Name: Joe Rogan Experience #2385 - Rick Strassman
Uploaded: 2025-09-26T17:01:19.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #2385 - Rick Strassman' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-26. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #2385 - Rick Strassman' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-26. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #2385 - Rick Strassman

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
So this is a book I wrote 11 years ago.
Oh, okay.
I haven't gotten that one before.
Yeah.
It compares, well, let's see, are we going to...
Yeah, it compares the DMT state to the state of prophecy in the Hebrew Bible.
Do you think they're the same thing?
Well, the phenomenology is pretty similar.
Like if you read chapter one of Ezekiel, there's flames and there's angels and
there's wings
and there's eyes on the back of wings and there's roaring sound and blue ice
above the person
who flies through space.
Yeah, quite psychedelic.
Yeah, wheel within a wheel.
The description of the things that people usually, they try to say that it's
some sort
of a UAP.
That's the common thing that people like to say, right?
Well, it could be.
Which also might be connected.
It could be a DMT vision though.
Oh, easily.
Yeah.
Well, you know, the guys out of Jerusalem that think that the whole burning
bush thing was
DMT.
Yeah.
Well, that was the first theophany of Moses.
Yeah.
The first time he had a prophetic experience.
Yeah.
And I mean, it's like, that's what it is.
It's literally a plant that has high levels of DMT.
And if you burned it and smoked it, it's kind of crazy that that's the way it
comes.
That it, I mean, this is, it's, I just, and I really applaud you for learning
ancient
Hebrew so you could go back and read it in the, the original tongue, which is
really fascinating.
Didn't you say it took like 16 years to learn it?
Uh, that prophecy book took 16 years to write and I had to learn Hebrew while I
was reading
and, you know, doing the writing.
Well, what's cool is the Hebrew word for bush, burning bush is the same as, as,
um, Sinai,
Mount Sinai.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
The word's the same, uh, the same root.
The, the thing about the Hebrew language, at least for biblical Hebrew is every
word is
based on a three letter root.
Uh, so the word for bush contains those three letters and the word for, um, you
know, for
Sinai contains those, those same three letters.
And how is that significant?
Like, you know, you could have that, I'm sure there's English examples of three
letters
that are similar, but completely different meaning.
Like why, why is, why those three letters as a root connect these words
uniquely?
Well, it could be that bush grew on Mount Sinai.
And, uh, you know, that was the significance of the location of the burning
bush.
Oh, I see.
So it was literally named after that experience.
Could be, could be.
Yeah.
Well, you're talking about the acacia bush, which releases DMT.
Yeah.
Uh, when it's burnt.
And it's very common in that area, right?
Yeah.
In fact, there's, um, uh, plant is a weed, uh, called Paganum harmola, uh,
which also grows
in that part of the world.
And it contains beta carbolens, uh, which are the, uh, compounds responsible
for making DMT,
uh, for making ayahuasca orally active.
So they have their own ayahuasca plants available in tandem there.
Isn't it bizarre that you saying that to many people listening sounds utterly
crazy?
Like the proposition, just proposing that these people that were writing these
things down
a long time ago, these experiences, they were probably experiencing some sort
of a psychedelic
state and they were trying to describe it.
Well, in thinking about, you know, psychedelic states back then and, you know,
in the prophetic
literature, um, you know, you can think of the visions as being generated from
the bottom
up when you take something, uh, in the model of the Hebrew Bible.
Anyway, it all comes, it all, uh, you know, it comes down from God, you know,
so it's about,
it's a top down, uh, you know, uh, your causal relationship between the source
of the visions
and the visions, as opposed to them being generated by taking something.
It's, it's exogenous DMT versus endogenous DMT.
And if we tried to, when, what is the difference, like for your interpretation?
Like you, I know you had read the English version of the Bible, but what is the
difference between
learning ancient Hebrew and reading it in like the source language?
Like what was it like for you?
Like what, what made it different?
Well, I mean, it might be helpful to even go back to why I started reading the
Hebrew Bible of, of, of, of all things.
Yeah. Um, well, when I was doing my DMT work, uh, I was really involved with
the Zen Buddhist community, uh, that I started affiliating myself with learning
from when I was 22.
Um, and, uh, and, uh, that was the spiritual approach I took to the DMT work.
I was expecting it to be consistent with a Buddhist enlightenment goal.
You know, with no form, no thoughts, no sense of self, anything like that.
Uh, so that was the expectation that I took in with me when I was doing those
studies.
Um, would people have those kinds of experiences just being given DMT without
any other trappings?
Uh, no expectation, just go in there, you know, tell us what it's like.
So instead of that, uh, it was DMT, it was full of content.
People were interacting with it, their sense of self as maintained, uh, which
was not at all consistent with the Buddhist model that I brought to bear.
You know, so that was going on like, okay, you know, Buddhism's not quite
holding up to the data.
Um, and then my Buddhist community and I parted ways over the psychedelic work.
Uh, they thought it was promoting a, you know, diluted idea that psychedelics
can be spiritual.
So there were some personal issues as well that led to something that was
different than the Buddhist model.
So I'm Jewish.
I was wandering around a new age bookstore and found a very cool book called
The Kabbalah of Envy by Milton Bonder.
And, uh, it's a very short book.
And he starts describing the difference between a grudge, uh, and revenge and
envy and jealousy.
Very subtle ideas about, you know, how to relate to the world.
And it came from the Jewish, uh, you know, model from Jewish philosophy, Jewish
psychology.
So I thought, oh, interesting, uh, interesting, you know, maybe there's
something in my own tradition that was more consistent with the DMT, uh, effect
and also was more personally relevant.
So I started to read the Hebrew Bible and then just went down this huge rabbit
hole, you know, so when you're reading it in Hebrew, uh, you're reading three,
you're reading words that are derived from three letter roots.
And those, uh, roots may have a huge, um, range of meaning.
Something, for example, could cause a sin.
And something could, um, remove a sin just by an extra, you know, dot in the
middle of a letter.
You know, so it can really kind of, uh, bring you closer to the kind of large
scale way of looking at the text.
It doesn't just A follows B, follow C.
But it's, uh, there's a diffuse dispersion of A, then there's B, and then there's
C.
There are these, you know, clouds of interaction, uh, which are a lot more
fluid than what would be a straightforward English, uh, rendition.
Did you get to a point where you could, like, think in that language?
Like, are you fluent enough in it that you could, or are you just interpreting
it?
Like, how good are you at it?
Um, well, I mean, there's a lot of ways to interact with the text.
Uh, so the first thing that came to mind when you were asking that is, uh, um,
back in the day, I used to spin fleece into yarn and then weave the yarn into rugs.
I spent, like, like, after I stopped the DMT work.
That's all I did for a year.
It was just, um, just make rugs?
Yeah, just spin wool and make rugs.
Yeah, so, um, there's a part when they're building the tabernacle in the desert,
you know, the, you know,
the Hebrews had been let out of Egypt, you know, by Moses, and, you know, they're
in the wilderness.
And, uh, they're building this tabernacle, uh, to house the ark.
And the women are spinning right from the goats.
You know, they're spinning the hair from the goats right into yarn without
first, you know, shaving them.
Right.
And I was spinning all that time, uh, myself.
And, uh, it, uh, felt like I was back there.
I was back there spinning.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that.
Well, I was spinning, uh, yarn from a goat, a live goat.
Right.
And I was, like, in the mind of the person spinning it back then.
So you just put yourself into that state while you were doing it, and that's
why you enjoyed it?
Well, it was, um, it was, uh, you know, like a resonance between me spinning,
you know, wherever I was living back then.
And, uh, just being in a trance with the spinning and identifying, you know,
fully with someone who's doing the spinning, like, way back when.
It was free from a goat.
Yeah, it was, um, what was it?
I don't know.
It was a trance.
It was a movement into somebody else's consciousness from, like, the distant,
distant past.
And you, so you actually felt when you were doing this like you were a person
that was living back then.
What else changed about how you were thinking, other than the fact that you're
making clothes this way?
Like, what were the other things that made you think like a person back then?
Well, it was very cool.
I mean, I was spinning yarn for the tabernacle, which was, like, and I housed
the ark.
You know, the ark of the covenant and commandments and all that.
You know, it's a very rich world.
And I think, you know, that's the first time I really saw, at least my whole
person anyway, that could identify with the scene being described.
And I think that comes from really understanding, you know, the language and
how ambiguous it can be.
One of the great things about language is being able to talk to people in it.
How many people can you talk to in ancient Hebrew?
Is there, like, a chat group where you guys get together?
Well, you know, there's modern Hebrew now, which is spoken in Israel.
And it's, you know, based on biblical...
Is it the same as ancient Hebrew?
You know, it has a lot of the same three-letter roots.
And, you know, the words are the same.
You know, shalom means from, and, you know, shalom means hello.
What are the differences between, like, ancient Hebrew and standard Hebrew?
Modern Hebrew, yeah.
I tell you, I don't know much about...
Or I don't know much modern Hebrew.
When I was a kid, I went to Hebrew school and learned modern Hebrew, but it's
really...
Without speaking it, you forget it.
I'm in the middle of the audiobook of the Book of Enoch.
And it's one of the wildest things I've ever listened to in my life.
It's weird.
Oh, my God.
It's so weird.
When you realize that a lot of the people in the Book of Enoch are also in the
Bible,
and that it's one of the craziest stories.
It's one of the craziest origin stories ever, that angels came down and bred
with humans and
made giants.
Right.
The giants destroyed the earth.
Like, what is this story?
It's mostly in the Hebrew Bible.
You know, it's the story of what led to the flood.
Yeah, the sons of Elohim.
What a strange concept, that angels came down and bred with humans.
It's a very weird idea.
Well, there's different ways to look at translating B'nai Elohim.
You know, it might be...
Well, the first word, B'nai, means the sons of.
You know, so it kind of revolves on what's the meaning of Elohim.
So it could be God with a big G, could be God with a small G, could be angels,
could be dignitaries
in a government like judges.
So, you know, the less far out kind of interpretation of that phrase or that
term is, you know, the sons of the mighty, the sons of the judges, you know,
the sons of the renowned people, as opposed to the sons of angels or the sons
of God.
Okay, so what, what, how do you interpret the watchers?
What do you think that could be?
I think, well, they're not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
They are mentioned in the book of Enoch.
That's a crazy book, isn't it?
It's crazy.
Yeah, I started reading it.
I said to my wife, I said, like, I can't handle this.
It's too much.
It's because if that was left in the Bible, if they decided that that was like
a part of th