We are in the midst of powerful and unprecedented times. In this epic sequel to my favorite podcast of all time, Charles and I map out how to embody the revolution of reunion that we are currently undergoing. A reunion of people with each other, their culture, their governments, and the Earth. But sometimes before things get better, the old structures must dissolve. One of the highlights of this episode was the discussion about the first moment that Americans lost trust in our government, and how the poison pill of this tragedy has metastasized in our collective psyche. And of course, how the courage of community can help to drive out the poison of institutionalized manipulation. This is an episode you do not want to miss.

Check out the new video A Gathering Of The Tribe | https://aubreymarcus.com/gathering

Connect with Charles Eisenstein | https://charleseisenstein.org/

AUBREY: Charles, my brother, here we are.

CHARLES: I'm happy to be back. 

AUBREY: Yeah, I'm happy to have you back. When we gathered last at Fit For Service, you expressed to me that you're done, you've had enough, you're done fucking around. There's no more. What does that mean to you?

CHARLES: I was trying to play it safe. I was taking refuge in a pretend ambivalence, or pretend doubt. Well, after all, I can never know for sure. So, I'm not going to commit. And, yeah, there's a time when you don't really know. And, there's the temptation to grasp on to a story that may not actually fully be true. And then there's the time when you know what your truth is, but you're still not stepping into it. And I was feeling that, and looking into why I was not stepping into it, and kind of playing it safe with philosophical bypass. Looking at both sides, and accepting, accepting, accepting that maybe, I don't know. And maybe I don't know. But at one point, I'm just like, I've got to do something about this. Right or wrong, I can't play it safe anymore. 

AUBREY: Yeah, what was the feeling that you had in your body, in that intentional and perhaps slightly subconscious repression of your truth, because I think this is something that a lot of people can understand. It could be a truth about how we feel about the world right now, it could also be a truth about how you feel about your partner in your relationship, or your job. It's a universal that gets applied to a variety of different things. And a lot of people would say that these diseases that we have are often diseases of repression, diseases of withholding some truth, some aspect. And we'll podcast later with Zak and certainly, a lot of his medicine is about getting people through this. For you personally, though, what was the feeling of... What did it feel like to hold back because I can identify with that feeling too? I've felt the same many times over the last 18 months. 

CHARLES: It was a feeling of being half dead. It was clear to me what is mine to do, what is mine to say. My whole life has converged many tributaries into the stream of what's mine to do right now. And I was fighting the current. Because I had to shut down. Shutting down that required me shutting down a lot of other parts of myself, and I was physically shutting down. Maybe on my soul level, it was like here's your life, live it, or you're not going to be here anymore. Like it was that, and I don't want to over-dramatize it. But it was, like yeah, it felt like I was at a crossroads, and there was no going back. And, like it worked. I mean, there are so many people who have completely written me off, and cast me into the bin of deplorables.

AUBREY: You had to pay the price of what you were ultimately afraid of. What you were afraid of happened, and you paid for it. And here you are on the other side of it. A more radiant, and free being living with a capital L. 

CHARLES: Yeah. It's a bit more holographic than that. For me, it hasn't been just like flipping a light switch. Sometimes I do go back into that state, revisit it. Almost like part of my service, because I know that there's a lot of people in that state. And in order to speak to that, I have to visit it myself. And it's not even just a spiritual experiment. It's full on when I go back into that, oh, my God, maybe I'm wrong about everything, for real. Like really take that in. And usually when I do that, I come out of it stripped of some things that I had been pretty sure about, or that I'd kind of gotten addicted to. 

AUBREY: It's almost like mental hygiene, almost like hygiene for your stories is to question them all radically, just to test them and make sure and see if any are not actually substantiated. Because we're such a story making machine. We're making stories every second all the time, whether we realize it or not, constantly. And some of these stories are going to be true, or true enough in the sense of what is true.

CHARLES: Yeah, stories can be a vehicle to express and bring into experience something that is inside a feeling. So for example, there's an authentic feeling of, you mentioned in your poem incarceration, repression, an insidious wrongness in the world. And where is that feeling coming from? Well, it can get clothed in the diabolical cabal that is controlling the world story. And that story seems so true, because it's giving voice to a feeling. Now, that doesn't mean the story is true or false. But because it's a vehicle for the feeling, I know that my belief in it when I go into that space, and sometimes I do, okay? But I'm certainly not an advocate of that, of that story. But when I go into it, it seems irrefutably true. But because there's a psychology underneath it, there's an emotionality beneath it, I hold it lightly. Because I know that I have buy in that isn't just--

AUBREY: Right, you have to be aware of where your inherent bias is going to lead you to actually try to concretize an emotional experience into a factual experience, which is also one of the ways that we build stories. We build all of this, we have an emotion, and then we take all of the scaffolding of a million ideas. And we try to scaffold that together into some kind of factual edifice that we can say, look, here it is, here's all the evidence, but really, all we had was an emotion. And then we're just gathering through our own selection bias, all of the different beams and panels and things to make this thing look right. And you see this on, it's universal. Every side, every person is doing it. And that's the irony of calling anybody a conspiracy theorist, because we're all doing the same process. Some are just pointing it at different things in different ways. 

CHARLES: Yeah. Right, so on the one hand, like pretty much the entire COVID phenomenon is, it's an expression of this pattern where there's an ambient anxiety in the world of fear, that is seeking an object. Preferably an object that we know how to control, we know what to do about. So. So, health has been in rapid decline for the last, I mean, you could say the last 100 years but definitely the last generation. Chronic disease increasing, auto immunity, allergies, all kinds of chronic disease. And people know that there's something wrong. So then COVID comes along, and it's almost a sense of relief. "Oh, okay, now I know what's wrong, it's this thing, and I can control it. We can control it." And if we are successful in controlling it, then health will be ours again. It's almost like watching a horror movie. It provides a relief because all of your unconscious fears are manifest in Freddy, or Jason or whoever it is, or the Joker or something. And it's so satisfying when that repository of all evil is destroyed. So, some of that psychology is going on. So people were primed to accept the COVID narrative. Now, I'm not saying that it's only that, and there's no such thing as COVID and no fire. No, not saying that. I'm saying, there are many, many lenses through which we can understand this phenomenon. And that's one of them. Now, on the other side, like on the conspiracy side, I mean, that's become such a pejorative term, I don't even want to say it that way. But let's say the COVID dissidents, we, they, often tend to jump at any narrative that gives expression to their authentic sense that there is something going on behind the scenes here. That it isn't what we're being told. So, there was this thing that circulated a month or two ago about Pfizer's new patent, that patents nanobots in the human body, activated by 5G, etc, etc. And people in the counter narrative space were accepting that uncritically. I mean, I went and actually looked at the patent. And it didn't say anything like that. It was basically about contact tracing. It was still disturbing, but it wasn't. So, then when people make that claim about it, they make themselves look ridiculous to the other side. And it widens this divide, which is the real crisis of our time. It's a crisis of the word of communication.

AUBREY: That was one of the most powerful parts of one of the essays that you were writing, and it's exactly the place that I arrived. So my own discomfort and this sense of angst of not being able to express my truth, I experienced that many, many times, and it wasn't finally released. I got to release some of it when I was, because I don't know, I'm not a scientist nor a doctor. I haven't even done the research to really be sure about what's what. In this, I have my instincts, but I don't feel like that's mine to talk about. So, what was mine to talk about? Well, when all of the stimulus checks were rolling out for the trillions of dollars, I got frustrated, and I was like, what the fuck. You were saying that we can make trillions of dollars all along? Oh, that was a play on the board? And now we're using it? What about all of the people dying of hunger? What about all of the clean water that we could provide for a fraction of that? What about all of the assistance we could do to the 30 million people being sex trafficked? What about all of this other shit that we could use some of this money for?

CHARLES: We could have healed the entire planetary ecosystem for that amount of money.

AUBREY: Exactly. And so, I got fucking pissed. That's when I came out, and it was just like, okay, finally, now I get to speak my own sense of this is wrong. And I got to declare it in a poem that I wrote, "A Revolution of Solidarity". And then that hinted at another idea, which was the division that was going on in the world. But again, I was like, I feel wrongness, I feel wrongness in everything that's happening, but I couldn't pin it. And then I really understood that, okay, what we need to do is resolve this increasing, widening, polarizing gap between one side and another, left and right, black and white, whatever you want to say. Red or blue, doesn't matter, all of this divisive, vax, antivax. It's forgetting the fundamental truth of reverence for all beings and all life and how interconnected we are. And so, the idea that came through was the idea of a united polarity, which is saying you don't have to homogenize. We all don't have to slump into the middle, become a unisex gender and wear unisex clothes and have unisex ideas, and like homogenized milk and all believe the same thing. But we can remember the fundamental, inalienable truths about being alive on this planet as a part of the earth and a part of this shared ecosystem. And so, united polarity was this thing I was able to push forward. And then it was like finally, I could breathe again. Because I could stand in that. And I have a lot of other opinions, too, and I share those opinions sometimes. But I'm careful to say, this is my opinion. My opinion is that I think this looks a little sketchy. And I think that this feels a little off and in my body, this resonates as untrue. If this was a guitar, I would say it's out of tune, even though I'm not a musician. I know that this doesn't feel right. But I don't know for sure. But there's certain things that I do know. And one is that, as you said, this is a crisis of our ability to see each other and communicate and express honest truth to each other. 

CHARLES: Yeah, what's been happening is that our sense of a wrongness, of something being out of tune gets hijacked, and we're offered the diagnosis, which is, those bad people out there. So, our revolutionary energy, revolution meaning a turning, is directed against each other. So, all of that energy is incinerated by pushing against itself. And society trundles on under its momentum, and nothing changes. Hence, our helplessness, despite hundreds of years of technological innovation. I mean, we should be incredibly powerful right now. But instead, we are helpless as we watch the planetary ecosystem degenerate, and the social systems and world hunger, I mean, which is up in the last year, political disintegration, like what's going on here? I thought we were supposed to have been progressing. And, the reason is, because we have no coherence. And the reason for that is a deep misunderstanding of what a human being is. We're constantly being offered a reduced version of the human being. 

AUBREY: A broken machine. A broken machine in constant need of fixing, and that there's some terminal place that we can arrive where it's all fixed, this myth of the satiety point, where it's all good, whether it's retirement, or whether it's one place, a state of health. It's some fixed point, a state of wealth, a state of... And it's this interesting thing that we try to think of ourselves like a machine that either works, but it's all on a continuum. And we're just fed this fallacy, and we eat it up, and chase these desired states as if these states are going to exist. But of course, they don't. And this is the process. To go back to what you were saying, though, you wrote this so beautifully. With coherency among us, no other problem would be hard to solve. As it stands, the prodigious powers of human creativity cancel each other out. The crystalline matrix of our co creation has burst into shards. I thought that was a beautiful way to talk about how this energy that you're talking about is, if we actually utilized it, in a co-creative state, in a way in which it was accretive, and we were listening to each other and cooperating, then, like the permaculturist say, the problem is the solution. All of our people and all of our minds, and all of these things, then become the solution to solve all of the problems, and potentially even bigger problems of cataclysmic cycles that hit the Earth every 12,000 years. And we could be like, hey, if we look back, every 12,000 there's been a whatever. There's been a pretty rough patch. Maybe we should try and build a proverbial Noah's Ark of many ways to save many people and ecosystems, and animals in case of this situation. And we're working together on that, because we've already solved all of the other basic stuff. And that's I think what we're here to do, is to help be the shepherds and stewards of Earth. But instead, as long as we're cancelling each other out, fighting each other, we're never going to fulfill our real destiny, I think, as people, as part of this thing.

CHARLES: You know what I want for myself? I want to be put to good use. And I think a lot of people share that. When you awaken to why you're here, and how beautiful the world is, you just want to be of full service. Self-trust has been scary for me, because of my indoctrination into the idea that human beings are selfish. That improvement is a matter of conquering the self, of rising above materiality, of rising above the emotions. All this programming from way back when I was a kid, entering the rarefied realm of the mind, the reason. It's all part of the conquest of the self, which mirrors the conquest of nature. And, left me unwilling to trust myself. What if I just do whatever I want? Like that is an insult. Oh, he just does whatever he wants. Does he really? What do you really want to do?

AUBREY: What do you really want is one of the most interesting fucking questions in the world. What do you really want? If you go down that rabbit hole, you find a lot of powerful things. 

CHARLES: Yeah. So, I'm learning to retrain, okay? So, I'm looking at you, and remembering what am I actually seeing here? I'm seeing life itself. The same life that is in a tree out there, or a bird, that life knows what to do. That life is sacred. It's beautiful. It's part of the holistic functioning of all of life. Like no tree is just serving itself. It's bringing up water and nutrients from underground, it's sheltering birds, it's nourishing mycorrhizal networks that bring sugars to the bacteria that fix nitrogen, etc, etc. I mean, it's a community. And if that tree is able to do that, it's a thriving tree. Anyway, I was just thinking that. I'm looking at you, I'm like, yeah, you're a powerful person. And put me to use. That'll be our sacred agreement. Yeah. 

AUBREY: To the end. 

CHARLES: Yeah. 

AUBREY: I'm with you. I had a powerful moment last night, where I've been pushing really hard. I've released a documentary, I've been giving speeches in different cities and doing copious podcasts, and preparing a lot of different things. Just working very hard and working on things that I know are productive to the world because I feel the urgency, and certainly didn't help with my urgency, talking at length with Daniel Schmachtenberger over dinner. That definitely increased the urgency meter a little bit, because he's very aware of the existential threats. Also optimistic, but I was like, fuck, I wasn't even thinking about four of these things. Dammit. And I had this warm blanket of optimism. It felt like it was gently, and he's a very heart centered guy, despite his cerebral intensity. He was like, okay, we're going to have to take this warm blanket off, and you're going to have to face the brisk wind of, and find the courage in that wind. And I was like, alright, I got it. And I always trust that about myself. I got it. But my tendency is, I'll push so hard that I'll crash. And I've been flirting with that. And yesterday, I had a little mini crash, and I was just lying in bed. I felt I couldn't do enough, and I wasn't capable of enough. Vylana led me through a series of questions. And she asked, what would the Father say? And ultimately, I started just flowing in like a channel. A channel opened up of the father talking to me. It was ultimately just recognizing I had so much judgment of myself still, and the judgment became crippling, and it was filling my joints. If I was moving, my body was filling my joints with tension, and I wasn't able to actually be myself because I was always judging whether I was doing it right or doing it wrong. And the Father just guided me to see how much you care. Go back to that. Go back to how much you care. And that's what matters is that really, really at the core of core, you're trying so hard and you care. And that's what matters. That's what matters is that you care. And from that place, tears started to flow, and I was like, alright, I care and I'm doing my fucking best. And then there was this huge release of all of this pressure. All of this just sloughed off. And I was like, yeah, I fucking care. Because I see you and I see people and I see all of that. I see the cat that was on the roof that scratched your arm when we rescued it this morning. And I see life, and I love life. I love life. And then that, that is what the real motivation is. It comes from a different place, and it's an inexhaustible source. The craving for things, and the craving for items and whatever else, and achievements and accolades and all that. It's ephemeral. It's a constant chase, a Sisyphean challenge. But when you get back to, no, I care, and I'm going to do whatever I can. But not with the judgment, and not with the guilt.

CHARLES: And also, not as an exhortation to yourself. But it's actually a quiet confidence that I care. You don't have to make yourself care. I care, I know who I am, I know that I care, I know that I will respond to the call. Even if you can go through your mind at all the examples in your life where you didn't respond to the call, still there's a part of you that knows, I will respond to the call. Because that is who I am. And if you can visit that place once in a while and strengthen that connection, you will experience it is true. Urgency is a feeling of a misalignment with what you know, who you are, and what you're doing. That feeling of misalignment can get displaced on to hurry, and doing more and doing more and doing more, which provides some relief from the feeling. But it's not necessarily what that feeling actually seeks. It could be something, it could be doing less. It could be that the more and more and more is what's out of alignment.

AUBREY: Indeed.

CHARLES: I hope I'm not sounding preachy here. The only reason I know this is because, I'm the worst-- 

AUBREY: I know, man. I know, brother. I see that. And this is universal. And this is why we share it here because there's going to be so many people who are feeling that same thing. And, ultimately, the voice of the Father that came, said the final thing, it said, you know the difference between you and I, son? And it was coming from that archetype. The difference between you and I is faith. That's the difference, I believe that everything will work out. I trust. And that trusting then allows you to be, be who you actually are, without the striving and trying and scrambling and chasing. Just be and do and move steadily and confidently. And that emanation metaphysically, and physically creates results that are far beyond what the trying and striving and more coffee at 9:00 pm because you've got more things to do. It's more powerful than that. 

CHARLES: Right, because then you can hear the call to play your role in the plan. The plan is far beyond human comprehension. If you try to comprehend it, and map out how the society is going to transform, you run up against a brick wall of impossibility. The forces arrayed against change are way too powerful. It's a fantasy to think that we will see any significant change in the world in our lifetimes or maybe ever. But that doesn't take into account the mechanisms of change and healing that arise from synchronicity. Synchronicity is an outcropping of a deeper intelligence that is available to coordinate the world. And when we listen to the call that comes through the body, through the heart, then we're able to participate in this orchestration. There's actually a grain of truth in all that Qanon stuff of trust the plan. The problem, though, is that it's not Donald Trump, who has the plan. I mean, to think that Donald Trump has a master plan, I mean, that's a pretty generous view of Donald Trump, okay? I mean, I'm not saying anything about Donald Trump, but I mean, come on. The guy's not playing 4D Chess. 

AUBREY: For sure. 

CHARLES: Checkers maybe. But anyway--

AUBREY: I would see him playing checkers and turning over the board when you got your first king, like, "Fuck this game!" 

CHARLES: I don't know. I mean, I'd hate to say anything. I mean, people like him, anybody in power is such a projection screen. What is he actually like in person? I have no idea. Probably a mix, just like me and you.

AUBREY: Of course.

CHARLES: Anyway, but whatever he is, he doesn't have the plan. Yet still, this trust the plan is one of these expressions draped in a story of an authentic truth. That there is a plan. Trust the plan doesn't mean that you don't do anything, though. It's that you trust the plan, and your role in the plan, and your cue to enter stage when it comes. And the form that cue takes is that you care about something. And this goes back to your initial question. Like I was feeling the cue, I was feeling it's my turn to do something. And when I listened to that, and this is true, generally when we listen to that, our actions have magnified power, because they're happening at just the right place, at just the right time.

AUBREY: I think people are afraid of, they're afraid of faith, and they're afraid of that level of trust, because they're afraid that they'll become demotivated in a certain way. That well, if I just believe it's all going to work out, then why would I even have any motivation? But it doesn't actually work like that. It's false. 

CHARLES: No, we don't want to just sit around drinking beer and watching football. We don't want that. And this idea that that's what we want, that we just want to slack off, that is true in the context of meaningless work. If you are doing work that is tedious, and degrading, and boring, and a dead end, and maybe it was okay for a while, but now you're sick of it, of course you want to not work. But then we take that for granted as the default state of human existence. But no, like a kid who doesn't want to do nothing. A kid wants to create, and play. Child's play is a constant process of creation. Like my eight-year-old is making worlds in his head all the time, and playing them out. And that's what we want to do too. 

AUBREY: Yeah. The other thing is an amelioration of obsolescence. Like if you feel the obsolescence, you feel, well, doesn't matter, then maybe you ameliorate it with intoxicants, distractions and these other things. But when you find that sense of purposeful play, you have a whole different orientation, and everything is alive. And all of the great things that I've ever brought forth have come from those other types of moments, those listening moments, those places where there's an inspiration that just floods through. The grinding stuff, sure, it's got me some ways in some places, and accomplished some things, and it's an aspect of it, and there's a time to put your feet in the sprinters block and just keep running, and don't stop when you get a little fatigued. Like I get it, I'm not denying it. 

CHARLES: When are we going to finish? I want to have some beers, man. How long have we been going? Only half an hour? Oh, man. That clock's moving slow.

AUBREY: Yeah, it's not real. It's not real. And that's, I think, something that if we just let go of that idea... But that's been because of the obsolescence of, and the kind of unimportance of this meaningless work, we've taught this. The story feels real, and so we have all of these ideas that the end goal is to be on a cruise ship at 67,  and that's when you made it. No, it's available at every moment. 

CHARLES: From one shopping port to another. 

AUBREY: Yeah, exactly. An intoxicated tour from one shopping tourist place to another. That's not it. There's heaven in every moment, if you're able--

CHARLES: I just want to bring in compassion for the people on cruise ship shopping tours. Any hint of disdain or contempt for anybody, means that you're still, and I'm not saying this is what you're feeling. But I noticed the part of me that is, I would never do that, right? It's still the lifeforce seeking expression, like the trammeled, contained, repressed desire for adventure and to find your boundaries, and explore them. That's not much available, so what's offered is a cruise. So, it's like this life contained and repressed trying to burst out.

AUBREY: Yeah, there's something from Thich Nhat Hanh that you wrote, that it's a beautiful way. And I'm just going to read it because it was so powerful when I read it. And it really speaks to this. It's called "Call Me By True Names". And I think you took a few of the stanzas from it, not the entire poem. But I'll go ahead and read it. “I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the 12-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the Politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his debt of blood to my people, dying slowly in a forced labor camp. My joy is like spring. So warm, it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life. My pain is like a river of tears. So full, it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true name so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once. So I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true name, so I can wake up. And so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion.” He gets it.

CHARLES: Yeah. I remember when, this was years ago, there was a deadly riot out west somewhere involving two biker gangs. They were fighting with whatever motorcycle chains, and then the cops came, and they started hitting the cops. And they were all arrested. And there was the mug shots, and photos of these people. I think it was on salon.com, and the entire article was an invitation to hate. It was like, of course, we need to be compassionate for Black Lives Matter protesters, and people who have a genuine grievance, but these are just contemptible thugs. And the photographs were extremely unflattering. And I thought--

AUBREY: They don't work on lighting in the mugshots. 

CHARLES: No. And I thought every single one of these men was once a little baby, like an adorable cutums. And I thought, what happened to each of these men? What has to happen to an incredible, miraculous baby? I've been present at four births. That's the four best moments of my life. And just like, I'm in tears every time, the miracle of it, like this new being. What has to happen to a baby to turn them into a sea pirate? To turn them into a dictator? it's like your poem at the beginning. 

AUBREY: Yeah. Oh, my dear child, what have they done to you? 

CHARLES: What have they done to you? Yeah. And people think, oh, well, if you have that kind of compassion, you're letting them off the hook. What about the victims? We have to draw a boundary. No, that's not what it's about. Even if we resist, even if we fight, even if we hold that boundary, it's not from a delusion that these beings are anything but what they are, which is sacred life. So, it's how we see each other. We still might fight. I still might need to protect my children from you if you're coming at me with a gun or a needle or something like that. 

AUBREY: No doubt.

CHARLES: Sorry to say that. 

AUBREY: A slip. 

CHARLES: But it won't be, I won't have to justify that by making you evil in the abstract, and then calling a crusade against you and your ilk, in the name of good fighting evil. Because we see where that leads. Adolf Hitler did everything he did, in the name of good fighting evil. Every dictator, every totalitarian society, it's in the name of the greater good. That's why we have to control the other that we name as evil. So, as revolutionaries of love, let's not do that. Otherwise, we're not actually revolutionaries of love. That's just the disguise that we're wearing.

AUBREY: There's two things that I want to talk about from that, but one of which was, one of the beautiful explanations of how when you are in the delusion of dehumanization, you've reduced someone to a subhuman being, then you're operating in the sphere of lies, you're operating in the sphere of delusion. And when you're operating in the sphere of delusion, you are far more susceptible to other delusions, because you're in that dimensional reality. It's like you're an energetic vibrational match to lie and manipulation. At any point, that you're in that state where you've reduced somebody to subhuman, no matter what, you call somebody a sheep, which a lot probably are friends. Our friends are probably more keen to call people on that side, dehumanize on that side. And then other people who are calling us names, dehumanizing us, well, we're domestic terrorists or whatever, dehumanized version of that. But either side, at the moment you dehumanize--

CHARLES: They're on the same side.

AUBREY: They're the same side. It's the opposite side of--

CHARLES: Side of dehumanization.

AUBREY: Yep. And then at that point, you're vulnerable. You're in that ayahuasca ceremony where the shamans just got the door wide open for all the lies and all the darkness and all the delusion, and you're in a deep dark forest at that point. But when you realize the truth, the real truth of humanity and everything that we've been talking about, then that's when you have a natural defense against all of this manipulation and deceit. 

CHARLES: Yeah. And I think it's important to remember that the reason to resist dehumanization isn't so that you're then an admirable person. It's simply because it's not true.

AUBREY: Yeah. It's a lie. It's just not true. 

CHARLES: Yeah.

AUBREY: The other thing, the other place I wanted to go. These were two of the best lines I've seen. And I'm not trying to fluff you here but, it's from a piece from "A Temple of This Earth". Transcendence From the West. Said, “forgiveness comes from the flash of understanding. If I were in the totality of your situation, I may well have done what you did. And then on the other side, the lie behind judgment is, if I were in the totality of your situation, I would have done differently.” And this is where we find ourselves is this belief. So, both are super important, and we can take them individually. Forgiveness, if I were in the totality of your situation, I may well have done what you did. We don't know what it would be like to be in that person, walk a mile in their shoes. That's like something we casually throw around. But like really, though, would we have done different? And we judge when we think we would, but we don't fucking know. Maybe, maybe not. Right?

CHARLES: Yeah. Yeah, do you really know what it's like to be that person? People are pretty critical of Bill Gates right now. And so am I. But when I imagine myself in his shoes, having built a career on pushing technology, that he may fervently believe is for the betterment of humanity. I mean, this is the very quintessence of progress, to expand technology, to include everything. This is the dream of technology. So he is deeply immersed in a cultural paradigm that goes back hundreds of years. Like Descartes wrote about this in his most famous passage about to become the lords and possessors of nature. Do you know that phrase? That's at the end of a paragraph, where he's waxing eloquent about how technology is going to usher in utopia.

AUBREY: Also reducing who we are to a thinker. I think, therefore, I am.

CHARLES: Right. But that's a different, that's a totally different writing. And it's significant that the same thinker has both of those ideas. But that would be a whole... But what I'm saying is that this cultural immersion, that someone like Bill Gates is very, very, very deeply in, someone had to play that role for the story of humanity to be complete. That's him. If I were the actor playing that role, I would probably be doing the same thing, not because I'm evil, but because that is how the role is written. And I think that that realization, quite to the contrary of letting Bill Gates off the hook. I mean, what's this hook anyway? I mean, that's part of a punishment--

AUBREY: The hook of judgement, yeah.

CHARLES: A punishment mentality that is part of the domination mentality, which is part of the world destroying machine. But far from making us acquiescent and vulnerable to his depredations, because we actually understand the man better, or at least we're trying to, we actually become more effective at resisting, more effective at resisting evil when we don't see it as the result of malice primarily. I mean, at least we don't default to that. 

AUBREY: I think actual intentional malice is so fucking rare. Even when it is intentional, there's still the delusion that is necessary for that evil to exist, which is that I am separate from you. So, it's still built upon a lie. So it's still not even fully intentional, because it's done in the shadow of disbelief. So, it's almost there really isn't intentional malice, because it requires a lie. Even if you're trying.

CHARLES: I mean, maybe there is some intentional malice, but what I'm talking about is the default way of seeing every evil act as malice. That is definitely not true. I mean, I've done evil acts before. I mean, I haven't tortured a mouse or anything like that. But I mean, I've definitely done things I'm not proud of.

AUBREY: Gotten pleasure from something else's pain. I think we've all, if that's the definition of evil.

CHARLES: Like, ha-ha, they got theirs. 

AUBREY: Sure, sure, sure. But nonetheless, my point being is that you had to do that after accepting a lie, after believing a mistruth. So yes, it was intentional, but it was not fully in awareness and in consciousness, because you couldn't do it. You couldn't gain pleasure if you were actually in the state of inner being, which is the truth. You couldn't do it. It requires a delusional state, and there's different levels to it. It goes all the way down to, I think that I'm doing this evilly, intentionally. I believe that I am. But also you're subtly, subconsciously already swallowing a lie about the nature of reality. And again, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't stop those people in certain cases. But I see this, like there's a friend that I have that was posting about, it was about Bill Gates. And he's friends with a lot of military operators, and there were a lot of comments. He wasn't saying this, but a lot of the comments were like, why doesn't someone just take him out already? Why doesn't someone just take him out? I was like, fuck, this is not the way. My interpretation, my belief is, take Bill Gates. I believe that he's just in a world that he's trying to account for a variety of variables. And perhaps, I don't know, but perhaps in his analysis, in his computational analysis, the way that humanity survives is a reduction of population. I'm not saying that this is true. Maybe, let's say that it is. What he's not accounting for is magic, and the opening of the heart and the collective awakening. Things that we know to be true. So if he knew those things to be true, and he could have faith based upon the sex magic practice that blew his mind and the breathwork that caused him to scream and wail and the psychedelics that blasted open his heart and connected him to God, and the conversations like I had with the Father. If he saw that, maybe like, fuck, there was variables I wasn't accounting for.

CHARLES: He's not playing with a full deck. 

AUBREY: He's not playing with a full deck. So, the goal is not to take him out. It's like, find somebody that's close enough to him that can bring him to the new mystery school, which has been a deep calling, to revive this idea of the mystery school, where it's such a strong allure that within there, there's going to be the love of the feminine and nature from the feminine, from nature, of the mother, of the psychedelic wine and whatever the thing is. Obviously, there's a different paradigm now than there used to be in the Eleusinian mysteries or Delphi, whatever they did. But this idea that there's a way to reconnect people, to love, and the magic that you and I know is true that will change the computational analysis, and they'll say, wow, yeah, overpopulation is an issue. But man, what would happen if everybody opened their hearts? And can we dedicate our entire vast resources to this end because this will work. And then those people switch. It's like playing the game Othello, with the black checkers and the white checkers. All of a sudden, the huge line just goes, and it clicks over, and it's like, the game's different now. It's like, that's the game to me. It's like, can we get to their heart and peel off that armor and let them cry the tears and wail the tears and see the possibility of what we can see? It doesn't make us better than them that we can see it. We just happen to have been fortunate enough. My father sent me on a vision quest when I was 18. I took MDMA and psilocybin in the mountains of New Mexico and was with the howling coyotes and a roaring fire, and stayed up all night and felt my body evaporating. He didn't get that. So, am I going to say, oh, I'm better than him? No, I was fortunate. I was lucky. And I've made some good choices. Sure, I'm not going to deny my own freewill choice, and certain choices that we make. I'm not trying to deny categorically free will. But it's a very dangerous position when we start to get to the, I am better than you, which is different. 

CHARLES: I have a story to tell you, inspired by what you just said about your father. But it's not quite the moment, but maybe later in the conversation reminds me of it and it might be the moment. 

AUBREY: Yeah, this is I think, one of the really, truly important things, the real revolution that that you speak to so well, and that I'm 100% on board with. It's a revolution of the entire paradigm itself. It is not playing the game. It's a revolution so deep, that we cannot concretize it in the stories that we've been told. It's not "Star Wars", it's not "Avatar". It's not all of these things that we love and feel like that was fun. It's not that. It's a revolution so radical, that we don't even have the stories about it. 

CHARLES: It's not the hero's journey. 

AUBREY: No, it's a different one. It's a whole different map. And it feels like this is the map that is a part of our calling to create, like a new map of a new revolution, of a new way to fight as a warrior of love.

CHARLES: I have some things to say about that. New mythologies and new maps. But it feels a little bit like I'd be showing off how smart I am. I want to just tune in for a minute and feel you and feel the people listening to us, and just returning to put me to good use. How can I serve you and those you represent in this moment, for real? That's respect. Genuine offer. This COVID has been a blessing, as we talked about earlier. Bringing the tribe together, exposing our character to each other, to ourselves. Learning who's brave and who isn't yet brave. 

AUBREY: We in our hearts are ready to stand for something real. Stand for something real. All of these false flags that we've rallied behind. Like, there's a deep yearning, aching desire to stand for something real. Something that has real meaning. And your humility, your call to service is such a pure reflection of your being and I acknowledge you for it. And I also acknowledge that as clever as I might be and as much work and exploration as I've done, I've never encountered somebody who can so eloquently illuminate the principles upon which we can stand that can decorate the new flag of new stars and new stripes, and new ideas in that way. And I speak for myself in that, this is one of your great gifts. This is one of the ways that you are putting yourself to good use is to show us the flag, a flag that we know that it's in our heart already, but just say, here, here, look, look, now you can see it. And people are ready, like people are ready. And if we can tell those, the flag will come in stories, it will come in a way of being, it will come in the way of gathering, it will come in the way of many things. But like that is a great gift that you're offering.

CHARLES: Yes, the principles are not something that you can write out in a list. That whole way of approaching life, okay, let's get the basic principles. Let's write the constitution. That is a kind of a containment of the wild. But you're speaking truth when you speak of principles. In the sense of the principles of a company, like the core beings that can be communicated heart to heart through the things you said. Through stories, through presence. I spent the last week with a small group, one of them was a man who I deeply respect. Yeah, and he's very intelligent, and says a lot of wise things. But what he communicated to me and taught to me was not through any of the words he spoke per se. It was through his relentless service, and thoughtfulness. Like, he would always be anticipating everybody's needs around him constantly. And to do that you have to constantly be attuning to that. And it wasn't out of martyrdom either. It's because of that orientation that doesn't come from trying to prove himself worthy. He has endless energy. And that is one of the principles. It is transmitted to me by his being. And even that description I gave, if you reduce it to those worlds, oh, okay, lemme take notes here, always be oriented towards service. Okay, that gets at some of it. But maybe you can feel this man's energy in my tone of voice rather than my words. Yeah, I think you understand what I'm talking about. 

AUBREY: Absolutely. Because anything that becomes a saying, the words have such ambiguous meaning, and they're always just approximations. As you were saying it, it reminded me of the saying, your actions speak so loudly that I cannot hear what you say. And that is something that's cool to think about. But it can also be hijacked very easily into, okay, I get it. So, this just means I've got to do more and say less. But you could still be doing and doing from the same place that you were saying before, which is a striving, which is a self-aggrandizement, which is this kind of inflationary impulse to show everybody how something you are, something valuable you are, some way in which you're virtuous, it could still be the same thing you're doing could be the same thing as you're saying. It's just maybe a little more young, in that way. But so, it's not like a universal truth. But to do things like he said, and then that was an exemplification of the truth of that phrase, which is that his actions did speak more loudly than his words. But his actions only spoke that way because his actions came from a true reservoir, like a place within that was a sacred place that was connected to a sacred truth that's ultimately ineffable. 

CHARLES: Right. And it may not come from any kind of commitment he made to himself to be of better service to others. It might be a natural organic growth coming from other work that he's done. So please don't aspire to be like him.

AUBREY: Because the aspiring is what's going to prevent you from being like him.

CHARLES: It didn't come from aspiring. 

AUBREY: Yeah. And all you have to believe is there is, when you understand the truth, when you see yourself as the tree, the chainsaw is no longer the same thing. Yeah, maybe you use it. But your orientation to that chainsaw and that tree is a much different thing. You know that this is, it's a different thing. And the same with people, and same with words. You have to really believe in the state of inner being and the state of inner being will have a natural emanation. And that's all you must, nobody must give anything, but that's the thing. It's just to feel, feel what actually is, and trust. And just trust. Once you feel it, and then just fucking trust. 

CHARLES: Yeah, you might still cut down the tree, but it won't be because of a delusion that it's just 70 feet of lumber. It'll be in the full knowledge of what that tree is. 

AUBREY: Right. And this is the way the shamans of the jungle, of the forest, this is the way they do it. Before they pick any leaf, they're in psychic communication with that plant. "Can I have this leaf? We're going to use this for medicine." And it becomes root after a while. But they're always in prayer. Same with many, many First Nations cultures, they understand the Ayni, the Quechua word, reciprocity. And they understand they have an animistic view of all life. So they're always in communication. Even fire itself, and I learned this lesson with Don Howard and Huachuma. Huachuma was showing me how everything has a spirit. And this sounds crazy, but this is what it was showing me and this is what I believe. Everything has a spirit. And even when you ask the fire to light your mapacho, give a quiet thank you, thank you to the fire, to the element of fire, and thank you to the tobacco. And thank you to the paper that came from a tree, that's wrapping the mapacho. Thank you. I'm going to put this mapacho to good use.

CHARLES: Can I say one thing about that? 

AUBREY: Sure.

CHARLES: Don't say thank you if you don't actually feel grateful.

AUBREY: Ah, yes. It's not a charade.

CHARLES: Because then you're lying to the fire. Not nice.

AUBREY: True. 

CHARLES: Don't say thank you if you're not grateful, which goes against a lot of parenting. Kids are always being told to say thank you. I never tell my kids to say thank you. Because I don't want to teach them to be insincere. But I might remind them of them having received a gift. And I might point out the generosity of another person. And then I trust their innate gratitude that wants to give a return gift. And that might be a word of thank you in return. But it comes from gratitude. So, if you are in a reality in which fire's just fire, and a plant is just a bunch of biochemistry, where's any possibility of gratitude? There's not a gift going on. Where's the gratitude? So, prior to thank you, has to be gratitude. And prior to gratitude has to be an awareness of gift and an awareness of how this world actually works. That sometimes peeks through even the armor of modern materialism that gratitude peeks through, or maybe through a psychedelic experience. You're seeing beyond that veil. And then the thank you becomes sincere. And I say that, not to add, like another layer of admonitions, but to bring alive something that we all know. And once it's brought alive, it begins to work on you. And you find yourself changing without making a promise. "Oh, gosh, I've been saying thank you without really being, " "Oh my God, I've got to change, otherwise..." Otherwise what? Otherwise I'm not a good person? Otherwise I'll be punished? I mean, where's that coming from? So, it's to trust what happens when a new truth is revealed to you. Something comes alive, and you change, and you can allow that. It doesn't have to be hard. It's not a battle, man. Yeah.

AUBREY: Yeah, a great example of this is, I haven't been one to do a lot of prayers before dinner, because I had friends who were religious in a variety of different ways, in the Jewish faith and the Christian faith and a variety of things.  And there was all of these, what felt to me like empty blessings, empty prayers. Thank you to this, thank you to that, blah, blah, blah. And it was just like, I didn't feel anything from it. And so, I was like, this is all some ceremonial bullshit. I never felt anything, so I began to detest it slightly. I think subconsciously. I didn't really think that I detested it. And then recently, I've encountered two people, my friend, who has a really beautiful way, and his wife Frieda, a more shamanic way of energetically releasing anything, any energy that's been stored in the food, particularly meat, any suffering that the animal has had, or in the plants the way they were harvested. And just offering the space for that food, even though it's dead at this point, "dead" I use that in quotations for people who are listening. But a way to just offer the space metaphysically for that to release, and also change the way that we think because there's plenty of studies showing the way that we think about food affects our body. And I wrote about those in "Own The Day" in my book. It's all part of the placebo effect. So whatever is happening, whether it's actually changing the energy of that, what we call dead, and changing the energy or whether it's changing our attitude toward. Either way, it felt real. And so, Vylana and I started adopting that. I was like, alright, this feels like something that's real. I felt the sincerity that he did it with, and his wife did it with. Frieda did it with. So, that was part one. And within two weeks, then we also had Zach Bush over for dinner. And I just had the instinct that he could say a blessing. And he gave a blessing. It brought everybody at the table to tears. It was a thank you that was so real, so true, that it was like, "Fuck." And so now my whole paradigm about this thing has changed. Because I've also known people who have just been like, thank you food. You're doing it out of a necessity, but how real is it? Don't even bother, just fucking eat. Unless you're going to do it for real.

CHARLES: Yep. So that way you described Zach Bush's prayer, that's one of the principles that decorates the flag. 

AUBREY: Yes, indeed. 

CHARLES: Yeah, and it's something that you either experience it directly, or something of it is carried in your words. And it's that recognition. And for me, it's one of those invitations into a new world, that is calling so strongly right now, to so many of us.

AUBREY: Yeah, it is. I want to stick with this principle, because I immediately think of relationships. Because there's also the, there's also the almost necessitated habit, if you're in a relationship where you've established the I love you concept, that you always say it. And in some way, it's always true, because you do love them. But there's also the impulse to say it without really feeling it, which I'm now calling into question. What about that? What about when it is true, but as you're saying it, you're not feeling it? So you say thank you because you are grateful, somewhere down there. If you dig around, if you rummage in the basement, you're going to find your gratitude. If you rummage around, you'll find your love. But at that moment, you're not saying it. And to me, there's like an invitation to take a pause, to take a pause and be like, no, no, no, let me go find this thing before I express it. And also an understanding like, yeah, alright, this is a feeling, I can lose it sometimes. Not out of intention or whatever. But let me feel it first before I say it. 

CHARLES: Okay, so words don't always mean what we think they mean. Thank you doesn't actually always mean thank you. It could mean, I acknowledge this. How are you? Hey, how are you doing? That does not actually mean please tell me how you're doing? It's a greeting. I love you in a couple's dialogue can mean something like that too. It takes on a meaning in their own inner language, their couple's language. That doesn't mean what it might mean if you said it for the first time to some new person. So I'd say all this stuff we're saying, hold it lightly. Words are alive. Their meaning is a function of relationship. Any words I say to you, means something a little different than when I say them to something else. Because who I am is a little different with you than I am with anybody else. And this is like another one of the principles, it's to hold all of these things, I would say, lightly. One of the principles is that all of our stories are stories. So okay, so there's a truth in humor, that basically says, none of this is actually that serious. And it's also very serious. But on some level, it's like if you're acting in a movie, or a play or something like that, you're in the role. And you're not going to be like in the play, you're not going to be, oh, and by the way, that's not really a ship, that's actually a set piece. You're not going to step out of the play. You take the role seriously, and you fulfill the drama. But in the drama of our lives, sometimes like in between shows, like the actors step out of that a little bit. And we have these interregnums also, these moments where in order to prevent ourselves from losing ourselves completely in the roles, we've got to step out. And humor's a way to do that momentarily. Which is why it's such a deep form of solidarity. If you can make a joke to somebody, then you're acknowledging the common condition of yeah, you're playing a role, I'm playing a role and with this joke, we temporarily step outside of it, because we're in agreement that this is all kinds of funny. Like any joke, it transmits that on some level, which is why the humorlessness of a lot of our civic discourse today is a warning sign of impending strife. 

AUBREY: One of the things that Professor Mattias Desmet who studies mass formation, one of the things he talked about is the value of humor. Because at the point that you're laughing, like nothing is funny in "Big Brother". Like nothing is funny in Orwell's story "1984".

CHARLES: The only laughter he says, Orwell, in "1984" is the laugh of triumph over a groveling enemy. 

AUBREY: Right, right, some gloating, which is this perverted version of laughter. But yes, that is like this real necessity to be able to laugh at ourselves, for sure, and laugh at just different situations. And as you said, it gives distance. And also, the value of the elevation--

CHARLES: I didn't mean that by the way.

AUBREY: The elevation of vibration that comes from laughter too, is like laughter is bringing you to a higher state. And I was talking to Matias de Stefano, who's this kind of this cosmic encyclopedic figure. I won't go into all of that, the podcast will be out soon. But ultimately, he was talking about the highest vibrational states that we can attain. And people are really keen on sex magic right now, just because, of course in the orgasmic energy of sexuality and pleasure, you're reaching a really high frequency if you're doing it with that intention. Absolutely. So, from that place, you have access to the ability to draw realities into your field. Either internally into your emotional space, or potentially even something more than that. Potentially even the interconnectedness of all possibilities and timelines you can adjust. Who knows, certainly feels like you can. But he was also saying, people are discounting laughter as this higher vibration state, where this is one of the highest vibrations. When you're rolling in laughter, this state in and of itself is such a beautiful place to be, and so powerful, and so rich. And then I started thinking about comics, and I'm friends with a lot of comics. I'm like, oh, they're laughter shamans. People are paying money to go there, to go to the laughter shaman so they can experience something. And then everything is different after they've had that laughter. That big laugh, all of the things that they were so worried about, they all seem a little lighter. It's like deep shamanic work done under the guise of being a comic which they are a comic. But it's more powerful than that. 

CHARLES: Because the reality that it seemed so consuming seems a little less real, after being in the comedic realm. Yeah, it is profound. And I don't know, I just wanted to throw in there, just like a little caution about the idea of the higher and higher and highest, one of the highest states. These states, these vibrations are different. But I'm not sure if I would put them on a scale, simply because laughter and humor can also be a deflection of intimacy. I've certainly used it that way. When it's getting intense, derail it with a joke. But what you're saying is definitely true also. 

AUBREY: Yeah. And also sex can also be used as a way, it depends on how you use it. It can be used as an escape, for sure. I mean, you can whip open your laptop, hit in one of your favorite porn tubes.

CHARLES: Rip open your pants. 

AUBREY: Rip open your pants, and grab some lotion or go dry, whatever you want to do. And, that's an escape. And that's not exactly like aha, I've achieved fucking Samadhi through this. And same with laughter. I think it is important to say all of these things. And high doesn't designate better. What I think he means is it's an access point. It's an access point that's different than something like jealousy, or something like envy, or one of these states where you have very little access to do things, to manifest things into your life, to be magnetic. If you're just sitting and wallowing envy, which some say is one of those states, you're a little bit stuck. And you're not exactly going to draw a lot of beautiful things into your life. And so, I think it's just about access, not necessarily about better or worse. And not that envy isn't a chord on the universal organ, their church organ of all existence. And that chord itself isn't also a beautiful part of the universal symphony. However, if you're stuck in that chord, you got very few options. And I think that's the idea is to give you a little more play, and a little more of an option. I want to talk about the idea of disclosure, because we were talking about basically telling the truth. And you gave a really beautiful essay on what happened during the JFK assassination, and how this sowed some seeds of mistrust. And that's not the only place in which the world has seen something that didn't seem quite right, and that didn't seem like this was a single shooter, all set up in all the ways, and we don't know for sure, but it sowed these seeds of distrust. And then there's COINTELPRO. And then there's all of these ways in which we know that different authorities have been fucking with us. The billions of dollars of fines paid by pharmaceutical companies, the bribery, the different things that we've seen. And it developed this poison pill. So, I'd like you to talk a little bit about this poison pill and about the cure for the poison pill, and the importance of disclosure. And maybe we can bring that all the way back down to the personal as well. But let's talk about the macro first. 

CHARLES: Okay. To do that, I really would need to give you maybe a five, 10-minute version of the essay that you're talking about, because it has to start with a story. 

AUBREY: Yeah, please. 

CHARLES: Yeah. It started when I was holding a retreat, and talking about the mythology of separation and progress and the genocide and the ecocide that has accompanied this ascent of humanity. I was laying out the whole thing. And a guy in the retreat was like, hold on a second. He's like, it can't be all bad. Civilization has produced incredible beauty as well. And then, he related a story. He said, when I was a boy in 1960 or something, my father took me aside and he said, "Son, we are living at the greatest moment of history in the greatest country that has ever been on this earth." And he said, "Charles, surely, there was some truth in that." And I said, yeah. Even knowing the slavery and genocide and ecocide, that was part of the building of America, still there was something transcendent, especially at that moment, the ideal of America. Even though we had these ideals; freedom, democracy, liberty, progress, we can do anything. It's getting better and better. And at that time, the civil rights movement was really getting underway. The environmental movement was getting underway. So even like the remaining darkness, it looked like we were going to take care of that too. The world was going to heal. We had a new president, an anti-imperialist president, a pro-civil rights president, John F. Kennedy, who was taking on the military industrial complex. His joint chiefs of staff. Anyway, so I told my dad this story. He was born in 1940. This glorious vision of America. And he's like, "Yeah, I felt it. And I remember the day it turned dark. November 22, 1963. That day is burned in his psyche, and in so many, that was the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. "The day it turned dark," he said. And after that, as much as people still pretended to believe in themselves, as much as they bought into the official explanation of what happened on that day, on some level, the dream died. People no longer actually believed. And what happened, I think, is that the public willingly swallowed an obvious lie. If you look into the history of it, I mean, there's no way that it was just like this lone shooter. I mean, on the face of it, like, I'm not going to go into the details. Watch Oliver Stone or something. I mean, you don't have to do that much sleuthing to understand that. I mean, even if the official narrative is true, it's still a big thing to swallow. But people swallowed it easily, because they were afraid. To not believe it would have meant that this whole story of America wasn't true. The CIA killed the president? That's not how democracy is supposed to work. We're supposed to be the exemplar of democracy. So people swallowed a lie. And it's like in any--

AUBREY: Because the alternative was such a horrible reality. They couldn't hold it. The dissonance was too great. 

CHARLES: Yeah, your reality would fall apart and your identity in that, it's like in a marriage. If there's a cheating spouse, usually the other spouse is the last one to know about it. And he's going to be ignoring all the whispers, ignoring all the signs, making excuses. And what's lost in that relationship is any kind of trust. So at that moment, the American public began to lose trust in the government. And it was no longer the government of the people by the people and for the people. An opposition developed. A rift that has reached an extreme degree today. And also because of this, like deep seated distrust, it continually finds expression in all kinds of conspiracy theories. So, the Kennedy assassination was the mother of all conspiracy theories, which cannot possibly be all true. They all contradict each other, but there is truth in all of them. And the truth that rides the vehicle of conspiracy theories, is that we're being lied to, that there is a reality that is hidden from us, that things don't work the way that we are superficially presented them as working. And in order to heal this divide, and to heal the country, and bring to a large extent the world, and to bring citizens and authority back into coherence. Because authority is not supposed to be something we're at war against. Authority, I mean, we're supposed to respect people in authority because they've earned that authority. In a healthy society. 

AUBREY: And in a microcosm, that's the way it works. Like in the company I founded, Onnit, we had 180 employees. I founded, now I have this much smaller team or whatever, but I understand that my leadership... Yes, I have the ability to fire someone. I can use force to move something. But it only works if they really respect me. Everything starts to degrade at the moment where they don't respect my leadership, and they don't respect me as a figure. And, ultimately, at that point, I stepped down as CEO, partly because I wasn't doing enough work for them to fully respect me for that title. It became a namesake rather than an actuality. And actually, there was somebody else in the company who was doing the work. And so, everyone, "Was it hard? I was like, "No." it was just real, it was the truth. It was the only thing that could bring the company back into truth because for six months or a year before that, I wasn't doing the work of a CEO. I was just holding the title. And so as soon as I stepped back, that was corrected. Truth regained, and people still admired and respected me as the founder. And it was still love and hugs when I was going through the hallway, and big smiles and all of those things. But that little bit of CEO, really, I mean, how long have you been in the office? I haven't seen you that much. That was all corrected, and then the company flourished in that state. It was bringing things back to truth. But as you were saying, like the natural inclination is authority, people want to follow people who lead with truth and love and heart. 

CHARLES: So, if you were running a company, and you had to rely on the constant threat of, I'm going to fire you, that's not going to be a happy company. It's not going to get a lot done. People are going to do just enough to avoid being fired. They're going to be at each other's throats competing for favor, kind of like this country right now. If we had a healthy country, then people would willingly comply with all of the mandates. Because there would have been a history of trust built up. And we don't have that. So, the very fact of this tremendous vaccine hesitancy, I mean, I'm not hesitant. Like, oh, I'm about to do it, but I'm hesitating. No. Anyway, the very fact of this already means that there's a problem. And we have to instead of demonizing the vaccine resistant, what's wrong with them? Let's come up with some psychosocial diagnosis. In problematizing them, we have to ask, okay, is their distrust well founded? What is it showing us about the relationship between the authority and the people? How do we bring them back together again? So, you opened this conversation with its disclosure. It's transparency. That's where trust comes from. It comes from honesty, it comes from, here's me. And so that's why I proposed, I said, the Kennedy assassination cover up was like this radioactive pill that was insinuated into the body politic, that is generating poison, corrupting tissues, sending this metastasizing cancer throughout the body. And you can fight cancer forever. But if you don't remove the pill, then you're going to be fighting it forever and never healing it. And so, that's what it's going to take. Even at the end, I even said, you know who you are. It's time for disclosure. And on top of that disclosure comes, because lies grow. Like in order to maintain a lie, you have to tell a bigger lie and a bigger lie and a bigger lie until you're living in a matrix of lies, which we are. So, it's a big deal to remove that pill. And who knows what else gets revealed? And in order to prepare the ground for disclosure, we the people have to step into a place of forgiveness. So ultimately, the bargain has to be disclosure in exchange for amnesty. Because the punishment mentality is, it strengthens the field of domination of which lying and manipulation is part. It's part of the same vibration. That's the sacrifice that we have to be willing to make for the truth, is to let go of revenge. The guardian at the threshold requires that coin for us to enter into the healed society that is possible after disclosure.

AUBREY: Yeah. There's so many ways and I think if we all look in our hearts, no matter where we fall, there's all places where we mistrust the government. Maybe it's about UFOs. Maybe you've seen some footage, and you're like, "That fucking thing is real. And somebody's lying about it. May not be Roswell, but it may be..." Even that itself--

CHARLES: Well, they admitted that they were lying to us. Isn't that weird, like 2017 New York Times, all this navy stuff. And life goes on as normal.

AUBREY: Well, it's because of what you said. To acknowledge that the government is intentionally lying in this patronizing way in any aspect, it fundamentally changes our orientation to everything, and we're also not ready to forgive that. So, it's too much, too much dissonance. And so, I think it's happening in a gradual way. But as you said, in order to really heal, it has to be complete. It has to be a complete disclosure really fully for this to heal. They have to be like, alright, so check it out. We had some advanced, and I don't know if this is true. I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not even sure about aliens, because I've seen a lot of aliens on DMT. I'm like, fuck, man, maybe it's all a DMT vision. I'm not sure. I think so. I'm pretty sure. I haven't seen one though.  But ultimately, I heard that there was advanced information about the planes that were coming to attack Pearl Harbor. We didn't create the planes, Japan was attacking, but we knew, we had some intel. And we were like, fuck, if we let them actually bomb us, the whole country will get behind the war effort, and we'll be able to stop the Nazis. So, I can put myself in the mind of someone who understands our reticence after the brutal World War One, the reticence to enter another world war and just say, no, no, no, let's pretend it's not happening. And them saying, listen, we're going to lose a few troops, we're going to lose a few troops anyways. But if we don't stop this, and I'm not saying it justifies it, this is not a justification. I'm just putting myself in a place of forgiveness, where I can say, would I have done different if I were them, and I was in that paradigm, and I didn't believe in the metaphysical things that I do? Let's say they didn't know that, and they were like, we know that if we let them bomb, and we act surprised, then we will get the full support of the American people. We'll make all the weapons, we'll do all the things, we'll go and we'll stop the Nazis, and we'll win. And we'll stop this great horror from happening. And maybe pragmatically it was, there's an argument that that was right. And then you could extrapolate that to. People extrapolate that same thing to 9/11, the towers. And that obviously, is a different thing, because you could say it's about terror. But it's a little bit easier to say that's a lot more about money and oil and a variety of different things. But perhaps there was that belief in terror, perhaps there was some. So, you have all this doubt, and you don't know, this unshakeable doubt. And then there's the truly proven things, with the COINTELPRO, the infiltration of the civil rights movement, and things that we know existed. And as you said, some of this UFO disclosure. There's things that we know are there, but are not fully acknowledged and integrated. Like a psychedelic journey can give you a revelation. But unless you integrate it, it just stays somewhere in the uncrystallized form, and you haven't metastasized it in a healthy way. And I think we're in this place where we need that truth to be integrated, and let go of to really move forward healthfully. Because right now we're in a really poisonous spot. And I think it's, as you said, because of this deep and well-founded mistrust. And then it extends too far in some cases. I mean, maybe there wasn't a moon landing, but I've talked to some astronauts and they seem honest, and they're like, "Yeah, for sure. We were there." And then you could extend it even further to absurdity, which is the flat earth situation.

CHARLES: Yeah, I know, some very intelligent people who believe it. 

AUBREY: And like we're about to send stratospheric balloons. We have been already and there's pictures that I'm getting on my phone because I'm a part of a company--

CHARLES: Oh, you're part of the hoax too, huh, Aubrey?

AUBREY: Yeah, called Worldview where I'm seeing the curvature of the earth over the Grand Canyon and stuff, from fucking helium balloons. And we're all going to go up there in like two years, so this is going to be a tough day for the Flat Earthers when that happens. But nonetheless, I get it, though, because there's well founded mistrust. And so, in order to cure, the flat earth is a symptom. It's a symptom of the same poison pill. 

CHARLES: Yep, that's right. And the way to remove the poison pill is disclosure, honesty, transparency. I mean, this is a common theme, whether it's relationship work, or politics. It's even the metamorphosis of the surveillance state. The surveillance state is actually setting the technological groundwork of transparency in a way. Right now it's transparency of the all-seeing eye, at the center of the panopticon, surveilling all of the people. But ultimately, it's everybody sees everybody. Not one sees many. So, this is the upwelling of transparency that's coming into every aspect of our lives. And it's part of the dissolving of some of the barriers and boundaries between us as human beings, and other aspects of the transparency is dropping our pretenses and our personas, and our posturing. And me and you, brother, this willingness to not pretend with each other, all part of the same movement. 

AUBREY: Yeah, in January I did Ayahuasca down at Soltara in Costa Rica with Vylana.

CHARLES: Oh, we're not talking about drugs, are we?

AUBREY: Oh, we're going there. We're going there. Talking about drugs. So, I did some drugs in the jungle. And there was this deep feeling that I came out of the ceremony, and she's had it, and we've talked about it before, but she's had a huge history of basically every boyfriend that she's had being lying, cheating, having another woman on the side, lying about her finding out, and this deep distrust that has come from male lust. Ultimately, that was the reason for the secrecy, the desire to live out their lust, and then lie about it, because it wasn't allowed in the contract of the relationship. And so, what I sensed was that if I honestly expressed, even though I've been absolutely impeccable in action and deed. If I honestly expressed that I too, carried that lust, but you can trust me, babe. I just need you to see that I carry that lust, and I need you to not judge it, and to know me in that. Because if you don't know me, and that you don't really see me. And if you don't really see me, you can't really love me, the whole me. You can just love a part of me that you see. So, I came out and I was like, "Hey, babe, I had a big deep calling to express to you and have you help me hold this lust and see it." And she kind of laughed. She wasn't ready for it at that point. But it was this gnawing, growing thing that throughout the year, we ultimately had to, we had to come to terms with. And when she was ready, it was a big, another journey down there was a big moment where she finally was able to see it, and not fear it and trust me and see me. And our love from that disclosure and her willingness to see it. Even though I expressed it, she kind of laughed it off, just like the UFO disclosure. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Wasn't ready to really integrate it because it was scary. But then when she was ready, then our relationship and our closeness, nothing else changed other than the disclosure, and the receiving of the disclosure, and the release of all judgment about it. And then all of a sudden, our relationship hit even another level. 

CHARLES: So, this is a really important aspect of transparency or disclosure. If somebody is lying to me, the first thing I ask is, why don't they feel safe to tell me the truth? And it could be simply because they have a habit of lying. And even though I'm not going to judge them, they think I am from past experience. Okay, but it could be that I have judgment, that even if I try to restrain it, I'm going to on some energetic level be shaming them, be punishing them, going to hold it, use it against them somehow.

AUBREY: Or just a simple withdrawal of your love temporarily, which is cold, cold wind. 

CHARLES: Right. So, that's what I ask myself if someone's lying to me. And translating that into the relationship between the people and the government, we can ask the same question. Like if they're continuing to cover up, what part of that is because they don't feel safe? Part of them wants to reveal. This is true in relationships too. The cheating spouse wants to get caught. On some level, will sabotage his own efforts to maintain the pretense. They want to get caught, but they're afraid, they're afraid of disclosure with good reason. When you read the stuff of yeah, we're going to court martial law him and they'll be on the gibbet. That's why disclosure, and I said amnesty, but it could be forgiveness. But it's really, at bottom it's a release of judgment. That's why those two go hand in hand, just like in a relationship. And I'm not saying that...

AUBREY: We've got our friend. The cats have been a part of our journey all day. Deciding right now is a good time to exercise those claws. 

CHARLES: So, yeah. It's not to say if someone's lying to you that you're to blame. But it is a dance. And there's always work to do on both sides. Even if it's a tiny speck of judgment, what is being reflected to you by the lying? And are you willing to, like this dominator part, that's like, yeah, if I only catch him in the lie, then the tables will be turned. If you actually want respect, you have to let go of that. If you want equality, if you want a relationship without controlling each other, and dominating each other, and let's also talk about politics here. If you want that, you have to let go of the power that you will get when the lies are revealed. That's the sacrifice we put out on the altar of healing. Relational, political, everything. 

AUBREY: Yeah, this is a fundamental practice of transformational experience. So, some of the most powerful and profound breathwork facilitators are Lukis Mac, Hellè Weston. And they came out to Sedona to offer the breathwork. And the breathwork is an hour of continued breathing, and it's incredibly cathartic. Many emotions will arise, and some of them will look straight up like an exorcism. But they're only, and I don't say that in a denigrating way. It's just like energy or even a demonic Catholic way. It's just like energy is moving at such an extreme level, and the tears and the crying and the wailing. And so, there's very trained, highly trained facilitators, and really intuitive people who can guide this thing. But the agreement is that everybody watching will only receive anything that emerges with absolute radical love. And that freedom of expression and permission to wail, to cry, to ask for help, to moan, to whatever, comes to orgasm, which sometimes happens in breathwork, where that energy comes. That permission of non-judgement that allows the freedom to allow the healing to occur. And it's such a fundamental principle that applies to every different thing. That's what you call a safe container. And the safe container can be in a dyad, it can be with yourself. Probably the most safe container is with yourself. Can you admit to yourself your own shit without judging yourself and removing your own self-love? Probably the most fundamental place that we need to have disclosure. I mean, this whole idea of the shadow, that's the thing that you don't want to look at, because you're ashamed of it. What if you didn't judge it? Then you could see it. And then, you could ultimately learn to love and integrate that, become a whole being. 

CHARLES: Yeah, yeah. Beautiful. I call this shadow work if it's motivated by this kind of heaviness, and this shame of, oh man, I've got to work on my shadow. And so and so hasn't worked on his shadow. That's more shadow. 

AUBREY: Yeah, you're just adding to the shadow. And that's so much of what we see is the judgment of this, versus that and all of this. It's not part of the revolution. So here we go, one more thing in saying, part of the principles of this revolution is a radical realignment of our attitude towards judgment. And I think that is the liberating force. What do we want? We want to be free, and we want to be safe. And freedom and safety are on a continuum, where you don't feel safe if you're not free, and you don't feel free if you're not safe. But we want both. And to get that, to get that, it's just like, we've got to just let it all out. Like fucking let it all out. Yeah, alright, you've looked at some porn that's a little aggressive, and it turned you on. Alright, okay, it's okay. Like you've done these, it's okay. Me too. Everybody being like, yep. Maybe I didn't do it exactly the same way but I am you too. It's all good. And then, then we can collectively heal. And then maybe we can stop the asteroid that's coming, or whatever floods are going to happen and come together and be like, alright, we're all good with each other? Okay. Now let's look at this cataclysmic planet we got, make a plan together. Anything else you want to add? A message from your heart? Anything else that you would want to express that could find or meet people in a place, that could be some medicine, some inspiration, some clarity? Just want to open the space for your intuition. Your desire to serve for good of all.

CHARLES: Somebody offered me a keyword that is a portal to something that's really on people's minds right now. 

AUBREY: Guilt. 

CHARLES: For me, guilt is really fear of getting caught. Fear of somebody finding out what I've done. It's like, bedevils me. If I've done something, but nobody knows about it, I feel guilty because I'm going to get caught. One of the ways that parents control children, teachers control children is through punishment. You do something against the rules, and if you don't get caught, nothing bad happens to you. If you get caught, you get punished. Underneath that whole operating system, is the idea that if you weren't going to get punished, you'd just do all kinds of bad stuff. So, it comes from a misapprehension about what a human being is here for. What would your life be like if you weren't afraid of getting caught, you weren't afraid of getting in trouble? If you weren't afraid of bad karma, if you didn't lead your life according to reward and punishment. When my brother was a young man, he was traveling. At some youth hostel, an older woman said to him, "You can do whatever you want." as a mantra. It was really liberating for him. And if you say that sentence with different emphasis and meditate on it, it opens up all kinds of different meanings. You can do whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. And one of the ways of taking that is that there's no cosmic referee that's keeping score, and is going to reward or punish you after your life is over. But you can do whatever you want. So, what do you want to do? What is the most delightful thing to do? Already, that question is revolutionary. When I explore that, I realize like this long history I had of being cut off from what I really want to do, and accepting substitutes for the deeper pleasures, like there's this idea that if you let go of guilt, then you would be a bad boy. There would be nothing to restrain you. It's not true. But what it does is confront you with okay, if there's no punishment, then what? How do I live my life? And contrary to popular conception, it won't be a degenerate destructive life to others and yourself. It'll be quite the opposite. 

AUBREY: I experience guilt in this guilt of, I'm not doing enough. And it's this constant feeling of I'm not doing enough, which restricts me from doing what I want. So, the actions that I take are not bound from love, that motivation that we talked about. They're motivated by guilt still. And so they're bound in guilt. And so they're bound in judgment. Any action taken in guilt is bound in judgment. 

CHARLES: Enough for what? Enough for you finally to qualify for heaven? I mean, what does that enough mean? To be a good person, to be able to love yourself? 

AUBREY: Right, and this is where, when you really, what you're saying is really revolutionary, because it's so embedded, that we need this guilt. And somehow I still heap it on because, and I'm not even conscious of like some referee, and I don't believe in this concept of heaven. I don't have the principles of that. But it's still insidiously ingrained and intertwined in my every action. And I think for me, the liberation of that is faith, like we were talking. There's a link between faith being a liberator of guilt, in my particular type of guilt. Because if I believe that I can do what I want, from a place of love, and if I just continue to act from love, it will all be okay. And I don't need to be guilty for doing what I want. Because that actually is the plan. And I can trust myself and I can trust the world. 

CHARLES: It's a form of maturity. Guilt is a child state. The parent is going to punish you. And the maturity is that you're not subject to that. It's actually sovereignty. The king is beyond, he's the highest authority. So, no one's going to punish the king. He can do whatever he wants. So, when you accept your kingship, or your queenship, that's the confronting question. If you are a lord and sovereign of the realm, what do you actually want to do? What gives the king the greatest pleasure? It's actually to serve the people. 

AUBREY: Yes, it is. There is no drug like service when taken pure. There is no drug like it. There is nothing that even comes close. But you have to take it for real, You can't pretend to take it. It's for your own good. It's not a service then. 

CHARLES: It's not service, if you need to display it to that inner referee, who then judges you good. It's not instrumental for some other end. And, yeah.

AUBREY: That's it. Well, as we said, thank you for being a light that shines on this truth that we all have, illuminating a flag that we all carry in our heart, like a true banner, a banner of love, and a banner of interbeing, and a banner of what we really are, which is what we truly want to fight for. And, may this message and your words, which the passion and the fire, and also the humor, and the way that you're going, I just want to acknowledge how beautiful it's been to see these essays since your commitment, since when you sat there and you were like, enough, not fucking around anymore. It's been beautiful to see a brother take that mantle, receive the arrows of criticism and the injustice of the world trying to tear you down, and not be broken by it, and just continue to steadfastly offer yourself to be put to good use. Damn, the universe is doing a good job putting you to good use. So, I just honor that in you, brother. 

CHARLES: Well, thank you, and I'll just say that, I'm only able to do that because others are holding me in that. Courage is a function of community. So to the extent that I'm displaying any of it, it's because of the people who love me and see me. So, thank you for being one of those people. 

AUBREY: Absolutely. And I bet there's a lot more people who are watching whose love just increased, increased exponentially. So thank you to all of you for giving us courage and for being part of the community that's bringing about this more beautiful world. Also, with the release of this podcast is an amazing animation of a story that you told on the last time we did a podcast. So, everybody, please go check that out. I actually don't have a URL. I'll make one up. Aubreymarcus.com/gathering. Gathering it is. Aubreymarcus.com/gathering, because the piece is called "Gathering of The Tribes." So, go there, check out the video. It will be accessible from there. I'll also post at a lot of places, but excited to share that. We had the incredible musician Jon Hopkins come in and do a custom score. Vylana is singing on it. The animator, Aldous, animated it. It's a beautiful offering. So, I want people to check that out as well. And Substack, that's your new spot.

CHARLES: Yeah, that's where I post my essays. 

AUBREY: And that's a substack.com/charleseisenstein? 

CHARLES: I think it's actually charleseisenstein.substack.com. Anyway, you can find it. 

AUBREY: We'll figure it out. Show notes. Show Notes, baby. We don't need to do this on the fly. Fuck it. We'll do it live. Thank you, brother. It's always a fucking pleasure, man. And so happy to have you here in the house and just your energy. Cold plunging in the morning and saunaing, and rescuing cats from the ceiling and whatever it is, man. It's just, it's great when we get together. So, appreciate you and love you. Goodbye, everybody. Much love.