Altered States script

Hi, everyone! The new episode is coming tonight, but for now, here is the script from last week's episode:

 AUDIO 1
 [0:10] Altered States is a 1980 science fiction horror film directed by Ken Russell. [7:30] Edward Jessup, a professor, [4:33] experiments with hallucinogens and sensory deprivation tanks, believing that our altered states of consciousness could be as a real as our normal, waking states. [13:58] He claims to previously have had religious visions as a child and has been chasing absolute truth of the mind, of humankind and of God ever since. [16:00] He becomes obsessed with his work, which leads to his being estranged from his wife. [29:11] In his travels, he discovers a powerful chemical called “first flower” that wildly changes his perception. Believing this the key, he takes it back to be studied.
 [46:39] Jessup takes another dose, this time while in sensory deprivation to enhance the experience. He claims that he had a vision of early hominids and that the altered state of his mind while on the drug is [53:46] tapping into long-dead evolutionary memories. [1:03:00] After another dose, he transforms into such a primate. [1:37:54] Later, during another transformation, his wife is endangered. [1:39:34] He somehow fights off his own transformation and saves his wife.
 AUDIO 2
 [20:27 and overlay] Consciousness, from a psychological lens – not a philosophical lens – is the awareness of both ourselves and our environment. [42:56] Though, even when we are asleep, what we commonly called unconsciousness, the fact is that consciousness is still in effect. Our brains are still working, and if we are lucky, we dream. [37:55] But when we are awake and experience the world in ways that are akin to dreams, we are experiencing what is called an “altered state of consciousness.” [38:33] Some would say that actually includes dreams because we are always conscious in one way or another, but most define “altered states” as a condition that is significantly different, [45:35] while awake, from a normal waking beta wave state.
 [2:15] The film focuses on psychoactive drugs and sensory deprivation, but there are other ways to induce altered states like oxygen deprivation and sleep deprivation. Even hypnosis. [15:19] There are also involuntary altered states, many of them pathological like various forms of psychosis. [1:23:51] These are all the titular Altered States of the film. [4:45] When Jessup is floating in the water tank in the beginning of the film, he is attempting to reach an altered state. [29:00] When he takes the “first flower” concoction, he is here as well. [45:25] When he combines the experience of taking the chemical with the experience of isolation, same thing.   
 AUDIO 3   
 [13:40] Hallucinations – whether induced or accidental – have long been connected to spirituality. The Huichol or Wixáritari are Native Mexicans, and their religion consists of [overlay] four principle deities: Corn, Blue Deer, the Eagle and Peyote, which all descended from their Sun God.  [27:17] Up north a bit, The Native American Church is often called Peyotism or Peyote Religion. In the film, Jessup travels to Mexico to take part in a Ayahuasca ceremony. [30:26] The brew is actually part of spiritual medicine performed by the indigenous peoples of Amazonia.   
 [13:55] But hallucinations and visions of a spiritual nature are not always said to be induced by powerful psychoactive drugs. In the Abrahamic religions, for example, God used visions to [14:15] communicate with his people, what Numbers Chapter 24, verse 4 called “waking dreams” – [overlay] God used a vision to restate the Abrahamic Covenant, [overlay] to give Jacob a vision of a ladder reaching to Heaven, and so forth. [37:57] Nearly the entire book of Revelation is a vision John had while exiled on the island of Patmos. Jessup mentions the Book of Revelation explicitly and also has a vision that implicitly references said book.  [14:45] The seven-eyed lamb that appears in Jessup’s first vision must be a reference to Revelation Chapter 5, Verse 6 [14:23] “…in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes…” [14:04] Jessup claims to have had visions of Jesus Christ, of angels, of fantastic religious imagery, but only when he was a child.
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 AUDIO 4
 [15:55] Jessup's later work in the field of abnormal psychology is his attempt to recreate such visions through science. He says that mankind has done away with God and that they must journey to the [16:59] center of themselves instead to find answers – ultimate truth. [25:16] He compares this to Buddhism, which does not strictly enforce the idea of a creator God but still contains some fantastical elements. [39:43] Jessup's thinking is admonished by his colleagues and superiors – and because this is his story, he is proven to be right – but studies in hallucinations show empirical data that explains these visions.
 [15:12] Scientists have been able to make video EEG recordings in patients who are having such seizures, and have observed an exact synchronization of their alleged religious vision with a spike in [42:51] epileptic activity in the temporal lobes. Those who hallucinate say that their visions are so vivid and compelling that they deny the term hallucination, and insist it is reality. [50:58] But the hallucinations seem so real because they deploy the very same systems in the brain that actual perceptions do. [13:44] When someone hallucinates voices, the auditory pathways are activated. [14:12] When someone hallucinates a human face, the fusiform face area, normally used to perceive and identify faces in the environment, is stimulated. [51:17] Obviously, Altered States does not take this approach.
 AUDIO 5
 [13:54] When Jessup has a vision, he remembers the agony of his father’s death, which caused him to reject the idea of God. The loss of the father, analogous to the loss of the heavenly father. [25:16] Later in the film, is even further disillusioned but this time through scientific research, concluding that there is no final truth. [38:07] The search for God by altering the mind has some obvious holes. Accounts of God speaking to human beings suggests that if there is a God and God speaks to people, then God does [37:37] not require someone to take mushrooms or seal oneself in an isolation tank to achieve such a feat. If God wants to talk to you, then God will.   
 [38:29] One cannot trick God into speaking by taking the right amount of drugs. Also, the idea that a human being needs to create elaborate, scientific creations and drug cocktails to find God suggests a [49:39] misunderstanding between the realm of science and the realm of faith. If Jessup does not necessarily believe in God, and he does not believe in rational science that would explain the [51:11] hallucinations caused by isolation tanks and drugs, then what does he believe in? [53:26] Well, he believes in psuedoscience, but he says it with such authority and sincerity that he practically wills it into being. [1:09:50] Jessup believes in some form of “devolution” the quackery that says species could de-evolve.   
 AUDIO 6
 [1:09:34] In modern biology the term is actually redundant. Evolutionary science deals with selection or adaptation that results in populations of organisms that are genetically different from their previous. [1:10:15] Evolutionary science makes no general distinction between changes leading to populations that are less complex or more complex than their ancestors. [1:11:24] Rather, evolved species are simply better adapted to their environment. Consequently, the term is rarely if ever used. [13:54] Outside of the realm of science, some Biblical literalists would say that humankind is devolving – meaning that we were once perfect and are becoming less perfect.
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 AUDIO 7
 [1:09:50] Jessup's search for a devolved human, a primitive hominid ancestor, is less about hurtling humankind backwards but more about proving his theories. [1:11:54] He says that memory is energy, and energy does not disappear. He concludes that this memory energy must still exist within us. A lot of this is basically half-science. [1:21:23] Using scientific principles to hypothesize non-scientific ideas. Citing the first law of thermodynamics is a favorite among those who want to stretch hard science into fantasy.
 See, movies like to do this thing where they reference something that has some connection to scientific fact but then fill in the gaps with bulls**** because it's fun! And that's not a condemnation. We just need to acknowledge that there are different forms of science fiction, and a lot of the categorization has to do with intent. [Moon] The intent of hard science fiction is to study emerging technology and other future possibilities in ways that are mostly believable. [Star Wars] Science-fantasy usually just has a space opera backdrop. Altered States is more like [The Matrix] The Matrix in that it wants to explore psychological and philosophical concepts within the setting of sci-fi but has no pretense about being scientifically accurate. And that's fine. The Matrix's goal is not to be true to science, it's something more abstract.   
 AUDIO 8
 And so too is Altered States. Jessup concludes that his work may be important, but the here and now – his life – should not be neglected. He reunites with his estranged wife. Jessup realizes there is no final truth. The universe is infinite, so how could there be a FINAL truth? The film shows us the dangerous quest for answers that always leads to more questions. You know, questions like “Why is Jessup a gooey worm now?” … This movie is weird. Anyway, the film is not a thesis statement: it's a journey. It's an examination of the mind that is not unlike a hallucinatory altered state. Not a revelation but an exploration of truth.