Episode 23: The Arizona Psychedelics Conference

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This episode is a little different from what you’ve come to expect. I recently covered the Arizona Psychedelics Conference here in my home state of Arizona, hoping to learn from the insight gained by those who work in the healing world of psychedelic therapies. I had a chance to sit down with three incredible people who work in the field and get their ideas on human consciousness, based on their personal experiences and those with their patients and clients.

Arizona Psychedelics Conference

The first segment is with Kyle Buller, the co-founder of Psychedelics Today. Kyle has a BA in Transpersonal Psychology from Burlington College where he studied the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness by exploring shamanism, plant medicine, Holotropic Breathwork, and psychedelic psychotherapy. We discussed his own Near Death Experience and what he learned about his own consciousness. You can learn more about his practice at www.settingsunwellness.com.

We covered:

  • Breathwork
  • Transpersonal breathwork, Stan and Christina Groff
  • Vehicle to reach non-ordinary state of consciousness
  • Transpersonal layers, non-waking consciousness
  • NDE, and Kyle’s Experience
  • Access to new information; new view of the world; map of how the world worked
  • What is consciousness? Spirit? Body.
  • What does it mean to be alive?
  • Is the body a manifestation of a higher consciousness?
  • Non-ordinary states of consciousness, altered states of consciousness
  • The body is a receiver of consciousness, like a TV
  • Mind-body spirit connection; body experience produces emotions, mind changes
  • Cryptography of the human psyche

The second segment (at 48:50) is with Veronika Gold, co-founder, therapist, and consultant at Polaris Insight Center, San Francisco based clinic providing Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy We also had a great conversation on her clinic’s therapies, which are important to me, as a survivor of my son’s suicide, and she also shared her insight into human consciousness.

We covered:

  • Ketamine, suicide and my story
  • Czech Republic, Revolution, Russian Invasion
  • Transpersonal Conference, Stan Grof
  • Holotropic breathwork and non-ordinary states of consciousness
  • Fundamental consciousness
  • Realization Process, Judith Blackstone
  • Non-ordinary versus Altered States of Consciousness
  • Ketamine’s insight into out-of-body or NDE

The third segment…isn’t here…I fat finger deleted it after the interview. So awful, because my conversation with Dr. Sam Ko was amazing. Dr. Ko is is a Board Certified Emergency Physician and founder of Reset Ketamine (www.resetketamine.com) in Palm Springs, CA. We really got into consciousness, layers of consciousness from the brain to human consciousness to universal consciousness. He really got me thinking and shed new light on my own perception of consciousness. I sure hope I can get back and re-do that interview.

So, please enjoy my conversation with Kyle Buller, followed by my interview with Veronika Gold.

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Episode 21: Consciousness, Spirituality and Interconnectedness with Dr. Cassandra Vieten

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Dr. Cassandra Vieten - The Consciousness Podcast

In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Cassandra Vieten, who is the President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and a scientist at the Mind-Body Medicine Research Group at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute. Dr. Vieten is a licensed clinical psychologist and has been with IONS since 2001, previously serving as its Executive Director of Research.

We had a great conversation and covered consciousness, interconnectedness, spirituality and much more.  Please enjoy this episode with Dr. Cassandra Vieten.

Questions:

  1. What are your views/definition of consciousness? Universal consciousness? Mind-body, the binding problem. Survival. Etc.?
    1. Is Consciousness a primary component of the universe, along with matter and energy?
  2. I saw your video from your talk on the Science of Interconnectedness.
    1. Your team has conducted experiments on interconnectedness with some pretty incredible results? (Examples?)
      1. What criticism have you received about the experiments? Have they been independently repeated?
    2. Is ‘interconnectedness’ a shared consciousness? What are the hypotheses about how this works, physically, if that’s even a legitimate question.
    3. You mention that the body itself is interconnected (cells). How? Is that a level of consciousness? Is that an extension of that what connects us to each other?
  3. A focus of yours is spirituality in psychological treatment, correct? How, if at all, does that tie into consciousness? Is there an overlap or connection between consciousness and spirituality?
    1. In your research into spirituality, including meditation and other practices, what have you discovered about consciousness?
  4. What role does consciousness have in psychological healing, in the practice of a psychologist?
  5. I’ve spoken to a few people who study the effects of psychedelics on the brain. Often, those who experience psychedelics describe something like this interconnectedness. Have you looked into that at all? Any insight? Spirituality?
  6. What are the eventual, or hopeful, practical uses that might come from your studies, both in consciousness and psychology?
    1. Are we already experiencing those benefits, without knowing the reason? How are people using these abilities now, while not even realizing it?
  7. What are the hot studies going on at IONS, what else is coming? Pixar, VR
  8. What should we look for from your future work? Ions discovery lab; [link to it]; ions-x (moon shot); help ppl who are working toward positive change (climate, prison) and equip them with tools for transforming worldviews;
  9. What breakthroughs do you see coming, that really excite you?
  10. What else do you want to share? Get involved! https://noetic.org/community/overview


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