 And I think that we're at that point of like a crisis moment as humanity is like having the mirror turned on itself. So like we've built all these amazing technologies and the industrial revolution and civilization and all these things that we think are the ascent, you know? But then when we start to get closer and closer to the peak of that, we look around and we're like, oh my gosh, we're interconnected with all things and we need to have respect for our environment. You know, we need to stop like we need to have appropriate technologies that work with the whole. So that's part of what I feel like my work in this world is, is to work on my own self, my own consciousness in order to get to the point where I can offer this gift of awareness and seeing that we're all interconnected. Boom! What's up everyone? Welcome to Simulation. I'm your host, Alan Sockin. We are at Conscious Attacking's Awaken Future Summit. We are now going to be talking to Ian Michael Abair. Hello. Hello. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. It's good to see you again. Good to see you again too. Yeah, it's been a while. Yeah. It's been a while. There's been a lot of leveling up in the meanwhile, I'm so excited to talk. Ian Michael, let's start with who you are and what you represent. Sounds good. Well, I typically identify as being a human being, which is a really, you know, interesting concept and experience. And I grew up in the middle of Alaska in this lifetime. And so deep in my veins and in my psyche are wild places. And I've always been an explorer of the wilderness, whether it's the wilderness that is the natural world or the wilderness that's inside of us. And that wilderness has the whole possible spectrum of experiences, beauty, challenges, and that's really who I am. I'm an explorer of all of that. And I'm a creator. I grew up the son of a carpenter, used to build custom homes that were, you know, appropriate to Northern climates and energy efficient and ecologically designed and all of that. And as I got into my teenage years, I had the dawning realization that not all of humanity has the same experience as me and that there was a lot of suffering in the world, you know. And including in my own family and living in the North is not an easy thing. But I realized that a lot of people throughout the world are really disconnected from themselves and from the natural world. So my early intentions for this life were to move to the jungle in Central America and try to live inside of an eco community. Didn't quite end up working out that way. Human life has had a different circuitous path to that, but I really have always had this desire to live on the land, live in community and just live a good healing life, like a very simple good healing life. And that has manifest as different ways that I've served humanity through retreat centers or getting a masters in counseling psychology and serving many different diverse populations and serving Esalen Institute, the birthplace of the human potential movement and just continuing to track and listen to who are the people that I want to be aligned with, what are the organizations that really call to me. And so I would say that's kind of in summary what I'm up to. All the way from having the wild roots in Alaska, all the way to the identification as a human being, and then just the weirdness of that experience, the beauty of that experience and then all the way through figuring out how to, you feel like there's some sort of a strange disconnection of humans from source, teach us more about this. Yeah, for sure. I think that it first starts with a disconnection from ourselves and a disconnection from others and a disconnection from the natural world and our essential nature as life, as part of this ongoing process of DNA and adaptation and evolution is something that our ego forgets that we're part of a process. We identify with these moments in time, how we fit into society, how we fit into our environment, and so we build up this whole concept of who we are. And in reality, that is gone in a moment. And so I was just describing this experience earlier at the conference. We were doing an exercise to talk about a moment of awe. So there was this woman, Cassandra Vaitan, I've worked with her at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. She was sharing how the founder of Institute of Noetic Sciences, Edgar Mitchell, was the sixth man to walk on the moon. And when he was coming back from walking on the moon, he was looking outside the capsule and he saw the sun and the earth and realized that it's all one unity. He had a moment of satori. And so... Satori. Yeah. Teaches about that quite a bit. It was basically a term that is used to describe a moment of recognizing the unity of all things. So he was looking down at the earth and he said, oh my gosh, all human experiences contained on this ball, as far as we know, and that all life is contained on this ball as far as we know. And there's no divisions of countries or species or any of it. It's all actually one unity of consciousness. That was what he experienced. So, after she gave this prompt, I was sharing with a colleague, Guy Martijn Scherp. He's got a retreat center called Synthesis. They do psychedelic work in the Netherlands. And he's a partner on this project that I'll get into more about holos. And so we were paired up and I was describing to him a moment of awe. And when I was 19 years old, I climbed the tallest mountain in North America, Denali, in the middle of Alaska. It's actually the tallest mountain, terrestrial mountain in the world, from base to summit. It goes from 2,000 feet to 20,000 feet. So we climbed over the course of 22 days to the summit of this mountain from the lake to the top of the mountain. And about 18 days through, it was the dawn of my 20th birthday. We were hiking up a ridge. It was, I was out about 17,000 feet, so pretty tall up on this mountain. And I was looking out towards the northern horizon. And the sun hit the horizon and then came back up. And there was this moment of profound stillness. And in stillness, we have an opportunity to see things from a new vantage point, possibly a more clear vantage point. And I could feel myself, my sense of attention and awareness, merge into the whole earth, merge into the sun. And I could feel the way that the earth was tilted towards the sun in the summer and tilted away from the sun in the winter. And the way that each day is a spinning of that cycle. So I got to experience through my mind and through my awareness, like merging into our solar system. And the reason I share this is I think that it's analogous to the ascent of any man and ego, where we think that or any woman and ego. Where we think we're like, or even civilization. We think we're like climbing the mountain. We're like getting to the peak of some experience. And then when we start getting closer to that peak, we realize that actually we are consciousness and all things are conscious. So part of my experience and my belief is that all things including mountains are actually conscious. All life is conscious. The universe is aware. It's a self-aware universe. And I can't remember what the prompt was that initiated that story with you. But I think it's an important analogy for just the folly of our experience as human beings and what we're doing. It's like we try to build all these things and then we end up coming to the realization. And I think that we're at that point of a crisis moment as humanity is having the mirror turned on itself. So we've built all these amazing technologies and the industrial revolution and civilization and all these things that we think are the ascent. But then when we start to get closer and closer to the peak of that, we look around and we're like, my gosh, we're interconnected with all things. And we need to have respect for our environment. We need to stop like, we need to have appropriate technologies that work with the whole. So that's part of what I feel like my work in this world is, is to work on my own self, my own consciousness in order to get to the point where I can offer this gift of awareness and seeing that we're all interconnected. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's a good one. Okay, yeah, the prompt being that we disconnect from the source and you give us this really profound illustration of how we have these moments of deep connection. Edgar Mitchell? Yeah, Edgar Mitchell. Yeah, from Nordic Sciences. Wow, yeah, what a profound one and then also yours on Denali. These types of experiences, there's no going back to the old mental maps. Exactly. It's the upgrades and they're gorgeous upgrades and that hopefully we can provide more experiences like that to humans. And when humans are born in metropolises that don't have the cosmic, the views of the cosmos or that barely have breathing space in parks and natures and stuff, it's just like, feels very disconnecting at times. And when we're so embedded in the economic machine and so distant from spiritual practices, it's yeah. So we have a lot of the physical 3D world to build in ways that get us there faster to this reconnection back to the unity. Okay, so then walk us through, so you gave us that example of the disconnection from source. Now you're connecting to your own divinity, your own this level of consciousness that you are striving to kind of upgrade yourself to be able to then bring forth better tools and awareness shifts for other people, right? Yeah, absolutely. And then what has been kind of those milestones for you in terms of where you're like, aha, aha, aha. And then what are the things that you've been building? Yeah, absolutely, thanks for asking. I think those aha moments have kind of come through a lot of different modalities. So it could have been as simple as being seven years old and running down a trail through a birch forest and feeling a sense of elation and awe and beauty and wonder and kind of dissolving into the forest in a sense. And then there's been all these different moments that have helped weave a tapestry and understanding of how the consciousness within me can recognize the consciousness beyond itself as actually one in the same. And so psychedelics certainly were a big part of that journey in my teenage years. And then I reached a point where they served their purpose for that time. And so the majority or all of my 20s were more in service to family, meditation, gardening, building homes. Like very like more earth based things, but the internal contemplative practice continued mostly through meditation. And so I had a teacher in India still do. And I had many experiences with them that were very psychedelic experiences. We're fully transcendent of the world of form. And so I recognize that there's a lot of pathways to getting to the same destination, it's like all weaving back to source as you were saying. And so most recently I spent a number of years at Esalen. And that kind of reopened me to the world of the human potential movements, psychedelics, the teachings of all of the luminaries of the 60s and 70s. And as I finished my time up and my service up at Esalen, I started to look at, okay, I experienced a template of how we can live. And how we can learn and how we can grow together there. And how can I bring that into the world? How can I bring what I learned from childhood about right way of living? And what I learned from Esalen and Sheena Hot Springs? How can I bring that into the world? So that has led me to this concept of holos. And it's a bit of a tip of a hat to Stan Groff. So Stan Groff had lived at Esalen at one point and was considered one of the co-founders of transpersonal psychology. And he developed a technique called holotropic breathwork, which was basically a means to transcendence, healing. And he developed a whole map of the inner landscape of what people would experience through holotropic breathwork. And I think for him it was partially a means to going into these transpersonal states that was legal. It was like a point when the LSD research that he had been doing very legally in the Czech Republic wasn't allowed in the US. And he developed this idea of the holotropic paradigm. And that was basically like returning to wholeness. It was like means for moving to wholeness. So holos represents wholeness. And that's a journey that each of us takes individually and that we're taking as a society and that we're realizing our wholeness with the ecological realities of this globe. Okay, okay, so it makes more sense. So then the experiences that can kind of lead us to the feelings of wholeness can be like you said, as simple as being walking down the path and seeing becoming one with the forest, dissolving into it. And then taking us all the way up to the work at Esalen and being around the thoughts of the luminaries of the past that have built up some of the updates that we've had with our awareness shifts. You then find that holos, wholeness. And what exactly is holos building? Yeah, so holos is building experiences and then ultimately centers that honor the power of plant medicines. So specifically psilocybin, San Pedro, and ayahuasca. And those being kind of a band of plants that have been helping humanity, especially the indigenous people of North and South America for thousands of years. And we believe that those are generally accessible to the public. And that they're also getting a lot of attention for being powerful healing modalities for things like depression, anxiety, PTSD, working with end of life issues. So we're basically, we're using these allies, these plant allies as a means to helping people return to what actually is. Which is that we are already whole. And that our relationship with the earth is what is needing really some work as a species. And so we believe in working with these allies through experiences and through centers to show people a new template for how to be and how to live. Thinking about the thousands of years of use of psilocybin and San Pedro and ayahuasca and what it's actually been able to do for millions of people and now being in the mainstream culture. Is there a way now to get through the taboo and to get to the utmost signal with these centers that are being built? You listed some synthesis. Also you've just done a lot of work with transformational retreat, center design and development. So you're extremely familiar with these processes. So is the idea then physical locations that people then come to those locations and then go through multi-day long processes? Exactly. Nutritional as well as body movement as well as medicine. Exactly. Teach us about what it looks like. Yeah, sounds good. So one thing that we're recognizing in the field of psychedelic medicine is that there's a lot of need for more preparation and for integration. So it's not just about the psychedelic experiences. And so the intention is that the experiences will be held within a bigger context of a multi-day, probably at least a week experience where people do have a holistic approach to healing where there's good food and you learn about personal practices and develop your own personal practices for taking whatever gifts you receive from the plants into your day-to-day life through meditation and embodiment practices, whatever those things may be. It's very much like if we're to take this word holos and really work with it in our own selves and lives, it has a lot to teach. Like just the concept of wholeness. It's like you're talking about the more mainstream adoption. I think that if we look towards the future, at the same time, we need to look towards the past, and that's how it grounds it. So in the past, these traditions were really held with a lot of reverence in indigenous cultures within the context of community. And so that's a big piece of what those traditions have to offer the future. It's like that is a beautiful template and there's specific ways to honor these medicines that if we look back at the past of what really worked, we can probably build a template for the future that is also going to work and be more accessible. And the template that you're talking about here of the past, how does the template of the past interplay with modernity, with the information technology agents of yet? Yeah, it's an ongoing conversation. It's like this moment is an integration of the past and the future. And so this moment, it's like how do these plants and states of consciousness relate to this present moment and what humans are doing? And what I found is that there's an intelligence in the plants themselves that is interacting with the present moment and really looking at it as an actual entity, like, hey, what are you humans up to? And we have something to teach you and maybe you have something to teach us. And there's actually a dialogue going on. There's an intelligence coming through humans too and through our capacity to build technology and AI and other AR, VR. Like there's something in all of that that is actually evolutionarily useful, otherwise it wouldn't be occurring. So like instead of having a dogmatism around like, here's nature, here's man, here's technology, I have a real curiosity about how are all of those things part of a conversation that's happening and how can they learn from each other? Whoa, OK, so then there is something that's embedded deeper in the consciousness of the cosmos that is at play between technology plants and humans and are that interplay to actually double click into it and dissect it and figure it out rather than maybe just in many ways sometimes it feels like the distractions away from what's actually important to unpack about it. Now, how do we get deeper into what plants are telling? So by doing things like Holos and going out, so we need to send the AI, ethicists and programmers to Holos to is that kind of a way to do the feedback loop with technology and play medicine? Yeah, that's definitely one possible way. And I think a lot of like, I think a lot of the artists, musicians, creatives are also really weaving the lessons of plant medicine and psychedelics into their creations and so that's another way that that dialogue is happening. But yeah, I have sat in medicine circles with people that are, you know, pretty far on the AI side, like working in AI. And the best, you know, the best case scenario that I can see is that we embed into some of these artificial intelligences also ancient intelligence. You know, there's another kind of AI. There's ancient intelligence and there's artificial intelligence. And so hopefully, you know, through care and consideration, some of that ancient intelligence and knowledge will get embedded into our technologies. I was just using this analogy yesterday or earlier today of like, OK, so let's just say that science tells us the universe of form is 13 to 14 billion years old. Mushrooms are like 2.5 billion years old. There's rock formations that human beings can see that are around a billion years old. So if you just were to like look at it from the standpoint of infinity, you could kind of look at 13 billion years as not that long. You could look down at it and say, OK, here's 13 billion years. There's a lot of intelligence in the physics of everything that was created during that time. There's a lot of intelligence in the 2.5 billion years that mushrooms and fungus have been around. There's a lot of intelligence in the rocks. And then human beings, it's like a tiny little blip in all of that 13 billion years. So I would hope that like we can have enough reverence for the universe to recognize that there's a weaving and there's an intelligence that we have to learn from and what created us and what the plants have to teach, what the fungus have to teach. Yeah, that's a real big history perspective on what's happening. We love big history and to view it, I love how you added, sometimes we look at just 13.8 billion and then we go, oh, that's everything. But then you went infinity. And when there's infinity and you look at 13.8 billion, then that looks small, right? And that's a great way to add down the big history scale. So then, yeah, you look at the, I didn't even know that. So fungus in general is 2.5 billion years old. Damn, damn. Wow, yeah, for some reason, is that older than trees? It's older than, yeah? Yeah. Wow, that's some old stuff. Yeah, and so, you know, there was a person in our session earlier that was talking about a really strong psilocybin journey that they went on. And they came to the point of actually having an interaction with the psilocybin and the spirit of the fungus or the consciousness of the fungi apart from himself. And so just to have that idea or that awareness that like human beings, like you and I are having a conversation, well, what would it be like for you to have a conversation with an entity that has been around for 2.5 billion years and has been like spreading its mycelium and watching this whole thing happen? I had a conversation like that with the Grand Canyon two years ago. So I was kayaking down the Grand Canyon, recognizing that these rocks that I was looking at were almost a billion years old. So I started like having this conversation with them. What have you seen? You know, that's like pretty impressive, you know, and then it's like our whole folly of, oh, yeah, we're creating AI and our fears around that or some people's fears around that or climate change or all these things like they are, you know, they are real, especially like climate change, you know, it's like that is causing the sixth mass extinction or it's one of the causal factors of the sixth great mass extinction of this planet. But, you know, in the grander scheme of things, if you're a rock or a fungus and you're watching all this, you're kind of like, huh, you really think you're that important, you know? And so it's good to put things in perspective and the mind has the capacity to hold all of those potentialities or stories. I mean, ultimately, they're kind of stories. Yeah, so the hefty dose of humility that is administered through thinking like this and also, yeah, yeah, yeah. And on also the that there's so much to get into conversation with something as ancient. Ancient intelligence, AI, embedding ancient intelligence into artificial intelligence, embedding AI and AI, I love it, I love it, yeah, that's excellent, that's excellent. And even the idea of something being artificial, you know, it's like, what does that definition actually mean? You know, like to another species. People have been saying it's not a good, yeah, it's probably not the right term. Term will evolve out of that term. Will evolve out of that term. I wonder what, yeah, super intelligence has been another common one, but super intelligence meaning non-narrow intelligence. So that's a general intelligence that's even able to self replicate itself and do additive manufacturing and all other kinds of crazy things. But I do much prefer something like a super intelligence. I'm glad that you mentioned that, you know, artificial, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then, you know, just to like weave it all the way back, it's like we have the capacity to understand all these things. And, you know, the mind can look at all the different aspects of reality and create culture. And then for me, I end up coming back to like, I'm in a body, you know, here I am, consciousness in a body, consciousness pervading a body. And what does my body want? You know, my body wants some really basic things, like to be comforted and to have good, healthy food and water and air. And so that's a big piece of the Holos narrative, but also of just like the human experience. What does it mean to be a whole human? You know, and so I think we've come, we've gotten kind of separated from that as a species. And it doesn't mean that we can't embed holistic ways of living into cities. But for me personally, it's really about a deep dialogue with the natural world. So, yeah. So Holos centers will be embedded in nature, just to remind people of that interdependence and like perfect harmony that we can live with in nature. On a scale of what's been passed down to us by our ancestors up until our little 25 or 50 year blips of time, let's say, compared to what maybe has been passed down through fungus or through other, yeah. I mean, yeah, what carries more intelligence in its vehicle, us or those systems? And so it's always an interesting thing to contemplate. Holos is coming in a very timely manner. Are we able to at all approximate when there will be a center available and where? Next year, we'll start. We'll start prototyping experiences at the beginning of 2020. And in North, Central, South America? Yeah, we're doing the research right now on all the legal jurisdictions. And so initially, it'll be experiences. And then the center itself will likely be in Costa Rica first. And then we're waiting for the North America and Canadian policies to catch up with ancient culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's quick thought on this. What are your thoughts about the reason why the ancient intelligences of plant medicines were banned was due to their catalyzing of feelings of unity, which would sacrifice the economic, yeah. Absolutely, I mean, there's like so many trails to go down there. One, I think it's the suppression of the feminine and like the hypermasculine culture that has basically said like the natural world is there for us to dominate. And when there's plants talking to you or talking to a culture, an indigenous culture saying, hey, you're part of everything. It's not a really popular way of seeing or being when you're in a system that needs to dominate. So I think that's like the primary unconscious thing that's happening. And then there's the next layer which is here are like religions or practices that the indigenous people were doing. And if we can take away their culture and their practices and make that wrong, then we have the upper hand. And so there is the Religious Freedoms Act. So there's things like the Native American church that can work with Payode or San Pedro or there's the UDV or there's practices where you can work with ayahuasca in the US within the Religious Freedoms Act. So that's like one safeguard that these plants have. But for a long time I think that was a big piece of the suppression is that it's about culture and suppression of the feminine. And then beyond that, it's like if there's substances that are legal, that we can tax and we can get people hooked on, then that's a really great formula or if there's substances that we can make illegal and we can get people hooked on them and then send them to jail because we're trying to take a certain population and keep them out of the power structure. Those are really good means to controlling a society. So you've got alcohol, highly addictive, tobacco, highly addictive and taxable. And so that's a really good reason why a government might want to keep that. Those two industries really strong. And then you've got things like heroin or cocaine. And as a government you might want to keep those strong so that you can choose populations that you want to keep out of society and send them to jail. Whereas, so I mean I'm giving you kind of a broad. I love it, keep going. And then you've got psychedelics which are actually like a liberation of the psyche and aren't addictive in the same ways. And so like those are the ones that you want to put into schedule one, say that they have no healing value and there you have it. Because it breaks down the system of your control. Well, yeah, so whatever is yet in aim to control has had a grip on propagating the economic machineries of the structures that currently exist and suppressing the healing properties, the unity properties of things like psychedelics and so much more. It's always fascinating to me thinking of what a simulation would look like if we grew up in a matriarchy. And just seeing and feeling what would be some of the great characteristics. What would be some of the ones that aren't so great? And how would we take the great ones? How could we implement them into what we currently have now? Just all different types of things like that. It's such a deep curiosity of mine and I end up bringing it back to myself and working on really coming to terms with the masculine and feminine within me and having them in some form of harmony and unity. That's kind of like a first step and then maybe I'll have something to say and contribute to the larger conversation. Yes, yes, yes. Two quick questions, E. Michael, two quick questions. Are we in a simulation? I don't have an answer to that, yeah. I mean, largely like yes. In the sense that everything that we're experiencing is filtered through a very, very small bandwidth of reality. And so in the sense of a simulation being just a small band of what we can experience that's actually, to some extent, manipulated by our senses and by our memories and by what we're expecting to see. Then we're a simulation that we're creating. We're in a simulation that we're creating, to a large extent, with the way that our mind is wired. Yeah, I've been having some really fascinating thought processes and conversations, though, around what is happening with AR, VR, and more immersive experiences that are created by technology and by man that even simulate natural experiences in nature. And how that has therapeutic benefits, actually, for relaxation and all these things. And at the same time, we're moving pretty far into the movie, The Matrix, where you're just hooking yourself up and living in a simulation. So I don't necessarily have all the answers to that. But I have glimmers of the ultimate reality and truth. So I don't take too much of this. I take it all at face value, yeah. And then the last question is what is the most beautiful thing in the world? Well, the first thing that came to mind was my kids. And I think that there's a way that we see as parents our own innocence within our kids and our own beauty and creativity. And so I think the most beautiful thing in the world is probably creativity and innocence. It's like going back to that seed moment that the universe started expanding and things moved into greater complexity. It's like whatever that moment of conception was that the sperm and egg come together or in other species when that moment of creation happens. I think that that's the most beautiful thing. And you can see it in a child's eyes with the twinkle and excitement. It's like it's that same moment of creation that is in a flower that is blossoming. Yeah, I would say that's the most beautiful thing. I love it. This has been such a wonderful conversation. Yeah. Thanks again. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Yeah, brother. This was a pleasure. Thank you. What's the link for Holos? Holos.global. Holos.global, everyone. Check out the link in the bio to that. Also check out the rest of Ian Michaels links in the bio. And also support the organizations, the entrepreneurs, the artists around the world that you believe in. Conscious Hackings links are below. Support them. Also simulations links are below. Support us. And have more conversations around the world with our friends, our families, our co-workers, people online on social media about plant medicines, about these retreat center designs and development and this unity, how we can get there most effectively together. And go and build the future, everyone. Manifest your dreams into the world. Thank you so much for tuning in, and we will see you soon. Boom. Nice. That was a blast. That was really fun. Good. I'm glad you had a good time. I had a great time too. Yeah, you were such a pleasure.