Giving Up The Green Bitch: Graham Hancock’s TEDx Talk

By on February 14, 2013 in News 31

Following publication of his extraordinary essay, ‘Giving up the Green Bitch: Reflections on Cannabis, Ayahuasca and the Mystery of Plant Teachers’, Graham Hancock gives a captivating TEDx talk about his Ayahuasca experiences and overcoming his addiction to marijuana:

, , , , , ,

  • http://twitter.com/sunshynegrll Muffy Belchworthy

    I stopped watching the moment this guy said “so-called syndromes such as depression”. Over thirty years of severe depression aren’t a fucking illusion crafted by clever shrinks.

    • zombieslapper

      Amen.

    • lazy_friend

      I agree that depression is real for many. But a lot of people use it as a cop out, when they are really suffering for cosmic dissatisfaction or impatience, which is a spiritual or intellectual problem.Sometimes there is an actual physical anomaly, at times microscopic at a molecular level, or a gland disorder, even nutrient deficiencies can cause the foul moods and dissatisfaction. That is were proper diagnostics can really help to determine the right treatment and it seems that most shrinks are inept at diagnosing, choosing to medicate everything and everyone that comes to them for help. But don’t get mad, these speakers are human and make mistakes too. Take what you can and correct the rest with what you know to be true. Talks like this are really for entertainment and to pass the time, not to change your whole mindset. Take care, I hope you at least find some moments of joy from time to time.

    • lazy_friend

      I agree that depression is real for many. But a lot of people use it as a cop out, when they are really suffering for cosmic dissatisfaction or impatience, which is a spiritual or intellectual problem.Sometimes there is an actual physical anomaly, at times microscopic at a molecular level, or a gland disorder, even nutrient deficiencies can cause the foul moods and dissatisfaction. That is were proper diagnostics can really help to determine the right treatment and it seems that most shrinks are inept at diagnosing, choosing to medicate everything and everyone that comes to them for help. But don’t get mad, these speakers are human and make mistakes too. Take what you can and correct the rest with what you know to be true. Talks like this are really for entertainment and to pass the time, not to change your whole mindset. Take care, I hope you at least find some moments of joy from time to time.

  • echar

    I appreciate the risk is taking with this stand. Thanks for sharing.

    • BuzzCoastin

      I appreciate the marketing ploy Mr. Hancock is creating with this stand.

      There is no such thing as bad publicity for an entertainor or a guru.

      • echar

        Could be, and I didn’t think of that. Damn truth, always being a turd in the punch bowl. :P

        I have seen quite a few TED talks that are a lot like those awful sales pitches for time share or whatever. Such as the James Randy TED talk, he gets the audience to trust him by revealing how people use sales techniques to trick them into buying homeopathic meds. He then mentions his book at least twice and his school. That’s tried and true sales pitch.

        • BuzzCoastin

          This doesn’t diminish his contributions to knowledge, but it ultimately comes down to selling books and videos.

          Randi is even worse. Sheldrake gives critique of his conjuring here:
          http://youtu.be/AGv9yGxkVXU

          • echar

            Fantastic, thanks for sharing that.

          • Monkey See Monkey Do

            Some of that was from the Matt Staggs interview :) Loved it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/James-Chanbonpin/1460775184 James Chanbonpin

    I am a Christian, so I can’t say I agree with everything that Graham Hancock teaches, but I also have quit smoking marijuana after 9 years of being a medical card holder in CA and many years of smoking before that, and can attest to the fact that stopping actually made me more though filled and spiritually aware while being much more focused also. Great TED speech, well worth the time watching and analyzing

    • BuzzCoastin

      I am not a Christian, so I can’t say I agree with everything that Graham Hancock teaches either, but I also quit smoking marijuana from time to time for long periods and didn’t see any significant improvement in spiritual insight or personal clarity.

      Nonetheless, Terrence & the Shamans not withstanding, enlightenment or deep connection to Being doesn’t require any drugs. God created “drugs” for my amusement and I’m willing to share.

  • lazy_friend

    Would have been better if he were wearing a funny hat.

  • moremisinformation

    “I am not a Christian”…hilarious.

  • LucidDreamR

    “overcoming his addiction to marijuana” haha! what a joke! …some people can handle using drugs to alter and expand their reality at times.. and obviously some can’t. :P

    • lazy_friend

      I dig the affects of pot, but when I was a habitual user it was most definitely doing more harm then good and it was taking a lot my disposable income. Now I use it like any other strong psychedelic, once in a while and it’s perfect. It is a powerful and since I can’t grow it for legal reasons expensive plant to ingest all the time. Its all about the dose, the dose I tell you.

  • http://twitter.com/jasonpaulhayes jasonpaulhayes

    “Standing above the crowd, he had a voice that was strong and loud… Ranting and pointing his finger at everything but his heart, we’ll miss him.”

    Good luck with the Book Sales… don’t forget to feed the Monkey on your back, not that you’ve looked the creature in the face.

  • http://twitter.com/jasonpaulhayes jasonpaulhayes

    “Standing above the crowd, he had a voice that was strong and loud… Ranting and pointing his finger at everything but his heart, we’ll miss him.”

    Good luck with the Book Sales… don’t forget to feed the Monkey on your back, not that you’ve looked the creature in the face.

  • rtb61

    Somehow I just don’t believe. Hancock is just using what is currently popular in media marijuana to generate an income giving talks. Giving up the green bitch, nay, he is all too greedily trying to suck up as many ‘dollars’ as he can, definitely addicted to the green bitch.
    The alcohol industry and pharmaceuticals will pay big bucks for smooth talking public speaking ‘marijuana addicts’.
    Forum trolls of course get paid crap.

  • lazy_friend

    Going to the amazon for DMT is a logistical nightmare. All that jet fuel, people walking in the forest killing plants as they step on them, people that might get sick there, where there is no medical services, from insect bites and lets say, appendicitis which can hit at random and is deadly if not treated. Mushrooms are way easier to get, one can get spores online which are not illegal. The spores do not contain psilocybin, only the full mushroom, and is easily grown in grow bags which are also easily purchased . Also I don’t like the idea of hell he puts forth. People need to be good because they want to and feel it’s the right thing to do. Being scared or guilted into being good, just tucks evil in a corner of the mind where it will eventually escape, concentrated. The way I see it, the cure for all this evil and ignorance is simple meditation. Substances can help and they are precious treats at times from nature. But like he said, “DMT is already inside of you” and we don’t know it’s function or mechanism yet. DMT is released by the penial gland during sleep, which many speculate cause vivid dreams. I theorize that a moderate meditation discipline, which puts you in a dream like state near sleep, can aid in the release; perpetuating “super consciousness”. I do think Ayahuasca has its uses, but only with severe cases of extreme mental disorders; the criminally insane politicians, sociopaths, narcissism. It’s like the defibrillator, if one is not under cardiac arrest, it can be very harmful but if you are going under, it can be a life safer. This is just my opinion. All I know is that the brain is a pharmacy, and the real mystery we need to solve, is how we can make it dispense us some of its products without much forceful coercion from the outside.

    • moremisinformation

      “DMT is released by the penial gland during sleep, which many speculate cause vivid dreams.”

      This has absolutely no basis in reality, at this time. The idea has been around for nearly 20 years but came to prominence, due to the misreading of Rick Strassman’s book, “DMT: Spirit Molecule”. It was then brought into the more mainstream during Joe Rogan’s radio rant.

      Here is the addendum to Strassman’s book, “DMT: Spirit Molecule”

      “I did my best in the DMT book to differentiate between what is known,
      and what I was conjecturing about (based upon what is known), regarding
      certain aspects of DMT dynamics. However, it’s amazing how ineffective
      my efforts seem to have been. So many people write me, or write
      elsewhere, about DMT, and the pineal, assuming that the things I
      conjecture about are true. When I was writing the book, I thought I was
      clear enough, and repeating myself would have gotten tedious.

      “We don’t know whether DMT is made in the pineal. I muster a lot of
      circumstantial evidence supporting a reason to look long and hard at the
      pineal, but we do not yet know. There are data suggesting urinary DMT
      rises in psychotic patients when their psychosis is worse. However, we
      don’t know whether DMT rises during dreams, meditation, near-death,
      death, birth or any other endogenous altered state. To the extent those
      states resemble those brought on by giving DMT, it certainly makes one
      wonder if endogenous DMT might be involved, and if it were, it would
      explain a lot. But we don’t know yet. Even if the pineal weren’t
      involved, that would have little overall effect on my theories regarding
      a role for DMT in endogenous altered states, because we do know that
      the gene involved in DMT synthesis is present in many organs,
      particularly lung. If the pineal made DMT, it would tie up a lot of
      loose ends regarding this enigmatic little organ. But people seem to
      live pretty normals lives without a pineal gland; for example, when it
      has had to be removed because of a tumor.

      “In both these regards–the pineal-DMT connection, and endogenous DMT
      dynamics–we ought to know a lot more within the next several years due
      to the efforts of a research group being led by Steven Barker at
      Louisiana State University. He, with his grad student Ethan McIlhenny,
      are developing a new super-assay for DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, bufotenine, and
      metabolites. This assay will be capable of detecting those compounds
      much more sensitively than previous generations of assays. They’re
      looking at endogenous levels in awake sober normals, to assess baseline
      values of these compounds. We should have some data from those samples
      within a year. They also will be looking at pineal tissue. Once we have
      some baseline data in normal humans in normal waking consciousness,
      comparisons can be made between those levels and levels in endogenous
      altered states, like dreams, near-death, and so on.”

      • lazy_friend

        The precursors for dmt are produced by the pineal gland

        • moremisinformation

          I guess I mistook “IS produced by the pineal gland”, as a definitive finding, rather than an opinion.

          • lazy_friend

            Well having to spell everything out for people is kinda condescending from my perspective. I am not usually dealing with misinformed on this site, most know that most things are opinions and anecdotes anyway, scientific fact should be hard to find because it’s static and all powerful, not something you can just throw out there about every phenomena in the universe. I placed “This is just my opinion” right at the end of my short piece of writing follow by an “All I know” which is what I find to be fact. One request I have of you tho. If you are going to rip something out of a book in a conversation, send me the link if its super long, it crowds the forum looks horrible. If you are trying to put what I said down at least try to be respectful instead of trying to cram it down my throat, very off putting, I’ve tried that before and it does not work.

            from wiki.answers.com
            Is dmt produced by the pineal gland?

            Answer:

            No one really knows. Dr. Strassman wrote in his book, “DMT: The Spirit Molecule” that scientific studies confirmed that DMT is found in the brain. He also speculated that it could be produced by the pineal gland since all of its precursors could be found there, but no studies have confirmed or denied his guess. He also made other speculations, like DMT being a part of what causes dreams, but there are no studies to back him up. No one knows where the DMT is made or why it’s there, but there are a lot of good theories.

          • moremisinformation

            “Well having to spell everything out for people is kinda condescending from my perspective.”

            Noted. From now on when I read your posts, I’ll be aware that accuracy is not necessarily implied.

            “If you are trying to put what I said down at least try to be respectful instead of trying to cram it down my throat”

            Would you please explain how this occurred so that I may avoid it in the future? I’m having trouble figuring out where the “cram” came from. I went back and read my reply and it looks like a simple refutation of your statement. No attacks/name calling, etc.

            “If you are going to rip something out of a book in a conversation, send
            me the link if its super long, it crowds the forum looks horrible.”

            http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dmt/dmt_article2.shtml

            Other than the formatting, the link I pasted is only a little longer than your one long paragraph but I can certainly just paste the link next time.

            I read the “wiki answers” link you provided. I’m not sure but it seems to corroborate my initial response to your post, more than anything else.

            Also, perhaps you want to enlighten me as to what garners a down-vote, for you? Is it simply that you don’t like people disagreeing with you?

            Thanks

          • lazy_friend

            Errowids used to be complete. Now I look for dosages there and I can’t find it for many substances, its simply lacking and oh so main stream, full of cherry picked bias articles. At least I wrote the paragraph not just pasted something from else where, relied on my confidence and gave creativity a shot. As to why I thumb things down, if really want to know you should meditate on it. Scientific fact comes only after long long studies if ever, in case of paradoxes and black holes. My posts imply that their are authentic from my perspective and not derived from the study of other to be forcefully and immediately taken for fact just because it implied scientific authority. Years from now, if its ever proven, we will know who is correct. For now we shall agree to disagree. One more thing, chose a more positive and clever name, you can do better than that. No style. It seems to be what happens with people that rely on hard science done by distant scientist instead of relying on themselves for answers once in a while. Again don’t get sensitive about the thumbs down, its just one vote, let the poll results come in before you cry about it. “Don’t hide from storms that have not happened”

          • moremisinformation

            Wow. Just, wow. I wish this article was posted more recently so that it received more traffic. Your viewpoint really needs to be seen by everyone here. I wouldn’t even know how to begin responding to all that you’ve typed here. Holy shit.

            I do have one comment to make though.

            You post an idea based on something in the book that I quoted. What you posted is only hypothesis, yet you post it as fact. I use the same author of your hypothesis to refute you and you call the source into question?

            I can’t believe I’m even “discussing” this with you still.

            “I tried trolling them just for funs.”

            That should’ve been the end of it for me.

      • moremisinformation

        At least one person doesn’t like accurate information…

        • lazy_friend

          You call one book worth of information accurate? The author himself speculates that it might be made in the pineal gland but has not found the mechanism for it yet, and this is a journal of his studies. You are just name dropping and lacking in critical thinking putting authority outside yourself like sheeple. You didn’t write anything just copied and paste. Take control of your brain and control of your life, if you think information is just going to be given to you without any experimentation on your part, you got another thing coming. Oh the trolls I encounter. Full of obvious horrible advice for the suicidal tendencies in all of us.

        • lazy_friend

          Don’t be so sensitive of the thumbs down, it was me. Does not take a rocket scientist to figure out it that was I. Do you need a study on the mechanics of the disinfo rating system and why people rate the things the way they do to come to grips with it? If I don’t like the post, I thumb it down. There is no one here stopping me, so I press it, without apology. You should try it, it’s rather empowering. I give way more thumbs up, but it has to be deserved or funny, I like funny. You are dealing with real people here, not some machine who uses some static protocol for rating. Humans have feelings and opinions are intangible. If you are confident in you conclusions from what you read from the doctor, than you should not be so defensive of it. My theory is open to change but this regurgitated study was not enough to change my mind and I’m ok with that.

  • Meta Tron

    Graham should have tried eating the green. Cus vaporizing fucks your ass up acoma style.