And in these inquiries into the mystery of death
The ancient Egyptians weren't just exercising their imaginations
They highly valued the dream states and it's now known that they used visionary plants like the hallucinogenic blue water lily
The ancient Egyptian Tree of Life has recently been identified as the Acacia nilotica
Which contains high quantities of DMT the same active ingredient that we find in ayahuasca
Now it's difficult to imagine a society more different from the society of ancient Egypt than our society today
We hate visionary states in this society, in our society, if we want to insult somebody
We call them a dreamer
In ancient societies that was praise
[Chorus]
In our society, if we want to insult somebody
We call them a dreamer, (we call them a dreamer, we call them a dreamer)
In our society, if we want to insult somebody
We call them a dreamer, (we call them a dreamer, we call them a dreamer)
In ancient societies that was praise
The ancient Egyptians weren't just exercising their imaginations
They highly valued the dream states and it's now known that they used visionary plants like the hallucinogenic blue water lily
The ancient Egyptian Tree of Life has recently been identified as the Acacia nilotica
Which contains high quantities of DMT the same active ingredient that we find in ayahuasca
Now it's difficult to imagine a society more different from the society of ancient Egypt than our society today
We hate visionary states in this society, in our society, if we want to insult somebody
We call them a dreamer
In ancient societies that was praise
[Chorus]
In our society, if we want to insult somebody
We call them a dreamer, (we call them a dreamer, we call them a dreamer)
In our society, if we want to insult somebody
We call them a dreamer, (we call them a dreamer, we call them a dreamer)
In ancient societies that was praise
And this whole transformation was made possible by this encounter with death
That mother ayahuasca gave me
That leads me to ask what is death?
In our materialist science reduces everything to matter and materialist science in the West says that we are just meat, we are just our bodies
So when the brain is dead that is the end of consciousness there is no life after death, there is no soul we just rot and our gone
But actually many honest scientists should admit that consciousness is the greatest mystery of science
That we don't know exactly how it works
The brains involved in it in some way but we are not sure how
It could be that the brain generates consciousness the way a generator makes electricity, if you hold to that paradigm then of course you can't believe in life after death
That mother ayahuasca gave me
That leads me to ask what is death?
In our materialist science reduces everything to matter and materialist science in the West says that we are just meat, we are just our bodies
So when the brain is dead that is the end of consciousness there is no life after death, there is no soul we just rot and our gone
But actually many honest scientists should admit that consciousness is the greatest mystery of science
That we don't know exactly how it works
The brains involved in it in some way but we are not sure how
It could be that the brain generates consciousness the way a generator makes electricity, if you hold to that paradigm then of course you can't believe in life after death
Now I have some personal experience of this
Not been addicted to heroine or cocaine
But I had a 24-year non-stop cannabis habit
This started off by smoking the herb and naturally vaporizing it but the basic truth is that
[Chorus]
For 24 years I was pretty much permanently stoned
(Permanently stoned)
(Permanently stoned)
And I enjoyed being stoned
(Enjoyed being stoned)
(Enjoyed being stoned)
And I felt that it helped me
With my work as a writer
Perhaps at some point it did but when I first encountered ayahuasca I'd already been smoking cannabis for 16 years
And almost immediately ayahuasca started giving me messages that this was no longer serving me
That it was leading me to behave in negative and unhelpful ways towards others
And of course I ignored those messages for years and years
And went back to being stoned 16 hours a day
Not been addicted to heroine or cocaine
But I had a 24-year non-stop cannabis habit
This started off by smoking the herb and naturally vaporizing it but the basic truth is that
[Chorus]
For 24 years I was pretty much permanently stoned
(Permanently stoned)
(Permanently stoned)
And I enjoyed being stoned
(Enjoyed being stoned)
(Enjoyed being stoned)
And I felt that it helped me
With my work as a writer
Perhaps at some point it did but when I first encountered ayahuasca I'd already been smoking cannabis for 16 years
And almost immediately ayahuasca started giving me messages that this was no longer serving me
That it was leading me to behave in negative and unhelpful ways towards others
And of course I ignored those messages for years and years
And went back to being stoned 16 hours a day
But what draws people to ayahuasca again and again
To brace themselves for this experience
And you do have to brace yourself
Is it's extraordinary effect at the level of consciousness
And one of those effects has to do with creativity
And we can see the creative cosmogenic impulse of ayahuasca in the paintings of ayahuasca shamans
As these paintings show another universal experience of ayahuasca
The encounter with seemingly intelligent entities which communicate with us telepathically
I'm making no claim one way or another as to the reality state of these entities we encounter
Simply that phenomenologically in the ayahuasca experience they are encountered by people all over the world and most frequently of all
The spirit of ayahuasca herself
To brace themselves for this experience
And you do have to brace yourself
Is it's extraordinary effect at the level of consciousness
And one of those effects has to do with creativity
And we can see the creative cosmogenic impulse of ayahuasca in the paintings of ayahuasca shamans
As these paintings show another universal experience of ayahuasca
The encounter with seemingly intelligent entities which communicate with us telepathically
I'm making no claim one way or another as to the reality state of these entities we encounter
Simply that phenomenologically in the ayahuasca experience they are encountered by people all over the world and most frequently of all
The spirit of ayahuasca herself
When I got interested in this mystery I went down to the Amazon where there are still surviving shamanistic cultures today
And where they drink the powerful visionary brew
[Chorus]
Ayahuasca
This is the one
Ayahuasca
We're not doing this for fun
Ayahuasca
This is the one
Ayahuasca
We're not doing this for fun
And where they drink the powerful visionary brew
[Chorus]
Ayahuasca
This is the one
Ayahuasca
We're not doing this for fun
Ayahuasca
This is the one
Ayahuasca
We're not doing this for fun