029: Build Entheon with Alex and Allyson Grey

This is Entheogen. Talk about tools for generating the divine within.

Today is May 24 2016, and we are discussing Building Entheon with Alex and Allyson Grey.

Find the notes and links for this and other episodes at EntheogenShow.com. Sign up to receive an email when we release a new episode. Follow us @EntheogenShow on Twitter and like EntheogenShow on FaceBook. Thanks for listening.

Topics:

• Entheon is a place to discover the divine within
• Why build a psychedelic temple?
• BuildEntheon.com – Almost to the stretch goal of $200K
• Entheon is a 12,000 sq ft building, three floors including a gallery of international visionary art
• Prehistoric artifacts document early cultures who made art and had a relationship with entheogens
• “It’s important for our psychedelic sacramental culture to have evidence that in our generation there were people who valued love, unity, spirituality, and peace over commerce and war.” - Allyson Grey
• LSD is derived from ergot fungus, which shares similar characteristics with psilocybin mushrooms.
• Allyson recommends Robert Barnhart’s movie, A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin. (We have interviewed the producer and discussed the film on Entheogen.)
• Visit BuildEntheon.com to support the campaign! Check out the amazing original works of art and other rewards.

027: Sacred Plant Retreats with Maxwell Wieland of Munay Medicine in Peru, Part 2

This is Entheogen. Talk about tools for generating the divine within.

Today is February 21, 2016, and we are discussing Sacred Plant Retreats with our guest, Maxwell Wieland of Munay Medicine in Peru.

Find the notes and links for this and other episodes at EntheogenShow.com. Sign up to receive an email when we release a new episode. Follow us @EntheogenShow on Twitter and like EntheogenShow on FaceBook. Thanks for listening.

Topics:

• Munay Medicine – what’s the vision, how does a retreat work, what do they offer?
• The 10-day Retreat
• “La Dieta” – lifestyle more than diet.
• Yoga as adjunct therapy to plant medicine.
• Yoga class as track meet? Yoga more as philosophy than merely athleticism.
• Reconsidering “traditional” use of ayahuasca in a long historical context.
• Alchemist? E.g., extraction of alkaloids.
• The duality of the ego. “I just sleighed my ego.”
• “Avoid the dreaded underdose. Dose high. Dose healthy.”

026: Sacred Plant Retreats with Maxwell Wieland of Munay Medicine in Peru, Part 1

This is Entheogen. Talk about tools for generating the divine within.

Today is February 21, 2016, and we are discussing Sacred Plant Retreats with our guest, Maxwell Wieland of Munay Medicine in Peru.

Find the notes and links for this and other episodes at EntheogenShow.com. Sign up to receive an email when we release a new episode. Follow us @EntheogenShow on Twitter and like EntheogenShow on FaceBook. Thanks for listening.

Topics:

• Max has been in a working relationship with wachuma (san pedro), ayahuasca, changa (dmt), psilocybin mushrooms, iboga, morning glories, salvia, and other plant entheogens for a decade.
• How did Munay Medicine come to be?
• What is a typical stay like?
• Munay is in the Sacred Valley of Peru, a wonderful location with a number of retreat centers, convenient to Machu Picchu and other sacred sites.
• San Pedro vs. Peyote, the sustainability and eco-friendliness of San Pedro – can grow up to a meter per growing season. Can be propagated easily.
• The word wachuma translates to “removing the head” (wach- meaning “remove” and -uma meaning “head”) which metaphorically might mean the death of the ego. The word comes from Quechua, the language of the indigenous culture of the same name in the central Andes.
• As Maxwell told us, “The name San Pedro was an adaptation that came as a result of Catholic contact via Spanish conquistadors.” This is fascinatingly similar to the Bwiti tribe in Gabon who use ibogaine in a syncretic Christian-tribal tradition; it seems that part of the Andean adaptation to missionary influence was to rename this sacred plant after Saint Peter, implying that the entheogenic cactus holds the keys to the gates of heaven just as its new namesake, Saint Peter, is said to do.
• “Breaking open the Head”, Daniel Pinchbeck’s book about his initiation with the Bwiti (using Ibogaine).
• Max shares some of his backstory including trouble related to the illegality of plant medicine in the United States, which led to his moving to Peru.
• San Pedro “Jeff Bridges” variety: Trichocereus bridgesii

Also, please check out this link from last show's guest, Kirk Rutter: Psychedelic Science Org UK – "Psychedelics could be for psychiatry what the microscope is for biology or the telescope for astronomy."

017: Modern Shamanism

This is Entheogen. We talk about tools for generating the divine within. It's October 15, 2015. We're talking about Modern Shamanism with special guest, Micah.

We would like to thank our 3,000 monthly subscribers for listening to the show. We want to hear from you! Visit EntheogenShow.com and subscribe to our newsletter to receive show notes by email when new episodes are posted. Get in touch on Facebook or Twitter. And spread the word about Entheogen!

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This episode we are grateful to be joined by special guest, Micah, to discuss the use of Ayahuasca in a modern context, as well as in the traditional setting.

Background:

Erowid Ayahuasca Vault: Basics

Topics:

- the traditional preparation vs. a chemical extraction

- the traditional context vs. modern comforts

- shaman vs. therapist

- jungle fauna, icaros vs. modern metaphors and music

- other psychoactive plant medicine: tobacco, chocolate/cacao, wine, sassafras, black pepper

- creating a container for deep experience

References:

Santo Daime

União do Vegetal

Controversy Brews Over Church's Hallucinogenic Tea Ritual

012: Interview with Carl A. P. Ruck, the Man who Coined the Term "Entheogen", on Renegotiating our Covenant with Mother Earth

This is Entheogen: three human beings discussing generating the divine within while still being human beings.

In this episode, recorded on June 22, 2015, we are honored to be joined by Dr. Carl Ruck, professor in the Classical Studies department at Boston University. Ruck is credited with coining the term Entheogen to describe neurotropic substances.

Ruck explains the importance of the term entheogen as distinct from neurotropic and other terms which may be used in scientific literature (see also: alchemy…chemistry, astrology…astronomy; alchemy minus theology = chemistry).

Dangers of guidance under the guise of a false guru.

Ancient entheogenic substances and principles of practice being reinterpreted in modern culture is prone to pitfalls.

"Our own European culture has a rich panoply of paradigms to help us with the experience, but we're told that it has nothing to do with this kind of drug induced visionary experience, so people don't understand that the ancient greek myths are a fantastic way of mapping out a pathway for self-discovery." - Carl A. P. Ruck

What is the role of the entheogen in society?

Finding ways to go to "the origins of religious cognition."

Should entheogens be used in a ritualistic setting, or as a private experience?

The Gaia Project: Reclaiming the Mysteries of Eleusis (more info)

The Breaking Conventions conference

Further reading: Entheogens, Myth, and Human Consciousness