Joe Rogan and Duncan Trussell on the Importance of Mushrooms in 2012

Well, man, there's no fucking, I mean, the thing is there's no rules. It's like you, this is, the main rule is it's, this is your incarnation and you get to do what you want with it. The idea is to like, as much as you can, expand in your, your levels of happiness and your awareness so that you can feel connected and good in this existence. And there are a lot of tools to do that. Some of the tools take a long fucking time to do. And I think like when McKenna was talking about mushrooms being the most obvious tool to transform the, to create like a huge wide scale transformation on the planet, he recognized that there's not a lot of time. That's what he was thinking. It's not like we've got a ton of fucking time to create like meditation temples or to spread good information or to spread some new religion. There's no time for that shit. You would, if you really wanted to transform these weird people who worship invisible homophobic child sacrificing gods, if you wanted to transform people who feel comfortable dropping bombs on other people, then the quickest way to do it would be to give them a substance that allowed them to connect to each other and to the earth and to develop an instantaneous form of empathy unlike anything else. And then when they came back to it'd be much more difficult to think about, to perceive what they're, they're weird invisible God in the same way. It's almost like we're moving in a direction, a terrible direction because we don't have the proper ingredients. So because we don't have the proper ingredients, we can't feel what we're doing. It's almost like we have a numb arm probing into the darkness. That numb arm is scratching the fuck out of reality. We don't know because we just can't feel it. But if we could just feel it, if we could add this other ingredient into the mixture that is life, well then okay, now all your pieces are in order and now you can see and feel what you're doing. Because the big problem with human beings when it comes to pollution, when it comes to destroying the atmosphere, when it comes to the idea of what these nuclear disasters, we're not feeling it. We don't feel it. We don't feel the damage that we're doing. We don't feel the garbage patch in the ocean. You don't feel anything when you throw, when you take a water bottle and then you toss it in the garbage can. You did your job. I'm done. I'm done. I have no connection with this anymore. And then we don't feel when it goes into the ocean and becomes a fucking patch that's floating. That's as big as Texas. We don't feel that. That is a lack of a connection. That's a missing thing. That's an animal that doesn't have all of its ingredients. Well, it's fucking blind. That's what it is. It's blind and everyone's stumbling around blind and their focus is on material gain and their focus is on shit that can, if it does make you happy, it's a form of very transient temporary happiness that's you. For a lot of people, it's usually followed by like depression and stress. Like people who buy shit, they can't afford getting the debt to the banks and become slaves and so yeah, man, people are people have lost the initial or original connection with the spirit of the earth. You know, if you think about like ayahuasca and the people and drinking it in the jungle and communing with the mind of nature and then getting direction from the tribe from the mind of nature. And for people to think this is hippie bullshit. When scientists first came to the Amazon and discovered ayahuasca, they tried to call it telepathy. That's what they were going to try to talk, they were going to name it as because of the fact that they were able to have these telepathic experiences with each other and they all communicated about having shared visions and shared hallucinations. So they were going to call it telepathy but it was already the chemical and it was already named harmine or whatever the substance was. So they had to stick with the name harmine. Well, see, this substance, I think for these people has been a form of spiritual compass. It points in the right direction. It sets you straight. It's like a tuning fork for your soul. But it's amazing that talking about this, how did this happen? Talking about this is ridiculous. Talking about this is absolutely silly. I feel nervous when we start talking about mushrooms can change the world because I'm like who the fuck, you know, what is this idiot saying? You know, what kind of nonsense is he saying? Meanwhile, you're compelled. Meanwhile, you're compelled to say, listen, I know it sounds stupid. I know I'm a goofy looking fuck. I know I'm the fear factor guy. I know, you know, who the hell am I? I barely got through high school, went to three years of college where I halfway paid attention. But I'm saying that we might be overlooking one of the biggest tools that human beings have ever had for evolving and developing. And that might be why the fucking train is off the tracks and into the woods. It might be that the animal isn't balanced. And it might be that the animal literally developed eating all this stuff. The animal might have become consciousness and aware from being a savage eating all this stuff. It might be, you know, we might have a symbiotic relationship on this earth with certain plants that we've made illegal. We might need them in order to be aware of our potential, the potential harm that we can do, the potential good that we can do, the value of positivity. There's no might about it. The value of positivity is so important when you're on a substance. That is where all bad trips come from. All bad trips come from some negativity, whether it's a paranoia, whether it's a fear, whether it's a bad memory that you have that you're trying to avoid, shitty behavior that haunts you that you can't correct, whatever the fuck it is that triggers the bad trip. It's always a negative thing. Well, what it is is it's what's happening is when you're when you're taking a psychedelic, you're being given a glimpse at yourself from a distance that maybe you can't have an obtained and you like meditation will give you that distance. It gives you a form of intense mindfulness. And so all of a sudden you're able to see the, I think the root of whatever pattern your life has become. And the root is a feeling and that feeling for a lot of people can be a negative feeling. And so that's when people say, you know, I don't like smoke a pot, man, because it makes me get introspective. I get paranoid and nervous. It's like, no, pot is not making you paranoid. Pot is showing you the paranoia that exists deep within you that's causing you to act fucking weird and causing your relationships to be a little more dull than they need to be. And causing your actions to be a little muted because you're afraid of the reaction that people are going to have to you because you're, you're still stuck in survival. You want to survive so bad that you're scared. And you've covered that up with all the different, whatever clothes you've decided you're going to wear in this incarnation and your tattoos or whatever you've learned. But deep within that, behind all that for a lot of people is something that you could easily term negative energy. But I think it's fear. Yeah, it's fear. And that, and psychedelics show you that. And so the way to trip in these centers that you're talking about, and if they're really these centers were there, then when someone started experiencing a difficult trip, then these people would, instead of getting them away from that, they in the best way possible try to turn the person to it. Like what is that fear? Is that fear real? Because the joy of a psychedelic is when you have the balls to go into the darkness and all of a sudden you realize that darkness was a complete illusion. All the darkness and negativity and spooky shit and guilt and fear and crap you thought was inside you and all the bad things you thought you've done and all the things that you feel terrible about secretly you realize that's nothing. It's an illusion. The universe loves you. You're completely embraced by the entire universe. You're an incremental part of the functioning of the cosmos and you're an incredible, wonderful, perfect fucking thing. And when you get a glimpse of that, it's the greatest feeling ever because you're healed because that's what true healing is, man. True healing is realizing you were never sick in the first place. True healing is realizing you were just, you just had some fucking, you got a little bit of dust on the windshield, man. You had to brush it off, you know? That's all. That's what psychedelics do for you and you know what else does that for you? Really good therapy. But really good therapy costs a lot of money and it takes a long fucking time. And you have to be open to it. You have to be open to change and smart and you have to have the ability to recognize your own faults. Some people just have this weird shield between them and reality where they've become successful because they never admit guilt and they just press forward and they rationalize every single thing they do and they just press forward. And that becomes a mindset just as much as what we're talking about. That becomes just how work is done.