Joe Rogan Experience #1133 - Dennis McKenna

Joe Rogan 0:02 Four, three, two, one. (claps) And we're live. Hello, Dennis.

Dennis McKenna 0:09 Hi, Joe.

Joe Rogan 0:11 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 0:11 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:11 Great to see you, as always.

Dennis McKenna 0:12 It's great to be here, as always. It's great to be here.

Joe Rogan 0:15 So tell me about this, these, these cards that you gave me and what, what this is all about.

Dennis McKenna 0:20 Okay. Well, this is an interesting project. This is about the RV Heraclitus, which is a, which was associated with the Institute for Ecotechnics, which is ... Try to keep this, like, close to your face.

Joe Rogan 0:33 Yeah. Okay. There you go.

Dennis McKenna 0:34 Further, uh, associated with, uh ... (sighs) You know, how do I explain it? It was actually a theater company called The Theater of All Possibilities. But the Institute for Ecotechnics was started in the early '70s, and they built a ship, this, this, uh, Chinese junk, essentially, with a ferro-concrete hull. And my connection was they have cruised, cruised the world, essentially, since 1973, looking into different things relevant to global ecology. They've done sampling in the Antarctic. And in 1981, they decided to go to the Amazon, and I was doing my graduate work in, in Iquitos at that time. So, that was my connection with the Institute of Ecotechnics. And, uh, you know, (laughs) a- at the time, uh, I thought, "These people are nuts." I mean, they were kind of nuts, and they were very, um, naive about what they were doing, as far as doing ethnobotanical work. Not that I wasn't naive about it at the time, but I had a better handle on it than they did.

Joe Rogan 1:42 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:42 Anyway, that was the original connection. And the same group, years after I had more or less, uh, you know, kind of severed ... I didn't really sever my relationship, but I kind of distanced myself from them. But then that same group went on in the '80s to build Biosphere 2-

Joe Rogan 2:02 Ah.

Dennis McKenna 2:02 ... which you probably heard of.

Joe Rogan 2:03 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 2:04 And they had financing f- for Biosphere 2, so they'd gone to a whole other level of ambition and, and, you know, madness. But, um ... And Biosphere 2 went off track.

Joe Rogan 2:16 Explain that to people who don't know what we're talking about.

Dennis McKenna 2:18 Well, Biosphere 2 was the idea of building a, a terrestrial environment that was completely shut off from everything and that was self-sustaining. And it was a huge complex. It was a big, a series of domes, really. Each dome replicated some earthly biome, like the desert, the rainforest, the ocean, and so on. And the idea was that, uh, it was a, uh, it was a dry run for building a Mars colony, you know, a- or some planetary colony. And the idea was Mars. And they put, uh, people into this environment for, like, two years at a time to see if they could make it work, if they could really have a, a balanced ecosystem. Well, as it turned out, it didn't work so well. (laughs) But they learned a great deal from this, and they also got a lot of adverse publicity because I think the, uh, I think the science establishment, in a way, became kind of jealous. And, you know, like, "These people, they don't know anything about what they're doing. They got $600 million to build this. What the hell?" (laughs) You know?

Joe Rogan 3:28 Ah.

Dennis McKenna 3:28 So they, uh, got a lot of criticism. But the fact is, a lot of good science came out of this, and they're still going. And the interesting thing is they've had their fingers in many pies. You know, they have a gallery and a hotel in London called The Octo- October Gallery. I always stay there if I'm in London. They have a publishing company, The Synergetic Press, based in Santa Fe. That's who published this book-

Joe Rogan 3:56 Ah.

Dennis McKenna 3:56 ... ultimately. So it's kind of like 30 years later, what goes around (laughs) comes around.

Joe Rogan 4:01 And the book is Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs, and it's from, it's labeled from 1967 to 2017.

Dennis McKenna 4:13 Right. And the, and the story behind this is, um ... Just two. But just to complete the Heraclitus story-

Joe Rogan 4:20 Okay.

Dennis McKenna 4:20 ... for a minute. So, the Heraclitus has been plying the ocean more or less continuously since 1973. And they are now renovating the ship because, you know, it needs it. It needs a new hull and all that. So they're trying to raise funds, obviously, for that. But it's just a very interesting story about people that are passionate about the ecology, about the Earth, and about science. Don't know a whole lot about any of it, but their passion drove them forward. And, and their passion, particularly the founder, a guy named John Allen, who's now ... I think he's in his 80s. He is in his 80s. But he was the visionary behind it. And without knowing a whole lot, they just went ahead and did it, you know? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:11 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 5:11 So in that spirit, you have to hand it to them. And they have, they've done incredible things over that period of time. And so, it's a, it's a great story, and it's worth attention. And, uh, you know, it's up to you. I mean, it's ki- it's up to you if you wanna bring her on or somebody, but it's, it's, it's-

Joe Rogan 5:30 It sounds fascinating.

Dennis McKenna 5:31 ... really romantic, you know, this is science in, in the true spirit of discovery, you know?

Joe Rogan 5:37 Mm-hmm. And what are they trying to do?

Dennis McKenna 5:38 And it's done by amateurs.

Joe Rogan 5:39 Right. That is cre- fascinating.

Dennis McKenna 5:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:41 What are they, what are they trying to do? What kind of research are they tr- are they trying to do in the ocean?

Dennis McKenna 5:44 All kinds of things. They've been sampling coral reefs. They've been sampling, uh, looking at, uh, you know, uh, global warming in both the Arctic and the Antarctic. Uh, they, of course, in '81, they wanted to do ethnobotany in the Amazon. And, and they had Schultes on their board of directors.

Joe Rogan 6:04 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 6:04 And the director of the expedition was Wade Davis. And th- and I was doing my graduate work at that time. And, uh, we knew they were coming, so as a result of that, I was able to join the expedition. And Wade and I, at the time, he was selected by them as the chief science officer. And when h- uh, by the time I got there, he was getting a little disillusioned with them.... you know, and the, the, the... I guess you could say the personal dynamic was kind of strange. And, like, if you read my book, The Brotherhood of the (laughs) Screaming Abyss, there's a couple of chapter, there's a chapter on this. But over time, even Wade changed his mind and, and I, I now get the larger picture of what they were trying to do. And, you know, it's, it's, uh, it's a real story. I mean, these people didn't recognize boundaries. That's the thing. And they... because they were theater people, they actually understood, which I didn't at the time, that what they were doing and their whole effort was really a performance, you know?

Joe Rogan 7:09 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 7:10 On a global level, they did all these things kind of realizing that this was the theater of all possibilities, and they had a theater in, uh, Austin, Texas by that name. So I could... It's a wild story.

Joe Rogan 7:23 It sounds like a freaky crew. (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 7:25 It's a freaky crew and that was the point. Well, some of the people that were on that 1981 expedition are now... um, they're still associated with it, so it has some longevity. Others have passed on, others have left in, you know, disgust or, or they, you know, they had enough. But I was able to reconnect with the people that run, you know, they have this ranch in Santa Fe called the Synergia Ranch, and one of the things that's based there is this press, the Synergetic Press. So when I was doing this project with the book, I was casting around for who's gonna publish this after we do it, and they stepped up and... They publish a lot of psychedelic stuff. They have a book called, uh, The Mystic Chemist, about Albert Hoffman. Uh, they republished, uh, The Ayahuasca Reader, which, uh, originally Eduardo Luna and Stephen White had published. Well, they expanded that and they published that as a very beautiful, you know, uh, r- redo, essentially a second edition. Very nice work. Then, uh, Don Latin, uh, who's not that well-known, but he's written several books about the history of psychedelics and the people involved, and he wrote a book that they published called Changing Our Minds, ironically (laughs) about the same time Michael Pollan brought his book out, so-

Joe Rogan 8:52 Ah.

Dennis McKenna 8:52 ... Michael Pollan, being who he is, got all the attention. Don's got very little. Still a good book, you know? So they're good people. I've decided that some of my initial judgments not knowing the people and when I just sort of walked into their reality in Iquitos when I got there, uh, w- you know, which they never bothered to, to explain. It's, it's like, you know, they never said, "Oh, well, you know, we're acting funny 'cause we do things differently than you do."

Joe Rogan 9:23 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 9:23 You know? And I was like, "What?" (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:26 Well, I'm sure they evolved too. I mean, we're talking about 1981, right?

Dennis McKenna 9:28 They, they have evolved.

Joe Rogan 9:30 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 9:30 They have evolved and they learned a lot through this Biosphere 2, uh, you know, project, which was a real lesson to everybody. Um, but anyways, so because they still existed and, and really because of the, of the resurrection of The Ayahuasca Reader, that had been my recent contact with them. So when I decided to do this book, I thought they're a good candidate to publish this book, and they, they totally got it. They took

Dennis McKenna 10:00 it on. They've done an amazing job. And this book, or these, this set as you know, y- you know the genesis of it because you had a lot (laughs) to do with it. When we were... when I was here last year, you know, uh, in... um, the backstory is in 1967, the US government, the National Institute of Mental Health, of all people, put together a conference in San Francisco in '67 called the Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs. And nobody noticed. It was a private conference. It, it was not open to the public. The only thing the public ever got out of it was the symposium proceedings, which is the first book there.

Joe Rogan 10:45 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 10:45 And, uh, I was very heavily influenced by that book because somehow or other, it came into my hands at age 17. You know, bored teenager living in Paonia, Colorado, wishing that I was with my brother in Berkeley where all the action was at the time.

Joe Rogan 11:04 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 11:04 And I'm like, "What is this book?" You know? So, uh, I totally... I devoured it. And about the same time, I discovered The Teachings of Don Juan, which my, my brother gave to me for my 18th birthday. And although much in there is probably fiction, those two books gave me a complementary perspective. The Teachings of Don Juan was the ethnographic lens through which you could use... look at the use of psychedelics and, and which I... you know, it kind of filled in those spaces. Then this book came out and it was like... and I knew who Šoltés was. I knew who a few of these people were at the time. Šoltés and Šulgin and Andrew Weil were actually on the original faculty. And, uh, so when the book fell into my hands at age 17, I was very excited and I read the whole thing. And, and this is what really helped me focus my career. It made me aware that maybe I could make a career out of ethnophrarmacology, you know? And, and in my very naive 17-year-old teenage brain, I thought, "Wow, man, I can get paid to get stoned." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:20 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 12:21 It was in part that, but, uh, you know, there was more to it, but that's what led me to, to pursue that career. And so this book-... has always loomed large at my sort of pantheon. Originally, there were supposed to be follow-up conferences for this, for the government to have every 10 years. Well, the war on drugs scotched all that. They became embarrassed that they had anything to do with a conference like this.

Joe Rogan 12:49 What was the goal of the conference? Is that clear?

Dennis McKenna 12:52 Of the, of this original conference?

Joe Rogan 12:54 Yes.

Dennis McKenna 12:54 Oh, for people to kind of report on their work and, and sort of mark the state of the art in e- in psychoethnopharmacology at the time. So, the first book was really where, uh, things like the snuffs and ayahuasca and, uh, uh, you know, and other things that we don't think of really as psychedelics, like kava and Amanita muscaria, all of those things were important.

Joe Rogan 13:19 When you're saying the snuffs, do you mean like some of the more psychedelic snuffs?

Dennis McKenna 13:22 Yeah, the psychedelic snuffs.

Joe Rogan 13:23 Like, what is it called? The Ecuge? Is that one?

Dennis McKenna 13:26 Uh, that- that's an orally active form. That- but yeah, virola and then Anandamathera, which is, uh, uh, the, uh, what are they called? Yopo, I think. There were reports-

Joe Rogan 13:37 And these are-

Dennis McKenna 13:37 ... on all of these things.

Joe Rogan 13:37 ... nasally ... th- they, they stuffed them up their nose? Is that the deal? Or there-

Dennis McKenna 13:42 That's the deal.

Joe Rogan 13:43 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 13:43 Yeah. And this is the first book, the '67 book was the first one where, you know, there was a collection of the leading experts at the time, most of whom you've never heard of. But there were, there were iconic people like Schultes and Andrew Weil, Shulgin. Another interesting fellow, uh, m- many interesting people, one of the most interesting in the first conference was, uh, a gentleman named Stephen Szara, a Hungarian, uh, chemist and psychiatrist and pharmacologist. And, uh, he or- originally worked in Budapest. And, uh, and eventually he moved to the States and became pretty high up in the National Institutes of Health. He was the director of the, uh, National Institute on Drug Abuse in the late '50s. But the interesting thing is, before that, um, he was just a researcher in- at a hospital in, in Budapest. He applied to Sandoz to get LSD. He wanted to do research with LSD. They refused to give it to him because he was behind the Iron Curtain. So, he, so he synthesized DMT, being a chemist, and he had to determine if it was actually a psychedelic. So, in the grand tradition, he did that by self-injecting himself, you know? Uh, so he's a true pioneer, a- and I invited him to the conference. So, he's the first person to definitively show that DMT was a psychedelic. He's now 95. He's in great shape. I invited him to the conference, but he said, "Well, I'm 95. I don't go anywhere anymore."

Joe Rogan 15:31 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 15:31 But he submitted a very nice, uh, video introduction to it. And the other interesting thing that he did, after the '67 conference, he, he s- he was thinking, "Well, what's going on?" And, "What, what is it with the hippies and all the psychedelics?" And, and, uh, so his supervisor said, "Well, Steve, why don't you go over to Haight-Ashbury and hang out for a while?" So, he did, and he submitted a paper called The Scientist Among the Hippies.

Joe Rogan 15:59 Aha.

Dennis McKenna 16:00 And they wouldn't let him publish. They said, "You, you can't publish this." So, it sat in his drawer for 50 years. When this book came along, he said, "I have something I'll submit here. I don't care if they, you know, it's- it doesn't matter anymore." So, one of the papers in this second volume is his original '67 paper.

Joe Rogan 16:22 Oh, wow.

Dennis McKenna 16:23 And then, so the second volume is kind of, you know, because the government didn't step up to the plate like they said they would, um, there was no follow-up conferences. And, and I've, for a long time, I wanted to do a follow-up conference. I wanted to do it on the 30th anniversary in '97. It never happened. Time passes. So, 2017 was the 50th anniversary. It all fell together all of a sudden.

Joe Rogan 16:50 Wow.

Dennis McKenna 16:50 You know, I found a venue in the UK, a beautiful country house that was, uh, called Tyringham Hall that was run by one of our friends who shares, you know, our perspective. He made that available. We put the word out. We got support to produce the conference. So, we brought about 16 people, um, you know, to Tyringham in England, spent three days presenting. And those videos are all up on the web. I'll send you the link. That's open access. And the other thing that we couldn't do in '67 that we did in, you know, 2017, there was no Facebook live streaming. Well, all our videos were Facebook live streamed.

Joe Rogan 17:36 Ah.

Dennis McKenna 17:36 We had 60,000 people watching these lectures at some points, you know? I mean, so that's amazing.

Joe Rogan 17:44 That's incredible.

Dennis McKenna 17:44 And that created excitement. And then we basically paid for the book by pre-selling, pre-selling it. And a lot of people stepped up and ordered. A lot of people were very patient because I was, you know, I was ... I thought, "Oh, this will be out by Christmas," right? Well, no, it's a big project, uh, so it took six months longer than I thought. Um, but now it's out there. And, uh, hopefully it'll be a, a landmark in the field like the first one was. And, and what we wanted to do to honor the first one was reprint the first one along with the second one.

Joe Rogan 18:24 Ah.

Dennis McKenna 18:24 So, that's why it's two books. We did a high-resolution, uh, scan of the original book and reprinted that one, uh-... yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:34 Doesn't it make you think, like imagine if Nixon wasn't president back then, what could have been done? Like what if they didn't have that sweeping 1970s psychedelic act where they made everything illegal? Like what if they continued with this stuff? Like who knows-

Dennis McKenna 18:50 Well-

Joe Rogan 18:50 ... where we would be today?

Dennis McKenna 18:51 We, yeah, we could ask that question about a lot of things.

Joe Rogan 18:53 Sure.

Dennis McKenna 18:53 What if that didn't happen? Like the, the psychedelic research that's happening now that's, uh, it's taken 40 years to get-

Joe Rogan 19:02 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 19:02 ... back to it. And basically, the psychedelic research is, is a lot of the same thing was going back, going on back in the even late '50s and '60s. What's going on now is they're repeating a lot of that.

Joe Rogan 19:17 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 19:17 But with more rigorous experimental design, with, with better controls and all that. But it's the same stuff, you know, which is wonderful. I mean, I'm, I'm all for it, um, to see this work done. I, oh, I also have, you know, plenty to say about the limitations of that strictly clinical, uh, you know, um, sort of medical approach. I mean, I think, you know, organizations like MAPS and Heffter have to work within the constraints of what's possible. But I think in some ways, uh, they, uh, you know, they force themselves to, they're forced to put on blinders in a certain way to what else is possible.

Joe Rogan 20:02 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 20:02 You know, for example, the way that, uh, ayahuasca has been sort of marginalized. And there is research going on about it, but there's nothing approved in the States. Uh, and I think it's important to pursue that work, but because you can't synthesize ayahuasca like you can psilocybin or MDMA or these things that are under clinical trials, it's much more difficult to study within the constraints of a phase one-

Joe Rogan 20:31 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 20:32 ... you know, clinical trial. But in fact, ayahuasca is touching, I think, far more lives than say, well, I can't say about mushrooms because mushrooms are a lot out there. But, you know, the potential, the impact that it's having on society is much greater 'cause people are rediscovering this. And people are, I think, reaching out for... They're reaching out for anything that, that will work, you know?

Joe Rogan 21:02 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 21:02 As a society, we are spiritually bereft, and I think there's a pervasive sense of despair and a feeling of, what would you call it? Spiritual impoverishment or something-

Joe Rogan 21:16 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 21:16 ... as we see that all of our institutions are becoming, uh, you know, we're, we're seeing behind the curtain and realizing that they're, they're empty, you know? They don't really have anything to offer on the spiritual level, especially religions. People are rejecting religions as the sort of, you know, shell game that it is, empty promises that don't deliver, and I think that's a lot of why people are reaching out for these plant medicines, you know? And, uh, going to South America or to have ayahuasca or, or finding them in their own community because people crave spiritually meaningful experiences, and, and our culture needs it more than ever.

Joe Rogan 22:02 Well, the thing about psychedelics, d- that, what you just said is so important, that they deliver. If you-

Dennis McKenna 22:07 They deliver.

Joe Rogan 22:07 If you're skeptical about religion, and you know, there's some people that get a lot out of religion, that's fine. But if you're, you're skeptical about it, it's not going to fulfill your promises. It's not, it's not going to d- it's not gonna give you anything that you can say, "Oh my God, this is irrefutable." Psychedelic experiences are pretty irrefutable that-

Dennis McKenna 22:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:27 ... something's happening that's titanic. It's just-

Dennis McKenna 22:30 Right.

Joe Rogan 22:30 It's so immense and bizarre and beyond the normal that it's hard to just dismiss it. And the only people that really do dismiss it are the people that haven't experienced it.

Dennis McKenna 22:39 Exactly. Exactly. Uh, you know, uh, I mean, I, I sometimes say psychedelics are the antidote to faith. You know, you don't need faith-

Joe Rogan 22:49 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 22:50 ... to take a psychedelic. What you need is courage, you know? Religions offer faith, which is basically saying, "Here's a list of things that you need to believe without question." And if that's your inclination, fine, but most of us are more skeptical. We need something, you know, tangible, something more tangible. So you know, I think faith is, uh, uh, you know, I mean, that's how religions entice you to believe. But uh, I, I think that, uh, in a way, it's deceptive.

Joe Rogan 23:23 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 23:23 Why do you have to believe when you can, in that intensely personal encounter between you and a plant teacher or you and a plant mole- and a, and a molecule, you can experience for yourself? You don't need faith. You could say, "I know that this-"

Joe Rogan 23:40 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 23:40 "... exists and the, the realms that it opens up for you are real because I've experienced it." Um, and you know, I think faith, I think that, uh, we, in a way, you know, at least Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Judaism and, and Islam to a certain extent, have poisoned the Western mind, you know? And, and encouraged our separation from nature, and basically propagated this idea that we're separated from nature and we own it and we, we have every right to dominate it. And we're seeing the consequences of that, you know? We have to rediscover this indigenous perspective that we are part of nature. We're, uh, properly, and properly framed, we should be symbiotic with nature. It's all about symbiosis.

Joe Rogan 24:34 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 24:34 It's all about collaborating, uh-... with the global community of species to advance consciousness, not just of our species, but of the whole community of sentient species. This is what the psychedelics can do, and I think this is what the psychedelics are desperately reaching out to our species. And anybody who watches my podcast or listens to me is, this is my rap, "Wake up, you monkeys."

Joe Rogan 25:04 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 25:04 You know, you're wrecking this place.

Joe Rogan 25:05 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 25:05 It's that simple. You're wrecking this place, and that's because you have to re-understand your relationship to nature. Realize that, number one, you monkeys aren't running things. The, the, the plants are running things, basically, 'cause they're sustaining life on Earth. Other things are, you know... That's part of it. And then once you wake up to the fact that, you know, we're, we're in a participatory, collaborative role with the community of species, then we have to change a whole lot of things that we're, that we're (laughs) not doing right now, because we're certainly not, you know, developing sustainable ways to live on a global scale. And, and we're seeing the consequences of this now. What's dismaying, besides the fact that it's happening, is that there is so much denial, so much refusal to recognize this, on the part of the people that supposedly are, are running the show, you know? And they're, they're willfully ignorant, and, and this is a problem. So, you know, um, I think a lot of people will agree with me, a lot of people who listen to this show will agree with me when I, I say I, I've pretty much given up on politics. Politics seems, to me, irrevocably broken. Many other institutions are dysfunctional, if not broken. I mean, science is corrupt and government is corrupt. It's corporate, and corporatism is... You know, these are all flawed systems, because they're not... They don't have a, a, a base of compassion and recognition of the interrelatedness of all things. And, and psychedelics are a catalyst for waking up, and so once people have that experience, then their perspective is changed. And if they're influential, they can go out and make change on a global scale.

Joe Rogan 27:08 I think it's so important that Michael Pollan put out that book-

Dennis McKenna 27:11 Yes.

Joe Rogan 27:11 ... because a guy who's a mainstream, straight-laced guy, who's written about architecture and agriculture and all these different things where people, like, really respect his opinions and his work.

Dennis McKenna 27:20 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:21 That this guy has not just written this book, but has also gone out on a limb and had, uh, a bunch of different psychedelic experiences in controlled settings-

Dennis McKenna 27:29 Right.

Joe Rogan 27:30 ... and talks about them, and the profound impact that it had on his, at one point, skeptical mind.

Dennis McKenna 27:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:35 He was very skeptical about what-

Dennis McKenna 27:37 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:37 ... what these things were.

Dennis McKenna 27:39 Yeah. No, I love Michael Pollan.

Joe Rogan 27:41 Oh.

Dennis McKenna 27:42 I have for a long time. Um...

Joe Rogan 27:44 There we go. -

Dennis McKenna 27:45 Oh, sorry.

Joe Rogan 27:45 You just lean in slightly left.

Dennis McKenna 27:46 Okay, um...

Joe Rogan 27:48 I don't want any angry tweets. (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 27:49 Yeah, no, I, I've, I've loved his work for a long time, and I'm really delighted that he's come out and written about this. There are some things about his book, I have to say, that, uh, I'm a little disappointed, but then I also have to say I'm only about a little over halfway through it. Uh...

Joe Rogan 28:06 What was, what was disappointing?

Dennis McKenna 28:07 Well, so far, he hasn't really emphasized or said much about, he sort of writes it from the perspective that all of this started with the discovery of LSD in 1943, and then that was the psychedelic era. There, there are indigenous traditions thousands of years old.

Joe Rogan 28:26 Yeah, and he should have talked to you.

Dennis McKenna 28:27 He hasn't really talked about those things. Well, he knows they exist, but he-

Joe Rogan 28:30 Did he talk to you at all?

Dennis McKenna 28:32 He did not, actually.

Joe Rogan 28:33 That's ridiculous.

Dennis McKenna 28:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:34 How dare you?

Dennis McKenna 28:34 Which I was also, of course, extremely jealous-

Joe Rogan 28:37 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 28:37 ... and angry and upset that he didn't talk to me. I mean, what the hell am I... You know?

Joe Rogan 28:42 (laughs) Yeah, but-

Dennis McKenna 28:42 But even, but-

Joe Rogan 28:43 ... you've been banging at the Bushes for 60 years now.

Dennis McKenna 28:45 Yeah, yeah, well...

Joe Rogan 28:46 Like, come on, man.

Dennis McKenna 28:47 Seriously, um, I'm not sure why he did that, if that was a conscious decision. But I'm kinda disappointed, 'cause I think I have a perspective that, that, uh, you know, I have some things to say...

Joe Rogan 29:00 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 29:01 ... that so far haven't been said in this book. And, and things that, uh, Michael Pollan would, would completely relate to. You know, he's the one that brought up the idea that, you know, with respect to, like, plant domestication and, and our relationship with our food plants. You know, we think we're growing, we're cultivating plants. Actually, c- plants are cultivating us.

Joe Rogan 29:22 Hmm.

Dennis McKenna 29:22 You know, this is plants' program for world domination.

Joe Rogan 29:26 Right.

Dennis McKenna 29:26 And the same is true of all these teacher plants. This is why they're out there, you know, on the global stage now. And he didn't... Maybe he will get to it. I mean, I'm only mildly (laughs) jealous. I wish he had talked to me. On the other hand, what he has written is gonna be important. It's gonna be influential. I mean, this will be influential to a small number of people. Pollan's book is gonna bring it to the attention of millions, so...

Joe Rogan 29:59 Yeah, it's going to open people's eyes-

Dennis McKenna 30:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:02 ... and, and refresh the way people view this whole subject. I think when you, when you look at, when you're talking about ancient cultures and the use of psychedelics going back thousands and thousands of years, and then this dip somewhere around 1970, where it almost seems to have gotten down to a very low hum, but now the drums are beating again, and-

Dennis McKenna 30:24 Now it's coming back.

Joe Rogan 30:25 Now it's coming back.

Dennis McKenna 30:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:26 And I'm, I'm really fascinated and excited by that, 'cause I, I think this is, uh...

Dennis McKenna 30:31 Me too.

Joe Rogan 30:31 I don't think it's the answer to everything, but I think it's the glue. I think it's, i- i- there's a, there's a thing about the psychedelic experience that forces you to recognize that you have these...... pre-established ideas of what things are, and that you've kind of put them in these boxes and you've sort of pushed it away and you're like, "Well, I've defined what a city is, and I'm just gonna put that over there. Now I know what that is. I'm not gonna think that, about that anymore."

Dennis McKenna 30:58 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 30:59 Um, do- "I've, I've defined what a road is. I've defined..." I mean, I, I remember after, uh, one of my first DMT experiences, just sitting around looking at roads differently.

Dennis McKenna 31:09 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:10 Like, I was, I was on a road, I was like, "This is the craziest shit ever. We- we've decided that it's normal to lay this hard surface down on the ground so we could roll these fire-breathing beasts." (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 31:20 Pieces of metal. (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:23 It's so strange.

Dennis McKenna 31:23 It's crazy. Isn't it? Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:24 But it was... Before that, it was just a road.

Dennis McKenna 31:27 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 31:27 It was always a road. But after that, it became this weird symptom of what we're doing by erecting these massive structures and cities, and that, you know, we need this, this, this ground in order for, to, for us to use these vehicles on. And, but in the, in the process of doing that, we've sort of marred the landscape with it everywhere.

Dennis McKenna 31:48 Yeah. Well, psychedelics do give us the, the chance to rethink a lot of things.

Joe Rogan 31:53 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 31:53 You know, I think we've talked before about, um, uh, Simon Powell's work. He wrote about... He writes about psilocybin, wrote, um, The Psilocybin Solution, and that was-

Joe Rogan 32:04 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 32:04 ... his first book, and I think his latest is The Magic Mushroom Explorer. But something in his work really struck me, which is, he pointed out that you have to look... That psychedelics, in some sense, are... They're scientific instruments. They give you an opportunity to look at phenomena in a way that you've never looked at them before, because they have this... Uh, because they take you out of your reference frame.

Joe Rogan 32:30 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 32:30 You know, or they bring the background forward, or there's different ways to describe it. And Pollan actually describes it well when he talks about this disruption of the default mode network. It enables you to see patterns in nature that you're programmed not to see, you know. A lot of what our brain does, this whole reducing valve idea, is it filters many things out. It lets in just enough of the external world that you can relate it to prior experiences, what you think you know, and you construct this artificial model of reality, and that's the... That's what you inhabit. And I- I've said this many times, maybe worse than Pollan, maybe better, but I talk about how, you know, we're living in a hallucination, essentially, that's constructed by our brains, and in order to just deal with all the information that is available, i- it has to really restrict it. It has to put a choke on it so that what does get in can make sense. That's fine for ordinary consciousness, but you are prone to overlook things about reality that are important. And psychedelics temporarily give you an opportunity to lower those, lower those mechanisms, that default network, or sometimes called neural gating. If you're in a safe place where you don't have to worry about your, your safety, you know, there is no saber-toothed tiger gonna come get you, you know, and, and so you don't have to worry about your safety, then you can just relax into it and you can appreciate things that are always there. It's not that they're not there. These are not things you imagine. They're just things that you never notice because you're programmed not to. So, tremendous learning tools, and many, many scientists have, have said, you know, their insights have come from their psychedelic experience, from Steve Jobs to Crick to, uh, Kary Mullis. Uh, some of these folks admit it and others deny it, but it's true. You know? So, there are many, many things we can learn from psychedelics. That's only one of them, but from a scientist's perspective, that's an important one. You know, one of the things I want to do is create a system, a situation where you can bring specialists together in different disci- or in, in a discipline, say, mathematics or quantum physics or astronomy or, you know, even whatever art, and have these collective, uh, sessions together and then let people share their insight. Essentially creative solvent, problem-solving or creative sessions. And, uh, you know, uh, a- and that's, that's, that's the other thing I think we're looking for. You know, we need to develop a context in which these things is, can happen. Um, and that's one of the, you know, that's one of the restrictions of, of the strictly clinical approach that I chafe against. You know, uh, because they have to be, you know... You have to have a problem. It has to be to treat something, depression or PTSD or whatever. But we really need to use... You know, that's not the only thing psychedelics are good for. Sure, they can help people with mental problems. And in our society, who doesn't have mental problems?

Joe Rogan 36:03 Right. (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 36:03 You know, as a society, we're wounded. But it goes beyond that. They are learning tools and teaching tools. And, uh, you know, you, you, you begin to see some of this in the, uh, in the work that Roland Griffiths is doing. You know, he's been able to get approval for people to take psilocybin for spiritual development, which is not exactly an illness for actual spiritual insight, so that's a start.

Joe Rogan 36:31 And he's approved to do this?

Dennis McKenna 36:33 He's approved to do it.

Joe Rogan 36:34 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 36:34 And who, who approved this and how does it? The FDA approved it.

Joe Rogan 36:37 Wow.

Dennis McKenna 36:37 He's, he's got a, a clinical study going on right now where he's recruiting, uh, religious professionals, people who are pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, other types of religious professionals, and putting them through his protocol.

Joe Rogan 36:55 Yes.

Dennis McKenna 36:56 And it's having a tremendous impact on the way they view their profession and the way they view religion, you know?

Joe Rogan 37:03 That's fantastic.

Dennis McKenna 37:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:05 It's, it really is a shame that we, we need an illness to treat-

Dennis McKenna 37:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:09 ... before you allow someone to have this potentially mind-expanding experience. But it's, it's almost like not allowing people to take vitamins unless they're really sick.

Dennis McKenna 37:17 Yeah, exactly. And like Bob Jesse says very eloquently, we need to find contexts in which we can use psychedelics for the betterment of the well, you know, for the improvement of the well.

Joe Rogan 37:31 Mm. Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 37:32 And you can't do it right now under the current regulatory restrictions. Now, I think it's improved. I think it gradually will improve. Um, but this sort of ties into, uh, you know, what I'm trying to do now, now that I've got this book off my plate. I mean, this is kind of a, kind of a, you know, bucket list item, something I've wanted to do for a long time, and now it's done. Now, I have to help, help sell it, but that won't be too much of a problem, I think.

Joe Rogan 38:02 It's a beautiful book, the, the both of them together.

Dennis McKenna 38:03 Especially after your talk, after our show, it'll probably ... We only published 1,000 copies of this.

Joe Rogan 38:10 Oh, it's gone. It'll be sold out. (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 38:12 It's a, it's a, uh, collector's edition, and that was on purpose. We can always print more, but-

Joe Rogan 38:18 It really is beautifully done.

Dennis McKenna 38:19 You know, it is, it is a beautiful book on every level. And, and the people that contributed to this, to the second volume, I didn't want all the same people that come to, al- always come to these conferences and always say the same things.

Joe Rogan 38:34 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 38:34 So, some of the people in there are not that well-known, you know, but they're known, they were known to me, and I felt that they had important things to say. So, uh, you know, some of them are known within the community, and, and others are pretty obscure. But they, you know, there's always this, you know, this, this, like, you know, this passionate amateur-type person-

Joe Rogan 38:58 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 38:58 ... who, maybe they don't have credentials, but they have incredible knowledge up in their head. And they're, they're completely obsessed with this stuff. And there's a few of those people in there too. So, it's really, really, uh, really, it was really satisfying to be able to do it and make it worth people's, people's, you know, time. I was able to pay for, well, me and my supporters, a lot of it came through the Institute of Ecotechnics, actually. That turned out to be a good nonprofit channel through which we could get donations, grants, essentially. Uh, we didn't want it to go through Heffter because it might look like a conflict of interest. Silly notion. But, but, you know, because of that, uh, we were able to pull this off. We produced the book. We even gave everybody a modest honorarium. So, that's the way conferences are supposed to be. But, um, what's happening for me now, and actually predates this and has been for a long time is, you know, I've been doing a lot of work in Peru for ... Really, I've been hosting retreats for ayahuasca since about 2012. And, uh, that's been very gratifying work. I've seen transformations in people. I see what a difference it makes to create the right environment and get people able to come and in a safe place. And my whole approach and, and the people I work with there, our whole approach is, "We're not here to tell you what's supposed to happen. We're here to create an optimum condition, and you work it out." This is a, this is a dialogue between you and the plant teacher, you know? It's not the shaman. The shaman, if it's a good, he's a good shaman, facilitates that process, but does not try to control it. He's there for support. He or she is there for support. What really happens is the interaction between, I mean, the, the, the medicines are the real teachers. And we're here to facilitate that and also to tell people if they need help integrating it or figuring it out, that's fine. But that's different than saying, "Well, this means that, and you're supposed to think this about it." You're supposed to think about whatever you want, you know? I mean, you're supposed to learn to use your own mind to think for yourself. So, the extension of this is that I'm, uh, in the process, uh, of, uh, I guess, manifesting this idea. And, uh, what I'm, what I'm working on now is I'm, I wanna create an academy in the Sacred Valley, which, uh, is an academy of natural philosophy. And, uh, and l- and so I have a name for it because a lot of people have told me that, uh, "You know, your name has got to be in, in this." And I'm a kind of a selfie-facing guy, but, um, I recognize that I have a certain iconic recognition. So, okay, if that's what it takes, I'll do it. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:20 So, what are you calling it?

Dennis McKenna 42:20 So, what we're gonna call it is the McKenna Academy for Natural Philosophy. And, um-

Joe Rogan 42:27 By academy, you're saying you'll have a physical structure?

Dennis McKenna 42:30 We will have a physical structure, yeah. Uh, and maybe more than one. But we have identified an initial place that will be the physical location for it.

Joe Rogan 42:40 Wow.

Dennis McKenna 42:40 And it's a, it's a kind of school. It's kind of ... It, it is, in fact, the first psychedelic university, if you will, since Eleusis was sacked and burned by the Goths in 396 AD. It's the first-... n- psychedelic university in the Western tradition since then.

Joe Rogan 42:59 So, you're gonna have structured courses, you're going to have degrees?

Dennis McKenna 43:03 All of that.

Joe Rogan 43:03 Wow.

Dennis McKenna 43:04 We're gonna have courses. We're gonna have... It's going to be much more than a retreat center. We're going to have retreats. We're going to have therapeutic programs for people to get treatment and, and programs for people to, uh, you know, learn to use psychedelics, for therapists to learn to use them. But that is not the whole program. The idea... We're gonna have conferences, global impact conferences. Along the model of this. This is, this, this, uh, conference was what made me realize this is possible. We're gonna have impactful conferences that will really have a global reach. And through, um, you know, webinars, w- through the web, we can share, share this with thousands of people. And it will be a place f- it, it will be a place for, you know... The, the second part of the, of the title is, so it's the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy. What's natural philosophy? Natural philosophy is what science used to be called before it became corrupted, before it became preoccupied with quantitation, before it became reductionist. All of the things that have constricted the scope of science. This is going to be a more open thing that doesn't depend on corporate funding and that sort of thing, where, first of all, we recognize that scientific knowledge is valuable and we embrace that. But we also recognize that it has inherent limitations, just by the nature of the beast. It has ha- inherent imi- limitations, and certain things are difficult to, uh, you know, to investigate within that rigid framework. And, but they are wor-... That doesn't mean they're not worthy of investigation, you know? Um-

Joe Rogan 44:58 You mean psychedelic experiences, very difficult to investigate-

Dennis McKenna 45:02 And many other things, many other things.

Joe Rogan 45:03 ... like?

Dennis McKenna 45:03 Paranormal, you know, um, all of these things that people, you know, stigmatize as, as woo-woo and crazy. You know, and I am, we're not gonna... The idea is to bring rigor to these things, to say, "Yes, there are a lot of phenomena that we don't understand." It's not-

Joe Rogan 45:22 What paranormal phenomena fascinates you?

Dennis McKenna 45:25 Well, you name it. I mean, UFOs is a good example. Um, you know, nobody really knows what's going on with UFOs. All we know is that the people have these experiences, and what are they? What are those experiences? Are they extraterrestrial encounters? We don't know. A lot of them don't really fit that mold. Are they hallucinations or altered states, or is there really something, you know, in the continuum that we, uh, you know, that only manifests under certain circumstances? And, and the idea is that, ye- you know, science, uh, especially in this era, tends to transform itself into dogma, and then it becomes dismissive of aspects of the world that are worthy of studying. But they don't fit into the scientific pattern, and so we dismiss them. I mean, a good example of this is Graham Hancock's work, for example, that he talks about, and many other people. Mainstream archeology is not open to this idea.

Joe Rogan 46:37 They're becoming more open to it by force because of-

Dennis McKenna 46:40 They have to because more and more (laughs) evidence is showing-

Joe Rogan 46:43 Yeah, yeah.

Dennis McKenna 46:43 ... but look, look at how long it's taken him to, uh, you know, knocking on the doors, beating these people over the head, practically, that, "Look at this evidence."

Joe Rogan 46:53 It's very nice, though, to see him finally get-

Dennis McKenna 46:55 It, it is.

Joe Rogan 46:56 ... really appreciated.

Dennis McKenna 46:56 Well, the battle is far from over, but he's-

Joe Rogan 46:59 But he's, he's definitely gaining ground now with-

Dennis McKenna 47:00 He's definitely gaining ground.

Joe Rogan 47:01 ... Gobekli Tepe and-

Dennis McKenna 47:02 Yeah. And can you imagine how that would change our view of, uh, humanity-

Joe Rogan 47:08 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 47:08 ... our evolution, this whole thing? So, archeology is a good, a good example. Psychedelics are another good example. I- i- it's opening up. But for years, after the initial excitement about psychedelics in the '50s and '60s, the whole thing was suppressed for 40 years. Michael Pollan talks about this. What we're doing now is rediscovering... You were a psychiatrist in training in the '80s or the, uh, the '70s or the '80s, you wanted to talk about psychedelics, that was the end of your career.

Joe Rogan 47:41 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 47:42 You could not even bring this up, you know? And, and (laughs) who knows? So it's one of these situations where-

Joe Rogan 47:51 It's kind of stunning-

Dennis McKenna 47:52 ... it is stunning.

Joe Rogan 47:52 ... when you think about the fact that, in the '60s, it probably was possible. It was... Before it was made completely illegal-

Dennis McKenna 47:58 It was going on.

Joe Rogan 47:59 ... it was something to discuss, and the-

Dennis McKenna 48:00 Yeah, it was going on.

Joe Rogan 48:00 ... and this conference-

Dennis McKenna 48:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:02 ... was performed by the government in 1967.

Dennis McKenna 48:04 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 48:05 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 48:06 And then the laws changed, and laws about these sorts of things should never be made by politicians because they always have, you know, a different agenda, and they're not qualified to make these kinds of laws, and they're largely, you know, idiots, or the ones that really control, um, you know, power, uh, they're not informed about psychedelics. Psychedelics were blanket prohibited all at once, pretty much, and it was, the focus was all on LSD. All these other things got swept up into this hysteria, essentially this hysteria that psychedelics were gonna change the youth and change society. And you know what? They were right. They were absolutely right. They were not stupid in that sense. Uh, you know, it did bring out these changes. ... but now, we're past that. So science is again slowly opening up, you know, to, uh, to psychedelics, and I think that's a good thing. Um-

Joe Rogan 49:07 I think people are appreciative of it now, that, that we know-

Dennis McKenna 49:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:10 ... that we have gone through that dip where it was-

Dennis McKenna 49:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 49:12 ... outlawed and stigmatized, and people were never talking about it. Like, uh, you know, just a few years ago, I mean, I want to say early 2000s, you would talk about mushrooms or any sort of psychedelics, and people would look at you like you were crazy.

Dennis McKenna 49:25 (laughs) Well, Joe, I mean, to Terence's credit, he was one who t- continued to talk about it all through the '70s, the '80s-

Joe Rogan 49:36 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 49:36 ... the '90s. I mean, and I give him tremendous credit for that because he was dismissed, and he was out there. He was a pioneer.

Joe Rogan 49:44 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 49:44 And I think he really had a lot to do with keeping this conversation alive. That along with the fact that, you know, uh, largely through our efforts back in the '70s, but other people contributed, like Stamets and other people, but we published this little pamphlet, The Psilocybin Mushroom Magic Grower's Guide-

Joe Rogan 50:06 Hmm.

Dennis McKenna 50:06 ... which put in the hands of, you know, every nerdy 10th grader, essentially, the tools to grow psilocybin mushrooms.

Joe Rogan 50:16 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 50:16 And that's how it got out to the world. And our motivation when we did that, it was partly mercenaries. "Yeah, we can grow mushrooms, make a lot of money." Well, we, we grew mushrooms, we made some money, but the real motivation is we wanted people to be able to verify our own experiences. The stuff that we experienced at La Chorera was, like, so nuts that we thought either we're completely deluded or there's something going on here. So we needed affirmation from a wider community-

Joe Rogan 50:48 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 50:48 ... that, "Hey, there is really weird shit (laughs) going on here."

Joe Rogan 50:52 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 50:52 And we put it out, and it's now, you know, mushrooms are probably, uh, for, I'd say for most people, they're the first psychedelic that they encounter.

Joe Rogan 51:04 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 51:04 You know, maybe LSD, but chances are these days, it's mushrooms.

Joe Rogan 51:08 Well, your brother was such a compelling speaker. I mean, Terence-

Dennis McKenna 51:11 You know?

Joe Rogan 51:11 Terence was so interesting, like his, his speech pattern was fascinating. It was-

Dennis McKenna 51:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:16 I mean, it was part of the thing. It was the theater of his, his speeches and lectures. They were so interesting.

Dennis McKenna 51:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:23 You know? And he also was i- he was so obviously engrossed in these subjects to the point where he was very, very attached to them. It was-

Dennis McKenna 51:34 Right.

Joe Rogan 51:35 ... there was a, a deep connection, and he, you know, when you would hear him talk, you'd be like, "Shit, I gotta get some of this stuff." (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 51:41 Yeah, yeah, no, he was a compelling speaker.

Joe Rogan 51:43 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 51:43 I mean, I, I don't, I don't rise to that level, sorry.

Joe Rogan 51:47 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 51:47 I, I'm just not. Although occasionally, you know, I can kinda channel him, but um, but I have stuff to say. I don't say it as well as he does, but we, we were so much on the same wavelength about this. So I, I... He was the bard of psychedelics throughout the '70s, '80s and, and '90s, and refused to... You know, when no one else was talking about it, he was talking about it. So I, I give him a lot of credit for having the courage-

Joe Rogan 52:16 Yeah, he kept the embers hot.

Dennis McKenna 52:18 ... yeah, yeah-

Joe Rogan 52:19 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 52:19 ... to do that.

Joe Rogan 52:20 When you were talking about La Chorera, uh, your experiences, didn't you guys have some sort of a UFO experience when you were there?

Dennis McKenna 52:26 Yes, we did, or he did.

Joe Rogan 52:28 He did.

Dennis McKenna 52:28 Anyway.

Joe Rogan 52:29 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 52:30 Yeah, interestingly, um, um, I recently... You know, I've talked about La Chorera probably far too much, and I don't really like to talk about it too much because it's so hard to explain, and with, you know, and to, to discuss it, you get off into these-

Joe Rogan 52:48 For, for the uninitiated-

Dennis McKenna 52:50 For the uninitiated-

Joe Rogan 52:50 ... let's, let's explain what we're talking about in particular.

Dennis McKenna 52:52 ... you got into these rabbit holes of, of explaining, but I gave a, um, a, um, lecture at, uh, Breaking Convention last year in the UK. In, in, at the end of June, they have Breaking Convention, another big psychedelic conference, and I, my... The title of my talk was, uh, The Experiment at La Chorera: Psychotic Break, Shamanic Initiation, or Alien Encounter?

Joe Rogan 53:22 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 53:22 Question mark. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:23 Or all the above.

Dennis McKenna 53:24 Or all of the above. Well, that's the thing. But my, m- sort of the, the theme of this talk was if you look at the, um, what you might call it, the, the, the, the, the topology, the typology of alien encounters, there are certain patterns that come up again and again. And if you tick those off, if you say, you know, for the experiment at La Chorera, they're all present in a certain way. Uh, there has to be, you know, the, the typical a- alien encounter, it's kind of an oxymoron. What's typical about an alien encounter?

Joe Rogan 54:03 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 54:03 But there are certain characteristics, and one of the characteristics is there has to be a calling. There has to be a siren call, right? Something compels you. Like in, uh, in, uh, Spielberg's movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, it was, you know, the, the Table Mountain, you know?

Joe Rogan 54:22 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 54:22 And somehow, this guy was compelled to go there. Well, there was a siren call in, in our experience. It was DMT, you know? And we were just students. You know, Terence was at Berkeley. I was in University of Colorado, but we were both fascinated by DMT, and we were compelled to go look for this orally active form of DMT, ucu-hai, which when we finally got it, turned out to be not very exciting, but we, it took us to La Chorera. That's why we went to La Chorera, was in quest of this thing which we called the secret.... when we got to La Chorra, what was really there were mushrooms everywhere in the pasture. That quickly reorganized our priorities, right? And, and it was though we were in the presence of this intelligence, and it presented itself very much. We called it the teacher, and it was downloading all of this information to us. And that was another characteristic of, of alien encounters. Generic alien encounters usually involve the transfer of special information. People are shown a book or they're shown, you know, uh, something that is transmitted from the teacher to the recipient. And we, we got that in spades. We got this encounter. And it had those characteristics. And then another characteristic is there, there is ... So information is given and gifts are given, you know? And the information that was transmitted resulted in a couple of things. Well, the primary thing that, that came out of that was Terrence's idea about the time, about timewave and the I Ching. The genesis of that idea came out of the experiment at La Chorra and then over decades became refined and developed. Now, whether there's any validity to it, I'm not sure, and I've always been very skeptical about it, and you know, it, it failed its major test, which is, yeah, the spacetime collap- uh, uh, continuum did not collapse on December 21st, 2012 as was predicted. But there are interesting things about the, about the timewave. It's just an interesting thing considered, um, you know, in its own context as a strange mathematical construction that, in many ways, is a reflection of Terrence's psyche. He was the only one that could really understand it and interpret it.

Joe Rogan 57:04 There's a bunch of people listening probably don't know what we're talking about. We're talking about timewave zero.

Dennis McKenna 57:07 Oh, timewave zero, right.

Joe Rogan 57:09 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 57:09 And we wrote The Invisible Landscape in ... our first book in '75.

Joe Rogan 57:13 But for people who have no idea what we're talking about, explain what timewave zero was.

Dennis McKenna 57:16 Okay, well, it-

Joe Rogan 57:17 This algorithm, essentially, that he-

Dennis McKenna 57:18 Essentially, it was an algorithm, yeah, based on the structure of the I Ching, this Oracle of 64 hexagrams. And he treated it in such a way that he claimed it, it descri- that time had a structure and that this thing w- that this, this timewave described the structure of time, essentially, and thus was a predictive tool among other things. And that it, uh, you know, was a way to look at the ingression of novelty into the continuum. The idea that there really are new things under the sun. New things happen that have never happened before, ever in the history of the universe, and this map was a way to predict the eruption of those things, or the ingression of those things, I think, eh, which is a better term. And Terrence and I used to have, you know, I wouldn't call them arguments. I'd call them heated discussions (laughs) uh, or enthusiastic discussions about how this happened. I do not disagree with the principle that, that there is novelty. I'm not sure the timewave really describes it adequately, but it was, uh, it was an attempt to. And, uh, and whatever it was, it was something that was a gift from this teacher, at least the, the nugget of the, the idea.

Joe Rogan 58:47 The idea of it.

Dennis McKenna 58:47 Right. The other thing that came back, the other gift that came back from La Chorra was nothing supernatural or anything like that. The gift was the spores of the mushroom. We took the spores of the mushroom, and we took them back with us. And then over two or three years, we figured out how to grow them, and we shared that with the rest of the world. And that was really the thing that ... And look at the impact that that's had on society, you know? And Terrence was fond of saying, Terrence did say, "You know, we are in a symbiotic relationship with something that has disguised itself as an alien invasion in order not to alarm us." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:35 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 59:35 Right? So ... And that's what it was.

Joe Rogan 59:37 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 59:38 And, and before you know it, every nerdy tenth year- ten-year-old in basements across the, the country, you know, were growing mushrooms and, and able to do it because the sym- the technique was very simple. So it's all about, "What's Johnny doing down in the basement, honey?" "Oh, I don't know, some science project, something about growing mushrooms." (laughs) You know? So effectively, the alien invasion was a complete success.

Joe Rogan 1:00:04 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:00:04 And not a shot was fired.

Joe Rogan 1:00:06 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:00:06 You know? And now here we are, and no one's even (laughs) realized that it's an alien invasion. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:11 Do you subscribe to the idea that mushrooms came here perhaps on asteroids, that it was a, a panspermia sort of a situation?

Dennis McKenna 1:00:18 No, I don't.

Joe Rogan 1:00:19 No?

Dennis McKenna 1:00:19 I don't subscribe to that idea.

Joe Rogan 1:00:21 Whose idea was that?

Dennis McKenna 1:00:23 Well, Terrence's idea.

Joe Rogan 1:00:24 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 1:00:25 You know? Um, and the idea of panspermia, I don't necessarily disagree with that.

Joe Rogan 1:00:30 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:00:30 I think that may well have happened, um, you know, that, that life came from, on an asteroid or-

Joe Rogan 1:00:38 At least the building blocks.

Dennis McKenna 1:00:40 The building blocks of it. But mushrooms as such, we know too much about the phylogeny of mushrooms. We know where they fit into the phylogeny of life on Earth, and you can't really make the case that they were extraterrestrial because there were mushrooms ... You know, they're mushrooms, and they're-... part of, you know, they have a position in the well-defined phylogeny of fungi, which are some of the most ancient organisms. I mean, some of the most earliest macro, uh, terrestrial organisms that were of a macro scale were fungi. I mean, there were big fungi on, on, in terrestrial environments before there was much of anything else.

Joe Rogan 1:01:25 Have you-

Dennis McKenna 1:01:25 But they weren't psilocybin mushrooms, presumably. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:28 Have you paid attention to this most late, recent theory that perhaps, uh, the ancestors of octopus might have, somehow or another, gotten here from an asteroid.

Dennis McKenna 1:01:38 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:38 That they're, they're, something about their unique ability to alter their RNA, which is-

Dennis McKenna 1:01:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:01:43 ... unique in the animal kingdom.

Dennis McKenna 1:01:45 Mm-hmm. I have heard about that. Um, and I haven't-

Joe Rogan 1:01:49 From legit sources, apparently, right?

Dennis McKenna 1:01:50 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:50 It's not many people.

Dennis McKenna 1:01:51 Yeah, legit f- sources. Honestly, I haven't read far enough into that to dec- decide. Um, but anything looked like-

Joe Rogan 1:01:59 But if anything, it's interesting.

Dennis McKenna 1:01:59 ... an alien. Yeah, well, they certainly look-

Joe Rogan 1:02:02 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 1:02:02 They look like our idea of an alien, right?

Joe Rogan 1:02:04 Yeah, really.

Dennis McKenna 1:02:05 But then we probably look like aliens to octopus, so, you know. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:09 (laughs) Oh, sure.

Dennis McKenna 1:02:10 It's not too... But, you know, another, um, an- another interesting, maybe interesting angle on this was I, um, uh, yeah, I think it was 2015, I was invited to another private conference, actually at Tyringham. And the subject of the conference was DMT entities. And, uh, you know, um, the entities you see on DMT, are they real or not? Tall order, very difficult to really unpack that. For one thing, what do you mean by real?

Joe Rogan 1:02:46 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:02:46 (laughs) Let's start there.

Joe Rogan 1:02:47 Sure.

Dennis McKenna 1:02:48 Anything you experience is real.

Joe Rogan 1:02:50 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:02:50 You know? So start there. Um, but the, the talk that I presented was called, uh, Is, Is DMT a Messenger Molecule From an Extraterrestrial Civilization? That was the title of my talk, and I actually, in the course of preparing the talk, I had to conclude that probably not, you know, because if you're gonna postulate that, what you really have to talk about is, uh, the origin of tryptophan. Because tryptophan, the amino acid which is found in everything, it's one of the 20 that goes into protein. Tryptophan is the precursor to all these psychedelic tryptophans and, and also including serotonin. You know, DMT is kind of the archetypal psychedelic, but you've got psilocibin, psilocin, 5-methoxy, bufotenine, and even the beta-carbolines. So, so if you look back in phylogeny, um, you know, a billion years, a couple of billion years, eventually you're talking about what they call the trp operon, which is the cluster of genes that give rise to tryptophan. So what we're pretty certain you're not talking about is DMT extraterrestrial in origin. You have to say, well, obviously it's, it, it came from tryptophan. So how'd the trp operon, uh, arise in phylogeny? It was that extraterrestrial? Even though it's one of the most ancient, uh, gene clusters in, in the evolution of life, you can't really make the case that it's extraterrestrial. 'Cause you could say, well, it came from, um, rhodopsin. Actually, the genes that the trp operon originated from originally were the genes that, the same genes that code for rhodopsin, which is the pigment in the eye that responds to light. So (laughs) I ended up, I could make the case that DMT is extraterrestrial and-

Joe Rogan 1:04:59 But is that-

Dennis McKenna 1:05:00 But it's a-

Joe Rogan 1:05:00 ... even an interesting case, like whether or not it's from another planet? Whatever it is, it's, it doesn't seem like it's here, the experience doesn't.

Dennis McKenna 1:05:09 It doesn't seem like it's here, right.

Joe Rogan 1:05:11 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:05:11 But, but then again, where is here, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:05:16 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:05:16 Eventually, I defaulted to say it may not be an extraterrestrial messenger molecule, but it is a messenger molecule, and it is a distinctly terrestrial messenger molecule.

Joe Rogan 1:05:28 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 1:05:28 It is the messenger molecule that has been adopted by the community of species to talk to the monkeys, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:05:37 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:05:37 And try to, you know, talk to our consciousness and maybe even to trigger consciousness. So, you know, DMT is only two steps from tryptophan enzymatically in cellular metabolism. D- Uh, tryptophan is universal. Not a living thing that we know of that does not contain tryptophan, because it's one of the 20 that go into amino acids. Two steps from tryptophan, decarboxylation and N-methylation, is all it takes to get DMT. And that's like the prototypal tryptophan psychedelic. And the enzymes that catalyze those steps, they may not be universal in organisms, but they're pretty darn near universal because they have all sorts of other cellular housekeeping functions, you know. Decarboxylating amino acids is something that goes on in every cell. Sticking methyl groups on nitrogens is maybe less, less common, but still very common, you know. Enzymes that will move, uh, you know, methyl groups around in cells. So you can make the case that, and we know this, DMT is extremely common in nature. DMT is, I, I say nature is drenched in DMT, you know. From the animal level to the plant level to the fungal level, you find these things everywhere. Um, you know, um-... and people say, "Well, there's about 150 species of plants that contain DMT." That's only because we've only looked at 150 species of plants. (laughs) You know, i- i- if you look at these large genera that are, that are, you know, famous, known for having tryptamines, like acacias and mimosas and these things, uh, we know of a few species that have DMT. But there's hundreds of species, thousands of species. It's just that nobody's looked. Nobody's gonna fund this work. I think you can reasonably say that, you know, there are about 1,400 species of acacia-

Joe Rogan 1:07:45 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:07:45 ... in the world. Probably 75% of them have DMT. And actually, I would go to the next... I would, I would even claim, without evidence, that's never stopped me before-

Joe Rogan 1:07:58 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:07:58 ... (laughs) but, but I think it's reasonable to suppose that because DMT is so close to mainstream metabolism, probably all plants have DMT to some extent. Most don't have large, large levels of it. They don't have useful amounts of DMT. But if you took, with sufficient instruments, if you just started randing- randomly sampling plants and analyzing for DMT with a mass spec, I'll bet it would turn up in almost everything.

Joe Rogan 1:08:29 What is, uh, which ... Is it phalaris grass that's toxic to sheep because of DMT?

Dennis McKenna 1:08:34 That's ... Yep, that's the one.

Joe Rogan 1:08:35 So the DMT in it, for whatever reason, the way it interacts with the sheep's digestive system, it becomes poison?

Dennis McKenna 1:08:42 E- well, no, not entirely.

Joe Rogan 1:08:44 No?

Dennis McKenna 1:08:44 I mean, it's got ... Phalaris grass has DMT. It has 5-methoxy-DMT, o- other tryptamines. It also has something called gramine, which is a ... It's like DMT with only one carbon on the side chain. Gramine is more or less toxic. Gramine shows up in a lot of grass species. That's probably the thing that causes-

Joe Rogan 1:09:06 Oh.

Dennis McKenna 1:09:07 ... what's called phalaris staggers, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:09:09 So if you just fed DMT, uh, synthesized to sheep, it wouldn't be toxic?

Dennis McKenna 1:09:17 Hard to say.

Joe Rogan 1:09:18 Did they produce monoamine oxidase?

Dennis McKenna 1:09:19 Nobody's done it. Uh, do sheep?

Joe Rogan 1:09:21 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 1:09:21 Well, of course.

Joe Rogan 1:09:22 So do-

Dennis McKenna 1:09:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:23 ... leopards or jaguars.

Dennis McKenna 1:09:24 All mammals.

Joe Rogan 1:09:25 So when you see those jaguars eating the leaves and then tripping their balls off, rolling around on their back, what do you think is happening there?

Dennis McKenna 1:09:33 Uh ...

Joe Rogan 1:09:33 I mean, you've seen those videos, I'm sure.

Dennis McKenna 1:09:34 Yeah, I've seen, I've seen those videos. Well, for one thing-

Joe Rogan 1:09:37 Fascinating, right?

Dennis McKenna 1:09:38 ... they're eating, uh, bannisteriopsis, right, which is the source of the MAO inhibitors.

Joe Rogan 1:09:44 Oh, okay. Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:09:45 And I don't know what to make of that. It certainly does seem like some kind of a catnip for them, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:09:51 And-

Dennis McKenna 1:09:51 It causes an altered state, for sure.

Joe Rogan 1:09:53 MAO inhibitors in, uh, in and of themselves, they produce some sort of a psychedelic experience?

Dennis McKenna 1:09:59 Uh, they can. Um, not just from the MAO inhibition, but they often have other effects that are psychoactive, like harmine.

Joe Rogan 1:10:09 Harmine.

Dennis McKenna 1:10:09 Harmine is a good example. You know, we used to think that harmine was ... Basically it's the MAO inhibitor in ayahuasca, and it doesn't do a whole lot beyond that. Well, it turns out now harmine is getting a second look. Uh, it's interesting that, that harmine, uh, you know, was discovered in Peganum harmillae, about maybe 10 years before ayahuasca was ever reported to science. So harmine is one of these hoary old alkaloids, I like to call it. You know, it's been known forever, and now we're just finding out it has all sorts of interesting pharmacologies. It's a, it's an MAO inhibitor, for sure. More importantly, it appears that it stimulates neurogenesis, and that's relevant to Alzheimer's and brain development and even Down syndrome. It, it is an inhibitor of this kinase, this regulatory protein called DYRK1, which has got its fingers in lots of different cellular pies, you could call it. Many different regulatory, uh, functions, and harmine is a very potent, very selective inhibitor of this kinase. So that's relates to this ... It actually stimulates nerve growth in the hippocampus. So, uh, you know, we're ... And it ... And we're finding out that it, uh, there are a number of other receptors that it interacts with, including serotonin, dopamine transporters, even one called the im- imagiline receptors that are, uh, you know, of undefined function. So like most natural molecules, it's not a one-trick pony, you know? Um, harmine has a number of effects, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:11:59 Okay.

Dennis McKenna 1:11:59 And that's why taking ayahuasca is a different ... You know, it ... That's why it's not a pure DMT experience 'cause you've got a whole mixture of alkaloids that are per- that are contributing to that effect.

Joe Rogan 1:12:13 Who were the researchers that, when they discovered harmine, they didn't know what it was, and they tried to label it telepathine till they realized that it was harmine?

Dennis McKenna 1:12:22 Right. Right. Well, (laughs) yeah. Thi- this is part of the, uh, what you may call the, the, the, the sad and sordid history of the ... of ayahuasca (laughs) -

Joe Rogan 1:12:35 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:12:36 ... in (laughs) a certain way because in the early days, in the, in the 20s when people are looking at it, um, a number of independent groups were working on it, and they were identified ... They were isolated molecules. They weren't aware of other people's work, and so they misnamed these things, you know? I mean, uh-I can't tell you exactly, I think initially it was Louis Lewin who discovered, um, uh, harmine, and he called in banisterine. Then it turned out, well, another group, years before, had isolated the same molecule from Peganum harmala. And telepathine was one of these misnomers, you know, that, that came out. The problem with, with this was that back in the day, people didn't collect voucher specimens. So a lot of this chemical work was done without the benefit of herbarium specimens, which now every- everybody that wants to do phytochemical work hopefully has the, the good sense to collect specimens of the original plant so that people can go back and look at that.

Joe Rogan 1:13:46 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 1:13:46 A lot of this early work was reported, and there was no voucher specimens to document the collection, so a lot of it had to be dismissed. You know, uh, the, uh, k- the beta carboline chemistry of banisteriopsis didn't really get well-defined until, um, some Chinese scientists, uh, or at least they had a Chinese name, worked on them and discovered harmine, tetrahydroharmine, and harmaline as the main alkaloids. They could reference that to botanical voucher specimens, so they really should get the credit for discovering it. And then once that was done, then it was known and, you know, other scientists had to acknowledge that.

Joe Rogan 1:14:33 Why did they describe it as telepathine? The, there, there was supposedly some sort of a story about some group telepathic experience.

Dennis McKenna 1:14:40 Yeah. This was just romantic. This was just some story-

Joe Rogan 1:14:44 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 1:14:44 ... you know, out of the literature. Um, yeah. I mean, I mean, it, it was rumored to be able to cause telepathy and-

Joe Rogan 1:14:52 But this wasn't ayahuasca. They were only taking harmala?

Dennis McKenna 1:14:57 Uh, it's not clear.

Joe Rogan 1:14:58 It's not clear. Hmm.

Dennis McKenna 1:14:59 It's not clear. Yeah. I mean, they may have been take... But, they may have been taking it, but whether they were getting telepathy, I kind of doubt it.

Joe Rogan 1:15:07 Hmm.

Dennis McKenna 1:15:07 But we know we could get telepathy on ayahuasca. It's not so uncommon. It happens all the time. People have group hallucinations, group visions.

Joe Rogan 1:15:17 Has anybody ever bothered to independently, like, sequester people, put them into, like, uh, different rooms, have them do ayahuasca, and then have them describe a very similar experience or almost identical experience to prove that these telepathic experiences exist? Or at least to...

Dennis McKenna 1:15:36 As far as I know, that hasn't been done.

Joe Rogan 1:15:39 See, yeah, because everybody wants to talk afterwards.

Dennis McKenna 1:15:41 Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:15:41 Like, "Oh my god, did you see the dragon?" (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:15:43 Right. (laughs) I don't think that's been done.

Joe Rogan 1:15:46 That seems like a, a worthy study.

Dennis McKenna 1:15:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:15:49 Because if, if... I've heard from more than one person, uh, in fact, my friend Kyle Kingsbury and his wife had an ayahuasca experience where they both, uh, had a visualization of their child, and then when they got back, she was pregnant and they wound up having this child from their visualization.

Dennis McKenna 1:16:08 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:16:09 From, from, from this experience. Um, obviously they're very close and they were together and they probably communicated quite a bit and, you know, I would, I would just think it would be a really interesting experiment.

Dennis McKenna 1:16:20 It would be very interesting. I mean, and that sort of points out, there is, you know, a realm of experience, a realm of knowing that these things give access to that's normally closed to us. I mean, (laughs) I mean, that's kind of a trivial statement, of course.

Joe Rogan 1:16:37 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 1:16:37 Um, but then you get down to questions of how verifiable is that, how real is that, how, uh, you know, and, and people get, um, I don't know if the term is "hung up," but they can get baffled when you start talking about, uh, you know, the reality of, say, the entities you encounter on DMT. I mean, this is, this is... Uh, some people I know are obsessed with trying to verify the reality of the entities-

Joe Rogan 1:17:08 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 1:17:08 ... that you find on DMT. And again, it comes down to if you experience them, they're real.

Joe Rogan 1:17:15 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 1:17:16 If... Anything you experience is real because you've experienced it. Does it have a corresponding existence in the external world? Well, you know, what's external? What's internal? Y- you know, we, we, we throw around these terms, these, these epistemological, metaphysical terms quite carelessly.

Joe Rogan 1:17:38 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 1:17:38 You know, without really thinking about it. What does it mean when you say, "I'm in here and you're out there," you know? And then you take a psychedelic and you realize, "That's an artificial boundary." You know? We're all one. There is no separation.

Joe Rogan 1:17:53 It's separate in normal consciousness, though.

Dennis McKenna 1:17:55 It's separated in normal consciousness, but then what is normal consciousness-

Joe Rogan 1:17:59 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:17:59 ... if not a reflection of your neurochemical brain state? I mean, everything you experience is an altered state because it's filtered into this brain, processed by the brain, and, you know, the brain is a biochemical engine that, you know... As I say often, we're made out of drugs.

Joe Rogan 1:18:19 But it seems that our normal consciousness is the best state to propagate biological life and to keep ours, our, whatever we've created in terms of our community structures and-

Dennis McKenna 1:18:32 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:18:32 ... relationships and friendships and the ability to build structures and houses and things like that. These, all these things are done best when you're here and present.

Dennis McKenna 1:18:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:18:41 Whereas when-

Dennis McKenna 1:18:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:18:42 ... you're in a psychedelic state... I agree with you. Well, the way I've always described it is if you had a meeting with God and you went and God gave you all the answers to the world and you, you experienced a undeniable beauty in the most extreme form possible where you couldn't have imagined it and then you came back-... whether you hallucinated it or not, it's the exact same experience.

Dennis McKenna 1:19:06 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:19:07 You can't put it on a scale.

Dennis McKenna 1:19:09 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:19:09 You can't weigh it.

Dennis McKenna 1:19:10 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:19:10 You can't... And, uh, like, we've stretched the tape measure around, and God is 47 inches across. Like, just-

Dennis McKenna 1:19:15 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:19:15 ... because, you know what I'm saying? Just because you can't-

Dennis McKenna 1:19:18 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:19:18 ... measure it with what we term our, our, our, you know, our metrics for reality (slaps desk) .

Dennis McKenna 1:19:25 Right. And that is exactly the, the thing. Don't worry about whether it's real in the way we would define real. Is it good information, or is it bad, or is it not? That's the thing.

Joe Rogan 1:19:37 Yes.

Dennis McKenna 1:19:37 It doesn't matter where it comes from.

Narrator 1:19:38 But it's such a-

Dennis McKenna 1:19:39 If it's good information, then it has its own internal validity, and whether it came from some part of yourself that is normally obscure to you or it came from the plant teacher or the aliens transmitting it through, it doesn't really matter, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:19:57 But we, we are obsessed with that.

Dennis McKenna 1:19:59 We are obsessed with it.

Joe Rogan 1:19:59 We're obsessed with reality-

Dennis McKenna 1:20:01 Yeah, we are obsessed with it.

Joe Rogan 1:20:01 ... because we think we're being fooled a lot, right? Like, th- And this goes back to Terrence's La Chorrera-

Dennis McKenna 1:20:06 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:20:06 ... uh, psychedelic experience where he had a UFO encounter.

Dennis McKenna 1:20:10 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:20:10 You know, the, the easily dismissing amongst us would go, "Well, he's tripping his balls off on mushrooms."

Dennis McKenna 1:20:15 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:20:15 "Of course he saw UFOs."

Dennis McKenna 1:20:17 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:20:17 "Was, was there a leprechaun driving the UFO?" Like, all that's nonsense.

Dennis McKenna 1:20:21 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 1:20:21 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:20:23 Easy to dismiss.

Joe Rogan 1:20:24 Yes.

Dennis McKenna 1:20:24 And in fact, that is the nature of these phenomena.

Joe Rogan 1:20:28 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 1:20:28 That's what's really interesting. Easy to dismiss, you know? And that, that was another aspect of the experiment of La Chorrera I left out when I was talking about my lecture, but there's almost always an element of absurdity-

Joe Rogan 1:20:43 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 1:20:43 ... in these experiences and in paranormal experiences and UFO encounters. It's like, little green men?

Joe Rogan 1:20:51 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 1:20:51 Come on. Are you kidding?

Joe Rogan 1:20:52 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:20:52 But what the fuck? There are little green men, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:20:56 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:20:56 And, and little blue men. You know, a guy you should, uh, have on this show, maybe you have already, uh, is, uh, Whitley Strieber.

Joe Rogan 1:21:05 No, I haven't had him on, but, uh, he's so out to lunch, um, I have massive reservations. There's a video of him looking at a fly-

Dennis McKenna 1:21:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:21:13 ... and, uh, that fl- Clearly a fly-

Dennis McKenna 1:21:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:21:16 ... flies in front of a camera, and he's describing it as this man in a suit and it's like, like there's something wrong with him.

Dennis McKenna 1:21:23 Uh... (laughs) Well, I missed that. I missed that part.

Joe Rogan 1:21:28 I think-

Dennis McKenna 1:21:28 What's interesting about Whitley, and I agree, I, I totally dismissed him, you know, for a long time. I thought, you know, he is really a nutcase.

Joe Rogan 1:21:37 He's from the Communion books for people who don't know.

Dennis McKenna 1:21:40 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:21:40 He wrote a series of books about being abducted and... you know.

Dennis McKenna 1:21:44 Yeah. But I sort of had to change my opinion somewhat, uh, because he and, uh, and, uh, Geoffrey Kripal, who I do know, is, uh... Geoffrey Kripal is a professor of comparative religion and mythology at Rice University. And his focus, uh, initially is, uh, is sort of on the, the superhero as, as in contemporary, uh, you know, mythology as a mythical figure and that sort of thing. He and, uh... I was invited to a, uh, a sympo- uh, you know, a workshop that Whitley was going to be at. This was a couple years ago in Hawaii. While I'm always interested in a free trip to Hawaii, right?

Joe Rogan 1:22:32 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:22:32 So I said, "Uh, you know, I'd like to come to this thing, but this guy is a nutcase. I'm not sure I wanna appear on the same stage with this guy."

Joe Rogan 1:22:39 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:22:40 And if it's me saying that, you know-

Joe Rogan 1:22:42 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:22:42 ... he's a nutcase, r- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:22:44 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:22:45 And, and, uh, you know, and, and the, the guy who was hosting it said, "Well, you know, did you know that he and Geoffrey Kripal wrote a book together?" And I said, "No, I don't." I said, "I know Geoffrey Kripal. I know that he's not a nutcase, and that's interesting." And then I found out about the book, and I said, I, I told the guy, "If you invite Geoffrey and Whitley, then I'll come and will participate." The name of the book is, uh, Supernaturals, two words, Supernatural: A New Vision of the Unexplained. And it's really very interesting. Um, the book is basically, uh, you know, uh, alternating chapters. Whitley tells his stories about what happened to him, what has happened to him, what continues to happen to him. He lives in some kind of alternate reality. I, I ta- I get that. I mean, I don't know if I accept it, but I get it. And then in alternating chapters, Geoffrey comes along and kind of un- unpacks this and, and explains where does this fit into sort of the, the, you know, phenomenology of mythology and, you know, reasonable explanations. And, uh, and it's a fascinating book, uh, if you just suspend disbelief for a minute-

Joe Rogan 1:24:05 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 1:24:05 ... and think about... Assume that Whitley is sincere. I don't think he's lying. I think that these things really happen to him, or he thinks they do, and some of the most craziest things. These are not... You know, the media has made... Uh, like everything, they dumb it down, you know, and they, they put it into the box of alien encounters, guy's a nutball, uh, you know, and they dismiss it. But if you take a closer look, one thing, to Whitley's credit, is he doesn't claim to understand what's happening. He doesn't call it an alien encounter. He doesn't claim anything. He just says, "This is happening. I have no friggin' idea what is- what this is." So that's honest, you know? That's an honest-

Joe Rogan 1:24:54 (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:24:54 ... scientific stance. "I do not understand this phenomenon." So I give him credit for that. And then he and, and Geoffrey wrote this book. There was a very interesting, uh, you know, later on... So I read all this. Later on in the book, there's a chapter where they-... get to what is the possible physical explanation of what's going on here, if there is a physical explanation. And one of the headings, I think the chapter... Or one of the headings in the chapter was labeled, "The Soul as a UFO." And that kind of blew my mind. That got my attention, because, you know, when I did this, this workshop with them, I was kind of bringing the flag of psychedelics, right? And I was saying, "If you don't address psychedelics, you've only got part of the picture here." And, uh, and they, and they were talking about how the soul... How this could be some sort of a physical plasmoid type of thing. They were invoking, you know, scientific terminology. I don't know if it was, it was legitimate or not. But just the idea of the soul of a UFO. And I was able to respond to that and say, "Well, you know, the experiment at La Chorra was essentially the blueprints of how to build one of these things that you're talking about." (laughs) You know, which it was, really, this, this transformation. And so that was... That impressed me. I, I don't know what to make of it, but I think, I think there is... And they don't really know. Nobody knows what to make of it. But I think there are just odd things going on-

Joe Rogan 1:26:37 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 1:26:37 ... um, but that some people experience.

Joe Rogan 1:26:43 Yes.

Dennis McKenna 1:26:44 You know? And, uh, and whether they are actual encounters or dreams or somewhere in between, I'm not sure.

Joe Rogan 1:26:54 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 1:26:54 But it would be cur- It would be good... I mean- Yeah, I don't know. I mean, when you, when you, uh, when you meet Whitley... Have you ever met him?

Joe Rogan 1:27:04 No.

Dennis McKenna 1:27:05 He is, like, the most drab person you can imagine. I mean, he's like an accountant or something.

Joe Rogan 1:27:12 Probably worn out from telling all these stories. (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:27:14 Probably worn out. Yeah, could be, could be. But there-

Joe Rogan 1:27:16 He was a, but he was a, a fiction writer.

Dennis McKenna 1:27:19 He was a fiction writer.

Joe Rogan 1:27:21 Yes-

Dennis McKenna 1:27:21 That's true.

Joe Rogan 1:27:21 And then he comes out with this incredible real-world story-

Dennis McKenna 1:27:25 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:27:25 ... that reads like fiction.

Dennis McKenna 1:27:26 Right. I know.

Joe Rogan 1:27:27 And there's obviously something off. When you talk to him or you hear him... And I've never talked to him personally, but when you see him in interviews and conversations, there's something off.

Dennis McKenna 1:27:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:27:38 Now, what is that something off? Is it a psychotic break? Is it something that drifts in and out? Is... Does he... Is he having problems with normal consciousness? I mean, I don't, I don't know what it is, but-

Dennis McKenna 1:27:49 I'm not... I'm really not sure.

Joe Rogan 1:27:50 See if you can find that video of him-

Dennis McKenna 1:27:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:27:52 ... talking about the fly. Did you find it?

Narrator 1:27:55 I looked, and I'm looking on the-

Joe Rogan 1:27:56 (laughs) He thinks the fly-

Narrator 1:27:57 ... side where it looks like it.

Joe Rogan 1:27:57 ... is a man in a fucking spacesuit.

Dennis McKenna 1:27:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:27:59 And he's like, "It's not a man in a suit. What is that?" And I'm like, "Oh, Jesus."

Dennis McKenna 1:28:02 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:28:02 "This guy's out to lunch."

Dennis McKenna 1:28:04 (laughs) Call the men with nets, right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:28:06 Yeah. Uh, there's, there's quite a few of those. There's quite a few really bizarre videos of him-

Dennis McKenna 1:28:10 I see.

Joe Rogan 1:28:10 ... where, like, he's having a hard time with normal reality. So, which would make sense during the dream state because all these things are happening at night, right?

Dennis McKenna 1:28:19 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 1:28:20 And this was the... This is the big thing that I've always... (sighs) The big problem I've always had about these UFO abduction experiences. First of all, they all take place when someone is either, uh, at night. It's either they're on a dark road where there's no one around-

Dennis McKenna 1:28:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:28:35 ... and they're sleepy-

Dennis McKenna 1:28:37 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:28:37 ... or they're at home in their bed. Like, the vast majority of them take place at night or while someone's lying in bed, which is exactly when you're dreaming, right?

Dennis McKenna 1:28:45 Yep. Yep.

Joe Rogan 1:28:46 Now, we don't totally understand the dream state, but we... There's, there's a connection, at least, uh, an implied connection between psychedelic chemicals that your brain produces endogenously that could be released during the dream state and in different levels with different humans. I mean, obviously some people have problems with producing serotonin and dopamine, and then other people have no problems with it. And this-

Dennis McKenna 1:29:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:29:08 ... the biology of the human brain varies, right?

Dennis McKenna 1:29:10 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:29:11 So, it's not without considerate... Or it's not without possibility that there's someone who has a real issue with these chemicals just busting through-

Dennis McKenna 1:29:23 (laughs) Right.

Joe Rogan 1:29:23 ... and flooding their system.

Dennis McKenna 1:29:24 Oh, we know there are.

Joe Rogan 1:29:25 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 1:29:25 We know, we know there are people, I mean-

Joe Rogan 1:29:27 But then, does this contradict-

Dennis McKenna 1:29:27 ... as we call it, mental illness. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:29:29 Yes.

Dennis McKenna 1:29:29 You know?

Joe Rogan 1:29:29 But then does this contradict what we've already said about psychedelic experiences? Like, why would we diminish his endogenous psychedelic experience if that's what he's having? I mean, it is entirely possible that you're dealing with someone who maybe perhaps does have some sort of psychotic breaks, but also is experiencing psychedelic experiences due to some endogenous DMT dump or dump of whatever. And all these things are taking place at the same time in the dream state during heavy REM sleep.

Dennis McKenna 1:29:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:29:56 And he's coming back with these uniform stories of alien abduction.

Dennis McKenna 1:30:01 Yeah. No, I agree. It's, it's, um... I mean, it's hard to parse it out.

Joe Rogan 1:30:07 Yeah.

Dennis McKenna 1:30:07 And I, and I'm not saying I accept it all, but I, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:30:11 It's easy to dismiss-

Dennis McKenna 1:30:12 How we-

Joe Rogan 1:30:12 ... but maybe you shouldn't, right?

Dennis McKenna 1:30:14 Well, there maybe is something there. We should approach it in the spirit of, here's a phenomenon.

Joe Rogan 1:30:21 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:30:22 We don't understand it. We shouldn't dismiss it. There's something to be understood here. Not necessarily his understanding of it, but something to be looked at there. And I thought this book was interesting for its balance, you know? I would not have Whitley Strieber on your show without Jeffrey Kripal (laughs) on your show.

Joe Rogan 1:30:41 (laughs) That would be fun.

Dennis McKenna 1:30:41 That is the thing, because he... It would be fun. And maybe it's, you know, maybe it's a bridge too far. I'm, I'm not sure.

Joe Rogan 1:30:49 Maybe not.

Dennis McKenna 1:30:50 Yeah, maybe not.

Joe Rogan 1:30:51 Maybe we get to the bottom of this thing. (laughs)

Dennis McKenna 1:30:53 Yeah. Well, is there something to be got to the bottom of it?

Joe Rogan 1:30:56 Right. Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:30:56 That's, that's the question.

Joe Rogan 1:30:57 Is there a bottom at all?

Dennis McKenna 1:30:58 Is it just one man's delusion?

Joe Rogan 1:31:00 Mm-hmm.

Dennis McKenna 1:31:01 Or is there really something at the base of it? And, and this is the... This is kind of the point that we were talking about a while back in this conversation about natural philosophy. Natural philosophy...... uh, you know, it has a wider scope for understanding. And you could say, well, me- meaning natural philosophy will accept every cockamamie woo-woo idea that ever (laughs) came along.

Joe Rogan 1:31:29 Mm.

Dennis McKenna 1:31:29 Not properly. I mean, it sh- natural philosophy properly approached should be a way to evaluate these things rigorously, not abandon rigorous thought. But not be so dismissive of it as to say, "It doesn't fit into our paradigm. It doesn't fit into what we think we know, so we're not gonna talk about it."

Joe Rogan 1:31:51 Right.

Dennis McKenna 1:31:52 That's dishonest. That's intellectual dishonesty, and, uh, we have too much of that, you know. Um, science is a very timid, um, kind of activity sometimes, uh, because in its current, in its current incarnation, it so depend- it's, it's corrupted in a certain way. You can't just be the curious monkey who's trying to apply, you know, clear thinking, rigorous thought to understanding nature. We don't have that luxury. Scientists don't have that