[00:00:01] Luke: Want to hear something super trippy?

[00:00:03] Zach: Yeah.

[00:00:04] Luke: So a couple of months ago, January 26th, my dad died, and I was able to make it there, to Florida, where he was in the hospital at the time. He was in a coma and not all there. And I had about 48 hours of just sitting in his room with him.

[00:00:27] Zach: Mm. Beautiful.

[00:00:29] Luke: Some of which was filled with other family members and things like that. But in the moment that he actually died, which is like 2:30 AM, I've been sitting in there for hours. I'm with my brother, Andy, and I'm just meditating. I'm taking a little medicine. I'm just trying to really just be fiercely present to the whole experience and not run. But at some point, the silence and the breathing, the death rattle, it was just a lot. So I'm like, "I got to listen to some podcasts. So I put on and I go, "Wow, who is really good about death?" Ram Dass.

[00:01:09] Zach: Yeah.

[00:01:10] Luke: Right. And I don't know, I didn't have the wherewithal to scroll for a title that seemed to fit the moment. I just picked the most recent one. And I'm listening to a lecture between a guy named Timothy Leary and Ram Dass, the conversation. They're batting it back and forth. And that's what I was listening to when my dad died.

[00:01:33] Zach: Oh wow. Thank you for sharing that. Beautiful. Yeah, I hope it was helpful.

[00:01:39] Luke: It was amazing. It's funny because they were having a light conversation. It wasn't a big deep moment. But we had met some months prior to that and I thought, oh, that's so interesting. I can't wait to share that with Zach.

[00:01:55] Zach: Oh, thanks for sharing.

[00:01:56] Luke: I was with your dad when my dad departed the body.

[00:02:00] Zach: And when my dad was dying, Ram Dass was such an integral part of that whole process. He wasn't there that day, but throughout those final months, his support, his coaching, his narratives, his presence was such a integral part of making that process okay for us. I was only 22. I was looking back on it. I was so young.

[00:02:26] Yeah, was a really interesting thing. Because Timothy really considered himself to be a spiritual materialist. And when Richard Albert transitioned into Ram Dass, he thought it was a shtick and never really got down with it.

[00:02:42] But the moment that he knew he was dying, the first person he called was Ram Dass, which told me a lot. All these years later, I'm able to look back on it and go, "Oh, okay. All right, Timmy. You were hiding in the shadows there around your spirituality who are a lot more spiritual than you." Pretended to be. So it was an interesting tell, I think. Yeah.

[00:03:04] Luke: Did your dad die of cancer?

[00:03:06] Zach: Prostate cancer, yeah. Wow.

[00:03:08] Luke: Wow. Yeah, yeah.

[00:03:09] Zach: Prostate cancer. But he did one chemo session and said, "Fuck this. This isn't for me. And just embraced the whole death and dying process and turned his final last arc of his work all around the demystification of death and his final book was on death and dying with dignity and quality of life conversations and narratives and things like that.

[00:03:33] And originally, because his website, leary.com came out in September of '95, way early, and I was part of that team, we thought we were going to broadcast his death, on see you see me, a little eight-bit stop motion streaming. We ended up not doing that. But his website was a huge thread and fabric of that whole process, which was way ahead of his time.

[00:04:00] Luke: And he was 22.

[00:04:01] Zach: He was only 22? Yeah.

[00:04:02] Luke: Wow. I'm assuming Ram Dass and that whole perspective on consciousness and the body, all of that must have been supportive, but how did you learn how to grieve?

[00:04:22] Zach: I'm not sure I did until later. I'm not sure I did until later for sure. Ram Dass was around throughout my whole life when I was a kid, but as I became a teenager, and then during those last couple of years when my dad was sick, Ram Dass's presence freaked me out. It terrified me. I was like, "This guy, what is this? This beam, this unconditional love beam and this softness." And it was like when you're that young and still finding your own identity and seeing someone just be fully in presence, that's a scary thing. And the whole--

[00:05:03] Luke: Right, because they have the ability to see what's present in you, right?

[00:05:07] Zach: Yeah.

[00:05:08] Luke: There's no hiding when someone has that degree of presence.

[00:05:11] Zach: There's no hiding. And so much of the Ram Dass thing, especially when you're with him, it's being in silence. It's not filled with words. And when you're young and insecure that being in silence and just being with someone, it's incredibly terrifying thing.

[00:05:27] Exactly. They can see all your little games and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, the grieving process, I'm not really sure I dealt with it until much later. It wasn't so much him actually dying because he really celebrated it and turned his life and his death into a celebration and prepared us for it.

[00:05:48] It wasn't sudden. That part was fine. It was more the not knowing who I was and grieving the process for how do I discover that? Because up until that point, I just was Timothy Leary's son. I didn't work, man. All my social circle was built in. Girls were built in. Parties were built in. It just came with it. So I didn't really know how to-- I didn't know how to pay a bill. I'm not joking. Literally I didn't know how to balance a checkbook.

[00:06:19] Luke: I still don't know how to balance a checkbook.

[00:06:21] Zach: Right, exactly.

[00:06:22] Luke: But I get the point.

[00:06:23] Zach: At least we have electronic stuff. I didn't know how to go find an apartment and things like that.

[00:06:30] Luke: Register your car.

[00:06:31] Zach: It just was a mess.

[00:06:32] Luke: Get the key turned off.

[00:06:33] Zach: Yeah. And it was just a mess, searching for my own identity. And that's what got me into substance abuse, running away from that grief and my own self-identification. My own self-inquiry process was non-existent. So substance abuse was a temporary numbing agent that I thought solved the problem. And then things got really bad, and once I got into recovery and rediscovered spirituality, it opened up again.

[00:07:03] Luke: Right, right. And were you living in LA at the time?

[00:07:07] Zach: Benedict Canyon?

[00:07:09] Luke: Is that where your dad lived the whole time?

[00:07:11] Zach: Yeah.

[00:07:11] Luke: So funny, dude, when I was looking at the notes this morning for this conversation, I remembered that I went to a party at your house in the early '90s. I just remember it was a big deal. I don't remember talking to your dad or if he was even around or if you were there, but it was one of those-- I was going to dead shows and taking a lot psychedelics and stuff.

[00:07:33] So it's like I don't know how I got invited, who it was, but I just remember, dude, there was a party at Timothy Leary's house. I'm like, "Oh shit." I don't remember what happened. I just remember it was in the Hollywood Hills-ish

[00:07:44] Zach: Yeah. I'm sure I was there.

[00:07:46] Luke: Yeah, it's funny.

[00:07:46] Zach: Yeah.

[00:07:47] Luke: That's about it because of the nature of those type of parties. But that's interesting to think about, culturally, I think many people, especially when I moved to LA in the late '80s, it was like from the Bay Area, people viewed Los Angeles as boob jobs and red Ferraris and just vapid, cheesy, materialism and fame chasing and all of that.

[00:08:16] But there always has been, I think, a subculture of psychedelic community, spiritual seekers, meditators. There's definitely a bedrock of that there that many people, I don't know, not so much, but back then were unaware of. So it's interesting that your dad lived in the middle of LA.

[00:08:36] Zach: 1,000%, man. And all of those threads, that is 100% true, especially with Eastern mysticism and Eastern religions and psychedelics as well. Because when Paramahansa Yogananda and Swami Vivekananda, who started in the Vedanta church and all that, when they came to America, they started on the East Coast.

[00:08:58] But at that point, in the '20s and '30s, the  East Coast was still a little bit Protestant or Catholic, a little stiff. And it was like, go west. They're starting this new Hollywood thing. And those religions took hold there, and Yogananda and  Vivekananda were able to thrive there. The Hare Krishna movement also helped really expand in Los Angeles and things like that, and psychedelics. Aldis Huxley lived and died in the Hollywood Hills. Humphrey Osmond did the first--

[00:09:26] Luke: Really?

[00:09:26] Zach: Yeah.

[00:09:26] Luke: Wow.

[00:09:27] Humphrey Osmond, the guy who coined the term psychedelic was the UCLA psychiatrist. Oz Janiger, Tim Leary, all those guys, they were thriving in Los Angeles. And I think that really goes to show-- say what you want about Los Angeles, and I could say a lot about LA, but it always has had, and still does in some ways, this thread of reinvention.

[00:09:50] You can be anything in LA. You can create any newfangled archetype and dream big and make it-- because it is symbolic of the new world. And that part of LA I really love. And I think it's like fertile soil to allow ideas like that to thrive.

[00:10:11] Luke: That's so true.

[00:10:12] Zach: Yeah.

[00:10:13] Luke: I had created a few versions of myself there.

[00:10:16] Zach: Yeah, right?

[00:10:17] Luke: Some for better, some for worse.

[00:10:18] Zach: Yeah, likewise.

[00:10:19] Luke: Yeah, yeah. Speaking of Aldis Huxley, when I, a few years ago, began to explore the realm of psychedelics and plant medicines as someone in recovery, I became very interested in just researching the history of that intersection and in a way just trying to reconcile it and see where the two would meet.

[00:10:45] And in that research, of course, I had known this, but just more as a rumor-- I didn't look that deeply into it-- but the co-founder of AA, Bill Wilson's early use of LSD, and the story is that he sat with Huxley at the vet hospital in Westwood. Do you know anything about that story or have you edited or have any details about it?

[00:11:17] Zach: And Humphrey Osmond again. Humphrey Osmond is the one who actually-- because Humphrey Osmond turned on Huxley with mescaline, which became the doors of perception. Humphrey Osmond is the one who started the 1950s LSD research on alcoholism, and he's the one who turned Bill on.

[00:11:37] And yeah, Huxley was around for that, but Osmond was really the pied piper for both of them. And yeah, now the story, that movie-- what was it called? I think it was called Bill W., the documentary about Bill, which talks a lot about the LSD use and stuff. But until that came out, there is an official piece of AA literature on-- some bigger meetings might have it. That book called Pass It On, it's a green cover.

[00:12:05] Luke: Yeah, I know that book.

[00:12:05] Zach: Yeah, you know it? But it's not at every AA meeting and most people haven't--

[00:12:10] Luke: Yeah. You got to go to central office to the library and get it.

[00:12:12] Zach: And get it. And then you might be--

[00:12:14] Luke: I had to do it. I want to point I had every book that that organization ever put out because I'm just like, "What is happening here?

[00:12:20] Zach: Right, right? And that book is fascinating and talks a lot about Bill Wilson's LSD, and I always used to challenge old school AA guys. That's urban legend, and no, it's in the book man. It's here. And he, what, had six experiences and--

[00:12:34] Zach: Six? Wow.

[00:12:35] Luke: Six, yeah. And thought it was going to be-- he called it the Great Ego Sublimate. Thought it could be a cure for alcoholism in conjunction with the research that Osmond was doing. Because I think they worked with 215 alcoholics and had a 60% efficacy rate after a year.

[00:12:55] Luke: Wow.

[00:12:56] Zach: Yeah. 60%. And alcoholics who said they no longer after I think maybe two LSD sessions. And Bill thought it was going to be the next great step in recovery, but I think it was his wife who pulled him from the edge of that. She was the one who was like, "I don't think this is going to be a good idea. I don't think this is going to land well in the fellowship." And I think it was her who--

[00:13:24] Luke: Lois kiboshed it.

[00:13:26] Zach: Lois, yeah, put the brakes on that a little bit. Yeah. But it's a fascinating story.

[00:13:31] Luke: It is fascinating. And it's so counterintuitive. I think that's the thing that's so interesting about that relationship. What our recent history has shown us is that the most successful model for addiction recovery is total abstinence. And it makes the most sense. But then if you look at the inception of Alcoholics Anonymous was in a sense predicated on an experience in part brought about by Bill Wilson drinking this Belladonna drink in Towns Hospital.

[00:14:07] Zach: Yeah, that's right.

[00:14:08] Luke: And I thought that he had his white light experience while on that. But then I looked a little deeper and it looks like it was within a couple days of that, then he had this famous white light experience, this transcendent experience that essentially cured his alcoholism and led to what we now know as the 12-step movement.

[00:14:29] Zach: But that transcendent Belladonna experience, even while he was on it, it did give him the download for the steps in chapter four, how it works and all of that. Yeah. I think you're right. It wasn't until a couple of days later did he put it on a paper.

[00:14:44] But I think it speaks to the larger issue though, of like what do we consider to be intoxication, and what do we consider to be mind and mood altering and the contexts and the thought bubble in which we view that?

[00:16:23] I think the 12-step culture, because of the expansion of the treatment industry and how that fed into criminal justice reform and mainstream hospitalizations and things like that, I think they just by default landed on that, all mind and mood-altering things. But when we look at plant medicines and psychedelics, not just plant medicines-- and LSD is not a plant medicine. I think, yes.

[00:15:39] Luke: Neither is Bufo. Or really even mushrooms aren't really a plant either. Anyway.

[00:15:46] Zach: That's right. Yeah. But I used to talk to Ram Dass about this all the time. I think having a psychedelic experience with your focus being on your recovery is an embodiment of the third and the 11th steps, seeking only for his knowledge of his will and the power to carry that out and proving your conscious contact with God as we understood him, she, or it to be, and all of those things.

[00:16:13] I can't think of a better method to establish a deeper connection with spirit. So yeah, that's how I'd look at it. And I think as time goes on, fortunately, I do think more people in the 12-step community are becoming a little bit more malleable and yeah, a little bit more valuable and open-minded to the breakdown of how that looks.

[00:16:38] And also too, I think there's also has to be a recognition around the hypocrisy. And this is not a judgment at all, but a huge number of people in the fellowships, they're on some kind of psychiatric medication. So how can we say, "Well, a doctor gave you that. That's okay. But a shaman who gives you this, that's not okay." And so I think if we look at it objectively and try to reframe or cognitive bias, I think it's a different lens.

[00:17:11] Luke: That's a really good point. At one point in maybe the first year or two of my sobriety, I'm sure a well-meaning psychiatrist put me on some psych meds. I was fucking nuts, son. Oh my God. Just thinking back, oh my God. I was crazy. Then I got addicted to them, and I was like, "Wait, I know what happens when you start to feel dope sick. It's a different kind of withdrawal."

[00:17:41] But I was crazy on them that if I ran out, I would start to lose my shit. And to the point where he would leave extra sample meds. You know how they get the little sample packs because I would run out of the prescription? He would leave it under the call box at the office building in the bushes and stuff.

[00:18:01] It was super weird. And I was like, "Wait a minute. I'm supposed to be sober." So yeah, that's a great point. Going back to what you said about the steps and step 11 and improving our conscious contact with God and that part. But in step 3, that surrender, turning your will and your life over to God, any legitimate psychedelic experience is inherently about that.

[00:18:31] Zach: That's right. Yeah.

[00:18:31] Luke: Right? You close your eyes and you're like, "Okay, I'm going somewhere. I'm not here anymore." If that's not the ultimate act of trust every time you do it, have you made other correlations between some of those teachings and psychedelic experiences?

[00:18:48] Zach: Absolutely. That's a really good example because I think, at least large doses of psychedelics, what's the primary thing that it requires? Surrender and trust. The second you start to fight it, the second you start to resist, then you're going to be caught in whatever the challenging loophole is, and you're going to struggle and you're going to push back and it's not going to work.

[00:19:14] And you're going to be writhing around on the floor for eight hours. But when you get to that place of surrender and trust, to me, it's like turning your will in your life over is dharma. My primary spiritual method is from the East, and that to me is the embodiment of dharma. It's going to where you can best serve the world and best serve your own path.

[00:19:43] What's in harmony? what's in equanimity? How do you spend your time and energy? Is that in harmony with your somatic experience, with your emotional intelligence, with spirit, with service? So I can't think of a better example of-- I don't think psychedelics are a sustainable everyday method in and of themselves, but they're great accelerants to help point out where you're out of balance, to help show you where a little course correction is appropriate.

[00:20:19] Luke: Right. So like in taking a personal inventory, right?

[00:20:25] Zach: Yeah.

[00:20:26] Luke: There's no other inventory. Drinking some ayahuasca. I remember one mushroom journey I had. I'm 23 years sober at this point. Written a million four steps. For those listening and don't know what that is, that's where you really get honest with yourself about your behavior and motives and things like that. I uncovered gross shit within myself that I had never even contemplated once. Just think like, oh God, just ways I had treated people in the past.

[00:21:00] Zach: And the mushroom showed you that.

[00:21:02] Luke: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And I'm just like, "Holy. I don't know if I ever would've uncovered that." And also uncovered a whole new list of people to whom I owed amends to. And then there's like, wow, talk about integration. I just realized, shit, there's 10 people I really hurt and I never even knew it, or let alone acknowledged it to them.

[00:21:24] Zach: For those listening who are in recovery and who aren't, I think the point, the moral of this is that you're waking state of consciousness has a limitation into what it can uncover. Yes, of course, there are spiritual practices, meditation, breath work, and we can go on endless lists of great spiritual practices that help soften that to a bit.

[00:21:51] But understanding that your waking state of consciousness has limitations, has a mechanism put in place that does not allow you to see the entire sphere, does not allow you to pierce the veil. And that's intentionally designed that way because we all have to live in balance with each other in this construct of reality. We all have to sit here and agree that this is reality. And we all can't be poking holes in the fabric of reality or else it would be chaos.

[00:22:24] There has to be some as semblance of. But the same thing is true for our own personal experiences too. And I think, like you said, I have never done that, and it's a pretty cool story of doing a fourth step after as like experience.

[00:22:42] Luke: It wasn't by choice.

[00:22:43] Zach: Yeah. It just happened to be. Right. Okay.

[00:22:44] Luke: It's just in those moments, I'm sure you're familiar, where you get a hint of a direction that you might go in. And it's like, Ugh, that's a little crunchy in there. I'm just wired. I don't like it, but I know the payoff is worth it. So I get little crunchy, "Hey, want to look at this?" A little whisper, right? You got to check this out over here.

[00:23:08] Zach: That's right.

[00:23:08] Luke: And if it's too crunchy, I'll have to pause, maybe ask for help. Like, whoa, I'm about to go in crunchville. Am I okay? You're okay. Go for it. Take a couple deep breaths. Maybe take an eye mask off, just recalibrate, and then like, "All right, coach, I'm going in." And going in there, it's not up to you necessarily. You've given consent. I'm willing to explore the nature of all the nooks and crannies of who I am and who I think I am and who I'm not, and all that. It's been in those moments where I'm just like, "Ooh, gross."

[00:23:41] Zach: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:23:42] Luke: Oh God, I did that? I am that?

[00:23:44] Zach: I am that. Yeah. For me it's the, I am that. Even today, I smoked DMT a week ago, and it's only 15 minutes long. I'm just lying in my Pooja room. And I love DMT because it's so short, and then for me it's like an e-ticket express lane. I get so much out of the 15 minutes. But it is that. It's like, oh God, I am that. I am still that. I'm still dealing with that.

[00:24:10] It's like, oh gosh. Okay, let's put that into focus again. And yeah, no one here gets out alive, man. You can't hide from it. You can't hide from it. And that's both the beauty and the cautionary tale of psychedelics. You can't run. You can't hide. It's all there on the surface.

[00:24:33] Luke: In that exploration that you've done within yourself, how much of that has, in a positive sense, led to self-love and acceptance?

[00:24:45] Zach: Quite a bit of it. Quite a bit of it. No question. It's so easy for me to-- again, we share a recovery bond, so we can kind of go with that. My self-loathing, self-limiting, beating myself up, and oh my gosh, I relapsed. All these terrible things happened and I did all these terrible things. Oh my God.

[00:25:11] I could just let those tapes run all day if I don't do something to change my state or some kind of spiritual practice to get me to go in a reparative process. But even today, the psychedelic experience really helps reframe that for me in a way that-- sure, I'm not saying you can't discover that without psychedelics.

[00:25:36] But for me, it's been just a powerful reminder that like, okay, you do have a lot to offer the world. Oh wow, you went from being homeless to getting a book published. That's great. Celebrate that, man. Be proud of yourself. Most people don't make that. And just little Easter egg reminders that are there along for me in the dharmic path that I just might otherwise overlook. Yeah.

[00:26:04] Luke: I've realized, looking at that particular piece, just how important it is to have fulfillment in life, to be able to appreciate yourself from, of course, from a place of humility. But that's been really challenging for me. I've gone through phases of really patting myself on a back in a positive sense.

[00:26:26] Like you, came from a really dark place. My life was absolutely doomed. And I've worked very hard and had a lot of grace to redeem myself and accomplish incredible things both internally and out in the world. But still, I catch myself sometimes-- for example, I'll look at my wife and I'll just see her in her flawless perfection of just the fact that she's just breathing.

[00:26:51] Doesn't have to do anything. Doesn't have to be anyone, anything. It's like just the essence of her, who she is, is just beautiful. And I just have such appreciation and just unconditional acceptance and love for her. Right?

[00:27:08] Zach: Yeah.

[00:27:09] Luke: And it is a beautiful thing to experience that. But sometimes I'll catch myself having that experience of her and I go, "Wow, I'm totally incapable of doing that for myself."

[00:27:19] Zach: And why is that though?

[00:27:21] Luke: I don't know.

[00:27:22] Zach: Why is that?

[00:27:23] Luke: I wouldn't say totally incapable, I would say at times, it's harder to access that probably more of the time. And then there's some peak moments or experiences where I go, "Oh, shit. I deserve what she deserves." Or anyone else that I might love and appreciate in the same way.

[00:27:40] Zach: You and I share that. There's no question about that. Those moments can be really pronounced to me. And I do. Just because I'm perpetually curious, I try to figure out why. And I tend to think that the Western framework, modality construct for living in the material world is partially to blame for that.

[00:28:07] No matter how spiritually attuned or spiritually whatever, on the path or advanced we think we are, we're all susceptible to the programming. The news cycles, social media, or just life in the material world. And I think that programming, it's designed to make us feel less than, and it's designed to compare and contrast.

[00:28:33] It's designed to illuminate what Ram Dass would call the illusion of separation, and that is what, I think the modern version of late-stage capitalism is about, highlighting our differences, not the similarities, not the beautiful synergies and things like that.

[00:28:55] So I look at my work and my spiritual practice as anything that I can do to chip away at the illusion of separation. And not constantly be in this repetitive thought loop of like, oh, I'm not enough. Why can't I experience this? Etc., etc., etc.

[00:29:15] Luke: I think within that construct too, just the influence from the outside in, it really-- I want to see if you agree with this-- it seems to really push us more towards selfishness too.

[00:29:31] Zach: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:29:32] Luke: Because it's like if you think or you are in fact being judged by the outside world and the manifestation of your efforts, success in an external sense, then you start striving for that. And to strive for that negates service.

[00:29:49] Zach: That's right.

[00:29:50] Luke: It just becomes all about achieving, winning, getting, getting mine, my house, my car, my success, my vacation.

[00:29:57] Zach: Then bigger house, better car.

[00:29:58] Luke: Yeah, yeah. Totally, totally. And that's something I've noticed within myself lately. When I was much more active in recovery there was some days, hours a day where I'm directly devoting and committing my attention and love to someone to help them.

[00:30:14] For a long, long time, and there was so much fulfillment in that. And then life changed and I started casting a wider net and finding my dharma and hopefully positively impacting people at large, but don't have as much of that, very little, in fact, from honest of that direct human-to-human experience where I'm really able to give of myself.

[00:30:39] And that seems to be missing because I've gotten more caught up in building a business and this and that. And it's like, meh. I'm just being honest. I think a little too much service of the self, which also includes my wife and our little family and things like that. But do you think there's a slippery slope in that too, of just becoming-- if you're success driven, how do you do so without being self-driven?

[00:31:07] Zach: Yeah, no, it's a great point. I think there's a little bit of a slippery slope with that, even within this modern psychedelic rebirth, renaissance, whatever you want to call it, in that psychedelics, as it relates to mental health, it's become inextricably linked at this point.

[00:31:27] So the modern default paradigm around psychedelic use has been healing, personal healing. And that sounds great. That sounds really cool. And it can be very helpful and very successful. But what I'm seeing, the offshoot of that is it's created this sort of paradigm of radical individualization, like me, me, me, me, me. How can I heal myself and create a better version of myself? And again, that sounds fun.

[00:32:04] Luke: Of myself, for myself.

[00:32:05] Zach: Of myself, for myself, yes. Of myself, for myself. And this is the one thing that I think the '60 did get right with psychedelics, is that that movement was also based off of this, maybe it was naive and idealistic, but this desire to create a new world and a better world for all of us.

[00:32:30] And I don't see as much of that today. Like, how can I be of service? How can I be a better steward for healthy eating and exposing people to threats like this or the environment in climate change or civil rights, the sexual revolution, women's rights.

[00:32:49] All of those things were born out of the '60s and out of psychedelia. And I don't see as much of that today. I see it much more like what you just said. Like, how can I heal myself for myself to be a better version of myself so I can go off and do more for myself? That, to me, is the perils of the medicalization movement of psychedelics. There's plenty of pros we can talk about too, of course. But those are the cons for me.

[00:33:23] Luke: Do you think some of that has to do with the lack of cultural context in the West versus-- some of these medicines, obviously, we don't even know how far back their use goes in indigenous cultures.

[00:33:38] But it seems like, as someone in the Western culture, the outside looking into what remains of some of those cultures and traditions, that because those experiences were and are so interwoven into cultures and family systems and there's an actual traceable lineage, it seems like less so geared toward the individual and more toward the collective because there's a construct there to support that. It's part of the purpose of the whole thing. Could you unpack anything on that?

[00:34:16] Zach: 100%, man. Yeah, 100%. If you look at even today's, the remnants of indigenous cultures that use psychedelics, if you see how it is they operate in the world, the one constant that they have is equanimity-- equanimity with their family systems, with ancestral intergenerational connections there on their land, with the land itself, with their bodies and what they eat and how they-- what we would call nutrition in the West.

[00:34:51] And that makes the process of using psychedelics much more of an integrational experience. Because you fold right back into this fabric to where everybody knows They know that you know, and you know that they know and everybody knows. In the West, we don't have that. So on the most extreme example, the worst way you could use psychedelics is to do a heroic journey on Sunday and go to your office on a Monday.

[00:35:23] Luke: Oh God.

[00:35:24] Zach: It's a disaster. And that's the worst way you could do it. But our Western framework doesn't really have a support system built into it. So yeah, there's some crunchiness and there's some stickiness around that, around how do we create better fabrics of support and trust and safety for people to meld back into their experiences?

[00:35:54] And it's tricky. I don't think any of us really have the answer for it yet, but I think it's going to be the great question of the next round of the psychedelic expansion. Is our society built to absorb this many people using psychedelics? I don't know. I'm not saying it does or it doesn't, but I definitely don't have the answer. I don't think anybody does.

[00:36:19] Luke: What does it look like when you're at home and you feel called to have a 20-minute DMT journey?

[00:36:28] Zach: What does that look like?

[00:36:30] Luke: I ask because that sounds like a great idea because I love the DMT space. Of all spaces, that's probably my sweet spot.

[00:36:37] Zach: Nice.

[00:36:40] Luke: But I think I would be scared to just sit here. And this is our ceremony room. I was like, "Oh honey, I'll be upstairs for a little while going do my thing. I think I would-- scared is kind of overstating it, but I feel like the inner dimensional nature of those experiences are scary in the sense that I don't know that I would be able to provide the protection for myself that a more ceremonial experience that is created with intentionality and some degree of sacredness and protection where there's a grid being-- if you sit with a legitimate shaman, a lot of preparation goes into the space and the music, the smells.

[00:37:41] Zach: Of course.

[00:37:41] Luke: And there's micro rituals throughout the beginning, middle, end, after. I feel very safe and held to where nothing that I don't want in my field is going to be allowed to be there. Whereas if I was on my own and I just was like, "Oh, I'm going to hit the DMT pin, I don't know that I would feel totally safe in those realms--"

[00:38:03] Zach: That is a very valid thing to put out there. And there are some caveats and things that I would clarify. One, me and my partner have a Pooja room at our home that is pretty great. It's got some pretty heavy-duty vibrational stuff in there, spiritual materialism, but it's very safe and beautiful and comfortable, ornate, and involved.

[00:38:33] And my practice is pretty based on a pretty rigid tradition and things like that. And also too, she sits for me. We sit for each other. I don't recommend using any DMT and certainly not Bufo, 5-MeO-DMT, on your own ever, ever, ever, ever.

[00:38:53] Luke: Jump over the freaking balcony.

[00:38:55] Zach: I mean, ever. So we sit for each other.

[00:38:57] Luke: Ah, okay.

[00:38:58] Zach: And we do ceremonialize it. We do a little Pooja before and sing a little Kiirtan. I've got my harmonium and do the basics of creating a container. So yeah, for anybody listening, if you are using these things in that way, you'll find a way to ceremonialize it and find a trusted person to sit for you and to be with you, to create some kind of container that doesn't feel haphazard and rushed. And so there are some caveats to it. I just want to put that out there. Yeah.

[00:39:35] Luke: That makes sense. Yeah. That creates--

[00:39:37] Zach: But you're welcome to come to our Pooja room, and it's really a lovely experience, and I'll sit for you anytime you want, man.

[00:39:43] Luke: Oh, I love that. Yeah. I think that came to mind because I did have one experience with essentially a extended DMT few-hour thing, similar to Ayahuasca, but a different formula. And there wasn't a lot of intentionality around the container, and I felt a little bit skived out for a month afterward.

[00:40:11] Zach: Oh, okay.

[00:40:12] Luke: And I feel like, I don't know if I had an entity attached or something. It might be overstating it, but I feel like my field was a little bit infiltrated in some way that I'd never experienced before. And that gave me pause. It was in an Airbnb in downtown Austin. You know what I mean? There wasn't a lot of that context that I was used to. And I was like, "Hmm. Interesting. That's good to take note of."

[00:40:38] Zach: And that is a great note for anybody considering the psychedelic experience and for anybody who's interested in why challenging experiences arise. 9 out of 10 times challenging experiences, what we used to call bad trips-- we've changed the language-- it's due to a few factors. Poor setting. You're not in the right environment at all. Poor set. You shouldn't have been doing it in the first place, and you rushed into it.

[00:41:06] Impure compounds, and then to a lesser degree, severe mental health issues. And again, you're not a candidate to be doing it anyway. But usually, it's one of the first three things. A perfect example is if you go to the Zendo Project at Burning Man or Lightning in a Bottle, and go to the Zendo tent and see all the people in there being cared for, who are having bad trips.

[00:41:34] It's because of the setting, because they took too much, dosage was bad, and something went awry. These compounds, these are powerful tools that the slightest thing can set you off and completely just dominate your experience not for the better. I have a hundred examples of-- not a hundred. That's an exaggeration. But I've got a handful of examples where that's happened in my life. Just the smallest thing set me off for eight hours and I can never come back from it.

[00:42:12] Luke: Yeah, yeah. Reminds me, in the early '90, it wasn't the first time I worked with acid or mushrooms, but most of those experiences were centered around Grateful Dead shows.

[00:42:24] Zach: Mine too.

[00:42:26] Zach: I started when I was 15.

[00:42:27] Luke: And I don't know why I never got it through my thick skull, but an LSD trip lasts considerably longer than any concert, even the Grateful Dead, right?

[00:42:38] Zach: That's right.

[00:42:38] Luke: So it's like we time the dose, so we're peaking when the show starts, and then you forget, oh, in two hours we're going to be in the parking lot, tripping balls, eating like dirty grilled cheese sandwiches and trying-- we're a ride left and all this fucking drama.

[00:42:54] But there were so many situations I got myself into that were-- to the point of being dangerous in some cases. You're at the Oakland Coliseum and everyone leaves and you're laying on the ground and then you realize like, oh shit, the parking lot's empty. I don't know where my friends are and I'm also drunk and whatever now.

[00:43:11] It was some really like gnarly situations because I was just totally unconscious. And I think the intentionality, maybe I was seeking some sort of transcendence, but really, I think it was part of the addictive cycle of just trying to run away from unresolved trauma and things that were just torturing me.

[00:43:34] Zach: Escapism.

[00:43:34] Luke: Yeah, psychologically. And so, of course, it's going to go off the rails because I'm not really doing it with a positive or pure intention.

[00:43:44] Zach: That's right. Yeah.

[00:43:45] Luke: I'm trying to use a substance to escape my reality, and all that psychedelics do is enhance and magnify your reality.

[00:43:54] Zach: They magnify it. Yeah.

[00:43:56] Luke: It's the worst possible way to escape.

[00:43:58] Zach: Yeah, yeah. No doubt. My introduction to psychedelics was through the Grateful Dead as well, and most of it was pretty positive, but there were certainly some instances where it fell off the rails. Yeah.

[00:44:15] Luke: At what point in your youth did you cross the line into addiction in terms of it being problematic?

[00:44:23] Zach: Hmm, it's an interesting question. When I started smoking cannabis around 14, 15, immediately became clear that-- looking back on it now, I can see it so clearly. I was not just have a bong head on the weekend. It became a pretty habitual thing.

[00:44:51] And yeah, my relationship with being stoned all the time was pretty apparent, but it wasn't until my 20 did things really fall off the rails when I was introduced to harder drugs. But yeah, early on I could tell that I had whatever it is that that is, if you want to talk about how your brain is wired, trauma, unresolved trauma.

[00:45:15] My opinion is it's a multitude of things. I don't believe that it's 100% unresolved trauma. I do think that there's a little bit of hard wiring too, especially around opiates and cocaine. The way our dopamine receptors get depleted and need more is different than other people's. In combination with unresolved trauma, it creates the addiction cycle.

[00:45:44] Luke: That's such a great point to make too because I know a number of people who have experienced some degree of trauma in their childhood, sexual abuse, physical abuse, etc., and drugs and alcohol have never, and will never help them be able to live with that.

[00:46:05] Or it's like someone like me, it's the perfect recipe. Trauma, discovered drugs at 8, 9 years old. Boom. It saved my life. And I know people that don't get that kind of relief to their angst from drugs and alcohol. Their chemistry is not wired in a way that's receptive to that.

[00:46:27] Zach: No, I'm glad that you said that too, because I do think that sometimes in our extended circle of alternative healing, transformational movements and things like that, I do think that there is the Gabor Mate little bit of overemphasis on that. All addiction is just unresolved drama and grief.

[00:46:49] And I don't think that's 100% true. I think it's a large part of it, but I do think the hard wiring-- in my circle of friends growing up, and you talked about going to a party at the Leary house, and I'm sure I was there, all of us, all of our extended circle, we are all partying pretty hard.

[00:47:08] And there were about three of us of the group who went on to have serious drug problems. The rest of them, when the eight ball was done, they were done. They were fine. There were two or three of us who were not okay. And 20 years later--

[00:47:25] Luke: There's no done.

[00:47:26] Zach: There's no done.

[00:47:27] Luke: If it's done, you get more.

[00:47:28] Zach: You get more. Yeah. And those three of us to this day are in recovery.

[00:47:33] Luke: What was hitting bottom like for you?

[00:47:36] Zach: Hmm. God, man.

[00:47:38] Luke: And I ask this because I think, from the outside, many people think hitting bottom is something external, where it's like losing the wife, losing the job, losing the career, losing your health.

[00:47:48] Zach: It was all of those things, of course.

[00:47:50] Luke: For me, it was more of an internal experience. So I'm curious what it looked like for you and how you might define it.

[00:47:57] Zach: Yeah, of course, there are all the external things. I could tell all that-- gruesome jails, institutions, homelessness, broke, all that stuff. I'm no different than so many other addicts, and that stuff's all fine. But it really is that, to borrow some NA literature stuff, that incomprehensible demoralization, and really being very conscious of it, that I was there. My last $20 again that I stole or hustled from somebody I'm spinning it.

[00:48:35] I'm like, "This is what my life has become. This is so painful. This is so sad. This is so lonely. This is so desperate. And I don't know what the way out is." And being in that place of this conscious awareness where I didn't want to die. That wasn't my goal, was to die, but I just wanted to be in purgatory, in the in-between zone of society and just being very conscious of that.

[00:49:13] And there was a minute there where I think I fully did lose hope, where I was like, there's no way out of this. I don't know what it is, and I'm just going to be stuck here. And it's just sadness and loneliness and disparity. Yeah. Really hard.

[00:49:34] Luke: When you got sober the first time, did it stick for a while? Did you struggle getting that initial sobriety?

[00:49:45] Zach: Yeah. So when I first got into recovery, I stayed clean two years, then a relapsed. And I stayed clean for nine years. So yeah, it stuck. When I first got into recovery, I was 26, I think.

[00:49:57] Luke: Yeah, me too.

[00:49:58] Zach: Oh, okay. And I loved it. I loved it, man. I loved the people. I loved the culture. I loved the support. Like I was telling you earlier, I didn't know how to pay a bill and things like that. Those people taught me how to live, basic life skills. And they were just the support group and the family that was built in, and I took to it.

[00:50:22] I did. And also, I do admit, initially, the language and the structure of the program did resonate with me. I also had the best sponsor in the world, and he sadly died of cancer, but he was an incredibly saintly human being, just amazing guy. To this day, I have him on my Pooja table, a picture of him still.

[00:50:45] Luke: Oh, cool.

[00:50:46] Zach: He was an extraordinary human being. But I do understand why it doesn't take for everyone, why that language, why that culture, why that low grade, I wouldn't officially call it a cult, but I'd call it low grade cultism, entry level cultism doesn't stick for everyone. But I needed structure. I needed order. I needed someone to hold me accountable. I needed someone who said, you need to call me every day and tell me what's happening. I needed that.

[00:51:29] Luke: Me too.

[00:51:31] Zach: So it was all good for me. And even to this day, I go to a meeting now and then, and I still have tremendous fondness for the 12-step community. I know there are many in the psychedelic recovery sphere who do not, but I do. I still have a tremendous fondness for them for it. And yeah, I hope that that community will change its views on what spiritual exploration looks like. But until they do, it's not my problem. I go for what works for me.

[00:52:05] Luke: When you relapsed at nine years, what did the progression into that look like? Looking back, what were some of the signs where you began to drift toward that outcome?

[00:52:22] Zach: Yeah, that relapse was I had my gallbladder removed, pain pills. And I remember having maybe about four Percocets left and sitting in the bathroom, and I was fine. I was out of pain. I could have taken Advil. And I remember sitting there going, oh, I'm actually not in pain. I'm good. I can move to Advil now, and I should flush these. And I didn't.

[00:52:51] And that was the first spark. And then, yeah, the progression just became, oh. Going back to my doctor, saying I needed more, etc., etc. He gave me one refill that ran out. Then, sure enough, I was in downtown LA again. That one was just like you're doing everything that you were told not to do.

[00:53:18] Luke: Right, right. Did you ever spend any time around 6th in Alvarado in downtown LA?

[00:53:20] Zach: Oh man, all the time. Are you kidding, man? The Jack in the Box?

[00:53:24] Luke: You know Bonnie Brae?

[00:53:25] Zach: The Jack in the Box.

[00:53:26] Luke: That Jack in the Box?

[00:53:27] Zach: Of course.

[00:53:28] Luke: Dude, I got it.

[00:53:30] Zach: I lived there in the late '90s, man.

[00:53:34] Luke: It's just East of--

[00:53:36] Zach: Alvarado.

[00:53:36] Luke: Alvarado.

[00:53:37] Zach: Bonnie Brae.

[00:53:34] Luke: 6th in Bonnie Brae. That's hilarious. I haven't talked to someone--

[00:53:41] Zach: The drive-thru.

[00:53:42] Luke: Dude, I haven't talked to someone in, I don't know how long, decades probably, that is familiar with that particular location.

[00:53:49] Zach: Yeah. And just for people-- well, it's okay to say it now because that's been cleaned up. You can't do it anymore now. But it used to be literally like you drive through. You pull up to the parking lot and these guys with balloons in their mouth would just spit out the balloons. It was just crazy. It was insane.

[00:54:11] Luke: That's so funny. I was just writing about the balloon phenomenon, and at one point, one of my drug buddies was this girl, Margaret, and her parents had given her a Mercedes, this gold Mercedes. And I didn't own a car. I was a total fuckup.

[00:54:30] And so we were using, and she would let me drive her Mercedes down to that Jack in the Box, and if I rolled up in that Mercedes, man, a swarm of dealers spitting their balloons into their palm and vying for your business. It's a funny thing for those that have never experienced that. It's really, really wild. I haven't thought about that in some time.

[00:54:56] Zach: Yeah. And you're writing about it now?

[00:54:58] Luke: Yeah, yeah. Because I just happened to be writing the chapter that covers that six years I spent in Hollywood where drugs became really dark and, yeah, just thinking about what a different life it was. And also, when I first got sober, I worked at a restaurant called Rita Floor that was in--

[00:55:14] Zach: I know Rita Flour, of course.

[00:55:17] Luke: 6th La Brea. And I was a delivery boy. And so they'd send me delivering catering in the van, and sometimes I would deliver to office buildings in downtown LA, and I would be taking 6th Street headed East. And I would pass that 6th in Bonnie Brae, where the Jack in the Box is.

[00:55:36] And it was one of the first times I realized, in a very tangible sense, that God had done something for me that I couldn't do for myself because I had money in my pocket, two or three months sober. Two or three months ago, I was down here trading my last CDs for an 8-dollar balloon of heroin.

[00:55:55] Zach: Yeah.

[00:55:56] Luke: And now I'm in a car and my steering wheel keeps going straight. And I was like, why am I not pulling into that jack in the box right now. What the fuck is happening? I'm not doing this. Something has taken over my will. Or I guess I allowed it. I offered my will to it, even though I didn't know what that really meant. And that was one of those early wins that I really held onto. Wow, I actually have the ability to choose how rest of this day is going to go, whether I'm not going to end up in jail or I'm going to go back to work and get a paycheck.

[00:56:39] Zach: And you kept going.

[00:56:40] Luke: Yeah.

[00:56:40] Zach: Yeah. Interesting.

[00:56:42] Luke: Never relapsed. Yeah.

[00:56:43] Zach: Amazing. Yeah. That's great.

[00:56:47] Luke: It's such a demonstration of, what changed? Did I just pull myself up by my bootstraps and I'm not going to live like that anymore? No. Maybe there was one decision. Hey, I'm going to check into treatment. But after that, it was really something operating within me and through me that I had very little to do with. It's like being restored to sanity.

[00:57:10] Zach: Being restored to sanity. Yeah. And once you're in that and you have that taste of it, it's almost like a tangible thing. That restoration to sanity, it's almost like you can feel it and touch it and you want to protect it. And the thought of it breaking is just, no, I'm going to keep driving. Yeah. But on the flip side, I also remember that-- it's so funny that you know that intersection and that you used there too.

[00:57:43] Luke: I know. I haven't bonded with someone on that in a long time, so forgive me for getting so excited, but it's just like, I don't know. It's one of those things you had to be there.

[00:57:50] Zach: You to be there. But I just remember so many times where I just felt like my car was pointing itself to that intersection because it was just so accessible.

[00:58:00] Luke: Yeah. No choice.

[00:58:02] Zach: No choice.

[00:58:02] Luke: No choice.

[00:58:03] Zach: Yeah.

[00:58:03] Luke: You wake up. You're sick. You're like, "Don't do it. Don't do it. I'm doing it." Boom. And then you're there.

[00:58:07] Zach: No. When you're sick, all bets are off.

[00:58:12] Luke: Yeah. Speaking of restored to sanity, as we were talking a little about before, you've had a couple, not a few experiences, of relapse in your sobriety journey. One of the ways I think about insanity reentering into the equation of an addict is beginning to believe the idea that this time it'll be different or that I've changed and my circumstances are improved, so therefore I could probably experiment a bit and I'll be able to control it. Was that particular thread of insanity ever part of your experience?

[00:58:49] Zach: Absolutely. It totally was. I'll even take it a step further in that there are parts of the combination of the drugs that I use, which was heroin and crack together.

[00:59:02] Luke: Me too.

[00:59:03] Zach: That. And I'll completely own it that are favorable, creatively. I'm a bass player. I could literally sit down with a pile of drugs and play my bass for eight hours nonstop, till my fingers are raw. And this is the phenomenon. This is Jerry Garcia, Jimmy Page.

[00:59:28] That's why there's a window when it does work. And it does till it doesn't. And of course, everybody falls apart. And for me, that was part of the insanity as well, was like, okay, the beneficial parts of this, I know I can just--

[00:59:48] Luke: Isolate.

[00:59:49] Zach: I can isolate that.

[00:59:49] Luke: Isolate the benefits.

[00:59:51] Zach: Yeah, isolate the benefits.

[00:59:52] Luke: That's great.

[00:59:53] Zach: And the three times I've relapsed, that lasted, what, 10 days or something. And then sure enough, no money or success or spiritual advancement in the world will protect you from what's to come.

[01:00:15] Luke: In the time you've been sober, how have psychedelics supported your recovery?

[01:00:24] Zach: By showing me that I'm worth saving. I'm worth caring for. I'm worth extending some self-love towards myself. That I do have something to offer the world. That my voice is valuable too. That I'm good at what I do, and I should embrace that and not stay small.

[01:00:51] Reinforcing these just basic, fundamental pillars of self-inquiry on the positive parts of why I'm here. And so many of the reasons why I got into drugs in the first place were about running from that, was about staying small, feeling that I didn't have my own voice, that my association with my father would just always dominate that conversation, and that that's all I was.

[01:01:31] And that narrative was really hard to break. So things like that. Even today, when now and then someone on social media, I'll get involved in some conversation on something, someone will try to slay some, oh, you're just a nepo baby kind of thing. And to me, it's just like, yeah, been there, done that. I get it.

[01:01:56] Luke: You're like, "I've already done that to myself."

[01:01:58] Zach: Yeah, I've done that to myself. I get it. Try harder, please. Harder than--

[01:02:01] Luke: It's funny because when I was preparing for this conversation, I have so many curiosities around your upbringing and your dad and Ram Dass, and I have some in my notes. If we can, we'll go into a little bit of that. But I thought I'm more interested in just learning who you are. I really enjoyed our brief conversation when we met.

[01:02:23] And we both spoke at an event, and I really loved your talk. And I was like, "Wow, I want to get to know that guy more." I could have given two shits who your family was. It's about you. But that said, it is, of course, interesting when you are aware of-- it's like a famous musician's son or something. It's like they don't want to be in the shadow of their famous dad forever. But you can't help but kind of be curious, hey, what was Jim Hendrix like? Or whoever their [Inaudible].

[01:02:52] Zach: And it's fine. It's their karma. It's my karma, and I'm fine with it now. Now I'm happy to talk about it. It's great. I'm proud of it. And those years when Timothy was alive were fantastic. They were amazing. And all the time I got to spend with Ram Dass, God, I cherish every second of it now. And yeah, I'm incredibly proud of it now and happy to reflect on it. Yeah.

[01:03:21] Luke: It sounds like an important part of your process of maturation and healing was actually just your own sense of value and self-worth unattached to any of where you came from.

[01:03:34] Zach: Absolutely. And that was essential in it. And at first I overcorrected and thought like, oh, okay, I should work in some field that has nothing to do with any of it. So I went into advertising and marketing, and I was reasonably successful at it. And at one point, pretty successful at it.

[01:03:55] And I overcorrected until the point of like one day waking up spiritually bankrupt going, "Oh gosh, what did I do? How did I end up here? This isn't right. This doesn't feel right." And I went to go visit Ram Dass, and all these chips started to fall back into place. Hadn't seen him in five years, and it was an extraordinary visit.

[01:04:17] It was like seeing him again for the first time. Yeah. The combination of these experiences, as maybe self-aggrandizing as it sounds, I do consider myself to be a bit of a lineage holder, especially since I do work in the psychedelic field professionally.

[01:04:40] However, I don't think a lineage holder can be a lineage holder without having their own karmic and intellectual fabrics to work with. And I'm proud of that. I think I do have my own voice, and I've taken the best parts of both of them and put it into a blender, and that's who I am.

[01:05:04] Luke: That's beautiful.

[01:05:06] Luke: For those listening I think I have taken for granted that everyone listening is going to know who Timothy Leary and Ram Dass are. I'm like, "Oh, wait a minute, Luke." Maybe someone just tuned into this podcast for the first time and they're like, "Who are you talking about?"

[01:05:20] Would you give us the truncated version of who your dad was and his relationship to Ram Dass and the cultural significance of their joint effort to bring psychedelics into the mainstream, whether that's what they meant to do or not?

[01:05:38] Zach: Yeah, no, absolutely. And to tell the story, so everyone listening, Ram Dass, before he became Ram Dass, was Richard Alpert. And Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert were professors at Harvard University starting 1960.

[01:05:51] Timothy Leary was the senior of the department. Ram Dass was a little younger than him. And they were tenured professors at Harvard University in the psychology department.

[01:06:03] Luke: It's hard to imagine that.

[01:06:04] Zach: Yeah, I know.

[01:06:06] Luke: It's so funny.

[01:06:07] Zach: It's completely wild. And they started getting turned on to some of the psychedelic research that was being done in the '50s. Again, Humphrey Osmond and R. Gordon Wasson, who went down to meet Maria Sabina and the mushroom experiences, and they got curious.

[01:06:28] In 1961, they went to Cuernavaca and had their first mushroom experience, both of them together. And Timothy famously said, I learned more in these four hours than I had in the previous 15 years of doing psychotherapy. And it just set off.

[01:06:47] It was just a spark that lit a fire inside of them around curiosity, human potential, and using psychedelics. Back then, you have to understand that, psychedelics in that context were a rebuttal to psychotherapy and psychology as it had been practiced up until that point, which was still pretty linear.

[01:07:11] It's not like it is today. And so they saw it as an adjunct. So they were going about their work at Harvard, and from 1961 to '63, by the end of '63, things were getting a little outrageous, and grad students were doing it with them. And they got fired from Harvard.

[01:07:41] Luke: Were they both fired at the same?

[01:07:42] Zach: No, it was actually Richard Alpert, Ram Dass who was fired. Timothy was not actually, yeah. His popular opinion and belief, he quit because what really happened was Richard Albert was-- he was gay. He was homosexual, and he was having a relationship with a grad student who was also doing psychedelics with him.

[01:08:11] And they were ratted out and put the whole department up in flames. And Timothy went with him because they were going to-- they were going to fire him anyway. They hadn't, but they were going to anyway, eventually.

[01:08:25] Right after that, a woman named Peggy Hitchcock, who was part of the Mellon Hitchcock family, very affluent old money East Coast family, gifted them the use of the Millbrook estate in upstate New York where they could go continue their research.

[01:08:41] So they went to Millbrook, and from '63 through '67, they were headquartered there, but continuing their psychedelic work along with what Ken Kesey was doing with the Mary Pranksters and all of that. And what everybody needs to understand is the 1960s, as we know it, didn't really begin until it was '64, '65. Kennedy being assassinated, the Beatles coming to America, the Vietnam War and things like that.

[01:09:14] And it was just this perfect tsunami of cultural, spiritual change that just all happened at once, and psychedelics-- and yeah, they certainly weren't shy about professing the belief of the power of the psychedelic experience. They wrote a seminal book called The Psychedelic Experience published in 1963, which is the first how-to book for how to use them."

[01:09:46] So they became synonymous with the counterculture movement because, a, they were both older than the kids of the time. So the kids could look and say, "Hey, mom and dad. These Harvard professors say this is okay."

[01:10:01] Luke: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I never thought about that.

[01:10:04] Zach: Especially Timothy because he was significant. He was born in 1920, so he was 45 at the time. And look, yeah, of course, Timothy embraced it. He had fun with it. He had fun with the archetype of being the pied piper. But then, yeah, the counterculture movement grew really quickly and timothy really got persecuted by the Nixon administration for being a danger to the American youth.

[01:10:37] He called him the most dangerous man in America and was trying to find a way to bust him for something. And then eventually, to make a very long story short, they planted weed on him at the border of Mexico, thew him in prison, etc., etc. He went to prison, escaped, all this.

[01:10:52] Luke: He escaped? Really?

[01:10:53] Zach: Yeah, he escaped.

[01:10:54] Luke: I didn't know that.

[01:10:54] Zach: Mm-hmm. He escaped from prison with the help of the weatherman underground and then was smuggled to Algeria and Switzerland where he was given political asylum, then captured by the CIA and then did a little bit more time, and then Jerry Brown pardoned him in California.

[01:11:13] Luke: Wow. I did not know that.

[01:11:14] Zach: Yeah. Successfully escaped from prison, man.

[01:11:16] Luke: Holy shit.

[01:11:17] Zach: Yeah.

[01:11:17] Luke: That's a great story.

[01:11:18] Zach: Oh, it's wild. And if anyone wants to read it, the play by play is in his autobiography flashbacks. But at the same time, in 1967, Timothy was really-- he was an intellectual first. He was not a heart-led spiritualist. He was an intellectual, the power of the mind, spiritual materialism, and he was really going off in some really brilliant but very heady directions around the use of psychedelics.

[01:11:47] Richard Alpert, on the other hand, was getting very frustrated with the notion that the psychedelic experiences based off of the idea that you must come down. And to him, he felt that was an unreconcilable failure. This is not a sustainable method. You have to come down. And there's no way that you can keep doing this and have these insights because you have to come back to whatever this is.

[01:12:14] Then he went to India and met a man who never came down. And became Ram Dass and did not stop using psychedelics. But with the addition of this newfound way of having a map of consciousness and looking at spiritual practices and helping to bring yogic philosophy and meditation and mindfulness to the West, it just became this perfect blend of traditional bhakti yoga mixed with psychedelic mysticism fabric. And both of them had this impact that lasted for the rest of their lives

[01:12:55] Luke: And beyond.

[01:12:55] Zach: And beyond.

[01:12:56] Luke: We're sitting here right now.

[01:12:57] Zach: We're sitting here right now. Yeah. We're sitting here talking about him. Ram Dass did live a good, long, healthy life. He died just about five years ago and had lived till 87, had a good life, and was really able to extend his teachings for an incredibly long time, and it was such a gift. Yeah.

[01:13:16] Luke: What was it like to take mushrooms with Ram Dass?

[01:13:21] Zach: Yeah, so he had a stroke in '97, very bad. His whole left side was paralyzed and then he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair and needed a lot of assistance and full-time care and managed to have that because of who he was and things like that.

[01:13:39] But I think it was either 2012 or 2013, I was out visiting him in Maui, and his primary caretaker was a lovely woman. Beautiful, beautiful woman. Anytime he would think about taking mushrooms, she would know it's not good for you. You have got to stay healthy on, Ram. But she was away. She went to go visit her family.

[01:14:03] Luke: Ah.

[01:14:04] Zach: Yeah. And so he still had another caretaker there, but Ram Dass like, "Now's the time. Let's do it." Each of us ate a couple of grams, and it wasn't the first time, but it was the first time in 20 years that we ever experienced that together. And I don't know if it was his last psychedelic experience, but it might have been. Oh man.

[01:14:30] But I look back on that as just one of those things it's almost like watching the movie of myself. I know it was me. I know it was there, but wow, that was just extraordinary. Oh man, we just had so much fun.

[01:14:42] He had this beautiful property on Maui, and we're just looking at the flowers and the sun. And I wanted to talk about Maharaji in India, and he just wanted to talk about Timothy. And so it was like this ping pong ball thing. I'm like, "No, I want to talk about Maharaji." And he doesn't want to talk about Timothy.

[01:15:00] Because he had this great love for Timothy. Timothy was really his first teacher. So yeah, we just had an incredible experience. I'm incredibly proud of it. And it was just so beautiful. And I think earlier in our conversation, we were talking about so much of being with Ram Dass, especially towards the end, was being in silence.

[01:15:27] His aphasia really was pretty severe, so his speech was pretty slow to begin with. So a lot your time with him was just being, and just that beautiful gaze that he would give. And when you're in mushrooms and just being in that space, it's this this plane of existence that is incredibly special, incredibly special, really beautiful.

[01:15:56] Luke: It seems to me that he eventually found a way to not come down too. Would you agree?

[01:16:04] Zach: I would agree.

[01:16:06] Luke: But yet at the same time, I think one thing that's super cool about Ram Dass is, unlike some spiritual teachers and mystics, and maybe they just transcended and so they don't need to acknowledge it, but he seemed to always be very upfront with his humanity. I love that he would talk about he still bites his nails and has neurotic thoughts and shames himself for sexual fantasies.

[01:16:33] Just the human part of him was always really grounded and present, which to me makes that type of teaching less aspirational. It's like, oh, he's made it this far. Maybe he doesn't come down, but he still is in a body and still has enough degree of ego to create self-consciousness or self-doubt.

[01:16:55] Zach: And most importantly, never in denial about it. That's the key to it. There's a great lecture, a famous portion of a lecture of Ram Dass, which you could find on YouTube about going to the porno theater in New York City in the '70s, when he was in full white robe, white beard mode. And there he is at--

[01:17:17] Luke: Oh, that's hilarious. Oh my God.

[01:17:19] Zach: And there he was at the porn theater and just wrestling with the whole--

[01:17:23] Luke: That's funny.

[01:17:23] Zach: Yeah. And he was very direct and very honest. And that's what made him relatable. And he would always say, no phony holy. Don't ever do that. You have to be human and show that that's incarnation. You're not going to transcend your humanity, especially if you make a decision to live in the West and the material world.

[01:17:47] He was not a renunciate. He did not make a decision to sustain a temple in India. And so, yeah, that's the joy of Ram Dass' teachings, is that he's every one of us. He struggles with sex, food, drugs, money, all of it.

[01:18:02] But if you're able to talk about it and flip it back as your work and your teaching and the work that you have to do, I think it makes the teachings become much more profound. Because what is at the heart of when-- if people have an aversion to the guru system, which a lot of people do and have, do for a good reason.

[01:18:23] Because so many of modern gurus are corrupt. Make financial improprieties. They're sleeping with your wife. They'll steal your money. They do not do what they say, and they lie about it. And that was not him. And I think that's the great lesson with Ram Dass.

[01:18:42] Luke: Yeah. It lets us off the hook too, right?

[01:18:44] Zach: Lets you off the hook. Right.

[01:18:46] Luke: It's easy to get drawn into perfectionism when you're on the path. I've struggled with that at different times. I go, "God, I can't believe I'm still working on this one fucking thing." It's like, what's wrong with me? I'm never going to get it. And it's difficult to acknowledge you are getting it, and those neurotic habits, behaviors, attachments, part of getting it is just to accept that it's part of who you are. You know what I mean?

[01:19:20] It's like I was telling you how addicted to nicotine I am, and it's like there's a spiritual perfectionist in me that's like, "No, you haven't made it because you're still habituated to something outside of yourself to help you feel more grounded or comfortable.

[01:19:33] Zach: I am too.

[01:19:33] Luke: You've not been able to summon the resources within yourself to be who you want to be and feel how you want to feel without that thing. And therefore, there goes the club of self-flagellation. And it's like, well, what if I do need something or I believe I do? What's wrong with that? And that's that Ram Dass like, hey, none of us are getting out of here with complete perfection because we're human beings.

[01:19:58] Zach: And it's also a fallacy of adopting spiritual practices, especially Eastern ones, this whole idea of enlightenment. Jack Kornfield talks about this a lot, which I love. The whole idea about enlightenment in the West, first of all, it's mistranslated. And second of all, it's an aspirational high that you're never going to reach. Very, very, very few people are able to reach that space of complete unattachment to the material world.

[01:20:31] Luke: So few that we hold them on a pedestal, and they're famous for centuries.

[01:20:34] Zach: Yeah, exactly. It's literally that few. The Christ, the Buddha.

[01:20:40] Luke: If [Inaudible] be unique or special. And there wouldn't be whole organizations and religions built around them or their teachings because it's just like your next-door neighbors one. Yeah, the guy down the street, my mechanic, he's enlightened.

[01:20:51] Zach: Exactly. So the idea that you are going to achieve that, and if you don't, that you've somehow fallen off the path, that's a fallacy. Just do the best you can. Yeah, right now I'm currently addicted to nicotine as well, and I learned to make friends with it. Is it ideal? Is it my optimal state of where I want to be? No, it's not. But it's where I'm at right now, and I've made friends with it, and it is what it is. You know what I mean?

[01:21:28] Zach: Yeah. And I think again that really, it's part of the problem. Like we were talking about psychedelics in the West earlier, it's part of the rub with bringing Eastern practices into the West, is that we're a competitive culture and a perfectionist culture here. It's the A-type American way. And it doesn't have to be like that. If you soften a little bit, hey, it's all good.

[01:21:57] Luke: That mindset is counterproductive, I think, in spiritual pursuit.

[01:22:03] Zach: That's right. I agree.

[01:22:04] Luke: That works against us. There's been moments here and there, probably most of them in some plant medicine or psychedelic experience where I've had the sense like, I'm actually okay. Where I am, who I am is just right.

[01:22:20] Zach: Yeah, man.

[01:22:22] Luke: To letting go of that striving, the standards to which we hold ourselves. Not that we shouldn't hold ourselves to some sort of moral standard, etc.

[01:22:30] Zach: And to want to do better.

[01:22:31] Luke: Yeah. And to continue on that refinement. But going back to one of the beautiful principles in the 12 steps, progress, not perfection. Having the humility to know we're never going to achieve perfection. That doesn't mean we don't try. We're not attached to the end result of arriving there. It's just like, oh, let's enjoy the process of steady refinement.

[01:22:56] Zach: You have thousands and thousands of people who will listen to this podcast, I'm sure, and I think the fact that you'll get to share the imperfections of the journey with your audience is much more of a win. It's much more, I think, of a stronghold than it is of trying to pretend that you're something you're not. And yeah, I think that's part of what makes what you do really attractive for people.

[01:23:28] And makes also, I think, much more accessible. I think for people who are newer to spiritual growth and wellness and optimization and self-inquiry and all of these things, I think that that's a very intimidating path, I think, for some. I've seemed to observe that anyway. Oh my God, where do I start? Holy shit. I'm 40 years old and I've got so much baggage. I'm filling up the airplane. It's like, where do you start?

[01:23:59] Luke: Yeah. Light showers that are able to do so with authenticity, I think, are important.

[01:24:06] Zach: I agree.

[01:24:08] Luke: Tell me about your book, man. I got the PDF a couple of hours ago, and I'm like, "Ah."

[01:24:12] Zach: I should have sent it earlier, sorry.

[01:24:14] Luke: Yeah, I didn't know that it wasn't out in hard copies. So I was like, "Ooh, I hope he can bring a book." Because I love the overall premise of it, but admittedly I didn't have time today to go in and speed read it.

[01:24:26] Zach: That's okay. Yeah.

[01:24:27] Luke: Just the breakdown on that.

[01:24:28] Zach: Yeah. So it comes out April 29th. It's called You Extraordinary Minds: Psychedelics in the 21st Century and How to Use Them. And I'm glad that you asked me at the end of this than the beginning because I think a lot of what we've talked about is encapsulated in that. It's 25% personal stories. I'm not tone deaf to the idea that some people want to hear some of those stories, so I share some of them.

[01:24:58] It's 25% prescriptive, how to use psychedelics wisely to the point of like, I have my preparation guide workbooks in there and my integration workbooks in there that I use with clients on a regular basis. I have substance-specific question sets if you're dealing with specific substance, what to look for and how to prepare yourself for them.

[01:25:21] So there's some participatory fabrics to it. And then I think the rest is commentary on the last 60 years of the psychedelic movement from the '50s until now, with a lot of emphasis being on the now, seeing some of the trends that we see happening in today's psychedelic movement.

[01:25:40] Some for the better, some that I think we should all be talking about that aren't necessarily as rosy as people think they're, and all of that with the commonality of the thread that my main, I guess, passion in this movement is keeping the magic in the mysticism alive. That sounds easy and simple, but to me that is what I'm out there striving for every day.

[01:26:10] I think with the rise of the medicalized movement, we see a lot of sterility being injected into the psychedelic experience, cold office buildings and therapists and doctors, and this overly regulated, data-driven framework behind using psychedelics. And I don't think it needs to be like that. So I try to keep some of that alive in there.

[01:26:35] Luke: Beautiful.

[01:26:36] Zach: So that's the thumbnail. That's the elevator pitch, man.

[01:26:39] Luke: Awesome. I can't wait to read it.`

[01:26:40] Zach: Thank you. Yeah.

[01:26:42] Luke: Well, I'm pumped to dig into your book.

[01:26:44] Zach: Thanks, man. Thank you.

[01:26:46] Luke: Yeah. You have such a breadth of experience subjectively in your own life, but also I think a really unique perspective in terms of the timeline of psychedelics entering the mainstream culture that we now know it to be, which is really cool.

[01:27:05] So one thing I want to ask you before we split on that note, and I have a feeling you probably cover some of this in your book, is the evolution of psychedelic experiences over the course of many years and how those can change in terms of the intensity of the experience or what we perceive to be getting out of the experience, our expectations, getting attached to maybe peak experiences of the past, which were revelatory, transformative, healing, etc., the non-linear aspect of long-term use.

[01:27:52] Zach: Yeah. Wow. That's a great question.

[01:27:54] Luke: Which is a whole other podcast.

[01:27:55] Zach: That's a whole other podcast. Yeah. Right. It's a whole other podcast. I think, if you come into psychedelics for very, say, big reasons, like deep trauma, deep suffering, deep depression, addiction, whatever it is, and if you find success through the method and you have some breakthroughs, there's no question that those will change your life.

[01:28:24] But if you keep doing it thinking that you are going to keep having those levels of breakthroughs that you did early on, I think most likely you will be a little disappointed. I wouldn't call it a law of diminishing returns. I just would call it the phenomena of familiarity.

[01:28:44] There's a million metaphors that we can use. One that I like to use is like, I go to India a lot, or I have been to India a lot. It's been a minute since I've been, but I've spent a lot of time there. And my first couple trips there, wow, oh my God, mind blowing. Just earth shattering and such a different culture and way of life.

[01:29:06] Then you go back and you're used to it and hey, it's cool. And then you keep going back and it's just like, okay, I'm here again. And you're just in harmony, in flow with it. But the level of profound earth-shattering shifts in your worldview are lessened.

[01:29:28] And I think that's what-- I'm not saying the psychedelic experience isn't worth going back to, but I think if you keep expecting breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough, you're going to eventually be disappointed. And that's why I always go back to the Ram Dass case study and method of using psychedelics even as you continue to use them, because then it no longer becomes this chase for breakthrough or enlightenment or earth shattering, ancestral wake-up calls or whatever it is.

[01:30:02] Luke: Visits from the entities.

[01:30:03] Zach: Visit from the entity. Visits from the entities. So I think it just becomes this really cool place to hang out, where you can continue to maybe refine some spiritual connections and just pierce the veil a little bit. But for people who are new who are listening to psychedelics, I think that's a really good indication of where psychedelics fit into the sphere of a methodology like meditation, breath work, whatever, float tanks.

[01:30:34] Those are kind of day-to-day methods that we can continue to use to stay in harmony. I don't think psychedelics are that necessarily. I don't think it's a method in and of itself. I think it's a tool to revisit now and then, but to look at it as a method, a singular method, I think is where things get fuzzy and might lead to disappointment.

[01:30:57] Luke: That's a great distinction, and that has been my experience over the past couple of years too.

[01:31:03] Zach: Yeah.

[01:31:03] Luke: Just not judging it, but I definitely have an awareness that those big hits, those big insights, the life-changing transformative realizations or deep healing have seemed to have plateaued to the point where in the past few experiences, while some of them have been pleasant, some of them somewhat challenging, I've definitely been in the medicine space going like, hello? Nothing's happening. And then I observed the attachment to--

[01:31:37] Zach: Something needing to happen.

[01:31:38] Luke: Something needing to happen. And I go, "Ah, goddamn it. That's the lesson." Last time I sat with ayahuasca, "nothing" happened except just profound nausea. I'm just waiting and waiting and waiting and nothing happened except just feeling sicker and sicker.

[01:31:57] And as I integrated that experience, one, if not the main things that I was being shown was my expectations and that I'm trying to control something that is completely beyond any realm of control. There's no directing the experience. All there is is surrender, and whatever shows up seems to be whatever is meant for me or the person doing it.

[01:32:21] Zach: That's right. That's absolutely right. And I do think that also speaks though to, if you've discovered psychedelics and you're made it work into your life in whichever way works for you, I think if you take a little bit of a break and revisit it, and I think that really fits well into how indigenous cultures, like in Ayahuasca, they believe. They call it grandmother Aya, that these plants have disembodied teachers that are actually in the medicine.

[01:32:50] And I think if you take a break from it and then go back, I think the teachers make themselves apparent in a way that maybe you weren't really thinking that they were going to make themselves visible. And that might be as simple as like, oh, hey, being in nothingness, looking at your ego, or just spending eight hours looking at sacred geometry. And what's the lesson in that?

[01:33:17] Some may say, well, that doesn't sound like anything to me. But I do think that, especially for those of us in the West, the act of sitting and doing nothing for an extended period of time, it's really, really difficult. And I think there's tremendous value in using any tool at your disposal to sit and do nothing. I don't mean sit and do nothing and watch television. I mean sit and just presence. Because it's really hard to do.

[01:33:45] Luke: I think that's the one distinction there in that space, in the psychedelic space, is coming to appreciate the context of an experience which could be spacious or it could be chock full. But because sometimes early on the content of the experience within the broader context is so mind blowing and other worldly that it's really easy to get attached to that as a construct and expectation.

[01:34:16] Zach: Yeah. That's right.

[01:34:17] Luke: And maybe as time goes on, I think this is my experience as I'm trying to articulate and understand it, is learning how to have an appreciation for the field as a whole rather than what takes place within the field.

[01:34:30] Zach: Right, right. Yeah. Just observing the field and seeing how it operates under a completely different set of laws and gravity. It seems like gravity and sound and colors and shapes and thoughts and how your emotions just cascade into other, almost like synesthesia, forms of being. I think that's something in and of itself. Right.

[01:34:59] But again, just to reiterate the point, I do think that the modern psychedelic movement has maybe gone a little bit too far on the seriousness and intensity around the need to make everything this highly intentional, profound trauma-delic breakthrough thing. And that is a really interesting place to play for people who are new, who are needing some deep healing.

[01:35:31] But for the rest of us, I think softening that a little bit might be a little good idea. A good idea. Like I was saying, when we weren't rolling tape, I revisited the Grateful Dead on psychedelics for the first time in such a long time, somewhat recently, and it was just earth shattering.

[01:35:50] Luke: I got to do that.

[01:35:51] Zach: It was so amazing.

[01:35:53] Luke: I'm so glad you mentioned that because I would've never thought of that because that is in the realm of my former life as an addict and how I related to psychedelic drugs, specifically around that music and that subculture. And so when I quit doing all drugs, I relegated the Grateful Dead music experience, married to psychedelics, and I threw the baby out with the bath water.

[01:36:18] Zach: There's the lesson. I'm a Grateful Dead zealot, but the music is still an extraordinary modern American musical experiment. And I think it's an incredibly rich tapestry to get back into. I was like, "Oh my God, this is just-- wow." This was my original seed when I was 18 years old, and exploring this. And I had forgotten. I had let the modern seriousness of this new psychedelic movement take hold of me, and it's okay to soften up a little bit and just enjoy it.

[01:36:53] Luke: Right. Because inherent to the movement, I think one of its imperfections or faults is this judgment against recreational use of psychedelics. Even as someone who I consider myself to be sober in my own definition of it--

[01:37:11] Zach: As do I, yeah.

[01:37:13] Luke: I have an aversion to the idea of getting high just for fun. There's something wrong with that. Because prior, when I thought I was doing that, what I was really doing was slowly killing myself.

[01:37:24] Zach: Yeah, right.

[01:37:25] Luke: But I have had a couple of experiences with psychedelics where, I don't know, going on a hike in a beautiful place and take a gram of mushrooms. I'm not out there praying or having a ceremony. I'm just having fun and hugging trees and watching the birds and thinking maybe they're talking to me and maybe they are.

[01:37:43] And just integrating with nature and having a fun experience that is, I guess, in the truest sense, recreational in that I'm recreating some lost relationship to nature or to myself or just to actually having some fun and loosening and letting go and being liberated for a moment.

[01:38:04] Zach: And the big difference between that, I think, and this definition around having fun and recreational use, in my eyes anyway, and hearing you, the way you describe it, is the absence of ego. So if we use heroin or crack, those of us who were addicts like that, what does that primarily do?

[01:38:22] It fuels the ego to a sense of just disaster. And that is not really fun. But when you're out there and you're connecting with nature, that is void of the ego, and that's just trying to be in harmony when having a new, I don't know, not a newfound appreciation, but maybe just a gentle reminder that like, oh wow, being with a tree. That's a pretty cool thing. It's a pretty neat thing.

[01:38:54] Luke: Totally. I'm glad we made that distinction. I got one question for you before I let you out of here. Before I do, thank you so much, man. I'm so glad we connected. I've really been looking forward to this conversation.

[01:39:03] Zach: My pleasure, man. Thank you.

[01:39:05] Luke: And as I've said many times, we have so much in common, but I just love your energy, your perspective, your life path. I love what you're about. I'm so excited to share you and your wisdom and your essence with the audience. It's just super cool.

[01:39:18] Zach: Thank you, man.

[01:39:19] Luke: I love a lot of people that I sit and talk to, but some more than others. And I've really enjoyed getting to know you, and I hope we can spend some more time together too outside of lights and cameras and things. Last question is this: who have been three teachers or teachings in general that have most impacted your life?

[01:39:38] Zach: Let's see. Oh my God, just three. Ram Dass goes without saying. Ram Dass has been my primary mentor and teacher-- both. And I'm very honored and grateful that I got to spend so much time with him in his body and together personally. There's no question on that.

[01:40:04] And with that comes Neem Karoli Baba, but those are one of the same. Who else would I say? I'd say Aldis Huxley is right up there as being one, because I think he was one of the first to really teeter on the edge between traditional, almost Victorian academia principles and shake it up and add an air of mysticism, along with Alan Watts and guys like that.

[01:40:38] And that really took those models and put it in the little shaker. I think it's really, really important. And oh my God, there's just so many, man. And I will say, because I am a musician, I won't say Jerry Garcia, but I'll say it's the Alchemic sonic experience that was the Grateful Dead.

[01:41:02] I think, even all these years later, what they did to American music and how they turned it on its head and showed the world that it can be this imperfect quest for sorcery and magic is still a great teaching. There's a million other Indian saints and modern philosophers from Ramana Maharshi to Alan Watts to Joseph Campbell, and everywhere in between.

[01:41:37] Luke: Did you happen to be at the Chinese New Year's Dead Show at the Oakland Coliseum in '93, 4?

[01:41:48] Zach: I was there at every one of those from '90 through '94. it

[01:41:51] Luke: Oh, because it would happen every year. Right. I got to look concert stub and see which one it was. I just remember being up in the nosebleeds when they had the people on stilts. I don't know what it's called, but just being tripping balls on acid up there so high and then watching these giants dance and walk around. I'll never forget that as one of the most impactful, peak recreational psychedelic experiences. And I think it was shortly after that that Bill Graham died. It was right around that time.

[01:42:24] Zach: Okay. So Bill Graham died in '91.

[01:42:26] Luke: Okay, so that would be early then. Yeah. Because I think it was around that.

[01:42:29] Zach: Because the Halloween '91 Grateful Dead concerts were the Bill Graham memorial shows where he had just died.

[01:42:37] Luke: I got to go at my stubs. As all things during that era, it could have been one year or the other.

[01:42:42] Zach: Agreed.

[01:42:43] Luke: It was somewhere between 1990 and when Jerry died. There was a lot of activity in there. Well, thank you so much again, man.

[01:42:51] Zach: Thank you, man. And to be continued. Yeah, you're going to come on my show soon.

[01:42:54] Luke: I can't wait.

[01:42:55] Zach: Yeah. Thank you, man. It was a pleasure.