I think that may be one reason why many, many people who are having these experiences with psilocybin and ayahuasca,

you know, they come away with a realization about our estrangement from nature and a realization that this is the major existential crisis

of our time. You know, we monkeys have got to wake up. You know, we've had the tools for

two million years. We're obviously slow learners, you know, but it's not too late.

I feel like you've got to affect a global transformation in consciousness, a waking up before

you can wise up.

And the wisdom follows on that.

Once you wake up, then you can hopefully, thoughtfully figure out,

okay, you know, we're in a heap of shit here, basically. What are we going to do about it? How are

we going to find our way out of this?

Fortunately, like who would, and who would be better to teach us about what to do sitting there

in a heap of shit than the lowly mushroom.

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So today's interview was with Dennis McKenna, who was half of a legendary brotherly duo with his elder brother, Terence,

who famously back in 1971, went down to La Chirera in the Amazon in search of these mystic

potions and ended up finding themselves in a field of psychedelic mushrooms and accidentally through a combination of

setting and vocalization and the dumb luck of the young ripped open a hole in the fabric of time and space

and came unglued for over a month in a mystic experience that inspired his brother Terrence

...