Joe Rogan Experience #2241 - Rick Strassman

Narrator 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

Rick Strassman 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) So he's got... Hi, Rick.

Rick Strassman 0:14 Hi.

Joe Rogan 0:14 Good to see you, brother.

Rick Strassman 0:15 Good seeing you, too.

Joe Rogan 0:16 Um, so he's got this place called The Boneyard, my friend John Reeves in Alaska, and he, he made this for me too. This is, uh-

Rick Strassman 0:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:23 ... like a little skull. That's, uh, a wooly mammoth tooth.

Rick Strassman 0:26 Man.

Joe Rogan 0:26 Like a molar.

Rick Strassman 0:27 Whoa.

Joe Rogan 0:28 Yeah. So he has this incredible place, and, uh, he was a gold miner and still is, and they started finding, like, an extraordinary amount of tusks and bones and skulls from animals that aren't even supposed to have been there.

Rick Strassman 0:46 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:47 And it's kind of rewriting history, but it's all in his land.

Rick Strassman 0:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:52 So he has complete control over it and he has, like... See, there's John. He's this enormous dude. He's like six foot nine, like a big giant man, and he has, um... This is just some of it. Like show those warehouses that he has. So he had a research facility built on his property so they could study this stuff. And if you see outside in the lobby, there's actually a bison skull.

Rick Strassman 1:16 Oh wow.

Joe Rogan 1:17 It's like a 10,000-plus-year-old bison skull.

Rick Strassman 1:19 Wow. A lot of bones.

Joe Rogan 1:20 So this area is only a few acres. This is what's really crazy. He has one area that's like... I th- I believe it's like four acres, and another area that's about six acres.

Rick Strassman 1:31 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:32 And there's also like a very heavy layer of carbon, um, that... So it appears there was some sort of a mass fire, and he thinks that this mass extinction event that all the, uh, people like, um, Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson talk about with the end of the Younger Dryas-

Rick Strassman 1:51 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:51 ... the Younger Dryas Impact Theory-

Rick Strassman 1:52 Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:53 ... he thinks it's connected to this and he thinks that site might have been hit and all these animals probably in the great flood, their carcasses were washed into this sort of valley-

Rick Strassman 2:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:05 ... this one area where they were kind of trapped up against the side of this mountain. And so he hoses the, the mountain down with per- the... It's all permafrost, so it's all been frozen forever, and they have these high-pressure hoses and they hose it until they expose like a tusk.

Rick Strassman 2:20 Okay.

Joe Rogan 2:20 And they have... This, this is what they do all day.

Rick Strassman 2:24 Yeah, those hoses are what they used to use f- uh, for mining gold too.

Joe Rogan 2:28 Yes.

Rick Strassman 2:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:28 That's why he has them.

Rick Strassman 2:29 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:30 Yeah, that's exactly why he has them. He's a gold miner.

Rick Strassman 2:32 Y- yeah, so this is around the southeast coast?

Joe Rogan 2:35 I don't know exactly what part of Alaska he's in, but it's really, really amazing stuff.

Rick Strassman 2:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:41 And another thing that he's exposed is that... It's the Smithsonian, right, in New York?

Narrator 2:47 No.

Joe Rogan 2:47 No.

Narrator 2:47 I think it's, uh, American History, AMNH.

Joe Rogan 2:50 Well, find out what, what-

Narrator 2:52 American Museum of Natural History.

Joe Rogan 2:53 Museum of Natural History. So they had, uh, from the same property before he owned it, way back in like I think it was the 30s, they had so many bones from this part of Alaska where the previous people had found them that they didn't have any room to store them so they dumped them in the East River.

Rick Strassman 3:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:12 And see, th- they denied that the previous pe- c- obviously it's people that are long dead. They denied that this happened and so he sent a bunch of divers out there and so they're recovering like these mammoth bones and all these like c- cra- like bison bones, steppe bison bones in the East River-

Rick Strassman 3:31 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:32 ... that are all from his property in Alaska.

Rick Strassman 3:35 Yeah, it'd be, be hard to explain how they got there otherwise.

Joe Rogan 3:38 There's only one. I mean, it's a l- the literal exact spot to look too, like he knew exactly where to go, it was all... There's records of it, of like where they dumped it because-

Rick Strassman 3:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 3:47 And they still to this day have just crates of these bones.

Rick Strassman 3:51 Yeah, is that the reason he chose where he is living in Alaska, is because of the rich-

Joe Rogan 3:55 I don't believe so. Uh, no, he was there for gold mining. I think it was something that came up along the way.

Rick Strassman 4:01 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 4:01 You know, because he's a gold miner he's got a lot of disposable income, so he's willing to just spend it on his own to do this. He doesn't trust the museums anymore because they screwed over the previous owner, and even though it's his property and his land, he's supposed to get that stuff and they don't want to give it to him and, you know, and so he's got his own research fat- facility that he built, he spent millions of dollars building this enormous research facility on his property so that they can study these bones. He's got warehouses full of them.

Rick Strassman 4:28 Yeah, yeah. What was his background, like archeology or something?

Joe Rogan 4:32 No, he was a, he was a swimmer, right?

Narrator 4:34 Yup.

Joe Rogan 4:34 Yeah, he was a swimmer in college and became a, a, a, a gold miner. I mean, he told me the whole, whole, whole story, I don't really totally remember it, but this is not something he wanted to get into.

Rick Strassman 4:47 Mm-hmm.

Narrator 4:47 I think we're in the middle near Fairbanks.

Joe Rogan 4:50 (sniffs)

Rick Strassman 4:50 It's near Fairbanks?

Narrator 4:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:51 Yeah. So this is, this is where John lives. He, we do a podcast every year.

Rick Strassman 4:56 Oh, really?

Joe Rogan 4:57 Every year he comes back like-

Rick Strassman 4:58 Oh, really?

Joe Rogan 4:58 ... the last podcast of the year generally and he, uh, gives us an update on what's going on.

Rick Strassman 5:04 Let me... Yeah. Um, let me take a look at that map. You know, I spent my first year after finishing my psychiatry training in Fairbanks.

Joe Rogan 5:12 Oh, did you really?

Rick Strassman 5:13 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:13 That's an interesting psychia- psychiatry place because the psychology of people that live in Alaska is very different.

Rick Strassman 5:21 Ah.

Joe Rogan 5:21 They're different. They're resilient humans.

Rick Strassman 5:23 Well, and they're there for a reason.

Joe Rogan 5:25 Right.

Rick Strassman 5:26 And that reason is to be at the end of the road.

Joe Rogan 5:28 Right.

Rick Strassman 5:29 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:29 Or their family's there and they've grown up there.

Rick Strassman 5:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:32 The, but you, you meet like... I felt like I was meeting people from another country, like I only worked in Alaska once. I did a show in, uh, Anchorage. It was a lot of fun. Me and my friend Ari Shaffir, we said, "Let's just fly up there, just like a- an adventure trip. We'll do some salmon fishing and then we'll go do a show."

Rick Strassman 5:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 5:50 And that's what we did.

Rick Strassman 5:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:51 And, um, it's like the people feel different, they feel different, like they're more... They're, they're made out of harder things. (laughs)

Rick Strassman 5:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:59 They're like more durable.

Rick Strassman 6:01 Right. Wh- when you were up there, did you get outside of Anchorage, like into the interior at all?

Joe Rogan 6:06 We didn't do much traveling.

Rick Strassman 6:08 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 6:08 We only kind of w... I've been to Alaska a few times, um, uh, a couple of times for, uh, hunting trips and, um-... I always feel the same way. I always feel like it's another country. It's just, like, very interesting.

Rick Strassman 6:21 Um, it's, it's a very strange atmosphere too. You know, the climate and-

Joe Rogan 6:24 Mm-hmm.

Rick Strassman 6:24 ... the geology and the, you know, feeling, uh, y- you know, because you're up so high-

Joe Rogan 6:29 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 6:29 ... o- on the planet.

Joe Rogan 6:30 Right.

Rick Strassman 6:30 You're close to the North Pole.

Joe Rogan 6:32 Yeah. When we were doing shows, I believe it was July or August where we were doing shows, and at night, after the show, it was bright out. You go outside, it was like you could see everything. It was, it was weird. It was like, it felt like it was 5:00 PM.

Rick Strassman 6:44 Uh, it's a very strange feeling. Well, in the winter too. Uh, you have maybe a couple hours of twilight.

Joe Rogan 6:50 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 6:50 And that's it. Um-

Joe Rogan 6:51 And then sometimes all dark for a long time too.

Rick Strassman 6:54 Well, um, well, that occurs above the Arctic Circle.

Joe Rogan 6:57 Have you ever seen that movie 30 Days of Night? It's a vampire movie.

Rick Strassman 7:01 Oh, yeah, with Kiefer Sutherland?

Joe Rogan 7:03 No.

Rick Strassman 7:03 Is it-

Joe Rogan 7:03 No, no, no. That is The Lost Boys.

Rick Strassman 7:05 Oh, Lost Boys. Right.

Joe Rogan 7:06 30 Days of Night was cooler.

Rick Strassman 7:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:08 Not that there was anything wrong with The Lost Boys, it just it's a little dated.

Rick Strassman 7:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:11 30 Days of Night is more modern, and these, uh, vampires decide to descend upon this small town where it never turns light so they can just hunt all the time.

Rick Strassman 7:19 Yeah, that's clever. Yeah, you know, vampires are smarter than they look. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:24 (laughs) These are creepy vampires too. They've got horr- horrifying teeth. It's interesting how, you know, uh, vampires sort of d- we decide that they look like, uh, Bela Lugosi.

Rick Strassman 7:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:35 You know? There's Dracula, that must be a vampire. And then some people, they ... Have you ever wondered like the root of some things like that? Like g- I used to think, I used to like wholly dismiss ghosts as a young man.

Rick Strassman 7:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:49 You know, when I was a boy I believed in them 'cause I was young and dumb, and then as I got older, I was like, "Maybe there's a reason why someone ..." Like, if I've never experienced something and then I do experience it, how am I ever going to explain this to people where it's gonna make any sense to someone else that hasn't experienced it before? This episode is brought to you by The Farmer's Dog. Dogs are amazing. They're loyal, they're lovable. Like, just having Marshall around can make my day 10 times better, and I'm sure you love your dog just as much and you want to do your best to help them live longer, healthier, happier lives. And a healthy life for your dog starts with healthy food, just like it does for us. There's a reason having a balanced diet is so important. So, how do you know if your dog's food is as healthy and as safe as it can be? Well, Farmer's Dog gives you that peace of mind by making fresh, real food developed by board certified nutritionists to provide all the nutrients your dog needs. And their food is human grade, which means it's made to the same quality and safety standards as human food. Very few pet foods are made to this strict standard. And let's be clear, human grade food doesn't mean the food is fancy. It just means it's safe and healthy. It's simple, real food from people who care about what goes into your dog's body. The Farmer's Dog makes it easy to help your dog live a long, healthy life by sending you fresh food that's pre-portioned just for your dog's needs because every dog is different. And I'm not just talking about breeds. From their size to their personality to their health, every dog is unique. Plus, precise portions can help keep your dog at an ideal weight, which is one of the proven predictors of a long life. Look, no one, dog or human, should be eating highly processed foods for every meal. It doesn't matter how old your dog is, it's always a great time to start investing in their health and happiness. So, try The Farmer's Dog today. You can get 50% off your first box of fresh, healthy food at thefarmersdog.com/rogan. Plus, you get free shipping. Just go to thefarmersdog.com/rogan. Tap the banner or visit this episode's page to learn more. Offer applicable for new customers only. Listen, the holidays are here, which means everyone is traveling. Whatever your plans are, traveling can throw off your routines, and that's where AG1 comes in. AG1 is your quick and easy way to fill nutritional gaps and keep you on track no matter how packed your schedule gets. Keeping AG1's travel packs on you through the thick and thin of holiday travel helps you stick to your routine so you can power through the season and enjoy everything it throws your way. AG1's commitment to foundational nutrition is a science-driven approach that delivers the nutritional support our bodies need to thrive. It helps you elevate your performance and builds a strong foundation for your health. And you can trust them, AG1 is tested for hundreds of contaminants and impurities so you can have no doubts about what you're drinking. This is all part of why I've partnered with AG1 for years. So, get started with AG1 this holiday season and get a free bottle of vitamin D3K2 and five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase at drinkag1.com/j rogan. That's a $76 value gift for free when you go to drinkag1.com/jrogen. Seriously folks, get on this.

Rick Strassman 11:20 Um, well, you're reporting on your subjective experience, right?

Joe Rogan 11:23 Right.

Rick Strassman 11:24 And it's one that a lot of people share, and so you can compare notes. It's like dreaming, you can't really prove that you dreamed or that you were in a dream state.

Joe Rogan 11:32 Right.

Rick Strassman 11:33 Yeah, it's a personal experience. Yeah, you know, but that's a common one, so you can compare notes. I think that's how it works.

Joe Rogan 11:40 Haven't there been studies done, there's been something done where they've taken people in altered states and, um, had them go into, uh, a room, or they, well, the experience, they weren't connected and they weren't communicating, but they experienced incredibly similar environments. I think that's in My Big Toe, you know, that, that, um, The Theory of Everything book.

Rick Strassman 12:05 Mm-hmm. Now, I'm trying to think of it.

Joe Rogan 12:06 I think it's Thomas Campbell, is that ... No. Is that who wrote that? Yeah, it's really good.

Rick Strassman 12:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:10 I'm in the middle of that right now.

Rick Strassman 12:12 Uh, The Big Toe.

Joe Rogan 12:13 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 12:14 Um-

Joe Rogan 12:14 It's a very strange book.

Rick Strassman 12:16 Yeah. That's the name of the book or the name of the experiment?

Joe Rogan 12:18 That's the name of the book. It's My Big Theory of Everything, you know, toe as for Theory of Everything.

Rick Strassman 12:23 Oh. Oh, I see. Okay. But it has a picture of a toe on the cover?

Joe Rogan 12:26 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 12:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:27 When you were doing, um-... the DMT studies, it's kind of a similar thing, right? Like, if you had never experienced that and someone was trying to describe it to you, it would sound completely like nonsense, just like a ghost would.

Rick Strassman 12:42 Right. O- or even a dream to somebody who had never dreamed.

Joe Rogan 12:45 Right, right. 'Cause there are people who don't dream, right?

Rick Strassman 12:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 12:49 Which is very strange.

Rick Strassman 12:50 Yeah, yeah. Like, there are people with no imagination. They can't visualize things.

Joe Rogan 12:54 That's so bizarre.

Rick Strassman 12:56 Yeah. Yeah, and you give them psychedelics, and they report that they can, but, I mean, how do they know that they are? Uh-

Joe Rogan 13:02 Right. That's an uncomfortable reality, that some people's brains don't work the same way.

Rick Strassman 13:08 Mm-hmm, right. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:10 You know?

Rick Strassman 13:10 It's a fact, though.

Joe Rogan 13:11 It... Well, it has to be.

Rick Strassman 13:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:13 I mean, just, just b- look at, like, cultural choices. Just look, look at the different kinds of music that people enjoy, the different kinds of food that people enjoy, and the, and, and the different kinds of climate that they enjoy. There is no way we're all seeing the same thing. There's no way. If food that tastes horrible to you is like a sacred delicacy to them-

Rick Strassman 13:32 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 13:33 ... you know?

Rick Strassman 13:34 Yeah. O- one of the ideas I put out in that 2014 book on the prophetic state, uh, The Soul of Prophecy, I proposed that, you know, people respond ethnically or culturally differently to different endogenous, uh, you know, psychedelics. You know, the emphasis on the enlightenment experience in Buddhism might be because, uh, p- people in that part of the world produce or are more sensitive to 5-methoxy-DMT, which gives you that white-out experience.

Joe Rogan 14:05 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 14:05 And with the other kind of religious experience, it's more DMT-like because it's full of angels and you speak to things, they speak to you. You know, so there m- may even be some kind of y- you know, differential among people as far as, you know, the way they're hardwired for, you know, spiritual experience even.

Joe Rogan 14:25 Well, it kind of makes sense, too, though, like if the way they move through the world is through a specific cultural training, right, the way their culture thinks about things. And just imagine being g- born in an atheist, secular environment and you're raised by those people, and then you meet someone who's born in a fundamentalist Christian b- you know, religion-

Rick Strassman 14:48 Right.

Joe Rogan 14:48 ... where it's, like, very strict, and then they both meet when they're 14 and compare notes.

Rick Strassman 14:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:53 It'd be the most bizarre versions of the world, right?

Rick Strassman 14:57 Uh, well, I mean, one version is there is no God, and the other version is that there is.

Joe Rogan 15:03 Right, but there's one version that God is not just a part of your life, but the only reason why anything was ever formed, that it's God's plan for everything, that God has, y- you know, a plan for you, and that if you follow the teach- the teachings of God, you'll ultimately go to heaven. It's, like, very structured. Where the other side, it's like, uh, death, life is suffering, there's, you know... Who knows what, what happens when you die, but probably nothing.

Rick Strassman 15:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:28 You know? Uh, if you feel depressed, you should probably go to the doctor and get a pill.

Rick Strassman 15:32 Yeah. Yes. Y- so you wonder if the atheist's biology is different than the believer's.

Joe Rogan 15:37 I wonder if it becomes different, right? 'Cause don't genes turn on and off, or expressions of genes, based upon stress, based upon environments-

Rick Strassman 15:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:45 ... based... A lot of things, right?

Rick Strassman 15:46 Right, right. And those changes can be inherited, you know, like, you know, passed on to the next generation and the next generation.

Joe Rogan 15:52 That's crazy.

Rick Strassman 15:53 Yeah. Y- you know, that's a, a theory about the syndrome of survivors of the Holocaust and their children and their children-

Joe Rogan 16:00 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 16:00 ... is that the stress of being, for example, in the camps activated certain genes, which were then in an activated state, uh, you know, passed on to the, y- you know, following generations.

Joe Rogan 16:12 Mmm.

Rick Strassman 16:12 Yeah, I was, um... We, we, um, we were just, you know, talking about that. Uh, like, at what point does trauma end? What point did the effects of trauma end?

Joe Rogan 16:22 Right.

Rick Strassman 16:23 Is it in the first generation or the second? And...

Joe Rogan 16:26 And it's not just trauma, right? It's also just stress. Like, the hormetic stress of starvation, it actually makes the children of those people live longer.

Rick Strassman 16:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 16:37 Very... Dr. Rhonda Patrick has talked about this. It's really interesting.

Rick Strassman 16:40 Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the, um, spinoffs of fasting and starvation. Y- y- uh, you know, there were a, a lot... Well, you know, speaking of starvation, um, you know, there are a lot of studies of enforced starvation, like the camps and in Africa at various times. Yeah. You know, so there are some advantages, uh, but, I mean, obviously to a point.

Joe Rogan 17:02 Yeah. Obviously we'd never wanna ask someone to do that. But when people do it voluntarily, like when they go on these three- and five-day fasts, I've never met one person who said, "I'll never do that again. That was fucking terrible and stupid."

Rick Strassman 17:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:14 "And I felt really dumb, and I didn't feel alive at all." No, they come back with, like, this very bizarre euphoric just, like, ex-... Their, their version of it, when they're expressing themselves, is f- seems like they were, like, on mushrooms.

Rick Strassman 17:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:27 It's weird.

Rick Strassman 17:27 Is, is that something you've tried?

Joe Rogan 17:29 No. I've done a day.

Rick Strassman 17:31 I, I've done a day, and I sneak in some espresso if I'm feeling-

Joe Rogan 17:34 (laughs)

Rick Strassman 17:34 ... y- you know, deprived.

Joe Rogan 17:35 I don't think y- I think that's fine because just espresso doesn't, uh... I mean...

Rick Strassman 17:40 No calories.

Joe Rogan 17:41 Right, there's no calories. Yeah, um, I should do it. I should probably do, like, a three-day, see what's up.

Rick Strassman 17:47 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:47 'Cause my friend Dana just did it. He d- I think he... Dana did a four, a three- or four-day. He said it was incredible. But everybody reports all this energy, which is really fascinating because I guess that's your body, uh, surviving off ketones.

Rick Strassman 17:59 Ah, right, you're in a ketonic state.

Joe Rogan 18:01 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 18:01 Well, d- when people fast for three or four days, do they drink water? Or they...

Joe Rogan 18:05 Yeah, they drink... Oh, you have to.

Rick Strassman 18:06 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:06 I mean, there's a thing called a dry fast, and people have done that. I've heard of people doing, like, 48-hour dry fasts.

Rick Strassman 18:12 Oh.

Joe Rogan 18:12 And that is no water as well.

Rick Strassman 18:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:14 You can keep that.

Rick Strassman 18:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:15 I am so not interested in that. (laughs)

Rick Strassman 18:18 Well, you can go on a vision quest-

Joe Rogan 18:20 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 18:20 ... uh, like out in the desert, not drink or not eat. And you do start hallucinating.

Joe Rogan 18:24 Yeah. I love, uh, McKenna's take on that.

Rick Strassman 18:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 18:27 D- do you know that...

Rick Strassman 18:28 I don't remember.

Joe Rogan 18:29 He told a story about how, um, this monk... The Buddha was in town. This monk went to visit the Buddha.

Rick Strassman 18:35 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:35 And he told the monk that he's practiced a city of levitation for the past 10 years and now he could-

Rick Strassman 18:40 Right.

Joe Rogan 18:40 ... walk on water. And the Buddha goes, "Yeah, but the ferry's only a nickel."... you know? (laughs)

Rick Strassman 18:45 Yeah, right. (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:46 'Cause here's my take on some of these things.

Rick Strassman 18:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 18:50 Just because it's hard to do, doesn't always mean it's good to do.

Rick Strassman 18:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 18:55 Like, there are things that are hard to do, but they're good to do. Like, if you could run a marathon, at the end of that marathon, you're like, "Wow, I really did something." And you feel good, and like, wow, you're a little beat up, but you h- you have a new faith in yourself. That's good to do. It's hard to do, but good to do. But if you run for, like, seven days, and you almost die.

Rick Strassman 19:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 19:13 Maybe.

Rick Strassman 19:14 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:15 Maybe you've crossed that line.

Rick Strassman 19:16 Well, I think a flip side of that is simple things can be good for you, that they don't have to be hard.

Joe Rogan 19:22 Sure.

Rick Strassman 19:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:23 No, pe- things don't have to be hard to be good for you. A puppy smiling or licking you and playing with you is good for you.

Rick Strassman 19:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 19:30 It's like literally, like, it's good for your body. Like, when people play with puppies, that happiness feeling that you get, like, "What are you doing? What are you doing?"

Rick Strassman 19:37 I know.

Joe Rogan 19:38 That's actually really good for you.

Rick Strassman 19:40 Oh, right. Well, this new neighborhood I moved into in May, there's a park, Altura Park. You wouldn't believe the number of dogs that are being walked around there. There's th-

Joe Rogan 19:48 Mm-hmm.

Rick Strassman 19:49 ... these little tiny ones. Y- you know, like, I haven't lived in the city in a long time. I haven't seen tiny dogs, but, man, there are some tiny dogs out there.

Joe Rogan 19:56 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 19:56 And, and th-

Joe Rogan 19:57 Jamie's got a tiny one. He didn't bring him in today, but Carl's a little maniac.

Rick Strassman 20:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:01 He has a little French poodle or French bulldog. He's like that big.

Rick Strassman 20:04 Yeah, they're cute.

Joe Rogan 20:05 He's adorable.

Rick Strassman 20:06 What does he weigh?

Narrator 20:08 Uh, was 16 pounds now.

Rick Strassman 20:10 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 20:10 He's jacked.

Rick Strassman 20:11 Yeah, he sounds-

Joe Rogan 20:12 He really is jacked. He's got a lot of muscles.

Rick Strassman 20:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:14 He's super aggressive.

Rick Strassman 20:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:15 Not with people, like, not like real aggressive. Like playful.

Rick Strassman 20:18 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 20:18 He just wants to play constantly.

Rick Strassman 20:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:19 So I bring my dog, who's a golden retriever, who's the opposite. He's just everybody's best friend. If he meets you, he's like, "You're my best friend."

Rick Strassman 20:26 Yeah, right.

Joe Rogan 20:27 He loves everybody.

Rick Strassman 20:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:28 And Carl just launches himself at him.

Rick Strassman 20:30 Yeah, the one dog I had, uh, was a miniature dachshund. And that-

Joe Rogan 20:34 Oh, that was a cute little dog.

Rick Strassman 20:35 ... he was tough. He barked.

Joe Rogan 20:37 Really?

Rick Strassman 20:37 He bit.

Joe Rogan 20:38 (laughs)

Rick Strassman 20:38 He, he, he bit children.

Joe Rogan 20:39 Oh, that's not good. That's not tough. He's an asshole. Boy, that dog is an asshole.

Rick Strassman 20:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:45 That sucks.

Rick Strassman 20:45 Well, he lived 25 years.

Joe Rogan 20:47 Whoa.

Rick Strassman 20:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:48 Well, if I lived 25 years and I was a dog, I'd probably start biting kids too.

Rick Strassman 20:51 Right.

Joe Rogan 20:51 Get me out of here. (laughs)

Rick Strassman 20:52 Well, y- y- you know, toward the end, he was wearing a diaper.

Joe Rogan 20:55 Oof. Um, I had a Mastiff, and they unfortunately don't live very long. And towards the end, I used to have to carry him outside to go to the bathroom. He couldn't even walk. That's the real bummer, is that you just love these creatures so much, and they only live 10 years, 12 years, 13 years, you know.

Rick Strassman 21:12 Well, do you replace it?

Joe Rogan 21:13 No, you never replace it. You get another dog. And you could always love other dogs. I don't think there's anything wrong. I don't think it's, like, disrespectful to your dog to get a new dog when they die.

Rick Strassman 21:23 It w- it wants you to be happy.

Joe Rogan 21:25 Well, y- y- yeah, it doesn't have anything to do with it. It's dead.

Rick Strassman 21:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:29 It's about you. Like, there's, this is needless suffering. Do you love dogs? Do you miss having a dog? Get another dog. Like, this idea you have to mourn your dog for a specific period of time, like, it's not a wife, okay? If your, if-

Rick Strassman 21:40 Right.

Joe Rogan 21:40 ... your wife dies, and then n- f- next Friday night, you're on a date, like, that seems a little crazy.

Rick Strassman 21:45 Right.

Joe Rogan 21:45 Like, you should probably be sad for a long time. But if your dog dies, like, come on, man. Get another fucking dog.

Rick Strassman 21:52 (laughs) Right. Well, if it's your whole life, you know, it's-

Joe Rogan 21:54 I love dogs.

Rick Strassman 21:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:55 I would never want to not have a dog. I just don't get it.

Rick Strassman 21:58 Yeah, those Mastiffs are big.

Joe Rogan 22:00 They're, he was a big fella. But they get a lot of, like, real problems with their joints.

Rick Strassman 22:05 Oh.

Joe Rogan 22:05 'Cause it's just so much weight.

Rick Strassman 22:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:06 Carrying around a lot of weight.

Rick Strassman 22:07 Yeah. Yeah, we were talking about Alaska and up in Fairbanks. Uh, yeah, I was the psychiatrist for the county for about a year.

Joe Rogan 22:15 Boy.

Rick Strassman 22:16 Yeah. Yeah, it was amazing. Well, it was interesting because I had kind of given up the idea of doing research. And I thought, "I'll just, you know, practice psychiatry." My girlfriend back then wanted to be a wildlife biologist. And we-

Joe Rogan 22:28 Perfect place for that.

Rick Strassman 22:29 Yeah, yeah, they've got a great department at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. Um, yeah, you know, so we spent two months driving up there from Sacramento and just had a great time.

Joe Rogan 22:38 Wow.

Rick Strassman 22:39 And, uh, then I started w- working up there for a, a f- it was for about a year. Cold, the cold th- uh, the lowest it got down to was minus 49 one f- one day in, in February.

Joe Rogan 22:52 Mm-hmm.

Rick Strassman 22:52 And you're from New Mexico? Well, Los Angeles actually, so-

Joe Rogan 22:55 Oh, at that time?

Rick Strassman 22:56 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:56 Wow.

Rick Strassman 22:57 Well, it was snowing around Halloween, so I wasn't, you know, dressed for snow. I'd never really lived in snow, so ...

Joe Rogan 23:02 What was that like, d- going from Los Angeles to minus 39?

Rick Strassman 23:07 Well, I started to work on enjoying the dark. Uh, like, you know, as a rule, you know, people don't like the dark. But there's forest all around town, and it's, it's dark.

Joe Rogan 23:19 Uh-huh.

Rick Strassman 23:19 And especially in the winter, there's 18, 20 hours of pitch black.

Joe Rogan 23:23 That's so crazy.

Rick Strassman 23:24 Yeah, so I tried to imagine myself liking the dark.

Joe Rogan 23:28 (laughs)

Rick Strassman 23:30 A- and it wasn't all that successful. I, I, I, I lasted about a year.

Joe Rogan 23:33 I- is there a thing that happens, like, I, I lived in Boston when I was a kid. And, uh, one thing that it really does, um, benefit you with bad weather is that when you have bad winters, you really love those summers.

Rick Strassman 23:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 23:48 Those summers are so special. When me and my friends would, like, go out on a summer night, it was like we were like, it's like we were so happy. It was warm out. We're outside. We're listening to music, hanging out together.

Rick Strassman 24:00 Boston, huh?

Joe Rogan 24:01 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 24:02 Um, is that because you have family there, friends there?

Joe Rogan 24:05 Yeah, well, no. My, my family moved there when I was 13.

Rick Strassman 24:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:08 So we moved, uh, we lived in Jamaica Plain for a year, and then we lived in Newton-

Rick Strassman 24:12 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 24:13 ... which is a suburb of Boston, which is really, it was a really nice-

Rick Strassman 24:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:16 ... cool place to grow up.

Rick Strassman 24:17 Y- yeah. Uh, uh, I was in the Bronx, you know, for medical school.

Joe Rogan 24:21 Oh.

Rick Strassman 24:21 Yeah, the, the, Bronx, New York. And I lived in the city for about a year. Yeah, it was g- it, like, it was great training. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:27 Yeah, when you get, uh, well, I'd imagine the, the characters you'd meet.

Rick Strassman 24:31 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 24:32 And the characters you'd meet in Alaska. I bet you met a lot of people on the run.

Rick Strassman 24:36 Um-You know, I met a lot of Christians up, up in Alaska.

Joe Rogan 24:41 Really?

Rick Strassman 24:41 Yeah, yeah. You know-

Joe Rogan 24:42 Mostly?

Rick Strassman 24:43 Well, my patient population, everybody w- m- a lot of f- m- the majority of people were pretty devout churchgoers.

Joe Rogan 24:50 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 24:50 And very strict about, uh, observance of their regulations in the Bible.

Joe Rogan 24:56 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 24:56 I, y- you know, so it was a fairly, um, conservative type of city.

Joe Rogan 25:02 That's interesting. Like, uh-

Rick Strassman 25:03 Oh.

Joe Rogan 25:03 ... did they impose it on other people? Like, what, did they-

Rick Strassman 25:06 No.

Joe Rogan 25:06 ... have a gay community up there?

Rick Strassman 25:07 Uh, n- they mostly imposed it on their kids.

Joe Rogan 25:10 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 25:10 Yeah, uh, the family dynamics up there were pretty stressful.

Joe Rogan 25:14 Ooh.

Rick Strassman 25:14 Yeah, lots of cocaine too, because it's so dark and people, uh, get, you know, so depressed. Uh-

Joe Rogan 25:18 Oh, man.

Rick Strassman 25:19 Yeah. Uh, well, you know, Fairbanks had a boom when they built the oil, uh, pipeline, uh, between Prudhoe Bay, uh, and Anchorage. And so, you know, Fairbanks exploded in population. And when I moved there, it had been shrinking a bit. It's got the university, which is pretty cool up there, and amazing countryside, uh, huge rivers, just enormous rivers. The one outside of town was a good half-mile across.

Joe Rogan 25:44 Wow.

Rick Strassman 25:45 Yeah. Yeah, I w- uh, went skiing out there once at 25 below on the frozen river. I was like, "Oh, yeah, this is pretty nice." And I'm along the shore and there's a dark spot in the middle of the river and I th- I'm, I'm curious so I ski over it, you know-

Joe Rogan 26:02 (gasps)

Rick Strassman 26:02 ... to that dark spot, it's open water.

Joe Rogan 26:04 Oh my god.

Rick Strassman 26:05 (laughs) In the middle of a quarter-mile wide-

Joe Rogan 26:07 And you're out there with your weight on skis.

Rick Strassman 26:10 So I, you know, backed up, yeah, skied, uh, b- back to the shore, and I felt really tired all of a sudden.

Joe Rogan 26:16 Yeah, I bet.

Rick Strassman 26:17 And I looked, I looked down at the snow and I thought, "Well, maybe I could just take a little nap." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:22 (laughs)

Rick Strassman 26:22 And I thought, "Well, you know, I'm getting hypothermic. Let me run back to the car." But-

Joe Rogan 26:26 Do you think that's what it was?

Rick Strassman 26:28 Yeah, it was, it was funny. I wasn't cold. I wasn't, you know, shivering-

Joe Rogan 26:31 Wow.

Rick Strassman 26:31 ... or anything, but I just got really sleepy.

Joe Rogan 26:33 They say before you die, you actually wanna take your clothes off, which is really crazy.

Rick Strassman 26:37 Yeah, yeah, that's what I've heard, like in the s-

Joe Rogan 26:39 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 26:39 ... in, in the snow when you're freezing.

Joe Rogan 26:41 Mm-hmm, yeah.

Rick Strassman 26:41 Yeah, I kind of remember that.

Joe Rogan 26:43 Oof.

Rick Strassman 26:45 A- and then the, and, you know, the bears up there are, uh, a force to contend with, y- uh, you know, the grizzly bears.

Joe Rogan 26:51 Oh yeah, man.

Rick Strassman 26:52 Yeah. O- one of my, uh, friends up there was living in a cabin and a bear just stuck his claws in the door, pulled the door out of the frame of the house.

Joe Rogan 27:02 Jesus Christ.

Rick Strassman 27:02 And, w- went into the refrigerator basically and it, uh, kind of cleared that out. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:09 So t- was it, was he home?

Rick Strassman 27:11 Uh, up in his loft, yeah, sleeping, so, uh-

Joe Rogan 27:13 Oh, he was awake while this was going on?

Rick Strassman 27:14 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:17 Oh my god.

Rick Strassman 27:18 Yeah, so it-

Joe Rogan 27:18 So it just smelled food?

Rick Strassman 27:19 It smelled food, it smelled him, yeah, so...

Joe Rogan 27:22 And they don't bu- abide by any rules? They don't really care-

Rick Strassman 27:25 Uh-

Joe Rogan 27:25 ... about your door?

Rick Strassman 27:26 Well, you know, when I was up there, I learned to shoot a shotgun. Uh, it's, it's called a bear stopper. It is a sawed-off, uh, you know, shotgun you can carry with you if, if you're in the back country. Yeah, y- you know, so they're just a-

Joe Rogan 27:39 Like a 12-gauge?

Rick Strassman 27:40 I think it was a 12-gauge.

Joe Rogan 27:42 Do you have slugs in it or is it buckshot?

Rick Strassman 27:44 It's slugs, i- yeah. Oh, no, no, it had buckshot.

Joe Rogan 27:46 Okay.

Rick Strassman 27:47 Uh, so does that make it a 12-gauge?

Joe Rogan 27:49 No, it d- it's all depend- uh, the round, so a slug is like a, a, a chunk of lead and buckshot is like a bunch of pellets.

Rick Strassman 27:57 Right.

Joe Rogan 27:58 So the buckshot is like, it scatters into a pattern and the further it is from the rifle barrel, like, how far you're shooting, and so if you're shooting 20 yards, it scatters quite a bit and it, it makes a, an area of impact about that big, like a basketball-sized.

Rick Strassman 28:13 Yeah, well-

Joe Rogan 28:13 Or maybe a little smaller than that, but, uh, a slug is a single object and it has a lot more force behind it. So if you're shooting a bear, I would want a slug.

Rick Strassman 28:21 Hmm. I think, uh, it was a, uh, i- uh, it was, uh, uh, you know, shot. Um-

Joe Rogan 28:29 It's a deterrent though. I mean-

Rick Strassman 28:31 I- i- it-

Joe Rogan 28:31 ... you'll sur- certainly deter them with buckshot.

Rick Strassman 28:33 Yeah, if you have a wide spray it will-

Joe Rogan 28:35 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 28:35 ... deter them. Uh, I kind of remember, although, and this may be, uh, w- wrong, that one barrel had, uh, uh, you know, buckshot in it and, uh, the other had a slug.

Joe Rogan 28:44 Oh, okay, that makes sense.

Rick Strassman 28:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:46 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 28:46 You know, so you can slow it down.

Joe Rogan 28:47 So you probably- you probably shoot the first shot to try to slow him down and, or to try to s- discourage them-

Rick Strassman 28:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 28:52 ... and if that doesn't work, you, the l- the second one's lethal.

Rick Strassman 28:56 Uh, right, and they're much closer to you at that point.

Joe Rogan 28:57 Geez.

Rick Strassman 28:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:59 (sighs) Yeah.

Rick Strassman 29:00 Y- yeah, so it was a pretty fun-

Joe Rogan 29:01 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 29:01 ... place to live in y- in, you know, some ways.

Joe Rogan 29:03 Well, I think just that alone, the environment, just the fact that it gets that cold, it's so dangerous, everybody kind of has to stick together. You have to help people. If you see people just stranded on the side of the road, you don't just pass them. You have to help them. A person might be dying in there. And if you can get them out of there and get them to safety, you're supposed to do that. So people, like, bond together a little bit more up there.

Rick Strassman 29:22 Well, and there's also the northern lights which are just incredible.

Joe Rogan 29:25 Oh, yeah.

Rick Strassman 29:26 Yeah, the reds and the greens and the blues.

Joe Rogan 29:27 How often did you see those every year?

Rick Strassman 29:29 Uh, pretty much every night in the winter.

Joe Rogan 29:31 (exhales) .

Rick Strassman 29:32 And it was so quiet up there, you could actually, uh, you know, listen, you know, to the northern lights. They'd hiss and crackle.

Joe Rogan 29:39 Oh, wow.

Rick Strassman 29:39 Yeah, uh, it was pretty wild.

Joe Rogan 29:41 They hiss and crackle?

Rick Strassman 29:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:44 What exactly is going on with the northern lights? Like, what is that caused by?

Rick Strassman 29:48 The, the magnetosphere and some k-

Joe Rogan 29:51 Like what is, like what is, um...

Rick Strassman 29:54 Might be cosmic, might be, uh, it wouldn't be solar rays because it's dark, right?

Joe Rogan 29:58 Right.

Rick Strassman 29:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:59 Unless there's, like, something that, like, is coming around the earth.

Rick Strassman 30:03 Eh, yeah, or-

Joe Rogan 30:03 What i- what are they, Jamie?

Rick Strassman 30:04 Are, are they cosmic rays? Gamma rays?

Joe Rogan 30:06 Must be something.

Rick Strassman 30:07 Yeah.

Narrator 30:08 Coronal mass ejections.

Joe Rogan 30:09 Coronal mass ejects, so solar.

Rick Strassman 30:11 Oh, yeah.

Narrator 30:11 And magnetic activity I guess, there's like-

Joe Rogan 30:13 And magnetic activity.

Narrator 30:13 ... a few reasons why they could be created. I'm, uh, looking through this article but-

Joe Rogan 30:17 Well, that alone might be worth living up there for.

Rick Strassman 30:19 Well, in the winter. If you, or you could just spend a week up there in the winter and r- uh, you, you know, there are also all kinds of hot springs in the area too.

Joe Rogan 30:27 How hard is it to get around in the winter?

Rick Strassman 30:30 Uh, y- your car needs to be equipped. There's these things called battery blankets that you put under your battery to keep it warm.... and there's an-

Joe Rogan 30:39 Do you heat it?

Rick Strassman 30:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:40 Plug it in?

Rick Strassman 30:41 Yeah. It's, it's, uh, you know, plugged into-

Joe Rogan 30:43 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 30:44 ... um, traff- uh, you know, to a parking meter or to the outside of a building.

Joe Rogan 30:48 Mm-hmm.

Rick Strassman 30:48 Yeah. Everybody keeps their vehicles, you know, plugged in during the day when they're at work.

Joe Rogan 30:53 You'd have to, right?

Rick Strassman 30:54 You'd have to, yeah. And the other, um, uh, modification is an oil pan heater, uh, which is the same, you know, basic principle. Uh, I mean, it keeps the oil from turning into a (laughs) solid block.

Joe Rogan 31:08 Shah...

Rick Strassman 31:09 Yeah. You know, when it gets really cold, your tires are square.

Joe Rogan 31:12 What?

Rick Strassman 31:13 And it's (laughs) really hard to drive around in for the first couple of miles.

Joe Rogan 31:17 They have to warm up?

Rick Strassman 31:18 Uh, you have to drive them slow to get them warmed up again.

Joe Rogan 31:22 'Cause otherwise, they're, like, flattened down at the bottom where your car's been sitting?

Rick Strassman 31:25 Right.

Joe Rogan 31:26 Whoa.

Rick Strassman 31:26 Yeah. Cold.

Joe Rogan 31:27 That makes sense.

Rick Strassman 31:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:29 Isn't it amazing they still have to fill tires with air? That seems like the stupidest thing. Like, if you can get those people that are working on AI to just take a couple years off and figure out tires. (laughs) Just take all these people that are making computers and figure out something that you don't have to put air in.

Rick Strassman 31:43 Mm-hmm. Um, with, you know, with my garden tools or my garden carts, I used, I, you know, solid, uh, you know, solid tires.

Joe Rogan 31:53 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 31:54 But they're a lot heavier. You know, they never, uh, puncture.

Joe Rogan 31:58 Well, the, but there's a give factor with tires that's important to handling, you know. There's, there's things that are going on dynamically with tires when you're going around corners and your car has grip.

Rick Strassman 32:08 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:09 You know, especially if you're, like, if you're off-roading, right? They deflate their tires quite a bit-

Rick Strassman 32:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:14 ... to get more traction.

Rick Strassman 32:15 Uh, well, and it also will, um-

Joe Rogan 32:18 Widens your footprint.

Rick Strassman 32:19 It, it widens your footprint so you won't get stuck in sand too.

Joe Rogan 32:22 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 32:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:23 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 32:23 I used to spend a lot of time in, uh, Death Valley.

Joe Rogan 32:26 Oh, wow.

Rick Strassman 32:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:27 Driving around in the sand?

Rick Strassman 32:28 Yeah. A- a- and, and in, you know, the canyons, you know, to the east end, to the west of the valley.

Joe Rogan 32:32 So I guess that's the benefit of air, is that you can air them down and do stuff with them. But it seems like the negative side of it, of getting a flat and getting stuck in the middle of nowhere because you don't have any air in your tire, that seems crazy.

Rick Strassman 32:44 Yeah. Well, speaking of-

Joe Rogan 32:45 So vulnerable.

Rick Strassman 32:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:46 Like, the one thing of your car someone could cho- come by and go tsh, tsh, tsh, stab your tire, and now your car's useless.

Rick Strassman 32:52 Right. Uh-

Joe Rogan 32:53 So vulnerable.

Rick Strassman 32:54 Yeah. Y- yeah. Flat tires. Um, what...

Joe Rogan 32:58 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 32:58 Um, so have you spent, you know, time in Death Valley?

Joe Rogan 33:01 No. No.

Rick Strassman 33:03 It's a great... Well, if you still en- like, you still like to take psychedelics, huh?

Joe Rogan 33:09 Uh, who doesn't like to take psychedelics?

Rick Strassman 33:11 Yeah. Y- the best place or one of the best-

Joe Rogan 33:13 Death Valley?

Rick Strassman 33:13 ... places is, is Death Valley.

Joe Rogan 33:15 That's what I've heard.

Rick Strassman 33:15 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:16 I, I've had friends that have had mushroom experiences out there.

Rick Strassman 33:19 Yeah. Yeahs, I've had some amazing ex- it's, it's huge, first of all, and it's really old. There's rocks out there that are two billion years old.

Joe Rogan 33:27 Really?

Rick Strassman 33:28 A- and you are, you know, tripping for example, and you're, you know, touching these two billion years old r- uh, two billion years old rocks, and you really feel something that you don't feel anywhere else.

Joe Rogan 33:40 Wow.

Rick Strassman 33:42 Very slow moving. It's the wind too. There's great wind. I, I learned to watch the wind there. Y- you can see, like, a shrub, like, 100 yards away, and it's, um, and it's moving. And you can follow the wind as it goes up and down the canyon until it reaches you. And so-

Joe Rogan 34:00 Right. You can see the particles it's carrying and stuff.

Rick Strassman 34:03 Uh, you know, mostly the movement of the bushes, the shrubs.

Joe Rogan 34:06 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 34:06 Yeah. Um, yeah, I had a lot of firsts in Death Valley.

Joe Rogan 34:11 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 34:12 I, like, in a lot of ways, I think I'm still working on some of those insights or those experiences, which I had in my late teens, early 20s. I-

Joe Rogan 34:19 Isn't that kind of always the case though?

Rick Strassman 34:22 I, I think we come up with our best ideas from 19 to 21.

Joe Rogan 34:26 Really?

Rick Strassman 34:27 I think so. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:27 Oh, boy. I'm in trouble then-

Rick Strassman 34:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:29 ... 'cause I don't have very many ideas. (laughs)

Rick Strassman 34:31 Well, you must have had, you know, some experiences that steered you in a particular direction, didn't you?

Joe Rogan 34:37 Yeah, I guess I did. Yeah. But, you know, until I was, uh, 21, my whole life was, uh, martial arts, just martial arts training. So my, you know, anything that I was interested in, was interested in to make that better. So I'd read, like, The Book Of Five Rings, like Miyamoto Musashi. I'd read a lot of psychology books. I read books on discipline. I read a lot of different books on how to control your mind under stress and things along those lines.

Rick Strassman 35:07 Yeah. Well, i- it was a formative time then, right?

Joe Rogan 35:11 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 35:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:12 Yeah. It was definitely formative in that way.

Rick Strassman 35:13 Yeah. And you absorbed a lot.

Joe Rogan 35:15 Yeah. I definitely absorbed a lot of that. It's just, I didn't have hardly, I had almost zero ideas outside of martial arts. I didn't care what was going on in the world.

Rick Strassman 35:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 35:27 I was not paying attention to politics. I was not paying attention to world events. As long as we didn't go to war with Russia, all I wanted to do was train.

Rick Strassman 35:35 Yeah. Well, and n- n- n- y- and look at you now.

Joe Rogan 35:39 Well, it opened up the door for a lot of other stuff. But at the time, if you had asked me questions, I would've (laughs) I would, I would not have been a good person to talk to.

Rick Strassman 35:48 Yeah. What kind of questions wouldn't y- you have been able to answer back then?

Joe Rogan 35:52 Well, I knew nothing about the world, like, nothing. Like, I knew nothing about other countries. I knew nothing about the way politics work. I didn't know, I didn't have, I had no interest in the economy. I didn't care at all. I didn't know how anything works. I don't know the rules to any sports.

Rick Strassman 36:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:09 I didn't know what's happening when a basketball game's going on, unless the ball goes in the net. I don't know the rules of football. I don't, I didn't know anything, like, most of my life, 'cause it was, all, all I was thinking about was martial arts when I was young.

Rick Strassman 36:21 Yeah. It's like being a monk almost.

Joe Rogan 36:23 In a lot of ways, it was.

Rick Strassman 36:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:25 Because, uh, the way we tr- uh, the way we treated the gym, like, I remember I had this girlfriend in high school, and she wanted to fool around, uh, at the gym. And it was the dojang is what it's called, uh, but I, I used to teach there and-... um, I had keys, so I was there. And she wanted to fool around there, I'm like, "There's no way."

Rick Strassman 36:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:44 You can't, we can't do anything here.

Rick Strassman 36:46 It's like a church or a temple.

Joe Rogan 36:47 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 36:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:48 Like, I was 17, 18 years old, however I was. Like, kids are so horny. Like, any time you're alone, you get a chance, and she wants to do it.

Rick Strassman 36:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:56 And I was like, "We can't do it here."

Rick Strassman 36:57 Right.

Joe Rogan 36:58 Like, this is not possible.

Rick Strassman 36:59 It's-

Joe Rogan 36:59 We can't do it in the locker room.

Rick Strassman 37:00 Right.

Joe Rogan 37:01 We can't do it in the premises. Like, this is a church.

Rick Strassman 37:03 The ground you stand on is holy ground.

Joe Rogan 37:06 It was to me.

Rick Strassman 37:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:07 'Cause to me, it was like, this, this place is, this is where I w- this is where I'm serious. This is, like, a different place.

Rick Strassman 37:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 37:17 The rest of the world is the rest of the world. But in this place, I control myself. I control the environment. I, I, I exist by the rules.

Rick Strassman 37:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 37:27 And there's very strict rules. You bow every ... even if no one was around, I bowed to the flag every time I entered into the dojang.

Rick Strassman 37:34 Uh, to the flag?

Joe Rogan 37:35 Always.

Rick Strassman 37:35 Yeah, what did that repre-

Joe Rogan 37:36 It was the Korean flag.

Rick Strassman 37:37 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:38 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 37:38 So what did that represent?

Joe Rogan 37:39 It just represented respect.

Rick Strassman 37:41 Re- respect for the country?

Joe Rogan 37:42 For the space that you're in.

Rick Strassman 37:44 Oh.

Joe Rogan 37:44 Like, you're bowing before you enter the space. Like, it didn't matter if it was a flag. I wasn't really bowing to South Korea. I was bowing to the idea that this is a very sacred space that I'm going into.

Rick Strassman 37:55 Yeah. Um, in my zen training over the years, we did a lot of bowing.

Joe Rogan 38:00 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 38:00 Uh, to statues, to people, to images, to photographs.

Joe Rogan 38:05 Mm.

Rick Strassman 38:06 Um, b- you know, before we ate, we would, you know, bow to the food.

Joe Rogan 38:10 Mm.

Rick Strassman 38:10 Yeah. And so l- lots of bowing. Uh, it's an interesting experience to bow, to really kind of get yourself together and lo- lower your head, and be humble, to be, uh, uh, you know, like, in the presence of something greater.

Joe Rogan 38:24 Yeah, I think it's beneficial for people. I think, uh, that kind of voluntary humility is very important. And if you can establish that as an ethic, and sorta get it into your psychology ...

Rick Strassman 38:36 Oh, well, you know, it's really important to be humble. I've been studying about humility. Th- there's this, this great line. Humility is the ladder through which one can grasp every other good thing.

Joe Rogan 38:46 Ooh. That is great.

Rick Strassman 38:49 Yeah, yeah. (laughs) Um, I, um, try to read this once a week, and ...

Joe Rogan 38:52 That really is great.

Rick Strassman 38:54 Yeah. I- uh, and I'm gonna be really humble. I might be the most humble person there ever was.

Joe Rogan 38:58 I like how you got that. You actually photocopied that.

Rick Strassman 39:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:01 Like, it's got the darkness where the binder is in the center.

Rick Strassman 39:04 (laughs) Yeah, yeah. It's a serious thing. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:06 That's awesome. That's awesome. What a great quote. Yeah, it's like, to not be humble, it's like, it's, we like our sports stars to not be humble, and that's about it.

Rick Strassman 39:15 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 39:16 Everybody else, we appreciate a little humility. Even sports stars, you know, praise Jesus or something.

Rick Strassman 39:21 Well, I mean, can you be too humble?

Joe Rogan 39:23 Sure. Yeah.

Rick Strassman 39:24 Which would look like what?

Joe Rogan 39:26 Well, you can be too humble in the sense that you don't have confidence in your ability to do something that is, uh, sort of open. Some open-ended, you don't know how it's gonna turn out, something where it's dangerous, you're gonna take a risk. You have to be bold.

Rick Strassman 39:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 39:44 You have to, you have to b- have enough confidence in yourself that you can navigate a thing that very few people navigate. You know, if you choose to start your own business, if you choose to, like, quit what you're doing and go on a journey because you really feel compelled to do, have other life experiences, if you're too humble, you might not be willing to bet on yourself.

Rick Strassman 40:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:04 And I think that would ultimately be bad.

Rick Strassman 40:07 Yeah, I think one of the things, too, about being too humble is you just suppress all of your feelings. You sh- you think you should have no feelings at all. In other words, you know, responding to things in your world, ins- insults or harm being, you know, uh ...

Joe Rogan 40:22 Right.

Rick Strassman 40:22 Um-

Joe Rogan 40:23 So you can get in a bad relationship and have someone yelling at you all the time, and you just, you're humble, you handle it.

Rick Strassman 40:28 Well, if you think you're humble, you m- might not be able to handle it, although you might pretend that you are.

Joe Rogan 40:34 (laughs)

Rick Strassman 40:35 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:35 Well, if you pretend long enough, you become.

Rick Strassman 40:38 Humble.

Joe Rogan 40:38 Yeah. You could become ... You know what I s- always tell guys? I say this whenever possible. You should aspire to be the person you pretend to be when you're trying to get laid.

Rick Strassman 40:50 Uh, can-

Joe Rogan 40:51 Like, who do you, who do you pretend to be-

Rick Strassman 40:52 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:52 ... when you're trying to get laid? Pre- pretend to be really interesting, really nice, really kind.

Rick Strassman 40:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:57 Just wouldn't it, wouldn't it be easier just to be that person? Like, but there's, like, a success aspect of, uh, th- the courtship thing, where you wanna, like, show your success, which is anti-humble.

Rick Strassman 41:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:09 But you gotta be careful doing it, 'cause then you look braggy. But you wanna, like, show the person that you're dating that you're valuable, you're a person who can accomplish things. But, eh, so many people just put on a show when they're meeting people.

Rick Strassman 41:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:21 Like, when they're dating, they put on a show. They pretend to be someone who th- they're not. I'm like, "Wouldn't it be better if you just become that person?"

Rick Strassman 41:28 Well, I think that's one of th- the advantages of Zoom, is there's no pressure when you first meet someone.

Joe Rogan 41:34 Who, who's having Zoom dates? Are people doing that?

Rick Strassman 41:37 Uh, I've done it.

Joe Rogan 41:39 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 41:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:40 Look at you, you freak. (laughs)

Rick Strassman 41:42 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:43 It's a good move.

Rick Strassman 41:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:44 It's, like, almost like a podcast.

Rick Strassman 41:46 Well, and you wouldn't necessarily feel the pressure to, you know, go to bed right away.

Joe Rogan 41:51 Of course.

Rick Strassman 41:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:51 And you don't feel the pressure to, like, h- have to get out of the situation if it doesn't go well. You can just kinda hang up. "Bye." (laughs)

Rick Strassman 41:58 Yeah, and you can-

Joe Rogan 42:00 If you meet somebody, it's rough. You don't wanna just abandon them.

Rick Strassman 42:03 Well, you can keep it low profile, too. You could just be in your bathroom, you know, sitting on the toilet, you know, talking to your friend.

Joe Rogan 42:09 Sure.

Rick Strassman 42:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:10 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 42:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:11 Keeping it low profile, keeping it casual. But, uh, like, if you look at the numbers, you're seeing the numbers of, uh, the way people met in the past versus today.

Rick Strassman 42:20 I think it's 25% meet online now d- and get married.

Joe Rogan 42:23 I think it's more than that.

Rick Strassman 42:25 Oh, wow.

Joe Rogan 42:25 I think it's a, a really high percentage of people who meet today meet online. But the thing is, this, this was a video, so it showed, like, 1900s-

Rick Strassman 42:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:35 ... where, like, everybody sort of met e- either through family or through w- church-

Rick Strassman 42:40 Church.

Joe Rogan 42:40 ... or th- that kinda deal.

Rick Strassman 42:41 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:41 And then over time, it becomes women enter the workplace, and then people are meeting people at work. And then the internet comes along. It just shoo.

Rick Strassman 42:51 Yeah. What do you think of arranged marriages?

Joe Rogan 42:55 Well, it sounds terrible. (laughs)

Rick Strassman 42:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:58 It s- it sounds like you don't have any choice. And if you have domineering parents-

Rick Strassman 43:03 Oh.

Joe Rogan 43:03 ... then your parents are gonna match you up with somebody else's kid-

Rick Strassman 43:06 Oh.

Joe Rogan 43:06 ... because they're friends with this guy? And, you know, uh, this g- this guy's s- son, uh, is, uh, looking for a wife and you're a lady that has a dad that tells you what to do. And you're like, "What am I ... Why?"

Rick Strassman 43:18 Right.

Joe Rogan 43:18 "I don't wanna marry this guy. I don't even know this guy."

Rick Strassman 43:20 Uh, w- well, your parents would need to be straight shooters. You want, you would want to-

Joe Rogan 43:24 If your parents are straight shooters-

Rick Strassman 43:25 ... trust, trust them.

Joe Rogan 43:25 ... would they be doing an arranged marriage?

Rick Strassman 43:27 In, in certain cultures, yeah-

Joe Rogan 43:29 Right.

Rick Strassman 43:29 ... there are a lot of arranged marriages. And I thi- I think they do tend to work out. I haven't looked at the data, but, uh, they couldn't do worse than the marriages', you know, success rate nowadays.

Joe Rogan 43:38 If you could leave a little pad of paper and a pen just laying around so they could write you a note-

Rick Strassman 43:42 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:42 ... and no one knows about it, what's, what's really going on, I bet it'd be like a message in a bottle, like, "Come save me."

Rick Strassman 43:48 (laughs) "Help me."

Joe Rogan 43:49 (laughs) "How's Linda doing over there?" "Oh, she loves it. She loves this arranged marriage."

Rick Strassman 43:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:53 Linda's like, "Save me." She can't go anywhere.

Rick Strassman 43:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:55 Where's she gonna go? If you're in the kind of controlling culture that even considers an arranged marriage-

Rick Strassman 44:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 44:01 ... you know, I mean, that's a very strict culture. Not saying it's negative, but it's very strict. And if you, uh, have great parents and they, uh, well, they're really wise in their choices and you're in a culture that has an arranged marriage, and your parents are like, super kind and generous and they trust you and they love you and they think you're amazing, and then they wanna hook you up with an amazing person, maybe it can work out.

Rick Strassman 44:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 44:24 But generally, I think you should give people the freedom to do whatever they wanna do. And maybe that lady never wants to get married. Maybe she's decided at a ... Like, "I don't like how this is. I wanna throw myself into my work. I wanna d- travel the world. I wanna do this." Like, you could do whatever the fuck you wanna do-

Rick Strassman 44:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:39 ... in your ride.

Rick Strassman 44:40 Yeah. The, uh, n- that wouldn't work in those kinds of cultures.

Joe Rogan 44:43 Wouldn't work.

Rick Strassman 44:43 No.

Joe Rogan 44:43 So I don't like that.

Rick Strassman 44:45 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:46 (laughs) So I don't like that. I don't like anything where people are telling you what to do. And that's what an arranged marriage is, is s- someone's telling you what to do. If you can't say no ... I mean, I don't kn- maybe I'm ignorant. Okay?

Rick Strassman 44:57 Well-

Joe Rogan 44:58 I should say. Like, maybe an arranged marriage is a proposal, like they propose this arranged marriage and they both agree on it. Maybe.

Rick Strassman 45:03 I, I-

Joe Rogan 45:04 If that's what you're into.

Rick Strassman 45:04 I, I think that's the case, that if there's no chemistry at all and the woman or the guy-

Joe Rogan 45:10 Mm-hmm.

Rick Strassman 45:10 ... says, "Forget it. I'm not interested," I think you're free to-

Joe Rogan 45:13 Well, we got ... I would hope so.

Rick Strassman 45:14 ... to end it. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:15 But I would guarantee you that's not always the case, especially in some more restrictive parts of the world where women, you know, are forced to, like, follow c- completely different rules than the men-

Rick Strassman 45:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 45:28 ... that ... Which is a, you know, a reality of the world we're living in today.

Rick Strassman 45:31 I know.

Joe Rogan 45:32 There's parts of the world where, uh, they think in our ... a very archaic way and women are second-class citizens.

Rick Strassman 45:38 Uh, uh, I mean, the Mid East. I mean, look at that place. There's ... It's just a ... It, it, it's ablaze.

Joe Rogan 45:45 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 45:45 It's ablaze.

Joe Rogan 45:46 Well, I, um, have a good friend of mine who, um, came on the podcast recently and was talking about his experiences in Afghanistan, how crazy it is there. And, uh, he's like, "It's like you're going back in time 1,000 years," like-

Rick Strassman 46:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:00 ... the way women are treated and children are treated, the amount of pedophiles and-

Rick Strassman 46:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:06 ... the open molestation of boys, and just-

Rick Strassman 46:10 Yeah. Why-

Joe Rogan 46:10 ... murder and ...

Rick Strassman 46:12 W- w- why do you think, uh, at least in p- particular, you know, that Jerusalem is just, you know, such a hotbed? It's, it's a point of contact and conflict for all three major religions.

Joe Rogan 46:22 Mm-hmm.

Rick Strassman 46:23 Islam, Christianity and-

Joe Rogan 46:24 Right.

Rick Strassman 46:25 ... and, uh, uh, I mean, Judaism, all claim y- that small bit of land. I wonder what it is about that, that, that part of the world?

Joe Rogan 46:34 Well, it's gotta be th- from the Bible, right? I mean, that's the, uh ... The significance of it as holy land, you know? The, the, the concept of holy land is always so, so ... It ... If there's a place where it, it is literally in the Bible that this is the place where Jesus is going to return to-

Rick Strassman 46:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:55 ... well, this is gonna be a place where people do battle over. Like, you, you can't let the enemy control the place where Jesus comes back to. 'Cause what if Jesus comes back and they immediately snuff him out because they're Islamists?

Rick Strassman 47:05 Right. Oh, um, well, it goes even further back than that. You know, uh, it was the location of the temple, the, the temple of the god of the Hebrews was built in Jerusalem.

Joe Rogan 47:16 Wow. How-

Rick Strassman 47:16 The first and the second.

Joe Rogan 47:17 How much history is there? Like, how far does it go back?

Rick Strassman 47:21 Well, you know, Judaism began, what, maybe 4,000 years ago, and the first temple was built ... Oh my gosh, I should know this. Um, it stood for 400 years, uh, then it was destroyed. And the second temple lasted around 400 years. It was destroyed in, uh, you know, 70 CE, the second temple. When was the first, you know, temple in existence, Jamie?

Joe Rogan 47:47 So even if that's, if that's the timeline, so that we're, we're looking at about 4,000 years, right?

Rick Strassman 47:57 Mm-hmm. Y- you know, like Abraham, th-

Joe Rogan 47:59 (laughs)

Rick Strassman 47:59 ... you know, the first of the Hebrews w- w- l- lived around 18 ... 1800 BCE.

Joe Rogan 48:06 So 2000 BCE, the first known mention of the city. So that's 2000, 2000 before current era in Middle Kingdom Egyptian ex- how do you say that? Excretion? Excretion texts? What does that mean?

Rick Strassman 48:20 Uh, execration texts?

Joe Rogan 48:22 Execration.

Rick Strassman 48:22 Oh, oh. Uh, curses.

Joe Rogan 48:26 Curses?

Rick Strassman 48:26 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:27 Really?

Rick Strassman 48:28 Yeah. Execrations are curses. Extreme curses.

Joe Rogan 48:31 Really?

Rick Strassman 48:31 Yeah. I- if you execrate someone, you are really cursing them.

Joe Rogan 48:35 Ancient Egyptian hieratic texts listing the enemies of the pharaoh, most often the enemies of Egyptian state or troublesome foreign neighbors. The texts were most often written upon statuettes of bound foreigners. (laughs)

Rick Strassman 48:49 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:49 Bulls or what was the other word it said there? It said bulls or ... It's, it's blocked now.

Rick Strassman 48:56 Execration texts. Yeah.... or the stone.

Joe Rogan 48:59 Oh, or blocks of clay or stone. Wow.

Rick Strassman 49:03 Yeah, I wouldn't wanna be on the receiving end of an Egyptian execration text.

Joe Rogan 49:08 Jesus. How wild.

Rick Strassman 49:12 Yeah, so Jerusalem is an old city. And, you know, the temples were there a long, long time ago. Um, yeah, and, you know, the location of the temples relates to dreams of Jacob, who was laying on the ground and on a stone, and you know, made of, um, a vow, you know, to god ... the, you know, the God of the Hebrews who, you know, Jacob was, was communing with-

Joe Rogan 49:33 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 49:34 ... to build a house of the Lord there.

Joe Rogan 49:36 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 49:37 Uh, and so, you know, there, there's a long history of it, that, uh, part of the world being associated with the patriarchs and with the temple. Uh, uh, you know, Christianity has an association to Jerusalem because of, of Jesus. I'm not sure what the connection between Islam and Jerusalem is. It, I ... it's, you know, clearly more recent.

Joe Rogan 49:58 Well, isn't it always a s- sort of situation where when someone really likes a thing, everybody wants it? (laughs)

Rick Strassman 50:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:05 You know?

Rick Strassman 50:06 Uh-huh. Well, there's things called greed, envy, and jealousy.

Joe Rogan 50:10 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 50:11 I, I've always, you know, liked the distinction among, uh, those three qualities.

Joe Rogan 50:17 Here it says, "Jerusalem is revered by Muslims as the third holiest place on Earth, and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem is viewed as an optimal, uh, optional, rather, compliment to the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Haj." "Unlike the Haj, the pilgrim- pilgrimage to Jeru- Jerusalem is undertaken individually at any time of the year."

Rick Strassman 50:38 Hmm. Uh, well, you know, I've never been to Israel.

Joe Rogan 50:42 Now's not a good time.

Rick Strassman 50:43 No. No.

Joe Rogan 50:44 (laughs)

Rick Strassman 50:45 And y- you know, there's this thing called the Jerusalem Complex. Uh-

Joe Rogan 50:49 Yeah, I've heard of that before.

Rick Strassman 50:49 Yeah, you are like, um-

Joe Rogan 50:51 You think you're a messiah when you get there.

Rick Strassman 50:53 Right, right, I'm the messiah. Right, so, you know, that might be a problem. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:58 (laughs) You can see how it'd really be a problem if someone was inclined to that.

Rick Strassman 51:03 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:03 You know, headed in that direction.

Rick Strassman 51:05 Well, I think, you know, one of the problems with the current, you know, psychedelic scene is this messianism.

Joe Rogan 51:12 Mm-hmm.

Rick Strassman 51:12 You know, that it's going to heal everything, there'll be world peace, it'll be a utopia.

Joe Rogan 51:16 There's also, um, I think a prevalence of this, uh, kind of spiritual narcissism that's-

Rick Strassman 51:24 Oh, good, I'm glad you see that.

Joe Rogan 51:25 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 51:25 Yeah, it's important.

Joe Rogan 51:26 It's a prevalence of it. It seems like there's a lot of people that, um, attach themself to this thing, and then use this to behave in a completely different way. They behave like they're the per- ... instead of a, a person who's experiencing it like everybody else, they're like a leader, right? And I think there's a real danger in that, expressing these thoughts to other people as pure facts.

Rick Strassman 51:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:49 You know, "The way to live your life." Like, listen, you don't know how ... stop, okay? There's ways, there's ways you've learned to live your life better because of that, and you should be just talking about those experiences. But when you start giving people instruction in how to do things, and then, you know, organizing people together, I think that's a symptom of this spiritual narcissism.

Rick Strassman 52:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:11 That people ... if you're attached to this, you're attached to something divine, which we ... I think we would both agree it is, you can imagine that you are divine, or you can project that you are divine.

Rick Strassman 52:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:25 You know? And I think there's a temptation to do that.

Rick Strassman 52:28 Well, I, I think it strengthens preexisting, y- y- ... you know, for example, personality traits, like you're saying. Like, if you're a n- narcissistic person and you trip, you'll just get more enamored with yourself.

Joe Rogan 52:41 (laughs)

Rick Strassman 52:42 And little bit more convinced that what you think is true. And-

Joe Rogan 52:45 That seems terrible.

Rick Strassman 52:46 Yeah. Well, it's one of the dark sides of psychedelics.

Joe Rogan 52:49 Well, that's weird, right? Because w- ... a- as you were saying before, like, there's people that wanna think it's like a cure all. And it's not, necessarily. It's a tool.

Rick Strassman 52:58 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:58 And if it was a cure all, it would've already cured us. We, we would've been cured like thousands of years ago. We would've ... people would've worked out all this nonsense.

Rick Strassman 53:05 Mm-hmm. Right, right. I think it just works on what's already in your head. Y- you may not acknowledge it or think about it or re- even remember it, and, you know, psychedelics will shed light on what's already there. But-

Joe Rogan 53:17 Well, how about the Vikings, right?

Rick Strassman 53:19 What about the Vikings?

Joe Rogan 53:20 I mean, they would, they would take mushrooms before they killed people.

Rick Strassman 53:22 The berserkers?

Joe Rogan 53:23 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 53:24 Yeah, the berserkers. They would-

Joe Rogan 53:26 Well-

Rick Strassman 53:26 See? I mean, you could do-

Joe Rogan 53:27 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 53:27 ... anything you already-

Joe Rogan 53:28 That's what I'm saying.

Rick Strassman 53:28 ... you know, believe in, yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:30 Yeah. And something you're already, you know, you're already inclined to believe.

Rick Strassman 53:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:34 You believe that it's good to go slaughter people.

Rick Strassman 53:36 Well, I, I think that's one of the interesting things abrou- b- b- um, about Jim Breuer's book.

Joe Rogan 53:42 Mm-mm.

Rick Strassman 53:42 Is that I don't think these ideas came from the drugs. I think they were just made more manifest, more meaningful, more real, uh, than they were before, you know, because of, of the drugs. You know, so if you're a Viking and you wanna go out and kill, if you're, um, living in a religious community with certain beliefs and you want to believe them even more firmly-

Joe Rogan 54:03 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 54:04 ... or practice more intensely, uh, you know, psychedelics could have that effect.

Joe Rogan 54:08 That makes sense. I mean, again, like we were talking about, like, uh, uh, the culture that you live in is ... the, that ... this is the view, this ... the, the ... whatever the constraints of that culture, this is the window in which you view the world. You view it through this culture.

Rick Strassman 54:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:24 And you view it through these, these belief systems that you have sort of adopted-

Rick Strassman 54:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:30 ... over time.

Rick Strassman 54:30 Yeah, I think that's what's going on, uh, that's what's going on with the beings in the DMT world. I, I don't think they are necessarily freestanding intelligences, but, you know, they're the way our, our culture, our p- our personal culture and our larger culture enwr- enwrap in a visible, in, in a visible, you know, form certain information.

Joe Rogan 54:51 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 54:51 Certain kinds of input, either from the outside world or in your own mind. It, y- you know, so it's, uh, you know, culture-specific, I think, you know, the visions. Uh-... you know, that you would see. I don't think they are, like, aliens from another planet. Although, I kind of thought that in the beginning. Uh, but as time has gone on (laughs) and I've heard more and more stories, I'm more inclined to believe these are simply, you know, projections, you know, taking the garb of, uh, you know, the personal, you know, milieu.

Joe Rogan 55:20 Yeah, maybe.

Rick Strassman 55:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:21 That's the problem. The problem is, "Yeah, maybe."

Rick Strassman 55:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:25 Because, like, you can go down that road and just decide, "Oh, no, no, no, no. That what these are, these are thoughts, and thoughts have a consciousness of their own, and we think of them as being independent, like that they, that they're just created by the human mind." But no, the human mind's probably tuning into these things and they can appear as entities. I think thoughts might be a living thing.

Rick Strassman 55:51 Um, well, they could be-

Joe Rogan 55:52 Sounds stupid to say out loud.

Rick Strassman 55:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:54 But the idea is (clears throat) everything that exists on Earth that humans have created, every single one of them came from an idea.

Rick Strassman 56:03 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:03 Which is weird.

Rick Strassman 56:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:04 Because it's had so much of an impact, so much of an impact on the world.

Rick Strassman 56:10 Well, y- you know, one of the ideas in the, y- uh, d- in the medieval, uh, you know, philosophers was that, uh, uh, uh, is that, you know, thought or, you know, thoughts are intermediaries between you and God. You know, there are angels-

Joe Rogan 56:25 Mm-hmm.

Rick Strassman 56:26 ... which, uh, are exchanged between you and some divine external, uh, you know, source of information. You know, so if you're thinking of how thoughts have directed the world's, you know, growth, I mean, you could even extrapolate to, well, you know, maybe it's, you know, the divine, uh, you know, plan, you know, for humanity.

Joe Rogan 56:49 Well, there's certainly something going on. If you just, if you objectively just step outside of human culture and just watch the world, it's certainly moving in a very specific direction, and that direction is t- tech, very much technologically driven. There's s- something really crazy going on in a, in a technological direction.

Rick Strassman 57:09 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:09 And then all that stuff is coming from ideas. So, ideas are popping into people's heads, they're over the course of hundreds and thousands of years, these ideas are propagated and given to other people, and they expand upon them, and then more ideas take place, and then more execution of these ideas, and it changes the landscape, and changes the ocean, it changes the seas. It's very, very weird.

Rick Strassman 57:34 W- well, I think it's a, uh, you know, case of cause and effect. Um, certain, you know, causes produce certain effects. And the rules of nature, let's say, or the rules of, of thought, you know, like how the brain creates thought, y- you know, they are, y- you know, regulated in a p- p- particular manner. You know, there's an order to chemistry, certain chemical reactions occur for this or that reason. Y- y- you know, so, um, it's as if, you know, the system, um, is already set up to encourage certain behaviors, have certain ones, certain ideas, uh, form, and, uh, other ones not form.

Joe Rogan 58:12 Uh-huh.

Rick Strassman 58:13 You know, cause and effect, if you, you know, like if, uh, something, you know, bad happens to you, it's because of what happened before. If something good happens to you, it's because of what happened before, y- you know? So, you learn from your experience to do things that result in you feeling better, uh, you know, positive outcome. You know, so, you know, the system is, is, is developed that way. Uh, that, you know, that for example, if y- if you get angry, you might stub your toe. You know, y- that's how it works, and you're in pain, and you think, "Oh, I shouldn't be angry." Or you're nice to someone and they're nice to you, as opposed to being mean to you. So, uh, uh, you know, the... I think, you know, the world, the, I think existence, um, is set up in a certain way to encourage certain behaviors and discourage others.

Joe Rogan 58:58 Y- yeah.

Rick Strassman 58:58 You know, that's what's weird. Um, I think, you know, the technological stuff is, uh, pretty interesting now.

Joe Rogan 59:05 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 59:06 You know? But it be- speaks like a, you know, larger, you know, phenomenon, uh, which is, you know, how, you know, cause and effect has been set up.

Joe Rogan 59:14 Well, it's how cause and effect has been set up, but it's also there is a b- uh, there's a r- very weird competitive drive towards technological in- innovation that exists with people, because it's attached to monetary gain, right? And the companies that are involved in the most technological sophisticated work, w- whether it's AI or whether it's, uh, social media, like, when you're programming things in giant scale, it's incredibly profitable, incredibly profitable. And the technology moves along with the profit, and ultimately it's gonna make a being.

Rick Strassman 59:52 (inhales deeply)

Joe Rogan 59:52 It's pretty close-

Rick Strassman 59:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:53 ... pretty close to making a being.

Rick Strassman 59:54 Yeah, yeah. Well, I think the future lies as much in, um, you know, genetic engineering as well.

Joe Rogan 1:00:04 Oh, yeah, it's not like it's binary.

Rick Strassman 1:00:06 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:00:06 It's not like there's one thing or nothing.

Rick Strassman 1:00:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:08 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 1:00:09 I think the, you know, biological and manipulation and the AI, you know, development's gonna be, uh, it's g- it's... I think it's going to produce a hybrid.

Joe Rogan 1:00:19 100%, I think so too. I think that's the only way we live.

Rick Strassman 1:00:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:22 I think we have to, like, accept the fact that they're here-

Rick Strassman 1:00:25 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:00:26 ... and join them.

Rick Strassman 1:00:26 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:00:27 Because I think as biological meat vehicles, we're just too limited. Our evolution's too slow. W- you know, it's like, we're like if you decided to run your entire business on a laptop from 1995. Like, it's too slow.

Rick Strassman 1:00:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:41 You can't do that anymore. Like, you have to catch up. If you wanna be a part of this world today, and that's not that lo- 1995 was 29 years ago. Just crazy.

Rick Strassman 1:00:50 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:50 That's not that long ago. That l- that laptop's useless.

Rick Strassman 1:00:53 Yeah. So, in what kind of ways has AI impacted you? It- it hasn't impacted-

Joe Rogan 1:00:57 It hasn't yet.

Rick Strassman 1:00:57 Yeah, it hasn't impacted you.

Joe Rogan 1:00:58 Well, it has in... Visually, I've seen a lot of, like, really wild things online.... um, there's a bunch of, um, like there's one that I posted that some guy made. It's, uh, Donald Trump playing Creedence Clearwater R- Revival on guitar.

Rick Strassman 1:01:12 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:13 Pull it up on my Instagram.

Rick Strassman 1:01:14 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:14 You should see this. And, and Kamala Harris is in it, and, and, um, uh, Macron from... Or Justin Trudeau's in it. It, but it's, it's so realistic. I mean, it's obviously not. Like, you look at it, you're like, "I know it's not really them."

Rick Strassman 1:01:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:01:28 But it's so close. It's weird.

Rick Strassman 1:01:30 Do you like Creedence?

Joe Rogan 1:01:31 Love Creedence.

Rick Strassman 1:01:32 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:33 I love Creedence. And, uh, it's, uh, Fortunate Son, so it's a banger song.

Rick Strassman 1:01:40 Yeah, yeah. That's their great song.

Narrator 1:01:42 Which one is it?

Joe Rogan 1:01:43 It's Donald Trump. You see Donald Trump playing guitar.

Narrator 1:01:45 I don't see it.

Rick Strassman 1:01:45 I ain't no senator's son.

Joe Rogan 1:01:49 Um, it's pretty recent. Scroll down. Um, keep going. There it is.

Narrator 1:01:57 Oh, okay.

Rick Strassman 1:02:00 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:00 Give me some volume.

Rick Strassman 1:02:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:02 Lookit, Putin's on the drums. (music plays) Kamala Harris is wearing a witch hat. Look at that guy. (laughs)

Rick Strassman 1:02:07 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:07 Come on, man. Give me volume.

Rick Strassman 1:02:09 That's good. Yeah. Boris Johnson.

Joe Rogan 1:02:09 Oh, we can't? Oh. We get in trouble with, uh, the YouTube police.

Rick Strassman 1:02:12 Oh, right. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:12 Look at that. Kim Jong Un, Biden. This is crazy. Look how good this is, though.

Rick Strassman 1:02:17 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:18 I mean, it's not quite good enough where you can't tell that it's AI-generated-

Rick Strassman 1:02:22 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:02:22 ... but it's unbelievably close.

Rick Strassman 1:02:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:26 Obama's the Joker, how bizarre.

Rick Strassman 1:02:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:30 So weird, right?

Rick Strassman 1:02:31 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:31 Isn't it weird?

Rick Strassman 1:02:32 Yeah. Uh, it is hilarious. It's scary, though.

Joe Rogan 1:02:35 It is. And, uh, Jamie was just talking about Sora, that there's a new version of Sora that was released. Was it today?

Narrator 1:02:41 Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm waiting for it to show up on my account, but yeah, everybody who's got-

Joe Rogan 1:02:45 What does Sor-

Narrator 1:02:45 ... OpenAI can use Sora now.

Joe Rogan 1:02:46 Sora is, uh, S-O-R-A, is a new, um, video generator through AI. So you put in prompts. So show 'em the Japanese one.

Narrator 1:02:57 Yeah, I'm gonna show it. I'm gonna show it here.

Joe Rogan 1:02:58 So, uh, does Jap- or is there new stuff?

Narrator 1:03:01 There's all sorts of stuff, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:02 Okay.

Rick Strassman 1:03:03 Sora.

Joe Rogan 1:03:03 So the Japanese one was incredible. So it's like, "Show me a street in Japan where the snow is falling." And, uh, you know, like a drone shot from overhead. So you see these peop- And it looks entirely like a real scene.

Narrator 1:03:16 All right, yeah, so this is nine-

Joe Rogan 1:03:16 It looks absolutely like someone's filmed it.

Narrator 1:03:18 This is nine months old, so this is just older stuff. But let's check a prompt for puppies and snow.

Joe Rogan 1:03:22 Look at this.

Rick Strassman 1:03:23 Uh-huh. Who doesn't like puppies?

Joe Rogan 1:03:26 Who doesn't like puppies? But that's fake. This is what's crazy.

Rick Strassman 1:03:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:29 Like, this is all generated by AI, and it's pretty indistinguishable.

Rick Strassman 1:03:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:35 I mean, it... Look at this. This is all AI.

Rick Strassman 1:03:37 Whoa.

Joe Rogan 1:03:38 Nuts.

Rick Strassman 1:03:39 Good thing I'm not on drugs.

Joe Rogan 1:03:41 I know, you'd be like, "What?"

Rick Strassman 1:03:42 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:03:42 Lookit this. This is AI.

Rick Strassman 1:03:45 Incredible.

Joe Rogan 1:03:45 That's insane. This is, uh, waves hitting the rocks.

Rick Strassman 1:03:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:50 A movie trailer. And, you know, actors are fucked. Like, they're in real trouble, 'cause you can make movies like this now.

Rick Strassman 1:04:00 Well, so are writers.

Joe Rogan 1:04:01 Writers are fucked.

Rick Strassman 1:04:02 They are, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:03 I don't think writers are as fucked as actors are, though.

Rick Strassman 1:04:05 Oh, really?

Joe Rogan 1:04:05 'Cause some writers, like y- you know, there's the Quentin Tarantinos of the world that are just gonna take turns, because of just his own psychology, that you're not gonna take. You know, like, or Stephen King when he was younger.

Rick Strassman 1:04:16 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:16 Like, I don't think you're ever gonna be able to write Carrie on a, on a computer.

Rick Strassman 1:04:21 Uh...

Joe Rogan 1:04:21 You know, I think, I think you need the human experience for some stuff that's creative, but not for the video.

Rick Strassman 1:04:28 Yeah. Well, it, it touches upon creativity. Like, is creativity the difference between AI and humans?

Joe Rogan 1:04:35 Well, maybe it's not, and that's what's really scary, 'cause we like to think that's the one thing that we have above AI, is we're creative.

Rick Strassman 1:04:41 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:04:42 Well, that... (laughs) Yeah, great. Get it to write a Beatles song. What if it writes a way better Beatles song than the Beatles could ever write, you know? What if it knows what's really gonna move you, you know? What if it writ- writes a Sheryl Crow song that makes you cry, you know?

Rick Strassman 1:04:57 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:04:57 Then you're fucked. (laughs)

Rick Strassman 1:04:58 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:59 Then it's Ex Machina.

Rick Strassman 1:05:00 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:00 Then it... No, did you ever see Ex Machina?

Rick Strassman 1:05:02 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:03 Oh, I love that movie.

Rick Strassman 1:05:03 Yeah, that is pretty great. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:04 It's one of my top 10 all-time favorite movies.

Rick Strassman 1:05:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:07 'Cause it's, it so rang true. Like, there was not a moment in that movie where I was like, "Bullshit, get outta here."

Rick Strassman 1:05:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:14 It so rang true, that that thing, that they would be able to manipulate you super easily, especially if you were a young man, and you're, you know, awkward with women.

Rick Strassman 1:05:22 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:05:23 And it's this perfect woman who just happens to be a robot. You're like-

Rick Strassman 1:05:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:26 ... who cares if she's a robot?

Rick Strassman 1:05:28 Yeah. Well, that's funny. Uh, the version of The Thing by John Carpenter is my, it was one of my favorite movies.

Joe Rogan 1:05:35 Oh, that was great.

Rick Strassman 1:05:36 Yeah, their-

Joe Rogan 1:05:36 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 1:05:37 You know, they're both body horror in a way.

Joe Rogan 1:05:40 Yeah. Sorta, right? Because-

Rick Strassman 1:05:42 I mean, you know, you know, they're a robot.

Joe Rogan 1:05:43 Right.

Rick Strassman 1:05:44 Isn't human.

Joe Rogan 1:05:45 Right.

Rick Strassman 1:05:45 You know, that's horrible.

Joe Rogan 1:05:46 Right.

Rick Strassman 1:05:46 Or it could be.

Joe Rogan 1:05:47 It's pretending to be, though, and it's tricking you, just like The Thing.

Rick Strassman 1:05:49 Just like The Thing did, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:51 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 1:05:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:52 Yeah, the John Carpenter one is awesome.

Rick Strassman 1:05:54 Yeah. Yeah, like, I've watched that twice, and both times I regretted it, because every time (laughs) I closed my eyes, there would be visions of these, these, like, mutations happening.

Joe Rogan 1:06:03 Yeah, and that was another one that was up in the freezing cold-

Rick Strassman 1:06:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:07 ... trapped up there. There was a new one of that they did in the, I think, the early 2000s? It was pretty good.

Rick Strassman 1:06:13 Yeah, it was the prequel, apparently. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:15 Was it?

Rick Strassman 1:06:16 Yeah, well, they used a lot of CGI, rather than practical effects-

Joe Rogan 1:06:20 Mm-hmm.

Rick Strassman 1:06:20 ... like the Carpenter version did.

Joe Rogan 1:06:21 Right.

Rick Strassman 1:06:22 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:06:22 Right. Which makes it, for whatever reason, not beli- the uncanny valley, you don't really think it's happening.

Rick Strassman 1:06:29 Hmm. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:30 Seems kinda fake.

Rick Strassman 1:06:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:32 When they use the visual effects. Like, I've had Rick Baker on the podcast.

Rick Strassman 1:06:35 Oh, really? Wow.

Joe Rogan 1:06:36 Yeah, and, um, you know, um, like, things like the American Werewolf in London, he used, like, a real physical thing, and it looks like a physical thing. This, this, you know, robot or whatever it is that bites a person. This-

Rick Strassman 1:06:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:48 ... thing that he's pushing towards you. It looks real and can... You only see it for a brief second, but your brain registers that's a physical thing. Whereas if you see the video, your brain registers, well that looks cool...

Rick Strassman 1:06:59 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:06:59 ... but I don't think it's really there.

Rick Strassman 1:07:01 Yeah, yes, it, uh, it's a visual effect. It's not a, uh, uh, a, uh, uh, impractical effect.

Joe Rogan 1:07:07 Right, exactly. And you have to... There's a suspension of disbelief, right? Like, uh, do you ever see I Am Legend? It's a good example of it.

Rick Strassman 1:07:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:17 I Am Legend was cool, but it was like 2000-what? When was that? When was I Am Legend?2004? Is that about right? Seven? Okay. Back then, they weren't that good. So there's a scene where the lions are in the park, like in the streets.

Rick Strassman 1:07:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:07:35 Like, they have lions out there 'cause the- the civilization's collapsed, the zoo is open.

Rick Strassman 1:07:40 I've seen that scene. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:40 It looks so fake. (laughs)

Rick Strassman 1:07:41 Yeah. W- well, uh, y- um, uh, can you see like an intersection between AI and psychedelics? Like, you know, could you give-

Joe Rogan 1:07:50 Yes.

Rick Strassman 1:07:50 ... uh, you know, what ... You know, could you give a robot LSD or, you know, something like it?

Joe Rogan 1:07:55 Well, no. What I was gonna say is I think AI can give you some ... And McKenna actually talked about this as well, that he believed that with virtual reality and, uh, computer simulations of trips, it will get to a point of sophistication where you can visually simulate exactly what a psychedelic trip is. You know? And then there becomes this real possibility within our lifetime of recording dreams. Now, if you can record a dream, can you record a psychedelic state?

Rick Strassman 1:08:28 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:08:29 Mm-hmm. Right?

Rick Strassman 1:08:29 I- well, I mean, why not? Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:30 Right, right. If they can ... I mean, I don't know how far away they are. Let's say they're 50 years away from being able to do s- do something like this. But if they can map out all of the synapse in your brain and all of the- the different neural chemistry that's going on, if they can map that out and then attach it to some sort of a ... some ability to visually record what you're experiencing and they can then have something like through a neural implant, like Neuralink or something like that, and then completely put you in the exact state that this person is having when they're on nine grams of mushrooms, that- that totally seems like a ... If we can send video through the sky and it lands on your phone, it looks perfect, I think that's doable.

Rick Strassman 1:09:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:09:23 I think that's doable within X amount of years. I mean, I- I- I ... It's not a thing like cloning people through a- a- a printer. Like, that's too far away. But I think the- the idea of recording your thoughts and then figuring out what causes different reactions inside people's mind, how your visual cortex, uh, interplays with all these different chemicals that are going on inside of your brain.

Rick Strassman 1:09:49 Yeah, I think it could be a mass telepathic experience, like if everybody was-

Joe Rogan 1:09:53 Oh, yeah.

Rick Strassman 1:09:54 ... y- sharing the same experience at the same time.

Joe Rogan 1:09:56 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 1:09:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:57 Uh, well, I think that definitely. I think that definitely and definitely the possibility of a completely universal language, especially if we can enhance our brains. So if ... What- what they're talking about with Neuralink is, you know, multiple steps of, uh, implic- of use, right? Multiple steps of, um, the way they're going to have this. At first, they're going to use it for people that are disabled. Like we have the guy in here who was the very first Neuralink patient.

Rick Strassman 1:10:31 Oh, very cool.

Joe Rogan 1:10:32 It was very cool. He, um, plays video games and he's like ... His- his eyes are like an aim bot. So, wherever he looks at, it shoots, 'cause like he can- he can move his eye i- instead of hand-eye coordination-

Rick Strassman 1:10:43 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:10:43 ... it's just eye coordination.

Rick Strassman 1:10:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:44 So, he knows exactly. So, it's like instantaneous visuals on things. So, he's like really good at video games with this. And that's better than not having that. So, he plays better with the Neuralink than a person like myself would with just hand-to-eye coordination.

Rick Strassman 1:11:00 With your hand. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:00 So, you would imagine that if it can do that better, the next thing it's gonna be able to do is restore vision. And if they could restore vision and then they can create artificial eyes, you can have things like night vision. You can have thermal imagery. You're gonna be able to do things with your eyes that a biological eye can't do. And we might get to the point within, you know, our lifetime or our grandchildren's lifetime where people get rid of their eyes really quick 'cause your eyes are bullshit. Like your eyes don't even see through walls. Like what are these stupid fucking biological eyes?

Rick Strassman 1:11:34 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:34 And then the next thing you know, you've got something that enhances your brain and gives you, uh, complete access to the internet instantaneously, just through the mind.

Rick Strassman 1:11:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:11:47 Just through this implant and through the mind. And then everybody gets together and says, "Listen, um, I would like to learn Swahili. I'd like to learn Portuguese and Chinese. I don't have the time. No one has the time to learn 190 languages," or whatever there are out there. Why don't we all just create one universal language?

Rick Strassman 1:12:04 Uh, would you think people would want that?

Joe Rogan 1:12:07 I don't think leaders would want that.

Rick Strassman 1:12:08 Yeah, because it would lead to, you know, everybody talking with everybody else and-

Joe Rogan 1:12:13 Uh-huh. I don't think Russia would be down with that. (laughs) They'd probably censor it. (laughs)

Rick Strassman 1:12:16 W- well, there was a time, y- you know, back in, you know, the ... you know, the Tower of Babel.

Joe Rogan 1:12:21 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 1:12:22 Every- everybody spoke one language, one tongue.

Joe Rogan 1:12:24 Mm-hmm.

Rick Strassman 1:12:25 Yeah. And, you know, look what they did. They-

Joe Rogan 1:12:26 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 1:12:26 ... just built a big tower. And, you know, God looked down and said, "You know, they had one language and one tongue and look at what they do."

Joe Rogan 1:12:33 Do you ... Uh, what do you think ... Like when you think of Biblical stories, what do ... I mean, I've- I've- I've spent far too much time speculating about the origins.

Rick Strassman 1:12:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:12:43 But I'd like to know, like what do you think that was?

Rick Strassman 1:12:46 Well, I think the stories could be seen as if they were real. You know, kind of like the DMT world. At- at a certain point, I had to look at the DMT world as if it were real. Oth- otherwise, I would suggest it was, you know, something else. It was psychoanalytic, psychodynamic stuff. It was Jungian archetypes. It was your brain on drugs. But if I, y- took as an act of faith that it was a real world, uh, I treated it as if it were real. And, y- you know, that's the way I approach the Bible, uh, the Bible stories, uh, as if they were real. Like it ... I- if- if you read it carefully, it's a very coherent, you know, picture of, um, creation, of history, of the relationship between the spiritual and human worlds. Um, and, uh, if you just enter it rather than interpret it as, you know, something else, uh, then, uh, it starts opening up, uh, in- in a way that is quite interesting. L- like, you know, for example, the flood. Or- well, you know, for example, you- you know, the Tower, um, of Babel.

Joe Rogan 1:13:51 Yeah.

Rick Strassman 1:13:51 Um-You know, like, if you look at, uh, you know, preceding chapters, after the flood, you know, God told man to spread out, you know, to populate the world. Because it was just Noah and his family after the flood, and then they had children and, you know, the, you know, the, you know, you know, the directive was to, you know, was, was to repopulate the Earth.

Joe Rogan 1:14:13 Right.

Rick Strassman 1:14:14 And instead, you know, they built this tower. Um, you know, so, you know, people kind of wonder, you know, why was the generation of the tower, you know, punished, as it were, by being dispersed and their languages were confused. Um, but, um, y- yeah, you know, so it's a, it, it's a cohe- i- it's a, you know, cohesive whole. You know, the stories, you know, build upon each other, uh, you know, there's history, uh, certain things occurred because of the behavior of certain people, certain ideas, certain practices. Yeah, y- you know, so it isn't as if it were, you know, something else other than what you're reading. Y- uh, and that makes it important to understand the language it's written in, wh- w- which is Hebrew, you know, so if, if you really want to understand at least the Hebrew Bible, what some call the Old Testament, you really need, y- y- um, y- um, to know the Hebrew language, because you can make the translation for yourself.

Joe Rogan 1:15:10 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 1:15:11 Um, y- you know, they say all translation is interpretation.

Joe Rogan 1:15:14 Right.

Rick Strassman 1:15:15 Y- y- you know, so if you know the language directly, you can then make your own interpretation.

Joe Rogan 1:15:20 Yeah, Ancient Hebrew would be the most fascinating one to read it in.

Rick Strassman 1:15:24 It's incredible.

Joe Rogan 1:15:24 If you could understand it.

Rick Strassman 1:15:25 Yeah. I, I re-

Joe Rogan 1:15:26 Do you read it?

Rick Strassman 1:15:27 Yeah, I retaught myself Biblical Hebrew in my-

Joe Rogan 1:15:30 Wow.

Rick Strassman 1:15:30 ... in gr-

Joe Rogan 1:15:30 How long did that take?

Rick Strassman 1:15:32 Oh, I don't know, 16 years maybe. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:15:37 (laughs) Oh, oh, it's incredible.

Rick Strassman 1:15:39 W- well, you have these big old dictionaries, right?

Joe Rogan 1:15:42 Right.

Rick Strassman 1:15:42 You have this, these concordances, um-

Joe Rogan 1:15:43 Mm-hmm.

Rick Strassman 1:15:44 ... yeah, and e- each of the words has a three-letter root.

Joe Rogan 1:15:47 Right.

Rick Strassman 1:15:47 Yeah, and, uh, you know, just depending on context, they can mean a lot of different things.

Joe Rogan 1:15:53 Right.

Rick Strassman 1:15:53 And every time they appear for the first time, I would s- you know, scribble in the margin of the text, you know, wha- what this means. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:00 So you, self-taught?

Rick Strassman 1:16:02 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:03 Mm-hmm.

Rick Strassman 1:16:03 Well, as, as a kid I took s- I went to Hebrew school f- uh, a few hours every week. And I l- learned conversational Hebrew and modern Hebrew.

Joe Rogan 1:16:12 Hmm.

Rick Strassman 1:16:12 You know, so that gave me a leg up when I started learning Biblical Hebrew.

Joe Rogan 1:16:16 How different is Biblical Hebrew from conversational