The UNSPOKEN EVIL SPIRITS of Ayahuasca, Psychedelics & DMT! What THEY Don’t Tell You with Aubrey Marcus

Aubrey Marcus 0:00
It starts so I drink the medicine. They blow out the candles. I'm deep in the jungle. It was actually so deep in the jungle that when we left the maloca we saw actually fresh Jaguar tracks like,

Alex Ferrari 0:10
Oh, nice

Aubrey Marcus 0:11
Separating our maloca

Alex Ferrari 0:13
Oh, it's nice.

Aubrey Marcus 0:14
Yeah, exactly.

Alex Ferrari 0:17
Yeah, so I'm gonna be ayahuasca and there's wild jaguar was feet six inches away from me. Yes. And I can't tell if it's a psychedelic trip, or if it's a real Jaguar.

Aubrey Marcus 0:26
Exactly.

Alex Ferrari 0:27
That's fantastic.

Aubrey Marcus 0:28
Exactly. And the shaman Maestro Orlando Chujandama El Dragon Dela Silva. We've put out a little mini documentary kind of showing my relationship with him for 14 years. So I go in, the first thing that happens is I see these visions of these spiders and insects crawling in through my eyes and through my ears, laying eggs and exploding out of my eyes, ears, mouth and nose. And I was like that is highly disturbing.

Alex Ferrari 1:07
I'd like to welcome to the show, Aubrey Marcus, how you doing Aubrey?

Aubrey Marcus 1:10
I'm doing good, brother. I'm doing really good.

Alex Ferrari 1:13
Thank you so much for coming on the show. Man. This has been a long time coming, man. We've been trying to get this connected for a while you're busy man. I'm a busy man. And we're finally here. So I appreciate you taking the time out to talk to the audience, man.

Aubrey Marcus 1:25
Of course. Of course. Yeah. I've been really looking forward to this and just appreciate the work that you've been doing. And I know you've reflected the mutuality of that. And so yeah, let's go let's dive deep. Let's mix it up. Let's get weird. Let's have some fun!

Alex Ferrari 1:38
This is gonna be great, man. So, you know, you're, you know, when I started watching your stuff, you know you are your adventures in plant medicine and psychedelics. And what's the word that you use it before we started talking the other way economics, economics and all which we'll get into that in a minute. It's been fascinating because I've never partaken. But I've spoken to many who have. And it fascinates me because it's part of the spiritual evolution and what spirituality has to say about what plant medicine does, and the access to plant medicine does and all of that, and I'll start our conversation with a quote from I think that was the Maharishi who said, when asked about the psychedelics, I think they gave him a handful of mushrooms. And he just ate all of them. And nothing happened to him. And they were like, everyone was like, freaking out, like, how did nothing happen to you? Like I live here? Why do this does nothing to be I don't need a ticket for the place that I've already arrived. And he's like, when you take psychedelics, it's like taking a sledgehammer to the wall to get the sun to come in. But when you meditate and evolve, like a yogi does, it's like putting in a window. And I thought that was a really interesting way of looking about it. So your adventures in psychedelics, what started it? And by the way, do you agree with that that analogy, by the way?

Aubrey Marcus 3:01
Not entirely.

Alex Ferrari 3:02
Okay, good. All right.

Aubrey Marcus 3:03
But there's also there's also some, there's some truth that it's pointing to. But there's, I think so. So let's talk about this for a little bit. Because, for me, I never would have pursued the entirety in the full scope of my spiritual path, if I had not been burst through the wall and given a glimpse of where I am going. And that's what I think they these masters and teachers, they overestimate people's commitment to just sit down 20 years of time spent on a cushion, to get to a place that they haven't even felt yet. So it's just on pure faith alone, I'm going to get somewhere and that somewhere I'm going to get is going to be spectacularly transcendent. But for the first five years, I'm just going to try not to think about sex, and not get distracted while I'm sitting on my meditation cushion. Right? Like, we don't live in that type of lifestyle. And what we need is we need a global transformation of consciousness. And I believe that these medicines and these techniques, because it's not just medicine, and that's to kind of open up that bracket about psychedelics. Why I talk about psychedelics, is psychedelics are ways to actually burst through into these different, true real realities that are always they're always moving through us always accessible, but allow us to catch a glimpse. And then it's our job to find the way to actually harvest the wisdom of those glimpses that we have bring them, integrate them into our life, and find and build the bridges that we can access those states more readily. Now, that usually involves some kind of dedicated practice outside of using the plant medicines. But catching that glimpse not only gives you deep insights, deep healing, deep wisdom, I mean, what maps the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies has shown with treatment resistant PTSD, is that that's treatment resistant. That means they've tried everything and it's not working, and two out of three of these participants have taken In three, MDMA assisted psychotherapy journeys and cured, their trauma, their PTSD, and they never have to do it again. Right. So it's like lasting effects from temporary glimpses of these alternate realities. So there's massive benefits that are not being captured by what I think is a true, but partial view that some of the some of the Masters have shared. And so for me, I never would have been on this spiritual path that I'm on, if I wasn't burst through and shown that it was possible because I started 18 years old, materialist, reductionist, God is, when you die, you just go to the blackness, and you dissolve into in, there's nothing else other than matter. And whatever else is like the mere, like the mystery of how life began, who the fuck knows, but all there is, is there's life and then you die. And then that's it. Yeah. And I was convinced. And then so I go, and my father, who had worked with Stan Grof, and had done one of the psychedelic practices, which is Holotropic breathwork, which is deep, deep breathwork, which is as powerful, as many of the psychedelic journeys that I've ever been on. So I want to say like, just you don't have to take anything, but I believe that in the times that we're in, you have to do something. And that may be a darkness retreat, that may be breathwork. That may be ecstatic dance, that may be sensory deprivation, that may be meditation, there's so many different ways to get there. Or it may be plant medicine, or maybe psychedelics, but for me, it was the first experience was a psychedelic journey. And it was the combination of MDMA. And psilocybin guided by a shaman who came from the Stan Grof lineage, which was the old SLN kind of lineage where they were all connected, like the Oh, geez of the first Renaissance. And I went in terrified. And I tell this story in my upcoming book, you know, psychonaut, which is going to come out in February. It's the first chapter because it's the first it's the first episode. And I was terrified, I grabbed a rock that I found out there in the woods outside north of Santa Fe. And I was like, as long as I hold on to this rock, I know that I'll exist. So I was worried I was gonna lose my mind, I was worried of like, losing all of my grip on reality, I was terrified. And my shaman she was just so calming, said whatever you do just witness and allow, witness and allow. And just, you know, and I trusted her, I just had intuitive deep trust, she had this powerful maternal mother mothering energy. So I took the medicine, and I felt my body dissolve completely. And the only thing that remained, I had these unbelievable visions, walking through these fields of wheat and feeling connected, it was like the scene from gladiator where he's in Elysium. And I was, I mean, Elysium. And then all of a sudden, that disappeared, and I just merged into the field. And I was like, Oh, my God, the only words that I can use to describe here is this is my soul. And this is God. And so I didn't believe in soul, and I didn't believe in God. So after that journey, and after that experience, I stayed up all night and the driving rain, its big storm came in, and there was a fire in my little hut. And just by the fire light, and like low light, I just stayed up writing, writing, writing and feeling like half of a journal, with the revelations of being in a new reality now where the soul was real, and I knew it was real, I knew it in my body, Anthro ontologically Anthro posts my body ontologically, that which is real, I knew in my body, that the soul was real, and that there was a field of something that you could call God. And still, all of my former critiques of capital are religion. They still stood, however, the materialist reductionist idea that there is no such thing as soul and no such thing as God that got that got absolutely decimated. And some of my actual understanding of what the true soul is what the true God has started to shift. And that set me on a path where I was like, Alright, I can't trust what all of the old dusty books have said, I need to go read and learn from all the great traditions. And I need to actually feel if I can feel the truth of all of that, myself. And so I went on this self exploratory path, and I've been on that path for 24 years. It's taken me through all the great plant medicines Iboga, Ayahuasca Huachuma, which is San Pedro, psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, to see what it TCB Yotpo, Vilka, whatever you want to whatever, whatever is available, you can count on I've done it.

Alex Ferrari 9:36
So crazy. So okay, so, so much to unpack there. First First question, though, what caused you to start? What caused you to take that first leap into the abyss?

Aubrey Marcus 9:48
So that's like a that's a really good question. And, you know, I'm working with an editor on my book, and it's really helpful to have an editor if anybody just bracket if you're a writer, like it's great even if you're a good writer. And I'm and I am a good writer like I mean, I won't have a false humility. I'm a good writer. But an editor is really helpful because they ask key questions like that. Like, why did you do this, and I've really had to explore this going back to when I was 18. I was 24 years ago. And part of it was because my father had my father had done it. And my father said, you know, this is an experience that I'd like to invite you to. And I believe in it, and I trusted my dad, you know, and my dad wasn't always right, he led me into some situations that were not so good, you know, like strange medical treatments that I did that actually didn't help at all, and actually create, you know, and he led me into some great, you led me into some great things, but I overall trusted my father. So that was one trust of my father. And number two, just sheer curiosity. And number three, I have to say that there was something guiding me in my own soul that was guiding me to say yes, but to exactly pin down, like what my thinking was, I'm not sure. Also, I had a, I had a sense from my understanding of indigenous culture that already that we were missing, like a rite of passage. And it's this was a point where I was leaving the house. And I understood that, you know, I come from the Hebrew lineage. So I didn't even get a bar mitzvah, because I was talking to my parents, my grandma really wanted me to, but my dad, I was talking to my dad was like, What is this really going to do? Is this really gonna make me is this a coming of age where I really become a man because I study the Torah. And I can recite some Hebrew. He's like, No, so it's not. I was like, Well, I'm not gonna do it, then. He's like, all right. And I was, so we started talking about like, why, what is a real rite of passage, and he's like, ultimately, he's like, this is the right time. And this is a real rite of passage. Like, I promise you, son, you'll be a different man. On the other side of this, then you were on the front side of this, and he was right.

Alex Ferrari 11:50
How old were you when you did that first time

Aubrey Marcus 11:52
18.

Alex Ferrari 11:53
So you know, you definitely become a man after you take one of these.

Aubrey Marcus 11:56
It's different. Yeah, man in a different way. Man, being that I was connected to the father and the mother in a different way. And I understood my place in the cosmos, and my responsibility in the cosmos, I started to understand that in a different way that transcend it included and transcended my separate self identity. So yeah, I was Aubrey, but I was also a part, an inextricable part of that field of love of consciousness. And so I knew myself as a different person than I was that, you know, so A, lots of these rites of passage are trying to connect you to the tribe, rather than just your separate self. So if you're putting your hand in a, in a kind of a woven basket full of stinging ants, to prove your courage, you know, that's to help bond you with the tribes, so the tribe can trust you. So these technologies are about getting you to actually expand beyond your own personal needs and desires into a larger group. But this goes all the way to expanding you and opening you to the entire field of all consciousness itself, and all life itself. So you become an inextricable part of capital L life. And that is, to me a deep part of what it means to be a man is to actually know yourself as participating in a greater field and the responsibility to protect life in all of its forms.

Alex Ferrari 13:20
And it's yeah, you're right. It's it's not the the first level, which is the tribe you're talking about. Now, this conscious wide open, basically, all of reality, kind of kind of energy. When you took when you took the first and what was the first thing you took?

Aubrey Marcus 13:38
It was a combination of MDMA, and psilocybin. So the street name for that would be like called the called a hippie flip.

Alex Ferrari 13:49
That's awesome.

Aubrey Marcus 13:50
But in the in the in the shamanic context, of course, you didn't say you're about to do a hippie flip. You know, that's like, in common, you know, in common language, that's what we call.

Alex Ferrari 13:59
So let me ask you, when you came back from that first trip, how did you psychologically deal with what you have seen? I mean, because what we're talking about is a pretty heavy realization, it changed your life, it really set you on a completely different path. But that first try must have been not only a trip, but psychologically trying to deal with it. Because one thing is I sense from what you're telling me that spiritually, you are awakened. And you started down this path. But psychologically, the brain deals with things very differently than the soul does. So how did your brain deal with this new understanding and psychologically, psychologically deal with this?

Aubrey Marcus 14:41
Oh, well, you're absolutely right. It was the death of the world that I believed I was in. It was the death of that world. And it was the awakening into another world. This was very much like a matrix level moment. Now, obviously, not in this dystopian context. It was the opposite. But in some ways, it was It was that it was of a gravity of that nature where I was in one world. And after one night, I was forever in a different world that included and transcended the world that I was formerly. And it's not that the separate self disappears, the separate self never disappears, never going to get rid of your ego. You know, like, that's the biggest ego trip around is trying to pretend that you're gonna get rid of your ego, right? That's all spiritual materialism. So it includes and transcends every way up the every way up the spectrum. But, so not only did I change, but my entire world changed. And so when you have a paradigm shift of that magnitude, it's pretty wild. And so I became incredibly curious for one because I realized, if that much could change that fast, there is so much more that I don't know. So there was a deep humility, as well as there was some things that I felt like I didn't know because I felt them and I experienced them. And nobody could tell me that I experienced something else. Like I knew it. I knew what had happened. It was, it was a reality that this was no hallucination this was you could just I could feel it in every cell in my body. And so I knew it. So there was both the humility and curiosity as well as this deep kind of desire to almost evangelize like what I had seen. So it was like the all of the things that I had kind of railed against is everybody evangelizing about this god that they'd read about in the books and their parents had told them about, I became that as well. I was like, Yo, like, there is something real here, I can promise you, I tell you, like this is real. And, and that spirit has kind of stuck with me in a way. And it's just like, I want people to know that there's something very real, to our spirit, to our soul, to our consciousness into the field of love that we participate in. Which when you use the word God, it's very loaded, because of all of the things that have been projected on to God. But call it what you want, call it the mystery, which incorporates the humility aspect, call it the divine call it source call it there's many names for God in the Hebrew lineage, which I've currently taken aback on to understand from a mystical perspective, you might call it Shahina, you might call it Elohim, you might call it the Christ field. There's a variety of different ways and they have different ways that you can disambiguate them. But they're also similar in many ways. Walk on Tonka, Great Spirit, you know, all of these things were pointing at different faces and different textures of this field of the divine love and power of the cosmos.

Alex Ferrari 17:37
So when you kind of had this, this awakening, you were a different human being. So you're a different person when you came out of it? How did the people around you deal with this new Aubrey? Which, you know, like, I always talked to near death, experiencers, and, and channelers, and things like that, who I go, when you came out of the spiritual closet? How did the people around you, you know, deal with you in and how did you deal with losing people who just were not on board with where you would go.

Aubrey Marcus 18:07
The interesting thing is, is I didn't really experience the loss, because I still included the same things about Aubrey that everybody knew and loved, like, I can still get out on the basketball court. And I was looking to not only beat you, I was looking to actually destroy you. Like, I wanted you to leave with nothing. When you played me on the court, like I wanted you to leave with nothing. I wanted to take everything

Alex Ferrari 18:29
Very spiritual, very spiritual, very spiritual,

Aubrey Marcus 18:32
In that, and so in that, in that level, like and that was something that people loved about me is that I was like, fierce and funny. And I would talk and like, steal and also like, if it was time to party, like I still wasn't afraid to grab the bottle of Crown Royal and go like, let's go let's dance let's party let, so it didn't create a separation it from the rest of my life. It just said, all this is still all this is still me, I still like doing the same thing. Like, don't worry, it's not like I'm not gonna hit that jump shot. And then, you know, call you out that I, you know, shot it right in your face. And they might be some still stuck in your eye. Or like, how are your ankles after that crossover, like it's still me. And that's actually an important aspect that I think I've carried through this whole thing is that I'm still participating in in the world and of the world, in the same way that I was participating as well. But there's another dimensional reality that I can also access. So this started to, I started to work with the idea of the warrior poet, which the warrior poem to me was an idea of these two opposing concepts. Either you're a warrior or a poet, either your spiritual or your carnal. And I was like, No, we can be both and it's actually our birthright to be both and so I was able to still meet people where they were at and if they didn't want to talk about the spiritual stuff all good. We could be we could play ball together if they just wanted to party, and like and I wanted to party. Great. Well already, you know, like if they wanted to talk philosophy and rational, rational thought and debate, you know, Aristotle versus Plato, and I'm great, you know, I was, I was a philosophy major at University of Richmond, I loved getting into philosophy and Spinoza and the whole deal. So I was able to still access people where they were at, but then also at the same time, which made people comfortable, because I think like, if I would have come back, and I would have started wearing robes, instead of Nike shorts, and you know, whatever, I didn't have the greatest sense of style back then. And my sense of style is improved over the I mean, I look back at some of the pictures like what

Alex Ferrari 20:35
Dude we all need a good woman in our life to set a straight? I mean, there's no question about that, sir.

Aubrey Marcus 20:41
For sure. So, I was still it didn't, I didn't come back with mala beads. And I didn't come back and robes, it was still I was still wearing the same clothes, I was still talking the same, I was still the same guy. And I think that allowed a bridge and it's still allowed a bridge that's allowed people to follow me because it's not just that I'm talking about these spiritual concepts, or you want to talk about business, you know, I grew a business called on it from $110,000 investment to a big nine figure exit. So you want to talk business, I'll talk business with you. You know, like, I can play that game, you want to talk sports, like which one you want to play, you know, and it's like, let's ball, let's go. You want to talk philosophy, I'll talk philosophy, you want to talk? Whatever you want to talk, you want to talk in Middle English romance literature. Great. That was one of my specialties. You know, we can talk about crafting the tois. And we could talk about the Arthurian legends and the vein, the night of the line, whatever you want to talk about, like, I'm still gonna go there. And if you want to talk about the soul, you want to talk about God, you want to talk like I'm fully comfortable talking about that as well. So it didn't create an exclusionary kind of field. So really, people didn't drop out people, some people were like, I don't know about all that stuff, man. And I was like, that's all right. But if you do want to know, you know, I can lead you to the people that you can find out the answers for yourself. So because I realized that for me, no matter what anybody told me, I wasn't going to believe them. So I felt that myself and so I've always kept that is like, Don't take me for just my word. But I can, I can tell you that if you do this breathwork, you're going to find some access to somatically stored trauma that you don't know is there. And I can pretty much promise that that's going to happen if you really give it your full your full intent and your full heart. If you go into a darkness retreat, which I've went in for six days, which is absolute black, where you start producing endogenous DMT and you start, you're going to see some stuff and you're going to feel some stuff. It's going to change your perspective on life. Like, I'm sure that and if you do these plant medicines, you're going to access different different dimensional realities that will change your perspective. And so yeah, sure, you know, if you want to just read my books, I cannot and just get all of the wisdom that I've gotten and take me at my word, great. But that's not the point. The point is that I'm sharing all of the many ways that I found the truths that I've arrived at. And it's an invitation like, whichever one resonates with you, please take it like don't just trust me. And let me share from my level of experience. Here are the traps here, the sticky places that I got in because there's challenges with this as well, you can encounter some really dark energies, you can get stuck in a variety of different traps, that can lead you into different different kinds of temporary or even longer term levels of psychosis. And you can also encounter people with bad intentions in serving the medicine, there's lots of areas where you can run into trouble. And so I'm trying to do my best to say like, alright, this is a really powerful path. But here are the here are the dangerous spots here. The here are the neighborhoods, you got to stay away from here, the places that if you do find yourself in this neighborhood, and this hell and this locus of darkness and delusion, here's your way out. So it's been kind of almost like a Sherpa. And that's like a Sherpa can tell you what it's like to summit Everest. But that's not the point. The Sherpa is like, no, like I can help you, I can help guide you there. And whatever experience you have on the top of Everest is going to be yours. But it's going to be pretty, it's going to be similar to what some other people have found, because it's still the top of Everest, filtered through your own prism, your own hermeneutic. Prism is the word Hermes being the one that communicates, you know, all everything to one another. And we have our own hermeneutic prism. So it's the way we see things. And each of us have a unique hermeneutic prism. So what you experience in these medicines is going to be different, but there's also going to be something similar about it because of our shared resonance and access to this same shared field.

Alex Ferrari 24:36
So let's dive in real quick on me, because I know for sure, you know, technically what happens, what is going on when you take some of these plant medicines or psilocybin or DMT what is happening physically in the brain that is causing these experiences to happen?

Aubrey Marcus 24:57
So this has been one of the things that science has really focused on to help understand because we live in a world where, you know, materialist, reductionist scientific inquiry is very important. And so my understanding includes and transcends those understandings. So what's happening is a variety of different things depending on the medicines that you're on. Right. So each one has different mechanism of action. So it has a different kind of nature to it. A lot of them like psilocybin and DMT, one of the first receptors they act on is the five HT to a serotonin receptor and the DMT, or the psilocybin molecules plug into these receptors. And then it shifts the blood flow in the brain. So what's called the default mode network, which interprets reality in the normal way, then goes a little bit offline, and the other, you know, the other parts of the brain light up, and then the receptors have different molecules that are fitting in. And so you can look at what's happening there, but it doesn't really explain what what else is happening. And that's only one of the receptor sites like I just spoke with Jim Fadiman, who's one of the pioneers in psychedelic research, and I was talking to him about five HTT to A, and he was like, well, that's just one of the receptors. And we've just proven that and there's been an overly, an over emphasis on that receptor. But you got to realize that there's 1.54 quadrillion molecules in one microgram 1.54 quadrillion molecules in a microgram, which is enough for hundreds to go to every cell of your body. And there's not those receptor sites in every cell. So something is happening cellularly that we cannot accurately quantify with what we've been studying with the money that we've had to study it also which has been limited compared to like cancer research or other things like that more money is flowing in. So we have some ideas of what's happening. But really, what I think is more important to understand is that we live in a multi dimensional reality. And you've kind of mentioned that you watch some of my Mateus episodes. I don't know if you've watched my nine dimensional existence model that I talked to with Mateus, which was very interesting, because I'd come to a nine dimensional model through my own psychoanalytic, you know, work and he remembered Mateus is someone who remembers his past lives and he's going to be a guest on your show. So yes, mine comes out before that makes sure you look for that it's gonna be a great conversation. But we live in a nine dimensional existence. This is my belief. And this is what I not only have heard from Mateus, but what I felt an experience. And what's happening is like Aldous Huxley said, these medicines are opening our doors of perception so that we're able to actually see our nine dimensional existence, which touches all the way to God, and goes all the way down to the most material aspect of who we are our DNA, our cells, etc. And that we're participating in this multi dimensional existence. And this is opening the doors to the other dimensions, which are always there. But our brain is acting as a cognitive filtering device. Again, Aldous Huxley's word, a cognitive filtering device, what is the thing we need to focus on. So for example, an example of cognitive filtering, right now, the only thing I see in this room is your face. That's really all I'm looking at. But there's a painting above me over there, there's people who are walking around outside, there's a flashing light on this video game basketball thing that I have in my office over there. There's all kinds of things, but I'm not paying attention, because I'm focusing on here, like what's important. And what's important is this conversation. So we're always filtering even within this dimensional reality. But we're filtering even beyond this dimensional reality. We're filtering out all of the other dimensions so that we can focus on navigating this reality. And this is opening those venetian blinds opening those doors of perception.

Alex Ferrari 28:52
So, so that I always, I always tell people, because I've been meditating for many, many years. And I do long, long runs of hour to two hours by baseline, and sometimes longer. So for me, as I started to meditate, that perception start to open. Yes, more and more. And you start to see things a little bit differently, is like, I don't see the matrix yet. I don't see the ones and zeros flying but you start to perceive things at a very different level. Then I did a breathwork session. I've actually I've done a few breathwork sessions, but the first one blew my mind on like, I I never can see when you said that. I was like, Well, I've done that. I've done so because I have done it but in a different way. So I've never considered them in the same category. But the breathwork opened me up it physically mentally it just completely, like kind of blew my socks off, really. And then my meditations took on a whole new level. Right afterwards. I'm like, wait a minute, I'm feeling things in my meditation. had never felt before. Yeah, because it opened up a door. And that kind of continued to go, oh, well, if you're going to do this, and it keeps, so that perception is opening. And that's what the Masters, you know, these masters have been talking about for years with meditation. It is one of many ways to get in there. But it's a much slower process, and gradual as opposed to a psychedelic that shoots you through like a roller coaster, essentially. Correct?

Aubrey Marcus 30:26
Yeah yeah, correct. And so you are a psyconaught like you are, you're someone who uses practices and technologies like meditation and breath work to explore regions of your consciousness that were previously unexplored. So that's the definition of a psychedelic like an astronaut explores the astral realm of all of the space, you're exploring your psyche, and you're exploring your consciousness, and you're using the technologies of psychedelics of meditation, and breath work. And they you found that the synergy between them has been supportive. And I think that's also something that I think the masters are missing is that all of these things can work together in harmony. And that it's important to have the your baseline practices of meditation and breath work, to allow you to really access and really harvest the goal that you get from these experiences. But I would venture to say that if you do feel called at some point, to experience psychedelic medicine, and do Ayahuasca or something like that, you'll be able to bring those lessons and that access point into your meditative practice. And your meditation will actually accelerate, just as it did with breath work, because what's happening with breath work, so not only are you hyper oxygenating your blood, but in the process of that, as some of the science has shown, and Wim Hof has been on the frontier of this, you're actually increasing levels of endogenous DMT. So DMT being one of the most psychoactive psychedelic molecules. But we've proven now, with some of the research coming out from Dr. John from John Dean and some different research that DMT is endogenous where it's produced within the cerebrospinal fluid of our own bodies. And breathwork actually increases the availability of it. Now it has a very short lifespan. So it once exposed to oxygen once removed from the body, it degrades very quickly. So it's been very difficult to study this and actually prove it, but it's been proven now. And it's been proven that breathwork actually increases that. So you're having your own endogenous DMT trip, you're getting high on your own supply, basically. And that's

Alex Ferrari 32:35
Like Wim, yeah, like Wim says

Aubrey Marcus 32:37
Like Wim says all the time. That's, that's a way for you to access these these levels without actually having to take any substance other than an increased quantity of air. You know, and that's, and that's the, that's the pathway to get there.

Alex Ferrari 32:54
Yeah. And I when I was studying the yogic philosophies in the yogic traditions, I started to, you know, a whole book on yogic breathwork. And yeah, exactly how powerful the breath work was. And, and then I started I interviewed a few people in Wim Hof and a couple other masters in the in the breath workspace. And they're like, Here, try this or try that and, and it just kind of I could not believe the power of the breath. It was so powerful and overwhelming. I was like, really just doing this kind of deep breath. Work is going to take me to a second. I mean, it really, I mean, it didn't I didn't get a trip. Like I wasn't going on a trip. I didn't go on a trip but it definitely physically has. Things happened to me like I felt energy flowing in weird places. The the limbs started to go, like, cold and numb. Yep, it all of that. Yeah. All the all the energy that was leaving your your extremities and going into the internal body. And it was is the opposite of fight, flight or fight. When you fight a fight, all the blood goes out to your legs and your arms. This was the opposite. And it was like you started to your hands started to cramp up a little bit, but not in a painful way. Just like there's just nothing there. It's really, really powerful. So I'm now thank you for making me aware that I have. I'm a psyconaught.

Aubrey Marcus 34:18
That's right. That's right. Yeah, so I Okay, so I'll tell you my first breathwork story. So I'm, you know, probably 28. And so that means it's been 10 years of psychoanalytic exploration, and I go to get offered my first shamanic breathwork from from a teacher who's still practicing out in Sedona on Hatha Nanda. And she's like, I we're going to do breathwork and I'm coming in all cocky like breathwork you know, I've done all the mushrooms and MDMA and DMT and like, what does this breathwork gonna do? I was blown away. I was absolutely blown away. And not only did I have intense somatic releases I also had a clearer, clearer vision than it still is like as crystal clear memory is anything, a vision of my of me looking back at me, but me as the fully embodied soul version of myself, like the highest version of me looking back at me with this deep open hearted peace and serenity and wild love. And I saw that vision come to me. And I was like, like, I have been really under indexing the power of this. And I happened at the same it was at the same week long retreat, we were doing a variety of fasting and different cleansing modalities, and then the breathwork. And then we also did my first ecstatic dance. And then I was like ecstatic dance, I dance all the time, like this will be, this will be whatever, you know, like, I thought it was going to be cheesy too. And I was blown away, my body went into this state that technically be called superfluidity, where it just collapsed. It was my body and the music and all my self judgment about the moves that I was making and trying to look cool, I dance, all that disappeared. And it was just movement and sound. And in the movement and sound, also the vision space opened back up. And so I started having like visions during this in this deep trance. And of course, dancing like this has been a part of so many different cultures. And we look at it as a cultural phenomenon rather than a psychoanalytic practice that helps people access these alternate dimensional realities.

Alex Ferrari 36:31
Now, you did mention some bad trips and some potential gaps along the way. So that's the thing that a lot of people who go who are trying to even think about doing this is scared of, of going into a bad trip or really doing it. So can you tell us an example of the worst kind of trip that you have, if you want to share that kind of like the scariest moment? Because again, my reference points are people who I've interviewed that have told me like, yeah, my entire body got this, my entire body was deconstructed from the fingernails down. I became nothing but part of the universe. I flew out met God had a conversation came back, and you know that the exact chip I'm talking about as the guy who wrote ghost, and you're like, oh, and he also wrote Jacob's Ladder, and you go, Oh, that makes sense. So I was like, Okay, that makes it. So those are the reference points I have. I haven't really heard a bad one yet. So

Aubrey Marcus 37:30
Well, this scary thing. So challenging, difficult, challenging, scary, scary. Yeah. is different than bad. Yeah. So let me let me distinguish. So my first Ayahuasca trip was challenging, difficult, scary, and I won't belabor the story, but I'm gonna give you the Cliff Notes to explain bad difficult, I mean, challenging, difficult, scary. So I go into this Ayahuasca experience, and it's my first Ayahuasca experience, I'm 30 years old. And I've done a lot of other medicines, but never Ayahuasca. And I was prepared. So I was prepared for this witness and allow kind of concept I've understood, I'd gone through some deeply challenging, like, family trauma and different things that I was able to experience. But so I had some experience with challenging, you know, going through deep emotional, traumatic states, you know, times where my father flew into rage. And I had, you know, this was early on, and I experienced re experienced that, but I was able to re imprint it by going back there as my adult self and then protecting my child's self, and then speaking to my father in the vision space. So there's those type of experiences, but that was just so beautiful and powerful. I wouldn't even call it necessarily challenging, but it's heavy. It was heavy, you know, so there's heavy and there's a heavy experience when you're accessing trauma. This one was challenging, difficult, scary. And so here's how it started. It starts so I drink the medicine, they blow out the candles. I'm deep in the jungle. It was actually so deep in the jungle that when we left the maloca we saw actually fresh Jaguar tracks like Oh, nice separating our maloca Oh, it's nice. Yeah, exactly. Fantastic.

Alex Ferrari 39:08
Fantastic. Yeah, so I'm gonna be on ayahuasca and there's wild drag was feet six inches away from me. Yes. And I can't tell if it's a psychedelic trip, or if it's a real Jaguar.

Aubrey Marcus 39:19
Exactly.

Alex Ferrari 39:20
That's fantastic.

Aubrey Marcus 39:21
Exactly. And the shaman Maestro Orlando Chujandama El Dragon Dela Silva. We've put out a little mini documentary kind of showing my relationship with him for you know, 14 years. So, I go in, the first thing that happens is I see these visions of these spiders and insects crawling in through my eyes and through my ears, laying eggs and exploding out of my eyes, ears, mouth and nose. And I was like, that is highly disturbing. However, I'd been familiar enough with these kind of I've had I had another vision where some of that happens. I was like, All right, I get it. This is Ayahuasca. No big deal. Yeah, I'm alright. But it was disturbing. Obviously. That's a Sharpie. Yeah. Next, these eels come up from the water. We were on the monitor de Dios river, they come up from wherever the water was, I couldn't see it, it's pitch black, but I could feel that they came up for the water and they're going and they find my stomach. They spiral into my stomach and they're eating with their like snowing teeth and they're going to my stomach, they start eating all my organs from the slithering around and I'm like, wow, that's rather disturbing, but no big deal. I got this. You know, I can handle this.

Alex Ferrari 40:35
Like, that's fine.

Aubrey Marcus 40:37
Yeah, exactly. So then next Ayahuasca like, okay, you know, you pass test one and two. Let's go to test three, test three. I'm sliding down this jack in the beanstalk endless vine. And I'm completely naked in the vine has thorns that are pointed upwards. And so it's eviscerating me from my genitals first like ripping up my balls Cox chest face neck. And I'm like, that is even a horrible thing to imagine let alone to see this happening myself. I was like that is that is like and I but I was still in a point where I was like, well done Ayahuasca well done. You know that was that was injured. You're increasing in the horrifying nature of these visions, but Well done. Well played.

Alex Ferrari 41:21
You're playing like a video. You're like playing a video game. You're like essentially like level three science good. Yeah, I'm good. I'm holding on.

Aubrey Marcus 41:28
Level four me up though. Because my Okay, so my uncle, my uncle had recently passed from lymphoma. So level four, Ayahuasca goes, Hey, you have lymphoma to you're gonna die. You're gonna die from cancer, slow and painful death, just like your uncle. And I was like, and so that hits something that was a real fear. Yeah. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I do not. I'm healthy. I'm strong. And I'm feeling my glands. I'm like, feeling my neck. And I'm like, no, no. And then I think I feel something a little bold. I'm like, oh, it's like, there it is. You found you. That's it. That's your cancer, you're gonna die. And so after about two hours, I'm there in the black mice Rolando, CEE grows, I'm seeing snakes circle, the maloca. And I'm just in terror. And I'm in just this deep arguing with Ayahuasca, which is trying to convince me that I currently have cancer, I'm going to die. And finally, just out of exhaustion, I go, fine. Okay, I have cancer, and I'm going to die. I'm just going to love everybody as much as I can. I'm going to write as much as I can, I'm going to live the best next few years in my life. So be it. And then the moment I released and surrendered to that, then I felt like a wall come up from the ground and pneus like, hold me in this cradle of light. And the voice of Mother Ayahuasca comes and says, You don't have cancer, sweetheart, you're perfectly healthy. And we've always got you like, I've always got you. And I just start bawling, right. And it was like, that was level four. But level four was difficult. Like it was difficult. But that really changed. That really changed my life. Because from that point, my fear of cancer, I had moved beyond it, I'd faced it, accepted it and found a deeper piece on the other side of it was like, Okay, if that's my fate, so it is and I live my life to the best of my ability. So that's what I would put in the challenging, difficult, scary category. Right. So that and but ultimately, it had a full resolution and I came out of there, like radiant and shining. And like, I passed a deep test, and I came out the other side stronger for it. Now, so So I'll open that up. So if you want to comment on that at all, now I'm gonna move to a bad what I would call a bad experience.

Alex Ferrari 43:56
Okay, so that that sounds it's so interesting, too, because I'm looking at this from the spiritual standpoint. Okay. And at first is throwing things at you that are terrifying, but it's a horror movie, and you're disconnected from it, essentially. And you're like, Oh, that's pretty horrible. That's Yes. Yeah. God, I can't watch faces a death anymore. Like it's like, but you're disconnected. Like, I'm not the one getting my head broken open. Like that monkey is. Everybody of a certain age, they'll know what that means. So but the second it touched something, it was just a simple line. It knew where to go inside your psyche, and really pull something out. That meant something. It's the first three horror movie. Next thing was like, Oh, you got cancer, just like you're not gonna like, oh, well, boom. That's like the like, you know, in the MMA thing that's like, they got you into guillotine at that point. You're like, you're sure you're going you're going down and it's There's so interesting spiritually what's happening to you, it is a part of you is a fear inside of you, subconsciously that I don't know if you had to consciously or not. But it's like, no, no, let's pull this weed out of the garden and really bring it into the light. And he's not gonna like it. But when it's gone, it's gone. Is that kind of a good explanation of what was going on?

Aubrey Marcus 45:19
Yeah, that's exactly and the intelligence of Ayahuasca. To know that it had to play the game for real and it was willing to bring me down down deep into my deepest into my deepest fear at that point. And it was willing to do that. But the the impulse of it wasn't to be a trickster, wasn't me it was because it because she loved me. And she wanted me to be free of that fear. Because only if I was free of that fear, would I be free, even more free of fear in its totality? So it was this, it was this loving energy, but that loved you so much that it wasn't, wasn't coddling wasn't saying, like, we better not show him that fear. Because that one's a little too close to home. I was like, we gotta get you beyond what your deepest fear is. And so when you do a medicine like that, you got to be ready that anything. If you think you're going to shelter something from ayahuasca, you think you're going to shelter this little fear? There's no, don't go there. The moment you're like, No, don't go there. She's Mama's gone. Like, oh, we're going there. We're going there.

Alex Ferrari 46:21
Oh, it seems like because an analogy of what we go through in life, you know, where we've, you know, if you believe that we create our soul plan and our soul blueprint and we have challenges that we have to live through in this life, to overcome certain things, you know, in life, you could have been given that lesson as well might have taken you a long time did you have might have had a cancer scare might have had you like months and months of like, testing and this and that to finally you realize you don't have anything, and you could have gone through all of that. But this is done in a few hours, intense and sped up. But life is so it's almost like a almost like a sped up treatment plan to overcome stuff in your own psyche. Is that fair to say?

Aubrey Marcus 47:09
Yeah, absolutely. It's a proactive. It's a proactive treatment plan so that the universe and your life doesn't have to manifest this into your own reality. Now, still, stuff gets manifested sometimes, you know, sometimes there's lessons you just won't learn or the medicine can't touch. And still, life has to do what life has to do. Oh, yeah. But if you start to believe that life is going to continue to present you with those things, and places where you're contracted places where you still have fear, so that you can ultimately become free. And this is part of the kind of the doctrine of you know, Peter, Chrome Peter, Chrome talks about this life will continue to present you with the challenges to show you where you're not free. The medicines can help accelerate that path and actually illuminate fears that you didn't know you had illuminate challenges and allow you to work with them proactively so that the universe doesn't have to drag you through a longer protracted near death experience situation to get you over your fear of death or whatever else might be necessary. And I really believe that I believe in not that everything is preordained and destined, I still believe that there's some randomness in this world, but also there's a deep level of guidance. And there's a deep level of intelligence of our soul working with the cosmos, and the access that these plants and plant teachers give you. It does allow you to proactively accelerate the curriculum. And I really believe that.

Alex Ferrari 48:32
So let's go into the bet. If that was just challenging, let's go into this bad situation. Hey, what was it?

Aubrey Marcus 48:41
So most of the bad situations involve times in which something in the set and setting goes off, right? So you don't, it's a situation where you don't, all of a sudden, you can get convinced that you took the wrong medicine, or something is happening, that is not supposed to be happening? Because then there's no what was what was, you know, I never had a question, in that experience that the Iosco that I took was poisoned, because I was with one of the great masters. And they I was taking Ayahuasca in Peru in one and I trusted the medicine and I trusted the shaman. So the bad situations arise when you don't trust the medicine. Often, these are just some of the categories. You don't trust the medicine or you don't trust the shaman. And sometimes maybe you don't trust the dose of the medicine that you took. Right? So because there's a certain threshold where you're like, so if you're doing this on your own, and you're not being guided, you could either and let's say you got a street, you know, some street version of this medicine, and it could be like, Oh, wow, I took poison. Actually, no, these mushrooms were not psilocybin. cubensis this was poison. And I'm actually dying, because you get real nauseous and like, No, I'm actually dying of this poison. And that's not a fear that you actually had to deal with that, of course, we're afraid of no drinking poison. So it's not actually really helpful to your subconscious, your psyche. No, it's just horrifying. It's just trauma. You're just traumatized by thinking that, that you're, you've done something that's that's broken yourself or really injured yourself. And that's because you don't trust this this set in the setting in the medicine. So those are the situations where it gets really bad now that it's not the only situations. So one is you're not sure if you took the right medicine, you maybe took your you're afraid, like, too much of the medicine. You know, I remember my friend Kyle. He was trying to take a small amount of LSD on a hike. And and he brought, you know, my other friend Ian, and they're on this hike. And he didn't realize that the LSD that he had had condensed, evaporated and condensed to like 5x the strength it was liquid LSD, so it condensed because it had been evaporated. So it's been a long time since he had it. But the part that evaporated wasn't the LSD, it was the water. So what was there was condensed LSD. So he was in this experience that he didn't understand also in a place that was really sketchy. They got to like the, you know, top of this mountain, and they can't move and it's the beating sun. And like, that was die. Yeah, that was a traumatic experience. I remember, he manages to finally text me. And he was he's an experienced psychonaut. Like, Kyle is like, he's, uh, you know, almost he hadn't had the years, but he'd had like, comparable experience to me. And he hits me up and he goes, how are you? Is this a life situation? I got a life situation. What do you what do you even mean, of course, he meant like life and death situation. And I was like, alright, like, get shade, you know, like, drop a pin where you're at, we're sending help, you know, like, I talked him through it, I figured it out. But he was in the wrong setting with the wrong amount of medicine, because he wasn't aware of what had happened to his medicine. So that was a bad trip. And for Kyle, that was traumatic, but also for anyone who hadn't had as much experience. It was a significantly traumatic experience, like it took in a lot of time to like heal from that fear that we're on this mountain, no one's gonna find us we're running out of water, we created charcoal. Exactly, it could actually create. And that's what I would call a bad experience, it creates trauma, instead of eliminates trauma. So those are some of the situations, you can also get in a situation where you encounter legitimate dark forces. And they can present you with challenges that if you don't come with the requisite skill set, and intensity of focus, you can get in, you can take an off ramp into in into a fearful place that you may not be able to get out of like so. There was a situation later on 2016 I'm doing Ayahuasca my father had, you know, I don't like to pathologize his condition. I like to mythologize it. So he was like in his King Lear moment lost in the woods pathology would be paranoid schizophrenia. And for there's no link between that in his earlier psychedelic usage, it has a lot to do with him channeling, he went into a channeling practice without good guidelines. And it's a long story. And we don't need to open that bracket. But basically, my father was in an isolated state of paranoid schizophrenia, and I wasn't able to reach him. And so this force comes in into my journey in my Ayahuasca journey, and starts playing all kinds of tricks and games and in basically, you know, tries to get me to tries to pretend that it was able to steal my heart and then tries to negotiate back my heart. And then I'm negotiating for my heart. And then it starts to negotiating for the soul of my father and then calling me a coward because I wouldn't trade my soul for the soul of my father. And it was this intense encounter with this demonic energy. That was like, very, very, very scary and very intense. Now, I was also I had enough practice, and I had I could feel enough guidance, I was able to navigate it through. But I could also see that if I made a few wrong choices, and if I succumb to that fear, or if I made that deal, I might always believe that I that I traded my soul to the devil. And I might always I might have made this kind of psychological pattern in this construct that would kept me in fear. So there are situations that can arise that if you make a wrong if you make the wrong choice, or you go down the fear off ramp, you might not be able to get back on the highway love, you know, for a while you might have to really undo that. So that's another situation that could have gone bad but didn't. And I'd say the last situation of bad is my fiancee at the time we email her. She went to go Do Metis went to do Ayahuasca at a place that I wasn't I wasn't going with her she was going to do her own journey. And she encountered a female shaman, a miasta, who you would call a brouhaha, which is a source. And she cursed Whitney, in one of the in one of the ceremonies. Now, this may all sound like this is all whoop, verses aren't real. Okay. Fair enough. And I think it's actually better if you believe that. So, if you want if you believe that, like, please keep your belief, you know, I don't want you to change that belief. Because living in the world of curses is scary.

Alex Ferrari 55:35
So before you before you continue, just so you know, I am Cuban. So I am I was raised with bruheria And, you know, being the white, the white black, the white magic and the black magic. It's kind of like Cuban voodoo. I was aware of all of this. I had family members who, who wore white for a year because they were there, you know, trying to be the white, the white magic or the white world. And I'm more like been white, which all that does. So I get it. And this is my always my feeling on all of that stuff. I respect it. And I don't have anything to do with it. I agree. I respect it and I believe don't believe irrelevant, respect it and move on. Because I've seen some stuff. I'm from South I'm from I'm from the Caribbean. I've seen some and I I'm just like, You know what, respect it move on, respected and moved to just stay away from me. Continue Sir,

Aubrey Marcus 56:37
One of the best. So one of the best. And I've always said this one of the best defenses against you either do one of two things. One, you really learn how to deal with this field. When you learn how to reverse you know, reverse dark match, you really go deep, and you become a Jedi or drink Budweiser heavy. And say it's and don't allow your belief field to create a vulnerability. Like someone like my, you know, my my friend, I used to hang out with cowboy Cerrone. He's a UFC fighter, right? He is probably the most invincible to brewery of anybody. Because all he's gonna do is drink Budweiser. And then they could try their best magic on him. It's a great defense, the Budweiser defense is like he's incredibly strong. It. So Whitney was somewhere in a state where she was vulnerable enough, you know? And so she was she was hexed. She was cursed. And she came back and she was just different. You know, she's like, I consciousness. And I hate this like, and I was like, man, like something. And she was like in this one. You know, it was one Shaman. Like, it's worst energy from her. And like, she said, Enough, where I was like, All right, like, I think I know what might have happened here. So we're gonna go and we're gonna go into another aspect of the deep jungle to a specialist in reversing bad magic, which is Hamilton Southern and Maestro Alberto Diabla. And that's their specialty. And so Hamilton was aware of it. Hamilton didn't share anything with aware of the possibility of it because I didn't know I was like, Look, we're gonna go and drink and Whitney did not want to drink. I was just like, Fuck, I was like, please, babe, like, just trust me just try this, you'll never have to go again. You can have the smallest amount like, just just, and I didn't want to freak her out either. And be like, Hey, yo, you're cursed. You don't want to like freak someone out. But I was like, Alright, let's go in. And let's just let's just just have the smallest taste, you know. And then. So Maestro Roberto, who Hamilton didn't share anything with. He's just going around the room, and he's doing what's called the bent Yatta, which you'd like the individual eat grows to each person. And they're all the same for everybody. He does, you know, six different people. Same, same, same, same, same, they're all beautiful. And then he stops it Whitney. And he starts puffing his mapacho and he's taking his time. And it was like this interesting pause in the rhythm because he was just basically moving one to the other to the other. And then he bursts into this ego that was so strident and so like my my hair standing up in my arms now just thinking of it's so striking and almost like it was cutting and like this is pounding ego. And then Hamilton kind of slides over to my mat and says, Hey, look, you know, I don't want you to be worried, but this is one of Alberto's most powerful hex reversal. Icaros and Whitney's gonna be fine. There was some bad magic he's straightening straightening it out. She's gonna be she's gonna be 100% When this is done, just don't worry. And he just lays into it lays into it lays it lays into it and the whole room is Just like everybody's hair standing up, and then he finishes blow some more smoke says a few things in Spanish and, and then then moves around, moves around and then continues with all of us with the same mentality as before. So he detected that thing and he broke that thing then him and the shamans. So him there was Maestro Alberto who's the head shaman who taught Maestro Hamilton who taught Maestro Krishnan. So three shamans, three generations of Shamans in the front and they start talking, because in their lineage and in what they do when they reversed the hex or the curse from a brouhaha, or Buho, in this case was a brewer, then there, it's like a fucking video game. It's crazy. But they make contact with the person who hexed the person because through the magic, they're able to actually identify who did it. And it opens up the possibility to go into astral battle. And then if they can actually battle on their their code and their ethos is to take down and to take down the brewers and the brew house. They're like the Jedi. So like we discovered a Sith, we're going to take them out. And when they take them out, they get to take their magic, they get to take part of their power, if they defeat them in spiritual combat. So they're getting in this big argument in the front in the front of the room again in Spanish, so we can't hear it. But Hamilton shared the details. And Alberto is like, I've got her. Let's go get her let's pick her up. Because they're super. I mean, they're like, they're like jet eyes. You know, that's amazing. So and Hamilton's like, no, like, we're not going into battle. We got this group here. Let's just leave her be let's let her go on her way. You know, if we find her again, we can take care of her but we're here to help heal this group and Alberta's like, that's not what we do. We find bad magic, we find a brew hot we we take their medicine and that's how that's how we handle business. Like this is how we run the law down here. And Hamilton's like, No, we can't do that. And finally Alberto's like, fine. Like,

Alex Ferrari 1:02:04
Let the sif go

Aubrey Marcus 1:02:08
So yeah, so I mean, it's, it's a, those are just a couple examples of some of the some of the places where you know, things can go bad, that are not just scary and challenging, but things can go bad. And obviously, all of these stories have happy endings, fortunately. But, but ultimately, you know, there's some there's some bad places.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:30
So it sounds like that the the majority of bad trips or challenging trips, if you will, are because you gotten onto a roller coaster that was put together by an 18 year old Kearney, and you really don't trust that, that you start like you're getting onto a Disney ride at Disney World where you just like this. We're solid. It's this. Yeah. And if you're scared, if you're scared look in the mirror. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If you're scared, you're scared like, No, I'm on a I'm on trying. I'm on Guardians of the Galaxy. Like I'm cool. I'm cool is they check this stuff 25 out, you know, they've never had an issue. But if you're at a at a carnival, and all of a sudden you got an 80 year old card, and you're looking at them, like ooh, that I wouldn't trust him with anything, let alone building this entire thing and running it for me. So that's the equivalent of a bad trip. Because if you're on that roller coaster, and things start to go right, just a little bit, you're like, Oh, my God, the ATO Carney put this together, did he forget a bolt? And that's it. That seems to be what the bad trips are mostly,

Aubrey Marcus 1:03:32
The majority of the bad trips are exactly that. And it could be the bad it could be a bad setting. So the medicine can be right. Or it could be like, so many people have been in like, you know, especially when you're younger, you know, you're at a high school party, and then you take your first psychedelic medicine and then the cops show up and then they're like, you know, like,

Alex Ferrari 1:03:52
The back of a car on shrooms. That's not, bad setting bad setting.

Aubrey Marcus 1:04:04
An actual fight breaks out. You know, like, while you're while you're trying God Yeah, exactly. Like throwing punches. And you're like, I am not prepared.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:14
Am I? Is this happening? Or am I tripping this and all of a sudden, this comes to your face? I felt that I was like,

Aubrey Marcus 1:04:23
It was too real.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:24
It feels more real. Is this blood? Or is this eels? What's going on? Yeah, that was it. So let me ask you, though, when you're done with one of these, how long does this last? Do you have a residual effect of the trip? Or is it just like when it's over? It's over?

Aubrey Marcus 1:04:42
The residual effect is is to me lifelong. I mean, I feel

Alex Ferrari 1:04:46
But like literally the trip itself length, not nothing.

Aubrey Marcus 1:04:50
Yeah, so it depends on the medicine. So each medicine has a duration. So for example, on the shortest side, let's go to shortest to longest So shortest side would Be, for me smoked and DMT, which is called the spirit molecule. So if you smoke it, it lasts probably no more than 10 minutes for peak and then maybe 20 minutes you're out, you're through the Twilight, it's about a 20 minute trip, smoked, and then DMT smoked five Meo DMT, you're talking maybe 40 minutes or so a little bit longer. Oh, it's very specific. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And, and very qualitatively different as well, even just switching the molecular structure, that one's called the God molecule kind of opens you to the field of the Divine, very, very intense, probably the most intense, but in short duration psychedelic. Then probably next, you know, next shortest would be injectable ketamine, you're talking hour, hour and a half. And that's operating on NMDA receptor sites. And it has this kind of I call it star medicine, it kind of opens you to more of the celestial dimensions of consciousness that are really disembodied, can be very confusing because it's almost leaping beyond the astral levels and taking you into like the seventh dimension, if you will, from the third to the seventh, skipping four, five and six often so you don't encounter a lot of the entities and things on ketamine. But it's a really powerful beautiful medicine, cannabis smoked cannabis, you're talking you know, two and a half hours or whatever your high. Edible cannabis is a bit longer, of course. So then then we start getting into about like the mushroom level range, which is usually no more than five hours. So mushrooms are about five hours. East forest as an is a musician who has a great five hour album called Music for mushrooms. And it's perfect. Like by about our four, you're kind of coming down as music trailing off. So mushrooms are about five hours I asked. I asked us tricky, you know, it kind of goes in waves. Sometimes it can be eight hours sometimes because sometimes it can be delayed onset. Sometimes it can be, you know, three, four hours and you're out. I WASC as a you know, orally active DMT and it becomes orally active because they mix DMT containing leaves, the chuck crooner leaves with the Ayahuasca vine, which contains a potent MAEOI monoamine oxidase inhibitor, which prevents the breakdown of DMT. But you're working with your own not only spirituality, but pharmacology so it can affect you differently, depending on how it works. So it can go up to like, you know, six, eight hours or it can go as short as like three, four hours you can do but it starts to be in the longer range. Mushrooms are pretty reliably five hours. Then getting longer. We're talking about LSD we're talking about 10 hours why tumor which is you know what tumor San Pedro, which is mescaline is the active ingredient. We're talking more like 10 hours. So we're getting in peyote, 10 hours, we're talking about that range, then we're moving into the longest acting. So LSD Huachuma you know, peyote, they're all in that 10 hour range, sometimes up to 12, but usually more like 10 and then and then it Boga then then that's the that's the that's the one that's like the longest. So you're a bogey experiences. If you're doing what's called a flood dose, which is a full dose of Boga is a shrub that grows in Gaborone, and it's offered by the BT people that's the main lineage tradition that offers this medicine. It's at minimum an 18 hour experience. And it can go up to 36 hours that you're at your

Alex Ferrari 1:08:35
How do you how do you survive that like a you know, eating and

Aubrey Marcus 1:08:38
It is, it is no you you can well you can start to be able to sit I mean, of course people drive fast all the time. I mean, Sundancers, dry fast and sweat lodge for four days in a row, right? So you can you can not drink water and eat for quite a few days and be okay. But it's intense and it's for it's unbelievably uncomfortable. And you only you only do a BOGO like that a couple times in your life. Like it bug is not one of those things where you like I've done a bogo 50 to 50 flood doses like you're do. That's very unusual. Yeah, exactly. It's like it's really, it is a very powerful medicine. And it's not something that you need to do all the time now Iboga microdoses, that's a different story. You can you can do that differently. And, and that's, that's a much different experience, shorter duration.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:28
So let me ask you, this concept of micro dosing has been coming out more and more in the mainstream, where you can literally buy micro doses of LSD and it's really the kind of opening people up, but in a micro way, but it is definitely serious. Can you explain a little bit about what micro dosing in the term of where I'm seeing it out there kind of in the world now it's a little bit more acceptable to micro dose of psilocybin and things like that.

Aubrey Marcus 1:09:53
Well, it's certainly much safer, right? Like you're not going to have the bad experiences that you would have And I'm saying bad. And also saying challenging this experiences are neither going to be bad nor challenging. So but the challenging yields an immensely positive result, that is only available in a mega dose or in a flood dose or in a in a proper full dose. But what it can give you is it can start to adjust your, your brain chemistry. So I would like in microdosing, to a meditation practice, like, what you've done in your meditation practice is you've shifted your neurological patterning, you've shifted your neurological patterning microdosing is shifting your neurological patterning, you're just shifting the way that blood is flowing in your brain, subtly, you're shifting the way that your receptor sites are open or active. So it can be very helpful to, you know, to kind of continue a steady practice, that's subtly shifting your brain chemistry in a way, so that if you're, you know, plagued with a kind of chronic depressive state, you know, then microdosing could maybe really help your chronic anxious state. And without you actually doing any, any major lifestyle changes, it's just subtly shifting, you almost like a good supplement might, or a good meditation practice are good, you know, if I started like running breathwork, all of these things. So it's a subtle change over time, that can really be beneficial can also increase in, in the kind of immediate, it can increase productivity or creativity, in certain ways, as you're kind of shifting your neuro chemistry. I'm not the I explore microdosing. And I certainly am, you know, very, you know, very positive about the field of it. For me, it's not the area, that's the most exciting to me. But it's also it's also like, I know so many people who have yielded such incredible benefits to me, I'd rather if I'm depressed, I'd rather get down find find the find the weed at the root, and pull that pull that sucker out and look at it and go like interesting. And then tell the story about the weed that I saw, and where it was came from and why it was there, and why it was affecting me and tell that on a podcast, rather than having something subtly shift. So maybe that's just my kind of wild pedagogic nature where I like to teach about what I discovered, you know?

Alex Ferrari 1:12:30
Well, yeah, I think it's been established that you are an interesting soul to say the least. And it might be in your nature to just go into the deep end of the pool where there's a lot of people in this will, who will not is not in their nature to go into the pool, and the micro dosing might be the only way that they

Aubrey Marcus 1:12:48
I think it's, you know, I would, I'm much more likely to recommend, first of all, I don't recommend psychedelics to people, unless you really know them, right? Like, you don't recommend that. But I will recommend breathwork I will recommend meditation, I will recommend sensory deprivation, floatation ecstatic dance, I'll recommend all of that. And that's, so we have a group called fit for service. There's no psychedelics involved in fit for service whatsoever. It's all these practices breathwork ecstatic dance, meditation communication, you know, time in nature one like these little mini vision quest. So I will recommend that unequivocally. And then when it comes to micro dosing, there's a pretty, you know, I'm pretty open to recommending that to people be like, you should maybe consider micro dosing take a look at, you know, Fadiman protocols, take a look at, you know, Paul Stamets protocols, and you know, which involves different mushrooms, and you really take a good look at that. And I feel very comfortable recommending that, because I think the safety is really there, they're not going to get into any deep waters. And even though I'm happy to receive those calls, at, you know, two, three more people,

Alex Ferrari 1:13:56
It's a life situation.

Aubrey Marcus 1:14:01
I mean, I've received plenty of those, and I'm well equipped to deal with them. I don't prefer to deal with them. I don't want people to go through those experiences. So I think microdosing is a really important option that's come on the table. And I'm much more comfortable giving that as like, yeah, I recommend not that people do it. But I recommend that people really, if you're listening, look into it, for sure. And then if you're really called to, you know, taking a big psychedelic medicine journey, really search deep inside, you know, do as much research as you can listen to some more of my podcast, definitely buy my book when it comes out in February 2, if you're interested, because I tell all the stories and then you know, find really good practitioners that can really guide you in a in a, in a really healthy way. And the field of practitioners is also interesting because there's a lot of different practitioners that have come online in the States. And they're not all equal. You know, and I don't want to start calling out names And, and doing all of that, because, but there's some that don't know what they're doing. And there's some that do know what they're doing. And it's interesting. So be mindful that there's a mixed bag. And there's different people like, Oh, I got this particular protocol. And there's one group that is very popular. And I'm, again, I'm not going to mention it, but it has a very reliable, it's a very reliable source of, you know, the way that they utilize medicines. And if somebody's doing that protocol, you know, and they are just without sharing the protocols called the journey. And if you're doing the journey, you know, like, it's probably going to be a pretty good experience, you know, they've kind of worked out the kinks, it is pretty good. There's another, you know, there's another protocol that's come onboard, that's, I've, it's pretty reckless, and I think actually somewhat dangerous. So just be mindful of what's happening. And there's also shamans that are roaming around offering Ayahuasca all over the place. Some are, you know, some are competent, some are not, but the thing about domestic shamans is they're less likely to be brew hose or brew us. They're just, it's more of a competency issue. It's more of like, let's because ayahuasca is also brewed similar to how the LSD was able to get stronger through evaporation. If you cook Ayahuasca too long, it becomes concentrated. So what they think the doses could be three times as strong as the dose, so one cup of Ayahuasca could be like three cups, and then all chaos could break loose, including the Ayahuasca facilitated took. So you could be literally in a circus, where there's feces flying around the room, like the stories that I've heard is unbelievable, like, unbelievable things can happen. So it needs to be respected. And these domestic US shamans are probably not going to curse you. But they may be wildly incompetent. So just be just be mindful.

Alex Ferrari 1:17:02
So if if Becca calls me from the Hollywood Hills, and says, Hey, man, I got this dude. Yeah, when he saw a documentary about this, I think we could do this this weekend. Probably stay away.

Aubrey Marcus 1:17:17
I would say so. You know, I would say so. But, you know, sometimes they're good. You know, sometimes they're good. But ultimately, like, I really, you know, I recommend people go to the I can only recommend that people who I know. And I know the chef, I know the facility. It's soltara I know my brother, Sean Chester has been on my podcast will guide you to the right place. I know that Maestro Lando, you know, will guide you in a good way. And there needs to be more people who I can really trust. I do know some domestic but I can't share their names. There are people that that are offering medicine, Yogen and Balko. Who are on my podcast, basically, you can look at my podcasts, you'll find the people who if they're awesome, I've probably interviewed them.

Alex Ferrari 1:17:58
You wouldn't interview the the one that Becca knows you're not interviewing the one, the shaman that Becca knows is basically

Aubrey Marcus 1:18:08
That's not the way I like to roll I've in the game too long. You know, I've been in this business long enough.

Alex Ferrari 1:18:14
So let me ask you, though, that that list that you said from the shortest amount of time all the way to the longest like there, you know, 15 hours that 36 hour?

Aubrey Marcus 1:18:25
Yep.

Alex Ferrari 1:18:26
Did you experience that whole gambit in your life? Have you taken taken all of that at one point or another?

Aubrey Marcus 1:18:32
Oh, yeah. I mean, everything I mentioned is personal book. It's all personal experience. And not only personal experience, but I mean, many, many of these experiences it Boga the long one again, you don't do that many times in your life. So that one is three, I've done three of those, you know, three of those 18 hour experiences in my life. I Alaska's probably, you know, 4050 mushrooms in the hundreds DMT in the hundreds ketamine in that, like, through 24 years. Yeah, there's been a lot of journeys, you know, what you probably around 20 Like, there's been, there's been a lot I've done all of these things many, many, many times. And and, you know, really, sometimes, you know, or very rarely do I do them in an in a non sacred way. And that's only like, Yeah, sure. I've occasionally I've been at Burning Man and I've had some Mali for sure, I've taken some mushrooms, but particularly my way of accessing this is for the purpose and the intention of accessing my spiritual actualization and growth and my joy. Like, I can't tell you, you know, it's funny, like I'm 87% Ashkenazi Jew. Right? And I met somebody in kawaii and he's also same and, and he said something funny. He was because he was feeling my energy. He's also been on the spiritual path. And he's like, Wait, you're saying you're almost full blooded you? I was like, yeah, he's like, and you're not anxious?

Alex Ferrari 1:20:12
That's great. Yeah. Yeah, I'm happy.

Aubrey Marcus 1:20:15
I'm so happy and like, he's like, You're so calm. I was like, Yeah, well, if you met me, you know, if you met me from 17 to 25, like you'd have found a different person and not to not to also, you know, just say categorically that Jews have this anxious tendency, but there is like Holocaust trauma, and my, you know, my ancestors, they fled from the pogroms. And we do know that these trauma patterns, these anxious patterns of we never know, when the next people are coming after us. They do travel. So it's not to make a generalization that all Jews are kind of anxious, you know, for sure not, of course not. But there is also patterns that go through no lineages that PJ generations, parents generation generations, generational trauma, so I've been able to work through, it's just kind of a tongue in cheek story to say that my path has allowed me to actually move into a place of peace and love and joy, that has allowed me to move through the states of anxiousness and fear, and all of the things that aren't exclusive to my Hebrew lineage, which are universal in nature. But it's just funny getting that reflection from somebody who was also Jewish. So we are allowed to talk about ourselves in a certain way, I guess we get permission, you know, and, and just offer that reflection in that this path has allowed me to fundamentally change the nature of the generational trauma that I, you know, I'd been passed down to me from my parents and my grandparents and, and just live a different life a life that's so much more free. And it's not that I don't have my challenges, and I don't go into my own difficulties and dark places and places where I throw my hand up and start crying and say it's too much and I don't think I can make it but but I am so happy man. I'm so happy and myself for my performance also. Like, I'm still I'm 42 I'm ballin on the basketball court, just like I was bawling when I was 18. You know, like, I was bawling. I'm still like, crushing it in the in the business world and everything like so every in every category, I feel like my life is just is just, you know, gotten better and better. My relationship is often, like, so many things about my life is are so good. And I can't give all the credit sectors of course, and I had great mentors, great teachers, I've had great personal practices and willingness to do the hard workouts and the cold plunges and all of the things in a dedicated breathwork practice and you know, the different you know, different ways to access nature, all of these things count everything, everything contributes. But fundamentally, it's not only changed my life spiritually, but it's allowed me to just live in a different state of being is my kind of natural state. And and so I'm trying to be a bridge to say like, you don't have to sacrifice anything like I'm still at 42 out on the court trying to take people's souls like Xiang soon for Mortal Kombat.

Alex Ferrari 1:23:12
Ah, again, extremely spiritual. So you are evolved beyond all evolution, sir.

Aubrey Marcus 1:23:21
And then we'd go that we just played we actually played on you know, this last I don't know when this podcast were released, but it was this last Sunday. So 107, two and a half hours. Let's play two and a half hours at three on three. And it was it was we got after each other as hard as we could we finish that. And we all go in the pool, and we all laugh, we talk about each other's lives, we each share a meal together. And it's like, there's this this beauty in competing that hard and then coming back and like knowing that all these brothers went through that same heat. And it didn't matter who won or lost at that point who made the shots or who didn't. So it's like, I've been able to include all of the beautiful parts of my life like so many people think oh, I'm gonna do ayahuasca I'm gonna have to quit my job I'm gonna work and where beads and robes and like not unless you want to. I mean, if you want to do that you can but you can. You can still wear your you can still wear your flossy jewelry you can still do all that just what what are you doing it for? Why are you doing it, you're doing it out of joy. Like if you really love a Bentley, because of the craftsmanship of that Bentley, and it just can feel as good when you drive it, you're still gonna drive a Bentley, you know, like, you can still love it. Like, it's not like you have to give up all your material possessions, but you're also going to be driven by a higher purpose and a deeper understanding of why, like why do you love this? What's the purpose? Are you doing this to show off? Are you doing this to try and be better than somebody else? Are you doing this because man, I just love it. Like the Bentley makers know how to make a car or the Aston Martin makers know how to make an engine. That just sounds good and it fires me up you know? It doesn't mean you can't have your kinky set. Yeah, you get spiritual as well. Like yeah, go for it, but no why you're doing it, like understand the full field that you're playing in. And that's also part of the message is like, you don't have to give up the things you love about being human. You just have to give up the false things that you're chasing that are ultimately unsatisfying, because you don't want to chase those anyways.

Alex Ferrari 1:25:17
So it seems to be opening up the why a lot more than anything else, because it's the you're absolutely right. Like, the whole thing is like, oh, you can't be rich and spiritual, you know, which is such a false narrative. It's like, well, can you be wealthy? Well, yeah, he should be abundant life should be abundant. Looking at Apple Tree For God's sakes. You know, there's not just one apple that pops out, there's that you know, hundreds on one tree alone, and then there's a whole row of them. So there's abundance in nature. So you should have abundance in your life. But the why is a very, I love that what you said there because it's like, why do you want this car? Why do you want to buy this? This these clothes? What are you doing it for? Is it because of the way you feel? Does it feel actually technically feel good on your skin? Or are you just trying to put a logo on yourself to make yourself look better than you bigger than you are? So that's a really great distinction, my friend. But brother before we go, there's one thing I wanted to talk to you about it because I saw this. I saw your video on it. And I was like, Man, I'm fascinated. That dark retreat, the darkness rich, that darkness retreat, which seems so simple, go into a dark room for six days, and God will show up. You know, I've heard about sensory deprivation and going into that tank and that could be a trip as well just for you gotta do it. On diamond here. I'm dying to do it. Actually, I know there's plenty in Austin here that they have good tanks. So I'm dying to do that. But the darkness retreat talked a little bit about, you know, what was that like? day one, day two, like what happens to you during that process of the darkness? Should you because most of us. I mean, I've been in pitch dark, but like not pitch it? No, like I said, not. It's pitch dark. But I have been in moments that I've been like, Man, I can't see my hand in front of my face. And I've been I've been in tunnels I've been in caves. You actually have been in pitch dark because I've been I've been in the in the caves in the caves here in Austin. Yeah, cave black. And you just can't. There's no lock as cave black. Exactly. Yeah, it's no light anywhere. So tell me what that's like for

Aubrey Marcus 1:27:25
So that's where the that's where the tradition develop caves were really the only place where you could find something that had zero light leaks. Because darkness and blackness are different. Like blackness is a thing where there is no no matter how much your eyes adjust, there is no difference anywhere you look, eyes open, eyes closed. It's just black. Yeah. And that was that developed as an old practice in caves where they were accessible, where people would go into the caves. And this was part of a initiatic or shamanic practice. The Kogi people have a very extensive practice where they bring certain kids in there for an initiation, they kind of choose the medicine people. And there's a there's a quote that I like to mention in that and I use it in my documentary, and it's from Khalil Gibran every and he says, Every man is two men, one who is asleep in the light, and the other who is awake in the darkness. Oh, and that's just a powerful quote. Because in the light, you know, this is often called the Maya the illusion. And I think it's more than that. I think there's so much beauty, I think that's reductionist makes it all like this isn't the real, this is also the real, but there's a real reality that comes to you in the black. That's, that's just different. And you have to let it get slow, you have to let it seep into you. Like the blackness becomes I called it obsequious. Like it's there. It's like they're seeping through you and loving you in this interesting way. And then allowing these things that are completely internal, because it's such an internal thing. It's just your mind. It's all that's there as your mind. And yeah, you can feel your body so your body doesn't go anywhere, but your body can't do that much. You're very limited with what you can do with your body. You can do a little yoga, you can do some push ups, you can wiggle I spent a lot of time wiggling. But like, you don't have much that you can do, and you're not there's no sound really either other than occasional sounds, it might be coming out from around outside, whatever place you're in. But you're alone with your mind, just your mind for days and days and days. And you don't know day and night, the place that I went, they mixed up the times that they served breakfast and lunch and dinner. So you didn't you've lost the sense of time. You weren't tracking with time. How many days have I been in here? Well, I kind of know based on the meals, but I'm not really sure because it could have mixed it up and and so you get into this kind of timeless state of just you and your mind. And of all the journeys I've done. People have been more scared of the of the darkness than anything else. But to me, it was very funny. It's like, what do you mean you're scared of the darkness that means that you're afraid Have your own mind, right like, because there's nothing else there, you're not taking any other medicines, it's just you and your mind. So if you're afraid of your mind, you have a monster that you're living with 24/7. And so you have a choice. If you're living with a monster, you either, you know, let's say you think there's a monster under the bed, while you either shut the lights off in your room, and then run and jump on your bed and hold tight in the covers, and you're worried about going to the bathroom? Because the monster might grab your heels. Obviously, that's obviously that's the monsters under the bed. Do they grab you by the heels? We all know that terrifying. But why would you want to live with that monster? Why not actually go explore and look at it and get so close to you that you can smell it and taste it and feel it and so it acts slower than the the psychedelic medicines like ayahuasca, but it's even more powerful in many ways, because it just allows you with no bridge and other filter, it just allows you to confront anything that's going on in your mind. And there is a psychedelic component. I mean, I had visions of my father that were really healing I had, you know, whole a whole list of things that changed my perspective on relationship changed my perspective on myself, my love for my mother and my fears that I didn't know I had and things that were holding me back it was, again, yeah, I have a, you know, a powerful documentary that documents that whole process because I had a blacked out tape recorder, which I wasn't sure it was working because I had to just memorize which button to push for on and off. And just hope that I got it right. And fortunately, I did, because I practiced it enough. And I was able to tape record in the process. So I was able to dictate kind of live some of the stuff I was going through. But it's incredibly incredibly powerful. And, and really, I trust myself with my mind and again, the the anxiousness. Right, like that was a huge thing that this kind of chronic level of anxiety. Like before the darkness, cannabis was probably the hardest medicine for me to deal with, to be honest. Because when I'd have when I would smoke cannabis or eat cannabis, I would get so anxious and people that all cannabis gives you anxiety, I don't think so I think cannabis reveals the anxiety that you have. And so for me, every time I would have cannabis I was so it was so uncomfortable. And then after the darkness, that relationship started to change, because all of those things I was anxious about they just reverberating rippled up to the surface and I was able to see them deal with them slowly deal with these different emotions that were happening. And, and it really was a profound kind of life changing experience that and also just gave me a you know, you don't really, you don't really realize how much you take for granted until all of its gone away. Like the fact that you can look outside your window and just see the trees and see see just to see just sight itself. And sound and music. I remember the first music I listened to at the end of that I was like oh my god music. I take music for granted. Take site for granted I take conversation for granted. And I was I had this funny rant in the in the documentary where I was talking about how I used to get off frustrated when I would be on a layover on a plane and my plane be delayed. And I was like airport, the airport is a circus of things to do. There's it is people you can call, you can turn a movie on on your laptop, you can do it in a circus of things to do. And like here in the darkness, there's just you and your mind, and you just have to deal with it. So I really you know, recommend that practice. And there's not that many places the supply for darkness is very limited. There's a place in Oregon called Sky cave. But I think there's going to be many more places that come online. As people become aware of this field. That's an ancient field that comes in, you know, my teacher Bharati was trained in like the there's a Hindu path that comes from and of course the Kogi have a path, but again, they were in caves. But this is a little bit more comfortable than a cave, because you're just in a blacked out room. And it's been so powerful that I actually blacked out my guest bedroom in my in my house here in Austin. So I'll do little mini darkness immersions where I'll go up there for eight hours or, you know, 16 hours through the night. And it's pretty cool though. All the people like I can never count on anybody being awake for breakfast slice leaving my guest room, because they'll come it'll be like 130 and they'll come down and be like, I don't know what happened. I slept 13 hours. The rest like

Alex Ferrari 1:34:49
Yeah, Blackout room. Black. That's that it like 50 degrees inside the room with a bunch of covers. You're out for 18 hours.

Aubrey Marcus 1:34:58
Exactly. Exactly so people come to visit. They're like, so well rested. But yeah, it's been one of the great the great practices on this economic path.

Alex Ferrari 1:35:08
My friend, I can continue to talk to you for four days. So I think this is the beginning of a hopefully a beautiful friendship and you'll have a have you back, I will have you back on the show. If you have if you will come back when your book comes out, so we could go deeper down this rabbit hole and talk about other cool stuff. Now I'm gonna ask you a few questions asked all my guests. Okay, what is your definition of living a fulfilled life?

Aubrey Marcus 1:35:32
A fulfilled life comes from clarified desire. And in my lineage, the Hebrew lineage, they call that bearer, they're clarification of your desire, the clarification so that you're actually seeing what you really want. Again, this goes to the why, why am I doing this? What am I here? What is my what is my highest purpose, that includes my purpose, but transcends my purpose, so that my purpose and God's purpose are actually woven together into a braid and a clarified purpose, having a clarified purpose, and then having the courage to live that clarified purpose. That's the name of the game. And so through this process, clarifying my own desire and feeling my own desire, line up more with the divine, the divine desire, the desire of spirit, so that I'm living my whole life with a deeper sense of purpose. To me, that encapsulates the definition.

Alex Ferrari 1:36:27
Beautiful man. And if you can go back in time and talk to little Aubrey, what advice would you give him?

Aubrey Marcus 1:36:34
Yeah, this one's this one hits deep, man, this one hits deep, because I wouldn't tell Aubrey to change anything other than just to have more faith that it's going to work out. It's gonna work out well, buddy. It's our it's kind of a it's kind of all workout, little buddy, because I spent so much time doubting that I'd be right here where I am right now. Like, I was doubting this so long and so tortured, and so anxious and worried and afraid that I wouldn't get here. And here is just one stop. It's not a destination. It's just one stop on a journey. But man, I would just tell him, I'm like, buddy, it's gonna work out. It's gonna work out buddy. Like, just keep going, like, have more faith that it's gonna work out and just ease those kind of rough edges of the unnecessary anxiousness and unnecessary self doubt. And just say, like, it's all gonna work out buddy.

Alex Ferrari 1:37:30
Beating beating yourself up, man. That's the thing I had to learn. Man, I had to learn that and I was the worst with myself. I'm sure you were as well. Yeah, just beat yourself up. And my wife would like you kind of stop destroying yourself. And so finally, I just stopped. Just stopped. I don't beat myself up anymore.

Aubrey Marcus 1:37:50
And you know, there wasn't. There was a moment, I think it was probably 2014 2015. And I finally I was driving home from work and, you know, on it was really starting to take off and succeed and, and my spiritual path was evolving. And I was starting to get a platform, and I started my podcast, and I felt like, Oh, my God, like, you're really doing it and I, but I still, I was just brutal on myself, every mistake could focus on that and hammer like, like, can't believe you did that, like, just so rough, like, and I kind of took on those voices of all of those pieces of society. And, and I just said, Aubrey, you're doing good, man. You've done well, you're doing good. And I remember that voice coming in. And it was such a shock to my system for me to just say like, Aubrey, you did good. You're doing good. And that was the first time I'd ever heard myself say that. Because even if I played a good basketball game, scored 30 We win. You know, it'd be like, Man, you missed that one shot you should have made and even thinking like, it was always focused on the always focused on ways that could have been better. And for once, the first time I was just like, you did good. And I've that I've just had to really through active will and focus, just focus on really encouraging that. That really positive self talk and that positive voice, because that's helped me so much more than the negative voice. The negative voice is easy. It's like we all get that but it has a limit to where it can take you and then the positive voice is going to take you the rest of the way.

Alex Ferrari 1:39:42
That's awesome. How do you define God or source or the universe or whatever you want to call it?

Aubrey Marcus 1:39:51
Oh boy. Source is the field of cause connection between us and everything else. And in the Hebrew lineage, you know, my teacher Rabbi Gafni, you names this Shekinah and Shahina is also another word for Eros which is that force of the both alignment and autonomy the way that molecules are connected together, the way that people connect together, it's, it's this interconnectedness of all of life and all of what we would call even matter in spiritual matter, it's the totality of everything and the feeling the feeling tone of this everything of all that is which is God the feeling tone of the all that is is love. That's the feeling tone of it. But there's many other places where it feels like God isn't but actually seeing the greater greater picture God is the all that is and it's the connection between the all that is and if you tap into it, you'll find the feeling tone of that being love. And and that's that's really god it's very, it's much less personal than we make it out to be doesn't have the anthropomorphize qualities of judgment of this net. Yes, we have our conscience, and we have, you know, there's values and there's principles of shakiness, generosity, it's almost like the Dow like, there's the way, but it's the feeling tone of it all is love that every place you fall, you'll fall into her arms, you know, that all of the insides of everything are lined with love. And to understand that you may have to even move past this lifetime to understand the whole mystery of it all. Like, why are people suffering? There's people suffering, like how does that make sense? How could there be a god when there are people suffering? Well, you can't actually explain that in the context of one life. You have to explain that in the context of the whole universe and the reincarnation I know you've done so much work with nd and reincarnation, yes, you have to explain it in a greater context. That includes your death. And then your subsequent reincarnation,

Alex Ferrari 1:42:05
Opening the awareness opening the awareness.

Aubrey Marcus 1:42:07
So yeah, yeah, the God God is all all that is and to know that God is even in Paul Selig says, to know that God is even in the unknown is to claim faith is that whatever is unknown, God is there to and that's the claim of faith is it God is God is everywhere, and we just may not have the ability to see that from our perspective. But when you really tap into the feeling tone of it, God is love. You know, and God is love in a way that's different than the way that we know love, but also participates in the way we know love. Like when we're in love with anything could be a cat could be a person, it could be a song. We're participating in the field of God, the feeling tone of God.

Alex Ferrari 1:42:49
Beautiful my friend beautiful, you should have a podcast. And finally, sir, what is the ultimate purpose of this life? Easy, just softball questions.

Aubrey Marcus 1:43:06
All right, so so I'm gonna quote Snoop Dogg here. Yes. He said in a song, it ain't no fun. If my homies can't have none, right? It ain't no fun if my homies can. And so the purpose of life is to enjoy it fully, but enjoy it not at the expense of others, to enjoy it as permission, and in a way that gives an open invitation for everybody else, to fully enjoy this existence and to help build a world where as many of us as possible, can live in greater abundance, in greater joy and greater happiness, greater connection to God, greater connection to the field of love, greater truth, greater clarity, greater self awareness, because you can be happy, but you can't. Once you're connected to the field, you can't be fully fully, fully happy and fulfilled in your purpose. If everybody else isn't participating. If your homies don't have none, you know, so the greater purpose is to it a fun, it ain't fun. It can be temporarily fun, but your purpose always drives you and this is the this is the idea of the Bodhisattva. So for me, the bodhisattva is a great example. The Bodhisattva is the one who could sit on a mountaintop and find himself in a place of pure Ananda, pure bliss, pure bliss consciousness but because of his compassion, for the suffering of others, descends down from the mountaintop and says I won't go sit in that place until everybody has a chance to sit in that place.

Alex Ferrari 1:44:43
Great answer my friend. Now wanted to before you go, man, I want you to talk about your amazing festival that you got coming up. And where can people tell us what it is? what it's all about, and where can people get tickets if they want to go?

Aubrey Marcus 1:44:58
Yeah, thanks, bro. Um, this is one of the things I'm like, really, really excited about now. So I've experienced festival culture all over the world in many different places, Burning Man a bunch of different other festivals. And there's something about the energy of a crowd, you know, fewer, more gathered, there's this presence of the Divine, you know, this kind of Communitas that develops, it's greater than the individual, you get to kind of merge with the field and good music and a great talk or a great transformational practice. And so I've been going and being attending these, these festivals for, you know, 20 years, but there was always like an evolution that I saw that was maybe possible than if I was able to, with all of my knowledge, curate the right type of music, which includes that grimy you're just dancing and letting loose loose of all of your carnality and all of your expression. You know, we got Troy and Dr. Fresh in the Glitch Mob that are just going to give this deep, primal sense to the more ethereal, incredibly, spiritually activating you know, music with amazing art. So we're at the area 15 complex, which is connected to meow Wolf. So we have private access to meow wolf at the end of the festival nights. So you'll be able to go explore these places of awe and wonder and awe and wonder is just a powerful, also a powerful force when you can step into all that childlike awe. And something happens to you. It just puts you in relation to the to the world in a way reminds us of how stupendous and magnificent the world is. And then also but has a greater a real ethos and a purpose to it in that all of the speakers we have amazing speakers, Dell, big tree mom and Gina in queue. Matias de Stefano is going to be there. Oh, nice. Yes, Mkn so many other speaker Bleu and it's all about building we call it festival for a more beautiful world. And it's really about trying to bring temporarily so stepping outside of your current reality into a reality of a more beautiful world where we get to taste how beautiful life can be and how beautiful it can be to meet strangers in the synchronicity machine and feel a common ethos and create this kind of shared experience of awe and wonder and celebration and and all of the things that are possible. So yeah, the festival is called Arcadia with a que in Arcadia is just a name that we pick to stand for a symbol of a temporary more beautiful world. And, and yeah, tickets are available go to fit for service.com/arcadia with a K, it's our second year. And there's a couple different, you know, ticket ticket tiers some that gives you more access to some of the speakers on the earlier parts of the day. And some that are just if you want to, you know, listen to the great music and the headline speakers at night. And then if you really believe in what we're doing, there's builder tickets, which gives you lifetime access to the festival. And so there's different levels and you know, it's it's very expensive, and it's probably the worst business venture I've ever undertaken.

Alex Ferrari 1:48:07
Yes, I know.

Aubrey Marcus 1:48:10
Hammered. We're just getting hammered, but But I believe in it. You know, like I fundamentally believe that this is something that not only is right now, a beautiful experience to have it gives gives an amazing possibility. Like I met my wife at a festival I met Vinylon at Burning Man, you know, so many amazing things can happen when you join people with a shared ethos. And, and so I really believe in it. And even though I'm taking a bath, on the financial side, is something that it's something I really believe in. And it's my dream. It's my dream festival, you know, and so if you resonate with what I've been sharing, you know, I think you'll really you'll really have an incredible experience at Arcadia.

Alex Ferrari 1:48:50
And where is it? Where's it going to be held?

Aubrey Marcus 1:48:52
So it's at Area 15 Meow Wolf, Las Vegas. And so it's interesting people like Las Vegas and again, people have these biases like

Alex Ferrari 1:49:00
Sin city, Sin city city, that's where the demons live, sir.

Aubrey Marcus 1:49:07
But ultimately, like, where if you're an angel, and I'm not saying I'm an angel for sure not I described what I do to people on the basketball court so don't get confused. I don't put you on a play ball with me and you're not going to see an angel. See shank soon. I promise you that. So but where where would that angelic energy be attracted? You think it's gonna hang out in Angel Country Club, you know in Asheville, North Carolina and Angel Country Club. No. It wants to go to the heart and transmute and transform energy in the place where it needs to be transformed the most and we didn't want to do it necessarily in Las Vegas, but we were just drawn there through a series of crazy divinely orchestrated mishaps and synchronicities. This was the only place we could throw it last year. And it went so well that we're like, Alright, we're gonna run it back. And because It has those it has the it's like this kind of island that's created within Las Vegas that actually opens you up to see Las Vegas in a new way, by seeing a place that exists in Las Vegas. So no matter what city you live in, you can start to see oh, if this island can be created in Las Vegas can be created anywhere in Hollywood and in any place. So yeah, it's, it's in it's in Vegas, baby.

Alex Ferrari 1:50:24
Nice baby. That's awesome. Well, I will make sure to put the link in the show notes for anybody who wants in the description below if anybody wants to check it out. Brother, man. And we're by the way, where can people find out more about you besides the festival about you your show and the amazing work that you're doing in the world, man?

Aubrey Marcus 1:50:42
Yeah. Thanks, bro. @AubreyMarcus on Instagram. I have a podcast. It's been going for, I don't know, like 12 years now. So

Alex Ferrari 1:50:51
You jumped in when, when podcasts weren't sexy.

Aubrey Marcus 1:50:54
I know. Exactly. And it's really because I just I love these conversations. You know, I cherish these conversations. And unfortunately, you know, people have really resonated with my message over the years. So yeah, that's the Aubrey Marcus podcast, and Aubrey marcus.com. I mean, basically, you start, you know, looking for Aubrey Marcus on any of the channels, you'll find me. And I'll be there.

Alex Ferrari 1:51:19
Brother, man, this has been such an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for educating me educating my tribe, about, about psychedelics, about plant medicine, about standing in the dark and looking into the heart of your soul, and figure out what's going on and all the other things we discussed. It is really been a pleasure talking to you, my friend, I look forward to our next conversation. So thank you!

Aubrey Marcus 1:51:43
I look forward to two and I'm gonna hit you up after we get off right now. Just so people know. And I'm going to invite you to go into a sensory deprivation tank at the same time we'll go in different tanks. We're not going to yet yeah.

Alex Ferrari 1:51:56
That's a whole other experience. I haven't done that since my 20s Maybe one time in college. I mean, I needed the money I needed the money brothers, you know, it's tough times back then, you know.

Aubrey Marcus 1:52:12
I'm inviting you to go and have a float experience with me and and so well hopefully we'll hang out soon and thanks for everything you do as well rather than thanks for everybody who's tuning in to the uplifting and expansive messages that you're offering. So just mad gratitude all around.

Alex Ferrari 1:52:27
Appreciate you brother.