Cosmic Flow: Sean Stone Interview (C300 II)

[jcs]

 Interview with Sean Stone (Oliver Stone's son) on Cosmic Flow (science meets metaphysics):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vScY3ScuUSU

Shot on C300 II. Edited on FCPX (4K C300 II source files)- editing was fast and fluid (edited a a Mac Pro and later on a MacBook Pro (late 2012 4 Core)). Motion was used to quickly create a smoke effect for the spirit animal retrieval section.

Spirit Animal Retrieval

Before starting to work on this show, I was skeptical of metaphysics. Shamanism, which was perhaps popularized in the West by Carlos Castaneda in the '80s, was a hip way to view reality and 'non-ordinary reality', but faded away when it was discovered that he used 'artistic license' when writing his 'non-fiction' books about don Juan Matus & shamanism. I attended a weekend seminar on shamanism in San Francisco and was surprised to learn that I had enhanced creative visualization when doing the exercises along with drums played at 5-7Hz. It turns out that 5-7Hz drumming can help to put the brain into Theta (just above a sleep-like state, a trance). This is a real effect, which can be measured: https://web.stanford.edu/group/brainwaves/2006/Maxfieldabstract.html .

While studying NLP (neuro linguistic programming), and after filming hypnosis stage shows, I realized that shamanism is a useful and valid way to talk to the unconscious mind. While it's always possible (and not currently possible to measure) that there's something metaphysical going on, we can see that the process of spirit animal retrieval and 'installation' (blowing the animal into the head and chest, 'locking it in' with the rattle) are forms of communicating with the unconscious mind via trance (shaman role) and hypnosis (client/patient role).  Shamanism's ordinary reality is the conscious mind, and non-ordinary reality is the unconscious mind. Drums are a simple and effective tool to explore the unconscious mind via trance, and ayahuasca (DMT + MAOI) is a powerful tool for exploring the unconscious mind by shamans for thousands of years. Hopefully this sheds some light on the spirit animal segment.