Dragoș: How did it taste?
Horrible! Dead python and dead chameleon? Yeah! It’s fucking horrible. We were all thinking secretly, ‘we’re going to be really sick tomorrow!’ But you can’t say no. And then he said something else, and the guy went off and came back with a jar of black powder. And it poured black powder on the floor and the disciple liked it and on the floor. And then it poured some more and everybody licked it of the floor, one by one. And then it came back with some white powder. And we had to lick white powder of the floor. Nobody got sick.

We got back to America. We went to my apartment in New York and the next morning I got up and I thought I was in Africa again. And I was in New York and I was asking myself ‘am I here or am I in Africa, ‘cause I can’t tell right now.’ Back and forth, between Africa and New York. I had to stay in the apartment for three days, ‘cause I didn’t know where I was. Wasn’t horrible, it was just weird, you know? They were equal. I guess that was what it was teaching us. A few days later, they all had weird experiences, not exactly the same, but everybody had a weird experience that was relative to that. So, whatever it was, it wasn’t really specific, it was just a trigger for you to learn something, you know? And Benin, where we were, is the only country in the world where voodoo is a state religion, and has been for over 10 000 years. It is the oldest continuous religion on the planet. That’s why I kept saying ‘what’s the original story? What’s the mother story?’ If anyone knows it, they do.

And then, they started talking about the twins. This, you know? (Genesis looks at h/er mini wood doll hanged on h/er neck). We discovered that when we were walking around, people would come up, children, mothers, all kinds of people come up and kiss it or touch it or pray to it. We gradually realize there’s a whole sub story about twins. Adam and Eve are twins, Mawu and Lisa are twins. During the half year that’s gone on before we go back, Hazel Hill Mc Carthy III), would start getting emails from professors of anthropology in America and England. One of them had done a study of the incident of twins. In the entire world except Benin, there are four pairs of twins per thousand births. In Benin there’s 25 to 40 pairs per thousand births. Nobody knows why. They can’t see a genetic reason. So that means the original story is all about twins.

Then we found out, in September, at the end of the month, they have a big festival every year, for twins. The first weekend is dead twins; the second weekend is living twins. So we thought that we have to go back and find out some more. They’re gradually teaching us some kind of story, but they’re doing it in their own way. It’s fascinating. Because I’m 65 and I say ‘O, I’ve done all this stuff, been to jungles, and all over Himalayas’, and then I go to Africa and I’m ‘oh my God, I know nothing! Shit…here we go again.’

But that’s what so great! I love novelty. I want new things, I want to be confused and amazed. I don’t want to know what’s going on, I want to find out more and more and more. And the more we find out, the more amazing it really gets. So…yeah…who fucking knows….but consciousness is the key. Definitely. ‘Cause we have been working with Native American shamans, we worked with Shiva Sadhus (religious ascetic or holy person), Naga Babas, Tibetans, it’s been a lifetime search for me. What’s the original story? What is fucking going on? Am I even here? I don’t really know. Especially if you do psychedelics as well, which I did, because I grew up in the ‘60s. In those days it wasn’t for fun, it was a try to find out stuff, you know? We had to learn and find out, meet new dimensions, worlds. And it never stops. It’s fabulous. This is great. Who knows what’s next?
What else is there to talk about? Love and reality, that’s it. And love, love is always here with me.

Dragoș: Love will tear us apart.
Aha… You know I was the last person whom  Ian Curtis spoke to before he committed suicide? That was awful. It was the days before cellphones.