Psychedelics

Peyote to LSD – A Psychedelic Odyssey

in News

Documentary about the life of ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes and the history of the modern psychedelic movement. 2008.

Dirty Pictures

Documentary on legendary psychedelic chemist Alexander Shulgin. 2010.

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274-Shulgin: "Psychedelic Safety"

Today I’m going to play two talks that I’ve wanted to get out to you for a while but just never seemed to get around to them. The first talk is a somewhat informal question and answer session that Ann Shulgin led just after one of Sasha’s talks at the …

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258-McKenna: "The Angel in the Monkey"

Today we once again go back in time and join Terence McKenna as he talks about extraterrestrials, psychedelics, and the angel in the monkey. Among other little gems, he says: “This is where I think the psychedelics come in because they are anticipati…

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254-McKenna: "Psilocybin and the Sands of Time"

Today’s talk is part of a Terence McKenna workshop held at Esalen Institute in California sometime in December of 1982. And while his talk is primarily a call to those interested in exploring psychedelic realms, he also has this to say: “I think [takin…

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250-McKenna: "The Magic of Plants (Rites of Spring)" Part 3

Today we pick up with Terence McKenna in the middle of his “good shit” story, but we are then rewarded with his telling of the origin of the fable of the good shit, that it first originated in Java. From there the topics were determined by questions fr…

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249-McKenna: "The Magic of Plants (Rites of Spring)" Part 2

In this second installment of a 1986 workshop at the Ojai Foundation in California, Terence McKenna and Kat Harrison continue expanding on their views of the world from a psychedelic perspective. As usual, Terence waxes eloquent on thoughts such as, “T…

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248-McKenna: "The Magic of Plants (Rites of Spring)" Part 1

This 1986 talk given by Terence McKenna at the Ojai Foundation in California features one of his greatest feats of poetic fancy as he describes his vision of a parallel Earth that bypassed Christianity and in which the ancient Greek alchemists joined w…

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233-Leary and Ram Das: "1983 Harvard Reunion"

The talk I’ve picked for today is from April 23, 1983, and it was given at Harvard University on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Timothy Leary and Ram Das, then Richard Alpert, being kicked out of Harvard. There are a lot of little gems here, b…

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227-Shulgin-Watts: "Sasha at MIT plus Alan Watts"

In today’s podcast we hear from two psychedelic luminaries, Sasha Shulgin and Alan Watts. The Shulgin talk is one that he gave at MIT on December 1, 2005 and can also be found in video format on the MIT Web site. The date and location of the Alan Watts…

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226-McKenna: "Hermeticism and Alchemy" Part 4

In this final installment of Terence McKenna’s 1992 workshop titled “Hermeticism and Alchemy” he points out that “History itself is a kind of alchemical process,” and then goes into a political rant unlike any I’ve heard him give before. Two of my favo…

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217-McKenna: "Under the Teaching Tree" Part 3

Among other stories, Terence tells of his UFO encounter in the Amazon in great detail … one of his best tellings of this experience. He then goes on in an almost ambivalent way about his feelings about crop circles. Before long, though, he gets back …

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206-McKenna: "Appreciating Imagination" Part 6

In this final installment of a 1997 Terence McKenna workshop about Appreciating Imagination, he comes up with quite a few interesting thoughts, such as: “I think that in service to the principle of parsimony, preferring the simplest explanation, these …

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190-McKenna: "The Ethnobotany of Shamanism" Part 4

This week we pick up with Terence fielding questions about the visions he sees on various substances and where he thinks they come from.

One of his more controversial comments this week may be: “The psychedelic experience is the beginning of the spiri…

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189-McKenna: "The Ethnobotany of Shamanism" Part 3

We continue with a Terence McKenna workshop recorded on the first weekend of November in 1988. The workshop was conducted at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. One of the more interesting segments of this talk is that it is …

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179-Leary: "Timothy Leary at Cornell – 1989"

This talk was given on April 23, 1989 by Dr. Timothy Leary at Cornell University. Among the other provocative things Dr. Leary has to say about religion (along many other topics) is: “No matter how crazy, fucked-up an individual can be, he can’t be as …

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175-Leary: "The Intelligent Use of Psychedelic Drugs"

Today we hear once again from Dr. Timothy Leary. This lecture was given in 1982 and covers a wide range of material, including an interesting overview of the use of psychedelics throughout history. Along with other provocative thoughts, he says, “We re…

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173-Shulgin: "How I Go About Inventing New Drugs"

This week’s program features a lecture by the master chemist, Sasha Shulgin. This talk was given at the Psychoactivity Conference in Amsterdam on 4 October 1998. In it, Sasha explains in detail how he goes about conceiving of and then creating complete…

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