."

It didn't have a good
feeling within that place.

And he said, "Well, okay,
you've made your decision.

If you want to find yourself

back into the realm that you came,

you have to rid yourself
of your dreaming body."

So when I returned to that dreaming space,

I was face down, it was
raining, it was windy,

and I was in a battlefield
from World War I,

seeing all these young men

having their faces blown
off and dismembered,

shells as they came, fell in the trenches,

and it was very, very extreme.

It was horrible.

It was a fucking horrible
experience to see that.

And I was actually just at that same spot

for the first time in
four years the other day,

and there's actually small plaques

at the bottom of each tree

with details which battle
each battalion had fought,

And somehow I dropped
into a channel of space

of one of those battles.

And I think it's interesting

that when we speak about visions,

the way in which it it concretizes
them or crystallizes them

away from the kind of
inner evolutions that occur

and that allow us to continually

pull things from that experience,

kind of like reading a book

a second, third, fourth, fifth time.

You know, there's always gonna
be more there, more content.

I think that there needs
to be a lot of respect

around the consumption of psychedelics

in terms of preparation of the setting

and having appropriate
care available on hand,

'cause different people
can react differently.

And some people might not need care,

and some people might need care.

So the dangers with psychedelics,

it's not in the substance itself,

because they're neutral,
really, by nature.

It's really the human that's using them

which is really gonna
make all the difference.

So I think if you don't have
the right foundations in place

and then you go into a
psychedelic experience,

it may project all those
delusions onto your experience,

and then because the
experience feels so real,

then you clinging onto that experience

as this is the absolute truth.

So I think there's a lot of
traps that people get into,

like myself included.

'Cause I didn't do the necessary work,

I thought I was, and I had
an ayahuasca experience

where I had a complete psychotic breakdown

that I thought I was gonna die

and I thought the only
way out of this hellhole

was to end my own life.

But luckily I was in
a good set and setting

and there were facilitators
there to take care of me.

I came back down from it
like, "Oh, I feel silly.

Well, glad that's over."

Yeah, so about five weeks after that,

I took a small dose of iboga.

It was one of the most physically
challenging experiences

I've ever had in my life.

But that wasn't the hard part.

It was the next two days.

That's when,

had the existential crisis.

It's like I was in the abyss

and I felt like I was just
in this infinite loop,

like my consciousness
was permanently stuck

on like the impermanence of nature.

So just that acute awareness
that everything's gonna end,

everything's gonna die,
suffering is inevitable.

We're in this satanic matrix
hell and I've never going,

that was fucking horrifying.

I was feeling the collective
suffering of humanity.

And I was going through,
like, this identity crisis.

What the fuck am I doing with my life?

What is this reality?

My ego just completely got fractured.

And it took me many, many
months to get over this.

I mean, I can distinctively
remember going crazy,

and believing so as well.

And I was like, "Okay,
I have lost the plot.

How am I gonna communicate
to my family and my friends

and tell them what happened?

My work?"

And I just felt this tremendous
amount of embarrassment.

And I believed wholeheartedly
that that was my new reality,

and it was scary as hell.

But on the flip side of
that, when I came out of it,

when I started to come back to my body,

I had the most intense
appreciation for life.

I remember going out of my
veranda and just screaming out,

just going, "Fuck yeah!"

Multiple times, I was
just in absolute joy.

And it even makes me
feel, you know, good now,

you know, thinking back
about those experiences

and just an incredible
appreciation for life.

I mean, and that lasted for months.

It was that fear of going crazy.

And I did go crazy,

and it was very scary
and very confronting,

but I definitely got a lot out of it.

There came a time when I felt like

I couldn't really exist in both worlds.

On one side of things,

I was seeing interactions
as being, you know,

energetic battles,

and experiencing things
that I would perceive

as psychic attack or magical attack.

And also in my experiences
dealing with and encountering

entities of all sorts and
communicating with them

and sharing space and
sharing energy with them

perhaps in a not very discriminant manner.

This was when I was 19 and I
was buying acid in Ipswich.

And I remember going to my dealer's place

and she had these blotters
called Fat Freddies.

And she was like, "Oh, you
should really just take a quarter

'cause they're really strong."

But my friend was like, "Huh,
whatever," and just ate it.

And I was like, "Fuck,
I need to eat it as well

so I can keep in tune with him."

But pretty much within about five minutes,

I was already tripping balls.

And then decided to try and walk home.

But along the way I just started feeling

these waves of hatred coming from houses,

coming from people.

And then I had this sensation,

like I walked through a spider web

and got bitten on the face by a spider.

And after that I just felt
this huge wave of adrenaline.

And with that adrenaline

came this overwhelming feeling of hate.

Hatred of humanity, of society, of people,

and it was coming from all around me.

And the road was waving,

and in front of us was light,

and everywhere behind us was darkness.

The telephone calls were bending

to turn around and look at us

and following us as we were walking,

and I started feeling this
cosmic ancient energy.

And I said to my friend, "I have to go

or I'm gonna fucking kill someone."

And then I just started
running as fast as I could.

So fast.

And I spewed a few times
while I was running

and I didn't stop,

and just spewing and
running at the same time.

And then I was sitting
underneath a street sign

just screaming out, "Help me, help me!

I'm gonna fucking kill myself!

I'm gonna kill someone!

I've been trapped on this
Earth for 26,000 years.

I'm the alpha, I'm the omega!"

All this kind of like apocalyptic stuff,

shouting in tongues.

And there was this evil,

kind of like death metal
growl kind of voice,

like:

And then I remember

walking across this
bridge in north Ipswich

and I'm just screaming out
what I think in my mind

are these prophecies about this entity

who seems to have come into my body,

who is one of the 12
original creator spirits

of our galactic system or something.

And it had something against humans,

that humans were going to do something,

to create some technology

that would threaten all of his creation.

And so this entity was very pissed off

and had come through me.

I was the vessel through
which all the votes

about all sentient beings on
this planet would come through

to decide whether or not they
wanted to continue creation

or whether they wanted to end creation.

Suddenly a moment of clarity,

and I saw the police.

There was, like, three
cop cars and an ambulance,

and I just kind of said, "Oh fuck."

And I just kept on looping,
"Oh fuck, oh fuck!"

And the cop is like, "Yeah, oh fuck, mate.

Looks like you've had a good night.

You know, now it's time to pack it in."

And the cop cars were levitating

and I was reading the policeman's mind.

And then that's where things in my mind

kind of start to get a little bit crazy.

I'm still telling them about
these ancient prophecies,

about being here on the
planet for 26,000 years,

you know, whatever this
entity was going on about.

And then the next minute I'm, you know,

I've been gang-swarmed by these police

and I've got wasps and
ants coming out of my eyes

and my nose and my mouth and my ears

and my face is being pushed
into the grass by the police

and I'm biting on the grass and growling,

frothing at the mouth.

And my voice is saying, "Help me, help me,

you know, help me!"

And the police goes, "We're
trying to help you mate.

We're trying to help you.

What have you taken?"

And then the other voice is like, "LSD."

And then he starts, like,
chomping at the grass again.

And then I got injected

with probably Valium
or some antipsychotics.

What I remember next after that,

my body was chained to a metal
chair, bolted to the floor,

and I'm just in front of a
person with a wooden desk

and his name was Flying Officer Ackland.

And my consciousness was just observing

while this intelligence officer

was asking this being
who is inhabiting my body

about secret passphrases.

You know, what's the passphrase

to operation delta nine
tango or whatever, you know?

And it's answering all of these things,

but then it's also saying,
"You can't stop me.

You know, this is the end."

And that kind of went on for a while,

and they'd come to the solution

that the only way to deal with this entity

was to seal it up in some kind
of polycarbonate sarcophagus

and then send it in a rocket into space.

And then the countdown to that
rocket just kept on looping.

And then I woke up in
handcuffs in the hospital,

in Ipswich Hospital.

Yeah.

Certainly I've seen some people

have negative reactions to
the use of psychedelics.

And so what tends to happen

is perhaps there's a
spiraling upwards of anxiety

and a lack of control of
one's own thought processes,

which can start to blow out

into psychotic or schizophrenic reactions.

I have to say that I haven't seen that

in many instances at all,

but I've seen a couple of people

have some real problems
dealing with their realities

associated with psychedelic use.

I've been thinking along the lines

that if you're nutrient-deficient,
then shit goes wrong.

And I think that a lot of
plant medicine is like that,

that quite often we're nutrient-deficient

when it comes to soul work.

And then when we go into it,

it can be really scary and
it can knock people around

because they're not
prepared for the intensity,

what worlds can manifest from that place

that can be dangerous.

And especially when
you have the experience

and then you come back into your body,

I think some people can never
want to go back, you know?

So I specialize in working with people

with mental health, anxiety,

well, I think one of the things

that we're talking about
today is integration of,

or trauma as well, and
also psychedelic use.

If you grow up with a
very rigid view of reality

and then that's pushed, but
you're also very fear-based,

you know, in your belief systems

and you've grown up with that,

then yeah, I think you should look out.

You know, that's a hell of a combination.

If you're psychologically fragile,

when you have an experience

that completely blows up
your concept of reality,

I think that can be earth-shattering.

And then once you kind of come back in,

you're trying trying to
navigate that map and that world

and then live your everyday life

within the expectations of
a society and a community

and a culture and a family.

Yeah, I think those things can cause

massive amounts of internal conflict.

So psychedelics or entheogens

or shamanic plants and
substances are tools.

They're tools of consciousness,

and they shape us as
much as we shape them.

Every up has a down.

It does definitely
stretch your boundaries.

And in stretching your
boundaries, it can be dangerous.

So essentially there's
been a learning curve

and there's been a generational
uptake of these substances.

And there can be fallout,
there can be shadow material.

So especially with something
like, say, ayahuasca,

where it's been underground,

and then this is part of the thing.

In the West, a lot of
these substances are used

as part of an underground network

that is supporting and growing
and feeling the connection

and feeling the benefit
of these substances.

So we're autonomous communities

which police and support
ourselves, you know?

So there's evolving notions
of things like duty of care,

of right relationship, of set
and setting, of integration.

And there's not external
authority figures which say,

"You must take one ayahuasca cup

and then you must
integrate for six hours."

And, you know, there's not these Western

nanny state sort of figures

which tell us how to have our
own spiritual experiences.

There's lineages, there's
indigenous connections

to teachers and curanderos
and people like that

who have been doing this
for a very long time.

And from those cultures,

we have learnt to adapt
our own best practices.

And we need best practices
because this is deep work,

it's soul work and it's dangerous.

It's dangerous in the sense of
there's a shock ideologically

when your reality opens up
to a larger perspective.

There can be physical issues.

That can be physical dangers,

especially with things like ayahuasca,

with MeO and contraindications
of people's health.

There are definitely people

that shouldn't do psychoactive
drugs or medicines,

that aren't ready for this,

that it'll be too much for,

that have underlying psychological issues

that really need to be dealt with.

There are people who are
coming to these substances

in search of healing and of connection

that may have underlying
psychoactive conditions.

And the funny thing is,

in, well, indigenous tribes,

they say that, you know,
indigenous tribes around the world

don't necessarily have
psychological conditions.

They have sensitivities

and they have a support mechanism

within the tribal structures

to embrace those sensitivities,

that potentially the people

who are seen as crazy in the West

are the same ones that indigenous cultures

would see as potential medicine people

because of that sensitivity,

because of their connection
to altered states.

Perhaps they have higher concentrations

of DMT or dimethyltryptamine,

or perhaps hearing voices is something

which only the West sees as crazy.

If it was embraced, if it was supported,

if it had a place within the community,

then perhaps they could be supported

in nurturing that as a gift

and not medicated to, you know,

see that as something which is bad.

So these things are very powerful,

and with great power comes
great responsibility.

The psychedelic experience

can be very disorienting

and it can be tricky to find
one's bearings and navigate

when we often don't have very
good maps of the terrain.

In this episode, we look
at how the individual

can optimize their own understanding

to gain insights related to
what they have experienced.

Here we explore how people

can prepare for the
psychedelic experience,

how to optimize the set and setting,

with the most conducive
attitudes and approaches,

sprinkled in with
techniques and useful tips

from experienced explorers

in order to make the most of
these states of consciousness.

It is also important to
give yourself time and space

to integrate the insights

after a psychedelic experience is over.

This is a chance to process
the psychological ramifications

of what you've been shown,

and provides an opportunity
for the individual

to create meaningful change,

question their beliefs, shift values,

and reshape personal orientations.

Psychedelics have helped
me build a cosmology

in the first place.

Because as a 14-year-old, I,

well, I had a map, but it
would've been Christianity,

and it would've been

sort of secondhand smoke
Christianity, you know?

Like I didn't diligently
go and become a Christian,

but I grew up in a society

that basically was neutered
Christianity, right?

So we're not Christians,

but that's the structure we're in,

so we get basically that.

And I think those acid experiences,

which were very disturbing initially,

firstly plunged me deep
into psychological maps

and they plunge me into the unconscious.

You know, sure, God is in heaven

and Jesus died for our
sins, whatever that means,

but there's a lot of
stuff beneath the surface

that is scary and weird,

and no one's given me a map for that.

So it was Christmas 2012,

and, you know, I go visit my parents

and I had this little ritual
that I would go to the beach

and usually smoke some pot
or whatever on Christmas Eve

and do my own little rebel thing.

I went down the beach
and set some intentions

and did a little ritual.

And really the point of it
was, hey, what's my purpose?

And I just sat and did
a little meditation,

and I happened to have a
vial of Changa at that time.

And, you know, it was instant.

Right in this kind of
jeweled, colorful matrix.

You know, I was sort
of shocked to be there,

and I was face-to-face with
what I kind of identified

as insectoid beings.

There's this sense of, like,

we are the guys that collect
all the info, we see everything

and we store it in jeweled
structures and we know shit.

And it was just quite cold,

in the sense of they were
interconnected to everything else.

So they were in a state of love,

but there was no emotion.

And we kind of had a telepathic chat.

And I literally got to frame questions.

We just start off with,
what is my purpose?

And I asked them about money.

And it was kind of like
this alien laughing,

of just like, "Ugh, humans and money."

"You guys don't get that you're
living in a world of effects

and you treat them like causes,

and that's how you treat money."

And I'm like, "Well,
what should I focus on?"

"Power."

And it didn't mean, you
know, political power.

It was like mana, life
force, creative power

is the driver of everything else.

Focus on creative power

and everything else
will follow that around,

whether it's money or results

or things you want in the world.

"These are the fundamentals underlying

how your universe works.

Use them or die."

It wasn't really spelled
out in these words,

but just like transmission, you know?

And then I sort of gradually came back,

did some movement,

and did some breathing,

and then went for another round.

And this one, it was a
different sort of state.

It was like I didn't go fully across.

I kind of could have my eyes half open

and be sort of between the two worlds

and it would seem like
if I breathe or move

it would prolong the state.

And then I got this strong download

of the magician archetype,
how magic works,

how the magician archetype
sits with me and my world,

and how it sits on the cusp

of polar opposites of light
and dark, give and receive.

All the paradoxes meet,

you know, the pleasure and
pain, loss, gain duality,

that this entity can sort
of balance both sides.

If the mystic is the one
that goes beyond that,

the magician is the one
who stays in this world

and plays with those dynamics

to create things and to create results.

And if I go back to it,

that event was really like
an opening of that channel.

And I think I was unpacking
and filing what that meant

for about a minimum six months.

You know, I was like, I would journal,

I would ask, what the fuck does that mean?

What do I do with this, you know?

And it really led to
me learning a lot more

about what I would refer
to as states and stages

and how information comes through those.

Of all the meaningful experiences

that I've had in my life,

they've all started with,
like, actually doing something

that I was really afraid of.

My fear has kind of been my compass,

and I feel like psychedelics have assisted

in training me to relax into that.

Depending on the context
it's taken in, the dosage,

it's not just, like,
more of the same thing.

It's a completely different experience.

So what I tend to kind of encourage people

is to find the thing that
most resonates with them.

So like doing it at nighttime

is different to doing it during the day.

Sunset, sunrise, eyes open, eyes closed,

sitting, lying down,

with music, without music,

in a group, on your own.

All those nuances create quite
a very different experience.

And so finding the thing that
you feel most relaxed in,

but also encouraging
people to not just do it

and have the experience happen to them,

but actually exploring practices

that they've been developing,

whether it's meditation practices,

whether it's creative, artistic,

whether it's movement practices,

and then taking DMT whilst
then doing the practices,

and just noticing how having
a particular technique

drives and orientates the experience

in a very different way.

And then so what I found

was like when I would do movement

before taking any substance,

the actual experience felt far more fluid

and precise to navigate,

because it felt like the movement itself

had primed the body maps,

which are the maps of my body in my brain.

And it'd like, if you wanna look at

the nervous system as like a highway,

especially the central
channel of the spine.

And so if there's a certain
amnesia that happens

as a result of, like, not
moving certain body parts,

then those kind of roads
are under construction.

And then when you take
a type of chemistry,

it's almost like going
into peak hour traffic

with roadblocks.

And so the movement stuff
literally lubricates

the actual physical body,

which I feel the psychedelics
actually affect as well,

but also the neurological
circuitry as well,

which then allows for
just a more functional

and a way of optimizing
the actual journey.

So that's partly why I
teach the movement stuff

as a way of preparing for
psychedelic experiences,

that then can also be used

as a way of navigating
psychedelic experiences,

and then also different
qualities of movement can be used

to integrate psychedelic experiences.

Some useful things to consider

when integrating a psychedelic trip:

spending time in nature,

spending time with friends, family,

exercising, meditating,
having cold showers.

Just, like, really simple stuff,

but it's so important.

Like really important to take
care of your physical vessel.

I think talking
through those experiences

can be really valuable.

It can stop you diving
down weird rabbit holes

where you might lose your context

or you might magnify things
that seemed important

during the psychedelic experience,

but not really considering
how they might impact

your real-world circumstances.

Who are you tripping with?

Think about it.

Who are you journeying with?

Be careful.

Not everyone has good intentions,

and some people can be there

to drag you down into their chute,

and you don't need to be there.

Maybe step away from,
like, nihilistic philosophies

and, like, things that
are just gonna get you

further into your head,

and focus more on the everyday,
human, mundane things.

Journaling is great.

We're not in touch with
our own unconscious minds.

And so anything like this brings
us right in touch with it,

and it helps to be able to
come back to the normal world

and be able to access some of that.

Also, I think it's important, you know,

not to go straight away
back to your day job.

Go for walks, go for swims,

you know, be in nature,
take it really slow.

Because, you know,

you just had your chakras
and your whole energy system

just blown right open,

and now you're sort of putting
all the pieces back together

and you've gotta make sure
they go back in the right spot.

And I think also part of that

is eating a well-balanced diet.

You know, the mind and body and
spirit are so interconnected

that you can't have one without the other.

Maybe fasting if you are able to

and maybe guided by somebody.

And another thing you can do

which works really well is meditation.

And of course, check in with other people.

Make sure people know you're doing it,

especially if you are in a
really dark place already.

It's better to have people
monitoring your situation

and willing to help you out.

The other thing as well is preparing,

knowing where you want to
go and what you wanna do.

You know, why are you tripping?

You know, if you're tripping
for spiritual purposes,

have a question, have a
place that you want to go.

Have something that you want
to connect to the divine about.

'Cause if you don't go in with a purpose,

if you don't go in with some
idea of what you wanna achieve,

you'll come out the other end

probably not having had
the depth of experience

that you otherwise could.

Look, I'm a big believer in
the power of ritual theater.

Not on the bounds of
overt religious practices

where we place too much significance

on the adornment of an altar or, you know,

the lighting of incense,

or practices which take us away

from the very purpose
of the practice itself.

But rather creating practices
around these experiences

that are indicative of the modality

in which we wish to experience.

I was lucky enough to find
DMT when I was 20, actually,

and started using it in
a ceremonial ritual way

and having great visions

and entering into psychedelic
worlds and really enjoying it,

but not actually changing
anything in my life

in the way that I really kept coming up

against those same blocks
again and again and again.

And I was using it as a
divining tool of truth

when I needed something
figured out in my life.

And it definitely gave me answers

to things that I'd been looking for,

but it wasn't until one day
I sat down and I thought,

"Okay, what question am
I gonna ask DMT today?"

And this day, I just
didn't have a question.

So I said to DMT, "I want you
to show me the question today

that you want me to ask you."

And they said, "Now you're talking."

And that's when everything
started to open up for me.

And I allowed DMT to be the teacher

and I allowed myself to go to places

that it wanted to take me.

And then it wasn't a joke anymore.

There was absolutely undeniable
truth and understanding

that this realm is completely real.

Not only are we a part of it,

but we are the creators of it.

We are it.

And there's nothing to be
afraid of in there but yourself.

Learning from the wisdom of the elders

and from the generations
that have gone before,

things like set and setting,
things like correct dosage,

things like, are you
psychologically prepared for this?

Do you have a support network

to help you integrate
afterwards, you know?

Are you in nature?

Are you out in the middle of the streets

where you're gonna be
bombarded and overwhelmed

and trying to keep it together?

I mean, the worst thing in the world

is if you're completely
tripping balls on acid

and you're somewhere
in an urban environment

and you're trying to remain normal.

I mean, it creates an
internal tension dynamic

which is just ongoingly tense.

And really the best

set and setting for these
experiences is nature,

where you can just open and roll around

and let go and, like, melt.

You want to open to these experiences.

That's the whole point.

I remember the first times

I started taking psychedelics
in natural settings,

in ceremonial settings, and
walking in jungles and forests.

I experienced a type of flow
which was pure resonance

when you feel like you are
part of this ecosystem,

and there's almost like
this two-way communication

with the ants and the
ferns and the leaves.

Whilst that experience is
absolutely profound and beautiful

and healing in the moment,

you take that away with you,

you take the memory of that,

of that deep connection away with you

into your non-altered state reality,

because it never leaves you.

It's this remembrance
that, oh my goodness,

like, I've lived my entire life

as though I'm not part
of this world out there,

but yet I've had this amazing experience

where I was part of that world.

And it actually reframes your
wiring on a very deep level

to allow you to remember that,

oh, huh, actually, I am part of this.

And I feel like that is
a massive flow enabler,

because you're removing actually

the basic fundamental block to flow,

the illusion that we're separate.

And yeah, that's probably the biggest

flow catalyst there is.

What I think that people
out there should try

is to go to a natural place
and just go for a walk.

Try and find a place for you
to just be and to contemplate,

where you're not gonna
get hassled by anyone.

And see if there's any
particular trees that draw you.

Express to the trees that
you're there as a humble human

and that you want to dance for them.

Take off all your clothes

to humble yourself before the
trees and before yourself.

And then just dance.

Just let go and dance for the tree.

At first you'll feel very awkward,

but you just need to move through that.

Try and keep in your mind that humbleness

and openness to communicate with the tree.

And if you need to sing, sing as well.

Allow yourself, don't think about it.

And then after a while you'll be dancing,

but you'll also be receiving impressions.

Just let it come.

Let the visions, let the
thoughts, let the sounds,

let the song come out of you,
let the dance come out of you.

Be open to the impulses that you get,

whatever it is.

That space is accessible to anyone.

That was one of the things that I learnt.

One of the
most compelling aspects

of the psychedelic experience

are the reports that
people share of encounters

with otherworldly entities.

These most often take place

when people partake of tryptamines,

whether that be smoking
DMT, drinking ayahuasca,

or eating higher doses of mushroom.

Typically, experienced
psychedelic explorers

report an infinite
ecology teeming with life.

In Western culture,

these experiences are
considered hallucinations

or some kind of aberrant psychosis.

Yet for those I interviewed,

the vividness and
sophistication of these visions

appear as convincingly
independent entities.

In most traditional
cultures around the world,

there is a cosmology which
accounts for spirits,

gods, and various entities
of a spiritual nature.

If indeed there are other
dimensions to travel to,

it would be surprising if such realms

were simply empty of sentient life.

In this chapter, we document
a range of testimonials

about this experience

and various musings on these visitations.

I don't know, I don't
know about entities.

I don't really look at
it whether it's, like,

real or unreal,

but they're definitely
very valid experiences,

and they're consistent, right?

Because a lot of people have
these psychedelic experiences.

It's like, "No, I've been to that realm.

You know, I've met that entity.

Yeah, Baza, he's a good
guy, yeah."

Really an interesting one,

because you'd think if this is just stuff

that's going on inside your head,

there's no way people will
be seeing the same stuff.

Everyone's different.

Everyone has come to where they are

in their particular points of life.

through completely different experiences.

When I was in this space,

it was kind of like suspend
your day-to-day reality

and to accept that whatever's
happening is happening,

and, you know, treat it that way.

And so the impressions
that I got, you know,

when I did experience what I felt

was some kind of entity
contact or communication,

it was just so real

that in my mind there was no question

that that's what was happening.

Yeah, I think the mystery is important.

I think that it lies somewhere between

the real world and our minds,

but it's our shared minds as well.

It's not just what's in my mind right now,

but these conversations that we have.

And when you talk with people,

it, you know, creates things.

There's something strange
going on in our mind

that we haven't quite figured out yet.

Well, my name's Mike Rigby.

I'm a remedial massage therapist.

Since around 2005, I've done
some serious investigations

into psychedelic medicines.

You know, firstly to treat my own PTSD,

and in later years, to
delve deeper and deeper

into spiritual emotional realms within me

and to expand my consciousness
and heal my body.

You get to a point where you realize,

wow, this is my mind.

The subconscious mind
is so much more powerful

than we realize,

and it can create all of these things.

And I'll go along like
that in life thinking,

"Wow, you know, I'm tapping into

some really deep subconscious knowing."

And then I'll have a massive journey

that I know couldn't have
come out of my brain.

Long story short, I smoked DMT.

I had never smoked.

I'd never done, you know,

used a bong or anything like that before.

So I sort of, you know,

breathed the smoke in and I
held it and held it and held it.

Nothing happened.

I couldn't hold it any longer, you know?

Breathed out and then thought,

"Oh God, I did it wrong."

But then suddenly, reality
turned very two-dimensional

and it became like a curtain or a blind.

And through the tears I
could see a Hindu temple.

Whoa, I don't know anything about Hindus.

Let's move on to the next
apparition.

But it didn't go away, and
,

I was stuck in it.

I'm looking around this
dimension that I was in.

It was obviously bigger than a temple.

It was some sort of dimension
made of fibers of light.

And I just looked around,

and there sitting over to my
right was Ganesh, you know?

And I just thought, "Oh
crap, the Hindus are right.

Now I'm gonna have to shave my head

and sit on top of a mountain

for the rest of my
life," you know?

You know, Ganesh, just very sleepy,

he kind of opened his eyes,
looked in my direction,

and fell back to sleep.

And then he jumped up,

like a two-year-old who's
just recognized you.

Jumped up and he started
dancing towards me,

and I started laughing 'cause I thought,

wow, I was just about to
give up my life to Ganesh,

and he seems to know me better
than I know him, you know?

And he's dancing over to me

and his trunk reached out
and just locked into my heart

and just filled my heart with
the knowledge of the universe.

And then his arms reached around,

which I didn't really recognize as arms,

'cause there were four of them.

I didn't know Ganesh had four arms.

They reached around, locked into my heart.

And then the two of us

were just dancing in this intense bliss,

you know, what seemed like hours,

but it was of course,
you know, only minutes.

I think I opened my brain to things

other than just concrete
maths and science, you know?

Yeah, the DMT experience
is a whole lot more shocking

than say the LSD experience.

So the LSD experience,

essentially your ego is
having an altered experience.

With DMT, the ego is hurtled

into a completely alien landscape,

disembodied from the body.

So it was ideologically shocking.

In my experiences with DMT over the years,

I've had my fair share
of alien encounters.

I don't know what they are,

but you need to take it at face value

that it's something which
you're viscerally experiencing

and you've gotta make sense
of and make meaning from.

You know, a lot of the
mythology around DMT

intellectually prepares one

for a sense of the other
or an alien landscape,

but to tangibly feel

that you are engaging with
interdimensional entities

who are perhaps operating on
you or connecting with you

or transmitting information into you

and to feel that you're in a space

where there is something going on.

DMT has opened up a sense
that there's an ecology,

both of souls, of entities,

of beings that are engaging with us.

I know that shamanic
cultures around the world

which have DMT in the ayahuasca brews,

they say that they use these substances

to connect with the ancestors

or the elders or the
beings that are out there,

and we can establish
rapport with these spaces

and with these potential
beings that exist there.

In the Tibetan cosmology,

they say there's levels
of vibration or bardos

that we progress through,

and that when we encounter
the hallucinatory realm

of the demons or of entities,

that they're actually projections

of our own emotional states.

And it seems to be that this is the time

where Western culture integrates
an indigenous perspective

on what might be happening
with these substances.

I come from a culture who
was always into that stuff

and I was raised to
believe in all that stuff

and I kind of was aware of it.

When I was a kid I used to see
little spirits all the time,

like around lights

and doing all sort of
weird moves and stuff.

And then I just kind of grew up

in a very skeptical sort of
friend group in Western society,

in a very sciencey, sort of cynical,

sort of, you know, '90s era,

and so I learned to shut that down.

But I was always reading about it,

like even when I was sort of a nihilist,

I guess subconsciously
I was still into that.

You know, I was always reading books

about spirituality and religion,
all that sort of stuff.

But then when I started doing ayahuasca,

suddenly it was like a tangible reality.

I was like, "Oh, I've
read about this stuff,

and now I'm, like, talking to it now."

Like, "Oh shit, this is how
you're supposed to do it.

Like in a good setting with an intention."

And also then I realized
the spirit world was real.

And then I was like, "Oh, well,

I'm not an nihilist anymore, am I?"

And then, you know, stuff like
meaning started to happen.

To me, it's very, very
much about this conundrum,

this conundrum of having
free will in the self

and me or you having your own being,

but the conundrum that all is
one and we're all connected.

And how do we hold these opposites,

this gnosis, this knowing?

You find a place to actually
hold those opposites.

I think this is kind of a
fundamental of the plants,

it would seem to me, a fundamental theme.

I guess at the end of the day,

does it matter if I see

a talking three-headed elephant
in a psychedelic experience,

you know, for example,

and I get important lessons
about how to act in my life?

It doesn't really matter to me

whether the talking elephant is real

in another dimension or not.

I try and take the lessons
from the experience

in whatever form they come.

And sometimes the lessons,
they're quite abstract.

So you're seeing this
cartoonish kind of world

under the experience of a psychedelic,

but what you're really getting

is a lesson in meditation, for example.

So learning how to maybe
drop into a non-judgmental,

meditative state a lot easier.

It just happens to be that
the context for that lesson

is a really surreal, psychedelic space.

Yeah, it was extremely
hard to come to terms

with the existence of these
realities and these beings,

because, you know,

I'm not a naturally
spiritually-inclined person.

I've been sort of taught
to believe that, you know,

what we see and what we
feel through our senses

is all that there is.

And through these substances,

I've definitely become more
spiritual, you could call it,

or in touch with these belief systems,

that there's more to reality
than what we may perceive.

Up in a waterfall called Minyon Falls,

I smoked some Changa mix of DMT.

And I went into this other dimension,

and I was effectively sitting

up on top of this kind of throne

and I was looking out and
it was nearly like a desert

and nothing was there.

And then an entity came up to me,

and she effectively said that,

"Wow, it's great you're here.

I've got so much I need
to tell you and show you."

And she was literally throwing

these patterns and information at me.

And in some ways you
could say it was violent,

that she was like, "I've
got so much to teach you,

so much to show you, and
I don't have much time,"

because the Changa, it would
only last 10 or 15 minutes.

And I came out of that and
looked out onto the rocks

and I could see Aboriginal
spirits all in the rocks,

with their faces looking
really proud and humble.

And I just got this really amazing sense

that I was accepted.

But from that experience

probably was one of the
most profound realizations,

that's more to this
reality than meets the eye.

The entity thing is a funny business.

People either think you're a fruit loop

if you talk about them or whatever.

I went into this years ago

being pretty impartial about it all,

but the more you take these medicines,

the more you realize

is that there's parasites on every level.

And so just as our bodies
are full of parasites,

what do the statistics say?

Our bodies weigh more of parasites

than we actually do with
our own physical self.

Our bodies are a microcosm of parasites.

And if you've got a yeast
parasite in your stomach,

it will tell your brain
to eat yeast all the time.

So I believe anyone who
takes these medicines

ends up believing that
there is parasitic energy

that's going around
attaching itself to people.

Call it entities, call
it parasitic energy,

but it's certainly a thing.

So for the last 2 1/2 to 3 years,

I've basically had a
lot of time on my hands

where I've had to be able to become one

and find myself again

through using these
magical healing compounds,

especially microdosing
psilocybin mushrooms,

to be able to stop that
underlying depression,

the anxiety and everything there.

But mostly from that 28.3-gram dose,

that's where the healing began.

I started feeling it in
about seven minutes time.

I was at a plus three
experience by about 20 minutes,

and I had extreme entity contact,

but I was blocking them out,

because I'd been blocking myself out

from so many things for so long.

They kept coming to me and I
kept breaking down in tears.

I kept getting very frightened.

And a dark entity sent me
down into the depths of hell

where I was surrounded by these
horrible cockroach beings.

I was seeing fiery, fiery
lava pits and everything.

I was in an absolute dark space.

And then I managed to get myself together

and I started traveling towards
this point of white light

at a phenomenal speed.

I felt like my body was accelerating.

When I hit this white point of light,

I then saw molecular
structures and everything,

ancient geometry, pyramids.

I saw spacecraft.

What we know as the gray aliens

started malevolently taking me apart,

cutting me open.

And inside me I could see
basically robotic parts.

They were removing blue fluid from me

and they were putting green fluid into me.

I then got dropped back onto Earth.

I was in a field

that seemed like I was
in Peru, South America.

And I went down to the atomic level,

lower and lower and lower,

until I came to a world

of just ever, ever-increasing
tetrahedral patterns.

I feel that was probably
going on for roughly an hour,

and I was probably at about three hours

into the experience then.

I then ended up back in this field,

I saw the destruction that mankind

was doing to places like the
Amazon through deforestation.

I started crying again.

And then I ended up back in my room

and I was surrounded
by beautiful entities.

They were Medusas.

They had snakes coming out of their head.

They were coming up to me and touching me

and putting this glowing light,
this energy into my body.

I had mantis beings come
up to me and merge into me

and start filling me with
information about the universe

that the English language
cannot even pronounce.

I was told that I was
still a beautiful person,

that I still had everything inside of me

that I used to have, that
I hadn't lost anything,

I'd just lost touch with it.

I then lost all the entities

and I was just in a room
that was the walls moving,

seeing beautiful geometric patterns,

seeing colors and things,

and remembering my
experiences from years ago.

If there are entities which exist,

well, are they good or are they bad?

Some of the shamanic lineages in Peru,

they say, well, it's like
if you experience an entity

in an ayahuasca vision or trance,

you don't speak its language,

but feel into the feeling.

Is it trying to, like, face hug you

and lay larval eggs in your brain?

Is it trying to communicate to you?

Does it feel good or does it feel bad?

All you've got is your sense of feeling,

your intuition of if it's
dangerous or not dangerous.

So if there's good or bad,

there's good and bad humans,

I'm sure there's good and bad entities.

How do we distinguish from them?

How do we protect ourselves from them?

This is a generational mission.

If I have a trauma,

let's say I was abused as a child,

and I drink the medicine

and I have a lot of dark
or hellish experiences,

that might be interpreted
quite literally by the Shipibos

that, you know, maybe from that trauma

they put entities on you

or because of the soul loss,

other things have come
into you as a result.

And now part of their intention

is to help remove those things

and kind of energetically
put you back together.

Then you could also work at it
from the psychological level,

like what I'm experiencing
is my own trauma

projected out onto the screen of my mind

and now I'm going to find ways

to relate to it in a healthy way,

which is going to allow me

to release what needs to be released

and integrate what is
there to be integrated.

And then there's kind of the mythic level

and awakening level.

I've seen a lot of
people go there as well,

where it's kind of like,

well, none of this really exists anywhere.

Let's just see through
the illusion of self.

And through that process,

which can be amplified
by the work of ayahuasca,

that's how we do a lot of the healing.

'Cause you're just kind of
cutting through the idea

that there's even a self

to be harmed in the first place, you know?

So there's so many different levels,

and I personally don't
believe that there's one way

to work with an experience.

I feel like, you know,

they're all helpful at different times,

and I feel like it's really important

as part of the integration
process to be able to be flexible

and use the different
lenses when necessary.

That will help you to integrate
it as best that you can.

And then holding all of
that in that wider container

of what is this shit anyway?

Do I even exist, and does
it even matter, you know?

And that, again, is the paradox.

Why do people that take DMT

report entities so consistently?

How can it just be a
projection of our unconscious?

How can there be these

archetypal god forms in there all the time

which seem to be represented

in all these ancient civilizations?

It seems like a message, a transmission.

It seems like a
relationship is reaching out

and wanting to be established

through the modality of these substances.

So you know how like we
have DMT in our brains,

and there's been the famous
Spirit Molecule,

studies with DMT where people
under medical supervision

reported alien encounters
going into these realms.

And it's not just us that
has DMT in our brains.

Essentially it's threaded
all throughout nature.

We have an intellectual capacity,

we have an intuitive capacity,

as well as an imaginative capacity

to connect to these spaces.

What if we open up the full
spectrum of our consciousness

and go into this energetic realm?

What if all the other
creatures which contain DMT

are also in that realm?

It's like we're interfacing

with a greater
dimensionality of the world.

It seems like a
relationship is reaching out

and wanting to be established

through the modality of these substances.

It's like a species outreach.

It's really spirit contact.

Our understanding of the
shamanic experience is limited

when we think of it in those terms,

when in reality, spirit
contact encompasses the fact

that we are multidimensional beings.

And those dimensions are
fully populated with spirits,

and they're all ready
and willing for contact.

Some of those spirits have
nefarious plans, some don't,

and some that are friendly
and some that are lonely.

It's just the same as
it is in this reality.

And it's a matter of opening ourselves

to those dimensions in a conscious way,

so then you can increase
your experience of life.

Across the world,

psychedelics are increasingly understood

as powerful tools for treating conditions

such as trauma and depression.

Although science and sanity

is on the side of decriminalization,

these substances still remain illegal

and carry the stigma of drug abuse.

However, many of those

that have had transformative
experience with psychedelics

believe they are profound tools

for healing the human mind and psyche,

which inspires a greater sense
of meaning in their lives.

As humanity faces many
difficult collective issues,

psychedelics offer a way for us

to become a more conscious, sustainable,

and sensible civilization,

enabling our collective evolution.

Martin Williams, a
post-doctoral researcher

at Monash University
in medicinal chemistry,

and I'm also the president of PRISM,

Psychedelic Research
in Science & Medicine,

which is aiming to have
psychedelic compounds

approved for medicinal
application in Australia.

I suspect that a lot of the stigma

that has accompanied drug use generally,

maybe psychedelic use in particular,

has been the direct consequence
of government propaganda,

probably in conjunction with church

and other social sort of structures

which have endeavored to
paint a picture for people

that they will be moving
well beyond the safety zone

that's provided by straight society.

And so probably people have
just accepted that propaganda

as reality, as fact.

And because they're not encouraged

to actually question the system,

question the political status quo,

question the structure of the church

or the general sort of
community collective belief,

they haven't really been
prepared to step outside that.

And so the stigma has
just built up around that.

So that stigma associated

with something regarded as an aberration

or some sort of antisocial
behavior or something

that's just a little bit
of a different perspective

has become so entrenched

that less and less people are prepared

to challenge that stigma.

And that has branched out
into so many areas of society.

So whether it's in academia,

whether it's in the professional field,

in the job market, in
whatever it might be,

it's just become sort of calcified.

It's just become part of the scenery.

And so it's become more
and more of a big step

to actually look out
beyond those limitations.

I feel like it needs to
come out of the shadow.

I understand that we have

legal ramifications in this country.

However, I believe collectively,

if we could find a way
to still advocate it,

because in order for it
to be built to a level

where we can get it
legalized, I'm a dreamer.

If California is about to
legalize psilocybin mushrooms,

I have hope for Australia.

We need to advocate it and
be really vocal somehow

amongst the people that
don't know about it,

amongst the people who are
gonna tell us that we're crazy

or we're hippies or we're,
you know, losing our minds

and we need to go into the loony bin.

They're the people we need to talk to

and share our experiences with,

because the power is with the people.

We think it's with the government,

but there's a lot more of
us than there is of them.

So if we had a collective movement,

that we're all for this, I feel
we could make great change.

However, what I've come up against,

and I do understand why,

a lot of people don't
want to talk about it.

They wanna keep it in the shadow,

and I was one of those people.

I didn't wanna talk about the fact

that I used LSD and mushrooms

and that I love mushrooms a lot

because I was afraid of the stigma.

However, the change I've been
able to make in people's lives

from just speaking about it,

people have never heard
about it, has been huge.

I've been able to encourage people

to sit ceremony with other medicines

that otherwise would never have done it

'cause they're afraid.

So we've just gotta talk
about it more, top hiding.

Back in 2013,

I went into a police
station on three occasions,

once up in Warburton
and twice in Lilydale.

And I said, "This is what I do.

Feel free to arrest me."

And the police said, "Go
away, stop wasting our time.

You know, we've got real
criminals to deal with."

And so by the time I did
get arrested in 2016,

I said I was in possession
of LSD and the cops said,

"Okay, well, you're in possession of LSD.

We've gotta arrest you."

You know, they were actually really good.

The cops actually, you know,

we ended up having a great chat

and had a pretty good time of it.

So I rocked up to court, I pleaded guilty,

and the magistrate dismissed the charges.

And I think that's significant,

because to dismiss the charges

from someone who's pleading
guilty for drug possession

is actually, why would they do it?

Well, clearly because he recognizes

that I'm fit and can vet what I'm doing.

So I then stood up in
the court and I said,

"Okay, Your Honor,

might as well get this
show back on the road.

I'm in possession of LSD as we speak.

Can you please have me re-arrested?"

Yeah, everyone in the
court was kinda like,

what is going on here?

And he's kind of pointed
to the police and said,

"I'm sure they're happy to do it."

So when I did get back to
the magistrate's court,

I was able to argue the case successfully.

And the magistrate did me a real favor

by summing up the entire argument

and basically agreeing with
everything that I said.

And he said, "The only reason

I'm not referring it to Supreme Court

is it's not important enough.

You know, I could refer
it to the Supreme Court,

but based on their case
load and everything,

they'd just throw it out."

So when you're looking at the science,

the science is unequivocal.

LSD, magic mushrooms,
ayahuasca, and mescaline

are all non-addictive, non-toxic,
and psychologically safe

in appropriate dose set and setting.

So when it comes time

for a demonstrative, justifiable reason,

the government actually knows

if they take me to the Supreme Court,

which is what I'm trying to do,

they would actually lose.

But when it's just me
and a handful of people,

it's very easy for the courts

and the politicians to go, "No."

If 10,000 people were to
stand in front of the court

and say, "Screw you,
this is important to me,"

the court would have no dramas

with referring to the Supreme Court.

There's definitely an emotive bias

against psychedelics in culture.

But one of the difficulties is

is that the brain resists change.

We struggle to update our
precepts about the world,

and on a cultural level
that takes even longer.

And it really isn't based on evidence

that what we decide for policy

or what we decide for our own beliefs,

and very frequently they get formed

by initial reaction and stay
that way for a long time.

Funnily enough, psychedelics
are drugs that allow us

to more frequently update
and decondition ourselves

from these strict, rigid beliefs.

People also don't fully understand

both the benefits but also the risks

of not adopting psychedelics.

Everyone knows someone
with mental illness.

Everyone knows someone who is stuck.

And we have a solution,

and it's not being studied in Australia

to the degree that it should be.

We are falling behind the
rest of the academic world,

where John Hopkins, Harvard, UCLA,

they have psychedelic studies.

We don't.

And what is it about Australia?

There is definitely a
academic conservatism,

there's definitely conservatism
within the medical field,

and it's really a loss of opportunity

to make our mark on a area of science

that is going to be
revolutionary for psychiatry.

I found myself on a DNA staircase.

It was a white staircase

that was just going way up into the sky.

It was so high that I couldn't
see the Earth underneath me.

And I was about four or
five steps from the top.

And I'm standing there on my own

on this staircase in the sky,

and I took a step.

And as soon as I took a step,

I just got hit with another vision.

And now I was away from the staircase,

and suddenly I was
watching an apple orchard

and there were apple trees everywhere.

And I was kind of seeing like
a fast lapse, time lapse.

And I saw apples falling,

and some of them were falling
and rotting and just dying.

And then some of them
fell in a certain place,

the right place at the right time,

and a seed sprouted out
of the ground there.

And I watched the next 10 years or so

as that apple tree grew up.

And there was some kind of
narrator or guide or something,

not talking in English to me,

but kind of explaining
a story to me, saying,

"Well, see, it does matter

whether some things fall
left or they fall right

and if they're in the right place

at the right time in the physical world.

Things can either grow
or exist or not exist,

because of whether you go
left or right," kind of thing.

And then,

I found myself back on
the staircase again,

the DNA staircase.

And so I think to myself, "Right, well,

I've gotta take another step."

So I take another step on the staircase,

and this time I get
hit with another vision

and I'm thrown into a
corporate office building,

and I'm just halfway
through opening a door

when I arrived in that place.

And when I opened the door,

there's a woman behind the desk

and I recognize her as my
boss, and she's crying.

And I think to myself,

"Oh, that's not good.

That's not good."

And I said something really kind to her.

And then in that moment
I got a narrative again,

and this time it was, "Well, you see,

you said something nice,
and because of that,

she's not gonna go home and kill herself,

which is what she was gonna do.

And 'cause she didn't go
home and kill herself,

she also went on to have two
children, and here they are."

And then I watched 'em grow
up from young kids to adults.

And then it was like, "So you see,

because you said some kind words,

two lives were the result of that."

Out of each breath is
a domino of reactions.

And then, so it matters,
in the spiritual realm,

what you say and what you don't say,

what you think and what
you don't think maybe.

Then I found myself back
on the staircase again,

and I'm two steps from the top.

So I take another step,

I take another step and I
get hit with a vision again.

This time I'm thrown out to outer space

and I'm seeing all these large orbs

and rocks floating around,

and they're all moving, meteors
and things all twisting,

and they're all spinning around

what looks like a black hole.

And everything's spinning
around this black hole

and it's all slowly
getting sucked in by it.

And the narrator's like, "See,

in some parts of the physics world,

it doesn't matter what
you do, it's inevitable.

All of this stuff is gonna come together

and there's nothing you can do about it."

And that was like the opposite
of what I got told before.

And then,

I come back to the staircase again.

And so I'm one step from the top.

And all this time, I
later spoke to my friends

and they said that during that,

during the time when I
must've been having that trip,

I was sitting down on the hallway floor,

like in a cross-legged
yogi kind of position,

just sitting there quietly.

But then when I took a step
up onto the final step,

I started getting this story

about how everything is evolving

and that it's all moving slowly

towards learning lessons of love,

and that everything makes mistakes

and then it refines itself
and then it tries better,

tries again to be better,

and then it does it again and again.

And everything, every
refinement in that process

is an elevation of love,

in that it's learning not to
be cruel, but to be loving,

again and again and again.

And he said, "And it's all evolving

until this universal point

of where everything realizes
that it's in love with itself

and there's nothing you can
do about it."

And so at that moment I was like, "No."

Yeah, I'd started
speaking, my friend said.

I don't remember this part of it,

but they said, in an
Irish accent, weirdly,

"I don't fucking believe it.

No fucking way.

I don't fucking believe it!"

And then I screamed at
the top of my voice,

"You fucking beauty!"

And I'd stood up in the hallway,

stomped down the hallway

and jumped into the air
with my hand like this

and landed on the floor.

And in my movie,

what I'd done is just
jumped off the staircase,

thought, "Wow, this is amazing,"

and jumped off the staircase
and jumped into the clouds

and off the top step.

But in reality,

I actually jumped and had
hurt my hip really badly,

and still I was not aware of any of that.

And they dragged me upstairs apparently.

And then started a second movie,

which was finding myself
flying through space.

And I was flying through
space inside a sunbeam.

So I felt like I was in a
sunbeam, for some reason,

and I'm,

that's all I could hear.

And it felt like it was
going on for half an hour.

And the whole time I was thinking,

"What the hell's going on?

What the hell's going on?

What the hell's going on?"

And I feel like I'm like
looking left and right

and that there are other
souls in sunbeams as well,

other beings like me.

And then I kind of realized
that I can see the Planet Earth,

and I'm getting closer to it.

I'm thinking, "Wow, that looks amazing."

And it slowly begins to dawn on me,

"I'm entering the atmosphere, whoa!"

And then I get into the atmosphere

and I'm still flying through this.

And then I start panicking and I'm like,

"Oh shit, I'm going to go the ground!"

And then before I can
consider it too much,

I hit the ground.

And I just go deep, deep into the soil.

And then we lay dormant in the soil

for what was meant to
be thousands of years.

And then we just woke
up and started living.

And that was it,

like an immortal kind of existence.

At some point I asked a question,

what's it feel like to be God?

And then I find myself behind
someone's eyes in their body,

and I'm moving around.

And I realized that I can be in that body,

feel what that person's feeling,

and I can jump from body to body

and I'm bouncing around
from one body to another.

And I'm just going through

a whole bunch of different
experiences where I had fun,

for, I don't know how long that went,

but it went for a while and
I was really enjoying it.

Then I get pulled out of
that and the narrator's like,

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But if you want to understand
what it feels like to be God,

you have to realize that God

also does the suffering lives as well."

And then I was thrown into the body

of someone who was in prison
and getting beaten up.

And then I was put into the body

of a woman in India who was getting raped.

And then I went into a child's
body who was being abused.

And then I just kept happening.

Sorry.

Again and again,

I just kept going through

all these really harsh experiences.

And by the end of it I
was totally exhausted,

and I'd come out of it
feeling sorry for God,

or whatever has to feel everything.

And the guide was like,

"See it's much better
that you're just James,

'cause you just get to
live by your little parcel

and you don't have to
experience everything.

But you should feel compassion for God,

and that's why you should try

and reduce the suffering in the planet,

because God has to go
and live all of that out

and it's not fun."

I see the planet now as
being a single animal.

So I see the rocks are like bones

and the trees are like lungs
and the rivers are like veins

and the moon is pumping

the water on the planet like a heart,

and I don't think I would've
paid attention to that.

So I think that in the future,

we need to get to this point

where humanity can stare into
each other's eyes and say,

we're actually part of the same animal.

What are we gonna do next?

Yeah.

I think we need a long view of this.

The classical definition of shamanism

is the archaic techniques of ecstasy,

and by ecstasy in the
original Greek definition,

they mean extasis, connecting
to the divine within.

Behind all of these medicines
is the one central medicine

of consciousness itself.

And that's not just a mental thing,

it's a heart feeling thing,
it's an intuitive thing,

it's an intangible thing.

It's a thing which essentially
needs a unified approach,

whether that's medical,
mystical, shamanic, psychedelic.

It's something bigger
than the sum of the parts.

I love the medicalization of psychedelics.

It's much needed in our culture.

I love the shamanic approach
which is coming back

and giving people a reconnection
to spirit and to source.

I love the fact that these are the times

and we are the ones
we've been looking for,

because if we're not, who the fuck is?

What we're going through
is a consciousness shift,

because these substances
increase our awareness.

These are just one tool amongst many,

which very potently

and very quickly accelerate consciousness.

There are pitfalls and there are dangers,

but this has always been the way.

It goes all the way back to fire, baby.

This is the Promethean initiative,

and it's time that we
explore this frontier.

The universe is more consciousness based

than it is matter based.

This is an experiment in consciousness.

We are the ultimate
evolution of that experiment,

trying to understand the experiment

that got put into work in the first place.

So it's changed my whole view

of what living's really
about in lots of ways.

Well, I like Teilhard
de Chardin's comment:

"We are not human beings
having a spiritual experience.

We are spiritual beings
having a human experience."

So I just try and enjoy
my human experience

as much as I can.