The Room of Lives

67 · Silvia Polivoy · Ayahuasca Retreat Facilitator

‘A teacher helping me with homework was studying psychology, and asked me many intelligent questions. That’s when I became curious about psychology. I specialized in drug addiction, then psychoanalysis and dream interpretation, transactional analysis, then transpersonal psychology. ‘I once left my body, and saw myself from the outside. I started researching, and found that you can do such things in trance states. I learned hypnosis and holotropic breathwork. I was using hypnosis to explore my clients’ past lives, but sometimes they instead went into some other dimension or planet, and I realized then that there are such worlds. ‘I went into the Amazon to work with shamans. On ayahuasca, the jungle spoke to me telepathically, and asked me to help it. I was in awe. Each time I drank it, I saw a probable future, and focused on it. ‘Ayahuasca is trance. When you drink it, you communicate with a sentient entity. In my opinion, everything has a cause in the spiritual realm, that materializes in the body. I help people enter into a light trance to see the spiritual causes of their problems.’ Silvia Polivoy, PhD [https://www.linkedin.com/in/silviapolivoy/], is co-founder and facilitator at the Spirit Vine Ayahuasca retreat center [https://spiritvineretreats.com/] in Brazil, where I went last year. She is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist who has worked in psychoanalysis, transactional therapy, transpersonal approaches, spiritual methods, meditation, group therapy, hypnosis, past-life regression, Jungian archetypes, and holotropic breathwork. She studied psilocybin mushrooms with Mazatec shamans in Mexico, the San Pedro cactus, and ayahuasca in the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon. Many leaders in consciousness studies have joined her retreats, including Rick Doblin, founder and president of MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies), and psychedelic artist Alex Grey. At her ayahuasca retreats, Silvia led us through group workshops such as regression to the inner child, going to the root cause of traumas, understanding the victim mindset, cancelling unconscious contracts, reconnecting with our power, breaking soul ties, and releasing negative attachments from our body. We begin this conversation by talking about Silvia’s ADD, her strange intuitions as a child, how she became interested in psychology, and about being a conscious medium. I ask about my lack of visions on ayahuasca. Can someone get better from an ayahuasca experience even without vision and insight? What is the future of the relation between human and nature? We talk about past and future lives and their connection with ayahuasca. Are there cases where ayahuasca can amplify someone’s ego, or harm them?

66 · Astrophysicist · Eclipse, Black Hole, and Einstein's Gravity

Dr Aaron Zimmerman [https://physics.utexas.edu/directory/aaron-zimmerman] is professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin, researcher at the LIGO gravitational wave detector, and our speaker from episode 8. He speaks here about how an expedition was undertaken during the eclipse of 1919, to show evidence for Einstein’s theory of gravity. He then talks about the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, and the black hole at the center of our galaxy.

65.3 · Special Agent · Healing Trauma with Ibogaine

‘All the meds I was on for eight years through the VA did nothing for me whatsoever. From what I know now, psychedelic treatment is the number one way to treat PTSD in veterans. I did that stuff, and the next day I had my life back.’ In this final episode, veteran Albert shares his struggles with physical and mental trauma throughout his life and career, and how he received a surprising amount of healing from ibogaine treatment, through our psychedelic research study.

65.2 · Special Agent · Saved by Synchronicity

‘This anger started coming over me, and I didn’t know what it was. As it reached an uncontrollable boiling point, it all came back to me. My step-grandfather had molested me and my handicapped sister. I got out my gun to kill him, then realized that he was already dead. So I wanted to blow out my own brains, and right then came a knock on my door, where nobody ever visits. ‘I didn’t make it to my social security office appointment at 9. At 9.02, it was bombed. 168 dead. When my paramedic student reached there to help, she was given a bucket to pick up body parts. Months later I went for that appointment to a different office. I was there for 2 minutes when I blacked out. Next moment I woke in the parking lot, and there was an explosion in my head, blood red, body parts flying towards me. That’s when it clicked.’ In this second part, Albert shares two mysterious stories of synchronicities that saved his life. In the first story, a lifeguard who he had a crush on was led by a mysterious mind voice to his doorstep in one of the lowest moments of his life. In the second, a chance phone call pulls him away from the Oklahoma City bombing [https://retroreport.org/video/extremism-in-america-the-oklahoma-city-bombing/], but months later the explosion strikes again, inside his mind.

65.1 · Special Agent · A Turbulent Life

‘I went down to the train tracks, and heard someone walking up behind me. I turned around. They both had bows and arrows with real razor hunting tips. “You’re our prisoner now”, they said, and started walking me to the train underpass. I knew in my heart that if I went there, I would not come out alive.’ Albert Hobaugh is a retired special agent, tactical operator, EMT-Paramedic and combat instructor. He was a U.S. Army Ranger and a federal investigator and undercover agent. He is the author of ‘Blacksheep Ghost: The early years: The Life and Making of a Special Agent [https://www.amazon.com/Blacksheep-Ghost-early-Making-Special/dp/1648014488]’. Albert’s journey through PTSD and neurological trauma led him to seek an ibogaine treatment study at our psychedelics research center. Here Albert shares his surprising and unusual life story: the difficult and adventurous story of his childhood and youth.