This film is the first in a series of three films discussing various aspects of shamanism. This first film, Manifesting the Mind, is a broad look at psychedelics in general. Why are psychedelics so brutally suppressed in our culture? What exactly are some of the psychedelic plants and chemicals and how can they benefit us? With philosophy and insight from Denis McKenna, Daniel Pinchbeck, Alex Grey, and many others, this film is not to be missed by anyone interested in psychedelics and shamanism.

Interviews include - Robert Bussinger, Mike Crowley, Timothy Freke, Peter Gandy, Alex Grey, Clark Heinrich, Nick Herbert, John Major Jenkins, Dennis McKenna, Terence McKenna, Daniel Pinchbeck, Dr. Rick Strassman, and others.

I'd love to see that.

Doubt it will ever make Netflix's list.

I'm into psychedelics, on Salvia I've experienced ego-death and seen visions like that painting of Alex Grey you see in the video. But I'm not into this psychedelic spirituality, I remain an atheist. I think why we experience these states on psychedelics says something about our brain, not about the universe. Psychedelics shed light on how we experience reality, not on reality itself.

^Far be it from me to change your mind (or care to), but in terms of philosophy, perception, for all intents and purposes, "is" "reality."

*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 9:11pm PDT - promote requested by MrFisk.

Trancecoach, I agree with the philosophical interpretation of reality. However I'm convinced that science can see somewhat beyond this constricted sense of reality through the use of their instruments and methods. From a scientific point of view these theories make little sense and there is certainly no objective evidence for them. I wouldn't really see how this connection to a universal consciousness would evolve. Do you think bacteria are connected to this world. Or is all matter connected in this way. Why would our brain have evolved this capability without making use of it. The people most connected to this world would be shamans and psychedelic explorers, but I fail to see what they can bring back from this state beyond interesting theories.
This sense of being connected, which is a common theme of many intense visionary states, to me would be more logically explained as disconnecting with your sense of self in your brain and therefor feeling connected to all the other concepts in your brain, other people and life being the most important of those.

^I think you've got it backwards, cybrbeast. Regardless of the sophistication of the instruments used, or the elaborateness of the mathematical permutations, science will never penetrate the primacy of perception or adequately explain the phenomenon of experience without severe distortions, deletions, and generalizations which misappropriate the instances of perception as a complete gestalt. You are correct that, from a scientific point of view, these theories "make little sense," but this is due to an inadequacy of science, not of the theories themselves. Inasfar as science perpetually attempts to causally interpret the phenomena of experience as third-person adumbrations, it will limit itself to logical opacity, falling short of the lived first-person perspectives which constitute the living human predicates. When you eat a peach, you need not take measurements or abstract experimental conditions into account prior to biting into it in order to gain an appreciation or epistemological experience of the fruit. Rather, there is a knowingness, in which your perception remains primary to any "objective" cognition, from which I believe psychedelic insights/intuitions seem to avail to its aspirant. In this way, these theories are hidden to the naive subject, only to become apparent as obvious once the authentic experience has been undergone.

Structure of Behavior

^I knew it! Husserl was taking yage.

Trancecoach, if personal experience and anecdotal evidence for theories is enough for you then I think you are blinded by the importance of experience. Furthermore these visions of people don't lead to a consistent view, there are many interpretations of these states and what they say about the universe. It's hardly better than any other belief. Now you may be a believer and that's fine, but I am principally an unbeliever. I am convinced by evidence for many phenomena, but I don't believe.
I'm not saying that I'm sure that science will ever be able to understand how and why we experience what we do, but that doesn't give our experience any validity over reality. When I'm lightly tripping I can see faces and strange patterns in many patterns that otherwise would appear normal. That doesn't mean these patterns and faces exist, what it means is that when psychedelics alter my pattern finding capabilities or blend them with my facial recognition all kinds of wonderful alterations may appear.

Reality, and your experience of reality are the same one single thing. Mind manifests reality, and what manifests mind is the deeper question.

Whichever scientific instrument you use to probe reality, it's still a MIND that is doing the probing.

The only thing you can be absolutely certain of is your own experience of reality. This is both incredibly profound and empowering.

Ive wondered how any sense of objectivity can be gained in our universe. My only conclusion was mathematics, but even then, it still requires an observer to view the data and interpret it. Our very imaginations are limited to what evolution has endowed us with. Science is based on our interpretation and perception of reality. Sure we see that a rainbow is the spectrum of light, but thats just the light that we see. We can one day master our reality, and with technology/psychedelics, we can explore and master other perceived and theoretical places.

cybrbeast, the very fact that you're experiencing something (or anything!) gives validity to the reality of that experience. It cannot be otherwise. In many first-person descriptions of such experiences, there is evidence of the validity of the shared themes between those experiences that cannot be accounted for in any other way. I am not saying that serves as the last, first, or only word on a given experience. Just that it is worthy of exploration, and cannot be easily dismissed as so much hallucinatory consensus. If you did not have the emergence of sensorial patterns from which to base your assumptions about the real world, how would you successfully navigate the world -- let alone share an experience with another human being?