Beyond the Trip: How Psychedelics Are Shaping Our Worldview, with Alexander Beiner

In this episode of Voices with Vervaeke, Dr. John Vervaeke and guest Alexander Beiner, a leading voice in the world of psychedelics, discuss psychedelics' role in contemporary society. They tackle complex topics like the dangers and potentials of mixing politics with psychedelics, the mechanics of mystical experiences, and the modern meaning crisis. The duo also delves into the risks and rewards of commodifying psychedelic experiences. They explore the latest scientific studies, personal accounts, and anecdotal evidence, weaving them into an intricate narrative that invites listeners to consider psychedelics beyond recreational use. From trials at Imperial College London to DMT injections and the exploration of meta-cognitive skills, this episode serves as a comprehensive guide for anyone interested in the intricacies of the human mind, altered states, and the possibility of a collective conscious awakening.
Alexander Beiner (@AlexanderBeiner) is an author, journalist, and facilitator who is dedicated to bringing countercultural perspectives into mainstream conversation. With an approach that blends writing and experiential transformation, he's committed to helping us navigate the complex era we find ourselves. Alexander is the author of 'The Bigger Picture: How Psychedelics Can Help Us Make Sense of the World'' and also pens a popular Substack with the same name. He serves as an executive director for Breaking Convention, Europe's seminal conference on psychedelic medicine and culture. Additionally, he co-created and co-facilitates Regenerative Stewardship, a legal psilocybin retreat. A pioneer in alternative media, he was one of the founders of Rebel Wisdom, a platform that delved into the realms of systems change and cultural sensemaking.
Resources:
Alexander Beiner
Website: www.alexanderbeiner.com/
Substack; beiner.substack.com/
X: AlexanderBeiner?r...
John Vervaeke: Website | Facebook | X
The Vervaeke Foundation: vervaekefoundation.org/
Rebel Wisdom - KZbin:
Psychedelic Capitalism and The Sacred
John Vervaeke - KZbin:
John Vervaeke: Artificial Intelligence, The Meaning Crisis, & The Future of Humanity
Conversation with John Vervaeke - AI edition - Jordan Hall
Regenerative Stewardship
Breaking Convention
Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project
‘I took part in a radical psychedelic clinical trial and it changed my life forever’
'Why Socrates was a Monster' with John Vervaeke
We Will Call It Pala
Books:
The Bigger Picture: How Psychedelics Can Help Us Make Sense of the World - Alexander Beiner
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence - Michael Pollan
Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge - Jeremy Narby
The Razor's Edge - W. Somerset Maugham
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values - Robert M Pirsig
Heidegger, Neoplatonism, and the History of Being: Relation as Ontological Ground - James Filler
Mentoring the Machines: Orientation - Part One: Surviving the Deep Impact of the Artificially Intelligent Tomorrow - John Vervaeke, Shawn Coyne
Publications:
Dose-Response Study of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine in Humans: II. Subjective Effects and Preliminary Results of a New Rating Scale - Rick J. Strassman MD; Clifford R. Qualls PhD; Eberhard H. Uhlenhuth MD; Robert Kellner MD, PhD
A Model for the Application of Target-Controlled Intravenous Infusion for a Prolonged Immersive DMT Psychedelic Experience - Andrew R. Gallimor, Rick J. Strassman
On Revelations and Revolutions: Drinking Ayahuasca Among Palestinians Under Israeli Occupation - Leor Roseman, Nadeem Karkabi
The Self-Organization of Insight: Entropy and Power Laws in Problem Solving - Damian G. Stephen, James A. Dixon
People:
Ram Dass
Timothy Leary
Terence McKenna
Marc Lewis
Ashleigh Murphy-Beiner
Robin Carhart-Harris
Juensung Kim
Michel Ferrari
Daniel Schmachtenberger
Iain McGilchrist
Émile Durkheim
Bernardo Kastrup
Nicholas of Cusa
Ben Sessa
Peter Gasser
Friederike Meckel
Aldous Huxley
Timecodes
00:00:00 - Introduction to Alexander Beiner and Rebel Wisdom
00:03:22 - Influence of Psychedelic Counterculture
00:06:50 - Transformative Potential of Psychedelic Experiences
00:11:38 - Duration vs. Intensity of DMT Trips
00:18:00 - Sensory Richness and Emotions in Psychedelic Trips
00:23:00 - Skepticism, Belief, and Agnosticism in Interpretation
00:26:40 - Mindfulness as Preparatory Groundwork
00:29:19 - Research in the Psychedelic World
00:34:00 - Overfitting and Underfitting in Mental Processes
00:40:43 - Reverence as a Virtue and Epistemic Virtue
00:47:20 - Enriching Perspectives with Panpsychism/Idealism
00:54:39 - Dark Side of AI and Manipulative Potential
01:01:18 - The Dialogical Character of Experiences
01:09:51 - Stages of Dialogos
01:10:49 - Praise for Alexander Beiner's Book and Efforts

[@missh1774]

Oh wow. I feel like we are apart of something very special. Thank you John and Alexander 💛.

[@alexandrazachary.musician]

This is exactly why I’m back studying cognitive psychology, and wanting to research insight and false insight. Thanks gentlemen! Excited to read the book @AlexanderBiener Hope to talk with you about it all someday. 🙏🏽❤️

[@alexandrazachary.musician]

@JohnVervaeke You’re up late London time Sir!!!

[@darinbasile6754]

Excellent conversation. Especially the bits about awe/insight in the Reverence section. Thank you.

[@conexionneuronal8820]

This was an absolutely outstanding conversation. Thank you very much

[@trippyfolk7351]

Regarding johns question at 1:04:05, for what its worth i experienced a dialogos when i first tried LSD of course i didnt know what dialogos was at the time, but i experienced it with a friend who was not on LSD and seemingly, was unaware that he was highlighting very profound, introspective insights for me. Certain words and phrases were made more salient then others, to create an over arching message in my psyche that he wasnt aware of. This started my journey from the cave and thankfully i found Johns work and learned the name and story of dialogos and realized i wasnt experiencing something unusual or a psychosis. Hope this gives some insight on how the two can interact, cause im a living example of it and now i see the Sun.

[@ramyafennell4615]

Really loved this....and to hear how you are all going on together...with Daniel, Ian, Bernado each in their own way painting this picture for our future. The fruit of all your seeking on various channels these last years...this expanding collaboration alone makes my heart sing. Thank you so much.

[@vantage789]

Such a great conversation. Something I'm learning more each time I have a psychedelic session is that it takes some skill and finesse to effectively navigate the experience. It's usually not beneficial (for me) to passively let the experience unfold and hope to derive something useful from it. However, usually any effort I try to impose on the experience goes out the window. Still learning.

[@viniciuslisboa8937]

Truly amazing discussion! So excited to get my hands on this book ‘The bigger Picture’

[@christopherhamilton3621]

59 Minutes onward- the psycholytic therapy experience is an exciting idea. Wow….

[@Right_in2]

Vervaeke should look into the Qualia Research Institute. I am seeing his work to cross over with QRi’s whether he facilitates it or not

[@KalebPeters99]

I'd love to hear him talk to Andres!

[@fluranranran5452]

they have intensive study on dmt vs 5meodmt :D its good to read.

[@OfficialGOD]

im sure they know each other

[@vantage789]

Prof. Vervaeke, I also emailed you a couple weeks ago with a question about the Ontario Vipassana Centre. Please look if you have a chance :)

[@manuserodio]

This is a profound dilemma I have: How do you set a ritual with psychedelics that facilitates a transformative experience or significant insight on your own? I'm deeply worried about self-delusion, and the search for a guide to accompany a mushroom intake exposes me to groups that are usually way too deep into New Age beliefs. I mean, one could go outdoors and do it with trusted friends and have a great time, but that sounds more like recreational use than a search for wisdom or solid insight. It seems to me that it's missing the crucial platform of takeoff and landing that a well-structured ritual may provide. Any insight would be deeply appreciated, no pun intended (well, maybe).

[@vv7299]

The plant is your guide

[@projectmalus]

Depends on the friends, are they the King's horses and men or can they repair Humpty when the leaning in goes too far? Set up like a double slit experiment with humpty sitting on that wall observing, the fork of secular and spiritual offered, the necessary repair being shown which builds trust, which is not a wall but a wall dissolver. Outdoors is good unless it's been built into a wall.

[@christopherhamilton3621]

Very hard. I find that using a voice recorder before, during and after to identify linkages & promote deep thinking. I think a trip buddy/coach idea is a good one and would be ideal. An external therapist is good but has its downside. Hard to find the best solution.

[@projectmalus]

@@christopherhamilton3621 Perhaps liability as a concern to pose sets in to decide properly in setting up?

[@calebeveritt9556]

You cannot do it on your own. Try as you may (and many of us have) but seek the guidance of elders would be my advise. The work of Andrew Carmargo comes to mind-look him up.

[@elzoomzoom]

Thank you for this interview! Could I dare to advise you to equalize out the lower frequencies, cause the new mic is great but it captures more frequencies and an abundance of the lower ones making hearing harder and overwhelming the listener

[@sonicjihad7]

This is pretty much the coolest thing ever

[@TraumaSpeaks]

Great content as usual, but PLEASE consider going back to John's regular voice, his audio was too deep and had an echo which made it harder for me to understand him.

[@badoedipus2551]

There’s something in here that lands for me kinda funny where in I feel like there’s an essence that is evading us where I fear we might be attributable casual relationships to things that should properly be seen as correlations. The image that comes to mind is an explosion that we, and all this material, is projecting across space and we are attributing cause to the material.. and not the explosion. I’m an artist and right now I’m reliably having mystical experiences every time I try and get to work.. that are so intense.. that after a while I just have to put the work down and go into long contemplative reflection.. generally it seems like for a couple of days, before I’m ready to get back in there. The challenges of managing self deception, I think, are roughly the same, certainly the same species of problem. The feeling I have about it, for my work, is that I need to use these experiences to help shape me in a manner to be better fitted to the mystical. There’s a subtext to this.. that I’m wrestling with trauma issues that have more agency then I do.. in my work I’m trying to wrestle with these problems, and the mystical experiences.. it’s like I discover more agency then I’ve realized I’ve had.. and then in the work.. looking at the expressions of my wrestling with trauma.. what I see is that I’m really just a miner’s canary.. that my trauma is like I have some deep sensitivity to the meaning crisis problem.. and broader problems of our age.. so that there’s this realization that my personal suffering, which I normally feel terribly isolated in.. is a suffering I share with.. kinda the whole world I’m connected to… and then I start to see something heroic in my struggle.. many virtues in myself that trauma has estranged me from seeing.. and over all it’s like this intense opening. But it’s like I have to be very careful that I keep my feet firmly on the ground.. that I maintain humility.. I need to do hard work to see things solidly.. before I can go deeper into the work. In practice this involves a kind of skepticism of the experience and the sense making I do in it. Not to try and undermine the experience but to try and undermine possible self deceptions.. and I mean.. so far so good?

[@katharina5841]

just trust in your inner healer

[@projectmalus]

Yes! the need to do hard work to see things solidly is residing at the mezzanine level while giving oneself permission (as non-object) to visit penthouse and garage. This infills the quadrants of the spiral. Good luck!

[@TheHangedMan]

I would honestly love to have some destabilizing spiritual experience for the sake of breaking up my unhealthy beliefs, habits, and ways of being, which have ossified and become so stifling to me. I feel like I'm totally stuck in old unhelpful paradigms which hold me down from living up to my true potential. I've tried many practices but could really use something like that to shake me awake and open some doors. It sucks because I want to do it in a safe way, with a guide, in a ritual context, as it should be done. But you can't just _do that._ I have no idea where to look for that, or who to talk to, especially because it's so illegal. Sucks.

[@TheMoopMonster]

You can pay to do a week long ayahuasca ceremony at many locations mostly in Peru, and other places in central and south America, that are reasonably safe, and legal.

[@TheMoopMonster]

Doing research on them to find a good fit, isn't illegal.

[@sdfghjkjhgfdfghnbvbn]

Bros. I’m like 10 min. In and I’m getting mind blasted

[@mikegarrigan5182]

John is going to need a whole episode to unpack his dialogical touchstones.

[@mikegarrigan5182]

Could AI, LLM’s become a useful facilitator?

[@gabedepaul5407]

METACOGNITIVE SKILL

[@Secretname951]

Haven’t watched yet but seeing this guest makes me wonder how David Fuller from Rebel Wisdom is and what he’s up to

[@mikegarrigan5182]

Is the really real just the intensification of our normal sense of realness?

[@fracta1organism]

if psychedelics work not through the contents of consciousness but by changing the way in which consciousness operates, and if they are generally helpful in reorienting ones worldview toward a deeper and more meaningful relationship to the world, why wouldnt we require politicians to go through psychedelic therapy at high dose to leverage the benefits that they can have on society? seems like common sense, but maybe it's too radical for more conservative and fearful ears, or maybe one thinks politicians and the system they perpetuate are fine just the way they are?

[@fracta1organism]

so, you find psychedelics in politics frightening, but not global inequality and the climate crisis? pay attention to the logic of denial you use against their use in politics. and i havent heard anyone propose psychedelics as a panacea for the meta-crisis. what they are though is a potential doorway, perhaps even the only realistic and pragmatic doorway available, to start our way down the path of solving the meta-crisis by requiring our leaders to take them at high dose under therapeutic conditions.

[@clintnorton4322]

Hey guys. All the versions of panpsychism are just subsets of naturalism/animism. No need to get exclusiionistic.

[@vv7299]

No one ever talks about the ability of psychedelics to heal and rewire the physical body

[@projectmalus]

Isn't the ability to heal and rewire already part of the physical body though? Which might mean using psychedelics gives permission for this to happen, which is different it seems as a letting go of constraints that allows the rewire, which could happen without the psychedelic thru understanding.

[@christopherhamilton3621]

WAY too premature but some do…

[@vv7299]

@@christopherhamilton3621 could you point me to such conversations, bc all I've been able to find is segments on psychedelics and mental health, with the odd guy taking mushrooms for headaches Also, why do you think it's premature?

[@sdfghjkjhgfdfghnbvbn]

I can look up what samadhi means or an expert can try and sun it up in a few sentences