#58 Microbes and Viruses - The Hidden Wonders of The Invisible World with Jimi Wollumbin

Jimi Wollumbin joins Mason on the show today to wax lyrical on all things microbe and virus related, very fitting considering the current climate and international lock down. Jimi is true renaissance man, who, over the last 20 years has had the opportunity to research and practice some of the most respected traditional medical systems on the planet, including the Chinese, Tibetan, Indian, Mongolian and Persian traditions. Jimi has also worked extensively in community health and international aid initiatives. These days Jimi's passion lays in the death and birth cycle of transformation. Jimi believes this is what the world needs on both an individual and global level. Jimi supports his clients through this transformational process at his Artemisia, his clinic based out of Northern NSW.


"viruses are the medium of evolution, and they're distributed intelligent networks inside a massive big biosphere, which is Gaia, which is a huge supercomputer, single living organism that thinks, and responds, and computes really significantly. So we have to think of viruses in that context if we've got any hope of starting to approach what's happening at the moment, right?" - Jimi Wollumbin.

 

Mason and Jimi discuss:

Crises as a part of the universal order. Disease as a factor driven by your individual belief system and lifestyle. Corona Virus. The role microbes play in the web of life. Drug resistant bacteria. Viruses as a distributed intelligence. Viral replication and eco harmony. The use of reductionist linear thinking in a nonlinear universe. The value of exploring ancient mythology when transforming your personal health culture. Traditional medicine and integrative thinking vs evidence based medicine. Using herbs as allies in healing vs using herbal medicine within the "pills for ills" ideology. Healing and the death/birth cycle of transformation.

Who is Jimi Wollumbin ?

Jimi Wollumbin is Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Jimi is one of those rare individuals that is an expert in his field that also knows how to teach others. He has spoken at the United Nations, opened for Deepak Chopra and has even been personally insulted by the Dalai Lama. He teaches integrative doctors across America, sits on the faculty of the America Integrative Health and Medicine Association and is a lifetime member of the Tibetan Medical Institute's 'Friends of Tibetan Medicine'.

After completing his internship in Chinese Medicine in TCM in Beijing hospital he has since completed 3 research exchanges at Ayurvedic hospitals in India, 2 with the Lama-physicians at the Tibetan Medical Institute, 1 with the Persian Hakims of the Unani Tibb Hippocratic tradition, 2 at the Trad-Med Department of the Mongolian National University in Ulaan Bataar and a 2019 trip through Siberia to research Shamanic medicine.

Jimi’s original degree at the ANU was in philosophy and eastern religion which is why Dr Seroya Crouch describes him as ‘a philosopher of medicine’. He has written several books, none of which have been published, acclaimed or even read... yet.

Jimi is the CEO and founder of One Health Organisation, a wellness-based charity that has distributed over 10 metric tonnes of herbs and supplements to 100 locations across 13 countries since 2005.

Jimi brings passion and enthusiastic hand gestures to every conversation he is a part of.

 

Resources:

Jimi's Website

Jimi's Blog

Jimi's Instagram

 

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Check Out The Transcript Here:

 

Mason:   (00:00)

Jimi, thanks so much man.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:  (00:01)

It's a pleasure.

 

Mason:  (00:02)

Round two for us, first round for Superfeast podcast.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (00:05)

Yeah, great. I'm looking forward to it. The last round was really exciting, and we went to all sorts of magnificent places.

 

Mason:  (00:11)

Oh, and your inspiring clinic as well, which you're full time in now.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (00:15)

That's right.

 

Mason:  (00:15)                   

Okay.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (00:15)

Yeah. At the base of Mount Warning in UK.

 

Mason:  (00:18)

I've been following along. I mean, just before we kick on, I mean, there's not too many people anymore that I follow on Facebook, but I love every one of your posts.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (00:29)

I'm very touched.

 

Mason:  (00:31)

Got a lot of them saved. [crosstalk 00:00:32] a lot of them saved. So just go and find Jimi Wollumbin and follow him. We were talking about, you've gone and you've got a clinic, can you just tell everyone the nature of what you're offering there?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (00:48)

What am I offering? I previously used to offer alternative and traditional medical services around acupuncture, and herbal medicine, and body work, and helping people get well, and now I help people die and be reborn. And so, if people are just looking to mitigate their symptoms, then I'm not necessarily the best practitioner anymore because I found that those symptoms, whatever it is that they're struggling with, are always an invitation into a larger process of transformation.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (01:25)

And at an individual level and a global level what we require, in my book, is transformation. And so, yeah, the dying and reborn process of transformation is what I'm really passionate about out at Artemisia.

 

Mason:  (01:36)

Well, I mean, because coming in off the bat, especially if you're coming in from a Western model, you're like, all right, well that's some pretty heavy language that's going on there. But when you get into a clinical process and when you get into the fact that, how many little deaths are going on within the body at every moment and just the transformation cycles that need to occur with your energy at all times, I mean, these are the things that, the bed of basically all energetic medicine and Taoist medicine that is just... Qi is just.. Energy is just transforming and changing as you go along.

 

Mason:  (02:11)

And in order to really be reborn through those processes, you need to deal with it a very multidimensional level, and I think that's why the only appropriate thing to talk about is to die and be reborn. Right?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (02:24)

Yeah. And just to make that understandable to the average person that might not have been engaging in this, is that 90% of our deaths and illnesses, 92-95 are chronic degenerative illnesses, right? And so that means they're lifestyle mediated. So you lived your way into your illness, but the lifestyle that you had is determined upon your beliefs. Right? And so you've got all these particular beliefs, I'm not lovable unless I work my ass off, I'm not safe unless I earn lots of money, something like this. So your belief structures determine your lifestyle and your lifestyle determines your diseases.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (03:01)

And so those belief structures are really the viral memes, just to segue us towards the next conversation, that are giving rise to your symptoms. And it doesn't matter whether the symptom is a rash, or a joint problem, or indigestion, underneath that are these core ideas that you have that have driven you to behave and live in an unsustainable manner. And that then crystallizes into your lifestyle, which crystallizes into your diseases. And so it makes no difference what your disease is, if it's, you've lived your way into it, and overwhelmingly we do, it's going to require personal transformation.

 

Mason:  (03:39)

So the personal transformation, especially to go back, because you used the word, you've been living in an unsustainable manner. And that's, I mean, that's where I personally feel that little deaths and reborn processes need to occur for myself, because to have to realize that what you're doing isn't sustainable and generally opens you up to the possibility of degenerating in one way or another.

 

Mason:  (04:04)

As much as you might be doing all this other healthy shit and rocking it, but if you've really got something that's coming from, whether it's a belief pattern, whatever it is that's tweaking year towards unsustainability, then you're going to keep on being caught in that cycle and the only way is to really consistently let a part of you go, just like pass away. Right?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (04:30)

Yes, absolutely. And it's not a failure if you find yourself in there, because crisis is woven into the very heart of life, into the fabric of the universe itself, that crisis is what facilitates evolution and change, phase shifts. And so biology, any complex system generates crises, because it's complex. And then as that crisis emerges, then it facilitates the emergence to another level of hierarchy, another level of complexity. So evolution and change has crisis and chaos as a core part of it.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (05:05)

And so if you find yourself sinking and swimming and being engulfed in crisis and chaos in your life, then it's not because you're a failure as a human being, it's your living out to the process of the evolution of matter itself. All life passes through that, and all species pass through that, and the earth itself is passing through that. And so I think it's really important not to have some ideal that if you don't have vibrant wellness you're spiritually failing yourself in some way, which is a terrible thing to be putting forth to people because-

 

Mason:  (05:37)

But it's something that hangs on in the background. [crosstalk 00:05:39].

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (05:39)

It hangs on a lot. It's very, very common in the new age, and it's toxic. It's a toxic meme. But we're going to talk about viruses today, and just to link those two ideas together is, what I was saying there is if somebody comes to me with a viral infection, then I don't... It's somewhat relevant what virus they have. I have to pay attention to that. Is it herpes, is it genital, is it this, where is it, what are the symptoms?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (06:08)

But because they're opportunistic overwhelmingly, then I'm just going to go through that process of saying, well, what else is going on, how have you driven yourself to this particular point, and what are the beliefs underneath that? So what are the ideas or memes, if we use that language, right, these, what are the ideas that you've been infected with, the memes, that have driven the behavior that have now made you susceptible to this particular virus?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (06:35)

And so that's what the work looks like at an individual level as well as the pragmatic stuff of these are the medicines and treatments that are useful in viral infections that sort of, the day to day bits of medicine. But the personal level goes like that. And I actually think that whilst everyone's got coronavirus on the brain at the moment, it's a perfect time to have the same conversation for us as a culture that needs to happen at an individual level about, wow, you've got a viral infection, so what does this mean? What does this mean to America? What does this mean to the global culture right now?

 

Mason:  (07:10)

What does it mean in Australia when every single pharmacy and supermarket is literally sold out of face masks over this outbreak of the coronavirus. There's obviously a lot of worry and fear, and when you have, let's just say novel virus, if emerging and it's coming into public knowledge, at least, for the first time. It's been the first advertised outbreak. But I don't exactly know. I'm just talking between the lines, because I don't know exactly what's going on with coronavirus. I haven't been looking too much into it.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (07:44)

Okay. Well that makes both of us really, I just have to flag my general ignorance as well about, I have an oral only policy on news, so I don't have any Facebook feeds or any social media feeds that I look, and I don't look at any websites.

 

Mason:  (07:56)

Or conspiracy feeds.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (07:57)

No feeds at all. The only way I get news about the world is filtered through other human beings that I trust, and so it that makes me the most ignorant and ill-informed person that I know.

 

Mason:  (08:07)

And what it brings up, it's this interesting pattern. We can see with swine flu, bird flu, SARS, corona, it's this new ambiguity of us being susceptible and infected, not understanding quite what viruses are, which, that's where I feel like I'd like to jump into.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (08:26)

Let's go there.

 

Mason:  (08:26)

Let's go there, so-

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (08:27)

It'd be really, really interesting.

 

Mason:  (08:27)

Yeah. Or, you want to just take the bat there and run with what we mean by that.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (08:31)

So, just before we go into viruses, there needs to... I think, just a context of microbes. Right? And so just to see the larger context is that the web of life and the idea of a tree of life has been cut down by biologists. It's a bad metaphor, and it didn't work out. It's really officially a web of life.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (08:52)

The web of life is microbial. And so that means that of the 23 kingdoms, we've got animals, plants, and fungi being macro, and the other 20 are all micro, right? And those macro ones, they're like the fungi, the fruiting body on top of this vast web of life. So life is overwhelmingly on this planet, microscopic and invisible to us. And the only reason that those microbes account for 90% of the species on this planet rather than 99.8985 or something, is because insects are in the animal category with us.

 

Mason:  (09:33)

Right.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (09:34)

Because of insects-

 

Mason:  (09:37)

We bumped up.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (09:37)

We bump it up to 10%.

 

Mason:  (09:38)

They bump the mean up.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (09:39)

Yeah. They bump it up, but you take them out and it's this microbes, so the web of life is microbial. And it's a web, right?

 

Mason:  (09:46)

That's like cells are most bacteria in the human body kind of ratio.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (09:49)

Just that sort of thing. So if you dehydrate me, I'm 19% microbial protein, it's like, wow, okay. And it's like that across the whole planet, the macro and micro thing. And the other important thing to see is that the bacteria are, we think of them as all these different species and that's helpful in a way, but they're all changing DNA, all changing DNA, like microbial lions changing DNA with microbial zebras, with microbial praying mantises, just swapping DNA. And so-

 

Mason:  (10:27)

And many ways to swap as well.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (10:28)

So many ways.

 

Mason:  (10:29)

Directly to a different species, I'm randomly just going to leave this information here so that some other life form can come and get this-

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (10:38)

Here's the app.

 

Mason:  (10:38)

... and learn how to evolve.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (10:39)

That right. Here's the piece.

 

Mason:  (10:40)

It's insane.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (10:40)

Grow wings like that.

 

Mason:  (10:42)

[inaudible 00:10:42].

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (10:42)

You know?

 

Mason:  (10:43)

Yeah.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (10:44)

And it's, they're downloading large pieces like that. And so there's this huge subterranean, I mean that figuratively, but actually literally, microbes go kilometers under the earth, and if we would pile them up it's like four stories of microbial protein covering us right now across all of the oceans and all of the land, right? So this vast subterranean network, that's a single organism, that's a single network, because it's all swapping DNA and information around, right?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (11:16)

And so it's this vast system of information processing that makes our technology and our internet look like a 1980s space invader machine compared to a quantum computer. The numbers, I mean, if I've got 35 trillion bacteria, and there's 7 billion of us humans, and we're a fraction of this... It's just...

 

Mason:  (11:36)

Yeah, it boggles the mind.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (11:38)

Vast, right? And so we have to see this huge web of life that is microbial, that fruits up in towards us and the other cute macro species where we're at, and profoundly intelligent. They invented sex. I mean, hallelujah, thank goodness, they have their own language, quorum sensing, all of these things, they have strategies, they hunt, they flee, they're intelligent, they solve mazes and all sorts of things, and they evolve at a staggering pace. And so, first off, that they evolve at a staggering pace is, we know that...

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (12:17)

Penicillin came out in '45 and 10 years later 80% of bacteria were already immune to it. Right?

 

Mason:  (12:25)

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (12:26)

10 years later. And Fleming had warned in the late 20s of the way in which they were getting immunity really quickly, before it was even available broadly, right? And so they just...

 

Mason:  (12:35)

How was he onto that? Just working in the field?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (12:38)

Yeah, in his own experiments. It's like things get immune really fast.

 

Mason:  (12:41)

Right.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (12:41)

He figured out in 1929 and he made a public announcement in 1945, the same year it all came out, right? 1954, nine years later, we got 65% to 80% immunity, right? And so because they're this huge smart network of everything trading genes, you put anything in and it passes all around. And so we throw our finest next generation bacteria antibiotic inside that, and then resistance forms, antibiotic resistance that is spread potentially through everything. Right? But not just resistance to that, but resistance to the next six drugs we haven't yet developed.

 

Mason:  (13:20)

I love this world and it's floored me over the years, and at this point, a lot of it, I'm just like, yep, that's the reality. There's this huge web of life that's communicating and it's a whole kingdom upon itself, but when I think about the fact that they've become resistant to the antibiotic that hasn't been released yet, when I saw that data, I think it's like a Stephen Buhner first had data, is that fact they're living in the antibacterial soaps in the hospitals, you'd learn-

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (14:02)

Absolute zero, in nuclear reactors-

 

Mason:  (14:05)

[inaudible 00:14:05].

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (14:05)

... Out in space affecting them also.

 

Mason:  (14:06)

You learn the reality of just, well, yeah, what we're... And then you watch the traditional mindset go, look what we're up against.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (14:17)

Yeah. Wow. Okay. So that's the viral meme that we'll come back to, that pace then. Let's put that one to the side.. At the moment.

 

Mason:  (14:24)

All right.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (14:26)

So we've got that vast network of really intelligent super processing that is the web of life, right, that we are a part of. It's not us and them, we're a part of it. And then inside of that then we've got viruses. And not very long ago we were like, viruses, do they even get categorized as being alive, because they're just dumb self replicating chunks of DNA. It's like we don't even give them status as living beings. Right?

 

Mason:  (14:58)

Yeah.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (14:58)

That's where it was at. Right?

 

Mason:  (15:00)

Yeah.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (15:00)

And since then, thanks, I believe, to computer programming and together with systems biology, we found that viruses have to be understood as a swarm. And so looking at the individual, of course this is one of the things we were looking at in a reductionist way and you can't see the forest for the trees, so we look at an individual virus, it's like an alien coming down and looking at one of our brain cells and saying, these guys are morons.

 

Mason:  (15:25)

Good point.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (15:25)

Right? It's like that. So you're looking at one bee rather than a swarm of bees. Right? And then I found that when I look at that they behave in ecosystems like top predators, and they move through large whole areas, right, and inhabit that inside macro species like monkeys. And then they will do that, and they want to maintain, like farmers, say, of animals, equilibrium so that they can have their own going home that's stable.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (15:55)

But then if something happens, like a rival troop comes in, then those viruses will become virulent. And when they infect the rival troop, then the rival triple die or get sick and unpleasant and have to run away so that ecostasis is maintained. Right?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (16:12)

So we've got viruses as these large a-cellular, not having their own body, distributed intelligences, ecological demon, spirits of place that exist across multiple different beings and yet behave as a system in coordinated ways with all these different mutant mutations, right, all these different cells that have slightly different tweaks that will up-regulate one of those expressions and down-regulate another in order to maintain eco harmony so that they can continue. Right?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (16:49)

So it's like viruses are doing this. Wow. So viruses are clever distributed intelligences. And on top of it, the other thing is that the reason why we don't have a tree of life anymore and we've got a web of life, is that the idea of a species doesn't make any sense anymore because we see that species are all changing DNA as well. And that's thanks to viruses. So viruses through horizontal gene transfer are taking DNA out of a zebra and putting it into a rattlesnake.

 

Mason:  (17:17)

That's the best [inaudible 00:17:18]. It's always the best. It's like you're part virus, you're part so many things.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (17:24)

We're like 40% viral in origin that we can identify, or something like this, right?

 

Mason:  (17:28)

40%.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (17:28)

Something really, really high.

 

Mason:  (17:30)

I didn't think it was that high.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (17:31)

So viruses are the medium of evolution, or at least one of the mediums of evolution on this planet, right? And it creates, that's the tension of micro evolutionary changes in a Darwinian model of random mutation, it's like the fossil record doesn't support it, and it's just like, how do we get these leaps that the fossil record shows? It can be through viruses taking chunks, can be one of the mediums, right? Either way, horizontal gene transfer is taking place.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (17:58)

So viruses are the medium of evolution, and they're distributed intelligent networks inside a massive big biosphere, which is Gaia, which is a huge supercomputer, single living organism that thinks, and responds, and computes really significantly. So we have to think of viruses in that context if we've got any hope of starting to approach what's happening at the moment, right?

 

Mason:  (18:25)

Yeah. Well, it brings on a bit of a dichotomy when you have a viral infection and you go... I think because it's like we needed to have started the conversation back a little bit further. It's like, right now you're like, what am I supposed to do? Am I grateful for this? Am I letting it... It's maybe not the time to be have any huge conversations, just go and get yourself dealt with, but what is the conversation that we have then?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (18:53)

Well, the conversation is... Let me give a couple more missing pieces of the puzzle before we get to the conversation I think.

 

Mason:  (19:00)

Great. And go into that virus, just clipping parts of DNA of the puzzle and putting them all into one perfect string.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (19:07)

So we've got the viruses moving around like this, we've got the vast, huge network of microbes that is the web of life that we are a part of, and we're just little fruiting bodies. And we have, on the planet at the moment, technological evolution like we've never seen before. Right? We've never seen, you're just staggering at the change that has happened in my life.

 

Mason:  (19:31)

Yeah. Staggering.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (19:33)

No one can keep up with it, right? But that technological evolution from the industrial revolution or wherever you want to take it, has produced significant changes in the biosphere, and parallel to the technological revolution that we can see in the big clunky things at our big clunky multicellular level, which is not the majority of life, where we are, we see all this technological change because our phones are smarter. Parallel to that is massive microbial evolution, massive change, maybe not like we've never seen before, but like has not been witnessed in a long time I assume.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (20:10)

And so this is because we've significantly changed the environment, and we've been pumping out tons and tons and tons and tons of antimicrobial agents like antibiotics through our beef and all of these different things that are all putting pressure on the web of life. And let me say the web of life is fine, the microbial kingdom, fine. Microbes, like we just said, they can exist in nuclear reactors. The first evidence of microbes on this planet is during the Hadean era named after Haitis when the earth is essentially just a slightly cool ball of lava with meteorites exploding on it, the microbes are all right. Right?

 

Mason:  (20:51)

And it's same with the Gaia, same with Gaia.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (20:54)

That whole piece, right? Gaia microbes, microbes Gaia, they're sort of cells of Gaia in a way.

 

Mason:  (20:59)

It's fine.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (20:59)

Yeah, so that's fine, but it is changing because we have changed the environment so radically. It's having to adapt, so it's adapting. But those adaptions of the microbial kingdom to create ecostasis or harmony like the... You know the viral monkey story? Or you know when microbes first learn how to take in carbon and shit out oxygen they almost killed themselves by producing this noxious gas of oxygen that drowned the whole planet in corrosive, oxidizing, nasty acidic oxygen. And the mass extinction happened because of that.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (21:40)

And then they figured out, oh, we can just use that intense, intense gas called oxygen, which is like sulfuric acid, and we can breathe it. And so they adapted to that. And then we got the respiration processes that plants and that we now take a breath, take for granted. And so they evolve underneath those things ecological crisis and adapt. And at the moment we've got this massive bio shift. And so this is massive change in what's happening with the microbes, right?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (22:10)

And so we see the extinction of some of the macro species, which is heart rendering, right, for us, but what we don't see is this tsunami of roiling rippling change that's happening at the microbial level that reflects what's happening at the macro level of just like, whoa, okay, there's so much more carbon, whoa, there's tons and tons and tons of antibiotics, whoa, there's less of these species, whoa, there's pesticides, and heavy metals, and whatever else, and-

 

Mason:  (22:39)

And radiation and all the [crosstalk 00:22:39].

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (22:39)

... changing temperatures and radiation, gray spaces. And so it's like the web of life, that vast thing that would bury us four stories deep if we put this, the protein, the bacteria on top of us, is going through bacteria and viruses. And so over the last 25 years we've had like 30 brand new diseases emerge predominantly through ecological change and environmental change, and then through damning, through deforestation, through gray space, all that sort of stuff.

 

Mason:  (23:07)

What's the gray space?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (23:09)

Gray spaces where you've got huge environments that are manmade. And so-

 

Mason:  (23:14)

Oh, and all that.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (23:15)

Yeah, like concrete and all these sorts of things. Bacteria are thriving here, but they have to change to thrive inside plastic, concrete, EMF environments, right?

 

Mason:  (23:27)

No real soil or ground-

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (23:30)

No, that's right.

 

Mason:  (23:30)

... just a little bit of [crosstalk 00:23:31].

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (23:31)

So it's a different culture, right?

 

Mason:  (23:32)

Yeah.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (23:33)

So it's a different microbial culture that-

 

Mason:  (23:34)

Literally a different culture.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (23:35)

... thrives inside this culture that's here, right? And so all of those things are producing changes, right, so microbial changes, microbial cultural that reflect our cultural changes and our technological evolution, biological evolution that affects our technological evolution. And so then when we see coronavirus, then we have to have this conversation that we started off with like the person that comes to me with some other virus and say, well, you know what else is going on? I'm really exhausted, and I've been drinking too much, and I just had a divorce. And why was that?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (24:10)

So I go, I guess I got a divorce because I was just never available, because I got the idea when I was a kid that I was unlovable. So I just had to work my ass off and all blah blah blah, and I drive people away like that, and now I'm exhausted, and my immune system is crashing, and I've got a virus. It's like, oh wow, good, it's time to take a good long hard look in the mirror.

 

Mason:  (24:25)

Take this.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (24:26)

Take a mirror home. That's the main thing, right?

 

Mason:  (24:31)

Yeah.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (24:31)

It's like, wow, you lived your way into this.

 

Mason:  (24:33)

Well, then you're asking them to take home a lifelong practice as well.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (24:37)

Absolutely.

 

Mason:  (24:37)

Which is interesting.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (24:38)

But that's what's being asked of us as a species.

 

Mason:  (24:41)

For sure.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (24:42)

That process, right, of, what's coronavirus about, and all these other new diseases about, and what can we learn from it, and in what way do we need to change and adapt? Because at the moment we are on this thing of just like, let's just keep changing the environment to us rather than us changing to our environment, adapted to an environment. So there's a larger conversation of like, wow, okay, things are shifting really fast and we can see some of these diseases coming up.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (25:11)

And not to fear monger, because people have pointed out that there's a large amount of fear out in the world at the moment about these viruses, but as somebody that's studied the history of epidemics, then we know that when we've mismanaged our environment really significantly, like in the middle ages or through the industrial revolution, that those diseases that come up, those microbial changes that have to adapt to that really significantly different environment, there's nothing medicine does and can do then or today, and just like, yeah, a third of the population just disappears.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (25:46)

And this just comes for a period of time and then disappears like this English sweating sicknesses and you just, you'd be alive and then 24 hours later you'd be dead. And then when it's all done, the sweating, sickness, bacteria and virus have just disappeared. They come for a period and then they go after that. Right? And so there's due course for us as a species to have a degree of alarm about how we're mismanaging our environment and what the biosphere is going to do, not in a punitive sense because we are the biosphere, but just in terms of maintaining equilibrium and balance. Right?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (26:19)

And so coronavirus by itself doesn't frighten me, but the rippling and roiling of the microbial underworld is, that's what homeostasis can look like in the process of these mass macro ecological changes. We see the forests, we see the glaciers, we don't see what's happening in the web of life below that because it's too small for us. But it's moving like plate tectonics. Right? And coronavirus is one of those ones that's like this, but coronavirus looks all right. But the epidemiologists and my microbiologists that are alarmist, they have a good reason, because they've seen-

 

Mason:  (27:06)

They've seen what can happen.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (27:08)

They know what can happen. They do know what happens. So as a species, not as an individual, as an individual you shouldn't worry. And I just want to repeat that. Anyone that's really worried, I don't think as an individual you should worry at all right now, but as a species I really think we should worry because we terribly mismanaged our environment. And the changes that can come as a result of that can be frightening for us, not for life, not for the web of life, but for us as an individual species.

 

Mason:  (27:34)

Yeah. And it's confronting, I mean, none more than when you go into the healing space of a hospital, and it's, you continue... Last decade I've been around lots of more nurses and doctors and become much more sympathetic of the human element, but I'm not sympathetic towards my own ignorance and nor for general ignorance as well, and also not an asshole when I try and point it out and think I'm a know it al.

 

Mason:  (28:08)

But that environment is literally a storehouse of bacterial and viral infection because we keep on kicking the can down the road with antimicrobials, and antivirals, and antibiotics when it's a virus, just to be safe, so on and so forth, just chopping the organ out, sterile, no plants, no sunlight, none of that. It gets very significant when you take a-

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (28:33)

Oh, yeah.

 

Mason:  (28:33)

... back look or look back at, this is where we're doing our healing?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (28:37)

It radicalizes and virializes the web of life. And so there's no good metaphors for this, but you could think of it as terrorist training camps, except it's not terrorist, it's just life. You could think of it as-

 

Mason:  (28:53)

The way that we relate to it it is.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (28:54)

Yeah. From our perspective, we're radicalizing, it's like that because they're still not terrorists, they're still interested just in harmony, but from our perspective they invoke terror so we think we think of them as terrorists.

 

Mason:  (29:05)

For sure.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (29:06)

We radicalize them in the hospital through those particular processes, but we don't just radicalize them, we evolve them.

 

Mason:  (29:13)

We evolve them massively, right?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (29:14)

Really quickly. And there's been more microbial generate... How does this go? Because they go through a generation in every two minutes or something like that, so there's more... What we see over the last 300 years of human existence in terms of technological evolution, we say, wow, look at that, that's happening every five minutes in the bacterial world. It's just, it happens so quickly. It's happened so quickly. Like one bacteria listed left to divide uninhibited would produce more cells than there are protons in the known universe in like two years or something like that.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (29:54)

And they are evolving through that process constantly. So the process is really, really fast. And compared to our macro evolution, which is quite slow, the micro evolution is really, really fast.

 

Mason:  (30:06)

So then if we start looking at, all right, if we are susceptible to illness and viral infections, say, in a treatment perspective, you've talked to our need to get to the root as well as then personalized treatment. Ongoingly, do you see the fact that we need to be working on that level to come into harmony within ourselves, in lifestyle and state of mind? In that essence, then what? Is it so that our immune system can be strong so we can be a part of nature?

 

Mason:  (30:38)

Do we need to almost practice the little deaths because we've got this inevitable moving back to when we're going to die and be absorbed by this huge microbial kingdom? What's the point? Where do we fit with our health and our relatedness?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (30:54)

Okay. So, I hear the invitation to speak in a clinical and individual level, and I promise I will, but first I want to say, if I just have a conversation like that and then said, and for yourself, make sure you do this and this and this so you're strong, I will be perpetuating the problem. And so the problem is this as I see it, right, is that we've been talking about genes and the way in which they move around, but we spoke previously about memes, like the viral infection of an idea that drove that particular man to destroy his marriage and his health. Right?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (31:34)

And so memes in evolutionary biology are ideas that spread through culture. So Christianity is a meme, catholicism is a meme, feminism is a meme, capitalism is a meme. All our isms are memes. They're ideologies that affect us, right? And so there's this continuity between microbial culture and human culture, between genes and memes, that goes around and around and around.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (32:02)

And so on the one hand we can see, just imagine that there's a gene for selfishness and violence, which there isn't, and genes don't work that way, but imagine there is because it's easier to think about. And then we've got someone that's got that gene and then they create a tribe around them that's all got that gene, and then they create a country and an empire like the Roman empire that's based upon this particular gene spreading, every stage of that. Then they create culture around that, they creates stories around that, they create images, they create are practices that all have a meme involved of violence and selfishness.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (32:37)

Now as that meme spreads to other cultures, their stories, their religions, and their religion is, it's survival of the fittest, that's their religion, say, as that idea gets out, then that idea changes those other people in the same way that that gene could change other people. Right? So genes can give rise to meme and then memes come down and change our biology culture. The meta emergent culture changes our biology as a species in the same way that your ideas change your biology and your biology changes your ideas.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (33:12)

So we've got this movement of there's unhealthy ideas, cultural memes that are spreading across the planet behind the globalization of the world, and that fundamental... It's hard to put a word to what is that meme, because it's really complex, right? So there's no satisfying single quip. Right? But for the purposes of your question, I'm going to say the meme that is spreading is the meme of the fallacy of separation, that our economy is separate from our fine arts, that human culture is separate from the environment, that the icebergs is separate from your gut health.

 

Mason:  (33:54)

I mean, even in the body strength is separate from flexibility.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (33:58)

All of those.

 

Mason:  (33:58)

Yeah. All of those. Yeah.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (33:59)

All of those using reductionist linear thinking in a nonlinear universe overwhelming.

 

Mason:  (34:07)

A universe-

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (34:07)

Right?

 

Mason:  (34:07)

... that literally doesn't have such thing as a straight line.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (34:09)

Right. That's right. So that's the meme that I would say, the fallacy of separation, right? And that that is spreading across lots of different cultures. And as it spreads, they create technology and practices that then alter the environment that then virializes bacteria in particular ways, right? And then those bacteria will then spread genes and do things like that. So we've got this movement up and down in a complex system from its parts and the emergent holes that come out of them like this.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (34:39)

And so when you say, well, what should I do? If I say, well, you know what you should do, Mason, is you should make sure that you get all the proper nutrition and you do this and this and this and this and this, I would be potentially spreading the fallacy of separation.

 

Mason:  (34:55)

Well, what I'm thinking, well, yeah, what I was thinking there, what we do in terms of a mindset going forth, is it... Because I've thought about this and meditated on this for so long, and in the end it's just something to do to keep on coming back to yourself I imagine, but is there a surrenderedness, is there you're not in control? Is it, while you are a part of that web of life and so then the context of you becoming healthy isn't in, don't let that opportunistic organism come and kill me you bastard, I'm going to beat you. Is it something bad? I just want hear your insights of that core.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (35:38)

Yeah. Good. So I definitely think that our own personal healing and our own personal journey is one of the most profound ways that we can affect the macro level as well.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (35:48)

And there's this ancient connection between the micro and macro, right? That by getting healthy, by getting well, by engaging deeply in your process, your addictions, and the viral memes that you have in your family line and your own story, by starting to become conscious of those and healing those, by seeing the cultural ones that you've inherited of separation and fragmentation of who you are and how you see the world, then you're in a better place to be that little meme sharing bacteria in the web of life that says in moments like this, hey, have this little download. That's what I'm doing now. You and I are doing this now.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (36:33)

We are virally spreading an idea. Well, we caught it from other people as well, it's not that we came up with it, but we're spreading this idea. And as it spreads that idea, then it changes the culture, and as we change the culture, then we change the way we do things, which is changing the environment, which is giving rise to those bacteria as well. Right?

 

Mason:  (36:52)

Yeah.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (36:52)

So I definitely think that people engaging with their own health is really, really important, but it's how you do that and why you do that that makes all the difference. Because a lot of people have still the viruses Osama Bin Laden must be killed and protected against and I'm taking all these super herbs to kill the bug, must kill bug.

 

Mason:  (37:13)

And now the water fast, like more skin scrubbing, more oregano oil all over me. Like it's-

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (37:20)

It's herbal antibiotics against life, antibiotic, against the web of life. And it's the fallacy of separation that underpins that. And so there can be no health in an unhealthy culture. There can't be. And so our deepest yearnings for self-preservation have to get married to the transformation of our unhealthy culture and the preservation of the environment that we live in. It has to be that. And also along the way, yes, we need to take care of ourselves and we can... Once I've said this piece, I can move on, and then we can talk about antiviral herbs and things like that as well.

 

Mason:  (37:59)

Yeah. I guess it's got a context.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (38:00)

It does. Then it has the context. Right? But the larger piece is that we can not isolate ourselves with adaptogenic, immunological, super extracted herbs from the vast biological upheavals of the microbial kingdom. We cannot, our best... We can't do that. Right? Human beings will survive, but there's no guarantees about any individual.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (38:29)

And so the idea is, I think, folly to just try and lock ourselves away, and the idea is, I believe, to get whole and healthy, and to become a wellbeing so that we can participate in the process of healing our fractured culture and vanquishing those unhealthy memes that have changed our environment, that are giving rise to those virulent genes, viruses, and microbes. Yeah.

 

Mason:  (38:59)

Then we become, funilly, the micro in the macro of the microbials at that point. Right. Which is a trip. They are our ancestors. Right?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (39:09)

Absolutely.

 

Mason:  (39:10)

It's the bacteria that created, and viruses, that created a cell structure that then enabled us to come about that. I like that because it doesn't change us. We're not expecting all of a sudden to put on completely new glasses and see the world in a completely different way, but you can feel the world in a different way. You can trust the course that you're on already. You're trying to become more loving, more healthy, less of an asshole, try and get as much information as possible.

 

Mason:  (39:36)

The internet is connected, but humans aren't connected, so you can't get, as you say, because you have all these memes, and this bias, and these institutional official stories of what reality is. It's hard sometimes to know what's truth and what's not, therefore, it's hard to take action like a microbe would that is going to lead us towards a personalized evolution. And you can see this quagmire happening. I think it's going to pass. I think there's a lot of extremism. I also see a splitting of the chains.

 

Mason:  (40:13)

When you said those gray areas, I always think sometimes you just see... And you can feel the pull, you can feel the pull of modernity and domestication at times, and then as well you can feel that pull of nature. And if you're going to be getting involved in one direction or the other, to an extent, this is all speculation, but this is something I think about a lot, there's various splits in the genes where, not that you have different speices necessarily, but along that line of a conversation. So, because that leads to there had not been a right or a wrong because we have many different paths as well.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (40:52)

Yeah, there are. One of the things I was thinking when you were saying that is about the modernity piece, is I think that one of the most radical things that we can do is to not just consume ancient grains, but to consume ancient memes, and to preserve ancient meme. And so ancient memes are contained in the world's mythologies in these ancient, ancient stories because they hold wisdom, they hold huge chunks of information, like the bacterial chunks that say, this is how you fly, or this is how you get camouflaged, right?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (41:34)

They contain this in this myth or poetic language. And when we take them in they're like a ferment or something that you introduce into your kombucha. It changes everything. You change the culture within through consuming these leavens of these ancient memes. And so I think when you it's hard to know, it's confusing. There's all these things going on, all that sort of stuff, in the world. It's like, personally, that's one of the reasons why I'm ignorant of a lot of things in the modern world, is because I'm cautious about the information that I consume. I'm cautious about the imagery that I consume.

 

Mason:  (42:16)

Well, that's huge as a health piece.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (42:19)

Yeah. Because it changes... They're memes. They're all memes. Right. And you're not immune to it. They're going to become a part of you.

 

Mason:  (42:25)

Discernment is massive.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (42:27)

Yeah. Far out, so anyway, so. So that's that piece. I think that it's in terms of saying, well, how do I navigate through this environment? Is the how do I live, is not what science has ever excelled at. Right. Because mythology is not bad science, it is a completely different piece. It's a guide on the nature of being and how to navigate through crisis and change. That's what's in those stories. So that's one of my prescriptions, right.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (43:04)

To our culture and to anyone living, read and immerse yourself in ancient mythology, because there's this life saving memes inside there that go in like viruses and change your state of consciousness. And they change it profoundly by giving you different metaphors, different images, and different lenses so that you can see the world in a different way, you can see opportunities and crises in a different way. And if I've arrived at a different perspective in my journey as a practitioner, it's through that. It's through the regular consumption of ancient memes.

 

Mason:  (43:39)

Is that what draw you back to Mongolia?

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (43:42)

Yes, that's what drew me back to Mongolia. Yes. Speaking of ancient meme, it's a place rich in, and Siberia as well, the shamanism there, a place very rich in ancient memes indeed.

 

Mason:  (43:55)

You've got some of those stories on your Facebook page. I think I'll-

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (43:57)

I do indeed.

 

Mason:  (43:58)

... just tell people to stay there rather than going, give us your top 10 mentions.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (44:03)

That's right. And so then, I feel like I've dodged your previous question of what are people to do in response at an individual level to viral illness.

 

Mason:  (44:18)

No. You answered it. I mean, clinically it's always interesting. I'm quite over getting a checklist of things to do and the Western approach of having reliance. I think a 20% of your energy in towards knowing the practicality, if you go down there are certain actions that you can take upon infection feeling, whether it's... What is it? Is it hot, is it cold, or is it... And you can take appropriate action to get yourself back into harmony.

 

Mason:  (44:44)

You really answered the beginning of it. Being a part of that web of life, first of all, it means you get infected and, I mean, part of it's a big thing. It's like something's going to get yet you, something's going to get you.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (44:55)

But do you not want to be gotten is the question.

 

Mason:  (44:57)

Exactly.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (44:58)

Do you not want to be gotten?

 

Mason:  (44:59)

Well, that's what drove me in health, I think, in the very beginning, was a subtle fear of death. And that's why I got a little bit orthorexic and parasites. And now I'm at the point where I feel like I can go back into that conversation of cleansing, knowing that cleansing isn't a separate conversation from my general, it is my general lifestyle and everything that I'm doing anyway. I've got a little bit more of that. What you're saying, it takes a long time to feel that unity and that connectiveness.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (45:30)

Purify me of the idea that I need to be purified.

 

Mason:  (45:34)

It's massive. And it's interesting as well, because part of you needs to go forth at times. All you've got is your mind to hang on to protocols to get healthier. But then the transition of when you're rejuvenated to an extent that you can stand in your own sovereignty and start, you start feeling these mythical stories inside of yourself. You don't even have to... all that wisdom inside of yourself, and that capacity to realize, whether you like it or not, on a very practical level, you're not separated. There are microbials in you that have connected...

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (46:07)

You can't live without.

 

Mason:  (46:08)

You can't live without.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (46:09)

You die if they go. We know this.

 

Mason:  (46:11)

But then from there you go, okay, I'm not having a knee jerk response to an official story or a meme anymore. From there, I mean, we don't even have to talk about anti-microbials and antivirals.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (46:28)

Well, the best thing you can do is very simple, is to maximize your own wellbeing. And so the goal of health is health, it's not fighting disease, and health is not the absence of disease.

 

Mason:  (46:38)

Well, that's an interesting piece-

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (46:40)

Right?

 

Mason:  (46:40)

... because it's a good-

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (46:40)

We notice. The world health organization agrees, right? And yet again and again, it's same with herbalists, they get suckered into fighting disease and treating disease. And so then you'll see a famous herbalist circulating their coronavirus formula, which just shows disappointingly their absence of education in the foundations of traditional medicine and integrative thinking.

 

Mason:  (47:04)

Do you mean that even, just to bring some context, do you mean that in regards to what we've talked about or even more basically the fact that there are going to be absolutely individualized reasons as [inaudible 00:47:17] the coronavirus in the first place.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (47:19)

No. If five people have influenza virus, and let's say they had the same strain, when they come to a good therapist, then they get five different treatments. One of those people is a 85 year old woman, and how she's feeling is really exhausted. The next person is a 45 year old robust man who's got fevers. The next person is a seven year old child who's sweating a lot and vomiting, right? What we treat is we enhance the resistance and the wellbeing of those individuals.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (48:00)

Yes, we have an awareness of herbs that are anti-microbial, but that's only one of a whole range of things that go in to improve the way the system is responding. We're trying to harmonize that ecology of that particular person, and so some of the medicines could be diaphoretics that open up the pores and help release, some of the medicines could be heating, some of them could be cooling, some of them could be focused upon reducing nervous tension because that's what's keeping them in a fight or flight response and has switched off their immune system at the mains.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (48:34)

And they all require, so evidence based medicine and integrative medicine, and I teach integrative doctors in the States about how to get integrative and to think in an integrative manner, evidence based medicine is giving way to individualized medicine.

 

Mason:  (48:47)

It has to.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (48:48)

It has to, right?

 

Mason:  (48:49)

Otherwise it's not medicine.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (48:50)

There's no evidence. It's like when you average it out, it's like across 50,000 people, well then it becomes nonsensical because then there's one who is average, right? It's like the matchbox factory that puts 49 matches in every box and the other one that puts 51 they say the average matchbox has 50 matches, but there's no match box that has 50 matches. It doesn't exist. There's no average.

 

Mason:  (49:12)

It's an interesting thing that happened. TCM is the classic example that went extremely Western, and went, even just the categorization of disease based on the symptoms. Which you kind of, you have some sympathy for the Western mind needing to go to an institution and get a piece of paper, and we need a regulatory body because we're not patient enough to have it be like a real teacher student download, and then most people just don't have the patients or...

 

Mason:  (49:38)

I hardly think I've got the skill and patience to sit there in a clinic and do that individual assessment again and again, not at this point in my life anyway. That's tough. It's a special skill.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (49:50)

The opposite is really tough actually, I would say, having been a practitioner for 20 years.

 

Mason:  (49:54)

Being ineffective.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (49:56)

And also, no one wants to be making burgers. People come, I give you my this protocol, the next person comes, I give you my that protocol. That's why you said, what do you do? And I said, well, I'm interested in helping people transform. I mean, interested in people, helping them die and be reborn, because that's what your ill health is an invitation for always. And that's what globally we require.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (50:23)

We require each one of those individuals to be transformed, to die to themselves and to emerge as well-beings having vanquished some of the unhealthy cultural memes that they've had inside them so that then they can be the leaven for a healthy culture, because there can be no health and an unhealthy culture. And so we desperately require well-beings, but that happens individual by individual, and as it happens is a very personal process, and it's gutsy, and it's raw, and it's got sweat, and tears, and snort, and it's hard, and it's terrifying a whole bunch of the time.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (50:59)

As you go through it, that's what transformation looks like. Just ask the caterpillar, I used to think the caterpillar crawled into its chrysalis and it was really cozy in there, and mood lighting and all that sort of stuff, and then it elongated and sprouted wings, but it doesn't, it turns to mush, and every single cell in that bacteria just dissolves into a Caterpillar smoothie, right? It's just like, except for these-

 

Mason:  (51:25)

Sexy.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (51:25)

... small cells, the imaginal cells that hold the vision of flying, right? And that's like the soul, right, the imaginal realm, the imaginal cells in us. And so the process of healing is a process of alchemical transformation, and it's tough, and it's hard, and it is scary, but more scary than that is staying where you are. When it feels more scary to lose your soul and to stay in the little cage that you're at rather than to take this risk, and to go through, and to change, that's when I want to see you. I want them to book in with me then.

 

Mason:  (52:02)

Yeah, I mean, and that process, it's, it can be harrowing and can take time.

 

Jimi Wollumbin:   (52:08)

It is always harrowing. I've just been through one myself. It was incredible, but harrowing definitely. I had my own midlife crisis last year, and health things, and all this sort of stuff. It was definitely harrowing, but it's also profoundly liberating. And I'm not in a hurry to go back to it, but I'm so grateful. I would rather go back to that then go back to where I was and just continue indefinitely in the way that I was being, because I was possessed by particular ideas, particular selves, particular memes.