Ricardo Assis Rosa interview

Welcome to The Flip Side Podcast #0002

The Flip Side is the section within my main substack infotainment channel (The Song’s the Thing!) where I post interviews and commentary about anything and everything that I find interesting (usually totally unrelated to music in any way, and typically free). The Whistle Test is the section where I post about anything and everything regarding songwriting, songwriters, songs, music, recording, performing, gear, guitars, and more. There are also several other sections, for example, Free Speech Absolutism and Reel-to-Real.

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Today I’m talking with my friend Ricardo Assis Rosa PhD. A healing practitioner and ceremony holder, initiated in Tibetan Buddhism, Andean Q’ero, and Amazonian Shipibo traditions, which provide a foundational framework to support his healing and integration practice.

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Ricardo Assis Rosa

My summary of our conversation is that we talked about shamanic practice, spiritual journeying & psychedelics.

Please note that we had some technical problems with the stability of my internet connection during this interview, resulting in the sound quality of my voice not being that great, and there are a couple of quite rough-sounding edits where the connection totally dropped. Unfortunately, and with much regret, due to these internet stability issues I also had to abandon the video version. I’m very disappointed, however onwards and upwards! I’m now in the process of doing a major equipment upgrade to drastically improve the quality of my content, and smooth my workflow.

Ricardo and I in a fragment of the video that survived.

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The Flip-Side #0002: Highlights from the interview with Ricardo Assis Rossa

shamanic practice, spiritual journeying, & psychedelics

• What is shamanism?

• How to check if a shamanic practitioner is authentic?

• Historic use of psychedelics globally, the psychedelic experience, scientific / academic research, the mainstream reaction, and the goal of shamanism?

• Mixing / combining spiritual practices, in particular Buddhism and shamanism, and not becoming confused.

• Psychotherapeutic work, energy work, and unravelling personal narratives using shamanism.

• The dogmatic scientific mainstream, Rupert Sheldrake, and (just for example) memory.

• Different aspects of shamanic practice — transformation.

• Gabor Maté.

• What is going on? The use of psychedelics in shamanism. Ayahuasca. What happens? How do you know that the process is working?

• Mental health and psychedelic research. How are people the turn to shamanic practice responding? Is it safe?

• Shamanic practice as part of an ongoing spiritual journey.

• Independent sovereignty and being interconnected: masculine archetypes — warrior, lover, magician, and king.

• More detail about the idea of a goal within shamanism.

• Plants’ spirits, consciousness of plants, and them sharing their wisdom. Ayahuasca. Magic mushrooms.

• Vibration, rave culture, and MDMA.

• Creativity, problem solving, and micro-dosing.

• Addiction and dependency.

• Tobacco.

• Mapacho.

• DMT and journeying to other realms?

• Importance of ceremony.

Recorded: 15/09/2022

Published: 23/09/2022

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