Dr Andy Letcher | Bardism, Druidry, Music, Magic, and Madness | HH#10
Is there a way out of this mess we find ourselves in as a species? In this episode of HancockHour, Dr. Andy Letcher joins us to discuss the power and purpose of music, bardism, druidry, and psychedelics, and how each of them might help us find our way towards a healthier society.
Dr. Andy Letcher is a senior lecturer at Schumacher College, and author of ‘Shroom, A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom‘.
In this interview Andy discusses: * 1:48 Schumacher College and the alternative approach to education it offers * 4:34 The challenges of being a musician in the modern age * 7:50 The importance of music, and how it affects health * 11:30 The meaning of Bardism * 20:30 How Bardism relates to Druidry * 22:13 What Druidry is and its role in the modern age (24:04) * 30:44 A druidic technique to get reconnected to self and spirit through the art of paying attention * 38:48 To where and how we might be better served by shifting our attention * 42:17 The role of psychedelics in saving humanity, and who should take them (50:36) * 57:40 The failure of organised religion to provide *meaning* in the modern age * 58:10 The new religion of capitalism, and how we might transcend the demands of living in a capitalist society and become a more reverent person
Interview in collaboration with Kakuichi Institute
Gregory’s second book, Sun of gOd, Discover the Self-Organizing Principle that Underlies Everything, brings our local star out of the closet into which the Church locked it long ago. In it, he shows how cosmological discovery fits more comfortably with the novel notion of living stars than it does with accidental balls of gas governed only by the laws of physics. This “novel” idea was once the hard-wired human response to that which delivers us the light of life. Is this unchallenged taboo the vital missing piece in the cosmic jigsaw puzzle?
The author believes that recognizing the nature of stars is as important to our scientific and spiritual understanding as was recognizing the connection between what we eat and what we are.
Once we have seen it, it appears equally obvious.
Interview in collaboration with Kakuichi Institute
Lecturer in Holistic Science at Schumacher College, Philip Franses joins us to talk about the meaning of Holistic Science, Quantum Physics, Reductionism, what Holism means and how we can start to reestablish it as a foundation of our worldview, and he also shares his thoughts on the attitudes we might begin to cultivate to help us tackle the ecological crisis, and the challenges we find ourselves in as a species.
Philip Franses is a lecturer in Holistic Science at Schumacher College, and author of ‘Time, Light and the Dice of Creation’. He is also founder of the Holistic Science Journal and the Global Synapses project.
Interview in collaboration with Kakuichi Institute.
Episode link: https://hancockhour.com/podcast/danny-nemu/
Reverend Danny Nemu joins us to talk Bible (mis)translations, drugs in the Bible, Manna from Heaven, his experience with the flesh eating parasite Leishmaniasis, and his work with his NGO in the Brazilian Amazon.
Interview by Luke Hancock
See Danny's excellent books, Science Revealed: https://amzn.to/3PB67LD
and Neuro-Apocalypse: https://amzn.to/440udUo
See a chapter excerpt from Neuro-Apocalpyse on GrahamHancock.com: https://grahamhancock.com/nemud1/
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Most people today in the industrialised world think that medicine was a barbaric hit-and-miss affair until the advent of science, and that the medicines that were known to the ancients were discovered by trial and error.
Looking closer, we discover that ayahuasqueros in the Amazon have known for centuries at least how to combine plants to unlock spectacular psychedelic effects. Cooking Banisteriopsis Caapi vine along with Psychotria Viridis leaves means that the monoamine oxidase enzyme inhibitors (MAOI's) in the vine prevent the body's MAO enzymes from breaking down the DMT in the leaf. The DMT can therefore migrate across the blood-brain barrier and cause all kinds of magic.
This synergy is unlikely to have been learned by trial and error, given the vast number of plants in the Amazon and the astronomical number of potential combinations - so how did they do it?
Western science only caught up with the medicine men in 1952 when the first enzyme inhibitor with effects on the mind was discovered in the form of Iproniazid. It wasn't even trial and error that revealed this MAOI but sheer fluke, as they weren't trying to find anything of the sort at the time. They were testing it against tuberculosis and noticed by chance that depressed patients were cheering up. Since then, pharma companies have made a fortune with this class of anti-depressants, and today more than 8 million British people are currently on SSRIs, 2 million of them for five years or more. [Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65825012]
Amazonian tribes are not the only people who had a functional understanding of synergistic enzyme inhibition, nor the first. Analogous combinations are recorded in an Israelite recipe in Exodus 30, and in Diascorides' description of the Egyptian mendesium oil. Perhaps we still have something to learn about the skilful use of these plants from cultures that revered them as allies and plants of the gods.
In this interview, we discuss the Biblical evidence for this and other techniques of advanced psychopharmacology, and the impact these preparations had on the Abrahamic religions that influenced Western culture so heavily. We also explore the poetic ambiguity built into those scriptures and how metaphor speaks to the nature of our existence. Then there are adventures with ayahuasca and a flesh-eating parasite in the Amazon, networked intelligence in nature, decolonial ecosystem restoration and plenty more…
More about Danny at http://dannynemu.com/
Danny's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfkunP1-raNuz9_6DhzLvVg
Find Danny on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RevNemu
See RAIN Reforest: https://rainreforest.org/
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/rainreforest/
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Mentioned at 50.07, for people who like their drug addled- and shamanism peer-reviewed, here's Danny's article in the Journal of Psychedelic Studies on Entheogens in the Old Testament: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331622659_Getting_high_with_the_most_high_Entheogens_in_the_Old_Testament
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CHAPTERS
00:00 Coming up
00:42 Intro
01:11 In the beginning...
44:27 Entheogens in the bible
1:21:31 Manna from Heaven
1:29:41 Leishmaniasis
1:41:47 RAIN Reforest
In this video Satish discusses the importance of alternative education, how he started his alternative schools, and how you might start your own alternative schooling center.
In 1982 Satish Kumar helped found an alternative education school in Devon, UK, called The Small School.
Interview in collaboration with Kakuichi Institute
See Graham's book Fingerprints of the Gods: |US- http://amzn.to/x7PNY3 |UK- http://amzn.to/A7Sq8c |CA- http://amzn.to/wwmPZ0
Graham Hancock on iTunes: https://books.apple.com/us/author/gra...
Graham Hancock Presentation at the 2012 Tipping Point Prophets Conference.
For details on the conference see:
http://www.greatmystery.org/
For Graham`s official site please visit:
http://www.grahamhancock.com/
And for information on Graham`s latest book, please visit:
http://www.entangledthebook.com/
Filmed and edited by Luke Hancock: http://www.hancockhour.com
Gerald Pollack talks about his discovery of the fourth phase of water, so called EZ water, and the implications it has for our world.
Jerry Pollack is a scientist recognized worldwide as a dynamic speaker and author, whose passion lies in plumbing the depths of natural truths. He maintains an active laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Interview in collaboration with Kakuichi Institute
Preeminent author and researcher of Mayan culture and the 2012 phenomenon, John Major Jenkins joins us to discuss the content and meaning of the Mayan 2012 ‘prophecy’, and to dispel many of the myths that have grown around the Mayan Calendar.
Jenkins shows us how the Mayan 2012 prophecy is a misnomer, and is actually an astronomical science of great galactic cycles that appear to coincide with periods of transformation. We are in the culmination of such a cycle right now…
David Kubiak talks about the harms of big bodies – whether corporate, government, religious, or whatever – and how cutting down their size might be the key to fixing the world.
David Kubiak is a Project Censored Award-winning journalist and director of Big Medicine, a non-profit institute researching the corporate takeover of our countries, cultures and consciousness.
Hugh Newman joins us to talk about his compelling research that points to a buried and forgotten chapter in human history that was filled with giants.
Episode link: https://hancockhour.com/podcast/hugh-newman/