Episode 22 - Using Cannabis to Increase "Flow" and Other States of Enhanced Consciousness
Dr. Sebastian Marincolo is your guide to greater insight, empathy, receptivity and awe.
Our guest this week, Dr. Sebastian Marincolo, is a philosopher, researcher and fellow explorer of consciousness. His book, High: Insights on Marijuana, is one of the most brilliant explorations and explanations of how to use the plant to “pull back the veil of consciousness” and lean into a high just as a skilled skier might ride moguls into deeper pleasures.
There is little doubt that cannabis affects the way we see our place as human beings in life’s grand order. Used mindfully, it can increase our receptivity to the sensual world but it can also open new pathways of insight, empathy and wonder, which is no small thing for a relatively gentle and harmless plant with no addictive properties.
In 1969 the great astronomer (and cannabis enthusiast) Carl Sagan wrote (under the pseudonym Mr. X) about the multi-faceted sensations of being high. “I do not consider myself a religious person in the usual sense, but there is a religious aspect to some highs. The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate ad inanimate. Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainly the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow man. And, at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness…”
Anyone who has used cannabis knows the truth of these perceptions. But today, now that we have more of a handle on dosing, the content of THC, CBD and terpenes in various strains and the many different ways of delivering the compounds into our bodies, we can design highs to bring us more of these sensations. But it also helps to know what to look for and how to consciously open ourselves into different ways of seeing and greeting the world.
Listen in. It’s well worth 30 minutes of your time.