 Many animals make things that are beauty, but I don't we don't know if they step back and appreciate that beauty We make art we create and that's something very unique to humans And I'm saying there's something in that that is important to also Tapping into these deeper layers of our mind and our heart and our our body consciousness our body memory about trauma And how do we work through those things that they're not stuck Boom, what's up everyone welcome to simulation. I'm your host on sake and we are at consciousness hackings awaken future summit We are now going to be talking to East Forest. Hello. Hello. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it Yeah, I'm very excited. This is a music-centric show music-centric show with their centerpieces and piano Actually East performed today in the morning in tomorrow. Yeah Morning is sort of like starting the day It is starting the day of ceremony and It was just it was beautiful Unlocking for so many people and connecting for so many people a composer producer musician an artist You know, we'll have we have some of that b-roll from from the From what you did this morning embedded here for people to view East let's start with who are you and what do you stand for? Who am I as an artist because otherwise it's a bigger question. I don't have the answer to As as an artist with the empty East Forest, which I suppose sometimes becomes my identity I'm interested in how music can take us on an inner journey How it can take us inside and so I also am interested in the technology of ceremony and how we can use ritual to also Do the same thing so sort of an inner journey through music and ceremony and bringing those things together That's just something I've been interested in for a long time because I had experiences with music I think many of us have had Where we might have stumbled into mystical states whether it's a psychedelic or through meditation or just Whatever a static states and I didn't have any real guidance or teachers and so over time About ten years now. I've just been developing my own musical language that works for me I think it works for some other people now it looks like to but it's just what works for me and I wanted to find reliable ways to get into those sort of infinite mystical states And so I'm very interested in psychedelic assisted therapy and how the role of music plays in that or how we can do it in a Very public setting like what you experience this morning. We can do it what I call East Forest ceremony That's essentially a mixture of concert and ritual It's not complicated, but it can be very emotional because felt experiences are things that people can't argue with Whoever you are across the board what you have is what you have It's not something I told you or proselytized or an idea we put in your head. It's something you experience You've created a musical language. That's very unique. It isn't what we speak to us about it It's unique because it so for those who didn't don't know what it is. It's sort of patient Right, and it's made with a lot of pianos and looping and nature field recordings and sort of Vocals that don't have a lot of lyrics, but there's vocalizations or singing and samples of things that I also feel recordings of recordings whether it's Romdos or something but What's unusual about it is it came out of ten starting ten years ago me guiding psilocybin ceremonies And I needed to find a way to guide people practically by myself Four or five six hours, so that's where the looping came from and that's where the slow progression of Song slowly building and that sort of musical language in lexicon developed out of that because I was just sort of exploring Just what works what works to give people a positive journey? And so over anecdotal research over all those years it was sort of just trying things and of course It's my own musical taste But I wanted to create a musical language That's like a new shamanic American path through music one that speaks to our Western ears And one that is very understandable and approachable to the way we understand music in the West So it's it's comfortable. It's a comfortable space because we know set and setting is very important to having a good journey And so just last Friday I released an album Called music for mushrooms a soundtrack for the psychedelic practitioner and it's a five-hour record from those spaces as the first time I put something out that was specifically for psilocybin Journey It was aiming it at the research studies going on, but of course it could be used for anything And I think it's time I think it's time to put stuff out like that and I'm also doing a record with Romdass over this whole year Yeah, where I recorded to him last year and that's also about tapping into wisdom because he's 88 and And it's a reflection of the wisdom that maybe we put aside in our culture these days But is needed now more than ever whether it's wisdom from plant medicine or wisdom from our elders Especially the ones who have a lot to say So it's really beautiful. Oh Man, there's so much here at the The language that that you've picked with your music. I'll you've gave a couple descriptions piano Yeah field recordings. I love that and it's when when you hear it It it it and you said the set and setting as well is so critical to the experience We had a dark space. We had some beautiful lighting choices We had some we had some was it sage that was burned before I had some saves and palo santo is again. It's a set and setting And ceremony is a way of telling your mind and your heart and your body. Okay. This is important. So you're kind of Priming your subconscious to say let's get into those deeper layers and plant some seeds And that's that's these are some of the tricks of ceremony. It's not voodoo. I'm saying we're actually working We're getting into a trance date which makes your unconscious your subconscious more receptive to these ideas This is sort of like hypnosis or something this stuff works And so we're doing these things. It's also very beautiful But I think the beauty is something that makes us unique as humans We appreciate that beauty. I mean, we are the ones that say it's beautiful But that's like many animals make things that are beauty But I don't we don't know if they step back and appreciate that beauty. We make art We create and that's something very unique to humans And I'm saying there's something in that that is important to also Tapping into these deeper layers of our mind and our heart and our our body consciousness our body memory about trauma And how do we work through those things that they're not stuck and So I'm kind of exploring that in a brain body approach but doing it in a very creative artistic way and It's something that again. I've just sort of stumbled in for my own. It's my own interests But it's it's kind of been a lab or an experiment and it's it's been changing every time I do one We try new things and I'm excited to see where it could go Because I feel like it's very universal and approachable How do you argue with music? There's no lyric. Oh, he's you know, he's talking about the the dolphin the dolphin this or You know the crystal starship this there's nothing like that So I wanted to be something anyone could walk into and it's just cultivating emotions In you prime people with the ambiance like you said and they choose where they go and their minds and hearts I'm just saying yeah offering questions What might you want to give up in this moment? Is there something do you notice a feeling right now? Pay attention to it. Maybe you don't All right, so it's just setting the stage In this took you all the way to the recent album recording. Yeah called Music for mushrooms colon a soundtrack for the psychedelic practitioner Nice, which is sort of a sister record inside the Ram Dass East Forest record. That's been going on all year Okay, okay as Ram Dass is you know, he or if you don't know he's that I kind of call him the psychedelic grandfather of our country in a sense came in Tim Leary so They're all sort of related So so now you have said a couple times throughout the conversation and part in the album itself written even for Psychotherapy sessions psychedelic sister psychotherapy. Yeah, so then what is your what is your perspective? then on the role of psychedelics in the In the experience is also that you curate in the awakening that is currently happening Do you mean how do I see that maybe occurring inside the things I'm doing? well What I'm this East Forest ceremony concerts for obvious reasons do not involve or condone Psychedelic ingestion during them because it's not legal and more over it takes a long time So today we use cow and that was something we did here is a sort of a one-off currently for this because they wanted to try Using something medicinal and psychoactive and so we can go in that direction I think at this point kind of thinks people are responsible and they do it's right for them Maybe people come in they've eaten an apple or they've they've ingested some form of psychedelic But I can't hold that responsibility because it's not really that kind of space. It's only an hour and a half or two it's not overnight and that sort of thing but The cultural winds are moving to a place where that might become Feasible actually in the near future where we really could in a public way Have a very strong container and hold space for people Instead of being the private shadows as many people are as practitioners But guide people in that way because as anyone knows who's worked with psychedelics. It's It's very serious for me and it's it's it's not a toy and it can be powerful in any direction And so I take I take I don't take that lightly and so I'm I'm not saying hey We show you I should come in and take psychedelic. I say the opposite So I don't think this is a space for that, but I'm also you're all adults and it's Just semi-free country But it's not legal that's the role though at your live performances But then you did the recording for those yes explain that side. Well, the recording is I know it is a bit of a juxtaposition But the recording is for the work and the reason it's five hours and the way it's designed and how it's connected and Instrumentation and all I could go on and on to what's happening in the album But it's specifically designed to help a suicide and journey Would it work for MDMA LSD? Probably but I know it's designed what it worked for yoga. What it worked for studying. Yeah, I would guess so But I'm just saying that's why everything in it is the way it is and I did that because I Was looking at the music that's Currently being used in a lot of the research studies because they've published the playlist like at John Hopkins or Imperial College. I Wasn't personally satisfied with them and I know I know that a lot of the music They're using and I saw reasons why I thought it could be better and I also had my own experience I had I had it's my own personal solution I hadn't given it to the world so I was like no one's putting out an album That's for this and I thought I've kind of had this and I felt a calling a personal calling This was the time to step out and offer that because I thought it could help frankly And you know there's many ways to skin the cat So it may be that you like some other music or that's all that's true There's not one way to do it But I just found for my own anecdotal experience that this works quite well And so they're having great results in these studies. I just thought maybe if you guys had a slightly better artistic Nuanced look at the music aspect. It could be even better. Yeah, they'd covered a lot of ground Yeah, and they'd covered a they did some studies on What what works with the musical flow features, but they never had like a musicologist that I know of or musicians artists saying Here's here's the kind of music instrumentation the flow The field recordings coming in the nature sounds all these things. Yeah, they don't have that How did you end up figuring out what the recipe trial and error? Yeah Yeah, ten years of trying things and seeing all that works that doesn't work and Intuition and being guided by the mushrooms, I suppose but that isn't very scientific but just trying things and and and guiding people and seeing what works and After hundreds of people you start to see patterns and you start to learn and that's what you're experiencing on that record It's kind of where I'm at after a decade And then there's like you said some field recordings. What else is in there? it's mostly comprised of Different kinds of pianos fender roads angelic vocals nature field recording sounds some flutes native flutes my lotica's harmoniums Some organ and It's all this sort of looped if you listen to it You might think it was in a studio or that it's multiple people, but it's actually just direct feed it into a recorder So that's why you don't it sounds, you know, I mean that doesn't sound live But if if you're a musician you could probably listen to it They go I can see how that was live because it's building in layers, but that's also Again that came out of the need for making music for psilocybin and that was a need But then it Defined the type of music I made but that was actually helping in the psilocybin experience It's building slowly the layers help the repetition of certain musical phrases helps and train your brain These are all things that help and those are modern sound healing techniques combined with Ancient sound healing techniques of things if you go to a lot of ayahuasca or Lakota sweat lodges and so on They're all using music as a central ceremonial vehicle, and they're doing it in a way that is Been done the same way for thousands of years, you know It's not like this guy just made it up tonight like that's how they've been doing those songs forever So you can learn what they learned and they can see what they're doing musically is okay I'm gonna learn from that and try to integrate that into this stuff What do we know about modern sound learning science about brain entrainments or binaural beats or different tunings things like that and What were your personal experiences that led you to even ten years ago to being like aha? I think like a lot of people and I had some psychedelic experiences young my first one was with mushrooms, and I was 19 and Luckily, and I say luckily because it was luck it was positive Profoundly positive, and I went into a full ego dissolution, but I didn't know I didn't know anything I didn't know what it meant even know what had just happened But I knew it was profoundly amazing, and I spent a long time trying to reverse engineer that and And it kind of led to many mistakes And some traumatic experiences and then having some positive experiences with just music in general and trying to and really trying to Recreate that but I thought maybe I just need to make music that I think would work for me in that space And that's how this all started It was just a tool for me And then I started noticing it was working with other people and I had a friend a close friend who encouraged me to do Circles and ceremonies and I probably wouldn't done it without him. He literally put them together. Yeah That's so powerful When the free occurring theme of the people that we sit down with is that they had influences like that that helped Nudge them along good. Oh, yeah I mean my partner sitting right here I mean and you know my partner before that and all in friends you have key people who are sort of there to encourage you and and Because we're all just people we all get down and we all get discouraged and you're trying to do something that is not Encouraged by mainstream society are really understood And there's a new wave now, but it's still fringe But you can see it somewhat changing in the last year or two What is the relationship between the indigenous people on the planet and there are thousands of years of practicing ceremony and the modern movement towards ceremony Well, it's interesting because each drug has its own container for that that's different So ayahuasca is unique because it's it's kept Retained inside at the ceremony itself. You don't hear of people doing ayahuasca record relation recreationally or outside of an ayahuasca ceremony So it's really interesting that like it's kept that as part of it and never really left it And I think that's part of the reasons for its quote-unquote success Because it's always in this ceremony as a setting which helps it a lot for intense experience And that keeps the the music the acaros at least if you're doing Sort of an amazonian style not the udv or something, but even that's a ceremony And then other drugs it's it's different. I mean lsd was A creation so I mean that in some ways that doesn't count psilocybin had ritualistic use but It's not as well known and moreover it didn't translate into western society at all So it's been for all intents and purpose completely recreational So it didn't have a musical tradition attached to it in a way. It certainly didn't have any I mean most people that I talked to Have experienced mushrooms in their lives At least once if not many times and almost none of them have sat in ceremony with them and then those who do Come out of it just be like I had no idea of the depth or I had no idea How far I could go with this medicine is such a profound teacher And so Ceremony comes in different forms and shapes. I think with different plants and substances for different reasons and But nonetheless what you're what you're finding like with you know, for instance peyote Is inside a container, but then maybe mescaline Isn't always yeah, so I think they're all different But it the ceremony itself is a piece of technology that Is simple and powerful and something that can be done and is done outside of psychedelics all the time It's a form of ritual You know writing a check is a ritual brushing your teeth is your ritual making your coffee in the morning is a form of ritual So it's about intentionality. It's about how you focus your consciousness It's about set and setting and and how you prime your your body again It goes back to I said the beginning about Deciding what's sacred because it's you say it is really what else is it? Right, it's just rituals about how you arrange things in a way. It's about saying this is different This is not mundane So it's about choice The power of ceremony and ritual in is a technology. That's a really good line absolutely It's one of the original technologies It's a way of working with your brain If you want to be really it's flat about it, but I like to say your heart too, but it's about working with your brain And and you could say working with your ancestors all these things, but if you wanted to stay very scientific about it It's a way of talking to these other layers of our consciousness And working with them I'm working with them because you know trauma can live in the body, right? So some people have to have difficulty like Routing it out and getting over certain traumatic acts because it's living in the body or phantom pains and things like this And these are just different ways that we can get into those places So psychedelics also dig into these layers too So combining it all into one soup makes a lot of sense to me a lot of people know this but I think Um Likewise with our show is such a multidisciplinary show combining it into one soup. So Tasty soup One sausage Yeah, but With psilocybin that just happens to be sort of my personal ally and like I said it didn't have that musical tradition And it wasn't really Couched into ceremony like some other things like ayahuasca So I was trying to coalesce that together a bit because I think it's It is a little more pervasive in some ways in american culture But also the word psilocybin has less baggage than lsd That's why I think it's having some headway like denver where it's decriminalized and so forth because I think many people Haven't heard that word. So they don't have the instant. Oh That story. It's a new story new story. Yes. Yeah, but it's also been around in the subculture for a long time And like I said, many people have experienced with it, but not in ceremony So they haven't unlocked in some ways the true power and as a tool I wonder where else practices of ceremony and ritual can do What we need geopolitically to get through the exponential technology age Maybe we ask that question to you. What do you see with the artificial intelligence synthetic biology? Age that we're going through Where do you see the play of things like what you produce how we can drive more unity and cohesion together? How do you see that working out? Well, I think about this usually from our music perspective and I mean we could I don't need to go into the trends I think where the music industry might go with ai because that's already happening like spotify playlist and that's just the tip of the iceberg But what I think people are hungry for and will be more hungry for And it's a symptom of the technological rise and ai is for authentic experiences for wisdom And for connection to themselves or nature the planet Are all the things we've had forever that we sort of feel more separate from through the use of technology And so it's about decreasing that separateness. So I think the biggest one would be the connection to nature and That's one of the reasons I like putting the nature field recordings that I record like going out to wilderness places and bring it into the music Because it's a reminder. It's it's also a reflection of yourself And it's it's a way of tapping in you. We are The earth literally we're made of it walking around talking with eyes and ears and for some reason we Have engendered this feeling of feeling not it As a matter of fact, I feel like I'm myself and you're someone else And that's that's what we're kind of told and and that usually starts to cultivate feelings of depression And all sorts of problems wars and so forth. So I think that reconnection to nature Is something we had much more innately and it was more immediate for millennia But since the industrial revolution particularly since the information age It's been a rapid exponential Decrease of our connection to that which is always around us the water that we are in as fish We've forgotten what the water is and we're like, where's the water? And so we need these ways of to remind ourselves And so for me like bringing in that nature element, it's all about connecting back to what already is Because there's a solace in that And I think so as the ai and all that increases. I think people will be more and more hungry for that so potentially one of the best solutions remedies to the Issues that we're facing geopolitically and with exponential technology is to realize the water that the fish are in Is is to unpeel what's already there. It's to take off the clothes. We're wearing that are hiding maybe our eyes Because the answers we're looking for it's not a new thing. We're going to put on it's going to things we're going to take off yeah For sure and I we're just talking about with somebody about how Can't they love seeing the stars and how you can't see the stars and the big cities and that was a recent change Right with electricity essentially And then we started having pollution and light at night and you can't see most people don't see the stars much at night And I live now in a place in southern utah At 7,000 feet which one of the darkest places in the united states I see stars from horizon horizon and the milky way. Oh, it's amazing But I just remember like that's how it was for everybody all the time forever forever And so there were the deep relationship that there's like The cosmos just wait a minute every night there's humbleness and questions and guidance and noticing and That's been lost and again. That's recent so It's a sense of humbleness, but in that humbleness comes a sense of connection and probably lowering of anxiety and these these are interesting times just because There's so much happening and changing And technology and we just don't know We're all in it together. You can't opt out anymore Right, it's not really practical to go to a cave and even then you probably wouldn't you're still getting all the Cell wires and all that, you know, you can't opt out So you have to just figure out how we're going to get through this thing together And we're all we're all trying what we know how to do One step at a time So the psychedelics are powerful tools And I think that can be useful now because we might not have 20 years to sit in an ashram and wait for The answers. It's like what if you can try to get a few answers and In one evening Yeah, and and so let's try to make that safe and let's try to what if you have some healing to do You know, there's been a lot of trauma from a lot of last stuffs happened A lot of people and that just trickles down into families and abuse and all sorts of things And just like it there's a wave. It's like we need to work again We need to work with this wave to try to like let that water flow down because It's so much right now And so I think these we're starting to wake up to tools that we've had for a long time And now we're maybe like this conference is thinking about how can we use the technology and combine it with this stuff And and maybe make it almost like a surgical laser tool instead of just willy-nilly Uh roll on the dice because that always doesn't work out What would the surgical laser tool look like for you? For me, it's it's through music and ceremony Because I think it's it's using old tech in a fresh way in a modern context So that's why it's creating music that makes sense to us now like modern music. That's new shamanic american music because that doesn't maybe exist And it's it's something that's sort of backed up by you do some data. It's just what works And so I think that's what that's just kind of my angle with it because for some people it's bio feedback and wearable tech But you could combine these things You know for sure When you mentioned that 100 billion humans before us were able to observe The cosmos and then the seven eight billion alive now are unable to living in metropolises We're in many ways we're Going through a process of remembering and reconnecting and like you said We have these suits on these earth suits on and so to peel back some of the layers to see the way that we harmonize together And through things like your music as well East let's ask you about your name Where did east forced come from? That's easy. It was just my last name is oswald and that's german and os is east and vault is forest So it's just another way of saying my name So there's not much of uh I feel like it it has a feeling to it because it has the word east which feels like eastern and forest has a certain vibe But that just happened it I mean, I noticed it and as I liked it. I like oh, that'd be a great way to describe this music I was making but Yeah, it's not like I pulled it out of some way some branding Meeting how how does one go about renouncing their Birth name and going with the new identity because I know Several people follow some suit like that and it's hard for others to make the transition. Yeah, I don't know I mean for me. I don't identify as east forest and some people call me east for east forest and it's fine, but I I did Take on a new name recently and that was Krishna My name is trevor a birth name And I did that though is sort of easy for me because it was given to me and by someone I really respected So it's like it wasn't like I decided that or I didn't have some journey It was like I want to be called Krishna It was more like someone says, you know, if I were to give you I'm giving you a spiritual name and it's Krishna And it was someone I couldn't really argue with so I'm like, okay Now I could just have that but I thought It was an opportunity to identify sort of with a new pair of clothes and It was a really beautiful opportunity at 40 years old to say What if I tried What felt like to identify what I think that name means What would that feel like and it was an opportunity to step into something larger That maybe I didn't feel worthy or I didn't feel adequate or I had all the other baggage With the other name I didn't I'm not throwing anything away and that's what's fun about it too to recognize. It's just a name It's just words. It's almost just like hey call me that and you're like, okay Most people don't care So really it's just about how it makes me feel and it helps me Step up to the plate in a way that is probably just going to be more loving And so it's just a way for someone he saw me Something larger than I saw myself And that was just being and he by doing that he was being very loving And that was amazing Helps you step up to the plate. I like that. There's still a lot more to discuss Let's ask you two quick questions on the way out of the show. The first question is are we in a simulation? I don't know if it is if we are it's a really good one It's I don't think so. I really don't but I know some people have argued that it's an interesting argument And I wouldn't say it's impossible But my heart says no and if it's true, I'm going to be a little heartbroken But either way the experience I'm having here is so Incredible and rich that it still feels important to me And I would say then what's inside? What's the simulation inside? Right And then the simulation or or are we still is still God or is still the universe? I mean, I think a lot about what's outside the universe. So Or is there an outside or what does it even mean? So we can see These things to some degree. I'm saying we can see the universe expanding. We can see old galaxies new galaxies We can see the spaciousness, but it's like But there has to be something past what we can see or what does that even mean? Mm-hmm. I don't know. I don't know, but It's an amazing thing I mean psychedelics also start to show you this kind of infinite quality of Circles within circles within circles in the same way that people come out of people A lot of people that come out literally of the holes of people and So there's we often see on this planet so above or as above so below With whether it's atoms to galaxies and structures and the golden ratio So if you want to just trust in what we see It would seem That systems are within systems are within systems forever It's hard to say, but it looks to be that way But I certainly don't know so if anyone tells you they know red flag And then last question is what do you think's the most beautiful thing in the world? Forgiveness and love the fact that people can love you and forgive you and That humaneness and ability to love you've been in the face of all this absurdity and Mistakes Is beautiful It really is And that's that's the human capacity for love That I'm sure is mirrored in animals and all these things, but we have we think about it more At least I do Too much Isis has been such a good conversation. Thank you very much for coming on the show talking to us really appreciate it And thank you for the incredible performance this morning and for tomorrow's we're really excited for it. Thanks. I'm glad enough to Play here. That's why we're in this room What where are the links that people can find you at east forest org east forest org links in the bio Yeah, and it's social medias or it's either east forest or east forest music east forest or east forest music on social media You can find those links below and then is the album also on Yeah, the website Yeah, the ramdas record and the music for mushrooms record are both On the website or anywhere you listen to music spotify itunes everywhere. Wonderful. Okay, wonderful. All the links are in the bio everyone check those out also support people like east also support consciousness hacking support simulation the artist entrepreneurs the organizations are on the world that you believe in the links are below and Also, talk to your friends your families your co-workers people online on social media more about exactly What we talked about on the show get more conversations rolling about it 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