Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. I hope your day is going beautiful. We have an incredible guest for you today, Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester. Think of her as a bridge, the Madrina founder torchbearer, the founder of Souda Montreal, the Santo Daime church she established in nineteen ninety seven, restoring sacred memory to the north. a transpersonal counselor shaped by Asagioli and Groff. She guides seekers through the fire of self-confrontation. From two thousand to twenty seventeen, she secured a section fifty six exemption protecting the Santo Daime sacrament and ordained interfaith minister, doctor of divinity and author of the two volume Ayahuasca Awakening. She has spent more than forty years leading workshops, counseling and teaching the radical act of spiritual adulthood. Dr. Jessica, thank you so much for being here today. How are you? Well, thank you. It's always a pleasure to hang out with you and discuss, you know, issues of hopefully general interest that are contemporary but often have their roots in heritage traditions and basic human behavior. So as a topic today, we chose a very interesting one, right? Yes. Do you want to name it for whoever might be listening now? Sure. Sure. We're going to do true and necessary versus lies and bullshit. Excuse my language, but that's what we're going with here. Okay. We're not on, what is it, CBS? They bleep us out automatically. Right. How radical. So, you know, if people have listened to other podcasts that we have done or, you know, things that I've written, And one of the things that I really like to do is not just launch into the topic, but I really want to make sure that by defining the things that we are discussing, that we are actually able to discuss it and contribute to a larger understanding, rather than just giving our personal thoughts and opinions about something. Okay, more on that in a moment. So I'm going to be in the next few minutes defining facts, what a fact is. Truth. Okay, this kind of smoke to the wall and herding cats kind of a thing, okay? Opinions. You like that one. I can see it by your face. And then lies. Bullshit. Bleep bleep. And deception. Okay? So we have three on one side with a little angel. And we have Three on the other side for the little, you know. So let's get going. A fact. A fact is, and how fascinating, that these days we hear about alternate facts. Okay. So what would be an alternate fact? Okay, so defining what a fact is. Information or evidence that can be objectively verified and proven to be true. Existing independent. of belief. Okay? For example, we can verify that the Earth moves around the Sun in the solar system. Right? That would be a fact. That would be an example of a fact. I live in Quebec. We have four seasons. It is a fact that we have four seasons we can watch them change out my window i'm on the tenth floor here out my window i can see all the beautiful trees in the park that's to the south of me changing color this is a fact that the trees change color once the nights get shorter get longer and colder the days shorter less as we turn and rotate these are all facts Eventually, the leaves fall off, often in November with a really strong wind. It is a fact that it then snows. These are facts. They are evident. So we can take any number of things and say that it doesn't matter which science we look into. We can say these things have been examined and proved to be a fact. So facts are not decided by how many people believe in them. Interesting, eh? It doesn't matter how many people. How many people believed that the Earth was flat? It did not make the Earth flat. But many people believed it did. Actually, it appears that some people still believe that, actually. OK. OK, God bless. Facts are concrete realities that do not change. I mean, unless we're talking in cosmic time. So eventually, yes, the sun in how many billions of years or a trillion, our sun will do its dying cycle, okay? And it will consume the earth. There we go, okay? But until then, the earth, our solar system is operating the way it has for all of these millions of years. So there's that level where the facts are in such a large dimension of transformation that it will remain a fact for a very long time. Facts are determined by objective, not subjective measurement. So they can measure the temperature of the ocean with a thermometer. The thermometer does not care if you live in a red state or a blue state. It doesn't care if you voted Liberal or NDP. I'm naming some of the federal parties in Canada. Facts don't care who you vote for. They don't care what clothes you wear. They don't care about anything. You put the thermometer in the water, in the ocean, and it comes up with a fact. It's just a fact. It's not subjective. It's not intended to offend anybody. It's just a fact, okay? As evidence mounts, facts become irrefutable. Choose any subject. I just mentioned ocean temperatures, climate change. You can deny it and deny it and deny it until there is so much evidence of climate change that you can't deny it anymore. So facts are based on evidence. They're objective, not subjective. Over time, we acknowledge the facts. We don't create them. Anything you want to say about facts? Especially alternate facts. We don't have alternate facts in Canada. This is a new phenomenon of American culture. So I'd be very interested to have your opinion. Thoughts on that or factual thoughts, your opinions. I think language on some level derails facts. Language is really slippery. And if I say the ocean is fifty degrees, where did you measure it at? You know, it's imperative that when we define what facts are like, they should be irrefutable. And there has to be so much language behind them for them to be irrefutable because people are constantly trying to change facts or constantly trying to paint a picture to make that's bullshit. OK, good. OK, good. We will be covering all of that ground by the time our session today is coming to a close and if people hang on to what we're talking about. So facts, we can't create a fact. Over time, it becomes self-evidence. Those of you who know, I'm a daimista. I'm the dean of the Santo Daime Church. I receive hymns. I have three hymn books. I have a hymn that says, the truth makes room for itself. Over time, the truth makes room for itself. And the facts do the same thing. Facts, you can deny them. You can do everything you want to not deal with them. But in the end, the facts are the facts. Okay. Are we ready to move on to truth? Yeah, I'm ready. Classically, I'm going to give you two different definitions here. So classically, a truth is defined as facts based on direct evidence or observation. It is true that the earth rotates the sun and it takes one year to do. It is true that the earth rotates itself which creates day and night. It is true that the earth tilts as it rotates, which is what gives us the season. It is true that the moon rotates the earth, rotating the sun, rotating itself, tilting itself, okay? And the whole solar system is moving with our galaxy through cosmic space at the same time. These are all facts which then become truth. So that's the classic definition of truth is facts based on evidence. So we can say it is true. These facts are true. This is true. So there's that classic definition of truth. And then there's a broader concept of truth. It encompasses facts, but includes context, meaning, interpretation, beliefs, and experiences. So it broadens out into something. And then you'll have to feel sorry for the truth. It's been having a really hard time recently. It's really struggling to have its voice heard in many, many places as it gets trompled and trampled. by so many other agendas, let's just say. And the truth can be subjective and varying from person to person. You know, we all, these days, it seems like we all hear about, because this is what happened with truth. It was one thing, and it's now sort of got this more contemporary. Okay, and now it's, that's sort of morphed into my truth regardless of the facts, okay? Because my truth, which somehow is highly subjective or only subjective, can have absolutely nothing to do with the facts, nothing to do with classic sense of truth, okay? But is what a person would be wiser to say instead of my truth, because this is the way that a word has been used in language, in which it is taking away from the essence of the word. And so now my truth usually means what I think and feel about it and my opinions on it. And so people have taken that word and are now using it in contemporary culture in a different way from the classic meaning of the word. Did you want to say something there? No, I'm just taking it in. I was curious what you were going to say instead of truth. I was thinking in my experience, I would say, instead of my truth, I would say, well, in my experience, I've learned this. Or how I see this or how this affects me. Instead of this, I want to gag when I hear people going on my truth, my truth. Okay, not interested, quite frankly. Sorry. Sorry. I joined the We Do Not Care Club, okay, on a lot of these issues. You know, you can try and fly it past me. It's not going to get received very well. It's going to be sent back, you know. So return. So truth can be a state of belief that is thought, to represent a universal reality. For example, religious truth. God said this. It's a big conversation, isn't it? When we start talking about what is true, what are facts, what are beliefs? and how it's got kind of all merging now, okay? And instead of saying, I believe, I feel, my opinion is, my experience is, okay? Which keeps it very subjective and honest, you know? It's honest. You know, it's now my truth, the truth, the cultural truth, as if it is... Universal reality. Here's one I personally like. We believe what truths we're willing to believe in. That's good, eh? Yeah. We decide what truths we are willing to believe in. So then how is it true? You know what I'm saying? How far away from classic truth has that wandered? Okay. There are people who will believe, I mean, name anything, they'll believe that Mary conceived Jesus as a virgin, for example. And they will believe that as an actual fact, as true universal reality truth, rather than a personal spiritual belief. And then you've got Joseph Campbell who says, come on guys, you know, mythology records record that there's thirty four recorded virgin births and what happens is whenever there's a great teacher comes along their mother becomes a virgin and instead of people understanding that what is meant is not a physical sexual virgin but is a pure soul and that the woman was chosen as a vessel for this great teacher to you know incarnate through and have as a mother to guide in the early stage of their life. And then we get to believe. But what does that have to do with truth in a classic sense? It's interesting. How interesting is this? Truths don't have to be logical or verifiable. Okay, so this is contemporary. This is contemporary definition. of truth rather than classic. You don't have to be logical if you're a Bible. Then that's not truth. Those are beliefs and opinions. And here's one. I like this one a lot. They simply have to be shared. They can arise from faith, commitment, or experience. When like-minded people agree a given reality of how things are, then it emerges as a truth. This is contemporary, it's not classic. So we can look down into your country, which I do with great affection and respect, and a few more prayers recently than in the past, that wisdom will prevail. Okay? And I'm going to choose the not the last election, the one before that was won by within President Biden, in which a large percentage of people believe that that was not the truth. And they created a new truth, not based on fact. Interesting, isn't it? But what does this have to do with truth in a classic sense? Can you answer that? Because I'm still puzzling over it. It's a tough one. Like I, at times I feel like something can only be true enough. Like it can only be true enough. Even if we have enough facts, like, like it just seems to me. Give an example. Try and find an example that we can work with. Okay. Because then it's going to. Like water, water is wet. Like that's water is wet. Okay. But what does it mean to be wet? And the more people believe, and maybe this will help flesh it out for me, is that if people believe wet isn't what I believe it is, and enough people believe it, it does seem like that truth changes. Like a lie becomes the truth when enough people believe in it. And I can understand what people say. Like if enough people believe something to be true, then society moves forward as if it's true. And what's the difference if everybody believes something is true versus it not being true? Well, that's an excellent question. Do you have an answer for it? Having mastered society crashes and we all die because we're just going down the wrong road. Okay. That's where we're at. That's where we're at. Okay. Well, well, okay. So let's dial this back. Can we use another example other than water and wet? Okay. Can we, can we find something that, um, it was fairly recent. Okay. That's, um, some church leader, I can't remember which church leader it was, and he's the most recent of many, okay? The end is near, and this is the day that Jesus is coming, and we're going to get raptured, and the earth is going to explode or something, okay? And then the day comes, and it passes, and we all carry on, right? And if anybody got raptured, there must've been so few we didn't notice. Okay. So this would be for me, an example of how people were now a state of belief that is thought to represent a universal reality where people's beliefs about something, it never becomes true. Okay. On that level. Okay. Because no matter how many people think that, Jesus is arriving tomorrow. There's two thousand years of thinking Jesus is going to arrive tomorrow. And in our spiritual tradition, we believe he already arrives and lives in our heart. He doesn't have to come in a physical form, but Christ consciousness, which is how I and we term it more. If Christ consciousness is something that is alive within us and we all have the potential to connect to this Christ consciousness. And we don't need a body coming down, floating from the sky. But that's just a belief. And I'm claiming it, not as any truth, but as simply a belief. And yet those who take a belief and claim it to be true, and I think religions will be an excellent example of this, all we have to do is look back in time Everybody in the Spanish Inquisition really thought that what they knew was true and what they were doing was the truth. Right? How many wars were fought over this? So we can look and see over time, and setting aside religion, we can take any human group, okay, who all of a sudden became convinced that something was true. Whether it was true factual based on evidence, sometimes not at all. Look at the Europeans who arrived in the Americas and they went, look at all of this land that's empty and it's ours for the taking. Was that true? In their beliefs and opinions, it was true. But it was never truth. The facts were is that creatures and peoples and tribes of people had been living there for more than ten thousand years. But to make their beliefs true and facts, and here we're speaking now to what you were intimating a few minutes ago, where enough people believe something, they make it true. And so that's what we can see happened with the European invasion of the Americas. They made it true, pure invasion. It became factual. Entire peoples were eliminated. So guess what? Yeah, the land is free and available. So what wasn't true, wasn't a fact, kind of became one. Human history, not very pretty. What's the great quote from James Joyce? History is the nightmare from which I'm trying to awaken. Ah, yes. Thank you. Okay. Anything else on truth or are we moving on to opinions? Let's move to opinions. Opinions. Okay. Opinions differ from facts and truth. Both definitions. Okay. They are value judgments that express a feeling or view. Hello, Clint. Yeah, truth and false rarely align. Yes. And that's a fact. Well played. Very well played. Not just an opinion. So, opinions. They may or may not be supported by facts. We can have an opinion on, I think that chocolate is better than strawberry. It's not based on any fact. That's just an opinion based on personal taste buds, right? We can have opinions on everything, and they don't have to be based on any facts. However, if we are in the position of teaching, educating, influencing, then we should make sure that our opinions are spoken as such. So these are the facts. My opinion on those facts are to make sure that we're making it clear what's objective and what's subjective. Opinions rely on assumptions. Assumptions always being kind of slippery and tricky. And are dependent on the perspective of those holding them. Chocolate is better than strawberry. In your opinion, that could be completely wrong, right? Yeah. And that's just fine, okay? Now, opinions are highly temporal. It can change quickly when new information or facts become available. So we may have a very hard and fast opinion on something, and then new information becomes available, and all of a sudden, We change our opinion. So opinions are not facts. Opinions are not truth. A deep commitment to an opinion does not make it any more or less accurate or factual. We can be deeply, deeply committed to having an opinion on something. It does not make it so. Anything you want to add about opinions? It seems like a lot of times opinions come from emotions that are unsolved emotions. Like really strong opinions usually come from pain, it seems to me. Okay, so you're connecting opinions with pain. Hmm. It'd be also connected with joy. Of course. Of course. Strong emotions. Yes. Seems to underpin opinions. I don't know. That's an interesting observation. So strong opinions are often charged by strong emotions. Yes. Yes. Somebody has a very, very strong opinion. on something. And you will find that in a few areas. You will find that in some areas of human activity more so than in other areas. And do you think that people are drawn to certain arenas, religious, political, activist activities, Because they already have something inside of them and they are looking for a place to act out these strong, charged emotions. I think they're looking for truth. And they don't know, maybe they don't know what it is. And so they see opinions as truth. And those emotions that underpin those opinions look a lot like truth to people. especially people who may have never really felt or seen the truth. Can you give an example? Yeah, like let's say we take some activist and you can choose like the far right or the far left. Maybe they believe so much. So you're choosing a political activist. Okay, I'm just checking with religious, political, environmental. There's this whole big buffet of, you know, it's true i was going for if i think of strong emotions in order to back up the claim i have to think of people who have strong emotions that then have strong opinions yes i guess it could be in relationships as well too or relationships could be better People that may have been hurt in relationships, they may have an opinion on what's the right way to treat someone or it's right to spank your child because this means discipline. So these strong charged emotions, they may seem like truth to people. So the emotion moves to opinion and opinion looks like truth to them. So those people seem as if they're looking for truth to me. I think you're giving people infinitely more credit than they deserve, but that's just an opinion. The example you've chosen, that somebody who spanks their child, who gets very highly charged about something and spanks their child, is actually looking for truth, where in the back of my head, having been a psychotherapist for forty years and worked with family, children, you name it, mostly adults or some family systems work, but I would say that they're unconsciously acting out, you know, family systems behavior that they learned as a child. That's just my opinion based on my experience. I don't think it's a fact or it's true. It's just from my opinion on observing things. You have a very noble opinion there. Maybe naive. Thank you. Thank you. It's a noble opinion. I have an honorable drive within them. I have a more jaded opinion. Whereas honorable is wonderful, but I think that most people are unconscious until they awaken. And then if they have any shred of compassion or wisdom, they will go through a, process of remorse and regret and and reconciliation which includes forgiveness and taking responsibility for actions okay so there's that's a whole process of coming to terms with you know let's choose a climate activist yeah Greta Thunberg first yeah she was what eleven years old when she became famous when she decided that she was extremely emotionally charged with nature and how nature was being treated and the climate change and really became a very strong voice based on very strong feelings that she felt inside of herself. Because of those strong feelings and her age and everything else, it rode her into a crest of visibility where she became a well-known face for advocating for climate change. And what would we say her motives are? Are they opinions? Are they opinions based in facts? We can say yes. The highly charged opinions that she has, are based on facts. For example, there's only seventy-three, I forget which type of whale it is, off the west coast of Canada, there's only seventy-three observed whales left in this pod. Meanwhile, we're cruising towards nine billion people. I am totally on side with her concerns, you know, as we are so self-centered that we have no concept of the truth and the facts that without nature, we won't exist. That's a fact, not an opinion. Get rid of the bees, we're done. The pollinators, get rid of the pollinators and the bees. I'm all with the indigenous people who say, if we don't respect nature and the creatures, without the creatures, there's no humans. Now these are opinions based on beliefs that some of us hold about the facts. Okay, opinions. A deep commitment to an opinion that doesn't make it any more or less accurate. So there's this wide thing. So facts, opinions, and truths are often at war with each other. And that's in part what we're seeing politically around the globe. You know, what we've long held as being strong democracies in Europe and Britain and the United States are now in huge conflict with facts, opinions, and truth. Right? I mean... Yes. Yes, and. Isn't it possible for two things to be true at once, though? Like, this is where I... Sure. Give an example. Give an example. So in World War II, Americans bombed Nagasaki to protect the United States. Also, in World War II, Americans bombed Nagasaki and genocided a population. Depending on which country you grew up in, both of those things are true. Both people can believe that. Those are two true stories depending on the culture that you grew up in. That's an excellent example. Thanks. the same way I referred to the European invasion of the Americas as being their viewpoint. This land was free and open for us to just move and take. To the indigenous people and the creatures who lived there, it was, what's happening? And so, yes, these are the vastly different viewpoints through which we can see. I think that, you know, you're saying that, I'm not sure if that's factual, but it's such a huge conversation, World War II. We can say that it is factual, that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Okay. We can say in retaliation, the Americans dropped bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, right? Two cities designated. Yeah. And invaded completely Okinawa. I just finished reading the story about that and was amazed at what happened to the people on that island. They were their own indigenous people. They weren't Japanese. They were under Japanese rule, but they weren't Japanese. They were their own indigenous people. And what happened with the American installations that were put on there Island and when they were invaded they became the buffer that the Japanese put them between the American invasion and that so the whole thing war is always so complicated it is so complicated because we can look now all those people they weren't fighting those indigenous people they weren't fighting They didn't have weapons. They didn't have anything. And they were almost decimated. They didn't have weapons. They weren't trained soldiers. They were nothing. Nothing. So we're back to a different version of invasion. And again, war has gone on and on and on. And we've got big ones happening. There's, what, thirty-something armed conflicts happening as we speak. And, you know, two of them very upfront and center, Ukraine, Russia, invading Ukraine, and the Gaza-Israeli-Middle East conflict, which has gone on for decades and decades and decades, and is so complex. It is so complex and so deeply rooted in historical facts that are constantly shifting and depending on who's... It just gets more conflicted and more confusing. So all we can do is send light and good prayers for wise, wise people to make good decisions. So I'm not sure how we wandered down facts, opinions, and truth are often at war. And the next, as soon as I said the war word, we jumped right into war. So which we can, they vie. So facts, opinions, and truth. are at war because they vie for influence over how people think a given issue or topic. So that's why they are at war, because there's a dominance in people's thinking of what they want you to believe, how they want you to act, or because they have an agenda. They want power. They want territory. They want resources. Right? The Europeans came to the Americas because they wanted territory. They wanted resources. They heard there was gold there. They heard all kinds of things. They wanted that. And so it's very interesting how facts, opinions, and truth are utilized by human intention. And so we're going to talk more about intention in a moment when we get into under the laws of bullshit and deception. So distinguishing between them is essential work for smart leaders. The ability, not just leaders in business or politics or what have you, religious environments, all of us need to understand the distinction between facts, opinions, and truth. We need to be able to find truth within ourselves And be around these things and be able to express ourselves in a way that is not so immature and self-centered. My truth. Okay? No, my fact, my opinions, my understanding. My understanding of the facts is. Or maybe I'm missing some information, but from what I already know, this is my opinion on that. And if I learn more about it, you know, please educate me. Teach me something I don't know. Let me be open-minded to the facts, to your opinions, and to what looks like the truth. And so what is needed is not to make war with these things. What is needed is to have respect, to have an open-mindedness, to be able to listen to others, to be able to be available for the facts. Okay, let's look at vaccinations. Vaccinations. It's right up there, okay? It's a hot topic. There are people who look at the facts. I'll give you one. Diphtheria. Diphtheria, up until diphtheria vaccinations, approximately ninety thousand Canadians would die every year from diphtheria. After vaccinations, almost no one died from diphtheria. It would be the rare person who traveled somewhere or someone who encountered who hadn't been vaccinated, someone who traveled somewhere where they didn't have vaccinations or diphtheria still existed. Did a few people have bad reactions to vaccinations? Yes, but a minute amount, two or three. So we look and the government has to look at the facts and say, okay, we can save ninety thousand people a year at the risk of a few people having a bad reaction to it. I know these vaccinations do not cause autism. Can we get that as a fact right off the table? It's been proven over and over and over and over and over again. It was one doctor. It became urban mythology. Okay. It doesn't exist. No matter who says it. Did what did I say? Evidence mounts. Over time, we acknowledge facts. We don't create them. Okay. So there is no evidence of that. None is zero. if anything, against it. So a government has to make a decision. Do we save ninety thousand people at the risk of a couple of people, a few people possibly having a harmful reaction? Because some people might have allergic reaction. It's usually not to the actual illness itself. It's usually to something that the base that the that the vaccination material is put into. And so we understand the facts about something. But then you have this current alternate facts, alternate truth that's happening around vaccinations. In the meantime, people are not vaccinating. And what is back? Measles are back in almost epidemic proportions. If you just look at the facts, the cost of each measles case that requires hospitalization, look at the facts, just the facts. they've now found polio in the water because how they test for what viruses are circulating is they test the wastewater because we shed the virus when we go to the toilet, okay? They found evidence of polio in New York City water. These are all serious diseases that through vaccination, so there's some people who believe in vaccinations, they vaccinate themselves, they vaccinate their children, there's other people who don't believe in vaccinations and don't want to vaccinate themselves and they don't want to vaccinate their children. Okay, those are beliefs, not based in facts. People are entitled to have their opinions and their beliefs. Okay, but then you have the facts. And so that's a very controversial situation right now. It's very controversial with so much opinion and so much highly charged emotions. And if we look at it and we think, Why are people so upset? Why are people so upset about this? Why is it so huge? You either get vaccinated, you don't get vaccinated. The people who do get vaccinated are worried about the people who don't get vaccinated, that they're going to contaminate that. There's a threshold with vaccination, at which point you're going to hold off the the diphtheria, scarlet fever, pooping cough, things that people died of. Smallpox, for gosh sakes, we eradicated it. Is it on its way back? Okay. Okay. People have a right to believe what they want to believe. People have a right to choice. But then there's the facts. And we can't disguise the facts to be something else. We can't Take the facts and twist them to suit our beliefs. So distinguishing between facts, opinions, and truth is essential work for all of us. Okay, let's head into lies, bullshit, and deception. Okay, lie. A false statement made with the intent to deceive. Key is the intent. Johnny, did you eat that last piece of cake? No, Mom. It wasn't me. Okay, it's a lie. A liar knows the facts. They eat the last piece of cake. Okay. And lies knowingly. They know the truth. So a lie is always in relationship to the facts or the truth. Right? So, yeah, a lie is always in relationship to the facts and the truth. Yeah, yes. The intent is to mislead. The intent is to influence others' perceptions and decision-making and or to avoid consequences. I can see your little wheels turning. Say something about that. Talk about lying. Yeah. Like I, I think that like it's so connected. I think lies and facts are so connected. If we take it back to vaccines, I think that the reason people don't want to do take vaccines is because they're being lied to by the pharmaceutical companies. And like you said, content. Hang on, hang on. Yeah. Okay, is that a fact that they're being lied to? I believe so. It's an opinion of mine. It's an opinion of mine. This is a wonderful example for us to make a distinction between facts, truth, and opinions. Okay. So your opinion is that pharmaceutical companies in general, all of them or one of them, everyone, is all lying to everybody about everything? No, that's too broad. Okay. But I would say... In my opinion, I think that the pharmaceutical companies are persuaded by the amount of money they can make to falsify records. And the evidence for that is that the majority of people at the FDA have a revolving door between the pharmaceutical companies and them. Like that's a giant conflict of interest that for me is too big to thoroughly understand. So therefore the trust that I should have And the officials that are looking out for me has been betrayed. So I don't know that what they're saying is true. Because they have a giant conflict of interest. And it's like, wait, if the fox is guarding the hen house, how can I believe? There are facts. You can point to research that has been done on it. This is really important. Right now we're looking at the facts. We all have a right to our opinions. We're just going through that whole thing. And so you have a right to your opinion. And in your opinion, what I'm hearing is that you believe in your opinion that the pharmaceutical industry has a backdoor into the FDA and that somehow there is a hand in glove relationship there that can lead to nefarious practices. That's my opinion. Or false reporting. And I don't like I haven't I didn't prepare. Yes. Yes. OK. And. Okay, I'm hearing that you believe this. Is this based on absolute factual reporting? In other words, you have, there's been whistleblowers who come out of a pharmaceutical company with absolute evidence that this is happening. Or you have someone who leaves the FDA. I remember in Canada, we have different systems and different regulations. So I'm not so familiar with the American system. But You have seen very, let's say, knowledgeable and accredited factual information on which you're basing your opinions, or is it an intuition or a feeling or what? No. So there's two reporters. One is James O'Keefe and the second is Dale Bigtree. And when you look at the research and the reports that they have done interviewing previous people that were in both the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA, I believe that the evidence they are showing is enough for me to believe what they're saying is accurate. Okay. And so they, they, these, These two reporters have been fact-checking and working with people who formerly worked either in the pharmaceutical industry or the FDA. And these two reporters have reported that these people have said that there are, in general, problems in general. Now, I can say that on that, I would probably agree with you, that wherever you have people, whether it's the construction industry, okay, And we had bridges collapsing. There was such corruption in the construction industry, you know, and, you know, and it happened. I remember a very famous investigation into, I believe it was the United States army where there was so much corruption going on in the, you know, they were paying, you know, a thousand dollars for a screw. Okay. There was, there was so much padding going on. Okay. So, I totally can get on board with the fact that wherever humans are working together on anything, whether it's political or industry or business or what have you, that there's probably some temptation that's going to happen somewhere. And there's going to be some kind of graft. Yes. I completely agree with that. But for me, taking that into consideration, I will not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Okay. I will say yes, probably. And I have an exemption and a perfect example of what we're speaking of when I get down to deception. Okay. So different people have looked into different industries to find where, and it doesn't matter whether it was, let's say, the United States government dumping nuclear waste in the ocean at Okinawa. Yeah. So they did barrels of radioactive waste, went down the right street, in the dark, off a boat, into the ocean. Hard to imagine anyone would actually approve of that, okay, and sign their name to, yes, please go and dump these ten barrels of radioactive waste, you know. But these things happen. They're deplorable. but it's part of the human experience. But again, I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. To me, that does not mean that I distrust all pharmaceutical companies or that I completely distrust Health Canada. I can't speak to the United States. I can only speak. I would say I'm sure there's people who are lining their pockets. I am sure there are people who are using deception. I'm sure there are. However, I like to believe that the larger percentage of people the scientists, the researchers, the inspectors are actually good people doing their jobs. And so that's, and is that. Seventy five percent good people sincerely doing their job and twenty five percent of people lining their pocket or the other way around. That would be horrible. That would be horrible. So I tend to be an optimistic person, so I like to believe But the larger percentage of people are working diligently. You know, whether we go back to the development of penicillin, when we go back and back and back, and we'll have all these wonderful researchers and scientists who basically laid down their lives, okay, who spent their lives, who gave up so much to try and advance medicine and advance science. And so that's the core thing. factual information that I will hold as being true and try and support that and that the other on the other side is yeah I agree with you there's graph there's deception yep and and and the best we can do is try and bring it to attention make sure it is factual and then educate people as to what needs to be changed to stop that so a lie a liar knows the facts and lies knowingly intention so remember it's always the intention what's right here okay coming to bullshit concept of bullshit requires partial or no knowledge of the truth at all okay so who originally wrote about this twenty years ago was professor harry frankfurt he wrote a little book called on truth and his wife proofread it before a little booklet the small little books but And his wife read it and said, oh, Harry, very good. But really, having written on truth, aren't you going to write about lies? And the more he thought about it, he went, yeah, there's lies, and wait a minute, there's bullshit, too. So he wrote this wonderful little booklet, highly recommend it to everybody, on truth was the first one, and on bullshit was the second one. He's very well known in his field. He's a philosopher. And so bullshit is, requires partial or no knowledge of the truth or the facts at all. You're just making it all up as you go along, okay? You're taking a little of this and a little of that and you're packaging it all up. So it's not, it's not, Johnny, did you eat that last piece of cake? The bullshitter says, what cake? There was cake? Cake? What are you talking about? You didn't give me a piece of cake. Okay. Somebody ate the cake. Okay. Bullshit. I was too busy eating vegetables. Check on the missing carrot. The bullshitter has no proper knowledge of facts to support the statements he or she is making. so it's the intent is completely different the liar has an intent they're choosing the opposite of the truth they do it knowingly and there it's to influence others perceptions and decision making and to avoid consequences okay the bullshitter the intention is variable it could be self-importance The fish was this big. Okay. Didn't even get out of the boat. Didn't even catch anything. Okay. I mean, you can choose a million examples to influence him. If I bullshit and bullshit you, you're going to come away with a confusion. You know, they call it gaslighting these days. Okay. If you feel gaslighted, it's because you've been in the present Sometimes with lying, but more likely with bullshit. Where so much stuff is coming out that doesn't even feel like lies. It's just confusing bunch of stuff that doesn't even have any relationship to the truth or the facts. It's just endless stuff wandering around, not making sense. And you're not able to take what's being said and hold it up into the light of truth. Because it doesn't even... It doesn't even come in near proximity to truth or fact. It's in another galaxy, as a matter of fact. The lie at least has a relationship and can be fact-checked. Bullshit is you can't hardly even fact-check it. You know, there's fact-checkers. After a speech or a presentation or something, you'll have a fact-checker, right? And they will check what is being said. And what's interesting, if you look at presidents and over their four-year or eight-year terms, how many times they, a common one is misnaming something or the wrong amount for something. And these were common mistakes that we all make anyway. It's not usually, most of the time it's not an intention to mislead. And so there's fact checking. President Obama, these three things in his speech actually are not correct to the facts. Okay. President Biden, these three things were not correct to the facts. Okay. So this fact checking, it's not hard to do, but when you have somebody who is bullshitting, you can't really even fact check. Does it make sense what I'm saying? Yeah. It's not just that a number is off or detail is off or a fact is off. The whole thing is out of whack. The whole thing doesn't even make sense because there's nothing that you can dissect from it that will make sense. And so the thing is, is these forms of dishonesty are very harmful, personal and personal relationships, social and society, in business. You have a boss who's bullshitting you. You have staff that are lying to you. sense they might be lying, but then you have to do a whole lot of looking at what's going on politically. Well, as one of the listeners said, politics and the truth are not usually found together, but it would be nice if some politicians were able to share some truths and some facts, and we can point to history and say, yes, certain politicians stand out about presenting the facts and presenting them with some fact-checking errors, but overall, basically, as close to the truth and facts as you can get. Okay. Deception. Now, deception is different from lying and bullshit in that it provides some information while withholding other information. The example that I chose was a pharmaceutical product called Sanex, which is an anti-anxiety product. And, and actually there's a number of books that have been, that have been written about the pharmaceutical industry. And, um, and they're very interesting and especially certain medications. Okay. There's some medications, uh, insulin. Okay. It's been so researched. It's so factual pharmaceutical countries, companies can't dress too much about that. Right. Okay. Yeah. I'm waiting for them. Others shoot a drop on Ozempic, but never mind that. A lot of people are saying their prayers to that one. So Xanax, what happened with Xanax? So Xanax, and it's this physician who was doing research into, medical physician who was doing research into some psychiatric medications because he was concerned what he was seeing in his patients. And so especially with, and this was quite a few years ago, twenty, twenty five years ago that he was that he published his book. So he looked into a number of medications and one of them was Xanax. So he went back and he had to dig, dig, dig to find the original research. So what happened is that Xanax, when it put its product on the market, it only put the the it looked like it was a six week study. And it said that there was an improvement in their patients as compared to control participants that they had less anxiety. They slept better, let's say. Okay. So after six weeks, they measured everything. What they didn't release is the next six weeks from six to twelve weeks. Okay. In which it was shown this man had to dig deep to go back to the original research because he didn't publish it and it wasn't included in their pamphlet insert in their medication What happened was they had three hundred times more anxiety. Now, I'm not sure how much Xanax is still being prescribed because it's, you know, the medications of that category have been shown to be factors in dementia, especially if they're used daily. This is more recent research, the last couple of years. So I think that they have really been phased out of popularity, and they don't think they're, unless it's for very, very short-term use. But, you know, it's like they were prescribing in the fifties. They were telling people, they were telling people smoke cigarettes to relax yourself. You know, they were. People were told, take up smoking, it'll relax you. Especially women, and women were given Instead of seeing that women were bored staying at home and not being able to go to university and were stuck in this suburban lifestyle of raising kids with an apron on and making happy faces at their new vacuum cleaner, that women wanted something more in their life. They gave them various substances to calm them down, have a drink every evening, start smoking cigarettes, take these little pills. So women were put on tranquilizers. Now all of that changed as we saw the damage it did, okay? Immense damage on a health level. And so here's what deception is. You provide some information and you withhold other pieces of it. What is the intention? Power, money, influence. So all these three, lies, bullshits, and deceptions are forms of dishonesty that can be deeply harmful on many levels. Now, would you rather have an uncomfortable truth or a beautiful lie? An uncomfortable truth. What did Al Gore write in his book? An inconvenient truth. And so we come full circle back to That sometimes the truth can be necessary, but uncomfortable, awkward, painful. And that some people will try to avoid the facts and the truth because of shame, because of discomfort. And so they will lie and deceive and bullshit because they don't want to face the consequences of their words, their actions, their opinions, their their lack of actions, their lack of words. That's true. Well, it's been fun. It always is. And, you know, on that note, let us not be discouraged. Let us hold fast to the fact that we can find within each of us, we can find illumination. Illumination around what's true, what's real, what's factual. Because reality, you notice I didn't mention, that's a whole other conversation. What is reality? What's consensual reality? Deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper conversation. So let's end on a positive note for today. that let us trust that the light within each of us will illuminate the truth. It will illuminate our own experience, our own beliefs, and that we will have patience, respect, and tolerance for others as they have their individual experiences in life. That we can, in our inner illumination, be a source of peace, of respect, of harmony. It is possible to see things differently. To be willing to be corrected on facts. To have an open-mindedness. A flexible, resilient enough ego. To be open to other opinions. To be open to more facts. To be open to more realities. And that that will give us a greater opportunity to experience life in a more authentic way. I like it. I like it. And ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for spending time with us today. I hope your day is beautiful. Go check out drjessicarochester.com. Check out Ayahuasca Awakenings, incredible books. Do you have any events coming up, Dr. Jessica? Sure. Yes, working on a number of projects. It's been a few years. I've been working on with a couple of universities. As programs in Canada have developed, the psychedelic studies graduate level programs, I've been advisor to two universities on that. It's been my joy and privilege to do so. And our church, we developed retreats twice a year. We're calling them retreats, although we don't get on a bus and go anywhere. But these are for professionals in the field and for graduate and postgraduate level students studying in that field or allied field. So our retreats are open to, for example, psychology students up at the kind of doctoral level, graduate and doctoral level, people who are working in the field, already working in the field. So we're really happy with how that is progressing. We're really happy and excited about the research we're doing there. a very highly esteemed researcher, Dr. Antonio and Sarah, who is doing research on these retreats. So they're actually, it's the first kind of research that's being done on this kind of the first kind of retreat like this. So we're excited about this. And we have a great committee, Dr. and Sarah, myself, Dr. Paul Groff, and other members of our senior members of the church. So It's exciting. And we're also working on a project with the ROM, Royal Ontario Museum, that, fingers crossed, in the spring of twenty twenty six, there's going to be an exhibition in which we will be participating. We will be donating, lending, not donating, lending to the exhibition. Our store table, one of our crosses, another thing we're doing, recording prayers and hymns. And so people entering in the museum are going to see the ritual setting for the sacrament. And you're also going to have as part of the exhibition, a clinical setting. This is the first of its kind. Okay. These are really exciting projects. So it's been a real pleasure this last year and a half working with ROM and Royal Ontario Museum. And we also have high hopes that the exhibition will travel to other museums and be a very good source of education. As you know, I'm all about, Educate, educate. Yeah. Okay. Open your hearts, open your minds. So anyway, a big, huge hug to you. Pleasure to hang in and visit lots of light and peace to everyone who is listening now or who will listen in the future. Fantastic. Have a beautiful day, everyone. Thank you.