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Joe Rogan Experience #1869 - Dr. Gabor Mate

Dr. Gabor Maté is a physician, speaker, and author regularly sought for his expertise on a range of topics including addiction, stress, and childhood development. His latest book, "The Myth of Normal," will be available on September 13, 2022. https://drgabormate.com/

Dr. Gabor MatéguestJoe Roganhost
Jun 27, 20242h 24mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:35

    Intro

    1. GM

      (drum music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

    2. NA

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Pleasure to meet you. I've, uh, I've really enjoyed your conversations online. I, I, I love your perspective, and, uh, it's really a, a real pleasure to have you in here.

    3. GM

      Well, I really, I'm happy to be here with you, thank you.

    4. JR

      My pleasure. Uh, this book, The Myth of Normal. This is your book.

    5. GM

      Yeah, it's called The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture, and it kinda sums up everything

  2. 0:35 – 2:11

    What is a toxic culture

    1. GM

      I've ever learned.

    2. JR

      What exactly is toxic about our culture? Is that a too big a question?

    3. GM

      No. It, it's, it's the, uh, it's the central question.

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. GM

      Um, if you imagine you're a microbiologist in a laboratory, growing microorganisms in a Petri dish, that's called a culture. You know, you put in the brew, and with the right nutrients and the microorganisms thrive and they multiply. But if a lot of them start getting sick, and a lot of them started dying, you would say this is a toxic culture. Now, if you look at what happening in North America now, there was an article in The New York Times 10 days before we speak of a teenager being on 10 different psychiatric medications. 10 different psychiatric medications. More and more kids are being diagnosed with ADHD, with anxiety, with depression. The rate of childhood suicide is going up and everybody's saying, "What's going on here? Why is this going on?" More and more people getting autoimmune disease, um, me- mental health issues. The overdose crisis in the States, over 100,000 people died of overdoses. Either we assume that these are all accidents and sort of, um, blows of misfortune, or we get that there's something about this culture that's fomenting so much illness. 70% of American adults are on at least one medication. Can you-

    6. JR

      70?

    7. GM

      70, yeah. 50 per- 40% are on about two at least. That's a toxic culture. There's all kinds of c- Now I could talk about what makes it that way, but when I talk about toxic culture, I'm talking about its impact on the people who inhabit it.

  3. 2:11 – 5:02

    How we raise our kids

    1. GM

    2. JR

      So, this toxic culture. Are y- are y- just talking about, uh, the, the overall way human beings communicate? Is it the way we're being raised? Is it the foods we eat? Is it everything?

    3. GM

      It's all that.

    4. JR

      It's all?

    5. GM

      And, uh, salient amongst them, how we raise our kids.

    6. JR

      What about how we raise our kids?

    7. GM

      Well, (sighs) if you look at how human beings evolved, uh, over millions, really, of years, and, uh, hundreds of thousands of years, and even our own species has been on the earth for about 150, 200,000 years. For all that time until the blink of an eye ago, we lived out in nature in small band hunter-gatherer groups where kids were raised communally. So that it wasn't just an isolated nuclear family or a isolated mother or father, it was grandparents and uncles and aunts and the whole community. It takes a village, as the saying goes. It takes a whole community. Now, children also were picked up when they cried. In fact, they were never even put down. They slept with their parents. They were breastfed for three or four years. Um, in today's society, and I could start even before that. Already we know that stresses on the pregnant women have a negative im- impact on the infant. Physiological impact on the infant's brain development. We- this is not even controversial. In our society, we don't pay attention to women's emotional needs when they're pregnant, and we don't pay attention to the child's emotional needs. So the child needs to be held and accepted unconditionally. Now, in our society, we actually tell parents not to pick up their kids when they're crying.

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. GM

      And that is an insult and a trauma to the child. And that has the chil- i- impact on the child's trust in the world, sense of safety, sense of belonging, how they feel about themselves. You know, in the book I talk about my mom, and I talk about my own infancy in Budapest, Hungary as a Jewish infant under the Nazis. So you can imagine how stressed my mom was. But forget the Nazis for a minute. I read her diary, and she writes, this is when I'm two weeks of age and we're in the maternity hospital. And she says, "My poor little Gábor. My heart is breaking for you 'cause you wanna be fed and you're hungry, but I promised the doctor I would only feed you every four hours. And you've been crying for the last hour and a half." What's it like for an infant to lie there next to their mom and not be picked up and fed for an hour and a half? Now try telling a mother baboon or a mother cat or a mother bear to ignore the child's distress for an hour and a half. So the very advice that you would give to a lot of parents these days already damages the child.

  4. 5:02 – 6:15

    The tyranny of the baby

    1. GM

    2. JR

      Where was that- where is that advice coming from? Like, w- who were the experts that thought it was a good idea to not pick up children when they're crying?

    3. GM

      It's been going on for about 100 years. Um, it may be even longer. Uh, Dr. Spock, I don't know if you remember the-

    4. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    5. GM

      ... name Benjamin Spock. (clears throat) His, um, book was just the most influential parenting bible for decades through the '50s and the '60s and the '70s, and he talked about the tyranny of the baby who wants to be picked up. He says, "Well, how you deal with that is you walk out and you shut the door and you don't go back." In other words, you isolate the infant. Now, look at how hunter-gatherers raise their children. They carry their babies everywhere. I met a Cree woman once who told me, "In our community, kids weren't even allowed to touch the ground for two years. They were just held all the time." So, it's modern life, it's the pressure and stresses of modern life acting on parents that makes it so difficult for them to really be there for their kids. Now, my mother's heart was breaking. She went against her own instincts to follow the doctor's advice.... again, you tell a mother rat or a mother baboon to ignore the baby's cries, and you find out what mother rage is all about.

  5. 6:15 – 8:01

    The impact on the child

    1. GM

    2. JR

      And what does this effect of not holding babies and not comforting them when they cry, what does this have on the child?

    3. GM

      Well, let's say you're my friend, okay? And you come to me for help as an adult, and I ignore you. What's the impact on you? What are you gonna believe?

    4. JR

      I don't know. I mean, if, if you ignore me, I'm gonna, uh, I'm gonna take into account what the rest of the world says.

    5. GM

      You might, but what would you believe about my attitude towards you?

    6. JR

      I would think you're ambivalent.

    7. GM

      Yeah. And I don't care.

    8. JR

      That you don't care.

    9. GM

      E- e- exactly.

    10. JR

      Yeah.

    11. GM

      That's exactly the impact on the child. Not consciously, but unconsciously, the child makes the assumption that, "There's something wrong with me. I'm not lovable. Uh, the world is an unsafe place." Because we learn about our worlds through how we interact with our caregivers. That's the template. I mean, if you ever raised a puppy dog, you know that how you treat that little infant animal has a huge impact on what kind of a creature they're gonna develop into. Well, human beings are the same. In fact, even more so, because we're more dependent and more helpless than the average animal is. So, we need that care and that connection even more, um, powerfully. So, when we're lacking it, the infant assumes, unconsciously, that there's something wrong with them, they're not lovable, the world is not a s- trusting place. Then, we spend our lives acting out from that unconscious belief.

  6. 8:01 – 12:15

    The needs of the child

    1. GM

    2. JR

      So, the v- majority or a large portion of our culture develops as a child with this problem.

    3. GM

      In, in this world, yes. In this world, very much so. Then, then there is the... L- look, if you look at what the, what a psychologist friend of mine calls the irreducible needs of children. Uh, irreducible meaning that if you don't meet these needs, there's gonna be negative consequences. The first one is unconditional loving acceptance, just a sense of belonging. Attachment, it's called. Connection. The infant needs that. Y- you know how a baby elephant is born? When the mother elephant goes into labor, all the mother elephants stand around in a circle. When the infant plops on the ground, they all reach out their trunks and they stroke the infant. That's natural instinct. "You belong to us. You're welcome here." Now, the human infant needs that at least as much as the baby elephant. Now, so the first need is this unconditional loving welcome in the world. The second need of the child is, um, that the child shouldn't have to work to be loved, to be accepted. I shouldn't have to be pretty, smart, successful, compliant, good, nice, anything. I'm just, I shouldn't have to work for what is my birthright, which is to be accepted as a person with value and worth and lovable in their own right. That's the second need. Now, the third need is the freedom to experience all our emotions. Okay? All our emotions. Now, our brains have emotional circuits, um, for rage, which we need to protect ourselves, for lust, which we need to reproduce, for seeking, curiosity, to explore and get to know our world. One of the, one of the... And there's other emotional circuits as well, for care, so that we can look after each other. These are circuits that were, nature, evolution has wired us with. These have been studied. Now, so one of the needs we have is the freedom to experience all our emotions, all our emotions. Our gut feelings and everything else. Lot of parenting experts will tell you, "An angry child should be made to sit by themselves till they come back to normal." I'm quoting a very f- I'm quoting a very famous person here, um, a psychologist who said this in his book, that an angry child should be made to sit by themselves so that they come back to normal. Now, what's the message to the child? Anger is not normal. If you wanna belong to us, you have to suppress your anger. Now, suppressing the anger is a trauma, because anger is given to us by nature as a natural boundary defense. If I enter your space in a way that threatens you, you better get angry with me. "Get out!" That's healthy anger. If I suppress that, if I depress it, push it down, 30 years later, you're diagnosed with this disease called depression. It's not a disease. It was your response to the stupid advice of the parenting experts that your mothers and your fathers believed they should follow. It's a coping mechanism. You pushed down the anger to be accepted by your environment, but later on, that causes you problems, mental health issues and physical health issues. So, when I'm talking about irreducible needs, I'm talking about the real needs. And in this society, parents are told to keep ignoring their own parenting instincts, to make the child behave the way they expect them to behave. And the result is a lot of kids are hurt without parent meaning to hurt them. They love their kids. They do their best. But because of this culture, they actually end up hurting the kids.

  7. 12:15 – 12:36

    Psychological problems

    1. JR

      ... so this is standard in America?

    2. GM

      Pretty much.

    3. JR

      And you feel like this is the base of this host of psychological problems?

    4. GM

      Well, I wouldn't want to put everything down to just the one dynamic.

    5. JR

      Right.

    6. GM

      But it, but it certainly w- what happens to children in the first three years is a huge template for l- problems later on.

  8. 12:36 – 16:15

    What can be done

    1. JR

      And once a child develops and becomes an adult and has all these issues that are connected to the way they were raised-

    2. GM

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      ... what can be done then?

    4. GM

      Well, that's where the process of healing has to begin. And, um, by the way, um... well, okay, yeah, let me, let me deal with the question. Um, what can be done then? Well, the first thing we have to do is to recognize what's going on. That- that- that- that, uh, what happened to me. Like, if I can talk about my own example.

    5. JR

      Okay.

    6. GM

      So, medical doctor, I'm in my 40s, successful physician, newspaper columnist, respected, good income, and all that. But I'm a workaholic. I have to be working. If I'm not working, I'm kind of depressed and, um, alienated, which is how my family experiences me, including my young kids. Now, why am I that way? Because as a Jewish infant under the Nazis, the message that I got is that the world didn't want me. Now, not because the Nazis directly affected me as an infant, although we lived under Nazi occupation in my first year of life. So my mother was... her, our life was t- under daily threat. In the book, there's a painting of my mother and I with her wearing a yellow star. When I was 11 months old, she handed me to the complete stranger in the street to save my life, in Budapest. I stood on that very pave- pavement just a couple of months ago when I visited my birth city. So she gives me to the total stranger to convey me to some relatives in hiding because she thinks where we're living, I'm not gonna survive another day. So she does this to save my life. But what message do I get? I don't know that there are Nazis. I don't know that my mother's passing me on to a stranger to save my life. What sense do I get? I'm being abandoned. I'm not wanted. I'm not lovable. Well, if you're not lovable, if you're not wanted, one of the things you can do is to go to medical school, 'cause now they're gonna want you all the time.

    7. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    8. GM

      And every day, and every day you get to prove to yourself how much, how important you are and how much they want you, and how essential you are to everybody's life. What message do my kids get when daddy's not around all the time? Or when he's around, he's kind of in withdrawal from workaholism? They get the same message. So we pass it on. This is what trauma is. We pass it on unwittingly from one generation to the next, and we don't even know we're doing it. I didn't know I was doing it. So, you know, when you say, how do we... at some point you have to say, "So today I'm this successful doctor, columnist, and so on, but I'm depressed." At some point, I have to start asking... "And my kids are afraid of me." I have to start asking myself, "What's going on here? W- why, why is this tension in my family? Why are my wife and I, we've been together at this point 54 years coming this November, but when our kids were small, we had a very tense marriage?" And I have to start asking myself, "What's going on?" And that's when you start looking for the answers. So, the first thing is we have to recognize that the way it is is not working, and maybe it doesn't have to be this way.

  9. 16:15 – 17:23

    How do you feel now

    1. GM

    2. JR

      So how did you go about shifting the way you think about your life and the world and being a workaholic-

    3. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    4. JR

      ... and becoming what you feel like? Do you feel like now you're a healthy person?

    5. GM

      (laughs) Uh, you should ask me that on my-

    6. JR

      Relatively?

    7. GM

      You should ask me that on my deathbed, okay? 'Cause then, then I'll give you the final answer. But, uh-

    8. JR

      Well, right now.

    9. GM

      I've come-

    10. JR

      How do you feel right now?

    11. GM

      ... I've come a long way. I'm much more balanced. Um, I'm not 100% there. I'm not. You know?

    12. JR

      Like, what's missing?

    13. GM

      Every once in a while, when I get triggered, I still can behave like I had never learned anything at all. You know, uh, sometimes when you're triggered, your, your, the circuits in your brain that can regulate you and, uh, guide you, ground you, go offline. I can still go offline sometimes, but much less than I ever used to, and I come back to groundedness much more rapidly. I also have learned how to take care of myself, you know? So, and, but I've done a lot of work to, to, to, to sort out all the traumas that I experienced as a child. So, it's, it's been tak- it's

  10. 17:23 – 17:53

    What triggers you

    1. GM

      taken a lot of work.

    2. JR

      And what kind of thing really triggers you?

    3. GM

      Hmm. When I'm not understood. When I'm not-

    4. JR

      When you're not understood? Really?

    5. GM

      When I'm, when I'm not seen, when I'm, um, when I perceive as myself as not being respected for who I am. And I don't mean respect for what I do. I mean respected for... 'cause, I mean, people can disagree with what I do, and I don't take that as a sign of disrespect. It's just a disagreement. But when I'm not respected just for who I am as a, as

  11. 17:53 – 18:32

    Dealing with negative vibes

    1. GM

      a person.

    2. JR

      As a human being.

    3. GM

      As a human being, yeah.

    4. JR

      So if someone insults you or someone dismisses you or treats you like shit?

    5. GM

      Very often, I can see that is their problem. They're projecting something on me.

    6. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    7. GM

      I'm sure you've had the same experience.

    8. JR

      Sure.

    9. GM

      In fact, I know, I know you had 'cause I saw your interview with, um, Lex, uh, Friedman.

    10. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    11. GM

      And, and he talked about, uh, how you handled, uh...... the, the negative vibes that come your way sometimes.

    12. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    13. GM

      So, sometimes, I can see that as their issue. But if I'm particularly vulnerable, maybe stressed, maybe I hadn't taken care of myself, maybe I haven't swum for a few days, so my nervous system is on edge, then maybe I can take it personally, and then I can get triggered.

  12. 18:32 – 18:40

    Exercise

    1. GM

    2. JR

      That seems like one of the best forms of medicine, some sort of rigorous exercise.

    3. GM

      You don't wanna talk to me if I haven't swum for a couple

  13. 18:40 – 19:02

    Swimming

    1. GM

      of days.

    2. JR

      Swimming is your thing?

    3. GM

      That's my thing. I-

    4. JR

      It's a great one.

    5. GM

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      It's a great one 'cause it's-

    7. GM

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      ... physically exhausting. Exhaust the muscles, the cardiovascular system.

    9. GM

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      The mind gets in that meditative state of constantly stroking and constantly kicking.

    11. GM

      Exactly. It's r- and you have to breathe, don't you?

    12. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    13. GM

      It's like a (breathes deeply) .

    14. JR

      Yep.

    15. GM

      You know? And, and so I do, I do that 50 minutes, an hour a day, and, and that makes a huge difference for

  14. 19:02 – 19:38

    Do you do it with the intent of enjoying it

    1. GM

      me.

    2. JR

      Mm. And when you do that, do you do it with the intent of enjoying it, or do you do it saying that, "This is the necessary work I have to do," or is it a combination of both?

    3. GM

      For me, it's enjoyable. I, I love... I look forward to stretching out my body in the pool and just getting that rhythm, as you say, going.

    4. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    5. GM

      Getting the breathing going. Um, and just notice the thoughts. "Oh, next week, I'm gonna be on Joe Rogan," you know? And, and, and notice that those thoughts come and go-

    6. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    7. GM

      ... but not, not, not stay with them. Just watch the, watch the video in my mind as I swim, you know?

    8. JR

      Yeah.

  15. 19:38 – 19:50

    So you recognized at how old were you

    1. JR

      Um, so you recognized at... How old were you when you recognized that you really had a problem, that you had dis- disability?

    2. GM

      I was... I would say I was in my early 40s, early to mid- early to mid-40s, I would say.

  16. 19:50 – 21:01

    What were the first steps

    1. GM

    2. JR

      So, what were the first steps that you did to try to come out of that and just evolve your process?

    3. GM

      Yeah. Uh, I will answer that, but I have to tell you as well that this is not separate from my medical work, either, because in my medical practice, I began to notice that who got sick and who didn't wasn't accidental. There were certain traumatic imprints in people who got physically ill and mentally ill, who got addicted, and so on. So, what I saw in medical practice kind of melded with what I experienced in my own life. So, my steps were both to start talking to my patients and to find out about their lives, and I began to see the commonalities betw- amongst people, including myself and my patients. Doesn't matter how addicted or how ill they were; there was always something about them that I could recognize in myself. And I began to go to ther- for therapy, and I began to really research the child developmental and trauma literature, and the more I did, the more I learned. So the... and, and then, you know, eventually, like you, I got into psychedelic work as well. That didn't happen till much later, but it was all that.

  17. 21:01 – 21:23

    Psychedelic work

    1. GM

    2. JR

      And what psychedelic work did you do, and how did that help you?

    3. GM

      How did that happen? So, my book on addiction, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, was published in 2009 in Canada and in 2010 in the States, uh, i- in which I point out that addiction is always, always, always rooted in trauma.

    4. JR

      Always?

    5. GM

      Always, 100%.

  18. 21:23 – 24:14

    Genetics

    1. GM

    2. JR

      What about genetics? Do they play a factor, or is it genetics just related also to trauma?

    3. GM

      Well, here's the interesting thing about genetics. You know what the best letter I ever received was? Um, for s- for a woman who was 48, and she wrote me from somewhere in the States. She sent me an email to thank me for the birth of her- of her four-y- four-year-old child. She said, "We just celebrated my daughter's four-year birthday, thanks to you." She said, "Because my husband used to be an alcoholic, and he used to believe that his alcoholism was genetically determined, so he didn't want to have another child 'cause he didn't wanna pass on the addict- the alcoholism gene 'cause he was... he had suffered so badly. But then he read your book, and he realized it wasn't genetics at all. It was, uh, trauma as a result. And I was just at the edge of the childbearing years. I was 44. So now, we have this four-year-old child, thank you." And I thought, "This is the best praise I've ever got," 'cause I'd been thanked quite often for sp- saving people's lives, but never for causing one.

    4. JR

      Hmm.

    5. GM

      Long di- nev- long distance. To go back to your question about genetics, there's no gene for addictions. I don't care what they tell ya. What there are, there are some genes that make it more likely that you might become addicted, but they don't cause addiction, as such. In fact, the addictions have nothing to do with... Sorry, the genes have nothing to do with addictions at all. Now, you say, "Well, how come? You know, my father was an alcoholic. My grandfather was an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic." It's not the gene that's passed on. It's the trauma that's passed on 'cause what's it like to grow up in a home with alcoholism? Now, there are some genes that make some kids more prone to have mental health conditions and addictions and so on. But there's no gene that causes any specific illness or, sorry, any specific mental health illness, any specific, uh, addiction. What there are is a large group of genes that the more of them you have, the more likely you are to have any mental health conditions, including addictions. But you can have those same genes and be a perfectly happy, successful, joyful, creative person, depending on how the environment acts on those genes, which means that the genes are not for disease, they're for sensitivity. And the more sensitive you are, when things go well, the happier you are. When things go badly, the more unhappy you are, the more pain you have, and the more you have to run away from pain, and that's where the addiction comes in.

    6. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    7. GM

      So, the genes are not for addiction, as such. And most of my profession gets this completely wrong. So yes, there's a genetic position- predisposition not to addiction as such, but to either joy or suffering, depending on what the environment does when it acts on you. So, um, I forgot where this conversation began, but this is where we are

  19. 24:14 – 29:32

    Addiction

    1. GM

      now.

    2. JR

      Well, we were just talking about addiction and genetics and whether or not... You know, when, when you hear about families that have, uh, a history of alcoholism-

    3. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    4. JR

      ... we just assume-... based on what we're told, that's because this is-

    5. GM

      The gene.

    6. JR

      ... yeah, and it's probably the part of the world your ancestors are from, and whether or not they had a history of abusing alcohol, and there's genetic predetermining factors.

    7. GM

      Okay. There's a great example to refute that right here in the United States. So, prior to colonization, the native people had no problem with addiction at all, and they even had some alcohol in, uh, New Mexico area. There was no-

    8. JR

      Really?

    9. GM

      There was... Yeah, apparently so. There was all these, all these other plants around, by the way. There was no addiction. Then you traumatize that population. You subject them to the extermination and the destruction of their ways of life and their culture. Like in Canada, we have a terrible problem. When I worked with addictions in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, 30% of my clients were indigenous people. They make up 5% of the population. 30% of the people in j- of the men in jail in Canada, 50% of the women in jail in Canada are indigenous people. They have much more addiction, child abuse, um, mental health issues, suicide, violence. Maybe you heard about the stabbings up in Canada right now?

    10. JR

      Yeah.

    11. GM

      It was in an indigenous community. Why? Because they're so traumatized by what happened to them. And for 100 years, their children were abducted from their homes by the state and the church, sent to these residential schools where they were sexually, physically, emotionally abused. I had a... I met a woman. By the way, remember where we started talking about snow. You asked me about psychedelic works. I'll come back to that in a minute.

    12. JR

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    13. GM

      I was in a psychedelic ceremony with some indigenous people in Canada, maybe about, mm, eight years ago now. I met a woman who was taken from her family by law, abducted by the police, taken to this residential school. The parents weren't even allowed to visit these kids. Th- they were... Her first day in school as a four-year-old, she spoke her tribal language. You know what the punishment was? They stuck a pin through her tongue.

    14. JR

      (laughs)

    15. GM

      This was in the 1960s in Canada. 1950s, I'm sorry, late 1950s. For a whole hour, this little girl couldn't put her needle... Could- couldn't put her tongue back in her mouth for fear of cutting her lips. That's before the sexual abuse began. By the time she was nine years old, she was an alcoholic. By the time she was 20 years old, she was a heroin addict. Now, her grandchildren are heroin addicts. What's being passed on here is the trauma, not the addiction. Now, the reason I began to talk about addiction is, after that book came out showing the relationship between addiction and, and trauma, I would travel, and I'd be speaking and people would ask me, "What do you know about ayahuasca and the healing of addiction?" I'd say, "I know nothing." Next city, "Hey, what do you know about addiction and the healing of trauma?" Nothing. Finally, I got sick of it. I said, y- you know, "I've just written a book. I've just spent three years writing a book, and you keep asking about the one thing I don't know anything about?" But you know what? The, the universe has a way of knocking at our doors. And somebody said to me, "Did you know you could actually do this up here in Vancouver?" I said, "Okay, this is a message. I gotta do it." I did the ayahuasca, and in half an hour, I got why th- I'd been asked that question. I just got it. Because with the ayahuasca and the chanting, I had these tears of love flowing down my cheeks. Not love for any one particular person, just open-heartedness. It was amazing. And I understood something, how closed I had been to love all my life, even to my spouse and to my children and to the world. Why was my heart so closed? Because it had been bruised so early, and so we close then our hearts. We don't know what that kind of love is. So that, with this plant, that opened up, and I also got the pain of what happens to us when we close our hearts. All of us human beings, it really hurts. And then we have to protect ourselves from that pain with drugs and behaviors and sex and gambling and work and everything else. (breathes deeply) So, I got that if we can both feel the pain that we've been running from all our lives, but also, maybe experience the love that's underneath all that pain, we don't have to keep running. Now, it's not that simple, and it's not like overnight I was a changed person. Believe me, I wasn't. You know, I went back. But, but at least I saw the possibilities. And then I decided, "I'm gonna work with this plant. I'm gonna help others with this plant. I'm gonna help myself with this plant." So, that's how I got into psychedelic work.

  20. 29:32 – 37:06

    The process

    1. GM

    2. JR

      So, this one experience, y- y- you have this revelation. You, you feel this love, and you understand that you have been closed off to this your whole life.

    3. GM

      Yeah, yeah.

    4. JR

      D- do you need subsequent experiences? Do you... Do you just internalize and reflect and try to sort things out? And then... Or, like how, how... What is the process for you?

    5. GM

      Well, what you said should've been the process, but I didn't know that yet.

    6. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    7. GM

      You know, I, I had this thing, and then... Now, the Buddha, um, has got this terrifying story that he tells. It's one of the metaphoric stories that he tells of these two strong men dragging a third man towards an abyss. They're gonna throw him into the pit. And he resists, but he's not strong enough to resist. The Buddha... The two strong men, he called it, are habit energies, our ingrained habits, beliefs-... subconscious emotions, everything that's driving us. And if you want to overcome those habit energies, we have to do what you just said, integrate, work on it, reflect, hang out with it. I didn't do that. I just plunged back into my work call is I'm now gonna save the world using this plant, and I started leading retreats. And I did a great job helping others, but I didn't go far enough with myself, so that's something I had to learn.

    8. JR

      How did you recognize that?

    9. GM

      Well, I, I can tell you a story.

    10. JR

      Sure.

    11. GM

      So, it's, it's in the book. Um, 2019, this is, like, three years, three years ago now, in June, I flew to Peru (smacks lips) to lead an ayahuasca retreat for physicians, and the healers, and psychiatrists, and psychologists, counselors from around the world. And by that time, I had a worldwide reputation. My books had been published in, you know, 30 languages. And so people, healers came from all over the world to work with me in the Amazon jungle at this ayahuasca center. (smacks lips) Now, I don't lead the ceremonies. I'm not a shaman. So my role is not to pour the pl- not to, to, to give the, the brew or to lead the ceremony, but to help people formulate their intention, and after the experience, to help them integrate it, to help them understand what happened to them. Um, I, I'm adept at doing that. So we do the first ceremony, and there are six shamans, mistros and maestras, three men, three women. These beautiful, short little people stand up to my, to my eyebrows, and, uh, there's a first ceremony in the maloca, the tent-like building in which the ceremony's held, and they chant. Each of them chant. There's 24 of us. There's 23 participants that came out of the world, all, from all over the world, four continents to work with me in the jungle. And there's me. When the shamans come to chant to me, all six of them in turn, I'm sitting there thinking, (clicks tongue) "You can do your best, but this brain is too thick. You're not gonna get through. This skull is too thick. Try and break through this one." And not much happens. Next morning, they send a delegation to me, and they say, "We can't have you in ceremony." "Why not?" "Because we think that you have such dark, dense energy that affects everybody else in the room, and it interferes with our capacity to help the others. And because of this dark, dark energy that you're carrying, our Icaros, our chants can't penetrate you."

    12. JR

      (sighs) Wha- what is, like what's causing them to have this reaction? Like, what are you doing?

    13. GM

      Well, it's not what I'm doing. It's, it's my fixed belief.

    14. JR

      And how do they know about this fixed belief? Or how's it manifesting?

    15. GM

      'Cause they're shamans. They just feel it. They sense it. They're highly trained people. They pick up on energies. Th- I don't say anything, and they don't know who the heck I am. They're not impressed with my reputation and my international standing or the books that I've published. No, no, they... They just pick it up. That's what shamans do. That's what a good shaman does. So they said, "Be, our, our chants can't penetrate it. But, uh, but worse than that, it's, it's, it's affecting the others. So we wanna help the others. We can't have you in the room." And furthermore, they said, "We think you have worked with so many traumatized people in your life, and you've absorbed their traumas, and you haven't cleared it out of yourself." And furthermore, they said, "When you were very small, we think you had a big scare, and you haven't got over it yet." This is me at age 75. All, all-

    16. JR

      Wow.

    17. GM

      No, in the book, I can sh- I'll so- I'll show you a, a painting, um, if I may. This is, uh, from the first chapter. This is a painting that my wife did from a photograph. The photograph is in the upper left-hand corner of the painting of my mother and I at three months of age. You'll notice she's wearing the yellow star that Jews had to wear under the Nazis.

    18. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    19. GM

      Uh, what do you see in the expression in my eye?

    20. JR

      I mean, a traumatized baby.

    21. GM

      Yeah. These people picked that up 75 years later. And so what they did is they assigned one shaman to work with me alone, and I had my own ceremonies over 10 days every second night.

    22. JR

      Wow.

    23. GM

      And they were, and the other five worked with the rest of the group. And so they fired me from my own retreat. Now, my ego didn't like that very much, but, uh, you know, "These people came all over the world to work with me, and now you're telling me I can't do this?" "Yeah, we're telling you you can't do this." I said, "Yeah, I get it."

    24. JR

      Do you recognize that they were correct? Like, do you see what you were-

    25. GM

      I knew right away they were correct.

    26. JR

      Yeah.

    27. GM

      And I accepted it. And so this guy worked with me for five nights, and by the fifth night, poof, I had the big breakthrough experience.

    28. JR

      Yeah?

    29. GM

      So, so what I'm saying is that-

    30. JR

      What was the big breakthrough?

  21. 37:06 – 39:44

    Acceptance

    1. JR

      So you feel like up until that point, you couldn't accept the fact that there was love in the world, there was good things to focus on? You were too consumed by your own personal trauma.

    2. GM

      You know, everything works in layers. So in many ways, I did accept it, and if you had asked me, I would have said, "Yes, the world is a- can be a beautiful, loving, accepting place," but on some deep emotional level, I couldn't allow myself to feel it.

    3. JR

      So you had perhaps developed a pattern of thinking that was insurmountable, and that even though you had had psychedelic experiences, and even though you thought you were doing a great thing by bringing people to these ceremonies and exposing them to the mother and all- all of the- that comes with it, you had not changed the way you really viewed the world.

    4. GM

      Well, again, it's- that's true in a very deep sense, but it's- again, it's sort of relative because I'd seen a lot of people heal. I had guided them to healing.

    5. JR

      Right.

    6. GM

      I've seen miracles. So it's-

    7. JR

      But, you know, that sometimes people do that, they concentrate on others instead of concentrating on themselves-

    8. GM

      But that's-

    9. JR

      ... 'cause it's kind of easier to fix other people's problems.

    10. GM

      Well, that's exactly the case.

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. GM

      I was one of those, and- and- and- but also because one of the impacts of trauma is that you feel so alone with it. So it's everybody thinks that they're uniquely traumatized.

    13. JR

      Right.

    14. GM

      So even though I knew intellectually that wasn't the case and I- I knew how to work with people who had terrible experiences, I mean, much worse than mine-

    15. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    16. GM

      ... um, I just couldn't allow that to penetrate me very deeply, as deeply as it needed to. And what- what these shamans helped me to do is to kind of help remove another skin of the onion. Let me put it that way. It's more like the skin of the onion. It's not one layer, there- there's different layers. And so I'd been through many layers, very important, but what I can tell you is that since that experience, people who have seen me before, they say there's a more- more lightness about me than there used to be. You know? So it's- people pick up on it.

    17. JR

      I wish I had met you before.

    18. GM

      (laughs) When I was really dark and dour? (laughs)

    19. JR

      Yeah, I would like to see what the difference is.

    20. GM

      Right.

    21. JR

      'Cause I've met people that have, uh, changed because of psychedelic experiences.

    22. GM

      Yeah. Yeah.

    23. JR

      You know, and I certainly have changed.

    24. GM

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      So I kind of would have liked-

    26. GM

      Right, so-

    27. JR

      ... them to have met me. (laughs)

    28. GM

      So what- how would you summarize your experience with them? And I don't mean the- the different experiences, but in terms of the transformation that you've experienced.

    29. JR

      Uh, much

  22. 39:44 – 42:16

    Being the Best

    1. JR

      kinder.

    2. GM

      Uh-huh.

    3. JR

      Yeah, just, uh, I grew up in, um, competition, and most of my, uh, teenage years were spent, um, competing in martial arts competitions. It was-

    4. GM

      And- well, I know I read somewhere about you that you said that you hated the idea of losing.

    5. JR

      Yeah, I hated the idea of weakness.

    6. GM

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      Like, I didn't even like the fact that I enjoyed sex-

    8. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    9. JR

      ... because sex s- to me seemed like pleasure, and pleasure seemed like a lazy, weak way to approach life.

    10. GM

      Wow.

    11. JR

      But I was very dedicated to winning, you know?

    12. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    13. JR

      I was very dedicated to being the best.

    14. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    15. JR

      And, uh, that- that mindset is very ruthless, and, uh, it takes a long time to get that out of your system.

    16. GM

      So when you say dedicated to being the best, there's two ways we can be the best. We can be the best version of ourselves-

    17. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    18. GM

      ... or we can be better than everybody else. Which best were you thinking about?

    19. JR

      I was trying to be the measurable best at a specific form of competition-

    20. GM

      Yeah, ta- ta-

    21. JR

      ... where you're just essentially trying to hurt people.

    22. GM

      Taekwondo, taekwondo, I think.

    23. JR

      Yeah.

    24. GM

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      Yeah, so the- the problem with that is it's- to be the best, you have to be insanely dedicated to this one thing, and you have to be pretty ruthless.

    26. GM

      Yeah, I understand.

    27. JR

      You know? And, uh, it took a while for me to realize what that was.

    28. GM

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      It took a while for me to realize that my desire to do that was not a healthy desire, and that it was a desire based on trying to acquire, uh, love, and- and respect, and the appreciation of others, and that I was trying to do it through accomplishments.

    30. GM

      And are you aware of the trauma that led you to believe those things?

  23. 42:16 – 44:53

    Back to Baseline

    1. GM

    2. JR

      Well, the experiences are so profound and so significant, but they are just a day.

    3. GM

      Yeah.

    4. JR

      And then, you know, whatever m- more you do, but-

    5. GM

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      ... there's a lot of days, you know?

    7. GM

      Yeah, there are. Yeah.

    8. JR

      And so it's very easy to go back to baseline. It's very easy to slip back into your o- old way of thinking. One of the ways that I describe, uh, psychedelic experiences, like a real, like a DMT experience, is that it's like control, alt, delete for your brain. So your brain reboots-

    9. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    10. JR

      ... and then you're left with an empty desktop-

    11. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    12. JR

      ... but with one folder.And that folder is labeled "My Old Bullshit".

    13. GM

      (laughs)

    14. JR

      And you can either choose to approach life, approach life with a completely new perspective because you've had this experience-

    15. GM

      Yeah.

    16. JR

      ... or you could comfortably and easily slip back into that old "My Old Bullshit" folder.

    17. GM

      Okay.

    18. JR

      And most people do that.

    19. GM

      Yeah. And, and I would say-

    20. JR

      'Cause it's easy.

    21. GM

      ... that's true for me as well. You know?

    22. JR

      Yeah.

    23. GM

      And, but it, you know, but the learning continues.

    24. JR

      Yeah.

    25. GM

      But overall, um, there's so many issues and so many problems in this culture, and psychedelics will never be the answer.

    26. JR

      No.

    27. GM

      You know?

    28. JR

      It's not the answer, but it's one of the answers.

    29. GM

      It's one of the answers, for sure.

    30. JR

      And I think it's also the having the option.

  24. 44:53 – 46:23

    Ibogaine

    1. GM

      the faint-hearted, by the way.

    2. JR

      What did, uh, uh, ibogaine do for you?

    3. GM

      You know what? I'm gonna forget what I'll say.

    4. JR

      Okay, okay. Go ahead.

    5. GM

      So let me go back. (laughs)

    6. JR

      Yeah, we'll go back to that.

    7. GM

      So, this man who was driving and was talking about ... And I was saying, "Well, you know what? There's actually a plant called iboga or ibogaine that ... Iboga is the plant that is really good for PTSD." And there's pro- people working with it south of the border here, but they can't work with it in the US-

    8. JR

      Right.

    9. GM

      ... 'cause in the US it's illegal, which is insanity.

    10. JR

      It's insanity.

    11. GM

      You know? And he said, "Actually, this friend of mine with severe PTSD has actually gone south of the border and, and working with one of the universities who was doing a study on it." I said, "Oh, good." And, and, and, and he says, the driver, he says, "There's already been such profound changes in my friend. Now what the hell are we doing-"

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. GM

      "... ma- making that illegal instead of embracing it and researching it?"

    14. JR

      Yeah, it's not harming people. That's the, the thing about ibogaine, is it's not an addictive substance. It's, uh-

    15. GM

      No.

    16. JR

      ... it's im- almost impossible to be addicted to it.

    17. GM

      But you wouldn't, who would wanna do it?

    18. JR

      Yeah.

    19. GM

      Who'd wanna do it anyway? (laughs)

    20. JR

      Well, I've never done it-

    21. GM

      (laughs)

    22. JR

      ... so I'm just going on other people's, uh, experiences. But it doesn't seem like something that you would ever wanna do a lot.

    23. GM

      No.

    24. JR

      What was it like for you?

    25. GM

      It was, mm, toughest experience of my, one of the toughest experiences of my life.

    26. JR

      Oh.

    27. GM

      'Cause it just, um, you're so out of ... You, you, you so lose control, you know? And, uh, it felt pretty dark and heavy at times. Afterwards, I felt very clear, you know? Um ...

    28. JR

      Dark and heavy, how

  25. 46:23 – 48:33

    Dark and Heavy

    1. JR

      so?

    2. GM

      Sorry?

    3. JR

      Dark and heavy, how so? How did it feel, dark and heavy?

    4. GM

      In the body. And there's nothing you can do to change it. Like, if you feel uncomfortable in your body and there's nothing you can do to change it-

    5. JR

      Yeah.

    6. GM

      ... it's, it, it ... That feels pretty scary. You know? Now, even though I know that this experience will end, now again, I have to say that I'm more resistant to psychedelics than most people. I have a pretty thick skull, as I told you before, and, uh, takes a lot to get through to me. Um, I, uh ... I keep getting worried that we keep talking about psychedelics, and there's so much more that I wanna say, say-

    7. JR

      No, but there's plenty of time.

    8. GM

      Okay.

    9. JR

      Don't worry about it.

    10. GM

      Okay, great. So, in March of this year, I did a mushroom ceremony, um, with some Indigenous Canadians on their land, and it was one of the deepest experiences of my whole life. But the dose that I took was triple or quadruple the dose that most people take, just 'cause it takes a lot, uh ...

    11. JR

      What was the dose?

    12. GM

      16 grams.

    13. JR

      Whoa.

    14. GM

      (laughs) yeah.

    15. JR

      That's going deep. (laughs)

    16. GM

      And it took me deep. It was bea- it was beautiful. (laughs)

    17. JR

      (laughs)

    18. GM

      It was great. It was a great experience of my life.

    19. JR

      How long did it last?

    20. GM

      Uh, about seven, eight hours, something like that. And you know, it rains, and then, then I sat outside with one of my Indigenous friends, who I'd never met before, but we were blood brothers right away. And, um, it was this beautiful mountain and bison grazing in the field and the sunset and-

    21. JR

      Mm.

    22. GM

      ... oh my god, the beauty of it all.

    23. JR

      Mm.

    24. GM

      And, and the, and the lovingness of it all, you know? And the, um, companionship and the com- comradery of it all. And these people have really suffered, and, and their suffering was th- right there as well. They asked me to participate to help them with the trauma part. Um, so it was one of the most poignant but also most beautiful experiences of my life. But it took a lot to get me there.

  26. 48:33 – 50:04

    Indigenous Culture

    1. GM

    2. JR

      Yeah, the North American Indigenous cultures, and, uh, I think you could say the same about Australia and some of these other countries that have been occupied-

    3. GM

      Yeah.

    4. JR

      ... it's one of the most devastating things in modern times, and it's not discussed.

    5. GM

      No.

    6. JR

      It's, uh, we have relegated them to reservations, and they're kind of removed from the cultural conversation as far as, like, people in this country that are troubled. You know, we think often of slavery, which is also horrific. We think often of immigrants from other countries-

    7. GM

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      ... that are disparaged and-

    9. GM

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      ... experience racism. But we don't ...... think about the native indigenous people that were here, that had everything taken away from them.

    11. GM

      That's the colonial mindset, is that the indigenous people, indig- they don't matter.

    12. JR

      Right.

    13. GM

      You know, um, I read this book about Quanah Parker. Do you know that name?

    14. JR

      Yeah, sure.

    15. GM

      Yeah. F- was it The Empire of the-

    16. JR

      Summer Moon.

    17. GM

      ... Summer Moon, yeah.

    18. JR

      Yeah.

    19. GM

      Be- beautiful book.

    20. JR

      Yeah. We have a photograph of Quanah Parker outside.

    21. GM

      Was that him out there?

    22. JR

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    23. GM

      Okay. Yeah. And I quote, I quote him in this book, and I do talk a lot a- a lot about the, not just the indigenous experience, but also the wisdom they had.

    24. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    25. GM

      And they have. If we're only were willing to learn what they have to teach, not that we have to give up our science and our medicine and our technological achievements, but my God, if you could infuse some of that with the wisdom that they have to offer us, but we're so bloody arrogant.

    26. JR

      Yeah.

    27. GM

      Primitive, we have nothing to learn from them, you know? And yet, there's, they have so much

  27. 50:04 – 52:08

    Human Characteristics

    1. GM

      to teach.

    2. JR

      They do. I mean, and, and they most certainly had an incredible way of living with nature.

    3. GM

      Yeah.

    4. JR

      They were also incredibly ruthless, and also-

    5. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    6. JR

      ... to other North American tribes.

    7. GM

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      I mean, they, the way they lived their life was absolutely savage-

    9. GM

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      ... and barbaric.

    11. GM

      It's sort of like the white man, no?

    12. JR

      Mm, mm, sort of. I mean, there's, there's-

    13. GM

      I mean-

    14. JR

      ... certainly parallels to all sorts of conquerors, and the way they treat their victims.

    15. GM

      Yeah. I- I know.

    16. JR

      I mean, it seems to be a human characteristic of cruelty, and I think part of that is based on the fear of being conquered yourself, or the fear of, you know-

    17. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    18. JR

      ... of being captured and killed and-

    19. GM

      Yeah.

    20. JR

      ... being, have other someone's, someone else's will imposed upon you. So, they impose it upon others.

    21. GM

      I know they were quite capable of terrible cruelties. I wouldn't put them any different from anybody else on that level. I mean, when I think of all the tortures and massacres and cruelties-

    22. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    23. GM

      ... and, you know, that people-

    24. JR

      It's a human characteristic.

    25. GM

      ... have. Well, it's a human characteristic under certain conditions.

    26. JR

      Yes.

    27. GM

      Yeah, for sure.

    28. JR

      Well, it's, unfortunately, it's more common, like the, the human cruelty, you know, that, whether or not it exists in cultures, is more common than not.

    29. GM

      At a certain stage of history, that's true.

    30. JR

      Yeah.

  28. 52:08 – 54:18

    Human Evolution

    1. GM

    2. JR

      Yeah. It's, um, when, when, when you think about the way human beings evolved, it seems like we have a brain and a body that really is designed for these small groups of humans, like f- 200 people.

    3. GM

      Yeah. That's right.

    4. JR

      That seems like-

    5. GM

      That's, that's the design, yeah.

    6. JR

      Yeah. That seems like when we're in symbiosis, when we're in harmony-

    7. GM

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      ... when, when everything is working w- and it works well-

    9. GM

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      ... that's when it works well.

    11. GM

      Exactly.

    12. JR

      When you get to Los Angeles, you know, this indifferent mass of human beings-

    13. GM

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      ... that's impossible to scale, when you look at the numbers of, like, New York City, people stacked on top of each other, and the indifference-

    15. GM

      Yeah.

    16. JR

      ... they show towards each other-

    17. GM

      Yeah.

    18. JR

      ... and the disdain they have for other people, 'cause other people, instead of becoming a v- a valuable part of the community, they become a detriment to your ability to move around.

    19. GM

      Th- that's all true, and then the question is can we somehow learn what we've lost and meld that with modern civilization, you know? Now-

    20. JR

      That's the real question.

    21. GM

      ... now, in, in this culture, where the general belief is that greed and competition and aggressive interaction ... No, I'm good, thank you. And, um, and, uh, s- selfishness and, and, and, and, and aggression are the way to make it-

    22. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    23. GM

      ... it's very difficult for people to get to that place of communal kindness and, and, and, and ... But when you talk about human nature, uh, I mean, you talked about the kindness that you think you've attained or found that you've attained through, through psychedelic work, for example. I don't know if you can answer this question, but I'd be curious. Which feels more like yourself, this kinder state of being, or kind of the aggressi- aggressive, "I gotta be the biggest MF on the block"? Which o- which, are they both equally you or, or-

    24. JR

      No.

    25. GM

      ... which one feels more like you?

    26. JR

      The

  29. 54:18 – 55:22

    Workaholic

    1. JR

      kind part.

    2. GM

      Yeah, well, that's-

    3. JR

      The, the other part is just a means to an end. It's trying to accomplish a goal. It's trying to fill a hole that can never be filled.

    4. GM

      Exactly. So-

    5. JR

      And that's the workaholic, that's, you know.

    6. GM

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      But that's also the thing that we cherish in this society, we cherish the outlier, the over-performer, the one person who can push the boundaries past and above and beyond all others.

    8. GM

      But sometimes at the expense of others.

    9. JR

      Yes. Many, ma- most of the times, I believe, at the expense of others, and certainly at the expense of their own peace.

    10. GM

      Exactly.

    11. JR

      You very rarely find a, a workaholic, supremely motivated conqueror-type person who's truly happy.

    12. GM

      But that's the whole point, and that's why I talk-

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. GM

      ... that's why I talk about the myth of normal, that-

    15. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    16. GM

      ... what we assume is normal in this society-

    17. JR

      Right.

    18. GM

      ... is completely unnatural, unhealthy for human beings. It's a myth that it's normal, you know?

    19. JR

      Hence the title of your book. Yeah.

    20. GM

      That's the title of the book. Um-... yeah, so that kindness then is actually much closer to who we are as human beings than all that other stuff,

  30. 55:22 – 56:13

    Happiness

    1. GM

      you know?

    2. JR

      Well, it's certainly when you feel the best.

    3. GM

      Yeah.

    4. JR

      You, you don't feel the best when you're dominating people. You feel the best when you're in sync with people-

    5. GM

      Exactly.

    6. JR

      ... because they're happy and you're having friends. Like-

    7. GM

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      ... my frien- my favorite moments in life is laughing with my family or laughing with my friends. That's my favorite moments in life, just having a good time.

    9. GM

      And whose isn't, you know?

    10. JR

      Yeah, everybody's is. That's what we're really supposed to do.

    11. GM

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      But then there's also this sort of inherent desire to achieve success, you know? And, and what is that success? Problem-solving, uh, accomplishing goals, creating things. There's this desire that human beings sort of inherently have to do these things.

    13. GM

      That's part of our nature as well.

    14. JR

      Yeah.

    15. GM

      That's why we've created so many, so many amazing things-

    16. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    17. GM

      ... whether in science or technology or art or music or anything else. But that doesn't have to be at the expense of everybody else.

  31. 56:13 – 57:56

    Corporate narcissism

    1. JR

      Right. Yeah, it should be morally and ethically pursued. That's also why we hate fraud, right?

    2. GM

      Yeah, yeah.

    3. JR

      When, when someone is stealing money and then they have all this success, but it turns out that what they've done is, like, done something illegal-

    4. GM

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      ... like pyramid schemes-

    6. GM

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      ... or something where someone's using this sort of desire to succeed as a justification to victimize others.

    8. GM

      Yeah, but you just described the corporate world.

    9. JR

      Yes. Narcissism.

    10. GM

      Yeah, it's narcissism and-

    11. JR

      Corporate narcissism.

    12. GM

      It's the corporate-

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. GM

      Yeah, well, somebody calls it sociopathy, you know? And, and so that-

    15. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    16. GM

      Y- y- we live in a world where, like, you talked about sugar, for example. Well, there was this book, I think a few years ago, called Salt, Sugar, and Fat or something like that that was the title of it, by an American journalist who shows that the food corporations quite deliberately set out to find the, what they call the sweet spot, just the right combination of sugar, salt, and fat that's gonna make people addicted to their products-

    17. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    18. GM

      ... which is going to kill them.

    19. JR

      Yeah.

    20. GM

      So, these corporations are quite willing to make people sick. And so, I was talking to a colleague of mine, Rob Lustig, who wrote a book called The Hacking of the American Mind, and it's about how the, how the corporations deliberately create products that make people addicted at the risk of making them sick. And, and so, what kind of minds would deliberately set up to sell products and advertise them and to manipulate the market that will actually kill people? And this is respectable corporations with philanthropists at the heads of their boards and so on. You know, so that's-

    21. JR

      Yes.

    22. GM

      ... that's

  32. 57:56 – 1:24:29

    Adhd

    1. GM

      the world we live in.

    2. JR

      Yeah, that's very dark. And that's also pharmaceutical companies.

    3. GM

      Pharmaceutical companies, yeah.

    4. JR

      I was just watching this very disturbing commercial-

    5. GM

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      ... um, yesterday with children, and it was talking about ADHD. And it showed a kid that was not paying attention in class.

    7. GM

      Mm-hmm.

    8. JR

      And it showed these kids, like, playing around and doing things they weren't supposed to be doing.

    9. GM

      Yes.

    10. JR

      And then, they introduce this medication.

    11. GM

      Mmm.

    12. JR

      And then, you have the child raising their hand, and then you have everyone clapping-

    13. GM

      Oh my God.

    14. JR

      ... and you have the child with a big smile on their face, and you've medicated your child to be a successful and integrated person in society.

    15. GM

      Shall I s- shall I spot off about ADHD for a minute?

    16. JR

      Yes, please.

    17. GM

      That was my first book on ADHD. It's The American Scattered or Scattered Minds, depending on which edition you get, and that was after I was diagnosed with it myself in my 50s.

    18. JR

      Hmm.

    19. GM

      Um...

    20. JR

      What does it mean?

    21. GM

      ADHD?

    22. JR

      Yeah, what is it exactly? Is it real?

    23. GM

      Oh, it's real.

    24. JR

      But what does it mean?

    25. GM

      Well-

    26. JR

      Like, if someone has ADHD, it's not like you have herpes, right? Like, you can say, "Oh, I've got, you've got a disease."

    27. GM

      Well, uh-

    28. JR

      What is it?

    29. GM

      Well, the... that's the whole point is that the medical profession and a lot of the so-called experts think about it as a disease, another one of these inherited diseases. In fact, they say it's the most heritable mental illness there is.

    30. JR

      Hmm.

Episode duration: 2:24:10

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