He’s sometimes known as Dr. Amazon, and he is the embodiment of Eastern mysticism meeting Western science and ideas. It was no easy journey for him to reach that embodiment, and today he is sharing his well-earned wisdom on today’s episode of Awesome Health Podcast.
Despite growing up in a traditional household, Dr. Stefan marched to the beat of his own drummer from early on. As a child he would play outside and would feel as though the plants were speaking to him. He loved the connection he felt to them and it is something he honors today.
With his own drum beat still calling him forward, he attended Duke University for his undergraduate studies. He was drawn to Duke in particular, and later he discovered why: they had a parapsychology department and he was fascinated! That fascination led him to meet some equally interesting people like Elmer Green, the biofeedback innovator.
And eventually those experiences led him to study transpersonal psychology and earn his PhD. But those weren’t the only intriguing events of his life, today he shares his own near-death experience, and what it was like to work with Wall Street experts.
You’ll also hear about his time spent with indigenous peoples and how he came to be the medical ambassador for the Navajo Nation. Dr Stefan is helping them to build a native children’s hospital and to find ways of bringing new mental health care via technology for their underserved people.
Join us for those tales and so much more on this episode of Awesome Health Podcast!
Resources:
Dr. Stefan’s web site
Dr. Stefan on Instagram
Podcast and I'm here with Dr Stefan and we'll get into his variety of names, his variety of lifetimes, his variety of interests. Dr Stefan is an incredible guy. Sometimes some people call him Doctor Amazon as he's a naturopathic doctor. He also studied, uh, medicine at Duke. He's going to talk about that. He's also an extremely spiritual guy. He's into a lot of psychological stuff and he's one of the most remarkable individuals I know. In fact, I've been friends with Stefan for, well, geez, it must be getting close to 13-14 years. It's a long time. It's a long time. We met in Sedona, Arizona as both of us we're kind of engaged in a spiritual, said, path. And that is our journey for self-realization to ourselves. And we have found that we had a lot of common interests. Wade Lightheart: But let's get into a little bit about your background because you know, it's hard to peg you down, doc. I mean, geez, you've done so many things and you have such a broad brush stroke. Can you give our people before we get into today's talk, which I think is gonna mind blow about what you're doing with indigenous people, what you're doing with some of these, uh, medicines that are found in the Amazon. Of course, your medical background, your naturopath, the background, your psychological way. I mean it's just you're just a Jack of all trades and you're really good at all these things. How did you get here? How did you get on this journey and where's it going? Dr Stefan: Well, my friend, I want to thank you for the opportunity to, to spend some time with you and do this lovely chat. It reminds me a little bit of the kind of talks we had in the Amazon with the indigenous tribes where in, you know, instead of watching television, we spent our time tell a vision. So here we are sharing stories with each other and, and life is about stories and the Epic journey we're, we embark on, we all have these, these stories in us and I feel privileged that I've had a chance to live out some amazing ones. I really have. Um, so yeah, there's so many things to cover, but I definitely want to share some salient bits of my story and, um, you know, invite your listeners to go on that journey with me if they feel the resonance. So, yeah. Um, I mean I just, I just know when I was a kid, I was born in a traditional Ukrainian household, if you will. Dr Stefan: Even though I grew up outside New York city, I, uh, I was raised in a very central, traditional values. All my family was born and raised in Ukraine, my roots. And, uh, they were, they were farmers and landowners, wealthy farmers and landowners, and they were really connected with nature. So here I grew up in a traditional household with those kinds of values. And yet when I went outside and I would play, you know, as a kid, climb the apple tree and grow, grow the flowers and tend the garden, I almost feel like I could talk to the plants. I almost felt like I could hear their music and hear their residence. So I didn't know quite what to do with it. Because as kids we, we see things that adults don't, you know, we have these boundaries that no one told us. We couldn't see this. Dr Stefan: No one could told us we couldn't explore the experiences. And then fast forward a few decades later, here I go, I'm in the jungle with the Koran, Darrow shaman and they're like the plants of course you can talk to the plants, they can sing you, why can't you hear their music? So, you know, life is about going that full circle and finding and reconnecting with who we really are and not just simply um, you know, getting lost in the world or just getting lost in the book knowledge as well. You know, really it was about getting the book knowledge into the heart and, and discovering who we are as souls, as spirits, as essences beyond simply our personality, who we were programmed to race to believe. Wade Lightheart: You know, I think what's really fascinating cause we're going to dive deep into kind of some of the lessons and possibilities that the indigenous people of South America and other indigenous tribes in your work with them in a minute. But I also want to, before we get into that is talk about your past. He had an interesting past where you're kind of going down run route in with Duke university, you had a major life changing experience. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, that pathway coming out of say childhood and young adolescents and then moving onto what was planned to be a career in one thing and then life changes and you ended up in a career in the other thing, but they actually kind of co-contribute. Dr Stefan: uh, and that's what's so wild Wade. It's, is that somehow, you know, there is a higher self in us that I feel guides our decisions in addition to needing to take care of our responsibilities in the world, following that voice inside and doing the hard work necessary for that. So I remember even interviewing during colleges, you know, I looked at Harvard, I looked at Princeton, Yale, and yet I was still somehow drawn to Duke for reasons I could not understand. And later I found out when I got accepted to Duke, Duke had Paris psychology department. And the cool thing about Paris psychology, which is why I think for your listeners is so such a great topic, is there's normal psychology. Psychology is how you study behavior and, and you know, in a very conventional way, A equals B at least to see, you know, just a very, um, logical systematic approach to how people behave and think the Paris psychology is next to that and that studying behaviors beyond things, you can explain what the normal senses. Dr Stefan: And here we go. I mean, I attended Duke and I discovered this Paris psychology department that got kicked out of Duke and is off-campus and known as Ryan research center. So I'm studying premed and psychology and computer science responsibly, if you will. And here I go, a bit of a rebel. I'm, you know, during lunch I sneak off on campus and go study with these Renegade psychologists, these PhD physicists doing these amazing tests. And I'll mention some of these tests because I think it's just important for us to realize, you know, these realms we're talking about that we're into go way beyond the mind, but there's ways to, to grapple with them. So, for example, one test was called the the Zener deck and it was a deck of symbols. So there's five different symbols, you know, you see them in front of you and cards that are flipped upside down and your job is to try to guess what the card says by matching it with these random cards. Dr Stefan: Okay. Um, and that's one test and that's to see if you have this so-called ESP. Can you guess beyond the senses? Can you guess beyond the senses? So, uh, you know, they're those kinds of tests there. There were other tests where they call it remote viewing where people would sit in one room with your eyes closed with blindfolds and someone literally tried to send the message to you, some symbols and you describe what comes to your mind. And I know these experiments sound kind of crude, but over the decades they were done, there've been meta analyses done that, you know, the, the, the way these results are if was way above chance, way beyond chance. Wade Lightheart: The U S military is heavily involved in remote viewing for a variety of it's things since the late sixties and seventies. There's a couple of great, some great books out there. So this is not, it's interesting. A lot of this stuff is on the, on the surface is debunked by, or by what I'd say the quote unquote naysayers out there. Yet the very institutions that are debunking them, there are these pockets of deep research where the highest levels of government and science are actually experimenting kind of on their own while they're telling everybody else no, no, this doesn't really exist. Dr Stefan: Well that's exactly it. And that's why I developed this, a bit of a rebel streak here in studying these things and um, you know, a bit of a rebel curiosity Explorer pioneer streak that has such a fascination doing this work. And, you know, I got to work on wall street for a little bit in connection with my work at Duke and, and uh, even on, I find out the executives on Wall street are interested in intuition and they're willing to even entertain these conversations. So, you know, the, there were, there was the opportunity to kind of cross and blend bridges, find what I'm passionate interest in about and see a way for that to fit in the world in the world actually got interested because you know, if people can make better decisions in Wall street, uh, that may actually improve the bottom line and improve their quality of life. Wade Lightheart: There was a research study actually with CEOs and they found that the best CEOs actually relied on intuition more than any other factor in determining their biggest decisions in company. So a lot of them tend to gather a lot of data or you know, if you say instead of looking at five cards, maybe they're looking at 5,000 components and it's almost impossible to come to an accurate conclusion because you could make very logical arguments both for and against almost any decision inside the company. Uh, you know, as, as a lot of graduate students understand is like, well, if you want to prove anything you can find supporting evidence for virtually almost any sub topic. Topic is subject. So where is truth in that? And the best CEOs actually rely on intuition, the best athletes rely on intuition. And I think some of our greatest decisions or our greatest challenges is to, you know, go with the gut what quote unquote our gut. But what is that, what is this sense of I that seems to exist outside the physical domain. Cause I know here you were traveling down this road in kind of this, you know, you're always kind of treading on both sides of the equation since I've known you, you're going to Duke, something happened and then your whole life changed. Dr Stefan: Well said Wade. I think that the journey kept continuing because um, at Duke I did premed and then I studied, um, I found the pre-med just wasn't addressing everything I thought was possible and healing and medicine. And so I started with my mentor there on mind body medicine study group. And at the time Duke thought that was like blast for me. Even the Dean of medical education thought like, what is this? You know, we don't, and yet 10 years later, 20 years later, dude starts to own money, mind, body department. So, you know, so that was my own intuition to follow. But you know, in that process we brought speakers to campus. Chi workers, um, you know, structural integration therapists, medical intuitives. I met norm Shealy there. He started, uh, he was a neurosurgeon who did his medical intuitive work with Caroline Myss. Dr Stefan: I met him during a conference, Elmer Green, the the um, biofeedback innovator. But even he has stories behind him that he was guided by, you know, knowledge and beings that defined rationality. So I think I was just doing in that constantly. So, um, so continuing on with this journey, I worked at the Monroe Institute for a while and a fascinating place, listeners might love this place. Some of the neuro Institute is an important part of this discussion because it is a central point of discussion that kind of started this brain tech revolution, if you will, which is very relevant to what we're talking about. And we'll explain in a moment. You know, Robert Monroe was his normal left brain guy, executive who during the day he would fall asleep and take a nap, right? So yes, that right. Why not? So we found what happened is in the middle of the day, he would find himself floating over his body. Dr Stefan: He was like, wait, what? What my dead know I'm alive. And then he'd wake up and he's still in it, he body. But that happened a few different times and he thought he was going crazy. He actually went to Duke, the JB Ryan to check this guy out and to see if he was normal and all the doctors said nothing was wrong with him. So these journeys kept explore developing. He was start leaving his body, if you will, at night and journeying to other realms. And he wrote books about this journeys out of the body, far journeys and ultimate journeys. Now I had the privilege of meeting this guy and he was out of this world. Literally. I shook his hand and my hand buzz like I thought he had an electrical buzzer in his hand. Like the con you get an a, you know, a comic store that would shock you but does it. Dr Stefan: So I knew it was a very special man. I was their first and only undergraduate intern. It was an absolute blast working there because they work with sounds and they did this Hemi sync technology and the simple explanation for that is Hemi sync is using the brain as a way of hacking the brain playing two different sounds, one in each ear and the ear hears the difference in the frequencies and uses that to follow the sounds to go into an altered state, um, beyond our normal waking state. So I did a workshop with them called the gateway voyage. They had comped me and we actually had a Wall street executive there and psychics and researchers from around the world is such an amazing time there. And I had my first real experience of this where we're listening to these sounds and we're doing this guided journey, if you will, through these sound patterns. Dr Stefan: And I literally, they call it resident toning. So I was tuning along with these sounds and literally I, I saw what looked like my body, but it was glowing and later I understood that to be an end, like our energy body, if you will. That's, that's an understanding of the literature. So that was one of many glimpses along the way that were way more much more than their physical body. And that was Robert Monroe's teaching from day one. We are more than our physical body. So I was never the same after that. I could never go down a conventional allopathic path, if you will. I love all forms of medicine. I mean a medicine, conventional medicine saved my life twice. But it was naturopathic and holistic medicine that put me back together again. So the two were like friends together. Wade Lightheart: I think that's a very important message for people because there's so many people in a conventional medicine and then, or alternative or natural medicine or holistic medicine, whatever you call it, and they're, they're always, uh, for a great number of people. They're there, they're bad mouthing and bashing the other, which in fact, I think they're just, you know, two ways of, of trying to help people who are having challenges in their life. And, uh, conventional seems to be very good in short term intervention. Very, you know, you're dying. You need a situation, there's something, you need a surgery, you are in a car accident, you're going to die because of something and that may be genetic or whatever. And you repair that. In other words, you put the machine. Okay, we patched it up, we glued it together, we took out with a bad piece. But really in order to really optimize it or treat what the issue was before or to get to the core of the issue, whether that's psychological, whether that's nutritive, whether it's, uh, you know, some other biological system, I think the holistic side, uh, offers some other choices. You want to talk about how that journey kind of led to the next piece, the next chapters in your very storied life. Dr Stefan: So, so the next chapter was I had, uh, wanting to take a different path and I realized the conventional mind, conventional understanding. My vision was larger than that and I wanted to continue. So I pursued a doctorate in consciousness studies, transpersonal psychology and w and that was at Sabre university with my great dear friend, mentor Stanley Kripner, who's like a Yoda, you know. Wade Lightheart: Can you explain to people what transpersonal psychology is as they might not know what that is? Dr Stefan: Yeah. So William James is a Harvard psychologist who, who had a, a great perception of psychology that goes beyond simply our understanding of behavioral and cognitive. It's more just who we are and what we think. It includes, experiences like dreams, ESP, powers, psychology, um, uh, sixth sense. It includes a space between us, altered States of consciousness, the superconscious, the subconscious. You know, it, it's, it's the, it's the entire realm of psychology that that is, let's say, the entire spectrum, if you will. And that's simply the, the few points of rationality we understand of who we think we are. So why is that so important right now and today? Because, um, when I did real estate, I was doing real estate while I was attending grad school at the time I bought my first house for $100, by the way. And that helped me understand that I was on my path when something amazing happened and I got a thank you letter from the guy for doing that. Um, I started, you know, I know I'm starting to kinda crossing paths right now, so I would buy a home and then, um, I would talk to my, um, friend who was, who actually did intuitive consulting work for the CEO of Sony and Bill Gates. Wade Lightheart: And so by the way, it's just, I think it's amazing how many people at the highest levels leverage intuitives or quote unquote, some people might call psychologists or people out of kind of like the very far left field. Everyone, it could be astrologists, it could be numerologist, it could be, you know, all of these kind of O cult type things that are poo-pooed. I know a lot of CEOs and a lot of heads of companies and stuff and almost all of them have some go-to mystical people that are on their Rolodex as much as their accountants and lawyers. Dr Stefan: This is what I call decision augmentation technology, D a T decision augmentation technology. So we're relying on additional sources of information to help make decisions and, and not excluding anything initially. That's the creative process. That's a creative journey. So I was hungry for that. And transpersonal psychology taught me how other cultures actually use dreams as part of their decisioning in Korea. The middle East people sit around the breakfast table haven't been dreams. In fact, if you're, if your sister or brother is going to, uh, if your sister will conceive, often a family member will have a dream to gift them, keep map, fancy that family memorable. Actually have a pre-cognitive dream about the childbirth before it actually happens. So my thinking is practical. It's a bridge building. I like to build bridges and connect different worlds. So I thought, how can we apply that? So I actually did my doctoral work on prophetic or predictive dreams in real estate. Dr Stefan: So he regard come on these worlds. Wow. That's themes about the home before they bought the house. And uh, which is actually quite common. Yes. And yet we're not, we don't always acknowledge it. Well, one of my dear friends and my mentor, in Duke, Larry Burke, he had wrote a book called the adventures of holistic radiologists and he interviewed patients who had dreams about breast cancer before they had it, and their genes are more predictive, if you will. Then then the mammogram, you know, the dreams were important source of information and wisdom. So once more, it's a way it's about how can we apply these phenomenal, extraordinary human experiences back down to the practical. So the next step in my journey happened. Ironically, I was studying to become a brain surgeon at Duke initially. That was my plan and I just found, you know, my vision was larger than that, if you will. Dr Stefan: And yet I still had my contacts. So here I go. I graduated with my PhD in transpersonal psychology, having had these amazing insights and experiences and I was in a horrible car crash, a car crashed into me amazingly. I rolled out of the thing and I thought it was okay. About a year later, I started having the worst headaches of my life and I kept ignoring them like they're going to go away, think positive, right? Bypassing, you know, think positive, but it didn't get any better. And I went into the hospital, the hospital check me out and they said, sir, you don't have food poisoning. I have of strange anomaly in the middle of your brain. I said, no, I know when I'm in perfect health. They said, well, maybe that's why it hasn't killed you yet, but you need, we need to take care of this. So suddenly my reality warbled into a meltdown and I had had to undergo emergency brain surgery. Wade Lightheart: So not only did you study brain surgery, you actually became the patient, which I find is ironic. Uh, what happened after that because I know that was a pretty jarring experience in your life. And it led to some other, I think, some discoveries. And I think I want to before you kind of go into that, some of the challenges that happened were significant. And I think what's amazing is how you took those challenges and, and, and just reworked them in a really beautiful, magnificent way into your current career. So I think for anybody listening that's going through a very big physical challenge or a medical challenge or a health challenge or relationship challenge, recognize that there you have, although you can't always change the situation, you can change how you perceive the situation. And if you perceive the situation in a different way that it's an opportunity on some level, it can completely transform your life. So with all that, go ahead and kind of share what happened to you because, wow, it was a rocket ride. Dr Stefan: Amen. I mean, uh, uh, there's so much more to say. So again, we're just giving big picture here, but you know, the, the, the chief of neurosurgery in and, you know, explaining the chances of life versus death because the location was so precarious that, you know, he invented the surgery to actually do this thing and he's the chief of neurosurgery. So, you know, I mustered every resource I possibly could. I had friends, I had healers, had people who were energy workers, pray constantly around the world for me, you know, because you know, there have been studies about even the Maharishi effects, um, you know, the studies in cardiology, patients getting prayed for and the outcomes of that. So I invoked every possible resource I could in inside myself to make sure I had the best journey possible. Wade Lightheart: An element, a key element if you're up against challenges is get every resource you can that will support you. Dr Stefan: Exactly. And then I also surrendered to, to this medicine, I realized this is the best medicine this was world has at this point for this particular ailment. I analyze the risks and benefits. I mean I I know about John of God, I was thinking about going there, but the risks of leaving the hospital bed and this thing blew up, you know, it wasn't worth it. So you know, thinking pragmatically as well as intuitively is important to know how to have the right discernment for that. So funny thing is the procedure was about seven hours and taking, becoming a full fridge buildings, brain surgeon takes the seven years. So I had a seven year download of what would it in basically seven hours. So it was a seven hour brain surgery and I had what one would consider a near death experience, an NDE in the literature. Dr Stefan: Um, and basically that means by, by classical definition, that's when a one is dead or near that at some form from prolonged period of time beyond the normal limits of the physicality. And they have a powerful disassociate experiences. Some people, you know, see the light, some people see colors, some people see angels. Uh, my experience was that of realizing or feeling, but more of like realizing that the entire life of this historical Dr Stefan, because the doctor was just the label of Stefan, just the label who we are goes way beyond that and beyond even the description of the words. So my entire life just became like a bubble and it just sort of burst and there wasn't even a sense of man, I'm dead. It was just wow. And there was just a sense of observing, uh, and, and awareness and, and such an intense feeling of light, if you will love. Dr Stefan: It was almost painful. Uh, there's a saying about the 70,000 veils to God that if he actually saw God in its, in his or her pure form, your face would burn up. So we have these layers preventing us from seeing what the truth really is. So somehow it was my sense of a glimpse, but there really wasn't any thinking involved. It was just pure sensitive experience. And there was no sense of time. That thing could've been a thousand years of one year. One moment. I had no idea. But, um, that moment is still with me and it made me realize that, you know, we have a lot more to this world that's, that's not just seen. There's an unseen world. And, um, you know, I gradually came back into this body and uh, I remember kind of having this realization, Oh, there's a body to come back to, but it wasn't a me, it was just a pull to go back into it and then waking up and going like waking up and saying, what is this thing now? Dr Stefan: And it wasn't operating the way I think I would've wanted it to because it was just operated on and under anesthesia so the body wasn't working. And I really felt that distinction between the essence in infusing the body and the body itself. So to me and healing, I realized we need to address both facets. The raw materials, which is what you and your team are exceptional with. Wade, is infusing the buy at the right raw materials as well as the top down, what energy, what prayers, what spirituality, what consciousness we're infusing ourselves with to animate that working both. And in the middle, that's, that's where the human is and that's where the magic is. And the heart is the middle of the body, the middle shocker, if you will. That is the bridge that connects all the two, and that's where some of the magic happens. Dr Stefan: So it really was, it was incredible healing journey to get back and recover and rejuvenate. Um, so another thing I discovered was I'm like, what? Who are these other people? I know the hospital actually said, we're amazed. We've never seen anyone recover that quickly and be able to walk again and just get your ass out of the hospital. Some people spend months there with a surgery like that, even if they even make it through. So, you know, really go into that hellacious place and having the faith of being able to pull myself out of it gradually, you know, that that's where, that's where the rubber really hits the road and yeah, yeah. Was really where the rubber hits the road. Wade Lightheart: And then, so you, you kind of, uh, went on, so what was the next phase of your career after the recovery of that, which took some time? Dr Stefan: The, yeah, the, the, these things are taking a mortal blow to the body is, is no huge feed. I mean SPE, the Sanskrit scholar is talking to Causey karmic. So there's multiple definitions or discussions, what that's about. But you know, I really was taking charge of myself healing. So I realized like what are the natural resources I can use now that the body mechanically got fixed? How do I put it back together again? And, and I saw the power of nature pathic medicine to the physicians I saw. And also I met this gentleman who was born 1901 I met at a raw food gathering, if you will. And um, and he was a speaker and at the time he was a speaker. I thought he was like 54 and at the time he was 108 when I met him. Yeah. Wade Lightheart: Yeah. He's a pretty amazing individual. I've had the good opportunity meeting or our friend there and it's remarkable. His cognitive capacity, his vitality, his health. And what did you learn from this Centurion? Dr Stefan: Well, some of the transmissions that happen when you work in and study with someone go way beyond the words. I mean, certainly he had great genes, but he's in the most of it. He wasn't just like his son who he outlived when the Sunday, when he was 80, because the son smoked and partied too much. Uh, and those are risk factors. And now modernly we know epigenetics is the way our body and our mind talks to our genes and vice versa. So he made the most of his genetics. He ate phenomenally well and he built what I consider his brain bank and his body bank. So this is a really important concept because a lot of the things we know we need to do for our health don't always seem so, they seem so subtle. Um, do some yoga. Well, I don't know if that's going to help me today or tomorrow, but he did these practices every single day of his life. Dr Stefan: He was very religious and spiritual. He prayed every day, read the scripture, he contemplated on whatever it was meaningful and divine to him. And he exercise every day, like religiously. And, uh, he also ate phenomenally well every day. Very disciplined in that. But I, I think that he built his physiological DataBank without taxing it. He kept adding his physiological wealth. It's like your retirement account, if you will, but it's a biological bank account. And he kept building that and that's a really critical concept I want to convey because he, he did that year after year and lived a phenomenal life right up until 114 I believe. Incredible. And outlook will TAF his age. So it's phenomenal. So the other thing I learned in the process, and curiously, you know, when I, when I was coming back from that surgery and recovering, I realized I got this realization was a dream and intuition can only really talk to our DNA, right? Dr Stefan: I to really communicate with it. Now we're having a lot of, a lot of various science coming out. But the thing is we don't necessarily need to wait for science to before we can do something, let us be the explorers, let us be the experimenters, let us be the pioneers if we feel guided to. And I realized that I could actually meditate to connect with the DNA. Actually did a podcast with a non-state publishing on that. They did work with the EQ article about how you can communicate with your DNA and maximize its physiological expression. Wade Lightheart: I remember one of our earliest meetings, um, you and I had a discussion, it was in Sedona, Arizona. And our discussions when we meet up are always a very animated and fun and, uh, covering a wide range of topics. It's a really playful yet, uh, I would say inspiring and, uh, thought provoking conversations. And you told me this, one of the things is you look incredibly young for your age and am I going to say your age on here? But it's, it's, it's shocking for most people and they would never guess your age. And I remember this conversation and you said, well, I actually just, uh, taught, told my DNA that, that we're going to change it's aging process, you know, and I thought, what a great idea. Tell me more. So tell us more what that, how that process came and how did you come to that conclusion? It definitely seems to be working. So I think there's probably millions around the world that would like to save the trip to the drugstore for the latest, uh, oil of delay and tap into what's maybe possible with your, uh, with what you've done. Dr Stefan: Well, wait, I mean to do, we wouldn't necessarily have all the time, we'd need to go into the specifics of that. Uh, but the, the big picture from me is the biology of belief. Bruce Lipton wrote about how we can communicate to our body and connect with it and affirm who and what we are. So in any of these journeys we're embarking on, we need to have a very clear and strong intention and have a, have a means by which we're going to connect with ourselves more deeply to help reprogram ourselves. So this to me is about inner engineering and also outer engineering. How to optimize your internal environment, how to optimize your external environment to support that. Dr Stefan: So, so, um, the, the connection to the DNA is really a meditation about going deep and, um, getting out of our mind, our busy mind, into our deeper States of awareness. Our, you know, right now we're out in currently operating a beta state, but in beta frequencies, that's the predominant. But then we want to get into an alpha, a theta or Delta state, which is what I do in the brain. Spas on developing is giving people a chance to get out of their conventional, busy, busy, busy mind and experience a greater sense of themselves so they can access that, that discussion they have with their DNA, if you will, on how to do that. Wade Lightheart: And then further for those of us who want to, who want to know more about the different brain atates, you can refer back to the other podcast that we did with my co founder, Matt Gallant on the various brain states and what they correlate to in regards, we won't go into all the details today, but to keep on going. Dr Stefan: Uh, you know, and I realized life is a hypnosis, if you will. We're hypnotized into thinking we need to. We are, we are an individual person that we're born and then we actually die. Who's the we who, who's the I that's getting , who's the IVUS? Even commenting on this, certainly earning out of the body, certainly seeing all these experiences and still having some sense of awareness, whether his body was getting operated on or not told me that, that were more than we think we are. So, so that kind of hypnosis can work both ways. You know, we can hypnotize ourselves to say, um, you know, I don't have, I don't get old. I have birthdays or rebirth days or sell your continuation days instead of thinking how old are you? Because that's a cultural hypnosis or programming of, of old, um, how many times has your body evolved around the sun? Dr Stefan: Really, you know, what is your physiological age versus your chronological age? And then each year is a celebration of how many years you've been 25 or 30 or 40. It needs to be, it needs to be plot. There needs to be some that your system has to buy or some of it which you can start inching it back. So again, the, the, the teaching is, is simple, but you know, the executions, it's huge. It's, it's a very huge endeavor if you will. And each belief takes at least 21 days to program. So it's for it to become active in your system. So you know when you can buy into that they like, I actually feel I connect with the part of me that feels 25 you know, by by divine grace it says all by, you know, whatever mystery that brought us here that continues us. You know, how much are we really in control of any of that. Dr Stefan: So it's really also acknowledging that, you know, we do our part and then this, that mystery does the rest we do our part, which is the raw materials you provide. I mean those are important tools for the telomeres, for the epigenetics, for the proper methylation, for people to stay young as long as possible. So let's talk about you. You then journeyed into the realm of naturopathic medicine and started studying in Arizona in regards to that. You want to explain a little bit about that and then absolutely way, because I loved, well, I love teaching and speaking. When I did real estate, people tapped me on the shoulder and saying, how did you do what you do? You, you bought a house for a hundred and filled your, I figured out a way, sell it in a weekend. Then you do these house clearings in the house, sells faster. Dr Stefan: How do you do what you do? So, um, I, I started teaching seminars and I wanted to take Bernado my friend to teach seminars. We spoke at the raw spirit festival. We didn't event in Sedona creative life center. Oprah had called him and we were discussing should he be on or not. He just did not want the publicity, which is just crazy, but I can also understand you're a buck 10, a buck 12 and you just don't need the extra PR. You don't need the stress. And he's lived a fulfilled life. So I get it. It's pretty amazing. Um, so, uh, I was continuing on this journey that we did events, health events, and there were questions I didn't know the answer to. And I sort of stumbled, literally stumbled on the campus at, in Tempe, Arizona, Southwest college of naturopathic medicine. And was like, maybe this is where I need to be next. Dr Stefan: And, um, I wanted to rehabilitate myself to anytime there's a major trauma that happens with the body, a, you know, we need to learn new skills is important. We challenge ourselves and put ourselves into a new groove because it's a new chapter of life. Life continues. So it was an unnatural resonance and, and I was willing to embark on that journey and actually I did all the natural, the premed work beforehand. So when I was in naturopathic school, I discovered, um, you know, the best of both worlds is what I think we as natural paths to do. Um, we're like the last Mohicans in some way because it was five or 6,000 of us licensed in the States. It's not that many. And yet we have certain solutions that, you know, the, the mainstream doesn't, we even this philosophy of teaching, of going to the root cause of looking at the baseline of establishing the foundations of health, looking at the obstacle to cure, like a very systematic way of thinking that pharmacology and surgery are the last two points of that. Dr Stefan: You reserve those for the last, there's so many things you can do beforehand. So I just loved the way he was thinking and were actually looked at as nature, as a curative force inside of ourselves. Not thinking where machine needs to be fixed, but just the fact that we're a vital force, the operating our body and that we can work with. So, you know, I, even if I still had the passion of being on the edge there at SC and M, so I heard this doctor speak about indigenous shamans in it, indigenous shamanism and Amazonian plant medicine. And I intended this meaning this talk at a local, um, uh, botanical store and I was so blown away, but what this guy was doing, he's an MD who was disgruntled as a medical student. You know, wanted more when he was depressed in med school, they wanted to give him Prozac and he was not finding that acceptable, you know, so he, he wanted to look at what botanical options are there. Dr Stefan: Siliciden was, um, what came up because it was not so harmful and he went to his route. So he traveled back to Columbia, started looking at shamans and healers and literally cofounded a healing center with an indigenous indigenous shaman indigenous curandero, a medicine man who was, who'se their traditions have done this for thousands of years. And I heard that and I even heard the science that of what Dr was talking about and uh, and it made sense on so many levels. And there's a part of me here, we go about intuition. You listen, when you're on the path, you're like, I've got to do that or whatever. I feel that resonance. So you know, like life's this river. Like sometimes we're on the edge and sometimes we just have to dive right into it. I have to do that. And that's sort of what began this journey because I went down there in the summer as a med students and I got all my clinical hours done early and I didn't tell anyone because I didn't know if I was going to come back or live through it. I want to bring anyone I was, this was my journey. I had to go there first, check it out. And it was like, it was like going from the matrix into the avatar. Wade Lightheart: It's a very good, um, it's a, it's a very good description I think for people who might not be a familiar with plant medicine and some of the opportunities I've long been an advocate of leveraging plant medicines, traditional pathways, which had been used literally for thousands of years and cultures around the world. One of the primary cultures who integrated this into, you know, society, uh, is in South America, in these type of indigenous tribes who had very profound traditions and extremely robust knowledge of the effects of plants. They're, you know, both for treating medical conditions, but also I think what's really interesting is leveraging and treating us on the more human level, that more internal relationship that we have with ourselves, the psychology, the emotionality, the spirituality as just as robust or are just as important, if not more important than what was, what was actually happening out here on the physical plane. So you went down into it literally into the Amazon and you're, you're having these parents. What happened for you there and how did that lead to your work today? Dr Stefan: Well, I would say it was, it was incredibly profound. I mean, um, it really coming into the lungs of mother earth, you know, unplugging from the cell phone. The matrix world was such an insane revelation. I didn't even know what any would, I didn't even know a part of me knew, which is why I felt so called to go. But as soon as I got there, it was like I, I could actually breathe for the first time. I could actually smell for the first time. I mean, as a kid I could feel the energy of the trees. And I don't know what to make of it. And now we researched that trees are so incredibly intelligent with each other that they, you know, their roots literally, you know, you have these root trees in near woods, California out in this Bay area. Some of the trees are up to a thousand years old. Dr Stefan: And how do they survive all the, the deforest, the earthquake start to whatever the weather extremes that was for this years. The, the roots literally entwined in touch each other and they can communicate along each other. So I realized, and I literally felt in my body and myself that I was plugging this vast cosmic super computer and you know, it was like I was getting upgraded or something. Um, so, you know, there's, it's, it's literally beyond description and yet I also realized there's other times in my life I've felt that too, during my healing journey. I, Yogananda, Paramhansa Yogananda landed in my lap literally. Wade Lightheart: And for those, for those who don't know who he is, he was the first Yogi to come from the East. Uh, came in 1920s to the Western is often considered the father of Western yoga philosophy, where he was maybe the first person to actually live extensively in the West. He wrote a book called autobiography of a Yogi. He was the inspiration for my own spiritual journey. He also appeared to me in a vision long time ago. I don't really talk about that too much in public, but, uh, inspired me to learn about some of the philosophies which have existed for thousands of years. And, uh, yoga practice, meditation practice, and very deep knowledge about what makes a human a human, a spirit of spirit, of soul, a soul. And we share that common bond. And so here, Yogananda flops into yoga, get laugh as well. And, and what happened there? Dr Stefan: Uh, you know, I was sitting in, this is temple, if you will, and, and, and I'm on one Sunday. And literally it felt like I was getting plugged into some computer. Uh, you know, that I was a little cell in a, in a larger organism, a feeling of unity or oneness that resembled the feeling I had during the surgery. And, uh, you know, the conscious between having a sense of oneness and then feeling like I'm this in the separate body, which wasn't working that well and was a lot of pain, but Yogananda's sort of connected me back into that. And then, which led me into, um, another feeling of, uh, you know, the Amma and the Hugging Saints. Some of, some of your listeners may know about her. She's this amazing awakened master, if you will, who does amazing humanitarian work, barely eats and sleeps and has been, they've recorded her, like documented her hugging at least 30 million people and this over the past 30 years. Wade Lightheart: And, and people have profound effects. But by just getting a hug for this lady, they changed their life's changed their whole perspective on things. Seems like it's, it's, it's a phenomenal experience. I, she can stand all day long without rest and just hug person after person in thousands and thousands and thousands of people traveled from all over to kiss. Just get a hug from this lady. And uh, it's phenomenal. But you have, and again, these, we're not here to talk about things that are Hocus Pocus are out there. We're here to inspire our listeners to say, Hey, you know, it isn't all a goes to B goes to C, there is this other interconnected web of a life or existence or that, that that goes beyond our conditioned hypnotic trends of what we've, what we've been force fed in a lot of things to say, this is what is and this is how it is. And anything outside of that is out worth investigation. And that's just so boring and lame. You know, it's just, it leads to a very drab and a very, what I say, boxed in lifestyle, which you and I are definitely not in supportive. Dr Stefan: Which reminds me of Krishna saying "It is no measure of health to be profoundly well adjusted to a sick society." Wade Lightheart: Oh, that's great. Dr Stefan: You know, you're, you're too normal. You're almost normal pathic instead of psychopathic. So it's really about discovering our own authenticity. And these are bits of my authentic journey. Um, uh, and where I felt it profound experiences I felt changed me. So you know, someone listening to this will have a resonance in certain aspects and go, Hmm, I may want to check that out. And even our conversation here is nonlinear for a certain, for very special reason because you know, we think we're going from point a to point B in point point C in life, but who actually says life is a and time is in a straight line. Wade Lightheart: No, there's, there's no evidence of straight lines occurring naturally in nature, which is interesting, which were, so we've got these ideas that we need to build box houses and square computers and everything and this is really interesting component of humanity. We're creating these, you know, square dimensional or boxed in dimensional kind of ideas. You don't see this anywhere in nature and you certainly don't see it in a lot of the indigenous, uh, structures and styles of life, which tend to be much more robust. Stefan J.Kasian: And back to the world of indigenous cultures that they had it figured out their, their system was absolutely figured out. I, I mean, I was able to get into this very deep path, very, I live, they put me in a hut inside the jungle. The a traditional shaman would be trained and uh, you know, the, the life of the shaman is somebody who can traverse, altered, uh, non-ordinary states of awareness and bring back information to benefit their people, their culture or their tribe. So, you know, he, I am, I go out there and what I experienced there was so profound that I came back and started talking about it with my classmates. And then suddenly people are like, I want to go, wait, why don't you bring me, I want to go. And so was born in annual expedition culture geared around medical education to whine, to expand Dr Stefan: Imagine if a practitioner, you have a profound experience of nature and healing that you know, blows your mind. You come back every life after that you will not, you will touch differently. You know, you will, you will see life from a different perspective. And, and, and, um, that's what happens to the new a hundred people I brought there with me. And I'm very, very selective about who, who I have accompany me on these journeys. Uh, I do keep it intimate and small for that reason, uh, because it's, it's about a very high, high touch, high quality, transformative experience. Wade Lightheart: And it's, it's a sacred, it's a sacred experience. If there's ever a good way to, to teach the world to address that I think would be, that is what sacred is. It's about, uh, a conscious, very intimate environment where one can really let go of, I would say sometimes the grand standing of our egos and lives and how they're structured and format and to get into a place in such a radical environment, uh, I think also is important in the transformative experience to break away from our conditioned representative who navigates the world, uh, versus who, what we could potentially be and what capacities that we can activate within the human condition that have for largely part in the Western world been forgotten or shunned away or discredited, which are very rich in these types of cultures. Dr Stefan: Which is why connecting back to the transpersonal psychology, transpersonal psychology created a framework for how these extra ordinary things can happen. How Bernardo can live to 114 how he raw written my neck, who I met at a conference. He could, he was the world's longest supervised medical fast, like 300 days. And he stared at the sun. You know, how somebody, how a being could, you know, stay awake all night and not tire and just love people to pieces and do it nonstop. So these are extraordinary examples and yet, you know, these are, these are also possible within our ordinary ways of living. So, you know, this is the beautiful implicate order of, of our consciousness that certainly my studies, my rigorous studies, because I want it to be as this one, it's possible. I didn't just want to go native. I wanted to have a good scientific reason why I'm going native and I feel, you know, we have science supporting us, we really have science supporting us in this. Dr Stefan: I mean there's so much more to say that time wouldn't permit, but it's, you know, that this is also these particular journeys I've taken and guided to the Amazon weren't just about experiencing the sacred medicine is also about bonding and having a cross cultural experience with tribes and tribal customs that are soon going extinct. You see your Amazon is burning up and some of these tribes had been mistreated by the government or not even recognized. So how do we, you know, not only protect ourselves in this journey, but connect to a part of ourselves as this planet that is going extinct if we're not going to save it. So if you have you go down there and have a genuine experience, you might feel inspired to pay it forward somehow. Perhaps, you know, assist with some of the land we're trying to secure for the tribe, you know, document is somehow exchange something with the tribe. Dr Stefan: I know the Durango Tribune wrote an amazing article about the tribe that, Oh, and by the way, this is one of my, um, beautiful garments that I purchased. It's more, it's more of like a, uh, let's call it. It's just, it's a large tapestry that the shipibo artists had drawn. And the amazing story about that, which was also, uh, described and in one of the articles is that, um, you see all the different colors and these colors represent music. They represent the way they see the world. You can have two shipibo, um, uh, people. So, so a garment like this, and literally they could almost do it blindfolded and they would know the exact song, if you will, that they would. So it, and, and you show the locals there they will, Oh, that's ayahuasca. That's chacruna for example. These are songs of the plants, if you will. Dr Stefan: So here we go. In biology you have chromatography, you can actually extract the, the, the components of a plant. Um, and also if you take DNA and put it to musical notes, it sounds like Chopin. And this was, um, Jeremy and Arby's discuss this in his work, um, about the DNA and the cosmic serpent about information being contained inside the DNA. So my speculation and, uh, my wild speculation is connecting with these indigenous tribes, um, has ancient wisdom for us to really connect who we are beyond what we know as books. There's memories of who you are that we forgot. There's parts of our DNA that aren't active yet that are stories in there. And I feel we get to access through the bioluminescence because during these ceremonies I'd have as you know, like vivid dreams, but they would almost like see glowing colors in lights. Dr Stefan: So who is that and what is that? Um, you know, I think this has produced from within our own bodies and this is helping us connect with a deeper essence of who we are. And, and this is a clue, this is a clue because you asked some of these tribes where they came from. They were like, you know, we came from a peer, we came from the stars. We came from out of time. We always existed. They have the Star Wars type of heroes journey and mythology about who they are. And you know, there's no description, uh, of how specialists connect to that. Wade Lightheart: Uh, well said and very beautiful. And I, of course, if people are looking for scientific validation back in the early 19 hundreds in autobiography of a Yogi, uh, Yogananda, uh, documents, his journeys, uh, one of his scientific researchers, JC Chandra Bose, who had Gerald developed the crescograph that actually demonstrated that plants have a communication structure. They feel pain, they feel suffering, they can, uh, they, they live and they can actually communicate. And my mom to take this to the very practical, who is wonderful, very simple lady and an extraordinary gardener who loves to spend time in her garden growing plants, putting her hands in the soil and she talks to the plants. And it's been proven now that communicating with your plants directly has a definitive effect on the health of the plant. And of course that plant also has a definitive effect on us as a physiology. Wade Lightheart: There's an inter connectiveness that we eat the plants and eventually when we died, the plants eat us. And so it's a very, it's a, it's a much more, it's a symbiosis. Yeah. And of course, traditional indigenous tribes would often times take moments to honor, whether it was an animal that they had killed to consume or a plant that they had killed to consume. There is an honoring and a sacredness of it and a recognition of the circle of life and the connection as of this. And I think it's phenomenal when you talk about ayahuasca and that particular plant. And it's a combination of plants and it's different in different places. But those plants on their own are poison. Like they would hurt you. But in combination, they evoke these very unique aspects of consciousness. And when they were asked, how did we discover this? Wade Lightheart: The odds of discovering that these two plants together working to some ridiculous mathematical probability that wouldn't possibly happen. But it was the plants that talked to people, the, the people, and brought this out. And then this has a profound effect. And now we're seeing the spread thanks to the internet. Um, previously hidden knowledge to colonialism, Western civilization. The scientific paradigm per se, is what some people would call simple. Indigenous tribes have this profound understanding, a knowledge and an ability to take anyone to, to start to experience these truths for themselves, these ex experiential realities that are undeniable. And they're not like, we're not talking hallucinogenics. We're talking ethno botanicals, which have a very, very different, a hallucination is something that you cannot stop and you're, you know, someone, you know, someone that's challenged on the street would be having a hallucination. Where in these type of visionary experiences, oftentimes you can communicate with that person, they can open their eyes and be present. They can close their eyes and be in another place. How did this, these experiences impact you and impact some of the naturopathic physicians that were coming down to experiencing these things? And, and why do you feel so strongly of why this is so important to get this message out to people? Dr Stefan: Well, today, uh, great questions Wade. I will say for me really, um, yeah, connected with my own bio luminescence if you will. And when I came back the first time, people were like, you are glowing. What's going on? How was your, and then I brought my other classmates with me and they came back glowing. So people really saw a profound cleanse and detoxification of depuration that happened their body, and this is a critical point in our evolution right now, that we have so much toxicity from every angle. Air, water, food, yes, a hour that unless we're actually taking steps to detoxify, purify by, uh, on every level, uh, you know, we're, we're heading in the opposite direction. I mean the ecosystem is at risk for that. So to me it just gave such a profound direct experience of truth and light, love, beauty. Um, you know, that was not influenced by, you know, the matrix or the media or what we're told to think, a direct experience. Dr Stefan: I couldn't help but want to share that. And some of the journeys I've experienced, um, were so profound and, and uh, I've captured them, I've written them down that, you know, and I came back and share them, the people that are like, Whoa, you went experience that really. So, uh, you know, it was just very illuminating internally. So it's also to me about the purity of this. I'm very, I'm a purist when it comes to these experiences. I'm not actually a fan Wade and not everyone would agree with me, but I'm not a fan of going to your friend's house and ordering iOS on the internet and doing that. I, I don't think it's a wise idea. I do, I do support education. I don't necessarily believe in, um, like over restriction I think in responsible use. But to me the difference between, you know, even somewhere local and journeying going on your hero's journey properly to the source of where something got innovated and it having a direct cultural transmission, the direct nature, earth transmission of that wisdom of that energy is in comparable, you know, it's like watching IMAX or a black and white movie. Dr Stefan: So how I got a sense of something extremely real and precious, I wanted to preserve and wanted to, you know, uh, continue. Wade Lightheart: Speaking of that just as a side note, almost every tradition, uh, throughout history has put forth the value of going on. Some people call it a said Hannah or your Meko moment or some sort of journey and it's represented as you setting Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. I think he documented over 200 different versions of basically the same thing, which he boiled down to the same essential story. Life's kind of ordinary. Something happens. Uh, some sort of chaos happens in your local thing. There's some resistance. You go off, you face a bunch of obstacles, you fight the big dark, you know, issue that is in your life represented as a dragon. You overcome that and then you return home with knowledge, wisdom, and perspective, often at a certain price. Uh, and that is kind of the journey and it's honored in virtually every culture. What makes it so powerful with what's happening in the Amazon with these people and what they have to offer. Dr Stefan: Because you're, you're earning it, you're earning it. This is not just follow your bliss. This is get in there and get down and dirty. Work with your shadow. Work with, with your traumas. Work with was difficult in your life. Um, get to face the demons that you know have been plaguing. You are haunting you. I mean this, this is not a, this is not a vacation. If someone wants to go and get a massage, go down the street, get a massage. But if you want, you know, to be able to really ring your life inside and out and exercise the demons, if you will, literally and figuratively the things I've seen look like some very powerful exorcisms, which to me simply is returning, darkens back into the light with awareness and light and love. Uh, you know, there's no comparison for that. You have to earn it. Dr Stefan: You really do. And it's about sacrifice. You're giving up yourself on your familiar comforts. We're asleep on a jungle floor in the hut with bugs biting you sometimes, but you know, if you think positive about bugs, you're less likely to bite you. So I wouldn't worry about that. Um, you know, having, having a purge, having a very clean [inaudible], really making true changes and reflecting on your life, seeing what doesn't work and, and being shown, you know, in the silence, in the gaps, what, who and what you really are outside of who you're told. So these are such profound things that can happen there. When one's putting in the work and stepping out as something very familiar to lock you back into the pattern, who we think you are. So, and also the integration before, during and after. There's preparation before there's a support during. And there's the integration after which is very different from, you know, going down the street and having an experience at your friend's house and thinking you had it, you know, um, this really is about, you know, having a Rite of passage that, um, is not ordinarily available to us because in some ways to our life is difficult, but it's also kind of easy. Dr Stefan: You know, it's, you can skip through some of these developmental things, but in a tribal sense, you know, they're, they're connected to the earth. They, they need, they, they're there. There's very survival exists, depends on how connected they are to who they are and, and their world around them. Wade Lightheart: Profound. It's, it's, it's really inspiring. And I love the fact that the internet is actually, ironically, uh, this technical development in the digital world has opened up. What would I would say more, I don't know what the word spiritual is, the word I would use, but certainly a, a rich in more interiolized that we see than the externalized life that many of us are living today. Wade Lightheart: Tell me what's happening now for you because you've kind of taken this to the next level, not you. What do I love? What I love about what you do, Dr Stephan, is that it's not enough for you to just to go through your own experience. You then go off and you really underst. You don't just take what you get and say, Oh, that was a cool experience. Like, no, you get into the mechanics of it, the physiology of the experience and the biochemistry of the experience, the spirituality. That's the psychology of the experience. I mean, you really drink the whole, you know, the whole Gord full. Like every drop is, is, is put through you, and then you have this beautiful way of integrating this in a very, I would say, uh, attractive way to the world and sharing that. And I believe that you are now in engaged in that right now about sharing the value of what's happening in the Amazon and what we can do about it as well as some of the things of how you're bringing back some of the wisdom there and planting it into the Western world so that we can hear that are, you know, in the Western world we can take advantage of this ancient wisdom and these practices that I think make us all a little bit more human. Dr Stefan: Well, segway, thank you so much for that. I would say that, uh, my interests, I, I'm an experience or an Explorer and I like to share the, the, the jewels if you will and make them more readily and easily accessible. I mean, you can Google, uh, Amazon, you know, journeys and find somebod
