Rob Harper: Journeys to the Edge of Consciousness

[00:00:00] Rob, thanks for coming on. Hi Jake, yeah, I'm happy to be here. So what made you want to make this film? What made me want to make this film?

[00:00:11] There were a number of reasons but I guess fundamentally I had my own experience of a very expanded state of consciousness and it was very deep and very profound and I was left afterwards with a lot of questions.

[00:00:30] What was that? What did that mean? How do I begin to integrate that new perspective of myself and life into my daily life?

[00:00:44] And also alongside that, I think what would I like to have known myself going into an expanded state of consciousness for the first time?

[00:00:56] with hindsight what would have been useful for me to know before. So I think in many ways the making of this film was an important part of my own journey

[00:01:09] of exploring this topic, of integrating my own experiences and also wishing to offer other people perhaps you could say maybe a tool

[00:01:20] to either prepare them for stepping out into these new territories, new inner continents or likewise perhaps to help them integrate and experience they've already had.

[00:01:34] However they happen to have come by that experience you know.

[00:01:40] That's a very pure way of going about it so it's just you know you have this experience and then you're kind of just interested in exploring this territory

[00:01:48] and then making some kind of you know piece of art out of it.

[00:01:52] Absolutely yeah I'm a trained filmmaker when I began this project I'd already been making films in one way or another for about 10, 11 years

[00:02:03] so I came to this with a really what I think when I feel is quite a strong tool bag you know in terms of experience and capacity to make a film

[00:02:17] and I think most importantly for me when I'm making films to tell a story you know so much of my training as a filmmaker and as a documentary maker was about telling stories

[00:02:31] and for better or worse and often worse what you can come across in the world of documentaries is very passionate, very impassioned amateurs

[00:02:43] making a documentary about an issue, a subject, a topic they care deeply about they want to change the world they want to tell everybody you know this has to stop or this has to start

[00:02:56] and they're not always trained filmmakers or trained storytellers so what you can often get is pieces that are quite kind of perhaps quite propagandist maybe

[00:03:12] or or likewise just lacking in kind of lacking in the kind of more neglecting the more aesthetic creative side, the audience experience side

[00:03:28] the importance that if you want people to give you their full attention for 90 minutes two hours

[00:03:35] you've got to give them something in return other than a lecture about what you think should happen or shouldn't happen

[00:03:42] and that's where the story comes in that's how humans have always communicated are most important things to each other

[00:03:49] and that's what I tried to do with journeys yeah

[00:03:54] yeah I think that that issue with documentaries that seems especially true with some of the psychedelics stuff

[00:04:00] you know it's just people were very passionate about the subject

[00:04:03] you know it's got a lot of taboo a lot of people think that's for poor reasons so then like you know there's a lot

[00:04:09] that's kind of pumped out on the internet but a lot of it doesn't seem very well refined or well polished

[00:04:14] like I've seen some stuff on on YouTube here and there but yours was definitely like

[00:04:20] you could tell that there was more experience going into it and like you knew how to how to craft the film a lot better

[00:04:26] is that something that you would have been interested in for a while in psychedelics and in the

[00:04:32] is that something that you would notice like kind of the lack of more professional quality

[00:04:37] documentaries or films about them I don't it wasn't a kind of that wasn't my starting point

[00:04:43] I didn't survey this psychedelic documentary literature and say okay there's something lacking

[00:04:49] someone needs to make something because I just don't think that would have sustained me

[00:04:54] for the five years it took to get that film made from from initial concepts who kind of to

[00:05:00] to putting it out in the world as you sort of noted earlier it's for me it was I was it was

[00:05:10] in many ways while I was working on it I had the feeling that the film was kind of coming through

[00:05:14] me that this film needed to be here in the world and that I was somehow the middleman

[00:05:20] and birthing something important so yeah that was my starting point I once I began it's okay

[00:05:31] it looks like I'm making this film I did have a look and see what was what was on offer

[00:05:37] and I did find myself taking note perhaps of what I saw people doing well and perhaps

[00:05:43] I saw people doing that didn't work for me so well as an audience member and taking that on board

[00:05:49] when I made the film yeah well you mentioned five years you know I think a lot of people

[00:05:56] and myself included I'm very ignorant about what it takes to produce a film and I think a lot

[00:06:02] of people probably don't know how much goes into it and what the you know the nuts and bolts are

[00:06:06] couldn't could you talk a little bit about that you know this this five year process what

[00:06:10] was that include in making something I mean I know some other questions are big one but sure

[00:06:15] I mean how long have you got I try and tell it in less than five years no it's you know it's

[00:06:21] interesting because you know you and you look at where we're on a podcast right now her and

[00:06:26] that is such a different animal you know we'll talk for however long we talk um

[00:06:32] and then perhaps there's a little bit of editing and tweaking and then that goes out and people

[00:06:36] people sit and listen to it and it journeys is I think it's 84 minutes long something like that

[00:06:42] um so you know the discrepancy between how long it takes to record a podcast episode and how

[00:06:51] of the same length and how long it takes to make a film is is huge and I sometimes reflect on

[00:06:59] that myself when I'm listening to podcasts I think God why did I choose what I choose the five

[00:07:04] year ways to communicate things but I think you know there are reasons and and um one of the things I

[00:07:12] think making a film like journey's allowed me to do is you know it's a very I think it's a very

[00:07:18] dense film it's a very densely packed film that perhaps invites a second or a third watch for

[00:07:25] people to really digest all the information that's in there and so it's loaded with meaning every

[00:07:32] moment every frame every second I would say is loaded with meaning whether that's music sound

[00:07:39] effects um visual animations um the you know the wisdom the the very very valuable insights the

[00:07:53] interviewees are offering um we've got you know you've got for you've got three different voice actors

[00:08:00] voicing the characters of Timothy Leary, Alders Huxley and Alan Watts you know and so you're working

[00:08:08] with each each voice actor on exactly how to form you know each paragraph how's that going to be

[00:08:15] delivered what's the tone what's the speed what's the pacing um it's a very you know it's a very

[00:08:23] very fun and creative process and it's also a very time consuming one um so Henry Lamborn who did

[00:08:32] the animations for the film his works in I I would say I would say virtually every frame of that

[00:08:40] film has features of Henry's work you know so that's a single-handed effort that just

[00:08:48] amazes me to this day really on his part and he achieved such brilliant brilliantly kind of

[00:08:55] efficient and creative ways of helping support these stories by these three famous authors um so

[00:09:04] yeah so just very quickly you know at the film starts you have an idea my process

[00:09:11] well maybe that takes takes me if it's okay that takes me into my process of

[00:09:19] choosing the material for the film you know yeah um

[00:09:27] so there was there was a whole process of so I my starting point was I'm making this film

[00:09:33] about expanded states of consciousness and what they can teach us

[00:09:37] and how they might or might not be able to help our troubled world figure out some of its issues

[00:09:42] or at least us maybe to figure out some of our issues as humanity and my starting point was

[00:09:51] kind of you know the culture I was living in so Western culture that was my first starting point

[00:10:00] I'm very aware that many if not all human cultures throughout the world have had their own

[00:10:08] means historically of exploring the human psyche the deep psyche

[00:10:16] through various different medicines shamanic practices substances and no substances

[00:10:24] but my starting point as a sort of a young western man was to say okay what's my culture got

[00:10:29] to say about these and you know the the Western literature doesn't you know only goes back

[00:10:36] you know with it with exceptions maybe um people can talk about ancient Greece and so on in the

[00:10:42] West but modern examples go back you know about a hundred years and really start getting going

[00:10:48] fully about 60-70 years ago with oldest huts oldest Huxley etc in the 50s

[00:11:00] so so my starting point was yeah what does what does the Western literature have to say about

[00:11:05] psychedelics and then I so I read forotiously everything I could get my hands on about psychedelics

[00:11:11] and somehow these stories started arriving for me started constellating um

[00:11:21] and I had the very difficult job of boiling down everything Western culture had to say

[00:11:28] you know into three 15-minute stories yeah and then boiling down what everything Timothy

[00:11:35] Larry Alan Watson oldest Huxley had to say into 15 minutes each so there's a lot of reducing in

[00:11:42] filmmaking it's it's not usually the struggle isn't what to include it's usually what not to include

[00:11:48] yeah yes so you're trying to you know learn as much as you can about those guys and then figure out

[00:11:55] you know like what's their their main essential message because in my experience with a lot of

[00:11:59] those guys and this seems to be the case with Watts like usually you you can boil it down to

[00:12:04] you and not you know it's not perfect like there's other things that they get lost when you

[00:12:09] squeeze too much but like a lot of these guys you can boil down to like one or two things that

[00:12:13] really drove them it was like like a really core insider message to them so you're trying to figure

[00:12:18] out like what passage what story or what collection like you can kind of put together to translate

[00:12:25] that in their words as much as possible yeah yeah exactly and you know those they were you know I

[00:12:33] had to add a much longer short list of possible psychedelic you know I don't like this phrase but

[00:12:40] you know what you could say trip reports you know people's descriptions of their experiences

[00:12:46] of deeply altered states of consciousness and you know I chose these three for a number of

[00:12:54] reasons but you know in that mix was just how influential they've been how influential they were

[00:13:01] and continue to be on the kind of the the wider dialogue around these substances

[00:13:10] did you have any of this kind of context before before you had had your first experience or was

[00:13:15] something that you just kind of did out of curiosity and then after the fact then then you

[00:13:20] weren't exploring like the literature and those kinds of ideas I think I think I think I

[00:13:32] I think it was mostly afterwards I think a little bit before a little bit before but it was really

[00:13:38] having had the first time experience myself that really invited me just to really start

[00:13:45] taking these experiences more seriously and really trying to understand what they mean and

[00:13:54] what they what they can offer us yeah how did you go about the working with the voice actors

[00:14:04] and trying to get get that delivery right because the the delivery was great I've mostly through audio

[00:14:09] I mostly listened to you know Alan Watts lectures I haven't listened to as much of of Leary and

[00:14:15] Huxley read some of their stuff I haven't listened to them as much verbally but I thought from

[00:14:21] what I was familiar with the delivery was so good and entertaining throughout throughout the film how

[00:14:26] how did you kind of fine tune that with them yeah well that's you know working with actors is a really

[00:14:32] fun can be a really fun process for a director and for documentary director it's probably rare

[00:14:38] so I really enjoyed you know I had quite some background of doing that and yeah it was each

[00:14:47] person each actor has a different process you know has a different approach I think for me the most

[00:14:54] important thing was to agree on a specific on a tone to find the through line of let's say Leary

[00:15:07] story to find the through line of Huxley story and to figure out the delivery of that and

[00:15:17] one interesting thing for me was some of some of the actors perhaps had a lot of experience

[00:15:25] recording audio books where their voice has to sell everything their voices to sell the whole

[00:15:30] story so for instance with one actor it was part of the process was saying hey you might not see

[00:15:36] them now but there's going to be a lot of visuals telling this story to do less actually you

[00:15:42] wish needs to do less you know let let let let the quality and your skills come through by doing less

[00:15:54] but yeah so it was like finding an intention or a through line and also so in the case of Leary

[00:16:02] you know with with William Roberts the guy very very good voice actor who did the voice of Timothy

[00:16:10] Leary in the end what we agreed on what my direction to him was I said imagine imagine where two

[00:16:17] scientists sitting by the fire late one night and you're telling me a kind of this kind of slightly

[00:16:23] chilling tale of what happened to you so there's a kind of there's a grimness there's a seriousness

[00:16:29] there's a kind of I somehow had Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in mind you know it's like Dr.

[00:16:35] Frankenstein telling the story of the monster he created so it's it wasn't you know you don't

[00:16:42] play it for laughs you don't play it for comedy I often find less is more yeah and and it'll just

[00:16:52] lastly it's it's I think it's really important to give actors voice actors and otherwise freedom

[00:16:58] to make it their own and not try and backseat drive them not on every the pronunciation of

[00:17:06] every word or every line yeah you know that I think that's an actor's worst nightmare is when you

[00:17:12] start sort of being too dictatorial as a director so I tried not to do that yeah another thing

[00:17:18] that was interesting to me was the style and the tone was very different than what you're often

[00:17:25] here with psychedelic films and messaging and stuff like that from the people that are supportive

[00:17:32] of them it's usually much more bright and colorful flowery a little bit more sensationalizing in

[00:17:40] ways but yours was it was yeah like darker the animation was darker the colors were different

[00:17:46] it was a pretty stark contrast from what you'll usually see why did you choose that style yeah

[00:17:52] it's it's it's um nice to hear you that that landed for you that you noted that I mean we asked

[00:18:00] we absolutely I mean Henry the animator agreed at the start to absolutely avoid any

[00:18:05] tie-dye cliches you know I was insistent I wouldn't put any six any kind of um archive footage

[00:18:14] of people dancing at woodstock in the film you know it's like yeah it's quite totally different

[00:18:19] style than that I think every psychedelic documentary I watched had had a had the same clip of

[00:18:24] this kind of woman dancing around woodstock with flowers in her hair or something yeah and you know

[00:18:29] good good on her but I wanted to to do something very different in that regard to avoid all the

[00:18:37] cliches and all the woo-wa and um hopefully not to glamourize these substances too much either

[00:18:45] you know to to to to bring a kind of cautious whoa these are very interesting and could

[00:18:52] can they potentially be very beneficial let's talk about that and um

[00:19:02] you know and and so that that went into the visual style the animations

[00:19:07] and you know also I guess my choice of stories as well and and the trajectory of the whole film

[00:19:15] let's say for instance in the order I chose to include those three stories there's a journey

[00:19:21] for the audience there and the the first chapter is a pretty dark chapter Timothy Leary's first

[00:19:29] overwhelming first LSD trip where he has what he called a a shattering on to logical confrontation

[00:19:38] with the universe I mean you know that's big stuff and it certainly wasn't um oh flowers and light

[00:19:47] for him at all in many ways what he was saying is it kind of broke him open and and as I think

[00:19:56] then one of the interviewees Rick Dublin says you know it's like yeah on the one hand it's

[00:20:02] it could be Humpty Dumpty falling off the wall and being in a puddle and not nobody can put

[00:20:08] the pieces back together again or is it the little bird hatching out of the egg in which case

[00:20:15] right there's some breaking needing to happen and I don't come down on either the one side of

[00:20:21] those but I wanted to include both perspectives and I think you know Leary was given this LSD by

[00:20:28] Michael Hollingshead an Englishman who was who actually contacted oldest Huxley first and oldest

[00:20:34] Huxley said to him you need to go see Professor Timothy Leary at Harvard University so there's

[00:20:40] all sorts of nice interesting connections between the different characters of this film behind the

[00:20:46] scenes but um yeah Michael Hollingshead was a very shifty shadowy figure who was responsible for

[00:20:55] introducing a lot of those very quite well-known people to LSD for the first time in the early

[00:21:02] 1960s and from what I understand he went on to kind of misuse or abuse the power that being the man

[00:21:14] with the LSD gave him and I've heard some pretty shocking stories of how he behaved after that

[00:21:23] meeting with Timothy Leary so I think you know it's important to include the light and the shadows

[00:21:31] and and I was trying I think to give the audience a as balanced as perspective as I could on things

[00:21:39] yeah yeah it didn't yeah I think I think you really did a good job of not

[00:21:47] leaning too far on one side or the other I was pretty surprised by the way that it opened with

[00:21:52] that first story of Timothy Leary because I knew that the documentary was encouraging you know

[00:22:00] exploring consciousness in these various kinds of ways so to open it like that I was like well

[00:22:04] that's that's interesting that's usually not what you'll hear and I actually think that's probably

[00:22:10] much more attractive to people that are you know coming in either somewhat indifferent or on the

[00:22:17] fence because you know it might turn somebody off immediately just to hear about like like the

[00:22:22] woodstock you know the dancing with the flowers and all that stuff it's like okay yeah we've heard

[00:22:27] that story before but it seems like you're kind of ignoring some of the the darker or more

[00:22:33] serious meaningful kinds of interactions that can be more difficult to deal with rather than just

[00:22:42] some kind of like you know fun and light experience always given some of that you know some of these

[00:22:50] characters and I guess some of the controversy surrounding psychedelics around that time especially

[00:22:59] with you know it came in like you mentioned it had only been around for about a hundred years

[00:23:05] mostly you know there's there's talk of like what might have been happening a couple thousand

[00:23:08] years ago but it came in created a huge boom and then almost immediately got shut down in terms

[00:23:15] of like historical time and you know Timothy Leary people have a lot of mixed feelings about him

[00:23:20] what are your thoughts on on him because he's such a crucial figure and it seems like I definitely

[00:23:28] I feel like I'm missing quite a bit of of information on him usually I hear the part of him that

[00:23:33] gets a bad rap but it's kind of it seems like it's difficult to make heads or tails of him and his

[00:23:38] impact in the way that he handled psychedelics so what do you think about that yeah

[00:23:44] he's a he's a very fascinating figure and a kind of larger than life character

[00:23:55] what the response I got from a lot of my interviews because it was usually me asking that question

[00:24:00] no I'm answering it was that for good and for bad quote unquote Leary had to happen

[00:24:09] was what a lot of people would say to me he had to happen it had to go down the way it did and

[00:24:15] yeah you know I think I think some people who were who were much more focused on the use of psychedelics for

[00:24:24] very sort of careful therapeutic use were very angry and disappointed by how they felt

[00:24:31] Leary had kind of overemphasized the benefits under emphasized the risks

[00:24:42] and and I mean for me personally my one thing I would say is he's a fantastic writer

[00:24:51] he's a he's a he's a fantastic writer the book that I took that story from it's called High Priest

[00:24:57] and it's kind of it's a collection of journey reports with different well-known people

[00:25:03] William boroughs Allen Ginsburg etc ramdaz etc etc etc etc it's a very strange and brilliant book

[00:25:12] and very very funny very entertaining he really knew how to write I would say that for

[00:25:19] for starters he's a very engaging author for me and storyteller and yeah again funny

[00:25:28] he sees the kind of dry or the rye humor or the irony in very strange difficult situations

[00:25:36] which I liked I think from what I gather you know he also the circumstances of his life were

[00:25:46] pretty tragic you know his some of it's mentioned in the film some not his he'd been this sort of

[00:25:53] careerist ladder climbing academic semi alcoholic perhaps I've heard people say and you know his

[00:26:03] wife committed suicide and you know a big part of his journey his story is his seeing through the

[00:26:14] superficial relationship he had with his children yeah and vowing to kind of see the see the true

[00:26:23] to see their true in a nature that from now on and truly connect with them

[00:26:29] and it doesn't seem to be the case that he was able to follow through on that

[00:26:34] after you know once the the effects of that drug war off I'm not sure that LSD made him a more

[00:26:42] or a tuned present or responsible parent to his children it perhaps indicate the opposite actually although I

[00:26:52] I really don't want to sit in judgment on this man's life you know sure but what I

[00:26:58] when I would say is that I think one thread I see running through journey of all three characters

[00:27:05] through their contact with psychedelics is three very intelligent intellectual

[00:27:15] perhaps ambitious men all in a different ways in all three of those journeys in the film

[00:27:22] being invited to reflect on and see more clearly the ways in which they're not being fully

[00:27:33] authentic they're not living fully authentically in relationship to himself in relationship to the

[00:27:41] people around them and in relationship maybe to the world or to nature or to life itself

[00:27:48] they kind of all invited to see through the hollow sham parts of the games they're playing

[00:27:56] or their ways of relating and in that invited to maybe do something differently

[00:28:04] in each case how fully able any of them or any of us are able to take that those messages and

[00:28:11] lift them you know it's the next question yeah yeah there's something so interesting and important

[00:28:21] about especially with this topic something that's so hard to put into words when you when you're

[00:28:26] able to have three figures like that that are so articulate and are such good writers you know I

[00:28:32] knew about Huxley I knew about Watts and how well you know both of them in many ways had been kind

[00:28:37] of there a lot of their career had been putting words to things that other people couldn't explain

[00:28:42] especially with Watts and some of the eastern ideas and I wasn't familiar with how well

[00:28:48] well how good of a writer Liri was too and you know I think for me not you know not being too deep

[00:28:57] in this world you know really I just heard you know mostly you just get's about rap you know

[00:29:02] I've heard some stuff about him you know from from Ramdass and then because I

[00:29:06] interviewed quite a people from that from that camp but

[00:29:12] I think having figures like that that are able to explain those things so well is it's so

[00:29:18] it's such a better way of communicating these ideas and that there's a there's a huge threat of

[00:29:23] because you know we've all known probably the you know the people that have a have an experience

[00:29:29] and then it just blows their mind and then you know you go and you try to explain it to people and

[00:29:33] it's like oh like that that person just sounds crazy and then it kind of makes the thing makes

[00:29:37] like the whole thing sound like more wacky than than it actually is but they did such a good job

[00:29:44] of communicating that experience and the animation helps it a lot as well and I mean it's

[00:29:50] hard though because it's something it's so it's so hard to get across is that is that one of

[00:29:55] the things that you were looking for in these stories like what is something that really like where are

[00:30:00] some of these sections of their writing where they they really like kind of hit the nail on the head

[00:30:06] and and describing these experiences at these experiences because at the same time though it's also

[00:30:11] like it's also personal and everybody's experience is a little bit different. So so what I'm just

[00:30:16] clarifying what what for you're asking what for me was the parts where they best were able to

[00:30:22] to communicate their experiences? Is that is that something that that you were looking for where

[00:30:27] you're like okay like that that's the passage where like they really nailed it there because a lot

[00:30:31] of things kind of explored to explorative in a way because I've read joyous cosmology and

[00:30:35] I listen to it outdoors of perception on on audible and it seems like as good of writers as they

[00:30:40] are like some of the sections they're like trying to they're trying to find pieces in other times

[00:30:44] it seems like they really like hit a section where it fits together nicely is that is that something

[00:30:48] that you were looking for? Yeah absolutely and all I can do is I think in my process of

[00:30:55] their all fantastic books joyous cosmology amazing book

[00:30:59] um um those are perception you know what a book wow what a writer what a what a mind

[00:31:05] oh this actually was um yeah and in my process of trying to whittle down those great books to kind

[00:31:13] of 12 to 15 minutes of talking with enough pauses for the audience to grab a breath because you

[00:31:20] can't just talk 15 minutes straight you know is a very important pauses um and I probably could

[00:31:28] have left a few more spaces for pauses you know yeah I did I had quite a few rewinds yeah

[00:31:35] wait what did he say and then you also you also have the animation at the same time I'm like

[00:31:40] trying to figure out what things mean who who's who's funded navigate though good no glad yeah it's

[00:31:46] I think if I did it again that's probably the single clearest thing I would change would just be

[00:31:51] to add in a bit a few more pauses um for the audience to reflect and digest but coming back to your

[00:31:59] question it's all I could do was use my subjective intuition you know so I just you know I just

[00:32:06] the bits that I'm reading without that grabs me and that grabs me and that grabs me

[00:32:12] and then you know yeah stitching those all together in a way that makes sense

[00:32:20] well why did they think that you and you go like as as little detail or as much as you want to

[00:32:28] why did they think that the way that things went down with Leary had to happen the way

[00:32:32] that they did like what's what's their perspective on the long-term impacts of that

[00:32:36] mmm yeah so yeah so you're asking me to kind of relay what other people have said to me I think

[00:32:48] I think their perspective is there had to be this explosion into the mainstream

[00:32:55] there had to be the backlash and the shutdown of any meaningful research for 50 odd years

[00:33:03] and then now we've learned they've you know they the researchers and the scientists and

[00:33:09] the so forth have learned their lessons and are now doing it more carefully I don't know

[00:33:15] I don't know if that's just them being sort of quite quite uh acceptant and zen about it and saying

[00:33:22] I think for one thing you can't change it it did happen right and no one's got the time machine

[00:33:27] I would say that perhaps there is a there is a tragedy there I don't know that it can be

[00:33:34] laid solely at one man's feet or Timothy Leary's fear but for whatever reason those substances

[00:33:44] and inquiry careful therapeutic inquiry was prevented from happening for 50 or 60 years I think

[00:33:54] is also a real tragedy because you know before that people like Stanislaus Lavgroff in the Czech

[00:34:02] Republic people like Ronald Sanderson in the UK and many many more people around the world were

[00:34:10] we're doing quite successfully doing work using psychedelics with their clients with their

[00:34:17] patients to as a therapeutic aid to kind of we could say magnify and release unconscious material

[00:34:32] you know there was even a film about Carrie Grant the actors his his journey through a long

[00:34:40] it was like a lot he had a long series of LSD therapy sessions that he claims

[00:34:50] gave him a whole new perspective on his his childhood traumas his his behavioral patterns

[00:34:59] that were harming himself and harming people in his life close to him

[00:35:04] so I'm not necessarily sure it had to happen I'm pretty sure it did happen and I was

[00:35:14] saying in the film in the film was interested in exploring touching on at least let's say some of

[00:35:25] the questions the political economic social questions of why is our cultures

[00:35:34] why is this journey into the deep unconscious the deep psyche so dreaded by our culture

[00:35:42] and that's not to say it shouldn't be taken very carefully

[00:35:47] and or done lightly but but why was that so shut down and I thought that you know in the film

[00:35:55] I thought the Graham Hancock brought that perspective effectively yeah yeah of you know who

[00:36:03] benefits from who benefits the most from putting very strict limits on how individual adults

[00:36:14] can or can't explore the inner workings of their consciousness and what does that have to do

[00:36:20] with our economic system yeah and our social system and I think those those once you start getting

[00:36:29] into those areas you risk upsetting a lot more people than just talking about psychedelics or

[00:36:38] psychology yeah yeah I think that might be the biggest benefit of the way that things went down

[00:36:46] is that it really you know I'm college student I'm young naive I'm not you know perfectly

[00:36:52] historically littered on that time by any stretch it seems like it blew some holes in

[00:37:00] the way that these kinds of things are treated the government response issues within

[00:37:05] and just the issues within academia it seems like it was so disruptive that a lot of and the

[00:37:13] response to it kind of showed that there were some control issues that maybe needed to be changed

[00:37:21] you know a lot of people are sort of questioning motives much more about the government and why

[00:37:26] why they have different kinds of rules in place and you know you mentioned that you mentioned

[00:37:33] the importance of these things being treated carefully but it didn't it doesn't seem like they

[00:37:37] treated them carefully either like it seems like like they kind of just freaked out like it wasn't by

[00:37:43] it wasn't like like these people are gone or too gung ho about them and like they're going overboard

[00:37:49] like we need to rain them in there's like they did the same thing on on the other side it didn't seem

[00:37:54] like they carefully consider things either they'd kind of just shut it down and you know the the

[00:37:58] Nixon saying with with Leary being the most dangerous man in America it seems like like it really

[00:38:04] kind of exposed some of the some of the issues with control and not wanting people to think differently

[00:38:12] yeah yeah um absolutely um and you can even go a step further than saying oh they they weren't

[00:38:21] carefully in their shutting down of it um what's kind of in the public record now is actually

[00:38:29] the kind of quite brutal horrific experiments that the security services and the military were

[00:38:37] conducting using psychedelics actually for the opposite of healing to control to manipulate

[00:38:44] and break people and they were doing this to their own to the you know they were doing it to

[00:38:50] their own soldiers to American citizens um so yeah care for human well-being doesn't always you

[00:39:00] know as their motive doesn't always quite add up when you look at the research uh the the

[00:39:06] military and security services we're doing with the substances um sometimes involving you know um

[00:39:15] my understanding scientists brought over from Nazi Germany you know it's a pretty

[00:39:21] harrowing tale there were some pretty harrowing tales about how the government were using these

[00:39:26] substances compared to how the people they were banning were using them yeah um that was the first

[00:39:33] part of my response and yeah the second one um you have to remind me of my move the question

[00:39:42] I also don't know what I said it was about control yeah but I mean it seems like it called into

[00:39:50] into question you know what what their their real goal was with with the kinds of policies on these

[00:39:57] things and you know Graham Hancock like you said was he was really pointing to that Rick goblin

[00:40:03] and the documentary and and many other places as well he's been very critical of because he was

[00:40:07] also against Vietnam and things like that and um it seems like much much more about it was trying

[00:40:14] to get people to fall in line and these these substances have have an have an ability to have such an

[00:40:21] explosive and life changing experience that completely shifts your perspective which you know we

[00:40:29] saw with with all three of those stories like all of them were like okay like what is actually going

[00:40:33] on here like why are we playing these different kinds of games it turns out that's actually

[00:40:37] that threatens the stability of a of a country and a government quite a bit but you know

[00:40:44] it just seems like it was it had very little to do with the actual potential benefits or

[00:40:49] the real use cases of of the of the medicines themselves and or you know medicines of

[00:40:55] you know you want to be careful with the term all all the stuff since this I'm I don't want to go

[00:41:01] too far into like the word play itself of like what what you want to call them but

[00:41:07] yeah it it it seems like

[00:41:11] and you know with with them making them schedule one even two in saying that that they're you know

[00:41:16] high high risk for addiction and things like that which you know doesn't really seem to be

[00:41:22] very accurate so I because you know who who's getting addicted to you know a lot of people will

[00:41:28] have an experience be like okay I'm good you know it doesn't seem like like like very many people

[00:41:34] are getting addicted to psychedelics but no no I not sure I'm aware of any documented cases right

[00:41:42] and yeah I mean I would I would add that these are substances that one one the few things they

[00:41:51] seem to be able to produce reliably regularly is is is their potential no guarantee to produce a

[00:42:02] profound mystical experience a religious or mystical experience and you know some people have

[00:42:13] drawn interesting parallels between this question this age-old question of direct religious

[00:42:21] experience versus second or third-hand religious experience on a Sunday morning at church and

[00:42:29] you know there's maybe some parallels to be drawn between a time when only the priest only

[00:42:36] even read the mass in Latin which the average person couldn't even understand that there's perhaps

[00:42:42] something about why why what's who benefits from the the sort of majority of the populace having

[00:42:52] access to mystical direct mystical experiences that we know from I think you know Roland Griffiths' study

[00:43:01] people generally rank as one of the most mean potentially one of the most meaningful experiences

[00:43:06] of their lives and I would draw a link somewhere between that because as well as a a filmmaker I'm

[00:43:18] also a body psychotherapist and so I would I would draw a link there between what Carl Jung once said

[00:43:25] which is he he basically said that not one of his back then they said patience not clients

[00:43:31] he said not one of his patients got better quote unquote who didn't find a way to reconnect with

[00:43:39] their with their religious or spiritual life yeah so there's you know Carl Jung one of the most

[00:43:46] sort of heavyweight psychologists of the 20th century drawing a very important connection between

[00:43:54] um are in a spiritual life and are meant to well-being yeah he wrote about that quite a bit

[00:44:03] in modern man and search for a soul like the the the the issue with the kind of tearing down

[00:44:11] religious systems and things like that and leaving kind of avoid in in matters of the soul whereas

[00:44:17] like psychology wasn't meant to deal with that and it was trying to kind of replace that but it

[00:44:20] wasn't doing it very well and he's talking about like the relationship between psychotherapists

[00:44:25] and and clergymen and like how they were serving different needs but if people don't have this thing

[00:44:30] where they can get more in touch with the soul than then there's there's really kind of a void

[00:44:36] that can't be replaced with more with you know a lot of the typical practices that you'll see in

[00:44:42] psychotherapy yeah he had he had a lot of interesting perspectives on on that kind of stuff but it seems

[00:44:49] like you're drawing a connection between or I guess across groups of power whether it be religious

[00:44:58] institutions or governments where it seems like they're seeing some some kind of benefit of being

[00:45:03] mediators for a certain kind of experience and prefer that that the normal people don't have direct

[00:45:11] access themselves because it does it seem like it's some kind of threatening to the to the structure

[00:45:15] of everything that they're worried about it's I can't speak as unlike perhaps a lot of pundits

[00:45:24] I can't sort of give you a nice clean while they do that because you know it does that

[00:45:31] I don't know how even sort of individually conscious these questions are they seem to maybe

[00:45:38] be more systemic I mean maybe there is a group of people somewhere you know saying

[00:45:46] mystical experiences threaten our economic power let's shut them down I mean maybe it's that

[00:45:50] crude but maybe it's just a tendency maybe it's just a systemic tendency I don't I don't know either way

[00:45:58] but I'm also I'm also I'm what I try to be careful when talking about they and them right

[00:46:04] as is that because who are they you know compared to the

[00:46:10] the world's population you and I are probably we're in somewhere in the pretty high percent

[00:46:16] hour so for some people with them yeah fair enough but yeah I absolutely would would be drawing

[00:46:28] a connection between power vested interests and yeah some wish to control or mediate people's access to

[00:46:40] to their own deep inner worlds and through that to yeah kind of what we might call transcendent

[00:46:47] trans person or mystical experiences yeah I mean I think you know these not you know as I'm

[00:46:56] trying to like think through these on the fly I'm kind of exploring different ideas what you know

[00:47:01] I think you know these these kinds of things might might have been the benefit you know but back

[00:47:07] to the questions that I had asked about like why do things have to go down the way that they did

[00:47:10] you know it seems like these were a catalyst for these kinds of like that whole situation was

[00:47:16] a catalyst for these kinds of questions and you know why what are some of the motives in some of

[00:47:22] the ways that the government or groups of power are regulating these substance so that's you know

[00:47:27] while there was a lot of research that was lost you know things it got halted luckily you know

[00:47:32] you mentioned Roland Griffiths he did a really good job of somehow getting that approved in the

[00:47:36] first place and then and then this whole resurgence of of these studies has been pretty cool but

[00:47:43] it seems you know so there was a great loss there but it seems like like the benefit is you know

[00:47:49] making people think a little bit more about at least it seems like that's been an impact on me

[00:47:55] and you know people that I've talked to is you know questioning I guess some of some of the motives

[00:48:01] behind some of these decisions and I guess just looking at things from a different perspective

[00:48:08] yeah for for the for the interview ease what how how did you go about picking them and then

[00:48:17] how did you go about structuring like what kinds of questions to ask them hmm how did I pick them

[00:48:27] there's a there's a two-yearly biannual conference in the UK called Breaking Convention

[00:48:36] and they were very helpful and supportive the people who run that

[00:48:40] in and I was I would attend that during my process of making the film and that was a great

[00:48:46] recruiting ground just go to lots of different talks and just see which ones really resonated

[00:48:52] with me which speakers resonated and then you know great way to approach them and and have

[00:48:58] started a conversation with them and some of it was down to opportunity so you know I was based

[00:49:06] in the UK I was based in London and I wasn't able to to fly around the world and interview whoever

[00:49:11] I wanted so you know Dennis McKenna was passing through I I I reached out to him Rick Dublin

[00:49:19] the same Gabel Matty you know that was just sort of good fortune that we were able to cross paths

[00:49:26] and make our schedules align and they were very kind you know kind enough to give me some of their

[00:49:32] time to to speak in the film how did I structure my questions well the interview process was an

[00:49:40] interesting one because kind of the the film was ended up being a dialogue between these

[00:49:48] current thinkers and these the authors leery Huxley and Watts from the 50s 60s and it was beautiful

[00:49:55] to be able to to facilitate that because I it wouldn't have felt right to just offer a perspective

[00:50:03] from 60 years ago 70 years ago you know to the audience I had felt a responsibility or a need

[00:50:10] to balance that or contextualize that with okay where are we now that was then what have we learnt

[00:50:16] since and we've learnt a lot you know which is what we humans are good at we're good at moving on

[00:50:23] in our thinking and our doing hopefully sometimes not always so really it was so so the it was quite a

[00:50:33] protracted process I would show each interview we one of the animations would sit and watch it

[00:50:40] together for 15 minutes and then I would use that animation as a jumping off point and

[00:50:46] I mean yeah so my you know my interviewing style I like to be open to what's emerging and just

[00:50:54] to follow the thread of the conversation but yeah I had I had my written notes and I would scan

[00:51:00] over them at the end and make sure we'd ticked off roughly everything I wanted to cover you know

[00:51:04] and and so it was an involved process from the interview ease they you know took a good three

[00:51:11] hours or more to watch three animations talk about each one you know with breaks but it was

[00:51:20] it sort of a cheap way would have been for me to just talk about the issues we talked about

[00:51:25] I could have done that without showing them the films but that wasn't you know they they had

[00:51:30] to I had to have them reacting to the to the stories because I don't know it was important it

[00:51:40] was really important to have that dialogue to not sort of have two separate worlds I'm jamming

[00:51:45] together in the edit but to have them you know and I even you know there were people who'd

[00:51:52] they'd heard something about that you know I heard that happened that way from someone who was

[00:51:57] there or there's all sorts of strange wonderful facts and knowledge emerged during that process

[00:52:03] and but each something I began earlier and didn't quite complete was telling you you know about

[00:52:11] the structure of the film we had Liri Huxley Watts and for me that journey was sort of Liri's

[00:52:19] overwhelmed and and and quite what we might call nihilistic you know he's left with this view

[00:52:26] that life is just a series of waves and particles bouncing around with not a great deal of other

[00:52:32] meaning that was you know Liri's sort of disillusionment with life and then it was important then to

[00:52:39] go into Huxley's fascination with an embracing of the natural world and the flower contrasting

[00:52:47] that with the falsity of modern machines cars Hollywood Boulevard etc. And then finally to end

[00:52:55] with Watts saying well we're all just the eternal energy of the universe playing hide and seek with

[00:53:02] itself you know I really it was important to take the audience on that journey from kind of

[00:53:09] disillusionment through reenchantment with nature and somehow maybe an acceptance of one of our

[00:53:17] biggest challenges as a species which is our self-conscious knowledge of our immortality you know

[00:53:25] our knowledge that we're going to die one day and how on earth do we make some sort of peace with that

[00:53:30] yeah yeah I think psychedelics off for something yeah yeah it's it's gonna be really interesting to see

[00:53:37] you know how the thoughts around them change and then the research develops over time it

[00:53:43] you know it seems like it has a good head of steam right now so hopefully things you know continue

[00:53:48] on course but in terms of the the way that you did the interviews I'm glad that you did it that way

[00:53:55] and having them watch and like it was have a conversation who was it was cool to kind of see

[00:54:01] you know some of the thought leaders in this space now responding to some of the thought leaders

[00:54:05] in the space then and then you're like you know there was this 50 year halt but it was kind of like

[00:54:10] a depiction of bridging the gap between these these two time periods when a conversation was

[00:54:15] really brewing so I thought that was cool um so moving forward what kind of things have you been

[00:54:24] working on recently is is this something that you're still interested in in working on or

[00:54:28] exploring or have you been focusing on on other kinds of projects what what have you been up to lately

[00:54:34] um I've got a couple of projects in the pipeline one is more about the the shamanic

[00:54:43] approach and understanding of these tools these substances these what they might go plant medicines

[00:54:52] um that's that's one of one project I'm currently focusing on and the other is about body

[00:55:01] psychotherapy about what some people might call somatic psychology this thing of bringing mind

[00:55:10] and body closer together because as a as as modern western societies we are incredibly alienated

[00:55:19] from our physicality from our physical bodies and increasingly so with with all this technology

[00:55:26] we're very rapidly inventing and evolving and has its great uses but also I think um looking at

[00:55:35] you know um new and younger generations growing up more and more um so many of us are living sort

[00:55:44] virtual lives virtual kind of disembodied lives and so I'm wanting to make this film

[00:55:52] looking back at the development of body psychotherapy which goes back to uh roughly the time of

[00:56:00] Freud um it goes back in at least a hundred years and it's been kind of a bit um

[00:56:07] um I don't know what to say really it's a bit kind of the body

[00:56:15] so for instance Wilhelm Reich was one of the pioneers of what we now call body psychotherapy

[00:56:20] and he sort of he was a pupil of Freud's and he dared to try to bring the body back into the

[00:56:26] consulting room rather than just seeing ourselves as kind of verbalizing disembodied um minds

[00:56:37] and there was it was a huge reaction to that and it's kind of um the body has been kind of somehow

[00:56:44] made shadow we could say um and as I said I'm myself from a body psychotherapist and a filmmaker

[00:56:55] so I'm very interested in um bringing some of these ideas to a wider public just like I

[00:57:02] tried to do with journeys um well yeah I was curious and if you had been uh

[00:57:10] interested in other ways of you know exploring consciousness and awareness so it's it's

[00:57:14] it's cool that you have those brewing so I'll be on the lookout you have you know I know

[00:57:19] just from Freud's experience of like asking various people this that you know time lines it's

[00:57:23] kind of like who knows especially depending on how how long long you've been working on and

[00:57:28] either one but do you have any idea of um when either of them might be might be wrapping up or coming out

[00:57:35] I can't give you any sort of date or timeline yet or like I say is watch this space and

[00:57:41] cool give me a couple of years okay yeah yeah and a problem cool well where's the best place for

[00:57:47] a people to get in touch with the film is it is in the website yeah yeah would be the website of

[00:57:53] the film which is www.journeysmovie.com and yeah cool us and and you know we're it's great we had a

[00:58:02] screening of the film in Colorado last week uh we had a screening in Portland Oregon uh in the

[00:58:10] fall so it's you know the film still has a life it's still yeah being kind of picked up and shown by

[00:58:17] particularly by like local groups local psychedelic societies um people like that so I would

[00:58:22] encourage you know anyone who's listening who who feels cool to check out the film and enjoys it

[00:58:29] um to I'm still encouraging people to consider organizing local screenings of the film

[00:58:34] cool yeah yeah it's both it's both fun if you're interested in these kinds of things and I'm

[00:58:41] thought probably looking at the same time so yeah I would I would highly recommend anybody interested

[00:58:46] in the space to check it out but um that thanks a lot for for coming on and talking with me again

[00:58:51] um you know I've really enjoyed the film like like I said before um and I've had a good time

[00:58:56] talking with you today man so thanks a lot you're welcome Jake yeah thanks for having me on yeah