I’ll admit it, I love making fun of hippies. 20 years of living in Madison, Wisconsin (where the Vietnam War never ended, at least the protest part of it) and performing alongside jam bands has jaded me to the culture. Free love and the daily “wake and bake” never seemed to me as much of a spiritual path as it does just another way to get your rocks off. I was disgusted at its patchouli-scented barefoot disguise as spirituality. That’s just another form of control and exploitation, it’s just “gurus” like Charles Manson or David Koresh or NXVIUM’s Keith Raniere looking for easy action and a good time. Don’t get me wrong, I love a party more than the next guy, but I’m not pretending it’s a sacred rite.

However, underneath that susceptibility to hedonism and exploitation is a spiritual quest and open-mindedness that is exactly what I respect and love about the Hippie Movement. While fringe jackets are still pretty silly, the willingness to wear them is not. “Let your freak flag fly” is a call to individuality and self-empowerment, not just group-identification and walking in lock-step with your tribe.

Hippies were hungry for something greater than themselves. They didn’t try to deny that essential aspect of humanity, they embraced it. And since they felt let down by the post-war industrial culture and traditional religions, they went out looking for it on an unprecedently widespread level. No one represents that more than Richard Alpert in his evolution to Ram Dass, tripping his way literally and figuratively, through acid, magic mushrooms, Mexico, and India, from secular Jewish psychologist to meditating New Age spiritual teacher.

The evolution of Richard Alpert to Ram Dass, Harvard psychologist to New Age guru

Richard Alpert was born in 1931 in Newton, Massachussetts. He got his doctorate in Psychology in 1957 from Stanford University and then accepted a position at Harvard in 1958. That’s where he met Timothy Leary and they began exploring the world of psychedelics in their Harvard Psilocybin Project. Through doing experiments on the therapetuic uses of magic mushrooms and LSD, they discovered spiritual experiences, paranormal phenomena, and long-lasting changes in mental health from frequent usage.

Although LSD was legal at the time (it wouldn’t be criminalized until 1970) Alpert and Leary were eventually kicked out of Harvard for giving psychedelics to undergraduates, which the university had forbade them to do. Dr. Andrew Weil, himself an eventual PBS New Age guru mainstay, was an undergraduate at Harvard at the time and when he asked them for psychedelics and they declined, he ratted them out because he knew that they had provided for others.

Leary and Alpert moved to California and created a community out there to continue their research, but Alpert and Leary had a falling out and still spiritually disillusioned even after taking so many psychedelic drugs, he went to India on a quest to discover himself. That’s where he met Neem Karoli Baba, also known as Maharaj-ji , a guru who changed his life forever. When Alpert returned to the West, he had changed his name to Ram Dass (which means Servant of God) and released his best known book, the quasi-graphical autobiography and meditation guide, Be Here Now.

He continued to be a popular lecturer through the 70s and 80s and after suffering a stroke in 1996, Ram Dass re-learned to speak and continued teaching spirituality and preaching unconditional love all the way up until his death on December 22nd, 2019.

And while it could be argued that Ram Dass was a wealthy Westerner who took Eastern spirituality and co-opted it (Richard Aloert did own a freakin’ plane!), who else could have brought it to the Western audience like he could? Richard Alpert was an incredibly successful psychotherapist and researcher, he was well-versed in the Bible as well as the Bhagavad Gita as well as Madame Blavatsky. His gift was his synthesis of the major religions and his ability to delight audiences with self-deprecating and sometimes painfully honest stories. While he might have appropriated some Eastern mysticism, he was able to communicate its powerful message to an audience hungry for it, because he was once exactly like them.

I mean, two of my favorite TV shows of the 2000s had characters who were at least inspired by Richard Alpert. Walter Bishop was the lovable acid-gobbling scientist from Fringe who would use psychedelics in his experiments (just watch the “Brown Betty” for TV’s first hour-long acid trip.) Nestor Carbonell played an ageless character named Richard Alpert on LOST , a show that never shied away from its philosophical underpinnings, even when they choked in the last season. After all they had a tabula rasa character who reinvented himself after the plane crash who was named John Locke, so you don’t really get any more unsubtle than that.

ou know you’ve made it when they named a LOST character after you

In this episode, we discuss the impact, both positive and negative, that Ram Dass had on the New Age movement and modern spirituality, but we also talk about the strange paranormal experiences that occured to him on his journey like:

• The psychic mind-reading that led him to follow Neem Karoli Baba in the first place, the Hindu guru who would change Richard Alpert’s name to Ram Dass
• Some of Richard Alpert’s psychic experiences while tripping on psychedelics
• The time J.B. Rhine, founder of the Duke Parapsychology lab, Timothy Leary, and Ram Dass decided to study LSD’s affects on ESP
• What does “Tune in, Turn on, and Drop out” really mean?
• Psychedelic hedonism vs. the tradition use of chemicals to aid spirituality
• The “Good Friday Experiment” where they took 20 Harvard Divinity students and attempted to induce a spiritual experience in them
• Ram Dass’ channeling friend, Emmanuel, who told him that “dying was absolutely safe”
• What are some of the siddhis? What are the powers that manifest themselves through enlightenment and meditation ?

Welcome to See You on the Other Mike, where the world of

the mysterious collides with the world of entertainment.

A discussion of art, music, movies, spirituality,

the weird and self discovery. And

now, your hosts, musicians and entertainers

who have their own weakness for the weird, Mike and

Wendy from the band Sunspot. Episode

279, Ram Dass,

psychedelics, and the mystical world

of Richard Alpert. How are you guys doing today?

We got Alison from Milwaukee Ghosts and, of course, Wendy.

Hey. I'm glad to be here. Happy New Year.

Doing great. Oh, nice. 2020, yo. Yeah. Yeah. It's our first weird

discussion. Unbelievable. I remember when I thought

2000 or 1999 would be something. No. It's

2020. What happened? When we're talking about,

we're talking about the topic this week, I was thinking of I was thinking about

that specific kind of thing in the passage of time. So today, we're

talking about the psychedelic explorer

and new age philosopher guru,

Ram Dass, who his birth name was Richard Alpert,

born in 9 1931 to a Jewish family in Massachusetts,

and, he eventually became very famous, for a couple of

things. Number 1, he was part of the LSD

research at Harvard in the early 19 sixties. And then

he wrote a book called Be Here Now in the 19 seventies where

he, synthesized, Indian

and Buddhist spirituality, along with

Christianity, Judaism, taking a little bit of the gospels and the

scriptures and all that kind of stuff in the Old Testament, mashing it all together

into Mike a Unitarian kind of

new age mysticism slash spirituality.

It's a big god smoothie. Just say it. It is a big

it's a big god smoothie. I hope you

have your glass straws, everyone, because we've got a big a big god

smoothie for you. Well and so, you know, he died he

died December 22nd, age 88. He had lived the

past, like, 30 years in Maui, Hawaii.

And so, got to enjoy some at least he got to enjoy paradise

for a good good portion of that life. That's a Yeah. Very good portion of

your life. Yeah. It's easy to be a Buddhist when you're staring

at the beautiful mountains

or the beaches of Maui. But also, though,

is it easy to be a Buddhist when half your body is paralyzed

and you can hardly speak as what happened to him after a stroke in

1997? So the good also comes with the

bad. Very deep, Mike. Well, I

just mean the reason the reason I was thinking about time passing though

is because so from, you know, 19,

in the 19 sixties Wendy they they were doing this

LSD research at Harvard, So we just go

back and real quick. So he, you know, he was a

psychotherapist who was also taking psychotherapy himself, and

he was always someone who felt that his traditional

religion, because he was raised, I mean, fairly secular Jewish,

he didn't feel fulfilled by the spirituality, that he

was getting, and so he thought, well, maybe I'll learn more in

psychotherapy. He talks about this in his book, Be Here Now.

And so in the middle, he would take he was taking psychotherapy, so he

was, you know, not only was he,

you know, a member of the psychotherapy club for men, you

know, he also was a psychotherapist himself. And

so he start he was really unfulfilled by those things. And he

said that when they started taking LSD and

psilocybin, in magic mushrooms,

that he started to have these spiritual experiences that

he'd been craving all of his life. Yeah. And, I

mean, we are really seeing a psychedelic rez

renaissance right now. So,

I mean, in the fifties and then

little bit later before the war on drugs was

announced, there was, you know, tremendous research

into psychedelics for psychiatric use

and huge breakthroughs were achieved.

But, then, something happened that shut it all down and we'll have to talk

about that a little bit later. But, thankfully, now,

things seem to be, opening up again

and we can look at these

substances with, a clearer view

and and see that, you know, they are something

that can really help us at this time when

when we really need to reconnect with the planet. Well, yeah.

The thing is I really hippies,

man, like, they've got a lot of good ideas, but the

fashion and the music just never got

me. You know? Oh, man. Because the thing is, I get

it. You're all high, and a guitar solo goes on for 20 minutes, but the

guy's just noodling on a pentatonic scale. It's not even that

interest I guess in a med it's a meditative way. 20 minutes of

Jerry Garcia farting out a guitar solo.

But the thing is is that what I really like about the

hippies is that they were searching for a spiritual

experience. And, you know, and and you think about that generation,

they were looking for something deeper. They didn't deny spirituality.

They said that they wanted to have a deeper relationship with it.

And when I think about the time between 1969

and 1989 and the beginning of the new age

movement, but you also have books like Be Here Now that affected a lot of

people, and you had psychedelic

explorers and people who were interested in learning more

about, the human relationship with the divine, you

know, there was a Mike a golden age of it. And then when

you think about 1999 to 2019,

have we had a golden age or just a bunch of Silicon Valley people that

like to get a little extra high and can afford to go to South

America and do their little trip site. Ayahuasca party.

And I mean that's that's the kind of thing, you

know, that needs further discussion. But, you know, I

think I think, you know, the the hippie

gurus, I mean, they were doing it too. You know, Ram Dass

or Richard Alpert himself, I mean, he

was he was able to go to India to have his,

you know, spiritual experience. I mean, who can afford the

plane tickets back and forth, you know, not to mention

weeks weeks where you don't have a job. You're just,

you're just, like, hanging around trying to find yourself

and reach yourself. He was a Harvard professor. You assume that he did was able

to save some money, and a psychotherapist is expensive. Now it's expensive

then. Right. So I mean but the thing is the stuff that those guys

did that, Richard Alba and Timothy Leary did, some of

their research was very interesting. In fact,

they once tried to do research with JB Rhine

himself. The, the man behind,

well, him and his wife were behind the Mike

Rhine Laboratory on ESP and paranormal

research. And so, JB Rhine Wendy

to Harvard from North Carolina, where Duke

is, so he goes up to Boston to try to do some ESP

research with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert.

And so they all take some LSD for a couple of days,

and they start, you know, they think they're gonna have the serious ESP research,

but then none of the results are usable because they couldn't

stop laughing the whole time. That's embarrassing.

So yeah. You know? So the whole thing is

yeah. Because the thing is there was this group of people. So Aldous Huxley

is in there. He's, you know, he's 1 of the founders.

Aldous Huxley, he's the guy that wrote Brave New World. And The Doors

of Perception? Yeah. And and the band The Doors is

named after Aldous Huxley's book, The Doors of Perception. I mean,

LSD is the drugs in sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

And, you know, that's what they're talking about, is that

this mind expansion that comes from what

happens with a psychedelic. And so when they had this

Harvard psilocybin project, and funny thing is, when they first go out to

try to, you know, discover the source of psilocybin, because they'd

already LSD we think we talked about this in an earlier episode.

LSD is synthesized in the 19 thirties by

Albert Hoffman, on accident almost.

And so then, you know, if they're looking for a natural like, where

does this stuff kinda come from naturally? And they hear about magic

mushrooms in Mexico. And so now here's the thing

where you can say that Richard Albert was was a rich guy, was a rich

privileged man. He did have his own plane.

What? So he was a pilot and he had his own Cessna. He had

a Cessna? Yeah. Oh my god. And

so his I mean, his father was the, like, the president of the New Haven

Railroad. So it's not like he did I mean, he grew up in a in

a a well-to-do family, and so he did have

this. But I don't think that makes his message,

any less potent, just because he had his own

plane. Well, I'm not saying that. I mean, his his

message was appropriated from others,

and I think that, you can get

the the message from him or

many other people and, you know, where should you spend your

money? Maybe not on a book that he wrote because

he's got enough money. So that message is powerful,

but, I think there's other gurus out there that,

that, you know, definitely deserve your money more. See, I

completely disagree because I tried to listen to other gurus talk, and they're not

as interesting. His stories he was a good storyteller. His lectures

are interesting. So what connects with me? Like, okay. Have you

ever read the Eckhart Tolle book? What's Yes. Wendy, what's the big

Eckhart Tolle book? Something in the now. Wait. The Power

of It's not it's just it's like be here now. The Power

of Now. Is it the Power of Now? Yeah. I mean, Eckhart Tolle,

obviously, his writing's pretty good, but you hear him talk.

It's The Power of Now. It's the Eckhart Tolle book. And you hear Eckhart Tolle

talk, and it's like listening to you. It's like it's like you think that

Sounds like a muppet. I have an 8 hour, like, lecture

from Eckhart Tolle that I I made it about halfway through, and

I'm like, that's it. I can't take this guy seriously.

Yeah. And I think that's that's the thing is, like, you have to be

what works for Richard Alpert, I think, was that

he was a great medium for this message because

he could impart it to the hippies in the

19 seventies in a way that maybe somebody who is not

familiar somebody who is not familiar with the American audience

could. Yeah. I mean, he did serve as a bridge, you know,

between that culture and our own. I mean, it might have been a

problematic bridge, but, you know, I can agree that, you know, certainly,

he reached out to another culture and he was able

to deliver the goods, that they have to

give. And if you read Be Here Now, I think you see that

he he like, he he there's the Buddha and

then there's, something from the gospel

and then there's something from, Madame Blavatsky.

So, you know, you have all of these things kinda brought together in

a way that, is synthesized in a in a new

direction. And so that's where I think that, spiritually,

he could be the most interesting because when you read the book, he's quoting

Jesus and then he quotes the Buddha, and then he jumps to somebody else, and

then he jumps to somebody else in a way that, I think a Western

audience can now feel like, okay. I get this story

now because you compared it to something I had in Sunday school.

Yeah. And I mean, I think that No question. That's

important. And he anyway. But we'll get there because I

wanna talk more about the Harvard psilocybin project because it makes me wish I went

to school between 1960 1962 and

had these cool professors.

So the thing is Wendy they're go Mike, so Richard Alpert, wants

to take his plane that he's gonna fly himself. And in

in his book, he talks about it. Like, he, like, he didn't know how to

fly that well yet, but Timothy Leary's like, we're gonna go down to Mexico in

a few months, and we're gonna find this psilocybin with this other guy, Greg

Wasson. Oh, Gordon Wasson. Gordon Wasson. Yeah. So Gordon

Wasson did write,

a whole, article for, I believe it

was Mike Magazine, which was

was really, you know, life changing for many, but he wrote it about

magic mushrooms. And, unfortunately though,

the people that he he was with in, Mexico,

they really, really regretted

turning him on to the mushrooms and they thought that

that he he actually effectively, you

know, killed the power of the mushrooms.

So I know we were talking off air. I was talking with Wendy about,

Ram Dassan, how, he went to India and then

he appropriates all this knowledge. And what did what

did, the people in India say to him Oh. When they told

him to see this? He went there and they they said, you know, this is

secret sacred knowledge. Don't share it with anybody, you know.

And then he came back and shared it with everybody. But

his his rationale was that he just Right. He felt that it it

was his knowledge now and he had to share it. And that was what

he, as an individual Right. Absolutely. Felt was his just,

you know, his soul was urging him to do. So But also,

like, some of these things are they don't like,

you don't own knowledge. You don't own spirituality. You

can't copyright it. No. You can't. But, I mean

Is there Well, I agree. Like, he may have like, if

he made a promise, then he betrayed it. But at the same time, the idea

that the people in America should not be exposed to psilocybin,

and maybe to its life changing healing

effects or let's call it psilocybin instead of magic

mushrooms because every time we say that, I just feel like we sound like we're

taught like drug dealers. And that's and that's my whole problem with the hippies is

that it's, like, it's awesome when you're looking for a spiritual experience,

but so much of it, kind of boiled

over into hedonism, which I'm you know, there's nothing

wrong with that, I guess. But when you go into and I

think Ram Dass and Richard Alpert was as much of

a perpetrator that as anybody in the in the

hedonism aspect of it because he was just like, well, we got high.

And when we got high, we wanted to stay high Yeah. Right. All the

time. And, you know, it just when you say you're looking for a religious

experience, but at this you know, but you're done. You're just partying, I

guess, or whatever. It kinda takes away some of the, like, is

it really a spiritual experience, or are you just someone who wants to feel high

all the time? Yeah. There's a difference.

And right. And so, you know, you think,

like, well, maybe they wanted to do a little bit of both.

But they, you know, they were studying, and I had never heard this

particular term before,

entheogenic substances. Oh, yes.

Entheogens. And so, I mean, that makes sense because theo, you

know, theism, God,

and entheogenic substances are substances you take

in order to have a spiritual experience, and that's

gonna be peyote or ayahuasca

or LSD man.

So, okay. Let's get back to your story because I wanna hear about the the

plane trip to Mexico. I just wanted to,

insert this here that, so Gordon Wasson,

he's the 1 who originally, went down to

Mexico to, you know, discover the psilocybin

mushrooms. Discover. There's that word again.

To appropriate, magic mushrooms from, you

know, that that shamanic culture there. And,

so and I know about it because, of a

Milwaukee connection. We have, we

have the Milwaukee Public Library here or I'm sorry. The

library is haunted too, but the Milwaukee Public Museum is the 1 I meant

I need to mention right now, and it

its, director, former director haunts

it, and his name is Stefan Borhage, and he

was very into mushrooms as well. And he

actually, was a was a

he was, in contact with Gordon Wasson.

They shared lots of research. And, in the Gordon Wasson

archive, there's lots of of letters, like, hundreds of letters

between, Borje Yee and Gordon Wasson,

about this mushroom research. So, I'm definitely

gonna want to delve into that soon. But, so Gordon Wasson

went down there and, he met this this

Mexican shaman named, Maria Sabina and

she shared with him their sacred rituals of the mushroom.

But, then he would write this big expose in

Life Magazine, and then people from America and all

over wouldn't stop, coming to

Mexico and to discover the mushroom and, you

know, that it just became too much. And she actually said,

before Wason, nobody took the children, that's what she calls the

mushrooms, simply to find God. They were always

taken to cure the sick. And she felt that

that with what they were doing, they were actually, killing

the children and they they weren't be they weren't being used in the

way, that they were intended. Poor little

mushroomy children. Sure. Yeah. Poor

little mushroomy children. I mean, it's it the thing is that chick's high too.

Wow. You know what I mean? Like, let's talk about it. All these

people are high, and they're talking, and they're taking shrooms.

And some people are gonna be, special about it

or, you know, they're gonna be protective of it, and other people, you know, like,

this experience should go to others. But, also, we are dealing

with everybody taking drugs.

And speaking of, somebody that went on that plane with

Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary was Arthur

Kessler, the author, who was,

he's the guy that he died, and he left all the royalties and all of

his fortune to the Kessler parapsychology

unit in Edinburgh, Scotland. So, like, the

last place you can be, you know, you can get Mike a

degree in parapsychology in the world left

because the damn atheists have made it so we can't have

parapsychology degrees at regular universities,

That's Arthur Kessler, and shrooms did

not do well by him. Yeah. While

while Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert were were

tripping holy balls. Okay.

Arthur Kessler just got sick. Aw. So

the poor guy, didn't even get to

have a good trip, man. Yeah. And and the thing is,

I mean, that's that's that's

a monumental thing that came out of it. You know, the chair

over at Edinburgh University, that's that's where you can become the last

Jedi. I mean, that's the way I look at it, you know,

that that that's the place where you go to receive the sacred

knowledge. I mean, I'm opening up here and telling,

you know, like, my deepest feelings about it and kinda

making fun of it at the same time. But III

do think that, you know, that was, you know, something huge that, you

know, maybe came out of some of these experiences. And there's

good and bad that came out of it, of course. And,

interestingly, you know, his experience of just getting sick on

the mushrooms maybe speaks to his mental state because

he he was, he really suffered,

mightily and terribly, from depression. And it's

interesting now, you know, like Maria Sabina said that

the children were taken to cure the sick, and now we seem

to be getting back to that in, in our modern age. So

I'm hoping that things will turn around and

the way these mushrooms, help turn us around,

is by maybe curing our our modern

epidemic of depression. Well, you know, and I and this is

this is gonna sound a little

weird, but I do think that part of our modern epidemic

of mental illness is the gap between

that between maybe how people used to have more spirituality in

their lives, and now it's replaced

by what? Video games? I mean, I don't what do you

worship now? Or not even worship, but how do you feel close to

nature or close to the planet or close that that was a good

thing, but that's mean that hippies had some really good ideas. They just couldn't play

guitar.

And, and tie dye, it just I don't know, man. Wait.

Wait a second. You'll fight me you'll fight me to death on now. I know.

I wear tie dye Mike You're probably wearing a day. You're wearing a tie dye

shirt right now. I I cannot, but I was wearing 1

earlier. I I wear 1 every day when I teach

in China over the Internet. But, anyway, I gotta

say that oh, what did I have to say? I had

to say something. Oh, Jimi Hendrix. Jimi

Hendrix. Now that man could play guitar. You

know, I don't okay. You're right. I just I guess I don't think I'm as

much of a hippie. Oh my god. He was at Woodstock. Ever see those

pants he wore? But He was a hippie, so there's your exception. You're

okay. You know what? I'm gonna take that back. I just keep thinking of jam

bands. It's my that is my bad. Right. That and I could be poisoned

by hundreds of gigs that Wendy have I Wendy and I have been

jam bands appropriated music from the sixties,

and now they use it horribly, inflicting it all on us

at shows. So the thing is, though, the

idea that having a like, using this as a shortcut to a

spiritual experience may not be the healthiest thing in the world, but it

also showed Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, that

and Aldous Huxley particularly, that these things that, you

know, that spiritual experiences were real, where in the past

you might have had to meditate forever, do

the rosary for hours on end kind of thing, to have that

religious kind of ecstasy, this was a way to

shortcut yourself to it. And I think it showed them that these

things were possible. And so they had this thing, Good Friday

Experiments. Good Friday 1960 At the Marsh Chapel. I love that

experiment. Yeah. And so, a graduate student in

theology at Harvard Divinity School, he designs

the experiment. Walter Mankie. Right? Yeah. And he wants to

see whether psilocybin would act as an,

entheogen in religiously predisposed subjects.

So can if you are can you have a, you know, a

religious experience while you're, you know, on psilocybin,

if you're a Christian or something like that. So he gets

20 graduate degree divinity student volunteers from Boston. He

gets them in 2 groups, double blind. Half the students receive psilocybin,

while the other half received

niacin. So imagine getting the

niacin. You're Mike, oh, man. Niacin. That's like eating that's like

eating total for breakfast. That's your part of the experiment.

You might get a little hot. That's about it. Right. So,

but the thing is it was an active placebo. So niacin

produces some physiological changes, so it's an active placebo.

But you like you said, getting a little hot. Mhmm. So that's what happens when

they took this niacin. So then you might feel flush or something. So

almost all the members of the experimental group reported experiencing profound

religious experiences providing the empirical support that psychedelic drugs

can facilitate those. Yeah. And let me just interject. I read something

about it recently and now because it

was written by the guy who, you know, wasn't sure at

the time, you know, that he wanted to commit to the, yes,

this was a meaningful, this

was, you know, a meaningful, experience with God. You

know, he didn't didn't want to, admit that wholeheartedly,

for whatever reason, but he's since come, you know, so

many years later and written about it and said, yes.

You know? So now everybody who took the psilocybin,

has had lasting changes from that 1

experience with psilocybin. So I mean, that's,

you know, what makes you think that these things are powerful and that their

research, you know, could show us something about may mean

that people are interested in having these kinds of experiences whether they're

through chemical substances or not. But, you know, so

what's happening in Harvard? And then Richard Alpert in his book, in Be

Here Now, I mean, he goes and says that

you know, he talks about, like, talking to 1 of his friends that,

like, disappears off a couch when he's on LSD.

He talks about taking LSD for, like, 3 weeks. It's him and,

like, 2 other people in a house, and he goes, the stuff

that happened there, you wouldn't believe. I wouldn't. He's

like, I don't believe it. And it you know, he says that under

LSD, people were able to read his mind. He was able to read

other people's Mike. That, people were

able to control his mind. I mean, that's also a sign

of schizophrenia,

which obviously we don't know necessarily how psychedelics can

contribute to that. We know marijuana contributes to it in if you're predisposed.

But do psychedelic substances Mike LSD or psilocybin have the same

effect? There's not enough research done on it yet.

But he talks about the different psychic abilities that get unlocked

when these guys experience ego death, which is the big

thing about these psychedelic substances. It's not

just that you're feeling mellow or whatever.

It's that you feel the dissolution of the

self, that you are no longer, I'm no

longer Mike. You're no longer Allison, you're no longer Wendy,

that we're all 1 consciousness

man, and that, you know, we

can communicate to each other without the physical restraints

that the ego puts on us. That's right. And it's

it's now been called the default mode network. And this this is a

reason too that it's been used, to help people with

depression, for example, because it

it stops that tyranny of the ego

of the default mode network unless you get into the

nitty gritty of what's gone wrong. And so but the thing

is I mean, this idea of the, mind control

thing. I mean, the CIA we've talked about this before in their MK

Ultra experiments. The CIA thought that LSD

Right. Could be a wonderful brainwashing tool in order to be

able to get people to do what they wanted. And there's

Shane Moss, who has a great

podcast and is a I would say he's

a psychedelic, he's a psychedelic comedian.

He says, you know, that What does that mean? He just gets high and tells

jokes? Pretty much. He's just laughing at his own jokes? Pretty much.

Well, he It's easy. He gets high and then tells jokes about

it. In in in fact, he's got a his own documentary

on Amazon right now. But, anyway, my point is

that, he said in his 1 of his comedy bits,

he talked about he's Mike, so, you know, everybody is

using these drugs to get closer to God, and then the

US then the US, it gets to the US and and we say, how

can we weaponize it? Right. But can we

kill people with it? So, you know you know, the idea

though is that it backfired. It really backfired

on them. Well, right. So the MKO, like, they weren't able

to use it for anything, you know, useful or anything.

But, there was a group called the, I

think it was called the Human Ecology Foundation. Yeah. I'm sorry.

The Human Ecology Fund. And they were a CIA

front organization that was sponsoring

some para parapsychological studies at Oxford

in the late 19 fifties, where,

they were, you know, using LSD or whatever for psychic experiments.

And, you know, then also,

they were, you know, interested in what,

these guys were doing at Harvard. And so they actually

were in communication with, Arthur Kessler,

and and that they were kinda using trying to use him

to get into the Harvard psilocybin experiment

and everything. So I thought that was interesting that it didn't even kinda like, the

CIA also was they're they're Mike, hey. You guys are

studying this. Great. Now, you know, can we how can we get your

research? How can we direct your research in the way

of controlling minds to fight the the

red menace? Yeah. But it's

interesting how they wanted to use it to control people, but

it it like I said, it went entirely the other

way. And, you know, maybe that's part of what

resulted in the war on drugs. Oh, no.

You know, you can't, control people as

easily if if they've experienced

psychedelics. But, you know, you know, the 1

thing that, like, Terrence McKenna got wrong,

is, I think it was Terrence McKenna. But,

it it was, you know, you're gonna take this and, you know, you

can't get people to, fight your wars or you

can't get people to, be part of your corporations.

But we know that Silicon Valley has,

has embraced, the power of psychedelics. So,

you know, that part, kinda go didn't go the way that the gurus thought

it would. Right. And well, but the thing is is that

it's not like, you know, once they ended the Harvard psilocybin

experiment, which eventually got ended by,

the the diet guru, Andrew Weil Yes. You know, the

holistic medicine guy. Yes. He's on, like, PBS, like, all the

time, you know, with his lectures

and everybody acts Mike you know, he is a huge guru,

but he wasn't so nice back then, was he? He's

a rat. Well, everything okay. So it's not like Richard Alpert. I mean,

he was already giving LSD to people he shouldn't have. He

was already having sex with students and things like that. So we're not talking about

this guy's not a mister innocence. He's not a saint.

So that's the thing. I mean, he didn't do some valuable things. He's just not

a saint. And he was giving he was giving

psilocybin to undergraduates. That was the whole

problem. There was a policy at Harvard where

you can't do that. You can give it to graduate students, but not undergraduates.

And Right. If, if there

were, if you were attractive enough, you could

get, psilocybin from,

from Richard Alpert, but Andrew could

not. Ram Ram Dass. And they were like, no,

dude. Sorry. We can't give it to undergraduates.

Ram Dass followed his magic mushroom around. Oh, man.

And he did. But so then eventually so Andrew Weil is

the guy that turns him in and says, look. They're giving LSC the

undergraduates, and then Harvard shuts everything down. And so then

Alpert and Timothy Leary go out to California for a while where they try

to, keep some of the studies going, And, you

know, Timothy Leary eventually, develops that tune in

or turn on, tune in, drop out phrase in 1966.

And so funny enough, he says that the person that made up

the phrase was Marshall McLuhan, the guy that gave us the medium

is the message Wow. Phrase. And,

so Marshall was just, Mike, he was really into

marketing, because he was a media study kinda

guy. And he starts singing, like, a little song going, psychedelics

hit the spot. 500 micrograms, that's a lot, to the tune of a Pepsi

commercial. And then he goes, tune in, turn on, and

drop out kinda thing. So Timothy Leary took that

as in turn on means to, go within to

activate your neural and genetic equipment. Tune in

means to interact harmoniously with the world around you, and

drop out means to detach yourself from your

unconscious commitments. And so,

drop out means like self reliance and discovery of your own

power. Right. And disconnecting you from governmental

power. And and the thing is is that,

people Timothy Leary even said this in his autobiography. He said, unhappily,

my exclamations of the sequence of personal development are often misinterpreted

to mean get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.

And because the thing is, it's not like these guys were like, we all know

druggies and stoners, and some of

them may be spiritual explorers, and the

others are definitely not spiritual explorers. But when

we're talking about Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, like, no matter what we think of

all of their ethical decisions and what they did, They were definitely pushing the

boundaries. Right. They were at least and that that's the thing. That's what I Mike

about the the hippie movement, that trying to reach the edge

of human potential that I think is awesome. And that's why I was

saying, like, when you think about the 19 sixties and what that

kind of thing could be, like, 1 of the very positive

legacy of the counterculture movement. When we think of

what is the legacy of the counterculture movement or the

non mainstream in the past 20 years, it's not

exploring the edge of spirituality in that same kind

of way. And so it made me almost,

nostalgic for something that I'd you know, you're always like, oh, I really wish we

had hippies like that again, man. Oh, yeah. I mean, I love

that message, but, you know, the what

happened as a result and maybe as a result of, you

know, what the CIA found out too that, you know, it's actually gonna

gonna, lessen your control just like,

LSD lessens the control of a person's own

ego. It it's also going to detach people from

governmental control, and this is what

led to the the war on drugs.

And, you know, there were people in these movements, in the hippie

movement, and in civil rights that, you know,

were making major political and social changes

and empowering these things. And so people like

Nixon felt, that they were a threat.

And so he couldn't he couldn't jail

them for their beliefs and for the changes they were Mike.

But if they were, smoking reefer

or if they were dropping acid, he could

jail them for that and take them out of the

picture. And that's really the reason

for the war on drugs because, he wasn't he wasn't

comfortable with these political and social changes. And the only way he could do

it is make these drugs illegal, and then he

can put these people, these

political prisoners essentially in jail for drug

crimes. Well, I mean, he he did what, Lyndon

Johnson didn't figure out. So Lyndon Johnson just

gave up, and didn't run-in 1968 because he

couldn't take on the hippies. They, you know, they ended there was those

there was the riots, the Chicago Democratic Convention. There was all that kind of stuff.

And so Lyndon Johnson did not know how to take on the counterculture because he

didn't realize that we don't have to attack them, we can just

attack what they've got. And, oh, they got LSD?

Well, we'll make LSD a schedule 1 drug, so that

we can then start arresting the hippies.

And so while the war on drugs Wendy up being horrible

for, the United States of America, it was

a fairly shrewd political maneuver in 1970.

Definitely. But but it was also a terrible fight for psychology, and,

thankfully, hopefully, we're coming out of that now, finally, after all the

years. We can't even get legal pot in Wisconsin,

so it's gonna be a while. But the thing but I wanna

you know? But the thing is okay. This I know we focused a lot on

LSD because that's a lot of where the, psychic stuff comes

from with Ram Dass and Richard Alpert. But I wanna get to the

fact that he later in Mike, and as he went to India in

the late 19 sixties, and he meets the Hindu holy man, Neem Karoli

Baba. He's the guy that changed his name from Richard Alpert

to Ram Dass. His followers called him Maharaji,

and it was him that also got him to change his

mind about LSD even.

So that he goes out to India, spends a long time there,

meets this teacher, and then the Maharaji

seems to know that the previous night he

was thinking about his mother and he even says to him, your

mother died of a spleen disease and she died a few months

ago. And in his book, he talks about

and he he, you know, he talks about what was it

that he was under the stars. He's outside going to the

bathroom. He looks up at the stars, and he feels his

mother's presence there. He's thinking about her. Just he feels her

presence like a ghost, and he feels overcome with love for

his mother Mike she's there with him. He talks about this in be here now,

And then he goes to bed, and he has this powerful experience of that

he thought that he had a visitation with his mother. And then

the next day, the he needs some Maharaj, and he goes,

your mother came to you last night. She died of a spleen disease 6 months

ago. And so that I mean, that's like meeting John Edward

or Chip Coffee or whatever and having them say that to

you, and then all of a sudden you're like, Chip Coffee, I believe in your

magic scarf. That's right. It's all real. So that's what

this is what changes him to, like, okay. This

guy, you know, this guy knows something about me that no 1 else could

have possibly known. Then what happens is that

he's got LSD with him all the time. He said that most of the time,

they just were smoking cheap hashish. So they're all

high all the time anyway. So let's not get let's not get away from this

that they're still smoking hash all the time. This is the 19 sixties,

and he gives the Maharaji 900 micrograms

LSD, which I mean, if Marshall McLuhan thought that

500 hit the spot, 900's really gonna take you home.

And he spends all day with the Maharaji

and nothing happens. Like the Maharaji's

like, hey man, like it's so he

was I'm already in Nirvana. Right. Ram Dass was

like this guy was so, you know,

in tune with spirituality and stuff and in tune with the oneness of everyone

that LSD didn't have any effect on him. In fact, the Maharaji told

him, love is a much stronger drug, dude.

Man. I don't know we're laughing about this stuff, but this is this is this

is a powerful enough experience that it changed his life so that he

started wearing robes. Mike, you do. I mean,

when Wendy I laugh, I mean, it doesn't really mean

disrespect. I it's it's Oh, we could I mean, we can make fun of him.

I think he'd be the first 1 to laugh at him. The way I,

I metabolize all of this. Yeah. No. He he does have a good

sense of humor or did have a good sense of humor about it, though. In

his lectures, he would even, like, poke fun at his own experiences and things and

say, like, yeah. You know? Right.

Well, in Be Here Now, you know, he talks about more of those

experiences that happen that he would call psychic. And he

says before he went to India, he had 2 categories

for psychic experience. 1 was they happened to somebody else and they haven't happened

to Mike, and they were terribly interesting, and we certainly had to keep an open

mind about it. And that was his psychological approach. The other 1

was, man, I'm high on LSD. Who knows how it really is?

After all, under the influence of a chemical, how do I know I'm not creating

the whole thing? Because he said he had experienced, you

know, the creation of total realities under certain chemicals.

He said that, he took a drug called JB 318,

which was when he was still researching the

university. He said he was sitting on the 3rd floor of this building, and it

seemed like nothing was happening to him. And into the room walks a girl

from their community, and she's got a pitcher of lemonade. And she goes, would I

like some lemonade? I said that should be great. And she poured the lemonade, and

she poured it, and she kept pouring. And the lemonade went over the side of

the glass and fell to the floor and went across the floor and up the

wall and over the ceiling and down the wall and under my

pants. And all of a sudden, my pants were wet. Oh. And

that girl says he made it. Were wet because of the lemonade.

Okay. It kinda sounds like he wet his pants, but Yeah.

Lemonade. At the same time, he had this hallucination where, you

know, he felt you know? So that's the thing is that he was saying up

until when he thought about psychic experiences, that

some being able to read his mind or understand something that happened to

him that there's no possible way they could have understood. I mean, how would the

Maharaji know that his mother died of a spleen disease? That was weird. That

seems that's what amazed him. It's because the psychic experiences he had

before, he thought that he could explain them away

through the chemical interactions in his head.

And so that's what I thought was an interesting thing, is

that he's starting to experience psychic

and paranormal activity, but this time it's not through

drugs. It's from people who

don't need the drugs. And he even talks about in the

19 seventies that, he got to a point where, like, the Maharaji

told him that him and his group should no longer take LSD because the

LSD, like, they weren't using it. He said that they weren't using it correctly.

That you're not, you know, you're not using it for spiritual experiences anymore. Now you're

doing it just to get high. And that's we're back to Maria

Sabina. She said the the self same thing. Well, what they said was that

you're getting addicted to the experience, and not the

actual, you know, you're you're getting addicted to experiencing

the feeling and all that. That's what you're addicted to, not the drug

itself or whatever. But still Well, and that's and that's the thing. It's

not being addict. It's not like you're deepening your experience further and

further, which is what they were, I guess, experimenting trying to do.

But the the gurus or whatever told them, you know, you're just becoming addicted

to this experience rather than furthering. Right. And you're just doing it for,

Mike, like giggles, you know, for fun rather

than, you know, for development. And and I mean, today

Wendy it's used, in, you know, like psilocybin

is used in, you know, several university studies now

and the experience itself is awesome, but that's

not where the work occurs. The work occurs

later when you're not high Wendy you can integrate the

messages that you received, from your experience.

You know, and and that's 1 of the things too is that,

we're we're talking about how, these

things can change neural pathways, and it's a shortcut.

Right? We're talking about the shortcuts to ecstatic

experience. I mean, how can you be here now if you're always

high? How can you be in the moment if you're always trying to

get away from something? And he talks about that in the book, and he talks

about that in different books. And that's where he, you know, while he

still says psychedelics have a place, he's not, like, said

you are psychedelic, like he was for a long Mike, where,

these guys were living most of their lives inside

their own heads, and inside this ego death,

with this universal consciousness wherever, instead of actually

living life on earth with everybody else.

And I think that's 1 of the messages that you can take from

these guys. That while there are gateways

to these kind of experiences, we're

also human, and we have all the things that humanity

implies. And that's part of living here is

being human and not always living at this

stone I hate to say stoned level because it's Well, this

the different planes. Right? They say, you know, there's all these different planes and you

you're in them all at the same time and being human is 1 of the

planes. So that's part of the as much as you can gain

from jumping from this human experience into other

planes and, you know, whatever methods you use to do that. This in and of

itself is also part of the experience. So don't overlook that, I

guess. And I I think, you know, that's that's a good way to put it.

And when you talk about the planes, Wendy, that leads me to, what

Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary did

was that they were finding that when they read the

Tibetan Book of the Dead, the, the Bardo Thodle,

they were saying that the stuff that they describe in the Tibetan Book of the

Dead was much like what they were experiencing

when they were taking LSD. And so the Book of the

Dead is supposed to be this guide through,

consciousness after death between when you die and when you come

back, on your next go round. And so they

were getting that through their ego death Wendy

their, selves were dying. Yes. But the Bardo

is an illusion. Right. So, I mean, they even use some I

think the Beatles even quote, the,

Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary, Tibetan Book of the Dead, and their song Tomorrow

Never Knows. They use pieces of it in

there. But what I think is interesting is

that, you have the Tibetan book of the dead. You have what these

guys experienced in LSD, and now we find out research has

shown that when people die, a psychedelic chemical

gets released into the brain to, and

that's what people talk about in near death experiences. That's 1 of the

materialistic scientific explanations of it because your brain is releasing a

psychedelic chemical. But just think about that though. Like they're

finding this, and this is interesting. It's not necessarily a

discovery, but it is the

synthesizing between science and religion of

okay. Now we are you know, ourselves,

by giving ourselves these chemicals, now we're going through the same journey

that is in the Tibetan Book of the Dead written 100 of years

before, or even yeah. About several 100 years

before. And, now 50 years later,

when people are doing research, they find that when people die,

chemicals do get released in the brain that can induce these

experiences. And so it's interesting that,

the Buddhists had kinda figured this out 100 of years before, but

they just didn't have, our chemical word

our chemical language to put onto it. Yeah. I mean,

that's what's exciting that things are coming full circle now

and we are realizing that

there's scientific underpinnings to ancient wisdom.

And how did they get there when they didn't have science? Right.

That's that's a a big question and, you know, something

that we need to appreciate that there's other ways of knowing rather

than science. And I think I think, you know,

Richard Alpert, I mean, what he did,

was, you know, to bring some of

those ideas to our western

culture. And I mean, that that is a good thing that he did. Well and

and he did it in a way where he could take things that we understood,

or that people have it's already been part of the fabric of their life.

So if he's talking to a Jewish person, he can

give them stuff from the Old Testament. If he's talking to a Christian, he

can give them stuff that Jesus said. I mean, and be here now, I mean,

half of it is quotes from the Bible. Even when he talks

about Mike how you're, you know, how you're supposed to eat when you consecrate the

food. You know, he's like, well, we already do this sometimes

when we say grace, but, if you

want to, here's a Sanskrit consecration,

that you can use as well. And he, like, brings it all together

in a way that synthesizes religions around the world.

And so I think that is something that he brought that was unique.

And he you had to be somebody who was well versed in

those kind of things, and had to be somebody who came from his background,

went through what he did, and then went to India and stuff like

that and then came back to a sweet life in Hawaii until he gets

paralyzed to be able to tell us those those stories. And also,

Mike, I would have never heard about this stuff. And I probably wouldn't be that

interested because I was interested in the stuff he did with

Timothy Leary, because we all love Fringe,

and who's the guy from Fringe with Timothy? I mean, it's basically based on Timothy

Leary and Rich Alpert. That's right. Walter. Right. Walter

Bell is completely based on those guys. And And Fringe was

a great show. Like, if if you don't if you

don't know, you can binge it right now, and you'll enjoy it.

Yes. Fringe is is is a lot of fun. And and it's a lot of

Bal was I just love him. I love that character. Right.

He's a hero. But, the thing is, unless I was

interested in those peep I wouldn't have been interested in Ram Dass. And the first

time I heard about Ram Dass was probably because I liked

doctor Wayne Dyer. Yeah. That's where I heard about him first. Yeah.

And doctor Wayne Dyer is a guy that Mike I liked him because

he number 1, he had a doctorate. He wasn't a so the thing is if

somebody's Mike like a guru or a mystic, I'm gonna be like,

what the hell? I'm just not gonna but if somebody at least has, like okay.

They put in enough work to get of your cultural

yes. I am biased. If you put in enough work to get a piece of

paper from somewhere that takes 10 years, then you have a better chance of me

listening to you than somebody who's just like, Mike, I know a lot

of holy stuff. And and so so

doctor Wayne Dyer, I had listened because I thought, that he had a lot of

nice things to say. And, I mean, even dad, the guy who's

about as anti mystical as you can get. I I

don't think so. He he He had a copy of your erroneous

zones that he bought when it came on his.

Maybe he just read it misread it.

But, yeah, I mean, I think I think our father is is

really spiritual. Like that time he just discovered crop

circles, Mike, 10 years on. And I was like, dude, you

bought these things called crop circles? Anyway Welcome to the party. So the thing is

Right. I think there's a lot, of interesting,

implications

in Ram Dass's work, and so much of it was based

on dying. Mike, he had spent a good portion of his Mike,

trying to help people that were in the process of dying. He talks about that

in Be Here Now a little bit, but he also just talks about that in

some of his lectures where he says it's you know, we are

so sheltered from death and that's not a

particularly healthy way to be. And so try to he would try

to create communities for people that were dying in order to make

them feel comfortable. And even, you know, when he

tells, like, fables, like Indian fables and stuff, it's about,

Mike, I remember 1 of the stories is that the guy goes, well, it's just,

like, throwing away an old suit. You wouldn't be upset if I sold the car

that doesn't work anymore, is what the ending guy and it's Mike, so don't be

and say, I'm not going anywhere. And so I think those kind of messages are

really positive, and we really need to hear them, because

they do give us a little bit of comfort,

when it comes to that. Now the fact that he also talked a lot

about his channeling friend, Immanuel. Oh,

channeling. And and that was 1 of the things. Like, Immanuel

says, dying is nothing to be afraid of. Or what what was the big

thing that Immanuel said? He even has a whole a

tale about it, like dying dying is

absolutely safe. That's what Immanuel says. He goes,

Daniel, dying is absolutely safe. And he says that he says that in an article

on the Ram Dass website he also says it in this lecture from 1981.

And and people asked him because he did spend a lot of time with

this person who channeled this this,

this bodyless spirit named Immanuel, and he

he just said, Immanuel has taught me a great many things. He never said

that, like, yes. This is I totally believe in this guy or whatever. Actually, it

was a woman at the time who was channeling Immanuel. She died, and now it's

a man that's channeling Immanuel. But he found a way, I guess, to

let go of his attachment to, BS.

So that he Wendy. But the thing is, like so there are, obviously, there's questionable

things, and there's there's stuff that's good and bad about him. And you can learn

from fools and from sages. And I do think, you know,

like, oh my god. Channelers just drive me up a wall. But

that's hilarious. Die what is it? Dying is perfectly safe.

Safe. Yeah. Dying is definitely safe. Well, you have to hear it in context, though.

To be fair, you have to hear it in context because he they talk about

how we're all constantly dying, basically. You know, our

self is not the ego versus

the self being the whole and everybody being 1. And it's it

does sound comical on its own, but if you hear it, like, within the context

of the message Oh, no. The full message It's a great message. It's not quite

as ridiculous. And I just think that's, like, funny for marketing.

But I think, Emmanuel, too, when I was so I was doing research for the

I was looking for something that Emmanuel said that was totally stupid, like, just

kinda to blow it up. You know? Like, Emmanuel said, like,

in 2014, we're gonna have a great

war across the you know how they have apocalyptic messages and

everything, but Immanuel is mostly just that kind of new

agey comfort talk. And in a time where

a lot of things are negative or people decide to focus on the negative,

it's good to have a little bit of some of that feel good kinda crap,

and it does drive me a little nuts. And there's still a piece of me

on the inside that's like, you guys. But also

I understand, I mean, I have a 3 year old so I watch

Disney movies now. So I've probably softened up a little bit in my old

age where I appreciate happy endings. And I hope

that, Ram Dass, wherever he is now or whatever

plane of the existence he has evolved to, is having a

happy Wendy. And if he wants to send us any psychic messages,

that would be great. I agree. He could haunt me at any time. Okay.

So I'm gonna do so next time I meditate, and I try to meditate at

least a few times a week, next time I meditate I'm

looking for a message from Ram Dass, and if he channels through me I'll let

you guys know what happened.

Ram Dass dedicated a huge part of his time here on earth

exploring spirituality and sharing his findings with the Western population.

Keeping with the theme of looking inward, this week's song is something

that might go well with a relaxation or meditation session.

Hopefully, you can listen to it while finding a little bit of peace in your

own world. Here's an original sunspot song inspired by Ram

Dass's popular book of the same name, Be Here Now.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. You can find us

online at othersidepodcast.com. Until next

Mike. See you on the other side. Man, and did we

have a good time talking to our Patreons on January 2nd? Or was it just

me, Wendy? No. That was a blast. Always is. It always is. It was

nice to catch up with everybody and hear about how the holidays went and

Mhmm. Mike off the new year as we do talking

about weird stuff. And and we got some good suggestions for things to watch before

the next Patreon hangout. So make sure you check in on the

Facebook group for that if you're in the group. If you're not in the

Facebook see you on the other side group, you should get it. And

that's other Mike podcast.com/donate is where you can share

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then you're just S0L.

Aw. I know. Mike me makes me wanna cry. But who makes

me wanna shout? Our awesome patrons, who's like doctor

Ned. Doctor Ned contributes at the Patreon level where he gets a shout out in

every single episode. Doc, you the bomb,

yo. Thanks, Doc, and happy New Year to you. And happy

New Year to all of our Patreons. You guys are great. We depend on you

for the support, and we appreciate it incredibly. Now if you

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love to have you and get your feedback on how we can see more

of you on the other side. Thanks for listening, and have a great

week.

I wish this is I wish this is an old factory podcast.

Oh, no. So The nose cast.