Out on a ranch, thinking about the history of peyote and how it was once used in battle Read more →
Tag: travel
Peyote Trip on Scorpion Ranch part 1
Trying peyote out on the ranch in rural Mexico Read more →
Nayarit Peyote Adventure: Episode 164
The Story: Peyote journey in Mexico
A few weeks ago, I (Kurt) decided to take a short trip out onto a ranch in Nayarit, about 4 or 5 hours from my home in Guadalajara, in a native American community. Once upon a time, peyote was an important tradition for the Wixárika (Huichol) people in this region, and they would walk for about ten days to arrive at the sacred site of Wirikuta – known as the birthplace of the earth – crossing almost directly over the mountains to perform the pilgrimage. Nowadays, almost nobody in this community takes this sacrament, though many who live closer to Wirikuta still partake, and some native Americans even eat peyote every day, from the time they are children.
According to the mythology of the Wixárika people, the tribe was once lost and without food, and sent off a group of young men to forage. As the scouts were wandering in the desert, they saw something very strange – a blue deer. They took it as an omen, followed the deer, and realised that the animal was sustaining itself by eating a certain cactus that grew close to the earth – peyote. If you notice a blue deer in some artwork, you can be sure that the artist is Wixárika, and is referring to this myth.
In this episode, Kurt tells the story of taking peyote out on the ranch, explains what visions he had, why the peyote told him not to take peyote, about how so much of our lives is based around our interpretation – to the extent that we don’t even see the interpretations.
Join us on another star-gazing episode of … The Paradise Paradox!
The Eps:
The Links:
The Cash:
If you enjoy our posts, please become a patron on Patreon, or have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
The Episode:
To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.
Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.
If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.
Thailand mystical space adventure: Aaron returns – Episode 149
The Story: Aaron goes to Thailand and doesn’t recognise himself
When you start a new job after a period of inactivity, maybe it will seem nothing more than a daily grind. If you’re lucky, you might get a few months of honeymoon period in which you’re still learning things and the job is exciting. If you’re really lucky, you might stay in a 5 star hotel in Thailand, and find yourself full of energy, amazed at the great work for which you’re preparing. That’s the position Mr. Battle found himself in.
In this episode, Aaron explains his journey to Thailand with a new company, telling us the vague details of their plan to create a new internet with security, privacy and community. Aaron also tells us about how he was so vitalised by the experience that, for the first week, he only needed three hours of sleep a night, and about an unusual dissociative episode, being unable to recognise himself in the mirror for a moment, thanking his body for being a vessel for his soul. Then Kurt recounts a recent occurrence in which he almost had an out-of-body experience, and recalls a story from Robert Monroe’s “Journeys Out of the Body”.
Join us in a new soul-travelling, identity-shattering, curry-eating episode of … The Paradise Paradox!
The Links:
Robert Monroe – Journeys Out of the Body
The Cash:
If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
The Episode:
To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.
Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.
If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.
Ayahuasca: You don’t have to hike through the Amazon or pay $11,000
I’ve noticed a few times that when I post articles and videos about ayahuasca in Facebook groups, occasionally I’ll get a rather unexpected and violent reaction, talking about how ayahuasca is an experience for the elite only, that the cost is prohibitive, and when will regular people be able to try this experience which purports to be so life-changing.
When I first saw these comments, I was a little confused, as I’ve taken ayahuasca two times (here in Mexico), and both times it cost somewhere in the realm of $60 USD – more than an LSD trip surely, and perhaps more than a night at the movies, but not exactly in the realm of “maybe if I take out a second mortgage…”
My perspective changed when my buddy Aaron pointed out how the media portrays ayahuasca – with all the poetic visions that go along with it – hiking through the jungle, travelling by canoe along the Amazon to reach a 70 year old shaman holding a palm tree shaker, speaking in an incomprehensible native American tongue, which he later uses to sing incantations, conjuring tigers by the campfire.
Or people read about it in articles like this one from Business Insider casually mentioning the figure of $11,000 without explaining that, well, you don’t have to pay that much.
In an ideal world…
Of course, in an ideal world, everyone would be able to take this mystic medicine with a shaman who has a 1,000 year lineage, after a month of eating a pure vegan diet, abstaining from X, Y and Z, meditating every day, with spiritual guidance on hand… But, if you can’t get the ideal conditions, sometimes it’s best to just fucking do it. And you can do it.
Solutions
I’m told that in the US, you can take a ceremony for around $400. In Europe, about €300 – still rather expensive for some. However, new groups are popping up all the time, and that’s sure to drive the price down.
In some countries, you can order the plants online to make the medicine for yourself or find a supplier who makes the brew ready-to-use.
As I said, both times I’ve taken it so far, it cost about $60 USD – 1100 MXN, and for that I slept on the floor of a shaman’s house on my sleeping bag, listening to musicians play hymns and ícaros. But for someone looking for a more all-inclusive experience, I know of at least one group in Mexico which will provide a 3 day retreat with food, accommodation, psychotherapy, and complementary medicines such as rapé, for around 6000 pesos or $310 USD.
Ayahuasca isn’t yet something that you can obtain with extreme ease in a lot of the world. But it is getting cheaper, and it is getting more accessible. When the media tells you that you have to travel to a Peruvian jungle – don’t believe the hype.
Disclaimer
This article is for entertainment purposes only; don’t take it as medical advice. If you are going to do ayahuasca, do your research, and especially be aware that psychotropic drugs can interfere with the medicine, introducing serious risks.
Education: Psychedelics Forever – Episode 138
The Story: Psychedelics Forever
Learning should be considered a super power! Traditional schooling illustrates that the ability to absorb knowledge, duplicate skills and regurgitate information, is a sliding scale. However, what if everyone has equally ability to learn, grow ideas and apply knowledge. We are aware that people learn in different ways and that mainstream topics may not be interesting to all.
Almost the complete first world has accepted a generic, one size fits all schooling system. Children and young adults are forced to forfeit their innocent years for behavioural pruning, locked-in then routinely fed approved programming. The brain training is extensive (13 years and growing) for a long future of receiving instruction. This destructive habit building process of uniform activities, has high jacked a ‘valued education’ of critical thinking and stolen the imagination of generations.
The students are distracted during critical years of mental and physical brain development, while their parents have 100% of their trust in federal government bodies and corporate interests. The socially accepted education system is believed to serve families, while economic constraints hold mum and dad at work, while the children are being baby sat.
Machines have no mind, machines are also rated on output. Our children are taught performance from day one – A, B, we ‘C’ that you are average, ‘D’ and why are you such an F?
Now lets explore some ideas, in short – everyone has a preferred learning style, visual, aural, read/write and kinaesthetic. You don’t need to be a professor to realise that combinations of styles accompanied with targeted studies that align with individual interests will improve learning effectiveness. Expanding the experience by including multiple senses can be very useful in effective learning.
Now for those jumping ahead, I am not setting up an argument pro the introduction of psychedelics to the classroom. However, being able to cross wire the human brain and experience short periods of synesthesia (seeing sounds, hearing colours and tasting language) could potential have some positive application. From the perspective of a sensible adult studying a vast topic (the life experience) and with no prescribed curriculum, perhaps psychedelics have something to offer? New research in the area of micro-dosing psychedelic substances (LSD) have published positive results and illustrated extremely interesting effects on the brain.
In this episode, we discuss a new found benefit to homeschooling and a few personal views on living to expand your mind. Kurt outlines the philosophy of trip life, an option to pursue a career as a psychedelic adventurer – ‘If you’re not coming down from a trip, you are preparing for another’. This came from the concept of avoiding the cage of a small-town mindset and expanding it to universes and possibly dimensions, If you dare.
Prepare yourself to slip and trip into The Paradise Paradox, where there is no such thing as a bad trip!
The Eps:
What drugs do you use to contact aliens?
Peyote Trip Overview: San Luis Potosí
Ayahuasca Diaries 1
The Links:
Brains potential – Effect of LSD on the brain
VARK – Study
The Serious Limitation of Rote Memorisation You Probably Don’t Know About
Dayna Martin – Radical unschooling: Peaceful parenting and natural learning
The Cash:
If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
The Episode:
To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.
Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.
If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.
Decision maker: Getting your priorities straight – Episode 123
The Story: Travelling, making decisions, and taking responsibility for them
When people are talking about the decisions they make in their lives, it’s common for people to say things like “I should do this,” “I have to do that,” “I need to…” using many phrases that indicate an obligation. But nobody is holding a gun to their heads, so why do they say they “have to”? The fact is, it’s extremely rare that you don’t have a choice in the course of action you’re going to take. More commonly, we make choices, avoiding negative consequences or seeking positive consequences.
As an example, suppose your sister is getting married in a foreign country – which happens to be a real inconvenience for you. You don’t want to experience the negative attention that you’ll receive from your family if you decide not to go, but you also want to enjoy time with your family, and be there to support your sister in what might be one of the most important days in her life. Remember, you don’t “have to” go. You decide to go, because you decided that family is important; you decided to make family a priority, despite the inconvenience.
In this episode, Kurt and Aaron discuss the importance of taking responsibility for your own actions, remembering that it’s you who is in control of your own life, and also some interesting stories from Aaron going through airports, travelling, occasionally struggling with the company of his family, and enjoying the company of his family.
The Past Eps:
We the media: We’re all journalists now – Episode 34
Podcast journalism – Episode 111
The Cash:
If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
The Episode:
To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.
Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.
If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.
Tapalpa Check-In
Living in Mexico, I’m constantly getting into conversations where people ask me “Have you been to Mazatlán? Have you been to Mazamitla? Sayulita? Manzanillo? Xochimilco? Guanajuato? Querétero? You absolutely must go!” Everybody has their own idea of which town is the perfect place to visit in Mexico, but it’s not often that I make the effort to travel and see them.
So, last Friday, despite the obstacles, I finally decided to put on some pants and go to Tapalpa to enjoy a little bit of the Mexican countryside and small-town hospitality. These are a few thoughts I had while I was out in the quaint “Pueblo Mágico” of Tapalpa.
To download the audio, right click and press ‘Save as’.
A game you have to invent, to win – a clip from Episode 121
For those of you who are too busy to watch an hour long interview, we decided to take out some of the best bits for you to enjoy.
In this clip, Andrew Levine (a.k.a. @andrarchy) describes some important concepts relating to his idea of a massively multiplayer OFFline game. It’s a kind of roleplaying game, with a limited set of rules, which the participants may change as they go along. The players decide what the prize is, and what one must do to achieve it. Andrew also explains how roleplaying games like this enable us to indulge in impulses, such as dishonest, which we couldn’t necessarily get away with in our regular lives, and finally he mentions how cryptocurrency and Steemit make these kinds of ambitious projects possible.
Peyote Trip Overview: San Luis Potosí – Episode 117
The Episode – Peyote Trip Overview:
To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.
Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.
If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.
The Cash:
If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.
To help support the show, please look at The Paradise Paradox’s recent posts on Steemit, and upvote the ones you like. Steemit is a platform which pays its users for producing and moderating content, and there is no fee to join, so give it a try and enjoy the rewards.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
The Story:
For centuries, millenia, or perhaps since there was no time, people have been taking journeys out into the desert of Mexico to take the sacred medicine known as “peyote”.
If you’re willing to go out into the desert and take the adventure of a lifetime, as the sun starts to go down, you might start to see the shadows of spirits stretching out from the horizon – fallen Aztec warriors, and forgotten kings and queens still sitting on their thrones, perhaps not knowing their empires are now long gone. Who is waiting out there to meet you? Will you have the courage to say “Hello”?
In this episode we describe an adventure we took out into the desert of San Luis Potosí, to stretch the boundaries of our minds. We hope you’ll join us on a brain-bending journey on this episode of The Paradise Paradox!
Here’s a disclaimer: We’re not in any way recommending or endorsing any psychedelics, nor that you do anything illegal. Brains can be delicate things. If you’re going to do anything like this, have a look at this article from our friend Maverick about some tips on what to do and what not to do.
The Eps:
Peyote Adventure Desert Check-in
The Links:
How not to do psychedelics: A guide