The Ark Of The Covenant, Secrets Of The Amazon, Shamanism, & Ethnobotany W/ Dr. Mark Plotkin

Remember the ark of the covenant? You remember what it's made from? >> Aaca. >> And what does aaca have in it? >> DMT. >> And I'm not arguing that the ten commandments were written under the influence of iawasa, but they could have been. >> I call myself an absolutist, which is a person who studies the relationship between people [music] and plants. Many academics, they look at something, they have their own theory, and they say that's the way it was. I don't. And this is your life's work. You've really dug deep into plant [music] and human interactions in a variety of different ecosystems. One of the great mysteries of ethnobbatany was the aliscinian mysteries. [music] Much more recent research has found jawbones with urgent alkalines in them. The the ancient Greeks were not only probably tripping [music] their brains out, but it's been hypothesized that that was the birth of Christianity as well. Our friend Stamus was in Egypt and he looked in some of these temples and there's magic mushrooms. This is probably the most studied civilization of the ancient world, Egypt. Right. We're still finding new [ __ ] >> Cuz nature has this innate intelligence [music] that's so important. And I think that is also another big reason to really double down on these conservation efforts. If the forest disappears, we're losing those shamanic [music] cultures and wisdom. It's like, well, here's a book, but there's no table of contents and there's no index. >> What are your thoughts on this kind of boom [music] in artificial intelligence and how this might unlock certain elements of natural intelligence? Do you have any, you know, kind of hypotheses [music] about what's going on? Mark, good to have you here. >> Aubrey, good to be here. Many of us have heard of the stone ape theory which is positing that the interaction with psychedelic mushrooms in particular advanced our evolution and our consciousness. You have a slightly different theory that I don't think is mutually exclusive may include both but it's the Java man theory. Tell us about that. Most of us haven't heard anything about this. Well, it's totally exclusive Aubrey. uh the stoned egg theory which was put forward by our late friend Terrence McKenna uh posited that when humans prehumans came down from the trees for whatever reason they saw these mushrooms maybe they were following big game and in the feces of the big game these mushrooms were sprouting up these are definitely dung loving mush mushrooms and they're magic mushrooms so that created cognition nobody's been able to explain satisfactorily why the prehuman brain became the human brain about 300,000 years ago in terms of its rapid growth in size. There's an equally interesting theory called the drunken monkey hypothesis which says that when our ancestors came down from those trees, they weren't looking for magic mushrooms. They were looking for ripe fruit because the ripest fruit falls to the ground. And what happens to ripe fruit when it falls from the ground? If it doesn't get eaten, it fermentss and creates alcohol. So that alcohol is what caused cognition and uh social behavior and and bonding. And then my theory I call the mocha jaba man hypothesis which is noting that we arose as a species in east Africa mostly in and around the old divide gorge. And at the northern edge of that you have the original coffee forest which is essentially what today we refer to as southern Ethiopia. And coffee berries are bright red. You can't miss them. And they're kind of tasty and they're full of caffeine. So I like to compare theories by saying imagine three promians running across the African savannah being chased by a hungry lion. One of them's tripping on magic mushrooms. One is drunk on fermented fruit and one is overcaffeinated on these coffee berries. Which one do you think is going to survive? >> Well, let me tell you what happens. So, the drunken one thinks they can ride the lion and then they get eaten. And then and then the the one on magic mushrooms has a chance to maybe occasionally ride a lion, but mostly gets eaten. And then the ones with caffeine probably figure some [ __ ] out and survive and procreate. That's That's how the theory goes for me. >> I I I think your hypotheses are equally valid. I think the emotional one might try and levitate over the line [laughter] and the drunk one might take it on, but the caffeinated one is the most likely one to get away. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's super interesting. And and this is your life's work, right? I mean, you've really dug deep into plant and human interactions in a variety of different ecosystems, but particularly the rainforest. >> Well, I call myself an antinobotist, which is a person who studies the relationship between people and plants. Everybody loves the idea of following shamans through the Amazon rainforest. I've done plenty of that. But the broad uh explanation of ethnobbotany is people and plants. That means farmers in a cornfield. And of course, as as somebody who knows and loves nature like you obviously do, it's all connected. So when you see a farmer in Iowa, he or she may or may not be aware that corn originated uh on the Mexico Guatemala border. And even though we have high growing, high yielding corn in Iowa and everywhere else, that we still need those wild and semi-domemesticated varieties of corn in Mexico and Guatemala to increase yields, increase pest and diseases, and increase resistance to uh climate stress. >> Yeah, that makes total sense. You know, one of the things that's been particularly interesting for me in my own Oh, man, how many years has it been? uh 28 years of of work with the psychedelic medicines is in going deep with the shamans of the jungle particularly the Iaskaros and the kuranderos of the of the deep forest they live in an entirely different paradigm I mean their paradigm is multi-dimensional and the things that are happening in dreams in visions are almost equal in importance to the things that are happening in ordinary life and they've according to what I've seen in what they say. They navigate in an entirely different world where competition exists in the astral. You know, battles can exist in the astral. All of these things that we think are are science fiction are just reality for them. One of the indigenous groups I work with and I did my thesis on many decades ago were called the live on the border between Cerninam, French Gana, and Brazil in the northeast Amazon. And they have a different theory of reality and shamanism. Usually becoming a shaman or a medicine man or a medicine woman in most cultures even in our own to become an herbalist involves learning and being in the classroom or being in the forest. The one say no we're born with a invisible blindfold over our eyes and being able to remove that blindfold is the first step to becoming a shaman. And I asked the shaman to explain it to me. He says, "Well, imagine that at some point in your life you saw somebody you hadn't seen in 30 years and the night before you had a dream about them and there they are in front of you." Okay, we've all had that experience. Now, we call that a coincidence. They say, "No, that's that's peing into a different reality." as you said and again just to tie it back to our own culture. If you look at the Washington Post this morning, there's a big article about a doctor who is who is dealing with dying patients and the visions they have. Now, these are not the near-death experiences that have been studied and and this is something completely different. This is before they die, they start revisiting their childhood or having a conversation with the stillborn child they had. I mean, just totally amazing stuff. So yeah, to circle back to your point, there are other realities out there. I do think that indigenous peoples are more comfortable with them and we have a lot learn to learn by listening to them. >> Mhm. What are some of the things that really surprised you as you've gone along in the journey and kind of dove deep into their own reality and the the ontology of existence that they have? >> Just their abilities to see things that make no sense. Look, I'm a scientist. I'm supposed to believe what I see. But I think it was uh Carl Youngung who said, I don't engage in the fallacy of dismissing something just cuz I can't explain it. And time and time again, you'll have uh so-called primitive peoples of preiterate peoples tell you something which you may not believe, which may not make sense and it turns out to be true. Not always, but consistently. And so that just to me and my mentor uh Richard Schulty's the Harvard ethnobbotnist would say listen he say these naked primitive people know a lot more about this stuff than not only than what we do than what we ever c ever can. So you know let's be open-minded here. And so here's a Harvard guy at the top of his game talking about how much more they know than he do. And this is not to to give this sense of the noble savage that chamins know everything that indigenous peoples know everything. They don't. But at the time, this was several decades ago, it was all too common to dismiss anything they said or did as oh well that's just folklore and and ignorance and things like that. >> Yeah. In my experience in [clears throat] working with different Ketwa shamans and mystiso shamans, Shapibo shamans, particularly the the shamans from Peru, I can be utterly blown away at their proficiency of both navigating creating space to for a safe space for us to navigate applying you know kuras like the the right cure at the right time with the right song and just absolutely blown away. And then we'll get into a consult in a group setting and somebody will present some some issue going on with their family and then they'll delve into familial advice and it's like whoa like this we've we've advanced way beyond this in our psychology. However, in our spirituality you're you know your absolute PhD and you're at a 101 level of just basic psychology and both can live at the same time. And I think that's something also to recognize. It's not that they know everything about everything, but what they do know, they can they know. I mean, they're swimming in in waters so deep that, you know, we can hardly see the creatures down there. I mean, if we had a couple more hours, I could tell you all the stories or maybe a couple more days. I'll give you one example just to tie into what you just said. There was a a girl who suffered from epilepsy. Uh suffered terribly. She was seeing all the best doctors in the US and Europe. They really weren't able to give her any relief. It was so bad she couldn't shower by herself because she might go into a fit and fall down and break her teeth or neck or something. And uh one of the shamans that I knew best was working very closely at the time treated her and uh afterwards I I said to her uh tell me about a little bit about your epilepsy if you don't mind. She says well when you're an epileptic she says you don't know that you're having a fit. You just kind of fall asleep or you start seeing things. For me, I would see three young girls come out of my chest and then they would walk to and and through and into the wall. Okay. The day after the ceremony, I said to the shaman, "Uh, tell me about what you saw." Now, he spoke only Spanish in his indigenous language. She didn't speak a word of Spanish, so there was no verbal communication. He said, "It was really hard because I had to pull three girls out of her chest and make them go away because that was the problem. Now explain that to me scientifically because I can't do it. But eventually the the child got better. >> Yeah. I mean I I've also seen and and experienced not privately in my own psyche a little bit but more just with people in the groups that I've been with that have been utterly profound. Now when you press the question and you talk about these three girls in the chest for example maybe you didn't press this particular line of questioning. What is the belief that you find most common about what are these entities like where do they come from? What are they? What are who who what are these three girls? You know, I don't know. I that's really not my area. I'm just accepting and listening. >> So, I I have no interest in trying to become a corander, you know, or or telling people I'm a shaman, which I'm not. I never do. I'm not even earthless, you know. Uh how how deep do you want to go? And sometimes you get a sense like that's their magic and they really don't want to fork over the recipe or anything anyhow. So sometimes it's better to, you know, poke a little bit but not go too deep. >> Yeah, fair enough. So I think a lot of us are familiar with Iawasco. We're familiar with some of the, you know, even combo, you know, we're familiar with some of these that have traveled to the west and many of us have experienced them. But there's a whole host of other different plants that are incredibly significant that come from come from nature and also animals and you know different compounds and you've done quite a bit of work studying those. So if you could if you wouldn't mind just kind of running us through some of these discoveries that have come from us looking listening and studying how humans interact with nature. >> Well let's go back to 1967. There was a meeting in San Francisco called the ethnofpharmacologic search for new psychiatric drugs. And at this meeting were all the superstars of ethnobbatney. Gordon Wson the guy who did the seminal work on the mushrooms Schulty some other people of of that level of achievement. And then when we did it again 50 years later that wasn't at the first one. Uh we talked a lot about Campbell the magic frog. The point being that the greatest minds in ethnobbotany who worked in the rainforest for decades or maybe hundreds of years if you looked at it cumulatively didn't know anything about magic frogs. Okay, that if you' said that they would have thought you were crazy or or you've been drinking too much Iawaska in the meantime. The point being is that we know what's out there but we don't know everything that's out there. And if you look at the diversity um there's got to be more stuff out there. >> Okay. I uh I I'm sure you're familiar with Paul Stamuts. He's he's on the board of my organization, the advisory board uh here at the Amazon Conservation Team. And I was saying to him, okay, you call uh you call psilocybin the Einstein molecule cuz it's so brilliant at helping humanity with so many things. Is there another psilocybin out there? And he smiled and he said, I can't say there isn't. And then a few months ago, and I'm sure you saw it, they found another mushroom where you take it and you see all these little people. >> Okay, it's not psilocybin. It's not a psilocyb mushroom. We don't know what the hell it is or what's going on. And so once again, we find something which you do to ask the greatest scientists of the age. They would have said, "No, there's nothing like that. I know it's an old wives tale." Except it wasn't. If you uh my last book, the Amazon, what everybody needs to know, I totaled up the number of ad mixtures and IA is all about ad mixtures. Here's what's confusing about Iawaska. Iaska is a vine, but you always need to use something else with it or it really doesn't pack a punch. Okay, so people use psychotraverus, which is known commonly as chuna, and that potentiate the reaction. You just take either of those two plants by themselves, you don't see fireworks. All right? But in going through the literature while writing this book, I found there's over a hundred different ad mixtures that have been recorded. >> Now, you can't tell me that every one of those has the same effect. And so, even the stuff that we know, there's more to know that we don't know. And and I'll give you another theory of mine. There was a Israeli ethnobbotnist named Benny Shannon. Benny Shannon died I think a year ago. But Benny uh said, "You know, I'm an old Jewish guy and I never understood how a man could go into the Sinai and talk to a burning bush." He said, "And I went to Peru and I drank Iawaska." And I said, "Now I understand how a man can talk to a [laughter] burning bush." But there's no owa in the Sinai. However, and this get a little technical, not too much. When I was first analyzed in the lab, they pulled the alkaloid out and they called it telepathy because as you know in the ceremony you can communicate telepathically with the shaman. But further research revealed that actually that alkaloid had been found before not in Iawaska but in a plant from the Sinai Syrian rue. So that was half the uh half the Iawaska formula. Okay. But where was the other half? Well, I'm I'm I'm kind of a history nerd. Um, remember the Ark of the Covenant? >> Of course. >> You remember what it's made from? >> Aaca. >> Exactly. And what does Aaca have in it? >> DMT. >> So, there's your Iawaska recipe. [laughter] >> Yeah. The the the point being, Aubrey, is that I'm not arguing that the Ten Commandments were written under the influence of Iawaska, but they could have been. >> Okay? And that's what makes this endlessly fascinating. Many academics, they look at something, they have their own theory, and they say, "That's the way it was." I don't, you know, do I think human cognition was created by coffee berries? I do. and in part by uh the magic mushrooms and in part by the alcohol and the fermented fruits and in part by the invention of fire and in part by the invention of language. So tying all of these threads together, ethnobbotnists tend to be pretty good at because we are interdisiplinary by nature. You're not just a botist, you're not just an anthropologist. You got to combine a lot of different disciplines >> and and that's why I I'm so excited when I see some of these pieces of the puzzle may fit together even if they don't ultimately prove true. Now, nobody has proven uh anything about uh these owas alkaloids and the ten commandments but uh who knows what the future will hold. For example, one of the great mysteries of ethnobbatany was the Eloisian mysteries. Familiar with those? ancient Greece. That was the right of passage. That was the equivalent of Iaw Oscar ceremony. Nobody could figure out. But this controversial academic who was right said, "I think it was alkaloids from a fungus, from the urgot fungus." And he was dismissed as a nut and a radical. And then much more recent research has found uh jawbones with urgoids in them in ceremonial centers. And so what that means is that the the ancient Greeks, the mothers and fathers, the civilization in which we live, were not only probably tripping their brains out. But it's been hypothesized that that was the birth of Christianity as well. That Christianity is not just an offshoot of Judaism, but it's an offshoot of these ancient Greek religions where these guys were, you know, doing doing fun >> back. Yeah. And that I think the psychedelic urgot it's it's kind of an LSD analog right is what they what they posit that uh that comes from that particular fungus. >> That's a that's a back it's a back there's a backstory to that and it's often confused. I I go into this quite a bit. I have a a podcast called plants of the gods hallucinogens healing culture and conservation. And so I went into the Harvard archives did the research. Here's what the origins were. Um Albert Hoffman was studying urgot and urgot alkyoids. Now urgot alkaloids are used for difficult child birth still used for treatment of migraines and he said okay let me didd the molecule. So you add a side chain you cle something off and all of a sudden you have a new wonder drug or you have deadly or poison and so LSD which is one of the new molecules he came up with was the 25th molecule he created based on the urgot model. So in technical terms it's LSD25 and that's fine. >> Yeah, that's super interesting. And also when you think about Iawaska the the MAOI that it contains the telepathine this thing that activates the DMT when you mix it with Jakuna or wombisa or opi or whatever is the high DMT containing ad mixture. >> None of these plants will have an effect that's noticeable, you know, if you just have them on their own. Now they have spiritual technologies where they go into what they call a dieta which I'm sure you're familiar with where they connect spiritually with the energy of the plant and that's a whole different technology. But if you just had a tea of jakuna, you're not going to see visions, you know. But so it's it's almost as if not only are there so many plants that we can sense and feel if we took them, but maybe there's so many plants that wouldn't even be activated unless we were actually, you know, had some vine or had some Syrian rue inside of us to really potentiate the physical effects that would be noticeable. So that just opens the door for so many new discoveries that may come down the pipe. You know, if you look at the Amazon pores, you got 30,000 to 80,000 flowering plants in there, depending on whose estimate you accept. How do you find one that's psychoactive? Now, imagine the odds if if if they sent you or me, they ran Amazon for us and said, "Find two that'll do this because if they're not combined, they don't." Okay. So, uh the the the point being is that this is just one of the great mysteries and um who knows, you know, that's why it's just so endlessly fascinating. >> What do you think about the theory that in order to discover the psychotropic qualities of the iawaska vine that the indigenous were watching jaguars kind of gnaw at the bark of of and the of the iwaska? Do you do you think that's an accurate theory from what you've studied? I wrote a book called Medicine Quest and there's a chapter in there called plants of the apes and the idea came from my late good friend Jane Goodall who was an adviser to the Amazon conservation team and I was working on the ethanol botney of wine the invention of wine the effect of wine on human culture western culture and uh she said we were sitting around drinking scotch which was her favorite drink and she said I I was telling her about this and she said well you know the the ancient Greeks and the Roman didn't invent wine. And I said, "Yeah, I'm a nerd. I did my homework. It was invented by the ancient Georgians who taught it to the Greeks." She goes, "No." She said, "It was invented by animals." And I I I looked at and she said, "My chimps like to get snuckered." So she launched a whole branch of biology that many people haven't heard of called Zoharmaccognacy that animals use plants for medicines. Okay? and and she had a famous argument with a another uh biologist where they said, "Why do you give names to your chimps? That's not scientific." And she looked at the guy and said, "Do you have a dog?" And the guy said, "Of course." And she said, "Does your dog have a personality?" And he said, "Oh, yeah, absolutely." She says, "Well, my chimps have as much personality as your dog, maybe more." >> The point being that we've all seen dogs eat plants when they're sick. We've all seen cats eat catnip and start tripping. >> So why wouldn't animals uh eat plants? However, to circle back to your your question, as far as I'm concerned, jaguars eating iwaska is an old wives tale because people publish it. People talk and I say, "Did you see it?" Like, "No, but the Shaina's cousin's daughter's friend's uh pal saw it." I need a little better truth than this. But to go back to our earlier point, that doesn't mean I rule it out. But it does mean that until somebody can show me a a jaguar with iawasta in its stomach or has observed a jaguar eating iawasta, I'll say it remains to be proven. So the answer to your question, long answer for a short question is that yes, uh animals do use plants medically. Uh and and as it's shown in this in the drunken monkey hypothesis, animals do use plants to achieve altered states. Jaguars and Iawasa >> questionable. >> Proof remains to be >> questionable. Yes. I thought one of the coolest stories about animals getting high off of nature was the story about the dolphins and the puffer fish and how they, you know, they get a puffer fish to secrete its poison and then they pass it around like it's a like it's a giant, you know, a giant joint. Yeah. [laughter] >> [gasps] >> Uh yeah, my uh old friend Wayade Davis uh did some work on the zombie poisons in Haiti decades ago and his theory is that this puffer fish poison is what you know knocks people out without killing them. So it's been widely accepted, not universally accepted, but it's just another indication that nature does stuff that we don't yet understand. And I'll give you a a concrete parallel. There's a billion-dollar drug called Taxol used for I think testicular cancer. Comes from the Pacific Utri except that it doesn't come from the Pacific Utri. It comes from a fungus that lives inside the Pacific Utri. So imagine that. That's a billion dollar drug. And it wasn't until decades after marketing it, using it that we figured out this doesn't come from a plant. It comes from a fungus. >> We are in unprecedented times. And the first thing that arises is a need for safety. How do I ensure my own safety and sovereignty so I can protect myself and my family and also contribute to a better world? And so one of the things that I think is really important is to recognize where you are holding your value. And right now a lot of us are holding our value in cash. What is cash? 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What is it that you think, you know, when you when you zoom out a little bit, what is it about can consciousness in general and particularly in mammals that we want to get high? like why why is this a kind of universal desire for us to alter our consciousness? [snorts] Well, much of my thinking on that was influenced by Andrew Wild, Andy Wild EIL, who was a famous integrated physician, one of the first MDs to go to China and study acupuncta. What a lot of people don't realize is he had the same mentor I did. It was Schulties and Andy did some very thought-provoking books which are much overlooked today even though they're worth going back and reading where he pointed out why do people like to get high? Well, why do little kids spin in a circle until they fall over? They're getting high, right? They're altering their consciousness. >> So, there is something in our in our mind or our genes or whatever that wants us to get away from ourselves. And that could be spinning in a circle till you drop. That could be like a Sufi dancing all night. That could be uh taking Iawasa. It could be having a drink at the bar, smoking a joint. It's it it's just that human desire to escape. And um I I I think anybody who's had out-of- body experiences where you've been in a a maloco long house or ceremony and you look down and you see yourself lying there in the hammock or you're in a hospital and for whatever reason you you're you're seeing your body from outside. >> It just gives you a different perspective literally and I I think that's part of it. You know, is there more to life than what we see in front of us every day? Of course there is. That's what we were talking about before. >> Yeah. It's almost like we're incarcerated in ordinary consciousness, but there's a part of us that knows that we're connected to something much much more vast and much more interesting. And so if we can break the break temporarily break the walls of this cognitive reducing valve, as Huxley would say, then we can open up the blinds, then we can catch a glimpse of a of a reality that I think innately we know that we're a part of. Now, of course, we can convince ourselves that we're not. And I think that's where you see all of the extraction that exists in the world is from people who are disconnected from that sense of interbeing and that sense of interconnectedness, which the plants like Iawaska continually reemerge you in that kind of field of consciousness. Yeah, I I agree with with what you're saying obviously. And I was asked once by a journalist said, "Well, you've done all these Iaska with all these paramount shamans, you know. I mean, does that doesn't that make you a shaman?" I'm like, "I'm not a shame. I don't want to be a shaman. I'd never tell anybody I'm a shaman." I said, "Doing Iawaska with a lot of indigenous masters, to me, it's like you're driving by a house and the house has a couple of windows open and you're getting a glimpse of what's really going on, >> but you're not going to get into the house. I don't care how much I you have." >> And I've actually had Sheamans tell some white people to stop drinking so much IA because they were overdoing it. So this idea I mean I when I was in college in the 70s I remember people thinking like the more dope you smoke the wiser you get it didn't turn out that way. So this this this whole idea that hallucins are the answer. Hallucins are the panacea. The more you drink the better it is for you. You know Michael Pollen wrote in one of his books he says part of the problem we see today is everybody wants to go to the Amazon. Everybody wants to drink Iawaska. And a lot of people that are doing this are mentally fragile >> and that's why they're going because western medicine is not meeting their needs and solving their problem. But some of these people are held together by scotch tape and that's these are the people that come apart and because a lot of these shamans really aren't shamans, you know, they're pretenders. Um that these people come apart and they can't put them back together. You know, uh, our our mutual friend Tim Ferris told me about some guy. He went down to Peru and he wasn't ready for three years because he kind of came apart. >> Yeah. The discretion needed to to know who you're going to sit with is it's pretty intense, you know, because there's two there's two perils. The Sila and Sheribdus of this of this path is one incompetence. They just can't actually handle the force of the medicine themselves and they can't hold the space. and two is malice. And you know, both of those can be deadly, sometimes literally, but usually just psychologically deadly. And it's really important that they that they are not neither incompetent or malicious because, >> you know, I've I've seen both and I've experienced both. And fortunately, I've been fine. And I've also felt what it feels like to be with a real master, you know, where they've earned the name Maestro or earned the name Dawn. like it's it's actually an appropriate title rather than just the you know the the flattery. >> You know one of my formative experiences when I was a little kid my mother took me to see Fantasia and the end of Fantasia is that cartoon called the sorcerers apprentice >> and if you remember the story where this the sorcerer steps out and Mickey says I can do this and he starts making more rooms to sweep up and all of a sudden they're out of control. I mean, in partly in homage to that film, I entitled my first book, Tales of Bashaman's Apprentice. >> And uh these are not powers to be trifle with or disrespected or just assuming that you know uh you went to for a weekend and got naked in the hot tub and took mushrooms, so you're now a mushroom master, a maestro. >> Yeah, you're not. >> Yeah, that's that's a trap where a lot of people fall in. I I knew somebody who, you know, did a little bit of a bogga and then started serving a bogga with horrendous consequences, you know, and and it's >> we've all we've all got horror stories. >> Let's talk about buffo for a moment because this is a really interesting one because a lot of people think that if psychedelics have existed, psilocybin, there's a stone ape theory. I mean, we're talking tens of thousands of years of potential human psilocybin interaction. Iawaska unknown but probably thousands of years Wuma thousands of years at least you know in Shaveen in ancient Peru and however far back that civilization goes. So a lot of these have a storied >> history of use and then buffo is like what 1960s >> you know where we actually discover 5met from this Colorado river toad. Yes, I did a episode on plants the gods with Hamilton Morris which is very good. We went into this that you have these people that are like these are neo mythologies that they're saying well obviously the ancient Aztecs were using this cuz it's in Mexico you know but there's no proof. I mean, of course, the Peruvians, you know, they wrote stuff down. The the Aztecs, when the Spaniards came, stuff got rotten down got written down. But there's no written evidence that these buffos on the Arizona Mexico border were used in ancient times. But again, to refer back to an earlier point, does it prove that they weren't using it? No. But people can't be saying, "Oh, of course they were because there's no evidence." They can say it, but there's no proof. However, uh some have noted there's a lot of frog iconography in some of these Central American temples. So once again, you uh you can't totally dismiss it, but you need better proof. Just because you put a picture of a frog on your temple or your synagogue doesn't mean that you're you're ingesting it for hallucinic purposes. But also, a lot of things are overlooked. For example, uh our friend Stamus was in Egypt doing the gringo trail and he looked in some of these temples and there's magic mushrooms, >> but everybody who looked at it was an Egyptologist. They could barely tell a palm tree from a pine tree. So, they didn't know these were hallucinic species, but you can be damn sure. >> I was actually on that trip with Paul when he was going. He was so excited. He was just going and he was pointing out all the mushrooms and the hieroglyphs and the carvings and it was it was cool to watch him just find and see, you know, clear and and he would show us, you know, in the group. It was a large group, but he would show us and be like, "Yeah, yeah, those are still simon mushrooms for sure." >> Well, I'm jealous on that trip. >> It was wild. It was wild. But as you said, to pull the lens back, this is probably the most studied civilization of the ancient world, Egypt, right? It's the mummy. It's raiders of the lost ark. Uh, everybody's seen pictures of the pyramids. We're still finding new [ __ ] >> Okay. So, how cool is that? So imagine in a place the size of the Amazon which is close to the size of the continental US uh many species not only not studied but not even named by scientists. Imagine how much is out there to be learned. >> Yeah. An immense amount. And I I think this ties into also one of your other, you know, main points that you hit is that the when we cut down a rainforest, it's not just about, you know, the carbon sequestering we're missing out on. It's not just about the the oxygen that they're producing. Yes, it is, you know, the lungs of our planet along with our oceans which produce a lot of the the oxygen, etc. That's all important from a macro standpoint, but who knows what species we're causing to go extinct. That could be the act absolute key for us to make this kind of perilous transition as we transition from an old extractive story into a new one that's sustainable. like we I don't think we give enough seriousness and and credit to the fact that when something goes extinct, maybe it's just a cute animal that we wish existed like the dodo bird, but maybe the dodo bird has a has a might on it that has a has something in it that is absolutely essential for humanity because nature has this innate intelligence that's so important. And I think that is also another big reason to really double down on these conservation efforts. >> Well, I I I want to add something what you're saying. I mean, I of course agree with everything you're saying, although you said as we transition to a sustainable future, I want to add as we hopefully transition to a sustainable future. And the other thing I want to add is that yes, if the forest disappears, and I'm not just talking about the Amazon where I work, I mean the boreal forest, any forest or any coral reefs, what are we losing? But in the rainforest, we're losing those shamanic cultures and wisdom, which means that we're losing the knowledge. It's like, well, here's a book, but um there's no table of contents and there's no index. There was, but we threw it away. So when I have argued in the past with missionaries forcing people to accept western religion, I say uh you know I don't care if these Christians if these Indians become Christians and Muslims are Jews, but it should be their choice. It shouldn't be told, you know, come to church and you'll get antibiotics and rice. That's what I have a problem with. And this this wisdom disappears much faster than these for us. So I I want to say both. Ironically, let me let me say that this is ultimately a guilty exercise because I think it's good for all of us, but it should be done in a way which is best for the indigenous peoples themselves. A lot of people don't get that and that it's up to them if they want to share this wisdom with us. Sometimes they don't, sometimes they do. >> And so this whole idea that the rainforest is teaming with these eagle ethnobbotnist biopirates, it's not true. I've never met anybody from a pharmaceutical company in the Amazon in 42 years. Never. So, I wish the pharmaceutical companies were more interested as long as they did things in an ethical way, which certainly wasn't the deep history, but it's becoming much more common place as people realize there's an ethical angle. I mean, you look at you look at psilocybin or or or IASKA. What what's that worth, right? I mean in the number of the demand uh couldn't a little bit of that go to the indigenous peoples who taught us those things and nurtured those mushrooms through the conquest for 500 years afterwards to make sure that that knowledge didn't disappear. And another point I want to make about these things is some of this stuff's really in danger. I mean is an ugly little tiny slow growing cactus and some of the indigenous peoples have trouble finding enough for the rituals because a bunch of you know so-called psychonauts are going there and pull it out by the roots. On the other hand, Iawaska is kind of a weed. I mean, it it grows well in a lot of places. I've seen it all over in Hawaii. So, the the people oversold this like, oh my god, I was going extinct. Well, not that they're growing in an Istanbul and Israel and Indonesia and Berkeley, right? Species aren't going extinct. There may be varieties on that are lost if the porest is cut down and we should be concerned about that as well. >> Totally. And you know, I think certain plants have are just we have to take more care. And also, you know, there's certain plants that lend themselves to synthetics a little bit easier. You know, I mean, that's one of the things there was just a recent study published this month about uh synthetic 5me in a single day treatment of three escalating doses for women with postpartum depression. And they they erased it. They moved from a 37 on the MADRS scale of postpartum depression to two in it eight days later >> and it three of them were suicidal and it's it's gone like erased it and it was a synthetic molecule and I understand you know my fellow psychonauts when I posted about that like oh but it's not the same. And I'm like, "Yeah, but it's okay." Like, "Well, let's let's let the toads chill for a little while." And if you don't need if you don't need it, you know, like it's it's helpful. And same with, you know, same with ibain. And boa is a very slow growing tree shrub, you know, and so it's I'm grateful that these synthetics have been developed so that we can actually meet the demand without really stressing the environment. And we should also take the time to make sure we're replanting and supporting the cultures that have tended these particularly sacred gardens for so long. >> You know, if you make that into a bumper sticker, let the toad chill [laughter] by the first. >> That's what they want to do. They're chilling for nine months out of the year anyways. You know, they don't want to just come out and get squeezed immediately. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Agreed. Well, this is, you know, there's so much that's possible and I I think, as you said, hopefully we make this transition into the next story. And I think these plants, they all they all have a role. These are all the the kind of assisting cast. These are this is the this is the cast of characters. It's not just the people, but it's also the plants. And I think the intelligence that's working through all of us that's going to give us the best shot, you know, and who knows about how what are your thoughts on this kind of boom in artificial intelligence and how this might unlock certain elements of natural intelligence? Do you have any, you know, kind of hypotheses about what's going on? >> I do. I got in an argument with a very famous London surgeon uh a couple of months back who said that we're facing this terrible crisis of drugreser which we are and the best hope was artificial intelligence and I said absolutely not the best hope is hi and he said what does that mean I don't know the term I said it's human intelligence I said AI is a tool and like most tools if not all tools it can help or it can hurt So, our use of AI is going to determine uh how beneficial it's going to be. Do I want to rely on a on AI for new drugs and not look at nature? No. Do I want to ignore AI and some of the great finds that are coming out? No. That would be equally stupid. You know, it's it's not the microchip versus the medicine man. It's the two working together. And that's what a lot of people don't seem to get. It's like there's so much excitement around AI. There's so much fear around AI. It's like this is going to solve all the world's problems or this is right out of the Terminator and it's going to kill all of us. Yeah, >> I think it's somewhere in [clears throat] between. >> It it also seems like old wisdom and and forgotten things are starting to come into our consciousness. You know, I think Graham Hancock's done a lot of work to kind of expand our minds to ancient history, but also recently so much has been discovered underground structures in the pyramids, things that it almost feels like a lot of buried intelligence is now starting to surface. And who knows even about the this whole disclosure movement that's happening. It's like a lot of things that people have been like, "Oh, no, dismissed are now [sighs] kind of kind of rising when we need them. when we need different ways of thinking. >> I'll give you a personal example that supports what you're saying. I was contacted by two filmmakers who said, "We found an entirely new civilization in Central America." And I said, "Great. Congratulations." And and they said, "No, really?" And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I saw Raiders the Lost Arc. I know you you're finding new stuff. Big deal." And they said, "Hold on a second." And they unrolled these maps. So about 10 years ago, they had liedard the rainforest of southern Honduras where people had been reporting an ancient civilization for 500 years and nobody had been able to find it and they were through temples which you could see clearly with LAR which you couldn't see with radar. It took us 15 minutes when we landed by helicopter. Okay. So this is where new technology married to this ancient wisdom is the sweet spot. So this whole idea that uh all we need is technology or all we need to do is follow the force right uh it's the combination of the two which I think provides the greatest promise for the future. >> I'm with you. I'm with you. And you talk about I mean one of the one of the phrases that uses the burning library, you know, talking about the talking about the forest, but then I also think about the actual burned library of Alexandria, right? Like what did we lose from that deep gnostic, you know, the telsti and the hereticos and all of these different mystery schools that had encoded their wisdom, the Egyptian mystery schools, everything that had been collected there. I mean, we might be in a totally different spot if we'd had that wisdom. Well, the manifestation of of what you're saying is Pompei because they're now excavating the final 20% of Pompei, much of which was, you know, raped and ruined by these stupid treasure hunters 300 years ago. But they're finding these papier, which can't be unrolled. They're charred, right? And they're 2,000 years old. And they're using technology to be able to digitally digitally un unscroll them >> and then read them. even if you couldn't read if you did. So maybe there's some of this info from the lost library of Alexandria in there or maybe there's other finds. We're using technology. We have access to it. If not, so this is not to say, "Well, don't worry about the library. We'll find it somewhere." My mentor Schulties was working in the Amazon for over a decade and he had this nemesis who was this old fundamentalist missionary and she goes, "I don't know why you're wasting your time writing down all this stupid Indian stuff." you know, when when when Jesus returns to Earth, all will be revealed. And Schulty said, "I don't want to wait." [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. People have been waiting for that for 2,000 years. Hasn't happened yet. >> Yeah. Exactly. So um you know it's a very exciting time because these technologies make the ancient world or the the preiterate world more accessible than ever before at but at the same time we're burning down the library and essentially burning down the librarians uh when these cultures disappear. So it's not a question of just losing nature it's a question of losing nature which goes right back to the library of Alexander. >> Yeah. You know, it's there's so many forces that are kind of difficult and and harmful to indigenous wisdom, but I think probably the most harmful is cell phones, blue jeans, Nikes, you know, like these things, the the allurement of the kind of consumerrist, many would call it this consumerism virus, you know, when you talk to certain indigenous people who kind of see it because it's it's steering a lot of people from staying in the traditional ways where often, you know, grandfather to grandson, grandmother to granddaughter, sometimes, you know, mother to mother to son, father to son, often skipping a generation, but there's just they're looking out at and they know people and they got shiny new [ __ ] and a new TV and they're like, well, this old way is not going to get me those things, but they don't realize the prize that they actually have access to. And so I think that's another major problem is and that's that one's even harder to control because you can carve out a plot of land and preserve it, but how do you keep the infiltration of this kind of western idea of more is better, shinier is more alluring? Well, there's several answers to that question. One is we're an inquisitive species. We like new toys. Okay, that's not just us. That's everybody. But the problem is when these technologies sweep in, they're usually introduced by people who are not interested in doing that in a way to help protect the culture. We at the Amazon conservation team do ethnographic mapping, which is we train the indigenous peoples to map their lands. And to be able to do that, they need GPS's and they need walkietalkies. So we're introducing this in a way which uh helps protect the culture because they got to go to grandfather and ask for the old hunting legends. They go to grandma and ask why is this these falls got such and such a name? So instead of them just looking at dirty pictures um they are recording their culture as they go from preiterate to literate >> and that's been quite successful. A colleague of mine says you're creating cyber shamments. >> Okay. But uh the the the side to that that's that's very positive is I started a program decades ago called the shame's apprentice. I realized that I could not write down all the stuff the shamans were teaching me even if they taught me everything which they wouldn't but they would teach their sons and grandsons and daughters and granddaughters. So I actually gave little scholarships to the kids and to the shamans to make this transition happen. Well, lo and behold, after a couple years, the young guys know these plants. And when they go to town, they've got plants to sell. They've got medicines to sell. They know how to do Olympia, a cleaning, a training, a a treatment. And so ethnobbotany is giving them jobs and putting money in their pocket, which means they'll have to go to the goldfields. >> Okay. So the but the flip side of that is one of the great chains of the Amazon complained one time to me about a decade ago. He says, you know, cell phones are here and they're here to stay. But here you need a SIM card to use a cell phone and we don't have a cash economy. We we're subsistence guys. We hunt, we fish, and uh some of the girls have had to go to town and prostitute themselves to get the money for the SIM cards because it's the only way they can make money. And so when people tell me technology is better and we're all going to live better through technology, [ __ ] >> You know, some of us will and some of us won't. And and if you do it with your eyes open, it's much easier to help steer it than to just throw up your hands and say there's no stopping it or or or or trying to keep technology away from these people as if they're in a zoo and you have the right to to decide what they get and what they don't. I feel a tension within me as you know I've again it's been 28 years I've been on the plant medicine path and time and again it shows me the interconnectedness of all life that every single person is me living a different life that we're all originating from that same source call it capital L life if you want and then you look at you know we have borders we have towns we have families we have all of these circles and these circles of of what we count and what we what we care about. The first circle around our self, the second circle around our family, and then around our nation, and then maybe around humanity, separate from the rest of of [sighs and gasps] >> of the world and in the cosmos. But then it's like you see things happening in other countries and and you realize, all right, what is our responsibility? And I really what I'm getting to is is like at what point are we do we take responsibility for the whole and at what point do we and this is an open question. I don't have an answer to this. At what point do we just focus on what's important for us and how do we strike that balance you know when we see these terrible things happening and we see these needs that exist in other people but then we can't you know do we have a responsibility or do we not? What what are your thoughts? You know, I'm a pacifist at heart, but understand that violence is sometimes necessary. A colleague of mine says, "Okay, look at Gandhi, one of the most saintly spiritual figures in in the history of civilization, and he organized all of this nonviolent stuff against the Brits and he won." Okay. Uh I'm I'm a native Southerner. I grew up in Louisiana. This nonviolent protest really changed things. That was great. But would that have worked if if Gandhi was facing the Nazis, right? No, it wouldn't have. So the this whole idea like everybody should drink iawaska and and we'll all do kumbaya. Somebody sent me a a website really quite frightening called uh Lucy in the sky with Nazis. The point being that some of these hardcore right-wing groups are using Iawaska and psilocybin to reinforce these ugly views. All right. So, this whole idea that well, let's expand our consciousness and everybody just drink uh drink the brew, we'd all be happy happy and live happily ever after. You know, there's something to that, but it's not true across the board. There's some people that just can't be rationed with uh uh uh it it just doesn't work that way. You know, hardcore beliefs are very hard to change. And one of the ways that I go about it, I mean, you you communicate for a living is is trying to explain to people the importance of what we have uh that's come to us from nature. For example, uh beta blockers were basically built designed on the chemical structure of the psilocybin mushroom. Okay, it's a multi-billion dollar industry that Albert Hoffman started with Viscan, the first beta blocker. I have never met a physician ever who knew that beta blockers originated from those magic mushrooms, ACE inhibitors, billion dollar drug based on uh venom from a Brazilian snake. never met a physician who knew that. Again, a billion-dollar drug. Now, the the the sad part of this tale is the Brazilians and the Mexicans never got a nickel of that. So, that's not acceptable. But these are powerful arguments because everybody my age is either taking ACE inhibitors or beta blockers or both. Uh that to to let these people know how much longer and better you're living because of these drugs that come to us from nature, in this case, tropical nature. And we need to convey that better than we're obviously doing. >> Yeah. How can people support? How can people help? >> Well, the Amazon Conservation Team, which I'm the co-founder and the president of, has been described as the greatest rainforest conservation organization that nobody's ever heard of. [laughter] It's because we put all of our money into the field rather than direct mail. Yuck. Or telemarketing. Yuck. Uh we just do the work. We're on the web at amazon.org. You can search under my name, Mark Clark, and learn more. But the focus is on on is on action. What we do is not conservation. It's bioultural conservation. It's working in partnership with indigenous peoples, first and foremost, ashamements, male and female, to empower them to protect their culture and their forest, which they see as uh inextricable. When I started out in conservation, I was working for the World Wildlife Fund. It was all about saving the forest, saving the rhinos, saving the whales. Great. Um, but they had nothing to do with indigenous peoples. And then there were groups like Cultural Survival, Survival International. They were all about saving the indigenous peoples, but they had nothing to do with ecosystem conservation. Uh we were the first organization set up 30 years ago this year to focus on indigenous lands, indigenous peoples, not doing it or telling them what to do, but trying to empower them, train them um in ways that they could take control of their own cultural and environmental destiny. And you know, we've got priority projects need funding. You know, we know we do. We have a successful methodology. We are working with over 100 indigenous groups in Amazonas uh to protect over 100 million acres of ancestral rainforest. And it's been so successful that indigenous peoples outside the Amazon like the famous Kogis, the most spiritual people in the hemisphere, uh have asked us to work with them. We're working closely with them for 10 years. The indigenous peoples are helping us, asking our help to protect coastal resources, protect sea turtles all the way up Costa Rica and possibly as far north as Waka. So, it's not like, wouldn't it be great if we tried this crazy approach? It's like, no, we're doing it. And once you've done it, you've done this successful. We've running the longest indigenous park ranger program in the entire Amazon for 20 years. That's proof of concept. That's not showing up in an indigenous village in the Congo or the Amazon, having all the guys put on your t-shirt, taking a picture, and say, "Look, we're partnering with with the Pikmis." You know, it's for real. The record is there. We were the first environmental organization to win the Skull Award, >> and Jeff Skull knows a lot about entrepreneurship. We were the first social entrepreneur group in the environmental field. He chose to give the award to. >> Well, that's incredible. and uh and I'll definitely keep that in mind personally and I just encourage the listeners who've been moved by this to support as well. So yeah, we'll be in touch. I'd love to I'd love to be a supporter of the project. >> You know, I mean I'm here because you're such a good communicator and you have such a loyal following. [snorts] You're you're magnifying our message. I mean the message I'm bringing is from the shamans themselves. I don't speak for them. I mean much of what I'm telling you I learned from them. But we need help in getting this message out so people know what's in it for them. I mean, it's like a friend of mine says, "If you want to do conservation, your first question is, who gives a [ __ ] right? Why should I care? Look at all the problems we have in this country, healthc care costs spiraling, stupid tariffs, things like this, farmers going out of business. Why should I care about the Amazon?" Well, if you eat corn or potatoes or avocados or smoked tobacco or light chocolate or like vanilla, uh that on your table is stuff that's connected to the well-being of the rainforest and those indigenous farmers that are planting those things and keeping them going. So, this is what people need to know. This isn't some sort of, you know, fun exercise. It's about life on Earth. And I I I think that conservation is first and foremost an ethical exercise. Okay? It's the right thing to do. Not because you make money at it. It's because it's the right thing to do ethically. Uh the people that saved the Endangered Species Act decades ago when the evil N Gingrich tried to uh destroy it were fundamentalists. We're evangelists who showed up on Capitol Hill with placard saying species. God made them. We protect them. So conservation can make strange bedfellows. But I think the utilitarian case, who gives a [ __ ] what's in it for me, is in fact more compelling to most people. And so as an ethaninobotist, it's easier to make the case than saying, "Oh, we we should protect the snail daughter just because we should, which I think we should, but to say, look, potential new medicines for cancer, potential new medicines for the next pandemic, which is undoubtedly coming, better treatments for current diseases like uh postpartum depression. You know, it's the old and the new and what's still out there." that that to me makes this endlessly fascinating and and and endlessly sailable. [snorts] >> So it is, you know, we got to do this and and there's a shot clock. You know, we got to we got to get our [ __ ] together sooner than later here. I think that's the that's the message. And I think there's a lot of forces of benevolence that are here to support us in our efforts, but we have to be open to them and we have to actually, you know, lend our shoulder to the plow and and actually get to work. So, I appreciate you for doing exactly that and uh and doing the good work. We're all in this together, Aubrey. >> Amen. So, we are. Thank you so much, Mark. I really appreciated this. >> I much enjoyed it. The hour went by fast. >> It did indeed. Did indeed. All right. We love you guys. We'll see you next week.