IN A PERFECT WORLD > Experiential Podcasts with Rak Razam

Experiential journalist Rak Razam is interviewed by anthropologist Robin Rodd from James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, on all things ayahuasca, Down Under. What are the cultural uses of ayahuasca in Australia and how does it relate to other entheo cultures in South America and elsewhere in the world? Without an unbroken shamanic lineage, Aussiehuasqueros have had to stitch their shamanic practice from multiple sources, sometimes united in a cultural synergy for group shamanizing. The hybridization of not just ayahuasca, but of Amazonian shamanism itself is potent in the Australian counterculture as it births a new hybrid modality suited to the conditions on the land. But what of the cultural archetypes, do they remain the same? How do Australian aboriginal spirits and energies affect the mix? Is there something activating in the vibrational frequency of the Australian Land itself, its songlines and energetic grid, and how does all of this tie into other indigenous prophecies of these changing times? A personal exposition from Razam on his own journey and collective journey in the culture...
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In our first bilingual episode, experiential journalist Rak Razam interviews Mancoluto of the Chimbre Shamanic center in Puerto Maldornado, Peru. Mancoluto claims to be one of only five master shamans in the world and descendant from the legendary Chavin shamanic civilization that existed for 100,000 years in Peru, long before the Incas. Listen as Mancoluto recounts the secret history of Antediluvian times and the shamanic connection to Atlantis, Lemeria, and back through the stars... This controversial interview explores human concepts of "love" versus higher universal powers the beings Mancoluto believes possess; our inter-dimensional nature; and Mancoluto's plans to catalyze "future humans" with these higher abilities those with the right genetic heritage once possessed in ancient times, and is now becoming available to us all... With translation and additional comments by Rob Velez, Director of Chimbre and Nick Heyming. Original photo by Tom Askew.
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A live sonic adventure with our amphibian allies in Rak's backyard on Mt. Jerusalem, with housemates Steve and Joseph Wap Norton... *Warning* - there's a lot of experimental frog talk in the first ten minutes, literally, before we get to the deep semantics... In which the experiential podcaster talks to the frogs and explores sonic modes of interspecies symbiosis... Vibratory consciousness underlies our reality as with Peruvian icaros and the idea that we can *sing* objects into existence... How does sound affect consciousness? What is the primary level of language-vibration and how do words really work? Why do names have power? Why has our language been desacralized and lost that original power? Beyond theta level consciousness, the sound of the insects and the amphibians channels the divine song, the song of creation that unites us all. Listen... beyond the sonic fooling around, if you get over the start, the language of the frogs will reveal all...
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with Robert Forte Just who does take psychedelics in the 21st century, after the lockdown of consciousness post 9/11? What role does the psychedelic community still offer as an activist movement? Psychedelic academic and author Robert Forte cuts to the chase by proposing that the medicinal resurgence of psychedelics obscures their real purpose as an anti-war, expansion of consciousness and creativity movement. Forte explores how psychedelics permit the illusion of America as a free state instead of a failed state, and the origins of the war on drugs and the Nixon-Leary struggle for the soul of a generation... Were avant guard psychologists of the late 50s and early 60s like Frank Barron and Tim Leary "assassin bees of consciousness", aware of the mass mind-control operation on America? And what lessons can we learn from such models, strategically using the mind-expansion psychedelics provide to best re-engineer the psychedelic movement into the future? Be provoked by this controversial discussion with experiential journalist Rak Razam...
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At the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference 2010 with experiential journalist Rak Razam: * Stan Grof divulges his personal history in the Checkoslovakian psychedelic scene of the 1950s and his first trip in 1956; psychedelic therapy, his LSD research in America and his disappointment at the discarding of years of scientific data; his subsequent founding of holotropic breathwork and its ability to alter consciousness; and his thoughts on the current wave of psychedelic research in some ways going over old ground... Stan advocates the technologies of the sacred as part of healing and a network of centers to support the exploration of consciousness in a supported environment... * Nick Sand, famed LSD chemist who developed "Orange Sunshine" tells of his part in the acid movement of the sixties and beyond in a sizzling conversation... Sand trained with Mazatec mushroom shamaness Maria Sabina and received his first illuminations in cosmic glossalalia with her, deciding to first synthesize psilocybin... When that proved too expensive to produce he turned his hand to DMT, creating the first street use of the tryptamine in the US and turning people on, including Richard Alpert from Millbrook... Sand went on to become the Chief Alchemist for the League of Spiritual Discovery–and was prosecuted for following his religion under his constitutional rights... The rest is history, and a very colorful one at that! Learn the secrets of pizeoluminescent-LSD as the inner light, the sacrafice the acid chemists took personally for their work, how Sand survived life in prison, his Eckhart Tolle connection–and how Richard Milhouse Nixon was dosed with acid, and much, much more in this very provoking interview... Additional comments by Gypsy Taub... Stan Grof pic courtesy of Pati Lyall Nick Sand pic courtesy of Anthony Devan psychedelic background courtesy of Tim Parish and The Journeybook
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At the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference 2010 with experiential journalist Rak Razam: * In perhaps his last public interview, Sasha Shulgin shares his thoughts on the future of psychedelics and the repositioning of 'drugs' in culture; the thrill of the chase in exploring virginal molecular landscapes and bringing back chemical maps; rules for safe ingestion and active levels of compounds... and the revelation of the most potent drug there is... * Carolyn (Adams) Garcia, aka Mountain Girl tells of her time in the boys club of the Merry Pranksters, hanging with Neal Cassady and Ken Kesey, and the gender politics of being the only girl with a motorbike for a thousand miles around La Honda in the early 60s... From the Pranksters to the Grateful Dead, and her marriage to Jerry Garcia, Mountain Girl has always been an integral part of the hippie tribe. Here she reveals the lessons of the infamous Acid Tests, the failure of "group mind", and her advice for women entering the psychedelic scene... * Alex and Allison Grey talk about the entheogenic origins of art and the mystic state of religion; the spiritual renaissance catalyzed by entheogens and a hunger for the transcendent; shamanic art and anchoring energy into this realm; the mapping of hyperspace by a generation of new psychedelic artists, and COSM - the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors and the Grey's mission to create a permanent home for visionary art... Sasha Shulgin pic courtesy Pati Lyall Mountain Girl pic courtesy of Lianne Gillooly Ralph Metzner pic courtesy of the web psychedelic background courtesy of Tim Parish and The Journeybook
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At the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference 2010 with experiential journalist Rak Razam: * Rick Doblin talks about the almost 25-year history of MAPS, the Multi-Disciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies, the "end of the beginning of the Psychedelic Renaissance" and why Western culture is now ready for the psychedelic experience and a global spirituality. Rick discusses the return of the 60s elders and the new psychedelic generation, the spiritual approach to entheogens paralleling the medical psy-resurgence, the need to turn on, tune in and stay in the culture as we integrate the numinous, and much more... * Charles Grob outlines some of his landmark studies with entheogenic medicine, including the ayahuasca research of the early 1990s on serotonin-platelet rejuvenation after regular ayahuasca usage and the current cultural uptake; MDMA tests on volunteers and the difference between man-made and indigenous medicines; and psilocybin with late-stage cancer patients treating anxiety. Sacred medicines allow exploration of the great mysteries, Grob says, and induce mystical experiences that are at the root of all true healing... * Ralph Metzner discusses the PTSD-MDMA tests MAPS is sponsoring and the possibility of psychedelics as a soma for the masses; his history with Tim Leary and the Harvard years and the need to move drugs out of law enforcement and back into public health system. background image courtesy of Tim Parish and the Journeybook
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A rollicking interview with James Oroc, author of the Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad. In which experiential journalist Rak Razam delves into the secret history of DMT from Stephen Szara's experiments in the 1950s, William Burroughs (whom Oroc calls the "Godfather of DMT") and his radical break with English language caused by his DMT experiences ("language is a virus") through to the lower language bardos of the DMT realm where the golden code of meaning manifests. Oroc hypotheizes about the relationship between consciousness and language and the Zero Point Field and recognizing oneness within God. Is 5-MeO-DMT a tool to help us experience on the inside what quantum physics explains on the outside – non-local experiences of the "whiteout" or plenum of energy that lies within? Is 5-MeO-DMT specifically designed to be a sacred template or will it become the "next big thing", full circle from the 60s? Oroc and Razam trade maps of the 5-MeO-DMT space and attempt to tranlinguisticize the bardo spaces of the Godhead, and what lies beyond the beyond... An intimate discussion by two pre-eminent psychonauts on the fringes of innerspace for your enlightenment and elucidation...
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A seminal interview with Dennis McKenna, Ph.D on the evolution of ayahuasca and the entheogenic movement and the imminent tipping point on planet earth the movement parallels. In which experiential journalist Rak Razam quizzes Dennis on his role as a scientist and a leading ayahuasca researcher, while Dennis waxes lyrical on bio-piracy, the proliferating business of shamanism in Peru and around the world, and the urgent need for integration of the plant teacher experience in people's everyday lives to truly make a difference. Is the sacrament of ayahuasca becoming commercialized? As pharmahuasca – and the startling development of ayahuasca in a pill form – spreads beyond the vine itself, is the wisdom of globaluasca transcending its Gaian roots to connect with a new generation without the plant dogma? Is the future a religious, compartmentalized Entheogenic Evangelism? Or will lodges transform into "psychedelic monasteries" training plant Jedis? Its been ten years now since Dennis' brother Terence passed on, and Dennis deconstructs some of his theories, from Timewave Zero to the Singularity and provides a critical analysis of the 2012 phenomenon and the unfolding Archaic Revival...
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