"If you could transmit a single piece of knowledge or information back in time to your past self, what would it be?" We asked five of our favorite guests.LISTEN | ITUNES YOUTUBE ARCHIVE STITCHERThese mind melds are brought to you by YOU! Find out how to support us and receive rewards in the process at our Patreon page.
One of the fantastic perks of doing this show is getting to ask my shower thoughts to the wonder-slinging, friends I have made. This question particular is one I’ve given a lot of thought to. It's not that I expected to discover one defining moment, or one piece of transcendent information that could light the path to a better future, but when you ask someone about what that hypothetical insight might be, it’s a fascinating catalyst for a riff session.Dive deeper with our guestsDr. Rick Strassman - Author of DMT the Spirit Molecule, researcherDaniele Bolelli - Author, historian, podcaster, professorMichael Garfield - Artist, musician, speakerAlexander Ward - Visionary artist,Mitch Schultz - Filmmaker of DMT the Spirit Molecule
Third Eye Drops #25 - Trying to Levitate with Claire Hoffman
Featured art - BeepleClaire Hoffman is a an author and journalist with work published in Rolling Stone, The New York Times and GQ. Her book, Greetings From Utopia Park is an autobiographical account of growing up in in the heart of the Transcendental Meditation movement in Fairfield Iowa.LISTEN | ITUNES YOUTUBE ARCHIVE STITCHERThese mind melds are brought to you by YOU! Find out how to support us and receive rewards in the process at our Patreon page.For most Earthlings, the topic of "childhood in America" does not evoke images of a utopian community filled with guru devotees that meditate all day in hopes of eventually existing in a state of boundless cosmic consciousness (though that does sound a lot more exciting than my chicken nugget and BPA-filled upbringing). 
As unconventional as it is, that was everyday life for our guest on this show, Claire Hoffman, who spent a good portion of her childhood living on the grounds of the Transcendental Meditation movement’s compound in Fairfield Iowa. What I enjoy about both Claire’s book and this conversation is that no clear answers are offered here. This isn’t a whistleblowing hatchet-piece. This is a nuanced, honest onion comprised of layers of gray area. Not only is that a more accurate portrayal of everything in life, it shines a light on the fact that Claire isn't out to make a quick buck as a whistleblower. She’s telling her story and sharing the insight she’s gathered throughout her fascinating hike up life's existential incline. Musings in this mind meld include :
- What it’s like to grow up with meditation
- Growing up idolizing a guru you've never met
- Psychedelic revelatory experiences versus self-generated ones
- The TM Siddhi program and levitation
- The weird rituals of successful people
- Drala
- An exploration of the order, disorder nonsense and conflicting messages of the human condition
- Striving for betterment even though perfection is ultimately impossible
- Is it dangerous to believe too much in something?
- The impossible task of not wanting to corrupt the beauty and purity of your children
- Tummo (Wim Hof) breathing and its benefits
- Can a bunch of people get together and change the world with their consciousness?
Third Eye Drops #20 - RESONANCE, with Cory Allen
Cory Allen is a sound-smith, a meditation maestro and the host of the Astral Hustle podcast.LISTEN | ITUNES YOUTUBE ARCHIVE STITCHERThis mind meld is a love letter to everyone making the art, reading the books, having the conversations, or diving into experience. It's also blazing-hot laser of vitriol directed toward the demagoguery, fear-mongering and fast-food philosophy permeating our news cycle.
In the sinew of the show, we converse with Cory Allen (a man who would definitely be a recipient of the psychic love letter mentioned above). Cory has not only developed a method for inner-exploration and self-realization, he's helping thousands of others do the same through his podcasts, music, meditation courses and binaural beat projects.Musings in this mind meld -
- Binaural beats, what they do and how to use them to enhance life, meditation and work performance
- Is there a "best" way to meditate? How I do it, how Cory does it
- Cory's "astral" meditation
- Subjectivity, cultivating a positive mindset and the fact that the exact same circumstance can be interpreted in polar opposite ways
- The mystery of sound, from pop music to rapturous bliss
- Experiencing sound with multiple sense and augmenting your consciousness with it
- How to tell the difference between an earnest, authentic piece of work and an ego-driven one
- Psychedelic stretching and Yoga
- Cory's Ayahuasca revelations
- Cory's turbulent teenage psychedelic bathroom adventures
Third Eye Drops #15 - Kindness Vitamins with Thubten Chodron
Thubten Chodron is a Tibetan Buddhist nun, author, teacher, and the founder of Sravasti Abbey. She is a student of the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan masters. She has published many books on Buddhist philosophy and meditation, and is the only nun who has co-authored a book with the Dalai Lama.
LISTEN | ITUNES YOUTUBE ARCHIVE STITCHEROne of the biggest everyday travesties of the paradigm we’re all fumbling around within is the way we've been conditioned to define ourselves. We are taught that we, as individuals, are simply the sum total of our actions, physical body, salary, failures, successes etcetera. But on some level, I think we've all felt, or at least considered that our true nature is something more than that.So what is it?Considering the phrase "raw, pristine, ever-renewing, universal, conscious nowness" sounds fabulously squishy, I advise that you contact it directly and define it for yourself. In other words, meditate.(This bonus content contains an introduction to meditation and a guided meditation on self-forgiveness and not dwelling on mistakes)I think of meditation like an exercise to awaken a dormant, psychic muscle. This muscle has the ability to sense the external forces exerting control over your mind. This recognition allows you to work with those forces and eventually gain more control over them. When you're more in control, you have more awareness. When you have more awareness, you feel more present and fulfilled.
Of course gaining control of your mind in any situation isn't easy, but it doesn’t take years to see a benefit from meditation either. In fact, you'll see a number of physiologically measurable positive results on the first try, along with a number of subjective ones.When you become more adept at cutting through all of that aforementioned mind pollution, that's when the fun starts. You might even get a peek at the serine truth, that unshaped emptiness behind your ego that we're all harboring.How I meditate -
- Stop Breathe and Think (My personal favorite is mindful breathing meditation)
- The Mindfulness Training App
- I also enhance my meditation using binaural beats
Third Eye Drops #13 - WHAT IF with Rollie Peterkin
Rollie Peterkin is an author, former Wall Street bond trader, professional MMA fighter and current world-traveler. His book, The Cage, Escaping the American Dream is available now.
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Most of the countless "what-ifs” that rattle around our noggins from day to day don’t amount to much. But sometimes, an especially persistent one sucks you right into it’s orbit to the point where it dominates your thoughts.
Even if you trust your gut, acting on those big "what-ifs" requires tremendous courage. Big what-ifs, by definition, demand risk and abandonment of the status quo. There are a thousand ways you could find yourself on your ass.
This whole conversation with Rollie Peterkin is about a wonderfully tumultuous example of abandoning comfort for the rugged unknown.
As a bond trader on Wall Street, Rollie was well on his way to (what most would consider) success. But there was a dormant, primal part of himself that was also an accomplished athlete. Then one day, he woke the beast, fed it and before he knew it, he was fighting professional MMA in Peru.
Wild, poetic stuff.
For the full tale, you'll have to listen to our chat and read his excellent book, The Cage, Escaping the American Dream.
Third Eye Drops #12 - A Trip to the Psychedelic Salon with Lorenzo Hagerty and Bruce Damer
LISTEN | ITUNES YOUTUBE ARCHIVE STITCHERLorenzo Hagerty is an author, podcaster, entrepreneur and liver of many lives (check out his incredibly eclectic bio).
His show, The Psychedelic Salon, offers a comprehensive collection of verbal serenades from disruptive visionaries like Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna, Alex Grey, Sasha Shulgin and many others. In short, it’s definitely one of my go-to sources for brain-melting content. Peruse their library if you haven’t!
We've also got the wonderful, whimsical multidisciplinary genius of Dr. Bruce Damer back on the show. Bruce is a researcher at UC Santa Cruz focused on origin of life related work and he’s most definitely got the gift of poetic yarn-spinning and man, does he have plenty of yarns to pull from!
Both Lorenzo and Bruce have lived through and partaken in the stuff of legends. I'm tempted to rant about some of the stories swapped between us, but I'll let you dig into it for yourself within the contents of the show.
Musings in this Mind Meld include -
- Bruce's breakthroughs in origin of life theory
- The psychedelic roots of silicon valley and computer programming
- Outgrowing capitalism and changing our value system
- Can capitalism and self-exploration coexist or are they mutually exclusive, diametrically apposed structures?
- Lorenzo's journey from a Catholic, Republican, Lawyer, Navy officer to a psychonaut and philosopher
- The underground Dallas MDMA scene and Dionysian parties
- MDMA and psychedelic therapy
- Eleusinian mysteries and rites of passage
- The importance of feeding yourself the right information, even if it feels repetitive at times
- Panspermia and the fertilization of Earth and its similarities to embryo fertilization
- Other things I've forgotten
Third Eye Drops #10 - Alexandre Tannous and the Hidden Realms of Sound
LISTEN | ITUNES YOUTUBE ARCHIVE STITCHERWelcome wonderlings!
As our guide on this week's ride, we welcome another ridiculously intelligent, well-spoken open-minded multidisciplinary mind freak, Alexandre Tannous.Alexandre has everything you want, the academic credentials, the musical background (he could easily show up somewhere with Zeppelin and you’d be like, oh yeah this guy’s in the band, no doubt). But more importantly, he’s done the subjective inner-work by traveling the world, participating in indigenous shamanistic ceremonies, steeping himself in history and mysticism and so much more.To dig further head to Alexandre's site
Third Eye Drops #9 - Evolving New Senses With Shane Mauss and Michael Garfield
Comedian, Shane Mauss has appeared on Conan, hosts the Here We Are Podcast and tours the country doing stand up. Silver-tongued polymath, Michael Garfield is an artist, musician and speaker based out of Austin.LISTEN | ITUNES YOUTUBE ARCHIVE STITCHER
Welcome friends and thank you for once again entangling your consciousness with ours!
This week’s trialogue between Michael Garfield Shane Mauss and myself was a blast and it definitely got my wonder gland frothing, I also think there were more smiles per minute in this cast than any other episode of this show I’ve done.
The concept I’ve really been pondering ever since this conversation is the mind’s constant need for novelty. We chase down anything that shines and engage with it for however long it holds our attention. Then, we inevitably get sick of it and move on. You have to admit, it's useful. It’s that restless desire that pushes things collectively forward and keeps us on our ever-evolving recursive quest toward infinite improvement.
But, It’s incredibly important to balance that yang with its respective yin. That is, the place you go when your mind is still. The place you get to via meditation. The place of slower brainwaves and deep integration with yourself and your own nature. If you spend all of your time running away from that primordial place, you’re going to become an incredibly ego-driven, lopsided being who's only concerned with novelty and avoiding boredom. Not only is that unhealthy, it's not even possible.
The thing is, the two are not mutually exclusive. It’s all about how you use your novelty. Unfortunately, most of us, myself included, tend to dive down rabbit holes of dissociative binge gaming or Netflix-ing. We use novelty as a means of disengaging from ourselves and our obligations when we should be using it as a way to continually appreciate, augment and contemplate our own position in the universe.
For more on this rant, dive into this week's mind meld and join the discussion.
(UPDATE) Welcome to the Matrix! Physicist Tom Campbell on Quantum Weirdness, Simulation Theory and Consciousness
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Welcome to the era of virtual quantum weirdness, my friends. Lucky for us, we have Tom Campbell, physicist with NASA, Army Intelligence and out-of-body experiences on his resume to walk us through it.
The idea that we may be living in some sort of simulated universe makes a lot of people supremely uncomfortable. Unfortunately for them, the logic behind the simulation argument is pretty sound (take it from the guy with the Nobel Prize around his neck,, not me).
But, what of the natural philosophical follow-up questions that come along with being told you're living in an ultra-advanced virtual realm (i.e, Who made the simulation? What am I then? Does that mean my consciousness is simulated?)? Obviously, scientists can't answer these queries, but if we don't dive into them, we're left with nothing but a tremendously achey case of existential blue balls. No fun.
Lucky for you (and them), we've got Tom Campbell on the show. Tom is a man with both the requisite hard (I'm holding back a double entendre right now) scientific and subjective consciousness-based expertise necessary to have this conversation properly.More on Tom:Tom Campbell began researching states of consciousness with Bob Monroe (Journeys Out Of The Body, Far Journeys, and The Ultimate Journey) at Monroe Laboratories in the early 1970s. There, he and a few others were instrumental in getting Monroe’s laboratory for the study of consciousness up and running. Campbell has been experimenting with, and exploring the subjective and objective mind ever since. For the past thirty years, Campbell has been focused on scientifically exploring the properties, boundaries, and abilities of consciousness.During that same time period, he excelled as a scientist. He worked on large-system simulation, technology development and integration, and complex system vulnerability and risk analysis. Presently, and for the past 20 years, he has been at the heart of developing US missile defense systems.Tom has compiled his experiences and expertise in his three-part book series, My Big TOE (Theory of Everything). He also has many, many hours of free talks on You Tube.
Third Eye Drops #5 - Dennis McKenna and Bruce Damer
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Greetings godlings! I am ecstatic that you’ve decided to once again plug your consciousness into the conversational coven that is the Third Eye Drops show!
There are a few unicorns running around who've figured out a way to re-appropriate the dusty old construct of academia to their own terms. Both Dennis McKenna and Bruce Damer were brilliant enough, brave enough and tenacious enough to do it. If you’re familiar with them you already know, if not, you’ll hear exactly what I’m referring to in this chat.
Dennis McKenna is an ethnopharmacologist, researcher lecturer and author. He has spent decades doing deep academic and personal research on consciousness and psychedelics. Dennis is also the author of Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss, a memoire chronicling his adventures with his brother, the late Terence McKenna.
In addition to being part of the same circle as Dennis and Terence McKenna, Dr. Bruce Damer, is a researcher at UC Santa Cruz focusing on origin of life theory. Bruce has also worked on projects for NASA in which he developed asteroid-capturing spacecraft.