A lot of things occurred to me with shamans in Peru.There were a number of different kinds of experiences that you learn from doing ritual and taking ayahuasca [a common tropical forest hallucinogen] is the key to understanding the native consciousness and perception of the world with the Peruvian shamans that you wouldn't get unless you had been with them, but every shamanic tradition, including the Native American tradition of medicine and cleansing ritual, like the Sun Dance or the sweat lodge.

The kinds of mystical experiences that I have had definitely convinced me that I was able to get out of time. I have had experiences, or brief glimpses, of being able to see the future and then come back into time, and then go into extraordinary realms of the past.

Reality gets created through acts of observation

The real alchemy is transforming the base self into gold or into spiritual awareness. That's really what new alchemy's all about.

Oh, scientific mind. You get all your data from us, the senses, but without us you would be nothing.

Alchemy and Kabbalah are later developments in my thinking. I think the primary interest has been the relationship of magic and mystery to logic and understanding. Those are the primary driving forces of my life. I have this ability, for some reason, to be able to hold both the Magical MysteryTour we're on in conjunction with the logical rigor of understanding theoretical physics, which makes me kind of a rare bird, because usually you're one or the other.

I think a lot of psychological healing tends to work on that basis. We go into the unconscious to find what's holding you back, so to speak, and I think there is an unconscious body image that may be responsible for the unhealing that's taking place.